It is however singular, that Sokrates, after he has extolled

Anaxagoras for enunciating a grand general cause, and has blamed him

only for not making application of it in detail, proceeds to state

that neither he himself, nor any one else within his knowledge, could

find the way of applying it, any more than Anaxagoras had done. If

Anaxagoras had failed, no one else could do better. The facts before

Sokrates could not be reconciled, by any way that he could devise,

with his assumed principle of rational directing force, or constant

optimistic purpose, inherent in the Kosmos. Accordingly he abandoned

this track, and entered upon another: seeking a different sort of

cause ([Greek: tê=s ai)ti/as to\ ei)=dos]), not by contemplation

of things, but by propositions and ratiocinative discourse. He now

assumed as a principle an universal axiom or proposition, from which

he proceeds to deduce consequences. The principle thus laid down is,

That there exist substantial Ideas--universal Entia. Each of these

Ideas communicates or imparts its own nature to the particulars which

bear the same name: and such communion or participation is the cause

why they are what they are. The cause why various objects are

beautiful or great, is, because they partake of the Self-Beautiful or

the Self-Great: the cause why they are two or three is, because they

partake of the Dyad or the Triad.

[Side-note: Vague and dissentient meanings attached to the

word Cause. That is a cause, to each man, which gives satisfaction to

his inquisitive feelings.]

Here then we have a third stage or variety of belief, in the

speculative mind of Sokrates, respecting Causes. The self-existent

Ideas ("propria Platonis supellex," to use the words of Seneca[69])

are postulated as Causes: and in this belief Sokrates at last finds

satisfaction. But these Causative Ideas, or Ideal Causes, though

satisfactory to Plato, were accepted by scarcely any one else. They

were transformed--seemingly even by Plato himself before his death,

into Ideal Numbers, products of the One implicated with Great and

Little or the undefined Dyad--and still farther transformed by

his successors Speusippus and Xenokrates: they were impugned in

every way, and emphatically rejected, by Aristotle.

[Footnote 69: Seneca, Epistol.

About this disposition, manifested by many philosophers, and in a

particular manner by Plato, to "embrace logical phantoms as real

causes," I transcribe a good passage from Malebranche.

"Je me sens encore extrêmement porté à dire que cette colonne est

dure _par sa nature_; ou bien que les petits liens dont sont

composés les corps durs, sont des atômes, dont les parties ne se

peuvent diviser, comme étant les parties _essentieles_ et

dernières des corps--et qui sont _essentiellement_ crochues ou

branchues.

Mais je reconnois franchement, que ce n'est point expliquer la

difficulté; et que, quittant les préoccupations et les illusions de

mes sens, j'aurais tort de recourir à une forme abstraite, et

d'_embrasser un fantôme de logique_ pour la cause que je

cherche. Je veux dire, que j'aurois tort de conçevoir, comme quelque

chose de réel et de distinct, l'idée vague de _nature_ et

d'_essence_, qui n'exprime que ce que l'on sait: et de prendre

ainsi une forme abstraite et universelle, comme une cause physique

d'un effet très réel. Car il y a deux choses dont je ne saurais trop

défier. La première est, l'impression de mes sens: et l'autre est, la

facilité que j'ai de prendre les natures abstraites et les idées

générales de logique, pour celles qui sont réelles et particulières:

et je me souviens d'avoir été plusieurs fois séduit par ces deux

principes d'erreur." (Malebranche--Recherche de la Vérité, vol. iii.,

liv. vi., ch. 8, p. 245, ed. 1772.)]

The foregoing picture given by Sokrates of the wanderings of his mind

([Greek: ta\s e)ma\s pla/nas]) in search of Causes, is interesting,

not only in reference to the Platonic age, but also to the process of

speculation generally. Almost every one talks of a Cause as a word of

the clearest meaning, familiar and understood by all hearers. There

are many who represent the Idea of Cause as simple, intuitive,

self-originated, universal; one and the same in all minds. These

philosophers consider the maxim that every phenomenon must have a

Cause--as self-evident, known _à priori_ apart from experience:

as something which no one can help believing as soon as it is stated

to him.[70] The gropings of Sokrates are among the numerous facts

which go to refute such a theory: or at least to show in what sense

alone it can be partially admitted. There is no fixed, positive,

universal Idea, corresponding to the word Cause. There is a wide

divergence, as to the question what a Cause really is, between

different ages of the same man (exemplified in the case of Sokrates):

much more between different philosophers at one time and another.

Plato complains of Anaxagoras and other philosophers for assigning as

Causes that which did not truly deserve the name: Aristotle also

blames the defective conceptions of his predecessors (Plato included)

on the same subject. If there be an intuitive idea corresponding to

the word Cause, it must be a different intuition in Plato and

Aristotle--in Plato himself at one age and at another age: in other

philosophers, different from both and from each other. The word is

equivocal--[Greek: pollachô=s lego/menon], in Aristotelian

phrase--men use it familiarly, but vary much in the thing signified.

_That_ is a Cause, to each man, which gives satisfaction to the

inquisitive feelings--curiosity, anxious perplexity, speculative

embarrassment of his own mind. Now doubtless these inquisitive

feelings are natural and widespread: they are emotions of our nature,

which men seek (in some cases) to appease by some satisfactory

hypothesis. That answer which affords satisfaction, looked at in one

of its aspects, is called Cause; Beginning or

Principle--Element--represent other aspects of the same Quæsitum:--

"Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,

Atque metus omnes et inexorabile Fatum

Subjecit pedibus strepitumque Acherontis avari,"

is the exclamation of that sentiment of wonder and uneasiness out of

which, according to Plato and Aristotle, philosophy springs.[71] But

though the appetite or craving is common, in greater or less degree,

to most persons--the nourishment calculated to allay it is by no

means the same to all. Good (says Aristotle) is that which all men

desire:[72] but all men do not agree in their judgment, what Good is.

The point of communion between mankind is here emotional rather than

intellectual: in the painful feeling of difficulty to be solved, not

in the manner of conceiving what the difficulty is, nor in the

direction where solution is to be sought, nor in the solution itself

when suggested.[73]

[Footnote 70: Dugald Stewart, Elem. Philos. Hum. Mind, vol. i. ch. 1,

sect. 2, pp. 98-99, ed. Hamilton, also note c same volume.

"Several modern philosophers (especially Dr. Reid, On the Intell.

Powers) have been at pains to illustrate that law of our nature which

leads us to refer every change we perceive in the universe to the

operation of an efficient cause. This reference is not the result of

reasoning, but necessarily accompanies the perception, so as to

render it impossible for us to see the change, without feeling a

conviction of the operation of some cause by which it is produced;

much in the same manner in which we find it impossible to conceive a

sensation, without being impressed with a belief of the existence of

a sentient being. Hence I conceive it is that when we see two events

constantly conjoined, we are led to associate the idea of causation

or efficiency with the former, and to refer to it that power or

energy by which the change is produced; in consequence of which

association we come to consider philosophy as the knowledge of

efficient causes, and lose sight of the operation of mind in

producing the phenomena of nature. It is by an association somewhat

similar that we connect our sensations of colour with the primary

qualities of body. A moment's reflection must satisfy any one that

the sensation of colour can only reside in a mind. . . . In the same

way we are led to associate with inanimate matter the ideas of power,

force, energy, causation, which are all attributes of mind, and can

exist in a mind only."]

[Footnote 71: Virgil, Georg. ii. 490-92. Compare Lucretius, vi.

50-65, and the letter of Epikurus to Herodotus, p. 25, ed. Orelli.

Plato, Theætêt. p. 155 D. [Greek: ma/la ga\r philoso/phou tou=to to\

pa/thos, to\ thauma/zein; ou) ga\r a)rchê\ a)/llê philosophi/as, ê)\

au(/tê]:--Aristotel. Metaphys. A. p. 982, b. 10-20. [Greek: dia\ ga\r

to\ thauma/zein oi( a)/nthrôpoi kai\ nu=n kai\ to\ prô=ton ê)rxanto

philosophei=n, o( de\ a)porô=n kai\ thauma/zôn oi)/etai a)gnoei=n.]]

[Footnote 72: Aristotel. Ethic. Nikom. i. 1. [Greek: dio\ kalô=s

a)pephê/|nanto ta)gatho/n, ou)= pa/ntes e)phi/entai.] Plato, Republ.

vi. p. 505 E. [Greek: O(/ dê\ diô/kei me\n a(pa=sa psuchê\ kai\

tou/tou e(/neka pa/nta pra/ttei, a)pomanteuome/nê ti ei)=nai,

a)porou=sa de\ kai\ ou)k e)/chousa labei=n i(kanô=s ti/ pot'

e)sti/n], &c.

Seneca, Epistol. 118. "Bonum est, quod ad se impetum animi secundum

naturam movet."]

[Footnote 73: Aristotle recognises the different nature of the

difficulties and problems which present themselves to the speculative

mind: he looks back upon the embarrassments of his predecessors as

antiquated and even silly, Metaphysic. N. 1089, a. 2. [Greek: Polla\

me\n ou)=n ta\ ai)/tia tê=s e)pi\ tau/tas ta\s ai)ti/as e)ktropê=s,

ma/lista de\ to\ a)porê=sai a)rchai+kô=s], which Alexander of

Aphrodisias paraphrases by [Greek: a)rchai+kô=s kai\ eu)êthô=s].

Compare A 993, a. 15.

In another passage of the same book, Aristotle notes and

characterises the emotion experienced by the mind in possessing what

is regarded as truth--the mental satisfaction obtained when a

difficulty is solved, 1090, a. 38. [Greek: Oi( de\ chôristo\n

poiou=ntes (to\n a)rithmo/n), o(/ti e)pi\ tô=n ai)sthêtô=n ou)k

e)/stai ta\ a)xiô/mata, a)lêthê= de\ ta\ lego/mena _kai\ sai/nei

tê\n psuchê/n_, ei)=nai/ te u(polamba/nousi kai\ chôrista\

ei)=nai; o(moi/ôs de\ ta\ mege/thê ta\ mathêmatika/.]

The subjective origin of philosophy--the feelings which prompt to the

theorising process, striking out different hypotheses and analogies--are

well stated by Adam Smith, 'History of Astronomy,' sect. ii. and iii.]

[Side-note: Dissension and perplexity on the question.--What

is a cause? revealed by the picture of Sokrates--no intuition to

guide him.]

When Sokrates here tells us that as a young man he felt anxious

curiosity to know what the cause of every phenomenon was, it is plain

that at this time he did not know what he was looking for: that he

proceeded only by successive steps of trial, doubt, discovered error,

rejection: and that each trial was adapted to the then existing state

of his own mind. The views of Anaxagoras he affirms to have presented

themselves to him as a new revelation: he then came to believe that

the only true Cause was, a cosmical reason and volition like to that

of which he was conscious in himself. Yet he farther tells us, that

others did not admit this Cause, but found other causes to satisfy

them: that even Anaxagoras did not follow out his own general

conception, but recognised Causes quite unconnected with it: lastly,

that neither could he (Sokrates) trace out the conception for

himself.[74] He was driven to renounce it, and to turn to another

sort of Cause--the hypothesis of self-existent Ideas, in which he

then acquiesced. And this last hypothesis, again, was ultimately much

modified in the mind of Plato himself, as we know from Aristotle. All

this shows that the Idea of Cause--far from being one and the same to

all, like the feeling of uneasiness which prompts the search for it--is

complicated, diverse, relative, and modifiable.

[Footnote 74: The view of Cause, which Sokrates here declares himself

to renounce from inability to pursue it, is substantially the same as

what he lays down in the Philêbus, pp. 23 D, 27 A, 30 E.

In the Timæus Plato assigns to Timæus the task (to which Sokrates in

the Phædon had confessed himself incompetent) of following into

detail the schemes and proceedings of the Demiurgic or optimising

[Greek: Nou=s]. But he also assumes the [Greek: ei)/dê] or Ideas as

co-ordinate and essential conditions.]

[Side-note: Different notions of Plato and Aristotle about

causation, causes regular and irregular. Inductive theory of

causation, elaborated in modern times.]

The last among the various revolutions which Sokrates represents

himself to have undergone--the transition from designing and

volitional agency of the Kosmos conceived as an animated system, to

the sovereignty of universal Ideas--is analogous to that transition

which Auguste Comte considers to be the natural progress of the

human mind: to explain phenomena at first by reference to some

personal agency, and to pass from this mode of explanation to that by

metaphysical abstractions. It is true that these are two distinct

modes of conceiving Causation; and that in each of them the human

mind, under different states of social and individual instruction,

finds satisfaction. But each of the two theories admits of much

diversity in the mode of conception. Plato seems to have first given

prominence to these metaphysical causes; and Aristotle in this

respect follows his example: though he greatly censures the

incomplete and erroneous theories of Plato. It is remarkable that

both these two philosophers recognised Causes irregular and

unpredictable, as well as Causes regular and predictable. Neither of

them included even the idea of regularity, as an essential part of

the meaning of Cause.[75] Lastly, there has been elaborated in modern

times, owing to the great extension of inductive science, another

theory of Causation, in which unconditional regularity is the

essential constituent: recognising no true Causes except the

phenomenal causes certified by experience, as interpreted inductively

and deductively--the assemblage of phenomenal antecedents, uniform

and unconditional, so far as they can be discovered and verified.

Certain it is that these are the only causes obtainable by

induction and experience: though many persons are not satisfied

without looking elsewhere for transcendental or ontological causes of

a totally different nature. All these theories imply--what Sokrates

announces in the passage just cited--the deep-seated influence of

speculative curiosity, or the thirst for finding the Why of things

and events, as a feeling of the human mind: but all of them indicate

the discrepant answers with which, in different enquirers, this

feeling is satisfied, though under the same equivocal name

_Cause_. And it would have been a proceeding worthy of Plato's

dialectic, if he had applied to the word Cause the same

cross-examining analysis which we have seen him applying to the

equally familiar words--Virtue--Courage--Temperance--Friendship, &c.

"First, let us settle what a Cause really is: then, and not till

then, can we succeed in ulterior enquiries respecting it."[76]

[Footnote 75: Monboddo, Ancient Metaphysics, B. 1. ch. iv. p. 32.

"Plato appears to have been the first of the Ionic School that

introduced _formal causes_ into natural philosophy. These he

called _Ideas_, and made the principles of all things. And the

reason why he insists so much upon this kind of cause, and so little

upon the other three, is given us by Aristotle in the end of his

first book of Metaphysics, _viz._, that he studied mathematics

too much, and instead of using them as the handmaid of philosophy,

made them philosophy itself. . . . Plato, however, in the Phædon says

a good deal about final causes; but in the system of natural

philosophy which is in the Timæus, he says very little of it."

I have already observed that Plato in the Timæus (48 A) recognises

erratic or irregular Causation--[Greek: ê( planôme/nê ai)ti/a].

Aristotle recognises [Greek: Ai)ti/a] among the equivocal words

[Greek: pollachô=s lego/mena]; and he enumerates [Greek: Tu/chê] and

[Greek: Au)to/maton]--irregular causes or causes by accident--among

them (Physic. ii. 195-198; Metaphys. K. 1065, a.) Schwegler, ad

Aristot. Metaphys. vi. 4, 3, "Das Zufällige ist ein nothwendiges

Element alles Geschehens". Alexander of Aphrodisias, the best of the

Aristotelian commentators, is at pains to defend this view of [Greek:

Tu/chê]--Causation by accident, or irregular.

Proklus, in his Commentary on the Timæus (ii. 80-81, p. 188,

Schneider), notices the labour and prolixity with which the

commentators before him set out the different varieties of Cause;

distinguishing sixty-four according to Plato, and forty-eight

according to Aristotle. Proklus adverts also (ad Timæum, iii. p. 176)

to an animated controversy raised by Theophrastus against Plato,

about Causes and the speculations thereupon.

An enumeration, though very incomplete, of the different meanings

assigned to the word Cause, may be seen in Professor Fleming's

Vocabulary of Philosophy.]

[Footnote 76: See Sir William Hamilton, Discussions on Philosophy,

Appendix, p. 585. The debates about what was meant in philosophy by

the word Cause are certainly older than Plato. We read that it was

discussed among the philosophers who frequented the house of

Perikles; and that that eminent statesman was ridiculed by his

dissolute son Xanthippus for taking part in such useless refinements

(Plutarch, Perikles, c. 36). But the Platonic dialogues are the

oldest compositions in which any attempts to analyse the meaning of

the word are preserved to us.

[Greek: Ai)/tiai, A)rchai/, Stoichei=a] (Aristot. Metaph. [Greek:

D].), were the main objects of search with the ancient speculative

philosophers. While all of them set to themselves the same problem,

each of them hit upon a different solution. That which gave mental

satisfaction to one, appeared unsatisfactory and even inadmissible to

the rest. The first book of Aristotle's Metaphysica gives an

instructive view of this discrepancy. His own analysis of Cause will

come before us hereafter. Compare the long discussions on the subject

in Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhon. Hypo. iii. 13-30; and adv. Mathemat.

ix. 195-250. The discrepancy was so great among the dogmatical

philosophers, that he pronounces the reality of the causal sequence

to be indeterminable--[Greek: o(/son me\n ou)=n e)pi\ toi=s

legome/nois u(po\ tô=n dogmatikô=n, ou)d' a)\n e)nnoê=sai/ tis to\

ai)/tion du/naito, ei)/ ge pro\s tô=| diaphô/nous kai\ a)lloko/tous

(a)podido/nai) e)nnoi/as tou= ai)ti/ou e)/ti kai\ tê\n u(po/stasin

au)tou= pepoiê/kasin a)neu/reton dia\ tê\n peri\ au)to\ diaphôni/an.]

Seneca (Epist. 65) blends together the Platonic and the Aristotelian

views, when he ascribes to Plato a quintuple variety of Causa.

The quadruple variety of Causation established by Aristotle governed

the speculations of philosophers during the middle ages. But since

the decline of the Aristotelian philosophy, there are few subjects

which have been more keenly debated among metaphysicians than the

Idea of Cause. It is one of the principal points of divergence among

the different schools of philosophy now existing. A volume, and a

very instructive volume, might be filled with the enumeration and

contrast of the different theories on the subject. Upon the view

which a man takes on this point will depend mainly the scope or

purpose which he sets before him in philosophy. Many seek the

solution of their problem in transcendental, ontological,

extra-phenomenal causes, lying apart from and above the world of fact

and experience; Reid and Stewart, while acknowledging the existence of

such causes as the true efficient causes, consider them as being out

of the reach of human knowledge; others recognise no true cause

except personal, quasi-human, voluntary, agency, grounded on the type

of human volition. Others, again, with whom my own opinion coincides,

following out the analysis of Hume and Brown, understand by causes

nothing more than phenomenal antecedents constant and unconditional,

ascertainable by experience and induction. See the copious and

elaborate chapter on this subject in Mr. John Stuart Mill's 'System

of Logic,' Book iii. ch. 5, especially as enlarged in the fourth,

fifth, and sixth editions of that work, including the criticism on

the opposite or volitional theory of Causation; also the work of

Professor Bain, 'The Emotions and the Will,' pp. 472-584. The

opposite view, in which Causes are treated as something essentially

distinct from Laws, and as ultra-phenomenal, is set forth by Dr.

Whewell, 'Novum Organon Renovatum,' ch. vii. p. 118 seq.]

[Side-note: Last transition of the mind of Sokrates from

things to words--to the adoption of the theory of ideas. Great

multitude of ideas assumed, each fitting a certain number of

particulars.]

There is yet another point which deserves attention in this history

given by Sokrates of the transitions of his own mind. His last

transition is represented as one from things to words, that is, to

general propositions:[77] to the assumption in each case of an

universal proposition or hypothesis calculated to fit that case. He

does not seem to consider the optimistic doctrine, which he had

before vainly endeavoured to follow out, as having been an

hypothesis, or universal proposition assumed as true and as a

principle from which to deduce consequences. Even if it were so,

however, it was one and the same assumption intended to suit all

cases: whereas the new doctrine to which he passed included many

distinct assumptions, each adapted to a certain number of cases and

not to the rest.[78] He assumed an untold multitude of self-existent

Ideas--The Self-Beautiful, Self-Just, Self-Great, Self-Equal,

Self-Unequal, &c.--each of them adapted to a certain number of

particular cases: the Self-Beautiful was assumed as the cause why all

particular things were beautiful--as that, of which all and each of

them partakes--and so of the rest.[79] Plato then explains his

procedure. He first deduced various consequences from this

assumed hypothesis, and examined whether all of them were consistent

or inconsistent with each other. If he detected inconsistencies (as

_e.g._ in the last half of the Parmenidês), we must suppose

(though Plato does not expressly say so) that he would reject or

modify his fundamental assumption: if he found none, he would retain

it. The point would have to be tried by dialectic debate with an

opponent: the logical process of inference and counter-inference is

here assumed to be trustworthy. But during this debate Plato would

require his opponent to admit the truth of the fundamental hypothesis

provisionally. If the opponent chose to impugn the latter, he must

open a distinct debate on that express subject. Plato insists that

the discussion of the consequences flowing from the hypothesis, shall

be kept quite apart from the discussion on the credibility of the

hypothesis itself. From the language employed, he seems to have had

in view certain disputants known to him, by whom the two were so

blended together as to produce much confusion in the reasoning.

[Footnote 77: Aristotle (Metaphysic. A. 987, b. 31, [Greek: Th].

1050, b. 35) calls the Platonici [Greek: oi( e)n toi=s lo/gois]: see

the note of Bonitz.]

[Footnote 78: Plato, Phædon, p. 100 A. [Greek: a)ll' ou)=n dê\

tau/tê| ge ô(/rmêsa, kai\ u(pothe/menos e(ka/stote lo/gon o(\n a)\n

kri/nô e)r)r(ômene/staton ei)=nai, a(\ me\n a)\n moi dokê=| tou/tô|

xumphônei=n, ti/thêmi ô(s a)lêthê= o)/nta, kai\ peri\ ai)ti/as kai\

peri\ tô=n a)/llôn a(pa/ntôn; a(\ d' a)\n mê/, ô(s ou)k a)lêthê=.]]

[Footnote 79: Aristotle controverts this doctrine of Plato in a

pointed manner, De Gen. et Corrupt. ii. 9, p. 335, b. 10, also

Metaphys. A. 991, b. 3. The former passage is the most animated in

point of expression, where Aristotle says--[Greek: ô(/sper o( e)n

tô=| Phai/dôni Sôkra/tês; kai\ ga\r e)kei=nos, e)pitimê/sas toi=s

a)/llois ô(s ou)de\n ei)rêko/sin, u(poti/thetai]--which is very true

about the Platonic dialogue _Phædon_, &c. But in both the

two passages, Aristotle distinctly maintains that the Ideas cannot be

_Causes_ of any thing.

This is another illustration of what I have observed above, that the

meaning of the word _Cause_ has been always fluctuating and

undetermined.

We see that, while Aristotle affirmed that the Ideas could not be

Causes of anything, Plato here maintains that they are the only true

Causes.]

[Side-note: Ultimate appeal to hypothesis of extreme

generality.]

But if your opponent impugns the hypothesis itself, how are you to

defend it? Plato here tells us: by means of some other hypothesis or

assumption, yet more universal than itself. You must ascend upwards

in the scale of generality, until you find an assumption suitable and

sufficient.[80]

[Footnote 80: Plato, Phædon, p. 101 E.]

We here see where it was that Plato looked for full, indisputable,

self-recommending and self-assuring, certainty and truth. Among the

most universal propositions. He states the matter here as if we were

to provide defence for an hypothesis less universal by ascending to

another hypothesis more universal. This is illustrated by what he

says in the Timæus--Propositions are cognate with the matter which

they affirm: those whose affirmation is purely intellectual,

comprising only matter of the intelligible world, or of genuine

Essence, are solid and inexpugnable: those which take in more or less

of the sensible world, which is a mere copy of the intelligible

exemplar, become less and less trustworthy--mere probabilities. Here

we have the Platonic worship of the most universal propositions, as

the only primary and evident truths.[81] But in the sixth and

seventh books of the Republic, he delivers a precept somewhat

different, requiring the philosopher not to rest in any hypothesis as

an ultimatum, but to consider them all as stepping-stones for

enabling him to ascend into a higher region, above all hypothesis--to

the first principle of every thing: and he considers geometrical

reasoning as defective because it takes its departure from hypothesis

or assumptions of which no account is rendered.[82] In the Republic

he thus contemplates an intuition by the mind of some primary, clear,

self-evident truth, above all hypotheses or assumptions even the most

universal, and transmitting its own certainty to every thing which

could be logically deduced from it: while in the Phædon, he does not

recognise any thing higher or more certain than the most universal

hypothesis--and he even presents the theory of self-existent Ideas as

nothing more than an hypothesis, though a very satisfactory one. In

the Republic, Plato has come to imagine the Idea of Good as

distinguished from and illuminating all the other Ideas: in the

Timæus, it seems personified in the Demiurgus; in the Phædon, that

Idea of Good appears to be represented by the Nous or Reason of

Anaxagoras. But Sokrates is unable to follow it out, so that it

becomes included, without any pre-eminence, among the Ideas

generally: all of them transcendental, co-ordinate, and primary

sources of truth to the intelligent mind--yet each of them exercising

a causative influence in its own department, and bestowing its own

special character on various particulars.

[Footnote 81: Plato, Timæus, p. 29 B. [Greek: ô(=de ou)=n peri/ te

ei)ko/nos kai\ tou= paradei/gmatos dioriste/on, ô(s a)/ra tou\s

lo/gous, ô(=npe/r ei)sin e)xêgêtai/, tou/tôn au)tô=n kai\ xuggenei=s

o)/ntas. tou= me\n ou)=n moni/mou kai\ bebai/ou kai\ meta\ nou=

kataphanou=s, moni/mous kai\ a)metaptô/tous . . . tou\s de\ tou= pro\s

me\n e)kei=no a)peikasthe/ntos, o)/ntos de\ ei)ko/nos, ei)ko/tas

a)na\ lo/gon te e)kei/nôn o)/ntas; o(/, tiper pro\s ge/nesin ou)si/a,

tou=to pro\s pi/stin a)lêthei/a.]]

[Footnote 82: Plato, Republic, vi. p. 511. [Greek: _tô=n

u(pothe/seôn a)nôte/rô e)kbai/nein_ . . . . to\ e(/teron tmê=ma tou=

noêtou=, ou)= au)to\s o( lo/gos a)/ptetai tê=| tou= diale/gesthai

duna/mei, ta\s u(pothe/seis poiou/menos ou)k a)rcha\s a)lla\ tô=|

o)/nti u(pothe/seis, oi(=on e)piba/seis te kai\ o(rma/s, i(/na

_me/chri tou= a)nupothe/tou e)pi\ tê\n tou= panto\s a)rchê\n

i)ô/n_, a(psa/menos au)tê=s, pa/lin au)= e)cho/menos tô=n

e)kei/nês e)chome/nôn, ou(/tôs e)pi\ teleutê\n katabai/nê|,

ai)sthêtô=| panta/pasin ou)deni\ proschrô/menos, a)ll' ei)/desin

au)toi=s di' au)tô=n ei)s au)ta/, kai\ teleuta=| ei)s ei)/dê.]

Compare vii. p. 533.]

[Side-note: Plato's demonstration of the immortality of the

soul rests upon the assumption of the Platonic ideas. Reasoning to

prove this.]

It is from the assumption of these Ideas as eternal Essences, that

Plato undertakes to demonstrate the immortality of the soul. One Idea

or Form will not admit, but peremptorily excludes, the approach of

that other Form which is opposite to it. Greatness will not

receive the form of littleness: nor will the greatness which is in

any particular subject receive the form of littleness. If the form of

littleness be brought to bear, greatness will not stay to receive it,

but will either retire or be destroyed. The same is true likewise

respecting that which essentially has the form: thus fire has

essentially the form of heat, and snow has essentially the form of

cold. Accordingly fire, as it will not receive the form of cold, so

neither will it receive snow: and snow, as it will not receive the

form of heat, so neither will it receive fire. If fire comes, snow

will either retire or will be destroyed. The Triad has always the

Form of Oddness, and will never receive that of Evenness: the Dyad

has always the Form of Evenness, and will never receive that of

Oddness--upon the approach of this latter it will either disappear or

will be destroyed: moreover the Dyad, while refusing to receive the

Form of Oddness, will refuse also to receive that of the Triad, which

always embodies that Form--although three is not in direct

contrariety with two. If then we are asked, What is that, the

presence of which makes a body hot? we need not confine ourselves to

the answer--It is the Form of Heat--which, though correct, gives no

new information: but we may farther say--It is Fire, which involves

the Form of Heat. If we are asked, What is that, the presence of

which makes a number odd, we shall not say--It is Oddness: but we

shall say--It is the Triad or the Pentad--both of which involve

Oddness.

[Side-note: The soul always brings life, and is essentially

living. It cannot receive death: in other words, it is immortal.]

In like manner, the question being asked, What is that, which, being

in the body, will give it life? we must answer--It is the soul. The

soul, when it lays hold of any body, always arrives bringing with it

life. Now death is the contrary of life. Accordingly the soul, which

always brings with it life, will never receive the contrary of life.

In other words, it is deathless or immortal.[83]

[Footnote 83: Plato, Phædon, p. 105 C-E. [Greek: A)pokri/nou dê/,

ô(=| a)\n ti/ e)gge/nêtai sô/mati, zô=n e)/stai? Ô(=i a)\n psuchê/,

e)/phê. Ou)kou=n a)ei\ tou=to ou(/tôs e)/chei? Pô=s ga\r ou)chi/? ê)=

d' o(/s. Ê( psuchê\ a)/ra o(/, ti a)\n au)tê\ kata/schê|, a)ei\

ê(/kei e)p' e)kei=no phe/rousa zôê/n? Ê(/kei me/ntoi, e)/phê.

Po/teron d' e)/sti ti zôê=| e)nanti/on, ê)\ ou)de/n? E)/stin, e)/phê.

Ti/? Tha/natos. ou)kou=n ê( psuchê\ to\ e)nanti/on ô(=| au)tê\

e)piphe/rei a)ei\ ou) mê/ pote de/xêtai, ô(s e)k tô=n pro/sthen

ô(molo/gêtai? Kai\ ma/la spho/dra, e)/phê o( Ke/bês. . . . O(\ d' a)\n

tha/naton mê\ de/chêtai, ti/ kalou=men? A)tha/naton, e)/phê.

A)tha/naton a)/ra ê( psuchê/? A)tha/naton.]

Nemesius, the Christian bishop of Emesa, declares that the proofs

given by Plato of the immortality of the soul are knotty and

difficult to understand, such as even adepts in philosophical study

can hardly follow. His own belief in it he rests upon the inspiration

of the Christian Scriptures (Nemesius de Nat. Homin. c. 2. p. 55, ed.

1565).]

[Side-note: The proof of immortality includes pre-existence

as well as post-existence--animals as well as man--also the

metempsychosis or translation of the soul from one body to another.]

Such is the ground upon which Sokrates rests his belief in the

immortality of the soul. The doctrine reposes, in Plato's view, upon

the assumption of eternal, self-existent, unchangeable, Ideas or

Forms:[84] upon the congeniality of nature, and inherent correlation,

between these Ideas and the Soul: upon the fact, that the soul knows

these Ideas, which knowledge must have been acquired in a prior state

of existence: and upon the essential participation of the soul in the

Idea of life, so that it cannot be conceived as without life, or as

dead.[85] The immortality of the soul is conceived as necessary and

entire, including not merely post-existence, but also pre-existence.

In fact the reference to an anterior time is more essential to

Plato's theory than that to a posterior time; because it is employed

to explain the cognitions of the mind, and the identity of learning

with reminiscence: while Simmias, who even at the close is not

without reserve on the subject of the post-existence, proclaims

an emphatic adhesion on that of the pre-existence.[86] The proof,

moreover, being founded in great part on the Idea of Life, embraces

every thing living, and is common to animals[87] (if not to plants)

as well as to men: and the metempsychosis--or transition of souls not

merely from one human body to another, but also from the human to the

animal body, and _vice versâ_--is a portion of the Platonic

creed.

[Footnote 84: Plato, Phædon, pp. 76 D-E, 100 B-C. It is remarkable

that in the Republic also, Sokrates undertakes to demonstrate the

immortality of the soul: and that in doing so he does not make any

reference or allusion to the arguments used in the Phædon, but

produces another argument totally distinct and novel: an argument

which Meiners remarks truly to be quite peculiar to Plato, Republic,

x. pp. 609 E, 611 C; Meiners, Geschichte der Wissenschaften, vol. ii.

p. 780.]

[Footnote 85: Zeller, Philosophie der Griech. Part ii. p. 267.

"Die Seele ist ihrem Begriffe nach dasjenige, zu dessen Wesen es

gehört zu leben--sie kann also in keinem Augenblicke als nicht lebend

gedacht werden: In diesem ontologischen Beweis für die

Unsterblichkeit, laufen nicht bloss alle die einzelnen Beweise des

Phædon zusammen, sondern derselbe wird auch schon im Phaedrus

vorgetragen," &c. Compare Phædrus, p. 245.

Hegel, in his Geschichte der Philosophie (Part ii. pp. 186-187-189,

ed. 2), maintains that Plato did not conceive the soul as a separate

thing or reality--that he did not mean to affirm, in the literal

sense of the words, its separate existence either before or after the

present life--that he did not descend to so crude a conception (zu

dieser Rohheit herabzusinken) as to represent to himself the soul as

a thing, or to enquire into its duration or continuance after the

manner of a thing--that Plato understood the soul to exist

essentially as the Universal Notion or Idea, the comprehensive

aggregate of all other Ideas, in which sense he affirmed it to be

immortal--that the descriptions which Plato gives of its condition,

either before life or after death, are to be treated only as poetical

metaphors. There is ingenuity in this view of Hegel, and many

separate expressions of Plato receive light from it: but it appears

to me to refine away too much. Plato had in his own mind and belief

both the soul as a particular thing--and the soul as an universal.

His language implies sometimes the one sometimes the other.]

[Footnote 86: Plato, Phædon, pp. 92, 107 B.]

[Footnote 87: See what Sokrates says about the swans, Phædon, p. 85

A-B.]

[Side-note: After finishing his proof that the soul is

immortal, Sokrates enters into a description, what will become of it

after the death of the body. He describes a [Greek: Nekui/a].]

Having completed his demonstration of the immortality of the soul,

Sokrates proceeds to give a sketch of the condition and treatment

which it experiences after death. The [Greek: Nekui/a] here following

is analogous, in general doctrinal scope, to those others which we

read in the Republic and in the Gorgias: but all of them are

different in particular incidents, illustrative circumstances, and

scenery. The sentiment of belief in Plato's mind attaches itself to

general doctrines, which appear to him to possess an evidence

independent of particulars. When he applies these doctrines to

particulars, he makes little distinction between such as are true, or

problematical, or fictitious: he varies his mythes at pleasure,

provided that they serve the purpose of illustrating his general

view. The mythe which we read in the Phædon includes a description of

the Earth which to us appears altogether imaginative and poetical:

yet it is hardly more so than several other current theories,

proposed by various philosophers antecedent and contemporary,

respecting Earth and Sea. Aristotle criticises the views expressed in

the Phædon, as he criticises those of Demokritus and Empedokles.[88]

Each soul of a deceased person is conducted by his Genius to the

proper place, and there receives sentence of condemnation to

suffering, greater or less according to his conduct in life, in

the deep chasm called Tartarus, and in the rivers of mud and fire,

Styx, Kokytus, Pyriphlegethon.[89] To those who have passed their

lives in learning, and who have detached themselves as much as they

possibly could from all pleasures and all pursuits connected with the

body--in order to pursue wisdom and virtue--a full reward is given.

They are emancipated from the obligation of entering another body,

and are allowed to live ever afterwards disembodied in the pure

regions of Ideas.[90]

[Footnote 88: Plato, Phædon, pp. 107-111. Olympiodorus pronounces the

mythe to be a good imitation of the truth, Republ. x. 620 seq.;

Gorgias, p. 520; Aristotle, Meteorol. ii. pp. 355-356. Compare also

356, b. 10, 357, a. 25, where he states and canvasses the doctrines

of Demokritus and Empedokles; also 352, a. 35, about the [Greek:

a)rchai=oi theo/logoi]. He is rather more severe upon these others

than upon Plato. He too considers, like Plato, that the amount of

evidence which you ought to require for your belief depends upon the

nature of the subject; and that there are various subjects on which

you ought to believe on slighter evidence: see Metaphysic. A. 995, a.

2-16: Ethic. Nikom. i. 1, 1094, b. 12-14.]

[Footnote 89: Plato, Phædon, pp. 111-112. Compare Eusebius, Præp. Ev.

xiii. 13, and Arnobius adv. Gentes, ii. 14. Arnobius blames Plato for

inconsistency in saying that the soul is immortal in its own nature,

and yet that it suffers pain after death--"Rem inenodabilem suscipit

(Plato) ut cum animas dicat immortales, perpetuas, et ex corporali

soliditate privatas, puniri eas dicat tamen et doloris afficiat

sensu. Quis autem hominum non videt quod sit immortale, quod simplex,

nullum posse dolorem admittere; quod autem sentiat dolorem,

immortalitatem habere non posse?"]

[Footnote 90: Plato, Phædon, p. 114 C-E.

[Greek: tou=tôn de\ au)tô=n oi( philosophi/a| i(kanô=s kathêra/menoi

a)/neu te sôma/tôn zô=si to\ para/pan ei)s to\n e)/peita chro/non],

&c.]

[Side-note: Sokrates expects that his soul is going to the

islands of the blest. Reply to Kriton about burying his body.]

Such, or something like it, Sokrates confidently expects will be the

fate awaiting himself.[91] When asked by Kriton, among other

questions, how he desired to be buried, he replies with a smile--"You

may bury me as you choose, if you can only catch me. But you will not

understand me when I tell you, that I, Sokrates, who am now speaking,

shall not remain with you after having drunk the poison, but shall

depart to some of the enjoyments of the blest. You must not talk

about burying or burning Sokrates, as if I were suffering some

terrible operation. Such language is inauspicious and depressing to

our minds. Keep up your courage, and talk only of burying the body of

Sokrates: conduct the burial as you think best and most decent."[92]

[Footnote 91: Plato, Phædon, p. 115 A.]

[Footnote 92: Plato, Phædon, p. 115 D. [Greek: ô(s e)peida\n pi/ô to\

pha/rmakon ou)ke/ti u(mi=n paramenô=, a)ll' oi)chê/somai a)piô\n ei)s

maka/rôn dê/ tinas eu)daimoni/as.]]

[Side-note: Preparations for administering the hemlock.

Sympathy of the gaoler. Equanimity of Sokrates.]

Sokrates then retires with Kriton into an interior chamber to bathe,

desiring that the women may be spared the task of washing his body

after his decease. Having taken final leave of his wife and children,

he returns to his friends as sunset is approaching. We are here made

to see the contrast between him and other prisoners under like

circumstances. The attendant of the Eleven Magistrates comes to warn

him that the hour has come for swallowing the poison; expressing

sympathy and regret for the necessity of delivering so painful a

message, together with admiration for the equanimity and rational

judgment of Sokrates, which he contrasts forcibly with the discontent

and wrath of other prisoners under similar circumstances. As he

turned away with tears in his eyes, Sokrates exclaimed--"How

courteous the man is to me and has been from the beginning! how

generously he now weeps for me! Let us obey him, and let the poison

be brought forthwith, if it be prepared: if not, let him prepare it."

"Do not hurry" (interposed Kriton): "there is still time, for the sun

is not quite set. I have known others who, even after receiving the

order, deferred drinking the poison until they had had a good supper

and other enjoyments." "It is natural that they should do so"

(replied Sokrates). "They think that they are gainers by it: for me,

it is natural that I should not do so--for I shall gain nothing but

contempt in my own eyes, by thus clinging to life, and saving up when

there is nothing left."[93]

[Footnote 93: Plato, Phædon, p. 117 A. [Greek: glicho/menos tou=

zê=|n, kai\ pheido/menos ou)deno\s e)/ti e)no/ntos.]

Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 367. [Greek: deilê\ d' e)ni\ puthme/ni

pheidô/.]]

[Side-note: Sokrates swallows the poison. Conversation with

the gaoler.]

Kriton accordingly gave orders, and the poison, after a certain

interval, was brought in. Sokrates, on asking for directions, was

informed, that after having swallowed it, he must walk about until

his legs felt heavy: he must then lie down and cover himself up: the

poison would do its work. He took the cup without any symptom of

alarm or change of countenance: then looking at the attendant with

his usual full and fixed gaze, he asked whether there was enough to

allow of a libation. "We prepare as much as is sufficient" (was the

answer), "but no more." "I understand" (said Sokrates): "but at least

I may pray, and I must pray, to the Gods, that my change of abode

from here to there may be fortunate." He then put the cup to his

lips, and drank it off with perfect ease and tranquillity.[94]

[Footnote 94: Plato, Phædon, p. 117 C.]

[Side-note: Ungovernable sorrow of the friends present.

Self-command of Sokrates. Last words to Kriton, and death.]

His friends, who had hitherto maintained their self-control, were

overpowered by emotion on seeing the cup swallowed, and broke out

into violent tears and lamentation. No one was unmoved, except

Sokrates himself: who gently remonstrated with them, and

exhorted them to tranquil resignation: reminding them that nothing

but good words was admissible at the hour of death. The friends,

ashamed of themselves, found means to repress their tears. Sokrates

walked about until he felt heavy in the legs, and then lay down in

bed. After some interval, the attendant of the prison came to examine

his feet and legs, pinched his foot with force, and enquired whether

he felt it. Sokrates replied in the negative. Presently the man

pinched his legs with similar result, and showed to the friends in

that way that his body was gradually becoming chill and benumbed:

adding that as soon as this should get to the heart, he would

die.[95] The chill had already reached his belly, when Sokrates

uncovered his face, which had been hitherto concealed by the

bed-clothes, and spoke his last words:[96] "Kriton, we owe a cock to

Æsculapius: pay the debt without fail." "It shall be done" (answered

Kriton); "have you any other injunctions?" Sokrates made no reply,

but again covered himself up.[97] After a short interval, he made

some movement: the attendant presently uncovered him, and found him

dead, with his eyes stiff and fixed. Kriton performed the last duty

of closing both his eyes and his mouth.

[Footnote 95: Plato, Phædon, p. 118. These details receive

interesting confirmation from the remarkable scene described by

Valerius Maximus, as witnessed by himself at Julis in the island of

Keos, when he accompanied Sextus Pompeius into Asia (Val. M. ii. 6,

8). A Keian lady of rank, ninety years of age, well in health,

comfortable, and in full possession of her intelligence, but deeming

it prudent (according to the custom in Keos, Strabo, x. p. 486) to

retire from life while she had as yet nothing to complain of--took

poison, by her own deliberate act, in the presence of her relatives

and of Sextus Pompeius, who vainly endeavoured to dissuade her.

"Cupido haustu mortiferam traxit potionem, ac sermone significans

quasnam subindè partes corporis sui rigor occupâret, cum jam

visceribus eum et cordi imminere esset elocuta, filiarum manus ad

supremum opprimendorum oculorum officium advocavit. Nostros autem,

tametsi novo spectaculo obstupefacti erant, suffusos tamen lacrimis

dimisit."]

[Footnote 96: Plato, Phædon, p. 118. [Greek: ê)/dê ou)=n schedo/n ti

au)tou= ê)=n ta\ peri\ to\ ê)=tron psucho/mena, kai\ e)kkalupsa/menos

(e)nekeka/lupto ga\r) ei)=pen, o(\ dê\ teleutai=on e)phthe/gxato, Ô)=

Kri/tôn, e)/phê, tô=| A)sklêpiô=| o)phei/lomen a)lektru/ona; a)ll'

a)po/dote kai\ mê\ a)melê/sête.]

Cicero, after recovering from a bilious attack, writes to his wife

Terentia (Epist. Famil. xiv. 7): "Omnes molestias et solicitudines

deposui et ejeci. Quid causæ autem fuerit, postridié intellexi quam à

vobis discessi. [Greek: Cholê\n a)/kraton] noctu ejeci: statim ita

sum levatus, ut mihi Deus aliquis medicinam fecisse videatur. Cui

quidem Deo, quemadmodum tu soles, pié et casté satisfacies: id est,

Apollini et Æsculapio." Compare the rhetor Aristeides, Orat. xlv. pp.

22-23-155, ed. Dindorf. About the habit of sacrificing a cock to

Æsculapius, see also a passage in the [Greek: I(erô=n Lo/goi] of the

rhetor Aristeides (Orat. xxvii. p. 545, ed. Dindorf, at the top of

the page). I will add that the five [Greek: I(erô=n Lo/goi] of that

Rhetor (Oratt. xxiii.-xxvii.) are curious as testifying the multitude

of dreams and revelations vouchsafed to him by Æsculapius; also the

implicit faith with which he acted upon them in his maladies, and the

success which attended the curative prescriptions thus made known to

him. Aristeides declares himself to place more confidence in these

revelations than in the advice of physicians, and to have often acted

on them in preference to such advice (Orat. xlv. pp. 20-22, Dind.).

The direction here given by Sokrates to Kriton (though some critics,

even the most recent, see Krische, Lehren der Griechischen Denker, p.

227, interpret it in a mystical sense) is to be understood simply and

literally, in my judgment. On what occasion, or for what, he had made

the vow of the cock, we are not told. Sokrates was a very religious

man, much influenced by prophecies, oracles, dreams, and special

revelations (Plato, Apol. Sokr. pp. 21-29-33; also Phædon, p. 60).]

[Footnote 97: Euripid. Hippol. 1455

[Greek: Kekarte/rêtai ta)/m'; o)/lêla ga/r, pate/r.

Kru=pson de/ mou pro/sôpon ô(s ta/chos pe/plois.]]

[Side-note: Extreme pathos, and probable trustworthiness of

these personal details.]

The pathetic details of this scene--arranged with so much dramatic

beauty, and lending imperishable interest to the Phædon of Plato--may

be regarded as real facts, described from the recollection of an

eye-witness, though many years after their occurrence. They present to

us the personality of Sokrates in full harmony with that which we read

in the Platonic Apology. The tranquil ascendancy of resolute and

rational conviction, satisfied with the past, and welcoming instead

of fearing the close of life--is exhibited as triumphing in the one

case over adverse accusers and judges, in the other case over the

unnerving manifestations of afflicted friends.

[Side-note: Contrast between the Platonic Apology and the

Phædon.]

But though the personal incidents of this dialogue are truly

Sokratic--the dogmatic emphasis, and the apparatus of argument and

hypothesis, are essentially Platonic. In these respects, the dialogue

contrasts remarkably with the Apology. When addressing the Dikasts,

Sokrates not only makes no profession of dogmatic certainty, but

expressly disclaims it. Nay more--he considers that the false

persuasion of such dogmatic certainty, universally prevalent among

his countrymen, is as pernicious as it is illusory: and that his own

superiority over others consists merely in consciousness of his own

ignorance, while they are unconscious of theirs.[98] To dissipate

such false persuasion of knowledge, by perpetual cross-examination of

every one around, is the special mission imposed upon him by the

Gods: in which mission, indeed, he has the firmest belief--but it is

a belief, like that in his Dæmon or divine sign, depending upon

oracles, dreams, and other revelations peculiar to himself, which he

does not expect that the Dikasts will admit as genuine evidence.[99]

One peculiar example, whereby Sokrates exemplifies the false

persuasion of knowledge where men have no real knowledge, is borrowed

from the fear of death. No man knows (he says) what death is, not

even whether it may not be a signal benefit: yet every man fears it

as if he well knew that it was the greatest evil.[100] Death must be

one of two things: either a final extinction--a perpetual and

dreamless sleep--or else a transference of the soul to some other

place. Sokrates is persuaded that it will be in either case a benefit

to him, and that the Gods will take care that he, a good man, shall

suffer no evil, either living or dead: the proof of which is, to him,

that the divine sign has never interposed any obstruction in

regard to his trial and sentence. If (says he) I am transferred to

some other abode, among those who have died before me, how delightful

will it be to see Homer and Hesiod, Orpheus and Musæus, Agamemnon,

Ajax or Palamêdes--and to pass my time in cross-examining each as to

his true or false knowledge![101] Lastly, so far as he professes to

aim at any positive end, it is the diffusion of political, social,

human virtue, as distinguished from acquisitions above the measure of

humanity. He tells men that it is not wealth which produces virtue,

but virtue which produces wealth and other advantages, both public

and private.[102]

[Footnote 98: Plato, Apol. Sokr. pp. 21-29. [Greek: kai\ tou=to pô=s

ou)k a)mathi/a e)sti\n au(/tê ê( e)ponei/distos, ê( tou= oi)/esthai

ei)de/nai a(\ ou)k oi)=den?] (29 A-B).]

[Footnote 99: Plato, Apol. Sokr. pp. 21-23, 31 D; 33 C: [Greek:

e)moi\ de\ tou=to, ô(s e)gô/ phêmi, proste/taktai u(po\ tou= theou=

pra/ttein kai\ e)k manteiô=n kai\ e)x e)nupni/ôn kai\ panti\ tro/pô|,

ô(=|pe/r ti/s pote kai\ a)/llê thei/a moi=ra a)nthrô/pô| kai\

o(tiou=n prose/taxe pra/ttein.] p. 37 E: [Greek: e)a/n te ga\r le/gô

o(/ti tô=| theô=| a)peithei=n tou=t' e)sti\ kai\ dia\ tou=t'

a)du/naton ê(suchi/an a)/gein, ou) pei/sesthe/ moi ô(s

ei)rôneuome/nô|.]]

[Footnote 100: Plato, Apol. S. p. 29 B.

In the Xenophontic Apology of Sokrates, no allusion is made to the

immortality of the soul. Sokrates is there described as having shaped

his defence under a belief that he had arrived at a term when it was

better for him to die than to live, and that prolonged life would

only expose him to the unavoidable weaknesses and disabilities of

senility. It is a proof of the benevolence of the Gods that he is

withdrawn from life at so opportune a moment. This is the explanation

which Xenophon gives of the haughty tone of the defence (sects.

6-15-23-27). In the Xenophontic Cyropædia, Cyrus, on his death-bed,

addresses earnest exhortations to his two sons: and to give greater

force to such exhortations, reminds them that his own soul will still

survive and will still exercise a certain authority after his death.

He expresses his own belief not only that the soul survives the body,

but also that it becomes more rational when disembodied; because--1.

Murderers are disturbed by the souls of murdered men. 2. Honours are

paid to deceased persons, which practice would not continue, unless

the souls of the deceased had efficacy to enforce it. 3. The souls of

living men are more rational during sleep than when awake, and sleep

affords the nearest analogy to death (viii. 7, 17-21). (Much the same

arguments were urged in the dialogues of Aristotle. Bernays, Dialog.

Aristot. pp. 23-105.) He however adds, that even if he be mistaken in

this point, and if his soul perish with his body, still he conjures

his sons, in the name of the gods, to obey his dying injunctions (s.

22). Again, he says (s. 27), "Invite all the Persians to my tomb, to

join with me in satisfaction that I shall now be in safety, so as to

suffer no farther harm, whether I am united to the divine element, or

perish altogether" ([Greek: sunêsthêsome/nous e)moi/, o(/ti e)n tô=|

a)sphalei= ê)/dê e)/somai, ô(s mêde\n a)\n e)/ti kako\n pathei=n,

mê/te ê)\n meta\ tou= thei/ou ge/nômai, mê/te ê)\n mêde\n e)/ti

ô)=|]). The view taken here by Cyrus, of death in its analogy with

sleep ([Greek: u(/pnô| kai\ thana/tô| diduma/osin], Iliad, xvi. 672)

as a refuge against impending evil for the future, is much the same

as that taken by Sokrates in his Apology. Sokrates is not less proud

of his past life, spent in dialectic debate, than Cyrus of his

glorious exploits. [Greek: O( tha/natos, limê\n kakô=n toi=s

dusdaimonou=sin], Longinus, de Subl. c. 9, p. 23. Compare also the

Oration of Julius Cæsar in Sallust, Bell. Catilin. c. 51--"in luctu

atque miseriis, mortem ærumnarum requiem, non cruciatum esse: illam

cuncta mortalium mala dissolvere: ultra neque curæ neque gaudio locum

esse".]

[Footnote 101: Plato, Apol. S. pp. 40-41.]

[Footnote 102: Plato, Apol. S. pp. 20 C, 29-30. [Greek: le/gôn o(/ti

ou)k e)k chrêma/tôn a)retê\ gi/gnetai, a)ll' e)x a)retê=s chrê/mata,

kai\ ta)=lla a)gatha\ toi=s a)nthrô/pois a(/panta, kai\ i)di/a| kai\

dêmosi/a|] (30 B). Compare Xenophon, Memorab. i. 2, 8-9.]

[Side-note: Abundant dogmatic and poetical invention of the

Phædon compared with the profession of ignorance which we read in the

Apology.]

If from the Apology we turn to the Phædon, we seem to pass, not

merely to the same speaker after the interval of one month (the

ostensible interval indicated) but to a different speaker and over a

long period. We have Plato speaking through the mouth of Sokrates,

and Plato too at a much later time.[103] Though the moral character

([Greek: ê)=thos]) of Sokrates is fully maintained and even

strikingly dramatised--the intellectual personality is altogether

transformed. Instead of a speaker who avows his own ignorance, and

blames others only for believing themselves to know when they are

equally ignorant--we have one who indulges in the widest range of

theory and the boldest employment of hypothesis. Plato introduces his

own dogmatical and mystical views, leaning in part on the Orphic and

Pythagorean creeds.[104] He declares the distinctness of nature, the

incompatibility, the forced temporary union and active conflict,

between the soul and the body. He includes this in the still wider

and more general declaration, which recognises antithesis between the

two worlds: the world of Ideas, Forms, Essences, not perceivable but

only cogitable, eternal, and unchangeable, with which the soul or

mind was in kindred and communion--the world of sense, or of

transient and ever-changing appearances or phenomena, never

arriving at permanent existence, but always coming and going, with

which the body was in commerce and harmony. The philosopher, who

thirsts only after knowledge and desires to look at things[105] as

they are in themselves, with his mind by itself--is represented as

desiring, throughout all his life, to loosen as much as possible the

implication of his soul with his body, and as rejoicing when the hour

of death arrives to divorce them altogether.

[Footnote 103: In reviewing the Apology (supra, vol. i. ch. ix. p.

410) I have already noticed this very material discrepancy, which is

insisted upon by Ast as an argument for disallowing the genuineness

of the Apology.]

[Footnote 104: Plato, Phædon, pp. 69 C, 70 C, 81 C, 62 B.]

[Footnote 105: Plato, Phædon, p. 66 E. [Greek: a)pallakte/on au)tou=

(tou= sô/matos) kai\ au)tê=| tê=| psuchê=| theate/on au)ta\ ta\

pra/gmata.]]

[Side-note: Total renunciation and discredit of the body in

the Phædon. Different feeling about the body in other Platonic

dialogues.]

Such total renunciation of the body is put, with dramatic propriety,

into the mouth of Sokrates during the last hour of his life. But it

would not have been in harmony with the character of Sokrates as

other Platonic dialogues present him--in the plenitude of

life--manifesting distinguished bodily strength and soldierly efficiency,

proclaiming gymnastic training for the body to be co-ordinate with

musical training for the mind, and impressed with the most intense

admiration for the personal beauty of youth. The human body, which in

the Phædon is discredited as a morbid incumbrance corrupting the

purity of the soul, is presented to us by Sokrates in the Phædrus as

the only sensible object which serves as a mirror and reflection of

the beauty of the ideal world:[106] while the Platonic Timæus

proclaims (in language not unsuitable to Locke) that sight, hearing,

and speech are the sources of our abstract Ideas, and the generating

causes of speculative intellect and philosophy.[107] Of these, and of

the world of sense generally, an opposite view was appropriate in the

Phædon; where the purpose of Sokrates is to console his distressed

friends by showing that death was no misfortune, but relief from

a burthen. And Plato has availed himself of this impressive

situation,[108] to recommend, with every charm of poetical

expression, various characteristic dogmas respecting the essential

distinction between Ideas and the intelligible world on one

side--Perceptions and the sensible world on the other: respecting the

soul, its nature akin to the intelligible world, its pre-existence

anterior to its present body, and its continued existence after the

death of the latter: respecting the condition of the soul before birth

and after death, its transition, in the case of most men, into other

bodies, either human or animal, with the condition of suffering

penalties commensurate to the wrongs committed in this life: finally,

respecting the privilege accorded to the souls of such as have passed

their lives in intellectual and philosophical occupation, that they

shall after death remain for ever disembodied, in direct communion

with the world of Ideas.

[Footnote 106: Plato, Charmidês, p. 155 D. Protagoras, init. Phædrus,

p. 250 D. Symposion, pp. 177 C, 210 A.

Æschines, one of the Socratici viri or fellow disciples of Sokrates

along with Plato, composed dialogues (of the same general nature as

those of Plato) wherein Sokrates was introduced conversing or

arguing. Æschines placed in the mouth of Sokrates the most intense

expressions of passionate admiration towards the person of

Alkibiades. See the Fragments cited by the Rhetor Aristeides, Orat.

xlv. pp. 20-23, ed. Dindorf. Aristeides mentions (p. 24) that various

persons in his time mistook these expressions ascribed to Sokrates

for the real talk of Sokrates himself. Compare also the Symposion of

Xenophon, iv. 27.]

[Footnote 107: Plato, Timæus, p. 47, A-D. Consult also the same

dialogue, pp. 87-88, where Plato insists on the necessity of

co-ordinate attention both to mind and to body, and on the mischiefs of

highly developed force in the mind unless it be accompanied by a

corresponding development of force in the body.]

[Footnote 108: Compare the description of the last discourse of Pætus

Thrasea. Tacitus, Annal. xvi. 34.]

[Side-note: Plato's argument does not prove the immortality of

the soul. Even if it did prove that, yet the mode of pre-existence

and the mode of post-existence, of the soul, would be quite

undetermined.]

The main part of Plato's argumentation, drawn from the general

assumptions of his philosophy, is directed to prove the separate and

perpetual existence of the soul, before as well as after the body.

These arguments, interesting as specimens of the reasoning which

satisfied Plato, do not prove his conclusion.[109] But even if

that conclusion were admitted to be proved, the condition of the

soul, during such anterior and posterior existence, would be

altogether undetermined, and would be left to the free play of

sentiment and imagination. There is no subject upon which the

poetical genius of Plato has been more abundantly exercised.[110] He

has given us two different descriptions of the state of the soul

before its junction with the body (Timæus, and Phædrus), and three

different descriptions of its destiny after separation from the body

(Republic, Gorgias, Phædon). In all the three, he supposes an

adjudication and classification of the departed souls, and a better

or worse fate allotted** to each according to the estimate which he

forms of their merits or demerits during life: but in each of the

three, this general idea is carried out by a different machinery. The

Hades of Plato is not announced even by himself as anything more than

approximation to the truth: but it embodies his own ethical and

judicial sentence on the classes of men around him--as the Divina

Commedia embodies that of Dante on antecedent individual persons.

Plato distributes rewards and penalties in the measure which he

conceives to be deserved: he erects his own approbation and

disapprobation, his own sympathy and antipathy, into laws of the

unknown future state: the Gods, whom he postulates, are imaginary

agents introduced to execute the sentences which he dictates. While

others, in their conceptions of posthumous existence, assured the

happiest fate, sometimes even divinity itself, to great warriors and

law-givers--to devoted friends and patriots like Harmodius and

Aristogeiton--to the exquisite beauty of Helen--or to favourites of

the Gods like Ganymêdes or Pelops[111]--Plato claims that supreme

distinction for the departed philosopher.

[Footnote 109: Wyttenbach has annexed to his edition of the Phædon an

instructive review of the argumentation contained in it respecting

the Immortality of the soul. He observes justly--"Videamus jam de

Phædone, qui ab omni antiquitate is habitus est liber, in quo

rationes immortalitatis animarum gravissimé luculentissiméque

exposita essent. Quæ quidem libro laus et auctoritas conciliata est,

non tam firmitate argumentorum, quam eloquentiâ Platonis," &c.

(Disputat. De Placit. Immort. Anim. p. 10). The same feeling,

substantially, is expressed by one of the disputants in Cicero's

Tusculan Disputations, who states that he assented to the reasoning

while he was reading the dialogue, but that as soon as he had laid

down the book, his assent all slipped away from him. I have already

mentioned that Panætius, an extreme admirer of Plato on most points,

dissented from him about the immortality of the soul (Cicero, Tusc.

Disp. i. 11, 24--i. 32, 79), and declared the Phædon to be spurious.

Galen also mentions (De Format. Foetûs, vol. iv. pp. 700-702. Kühn)

that he had written a special treatise (now lost) to prove that the

reasonings in the Phædon were self-contradictory, and that he could

not satisfy himself, either about the essence of the soul, or whether

it was mortal or immortal. Compare his treatise [Greek: Peri\

Ou)si/as tô=n phusikô=n duna/meôn]--iv. pp. 762-763--and [Greek:

Peri\ tô=n tê=s Psuchê=s ê)thô=n], iv. 773. In this last passage, he

represents the opinion of Plato to be--That the two inferior souls,

the courageous and the appetitive, are mortal, in which he (Galen)

agrees, and that the rational soul alone is immortal, of which he

(Galen) is not persuaded. Now this view of Plato's opinion is derived

from the Republic and Timæus, not from the Phædon, in which last the

triple soul is not acknowledged. We may thus partly understand the

inconsistencies, which Galen pointed out in his lost Treatise, in the

argumentation of the Phædon: wherein one of the proofs presented to

establish the immortality of the soul is--That the soul is

inseparably and essentially identified with life, and cannot admit

death (p. 105 D). This argument, if good at all, is just as good to

prove the immortality of the two inferior souls, as of the superior

and rational soul. Galen might therefore remark that it did not

consist with the conclusion which he drew from the Timæus and the

Republic.]

[Footnote 110: Wyttenbach, l. c. p. 19. "Vidimus de philosophâ hujus

loci parte, quâ demonstratur, Animos esse immortales. Altera pars,

quâ ostenditur, qualis sit ille post hanc vitam status, fabulosé et

poeticé à Platone tractata est." &c.]

[Footnote 111: Skolion of Kallistratus, Antholog. Græc. p. 155.

Isokrates, Encomium Helenæ, Or. x. s. 70-72. Compare the [Greek:

Ne/kuia] of the Odyssey and that of the Æneid, respecting the

heroes--

"Quæ gratia currûm

Armorumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes

Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos." (Æn. vi. 653-5.)]

[Side-note: The philosopher will enjoy an existence of

pure soul unattached to any body.]

The Philosopher, as a recompense for having detached himself during

life as much as possible from the body and all its functions, will be

admitted after death to existence as a soul pure and simple,

unattached to any body. The souls of all other persons, dying with

more or less of the taint of the body attached to each of them,[112]

and for that reason haunting the tombs in which the bodies are

buried, so as to become visible there as ghosts--are made subject, in

the Platonic Hades, to penalty and purification suitable to the

respective condition of each; after which they become attached to new

bodies, sometimes of men, sometimes of other animals. Of this

distributive scheme it is not possible to frame any clear idea, nor

is Plato consistent with himself except in a few material features.

But one feature there is in it which stands conspicuous--the belief

in the metempsychosis, or transfer of the same soul from one animal

body to another: a belief very widely diffused throughout the ancient

world, associated with the immortality of the soul, pervading the

Orphic and Pythagorean creeds, and having its root in the Egyptian

and Oriental religions.[113]

[Footnote 112: Plato, Phædon, p. 81 C-D. [Greek: o(\ dê\ kai\

e)/chousa ê( toiau/tê psuchê\ baru/netai te kai\ e(/lketai pa/lin

ei)s to\n o(rato\n to/pon, pho/bô| tou= a)eidou=s te kai\ A(/idou,

ô(/sper le/getai, peri\ ta\ mnê/mata/ te kai\ tou\s ta/phous

kalindoume/nê; peri\ a(\ dê\ kai\ ô)/phthê a(/tta psuchô=n skioeidê=

phanta/smata oi(=a pare/chontai ai( toiau=tai psuchai\ ei)/dôla, ai(

mê\ katharô=s a)poluthei=sai, a)lla\ _tou= o(ratou= mete/chousai,

dio\ kai\ o(rô=ntai_.]

Lactantius--in replying to the arguments of Demokritus, Epikurus, and

Dikæarchus against the immortality of the soul--reminded them that

any _Magus_ would produce visible evidence to refute them; by

calling up before them the soul of any deceased person to give

information and predict the future--"qui profecto non auderent de

animarum interitu mago praesente disserere, qui sciret certis

carminibus cieri ab infernis animas et adesse et præbere se videndas

et loqui et futura prædicere: et si auderent, re ipsâ et documentis

præsentibus vincerentur" (Lactant. Inst. vii. 13). See Cicero, Tusc.

Disp. i. 31.]

[Footnote 113: Compare the closing paragraph of the Platonic Timæus:

Virgil, Æneid vi. 713, Herodot. ii. 123, Pausanias, iv. 32, 4, Sextus

Empiric. adv. Math. ix. 127, with the citation from Empedokles:--

"Tum pater Anchises: 'Animæ quibus altera fato

Corpora debentur, Lethæi ad fluminis undam

Securos latices et longa oblivia potant'."

The general doctrine, upon which the Metempsychosis rests, is set

forth by Virgil in the fine lines which follow, 723-751; compare

Georgic iv. 218. The souls of men, beasts, birds, and fishes, are all

of them detached fragments or portions from the universal soul, mind,

or life, ætherial or igneous, which pervades the whole Kosmos. The

soul of each individual thus detached to be conjoined with a distinct

body, becomes tainted by such communion; after death it is purified

by penalties, measured according to the greater or less taint, and

becomes then fit to be attached to a new body, yet not until it has

drunk the water of Lêthê (Plato, Philêbus, p. 30 A; Timæus, p. 30 B).

The statement of Nemesius is remarkable, that all Greeks who believed

the immortality of the soul, believed also in the

metempsychosis--[Greek: Koinê=| me\n ou)=n pa/ntes E)/llênes, oi( tê\n

psuchê\n a)tha/naton a)pophê|na/menoi, tê\n metensôma/tôsin

dogmati/zousin] (De Naturâ Hominis, cap. ii. p. 50, ed. 1565). Plato

accepted the Egyptian and Pythagorean doctrine, continued in the Orphic

mysteries (Arnob. adv. Gentes, ii. 16), making no essential distinction

between the souls of men and those of animals, and recognising

reciprocal interchange from the one to the other. The Platonists

adhered to this doctrine fully, down to the third century A.D.,

including Plotinus, Numenius, and others. But Porphyry, followed by

Jamblichus, introduced a modification of this creed, denying the

possibility of transition of a human soul into the body of another

animal, or of the soul of any other animal into the body of a man,--yet

still recognising the transition from one human body to another, and

from one animal body to another. (See Alkinous, Introd. in Platon.

c. 25.) This subject is well handled in a learned work published in

1712 by a Jesuit of Toulouse, Michel Mourgues. He shows (in opposition

to Dacier and others, who interpreted the doctrine in a sense merely

spiritual and figurative) that the metempsychosis was a literal

belief of the Platonists down to the time of Proklus. "Les quatre

Platoniciens qui ont tenu la Transmigration bornée" (_i.e._ from

one human body into another human body) "n'ont pas laissé d'admettre

la pluralité d'animations ou de vies d'une même âme: et cela sans

figure et sans métaphore. Cet article, qui est l'essentiel, n'a

jamais trouvé un seul contradicteur dans les sectes qui ont cru l'âme

immortelle: ni Porphyre, ni Hiérocle, ni Procle, ni Salluste, n'ont

jamais touché à ce point que pour l'approuver. D'où il suit que la

réalité de la Métempsychose est indubitable; c'est à dire, qu'il est

indubitable que tous les sectateurs de Pythagore et de Platon l'ont

soutenue dans un sens très réel quant à la pluralité des vies et

d'animations" (Tom. i. p. 525: also Tom. ii. p. 432) M. Cousin and M.

Barthélemy St Hilaire are of the same opinion.

M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire observes in his Premier Mémoire sur le

Sankhyâ p. 416, Paris, 1852.

"Voilà donc la transmigration dans les plus grands dialogues de

Platon--le Timée, la République, le Phèdre, le Phédon. On peut en

retrouver la trace manifeste dans d'autres dialogues moins

considérables, le Menon et le Politique, par exemple. La

transmigration est même positivement indiquée dans le dixième Livre

des Lois, où Platon traite avec tant de force et de solennité de la

providence et de la justice divines.

"En présence de témoignages si sérieux, et de tant de persistance à

revenir sur des opinions qui ne varient pas, je crois que tout esprit

sensé ne peut que partager l'avis de M. Cousin. Il est impossible que

Platon ne se fasse de l'exposition de ces opinions qu'un pur

badinage. Il les a répetées, sans les modifier en rien, au milieu des

discussions les plus graves et les plus étendues. Ajoutez que ces

doctrines tiennent intimément à toutes celles qui sont le fond même

du platonisme, et qu'elles s'y entrelacent si étroitement, que les en

détacher, c'est le mutiler et l'amoindrir. Le système des Idées ne se

comprend pas tout entier sans la réminiscence: et la réminiscence

elle même implique necessairement l'existence antérieure de l'âme."

Dr. Henry More, in his 'Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul,'

argues at considerable length in defence of pre-existence of each

soul, as a part of the doctrine. He considers himself to have clearly

proved--"That the pre-existence of the soul is an opinion both in

itself the most rational that can be maintained, and has had the

suffrage of the most renowned philosophers in all ages of the world".

Of these last-mentioned philosophers he gives a list, as follows--Moses,

on the authority of the Jewish Cabbala--Zoroaster, Pythagoras,

Epicharmus, Empedocles, Cebês, Euripides, Plato, Euclid, Philo,

Virgil, Marcus Cicero, Plotinus, Jamblichus, Proclus, Boethius,

&c. See chapters xii. and xiii. pages 116, 117, 121 of his

Treatise. Compare also what he says in Sect. 18 of his Preface

General, page xx.-xxiv.]

[Side-note: Plato's demonstration of the immortality of

the soul did not appear satisfactory to subsequent philosophers. The

question remained debated and problematical.]

We are told that one vehement admirer of Plato--the Ambrakiot

Kleombrotus--was so profoundly affected and convinced by reading the

Phædon, that he immediately terminated his existence by leaping from

a high wall; though in other respects well satisfied with life. But

the number of persons who derived from it such settled conviction,

was certainly not considerable. Neither the doctrine nor the

reasonings of Plato were adopted even by the immediate successors in

his school: still less by Aristotle and the Peripatetics--or by the

Stoics--or by the Epikureans. The Epikureans denied altogether the

survivorship of soul over body: Aristotle gives a definition of the

soul which involves this same negation, though he admits as credible

the separate existence of the rational soul, without individuality or

personality. The Stoics, while affirming the soul to be material

as well as the body, considered it as a detached fragment of the

all-pervading cosmical or mundane soul, which was re-absorbed after the

death of the individual into the great whole to which it belonged.

None of these philosophers were persuaded by the arguments of Plato.

The popular orthodoxy, which he often censures harshly, recognised

some sort of posthumous existence as a part of its creed; and the

uninquiring multitude continued in the teaching and traditions of

their youth. But literary and philosophical men, who sought to form

some opinion for themselves without altogether rejecting (as the

Epikureans rejected) the basis of the current traditions--were in no

better condition for deciding the question with the assistance of

Plato, than they would have been without him. While the knowledge of

the bodily organism, and of mind or soul as embodied therein,

received important additions, from Aristotle down to Galen--no new

facts either were known or could become known, respecting soul _per

se_, considered as pre-existent or post-existent to body. Galen

expressly records his dissatisfaction with Plato on this point,

though generally among his warmest admirers. Questions of this kind

remained always problematical, standing themes for rhetoric or

dialectic.[114] Every man could do, though not with the same

exuberant eloquence, what Plato had done--and no man could do more.

Every man could coin his own hopes and fears, his own æsthetical

preferences and repugnances, his own ethical aspiration to distribute

rewards and punishments among the characters around him--into

affirmative prophecies respecting an unknowable future, where neither

verification nor Elenchus were accessible. The state of this

discussion throughout the Pagan world bears out the following remark

of Lord Macaulay, with which I conclude the present chapter:--"There

are branches of knowledge with respect to which the law of the

human mind is progress. . . . But with theology, the case is very

different. As respects natural religion--revelation being for the

present altogether left out of the question--it is not easy to see

that a philosopher of the present day is more favourably situated

than Thales or Simonides. . . . As to the other great question--the

question, what becomes of man after death--we do not see that a

highly educated European, left to his unassisted reason, is more

likely to be in the right than a Blackfoot Indian. Not a single one

of the many sciences in which we surpass the Blackfoot Indians,

throws the smallest light on the state of the soul after the animal

life is extinct. In truth, all the philosophers, ancient and modern,

who have attempted, without the help of revelation, to prove the

immortality of man--from Plato down to Franklin--appear to us to have

failed deplorably. Then again, all the great enigmas which perplex

the natural theologian are the same in all ages. The ingenuity of a

people just emerging from barbarism, is quite sufficient to propound

them. The genius of Locke or Clarke is quite unable to solve

them. . . . Natural Theology, then, is not a progressive science."[115]

[Footnote 114: Seneca says, Epist. 88. "Innumerabiles sunt quæstiones

de animo: unde sit, qualis sit, quando esse incipiat, quamdiu sit; an

aliunde aliò transeat, et domicilium mutet, ad alias animalium formas

aliasque conjectus, an non amplius quam semel serviat, et emissus

evagetur in toto; utrum corpus sit, an non sit: quid sit facturus,

quum per nos aliquid facere desierit: quomodo libertate usurus, cum

ex hâc exierit caveâ: an obliviscatur priorum et illic nosse

incipiat, postquam de corpore abductus in sublime secessit." Compare

Lucretius, i. 113.]

[Footnote 115: Macaulay, Ranke's History of the Popes (Crit. and

Hist. Essays, vol. iii. p. 210). Sir Wm. Hamilton observes (Lectures

on Logic, Lect. 26, p. 55): "Thus Plato, in the Phædon, demonstrates

the immortality of the soul from its simplicity: in the Republic, he

demonstrates its simplicity from its immortality."]

END OF VOL. II.

*************************************

Transcriber's Note

The text is based on versions made available by the Internet Archive.

For the Greek transcriptions the following conventions have been used:

) is for smooth breathing; ( for hard; + for diaeresis; / for acute

accent; \ for grave; = for circumflex; | for iota subscript.

ch is used for chi, ph for phi, ps for psi, th for theta;

ê for eta and ô for omega; u is used for upsilon in all cases.

Corrections to the text, indicated in text with **:

Location Text of scan of 3rd edition Correction

ToC, Ch. 13 s-n 3 Minor Major

ToC, Ch. 14 s-n 24 _pain_ _gain_

Ch. 13 fn. 40 iv. 4, 5; iv. 4, 5, p. 220 seq.);

Ch. 13 near fn. 46 he was even fit he was not even fit

Ch. 17 near fn. 3 fulfiling fulfilling

Ch. 19 after fn. 32 sixth eighth

Ch. 19 fn. 44 p. . p. 31.

Ch. 20 after fn. 13 aud and

Ch. 22 after fn. 47 sixth eighth

Ch. 23 fn. 134 p. 240 p. 242

Ch. 23 fn. 135 ch. xviii ch. xvii

Ch. 24 fn. 75 Pratagoras Protagoras

Ch. 24 fn. 77 a)nro/s a)ndro/s

Ch. 24 fn. 86 Die _Dialoge..._ _Die Dialoge..._

Ch. 25 after fn. 58 intellegible intelligible

Ch. 25 after fn. 110 alloted allotted