Not only the sincere pleasure-haters, but also other theorists

indicated by Aristotle, would have warmly applauded this pure

ethical doctrine of Speusippus; not from real agreement with it,

but in order to edify the audience. They would say to one another

aside: "This is not true; but we must do all we can to make people

believe it. Since every one is too fond of pleasures, and suffers

himself to be enslaved by them, we must pull in the contrary

direction, in order that we may thereby bring people into the

middle line." (Aristot. Eth. Nikom. x. 1, 1172, a. 30.)

It deserves to be remarked that Aristotle, in alluding to these

last theorists, disapproves their scheme of Ethical Fictions, or

of falsifying theory in order to work upon men's minds by edifying

imposture; while Plato approves and employs this scheme in the

Republic. Aristotle even recognises it as a fault in various

persons, that they take too little delight in bodily

pleasures--that a man is [Greek: toiou=tos oi(=os ê(=tton ê)\ dei=

toi=s sômatikoi=s chai/rôn] (Ethic. Nikom. vii. 11, 1151, b. 24).]

These few are all the varieties of pleasure which Plato admits as

true: they are alleged as cases of the absolutely pleasurable

([Greek: Au)to-ê(du/])--that which is pleasurable _per se_, and

always, without relation to any thing else, without dependence on

occasion or circumstance, and without any antecedent or

concomitant pain. All other pleasures are pleasurable relatively

to some antecedent pain, or to some contrasting condition, with

which they are compared: accordingly Plato considers them as

false, unreal, illusory: pleasures and not pleasures at once, and

not more one than the other.[135] Herein he conforms to the

Eleatic or Parmenidean view, according to which the relative is

altogether falsehood and illusion: an intermediate stage between

Ens and Non-Ens, belonging as much to the first as to the last.

[Footnote 135: Compare, respecting this Platonic view, Republic,

v. pp. 478-479, and pp. 583-585, where Plato contrasts the [Greek:

panalêthê\s] or [Greek: gnêsi/a ê(donê/], which arises from the

acquisition of knowledge (when the mind nourishes itself with real

essence), with the [Greek: no/thê] (p. 587 B) or [Greek:

e)skiagraphême/nê ê(donê/, ei)/dôlon tê=s a)lêthou=s ê(donê=s],

arising from the pursuits of wealth, power, and other objects of

desire.

The comic poet Alexis adverts to this Platonic doctrine of the

absolutely pleasurable, here, there, and everywhere,--[Greek: to\

d' ê(du\ pa/ntôs ê(du/, ka)kei= ka)ntha/de], Athenæ. viii. 354;

Meineke, Com. Frag. p. 453.

In the Phædrus (258 E), we find this same class of pleasures,

those which cannot be enjoyed unless preceded by some pain,

asserted to be called _for that reason slavish_ ([Greek:

a)ndrapodô/deis]), and depreciated as worthless. Nearly all the

pleasures connected with the body are said to belong to this

class; but those of rhetoric and dialectic are exempted from it,

and declared to be of superior order.

The pleasure of gaining a victory in the stadium at Olympia was

ranked by Greeks generally as the maximum of pleasure: and we find

the Platonic Sokrates (Republ. v. 465 D) speaks in concurrence

with this opinion. But this pleasure ought in Plato's view to pass

for a false pleasure; since it was invariably preceded by the most

painful, long-continued training.

The reasoning of Sokrates in the Philêbus (see especially pp.

46-47) against the intense and extatic pleasures, as being never

pure, but always adulterated by accompanying pain, misfortune,

disappointment, &c., is much the same as that of Epikurus and his

followers afterwards. The case is nowhere more forcibly put than

in the fourth book of Lucretius (1074 seq.): where that poet

deprecates passionate love, and points out that pure or unmixed

pleasure belongs only to the man of sound and healthy reason.]

[Side-note: Plato could not have defended this small list of

Pleasures, upon his own admission, against his opponents--the

Pleasure-haters, who disallowed pleasures altogether.]

The catalogue of pleasures recognised by Plato being so narrow

(and much of them attainable only by a few persons), the amount of

difference is really very small between him and his

pleasure-hating opponents, who disallowed pleasure altogether.

But small as the catalogue is, he could not consistently have defended

it against them, upon his own principles. His opponents could have

shown him that a considerable portion of it must be discarded, if

we are to disallow all pleasures which are preceded by or

intermingled with pain--or which are sometimes stronger, sometimes

feebler, according to the relations of contrast or similarity with

other concomitant sensations. Mathematical study certainly, far

from being all pleasure and no pain, demands an irksome

preparatory training (which is numbered among the miseries of life

in the Axiochus[136]), succeeded by long laborious application,

together with a fair share of vexatious puzzle and disappointment.

The love of knowledge grows up by association (like the thirst for

money or power), and includes an uncomfortable consciousness of

ignorance: nay, it is precisely this painful consciousness which

the Sokratic method was expressly intended to plant forcibly in

the student's mind, as an indispensable antecedent condition.

Requital doubtless comes in time; but the outlay is not the less

real, and is quite sufficient to disentitle the study from being

counted as a true pleasure, in the Platonic sense. Nor could

Plato, upon his own principles, defend the pleasures of sight,

sound, and smell. For though he might justly contend that there

were some objects originally agreeable to these senses, yet all

these objects will appear more or less agreeable, according to the

accompanying contrasts under which they are presented, while, in

particular states of the organ, they will not appear agreeable at

all. Now such variability of estimate is among the grounds alleged

by Plato for declaring pleasures to be false.[137]

[Footnote 136: See the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Axiochus, pp.

366-367. Compare Republic, vii. 526 C, vi. 504 C.

The Sokratic method, in creating consciousness of ignorance, is

exhibited not less in the Xenophontic Memorabilia (iv. 2, 40) than

in various Platonic dialogues, Alkibiades I., Theætêtus, &c. We

read it formally proclaimed by Sokrates in the Platonic Apology.

Aristotle repeats the assertion contained in the Philêbus about

the list of painless pleasures--[Greek: a)/lupoi ga/r ei)sin ai(/

te mathêmatikai\], &c. (Ethic. Nikom. x. 2, 1173, b. 16; 7, 1177,

a. 25.) He himself says in another place (vii. 13, 1153, a. 20)

that [Greek: to\ theôrei=n] sometimes hurts the health, and if he

had examined the lives of mathematicians, especially that of

Kepler, he would hardly have imagined that mathematical

investigations have no pains attached to them. He probably means

that they are not preceded by painful appetites such as hunger and

thirst. But they are preceded by acquired impulses or desires,

which in reference to the present question are upon same footing

as the natural appetites. A healthy and temperate man, leading a

regular life and in easy circumstances, knows little of hunger and

thirst as pains: he knows them only as appetites which give relish

to his periodical meals. It is only when this periodical

satisfaction is withheld that his appetite grows to a painful and

distressing height. So too the [Greek: philomathê/s]; his appetite

for study, when regularly gratified to an extent consistent with

health and other considerations, is not painful; but it will rise

to the height of a most distressing privation if he be debarred

from gratifying it, excluded from books and papers, disturbed by

noises and intrusions. Kepler, if interdicted from pursuing his

calculations, would have been miserable. Jason of Pheræ was heard

to say that he felt hungry so long as he was not in possession of

supreme power--[Greek: peinê=|n, o(/te mê\ turannoi=], Aristot.

Politic. iii. 4, 1277, a. 24; thus intimating that the acquired

appetite of ambition had in his mind reached the same intensity as

the natural appetite of hunger.]

[Footnote 137: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 41-42. In the Phædon (p. 60 B)

Sokrates makes a striking remark on the inseparable conjunction of

pleasure with pain generally.]

[Side-note: Sokrates in this dialogue differs little from these

Pleasure-haters.]

How little the Sokrates of this dialogue differs, at the bottom,

from the fastidious pleasure-haters, may be seen by the passage in

which he proclaims that the life of intelligence alone, without

the smallest intermixture of pleasure or pain, is the really

perfect life: that the Gods and the divine Kosmos have no

enjoyment and no suffering.[138] The emotional department of human

nature is here regarded as a degenerate and obstructive appendage:

so that it was an inauspicious act of the sons of the Demiurgus

(in the Timæus[139]) when they attached the spherical head (the

miniature parallel of the Kosmos, with the rotatory movements of

the immortal soul in the brain within) at the summit of a bodily

trunk and limbs, containing the thoracic and abdominal cavities:

the thoracic cavity embodying a second and inferior soul with the

energetic emotions and passions--the abdominal region serving as

lodgment to a third yet baser soul with the appetites. From this

conjunction sprang the corrupting influence of emotional impulse,

depriving man of his close parallelism with the Kosmos, and

poisoning the life of pure exclusive Intelligence--regular,

unfeeling, undisturbed. The Pleasure-haters, together with

Speusippus and others, declared that pleasure and pain were both

alike enemies to be repelled, and that neutrality was the

condition to be aimed at.[140] And such appears to me to be the

drift of Plato's reasonings in the Philêbus: though he relaxes

somewhat the severity of his requirements in favour of a few

pleasures, towards which he feels the same indulgence as towards

Homer in the Republic.[141] When Ethics are discussed, not upon

principles of their own ([Greek: oi)kei=ai a)rchai\]), but upon

principles of Kosmology or Ontology, no emotion of any kind can

find consistent place.

[Footnote 138: Plato, Philêbus, p. 33 B.]

[Footnote 139: Plato, Timæus, pp. 43 A, 44 D, 69 D, 70-71. The

same fundamental idea though embodied in a different illustration,

appears also in the Phædon; where Sokrates depicts life as a

period of imprisonment, to which the immortal rational soul is

condemned, in a corrupt and defective body, with perpetual stream

of disturbing sensations and emotions (Phædon, pp. 64-65).

Aristotle observes, De Animâ, i. p. 407, b. 2:--[Greek: e)pi/ponon

de\ kai\ to\ memi/chthai tô=| sô/mati mê\ duna/menon

a)poluthê=nai, kai\ prose/ti pheukto/n, ei)/per be/ltion tô=| nô=|

mê\ meta\ sô/matos ei)=nai, katha/per ei)/ôthe/ te le/gesthai kai\

polloi=s sundokei=.]

We find in one of the Fragments of Cicero, quoted by Augustin from

the lost work Hortensius (p. 485, ed. Orelli):--"An vero, inquit,

voluptates corporis expetendæ, quæ veré et graviter dictæ sunt à

Platone illecebræ et escæ malorum? Quis autem bonâ mente præditus,

non mallet nullas omnino nobis à naturâ voluptates esse datas?"

This is the same doctrine as what is ascribed to Speusippus.]

[Footnote 140: Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. vii. 14, p. 1153, b. 5; x.

2, p. 1173, a. 8; Aulus Gellius, ix. 5. "Speusippus vetusque omnis

Academia voluptatem et dolorem duo mala esse dicunt opposita inter

se: bonum autem esse quod utriusque medium foret."

Compare Plato, Philêbus, pp. 43 D-E, 33 B.

To whom does Plato here make allusion, under the general title of

the Fastidious ([Greek: oi( duscherei=s]) Pleasure-haters?

Schleiermacher (note to his translation, p. 487), Stallbaum, and

most critics down to Dr. Badham inclusive, are of opinion, that he

alludes to Antisthenes--among whose _dicta_ we certainly read

declarations expressing positive aversion to pleasure--[Greek:

manei/ên ma=llon ê)\ ê(sthei/ên] Diog. L. vi. 3; compare ix. 101,

and Winckelmann, Frag. Antisthen. xii. Mr. Poste, on the contrary,

thinks it improbable that Antisthenes is alluded to (see p. 80 of

his Philêbus). I confess that I think so too. Mr. Poste points out

that these [Greek: duscherei=s] are characterised by Plato (p. 44

B), as [Greek: ma/la deinou\s legome/nous peri\ phu/sin]:--whereas

we are informed that speculations on [Greek: phu/sis] were

neglected by Antisthenes, who confined his attention to [Greek:

ta\ ê)thika/]. This is a strong reason for believing that

Antisthenes cannot be here meant; and there are some other reasons

also.

First, in describing the [Greek: duscherei=s], Plato notes it as

one among their attributes, that they _hold in thorough

detestation the indecorous pleasures_ ([Greek: ta\s tô=n

a)schêmo/nôn ê(dona/s, a(\s ou(\s ei)/pomen duscherei=s misou=si

pantelô=s], p. 46 A). Now this is surely not likely to have been

affirmed about Antisthenes. It was the conspicuous characteristic

of the Cynic sect, begun by Antisthenes, and carried still farther

by his pupil Diogenes, that they reduced to its minimum the

distinction between the decorous and the indecorous.

Next, we may observe that these [Greek: duscherei=s], whoever they

were, are spoken of with much respect by Plato, even while he

combats their doctrine (p. 44 C). I think it not likely that he

would have spoken thus of Antisthenes. We are told that there

prevailed between the two a great and reciprocal acrimony. And

this sentiment is manifested in the Sophistês (p. 251 B), where

the opponents whom Plato is refuting are described with the most

contemptuous bitterness--and where Schleiermacher, and the critics

generally, declare that he alludes to Antisthenes. The passage in

the Sophistês represents, in my judgment, the probable sentiment

of Plato towards Antisthenes: the passage in the Philêbus is at

variance with it.

I imagine that the [Greek: duscherei=s] to whom Plato makes

allusion in the Philêbus, are the persons from whom his nephew and

successor Speusippus derived the doctrine declared in the first

portion of this note. The "vetus omnia Academia" of Aulus Gellius

is an exaggerated phrase; but many of the old Academy, or

companions of Plato, probably held the theory that pleasure was

only one form of evil,--especially the pythagorising _Platonici_,

adopting the tendencies of Plato himself in his old age. That

Speusippus was among the borrowers from the Pythagoreans, we know

from Aristotle (Eth. Nikom. i. 4, 1096, b. 8).

Now the Pythagorean canon of life, like the Orphic (both of them

supposed by Herodotus to be derived in great part from Egypt--ii.

81), was distinguished by a multiplicity of abstinences, disgusts,

antipathies, in respect to alimentation and other physical

circumstances of life--which were held to be of the most

imperative force and necessity; so that offences against them were

of all others the most intolerable. A remarkable fragment of the

[Greek: Krê=tes] of Euripides (ed. Dind., vol. ii. p. 912)

describes a variety of this _purism_ analogous to the Orphic

and Pythagorean:--[Greek: Pa/lleuka d' e)/chôn ei)/mata, pheu/gô

ge/nesi/n te bro/tôn, kai\ nekrothê/kês ou) chrimpto/menos; tê\n

t' e)mpsu/chôn brô=sin e)destô=n pephu/lagmai.] Compare Eurip.

Hippol. 957; Alexis Comicus, ap. Athenæ, iv. p. 161. See the work

of M. Alfred Maury, Histoire des Religions de la Grèce Antique,

vol. iii. pp. 368-384.

It appears to me that the [Greek: duscherei=s], to whom Plato

alludes in the Philêbus, were most probably pythagorising friends

of his own; who, adopting a ritual of extreme rigour,

distinguished themselves by the violence of their antipathies

towards [Greek: ta\s ê(dona\s ta\s tô=n a)schêmo/nôn]. Plato

speaks of them with respect; partly because ethical theorists, who

denounce _pleasure_, are usually characterised in reverential

terms, as persons of exalted principle, even by those who think

their reasonings inconclusive; partly because these men only

pushed the consequences of Plato's own reasonings, rather farther

than Plato himself did. In fact they were more consistent than

Plato was: for the principles laid down in the Philêbus, if

carried out strictly, would go to the exclusion of all

pleasures--not less of the few which he tolerates, than of the many

which he banishes.

These pythagorising _Platonici_ might well be termed [Greek:

deinoi\ peri\ phu/sin]. They paid much attention to the

interpretation of nature, though they did so according to a

numerical and geometrical symbolism.]

[Footnote 141: Plato, Republic, x. p. 607.]

[Side-note: Forced conjunction of Kosmology and Ethics--defect of

the Philêbus.]

In my judgment, this is one main defect pervading the Platonic

Philêbus--the forced conjunction between Kosmology and Ethics--the

violent pressure employed to force Pleasures and Pains into the

same classifying framework as cognitive Beliefs--the true and the

false. In respect to the various pleasures, the dialogue contains

many excellent remarks, the value of which is diminished by the

purpose to which they are turned.[142] One of Plato's main

batteries is directed against the intense, extatic, momentary

enjoyments, which he sets in contrast against the gentle, serene,

often renewable.[143] That the former are often purchasable only

at the cost of a distempered condition of body and mind, which

ought to render them objects shunned rather than desired by a

reasonable man--this is a doctrine important to inculcate: but

nothing is gained by applying the metaphorical predicate _false_,

either to them, or to the other classes of mixed pleasures, &c.,

which Plato discountenances under the same epithet. By thus

condemning pleasures in wholesale and in large groups, we not only

set aside the innocuous as well as others, but we also leave

unapplied, or only half applied, that principle of Measure or

Calculation which Plato so often extols as the main item in Summum

Bonum.

[Footnote 142: We read in Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric (Book

i. ch. 7, pp. 168-170) some very good remarks on the erroneous and

equivocal assertions which identify Truth and Good--a thesis on

which various Platonists have expended much eloquence. Dr.

Campbell maintains the just distinction between the Emotions and

Will on one side, and the Understanding on the other.

"Passion" (he says) "is the mover to action, Reason is the guide.

Good is the object of the Will; Truth the object of the

Understanding."]

[Footnote 143: Plato, Philêbus, p. 45 D. [Greek: e)n u(/brei

mei/zous ê(dona/s, ou) plei/ous le/gô], &c.

So in the Republic, also, [Greek: ê(donê\ u(perba/llousa] is

declared to be inconsistent with [Greek: sôphrosu/nê] (iii. 402

E).]

[Side-note: Directive sovereignty of Measure--how explained and

applied in the Protagoras.]

In this dialogue as well as others, Measure is thus exalted, and

exalted with emphasis, at the final conclusion: but it is far less

clearly and systematically applied, as far as human beings are

concerned, than in the Protagoras. The Sokrates of the Protagoras

does not recognise any pleasures as false--nor any class of

pleasures as absolutely unmixed with pain: he does not set

pleasure in pointed opposition to the avoidance of pain, nor the

intense momentary pleasures to the gentle and more durable. He

considers that the whole course of life is a perpetual

intermixture of pleasures and pains, in proportions variable and

to a certain extent modifiable: that each item in both lists has

its proper value, commensurable with the others; that the purpose

of a well-ordered life consists, in rendering the total sum of

pleasure as great, and the total sum of pain as small, as each

man's case admits: that avoidance of pain and attainment of

pleasure are co-ordinate branches of this one comprehensive End.

He farther declares that men are constantly liable to err by false

remembrances, estimates, and comparisons, of pleasures and pains

past--by false expectations of pleasures and pains to come: that

the whole security of life lies in keeping clear of such error--in

right comparison of these items and right choice between them:

that therefore the full sovereign controul of each man's life must

be vested in the Measuring Science or Calculating

Intelligence.[144] Not only all comprehensive sovereignty, but

also ever-active guidance, is postulated for this Measuring

Science: while at the same time its special function, and the

items to which it applies, are more clearly defined than in any

other Platonic dialogue. If a man be so absorbed by the idea of an

intense momentary pleasure or pain, as to forget or disregard

accompaniments or consequences of an opposite nature, greatly

overbalancing it--this is an error committed from default of the

Measuring Science: but it is only one among many errors arising

from the like deficiency. Nothing is required but the Measuring

Science or Intelligence, to enable a man to make the best of those

circumstances in which he may be placed: this is true of all men,

under every variety of place and circumstances. Measure is not the

Good, but the one condition which is constant as well as

indispensable to any tolerable approach towards Good.

[Footnote 144: This argument is carried on by Sokrates from p. 351

until the close of the Protagoras, p. 357 A. [Greek: e)peidê\ de\

ê(donê=s te kai\ lu/pês e)n o)rthê=| _tê=| ai(re/sei e)pha/nê

ê(mi=n ê( sôtêri/a tou= bi/ou ou)=sa_, tou= te ple/onos kai\

e)la/ttonos kai\ mei/zonos kai\ smikroterou= kai\ por)r(ôte/rô

kai\ e)ggute/rô, a)=ra prô=ton me\n _ou) metrêtikê\ phai/netai_,

u(perbolê=s te kai\ e)ndei/as ou)=sa kai\ i)so/têtos pro\s

a)llê/las ske/psis? . . . E)pei\ de\ metrêtikê/, a)na/gkê| dê/pou

te/chnê kai\ e)pistê/mê.]

Yet Plato in the Philêbus, imputing to the Hedonistic theory that

it sets aside all idea of measure, regulation, limit, advances as

an argument in the case, that Pleasure and Pain in their own

nature have no limit (Philêbus, pp. 25-26 B, 27 E. Compare Dr.

Badham's note, p. 30 of his edition).

The imputation is unfounded, and the argument without application,

in regard to the same theory as expounded by Sokrates in the

Protagoras.

At the end of the Philêbus (p. 67 B) Plato makes Sokrates exclaim,

"We cannot put Pleasure first among the items of Good, even though

all oxen, horses, and other beasts affirm it". This rhetorical

flourish is altogether misplaced in the Philêbus: for Plato had

already specified it as one of the conditions of the Good, That it

must be acceptable and must give satisfaction to all animals, and

even to all plants (pp. 22 B, 60 C), as well as to men.]

[Side-note: How explained in Philêbus--no statement to what items

it is applied.]

In the Philêbus, too, Measure--The Exact Quantum--The Exact

Moment--are proclaimed as the chief item in the complex

called--The Good.[145] But to what Items does Sokrates intend the

measure to be applied? Not certainly to pleasures: the comparison of

quantity between one pleasure and another is discarded as useless

or misleading, and the comparison of quality alone is

admitted--_i. e._, true and false: the large majority of human pleasures

being repudiated in the lump as false, and a small remnant only

being tolerated, on the allegation that they are true. Nor, again,

is the measure applied to pains: for though Plato affirms that a

life altogether without pains (as without pleasures) would be the

truly divine Ideal, yet he never tells us that the Measuring

Intelligence is to be made available in the comparison and choice

of pains, and in avoidance of the greater by submitting to the

less. Lastly, when we look at the concession made in this dialogue

to Gorgias and his art, we find that Plato no longer claims for

his Good or Measure any directive function, or any paramount

influence, as to utility, profit, reputation, or the greater ends

which men usually pursue in life:[146] he claims for it only the

privilege of satisfying the aspiration for truth, in minds wherein

such aspiration is preponderant over all others.

[Footnote 145: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66 A. [Greek: me/tron--to\

me/trion--to\ kai/rion].]

[Footnote 146: Plato, Philêbus, p. 58 B-D.]

Comparing the Philêbus with the Protagoras, therefore, we see that

though, in both, Measuring Science or Intelligence is proclaimed

as supreme, the province assigned to it in the Philêbus is

comparatively narrow. Moreover the practical side or activities of

life (which are prominent in the Protagoras) appear in the

Philêbus thrust into a corner; where scanty room is found for them

on ground nearly covered by the speculative, or theorising,

truth-seeking, pursuits. Practical reason is forced into the same

categories as theoretical.

The classification of _true_ and _false_ is (as I have already

remarked) unsuitable for pleasures and pains. We have now to see

how Plato applies it to cognitions, to which it really belongs.

[Side-note: Classification of true and false--how Plato applies it

to Cognitions.]

The highest of these Cognitions is set apart as Dialectic or

Ontology: the Object of which is, Ens or Entia, eternal, ever the

same and unchangeable, ever unmixed with each other: while the

corresponding Subject is, Reason, Intelligence, Wisdom, by which

it is apprehended and felt. In this Science alone reside perfect

Truth and Purity. Where the Objects are shifting, variable, mixed

or confounded together, there Reason cannot apply herself; no pure

or exact truth can be attained.[147] These unchangeable Entities

are what in other dialogues Plato terms Ideas or Forms--a term

scarcely used in the Philêbus.

[Footnote 147: Plato, Philêbus, p. 59 C. [Greek: ô(s ê)\ peri\

e)kei=na e)/sth' ê(mi=n to/ te be/baion kai\ to\ katharo\n kai\

to\ a)lêthe\s kai\ o(\ dê\ le/gomen ei)likrine/s, peri\ ta\ a)ei\

kata\ ta\ au)ta\ ô(sau/tôs a)mikto/tata e)/chonta--ê)\ deute/rôs

e)kei/nôn o(/ ti ma/lista/ e)sti xuggene/s; ta\ d' a)/lla pa/nta

deu/tera/ te kai\ u(/stera lekte/on.] 62 A: [Greek: phronô=n

a)/nthrôpos _au(tê=s peri\ dikaiosu/nês_, o(/, ti e)/sti, kai\

lo/gon e)/chôn e(po/menon tô=| noei=n . . . ku/klou me\n kai\

sphai/ras au)tê=s tê=s thei/as to\n lo/gon e)/chôn.]]

Though pure truth belongs exclusively to Dialectic and to the

Objects thereof, there are other Sciences which, having more or

less of affinity to Dialectic, may thus be classified according to

the degree of such affinity. Mathematics approach most nearly to

Dialectic. Under Mathematics are included the Sciences or Arts of

numbering, measuring, weighing--Arithmetic, Metrêtic,

Static--which are applied to various subordinate arts, and impart to

these latter all the scientific guidance and certainty which is found

in them. Without Arithmetic, the subordinate arts would be little

better than vague guesswork or knack. But Plato distinguishes two

varieties of Arithmetic and Metrêtic: one purely theoretical,

prosecuted by philosophers, and adapted to satisfy the love of

abstract truth--the other applied to some department of practice,

and employed by the artist as a guide to the execution of his

work. Theoretical Arithmetic is characterised by this feature,

that it assumes each unit to be equal, like, and interchangeable

with every other unit: while practical Arithmetic adds together

concrete realities, whether like and equal to each other or

not.[148]

[Footnote 148: Plato, Philêbus, p. 56 E.]

It is thus that the theoretical geometer and arithmetician, though

not coming up to the full and pure truth of Dialectic, is

nevertheless nearer to it than the carpenter or the ship-builder,

who apply the measure to material objects. But the carpenter,

ship-builder, architect, &c., do really apply measure, line, rule,

&c.: they are therefore nearer to truth than other artists, who

apply no measure at all. To this last category belong the musical

composer, the physician, the husbandman, the pilot, the military

commander, neither of whom can apply to their processes either

numeration or measurement: all of them are forced to be contented

with vague estimate, conjecture, a practised eye and ear.[149]

[Footnote 149: Plato, Philêbus, p. 56 A-B.]

[Side-note: Valuable principles of this classification--difference

with other dialogues.]

The foregoing classification of Sciences and Arts is among the

most interesting points in the Philêbus. It coincides to a great

degree with that which we read in the sixth and seventh books of

the Republic, though it is also partially different: it differs

too in some respects from doctrines advanced in other dialogues.

Thus we find here (in the Philêbus) that the science or art of the

physician, the pilot, the general, &c., is treated as destitute of

measure and as an aggregate of unscientific guesses: whereas in

the Gorgias[150] and elsewhere, these are extolled as genuine

arts, and are employed to discredit Rhetoric by contrast. Again,

all these arts are here placed lower in the scientific scale than

the occupations of the carpenter or the ship-builder, who possess

and use some material measures. But these latter, in the

Republic,[151] are dismissed with the disparaging epithet of

snobbish ([Greek: ba/nausoi]) and deemed unworthy of

consideration.

[Footnote 150: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 501 A, 518 A. Compare Republic,

i. pp. 341-342.]

[Footnote 151: Plato, Republic, vii. p. 522 B.]

Dialectic appears here exalted to the same pre-eminence which is

assigned to it in the Republic--as the energy of the pure

Intellect, dealing with those permanent real Essences which are

the objects of Intellect alone, intelligible only and not visible.

The distinction here drawn by Plato between the theoretical and

practical arithmetic and geometry, compared with numeration or

mensuration of actual objects of sense--is also remarkable in two

ways: first, as it marks his departure from the historical

Sokrates, who recognised the difference between the two, but

discountenanced the theoretical as worthless:[152] next as it

brings clearly to view, the fundamental assumption or hypothesis

upon which abstract arithmetic proceeds--the concept of units all

perfectly like and equal. That this _is_ an assumption (always

departing more or less from the facts of sense)--and that upon its

being conceded depends the peculiar certainty and accuracy of

arithmetical calculation--was an observation probably then made

for the first time; and not unnecessary to be made even now, since

it is apt to escape attention. It is enunciated clearly both here

and in the Republic.[153]

[Footnote 152: Xenophon, Memorab. iv. 7, 2-8. The contrast drawn

in this chapter of the Memorabilia appears to me to coincide

pretty exactly with that which is taken in the Philêbus, though

the preference is reversed. Dr. Badham (p. 78) and Mr. Poste (pp.

106-113) consider Plato as pointing to a contrast between pure and

applied Mathematics: which I do not understand to be his meaning.

The distinction taken by Aristotle in the passage cited by Mr.

Poste is different, and does really designate Pure and Applied

Mathematics. Mr. Poste would have found a better comparison in

Ethic. Nikom. i. 7, 1098, a. 29.]

[Footnote 153: Plato, Philêbus, p. 56 E. [Greek: oi( d' ou)k a)/n

pote au)toi=s sunakolouthê/seian, ei) mê\ mona/da mona/dos

e(ka/stês tô=n muri/ôn mêdemi/an a)/llên a)/llês diaphe/rousa/n

tis thê/sei]--where it is formally proclaimed as an assumption or

postulate. See Republic, vii. pp. 525-526, vi. p. 510 C.

Mr. John Stuart Mill thus calls attention to the same remark in

his instructive chapters on Demonstration and Necessary Truth

(System of Logic, Book ii. ch. vi. sect. 3).

"The inductions of Arithmetic are of two sorts: first, those that

we have just expounded, such as One and One are Two, Two and One

are Three, &c., which may be called the definitions of the various

numbers, in the improper or geometrical sense of the word

Definition; and, secondly, the two following Axioms. The sums of

Equals are equal, the differences of Equals are equal.

"These axioms, and likewise the so-called Definitions, are (as

already shown) results of induction: true of all objects

whatsoever, and as it may seem, exactly true, without the

hypothetical assumption of unqualified truth where an

approximation to it is all that exists. On more accurate

investigation, however, it will be found that even in this case,

there is one hypothetical element in the ratiocination. In all

propositions concerning numbers a condition is implied without

which none of them would be true, and that condition is an

assumption which may be false. The condition is that 1 = 1: that

all the numbers are numbers of the same or of equal units. Let

this be doubtful, and not one of the propositions in arithmetic

will hold true. How can we know that one pound and one pound make

two pounds, if one of the pounds may be troy and the other

avoirdupois? They may not make two pounds of either or of any

weight. How can we know that a forty-horse power is always equal

to itself, unless we assume that all horses are of equal strength?

One actual pound weight is not exactly equal to another, nor one

mile's length to another; a nicer balance or more exact measuring

instruments would always detect some difference."]

The long preliminary discussion of the Philêbus thus brings us to

the conclusion--That a descending scale of value, relatively to

truth and falsehood, must be recognised in cognitions as well as

in pleasures: many cognitions are not entirely true, but tainted

in different degrees by error and falsehood: most pleasures also,

instead of being true and pure, are alloyed by concomitant pains

or delusions or both: moreover, all the intense pleasures are

incompatible with Measure, or a fixed standard,[154] and must

therefore be excluded from the category of Good.

[Footnote 154: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 52 D--57 B.]

[Side-note: Close of the Philêbus--Graduated elements of Good.]

In arranging the quintuple scale of elements or conditions of the

Good, Plato adopts the following descending order: I report them

as well as I can, for I confess that I understand them very

imperfectly.

1. Measure; that which conforms to Measure and to proper season:

with everything else analogous, which we can believe to be of

eternal nature.--These seem to be unchangeable Forms or Ideas,

which are here considered objectively, apart from any percipient

Subject affected by them.[155]

2. The Symmetrical, Beautiful, Perfect, Sufficient, &c.--These

words seem to denote the successive manifestations of the same

afore-mentioned attributes; but considered both objectively and

subjectively, as affecting and appreciated by some percipient.

3. Intelligent or Rational Mind--Here the Subject is brought in by

itself.

4. Sciences, Cognitions, Arts, Right Opinions, &c.--Here we have

the intellectual manifestations of the Subject, but of a character

inferior to No. 3, descending in the scale of value relatively to

truth.

5. Lastly come the small list of true and painless

pleasures.--These, being not intellectual at all, but merely emotional

(some as accompaniments of intellectual, others of sensible, processes),

are farther removed from Good and Measure than even No. 4--the

opining or uncertain phases of the intellect.[156]

The four first elements belong to the Kosmos as well as to man:

for the Kosmos has an intelligent soul. The fifth marks the

emotional nature of man.

[Footnote 155: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66 A.

The Appendix B, subjoined by Mr. Poste to his edition of the

Philêbus (pp. 149-165), is a very valuable Dissertation, comparing

and explaining the abstract theories of Plato and Aristotle. He

remarks, justly contrasting the Philêbus with the Timæus, as to

the doctrine of Limit: "In the Philêbus the limit is always

quantitative. Quality, including all the elementary forces, is the

substratum that has to receive the quantitative determination.

Just, however, as Quality underlies quantity, we can conceive a

substratum underlying quality. This Plato in the Timæus calls the

Vehicle or Receptacle ([Greek: to\ dektiko/n]), and Aristotle in

his writings the primary Matter ([Greek: prô/tê u(/lê]). The

Philêbus, however, does not carry the analysis so far. It regards

quality as the ultimate matter, the substratum to be moulded and

measured out in due quantity by the quantitative limit" (p. 160).

I doubt whether the Platonic idea of [Greek: to\ me/trion] is

rightly expressed by Mr. Poste's translation--a _mean_ (p. 158).

It rather implies, even in Politikus, p. 306, to which he refers,

something adjusted according to a positive standard or conformable

to an assumed measure or perfection: there being undoubtedly error

in excess above it and error in defect below it--but the standard

being not necessarily mid-way between the two. The Pythagoreans

used [Greek: kairo\s] in a very large sense, describing it as the

First Cause of Good. Proklus ad Plat. Alkib. i. p. 270-272,

Cousin.]

[Footnote 156: Neither the Introduction of Schleiermacher (p. 134

seq.), nor the elucidation of Trendelenburg (De Philebi Consilio,

pp. 16-23), nor the Prolegomena of Stallbaum (pp. 76-77 seq.),

succeed in making this obscure close of the Philêbus clearly

intelligible. Stallbaum, after indicating many commentators who

have preceded him, observes respecting the explanations which they

have given: "Ea sunt adeo varia atque inter se diversa, ut

tanquam adversâ fronte inter ipsa pugnare dicenda sint" (p. 72).]

I see no sufficient ground for the hypothesis of Stallbaum and

some other critics, who, considering the last result abrupt and

unsatisfactory, suspect that Plato either intended to add more, or

did add more which has not come down to us.[157] Certainly the

result (as in many other Platonic dialogues) is inconsiderable,

and the instruction derivable from the dialogue must be picked out

by the reader himself from the long train of antecedent reasoning.

The special point emphatically brought out at the end is the

discredit thrown upon the intense pleasures, and the exclusion of

them from the list of constituents of Good. If among Plato's

contemporaries who advocated the Hedonistic doctrine, there were

any who laid their main stress upon these intense pleasures, he

may be considered to have replied to them under the name of

Philêbus. But certainly this result might have been attained with

a smaller array of preliminaries.

[Footnote 157: Stallbaum, Proleg. p. 10.]

[Side-note: Contrast between the Philêbus and the Phædrus, and

Symposion, in respect to Pulchrum, and intense Emotions

generally.]

Moreover, in regard to these same intense emotions we have to

remark that Plato in other dialogues holds a very different

opinion respecting them--or at least respecting some of them. We

have seen that at the close of the Philêbus he connects Bonum and

Pulchrum principally, and almost exclusively, with the Reason; but

we find him, in the Phædrus and Symposion, taking a different,

indeed an opposite, view of the matter; and presenting Bonum and

Pulchrum as objects, not of the unimpassioned and calculating

Reason, but of ardent aspiration and even of extatic love. Reason

is pronounced to be insufficient for attaining them, and a

peculiar vein of inspiration a species of madness, _eo nomine_--is

postulated in its place. The life of the philosophical aspirant is

compared to that of the passionate lover, beginning at first with

attachment to some beautiful youth, and rising by a gradual

process of association, so as to transfer the same fervent

attachment to his mental companionship, as a stimulus for

generating intellectual sympathies and recollections of the world

of Ideas. He is represented as experiencing in the fullest measure

those intense excitements and disturbances which Eros alone can

provoke.[158] It is true that Plato here repudiates sensual

excitements. In this respect the Phædrus and Symposion agree with

the Philêbus. But as between Reason and Emotion, they disagree

with it altogether: for they dwell upon ideal excitements of the

most vehement character. They describe the highest perfection of

human nature as growing out of the better variety of madness--out

of the glowing inspirations of Eros: a state replete with the most

intense alternating emotions of pain and pleasure. How opposite is

the tone of Sokrates in the Philêbus, where he denounces all the

intense pleasures as belonging to a distempered condition--as

adulterated with pain, and as impeding the tranquil process of

Reason--and where he tolerates only such gentle pleasures as are

at once unmixed with pain and easily controuled by Reason! In the

Phædrus and Symposion, we are told that Bonum and Pulchrum are

attainable only under the stimulus of Eros, through a process of

emotion, feverish and extatic, with mingled pleasure and pain: and

that they crown such aspirations, if successfully prosecuted, with

an emotional recompense, or with pleasure so intense as to surpass

all other pleasures. In the Philêbus, Bonum and Pulchrum come

before us as measure, proportion, seasonableness: as approachable

only through tranquil Reason--addressing their ultimate recompense

to Reason alone--excluding both vehement agitations and intense

pleasures--and leaving only a corner of the mind for gentle and

unmixed pleasures.[159]

[Footnote 158: See in the Symposion the doctrines of the

prophetess Diotima, as recited by Sokrates, pp. 204-212: also the

Phædrus, the second [Greek: e)gkô/mion] delivered by Sokrates upon

Eros, pp. 36-60, repeated briefly and confirmed by Sokrates, pp.

77-78.

Compare these with the latter portion of the Philêbus; the

difference of spirit and doctrine will appear very manifest.

To illustrate the contrast between the Phædrus and the Philêbus,

we may observe that the former compares the excitement and

irritation of the inspired soul when its wings are growing to

ascend to Bonum and Pulchrum, with the [Greek: knê=sis] or

irritation of the gums when a child is cutting teeth--[Greek: zei=

ou)=n e)n tou/tô| o(/lê kai\ a)nakêki/ei, kai\ o(/per to\ tô=n

o)dontophuou/ntôn pa/thos peri\ tou\s o)do/ntas gi/gnetai o(/tan

a)/rti phuô=si knê=si/s te kai\ a)gana/ktêsis peri\ ta\ ou)=la,

tau)to\n dê\ pe/ponthen ê( tou= pterophuei=n a)rchome/nou psuchê/;

zei= te kai\ a)ganaktei= kai\ gargali/zetai phu/ousa ta\ ptera/]

(Phædrus, p. 251). These are specimens of the strong metaphors

used by Plato to describe the emotional condition of the mind

during its fervour of aspiration towards Bonum and Pulchrum. On

the other hand, in the Philêbus, [Greek: knê=sis] and [Greek:

gargalismo\s] are noted as manifestations of that distempered

condition which produces indeed moments of intense pleasure, but

is quite inconsistent with Reason and the attainment of Good. See

Philêbus, pp. 46 E, 51 D, and Gorgias, p. 494.]

[Footnote 159: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66.]

The comparison, here made, of the Philêbus with the Phædrus and

Symposion, is one among many proofs of the different points of

view with which Plato, in his different dialogues,[160] handled

the same topics of ethical and psychological discussion. And upon

this point of dissent, Eudoxus and Epikurus, would have agreed

with the Sokrates of the Philêbus, in deprecating that extatic

vein of emotion which is so greatly extolled in the Phædrus and

Symposion.

[Footnote 160: Maximus Tyrius remarks this difference (between the

erotic dialogues of Plato and many of the others) in one of his

discourses about the [Greek: e)rôtikê\] of Sokrates. [Greek:

Ou)de\n ga\r au)to\s au(tô=| o(/moios o( Sôkra/tês e)rô=n tô=|

sôphronou=nti, kai\ o( e)kplêtto/menos tou\s kalou\s tô=|

e)le/gchonti tou\s a)/phronas], &c. (Diss. xxiv. 5, p. 466 ed.

Reiske).]

CHAPTER XXXIII.

MENEXENUS.

[Side-note: Persons and situation of the dialogue.]

In this dialogue the only personages are, Sokrates as an elderly

man, and Menexenus, a young Athenian of noble family, whom we have

already seen as the intimate friend of Lysis, in the dialogue

known under the name of Lysis.

[Side-note: Funeral harangue at Athens--Choice of a public

orator--Sokrates declares the task of the public orator to be

easy--Comic exaggeration of the effects of the harangue.]

_Sokr._--What have you been doing at the Senate-house, Menexenus?

You probably think that your course of education and philosophy is

finished, and that you are qualified for high political functions.

Young as you are, you aim at exercising command over us elders, as

your family have always done before you.[1] _Menex._--I shall do

so, if you advise and allow me, Sokrates: but not otherwise. Now,

however, I came to learn who was the person chosen by the Senate

to deliver the customary oration at the approaching public funeral

of the citizens who have fallen in battle. The Senate, however,

have adjourned the election until to-morrow: but I think either

Archinus or Dion will be chosen. _Sokr._--To die in battle is a

fine thing in many ways.[2] He who dies thus may be poor, but he

receives a splendid funeral: he may be of little worth, yet he is

still praised in prepared speeches by able orators, who decorate

his name with brilliant encomiums, whether deserved or not,

fascinating all the hearers: extolling us all--not merely the

slain warrior, but the city collectively, our ancestors, and us

the living--so admirably that I stand bewitched when I hear them,

and fancy myself a greater, nobler, and finer man than I was

before. I am usually accompanied by some strangers, who admire as

much as I do, and who conceive a lofty estimation both of me and

of the city. The voice of the orator resounds in my ear, and the

feeling of pride dwells in my mind, for more than three days;

during which interval I fancy myself almost in the islands of the

blest. I hardly come to myself or recollect where I am, until the

fourth or fifth day. Such is the force of these orators.

[Footnote 1: Plat. Menex. p. 234 B-C.]

[Footnote 2: Plat. Menex. p. 235 A-B.]

[Side-note: Sokrates professes to have learnt a funeral harangue

from Aspasia, and to be competent to recite it himself. Menexenus

entreats him to do so.]

_Menex._--You are always deriding the orators, Sokrates.[3]

However, on this occasion I think the orator chosen will have

little chance of success: he will have no time for preparation,

and will be obliged to speak _impromptu_. _Sokr._--Never fear:

each of these orators has harangues ready prepared. Besides, there

is no difficulty here in speaking _impromptu_. If indeed the

purpose were to praise the Athenians in Peloponnesus, or the

Peloponnesians at Athens, an excellent orator would be required to

persuade or to give satisfaction. But when he exhibits before the

very hearers whom he praises, there is no great difficulty in

appearing to be a good speaker.[4] _Menex._--Indeed! What! do you

think you would be competent to deliver the harangue yourself, if

the Senate were to elect you? _Sokr._--Certainly: and it is no

wonder that I should be competent to speak, because I have learnt

rhetoric from Aspasia (an excellent mistress, who has taught many

eminent speakers, and among them Perikles, the most illustrious of

all), and the harp from Konnus. But any one else, even less

well-trained than me--instructed in music by Lamprus, and in rhetoric

by Antiphon--would still be fully competent to succeed in praising

Athenians among Athenians. _Menex._--What would you have to say,

if the duty were imposed upon you?[5] _Sokr._--Probably little or

nothing of my own. But it was only yesterday that I heard Aspasia

going through a funeral harangue for this very occasion: partly

suggestions of the present moment, partly recollections of past

matters which had occurred to her when she composed the funeral

harangue delivered by Perikles. _Menex._--Could you recollect what

Aspasia said? _Sokr._--I should be much to blame if I could not. I

learnt it from herself, and was near being beaten because I partly

forgot it. _Menex._--Why do you not proceed with it then?

_Sokr._--I fear that my instructress would be displeased, if I were to

publish her discourse. _Menex._--Do not fear that, but proceed to

speak. You will confer the greatest pleasure upon me, whether what

you say comes from Aspasia or from any one else. Only proceed.

_Sokr._--But perhaps you will laugh me to scorn, if I, an elderly

man, continue still such work of pastime.[6] _Menex._--Not at all:

I beseech you to speak. _Sokr._--Well, I cannot refuse you.

Indeed, I could hardly refuse, if you requested me to strip naked

and dance--since we are here alone.[7]

[Footnote 3: Plat. Menex. p. 235 C. [Greek: A)ei\ su\

prospai/zeis, ô)= Sô/krates, tou\s r(ê/toras.]]

[Footnote 4: Plat. Menex. p. 235 D.

Aristotle refers twice to this dictum as being a true remark made

by [Greek: Sôkra/tês e)n tô=| E)pitaphi/ô|], Rhetoric, i. 9, p.

1367, b. 8, iii. 14, p. 1415, b. 30.]

[Footnote 5: Plat. Menex. p. 236 A.]

[Footnote 6: Plato, Menex. p. 236 C. [Greek: A)ll' i)/sôs mou

katagela/sei, a)/n soi do/xô presbu/tês ô)\n e)/ti pai/zein.]]

[Footnote 7: Plat. Menex. pp. 234 C, 236 C.]

[Side-note: Harangue recited by Sokrates.]

Sokrates then proceeds to recite a funeral harangue of some length

which continues almost to the end.[8] When he concludes--repeating

his declaration that the harangue comes from Aspasia--Menexenus

observes, By Zeus, Sokrates, Aspasia is truly enviable, if she, a

woman, is competent to compose such discourses as that.

[Footnote 8: Plat. Menex. pp. 236 C, 249 C.]

[Side-note: Compliments of Menexenus after Sokrates has finished,

both to the harangue itself and to Aspasia.]

_Sokr._--If you do not believe me, come along with me, and you

will hear it from her own lips. _Menex._--I have often been in

company with Aspasia, and I know what sort of person she is.

_Sokr._--Well then, don't you admire her? and are you not grateful

to her for the harangue? _Menex._--I am truly grateful for the

harangue, to her, or to him, whoever it was that prompted you: and

most of all, I am grateful to you for having recited it.

_Sokr._--Very good. Take care then that you do not betray me. I may

perhaps be able, on future occasions, to recite to you many other fine

political harangues from her. _Menex._--Be assured that I will not

betray you. Only let me hear them. _Sokr._--I certainly will.

[Side-note: Supposed period--shortly after the peace of

Antalkidas.]

The interval between these two fragments of dialogue is filled up

by the recitation of Sokrates: a long funeral harangue in honour

of deceased warriors, whom the city directs to be thus

commemorated. The period is supposed to be not long after the

peace concluded by Antalkidas in 387 B.C. That peace was imposed

upon Sparta, Athens, and the other Grecian cities, by the

imperative rescript of the Persian king: the condition of it being

an enforcement of universal autonomy, or free separate government

to each city, small as well as great.[9]

[Footnote 9: See respecting the character of the peace of

Antalkidas, and the manner in which its conditions were executed,

my History of Greece, chap. 76.]

[Side-note: Custom of Athens about funeral harangues. Many such

harangues existed at Athens, composed by distinguished orators or

logographers--Established type of the harangue.]

It had been long the received practice among the Athenians to

honour their fallen warriors from time to time by this sort of

public funeral, celebrated with every demonstration of mournful

respect: and to appoint one of the ablest and most dignified

citizens as public orator on the occasion.[10] The discourse

delivered by Perikles, as appointed orator, at the end of the

first Peloponnesian war, has been immortalised by Thucydides, and

stands as one of the most impressive remnants of Hellenic

antiquity. Since the occasion recurred pretty often, and since the

orator chosen was always a man already conspicuous,[11] we may be

sure that there existed in the time of Plato many funeral

harangues which are now lost: indeed he himself says in this

dialogue, that distinguished politicians prepared such harangues

beforehand, in case the choice of the citizens should fall upon

them. And we may farther be sure, amidst the active cultivation of

rhetoric at Athens--that the rhetorical teachers as well as their

pupils, and the logographers or paid composers of speeches, were

practised in this variety of oratorical compositions not less than

in others. We have one of them among the remaining discourses of

the logographer Lysias: who could not actually have delivered it

himself (since he was not even a citizen)--nor could ever probably

have been called upon to prepare one for delivery (since the

citizens chosen were always eminent speakers and politicians

themselves, not requiring the aid of a logographer)--but who

composed it as a rhetorical exercise to extend his own celebrity.

In like manner we find one among the discourses of Demosthenes,

though of very doubtful authenticity. The funeral discourse had

thus come to acquire an established type. Rhetorical teachers had

collected and generalised, out of the published harangues before

them, certain _loci communes_, religious, patriotic, social,

historical or pseudo-historical, &c., suitable to be employed by

any new orator.[12] All such _loci_ were of course framed upon the

actual sentiments prevalent among the majority of Athenians;

furnishing eloquent expression for sympathies and antipathies

deeply lodged in every one's bosom.

[Footnote 10: Thucyd. ii. 34.]

[Footnote 11: Thucyd. ii. 34. [Greek: o(\s a)\n gnô/mê| te dokê=|

mê\ a)xu/netos ei)=nai, kai\ a)xiô/mati proê/kê|.]]

[Footnote 12: Aristotel. Rhetoric. i. 5, p. 1360, b. 31, i. 9, p.

1367. Dionys. Hal. Ars Rhetoric. c. 6, pp. 260-267.

"Nec enim artibus inventis factum est, ut argumenta inveniremus;

sed dicta sunt omnia, antequam præciperentur: mox ea scriptores

observata et collecta ediderunt" (Quintilian, Inst. Or. v. 10).]

[Side-note: Plato in this harangue conforms to the established

type--Topics on which he insists.]

The funeral discourse which we read in the Menexenus is framed

upon this classical model. It dwells, with emphasis and elegance,

upon the patriotic common-places which formed the theme of rhetors

generally. Plato begins by extolling the indigenous character of

the Athenian population; not immigrants from abroad (like the

Peloponnesians), but born from the very soil of Attica:[13] which,

at a time when other parts of the earth produced nothing but

strange animals and plants, gave birth to an admirable breed of

men, as well as to wheat and barley for their nourishment, and to

the olive for assisting their bodily exercises.[14] Attica was

from the beginning favoured by the Gods; and the acropolis had

been an object of competition between Athênê and Poseidon.[15] She

was the common and equal mother of all the citizens, who, from

such community of birth and purity of Hellenic origin, had derived

the attributes which they had ever since manifested--attachment to

equal laws among themselves, Panhellenic patriotism, and hatred of

barbarians.[16] The free and equal political constitution of

Athens--called an aristocracy, or presidency of the best men,

under the choice and approval of the multitude--as it was and as

it always had been, is here extolled by Plato, as a result of the

common origin.

[Footnote 13: Plat. Menex. pp. 237-245. 245 D: [Greek: ou) ga/r

Pe/lopes ou)de\ Ka/dmoi ou)de\ Ai)/guptoi/ te kai\ Danaoi\ ou)de\

a)/lloi polloi/, phu/sei me\n ba/rbaroi o)/ntes, no/mô| de\

E(/llênes, sunoikou=sin ê(mi=n, a)ll' au)toi\ E(/llênes, ou)

mixoba/rbaroi oi)kou=men], &c.]

[Footnote 14: Plat. Menex. pp. 237 D, 238 A.]

[Footnote 15: Plat. Menex. p. 237 C.]

[Footnote 16: Plat. Menex. pp. 238 D, 239 A, 245 C-D. 239 A:

[Greek: ê( i)sogoni/a ê(ma=s ê( kata\ phu/sin i)sonomi/an

a)nagka/zei zêtei=n kata\ no/mon, kai\ mêdeni\ a)/llô| u(pei/kein

a)llê/lois ê)\ a)retê=s do/xê| kai\ phronê/seôs.] 245 D: [Greek:

o(/then katharo\n to\ mi=sos e)nte/têke tê=| po/lei tê=s

a)llotri/as phu/seôs] (_i.e._ of the [Greek: ba/rbaroi]).]

Alluding briefly to the victories over Eumolpus and the Amazons,

the orator passes on to the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and

Platæa, which he celebrates with the warmth of an Hellenic

patriot.[17] He eulogizes the generous behaviour of Athens towards

the Greeks, during the interval between the Persian and the

Peloponnesian wars, contrasting it with the unworthy requital

which she received from Sparta and others. He then glances at the

events of the Peloponnesian wars, though colouring them in a

manner so fanciful and delusive, that any one familiar with

Thucydides can scarcely recognise their identity--especially in

regard to the Athenian expedition against Syracuse.[18] He

protests against the faithlessness of Sparta, towards the close of

the Peloponnesian war, in allying herself with the common

anti-Hellenic enemy--the Great King--against Athens: and he ascribes

mainly to this unholy alliance the conquest of Athens at the end

of the war.[19] The moderation of political parties in Athens,

when the Thirty were put down and the democracy restored, receives

its due meed of praise: but the peculiar merit claimed for Athens,

in reference to the public events between 403 B.C. and 387 B.C.,

is--That she stood alone among Greeks in refusing to fraternise

with the Persian King, or to betray to him the Asiatic Greeks.

Athens had always been prompted by generous feeling, even in spite

of political interests, to compassionate and befriend the

weak.[20] The orator dwells with satisfaction on the years

preceding the peace concluded by Antalkidas; during which years

Athens had recovered her walls and her ships--had put down the

Spartan superiority at sea--and had rescued even the Great King

from Spartan force.[21] He laments the disasters of Athenian

soldiers at Corinth, through difficulties of the ground--and at

Lechæum, through treachery. These are the latest political events

to which he alludes.[22]

[Footnote 17: Plat. Menex. pp. 240-241.]

[Footnote 18: Plat. Menex. pp. 242-243.]

[Footnote 19: Plat. Menex. pp. 243-244.]

[Footnote 20: Plat. Menex. pp. 244-245. 244 E: [Greek: ei)/ tis

bou/loito tê=s po/leôs katêgorê=sai dikai/ôs, tou=t' a)\n mo/non

le/gôn o)rthô=s a)\n katêgoroi/ê, ô(s a)ei\ li/an philoikti/rmôn

e)sti/, kai\ tou= ê(/ttonos therapi/s.] Isokrates also, in the

Oratio Panegyrica (Or. iv.), dwells upon this point, as well as on

the pronounced hatred towards [Greek: ba/rbaroi], as standing

features in the Athenian character (sect. 59-184). The points

touched upon in reference to Athens by Isokrates are in the main

the same as those brought out by Plato in the Menexenus, only that

Isokrates makes them subservient to a special purpose, that of

bringing about an expedition against Persia under the joint

headship of Sparta and Athens.]

[Footnote 21: Plat. Menex. p. 245.]

[Footnote 22: Plat. Menex. pp. 245 E, 246 A.]

[Side-note: Consolation and exhortation to surviving relatives.]

Having thus touched upon the political history of Athens, he turns

to the surviving relatives--fathers, mothers, children, &c.--of

the fallen warriors: addressing to them words of mingled

consolation and exhortation. He adopts the fiction of supposing

these exhortations to have been suggested to him by the warriors

themselves, immediately before entering upon their last

battle.[23] This is the most eloquent and impressive portion of

the harangue. The orator concludes by a few words from himself,

inculcating on the elders the duty of resignation, and on the

youth that of forward and devoted patriotism.[24]

[Footnote 23: Plat. Menex. pp. 247-248.]

[Footnote 24: Plat. Menex. p. 249 A-C.]

[Side-note: Admiration felt for this harangue, both at the time and

afterwards.]

That this oration was much admired, not merely during the lifetime

of Plato, but also long after his death, we know from the

testimony of Cicero; who informs us that it was publicly recited

every year on the day when the annual funeral rites were

celebrated, in honour of those citizens collectively who had been

slain in the service of their country.[25] The rhetor

Dionysius[26] recognises the fact of such warm admiration, and

concurs generally therein, yet not without reserves. He points out

what he considers defects of thought and expression--ostentatious

contrasts and balancing of antithetical clauses, after the manner

of Gorgias. Yet we may easily believe that the harangue found much

favour, and greatly extended the reputation of its author. It

would please many readers who took little interest in the Sokratic

dialectics.

[Footnote 25: Cicero, Orator. c. 44, 151. "At non Thucydides: ne

ille quidem, haud paullo major scriptor, Plato: nec solum in his

sermonibus, qui dialogi dicuntur, ubi etiam de industriâ id

faciendum fuit, sed in populari oratione, quâ est Athenis laudari

in concione eos, qui sint in præliis interfecti: quæ sic probata

est, ut eam quotannis, ut scis, illo die recitari necesse sit."

See Plato, Menex. p. 249 B, about these yearly funereal rites, and

Lysias, Epitaph. s. 80.]

[Footnote 26: Dionys. Hal. De Adm. Vi Dic. in Demosth. p. 1027,

compared with Ars Rhetoric. c. 6, pp. 260-267.]

[Side-note: Probable motives of Plato in composing it, shortly

after he established himself at Athens as a teacher--His

competition with Lysias--Desire for celebrity both as rhetor and

as dialectician.]

When Plato first established himself at Athens as a lecturer

(about 386 B.C., shortly after the peace made by Antalkidas), he

was probably known only by Sokratic dialogues, properly so called:

which Dionysius specifies both as his earliest works and as his

proper department, wherein he stood unrivalled.[27] In these, his

opposition to the Rhetors and Sophists was proclaimed: and if, as

is probable, the Gorgias had been published before that time, he

had already declared war, openly as well as bitterly, against the

whole art of Rhetoric. But it would be a double triumph for his

genius, if, after standing forward as the representative of

Dialectic, and in that character heaping scornful derision on the

rival art of Rhetoric, as being nothing better than a mere knack

of juggling and flattery[28]--he were able to show that this did

not proceed from want of rhetorical competence, but that he could

rival or surpass the Rhetors in their own department. Herein lies

the purpose of the Menexenus. I agree with Schleiermacher,

Stallbaum, and some other critics,[29] in thinking that it was

probably composed not long after the peace of Antalkidas, in

competition with the harangue of Lysias now remaining on the same

subject. Though the name of Lysias is not mentioned in the

Menexenus, yet the rivalry between him and Plato is clearly

proclaimed in the Platonic Phædrus: and the two funeral harangues

go so completely over the same ground, that intentional

competition on the part of the latest, is the most natural of all

hypotheses.

[Footnote 27: Dionys. Hal. ad Cn. Pomp. De Platon. p. 762. [Greek:

traphei\s me\n e)n toi=s Sôkratikoi=s dialo/gois i)schnota/tois

ou)=si kai\ a)kribesta/tois, ou) mei/nas d' e)n au)toi=s, a)lla\

tê=s Gorgi/ou kai\ Thoukudi/dou kataskeuê=s e)rasthei/s.] Compare

p. 761, the passage immediately preceding, and De Adm. Vi Dicendi

in Demosthene, pp. 1025-1031.

To many critics Plato appeared successful in the figurative and

metaphorical style--[Greek: deino\s peri\ to\ tropiko/n]. But

Dionysius thinks him very inferior to Demosthenes even on this

point, though it was not the strongest point of Demosthenes, whose

main purpose was [Greek: o( a)lêthino\s a)gô/n] (Dionys. ibid. p.

1057).]

[Footnote 28: Isokrates, in his last composition (Panathen. Or.

xii.) written in very old age, shows how keenly he felt the

aspersions of jealous rivals--Sophists less successful than

himself--who publicly complained that he despised the lessons of

the poets, and thought no teaching worth having except his

own--[Greek: a)podexame/nôn de\ tô=n periestô/tôn tê\n diatribê\n

au)tô=n, e(/na to\n tolmêro/teron e)picheirê=sai e)me\

diaba/llein, le/gonth' ô(s e)gô\ pa/ntôn kataphronô= ô=n

toiou/tôn, kai\ ta/s te philosophi/as ta\s tô=n a)/llôn kai\ ta\s

paidei/as a(pa/sas a)nairô=, kai\ phêmi\ pa/ntas lêrei=n plê\n

tou\s meteschêko/tas tê=s e)mê=s diatribê=s] (sect. 22). That

which Isokrates complains of these teachers for saying in their

talk with each other, the rhetorical teachers would vehemently

complain of in Plato, when he expressed forcibly his contempt for

rhetoric in the Gorgias and the Phædrus. One way of expressing

their resentment would be to affirm that Plato could not compose a

regular rhetorical discourse; which affirmation Plato would best

contradict by composing one in the received manner.]

[Footnote 29: See the Einleitung of Schleiermacher to his

translation of the Menexenus; also Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Menex. p.

10, and Westermann, Gesch. der Beredtsamkeit, sect. 66, p. 134.]

[Side-note: Menexenus compared with the view of rhetoric presented

in the Gorgias--Necessity for an orator to conform to established

sentiments.]

Here then we have Plato exchanging philosophy for "the knack of

flattery"--to use the phrase of the Gorgias. Stallbaum is so

unwilling to admit this as possible, that he represents the

Platonic harangue as a mere caricature, intended to make the

rhetorical process ridiculous. I dissent from this supposition; as

I have already dissented from the like supposition of the same

critic, in regard to the etymologies of the Kratylus. That Plato

might in one dialogue scornfully denounce Rhetoric--and in

another, compose an elaborate discourse upon the received

rhetorical type--is noway inconsistent with the general theory

which I frame to myself, about the intellectual character and

distinct occasional manifestations of Plato.[30] The funeral

harangue in the Menexenus proves that, whatever he thought about

Rhetoric generally, he was anxious to establish his title as a

competent rhetorical composer: it proves farther that he was equal

to Lysias in the epideiktic department, though inferior to

Perikles. It affords a valuable illustration of that general

doctrine which the Platonic Sokrates lays down in the

Gorgias--That no man can succeed as a rhetor, unless he is in full

harmony of spirit and cast of mind with his auditors; or unless he

dwells upon and enforces sympathies, antipathies, and convictions,

already established in their minds.[31] A first-rate orator like

Perikles, touching the chords of cherished national sentiment,

might hope, by such a discourse as that which we read in

Thucydides, "adjecisse aliquid receptæ religioni".[32] No public

orator ever appointed by the Senate to pronounce the funeral

harangue, could have expatiated more warmly than Plato has here

done, upon the excellence of the Athenian constitution, and upon

the admirable spirit which had animated Athenian politics, both

foreign and domestic. Plato falls far short, indeed, of the weight

and grandeur, the impressive distinctness of specification, the

large sympathies, intellectual as well as popular--with which

these topics are handled by Perikles in Thucydides: but his eulogy

is quite as highflown and unreserved.

[Footnote 30: Compare also the majestic picture which Plato

presents of the ancient character and exploits of the early

Athenians, in the mythe commenced in the Timæus (pp. 23-24),

prosecuted in the Kritias (pp. 113-114 seq.), but left by the

author incomplete.]

[Footnote 31: Plato, Gorgias, p. 510 C; see above, ch. xxiv. p.

359.**

This appears to me the real truth, subject to very rare

exceptions. But I do not think it true to say, as the Platonic

Sokrates is made to declare in the Menexenus, that it is an easy

matter to obtain admiration when you praise Athens among

Athenians--though Aristotle commends the observation. Assuredly

Perikles did not think so (Thucyd. ii. 35). You have a popular

theme, but unless you have oratorical talent to do justice to it

you are likely to disappoint and offend, especially among auditors

like the Athenians, accustomed to good speaking. Compare Plat.

Kritias, p. 107 E.]

[Footnote 32: To employ the striking expression of Quintilian

(xii. 10) respecting the great statue of Zeus at Olympia by

Pheidias.]

[Side-note: Colloquial portion of the Menexenus is probably

intended as ridicule and sneer at Rhetoric--The harangue itself is

serious, and intended as an evidence of Plato's ability.]

In understanding fully the Menexenus, however, we have to take

account, not merely of the harangue which forms the bulk of it,

but also of the conversation whereby it is commenced and

concluded. Plato, speaking always through the mouth of Sokrates,

has to invent some fiction excusing the employment of his master

in the unprecedented capacity of public orator. What Stallbaum

says (in my judgment, erroneously) about the harangue--appears to

me perfectly true about the conversation before and after it. The

introductory observations, interchanged between Sokrates and

Menexenus, certainly tend to caricature (as Aristophanes[33] does

in the Acharneis and the Equites) the strong effects produced by

this panegyrical oratory on the feelings of hearers; and to

depreciate the task of the orator as nothing better than an easy

and amusing pastime. To praise Athens among Athenian auditors (we

are told) is a matter in which few speakers can fail to succeed,

however poor their abilities. Moreover, the great funeral harangue

of Perikles is represented as having been composed for him by

Aspasia[34]--a female, though remarkable among her sex--who is

extolled as holding the highest place among rhetorical teachers,

and is introduced here, as Aristophanes introduces her in the

Acharneis, when he is putting a construction of discreditable

ridicule on the origin of the Peloponnesian war.[35] To make a

good funeral harangue (Sokrates says) requires little or no

preliminary preparation: besides, the Rhetors have harangues ready

prepared at home. All this _persiflage_, in harmony with the

polemics of the Gorgias, derides and degrades the Rhetors

collectively. But when Plato takes the field against them as a

competitor, in his own rhetorical discourse, he drops the ironical

vein, and takes pains to deliver one really good and excellent in

its kind. His triumph is thus doubled. He tells the Rhetors that

their business is a trifling and despicable one: at the same time

showing them that, despicable as it is, he can surpass them in it,

as he professes to surpass Lysias in the Phædrus.[36]

[Footnote 33: Aristoph. Acharn. 615, Equit. 640-887.

The comic exaggeration of Sokrates, in the colloquial portion of

the Menexenus (235 B-C) goes as far as that of Aristophanes.]

[Footnote 34: By the language of Plato here, he seems plainly to

bring his own harangue into competition not merely with that of

Lysias but also with that of Perikles. But we must not suppose for

that reason, that he necessarily has in view the Periklean

harangue which we now read in Thucydides, ii. 35-43: which is the

real speech, reported and drest up by Thucydides in his own

language and manner. Probably the Periklean harangue was preserved

separately and in other reports, so that Plato may have known it

without knowing the history of Thucydides. When I see the extreme

liberty which Plato takes throughout his harangue in regard to the

history of the past, I can hardly believe that he ever read

Thucydides; if he ever read the history, he certainly disregarded

it altogether, and threw himself [Greek: e)pi\ to\ prosagôgo/teron

tê=| a)kroa/sei ê)\ a)lêthe/steron]: like the [Greek:

logogra/phoi] of whom Thucydides speaks, i. 21, Lysias among them,

though in a less degree than Plato. Æschines Sokraticus had

composed among his dialogues one entitled [Greek: A)spasi/a]. See

Xenophon, Oeconom. i. 14; Cicero de Inventione, i. 31: Plutarch,

Perikles, c. 24-32: also Bergk, De Reliquiis Comoed. Attic.

Antiq. p. 237.]

[Footnote 35: Aristoph. Acharn. 501.]

[Footnote 36: The remarks of Dionysius of Halikarnassus (in the

Epistle to Cn. Pompey about Plato, pp. 754-758) are well deserving

of attention: especially as he had before him many writers now

lost, either contemporary with Plato or of the succeeding

generation. He notices not only Plato's asperity in ridiculing

most of his distinguished contemporaries, but also his marked

rivalry against Lysias.

[Greek: ê)=n ga/r, ê)=n me\n tê=| Pla/tônos phu/sei polla\s

a)reta\s e)chou/sê| to\ philo/timon], &c. (p. 756).

See this subject well handled in an instructive Dissertation by M.

Lebeau (Stuttgart, 1863, Lysias' Epitaphios als ächt erwiesen, pp.

42-46 seq.).]

[Side-note: Anachronism of the Menexenus--Plato careless on this

point.]

Such I conceive to be the scope of the dialogue, looked at from

Plato's point of view. In order to find a person suitable in point

of age to be described as the teacher of Sokrates, he is forced to

go back to the past generation--that of Perikles and Aspasia. But

though he avoids anachronism on this point, he cannot avoid the

anachronism of making Sokrates allude to events long posterior to

his own death. This anachronism is real, though it has been

magnified by some critics into a graver defect than it is in

truth. Plato was resolved not to speak in his own person, but

through that of Sokrates. But he is not always careful to keep

within the limits which consistent adherence to such a plan

imposes.[37]

[Footnote 37: Groen van Prinsterer (Prosopographia Platonica, p.

211 seq.) adverts to the carelessness of Plato about exact

chronology.

Most of the Platonic critics recognise the Menexenus as a genuine

Platonic dialogue. Ast, however, includes it among the numerous

dialogues which he disallows as spurious; and Suckow, Steinhart,

and Ueberweg, are also inclined to disallow it. See Ueberweg, Die

Aechtheit der Platonischen Schriften, pp. 143-148. These critics

make light of the allusion of Aristotle in the Rhetoric--[Greek:

Sôkra/tês e)n tô=| E)pitaphi/ô|]--which appears to me, I confess,

of more weight than all the grounds of suspicion adduced by them

to prove the dialogue spurious. The presumption in favour of the

catalogue of Thrasyllus counts with them, here as elsewhere, for

nothing.]

CHAPTER XXXIV.

KLEITOPHON.

[Side-note: Persons and circumstances of Kleitophon.]

The Kleitophon is an unfinished fragment, beginning with a short

introductory conversation between Sokrates and Kleitophon, and

finishing with a discourse of some length, a sort of remonstrance

or appeal, addressed by Kleitophon to Sokrates; who makes no

reply.

Some one was lately telling me (says Sokrates) that Kleitophon, in

conversation with Lysias, depreciated the conversation of

Sokrates, and extolled prodigiously that of Thrasymachus.

[Side-note: Conversation of Sokrates with Kleitophon alone: he

alludes to observations of an unfavourable character recently made

by Kleitophon, who asks permission to explain.]

Whoever told you so (replies Kleitophon), did not report

accurately what I said. On some points, indeed, I did not praise

you; but on other points I did praise you. Since, however, you are

evidently displeased with me, though you affect indifference--and

since we are here alone--I should be glad to repeat the same

observations to yourself, in order that you may not believe me to

think meanly of you. These incorrect reports seem to have made you

displeased with me, more than is reasonable. I am anxious to speak

to you with full freedom, if you will allow it.[1]

[Footnote 1: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 406.]

It would be a shame indeed (rejoined Sokrates), if, when you were

anxious to do me good, I could not endure to receive it. When I

have learnt which are my worst and which are my best points, I

shall evidently be in a condition to cultivate and pursue the

latter and resolutely to avoid the former.

Hear me then (says Kleitophon).

[Side-note: Explanation given. Kleitophon expresses gratitude and

admiration for the benefit which he has derived from long

companionship with Sokrates.]

As your frequent companion, Sokrates, I have often listened to you

with profound admiration. I thought you superior to all other

speakers when you proclaimed your usual strain of reproof, like

the God from a dramatic machine, against mankind.[2] You asked

them, "Whither are you drifting, my friends? You do not seem aware

that you are doing wrong when you place all your affections on the

gain of money, and neglect to teach your sons and heirs the right

use of money. You do not provide for them teachers of justice, if

justice be teachable; nor trainers of it, if it be acquirable by

training and habit; nor indeed have you studied the acquisition of

it, even for yourselves. Since the fact is obvious that, while

you, as well as your sons, have learnt what passes for a finished

education in virtue (letters, music, gymnastic), you nevertheless

yield to the corruptions of gain--how comes it that you do not

despise your actual education, and look out for teachers to

correct such disorder? It is this disorder, not the want of

accomplishment in the use of the lyre, which occasions such

terrible discord, and such calamitous war, between brother and

brother--between city and city.[3] You affirm that men do wrong

wilfully, not from ignorance or want of training: yet nevertheless

you are bold enough to say, that wrong-doing is dishonourable and

offensive to the Gods. How can any one, then, choose such an evil

willingly? You tell us it is because he is overcome by pleasures:

well then, that again comes to unwillingness--if victory be the

thing which every man wishes: so that, whichever way you turn it,

reason shows you that wrong-doing is taken up unwillingly, and

that greater precautions ought to be taken upon the subject, both

by individuals and by cities."[4]

[Footnote 2: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 407 A. [Greek: e)gô\ ga/r, ô)=

Sô/krates, soi\ suggigno/menos, polla/kis e)xeplêtto/mên a)kou/ôn;

kai/ moi e)do/keis para\ tou\s a)/llous a)nthrô/pous ka/llista

le/gein, o(po/te e)pitimô=n toi=s a)nthrô/pois, ô(/sper e)pi\

mêchanê=s tragikê=s theo/s, u(mei=s, le/gôn, poi= pheresthe,

a)/nthrôpoi?] &c.]

[Footnote 3: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 407 B-C.]

[Footnote 4: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 407 D-E. [Greek: ô(/ste e)k

panto\s tro/pou to/ ge a)dikei=n a)kou/sion o( lo/gos ai(rei=,

kai\ dei=n e)pime/leian tê=s nu=n plei/ô poiei=sthai pa/nt'

a)/ndra i)di/a| th' a(/ma kai\ dêmosi/a| xumpa/sas ta\s po/leis.]]

[Side-note: The observations made by Sokrates have been most

salutary and stimulating in awakening ardour for virtue. Arguments

and analogies commonly used by Sokrates.]

Such, Sokrates (continues Kleitophon), is the language which I

often hear from you; and which I always hear with the strongest

and most respectful admiration. You follow it up by observing,

that those who train their bodies and neglect their minds, commit

the mistake of busying themselves about the subordinate and

neglecting the superior. You farther remark, that if a man does

not know how to use any object rightly, he had better abstain from

using it altogether: if he does not know how to use his eyes, his

ears, or his body--it will be better for him neither to see, nor

to hear, nor to use his body at all: the like with any instrument

or article of property--for whoever cannot use his own lyre well,

cannot use his neighbour's lyre better. Out of these premisses you

bring out forcibly the conclusion--That if a man does not know how

to use his mind rightly, it is better for him to make no use of

it:--better for him not to live, than to live under his own

direction. If he must live, he had better live as a slave than a

freeman, surrendering the guidance of his understanding to some

one else who knows the art of piloting men: which art you,

Sokrates, denominate often the political art, sometimes the

judicial art or justice.[5]

[Footnote 5: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 408 B. [Greek: ê)=n dê\ su\

politikê/n, ô)= Sô/krates, o)noma/zeis polla/kis, tê\n au)tê\n dê\

tau/tên dikastikê/n te kai\ dikaiosu/nên ô(s e)/sti le/gôn.]]

[Side-note: But Sokrates does not explain what virtue is, nor how

it is to be attained. Kleitophon has had enough of stimulus, and

now wants information how he is to act.]

These discourses of yours, alike numerous and admirable--showing

that virtue is teachable, and that a man should attend to himself

before he attends to other objects--I never have contradicted, and

never shall contradict. I account them most profitable and

stimulating, calculated to wake men as it were out of sleep. I

expected anxiously what was to come afterwards. I began by

copying your style and asking, not yourself, but those among your

companions whom you esteemed the most[6]--How are we now to

understand this stimulus imparted by Sokrates towards virtue? Is

this to be all? Cannot we make advance towards virtue and get full

possession of it? Are we to pass our whole lives in stimulating

those who have not yet been stimulated, in order that they in

their turn may stimulate others? Is it not rather incumbent upon

us, now that we have agreed thus far, to entreat both from

Sokrates and from each other, an answer to the ulterior question,

What next? How are we to set to work in regard to the learning of

justice?[7] If any trainer, seeing us careless of our bodily

condition, should exhort us strenuously to take care of it, and

convince us that we ought to do so--we should next ask him, which

were the arts prescribing how we should proceed? He would

reply--The gymnastic and medical arts. How will Sokrates or his

friends answer the corresponding question in their case?

[Footnote 6: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 408 C. [Greek: tou/tôn ga\r tou/s

ti ma/lista ei)=nai doxazome/nous u(po\ sou= prô/tous

e)panêrô/tôn, punthano/menos ti/s o( meta\ tau=t' ei)/ê lo/gos,

_kai\ kata\ se\ tro/pon tina\ u(potei/nôn au)toi=s_], &c.]

[Footnote 7: Plato, Kleitophon, p. 408 D-E. [Greek: ê)\ dei= to\n

Sôkra/tên kai\ a)llê/lous ê(ma=s to\ meta\ tou=t' e)panerôta=|n,

o(mologê/santas tou=t' au)to\ a)nthrô/pô| prakte/on ei)=nai. _Ti/

tou)nteu=then_? pô=s a)/rchesthai dei=n phame\n dikaiosu/nês peri\

mathê/seôs?]]

[Side-note: Questions addressed by Kleitophon with this view, both

to the companions of Sokrates and to Sokrates himself.]

The ablest of your companions answered me (continues Kleitophon),

that the art to which you were wont to allude was no other than

Justice itself. I told him in reply--Do not give me the mere name,

but tell me what Justice is.[8] In the medical art there are two

distinct results contemplated and achieved: one, that of keeping

up the succession of competent physicians--another that of

conferring or preserving health: this last, _Health_, is not the

art itself, but the work accomplished by the art. Just so, the

builder's art, has for its object the _house_, which is its

work--and the keeping up the continuity of builders, which is its

teaching. Tell me in the same manner respecting the art called

Justice. Its teaching province is plain enough--to maintain the

succession of just men: but what is its working province? what is

the work which the just man does for us?

[Footnote 8: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 409 A. [Greek: ei)po/ntos de\

mou=, Mê/ moi to\ o)/noma mo/non ei)pê=|s, a)lla\ ô)=de--I)atrikê/

pou/ tis le/getai te/chnê], &c,]

[Side-note: Replies made by the friends of Sokrates

unsatisfactory.]

To this question your friend replied (explaining Justice)--it is

The Advantageous. Another man near him said, The Proper: a third

said, The Profitable: a fourth, The Gainful.[9] I pursued the

inquiry by observing, that these were general names equally

applicable in other arts, and to something different in each.

Every art aims at what is proper, advantageous, profitable,

gainful, in its own separate department: but each can farther

describe to you what that department is. Thus the art of the

carpenter is, to perform well, properly, advantageously,

profitably, &c., in the construction of wooden implements, &c.

That is the special work of the carpenter's art: now tell me, what

is the special work, corresponding thereunto, of the art called

Justice?

[Footnote 9: Plato, Kleitoph. 409 B. [Greek: to\ d' e(/teron, o(\

du/natai poiei=n ê(mi=n e)/rgon o( di/kaios, ti/ tou=to/ phamen?

ei)=pe. Ou(=tos me/n, ô(s oi)=mai, _to\ sumphe/ron_ a)pekri/nato;

a)/llos de/, _to\ de/on_; e(/teros de/, to\ _ô)phe/limon_; o( de/,

to\ _lusitelou=n_. e)panê/|ein dê\ e)gô\ le/gôn o(/ti ka)kei=na/

ge o)no/mata tau=t' e)sti\n e)n e(ka/stê| tô=n technô=n, o)rthô=s

pra/ttein, lusitelou=nta, ô)phe/lima, kai\ ta)/lla ta\ toiau=ta;

a)lla\ pro\s o(/, ti tau=ta pa/nta tei/nei, e)rei= to\ i)/dion

e(ka/stê| te/chnê|], &c.]

[Side-note: None of them could explain what the special work of

justice or virtue was.]

At length one of your most accomplished companions, Sokrates,

answered me--That the special work peculiar to Justice was, to

bring about friendship in the community.[10] Being farther

interrogated, he said--That friendship was always a good, never an

evil: That the so-called friendships between children, and between

animals, mischievous rather than otherwise, were not real

friendships, and ought not to bear the name: That the only genuine

friendship was, sameness of reason and intelligence: not sameness

of opinion, which was often hurtful--but knowledge and reason

agreeing, in different persons.[11]

[Footnote 10: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 409 D. [Greek: Teleutô=n

a)pekri/nato/ tis, ô)= Sô/krates, moi\ tô=n sô=n e(tai/rôn, o(\s

dê\ kompso/tata e)/doxen ei)pei=n, o(/ti tou=t' ei)/ê to\ tê=s

dikaiosu/nês i)/dion e)/rgon, o(\ tô=n a)/llôn ou)demia=s,

phili/an e)n tai=s po/lesi poiei=n.]]

[Footnote 11: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 409 E.]

At this stage of our conversation the hearers themselves felt

perplexed, and interfered to remonstrate with him; observing, that

the debate had come round to the same point again. They declared

that the medical art also was harmony of reason and intelligence:

that the like was true besides of every other art: that each of

them could define the special end to which it tended: but that as

to that art, or that harmony of reason and intelligence, which had

been called Justice, no one could see to what purpose it tended,

nor what was its special work.[12]

[Footnote 12: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 410 A. [Greek: kai\ e)/legon]

(_i.e._ the hearers said) [Greek: o(/ti kai\ ê( i)atrikê\

o(mo/noia/ ti/s e)sti, kai\ a(/pasai ai( te/chnai, kai\ peri\

o(/tou ei)si/n, e)/chousi le/gein; tê\n de\ u(po\ sou= legome/nên

dikaiosu/nên ê)\ o(mo/noian, o(/poi tei/nousa/ e)sti,

diape/pheuge, kai\ a)/dêlon au)tê=s o(/, ti po/t e)sti\ to\

e)/rgon.]]

[Side-note: Kleitophon at length asked the question from Sokrates

himself. But Sokrates did not answer clearly. Kleitophon believes

that Sokrates knows, but will not tell.]

After all this debate (continues Kleitophon) I addressed the same

question to yourself, Sokrates--What is Justice? You answered--To

do good to friends, hurt to enemies. But presently it appeared,

that the just man would never, on any occasion, do hurt to any

one:--that he would act towards every one with a view to good. It

is not once, nor twice, but often and often, that I have endured

these perplexities, and have importuned you to clear them up.[13]

At last I am wearied out, and have come to the conviction that you

are doubtless a consummate proficient in the art of stimulating

men to seek virtue; but that as to the ulterior question, how they

are to find it--you either do not know, or you will not tell. In

regard to any art (such as steersmanship or others), there may be

persons who can extol and recommend the art to esteem, but cannot

direct the hearers how to acquire it: and in like manner a man

might remark about you, that you do not know any better what

Justice is, because you are a proficient in commending it. For my

part, such is not my opinion. I think that you know, but have

declined to tell me. I am resolved, in my present embarrassment,

to go to Thrasymachus, or any one else that I can find to help me;

unless you will consent to give me something more than these

merely stimulating discourses.[14] Consider me as one upon whom

your stimulus has already told. If the question were about

gymnastic, as soon as I had become fully stimulated to attend to

my bodily condition, you would have given me, as a sequel to your

stimulating discourse, some positive direction, what my body was

by nature, and what treatment it required. Deal in like manner

with the case before us: reckon Kleitophon as one fully agreeing

with you, that it is contemptible to spend so much energy upon

other objects, and to neglect our minds, with a view to which all

other objects are treasured up. Put me down as having already

given my adhesion to all these views of yours.

[Footnote 13: Plato, Kleitophon, p. 410 B. [Greek: Tau=ta de\

ou)ch a(/pax ou)de\ di\s a)lla\ polu\n dê\ u(pomei/nas chro/non

kai\ liparô=n a)pei/rêka], &c.]

[Footnote 14: Plato, Kleitophon, p. 410 C. [Greek: dia\ tau=ta dê\

kai\ pro\s Thrasu/machon, oi)=mai, poreu/somai, kai\ a)/llose

o(/poi du/namai, a)porô=n--e)pei\ ei)/ g' e)the/lois su\ tou/tôn

me\n ê)/dê pau/sasthai pro\s e)me\ tô=n lo/gôn tô=n

protreptikô=n], &c.]

[Side-note: Kleitophon is on the point of leaving Sokrates and

going to Thrasymachus. But before leaving he addresses one last

entreaty, that Sokrates will speak out clearly and explicitly.]

Proceed, Sokrates--I supplicate you--to deal with me as I have

described; in order that I may never more have occasion, when I

talk with Lysias, to blame you on some points while praising you

on others. I will repeat, that to one who has not yet received the

necessary stimulus, your conversation is of inestimable value: but

to one who has already been stimulated, it is rather a hindrance

than a help, to his realising the full acquisition of virtue, and

thus becoming happy.[15]

[Footnote 15: Plato, Kleitophon, p. 410 E. [Greek: mê\ me\n ga\r

protetramme/nô| se\ a)nthrô/pô|, ô)= Sô/krates, a)/xion ei)=nai

tou= panto\s phê/sô, protetramme/nô| de/, schedo\n kai\ e)mpo/dion

tou= pro\s te/los a)retê=s e)ltho/nta eu)dai/mona gene/sthai.]]

* * * * *

[Side-note: Remarks on the Kleitophon. Why Thrasyllus placed it in

the eighth Tetralogy immediately before the Republic, and along

with Kritias, the other fragment.]

The fragment called Kleitophon (of which I have given an abstract

comparatively long), is in several ways remarkable. The

Thrasyllean catalogue places it first in the eighth Tetralogy; the

three other members of the same Tetralogy being, Republic, Timæus,

Kritias.[16] Though it is both short, and abrupt in its close, we

know that it was so likewise in antiquity: the ancient Platonic

commentators observing, that Sokrates disdained to make any reply

to the appeal of Kleitophon.[17] There were therefore in this

Tetralogy two fragments, unfinished works from the

beginning--Kleitophon and Kritias.

[Footnote 16: Diog. L. iii. 59. The Kleitophon also was one of the

dialogues selected by some students of Plato as proper to be

studied first of all (Diog. L. iii. 61).]

[Footnote 17: M. Boeckh observes (ad Platonis Minoem, p. 11):--"Nec

minus falsum est, quod _spurium_ Clitophontem plerique omnes

mutilatum putant; quem ex auctoris manibus truncum excidisse inde

intelligitur, quod ne vetusti quidem Platonici philosophi, quibus

antiquissima exemplaria ad manum erant, habuerunt integriorem.

Proclus in Timæ, i. p. 7. [Greek: Ptolemai=os de\ o( Platôniko\s

Kleitophô=nta au)to\n oi)/etai ei)=nai. tou=ton ga\r e)n tô=|

o(mônu/mô| dialo/gô| mêd' a)pokri/seôs ê)xiô=sthai para\

Sôkra/tous.] Plané ut in Critiâ, quem ab ipso Platone non

absolutum docet Plutarchus in Solone."

M. Boeckh here characterises the Kleitophon as _spurious_, in

which opinion I do not concur.

Yxem, in his Dissertation, Ueber Platon's Kleitophon, Berlin,

1846, has vindicated the genuineness of this dialogue, though many

of his arguments are such as I cannot subscribe to.

He shows farther, that the first idea of distrusting the

genuineness of the Kleitophon arose from the fact that the

dialogue was printed in the Aldine edition of 1513, along with the

spurious dialogues; although in that very Aldine edition the

editors expressly announce that this was a mistake, and that the

dialogue ought to have been printed as first of the eighth

tetralogy. See Yxem, pp. 32-33. Subsequent editors followed the

Aldine in printing the dialogue among the spurious, though still

declaring that they did not consider it spurious.]

We may explain why Thrasyllus placed the Kleitophon in immediate

antecedence to the Republic: because 1. It complains bitterly of

the want of a good explanation of Justice, which Sokrates in the

latter books of the Republic professes to furnish. 2. It brings

before us Kleitophon, who announces an inclination to consult

Thrasymachus: now both these personages appear in the first book

of the Republic, in which too Thrasymachus is introduced as

disputing in a brutal and insulting way, and as humiliated by

Sokrates: so that the Republic might be considered both as an

answer to the challenge of the Kleitophon, and as a reproof to

Kleitophon himself for having threatened to quit Sokrates and go

to Thrasymachus.

[Side-note: Kleitophon is genuine, and perfectly in harmony with a

just theory of Plato.]

Like so many other pieces in the Thrasyllean catalogue, the

Kleitophon has been declared to be spurious by Schleiermacher and

other critics of the present century. I see no ground for this

opinion, and I believe the dialogue to be genuine. If it be asked,

how can we imagine Plato to have composed a polemic argument, both

powerful and unanswered, against Sokrates,--I reply, that this is

not so surprising as the Parmenidês: in which Plato has introduced

the veteran so named as the successful assailant not only of

Sokrates, but of the Platonic theory of Ideas defended by

Sokrates.

I have already declared, that the character of Plato is, in my

judgment, essentially many-sided. It comprehends the whole process

of searching for truth, and testing all that is propounded as

such: it does not shrink from broaching and developing speculative

views not merely various and distinct, but sometimes even

opposite.

[Side-note: It could not have been published until after Plato's

death.]

Yet though the Kleitophon is Plato's work, it is a sketch or

fragment never worked out. In its present condition, it can hardly

have been published (any more than the Kritias) either by his

direction or during his life. I conceive it to have remained among

his papers, to have been made known by his school after his death,

and to have passed from thence among the other Platonic

manuscripts into the Alexandrian library at its first foundation.

Possibly it may have been originally intended as a preparation for

the solution of that problem, which Sokrates afterwards undertakes

in the Republic: for it is a challenge to Sokrates to explain what

he means by Justice. It may have been intended as such, but never

prosecuted:--the preparation for that solution being provided in

another way, such as we now read in the first and second books of

the Republic. That the great works of Plato--Republic, Protagoras,

Symposion, &c.--could not have been completed without preliminary

sketches and tentatives--we may regard as certain. That some of

these sketches, though never worked up, and never published by

Plato himself, should have been good enough to be preserved by him

and published by those who succeeded him--is at the very least

highly probable. One such is the Kleitophon.

[Side-note: Reasons why the Kleitophon was never finished. It

points out the defects of Sokrates, just as he himself confesses

them in the Apology.]

When I read the Kleitophon, I am not at all surprised that Plato

never brought it to a conclusion, nor ever provided Sokrates with

an answer to the respectful, yet emphatic, requisition of

Kleitophon. The case against Sokrates has been made so strong,

that I doubt whether Plato himself could have answered it to his

own satisfaction. It resembles the objections which he advances in

the Parmenidês against the theory of Ideas: objections which he

has nowhere answered, and which I do not believe that he could

answer. The characteristic attribute of which Kleitophon complains

in Sokrates is, that of a one-sided and incomplete

efficiency--([Greek: phu/sis mono/kôlos])--"You are perpetually stirring

us up and instigating us: you do this most admirably: but when we have

become full of fervour, you do not teach us how we are to act, nor

point out the goal towards which we are to move".[18] Now this is

precisely the description which Sokrates gives of his own

efficiency, in the Platonic Apology addressed to the Dikasts. He

lays especial stress on the mission imposed upon him by the Gods,

to apply his Elenchus in testing and convicting the false

persuasion of knowledge universally prevalent:--to make sure by

repeated cross-examination, whether the citizens pursued money and

worldly advancement more energetically than virtue:--and to worry

the Athenians with perpetual stimulus, like the gadfly exciting a

high-bred but lethargic horse. Sokrates describes this not only as

the mission of his life, but as a signal benefit and privilege

conferred upon Athens by the Gods.[19] But here his services end.

He declares explicitly that he shares in the universal ignorance,

and that he is no wiser than any one else, except in being aware

of his own ignorance. He disclaims all power of teaching:[20] and

he deprecates the supposition,--that he himself knew what he

convicted others of not knowing,--as a mistake which had brought

upon him alike unmerited reputation and great unpopularity.[21] We

find thus that the description given by Sokrates of himself in the

Apology, and the reproach addressed to Sokrates by Kleitophon,

fully coincide. "My mission from the Gods" (says Sokrates), "is to

dispel the false persuasion of knowledge, to cross-examine men

into a painful conviction of their own ignorance, and to create in

them a lively impulse towards knowledge and virtue: but I am no

wiser than they: I can teach them nothing, nor can I direct them

what to do."--That is exactly what I complain of (remarks

Kleitophon): I have gone through your course,--have been

electrified by your Elenchus,--and am full of the impulse which

you so admirably communicate. In this condition, what I require

is, to find out how, or in which direction I am to employ that

impulse. If you cannot tell me, I must ask Thrasymachus or some

one else.

[Footnote 18: I have in an earlier chapter (ch. viii. vol. i. p.

406) cited the passage--"Philosophiam multis locis inchoasti: ad

impellendum satis, ad edocendum parum". This is the language

addressed by Cicero to Varro, and coinciding substantially with

that of Kleitophon here.]

[Footnote 19: Plat. Apol. Sokr. pp. 28 E, 29 D-E, 30 A-E. 30 E:

[Greek: proskei/menon tê=| po/lei u(po\ tou= theou= ô(/sper

i(/ppô| mega/lô| me\n kai\ gennai/ô|, u(po\ mege/thous de\

nôtheste/rô| kai\ deome/nô| e)gei/resthai u(po\ mu/ôpo/s tinos;

oi(=on dê/ moi dokei= o( theo\s e)me\ tê=| po/lei prostetheike/nai

toiou=to/n tina, o(\s u(ma=s e)gei/rôn kai\ pei/thôn kai\

o)neidi/zôn e(/na e(/kaston ou)de\n pau/omai tê\n ê(me/ran o(/lên

pantachou= proskathi/zôn.] Also pp. 36 D, 41 E.]

[Footnote 20: Plat. Apol. Sokr. pp. 21 D-22 D, 33 A: [Greek: e)gô\

de\ dida/skalos ou)deno\s pô/pot' e)geno/mên.]]

[Footnote 21: Plat. Apol. Sokr. pp. 23 A, 28 A.]

[Side-note: The same defects also confessed in many of the Platonic

and Xenophontic dialogues.]

Moreover, it is not merely in the declarations of Sokrates himself

before the Athenian Dikasts, but also in the Platonic Sokrates as

exhibited by Plato in very many of his dialogues, that the same

efficiency, and the same deficiency, stand conspicuous. The hearer

is convicted of ignorance, on some familiar subject which he

believed himself to know: the protreptic stimulus is powerful,

stinging his mind into uneasiness which he cannot appease except

by finding some tenable result: but the didactic supplement is not

forthcoming. Sokrates ends by creating a painful feeling of

perplexity in the hearers, but he himself shares the feeling along

with them.--It is this which the youth Protarchus deprecates, at

the beginning of the Platonic Philêbus;[22] and with which Hippias

taunts Sokrates, in one of the Xenophontic

conversations[23]--insomuch that Sokrates replies to the taunt by

giving a definition of the Just ([Greek: to\ di/kaion]), upon which

Hippias comments. But if the observations ascribed by Xenophon to

Hippias are a report of what that Sophist really said, we only see

how inferior he was to Sokrates in the art of cross-questioning: for

the definition given by Sokrates would have been found altogether

untenable, if there had been any second Sokrates to apply the

Elenchus to it.[24] Lastly, Xenophon expressly tells us, that

there were others also, who, both in speech and writing, imputed

to Sokrates the same deficiency on the affirmative side.[25]

[Footnote 22: Plato, Philêbus, p. 20 A.]

[Footnote 23: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 4, 9-11.]

[Footnote 24: We need only compare the observations made by

Hippias in that dialogue, to the objections raised by Sokrates

himself in his conversation with Euthydêmus, Xen. Mem. iv. 4, 2,

and to the dialogue of the youthful Alkibiades (evidently borrowed

from Sokrates) with Perikles, ib. i. 2, 40-47.]

[Footnote 25: Xenoph. Memor. i. 4, 1. [Greek: ei) de/ tines

Sôkra/tên nomi/zousin, ô(s e(/nioi gra/phousi/ te kai\ le/gousi

peri\ au)tou= tekmairo/menoi, protre/psasthai me\n a)nthrô/pous

e)p' a)retê\n kra/tiston gegone/nai, proagagei=n de\ e)p' au)tê\n

ou)ch i(kano/n--skepsa/menoi mê\ mo/non], &c.

See also Cicero, De Oratore, i. 47, 204, in which Sokrates is

represented as saying that _concitatio_ ([Greek: protropê\]) was

all that people required: they did not need guidance: they would

find out the way for themselves: and Yxem, Ueber Platon's

Kleitophon, pp. 5-12.]

[Side-note: Forcible, yet respectful, manner in which these defects

are set forth in the Kleitophon. Impossible to answer them in such

a way as to hold out against the negative Elenchus of a Sokratic

pupil.]

The Platonic Kleitophon corresponds, in a great degree, to these

complaints of Protarchus and others, as well as to the taunt of

Hippias. The case is put, however, with much greater force and

emphasis: as looked at, not by an opponent and outsider, like

Hippias--nor by a mere novice, unarmed though eager, like

Protarchus--but by a companion of long standing, who has gone

through the full course of negative gymnastic, is grateful for the

benefit derived, and feels that it is time to pass from the lesser

mysteries to the greater. He is sick of perpetual negation and

stimulus: he demands doctrines and explanations, which will hold

good against the negative Elenchus of Sokrates himself. But this

is exactly what Sokrates cannot give. His mission from the

Delphian God finishes with the negative: inspiration fails him

when he deals with the affirmative. He is like the gadfly (his own

simile) in stimulating the horse--and also in furnishing no

direction how the stimulus is to be expended. His affirmative

dicta,--as given in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, are for the most

part plain, home-bred, good sense,--in which all the philosophical

questions are slurred over, and the undefined words, Justice,

Temperance, Holiness, Courage, Law, &c., are assumed to have a

settled meaning agreed to by every one: while as given by Plato,

in the Republic and elsewhere, they are more speculative,

highflown, and poetical,[26] but not the less exposed to certain

demolition, if the batteries of the Sokratic Elenchus were brought

to bear upon them. The challenge of Kleitophon is thus

unanswerable. It brings out in the most forcible, yet respectful,

manner the contrast between the two attributes of the Sokratic

mind: in the negative, irresistible force and originality: in the

affirmative, confessed barrenness alternating with honest, acute,

practical sense, but not philosophy. Instead of this, Plato gives

us transcendental hypotheses, and a religious and poetical ideal;

impressive indeed to the feelings, but equally inadmissible to a

mind trained in the use of the Sokratic tests.

[Footnote 26: The explanation of Justice given by Plato in the

Republic deserves to be described much in the same words as

Sokrates employs (Repub. i. p. 332 C) in characterising the

definition of Justice furnished by (or ascribed to) the poet

Simonides:--

[Greek: ê)|ni/xato, ô(s e)/oiken, o( Simôni/dês poiêtikô=s to\

di/kaion o(\ ei)/ê.]]

[Side-note: The Kleitophon represents a point of view which many

objectors must have insisted on against Sokrates and Plato.]

We may thus see sufficient reason why Plato, after having drawn up

the Kleitophon as preparatory basis for a dialogue, became

unwilling to work it out, and left it as an unfinished sketch. He

had, probably without intending it, made out too strong a case

against Sokrates and against himself. If he continued it, he would

have been obliged to put some sufficient reason into the mouth of

Sokrates, why Kleitophon should abandon his intention of

frequenting some other teacher: and this was a hard task. He would

have been obliged to lay before Kleitophon, a pupil thoroughly

inoculated with his own negative _oestrus_, affirmative

solutions proof against such subtle cross-examination: and this,

we may fairly assume, was not merely a hard task, but impossible.

Hence it is that we possess the Kleitophon only as a fragment.

[Side-note: The Kleitophon was originally intended as a first book

of the Republic, but was found too hard to answer. Reasons why the

existing first book was substituted.]

Yet I think it a very ingenious and instructive fragment: setting

forth powerfully, in respect to the negative philosophy of

Sokrates and Plato, a point of view which must have been held by

many intelligent contemporaries. Among all the objections urged

against Sokrates and Plato, probably none was more frequent than

this protest against the continued negative procedure. This same

point of view--that Sokrates puzzled every one, but taught no one

any thing--is reproduced by Thrasymachus against Sokrates in the

first book of the Republic:[27] in which first book there are

various other marks of analogy with the Kleitophon.[28] It might

seem as if Plato had in the first instance projected a dialogue in

which Sokrates was to discuss the subject of justice, and had

drawn up the Kleitophon as the sketch of a sort of forcing process

to be applied to Sokrates: then, finding that he placed Sokrates

under too severe pressure, had abandoned the project, and taken up

the same subject anew, in the manner which we now read in the

Republic. The task which he assigns to Sokrates, in this

last-mentioned dialogue, is far easier. Instead of the appeal made

to Sokrates by Kleitophon, with truly Sokratic point--we have an

assault made upon him by Thrasymachus, alike angry, impudent and

feeble; which just elicits the peculiar aptitude of Sokrates for

humbling the boastful affirmer. Again in the second book, Glaukon

and Adeimantus are introduced as stating the difficulties which

they feel in respect to the theory of Justice: but in a manner

totally different from Kleitophon, and without any reference to

previous Sokratic requirements. Each of them delivers an eloquent

and forcible pleading, in the manner of an Aristotelian or

Ciceronian dialogue: and to this Sokrates makes his reply. In that

reply, Sokrates explains what he means by Justice: and though his

exposition is given in the form of short questions, each followed

by an answer of acquiescence, yet no real or serious objections

are made to him throughout the whole. The case must have been very

different if Plato had continued the dialogue Kleitophon; so as to

make Sokrates explain the theory of Justice, in the face of all

the objections raised by a Sokratic cross-examiner.[29]

[Footnote 27: Plat. Repub. pp. 336 D, 337 A, 338 A.]

[Footnote 28: For example, That it is not the province of the just

man to hurt any one, either friend or foe, Repub. p. 335 D.

Thrasymachus derides any such definitions of [Greek: to\ di/kaion]

as the following--[Greek: to\ de/on--to\ ô)phe/limon--to\

lusitelou=n--to\ xumphe/ron--to\ kerda/leon], Repub. i. p. 336,

C-D.

These are exactly the unsatisfactory definitions which Kleitophon

describes himself (p. 409 C) as having received from the partisans

of Sokrates.]

[Footnote 29: Schleiermacher (Einleitung, v. pp. 453-455)

considers the Kleitophon not to be the work of Plato. But this

only shows that he, like many other critics, attaches scarcely the

smallest importance to the presumption arising from the Canon of

Thrasyllus. For the grounds by which he justifies his disallowance

of the dialogue are to the last degree trivial.

I note with surprise one of his assertions: "How" (he asks) "or

from what motive can Plato have introduced an attack upon

Sokrates, which is thoroughly repelled, both seriously and

ironically, in almost all the Platonic dialogues?"

As I read Plato, on the contrary: the Truth is, That it is

repelled in none, confirmed in many, and thoroughly ratified by

Sokrates himself in the Platonic Apology.

Schleiermacher thinks that the Kleitophon is an attack upon

Sokrates and the Sokratic men, Plato included, made by some

opponent out of the best rhetorical schools. He calls it "a parody

and caricature" of the Sokratic manner. To me it seems no

caricature at all. It is a very fair application of the Sokratic

or Platonic manner. Nor is it conceived by any means in the spirit

of an enemy, but in that of an established companion, respectful

and grateful, yet dissatisfied at finding that he makes no

progress.]

END OF VOL. III.

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Transcriber's Note

The text is based on versions made available by the Internet Archive.

For the Greek transcriptions the following conventions have been used:

) is for smooth breathing; ( for hard; + for diaeresis; / for acute

accent; \ for grave; = for circumflex; | for iota subscript.

ch is used for chi, ph for phi, ps for psi, th for theta;

ê for eta and ô for omega; u is used for upsilon in all cases.

Corrections to the text, indicated in text with **:

Location Text of scan of 3rd edition Correction

ToC, Ch. 31 admissable admissible

Ch. 26 fn. 30 phi/lê=| phi/lê|

Ch. 26 fn. 33 to/de\ to/de

Ch. 26 after fn. 125 fourth eighth

Ch. 28 fn. 47 aussitot aussitôt

Ch. 28 fn. 78 ajourd'hui aujourd'hui

Ch. 28 fn. 92 It we compare If we compare

Ch. 28 fn. 97 Theætêt. p. 186 C. Theætêt. p. 186 D.

Ch. 28 fn. 99 tuphra/ tuphla/

Ch. 28 after fn. 143 Chapter VI Chapter VIII

Ch. 29 fn. 23 p. 130 D p. 130 E

Ch. 29 fn. 102 paphei=n pathei=n

Ch. 30 fn. 18 Phædrus p. 229 C), Phædrus (p. 229 C),

Ch. 31 fn. 18 e(u)=n ou)=n

Ch. 31 fn. 18 oka/stou e(ka/stou

Ch. 31 fn. 40 Is is It is

Ch. 31 fn. 47 tems temps

Ch. 31 fn. 48 ab-antiquitatis ab antiquitatis

Ch. 31 fn. 58 429-411 C. 409-411 C.

Ch. 31 fn. 63 p. . p. 88

Ch. 32 fn. 42 pho/bpn pho/bôn

Ch. 33 fn. 31 p. 373 p. 359