[Footnote 23: Plato, Sophist. pp. 226-227. 227 A: [Greek: tê=|

tô=n lo/gôn metho/dô| spoggistikê=s ê)\ pharmakoposi/as ou)de\n

ê(=tton ou)de/ ti ma=llon tugcha/nei me/lon, ei) to\ me\n smikra/,

to\ de\ mega/la ê(ma=s ô)phelei= kathai=ron. _Tou= ktê/sasthai

ga\r e(/neken nou=n pasô=n technô=n to\ xuggene\s kai\ to\ mê\

xuggene\s katanoei=n peirôme/nê, tima=| pro\s tou=to, e)x i)/sou

pa/sas_, kai\ tha/tera tô=n e(te/rôn kata\ tê\n o(moio/têta

ou)de\n ê(gei=tai geloio/tera, _semno/teron de/ ti to\n dia\

stratêmikê=s ê)\ phtheiristikê=s dêlou=nta thêreutikê\n ou)de\n

neno/miken_, a)ll' _ô(s to\ polu\ chauno/teron_. Kai\ dê\ kai\

nu=n, o(/per ê)/rou, ti/ proserou=men o)/noma xumpa/sas duna/meis,

o(/sai sô=ma ei)/te e)/mpsuchon ei)/te a)/psuchon ei)lê/chasi

kathai/rein, ou)de\n au)tê=| dioi/sei, poi=on ti lechthe\n

eu)prepe/staton ei)=nai do/xei; _mo/non e)che/tô chôri\s_ tô=n

tê=s psuchê=s katha/rseôn pa/nta xundê=san o(/sa a)/llo ti

kathai/rei.] To maintain the equal scientific position of [Greek:

phtheiristikê/], as two different species under the genus [Greek:

thêreutikê/], is a strong illustration.

Compare also Plato, Politikus, p. 266 D.

A similar admonition is addressed (in the Parmenidês, p. 130 E**) by

the old Parmenides to the youthful Sokrates, when the latter

cannot bring himself to admit that there exist [Greek: ei)=dê] or

Forms of vulgar and repulsive objects, such as [Greek: thri\x] and

[Greek: pê=los]. [Greek: Neos ga\r ei)= e)/ti, kai\ ou)/pô sou=

a)ntei/lêptai philosophi/a ô(s e)/ti a)ntilê/psetai kat' e)mê\n

do/xan, o(/te ou)de\n au)tô=n a)tima/seis; nu=n d' e)/ti pro\s

a)nthrô/pôn a)poble/peis do/xas dia\ tê\n ê(liki/an.]

See above, ch. xxvii. p. 60, in my review of the Parmenidês.]

[Side-note: In a logical classification, low and vulgar items

deserve as much attention as grand ones. Conflict between

emotional and scientific classification.]

This precept (repeated by Plato also in the Politikus) respecting

the principles of classification, deserves notice. It protests

against, and seeks to modify, one of the ordinary turns in the

associating principles of the human mind. With unreflecting men,

classification is often emotional rather than intellectual. The

groups of objects thrown together in such minds, and conceived in

immediate association, are such as suggest the same or kindred

emotions: pleasure or pain, love or hatred, hope or fear,

admiration, contempt, disgust, jealousy, ridicule. Community of

emotion is a stronger bond of association between different

objects, than community in any attribute not immediately

interesting to the emotions, and appreciable only intellectually.

Thus objects which have nothing else in common, except appeal to

the same earnest emotion, will often be called by the same general

name, and will be constituted members of the same class. To attend

to attributes in any other point of view than in reference to the

amount and kind of emotion which they excite, is a process

uncongenial to ordinary taste: moreover, if any one brings

together, in the same wording, objects really similar, but

exciting opposite and contradictory emotions, he usually provokes

either disgust or ridicule. All generalizations, and all general

terms connoting them, are results brought together by association

and comparison of particulars somehow resembling. But if we look

at the process of association in an unreflecting person, the

resemblances which it fastens upon will be often emotional, not

intellectual: and the generalizations founded upon such

resemblances will be emotional also.

It is against this natural propensity that Plato here enters his

protest, in the name of intellect and science. For the purpose of

obtaining a classification founded on real, intrinsic affinities,

we must exclude all reference to the emotions: we must take no

account whether a thing be pleasing or hateful, sublime or

mean:[24] we must bring ourselves to rank objects useful or grand

in the same logical compartment with objects hurtful or ludicrous.

We must examine only whether the resemblance is true and real,

justifying itself to the comparing intellect: and whether the

class-term chosen be such as to comprise all these resemblances,

holding them apart ([Greek: mo/non e)che/tô chôri\s]) from the

correlative and opposing class.[25]

[Footnote 24: Compare Politikus, p. 266 D; Parmenidês, p. 130 E.

We see that Plato has thus both anticipated and replied to the

objection of Socher (Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp. 260-262), who

is displeased with the minuteness of this classification, and with

the vulgar objects to which it is applied. Socher contends that

this is unworthy of Plato, and that it was peculiar to the subtle

Megaric philosophers.

I think, on the contrary, that the purpose of illustrating the

process of classification was not unworthy of Plato; that it was

not unnatural to do this by allusion to vulgar trades or

handicraft, at a time when no scientific survey of physical facts

had been attempted; that the allusion to such vulgar trades is

quite in the manner of Plato, and of Sokrates before him.

Stallbaum, in his elaborate Prolegomena both to the Sophistês and

to the Politikus, rejects the conclusion of Socher, and maintains

that both dialogues are the work of Plato. Yet he agrees to a

certain extent in Socher's premisses. He thinks that minuteness

and over-refinement in classification were peculiarities of the

Megaric philosophers, and that Plato intentionally pushes the

classification into an extreme subtlety and minuteness, in order

to parody their proceedings and turn them into ridicule. (Proleg.

ad Sophist. pp. 32-36, ad Politic. pp. 54-55.)

But how do Socher and Stallbaum know that this extreme minuteness

of subdivision into classes _was_ a characteristic of the Megaric

philosophers? Neither of them produce any proof of it. Indeed

Stallbaum himself says, most truly (Proleg. ad Politic. p. 55)

"Quæ de Megaricorum arte dialecticâ accepimus, sane quam sunt

paucissima". He might have added, that the little which we do hear

about their dialectic, is rather adverse to this supposed

minuteness of positive classification, than consonant with it.

What we hear is, that they were extremely acute and subtle in

contentious disputations--able assailants of the position of a

logical opponent. But this talent has nothing to do with

minuteness of positive classification: and is even indicative of a

different turn of mind. Moreover, we hear about Eukleides, the

chief of the Megaric school, that he enlarged the signification of

the Summum Genus of Parmenides--the [Greek: E(\n kai\ Pa=n].

Eukleides called it Unum, Bonum, Simile et Idem Semper, Deus, &c.

But we do not hear that Eukleides acknowledged a series of

subordinate Genera or Species, expanding by logical procession

below this primary Unum. As far as we can judge, this seems to

have been wanting in his philosophy. Yet it is exactly these

subordinate Genera or Species, which the Platonic Sophistês and

Politikus supply in abundance, and even excess, conformably to the

precept laid down by Plato in the Philêbus (p. 14). The words of

the Sophistês (p. 216 D) rather indicate that the Eleatic Stranger

is declared _not_ to possess the character and attributes of

Megaric disputation.]

[Footnote 25: Though the advice here given by Plato about the

principles of classification is very judicious, yet he has himself

in this same dialogue set an example of repugnance to act upon it

(Sophist. p. 231 A-B.) In following out his own descending series

of partitions, he finds that the Sophist corresponds with the

great mental purifier--the person who applies the Elenchus or

cross-examining test, to youthful minds, so as to clear out that

false persuasion of knowledge which is the great bar to all

improvement. But though brought by his own process to this point,

Plato shrinks from admitting it. His dislike towards the Sophist

will not allow him. "The Sophist is indeed" (he says) "very like

to this grand educator: but so also a wolf is very like to a

dog--the most savage of animals to the most gentle. We must always

be extremely careful about these likenesses: the whole body of them

are most slippery. Still we cannot help admitting the Sophist to

represent this improving process--that is, the high and true bred

Sophist."

It will be seen that Plato's remark here about [Greek:

o(moio/têtes] contradicts what he had himself said before (p. 227

B). The reluctance to rank _dog_ and _wolf_ together, in the same

class, is an exact specimen of that very mistake which he had been

just pointing out for correction. The scientific resemblance

between the two animals is very close; but the antithesis of

sentiment, felt by men towards the one and the other, is extreme.]

[Side-note: The purifier--a species under the genus

discriminator--separates good from evil. Evil is of two sorts; the

worst sort is, Ignorance, mistaking itself for knowledge.]

After these just remarks on classification generally, the Eleate

pursues the subdivision of his own theme. To purify the mind is to

get rid of the evil, and retain or improve the good. Now evil is

of two sorts--disease (injustice, intemperance, cowardice, &c.)

and ignorance. Disease, which in the body is dealt with by the

physician, is in the mind dealt with by the judicial tribunal:

ignorance (corresponding to ugliness, awkwardness, disability, in

the body, which it is the business of the gymnastic trainer to

correct) falls under the treatment of the teacher or

instructor.[26] Ignorance again may be distributed into two heads:

one, though special, being so grave as to counterbalance all the

rest, and requiring to be set apart by itself--that is--ignorance

accompanied with the false persuasion of knowledge.[27]

[Footnote 26: Plato, Sophist. pp. 228-229.]

[Footnote 27: Plat. Soph. p. 229 C. [Greek: A)gnoi/as d' ou)=n

me/ga ti/ moi dokô= kai\ chalepo\n a)phôrisme/non o(ra=|n ei)=dos,

pa=si toi=s a)/llois au)tê=s a)nti/stathmon me/resi . . . To\ mê\

kateido/ta ti, dokei=n ei)de/nai.]]

[Side-note: Exhortation is useless against this worst mode of evil.

Cross-examination, the shock of the Elenchus, must be brought to

bear upon it. This is the sovereign purifier.]

To meet this special and gravest case of ignorance, we must

recognise a special division of the art of instruction or

education. Exhortation, which is the common mode of instruction,

and which was employed by our forefathers universally, is of no

avail against this false persuasion of knowledge: which can only

be approached and cured by the Elenchus, or philosophical

cross-examination. So long as a man believes himself to be wise,

you may lecture for ever without making impression upon him: you do no

good by supplying food when the stomach is sick. But the examiner,

questioning him upon those subjects which he professes to know,

soon entangles him in contradictions with himself, making him feel

with shame and humiliation his own real ignorance. After having

been thus disabused--a painful but indispensable process, not to

be accomplished except by the Elenchus--his mind becomes open and

teachable, so that positive instruction may be communicated to him

with profit. The Elenchus is the grand and sovereign purification:

whoever has not been subjected to it, were he even the Great King,

is impure, unschooled, and incompetent for genuine happiness.[28]

[Footnote 28: Plato, Sophist. p. 230 D-E.]

[Side-note: The application of this Elenchus is the work of the

Sophist, looked at on its best side. But looked at as he really

is, he is a juggler who teaches pupils to dispute about every

thing--who palms off falsehood for truth.]

This cross-examining and disabusing process, brought to bear upon

the false persuasion of knowledge and forming the only antidote to

it, is the business of the Sophist looked at on its best side.[29]

But Plato will not allow the Elenchus, the great Sokratic

accomplishment and mission, to be shared by the Sophists: and he

finds or makes a subtle distinction to keep them off. The Sophist

(so the Eleate proceeds) is a disputant, and teaches all his

youthful pupils to dispute about everything as if they knew

it--about religion, astronomy, philosophy, arts, laws, politics,

and everything else. He teaches them to argue in each department

against the men of special science: he creates a belief in the

minds of others that he really knows all those different subjects,

respecting which he is able to argue and cross-examine

successfully: he thus both possesses, and imparts to his pupils, a

seeming knowledge, an imitation and pretence of reality.[30] He is

a sort of juggler: an imitator who palms off upon persons what

appears like reality when seen from a distance, but what is seen

to be not like reality when contemplated closely.[31]

[Footnote 29: Plato, Sophist. p. 231 B. [Greek: tê=s de\

paideutikê=s a( peri\ tê\n ma/taion doxosophi/an gigno/menos

e)/legchos e)n tô=| nu=n lo/gô| paraphane/nti mêde\n a)/ll' ê(mi=n

ei)=nai lege/sthô plê\n ê( ge/nei gennai/a sophistikê/.]]

[Footnote 30: Plato, Sophist. pp. 232-233 C, 235 A. Sokrates tells

us in the Platonic Apology (p. 23 A) that this was the exact

effect which his own cross-examination produced upon the hearers:

they supposed him to be wise on those topics on which he exposed

ignorance in others. The Memorabilia of Xenophon exhibit the same

impression as made by the conversation of Sokrates, even when he

talked with artisans on their own arts. Sokrates indeed professed

not to teach anyone--and he certainly took no fee for teaching.

But we see plainly that this disclaimer imposed upon no one; that

he did teach, though gratuitously; and that what he taught was,

the art of cross-examination and dispute. We learn this not merely

from his enemy, Aristophanes, and from the proceedings of his

opponents, Kritias and Charikles (Xenoph. Memor. i. 2), but also

from his own statement in the Platonic Apology (pp. 23 C. 37

E. 39 B), and from the language of Plato and Xenophon throughout.

Plato is here puzzled to make out a clear line of distinction

between the Elenchus of Sokrates, and the disputatious arguments

of those Sophists whom he calls Eristic--name deserved quite as

much by Sokrates as by any of them. Plato here accuses the

Sophists of talking upon a great many subjects which they did not

know, and teaching their pupils to do the same. This is exactly

what Sokrates passed his life in doing, and what he did better

than any one--on the negative side.]

[Footnote 31: Plato, Sophist. pp. 235-236.]

[Side-note: Doubt started by the Eleate. How can it be possible

either to think or to speak falsely?]

Here however (continues Plato) we are involved in a difficulty.

How can a thing appear to be what it is not? How can a man who

opines or affirms, opine or affirm falsely--that is, opine or

affirm the thing that is not? To admit this, we must assume the

thing that is not (or Non-Ens, Nothing) to have a real existence.

Such an assumption involves great and often debated difficulties.

It has been pronounced by Parmenides altogether inadmissible.[32]

[Footnote 32: Plato, Sophist. pp. 236 E--237 A. [Greek: pa/nta

tau=ta e)sti mesta\ a)pori/as a)ei\ e)n tô=| pro/sthen chro/nô|

kai\ nu=n. O(/pôs ga\r ei)po/nta chrê\ pseudê= le/gein ê)\

doxa/zein o)/ntôs ei)=nai, kai\ tou=to phthegxa/menon

e)nantiologi/a| mê\ xune/chesthai, panta/pasi chalepo/n . . .

Teto/lmêken o( lo/gos ou(=tos u(pothe/sthai to\ mê\ o)\n ei)=nai;

pseu=dos ga\r ou)k a)\n a)/llôs e)gi/gneto o)/n.]]

We have already seen that Plato discussed this same question in

the Theætêtus, and that after trying and rejecting many successive

hypotheses to show how false supposition, or false affirmation,

might be explained as possible, by a theory involving no

contradiction, he left the question unsolved. He now resumes it at

great length. It occupies more than half[33] the dialogue. Near

the close, but only then, he reverts to the definition of the

Sophist.

[Footnote 33: From p. 236 D to p. 264 D.]

[Side-note: He pursues the investigation of this problem by a

series of questions.]

First, the Eleate states the opinion which perplexes him, and

which he is anxious either to refute or to explain away.

(Unfortunately, we have no statement of the opinion, nor of the

grounds on which it was held, from those who actually held it.)

Non-Ens, or Nothing, is not the name of any existing thing, or of

any Something. But every one who speaks must speak something:

therefore if you try to speak of Non-Ens, you are trying to speak

nothing--which is equivalent to not speaking at all.[34] Moreover,

to every Something, you can add something farther: but to Non-Ens,

or Nothing, you cannot add any thing. (Non-Entis nulla sunt

prædicata.) Now Number is something, or included among the Entia:

you cannot therefore apply number, either singular or plural, to

Non-Ens: and inasmuch as every thing conceived or described must

be either one or many, it is impossible either to conceive or

describe Non-Ens. You cannot speak of it without falling into a

contradiction.[35]

[Footnote 34: Plato, Sophist. p. 237 E. The Eleate here recites

this opinion, not as his own but as entertained by others, and as

one which he did not clearly see through: in Republic (v. p. 478

B-C) we find Sokrates advancing a similar doctrine as his own. So

in the Kratylus, where this same topic is brought under discussion

(pp. 429 D, 430 A), Kratylus is represented as contending that

false propositions were impossible: that propositions, improperly

called false, were in reality combinations of sounds without any

meaning, like the strokes on a bell.]

[Footnote 35: Plato, Sophist. p. 238-239.]

[Side-note: The Sophist will reject our definition and escape, by

affirming that to speak falsely is impossible. He will require us

to make out a rational theory, explaining Non-Ens.]

When therefore we characterise the Sophist as one who builds up

phantasms for realities--who presents to us what is not, as being

like to what _is_, and as a false substitute for what _is_--he

will ask us what we mean? If, to illustrate our meaning, we point

to images of things in mirrors or clear water, he will pretend to

be blind, and will refuse the evidence of sense: he will require

us to make out a rational theory explaining Non-Ens or

Nothing.[36] But when we try to do this, we contradict ourselves.

A phantasm is that which, not being a true counterpart of reality,

is yet so like it as to be mistaken for reality. _Quatenus_

phantasm, it is Ens: _quatenus_ reality, it is Non-Ens: thus the

same thing is both Ens, and Non-Ens: which we declared before to

be impossible.[37] When therefore we accuse the Sophist of passing

off phantasms for realities, we suppose falsely: we suppose

matters not existing, or contrary to those which exist: we suppose

the existent not to exist, or the non-existent to exist But this

assumes as done what cannot be done: since we have admitted more

than once that Non-Ens can neither be described in language by

itself, nor joined on in any manner to Ens.[38]

[Footnote 36: Plato, Sophist. pp. 239-240. [Greek: katagela/setai/

sou tô=n lo/gôn, o(/tan ô(s ble/ponti le/gê|s au)tô=|,

prospoiou/menos ou)/te ka/toptra ou)/te u(/data gignô/skein,

ou)/te to\ para/pan o)/psin; to\ d' e)k tô=n lo/gôn e)rôtê/sei se

mo/non.]]

[Footnote 37: Plato, Sophist. p. 240 B.]

[Footnote 38: Plato, Sophist. p. 241 B. [Greek: tô=| ga\r mê\

o)/nti to\ o)\n prosa/ptein ê(ma=s polla/kis a)nagka/zesthai,

diomologêsame/nous nu=n dê/ pou tou=to ei)=nai pa/ntôn

a)dunatô/taton.]]

Stating the case in this manner, we find that to suppose falsely,

or affirm falsely, is a contradiction. But there is yet another

possible way out of the difficulty (the Eleate continues).

[Side-note: The Eleate turns from Non-Ens to Ens. Theories of

various philosophers about Ens.]

Let us turn for a moment (he says) from Non-Ens to Ens. The

various physical philosophers tell us a good deal about Ens. They

differ greatly among themselves. Some philosophers represent Ens

as triple, comprising three distinct elements, sometimes in

harmony, sometimes at variance with each other. Others tell us

that it is double--wet and dry--or hot and cold. A third sect,

especially Xenophanes and Parmenides, pronounce it to be

essentially One. Herakleitus blends together the different

theories, affirming that Ens is both many and one, always in

process of disjunction and conjunction: Empedokles adopts a

similar view, only dropping the _always_, and declaring the

process of disjunction to alternate with that of conjunction, so

that Ens is sometimes Many, sometimes One.[39]

[Footnote 39: Plato, Sophist. p. 242 D-E.]

[Side-note: Difficulties about Ens are as great as those about

Non-Ens.]

Now when I look at these various theories (continues the Eleate),

I find that I do not follow or understand them; and that I know

nothing more or better about Ens than about Non-Ens. I thought, as

a young man, that I understood both: but I now find that I

understand neither.[39] The difficulties about Ens are just as

great as those about Non-Ens. What do these philosophers mean by

saying that Ens is double or triple? that there are two distinct

existing elements--Hot and Cold--or three? What do you mean by

saying that Hot and Cold _exist_? Is existence any thing distinct

from Hot and Cold? If so, then there are three elements in all,

not two. Do you mean that existence is something belonging to both

and affirmed of both? Then you pronounce both to be One: and Ens,

instead of being double, will be at the bottom only One.

[Footnote 40: Plato, Sophist. p. 243 B.]

[Side-note: Whether Ens is Many or One? If Many, how Many?

Difficulties about One and the Whole. Theorists about Ens cannot

solve them.]

Such are the questions which the Eleatic spokesman of Plato puts

to those philosophers who affirm Ens to be plural: He turns next

to those who affirm Ens to be singular, or Unum. Do you mean that

Unum is identical with Ens--and are they only two names for the

same One and only thing? There cannot be two distinct names

belonging to one and the same thing: and yet, if this be not so,

one of the names must be the name of nothing. At any rate, if

there be only one name and one thing, still the name itself is

different from the thing--so that duality must still be

recognised. Or if you take the name as identical with the One

thing, it will either be the name of nothing, or the name of a

name.[41]

[Footnote 41: Plato, Sophist. p. 244 D.]

Again, as to the Whole:--is the Whole the same with the Ens Unum,

or different from it. We shall be told that it is the same: but

according to the description given by Parmenides, the whole is

spherical, thus having a centre and circumference, and of course

having parts. Now a whole divisible into parts may have unity

predicable of it, as an affection or accident in respect to the

sum of its parts: but it cannot be the genuine, essential,

self-existent, One, which does not admit of parts or division. If Ens

be One by accident, it is not identical with One, and we thus have

two existent things: and if Ens be not really and essentially the

Whole, while nevertheless the Whole exists--Ens must fall short of

or be less than itself, and must to this extent be Non-Ens:

besides that Ens, and Totum, being by nature distinct, we have

more things than One existing. On the other hand, if we assume

Totum not to be Ens, the same result will ensue. Ens will still be

something less than itself;--Ens can never have any quantity, for

each quantum is necessarily a whole in itself--and Ens can never

be generated, since everything generated is also necessarily a

whole.[42]

[Footnote 42: Plato, Sophist. p. 245 A-C.]

[Side-note: Theories of those who do not recognise a definite

number of Entia or elements. Two classes thereof.]

Such is the examination which the Eleate bestows on the theories

of theories of those philosophers who held one, two, or a definite

number of self-existent Entia or elements. His purpose is to show,

that even on their schemes, Ens is just as unintelligible, and

involves as many contradictions, as Non-Ens. And to complete the

same demonstration, he proceeds to dissect the theories of those

who do not recognise any definite or specific number of elements

or Entia.[43] Of these he distinguishes two classes; in direct and

strenuous opposition to each other, respecting what constituted

Essentia.[44]

[Footnote 43: Plato, Sophist. p. 245 E.]

[Footnote 44: Plato, Sophist. p. 246 A. [Greek: e)/oike/ ge e)n

au)toi=s oi(=on gigantomachi/a tis ei)=nai dia\ tê\n

a)mphisbê/têsin peri\ tê=s ou)si/as pro\s allê/lous.]]

[Side-note: 1. The Materialist Philosophers. 2. The Friends of

Forms or Idealists, who recognise such Forms as the only real

Entia.]

First, the Materialist Philosophers, who recognise nothing as

existing except what is tangible; defining Essence as identical

with Body, and denying all incorporeal essence. Plato mentions no

names: but he means (according to some commentators) Leukippus and

Demokritus--perhaps Aristippus also. Secondly, other philosophers

who, diametrically opposed to the Materialists, affirmed that

there were no real Entia except certain Forms, Ideas, genera or

species, incorporeal and conceivable only by intellect: that true

and real essence was not to be found in those bodies wherein the

Materialists sought it: that bodies were in constant generation

and disappearance, affording nothing more than a transitory

semblance of reality, not tenable[45] when sifted by reason. By

these last are understood (so Schleiermacher and others think,

though in my judgment erroneously) Eukleides and the Megaric

school of philosophers.

[Footnote 45: Plato, Sophist. p. 246 B-C. [Greek: noêta\ a)/tta

kai\ a)sô/mata ei)/dê biazo/menoi tê\n a)lêthinê\n ou)si/an

ei)=nai; ta\ de\ e)kei/nôn sô/mata kai\ tê\n legome/nên u(p'

au)tô=n] (_i. e._ the Materialists) [Greek: a)lê/theian kata\

smikra\ diathrau/ontes e)n toi=s lo/gois, ge/nesin a)nt' ou)si/as

pherome/nên tina\ prosagoreu/ousin.]]

[Side-note: Argument against the Materialists--Justice must be

something, since it may be either present or absent, making

sensible difference--But Justice is not a body.]

The Eleate proceeds to comment upon the doctrines held by these

opposing schools of thinkers respecting Essence or Reality. It is

easier (he says) to deal with the last-mentioned, for they are

more gentle. With the Materialists it is difficult, and all but

impossible, to deal at all. Indeed, before we can deal with them,

we must assume them to be for this occasion better than they show

themselves in reality, and ready to answer in a more becoming

manner than they actually do.[46] These Materialists will admit

(Plato continues) that man exists--an animated body, or a compound

of mind and body: they will farther allow that the mind of one man

differs from that of another:--one is just, prudent, &c., another

is unjust and imprudent. One man is just, through the habit and

presence of justice: another is unjust, through the habit and

presence of injustice. But justice must surely be

_something_--injustice also must be _something_--if each may be present

to, or absent from, any thing; and if their presence or absence makes

so sensible a difference.[47] And justice or injustice, prudence or

imprudence, as well as the mind in which the one or the other

inheres, are neither visible or tangible, nor have they any body:

they are all invisible.

[Footnote 46: Plato, Sophist. p. 246 C. [Greek: para\ me\n tô=n

e)n ei)/desin au)tê\n (tê\n ou)si/an) titheme/nôn r(a=|on;

ê(merô/teroi ga/r; para\ de\ tô=n ei)s sô=ma pa/nta e(lko/ntôn

bi/a|, chalepô/teron; _i)/sôs de\ kai\ schedo\n a)du/naton_. A)ll'

ô(=de/ moi dokei= peri\ au)tô=n dra=|n . . . Ma/lista me/n, ei)/

pê| dunato\n ê)=n, _e)/rgô| belti/ous_ au)tou\s poiei=n; ei) de\

tou=to mê\ e)gchôrei=, _lo/gô| poiô=men_, u(potithe/menoi

_nomimô/teron_ au)tou\s ê)\ _nu=n e)the/lontas a)\n

a)pokri/nasthai_.]]

[Footnote 47: Plato, Sophist. p. 247 A. [Greek: A)lla\ mê\n to/ ge

dunato/n tô| paragi/gnesthai kai\ a)pogi/gnesthai, pa/ntôs

ei)=nai/ ti phê/sousin.]]

[Side-note: At least many of them will concede this point, though

not all Ens is common to the corporeal and the incorporeal. Ens is

equivalent to potentiality.]

Probably (replies Theætêtus) these philosophers would contend that

the soul or mind had a body; but they would be ashamed either to

deny that justice, prudence, &c., existed as realities--or to

affirm that justice, prudence, &c. were all bodies.[48] These

philosophers must then have become better (rejoins the Eleate):

for the primitive and genuine leaders of them will not concede

even so much as that. But let us accept the concession. If they

will admit any incorporeal reality at all, however small, our case

is made out. For we shall next call upon them to say, what there

is in common between these latter, and those other realities which

have bodies connate with and essential to them--to justify the

names _real_--_essence_--bestowed upon both.[49] Perhaps they

would accept the following definition of Ens or the Real--of

Essence or Reality. Every thing which possesses any sort of power,

either to act upon any thing else or to be acted upon by any thing

else, be it only for once or to the smallest degree--every such

thing is true and real Ens. The characteristic mark or definition

of Ens or the Real is, power or potentiality.[50]

[Footnote 48: Plato, Sophist. p. 247 B. [Greek: A)pokri/nontai

. . . tê\n me\n psuchê\n au)tê\n dokei=n sphi/si sô=ma/ ti

kektê=sthai, phro/nêsin de\ kai\ tô=n a)/llôn e(/kaston ô(=n

ê)rô/têkas, ai)schu/nontai to\ tolma=|n ê)\ mêde\n tô=n o)/ntôn

au)ta\ o(mologei=n, ê)\ pa/nt' ei)=nai sô/mata

dii+schuri/zesthai.]]

[Footnote 49: Plato, Sophist. p. 247 C-D. [Greek: ei) ga/r ti kai\

smikro\n e)the/lousi tô=n o)/ntôn sugchôrei=n a)sô/maton,

e)xarkei=. to\ ga\r e)pi/ te tou/tois a(/ma kai\ e)p' e)kei/nois

o(/sa e)/chei sô=ma xumphue\s gegono/s, ei)s o(\ ble/pontes

a)mpho/tera _ei)=nai_ le/gousi, tou=to au)toi=s r(ête/on.]]

[Footnote 50: Plato, Sophist. p. 247 D-E. [Greek: le/gô dê\ to\

kai\ o(poianou=n kektême/non _du/namin_, ei)/t' ei)s to\ poiei=n

e(/teron o(tiou=n pephuko\s ei)/t' ei)s to\ pathei=n kai\

smikro/taton u(po\ tou= phaulota/tou, ka)\n ei) mo/non ei)sa/pax,

pa=n tou=to o)/ntôs ei)=nai; ti/themai ga\r o(/ron o(ri/zein ta\

o)/nta, ô(s e)/stin ou)k a)/llo ti plê\n _du/namis_.]]

[Side-note: Argument against the Idealists--who distinguish Ens

from the generated, and say that we hold communion with the former

through our minds, with the latter through our bodies and senses.]

The Eleate now turns to the philosophers of the opposite school--the

Mentalists or Idealists,--whom he terms the friends of Forms,

Ideas, or species.[51] These men (he says) distinguish the

generated, transitory and changeable--from Ens or the Real, which

is eternal, unchanged, always the same: they distinguish

generation from essence. With the generated (according to their

doctrine) we hold communion through our bodies and our bodily

perceptions: with Ens, we hold communion through our mind and our

intellectual apprehension. But what do they mean (continues the

Eleate) by this "holding of communion"? Is it not an action or a

passion produced by a certain power of agent and patient coming

into co-operation with each other? and is not this the definition

which we just now laid down, of Ens or the Real.

[Footnote 51: Plato, Sophist. p. 248 A. [Greek: tou\s tô=n ei)dô=n

phi/lous].]

[Side-note: Holding communion--What? Implies Relativity. Ens is

known by the mind. It therefore suffers or undergoes change. Ens

includes both the unchangeable and the changeable.]

_No_--these philosophers will reply--we do not admit your

definition as a definition of Ens: it applies only to the

generated. Generation does involve, or emanate from, a reciprocity

of agent and patient: but neither power nor action, nor suffering,

have any application to Ens or the Real. But you admit (says the

Eleate) that the mind knows Ens:--and that Ens is known by the

mind. Now this _knowing_, is it not an action--and is not the

_being known_, a passion? If _to know_ is an action, then Ens,

being known, is acted upon, suffers something, or undergoes some

change,--which would be impossible if we assume Ens to be

eternally unchanged. These philosophers might reply, that they do

not admit _to know_ as an action, nor _to be known_ as a passion.

They affirm Ens to be eternally unchanged, and they hold to their

other affirmation that Ens is known by the mind. But (urges the

Eleate) can they really believe that Ens is eternally the same and

unchanged,--that it has neither life, nor mind, nor intelligence,

nor change, nor movement? This is incredible. They must concede

that Change, and the Changeable, are to be reckoned as Entia or

Realities: for if these be not so reckoned, and if all Entia are

unchangeable, no Ens can be an object of knowledge to any mind.

But though the changeable belongs to Ens, we must not affirm that

_all_ Ens is changeable. There cannot be either intellect or

knowledge, without something constant and unchangeable. It is

equally necessary to recognise something as constant and

unchangeable--something else as moving and changeable: Ens or

reality includes alike one and the other. The true philosopher

therefore cannot agree with those "Friends of Forms" who affirm

all Ens or Reality to be at rest and unchangeable, either under

one form or under many:--still less can he agree with those

opposite reasoners, who maintain all reality to be in perpetual

change and movement. He will acknowledge both and each--rest and

motion--the constant and the changeable--as making up together

total reality or Ens Totum.

[Side-note: Motion and rest are both of them Entia or realities.

Both agree in Ens. Ens is a _tertium quid_--distinct from both.

But how can anything be distinct from both?]

Still, however, we have not got over our difficulties. Motion and

Rest are contraries; yet we say that each and both are Realities

or Entia. In what is it that they both agree? Not in moving, nor

in being at rest, but simply in existence or reality. Existence or

reality therefore must be a _tertium quid_, apart from motion and

rest, not the sum total of those two items. Ens or the Real is

not, in its own proper nature, either in motion or at rest, but is

distinct from both. Yet how can this be? Surely, whatever is not

in motion, must be at rest--whatever is not at rest, must be in

motion. How can any thing be neither in motion nor at rest;

standing apart from both?[52]

[Footnote 52: Plato, Sophist. p. 250 C.]

[Side-note: Here the Eleate breaks off without solution. He

declares his purpose to show, That Ens is as full of puzzle as

Non-Ens,]

Here the Eleate breaks off his enquiry, without solving the

problems which he has accumulated. My purpose was (he says[53]) to

show that Ens was just as full of difficulties and embarrassments

as Non-Ens. Enough has been said to prove this clearly. When we

can once get clear of obscurity about Ens, we may hope to be

equally successful with Non-Ens.

[Footnote 53: Plato, Sophist. p. 250 D.]

[Side-note: Argument against those who admit no predication to be

legitimate, except identical. How far Forms admit of

intercommunion with each other.]

Let us try (he proceeds) another path. We know that it is a common

practice in our daily speech to apply many different predicates to

one and the same subject. We say of the same man, that he is fair,

tall, just, brave, &c., and several other epithets. Some persons

deny our right to do this. They say that the predicate ought

always to be identical with the subject: that we can only employ

with propriety such propositions as the following--man is

man--good is good, &c.: that to apply many predicates to one and

the same subject is to make one thing into many things.[54] But in

reply to these opponents, as well as to those whom we have before

combated, we shall put before them three alternatives, of which

they must choose one. 1. Either all Forms admit of intercommunion

one with the other. 2. Or no Forms admit of such intercommunion.

3. Or some Forms do admit of it, and others not. Between these

three an option must be made.[55]

[Footnote 54: Plato, Sophist. p. 251 B. [Greek: ô(s a)du/naton ta/

te polla\ e(\n kai\ to\ e(\n polla\ ei)=nai], &c.]

[Footnote 55: Plato, Sophist. p. 251 E.]

[Side-note: No intercommunion between any distinct forms. Refuted.

Common speech is inconsistent with this hypothesis.]

If we take the first alternative--that there is no intercommunion

of Forms--then the Forms _motion_ and _rest_ can have no

intercommunion with the Forms, _essence_ or _reality_. In other

words, neither motion nor rest exist: and thus the theory both of

those who say that all things are in perpetual movement, and of

those who say that all things are in perpetual rest, becomes

unfounded and impossible. Besides, these very men, who deny all

intercommunion of Forms, are obliged to admit it implicitly and

involuntarily in their common forms of speech. They cannot carry

on a conversation without it, and they thus serve as a perpetual

refutation of their own doctrine.[56]

[Footnote 56: Plato, Sophist. p. 252 D.]

[Side-note: Reciprocal intercommunion of all Forms--inadmissible.]

The second alternative--that all Forms may enter into communion

with each other--is also easily refuted. If this were true, motion

and rest might be put together: motion would be at rest, and rest

would be in motion--which is absurd. These and other forms are

contrary to each other. They reciprocally exclude and repudiate

all intercommunion.[57]

[Footnote 56: Plato, Sophist. p. 252 E.]

[Side-note: Some Forms admit of intercommunion, others not. This is

the only admissible doctrine. Analogy of letters and syllables.]

Remains only the third alternative--that some forms admit of

intercommunion--others not. This is the real truth (says the

Eleate). So it stands in regard to letters and words in language:

some letters come together in words frequently and

conveniently--others rarely and awkwardly--others never do nor ever can

come together. The same with the combination of sounds to obtain music.

It requires skill and art to determine which of these combinations

are admissible.

[Side-note: Art and skill are required to distinguish what Forms

admit of intercommunion, and what Forms do not. This is the

special intelligence of the Philosopher, who lives in the bright

region of Ens: the Sophist lives in the darkness of Non-Ens.]

So also, in regard to the intercommunion of Forms, skill and art

are required to decide which of them will come together, and which

will not. In every special art and profession the case is similar:

the ignorant man will fail in deciding this question--the man of

special skill alone will succeed.--So in regard to the

intercommunion of Forms or Genera universally with each other, the

comprehensive science of the true philosopher is required to

decide.[58] To note and study these Forms, is the purpose of the

philosopher in his dialectics or ratiocinative debate. He can

trace the one Form or Idea, stretching through a great many

separate particulars; he can distinguish it from all different

Forms: he knows which Forms are not merely distinct from each

other, but incapable of alliance and reciprocally repulsive--which

of them are capable of complete conjunction, the one

circumscribing and comprehending the other--and which of them

admit conjunction partial and occasional with each other.[59] The

philosopher thus keeps close to the Form of eternal and

unchangeable Ens or Reality--a region of such bright light that

the eyes of the vulgar cannot clearly see him: while the Sophist

on the other hand is also difficult to be seen, but for an

opposite reason--from the darkness of that region of Non-Ens or

Non-Reality wherein he carries on his routine-work.[60]

[Footnote 58: Plato, Sophist. p. 253 B. [Greek: a)=r' ou) met'

e)pistê/mês tino\s a)nagkai=on dia\ tô=n lo/gôn poreu/esthai to\n

o)rthô=s me/llonta dei/xein poi=a poi/ois sumphônei= tô=n genô=n

kai\ poi=a a)/llêla ou) de/chetai?]]

[Footnote 59: Plato, Sophist. p. 253 D-E.]

[Footnote 60: Plato, Sophist. p. 254 A. [Greek: O( de/ ge

philo/sophos, tê=| tou= o)/ntos a)ei\ dia\ logismô=n proskei/menos

i)de/a|, dia\ to\ lampro\n au)= tê=s chô/ras ou)damô=s eu)pe/tês

o)phthê=nai; ta\ ga\r tê=s tô=n pollô=n psuchê=s o)/mmata

karterei=n pro\s to\ thei=on a)phorô=nta a)du/nata.]]

[Side-note: He comes to enquire what Non-Ens is. He takes for

examination five principal

Forms--Motion--Rest--Ens--Same--Different.]

We have still to determine, however (continues Plato), what this

Non-Ens or Non-Reality is. For this purpose we will take a survey,

not of all Forms or Genera, but of some few the most important. We

will begin with the two before noticed--Motion and Rest ( = Change

and Permanence), which are confessedly irreconcileable and

reciprocally exclusive. Ens however enters into partnership with

both: for both of them _are_, or exist.[61] This makes up three

Forms or Genera--Motion, Rest, Ens: each of the three being the

same with itself, and different from the other two. Here we have

pronounced two new words--Same--Different.[62] Do these words

designate two other Forms, over and above the three before-named,

yet necessarily always intermingling in partnership with those

three, so as to make five Forms in all? Or are these two--Same and

Different--essential appendages of the three before-named? This

last question must be answered in the negative. Same and Different

are not essential appendages, or attached as parts, to Motion,

Rest, Ens. Same and Different may be predicated both of Motion and

of Rest: and whatever can be predicated alike of two contraries,

cannot be an essential portion or appendage of either. Neither

Motion nor Rest therefore _are_ essentially either Same or

Different: though both of them partake of Same or

Different--_i.e._, come into accidental co-partnership with one as

well as the other.[63] Neither can we say that Ens is identical

with either Idem or Diversum. Not with Idem--for we speak of both

Motion and Rest as Entia or Existences: but we cannot speak of

them as the same. Not with Diversum--for _different_ is a name

relative to something else from which it is different, but Ens is

not thus relative. Motion and Rest _are_ or exist, each in itself:

but each is _different_, relatively to the other, and to other

things generally. Accordingly we have here five Forms or

Genera--Ens, Motion, Rest, Idem, Diversum: each distinct from and

independent of all the rest.[64]

[Footnote 61: Plato, Sophist. p. 254 D. [Greek: to\ de/ ge o)\n

mikto\n a)mphoi=n; _e)sto\n_ ga\r a)/mphô pou.]]

[Footnote 62: Plato, Sophist. p. 254 E. [Greek: ti/ pot' au)= nu=n

ou(/tôs ei)rê/kamen to/ te tau)to\n kai\ tha/teron? po/tera du/o

ge/nê tine\ au)tô/, tô=n me\n triô=n a)/llô], &c.]

[Footnote 63: Plato, Sophist. p. 255 B. [Greek: mete/cheton mê\n

a)/mphô tau)tou= kai\ thate/rou . . . Mê\ toi/nun le/gômen

ki/nêsi/n _g' ei)=nai_ tau)to\n ê)\ tha/teron, mêd' au)=

sta/sin.]]

[Footnote 64: Plato, Sophist. p. 255 D.]

[Side-note: Form of Diversum pervades all the others.]

This Form of Diversum or Different pervades all the others: for

each one of them is different from the others, not through any

thing in its own nature, but because it partakes of the Form of

Difference.[65] Each of the five is different from others: or, to

express the same fact in other words, each of them _is not_ any

one of the others. Thus motion is different from rest, or _is not_

rest: but nevertheless motion _is_ or exists, because it partakes

of the Form--Ens. Again, Motion is different from Idem: it _is

not_ the Same: yet nevertheless it _is_ the same, because it

partakes of the nature of Idem, or is the same with itself. Thus

then both predications are true respecting motion: it _is_ the

same: it _is not_ the same, because it partakes of or enters into

partnership with both Idem and Diversum.[66] If motion in any way

partook of Rest, we should be able to talk of stationary motion:

but this is impossible: for we have already said that some Forms

cannot come into intercommunion--that they absolutely exclude each

other.

[Footnote 65: Plato, Sophist. p. 255 E. [Greek: kai\ dia\ pa/ntôn

ge au)tê\n phê/somen ei)=nai dielêluthui=an (tê\n thate/rou

phu/sin) e(\n e(/kaston ga\r e(/teron ei)=nai tô=n a)/llôn, _ou)

dia\ tê\n au)tou= phu/sin_, a)lla\ dia\ to\ mete/chein tê=s

i)de/as tê=s thate/rou.]]

[Footnote 66: Plato, Sophist. p. 256 A. [Greek: tê\n ki/nêsin dê\

tau)to/n t' ei)=nai kai\ mê\ tau)to\n o(mologête/on kai\ ou)

duscherante/on], &c.]

[Side-note: Motion is different from Diversum, or is not Diversum.

Motion is different from Ens--in other words, it is Non-Ens. Each

of these Forms is both Ens and Non-Ens.]

Again, Motion is different not only from Rest, and from Idem, but

also from Diversum itself. In other words, it is both Diversum in

a certain way, and also not Diversum: different and not

different.[67] As it is different from Rest, from Idem, from

Diversum--so also it is different from Ens, the remaining one of

the five forms or genera. In other words Motion is not Ens,--or is

Non-Ens. It is both Ens, and Non-Ens: Ens, so far as it partakes

of Entity or Reality--Non-Ens, so far as it partakes of

Difference, and is thus different from Ens as well as from the

other Forms.[68] The same may be said of the other Forms,--Rest,

Idem, Diversum: each of them is Ens, because it partakes of entity

or reality: each of them is also Non-Ens, or different from Ens,

because it partakes of Difference. Moreover, Ens itself is

different from the other four, and so far as these others go, it

is Non-Ens.[69]

[Footnote 67: Plato, Sophist. p. 256 C. [Greek: ou)ch e(/teron

a)]r' e)sti/ pê| kai\ e(/teron kata\ to\n nu=n dê\ lo/gon.]]

[Footnote 68: Plato, Sophist. p. 256 D. [Greek: ou)kou=n dê\

saphô=s ê( ki/nêsis o)/ntôs ou)k o)/n e)sti kai\ o)\n, e)pei/per

tou= o)/ntos mete/chei?]]

[Footnote 69: Plato, Sophist. p. 257 A. [Greek: kai\ to\ o)/n

a)/r' ê(mi=n, o(/sa per e)/sti ta\ a)/lla, kata\ tosau=ta ou)k

e)/stin; e)kei=na ga\r ou)k o)\n e(\n me\n au)to/ e)stin,

a)pe/ranta de\ to\n a)rithmo\n ta)/lla ou)k e)/stin au)=.]]

[Side-note: By Non-Ens, we do not mean anything contrary to Ens--we

mean only something different from Ens. Non-Ens is a real Form, as

well as Ens.]

Now note the consequence (continues the Eleate). When we speak of

Non-Ens, we do not mean any thing contrary to Ens, but only

something different from Ens. When we call any thing _not great_,

we do not affirm it to be the contrary of great, or to be

_little_: for it may perhaps be simply equal: we only mean that it

is different from great.[70] A negative proposition, generally,

does not signify anything contrary to the predicate, but merely

something else distinct or different from the predicate.[71] The

Form of Different, though of one and the same general nature

throughout, is distributed into many separate parts or

specialties, according as it is attached to different things. Thus

_not beautiful_ is a special mode of the general Form or Genus

Different, placed in antithesis with another Form or Genus, _the

beautiful_. The antithesis is that of one Ens or Real thing

against another Ens or Real thing: _not beautiful_, _not great_,

_not just_, exist just as much and are quite as real, as

_beautiful_, _great_, _just_. If the Different be a real Form or

Genus, all its varieties must be real also. Accordingly Different

from Ens is just as much a real Form as Ens itself:[72] and this

is what we mean by Non-Ens:--not any thing contrary to Ens.

[Footnote 70: Plato, Sophist. p. 257 B. [Greek: O(po/tan to\ mê\

o)\n le/gômen, ô(s e)/oiken, ou)k e)nanti/on ti le/gomen tou=

o)/ntos, a)ll' e(/teron mo/non . . . Oi(=on o(/tan ei)pôme/n _ti

mê\ me/ga_, to/te ma=llo/n ti/ soi phaino/metha to\ smikro\n ê)\

to\ i)/son dêlou=n tô=| r(ê/mati.]

Plato here means to imply that [Greek: to\ smikro\n] is the real

contrary of [Greek: to\ me/ga]. When we say [Greek: mê\ me/ga], we

do not necessarily mean [Greek: smikro/n]--we may mean [Greek:

i)/son]. Therefore [Greek: to\ mê\ me/ga] does not (in his view)

imply the contrary of [Greek: me/ga].]

[Footnote 71: Plato, Sophist. p. 257 B. [Greek: Ou)k a)/r'

e)nanti/on, o(/tan a)po/phasis le/gêtai, sêmai/nein

sugchôrêso/metha, tosou=ton de\ mo/non, o(/ti tô=n a)/llôn ti

mênu/ei to\ mê\ kai\ to\ ou) protithe/mena tô=n e)pio/ntôn

o)noma/tôn, ma=llon de\ tô=n pragma/tôn peri\ a)/tt' a)\n ke/êtai

ta\ e)piphtheggo/mena u(/steron tê=s a)popha/seôs o)no/mata.]]

[Footnote 72: Plato, Sophist. p. 258 B. [Greek: ê( tê=s thate/rou

mori/ou phu/seôs kai\ tê=s tou= o)/ntos pro\s a)/llêla

a)ntikeime/nôn a)ntithesis ou)de\n ê)=tton, ei) the/mis ei)pei=n

au)tou= tou= o)/ntos ou)si/a e)sti/n; ou)k e)nanti/on e)kei/nô|

sêmai/nousa, a)lla\ tosou=ton mo/non, e(/teron e)kei/nou.]]

[Side-note: The Eleate claims to have refuted Parmenides, and to

have shown both that Non-Ens is a real Form, and also what it is.]

Here then the Eleate professes to have found what Non-Ens is: that

it is a real substantive Form, numerable among the other Forms,

and having a separate constant nature of its own, like _not

beautiful_, _not great_:[73] that it is real and existent, just as

much as _Ens_, _beautiful_, _great_, &c. Disregarding the

prohibition of Parmenides, we have shown (says he) not only that

Non-Ens exists, but also what it is. Many Forms or Genera enter

into partnership or communion with each other; and Non-Ens is the

partnership between Ens and Diversum. Diversum, in partnership

with Ens, _is_ (exists), in consequence of such partnership:--yet

_it is not_ that with which it is in partnership, but different

therefrom--and being thus different from Ens, it is clearly and

necessarily Non-Ens: while Ens also, by virtue of its partnership

with Diversum, is different from all the other Forms, or _is not_

any one of them, and to this extent therefore Ens is Non-Ens. We

drop altogether the idea of contrariety, without enquiring whether

it be reasonably justifiable or not: we attach ourselves entirely

to the Form--_Different_.[74]

[Footnote 73: Plato, Sophist. p. 258 B-C. [Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n

bebai/ôs e)sti\ tê\n au)tou= phu/sin e)/chon . . . e)na/rithmon

tô=n pollô=n o)/ntô=n ei)=dos e(/n.]]

[Footnote 74: Plato, Sophist. pp. 258 E--259 A. [Greek: ê(mei=s

ga\r peri\ me\n e)nanti/ou tino\s au)tô=| chai/rein pa/lai

le/gomen, ei)/t' e)/stin ei)/te mê\ lo/gon e)/chon ê)\ kai\

panta/pasin a)/logon], &c.

[Greek: to\ me\n e(/teron metascho\n tou= o)/ntos _e)/sti_ me\n

dia\ tau/tên tê\n me/thexin, ou) mê\n e)kei=no ge ou)= me/teschen,

a)ll' e(/teron, e(/teron de\ tou= o)/ntos o)/n e)sti saphe/stata

e)x a)na/gkês ei)=nai mê\ o)/n], &c.]

[Side-note: The theory now stated is the only one, yet given, which

justifies predication as a legitimate process, with a predicate

different from the subject.]

Let those refute this explanation, who can do so (continues the

Eleate), or let them propose a better of their own, if they can:

if not, let them allow the foregoing as possible.[75] Let them not

content themselves with multiplying apparent contradictions, by

saying that the same may be in some particular respect different,

and that the different may be in some particular respect the same,

through this or the other accidental attribute.[76] All these

sophisms lead but to make us believe--That no one thing can be

predicated of any other--That there is no intercommunion of the

distinct Forms one with another, no right to predicate of any

subject a second name and the possession of a new attribute--That

therefore there can be no dialectic debate or philosophy, which is

all founded upon such intercommunion of Forms.[77] We have shown

that Forms do really come into conjunction, so as to enable us to

conjoin, truly and properly, predicate with subject, and to

constitute proposition and judgment as taking place among the true

Forms or Genera. Among these true Forms or Genera, Non-Ens is

included as one.[78]

[Footnote 75: Plato, Sophist. p. 259 A-C. [Greek: o(\ de\ nu=n

ei)rê/kamen ei)=nai to\ mê\ o)/n, ê)\ peisa/tô tis ô(s ou) kalô=s

le/gomen e)le/gxas, ê)\ me/chri per a)\n a)dunatê=|, lekte/on kai\

e)kei=nô| katha/per ê(mei=s le/gomen . . . to\ tau=ta _e)a/santa

ô(s dunata/_. . . .]

The language of the Eleate here is altogether at variance with the

spirit of Plato in his negative or Searching Dialogues. To say, as

he does, "Either accept the explanation which I give, or propose a

better of your own"--is a dilemma which the Sokrates of the

Theætêtus, and other dialogues, would have declined altogether.

The complaint here made by the Eleate, against disputants who did

nothing but propound difficulties--is the same as that which the

hearers of Sokrates made against _him_ (see Plato, Philêbus, p. 20

A, where the remark is put into the mouth, not of an opponent, but

of a respectful young listener); and many a reader of the Platonic

Parmenidês has indulged in the complaint.]

[Footnote 76: Plato, Sophist. p. 259 D. [Greek: e)kei/nê| kai\

kat' e)kei=no o(/ phêsi tou/tôn peponthe/nai po/teron.]]

[Footnote 77: Plato, Sophist. p. 259 B, E. [Greek: dia\ ga\r tê\n

a)llê/lôn tô=n ei)dô=n sumplokê\n o( lo/gos ge/gonen ê(mi=n.] 252

B: [Greek: oi( mêde\n e)ô=ntes koinôni/a| pathê/matos e(te/rou

tha/teron prosagoreu/ein.]]

[Footnote 78: Plato, Sophist. p. 260 A. [Greek: pro\s to\ to\n

lo/gon ê(mi=n tô=n o)/ntôn e(/n ti genô=n ei)=nai.] 258 B: [Greek:

to\ mê\ o)\n bebai/ôs e)sti\ tê\n au(tou= phu/sin e)/chon.]]

[Side-note: Enquiry, whether the Form of Non-Ens can come into

intercommunion with the Forms of Proposition, Opinion, Judgment.]

The Eleate next proceeds to consider, whether these two Genera or

Forms--Proposition, Judgment, Opinion, on the one hand, and

Non-Ens on the other--are among those which may or do enter into

partnership and conjunction with each other. For we have admitted

that there are some Forms which cannot come into partnership; and

the Sophist against whom we are reasoning, though we have driven

him to concede that Non-Ens is a real Form, may still contend that

it is one of those which cannot come into partnership with

Proposition, Judgment, Opinion--and he may allege that we can

neither embody in language, nor in mental judgment, that which _is

not_.[79]

[Footnote 79: Plato, Sophist. p. 260 C-D-E.]

[Side-note: Analysis of a Proposition. Every Proposition must have

a noun and a verb--it must be proposition of _Something_. False

propositions, involve the Form of Non-Ens, in relation to the

particular subject.]

Let us look attentively what Proposition, Judgment, Opinion, are.

As we said about Forms and letters, so about words: it is not

every combination of words which is possible, so as to make up a

significant proposition. A string of nouns alone will not make

one, nor a string of verbs alone. To compose the simplest

proposition, you must put together at least one noun and one verb,

in order to signify something respecting things existing, or

events past, present, and future.[80] Now every proposition must

be a proposition about something, or belonging to a certain

subject: every proposition must also be of a certain quality.[81]

_Theætêtus is sitting down_--_Theætêtus is flying._ Here are two

propositions, both belonging to the same subject, but with

opposite qualities: the former true, the latter false. The true

proposition affirms respecting Theætêtus real things as they are;

the false proposition affirms respecting him things different from

real, or non-real, as being real. The attribute of _flying_ is

just as real in itself as the attribute of _sitting_: but as

respects Theætêtus, or as predicated concerning him, it is

different from the reality, or non-real.[82] But still Theætêtus

is the subject of the proposition, though the predicate _flying_

does not really belong to him: for there is no other subject than

he, and without a subject the proposition would be no proposition

at all. When therefore different things are affirmed as the same,

or non-realities as realities, respecting you or any given

subject, the proposition so affirming is false.[83]

[Footnote 80: Plato, Sophist. pp. 261-262.]

[Footnote 81: Plato, Sophist. p. 262 E. [Greek: lo/gon

a)nagkai=on, o(/tan per ê)=|, tino\s ei)=nai lo/gon; mê\ de/ tinos

a)du/naton . . . Ou)kou=n kai\ _poi=o/n tina_ au)to\n ei)=nai

dei=?]]

[Footnote 82: Plato, Sophist. p. 263 B [Greek: O)/ntôn de/ ge

o)/nta e(/tera peri\ sou=.]

That is, [Greek: e(/tera tô=n o)/ntôn],--being the explanation

given by Plato of [Greek: ta\ mê\ o)/nta].]

[Footnote 83: Plato, Sophist. p. 263 D.]

[Side-note: Opinion, Judgment, Fancy, &c., are akin to Proposition,

and may be also false, by coming into partnership with the Form

Non-Ens.]

As propositions may be true or false, so also opinion or judgment

or conception, may be true or false: for opinion or judgment is

only the concluding result of deliberation or reflection--and

reflection is the silent dialogue of the mind with itself: while

conception or phantasy is the coalescence or conjunction of

opinion with present perception.[84] Both opinion and conception

are akin to proposition. It has thus been shown that false

propositions, and false opinions or judgments, are perfectly real,

and involve no contradiction: and that the Form or

Genus--Proposition, Judgment, Opinion--comes properly and naturally

into partnership with the Form Non-Ens.

[Footnote 84: Plato, Sophist. pp. 263-264. 264 A-B: [Greek:

Ou)kou=n e)/peiper lo/gos a)lêthê\s ê)=n kai\ pseudê/s, tou/tôn d'

e)pha/nê dia/noia me\n au)tê=s pro\s e(autê\n psuchê=s dia/logos,

do/xa de\ dianoi/as a)poteleu/têsis, phai/netai de\ o(\ le/gomen

(phantasi/a) su/mmixis ai)sthê/seôs kai\ do/xês, a)na/gkê dê\ kai\

tou/tôn tô=| lo/gô| xuggenô=n o)/ntôn pseudê= te au)tô=n e)/nia

kai\ e)ni/ote ei)=nai?]]

This was the point which Plato's Eleate undertook to prove against

Parmenides, and against the plea of the Sophist founded on the

Parmenidean doctrine.

* * * * *

[Side-note: It thus appears that Falsehood, imitating Truth, is

theoretically possible, and that there may be a profession, like

that of the Sophist, engaged in producing it.]

Here Plato closes his general philosophical discussion, and

reverts to the process of logical division from which he had

deviated. In descending the predicamental steps, to find the

logical place of the Sophist, Plato had reached a point where he

assumed Non-Ens, together with false propositions and judgments

affirming Non-Ens. To which the Sophist is conceived as replying,

that Non-Ens was contradictory and impossible, and that no

proposition could be false. On these points Plato has produced an

elaborate argument intended to refute him, and to show that there

was such a thing as falsehood imitating truth, or passing itself

off as truth: accordingly, that there might be an art or

profession engaged in producing such falsehood.

[Side-note: Logical distribution of Imitators--those who imitate

what they know, or what they do not know--of these last, some

sincerely believe themselves to know, others are conscious that

they do not know, and designedly impose upon others.]

Now the imitative profession may be distributed into those who

know what they imitate--and those who imitate without knowing.[85]

The man who mimics your figure or voice, knows what he imitates:

those who imitate the figure of justice and virtue often pass

themselves off as knowing it, yet do not really know it, having

nothing better than fancy or opinion concerning it. Of these

latter again--(_i.e._ the imitators with mere opinion, but no

knowledge, respecting that which sincerely they imitate)--there

are two classes: one, those who sincerely mistake their own mere

opinions for knowledge, and are falsely persuaded that they really

know: the other class, those who by their perpetual occupation in

talking, lead us to suspect and apprehend that they are conscious

of not knowing things, which nevertheless they discuss before

others as if they did know.[86]

[Footnote 85: Plato, Sophist. p. 267 A-D.]

[Footnote 86: Plato, Sophist. p. 268 A. [Greek: to\ de\ thate/rou

schê=ma, dia\ tê\n e)n toi=s lo/gois kuli/ndêsin, e)/chei pollê\n

u(popsi/an kai\ pho/bon ô(s a)gnoei= tau=ta a(\ pro\s tou\s

a)/llous ô(s ei)dô\s e)schêma/tistai.]]

[Side-note: Last class divided--Those who impose on numerous

auditors by long discourse, the Rhetor--Those who impose on select

auditors, by short question and answer, making the respondent

contradict himself--the Sophist.]

Of this latter class, again, we may recognise two sections: those

who impose upon a numerous audience by long discourses on public

matters: and those who in private, by short question and answer,

compel the person conversing with them to contradict himself.[87]

The man of long discourse is not the true statesman, but the

popular orator: the man of short discourse, but without any real

knowledge, is not the truly wise man, since he has no real

knowledge--but the imitator of the wise man, or Sophist.

[Footnote 87: Plato, Sophist. p. 268 B. [Greek: to\n me\n

dêmosi/a| te kai\ makroi=s lo/gois pro\s plê/thê dunato\n

_ei)rôneu/esthai_ kathorô=; to\n de\ i)di/a| te kai\ brache/si

lo/gois a)nagka/zonta to\n prosdialego/menon e)nantiologei=n

au)to\n au)tô=|.]]

* * * * *

[Side-note: Dialogue closed. Remarks upon it. Characteristics

ascribed to a Sophist.]

We have here the conclusion of this abstruse and complicated

dialogue, called Sophistês. It ends by setting forth, as the

leading characteristics of the Sophist--that he deals in short

question and answer so as to make the respondent contradict

himself: That he talks with small circles of listeners, upon a

large variety of subjects, on which he possesses no real

knowledge: That he mystifies or imposes upon his auditors; not

giving his own sincere convictions, but talking for the production

of a special effect. He is [Greek: e)nantiopoiologiko\s] and

[Greek: ei)/rôn], to employ the two original Platonic words,

neither of which is easy to translate.

[Side-note: These characteristics may have belonged to other

persons, but they belonged in an especial manner to Sokrates

himself.]

I dare say that there were some acute and subtle disputants in

Athens to whom these characteristics belonged, though we do not

know them by name. But we know one to whom they certainly

belonged: and that was, Sokrates himself. They stand manifest and

prominent both in the Platonic and in the Xenophontic dialogues.

The attribute which Xenophon directly predicates about him, that

"in conversation he dealt with his interlocutors just as he

pleased,"[88] is amply exemplified by Plato in the Protagoras,

Gorgias, Euthyphron, Lachês, Charmides, Lysias, Alkibiadês I. and

II., Hippias I. and II., &c. That he cross-examined and puzzled

every one else without knowing the subjects on which he talked,

better than they did--is his own declaration in the Apology. That

the Athenians regarded him as a clever man mystifying

them--talking without sincere persuasion, or in a manner so strange

that you could not tell whether he was in jest or in

earnest--overthrowing men's established convictions by subtleties which

led to no positive truth--is also attested both by what he himself

says in the Apology, and by other passages of Plato and

Xenophon.[89]

[Footnote 88: Xen. Memor. i. 2, 14, [Greek: toi=s de\

dialegome/nois au)tô=| pa=si chrô/menon e)n toi=s lo/gois o(/pôs

bou/loito.]

Compare, to the same purpose, i. 4, 1, where we are told that

Sokrates employed his colloquial Elenchus as a means of chastising

([Greek: kolastêri/ou e(/neka]) those who thought that they knew

every thing: and the conversation of Sokrates with the youthful

Euthydêmus, especially what is said by Xenophon at the close of it

(iv. 4, 39-40).

The power of Sokrates to vanquish in dialogue the persons called

Sophists, and to make them contradict themselves in answering--is

clearly brought out, and doubtless intentionally brought out, in

some of Plato's most consummate dialogues. Alkibiades says, in the

Platonic Protagoras (p. 336), "Sokrates confesses himself no match

for Protagoras in long speaking. If Protagoras on his side

confesses himself inferior to Sokrates in dialogue, Sokrates is

satisfied."]

[Footnote 89: Plato, Apolog. p. 37 E. [Greek: e)a/n te ga\r le/gô,

o(/ti tô=| theô=| a)peithei=n tou=t' e)/stin, kai\ dia\ tou=t'

a)du/naton ê(suchi/an a)/gein, ou) pei/sesthe/ moi ô(s

ei)rôneuome/nô|.]

Xen. Memor. iv. 4, 9. [Greek: a)rkei= ga\r] (says Hippias to

Sokrates), [Greek: o(/ti tô=n a)/llôn katagela=|s, e)rôtô=n kai\

e)le/gchôn pa/ntas, au)to\s de\ ou)deni\ the/lôn u(pe/chein

lo/gon, ou)de\ gnô/mên a)pophai/nesthai peri\ ou)deno/s.] See also

Memorab. iii. 5, 24.

Compare a striking passage in Plato's Menon, p. 80 A; also

Theætêt. p. 149; and Plutarch, Quæst. Platonic. p. 1000.

The attribute [Greek: ei)rônei/a], which Plato here declares as

one of the main characteristics of the Sophists, is applied to

Sokrates in a very special manner, not merely in the Platonic

dialogues, but also by Timon in the fragments of his Silli

remaining--[Greek: Au)tê\ e)kei/nê ê( eiôthui=a _ei)rônei/a

Sôkra/tous_] (Plato, Repub. i. p. 337 A); and again--[Greek:

prou)/legon o(/ti su\ a)pokri/nasthai me\n ou)k e)thelêsois,

_ei)rôneu/soio_ de\ kai\ pa/nta ma=llon poiê/sois ê)\

a)pokri/noio, ei)/ tis ti/ se e)rôta=|.] So also in the Symposion,

p. 216 E, Alkibiades says about Sokrates [Greek: _ei)rôneuo/menos_

de\ kai\ pai/zôn pa/nta to\n bi/on pro\s tou\s a)nthrô/pous

diatelei=.] And Gorgias, p. 489 E. In another part of the Gorgias

(p. 481 B), Kallikles says, "Tell me, Chærephon, does Sokrates

mean seriously what he says, or is he bantering?" [Greek:

spouda/zei tau=ta Sôkra/tês ê)\ pai/zei?] Protagoras, Prodikus,

Hippias, &c., do not seem to have been [Greek: ei)/rônes] at all,

as far as our scanty knowledge goes.

The words [Greek: ei)/rôn, ei)rôniko/s, ei)rônei/a] seem to

include more than is implied in our words _irony_, _ironical_.

Schleiermacher translates the words [Greek: a(plou=n mimê/tên,

ei)rôniko\n mimê/tên], at the end of the Sophistês, by "den

ehrlichen, den Schlauen, Nachahmer"; which seems to me near the

truth,--meaning one who either speaks what he does not think, or

evades speaking what he does think, in order to serve some special

purpose.]

[Side-note: The conditions enumerated in the dialogue (except the

taking of a fee) fit Sokrates better than any other known person.]

Moreover, if we examine not merely the special features assigned

to the Sophist in the conclusion of the dialogue, but also those

indicated in the earlier part of it, we shall find that many of

them fit Sokrates as well as they could have fitted any one else.

If the Sophists hunted after rich young men,[90] Sokrates did the

same; seeking opportunities for conversation with them by

assiduous frequentation of the palæstræ, as well as in other ways.

We see this amply attested by Plato and Xenophon:[91] we see

farther that Sokrates announces it as a propensity natural to him,

and meritorious rather than otherwise. Again, the argumentative

dialogue--disputation or eristic reduced to an art, and debating

on the general theses of just and unjust, which Plato notes as

characterising the Sophists[92]--belonged in still higher

perfection to Sokrates. It not only formed the business of his

life, but is extolled by Plato elsewhere,[93] as the true walk of

virtuous philosophy. But there was undoubtedly this difference

between Sokrates and the Sophists, that he conversed and argued

gratuitously, delighting in the process itself: while they both

asked and received money for it. Upon this point, brought forward

by Plato both directly and with his remarkable fertility in

multiplying indirect allusions, the peculiarity of the Sophist is

made mainly to turn. To ask or receive a fee for communicating

knowledge, virtue, aptitude in debate, was in the view of Sokrates

and Plato a grave enormity: a kind of simoniacal practice.[94]

[Footnote 90: Plato, Sophist. p. 223. [Greek: ne/ôn plousi/ôn kai\

e)ndo/xôn thê/ra].]

[Footnote 91: In the opening words of the Platonic Protagoras, we

read as a question from the friend or companion of Sokrates,

[Greek: Po/then, ô)= Sô/krates, phai/nei? ê)\ _a)po\ kunêgesi/ou

tou=_ peri\ tê\n A)lkibia/dou ô(/ran?]

See also the opening of the Charmides, Lysis, Alkibiadês I., and

the speech of Alkibiades in the Symposion.

Compare also Xenophon, Memorab. iv. 2, 1-2-6, with the

commencement of the Platonic Protagoras; in which the youth

Hippokrates, far from being run after by the Sophist Protagoras,

is described as an enthusiastic admirer of that Sophist from

reputation alone, and as eagerly soliciting Sokrates to present

him to Protagoras (Protag. pp. 310-311).]

[Footnote 92: Plato, Sophist. p. 225 C. [Greek: To\ de/ ge

e)/ntechnon kai\ peri\ dikai/ôn au)tôn kai\ a)di/kôn kai\ peri\

tô=n a)/llôn o(/lôs a)mphisbêtou=n.]

Spengel says truly--in his [Greek: Sunagôgê\ Technô=n]

p. 40--"Quod si sermo et locus hic esset de Sophistarum doctrinâ et

philosophiâ, odium quod nunc vulgo in eos vertunt, majore ex parte

sine causâ et ratione esse conceptum, eosque laude magis quam

vituperatione dignos esse censendos--haud multâ cum operâ exponi

posset. Sic, quo proscinduntur convicio, juvenes non nisi magno

pretio eruditos esse, levissimum est: immo hoc sophistas suæ

ipsorum scientiæ satis confisos esse neque eam despexisse, docet:

et vitium, si modo vitium dicendum, commune est vel potius ortum

optimis lyricæ poeseos asseclis, Simonide, Pindaro, aliis."]

[Footnote 93: Plato, Theætet. p. 175 C.]

[Footnote 94: It is to be remembered, however, that Plato, though

doubtless exacting no fee, received presents from rich admirers

like Dion and Dionysius: and there were various teachers who found

presents more lucrative than fees. "M. Antonius Guipho, fuisse

dicitur ingenii magni, memoriæ singularis, nec minus Graicé, quam

Latino, doctus: præterea comi fucilique naturâ, _nec unquam de

mercedibus pactus--eoque plura ex liberalitate discentium

consecutus._" (Sueton. De Illustr. Grammat. 7.)]

[Side-note: The art which Plato calls "the thoroughbred and noble

Sophistical Art" belongs to Sokrates and to no one else. The

Elenchus was peculiar to him. Protagoras and Prodikus were not

Sophists in this sense.]

We have seen also that Plato assigns to what he terms "the

thoroughbred and noble Sophistic Art" ([Greek: ê( ge/nei gennai/a

sophistikê\]), the employment of the Elenchus, for the purpose of

destroying, in the minds of others, that false persuasion of

existing knowledge which was the radical impediment to their

imbibing acquisitions of real knowledge from the teacher.[95] Here

Plato draws a portrait not only strikingly resembling Sokrates,

but resembling no one else. As far as we can make out, Sokrates

stood alone in this original conception of the purpose of the

Elenchus, and in his no less original manner of working it out. To

prove to others that they knew nothing, is what he himself

represents to be his mission from the Delphian oracle. Sokrates is

a Sophist of the most genuine and noble stamp: others are

Sophists, but of a more degenerate variety. Plato admits the

analogy with reluctance, and seeks to attenuate it.[96] We may

remark, however, that according to the characteristic of the true

Sophist here given by Plato, Protagoras and Prodikus were less of

Sophists than Sokrates. For though we know little of the two

former, yet there is good reason to believe, That the method which

they generally employed was, that of continuous and eloquent

discourse, lecture, exhortation: that disputation by short

question and answer was less usual with them, and was not their

strong point: and that the Elenchus, in the Sokratic meaning, can

hardly be said to have been used by them at all. Now Plato, in

this dialogue, tells us that the true and genuine Sophist

renounces the method of exhortation as unprofitable; or at least

employs it only subject to the condition of having previously

administered the Elenchus with success, as his own patent

medicine.[97] Upon this definition, Sokrates is more truly a

Sophist than either Protagoras or Prodikus: neither of whom, so

far as we know, made it their business to drive the respondent to

contradictions.

[Footnote 95: Plato, Sophist. p. 230 D. [Greek: pri\n a)\n

e)le/gchôn tis to\n e)legcho/menon ei)s ai)schu/nên katastê/sas,

ta\s toi=s mathê/masin e)mpodi/ous do/xas e)xelô/n, katharo\n

a)pophê/nê| kai\ tau=ta ê(gou/menon, a(/per oi)=den ei)de/nai

mo/na, plei/ô de\ mê/.]]

[Footnote 96: Plato, Sophist. p. 231 C.]

[Footnote 97: Plato, Sophist. p. 230 E.]

[Side-note: Universal knowledge--was professed at that time by all

Philosophers--Plato, Aristotle, &c.]

Again, Plato tells us that the Sophist is a person who disputes

about all matters, and pretends to know all matters: respecting

the invisible Gods, respecting the visible Gods, Sun, Moon, Stars,

Earth, &c., respecting transcendental philosophy, generation and

essence--and respecting all civil, social, and political

questions--and respecting special arts. On all these miscellaneous

topics, according to Plato, the Sophists pretended to be

themselves instructed, and to qualify their disciples for arguing

on all of them.

Now it is possible that the Sophists of that day may have

pretended to this species of universal knowledge; but most

certainly Plato and Aristotle did the same. The dialogues of Plato

embrace all that wide range of topics which he tells us that the

Sophists argued about, and pretended to teach. In an age when the

amount of positive knowledge was so slender, it was natural for a

clever talker or writer to fancy that he knew every thing. In

reference to every subject then discussed, an ingenious mind could

readily supply deductions from both hypotheses--generalities

ratiocinative or imaginative--strung together into an apparent

order sufficient for the exigencies of hearers. There was no large

range of books to be studied; no stock of facts or experience to

be mastered. Every philosopher wove his own tissue of theory for

himself, without any restraint upon his intellectual impulse, in

regard to all the problems then afloat. What the theories of the

Sophists were, we do not know: but Plato, author of the Timæus,

Republic, Leges, Kratylus, Menon--who affirmed the pre-existence

as well as post-existence of the mind, and the eternal

self-existence of Ideas--has no fair ground for reproaching them with

blamable rashness in the extent and diversity of topics which they

presumed to discuss. They obtained indeed (he says justly) no

truth or knowledge, but merely a fanciful semblance of knowledge--an

equivocal show or imitation of reality.[98] But Plato himself

obtains nothing more in the Timæus: and we shall find Aristotle

pronouncing the like condemnation on the Platonic self-existent

Ideas. If the Sophists professed to be encyclopedists, this was an

error natural to the age; and was the character of Grecian

philosophy generally, even in its most illustrious manifestations.

[Footnote 98: Plato, Sophistês, p. 233 C. [Greek: doxastikê\n

a)/ra tina\ peri\ pa/ntôn e)pistê/mên o( sophistê\s ê(mi=n, a)ll'

ou)k a)lêthei/an e)/chôn a)nape/phantai.] 234 B: [Greek: mimê/mata

kai\ o(mô/numa tô=n o)/ntôn.]

When the Eleate here says about the Sophists (p. 233 B), [Greek:

dokou=si pro\s tau=ta e)pistêmo/nôs e)/chein au)toi\ pro\s a(/per

a)ntile/gousin], this is exactly what Sokrates, in the Platonic

Apology, tells us about the impression made by his own dialectics

or refutative conversation, Plato, Apolog. p. 23 A.

[Greek: e)k tau/têsi dê\ tê=s e)xeta/seôs pollai\ me\n

a)pe/chtheiai/ moi gego/nasi kai\ oi(=ai chalepô/tatai kai\

baru/tatai, ô(/ste polla\s diabola\s a)p' au)tô=n gegone/nai,

o)/noma/ te tou=to le/gesthai, sopho\s ei)=nai; oi)=ontai ga/r me

e(ka/stoth' oi( paro/ntes tau=t' ei)=nai sopho\n a(\ a)\n a)/llon

e)xele/gxô.]]

[Side-note: Inconsistency of Plato's argument in the Sophistês. He

says that the Sophist is a disputatious man who challenges every

one for speaking falsehood. He says also that the Sophist is one

who maintains false propositions to be impossible.]

Having traced the Sophist down to the character of a man of

delusion and imposture, passing off appearance as if it were

reality, and falsehood as if it were truth--Plato (as we have

seen) suddenly turns round upon himself, and asks how such a

character is possible. He represents the Sophist as maintaining

that no man could speak falsely[99]--that a false proposition was

self-contradictory, inasmuch as Non-Ens was inconceivable and

unutterable. I do not see how the argument which Plato here

ascribes to the Sophist, can be reconciled with the character

which he had before given of the Sophist--as a man who passed his

life in disputation and controversy; which involves the perpetual

arraigning of other men's opinions as false. A professed disputant

may perhaps be accused of admitting nothing to be true: but he

cannot well be charged with maintaining that nothing is false.

[Footnote 99: Plato, Sophist. pp. 240-241. Compare 260 E.]

[Side-note: Reasoning of Plato about Non-Ens--No predications

except identical.]

To pass over this inconsistency, however--the reasoning of Plato

himself on the subject of Non-Ens is an interesting relic of

ancient speculation. He has made for himself an opportunity of

canvassing, not only the doctrine of Parmenides, who emphatically

denied Non-Ens--but also the opposite doctrine of other schools.

He farther comments upon a different opinion, advanced by other

philosophers--That no proposition can be admitted, in which the

predicate is different from the subject: That no proposition is

true or valid, except an identical proposition. You cannot say,

Man is good: you can only say, Man is Man, or Good is good. You

cannot say--Sokrates is good, brave, old, stout, flat-nosed, &c.,

because you thereby multiply the one Sokrates into many. One thing

cannot be many, nor many things one.[100]

[Footnote 100: Plato, Sophist. p. 251 B-C. Compare Plato, Philêbus,

p. 14 C.]

[Side-note: Misconception of the function of the copula in

predication.]

This last opinion is said to have been held by Antisthenes, one of

the disciples of Sokrates. We do not know how he explained or

defended it, nor what reserves he may have admitted to qualify it.

Plato takes no pains to inform us on this point. He treats the

opinion with derision, as an absurdity. We may conceive it as one

of the many errors arising from a misconception of the purpose and

function of the copula in predication. Antisthenes probably

considered that the copula implied identity between the predicate

and the subject. Now the explanation or definition of _man_ is

different from the explanation or definition of _good_:

accordingly, if you say, Man is good, you predicate identity

between two different things: as if you were to say Two is Three,

or Three is Four. And if the predicates were multiplied, the

contradiction became aggravated, because then you predicated

identity not merely between one thing and another different thing,

but between one thing and many different things. The opinion of

Antisthenes depends upon two assumptions--That each separate word,

whether used as subject or as predicate, denotes a Something

separate and existent by itself: That the copula implies identity.

Now the first of these two assumptions is not unfrequently

admitted, even in the reasonings of Plato, Aristotle, and many

others: while the latter is not more remarkable than various other

erroneous conceptions which have been entertained, as to the

function of the copula.

[Side-note: No formal Grammar or Logic existed at that time. No

analysis or classification of propositions before the works of

Aristotle.]

What is most important to observe is--That at the time which we

are here discussing, there existed no such sciences either grammar

or formal logic. There was a copious and flexible language--a

large body of literature, chiefly poetical--and great facility as

well as felicity in the use of speech for the purposes of

communication and persuasion. But no attempt had yet been made to

analyse or theorise on speech: to distinguish between the

different functions of words, and to throw them into suitable

classes: to generalise the conditions of good or bad use of speech

for proving a conclusion: or to draw up rules for grammar, syntax,

and logic. Both Protagoras and Prodikus appear to have contributed

something towards this object, and Plato gives various scattered

remarks going still farther. But there was no regular body either

of grammar or of formal logic: no established rules or principles

to appeal to, no recognised teaching, on either topic. It was

Aristotle who rendered the important service of filling up this

gap. I shall touch hereafter upon the manner in which he

proceeded: but the necessity of laying down a good theory of

predication, and precepts respecting the employment of

propositions in reasoning, is best shown by such misconceptions as

this of Antisthenes; which naturally arise among argumentative men

yet untrained in the generalities of grammar and logic.

[Side-note: Plato's declared purpose in the Sophistês--To confute

the various schools of thinkers--Antisthenes, Parmenides, the

Materialists, &c.]

Plato announces his intention, in this portion of the Sophistês,

to confute all these different schools of thinkers, to whom he has

made allusion.[101] His first purpose, in reasoning against those

who maintained Non-Ens to be an incogitable absurdity, is, to show

that there are equal difficulties respecting Ens: that the

Existent is just as equivocal and unintelligible as the

Non-Existent. Those who recognise two co-ordinate and elementary

principles (such as Hot and Cold) maintain that both are really

existent, and call them both, Entia. Here (argues Plato) they

contradict themselves: they call their two elementary principles

_one_. What do they mean by existence, if this be not so?

[Footnote 101: Plato, Sophist. p. 251 C-D. [Greek: I(/na toi/nun

pro\s a(/pantas ê(mi=n o( lo/gos ê)=| tou\s pô/pote peri\ ou)si/as

kai\ o(tiou=n dialechthe/ntas, e)/stô kai\ pro\s tou/tous kai\

pro\s tou\s a)/llous, o(/sois e)/mprosthen dieile/gmetha, ta\ nu=n

ô(s e)n e)rôtê/sei lechthêso/mena.]]

Then again, Parmenides--and those who affirm that Ens Totum was

essentially Unum, denying all plurality--had difficulties on their

side to surmount. Ens could not be identical with Unum, nor was

the name _Ens_, identical with the thing named Ens. Moreover,

though Ens Unum was _Totum_, yet Totum was not identical with Ens

or with Unum. _Totum_ necessarily implied _partes_: but the _Unum

per se_ was indivisible or implied absence of parts. Though it was

true therefore that Ens was both Unum and Totum, these two were

both of them essentially different from Ens, and belonged to it

only by way of adjunct accident. Parmenides was therefore wrong in

saying that Unum alone existed.

[Side-note: Plato's refutation throws light upon the doctrine of

Antisthenes.]

The reasoning here given from Plato throws some light upon the

doctrine just now cited from Antisthenes. You cannot say (argues

Plato against the advocates of duality) that _two_ elements (Hot

and Cold) are both of them Entia or Existent, because by so doing

you call them _one_. You cannot say (argues Antisthenes) that

Sokrates is good, brave, old, &c., because by such speech you call

one thing three. Again, in controverting the doctrine of

Parmenides, Plato urges, That Ens cannot _be_ Unum, because it is

Totum (Unum having no parts, while Totum has parts): but it may

carry with it the accident Unum, or may have Unum applied to it as

a predicate by accident. Here again, we have difficulties similar

to those which perplexed Antisthenes. For the same reason that

Plato will not admit, That Ens _is_ Unum--Antisthenes will not

admit, That Man _is_ good. It appeared to him to imply essential

identity between the predicate and the subject.

All these difficulties and others to which we shall come

presently, noway peculiar to Antisthenes--attest the incomplete

formal logic of the time: the want of a good theory respecting

predication and the function of the copula.

[Side-note: Plato's argument against the Materialists.]

Pursuing the purpose of establishing his conclusion (_viz._ That

Ens involved as many perplexities as Non-Ens), Plato comes to the

two opposite sects:--1. Those (the Materialists) who recognised

bodies and nothing else, as the real Entia or Existences. 2. Those

(the Friends of Forms, the Idealists) who maintained that

incorporeal and intelligible Forms or Species were the only real

existences; and that bodies had no existence, but were in

perpetual generation and destruction.[102]

[Footnote 102: Plato, Sophist. p. 246 B.]

Respecting the first, Plato says that they must after all be

ashamed not to admit, that justice, intelligence, &c., are

something real, which may be present or absent in different

individual men, and therefore must exist apart from all

individuals. Yet justice and intelligence are not bodies.

Existence therefore is something common to body and not-body. The

characteristic mark of existence is, power or potentiality.

Whatever has power to act upon any thing else, or to be acted on

by any thing else, is a real Ens or existent something.[103]

[Footnote 103: Plato, Sophist. p. 247 D-E. [Greek: le/gô dê\ to\

kai\ o(poianou=n kektême/non _du/namin_, ei)/t' ei)s to\ poiei=n

e(/teron o(tiou=n pephuko\s ei)/t' ei)s to\ pathei=n** kai\

smikro/taton u(po\ tou= phaulota/tou, ka)\n ei) mo/non ei)sa/pax,

pa=n tou=to o)/ntôs ei)=nai; ti/themai ga\r o(/ron o(ri/zein ta\

o)/nta, ô(s e)/stin ou)k a)/llo ti plê\n _du/namis_.]]

[Side-note: Reply open to the Materialists.]

Unfortunately we never know any thing about the opponents of

Plato, nor how they would have answered his objection--except so

much as he chooses to tell us. But it appears to me that the

opponents whom he is here confuting would have accepted his

definition, and employed it for the support of their own opinion.

"We recognise (they would say) just men, or hard bodies, as

existent, because they conform to your definition: they have power

to act and be acted upon. But justice, apart from just

men--hardness, apart from hard bodies--has no such power: they neither

act upon any thing, nor are acted on by any thing: therefore we do

not recognise them as existent." According to their view, objects

of perception acted on the mind, and therefore were to be

recognised as existent: objects of mere conception did not act on

the mind, and therefore had not the same claim to be ranked as

existent: or at any rate they acted on the mind in a different

way, which constitutes the difference between the real and unreal.

Of this difference Plato's definition takes no account.[104]

[Footnote 104: Plato, Sophist. p. 247 E. [Greek: to\ kai\

o(poianou=n kektême/non du/namin], &c.]

[Side-note: Plato's argument against the Idealists or Friends of

Forms. Their point of view against him.]

Plato now presents this same definition to the opposite class of

philosophers: to the Idealists, or partisans of the incorporeal--or

of self-existent and separate Forms. These thinkers drew a

marked distinction between the Existent and the Generated--between

Ens and Fiens--[Greek: to\ o)\n] and [Greek: to\ gigno/menon]. Ens

or the Existent was eternal and unchangeable: Fiens or the

Generated was always in change or transit, coming or going. We

hold communion (they said) with the generated or transitory,

through our bodies and sensible perceptions: we hold communion

with unchangeable Ens through our mind and by intellection. They

did not admit the definition of existence just given by Plato.

They contended that that definition applied only to Fiens or to

the sensible world--not to Ens or the intelligible world.[105]

Fiens had power to act and be acted upon, and existed only under

the condition of being so: that is, its existence was only

temporary, conditional, relative: it had no permanent or absolute

existence at all. Ens was the real existent, absolute and

independent--neither acting upon any thing nor being acted upon.

They considered that Plato's definition was not a definition of

Existence, or the Absolute: but rather of Non-Existence, or the

Relative.

[Footnote 105: Plato, Sophist. p. 248 C.]

[Side-note: Plato argues--That to know, and be known, is action and

passion, a mode of relativity.]

But (asks Plato in reply) what do you mean by "the mind holding

communion" with the intelligible world? You mean that the mind

knows, comprehends, conceives, the intelligible world: or in other

words, that the intelligible world (Ens) is known, is

comprehended, is conceived, by the mind. To be known or conceived,

is to be acted on by the mind.[106] Ens, or the intelligible

world, is thus acted upon by the mind, and has a power to be so

acted upon: which power is, in Plato's definition here given, the

characteristic mark of existence. Plato thus makes good his

definition as applying to Ens, the world of intelligible Forms--not

less than to Fiens, the world of sensible phenomena.

[Footnote 106: Plato, Sophist. p. 248 D. [Greek: ei)

prosomologou=si tê\n me\n psuchê\n ginô/skein, tê\n d' ou)si/an

gignô/skesthai . . . Ti/ de/? to\ ginô/skein ê)\ gignô/skesthai

phate\ poi/êma ê)\ pa/thos ê)\ a)mpho/teron?]]

The definition of _existence_, here given by Plato, and the way in

which he employs it against the two different sects of

philosophers--Materialists and Idealists--deserves some remark.

[Side-note: Plato's reasoning--compared with the points of view of

both.]

According to the Idealists or Immaterialists, Plato's definition

of existence would be supposed to establish the case of their

opponents the Materialists, who recognised nothing as existing

except the sensible world: for Plato's definition (as the

Idealists thought) fitted the sensible world, but fitted nothing

else. Now these Idealists did not recognise the sensible world as

existent at all. They considered it merely as Fiens, ever

appearing and vanishing. The only Existent, in their view, was the

intelligible world--Form or Forms, absolute, eternal,

unchangeable, but neither visible nor perceivable by any of the

other senses. This is the opinion against which Plato _here_

reasons, though in various other dialogues he gives it as his own

opinion, or at least, as the opinion of his representative

spokesman.

In this portion of the present dialogue (Sophistês) the point

which he makes is, to show to the Idealists, or Absolutists, that

their Forms are not really absolute, or independent of the mind:

that the existence of these forms is relative, just as much as

that of the sensible world. The sensible world exists relatively

to our senses, really or potentially exercised: the intelligible

world exists relatively to our intelligence, really or potentially

exercised. In both cases alike, we hold communion with the two

worlds: the communion cannot be left out of sight, either in the

one case or in the other. The communion is the entire and

fundamental fact, of which the Subject conceiving and the Object

conceived, form the two opposite but inseparable faces--the

concave and convex, to employ a favourite illustration of

Aristotle. Subject conceiving, in communion with Object conceived,

are one and the same indivisible fact, looked at on different

sides. This is, in substance, what Plato urges against those

philosophers who asserted the absolute and independent existence

of intelligible Forms. Such forms (he says) exist only in

communion with, or relatively to, an intelligent mind: they are

not absolute, not independent: they are Objects of intelligence to

an intelligent Subject, but they are nothing without the Subject,

just as the Subject is nothing without them or some other Object.

Object of intelligence implies an intelligent Subject: Object of

sense implies a sentient Subject. Thus Objects of intelligence, and

Objects of sense, exist alike relatively to a Subject--not

absolutely or independently.

[Side-note: The argument of Plato goes to an entire denial of the

Absolute, and a full establishment of the Relative.]

This argument, then, of Plato against the Idealists is an argument

against the Absolute--showing that there can be no Object of

intelligence or conception without its obverse side, the

intelligent or concipient Subject. The Idealists held, that by

soaring above the sensible world into the intelligible world, they

got out of the region of the Relative into that of the Absolute.

But Plato reminds them that this is not the fact. Their

intelligible world is relative, not less than the sensible; that

is, it exists only in communion with a mind or Subject, but with a

Cogitant or intelligent Subject, not a percipient Subject.

[Side-note: Coincidence of his argument with the doctrine of

Protagoras in the Theætêtus.]

The argument here urged by Plato coincides in its drift and result

with the dictum of Protagoras--Man is the measure of all things.

In my remarks on the Theætêtus,[107] I endeavoured to make it

appear that the Protagorean dictum was really a negation of the

Absolute, of the Thing in itself, of the Object without a

Subject:--and an affirmation of the Relative, of the Thing in

communion with a percipient or concipient mind, of Object

implicated with Subject--as two aspects or sides of one and the

same conception or cognition. Though Plato in the Theætêtus argued

at length against Protagoras, yet his reasoning here in the

Sophistês establishes by implication the conclusion of Protagoras.

Here Plato impugns the doctrine of those who (like Sokrates in his

own Theætêtus) held that the sensible world alone was relative,

but that the intelligible world or Forms were absolute. He shows

that the latter were no less relative to a mind than the former;

and that mind, either percipient or cogitant, could never be

eliminated from "communion" with them.

[Footnote 107: See my notice of the Theætêtus, in the chapter

immediately preceding, where I have adverted to Plato's reasoning

in the Sophistês.]

[Side-note: The Idealists maintained that Ideas or Forms were

entirely unchangeable and eternal. Plato here denies this, and

maintains that ideas were partly changeable, partly unchangeable.]

These same Idealist philosophers also maintained--That Forms, or

the intelligible world, were eternally the same and unchangeable.

Plato here affirms that this ideas or opinion is not true: he

contends that the intelligible world includes both change and

unchangeableness, motion and rest, difference and sameness, life,

mind, intelligence, &c. He argues that the intelligible world,

whether assumed as consisting of one Form or of many Forms, could

not be regarded either as wholly changeable or wholly

unchangeable: it must comprise both constituents alike. If all

were changeable, or if all were unchangeable, there could be no

Object of knowledge; and, by consequence, no knowledge.[108] But

the fact that there _is_ knowledge (cognition, conception), is the

fundamental fact from which we must reason; and any conclusion

which contradicts this must be untrue. Therefore the intelligible

world is not all homogeneous, but contains different and even

opposite Forms--change and unchangeableness--motion and

rest--different and same.[109]

[Footnote 108: Plato, Sophist. p. 249 B. [Greek: xumbai/nei d'

ou)=n a)kinê/tôn te o)/ntôn nou=n mêdeni\ peri\ mêdeno\s ei)=nai

mêdamou=.]]

[Footnote 109: Plato, Sophist. p. 249 C.]

[Side-note: Plato's reasoning against the Materialists.]

Let us now look at Plato's argument, and his definition of

existence, as they bear upon the doctrine of the opposing

Materialist philosophers, whom he states to have held that bodies

alone existed, and that the Incorporeal did not exist:--in other

words that all real existence was concrete and particular: that

the abstract (universals, forms, attributes) had no real

existence, certainly no separate existence. As I before remarked,

it is not quite clear what or how much these philosophers denied.

But as far as we can gather from Plato's language, what they

denied was, the existence of attributes _apart from_ a substance.

They did not deny the existence of just and wise men, but the

existence of justice and wisdom, apart from men real or

supposable.

[Side-note: Difference between Concrete and Abstract, not then made

conspicuous. Large meaning here given by Plato to

Ens--comprehending not only objects of Perception, but objects of

Conception besides.]

In the time of Plato, distinction between the two classes of

words, Concrete and Abstract, had not become so clearly matter of

reflection as to be noted by two appropriate terms: in fact,

logical terminology was yet in its first rudiments. It is

therefore the less matter of wonder that Plato should not here

advert to the relation between the two, or to the different sense

in which existence might properly be predicable of both. He agrees

with the materialists or friends of the Concrete, in affirming

that sensible objects, Man, Horse, Tree, exist (which the

Idealists or friends of the Abstract denied): but he differs from

them by saying that other Objects, super-sensible and merely

intelligible, exist also--namely, Justice, Virtue, Whiteness,

Hardness, and other Forms or Attributes. He admits that these

last-mentioned objects do not make themselves manifest to the

senses; but they do make themselves manifest to the intelligence

or the conception: and that is sufficient, in his opinion, to

authenticate them as existent. The word _existent_, according to

his definition (as given in this dialogue), includes not only all

that is or may be perceived, but also all that is or may be known

by the mind; _i.e._, understood, conceived, imagined, talked or

reasoned about. Existent, or Ens, is thus made purely relative:

having its root in a Subject, but ramifying by its branches in

every direction. It bears the widest possible sense, co-extensive

with _Object_ universally, either of perception or conception. It

includes all fictions, as well as all (commonly called) realities.

The conceivable and the existent become equivalent.

[Side-note: Narrower meaning given by Materialists to Ens--they

included only Objects of Perception. Their reasoning as opposed to

Plato.]

Now the friends of the Concrete, against whom Plato reasons, used

the word _existent_ in a narrower sense, as comprising only the

concretes of the sensible world. They probably admitted the

existence of the abstract, along with and particularised in the

concrete: but they certainly denied the _separate_ existence of

the Abstract--_i.e._, of Forms, Attributes, or classes, apart from

particulars. They would not deny that many things were

conceivable, more or less dissimilar from the realities of the

sensible world: but they did not admit that all those conceivable

things ought to be termed existent or realities, and put upon the

same footing as the sensible world. They used the word _existent_

to distinguish between Men, Horses, Trees, on the one hand--and

Cyclopes, Centaurs, [Greek: Trage/laphoi], &c., on the other. A

Centaur is just as intelligible and conceivable as either a man or

a horse; and according to this definition of Plato, would be as

much entitled to be called really existent. The attributes of

_man_ and _horse_ are real, because the objects themselves are

real and perceivable: the class _man_ and the class _horse_ is

real, for the same reason: but the attributes of a Centaur, and

the class Centaurs, are not real, because no individuals

possessing the attributes, or belonging to the class, have ever

been perceived, or authenticated by induction. Plato's Materialist

opponents would here have urged, that if he used the word

_existent_ or Ens in so wide a sense, comprehending all that is

conceivable or nameable, fiction as well as reality--they would

require some other words to distinguish fiction from

reality--Centaur from Man: which is what most men mean when they speak

of one thing as non-existent, another thing as existent. At any rate,

here is an equivocal sense of the word Ens--a wider and a narrower

sense--which, we shall find frequently perplexing us in the

ancient metaphysics; and which, when sifted, will often prove,

that what appears to be a difference of doctrine, is in reality

little more than a difference of phraseology.[110]

[Footnote 110: Plato here aspires to deliver one definition of

Ens, applying to all cases. The contrast between him and Aristotle

is shown in the more cautious procedure of the latter, who

entirely renounces the possibility of giving any one definition

fitting all cases. Aristotle declares Ens to be an equivocal word

([Greek: o(mô/numon]), and discriminates several different

significations which it bears: all these significations having

nevertheless an analogical affinity, more or less remote, with

each other. See Aristot. Metaphys. [Greek: D]. 1017, a. 7, seq.;

vi. 1028, a. 10.

It is declared by Aristotle to be the question first and most

disputed in Philosophia Prima, Quid est Ens? [Greek: kai\ dê\ kai\

to\ pa/lai te kai\ nu=n kai\ a)ei\ zêtou/menon kai\ a)ei\

a)porou/menon, tou=to e)sti, ti/s ê( ou)si/a] (p. 1028, b. 2).

Compare, B. 1001, a. 6, 31.

This subject is well treated by Brentano, in his Dissertation

Ueber die Bedeutung des Seienden im Aristoteles. See pp. 49-50

seq., of that work.

Aristotle observes truly, that these most general terms are the

most convenient hiding-places for equivocal meaning (Anal. Post.

ii. 97, b. 29).

The analogical varieties of Ens or Essence are graduated,

according to Aristotle: Complete, Proper, typical, [Greek:

ou)si/a], stands at the head: there are then other varieties more

or less approaching to this proper type: some of them which

[Greek: mikro\n ê)\ ou)the\n e)/chei tou= o)/ntos.] (Metaphys. vi.

1029, b. 9.)]

[Side-note: Different definitions of Ens--by Plato--the

Materialists, the Idealists.]

This enquiry respecting Ens is left by Plato professedly

unsettled; according to his very frequent practice. He pretends

only to have brought it to this point: that Ens or the Existent is

shown to present as many difficulties and perplexities as Non-Ens

or the non-existent.[111] I do not think that he has shown thus

much; for, according to his definition, Non-Ens is an

impossibility: the term is absolutely unmeaning: it is equivalent

to the Unknowable or Inconceivable--as Parmenides affirmed it to

be. But he has undoubtedly shown that Ens is in itself perplexing:

which, instead of lightening the difficulties about Non-Ens,

aggravates them: for all the difficulties about Ens must be

solved, before you can pretend to understand Non-Ens. Plato has

shown that Ens is used in three different meanings:--

1. According to the Materialists, it means only the concrete and

particular, including all the attributes thereof, essential and

accidental.

2. According to the Idealists or friends of Forms, it means only

Universals, Forms, and Attributes.

3. According to Plato's own definition here given, it means both

the one and the other: whatever the mind can either perceive or

conceive: whatever can act upon the mind in any way, or for any

time however short. It is therefore wholly relative to the mind:

yet not exclusively to the _perceiving_ mind (as the Materialists

said), nor exclusively to the _conceiving_ mind (as the friends of

Forms said): but to both alike.

[Footnote 111: Plato, Sophist. p. 250 E.]

[Side-note: Plato's views about Non-Ens examined.]

Here is much confusion, partly real but principally verbal, about

Ens. Plato proceeds to affirm, that the difficulty about Non-Ens

is no greater, and that it admits of being elucidated. The higher

Genera or Forms (he says) are such that some of them will combine

or enter into communion with each other, wholly or partially,

others will not, but are reciprocally exclusive. Motion and Rest

will not enter into communion, but mutually exclude each other:

neither of them can be predicated of the other. But each or both

of them will enter into communion with Existence, which latter may

be predicated of both. Here are three Genera or Forms: motion,

rest, and existence. Each of them is the _same_ with itself, and

_different_ from the other two. Thus we have two new distinct

Forms or Genera--_Same_ and _Different_--which enter into

communion with the preceding three, but are in themselves distinct

from them.[112] Accordingly you may say, motion _partakes_ of (or

enters into communion with) Diversum, because motion differs from

rest: also you may say, motion _partakes_ of Idem, as being

identical with itself: but you cannot say, motion _is_ different,

motion _is_ the same; because the subject and the predicate are

essentially distinct and not identical.[113]

[Footnote 112: In the Timæus (pp. 35-36-37), Plato declares these

three elements--[Greek: Tau)to/n, Tha/teron, Ou)si/a]--to be the

three constituent elements of the cosmical soul, and of the human

rational soul.]

[Footnote 113: Plato, Sophist. p. 255 B.

[Greek: Mete/cheton mê\n a)/mphô (ki/nêsis kai\ sta/sis) tau)tou=

kai\ thate/rou. . . .]

[Greek: Mê\ toi/nun le/gômen ki/nêsin g' _ei)=nai_ tau)to\n ê)\

tha/teron, mêd' au)= sta/sin.] He had before said--[Greek: A)ll'

ou)/ ti mê\n ki/nêsi/s ge kai\ sta/sis ou)th' e(/teron ou)/te

tau)to/n _e)stin_] (p. 255 A).

Plato here says, It is true that [Greek: ki/nêsis _mete/chei_

tau)tou=], but it is not true that [Greek: ki/nêsi/s e)sti

tau)to/n]. Again, p. 259 A. [Greek: to\ me\n e(/teron metascho\n

tou= o)/ntos _e)/sti_ me\n dia\ tau/tên tê\n me/thexin, ou) mê\n

e)kei=no/ ge ou)= mete/schen a)ll' e(/teron.] He understands,

therefore, that [Greek: e)sti], when used as copula, implies

identity between the predicate and the subject.

This is the same point of view from which Antisthenes looked, when

he denied the propriety of saying [Greek: A)/nthrôpo/s _e)stin_

a)gatho/s--A)/nthrôpo/s _e)sti_ kako/s]: and when he admitted only

identical propositions, such as [Greek: A)/nthrôpo/s _e)stin_

a)/nthrôpos--A)/gatho/s _e)stin_ a)gatho/s.] He assumed that

[Greek: e)sti], when intervening between the subject and the

predicate, implies identity between them; and the same assumption

is made by Plato in the passage now before us. Whether Antisthenes

would have allowed the proposition--[Greek: A)/nthrôpos

_mete/chei_ kaki/as], or other propositions in which [Greek:

e)sti] does not appear as copula, we do not know enough of his

opinions to say.

Compare Aristotel. Physic. i. 2, 185, b. 27, with the Scholia of

Simplikius, p. 330, a. 331, b. 18-28, ed. Brandis.]

Some things are always named or spoken of _per se_, others with

reference to something else. Thus, Diversum is always different

from something else: it is relative, implying a correlate.[114] In

this, as well as in other points, Diversum (or Different) is a

distinct Form, Genus, or Idea, which runs through all other things

whatever. Each thing is different from every other thing: but it

differs from them, not through any thing in its own nature, but

because it partakes of the Form or Idea of Diversum or the

Different.[115] So, in like manner, the Form or Idea of Idem (or

Same) runs through all other things: since each thing is both

different from all others, and is also the same with itself.

[Footnote 114: Plato, Sophist. p. 255 C-D. [Greek: tô=n o)/ntôn

ta\ me\n au)ta\ kath' au(ta/, ta/ de\ pro\s a)/llêla a)ei\

_le/gesthai_ . . . To\ d' e(/teron a)ei\ pro\s e(/teron . . . Nu=n

de\ a)technô=s ê(mi=n o(/, ti per a)\n e(/teron ê)=|, sumbe/bêken

e)x a)na/gkês _e(te/rou tou=to o(/per e)sti\n ei)=nai_.] These

last words partly anticipate Aristotle's explanation of [Greek:

ta\ pro/s ti] (Categor. p. 6, a. 38).

Here we have, for the first time so far as I know (certainly

anterior to Aristotle), names _relative_ and _non-relative_,

distinguished as classes, and contrasted with each other. It is to

be observed that Plato here uses [Greek: le/gesthai] and [Greek:

ei)=nai] as equivalent; which is not very consistent with the

sense which he assigns to [Greek: e)stin] in predication: see the

note immediately preceding.]

[Footnote 115: Plato, Sophist. p. 255 E. [Greek: pe/mpton dê\ tê\n

thate/rou phu/sin lekte/on e)n toi=s ei)/desin ou)=san, e)n oi(=s

proairou/metha . . . kai\ dia\ pa/ntôn ge au)tê\n au)tô=n

phê/somen ei)=nai dielêluthui=an; e(\n e(/kaston ga\r e(/teron

ei)=nai tô=n a)/llôn ou) dia\ tê\n au(tou= phu/sin, a)lla\ dia\

to\ _mete/chein tê=s i)de/as tê=s thate/rou_.]]

[Side-note: His review of the select Five Forms.]

Now motion is altogether different from rest Motion therefore _is

not_ rest. Yet still motion _is_, because it partakes of existence

or Ens. Accordingly, motion both _is_ and _is not_.

Again, motion is different from Idem or the Same. It is therefore

_not the same_. Yet still motion _is the same_; because every

thing partakes of identity, or is the same with itself. Motion

therefore both _is_ the same and _is not_ the same. We must not

scruple to advance both these propositions. Each of them stands on

its own separate ground.[116] So also motion is different from

Diversum or The Different; in other words, it _is not_ different,

yet still it _is_ different. And, lastly, motion is different from

Ens, in other words, _it is not Ens_, or is non-Ens: yet still _it

is Ens_, because it partakes of existence. Hence motion is both

Ens, and Non-Ens.

[Footnote 116: Plato, Sophist. pp. 255-256.]

Here we arrive at Plato's explanation of Non-Ens, [Greek: to\ mê\

o)\n]: the main problem which he is now setting to himself.

Non-Ens is equivalent to, _different from Ens_. It is the Form or Idea

of Diversum, considered in reference to Ens. Every thing is Ens,

or partakes of entity, or existence. Every thing also is different

from Ens, or partakes of difference in relation to Ens: it is thus

Non-Ens. Every thing therefore is at the same time both Ens, and

Non-Ens. Nay, Ens itself, inasmuch as it is different from all

other things, is Non-Ens in reference to them. It is Ens only as

one, in reference to itself: but it is Non-Ens an infinite number

of times, in reference to all other things.[117]

[Footnote 117: Plato, Sophist. pp. 256-257.]

[Side-note: Plato's doctrine--That Non-Ens is nothing more than

different from Ens.]

When we say Non-Ens, therefore (continues Plato), we do not mean

any thing _contrary_ to Ens, but merely something _different from_

Ens. When we say _Not-great_, we nothing do not mean any thing

contrary to Great, but only something different from great. The

negative generally, when annexed to any name, does not designate

any thing contrary to what is meant by that name, but something

different from it. The general nature or Form of difference is

disseminated into a multitude of different parts or varieties

according to the number of different things with which it is

brought into communion: _Not-great_, _Not-just_, &c., are specific

varieties of this general nature, and are just as much realities

as _great_, _just_. And thus Non-Ens is just as much a reality as

Ens being not contrary, but only that variety of the general

nature of difference which corresponds to Ens. _Non-Ens_,

_Not-great_, _Not-just_, &c., are each of them permanent Forms,

among the many other Forms or Entia, having each a true and

distinct nature of its own.[118]