[Sidenote: _Meno._]
[Sidenote: ANALYSIS.]
This Dialogue begins abruptly with a question of Meno, who =Steph.= 70
asks ‘whether virtue can be taught.’ Socrates replies that
he does not as yet know what virtue is, and has never known 71
any one who did. ‘Then he cannot have met Gorgias when he was
at Athens.’ Yes, Socrates had met him, but he has a bad
memory, and has forgotten what Gorgias said. Will Meno tell
him his own notion, which is probably not very different from
that of Gorgias? ‘O yes—nothing easier: there is the virtue 72
of a man, of a woman, of an old man, and of a child; there is
a virtue of every age and state of life, all of which may be easily
described.’
Socrates reminds Meno that this is only an enumeration of the 73
virtues and not a definition of the notion which is common to
them all. In a second attempt Meno defines virtue to be ‘the
power of command.’ But to this, again, exceptions are taken.
For there must be a virtue of those who obey, as well as of those
who command; and the power of command must be justly or not
unjustly exercised. Meno is very ready to admit that justice is
virtue: ‘Would you say virtue or a virtue, for there are other
virtues, such as courage, temperance, and the like; just as round 74
is a figure, and black and white are colours, and yet there are
other figures and other colours. Let Meno take the examples
of figure and colour, and try to define them.’ Meno confesses
his inability, and after a process of interrogation, in which Socrates
explains to him the nature of a ‘simile in multis,’ Socrates 75
himself defines figure as ‘the accompaniment of colour.’ But
some one may object that he does not know the meaning of the
word ‘colour;’ and if he is a candid friend, and not a mere
disputant, Socrates is willing to furnish him with a simpler and
more philosophical definition, into which no disputed word is
allowed to intrude: ‘Figure is the limit of form.’ Meno imperiously 76
insists that he must still have a definition of colour.
Some raillery follows; and at length Socrates is induced to reply,
‘that colour is the effluence of form, sensible, and in due proportion
to the sight.’ This definition is exactly suited to the taste
of Meno, who welcomes the familiar language of Gorgias and
Empedocles. Socrates is of opinion that the more abstract or
dialectical definition of figure is far better.
[Sidenote: _Analysis 78-81._]
Now that Meno has been made to understand the nature of
a general definition, he answers in the spirit of a Greek gentleman,
and in the words of a poet, ‘that virtue is to delight in 77
things honourable, and to have the power of getting them.’
This is a nearer approximation than he has yet made to a complete
definition, and, regarded as a piece of proverbial or popular
morality, is not far from the truth. But the objection is urged,
‘that the honourable is the good,’ and as every one equally desires
the good, the point of the definition is contained in the words, 78
‘the power of getting them.’ ‘And they must be got justly or
with justice.’ The definition will then stand thus: ‘Virtue is the
power of getting good with justice.’ But justice is a part of 79
virtue, and therefore virtue is the getting of good with a part of
virtue. The definition repeats the word defined.
Meno complains that the conversation of Socrates has the effect 80
of a torpedo’s shock upon him. When he talks with other
persons he has plenty to say about virtue; in the presence of
Socrates, his thoughts desert him. Socrates replies that he is
only the cause of perplexity in others, because he is himself
perplexed. He proposes to continue the enquiry. But how,
asks Meno, can he enquire either into what he knows or into
what he does not know? This is a sophistical puzzle, which, 81
as Socrates remarks, saves a great deal of trouble to him who
accepts it. But the puzzle has a real difficulty latent under it,
to which Socrates will endeavour to find a reply. The difficulty
is the origin of knowledge:—
[Sidenote: _Analysis 81-93._]
He has heard from priests and priestesses, and from the poet
Pindar, of an immortal soul which is born again and again in
successive periods of existence, returning into this world when
she has paid the penalty of ancient crime, and, having wandered
over all places of the upper and under world, and seen and known
all things at one time or other, is by association out of one thing
capable of recovering all. For nature is of one kindred; and
every soul has a seed or germ which may be developed into all 82
knowledge. The existence of this latent knowledge is further
proved by the interrogation of one of Meno’s slaves, who, in
the skilful hands of Socrates, is made to acknowledge some
elementary relations of geometrical figures. The theorem that
the square of the diagonal is double the square of the side—that 83-85
famous discovery of primitive mathematics, in honour of which
the legendary Pythagoras is said to have sacrificed a hecatomb—is
elicited from him. The first step in the process of teaching
has made him conscious of his own ignorance. He has had the
‘torpedo’s shock’ given him, and is the better for the operation.
But whence had the uneducated man this knowledge? He had 86
never learnt geometry in this world; nor was it born with him;
he must therefore have had it when he was not a man. And
as he always either was or was not a man, he must have always
had it. (Cp. Phaedo, 73 B.)
After Socrates has given this specimen of the true nature of
teaching, the original question of the teachableness of virtue is
renewed. Again he professes a desire to know ‘what virtue is’
first. But he is willing to argue the question, as mathematicians 87
say, under an hypothesis. He will assume that if virtue is knowledge,
then virtue can be taught. (This was the stage of the 88
argument at which the Protagoras concluded.)
[Sidenote: _Analysis 93-100._]
Socrates has no difficulty in showing that virtue is a good,
and that goods, whether of body or mind, must be under the
direction of knowledge. Upon the assumption just made, then,
virtue is teachable. But where are the teachers? There are 89
none to be found. This is extremely discouraging. Virtue is no
sooner discovered to be teachable, than the discovery follows that
it is not taught. Virtue, therefore, is and is not teachable.
In this dilemma an appeal is made to Anytus, a respectable and 90
well-to-do citizen of the old school, and a family friend of Meno,
who happens to be present. He is asked ‘whether Meno shall 91
go to the Sophists and be taught.’ The suggestion throws him into 92
a rage. ‘To whom, then, shall Meno go?’ asks Socrates. To 93
any Athenian gentleman—to the great Athenian statesmen of past
times. Socrates replies here, as elsewhere (Laches 179 C foll.;
Prot. 319 foll.), that Themistocles, Pericles, and other great men, 94
had sons to whom they would surely, if they could have done so,
have imparted their own political wisdom; but no one ever heard
that these sons of theirs were remarkable for anything except
riding and wrestling and similar accomplishments. Anytus is
angry at the imputation which is cast on his favourite statesmen,
and on a class to which he supposes himself to belong (cp.
95 A); he breaks off with a significant hint. The mention of 95
another opportunity of talking with him (99 E), and the suggestion
that Meno may do the Athenian people a service by pacifying
him (100), are evident allusions to the trial of Socrates.
Socrates returns to the consideration of the question ‘whether
virtue is teachable,’ which was denied on the ground that there
are no teachers of it: (for the Sophists are bad teachers, and the 96
rest of the world do not profess to teach). But there is another
point which we failed to observe, and in which Gorgias has never
instructed Meno, nor Prodicus Socrates. This is the nature of
right opinion. For virtue may be under the guidance of right 97
opinion as well as of knowledge; and right opinion is for practical
purposes as good as knowledge, but is incapable of being taught,
and is also liable, like the images of Daedalus, to ‘walk off,’ 98
because not bound by the tie of the cause. This is the sort of
instinct which is possessed by statesmen, who are not wise or
knowing persons, but only inspired or divine. The higher virtue, 99
which is identical with knowledge, is an ideal only. If the statesman
had this knowledge, and could teach what he knew, he would
be like Tiresias in the world below,—‘he alone has wisdom, 100
but the rest flit like shadows.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION.]
This Dialogue is an attempt to answer the question, Can virtue be taught?
No one would either ask or answer such a question in modern times. But
in the age of Socrates it was only by an effort that the mind could rise
to a general notion of virtue as distinct from the particular virtues of
courage, liberality, and the like. And when a hazy conception of this
ideal was attained, it was only by a further effort that the question of
the teachableness of virtue could be resolved.
[Sidenote: _Virtue, knowledge, and true opinion._]
The answer which is given by Plato is paradoxical enough, and seems
rather intended to stimulate than to satisfy enquiry. Virtue is
knowledge, and therefore virtue can be taught. But virtue is not taught,
and therefore in this higher and ideal sense there is no virtue and no
knowledge. The teaching of the Sophists is confessedly inadequate, and
Meno, who is their pupil, is ignorant of the very nature of general
terms. He can only produce out of their armoury the sophism, ‘that you
can neither enquire into what you know nor into what you do not know;’ to
which Socrates replies by his theory of reminiscence.
To the doctrine that virtue is knowledge, Plato has been constantly
tending in the previous Dialogues. But the new truth is no sooner found
than it vanishes away. ‘If there is knowledge, there must be teachers;
and where are the teachers?’ There is no knowledge in the higher sense
of systematic, connected, reasoned knowledge, such as may one day be
attained, and such as Plato himself seems to see in some far off vision
of a single science. And there are no teachers in the higher sense of
the word; that is to say, no real teachers who will arouse the spirit
of enquiry in their pupils, and not merely instruct them in rhetoric or
impart to them ready-made information for a fee of ‘one’ or of ‘fifty
drachms.’ Plato is desirous of deepening the notion of education, and
therefore he asserts the paradox that there are no educators. This
paradox, though different in form, is not really different from the
remark which is often made in modern times by those who would depreciate
either the methods of education commonly employed, or the standard
attained—that ‘there is no true education among us.’
There remains still a possibility which must not be overlooked. Even
if there be no true knowledge, as is proved by ‘the wretched state of
education,’ there may be right opinion, which is a sort of guessing or
divination resting on no knowledge of causes, and incommunicable to
others. This is the gift which our statesmen have, as is proved by the
circumstance that they are unable to impart their knowledge to their
sons. Those who are possessed of it cannot be said to be men of science
or philosophers, but they are inspired and divine.
[Sidenote: _Reminiscence and immortality._]
There may be some trace of irony in this curious passage, which forms
the concluding portion of the Dialogue. But Plato certainly does not
mean to intimate that the supernatural or divine is the true basis of
human life. To him knowledge, if only attainable in this world, is of all
things the most divine. Yet, like other philosophers, he is willing to
admit that ‘probability is the guide of life[1];’ and he is at the same
time desirous of contrasting the wisdom which governs the world with a
higher wisdom. There are many instincts, judgments, and anticipations of
the human mind which cannot be reduced to rule, and of which the grounds
cannot always be given in words. A person may have some skill or latent
experience which he is able to use himself and is yet unable to teach
others, because he has no principles, and is incapable of collecting
or arranging his ideas. He has practice, but not theory; art, but not
science. This is a true fact of psychology, which is recognized by Plato
in this passage. But he is far from saying, as some have imagined, that
inspiration or divine grace is to be regarded as higher than knowledge.
He would not have preferred the poet or man of action to the philosopher,
or the virtue of custom to the virtue based upon ideas.
Also here, as in the Ion and Phaedrus, Plato appears to acknowledge an
unreasoning element in the higher nature of man. The philosopher only has
knowledge, and yet the statesman and the poet are inspired. There may be
a sort of irony in regarding in this way the gifts of genius. But there
is no reason to suppose that he is deriding them, any more than he is
deriding the phenomena of love or of enthusiasm in the Symposium, or of
oracles in the Apology, or of divine intimations when he is speaking of
the daemonium of Socrates. He recognizes the lower form of right opinion,
as well as the higher one of science, in the spirit of one who desires
to include in his philosophy every aspect of human life; just as he
recognizes the existence of popular opinion as a fact, and the Sophists
as the expression of it.
[Sidenote: _Some lesser traits of the Dialogue._]
This Dialogue probably contains the first intimation of the doctrine of
reminiscence and of the immortality of the soul.[2] The proof is very
slight even slighter than in the Phaedo and Republic. Because men had
abstract ideas in a previous state, they must have always had them, and
their souls therefore must have always existed (86 A). For they must
always have been either men or not men. The fallacy of the latter words
is transparent. And Socrates himself appears to be conscious of their
weakness; for he adds immediately afterwards, ‘I have said some things
of which I am not altogether confident.’ (Cp. Phaedo 114 D, 115 D.) It
may be observed, however, that the fanciful notion of pre-existence
is combined with a true but partial view of the origin and unity of
knowledge, and of the association of ideas. Knowledge is prior to any
particular knowledge, and exists not in the previous state of the
individual, but of the race. It is potential, not actual, and can only be
appropriated by strenuous exertion.
The idealism of Plato is here presented in a less developed form than
in the Phaedo and Phaedrus. Nothing is said of the pre-existence of
ideas of justice, temperance, and the like. Nor is Socrates positive of
anything but the duty of enquiry (86 B). The doctrine of reminiscence
too is explained more in accordance with fact and experience as arising
out of the affinities of nature (ἅτε τῆς φύσεως ὅλης συγγενοῦς οὔσης).
Modern philosophy says that all things in nature are dependent on one
another; the ancient philosopher had the same truth latent in his mind
when he affirmed that out of one thing all the rest may be recovered. The
subjective was converted by him into an objective; the mental phenomenon
of the association of ideas (cp. Phaedo 73 foll.) became a real chain of
existences. The germs of two valuable principles of education may also
be gathered from the ‘words of priests and priestesses:’ (1) that true
knowledge is a knowledge of causes (cp. Aristotle’s theory of ἐπιστήμη);
and (2) that the process of learning consists not in what is brought to
the learner, but in what is drawn out of him.
Some lesser points of the dialogue may be noted, such as (1) the
acute observation that Meno prefers the familiar definition, which is
embellished with poetical language, to the better and truer one (76
D); or (2) the shrewd reflection, which may admit of an application to
modern as well as to ancient teachers, that the Sophists having made
large fortunes, this must surely be a criterion of their powers of
teaching, for that no man could get a living by shoemaking who was not
a good shoemaker (91 C); or (3) the remark, conveyed almost in a word,
that the verbal sceptic is saved the labour of thought and enquiry οὐδὲν
δεῖ τῷ τοιούτῳ ζητήσεως, (80 E). Characteristic also of the temper of
the Socratic enquiry is, (4) the proposal to discuss the teachableness
of virtue under an hypothesis, after the manner of the mathematicians
(87 A); and (5) the repetition of the favourite doctrine which occurs
so frequently in the earlier and more Socratic Dialogues, and gives a
colour to all of them—that mankind only desire evil through ignorance
(77, 78 foll.); (6) the experiment of eliciting from the slave-boy the
mathematical truth which is latent in him, and (7) the remark (84 B) that
he is all the better for knowing his ignorance.
[Sidenote: _Characters of Meno and Anytus._]
The character of Meno, like that of Critias, has no relation to the
actual circumstances of his life. Plato is silent about his treachery
to the Ten Thousand Greeks, which Xenophon has recorded, as he is also
silent about the crimes of Critias. He is a Thessalian Alcibiades,
rich and luxurious—a spoilt child of fortune, and is described as the
hereditary friend of the great king. Like Alcibiades he is inspired
with an ardent desire of knowledge, and is equally willing to learn
of Socrates and of the Sophists. He may be regarded as standing in
the same relation to Gorgias as Hippocrates in the Protagoras to the
other great Sophist. He is the sophisticated youth on whom Socrates
tries his cross-examining powers just as in the Charmides, the Lysis,
and the Euthydemus, ingenuous boyhood is made the subject of a similar
experiment. He is treated by Socrates in a half-playful manner suited to
his character; at the same time he appears not quite to understand the
process to which he is being subjected. For he is exhibited as ignorant
of the very elements of dialectics, in which the Sophists have failed
to instruct their disciple. His definition of virtue as ‘the power
and desire of attaining things honourable,’ like the first definition
of justice in the Republic, is taken from a poet. His answers have a
sophistical ring, and at the same time show the sophistical incapacity to
grasp a general notion.
Anytus is the type of the narrow-minded man of the world, who is
indignant at innovation, and equally detests the popular teacher and
the true philosopher. He seems, like Aristophanes, to regard the new
opinions, whether of Socrates or the Sophists, as fatal to Athenian
greatness. He is of the same class as Callicles in the Gorgias, but of
a different variety; the immoral and sophistical doctrines of Callicles
are not attributed to him. The moderation with which he is described is
remarkable, if he be the accuser of [Sidenote: _Relation of the Meno to
other Dialogues._]
Socrates, as is apparently indicated by his parting words. Perhaps Plato
may have been desirous of showing that the accusation of Socrates was
not to be attributed to badness or malevolence, but rather to a tendency
in men’s minds. Or he may have been regardless of the historical truth
of the characters of his dialogue, as in the case of Meno and Critias.
Like Chaerephon (Apol. 21) the real Anytus was a democrat, and had joined
Thrasybulus in the conflict with the Thirty.
The Protagoras arrived at a sort of hypothetical conclusion, that if
‘virtue is knowledge, it can be taught.’ In the Euthydemus, Socrates
himself offered an example of the manner in which the true teacher
may draw out the mind of youth; this was in contrast to the quibbling
follies of the Sophists. In the Meno the subject is more developed; the
foundations of the enquiry are laid deeper, and the nature of knowledge
is more distinctly explained. There is a progression by antagonism of
two opposite aspects of philosophy. But at the moment when we approach
nearest, the truth doubles upon us and passes out of our reach. We seem
to find that the ideal of knowledge is irreconcilable with experience. In
human life there is indeed the profession of knowledge, but right opinion
is our actual guide. There is another sort of progress from the general
notions of Socrates, who asked simply, ‘what is friendship?’ ‘what is
temperance?’ ‘what is courage?’ as in the Lysis, Charmides, Laches,
to the transcendentalism of Plato, who, in the second stage of his
philosophy, sought to find the nature of knowledge in a prior and future
state of existence.
The difficulty in framing general notions which has appeared in this and
in all the previous Dialogues recurs in the Gorgias and Theaetetus as
well as in the Republic. In the Gorgias too the statesmen reappear, but
in stronger opposition to the philosopher. They are no longer allowed to
have a divine insight, but, though acknowledged to have been clever men
and good speakers, are denounced as ‘blind leaders of the blind.’ The
doctrine of the immortality of the soul is also carried further, being
made the foundation not only of a theory of knowledge, but of a doctrine
of rewards and punishments. In the Republic the relation of knowledge to
virtue is described in a manner more consistent with modern distinctions.
The existence of the virtues without the possession of knowledge in the
higher or philosophical sense is admitted to be possible. Right opinion
is again introduced in the Theaetetus as an account of knowledge, but is
rejected on the ground that it is irrational (as here, because it is not
bound by the tie of the cause), and also because the conception of false
opinion is given up as hopeless. The doctrines of Plato are necessarily
different at different times of his life, as new distinctions are
realized, or new stages of thought attained by him. We are not therefore
justified, in order to take away the appearance of inconsistency, in
attributing to him hidden meanings or remote allusions.
[Sidenote: _Date of the Dialogue._]
There are no external criteria by which we can determine the date of the
Meno. There is no reason to suppose that any of the Dialogues of Plato
were written before the death of Socrates; the Meno, which appears to be
one of the earliest of them, is proved to have been of a later date by
the allusion of Anytus (94 E, 95 A. Cp. also 80 B, 100 B).
We cannot argue that Plato was more likely to have written, as he has
done, of Meno before than after his miserable death; for we have already
seen, in the examples of Charmides and Critias, that the characters in
Plato are very far from resembling the same characters in history. The
repulsive picture which is given of him in the Anabasis of Xenophon (ii.
6), where he also appears as the friend of Aristippus ‘and a fair youth
having lovers,’ has no other trait of likeness to the Meno of Plato.
The place of the Meno in the series is doubtfully indicated by internal
evidence. The main character of the Dialogue is Socrates; but to the
‘general definitions’ of Socrates is added the Platonic doctrine of
reminiscence. The problems of virtue and knowledge have been discussed in
the Lysis, Laches, Charmides, and Protagoras; the puzzle about knowing
and learning has already appeared in the Euthydemus. The doctrines of
immortality and pre-existence are carried further in the Phaedrus and
Phaedo; the distinction between opinion and knowledge is more fully
developed in the Theaetetus. The lessons of Prodicus, whom he facetiously
calls his master, are still running in the mind of Socrates. Unlike
the later Platonic Dialogues, the Meno arrives at no conclusion. Hence
we are led to place the Dialogue at some point of time later than the
Protagoras, and earlier than the Phaedrus and Gorgias. The place which
is assigned to it in this work is due mainly to the desire to bring
together in a single volume all the Dialogues which contain allusions to
the trial and death of Socrates.
_On the Ideas of Plato._
[Sidenote: _The popular notion of the ideas of Plato._]
Plato’s doctrine of ideas has attained an imaginary clearness and
definiteness which is not to be found in his own writings. The popular
account of them is partly derived from one or two passages in his
Dialogues interpreted without regard to their poetical environment. It
is due also to the misunderstanding of him by the Aristotelian school;
and the erroneous notion has been further narrowed and has become fixed
by the realism of the schoolmen. This popular view of the Platonic ideas
may be summed up in some such formula as the following: ‘Truth consists
not in particulars, but in universals, which have a place in the mind of
God, or in some far-off heaven. These were revealed to men in a former
state of existence, and are recovered by reminiscence (ἀνάμνησις) or
association from sensible things. The sensible things are not realities,
but shadows only, in relation to the truth.’ These unmeaning propositions
are hardly suspected to be a caricature of a great theory of knowledge,
which Plato in various ways and under many figures of speech is seeking
to unfold. Poetry has been converted into dogma; and it is not remarked
that the Platonic ideas are to be found only in about a third of Plato’s
writings and are not confined to him. The forms which they assume are
numerous, and if taken literally, inconsistent with one another. At one
time we are in the clouds of mythology, at another among the abstractions
of mathematics or metaphysics; we pass imperceptibly from one to the
other. Reason and fancy are mingled in the same passage. The ideas are
sometimes described as many, coextensive with the universals of sense
and also with the first principles of ethics; or again they are absorbed
into the single idea of good, and subordinated to it. They are not more
certain than facts, but they are equally certain (Phaedo 100 A). They
are both personal and impersonal. They are abstract terms: they are also
the causes of things; and they are even transformed into the demons or
spirits by whose help God made the world. And the idea of good (Rep. vi.
505 ff.) may without violence be converted into the Supreme Being, who
‘because He was good’ created all things (Tim. 29 E).
[Sidenote: _Many modes of describing the ideas,_]
It would be a mistake to try and reconcile these differing modes of
thought. They are not to be regarded seriously as having a distinct
meaning. They are parables, prophecies, myths, symbols, revelations,
aspirations after an unknown world. They derive their origin from a deep
religious and contemplative feeling, and also from an observation of
curious mental phenomena. They gather up the elements of the previous
philosophies, which they put together in a new form. Their great
diversity shows the tentative character of early endeavours to think.
They have not yet settled down into a single system. Plato uses them,
though he also criticises them; he acknowledges that both he and others
are always talking about them, especially about the Idea of Good; and
that they are not peculiar to himself (Phaedo 100 B; Rep. vi. 505;
Soph. 248 ff.). But in his later writings he seems to have laid aside
the old forms of them. As he proceeds he makes for himself new modes of
expression more akin to the Aristotelian logic.
Yet amid all these varieties and incongruities, there is a common meaning
or spirit which pervades his writings, both those in which he treats of
the ideas and those in which he is silent about them. This is the spirit
of idealism, which in the history of philosophy has had many names and
taken many forms, and has in a measure influenced those who seemed to
be most averse to it. It has often been charged with inconsistency and
fancifulness, and yet has had an elevating effect on human nature, and
has exercised a wonderful charm and interest over a few spirits who have
been lost in the thought of it. It has been banished again and again,
but has always returned. It has attempted to leave the earth and soar
heavenwards, but soon has found that only in experience could any solid
foundation of knowledge be laid. It has degenerated into pantheism,
but has again emerged. No other knowledge has given an equal stimulus
to the mind. It is the science of sciences, which are also ideas, and
under either aspect require to be defined. They can only be thought
of in due proportion when conceived in relation to one another. They
are the glasses through which the kingdoms of science are seen, but at
a distance. All the greatest minds, except when living in an age of
reaction against them, have unconsciously fallen under their power.
[Sidenote: _but a common meaning or spirit in them._]
The account of the Platonic ideas in the Meno is the simplest and
clearest, and we shall best illustrate their nature by giving this first
and then comparing the manner in which they are described elsewhere, e.
g. in the Phaedrus, Phaedo, Republic; to which may be added the criticism
of them in the Parmenides, the personal form which is attributed to them
in the Timaeus, the logical character which they assume in the Sophist
and Philebus, and the allusion to them in the Laws (xii. 964). In the
Cratylus they dawn upon him with the freshness of a newly-discovered
thought (439).
The Meno (81 ff.) goes back to a former state of existence, in which men
did and suffered good and evil, and received the reward or punishment
of them until their sin was purged away and they were allowed to return
to earth. This is a tradition of the olden time, to which priests and
poets bear witness. The souls of men returning to earth bring back a
latent memory of ideas, which were known to them in a former state. The
recollection is awakened into life and consciousness by the sight of the
things which resemble them on earth. The soul evidently possesses such
innate ideas before she has had time to acquire them. This is proved by
an experiment tried on one of Meno’s slaves, from whom Socrates elicits
truths of arithmetic and geometry, which he had never learned in this
world. He must therefore have brought them with him from another.
The notion of a previous state of existence is found in the verses of
Empedocles and in the fragments of Heracleitus. It was the natural answer
to two questions, ‘Whence came the soul? What is the origin of evil?’ and
prevailed far and wide in the East. It found its way into Hellas probably
though the medium of Orphic and Pythagorean rites and mysteries. It was
easier to think of a former than of a future life, because such a life
has really existed for the race though not for the individual, and all
men come into the world, if not ‘trailing clouds of glory,’ at any rate
able to enter into the inheritance of the past. In the Phaedrus (245
ff.), as well as in the Meno, it is this former rather than a future life
on which Plato is disposed to dwell. There the Gods, and men following
in their train, go forth to contemplate the heavens, and are borne round
in the revolutions of them. There they see the divine forms of justice,
temperance, and the like, in their unchangeable beauty, but not without
an effort more than human. The soul of man is likened to a charioteer
and two steeds, one mortal, the other immortal. The charioteer and the
mortal steed are in fierce conflict; at length the animal principle is
finally overpowered, though not extinguished, by the combined energies of
the passionate and rational elements. This is one of those passages in
Plato which, partaking both of a philosophical and poetical character,
is necessarily indistinct and inconsistent. The magnificent figure under
which the nature of the soul is described has not much to do with the
popular doctrine of the ideas. Yet there is one little trait in the
description which shows that they are present to Plato’s mind, namely,
the remark that the soul, which had seen truths in the form of the
universal (248 C, 249 C), cannot again return to the nature of an animal.
[Sidenote: _The conception of them in Meno, Phaedrus, Phaedo,_]
In the Phaedo, as in the Meno, the origin of ideas is sought for in a
previous state of existence. There was no time when they could have been
acquired in this life, and therefore they must have been recovered from
another. The process of recovery is no other than the ordinary law of
association, by which in daily life the sight of one thing or person
recalls another to our minds, and by which in scientific enquiry from any
part of knowledge we may be led on to infer the whole. It is also argued
that ideas, or rather ideals, must be derived from a previous state of
existence because they are more perfect than the sensible forms of them
which are given by experience (74 ff.). But in the Phaedo the doctrine of
ideas is subordinate to the proof of the immortality of the soul. ‘If the
soul existed in a previous state, then it will exist in a future state,
for a law of alternation pervades all things.’ And, ‘If the ideas exist,
then the soul exists; if not, not.’ It is to be observed, both in the
Meno and the Phaedo, that Socrates expresses himself with diffidence.
He speaks in the Phaedo (114 D, 115 D) of the words with which he has
comforted himself and his friends, and will not be too confident that the
description which he has given of the soul and her mansions is exactly
true, but he ‘ventures to think that something of the kind is true.’
And in the Meno, after dwelling upon the immortality of the soul, he
adds, ‘Of some things which I have said I am not altogether confident’
(cp. 86 C, and Apology, pp. 40 ff.; Gorgias 527 B). From this class of
uncertainties he exempts the difference between truth and appearance, of
which he is absolutely convinced (98 B).
[Sidenote: _in the Republic and Timaeus._]
In the Republic the ideas are spoken of in two ways, which though not
contradictory are different. In the tenth book (596 ff.) they are
represented as the genera or general ideas under which individuals having
a common name are contained. For example, there is the bed which the
carpenter makes, the picture of the bed which is drawn by the painter,
the bed existing in nature of which God is the author. Of the latter
all visible beds are only the shadows or reflections. This and similar
illustrations or explanations are put forth, not for their own sake, or
as an exposition of Plato’s theory of ideas, but with a view of showing
that poetry and the mimetic arts are concerned with an inferior part
of the soul and a lower kind of knowledge. On the other hand, in the
6th and 7th books of the Republic we reach the highest and most perfect
conception, which Plato is able to attain, of the nature of knowledge.
The ideas are now finally seen to be one as well as many, causes as well
as ideas, and to have a unity which is the idea of good and the cause
of all the rest. They seem, however, to have lost their first aspect
of universals under which individuals are contained, and to have been
converted into forms of another kind, which are inconsistently regarded
from the one side as images or ideals of justice, temperance, holiness
and the like; from the other as hypotheses, or mathematical truths or
principles.
In the Timaeus, which in the series of Plato’s works immediately follows
the Republic, though probably written some time afterwards, no mention
occurs of the doctrine of ideas. Geometrical forms and arithmetical
ratios furnish the laws according to which the world is created. But
though the conception of the ideas as genera or species is forgotten or
laid aside, the distinction of the visible and intellectual is as firmly
maintained as ever (30, 37). The _idea_ of good likewise disappears and
is superseded by the conception of a personal God, who works according to
a final cause or principle of goodness which he himself is. No doubt is
expressed by Plato, either in the Timaeus or in any other dialogue, of
the truths which he conceives to be the first and highest. It is not the
existence of God or the idea of good which he approaches in a tentative
or hesitating manner, but the investigations of physiology. These he
regards, not seriously, as a part of philosophy, but as an innocent
recreation (Tim. 59 D).
[Sidenote: _The ideas in the Parmenides, Sophist, Philebus, Laws._]
Passing on to the Parmenides (128-136), we find in that dialogue not
an exposition or defence of the doctrine of ideas, but an assault upon
them, which is put into the mouth of the veteran Parmenides, and might be
ascribed to Aristotle himself, or to one of his disciples. The doctrine
which is assailed takes two or three forms, but fails in any of them to
escape the dialectical difficulties which are urged against it. It is
admitted that there are ideas of all things, but the manner in which
individuals partake of them, whether of the whole or of the part, and
in which they become like them, or how ideas can be either within or
without the sphere of human knowledge, or how the human and divine can
have any relation to each other, is held to be incapable of explanation.
And yet, if there are no universal ideas, what becomes of philosophy?
(Parmenides 130-135). In the Sophist the theory of ideas is spoken of as
a doctrine held not by Plato, but by another sect of philosophers, called
‘the Friends of Ideas,’ probably the Megarians, who were very distinct
from him, if not opposed to him (Sophist 242 ff.). Nor in what may be
termed Plato’s abridgement of the history of philosophy (Soph. 241 ff.),
is any mention made such as we find in the first book of Aristotle’s
Metaphysics, of the derivation of such a theory or of any part of it from
the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, the Heracleiteans, or even from Socrates.
In the Philebus, probably one of the latest of the Platonic Dialogues,
the conception of a personal or semi-personal deity expressed under the
figure of mind, the king of all, who is also the cause, is retained. The
one and many of the Phaedrus and Theaetetus is still working in the mind
of Plato, and the correlation of ideas, not of ‘all with all,’ but of
‘some with some,’ is asserted and explained. But they are spoken of in
a different manner, and are not supposed to be recovered from a former
state of existence. The metaphysical conception of truth passes into
a psychological one, which is continued in the Laws, and is the final
form of the Platonic philosophy, so far as can be gathered from his own
writings (see especially Laws v. 727 ff.). In the Laws he harps once more
on the old string, and returns to general notions:—these he acknowledges
to be many, and yet he insists that they are also one. The guardian must
be made to recognize the truth, for which he has contended long ago in
the Protagoras, that the virtues are four, but they are also in some
sense one (Laws xii. pp. 965-966; cp. Protagoras 329).
So various, and if regarded on the surface only, inconsistent, are the
statements of Plato respecting the doctrine of ideas. If we attempted to
harmonize or to combine them, we should make out of them, not a system,
but the caricature of a system. They are the ever-varying expression
of Plato’s Idealism. The terms used in them are in their substance
and general meaning the same, although they seem to be different.
They pass from the subject to the object, from earth (diesseits) to
heaven (jenseits), without regard to the gulf which later theology and
philosophy have made between them. They are also intended to supplement
or explain each other. They relate to a subject of which Plato himself
would have said that ‘he was not confident of the precise form of his
own statements, but was strong in the belief that something of the kind
was true.’ It is the spirit, not the letter, in which they agree—the
spirit which places the divine above the human, the spiritual above the
material, the one above the many, the mind before the body.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Ancient and modern philosophy._]
The stream of ancient philosophy in the Alexandrian and Roman times
widens into a lake or sea, and then disappears underground to reappear
after many ages in a distant land. It begins to flow again under new
conditions, at first confined between high and narrow banks, but finally
spreading over the continent of Europe. It is and is not the same with
ancient philosophy. There is a great deal in modern philosophy which is
inspired by ancient. There is much in ancient philosophy which was ‘born
out of due time’ and before men were capable of understanding it. To
the fathers of modern philosophy, their own thoughts appeared to be new
and original, but they carried with them an echo or shadow of the past,
coming back by recollection from an elder world. Of this the enquirers
of the seventeenth century, who to themselves appeared to be working out
independently the enquiry into all truth, were unconscious. They stood
in a new relation to theology and natural philosophy, and for a time
maintained towards both an attitude of reserve and separation. Yet the
similarities between modern and ancient thought are greater far than the
differences. All philosophy, even that part of it which is said to be
based upon experience, is really ideal; and ideas are not only derived
from facts, but they are also prior to them and extend far beyond them,
just as the mind is prior to the senses.
[Sidenote: _Modern philosophy has a reminiscence of ancient;_]
Early Greek speculation culminates in the ideas of Plato, or rather in
the single idea of good. His followers, and perhaps he himself, having
arrived at this elevation, instead of going forwards went backwards from
philosophy to psychology, from ideas to numbers. But what we perceive
to be the real meaning of them, an explanation of the nature and origin
of knowledge, will always continue to be one of the first problems of
philosophy.
Plato also left behind him a most potent instrument, the forms of
logic—arms ready for use, but not yet taken out of their armoury. They
were the late birth of the early Greek philosophy, and were the only
part of it which has had an uninterrupted hold on the mind of Europe.
Philosophies come and go; but the detection of fallacies, the framing
of definitions, the invention of methods still continue to be the main
elements of the reasoning process.
[Sidenote: _begins with simple ideas: Descartes._]
Modern philosophy, like ancient, begins with very simple conceptions.
It is almost wholly a reflection on self. It might be described
as a quickening into life of old words and notions latent in the
semi-barbarous Latin, and putting a new meaning into them. Unlike ancient
philosophy, it has been unaffected by impressions derived from outward
nature: it arose within the limits of the mind itself. From the time of
Descartes to Hume and Kant it has had little or nothing to do with facts
of science. On the other hand, the ancient and mediaeval logic retained
a continuous influence over it, and a form like that of mathematics was
easily impressed upon it; the principle of ancient philosophy which is
most apparent in it is scepticism; we must doubt nearly every traditional
or received notion, that we may hold fast one or two. The being of God
in a personal or impersonal form was a mental necessity to the first
thinkers of modern times: from this alone all other ideas could be
deduced. There had been an obscure presentiment of ‘cogito, ergo sum’
more than 2000 years previously. The Eleatic notion that being and
thought were the same was revived in a new form by Descartes. But now it
gave birth to consciousness and self-reflection: it awakened the ‘ego’
in human nature. The mind naked and abstract has no other certainty but
the conviction of its own existence. ‘I think, therefore I am;’ and this
thought is God thinking in me, who has also communicated to the reason of
man his own attributes of thought and extension—these are truly imparted
to him because God is true (cp. Rep. ii. 382 ff.). It has been often
remarked that Descartes, having begun by dismissing all presuppositions,
introduces several: he passes almost at once from scepticism to
dogmatism. It is more important for the illustration of Plato to observe
that he, like Plato, insists that God is true and incapable of deception
(Rep. ii. 382)—that he proceeds from general ideas, that many elements
of mathematics may be found in him. A certain influence of mathematics
both on the form and substance of their philosophy is discernible in
both of them. After making the greatest opposition between thought and
extension, Descartes, like Plato, supposes them to be reunited for a
time, not in their own nature but by a special divine act (cp. Phaedrus
246 C), and he also supposes all the parts of the human body to meet
in the pineal gland, that alone affording a principle of unity in the
material frame of man. It is characteristic of the first period of modern
philosophy, that having begun (like the Presocratics) with a few general
notions, Descartes first falls absolutely under their influence, and then
quickly discards them. At the same time he is less able to observe facts,
because they are too much magnified by the glasses through which they
are seen. The common logic says ‘the greater the extension, the less the
comprehension,’ and we may put the same thought in another way and say of
abstract or general ideas, that the greater the abstraction of them, the
less are they capable of being applied to particular and concrete natures.
[Sidenote: _Parallels of ancient and modern philosophy._]
Not very different from Descartes in his relation to ancient philosophy
is his successor Spinoza, who lived in the following generation. The
system of Spinoza is less personal and also less dualistic that than
of Descartes. In this respect the difference between them is like that
between Xenophanes and Parmenides. The teaching of Spinoza might be
described generally as the Jewish religion reduced to an abstraction
and taking the form of the Eleatic philosophy. Like Parmenides, he is
overpowered and intoxicated with the idea of Being or God. The greatness
of both philosophies consists in the immensity of a thought which
excludes all other thoughts; their weakness is the necessary separation
of this thought from actual existence and from practical life. In neither
of them is there any clear opposition between the inward and outward
world. The substance of Spinoza has two attributes, which alone are
cognizable by man, thought and extension; these are in extreme opposition
to one another, and also in inseparable identity. They may be regarded as
the two aspects or expressions under which God or substance is unfolded
to man. Here a step is made beyond the limits of the Eleatic philosophy.
The famous theorem of Spinoza, ‘Omnis determinatio est negatio,’ is
already contained in the ‘negation is relation’ of Plato’s Sophist. The
grand description of the philosopher in Republic vi, as the spectator
of all time and all existence, may be paralleled with another famous
expression of Spinoza, ‘Contemplatio rerum sub specie eternitatis.’
According to Spinoza finite objects are unreal, for they are conditioned
by what is alien to them, and by one another. Human beings are included
in the number of them. Hence there is no reality in human action and no
place for right and wrong. Individuality is accident. The boasted freedom
of the will is only a consciousness of necessity. Truth, he says, is the
direction of the reason towards the infinite, in which all things repose;
and herein lies the secret of man’s well-being. In the exaltation of the
reason or intellect, in the denial of the voluntariness of evil (Timaeus
86 C, D; Laws, ix. 860), Spinoza approaches nearer to Plato than in
his conception of an infinite substance. As Plato, following Socrates,
said that virtue is knowledge, so Spinoza would have maintained that
knowledge alone is good, and what contributes to knowledge, useful. Both
are equally far from any real experience or observation of nature. And
the same difficulty is found in both when we seek to apply their ideas to
life and practice. There is a gulf fixed between the infinite substance
and finite objects or individuals of Spinoza, just as there is between
the ideas of Plato and the world of sense.
Removed from Spinoza by less than a generation is the philosopher
Leibnitz, who after deepening and intensifying the opposition between
mind and matter, reunites them by his preconcerted harmony (cp. again
Phaedrus 246 C). To him all the particles of matter are living beings
which reflect on one another, and in the least of them the whole is
contained. Here we catch a reminiscence both of the ὁμοιομερῆ or similar
particles of Anaxagoras, and of the world-animal of the Timaeus.
[Sidenote: _Spinoza, Leibnitz, Bacon, Locke, Berkeley, Hume._]
In Bacon and Locke we have another development in which the mind of
man is supposed to receive knowledge by a new method and to work by
observation and experience. But we may remark that it is the idea of
experience, rather than experience itself, with which the mind is filled.
It is a symbol of knowledge rather than the reality which is vouchsafed
to us. The Organon of Bacon is not much nearer to actual facts than the
Organon of Aristotle or the Platonic idea of good. Many of the old rags
and ribbons which defaced the garment of philosophy have been stripped
off, but some of them still adhere. A crude conception of the ideas of
Plato survives in the ‘forms’ of Bacon. And on the other hand, there
are many passages of Plato in which the importance of the investigation
of facts is as much insisted upon as by Bacon. Both are almost equally
superior to the illusions of language, and are constantly crying out
against them, as against other idols.
Locke cannot be truly regarded as the author of sensationalism any
more than of idealism. His system is based upon experience, but with
him experience includes reflection as well as sense. His analysis and
construction of ideas has no foundation in fact; it is only the dialectic
of the mind ‘talking to herself.’ The philosophy of Berkeley is but the
use of one word instead of two, which have the same meaning with it. For
objects of sense he would substitute sensations. He imagines himself
to have changed the relation of the human mind towards God and nature;
they remain the same as before, though he has drawn the imaginary line
by which they are divided at a different point. He has annihilated the
outward world, but it instantly reappears governed by the same laws and
described under the same names.
[Sidenote: _Philosophy and the history of philosophy._]
A like remark applies to David Hume, of whose philosophy the central
principle is the denial of the relation of cause and effect. He would
deprive men of a familiar term which they can ill afford to lose; but he
seems not to have observed that this alteration is merely verbal and does
not in any degree affect the nature of things. Still less did he remark
that he was arguing from the necessary imperfection of language against
the most certain facts. And here, again, we may find a parallel with the
ancients. He goes beyond facts in his scepticism, as they did in their
idealism. Like the ancient Sophists, he relegates the more important
principles of ethics to custom and probability. But crude and unmeaning
as this philosophy is, it exercised a great influence on his successors,
not unlike that which Locke exercised upon Berkeley and Berkeley upon
Hume himself. All three were both sceptical and ideal in almost equal
degrees. Neither they nor their predecessors had any true conception
of language or of the history of philosophy. Hume’s paradox has been
forgotten by the world, and did not any more than the scepticism of the
ancients require to be seriously refuted. Like some other philosophical
paradoxes, it would have been better left to die out. It certainly could
not be refuted by a philosophy such as Kant’s, in which, no less than
in the previously mentioned systems, the history of the human mind and
the nature of language are almost wholly ignored, and the certainty of
objective knowledge is transferred to the subject; while absolute truth
is reduced to a figment, more abstract and narrow than Plato’s ideas, of
‘thing in itself,’ to which, if we reason strictly, no predicate can be
applied.
[Sidenote: _Possibility of a new method._]
The question which Plato has raised respecting the origin and nature of
ideas belongs to the infancy of philosophy; in modern times it would no
longer be asked. Their origin is only their history, so far as we know
it; there can be no other. We may trace them in language, in philosophy,
in mythology, in poetry, but we cannot argue _à priori_ about them. We
may attempt to shake them off, but they are always returning, and in
every sphere of science and human action are tending to go beyond facts.
They are thought to be innate, because they have been familiar to us
all our lives, and we can no longer dismiss them from our mind. Many of
them express relations of terms to which nothing exactly or nothing at
all _in rerum naturâ_ corresponds. We are not such free agents in the
use of them as we sometimes imagine. Fixed ideas have taken the most
complete possession of some thinkers who have been most determined to
renounce them, and have been vehemently affirmed when they could be least
explained and were incapable of proof. The world has often been led away
by a word to which no distinct meaning could be attached. Abstractions
such as ‘authority,’ ‘equality,’ ‘utility,’ ‘liberty,’ ‘pleasure,’
‘experience,’ ‘consciousness,’ chance,’ ‘substance,’ ‘matter,’ ‘atom,’
and a heap of other metaphysical and theological terms, are the source of
quite as much error and illusion and have as little relation to actual
facts as the ‘ideas’ of Plato. Few students of theology or philosophy
have sufficiently reflected how quickly the bloom of a philosophy passes
away; or how hard it is for one age to understand the writings of
another; or how nice a judgment is required of those who are seeking to
express the philosophy of one age in the terms of another. The ‘eternal
truths’ of which metaphysicians speak have hardly ever lasted more than
a generation. In our own day schools or systems of philosophy which have
once been famous have died before the founders of them. We are still, as
in Plato’s age, groping about for a new method more comprehensive than
any of those which now prevail; and also more permanent. And we seem to
see at a distance the promise of such a method, which can hardly be any
other than the method of idealized experience, having roots which strike
far down into the history of philosophy. It is a method which does not
divorce the present from the past, or the part from the whole, or the
abstract from the concrete, or theory from fact, or the divine from the
human, or one science from another, but labours to connect them. Along
such a road we have proceeded a few steps, sufficient, perhaps, to make
us reflect on the want of method which prevails in our own day. In
another age, all the branches of knowledge, whether relating to God or
man or nature, will become the knowledge of ‘the revelation of a single
science’ (Symp. 210, 211), and all things, like the stars in heaven, will
shed their light upon one another.