CHAPTER XIII.

HIPPIAS MAJOR--HIPPIAS MINOR.

[Side-note: Hippias Major--situation supposed--character of the

dialogue. Sarcasm and mockery against Hippias.]

Both these two dialogues are carried on between Sokrates and the

Eleian Sophist Hippias. The general conception of Hippias--described

as accomplished, eloquent, and successful, yet made to say vain and

silly things--is the same in both dialogues: in both also the

polemics of Sokrates against him are conducted in a like spirit, of

affected deference mingled with insulting sarcasm. Indeed the figure

assigned to Hippias is so contemptible, that even an admiring critic

like Stallbaum cannot avoid noticing the "petulans pene et proterva

in Hippiam oratio," and intimating that Plato has handled Hippias

more coarsely than any one else. Such petulance Stallbaum attempts to

excuse by saying that the dialogue is a youthful composition of

Plato:[1] while Schleiermacher numbers it among the reasons for

suspecting the dialogue, and Ast, among the reasons for declaring

positively that Plato is not the author.[2] This last conclusion I do

not at all accept: nor even the hypothesis of Stallbaum, if it be

tendered as an excuse for improprieties of tone: for I believe that

the earliest of Plato's dialogues was composed after he was

twenty-eight years of age--that is, after the death of Sokrates. It is

however noway improbable, that both the Greater and Lesser Hippias

may have been among Plato's earlier compositions. We see by the

Memorabilia of Xenophon that there was repeated and acrimonious

controversy between Sokrates and Hippias: so that we may probably

suppose feelings of special dislike, determining Plato to compose two

distinct dialogues, in which an imaginary Hippias is mocked and

scourged by an imaginary Sokrates.

[Footnote 1: Stallbaum, Prolegg. in Hipp. Maj. p. 149-150; also

Steinhart (Einleitung, p. 42-43), who says, after an outpouring of

his usual invective against the Sophist: "Nevertheless the coarse

jesting of the dialogue seems almost to exceed the admissible limit

of comic effect," &c. Again, p. 50, Steinhart talks of the banter

which Sokrates carries on with Hippias, in a way not less cruel

(grausam) than purposeless, tormenting him with a string of

successive new propositions about the definition of the Beautiful,

which propositions, as fast as Hippias catches at them, he again

withdraws of his own accord, and thus at last dismisses him (as he

had dismissed Ion) uninstructed and unimproved, without even leaving

behind in him the sting of anger, &c.

It requires a powerful hatred against the persons called Sophists, to

make a critic take pleasure in a comedy wherein silly and ridiculous

speeches are fastened upon the name of one of them, in his own day

not merely honoured but acknowledged as deserving honour by

remarkable and varied accomplishments--and to make the critic

describe the historical Hippias (whom we only know from Plato and

Xenophon--see Steinhart, note 7, p. 89; Socher, p. 221) as if he had

really delivered these speeches, or something equally absurd.

How this comedy may be appreciated is doubtless a matter of

individual taste. For my part, I agree with Ast in thinking it

misplaced and unbecoming: and I am not surprised that he wishes to

remove the dialogue from the Platonic canon, though I do not concur

either in this inference, or in the general principle on which it

proceeds, viz., that all objections against the composition of a

dialogue are to be held as being also objections against its

genuineness as a work of Plato. The Nubes of Aristophanes, greatly

superior as a comedy to the Hippias of Plato, is turned to an abusive

purpose when critics put it into court as evidence about the

character of the real Sokrates.

K. F. Hermann, in my judgment, takes a more rational view of the

Hippias Major (Gesch. und Syst. der Plat. Phil. p. 487-647). Instead

of expatiating on the glory of Plato in deriding an accomplished

contemporary, he dwells upon the logical mistakes and confusion which

the dialogue brings to view; and he reminds us justly of the

intellectual condition of the age, when even elementary distinctions

in logic and grammar had been scarcely attended to.

Both K. F. Hermann and Socher consider the Hippias to be not a

juvenile production of Plato, but to belong to his middle age.]

[Footnote 2: Schleierm. Einleitung. p. 401; Ast, Platon's Leben und

Schriften, p. 457-459.]

[Side-note: Real debate between the historical Sokrates and

Hippias in the Xenophontic Memorabilia--subject of that debate.]

One considerable point in the Hippias Major appears to have a bearing

on the debate between Sokrates and Hippias in the Xenophontic

Memorabilia: in which debate, Hippias taunts Sokrates with always

combating and deriding the opinions of others, while evading to give

opinions of his own. It appears that some antecedent debates between

the two had turned upon the definition of the Just, and that on these

occasions Hippias had been the respondent, Sokrates the objector.

Hippias professes to have reflected upon these debates, and to be now

prepared with a definition which neither Sokrates nor any one else

can successfully assail, but he will not say what the definition is,

until Sokrates has laid down one of his own. In reply to this

challenge, Sokrates declares the Just to be equivalent to the Lawful

or Customary: he defends this against various objections of

Hippias, who concludes by admitting it.[3] Probably this debate, as

reported by Xenophon, or something very like it, really took place.

If so, we remark with surprise the feebleness of the objections of

Hippias, in a case where Sokrates, if he had been the objector, would

have found such strong ones--and the feeble replies given by

Sokrates, whose talent lay in starting and enforcing difficulties,

not in solving them.[4] Among the remarks which Sokrates makes in

illustration to Hippias, one is--that Lykurgus had ensured

superiority to Sparta by creating in the Spartans a habit of implicit

obedience to the laws.[5] Such is the character of the Xenophontic

debate.

[Footnote 3: Xenoph. Mem. iv. 4, 12-25.]

[Footnote 4: Compare the puzzling questions which Alkibiades when a

youth is reported to have addressed to Perikles, and which he must

unquestionably have heard from Sokrates himself, respecting the

meaning of the word [Greek: No/mos] (Xen. Mem. i. 2, 42). All the

difficulties in determining the definition of [Greek: No/mos], occur

also in determining that of [Greek: No/mimon], which includes both

Jus Scriptum and Jus Moribus Receptum.]

[Footnote 5: Xen. Mem. iv. 4, 15.]

[Side-note: Opening of the Hippias Major--Hippias describes the

successful circuit which he had made through Greece, and the renown

as well as the gain acquired by his lectures.]

Here, in the beginning of the Hippias Major, the Platonic Sokrates

remarks that Hippias has been long absent from Athens: which absence,

the latter explains, by saying that he has visited many cities in

Greece, giving lectures with great success, and receiving high pay:

and that especially he has often visited Sparta, partly to give

lectures, but partly also to transact diplomatic business for his

countrymen the Eleians, who trusted him more than any one else for

such duties. His lectures (he says) were eminently instructive and

valuable for the training of youth: moreover they were so generally

approved, that even from a small Sicilian town called Inykus, he

obtained a considerable sum in fees.

[Side-note: Hippias had met with no success at Sparta. Why the

Spartans did not admit his instructions--their law forbids.]

Upon this Sokrates asks--In which of the cities were your gains the

largest: probably at Sparta? _Hip._--No; I received nothing at

all at Sparta. _Sokr._--How? You amaze me! Were not your

lectures calculated to improve the Spartan youth? or did not the

Spartans desire to have their youth improved? or had they no money?

_Hip._--Neither one nor the other. The Spartans, like others,

desire the improvement of their youth: they also have plenty of

money: moreover my lectures were very beneficial to them as well

as to the rest.[6] _Sokr._--How could it happen then, that at

Sparta, a city great and eminent for its good laws, your valuable

instructions were left unrewarded; while you received so much at the

inconsiderable town of Inykus? _Hip._--It is not the custom of

the country, Sokrates, for the Spartans to change their laws, or to

educate their sons in a way different from their ordinary routine.

_Sokr._--How say you? It is not the custom of the country for

the Spartans to do right, but to do wrong? _Hip._--I shall not

say that, Sokrates. _Sokr._--But surely they would do right, in

educating their children better and not worse? _Hip._--Yes, they

would do right: but it is not lawful for them to admit a foreign mode

of education. If any one could have obtained payment there for

education, I should have obtained a great deal; for they listen to me

with delight and applaud me: but, as I told you, their law forbids.

[Footnote 6: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 283-284.]

[Side-note: Question, What is law? The law-makers always aim at

the Profitable, but sometimes fail to attain it. When they fail, they

fail to attain law. The lawful is the Profitable: the Unprofitable is

also unlawful.]

_Sokr._--Do you call law a hurt or benefit to the city?

_Hip._--Law is enacted with a view to benefit: but it sometimes

hurts if it be badly enacted.[7] _Sokr._--But what? Do not the

enactors enact it as the maximum of good, without which the citizens

cannot live a regulated life? _Hip._--Certainly: they do so.

_Sokr._--Therefore, when those who try to enact laws miss the

attainment of good, they also miss the lawful and law itself. How say

you? _Hip._--They do so, if you speak with strict propriety: but

such is not the language which men commonly use. _Sokr._--What

men? the knowing? or the ignorant? _Hip._--The Many.

_Sokr._--The Many; is it _they_ who know what truth is?

_Hip._--Assuredly not. _Sokr._--But surely those who do

know, account the profitable to be in truth more lawful than the

unprofitable, to all men. Don't you admit this? _Hip._--Yes, I

admit they account it so in truth. _Sokr._--Well, and it is so,

too: the truth is as the knowing men account it. _Hip._--Most

certainly. _Sokr._--Now you affirm, that it is more profitable

to the Spartans to be educated according to your scheme, foreign as

it is, than according to their own native scheme. _Hip._--I

affirm it, and with truth too. _Sokr._--You affirm besides,

that things more profitable are at the same time more lawful?

_Hip._--I said so. _Sokr._--According to your reasoning,

then, it is more lawful for the Spartan children to be educated by

Hippias, and more unlawful for them to be educated by their fathers--

if in reality they will be more benefited by you? _Hip._--But

they will be more benefited by me. _Sokr._--The Spartans

therefore act unlawfully, when they refuse to give you money and to

confide to you their sons? _Hip._--I admit that they do: indeed

your reasoning seems to make in my favour, so that I am noway called

upon to resist it. _Sokr._--We find then, after all, that the

Spartans are enemies of law, and that too in the most important

matters--though they are esteemed the most exemplary followers of

law.[8]

[Footnote 7: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 284 C-B.]

[Footnote 8: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 285.]

* * * * *

[Side-note: Comparison of the argument of the Platonic Sokrates

with that of the Xenophontic Sokrates.]

Perhaps Plato intended the above argument as a derisory taunt against

the Sophist Hippias, for being vain enough to think his own tuition

better than that of the Spartan community. If such was his intention,

the argument might have been retorted against Plato himself, for his

propositions in the Republic and Leges: and we know that the enemies

of Plato did taunt him with his inability to get these schemes

adopted in any actual community. But the argument becomes interesting

when we compare it with the debate before referred to in the

Xenophontic Memorabilia, where Sokrates maintains against Hippias

that the Just is equivalent to the Lawful. In that Xenophontic

dialogue, all the difficulties which embarrass this explanation are

kept out of sight, and Sokrates is represented as gaining an easy

victory over Hippias. In this Platonic dialogue, the equivocal use of

the word [Greek: no/mimon] is expressly adverted to, and Sokrates

reduces Hippias to a supposed absurdity, by making him pronounce the

Spartans to be enemies of law: [Greek: paranomou/s] bearing a double

sense, and the proposition being true in one sense, false in the

other. In the argument of the Platonic Sokrates, a law which does not

attain its intended purpose of benefiting the community, is no

law at all,--not lawful:[9] so that we are driven back again upon the

objections of Alkibiades against Perikles (in the Xenophontic

Memorabilia) in regard to what constitutes a law. In the argument of

the Xenophontic Sokrates, law means a law actually established, by

official authority or custom--and the Spartans are produced as

eminent examples of a lawfully minded community. As far as we can

assign positive opinion to the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias

Major, he declares that the profitable or useful (being that which

men always aim at in making law) is The Lawful, whether actually

established or not: and that the unprofitable or hurtful (being that

which men always intend to escape) is The Unlawful, whether

prescribed by any living authority or not. This (he says) is the

opinion of the wise men who know: though the ignorant vulgar hold the

contrary opinion. The explanation of [Greek: to\ di/kaion] given by

the Xenophontic Sokrates ([Greek: to\ di/kaion = to\ no/mimon]),

would be equivalent, if we construe [Greek: to\ no/mimon] in the

sense of the Platonic Sokrates (in Hippias Major) as an affirmation

that The Just was the generally useful--[Greek: To\ di/kaion = to\

koinê=| su/mphoron].

[Footnote 9: Compare a similar argument of Sokrates against

Thrasymachus--Republic, i. 339.]

[Side-note: The Just or Good is the beneficial or profitable.

This is the only explanation which Plato ever gives and to this he

does not always adhere.]

There exists however in all this, a prevalent confusion between Law

(or the Lawful) as actually established, and Law (or the Lawful) as

it ought to be established, in the judgment of the critic, or of

those whom he follows: that is (to use the phrase of Mr. Austin in

his 'Province of Jurisprudence') Law as it would be, if it conformed

to its assumed measure or test. In the first of these senses, [Greek:

to\ no/mimon] is not one and the same, but variable according to

place and time--one thing at Sparta, another thing elsewhere:

accordingly it would not satisfy the demand of Plato's mind, when he

asks for an explanation of [Greek: to\ di/kaion]. It is an

explanation in the second of the two senses which Plato seeks--a

common measure or test applicable universally, at all times and

places. In so far as he ever finds one, it is that which I have

mentioned above as delivered by the Platonic Sokrates in this

dialogue: viz., the Just or Good, that which ought to be the measure

or test of Law and Positive Morality, is, the beneficial or

profitable. This (I repeat) is the only approach to a solution which

we ever find in Plato. But this is seldom clearly enunciated, never

systematically followed out, and sometimes, in appearance, even

denied.

* * * * *

[Side-note: Lectures of Hippias at Sparta not upon geometry, or

astronomy, &c., but upon the question--What pursuits are

beautiful, fine, and honourable for youth.]

I resume the thread of the Hippias Major. Sokrates asks Hippias what

sort of lectures they were that he delivered with so much success at

Sparta? The Spartans (Hippias replies) knew nothing and cared nothing

about letters, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy: but they took delight

in hearing tales about heroes, early ancestors, foundation-legends of

cities, &c., which his mnemonic artifice enabled him to

deliver.[10] The Spartans delight in you (observes Sokrates) as

children delight in old women's tales. Yes (replies Hippias), but

that is not all: I discoursed to them also, recently, about fine and

honourable pursuits, much to their admiration: I supposed a

conversation between Nestor and Neoptolemus, after the capture of

Troy, in which the veteran, answering a question put by his youthful

companion, enlarged upon those pursuits which it was fine,

honourable, beautiful for a young man to engage in. My discourse is

excellent, and obtained from the Spartans great applause. I am going

to deliver it again here at Athens, in the school-room of

Pheidostratus, and I invite you, Sokrates, to come and hear it, with

as many friends as you can bring.[11]

[Footnote 10: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 285 E.]

[Footnote 11: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 286 A-B.]

[Side-note: Question put by Sokrates, in the name of a friend in

the background, who has just been puzzling him with it--What is the

Beautiful?]

I shall come willingly (replied Sokrates). But first answer me one

small question, which will rescue me from a present embarrassment.

Just now, I was shamefully puzzled in conversation with a friend, to

whom I had been praising some things as honourable and

beautiful,--blaming other things as mean and ugly. He surprised me by

the interrogation--How do you know, Sokrates, what things are beautiful,

and what are ugly? Come now, can you tell me, What is the Beautiful?

I, in my stupidity, was altogether puzzled, and could not answer the

question. But after I had parted from him, I became mortified and

angry with myself; and I vowed that the next time I met any wise man,

like you, I would put the question to him, and learn how to answer

it; so that I might be able to renew the conversation with my friend.

Your coming here is most opportune. I entreat you to answer and

explain to me clearly what the Beautiful is; in order that I may not

again incur the like mortification. You can easily answer: it is a

small matter for you, with your numerous attainments.

[Side-note: Hippias thinks the question easy to answer.]

Oh--yes--a small matter (replies Hippias); the question is easy to

answer. I could teach you to answer many questions harder than that:

so that no man shall be able to convict you in dialogue.[12]

[Footnote 12: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 286 C-D.]

Sokrates then proceeds to interrogate Hippias, in the name of the

absentee, starting one difficulty after another as if suggested by

this unknown prompter, and pretending to be himself under awe of so

impracticable a disputant.

[Side-note: Justice, Wisdom, Beauty must each be something.

What is Beauty, or the Beautiful?]

All persons are just, through Justice--wise, through Wisdom--good,

through Goodness or the Good--beautiful, through Beauty or the

Beautiful. Now Justice, Wisdom, Goodness, Beauty or the Beautiful,

must each be _something_. Tell me what the Beautiful is?

[Side-note: Hippias does not understand the question. He

answers by indicating one particularly beautiful object.]

Hippias does not conceive the question. Does the man want to know

what is a beautiful thing? _Sokr._--No; he wants to know what is

_The Beautiful_. _Hip._--I do not see the difference. I

answer that a beautiful maiden is a beautiful thing. No one can deny

that.[13]

[Footnote 13: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 287 A.]

_Sokr._--My disputatious friend will not accept your answer. He

wants you to tell him, What is the Self-Beautiful?--that Something

through which all beautiful things become beautiful. Am I to tell

him, it is because a beautiful maiden is a beautiful thing? He will

say--Is not a beautiful mare a beautiful thing also? and a beautiful

lyre as well? _Hip._--Yes;--both of them are so. _Sokr._--Ay,

and a beautiful pot, my friend will add, well moulded and rounded

by a skilful potter, is a beautiful thing too. _Hip._--How,

Sokrates? Who can your disputatious friend be? Some ill-taught

man, surely; since he introduces such trivial names into a dignified

debate. _Sokr._--Yes; that is his character: not polite, but

vulgar, anxious for nothing else but the truth. _Hip._--A pot,

if it be beautifully made, must certainly be called beautiful; yet

still, all such objects are unworthy to be counted as beautiful, if

compared with a maiden, a mare, or a lyre.

[Side-note: Cross-questioning by Sokrates--Other things also

are beautiful; but each thing is beautiful only by comparison, or

under some particular circumstances--it is sometimes beautiful,

sometimes not beautiful.]

_Sokr._--I understand. You follow the analogy suggested by

Herakleitus in his dictum--That the most beautiful ape is ugly, if

compared with the human race. So you say, the most beautiful pot is

ugly, when compared with the race of maidens. _Hip_--Yes. That

is my meaning. _Sokr._--Then my friend will ask you in return,

whether the race of maidens is not as much inferior to the race of

Gods, as the pot to the maiden? whether the most beautiful maiden

will not appear ugly, when compared to a Goddess? whether the wisest

of men will not appear an ape, when compared to the Gods, either in

beauty or in wisdom.[14] _Hip._--No one can dispute it.

_Sokr._--My friend will smile and say--You forget what was the

question put. I asked you, What is the Beautiful?--the

Self-Beautiful: and your answer gives me, as the Self-Beautiful,

something which you yourself acknowledge to be no more beautiful than

ugly? If I had asked you, from the first, what it was that was both

beautiful and ugly, your answer would have been pertinent to the

question. Can you still think that the Self-Beautiful,--that

Something, by the presence of which all other things become

beautiful,--is a maiden, or a mare, or a lyre?

[Footnote 14: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 289.]

[Side-note: Second answer of Hippias--_Gold_, is that by

the presence of which all things become beautiful--scrutiny applied

to the answer. Complaint by Hippias about vulgar analogies.]

_Hip._--I have another answer to which your friend can take no

exception. That, by the presence of which all things become

beautiful, is Gold. What was before ugly, will (we all know), when

ornamented with gold, appear beautiful. _Sokr._--You little know

what sort of man my friend is. He will laugh at your answer, and ask

you--Do you think, then, that Pheidias did not know his profession as

a sculptor? How came he not to make the statue of Athênê all

gold, instead of making (as he has done) the face, hands, and feet of

ivory, and the pupils of the eyes of a particular stone? Is not ivory

also beautiful, and particular kinds of stone? _Hip._--Yes, each

is beautiful, where it is becoming. _Sokr._--And ugly, where it

is not becoming.[15] _Hip._--Doubtless. I admit that what is

becoming or suitable, makes that to which it is applied appear

beautiful: that which is not becoming or suitable, makes it appear

ugly. _Sokr._--My friend will next ask you, when you are boiling

the beautiful pot of which we spoke just now, full of beautiful soup,

what sort of ladle will be suitable and becoming--one made of gold,

or of fig-tree wood? Will not the golden ladle spoil the soup, and

the wooden ladle turn it out good? Is not the wooden ladle,

therefore, better than the golden? _Hip._--By Hêraklês,

Sokrates! what a coarse and stupid fellow your friend is! I cannot

continue to converse with a man who talks of such matters.

_Sokr._--I am not surprised that you, with your fine attire and

lofty reputation, are offended with these low allusions. But I have

nothing to spoil by intercourse with this man; and I entreat you to

persevere, as a favour to me. He will ask you whether a wooden

soup-ladle is not more beautiful than a ladle of gold,--since it is more

suitable and becoming? So that though you said--The Self-Beautiful is

Gold--you are now obliged to acknowledge that gold is not more

beautiful than fig-tree wood?

[Footnote 15: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 290.]

[Side-note: Third answer of Hippias--questions upon it--proof

given that it fails of universal application.]

_Hip._--I acknowledge that it is so. But I have another answer

ready which will silence your friend. I presume you wish me to

indicate as The Beautiful, something which will never appear ugly to

any one, at any time, or at any place.[16] _Sokr._--That is

exactly what I desire. _Hip._--Well, I affirm, then, that to

every man, always, and everywhere, the following is most beautiful. A

man being healthy, rich, honoured by the Greeks, having come to old

age and buried his own parents well, to be himself buried by his own

sons well and magnificently. _Sokr._--Your answer sounds

imposing; but my friend will laugh it to scorn, and will remind me

again, that his question pointed to the Beautiful

_itself_[17]--something which, being present as attribute in any

subject, will make that subject (whether stone, wood, man, God,

action, study, &c.) beautiful. Now that which you have asserted

to be beautiful to every one everywhere, was not beautiful to

Achilles, who accepted by preference the lot of dying before his

father--nor is it so to the heroes, or to the sons of Gods, who do

not survive or bury their fathers. To some, therefore, what you

specify is beautiful--to others it is not beautiful but ugly: that

is, it is both beautiful and ugly, like the maiden, the lyre, the

pot, on which we have already remarked. _Hip._--I did not speak

about the Gods or Heroes. Your friend is intolerable, for touching on

such profanities.[18] _Sokr._--However, you cannot deny that

what you have indicated is beautiful only for the sons of men, and

not for the sons of Gods. My friend will thus make good his reproach

against your answer. He will tell me, that all the answers, which we

have as yet given, are too absurd. And he may perhaps at the same

time himself suggest another, as he sometimes does in pity for my

embarrassment.

[Footnote 16: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 291 C-D.]

[Footnote 17: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 292 D.]

[Footnote 18: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 293 B.]

[Side-note: Farther answers, suggested by Sokrates himself--1.

The Suitable or Becoming--objections thereunto--it is rejected.]

Sokrates then mentions, as coming from hints of the absent friend,

three or four different explanations of the Self-Beautiful: each of

which, when first introduced, he approves, and Hippias approves also:

but each of which he proceeds successively to test and condemn. It is

to be remarked that all of them are general explanations: not

consisting in conspicuous particular instances, like those which had

come from Hippias. His explanations are the following:--

1. The suitable or becoming (which had before been glanced at). It is

the suitable or becoming which constitutes the Beautiful.[19]

[Footnote 19: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 293 E.]

To this Sokrates objects: The suitable, or becoming, is what causes

objects to _appear_ beautiful--not what causes them to _be

really_ beautiful. Now the latter is that which we are seeking.

The two conditions do not always go together. Those objects,

institutions, and pursuits which _are really_ beautiful (fine,

honourable) very often do not appear so, either to individuals or to

cities collectively; so that there is perpetual dispute and

fighting on the subject. The suitable or becoming, therefore, as it

is certainly what makes objects appear beautiful, so it cannot be

what makes them really beautiful.[20]

[Footnote 20: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 294 B-E.]

[Side-note: 2. The useful or profitable--objections--it will

not hold.]

2. The useful or profitable.--We call objects beautiful, looking to

the purpose which they are calculated or intended to serve: the human

body, with a view to running, wrestling, and other exercises--a

horse, an ox, a cock, looking to the service required from

them--implements, vehicles on land and ships at sea, instruments for

music and other arts all upon the same principle, looking to the end

which they accomplish or help to accomplish. Laws and pursuits are

characterised in the same way. In each of these, we give the name

Beautiful to the useful, in so far as it is useful, when it is

useful, and for the purpose to which it is useful. To that which is

useless or hurtful, in the same manner, we give the name Ugly.[21]

[Footnote 21: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 295 C-D.]

Now that which is capable of accomplishing each end, is useful for

such end: that which is incapable, is useless. It is therefore

capacity, or power, which is beautiful: incapacity, or impotence, is

ugly.[22]

[Footnote 22: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 295 E. [Greek: Ou)kou=n to\ dunato\n

e(/kaston a)perga/zesthai, ei)s o(/per dunato/n, ei)s tou=to kai\

chrê/simon; to\ de\ a)du/naton a)/chrêston? . . . . Du/namis me\n

a)/ra kalo/n--a)dunami/a de\ ai)schro/n?]]

Most certainly (replies Hippias): this is especially true in our

cities and communities, wherein political power is the finest thing

possible, political impotence, the meanest.

Yet, on closer inspection (continues Sokrates), such a theory will

not hold. Power is employed by all men, though unwillingly, for bad

purposes: and each man, through such employment of his power, does

much more harm than good, beginning with his childhood. Now power,

which is useful for the doing of evil, can never be called

beautiful.[23]

[Footnote 23: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 296 C-D.]

You cannot therefore say that Power, taken absolutely, is beautiful.

You must add the qualification--Power used for the production of some

good, is beautiful. This, then, would be the profitable--the cause or

generator of good.[24] But the cause is different from its effect:

the generator or father is different from the generated or son.

The beautiful would, upon this view, be the cause of the good. But

then the beautiful would be different from the good, and the good

different from the beautiful? Who can admit this? It is obviously

wrong: it is the most ridiculous theory which we have yet hit

upon.[25]

[Footnote 24: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 297 B.]

[Footnote 25: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 297 D-E. [Greek: ei) oi(=o/n t'

e)sti/n, e(kei/nôn ei)=nai (kinduneu/ei) geloio/teros tô=n

prô/tôn.]]

[Side-note: 3. The Beautiful is a variety of the Pleasurable--that

which is received through the eye and the ear.]

3. The Beautiful is a particular variety of the agreeable or

pleasurable: that which characterises those things which cause

pleasure to us through sight and hearing. Thus the men, the

ornaments, the works of painting or sculpture, upon which we look

with admiration,[26] are called beautiful: also songs, music, poetry,

fable, discourse, in like manner; nay even laws, customs, pursuits,

which we consider beautiful, might be brought under the same

head.[27]

[Footnote 26: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 298 A-B.]

[Footnote 27: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 298 D.

Professor Bain observes:--"The eye and the ear are the great avenues

to the mind for the æsthetic class of influences; the other senses

are more or less in the monopolist interest. The blue sky, the green

woods, and all the beauties of the landscape, can fill the vision of

a countless throng of admirers. So with the pleasing sounds, &c."

'The Emotions and the Will.' ch. xiv. (The Æsthetic Emotions), sect.

2, p. 226, 3rd ed.]

[Side-note: Objections to this last--What property is there

common to both sight and hearing, which confers upon the pleasures of

these two senses the exclusive privilege of being beautiful?]

The objector, however, must now be dealt with. He will ask us--Upon

what ground do you make so marked a distinction between the pleasures

of sight and hearing, and other pleasures? Do you deny that these

others (those of taste, smell, eating, drinking, sex) are really

pleasures? No, surely (we shall reply); we admit them to be

pleasures,--but no one will tolerate us in calling them beautiful:

especially the pleasures of sex, which as pleasures are the greatest

of all, but which are ugly and disgraceful to behold. He will

answer--I understand you: you are ashamed to call these pleasures

beautiful, because they do not seem so to the multitude: but I did not

ask you, what _seems_ beautiful to the multitude--I asked you, what

_is_ beautiful.[28] You mean to affirm, that all pleasures which

do not belong to sight and hearing, are not beautiful: Do you mean,

all which do not belong to both? or all which do not belong to

one or the other? We shall reply--To either one of the two--or to

both the two. Well! but, why (he will ask) do you single out these

pleasures of sight and hearing, as beautiful exclusively? What is

there peculiar in them, which gives them a title to such distinction?

All pleasures are alike, so far forth as pleasures, differing only in

the more or less. Next, the pleasures of sight cannot be considered

as beautiful by reason of their coming through sight--for that reason

would not apply to the pleasures of hearing: nor again can the

pleasures of hearing be considered as beautiful by reason of their

coming through hearing.[29] We must find something possessed as well

by sight as by hearing, common to both, and peculiar to them,--which

confers beauty upon the pleasures of both and of each. Any attribute

of one, which does not also belong to the other, will not be

sufficient for our purpose.[30] Beauty must depend upon some

essential characteristic which both have in common.[31] We must

therefore look out for some such characteristic, which belongs to

both as well as to each separately.

[Footnote 28: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 298 E, 299 A.

[Greek: Mantha/nô, a)\n i)/sôs phai/ê, kai\ e)gô/, o(/ti pa/lai

ai)schu/nesthe tau/tas ta\s ê(dona\s pha/nai kala\s ei)=nai, o(/ti

ou) dokei= toi=s a)nthrô/pois; a)ll' e)gô\ ou) tou=to ê)rô/tôn,

_o(\ dokei= toi=s polloi=s kalo\n ei)=nai_, a)ll' o(\, _ti

e)/stin_.]]

[Footnote 29: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 299 D-E.]

[Footnote 30: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 300 B. A separate argument between

Sokrates and Hippias is here as it were interpolated; Hippias affirms

that he does not see how any predicate can be true of both which is

not true of either separately. Sokrates points out that two men are

Both, even in number, while each is One, an odd number. You cannot

say of the two that they are one, nor can you say of either that he

is Both. There are two classes of predicates; some which are true of

either but not true of the two together, or _vice versâ_; some

again which are true of the two and true also of each one--such as

just, wise, handsome, &c. p. 301-303 B.]

[Footnote 31: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 302 C. [Greek: tê=| ou)si/a| tê=| e)p'

a)mpho/tera e(pome/nê| ô)=|mên, ei)/per a)mpho/tera/ e)sti kala/,

tau/tê| dei=n au)ta\ kala\ ei)=nai, tê=| de\ kata\ ta\ e(/tera

a)poleipome/nê| mê/. kai\ e(/ti nu=n oi)=omai.]]

[Side-note: Answer--There is, belonging to each and to both in

common, the property of being innocuous and profitable

pleasures--upon this ground they are called beautiful.]

Now there is one characteristic which may perhaps serve. The

pleasures of sight and hearing, both and each, are distinguished from

other pleasures by being the most innocuous and the best.[32] It is

for this reason that we call them beautiful. The Beautiful, then, is

profitable pleasure--or pleasure producing good--for the profitable

is, that which produces good.[33]

[Footnote 32: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 303 E. [Greek: o(/ti a)sine/statai

au(=tai tô=n ê(donô=n ei)si kai\ be/ltistai, kai\ a)mpho/terai kai\

e(kate/ra.]]

[Footnote 33: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 303 E. [Greek: le/gete dê\ to\ kalo\n

ei)=nai, _ê(donê\n ô)phe/limon_.]]

[Side-note: This will not hold--the Profitable is the cause of

Good, and is therefore different from Good--to say that the beautiful

is the Profitable, is to say that it is different from Good but this

has been already declared inadmissible.]

Nevertheless the objector will not be satisfied even with this. He

will tell us--You declare the Beautiful to be Pleasure producing

good. But we before agreed, that the producing agent or cause is

different from what is produced or the effect. Accordingly, the

Beautiful is different from the good: or, in other words, the

Beautiful is not good, nor is the Good beautiful--if each of them is

a different thing.[34] Now these propositions we have already

pronounced to be inadmissible, so that your present explanation will

not stand better than the preceding.

[Footnote 34: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 303 E--304 A. [Greek: Ou)/koun

ô)phe/limon, phê/sei, to\ poiou=n ta)gatho/n, to\ de\ poiou=n kai\

to\ poiou/menon, e(/teron nu=n dê\ e)pha/nê, kai\ ei)s to\n pro/teron

lo/gon ê(/kei u(mi=n o( lo/gos? _ou)/te ga\r to\ a)gatho\n a)\n

ei)/ê kalo\n ou)/te to\ kalo\n a)gatho/n, ei)/per a)/llo au)tô=n

e(ka/tero/n e)stin_.]

These last words deserve attention, because they coincide with the

doctrine ascribed to Antisthenes, which has caused so many hard words

to be applied to him (as well as to Stilpon) by critics, from Kolôtes

downwards. The general principle here laid down by Plato is--A is

something different from B, therefore A is not B and B is not A. In

other words, A cannot be predicated of B nor B of A. Antisthenes said

in like manner--[Greek: A)/nthrôpos] and [Greek: A)gatho\s] are

different from each other, therefore you cannot say [Greek:

A)/nthrôpos e)stin a)gatho/s]. You can only say [Greek: A)/nthrôpos

e)stin A)/nthrôpos]--A)gatho/s e)stin a)gatho/s].

I have touched farther upon this point in my chapter upon Antisthenes

and the other Viri Sokratici.]

* * * * *

[Side-note: Remarks upon the Dialogue--the explanations

ascribed to Hippias are special conspicuous examples: those ascribed

to Sokrates are attempts to assign some general concept.]

Thus finish the three distinct explanations of [Greek: To\ kalo\n],

which Plato in this dialogue causes to be first suggested by

Sokrates, successively accepted by Hippias, and successively refuted

by Sokrates. In comparing them with the three explanations which he

puts into the mouth of Hippias, we note this distinction: That the

explanations proposed by Hippias are conspicuous particular

exemplifications of the Beautiful, substituted in place of the

general concept: as we remarked, in the Dialogue Euthyphron, that the

explanations of the Holy given by Euthyphron in reply to Sokrates,

were of the same exemplifying character. On the contrary, those

suggested by Sokrates keep in the region of abstractions, and seek to

discover some more general concept, of which the Beautiful is only a

derivative or a modification, so as to render a definition of it

practicable. To illustrate this difference by the language of Dr.

Whewell respecting many of the classifications in Natural History, we

may say--That according to the views here represented by Hippias,

the group of objects called beautiful is given by Type, not by

Definition:[35] while Sokrates proceeds like one convinced that some

common characteristic attribute may be found, on which to rest a

Definition. To search for Definitions of general words, was (as

Aristotle remarks) a novelty, and a valuable novelty, introduced by

Sokrates. His contemporaries, the Sophists among them, were not

accustomed to it: and here the Sophist Hippias (according to Plato's

frequent manner) is derided as talking nonsense,[36] because, when

asked for an explanation of The Self-Beautiful, he answers by citing

special instances of beautiful objects. But we must remember, first,

that Sokrates, who is introduced as trying several general

explanations of the Self-Beautiful, does not find one which will

stand: next, that even if one such could be found, particular

instances can never be dispensed with, in the way of illustration;

lastly, that there are many general terms (the Beautiful being one of

them) of which no definitions can be provided, and which can only be

imperfectly explained, by enumerating a variety of objects to which

the term in question is applied.[37] Plato thought himself

entitled to objectivise every general term, or to assume a

substantive Ens, called a Form or Idea, corresponding to it. This was

a logical mistake quite as serious as any which we know to have been

committed by Hippias or any other Sophist. The assumption that

wherever there is a general term, there must also be a generic

attribute corresponding to it--is one which Aristotle takes much

pains to negative: he recognises terms of transitional analogy, as

well as terms equivocal: while he also especially numbers the

Beautiful among equivocal terms.[38]

[Footnote 35: See Dr. Whewell's 'History of the Inductive Sciences,'

ii. 120 seq.; and Mr. John Stuart Mill's 'System of Logic,' iv. 8, 3.

I shall illustrate this subject farther when I come to the dialogue

called Lysis.]

[Footnote 36: Stallbaum, in his notes, bursts into exclamations of

wonder at the incredible stupidity of Hippias--"En hominis stuporem

prorsus admirabilem," p. 289 E.]

[Footnote 37: Mr. John Stuart Mill observes in his System of Logic,

i. 1, 5: "One of the chief sources of lax habits of thought is the

custom of using connotative terms without a distinctly ascertained

connotation, and with no more precise notion of their meaning than

can be loosely collected from observing what objects they are used to

denote. It is in this manner that we all acquire, and inevitably so,

our first knowledge of our vernacular language. A child learns the

meaning of Man, White, &c., by hearing them applied to a number

of individual objects, and finding out, by a process of

generalisation of which he is but imperfectly conscious, what those

different objects have in common. In many cases objects bear a

general resemblance to each other, which leads to their being

familiarly classed together under a common name, while it is not

immediately apparent what are the particular attributes upon the

possession of which in common by them all their general resemblance

depends. In this manner names creep on from subject to subject until

all traces of a common meaning sometimes disappear, and the word

comes to denote a number of things not only independently of any

common attribute, but which have actually no attribute in common, or

none but what is shared by other things to which the name is

capriciously refused. It would be well if this degeneracy of language

took place only in the hands of the untaught vulgar; but some of the

most remarkable instances are to be found in terms of art, and among

technically educated persons, such as English lawyers. _Felony_,

_e.g._, is a law-term with the sound of which all are familiar:

_but there is no lawyer who would undertake to tell what a felony

is, otherwise than by enumerating the various offences so called._

Originally the word _felony_ had a meaning; it denoted all

offences, the penalty of which included forfeiture of lands or goods,

but subsequent Acts of Parliament have declared various offences to

be felonies without enjoining that penalty, and have taken away that

penalty from others which continue nevertheless to be called

felonies, insomuch that the acts so called have now no property

whatever in common save that of being unlawful and punishable."]

[Footnote 38: Aristot. Topic, i. 106, a. 21. [Greek: Ta\ pollachô=s

lego/mena--ta\ pleonachô=s lego/mena]--are perpetually noted and

distinguished by Aristotle.]

[Side-note: Analogy between the explanations here ascribed to

Sokrates, and those given by the Xenophontic Sokrates in the

Memorabilia.]

We read in the Xenophontic Memorabilia a dialogue between Sokrates

and Aristippus, on this same subject--What is the Beautiful, which

affords a sort of contrast between the Dialogues of Search and those

of Exposition. In the Hippias Major, we have the problem approached

on several different sides, various suggestions being proposed, and

each successively disallowed, on reasons shown, as failures: while in

the Xenophontic dialogue, Sokrates declares an affirmative doctrine,

and stands to it--but no pains are taken to bring out the objections

against it and rebut them. The doctrine is, that the Beautiful is

coincident with the Good, and that both of them are resolvable into

the Useful: thus all beautiful objects, unlike as they may be to the

eye or touch, bear that name because they have in common the

attribute of conducing to one and the same purpose--the security,

advantage, or gratification, of man, in some form or other. This is

one of the three explanations broached by the Platonic Sokrates, and

afterwards refuted by him, in the Hippias: while his declaration

(which Hippias puts aside as unseemly)--that a pot and a wooden

soup-ladle conveniently made are beautiful is perfectly in harmony

with that of the Xenophontic Sokrates, that a basket for carrying dung

is beautiful, if it performs its work well.[39] We must moreover

remark, that the objections whereby the Platonic Sokrates, after

proposing the doctrine and saying much in its favour, finds himself

compelled at last to disallow it--these objections are not produced

and refuted, but passed over without notice, in the Xenophontic

dialogue, wherein Sokrates affirms it decidedly.[40] The

affirming Sokrates, and the objecting Sokrates, are not on the

stage at once.

[Footnote 39: Xen. Mem. iii. 6, 2, 7; iv. 6, 8.

Plato, Hipp. Maj. 288 D, 290 D.

I am obliged to translate the words [Greek: to\ Kalo/n] by the

Beautiful or beauty, to avoid a tiresome periphrasis. But in reality

the Greek words include more besides: they mean also the _fine_,

the _honourable or that which is worthy of honour_, the

_exalted_, &c. If we have difficulty in finding any common

property connoted by the English word, the difficulty in the case of

the Greek word is still greater.]

[Footnote 40: In regard to the question, Wherein consists [Greek: To\

Kalo/n]? and objections against the theory of the Xenophontic

Sokrates, it is worth while to compare the views of modern

philosophers. Dugald Stewart says (on the Beautiful, 'Philosophical

Essays,' p. 214 seq.), "It has long been a favourite problem with

philosophers to ascertain the common quality or qualities which

entitle a thing to the denomination of Beautiful. But the success of

their speculations has been so inconsiderable, that little can be

inferred from them except the impossibility of the problem to which

they have been directed. The speculations which have given occasion

to these remarks have evidently originated in a prejudice which has

descended to modern times from the scholastic ages. That when a word

admits of a variety of significations, these different significations

must all be species of the same genus, and must consequently include

some essential idea common to every individual to which the generic

term can be applied. Of this principle, which has been an abundant

source of obscurity and mystery in the different sciences, it would

be easy to expose the unsoundness and futility. Socrates, whose plain

good sense appears, on this as on other occasions, to have fortified

his understanding to a wonderful degree against the metaphysical

subtleties which misled his successors, was evidently apprised fully

of the justice of the foregoing remarks, if any reliance can be

placed on the account given by Xenophon of his conversation with

Aristippus about the Good and the Beautiful," &c.

Stewart then proceeds to translate a portion of the Xenophontic

dialogue (Memorab. iii. 8). But unfortunately he does not translate

the whole of it. If he had he would have seen that he has

misconceived the opinion of Sokrates, who maintains the very doctrine

here disallowed by Stewart, viz., That there is an essential idea

common to all beautiful objects, the fact of being conducive to human

security, comfort, or enjoyment. This is unquestionably an important

common property, though the multifarious objects which possess it may

be unlike in all other respects.

As to the general theory I think that Stewart is right: it is his

compliment to Sokrates, on this occasion, which I consider misplaced.

He certainly would not have agreed with Sokrates (nor should I agree

with him) in calling by the epithet _beautiful_ a basket for

carrying dung when well made for its own purpose, or a convenient

boiling-pot, or a soup-ladle made of fig-tree wood, as the Platonic

Sokrates affirms in the Hippias (288 D, 290 D). The Beautiful and the

Useful sometimes coincide; more often or at least very often, they do

not. Hippias is made to protest, in this dialogue, against the mention

of such vulgar objects as the pot and the ladle; and this is

apparently intended by Plato as a defective point in his character,

denoting silly affectation and conceit, like his fine apparel. But

Dugald Stewart would have agreed in the sentiment ascribed to

Hippias--that vulgar and mean objects have no place in an inquiry

into the Beautiful; and that they belong, when well-formed for their

respective purposes, to the category of the Useful.

The Xenophontic Sokrates in the Memorabilia is mistaken in

confounding the Beautiful with the Good and the Useful. But his

remarks are valuable in another point of view, as they insist most

forcibly on the essential relativity both of the Beautiful and the

Good.

The doctrine of Dugald Stewart is supported by Mr. John Stuart Mill

('System of Logic,' iv. 4, 5, p. 220 seq.);** and Professor Bain

has expounded the whole subject still more fully in a chapter (xiv.

p. 225 seq., on the Æsthetic Emotions) of his work on the Emotions

and the Will.]

The concluding observations of this dialogue, interchanged between

Hippias and Sokrates, are interesting as bringing out the antithesis

between rhetoric and dialectic--between the concrete and

exemplifying, as contrasted with the abstract and analytical.

Immediately after Sokrates has brought his own third suggestion to an

inextricable embarrassment, Hippias remarks--

[Side-note: Concluding thrust exchanged between Hippias and

Sokrates.]

"Well, Sokrates, what do you think now of all these reasonings of

yours? They are what I declared them to be just now,--scrapings and

parings of discourse, divided into minute fragments. But the really

beautiful and precious acquirement is, to be able to set out well and

finely a regular discourse before the Dikastery or the public

assembly, to persuade your auditors, and to depart carrying with you

not the least but the greatest of all prizes--safety for yourself,

your property, and your friends. These are the real objects to strive

for. Leave off your petty cavils, that you may not look like an

extreme simpleton, handling silly trifles as you do at present."[41]

"My dear Hippias," (replies Sokrates) "you are a happy man, since you

know what pursuits a man ought to follow, and have yourself followed

them, as you say, with good success. But I, as it seems, am under the

grasp of an unaccountable fortune: for I am always fluctuating and

puzzling myself, and when I lay my puzzle before you wise men, I am

requited by you with hard words. I am told just what you have now

been telling me, that I busy myself about matters silly, petty, and

worthless. When on the contrary, overborne by your authority, I

declare as you do, that it is the finest thing possible to be able to

set out well and beautifully a regular discourse before the public

assembly, and bring it to successful conclusion--then there are other

men at hand who heap upon me bitter reproaches: especially that one

man, my nearest kinsman and inmate, who never omits to convict me.

When on my return home he hears me repeat what you have told me, he

asks, if I am not ashamed of my impudence in talking about beautiful

(honourable) pursuits, when I am so manifestly convicted upon

this subject, of not even knowing what the Beautiful (Honourable) is.

How can you (he says), being ignorant what the Beautiful is, know

_who_ has set out a discourse beautifully and _who_ has

not--_who_ has performed a beautiful exploit and _who_ has

not? Since you are in a condition so disgraceful, can you think life

better for you than death? Such then is my fate--to hear

disparagement and reproaches from you on the one side, and from him

on the other. Necessity however perhaps requires that I should endure

all these discomforts: for it will be nothing strange if I profit by

them. Indeed I think that I have already profited both by your

society, Hippias, and by his: for I now think that I know what the

proverb means--Beautiful (Honourable) things are difficult."[42]

[Footnote 41: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 304 A.]

[Footnote 42: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 304 D-E.]

[Side-note: Rhetoric against Dialectic.]

Here is a suitable termination for one of the Dialogues of Search:

"My mind has been embarrassed by contradictions as yet unreconciled,

but this is a stage indispensable to future improvement". We have

moreover an interesting passage of arms between Rhetoric and

Dialectic: two contemporaneous and contending agencies, among the

stirring minds of Athens, in the time of Plato and Isokrates. The

Rhetor accuses the Dialectician of departing from the conditions of

reality--of breaking up the integrity of those concretes, which occur

in nature each as continuous and indivisible wholes. Each of the

analogous particular cases forms a continuum or concrete by itself,

which may be compared with the others, but cannot be taken to pieces,

and studied in separate fragments.[43] The Dialectician on his side

treats the Abstract ([Greek: to\ kalo\n]) as the real Integer, and

the highest abstraction as the first of all integers, containing in

itself and capable of evolving all the subordinate integers: the

various accompaniments, which go along with each Abstract to make up

a concrete, he disregards as shadowy and transient disguises.

[Footnote 43: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 301 B. [Greek: A)lla\ ga\r dê\ su/,

ô)= Sô/krates, ta\ me\n o(/la tô=n pragma/tôn ou) skopei=s, ou)d'

e)kei=noi, oi(=s su\ ei)/ôthas diale/gesthai, krou/ete de\

a)polamba/nontes to\ kalo\n kai\ e(/kaston tô=n o)/ntôn e)n toi=s

lo/gois katate/mnontes; dia\ tau=ta ou(/tô mega/la u(ma=s lantha/nei

kai\ _dianekê= sô/mata tê=s ou)si/as pephuko/ta_.] Compare 301

E.

The words [Greek: dianekê= sô/mata tê=s ou)si/as pephuko/ta]

correspond as nearly as can be to the logical term _Concrete_,

opposed to _Abstract_. Nature furnishes only Concreta, not

Abstracta.]

[Side-note: Men who dealt with real life, contrasted with the

speculative and analytical philosophers.]

Hippias accuses Sokrates of never taking into his view Wholes,

and of confining his attention to separate parts and fragments,

obtained by logical analysis and subdivision. Aristophanes, when he

attacks the Dialectic of Sokrates, takes the same ground, employing

numerous comic metaphors to illustrate the small and impalpable

fragments handled, and the subtle transpositions which they underwent

in the reasoning. Isokrates again deprecates the over-subtlety of

dialectic debate, contrasting it with discussions (in his opinion)

more useful; wherein entire situations, each with its full clothing

and assemblage of circumstances, were reviewed and estimated.[44]

All these are protests, by persons accustomed to deal with real life,

and to talk to auditors both numerous and commonplace, against that

conscious analysis and close attention to general and abstract terms,

which Sokrates first insisted on and transmitted to his disciples. On

the other side, we have the emphatic declaration made by the Platonic

Sokrates (and made still earlier by the Xenophontic[45] or historical

Sokrates)--That a man was not fit to talk about beautiful things in

the concrete--that he had no right to affirm or deny that attribute,

with respect to any given subject--that he was not** even fit to live

unless he could explain what was meant by The Beautiful, or Beauty

in the abstract. Here are two distinct and conflicting intellectual

habits, the antithesis between which, indicated in this dialogue,

is described at large and forcibly in the Theætêtus.[46]

[Footnote 44: Aristophan. Nubes, 130. [Greek: lo/gôn a)kribô=n

schindala/mous--paipa/lê.] Nub. 261, Aves, 430. [Greek: leptota/tôn

lê/rôn i(ereu=], Nub. 359. [Greek: gnô/mais leptais], Nub. 1404.

[Greek: skariphismoi=si lê/rôn], Ran. 1497. [Greek: smileu/mata]--id.

819. Isokrates, [Greek: Pro\s Nikokle/a], s. 69, antithesis of the

[Greek: lo/goi politikoi\] and [Greek: lo/goi e)ristikoi/--ma/lista

me\n kai\ a)po\ tôn kairô=n theôrei=n sumbouleu/ontas, ei) de\ mê\,

_kath' o(/lôn tô=n pragma/tôn_ le/gontas]--which is almost

exactly the phrase ascribed to Hippias by Plato in this Hippias

Major. Also Isokrates, Contra Sophistas, s. 24-25, where he contrasts

the useless [Greek: logi/dia], debated by the contentious

dialecticians (Sokrates and Plato being probably included in this

designation), with his own [Greek: lo/goi politikoi/]. Compare also

Isokrates, Or. xv. De Permutatione, s. 211-213-285-287.]

[Footnote 45: Xen. Mem. i. 1, 16.]

[Footnote 46: Plato, Theætêt. pp. 173-174-175.]

[Side-note: Concrete Aggregates--abstract or logical

Aggregates. Distinct aptitudes required by Aristotle for the

Dialectician.]

When Hippias accuses Sokrates of neglecting to notice Wholes or

Aggregates, this is true in the sense of Concrete Wholes--the

phenomenal sequences and co-existences, perceived by sense or

imagined. But the Universal (as Aristotle says)[47] is one kind of

Whole: a Logical Whole, having logical parts. In the minds of

Sokrates and Plato, the Logical Whole separable into its logical

parts and into them only, were preponderant.

[Footnote 47: Aristot. Physic. i. 1. [Greek: to\ ga\r o(/lon kata\

tê\n ai)/sthêsin gnôrimô/teron, _to\ de\ katho/lou o(/lon ti e)sti;

polla\ ga\r perilamba/nei ô(s me/rê to\ katho/lou_.] Compare

Simplikius, Schol. Brandis ad loc. p. 324, a. 10-26.]

[Side-note: Antithesis of Absolute and Relative, here brought

into debate by Plato, in regard to the Idea of Beauty.]

One other point deserves peculiar notice, in the dialogue under our

review. The problem started is, What is the Beautiful--the

Self-Beautiful, or Beauty _per se_: and it is assumed that this must

be Something,[48] that from the accession of which, each particular

beautiful thing becomes beautiful. But Sokrates presently comes to

make a distinction between that which is really beautiful and that

which appears to be beautiful. Some things (he says) appear

beautiful, but are not so in reality: some are beautiful, but do not

appear so. The problem, as he states it, is, to find, not what that

is which makes objects appear beautiful, but what it is that makes

them really beautiful. This distinction, as we find it in the

language of Hippias, is one of degree only:[49] that _is_

beautiful which appears so to every one and at all times. But in the

language of Sokrates, the distinction is radical: to _be_

beautiful is one thing, to _appear_ beautiful is another;

whatever makes a thing appear beautiful without being so in reality,

is a mere engine of deceit, and not what Sokrates is enquiring

for.[50] The Self-Beautiful or real Beauty is so, whether any one

perceives it to be beautiful or not: it is an Absolute, which exists

_per se_, having no relation to any sentient or percipient

subject.[51] At any rate, such is the manner in which Plato

conceives it, when he starts here as a problem to enquire, What

it is.

[Footnote 48: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 286 K. [Greek: au)to\ to\ kalo\n o(/,

ti e)/stin.] Also 287 D, 289 D.]

[Footnote 49: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 291 D, 292 E.]

[Footnote 50: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 294 A-B, 299 A.]

[Footnote 51: Dr. Hutcheson, in his inquiry into the Original of our

Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, observes (sect. i. and ii. p. 14-16):--

"Beauty is either original or comparative, or, if any like the terms

better, absolute or relative; only let it be observed, that by

_absolute_ or _original_, is not understood any quality

supposed to be in the object, which should of itself be beautiful,

without relation to any mind which perceives it. For Beauty, like

other names of sensible ideas, properly denotes the perception of

some mind. . . . . Our inquiry is only about the qualities which are

beautiful to men, or about the foundation of their sense of beauty,

for (as above hinted) Beauty has always relation to the sense of some

mind; and when we afterwards show how generally the objects that

occur to us are beautiful, we mean that such objects are agreeable to

the sense of men, &c."

The same is repeated, sect. iv. p. 40; sect. vi. p. 72.]

Herein we note one of the material points of disagreement between

Plato and his master: for Sokrates (in the Xenophontic Memorabilia)

affirms distinctly that Beauty is altogether relative to human wants

and appreciations. The Real and Absolute, on the one hand, wherein

alone resides truth and beauty--as against the phenomenal and

relative, on the other hand, the world of illusion and meanness--this

is an antithesis which we shall find often reproduced in Plato. I

shall take it up more at large, when I come to discuss his argument

against Protagoras in the Theætêtus.

* * * * *

[Side-note: Hippias Minor--characters and situation supposed.]

I now come to the Lesser Hippias: in which (as we have already seen

in the Greater) that Sophist is described by epithets, affirming

varied and extensive accomplishments, as master of arithmetic,

geometry, astronomy, poetry (especially that of Homer), legendary

lore, music, metrical and rhythmical diversities, &c. His memory

was prodigious, and he had even invented for himself a technical

scheme for assisting memory. He had composed poems, epic, lyric, and

tragic, as well as many works in prose: he was, besides, a splendid

lecturer on ethical and political subjects, and professed to answer

any question which might be asked. Furthermore, he was skilful in

many kinds of manual dexterity: having woven his own garments,

plaited his own girdle, made his own shoes, engraved his own

seal-ring, and fabricated for himself a curry-comb and oil-flask.[52]

Lastly, he is described as wearing fine and showy apparel. What he is

made to say is rather in harmony with this last point of character,

than with the preceding. He talks with silliness and presumption, so

as to invite and excuse the derisory sting of Sokrates, There is a

third interlocutor, Eudikus: but he says very little, and other

auditors are alluded to generally, who say nothing.[53]

[Footnote 52: Plato, Hipp. Minor, 368.]

[Footnote 53: Plato, Hipp. Minor, 369 D, 373 B.

Ast rejects both the dialogues called by the name of Hippias, as not

composed by Plato. Schleiermacher doubts about both, and rejects the

Hippias Minor (which he considers as perhaps worked up by a Platonic

scholar from a genuine sketch by Plato himself) but will not pass the

same sentence upon the Hippias Major (Schleierm. Einleit. vol. ii.

pp. 293-296; vol. v. 399-403. Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, pp.

457-464).

Stallbaum defends both the dialogues as genuine works of Plato, and

in my judgment with good reason (Prolegg. ad Hipp. Maj. vol. iv. pp.

145-150; ad Hipp. Minor, pp. 227-235). Steinhart (Einleit. p. 99) and

Socher (Ueber Platon, p. 144 seq., 215 seq.) maintain the same

opinion on these dialogues as Stallbaum. It is to be remarked that

Schleiermacher states the reasons both for and against the

genuineness of the dialogues; and I think that even in his own

statement the reasons _for_ preponderate. The reasons which both

Schleiermacher and Ast produce as proving the spuriousness, are in my

view quite insufficient to sustain their conclusion. There is bad

taste, sophistry, an overdose of banter and derision (they say very

truly), in the part assigned to Sokrates: there are also differences

of view, as compared with Sokrates in other dialogues; various other

affirmations (they tell us) are _not_ Platonic. I admit much of

this, but I still do not accept their conclusion. These critics

cannot bear to admit any Platonic work as genuine unless it affords

to them ground for superlative admiration and glorification of the

author. This postulate I altogether contest; and I think that

differences of view, as between Sokrates in one dialogue and Sokrates

in another, are both naturally to be expected and actually manifested

(witness the Protagoras and Gorgias). Moreover Ast designates (p.

404) a doctrine as "durchaus unsokratisch" which Stallbaum justly

remarks (p. 233) to have been actually affirmed by Sokrates in the

Xenophontic Memorabilia. Stallbaum thinks that both the two dialogues

(Socher, that the Hippias Minor only) were composed by Plato among

his earlier works, and this may probably be true. The citation and

refutation of the Hippias Minor by Aristotle (Metaphys. [Greek: D].

1025, a. 6) counts with me as a strong corroborative proof that the

dialogue is Plato's work. Schleiermacher and Ast set this evidence

aside because Aristotle does not name Plato as the author. But if the

dialogue had been composed by any one less celebrated than Plato,

Aristotle would have named the author. Mention by Aristotle, though

without Plato's name, is of greater value to support the genuineness

than the purely internal grounds stated by Ast and Schleiermacher

against it.]

[Side-note: Hippias has just delivered a lecture, in which

he extols Achilles as better than Odysseus--the veracious and

straightforward hero better than the mendacious and crafty.]

In the Hippias Minor, that Sophist appears as having just concluded a

lecture upon Homer, in which he had extolled Achilles as better than

Odysseus: Achilles being depicted as veracious and straightforward,

Odysseus as mendacious and full of tricks. Sokrates, who had been

among the auditors, cross-examines Hippias upon the subject of this

affirmation.

Homer (says Hippias) considers veracious men, and mendacious men, to

be not merely different, but opposite: and I agree with him. Permit

me (Sokrates remarks) to ask some questions about the meaning of this

from you, since I cannot ask any from Homer himself. You will answer

both for yourself and him.[54]

[Footnote 54: Plat. Hipp. Minor, 365 C-D.

The remark here made by Sokrates--"The poet is not here to answer for

himself, so that you cannot put any questions to him" is a point of

view familiar to Plato: insisted upon forcibly in the Protagoras (347

E), and farther generalised in the Phædrus, so as to apply to all

written matter compared with personal converse (Phædrus, p. 275 D).

This ought to count, so far as it goes, as a fragment of proof that

the Hippias Minor is a genuine work of Plato, instead of which

Schleiermacher treats it (p. 295) as evincing a poor copy, made by

some imitator of Plato, from the Protagoras.]

Mendacious men (answers Hippias, to a string of questions,

somewhat prolix) are capable, intelligent, wise: they are not

incapable or ignorant. If a man be incapable of speaking falsely, or

ignorant, he is not mendacious. Now the capable man is one who can

make sure of doing what he wishes to do, at the time and occasion

when he does wish it, without let or hindrance.[55]

[Footnote 55: Plat. Hipp. Minor, 366 B-C.]

[Side-note: This is contested by Sokrates. The veracious man

and the mendacious man are one and the same--the only man who can

answer truly if he chooses, is he who can also answer falsely if he

chooses, _i.e._ the knowing man--the ignorant man cannot make

sure of doing either the one or the other.]

You, Hippias (says Sokrates), are expert on matters of arithmetic:

you can make sure of answering truly any question put to you on the

subject. You are _better_ on the subject than the ignorant man,

who cannot make sure of doing the same. But as you can make sure of

answering truly, so likewise you can make sure of answering falsely,

whenever you choose to do so. Now the ignorant man cannot make sure

of answering falsely. He may, by reason of his ignorance, when he

wishes to answer falsely, answer truly without intending it. You,

therefore, the intelligent man and the good in arithmetic, are better

than the ignorant and the bad for both purposes--for speaking

falsely, and for speaking truly.[56]

[Footnote 56: Plato, Hippias Minor, 366 E. [Greek: Po/teron su\ a)\n

ma/lista pseu/doio kai\ a)ei\ kata\ tau)ta\ pseudê= le/gois peri\

tou/tôn, boulo/menos pseu/desthai kai\ mêde/pote a)lêthê=

a)pokri/nesthai? ê)/ o( a)mathê\s ei)s logismou\s du/nait' a)\n sou=

ma=llon pseu/desthai boulome/nou? ê)\ o( me\n a)mathê\s polla/kis

a)\n boulo/menos pseudê= le/gein ta)lêthê= a)\n ei)/poi a)/kôn, ei)

tu/choi, dia\ to\ mê\ ei)de/nai--su\ de\ o( sopho/s, ei)/per bou/loio

pseu/desthai, a)ei\ a)\n kata\ ta\ au)ta\ pseu/doio?]]

[Side-note: Analogy of special arts--it is only the

arithmetician who can speak falsely on a question of arithmetic when

he chooses.]

What is true about arithmetic, is true in other departments also. The

only man who can speak falsely whenever he chooses is the man who can

speak truly whenever he chooses. Now, the mendacious man, as we

agreed, is the man who can speak falsely whenever he chooses.

Accordingly, the mendacious man, and the veracious man, are the same.

They are not different, still less opposite: nay, the two epithets

belong only to one and the same person. The veracious man is not

better than the mendacious--seeing that he is one and the same.[57]

[Footnote 57: Plato, Hipp. Minor, 367 C, 368 E, 369 A-B.]

You see, therefore, Hippias, that the distinction, which you drew

and which you said that Homer drew, between Achilles and Odysseus,

will not hold. You called Achilles veracious, and Odysseus,

mendacious: but if one of the two epithets belongs to either of them,

the other must belong to him also.[58]

[Footnote 58: Plat. Hipp. Minor, 360 B.]

[Side-note: View of Sokrates respecting Achilles in the Iliad.

He thinks that Achilles speaks falsehood cleverly. Hippias maintains

that if Achilles ever speaks falsehood, it is with an innocent

purpose, whereas Odysseus does the like with fraudulent purpose.]

Sokrates then tries to make out that Achilles speaks falsehood in the

Iliad, and speaks it very cleverly, because he does so in a way to

escape detection from Odysseus himself. To this Hippias replies, that

if Achilles ever speaks falsehood, he does it innocently, without any

purpose of cheating or injuring any one; whereas the falsehoods of

Odysseus are delivered with fraudulent and wicked intent.[59] It is

impossible (he contends) that men who deceive and do wrong wilfully

and intentionally, should be better than those who do so unwillingly

and without design. The laws deal much more severely with the former

than with the latter.[60]

[Footnote 59: Plat. Hipp. Minor, 370 E.]

[Footnote 60: Plat. Hipp. Minor, 372 A.]

[Side-note: Issue here taken--Sokrates contends that those who

hurt, or cheat, or lie wilfully, are better than those who do the

like unwillingly--he entreats Hippias to enlighten him and answer his

questions.]

Upon this point, Hippias (says Sokrates), I dissent from you

entirely. I am, unhappily, a stupid person, who cannot find out the

reality of things: and this appears plainly enough when I come to

talk with wise men like you, for I always find myself differing from

you. My only salvation consists in my earnest anxiety to put

questions and learn from you, and in my gratitude for your answers

and teaching. I think that those who hurt mankind, or cheat, or lie,

or do wrong, _wilfully_--are better than those who do the same

_unwillingly_. Sometimes, indeed, from my stupidity, the

opposite view presents itself to me, and I become confused: but now,

after talking with you, the fit of confidence has come round upon me

again, to pronounce and characterise the persons who do wrong

_unwillingly_, as worse than those who do wrong _wilfully_.

I entreat you to heal this disorder of my mind. You will do me

much more good than if you cured my body of a distemper. But it will

be useless for you to give me one of your long discourses: for I warn

you that I cannot follow it. The only way to confer upon me real

service, will be to answer my questions again, as you have hitherto

done. Assist me, Eudikus, in persuading Hippias to do so.

Assistance from me (says Eudikus) will hardly be needed, for Hippias

professed himself ready to answer any man's questions.

Yes--I did so (replies Hippias)--but Sokrates always brings trouble

into the debate, and proceeds like one disposed to do mischief.

Eudikus repeats his request, and Hippias, in deference to him,

consents to resume the task of answering.[61]

[Footnote 61: Plat. Hipp. Min. 373 B.]

[Side-note: Questions of Sokrates--multiplied analogies of the

special arts. The unskilful artist, who runs, wrestles, or sings

badly, whether he will or not, is worse than the skilful, who can

sing well when he chooses, but can also sing badly when he chooses.]

Sokrates then produces a string of questions, with a view to show

that those who do wrong wilfully, are better than those who do wrong

unwillingly. He appeals to various analogies. In running, the good

runner is he who runs quickly, the bad runner is he who runs slowly.

What is evil and base in running is, to run slowly. It is the good

runner who does this evil wilfully: it is the bad runner who does it

unwillingly.[62] The like is true about wrestling and other bodily

exercises. He that is good in the body, can work either strongly or

feebly,--can do either what is honourable or what is base; so that

when he does what is base, he does it wilfully. But he that is bad

in the body does what is base unwillingly, not being able to help

it.[63]

[Footnote 62: Plat. Hipp. Min. 373 D-E.]

[Footnote 63: Plat. Hipp. Min. 374 B.]

What is true about the bodily movements depending upon strength, is

not less true about those depending on grace and elegance. To be

wilfully ungraceful, belongs only to the well-constituted body: none

but the badly-constituted body is ungraceful without wishing it. The

same, also, about the feet, voice, eyes, ears, nose: of these organs,

those which act badly through will and intention, are preferable to

those which act badly without will or intention. Lameness of feet is

a misfortune and disgrace: feet which go lame only by intention

are much to be preferred.[64]

[Footnote 64: Plat. Hipp. Min. 374 C-D.]

Again, in the instruments which we use, a rudder or a bow,--or the

animals about us, horses or dogs,--those are better with which we

work badly when we choose; those are worse, with which we work badly

without design, and contrary to our own wishes.

[Side-note: It is better to have the mind of a bowman who

misses his mark only by design, than that of one who misses even when

he intends to hit.]

It is better to have the mind of a bowman who misses his mark by

design, than that of one who misses when he tries to hit. The like

about all other arts--the physician, the harper, the flute-player. In

each of these artists, _that_ mind is better, which goes wrong

only wilfully--_that_ mind is worse, which goes wrong

unwillingly, while wishing to go right. In regard to the minds of our

slaves, we should all prefer those which go wrong only when they

choose, to those which go wrong without their own choice.[65]

[Footnote 65: Plat. Hipp. Min. 376 B-D.]

Having carried his examination through this string of analogous

particulars, and having obtained from Hippias successive

answers--"Yes--true in that particular case," Sokrates proceeds to

sum up the result:--

_Sokr._--Well! should we not wish to have our own minds as good

as possible? _Hip._--Yes. _Sokr._--We have seen that they

will be better if they do mischief and go wrong wilfully, than if

they do so unwillingly? _Hip._--But it will be dreadful,

Sokrates, if the willing wrong-doers are to pass for better men than

the unwilling.

[Side-note: Dissent and repugnance of Hippias.]

_Sokr._--Nevertheless--it seems so: from what we have said.

_Hip._--It does not seem so to me. _Sokr._--I thought that

it would have seemed so to you, as it does to me. However, answer me

once more--Is not justice either a certain mental capacity? or else

knowledge? or both together?[66] _Hip._--Yes! it is.

_Sokr._--If justice be a capacity of the mind, the more capable

mind will also be the juster: and we have already seen that the more

capable soul is the better. _Hip._--We have. _Sokr._--If it

be knowledge, the more knowing or wiser mind will of course be

the juster: if it be a combination of both capacity and knowledge,

that mind which is more capable as well as more knowing,--will be the

juster that which is less capable and less knowing, will be the more

unjust. _Hip._--So it appears. _Sokr._--Now we have shown

that the more capable and knowing mind is at once the better mind,

and more competent to exert itself both ways--to do what is

honourable as well as what is base--in every employment.

_Hip._--Yes. _Sokr._--When, therefore, such a mind does what is base,

it does so wilfully, through its capacity or intelligence, which we

have seen to be of the nature of justice? _Hip._--It seems so.

_Sokr._--Doing base things, is acting unjustly: doing honourable

things, is acting justly. Accordingly, when this more capable and

better mind acts unjustly, it will do so wilfully; while the less

capable and worse mind will do so without willing it?

_Hip._--Apparently.

[Footnote 66: Plat. Hipp. Min. 375 D. [Greek: ê( dikaiosu/nê ou)chi

ê)\ du/nami/s ti/s e)stin, ê)\ e)pistê/mê, ê)\ a)mpho/tera?]]

[Side-note: Conclusion--That none but the good man can do evil

wilfully: the bad man does evil unwillingly. Hippias cannot resist

the reasoning, but will not accept the conclusion--Sokrates confesses

his perplexity.]

_Sokr._--Now the good man is he that has the good mind: the bad

man is he that has the bad mind. It belongs therefore to the good man

to do wrong wilfully, to the bad man, to do wrong without wishing

it--that is, if the good man be he that has the good mind? _Hip._--But

that is unquestionable--that he has it. _Sokr._--Accordingly,

he that goes wrong and does base and unjust things

wilfully, if there be any such character--can be no other than the

good man. _Hip._--I do not know how to concede _that_ to

you, Sokrates.[67] _Sokr._--Nor I, how to concede it to myself,

Hippias: yet so it must appear to us, now at least, from the past

debate. As I told you long ago, I waver hither and thither upon this

matter; my conclusions never remain the same. No wonder indeed that I

and other vulgar men waver; but if you wise men waver also, that

becomes a fearful mischief even to us, since we cannot even by coming

to you escape from our embarrassment.[68]

[Footnote 67: Plat. Hipp. Min. 375 E, 376 B.]

[Footnote 68: Plato, Hipp. Min. 376 C.]

* * * * *

I will here again remind the reader, that in this, as in the other

dialogues, the real speaker is Plato throughout: and that it is

he alone who prefixes the different names to words determined by

himself.

[Side-note: Remarks on the dialogue. If the parts had been

inverted, the dialogue would have been cited by critics as a specimen

of the sophistry and corruption of the Sophists.]

Now, if the dialogue just concluded had come down to us with the

parts inverted, and with the reasoning of Sokrates assigned to

Hippias, most critics would probably have produced it as a tissue of

sophistry justifying the harsh epithets which they bestow upon the

Athenian Sophists--as persons who considered truth and falsehood to

be on a par--subverters of morality--and corruptors of the youth of

Athens.[69] But as we read it, all that, which in the mouth of

Hippias would have passed for sophistry, is here put forward by

Sokrates; while Hippias not only resists his conclusions, and adheres

to the received ethical sentiment tenaciously, even when he is unable

to defend it, but hates the propositions forced upon him, protests

against the perverse captiousness of Sokrates, and requires much

pressing to induce him to continue the debate. Upon the views adopted

by the critics, Hippias ought to receive credit for this conduct, as

a friend of virtue and morality. To me, such reluctance to debate

appears a defect rather than a merit; but I cite the dialogue as

illustrating what I have already said in another place--that

Sokrates and Plato threw out more startling novelties in ethical

doctrine, than either Hippias or Protagoras, or any of the other

persons denounced as Sophists.

[Footnote 69: Accordingly one of the Platonic critics, Schwalbe

(Oeuvres de Platon, p. 116), explains Plato's purpose in the

Hippias Minor by saying, that Sokrates here serves out to the

Sophists a specimen of their own procedure, and gives them an example

of sophistical dialectic, by defending a sophistical thesis in a

sophistical manner: That he chooses and demonstrates at length the

thesis--the liar is not different from the truth-teller--as an

exposure of the sophistical art of proving the contrary of any given

proposition, and for the purpose of deriding and unmasking the false

morality of Hippias, who in this dialogue talks reasonably enough.

Schwalbe, while he affirms that this is the purpose of Plato, admits

that the part here assigned to Sokrates is unworthy of him; and

Steinhart maintains that Plato never could have had any such purpose,

"however frequently" (Steinhart says), "sophistical artifices may

occur in this conversation of Sokrates, which artifices Sokrates no

more disdained to employ than any other philosopher or rhetorician of

that day" ("so häufig auch in seinen Erörterungen sophistische

Kunstgriffe vorkommen mögen, die Sokrates eben so wenig verschmaht

hat, als irgend ein Philosoph oder Redekünstler dieser Zeit").

Steinhart, Einleitung zum Hipp. Minor, p. 109.

I do not admit the purpose here ascribed to Plato by Schwalbe, but I

refer to the passage as illustrating what Platonic critics think of

the reasoning assigned to Sokrates in the Hippias Minor, and the

hypotheses which they introduce to colour it.

The passage cited from Steinhart also--that Sokrates no more

disdained to employ sophistical artifices than any other philosopher

or rhetorician of the age--is worthy of note, as coming from one who

is so very bitter in his invectives against the sophistry of the

persons called Sophists, of which we have no specimens left.]

[Side-note: Polemical purpose of the dialogue--Hippias

humiliated by Sokrates.]

That Plato intended to represent this accomplished Sophist as

humiliated by Sokrates, is evident enough: and the words put into his

mouth are suited to this purpose. The eloquent lecturer, so soon as

his admiring crowd of auditors has retired, proves unable to parry

the questions of a single expert dialectician who remains behind,

upon a matter which appears to him almost self-evident, and upon

which every one (from Homer downward) agrees with him. Besides this,

however, Plato is not satisfied without making him say very simple

and absurd things. All this is the personal, polemical, comic scope

of the dialogue. It lends (whether well-placed or not) a certain

animation and variety, which the author naturally looked out for, in

an aggregate of dialogues all handling analogous matters about man

and society.

But though the polemical purpose of the dialogue is thus plain, its

philosophical purpose perplexes the critics considerably. They do not

like to see Sokrates employing sophistry against the Sophists: that

is, as they think, casting out devils by the help of Beelzebub. And

certainly, upon the theory which they adopt, respecting the relation

between Plato and Sokrates on one side, and the Sophists on the

other, I think this dialogue is very difficult to explain. But I do

not think it is difficult, upon a true theory of the Platonic

writings.

[Side-note: Philosophical purpose of the dialogue--theory of

the Dialogues of Search generally, and of Knowledge as understood by

Plato.]

In a former chapter, I tried to elucidate the general character and

purpose of those Dialogues of Search, which occupy more than half the

Thrasyllean Canon, and of which we have already reviewed two or three

specimens--Euthyphron, Alkibiadês, &c. We have seen that they are

distinguished by the absence of any affirmative conclusion: that they

prove nothing, but only, at the most, disprove one or more supposable

solutions: that they are not processes in which one man who knows

communicates his knowledge to ignorant hearers, but in which all are

alike ignorant, and all are employed, either in groping, or guessing,

or testing the guesses of the rest. We have farther seen that the

value of these Dialogues depends upon the Platonic theory about

knowledge; that Plato did not consider any one to know, who could not

explain to others all that he knew, reply to the cross-examination of

a Sokratic Elenchus, and cross-examine others to test their

knowledge: that knowledge in this sense could not be attained by

hearing, or reading, or committing to memory a theorem, together with

the steps of reasoning which directly conducted to it:--but that

there was required, besides, an acquaintance with many

counter-theorems, each having more or less appearance of truth; as

well as with various embarrassing aspects and plausible delusions

on the subject, which an expert cross-examiner would not fail to urge.

Unless you are practised in meeting all the difficulties which he can

devise, you cannot be said _to know_. Moreover, it is in this

last portion of the conditions of knowledge, that most aspirants are

found wanting.

[Side-note: The Hippias is an exemplification of this

theory--Sokrates sets forth a case of confusion, and avows his inability

to clear it up. Confusion shown up in the Lesser Hippias--Error in the

Greater.]

Now the Greater and Lesser Hippias are peculiar specimens of these

Dialogues of Search, and each serves the purpose above indicated. The

Greater Hippias enumerates a string of tentatives, each one of which

ends in acknowledged failure: the Lesser Hippias enunciates a thesis,

which Sokrates proceeds to demonstrate, by plausible arguments such

as Hippias is forced to admit. But though Hippias admits each

successive step, he still mistrusts the conclusion, and suspects that

he has been misled--a feeling which Plato[70] describes elsewhere as

being frequent among the respondents of Sokrates. Nay, Sokrates

himself shares in the mistrust--presents himself as an unwilling

propounder of arguments which force themselves upon him,[71] and

complains of his own mental embarrassment. Now you may call this

sophistry, if you please; and you may silence its propounders by

calling them hard names. But such ethical prudery--hiding all the

uncomfortable logical puzzles which start up when you begin to

analyse an established sentiment, and treating them as non-existent

because you refuse to look at them--is not the way, to attain what

Plato calls knowledge. If there be any argument, the process of which

seems indisputable, while yet its conclusion contradicts, or seems to

contradict, what is known, upon other evidence--the full and patient

analysis of that argument is indispensable, before you can become

master of the truth and able to defend it. Until you have gone

through such analysis, your mind must remain in that state of

confusion which is indicated by Sokrates at the end of the Lesser

Hippias. As it is a part of the process of Search, to travel in the

path of the Greater Hippias--that is, to go through a string of

erroneous solutions, each of which can be proved, by reasons shown,

to _be_ erroneous: so it is an equally important part of the

same process, to travel in the path of the Lesser Hippias--that is,

to acquaint ourselves with all those arguments, bearing on the case,

in which two contrary conclusions appear to be both of them plausibly

demonstrated, and in which therefore we cannot as yet determine which

of them is erroneous--or whether both are not erroneous. The Greater

Hippias exhibits errors,--the Lesser Hippias puts before us

confusion. With both these enemies the Searcher for truth must

contend: and Bacon tells us, that confusion is the worst enemy of the

two--"Citius emergit veritas ex errore, quam ex confusione". Plato,

in the Lesser Hippias, having in hand a genuine Sokratic thesis, does

not disdain to invest Sokrates with the task (sophistical, as some

call it, yet not the less useful and instructive) of setting forth at

large this case of confusion, and avowing his inability to clear it

up. It is enough for Sokrates that he brings home the painful sense

of confusion to the feelings of his hearer as well as to his own. In

that painful sentiment lies the stimulus provocative of farther

intellectual effort.[72] The dialogue ends but the process of search,

far from ending along with it, is emphatically declared to be

unfinished, and, to be in a condition not merely unsatisfactory

but intolerable, not to be relieved except by farther investigation,

which thus becomes a necessary sequel.

[Footnote 70: Plato, Republ. vi. 487 B.

[Greek: Kai\ o( A)dei/mantos, Ô)= Sô/krates, e)/phê, pro\s me\n

tau=ta/ soi ou)dei\s a)\n oi(=os t' ei)/ê a)nteipei=n; a)lla\ ga\r

toio/nde ti pa/schousin oi( a)kou/ontes e)ka/stote a)\ nu=n le/geis;

ê(gou=ntai di' a)peiri/an tou= e)rôta=|n kai\ a)pokri/nesthai u(po\

tou= lo/gou par' e(/kaston to\ e)rô/têma smikro\n parago/menoi,

a)throisthe/ntôn tô=n smikrô=n e)pi\ teleutê=s tô=n lo/gôn, me/ga to\

spha/lma kai\ e)nanti/on toi=s prô/tois a)naphai/nesthai . . . e)pei

to/ ge a)lêthe\s ou)de/n ti ma=llon tau/tê| e)/chein.]

This passage, attesting the effect of the Sokratic examination upon

the minds of auditors, ought to be laid to heart by those Platonic

critics who denounce the Sophists for generating scepticism and

uncertainty.]

[Footnote 71: Plato, Hipp. Minor, 373 B; also the last sentence of

the dialogue.]

[Footnote 72: See the passage in Republic, vii. 523-524, where the

[Greek: to\ paraklêtiko\n kai\ e)gertiko\n tê=s noê/seôs] is declared

to arise from the pain of a felt contradiction.]

There are two circumstances which lend particular interest to this

dialogue--Hippias Minor. 1. That the thesis out of which the

confusion arises, is one which we know to have been laid down by the

historical Sokrates himself. 2. That Aristotle expressly notices this

thesis, as well as the dialogue in which it is contained, and combats

it.

[Side-note: The thesis maintained here by Sokrates, is also

affirmed by the historical Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia.]

Sokrates in his conversation with the youthful Euthydemus (in the

Xenophontic Memorabilia) maintains, that of two persons, each of whom

deceives his friends in a manner to produce mischief, the one who

does so wilfully is not so unjust as the one who does so

unwillingly.[73] Euthydemus (like Hippias in this dialogue) maintains

the opposite, but is refuted by Sokrates; who argues that justice is

a matter to be learnt and known like letters; that the lettered man,

who has learnt and knows letters, can write wrongly when he chooses,

but never writes wrongly unless he chooses--while it is only the

unlettered man who writes wrongly unwillingly and without intending

it: that in like manner the just man, he that has learnt and knows

justice, never commits injustice unless when he intends it--while the

unjust man, who has not learnt and does not know justice, commits

injustice whether he will or not. It is the just man therefore, and

none but the just man (Sokrates maintains), who commits injustice

knowingly and wilfully: it is the unjust man who commits injustice

without wishing or intending it.[74]

[Footnote 73: Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 19. [Greek: tô=n de\ dê\ tou\s

phi/lous e)xapatô/ntôn e)pi\ blabê=| (i(/na mêde\ tou=to

paralei/pômen a)/skepton) po/teros a)dikô/tero/s e)stin, o( e(kô\n

ê)\ o( a)/kôn?]

The natural meaning of [Greek: e)pi\ blabê=|] would be, "for the

purpose of mischief"; and Schneider, in his Index, gives "nocendi

causâ". But in that meaning the question would involve an

impossibility, for the words [Greek: o( a)/kôn] exclude any such

purpose.]

[Footnote 74: Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 19-22.]

This is the same view which is worked out by the Platonic Sokrates in

the Hippias Minor: beginning with the antithesis between the

veracious and mendacious man (as Sokrates begins in Xenophon); and

concluding with the general result--that it belongs to the good

man to do wrong wilfully, to the bad man to do wrong unwillingly.

[Side-note: Aristotle combats the thesis. Arguments against

it.]

Aristotle,[75] in commenting upon this doctrine of the Hippias Minor,

remarks justly, that Plato understands the epithets _veracious_

and _mendacious_ in a sense different from that which they

usually bear. Plato understands the words as designating one who

_can_ tell the truth if he chooses--one who _can_ speak

falsely if he chooses: and in this sense he argues plausibly that the

two epithets go together, and that no man can be mendacious unless he

be also veracious. Aristotle points out that the epithets in their

received meaning are applied, not to the power itself, but to the

habitual and intentional use of that power. The power itself is

doubtless presupposed or implied as one condition to the

applicability of the epithets, and is one common condition to the

applicability of both epithets: but the distinction, which they are

intended to draw, regards the intentions and dispositions with which

the power is employed. So also Aristotle observes that Plato's

conclusion--"He that does wrong wilfully is a better man than he that

does wrong unwillingly," is falsely collected from induction or

analogy. The analogy of the special arts and accomplishments, upon

which the argument is built, is not applicable. _Better_ has

reference, not to the amount of intelligence but to the dispositions

and habitual intentions; though it presupposes a certain state and

amount of intelligence as indispensable.

[Footnote 75: Aristotel. Metaphys. [Greek: D]. p. 1025, a. 8; compare

Ethic. Nikomach. iv. p. 1127, b. 16.]

[Side-note: Mistake of Sokrates and Plato in dwelling too

exclusively on the intellectual conditions of human conduct.]

Both Sokrates and Plato (in many of his dialogues) commit the error

of which the above is one particular manifestation--that of dwelling

exclusively on the intellectual conditions of human conduct,[76] and

omitting to give proper attention to the emotional and volitional, as

essentially co-operating or preponderating in the complex meaning of

ethical attributes. The reasoning ascribed to the Platonic Sokrates

in the Hippias Minor exemplifies this one-sided view. What he

says is true, but it is only a part of the truth. When he speaks of a

person "who does wrong unwillingly," he seems to have in view one who

does wrong without knowing that he does so: one whose intelligence is

so defective that he does not know when he speaks truth and when he

speaks falsehood. Now a person thus unhappily circumstanced must be

regarded as half-witted or imbecile, coming under the head which the

Xenophontic Sokrates called _madness_:[77] unfit to perform any

part in society, and requiring to be placed under tutelage. Compared

with such a person, the opinion of the Platonic Sokrates may be

defended--that the mendacious person, who _can_ tell truth when

he chooses, is the better of the two in the sense of less mischievous

or dangerous. But he is the object of a very different sentiment;

moreover, this is not the comparison present to our minds when we

call one man veracious, another man mendacious. We always assume, in

every one, a measure of intelligence equal or superior to the

admissible minimum; under such assumption, we compare two persons,

one of whom speaks to the best of his knowledge and belief, the

other, contrary to his knowledge and belief. We approve the former

and disapprove the latter, according to the different intention and

purpose of each (as Aristotle observes); that is, looking at them

under the point of view of emotion and volition--which is logically

distinguishable from the intelligence, though always acting in

conjunction with it.

[Footnote 76: Aristotle has very just observations on these views of

Sokrates, and on the incompleteness of his views when he resolved all

virtue into knowledge, all vice into ignorance. See, among other

passages, Aristot. Ethica Magna, i. 1182, a. 16; 1183, b. 9; 1190, b.

28; Ethic. Eudem. i. 1216, b, 4. The remarks of Aristotle upon

Sokrates and Plato evince a real progress in ethical theory.]

[Footnote 77: Xen. Mem. iii. 9, 7. [Greek: tou\s diêmartêko/tas, ô(=n

oi( polloi\ gignô/skousi, mainome/nous kalei=n], &c.]

[Side-note: They rely too much on the analogy of the special

arts--They take no note of the tacit assumptions underlying the

epithets of praise and blame.]

Again, the analogy of the special arts, upon which the Platonic

Sokrates dwells in the Hippias Minor, fails in sustaining his

inference. By a good runner, wrestler, harper, singer, speaker,

&c., we undoubtedly mean one who can, if he pleases, perform some

one of these operations well; although he can also, if he pleases,

perform them badly. But the epithets _good_ or _bad_, in

this case, consider exclusively that element which was left out, and

leave out that element which was exclusively considered, in the

former case. The good singer is declared to stand distinguished from

the bad singer, or from the [Greek: i)diô/tês], who, if he sings

at all, will certainly sing badly, by an attribute belonging to his

intelligence and vocal organs. To sing well is a special

accomplishment, which is possessed only by a few, and which no man is

blamed for not possessing. The distinction between such special

accomplishments, and justice or rectitude of behaviour, is well

brought out in the speech which Plato puts into the mouth of the

Sophist Protagoras.[78] "The special artists (he says) are few in

number: one of them is sufficient for many private citizens. But

every citizen, without exception, must possess justice and a sense of

shame: if he does not, he must be put away as a nuisance--otherwise,

society could not be maintained." The special artist is a citizen

also; and as such, must be subject to the obligations binding on all

citizens universally. In predicating of him that he is _good_ or

_bad_ as a citizen, we merely assume him to possess the average

intelligence, of the community; and the epithet declares whether his

emotional and volitional attributes exceed, or fall short of, the

minimum required in the application of that intelligence to his

social obligations. It is thus that the words _good_ or

_bad_ when applied to him as a citizen, have a totally different

bearing from that which the same words have when applied to him in

his character of special artist.

[Footnote 78: Plato, Protagoras, 322.]

[Side-note: Value of a Dialogue of Search, that it shall be

suggestive, and that it shall bring before us different aspects of

the question under review.]

The value of these debates in the Platonic dialogues consists in

their raising questions like the preceding, for the reflection of the

reader--whether the Platonic Sokrates may or may not be represented

as taking what we think the right view of the question. For a

Dialogue of Search, the great merit is, that it should be suggestive;

that it should bring before our attention the conditions requisite

for a right and proper use of these common ethical epithets, and the

state of circumstances which is tacitly implied whenever any one uses

them. No man ever learns to reflect upon the meaning of such familiar

epithets, which he has been using all his life--unless the process be

forced upon his attention by some special conversation which brings

home to him an uncomfortable sentiment of perplexity and

contradiction. If a man intends to acquire any grasp of ethical

or political theory, he must render himself master, not only of the

sound arguments and the guiding analogies but also of the unsound

arguments and the misleading analogies, which bear upon each portion

of it.

[Side-note: Antithesis between Rhetoric and Dialectic.]

There is one other point of similitude deserving notice, between the

Greater and Lesser Hippias. In both of them, Hippias makes special

complaint of Sokrates, for breaking the question in pieces and

picking out the minute puzzling fragments--instead of keeping it

together as a whole, and applying to it the predicates which it

merits when so considered.[79] Here is the standing antithesis

between Rhetoric and Dialectic: between those unconsciously acquired

mental combinations which are poured out in eloquent, impressive,

unconditional, and undistinguishing generalities--and the logical

analysis which resolves the generality into its specialities,

bringing to view inconsistencies, contradictions, limits,

qualifications, &c. I have already touched upon this at the close

of the Greater Hippias.

[Footnote 79: Plato, Hipp. Min. 369 B-C. [Greek: Ô)= Sô/krates, a)ei\

su/ tinas toiou/tous ple/keis lo/gous, kai\ a)polamba/nôn o(/ a)\n

ê)=| duschere/staton tou= lo/gou, tou/tou e)/chei kata\ smikro\n

e)phapto/menos, kai\ ou)ch o(/lô a)gôni/zei tô=| pra/gmati, peri\

o(/tou a)\n o( lo/gos ê)=|], &c.

A remark of Aristotle (Topica, viii. 164, b. 2) illustrates this

dissecting function of the Dialectician.

[Greek: e)/sti ga/r, ô(s a(plô=s ei)pei=n, dialektiko\s o(

protatiko\s kai\ e)nstatiko/s; e)/sti de\ to\ me\n protei/nesthai,

e(\n poiei=n ta\ plei/ô (dei= ga\r e(\n o(/lô| lêphthê=nai pro\s o(\

o( lo/gos), to\ d' e)ni/stasthai, to\ e(n polla/; ê)\ ga\r diairei=,

ê)\ a)nairei=, to\ me\n didou/s, to\ de\ ou)/, tô=n

proteinome/nôn.]]