LYSIS.
[Side-note: Analogy between Lysis and Charmidês. Richness of
dramatic incident in both. Youthful beauty.]
The Lysis, as well as the Charmidês, is a dialogue recounted by
Sokrates himself, describing both incidents and a conversation in a
crowded Palæstra; wherein not merely bodily exercises were habitually
practised, but debate was carried on and intellectual instruction
given by a Sophist named Mikkus, companion and admirer of Sokrates.
There is a lively dramatic commencement, introducing Sokrates into
the Palæstra, and detailing the preparation and scenic arrangements,
before the real discussion opens. It is the day of the Hermæa, or
festival of Hermes, celebrated by sacrifice and its accompanying
banquets among the frequenters of gymnasia.
[Side-note: Scenery and personages of the Lysis.]
Lysis, like Charmidês, is an Athenian youth, of conspicuous beauty,
modesty, and promise. His father Demokrates represents an ancient
family of the Æxonian Deme in Attica, and is said to be descended
from Zeus and the daughter of the Archêgetês or Heroic Founder of
that Deme. The family moreover are so wealthy, that they have gained
many victories at the Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games, both with
horses and with chariots and four. Menexenus, companion of Lysis, is
somewhat older, and is his affectionate friend. The persons who
invite Sokrates into the palæstra, and give occasion to the debate,
are Ktesippus and Hippothalês: both of them adults, yet in the vigour
of age. Hippothalês is the Erastes of Lysis, passionately attached to
him. He is ridiculed by Ktesippus for perpetually talking about
Lysis, as well as for addressing to him compositions both in prose
and verse, full of praise and flattery; extolling not only his
personal beauty, but also his splendid ancestry and position.[1]
[Footnote 1: Plato, Lysis, 203-205.]
[Side-note: Origin of the conversation. Sokrates promises to
give an example of the proper way of talking to a youth, for his
benefit.]
In reference to these addresses, Sokrates remonstrates with
Hippothalês on the imprudence and mischief of addressing to a youth
flatteries calculated to turn his head. He is himself then invited by
Hippothalês to exhibit a specimen of the proper mode of talking to
youth; such as shall be at once acceptable to the person addressed,
and unobjectionable. Sokrates agrees to do so, if an opportunity be
afforded him of conversing with Lysis.[2] Accordingly after some
well-imagined incidents, interesting as marks of Greek manners--Sokrates
and Ktesippus with others seat themselves in the palæstra,
amidst a crowd of listeners.[3] Lysis, too modest at first to
approach, is emboldened to sit down by seeing Menexenus seated by the
side of Sokrates: while Hippothalês, not daring to put himself where
Lysis can see him, listens, but conceals himself behind some of the
crowd. Sokrates begins the conversation with Menexenus and Lysis
jointly: but presently Menexenus is called away for a moment, and he
talks with Lysis singly.
[Footnote 2: Plato, Lysis, 206.]
[Footnote 3: Plato, Lysis, 206-207.]
[Side-note: Conversation of Sokrates with Lysis.]
_Sokr._--Well--Lysis--your father and mother love you extremely.
_Lysis._--Assuredly they do. _Sokr._--They would wish you
therefore to be as happy as possible. _Lysis._--Undoubtedly.
_Sokr._--Do you think any man happy, who is a slave, and who is
not allowed to do any thing that he desires? _Lysis._--I do not
think him happy at all. _Sokr._--Since therefore your father and
mother are so anxious that you should be happy, they of course allow
you to do the things which you desire, and never reprove nor forbid
you. _Lysis._--Not at all, by Zeus, Sokrates: there are a great
many things that they forbid me. _Sokr._--How say you! they wish
you to be happy--and they hinder you from doing what you wish! Tell
me, for example, when one of your father's chariots is going to run a
race, if you wished to mount and take the reins, would not they allow
you to do so? _Lysis._--No--certainly: they would not allow me.
_Sokr._--But whom do they allow, then? _Lysis._--My father
employs a paid charioteer. _Sokr._--What! do they permit a
hireling, in preference to _you_, to do what he wishes with the
horses? and do they give him pay besides for doing so?
_Lysis._--Why--to be sure. _Sokr._--But doubtless, I imagine, they
trust the team of mules to your direction; and if you chose to take
the whip and flog, they would allow you? _Lysis._--Allow me? not at
all. _Sokr._--What! is no one allowed to flog them?
_Lysis._--Yes--certainly--the mule-groom. _Sokr._--Is he a
slave or free? _Lysis._--A slave. _Sokr._--Then, it seems,
they esteem a slave higher than you their son; trusting their
property to him rather than to you, letting _him_ do what he
pleases, while they forbid you. But tell me farther: do they allow
you to direct yourself--or do not they even trust you so far as that?
_Lysis._--How can you imagine that they trust me? _Sokr._--But
does any one else direct you? _Lysis._--Yes--this tutor
here. _Sokr._--Is he a slave? _Lysis._--To be sure:
belonging to our family. _Sokr._--That is shocking: one of free
birth to be under the direction of a slave! But what is it that he
does, as your director? _Lysis._--He conducts me to my teacher's
house. _Sokr._--What! do _they_ govern you also, these
teachers? _Lysis._--Undoubtedly they do. _Sokr._--Then your
father certainly is bent on putting over you plenty of directors and
governors. But surely, when you come home to your mother, she at
least, anxious that you should be happy as far as she is concerned,
lets you do what you please about the wool or the web, when she is
weaving: she does not forbid you to meddle with the bodkin or any of
the other instruments of her work? _Lysis._--Ridiculous! not
only does she forbid me, but I should be beaten if I did meddle.
_Sokr._--How is this, by Heraklês? Have you done any wrong to
your father and mother? _Lysis._--Never at all, by Zeus.
_Sokr._--From what provocation is it, then, that they prevent
you in this terrible way, from being happy and doing what you wish?
keeping you the whole day in servitude to some one, and never your
own master? so that you derive no benefit either from the great
wealth of the family, which is managed by every one else rather than
by you--or from your own body, noble as it is. Even _that_ is
consigned to the watch and direction of another: while you, Lysis,
are master of nothing, nor can do any one thing of what you desire.
_Lysis._--The reason is, Sokrates, that I am not yet old enough.
_Sokr._--That can hardly be the reason; for to a certain extent
your father and mother do trust you, without waiting for you to
grow older. If they want any thing to be written or read for them,
they employ you for that purpose in preference to any one in the
house: and you are then allowed to write or read first, whichever of
the letters you think proper. Again, when you take up the lyre,
neither father nor mother hinder you from tightening or relaxing the
strings, or striking them either with your finger or with the
plectrum. _Lysis._--They do not. _Sokr._--Why is it, then,
that they do not hinder you in this last case, as they did in the
cases before mentioned? _Lysis._--I suppose it is because I know
this last, but did not know the others. _Sokr._--Well, my good
friend, you see that it is not your increase of years that your
father waits for; but on the very day that he becomes convinced that
you know better than he, he will entrust both himself and his
property to your management. _Lysis._--I suppose that he will.
_Sokr._--Ay--and your neighbour too will judge in the same way
as your father. As soon as he is satisfied that you understand
house-management better than he does, which do you think he will
rather do--confide his house to you, or continue to manage it
himself? _Lysis._--I think he will confide it to me. _Sokr._--The
Athenians too: do not you think that they also will put their affairs
into your management, as soon as they perceive that you have
intelligence adequate to the task? _Lysis._--Yes: I do.
_Sokr._--What do you say about the Great King also, by Zeus!
When his meat is being boiled, would he permit his eldest son who is
to succeed to the rule of Asia, to throw in any thing that he pleases
into the sauce, rather than us, if we come and prove to him that we
know better than his son the way of preparing sauce?
_Lysis._--Clearly, he will rather permit us. _Sokr._--The Great King
will not let his son throw in even a pinch of salt: while we, if we
chose to take up an entire handful, should be allowed to throw it in.
_Lysis._--No doubt. _Sokr._--What if his son has a
complaint in his eyes; would the Great King, knowing him to be
ignorant of medicine, allow him even to touch his own eyes or would
he forbid him? _Lysis._--He would forbid him. _Sokr._--As
to us, on the contrary, if he accounted us good physicians, and if we
desired even to open the eyes and drop a powder into them, he would
not hinder us, in the conviction that we understood what we were
doing. _Lysis._--You speak truly. _Sokr._--All other
matters, in short, on which he believed us to be wiser than himself
or his son, he would entrust to us rather than to himself or his son?
_Lysis._--Necessarily so, Sokrates. _Sokr._--This is the
state of the case, then, my dear Lysis: On those matters on which we
shall have become intelligent, all persons will put trust in us--Greeks
as well as barbarians, men as well as women. We shall do
whatever we please respecting them: no one will be at all inclined to
interfere with us on such matters; not only we shall be ourselves
free, but we shall have command over others besides. These matters
will be really ours, because we shall derive real good from them.[4]
As to those subjects, on the contrary, on which we shall not have
acquired intelligence, no one will trust us to do what we think
right: every one,--not merely strangers, but father and mother and
nearer relatives if there were any,--will obstruct us as much as they
can: we shall be in servitude so far as these subjects are concerned;
and they will be really alien to us, for we shall derive no real good
from them. Do you admit that this is the case?[5] _Lysis._--I do
admit it. _Sokr._--Shall we then be friends to any one, or will
any one love us, on those matters on which we are unprofitable
_Lysis._--Certainly not. _Sokr._--You see that neither does
your father love you, nor does any man love another, in so far as he
is useless? _Lysis._--Apparently not. _Sokr._--If then you
become intelligent, my boy, all persons will be your friends and all
persons will be your kinsmen: for you will be useful and good: if you
do not, no one will be your friend,--not even your father nor your
mother nor your other relatives.
[Footnote 4: Plato, Lysis, 210 B. [Greek: kai\ ou)dei\s ê(ma=s e(kô\n
ei)=nai e)mpodiei=, a)ll' au)toi/ te e)leu/theroi e)so/metha e)n
au)toi=s kai\ a)/llôn a)/rchontes, ê(me/tera/ te tau=ta e)/stai;
o)nêso/metha ga\r a)p' au)tô=n.]]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Lysis, 210 C. [Greek: au)toi/ te e)n au)toi=s
e)so/metha a)/llôn u(pêkooi, kai\ ê(mi=n e)/stai a)llo/tria; ou)de\n
ga\r a)p' au)tô=n o)nêso/metha. Sugchôrei=s ou(/tôs e)/chein?
Sugchôrô=.]]
Is it possible then, Lysis, for a man to think highly of himself on
those matters on which he does not yet think aright? _Lysis._--How
can it be possible? _Sokr._--If you stand in need of a
teacher, you do not yet think aright? _Lysis._--True.
_Sokr._--Accordingly, you are not presumptuous on the score of
intelligence, since you are still without intelligence.
_Lysis._--By Zeus, Sokrates, I think not.[6]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Lysis, 210 D. [Greek: Oi(=o/n te ou)=n e)pi\
tou/tois, ô)= Lu/si, me/ga phronei=n, e)n oi(=s tis mê/pô phronei=?
Kai\ pô=s a)\n? e)/phê. Ei) d' a)/ra su\ didaska/lou de/ei, ou)/pô
phronei=s. A)lêthê=.
Ou)d' a)/ra megalo/phrôn ei)=, ei)/per a)/phrôn e)/ti. Ma\ Di/',
e)/phê, ô)= Sô/krates, ou)/ moi dokei=.]
There is here a double sense of [Greek: me/ga phronei=n,
megalo/phrôn], which cannot easily be made to pass into any other
language.]
[Side-note: Lysis is humiliated. Distress of Hippothalês.]
When I heard Lysis speak thus (continues Sokrates, who is here the
narrator), I looked towards Hippothalês and I was on the point of
committing a blunder: for it occurred to me to say, That is the way,
Hippothalês, to address a youth whom you love: you ought to check and
humble him, not puff him up and spoil him, as you have hitherto done.
But when I saw him agitated and distressed by what had been said, I
called to mind that, though standing close by, he wished not to be
seen by Lysis. Accordingly, I restrained myself and said nothing of
the kind.[7]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Lysis, 210 E.]
[Side-note: Lysis entreats Sokrates to talk in the like strain
to Menexenus.]
Lysis accepts this as a friendly lesson, inculcating humility: and
seeing Menexenus just then coming back, he says aside to Sokrates,
Talk to Menexenus, as you have been talking to me. You can tell him
yourself (replies Sokrates) what you have heard from me: you listened
very attentively. Most certainly I shall tell him (says Lysis): but
meanwhile pray address to him yourself some other questions, for me
to hear. You must engage to help me if I require it (answers
Sokrates): for Menexenus is a formidable disputant, scholar of our
friend Ktesippus, who is here ready to assist him. I know he is
(rejoined Lysis), and it is for that very reason that I want you to
talk to him--that you may chasten and punish him.[8]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Lysis, 211 B-C. [Greek: a)ll' o(/ra o(/pôs
e)pikourê/seis moi, e)a/n me e)le/gchein e)picheirê=| o( Mene/xenos.
ê)\ ou)k oi)=stha o(/ti e)ristiko/s e)sti? Nai\ ma\ Di/a, e)/phê,
spho/dra ge. dia\ tau=ta/ toi kai\ bou/lomai/ se au)tô=|
diale/gesthai--i(/n' au)to\n kola/sê|s.]
Compare Xenophon, Memor. i. 4, 1, where he speaks of the chastising
purpose often contemplated by Sokrates in his conversation--[Greek:
a)\ e)kei=nos kolastêri/ou e(/neka tou\s pa/nt' oi)ome/nous ei)de/nai
e)rôtô=n ê)/legchen.]]
[Side-note: Value of the first conversation between Sokrates
and Lysis, as an illustration of the Platonico-Sokratic manner.]
I have given at length, and almost literally (with some few
abbreviations), this first conversation between Sokrates and Lysis,
because it is a very characteristic passage, exhibiting conspicuously
several peculiar features of the Platonico-Sokratic interrogation.
Facts common and familiar are placed in a novel point of view,
ingeniously contrasted, and introduced as stepping-stones to a very
wide generality. Wisdom or knowledge is exalted into the ruling force
with liberty of action not admissible except under its guidance:
the questions are put in an inverted half-ironical tone (not uncommon
with the historical Sokrates[9]), as if an affirmative answer were
expected as a matter of course, while in truth the answer is sure to
be negative: lastly, the purpose of checking undue self-esteem is
proclaimed. The rest of the dialogue, which contains the main
substantive question investigated, I can report only in brief
abridgment, with a few remarks following.
[Footnote 9: See the conversation of Sokrates with Glaukon in
Xenophon, Memor. iii. 6; also the conversation with Perikles, iii. 5,
23-24.]
[Side-note: Sokrates begins to examine Menexenus respecting
friendship. Who is to be called a friend? Halt in the dialogue.]
Sokrates begins, as Lysis requests, to interrogate Menexenus--first
premising--Different men have different tastes: some love horses and
dogs, others wealth or honours. For my part, I care little about all
such acquisitions: but I ardently desire to possess friends, and I
would rather have a good friend than all the treasures of Persia. You
two, Menexenus and Lysis, are much to be envied, because at your
early age, each of you has made an attached friend of the other. But
I am so far from any such good fortune, that I do not even know how
any man becomes the friend of another. This is what I want to ask
from you, Menexenus, as one who must know,[10] having acquired such a
friend already.
[Footnote 10: Plato, Lysis, 211-212.]
When one man loves another, which becomes the friend of which? Does
he who loves, become the friend of him whom he loves, whether the
latter returns the affection or not? Or is the person loved, whatever
be his own dispositions, the friend of the person who loves him? Or
is reciprocity of affection necessary, in order that either shall be
the friend of the other?
The speakers cannot satisfy themselves that the title of
_friend_ fits either of the three cases;[11] so that this line
of interrogating comes to a dead lock. Menexenus avows his
embarrassment, while Lysis expresses himself more hopefully.
[Footnote 11: Plato, Lysis, 212-213. 213 C:--[Greek: ei) mê/te oi(
philou=ntes (1) phi/loi e)/sontai, mê/th' oi( philou/menoi (2),
mê/th' oi( philou=nte/s te kai\ philou/menoi] (3), &c. Sokrates
here professes to have shown grounds for rejecting all these three
suppositions. But if we follow the preceding argument, we shall see
that he has shown grounds only against the first two, not against the
third.]
[Side-note: Questions addressed to Lysis. Appeal to the maxims
of the poets. Like is the friend of like. Canvassed and rejected.]
Sokrates now takes up a different aspect of the question, and
turns to Lysis, inviting him to consider what has been laid down
by the poets, "our fathers and guides in respect of wisdom".[12]
Homer says that the Gods originate friendship, by bringing the like
man to his like: Empedokles and other physical philosophers have also
asserted, that like must always and of necessity be the friend of
like. These wise teachers cannot mean (continues Sokrates) that bad
men are friends of each other. The bad man can be no one's friend. He
is not even like himself, but ever wayward and insane:--much less can
he be like to any one else, even to another bad man. They mean that
the good alone are like to each other, and friends to each other.[13]
But is this true? What good, or what harm, can like do to like, which
it does not also do to itself? How can there be reciprocal love
between parties who render to each other no reciprocal aid? Is not
the good man, so far forth as good, sufficient to himself,--standing
in need of no one--and therefore loving no one? How can good men care
much for each other, seeing that they thus neither regret each other
when absent, nor have need of each other when present?[14]
[Footnote 12: Plato, Lysis, 213 E: [Greek: skopou=nta kata\ tou\s
poiêta/s; ou(=toi ga\r ê(mi=n ô(/sper pate/res tê=s sophi/as ei)si\
kai\ ê(gemo/nes.]]
[Footnote 13: Plato, Lysis, 214.]
[Footnote 14: Plato, Lysis 215 B: [Greek: O( de\ mê/ tou deo/menos,
ou)de/ ti a)gapô/| a)\n. . . . O(\ de\ mê\ a)gapô/|ê, ou)d' a)\n
philoi=. . . . Pô=s ou)=n oi( a)gathoi\ toi=s a)gathoi=s ê(mi=n phi/loi
e)/sontai tê\n a)rchê/n, oi(\ mê/te a(po/ntes potheinoi\
a)llê/lois--i(kanoi\ ga\r e(autoi=s kai\ chôri\s o)/ntes--mê/te paro/ntes
chrei/an au)tô=n e)/chousi? tou\s dê\ toiou/tous ti/s mêchanê\ peri\
pollou= poiei=sthai a)llêlous?]]
[Side-note: Other poets declare that likeness is a cause of
aversion; unlikeness, of friendship. Reasons _pro_ and
_con_. Rejected.]
It appears, therefore, Lysis (continues Sokrates), that we are
travelling in the wrong road, and must try another direction. I now
remember to have recently heard some one affirming--contrary to what
we have just said--that likeness is a cause of aversion, and**
unlikeness a cause of friendship. He too produced evidence from the
poets: for Hesiod tells us, that "potter is jealous of potter, and
bard of bard". Things most alike are most full of envy, jealousy and
hatred to each other: things most unlike, are most full of
friendship. Thus the poor man is of necessity a friend to the rich,
the weak man to the strong, for the sake of protection: the sick man,
for similar reason, to the physician. In general, every ignorant man
loves, and is a friend to, the man of knowledge. Nay, there are
also physical philosophers, who assert that this principle
pervades all nature; that dry is the friend of moist, cold of hot,
and so forth: that all contraries serve as nourishment to their
contraries. These are ingenious teachers: but if we follow them, we
shall have the cleverest disputants attacking us immediately, and
asking--What! is the opposite essentially a friend to its opposite?
Do you mean that unjust is essentially the friend of just--temperate
of intemperate--good of evil? Impossible: the doctrine cannot be
maintained.[15]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Lysis, 215-216.]
[Side-note: Confusion of Sokrates. He suggests, That the
Indifferent (neither good nor evil) is friend to the Good.]
My head turns (continues Sokrates) with this confusion and puzzle--since
neither like is the friend of like, nor contrary of contrary.
But I will now hazard a different guess of my own.[16] There are
three genera in all: the good--the evil--and that which is neither
good nor evil, the indifferent. Now we have found that good is not a
friend to good--nor evil to evil--nor good to evil--nor evil to good.
If therefore there exist any friendship at all, it must be the
indifferent that is friend, either to its like, or to the good: for
nothing whatever can be a friend to evil. But if the indifferent be a
friend at all, it cannot be a friend to its own like; since we have
already shown that like generally is not friend to like. It remains
therefore, that the indifferent, in itself neither good nor evil, is
friend to the good.[17]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Lysis, 216 C-D: [Greek: tô=| o)/nti au)to\s
i)liggiô= u(po\ tê=s tou= lo/gou a)pori/as--Le/gô toi/nun
a)pomanteuo/menos], &c.]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Lysis, 216 D.]
[Side-note: Suggestion canvassed. If the Indifferent is friend
to the Good, it is determined to become so by the contact of felt
evil, from which it is anxious to escape.]
Yet hold! Are we on the right scent? What reason is there to
determine, on the part of the indifferent, attachment to the good? It
will only have such attachment under certain given circumstances:
when, though neither good nor evil in itself, it has nevertheless
evil associated with it, of which it desires to be rid. Thus the body
in itself is neither good nor evil: but when diseased, it has evil
clinging to it, and becomes in consequence of this evil, friendly to
the medical art as a remedy. But this is true only so long as the
evil is only apparent, and not real: so long as it is a mere
superficial appendage, and has not become incorporated with the
essential nature of the body. When evil has become engrained,
the body ceases to be indifferent (_i.e._, neither good nor
evil), and loses all its attachment to good. Thus that which
determines the indifferent to become friend of the good, is, the
contact and pressure of accessory evil not in harmony with its own
nature, accompanied by a desire for the cure of such evil.[18]
[Footnote 18: Plato, Lysis, 217 E: [Greek: To\ mê/te kako\n a)/ra
mê/t' a)gatho\n e)ni/ote kakou= paro/ntos ou)/pô kako/n e)stin,
e)/sti d' o(/te ê)/dê to\ toiou=ton ge/gonen. Pa/nu ge. Ou)kou=n
o(/tan mê/pô lalo\n ê(=| kakou= paro/ntos, au)tê\ me\n ê( parousi/a
a)gathou= au)to\ poiei= e)pithumei=n, ê( de\ kako\n poiou=sa
a)posterei= au)to\ tê=s t' e)pithumi/as a)/ma kai\ tê=s phili/as
ta)gathou=. Ou) ga\r e)/ti e)sti\n ou)/te kako\n ou)/t' a)gatho/n,
a)lla\ kako/n; phi/lon de\ a)gathô=| kako\n ou)k ê)=n.]]
[Side-note: Principle illustrated by the philosopher. His
intermediate condition--not wise, yet painfully feeling his own
ignorance.]
Under this head comes the explanation of the philosopher--the friend
or lover of wisdom. The man already wise is not a lover of wisdom:
nor the man thoroughly bad and stupid, with whose nature ignorance is
engrained. Like does not love like, nor does contrary love contrary.
The philosopher is intermediate between the two: he is not wise, but
neither has he yet become radically stupid and unteachable. He has
ignorance cleaving to him as an evil, but he knows his own ignorance,
and yearns for wisdom as a cure for it.[19]
[Footnote 19: Plato, Lysis, 218 A. [Greek: dia\ tau=ta dê\ phai=men
a)\n kai\ tou\s ê)/dê sophou\s mêke/ti philosophei=n, ei)/te theoi\
ei)/te a)/nthrôpoi/ ei)sin ou(=toi; ou)d' au)= e)kei/nous
philosophei=n tou\s ou(/tôs a)/gnoian e)/chontas ô(/ste kakou\s
ei)=nai; kako\n ga\r kai\ a)mathê= ou)de/na philosophei=n. lei/pontai
dê\ oi( e)/chontes me\n to\ kako\n tou=to, tê\n a)/gnoian, mê/pô de\
u(p' au)tou= o)/ntes a)gnô/mones mêd' a)mathei=s, a)ll' e)/ti
ê(gou/menoi mê\ ei)de/nai a(\ mê\ i)/sasin. dio\ dê\ philosophou=sin
oi( ou)/te a)gathoi\ ou)/te kakoi/ pô o)/ntes. o(/soi de\ kakoi\, ou)
philosophou=sin, ou)de\ oi( a)gathoi/.]
Compare Plato, Symposion, 204.]
[Side-note: Sokrates dissatisfied. He originates a new
suggestion. The Primum Amabile, or object originally dear to us,
_per se_: by relation or resemblance to which other objects
become dear.]
The two young collocutors with Sokrates welcome this explanation
heartily, and Sokrates himself appears for the moment satisfied with
it. But he presently bethinks himself, and exclaims, Ah! Lysis and
Menexenus, our wealth is all a dream! we have been yielding again to
delusions! Let us once more examine. You will admit that all
friendship is on account of something and for the sake of something:
it is relative both to some producing cause, and to some prospective
end. Thus the body, which is in itself neither good nor evil, becomes
when sick a friend to the medical art: on account of sickness, which
is an evil--and for the sake of health, which is a good. The medical
art is dear to us, because health is dear: but is there any thing
behind, for the sake of which health also is dear? It is plain
that we cannot push the series of references onward for ever, and
that we must come ultimately to something which is dear _per
se_, not from reference to any ulterior _aliud_. We must come
to some _primum amabile_, dear by its own nature, to which all
other dear things refer, and from which they are derivatives.[20] It
is this _primum amabile_ which is the primitive, essential, and
constant, object of our affections: we love other things only from
their being associated with it. Thus suppose a father tenderly
attached to his son, and that the son has drunk hemlock, for which
wine is an antidote; the father will come by association to prize
highly, not merely the wine which saves his son's life, but even the
cup in which the wine is contained. Yet it would be wrong to say that
he prizes the wine or the cup as much as his son: for the truth is,
that all his solicitude is really on behalf of his son, and extends
only in a derivative and secondary way to the wine and the cup. So
about gold and silver: we talk of prizing highly gold and silver--but
this is incorrect, for what we really prize is not gold, but the
ulterior something, whatever it be, for the attainment of which gold
and other instrumental means are accumulated. In general terms--when
we say that B is dear on account of A, we are really speaking of A
under the name of B. What is really dear, is that primitive object of
love, _primum amabile_, towards which all the affections which
we bear to other things, refer and tend.[21]
[Footnote 20: Plato, Lysis, 219 C-D. [Greek: A)=r' ou)=n ou)k
a)na/gkê a)peipei=n ê(ma=s ou(/tôs i)o/ntas, kai\ a)phike/sthai e)pi/
tina a)rchê\n, ê)\ ou)ke/t' e)panoi/sei e)p' a)/llo phi/lon, a)ll'
ê(/xei e)p' e)kei=no o(/ e)sti _prô=ton phi/lon_, ou(= e(/neka
kai\ ta)/lla phame\n pa/nta phi/la ei)=nai?]]
[Footnote 21: Plato, Lysis, c. 37, p. 220 B. [Greek: O(/sa ga/r
phamen phi/la ei)=nai ê(mi=n e(/neka phi/lou tino/s, e(te/rô|
r(ê/mati phaino/metha le/gontes _au)to/_; phi/lon de\ _tô=|
o)/nti_ kinduneu/ei _e)kei=no au)to\_, ei)s o(\ pa=sai
au(=tai ai( lego/menai phili/ai teleutô=sin.]]
[Side-note: The cause of love is desire. We desire that which
is akin to us or our own.]
Is it then true (continues Sokrates) that good is our _primum
amabile_, and dear to us in itself? If so, is it dear to us on
account of evil? that is, only as a remedy for evil; so that if evil
were totally banished, good would cease to be prized? Is it true that
evil is the cause why any thing is dear to us?[22] This cannot be:
because even if all evil were banished, the appetites and
desires, such of them as were neither good nor evil, would still
remain: and the things which gratify those appetites will be dear to
us. It is not therefore true that evil is the cause of things being
dear to us. We have just found out another cause for loving and being
loved--desire. He who desires, loves what he desires and as long as
he desires: he desires moreover that of which he is in want, and he
is in want of that which has been taken away from him--of his
own.[23] It is therefore this _own_ which is the appropriate
object of desire, friendship, and love. If you two, Lysis and
Menexenus, love each other, it is because you are somehow of kindred
nature with each other. The lover would not become a lover, unless
there were, between him and his beloved, a certain kinship or
affinity in mind, disposition, tastes, or form. We love, by necessary
law, that which has a natural affinity to us; so that the real and
genuine lover may be certain of a return of affection from his
beloved.[24]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Lysis, 220 D. We may see that in this chapter
Plato runs into a confusion between [Greek: to\ dia/ ti] and [Greek:
to\ e(/neka/ tou], which two he began by carefully distinguishing.
Thus in 218 D he says, [Greek: o( phi/los e)sti\ tô| phi/los--e(/neka/
tou kai\ dia/ ti.] Again 219 A, he says--[Greek: to\ sô=ma
tê=s i)atrikê=s phi/lon e)sti/n, _dia\ tê\n no/son, e(/neka tê=s
u(giei/as_.] This is a very clear and important distinction.
It is continued in 220 D--[Greek: o(/ti _dia\ to\ kako\n_
ta)gatho\n ê)gapô=men kai\ e)philou=men, ô(s pha/rmakon o)\n tou=
kakou= to\ a)gatho/n, to\ de\ kako/n no/sma.] But in 220 E--[Greek:
to\ de\ tô=| o)/nti phi/lon pa=n tou)nanti/on tou/tou phai/netai
pephuko/s; _phi/lon ga\r ê(mi=n a)nepha/nê o(\n e(chthrou=
e(/neka_.] To make the reasoning consistent with what had gone
before, these two last words ought to be exchanged for [Greek: dia\
to\ e)chthro/n]. Plato had laid down the doctrine that good is
loved--[Greek: dia\ to\ kako/n], not [Greek: e(/neka tou= kakou=]. Good
is loved on _account of evil_, but for _the sake of obtaining_
a remedy to or cessation of the evil.
Steinhart (in his note on Hieron. Müller's translation of Plato, p.
268) calls this a "sophistisches Räthselspiel"; and he notes other
portions of the dialogue which "remind us of the deceptive tricks of
the Sophists" (die Trugspiele der Sophisten, see p. 222-224-227-230).
He praises Plato here for his "fine pleasantry on the deceptive arts
of the Sophists". Admitting that Plato puts forward sophistical
quibbles with the word [Greek: phi/los], he tells us that this is
suitable for the purpose of puzzling the contentious young man
Menexenus. The confusion between [Greek: e(/neka/ tou] and [Greek:
dia/ ti] (noticed above) appears to be numbered by Steinhart among
the fine jests against Protagoras, Prodikus, or some of the Sophists.
I can see nothing in it except an unconscious inaccuracy in Plato's
reasoning.]
[Footnote 23: Plato, Lysis, 221 E. [Greek: To\ e)pithumou=n ou(= a)\n
e)ndee\s ê)=|, tou/tou e)pithumei=--e)ndee\s de\ gi/gnetai ou(= a)/n
tis a)phairê=tai--tou= oi)kei/ou dê/, ô(s e)/oiken, o(/ te e)/rôs
kai\ ê( phili/a kai\ ê( e)pithumi/a tugcha/nei ou)=sa.] This is the
same doctrine as that which we read, expanded and cast into a myth
with comic turn, in the speech of Aristophanes in the Symposion, pp.
191-192-193. [Greek: e(/kastos ou)=n ê(mô=n e)/stin a)nthrô/pou
su/mbolon, a)/te tetmême/nos ô(/sper ai( psê=ttai e)x e(no\s du/o.
zêtei= dê\ a)ei\ to\ au)tou= e(/kastos xu/mbolon] (191 D)--[Greek:
dikai/ôs a)\n u(mnoi=men E)/rôta, o(\s e)/n te tô=| paro/nti plei=sta
ê(ma=s o)ni/nêsin ei)s to\ oi)kei=on a)/gôn], &c. (193 D).]
[Footnote 24: Plato, Lysis, 221-222.]
[Side-note: Good is of a nature akin to every one, evil is
alien to every one. Inconsistency with what has been previously laid
down.]
But is there any real difference between what is akin and what is
like? We must assume that there is: for we showed before, that like
was useless to like, and therefore not dear to like. Shall we say
that good is of a nature akin to every one, and evil of a nature
foreign to every one? If so, then there can be no friendship except
between one good man and another good man. But this too has been
proved to be impossible. All our tentatives have been alike
unsuccessful.
[Side-note: Failure of the enquiry. Close of the dialogue.]
In this dilemma (continues Sokrates, the narrator) I was about to ask
assistance from some of the older men around. But the tutors of
Menexenus and Lysis came up to us and insisted on conveying their
pupils home--the hour being late. As the youths were departing I said
to them--Well, we must close our dialogue with the confession, that
we have all three made a ridiculous figure in it: I, an old man, as
well as you two youths. Our hearers will go away declaring, that we
fancy ourselves to be friends each to the other two; but that we have
not yet been able to find out what a friend is.[25]
[Footnote 25: Plato, Lysis, 223 B. [Greek: Nu=n me\n katage/lastoi
gego/namen e)gô/ te, gerô\n a)nê/r, kai\ u(mei=s], &c.]
* * * * *
[Side-note: Remarks. No positive result. Sokratic purpose in
analysing the familiar words--to expose the false persuasion of
knowledge.]
Thus ends the main discussion of the Lysis: not only without any
positive result, but with speakers and hearers more puzzled than they
were at the beginning: having been made to feel a great many
difficulties which they never felt before. Nor can I perceive any
general purpose running through the dialogue, except that truly
Sokratic and Platonic purpose--To show, by cross-examination on the
commonest words that what every one appears to know, and talks about
most confidently, no one really knows or can distinctly explain.[26]
This is the meaning of the final declaration put into the mouth
of Sokrates. "We believe ourselves to be each other's friends, yet we
none of us know what a friend is." The question is one, which no one
had ever troubled himself to investigate, or thought it requisite to
ask from others. Every one supposed himself to know, and every one
had in his memory an aggregate of conceptions and beliefs which he
accounted tantamount to knowledge: an aggregate generated by the
unconscious addition of a thousand facts and associations, each
separately unimportant and often inconsistent with the remainder:
while no rational analysis had ever been applied to verify the
consistency of this spontaneous product, or to define the familiar
words in which it is expressed. The reader is here involved in a
cloud of confusion respecting Friendship. No way out of it is shown,
and how is he to find one? He must take the matter into his own
active and studious meditation: which he has never yet done, though
the word is always in his mouth, and though the topic is among the
most common and familiar, upon which "the swain treads daily with his
clouted shoon".
[Footnote 26: Among the many points of analogy between the Lysis and
the Charmidês, one is, That both of them are declared to be spurious
and unworthy of Plato, by Socher as well as by Ast (Ast, Platon's
Leben, pp. 429-434; Socher, Ueber Platon, pp. 137-144).
Schleiermacher ranks the Lysis as second in his Platonic series of
dialogues, an appendix to the Phædrus (Einl. p. 174 seq.); K. F.
Hermann, Stallbaum, and nearly all the other critics dissent from
this view: they place the Lysis as an early dialogue, along with
Charmidês and Lachês, anterior to the Protagoras (K. F. Hermann,
Gesch. und Syst. Plat. Phil. pp. 447-448; Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Lys.
p. 90 (110 2nd ed.); Steinhart, Einl. p. 221) near to or during the
government of the Thirty. All of them profess to discover in the
Lysis "adolescentiæ vestigia".
Ast and Socher characterise the dialogue as a tissue of subtle
sophistry and eristic contradiction, such as (in their opinion) Plato
cannot have composed. Stallbaum concedes the sophistry, but contends
that it is put by Plato intentionally, for the purpose of deriding,
exposing, disgracing, the Sophists and their dialectical tricks:
"ludibrii causâ" (p. 88); "ut illustri aliquo exemplo demonstretur
dialecticam istam, quam adolescentes magno quodam studio sectabantur,
nihil esse aliud, nisi inanem quandam argutiarum captatricem,"
&c. (p. 87). Nevertheless he contends that along with this
derisory matter there is intermingled serious reasoning which may be
easily distinguished (p. 87), but which certainly he does not clearly
point out. (Compare pp. 108-9-14-15, 2nd ed.) Schleiermacher and
Steinhart also (pp. 222-224-227) admit the sophistry in which
Sokrates is here made to indulge. But Steinhart maintains that there
is an assignable philosophical purpose in the dialogue, which Plato
purposely wrapped up in enigmatical language, but of which he
(Steinhart) professes to give the solution (p. 228).]
[Side-note: Subject of Lysis. Suited for a Dialogue of Search.
Manner of Sokrates, multiplying defective explanations, and showing
reasons why each is defective.]
This was a proper subject for a dialogue of Search. In the dialogue
Lysis, Plato describes Sokrates as engaged in one of these searches,
handling, testing, and dropping, one point of view after another,
respecting the idea and foundation of friendship. He speaks,
professedly, as a diviner or guesser; following out obscure
promptings which he does not yet understand himself.[27] In this
character, he suggests several different explanations, not only
distinct but inconsistent with each other; each of them true to a
certain extent, under certain conditions and circumstances: but each
of them untrue, when we travel beyond those limits: other
contradictory considerations then interfering. To multiply defective
explanations, and to indicate why each is defective, is the whole
business of the dialogue.
[Footnote 27: Plato, Lysis, 216 D. [Greek: le/gô toi/nun
a)pomanteuo/menos], &c.]
[Side-note: The process of trial and error is better
illustrated by a search without result than with result. Usefulness
of the dialogue for self-working minds.]
Schleiermacher discovers in this dialogue indications of a positive
result not plainly enunciated: but he admits that Aristotle did not
discover them--nor can I believe them to have been intended by the
author.[28] But most critics speak slightingly of it, as alike
sceptical and sophistical: and some even deny its authenticity on
these grounds. Plato might have replied by saying that he intended it
as a specimen illustrating the process of search for an unknown
_quæsitum_; and as an exposition of what can be said for, as
well as against, many different points of view. The process of trial
and error, the most general fact of human intelligence, is even
better illustrated when the search is unsuccessful: because when a
result is once obtained, most persons care for nothing else and
forget the antecedent blunders. To those indeed, who ask only to hear
the result as soon as it is found, and who wait for others to look
for it--such a dialogue as the Lysis will appear of little value. But
to any one who intends to search for it himself, or to study the same
problem for himself, the report thus presented of a previous
unsuccessful search, is useful both as guidance and warning. Every
one of the tentative solutions indicated in the Lysis has something
in its favour, yet is nevertheless inadmissible. To learn the grounds
which ultimately compel us to reject what at first appears
admissible, is instruction not to be despised; at the very least, it
helps to preserve us from mistake, and to state the problem in the
manner most suitable for obtaining a solution.
[Footnote 28: Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Lysis, i. p. 177.]
[Side-note: Subject of friendship, handled both by the
Xenophontic Sokrates, and by Aristotle.]
In truth, no one general solution is attainable, such as Plato here
professes to search for.[29] In one of the three Xenophontic
dialogues wherein the subject of friendship is discussed we find
the real Sokrates presenting it with a juster view of its real
complications.[30] The same remark may be made upon Aristotle's
manner of handling friendship in the Ethics. He seems plainly to
allude to the Lysis (though not mentioning it by name); and to profit
by it at least in what he puts out of consideration, if not in what
he brings forward.[31] He discards the physical and cosmical
analogies, which Plato borrows from Empedokles and Herakleitus, as
too remote and inapplicable: he considers that the question must be
determined by facts and principles relating to human dispositions and
conduct. In other ways, he circumscribes the problem, by setting
aside (what Plato includes) all objects of attachment which are not
capable of reciprocating attachment.[32] The problem, as set forth
here by Plato, is conceived in great generality. In what manner does
one man become the friend of another?[33] How does a man become the
object of friendship or love from another? What is that object
towards which our love or friendship is determined? These terms are
so large, that they include everything belonging to the Tender
Emotion generally.[34]
[Footnote 29: Turgot has some excellent remarks on the hopelessness
of such problems as that which Plato propounds, here well as in other
dialogues, to find definitions of common and vague terms.
We read in his article Etymologie, in the Encyclopédie (vol. iii. pp.
70-72 of his Oeuvres Complets):
"Qu'on se répresente la foule des acceptions du mot _esprit_,
depuis son sens primitif _spiritus, haleine_, jusqu'à ceux
qu'on lui donne dans la chimie, dans la littérature, dans la
jurisprudence, _esprit acide_, esprit de Montaigne, _esprit
des loix_, &c.--qu'on essaie d'extraire de toutes ces
acceptions une idée qui soit commune à toutes--on verra s'évanouir
tous les caractères qui distinguent _l'esprit_ de toute autre
chose, dans quelque sens qu'on le prenne. . . . La multitude et
l'incompatibilité des acceptions du mot _esprit_, sont telles,
que personne n'a été tenté de les comprendre toutes dans une seule
_définition_, et de définir l'esprit en général. Mais le vice de
cette méthode n'est pas moins réel lorsqu'il n'est pas assez sensible
pour empêcher qu'on ne la suive.
"A mesure que le nombre et la diversité des acceptions diminue,
l'absurdité s'affoiblit: et quand elle disparoit, il reste encore
l'erreur. J'ose dire, que presque toutes les _définitions_ où
l'on annonce qu'on va définir les choses _dans le sens le plus
général_, ont ce défaut, et ne définissent véritablement rien:
parceque leurs auteurs, en voulant renfermer toutes les acceptions
d'un mot, ont entrepris une chose impossible: je veux dire, de
rassembler sous une seule idée générale des idées très différentes
entre elles, et qu'un même nom n'a jamais pu désigner que
successivement, en cessant en quelque sorte d'être le même mot."
See also the remarks of Mr. John Stuart Mill on the same subject.
System of Logic, Book IV. chap. 4, s. 5.]
[Footnote 30: See Xenophon, Memor. ii. 4-5-6. In the last of these
three conversations (s. 21-22), Sokrates says to Kritobulus [Greek:
A)ll' e)/chei me\n poiki/lôs pôs tau=ta, ô)= Krito/boule; phu/sei
ga\r e)/chousin oi( a)/nthrôpoi ta\ me\n philika/; de/ontai te ga\r
a)llê/lôn, kai\ e)leou=si, kai\ sunergou=ntes ô)phelou=si, kai\
tou=to sunie/ntes cha/rin e)/chousin a)llê/lois, ta\ de\ polemika/;
ta/ te ga\r au)ta\ kala\ kai\ ê(de/a nomi/zontes u(pe\r tou/tôn
ma/chontai, kai\ dichognômonou=ntes e)nantiou=ntai; polemiko\n de\
kai\ e)/ris kai\ o)rgê/; kai\ dusmene\s me\n o( tou= pleonektei=n
e)/rôs, misêto\n de\ o( phtho/nos.]
This observation of Sokrates is very true and valuable--that the
causes of friendship and the causes of enmity are both of them
equally natural, _i.e._ equally interwoven with the constant
conditions of individual and social life. This is very different from
the vague, partial, and encomiastic predicates with which [Greek: to\
phu/sei] is often decorated elsewhere by Sokrates himself, as well as
by Plato and Aristotle.]
[Footnote 31: Aristot. Eth. Nikom. viii. 1, p. 1155 b. Compare Plato,
Lysis, 214 A--215 E.]
[Footnote 32: Aristot. Ethic. Nik. viii. 2, p. 1155, b. 28; Plato,
Lysis, 212 D.]
[Footnote 33: Plato, Lysis, 212 A: [Greek: o(/ntina tro/pon gi/gnetai
phi/los e(/teros e(te/rou.] 223 ad fin.: [Greek: o(/, ti e)sti\n o(
phi/los.]]
[Footnote 34: See the chapter on Tender Emotion in Mr. Bain's
elaborate classification and description of the Emotions. 'The
Emotions and the Will,' ch. vii. p. 94 seq. (3rd ed., p. 124).
In the Lysis, 216 C-D, we read, among the suppositions thrown out by
Sokrates, about [Greek: to\ phi/lon--kinduneu/ei kata\ tê\n
a)rchai/an paroimi/an to\ kalo\n phi/lon ei)=nai. e)/oike gou=n
malakô=| tini kai\lei/ô| kai\ liparô=|; dio\ kai\ i)/sôs r(a|di/ôs
diolisthai/nei kai\ diadu/etai ê(ma=s, a(/te toiou=ton o)/n; le/gô
ga\r ta)gatho\n kalo\n ei)=nai.] This allusion to the soft and the
smooth is not very clear; a passage in Mr. Bain's chapter serves to
illustrate it.
"Among the sensations of the senses we find some that have the power
of awakening tender emotion. The sensations that incline to
tenderness are, in the first place, the effects of very gentle or
soft stimulants, such as soft touches, gentle sounds, slow movements,
temperate warmth, mild sunshine. These sensations must be felt in
order to produce the effect, which is mental and not simply organic.
We have seen that an acute sensation raises a vigorous muscular
expression, as in wonder; a contrast to this is exhibited by gentle
pressure or mild radiance. Hence tenderness is passive emotion by
pre-eminence: we see it flourishing best in the quiescence of the
moving members. Remotely there may be a large amount of action
stimulated by it, but the proper outgoing accompaniment of it is
organic not muscular."
That the sensations of the soft and the smooth dispose to the Tender
Emotion is here pointed out as a fact in human nature, agreeably to
the comparison of Plato. Mr. Bain's treatise has the rare merit of
describing fully the physical as well as the mental characteristics
of each separate emotion.]
[Side-note: Debate in the Lysis partly verbal, partly real.
Assumptions made by the Platonic Sokrates, questionable, such as the
real Sokrates would have found reason for challenging.]
The debate in the Lysis is partly verbal: _i.e._, respecting the
word [Greek: phi/los], whether it means the person loving, or the
person loved, or whether it shall be confined to those cases in which
the love is reciprocal, and then applied to both. Herein the question
is about the meaning of words--a word and nothing more. The following
portions of the dialogue enter upon questions not verbal but
real--"Whether we are disposed to love what is like to ourselves, or
what is unlike or opposite to ourselves?" Though both these are
occasionally true, it is shown that as general explanations neither
of them will hold. But this is shown by means of the following
assumptions, which not only those whom Plato here calls the "very
clever Disputants,"[35] but Sokrates himself at other times, would
have called in question, viz.: "That bad men cannot be friends to
each other--that men like to each other (therefore good men as
well as bad) can be of no use to each other, and therefore there can
be no basis of friendship between them--that the good man is
self-sufficing, stands in need of no one, and therefore will not love
any one."[36] All these assumptions Sokrates would have found sufficient
reason for challenging, if they had been advanced by Protagoras or
any other opponents. They stand here as affirmed by him; but here, as
elsewhere in Plato, the reader must apply his own critical intellect,
and test what he reads for himself.
[Footnote 35: Plato, Lysis, 216 A.: [Greek: oi( pa/nsophoi a)/ndres
oi( a)ntilogikoi/], &c. Yet Plato, in the Phædrus and Symposion,
indicates colloquial debate as the great generating cause of the most
intense and durable friendship. Aristeides the Rhetor says, Orat.
xlvii. ([Greek: Pro\s Kapi/tôna]), p. 418, Dindorf, [Greek: e)pei\
kai\ Pla/tôn to\ a)lêthe\s a(pantachou= tima=|, kai\ ta\s e)n toi=s
lo/gois sunousi/as a)phormê\n phili/as a)lêthinê=s u(polamba/nei.]]
[Footnote 36: Plato, Lysis, 214-215. The discourse of Cicero, De
Amicitiâ, is composed in a style of pleasing rhetoric; suitable to
Lælius, an ancient Roman senator and active politician, who expressly
renounces the accurate subtlety of Grecian philosophers (v. 18).
There is little in it which we can compare with the Platonic Lysis;
but I observe that he too, giving expression to his own feelings,
maintains that there can be no friendship except between the good and
virtuous: a position which is refuted by the "nefaria vox," cited by
himself as spoken by C. Blossius, xi. 37.]
[Side-note: Peculiar theory about friendship broached by
Sokrates. Persons neither good nor evil by nature, yet having a
superficial tinge of evil, and desiring good to escape from it.]
It is thus shown, or supposed to be shown, that the persons who love
are neither the Good, nor the Bad: and that the objects loved, are
neither things or persons similar, nor opposite, to the persons
loving. Sokrates now adverts to the existence of a third
category--Persons who are neither good, nor bad, but intermediate between
the two--Objects which are intermediate between likeness and opposition.
He announces as his own conjecture,[37] that the Subject of friendly
or loving feeling, is, that which is neither good nor evil: the
Object of the feeling, Good: and the cause of the feeling, the
superficial presence of evil, which the subject desires to see
removed.[38] The evil must be present in a superficial and removable
manner--like whiteness in the hair caused by white paint, not by the
grey colour of old age. Sokrates applies this to the state of mind of
the philosopher, or lover of knowledge: who is not yet either
thoroughly good or thoroughly bad,--either thoroughly wise or
thoroughly unwise--but in a state intermediate between the two:
ignorant, yet conscious of his own ignorance, and feeling it as a
misfortune which he was anxious to shake off.[39]
[Footnote 37: Plato, Lysis, 216 D. [Greek: le/gô toi/nun
a)pomanteuo/menos], &c.]
[Footnote 38: Plato, Lysis, 216-217.]
[Footnote 39: Plato, Lysis, 218 C. [Greek: lei/pontai dê\ oi(
e)/chontes me\n to\ kako\ tou=to, tê\n a)/gnoian, mê/pô de\ u(p'
au)tou= o)/ntes a)gnô/mones mêd' a)mathei=s, a)ll' e)/ti ê(gou/menoi
mê\ ei)de/nai a)\ mê\ i)/sasi; dio\ dê\ philosophou=sin oi( ou)/te
a)gathoi\ ou)/te kakoi/ pô o)/ntes; o(/soi de\ kakoi/, ou)
philosophou=sin, ou)de\ oi( a)gathoi/.] Compare the phrase of Seneca,
Epist. 59, p. 211, Gronov.: "Elui difficile est: non enim inquinati
sumus, sed infecti".]
[Side-note: This general theory illustrated by the case
of the philosopher or lover of wisdom. Painful consciousness of
ignorance the attribute of the philosopher. Value set by Sokrates and
Plato upon this attribute.]
This meaning of philosophy, though it is not always and consistently
maintained throughout the Platonic writings, is important as
expanding and bringing into system the position laid down by Sokrates
in the Apology. He there disclaimed all pretensions to wisdom, but he
announced himself as a philosopher, in the above literal sense: that
is, as ignorant, yet as painfully conscious of his own ignorance, and
anxiously searching for wisdom as a corrective to it: while most men
were equally ignorant, but were unconscious of their own ignorance,
believed themselves to be already wise, and delivered confident
opinions without ever having analysed the matters on which they
spoke. The conversation of Sokrates (as I have before remarked) was
intended, not to teach wisdom, but to raise men out of this false
persuasion of wisdom, which he believed to be the natural state of
the human mind, into that mental condition which he called
philosophy. His Elenchus made them conscious of their ignorance,
anxious to escape from it, and prepared for mental efforts in search
of knowledge: in which search Sokrates assisted them, but without
declaring, and even professing inability to declare, where that truth
lay in which the search was to end. He considered that this change
was in itself a great and serious improvement, converting what was
evil, radical, and engrained--into evil superficial and removable;
which was a preliminary condition to any positive acquirement. The
first thing to be done was to create searchers after truth, men who
would look at the subject for themselves with earnest attention, and
make up their own individual convictions. Even if nothing ulterior
were achieved, that alone would be a great deal. Such was the scope
of the Sokratic conversation; and such the conception of philosophy
(the capital peculiarity which Plato borrowed from Sokrates), which
is briefly noted in this passage of the Lysis, and developed in other
Platonic dialogues, especially in the Symposion,[40] which we shall
reach presently.
[Footnote 40: Plato, Sympos. 202-203-204. Phædrus, 278 D.]
[Side-note: Another theory of Sokrates. The Primum Amabile, or
original and primary object of Love. Particular objects are loved
through association with this. The object is, Good.]
Still, however, Sokrates is not fully satisfied with this
hypothesis, but passes on to another. If we love anything, we
must love it (he says) for the sake of something. This implies that
there must exist, in the background, a something which is the
primitive and real object of affection. The various things which we
actually love, are not loved for their own sake, but for the sake of
this _primum amabile_, and as shadows projected by it: just as a
man who loves his son, comes to love by association what is salutary
or comforting to his son--or as he loves money for the sake of what
money will purchase. The _primum amabile_, in the view of
Sokrates, is _Good_; particular things loved, are loved as
shadows of good.
[Side-note: Statement by Plato of the general law of mental
association.]
This is a doctrine which we shall find reproduced in other dialogues.
We note with interest here, that it appears illustrated, by a
statement of the general law of mental association--the calling up of
one idea by other ideas or by sensations, and the transference of
affections from one object to others which have been apprehended in
conjunction with it, either as antecedents or consequents. Plato
states this law clearly in the Phædon and elsewhere:[41] but he here
conceives it imperfectly: for he seems to believe that, if an
affection be transferred by association from a primitive object A, to
other objects, B, C, D, &c., A always continues to be the only
real object of affection, while B, C, D, &c., operate upon the
mind merely by carrying it back to A. The affection towards B, C, D,
&c., therefore is, in the view of Plato, only the affection for A
under other denominations and disguises.[42] Now this is doubtless
often the case; but often also, perhaps even more generally, it is
not the case. After a certain length of repetition and habit, all
conscious reference to the primitive object of affection will
commonly be left out, and the affection towards the secondary object
will become a feeling both substantive and immediate. What was
originally loved as means, for the sake of an ulterior end, will in
time come to be loved as an end for itself; and to constitute a
new centre of force, from whence derivatives may branch out. It may
even come to be loved more vehemently than any primitive object of
affection, if it chance to accumulate in itself derivative influences
from many of those objects.[43] This remark naturally presents
itself, when we meet here for the first time, distinctly stated by
Plato, the important psychological doctrine of the transference of
affections by association from one object to others.
[Footnote 41: Plato, Phædon, 73-74.
It is declared differently, and more clearly, by Aristotle in the
treatise [Greek: Peri\ Mnê/mês kai\ A)namnê/seôs], pp. 451-452.]
[Footnote 42: Plato, Lysis, 220 B. [Greek: o(/sa ga/r phamen phi/la
ei)=nai ê(mi=n e(/neka phi/lou tino/s, e(te/rô| r(ê/mati phaino/metha
le/gontes au)to/; phi/lon de\ tô=| o)/nti kinduneu/ei e)kei=no au)to\
ei)=nai, ei)s o(\ pa=sai au(=tai ai( lego/menai phili/ai
teleutô=sin.]]
[Footnote 43: There is no stronger illustration of this than the love
of money, which is the very example that Plato himself here cites.
The important point to which I here call attention, in respect to the
law of Mental Association, is forcibly illustrated by Mr. James Mill
in his 'Analysis of the Human Mind,' chapters xxi. and xxii., and by
Professor Bain in his works on the Senses and the
Intellect,--Intellect, chap. i. sect. 47-48, p. 404 seq. ed. 3; and on
the Emotions and the Will, chap. iv. sect. 4-5, p. 428 seq. (3rd ed. p.
363 seq.).]
[Side-note: Theory of the Primum Amabile, here introduced by
Sokrates, with numerous derivative objects of love. Platonic Idea.
Generic communion of Aristotle, distinguished by him from the feebler
analogical communion.]
The _primum amabile_, here introduced by Sokrates, is described
in restricted terms, as valuable merely to correct evil, and as
having no value _per se_, if evil were assumed not to exist. In
consequence chiefly of this restriction, Sokrates discards it as
unsatisfactory. Such restriction, however, is noway essential to the
doctrine: which approaches to, but is not coincident with, the Ideal
Good or Idea of Good, described in other dialogues as what every one
yearns after and aspires to, though without ever attaining it and
without even knowing what it is.[44] The Platonic Idea was conceived
as a substantive, intelligible, Ens, distinct in its nature from all
the particulars bearing the same name, and separated from them all by
a gulf which admitted no gradations of nearer and farther--yet
communicating itself to, or partaken by, all of them, in some
inexplicable way. Aristotle combated this doctrine, denying the
separate reality of the Idea, and admitting only a common generic
essence, dwelling in and pervading the particulars, but pervading
them all equally. The general word connoting this generic unity was
said by Aristotle (retaining the Platonic phraseology) to be [Greek:
lego/menon kata\ mi/an i)de/an] or [Greek: kath' e(/n].
[Footnote 44: Plato, Republ. vi. pp. 505-506.]
But apart from and beyond such generic unity, which implied a common
essence belonging to all, Aristotle recognised a looser, more
imperfect, yet more extensive, communion, founded upon common
relationship towards some [Greek: A)rchê\]--First Principle or First
Object. Such relationship was not always the same in kind: it might
be either resemblance, concomitance, antecedence or consequence,
&c.: it might also be different in degree, closer or more remote,
direct or indirect. Here, then, there was room for graduation, or
ordination of objects as former and latter, first, second, third,
&c., according as, when compared with each other, they were more
or less related to the common root. This imperfect communion was
designated by Aristotle under the title [Greek: kat' a)nalogi/an], as
contrasted with [Greek: kata\ ge/nos]: the predicate which affirmed
it was said to be applied, not [Greek: kata\ mi/an i)de/an] or
[Greek: kath' e(/n], but [Greek: pro\s mi/an phu/sin] or [Greek:
pro\s e(/n]:[45] it was affirmed neither entirely [Greek: sunônu/môs]
(which would imply generic communion), nor entirely [Greek:
o(mônu/môs] (which would be casual and imply no communion at all),
but midway between the two, so as to admit of a graduated communion,
and an arrangement as former and later, first cousin, or second,
third cousin. Members of the same Genus were considered to be
brothers, all on a par: but wherever there was this graduated
cousinship or communion (signified by the words Former and Later,
more or less in degree of relationship), Aristotle did not admit a
common Genus, nor did Plato admit a Substantive Idea.[46]
[Footnote 45: Arist. Metaphys. A. 1072, a. 26-29; Bonitz, Comm. p.
497 id. [Greek: Prô=ton o)rekto/n--Prô=ton voêto/n (prô=ton
o)rekto\n]--"quod _per se_ appetibile est et concupiscitur").
"Quod autem primum est in aliquâ serie, id præcipue etiam habet
qualitatem, quæ in reliquâ cernitur serie, c. a. 993, b. 24: ergo
prima illa substantia est [Greek: to\ a)/riston]"--also [Greek: G]
1004, a. 25-26, 1005, a. 7, about the [Greek: prô=ton e(/n--prô=ton
o)/n]. These were [Greek: ta\ pollachô=s lego/mena--ta\ pleonachô=s
lego/mena]--which were something less than [Greek: sunô/numa] and
more than [Greek: o(mô/numa]; intermediate between the two, having no
common [Greek: lo/gos] or generical unity, and yet not entirely
equivocal, but designating a [Greek: koino\n kat' a)nalogi/an]: not
[Greek: kata\ mi/an i)de/an lego/mena], but [Greek: pro\s e(\n] or
[Greek: pro\s mi/an phu/sin]; having a certain relation to one common
[Greek: phu/sis] called [Greek: to\ prô=ton]. See the Metaphys.
[Greek: G]. 1003, a. 33--[Greek: to/ de\ o)/n le/getai me\n
pollachô=s, a)lla\ pro\s e(/n kai\ mi/an tina\ phu/sin, kai\ ou)ch
o(mônu/môs, a)ll' ô(/sper to\ u(gieino\n a(/pan pro\s u(giei/an, to\
me\n tô=| phula/ttein, to\ de\ tô=| poiei=n, to\ de\ tê| sêmei=on
ei)=nai tê=s u(giei/as, to\ d' o(/ti dektiko\n au)tê=s--kai\ to\
i)atriko\n pro\s i)atrikê/n], &c. The Scholion of Alexander upon
this passage is instructive (p. 638, a. Brandis); and a very copious
explanation of the whole doctrine is given by M. Brentano, in his
valuable treatise, 'Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung _des
Seienden_ nach Aristoteles,' Freiburg, 1862, pp. 85-108-147.
Compare Aristotel. Politic. III. i. 9, p. 1275, a. 35.
The distinction drawn by Aristotle between [Greek: to\ koino\n kat'
i)de/an] and [Greek: to\ koino\n kat' a)nalogi/an]--between [Greek:
ta\ kata\ mi/an i)de/an lego/mena], and [Greek: ta\ pro\s e(\n] or
[Greek: pro\s mi/an phu/sin lego/mena]--this distinction corresponds
in part to that which is drawn by Dr. Whewell between classes which
are given by Definition, and natural groups which are given by Type.
"Such a natural group" (says Dr. Whewell) "is steadily fixed, though
not precisely limited; it is given, though not circumscribed; it is
determined, not by a boundary but by a central point within, &c."
The coincidence between this doctrine and the Aristotelian is real,
though only partial: [Greek: to\ prô=ton phi/lon, to\ prô=ton
o(rekto/n], may be considered as types of _objects loveable,
objects desirable_, &c., but [Greek: ê( u(giei/a] cannot be
considered as a type of [Greek: ta\ u(gieina\] nor [Greek: ê(
i)atrikê\] as a type of [Greek: ta\ i)atrika/], though it is "the
central point" to which all things so called are referred. See Dr.
Whewell's doctrine stated in the Philosophy of the Inductive
Sciences, i. 476-477; and the comments of Mr. John Stuart Mill on the
doctrine--'System of Logic,' Book iv. ch. 7. I have adverted to this
same doctrine in remarking on the Hippias Major, supra, p. 47; also
on the Philêbus, infra, chap. 32, vol. III.]
[Footnote 46: This is attested by Aristotle, Eth. Nik. i. 64, p.
1096, a. 16. [Greek: Oi( de\ komi/santes tê\n do/xan tau/tên, ou)k
e)poi/oun i)de/as e)n oi(=s to\ pro/teron kai\ to\ u(/steron
e)/legon; dio/per ou)de\ tô=n a)rithmô=n i)de/an kateskeu/azon]:
compare Ethic. Eudem. i. 8, 1218, a. 2. He goes on to object that
Plato, having laid this down as a general principle, departed from it
in recognizing an [Greek: i)de/an a)gathou=], because [Greek:
ta)gatho\n] was predicated in all the categories, in that of [Greek:
ou)si/a] as well as in that of [Greek: pro/s ti--to\ de\ kath' au(to\
kai\ ê( ou)si/a pro/teron tê=| phu/sei tou= pro/s ti--ô(/ste ou)k
a)\n ei)/ê koinê/ tis e)pi\ tou/tôn i)de/a.]]
[Side-note: Primum Amabile of Plato, compared with the Prima
Amicitia of Aristotle. Each of them is head of an analogical
aggregate, not member of a generic family.]
Now the [Greek: Prô=ton phi/lon] or Primum Amabile which we find in
the Lysis, is described as the principium or initial root of one of
these imperfectly united aggregates; ramifying into many branches
more or less distant, in obedience to one or other of the different
laws of association. Aristotle expresses the same idea in another
form of words: instead of a Primum Amabile, he gives us a Prima
Amicitia--affirming that the diversities of friendship are not
species comprehended under the same genus, but gradations or
degeneracies departing in one direction or other from the First or
pure Friendship. The Primum Amabile, in Plato's view, appears to be
the Good, though he does not explicitly declare it: the Prima
Amicitia, with Aristotle, is friendship subsisting between two good
persons, who have had sufficient experience to know, esteem, and
trust, each other.[47]
[Footnote 47: Aristotel. Eth. Nikom. viii. 2, 1155, b. 12, viii. 5,
1157, a. 30, viii. 4; Eth. Eudem. vii. 2, 1236, a. 15. The statement
is more full in the Eudemian Ethics than in the Nikomachean; he
begins the seventh book by saying that [Greek: phili/a] is not said
[Greek: monachô=s] but [Greek: pleonachô=s]; and in p. 1236 he says
[Greek: A)na/gkê a)/ra tri/a phili/as ei)/dê ei)=nai, kai\ _mête
kath' e(\n a(pa/sas_ mêth' ô(s _ei)/dê e(no\s ge/nous_, mê/te
pa/mpan le/gesthai o(mônu/môs; pro\s _mi/an ga/r tina le/gontai
kai\ prô/tên, ô(/sper to\ i)atriko/n_], &c. The whole passage
is instructive, but is too long to cite.
Bonitz gives some good explanations of these passages. Observationes
Criticæ in Aristotelis quæ feruntur _Magna Moralia_ et
_Eudemia_, pp. 55-57.]
[Side-note: The Good and Beautiful, considered as objects of
attachment.]
In regard to the Platonic Lysis, I have already observed that no
positive result can be found in it, and that all the hypotheses
broached are successively negatived. What is kept before the reader's
mind, however, more than anything else, though not embodied in any
distinct formula, is--The Good and the Beautiful considered as
objects of love or attachment.