PLATO,

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CHAPTER VIII.

PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.

Variety and abundance visible in Plato’s writings.

On looking through the collection of works enumerated in the Thrasyllean Canon, the first impression made upon us respecting the author is, that which is expressed in the epithets applied to him by Cicero — “varius et multiplex et copiosus”. Such epithets bring before us the variety in Plato’s points of view and methods of handling — the multiplicity of the topics discussed — the abundance of the premisses and illustrations suggested:1 comparison being taken with other literary productions of the same age. It is scarcely possible to find any one predicate truly applicable to all of Plato’s works. Every predicate is probably true in regard to some:—none in regard to all.

Plato both sceptical and dogmatical.

Several critics of antiquity considered Plato as essentially a sceptic — that is, a Searcher or Enquirer, not reaching any assured or proved result. They denied to him the character of a dogmatist: they maintained that he neither established nor enforced any affirmative doctrines.2 This latter statement is carried too far. Plato is sceptical in some dialogues, dogmatical in others. And the catalogue of Thrasyllus shows that the sceptical dialogues (Dialogues of Search or Investigation) are more numerous than the dogmatical (Dialogues of Exposition) — as they are also, speaking generally, more animated and interesting.

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Poetical vein predominant in some compositions, but not in all.

Again, Aristotle declared the writing of Plato to be something between poetry and prose, and even the philosophical doctrine of Plato respecting Ideas, to derive all its apparent plausibility from poetic metaphors. The affirmation is true, up to a certain point. Many of the dialogues display an exuberant vein of poetry, which was declared — not by Aristotle alone, but by many other critics contemporary with Plato — to be often misplaced and excessive — and which appeared the more striking because the dialogues composed by the other Sokratic companions were all of them plain and unadorned.3 The various mythes, in the Phædrus and elsewhere, are announced expressly as soaring above the conditions of truth and logical appreciation. Moreover, we find occasionally an amount of dramatic vivacity, and of artistic antithesis between the speakers introduced, which might have enabled Plato, had he composed for the drama as a profession, to contend with success for the prizes at the Dionysiac festivals. But here again, though this is true of several dialogues, it is not true of others. In the Parmenidês, Timæus, and the Leges, such elements will be looked for in vain. In the Timæus, they are exchanged for a professed cosmical system, including much mystic and oracular affirmation, without proof to support it, and without opponents to test it: in the Leges, for ethical 344sermons, and religious fulminations, proclaimed by a dictatorial authority.

Form of dialogue — universal to this extent, that Plato never speaks in his own name.

One feature there is, which is declared by Schleiermacher and others to be essential to all the works of Plato — the form of dialogue. Here Schleiermacher’s assertion, literally taken, is incontestable. Plato always puts his thoughts into the mouth of some spokesman: he never speaks in his own name. All the works of Plato which we possess (excepting the Epistles, and the Apology, which last I consider to be a report of what Sokrates himself said) are dialogues. But under this same name, many different realities are found to be contained. In the Timæus and Kritias the dialogue is simply introductory to a continuous exposition — in the Menexenus, to a rhetorical discourse: while in the Leges, and even in Sophistês, Politikus, and others, it includes no antithesis nor interchange between two independent minds, but is simply a didactic lecture, put into interrogatory form, and broken into fragments small enough for the listener to swallow at once: he by his answer acknowledging the receipt. If therefore the affirmation of Schleiermacher is intended to apply to all the Platonic compositions, we must confine it to the form, without including the spirit, of dialogue.

No one common characteristic pervading all Plato’s works.

It is in truth scarcely possible to resolve all the diverse manifestations of the Platonic mind into one higher unity; or to predicate, about Plato as an intellectual person, anything which shall be applicable at once to the Protagoras, Gorgias, Parmenidês, Phædrus, Symposion, Philêbus, Phædon, Republic, Timæus, and Leges. Plato was sceptic, dogmatist, religious mystic and inquisitor, mathematician, philosopher, poet (erotic as well as satirical), rhetor, artist — all in one:4 or at least, all in succession, throughout 345the fifty years of his philosophical life. At one time his exuberant dialectical impulse claims satisfaction, manifesting itself in a string of ingenious doubts and unsolved contradictions: at another time, he is full of theological antipathy against those who libel Helios and Selênê, or who deny the universal providence of the Gods: here, we have unqualified confessions of ignorance, and protestations against the false persuasion of knowledge, as alike widespread and deplorable — there, we find a description of the process of building up the Kosmos from the beginning, as if the author had been privy to the inmost purposes of the Demiurgus. In one dialogue the erotic fever is in the ascendant, distributed between beautiful youths and philosophical concepts, and confounded with a religious inspiration and furor which supersedes and transcends human sobriety (Phædrus): in another, all vehement impulses of the soul are stigmatised and repudiated, no honourable scope being left for anything but the calm and passionless Nous (Philêbus, Phædon). Satire is exchanged for dithyramb, and mythe, and one ethical point of view for another (Protagoras, Gorgias). The all-sufficient dramatising power of the master gives full effect to each of these multifarious tendencies. On the whole — to use a comparison of Plato himself5 — the Platonic sum total somewhat resembles those fanciful combinations of animals imagined in the Hellenic mythology — an aggregate of distinct and disparate individualities, which look like one because they are packed in the same external wrapper.

The real Plato was not merely a writer of dialogues, but also lecturer and president of a school. In this last important function he is scarcely at all known to us. Notes of his lectures taken by Aristotle.

Furthermore, if we intend to affirm anything about Plato as a whole, there is another fact which ought to be taken into account.6 We know him only from his dialogues, and 346from a few scraps of information. But Plato was not merely a composer of dialogues. He was lecturer, and chief of a school, besides. The presidency of that school, commencing about 386 B.C., and continued by him with great celebrity for the last half (nearly forty years) of his life, was his most important function. Among his contemporaries he must have exercised greater influence through his school than through his writings.7 Yet in this character of school-teacher and lecturer, he is almost unknown to us: for the few incidental allusions which have descended to us, through the Aristotelian commentators, only raise curiosity without satisfying it. The little information which we possess respecting Plato’s lectures, relates altogether to those which he delivered upon the Ipsum Bonum or Summum Bonum at some time after Aristotle became his 347pupil — that is, during the last eighteen years of Plato’s life. Aristotle and other hearers took notes of these lectures: Aristotle even composed an express work now lost (De Bono or De Philosophiâ), reporting with comments of his own these oral doctrines of Plato, together with the analogous doctrines of the Pythagoreans. We learn that Plato gave continuous lectures, dealing with the highest and most transcendental concepts (with the constituent elements or factors of the Platonic Ideas or Ideal Numbers: the first of these factors being The One — the second, The Indeterminate Dyad, or The Great and Little, the essentially indefinite), and that they were mystic and enigmatical, difficult to understand.8

Plato’s lectures De Bono obscure and transcendental. Effect which they produced on the auditors.

One remarkable observation, made upon them by Aristotle, has been transmitted to us.9 There were lectures announced to be, On the Supreme Good. Most of those who came to hear, expected that Plato would enumerate and compare the various matters usually considered good — i.e. health, strength, beauty, genius, wealth, power, 348&c. But these hearers were altogether astonished at what they really heard: for Plato omitting the topics expected, descanted only upon arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy; and told them that The Good was identical with The One (as contrasted with the Infinite or Indeterminate which was Evil).

They were delivered to miscellaneous auditors. They coincide mainly with what Aristotle states about the Platonic Ideas.

We see farther from this remark:—First, that Plato’s lectures were often above what his auditors could appreciate — a fact which we learn from other allusions also: Next, that they were not confined to a select body of advanced pupils, who had been worked up by special training into a state fit for comprehending them.10 Had such been the case, the surprise which Aristotle mentions could never have been felt. And we see farther, that the transcendental doctrine delivered in the lectures De Bono (though we find partial analogies to it in Philêbus, Epinomis, and parts of Republic) coincides more with what Aristotle states and comments upon as Platonic doctrine, than with any reasonings which we find in the Platonic dialogues. It represents the latest phase of Platonism: when the Ideas originally conceived by him as Entities in themselves, had become merged or identified in his mind with the Pythagorean numbers or symbols.

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The lectures De Bono may perhaps have been more transcendental than Plato’s other lectures.

This statement of Aristotle, alike interesting and unquestionable, attests the mysticism and obscurity which pervaded Plato’s doctrine in his later years. But whether this lecture on The Good is to be taken as a fair specimen of Plato’s lecturing generally, and from the time when he first began to lecture, we may perhaps doubt:11 since we know that as a lecturer and converser he acquired extraordinary ascendency over ardent youth. We see this by the remarkable instance of Dion.12

Plato’s Epistles — in them only he speaks in his own person.

The only occasions on which we have experience of Plato as speaking in his own person, and addressing himself to definite individuals, are presented by his few Epistles; all of them (as I have before remarked) written after he he was considerably above sixty years of age, and nearly all addressed to Sicilians or Italians — Dionysius II., Dion, the friends of Dion after the death of the latter, and Archytas.13 In so far as these letters bear upon Plato’s 350manner of lecturing or teaching, they go to attest, first, his opinion that direct written exposition was useless for conveying real instruction to the reader — next, his reluctance to publish any such exposition under his own name, and carrying with it his responsibility. When asked for exposition, he writes intentionally with mystery, so that ordinary persons cannot understand.

Intentional obscurity of his Epistles in reference to philosophical doctrine.

Knowing as we do that he had largely imbued himself with the tenets of the Pythagoreans (who designedly adopted a symbolical manner of speaking — published no writings — for Philolaus is cited as an exception to their rule — and did not care to be understood, except by their own adepts after a long apprenticeship) we cannot be surprised to find Plato holding a language very similar. He declares that the highest principles of his 351philosophy could not be set forth in writing so as to be intelligible to ordinary persons: that they could only be apprehended by a few privileged recipients, through an illumination kindled in the mind by multiplied debates and much mental effort: that such illumination was always preceded by a painful feeling of want, usually long-continued, sometimes lasting for nearly thirty years, and exchanged at length for relief at some unexpected moment.14

Plato during his second visit had had one conversation, and only one, with Dionysius respecting the higher mysteries of philosophy. He had impressed upon Dionysius the prodigious labour and difficulty of attaining truth upon these matters. The despot professed to thirst ardently for philosophy, and the conversation turned upon the Natura Primi — upon the first and highest principles of Nature.15 Dionysius, after this conversation with Plato, intimated that he had already conceived in his own mind the solution of these difficulties, and the truth upon philosophy in its greatest mysteries. Upon which Plato expressed his satisfaction that such was the case,16 so as to relieve him from the necessity of farther explanations, though the like had never happened to him with any previous hearer.

Letters of Plato to Dionysius II. about philosophy. His anxiety to confine philosophy to discussion among select and prepared minds.

But Dionysius soon found that he could not preserve the explanation in his mind, after Plato’s departure — that difficulties again crowded upon him — and that it was necessary to send a confidential messenger to Athens to entreat farther elucidations. In reply, Plato sends back by the messenger what is now numbered as the second of his Epistles. He writes avowedly in enigmatical language, so that, if the letter be lost, the finder will not be able to understand it; and he enjoins Dionysius to burn it after frequent perusal.17 He expresses his hope that when Dionysius has debated the 352matter often with the best minds near him, the clouds will clear away of themselves, and the moment of illumination will supervene.18 He especially warns Dionysius against talking about these matters to unschooled men, who will be sure to laugh at them; though by minds properly prepared, they will be received with the most fervent welcome.19 He affirms that Dionysius is much superior in philosophical debate to his companions; who were overcome in debate with him, not because they suffered themselves designedly to be overcome (out of flattery towards the despot, as some ill-natured persons alleged), but because they could not defend themselves against the Elenchus as applied by Dionysius.20 Lastly, Plato advises Dionysius to write down nothing, since what has once been written will be sure to disappear from the memory; but to trust altogether to learning by heart, meditation, and repeated debate, as a guarantee for retention in his mind. “It is for that reason” (Plato says)21 “that I have never myself written anything upon these subjects. There neither is, nor shall there ever be, any treatise of Plato. The opinions called by the name of Plato are those of Sokrates, in his days of youthful vigour and glory.”

He refuses to furnish any written, authoritative exposition of his own philosophical doctrine.

Such is the language addressed by Plato to the younger Dionysius, in a letter written seemingly between 362-357 B.C. In another letter, written about ten years afterwards (353-352 B.C.) to the friends of Dion (after Dion’s death), he expresses the like repugnance to the idea of furnishing any written authoritative exposition of his principal doctrines. “There never shall be any expository treatise of mine upon them” (he declares). “Others have tried, Dionysius among the number, to write them down; but they do not know what they attempt. I 353could myself do this better than any one, and I should consider it the proudest deed in my life, as well as a signal benefit to mankind, to bring forward an exposition of Nature luminous to all.22 But I think the attempt would be nowise beneficial, except to a few, who require only slight direction to enable them to find it for themselves: to most persons it would do no good, but would only fill them with empty conceit of knowledge, and with contempt for others.23 These matters cannot be communicated in words as other sciences are. Out of repeated debates on them, and much social intercourse, there is kindled suddenly a light in the mind, as from fire bursting forth, which, when once generated, keeps itself alive.”24

He illustrates his doctrine by the successive stages of geometrical teaching. Difficulty to avoid the creeping in of error at each of these stages.

Plato then proceeds to give an example from geometry, illustrating the uselessness both of writing and of direct exposition. In acquiring a knowledge of the circle, he distinguishes five successive stages. 1. The Name. 2. The Definition, a proposition composed of nouns and verbs. 3. The Diagram. 4. Knowledge, Intelligence, True Opinion, Νοῦς. 5. The Noumenon — Αὐτὸ-Κύκλος — ideal or intelligible circle, the only true object of knowledge.25 The fourth stage is a purely mental result, not capable of being exposed either in words or figure: it presupposes the three first, but is something distinct from them; and it is the only mental condition immediately cognate and similar to the fifth stage, or the self-existent idea.26

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Now in all three first stages (Plato says) there is great liability to error and confusion. The name is unavoidably equivocal, uncertain, fluctuating: the definition is open to the same reproach, and often gives special and accidental properties along with the universal and essential, or instead of them: the diagram cannot exhibit the essential without some variety of the accidental, nor without some properties even contrary to reality, since any circle which you draw, instead of touching a straight line in one point alone, will be sure to touch it in several points.27 Accordingly no intelligent man will embody the pure concepts of his mind in fixed representation, either by words or by figures.28 If we do this, we have the quid or essence, which we are searching for, inextricably perplexed by accompaniments of the quale or accidents, which we are not searching for.29 We acquire only a confused cognition, exposing us to be puzzled, confuted, and humiliated, by an acute cross-examiner, when he questions us on the four stages which we have gone through to attain it.30 Such confusion does not arise from any fault in the mind, but from the defects inherent in each of the four stages of progress. It is only by painful effort, when each of these is naturally good — when the mind itself also is naturally good, and when it has gone through all the stages up and down, dwelling upon each — that true knowledge can be acquired.31 Persons whose minds are naturally bad, or have become corrupt, morally or intellectually, cannot be taught to see even by Lynkeus himself. In a word, if the mind itself be not cognate to the matter studied, no quickness in learning nor force of memory 355will suffice. He who is a quick learner and retentive, but not cognate or congenial with just or honourable things — he who, though cognate and congenial, is stupid in learning or forgetful — will never effectually learn the truth about virtue or wickedness.32 These can only be learnt along with truth and falsehood as it concerns entity generally, by long practice and much time.33 It is only with difficulty, — after continued friction, one against another, of all the four intellectual helps, names and definitions, acts of sight and sense, — after application of the Elenchus by repeated question and answer, in a friendly temper and without spite — it is only after all these preliminaries, that cognition and intelligence shine out with as much intensity as human power admits.34

No written exposition can keep clear of these chances of error.

For this reason, no man of real excellence will ever write and publish his views, upon the gravest matters, into a world of spite and puzzling contention. In one word, when you see any published writings, either laws proclaimed by the law-giver or other compositions by others, you may be sure that, if he be himself a man of worth, these were not matters of first-rate importance in his estimation. If they really were so, and if he has published his views in writing, some evil influence must have destroyed his good sense.35

Relations of Plato with Dionysius II. and the friends of the deceased Dion. Pretensions of Dionysius to understand and expound Plato’s doctrines.

We see by these letters that Plato disliked and disapproved the idea of publishing, for the benefit of readers generally, any written exposition of philosophia prima, carrying his own name, and making him responsible for it. His writings are altogether dramatic. All opinions on philosophy are enunciated through one or other of his spokesmen: that portion of the Athenian drama called the Parabasis, in which the Chorus addressed the audience directly and avowedly in the name of the poet, found no favour with Plato. We read indeed in several of his 356dialogues (Phædon, Republic, Timæus, and others) dogmas advanced about the highest and most recondite topics of philosophy: but then they are all advanced under the name of Sokrates, Timæus, &c. — Οὐκ ἐμὸς ὁ μῦθος, &c. There never was any written programme issued by Plato himself, declaring the Symbolum Fidei to which he attached his own name.36 Even in the Leges, the most dogmatical of all his works, the dramatic character and the borrowed voice are kept up. Probably at the time when Plato wrote his letter to the friends of the deceased Dion, from which I have just quoted — his aversion to written expositions was aggravated by the fact, that Dionysius II., or some friend in his name, had written and published a philosophical treatise of this sort, passing himself off as editor of a Platonic philosophy, or of improved doctrines of his own built thereupon, from oral communication with Plato.37 We must remember that Plato himself (whether with full sincerity or not) had complimented Dionysius for his natural ability and aptitude in philosophical debate:38 so that the pretension of the latter to come forward as an expositor of Plato appears the less preposterous. On the other hand, such pretension was calculated to raise a belief that Dionysius had been among the most favoured and confidential companions of Plato: which belief Plato, writing as he was to the surviving friends of Dion the enemy of Dionysius, is most anxious to remove, while on the other hand he extols the dispositions and extenuates the faults of his friend Dion. It is to vindicate himself from misconception of his own past proceedings, as well as to exhort with regard to the future, that Plato transmits to Sicily his long seventh and eighth Epistles, wherein are embodied his objections against the usefulness of written exposition intended for readers generally.

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Impossibility of teaching by written exposition assumed by Plato; the assumption intelligible in his day.

These objections (which Plato had often insisted on,39 and which are also, in part, urged by Sokrates in the Phædrus) have considerable force, if we look to the way in which Plato conceives them. In the first place, Plato conceives the exposition as not merely written but published: as being, therefore, presented to all minds, the large majority being ignorant, unprepared, and beset with that false persuasion of knowledge which Sokrates regarded as universal. In so far as it comes before these latter, nothing is gained, and something is lost; for derision is brought upon the attempt to teach.40 In the next place, there probably existed, at that time, no elementary work whatever for beginners in any science: the Elements of Geometry by Euclid were published more than a century after Plato’s death, at Alexandria. Now, when Plato says that written expositions, then scarcely known, would be useless to the student — he compares them with the continued presence and conversation of a competent teacher; whom he supposes not to rely upon direct exposition, but to talk much “about and about” the subject, addressing the pupil with a large variety of illustrative interrogations, adapting all that was said to his peculiar difficulties and rate of progress, and thus evoking the inherent cognitive force of the pupil’s own mind. That any Elements of Geometry (to say nothing of more complicated inquiries) could be written and published, such that an ἀγεωμέτρητος might take up the work and learn geometry by means of it, without being misled by equivocal names, bad definitions, and diagrams exhibiting the definition as clothed with special accessories — this is a possibility which Plato contests, and which we cannot wonder at his contesting.41 The combination of a written treatise, with the oral 358 exposition of a tutor, would have appeared to Plato not only useless but inconvenient, as restraining the full liberty of adaptive interrogation necessary to be exercised, different in the case of each different pupil.

Standard by which Plato tested the efficacy of the expository process. — Power of sustaining a Sokratic cross-examination.

Lastly, when we see by what standard Plato tests the efficacy of any expository process, we shall see yet more clearly how he came to consider written exposition unavailing. The standard which he applies is, that the learner shall be rendered able both to apply to others, and himself to endure from others, a Sokratic Elenchus or cross-examination as to the logical difficulties involved in all the steps and helps to learning. Unless he can put to others and follow up the detective questions — unless he can also answer them, when put to himself, pertinently and consistently, so as to avoid being brought to confusion or contradiction — Plato will not allow that he has attained true knowledge.42 Now, if we try knowledge by a test so severe 359as this, we must admit that no reading of written expositions will enable the student to acquire it. The impression made is too superficial, and the mind is too passive during such a process, to be equal to the task of meeting new points of view, and combating difficulties not expressly noticed in the treatise which has been studied. The only way of permanently arming and strengthening the mind, is (according to Plato) by long-continued oral interchange and stimulus, multiplied comment and discussion from different points of view, and active exercise in dialectic debate: not aiming at victory over an opponent, but reasoning out each question in all its aspects, affirmative and negative. It is only after a long course of such training — the living word of the competent teacher, applied to the mind of the pupil, and stimulating its productive and self-defensive force — that any such knowledge can be realised as will suffice for the exigencies of the Sokratic Elenchus.43

Plato never published any of the lectures which he delivered at the Academy.

Since we thus find that Plato was unconquerably averse to 360publication in his own name and with his own responsibility attached to the writing, on grave matters of philosophy — we cannot be surprised that, among the numerous lectures which he must have delivered to his pupils and auditors in the Academy, none were ever published. Probably he may himself have destroyed them, as he exhorts Dionysius to destroy the Epistle which we now read as second, after reading it over frequently. And we may doubt whether he was not displeased with Aristotle and Hestiæus44 for taking extracts from his lectures De Bono, and making them known to the public: just as he was displeased with Dionysius for having published a work purporting to be derived from conversations with Plato.

Plato would never publish his philosophical opinions in his own name; but he may have published them in the dialogues under the name of others.

That Plato would never consent to write for the public in his own name, must be taken as a fact in his character; probably arising from early caution produced by the fate of Sokrates, combined with preference for the Sokratic mode of handling. But to what extent he really kept back his opinions from the public, or whether he kept them back at all, by design — I do not undertake to say. The borrowed names under which he wrote, and the veil of dramatic fiction, gave him greater freedom as to the thoughts enunciated, and were adopted for the express purpose of acquiring greater freedom. How far the lectures which he delivered to his own special auditory differed from the opinions made known in his dialogues to the general reader, or how far his conversation with a few advanced pupils differed from both — are questions which we have no sufficient means of answering. There probably was a considerable difference. Aristotle alludes to various doctrines of Plato which we cannot find in the Platonic writings: but these doctrines are not such as could have given peculiar offence, if published; they are, rather abstruse and hard to understand. It may also be true (as Tennemann says) that Plato had two distinct modes of handling philosophy 361— a popular and a scientific: but it cannot be true (as the same learned author45 asserts) that his published dialogues contained the popular and not the scientific. No one surely can regard the Timæus, Parmenidês, Philêbus, Theætêtus, Sophistês, Politikus, &c., as works in which dark or difficult questions are kept out of sight for the purpose of attracting the ordinary reader. Among the dialogues themselves (as I have before remarked) there exist the widest differences; some highly popular and attractive, others altogether the reverse, and many gradations between the two. Though I do not doubt therefore that Plato produced powerful effect both as lecturer to a special audience, and as talker with chosen students — yet in what respect such lectures and conversation differed from what we read in his dialogues, I do not feel that we have any means of knowing.

Groups into which the dialogues admit of being thrown.

In judging of Plato, we must confine ourselves to the evidence furnished by one or more of the existing Platonic compositions, adding the testimony of Aristotle and a few others respecting Platonic views not declared in the dialogues. Though little can be predicated respecting the dialogues collectively, I shall say something about the various groups into which they admit of being thrown, before I touch upon them separately and seriatim.

Distribution made by Thrasyllus defective, but still useful — Dialogues of Search, Dialogues of Exposition.

The scheme proposed by Thrasyllus, so far as intended to furnish a symmetrical arrangement of all the Platonic works, is defective, partly because the apportionment of the separate works between the two leading classes is in several cases erroneous — partly because the discrimination of the two leading classes, as well as the sub-division of one of the two, is founded on diversity of Method, while the sub-division of the other class is founded on diversity of Subject. But the scheme is nevertheless useful, as directing our attention to real and important 362attributes belonging in common to considerable groups of dialogues. It is in this respect preferable to the fanciful dramatic partnership of trilogies and tetralogies, as well as to the mystical interpretation and arrangement suggested by the Neo-platonists. The Dialogues of Exposition — in which one who knows (or professes to know) some truth, announces and developes it to those who do not know it — are contrasted with those of Search or Investigation, in which the element of knowledge and affirmative communication is wanting. All the interlocutors are at once ignorant and eager to know; all of them are jointly engaged in searching for the unknown, though one among them stands prominent both in suggesting where to look and in testing all that is found, whether it be really the thing looked for. Among the expository dialogues, the most marked specimens are Timæus and Epinomis, in neither of which is there any searching or testing debate at all. Republic, Phædon, Philêbus, exhibit exposition preceded or accompanied by a search. Of the dialogues of pure investigation, the most elaborate specimen is the Theætêtus: Menon, Lachês, Charmidês, Lysis, Euthyphron, &c., are of the like description, yet less worked out. There are also several others. In the Menon, indeed,46 Sokrates goes so far as to deny that there can be any real teaching, and to contend that what appears teaching is only resuscitation of buried or forgotten knowledge.

Dialogues of Exposition — present affirmative result. Dialogues of Search are wanting in that attribute.

Of these two classes of Dialogues, the Expository are those which exhibit the distinct attribute — an affirmative result or doctrine, announced and developed by a person professing to know, and proved in a manner more or less satisfactory. The other class — the Searching or Investigative — have little else in common except the absence of this property. We find in them debate, refutation, several points of view canvassed and some shown to be untenable; but there is no affirmative result established, or even announced as established, at the close. Often there is even a confession of disappointment. In other respects, the dialogues of this class are greatly diversified among one another: they have only the one 363common attribute — much debate, with absence of affirmative result.

The distribution coincides mainly with that of Aristotle — Dialectic, Demonstrative.

Now the distribution made by Thrasyllus of the dialogues under two general heads (1. Dialogues of Search or Investigation, 2. Dialogues of Exposition) coincides, to a considerable extent, with the two distinct intellectual methods recognised by Aristotle as Dialectic and Demonstrative: Dialectic being handled by Aristotle in the Topica, and Demonstration in the Posterior Analytica. “Dialectic” (says Aristotle) “is tentative, respecting those matters of which philosophy aims at cognizance.” Accordingly, Dialectic (as well as Rhetoric) embraces all matters without exception, but in a tentative and searching way, recognising arguments pro as well as con, and bringing to view the antithesis between the two, without any preliminary assumption or predetermined direction, the questioner being bound to proceed only on the answers given by the respondent: while philosophy comes afterwards, dividing this large field into appropriate compartments, laying down authoritative principia in regard to each, and deducing from them, by logical process, various positive results.47 Plato does not use the term Dialectic exactly in the same sense as Aristotle. He implies by it two things: 1. That the process shall be colloquial, two or more minds engaged in a joint research, each of them animating and stimulating the others. 2. That the matter investigated shall be general — some general question or proposition: that the premisses shall all be general truths, and that the objects kept before the mind shall be Forms or Species, apart from particulars.48 Here it stands in 364contrast with Rhetoric, which aims at the determination of some particular case or debated course of conduct, judicial or political, and which is intended to end in some immediate practical verdict or vote. Dialectic, in Plato’s sense, comprises the whole process of philosophy. His Dialogues of Search correspond to Aristotle’s Dialectic, being machinery for generating arguments and for ensuring that every argument shall be subjected to the interrogation of an opponent: his Dialogues of Exposition, wherein some definite result is enunciated and proved (sufficiently or not), correspond to what Aristotle calls Demonstration.

Classification of Thrasyllus in its details. He applies his own principles erroneously.

If now we take the main scheme of distributing the Platonic Dialogues, proposed by Thrasyllus — 1. Dialogues of Exposition, with an affirmative result; 2. Dialogues of Investigation or Search, without an affirmative result — and if we compare the number of Dialogues (out of the thirty-six in all), which he specifies as belonging to each — we shall find twenty-two specified under the former head, and fourteen under the latter. Moreover, among the twenty-two are ranked Republic and Leges: each of them greatly exceeding in bulk any other composition of Plato. It would appear thus that there is a preponderance both in number and bulk on the side of the Expository. But when we analyse the lists of Thrasyllus, we see that he has unduly enlarged that side of the account, and unduly contracted the other. He has enrolled among the Expository — 1. The Apology, the Epistolæ, and the Menexenus, which ought not properly to be ranked under either head. 2. The Theætêtus, Parmenidês, Hipparchus, Erastæ, Minos, Kleitophon — every one of which ought to be transferred to the other head. 3. The Phædrus, Symposion, and Kratylus, which are admissible by indulgence, since they do indeed present affirmative exposition, but in small proportion compared to the negative criticism, the rhetorical and poetical ornament: they belong in fact to both classes, but more preponderantly to one. 4. The Republic. This he includes with perfect justice, for the eight last books of it are expository. Yet the first book exhibits to us a specimen of negative and refutative dialectic which is not surpassed by anything 365in Plato.

On the other hand, Thrasyllus has placed among the Dialogues of Search one which might, with equal or greater propriety, be ranked among the Expository — the Protagoras. It is true that this dialogue involves much of negation, refutation, and dramatic ornament: and that the question propounded in the beginning (Whether virtue be teachable?) is not terminated. But there are two portions of the dialogue which are, both of them, decided specimens of affirmative exposition — the speech of Protagoras in the earlier part (wherein the growth of virtue, without special teaching or professional masters, is elucidated) — and the argument of Sokrates at the close, wherein the identity of the Good and the Pleasurable is established.49

The classification, as it would stand, if his principles were applied correctly.

If then we rectify the lists of Thrasyllus, they will stand as follows, with the Expository Dialogues much diminished in number:—

366Preponderance of the searching and testing dialogues over the expository and dogmatical.

It will thus appear, from a fair estimate and comparison of lists, that the relation which Plato bears to philosophy is more that of a searcher, tester, and impugner, than that of an expositor and dogmatist — though he undertakes both the two functions: more negative than affirmative — more ingenious in pointing out difficulties, than successful in solving them. I must again repeat that though this classification is just, as far as it goes, and the best which can be applied to the dialogues, taken as a whole — yet the dialogues have much which will not enter into the classification, and each has its own peculiarities.

Dialogues of Search — sub-classes among them recognised by Thrasyllus — Gymnastic and Agonistic, &c.

The Dialogues of Search, thus comprising more than half the Platonic compositions, are again distributed by Thrasyllus into two sub-classes — Gymnastic and Agonistic: the Gymnastic, again, into Obstetric and Peirastic; the Agonistic, into Probative and Refutative. Here, again, there is a pretence of symmetrical arrangement, which will not hold good if we examine it closely. Nevertheless, the epithets point to real attributes of various dialogues, and deserve the more attention, inasmuch as they imply a view of philosophy foreign to the prevalent way of looking at it. Obstetric and Tentative or Testing (Peirastic) are epithets which a reader may understand; but he will not easily see how they bear upon the process of philosophy.

Philosophy, as now understood, includes authoritative teaching, positive results, direct proofs.

The term philosopher is generally understood to mean something else. In appreciating a philosopher, it is usual to ask, What authoritative creed has he proclaimed, for disciples to swear allegiance to? What positive system, or positive truths previously unknown or unproved, has he established? Next, by what arguments has he enforced or made them good? This is the ordinary proceeding of an historian of philosophy, as he calls up the roll of successive names. The philosopher is assumed to speak as one having authority; to have already made up his mind; and to be prepared to explain what his mind is. Readers require positive results announced, and positive evidence set before them, in a clear and straightforward manner. They are intolerant of all that is prolix, circuitous, not essential to the 367proof of the thesis in hand. Above all, an affirmative result is indispensable.

When I come to the Timæus, and Republic, &c., I shall consider what reply Plato could make to these questions. In the meantime, I may observe that if philosophers are to be estimated by such a scale, he will not stand high on the list. Even in his expository dialogues, he cares little about clear proclamation of results, and still less about the shortest, straightest, and most certain road for attaining them.

The Platonic Dialogues of Search disclaim authority and teaching — assume truth to be unknown to all alike — follow a process devious as well as fruitless.

But as to those numerous dialogues which are not expository, Plato could make no reply to the questions at all. There are no affirmative results:—and there is a process of enquiry, not only fruitless, but devious, circuitous, and intentionally protracted. The authoritative character of a philosopher is disclaimed. Not only Plato never delivers sentence in his own name, but his principal spokesman, far from speaking with authority, declares that he has not made up his own mind, and that he is only a searcher along with others, more eager in the chase than they are.50 Philosophy is conceived as the search for truth still unknown; not as an explanation of truth by one who knows it, to others who do not know it. The process of search is considered as being in itself profitable and invigorating, even though what is sought be not found. The ingenuity of Sokrates is shown, not by what he himself produces, for he avows himself altogether barren — but by his obstetric aid: that is, by his being able to evolve, from a youthful mind, answers of which it is pregnant, and to test the soundness and trustworthiness of those answers when delivered: by his power, besides, of exposing or refuting unsound answers, and of convincing others of the fallacy of that which they confidently believed themselves to know.

The questioner has no predetermined course, but follows the lead given by the respondent in his answers.

To eliminate affirmative, authoritative exposition, which proceeds upon the assumption that truth is already known — and to consider philosophy as a search for unknown truth, carried on by several interlocutors all of them 368ignorant — this is the main idea which Plato inherited from Sokrates, and worked out in more than one half of his dialogues. It is under this general head that the subdivisions of Thrasyllus fall — the Obstetric, the Testing or Verifying, the Refutative. The process is one in which both the two concurrent minds are active, but each with an inherent activity peculiar to itself. The questioner does not follow a predetermined course of his own, but proceeds altogether on the answer given to him. He himself furnishes only an indispensable stimulus to the parturition of something with which the respondent is already pregnant, and applies testing questions to that which he hears, until the respondent is himself satisfied that the answer will not hold. Throughout all this, there is a constant appeal to the free, self-determining judgment of the respondent’s own mind, combined with a stimulus exciting the intellectual productiveness of that mind to the uttermost.

Relation of teacher and learner. Appeal to authority is suppressed.

What chiefly deserves attention here, as a peculiar phase in the history of philosophy, is, that the relation of teacher and learner is altogether suppressed. Sokrates not only himself disclaims the province and title of a teacher, but treats with contemptuous banter those who assume it. Now “the learner” (to use a memorable phrase of Aristotle51) “is under obligation to believe”: he must be a passive recipient of that which is communicated to him by the teacher. The relation between the two is that of authority on the one side, and of belief generated by authority on the other. But Sokrates requires from no man implicit trust: nay he deprecates it as dangerous.52 It is one peculiarity in these Sokratic dialogues, that the sentiment of authority, instead of being invoked and worked up, as is generally done in philosophy, is formally disavowed and practically set aside. “I have not made up my mind: I am not prepared to swear allegiance to any creed: I give you the reasons for and against each: you must decide for yourself.”53

369

In the modern world the search for truth is put out of sight. Every writer or talker professes to have already found it, and to proclaim it to others.

This process — the search for truth as an unknown — is in the modern world put out of sight. All discussion is conducted by persons who profess to have found it or learnt it, and to be in condition to proclaim it to others. Even the philosophical works of Cicero are usually pleadings by two antagonists, each of whom professes to know the truth, though Cicero does not decide between them: and in this respect they differ from the groping and fumbling of the Platonic dialogues. Of course the search for truth must go on in modern times, as it did in ancient: but it goes on silently and without notice. The most satisfactory theories have been preceded by many infructuous guesses and tentatives. The theorist may try many different hypotheses (we are told that Kepler tried nineteen) which he is forced successively to reject; and he may perhaps end without finding any better. But all these tentatives, verifying tests, doubts, and rejections, are confined to his own bosom or his own study. He looks back upon them without interest, sometimes even with disgust; least of all does he seek to describe them in detail as objects of interest to others. They are probably known to none but himself: for it 370does not occur to him to follow the Platonic scheme of taking another mind into partnership, and entering upon that distribution of active intellectual work which we read in the Theætêtus. There are cases in which two chemists have carried on joint researches, under many failures and disappointments, perhaps at last without success. If a record were preserved of their parley during the investigation, the grounds for testing and rejecting one conjecture, and for selecting what should be tried after it — this would be in many points a parallel to the Platonic process.

The search for truth by various interlocutors was a recognised process in the Sokratic age. Acute negative Dialectic of Sokrates.

But at Athens in the fourth century, B.C., the search for truth by two or more minds in partnership was not so rare a phenomenon. The active intellects of Athens were distributed between Rhetoric, which addressed itself to multitudes, accepted all established sentiments, and handled for the most part particular issues — and Dialectic, in which a select few debated among themselves general questions.54 Of this Dialectic, the real Sokrates was the greatest master that Athens ever saw: he could deal as he chose (says Xenophon55) with all disputants: he turned them round his finger. In this process, one person set up a thesis, and the other cross-examined him upon it: the most irresistible of all cross-examiners was the real Sokrates. The nine books of Aristotle’s Topica (including the book De Sophisticis Elenchis) are composed with the object of furnishing suggestions, and indicating rules, both to the cross-examiner and to the respondent, in such Dialectic debates. Plato does not lay down any rules: but he has given us, in his dialogues of search, specimens of dialectic procedure shaped in his own fashion. Several of his contemporaries, companions of 371Sokrates, like him, did the same each in his own way: but their compositions have not survived.56

Such compositions give something like fair play to the negative arm of philosophy; in the employment of which the Eleate Zeno first became celebrated, and the real Sokrates yet more celebrated. This negative arm is no less essential than the affirmative, to the validity of a body of reasoned truth, such as philosophy aspires to be. To know how to disprove is quite as important as to know how to prove: the one is co-ordinate and complementary to the other. And the man who disproves what is false, or guards mankind against assenting to it,57 renders a service to philosophy, even though he may not be able to render the ulterior service of proving any truth in its place.

Negative procedure supposed to be represented by the Sophists and the Megarici; discouraged and censured by historians of philosophy.

By historians of ancient philosophy, negative procedure is generally considered as represented by the Sophists and the Megarici, and is the main ground for those harsh epithets which are commonly applied to both of them. The negative (they think) can only be tolerated in small doses, and even then merely as ancillary to the affirmative. That is, if you have an affirmative theory to propose, you are allowed to urge such objections as you think applicable against rival theories, but only in order to make room for your own. It seems to be assumed as requiring no proof that the confession of ignorance is an intolerable condition; which every man ought to be ashamed of in himself, and which no man is justified in 372inflicting on any one else. If you deprive the reader of one affirmative solution, you are required to furnish him with another which you are prepared to guarantee as the true one. “Le Roi est mort — Vive le Roi”: the throne must never be vacant. It is plain that under such a restricted application, the full force of the negative case is never brought out. The pleadings are left in the hands of counsel, each of whom takes up only such fragments of the negative case as suit the interests of his client, and suppresses or slurs over all such other fragments of it as make against his client. But to every theory (especially on the topics discussed by Sokrates and Plato) there are more or less of objections applicable — even the best theory being true only on the balance. And if the purpose be to ensure a complete body of reasoned truth, all these objections ought to be faithfully exhibited, by one who stands forward as their express advocate, without being previously retained for any separate or inconsistent purpose.

Vocation of Sokrates and Plato for the negative procedure: absolute necessity of it as a condition of reasoned truth. Parmenidês of Plato.

How much Plato himself, in his dialogues of search, felt his own vocation as champion of the negative procedure, we see marked conspicuously in the dialogue called Parmenidês. This dialogue is throughout a protest against forward affirmation, and an assertion of independent locus standi for the negationist and objector. The claims of the latter must first be satisfied, before the affirmant can be considered as solvent. The advocacy of those claims is here confided to veteran Parmenides, who sums them up in a formidable total: Sokrates being opposed to him under the unusual disguise of a youthful and forward affirmant. Parmenides makes no pretence of advancing any rival doctrine. The theories which he selects for criticism are the Platonic theory of intelligible Concepts, and his own theory of the Unum: he indicates how many objections must be removed — how many contradictions must be solved — how many opposite hypotheses must be followed out to their results — before either of these theories can be affirmed with assurance. The exigencies enumerated may and do appear insurmountable:58 but of that Plato takes no account. Such laborious 373exercises are inseparable from the process of searching for truth, and unless a man has strength to go through them, no truth, or at least no reasoned truth, can be found and maintained.59

Sokrates considered the negative procedure to be valuable by itself, and separately. His theory of the natural state of the human mind; not ignorance, but false persuasion of knowledge.

It will thus appear that among the conditions requisite for philosophy, both Sokrates and Plato regarded the negative procedure as co-ordinate in value with the affirmative, and indispensable as a preliminary stage. But Sokrates went a step farther. He assigned to the negative an intrinsic importance by itself, apart from all implication with the affirmative; and he rested that opinion upon a psychological ground, formally avowed, and far larger than anything laid down by the Sophists. He thought that the natural state of the human mind, among established communities, was not simply ignorance, but ignorance mistaking itself for knowledge — false or uncertified 374belief — false persuasion of knowledge. The only way of dissipating such false persuasion was, the effective stimulus of the negative test, or cross-examining Elenchus; whereby a state of non-belief, or painful consciousness of ignorance, was substituted in its place. Such second state was indeed not the best attainable. It ought to be preliminary to a third, acquired by the struggles of the mind to escape from such painful consciousness; and to rise, under the continued stimulus of the tutelary Elenchus, to improved affirmative and defensible beliefs. But even if this third state were never reached, Sokrates declared the second state to be a material amendment on the first, which he deprecated as alike pernicious and disgraceful.

Declaration of Sokrates in the Apology; his constant mission to make war against the false persuasion of knowledge.

The psychological conviction here described stands proclaimed by Sokrates himself, with remarkable earnestness and emphasis, in his Apology before the Dikasts, only a month before his death. So deeply did he take to heart the prevalent false persuasion of knowledge, alike universal among all classes, mischievous, and difficult to correct — that he declared himself to have made war against it throughout his life, under a mission imposed upon him by the Delphian God; and to have incurred thereby wide-spread hatred among his fellow-citizens. To convict men, by cross-examination, of ignorance in respect to those matters which each man believed himself to know well and familiarly — this was the constant employment and the mission of Sokrates: not to teach — for he disclaimed the capacity of teaching — but to make men feel their own ignorance instead of believing themselves to know. Such cross-examination, conducted usually before an audience, however it might be salutary and indispensable, was intended to humiliate the respondent, and could hardly fail to offend and exasperate him. No one felt satisfaction except some youthful auditors, who admired the acuteness with which it was conducted. “I (declared Sokrates) am distinguished from others, and superior to others, by this character only — that I am conscious of my own 375 ignorance: the wisest of men would be he who had the like consciousness; but as yet I have looked for such a man in vain.”60

Opposition of feeling between Sokrates and the Dikasts.

In delivering this emphatic declaration, Sokrates himself intimates his apprehension that the Dikasts will treat his discourse as mockery; that they will not believe him to be in earnest: that they will scarcely have patience to hear him claim a divine mission for so strange a purpose.61 The declaration is indeed singular, and probably many of the Dikasts did so regard it; while those who thought it serious, heard it with repugnance. The separate value of the negative procedure or Elenchus was never before so unequivocally asserted, or so highly estimated. To disabuse men of those false beliefs which they mistook for knowledge, and to force on them the painful consciousness that they knew nothing — was extolled as the greatest service which could be rendered to them, and as rescuing them from a degraded and slavish state of mind.62

The Dialogues of Search present an end in themselves. Mistake of supposing that Plato had in his mind an ulterior affirmative end, not declared.

To understand the full purpose of Plato’s dialogues of search — testing, exercising, refuting, but not finding or providing — we must keep in mind the Sokratic Apology. Whoever, after reading the Theætêtus, Lachês, Charmidês, Lysis, Parmenidês, &c., is tempted to exclaim “But, after all, Plato must have had in his mind some ulterior doctrine of conviction which he wished to impress, but which he has not clearly intimated,” will see, by the Sokratic Apology, that such a presumption is noway justifiable. Plato is a searcher, and has not yet made up his own mind: this is what he himself tells us, and what I literally believe, though few or none of his critics will admit it. His purpose in the dialogues of search, 376is plainly and sufficiently enunciated in the words addressed by Sokrates to Theætêtus — “Answer without being daunted: for if we prosecute our search, one of two alternatives is certain — either we shall find what we are looking for, or we shall get clear of the persuasion that we know what in reality we do not yet know. Now a recompense like this will leave no room for dissatisfaction.”63

False persuasion of knowledge — had reference to topics social, political, ethical.

What those topics were, in respect to which Sokrates found this universal belief of knowledge, without the reality of knowledge — we know, not merely from the dialogues of Plato, but also from the Memorabilia of Xenophon. Sokrates did not touch upon recondite matters — upon the Kosmos, astronomy, meteorology. Such studies he discountenanced as useless, and even 377as irreligious.64 The subjects on which he interrogated were those of common, familiar, every-day talk: those which every one believed himself to know, and on which every one had a confident opinion to give: the respondent being surprised that any one could put the questions, or that there could be any doubt requiring solution. What is justice? what is injustice? what are temperance and courage? what is law, lawlessness, democracy, aristocracy? what is the government of mankind, and the attributes which qualify any one for exercising such government? Here were matters upon which every one talked familiarly, and would have been ashamed to be thought incapable of delivering an opinion. Yet it was upon these matters that Sokrates detected universal ignorance, coupled with a firm, but illusory, persuasion of knowledge. The conversation of Sokrates with Euthydêmus, in the Xenophontic Memorabilia65 — the first Alkibiadês, Lachês, Charmidês, Euthyphron, &c., of Plato — are among the most marked specimens of such cross-examination or Elenchus — a string of questions, to which there are responses in indefinite number successively given, tested, and exposed as unsatisfactory.

To those topics, on which each community possesses established dogmas, laws, customs, sentiments, consecrated and traditional, peculiar to itself. The local creed, which is never formally proclaimed or taught, but is enforced unconsciously by every one upon every one else. Omnipotence of King Nomos.

The answers which Sokrates elicited and exposed were simple 378expressions of the ordinary prevalent belief upon matters on which each community possesses established dogmas, laws, customs, sentiments, fashions, points of view, &c., belonging to itself. When Herodotus passed over to Egypt, he was astonished to find the judgment, feelings, institutions, and practices of the Egyptians, contrasting most forcibly with those of all other countries. He remarks the same (though less in degree) respecting Babylonians, Indians, Scythians, and others; and he is not less impressed with the veneration of each community for its own creed and habits, coupled with indifference or antipathy towards other creeds, disparate or discordant, prevailing elsewhere.66

This aggregate of beliefs and predispositions to believe, ethical, religious, æsthetical, social, respecting what is true or false, probable or improbable, just or unjust, holy or unholy, honourable or base, respectable or contemptible, pure or impure, beautiful or ugly, decent or indecent, obligatory to do or obliga379tory to avoid, respecting the status and relations of each individual in the society, respecting even the admissible fashions of amusement and recreation — this is an established fact and condition of things, the real origin of which is for the most part unknown, but which each new member of the society is born to and finds subsisting. It is transmitted by tradition from parents to children, and is imbibed by the latter almost unconsciously from what they see and hear around, without any special season of teaching, or special persons to teach. It becomes a part of each person’s nature — a standing habit of mind, or fixed set of mental tendencies, according to which, particular experience is 380 interpreted and particular persons appreciated.67 It is not set forth in systematic proclamation, nor impugned, nor defended: it is enforced by a sanction of its own, the same real sanction or force in all countries, by fear of displeasure from the Gods, and by certainty of evil from neighbours and fellow-citizens. The community hate, despise, or deride, any individual member who proclaims his dissent from their social creed, or even openly calls it in question. Their hatred manifests itself in different ways at different times and occasions, sometimes by burning or excommunication, sometimes by banishment or interdiction68 from fire and water; at the very least, by exclusion from that amount of forbearance, good-will, and estimation, without which the life of an individual becomes insupportable: for society, though its power to make an individual happy is but limited, has complete power, easily exercised, to make him miserable. The orthodox public do not recognise in any individual citizen a right to scrutinise their creed, and to reject it if not approved by his own rational judgment. They expect that he will embrace it in the natural course of things, by the mere force of authority and contagion — as they have adopted it themselves: as they have adopted also the current language, weights, measures, divisions of time, &c. If he dissents, he is guilty of an offence described in the terms of the indictment preferred against Sokrates — “Sokrates commits crime, inasmuch as he does not believe in the Gods, in whom the city believes, but introduces new religious beliefs,” &c.69 “Nomos (Law and Custom), King of All” (to borrow the phrase which Herodotus cites from Pindar70), exercises 381plenary power, spiritual as well as temporal, over individual minds; moulding the emotions as well as the intellect according to the local type — determining the sentiments, the belief, and the predisposition in regard to new matters tendered for belief, of every one — fashioning thought, speech, and points of view, no less than action — and reigning under the appearance of habitual, self-suggested tendencies. Plato, when he assumes the function of Constructor, establishes special officers for enforcing in detail the authority of King Nomos in his Platonic variety. But even 382where no such special officers exist, we find Plato himself describing forcibly (in the speech assigned to Protagoras)71 the working of that spontaneous ever-present police by whom the authority of King Nomos is enforced in detail — a police not the less omnipotent because they wear no uniform, and carry no recognised title.

Small minority of exceptional individual minds, who do not yield to the established orthodoxy, but insist on exercising their own judgment.

There are, however, generally a few exceptional minds to whom this omnipotent authority of King Nomos is repugnant, and who claim a right to investigate and judge for themselves on many points already settled and foreclosed by the prevalent orthodoxy. In childhood and youth these minds must have gone through 383the ordinary influences,72 but without the permanent stamp which such influences commonly leave behind. Either the internal intellectual force of the individual is greater, or he contracts a reverence for some new authority, or (as in the case of Sokrates) he believes himself to have received a special mission from the Gods — in one way or other the imperative character of the orthodoxy around him is so far enfeebled, that he feels at liberty to scrutinise for himself the assemblage of beliefs and sentiments around him. If he continues to adhere to them, this is because they approve themselves to his individual reason: unless this last condition be fulfilled, he becomes a dissenter, proclaiming his dissent more or less openly, according to circumstances. Such disengagement from authority traditionally consecrated (ἐξαλλαγὴ τῶν εἰωθότων νομίμων),73 and assertion of the right of self-judgment, on the part of a small 384minority of ἰδιογνώμονες,74 is the first condition of existence for philosophy or “reasoned truth”.

Early appearance of a few free-judging individuals, or free-thinkers in Greece.

Amidst the epic and lyric poets of Greece, with their varied productive impulse — as well as amidst the Gnomic philosophers, the best of whom were also poets — there are not a few manifestations of such freely judging individuality. Xenophanes the philosopher, who wrote in poetry, censured severely several of the current narratives about the Gods and Pindar, though in more respectful terms, does the like. So too, the theories about the Kosmos, propounded by various philosophers, Thales, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Herakleitus, Anaxagoras, &c., were each of them the free offspring of an individual mind. But these were counter-affirmations: novel theories, departing from the common belief, yet accompanied by little or no debate, or attack, or defence: indeed the proverbial obscurity of Herakleitus, and the recluse mysticism of the Pythagoreans, almost excluded discussion. These philosophers (to use the phrase of Aristotle75) had 385no concern with Dialectic: which last commenced in the fifth century B.C., with the Athenian drama and dikastery, and was enlisted in the service of philosophy by Zeno the Eleate and Sokrates.

Rise of Dialectic — Effect of the Drama and the Dikastery.

Both the drama and the dikastery recognise two or more different ways of looking at a question, and require that no conclusion shall be pronounced until opposing disputants have been heard and compared. The Eumenides plead against Apollo, Prometheus against the mandates and dispositions of Zeus, in spite of the superior dignity as well as power with which Zeus is invested: every Athenian citizen, in his character of dikast, took an oath to hear both the litigant parties alike, and to decide upon the pleadings and evidence according to law. Zeno, in his debates with the anti-Parmenidean philosophers, did not trouble himself to parry their thrusts. He assumed the aggressive, impugned the theories of his opponents, and exposed the contradictions in which they involved themselves. The dialectic process, in which there are (at the least) two opposite points of view both represented — the negative and the affirmative — became both prevalent and interesting.

Application of Negative scrutiny to ethical and social topics by Sokrates.

I have in a former chapter explained the dialectic of Zeno, as it bore upon the theories of the anti-Parmenidean philosophers. Still more important was the proceeding of Sokrates, when he applied the like scrutiny to ethical, social, political, religious topics. He did not come forward with any counter-theories: he declared expressly that he had none to propose, and that he was ignorant. He put questions to those who on their side professed to know, and he invited answers from them. His mission, as he himself described it, was, to scrutinise and expose false pretensions to knowledge. Without such scrutiny, he declares life itself to be not worth having. He impugned the common and traditional creed, not in the name of any competing doctrine, 386but by putting questions on the familiar terms in which it was confidently enunciated, and by making its defenders contradict themselves and feel the shame of their own contradictions. The persons who held it were shown to be incapable of defending it, when tested by an acute cross-examiner; and their supposed knowledge, gathered up insensibly from the tradition around them, deserved the language which Bacon applies to the science of his day, conducting indirectly to the necessity of that remedial course which Bacon recommends. “Nemo adhuc tantâ mentis constantiâ et rigore inventus est, ut decreverit et sibi proposuerit, theorias et notiones communes penitus abolere, et intellectum abrasum et æquum ad particularia rursus applicare. Itaque ratio illa quam habemus, ex multâ fide et multo etiam casu, necnon ex puerilibus quas primo hausimus notionibus, farrago quædam est et congeries.”76

Emphatic assertion by Sokrates of the right of satisfaction for his own individual reason.

Never before (so far as we know) had the authority of King Nomos been exposed to such an enemy as this dialectic or cross-examination by Sokrates: the prescriptive creed and unconsciously imbibed sentiment (“ratio ex fide, casu, et puerilibus notionibus”) being thrown upon their defence against negative scrutiny brought to bear upon them by the inquisitive reason of an individual citizen. In the Apology, Sokrates clothes his own strong intellectual œstrus in the belief (doubtless sincerely entertained) of a divine mission. In the Gorgias, the Platonic Sokrates asserts it in naked and simple, yet not less emphatic, language. “You, Polus, bring against me the authority of the multitude, as well as that of the most eminent citizens, all of whom agree in upholding your view. But I, one man standing here alone, do not agree with you. And I engage to compel you, my one respondent, to agree with me.”77 The autonomy or inde387pendence of individual reason against established authority, and the title of negative reason as one of the litigants in the process of philosophising, are first brought distinctly to view in the career of Sokrates.

Aversion of the Athenian public to the negative procedure of Sokrates. Mistake of supposing that that negative procedure belongs peculiarly to the Sophists and the Megarici.

With such a career, we need not wonder that Sokrates, though esteemed and admired by a select band of adherents, incurred a large amount of general unpopularity. The public (as I have before observed) do not admit the claim of independent exercise for individual reason. In the natural process of growth in the human mind, belief does not follow proof, but springs up apart from and independent of it: an immature intelligence believes first, and proves (if indeed it ever seeks proof) afterwards.78 This mental tendency is farther confirmed by the pressure and authority of King Nomos; who is peremptory in exacting belief, but neither furnishes nor requires proof. The community, themselves deeply persuaded, will not hear with calmness the voice of a solitary reasoner, adverse to opinions thus established; nor do they like to be required to explain, analyse, or reconcile those opinions.79 They disapprove especially that 388dialectic debate which gives free play and efficacious prominence to the negative arm. The like disapprobation is felt even by most of the historians of philosophy; who nevertheless, having an interest in the philosophising process, might be supposed to perceive that nothing worthy of being called reasoned truth can exist, without full and equal scope to negative as well as to affirmative.

The same charges which the historians of philosophy bring against the Sophists were brought by contemporary Athenians against Sokrates. They represent the standing dislike of free inquiry, usual with an orthodox public.

These historians usually speak in very harsh terms of the Sophists, as well as of Eukleides and the Megaric sect; who are taken as the great apostles of negation. But the truth is, that the Megarics inherited it from Sokrates, and shared it with Plato. Eukleides cannot have laid down a larger programme of negation than that which we read in the Apology of Sokrates, — nor composed a dialogue more ultra-negative than the Platonic Parmenidês: nor, again, did he depart so widely, in principle as well as in precept, from existing institutions, as Plato in his Republic. The charges which historians of philosophy urge against the Megarics as well as against the persons whom they call the Sophists — such as corruption of youth — perversion of truth and morality, by making the worse appear the better reason — subversion of established beliefs — innovation as well as deception — all these were urged against Sokrates himself by his contemporaries,80 and 389indeed against all the philosophers indiscriminately, as we learn 390from Sokrates himself in the Apology.81 They are outbursts of feeling natural to the practical, orthodox citizen, who represents the common sense of the time and place; declaring his antipathy to these speculative, freethinking innovations of theory, which challenges the prescriptive maxims of traditional custom and tests them by a standard approved by herself. The orthodox citizen does not feel himself in need of philosophers to tell him what is truth or what is virtue, nor what is the difference between real and fancied knowledge. On these matters he holds already settled persuasions, acquired from his fathers and his ancestors, and from the acknowledged civic authorities, spiritual and temporal;82 who are to him exponents of the creed guaranteed by tradition:—

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He will not listen to ingenious sophistry respecting these consecrated traditions; he does not approve the tribe of fools who despise what they are born to, and dream of distant, unattainable novelties:83 he cannot tolerate the nice discoursers, ingenious hair-splitters, priests of subtleties and trifles — dissenters from the established opinions, who corrupt the youth, teaching their pupils to be wise above the laws, to despise or even beat their fathers and mothers,84 and to cheat their creditors — mischievous 392 instructors, whose appropriate audience are the thieves and malefactors, and who ought to be silenced if they display ability to pervert others.85 Such feeling of disapprobation and antipathy against speculative philosophy and dialectic — against the libertas philosophandi — counts as a branch of virtue among practical and orthodox citizens, rich or poor, oligarchical or democratical, military or civil, ancient or modern. It is an antipathy common to men in other respects very different, to Nikias as well as Kleon, to Eupolis and Aristophanes as well as to Anytus and Demochares. It was expressed forcibly by the Roman Cato (the Censor), when he censured Sokrates as a dangerous and violent citizen; aiming, in his own way, to subvert the institutions and customs of the country, and poisoning the minds of his fellow-citizens with opinions hostile to the laws.86 How much courage is required in any individual citizen, to proclaim conscientious dissent in the face of wide-spread and established convictions, is recognised by Plato himself, and that too in the most orthodox and intolerant of all his compositions.87 He (and Aristotle after 393him), far from recognising the infallibility of established King Nomos, were bold enough88 to try and condemn him, and to imagine (each of them) a new Νόμος of his own, representing the political Art or Theory of Politics — a notion which would not have been understood by Themistokles or Aristeides.

Aversion towards Sokrates aggravated by his extreme publicity of speech. His declaration, that false persuasion of knowledge is universal; must be understood as a basis in appreciating Plato’s Dialogues of Search.

The dislike so constantly felt by communities having established opinions, towards free speculation and dialectic, was aggravated in its application to Sokrates, because his dialectic was not only novel, but also public, obtrusive, and indiscriminate.89 The name of Sokrates, after his death, was employed not merely by Plato, but by all the Sokratic companions, to cover their own ethical speculations: moreover, all of them either composed works or gave lectures. But in either case, readers or hearers were comparatively few in number, and were chiefly persons prompted by some special taste or interest: while Sokrates passed his day in the most public place, eager to interrogate every one, and sometimes forcing his interrogations even upon reluctant hearers.90 That he could have been allowed to persist in this course of life for thirty years, 394when we read his own account (in the Platonic Apology) of the antipathy which he provoked — and when we recollect that the Thirty, during their short dominion, put him under an interdict — is a remarkable proof of the comparative tolerance of Athenian practice.

However this may be, it is from the conversation of Sokrates that the Platonic Dialogues of Search take their rise, and we must read them under those same fundamental postulates which Sokrates enunciates to the Dikasts. “False persuasion of knowledge is almost universal: the Elenchus, which eradicates this, is salutary and indispensable: the dialectic search for truth between two active, self-working minds, both of them ignorant, yet both feeling their own ignorance, is instructive, as well as fascinating, though it should end without finding any truth at all, and without any other result than that of discovering some proposed hypotheses to be untrue.” The modern reader must be invited to keep these postulates in mind, if he would fairly appreciate the Platonic Dialogues of Search. He must learn to esteem the mental exercise of free debate as valuable in itself,91 even though the goal recedes before him in proportion to the steps which he makes in advance. He perceives a lively antithesis of opinions, several distinct and dissentient points of view opened, various tentatives of advance made and broken off. He has the first half of the process of truth-seeking, without the last; and even without full certainty that the last half can be worked out, or that the problem as propounded is one which admits of an affirmative solution.92 But Plato presumes that the 395search will be renewed, either by the same interlocutors or by others. He reckons upon responsive energy in the youthful subject; he addresses himself to men of earnest purpose and stirring intellect, who will be spurred on by the dialectic exercise itself to farther pursuit — men who, having listened to the working out of different points of view, will meditate on these points for themselves, and apply a judicial estimate conformable to the measure of their own minds. Those respondents, who, after having been puzzled and put to shame by one cross-examination, became disgusted and never presented themselves again — were despised by Sokrates as lazy and stupid.93 396For him, as well as for Plato, the search after truth counted as the main business of life.

Result called Knowledge, which Plato aspires to. Power of going through a Sokratic cross examination; not attainable except through the Platonic process and method.

Another matter must here be noticed, in regard to these Dialogues of Search. We must understand how Plato conceived the goal towards which they tend: that is the state of mind which he calls knowledge or cognition. Knowledge (in his view) is not attained until the mind is brought into clear view of the Universal Forms or Ideas, and intimate communion with them: but the test (as I have already observed) for determining whether a man has yet attained this end or not, is to ascertain whether he can give to others a full account of all that he professes to know, and can extract from them a full account of all that they profess to know: whether he can perform, in a manner exhaustive as well as unerring, the double and correlative function of asking and answering: in other words, whether he can administer the Sokratic cross-examination effectively to others, and reply to it without faltering or contradiction when administered to himself.94 Such being the way in which Plato conceives knowledge, we may easily see that it cannot be produced, or even approached, by direct, demonstrative, didactic communication: by simply announcing to the hearer, and lodging in his memory, a theorem to be proved, together with the steps whereby it is proved. He must be made familiar with each subject on many sides, and under several different aspects and analogies: he must have had before him objections with their refutation, and 397the fallacious arguments which appear to prove the theorem, but do not really prove it:95 he must be introduced to the principal counter-theorems, with the means whereby an opponent will enforce them: he must be practised in the use of equivocal terms and sophistry, either to be detected when the opponent is cross-examining him, or to be employed when he is cross-examining an opponent. All these accomplishments must be acquired, together with full promptitude and flexibility, before he will be competent to perform those two difficult functions, which Plato considers to be the test of knowledge. You may say that such a result is indefinitely distant and hopeless: Plato considers it attainable, though he admits the arduous efforts which it will cost. But the point which I wish to show is, that if attainable at all, it can only be attained through a long and varied course of such dialectic discussion as that which we read in the Platonic Dialogues of Search. The state and aptitude of mind called knowledge, can only be generated as a last result of this continued practice (to borrow an expression of Longinus).96 The Platonic method is thus in perfect harmony and co-ordination with the Platonic result, as described and pursued.

Platonic process adapted to Platonic topics — man and society.

Moreover, not merely method and result are in harmony, but also the topics discussed. These topics were ethical, social, and political: matters especially human97 (to use the phrase of Sokrates himself) familiar to every man, — handled, unphilosophically, by speakers in the assembly, pleaders in the dikastery, dramatists in the 398theatre. Now it is exactly upon such topics that debate can be made most interesting, varied, and abundant. The facts, multifarious in themselves, connected with man and society, depend upon a variety of causes, co-operating and conflicting. Account must be taken of many different points of view, each of which has a certain range of application, and each of which serves to limit or modify the others: the generalities, even when true, are true only on the balance, and under ordinary circumstances; 399they are liable to exception, if those circumstances undergo important change. There are always objections, real as well as apparent, which require to be rebutted or elucidated. To such changeful and complicated states of fact, the Platonic dialectic was adapted: furnishing abundant premisses and comparisons, bringing into notice many distinct points of view, each of which must be looked at and appreciated, before any tenable principle can be arrived at. Not only Platonic method and result, but also Platonic topics, are thus well suited to each other. The general terms of ethics were familiar but undefined: the tentative definitions suggested, followed up by objections available against each, included a large and instructive survey of ethical phenomena in all their bearings.

Plato does not provide solutions for the difficulties which he has raised. The affirmative and negative veins are in him completely distinct. His dogmas are enunciations à priori of some impressive sentiment.

The negative procedure is so conspicuous, and even so preponderant, in the Platonic dialogues, that no historian of philosophy can omit to notice it. But many of them (like Xenophon in describing Sokrates) assign to it only a subordinate place and a qualified application: while some (and Schleiermacher especially) represent all the doubts and difficulties in the negative dialogues as exercises to call forth the intellectual efforts of the reader, preparatory to full and satisfactory solutions which Plato has given in the dogmatic dialogues at the end. The first half of this hypothesis I accept: the last half I believe to be unfounded. The doubts and difficulties were certainly exercises to the mind of Plato himself, and were intended as exercises to his readers; but he has nowhere provided a key to the solution of them. Where he propounds positive dogmas, he does not bring them face to face with objections, nor verify their authority by showing that they afford satisfactory solution of the difficulties exhibited in his negative procedure. The two currents of his speculation, the affirmative and the negative, are distinct and independent of each other. Where the affirmative is especially present (as in Timæus), the negative altogether disappears. Timæus is made to proclaim the most sweeping theories, not one of which the real Sokrates would have suffered to pass without abundant cross-examination: but the Platonic Sokrates hears them with respect400ful silence, and commends afterwards. The declaration so often made by Sokrates that he is a searcher, not a teacher — that he feels doubts keenly himself, and can impress them upon others, but cannot discover any good solution of them — this declaration, which is usually considered mere irony, is literally true.98 The Platonic theory of Objective Ideas separate and absolute, which the commentators often announce as if it cleared up all difficulties — not only clears up none, but introduces fresh ones belonging to itself. When Plato comes forward to affirm, his dogmas are altogether à priori: they enunciate preconceptions or hypotheses, which derive their hold upon his belief, not from any aptitude for solving the objections which he has raised, but from deep and solemn sentiment of some kind or other — religious, ethical, æsthetical, poetical, &c., the worship of numerical symmetry or exactness, &c. The dogmas are enunciations of some grand sentiment of the divine, good, just, beautiful, symmetrical, &c.,99 which Plato follows out into corollaries. But this is a process of itself; and while he is performing it, the doubts previously raised are not called up to be solved, but are forgotten or kept out of sight. It is therefore a mistake to suppose100 that Plato ties knots in one 401 dialogue only with a view to untie them in another; and that the doubts which he propounds are already fully solved in his own mind, only that he defers the announcement of the solution until the embarrassed hearer has struggled to find it for himself.

Hypothesis — that Plato had solved all his own difficulties for himself; but that he communicated the solution only to a few select auditors in oral lectures — Untenable.

Some critics, assuming confidently that Plato must have produced a full breadth of positive philosophy to countervail his own negative fertility, yet not finding enough of it in the written dialogues look for it elsewhere. Tennemann thinks, and his opinion is partly shared by Boeckh and K. F. Hermann, that the direct, affirmative, and highest principles of Plato’s philosophy were enunciated only in his lectures: that the core, the central points, the great principles of his system (der Kern) were revealed thus orally to a few select students in plain and broad terms, while the dialogues were intentionally 402written so as to convey only indirect hints, illustrations, applications of these great principles, together with refutation of various errors opposed to them: that Plato did not think it safe or prudent to make any full, direct, or systematic revelation to the general public.101 I have already said that I think this opinion untenable. Among the few points which we know respecting the oral lectures, one is, that they were delivered not to a select and prepared few, but to a numerous and unprepared audience: while among the written dialogues, there are some which, far from being popular or adapted to an ordinary understanding, are highly perplexing and abstruse. The Timæus does not confine itself to indirect hints, but delivers positive dogmas about the super-sensible world: though they are of a mystical cast, as we know that the oral lectures De Bono were also.

Characteristic of the oral lectures — that they were delivered in Plato’s own name. In what other respects they departed from the dialogues, we cannot say.

Towards filling up this gap, then, the oral lectures cannot be shown to lend any assistance. The cardinal point of difference between them and the dialogues was, that they were delivered by Plato himself, in his own name; whereas he never published any written composition in his own name. But we do not know enough to say, in what particular way this difference would manifest itself. Besides the oral lectures, delivered to a numerous auditory, it is very probable that Plato held special communications upon philosophy with a few advanced pupils. Here however we are completely in the dark. Yet I see nothing, either in these supposed private communications or in the oral lectures, to controvert what was said in the last page — that Plato’s affirmative 403philosophy is not fitted on to his negative philosophy, but grows out of other mental impulses, distinct and apart. Plato (as Aristotle tells us102) felt it difficult to determine, whether the march of philosophy was an ascending one toward the principia (ἀρχὰς), or a descending one down from the principia. A good philosophy ought to suffice for both, conjointly and alternately: in Plato’s philosophy, there is no road explicable either upwards or downwards, between the two: no justifiable mode of participation (μέθεξις) between the two disparate worlds — intellect and sense. The principia of Plato take an impressive hold on the imagination: but they remove few or none of the Platonic difficulties; and they only seem to do this because the Sokratic Elenchus, so effective whenever it is applied, is never seriously brought to bear against them.

Apart from any result, Plato has an interest in the process of search and debate per se. Protracted enquiry is a valuable privilege, not a tiresome obligation.

With persons who complain of prolixity in the dialogue — of threads which are taken up only to be broken off, devious turns and “passages which lead to nothing” — of much talk “about it and about it,” without any peremptory decision from an authorised judge — with such complainants Plato has no sympathy. He feels a strong interest in the process of enquiry, in the debate per se: and he presumes a like interest in his readers. He has no wish to shorten the process, nor to reach the end and dismiss the question as settled.103 On the contrary, he claims it as the privilege of philosophical404 research, that persons engaged in such discussions are noway tied to time; they are not like judicial pleaders, who, with a klepsydra or water-clock to measure the length of each speech, are under slavish dependence on the feelings of the Dikasts, and are therefore obliged to keep strictly to the point.104 Whoever desires accurate training of mind must submit to go through a long and tiresome circuit.105 Plato regards the process of enquiry as being in itself, both a stimulus and a discipline, in which the minds both of questioner and respondent are implicated and improved, each being indispensable to the other: he also represents it as a process, carried on under the immediate inspiration of the moment, without reflection or foreknowledge of the result.106 Lastly, Plato has an interest in the dialogue, not 405merely as a mental discipline, but as an artistic piece of workmanship, whereby the taste and imagination are charmed. The dialogue was to him what the tragedy was to Sophokles, and the rhetorical discourse to Isokrates. He went on “combing and curling it” (to use the phrase of Dionysius) for as many years as Isokrates bestowed on the composition of the Panegyrical Oration. He handles the dialectic drama so as to exhibit some one among the many diverse ethical points of view, and to show what it involves as well as what it excludes in the way of consequence. We shall not find the ethical point of view always the same: there are material inconsistencies and differences in this respect between one dialogue and another.

Plato has done more than any one else to make the process of enquiry interesting to others, as it was to himself.

But amidst all these differences — and partly indeed by reason of these differences — Plato succeeds in inspiring his readers with much of the same interest in the process of dialectic enquiry which he evidently felt in his own bosom. The charm, with which he invests the process of philosophising, is one main cause of the preservation of his writings from the terrible ship-wreck which has overtaken so much of the abundant contemporary literature. It constitutes also one of his principle titles to the gratitude of intellectual men. This is a merit which may be claimed for Cicero also, but hardly for Aristotle, in so far as we can judge from the preserved portion of the Aristotelian writings: whether for the other viri Socratici his contemporaries, or in what proportion, we are unable to say. Plato’s works charmed and instructed all; so that they were 406read not merely by disciples and admirers (as the Stoic and Epikurean treatises were), but by those who dissented from him as well as by those who agreed with him.107 The process of philosophising is one not naturally attractive except to a few minds: the more therefore do we owe to the colloquy of Sokrates and the writing of Plato, who handled it so as to diffuse the appetite for enquiry, and for sifting dissentient opinions. The stimulating and suggestive influence exercised by Plato — the variety of new roads pointed out to the free enquiring mind — are in themselves sufficiently valuable: whatever we may think of the positive results in which he himself acquiesced.108

I have said thus much respecting what is common to the Dialogues of Search, because this is a species of composition now rare and strange. Modern readers do not understand what is meant by publishing an enquiry without any result — a story without an end. Respecting the Dialogues of Exposition, there is not the like difficulty. This is a species of composition, the purpose of which is generally understood. Whether the exposition be clear or obscure — orderly or confused — true or false — we shall see when we come to examine each separately. But these Dialogues of Exposition exhibit Plato in a different character: as the counterpart, not of Sokrates, but of Lykurgus (Republic and Leges) or of Pythagoras (in Timæus).109

Process of generalisation always kept in view and illustrated throughout the Platonic Dialogues of Search — general terms and propositions made subjects of conscious analysis.

A farther remark which may be made, bearing upon most of the dialogues, relates to matter and not to manner. Everywhere (both in the Dialogues of Search and in those of exposition) the process of generalisation is kept in view and brought into conscious notice, directly or indirectly. The relation of the universal to its particulars, the contrast of the constant and essential with the variable and accidental, are turned 407and returned in a thousand different ways. The principles of classification, with the breaking down of an extensive genus into species and sub-species, form the special subject of illustration in two of the most elaborate Platonic dialogues, and are often partially applied in the rest. To see the One in the Many, and the Many in the One, is represented as the great aim and characteristic attribute of the real philosopher. The testing of general terms, and of abstractions already embodied in familiar language, by interrogations applying them to many concrete and particular cases — is one manifestation of the Sokratic cross-examining process, which Plato multiplies and diversifies without limit. It is in his writings and in the conversation of Sokrates, that general terms and propositions first become the subject of conscious attention and analysis, and Plato was well aware that he was here opening the new road towards formal logic, unknown to his predecessors, unfamiliar even to his contemporaries. This process is indeed often overlaid in his writings by exuberant poetical imagery and by transcendental hypothesis: but the important fact is, that it was constantly present to his own mind and is impressed upon the notice of his readers.

The Dialogues must be reviewed as distinct compositions by the same author, illustrating each other, but without assignable inter-dependence.

After these various remarks, having a common bearing upon all, or nearly all, the Platonic dialogues, I shall proceed to give some account of each dialogue separately. It is doubtless both practicable and useful to illustrate one of them by others, sometimes in the way of analogy, sometimes in that of contrast. But I shall not affect to handle them as contributories to one positive doctrinal system — nor as occupying each an intentional place in the gradual unfolding of one preconceived scheme — nor as successive manifestations of change, knowable and determinable, in the views of the author. For us they exist as distinct imaginary conversations, composed by the same author at unknown times and under unknown specialities of circumstance. Of course it is necessary to prefer some one order for reviewing the Dialogues, and for that purpose more or less of hypothesis must be admitted; but I shall endeavour to assume as little as possible.

Order of the Dialogues, chosen for bringing them under separate review. Apology will come first; Timæus, Kritias, Leges, Epinomis last.

The order which I shall adopt for considering the dialogues 408coincides to a certain extent with that which some other expositors have adopted. It begins with those dialogues which delineate Sokrates, and which confine themselves to the subjects and points of view belonging to him, known as he is upon the independent testimony of Xenophon. First of all will come the Platonic Apology, containing the explicit negative programme of Sokrates, enunciated by himself a month before his death, when Plato was 28 years of age.

Last of all, I shall take those dialogues which depart most widely from Sokrates, and which are believed to be the products of Plato’s most advanced age — Timæus, Kritias, and Leges, with the sequel, Epinomis. These dialogues present a glaring contrast to the searching questions, the negative acuteness, the confessed ignorance, of Sokrates: Plato in his old age has not maintained consistency with his youth, as Sokrates did, but has passed round from the negative to the affirmative pole of philosophy.

Kriton and Euthyphron come immediately after Apology. The intermediate dialogues present no convincing grounds for any determinate order.

Between the Apology and the dialogues named as last — I shall examine the intermediate dialogues according as they seem to approximate or recede from Sokrates and the negative dialectic. Here, however, the reasons for preference are noway satisfactory. Of the many dissentient schemes, professing to determine the real order in which the Platonic dialogues were composed, I find a certain plausibility in some, but no conclusive reason in any. Of course the reasons in favour of each one scheme, count against all the rest. I believe (as I have already said) that none of Plato’s dialogues were composed until after the death of Sokrates: but at what dates, or in what order, after that event, they were composed, it is impossible to determine. The Republic and Philêbus rank among the constructive dialogues, and may suitably be taken immediately before Timæus: though the Republic belongs to the highest point of Plato’s genius, and includes a large measure of his negative acuteness combined with his most elaborate positive combinations. In the Sophistês and Politikus, Sokrates appears only in the character of a listener: in the Parmenidês also, the part assigned to him, instead of being aggressive and victorious, 409is subordinate to that of Parmenidês and confined to an unsuccessful defence. These dialogues, then, occupy a place late in the series. On the other hand, Kriton and Euthyphron have an immediate bearing upon the trial of Sokrates and the feelings connected with it. I shall take them in immediate sequel to the Apology.

For the intermediate dialogues, the order is less marked and justifiable. In so far as a reason can be given, for preference as to former and later, I shall give it when the case arises.

[END OF CHAPTER VIII]

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