A loose adumbration of this doctrine is here given by Plato as the

doctrine of Protagoras, in the words--Knowledge is sensible

perception. To sift this doctrine is announced as his main

purpose;[85] and we shall see how he performs the task.

_Sokr._--Shall we admit, that when we perceive things by sight or

hearing, we at the same time _know_ them all? When foreigners talk

to us in a strange language, are we to say that we do not hear what

they say, or that we both hear and know it? When unlettered men look

at an inscription, shall we contend that they do not see the writing,

or that they both see and know it? _Theætêt._--We shall say, under

these supposed circumstances, that what we see and hear, we also

know. We hear and we know the pitch and intonation of the

foreigner's voice. The unlettered man sees, and also knows, the

colour, size, forms, of the letters. But that which the

schoolmaster and the interpreter could tell us respecting their

meaning, _that_ we neither see, nor hear, nor know.

_Sokr._--Excellent, Theætêtus. I have nothing to say against your

answer.[86]

[Footnote 85: Plato, Theætêt. p. 163 A. [Greek: ei)s ga\r tou=to/

pou pa=s o( lo/gos ê(mi=n e)/teine, kai\ tou/tou cha/rin ta\

polla\ kai\ a)/topa tau=ta e)kinê/samen.]]

[Footnote 86: Plato, Theætêt. p. 163 C.]

This is an important question and answer, which Plato

unfortunately does not follow up. It brings to view, though

without fully unfolding, the distinction between what is really

perceived by sense, and what is inferred from such perception:

either through resemblance or through conjunctions of past

experience treasured up in memory--or both together. Without

having regard to such distinction, no one can discuss

satisfactorily the question under debate.[87] Plato here abandons,

moreover, the subjective variety of impression which he had before

noticed as the characteristic of sense:--(the wind which blows

cold, and the wine which tastes sweet, to one man, but not to

another). Here it is assumed that all men hear the sounds, and see

the written letters alike: the divergence between one man and

another arises from the different prior condition of percipient

minds, differing from each other in associative and reminiscent

power.

[Footnote 87: I borrow here a striking passage from Dugald

Stewart, which illustrates both the passage in Plato's text, and

the general question as to the relativity of Cognition. Here, the

fact of relative Cognition is brought out most conspicuously on

its intellectual side, not on its perceptive side. The fact of

sense is the same to all, and therefore, though really relative,

has more the look of an absolute; but the mental associations with

that fact are different with different persons, and therefore are

more obviously and palpably relative.--Dugald Stewart, First

Preliminary Dissertation to Encyclopæd. Britannica, pp. 66, 8th

ed.

"To this reference of the sensation of colour to the external

object, I can think of nothing so analogous as the feelings we

experience in surveying a library of books. We speak of the

volumes piled up on its shelves as _treasures_ or _magazines_ of

the knowledge of past ages; and contemplate them with gratitude

and reverence as inexhaustible _sources_ of instruction and

delight to the mind. Even in looking at a page of print or

manuscript, we are apt to say that the ideas we acquire are

received by the sense of sight; and we are scarcely conscious of a

metaphor when we apply this language. On such occasions we seldom

recollect that nothing is perceived by the eye but a multitude of

_black strokes drawn upon white paper_, and that it is our own

acquired habits which communicate to these _strokes_ the whole of

that significancy whereby they are distinguished from the

unmeaning scrawling of an infant. The knowledge which we conceive

to be preserved in books, like the fragrance of a rose, or the

gilding of the clouds, depends, for its existence, on the

_relation_ between the object and the percipient mind: and the

only difference between the two cases is, that, in the one, this

relation is the local and temporary effect of conventional habits:

in the other, it is the universal and the unchangeable work of

nature. . . What has now been remarked with respect to _written

characters_, may be extended very nearly to _oral language_. When

we listen to the discourse of a public speaker, eloquence and

persuasion seem to issue from his lips; and we are little aware

that we ourselves infuse the soul into every word that he utters.

The case is exactly the same when we enjoy the conversation of a

friend. We ascribe the charm entirely to his voice and accents;

but without our co-operation, its potency would vanish. How very

small the comparative proportion is, which in such cases the words

spoken contribute to the intellectual and moral effect, I have

elsewhere endeavoured to show."]

[Side-note: Argument--That sensible Perception does not include

memory--Probability that those who held the doctrine meant to

include memory.]

Sokrates turns to another argument. If knowledge be the same thing

as sensible perception, then it follows, that so soon as a man

ceases to see and hear, he also ceases to know. The memory of what

he has seen or heard, upon that supposition, is not knowledge. But

Theætêtus admits that a man who remembers what he has seen or

heard does know it. Accordingly, the answer that knowledge is

sensible perception, cannot be maintained.[88]

[Footnote 88: Plato, Theætêt. pp. 163, 164.]

Here Sokrates makes out a good case against the answer in its

present wording. But we may fairly doubt whether those who

affirmed the matter of knowledge to consist in the facts of sense,

ever meant to exclude memory. They meant probably the facts of

sense both as perceived and as remembered; though the wording

cited by Plato does not strictly include so much. Besides, we must

recollect, that Plato includes in the meaning of the word

Knowledge or Cognition an idea of perfect infallibility:

distinguishing it generically from the highest form of opinion.

But memory is a fallible process: sometimes quite

trustworthy--under other circumstances, not so. Accordingly, memory,

in a general sense, cannot be put on a level with present perception,

nor said to generate what Plato calls knowledge.

[Side-note: Argument from the analogy of seeing and not seeing at

the same time .]

The next argument of Plato is as follows. You can see, and not

see, the same thing at the same time: for you may close one of

your eyes, and look only with the other. But it is impossible

to know a thing, and not to know it at the same time. Therefore

_to know_ is not the same as _to see_.[89]

[Footnote 89: Plato, Theætêt. p. 165 B.]

This argument is proclaimed by Plato as a terrible puzzle, leaving

no escape.[90] Perhaps he meant to speak ironically. In reality,

this puzzle is nothing but a false inference deduced from a false

premiss. The inference is false, because if we grant the premiss,

that it is possible both to _see_ a thing, and _not to see_ it, at

the same time--there is no reason why it should not also be

possible to _know_ a thing, and _not to know_ it, at the same

time. Moreover, the premiss is also false in the ordinary sense

which the words bear: and not merely false, but logically

impossible, as a sin against the maxim of contradiction. Plato

procures it from a true premiss, by omitting an essential

qualification. I see an object with my open eye: I do not see it

with my closed eye. From this double proposition, alike

intelligible and true, Plato thinks himself authorised to discard

the qualification, and to tell me that I see a thing and do not

see it--passing _à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter_.

This is the same liberty which he took with the Protagorean

doctrine. Protagoras having said--"Every thing which any man

believes is true _to that man_"--Plato reasons against him as if

he had said--"Every thing which any man believes is _true_".

[Footnote 90: Plato, Theætêt. p. 165 B. [Greek: to\ deino/taton

e)rô/têma--a)phu/ktô| e)rôtê/mati], &c.

Mr. Campbell observes upon this passage:--"Perhaps there is here a

trace of the spirit which was afterwards developed in the sophisms

of Eubulidês". Stallbaum, while acknowledging the many subtleties

of Sokrates in this dialogue, complains that other commentators

make the ridiculous mistake ("errore perquam ridiculo") of

accepting all the reasoning of Sokrates as seriously meant,

whereas much of it (he says) is mere mockery and sarcasm, intended

to retort upon the Sophists their own argumentative tricks and

quibbles.--"Itaquè sæpe per petulantiam quandam argutiis indulget

(Socrates), quibus isti haudquaquam abstinebant: sæpè ex

adversariorum mente disputat, sed ita tamen disputat, ut eos suis

ipsorum capiat laqueis; sæpè denique in disputando iisdem

artificiis utitur, quibus illi uti consueverant, sicuti etiam in

Menone, Cratylo, Euthydemo, fieri meminimus". (Stallbaum, Proleg.

ad Theæt. pp. 12-13, 22-29).

Stallbaum pushes this general principle so far as to contend that

the simile of the waxen tablet (p. 191 C), and that of the

pigeon-house (p. 200 C), are doctrines of opponents, which Sokrates

pretends to adopt with a view to hold them up to ridicule.

I do not concur in this opinion of Stallbaum, which he reproduces

in commenting on many other dialogues, and especially on the

Kratylus, for the purpose of exonerating Plato from the reproach

of bad reasoning and bad etymology, at the cost of opponents

"inauditi et indefensi". I see no ground for believing that Plato

meant to bring forward these arguments as paralogisms obviously

and ridiculously silly. He produced them, in my judgment, as

suitable items in a dialogue of search: plausible to a certain

extent, admitting both of being supported and opposed, and

necessary to be presented to those who wish to know a question in

all its bearings.]

Again, argues Plato,[91] you cannot say--I _know_ sharply, dimly,

near, far, &c.--but you may properly say, I _see_ sharply, dimly,

near, far, &c.: another reason to show that knowledge and sensible

perception are not the same. After a digression of some length

directed against the disciples of Herakleitus--(partly to expose

their fundamental doctrine that every thing was in flux and

movement, partly to satirise their irrational procedure in evading

argumentative debate, and in giving nothing but a tissue of

mystical riddles one after another),[92] Sokrates returns back to

the same debate, and produces more serious arguments, as

follows:--

[Footnote 91: Plato, Theætêt. p. 165 D. The reasonings here given

by Plato from the mouth of Sokrates, are compared by Steinhart to

the Trug-schlüsse, which in the Euthydêmus he ascribes to that

Sophist and Dionysodorus. But Steinhart says that Plato is here

reasoning in the style of Protagoras: an assertion thoroughly

gratuitous, for which there is no evidence at all (Steinhart,

Einleitung zum Theætêt. p. 53).]

[Footnote 92: Plato, Theætêt. pp. 179-183. The description which

we read here (put into the mouth of the geometer Theodôrus) of the

persons in Ephesus and other parts of Ionia, who speculated in the

vein of Herakleitus--is full of vivid fancy and smartness, but is

for that reason the less to be trusted as accurate.

The characteristic features ascribed to these Herakleiteans are

quite unlike to the features of Protagoras, so far as we know

them; though Protagoras, nevertheless, throughout this dialogue,

is spoken of as if he were an Herakleitean. These men are here

depicted as half mad--incapable of continuous attention--hating

all systematic speech and debate--answering, when addressed, only

in brief, symbolical, enigmatic phrases, of which they had a

quiver-full, but which they never condescended to explain ([Greek:

ô(/sper e)k phare/tras r(êmati/skia ai)nigmatô/dê a)naspô=ntes

a)potoxeu/ousin], see Lassalle, vol. i. pp. 32-39--springing up by

spontaneous inspiration, despising instruction, p. 180 A), and

each looking down upon the others as ignorant. If** we compare the

picture thus given by Plato of the Herakleiteans, with the picture

which he gives of Protagoras in the dialogue so called, we shall

see that the two are as unlike as possible.

Lassalle, in his elaborate work on the philosophy of Herakleitus,

attempts to establish the philosophical affinity between

Herakleitus and Protagoras: but in my judgment unsuccessfully.

According to Lassalle's own representation of the doctrine of

Herakleitus, it is altogether opposed to the most eminent

Protagorean doctrine, [Greek: A)/nthrôpos e(autô=| me/tron]--and

equally opposed to that which Plato seems to imply as

Protagorean--[Greek: Ai)/sthêsis = E)pistê/mê]. The elucidation

given by Lassalle of Herakleitus, through the analogy of Hegel, is

certainly curious and instructive. The Absolute Process of

Herakleitus is at variance with Protagoras, not less than the

Absolute Object or Substratum of the Eleates, or the Absolute

Ideas of Plato. Lassalle admits that Herakleitus is the entire

antithesis to Protagoras, yet still contends that he is the prior

stage of transition towards Protagoras (vol. i. p. 64).]

[Side-note: Sokrates maintains that we do not see _with_ our eyes,

but that the mind sees _through_ the eyes: that the mind often

conceives and judges by itself without the aid of any bodily

organ.]

_Sokr._--If you are asked, With what does a man perceive white and

black? you will answer, with his eyes: shrill or grave sounds?

with his ears. Does it not seem to you more correct to say, that

we see _through_ our eyes rather than _with_ our eyes:--that we

hear _through_ our ears, not _with_ our ears. _Theætêt._--I think

it is more correct. _Sokr._--It would be strange if there were in

each man many separate reservoirs, each for a distinct class of

perceptions.[93] All perceptions must surely converge towards one

common form or centre, call it soul or by any other name, which

perceives _through_ them, as organs or instruments, all

perceptible objects.--

[Footnote 93: Plato, Theætêt. p. 184 D. [Greek: deino\n ga/r pou,

ei) pollai/ tines e)n ê(mi=n, ô(/sper e)n dourei/ois i(/ppois,

ai)sthê/sis e)gkathêntai, a)lla\ mê\ ei)s mi/an tina\ i)de/an,

ei)/te psuchê\n ei)/te o(/, ti dei= kalei=n, pa/nta tau=ta

xuntei/nei, ê(=| dia\ tou/tôn oi(=on o)rga/nôn ai)sthano/metha

o(/sa ai)sthêta/.]]

We thus perceive objects of sense, according to Plato's language,

_with_ the central form or soul, and _through_ various organs of

the body. The various Percepta or Percipienda of tact, vision,

hearing--sweet, hot, hard, light--have each its special bodily

organ. But no one of these can be perceived through the organ

affected to any other. Whatever therefore we conceive or judge

respecting any two of them, is not performed through the organ

special to either. If we conceive any thing common both to sound

and colour, we cannot conceive it either through the auditory or

through the visual organ.[94]

[Footnote 94: Plato, Theætêt. p. 184-185.]

Now there are certain judgments (Sokrates argues) which we make

common to both, and not exclusively belonging to either. First, we

judge that they are two: that each is one, different from the

other, and the same with itself: that each _is_ something, or has

existence, and that one _is not_ the other. Here are

predicates--existence, non-existence, likeness, unlikeness, unity,

plurality, sameness, difference, &c., which we affirm, or deny, not

respecting either of these sensations exclusively, but respecting

all of them. Through what bodily organ do we derive these

judgments respecting what is common to all? There is no special

organ: the mind perceives, through itself these common

properties.[95]

[Footnote 95: Plato, Theætêt. p. 185 D. [Greek: dokei= tê\n

a)rchê\n ou)d' ei)=nai toiou=ton ou)de\n tou/tois o)/rganon

i)/dion, ô(/sper e)kei/nois, a)ll' au)tê\ di' au(tê=s ê( psuchê\

ta\ koina/ moi phai/netai peri\ pa/ntôn e)piskopei=n.]]

[Side-note: Indication of several judgments which the mind makes by

itself--It perceives Existence, Difference, &c.]

Some matters therefore there are, which the soul or mind

apprehends through itself--others, which it perceives through the

bodily organs. To the latter class belong the sensible qualities,

hardness, softness, heat, sweetness, &c., which it perceives

through the bodily organs; and which animals, as well as men, are

by nature competent to perceive immediately at birth. To the

former class belong existence (substance, essence), sameness,

difference, likeness, unlikeness, honourable, base, good, evil,

&c., which the mind apprehends through itself alone. But the mind

is not competent to apprehend this latter class, as it perceives

the former, immediately at birth. Nor does such competence belong

to all men and animals; but only to a select fraction of men, who

acquire it with difficulty and after a long time through laborious

education. The mind arrives at these purely mental apprehensions,

only by going over, and comparing with each other, the simple

impressions of sense; by looking at their relations with each

other; and by computing the future from the present and past.[96]

Such comparisons and computations are a difficult and gradual

attainment; accomplished only by a few, and out of the reach of

most men. But without them, no one can apprehend real existence

(essence, or substance), or arrive at truth: and without truth,

there can be no knowledge.

[Footnote 96: Plato, Theætêt. p. 186 B. [Greek: Tê\n de/ ge

ou)si/an kai\ o(/ ti e)/ston kai\ tê\n e)nantio/têta pro\s

a)llê/lô] (of hardness and softness) [Greek: kai\ tê\n ou)si/an

au)= tê=s e)nantio/têtos, au)tê\ ê( psuchê\ _e)paniou=sa kai\

xumba/llousa pro\s a)/llêla kri/nein peira=tai ê(mi=n_ . . .

Ou)kou=n ta\ me\n eu)thu\s genome/nois pa/resti phu/sei

ai)stha/nesthai a)nthrô/pois te kai\ thêri/ois, o(/sa dia\ tou=

sô/matos pathê/mata e)pi\ tê\n psuchê\n tei/nei; _ ta\ de\ peri\

tou/tôn a)nalogi/smata_, pro/s te ou)si/an kai\ ô)phelei/an

_mo/gis_ kai\ e)n pollô=| chro/nô| dia\ pollô=n _pragma/tôn kai\

paidei/as paragi/gnetai, oi(=s a)\n kai\ paragi/gnêtai.]]

[Side-note: Sokrates maintains that knowledge is to be found, not

in the Sensible Perceptions themselves, but in the comparisons add

computations of the mind respecting them.]

The result therefore is (concludes Sokrates), _That knowledge is

not sensible perception_: that it is not to be found in the

perceptions of sense themselves, which do not apprehend real

essence, and therefore not truth--but in the comparisons and

computations respecting them, and in the relations between them,

made and apprehended by the mind itself.[97] Plato declares good

and evil, honourable and base, &c., to be among matters most

especially relative, perceived by the mind computing past and

present in reference to future.[98]

[Footnote 97: Plato, Theætêt. p. 186 D.** [Greek: e)n me\n a)/ra

toi=s pathê/masin ou)k e)/ni e)pistê/mê, _e)n de\ tô=| peri\

e)kei/nôn sullogismô=|_; ou)si/as ga\r kai\ a)lêthei/as e)ntau=tha

me/n, ô(s e)/oike, dunato\n a(/psasthai, e)kei= de\ a)du/naton.]

The term [Greek: sullogismo\s] is here interesting, before it had

received that technical sense which it has borne from Aristotle

downwards. Mr. Campbell explains it properly as "nearly equivalent

to abstraction and generalisation" (Preface to Theætêtus, p.

lxxiv., also note, p. 144).]

[Footnote 98: Plato, Theætêt. p. 186 A. [Greek: kalo\n kai\

ai)schro/n, kai\ a)gatho\n kai\ kako/n. Kai\ tou/tôn moi dokei=

_e)n toi=s ma/lista pro\s a)/llêla skopei=sthai tê\n ou)si/an,

a)nalogizome/nê_ (ê( psuchê\) _e)n e(autê=| ta\ gegono/ta kai\ ta\

paro/nta pro\s ta\ me/llonta_.]

Base and honourable, evil and good, are here pointed out by

Sokrates as most evidently and emphatically _relative_. In the

train of reasoning here terminated, Plato had been combating the

doctrine [Greek: Ai)/sthêsis = E)pistê/mê]. In his sense of the

word [Greek: ai)/sthêsis] he has refuted the doctrine. But what

about the other doctrine, which he declares to be a part of the

same programme--_Homo Mensura_--the Protagorean formula? That

formula, so far from being refuted, is actually sustained and

established by this train of reasoning. Plato has declared [Greek:

ou)si/a, a)lêthei/a, e)nantio/tês, a)gatho/n, kako/n], &c., to be

a distinct class of Objects not perceived by Sense. But he also

tells us that they are apprehended by the Mind through its own

working, and that they are apprehended always in relation to each

other. We thus see that they are just as much relative to the

concipient mind, as the Objects of sense are to the percipient and

sentient mind. The Subject is the correlative limit or measure (to

use Protagorean phrases) of one as well as of the other. This

confirms what I observed above, that the two doctrines, 1. Homo

Mensura, 2. [Greek: Ai)/sthêsis = E)pistê/mê],--are completely

distinct and independent, though Plato has chosen to implicate or

identify them.]

[Side-note: Examination of this view--Distinction from the views of

modern philosophers.]

Such is the doctrine which Plato here lays down, respecting the

difference between sensible perception, and knowledge or

cognition. From his time to the present day, the same topic has

continued to be discussed, with different opinions on the part of

philosophers. Plato's views are interesting, as far as his

language enables us to make them out. He does not agree with those

who treat sensation or sensible perception (in his language, the

two are not distinguished) as a bodily phenomenon, and

intelligence as a mental phenomenon. He regards both as belonging

to the mind or soul. He considers that the mind is sentient as

well as intelligent: and moreover, that the sentient mind is the

essential basis and preliminary--universal among men and animals,

as well as coæval with birth--furnishing all the matter, upon

which the intelligent mind has to work. He says nothing, in this

dialogue, about the three distinct souls or minds (rational,

courageous, and appetitive), in one and the same body, which form

so capital a feature in his Timæus and Republic: nothing about

eternal, self-existent, substantial Ideas, or about the

pre-existence of the soul and its reminiscence as the process of

acquiring knowledge. Nor does he countenance the doctrine of

innate ideas, instinctive beliefs, immediate mental intuitions,

internal senses, &c., which have been recognised by many

philosophers. Plato supposes the intelligent mind to work

altogether upon the facts of sense; to review and compare them

with one another; and to compute facts present or past, with a

view to the future. All this is quite different from the mental

intuitions and instincts, assumed by various modern philosophers

as common to all mankind. The operations, which Plato ascribes to

the intelligent mind, are said to be out of the reach of the

common man, and not to be attainable except by a few, with

difficulty and labour. The distinctive feature of the sentient

mind, according to him, is, that it operates through a special

bodily organ of sense: whereas the intelligent mind has no such

special bodily organ.

[Side-note: Different views given by Plato in other dialogues.]

But this distinction, in the first place, is not consistent with

Timæus--wherein Plato assigns to each of his three human souls a

separate and special region of the bodily organism, as its

physical basis. Nor, in the second place, is it consistent with

that larger range of observed facts which the farther development

of physiology has brought to view. To Plato and Aristotle the

nerves and the nervous system were wholly unknown: but it is now

ascertained that the optic, auditory, and other nerves of sense,

are only branches of a complicated system of sensory and motory

nerves, attached to the brain and spinal cord as a centre: each

nerve of sense having its own special mode of excitability or

manifestation. Now the physical agency whereby sensation is

carried on, is, not the organ of sense alone, but the cerebral

centre acting along with that organ: whereas in the intellectual

and memorial processes, the agency of the cerebral centre and

other internal parts of the nervous system are sufficient, without

any excitement beginning at the peripheral extremity of the

special organ of sense, or even though that organ be disabled. We

know the intelligent mind only in an embodied condition: that is,

as working along with and through its own physical agency. When

Plato, therefore, says that the mind thinks, computes, compares,

&c., by itself--this is true only as signifying that it does so

without the initiatory stimulus of a special organ of sense; not

as signifying that it does so without the central nervous force or

currents--an agency essential alike to thought, to sensation, to

emotion, and to appetite.

[Side-note: Plato's discussion of this question here exhibits a

remarkable advance in analytical psychology. The mind rises from

Sensation, first to Opinion, then to Cognition.]

Putting ourselves back to the Platonic period, we must recognise

that the discussion of the theory [Greek: Ai)/sthêsis =

E)pistê/mê], as it is conducted by Plato, exhibits a remarkable

advance in psychological analysis. In analysing the mental

phenomena, Plato displayed much more subtlety and acuteness than

his predecessors--as far at least as we have the means of

appreciating the latter. It is convenient to distinguish intellect

from sensation (or sensible perception) and emotion, though both

of them are essential and co-ordinate parts of our mental system,

and are so recognised by Plato. It is also true that the

discrimination of our sensations from each other, comparisons of

likeness or unlikeness between them, observation of co-existence

or sequence, and apprehension of other relations between them,

&c., are more properly classified as belonging to intellect than

to sense. But the language of psychology is, and always has been,

so indeterminate, that it is difficult to say how much any writer

means to include under the terms Sense[99]--Sensation--Sensible

Perception--[Greek: Ai)/sthêsis]. The propositions in which our

knowledge is embodied, affirm--not sensations detached and

isolated, but--various relations of antecedence and consequence,

likeness, difference, &c., between two or more sensations or facts

of sense. We rise thus to a state of mind more complicated than

simple sensation: including (along with sensation), association,

memory, discrimination, comparison of sensations, abstraction, and

generalisation. This is what Plato calls opinion[100] or belief; a

mental process, which, though presupposing sensations and based

upon them, he affirms to be carried on by the mind through itself,

not through any special bodily organ. In this respect it agrees

with what he calls knowledge or cognition. Opinion or belief is

the lowest form, possessed in different grades by all men, of this

exclusively mental process: knowledge or cognition is the highest

form of the same, attained only by a select few. Both opinion, and

cognition, consist in comparisons and computations made by the

mind about the facts of sense. But cognition (in Plato's view) has

special marks:--

1. That it is infallible, while opinion is fallible. You have

it[101] or you have it not--but there is no mistake possible.

2. That it apprehends what Plato calls the real essence of things,

and real truth, which, on the contrary, Opinion does not

apprehend.

3. That the person who possesses it can maintain his own

consistency under cross-examination, and can test the consistency

of others by cross-examining them ([Greek: lo/gon dou=nai kai\

de/xasthai]).

[Footnote 99: The discussion in pp. 184-186-186 of the Theætêtus

is interesting as the earliest attempt remaining to classify

psychological phenomena. What Demokritus and others proposed with

the same view--the analogy or discrepancy between [Greek: to\

ai)stha/nesthai] and [Greek: to\ noei=n]--we gather only from the

brief notices of Aristotle and others. Plato considers himself to

have established, that "cognition is not to be sought at all in

sensible perception, but in that function, whatever it be, which

is predicated of the mind when it busies itself _per se_ (_i.e._

not through any special bodily organ) about existences" (p. 187

A). We may here remark, as to the dispute between Plato and

Protagoras, that Plato here does not at all escape from the region

of the Relative, or from the Protagorean formula, _Homo Mensura_.

He passes from Mind Percipient to Mind Cogitant; but these new

Entia cogitationis (as his language implies) are still relative,

though relative to the Cogitant and not to the Percipient. He

reduces Mind Sentient to the narrowest functions, including only

each isolated impression of one or other among the five senses.

When we see a clock on the wall and hear it strike twelve--we have

a visual impression of black from the hands, of white from the

face, and an audible impression from each stroke. But this is all

(according to Plato) which we have from sense, or which addresses

itself to the sentient mind. All beyond this (according to him) is

apprehended by the cogitant mind: all discrimination, comparison,

and relation--such as the succession, or one, two, three, &c., of

the separate impressions, the likeness of one stroke to the

preceding, the contrast or dissimilarity of the black with the

white--even the simplest acts of discrimination or comparison

belong (in Plato's view) to mental powers beyond and apart from

sense; much more, of course, apprehension of the common properties

of all, and of those extreme abstractions to which we apply the

words Ens and Non-Ens ([Greek: to/ t' e)pi\ pa=si koino\n kai\ to\

e)pi\ tou/tois, ô(=| to\ e)/stin e)ponoma/zeis kai\ to\ ou)k

e)/stin], p. 185 C).

When Plato thus narrows the sense of [Greek: ai)/sthêsis], it is

easy to prove that [Greek: e)pistê/mê] is not [Greek:

ai)/sthêsis]; but I doubt whether those who affirmed this

proposition intended what he here refutes. Neither unreflecting

men, nor early theorizers, would distinguish the impressions of

sense from the feeling of such impressions being _successive,

distinct from one another, resembling, &c._ Mr. John Stuart Mill

observes (Logic, Book i. chap. iii. sects. 10-13)--"The simplest

of all relations are those expressed by the words antecedent and

consequent, and by the word simultaneous. If we say dawn preceded

sunrise, the fact in which the two things dawn and sunrise were

jointly concerned, consisted only of the two things themselves. No

third thing entered into the fact or phenomenon at all, unless

indeed we choose to call the succession of the two objects a third

thing; _but their succession is not something added to the things

themselves_, it is something _involved in them_. To have two

feelings at all, implies having them either successively or

simultaneously. The relations of succession and simultaneity, of

likeness and unlikeness, not being grounded on any fact or

phenomenon distinct from the related objects themselves, do not

admit of the same kind of analysis. But these relations, though

not (like other relations) grounded on states of consciousness,

are themselves states of consciousness. Resemblance is nothing but

our feeling of resemblance: succession is nothing but our feeling

of succession."

By all ordinary (non-theorising) persons, these familiar

relations, _involved_ in the facts of sense, are conceived as an

essential part of [Greek: ai)/sthêsis]: and are so conceived by

those modern theorists who trace all our knowledge to sense--as

well as (probably) by those ancient theorists who defined [Greek:

e)pistê/mê] to be [Greek: ai)/sthêsis], and against whom Plato

here reasons. These theorists would have said (as ordinary

language recognises)--"We _see_ the _dissimilarity_ of the black

hands from the white face of the clock; we _hear_ the _likeness_

of one stroke of the clock to another, and the _succession_ of the

strokes one, two, three, one after the other".

The reasoning of Plato against these opponents is thus open to

many of the remarks made by Sir William Hamilton, in the notes to

his edition of Reid's works, upon Reid's objections against Locke

and Berkeley: Reid restricted the word Sensation to a much

narrower meaning than that given to it by Locke and Berkeley.

"Berkeley's _Sensation_" (observes S. W. Hamilton) "was equivalent

to Reid's _Sensation_ plus _Perception_. This is manifest even by

the passages adduced in the text" (note to p. 289). But Reid in

his remarks omits to notice this difference in the meaning of the

same word. The case is similar with Plato when he refutes those

who held the doctrine [Greek: E)pistê/mê = Ai)/sthêsis]. The

last-mentioned word, in his construction, includes only a part of

the meaning which they attributed to it; but he takes no notice of

this verbal difference. Sir William Hamilton remarks, respecting

M. Royer Collard's doctrine, which narrows prodigiously the

province of Sense,--"_Sense_ he so limits that, if rigorously

carried out, no sensible perception, as no consciousness, could be

brought to bear". This is exactly true about Plato's doctrine

narrowing [Greek: ai)/sthêsis]. See Hamilton's edit. of Reid,

Appendix, p. 844.

Aristotle understands [Greek: ai)/sthêsis--ai)sthêtikê\ psuchê\]

or [Greek: zôê/]--as occupying a larger sphere than that which

Plato assigns to them in the Theætêtus. Aristotle recognises the

five separate [Greek: ai)sthê/seis], each correlating with and

perceiving its [Greek: i)/dion ai)sthêto/n]: he also recognises

[Greek: ê( koinê\ ai)/sthêsis]--common sensation or

perception--correlating with (or perceiving) [Greek: ta\ koina\

ai)sthêta/], which are _motion_, _rest_, _magnitude_, _figure_,

_number_. The [Greek: koinê\ ai)/sthêsis] is not a distinct or sixth

sense, apart from the five, but a general power inhering in all of

them. He farther recognises [Greek: ai)/sthêsis] as discriminating,

judging, comparing, knowing: this characteristic, [Greek: to\

kritoko\n] and [Greek: gnôstiko/n], is common to [Greek:

ai)/sthêsis, phantasi/a, no/êsis], and distinguishes them all from

appetite--[Greek: to\ o)rektiko/n, kinêtiko/n], &c. See the first

and second chapters of the third Book of the Treatise De Animâ,

and the Commentary of Simplikius upon that Treatise, especially p.

56, b. Aristotle tells us that all animals [Greek: e)/chei

du/namin su/mphuton kritikê/n, ê(\n kalou=sin ai)/sthêsin.] Anal.

Poster. ii. p. 99, b. 35. And Sir William Hamilton adopts a

similar view, when he remarks, that Judgment is implied in every

act of Consciousness.

Occasionally indeed Aristotle partitions the soul between [Greek:

nou=s] and [Greek: o)/rexis]--Intelligence and

Appetite--recognising Sense as belonging to the head of Intelligence--see

De Motu Animalium, 6, p. 700, b. 20. [Greek: tau=ta de\ pa/nta

a)na/getai ei)s nou=n kai\ o)/rexin; kai\ ga\r ê( phantasi/a kai\

ê( ai)/sthêsis tê\n au)tê\n tô=| nô=| chô/ran e)/chousi; _kritika\

ga\r pa/nta_.] Compare also the Topica, ii. 4, p. 111, a. 18.

It will thus be seen that while Plato severs pointedly [Greek:

ai)/sthêsis] from anything like discrimination, comparison,

judgment, even in the most rudimentary form--Aristotle refuses to

adopt this extreme abstraction as his basis for classifying the

mental phenomena. He recognises a certain measure of

discrimination, comparison, and judgment, as implicated in

sensible perceptions. Moreover, that which he calls [Greek: koinê\

ai)/sthêsis] is unknown to Plato, who isolates each sense, and

indeed each act of each sense, as much as possible. Aristotle is

opposed, as Plato is, to the doctrine [Greek: E)pistê/mê =

Ai)/sthêsis], but he employs a different manner of reasoning

against it. See, _inter alia_, Anal. Poster. i. 31, p. 87, b. 28.

He confines [Greek: e)pistê/mê] to one branch of the [Greek:

noêtikê/].

The Peripatetic Straton, the disciple of Theophrastus, denied that

there was any distinct line of demarcation between [Greek: to\

ai)stha/nesthai] and [Greek: to\ noei=n]: maintaining that the

former was impossible without a certain measure of the latter. His

observation is very worthy of note. Plutarch, De Solertiâ

Animalium, iii. 6, p. 961 A. [Greek: Kai/toi Stra/tôno/s ge tou=

phusikou= lo/gos e)sti/n, a)podeiknu/ôn ô(s ou)d' ai)stha/nesthai

topara/pan a)/neu tou= noei=n u(pa/rchei; kai\ ga\r gra/mmata

polla/kis e)piporeuo/mena tê=| o)/psei, kai\ lo/goi prospi/ptontes

tê=| a)koiê=| _dialantha/nousin ê(ma=s_ kai\ _diapheu/gousi pro\s

e(te/rois to\n nou=n e)/chontas_; ei)=t' _au)=this e)panê=lthe_

kai\ _metathei= kai\ metadiô/kei tô=n proïeme/nôn e(/kaston

a)nalego/menos_; ê(=| kai\ le/lektai. _Nou=s o(rê=|, kai\ nou=s

a)kou/ei, ta\ de\ a)/lla kôpha\ kai\ tuphla/_;** ô(s tou= peri\ ta\

o)/mmata kai\ ô)=ta pa/thous, a)\n mê\ parê=| to\ phronou=n,

ai)/sthêsin ou) poiou=ntos.]

Straton here notices that remarkable fact (unnoticed by Plato and

even by Aristotle, so far as I know) in the process of

association, that impressions of sense are sometimes unheeded when

they occur, but force themselves upon the attention afterwards,

and are recalled by the mind in the order in which they occurred

at first.]

[Footnote 100: Plato, Theæt. p. 187 A. _Sokr._ [Greek: o(/môs de\

tosou=to/n ge probebê/kamen, ô(/ste mê\ zêtei=n au)tê\n

(e)pistê/mên) e)n ai)sthê/sei topara/pan, a)ll' e)n e)kei/nô| tô=|

o)no/mati, o(/, ti pot' e)/chei ê( psuchê/, o(/tan au)tê\ kath'

au(tê\n pragmateu/êtai peri\ ta\ o)/nta.] _Theæt._ [Greek: A)lla\

mê\n tou=to/ ge kalei=tai, ô(s e)gô)=|mai, _doxa/zein_.] _Sokr._

[Greek: O)rthô=s ga\r oi)/ei.]

Plato is quite right in distinguishing between [Greek:

ai)/sthêsis] and [Greek: do/xa], looking at the point as a

question of psychological classification. It appears to me,

however, most probable that those who maintained the theory

[Greek: E)pistê/mê = Ai)/sthêsis], made no such distinction, but

included that which he calls [Greek: do/xa] in [Greek:

ai)/sthêsis]. Unfortunately we do not possess their own

exposition; but it cannot have included much of psychological

analysis.]

[Footnote 101: Schleiermacher represents Plato as discriminating

Knowledge (the region of infallibility, you either possess it or

not) from Opinion (the region of fallibility, true or false, as

the case may be) by a broad and impassable line--

"Auch hieraus erwächst eine sehr entscheidende, nur ebenfalls

nicht ausdrücklich gezogene, Folgerung, dass die reine Erkenntniss

gar nicht auf demselben Gebiet liegen könne mit dem Irrthum--und

es in Beziehung auf sie kein Wahr und Falsch gebe, sondern nur ein

Haben oder Nicht Haben." (Schleiermacher, Einleit. zum Theæt. p.

176.)

Steinhart (in his Einleit. zum Theæt. p. 94) contests this opinion

of Schleiermacher (though he seems to give the same opinion

himself, p. 92). He thinks that Plato does not recognise so very

marked a separation between Knowledge and Opinion: that he

considers Knowledge as the last term of a series of mental

processes, developed gradually according to constant laws, and

ascending from Sensible Perception through Opinion to Knowledge:

that the purpose of the Theætêtus is to illustrate this theory.

Ueberweg, on the contrary, defends the opinion of Schleiermacher

and maintains that Steinhart is mistaken (Aechtheit und Zeit.

Platon. Schriften, p. 279).

Passages may be produced from Plato's writings to support both

these views: that of Schleiermacher, as well as that of Steinhart.

In Timæus, p. 51 E, the like infallibility is postulated for

[Greek: Nou=s] (which there represents [Greek: E)pistê/mê]) as

contrasted with [Greek: do/xa]. But I think that Steinhart

ascribes to the Theætêtus more than can fairly be discovered in

it. That dialogue is purely negative. It declares that [Greek:

e)pistê/mê] is _not_ [Greek: ai)/sthêsis]. It then attempts to go

a step farther towards the affirmative, by declaring also that

[Greek: e)pistê/mê] is a mental process of computation, respecting

the impressions of [Greek: ai)/sthêsis]--that it is [Greek: to\

sullogi/zesthai], which is equivalent to [Greek: to\ doxa/zein]:

compare Phædrus, 249 B. But this affirmative attempt breaks down:

for Sokrates cannot explain what [Greek: to\ doxa/zein] is, nor

how [Greek: to\ doxa/zein pseudê=] is possible; in fact he says

(p. 200 B) that this cannot be explained until we know what

[Greek: e)pistê/mê] is. The entire result of the dialogue is

negative, as the closing words proclaim emphatically. On this

point many of the commentators agree--Ast, Socher, Stallbaum,

Ueberweg, Zeller, &c.

Whether it be true, as Schleiermacher, with several others, thinks

(Einl. pp. 184-185), that Plato intends to attack Aristippus in

the first part of the dialogue, and Antisthenes in the latter

part, we have no means of determining.]

This at least is the meaning which Plato assigns to the two words

corresponding to Cognition and to Opinion, in the present

dialogue, and often elsewhere. But he also frequently employs the

word Cognition in a lower and more general signification, not

restricted, as it is here, to the highest philosophical reach,

with infallibility--but comprehending much of what is here treated

only as _opinion_. Thus, for example, he often alludes to the

various professional men as possessing _Cognition_, each in his

respective department: the general, the physician, the gymnast,

the steersman, the husbandman, &c.[102] But he certainly does not

mean, that each of them has attained what he calls real essence

and philosophical truths--or that any of them are infallible.

[Footnote 102: Compare Plato, Sophistes, pp. 232 E, 233 A.]

[Side-note: Plato did not recognise Verification from experience,

or from facts of sense, as either necessary or possible.]

One farther remark must be made on Plato's doctrine. His

remark--That Cognition consists not in the affections of sense, but

in computation or reasoning respecting those affections, (_i. e._

abstraction, generalisation, &c.)--is both true and important. But

he has not added, nor would he have admitted, that if we are to

decide whether our computation is true and right, or false and

erroneous--our surest way is to recur to the simple facts of

sense. Theory must be verified by observation; wherever that

cannot be done, the best guarantee is wanting. The facts

themselves are not cognition: yet they are the test by which all

computations, pretending to be cognitions, must be tried.[103]

[Footnote 103: See the remarks on the necessity of Verification,

as a guarantee for the Deductive Process, in Mr. John Stuart

Mill's System of Logic, Book iii. ch. xi. s. 8. Newton puts aside

his own computation or theory respecting gravity as the force

which kept the moon in its orbit, because the facts reported by

observers respecting the lunar motions were for some time not in

harmony with it. Plato certainly would not have surrendered any

[Greek: sullogismo\s] under the same respect to observed facts.

Aristotle might probably have done so; but this is uncertain.]

[Side-note: Second definition given by Theætêtus--That Cognition

consists in right or true opinion.]

We have thus, in enquiring--What is Knowledge or Cognition?

advanced so far as to discover--That it does not consist in

sensible perception, but in some variety of that purely mental

process which is called opining, believing, judging, conceiving,

&c. And here Theætêtus, being called upon for a second definition,

answers--_That Knowledge consists in right or true opinion_. All

opinion is not knowledge, because opinion is often false.[104]

[Footnote 104: Plato, Theæt. p. 187 B. It is scarcely possible to

translate [Greek: doxa/zein] always by the same English word.]

[Side-note: Objection by Sokrates--This definition assumes that

there are false opinions. But how can false opinions be possible?

How can we conceive Non-Ens: or confound together two distinct

realities?.]

_Sokr._--But you are here assuming that there _are_ false

opinions? How is this possible? How can any man judge or opine

falsely? What mental condition is it which bears that name? I

confess that I cannot tell: though I have often thought of the

matter myself, and debated it with others.[105] Every thing comes

under the head either of what a man knows, or of what he does not

know. If he conceives, it must be either the known, or the

unknown. He cannot mistake either one known thing for another

known thing: or a known thing for an unknown: or an unknown for a

known: or one unknown for another unknown. But to form a false

opinion, he must err in one or other of these four ways. It is

therefore impossible that he can form a false opinion.[106]

[Footnote 105: Plato, Theæt. p. 187 C.]

[Footnote 106: Plato, Theæt. p. 188.]

If indeed a man ascribed to any subject a predicate which was

non-existent, this would be evidently a false opinion. But how

can any one conceive the non-existent? He who conceives must conceive

_something_: just as he who sees or touches, must see or touch

_something_. He cannot see or touch the non-existent: for that

would be to see or touch nothing: in other words, not to see or

touch at all. In the same manner, to conceive the non-existent, or

_nothing_, is impossible.[107] _Theæt._--Perhaps he conceives two

realities, but confounds them together, mistaking the one for the

other. _Sokr._--Impossible. If he conceives two distinct

realities, he cannot suppose the one to be the other. Suppose him

to conceive, just and unjust, a horse and an ox--he can never

believe just to be unjust, or the ox to be the horse.[108] If,

again, he conceives one of the two alone and singly, neither could

he on that hypothesis suppose it to be the other: for that would

imply that he conceived the other also.

[Footnote 107: Plato, Theæt. p. 188-189.]

[Footnote 108: Plato, Theæt. p. 190.]

[Side-note: Waxen memorial tablet in the mind, on which past

impressions are engraved. False opinion consists in wrongly

identifying present sensations with past impressions.]

Let us look again in another direction (continues Sokrates). We

have been hasty in our concessions. Is it really impossible for a

man to conceive, that a thing, which he knows, is another thing

which he does not know? Let us see. Grant me the hypothesis (for

the sake of illustration), that each man has in his mind a waxen

tablet--the wax of one tablet being larger, firmer, cleaner, and

better in every way, than that of another: the gift of Mnemosynê,

for inscribing and registering our sensible perceptions and

thoughts. Every man remembers and knows these, so long as the

impressions of them remain upon his tablet: as soon as they are

blotted out, he has forgotten them and no longer knows them.[109]

Now false opinion may occur thus. A man having inscribed on his

memorial tablet the impressions of two objects A and B, which he

has seen before, may come to see one of these objects again; but

he may by mistake identify the present sensation with the wrong

past impression, or with that past impression to which it does not

belong. Thus on seeing A, he may erroneously identify it with the

past impression B, instead of A: or _vice versâ_.[110] False

opinion will thus lie, not in the conjunction or identification of

sensations with sensations--nor of thoughts (or past impressions)

with thoughts--but in that of present sensations with past

impressions or thoughts.[111]

[Footnote 109: Plato, Theæt. p. 191 C. [Greek: kê/rinon

e)kmogei=on].]

[Footnote 110: Plato, Theæt. p. 193-194.]

[Footnote 111: Plato, Theæt. p. 195 D.]

[Side-note: Sokrates refutes this assumption. Dilemma. Either false

opinion is impossible, or else a man may know what he does not

know.]

Having laid this down, however, Sokrates immediately proceeds to

refute it. In point of fact, false conceptions are found to

prevail, not only in the wrong identification of present

sensations with past impressions or thoughts, but also in the

wrong identification of one past impression or thought with

another. Thus a man, who has clearly engraved on his memorial

tablet the conceptions of five, seven, eleven, twelve,--may

nevertheless, when asked what is the sum of seven and five, commit

error and answer eleven: thus mistaking eleven for twelve.

We are thus placed in this dilemma--Either false opinion is an

impossibility:--Or else, it is possible that what a man knows, he

may not know. Which of the two do you choose?[112]

[Footnote 112: Plato, Theæt. p. 196 C. [Greek: nu=n de\ ê)/toi

ou)k e)/sti pseudê\s do/xa, ê)\ a(/ tis oi)=den, oi(=o/n te mê\

ei)de/nai; kai\ tou/tôn po/tera ai(rei=?]]

[Side-note: He draws distinction between possessing knowledge, and

having it actually in hand. Simile of the pigeon-cage with caught

pigeons turned into it and flying about.]

To this question no answer is given. But Sokrates,--after

remarking on the confused and unphilosophical manner in which the

debate has been conducted, both he and Theætêtus having

perpetually employed the words _know_, _knowledge_, and their

equivalents, as if the meaning of the words were ascertained,

whereas the very problem debated is, to ascertain their

meaning[113]--takes up another path of enquiry. He distinguishes

between possessing knowledge,--and having it actually in hand or

on his person: which distinction he illustrates by comparing the

mind to a pigeon-cage. A man hunts and catches pigeons, then turns

them into the cage, within the limits of which they fly about:

when he wants to catch any one of them for use, he has to go

through a second hunt, sometimes very troublesome: in which he may

perhaps either fail altogether, or catch the wrong one instead of

the right. The first hunt Sokrates compares to the acquisition of

knowledge: the second, to the getting it into his hand for

use.[114] A man may _know_, in the first sense, and _not know_, in

the second: he may have to hunt about for the cognition which (in

the first sense) he actually possesses. In trying to catch one

cognition, he may confound it with another: and this constitutes

false opinion--the confusion of two _cognita_ one with

another.[115]

[Footnote 113: Plato, Theæt. p. 196 D.]

[Footnote 114: Plato, Theæt. p. 197-198.]

[Footnote 115: Plato, Theæt. p. 199 C. [Greek: ê( tô=n e)pistêmô=n

metallagê/].]

[Side-note: Sokrates refutes this. Suggestion of Theætêtus--That

there may be non-cognitions in the mind as well as cognitions, and

that false opinion may consist in confounding one with the other.

Sokrates rejects this.]

Yet how can such a confusion be possible? (Sokrates here again

replies to himself.) How can knowledge betray a man into such

error? If he knows A, and knows B--how can he mistake A for B?

Upon this supposition, knowledge produces the effect of ignorance:

and we might just as reasonably imagine ignorance to produce the

effects of knowledge.[116]--Perhaps (suggests Theætêtus), he may

have _non-cognitions_ in his mind, mingled with the cognitions:

and in hunting for a cognition, he may catch a non-cognition.

Herein may lie false opinion.--That can hardly be (replies

Sokrates). If the man catches what is really a non-cognition, he

will not suppose it to be such, but to be a cognition. He will

believe himself fully to _know_, that in which he is mistaken. But

how is it possible that he should confound a non-cognition with a

cognition, or _vice versâ_? Does not he know the one from the

other? We must then require him to have a separate cognition of

his own cognitions or non-cognitions--and so on _ad

infinitum_.[117] The hypothesis cannot be admitted.

[Footnote 116: Plato, Theæt. p. 199 E.]

[Footnote 117: Plato, Theæt. p. 200 B.]

We cannot find out (continues Sokrates) what false opinion is: and

we have plainly done wrong to search for it, until we have first

ascertained what knowledge is.[118]

[Footnote 118: Plato, Theæt. p. 200 C.]

[Side-note: He brings another argument to prove that Cognition is

not the same as true opinion. Rhetors persuade or communicate true

opinion; but they do not teach or communicate knowledge.]

Moreover, as to the question, Whether knowledge is identical with

true opinion, Sokrates produces another argument to prove that it

is not so: and that the two are widely different. You can

communicate true opinion without communicating knowledge: and the

powerful class of rhetors and litigants make it their special

business to do so. They persuade, without teaching, a numerous

audience.[119] During the hour allotted to them for discourse,

they create, in the minds of the assembled dikasts, true opinions

respecting complicated incidents of robbery or other unlawfulness,

at which none of the dikasts have been personally present. Upon

this opinion the dikasts decide, and decide rightly. But they

cannot possibly _know_ the facts without having been personally

present and looking on. That is essential to knowledge or

cognition.[120] Accordingly, they have acquired true and right

opinions; yet without acquiring knowledge. Therefore the two are

not the same.[121]

[Footnote 119: Plato, Theæt. p. 201 A. [Greek: ou(=toi ga/r pou

tê=| e(autô=n te/chnê| pei/thousin, ou) dida/skontes, a)lla\

doxa/zein poiou=ntes a(\ a)\n bou/lôntai.]]

[Footnote 120: Plato, Theæt. p. 201 B-C. [Greek: Ou)kou=n o(/tan

dikai/ôs peisthô=si dikastai\ peri\ _ô(=n i)do/nti mo/non e)/stin

ei)de/nai, a)/llôs de\ mê/_, tau=ta to/te _e)x a)koê=s

kri/nontes_, a)lêthê= do/xan labo/ntes, a)/neu e)pistê/mês

e)/krinan, o)rtha\ peisthe/ntes, ei)/per eu)= e)di/kasan?]]

[Footnote 121: The distinction between persuading and

teaching--between creating opinion and imparting knowledge--has been

brought to view in the Gorgias, and is noted also in the Timæus. As

it stands here, it deserves notice, because Plato not only professes

to affirm what _knowledge_ is, but also identifies it with

sensible perception. The Dikasts (according to Sokrates) would

have _known_ the case, had they been present when it occurred, so

as to see and hear it: there is no other way of acquiring

knowledge.

Hearing the case only by the narration of speakers, they can

acquire nothing more than a _true opinion_. Hence we learn wherein

consists the difference between the two. That which I see, hear,

or apprehend by any sensible perception, I _know_: compare a

passage in Sophistes, p. 267 A-B, where [Greek: to\ gignô/skein]

is explained in the same way. But that which I learn from the

testimony of others amounts to nothing more than opinion; and at

best to a true opinion.

Plato's reasoning here involves an admission of the very doctrine

which he had before taken so much pains to confute--the doctrine

that Cognition is Sensible Perception. Yet he takes no notice of

the inconsistency. An occasion for sneering at the Rhetors and

Dikasts is always tempting to him.

So, in the Menon (p. 97 B), the man who has been at Larissa is

said to _know_ the road to Larissa; as distinguished from another

man who, never having been there, opines correctly which the road

is. And in the Sophistes (p. 263) when Plato is illustrating the

doctrine that false propositions, as well as true propositions,

are possible, and really occur, he selects as his cases, [Greek:

Theai/têtos ka/thêtai, Theai/têtos pe/tetai]. That one of these

propositions is false and the other true, can be known only by

[Greek: ai)/sthêsis]--in the sense of that word commonly

understood.]

[Side-note: New answer of Theætêtus--Cognition is true opinion,

coupled with rational explanation.]

Theætêtus now recollects another definition of knowledge, learnt

from some one whose name he forgets. Knowledge is (he says) true

opinion, coupled with rational explanation. True opinion without

such rational explanation, is not knowledge. Those things which do

not admit of rational explanation, are not knowable.[122]

[Footnote 122: Plato, Theætêt. p. 201 D. [Greek: tê\n me\n meta\

lo/gou a)lêthê= do/xan e)pistê/mên ei)=nai; tê\n de\ a)/logon,

e)kto\s e)pistê/mês; kai\ ô(=n me\n mê/ e)sti lo/gos, ou)k

e)pistêta\ ei)=nai, _ou(tôsi\ kai\ o)noma/zôn_, a)\ d' e)/chei,

e)pistêta/.]

The words [Greek: ou(tôsi\ kai\ o)noma/zôn] are intended,

according to Heindorf and Schleiermacher, to justify the use of

the word [Greek: e)pistêta/], which was then a neologism. Both

this definition, and the elucidation of it which Sokrates proceeds

to furnish, are announced as borrowed from other persons not

named.]

[Side-note: Criticism on the answer by Sokrates. Analogy of letters

and words, primordial elements and compounds. Elements cannot be

explained: compounds alone can be explained.]

Taking up this definition, and elucidating it farther, Sokrates

refers to the analogy of words and letters. Letters answer to the

primordial elements of things; which are not matters either of

knowledge, or of true opinion, or of rational explanation--but

simply of sensible perception. A letter, or a primordial element,

can only be perceived and called by its name. You cannot affirm of

it any predicate or any epithet: you cannot call it _existing_, or

_this_, or _that_, or _each_, or _single_, or by any other name

than its own:[123] for if you do, you attach to it something

extraneous to itself, and then it ceases to be an element. But

syllables, words, propositions--_i. e._, the compounds made up by

putting together various letters or elements--admit of being

known, explained, and described, by enumerating the component

elements. You may indeed conceive them correctly, without being

able to explain them or to enumerate their component elements: but

then you do not know them. You can only be said to know them, when

besides conceiving them correctly, you can also specify their

component elements[124]--or give explanation.

[Footnote 123: Plato, Theæt. pp. 201 E--202 A. [Greek: au)to\ ga\r

kath' au(to\ e(/kaston o)noma/sai mo/non ei)/ê, proseipei=n de\

ou)de\n a)/llo dunato/n, ou)/th' ô(s e)/stin, ou)/th' ô(s ou)k

e)/stin' ê)/dê ga\r a)\n ou)si/an ê)\ mê\ ou)si/an au)tô=|

prosti/thesthai, dei=n de\ ou)de\n prosphe/rein, ei)/per au)to\

e)kei=no mo/non tis e)rei=; e)pei\ ou)de\ to\ _au)to/_, ou)de/ to\

_e)kei=no_, ou)de\ to _e(/kaston_, ou)de\ to _mo/non_, ou)de\ to\

_tou=to_, prosoiste/on, ou)d' a)/lla polla\ toiau=ta; tau=ta me\n

ga\r peritre/chonta pa=si prosphe/resthai, e(/tera o)/nta

e(kei/nôn oi(=s prosti/thetai.] Also p. 205 C.]

[Footnote 124: Plato, Theæt. p. 202.]

[Side-note: Sokrates refutes this criticism. If the elements are

unknowable, the compound must be unknowable also.]

Having enunciated this definition, as one learnt from another

person not named, Sokrates proceeds to examine and confute it. It

rests on the assumption (he says), that the primordial elements

are themselves unknowable; and that it is only the aggregates

compounded of them which are knowable. Such an assumption cannot

be granted. The result is either a real sum total, including both

the two component elements: or it is a new form, indivisible and

uncompounded, generated by the two elements, but not identical

with them nor including them in itself. If the former, it is not

knowable, because if neither of the elements are knowable, both

together are not knowable: when you know neither A nor B you

cannot know either the sum or the product of A and B. If the

latter, then the result, being indivisible and uncompounded, is

unknowable for the same reason as the elements are so: it can only

be named by its own substantive name, but nothing can be

predicated respecting it.[125]

[Footnote 125: Plato, Theæt. pp. 203-206.]

Nor can it indeed be admitted as true--That the elements are

unknowable, and the compound alone knowable. On the contrary, the

elements are more knowable than the compound.[126]

[Footnote 126: Plato, Theæt. p. 206.]

[Side-note: Rational explanation may have one of three different

meanings. 1. Description in appropriate language. 2. Enumeration

of all the component elements in the compound. In neither of these

meanings will the definition of Cognition hold.]

When you say (continues Sokrates) that knowledge is true opinion

coupled with rational explanation, you may mean by _rational

explanation_ one of three things. 1. The power of enunciating the

opinion in clear and appropriate words. This every one learns to

do, who is not dumb or an idiot: so that in this sense true

opinion will always carry with it rational explanation.--2. The

power of describing the thing in question by its component

elements. Thus Hesiod says that there are a hundred distinct

wooden pieces in a waggon: you and I do not know nor can we

describe them all: we can distinguish only the more obvious

fractions--the wheels, the axle, the body, the yoke, &c.

Accordingly, we cannot be said to know a waggon: we have only a

true opinion about it. Such is the second sense of [Greek: lo/gos]

or rational explanation. But neither in this sense will the

proposition hold--That knowledge is right opinion coupled with

rational explanation. For suppose that a man can enumerate, spell,

and write correctly, all the syllables of the name

_Theætêtus_--which would fulfil the conditions of this definition:

yet, if he mistakes and spells wrongly in any other name, such as

_Theodôrus_, you will not give him credit for knowledge. You will

say that he writes _Theætêtus_ correctly, by virtue of right

opinion simply. It is therefore possible to have right opinion

coupled with rational explanation, in this second sense also,--yet

without possessing knowledge.[127]

[Footnote 127: Plato, Theæt. p. 207-208 B. [Greek: e)/stin a)/ra

meta\ lo/gou o)rthê\ do/xa, ê(\n ou)/pô dei= _e)pistê/mên_

kalei=n.]]

[Side-note: Third meaning. To assign some mark, whereby the thing

to be explained differs from everything else. The definition will

not hold. For rational explanation, in this sense, is already

included in true opinion.]

3. A third meaning of this same word [Greek: lo/gos] or rational

explanation, is, that in which it is most commonly understood-To

be able to assign some mark whereby the thing to be explained

differs from every thing else--to differentiate the thing.[128]

Persons, who understand the word in this way, affirm, that so long

as you only seize what the thing has in common with other things,

you have only a _true opinion_ concerning it: but when you seize

what it has peculiar and characteristic, you then possess

_knowledge_ of it. Such is their view: but though it seems

plausible at first sight (says Sokrates), it will not bear close

scrutiny. For in order to have a true opinion about any thing, I

must have in my mind not only what it possesses in common with

other things, but what it possesses peculiar to itself also. Thus

if I have a true opinion about Theætêtus, I must have in my mind

not only the attributes which belong to him in common with other

men, but also those which belong to him specially and exclusively.

Rational explanation ([Greek: lo/gos]) in this sense is already

comprehended in true opinion, and is an essential ingredient in

it--not any new element superadded. It will not serve therefore as

a distinction between true opinion and knowledge.[129]

[Footnote 128: Plato, Theætêt. p. 208 C. [Greek: O(/per a)\n oi(

polloi\ ei)/poien, to\ e)/chein ti sêmei=on ei)pei=n ô(=| tô=n

a(pa/ntôn diaphe/rei to\ e)rôtêthe/n.]]

[Footnote 129: Plato, Theætêt. p. 209.]

[Side-note: Conclusion of the dialogue--Summing up by

Sokrates--Value of the result, although purely negative.]

Such is the result (continues Sokrates) of our researches

concerning knowledge. We have found that it is neither sensible

perception--nor true opinion--nor true opinion along with rational

explanation. But what it is, we have not found. Are we still

pregnant with any other answer, Theætêtus, or have we brought

forth all that is to come?--_I_ have brought forth (replies

Theætêtus) more than I had within me, through your furtherance.

Well (rejoins Sokrates)--and my obstetric science has pronounced

all your offspring to be mere wind, unworthy of being

preserved![130] If hereafter you should again become pregnant,

your offspring will be all the better for our recent

investigation. If on the other hand you should always remain

barren, you will be more amiable and less vexatious to your

companions--by having a just estimate of yourself and by not

believing yourself to know what you really do not know.[131]

[Footnote 130: Plato, Theætêt. p. 210 B. [Greek: ou)kou=n tau=ta

me\n a(/panta ê( maieutikê\ ê(mi=n te/chnê a)nemiai=a/ phêsi

gegenê=sthai kai\ ou)k a)/xia trophê=s?]]

[Footnote 131: Plato, Theæt. p. 210 C. [Greek: e)a/n te gi/gnê|

(e)gku/môn), beltio/nôn e)/sei plê/rês dia\ tê\n nu=n e)xe/tasin;

e)a/n te keno\s ê)=s, ê(=tton e)/sei baru\s toi=s sunou=si kai\

ê(merô/teros, sôphro/nôs ou)k oi)o/menos ei)de/nai a(\ mê\

oi)=stha.]

Compare also an earlier passage in the dialogue, p. 187 B.]

* * * * *

[Side-note: Remarks on the dialogue. View of Plato. False

persuasion of knowledge removed. Importance of such removal.]

The concluding observations of this elaborate dialogue deserve

particular attention as illustrating Plato's point of view, at the

time when he composed the Theætêtus. After a long debate, set

forth with all the charm of Plato's style, no result is attained.

Three different explanations of knowledge have been rejected as

untenable.[132] No other can be found; nor is any suggestion

offered, showing in what quarter we are to look for the true one.

What then is the purpose or value of the dialogue? Many persons

would pronounce it to be a mere piece of useless ingenuity and

elegance: but such is not the opinion of Plato himself. Sufficient

gain (in his view) will have been ensured, if Theætêtus has

acquired a greater power of testing any fresh explanation which he

may attempt of this difficult subject: or even if he should

attempt none such, by his being disabused, at all events, of the

false persuasion of knowing where he is really ignorant. Such

false persuasion of knowledge (Plato here intimates) renders a man

vexatious to associates; while a right estimate of his own

knowledge and ignorance fosters gentleness and moderation of

character. In this view, false persuasion of knowledge is an

ethical defect, productive of positive mischief in a man's

intercourse with others: the removal of it improves his character,

even though no ulterior step towards real and positive knowledge

be made. The important thing is, that he should acquire the power

of testing and verifying all opinions, old as well as new. This,

which is the only guarantee against the delusive self-satisfaction

of sham knowledge, must be firmly established in the mind before

it is possible to aspire effectively to positive and assured

knowledge. The negative arm of philosophy is in its application

prior to the positive, and indispensable, as the single protection

against error and false persuasion of knowledge. Sokrates is here

depicted as one in whom the negative vein is spontaneous and

abundant, even to a pitch of discomfort--as one complaining

bitterly, that objections thrust themselves upon him, unsought and

unwelcome, against conclusions which he had himself just

previously taken pains to prove at length.[133]

[Footnote 132: I have already observed, however, that in one

passage of the interrogation carried on by Sokrates (p. 201 A-B,

where he is distinguishing between persuasion and teaching) he

unconsciously admits the identity between knowledge and sensible

perception.]

[Footnote 133: See the emphatic passage, p. 195 B-C.]

[Side-note: Formation of the testing or verifying power in men's

minds, value of the Theætêtus, as it exhibits Sokrates demolishing

his own suggestions.]

To form in men's minds this testing or verifying power, is one

main purpose in Plato's dialogues of Search--and in some of them

the predominant purpose; as he himself announces it to be in the

Theætêtus. I have already made the same remark before, and I

repeat it here; since it is absolutely necessary for appreciating

these dialogues of Search in their true bearing and value. To one

who does not take account of the negative arm of philosophy, as an

auxiliary without which the positive arm will strike at

random--half of the Platonic dialogues will teach nothing, and will

even appear as enigmas--the Theætêtus among the foremost. Plato excites

and strengthens the interior mental wakefulness of the hearer, to

judge respecting all affirmative theories, whether coming from

himself or from others. This purpose is well served by the manner

in which Sokrates more than once in this dialogue first announces,

proves, and builds up a theory--then unexpectedly changes his

front, disproves, and demolishes it. We are taught that it is not

difficult to find a certain stock of affirmative argument which

makes the theory look well from a distance: we must inspect

closely, and make sure that there are no counter-arguments in the

background.[134] The way in which Sokrates pulls to pieces his own

theories, is farther instructive, as it illustrates the

exhortation previously addressed by him to Theætêtus--not to take

offence when his answers were canvassed and shown to be

inadmissible.[135]

[Footnote 134: Plato, Theætêt. p. 208 E.]

[Footnote 135: Plato, Theætêt. p. 151 C.]

[Side-note: Comparison of the Philosopher with the Rhetor. The

Rhetor is enslaved to the opinions of auditors.]

A portion of the dialogue to which I have not yet adverted,

illustrates this anxiety for the preliminary training of the

ratiocinative power, as an indispensable qualification for any

special research. "We have plenty of leisure for

investigation[136] (says Sokrates). We are not tied to time, nor

compelled to march briefly and directly towards some positive

result. Engaged as we are in investigating philosophical truth, we

stand in pointed contrast with politicians and rhetors in the

public assembly or dikastery. We are like freemen; they, like

slaves. They have before them the Dikasts, as their masters, to

whose temper and approbation they are constrained to adapt

themselves. They are also in presence of antagonists, ready to

entrap and confute them. The personal interests, sometimes even

the life, of an individual are at stake; so that every thing must

be sacrificed to the purpose of obtaining a verdict. Men brought

up in these habits become sharp in observation and emphatic in

expression; but merely with a view to win the assent and

approbation of the master before them, as to the case in hand. No

free aspirations or spontaneous enlargement can have place in

their minds. They become careless of true and sound

reasoning--slaves to the sentiment of those whom they address--and

adepts in crooked artifice which they take for wisdom.[137]

[Footnote 136: Plato, Theæt. p. 155. [Greek: ô(s pa/nu pollê\n

scholê\n a)/gontes, pa/lin e)panaskepso/metha], &c.; also p. 172.]

[Footnote 137: Plato, Theætêt. p. 172-173.

I give only an abstract of this eloquent passage, not an exact

translation. Steinhart (Einleitung zum Theætêt. p. 37) calls it "a

sublime Hymn" (einen erhabenen Hymnus). It is a fine piece of

poetry or rhetoric, and shows that Plato was by nature quite as

rhetorical as the rhetors whom he depreciates--though he had also,

besides, other lofty intellectual peculiarities of his own, beyond

these rivals.]

[Side-note: The Philosopher is master of his own debates.]

Of all this (continues Sokrates) the genuine philosopher is the

reverse. He neither possesses, nor cares to possess, the

accomplishments of the lawyer and politician. He takes no interest

in the current talk of the city; nor in the scandals afloat

against individual persons. He does not share in the common ardour

for acquiring power or money; nor does he account potentates

either happier or more estimable for possessing them. Being

ignorant and incompetent in the affairs of citizenship as well as

of common life, he has no taste for club-meetings or joviality.

His mind, despising the particular and the practical, is absorbed

in constant theoretical research respecting universals. He spares

no labour in investigating--What is man in general? and what are

the attributes, active and passive, which distinguish man from

other things? He will be overthrown and humiliated before the

Dikastery by a clever rhetor. But if this opponent chooses to

ascend out of the region of speciality, and the particular ground

of injustice alleged by A against B--into the general question,

What is justice or injustice? Wherein do they differ from each

other or from other things? What constitutes happiness and misery?

How is the one to be attained and the other avoided?--If the

rhetor will meet the philosopher on this elevated ground, then he

will find himself put to shame and proved to be incompetent, in

spite of all the acute stratagems of his petty mind.[138] He will

look like a child and become ashamed of himself:[139] but the

philosopher is noway ashamed of his incompetence for slavish

pursuits, while he is passing a life of freedom and leisure among

his own dialectics.[140]

[Footnote 138: Plato, Theæt. pp. 175-176.]

[Footnote 139: Plato, Theæt. p. 177 B.]

[Footnote 140: Plato, Theæt. p. 175 E.]

[Side-note: Purpose of dialogue to qualify for a life of

philosophical Search.]

In these words of Sokrates we read a contrast between practice and

theory--one of the most eloquent passages in the

dialogues--wherein Plato throws overboard the ordinary concerns and

purposes both of public and private life, admitting that true philosophers

are unfit for them. The passage, while it teaches us caution in

receiving his criticisms on the defects of actual statesmen and

men of action, informs us at the same time that he regarded

philosophy as the only true business of life--the single pursuit

worthy to occupy a freeman.[141] This throws light on the purpose

of many of his dialogues. He intends to qualify the mind for a

life of philosophical research, and with this view to bestow

preliminary systematic training on the ratiocinative power. To

announce at once his own positive conclusions with their reasons,

(as I remarked before) is not his main purpose. A pupil who,

having got all these by heart, supposed himself to have completed

his course of philosophy, so that nothing farther remained to be

done, would fall very short of the Platonic exigency. The life of

the philosopher--as Plato here conceives it--is a perpetual search

after truth, by dialectic debate and mutual cross-examination

between two minds, aiding each other to disembroil that confusion

and inconsistency which grows up naturally in the ordinary mind.

For such a life a man becomes rather disqualified than prepared,

by swallowing an early dose of authoritative dogmas and proofs

dictated by his teacher. The two essential requisites for it are,

that he should acquire a self-acting ratiocinative power, and an

earnest, untiring, interest in the dialectic process. Both these

aids Plato's negative dialogues are well calculated to afford: and

when we thus look at his purpose, we shall see clearly that it did

not require the presentation of any positive result.

[Footnote 141: Plato, Sophistês, p. 253 C: [Greek: ê( tô=n

e)leuthe/rôn e)pistê/mê].]

[Side-note: Difficulties of the Theætêtus are not solved in any

other Dialogue.]

The course of this dialogue--the Theætêtus--has been already

described as an assemblage of successive perplexities without any

solution. But what deserves farther notice is--That the

perplexities, as they are not solved in this dialogue, so they are

not solved in any other dialogue. The view taken by Schleiermacher

and other critics--that Plato lays out the difficulties in one

anterior dialogue, in order to furnish the solution in another

posterior--is not borne out by the facts. In the Theætêtus, many

objections are propounded against the doctrine, That Opinion is

sometimes true, sometimes false. Sokrates shows that false opinion

is an impossibility: either therefore all opinions are true, or no

opinion is either true or false. If we turn to the Sophistês, we

shall find this same question discussed by the Eleatic Stranger

who conducts the debate. He there treats the doctrine--That false

opinion is an impossibility and that no opinion could be false--as

one which had long embarrassed himself, and which formed the

favourite subterfuge of the impostors whom he calls Sophists. He

then states that this doctrine of the Sophists was founded on the

Parmenidean dictum--That Non-Ens was an impossible supposition.

Refuting the dictum of Parmenides (by a course of reasoning which

I shall examine elsewhere), he arrives at the conclusion--That

Non-Ens exists in a certain fashion, as well as Ens: That false

opinions are possible: That there may be false opinions as well as

true. But what deserves most notice here, in illustration of

Plato's manner, is--that though the Sophistês[142] is announced as

a continuation of the Theætêtus (carried on by the same speakers,

with the addition of the Eleate), yet the objections taken by

Sokrates in the Theætêtus against the possibility of false

opinion, are not even noticed in the Sophistês--much less removed.

Other objections to it are propounded and dealt with: but not

those objections which had arrested the march of Sokrates in the

Theætêtus.[143] Sokrates and Theætêtus hear the Eleatic Stranger

discussing this same matter in the Sophistês, yet neither of them

allude to those objections against his conclusion which had

appeared to both of them irresistible in the preceding dialogue

known as Theætêtus. Nor are the objections refuted in any other of

the Platonic dialogues.

[Footnote 142: See the end of the Theætêtus and the opening of the

Sophistês. Note, moreover, that the Politikus makes reference not

only to the Sophistês, but also to the Theætêtus (pp. 258 A, 266

D, 284 B, 286 B).]

[Footnote 143: In the Sophistês, the Eleate establishes (to his

own satisfaction) that [Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n] is not [Greek:

e)nanti/on tou= o)/ntos], but [Greek: e(/teron tou= o)/ntos] (p.

257 B), that it is one [Greek: ge/nos] among the various [Greek:

ge/nê] (p. 260 B), and that it ([Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n koinônei=])

enters into communion or combination with [Greek: do/xa, lo/gos,

phantasi/a], &c. It is therefore possible that there may be

[Greek: pseudê\s do/xa] or [Greek: pseudê\s lo/gos], when you

affirm, respecting any given subject, [Greek: e(/tera tô=n

o)/ntôn] or [Greek: ta\ mê\ o)/nta ô(s o)/nta] (p. 263 B-C). Plato

considers that the case is thus made out against the Sophist, as

the impostor and dealer in falsehoods; false opinion being proved

to be possible and explicable.

But if we turn to the Theætêtus (p. 189 seq.), we shall see that

this very explication of [Greek: pseudê\s do/xa] is there

enunciated and impugned by Sokrates in a long argument. He calls

it there [Greek: a)llodoxi/a, e(terodoxi/a, to\ e(terodoxei=n]

(pp. 189 A, 190 E, 193 D). No man (he says) can mistake one thing

for another; if this were so, he must be supposed both to know and

not to know the same thing, which is impossible (pp. 196 A, 200

A). Therefore [Greek: pseudê\s do/xa] is impossible.

Of these objections, urged by Sokrates in the Theætêtus, against

the possibility of [Greek: a)llodoxi/a], no notice is taken in the

Sophistês either by Sokrates, or by Theætêtus, or by the Eleate in

the Sophistês. Indeed the Eleate congratulates himself upon the

explanation as more satisfactory than he had expected to find (p.

264 B): and speaks with displeasure of the troublesome persons who

stir up doubts and contradictions (p. 259 C): very different from

the tone of Sokrates in the Theætêtus (p. 195, B-C).

I may farther remark that Plato, in the Republic, reasons about

[Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n] in the Parmenidean sense, and not in the

sense which he ascribed to it in the Sophistês, and which he

recognises in the Politikus, p. 284 B. (Republic, v. pp. 477 A,

478 C.)

Socher (Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp. 260-270) points out the

discrepancy between the doctrines of the Eleate in the Sophistês,

and those maintained by Sokrates in other Platonic dialogues;

inferring from thence that the Sophistês and Politikus are not

compositions of Plato. As between the Theætêtus and the Sophistês,

I think a stronger case of discrepancy might be set forth than he

has stated; though the end of the former is tied to the beginning

of the latter plainly, directly, and intentionally. But I do not

agree in his inference. He concludes that the Sophistês is not

Plato's composition: I conclude, that the scope for dissident

views and doctrine, within the long philosophical career and

numerous dialogues of Plato, is larger than his commentators

admit.]

[Side-note: Plato considered that the search for Truth was the

noblest occupation of life.]

Such a string of objections never answered, and of difficulties

without solution, may appear to many persons nugatory as well as

tiresome. To Plato they did not appear so. At the time when

most of his dialogues were composed, he considered that the Search

after truth was at once the noblest occupation, and the highest

pleasure, of life. Whoever has no sympathy with such a

pursuit--whoever cares only for results, and finds the chase in

itself fatiguing rather than attractive--is likely to take little

interest in the Platonic dialogues. To repeat what I said in

Chapter VIII.**--Those who expect from Plato a coherent system in

which affirmative dogmas are first to be laid down, with the

evidence in their favour--next, the difficulties and objections

against them enumerated--lastly, these difficulties solved--will

be disappointed. Plato is, occasionally, abundant in his

affirmations: he has also great negative fertility in starting

objections: but the affirmative current does not come into

conflict with the negative. His belief is enforced by rhetorical

fervour, poetical illustration, and a vivid emotional fancy. These

elements stand to him in the place of positive proof; and when his

mind is full of them, the unsolved objections, which he himself

had stated elsewhere, vanish out of sight. Towards the close of

his life (as we shall see in the Treatise De Legibus), the love of

dialectic, and the taste for enunciating difficulties even when he

could not clear them up, died out within him. He becomes

ultra-dogmatical, losing even the poetical richness and fervour which

had once marked his affirmations, and substituting in their place

a strict and compulsory orthodoxy.

[Side-note: Contrast between the philosopher and the practical

statesman--between Knowledge and Opinion.]

The contrast between the philosopher and the man engaged in active

life--which is so emphatically set forth in the Theætêtus[144]--falls

in with the distinction between Knowledge and Opinion--The

Infallible and the Fallible. It helps the purpose of the dialogue,

to show what knowledge is _not_: and it presents the distinction

between the two on the ethical and emotional side, upon which

Plato laid great stress. The philosopher (or man of Knowledge,

_i.e._ Knowledge viewed on its subjective side) stands opposed to

the men of sensible perception and opinion, not merely in regard

to intellect, but in regard to disposition, feeling, character,

and appreciation of objects. He neither knows nor cares about

particular things or particular persons: all his intellectual

force, and all his emotional interests, are engaged in the

contemplation of Universals or Real Entia, and of the great

pervading cosmical forces. He despises the occupations of those

around him, and the actualities of life, like the Platonic

Sokrates in the Gorgias:[145] assimilating himself as much as

possible to the Gods; who have no other occupation (according to

the Aristotelian[146] Ethics), except that of contemplating and

theorising. He pursues these objects not with a view to any

ulterior result, but because the pursuit is in itself a life both

of virtue and happiness; neither of which are to be found in the

region of opinion. Intense interest in speculation is his

prominent characteristic. To dwell amidst these contemplations is

a self-sufficing life; even without any of the aptitudes or

accomplishments admired by the practical men. If the philosopher

meddles with their pursuits, he is not merely found incompetent,

but also incurs general derision; because his incompetence becomes

manifest even to the common-place citizens. But if _they_ meddle

with his speculations, they fail not less disgracefully; though

their failure is not appreciated by the unphilosophical spectator.

[Footnote 144: Plato, Theætêt. pp. 173-176. Compare Republic, v.

pp. 476-477, vii. p. 517.]

[Footnote 145: See above, chap. xxiv. p. 355.]

[Footnote 146: Ethic. Nikomach. x. 8, p. 1178, b. 9-25.]

The professors of Knowledge are thus divided by the strongest

lines from the professors of Opinion. And opinion itself--The

Fallible--is, in this dialogue, presented as an inexplicable

puzzle. You talk about true and false opinions: but how can false

opinions be possible? and if they are not possible, what is the

meaning of _true_, as applied to opinions? Not only, therefore,

opinion can never be screwed up to the dignity of knowledge--but

the world of opinion itself defies philosophical scrutiny. It is a

chaos in which there is neither true nor false; in perpetual

oscillation (to use the phrase of the Republic) between Ens and

Non-Ens.[147]

[Footnote 147: Plato, Republic, v. pp. 478-479.

The Theætêtus is more in harmony (in reference to [Greek: do/xa]

and [Greek: e)pistê/mê]) with the Republic, than with the

Sophistês and Politikus. In the Politikus (p. 309 C) [Greek:

a)lêthê\s do/xa meta\ bebaiô/seôs] is placed very nearly on a par

with knowledge: in the Menon also, the difference between the two,

though clearly declared, is softened in degree, pp. 97-98.

The Alexandrine physician Herophilus attempted to draw, between

[Greek: pro/r)r(êsis] and [Greek: pro/gnôsis], the same

distinction as that which Plato draws between [Greek: do/xa] and

[Greek: e)pistê/mê]--The Fallible as contrasted with the

Infallible. Galen shows that the distinction is untenable (Prim.

Commentat. in Hippokratis Prorrhetica, Tom. xvi. p. 487. ed.

Kühn).

Bonitz, in his Platonische Studien (pp. 41-78), has given an

instructive analysis and discussion of the Theætêtus. I find more

to concur with in his views, than in those of Schleiermacher or

Steinhart. He disputes altogether the assumption of other Platonic

critics, that a purely negative result is unworthy of Plato; and

that the negative apparatus is an artifice to recommend, and a

veil to conceal, some great affirmative truth, which acute

expositors can detect and enunciate plainly (Schleiermacher,

Einleit. zum Theætêt. p. 124 seq.) Bonitz recognises the result of

the Theætêtus as purely negative, and vindicates the worth of it

as such. Moreover, instead of denouncing the opinions which Plato

combats, as if they were perverse heresies of dishonest

pretenders, he adverts to the great difficulty of those problems

which both Plato and Plato's opponents undertook to elucidate: and

he remarks that, in those early days, the first attempts to

explain psychological phenomena were even more liable to error

than the first attempts to explain physical phenomena (pp. 75-77).

Such recognition, of the real difficulty of a problem, is rare

among the Platonic critics.]

CHAPTER XXIX.

SOPHISTES--POLITIKUS.

[Side-note: Persons and circumstances of the two dialogues.]

These two dialogues are both of them announced by Plato as forming

sequel to the Theætêtus. The beginning of the Sophistês fits on to

the end of the Theætêtus: and the Politikus is even presented as a

second part or continuation of the Sophistês.[1] In all the three,

the same interlocutors are partially maintained. Thus Sokrates,

Theodôrus, and Theætêtus are present in all three: and Theætêtus

makes the responses, not only in the dialogue which bears his

name, but also in the Sophistês. Both in the Sophistês and

Politikus, however, Sokrates himself descends from the part of

principal speaker to that of listener: it is he, indeed, who by

his question elicits the exposition, but he makes no comment

either during the progress of it or at the close. In both the

dialogues, the leading and expository function is confided to a

new personage introduced by Theodôrus:--a stranger not named, but

announced as coming from Elea--the friend and companion of

Parmenides and Zeno. Perhaps (remarks Sokrates) your friend may,

without your knowledge, be a God under human shape; as Homer tells

us that the Gods often go about, in the company of virtuous men,

to inspect the good and bad behaviour of mankind. Perhaps your

friend may be a sort of cross-examining God, coming to test and

expose our feebleness in argument. No (replies Theodôrus) that is

not his character. He is less given to dispute than his

companions. He is far from being a God, but he is a divine man:

for I call all true philosophers divine.[2]

[Footnote 1: At the beginning of the Politikus, Plato makes

Sokrates refer both to the Theætêtus and to the Sophistês (p. 258

A). In more than one passage of the Politikus (pp. 266 D, 284 B,

286 B), he even refers to the Sophistês directly and by name,

noticing certain points touched in it--a thing very unusual with

him. In the Sophistês also (p. 233 B), express reference is made

to a passage in the Theætêtus.

See also the allusion in Sophistês (to the appearance of the

younger Sokrates as respondent), p. 218 B.

Socher (in his work, Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp. 258-294)

maintains that neither the Sophistês, nor the Politikus, nor the

Parmenidês, are genuine works of Plato. He conceives the two

dialogues to be contemporary with the Theætêtus (which he holds to

have been written by Plato), but to have been composed by some

acute philosopher of the Megaric school, conversant with the

teachings of Sokrates and with the views of Plato, after the visit

of the latter to Megara in the period succeeding the death of

Sokrates (p. 268).

Even if we grant the exclusion of Plato's authorship, the

hypothesis of an author belonging to the Megaric school is highly

improbable: the rather, since many critics suppose (I think

erroneously) that the Megarici are among those attacked in the

dialogue. The suspicion that Plato is not the author of Sophistês

and Politikus has undoubtedly more appearance of reason than the

same suspicion as applied to other dialogues--though I think the

reasons altogether insufficient. Socher observes, justly: 1. That

the two dialogues are peculiar, distinguished from other Platonic

dialogues by the profusion of logical classification, in practice

as well as in theory. 2. That both, and especially the Sophistês,

advance propositions and conclusions discrepant from what we read

in other Platonic dialogues.--But these two reasons are not

sufficient to make me disallow them. I do not agree with those who

require so much uniformity, either of matter or of manner, in the

numerous distinct dialogues of Plato. I recognise a much wider

area of admissible divergence.

The plain announcement contained in the Theætêtus, Sophistês, and

Politikus themselves, that the two last are intended as sequel to

the first, is in my mind a proof of sameness of authorship, not

counterbalanced by Socher's objections. Why should a Megaric

author embody in his two dialogues a false pretence and assurance,

that they are sequel of the Platonic Theætêtus? Why should so

acute a writer (as Socher admits him to be) go out of his way to

suppress his own personality, and merge his fame in that of Plato?

I make the same remark on the views of Suckow (Form der

Platonischen Schriften, p. 87, seq., Breslau, 1855), who admits

the Sophistes to be a genuine work of Plato, but declares the

Politikus to be spurious; composed by some fraudulent author, who

wished to give to his dialogue the false appearance of being a

continuation of the Sophistes: he admits (p. 93) that it must be a

deliberate deceit, if the Politikus be really the work of a

different author from the Sophistês; for identity of authorship is

distinctly affirmed in it.

Suckow gives two reasons for believing that the Politikus is not

by Plato:--1. That the doctrines respecting government are

different from those of the Republic, and the cosmology of the

long mythe which it includes different from the cosmology of the

Timæus. These are reasons similar to those advanced by Socher, and

(in my judgment) insufficient reasons. 2. That Aristotle, in a

passage of the Politica (iv. 2, p. 1289, b. 5), alludes to an

opinion, which is found in the Politikus in the following terms:

[Greek: ê)/dê me\n ou)=n tis a)pephê/nato kai\ tô=n pro/teron

ou(/tôs], &c. Suckow maintains that Aristotle could never have

alluded to Plato in these terms, and that he must have believed

the Politikus to be composed by some one else. But I think this

inference is not justified by the premisses. It is noway

impossible that Aristotle might allude to Plato sometimes in this

vague and general way: and I think that he has done so in other

passages of the same treatise (vii. 2, 1324, a. 29--vii. 7, p.

1327, b. 37).

Ueberweg (Aechtheit der Platon. Schrift. p. 162, seq.) combats

with much force the views of Suckow. It would be rash to build so

much negative inference upon a loose phrase of Aristotle. That he

should have spoken of Plato in this vague manner is much more

probable, or much less improbable, than the counter-supposition,

that the author of a striking and comprehensive dialogue, such as

the Politikus, should have committed a fraud for the purpose of

fastening his composition on Plato, and thus abnegating all fame

for himself.

The explicit affirmation of the Politikus itself ought to be

believed, in my judgment, unless it can be refuted by greater

negative probabilities than any which Socher and Suckow produce. I

do not here repeat, what I have endeavoured to justify in an

earlier chapter of this work, the confidence which I feel in the

canon of Thrasyllus; a confidence which it requires stronger

arguments than those of these two critics to overthrow.]

[Footnote 2: Plato, Sophist. p. 216 B-C.]

This Eleate performs the whole task of exposition, by putting

questions to Theætêtus, in the Sophistês--to the younger Sokrates

in the Politikus. Since the true Sokrates is merely listener in

both dialogues, Plato provides for him an additional thread of

connection with both; by remarking that the youthful Sokrates is

his namesake, and that Theætêtus resembles him in flat nose and

physiognomy.[3]

[Footnote 3: Plato, Politik. p. 257 E.]

[Side-note: Relation of the two dialogues to the Theætêtus.]

Though Plato himself plainly designates the Sophistês as an

intended sequel to the Theætêtus, yet the method of the two is

altogether different, and in a certain sense even opposite. In the

Theætêtus, Sokrates extracts answers from the full and pregnant

mind of that youthful respondent: he himself professes to teach

nothing, but only to canvass every successive hypothesis elicited

from his companion. But the Eleate is presented to us in the most

imposing terms, as a thoroughly accomplished philosopher: coming

with doctrines established in his mind,[4] and already practised

in the task of exposition which Sokrates entreats him to

undertake. He is, from beginning to end, affirmative and

dogmatical: and if he declines to proceed by continuous lecture,

this is only because he is somewhat ashamed to appropriate all the

talk to himself.[5] He therefore prefers to accept Theætêtus as

respondent. But Theætêtus is no longer pregnant, as in the

preceding dialogue. He can do no more than give answers signifying

assent and dissent, which merely serve to break and diversify the

exposition. In fact, the dialogue in the Sophistês and Politikus

is assimilated by Plato himself,[6] not to that in the Theætêtus,

but to that in the last half of the Parmenides; wherein

Aristotelês the respondent answers little more than Ay or No, to

leading questions from the interrogator.

[Footnote 4: Plato, Sophist. p. 217 B. [Greek: e)pei\ diakêkoe/nai

ge/ phêsin i(kanô=s kai\ ou)k a)mnêmonei=n.]]

[Footnote 5: Plato, Sophist. pp. 216-217.]

[Footnote 6: Plato, Sophist. p. 217 C. The words of Sokrates show

that he alludes to the last half of the Parmenidês, in which he is

only present as a listener--not to the first half, in which he

takes an active part. Compare the Parmenidês, p. 137 C. In this

last-mentioned dialogue, Sokrates (then a youth) and Aristotelês

are the parallel of Theætêtus and the younger Sokrates in the

Sophistês and Politikus. (See p. 135 D.)]

[Side-note: Plato declares that his first purpose is to administer

a lesson in logical method: the special question chosen, being

subordinate to that purpose.]

In noticing the circumlocutory character, and multiplied negative

criticism, of the Theætêtus, without any ultimate profit realised

in the form of positive result--I remarked, that Plato appreciated

dialogues, not merely as the road to a conclusion, but for the

mental discipline and suggestive influence of the tentative and

verifying process. It was his purpose to create in his hearers a

disposition to prosecute philosophical research of their own, and

at the same time to strengthen their ability of doing so with

effect. This remark is confirmed by the two dialogues now before

us, wherein Plato defends himself against reproaches seemingly

made to him at the time.[7] "To what does all this tend? Why do

you stray so widely from your professed topic? Could you not have

reached this point by a shorter road?" He replies by distinctly

proclaiming--That the process, with its improving influence on the

mind, stands first in his thoughts--the direct conclusion of the

enquiry, only second: That the special topic which he discusses,

though in itself important, is nevertheless chosen principally

with a view to its effect in communicating general method and

dialectic aptitude: just as a schoolmaster, when he gives out to

his pupils a word to be spelt, looks mainly, not to their

exactness in spelling that particular word, but to their command

of good spelling generally.[8] To form inquisitive, testing minds,

fond of philosophical debate as a pursuit, and looking at opinions

on the negative as well as on the positive side, is the first

object in most of Plato's dialogues: to teach positive truth, is

only a secondary object.

[Footnote 7: Plato, Politikus, pp. 283 B, 286-287.]

[Footnote 8: Plato, Politikus, p. 285 D.

[Greek: _Xen_.--Ti/ d' au)=? nu=n ê(mi=n ê( peri\ tou= politikou=

zê/têsis e(/neka au)tou= tou/tou probe/blêtai ma=llon ê)\ tou=

peri\ pa/nta dialektikôte/rois gi/gnesthai?

_Ne/os Sôkr_.--Kai\ tou=to dê=lon o(/ti tou= peri\ pa/nta.]

Again, p. 288 D. [Greek: to/ te au)= pro\s tê\n tou=

problêthe/ntos zê/têsin, ô(s a)\n r(a=|sta kai\ ta/chista

eu)/roimen, deu/teron a)ll' ou) prô=ton o( lo/gos a)gapa=|n

paragge/lei, polu\ de\ ma/lista kai\ prô=ton tê\n me/thodon

au)tê\n tima=|n, tou= kat' ei)/dê dunato\n ei)=nai diairei=n],

&c.]

[Side-note: Method of logical Definition and Division.]

Both the Sophistes and the Politikus are lessons and specimens of

that process which the logical manuals recognise under the

names--Definition and Division. What is a Sophist? What is a politician

or statesman? What is a philosopher? In the first place--Are the

three really distinct characters? for this may seem doubtful:

since the true philosopher, in his visits of inspection from city

to city, is constantly misconceived by an ignorant public, and

confounded with the other two.[9] The Eleate replies that the

three are distinct. Then what is the characteristic function of

each? How is he distinguished from other persons or other things?

To what class or classes does each belong: and what is the

specific character belonging to the class, so as to mark its place

in the scheme descending by successive logical subdivision from

the highest genus down to particulars? What other professions or

occupations are there analogous to those of Sophist and Statesman,

so as to afford an illustrative comparison? What is there in like

manner capable of serving as illustrative contrast?

[Footnote 9: Plato, Sophist. p. 216 E.]

[Side-note: Sokrates tries the application of this method, first,

upon a vulgar subject. To find the logical place and deduction of

the Angler. Superior classes above him. Bisecting division.]

Such are the problems which it is the direct purpose of the two

dialogues before us to solve. But a large proportion of both is

occupied by matters bearing only indirectly upon the solution. The

process of logical subdivision, or the formation of classes in

subordination to each other, can be exhibited just as plainly in

application to an ordinary craft or profession, as to one of grave

importance. The Eleate Stranger even affirms that the former case

will be simpler, and will serve as explanatory introduction to the

latter.[10] He therefore selects the craft of an angler, for which

to find a place in logical classification. Does not an angler

belong to the general class--men of art or craft? He is not a mere

artless, non-professional, private man. This being so, we must

distribute the class Arts--Artists, into two subordinate classes:

Artists who construct or put together some new substance or

compound--Artists who construct nothing new, but are employed in

getting, or keeping, or employing, substances already made. Thus

the class Artists is bisected into Constructive--Acquisitive. The

angler constructs nothing: he belongs to the acquisitive branch.

We now bisect this latter branch. Acquirers either obtain by

consent, or appropriate without consent. Now the angler is one of

the last-mentioned class: which is again bisected into two

sub-classes, according as the appropriation is by force or

stratagem--Fighters and Hunters. The angler is a hunter: but many

other persons are hunters also, from whom he must be distinguished.

Hunters are therefore divided into, Those who hunt inanimate

things (such as divers for sponges, &c.), and Those who hunt

living things or animals, including of course the angler among

them. The hunters of animals are distinguished into hunters of

walking animals, and hunters of swimming animals. Of the swimming

animals some are in air, others in water:[11] hence we get two

classes, Bird-Hunters and Fish-Hunters; to the last of whom the

angler belongs. The fish-hunters (or fishermen) again are bisected

into two classes, according as they employ nets, or striking

instruments of one kind or another, such as tridents, &c. Of the

striking fishermen there are two sorts: those who do their work at

night by torch-light, and those who work by day. All these

day-fishermen, including among them the angler, use instruments with

hooks at the end. But we must still make one bisection more. Some

of them employ tridents, with which they strike from above

downwards at the fishes, upon any part of the body which may

present itself: others use hooks, rods, and lines, which they

contrive to attach to the jaws of the fish, and thereby draw him

from below upward.[12] This is the special characteristic of the

angler. We have now a class comprehending the anglers alone, so

that no farther sub-division is required. We have obtained not

merely the name of the angler, but also the rational explanation

of the function to which the name is attached.[13]

[Footnote 10: Plato, Sophist. p. 218 E.]

[Footnote 11: Plato, Sophist. p. 220 B. [Greek: Neustikou= mê\n

to\ me\n ptêno\n phu=lon o(rô=men, to\ de\ e)/nudron.]

It deserves notice that Plato here considers the air as a fluid in

which birds swim.]

[Footnote 12: Plato, Sophist. pp. 219-221.]

[Footnote 13: Plato, Sophist. p. 221 A-B. [Greek: Nu=n a)/ra tê=s

a)spalieutikê=s--ou) mo/non tou)/noma, a)lla\ kai\ to\n lo/gon

peri\ au)to\ tou)/rgon, ei)lê/phamen i(kanô=s.]]

[Side-note: Such a lesson in logical classification was at that

time both novel and instructive. No logical manuals then existed.]

This is the first specimen which Plato gives of a systematic

classification descending, by successive steps of bifurcation,

through many subordinations of genera and species, each founded on

a real and proclaimed distinction--and ending at last in an

_infima species_. He repeats the like process in regard to the

Sophist, the Statesman, and other professions to which he compares

the one or the other: but it will suffice to have given one

specimen of his method. If we transport ourselves back to his

time, I think that such a view of the principles of classification

implies a new and valuable turn of thought. There existed then no

treatises on logic; no idea of logic as a scheme of mental

procedure; no sciences out of which it was possible to abstract

the conception of a regular method more or less diversified. On no

subject was there any mass of facts or details collected, large

enough to demand some regular system for the purpose of arranging

and rendering them intelligible. Classification to a certain

extent is of necessity involved, consciously or unconsciously, in

the use of general terms. But the process itself had never been

made a subject of distinct consciousness or reflection to any one

(as far as our knowledge reaches), in the time of Plato. No one

had yet looked at it as a process natural indeed to the human

intellect, up to a certain point and in a loose manner,--but

capable both of great extension and great improvement, and

requiring especial study, with an end deliberately set before the

mind, in order that it might be employed with advantage to

regularise and render intelligible even common and well-known

facts. To determine a series of descending classes, with

class-names, each connoting some assignable characteristic--to

distribute the whole of each class between two correlative

sub-classes, to compare the different ways in which this could be

done, and to select such _membra condividentia_ as were most

suitable for the purpose--this was in the time of Plato an

important novelty. We know from Xenophon[14] that Sokrates

considered Dialectic to be founded, both etymologically and

really, upon the distribution of particular things into genera or

classes. But we find little or no intentional illustration of this

process in any of the conversations of the Xenophontic Sokrates:

and we are farther struck by the fact that Plato, in the two

dialogues which we are here considering, assigns all the remarks

on the process of classification, not to Sokrates himself, but to

the nameless Eleatic Stranger.

[Footnote 14: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 5, 12.]

[Side-note: Plato describes the Sophist as analogous to an angler.

He traces the Sophist by descending subdivision from the

acquisitive genus of art.]

After giving the generic deduction of the angler from the

comprehensive idea of Art, distributed into two sections,

constructive and acquisitive, Plato proceeds to notice the analogy

between the Sophist and an angler: after which he deduces the

Sophist also from the acquisitive section of Art. The Sophist is

an angler for rich young men.[15] To find his place in the

preceding descending series, we must take our departure from the

bisection--hunters of walking animals, hunters of swimming

animals. The Sophist is a hunter of walking animals: which may be

divided into two classes, wild and tame. The Sophist hunts a

species of tame animals--men. Hunters of tame animals are bisected

into such as hunt by violent means (robbers, enslavers, despots,

&c.),[16] and such as hunt by persuasive means. Of the hunters by

means of persuasion there are two kinds: those who hunt the

public, and those who hunt individuals. The latter again may be

divided into two classes: those who hunt to their own loss, by

means of presents, such as lovers, &c., and those who hunt with a

view to their own profit. To this latter class belongs the

Sophist: pretending to associate with others for the sake of

virtue, but really looking to his own profit.[17]

[Footnote 15: Plato, Sophist. p. 222 A.]

[Footnote 16: Plato, Sophist. p. 222 C.

It illustrates the sentiment of Plato's age respecting

classification, when we see the great diversity of particulars

which he himself, here as well as elsewhere, ranks under the

general name [Greek: thê/ra], _hunting_--[Greek: thê/ra ga\r

pampolu/ ti pra=gma/ e)sti, perieilêmme/non o)no/mati nu=n

schedo\n e(ni/] (Plato, Legg. viii. 822-823-824, and Euthyd. p.

290 B). He includes both [Greek: stratêgikê\] and [Greek:

phtheiristikê\] as varieties of [Greek: thêreutikê/], Sophist. p.

227 B.

Compare also the interesting conversation about [Greek: thê/ra

a)nthrô/pôn] between Sokrates and Theodotê, Xenophon, Memorab.

iii. 11, 7; and between Sokrates and Kritobulus, ii. 6, 29.]

[Footnote 17: Plato, Sophist. p. 223 A.]

[Side-note: The Sophist traced down from the same, by a second and

different descending subdivision.]

Again, we may find the Sophist by descending through a different

string of subordinate classes from the genus--_Acquisitive Art_.

The professors of this latter may be bisected into two

sorts--hunters and exchangers. Exchangers are of two sorts--givers

and sellers. Sellers again sell either their own productions, or the

productions of others. Those who sell the productions of others

are either fixed residents in one city, or hawkers travelling

about from city to city. Hawkers again carry about for sale either

merchandise for the body, or merchandise for the mind, such as

music, poetry, painting, exhibitions of jugglery, learning, and

intellectual accomplishments, and so forth. These latter (hawkers

for the mind) may be divided into two sorts: those who go about

teaching; for money, arts and literary accomplishments--and those

who go about teaching virtue for money. They who go about teaching

virtue for money are the Sophists.[18] Or indeed if they sell

virtue and knowledge for money, they are not the less

Sophists--whether they buy what they sell from others, or prepare it

for themselves--whether they remain in one city or become itinerant.

[Footnote 18: Plato, Sophist. p. 224 B.]

[Side-note: Also, by a third.]

A third series of subordinate classes will also bring us down from

the genus--_Acquisitive Art_--down to the _infima

species_--_Sophist_. In determining the class-place of the angler,

we recognised a bisection of acquisitive art into acquirers by

exchange, or mutual consent--and acquirers by appropriation, or

without consent.[19] These latter we divided according as they

employed either force or stratagem: contenders and hunters. We

then proceeded to bisect the class hunters, leaving the contenders

without farther notice. Now let us take up the class contenders.

It may be divided into two: competitors for a set prize (pecuniary

or honorary), and fighters. The fighters go to work either body

against body, violently--or tongue against tongue, as arguers.

These arguers again fall into two classes: the pleaders, who make

long speeches, about just or unjust, before the public assembly

and dikastery: and the dialogists, who meet each other in short

question and answer. The dialogists again are divided into two:

the private, untrained antagonists, quarrelling with each other

about the particular affairs of life (who form a species by

themselves, since characteristic attributes may be assigned to

them; though these attributes are too petty and too indefinite to

have ever received a name in common language, or to deserve a name

from us[20])--and the trained practitioners or wranglers, who

dispute not about particular incidents, but about just and unjust

in general, and other general matters.[21] Of wranglers again

there are two sorts: the prosers, who follow the pursuit from

spontaneous taste and attachment, not only without hope of gain,

but to the detriment of their private affairs, incurring loss

themselves, and wearying or bothering their hearers: and those who

make money by such private dialogues. This last sort of wrangler

is the Sophist.[22]

[Footnote 19: Plato, Sophist. p. 219 E.]

[Footnote 20: Plato, Sophist. p. 225 C.

[Greek: _Xe/nos_.--Tou= de\ a)ntilogikou=, to\ me\n o(/son peri\

ta\ xumbolai=a a)mphisbêtei=tai me/n, ei)kê= de\ kai\ a)technô=s

peri\ au)to\ pra/ttetai, tau=ta _thete/on me\n ei)=dos_, e)pei/per

au)to\ die/gnôken ô(s e(/teron o)\n o( lo/gos; a)ta\r e)pônumi/as

ou)/th' u(po\ tô=n e)/mprosthen e)/tuchen, ou)/te nu=n u(ph'

ê(mô=n tuchei=n a)/xion.

_Theaitêt_.--A)lêthê=; kata\ _smikra\_ ga\r li/an kai\

_pantodapa\_ diê/|rêtai.]

These words illustrate Plato's view of an [Greek: ei)=dos] or

species. Any distinguishable attributes, however petty, and

however multifarious, might be taken to form a species upon; but

if they were petty and multifarious, there was no advantage in

bestowing a specific name.]

[Footnote 21: Plato, Sophist. p. 225 C. [Greek: to\ de/ ge

e)/ntechnon, kai\ peri\ _dikai/ôn au)tô=n_ kai\ a)di/kôn kai\

peri\ tô=n _a)/llôn o(/lôs_ a)mphisbêtou=n, a)=r' ou)k e)ristiko\n

au)= le/gein ei)thi/smetha?]]

[Footnote 22: Plato, Sophist. p. 225 E.]

[Side-note: The Sophist is traced down, from the genus of

separating or discriminating art.]

There is yet another road of class-distribution which will bring

us down to the Sophist. A great number of common arts (carding

wool, straining through a sieve, &c.) have, in common, the general

attribute of separating matters confounded in a heap. Of

separation there are two sorts: you may separate like from like

(this has no established name)--or better from worse, which is

called _purification_. Purification is of two sorts: either of

body or of mind. In regard to body, the purifying agents are very

multifarious, comprising not only men and animals, but also

inanimate things: and thus including many varieties which in

common estimation are mean, trivial, repulsive, or ludicrous. But

all these various sentiments (observes Plato) we must disregard.

We must follow out a real analogy wherever it leads us, and

recognise a logical affinity wherever we find one; whether the

circumstances brought together be vile or venerable, or some of

them vile and some venerable, in the eyes of mankind. Our sole

purpose is to improve our intelligence. With that view, all

particulars are of equal value in our eyes, provided only they

exhibit that real likeness which legitimates them as members of

the same class--purifiers of body: the correlate of that other

class which we now proceed to study--purifiers of mind.[23]