We must remember that Sokrates in the Kratylus explicitly

announces himself as having no formed opinion on the subject, and

as competent only to the prosecution of the enquiry, jointly with

the others. What he says must therefore be received as conjectures

proposed for discussion. I see no ground for believing that he

regarded any of them, even those which appear to us the strangest,

as being absurd or extravagant--or that he proposed any of them in

mockery and caricature, for the purpose of deriding other

Etymologists. Because these etymologies, or many of them at least,

appear to us obviously absurd, we are not warranted in believing

that they must have appeared so to Plato. They did not appear so

(as I have already observed) to Dionysius of Halikarnassus--nor to

Diogenes, nor to the Platonists of antiquity nor to any critics

earlier than the seventeenth century.[46] By many of these critics

they were deemed not merely serious, but valuable. Nor are they

more absurd than many of the etymologies proposed by Aristotle, by

the Stoics, by the Alexandrine critics, by Varro, and by the

_grammatici_ or literary men of antiquity generally; moreover,

even by Plato himself in other dialogues occasionally.[47] In

determining what etymologies would appear to Plato reasonable or

admissible, Dionysius, Plutarch, Proklus, and Alkinous, are more

likely to judge rightly than we: partly because they had a larger

knowledge of the etymologies proposed by Greek philosophers and

_grammatici_ than we possess--partly because they had no

acquaintance with the enlarged views of modern

etymologists--which, on the point here in question, are misleading

rather than otherwise. Plato held the general theory that names,

in so far as they were framed with perfect rectitude, held embodied

in words and syllables a likeness or imitation of the essence of things.

And if he tried to follow out such a theory into detail, without

any knowledge of grammatical systems, without any large and

well-chosen collection of analogies within his own language, or any

comparison of different languages with each other--he could

scarcely fail to lose himself in wonderful and violent

transmutations of letters and syllables.[48]

[Footnote 46: Dionys. Hal. De Comp. Verbor. c. 16, p. 96, Reiske;

Plutarch, De Isid. et Osir. c. 60, p. 375.

Proklus advises that those who wish to become dialecticians should

begin with the study of the Kratylus (Schol. ad Kratyl. p. 3, ed.

Boiss.).

We read in the Phædrus of Plato (p. 244 B) in the second speech

ascribed to Sokrates, two etymologies:--1. [Greek: mantikê\]

derived from [Greek: manikê\] by the insertion of [Greek: t],

which Sokrates declares to be done in bad taste, [Greek: oi( de\

nu=n a)peiroka/lôs to\ _tau=_ e)pemba/llontes mantikê\n

e)ka/lasan.] 2. [Greek: oi)ônistikê\], quasi [Greek:

oi)onoi+stikê\], from [Greek: oi)/êsis, nou=s, i(stori/a]. Compare

the etymology of [Greek: E)/rôs], p. 238 C. That these are real

word-changes, which Plato believes to have taken place, is the

natural and reasonable interpretation of the passage. Cicero

(Divinat. i. 1) alludes to the first of the two as Plato's real

opinion; and Heindorf as well as Schleiermacher accept it in the

same sense, while expressing their surprise at the want of

etymological perspicacity in Plato. Ast and Stallbaum, on the

contrary, declare that these two etymologies are mere irony and

mockery, spoken by Plato, _ex mente Sophistarum_, and intended as

a sneer at the perverse and silly Sophists. No reason is produced

by Ast and Stallbaum to justify this hypothesis, except that you

cannot imagine "_Platonem tam cæcum fuisse_," &c. To me this

reason is utterly insufficient; and I contend, moreover, that

sneers at the Sophists would be quite out of place in a speech,

such as the palinode of Sokrates about Eros.]

[Footnote 47: See what Aristotle says about [Greek: Pa/ntê] in the

first chapter of the treatise De Coelo; also about [Greek:

au)to/maton] from [Greek: au)to\ ma/tên], Physic. ii. 5, p. 197,

b. 30.

Stallbaum, after having complimented Plato for his talent in

caricaturing the etymologies of others, expresses his surprise to

find Aristotle reproducing some of these very caricatures as

serious, see Stallbaum's note on Kratyl. p. 411 E.

Respecting the etymologies proposed by learned and able Romans in

and before the Ciceronian and Augustan age, Ælius Stilo, Varro,

Labeo, Nigidius, &c., see Aulus Gellius, xiii. 10; Quintilian,

Inst. Or. i. 5; Varro, de Linguâ Latinâ.

Even to Quintilian, the etymologies of Varro appeared

preposterous; and he observes, in reference to those proposed by

Ælius Stilo and by others afterwards, "Cui non post Varronem sit

venia?" (i. 6, 37). This critical remark, alike good tempered and

reasonable, might be applied with still greater pertinence to the

Kratylus of Plato. In regard to etymology, more might have been

expected from Varro than from Plato; for in the days of Plato,

etymological guesses were almost a novelty; while during the three

centuries which elapsed between him and Varro, many such

conjectures had been hazarded by various scholars, and more or

less of improvement might be hoped from the conflict of opposite

opinions and thinkers.

M. Gaston Boissier (in his interesting Étude sur la vie et les

Ouvrages de M. Terentius Varron, p. 152, Paris, 1861) observes

respecting Varro, what is still more applicable to

Plato:--"Gardons nous bien d'ailleurs de demander à Varron ce qu'exige

la science moderne: pour n'être pas trop sévères, remettons-le dans

son époque et jugeons-le avec l'esprit de son temps.** Il ne semble

pas qu'alors on réclamât, de ceux qui recherchaient les

étymologies, beaucoup d'exactitude et de sévérité. _On se piquait

moins d'arriver à l'origine réelle du mot, que de le décomposer

d'une manière ingénieuse et qui en gravât le sens dans la

mémoire._ Les jurisconsultes eux-mêmes, malgré la gravité de leur

profession et l'importance pratique de leurs recherches, ne

suivaient pas une autre méthode. Trebatius trouvait dans

_sacellum_ les deux mots _sacra cella_: et Labéon faisait venir

_soror_ de _seorsum_, parce que la jeune fille se sépare de le

maison paternelle pours suivre son époux: tout comme Nigidius

trouvoit dans _frater ferè alter_--c'est à dire, un autre

soi-même," &c.

Lobeck has similar remarks in his Aglaophamus (pp. 867-869):--"Sané

ita J. Capellus veteres juris consultos excusat, _mutuum_

interpretantes _quod ex meo tuum fiat, testamentum_ autem

_testationem mentis_, non quod eam verborum originem esse

putarent, sed ut significationem eorum altius in legentium animis

defigerent. Similiterque ecclesiastici quidam auctores, quum nomen

Pascha a græco verbo [Greek: pa/schein] repetunt, non per

ignorantiam lapsi, sed allusionis quandam gratiam aucupati

videntur."]

[Footnote 48: Gräfenhahn (Gesch. d. classichen Philologie, vol. i.

sect. 36, pp. 151-164) points out how common was the hypothesis of

fanciful derivation of names or supposed etymologies among the

Greek poets, and how it passed from them to the prose writers. He

declares that the etymologies in Plato not only in the Kratylus

but in other dialogues are "etymologische monstra," but he

professes inability to distinguish which of them are serious (pp.

163-164).

Lobeck remarks that the playing and quibbling with words, widely

diffused among the ancient literati generally, was especially

likely to belong to those who held the Platonic theory about

language:--"Is intelligat necesse est, hoc universum genus ab

antiquitatis** ingenio non alienum, ei vero, qui imagines rerum in

vocabulis sic ut in cerâ expressas putaret, convenientissimum

fuisse" (Aglaophamus, p. 870).]

[Side-note: Continuance of the dialogue--Sokrates endeavours to

explain how it is that the Names originally right have become so

disguised and spoiled.]

Having expressed my opinion that the etymologies propounded by

Sokrates in the Kratylus are not intended as caricatures, but as

_bonâ fide_ specimens of admissible etymological conjecture, or,

at the least, of discoverable analogy--I resume the thread of the

dialogue.

These etymologies are the hypothetical links whereby Sokrates

reconciles his first theory of the essential rectitude of Names

(that is, of Naming, as a process which can only be performed in

one way, and by an Artist who discerns and uses the Name-Form),

with the names actually received and current. The contrast between

the sameness and perfection postulated in the theory, and the

confusion of actual practice, is not less manifest than the

contrast between the benevolent purposes ascribed to the Demiurgus

(in the Timæus) and the realities of man and society:--requiring

intermediate assumptions, more or less ingenious, to explain or

attenuate the glaring inconsistencies. Respecting the Name-Form,

Sokrates intimates that it may often be so disguised by difference

of letters and syllables, as not to be discernible by an ordinary

man, or by any one except an artist or philosopher. Two names, if

compound, may have the same Name-Form, though few or none of the

letters in them be the same. A physician may so disguise his

complex mixtures, by apparent differences of colour or smell, that

they shall be supposed by others to be different, though

essentially the same. _Beta_ is the name of the letter B: you may

substitute, in place of the three last letters, any others which

you prefer, and the name will still be appropriate to designate

the letter B.[49]

[Footnote 49: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 393-394.]

[Side-note: Letters, as well as things, must be distinguished with

their essential properties, each must be adapted to each.]

To explain the foundations of the onomastic (name-giving or

speaking) art,[50] we must analyse words into their primordial

constituent letters. The name-giving Artists have begun from this

point, and we must follow in their synthetical track. We must

distinguish letters with their essential forms--we must also

distinguish things with their essential forms--we must then assign

to each essence of things that essence of letters which has a

natural aptitude to signify it, either one letter singly or

several conjoined. The rectitude of the compound names will depend

upon that of the simple and primordial.[51] This is the only way

in which we can track out the rectitude of names: for it is no

account of the matter to say that the Gods bestowed them, and that

therefore they are right: such recourse to a _Deus ex machinâ_ is

only one among the pretexts for evading the necessity of

explanation.[52]

[Footnote 50: Plato, Kratyl. p. 425 A. [Greek: tê=| o)nomastikê=|,

ê)\ r(êtorikê=|, ê)\ ê(/tis e)sti\n ê( te/chnê.]]

[Footnote 51: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 424 B-E, 426 A, 434 A.]

[Footnote 52: Plato, Kratyl. p. 425 E.]

This extreme postulate of analysis and adaptation may be compared

with that which Sokrates lays down, in the Phædrus, in regard to

the art of Rhetoric. You must first distinguish all the different

forms of mind--then all the different forms of speech; you must

assign the sort of speech which is apt for persuading each

particular sort of mind. Phædrus, pp. 271-272.]

[Side-note: Essential significant aptitude consists in

resemblance.]

Essential aptitude for signification consists in resemblance

between the essence of the letter and that of the thing signified.

Thus the letter _Rho_, according to Sokrates, is naturally apt for

the signification of rush or vehement motion, because in

pronouncing it the tongue is briskly agitated and rolled about.

Several words are cited, illustrating this position.[53] _Iota_

naturally designates thin and subtle things, which insinuate

themselves everywhere. _Phi_, _Chi_, _Psi_, _Sigma_, the

sibilants, imitate blowing. _Delta_ and _Tau_, from the

compression of the tongue, imitate stoppage of motion, or

stationary condition. _Lambda_ imitates smooth and slippery

things. _Nu_ serves, as confining the voice in the mouth, to form

the words signifying in-doors and interior. _Alpha_ and _Eta_ are

both of them large letters: the first is assigned to signify size,

the last to signify length. _Omicron_ is suited to what is round

or circular.[54]

[Footnote 53: Plato, Kratyl. p. 426 D-E. [Greek: krou/ein,

thrau/ein, e(rei/kein], &c. Leibnitz (Nouveaux Essais sur

l'Entendement Humain, Book iii. ch. 2, p. 300 Erdm.); and Jacob

Grimm (in his Dissertation Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache,

Berlin, 1858, ed. 4) give views very similar to those of Plato,

respecting the primordial growth of language, and the original

significant or symbolising power supposed to be inherent in each

letter (Kein Buchstabe, "ursprünglich steht bedeutungslos oder

ueberflüssig," pp. 39-40). Leibnitz and Grimm say (as Plato here

also affirms) that Rho designates the Rough--Lambda, the Smooth:

see also what he says about Alpha, Iota, Hypsilon. Compare,

besides, M. Renan, Orig. du Langage, vi. p. 137.

The comparison of the Platonic speculations on the primordial

powers of letters, with those of a modern linguistic scholar so

illustrious as Grimm (the earliest speculations with the latest)

are exceedingly curious--and honourable to Plato. They serve as

farther reasons for believing that this dialogue was not intended

to caricature Protagoras.]

[Footnote 54: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 426-427.]

It is from these fundamental aptitudes, and some others analogous,

that the name-giving Artist, or Lawgiver, first put together

letters to compound and construct his names. Herein consists their

rectitude, according to Sokrates. Though in laying down the

position Sokrates gives it only as the best which _he_ could

discover, and intimates that some persons may turn it into

derision--yet he evidently means to be understood seriously.[55]

[Footnote 55: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 426 B, 427 D.]

[Side-note: Sokrates assumes that the Name-giving Lawgiver was a

believer in the Herakleitean theory.]

In applying this theory--about the fundamental significant

aptitudes of the letters of the alphabet--to show the rectitude of

the existing words compounded from them--Sokrates assumes that the

name-giving Artists were believers in the Herakleitean theory:

that is, in the perpetual process of flux, movement, and

transition into contraries. He cites a large variety of names,

showing by their composition that they were adapted to denote this

all-pervading fact, as constituting the essence of things.[56] The

names given by these theorists to that which is good, virtuous,

agreeable, &c., were compounded in such a manner as to denote what

facilitates, or falls in with, the law of universal movement: the

names of things bad or hurtful, denote what obstructs or retards

movement.[57]

[Footnote 56: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 401 C--402 B. 436 E: [Greek: ô(s

tou= panto\s i)o/ntos te kai\ pherome/non kai\ r(e/ontos phame\n

sêmai/nein ê(mi=n tê\n ou)si/an ta\ o)no/mata.] Also p. 439 B.]

[Footnote 57: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 415-416-417, &c.]

[Side-note: But the Name-Giver may be mistaken or incompetent--the

rectitude of the name depends upon his knowledge.]

Many names (pursues Sokrates), having been given by artistic

lawgivers who believed in the Herakleitean theory, will possess

intrinsic rectitude, if we assume that theory to be true. But how

if the theory be not true? and if the name-givers were mistaken on

this fundamental point? The names will then not be right. Now we

must not assume the theory to be true, although the Name-givers

believed it to be so. Perhaps they themselves (Sokrates intimates)

having become giddy by often turning round to survey the nature of

things, mistook this _vertige_ of their own for a perpetual

revolution and movement of the things which they saw, and gave

names accordingly.[58] A Name-Giver who is real and artistic is

rare and hard to find: there are more among them incompetent than

competent: and the name originally bestowed represents only the

opinion or conviction of him by whom it is bestowed.[59] Yet the

names bestowed will be consistent with themselves, founded on the

same theory.

[Footnote 58: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 409**-411 C. [Greek:

Ai)tiô=ntai dê\ ou) to\ e)/ndon to\ para\ sphi/si pa/thos ai)/tion

ei)=nai tau/tês tê=s do/xês, a)ll' au)ta\ ta\ pra/gmata ou(/tô

pephuke/nai], &c.

"He that is giddy thinks the world turns round," &c.]

[Footnote 59: Plato, Kratyl. p. 418 C. [Greek: Oi)=stha ou)=n o(/ti

mo/non tou=to dêloi= to\ a)rchai=on o)/noma tê\n dia/noian tou=

theme/nou?] Also p. 419 A.]

[Side-note: Changes and transpositions introduced in the name--hard

to follow.]

Again, the names originally bestowed differ much from those in use

now. Many of them have undergone serious changes: there have been

numerous omissions, additions, interpolations, and transpositions

of letters, from regard to euphony or other fancies: insomuch that

the primitive root becomes hardly traceable, except by great

penetration and sagacity.[60] Then there are some names which have

never been issued at all from the mint of the name-giver, but have

either been borrowed from foreigners, or perhaps have been

suggested by super-human powers.[61]

[Footnote 60: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 394 B, 399 B, 414 C, 418 A.]

[Footnote 61: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 397 B, 409 B.]

* * * * *

[Side-note: Sokrates qualifies and attenuates his original thesis.]

To this point Sokrates brings the question during his conversation

with Hermogenes: against whom he maintains--That there is a

natural intrinsic rectitude in Names, or a true Name-Form--that

naming is a process which must be performed in the natural way,

and by an Artist who knows that way. But when, after laying down

this general theory, he has gone a certain length in applying it

to actual names, he proceeds to introduce qualifications which

attenuate and explain it away. Existing names were bestowed by

artistic law-givers, but under a belief in the Herakleitean

theory--which theory is at best doubtful: moreover the original

names have, in course of time, undergone such multiplied changes,

that the original point of significant resemblance can hardly be

now recognised except by very penetrating intellects.

[Side-note: Conversation of Sokrates with Kratylus: who upholds

that original thesis without any qualification.]

It is here that Sokrates comes into conversation with Kratylus:

who appears as the unreserved advocate of the same general theory

which Sokrates had enforced upon Hermogenes. He admits all the

consequences of the theory, taking no account of qualifications.

Moreover he announces himself as having already bestowed

reflection on the subject, and as espousing the doctrine of

Herakleitus.[62]

[Footnote 62: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 428 B, 440 E.

It appears that on this point the opinion of Herakleitus coincided

with that of the Pythagoreans, who held that names were [Greek:

phu/sei kai\ ou) the/sei] and maintained as a corollary that there

could be only one name for each thing and only one thing signified

by each name (Simplikius ad Aristot. Categ. p. 43, b. 32, Schol.

Bekk.).

In general Herakleitus differed from Pythagoras, and is described

as speaking of him with bitter antipathy.]

If names are significant by natural rectitude, or by partaking of

the Name-Form, it follows that all names must be right or true,

one as well as another. If a name be not right, it cannot be

significant: that is, it is no name at all: it is a mere unmeaning

sound. A name, in order to be significant, must imitate the

essence of the thing named. If you add any thing to a number, or

subtract any thing from it, it becomes thereby a new number: it is

not the same number badly rendered. So with a letter: so too with

a name. There is no such thing as a bad name. Every name must be

either significant, and therefore, right--or else it is not a

name. So also there is no such thing as a false proposition: you

cannot say the thing that is not: your words in that case have no

meaning; they are only an empty sound. The hypothesis that the

law-giver may have distributed names erroneously is therefore not

admissible.[63] Moreover, you see that he must have known well,

for otherwise he would not have given names so consistent with

each other, and with the general Herakleitean theory.[64] And

since the name is by necessity a representation or copy of the

thing, whoever knows the name, must also know the thing named.

There is in fact no other way of knowing or seeking or finding out

things, except through their names.[65]

[Footnote 63: Plato, Kratyl. p. 429 B-C.

_Sokr._ [Greek: Pa/nta a)/ra ta\ o)no/mata o)rthôs kei=tai?]

_Krat._ [Greek: O(/sa ge o)no/mata e)/sti.]

_Sokr._ [Greek: Ti/ ou)=n? E(rmoge/nei tô=|de po/teron mêde\

o)/noma tou=to kei=sthai phô=men, ei) mê/ ti au)tô=| E(rmou=

gene/seôs prosê/kei, ê)\ kei=sthai me/n, ou) me/ntoi o)rthô=s ge?]

_Krat._ [Greek: Ou)de\ kei=sthai e)/moige dokei=, _a)lla\ dokei=n

kei=sthai_. ei)=nai de\ e(te/rou tou=to tou)/noma, ou(=per kai\ ê(

phu/sis ê( to\ o)/noma dêlou=sa.]

The critics say that these last words ought to be read [Greek:

ê)\n to\ o)/noma dêloi=], as Ficinus has translated, and

Schleiermacher after him. They are probably in the right; at the

same time, reasoning upon the theory of Kratylus, we say without

impropriety, that "the thing indicates the name".

That which is erroneously called a bad name is no name at all (so

Kratylus argues), but only seems to be a name to ignorant persons.

Thus also in the Platonic Minos (c. 9, p. 317): a bad law is no

law in reality, but only seems to be a law to ignorant men, see

above, ch. xiv. p. 88.**

Compare the like argument about [Greek: no/mos] in Xenoph.

Memorab. i. 2, 42-47, and Lassalle, Herakleitos, vol. ii. p. 392.]

[Footnote 64: Plato, Krat. p. 436 C. [Greek: A)lla\ mê ou)ch

ou(/tôs e)/chê|, a)ll' a)nagkai=on ê)=|, ei)do/ta ti/thesthai to\n

tithe/menon ta\ o)no/mata; ei) de\ mê/, o(/per pa/lai e)gô\

e)/legon, ou)d' a)\n o)no/mata ei)/ê. Me/giston de/ soi e)/stô

tekmê/rion o(/ti ou)k e)/sphaltai tê=s a)lêthei/as o( tithe/menos;

ou) ga\r a)\n pote ou(/tô xu/mphôna ê)=n au)tô=| a(/panta. ê)\

_ou)k e)neno/eis au)to\s le/gôn ô(s pa/nta kat' au)to\ kai\ e)pi\

tau)to\n e)gi/gneto ta\ o)no/mata?_]

These last words allude to the various particular etymologies

which had been enumerated by Sokrates as illustrations of the

Herakleitean theory. They confirm the opinion above expressed,

that Plato intended his etymologies seriously, not as mockery or

caricature. That Plato should have intended them as caricatures of

Protagoras and Prodikus, and yet that he should introduce Kratylus

as welcoming them in support of _his_ argument, is a much greater

absurdity than the supposition that Plato mistook them for

admissible guesses.]

[Footnote 65: Plato, Krat. c. 111, pp. 435-436.]

[Side-note: Sokrates goes still farther towards retracting it,]

These consequences are fairly deduced by Kratylus from the

hypothesis, of the natural rectitude of names, as laid down in the

beginning of the dialogue, by Sokrates: who had expressly affirmed

(in his anti-Protagorean opening of the dialogue) that unless the

process of naming was performed according to the peremptory

dictates of nature and by one of the few privileged name-givers,

it would be a failure and would accomplish nothing;[66] in other

words, that a non-natural name would be no name at all.

Accordingly, in replying to Kratylus, Sokrates goes yet farther in

retracting his own previous reasoning at the beginning of the

dialogue--though still without openly professing to do so. He

proposes a compromise.[67] He withdraws the pretensions of his

theory, as peremptory or exclusive; he acknowledges the theory of

Hermogenes as true, and valid in conjunction with it. He admits

that non-natural names also, significant only by convention, are

available as a make-shift--and that such names are in frequent

use. Still however he contends, that natural names, significant by

likeness, are the best, so far as they can be obtained: but

inasmuch as that principle will not afford sufficiently extensive

holding-ground, recourse must be had by way of supplement to the

less perfect rectitude (of names) presented by customary or

conventional significance.[68]

[Footnote 66: Plato, Kratyl. p. 387 C. [Greek: e)a\n de\ mê/,

e)xamartê/setai/ te kai\ ou)de\n poiê/sei.] Compare p. 389 A.]

[Footnote 67: Plato, Kratyl. p. 430 A. [Greek: phe/re dê/, e)a/n

pê| diallachthô=men, ô= Kra/tule], &c.]

[Footnote 68: Plato, Krat. p. 435 C. [Greek: e)moi\ me\n ou)=n

kai\ au)tô=| a)re/skei me\n kata\ to\ dunato\n o(/moia ei)=nai ta\

o)no/mata toi=s pra/gmasin; a)lla\ mê\ ô(s a)lêthô=s glischra\

ê)=| ê( o)lkê\ au)tê\ tê=s o(moio/têtos, a)nagkai=on de\ ê)=| kai\

tô=| phortikô=| tou/tô| proschrê=sthai, tê=| xunthê/kê|, ei)s

o)noma/tôn o)rtho/têta; e)pei\ i)/sôs kata/ ge to\ dunato\n

ka/llist' a)\n le/goito, o(/tan ê)\ pa=sin ê)\ ô(s plei/stois

o(moi/ois le/gêtai, tou=to d' e)sti\ prosêkousin, ai)/schista de\

tou)nanti/on.]]

[Side-note: There are names better--more like, or less like to the

things named: Natural Names are the best, but they cannot always

be had. Names may be significant by habit, though in an inferior

way.]

You say (reasons Sokrates with Kratylus) that names must be

significant by way of likeness. But there are degrees of

likeness. A portrait is more or less like its original, but it is

never exactly like: it is never a duplicate, nor does it need to

be so. Or a portrait, which really belongs to and resembles one

person, may be erroneously assigned to another. The same thing

happens with names. There are names more or less like the thing

named--good or bad: there are names good with reference to their

own object, but erroneously fitted on to objects not their own.

The name does not cease to be a name, so long as the type or form

of the thing named is preserved in it: but it is worse or better,

according as the accompanying features are more or less in harmony

with the form.[69] If names are like things, the letters which are

put together to form names, must have a natural resemblance to

things--as we remarked above respecting the letters Rho, Lambda,

&c. But the natural, inherent, powers of resemblance and

significance, which we pronounced to belong to these letters, are

not found to pervade all the actual names, in which they are

employed. There are words containing the letters _Rho_ and

_Lambda_, in a sense opposite to that which is natural to them--yet

nevertheless at the same time significant; as is evident from

the fact, that you and I and others understand them alike. Here

then are words significant, without resembling: significant

altogether through habit and convention. We must admit the

principle of convention as an inferior ground and manner of

significance. Resemblance, though the best ground as far as it can

be had, is not the only one.[70]

[Footnote 69: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 432-434.]

[Footnote 70: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 434-435.]

[Side-note: All names are not consistent with the theory of

Herakleitus: some are opposed to it.]

All names are not like the things named: some names are bad,

others good: the law-giver sometimes gave names under an erroneous

belief. Hence you are not warranted in saying that things must be

known and investigated through names, and that whoever knows the

name, knows also the thing named. You say that the names given are

all coherent and grounded upon the Herakleitean theory of

perpetual flux. You take this as a proof that that theory is true

in itself, and that the law-giver adopted and proceeded upon it as

true. I agree with you that the law-giver or name-giver believed

in the Herakleitean theory, and adapted many of his names to it:

but you cannot infer from hence that the theory is true--for he

may have been mistaken.[71] Moreover, though many of the existing

names consist with, and are based upon, that theory, the same

cannot be said of all names. Many names can be enumerated which

are based on the opposite principle of permanence and stand-still.

It is unsafe to strike a balance of mere numbers between the two:

besides which, even among the various names founded on the

Herakleitean theory, you will find jumbled together the names of

virtues and vices, benefits and misfortunes. That theory lends

itself to good and evil alike; it cannot therefore be received as

true--whether the name-giver believed in it or not.[72]

[Footnote 71: Plato, Kratyl. p. 439 B-C. [Greek: E)/ti toi/nun

to/de skepsômetha, o(/pôs mê\ ê(ma=s ta\ polla\ tau=ta o)no/mata

e)s tauto\n tei/nonta e)xapata=|, kai\ tô=| o)/nti me\n oi(

the/menoi au(ta\ _dianoêthe/ntes te e)/thento_ ô(s i)o/ntôn

a)pa/ntôn a)ei\ kai\ r(eo/ntôn--_phai/nontai ga\r e)/moige kai\

au)toi\ ou)/tô dianoêthê=nai_--to\ d', ei) e)/tuchen, ou)ch

ou)/tôs e)/chei], &c.

These words appear to me to imply that Sokrates is perfectly

serious, and not ironical, in delivering his opinion, that the

original imposers of names were believers in the Herakleitean

theory.]

[Footnote 72: Plato, Krat. pp. 437-438 C.

Sokrates here enumerates the particular names illustrating his

judgment. However strange the verbal transitions and

approximations may appear to us, I think it clear that he intends

to be understood seriously.]

[Side-note: It is not true to say, That Things can only be known

through their names.]

Lastly, even if we granted that things may be known and studied

through their names, it is certain that there must be some other

way of knowing them; since the first name-givers (as you yourself

affirm) knew things, at a time when no names existed.[73] Things

may be known and ought to be studied, not through names, but by

themselves and through their own affinities.[74]

[Footnote 73: Plato, Krat. p. 438 A-B. Kratylus here suggests that

the first names may perhaps have been imposed by a super-human

power. But Sokrates replies, that upon that supposition all the

names must have been imposed upon the same theory: there could not

have been any contradiction between one name and another.]

[Footnote 74: Plato, Krat. pp. 438-439. 438 E:--[Greek: di'

a)llê/lôn ge, ei)/ pê| xuggenê= e)sti/, kai\ au)ta\ di' au(tô=n.]]

[Side-note: Unchangeable Platonic Forms--opposed to the

Herakleitean flux, which is true only respecting sensible

particulars.]

Sokrates then concludes the dialogue by opposing the Platonic

ideas to the Herakleitean theory. I often dream or imagine the

Beautiful _per se_, the Good _per se_, and such like existences or

Entia.[75] Are not such existences real? Are they not eternal,

unchangeable and stationary? Particular beautiful

things--particular good things--are in perpetual change or flux: but

The Beautiful, The Good--The Ideas or Forms of these and such

like--remain always what they are, always the same.

[Footnote 75: Plato, Krat. p. 439 C-D. [Greek: ske/psai o( e)/gôge

polla/kis o)neirô/ttô, po/teron phô=me/n ti ei)=nai au)to\ kalo\n

kai\ a)gatho\n kai\ e(\n e(/kaston tô=n o)/ntôn ou(/tôs, ê)\ mê/?

. . .

mê\ ei) pro/sôpo/n ti/ e)sti kalo\n ê)/ ti tô=n toiou=tôn, kai\

dokei= tau=ta pa/nta r(ei=n; a)ll' au)to\ to\ kalo\n ou) toiou=ton

a)ei/ e)stin oi(=o/n e)stin?]]

The Herakleitean theory of constant and universal flux is true

respecting particular things, but not true respecting these Ideas

or Forms. It is the latter alone which know or are known: it is

they alone which admit of being rightly named. For that which is

in perpetual flux and change can neither know, nor be known, nor

be rightly named.[76] Being an ever-changing subject, it is never

in any determinate condition: and nothing can be known which is

not in a determinate condition. The Form of the knowing subject,

as well as the Form of the known object, must both remain fixed

and eternal, otherwise there can be no knowledge at all.

[Footnote 76: Plato, Kratyl. p. 439 D--440 A. [Greek: A)=r' ou)=n

oi(=o/n te _proseipei=n au)to\ o)rthôs_, ei) a)ei\ u(pexe/rchetai,

prô=ton me\n o(/ti, e)keino/ e)stin, e)/peita o(/ti toiou=tôn? ê)\

a)na/gkê a)/ma ê(mô=n lego/ntôn a)/llo au)to\ eu)thu\s gi/gnesthai

kai\ u(pexie/nai, kai\ mêke/ti ou(/tôs e)/chein? . . .

A)lla\ mê\n ou)d' a)\n gnôsthei/ê ge u(p' ou)deno/s. . . .

A)ll' ou)de\ gnôsin ei)=nai pha/nai ei)ko/s, ei) metapi/ptei

pa/nta chrê/mata kai\ mêde\n me/nei.]]

[Side-note: Herakleitean theory must not be assumed as certain. We

must not put implicit faith in names.]

To admit these permanent and unchangeable Forms is to deny the

Herakleitean theory, which proclaims constant and universal flux.

This is a debate still open and not easy to decide. But while it

is yet undecided, no wise man ought to put such implicit faith in

names and in the bestowers of names, as to feel himself warranted

in asserting confidently the certainty of the Herakleitean

theory.[77] Perhaps that theory is true, perhaps not. Consider the

point strenuously, Kratylus. Be not too easy in acquiescence--for

you are still young, and have time enough before you. If you find

it out, give to me also the benefit of your solution.[78]

[Footnote 77: Plato, Kratyl. p. 440 C. [Greek: Tau=t' ou)=n

po/tero/n pote ou(/tôs e)/chei, ê)\ e)kei/nôs ô(s oi( peri\

Ê(ra/kleito/n te le/gousi kai\ a)/lloi polloi/, mê\ ou) r(a=|dion

ê)=| e)piske/psasthai, ou)de\ pa/nu nou=n e)/chontos _a)nthrô/pou

e)pitre/psanta o)no/masin au(to\n kai\ tê\ au(tou= psuchê\n

therapeu/ein_, pepisteuko/ta e)kei/nois kai\ toi=s theme/nois

_au)ta/_, dii+schuri/zesthai ô(s ti ei)do/ta, kai\ au)tou= te kai\

tô=n o)/ntôn katagignô/skein, ô(s ou)de\n u(gie\s ou)deno/s,

a(lla\ pa/nta ô/sper kera/mia r(ei=], &c.]

[Footnote 78: Plato, Kratyl. p. 440 D.]

Kratylus replies that he will follow the advice given, but that he

has already meditated on the matter, and still adheres to

Herakleitus. Such is the close of the dialogue.

* * * * *

[Side-note: Remarks upon the dialogue. Dissent from the opinion of

Stallbaum and others, that it is intended to deride Protagoras and

other Sophists.]

One of the most learned among the modern Platonic commentators

informs us that the purpose of Plato in this dialogue was, "to rub

over Protagoras and other Sophists with the bitterest salt of

sarcasm".[79] I have already expressed my dissent from this

theory, which is opposed to all the ancient views of the dialogue,

and which has arisen, in my judgment, only from the anxiety of the

moderns to exonerate Plato from the reproach of having suggested

as admissible, etymologies which now appear to us fantastic. I see

no derision of the Sophists, except one or two sneers against

Protagoras and Prodikus, upon the ever-recurring theme that they

took money for their lectures.[80] The argument against Protagoras

at the opening of the dialogue--whether conclusive or not--is

serious and not derisory. The discourse of Sokrates is neither

that of an anti-sophistical caricaturist, on the one hand--nor

that of a confirmed dogmatist who has studied the subject and made

up his mind on the other (this is the part which he ascribes to

Kratylus)[81]--but the tentative march of an enquirer groping

after truth, who follows the suggestive promptings of his own

invention, without knowing whither it will conduct him: who,

having in his mind different and even opposite points of view,

unfolds first arguments on behalf of one, and next those on behalf

of the other, without pledging himself either to the one or to the

other, or to any definite scheme of compromise between them.[82]

Those who take no interest in such circuitous gropings and guesses

of an inquisitive and yet unsatisfied mind--those who ask for

nothing but a conclusion clearly enunciated along with one or two

affirmative reasons--may find the dialogue tiresome. However this

may be--it is a manner found in many Platonic dialogues.

[Footnote 79: Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Kratyl. p. 18--"quos Plato

hoc libro acerbissimo sale perfricandos statuit." Schleiermacher

also tells us (Einleitung, pp. 17-21) that "Plato had much delight

in heaping a full measure of ridicule upon his enemy Antisthenes;

and that he at last became tired with the exuberance of his own

philological jests". Lassalle shows, with much force, that the

persons ridiculed (even if we grant the derisory purpose to be

established) cannot be Protagoras and the Protagoreans

(Herakleitos, vol. ii. pp. 376-384).]

[Footnote 80: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 384 B, 391 B.]

[Footnote 81: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 428 A, 440 D.]

[Footnote 82: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 384 C. 391 A. [Greek: suzêtei=n

e(/toimo/s ei)mi kai\ soi\ kai\ Kratu/lô| koinê=| . . . o(/ti ou)k

ei)dei/ên a)lla\ skepsoi/mên meta\ sou=.]]

[Side-note: Theory laid down by Sokrates _à priori_, in the first

part--Great difficulty, and ingenuity necessary, to bring it into

harmony with facts.]

Sokrates opens his case by declaring the thesis of the Absolute

(Object _sine_ Subject), against the Protagorean thesis of the

Relative (Object _cum_ Subject). Things have an absolute essence:

names have an absolute essence:[83] each name belongs to its own

thing, and to no other: this is its rectitude: none but that rare

person, the artistic name-giver, can detect the essence of each

thing, and the essence of each name, so as to apply the name

rightly. Here we have a theory truly Platonic: impressed upon

Plato's mind by a sentiment _à priori_, and not from any survey or

comparison of particulars. Accordingly when Sokrates is called

upon to apply his theory to existing current words, and to make

out how any such rectitude can be shown to belong to them--he

finds the greatest divergence and incongruity between the two. His

ingenuity is hardly tasked to reconcile them: and he is obliged to

have recourse to bold and multiplied hypotheses. That the first

Name-Givers were artists proceeding upon system, but incompetent

artists proceeding on a bad system--they were Herakleiteans who

believed in the universality of movement, and gave names having

reference to movement:[84] That the various letters of the

alphabet, or rather the different actions of the vocal organism by

which they are pronounced, have each an inherent, essential,

adaptation, or analogy to the phenomena of movement or arrest of

movement:[85] That the names originally bestowed have become

disguised by a variety of metamorphoses, but may be brought back

to their original by probable suppositions, and shown to possess

the rectitude sought. All these hypotheses are only violent

efforts to reconcile the Platonic _à priori_ theory, in some way

or other, with existing facts of language. To regard them as

intentional caricatures, would be to suppose that Plato is seeking

intentionally to discredit and deride his own theory of the

Absolute: for the discredit could fall nowhere else. We see that

Plato considered many of his own guesses as strange and novel,

some even as laying him open to ridicule.[86] But they were

indispensable to bring his theory into something like coherence,

however inadequate, with real language.

[Footnote 83: One cannot but notice how Plato, shortly after

having declared war against the Relativity affirmed by Protagoras,

falls himself into that very track of Relativity when he comes to

speak about actual language, telling us that names are imposed on

grounds dependant on or relative to the knowledge or belief of the

Name-givers. Kratylus, pp. 397 B, 399 A, 401 A-B, 411 B, 436 B.

The like doctrine is affirmed in the Republic, vi. p. 515 B.

[Greek: dê=lon o(/ti o( the/menos prô=tos ta\ o)no/mata, oi(=a

ê(gei=to ei)=nai ta\ pra/gmata, toiau=ta e)ti/theto kai\ ta\

o)no/mata.]

Leibnitz conceived an idea of a "Lingua Characterica Universalis,

quæ simul sit ars inveniendi et judicandi" (see Leibnitz Opp.

Erdmann, pp. 162-163), and he alludes to a conception of Jacob

Böhme, that there once existed a Lingua Adamica or Natur-Sprache,

through which the essences of things might be contemplated and

understood. "Lingua Adamica vel certé vis ejus, quam quidam se

nosse, et in nominibus ab Adamo impositis essentias rerum intueri

posse contendunt--nobis certé ignota est" (Opp. p. 93). Leibnitz

seems to have thought that it was possible to construct a

philosophical language, based upon an Alphabetum Cogitationum

Humanarum, through which problems on all subjects might be

resolved, by a _calculus_ like that which is employed for the

solution of arithmetical or geometrical problems (Opp. p. 83;

compare also p. 356).

This is very analogous to the affirmations of Sokrates, in the

first part of the Kratylus, about the essentiality of Names

discovered and declared by the [Greek: nomothe/tês techniko/s]]

[Footnote 84: Plato, Kratyl. p. 436 D.]

[Footnote 85: Plato, Krat. pp. 424-425. Schleiermacher declares

this to be among the greatest and most profound truths which have

ever been enunciated about language (Introduction to Kratylus, p.

11). Stallbaum, on the contrary, regards it as not even seriously

meant, but mere derision of others (Prolegg. ad Krat. p. 12).

Another commentator on Plato calls it "eine Lehre der

Sophistischen Sprachforscher" (August Arnold, Einleitung in die

Philosophie--durch die Lehre Platons vermittelt--p. 178, Berlin,

1841).

Proklus, in his Commentary, says that the scope of this dialogue

is to exhibit the imitative or generative faculty which

essentially belongs to the mind, and whereby the mind (aided by

the vocal or pronunciative imagination--[Greek: lektikê\

phantasi/a]) constructs names which are natural transcripts of the

essences of things (Proklus, Schol. ad Kratyl. pp. 1-21 ed.

Boissonnade; Alkinous, Introd. ad Platon. c. 6).

Ficinus, too, in his argument to the Kratylus (p. 768), speaks

much about the mystic sanctity of names, recognised not merely by

Pythagoras and Plato, but also by the Jews and Orientals. He

treats the etymologies in the Kratylus as seriously intended. He

says not a word about any intention on the part of Plato to deride

the Sophists or any other Etymologists.

So also Sydenham, in his translation of Plato's Philêbus (p. 33),

designates the Kratylus as "a dialogue in which is taught the

nature of things, as well the permanent as the transient, by a

supposed etymology of Names and Words".]

[Footnote 86: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 425 D, 426 B. Because Sokrates

says that these etymologies may appear ridiculous, we are not to

infer that he proposed them as caricatures; see what Plato says in

the Republic, v. p. 452, about his own propositions respecting the

training of women, which others (he says) will think ludicrous,

but which he proposes with the most thorough and serious

conviction.]

[Side-note: Opposite tendencies of Sokrates in the last half of the

dialogue--he disconnects his theory of Naming from the

Herakleitean doctrine.]

In the second part of the dialogue, where Kratylus is introduced

as uncompromising champion of this same theory, Sokrates changes

his line of argument, and impugns the peremptory or exclusive

pretensions of the theory: first denying some legitimate

corollaries from it--next establishing by the side of it the

counter-theory of Hermogenes, as being an inferior though

indispensable auxiliary--yet still continuing to uphold it as an

ideal of what is Best. He concludes by disconnecting the theory

pointedly from the doctrine of Herakleitus, with which Kratylus

connected it, and by maintaining that there can be no right

naming, and no sound knowledge, if that doctrine be admitted.[87]

The Platonic Ideas, eternal and unchangeable, are finally opposed

to Kratylus as the only objects truly knowable and nameable--and

therefore as the only conditions under which right naming can be

realised. The Name-givers of actual society have failed in their

task by proceeding on a wrong doctrine: neither they nor the names

which they have given can be trusted.[88] The doctrine of

perpetual change or movement is true respecting the sensible world

and particulars, but it is false respecting the intelligible world

or universals--Ideas and Forms. These latter are the only things

knowable: but we cannot know them through names: we must study

them by themselves and by their own affinities.

[Footnote 87: Plato, Kratyl. p. 439 D. [Greek: A)=r' ou)=n oi(=on

te proseipei=n au)to\ o)rthôs, ei) a)ei\ u(pexe/chetai?]]

[Footnote 88: Plato, Kratyl. p. 440 C. Compare pp. 436 D, 439 B.

Lassalle contends that Herakleitus and his followers considered

the knowledge of names to be not only indispensable to the

knowledge of things, but equivalent to and essentially embodying

that knowledge. (Herakleitos, vol. ii. pp. 363-368-387.) See also

a passage of Proklus, in his Commentary on the Platonic

Parmenidês, p. 476, ed. Stallbaum.

The remarkable passage in the first book of Aristotle's

Metaphysica, wherein he speaks of Plato and Plato's early

familiarity with Kratylus and the Herakleitean opinions, coincides

very much with the course of the Platonic dialogue Kratylus, from

its beginning to its end (Aristot. Metaphys. A. p. 987 a-b).]

How this is to be done, Sokrates professes himself unable to say.

We may presume him to mean, that a true Artistic Name-giver must

set the example, knowing these Forms or essences beforehand, and

providing for each its appropriate Name, or Name-Form, significant

by essential analogy.

[Side-note: Ideal of the best system of naming--the Name-Giver

ought to be familiar with the Platonic Ideas or Essences, and

apportion his names according to resemblances among them.]

Herein, so far as I can understand, consists the amount of

positive inference which Plato enables us to draw from the

Kratylus. Sokrates began by saying that names having natural

rectitude were the only materials out of which a language could be

formed: he ends by affirming merely that this is the best and most

perfect mode of formation: he admits that names may become

significant, though loosely and imperfectly, by convention

alone--yet the best scheme would be, that in which they are

significant by inherent resemblance to the thing named. But this

cannot be done until the Name-giver, instead of proceeding upon

the false theory of Herakleitus, starts from the true theory

recognising the reality of eternal, unchangeable, Ideas or Forms.

He will distinguish, and embody in appropriate syllables, those

Forms of Names which truly resemble, and have natural connection

with, the Forms of Things.

Such is the ideal of perfect or philosophical Naming, as Plato

conceives it--disengaged from those divinations of the origin and

metamorphoses of existing names, which occupy so much of the

dialogue.[89] He does not indeed attempt to construct a body of

true names _à priori_, but he sets forth the real nameable

permanent essences, to which these names might be assimilated: the

principles upon which the construction ought to be founded, by the

philosophic lawgiver following out a good theory:[90] and he

contrasts this process with two rival processes, each defective in

its own way. This same contrast, pervading Plato's views on other

subjects, deserves a few words of illustration.

[Footnote 89: Deuschle (Die Platonische Sprachphilosophie, p. 57)

tells us that in this dialogue "Plato _intentionally_ presented

many of his thoughts in a covert or contradictory and

unintelligible manner". (Vieles absichtlich verhüllt oder

widersprechend und missverständlich dargestellt wird.)

I see no probability in such an hypothesis.

Respecting the origin and primordial signification of language, a

great variety of different opinions have been started.

William von Humboldt (Werke, vi. 80) assumes that there must have

been some primitive and natural bond between each sound and its

meaning (_i.e._ that names were originally significant [Greek:

phu/sei]), though there are very few particular cases in which

such connexion can be brought to evidence or even divined. (Here

we see that the larger knowledge of etymology possessed at present

deters the modern philologer from that which Plato undertakes in

the Kratylus.) He distinguishes a threefold relation between the

name and the thing signified. 1. Directly imitative. 2. Indirectly

imitative or symbolical. 3. Imitative by one remove, or

analogical: where a name becomes transferred from one object to

another, by virtue of likeness between the two objects. (Ueber die

Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss

auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechtes, p. 78,

Berlin, 1880.)

Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, in his Etymology of the English Language

(see Prelim. Disc. p. 10 seq.), recognises the same imitative

origin, and tries to apply the principle to particular English

words. Mr. F. W. Farrar, in his recent interesting work (Chapters

on Language) has explained and enforced copiously the like

thesis--onomatopoeic origin for language generally. He has combated

the objections of Professor Max Müller, who considers the principle to

be of little applicability or avail. But M. Renan assigns to it

not less importance than Mr. Wedgwood and Mr. Farrar. (See sixth

chapter of his ingenious dissertation De l'Origine du Langage, pp.

135-146-148.)

"L'imitation, ou l'onomatopée, paraît avoir été le procédé

ordinaire d'après lequel les premiers nomenclateurs formèrent les

appellations. . . D'ailleurs, comme le choix de l'appellation

n'est point arbitraire, et que jamais l'homme ne se décide à

assembler des sons au hasard pour en faire les signes de la

pensée, on peut affirmer que de tous les mots actuellement usités,

il n'en est pas un seul qui _n'ait eu sa raison suffisante_, et ne

se rattache, à travers mille transformations, à _une élection

primitive_. Or, le motif déterminant pour le choix des mots a dû

être, dans la plupart des cas, le désir d'imiter l'objet qu'on

voulait exprimer. L'instinct de certains animaux suffit pour les

porter à ce genre d'imitation, qui, faute de principes rationnels,

reste chez eux infécond. . .

"En résumé, _le caprice_ n'a eu aucune part dans la formation du

langage. Sans doute, on ne peut admettre qu'il y ait une relation

intrinsèque entre le nom et la chose. Le système que Platon a si

subtilement développé dans le Cratyle--cette thèse qu'il y a des

dénominations naturelles, et que la propriété des mots se

reconnaîlt à l'imitation plus ou moins exacte de

l'objet,--pourrait tout au plus s'appliquer aux noms formés par

onomatopée, et pour ceux-ci mêmes, la loi dont nous parlous n'établit

qu'une convenance. _Les appellations n'ont pas uniquement leur cause

dans l'objet appelé_ (sans quoi, elles seraient les mêmes dans toutes

les langues), _mais dans l'objet appelé, vu à travers les

dispositions personnelles du sujet appelant_. . . La raison qui a

déterminé le choix des premiers hommes peut nous échapper; mais

elle a existé. La liaison du sens et du mot n'est jamais

_nécessaire_, jamais _arbitraire_; toujours elle est motivée."

When M. Renan maintains the Protagorean doctrine, that it is not

the Object which is cause of the denomination given, but the

Object seen through the personal dispositions of the denominating

Subject--he contradicts the reasoning of the Platonic Sokrates in

the conversation with Hermogenes (pp. 386-387; compare 424 A). But

he adopts the reasoning of the same in the subsequent conversation

with Kratylus; wherein the relative point of view is introduced

for the first time (pp. 429 A-B, 431 E), and brought more and more

into the foreground (pp. 436 B-D--437 C--439 C).

The distinction drawn by M. Renan between _l'arbitraire_ and _le

motivé_ appears to me unfounded: at least, it requires a peculiar

explanation of the two words--for if by _le caprice_ and

_l'arbitraire_ be meant the exclusion of _all_ motive, such a

state of mind could not be a preliminary to any proceeding at all.

M. Renan can only mean that the motive which led to the original

choice of the name, was peculiar to the occasion, and has since

been forgotten. And this is what he himself says in a note to his

Preface (pp. 18-19), replying to M. Littré: "L'Arien primitif a eu

un motif pour appeler le frère _bhratr_ ou _fratr_, et le Sémite

pour l'appeler _ah_: peut on dire que cette différence résulte ou

des aptitudes différentes de leur esprit, ou du spectacle

extérieur? Chaque objet, les circonstances restant les mêmes, a

été susceptible d'une foule de dénominations: le choix qui a été

fait de l'une d'elles tient à des causes impossibles à saisir."]

[Footnote 90: Plato (in Timæus, p. 29 B) recognises an essential

affinity between the eternal Forms and the words or propositions

in which they become subjects of discourse.]

[Side-note: Comparison of Plato's views about naming with those

upon social institutions. Artistic, systematic

construction--contrasted with unpremeditated unsystematic growth.]

Respecting social institutions and government, there is one

well-known theory to which Sir James Mackintosh gave expression in the

phrase--"Governments are not made, but grow". The like phrase has

been applied by an eminent modern author on Logic, to

language--"Languages are not made, but grow".[91] One might suppose,

in reading the second and third books of the Republic of Plato, that

Plato also had adopted this theory: for the growth of a society,

without any initiative or predetermined construction by a special

individual, is there strikingly depicted.[92] But in truth it is

this theory which stands in most of the Platonic works, as the

antithesis depreciated and discredited by Plato. The view most

satisfactory to him contemplates the analogy of a human artist or

professional man; which he enlarges into the idea of an

originating, intelligent, artistic, Constructor, as the source of

all good. This view is exhibited to us in the Timæus, where we

find the Demiurgus, building up by his own fiat all that is good

in the Kosmos: in the Politikus, where we find the individual

dictator producing by his uncontrolled ordinance all that is

really good in the social system;--lastly, here also in the

Kratylus, where we have the scientific or artistic Name-giver, and

him alone, set forth as competent to construct an assemblage of

names, each possessing full and perfect rectitude. To this theory

there is presented a counter-theory, which Plato disapproves--a

Kosmos which grows by itself and keeps up its own agencies,

without any extra-kosmic constructor or superintendent: in like

manner, an aggregate of social customs, and an aggregate of names,

which have grown up no one knows how; and which sustain and

perpetuate themselves by traditional force--by movement already

acquired in a given direction. The idea of growth, by regular

assignable steps and by regularising tendencies instinctive and

inherent in Nature, belongs rather to Aristotle; Plato conceives

Nature as herself irregular, and as persuaded or constrained into

some sort of regularity by a supernatural or extranatural

artist.[93]

[Footnote 91: See Mr. John Stuart Mill's Logic, Book i. ch. viii.]

[Footnote 92: Plato, Republic, ii. p. 369 seq., where the [Greek:

ge/nesis] of a social community, out of common necessity and

desire acting upon all and each of the individual citizens, is

depicted in a striking way. The [Greek: a)rchê] of the City (p.

369 B) as Plato there presents it, is Aristotelian rather than

Platonic.]

[Footnote 93: M. Destutt de Tracy insists upon the emotional

initiative force, as deeper and more efficacious than the

intellectual, in the first formation of language.

"Dans l'origine du langage d'action, un seul geste dit--je veux

cela, ou je vous montre cela, ou je vous demande secours; un seul

cri dit, je vous appelle, ou je souffre, ou je suis content, &c.;

mais sans distinguer aucune des idées qui composent ses

propositions. Ce n'est point par le détail, mais par les masses,

que, commencent toutes nos expressions, ainsi que toutes nos

connaissances. Si quelques langages possèdent des signes propres à

exprimer des idées isolées, ce n'est donc que par l'effet de la

décomposition qui s'est opérée dans ces langages; et ces signes,

ou noms propres d'idées, ne sont, pour ainsi dire, que des débris,

des fragmens, ou du moins des émanations de ceux qui d'abord

exprimaient, bien ou mal, les propositions tout entières."

(Destutt de Tracy, Grammaire, ch. i. p. 23, ed. 1825; see also the

Idéologie of the same author, ch. xvi. p. 215.)

M. Renan enunciates in the most explicit terms this comparison of

the formation of language to the growth and development of a

germ:--"Les langues doivent êtres comparées, non au cristal qui se

forme par agglomération autour d'un noyau, mais au germe qui se

développe par sa force intime, et par l'appel nécessaire de ses

parties". (De l'Origine du Langage, ch. iii. p. 101; also ch. iv.

pp. 115-117.)

The theory of M. Renan, in this ingenious treatise, is, that

language is the product of "la raison spontanée, la raison

populaire," without reflexion. "La reflexion n'y peut rien: les

langues sont sorties toutes faites du moule même de l'esprit

humain, comme Minerve du cerveau de Jupiter." "Maintenant que la

raison réfléchie a remplacé l'instinct créateur, à peine le génie

suffit-il pour analyser ce que les l'esprit des premiers hommes

enfanta de toutes pièces, et sans y songer" (pp. 98-99). This

theory appears to me very doubtful; as much as there is proved in

it, is stated in a good passage cited by M. Renan from Will. von

Humboldt (pp. 106-107). But there are two remarks to be made, in

comparing it with the Kratylus of Plato. 1. That the hypothesis of

a philosopher "qui compose un langage de sang-froid," which

appears absurd to Turgot and M. Renan (p. 92), did not appear

absurd to Plato, but on the contrary as the only sure source of

what is good and right in language. 2. That Plato, in the

Kratylus, takes account only of _naming_, and not of the

grammatical structure of language, which M. Renan considers the

essential part (p. 106: compare also pp. 208-209). Grammar, with

its established analogies, does not seem to have been present to

Plato's mind as an object of reflexion; there existed none in his

day.]

[Side-note: Politikus compared with Kratylus.]

Looking back to the Politikus (reviewed in the last chapter), we

find Plato declaring to us wherein consists the rectitude of a

social Form: it resides in the presiding and uncontrolled

authority of a scientific or artistic Ruler, always present and

directing every one: or of a few such Rulers, if there be a

few--though this is more than can be hoped. But such rectitude is

seldom or never realised. Existing social systems are bad copies

of this type, degenerating more or less widely from its

perfection. One or a Few persons arrogate to themselves

uncontrolled power, without possessing that science or art which

justifies the exercise of it in the Right Ruler. These are, or may

become, extreme depravations. The least bad, among all the

imperfect systems, is an aggregate of fixed laws and magistrates

with known functions, agreed to by convention of all and

faithfully obeyed by all. But such a system of fixed laws, though

second-best, falls greatly short of rectitude. It is much inferior

in every way to the uncontrolled authority of the scientific

Ruler.[94]

[Footnote 94: See Plato, Politik. pp. 300-301.]

That which Plato does for social systems in the Politikus, he does

for names in the Kratylus. The full rectitude of names is when

they are bestowed by the scientific Ruler, considered in the

capacity of Name-giver. He it is who discerns, and embodies in

syllables, the true Name-Form in each particular case. But such an

artist is seldom realised: and there are others who, attempting to

do his work without his knowledge, perform it ignorantly or under

false theories.[95] The names thus given are imperfect names:

moreover, after being given, they become corrupted and transformed

in passing from man to man. Lastly, the mere fact of convention

among the individuals composing the society, without any

deliberate authorship or origination from any Ruler, bad or

good--suffices to impart to Names a sort of significance, vulgar and

imperfect, yet adequate to a certain extent.[96] The Name-giving

Artist or Lawgiver is here superseded by King Nomos.

[Footnote 95: Plato, Kratyl. p. 432 E.]

[Footnote 96: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 434 E, 435 A-B.

This unsystematic, spontaneous, origin and growth of language is

set forth by Lucretius, who declares himself opposed to the theory

of an originating Name-giver (v. pp. 1021-1060). Jacob Grimm and

M. Renan espouse a theory, in the main, similar.]

[Side-note: Ideal of Plato--Postulate of the One Wise Man--Badness

of all reality.]

It will be seen that in both these cases the Platonic point of

view comes out--deliberate authorship from the scientific or

artistic individual mind, as the only source of rectitude and

perfection. But when Plato looks at the reality of life, either in

social system or in names, he finds no such perfection anywhere:

he discovers a divine agency originating what is good; but there

is an independent agency necessary in the way of co-operation,

though it sometimes counteracts and always debases the good.[97]

We find either an incompetent dictator who badly imitates the true

Artist--or else we have fixed, peremptory, laws; depending on the

unsystematic, unauthorised, convention among individuals, which

has grown up no one knows how--which is transmitted by tradition,

being taught by every one and learnt by every one without any

privileged caste of teachers--and which in the Platonic Protagoras

is illustrated in the mythe and discourse ascribed to that

Sophist;[98] being in truth, common sense, as contrasted with

professional specialty. In regard to social systems, Plato

pronounces fixed laws to be the second-best--enjoining strict

obedience to them, wherever the first-best cannot be obtained. In

the Republic he enumerates what are the conditions of rectitude in

a city: but he admits at the same time that this Right Civic

Constitution is an ideal, nowhere to be found existing: and he

points out the successive stages of corruption by which it

degenerates more and more into conformity with the realities of

human society. As with Right Civic Constitution, so with Right

Naming: Plato shows what constitutes rectitude of Names, but he

admits that this is an ideal seen nowhere, and he notes the

various causes which deprave the Right Names into that imperfect

and semi-significant condition, which is the best that existing

languages present.[99]

[Footnote 97: Plato, Timæus, p. 68 E.]

[Footnote 98: See my remarks on the Politikus, in the last

chapter: also Protagoras, p. 320 seq.

Compare Plato, Kriton, p. 48 A. [Greek: o( e)pai+/ôn peri\ tô

dikai/ôn, o( ei(=s.]

In the Menon also the same question is broached as in the

Protagoras, whether virtue is teachable or not? and how any virtue

can exist, when there are no special teachers, and no special

learners of virtue? Here we have, though differently handled, the

same antithesis between the ethical sentiment which grows and

propagates itself unconsciously, without special initiative--and

that which is deliberately prescribed and imparted by the wise

individual: common sense versus professional specialty.]

[Footnote 99: See the conditions of the [Greek: o)rthê\

politei/a], and its gradual depravation and degeneracy into the

state of actual governments, in Republic, v. init. p. 449 B, vii.

544 A-B.]

[Side-note: Comparison of Kratylus, Theætêtus, and Sophistês, in

treatment of the question respecting Non-Ens, and the possibility

of false propositions.]

One more remark, in reference to the general spirit and reciprocal

bearing of Plato's dialogues. In three comparison distinct

dialogues--Kratylus, Theætêtus, Sophistês--one and the same

question is introduced into the discussion: a question keenly

debated among the contemporaries of Plato and Aristotle. How is a

false proposition possible? Many held that a false proposition and

a false name were impossible: that you could not speak the thing

that _is not_, or Non-Ens ([Greek: to\ mê\ o)/n]): that such a

proposition would be an empty sound, without meaning or

signification: that speech may be significant or insignificant,

but could not be false, except in the sense of being

unmeaning.[100]

[Footnote 100: Plato, Kratyl. p. 429.

Ammonius, Scholia [Greek: ei)s ta\s Katêgori/as] of Aristotle

(Schol. Brandis, p. 60, a. 10).

[Greek: Tine/s phasi mêde\n ei)=nai tô=n pro/s ti phu/sei, a)lla\

a)na/plasma ei)=nai tau=ta tê=s ê(mete/ras dianoi/as, le/gontes

o(/ti ou(/tôs ou)k e)sti\ phu/sei ta\ pro/s ti a)lla\ the/sei

. . . Tine\s de/, e)k diame/trou tou/tois e)/chontes, pa/nta ta\

o)/nta pro/s ti e)/legon. Ô(=n ei)=s ê)=n Prôtago/ras o(

sophistê/s; . . . dio\ kai\ e)/legen o(/ti ou)k e)/sti tina\

pseudê= le/gein; e(/kastos ga\r kata\ to\ phaino/menon au)tô=|

kai\ dokou=n a)pophai/netai peri\ tô=n pragma/tôn, ou)k e)cho/ntôn

ô(risme/nên phu/sin a)ll' e)n tê=| pro\s ê(ma=s sche/sei to\

ei)=nai e)cho/ntôn.]]

Now this doctrine is dealt with in the Theætêtus, Sophistês, and

Kratylus. In the Theætêtus,[101] Sokrates examines it at great

length, and proposes several different hypotheses to explain how a

false proposition might be possible: but ends in pronouncing them

all inadmissible. He declares himself incompetent, and passes on

to something else. Again, in the Sophistês, the same point is

taken up, and discussed there also very copiously.[102] The Eleate

in that dialogue ends by finding a solution which satisfies him

(_viz._: that [Greek: to\ mê o)\n = to\ e(/teron o)/ntos]). But

what is remarkable is, that the solution does not meet any of the

difficulties propounded in the Theætêtus; nor are those

difficulties at all adverted to in the Sophistês. Finally, in the

Kratylus, we have the very same doctrine, that false affirmations

are impossible--which both in the Theætêtus and in the Sophistês

is enunciated, not as the decided opinion of the speaker, but as a

problem which embarrasses him--we have this same doctrine averred

unequivocally by Kratylus as his own full conviction. And Sokrates

finds that a very short argument, and a very simple comparison,

suffice to refute him.[103] The supposed "aggressive

cross-examiner," who presses Sokrates so hard in the Theætêtus, is

not allowed to put his puzzling questions in the Kratylus.[104]

[Footnote 101: Plato, Theætêt. pp. 187 D to 201 D. The discussion

of the point is continued through thirteen pages of Stephan.

Edit.]

[Footnote 102: Plato, Sophistês, pp. 237 A, 264 B, through

twenty-seven pages of Steph. edit.--though there are some digressions

included herein.]

[Footnote 103: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 430-431 A-B.]

[Footnote 104: Plato, Theætêt. p. 200 A. [Greek: o( ga\r

e)legktiko\s e)kei=nos gela/sas phê/sei.]]

[Side-note: Discrepancies and inconsistencies of Plato, in his

manner of handling the same subject.]

How are we to explain these three different modes of handling the

same question by the same philosopher? If the question about

Non-Ens can be disposed of in the summary way which we read in the

Kratylus, what is gained by the string of unsolved puzzles in the

Theætêtus--or by the long discursive argument in the Sophistês,

ushering in a new solution noway satisfactory? If, on the

contrary, the difficulties which are unsolved in the Theætêtus,

and imperfectly solved in the Sophistês, are real and

pertinent--how are we to explain the proceeding of Plato in the

Kratylus, when he puts into the mouth of Kratylus a distinct averment

of the opinion, about Non-Ens, yet without allowing him, when it is

impugned by Sokrates, to urge any of these pertinent arguments in

defence of it? If the peculiar solution given in the Sophistês be

the really genuine and triumphant solution, why is it left

unnoticed both in the Kratylus and the Theætêtus, and why is it

contradicted in other dialogues? Which of the three dialogues

represents Plato's real opinion on the question?

[Side-note: No common didactic purpose pervading the

Dialogues--each is a distinct composition, working out its own

peculiar argument.]

To these questions, and to many others of like bearing, connected

with the Platonic writings, I see no satisfactory reply, if we are

to consider Plato as a positive philosopher, with a scheme and

edifice of methodised opinions in his mind: and as composing all

his dialogues with a set purpose, either of inculcating these

opinions on the reader, or of refuting the opinions opposed to

them. This supposition is what most Platonic critics have in their

minds, even when professedly modifying it. Their admiration for

Plato is not satisfied unless they conceive him in the

professorial chair as a teacher, surrounded by a crowd of

learners, all under the obligation (incumbent on learners

generally) to believe what they hear. Reasoning upon such a basis,

the Platonic dialogues present themselves to me as a mystery. They

exhibit neither identity of the teacher, nor identity of the

matter taught: the composer (to use various Platonic comparisons)

is Many, and not One--he is more complex than Typhos.[105]

[Footnote 105: Plato, Phædrus, p. 230 A.]

If we are to find any common purpose pervading and binding

together all the dialogues, it must not be a didactic purpose, in

the sense above defined. The value of them consists, not in the

result, but in the discussion--not in the conclusion, but in the

premisses for and against it. In this sense all the dialogues have

value, and all the same sort of value--though not all equal in

amount. In different dialogues, the same subject is set before you

in different ways: with remarks and illustrations sometimes

tending towards one theory, sometimes towards another. It is for

you to compare and balance them, and to elicit such result as your

reason approves. The Platonic dialogues require, in order to

produce their effect, a supplementary responsive force, and a

strong effective reaction, from the individual reason of the

reader: they require moreover that he shall have a genuine

interest in the process of dialectic scrutiny ([Greek: to\

philomathe/s, philo/logon])[106] which will enable him to perceive

beauties in what would appear tiresome to others.

[Footnote 106: Plato, Republic, v. p. 475; compare Phædon,

pp. 89-90. Phædrus, p. 230 E.]

Such manner of proceeding may be judicious or not, according to

the sentiment of the critic. But it is at any rate Platonic. And

we have to recall this point of view when dismissing the Kratylus,

which presents much interest in the premisses and conflicting

theories, with little or no result. It embodies the oldest

speculations known to us respecting the origin, the mode of

signification, and the functions of words as an instrument: and

not the least interesting part of it, in my judgment, consists in

its etymological conjectures, affording evidence of a rude

etymological sense which has now passed away.

CHAPTER XXXII

PHILEBUS.

The Philêbus, which we are now about to examine, is not merely a

Dialogue of Search, but a Dialogue of Exposition, accompanied with

more or less of search made subservient to the exposition. It

represents Sokrates from the first as advancing an affirmative

opinion--maintaining it against Philêbus and Protarchus--and

closing with a result assumed to be positively established.[1]

[Footnote 1: Schleiermacher says, about the Philêbus (Einleit. p.

136)--"Das Ganze liegt fertig in dem Haupte des Sokrates, und

tritt mit der ganzen Persönlichkeit und Willkühr einer

zusammenhängenden Rede heraus," &c.]

[Side-note: Character, Personages, and Subject of the Philêbus.]

The question is, Wherein consists the Good--The Supreme

Good--Summum Bonum. Three persons stand before us: the youthful

Philêbus: Protarchus, somewhat older, yet still a young man: and

Sokrates. Philêbus declares that The Good consists in pleasure or

enjoyment; and Protarchus his friend advocates the same thesis,

though in a less peremptory manner. On the contrary, Sokrates

begins by proclaiming that it consists in wisdom or intelligence.

He presently however recedes from this doctrine, so far as to

admit that wisdom, alone and _per se_, is not sufficient to

constitute the Supreme Good: and that a certain combination of

pleasure along with it is required. Though the compound total thus

formed is superior both to wisdom and to pleasure taken

separately, yet comparing the two elements of which it is

compounded, wisdom (Sokrates contends) is the most important of

the two, and pleasure the least important. Neither wisdom nor

pleasure can pretend to claim the first prize; but wisdom is fully

entitled to the second, as being far more cognate than pleasure

is, with the nature of Good.

[Side-note: Protest against the Sokratic Elenchus, and the purely

negative procedure.]

Such is the general purpose of the dialogue. As to the method of

enquiry, Plato not only assigns to Sokrates a distinct affirmative

opinion from the beginning, instead of that profession of

ignorance which is his more usual characteristic--but he also

places in the mouth of Protarchus an explicit protest against the

negative cross-examination and Elenchus. "We shall not let you

off" (says Protarchus to Sokrates) "until the two sides of this

question shall have been so discriminated as to elicit a

sufficient conclusion. In meeting us on the present question, pray

desist from that ordinary manner of yours--desist from throwing us

into embarrassment, and putting interrogations to which we cannot

at the moment give suitable answers. We must not be content to

close the discussion by finding ourselves in one common puzzle and

confusion. If _we_ cannot solve the difficulty, you must solve it

for us."[2]

[Footnote 2: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 19 E--20 A. [Greek: pau=sai dê\

to\n tro/pon ê(mi=n a)pantô=n tou=ton e)pi\ ta\ nu=n lego/mena

. . . ei)s a)pori/an e)mba/llôn kai\ a)nerôtô=n ô(=n mê\

dunai/meth' a)\n i(kanê\n a)po/krisin e)n tô=| paro/nti dido/nai

soi. mê\ ga\r oi)ô/metha te/los ê(mi=n ei)=nai tô=n nu=n tê\n

pa/ntôn ê(mô=n a)pori/an, a)ll' ei) dra=|n tou=th' ê(mei=s

a)dunatou=men, soi\ draste/on.]

There is a remarkable contrast between the method here proclaimed

and that followed in the Theætêtus, though some eminent

commentators have represented the Philêbus as a sequel of the

Theætêtus.]

[Side-note: Enquiry--What mental condition will ensure to all men a

happy life? Good and Happiness--correlative and co-extensive.

Philêbus declares for Pleasure, Sokrates for Intelligence.]

Conformably to this requisition, Sokrates, while applying his

cross-examining negative test to the doctrine of Philêbus, sets

against it a counter-doctrine of his own, and prescribes, farther,

a positive method of enquiry. "You and I" (he says) "will each try

to assign what permanent habit of mind, and what particular mental

condition, is calculated to ensure to all men a happy life."[3]

Good and Happiness are used in this dialogue as correlative and

co-extensive terms. Happiness is that which a man feels when he

possesses Good: Good is that which a man must possess in order to

feel Happiness. The same fact or condition, looked at objectively,

is denominated Good: looked at subjectively, is denominated

Happiness.

[Footnote 3: Plato, Philêbus, p. 11 D.]

[Side-note: Good--object of universal choice and attachment by men,

animals, and plants--all-sufficient--satisfies all desires.]

Is Good identical with pleasure, or with intelligence, or is it a

Tertium Quid, distinct from both? Good, or The Good must be

perfect and all-sufficient in itself: the object of desire,

aspiration, choice, and attachment, by all men, and even by all

animals and plants, who are capable of attaining it. Every man who

has it, is satisfied, desiring nothing else. If he neglects it,

and chooses any thing else, this is contrary to nature: he does so

involuntarily, either from ignorance or some other untoward

constraint.[4] Thus, the characteristic mark of Good or Happiness

is, That it is desired, loved, and sought by all, and that, if

attained, it satisfies all the wishes and aspirations of human

nature.

[Footnote 4: Plato, Philêbus, p. 11 C. 20 C-D: [Greek: Tê\n

ta)gathou= moi=ran po/teron a)na/gkê te/leon ê)\ mê\ te/leon

ei)=nai? Pa/ntôn dê/pou teleô/taton. Ti/ de/; i(kano\n ta)gatho/n?

Pô=s ga\r ou)/? kai\ pa/ntôn ge ei)s tou=to diaphe/rein tô=n

o)/ntô=n. To/de ge mê\n, ô(s oi)=mai, peri\ au)tou=

a)nagkaio/taton ei)=nai le/gein, ô(s pa=n to\ gignô=skon au)to\

thêreu/ei kai\ e)phi/etai boulo/menon e(lei=n kai\ peri\ au(to\

ktê/sasthai, kai\ tô=n a)/llôn ou)de\n phronti/zei plê\n tô=n

a)poteloume/nôn a)/ma a)gathoi=s.]

22 B: [Greek: i(kano\s kai\ te/leos kai\ pa=si phutoi=s kai\

zô/ois ai(reto/s, oi(=sper dunato\n ê)=n ou(/tôs a)ei\ dia\ bi/ou

zê=n; ei) de/ tis a)/lla ê(|rei=th' ê(mô=n, para\ phu/sin a)\n

tê\n tou= a)lêthou=s ai(retou= e)la/mbanen a)/kôn e)x a)gnoi/as

ê)/ tinos a)na/gkês ou)k eu)dai/monos.]

60 C, 61 A. 61 E: [Greek: to\n a)gapêto/taton bi/on]. 64 C:

[Greek: tou= pa=si gegone/nai prosphilê= tê\n toiau/tên

dia/thesin.] 67 A.

"Omnibus naturæ humanæ desideriis prorsus satisfacere" (Stallbaum

ad Philêb. p. 18 D-E, page 139).]

[Side-note: Pleasures are unlike to each other, and even opposite

cognitions are so likewise.]

Sokrates then remarks that pleasure is very multifarious and

diverse: and that under that same word, different forms and

varieties are signified, very unlike to each other, and sometimes

even opposite to each other. Thus the intemperate man has his

pleasures, while the temperate man enjoys his pleasures also,

attached to his own mode of life: so too the simpleton has

pleasure in his foolish dreams and hopes, the intelligent man in

the exercise of intellectual force. These and many others are

varieties of pleasure not resembling, but highly dissimilar, even

opposite.--Protarchus replies--That they proceed from dissimilar

and opposite circumstances, but that in themselves they are not

dissimilar or opposite. Pleasure must be completely similar to

pleasure--itself to itself.--So too (rejoins Sokrates) colour is

like to colour: in that respect there is no difference between

them. But black colour is different from, and even opposite to,

white colour.[5] You will go wrong if you make things altogether

opposite, into one. You may call all pleasures by the name

_pleasures_: but you must not affirm between them any other point

of resemblance, nor call them all _good_. I maintain that some are

bad, others good. What common property in all of them, is it, that

you signify by the name _good_? As different pleasures are unlike

to each other, so also different cognitions (or modes of

intelligence) are unlike to each other; though all of them agree

in being _cognitions_. To this Protarchus accedes.[6]--We must

enter upon our enquiry after The Good with this mutual concession:

That Pleasure, which you affirm to be The Good--and Intelligence,

which I declare to be so--is at once both Unum, and Multa et

Diversa.[7]

[Footnote 5: Plat. Philêb. p. 12 D-E.]

[Footnote 6: Plat. Philêb. pp. 13 D-E, 14 A.]

[Footnote 7: Plat. Philêb. p. 14 B.]

[Side-note: Whether Pleasure, or Wisdom, corresponds to this

description? Appeal to individual choice.]

In determining between the two competing doctrines--pleasure on

one side and intelligence on the other--Sokrates makes appeal to

individual choice. "Would _you_ be satisfied (he asks Protarchus)

to live your life through in the enjoyment of the greatest

pleasures? Would _any one of us_ be satisfied to live, possessing

the fullest measure and variety of intelligence, reason,

knowledge, and memory--but having no sense, great or small, either

of pleasure or pain?" And Protarchus replies, in reference to the

joint life of intelligence and pleasure combined, "Every man will

choose this joint life in preference to either of them separately.

It is not one man who will choose it, and another who will reject

it: but every man will choose it alike."[8]

[Footnote 8: Plato, Philêbus, p. 21 A. [Greek: de/xai' a)\n su/,

Prô/tarche, zê=n to\n bi/on a(/panta ê(do/menos ê(dona\s ta\s

megi/stas?] 21 D-E: [Greek: ei)/ tis de/xait' a)\n au)= zê=n

ê(mô=n], &c. 22 A: [Greek: Pa=s dê/pou tou=to/n ge ai(rê/setai

pro/teron ê)\ e)kei/nôn o(poteronou=n, kai\ pro\s tou/tois ge

ou)ch o( me/n, o( d' ou)/.] 60 D: [Greek: ei)/ tis a)/neu tou/tôn

de/xait' a)/n], &c.

Here again in appealing to the individual choice and judgment, the

Platonic Sokrates indirectly recognises what, in the Theætêtus and

other dialogues, we have seen him formally rejecting and

endeavouring to confute--the Protagorean canon or measure.

Protarchus is the measure of truth or falsehood, of belief or

disbelief, to Protarchus himself: every other man is so _to

himself_. Sokrates may be a wiser man, in the estimation of the

public, than Protarchus; and if Protarchus believes him to be

such, that very belief may amount to an authority, determining

Protarchus to accept or reject various opinions propounded by

Sokrates: but the ultimate verdict must emanate from the bosom of

the acceptor or rejector. I have already observed elsewhere, that

a large part of the conversation which the Platonic dialogues put

into the mouth of Sokrates, is addressed to individualities and

specialties of the other interlocutors: that this very power of

discriminating between one mind and another, forms the great

superiority of dialectic colloquy as compared with written

treatise or rhetorical discourse--both of which address the same

terms to a multitude of hearers or readers differing among

themselves, without possibility of separate adaptation to each.

(See above, ch. xxvi. pp. 50-54, on Phædrus.)]

[Side-note: First Question submitted to Protarchus--Intense

Pleasure, without any intelligence--He declines to accept it.]

The point, which Sokrates submits to the individual judgment of

Protarchus, is--"Would _you_ be satisfied to pass your life in the

enjoyment of the most intense pleasures, and would you desire

nothing farther?" The reply is in the affirmative. "But recollect

(adds Sokrates) that you are to have nothing else. The question

assumes that you are to be without thought, intelligence, reason,

sight, and memory: you are neither to have opinion of present

enjoyment, nor remembrance of past, nor anticipation of future:

you are to live the life of an oyster, with great present

pleasure?" The question being put with these additions, Protarchus

alters his view, and replies in the negative: at the same time

expressing his surprise at the strangeness of the hypothesis.[9]

[Footnote 9: Plato, Philêbus, p. 21.

Such an hypothesis does indeed depart so totally from the

conditions of human life, that it cannot be considered as a fair

test of any doctrine. A perpetuity of delicious sensations cannot

be enjoyed, consistent with the conditions of animal organization.

A man cannot realise to himself that which the hypothesis

promises; much less can he realise it without those accompaniments

which it assumes him to renounce. The loss stands out far more

palpably than the gain. It is no refutation of the theory of

Philêbus; who, announcing pleasure as the Summum Bonum, is

entitled to call for pleasure in all its varieties, and for

exemption from all pains. Sokrates himself had previously insisted

on the great variety as well as on the great dissimilarity of the

modes of pleasure and pain. To each variety of pleasure there

corresponds a desire: to each variety of pain, an aversion.

If the Summum Bonum is to fulfil the conditions postulated--that

is, if it be such as to satisfy all human desires, it ought to

comprise all these varieties of pleasure. It ought, _e.g._, to

comprise the pleasures of self-esteem, and conscious

self-protecting power, affording security for the future; it ought

to comprise exemption from the pains of self-reproach, self-contempt,

and conscious helplessness. These are among the greatest pleasures

and pains of the mature man, though they are aggregates formed by

association. Now the alternative tendered by Sokrates neither

includes these pleasures nor eliminates these pains. It includes

only the pleasures of sense; and it is tendered to one who has

rooted in his mind desires for other pleasures, and aversions for

other pains, besides those of sense. It does not therefore come up

to the requirements fairly implied in the theory of Philêbus.]

[Side-note: Second Question--Whether he will accept a life of

Intelligence purely without any pleasure or pain? Answer--_No_.]

Sokrates now proceeds to ask Protarchus, whether he will accept a

life of full and all-comprehensive intelligence purely and simply,

without any taste either of pleasure or pain. To which Protarchus

answers, that neither he nor any one else would accept such a

life.[10] Both of them agree that the Summum Bonum ought to be

sought neither in pleasure singly, nor in intelligence singly, but

in both combined.

[Footnote 10: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 21-22.

It is to be remarked, however, that there was more than one

Grecian philosopher who described the Summum Bonum as consisting

in absence of pain ([Greek: a)lupi/a]); even without the large

measure of intelligence which Sokrates here promises, and without

any positive pleasure. These men would of course have accepted the

second alternative put by Sokrates, which Protarchus here refuses.

They took their standard of comparison from the actualities of

human life around them, which exhibited pain and suffering

universal, frequent, and unavoidable. They conceived that if

painlessness could be obtained, it was as much as could reasonably

be demanded, and that pleasure might be dispensed with. In laying

down any theory about the Summum Bonum, the preliminary question

ought always to be settled--What are the conditions of human life

which are to be assumed as peremptory and unalterable? What

circumstances are we at liberty to suppose to be suppressed,

modified, or reversed? According as these fundamental postulates

are given in a larger or narrower sense, the ideal Summum Bonum

will be shaped differently. This preliminary requisite to the

investigation was little considered by the ancient philosophers.]

[Side-note: It is agreed on both sides, That the Good must be a

Tertium Quid. But Sokrates undertakes to show, That Intelligence

is more cognate with it than Pleasure.]

[Side-note: Difficulties about Unum et Multa. How can the One be

Many? How can the Many be One? The difficulties are greatest about

Generic Unity--how it is distributed among species and

individuals.]

Sokrates then undertakes to show, that of these two elements,

intelligence is the most efficacious and the most contributory to

the Summum Bonum--pleasure the least so. But as a preparation for

this enquiry, he adverts to that which has just been agreed

between them respecting both Pleasure and Intelligence--That each

of them is Unum, and each of them at the same time Multa et

Diversa. Here (argues Sokrates) we find opened before us the

embarrassing question respecting the One and the Many. Enquirers

often ask--"How can the One be Many? How can the Many be One? How

can the same thing be both One and Many?" They find it difficult

to understand how you, Protarchus, being One person, are called by

different names--tall, heavy, white, just, &c.: or how you are

affirmed to consist of many different parts and members. To this

difficulty, however (says Sokrates), the reply is easy. You, and

other particular men, belong to the generated and the perishable.

You partake of many different Ideas or Essences, and your

partaking of one among them does not exclude you from partaking

also of another distinct and even opposite. You partake of the

Idea or Essence of Unity--also of Multitude--of tallness,

heaviness, whiteness, humanity, greatness, littleness, &c. You are

both great and little, heavy and light, &c. In regard to generated

and perishable things, we may understand this. But in regard to

the ungenerated, imperishable, absolute Essences, the difficulty

is more serious. The Self-existent or Universal Man, Bull,

Animal--the Self-existent Beautiful, Good--in regard to these Unities

or Monads there is room for great controversy. First, Do such unities

or monads really and truly exist? Next, assuming that they do

exist, how do they come into communion with generated and

perishable particulars, infinite in number? Is each of them

dispersed and parcelled out among countless individuals? or is it

found, whole and entire, in each individual, maintaining itself as

one and the same, and yet being parted from itself? Is the

Universal Man distributed among all individual men, or is he one

and entire in each of them? How is the Universal Beautiful (The

Self-Beautiful--Beauty) in all and each beautiful thing? How does

this one monad, unchangeable and imperishable, become embodied in

a multitude of transitory individuals, each successively generated

and perishing? How does this One become Many, or how do these Many

become One?[11]

[Footnote 11: Plato, Philêbus, p. 15 B.]

[Side-note: Active disputes upon this question at the time.]

These (says Sokrates) are the really grave difficulties respecting

the identity of the One and the Many: difficulties which have

occasioned numerous controversies, and are likely to occasion many

more. Youthful speculators, especially, are fond of trying their

first efforts of dialectical ingenuity in arguing upon this

paradox--How the One can be Many, and the Many One.[12]

[Footnote 12: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 15-16.

In reading the difficulties thus started by Sokrates, we perceive

them to be the same as those which we have seen set forth in the

dialogue called Parmenidês, where they are put into the mouth of

the philosopher so-called; as objections requiring to be removed

by Sokrates, before the Platonic theory of self-existent Ideas,

universal, eternal and unchangeable, can be admitted. We might

expect that Plato having so emphatically and repeatedly announced

his own sense of the difficulty, would proceed to suggest some

mode of replying to it. But this he never does. In the Parmenidês,

he does not even promise any explanation; in the Philêbus, he

seems to promise one, but all the explanation which he gives

ignores or jumps over the difficulty, enjoining us to proceed as

if no such difficulty existed.]

[Side-note: Order of Nature--Coalescence of the Finite with the

Infinite. The One--The Finite Many--The Infinite Many.]

It is a primæval inspiration (he says) granted by the Gods to man

along with the fire of Prometheus, and handed down to us as a

tradition from that heroic race who were in nearer kindred with

the Gods--That all things said to exist are composed of Unity and

Multitude, and include in them a natural coalescence of Finiteness

and Infinity.[13] This is the fundamental order of Nature, which

we must assume and proceed upon in our investigations. We shall

find everywhere the Form of Unity conjoined with the Form of

Infinity. But we must not be satisfied simply to find these two

forms. We must look farther for those intermediate Forms which lie

between the two. Having found the Form of One, we must next search

for the Form of Two, Three, Four, or some definite number: and we

must not permit ourselves to acquiesce in the Form of Infinite,

until no farther definite number can be detected. In other words,

we must not be satisfied with knowing only one comprehensive

Genus, and individuals comprised under it. We must distribute the

Genus into two, three, or more Species: and each of those Species

again into two or more sub-species, each characterised by some

specific mark: until no more characteristic marks can be

discovered upon which to found the establishment of a distinct

species. When we reach this limit, and when we have determined the

number of subordinate species which the case presents, nothing

remains except the indefinite mass and variety of individuals.[14]

The whole scheme will thus comprise--The One, the Summum Genus, or

Highest Form: The Many, a definite number of Species or

sub-Species or subordinate Forms: The Infinite, a countless heap of

Individuals.

[Footnote 13: Plato, Philêbus, p. 16 C. [Greek: ô(s e)x e(no\s

me\n kai\ e)k pollô=n o)/ntôn tô=n a)ei\ legome/nôn ei)=nai,

pe/ras de\ kai\ a)peiri/an e(n au(toi=s xu/mphuton e)cho/ntôn.]]

[Footnote 14: Plato, Philêbus, p. 16 D. [Greek: dei=n ou)=n ê(ma=s

_tou/tôn ou(/tô diakerosmême/nôn_, a)ei\ _mi/an i)de/an_ peri\

panto\s e(ka/stote _theme/nous zêtei=n; eu(rê/sein ga\r

e)nou=san_; e)a\n ou)=n metala/bômen, meta\ mi/an du/o, ei)/ pôs

ei)si/, skopei=n, ei) de\ mê/, trei=s ê)/ tina a)/llon a)rithmo/n,

kai\ to\ e(\n e)kei/nôn e(/kaston pa/lin ô(sau/tôs, me/chri per

a)\n to\ kat' a)rcha\s e(\n mê\ o(/ti e(\n kai\ polla\ kai\

a)/peira/ e)sti mo/non i)/dê| tis a)lla\ kai\ o(/posa; _tê\n de\

tou= a)pei/rou i)de/an_ pro\s to\ plê=thos mê\ prosphe/rein, pri\n

a)/n tis to\n a)rithmo\n au)tou= pa/nta kati/dê| to\n metaxu\ tou=

a)pei/rou te kai\ tou= e(no/s; to/te d' ê)/dê to\ e(\n e(/kaston

tô=n pa/ntôn ei)s to\ a)/peiron methe/nta chai/rein e)a=|n.]

Plato here recognises a Form of the Infinite, [Greek: a)pei/rou

i)de/an]; again, p. 18 A, [Greek: a)pei/rou phu/sin].]

[Side-note: Mistake commonly made--To look only for the One, and

the Infinite Many, without looking for the intermediate

subdivisions.]

The mistake commonly made (continues Sokrates) by clever men of

the present day, is, that they look for nothing beyond the One and

the Infinite Many: one comprehensive class, and countless

individuals included in it. They take up carelessly any class

which strikes them,[15] and are satisfied to have got an

indefinite number of individuals under one name. But they never

seek for intermediate sub-divisions between the two, so as to be

able to discriminate one portion of the class from other by some

definite mark, and thus to constitute a sub-class. They do not

feel the want of such intermediate sub-divisions, nor the

necessity of distinguishing one portion of this immense group of

individuals from another. Yet it is exactly upon these

discriminating marks that the difference turns, between genuine

dialectical argument and controversy without result.[16]

[Footnote 15: Plato, Philêbus, p. 17 A. [Greek: oi( de\ nu=n tô=n

a)nthrô/pôn sophoi\ _e(\n me/n, o(/pôs a)\n tu/chôsi_, kai\ polla\

tha=tton kai\ bradu/teron poiou=si tou= de/ontos, _meta\ de\ to\

e(\n a)/peira eu)thu/s_, ta\ de\ me/sa au)tou\s e)kpheu/gei], &c.

Stallbaum conjectures that the words [Greek: kai\ polla\] after

[Greek: tu/chôsi] ought not to be in the text. He proposes to

expunge them. The meaning of the passage certainly seems clearer

without them.]

[Footnote 16: Plato, Philêbus, p. 17 A. [Greek: oi(=s

diakechô/ristai to/ te dialektikô=s pa/lin kai\ to\ e)ristikô=s

ê(ma=s poiei=sthai pro\s a)llê/lous tou\s lo/gous.]]

[Side-note: Illustration from Speech and Music.]

This general doctrine is illustrated by two particular

cases--Speech and Music. The voice (or Vocal Utterance) is One--the

voice is also Infinite: to know only thus much is to know very little.

Even when you know, in addition to this, the general distinction

of sounds into acute and grave, you are still far short of the

knowledge of music. You must learn farthermore to distinguish all

the intermediate gradations, and specific varieties of sound, into

which the infinity of separate sounds admits of being distributed:

what and how many these gradations are? what are the numerical

ratios upon which they depend--the rhythmical and harmonic

systems? When you have learnt to know the One Genus, the infinite

diversity of individual sounds, and the number of subordinate

specific varieties by which these two extremes are connected with

each other--then you know the science of music. So too, in speech:

when you can distinguish the infinite diversity of articulate

utterance into vowels, semi-vowels, and consonants, each in

definite number and with known properties--you are master of

grammatical science. You must neither descend at once from the One

to the Infinite Multitude, nor ascend at once from the Infinite

Multitude to the One: you must pass through the intermediate

stages of subordinate Forms, in determinate number. All three

together make up scientific knowledge. You cannot know one portion

separately, without knowing the remainder: all of them being

connected into one by the common bond of the highest Genus.[17]

[Footnote 17: Plato, Philêbus, p. 18 C-D. [Greek: kathorô=n de\

ô(s ou)dei\s ê(mô=n ou)d' a)\n e(\n au)to\ kath' au(to\ a)/neu

pa/ntôn au)tô=n ma/thoi, tou=ton to\n desmo\n au)= logisa/menos

ô(s o)/nta e(/na kai\ pa/nta tau=ta e(\n pôs poiou=nta, mi/an e)p'

au)toi=s ô(s ou)=san grammatikê\n te/chnên e)pephthe/gxato

proseipô/n.]]

[Side-note: Plato's explanation does not touch the difficulties

which he had himself recognised as existing.]

Such is the explanation which Plato gives as to the identity of

One and Many. Considered as a reply to his own previous doubts and

difficulties, it is altogether insufficient. It leaves all those

doubts unsolved. The first point of enquiry which he had started,

was, Whether any Universal or Generic Monads really existed: the

second point was, assuming that they did exist, how each of them,

being essentially eternal and unchangeable, could so multiply

itself or divide itself as to be at the same time in an infinite

variety of particulars.[18] Both points are left untouched by the

explanation. No proof is furnished that Universal Monads

exist--still less that they multiply or divide their one and unchangeable

essence among infinite particulars--least of all is it shown, how

such multiplication or division can take place, consistently with

the fundamental and eternal sameness of the Universal Monad. The

explanation assumes these difficulties to be eliminated, but does

not suggest the means of eliminating them. The Philêbus, like the

Parmenidês, recognises the difficulties as existing, but leaves

them unsolved, though the dogmas to which they attach are the

cardinal and peculiar tenets of Platonic speculation. Plato shows

that he is aware of the embarrassments: yet he is content to

theorize as if they did not exist. In a remarkable passage of this

very dialogue, he intimates pretty clearly that he considered the

difficulty of these questions to be insuperable, and never likely

to be set at rest. This identification of the One with the Many,

in verbal propositions (he says) has begun with the beginning of

dialectic debate, and will continue to the end of it, as a

stimulating puzzle which especially captivates the imagination of

youth.[19]

[Footnote 18: Plato, Philêbus, p. 15 B-C.]

[Footnote 19: Plato, Philêbus, p. 15 D. [Greek: phame/n pou

tau)to\n e(\n kai\ polla\ u(po\ lo/gôn gigno/mena peritre/chein

pa/ntê| kath' e(/kaston tô=n legome/nôn a)ei\ kai\ pa/lai kai\

nu=n. kai\ tou=to ou)/te mê\ pau/sêtai/ pote ou)/te ê)/rxato nu=n,

a)ll' e)/sti to\ toiou=ton, ô(s e)moi\ phai/netai, tô=n lo/gôn

au)tô=n a)tha/nato/n ti kai\ a)gê/rôn pa/thos e)n ê(mi=n.]

The sequel (too long to transcribe) of this passage (setting forth

the manner in which this apparent paradox worked upon the

imagination of youthful students) is very interesting to read, and

shows (in my opinion) that Stallbaum's interpretation of it in his

note is not the right one. Plato is here talking (in my judgment)

about the puzzle and paradox itself: Stallbaum represents Plato as

talking about his pretended solution of it, which has not as yet

been at all alluded to.

Plato seems to give his own explanation without full certainty or

confidence: see p. 16 B. And when we turn to pp. 18-19, we shall

see that he forgets the original difficulty which had been

proposed (compare p. 15 B), introducing in place of it another

totally distinct difficulty, as if _that_ had been in

contemplation.]

[Side-note: It is nevertheless instructive, in regard to logical

division and classification.]

But though the difficulties started by Plato remain unexplained,

still his manner of stating them is in itself valuable and

instructive. It proclaims--1. The necessity of a systematic

classification, or subordinate scale of species and sub-species,

between the highest Genus and the group of individuals beneath. 2.

That each of these subordinate grades in the scale must be founded

upon some characteristic mark. 3. That the number of sub-divisions

is definite and assignable, there being a limit beyond which it

cannot be carried. 4. That full knowledge is not attainable until

we know all three--The highest Genus--The intermediate species and

sub-species; both what they are, how many there are, and how each

is characterised--The infinite group of individuals. These three

elements must all be known in conjunction: we are not to pass

either from the first to the third, or from the third to the

first, except through the second.

[Side-note: At that time little thought had been bestowed upon

classification as a logical process.]

The general necessity of systematic classification--of

generalisation and specification, or subordination of species and

sub-species, as a condition of knowing any extensive group of

individuals--requires no advocate at the present day. But it was

otherwise in the time of Plato. There existed then no body of

knowledge, distributed and classified, to which he could appeal as

an example. The illustrations to which he himself refers here, of

language and music as systematic arrangements of vocal sounds,

were both of them the product of empirical analogy and unconscious

growth, involving little of predetermined principle or theory. All

the classification then employed was merely that which is included

in the structure of language: in the framing of general names,

each designating a multitude of individuals. All that men knew of

classification was, that which is involved in calling many

individuals by the same common name. This is the defect pointed

out by Plato, when he remarks that the clever men of his time took

no heed except of the One and the Infinite (Genus and

Individuals): neglecting all the intermediate distinctions. Upon

the knowledge of these _media_ (he says) rests the difference

between true dialectic debate, and mere polemic.[20] That is--when

you have only an infinite multitude of individuals, called by the

same generic name, it is not even certain that they have a single

property in common: and even if they have, it is not safe to

reason from one to another as to the possession of any other

property beyond the one generic property--so that the debate ends

in mere perplexity. All pleasures agree in being pleasures

(Sokrates had before observed to Protarchus), and all cognitions

agree in being cognitions. But you cannot from hence infer that

there is any other property belonging in common to all.[21] That

is a point which you cannot determine without farther observation

of individuals, and discrimination of the great multitude into

appropriate subdivisions. You will thus bring the whole under that

triple point of view which Plato requires:--the highest

Genus,--the definite number of species and sub-species,--the

undefined number of individuals.

[Footnote 20: Plato, Philêbus, p. 17 A. [Greek: oi( de\ nu=n tô=n

a)nthrô/pôn sophoi\ e(\n me/n, o(/pôs a)\n tu/chôsi, kai\ polla\

tha=tton kai\ bradu/teron poiou=si tou= de/ontos, meta\ de\ to\

e(\n a)/peira eu)thu/s, ta\ de\ me/sa au)tou\s e)kpheu/gei, oi(=s

diakechôristai to/ te dialektikô=s pa/lon kai\ to\ e)ristikô=s

ê(ma=s poiei=sthai pro\s a)llê/lous tou\s lo/gous.]]

[Footnote 21: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 13 B, 14 A.]

[Side-note: Classification--unconscious and conscious.]

Here we have set before us one important branch of logical

method--the necessity of classification, not simply arising as an

incidental and unconscious effect of the transitive employment of

a common name, but undertaken consciously and intentionally as a

deliberate process, and framed upon principles predetermined as

essential to the accomplishment of a scientific end. This was a

conception new in the Sokratic age. Plato seized upon it with

ardour. He has not only emphatically insisted upon it in the

Philêbus and elsewhere, but he has also given (in the Sophistês

and Politikus) elaborate examples of systematic logical

subdivision applied to given subjects.

[Side-note: Plato's doctrine about classification is not

necessarily connected with his Theory of Ideas.]

We may here remark that Plato's views as to the necessity of

systematic classification, or of connecting the Summum Genus with

individuals by intermediate stages of gradually decreasing

generality--are not necessarily connected with his peculiar theory

of Ideas as Self-existent objects, eternal and unchangeable. The

two are indeed blended together in his own mind and language: but

the one is quite separable from the other; and his remarks on

classification are more perspicuous without his theory of Ideas

than with it. Classification does not depend upon his

hypothesis--That Ideas are not simply Concepts of the Reason, but

absolute existences apart from the Reason (Entia Rationis apart from

the Ratio)--and that these Ideas correspond to the words _Unum_,

_Multa definité_, _Multa indefinité_, which are put together to

compose the totality of what we see and feel in the Kosmos.

Applying this general doctrine (about the necessity of

establishing subordinate classes as intermediate between the Genus

and Individuals) to the particular subject debated between

Sokrates and Protarchus--the next step in the procedure would

naturally be, to distinguish the subordinate classes comprised

first under the Genus Pleasure--next, under the Genus Intelligence

(or Cognition). And so indeed the dialogue seems to promise[22] in

tolerably explicit terms.

[Footnote 22: Plato, Philêbus, p. 19 B, p. 20 A.]

[Side-note: Quadruple distribution of Existences. 1. The Infinite.

2. The Finient 3. Product of the two former. 4. Combining Cause or

Agency.]

But such promise is not realised. The dialogue takes a different

turn, and recurs to the general distinction already brought to

view between the Finient (Determinans) and the Infinite

(Indeterminatum). We have it laid down that all existences in the

universe are divided into four Genera: 1. The Infinite or

Indeterminate. 2. The Finient or the Determinans. 3. The product

of these two, mixed or compounded together Determinatum. 4. The

Cause or Agency whereby they become mixed together.--Of these

four, the first is a Genus, or is both One and Many, having

numerous varieties, all agreeing in the possession of a perpetual

More and Less (without any limit or positive quantity): that which

is perpetually increasing or diminishing, more or less hot, cold,

moist, great, &c., than any given positive standard. The second,

or the Determinans, is also a Genus, or One and Many: including

equal, double, triple, and all fixed ratios.[23]

[Footnote 23: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 24-25.]

The third Genus is laid down by Plato as generated by a mixture or

combination of these two first--the Infinite and the Determinans.

The varieties of this third or compound Genus comprise all that is

good and desirable in nature--health, strength, beauty, virtue,

fine weather, good temperature:[24] all agreeing, each in its

respective sphere, in presenting a right measure or proportion as

opposed to excess or deficiency.

[Footnote 24: Plato, Philêbus, p. 26 A-B.]

Fourthly, Plato assumes a distinct element of causal agency which

operates such mixture of the Determinans with the Infinite, or

banishment and supersession of the latter by the former.

[Side-note: Pleasure and Pain belong to the first of these four

Classes--Cognition or Intelligence belongs to the fourth.]

We now approach the application of these generalities to the

question in hand--the comparative estimate of pleasure and

intelligence in reference to Good. It has been granted that

neither of them separately is sufficient, and that both must be

combined to compose the result Good: but the question remains,

which of the two elements is the most important in the compound?

To which of the four above-mentioned Genera (says Sokrates) does

Pleasure belong? It belongs to the Infinite or Indeterminate: so

also does Pain. To which of the four does Intelligence or

Cognition belong? It belongs to the fourth, or to the nature of

Cause, the productive agency whereby definite combinations are

brought about.[25]

[Footnote 25: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 27-28, p. 31 A.]

[Side-note: In the combination, essential to Good, of Intelligence

with Pleasure, Intelligence is the more important of the two

constituents.]

Hence we see (Sokrates argues) that pleasure is a less important

element than Intelligence, in the compound called Good. For

pleasure belongs to the Infinite: but pain belongs to the Infinite

also: the Infinite therefore, being common to both, cannot be the

circumstance which imparts to pleasures their affinity with Good:

they must derive that affinity from some one of the other

elements.[26] It is Intelligence which imparts to pleasures their

affinity with Good: for Intelligence belongs to the more

efficacious Genus called Cause. In the combination of Intelligence

with Pleasure, indispensable to constitute Good, Intelligence is

the primary element, Pleasure only the secondary element.

Intelligence or Reason is the ruling cause which pervades and

directs both the smaller body called Man, and the greater body

called the Kosmos. The body of man consists of a combination of

the four elements, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire: deriving its

supply of all these elements from the vast stock of them which

constitutes the Kosmos. So too the mind of man, with its limited

reason and intelligence, is derived from the vast stock of mind,

reason, and intelligence, diffused throughout the Kosmos, and

governing its great elemental body. The Kosmos is animated and

intelligent, having body and mind like man, but in far higher

measure and perfection. It is from this source alone that man can

derive his supply of mind and intelligence.[27]

[Footnote 26: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 27-28.

The argument of Plato is here very obscure and difficult to

follow. Stallbaum in his note even intimates that Plato uses the

word [Greek: a)/peiron] in a sense different from that in which he

had used it before: which I think doubtful.]

[Footnote 27: Plato, Philêbus, p. 29 C. 30 A: [Greek: To\ par'

ê(mi=n sô=ma a)=r' ou) psuchê\n phê/somen e)/chein? . . . Po/then

labo/n, ei)/per mê\ to/ ge tou= panto\s sô=ma e)/mpsuchon o)\n

e)tu/gchane, tau)ta/ ge e)/chon tou/tô| kai\ e)/ti pa/ntê

kalli/ona?]]

[Side-note: Intelligence is the regulating principle--Pleasure is

the Indeterminate, requiring to be regulated.]

Sokrates thus arrives at the conclusion, that in the combination

constituting Good, Reason or Intelligence is the regulating

principle: and that Pleasure is the Infinite or Indeterminate

which requires regulation from without, having no fixed measure or

regulating power in itself.[28] He now proceeds to investigate

pleasure and intelligence as phenomena: to enquire in what each of

them resides, and through what affection they are generated.[29]

[Footnote 28: Plato, Philêbus, p. 31 A.]

[Footnote 29: Plato, Philêbus, p. 31 B. [Greek: dei= dê\ to\ meta\

tou=to, e)n ô(=| te/ e)stin e(ka/teron au)toi=n kai\ dia\ ti/

pa/thos gi/gnesthon, o(po/tan gi/gnêsthon, i)dei=n ê(ma=s.]]

[Side-note: Pleasure and Pain must be explained together--Pain

arises from the disturbance of the fundamental harmony of the

system--Pleasure from the restoration.]

We cannot investigate pleasure (Sokrates continues) apart from

pain: both must be studied together. Both pleasure and pain reside

in the third out of the four above-mentioned Genera:[30] that is,

in the compound Genus formed out of that union (of the Infinite

with the Determinans or Finient) which includes all animated

bodies. Health and Harmony reside in these animated bodies: and

pleasure as well as pain proceed from modifications of such

fundamental harmony. When the fundamental harmony is disturbed or

dissolved, pain is the consequence: when the disturbance is

rectified and the harmony restored, pleasure ensues.[31] Thus

hunger, thirst, extreme heat and cold, are painful, because they

break up the fundamental harmony of animal nature: while eating,

drinking, cooling under extreme heat, or warming under extreme

cold, are pleasurable, because they restore the disturbed harmony.

[Footnote 30: Plato, Philêbus, p. 31 C. [Greek: _e)n tô=| koinô=|

moi ge/nei_ a(/ma phai/nesthon lu/pê te kai\ ê(donê\ _gi/gnesthai_

kata\ phu/sin . . . koino\n toi/nun u(pakou/ômen o(\ dê\ tô=n

tetta/rôn tri/ton e)le/gomen.] Compare p. 32 A-B: [Greek: to\ e)k

tou= a)pei/rou kai\ pe/ratos kata\ phu/sin e)/mpsuchon gegono\s

ei)=dos.]

Plato had before said that [Greek: ê(donê\] belonged to the

Infinite (compare p. 41 D), or to the _first_ of the four

above-mentioned genera, not to the third.]

[Footnote 31: Plato, Philêbus, p. 31 D.]

[Side-note: Pleasure presupposes Pain.]

This is the primary conception, or original class, of pleasures

and pains, embracing body and mind in one and the same fact.

Pleasure cannot be had without antecedent pain: it is in fact a

mere reaction against pain, or a restoration from pain.

[Side-note: Derivative pleasures of memory and expectation

belonging to mind alone. Here you may find pleasure without pain.]