From Sokrates the idea passed both to Plato and to Xenophon: and

the contrast between the two is shown forcibly by the different

way in which they deal with it. Xenophon has worked it out on a

large scale, in the Cyropædia--on a small scale, in the

OEconomicus. Cyrus in the former, Ischomachus in the latter,

knows better than any one else what is to be done, and gives

orders accordingly. But both the one and the other are also

foremost in action, setting example as well as giving orders to

others. Now Plato, while developing the same idea, draws a marked

line of distinction between Science and Practice:--between

direction and execution.[50] His scientific Governor does not act

at all, but he gives orders to all the different men of action,

and he is the only person who knows on what occasions and within

what limits each agent should put forth his own special aptitude.

Herein we discern one of the distinctions between these two _viri

Socratici_: Xenophon, the soldier and man of action--Plato, the

speculative philosopher. Xenophon conceives the conditions of the

True Governor in a larger way than Plato, for he includes among

them the forward and energetic qualities requisite for acting on

the feelings of the subject Many, and for disposing them to follow

orders with cheerfulness and zeal:[51] whereas Plato makes

abstraction of this part of the conditions, and postulates

obedience on the part of the many as an item in his fundamental

hypothesis. Indeed he perpetually presents us with the comparison

of the physician, who cuts and burns for the purpose of ultimate

cure. Plato either neglects, or assumes as a matter of course, the

sentiments of the persons commanded, or the conditions of willing

obedience; while Xenophon dwells upon the maintenance of such

sentiments as one of the capital difficulties in the problem of

government. And we perceive a marked contrast between the

unskilful proceedings of Plato, when he visited Dionysius II. at

Syracuse, illustrating his (Plato's) inaptitude for dealing with a

real situation--and the judicious management of Xenophon, when

acting as one of the leaders of the Cyreian army under

circumstances alike unexpected and perilous.

[Footnote 50: Plato, Polit. pp. 259 C-D, 305 D.]

[Footnote 51: See the preface to Xenophon's Cyropædia; also

Cyropæd. i. 6, 20; and his Oecon. c. 21, and c. 13, 4, where we

see the difference between the Xenophontic idea, and the Platonic

idea, of [Greek: o( a)rchiko\s a)nthrô/pôn, oi( thei=oi kai\

a)gathoi\ kai\ e)pistê/mones a)/rchontes].]

[Side-note: The theory in the Politikus is the contradiction to

that theory which is assigned to Protagoras in the Protagoras.]

Plato here sets forth the business of governing as a special art,

analogous to the special art of the weaver, the steersman, the

physician. Now in each special art, the requisite knowledge and

competence is possessed only by the one or few artists who

practise them. The knowledge possessed by such one or few,

suffices for all the remaining community; who benefit by it, but

are altogether ignorant on the matter, and follow orders

blindfold. As this one Artist is the only competent person for the

task, so he is assumed _quâ_ Artist, to be infallible in the

performance of the task--never to go wrong, nor to abuse his

power, nor to aim at any collateral end.[52] Such is Plato's

theory of government in the Politikus. But if we turn to the

Protagoras, we shall find this very theory of government

explicitly denied, and a counter-theory affirmed, in the discourse

put into the mouth of Protagoras. That Sophist is made to

distinguish the political or social art, upon which the

possibility of constituting or keeping up human society depends,

from all other arts (manual, useful, linguistic), by this express

characteristic: All other arts were distributed among mankind in

such manner, that knowledge and skill were confined to an

exclusive few, whose knowledge, each in his own special

department, sufficed for the service of all the rest, not favoured

with the like knowledge--but the political or social art was

distributed (by order of Zeus to Hermes) on a principle quite

opposite. It was imparted to every member of society without

exception. If it had been granted only to a few, and not to all,

society could not have held together. Justice and the sense of

shame (Temperance or Moderation), which are the bonds of the city

and the fruits of the political art, must be instilled into every

man. Whoever cannot take on and appropriate them (Zeus proclaims

it as his law), must be slain as a nuisance or distemper of the

city.[53]

[Footnote 52: Compare Plato, Republic, i. pp. 340-341.]

[Footnote 53: Plato, Protag. pp. 322, 325 A.]

[Side-note: Points of the Protagorean theory--rests upon common

sentiment.]

Such we have seen to be the theory enunciated by the Platonic

Protagoras (in the dialogue so-called) respecting the political or

social art. It pervades all the members of society, as a common

and universal attribute, though each man has his own specialty

besides. It was thus distributed at the outset by Zeus. It stands

embodied in the laws and in the unwritten customs, so that one man

may know it as well as another. Every man makes open profession of

knowing and possessing it:--which he cannot do with any special

art. Fathers enforce it on their children by rewards and

punishments, schoolmasters and musicians impart it by extracts

from the poets: the old teach it to the young: nay every man, far

from desiring to monopolise it for himself, is forward in teaching

it to others: for it is the interest of every one that his

neighbour should learn it. Since every one thus teaches it, there

are no professed or special teachers: yet there are still some few

who can teach it a little better than others--and among those few

I (says Protagoras) am one.[54]

[Footnote 54: Plato, Protag. pp. 327-328.]

[Side-note: Counter-Theory in the Politikus. The exigencies of the

Eleate in the Politikus go much farther than those of Protagoras.]

Whoever compares the doctrine of the Politikus[55] with the

portion of the Protagoras[56] to which I have just referred, will

see that they stand to each other as theory and counter-theory.

The theory in the Politikus sets aside (intentionally or not) that

in the Protagoras. The Platonic Protagoras, spokesman of King

Nomos, represents common sense, sentiment, sympathies and

antipathies, written laws, and traditional customs known to all as

well as reverenced by the majority: the Platonic Politikus

repudiates all these, as preposterous fetters to the single

Governor who monopolises all political science and art. Let us add

too, that the Platonic Protagoras (whom many commentators teach us

to regard as a person of exorbitant arrogance and pretensions) is

a very modest man compared to the Eleate in the Platonic

Politikus. For the former accepts all the written laws and

respected customs around him,--admits that most others know them,

in the main, as well as he,--and only professes to have acquired a

certain amount of superior skill in impressing them upon others:

whereas the latter sets them all aside, claims for himself an

uncontradicted monopoly of social science and art, and postulates

an extent of blind submission from society such as has never yet

been yielded in history.

[Footnote 55: Plato, Politik. p. 301 E.

The portion of this dialogue, from p. 296 to p. 302, enunciates

the doctrine of which I have given a brief abstract in the text.]

[Footnote 56: Plato, Protag. pp. 321-328.]

[Side-note: The Eleate complains that under the Protagorean theory

no adverse criticism is allowed. The dissenter is either condemned

to silence or punished.]

The Eleate here complains of it as a hardship, that amidst a

community actually established and existing, directed by written

laws, traditional customs and common sentiment (the Protagorean

model),--he, the political artist, is interdicted from adverse

criticism and outspoken censure of the legal and consecrated

doctrines. If he talks as one wiser than the laws, or impugns them

as he thinks that they deserve, or theorises in his own way

respecting the doctrines which they sanction--he is either laughed

to scorn as a visionary, prosing, Sophist--or hated, and perhaps

punished, as a corrupter of youth; as a person who brings the

institutions of society into contempt, and encourages violators of

the law.[57]

[Footnote 57: Plato, Politik. p. 299 B. [Greek: a)\n tis . . .

zêtô=n phai/nêtai para\ ta\ gra/mmata kai\ sophizo/menos o(tiou=n

peri\ ta\ toiau=ta.]

In the seventh book of Republic (p. 520 B), Plato describes the

position of the philosopher in an established society, springing

up by his own internal force, against the opposition of all the

social influences--[Greek: au)to/matoi ga\r e)mphu/ontai a)kou/sês

tê=s e)n e(ka/stê| (po/lei) politei/as], &c.]

[Side-note: Intolerance at Athens, not so great as elsewhere. Plato

complains of the assumption of infallibility in existing

societies, but exacts it severely in that which he himself

constructs.]

The reproach implied in these phrases of Plato is doubtless

intended as an allusion to the condemnation of Sokrates. It is a

reproach well-founded against that proceeding of the government of

Athens:--and would have been still better founded against other

contemporary governments. That the Athenians were intolerant, is

not to be denied: but they were less intolerant than any of their

contemporaries. Nowhere else except at Athens could Sokrates have

gone on until seventy years of age talking freely in the

market-place against the received political and religious orthodoxy.

There was more free speech ([Greek: par)r(êsi/a])[58] at Athens

than in any part of the contemporary world. Plato, Xenophon, and

the other companions of Sokrates, proclaimed by lectures and

writings that they thought themselves wiser than the laws of

Athens: yet though the Gorgias was intended as well as adapted to

bring into hatred and contempt both those laws and the persons who

administered them, the Athenian Rhetors never indicted Plato for

libel. Upon this point, we can only speak comparatively: for

perfect liberty of proclaiming opinions neither does now exist,

nor ever has existed, any where. Most men have no genuine respect

for the right of another to form and express an opinion

dissentient from theirs: if they happen to hate the opinion, they

account it a virtue to employ as much ill-usage or menace as will

frighten the holder thereof into silence. Plato here points out in

emphatic language,[59] the deplorable consequences of assuming

infallibility and perfection for the legal and customary orthodoxy

of the country, and prohibiting free censure by dissentient

individuals. But this is on the supposition that the laws and

customs are founded only on common sense and traditional

reverence:--and that the scientific Governor is among the

dissenters. Plato's judgment is radically different when he

supposes the case reversed:--when King Nomos is superseded by the

scientific Professor of whom Plato dreams, or by a lawgiver who

represents him. We shall observe this when we come to the Treatise

de Legibus, in which Plato constitutes an orthodoxy of his own,

prohibiting free dissent by restrictions and penalties stricter

than any which were known to antiquity. He cannot recognise an

infallible common sense: but he has no scruple in postulating an

infallible scientific dictator, and in enthroning himself as such.

Though well aware that reasoned truth presents itself to different

philosophers in different versions, he does not hesitate to

condemn those philosophers who differ from him, to silence or to

something worse.

[Footnote 58: See Euripides, Ion, 671.

[Greek: e)k tô=n A)thênô=n m' ê( tekou=s' ei)/ê gunê/,

ô(/s moi ge/noito mêtro/then par)r(êsi/a.]

Also Euripid. Hippolyt. 424, and Plato, Gorgias, p. 461 E, where

Sokrates says to Polus--[Greek: deina\ me/nt' a)\n pa/thois, ei)

A)thê/naze a)phiko/menos, ou)= tê=s E(lla/dos, plei/stê e)sti\n

e)xousi/a tou= le/gein, e)/peita su\ e)ntau=tha tou/tou mo/nos

a)tuchê/sais], &c.]

[Footnote 59: Plato, Polit. p. 299 E.]

[Side-note: Theory of the Politikus--distinguished three gradations

of polity. Gigantic individual force the worst.]

It will appear then that the Platonic Politikus distinguishes

three varieties and gradations of social constitution.

1. _Science or Art. Systematic Construction from the beginning,

based upon Theory._--That which is directed by the constant

supervision of a scientific or artistic Ruler. This is the only

true or legitimate polity. Represented by Plato in Republic.

Illustrated by the systematic scheme of weights, measures,

apportionment of years, months, and days, in calendar--put

together on scientific principles by the French Convention in

1793--as contrasted with the various local, incoherent, growths,

which had obtained recognition through custom or arbitrary

preference of unscientific superiors.

2. _Common Sense. Unsystematic Aggregate of Customs, accepted in

an Actual Society._--That which is directed by written laws and

fixed traditional customs, known to every one, approved by the

common sense of the community, and communicated as well as upheld

by the spontaneous teaching of the majority. King Nomos.

This stands for the second best scheme: the least objectionable

form of degeneracy--yet still a degeneracy. It is the scheme set

forth by the Platonic Protagoras, in the dialogue so called.

Represented with improvements by Plato in Treatise De Legibus.

3. _Gigantic Individual Force._--That in which some violent

individual--not being really scientific or artistic, but perhaps

falsely pretending to be so--violates and tramples under foot the

established laws and customs, under the stimulus of his own

exorbitant ambition and unmeasured desires.

This is put forward as the worst scheme of all: as the greatest

depravation of society, and the greatest forfeiture of public as

well as private happiness. We have here the proposition which

Pôlus and Kalliklês are introduced as defending in the Gorgias,

and Thrasymachus in the Republic. In both dialogues, Sokrates

undertakes to expose it. The great benefit conferred by King

Nomos, is, that he protects society against the maximum of evil.

[Side-note: Comparison of the Politikus with the Republic. Points

of analogy and difference.]

Another interesting comparison may be made: that between the

Politikus and the Republic. We must remember that the Politikus is

announced by Plato as having two purposes. 1. To give a lesson in

the method of definition and division. 2. To define the

characteristic of the person bearing the name of Politikus,

distinguishing him from all others, analogous or disparate.--The

method is here more prominent than the doctrine.

But in the Republic, no lesson of method is attempted; the

doctrine stands alone and independent of it. We shall find however

that the doctrine is essentially the same. That which the

Politikus lays down in brief outline, is in the Republic amplified

and enlarged; presented with many variations and under different

points of view, yet, still at the bottom, the same doctrine, both

as to affirmation and negation. The Republic affirms (as the

Politikus does) the exclusive legitimacy of science, art,

intelligence, &c., as the initiatory and omnipotent authority over

all the constituent members of society: and farther, that such

intelligence can have no place except in one or a few privileged

persons. The Republic (like the Politikus) presents to us the

march of society with its Principal Cause--its concurrent or

Auxiliary Causes--and its inferior governable mass or matter, the

human flock, indispensable and co-essential as a part of the whole

scheme. In the Republic, the Cause is represented by the small

council of philosophical Elders: the concurrent causes, by the

Guardians or trained soldiers: the inferior matter, by the

remaining society, which is distributed among various trades,

providing for the subsistence and wants of all. The explanation of

Justice (which is the ostensible purpose of the Republic) is made

to consist in the fact--That each one of these several parts does

its own special work--nothing more--nothing less. Throughout all

the Republic, a constant parallelism is carried on (often indeed

overstrained) between the community and the individual man. In the

one as well as in the other, Plato recognises the three

constituent elements, all essential as co-operators, but each with

its own special function: in the individual, he recognises three

souls (encephalic, thoracic, and abdominal) as corresponding to

Elders, Guardians, and Producers, in the community. Here are the

same features as those given in outline in the Politikus: but the

two higher features of the three appear greatly expanded in the

Republic: the training and conditions proper for the philosophic

Artist or Governor, and for his auxiliaries the Guardians, being

described and vindicated at great length. Moreover, in the

Republic, Plato not only repeats the doctrine[60] that the right

of command belongs to every art in its own province and over its

own subject-matter (which is the cardinal point in the

Politikus)--but he farther proclaims that each individual neither can

exercise, nor ought to exercise, more than one art. He allows no

double men or triple men[61]--"Quam quisque novit artem, in eâ se

exerceat". He would not have respected the Xenophontic Cyrus or

Ischomachus. He carries the principle of specialization to its

extreme point. His Republic is an aggregate of special artists and

professional aptitudes: among whom the Governor is only one,

though the first and rarest. He sets aside the common basis of

social endowments essential to every man: upon which each man's

specialty is superinduced in the theory of the Platonic

Protagoras. The only common quality which Plato admits is,--That

each man, and each of the three souls composing each man, shall do

his own business and his own business only: this is his definition

of Justice, in the Republic.[62]

[Footnote 60: Plato, Republ. i. p. 342 C. [Greek: A)lla\ mê\n

a)/rchousi ge ai( te/chnai kai\ kratou=sin e)kei/nou ou)= per

ei)si\ te/chnai.]]

[Footnote 61: Plato, Republ. ii. pp. 370 B, 374 B--395-397 E.

[Greek: ou)k e)/sti diplou=s a)nê\r par' ê(mi=n ou)de\

pollaplou=s, e)peidê\ e(/kastos e(\n pra/ttei] (p. 397 E).]

[Footnote 62: Plato, Republ. iv. p. 433.]

[Side-note: Comparison of the Politikus with the Kratylus.

Dictatorial, constructive, science or art, common to both: applied

in the former to social administration--in the latter to the

formation and modification of names.]

Lastly, I will illustrate the Politikus by comparison with the

Kratylus, which will be treated in the next chapter. The

conception of dictatorial science or art, which I have stated as

the principal point in the Politikus, appears again in the

Kratylus applied to a different subject--naming, or the imposition

of names. Right and legitimate name-giving is declared to be an

affair of science or art, like right and legitimate polity: it can

only be performed by the competent scientific or artistic

name-giver, or by the lawgiver considered in that special capacity.

The second title of the dialogue Kratylus is [Greek: Peri\ O)noma/tôn

O)rtho/têtos]--On the Rectitude or legitimacy of names. What

constitutes right and legitimate Name-giving? In like manner, we

might provide a second title for the Politikus--[Greek: Peri\

Politei/as O)rtho/têtos]--On the rectitude or legitimacy of polity

or sociality. What constitutes right or legitimate sociality?[63]

Plato answers--It is the constant dictation and supervision of art

or science--or of the scientific, artistic, dictator, who alone

knows both the End and the means. This alone is right and true

sociality--or sociality as it ought to be. So, if we read the

Kratylus, we find Plato defining in the same way right

Name-giving--or name-giving as it ought to be. It is when each name

is given by an artistic name-constructor, who discerns the Form of

the name naturally suitable in each particular case, and can

embody it in appropriate letters and syllables.[64] A true or

right name signifies by likeness to the thing signified.[65] The

good lawgiver discerns this likeness: but all lawgivers are not

good: the bad lawgiver fancies that he discerns it, but is often

mistaken.[66] It would be the ideal perfection of language, if

every name could be made to signify by likeness to the thing

named. But this cannot be realised: sufficient likenesses cannot

be found to furnish an adequate stock of names. In the absence of

such best standard, we are driven to eke out language by appealing

to a _second-best_, an inferior and vulgar principle approximating

more or less, to rectitude--that is, custom and convention.[67]

[Footnote 63: The exact expression occurs in Politikus, pp. 293 E,

294 A. [Greek: nu=n de\ ê)/dê phanero\n o(/ti tou=to

boulêso/metha, to\ peri\ tê=s tô=n a)/neu no/môn a)rcho/ntôn

o)rtho/têtos dielthei=n ê(ma=s.]

The [Greek: o)rthê/, a)lêthinê/, gnêsi/a, politei/a] are phrases

employed several times--pp. 292 A-C, 293 B-E, 296 E, 297 B-D. 300

D-E: [Greek: o( a)lêthino/s, o( e)/ntechnos]. 300 E: [Greek: tê\n

a)lêthinê\n e)kei/nên, tê\n tou= e(no\s meta\ te/chnês a)/rchontos

politei/an]. 302 A-E.

Plato sometimes speaks as if a bad [Greek: politei/a] were no

[Greek: politei/a] at all--as if a bad [Greek: no/mos] were no

[Greek: no/mos] at all. See above, vol. ii. ch. xiv. pp. 88, where

I have touched on this point in reviewing the Minos. This is a

frequent and perplexing confusion, but purely verbal. Compare

Aristotel. Polit. iii. 2. p. 1276, a. 1, where he deals with the

like confusion--[Greek: a)=r' ei) mê\ dikai/ôs poli/tês, ou)

poli/tês?]]

[Footnote 64: Plato, Kratylus, p. 388 E. [Greek: Ou)/k a)/ra

panto\s a)ndro\s o)/noma the/sthai e)/stin, a)lla/ tinos

o)nomatourgou/; ou(=tos d' e)/stin, ô(s e)/oiken, o( nomothe/tês,

o(\s dê\ tô=n dêmiourgô=n spaniô/tatos e)n a)nthrô/pois

gi/gnetai.] Compare Politik. p. 292 D.]

[Footnote 65: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 430, 431 D, 430 C.]

[Footnote 66: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 431 E, 436 B.]

[Footnote 67: Plato, Kratyl. p. 435 B-C.

So in the Protagoras (p. 328 A) we find the Platonic Protagoras

comparing the self-originated and self-sustaining traditional

ethics, to the traditional language--[Greek: ti/s dida/skalo/s

e)sti tou= E(llêni/zein?]]

We see thus that in the Kratylus also, as well as in the

Politikus, the systematic dictation of the Man of Science or Art

is pronounced to be the only basis of complete rectitude. Below

this, and far short of it, yet still indispensable as a supplement

in real life--is, the authority of unsystematic custom or

convention; not emanating from any systematic constructive Artist,

but actually established (often, no one knows how) among the

community, and resting upon their common sentiment, memory, and

tradition.

[Side-note: Courage and Temperance are assumed in the Politikus. No

notice taken of the doubts and difficulties raised in Lachês and

Charmidês.]

This is the true Platonic point of view, considering human affairs

in every department, the highest as well as the lowest, as

subjects of Art and Science: specialization of attributes and

subdivision of function, so that the business of governing falls

to the lot of one or a few highly qualified Governors: while the

social edifice is assumed to have been constructed from the

beginning by one of these Governors, with a view to consistent,

systematic, predetermined ends--instead of that incoherent

aggregate[68] which is consecrated under the empire of law and

custom. Here in the Politikus, we read that the great purpose of

the philosophical Governor is to train all the citizens into

virtuous characters: by a proper combination of Courage and

Temperance, two endowments naturally discordant, yet each alike

essential in its proper season and measure. The interweaving of

these two forms the true Regal Web of social life.[69]

[Footnote 68:The want of coherence, or of reference to any common

and distinct End, among the bundle of established [Greek: No/mima]

is noted by Aristotle, Polit. vii. 2, 1324, b. 5: [Greek: dio\ kai\

tô=n plei/stôn nomi/môn chu/dên, ô(s ei)pei=n _keime/nôn_ para\

toi=s plei/stois, o(/môs, ei)/ pou/ ti pro\s e(\n oi( no/moi

ble/pousi, tou= kratei=n stocha/zontai Krê/tê| pro\s tou\s

pole/mous sunte/taktai schedo\n ê)\ te paidei/a kai\ to\ tô=n

no/môn plê=thos.]

Custom and education surround all prohibitions with the like

sanctity--both those most essential to the common security, and

those which emanate from capricious or local antipathy--in the

minds of docile citizens.

[Greek: I)=so/n toi kua/mous te phagei=n, kephala/s te tokê/ôn.]

Aristotle dissents from Plato on the point of always vesting the

governing functions in the same hands. He considers such a

provision dangerous and intolerable to the governed.

Aristot. Polit. ii. 5, 1264, b. 6.]

[Footnote 69: Plato, Polit. p. 306 A. [Greek: basilikê\

sumplokê/], &c.

Schleiermacher in his Introduction to the Politikus (pp. 254-256)

treats this [Greek: basilikê\ sumplokê\] as a poor and

insignificant function, for the political Artist determined and

installed by so elaborate a method and classification. But the

dialogue was already so long that Plato could not well lengthen it

by going into fuller details. Socher points out (Ueber Platon's

Schrift. p. 274) discrepancies between the Politikus on one side,

and Protagoras and Gorgias on the other--which I think are really

discoverable, though I do not admit the inference which he draws

from them.]

Such is the concluding declaration of the accomplished Eleatic

expositor, to Sokrates and the other auditors. But this suggests

to us another question, when we revert to some of the Platonic

dialogues handled in the preceding pages. What _are_ Virtue,

Courage, Temperance? In the Menon, the Platonic Sokrates had

proclaimed, that he did not himself know what virtue was: that he

had never seen any one else who did know: that it was impossible

to say how virtue could be communicated, until you knew what

virtue was--and impossible to determine any one of the parts of

virtue, until virtue had been determined as a whole. In the

Charmidês, Sokrates had affirmed that he did not know what

Temperance was; he then tested several explanations thereof,

propounded by Charmides and Kritias: but ending only in universal

puzzle and confessed ignorance. In the Lachês, he had done the

same with Courage: not without various expressions of regret for

his own ignorance, and of surprise at those who talked freely

about generalities which they had never probed to the bottom.

Perplexed by these doubts and difficulties--which perplexed yet

more all his previous hearers, the modest beauty of Charmides and

the mature dignity of Nikias and Laches--Sokrates now finds

himself in presence of the Eleate, who talks about Virtue,

Temperance, Courage, &c., as matters determinate and familiar.

Here then would have been the opportunity for Sokrates to

reproduce all his unsolved perplexities, and to get them cleared

up by the divine Stranger who is travelling on a mission of

philosophy. The third dialogue, to be called the Philosophus,

which Plato promises as sequel to the Sophistês and Politikus,

would have been well employed in such a work of elucidation.

[Side-note: Purpose of the difficulties in Plato's Dialogues of

Search--To stimulate the intellect of the hearer. His exposition

does not give solutions.]

This, I say, is what we might have expected, if Plato had

corresponded to the picture drawn by admiring commentators: if he

had merely tied knots in one dialogue, in order to untie them in

another. But we find nothing of the kind, nor is such a picture of

Plato correct. The dialogue Philosophus does not exist, and

probably was never written. Respecting the embarrassments of the

Menon, Lachês, Charmidês, Alkibiadês I., Protagoras,

Euthyphron--Sokrates says not a word--[Greek: ou)de\ gru/]--to urge

them upon the attention of the Eleate: who even alludes with

displeasure to contentious disputants as unfair enemies. For the

right understanding of these mysterious but familiar words--Virtue,

Courage, Temperance--we are thrown back upon the common passive,

unscientific, unreasoning, consciousness: or upon such measure and

variety of it as each of us may have chanced to imbibe from the

local atmosphere, unassisted by any special revelation from

philosophy. At any rate, the Eleate furnishes no interpretative

aid. He employs the words, as if the hearers understood them of

course, without the slightest intimation that any difficulty

attaches to them. Plato himself ignores all the difficulties, when

he is putting positive exposition into the mouth of the Eleate.

Puzzles and perplexities belong to the Dialogues of Search; in

which they serve their purpose, if they provoke the intellect of

the hearer to active meditation and effort, for the purpose of

obtaining a solution.

CHAPTER XXXI.

KRATYLUS.

The dialogue entitled Kratylus presents numerous difficulties to

the commentators: who differ greatly in their manner of

explaining, First, What is its main or leading purpose? Next, How

much of it is intended as serious reasoning, how much as mere

caricature or parody, for the purpose of exposing and reducing to

absurdity the doctrines of opponents? Lastly, who, if any, are the

opponents thus intended to be ridiculed?

[Side-note: Persons and subjects of the dialogue Kratylus--Sokrates

has no formed opinion, but is only a Searcher with the others.]

The subject proposed for discussion is, the rectitude or inherent

propriety of names. How far is there any natural adaptation, or

special fitness, of each name to the thing named? Two disputants

are introduced who invoke Sokrates as umpire. Hermogenes asserts

the negative of the question; contending that each name is

destitute of natural significance, and acquires its meaning only

from the mutual agreement and habitual usage of society.[1]

Kratylus on the contrary maintains the doctrine that each name has

a natural rectitude or fitness for its own significant

function:--that there is an inherent bond of connection, a fundamental

analogy or resemblance between each name and the thing signified.

Sokrates carries on the first part of the dialogue with

Hermogenes, the last part with Kratylus.[2] He declares more than

once, that the subject is one on which he is ignorant, and has

formed no conclusion: he professes only to prosecute the search

for a good conclusion, conjointly with his two companions.[3]

[Footnote 1: In the arguments put into the mouth of Hermogenes, he

is made to maintain two opinions which are not identical, but

opposed. 1. That names are significant by habit and convention, and

not by nature. 2. That each man may and can give any name which he

pleases to any object (pp. 384-385).

The first of these two opinions is that which is really discussed

here: impugned in the first half of the dialogue, conceded in the

second. It is implied that names are to serve the purpose of

mutual communication and information among persons living in

society; which purpose they would not serve if each individual

gave a different name to the same object. The second opinion is

therefore not a consequence of the first, but an implied

contradiction of the first.

He who says that the names Horse and Dog are significant by

convention, will admit that at the outset they might have been

inverted in point of signification; but he will not say that any

individual may invert them at pleasure, now that they are

established. The purposes of naming would no longer be answered,

if this were done.]

[Footnote 2: The question between Hermogenes and Kratylus was much

debated among the philosophers and literary men throughout

antiquity (Aul. Gell. x. 4). Origen says (contra Celsum, i. c.

24)--[Greek: lo/gos bathu\s kai\ a)po/r)r(êtos o( peri\ phu/seôs

o)noma/tôn, po/teron, ô(s oi)/etai A)ristote/lês, the/sei ei)=nai

ta\ o)no/mata, ê)\, ô(s nomi/zousin oi( a)po\ tê=s Stoa=s,

phu/sei.]

Aristotle assumes the question in favour of [Greek: the/sei], in

his treatise De Interpretatione, without any reasoning, against

the Platonic Kratylus; but his commentators, Ammonius and

Boethius, note the controversy as one upon which eminent men in

antiquity were much divided.

Plato connects his opinion, that names have a natural rectitude of

signification, with his general doctrine of self-existent,

archetypal, Forms or Ideas. The Stoics, and others who defended

the same opinion afterwards, seem to have disconnected it from

this latter doctrine.]

[Footnote 3: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 384 C, 391 A.]

[Side-note: Argument of Sokrates against Hermogenes--all

proceedings of nature are conducted according to fixed

laws--speaking and naming among the rest.]

Sokrates, refuting Hermogenes, lays down the following

doctrines.[4] If propositions are either true or false, names,

which are parts of propositions, must be true or false also.[5]

Every thing has its own fixed and determinate essence, not

relative to us nor varying according to our fancy or pleasure, but

existing _per se_ as nature has arranged.[6] All agencies either

by one thing upon other things, or by other things upon it, are in

like manner determined by nature, independent of our will and

choice. If we intend to cut or burn any substance, we must go to

work, not according to our own pleasure, but in the manner that

nature prescribes: by attempting to do it contrary to nature, we

shall do it badly or fail altogether.[7] Now _speaking_ is one of

these agencies, and _naming_ is a branch of _speaking_: what is

true of other agencies is true of these also--we must name things,

not according to our own will and pleasure, but in the way that

nature prescribes that they shall be named.[8] Farther, each

agency must be performed by its appropriate instrument: cutting by

the axe, boring by the gimlet, weaving by the bodkin. The name is

the instrument of naming, whereby we communicate information and

distinguish things from each other. It is a didactic instrument:

to be employed well, it must be in the hands of a properly

qualified person for the purpose of teaching.[9] Not every man,

but only the professional craftsman, is competent to fabricate the

instruments of cutting and weaving. In like manner, not every man

is competent to make a name: no one is competent except the

lawgiver or the gifted name-maker, the rarest of all existing

artists.[10]

[Footnote 4: Aristot. De Interpretat. ii. 1-2: [Greek: O)/noma

me\n ou)=n e)sti\ phônê\ sêmantikê\ kata\ sunthê/kên a)/neu

chro/nou . . . to\ de\ kata\ sunthê/kên, o(/ti phu/sei tô=n

o)noma/tôn ou)de/n e)stin], &c.

This is the same doctrine which Plato puts into the mouth of

Hermogenes (Kratylus, p. 384 E), and which Sokrates himself, in

the latter half of the dialogue, admits as true to a large extent:

that is, he admits that names are significant [Greek: kata\

sunthê/kên], though he does not deny that they are or may be

significant [Greek: phu/sei].

[Greek: To\ a)po\ tau)toma/tou] (p. 397 A) is another phrase for

expressing the opinion opposed to [Greek: o)noma/tôn o)rtho/tês].]

[Footnote 5: Plato, Kratyl. p. 385.

Here too, Aristotle affirms the contrary: he says (with far more

exactness than Plato) that propositions alone are true or false;

and that a name taken by itself is neither. (De Interpret. i. 2.)

The mistake of Plato in affirming Names to be true or false, is

analogous to that which we read in the Philêbus, where Pleasures

are distinguished as true and false.]

[Footnote 6: Plato, Kratyl. p. 386 D. [Greek: dê=lon dê\ o(/ti

au)ta\ au(tô=n ou)si/an e)/chonta/ tina be/baio/n e)sti ta\

pra/gmata, ou) pro\s ê(ma=s ou)de\ u(ph' ê(mô=n, e)lko/mena a)/nô

kai\ ka/tô tô=| ê(mete/rô| phanta/smati, a)lla\ kath' au(ta\ pro\s

tê\n au(tôn ou)si/an e)/chonta ê(=|per pe/phuken.]]

[Footnote 7: Plato, Kratyl. p. 387 A.]

[Footnote 8: Plato, Kratyl. p. 387 C. [Greek: Ou)kou=n kai\ to\

o)noma/zein pra=xis ti/s e)stin, ei)/per kai\ to\ le/gein pra=xis

tis ê)=n peri\ ta\ pra/gmata? . . . Ai( de\ pra/xeis e)pha/nêsan

ê(mi=n ou) pro\s ê(ma=s ou)=sai, a)ll' au(tô=n tina i)di/an

phu/sin e)/chousai? . . . Ou)kou=n kai\ o)nomaste/on ê(=| pe/phuke

ta\ pra/gmata o)noma/zein te kai\ o)noma/zesthai, kai\ ô(=|, a)ll'

ou)ch ê(=| a)\n ê(mei=s boulêthô=men, ei)/per ti toi=s

e)/mprosthen me/llei o(mologou/menon ei)=nai? kai\ ou(/tô me\n

a)\n ple/on ti poioi=men kai\ o)noma/zoimen, a)/llôs de\ ou)/?]

Speaking and naming are regarded by Plato as acts whereby the

thing (spoken of or) named is acted upon or suffers. So in the

Sophistês (p. 248) he considers Knowing as an act performed,

whereby the thing known suffers. Deuschle (Die Platonische

Sprach-philosophie, p. 59, Marpurg. 1859) treats this comparison

made by Plato between naming and material agencies, as if it were

mere banter--and even indifferent banter. Schleiermacher in his note

thinks it seriously meant and Platonic; and I fully agree with him

(Schl. p. 456).]

[Footnote 9: Plato, Kratyl. p. 388 C. [Greek: O)/noma a)/ra

didaskaliko/n ti/ e)stin o)/rganon, kai\ diakritiko\n tê=s

ou)si/as, ô(/sper kerki\s u(pha/smatos.] See Boethius ap. Schol.

ad Aristot. Interp. p. 108, a. 40. Aristotle (De Interpr. iv. 3)

says: [Greek: e)/sti de\ lo/gos a(/pas me\n sêmantiko/s, ou)ch ô(s

o)/rganon de/, a)lla\ kata\ sunthê/kên.] Several even of the

Platonic critics consider Plato's choice of the metaphor [Greek:

o)/rganon] as inappropriate: but modern writers on logic and

psychology often speak of names as "_instruments_ of thought".]

[Footnote 10: Plato, Kratyl. p. 389 A. [Greek: o( nomothe/tês,

o(\s dê\ tô=n dêmiourgô=n spaniô/tatos e)n a)nthrô=pois

gi/gnetai.]]

[Side-note: The name is a didactic instrument; fabricated by the

law-giver upon the type of the Name-Form, and employed as well as

appreciated, by the philosopher.]

To what does the lawgiver look when he frames a name? Compare the

analogy of other instruments. The artisan who constructs a bodkin

or shuttle for weaving, has present to his mind as a model, the

Idea or Form of the bodkin--the self-existent bodkin of Nature

herself. If a broken shuttle is to be replaced, it is this Idea or

type, not the actual broken instrument, which he seeks to copy.

Whatever may be the variety of web for which the shuttle is

destined, he modifies the new instrument accordingly: but all of

them must embody the Form or Idea of the shuttle. He cannot choose

another type according to his own pleasure: he must embody the

type, prescribed by nature, in the iron, wood, or other material

of which the instrument is made.[11]

[Footnote 11: Plato, Kratyl. p. 389 B-C. [Greek: au)to\ o( e)/sti

kerki/s . . . pa/sas me\n dei= to\ tê=s kerki/dos e)/chein ei)=dos

. . . ou)ch oi(=on a)\n au)to\s boulê/thê, a)ll' oi(=on

e)pephu/kei.]]

So about names: the lawgiver, in distributing names, must look to

the Idea, Form, or type--the self-existent name of Nature--and

must embody this type, as it stands for each different thing, in

appropriate syllables. The syllables indeed may admit of great

variety, just as the material of which the shuttle is made may be

diversified: but each aggregate of syllables, whether Hellenic or

barbaric, must embody the essential Name-Idea or Type.[12] The

lawgiver[13] ought to know, enumerate, and classify all the sorts

of things on the one hand, and all the varieties of letters or

elements of language on the other; distinguishing the special

significative power belonging to each letter. He ought then to

construct his words, and adapt each to signify that with which it

is naturally connected. Who is to judge whether this process has

been well or ill performed? Upon that point, the judge is, the

professional man who uses the instrument. It is for the working

weaver to decide whether the shuttle given to him is well or ill

made. To have a good ship and rudder, it must be made by a

professional builder, and appreciated by a professional pilot or

steersman. In like manner, the names constructed by the lawgiver

must be appreciated by the man who is qualified by training or

study to use names skilfully: that is, by the dialectician or

philosopher, competent to ask and answer questions.[14]

[Footnote 12: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 389 D, 390 A. [Greek: to\

e(ka/stô| phu/sei pephuko\s o)/noma to\n nomothe/tên e)kei=non

ei)s tou\s phtho/ggous kai\ ta\s sullaba\s dei= e)pi/stasthai

tithe/nai, kai\ ble/ponta _pro\s au)to\ e)kei=no o(\ e)/stin

o)/noma_, pa/nta ta\ o)no/mata poiei=n te kai\ ti/thesthai, _ei)

me/llei ku/rios ei)=nai o)noma/tôn the/tês_. . . .

Ou(/tôs a)xiô/seis kai\ to\n nomothe/tên to/n te e)ntha/de kai\

to\n e)n toi=s barba/rois, e(/ôs a)\n to\ _tou= o)no/matos

ei)=dos_ a)podidô=| _to\ prosê=kon e(ka/stô| e)n o(poiaisou=n

sullabai=s_, ou)de\n chei/rô nomothe/tên ei)=nai to\n e)ntha/de

ê)\ to\n o(pouou=n a)/llothi?]]

[Footnote 13: Plato, Kratyl. p. 424 D-E.]

[Footnote 14: Plato, Kratyl. p. 390 C.]

[Side-note: Names have an intrinsic aptitude for signifying one

thing and not another.]

It is the fact then, though many persons may think it ridiculous,

that names--or the elementary constituents and letters, of which

names are composed--have each an intrinsic and distinctive

aptitude, fitting them to signify particular things.[15] Names

have thus a standard with reference to which they are correct or

incorrect. If they are to be correct, they cannot be given either

by the freewill of an ordinary individual, or even by the

convention of all society. They can be affixed only by the skilled

lawgiver, and appreciated only by the skilled dialectician.

[Footnote 15: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 425-426.]

[Side-note: Forms of Names, as well as Forms of things

nameable--essence of the Nomen, to signify the Essence of its

Nominatum.]

Such is the theory here laid down by Sokrates respecting Names. It

is curious as illustrating the Platonic vein of speculation. It

enlarges to an extreme point Plato's region of the absolute and

objective. Not merely each thing named, but each name also, is in

his view an Ens absolutum; not dependent upon human choice--not

even relative (so he alleges) to human apprehension. Each name has

its own self-existent Idea, Form, or Type, the reproduction or

copy of which is imperative. The Platonic intelligible world

included Ideas of things, and of names correlative to them: just

as it included Ideas of master and slave correlative to each

other. It contained Noumena of names, as well as Noumena of

things.[16] The essence of the name was, to be significant of the

essence of the thing named: though such significance admitted of

diversity, multiplication, or curtailment, in the letters or

syllables wherein it was embodied.[17] The name became

significant, by imitation or resemblance: that name was right, the

essence of which imitated the essence of the thing named.[18] The

vocal mimic imitates sounds, the painter imitates the colours: the

name-giver imitates in letters or syllables, the essence of

colours, sounds, and every thing else which is nameable.

[Footnote 16: Plato, Parmenid. p. 133 E.]

[Footnote 17: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 393 D, 432.]

[Footnote 18: Plato, Kratyl. p. 422 D. [Greek: tô=n o)noma/tôn ê(

o)rtho/tês toiau/tê tis e)bou/leto ei)=nai, oi(=a dêlou=n oi(=on

e(/kasto/n e)sti tô=n o)/ntôn.]--423 D: [Greek: ou) kai\ _ou)si/a

dokei=_ soi ei)=nai e(ka/stô|, ô(/sper kai\ chrô=ma kai\ a(\ nu=n

dê\ e)le/gomen? prô=ton au)tô=| tô=| chrô/mati kai\ tê=| phônê=|

ou)k e)/stin ou)si/a tis e(kate/rô| au)tô=n kai\ toi=s a)/llois

pa=sin, _o(/sa êxi/ôtai tau/tês tê=s prosrê/seôs tou= ei)=nai?_

. . . Ti/ ou)=n?** ei)/ tis au)to\ tou=to mimei=sthai du/naito,

e(ka/stou** tê\n ou)si/an, gra/mmasi/ te kai\ sullabai=s, a)=r' ou)k

a)\n dêloi= e(/kaston o(\ e)/stin?] Compare p. 433.

The story given by Herodotus (ii. 2) about the experiment made by

the Egyptian king Psammetichus, is curious. He wished to find out

whether the Egyptians or the Phrygians were the oldest or first of

mankind: he accordingly caused two children to be brought up

without having a word spoken to them, with a view to ascertain

what language they would come to by nature. At the age of two

years they uttered the Phrygian word signifying _bread_.

Psammetichus was then satisfied that the Phrygians were the first

of mankind.

This story undoubtedly proceeds upon the assumption that there is

one name which naturally suggests itself for each object. But when

M. Renan says that the assumption is the same "as Plato has

developed with so much subtlety in the Kratylus," I do not agree

with him. The Absolute Name-Form or Essence, discernible only by

the technical Lawgiver, is something very different. See M. Renan,

De l'Origine du Langage, ch. vi. p. 146, 2nd ed.]

Another point here is peculiar to Plato. The Name-Giver must

provide names such as can be used with effect by the dialectician

or philosopher: who is the sole competent judge whether the names

have genuine rectitude or not.[19] We see from hence that the

aspirations of Plato went towards a philosophical language fit for

those who conversed with forms or essences: something like (to use

modern illustrations) a technical nomenclature systematically

constructed for the expositions of men of science: such as that of

Chemistry, Botany, Mineralogy, &c. Assuredly no language actually

spoken among men, has ever been found suitable for this purpose

without much artificial help.[20]

[Footnote 19: Plato, Kratyl. p. 390 D. Respecting the person

called [Greek: o( dialektiko/s], whom Plato describes as grasping

Ideas, or Forms, Essences, and employing nothing else in his

reasoning--[Greek: lo/gon didou\s kai\ lamba/nôn tê=s

ou)si/as]--see Republic, vi. p. 511 B, vii. pp. 533-534-537 C.]

[Footnote 20: Plato, Kratyl. p. 426 A. [Greek: o( peri\ o)noma/tôn

techniko/s], &c.]

[Side-note: Exclusive competence of a privileged lawgiver, to

discern these essences, and to apportion names rightly.]

As this theory of naming is a deduction from Plato's main doctrine

of absolute or self-existing Ideas, so it also illustrates (to

repeat what was said in the last chapter) his recognition of

professional skill and of competence vested exclusively in a

gifted One or Few: which he ranks as the sole producing cause of

Good or the Best, setting it in contrast with those two causes

which he considers as productive of Evil, or at any rate of the

Inferior or Second-Best: 1. The One or Few, who are ungifted and

unphilosophical: perhaps ambitious pretenders. 2. The spontaneous,

unbespoken inspirations, conventions, customs, or habits, which

grow up without formal mandate among the community. To find the

right name of each thing, is no light matter, nor within the

competence of any one or many ordinary men. It can only be done by

one of the few privileged lawgivers. Plato even glances at the

necessity of a superhuman name-giver: though he deprecates the

supposition generally, as a mere evasion or subterfuge, introduced

to escape the confession of real ignorance.[21]

[Footnote 21: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 397, 425, 438.]

[Side-note: Counter-Theory, which Sokrates here sets forth and

impugns--the Protagorean doctrine--Homo Mensura.]

In laying down the basis of his theory respecting names, Plato

states another doctrine as opposed to it: _viz._, the Protagorean

doctrine--Man is the Measure of all things. I have already said

something about this doctrine, in reviewing the Theætêtus, where

Plato impugns it: but as he here impugns it again, by arguments in

part different--a few words more will not be misplaced.

The doctrine of Protagoras maintains that all things are relative

to the percipient, cogitant, concipient, mind: that all Object is

implicated with a Subject: that as things appear to me, so they

are to me--as they appear to you, so they are to you. Plato denies

this, and says: "All things have a fixed essence of their own,

absolutely and in themselves, not relative to any percipient or

cogitant--nor dependent upon any one's appreciative understanding,

or emotional susceptibility, or will. Things are so and so,

without reference to us as sentient or cogitant beings: and not

only the things are thus independent and absolute, but all their

agencies are so likewise--agencies either by them or upon them.

Cutting, burning, speaking, naming, &c., must be performed in a

certain determinate way, whether we prefer it or not. A certain

Name belongs, by Nature or absolutely, to a certain thing, whether

we choose it or not: it is not relative to any adoption by us,

either individually or collectively."

This Protagorean theory is here set forth by the Platonic Sokrates

as the antithesis or counter-theory, to that which he is himself

advancing, _viz._--That Names are significant by nature and not by

agreement of men:--That each Nomen is tied to its Nominatum by a

natural and indissoluble bond. His remarks imply, that those who

do not accept this last-mentioned theory must agree with

Protagoras. But such an antithesis is noway necessary: since (not

to speak of Hermogenes himself in this very dialogue) we find also

that Aristotle--who maintains that Names are significant by

convention and not by nature--dissents also from the theory of

Protagoras: and would have rested his dissent from it on very

different grounds.

[Side-note: Objection by Sokrates--That Protagoras puts all men on

a level as to wisdom and folly, knowledge and ignorance.]

This will show us--what I have already remarked in commenting on

the Theætêtus--that Plato has not been very careful in

appreciating the real bearing of the Protagorean doctrine. He

impugns it here by the same argument which we also read in the

Theætêtus. "Everyone admits" (he says) "that there are some men

wise and good--others foolish and wicked. Now if you admit this,

you disallow the Protagorean doctrine. If I contend that as things

appear to me, so they truly are to me--as things appear to you or

to him, so they truly are to you or to him--I cannot consistently

allow that any one man is wiser than any other. Upon such a

theory, all men are put upon the same level of knowledge or

ignorance."

But the premisses of Plato here do not sustain his inference.

[Side-note: Objection unfounded--What the Protagorean theory really

affirms--Belief always relative to the believer's mind.]

The Protagorean doctrine is, when stated in its most general

terms,--That every man is and must be his own measure of truth or

falsehood--That what appears to him true, _is true to him_,

however it may appear to others--That he cannot by any effort step

out of or beyond his own individual belief conviction,

knowledge--That all his Cognita, Credita, Percepta, Cogitata, &c.,

imply himself as Cognoscens, Credens, Percipiens, Cogitans, inseparably

and indivisibly--That in affirming an object, he himself is

necessarily present as affirming subject, and that Object and

Subject are only two sides of the same indivisible fact[22]--That

though there are some matters which all men agree in believing,

there is no criterion at once infallible and universally

recognised, in matters where they dissent: moreover, the matters

believed are just as much relative where all agree, as where some

disagree.

[Footnote 22: M. Destutt Tracy observes, Logique, ch. ix. p. 347,

ed. 1825:

"En effet, on ne saurait trop le redire, chacun de nous, et même

tout être animé quelconque, est pour lui-même le centre de tout.

Il ne perçoit par un sentiment direct et une conscience intime,

que ce qui affecte et émeut sa sensibilité. Il ne conçoit et ne

connaît son existence que par ce qu'il sent, et celle des autres

êtres que parce qu'ils lui font sentir. Il n'y a de réel pour lui

que ses perceptions, ses affections, ses idées: et tout ce qu'il

peut jamais savoir, n'est toujours que des consequences et des

combinaisons de ces premières perceptions ou idees."

The doctrine of the Sceptical philosophers, is explicitly

announced by Sextus Empiricus as his personal belief: that which

appears true to him, as far as his enquiry had reached. The

passage deserves to be cited.

Sextus Empir. Pyrrh. Hypotyp. i. Sect. 197-199.

[Greek: O(/tan ou)=n ei)/pê| o( skeptiko\s "_ou)de\n o(ri/zô_"

. . . tou=to/ phêsi le/gôn to\ _e(autô=| phaino/menon peri\

tô=n prokeime/nôn_, ou)k a)paggeltikô=s, meta\ pepoithê/seôs

a)pophaino/menos, a)ll' o(\ pa/schei, diêgou/menos. . . . Kai\

ô(/sper o(le/gôn "_peripatô=_," ou(/tôs o( le/gôn "_pa/nta

e)sti\n a)o/rista_" sussêmai/nei kath' ê(ma=s to\ ô(s _pro\s e)me

ê)\ ô(s e)moi\ phai/netai_; ô(s ei)=nai to\ lego/menon toiou=ton

"o(/sa e)pêlthon tô=n dogmatikô=s zêtoume/nôn, toiau=ta/ moi

phai/netai_, ô(s mêde\n au)tô=n tou= machome/nou prou)/chein moi\

dokei=n kata\ pi/stin ê)\ a)pisti/an".]]

[Side-note: Each man believes others to be wiser on various points

than himself--Belief on authority--not inconsistent with the

affirmation of Protagoras.]

This doctrine is not refuted by the fact, that every man believes

others to be wiser than himself on various points. A man is just

as much a measure to himself when he acts upon the advice of

others, or believes a fact upon the affirmation of others, as when

he judges upon his own unassisted sense or reasoning. He is a

measure to himself when he agrees with others, as much as when he

disagrees with them. Opinions of others, or facts attested by

others, may count as materials determining his judgment; but the

judgment is and must be his own. The larger portion of every man's

knowledge rests upon the testimony of others; nevertheless the

facts thus reported become portions of _his_ knowledge, generating

conclusions _in him_ and relatively _to him_. I believe the

narrative of travellers, respecting parts of the globe which I

have never seen: I adopt the opinion of A a lawyer, and of B a

physician, on matters which I have not studied: I understand facts

which I did not witness, from the description of those who did

witness them. In all these cases the act of adoption is my own,

and the grounds of belief are relative to my state of mind.

Another man may mistrust completely the authorities which I

follow: just as I mistrust the authority of Mahomet or Confucius,

or various others, regarded as infallible by a large portion of

mankind. The grounds of belief are to a certain extent similar, to

a certain extent dissimilar, in different men's minds. Authority

is doubtless a frequent ground of belief; but it is essentially

variable and essentially relative to the believer. Plato himself,

in many passages, insists emphatically upon the dissensions in

mankind respecting the question--"_Who are_ the good and wise

men?" He tells us that the true philosopher is accounted by the

bulk of mankind foolish and worthless.

[Side-note: Analogy of physical processes (cutting and burning)

appealed to by Sokrates--does not sustain his inference against

Protagoras.]

In the Kratylus, Sokrates says (and I agree with him) that there

are laws of nature respecting the processes of cutting and

burning: and that any one who attempts to cut or burn in a way

unconformable to those laws, will fail in his purpose. This is

true, but it proves nothing against Protagoras. It is an appeal to

a generalization from physical facts, resting upon experience and

induction--upon sensation and inference which we and others,

Protagoras as well as Plato, have had, and which we believe to be

common to all. We know this fact, or have a full and certain

conviction of it; but we are not brought at all nearer to the

Absolute (_i.e._, to the Object without Subject) which Plato's

argument requires. The analogy rather carries us away from the

Absolute: for cutting and burning, with their antecedent

conditions, are facts of sense: and Plato himself admits, to a

great extent, that the facts of sense are relative. All experience

and induction, and all belief founded thereupon, are essentially

relative. The experience may be one common to all mankind, and

upon which all are unanimous:[23] but it is not the less relative

to each individual of the multitude. What is relative to all,

continues to be relative to each: the fact that all sentient

individuals are in this respect alike, does not make it cease to

be relative, and become absolute. What I see and hear in the

theatre is relative to me, though it may at the same time be

relative to ten thousand other spectators, who are experiencing

like sensations. Where all men think or believe alike, it may not

be necessary for common purposes to distinguish the multiplicity

of individual thinking subjects: yet the subjects are nevertheless

multiple, and the belief, knowledge, or fact, is relative to each

of them, whether all agree, or whether beliefs are many and

divergent. We cannot suppress ourselves as sentient or cogitant

subjects, nor find any _locus standi_ for Object pure and simple,

apart from the ground of relativity. And the Protagorean dictum

brings to view these subjective conditions, as being essential, no

less than the objective, to belief and disbelief.

[Footnote 23: Proklus, in his Scholia on the Kratylus, p. 32, ed.

Boisson, cites the argument used by Aristotle against Plato on

this very subject of names--[Greek: _ta\ me\n phu/sei, para\ pa=si

ta\ au)ta/_; ta\ de\ o)no/mata ou) para\ pa=si ta\ au)ta/; ô/ste

ta\ phu/sei o)/nta ou)/k e)stin o)no/mata, kai\ ta\ o)no/mata ou)k

ei)si phu/sei.] Ammonius ad Aristot. De Interpretat. p. 100, a.

28, Schol. Bekk. Sextus Empiricus adv. Mathemat. i. 145-147, p.

247, Fab.

Plato had assimilated naming to cutting and burning. Aristotle

denies the analogy: he says that cutting and burning are the same

to all, or _are by nature_: naming is not the same to all, and is

therefore not by nature.

We find here the test pointed out to distinguish what _is by

nature_ (that which Plato calls the [Greek: ou)si/an be/baion tô=n

pragma/tôn]--p. 386 E),--_viz._ That it is the same to all or

among all. What it is to one individual, it is to another also.

There are a multitude of different judging subjects, but no

dissentient subjects: myself, and in my belief all other subjects,

are affected alike. This is the true and real Objective: a

particular fact of sense, where Subject is not eliminated

altogether, but becomes a constant quantity, and therefore escapes

separate notice. An Objective _absolute_ (_i.e._, without Subject

altogether) is an impossibility.

In the Aristotelian sense of [Greek: phu/sei], it would be correct

to say that Language, or Naming _in genere_, is natural to man. No

human society has yet been found without some language--some

names--some speech employed and understood by each individual

member. But many different varieties of speech will serve the

purpose, not indeed with equal perfection, yet tolerably: enough

to enable a society to get on. The uniformity ([Greek: to\

phu/sei]) here ceases. To a certain extent, the objects and

agencies which are named, are the same in all societies: to a

certain extent different. If we were acquainted with all the past

facts respecting the different languages which have existed or do

exist on the globe, we should be able to assign the reason which

brought each particular _Nomen_ into association with its

_Nominatum_. But this past history is lost.]

[Side-note: Reply of Protagoras to the Platonic objections.]

Protagoras would have agreed with Plato as to combustion--that

there were certain antecedent conditions under which he fully

expected it, and certain other conditions under which he expected

with confidence that it would not occur. Only he would have

declared this (assuming him to speak conformably to his own

theory) to be his own full belief and conviction, derived from

certain facts and comparisons of sense, which he also _knew_ to be

shared by most other persons. He would have pronounced farther,

that those who held opposite opinions were in his judgment wrong:

but he would have recognised that their opinion was true to

themselves, and that their belief must be relative to causes

operating upon _their_ minds. Farthermore, he would have pointed

out, that combustion itself, with its antecedents, were facts of

sense, relative to individual sentients and observers, remembering

and comparing what they had observed. This would have been the

testimony of Protagoras (always assuming him to speak in

conformity with his own theory), but it would not have satisfied

Plato: who would have required a peremptory, absolute affirmation,

discarding all relation to observers or observed facts, and

leaving no scope for error or fallibility.

[Side-note: Sentiments of Belief and Disbelief, common to all

men--Grounds of belief and disbelief, different with different men

and different ages.]

Those who agree with Plato on this question, impugn the doctrine

of Protagoras as effacing all real, intrinsic, distinction between

truth and falsehood. Such objectors make it a charge against

Protagoras, that he does not erect his own mind into a peremptory

and infallible measure for all other minds.[24] He expressly

recognises the distinction, so far as his own mind is concerned:

he admits that other men recognise it also, each for himself.

Nevertheless, to say that all men recognise one and the same

objective distinction between truth and falsehood, would be to

contradict palpable facts. Each man has a standard, an ideal of

truth in his own mind: but different men have different standards.

The grounds of belief, though in part similar with all men, are to

a great extent dissimilar also: they are dissimilar even with the

same man, at different periods of his life and circumstances. What

all men have in common is the feeling of belief and the feeling of

disbelief: the matters believed or disbelieved, as well as the

ideal standard to which any new matter presented for belief or

disbelief is referred, differ considerably. By rational

discussion--by facts and reasonings set forth on both sides, as in

the Platonic dialogues--opinions may be overthrown or modified:

dissentients may be brought into agreement, or at least each may

be rendered more fully master of the case on both sides. But this

dialectic, the Platonic question and answer, is itself an appeal

to the free action of the individual mind. The questioner starts

from premisses conceded by the respondent. He depends upon the

acquiescence of the respondent for every step taken in advance.

Such a proceeding is relative, not absolute: coinciding with the

Protagorean formula rather than with the Platonic negation of

it.[25] No man ever claimed the right of individual judgment more

emphatically than Sokrates: no man was ever more special in

adapting his persuasions to the individual persons with whom he

conversed.

[Footnote 24: To illustrate the impossibility of obtaining any

standard absolute and purely objective, without reference to any

judging Subject, I had transcribed a passage from Steinthal's work

on the Classification of Human languages; but I find it too long

for a note.

Steinthal, Charakteristik der Hauptsächlichen Typen des

Sprachbaues, 2nd ed. Berlin, 1860, pp. 313-314-315.]

[Footnote 25: See the striking passages in the Gorgias, pp. 472 B,

474 B, 482 B; Theætêtus, p. 171 D.

Also in proclaiming the necessity of specialty of adaptation to

individual minds--Plat. Phædr. pp. 271-272, 277 B.]

[Side-note: Protagoras did not affirm, that Belief depended upon

the will or inclination of each individual but that it was

relative to the circumstances of each individual mind.]

The grounds of belief, according to Protagoras, relative to the

individual, are not the same with all men at all times. But it

does not follow (nor does Protagoras appear to have asserted) that

they vary according to the _will_ or _inclination_ of the

individual. Plato, in impugning this doctrine, reasons as if these

two things were one and the same--as if, according to Protagoras,

a man believed whatever he chose.[26] This, however, is not an

exact representation of the doctrine "Homo Mensura": which does

not assert the voluntary or the arbitrary, but simply the relative

as against the absolute. What a man believes does not depend upon

his own will or choice: it depends upon an aggregate of

circumstances, partly peculiar to himself, partly common to him

with other persons more or fewer in number:[27] upon his age,

organisation, and temperament--his experience, education,

historical and social position--his intellectual powers and

acquirements--his passions and sentiments of every kind, &c. These

and other ingredients--analogous, yet neither the same nor

combined in the same manner, even in different individuals of the

same time and country, much less in those of different times and

countries--compose the aggregate determining grounds of belief or

disbelief in every one. Each man has in his mind an ideal standard

of truth and falsehood: but that ideal standard, never exactly the

same in any two men, nor in the same man at all times, often

varies in different men to a prodigious extent. Now it is to this

standard in the man's own mind that those reasoners refer who

maintain that belief is relative. They do not maintain, that it is

relative simply to his wishes, or that he believes and disbelieves

what he chooses.

[Footnote 26: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 387-389, where [Greek: pro\s

ê(ma=s] is considered as equivalent to [Greek: ô(s a)\n ê(mei=s

boulô/metha--ê(=| a)\n ê(mei=s boulê/thômen]--both of them being

opposed to [Greek: oi(=on e)pephu/kei--to\ kata\ phu/sin--i)di/an

au)tô=n phu/sin e)/chousai.]

The error here noted is enumerated by by Mr. John Stuart Mill,

among the specimens of Fallacies of Confusion, in his System of

Logic, Book v. ch. vii. § 1: "The following is an argument of

Descartes to prove, in his _à priori_ manner, the being of a God.

The conception, says he, of an infinite Being proves the real

existence of such a Being. For if there is not really any such

Being, _I_ must have made the conception: but if I could make it,

I can also unmake it--which evidently is not true: therefore there

must be, externally to myself, an archetype from which the

conception was derived. In this argument (which, it may be

observed, would equally prove the real existence of ghosts and of

witches) the ambiguity is in the pronoun _I_; by which, in one

place, is to be understood _my will_--in another, the _laws of my

nature_. If the conception, existing as it does in my mind, had no

original without, the conclusion would unquestionably follow that

_I_ made it--that is, the laws of my nature must have somehow

evolved it: but that _my will_ made it, would not follow. Now when

Descartes afterwards adds that I cannot unmake the conception, he

means that I cannot get rid of it by an act of my will--which is

true, but is not the proposition required. I can as much unmake

this conception as I can any other: no conception which I have

once had, can I ever dismiss by mere volition: but what some of

the laws of my nature have produced, other laws, or those same

laws in other circumstances, may, and often do, subsequently

efface."]

[Footnote 27: To show how constantly this Protagorean dictum is

misconceived, as if Protagoras had said that things were to each

individual what he was pleased or chose to represent them as

being, I transcribe the following passage from Lassalle's

elaborate work on Herakleitus (vol. ii. p. 381):--"Des Protagoras

Prinzip ist es, dass überhaupt Nichts Objektives ist; dass

vielmehr alles Beliebige was Einem scheint, auch für ihn sei. Dies

Selbstsetzen des Subjekts ist die einzige Wahrheit der Dinge,

welche an sich selbst Nichts Objektives haben, sondern zur

gleichgültigen Fläche geworden sind, auf die das Subjekt

willkührlich und beliebig seine Charaktere schreibt."

Protagoras does not (as is here asserted) deny the Objective: he

only insists on looking at it in conjunction with, or measured by,

some Subject; and that Subject, not simply as desiring or

preferring, but clothed in all its attributes.]

[Side-note: Facts of sense--some are the same to all sentient

subjects, others are different to different subjects. Grounds of

unanimity.]

When Plato says that combustibility and secability of objects are

properties fixed and determinate,[28] this is perfectly true, as

meaning that a certain proportion of the facts of sense affect in

the same way the sentient and appreciative powers of each

individual, determining the like belief in every man who has ever

experienced them. Measuring and weighing are sensible facts of

this character: seen alike by all, and conclusive proofs to all.

But this implies, to a certain point, fundamental uniformity in

the individual sentients and judges. Where such condition is

wanting--where there is a fundamental difference in the sensible

apprehension manifested by different individuals--the unanimity is

wanting also. Such is the case in regard to colours and other

sensations: witness the peculiar vision of Dalton and many others.

The unanimity in the first case, the discrepancy in the second, is

alike an aggregate of judgments, each individual, distinct, and

relative. You pronounce an opponent to be in error: but if you

cannot support your opinion by evidence or authority which

satisfies _his_ senses or _his_ reason, he remains unconvinced.

Your individual opinion stands good _to you_; his opinion stands

good _to him_. You think that he ought to believe as you do, and

in certain cases you feel persuaded that he will be brought to

that result by future experience, which of course must be relative

to him and to his appreciative powers. He entertains the like

persuasion in regard to you.

[Footnote 28: When Plato asserts not only that Objects are

absolute and not relative to any Subject--but that the agencies or

properties of Objects are also absolute--he carries the doctrine

farther than modern defenders of the absolute. M. Cousin, in the

eighth and ninth Lectures of his Cours d'Hist. de la Philosophie

Morale au 18me Siècle, lays down the contrary, maintaining that

objects and essences alone are absolute, though unknowable; but

that their agencies are relative and knowable.

"Nous savons qu'il exists quelque chose hors de nous, parceque

nous ne pouvons expliquer nos perceptions sans les rattacher à des

causes distinctes de nous mêmes: nous savons de plus que ces

causes, dont nous ne connaissons pas d'ailleurs l'essence,

_produisent les effets les plus variables, les plus divers, et

même les plus contraires, selon qu'elles rencontrent telle nature

ou telle disposition du sujet._ Mais savons-nous quelque chose de

plus? et même, vu le caractère indéterminé des causes que nous

concevons dans les corps, y-a-t-il quelque chose de plus à savoir?

Y-a-t-il lieu de nous enquérir si nous percevons _les choses

telles qu'elles sont? Non, évidemment. . . Je ne dis pas que le

problème est insoluble: je dis qu'il est absurde, et renferme une

contradiction._ Nous ne savons pas ce que ces causes sont en

elles-mêmes, et la raison nous défend de chercher à les connaître:

mais il est bien évident _à priori_ qu'elles ne sont pas en

elles-mêmes ce qu'elles sont par rapport à nous, _puisque la présence

du sujet modifie nécessairement leur action_. Supprimez tout sujet

sentant, il est certain que ces causes agiraient encore,

puisqu'elles continueraient d'exister: mais elles agiraient

autrement; elles seraient encore des qualités et des propriétés,

mais qui ne ressembleraient à rien de ce que nous connaissons. Le

feu ne manifesterait plus aucune des propriétés que nous lui

connaissons: que serait-il? C'est ce que nous ne saurons jamais.

C'est d'ailleurs peut-être un problème qui ne répugne pas

seulement à la nature de notre esprit mais à l'essence même des

choses. Quand même en effet on supprimerait par la pensée tous les

sujets sentants, il faudrait encore admettre que nul corps ne

manifesterait ses propriétés autrement qu'en relation avec un

sujet quelconque, et dans ce cas _ses propriétés ne seraient

encore que relatives_: en sorte qu'il me paraît fort raisonnable

d'admettre que les propriétés déterminées des corps _n'existent

pas indépendamment d'un sujet quelconque_." (2de Partie, 8me

Leçon, pp. 216-218, ed. Danton et Vacherot, Bruxelles, 1841.)]

* * * * *

[Side-note: Sokrates exemplifies his theory of the Absolute Name or

the Name-Form. He attempts to show the inherent rectitude of many

existing names. His etymological transitions.]

It is thus that Sokrates, in the first half of the Kratylus, lays

down his general theory that names have a natural and inherent

propriety: and that naming is a process which cannot be performed

except in one way. He at the same time announces that his theory

rests upon a principle opposed to the "Homo Mensura" of

Protagoras. He then proceeds to illustrate his doctrine by

exemplification of many particular names, which are alleged to

manifest a propriety of signification in reference to the persons

or matters to which they are applied. Many of these are proper

names, but some are common names or appellatives. Plato regards

the proper names as illustrating, even better than the common, the

doctrine of inherent rectitude in naming: especially the names of

the Gods, with respect to the use of which Plato was himself

timidly scrupulous--and the names reported by Homer as employed by

the Gods themselves. We must remember that nearly all Grecian

proper names had some meaning: being compounds or derivatives from

appellative nouns.

The proper names are mostly names of Gods or Heroes: then follow

the names of the celestial bodies (conceived as Gods), of the

elements, of virtues and vices, &c. All of them, however, both the

proper and the common names, are declared to be compound, or

derivative; presupposing other simple and primitive names from

which they are formed.[29] Sokrates declares the fundamental

theory on which the primitive roots rest; and indicates the

transforming processes, whereby many of the names are deduced or

combined from their roots. But these processes, though sometimes

reasonable enough, are in a far greater number of instances

forced, arbitrary, and fanciful. The transitions of meaning

imagined, and the structural transformations of words, are alike

strange and violent.[30]

[Footnote 29: See the Introduction to Pape's Wörterbuch der

Griechischen Eigennamen.

Thus Proklus observes:--"The recklessness about proper names, is

shown in the case of the man who gave to his son the name of

Athanasius" (Proklus, Schol. ad Kratyl. p. 5, ed. Boiss.) Proklus

adopts the distinction between divine and human names, citing the

authority of Plato in Kratylus. The words of Proklus are

remarkable, ad Timæum, ii. p. 197. Schneid. [Greek: Oi)kei=a ga/r

e)stin o)no/mata pa/sê| ta/xei tô=n pragma/tôn, thei=a me\n toi=s

thei/ois, dianoêta\ de\ toi=s dianoêtoi=s, doxasta\ de\ toi=s

doxastoi=s.] See Timæus, p. 29 B. Compare also Kratylus, p. 400 E,

and Philêbus, p. 12 C.

When Plato (Kratylus, pp. 391-392; compare Phædrus, p. 252 A)

cites the lines of Homer mentioning appellations bestowed by the

Gods, I do not understand him, as Gräfenhahn and others do, to

speak in mockery, but _bonâ fide_. The affirmation of Clemens

Alexandrinus (Stromat. i. 104) gives a probable account of Plato's

belief:--[Greek: O( Pla/tôn kai\ toi=s theoi=s dialekto\n

a)pone/mei tina/, ma/lista me\n a)po\ tô=n o)neira/tôn

tekmairo/menos kai\ tô=n chrêsmô=n.] See Gräfenhahn, Gesch. der

Klassischen Philologie, vol. i. p. 176.

When we read the views of some learned modern philologists, such

as Godfrey Hermann, we cannot be surprised that many Greeks in the

Platonic age should believe in an [Greek: o)rtho/tês o)noma/tôn]

applicable to their Gods and Heroes:--"Unde intelligitur, ex

nominibus naturam et munia esse cognoscenda Deorum: Nec Deorum

tantum, sed etiam heroum, omninoque rerum omnium, nominibus quæ

propria vocantur appellatarum" (De Mythologia Græcorum

Antiquissimâ--in Opuscula, vol. ii. p. 167).

"Bei euch, Ihr Herrn, kann man das Wesen

Gewöhnlich aus dem Namen lesen," &c.

_Goethe_, Faust.

See a remarkable passage in Plutarch, adv. Kolôten, c. 22, p. 1119

E, respecting the essential rectitude and indispensable employment

of the surnames and appellations of the Gods.

The supposition of a mysterious inherent relation, between Names

and the things named, has found acceptance among expositors of

many different countries.

M. Jacob Salvador (Histoire des Institutions de Moïse, Liv. x.,

ch. ii.; vol. iii. p. 136) says respecting the Jewish

Cabbala:--"Que dirai-je de leur _Cabale_? mot signifiant aussi

_tradition_. Elle se composait originairement de tous les principes

abstraits qui ne se répandent pas chez le vulgaire: elle tomba bientôt

dans la folie. Cacher quelques idées metaphysiques sous les figures

les plus bizarres, et prendre ensuite une peine infinie pour retrouver

ces idées premières: s'imaginer qu'il existe entre les noms et les

choses une corrélation inévitable, et que la contexture littérale

des livres sacrés par exemple, doit éclairer sur l'essence même et

sur tous les secrets du Dieu qui les a dictés: tourmenter dès-lors

chaque phrase, chaque mot, chaque lettre, avec la même ardeur

qu'on en met de nos jours à décomposer et à recomposer tous les

corps de la nature: enfin, après avoir établi la corrélation entre

les mots et les choses, croire qu'en changeant, disposant,

combinant, ces mots, on traverse de prétendus _canaux_ d'influence

qui les unissent à ces choses, et qu'on agit sur elles: voilà, ce

me semble, les principales prétentions de cette espèce de science

occulte, échappée de l'Égypte, qui a dévoré beaucoup de bons

esprits, et qui, d'une part, donne la main à la théologie, d'autre

part, à l'astrologie et aux combinaisons magiques."]

[Footnote 30: I cite various specimens of the etymologies given by

Plato:--

1. [Greek: A)game/mnôn--o( a)gasto\s kata\ tê\n e)pimonê/n]--in

consequence of his patience in remaining ([Greek: monê\]) with his

army before Troy (p. 395 A).

2. [Greek: A)treu\s--kata\ to\ a)teire/s, kai\ kata\ to\

a)/treston, kai\ kata\ to\ a)têro/n] (p. 395 C).

3. [Greek: Pe/lops--o( to\ e)ggu\s (pe/las) mo/non o(rô=n kai\ to\

parachrê=ma] (p. 395 D).

4. [Greek: Ta/ntalos--tala/ntatos] (p. 395 E).

5. [Greek: Zeu\s--Di/a--Zê=na--di' o(\n _zê=n_ a)ei\ pa=si toi=s

zô=sin u(pa/rchei]--ut proprie unum debuerit esse vocabulum

[Greek: Diazê=na]. Stallbaum, ad. p. 396 A. Proklus admired these

etymologies (ad Timæum, ii. p. 226, ed. Schneid.).

6. [Greek: Oi( theoi\]--Sun, Moon, Earth, Stars, Uranus--[Greek:

a(/te au)ta\ o(rôntes pa/nta a)ei\ i)o/nta dro/mô| kai\ the/onta,

a)po\ tau/tês tê=s phu/seôs tê=s tou= thei=n _theou\s_ au)tou\s

e)ponoma/sai] (p. 397 D).

7. [Greek: Dai/mones--o(/ti phro/nimoi kai\ daê/mones ê)=san,

dai/monas au)tou\s ôno/masen] (Hesiod) (p. 398 B).

8. [Greek: Ê)/rôs]--either from [Greek: e)/rôs], as one sprung

from the union of Gods with human females: or from [Greek:

e)rôta=|n] or [Greek: ei)/rein],--from oral or rhetorical

attributes, as being [Greek: r(ê/tores kai\ e)rôtêtikoi/] (p. 398

D).

9. [Greek: Di/philos--Dii+\ phi/los] (p. 399 B).

10. [Greek: A)/nthrôpos--o( a)nathrô=n a(\ o)/pôpen] (p. 399 C).

11. [Greek: Psuchê\]--a double derivation is proposed: first,

[Greek: to\ a)na/psuchon], next, a second, _i.e._ [Greek: psuchê\

= phuse/chê, ê)\ phu/sin o)chei= kai\ e)/chei], which second is

declared to be [Greek: technikô/teron], and the former to be

ridiculous (pp. 399 E, 400 A-B).

12. [Greek: Sô=ma = to\ sê=ma tê=s phuchê=s], because the soul is

buried in the body. Or [Greek: sô=ma], that is, preserved or

guarded, by the body as by an exterior wall, in order that it may

expiate wrongs of a preceding life (p. 400 C).

13. The first imposer of names was a philosopher who followed the

theory of Herakleitus--perpetual flux of everything. Pursuant to

this theory he gave to various Gods the names Kronos, Rhea,

Tethys, &c., all signifying flux (p. 402 A-D).

14. Various derivations of the names Poseidon, Hades or Pluto,

Persephonê or Pherrephatta, &c., are given (pp. 404-405); also of

Apollo, so as to fit on to the four functions of the last-named

God, [Greek: mousikê/, mantikê/, i)atrikê/, toxikê/] (p. 405).

15. [Greek: Mou=sa--mousikê\], from [Greek: mô=sthai] (recognised

in Liddell and Scott from [Greek: ma/ô] p. 406 A). [Greek:

A)phrodi/tê] from [Greek: a)phrou= ge/nesin], the Hesiodic

derivation (p. 406 B-D).

16. [Greek: A)ê\r--o(/ti ai)/rei ta\ a)po\ tê=s gê=s--ê)\ o(/ti

a)ei\ r(ei=--ê)\ o(/ti pneu=ma e)x au)tou= gi/gnetai

r(e/ontos]--quasi [Greek: a)êto/r)r(oun. Ai)thê\r--o(/ti a)ei\

thei= peri\ to\n a)e/ra r(e/ôn] (p. 410 B).

17. [Greek: Phro/nêsis--phora=s kai\ r(ou= no/êsis u(polabei=n

phora=s]. This and the following are put as derivatives from the

Herakleitean theory (p. 411 D-E). [Greek: No/êsis = tou= ne/ou

e)/sis. Sôphrosu/nê--sôtêri/a phronê/seôs]. This is recognised by

Aristotle in the Nikom. Ethica, vi. 5.

18. [Greek: E)pistê/mê = e)pistême/nê--ô(s pherome/nois toi=s

pra/gmasin e(pome/nês tê=s psuchê=s] (p. 412 A).

19. [Greek: Dikaiosu/nê--e)pi\ tê=| tou= dikai/ou sune/sei] (p.

412 C).

20. [Greek: Kaki/a = to\ kakô=s i)o/n. Deili/a--tê=s psuchê=s

desmo\s i)schuro/s--o(\ dei= li/an. A)retê\ = a)eirei/tê]--that

which has an easy and constant flux, or perhaps [Greek: ai(retê/]

(p. 415 B-D). [Greek: Ai)schro\n = to\ a)eischorou=n--to\ a)ei\

i)/schon to\n r(ou=n] (p. 416 B). [Greek: Su/mphero\n = tê\ a(/ma

phora\n tê=s psuchê=s meta\ tô=n pragma/tôn] (p. 417 A). [Greek:

Lusite/loun = to\ tê=s phora=s lu/on to\ te/los] (p. 417 C-E).

[Greek: Blabero\n = to\ bla/pton to\n r(ou=n].

The names of favourable import are such as designate facility of

the universal flux, according to the Herakleitean theory. The

names of unfavourable import designate obstruction of the flux.

21. [Greek: Zugo\n = duogo/n] (p. 418 D).

22. [Greek: Eu)phrosu/nê--a)po\ tou= eu)= pra/gmasi tê\n psuchê\n

xumphe/resthai = eu)pherosu/nê] (p. 419 D).

23. [Greek: Thumo\s--a)po\ tê=s thu/seôs kai\ ze/seôs tê=s

psuchê=s. E)pithumi/a--ê( e)pi\ to\n thumo\n i)ou=sa du/namis] (p.

419 E).

24. [Greek: To\ o)/n = to\ ou)= tugcha/nei zê/têma, to\ o)/noma.

O)nomasto\n = o)/n, ou)= ma/sma e)sti/n. (Ma/sma = zê/têma:

mai/esthai = zêtei=n)] (p. 421 A).

25. [Greek: A)lêthei/a--thei/a a)/lê], or [Greek: ê( thei/a tou=

o)/ntos phora/. Pseu=dos] from [Greek: eu(/dein], with [Greek:

psi=] prefixed, as being the opposite of movement and flux (p. 421

B-C).

26. Several derivations of names are given by Sokrates, as founded

upon the theory opposed to Herakleitus--_i.e._, the theory that

things were not in perpetual flux, but stationary:--

[Greek: E)pistê/mê--o(/ti i(/stêsin ê(mô=n e)pi\ toi=s pra/gmasi

tê\n psuchê/n.

I(stori/a--o(/ti i(/stêsi to\n r(ou=n.

Pisto\n--i(sta=|n panta/pasi sêmai/nei.

Mnê/mê--monê\ e)n tê=| psuchê=|] (437 A-C).

27. We found before that some names of _good_ attributes were

founded on the Herakleitean theory. But there are also names of

_bad_ attributes founded on it.

[Greek: A)mathi/a = ê( tou= a(/ma theô=| i)o/ntos porei/a.

A)kolasi/a = ê( a)kolouthi/a toi=s pra/gmasin] (p. 437 C).

Sokrates contrasts the two theories of [Greek: sta/sis] and

[Greek: ki/nêsis], and says that he believes the first Name-Givers

to have apportioned names in conformity to the theory of [Greek:

ki/nêsis], but that he thinks they were mistaken in adopting that

theory (p. 439 C).]

[Side-note: These transitions appear violent to a modern reader.

They did not appear so to readers of Plato until this century.

Modern discovery, that they are intended as caricatures to deride

the Sophists.]

Such is the light in which these Platonic etymologies appear to a

modern critic. But such was not the light in which they appeared

either to the ancient Platonists, or to critics earlier than the

last century. The Platonists even thought them full of mysterious

and recondite wisdom. Dionysius of Halikarnassus highly commends

Plato for his speculations on etymology, especially in the

Kratylus.[31] Plutarch cites some of the most singular etymologies

in the Kratylus as serious and instructive. The modesty of the

Protagorean formula becomes here especially applicable: for so

complete has been the revolution of opinion, that the Platonic

etymologies are _now_ treated by _most_ critics as too absurd to

have been seriously intended by Plato, even as conjectures. It is

called "a valuable discovery of modern times" (so

Schleiermacher[32] terms it) that Plato meant all or most of them

as mere parody and caricature. We are now told that it was not

Plato who misconceived the analogies, conditions, and limits, of

etymological transition, but others; whom Plato has here set

himself to expose and ridicule, by mock etymologies intended to

parody those which they had proposed as serious. If we ask who the

persons thus ridiculed were, we learn that they were the Sophists,

Protagoras, or Prodikus, with others; according to Schleiermacher,

Antisthenes among them.[33]

[Footnote 31: Dionys. Hal. De Comp. Verb. a. 16, p. 196, Schaefer.

[Greek: ta\ kra/tista de\ ne/mô, ô(s prô/tô| to\n u(pe\r

e)tumologi/as ei)sa/gonti lo/gon, Pla/tôni tô=| Sôkratikô=|,

pollachê=| me\n kai\ a)/llothi, ma/lista de\ e)n tô=| Kratu/lô|.]

About Plato's etymologies, as seriously intended, see Plutarch, De

Iside et Osiride, p. 375 C-D-E, with the note of Wyttenbach.

Harris, in his Hermes (pp. 369-370-407), alludes to the

etymologies of Plato in the Kratylus as being ingenious, though

disputable, but not at all as being derisory caricatures. Indeed

the etymology of _Scientia_, which he cites from Scaliger, p. 370,

is quite as singular as any in the Kratylus. Sydenham (Notes to

the translation of Plato's Philêbus, p. 35) calls the Kratylus "a

dialogue, in which is taught the nature of things, as well the

permanent as the transient, from a supposed etymology of names and

words.

I find, in the very instructive comments of Bishop Colenso on the

Pentateuch (Part iv. ch. 24, p. 250), a citation from St.

Augustine, illustrating the view which I believe Plato to have

taken of these etymologies: "Quo loco prorsus non arbitror

prætereundum, quod pater Valerius animadvertit admirans, in

quorundam rusticanorum (_i.e._, Africans, near Carthage)

collocutione. Cum enim alter alteri dixisset _Salus_--quæsivit ab

eo, qui et Latiné nosset et Punicé, quid esset _Salus_: responsum

est, _Tria_. Tum ille agnoscens cum gaudio, salutem nostram esse

Trinitatem, convenientiam linguarum non fortuitu sic sonuisse

arbitratus est, sed occultissimâ dispensatione divinæ

providentiæ--ut cum Latiné nominatur _Salus_, à Punicis intelligantur

_Tria_--et cum Punici linguâ suâ _Tria_ nominant, Latiné intelligatur

_Salus_ . . . Sed _hæc verborum consonantia_, sive provenerit sive

provisa sit, _non pugnaciter agendum est ut ei quisque consentiat,

sed quantum interpretantis elegantiam hilaritas audientis

admittit._"

So in the etymologies of the Kratylus: Plato follows out threads

of analogy, which, with indulgent hearers, he reckons will be

sufficient for proof: and which, even when not accepted as proof,

will be pleasing to the fancy of unbelieving hearers, as they are

to his own. There is no intention to caricature: no obvious

absurdities piled up with a view to caricature.]

[Footnote 32: Schleiermacher, Introduction to Kratylus, vol. iv.

p. 6: "Dagegen ist viel gewonnen durch die Entdeckung neuerer

Zeiten," &c. To the same purpose, Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., part

ii. p. 402, edit. 2nd, and Brandis, Gesch. Gr. Röm. Phil., part

ii. sect. cvii. p. 285.

Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Platon. Cratylum, p. 4, says: "Quod mirum

est non esse ab iis animadversum, qui Platonem putaverunt de

linguæ et vocabulorum origine hoc libro suam sententiam explicare

voluisse. Isti enim adeo nihil senserunt irrisionis, ut omnia

atque singula pro philosophi decretis venditarint, ideoque ei

absurdissima quæque commenta affinxerint. Ita Menagius. . . . Nec

Tiedemannus Argum, Dial. Plat. multo rectius judicat. Irrisionem

primi senserunt Garnierius et Tennemann." &c. Stallbaum, moreover,

is perpetually complaining in his notes, that the Etymological

Lexicons adopt Plato's derivations as genuine. Ménage (ad Diogen.

Laert. iii. 25) declares most of the etymologies of Plato in the

Kratylus to be [Greek: pseude/tuma], but never hints at the

supposition that they are intended as caricatures. During the

centuries between Plato and Ménage, men had become more critical

on the subject of etymology: in the century after Ménage, they had

become more critical still, as we may see by the remarks of Turgot

on the etymologies of Ménage himself.

The following are the remarks of Turgot, in the article

'Etymologie' (Encycl. Franc. in Turgot's collected works, vol.

iii. p. 33): "Ménage est un exemple frappant des absurdités dans

lesquelles on tombe, en adoptant sans choix ce que suggère la

malheureuse facilité de supposer tout ce qui est possible: car il

est très vrai qu'il ne fait aucune supposition dont la possibilité

ne soit justifiée par des exemples. Mais nous avons prouvé qu'en

multipliant à volonté les altérations intermédiaires, soit dans le

son, soit dans la signification, il est aisé de dériver un mot

quelconque de tout autre mot donné: c'est le moyen _d'expliquer

tout, et dès-lors de ne rien expliquer_; c'est le moyen aussi de

justifier tous les mépris de l'ignorance."

Steinhart (Einleitung zum Kratylus, pp. 551-552) agrees with

Stallbaum to a certain extent, that Plato in the Kratylus intended

to mock and caricature the bad etymologists of his own day; yet

also that parts of the Kratylus are seriously intended. And he

declares it almost impossible to draw a line between the serious

matter and the caricature.

It appears to me that the Platonic critics here exculpate Plato

from the charge of being a bad etymologist, only by fastening upon

him another intellectual defect quite as serious.

Dittrich, in his Dissertation De Cratylo Platonis, Leipsic, 1841,

adopts the opinion of Schleiermacher and the other critics, that

the etymological examples given in this dialogue, though Sokrates

announces them as proving and illustrating his own theory

seriously laid down, are really bitter jests and mockery, intended

to destroy it--"hanc sententiam facetissimis et irrisione plenis

exemplis, dum comprobare videtur, reverâ infringit" (p. 12).

Dittrich admits that Kratylus, who holds the theory derided,

understands nothing of this _acerbissima irrisio_ (p. 18). He

thinks that Protagoras, not Prodikus nor Antisthenes, is the

person principally caricatured (pp. 32-34-38).]

[Footnote 33: Schleiermacher, Introd. to Kratyl. pp. 8-16;

Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Krat. p. 17. Winckelmann suspects that

Hermogenes in the Kratylus is intended to represent Antisthenes

(Antisth. Fragment. p. 49).

Lobeck (Aglaophamus, p. 866) says that the Pythagoreans were among

the earliest etymologising philosophers, proposing such

etymologies as now appear very absurd.]

[Side-note: Dissent from this theory--No proof that the Sophists

ever proposed etymologies.]

To me this modern discovery or hypothesis appears inadmissible. It

rests upon assumptions at best gratuitous, and in part incorrect:

it introduces difficulties greater than those which it removes. We

find no proof that the Sophists ever proposed such etymologies as

those which are here supposed to be ridiculed--or that they

devoted themselves to etymology at all. If they etymologised, they

would doubtless do so in the manner (to our judgment loose and

fantastic) of their own time and of times long after them. But

what ground have we for presuming that Plato's views on the

subject were more correct? and that etymologies which to them

appeared admissible, would be regarded by him as absurd and

ridiculous?

Now if the persons concerned were other than the Sophists,

scarcely any critic would have thought himself entitled to fasten

upon them a discreditable imputation without some evidence. Of

Prodikus we know (and that too chiefly from some sarcasms of

Plato) that he took pains to distinguish words apparently, but not

really, equivalent: and that such accurate distinction was what he

meant by "rectitude of names" (Plato, Euthydêm. 277 E.) Of

Protagoras we know that he taught, by precept or example, correct

speaking or writing: but we have no information that either of

them pursued etymological researches, successfully or

unsuccessfully.[34] Moreover this very dialogue (Kratylus)

contains strong presumptive evidence that the Platonic etymologies

could never have been intended to ridicule Protagoras. For these

etymologies are announced by Sokrates as exemplifying and

illustrating a theory of his own respecting names: which theory

(Sokrates himself expressly tells us) is founded upon the direct

negation of the cardinal doctrine of Protagoras.[35] That Sophist,

therefore, could not have been ridiculed by any applications,

however extravagant, of a theory directly opposed to him.[36]

[Footnote 34: See a good passage of Winckelmann, Prolegg. ad

Platon. Euthydemum, p. xlvii., respecting Protagoras and Prodikus,

as writers and critics on language.

Stallbaum says, Proleg. ad Krat. p. 11:--"Quibus verbis _haud

dubié_ notantur Sophistæ; qui, neglectis linguæ elementis,

derivatorum et compositorum verborum originationem temeré ad suum

arbitrium tractabant". Ibid. p. 4:--"In Cratylo ineptæ etymologiæ

specimina exhibentur, ita quidem ut _haudquaquam dubitari liceat_,

quin ista omnia ad mentem sophistarum maximeque Protagoreorum

_joculari imitatione_ explicata sint".

In spite of these confident assertions,--first, that the Sophists

are the persons _intended_ to be ridiculed, next, that they

_deserved_ to be so ridiculed--Stallbaum has another passage, p.

15, wherein he says, "Jam vero quinam fuerint philosophi isti

atque etymologi, qui in Cratylo ridentur et exploduntur, _vulgo

parum exploratum habetur_". He goes on to say that neither

Prodikus nor Antisthenes is meant, but Protagoras and the

Protagoreans. To prove this he infers, from a passage in this

dialogue (c. 11, p. 391 C), that Protagoras had written a book

[Greek: peri\ o)rtho/têtos tô=n o)noma/tôn] (Heindorf and

Schleiermacher, with better reason, infer from the passage nothing

more than the circumstance that Protagoras taught [Greek:

o)rthoepei/an] or correct speaking and writing). The passage does

not prove this; but if it did, what did Protagoras teach in the

book? Stallbaum tells us (p. 16):--"Jam si quæras, quid tandem

Protagoras ipse de nominum ortu censuerit, _fateor unâ conjecturâ

nitendum esse, ut de hâc re aliquid eruatur_". He then proceeds to

_conjecture_, from the little which we know respecting Protagoras,

what that Sophist must have laid down upon the origin of names;

and he finishes by assuming the very point which he ought to have

proved (p. 17):--"_ex ipso Cratylo intelligimus et cognoscimus_,

mox inter Protagoræ amicos exstitisse qui inepté hæc studia

persequentes, non e verbis et nominibus mentis humanæ notiones

elicere et illustrare, sed in verba et nomina sua ipsi decreta

transferre et sic ea probare et confirmare niterentur. Quid quidem

homines à Platone hoc libro _facetissimâ irrisione_ exagitantur,"

&c. I repeat, that in spite of Stallbaum's confident assertions,

he fails in giving the smallest proof that Protagoras or the

Sophists proposed etymologies such as to make them a suitable butt

for Plato on this occasion. Ast also talks with equal confidence

and equal absence of proof about the silly and arbitrary

etymological proceedings of the Sophists, which (he says) this

dialogue is intended throughout to ridicule (Ast, Platon's Leben

und Schriften, pp. 253-254-264, &c.).]

[Footnote 35: Plato, Kratylus, c. 4-5, pp. 386-387.]

[Footnote 36: Lassalle (Herakleitos, vol. ii. pp. 379-384) asserts

and shows very truly that Protagoras cannot be the person intended

to be represented by Plato under the name of Kratylus, or as

holding the opinion of Kratylus about names. Lassalle affirms that

Plato intends Kratylus in the dialogue to represent Herakleitus

himself (p. 385); moreover he greatly extols the sagacity of

Herakleitos for having laid down the principle, that "Names are

the essence of things," in which principle Lassalle (so far as I

understand him) himself concurs.

Assuming this to be the case, we should naturally suppose that if

Plato intends to ridicule any one, by presenting caricatured

etymologies as flowing from this principle, the person intended as

butt must be Herakleitus himself. Not so Lassalle. He asserts as

broadly as Stallbaum that it was Protagoras and the other Sophists

who grossly abused the doctrine of Herakleitus, for the purpose of

confusing and perverting truth by arbitrary etymologies. His

language is even more monstrous and extravagant than that of

Stallbaum; yet he does not produce (any more than Stallbaum) the

least fragment of proof that the Sophists or Protagoras did what

he imputes to them (pp. 400-401-403-422).

M. Lenormant, in his recent edition of the Kratylus (Comm. p.

7-9), maintains also that neither the Sophists nor the Rhetors

pretended to etymologise, nor are here ridiculed. But he ascribes

to Plato in the Kratylus a mystical and theological purpose which

I find it difficult to follow.]

[Side-note: Plato did not intend to propose mock-etymologies, or to

deride any one. Protagoras could not be ridiculed here. Neither

Hermogenes nor Kratylus understand the etymologies as caricature.]

Suppose it then ascertained that Plato intended to ridicule and

humiliate some rash etymologists, there would still be no

propriety in singling out the Sophists as his victims--except that

they are obnoxious names, against whom every unattested accusation

is readily believed. But it is neither ascertained, nor (in my

judgment) probable, that Plato here intended to ridicule or

humiliate any one. The ridicule, if any was intended, would tell

against himself more than against others. For he first begins by

laying down a general theory respecting names: a theory

unquestionably propounded as serious, and understood to be so by

the critics:[37] moreover, involving some of his favourite and

peculiar doctrines. It is this theory that his particular

etymologies are announced as intended to carry out, in the way of

illustration or exemplification. Moreover, he undertakes to prove

this theory against Hermogenes, who declares himself strongly

opposed to it: and he proves it by a string of arguments which

(whether valid or not) are obviously given with a serious and

sincere purpose of establishing the conclusion. Immediately after

having established that there was a real rectitude of names, and

after announcing that he would proceed to enquire wherein such

rectitude consisted,[38] what sense or consistency would there be

in his inventing a string of intentional caricatures announced as

real etymologies? By doing this, he would be only discrediting and

degrading the very theory which he had taken so much pains to

inculcate upon Hermogenes. Instead of ridiculing Protagoras, he

would ridicule himself and his own theory for the benefit of

opponents generally, one among them being Protagoras: who (if we

imagine his life prolonged) would have had the satisfaction of

seeing a theory, framed in direct opposition to his doctrine,

discredited and parodied by his own advocate. Hermogenes, too

(himself an opponent of the theory, though not concurring with

Protagoras), if these etymologies were intended as caricatures,

ought to be made to receive them as such, and to join in the joke

at the expense of the persons derided. But Hermogenes is not made

to manifest any sense of their being so intended: he accepts them

all as serious, though some as novel and surprising, in the same

passive way which is usual with the interlocutors of Sokrates in

other dialogues. Farther, there are some among these etymologies

plain and plausible enough, accepted as serious by all the

critics.[39] Yet these are presented in the series, without being

parted off by any definite line, along with those which we are

called upon to regard as deliberate specimens of mock-etymology.

Again, there are also some, which, looking at their etymological

character, are as strange and surprising as any in the whole

dialogue: but which yet, from the place which they occupy in the

argument, and from the plain language in which they are presented,

almost exclude the supposition that they can be intended as jest

or caricature.[40] Lastly, Kratylus, whose theory all these

etymologies are supposed to be intended to caricature, is so far

from being aware of this, that he cordially approves every thing

which Sokrates had said.[41]

[Footnote 37: Schleiermacher, Introd. to Krat. pp. 7-10; Lassalle,

Herakleit. ii. p. 387.]

[Footnote 38: Plato, Kratylus, p. 391 B.]

[Footnote 39: See, as an example, his derivation of [Greek:

_Di/philos_] from [Greek: Dii+/ phi/los], p. 399: [Greek:

_Mou=sa_], p. 406: [Greek: dai/môn] from [Greek: daê/môn], p. 398:

for [Greek: _A)phrodi/tê_] he takes the Hesiodic etymology, p.

406. [Greek: _A)/rês_] and [Greek: _a)/r)r(ên_] (p. 407). His

derivation of [Greek: _ai)thê/r_--a)po\ tou= a)ei\ the/ein] (p.

410) is given twice by Aristotle (De Coelo, i. 3, p. 270, b. 22;

Meteorol. i. 3, p. 339, b. 25) as well as in the Pseudo-Aristotle,

De Mundo, p. 392, a. 8. None of the Platonic etymologies is more

strange than that of [Greek: psuchê/], quasi [Greek: phuse/chê,

a)po\ tou= tê\n phu/sin o)chei=n kai\ e)/chein] (Kratyl. p. 400).

Yet Proklus cites this as serious, Scholia in Kratylum, p. 4, ed.

Boissonnade. Plato, in the Treatise De Legibus, derives [Greek:

cho/ros] from [Greek: chara/] and [Greek: no/mos] from [Greek:

nou=s] or [Greek: no/os] (ii. 1, p. 654 A, xii. 8, p. 957 D).]

[Footnote 40: See Plato, Kratyl. p. 437 A-B.

This occurs in the latter portion of the dialogue carried on by

Sokrates with Kratylus, and is admitted by Lassalle to be

seriously meant by Plato: though Lassalle maintains that the

etymologies in the first part of the dialogue (between Sokrates

and Hermogenes) are mere mockery and parody. (Lassalle,

Herakleitos der Dunkle, vol. ii., pp. 402-403).

I venture to say that none of those Platonic etymologies, which

Lassalle regards as caricatures, are more absurd than those which

he here accepts as serious. Liddell and Scott in their Lexicon say

about [Greek: thumo/s], "probably rightly derived from [Greek:

thu/ô] by Plat. Crat. 419 E, [Greek: a)po\ tê=s thu/seôs kai\

ze/seôs tê=s psuchê=s.]" The manner in which Schleiermacher and

Steinhart also (Einleit. zum Kratylos, pp. 552-554), analysing

this dialogue, represent Plato as passing backwards and forwards

from mockery to earnest and from earnest to mockery, appears to me

very singular: as well as the principle which Schleiermacher lays

down (Introduct. p. 10), that Plato intended the general doctrines

to be seriously understood, and the particular etymological

applications to be mere mockery and extravagance (um wer weiss

welche Komödie aufzuführen). What other philosopher has ever

propounded serious doctrines, and then followed them up by

illustrations knowingly and intentionally caricatured so as to

disparage the doctrines instead of recommending them?

It** is surely less difficult to believe that Plato conceived as

plausible and admissible those etymologies which appear to us

absurd.

As a specimen of the view entertained by able men of the

seventeenth century respecting the Platonic and Aristotelian

etymologies, see the Institutiones Logicæ of Burgersdicius, Lib.

i. c. 25, not. 1. Lehrsch (Die Sprachphilosophie der Alten, Part

i. p. 34-35) agrees with the other commentators, that the Platonic

etymologies in the Kratylus are caricatured to deride the boastful

and arbitrary etymologies of the Sophists about language. But he

too produces no evidence of such etymologies on the part of the

Sophists; nay, what is remarkable, he supposes that _both_

Protagoras and Prodikus agreed in the Platonic doctrine that names

were [Greek: phu/sei] (see pp. 17-19).]

[Footnote 41: Plato, Kratylus, p. 429 C. Steinhart (Einleit. zum

Krat. pp. 549-550) observes that both Kratylus and Hermogenes are

represented as understanding seriously these etymologies which are

now affirmed to be meant as caricatures.

As specimens of Plato's view respecting admissible etymologies, we

find him in Timæus, p. 43 C, deriving [Greek: ai)/sthêsis] from

[Greek: a)i+/ssô]: again in the same dialogue, p. 62 A, [Greek:

thermo\s] from [Greek: kermati/zein]. In Legg. iv. 714, we have

[Greek: tê\n tou= nou= dianomê\n e)ponoma/zontas no/mon]. In

Phædrus, p. 238 C, we find [Greek: e)/rôs] derived from [Greek:

e)r)r(ôme/nôs r(ôsthei=sa].

Aristotle derives [Greek: o)/sphus] from [Greek: i)sophue/s],

Histor. Animal. i. 13, p. 493, a. 22: also [Greek: di/kaion] from

[Greek: di/cha], Ethic. Nikom. v. 7, 1132, a. 31; [Greek:

methu/ein--meta\ to\ thu/ein], Athenæus, ii. 40. The

Pseudo-Aristotelian treatise [Greek: Peri\ Ko/smou] (p. 401, a. 15)

adopts the Platonic etymology of [Greek: Di/a-Zê=na] as [Greek:

di' o(\n zô=men]

Plutarch, De Primo Frigido, c. 9, p. 948, derives [Greek: kne/phas]

from [Greek: keno\n pha/ous].

The Emperor Marcus Antoninus derives [Greek: a)kti/s], the ray of

the Sun, [Greek: a)po\ tou= e)ktei/nesthai], Meditat. viii. 57.

The Stoics, who were fond of etymologising, borrowed many

etymologies from the Platonic Kratylus (Villoison, de Theologiâ

Physicâ Stoicorum, in Osann's edition of Cornutus De Naturâ

Deorum, p. 512). Specimens of the Stoic etymologies are given by

the Stoic Balbus in Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, ii. 25-29 (64-73).

Dähne (in his Darstellung der Judisch-Alexandrinischen

Religions-Philosophie, i. p. 73 seq.) remarks on the numerous

etymologies not merely propounded, but assumed as grounds of

reasoning by Philo Judæus in commenting upon the Pentateuch,

etymologies totally inadmissible and often ridiculous.]

[Side-note: Plato intended his theory as serious, but his

exemplifications as admissible guesses. He does not cite

particular cases as proofs of a theory, but only as illustrating

what he means.]

I cannot therefore accept as well-founded this "discovery of

modern times," which represents the Platonic etymologies in the

Kratylus as intentionally extravagant and knowingly caricatured,

for the purpose of ridiculing the Sophists or others. In my

judgment, Plato did not put them forward as extravagant, nor for

the purpose of ridiculing any one, but as genuine illustrations of

a theory of his own respecting names. It cannot be said indeed

that he advanced them as proof of his theory: for Plato seldom

appeals to particulars, except when he has a theory to attack.

When he has a theory to lay down, he does not generally recognise

the necessity of either proving or verifying it by application to

particular cases. His proof is usually deductive or derived from

some more general principle asserted _à priori_--some internal

sentiment enunciated as a self-justifying maxim. Particular

examples serve to illustrate what the principle is, but are not

required to establish its validity.[42] But I believe that he

intended his particular etymologies as _bonâ fide_ guesses, more

or less probable (like the developments in the Timæus, which

he[43] repeatedly designates as [Greek: ei)ko/ta], and nothing

beyond): some certain, some doubtful, some merely novel and

ingenious: such as would naturally spring from the originating

_afflatus_ of diviners (like Euthyphron, to whom he alludes more

than once[44]) who stepped beyond the ordinary regions of human

affirmation. Occasionally he proposes alternative and distinct

etymologies: feeling assured that there was some way of making out

the conclusion--but not feeling equally certain about his own way

of making it out. The sentiment of belief attaches itself in

Plato's mind to general views and theorems: when he gives

particular consequences as flowing from them, his belief graduates

down through all the stages between full certainty and the lowest

probability, until in some cases it becomes little more than a

fanciful illustration--like the mythes which he so often invents

to expand and enliven these same general views.[45]

[Footnote 42: See some passages in this very dialogue, Krat. pp.

436 E, 437 C, 438 C.

Lassalle remarks that neither Herakleitus nor Plato were disposed

to rest the proof of a general principle upon an induction of

particulars (Herakleitos, p. 406).]

[Footnote 43: Spengel justly remarks (Art. Scr. p. 52) respecting

the hypotheses of the Platonic commentators:--"Platonem quidem

liberare gestiunt, falsâ, ironiâ, non ex animi sententiâ omnia in

Cratylo prolata esse dicentes. Sed præter alia multa et hoc

neglexerunt viri docti, easdem verborum originationes, quas in

Cratylo, in cæteris quoque dialogis, ubi nullus est facetiis

locus, et seria omnia aguntur, recurrere."

This passage is cited by K. F. Hermann, Gesch. und Syst. d.

Platon. Phil. Not. 474, p. 656. Hermann's own remarks on the

dialogue (pp. 494-497) are very indistinct, but he seems to agree

with Schleiermacher in singling out Antisthenes as the object of

attack.

The third portion of Lehrsch's work, _Ueber die Sprachphilosophie

der Alten_, cites numerous examples of the etymologies attempted

by the ancients, from Homer downwards, many of them collected from

the Etymologicon Magnum. When we read the etymologies propounded

seriously by Greek and Latin philosophers (especially the Stoic

Chrysippus), literary men, jurists, and poets, we shall not be

astonished at those found in the Platonic Kratylus. The etymology

of [Greek: Theo\s a)po\ tou= thei=n], given in the Kratylus (p.

397 D), as well as in the Pythagorean Philolaus (see Boeckh,

Philolaus, pp. 168-175), and repeated by Clemens Alexandrinus, is

not more absurd than that of [Greek: theo\s a)po\ tou= thei=nai],

given by Herodot. ii. 52, and also repeated by Clemens, see

Wesseling's note. None of the etymologies of the Kratylus is more

strange than that of [Greek: Zeu\s-Di/a-Zê=na] (p. 396 B). Yet

this is reproduced in the Pseudo-Aristotelian Treatise, [Greek:

Peri\ Ko/smou] (p. 401, a. 15), as well as by the Stoic Zeno

(Diogen. Laert. vii. 147). The treatise of Cornutus, De Nat. Deor.

with Osann's Commentary, is instructive in enabling us to

appreciate the taste of ancient times as to what was probable or

admissible in etymology. There are few of the etymologies in the

Kratylus more singular than that of [Greek: a)/nthrôpos] from

[Greek: a)nathrô=n a)\ o(/pôpen]. Yet this is cited by Ammonius as

a perfectly good derivation, ad Aristot. De Interpret. p. 103, b.

8, Schol. Bekk., and also in the Etymologicon Magnum.]

[Footnote 44: Compare Plato, Euthyphron, p. 6 D. Origination and

invention often pass in Plato as the workings of an ordinary mind

(sometimes even a feeble mind) worked upon from without by divine

inspiration, quite distinct from the internal force, reasoning,

judging, testing, which belongs to a powerful mind. See Phædrus,

pp. 235 C, 238 D, 244 A; Timæus, p. 72 A; Menon, p. 81 A.]

[Footnote 45: I have made some remarks to this effect upon the

Platonic mythes in my notice of the Phædon, see ch. xxv. p. 415,

ad Phædon, p. 114.]

[Side-note: Sokrates announces himself as Searcher. Other

etymologists of ancient times admitted etymologies as rash as

those of Plato.]