PLATO,

CHAPTER XX.

LYSIS.

Analogy between Lysis and Charmidês. Richness of dramatic incident in both. Youthful beauty.

The Lysis, as well as the Charmidês, is a dialogue recounted by Sokrates himself, describing both incidents and a conversation in a crowded Palæstra; wherein not merely bodily exercises were habitually practised, but debate was carried on and intellectual instruction given by a Sophist named Mikkus, companion and admirer of Sokrates. There is a lively dramatic commencement, introducing Sokrates into the Palæstra, and detailing the preparation and scenic arrangements, before the real discussion opens. It is the day of the Hermæa, or festival of Hermes, celebrated by sacrifice and its accompanying banquets among the frequenters of gymnasia.

Scenery and personages of the Lysis.

Lysis, like Charmidês, is an Athenian youth, of conspicuous beauty, modesty, and promise. His father Demokrates represents an ancient family of the Æxonian Deme in Attica, and is said to be descended from Zeus and the daughter of the Archêgetês or Heroic Founder of that Deme. The family moreover are so wealthy, that they have gained many victories at the Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games, both with horses and with chariots and four. Menexenus, companion of Lysis, is somewhat older, and is his affectionate friend. The persons who invite Sokrates into the palæstra, and give occasion to the debate, are Ktesippus and Hippothalês: both of them adults, yet in the vigour of age. Hippothalês is the Erastes of Lysis, passionately attached to him. He is ridiculed by Ktesippus for perpetually talking about Lysis, as well as for addressing to him compositions both in prose and verse, full of praise and 173flattery; extolling not only his personal beauty, but also his splendid ancestry and position.1

Origin of the conversation. Sokrates promises to give an example of the proper way of talking to a youth, for his benefit.

In reference to these addresses, Sokrates remonstrates with Hippothalês on the imprudence and mischief of addressing to a youth flatteries calculated to turn his head. He is himself then invited by Hippothalês to exhibit a specimen of the proper mode of talking to youth; such as shall be at once acceptable to the person addressed, and unobjectionable. Sokrates agrees to do so, if an opportunity be afforded him of conversing with Lysis.2 Accordingly after some well-imagined incidents, interesting as marks of Greek manners — Sokrates and Ktesippus with others seat themselves in the palæstra, amidst a crowd of listeners.3 Lysis, too modest at first to approach, is emboldened to sit down by seeing Menexenus seated by the side of Sokrates: while Hippothalês, not daring to put himself where Lysis can see him, listens, but conceals himself behind some of the crowd. Sokrates begins the conversation with Menexenus and Lysis jointly: but presently Menexenus is called away for a moment, and he talks with Lysis singly.

Conversation of Sokrates with Lysis.

Sokr. — Well — Lysis — your father and mother love you extremely. Lysis. — Assuredly they do. Sokr. — They would wish you therefore to be as happy as possible. Lysis. — Undoubtedly. Sokr. — Do you think any man happy, who is a slave, and who is not allowed to do any thing that he desires? Lysis. — I do not think him happy at all. Sokr. — Since therefore your father and mother are so anxious that you should be happy, they of course allow you to do the things which you desire, and never reprove nor forbid you. Lysis. — Not at all, by Zeus, Sokrates: there are a great many things that they forbid me. Sokr. — How say you! they wish you to be happy — and they hinder you from doing what you wish! Tell me, for example, when one of your father’s chariots is going to run a race, if you wished to mount and take the reins, would not they allow you to do so? Lysis. — No — certainly: they would not allow me. Sokr. — But whom do they allow, then? Lysis. — My father employs a paid charioteer. Sokr. — What! do they permit174 a hireling, in preference to you, to do what he wishes with the horses? and do they give him pay besides for doing so? Lysis. — Why — to be sure. Sokr. — But doubtless, I imagine, they trust the team of mules to your direction; and if you chose to take the whip and flog, they would allow you? Lysis. — Allow me? not at all. Sokr. — What! is no one allowed to flog them? Lysis. — Yes — certainly — the mule-groom. Sokr. — Is he a slave or free? Lysis. — A slave. Sokr. — Then, it seems, they esteem a slave higher than you their son; trusting their property to him rather than to you, letting him do what he pleases, while they forbid you. But tell me farther: do they allow you to direct yourself — or do not they even trust you so far as that? Lysis. — How can you imagine that they trust me? Sokr. — But does any one else direct you? Lysis. — Yes — this tutor here. Sokr. — Is he a slave? Lysis. — To be sure: belonging to our family. Sokr. — That is shocking: one of free birth to be under the direction of a slave! But what is it that he does, as your director? Lysis. — He conducts me to my teacher’s house. Sokr. — What! do they govern you also, these teachers? Lysis. — Undoubtedly they do. Sokr. — Then your father certainly is bent on putting over you plenty of directors and governors. But surely, when you come home to your mother, she at least, anxious that you should be happy as far as she is concerned, lets you do what you please about the wool or the web, when she is weaving: she does not forbid you to meddle with the bodkin or any of the other instruments of her work? Lysis. — Ridiculous! not only does she forbid me, but I should be beaten if I did meddle. Sokr. — How is this, by Heraklês? Have you done any wrong to your father and mother? Lysis. — Never at all, by Zeus. Sokr. — From what provocation is it, then, that they prevent you in this terrible way, from being happy and doing what you wish? keeping you the whole day in servitude to some one, and never your own master? so that you derive no benefit either from the great wealth of the family, which is managed by every one else rather than by you — or from your own body, noble as it is. Even that is consigned to the watch and direction of another: while you, Lysis, are master of nothing, nor can do any one thing of what you desire. Lysis. — The reason is, Sokrates, that I am not yet old enough. Sokr. — That can hardly be the reason; for to a certain extent your father and 175mother do trust you, without waiting for you to grow older. If they want any thing to be written or read for them, they employ you for that purpose in preference to any one in the house: and you are then allowed to write or read first, whichever of the letters you think proper. Again, when you take up the lyre, neither father nor mother hinder you from tightening or relaxing the strings, or striking them either with your finger or with the plectrum. Lysis. — They do not. Sokr. — Why is it, then, that they do not hinder you in this last case, as they did in the cases before mentioned? Lysis. — I suppose it is because I know this last, but did not know the others. Sokr. — Well, my good friend, you see that it is not your increase of years that your father waits for; but on the very day that he becomes convinced that you know better than he, he will entrust both himself and his property to your management. Lysis. — I suppose that he will. Sokr. — Ay — and your neighbour too will judge in the same way as your father. As soon as he is satisfied that you understand house-management better than he does, which do you think he will rather do — confide his house to you, or continue to manage it himself? Lysis. — I think he will confide it to me. Sokr. — The Athenians too: do not you think that they also will put their affairs into your management, as soon as they perceive that you have intelligence adequate to the task? Lysis. — Yes: I do. Sokr. — What do you say about the Great King also, by Zeus! When his meat is being boiled, would he permit his eldest son who is to succeed to the rule of Asia, to throw in any thing that he pleases into the sauce, rather than us, if we come and prove to him that we know better than his son the way of preparing sauce? Lysis. — Clearly, he will rather permit us. Sokr. — The Great King will not let his son throw in even a pinch of salt: while we, if we chose to take up an entire handful, should be allowed to throw it in. Lysis. — No doubt. Sokr. — What if his son has a complaint in his eyes; would the Great King, knowing him to be ignorant of medicine, allow him even to touch his own eyes or would he forbid him? Lysis. — He would forbid him. Sokr. — As to us, on the contrary, if he accounted us good physicians, and if we desired even to open the eyes and drop a powder into them, he would not hinder us, in the conviction that we understood what we were doing. Lysis. — 176You speak truly. Sokr. — All other matters, in short, on which he believed us to be wiser than himself or his son, he would entrust to us rather than to himself or his son? Lysis. — Necessarily so, Sokrates. Sokr. — This is the state of the case, then, my dear Lysis: On those matters on which we shall have become intelligent, all persons will put trust in us — Greeks as well as barbarians, men as well as women. We shall do whatever we please respecting them: no one will be at all inclined to interfere with us on such matters; not only we shall be ourselves free, but we shall have command over others besides. These matters will be really ours, because we shall derive real good from them.4 As to those subjects, on the contrary, on which we shall not have acquired intelligence, no one will trust us to do what we think right: every one, — not merely strangers, but father and mother and nearer relatives if there were any, — will obstruct us as much as they can: we shall be in servitude so far as these subjects are concerned; and they will be really alien to us, for we shall derive no real good from them. Do you admit that this is the case?5 Lysis. — I do admit it. Sokr. — Shall we then be friends to any one, or will any one love us, on those matters on which we are unprofitable Lysis. — Certainly not. Sokr. — You see that neither does your father love you, nor does any man love another, in so far as he is useless? Lysis. — Apparently not. Sokr. — If then you become intelligent, my boy, all persons will be your friends and all persons will be your kinsmen: for you will be useful and good: if you do not, no one will be your friend, — not even your father nor your mother nor your other relatives.

Is it possible then, Lysis, for a man to think highly of himself on those matters on which he does not yet think aright? Lysis. — How can it be possible? Sokr. — If you stand in need of a teacher, you do not yet think aright? Lysis. — True. Sokr. — Accordingly, you are not presumptuous on the score of intelligence, since you are still without intelligence. Lysis. — By Zeus, Sokrates, I think not.6

177 Lysis is humiliated. Distress of Hippothalês.

When I heard Lysis speak thus (continues Sokrates, who is here the narrator), I looked towards Hippothalês and I was on the point of committing a blunder: for it occurred to me to say, That is the way, Hippothalês, to address a youth whom you love: you ought to check and humble him, not puff him up and spoil him, as you have hitherto done. But when I saw him agitated and distressed by what had been said, I called to mind that, though standing close by, he wished not to be seen by Lysis. Accordingly, I restrained myself and said nothing of the kind.7

Lysis entreats Sokrates to talk in the like strain to Menexenus.

Lysis accepts this as a friendly lesson, inculcating humility: and seeing Menexenus just then coming back, he says aside to Sokrates, Talk to Menexenus, as you have been talking to me. You can tell him yourself (replies Sokrates) what you have heard from me: you listened very attentively. Most certainly I shall tell him (says Lysis): but meanwhile pray address to him yourself some other questions, for me to hear. You must engage to help me if I require it (answers Sokrates): for Menexenus is a formidable disputant, scholar of our friend Ktesippus, who is here ready to assist him. I know he is (rejoined Lysis), and it is for that very reason that I want you to talk to him — that you may chasten and punish him.8

Value of the first conversation between Sokrates and Lysis, as an illustration of the Platonico-Sokratic manner.

I have given at length, and almost literally (with some few abbreviations), this first conversation between Sokrates and Lysis, because it is a very characteristic passage, exhibiting conspicuously several peculiar features of the Platonico-Sokratic interrogation. Facts common and familiar are placed in a novel point of view, ingeniously contrasted, and introduced as stepping-stones to a very wide generality. Wisdom or knowledge is exalted into the ruling force with liberty of 178action not admissible except under its guidance: the questions are put in an inverted half-ironical tone (not uncommon with the historical Sokrates9), as if an affirmative answer were expected as a matter of course, while in truth the answer is sure to be negative: lastly, the purpose of checking undue self-esteem is proclaimed. The rest of the dialogue, which contains the main substantive question investigated, I can report only in brief abridgment, with a few remarks following.

Sokrates begins to examine Menexenus respecting friendship. Who is to be called a friend? Halt in the dialogue.

Sokrates begins, as Lysis requests, to interrogate Menexenus — first premising — Different men have different tastes: some love horses and dogs, others wealth or honours. For my part, I care little about all such acquisitions: but I ardently desire to possess friends, and I would rather have a good friend than all the treasures of Persia. You two, Menexenus and Lysis, are much to be envied, because at your early age, each of you has made an attached friend of the other. But I am so far from any such good fortune, that I do not even know how any man becomes the friend of another. This is what I want to ask from you, Menexenus, as one who must know,10 having acquired such a friend already.

When one man loves another, which becomes the friend of which? Does he who loves, become the friend of him whom he loves, whether the latter returns the affection or not? Or is the person loved, whatever be his own dispositions, the friend of the person who loves him? Or is reciprocity of affection necessary, in order that either shall be the friend of the other?

The speakers cannot satisfy themselves that the title of friend fits either of the three cases;11 so that this line of interrogating comes to a dead lock. Menexenus avows his embarrassment, while Lysis expresses himself more hopefully.

Questions addressed to Lysis. Appeal to the maxims of the poets. Like is the friend of like. Canvassed and rejected.

Sokrates now takes up a different aspect of the question, and 179turns to Lysis, inviting him to consider what has been laid down by the poets, “our fathers and guides in respect of wisdom”.12 Homer says that the Gods originate friendship, by bringing the like man to his like: Empedokles and other physical philosophers have also asserted, that like must always and of necessity be the friend of like. These wise teachers cannot mean (continues Sokrates) that bad men are friends of each other. The bad man can be no one’s friend. He is not even like himself, but ever wayward and insane:— much less can he be like to any one else, even to another bad man. They mean that the good alone are like to each other, and friends to each other.13 But is this true? What good, or what harm, can like do to like, which it does not also do to itself? How can there be reciprocal love between parties who render to each other no reciprocal aid? Is not the good man, so far forth as good, sufficient to himself, — standing in need of no one — and therefore loving no one? How can good men care much for each other, seeing that they thus neither regret each other when absent, nor have need of each other when present?14

Other poets declare that likeness is a cause of aversion; unlikeness, of friendship. Reasons pro and con. Rejected.

It appears, therefore, Lysis (continues Sokrates), that we are travelling in the wrong road, and must try another direction. I now remember to have recently heard some one affirming — contrary to what we have just said — that likeness is a cause of aversion, and unlikeness a cause of friendship. He too produced evidence from the poets: for Hesiod tells us, that “potter is jealous of potter, and bard of bard”. Things most alike are most full of envy, jealousy and hatred to each other: things most unlike, are most full of friendship. Thus the poor man is of necessity a friend to the rich, the weak man to the strong, for the sake of protection: the sick man, for similar reason, to the physician. In general, every ignorant man loves, and is a friend to, the man of knowledge. Nay, there are 180also physical philosophers, who assert that this principle pervades all nature; that dry is the friend of moist, cold of hot, and so forth: that all contraries serve as nourishment to their contraries. These are ingenious teachers: but if we follow them, we shall have the cleverest disputants attacking us immediately, and asking — What! is the opposite essentially a friend to its opposite? Do you mean that unjust is essentially the friend of just — temperate of intemperate — good of evil? Impossible: the doctrine cannot be maintained.15

Confusion of Sokrates. He suggests, That the Indifferent (neither good nor evil) is friend to the Good.

My head turns (continues Sokrates) with this confusion and puzzle — since neither like is the friend of like, nor contrary of contrary. But I will now hazard a different guess of my own.16 There are three genera in all: the good — the evil — and that which is neither good nor evil, the indifferent. Now we have found that good is not a friend to good — nor evil to evil — nor good to evil — nor evil to good. If therefore there exist any friendship at all, it must be the indifferent that is friend, either to its like, or to the good: for nothing whatever can be a friend to evil. But if the indifferent be a friend at all, it cannot be a friend to its own like; since we have already shown that like generally is not friend to like. It remains therefore, that the indifferent, in itself neither good nor evil, is friend to the good.17

Suggestion canvassed. If the Indifferent is friend to the Good, it is determined to become so by the contact of felt evil, from which it is anxious to escape.

Yet hold! Are we on the right scent? What reason is there to determine, on the part of the indifferent, attachment to the good? It will only have such attachment under certain given circumstances: when, though neither good nor evil in itself, it has nevertheless evil associated with it, of which it desires to be rid. Thus the body in itself is neither good nor evil: but when diseased, it has evil clinging to it, and becomes in consequence of this evil, friendly to the medical art as a remedy. But this is true only so long as the evil is only apparent, and not real: so long as it is a mere superficial appendage, and has not become incorporated with the 181essential nature of the body. When evil has become engrained, the body ceases to be indifferent (i.e., neither good nor evil), and loses all its attachment to good. Thus that which determines the indifferent to become friend of the good, is, the contact and pressure of accessory evil not in harmony with its own nature, accompanied by a desire for the cure of such evil.18

Principle illustrated by the philosopher. His intermediate condition — not wise, yet painfully feeling his own ignorance.

Under this head comes the explanation of the philosopher — the friend or lover of wisdom. The man already wise is not a lover of wisdom: nor the man thoroughly bad and stupid, with whose nature ignorance is engrained. Like does not love like, nor does contrary love contrary. The philosopher is intermediate between the two: he is not wise, but neither has he yet become radically stupid and unteachable. He has ignorance cleaving to him as an evil, but he knows his own ignorance, and yearns for wisdom as a cure for it.19

Sokrates dissatisfied. He originates a new suggestion. The Primum Amabile, or object originally dear to us, per se: by relation or resemblance to which other objects become dear.

The two young collocutors with Sokrates welcome this explanation heartily, and Sokrates himself appears for the moment satisfied with it. But he presently bethinks himself, and exclaims, Ah! Lysis and Menexenus, our wealth is all a dream! we have been yielding again to delusions! Let us once more examine. You will admit that all friendship is on account of something and for the sake of something: it is relative both to some producing cause, and to some prospective end. Thus the body, which is in itself neither good nor evil, becomes when sick a friend to the medical art: on account of sickness, which is an evil — and for the sake of health, which is a good. The medical art is dear to us, because health is dear: but is there any thing behind, for 182the sake of which health also is dear? It is plain that we cannot push the series of references onward for ever, and that we must come ultimately to something which is dear per se, not from reference to any ulterior aliud. We must come to some primum amabile, dear by its own nature, to which all other dear things refer, and from which they are derivatives.20 It is this primum amabile which is the primitive, essential, and constant, object of our affections: we love other things only from their being associated with it. Thus suppose a father tenderly attached to his son, and that the son has drunk hemlock, for which wine is an antidote; the father will come by association to prize highly, not merely the wine which saves his son’s life, but even the cup in which the wine is contained. Yet it would be wrong to say that he prizes the wine or the cup as much as his son: for the truth is, that all his solicitude is really on behalf of his son, and extends only in a derivative and secondary way to the wine and the cup. So about gold and silver: we talk of prizing highly gold and silver — but this is incorrect, for what we really prize is not gold, but the ulterior something, whatever it be, for the attainment of which gold and other instrumental means are accumulated. In general terms — when we say that B is dear on account of A, we are really speaking of A under the name of B. What is really dear, is that primitive object of love, primum amabile, towards which all the affections which we bear to other things, refer and tend.21

The cause of love is desire. We desire that which is akin to us or our own.

Is it then true (continues Sokrates) that good is our primum amabile, and dear to us in itself? If so, is it dear to us on account of evil? that is, only as a remedy for evil; so that if evil were totally banished, good would cease to be prized? Is it true that evil is the cause why any thing is dear to us?22 This cannot be: because183 even if all evil were banished, the appetites and desires, such of them as were neither good nor evil, would still remain: and the things which gratify those appetites will be dear to us. It is not therefore true that evil is the cause of things being dear to us. We have just found out another cause for loving and being loved — desire. He who desires, loves what he desires and as long as he desires: he desires moreover that of which he is in want, and he is in want of that which has been taken away from him — of his own.23 It is therefore this own which is the appropriate object of desire, friendship, and love. If you two, Lysis and Menexenus, love each other, it is because you are somehow of kindred nature with each other. The lover would not become a lover, unless there were, between him and his beloved, a certain kinship or affinity in mind, disposition, tastes, or form. We love, by necessary law, that which has a natural affinity to us; so that the real and genuine lover may be certain of a return of affection from his beloved.24

Good is of a nature akin to every one, evil is alien to every one. Inconsistency with what has been previously laid down.

But is there any real difference between what is akin and what is like? We must assume that there is: for we showed before, that like was useless to like, and therefore not dear to like. Shall we say that good 184is of a nature akin to every one, and evil of a nature foreign to every one? If so, then there can be no friendship except between one good man and another good man. But this too has been proved to be impossible. All our tentatives have been alike unsuccessful.

Failure of the enquiry. Close of the dialogue.

In this dilemma (continues Sokrates, the narrator) I was about to ask assistance from some of the older men around. But the tutors of Menexenus and Lysis came up to us and insisted on conveying their pupils home — the hour being late. As the youths were departing I said to them — Well, we must close our dialogue with the confession, that we have all three made a ridiculous figure in it: I, an old man, as well as you two youths. Our hearers will go away declaring, that we fancy ourselves to be friends each to the other two; but that we have not yet been able to find out what a friend is.25

Remarks. No positive result. Sokratic purpose in analysing the familiar words — to expose the false persuasion of knowledge.

Thus ends the main discussion of the Lysis: not only without any positive result, but with speakers and hearers more puzzled than they were at the beginning: having been made to feel a great many difficulties which they never felt before. Nor can I perceive any general purpose running through the dialogue, except that truly Sokratic and Platonic purpose — To show, by cross-examination on the commonest words that what every one appears to know, and talks about most confidently, no one really knows or can distinctly explain.26 This is the meaning of the final declaration 185put into the mouth of Sokrates. “We believe ourselves to be each other’s friends, yet we none of us know what a friend is.” The question is one, which no one had ever troubled himself to investigate, or thought it requisite to ask from others. Every one supposed himself to know, and every one had in his memory an aggregate of conceptions and beliefs which he accounted tantamount to knowledge: an aggregate generated by the unconscious addition of a thousand facts and associations, each separately unimportant and often inconsistent with the remainder: while no rational analysis had ever been applied to verify the consistency of this spontaneous product, or to define the familiar words in which it is expressed. The reader is here involved in a cloud of confusion respecting Friendship. No way out of it is shown, and how is he to find one? He must take the matter into his own active and studious meditation: which he has never yet done, though the word is always in his mouth, and though the topic is among the most common and familiar, upon which “the swain treads daily with his clouted shoon“.

Subject of Lysis. Suited for a Dialogue of Search. Manner of Sokrates, multiplying defective explanations, and showing reasons why each is defective.

This was a proper subject for a dialogue of Search. In the dialogue Lysis, Plato describes Sokrates as engaged in one of these searches, handling, testing, and dropping, one point of view after another, respecting the idea and foundation of friendship. He speaks, professedly, as a diviner or guesser; following out obscure promptings which he does not yet understand himself.27 In this character, he suggests several different explanations, not only distinct but inconsistent with each other; each of them true to a certain extent, under certain conditions and circumstances: but each of 186them untrue, when we travel beyond those limits: other contradictory considerations then interfering. To multiply defective explanations, and to indicate why each is defective, is the whole business of the dialogue.

The process of trial and error is better illustrated by a search without result than with result. Usefulness of the dialogue for self-working minds.

Schleiermacher discovers in this dialogue indications of a positive result not plainly enunciated: but he admits that Aristotle did not discover them — nor can I believe them to have been intended by the author.28 But most critics speak slightingly of it, as alike sceptical and sophistical: and some even deny its authenticity on these grounds. Plato might have replied by saying that he intended it as a specimen illustrating the process of search for an unknown quæsitum; and as an exposition of what can be said for, as well as against, many different points of view. The process of trial and error, the most general fact of human intelligence, is even better illustrated when the search is unsuccessful: because when a result is once obtained, most persons care for nothing else and forget the antecedent blunders. To those indeed, who ask only to hear the result as soon as it is found, and who wait for others to look for it — such a dialogue as the Lysis will appear of little value. But to any one who intends to search for it himself, or to study the same problem for himself, the report thus presented of a previous unsuccessful search, is useful both as guidance and warning. Every one of the tentative solutions indicated in the Lysis has something in its favour, yet is nevertheless inadmissible. To learn the grounds which ultimately compel us to reject what at first appears admissible, is instruction not to be despised; at the very least, it helps to preserve us from mistake, and to state the problem in the manner most suitable for obtaining a solution.

Subject of friendship, handled both by the Xenophontic Sokrates, and by Aristotle.

In truth, no one general solution is attainable, such as Plato here professes to search for.29 In one of the three Xenophontic dialogues wherein the subject of friendship187 is discussed we find the real Sokrates presenting it with a juster view of its real complications.30 The same remark may be made upon Aristotle’s manner of handling friendship in the Ethics. He seems plainly to allude to the Lysis (though not mentioning it by name); and to profit by it at least in what he puts out of consideration, if not in what he brings forward.31 He discards the physical and cosmical analogies, which Plato borrows from Empedokles and Herakleitus, as too remote and inapplicable: he considers that the question must be determined by facts and principles relating to human dispositions and conduct. In other ways, he circumscribes the problem, by setting aside (what Plato includes) all objects of attachment which are not capable of reciprocating attachment.32 The problem, as set forth here by Plato, is conceived in great generality. In what manner does one man become the friend of another?33 How does a man become the object 188of friendship or love from another? What is that object towards which our love or friendship is determined? These terms are so large, that they include everything belonging to the Tender Emotion generally.34

Debate in the Lysis partly verbal, partly real. Assumptions made by the Platonic Sokrates, questionable, such as the real Sokrates would have found reason for challenging.

The debate in the Lysis is partly verbal: i.e., respecting the word φίλος, whether it means the person loving, or the person loved, or whether it shall be confined to those cases in which the love is reciprocal, and then applied to both. Herein the question is about the meaning of words — a word and nothing more. The following portions of the dialogue enter upon questions not verbal but real — “Whether we are disposed to love what is like to ourselves, or what is unlike or opposite to ourselves?” Though both these are occasionally true, it is shown that as general explanations neither of them will hold. But this is shown by means of the following assumptions, which not only those whom Plato here calls the “very clever Disputants,”35 but Sokrates himself at other times, would have called in question, viz.: “That bad men cannot be friends to each other — that men like to each 189other (therefore good men as well as bad) can be of no use to each other, and therefore there can be no basis of friendship between them — that the good man is self-sufficing, stands in need of no one, and therefore will not love any one.”36 All these assumptions Sokrates would have found sufficient reason for challenging, if they had been advanced by Protagoras or any other opponents. They stand here as affirmed by him; but here, as elsewhere in Plato, the reader must apply his own critical intellect, and test what he reads for himself.

Peculiar theory about friendship broached by Sokrates. Persons neither good nor evil by nature, yet having a superficial tinge of evil, and desiring good to escape from it.

It is thus shown, or supposed to be shown, that the persons who love are neither the Good, nor the Bad: and that the objects loved, are neither things or persons similar, nor opposite, to the persons loving. Sokrates now adverts to the existence of a third category — Persons who are neither good, nor bad, but intermediate between the two — Objects which are intermediate between likeness and opposition. He announces as his own conjecture,37 that the Subject of friendly or loving feeling, is, that which is neither good nor evil: the Object of the feeling, Good: and the cause of the feeling, the superficial presence of evil, which the subject desires to see removed.38 The evil must be present in a superficial and removable manner — like whiteness in the hair caused by white paint, not by the grey colour of old age. Sokrates applies this to the state of mind of the philosopher, or lover of knowledge: who is not yet either thoroughly good or thoroughly bad, — either thoroughly wise or thoroughly unwise — but in a state intermediate between the two: ignorant, yet conscious of his own ignorance, and feeling it as a misfortune which he was anxious to shake off.39

190 This general theory illustrated by the case of the philosopher or lover of wisdom. Painful consciousness of ignorance the attribute of the philosopher. Value set by Sokrates and Plato upon this attribute.

This meaning of philosophy, though it is not always and consistently maintained throughout the Platonic writings, is important as expanding and bringing into system the position laid down by Sokrates in the Apology. He there disclaimed all pretensions to wisdom, but he announced himself as a philosopher, in the above literal sense: that is, as ignorant, yet as painfully conscious of his own ignorance, and anxiously searching for wisdom as a corrective to it: while most men were equally ignorant, but were unconscious of their own ignorance, believed themselves to be already wise, and delivered confident opinions without ever having analysed the matters on which they spoke. The conversation of Sokrates (as I have before remarked) was intended, not to teach wisdom, but to raise men out of this false persuasion of wisdom, which he believed to be the natural state of the human mind, into that mental condition which he called philosophy. His Elenchus made them conscious of their ignorance, anxious to escape from it, and prepared for mental efforts in search of knowledge: in which search Sokrates assisted them, but without declaring, and even professing inability to declare, where that truth lay in which the search was to end. He considered that this change was in itself a great and serious improvement, converting what was evil, radical, and engrained — into evil superficial and removable; which was a preliminary condition to any positive acquirement. The first thing to be done was to create searchers after truth, men who would look at the subject for themselves with earnest attention, and make up their own individual convictions. Even if nothing ulterior were achieved, that alone would be a great deal. Such was the scope of the Sokratic conversation; and such the conception of philosophy (the capital peculiarity which Plato borrowed from Sokrates), which is briefly noted in this passage of the Lysis, and developed in other Platonic dialogues, especially in the Symposion,40 which we shall reach presently.

Another theory of Sokrates. The Primum Amabile, or original and primary object of Love. Particular objects are loved through association with this. The object is, Good.

Still, however, Sokrates is not fully satisfied with this hypothesis,191 but passes on to another. If we love anything, we must love it (he says) for the sake of something. This implies that there must exist, in the background, a something which is the primitive and real object of affection. The various things which we actually love, are not loved for their own sake, but for the sake of this primum amabile, and as shadows projected by it: just as a man who loves his son, comes to love by association what is salutary or comforting to his son — or as he loves money for the sake of what money will purchase. The primum amabile, in the view of Sokrates, is Good; particular things loved, are loved as shadows of good.

Statement by Plato of the general law of mental association.

This is a doctrine which we shall find reproduced in other dialogues. We note with interest here, that it appears illustrated, by a statement of the general law of mental association — the calling up of one idea by other ideas or by sensations, and the transference of affections from one object to others which have been apprehended in conjunction with it, either as antecedents or consequents. Plato states this law clearly in the Phædon and elsewhere:41 but he here conceives it imperfectly: for he seems to believe that, if an affection be transferred by association from a primitive object A, to other objects, B, C, D, &c., A always continues to be the only real object of affection, while B, C, D, &c., operate upon the mind merely by carrying it back to A. The affection towards B, C, D, &c., therefore is, in the view of Plato, only the affection for A under other denominations and disguises.42 Now this is doubtless often the case; but often also, perhaps even more generally, it is not the case. After a certain length of repetition and habit, all conscious reference to the primitive object of affection will commonly be left out, and the affection towards the secondary object will become a feeling both substantive and immediate. What was originally loved as means, for the sake of an ulterior end, will in time come to be loved as 192an end for itself; and to constitute a new centre of force, from whence derivatives may branch out. It may even come to be loved more vehemently than any primitive object of affection, if it chance to accumulate in itself derivative influences from many of those objects.43 This remark naturally presents itself, when we meet here for the first time, distinctly stated by Plato, the important psychological doctrine of the transference of affections by association from one object to others.

Theory of the Primum Amabile, here introduced by Sokrates, with numerous derivative objects of love. Platonic Idea. Generic communion of Aristotle, distinguished by him from the feebler analogical communion.

The primum amabile, here introduced by Sokrates, is described in restricted terms, as valuable merely to correct evil, and as having no value per se, if evil were assumed not to exist. In consequence chiefly of this restriction, Sokrates discards it as unsatisfactory. Such restriction, however, is noway essential to the doctrine: which approaches to, but is not coincident with, the Ideal Good or Idea of Good, described in other dialogues as what every one yearns after and aspires to, though without ever attaining it and without even knowing what it is.44 The Platonic Idea was conceived as a substantive, intelligible, Ens, distinct in its nature from all the particulars bearing the same name, and separated from them all by a gulf which admitted no gradations of nearer and farther — yet communicating itself to, or partaken by, all of them, in some inexplicable way. Aristotle combated this doctrine, denying the separate reality of the Idea, and admitting only a common generic essence, dwelling in and pervading the particulars, but pervading them all equally. The general word connoting this generic unity was said by Aristotle (retaining the Platonic phraseology) to be λεγόμενον κατὰ μίαν ἰδέαν or καθ’ ἕν.

But apart from and beyond such generic unity, which implied a common essence belonging to all, Aristotle recognised a looser, more imperfect, yet more extensive, communion, founded upon 193common relationship towards some Ἀρχὴ — First Principle or First Object. Such relationship was not always the same in kind: it might be either resemblance, concomitance, antecedence or consequence, &c.: it might also be different in degree, closer or more remote, direct or indirect. Here, then, there was room for graduation, or ordination of objects as former and latter, first, second, third, &c., according as, when compared with each other, they were more or less related to the common root. This imperfect communion was designated by Aristotle under the title κατ’ ἀναλογίαν, as contrasted with κατὰ γένος: the predicate which affirmed it was said to be applied, not κατὰ μίαν ἰδέαν or καθ’ ἕν, but πρὸς μίαν φύσιν or πρὸς ἕν:45 it was affirmed neither entirely συνωνύμως (which would imply generic communion), nor entirely ὁμωνύμως (which would be casual and imply no communion at all), but midway between the two, so as to admit of a graduated communion, and an arrangement as former and later, first cousin, or second, third cousin. Members 194of the same Genus were considered to be brothers, all on a par: but wherever there was this graduated cousinship or communion (signified by the words Former and Later, more or less in degree of relationship), Aristotle did not admit a common Genus, nor did Plato admit a Substantive Idea.46

Primum Amabile of Plato, compared with the Prima Amicitia of Aristotle. Each of them is head of an analogical aggregate, not member of a generic family.

Now the Πρῶτον φίλον or Primum Amabile which we find in the Lysis, is described as the principium or initial root of one of these imperfectly united aggregates; ramifying into many branches more or less distant, in obedience to one or other of the different laws of association. Aristotle expresses the same idea in another form of words: instead of a Primum Amabile, he gives us a Prima Amicitia — affirming that the diversities of friendship are not species comprehended under the same genus, but gradations or degeneracies departing in one direction or other from the First or pure Friendship. The Primum Amabile, in Plato’s view, appears to be the Good, though he does not explicitly declare it: the Prima Amicitia, with Aristotle, is friendship subsisting between two good persons, who have had sufficient experience to know, esteem, and trust, each other.47

The Good and Beautiful, considered as objects of attachment.

In regard to the Platonic Lysis, I have already observed that no positive result can be found in it, and that all the hypotheses broached are successively negatived. What is kept before the reader’s mind, however, more than anything else, though not embodied in any distinct formula, is — The Good and the Beautiful considered as objects of love or attachment.

[END OF CHAPTER XX]

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