PLATO,

CHAPTER XIX.

CHARMIDES.

As in Lachês, we have pursued an enquiry into the nature of Courage — so in Charmidês, we find an examination of Temperance, Sobriety, Moderation.1 Both dialogues conclude without providing any tenable explanation. In both there is an abundant introduction — in Charmidês, there is even the bustle of a crowded palæstra, with much dramatic incident — preluding to the substantive discussion. I omit the notice of this dramatic incident, though it is highly interesting to read.

Scene and personages of the dialogue. Crowded palæstra. Emotions of Sokrates.

The two persons with whom Sokrates here carries on the discussion, are Charmides and Kritias; both of whom, as historical persons, were active movers in the oligarchical government of the Thirty, with its numerous enormities. In this dialogue, Charmides appears as a youth just rising into manhood, strikingly beautiful both in face and stature: Kritias his cousin is an accomplished literary man of mature age. The powerful emotion which Sokrates describes himself as experiencing,2 from the sight and close neighbourhood of the beautiful Charmides, is remarkable, as a manifestation of Hellenic sentiment. The same exaltation of the feelings and imagination, which is now produced only by beautiful women, was then excited chiefly by fine youths. Charmides is described by Kritias as exhibiting dispositions154 at once philosophical and poetical:3 illustrating the affinity of these two intellectual veins, as Plato conceived them. He is also described as eminently temperate and modest:4 from whence the questions of Sokrates take their departure.

Question, What is Temperance? addressed by Sokrates to the temperate Charmides. Answer, It is a kind of sedateness or slowness.

You are said to be temperate, Charmides (says Sokrates). If so, your temperance will surely manifest itself within you in some way, so as to enable you to form and deliver an opinion, What Temperance is. Tell us in plain language what you conceive it to be. Temperance, replies Charmides (after some hesitation),5 consists in doing every thing in an orderly and sedate manner, when we walk in the highway, or talk, or perform other matters in the presence of others. It is, in short, a kind of sedateness or slowness.

But Temperance is a fine or honourable thing, and slowness is, in many or most cases, not fine or honourable, but the contrary. Temperance cannot be slowness.

Sokrates begins his cross-examination upon this answer, in the same manner as he had begun it with Laches in respect to courage. Sokr. — Is not temperance a fine and honourable thing? Does it not partake of the essence and come under the definition, of what is fine or and honourable?6 Char. — Undoubtedly it does. Sokr. — But if we specify in detail our various operations, either of body or mind — such as writing, reading, playing on the harp, boxing, running, jumping, learning, teaching, recollecting, comprehending, deliberating, determining, &c. — we shall find that to do them quickly is more fine and honourable than to do them slowly. Slowness does not, except by accident, belong to the fine and honourable: therefore temperance, which does so belong to it, cannot be a kind of slowness.7

Second answer. Temperance is a variety of the feeling of shame. Refuted by Sokrates.

Charmides next declares Temperance to be a variety of the feeling of shame or modesty. But this (observes Sokrates) will not hold more than the former explanation: since Homer has pronounced shame not to be 155good, for certain persons and under certain circumstances.8

Third answer. Temperance consists in doing one’s own business. Defended by Kritias. Sokrates pronounces it a riddle, and refutes it. Distinction between making and doing.

“Temperance consists in doing one’s own business.” Here we have a third explanation, proposed by Charmides and presently espoused by Kritias. Sokrates professes not to understand it, and pronounces it to be like a riddle.9 Every tradesman or artisan does the business of others as well as his own. Are we to say for that reason that he is not temperate? I distinguish (says Kritias) between making and doing: the artisan makes for others, but he does not do for others, and often cannot be said to do at all. To do, implies honourable, profitable, good, occupation: this alone is a man’s own business, and this I call temperance. When a man acts so as to harm himself, he does not do his own business.10 The doing of good things, is temperance.11

Fourth answer, by Kritias. Temperance consists in self-knowledge.

Sokr. — Perhaps it is. But does the well-doer always and certainly know that he is doing well? Does the temperate man know his own temperance? Krit. — He certainly must. Indeed I think that the essence of temperance is, Self-knowledge. Know thyself is the precept of the Delphian God, who means thereby the same as if he had said — Be temperate. I now put aside all that I have said before, and take up this new position, That temperance consists in a man’s knowing himself. If you do not admit it, I challenge your cross-examination.12

Questions of Sokrates thereupon. What good does self-knowledge procure for us? What is the object known, in this case? Answer: There is no object of knowledge, distinct from the knowledge itself.

Sokr. — I cannot tell you whether I admit it or not, until I have investigated. You address me as if I professed to know the subject: but it is because I do not know, that I examine, in conjunction with you, each successive answer.13 If temperance 156consists in knowing, it must be a knowledge of something. Krit. — It is so: it is knowledge of a man’s self. Sokr. — What good does this knowledge procure for us? as medical knowledge procures for us health — architectural knowledge, buildings, &c.? Krit. — It has no object positive result of analogous character: but neither have arithmetic nor geometry. Sokr. — True, but in arithmetic and geometry, we can at least indicate a something known, distinct from the knowledge. Number and proportion are distinct from arithmetic, the science which takes cognizance of them. Now what is that, of which temperance is the knowledge, — distinct from temperance itself? Krit. — It is on this very point that temperance differs from all the other cognitions. Each of the others is knowledge of something different from itself, but not knowledge of itself: while temperance is knowledge of all the other sciences and of itself also.14 Sokr. — If this be so, it will of course be a knowledge of ignorance, as well as a knowledge of knowledge? Krit. — Certainly.

Sokrates doubts the possibility of any knowledge, without a given cognitum as its object. Analogies to prove that knowledge of knowledge is impossible.

Sokr. — According to your explanation, then, it is only the temperate man who knows himself. He alone is able to examine himself, and thus to find out what he really knows and does not know: he alone is able to examine others, and thus to find out what each man knows, or what each man only believes himself to know without really knowing. Temperance, or self-knowledge, is the knowledge what a man knows, and what he does not know.15 Now two questions arise upon this: First, is it possible for a man to know, that he knows what he does know, and that he does not know what he does not know? Next, granting it to be possible, in what way do we gain by it? The first of these two questions involves much difficulty. How can there be any cognition, which is not cognition of a given cognitum, but cognition merely of other cognitions and non-cognitions? There is no vision except of some colour, no audition except of some sound: there can be no vision of 157visions, or audition of auditions. So likewise, all desire is desire of some pleasure; there is no desire of desires. All volition is volition of some good; there is no volition of volitions: all love applies to something beautiful — there is no love of other loves. The like is true of fear, opinion, &c. It would be singular therefore, if contrary to all these analogies, there were any cognition not of some cognitum, but of itself and other cognitions.16

All knowledge must be relative to some object.

It is of the essence of cognition to be cognition of something, and to have its characteristic property with reference to some correlate.17 What is greater, has its property of being greater in relation to something else, which is less — not in relation to itself. It cannot be greater than itself, for then it would also be less than itself. It cannot include in itself the characteristic property of the correlatum as well as that of the relatum. So too about what is older, younger, heavier, lighter: there is always a something distinct, to which reference is made. Vision does not include in itself both the property of seeing, and that of being seen: the videns is distinct from the visum. A movement implies something else to be moved: a heater something else to be heated.

All properties are relative — every thing in nature has its characteristic property with reference to something else.

In all these cases (concludes Sokrates) the characteristic property is essentially relative, implying something distinguishable from, yet correlating with, itself. May we generalise the proposition, and affirm, That all properties are relative, and that every thing in nature has its characteristic property with reference, not to itself, but to something else? Or is this true only of some things and not of all — so that cognition may be something in the latter category?

This is an embarrassing question, which I do not feel qualified to decide: neither the general question, whether there be any cases of characteristic properties having no reference to any thing beyond themselves, and therefore not relative, but absolute — nor the particular question, whether cognition be one of those cases, implying no separate cognitum, but being itself both relatum and correlatum — cognition of cognition.18

158But even if cognition of cognition be possible, I shall not admit it as an explanation of what temperance is, until I have satisfied myself that it is beneficial. For I have a presentiment that temperance must be something beneficial and good.19

Even if cognition of cognition were possible, cognition of non-cognition would be impossible. A man may know what he knows, but he cannot know what he is ignorant of. He knows the fact that he knows: but he does not know how much he knows, and how much he does not know.

Let us concede for the present discussion (continues Sokrates) that cognition of cognition is possible. Still how does this prove that there can be cognition of non-cognition? that a man can know both what he knows and what he does not know? For this is what we declared self-knowledge and temperance to be.20 To have cognition of cognition is one thing: to have cognition of non-cognition is a different thing, not necessarily connected with it. If you have cognition of cognition, you will be enabled to distinguish that which is cognition from that which is not — but no more. Now the knowledge or ignorance of the matter of health is known by medical science: that of justice known by political science. The knowledge of knowledge simply — cognition of cognition — is different from both. The person who possesses this last only, without knowing either medicine or politics, will become aware that he knows something and possesses some sort of knowledge, and will be able to verify so much with regard to others. But what it is that he himself knows, or that others know, he will not thereby be enabled to find out: he will not distinguish whether that which is known belong to physiology or to politics; to do this, special acquirements are needed. You, a temperate man therefore, as such, do not know what you know and what you do not know; you know the bare fact, that you know and that you do not know. You will not be competent to cross-examine any one who professes to know medicine or any other particular subject, so as to ascertain whether the man really possesses what he pretends to 159possess. There will be no point in common between you and him. You, as a temperate man, possess cognition of cognition, but you do not know any special cognitum: the special man knows his own special cognitum but is a stranger to cognition generally. You cannot question him, nor criticise what he says or performs, in his own specialty — for of that you are ignorant:— no one can do it except some fellow expert. You can ascertain that he possesses some knowledge: but whether he possesses that particular knowledge to which he lays claim, or whether he falsely pretends to it, you cannot ascertain:— since, as a temperate man, you know only cognition and non-cognition generally. To ascertain this point, you must be not only a temperate man, but a man of special cognition besides.21 You can question and test no one, except another temperate man like yourself.

Temperance, therefore, as thus defined, would be of little or no value.

But if this be all that temperance can do, of what use is it to us (continues Sokrates)? It is indeed a great benefit to know how much we know, and how much we do not know: it is also a great benefit to know respecting others, how much they know, and how much they do not know. If thus instructed, we should make fewer mistakes: we should do by ourselves only what we knew how to do, — we should commit to others that which they knew how to do, and which we did not know. But temperance (meaning thereby cognition of cognition and of non-cognition generally) does not confer such instruction, nor have we found any science which does.22 How temperance benefits us, does not yet appear.

But even granting the possibility of that which has just been denied, still Temperance would be of little value. Suppose that all separate work were well performed, by special practitioners, we should not attain our end — Happiness.

But let us even concede — what has been just shown to be impossible — that through temperance we become aware of what we do know and what we do not know. Even upon this hypothesis, it will be of little service to us. We have been too hasty in conceding that it would be a great benefit if each of us did only what he knew, committing to others to do only what they 160knew. I have an awkward suspicion (continues Sokrates) that after all, this would be no great benefit.23 It is true that upon this hypothesis, all operations in society would be conducted scientifically and skilfully. We should have none but competent pilots, physicians, generals, &c., acting for us, each of them doing the work for which he was fit. The supervision exercised by temperance (in the sense above defined) would guard us against all pretenders. Let us even admit that as to prediction of the future, we should have none but competent and genuine prophets to advise us; charlatans being kept aloof by this same supervision. We should thus have every thing done scientifically and in a workmanlike manner. But should we for that reason do well and be happy? Can that be made out, Kritias?24

Which of the varieties of knowledge contributes most to well-doing or happiness? That by which we know good and evil.

Krit. — You will hardly find the end of well-doing anywhere else, if you deny that it follows on doing scientifically or according to knowledge.25 Sokr. — But according to knowledge, of what? Of leather-cutting, brazen work, wool, wood, &c.? Krit. — No, none of these. Sokr. — Well then, you see, we do not follow out consistently your doctrine — That the happy man is he who lives scientifically, or according to knowledge. For all these men live according to knowledge, and still you do not admit them to be happy. Your definition of happiness applies only to some portion of those who live according to knowledge, but not to all. How are we to distinguish which of them? Suppose a man to know every thing past, present, and future; which among the fractions of such omniscience would contribute most to make him happy? Would they all contribute equally? Krit. — By no means. Sokr. — Which of them then would contribute most? Would it be that by which he knew the art of gaming? Krit. — Certainly not. Sokr. — Or that by which he knew the art of computing? Krit. — No. Sokr. — Or 161that by which he knew the conditions of health? Krit. — That will suit better. Sokr. — But which of them most of all? Krit. — That by which he knew good and evil.26

Without the science of good and evil, the other special science will be of little or of no service. Temperance is not the science of good and evil, and is of little service.

Sokr. — Here then, you have been long dragging me round in a circle, keeping back the fact, that well-doing and happiness does not arise from living according to science generally, not of all other matters taken together — but from living according to the science of this one single matter, good and evil. If you exclude this last, and leave only the other sciences, each of these others will work as before: the medical man will heal, the weaver will prepare clothes, the pilot will navigate his vessel, the general will conduct his army — each of them scientifically. Nevertheless, that each of these things shall conduce to our well-being and profit, will be an impossibility, if the science of good and evil be wanting.27 Now this science of good and evil, the special purpose of which is to benefit us,28 is altogether different from temperance; which you have defined as the science of cognition and non-cognition, and which appears not to benefit us at all. Krit. — Surely it does benefit us: for it presides over and regulates all the other sciences, and of course regulates this very science, of good and evil, among the rest. Sokr. — In what way can it benefit us? It does not procure for us any special service, such as good health: that is the province of medicine: in like manner, each separate result arises from its own producing art. To confer benefit is, as we have just laid down, the special province of the science of good and evil.29 Temperance, as the science of cognition and non-cognition, cannot work any benefit at all.

Sokrates confesses to entire failure in his research. He cannot find out what temperance is: although several concessions have been made which cannot be justified.

Thus then, concludes Sokrates, we are baffled in every way: 162 we cannot find out what temperance is, nor what that name has been intended to designate. All our tentatives have failed; although, in our anxiety to secure some result, we have accepted more than one inadmissible hypothesis. Thus we have admitted that there might exist cognition of cognition, though our discussion tended to negative such a possibility. We have farther granted, that this cognition of cognition, or science of science, might know all the operations of each separate and special science: so that the temperate man (i.e. he who possesses cognition of cognition) might know both what he knows and what he does not know: might know, namely, that he knows the former and that he does not know the latter. We have granted this, though it is really an absurdity to say, that what a man does not know at all, he nevertheless does know after a certain fashion.30 Yet after these multiplied concessions against strict truth, we have still been unable to establish our definition of temperance: for temperance as we defined it has, after all, turned out to be thoroughly unprofitable.

Temperance is and must be a good thing: but Charmides cannot tell whether he is temperate or not; since what temperance is remains unknown.

It is plain that we have taken the wrong road, and that I (Sokrates) do not know how to conduct the enquiry. For temperance, whatever it may consist in, must assuredly be a great benefit: and you, Charmides, are happy if you possess it. How can I tell (rejoins Charmides) whether I possess it or not: since even men like you and Kritias cannot discover what it is?31

Expressions both from Charmides and Kritias of praise and devotion to Sokrates, at the close of the dialogue. Dramatic ornament throughout.

Here ends the dialogue called Charmidês32 after the interchange of a few concluding compliments, forming 163part of the great dramatic richness which characterises this dialogue from the beginning. I make no attempt to reproduce this latter attribute; though it is one of the peculiar merits of Plato in reference to ethical enquiry, imparting to the subject a charm which does not naturally belong to it. I confine myself to the philosophical bearing of the dialogue. According to the express declaration of Sokrates, it ends in nothing but disappointment. No positive result is attained. The problem — What is Temperance? — remains unsolved, after four or five different solutions have been successively tested and repudiated.

The Charmides is an excellent specimen of Dialogues of Search. Abundance of guesses and tentatives, all ultimately disallowed.

The Charmidês (like the Lachês) is a good illustrative specimen of those Dialogues of Search, the general character and purpose of which I have explained in my eighth chapter. It proves nothing: it disproves several hypotheses: but it exhibits (and therein consists its value) the anticipating, guessing, tentative, and eliminating process, without which no defensible conclusions can be obtained — without which, even if such be found, no advocate can be formed capable of defending them against an acute cross-examiner. In most cases, this tentative process is forgotten or ignored: even when recognised as a reality, it is set aside with indifference, often with ridicule. A writer who believes himself to have solved any problem, publishes his solution together with the proofs; and acquires deserved credit for it, if those proofs give satisfaction. But he does not care to preserve, nor do the public care to know, the steps by which such solution has been reached. Nevertheless in most cases, and in all cases involving much difficulty, there has been a process, more or less tedious, of tentative and groping — of guesses at first hailed as promising, then followed out to a certain extent, lastly discovered to be untenable. The history of science,33 astronomical, physical, chemical, physiological, &c., 164wherever it has been at all recorded, attests this constant antecedence of a period of ignorance, confusion, and dispute, even in cases where ultimately a solution has been found commanding the nearly unanimous adhesion of the scientific world. But on subjects connected with man and society, this period of dispute and confusion continues to the present moment. No unanimity has ever been approached, among nations at once active in intellect and enjoying tolerable liberty of dissent. Moreover — apart from the condition of different sciences among mature men — we must remember that the transitive process, above described, represents the successive stages by which every adult mind has been gradually built up from infancy. Trial and error — alternate guess and rejection, generation and destruction of sentiments and beliefs — is among the most widespread facts of human intelligence.34 Even those ordinary minds, which in mature life harden with the most exemplary fidelity into the locally prevalent type of orthodoxy, — have all in their earlier years gone through that semi-fluid and indeterminate period, in which the type to come is yet a matter of doubt — in which the head might have been permanently lengthened or permanently flattened, according to the direction in which pressure was applied.

Trial and Error, the natural process of the human mind. Plato stands alone in bringing to view and dramatising this part of the mental process. Sokrates accepts for himself the condition of conscious ignorance.

We shall follow Plato towards the close of his career (Treatise De Legibus), into an imperative and stationary orthodoxy165 of his own: but in the dialogues which I have already reviewed, as well as in several others which I shall presently notice, no mention is made of any given affirmative doctrine as indispensable to arrive at ultimately. Plato here concentrates his attention upon the indeterminate period of the mind: looking upon the mind not as an empty vessel, requiring to be filled by ready-made matter from without — nor as a blank sheet, awaiting a foreign hand to write characters upon it — but as an assemblage of latent capacities, which must be called into action by stimulus and example, but which can only attain improvement through multiplied trials and multiplied failures. Whereas in most cases these failures are forgotten, the peculiarity of Plato consists in his bringing them to view with full detail, explaining the reasons of each. He illustrates abundantly, and dramatises with the greatest vivacity, the intellectual process whereby opinions are broached, at first adopted, then mistrusted, unmade, and re-made — or perhaps not re-made at all, but exchanged for a state of conscious ignorance. The great hero and operator in this process is the Platonic Sokrates, who accepts for himself this condition of conscious ignorance, and even makes it a matter of comparative pride, that he stands nearly alone in such confession.35 His colloquial influence, working powerfully and almost preternaturally,36 not only serves both to spur and to direct the activity of hearers still youthful and undecided, but also exposes those who have already made up their minds and confidently believe themselves to know. Sokrates brings back these latter from the false persuasion of knowledge to the state of conscious ignorance, and to the prior indeterminate condition of mind, in which their opinions have again to be put together by the tentative and guessing process. This tentative process, prosecuted under the drill of Sokrates, is in itself full of charm and interest for Plato, whether it ends by finding a good solution or only by discarding a bad one.

Familiar words — constantly used, with much earnest feeling, but never understood nor defined — ordinary phenomenon in human society.

The Charmidês is one of the many Platonic dialogues wherein 166such intellectual experimentation appears depicted without any positive result: except as it adds fresh matter to illustrate that wide-spread mental fact, — (which has already come before the reader, in Euthyphron, Alkibiadês, Hippias, Erastæ, Lachês, &c., as to holiness, beauty, philosophy, courage, &c., and is now brought to view in the case of temperance also; all of them words in every one’s mouth, and tacitly assumed by every one as known quantities) the perpetual and confident judgments which mankind are in the habit of delivering — their apportionment of praise and blame, as well as of reward and punishment consequent on praise and blame — without any better basis than that of strong emotion imbibed they know not how, and without being able to render any rational explanation even of the familiar words round which such emotions are grouped. No philosopher has done so much as Plato to depict in detail this important fact — the habitual condition of human society, modern as well as ancient, and for that very reason generally unnoticed.37 The emotional or subjective value of temperance is all that Sokrates determines, and which indeed he makes his point of departure. Temperance is essentially among the fine, beautiful, honourable, things:38 but its rational or objective value (i.e., what is the common object characterising all temperate acts or persons), he cannot determine. Here indeed Plato is not always consistent with himself: for we shall come to other dialogues wherein he professes himself incompetent to say whether a thing be beautiful or not, until it be determined what the thing is:39 and we have already found 167Sokrates declaring (in the Hippias Major), that we cannot determine whether any particular object is beautiful or not, until we have first determined, What is Beauty in the Absolute, or the Self-Beautiful? a problem nowhere solved by Plato.

Different ethical points of view in different Platonic dialogues.

Among the various unsuccessful definitions of temperance propounded, there is more than one which affords farther example to show how differently Plato deals with the same subject in different dialogues. Here we have the phrase — “to do one’s own business” — treated as an unmeaning puzzle, and exhibited as if it were analogous to various other phrases, with which the analogy is more verbal than real. But in the Republic, Plato admits this phrase as well understood, and sets it forth as the constituent element of justice; in the Gorgias, as the leading mark of philosophical life.40

Self-knowledge is here declared to be impossible.

Again, another definition given by Kritias is, That temperance consists in knowing yourself, or in self-knowledge. In commenting upon this definition, Sokrates makes out — first, that self-knowledge is impossible: next, that if possible, it would be useless. You cannot know yourself, he argues: you cannot know what you know, and what you do not know: to say that you know what you know, is either tautological or untrue — to say that you know what you do not know, is a contradiction. All cognition must be cognition of something distinct from yourself: it is a relative term which must have some correlate, and cannot be its own correlate: you cannot have cognition of cognition, still less cognition of non-cognition.

In other dialogues, Sokrates declares self-knowledge to be essential and inestimable. Necessity for the student to have presented to him dissentient points of view.

This is an important point of view, which I shall discuss more at length when I come to the Platonic Theætetus. I bring it to view here only as contrasting with different language held by the Platonic Sokrates in other dialogues; where he insists on the great value and indispensable necessity of self-knowledge, as a preliminary to all other knowledge — upon the duty of eradicating from men’s minds that false persuasion of their own knowledge which they universally cherished168 — and upon the importance of forcing them to know their own ignorance as well as their own knowledge. In the face of this last purpose, so frequently avowed by the Platonic Sokrates (indirectly even in this very dialogue),41 we remark a material discrepancy, when he here proclaims self-knowledge to be impossible. We must judge every dialogue by itself, illustrating it when practicable by comparison with others, but not assuming consistence between them as a postulate à priori. It is a part of Plato’s dramatic and tentative mode of philosophising to work out different ethical points of view, and to have present to his mind one or other of them, with peculiar force in each different dialogue. The subject is thus brought before us on all its sides, and the reader is familiarised with what a dialectician might say, whether capable of being refuted or not. Inconsistency between one dialogue and another is not a fault in the Platonic dialogues of Search; but is, on the contrary, a part of the training process, for any student who is destined to acquire that full mastery of question and answer which Plato regards as the characteristic test of knowledge. It is a puzzle and provocative to the internal meditation of the student.

Courage and Temperance are shown to have no distinct meaning, except as founded on the general cognizance of good and evil.

In analyzing the Lachês, we observed that the definition of courage given by Nikias was shown by Sokrates to have no meaning, except in so far as it coincided with the general knowledge or cognition of good and evil. Here, too, in the Charmidês, we are brought in the last result to the same terminus — the general cognition of good and evil. But Temperance, as previously good and defined, is not comprehended under that cognition, and is therefore pronounced to be unprofitable.

Distinction made between the special sciences and the science of Good and Evil. Without this last, the special sciences are of no use.

This cognition of good and evil — the science of the profitable — is here (in the Charmidês) proclaimed by Sokrates to have a place of its own among the other sciences; and even to be first among them, essentially necessary to supervise and direct them, as it had been declared in Alkibiadês II. Now the same supervising place and directorship had been claimed by 169Kritias for Temperance as he defines it — that is, self-knowledge, or the cognition of our cognitions and non-cognitions. But Sokrates doubts even the reality of such self-knowledge: and granting for argument’s sake that it exists, he still does not see how it can be profitable. For the utmost which its supervision can ensure would be, that each description of work shall be scientifically done, by the skilful man, and not by the unskilful. But it is not true, absolutely speaking (he argues), that acting scientifically or with knowledge is sufficient for well doing or for happiness: for the question must next be asked — Knowledge — of what? Not knowledge of leather-cutting, carpenter’s or brazier’s work, arithmetic, or even medicine: these, and many others, a man may possess, and may act according to them; but still he will not attain the end of being happy. All cognitions contribute in greater or less proportion towards that end: but what contributes most, and most essentially, is the cognition of good and evil, without which all the rest are insufficient. Of this last-mentioned cognition or science, it is the special object to ensure profit or benefit:42 to take care that everything done by the other sciences shall be done well or in a manner conducing towards the end Happiness. After this, there is no province left for temperance — i.e., self-knowledge, or the knowledge of cognitions and non-cognitions: no assignable way in which it can yield any benefit.43

Knowledge, always relative to some object known. Postulate or divination of a Science of Teleology.

Two points are here to be noted, as contained and debated in the handling of this dialogue. 1. Knowledge absolutely, is a word without meaning: all knowledge is relative, and has a definite object or cognitum: there can be no scientia scientiarum. 2. Among the various objects of knowledge (cognita or cognoscenda), one is, good and evil. There is a science of good and evil, the function of which is, to watch over and compare the results of the other sciences, in order to promote results of happiness, and to prevent results of misery: without the supervision of this latter science, the other sciences might be all 170exactly followed out, but no rational comparison could be had between them.44 In other words, there is a science of Ends, estimating the comparative worth of each End in relation to other Ends (Teleology): distinct from those other more special sciences, which study the means each towards a separate End of its own. Here we fall into the same track as we have already indicated in Lachês and Alkibiadês II.

Courage and Temperance, handled both by Plato and by Aristotle. Comparison between the two.

These matters I shall revert to in other dialogues, where we shall find them turned over and canvassed in many different ways. One farther observation remains to be made on the Lachês and Charmidês, discussing as they do Courage (which is also again discussed in the Protagoras) and Temperance. An interesting comparison may be made between them and the third book of the Nikomachean Ethics of Aristotle,45 where the same two subjects are handled in the Aristotelian manner. The direct, didactic, systematising, brevity of Aristotle contrasts remarkably with the indirect and circuitous prolixity, the multiplied suggestive comparisons, the shifting points of view, which we find in Plato. Each has its advantages: and both together will be found not more than sufficient, for any one who is seriously bent on acquiring what Plato calls knowledge, with the cross-examining power included in it. Aristotle is greatly superior to Plato in one important attribute of a philosopher: in the care which he takes to discriminate the different significations of the same word: the univocal and the equivocal, the generically identical from the remotely analogical, the proper from the improper, the literal from the metaphorical. Of such precautions we discover little or no trace in Plato, who sometimes seems not merely to neglect, but even to deride them. Yet Aristotle, assisted as he was by all Plato’s speculations before us, is not to be understood as having superseded the necessity for that negative Elenchus which animates the Platonic dialogues of Search: nor would his affirmative doctrines have held their grounds before a cross-examining Sokrates.

APPENDIX.

The dialogue Charmidês is declared to be spurious, not only by Ast, but also by Socher (Ast, Platon’s Leb. pp. 419-428; Socher, Ueber Platon, pp. 130-137). Steinhart maintains the genuineness of the dialogue against them; declaring (as in regard to the Lachês) that he can hardly conceive how critics can mistake the truly Platonic character of it, though here too, as in the Lachês, he detects “adolescentiæ vestigia” (Steinhart, Einleit. zum Charmidês, pp. 290-293).

Schleiermacher considers Charmidês as well as Lachês to be appendixes to the Protagoras, which opinion both Stallbaum (Proleg. ad Charm, p. 121; Proleg. ad Lachet. p. 30, 2nd ed.) and Steinhart controvert.

The views of Stallbaum respecting the Charmidês are declared by Steinhart (p. 290) to be “recht äusserlich und oberflächlich”. To me they appear much nearer the truth than the profound and recondite meanings, the far-sighted indirect hints, which Steinhart himself perceives or supposes in the words of Plato.

These critics consider the dialogue as composed during the government of the Thirty at Athens, in which opinion I do not concur.

[END OF CHAPTER XIX]

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