Aristotle so often speaks of the propriety of following _nature_, and

produces _nature_ so constantly as an authority and an arbiter, that

it seems surprising to find him saying--"We must be on our guard with

reference to the things whereto we ourselves are prone. For some of

us are by nature disposed towards some things, others towards

others."--"But we must drag ourselves away in the opposite direction"

(ii. 9).

There is a singular passage in the same chapter with respect to our

moral judgments. After having forcibly insisted on the extreme

difficulty of hitting the proper medium point of virtue, he says that

a man who commits only small errors on one side or on the other side

of this point, is not censured, but only he who greatly deviates from

it--he then proceeds--"But it is not easy to define in general

language at what point a man becomes deserving of censure: nor indeed

is it easy to do this with regard to any other matter of perception.

Questions of this sort depend upon the circumstances of the

particular case, and the judgment upon each _resides in our

perception_" (ii. 9).

The first five chapters, of the third Book of the Ethics, are devoted

to an examination of various notions involved in our ideas of virtue

and vice--_Voluntary_ and _Involuntary_--[Greek: e(kou/sion kai\

a)kou/sion]--_Ignorance_--[Greek: a)/gnoia]--Choice or resolution,

consequent upon previous deliberation--[Greek: proai/resis].

Those actions are _involuntary_, which are done either by compulsion,

or through ignorance. An action is done by compulsion when the

proximate cause of it (or beginning--[Greek: a)rchê\]) is something

foreign to the will of the agent--the agent himself neither

concurring nor contributing. Actions done from the fear of greater

evils are of a mixed character, as where a navigator in a storm

throws his goods overboard to preserve the ship. Such actions as

this, taken as a class, and apart from particular circumstances, are

what no one would do voluntarily: but in the particular circumstances

of the supposed case, the action is done voluntarily. Every action is

_voluntary_, wherein the beginning of organic motion is, the will of

the agent (iii. 1).

Men are praised if under such painful circumstances they make a right

choice--if they voluntarily undergo what is painful or dishonourable

for the purpose of accomplishing some great and glorious result

(_ib._): they are censured, if they shrink from this course, or if

they submit to the evil without some sufficient end. If a man is

induced to do what is unbecoming by the threat of evils surpassing

human endurance, he is spoken of with forbearance: though there are

some crimes of such magnitude as cannot be excused even by the

greatest possible apprehension of evil, such as death and torture. In

such trying circumstances, it is difficult to make a right choice,

and still more difficult to adhere to the choice when it is made.

What is done _through ignorance_, can never be said to be done

_voluntarily_: if the agent shall be afterwards grieved and repentant

for what he has done, it is _involuntary_. If he be not repentant,

though he cannot be said to have done the deed _voluntarily_, yet

neither ought it to be called involuntary.

A distinction however is to be taken in regard to ignorance,

considered as a ground for calling the action _involuntary_, and for

excusing the agent. A man drunk or in a violent passion, misbehaves,

_ignorantly_ but not _through ignorance_: that is, ignorance is not

the cause of his misbehaviour, but drunkenness or rage. In like

manner, every depraved person may be ignorant of his true interest,

or the rule which he ought to follow, but this sort of ignorance does

not render his behaviour _involuntary_, nor entitle him to any

indulgence. It must be ignorance with regard to some particular

circumstance connected with the special action which he is

committing--ignorance of the person with whom, or the instrument with

which, or the subject matter in regard to which he is dealing.

Ignorance of this special kind, if it be accompanied with subsequent

sorrow and repentance, constitutes an action involuntary, and forms a

reasonable ground for indulgence (**iii. 1).

A _voluntary action_, then, is that of which the beginning is in the

agent--he knowing the particular circumstances under which he is

acting. Some persons have treated actions, performed through passion

or through desire, as _involuntary_; but this is an error. If this

were true, neither children nor animals would be capable of voluntary

action. Besides, it is proper, on some occasions, to follow the

dictates both of anger and of desire: and we cannot be said to act

involuntarily in these cases when we do exactly what we ought to do.

Moreover sins from passions and sins from bad reasoning are alike

voluntary or alike involuntary: both of them ought to be avoided: and

the nonrational affections are just as much a part of human nature as

reason is (**iii. 1).

Having explained the proper meaning of voluntary and involuntary as

applied to actions, Aristotle proceeds to define [Greek:

_proai/resis_] (deliberate choice); which is most intimately

connected with excellence, and which indeed affords a better test of

disposition than actions themselves can do (**iii. 2).

All premeditated choice is voluntary, but all voluntary action is not

preconcerted. Children and animals are capable of voluntary action,

but not of preconcerted action: sudden deeds, too, are voluntary, but

not preconcerted. Premeditated choice is different from desire--from

passion--from wishing--and from opinion. Desire and passion are

common to animals, who are nevertheless incapable of _deliberate

preference_. The incontinent man acts from desire, but not from

deliberate preference: the continent man acts from deliberate

preference, but not from desire. Nor is premeditated choice the same

as wishing: for we often wish for what is notoriously impracticable

or unattainable, but we do not deliberately prefer any such thing:

moreover we _wish_ for the end, but we _deliberately choose_ the

means conducting to the end. We wish to be happy: but it cannot with

propriety be said that we deliberately choose to be happy. Deliberate

choice has reference to what it is or seems in our own power to

achieve.

Again, deliberate choice is not to be regarded as a simple

modification of opinion. Opinions extend to everything: deliberate

choice belongs exclusively to matters within our grasp. Opinion is

either true or false: deliberate choice is either good or evil. We

are good or bad, according to the turn which our deliberate choice

takes: not according to our opinions. We deliberately choose to seek

something or to avoid something, and our choice is praised when it

falls upon what is proper: the points upon which we form an opinion

are, what such or such a thing is, whom it will benefit, and how: and

our opinion is praised when it happens to be true. It often occurs,

too, that men who form the truest opinions are not the best in their

deliberate preferences. Opinion may precede or accompany every

deliberate choice, but still the latter is something distinct in

itself. It is in fact a determination of the will, preceded by

deliberate counsel, and thus including or presupposing the employment

of reason (**iii. 2). It is an appetency, determined by previous

counsel, of some matter within our means, either really or seemingly,

to accomplish--[Greek: bouleutikê\ o(/rexis tô=n e)ph' ê(mi=n]

(**iii. 3).

It seems from the language of Aristotle that the various explanations

of [Greek: Proai/resis] which he has canvassed and shown to be

inadmissible, had all been advanced by various contemporary

philosophers.

[Greek: Proai/resis], or _deliberate preference_, includes the idea

of _deliberation_. A reasonable man does not deliberate upon all

matters--he does not deliberate respecting mathematical or physical

truths, or respecting natural events altogether out of his reach, or

respecting matters of pure accident, or even respecting matters of

human design carried on by distant foreign nations. He only

deliberates respecting matters which are more or less within his own

agency and control: respecting matters which are not certain, but of

doubtful issue. He does not deliberate about the end, but about the

means towards the end: the end itself is commonly assumed, just as

the physician assumes the necessity of establishing good health and

the orator that of persuading his hearers. If there be more than one

way of accomplishing the end, he deliberates by which out of these

several means he can achieve it best and most easily: proceeding from

the end itself first to the proximate cause of that end, then to the

cause immediately preceding that cause, and so backwards until he

arrives at the primary cause, which is either an action of his own,

within his own means, or something requiring implements and

assistance beyond his power to procure. This is a process of

analysis, similar to that which is pursued by geometricians in

seeking the way of solving a problem: they assume the figure with the

required conditions to be constructed: they then take it to pieces,

following back the consequences of each separate condition which it

has been assumed to possess. If by this way of proceeding they arrive

at some known truth, their problem is solved; if they arrive at some

known untruth, the problem is insoluble. That step which is last

arrived at in the analysis, is the first in the order of production

(iii. 3). When a man in carrying back mentally this deliberative

analysis arrives at something manifestly impracticable, he desists

from farther deliberation: if he arrives at something within his

power to perform, he begins action accordingly. The subject of

_deliberation_, and the subject of _deliberate preference_, are the

same, but the latter represents the process as accomplished and the

result of deliberation decided.

We take counsel and deliberation (as has been said), not about the

end, but about the means or the best means towards the end assumed.

We _wish for the end_ ([Greek: ê( bou/lêsis tou= te/lous

e)/sti]--iii. 4). Our wish is for good, real or apparent: whether for

the one or the other, is a disputed question. Speaking generally, and

without reference to peculiar idiosyncrasies, the real good or _the

good_ is the object of human wishes: speaking with reference to any

particular individual, it is his own supposed or apparent good. On

this matter, the virtuous man is the proper judge and standard of

reference: that which is really good appears good to him. Each

particular disposition has its own peculiar sentiment both of what is

honourable and of what is agreeable (iii. 4): the principal

excellence of the virtuous man is, that he in every variety of

circumstances perceives what is truly and genuinely good; whereas to

most men, pleasure proves a deception, and appears to be good, not

being so in reality.

Both virtue and vice consists in _deliberate preference_, of one or

of another course of action. Both therefore are voluntary and in our

own power: both equally so. It is not possible to refer virtuous

conduct or vicious conduct to any other beginning except to

ourselves: the man is the cause of his own actions, as he is the

father of his own children. It is upon this assumption that all legal

reward and punishment is founded: it is intended for purposes of

encouragement and prevention, but it would be absurd to think either

of encouraging or preventing what is involuntary, such as the

appetite of hunger and thirst. A man is punished for ignorance, when

he is himself the cause of his own ignorance, or when by reasonable

pains he might have acquired the requisite knowledge. Every man above

the limit of absolute fatuity ([Greek: komidê=| a)naisthê/tou]) must

know that any constant repetition of acts tends to form a habit: if

then by repetition of acts he allows himself to form a bad habit, it

is his own fault. When once the bad habit is formed, it is true that

he cannot at once get rid of it: but the formation of such a habit

originally was not the less imputable to himself (iii. 5). Defects of

body also which we bring upon ourselves by our own negligence or

intemperance, bring upon us censure: if they are constitutional and

unavoidable, we are pitied for them. Some persons seem to have

contended at that time, that no man could justly be made responsible

for his bad conduct: because (they said) the end which he proposed to

himself was good or bad according to his natural disposition, not

according to any selection of his own. Aristotle seems to be somewhat

perplexed by this argument: nevertheless he maintains, that whatever

influence we may allow to original and uncontrollable nature, still

the formation of our habits is more or less under our own concurrent

control; and therefore the end which we propose to ourselves being

dependent upon those habits, is also in part at least dependent upon

ourselves (iii. 5)--our virtues and our vices are both voluntary.

The first five chapters of the third Book (in which Aristotle

examines the nature of [Greek: to\ e(kou/sion, to\ a)kou/sion,

proai/resis, bou/lêsis], &c.) ought perhaps to constitute a Book by

themselves. They are among the most valuable parts of the Ethics. He

has now established certain points with regard to our virtues

generally.

1. They are mediocrities ([Greek: meso/têtes]).2. They are habits,

generated by particular actions often repeated.3. When generated,

they have a specific influence of their own in facilitating the

performance of actions of the same class. 4. They are in our own

power originally, and voluntary.5. They are under the direction of

right reason.

It is to be observed that our actions are voluntary from the

beginning to the end--the last of a number of repeated actions is no

less voluntary than the first. But our habits are voluntary only at

the beginning--they cease to be voluntary after a certain time--but

the permanent effect left by each separate repetition of the action

is inappreciable (iii. 5).

Aristotle then proceeds to an analysis of the separate

virtues--Courage, Temperance, Liberality, Magnificence, Magnanimity,

Gentleness, Frankness, Simplicity, Elegant playfulness, Justice,

Equity, &c. He endeavours to show that each of these is a certain

mediocrity--excess lying on one side of it, defect on the other.

There are various passages of Aristotle which appear almost identical

with the moral doctrine subsequently maintained by the Stoic school:

for example--iii. 6--"In like manner he ought not to fear penury, nor

sickness, nor in any way such things as arise not from moral baseness

nor are dependent on himself."

The courageous man is afraid of things such as it befits a man to

fear, but of no others: and even these he will make head against on

proper occasions, when reason commands and for the sake of _honour_,

which is the end of virtue (iii. 7). To fear nothing, or too little,

is rashness or insanity: to fear too much, is timidity: the

courageous man is the mean between the two, who fears what he ought,

when he ought, as he ought, and with the right views and purposes

(_ib._). The [Greek: moicho\s] (adulterer) exposes himself often to

great dangers for the purpose of gratifying his passion: but

Aristotle does not hold this to be courage. Neither does he thus

denominate men who affront danger from passion, or from the thirst of

revenge, or from a sanguine temperament--there must be deliberate

preference and a proper motive, to constitute courage--the motive of

honour (iii. 8).

The end of courage (says Aristotle) is in itself pleasant, but it is

put out of sight by the circumstances around it: just as the prize

for which the pugilist contends is in itself pleasurable, but being

of small moment and encompassed with painful accessories, it appears

to carry with it no pleasure whatever. Fatigue, and wounds and death

are painful to the courageous man--death is indeed more painful to

him, inasmuch as his life is of more value: but still he voluntarily

and knowingly affronts these pains for the sake of honour.

This is painful: "but pleasure is not to be anticipated in the

exercise of all the different virtues, except in so far as the

attainment of the end is concerned" (iii. 9).

(This is perfectly true: but it contradicts decidedly the remark

which Aristotle had made before in his first Book (i. 8) respecting

the inherent pleasure of virtuous agency.)

Courage and Temperance are the virtues of the instincts ([Greek: tô=n

a)lo/gôn merô=n]--iii. 10). Temperance is the observance of a

rational medium with respect to the pleasures of eating, drinking,

and sex. Aristotle seems to be inconsistent when he makes it to

belong to those pleasures in which animals generally partake (iii.

10); for other animals do not relish intoxicating liquors: unless

indeed these are considered as ranking under drink generally. The

temperate man desires these pleasures as he ought, when he ought,

within the limits of what is honourable, and having a proper

reference to the amount of his own pecuniary means: just as right

reason prescribes (iii. 11). To pursue them more, is excess: to

pursue them less, is defect. There is however, in estimating excess

and defect, a certain tacit reference to the average dispositions of

the many.

"Wherefore the desires of the temperate man ought to harmonize with

reason; for the aim of both is the honourable. And the temperate man

desires what he ought, and as he ought, and when: and this too is the

order of reason" (iii. 12).

All virtuous acts are to be _on account of the honourable_--thus

Aristotle says that the donations of the [Greek: a)/sôtos] (prodigal)

are not to be called liberal--"Neither are their gifts liberal, for

they are not honourable, nor on account of this, nor as they ought to

be" (iv. 1). Again about the [Greek: megaloprepê\s] or _magnificent_

man--"Now the magnificent man will expend such things on account of

the honourable; for this is a condition shared in by all the virtues:

and still he will do so pleasantly and lavishly" (iv. 2). On the

contrary, the [Greek: ba/nausos] or _vulgar_ man, who differs from

the magnificent man in the way of [Greek: u(perbolê\] or _excess_, is

said to spend--"Not for the sake of the honourable, but for the

purpose of making a display of his wealth" (iv. 2).

With respect to those epithets which imply praise or blame, there is

always a tacit comparison with some assumed standard. Thus with

regard to the [Greek: philo/timos] (lover of honour), Aristotle

observes--"It is evident that, as the term 'lover of such and such

things' is used in various senses, we do not always apply 'lover of

honour' to express the same thing; but when we praise, we praise that

ambition which is more than most men's, and blame that which is

greater than it ought to be" (iv. 4).

In the fifth Book, Aristotle proceeds to explain wherein consist

_Justice_ and _Injustice_.

These words are used in two senses--a larger sense and a narrower

sense.

In the larger sense, _just behaviour_ is equivalent to the observance

of law, generally: unjust behaviour is equivalent to the violation of

law generally. But the law either actually does command, or may be

understood to command, that we should perform towards others the acts

belonging to each separate head of virtue: it either actually

prohibits, or may be understood to prohibit, us from performing

towards others any of the acts belonging to each separate head of

vice. In this larger sense, therefore, _justice_ is synonymous

generally with perfect virtue--_injustice_, with perfect wickedness:

there is only this difference, that _just_ or _unjust_ are

expressions applied to behaviour in so far as it affects other

persons besides the agent: whereas _virtuous_ or _wicked_ are

expressions applied simply to the agent without connoting any such

ulterior reference to other persons. _Just_ or _unjust_, is

necessarily towards somebody else: and this reference is implied

distinctly in the term. Virtuous and vicious do not in the force of

the term connote any such relations, but are employed with reference

to the agent simply--"This justice then is perfect virtue; yet not

absolutely, but with reference to one's neighbour.--In one sense we

call those things _just_ that are productive and preservative of

happiness and its parts to the political communion" (v. 1).

Justice in this sense, is the very fulness of virtue, because it

denotes the actual exercise of virtuous behaviour towards others:

"there are many who behave virtuously in regard to their own personal

affairs, but who are incapable of doing so in what regards others"

(_ib._). For this reason, justice has been called by some _the good

of another and not our own_--justice alone of all the virtues,

because it necessarily has reference to another: the just man does

what is for the interest of some one else, either the magistrate, or

the community (v. 1).

_Justice_ in the narrower sense, is that mode of behaviour whereby a

man, in his dealings with others, aims at taking to himself his fair

share and no more of the common objects of desire: and willingly

consents to endure his fair share of the common hardships.

_Injustice_ is the opposite--that by which a man tries to appropriate

more than his fair share of the objects of desire, while he tries to

escape his fair share of the objects of aversion. To aim at this

unfair distribution of the benefits of the society, either in one's

own favour or in favour of any one else, is injustice in _the narrow

sense_ (v. 2).

Justice in this narrower sense is divided into two branches--1.

Distributive Justice. 2. Corrective Justice.

Distributive Justice has reference to those occasions on which

positive benefits are to be distributed among the members of the

community, wealth and honours, &c. (v. 2). In this case, the share of

each citizen is to be a share not absolutely of equality, but one

proportional to his personal worth ([Greek: a)xi/an]): and it is in

the estimation of this personal worth that quarrels and dissension

arise.

_Corrective Justice_ has reference to the individual dealings, or

individual behaviour, between man and man: either to the dealings

implying mutual consent and contract, as purchase, sale, loan, hire,

suretyship, deposit, &c.: or such as imply no such mutual

consent,--such as are on the contrary proceedings either by fraud or

by force--as theft, adultery, perjury, poisoning, assassination,

robbery, beating, mutilation, murder, defamation, &c.

In regard to transactions of this nature, the citizens are considered

as being all upon a par--no account is taken of the difference

between them in point of individual worth. Each man is considered as

entitled to an equal share of good and evil: and if in any dealings

between man and man, one man shall attempt to increase his own share

of good or to diminish his own share of evil at the expense of

another man, corrective justice will interpose and re-establish the

equality thus improperly disturbed. He who has been made to lose or

to suffer unduly, must be compensated and replaced in his former

position: he who has gained unduly, must be mulcted or made to

suffer, so as to be thrown back to the point from which he started.

The judge, who represents this _corrective justice_, is a kind of

mediator, and the point which he seeks to attain in directing

redress, is _the middle point between gain and loss_--so that neither

shall the aggressive party be a gainer, nor the suffering party a

loser--"So that justice is a mean between a sort of gain and loss in

voluntary things,--it is the having the same after as before" (v. 4).

Aristotle admits that the words _gain_ and _loss_ are not strictly

applicable to many of the transactions which come within the scope of

interference from _corrective justice_--that they properly belong to

voluntary contracts, and are strained in order to apply them to acts

of aggression, &c. (_ib._).

The Pythagoreans held the doctrine that justice universally speaking

consisted in simple retaliation--in rendering to another the precise

dealing which that other had first given. This definition will not

suit either for distributive justice or corrective justice: the

treatment so prescribed would be sometimes more, sometimes less, than

justice: not to mention that acts deserve to be treated differently

according as they are intentional or unintentional. But the doctrine

is to a certain extent true in regard to the dealings between man and

man ([Greek: e)n tai=s a)llaktikai=s koinôni/ais])--if it be applied

in the way of general analogy and not with any regard to exact

similarity--it is of importance that the man who has been well

treated, and the man who has been illtreated, should each show his

sense of the proceeding by returning the like usage: "for by

proportionate requital the State is held together" (v. 5). The whole

business of exchange and barter, of division of labour and

occupation,--the co-existence of those distinct and heterogeneous

ingredients which are requisite to constitute the political

communion--the supply of the most essential wants of the citizens--is

all founded upon the continuance and the expectation of this assured

requital for acts done. Money is introduced as an indispensable

instrument for facilitating this constant traffic: it affords a

common measure for estimating the value of every service--"And thus

if there were no possibility of retaliation, there would be no

communion" (v. 5).

Justice is thus a mediocrity--or consists in a just medium--between

two extremes, but not in the same way as the other virtues. The just

man is one who awards both to himself and to every one else the

proper and rightful share both of benefit and burthen. Injustice, on

the contrary, consists in the excess or defect which lie on one side

or the other of this medium point (v. 5).

_Distributive justice_ is said by Aristotle to deal with individuals

according to geometrical ratio; _corrective justice_, according to

arithmetical proportion. _Justice_, strictly and properly so called,

is _political justice_: that reciprocity of right and obligation

which prevails between free and equal citizens in a community, or

between citizens who, if not positively equal, yet stand in an

assured and definite ratio one to the other (v. 6). This relation is

defined and maintained by law, and by judges and magistrates to

administer the law. Political justice implies a state of law--a

community of persons qualified by nature to obey and sustain the

law--and a definite arrangement between the citizens in respect to

the alternation of command and obedience--"For this is, as we have

said ([Greek: ê)=n]), according to law, and among those who can

naturally have law; those, namely, as we have said ([Greek: ê)=san]),

who have an equality of ruling and being ruled." As the law arises

out of the necessity of preventing injustice, or of hindering any

individual from appropriating more than his fair share of good things,

so it is felt that any person invested with sovereign authority may

and will commit this injustice. Reason therefore is understood to hold

the sovereign authority, and the archon acts only as the guardian of

the reciprocal rights and obligations--of the constitutional

equality--between the various citizens: undertaking a troublesome duty

and paid for his trouble by honour and respect (v. 6).

The relation which subsists between master and slave, or father and

son, is not properly speaking that of justice, though it is somewhat

analogous. Both the slave, and the non-adult son, are as it were

parts of the master and father: there can therefore be no injustice

on his part towards them, since no one deliberately intends to hurt a

part of himself. Between husband and wife there subsists a sort of

justice--_household justice_ ([Greek: to\ oi)konomiko\n

di/kaion])--but this too is different from political justice (v. 6).

Political justice is in part _natural_--in part _conventional_. That

which is _natural_ is everywhere the same: that which is conventional

is different in different countries, and takes its origin altogether

from positive and special institution. Some persons think that _all_

political justice is thus conventional, and none natural: because

they see that rights and obligations ([Greek: ta\ di/kaia]) are

everywhere changeable, and nowhere exhibit that permanence and

invariability which mark the properties of natural objects. "This is

true to a certain extent, but not wholly true: probably among the

Gods it is not true at all: but with us that which is natural is in

part variable, though not in every case: yet there is a real

distinction between what is natural and what is not natural. Both

natural justice and conventional justice, are thus alike contingent

and variable: but there is a clear mode of distinguishing between the

two, applicable not only to the case of justice but to other cases in

which the like distinction is to be taken. For by nature the right

hand is the stronger: but nevertheless it may happen that there are

ambidextrous men.--And in like manner those rules of justice which

are not natural, but of human establishment, are not the same

everywhere: nor indeed does the same mode of government prevail

everywhere, though there is but one mode of government which is

everywhere agreeable to nature--the best of all" (v. 7).

(The commentary of Andronicus upon this passage is clearer and more

instructive than the passage of Aristotle itself: and it is

remarkable as a distinct announcement of the principle of utility.

"Since both natural justice, and conventional justice, are

changeable, in the way just stated, how are we to distinguish the one

of these fluctuating institutions from the other? The distinction is

plain. Each special precept of justice is to be examined on its own

ground to ascertain whether it be for the advantage of all that it

should be maintained unaltered, or whether the subversion of it would

occasion mischief. If this be found to be the fact, the precept in

question belongs to natural justice: if it be otherwise, to

conventional justice" (Andronic. Rh. v. c. 10).

The just, and the unjust, being thus defined, a man who does,

willingly and knowingly, either the one or the other, acts justly or

unjustly: if he does it unwillingly or unknowingly, he neither acts

justly nor unjustly, except by accident--that is, he does what is not

essentially and in its own nature unjust, but is only so by accident

(v. 8). Injustice will thus have been done, but no unjust act will

have been committed, if the act be done involuntarily. The man who

restores a deposit unwillingly and from fear of danger to himself,

does not act justly, though he does what by accident is just: the man

who, anxious to restore the deposit, is prevented by positive

superior force from doing so, does not act unjustly, although he does

what by accident is unjust. When a man does mischief, it is either

done contrary to all reasonable expectation, in such manner that

neither he nor any one else could have anticipated from his act the

mischief which has actually ensued from it ([Greek: paralo/gôs]), and

in this case it is a pure misfortune ([Greek: a)tu/chêma]): or he

does it without intention or foreknowledge, yet under circumstances

in which mischief might have been foreseen, and ought to have been

foreseen; in this case it is a fault ([Greek: a(ma/rtêma]): or he

does it intentionally and with foreknowledge, yet without any

previous deliberation, through anger, or some violent momentary

impulse; in this case it is an unjust act ([Greek: a)di/kêma]), but

the agent is not necessarily an _unjust or wicked_ man for having

done it: or he does it with intention and deliberate choice, and in

this case he is an unjust and wicked man.

The man who does a just thing, or an unjust thing, is not necessarily

a just or an unjust man. Whether he be so or not, depends upon the

state of his mind and intention at the time (v. 8).

Equity, [Greek: to\ e)pieike\s], is not at variance with justice, but

is an improvement upon justice. It is a correction and supplement to

the inevitable imperfections in the definitions of legal justice. The

law wishes to comprehend all cases, but fails in doing so: the words

of its enactment do not fully and exactly express its real

intentions, but either something more or something less. When the

lawgiver speaks in general terms, a particular case may happen which

falls within the rule as he lays it down, but which he would not have

wished to comprehend if he had known how to avoid it. It is then

becoming conduct in the individual to whose advantage the law in this

special case turns, that he should refrain from profiting by his

position, and that he should act as the legislator himself would

wish, if consulted on the special case. The general rules laid down

by the legislator are of necessity more or less defective: in fact,

the only reason why everything is not determined by law, is, that

there are some matters respecting which it is impossible to frame a

law (v. 10). Such is the conduct of the equitable man--"the man who

refrains from pushing his legal rights to the extreme, to the injury

of others, but who foregoes the advantage of his position, although

the law is in his favour" ([Greek: o( mê\ a)kribodi/kaios e)pi\

chei=ron, a)ll' e)lattôtiko\s, kai/per e)/chôn to\n no/mon

boêtho/n]).

A man may hurt himself, but he cannot act unjustly towards himself.

No injustice can be done to a man except against his own consent.

Suicide is by implication forbidden by the law: to commit suicide is

wrong, because a man in so doing acts unjustly towards the city, not

towards himself, which is impossible (v. 12).

To act unjustly--and to be the object of unjust dealing by

others--are both bad: but which is the worst? It is the least of the

two evils to be the object of unjust dealing by others. Both are bad,

because in the one case a man gets more than his share, in the other

less than his share: in both cases the just medium is departed from.

To act unjustly is blameable, and implies wickedness: to be the

object of unjust dealing by others is not blameable, and implies no

wickedness: the latter is therefore in itself the least evil,

although by accident it may perhaps turn out to be the greater evil

of the two. In the same manner a pleurisy is in itself a greater evil

than a trip and a stumble: but by accident it may turn out that the

latter is the greater evil of the two, if it should occur at the

moment when a man is running away from the enemy, so as to cause his

being taken prisoner and slain.

The question here raised by Aristotle--which is the greater evil--to

act unjustly or to be the object of unjust dealing--had been before

raised by Plato in the Gorgias. Aristotle follows out his theory

about virtue, whereby he makes it consist in the observance of a

medium point. The man that acts unjustly sins on one side of this

point, the object of unjust dealing misses it on the other side: the

one is comparable to a man who eats or works too much for his health,

the other to a man who eats or works too little. The question is one

which could hardly arise, according to the view taken by modern

ethical writers of the principles of moral science. The two things

compared are not in point of fact commensurable. Looking at the

question from the point of view of the moralist, the person injured

has incurred no moral guilt, but has suffered more or less of

misfortune: the unjust agent on the contrary has suffered no

misfortune--perhaps he has reaped benefit--but at any rate he has

incurred moral guilt. Society on the whole is a decided loser by the

act: but the wrong done implies the suffering inflicted: the act is

considered and called _wrong_ because it does inflict suffering, and

for no other reason. It seems an inadmissible question therefore, to

ask which of the two is the greater evil--the suffering undergone by

A--or the wrong by which B occasioned that suffering: at least so far

as society is concerned.

But the ancient moralists, in instituting this comparison, seem to

have looked, not at society, but at the two individuals--the wrong

doer and the wrong sufferer--and to have looked at them too from a

point of view of their own. If we take the feelings of these two

parties themselves as the standard by which to judge, the sentence

must be obviously contrary to the opinion delivered by Aristotle: the

sufferer, according to his own feeling, is worse off than he was

before: the doer is better off. And it is for this reason that the

act forms a proper ground for judicial punishment or redress. But the

moralist estimates the condition of the two men by a standard of his

own, not by the feelings which they themselves entertain. He decides

for himself that a virtuous frame of mind is the primary and

essential ingredient of individual happiness--a wicked frame of mind

the grand source of misery: and by this test he tries the comparative

happiness of every man. The man who manifests evidence of a guilty

frame of mind is decidedly worse off than he who has only suffered an

unmerited misfortune.

CHAPTER XIV.

POLITICA.

The scheme of government proposed by Aristotle, in the two last books

of his Politics, as representing his own ideas of something like

perfection, is evidently founded upon the Republic of Plato: from

whom he differs in the important circumstance of not admitting either

community of property or community of wives and children.

Each of these philosophers recognises one separate class of

inhabitants, relieved from all private toil and all money-getting

employments, and constituting exclusively the citizens of the

commonwealth. This small class is in effect _the city_--_the

commonwealth_: the remaining inhabitants are not a part of the

commonwealth, they are only appendages to it--indispensable indeed,

but still appendages, in the same manner as slaves or cattle (vii.

8). In the Republic of Plato this narrow aristocracy are not allowed

to possess private property or separate families, but form one

inseparable brotherhood. In the scheme of Aristotle, this aristocracy

form a distinct caste of private families each with its separate

property. The whole territory of the State belongs to them, and is

tilled by dependent cultivators, by whom the produce is made over and

apportioned under certain restrictions. A certain section of the

territory is understood to be the common property of the body of

citizens (_i.e._ of the aristocracy), and the produce of it is handed

over by the cultivators into a common stock, partly to supply the

public tables at which all the citizens with their wives and families

are subsisted, partly to defray the cost of religious solemnities.

The remaining portion of the territory is possessed in separate

properties by individual citizens, who consume the produce as they

please (vii. 9): each citizen having two distinct lots of land

assigned to him, one near the outskirts of the territory, the other

near the centre. This latter regulation also had been adopted by

Plato in the treatise de Legibus, and it is surprising to observe

that Aristotle himself had censured it, in his criticisms on that

treatise, as incompatible with a judicious and careful economy (ii.

3. 8). The syssitia or public tables are also adopted by Plato, in

conformity with the institutions actually existing in his time in

Crete and elsewhere.

The dependent cultivators, in Aristotle's scheme, ought to be slaves,

not united together by any bond of common language or common country

(vii. 9, 9): if this cannot be, they ought to be a race of subdued

foreigners, degraded into perioeci, deprived of all use of arms, and

confined to the task of labouring in the field. Those slaves who till

the common land are to be considered as the property of the

collective body of citizens: the slaves on land belonging to

individual citizens, are the property of those citizens.

When we consider the scanty proportion of inhabitants whom Aristotle

and Plato include in the benefits of their community, it will at once

appear how amazingly their task as political theorists is simplified.

Their **commonwealth is really an aristocracy on a very narrow scale.

The great mass of the inhabitants are thrust out altogether from all

security and good government, and are placed without reserve at the

disposal of the small body of armed citizens.

There is but one precaution on which Aristotle and Plato rely for

ensuring good treatment from the citizens towards their inferiors:

and that is, the finished and elaborate education which the citizens

are to receive. Men so educated, according to these philosophers,

will behave as perfectly in the relation of superior to inferior, as

in that of equal to equal--of citizen to citizen.

This supposition would doubtless prove true, to a certain extent,

though far short of that extent which would be requisite to assure

the complete comfort of the inferior. But even if it were true to the

fullest extent, it would be far from satisfying the demands of a

benevolent theorist. For though the inferior should meet with

kindness and protection from his superior, still his mind must be

kept in a degradation suitable to his position. He must be deprived

of all moral and intellectual culture: he must be prevented from

imbibing any ideas of his own dignity: he must be content to receive

whatever is awarded, to endure whatever treatment is vouchsafed,

without for an instant imagining that he has a right to benefits or

that suffering is wrongfully inflicted upon him. Both Plato and

Aristotle acknowledge the inevitable depravation and moral abasement

of all the inhabitants excepting their favoured class. Neither of

them seems solicitous either to disguise or to mitigate it.

But if they are thus indifferent about the moral condition of the

mass, they are in the highest degree exact and careful respecting

that of their select citizens. This is their grand and primary

object, towards which the whole force of their intellect, and the

full fertility of their ingenious imagination, is directed. Their

plans of education are most elaborate and comprehensive: aiming at

every branch of moral and intellectual improvement, and seeking to

raise the whole man to a state of perfection, both physical and

mental. You would imagine that they were framing a scheme of public

education, not a political constitution: so wholly are their thoughts

engrossed with the training and culture of their citizens. It is in

this respect that their ideas are truly instructive.

Viewed with reference to the general body of inhabitants in a State,

nothing can be more defective than the plans of both these great

philosophers. Assuming that their objects were completely attained,

the mass of the people would receive nothing more than that degree of

physical comfort and mild usage which can be made to consist with

subjection and with the extortion of compulsory labour.

Viewed with reference to the special class recognized as citizens,

the plans of both are to a high degree admirable. A better provision

is made for the virtue as well as for the happiness of this

particular class than has ever been devised by any other political

projector. The intimate manner in which Aristotle connects virtue

with happiness, is above all remarkable. He in fact defines happiness

to consist in _the active exertion and perfected habit of virtue_

([Greek: a)retê=s e)ne/rgeia kai\ chrê=si/s tis te/leios]--vi. 9.

3.): and it is upon this disposition that he founds the necessity of

excluding the mass of inhabitants from the citizenship. For the

purpose to be accomplished by the political union, is, the assuring

of happiness to every individual citizen, which is to be effected by

implanting habits of virtue in every citizen. Whoever therefore is

incapable of acquiring habits of virtue, is disqualified from

becoming a citizen. But every man whose life is spent in laborious

avocations, whether of husbandry, of trade, or of manufacture,

becomes thereby incapable of acquiring habits of virtue, and cannot

therefore be admitted to the citizenship. No man can be capable of

the requisite mental culture and tuition, who is not exempted from

the necessity of toil, enabled to devote his whole time to the

acquisition of virtuous habits, and subjected from his infancy to a

severe and systematic training. The exclusion of the bulk of the

people from civil rights is thus founded, in the mind of Aristotle,

on the lofty idea which he forms of individual human perfection,

which he conceives to be absolutely unattainable unless it be made

the sole object of a man's life. But then he takes especial care that

the education of his citizens shall be really such as to compel them

to acquire that virtue on which alone their pre-eminence is built. If

he exempts them from manual or money-getting labours, he imposes upon

them an endless series of painful restraints and vexatious duties for

the purpose of forming and maintaining their perfection of character.

He allows no luxury or self-indulgence, no misappropriation of time,

no ostentatious display of wealth or station. The life of his select

citizens would be such as to provoke little envy or jealousy, among

men of the ordinary stamp. Its hard work and its strict discipline

would appear repulsive rather than inviting: and the pre-eminence of

strong and able men, submitting to such continued schooling, would

appear well deserved and hardly earned.

Oligarchical reasoners in modern times employ the bad part of

Aristotle's principle without the good. They represent the rich and

great as alone capable of reaching a degree of virtue consistent with

the full enjoyment of political privileges: but then they take no

precautions, as Aristotle does, that the men so preferred shall

really answer to this exalted character. They leave the rich and

great to their own self-indulgence and indolent propensities, without

training them by any systematic process to habits of superior virtue.

So that the select citizens on this plan are at the least no better,

if indeed they are not worse, than the remaining community, while

their unbounded **indulgences excite either undue envy or

undue admiration, among the excluded multitude. The select citizens

of Aristotle are both better and wiser than the rest of their

community: while they are at the same time so hemmed in and

circumscribed by severe regulations, that nothing except the

perfection of their character can appear worthy either of envy or

admiration. Though therefore these oligarchical reasoners concur with

Aristotle in sacrificing the bulk of the community to the

pre-eminence of a narrow class, they fail of accomplishing the end for

which alone he pretends to justify such a sacrifice--the formation of

a few citizens of complete and unrivalled virtue.

The arrangements made by Aristotle for the good government of his

aristocratical citizens among themselves, are founded upon principles

of the most perfect equality. He would have them only limited in

number, for in his opinion, personal and familiar acquaintance among

them all is essentially requisite to good government (vii. 4. 7). The

principal offices of the State are all to be held by the aged

citizens: the military duties are to be fulfilled by the younger

citizens. The city altogether, with the territory appertaining to it,

must be large enough to be [Greek: au)ta/rkês]: but it must not be so

extensive as to destroy personal intimacy among the citizens. A very

large body are, in Aristotle's view, incapable of discipline or

regularity.

To produce a virtuous citizen, _nature_, _habit_, and _reason_ must

coincide. They ought to be endued with virtues qualifying them both

for occupation and for leisure: with courage, self-denial ([Greek:

karteri/a]), and fortitude, to maintain their independence: with

justice and temperance, to restrain them from abusing the means of

enjoyment provided for them: and with philosophy or the love of

contemplative wisdom and science, in order to banish ennui, and

render the hours of leisure agreeable to them (vii. 13. 17). They are

to be taught that their hours of leisure are of greater worth and

dignity than their hours of occupation. Occupation is to be submitted

to for the sake of the quiet enjoyment of leisure, just as war is

made for the sake of procuring peace, and useful and necessary

employments undertaken for the sake of those which are honourable

(vii. 13. 8). Aristotle greatly censures (see vii. 2. 5) (as indeed

Plato had done before him) the institutions of Lacedæmon, as being

directed exclusively to create excellent warriors, and to enable the

nation to rule over foreigners. This (he says) is not only not the

right end, but is an end absolutely pernicious and culpable. To

maintain a forcible sovereignty over free and equal foreigners, is

unjust and immoral: and if the minds of the citizens be corrupted

with this collective ambition and love of power, it is probable that

some individual citizen, taught by the education of the State to

consider power as the first of all earthly ends, will find an

opportunity to aggrandize himself by force or fraud, and to establish

a tyranny over his countrymen themselves (viii. 13. 13). The

Lacedæmonians conducted themselves well and flourished under their

institutions, so long as they were carrying on war for the

enlargement of their dominion: but they were incapable of tasting or

profiting by peace: they were not educated by their legislator so as

to be able to turn leisure to account ([Greek: ai)/tios d' o(

nomothe/tês, ou) paideu/sas du/nasthai schola/zein]--vii. 13. 15).

The education of the citizen is to commence with the body: next the

irrational portion of the soul is to be brought under

discipline--that is, the will and the appetites, the concupiscent and

irascible passions: thirdly, the rational portion of the soul is to

be cultivated and developed. The habitual desires are to be so moulded

and tutored as to prepare them for the sovereignty of reason, when

the time shall arrive for bringing reason into action (vii. 13. 23).

They are to learn nothing until five years old (vii. 15. 4), their

diversions are to be carefully prepared and presented to them,

consisting generally of a mimicry of subsequent serious occupations

(vii. 15. 15): and all the fables and tales which they hear recited

are to be such as to pave the way for moral discipline (_ib._); all

under the superintendence of the Pædonom. No obscene or licentious

talk is to be tolerated in the city (vii. 15. 7), nor any indecent

painting or statue, except in the temples of some particular Deities.

No youth is permitted to witness the recitation either of iambics or

of comedy (vii. 15. 9), until he attains the age which qualifies him

to sit at the public tables. Immense stress is laid by the

philosopher on the turn of ideas to which the tender minds of youth

become accustomed, and on the earliest combinations of sounds or of

visible objects which meet their senses (vii. 15. 10). [Greek: Pro\s

pa/sas duna/meis kai\ te/chnas e)stin a(\ dei= propaideu/esthai kai\

proethi/zesthai pro\s ta\s e(ka/stôn e)rgasi/as, ô(/ste dê=lon o(/ti

kai\ pro\s ta\s tê=s a)retê=s pra/xeis] (viii. 1. 2).

All the citizens in Aristotle's republic are to be educated according

to one common system: each being regarded as belonging to the

commonwealth more than to his own parents. This was the practice at

Lacedæmon, and Aristotle greatly eulogizes it (viii. 1. 3).

Aristotle does not approve of extreme and violent bodily training,

such as would bring the body into the condition of an athlete: nor

does he even sanction the gymnastic labours imposed by the

Lacedæmonian system, which had the effect of rendering the Spartans

"brutal of soul," for the purpose of exalting their courage ([Greek:

oi( La/kônes--thêriô/deis a)perga/zontai toi=s po/nois, ô(s tou=to

ma/lista pro\s a)ndrei/an su/mpheron]). He remarks, first, that

courage is not the single or exclusive end to be aimed at in a civil

education: next, that a savage and brutal soul is less compatible

with exalted courage than a gentle soul, trained so as to be

exquisitely sensible to the feelings of shame and honour (viii. 3.

3-5). The most sanguinary and unfeeling among the barbarous tribes,

he remarks, were very far from being the most courageous. A man

trained on the Lacedæmonian system, in bodily exercises alone,

destitute even of the most indispensable mental culture (see below),

was a real [Greek: ba/nausos]--useful only for one branch of

political duties, and even for that less useful than if he had been

trained in a different manner.

Up to the age of 14, Aristotle prescribes ([Greek: ê(/bê] means 14

years of age--see vii. 15. 11) that boys shall be trained in gentle

and regular exercises, without any severe or forced labour. From 14

to 17 they are to be instructed in various branches of knowledge:

after 17, they are to be put to harder bodily labour and to be

nourished with a special and peculiar diet ([Greek:

a)nagkophagi/ais]). For how long this is to continue, is not stated.

But Aristotle insists on the necessity of not giving them at the same

time intellectual instruction and bodily training, for the one of

these, he says, counteracts and frustrates the other (viii. 4. 2-3).

The Lacedæmonians made music no part of their education: Isocrat.

Panathen. Or. xii. p. 375, B.; they did not even learn 'letters'

([Greek: gra/mmata]), but they are said to have been good judges of

music (viii. 4. 6). Aristotle himself however seems to think it next

to impossible that men who have not learned music can be good judges

(viii. 6. 1).

Aristotle admits that music may be usefully learnt as an innocent

pleasure and relaxation: but he chiefly considers it as desirable on

account of its moral effects, on the dispositions and affections. A

right turn of the pleasurable and painful emotions is, in his

opinion, essential to virtue: particular strains and particular

rhythms are naturally associated with particular dispositions of

mind: by early teaching, those strains and those rhythms which are

associated with temperate and laudable dispositions may be made more

agreeable to a youth than any others. He will like best those which

he hears earliest, and which he finds universally commended and

relished by those about him. A relish for the [Greek: o(moiô/mata] of

virtuous dispositions will tend to increase in him the love of virtue

itself (viii. 6. 5. 8).

Aristotle enjoins that the youth be taught to execute music

instrumentally and vocally, because it is only in this way that they

can acquire a good taste or judgment in music: besides which, it is

necessary to furnish boys with some occupation, to absorb their

restless energies, and there is none more suitable than music. Some

persons alleged that the teaching music as a manual art was banausic

and degrading, lowering the citizen down to the station of a hired

professional singer. Aristotle meets this objection by providing that

youths shall be instructed in the musical art, but only with the view

of correcting and cultivating their taste: they are to be forbidden

from making any use of their musical acquisitions, in riper years, in

actual playing or singing (viii. 6. 3). Aristotle observes, that

music more difficult of execution had been recently introduced into

the agones, and had found its way from the agones into the ordinary

education. He decidedly disapproves and excludes it (viii. 6. 4). He

forbids both the flute and the harp, and every other instrument

requiring much art to play upon it: especially the flute, which he

considers as not ethical, but orgiastical--calculated to excite

violent and momentary emotions. The flute obtained a footing in

Greece after the Persian invasion; in Athens at that time it became

especially fashionable; but was discontinued afterwards (Plutarch

alleges, through the influence of Alcibiades).

The suggestions of Aristotle for the education of his citizens are

far less copious and circumstantial than those of Plato in his

Republic. He delivers no plan of study, no arrangement of sciences to

be successively communicated, no reasons for preferring or rejecting.

We do not know what it was precisely which Aristotle comprehended in

the term "philosophy," intended by him to be taught to his citizens

as an aid for the proper employment of their leisure. It must

probably have included the moral, political, and metaphysical

sciences, as they were then known--those sciences to which his own

voluminous works relate.

By means of the public table, supplied from the produce of the public

lands, Aristotle provides for the full subsistence of every citizen.

Yet he is well aware that the citizens will be likely to increase in

numbers too rapidly, and he suggests very efficient precautions

against it. No child at all deformed or imperfect in frame is to be

brought up: children beyond a convenient number, if born, are to be

exposed: but should the law of the State forbid such a practice, care

must be taken to forestall consciousness and life in them, and to

prevent their birth by [Greek: a)/mblôsis] (vii. 14. 10).

Aristotle establishes two _agora_ in his city: one situated near to

the harbour, adapted to the buying, selling, and storing of goods,

under the surveillance of the agoranomus: the other called the _free

agora_, situated in the upper parts of the city, set apart for the

amusement and conversation of the citizens, and never defiled by the

introduction of any commodities for sale. No artisan or husbandman is

ever to enter the latter unless by special order from the

authorities. The temples of the Gods, the residences of the various

boards of government functionaries, the gymnasia of the older

citizens, are all to be erected in this free agora (vii. 11). The

Thessalian cities had an agora of this description where no traffic

or common occupations were permitted.

The moral tendency of Aristotle's reflections is almost always useful

and elevating. The intimate union which he formally recognizes and

perpetually proclaims between happiness and virtue, is salutary and

instructive: and his ideas of what virtue is, are perfectly just, so

far as relates to the conduct of his citizens towards each other:

though they are miserably defective as regards obligation towards

non-citizens. He always assigns the proper pre-eminence to wisdom and

virtue: he never overvalues the advantages of riches, nor deems them

entitled on their own account, to any reverence or submission: he

allows no title to the obedience of mankind, except that which arises

from superior power and disposition to serve them. Superior power and

station, as he considers them, involve a series of troubles--some

obligations which render them objects of desire only to men of virtue

and beneficence. What is more rare and more creditable still, he

treats all views of conquest and aggrandizement by a State as immoral

and injurious, even to the conquerors themselves.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

I.

THE DOCTRINE OF UNIVERSALS.

The controversy respecting Universals first obtained its place in

philosophy from the colloquies of Sokrates, and the writings and

teachings of Plato. We need not here touch upon their predecessors,

Parmenides and Herakleitus, who, in a confused and unsystematic

manner, approached this question from opposite sides, and whose

speculations worked much upon the mind of Plato in determining both

his aggressive dialectic, and his constructive theories. Parmenides

of Elea, improving upon the ruder conceptions of Xenophanes, was the

first to give emphatic proclamation to the celebrated Eleatic

doctrine, Absolute Ens as opposed to Relative Fientia: _i.e._ the

Cogitable, which Parmenides conceived as the One and All of reality,

[Greek: e(\n kai\ pa=n], enduring and unchangeable, of which the

negative was unmeaning,--and the Sensible or Perceivable, which was

in perpetual change, succession and multiplicity, without either

unity, or reality, or endurance. To the last of these two departments

Herakleitus assigned especial prominence. In place of the permanent

underlying Ens, which he did not recognize, he substituted a

cogitable process of _change_, or generalized concept of what was

common to all the successive phases of change--a perpetual stream of

generation and destruction, or implication of contraries, in which

everything appeared only that it might disappear, without endurance

or uniformity. In this doctrine of Herakleitus, the world of sense

and particulars could not be the object either of certain knowledge

or even of correct probable opinion; in that of Parmenides, it was

recognized as an object of probable opinion, though not of certain

knowledge. But in both doctrines, as well as in the theories of

Demokritus, it was degraded, and presented as incapable of yielding

satisfaction to the search of a philosophizing mind, which could find

neither truth nor reality except in the world of Concepts and

Cogitables.

Besides the two theories above-mentioned, there were current in the

Hellenic world, before the maturity of Sokrates, several other veins

of speculation about the Kosmos, totally divergent one from the

other, and by that very divergence sometimes stimulating curiosity,

sometimes discouraging all study as though the problems were

hopeless. But Parmenides and Herakleitus, together with the

arithmetical and geometrical hypotheses of the Pythagoreans, are

expressly noticed by Aristotle as having specially contributed to

form the philosophy of Plato.

Neither Parmenides, nor Herakleitus, nor the Pythagoreans were

dialecticians. They gave out their own thoughts in their own way,

with little or no regard to dissentients. They did not cultivate the

art of argumentative attack or defence, nor the correct application

and diversified confrontation of universal terms, which are the great

instruments of that art. It was Zeno, the disciple of Parmenides,

that first employed dialectic in support of his master's theory, or

rather against the counter-theories of opponents. He showed by

arguments memorable for their subtlety, that the hypothesis of an

Absolute, composed of Entia Plura Discontinua, led to consequences

even more absurd than those that opponents deduced from the

Parmenidean hypothesis of Ens Unum Continuum. The dialectic, thus

inaugurated by Zeno, reached still higher perfection in the

colloquies of Sokrates; who not only employed a new method, but also

introduced new topics of debate--ethical, political, and social

matters instead of physical things and the Kosmos.

The peculiar originality of Sokrates is well known: a man who wrote

nothing, but passed his life in indiscriminate colloquy with every

one; who professed to have no knowledge himself, but interrogated

others on matters that they talked about familiarly and professed to

know well; whose colloquies generally ended by puzzling the

respondents, and by proving to themselves that they neither knew nor

could explain even matters that they had begun by affirming

confidently as too clear to need explanation. Aristotle tells us[1]

that Sokrates was the first that set himself expressly and

methodically to scrutinize the definitions of general or universal

terms, and to confront them, not merely with each other, but also, by

a sort of inductive process, with many particular cases that were, or

appeared to be, included under them. And both Xenophon and Plato give

us abundant examples of the terms to which Sokrates applied his

interrogatories: What is the Holy? What is the Unholy? What is the

Beautiful or Honourable? What is the Ugly or Base? What is

Justice--Injustice--Temperance--Madness--Courage--Cowardice--A City--A

man fit for civil life? What is the Command of Men? What is the

character fit for commanding men? Such are the specimens, furnished

by a hearer,[2] of the universal terms whereon the interrogatories of

Sokrates bore. All of them were terms spoken and heard familiarly by

citizens in the market-place, as if each understood them perfectly;

but when Sokrates, professing his own ignorance, put questions asking

for solutions of difficulties that perplexed his own mind, the answers

showed that these difficulties were equally insoluble by respondents,

who had never thought of them before. The confident persuasion of

knowledge, with which the colloquy began, stood exposed as a false

persuasion without any basis of reality. Such illusory semblance of

knowledge was proclaimed by Sokrates to be the chronic, though

unconscious, intellectual condition of his contemporaries. How he

undertook, as the mission of a long life, to expose it, is

impressively set forth in the Platonic Apology.

[Footnote 1: Metaphysica, A. p. 987, b. 2; M. p. 1078, b. 18.]

[Footnote 2: Xenophon Memorab. I. i. 16; IV. vi. 1-13.]

It was thus by Sokrates that the meaning of universal terms and

universal propositions, and the relation of each respectively to

particular terms and particular propositions were first made a

subject of express enquiry and analytical interrogation. His

influence was powerful in imparting the same dialectical impulse to

several companions; but most of all to Plato, who not only enlarged

and amplified the range of Sokratic enquiry, but also brought the

meaning of universal terms into something like system and theory, as

a portion of the conditions of trustworthy science. Plato was the

first to affirm the doctrine afterwards called Realism, as the

fundamental postulate of all true and proved cognition. He affirmed

it boldly, and in its most extended sense, though he also produces

(according to his frequent practice) many powerful arguments and

unsolved objections against it. It was he (to use the striking phrase

of Milton[3]) that first imported into the schools the portent of

Realism. The doctrine has been since opposed, confuted, curtailed,

transformed, diversified in many ways; but it has maintained its

place in logical speculation, and has remained, under one phraseology

or another, the creed of various philosophers, from that time down to

the present.

[Footnote 3: See the Latin verses 'De Ideâ Platonicâ quemadmodum

Aristoteles intellexit'--

"At tu, perenne ruris Academi decus,

Hæc monstra si tu primus induxti scholis," &c.]

The following account of the problems of Realism was handed down to

the speculations of the mediæval philosophers by Porphyry (between

270-300 A.D.), in his Introduction to the treatise of Aristotle on

the Categories. After informing Chrysaorius that he will prepare for

him a concise statement of the doctrines of the old philosophers

respecting Genus, Differentia, Species, Proprium, Accidens,

"abstaining from the deeper enquiries, but giving suitable

development to the more simple,"--Porphyry thus proceeds:--"For

example, I shall decline discussing, in respect to Genera and

Species, (1) Whether they have a substantive existence, or reside

merely in naked mental conceptions; (2) Whether, assuming them to

have substantive existence, they are bodies or incorporeals; (3)

Whether their substantive existence is in and along with the objects

of sense, or apart and separable. Upon this task I shall not enter,

since it is of the greatest depth, and requires another larger

investigation; but shall try at once to show you how the ancients

(especially the Peripatetics), with a view to logical discourse,

dealt with the topics now propounded."[4]

[Footnote 4: Porphyry, Introd. in Categor. init. p. 1, a. 1, Schol.

Br.]

Before Porphyry, all these three problems had been largely debated,

first by Plato, next by Aristotle against Plato, again by the Stoics

against both, and lastly by Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists as

conciliators of Plato with Aristotle. After Porphyry, problems the

same, or similar, continued to stand in the foreground of

speculation, until the authority of Aristotle became discredited at

all points by the influences of the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries. But in order to find the beginning of them, as questions

provoking curiosity and opening dissentient points of view to

inventive dialecticians, we must go back to the age and the dialogues

of Plato.

The real Sokrates (_i.e._ as he is described by Xenophon) inculcated

in his conversation steady reverence for the invisible, as apart from

and overriding the phenomena of sensible experience; but he

interpreted the term in a religious sense, as signifying the agency

of the personal gods, employed to produce effects beneficial or

injurious to mankind.[5] He also puts forth his dialectical acuteness

to prepare consistent and tenable definitions of familiar general

terms (of which instances have already been given), at least so far

as to make others feel, for the first time, that they did not

understand these terms, though they had been always talking like

persons that _did_ understand. But the Platonic Sokrates (_i.e._ as

spokesman in the dialogues of Plato) enlarges both these discussions

materially. Plato recognizes, not simply the invisible persons or

gods, but also a separate world of invisible, impersonal entities or

objects; one of which he postulates as the objective reality, though

only a cogitable reality, correlating with each general term. These

Entia he considers to be not merely distinct realities, but the only

true and knowable realities: they are eternal and unchangeable,

manifested by the fact that particulars partake in them, and

imparting a partial show of stability to the indeterminate flux of

particulars: unless such separate Universal Entia be supposed, there

is nothing whereon cognition can fasten, and consequently there can

be no cognition at all.[6] These are the substantive, self-existent

Ideas, or Forms that Plato first presented to the philosophical

world; sometimes with logical acuteness, oftener still with rich

poetical and imaginative colouring. They constitute the main body and

characteristic of the hypothesis of Realism.

[Footnote 5: Xenophon, Memorab. I. iv. 9-17; IV. iii. 14.]

[Footnote 6: Aristot. Metaphys. A. vi. p. 987, b. 5; M. iv. p. 1078,

b. 15.]

But, though the main hypothesis is the same, the accessories and

manner of presentation differ materially among its different

advocates. In these respects, indeed, Plato differs not only from

others, but also from himself. Systematic teaching or exposition is

not his purpose, nor does he ever give opinions in his own name. We

have from him an aggregate of detached dialogues, in many of which

this same hypothesis is brought under discussion, but in each

dialogue, the spokesmen approach it from a different side; while in

others (distinguished by various critics as the Sokratic dialogues)

it does not come under discussion at all, Plato being content to

remain upon the Sokratic platform, and to debate the meaning of

general terms without postulating in correlation with them an

objective reality, apart from their respective particulars.

At the close of the Platonic dialogue called Kratylus, Sokrates is

introduced as presenting the hypothesis of self-existent, eternal,

unchangeable Ideas (exactly in the way that Aristotle ascribes to

Plato) as the counter-proposition to the theory of universal flux and

change announced by Herakleitus. Particulars are ever changing (it is

here argued) and are thus out of the reach of cognition; but, unless

the Universal Ideas above them, such as the Self-beautiful, the

Self-good, &c., be admitted as unchangeable, objective realities,

there can be nothing either nameable or knowable: cognition becomes

impossible.

In the Timæus, Plato describes the construction of the Kosmos by a

Divine Architect, and the model followed by the latter in his work.

The distinction is here again brought out, and announced as capital,

between the permanent, unalterable Entia, and the transient,

ever-fluctuating Fientia, which come and go, but never really _are_.

Entia are apprehended by the cogitant or intelligent soul of the

Kosmos, Fientia by the sentient or percipient soul; the cosmical

soul as a whole, in order to suffice for both these tasks, is made

up of diverse component elements--Idem, correlating with the first of

the two, Diversum, correlating with the second, and Idem implicated

with Diversum, corresponding to both in conjunction. The Divine

Architect is described as constructing a Kosmos, composed both of

soul and body, upon the pattern of the grand pre-existent

Idea--[Greek: au)tozô=|on] or the Self-Animal; which included in

itself as a genus the four distinct species--celestial (gods, visible

and invisible), terrestrial, aerial, and aquatic.

The main point that Plato here insists upon is--the eternal and

unchangeable reality of the cogitable objects called Ideas, prior

both in time and in logical order to the transient objects of sight

and touch, and serving as an exemplar to which these latter are made

to approximate imperfectly. He assumes such priority, without proof,

in the case of the Idea of Animal; but, when he touches upon the four

elements--Fire, Air, Water, Earth--he hesitates to make the same

assumption, and thinks himself required to give a reason for it. The

reason that he assigns (announced distinctly as his own) is as

follows: If Intellection (Cogitation, [Greek: Nou=s]) and true

Opinion are two genera distinct from each other, there must clearly

exist Forms or Ideas imperceptible to our senses, and apprehended

only by cogitation or intellection; but if, as some persons think,

true opinion is noway different from intellection, then we must admit

all the objects perceived by our senses as firm realities. Now the

fact is (he proceeds to say) that true opinion is not identical with

intellection, but quite distinct, separate, and unlike to it.

Intellection is communicated by teaching, through true reasoning, and

is unshakeable by persuasion; true opinion is communicated by

persuasion and removed by counter-persuasion, without true reasoning.

True opinion may belong to any man; but intellection is the privilege

only of gods and of a small section of mankind. Accordingly, since

the two are distinct, the objects correlating with each of them must

also be distinct from each other. There must exist, first, primary,

eternal, unchangeable Forms, apprehended by intellect or cogitation,

but imperceptible by sense; and, secondly, resemblances of these

bearing the same name, generated and destroyed each in some place,

and apprehended first by sense, afterwards by opinion. Thirdly, there

must be the place wherein such resemblances are generated; a place

itself imperceptible by sense, yet postulated, as a receptacle

indispensable for them, by a dreamy kind of computation.

We see here that the proof given by Plato, in support of the

existence of Forms as the primary realities, is essentially

psychological: resting upon the fact that there is a distinct mental

energy or faculty called Intellection (apart from Sense and Opinion),

which must have its distinct objective correlate; and upon the

farther fact, that intellection is the high prerogative of the gods,

shared only by a few chosen men. This last point of the case is more

largely and emphatically brought out in the Phædrus, where Sokrates

delivers a highly poetical effusion respecting the partial

intercommunion of the human soul with these eternal intellectual

realities. To contemplate them is the constant privilege of the gods;

to do so is also the aspiration of the immortal soul of man

generally, in the pre-existent state, prior to incorporation with the

human body; though only in a few cases is such aspiration realized.

Even those few human souls, that have succeeded in getting sight of

the intellectual Ideas (essences without colour, figure, or tactile

properties), lose all recollection of them when first entering into

partnership with a human body; but are enabled gradually to recall

them, by combining repeated impressions and experience of their

resemblances in the world of sense. The revival of these divine

elements is an inspiration of the nature of madness; though it is a

variety of madness as much better than uninspired human reason as

other varieties are worse. The soul, becoming insensible to ordinary

pursuits, contracts a passionate devotion to these Universal Ideas,

and to that dialectical communion, especially with some pregnant

youthful mind, that brings them into clear separate contemplation

disengaged from the limits and confusion of sense.

Here philosophy is presented as the special inspiration of a few,

whose souls during the period of pre-existence have sufficiently

caught sight of the Universal Ideas or Essences; so that these last,

though overlaid and buried when the soul is first plunged in a body,

are yet revivable afterwards under favourable circumstances, through

their imperfect copies in the world of sense; especially by the sight

of personal beauty in an ingenuous and aspiring youth, in which case

the visible copy makes nearest approach to the perfection of the

Universal Idea or Type. At the same time, Plato again presents to us

the Cogitable Universals as the only objects of true cognition, the

Sensible Particulars being objects merely of opinion.

In the Phædon, Sokrates advances the same doctrine, that the

**perceptions of sense are full of error and confusion, and can

at best suggest nothing higher than opinion; that true

cogitation can never be attained except when the cogitant mind

disengages itself from the body and comes into direct contemplation

of the Universal Entia, objects eternal and always the same--The

Self-beautiful, Self-good, Self-just, Self-great, Healthy, Strong,

&c., all which objects are invisible, and can be apprehended only by

the cogitation or intellect. It is this Cogitable Universal that is

alone real; Sensible Particulars are not real, nor lasting, nor

trustworthy. None but a few philosophers, however, can attain to such

pure mental energy during this life; nor even they fully and

perfectly. But they will attain it fully after death (their souls

being immortal), if their lives have been passed in sober

philosophical training. And their souls enjoyed it before birth

during the period of pre-existence; having acquired, before junction

with the body, the knowledge of these Universals, which are forgotten

during childhood, but recalled in the way of Reminiscence, by

sensible perceptions that make a distant approach to them. Thus,

according to the Phædon and some other dialogues, all learning is

merely reminiscence; the mind is brought back, by the laws of

association, to the knowledge of Universal Realities that it had

possessed in its state of pre-existence. Particulars of sense

participate in these Universals to a certain extent, or resemble them

imperfectly; and they are therefore called by the same name.

In the Republic, we have a repetition and copious illustration of

this antithesis between the world of Universals or Cogitables, which

are the only unchangeable realities and the only objects of

knowledge,--and the world of Sensible Particulars, which are

transitory and confused shadows of these Universals, and are objects

of opinion only. Full and real Ens is knowable, Non-Ens is altogether

unknowable; what is midway between the two is matter of opinion, and

in such midway are the Particulars of sense.[7] Respecting these

last, no truth is attainable: whenever you affirm a proposition

respecting any of them, you may with equal truth affirm the contrary

at the same time. Nowhere is the contrast between the Universals or

real Ideas (among which the Idea of Good is the highest, predominant

over all the rest), and the unreal Particulars, or Percepta, of

Sense, more forcibly insisted upon than in the Republic. Even the

celestial bodies and their movements, being among these Percepta of

sense, are ranked among phantoms interesting but useless to observe;

they are the best of all Percepta, but they fall very short of the

perfection that the mental eye contemplates in the Ideal--in the true

Figures and Numbers, in the real Velocity and the real Slowness. In

the simile commencing the seventh book of the Republic, Plato

compares mankind to prisoners in a cave, chained in one particular

attitude, so as to behold only an ever-varying multiplicity of

shadows, projected, through the opening of the cave upon the wall

before them, by certain unseen realities behind. The philosopher is

one among a few, who by training or inspiration, have been enabled to

face about from this original attitude, and to contemplate with his

mind the real unchangeable Universals, instead of having his eye

fixed upon their particular manifestations, at once shadowy and

transient. By such mental revolution he comes round from the

Perceivable to the Cogitable, from Opinion to Knowledge.

[Footnote 7: Plato, Republic. v. pp. 477, 478.]

The distinction between these two is farther argued in the elaborate

dialogue called Theætetus, where Sokrates, trying to explain what

Knowledge or Cognition is, refutes three proposed explanations and

shows, to his own satisfaction, that it is not sensible perception,

that it is not true opinion, that it is not true opinion coupled with

rational explanation. But he confesses himself unable to show what

Knowledge or Cognition is, though he continues to announce it as

correlating with Realities Cogitable and Universal only.[8]

[Footnote 8: Plato, Theætêt. pp. 173, 176, 186. Grote's Plato, II.

xxvi. pp. **320-395.]

In the passages above noticed, and in many others besides, we find

Plato drawing a capital distinction between Universals eternal and

unchangeable (each of them a Unit as well as a Universal),[9] which

he affirms to be the only real Entia,--and Particulars transient and

variable, which are not Entia at all, but are always coming or going;

the Universals being objects of cogitation and of a psychological

fact called Cognition, which he declares to be infallible; and the

Particulars being objects of Sense, and of another psychological fact

radically different, called Opinion, which he pronounces to be

fallible and misleading. Plato holds, moreover, that the Particulars,

though generically distinct and separate from the Universals, have

nevertheless a certain communion or participation with them, by

virtue of which they become half existent and half cognizable, but

never attain to full reality or cognizability.

[Footnote 9: Plato, Philêbus, p. 15, A. B.; Republic, x. p. 596, A.

The phrase of Milton, "unus et universus," expresses this idea; also

the lines:--

"Sed quamlibet natura sit communior,

Tamen seorsus extat ad modum unius," &c.]

This is the first statement of the theory of complete and unqualified

Realism, which came to be known in the Middle Ages under the phrase

_Universalia ante rem_ or _extra rem_, and to be distinguished from

the two counter-theories _Universalia in re_ (Aristotelian), and

_Universalia post rem_ (Nominalism). Indeed, the Platonic theory goes

even farther than the phrase _Universalia ante rem_, which recognizes

the particular as a reality, though posterior and derivative; for

Plato attenuates it into phantom and shadow. The problem was now

clearly set out in philosophy--What are the objects correlating with

Universal terms, and with Particular terms? What is the relation

between the two? Plato first gave to the world the solution called

Realism, which lasted so long after his time. We shall presently find

Aristotle taking issue with him on both the affirmations included in

his theory.

But though Plato first introduced this theory into philosophy, he was

neither blind to the objections against it, nor disposed to conceal

them. His mind was at once poetically constructive and dialectically

destructive; to both these impulses the theory furnished ample scope,

while the form of his compositions (separate dialogues, with no

mention of his own name) rendered it easy to give expression either

to one or to the other. Before Aristotle arose to take issue with

him, we shall find him taking issue with himself, especially in the

dialogues called Sophistes and Parmenides, not to mention the

Philêbus, wherein he breaks down the unity even of his sovereign

Idea, which in the Republic governs the Cogitable World,--the Idea of

Good.[10]

[Footnote 10: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 65, 66. See Grote's Plato, II.

xxx. pp. 584, 585.]

Both in the Sophistes and in the Parmenides, the leading disputant

introduced by Plato is not Sokrates, but Parmenides and another

person (unnamed) of the Eleatic school. In both dialogues objections

are taken against the Realistic theory elsewhere propounded by Plato,

though the objections adduced in the one are quite distinct from

those noticed in the other. In the Sophistes, the Eleatic reasoner

impugns successfully the theories of two classes of philosophers, one

the opposite of the other: first, the Materialists, who recognized no

Entia except the Percepta of Sense; next, the Realistic Idealists,

who refused to recognize these last as real Entia, or as anything

more than transient and mutable Generata or Fientia, while they

confined the title of Entia to the Forms, cogitable, incorporeal,

eternal, immutable, neither acting on anything, nor acted upon by

anything. These persons are called in the Sophistes "Friends of

Forms," and their theory is exactly what we have already cited out of

so many other dialogues of Plato, drawing the marked line of

separation between Entia and Fientia; between the Immutable, which

alone is real and cognizable, and the Mutable, neither real nor

cognizable. The Eleate in the Sophistes controverts this Platonic

theory, and maintains that among the Universal Entia there are

included items mutable as well as immutable; that both are real and

both cognizable; that Non-Ens (instead of being set in glaring

contrast with Ens, as the totally incogitable against the infallibly

cognizable)[11] is one among the multiplicity of Real Forms, meaning

only what is different from Ens, and therefore cognizable not less

than Ens; that Percepta and Cogitata are alike real, yet both only

relatively real, correlating with minds percipient and cogitant.

Thus, the reasoning in the Sophistes, while it sets aside the

doctrine of _Universalia ante rem_, does not mark out any other

relation between Universals and Particulars (neither _in re_ nor

_post rem_). It discusses chiefly the intercommunion or reciprocal

exclusion of Universals with respect to each other; and upon this

point, far from representing them as objects of infallible Cognition

as contrasted with Opinion, it enrolls both Opinion and Discourse

among the Universals themselves, and declares both of them to be

readily combinable with Non-Ens and Falsehood. So that we have here

error and fallibility recognized in the region of Universals, as well

as in that of Particulars.

[Footnote 11: Plato, Republic, v. pp. 478, 479.]

But it is principally in the dialogue Parmenides that Plato discusses

with dialectical acuteness the relation of Universals to their

Particulars; putting aside the intercommunion (affirmed in the

Sophistes) or reciprocal exclusion between one Universal and another,

as an hypothesis at least supremely difficult to vindicate, if at all

admissible.[12] In the dialogue, Sokrates is introduced in the

unusual character of a youthful and ardent aspirant in philosophy,

defending the Platonic theory of Ideas as we have seen it proclaimed

in the Republic and in the Timæus. The veteran Parmenides appears as

the opponent to cross-examine him; and not only impugns the theory by

several interrogatories which Sokrates cannot answer, but also

intimates that there remain behind other objections equally serious

requiring answer. Yet at the same time he declares that, unless the

theory be admitted, and unless _Universalia ante rem_ can be

sustained as existent, there is no trustworthy cognition attainable,

nor any end to be served by philosophical debate. Moreover,

Parmenides warns Sokrates that, before he can acquire a mental

condition competent to defend the theory, he must go through numerous

preliminary dialectical exercises; following out both the affirmative

and the negative hypotheses in respect to a great variety of

Universals severally. To illustrate the course prescribed, Parmenides

gives a long specimen of this dialectic in handling his own doctrine

of Ens Unum. He takes first the hypothesis _Si Unum est_, next the

hypothesis _Si Unum non est_; and he deduces from each, by ingenious

subtleties, double and contradictory conclusions. These he sums up at

the end, challenging Sokrates to solve the puzzles before affirming

his thesis.

[Footnote 12: Plato, Parmenid. p. 129, E.; with Stallbaum's

Prolegomena to that dialogue, pp. 38-42.]

Apart from these antinomies at the close of the dialogue, the

cross-examination of Sokrates by Parmenides, in the middle of it,

brings out forcibly against the Realistic theory objections such as

those urged against it by the Nominalists of the Middle Ages. In the

first place, we find that Plato conceived the theory itself

differently from Porphyry and the philosophers that wrote subsequently

to the Peripatetic criticism. Porphyry and his successors put the

question, Whether Genera and Species had a separate existence, apart

from the Individuals composing them? Now, the world of Forms (the

Cogitable or Ideal world as opposed to the Sensible) is not here

conceived by Plato as peopled in the first instance by Genera and

Species. Its first tenants are _Attributes_, and attributes distinctly

_relative_--Likeness, One and Many, Justice, Beauty, Goodness, &c.

Sokrates, being asked by Parmenides whether he admits Forms

corresponding with these names, answers unhesitatingly in the

affirmative. He is next asked whether he admits forms corresponding

to the names Man, Fire, Water, &c., and, instead of replying in the

affirmative, intimates that he does not feel sure. Lastly, the

question is put whether there are Forms corresponding to the names

of mean objects--Mud, Hair, Dirt, &c. At first he answers

emphatically in the negative, and treats the affirmative as

preposterous; there exist no cogitable Hair, &c., but only the object

of sense that we so denominate. Yet, on second thoughts, he is not

without misgiving that there may be Forms even of these; though the

supposition is so repulsive to him that he shakes it off as much as

he can. Upon this last expression of sentiment Parmenides comments,

ascribing it to the juvenility of Sokrates, and intimating that, when

Sokrates has become more deeply imbued with philosophy, he will cease

to set aside any of these objects as unworthy.

Here we see that, in the theory of Realism as conceived by Sokrates,

the Self-Existent Universals are not Genera and Species as such, but

Attributes--not Second Substances or Essences, but Accidents or

Attributes, _e.g._ Quality, Quantity, Relation, &c., to use the

language afterwards introduced in the Aristotelian Categories; that

no Genera or Species are admitted except with hesitation; and that

the mean and undignified among them are scarcely admissible at all.

This sentiment of dignity, associated with the _Universalia ante

rem_, and emotional necessity for tracing back particulars to an

august and respected origin, is to be noted as a marked and lasting

feature of the Realistic creed; and it even passed on to the

_Universalia in re_, as afterwards affirmed by Aristotle. Parmenides

here takes exception to it (and so does Plato elsewhere[13]) as

inconsistent with faithful adherence to scientific analogy.

[Footnote 13: Plato, Sophist. p. 227, A. Politikus, p. 266, D.]

Parmenides then proceeds (interrogating Sokrates) first to state what

the Realistic theory is (Universals apart from

Particulars--Particulars apart from Universals, yet having some

participation in them, and named after them), next to bring out the

difficulties attaching to it. The Universal or Form (he argues) cannot

be entire in each of its many separate particulars; nor yet is it

divisible, so that a part can be in one particular, and a part in

another. For take the Forms Great, Equal, Small; Equal magnitudes are

equal because they partake in the Form of Equality. But how can a part

of the Form Equality, less than the whole Form, cause the magnitudes

to be equal? How can the Form Smallness have any parts less than

itself, or how can it be greater than anything?

The Form cannot be divided, nor can it co-exist undivided in each

separate particular; accordingly, particulars can have no

participation in it at all.

Again, you assume a Form of Greatness, because you see many

particular objects, each of which appears to you great; this being

the point of resemblance between them. But if you compare the Form of

Greatness with any or all of the particular great objects, you will

perceive a resemblance between them; this will require you to assume

a higher Form, and so on upward without limit.

Sokrates, thus embarrassed, starts the hypothesis that perhaps each

of these Forms may be a cogitation, and nothing more, existing only

within the mind. How? rejoins Parmenides. Can there be a cogitation

of nothing at all? Must not each cogitation have a real _cogitatum_

correlating with it,--in this case, the one Form that is identical

throughout many particulars? If you say that particulars partake in

the Form, and that each Form is nothing but a cogitation, does not

this imply that each particular is itself cogitant?

Again Sokrates urges that the Forms are constant, unalterable,

stationary in nature; that particulars resemble them, and participate

in them only so far as to resemble them. But (rejoins Parmenides), if

particulars resemble the Form, the Form must resemble them;

accordingly, you must admit another and higher Form, as the point of

resemblance between the Form and its particulars; and so on, upwards.

And farther (continues Parmenides), even when admitting these

Universal Forms as self-existent, how can we know anything about

them? Forms can correlate only with Forms, Particulars only with

Particulars. Thus, if I, an individual man, am master, I correlate

with another individual man, who is my servant, and he on his side

with me. But the Form of mastership, the Universal self-existent

Master, must correlate with the Form of servantship, the Universal

Servant. The correlation does not subsist between members of the two

different worlds, but between different members of the same world

respectively. Thus the Form of Cognition correlates with the Form of

Truth; and the Form of each variety of Cognition, with the Form of

the corresponding variety of Truth. But we, as individual subjects,

do not possess in ourselves the Form of Cognition; our cognition is

our own, correlating with such truth as belongs to it and to

ourselves. Our cognition cannot reach to the Form of Truth, nor

therefore to any other Form; we can know nothing of the Self-good,

Self-beautiful, Self-just, &c., even supposing such Forms to exist.

These acute and subtle arguments are nowhere answered by Plato. They

remain as unsolved difficulties, embarrassing the Realistic theory;

they are reinforced by farther difficulties no less grave, included

in the dialectical antinomies of Parmenides at the close of the

dialogue, and by an unknown number of others indicated as producible,

though not actually produced. Yet still Plato, with full

consciousness of these difficulties, asserts unequivocally that,

unless the Realistic theory can be sustained, philosophical research

is fruitless, and truth cannot be reached. We see thus that the

author of the theory has also left on record some of the most

forcible arguments against it. It appears from Aristotle (though we

do not learn the fact from the Platonic dialogues), that Plato, in

his later years, symbolized the Ideas or Forms under the denomination

of Ideal Numbers, generated by implication of The One with what he

called The Great and Little, or the Indeterminate Dyad. This last,

however, is not the programme wherein the Realistic theory stands

opposed to Nominalism.

But the dialogue Parmenides, though full of acuteness on the negative

side, not only furnishes no counter-theory, but asserts continued

allegiance to the Realistic theory, which passes as Plato's doctrine

to his successors. To impugn, forcibly and even unanswerably, a

theory at once so sweeping and so little fortified by positive

reasons, was what many dialecticians of the age could do. But to do

this, and at the same time to construct a counter-theory, was a task

requiring higher powers of mind. One, however, of Plato's disciples

and successors was found adequate to the task--Aristotle.

The Realistic Ontology of Plato is founded (as Aristotle himself

remarks) upon mistrust and contempt of perception of sense, as

bearing entirely on the flux of particulars, which never stand still

so as to become objects of knowledge. All reality, and all

cognoscibility, were supposed to reside in the separate world of

Cogitable Universals (_extra rem_ or _ante rem_), of which, in some

confused manner, particulars were supposed to partake. The Universal,

apart from its particulars, was clearly and fully knowable,

furnishing propositions constantly and infallibly true: the Universal

as manifested in its particulars was never fully knowable, nor could

ever become the subject of propositions, except such as were

sometimes true and sometimes false.

Against this separation of the Universal from its Particulars,

Aristotle entered a strong protest; as well as against the subsidiary

hypothesis of a participation of the latter in the former; which

participation, when the two had been declared separate, appeared to

him not only untenable and uncertified, but unintelligible. His

arguments are interesting, as being among the earliest objections

known to us against Realism.

1. Realism is a useless multiplication of existences, serving no

purpose. Wherever a number of particulars--be they substances,

eternal or perishable, or be they qualities, or relations--bear the

same name, and thus have a Universal _in re_ predicable of them in

common, in every such case Plato assumes a Universal _extra rem_, or

a separate self-existent Form; which explains nothing, and merely

doubles the total to be summed up.[14]

[Footnote 14: Aristot. Metaph. A. ix. p. 990, a. 34; M. iv. p. 1079,

a. 2. Here we have the first appearance of the argument that William

of Ockham, the Nominalist, put in the foreground of his case against

Realism: "Entia non sunt multiplicanda præter necessitatem."]

2. Plato's arguments in support of Realism are either inconclusive,

or prove too much. Wherever there is cognition (he argues), there

must exist an eternal and unchangeable object of cognition, apart

from particulars, which are changeable and perishable. No, replies

Aristotle: cognition does not require the _Universale extra rem_; for

the _Universale in re_, the constant predicate of all the

particulars, is sufficient as an object of cognition. Moreover, if

the argument were admitted, it would prove that there existed

separate Forms or Universals of mere negations; for many of the

constant predicates are altogether negative. Again, if Self-existent

Universals are to be assumed corresponding to all our cogitations, we

must assume Universals of extinct particulars, and even of fictitious

particulars, such as hippocentaurs or chimeras; for of these, too, we

have phantasms or concepts in our minds.[15]

[Footnote 15: Aristot. Metaphys. A. ix. p. 990, b. 14; Scholia, p.

565, b. 9, Br.]

3. The most subtle disputants on this matter include Relata, among

the Universal Ideas or Forms. This is absurd, because these do not

constitute any Genus by themselves. These disputants have also urged

against the Realistic theory that powerful and unsolved objection,

entitled "The Third Man."[16]

[Footnote 16: Aristot. Metaph. A. ix. p. 990, b. 15: [Greek: oi(

a)kribe/steroi tô=n lo/gôn]. Both the points here noticed appear in

the Parmenides of Plato.

The objection called "The Third Man" is expressed by saying that, if

there be a Form of man, resembling individual men, you must farther

postulate some higher Form, marking the point of resemblance between

the two; and so on higher, without end.

The authenticity of the Platonic Parmenides is disputed by Ueberweg

(Untersuchungen über die Echtheit und Zeitfolge der Platonischen

Schriften, pp. 176-181), upon the ground (among others) that, while

Aristotle never cites the dialogue by its title, nor ever makes

probable allusion to it, the Parmenides advances against the theory

of the Platonic Ideas this objection of Aristotle's, known under the

name of "The Third Man." Aristotle (says Ueberweg), if he had known

the Parmenides, would not have advanced this objection as his own. We

must therefore suppose that the Parmenides was composed later than

Aristotle, and borrowed this objection from Aristotle.

In reply to this argument I transcribe the passage of Aristotle

(Metaphys. A. ix. p. 990, b. 15) to which Ueberweg himself refers:

[Greek: e)/ti de\ oi( a)kribe/steroi tô=n lo/gôn oi( me\n tô=n pro/s

ti poiou=sin i)de/as, ô(=n ou)/ phamen ei)=nai kath' au(to\ ge/nos,

oi( de\ to\n tri/ton a)/nthrôpon le/gousin.] The same words (with the

exception of [Greek: phasi/n] in place of [Greek: phame/n]) are

repeated in M. p. 1079, a. 11.

Now these words plainly indicate that Aristotle does not profess to

advance the objection, called [Greek: o( tri/tos a)/nthrôpos], as his

own, or as broached by himself. He derives it from what he calls

[Greek: oi( a)kribe/steroi tô=n lo/gôn]. The charge against

Aristotle, therefore, of advancing as his own an objection which had

already been suggested by Plato himself in the Parmenides, is

unfounded. And it is the more unfounded, because Aristotle, in the

first book of the Metaphysica, speaks in the language of a Platonist,

and considers himself as partly responsible for the doctrine of

Ideas: [Greek: dei/knumen, phame/n, oi)o/metha], &c. (Alexand. in

Schol. p. 563, b. 27, Brand.)

But what are we to understand by these words--[Greek: oi(

a)kribe/steroi tô=n lo/gôn]--from which Aristotle derives the

objection? The words refer to certain expositions or arguments (oral,

or written, or both) which were within the knowledge of Aristotle,

and were of a peculiarly subtle and analytical character. Among them

is very probably included the Platonic Parmenides itself,

distinguished as it is for extreme subtlety. (See Stallbaum's

Prolegg. pp. 249, 277, 337, who says, "In uno ferè Parmenide idearum

doctrina subtilius investigatur.") I see no reason why it should not

be included within the fair and reasonable meaning of the words. And

such being the case, I cannot go along with Ueberweg (and other

critics) who say that Aristotle has not even made an indirect

allusion to the Parmenides.

But why did not Aristotle specify the Parmenides directly and by

name? I do not know what was his reason. We may feel surprise (as

Stallbaum feels, p. 337) that he does not; but, when critics infer

from the omission that he did not know the dialogue as a work of

Plato, I contest the inference. We see that Alexander, in his

elaborate commentary (p. 566, Schol. Brand.) makes no allusion to the

Parmenides, though he alludes to Eudêmus, to Diodôrus, Kronus, and to

the manner in which the objection called [Greek: o( tri/tos

a)/nthrôpos] was handled by various Sophists. Now we are fully

assured that the Parmenides was acknowledged as a work of Plato, long

before the time of Alexander (since it is included in the catalogue

of Thrasyllus); yet he, the most instructed of all the commentators,

makes no allusion to it. Why he did not, I cannot say, but his

omission affords no ground for concluding that he did not know it, or

did not trust its authenticity.]

4. The supporters of these Self-existent Universals trace them to two

_principia_--The One, and the Indeterminate Dyad; which they affirm

to be prior in existence even to the Universals themselves. But this

cannot be granted; for the Idea of Number must be logically prior to

the Idea of the Dyad; but the Idea of Number is relative, and the

Relative can never be prior to the Absolute or Self-existent.

5. If we grant that, wherever there is one constant predicate

belonging to many particulars, or wherever there is stable and

trustworthy cognition, in all such cases a Self-existent Universal

Correlate _extra rem_ is to be assumed, we shall find that this

applies not merely to Substances or Essences, but also to the other

Categories--Quality, Quantity, Relation, &c. But hereby we exclude

the possibility of participation in them by Particulars; since from

such participation the Particular derives its Substance or Essence

alone, not its accidental predicates. Thus the Self-existent

Universal Dyad is eternal: but a particular pair, which derives its

essential property of doubleness from partaking in this Universal

Dyad, does not at the same time partake of eternity, unless by

accident. Accordingly, there are no Universal Ideas, except of

Substances or Essences: the common name, when applied to the world of

sense and to that of cogitation, signifies the same thing--Substance

or Essence. It is unmeaning to talk of anything else as

signified--any other predicate common to many. Well then, if the Form

of the Universals and the Form of those Particulars that participate

in the Universals be the same, we shall have something common to both

the one and the other, so that the objection called "The Third Man"

will become applicable, and a higher Form must be postulated. But, if

the Form of the Universals and the Form of the participating

Particulars, be not identical, then the same name, as signifying both,

will be used equivocally; just as if you applied the same denomination

man to Kallias and to a piece of wood, without any common property to

warrant it.

6. But the greatest difficulty of all is to understand how these

Cogitable Universals, not being causes of any change or movement,

contribute in any way to the objects of sense, either to the eternal

or to the perishable; or how they assist us towards the knowledge

thereof, being not in them, and therefore not their substance or

essence; or how they stand in any real relation to their

participants, being not immanent therein. Particulars certainly do

not proceed from these Universals, in any intelligible sense. To say

that the Universals are archetypes, and that Particulars partake in

them, is unmeaning, and mere poetic metaphor. For where is the

working force to mould them in conformity with the Universals? Any

one thing may _be_ like, or may _become_ like, to any other

particular thing, by accident, or without any regular antecedent

cause to produce such assimilation. The same particular substance,

moreover, will have not one universal archetype only, but several.

Thus, the same individual man will have not only the Self-animal and

the Self-biped, but also the Self-man, as archetype. Then again,

there will be universal archetypes, not merely for particular

sensible objects, but also for Universals themselves; thus the genus

will be an archetype for its various species; so that the same which

is now archetype will, under other circumstances, be copy.

7. Furthermore, it seems impossible that what is Substance or Essence

can be separate from that whereof it is the substance or essence. How

then can the Universals, if they be the essences of sensible things,

have any existence apart from those sensible things? Plato tells us

in the Phædon, that the Forms or Universals are the causes why

particulars both exist at all, and come into such or such modes of

existence. But even if we assume Universals as existing, still the

Particulars participant therein will not come into being, unless

there be some efficient cause to produce movement; moreover, many

other things come into being, though there be no Universals

correlating therewith, _e.g._ a house, or a ring. The same causes

that were sufficient to bring these last into being, will be

sufficient to bring all particulars into being, without assuming any

Universals _extra rem_ at all.

8. Again, if the Universals or Forms are Numbers, how can they ever

be causes? Even if we suppose Particulars to be Numbers also, how can

one set of Numbers be causes to the others? There can be no such

causal influence, even if one set be eternal, and the other

perishable.[17]

[Footnote 17: Aristot. Metaph. A. p. 991, b. 13. Several other

objections are made by Aristotle against that variety of the Platonic

theory wherein the Ideas were commuted into Ideal Numbers. These

objections do not belong to the controversy of Realism against

Nominalism.]

Out of the many objections raised by Aristotle against Plato, we have

selected such as bear principally upon the theory of Realism; that

is, upon the theory of _Universalia ante rem_ or _extra

rem_--self-existent, archetypal, cogitable substances, in which

Particulars faintly participate. The objections are not superior in

acuteness, and they are decidedly inferior, in clearness of enunciation,

to those that Plato himself produces in the Parmenides. Moreover,

several of them are founded upon Aristotle's point of view, and would

have failed to convince Plato. The great merit of Aristotle is, that

he went beyond the negative of the Parmenides, asserted this new

point of view of his own, and formulated it into a counter-theory. He

rejected altogether the separate and exclusive reality which Plato

had claimed for his Absolutes of the cogitable world, as well as the

derivative and unreal semblance that alone Plato accorded to the

sensible world. Without denying the distinction of the two, as

conceivable and nameable, he maintained that truth and cognition

required that they should be looked at in implication with each

other. And he went even a step farther, in antithesis to Plato, by

reversing the order of the two. Instead of considering the Cogitable

Universals alone as real and complete in themselves, and the Sensible

Particulars as degenerate and confused semblances of them, he placed

complete reality in the Sensible Particulars alone,[18] and treated

the Cogitable Universals as contributory appendages thereto; some

being essential, others non-essential, but all of them relative, and

none of them independent integers. His philosophy was a complete

revolution as compared with Parmenides and Plato; a revolution, too,

the more calculated to last, because he embodied it in an elaborate

and original theory of Logic, Metaphysics, and Ontology. He was the

first philosopher that, besides recognizing the equivocal character

of those general terms whereon speculative debate chiefly turns,

endeavoured methodically to set out and compare the different

meanings of each term, and their relations to each other.

[Footnote 18: Aristotle takes pains to vindicate against both Plato

and the Herakleiteans the dignity of the Sensible World. They that

depreciate sensible objects as perpetually changing, unstable, and

unknowable, make the mistake (he observes) of confining their

attention to the sublunary interior of the Kosmos, where, indeed,

generation and destruction largely prevail. But this is only a small

portion of the entire Kosmos. In the largest portion--the visible,

celestial, superlunary regions--there is no generation or destruction

at all, nothing but permanence and uniformity. In appreciating the

sensible world (Aristotle says) philosophers ought to pardon the

shortcomings of the smaller portion on account of the excellences of

the larger; and not condemn both together on account of the smaller

(Metaphys. [Greek: G]. v. p. 1010, a. 30).]

However much the Ontology of Aristotle may fail to satisfy modern

exigencies, still, as compared with the Platonic Realism, it was a

considerable improvement. Instead of adopting Ens as a

self-explaining term, contrasted with the Generated and Perishable

(the doctrine of Plato in the Republic, Phædon, and Timæus), he

discriminates several distinct meanings of Ens; a discrimination not

always usefully pursued, but tending in the main towards a better

theory. The distinction between Ens potential, and Ens actual, does

not belong directly to the question between Realism and Nominalism,

yet it is a portion of that philosophical revolution wrought by

Aristotle against Plato--displacement of the seat of reality, and

transfer of it from the Cogitable Universal to the Sensible

Particular. The direct enunciation of this change is contained in his

distinction of Ens into Fundamental and Concomitant ([Greek:

sumbebêko/s]), and his still greater refinement on the same principle

by enumerating the ten varieties of Ens called Categories or

Predicaments.[19] He will not allow Ens (nor Unum) to be a genus,

partible into species: he recognizes it only as a word of many

analogous meanings, one of them principal and fundamental, the rest

derivative and subordinate thereto, each in its own manner. Aristotle

thus establishes a graduated scale of Entia, each having its own

value and position, and its own mode of connexion with the common

centre. That common centre Aristotle declared to be of necessity some

individual object--Hoc Aliquid, That Man, This Horse, &c. This was

the common subject, to which all the other Entia belonged as

predicates, and without which none of them had any reality. We here

fall into the language of Logic, the first theory of which we owe to

Aristotle. His ontological classification was adapted to that theory.

[Footnote 19: In enumerating the Ten Categories, Aristotle takes his

departure from the Proposition--_Homo currit_--_Homo vincit_. He

assumes a particular individual as subject; and he distributes, under

ten general heads, all the information that can be asked or given

about that subject--all the predicates that can be affirmed or denied

thereof. [See Ch. iii., especially p. 73, seq.]]

As we are here concerned only with the different ways of conceiving

the relation between the Particular and the Universal, we are not

called on to criticize the well-known decuple enumeration of

Categories or Predicaments given by Aristotle, both in his treatise

called by that name and elsewhere. For our purpose it is enough to

point out that the particular sensible Hoc Aliquid is declared to be

the ultimate subject, to which all Universals attach, as determinants

or accompaniments; and that, if this condition be wanting, the

unattached Universal cannot rank among complete Entia. The subject or

First Substance, which can never become a predicate, is established

as the indispensable ultimate subject for all predicates; if that

disappears, all predicates disappear along with it. The Particular

thus becomes the keystone of the arch whereon all Universals rest.

Aristotle is indeed careful to point out a gradation in these

predicates: some are essential to the subject, and thus approach so

near to the First Substance that he calls them Second Substances;

others, and the most in number, are not thus essential; these last

are Concomitants or Accidents, and some of them fall so much short of

complete Entity that he describes them as near to Non-Entia.[20] But

all of them, essential or unessential, are alike constituents or

appendages of the First Substance or Particular Subject, and have no

reality in any other character.

[Footnote 20: Aristot. Metaph. E. p. 1026, b. 21: [Greek: phai/netas

ga/r to/ sumbebêko\s e)ggu/s ti tou= mê\ o)/ntos].

There cannot be a stronger illustration of the difference between the

Platonic and the Aristotelian point of view, than the fact that Plato

applies the same designation to all particular objects of sense--that

they are only midway between Entia and Non-Entia (Republic, v. pp.

478-479).]

We thus have the counter-theory of Aristotle against the Platonic

Realism. Instead of separate Universal Substances, containing in

themselves full reality, and forfeiting much of that reality when

they faded down into the shadowy copies called Particulars, he

inverts the Platonic order, announces full reality to be the

privilege of the Particular Sensible, and confines the function of

the Universal to that of a predicate, in or along with the

Particular. There is no doctrine that he protests against more

frequently than the ascribing of separate reality to the Universal.

The tendency to do this, he signalizes as a natural but unfortunate

illusion, lessening the beneficial efficacy of universal

demonstrative reasoning.[21] And he declares it to be a corollary

from this view of the Particular as indispensable subject along with

the Universal as its predicate--That the first principles of

Demonstration in all the separate theoretical sciences must be

obtained by Induction from particulars: first by impressions of sense

preserved in the memory; then by multiplied remembrances enlarged

into one experience; lastly, by many experiences generalized into one

principle by the Noûs.[22]

[Footnote 21: Aristot. Analyt. Poster. I. xxiv. p. 85, a. 31, b. 19.]

[Footnote 22: See the concluding chapter of the Analytica Posteriora.

A similar doctrine is stated by Plato in the Phædon (p. 96, B) as one

among the intellectual phases that Sokrates had passed through in the

course of his life, without continuing in them.]

While Aristotle thus declares Induction to be the source from whence

Demonstration in these separate sciences draws its first principles,

we must at the same time acknowledge that his manner of treating

Science is not always conformable to this declaration, and that he

often seems to forget Induction altogether. This is the case not only

in his First Philosophy, or Metaphysics, but also in his Physics. He

there professes to trace out what he calls beginnings, causes,

elements, &c., and he analyses most of the highest generalities. Yet

still these analytical enquiries (whatever be their value) are

usually, if not always, kept in subordination to the counter-theory

that he had set up against the Platonic Realism. Complete reality

resides (he constantly repeats) only in the particular sensible

substances and sensible facts or movements that compose the aggregate

Kosmos: which is not generated, but eternal, both as to substance and

as to movement. If these sensible substances disappear, nothing

remains. The beginnings and causes exist only relatively to these

particulars. Form, Matter, Privation, are not real Beings, antecedent

to the Kosmos, and pre-existent generators of the substances

constituting the Kosmos; they are logical fragments or factors,

obtained by mental analysis and comparison, assisting to methodize

our philosophical point of view or conception of those substances,

but incapable of being understood, and having no value of their own,

apart from the substances. Some such logical analysis (that of

Aristotle or some other) is an indispensable condition even of the

most strictly inductive philosophy.

There are some portions of the writings of Aristotle (especially the

third book De Animâ and the twelfth book of the Metaphysica) where he

appears to lose sight of the limit here indicated; but, with few

exceptions, we find him constantly remembering, and often repeating,

the great truth formulated in his Categories: that full or

substantive reality resides only in the Hoc Aliquid, with its

predicates implicated with it, and that even the highest of these

predicates (Second Substances) have no reality apart from some one of

their particulars. We must recollect that, though Aristotle denies to

the predicates a _separate_ reality, he recognizes in them an

_adjective_ reality, as accompaniments and determinants: he

contemplates all the ten Categories as distinct varieties of

existence.[23] This is sufficient as a basis for abstraction, whereby

we can name them and reason upon them as distinct objects of thought

or points of view, although none of them come into reality except as

implicated with a sensible particular. Of such reasoning Aristotle's

First Philosophy chiefly consists; and he introduces peculiar phrases

to describe this distinction of reason between two different points

of view, where the real object spoken of is one and the same. The

frequency of the occasions taken to point out that distinction marks

his anxiety to keep the First Philosophy in harmony with the theory

of Reality announced in his Categories.

[Footnote 23: Aristot. Metaphys. [Greek: D]. p. 1017, a. 23: [Greek:

o)sachô=s ga\r le/getai (ta\ schê/mata tê=s katêgori/as),

tosautachô=s to\ ei)=nai sêmai/nei.]]

The Categories of Aristotle appear to have become more widely known

than any other part of his philosophy. They were much discussed by

the sects coming after him; and, even when not adopted, were present

to speculative minds as a scheme to be amended.[24] Most of the

arguments turned upon the nine later Categories: it was debated

whether these were properly enumerated and discriminated, and whether

the enumeration as a whole was exhaustive.

[Footnote 24: This is the just remark of Trendelenburg,

Kategorienlehre, p. 217.]

With these details, however, the question between Realism and its

counter-theory (whether Conceptualism or Nominalism) is not

materially concerned. The standard against Realism was raised by

Aristotle in the First Category, when he proclaimed the Hoc Aliquid

to be the only complete Ens, and the Universal to exist only along

with it as a predicate, being nothing in itself apart; and when he

enumerated Quality as one among the predicates, and nothing beyond.

In the Platonic Realism (Phædon, Timæus, Parmenides) what Aristotle

called Quality was the highest and most incontestable among all

Substances--the Good, the Beautiful, the Just, &c.; what Aristotle

called Second Substance was also Substance in the Platonic Realism,

though not so incontestably; but what Aristotle called First

Substance was in the Platonic Realism no Substance at all, but only

one among a multitude of confused and transient shadows. It is in the

First and Third Categories that the capital antithesis of Aristotle

against the Platonic Realism is contained. As far as that antithesis

is concerned, it matters little whether the aggregate of predicates

be subdivided under nine general heads (Categories) or under three.