PLATO,

CHAPTER XXII.

MENON.

Persons of the Dialogue.

This dialogue is carried on between Sokrates and Menon, a man of noble family, wealth, and political influence, in the Thessalian city of Larissa. He is supposed to have previously frequented, in his native city, the lectures and society of the rhetor Gorgias.1 The name and general features of Menon are probably borrowed from the Thessalian military officer, who commanded a division of the Ten Thousand Greeks, and whose character Xenophon depicts in the Anabasis: but there is nothing in the Platonic dialogue to mark that meanness and perfidy which the Xenophontic picture indicates. The conversation between Sokrates and Menon is interrupted by two episodes: in the first of these, Sokrates questions an unlettered youth, the slave of Menon: in the second, he is brought into conflict with Anytus, the historical accuser of the historical Sokrates.

The dialogue is begun by Menon, in a manner quite as abrupt as the Hipparchus and Minos:

Question put by Menon — Is virtue teachable? Sokrates confesses that he does not know what virtue is. Surprise of Menon.

Menon. — Can you tell me, Sokrates, whether virtue is teachable — or acquirable by exercise — or whether it comes by nature — or in what other manner it comes? Sokr. — I cannot answer your question. I am ashamed to say that I do not even know what virtue is: and when I do not know what a thing is, how can I know any thing about its attributes or accessories? A man who does not know, Menon, cannot tell whether he is handsome, rich, &c., or the contrary. Menon. — Certainly233 not. But is it really true, Sokrates, that you do not know what virtue is? Am I to proclaim this respecting you, when I go home?2 Sokr. — Yes — undoubtedly: and proclaim besides that I have never yet met with any one who did know. Menon. — What! have you not seen Gorgias at Athens, and did not he appear to you to know? Sokr. — I have met him, but I do not quite recollect what he said. We need not consider what he said, since he is not here to answer for himself.3 But you doubtless recollect, and can tell me, both from yourself, and from him, what virtue is? Menon. — There is no difficulty in telling you.4

Sokrates stands alone in this confession. Unpopularity entailed by it.

Many commentators here speak as if such disclaimer on the part of Sokrates had reference merely to certain impudent pretensions to universal knowledge on the part of the Sophists. But this (as I have before remarked) is a misconception of the Sokratic or Platonic point of view. The matter which Sokrates proclaims that he does not know, is, what, not Sophists alone, but every one else also, professes to know well. Sokrates stands alone in avowing that he does not know it, and that he can find no one else who knows. Menon treats the question as one of no difficulty — one on which confessed ignorance was discreditable. “What!“ says Menon, “am I really to state respecting you, that you do not know what virtue is?” The man who makes such a confession will be looked upon by his neighbours with surprise and displeasure — not to speak of probable consequences yet worse. He is one whom the multifarious agencies employed by King Nomos (which we shall find described more at length in the Protagoras) have failed to mould into perfect and uninquiring conformity, and he is still in process of examination to form a judgment for himself.

Answer of Menon — plurality of virtues, one belonging to each different class and condition. Sokrates enquires for the property common to all of them.

Menon proceeds to answer that there are many virtues: the virtue of a man — competence to transact the business of the city, and in such business to benefit his friends 234and injure his enemies: the virtue of a woman — to administer the house well, preserving every thing within it and obeying her husband: the virtue of a child, of an old man, a slave, &c. There is in short a virtue — and its contrary, a vice — belonging to each of us in every work, profession, and age.5

But (replies Sokrates) are they not all the same, quatenus virtue? Health, quatenus Health, is the same in a man or a woman: is not the case similar with virtue? Menon. — Not exactly similar. Sokr. — How so? Though there are many diverse virtues, have not all of them one and the same form in common, through the communion of which they are virtues? In answer to my question, you ought to declare what this common form is. Thus, both the man who administers the city, and the woman who administers the house, must act both of them with justice and moderation. Through the same qualities, both the one and the other are good. There is thus some common constituent: tell me what it is, according to you and Gorgias? Menon. — It is to be competent to exercise command over men.6 Sokr. — But that will not suit for the virtue of a child or a slave. Moreover, must we not superadd the condition, to command justly, and not unjustly? Menon. — I think so: justice is virtue. Sokr. — Is it virtue — or is it one particular variety of virtue?7 Menon. — How do you mean? Sokr. — Just as if I were to say about roundness, that it is not figure, but a particular variety of figure: because there are other figures besides roundness. Menon. — Very true: I say too, that there are other virtues besides justice — namely, courage, moderation, wisdom, magnanimity, and several others also. Sokr. — We are thus still in the same predicament. In looking for one virtue, we have found many; but we cannot find that one form which runs through them all. Menon. — I cannot at present tell what that one is.8

235 Analogous cases cited — definitions of figure and colour.

Sokrates proceeds to illustrate his meaning by the analogies of figure and colour. You call round a figure, and square a figure: you call white and black both colour, the one as much as the other, though they are unlike and even opposite.9 Tell me, What is this same common figure and property in both, which makes you call both of them figure — both of them colour? Take this as a preliminary exercise, in order to help you in answering my enquiry about virtue.10 Menon cannot answer, and Sokrates answers his own question. He gives a general definition, first of figure, next of colour. He first defines figure in a way which implies colour to be known. This is pointed out; and he then admits that in a good definition, suitable to genuine dialectical investigation, nothing should be implied as known, except what the respondent admits himself to know. Figure and colour are both defined suitably to this condition.11

Importance at that time of bringing into conscious view, logical subordination and distinctions — Neither logic nor grammar had then been cast into system.

All this preliminary matter seems to be intended for the purpose of getting the question clearly conceived as a general question — of exhibiting and eliminating the narrow and partial conceptions which unconsciously substitute themselves in the mind, in place of that which ought to be conceived as a generic whole — and of clearing up what is required in a good definition. A generic whole, including various specific portions distinguishable from each other, was at that time little understood by any one. There existed no grammar, nor any rules of logic founded on analysis of the intellectual processes. To predicate of the genus what was true only of the species — to predicate as distinctively characterizing the species, what is true of the whole genus in which it is contained — to lose the integrity of the genus in its separate parcels or fragments12 — these were errors which men had never yet been expressly taught to avoid. To assign the one common meaning, constituent of or connoted by a generic term, 236had never yet been put before them as a problem. Such preliminary clearing of the ground is instructive even now, when formal and systematic logic has become more or less familiar: but in the time of Plato, it must have been indispensably required, to arrive at a full conception of any general question.13

Definition of virtue given by Menon: Sokrates pulls it to pieces.

Menon having been thus made to understand the formal requisites for a definition, gives as his definition of virtue the phrase of some lyric poet — “To delight in, or desire, things beautiful, fine, honourable — and to have the power of getting them“. But Sokrates remarks that honourable things are good things, and that every one without exception desires good. No one desires evil except when he mistakes it for good. On this point all men are alike; the distinctive feature of virtue must then consist in the second half of the definition — in the power of acquiring good things, such as health, wealth, money, power, dignities, &c.14 But the acquisition of these things is not virtuous, unless it be made consistently with justice and moderation: moreover the man who acts justly is virtuous, even though he does not acquire them. It appears then that every agent who acts with justice 237and moderation is virtuous. But this is nugatory as a definition of virtue: for justice and moderation are only known as parts of virtue, and require to be themselves defined. No man can know what a part of virtue is, unless he knows what virtue itself is.15 Menon must look for a better definition, including nothing but what is already known or admitted.

Menon complains that the conversation of Sokrates confounds him like an electric shock — Sokrates replies that he is himself in the same state of confusion and ignorance. He urges continuance of search by both.

Menon. — Your conversation, Sokrates, produces the effect of the shock of the torpedo: you stun and confound me: you throw me into inextricable perplexity, so that I can make no answer. I have often discoursed copiously — and, as I thought, effectively — upon virtue; but now you have shown that I do not even know what virtue is. Sokr. — If I throw you into perplexity, it is only because I am myself in the like perplexity and ignorance. I do not know what virtue is, any more than you: and I shall be glad to continue the search for finding it, if you will assist me.

But how is the process of search available to any purpose? No man searches for what he already knows: and for what he does not know, it is useless to search, for he cannot tell when he has found it.

Menon. — But how are you to search for that of which you are altogether ignorant? Even if you do find it, how can you ever know that you have found it? Sokr. — You are now introducing a troublesome doctrine, laid down by those who are averse to the labour of thought. They tell us that a man cannot search either for what he knows, or for what he does not know. For the former, research is superfluous: for the latter it is unprofitable and purposeless, since the searcher does not know what he is looking for.

Theory of reminiscence propounded by Sokrates — anterior immortality of the soul — what is called teaching is the revival and recognition of knowledge acquired in a former life, but forgotten.

I do not believe this doctrine (continues Sokrates). Priests, priestesses, and poets (Pindar among them) tell us, that the mind of man is immortal and has existed throughout all past time, in conjunction with successive bodies; alternately abandoning one body, or dying — and taking up new life or reviving in another body. In this perpetual succession of existences, it has seen every thing, — both here and in Hades and everywhere else — and has learnt every thing. But though thus omniscient, it has forgotten the larger portion of its knowledge. Yet what has 238been thus forgotten may again be revived. What we call learning, is such revival. It is reminiscence of something which the mind had seen in a former state of existence, and knew, but had forgotten. Since then all the parts of nature are analogous, or cognate — and since the mind has gone through and learnt them all — we cannot wonder that the revival of any one part should put it upon the track of recovering for itself all the rest, both about virtue and about every thing else, if a man will only persevere in intent meditation. All research and all learning is thus nothing but reminiscence. In our researches, we are not looking for what we do not know: we are looking for what we do know, but have forgotten. There is therefore ample motive, and ample remuneration, for prosecuting enquiries: and your doctrine which pronounces them to be unprofitable, is incorrect.16

Illustration of this theory — knowledge may be revived by skilful questions in the mind of a man thoroughly untaught. Sokrates questions the slave of Menon.

Sokrates proceeds to illustrate the position, just laid down, by cross-examining Menon’s youthful slave, who, though wholly untaught and having never heard any mention of geometry, is brought by a proper series of questions to give answers out of his own mind, furnishing the solution of a geometrical problem. The first part of the examination brings him to a perception of the difficulty, and makes him feel a painful perplexity, from which he desires to obtain relief:17 the second part guides his mind in the efforts necessary for fishing up a solution out of its own pre-existing, but forgotten, stores. True opinions, which he had long had within him without knowing it, are awakened by interrogation, and become cognitions. From the fact that the mind thus 239possesses the truth of things which it has not acquired in this life, Sokrates infers that it must have gone through a pre-existence of indefinite duration, or must be immortal.18

Enquiry taken up — Whether virtue is teachable? without determining what virtue is.

The former topic of enquiry is now resumed: but at the instance of Menon, the question taken up, is not — “What is virtue?” but — “Is virtue teachable or not?” Sokrates, after renewing his objection against the inversion of philosophical order by discussing the second question without having determined the first, enters upon the discussion hypothetically, assuming as a postulate, that nothing can be taught except knowledge. The question then stands thus — “Is virtue knowledge?“ If it be, it can be taught: if not, it cannot be taught.19

Virtue is knowledge — no possessions, no attributes, either of mind or body, are good or profitable, except under the guidance of knowledge.

Sokrates proceeds to prove that virtue is knowledge, or a mode of knowledge. Virtue is good: all good things are profitable. But none of the things accounted good are profitable, unless they be rightly employed; that is, employed with knowledge or intelligence. This is true not only of health, wealth, beauty, strength, power, &c., but also of the mental attributes justice, moderation, courage, quick apprehension, &c. All of these are profitable, and therefore good, if brought into action under knowledge or right intelligence; none of them are profitable or good, without this condition — which is therefore the distinctive constituent of virtue.20

Virtue, therefore, being knowledge or a mode of knowledge, cannot come by nature, but must be teachable.

Virtue, as being knowledge, must be teachable. Yet there are opposing reasons, showing that it cannot be teachable. No teachers of it can be found.

Yet again there are other contrary reasons (he proceeds) which prove that it cannot be teachable. For if it were so, there would be distinct and assignable teachers and learners of it, and the times and places could be pointed out where it is taught and learnt. We see that this is the case with all arts and professions. But in regard to virtue, there are neither recognised teachers, nor learners, nor years of learning. The Sophists pretend to be teachers of it, but are not:21 240the leading and esteemed citizens of the community do not pretend to be teachers of it, and are indeed incompetent to teach it even to their own sons — as the character of those sons sufficiently proves.22

Conversation of Sokrates with Anytus, who detests the Sophists, and affirms that any one of the leading politicians can teach virtue.

Here, a new speaker is introduced into the dialogue — Anytus, one of the accusers of Sokrates before the Dikastery. The conversation is carried on for some time between Sokrates and him. Anytus denies altogether that the Sophists are teachers of virtue, and even denounces them with bitter contempt and wrath. But he maintains that the leading and esteemed citizens of the state do really teach it. Anytus however presently breaks off in a tone of displeasure and menace towards Sokrates himself.23 The conversation is then renewed with Menon, and it is shown that the leading politicians cannot be considered as teachers of virtue, any more than the Sophists. There exist no teachers of it; and therefore we must conclude that it is not teachable.

Confused state of the discussion. No way of acquiring virtue is shown.

The state of the discussion as it stands now, is represented by two hypothetical syllogisms, as follows:

1. If virtue is knowledge, it is teachable:
But virtue is knowledge:
Therefore virtue is teachable.

2. If virtue is knowledge, it is teachable:
But virtue is not teachable:
Therefore virtue is not knowledge.

The premisses of each of these two syllogisms contradict the conclusion of the other. Both cannot be true. If virtue is not acquired by teaching and does not come by nature, how are there any virtuous men?

Sokrates modifies his premisses — knowledge is not the only thing which guides to good results — right opinion will do the same.

Sokrates continues his argument: The second premiss of the first syllogism — that virtue is knowledge — is true, but not the whole truth. In proving it we assumed that 241there was nothing except knowledge which guided us to useful and profitable consequences. But this assumption will not hold. There is something else besides knowledge, which also guides us to the same useful results. That something is right opinion, which is quite different from knowledge. The man who holds right opinions is just as profitable to us, and guides us quite as well to right actions, as if he knew. Right opinions, so long as they stay in the mind, are as good as knowledge, for the purpose of guidance in practice. But the difference is, that they are evanescent and will not stay in the mind: while knowledge is permanent and ineffaceable. They are exalted into knowledge, when bound in the mind by a chain of causal reasoning:24 that is, by the process of reminiscence, before described.

Right opinion cannot be relied on for staying in the mind, and can never give rational explanations, nor teach others — good practical statesmen receive right opinion by inspiration from the Gods.

Virtue then (continues Sokrates) — that which constitutes the virtuous character and the permanent, trustworthy, useful guide — consists in knowledge. But there is also right opinion, a sort of quasi-knowledge, which produces in practice effects as good as knowledge, only that it is not deeply or permanently fixed in the mind.25 It is this right opinion, or quasi-knowledge, which esteemed and distinguished citizens possess, and by means of which they render useful service to the city. That they do not possess knowledge, is certain; for if they did, they would be able to teach it to others, and especially to their own sons: and this it has been shown that they cannot do.26 They deliver true opinions and predictions, and excellent advice, like prophets and oracular ministers, by divine inspiration and possession, without knowledge or wisdom of their own. They are divine and inspired persons, but not wise or knowing.27

242 All the real virtue that there is, is communicated by special inspiration from the Gods.

And thus (concludes Sokrates) the answer to the question originally started by Menon — “Whether virtue is teachable?“ — is as follows. Virtue in its highest sense, in which it is equivalent to or coincident with knowledge, is teachable: but no such virtue exists. That which exists in the most distinguished citizens under the name of virtue, — or at least producing the results of virtue in practice — is not teachable. Nor does it come by nature, but by special inspiration from the Gods. The best statesmen now existing cannot make any other person like themselves: if any one of them could do this, he would be, in comparison with the rest, like a real thing compared with a shadow.28

But what virtue itself is, remains unknown.

Nevertheless the question which we have just discussed — “How virtue arises or is generated?“ — must be regarded as secondary and dependent, not capable of being clearly understood until the primary and principal question — “What is virtue?” — has been investigated and brought to a solution.29

Remarks on the dialogue. Proper order for examining the different topics, is pointed out by Sokrates.

This last observation is repeated by Sokrates at the end — as it had been stated at the beginning, and in more than one place during the continuance — of the dialogue. In fact, Sokrates seems at first resolved to enforce the natural and necessary priority of the latter question: but is induced by the solicitation of Menon to invert the order.30

Mischief of debating ulterior and secondary questions when the fundamental notions and word are unsettled.

The propriety of the order marked out, but not pursued, by Sokrates is indisputable. Before you can enquire how virtue is generated or communicated, you must be satisfied that you know what virtue is. You must know the essence of the subject — or those predicates which the word connotes ( = the meaning of the term) before you investigate its accidents and antecedents.31 Menon begins by being satisfied that he knows what 243virtue is: so satisfied, that he accounts it discreditable for a man not to know: although he is made to answer like one who has never thought upon the subject, and does not even understand the question. Sokrates, on the other hand, not only confesses that he does not himself know, but asserts that he never yet met with a man who did know. One of the most important lessons in this, as in so many other Platonic dialogues, is the mischief of proceeding to debate ulterior and secondary questions, without having settled the fundamental words and notions: the false persuasion of knowledge, common to almost every one, respecting these familiar ethical and social ideas. Menon represents the common state of mind. He begins with the false persuasion that he as well as every one else knows what virtue is: and even when he is proved to be ignorant, he still feels no interest in the fundamental enquiry, but turns aside to his original object of curiosity — “Whether virtue is teachable“. Nothing can be more repugnant to an ordinary mind than the thorough sifting of deep-seated, long familiarised, notions — τὸ γὰρ ὀρθοῦσθαι γνώμαν, ὀδυνᾷ.

Doctrine of Sokrates in the Menon — desire of good alleged to be universally felt — in what sense this is true.

The confession of Sokrates that neither he nor any other person in his experience knows what virtue is — that it must be made a subject of special and deliberate investigation — and that no man can know what justice, or any other part of virtue is, unless he first knows what virtue as a whole is32 — are matters to be kept in mind also, as contrasting with other portions of the Platonic dialogues, wherein virtue, justice, &c., are tacitly assumed (according to the received habit) as matters known and understood. The contributions which we obtain from the Menon towards finding out the Platonic notion of virtue, are negative rather than positive. The comments of Sokrates upon Menon’s first definition include the doctrine often announced in Plato — That no man by nature desires suffering or evil; every man desires good: if 244he seeks or pursues suffering or evil, he does so merely from error or ignorance, mistaking it for good.33 This is true, undoubtedly, if we mean what is good or evil for himself: and if by good or evil we mean (according to the doctrine enforced by Sokrates in the Protagoras) the result of items of pleasure and pain, rightly estimated and compared by the Measuring Reason. Every man naturally desires pleasure, and the means of acquiring pleasure, for himself: every man naturally shrinks from pain, or the causes of pain, to himself: every one compares and measures the items of each with more or less wisdom and impartiality. But the proposition is not true, if we mean what is good or evil for others: and if by good we mean (as Sokrates is made to declare in the Gorgias) something apart from pleasure, and by evil something apart from pain (understanding pleasure and pain in their largest sense). A man sometimes desires what is good for others, sometimes what is evil for others, as the case may be. Plato’s observation therefore cannot be admitted — That as to the wish or desire, all men are alike: one man is no better than another.34

Sokrates requires knowledge as the principal condition of virtue, but does not determine knowledge, of what?

The second portion of Plato’s theory, advanced to explain what virtue is, presents nothing more satisfactory. Virtue is useful or profitable: but neither health, strength, beauty, wealth, power, &c., are profitable, unless rightly used: nor are justice, moderation, courage, quick apprehension, good memory, &c., profitable, unless they are accompanied and guided by knowledge or prudence.35 Now if by profitable we have reference not to the individual agent alone, but to other persons concerned also, the proposition is true, but not instructive or distinct. For what is meant by right use? To what ends are the gifts here enumerated to be turned, in order to constitute right use? What again is meant by knowledge? knowledge of what?36 This is a question put by Sokrates in many other dialogues, and necessary to be put here also. Moreover, knowledge is a term which requires to be determined, not merely to some assignable object, but also in its general import, 245no less than virtue. We shall come presently to an elaborate dialogue (Theætêtus) in which Plato makes many attempts to determine knowledge generally, but ends in a confessed failure. Knowledge must be knowledge possessed by some one, and must be knowledge of something. What is it, that a man must know, in order that his justice or courage may become profitable? Is it pleasures and pains, with their causes, and the comparative magnitude of each (as Sokrates declares in the Protagoras), in order that he may contribute to diminish the sum of pains, increase that of pleasures, to himself or to the society? If this be what he is required to know, Plato should have said so — or if not, what else — in order that the requirement of knowledge might be made an intelligible condition.

Subject of Menon; same as that of the Protagoras — diversity of handling — Plato is not anxious to settle a question and get rid of it.

Though the subject of direct debate in the Menon is the same as that in the Protagoras (whether virtue be teachable?) yet the manner of treating this subject is very different in the two. One point of difference between the two has been just noticed. Another difference is, that whereas in Menon the teachability of virtue is assumed to be disproved, because there are no recognised teachers or learners of it — in the Protagoras this argument is produced by Sokrates, but is combated at length (as we shall presently see) by a counter-argument on the part of the Sophists, without any rejoinder from Sokrates. Of this counter-argument no notice is taken in the Menon: although, if it be well-founded, it would have served Anytus no less than Protagoras, as a solution of the difficulties raised by Sokrates. Such diversity of handling and argumentative fertility, are characteristic of the Platonic procedure. I have already remarked, that the establishment of positive conclusions, capable of being severed from their premisses, registered in the memory, and used as principles for deduction — is foreign to the spirit of these Dialogues of Search. To settle a question and finish with it — to get rid of the debate, as if it were a troublesome temporary necessity — is not what Plato desires. His purpose is, to provoke the spirit of enquiry — to stimulate responsive efforts of the mind by a painful shock of exposed ignorance — and to open before it a multiplicity of new roads with varied points of view.

246 Anxiety of Plato to keep up and enforce the spirit of research.

Nowhere in the Platonic writings is this provocative shock more vividly illustrated than in the Menon, by the simile of the electrical fish: a simile as striking as that of the magnet in Ion.37 Nowhere, again, is the true character of the Sokratic intellect more clearly enunciated. “You complain, Menon, that I plunge your mind into nothing but doubt, and puzzle, and conscious ignorance. If I do this, it is only because my own mind is already in that same condition.38 The only way out of it is, through joint dialectical colloquy and search; in which I invite you to accompany me, though I do not know when or where it will end.” And then, for the purpose of justifying as well as encouraging such prolonged search, Sokrates proceeds to unfold his remarkable hypothesis — eternal pre-existence, boundless past experience, and omniscience, of the mind — identity of cognition with recognition, dependent on reminiscence. “Research or enquiry (said some) is fruitless. You must search either for that which you know, or for that which you do not know. The first is superfluous — the second impossible: for if you do not know what a thing is, how are you to be satisfied that the answer which you find is that which you are looking for? How can you distinguish a true solution from another which is untrue, but plausible?”

Great question discussed among the Grecian philosophers — criterion of truth — Wherein consists the process of verification?

Here we find explicitly raised, for the first time, that difficulty which embarrassed the different philosophical schools in Greece for the subsequent three centuries — What is the criterion of truth? Wherein consists the process called verification and proof, of that which is first presented as an hypothesis? This was one of the great problems debated between the Academics, the Stoics, and the Sceptics, until the extinction of the schools of philosophy.39

247 None of the philosophers were satisfied with the answer here made by Plato — that verification consists in appeal to pre-natal experience.

Not one of these schools was satisfied with the very peculiar answer which the Platonic Sokrates here gives to the question. When truth is presented to us (he intimates), we recognise it as an old friend after a long absence. We know it by reason of its conformity to our antecedent, pre-natal, experience (in the Phædon, such pre-natal experience is restricted to commerce with the substantial, intelligible, Ideas, which are not mentioned in the Menon): the soul or mind is immortal, has gone through an indefinite succession of temporary lives prior to the present, and will go through an indefinite succession of temporary lives posterior to the present — “longæ, canitis si cognita, vitæ Mors media est“. The mind has thus become omniscient, having seen, heard, and learnt every thing, both on earth and in Hades: but such knowledge exists as a confused and unavailable mass, having been buried and forgotten on the commencement of its actual life.

Since all nature is in universal kindred, communion, or interdependence, that which we hear or see here, recalls to the memory, by association, portions of our prior forgotten omniscience.24840 It is in this recall or reminiscence that search, learning, acquisition of knowledge, consists. Teaching and learning are words without meaning: the only process really instructive is that of dialectic debate, which, if indefatigably prosecuted, will dig out the omniscience buried within.41 So vast is the theory generated in Plato’s mind, by his worship of dialectic, 249respecting that process of search to which more than half of his dialogues are devoted.

Plato’s view of the immortality of the soul — difference between the Menon, Phædrus, and Phædon.

In various other dialogues of Plato, the same hypothesis is found repeated. His conception of the immortality of the soul or mind, includes pre-existence as well as post-existence: a perpetual succession of temporary lives, each in a distinct body, each terminated by death, and each followed by renewed life for a time in another body. In fact, the pre-existence of the mind formed the most important part of Plato’s theory about immortality: for he employed it as the means of explaining how the mind became possessed of general notions. As the doctrine is stated in the Menon, it is made applicable to all minds (instead of being confined, as in Phædrus, Phædon, and elsewhere, to a few highly gifted minds, and to commerce with the intelligible substances called Ideas). This appears from the person chosen to illustrate the alleged possibility of stimulating artificial reminiscence: that person is an unlettered youth, taken at hazard from among the numerous slaves of Menon.42

Doctrine of Plato, that new truth may be elicited by skilful examination out of the unlettered mind — how far correct?

It is true, indeed (as Schleiermacher observes), that the questions put by Sokrates to this youth are in great proportion leading questions, suggesting their own answers. They would not have served their purpose unless they had been such. The illustration here furnished, of the Sokratic interrogatory process, is highly interesting, and his theory is in a great degree true.43 Not all learning, but an important part of learning, consists in reminiscence — not indeed of 250acquisitions made in an antecedent life, but of past experience and judgments in this life. Of such experience and judgments every one has travelled through a large course; which has disappeared from his memory, yet not irrevocably. Portions of it may be revived, if new matter be presented to the mind, fitted to excite the recollection of them by the laws of association. By suitable interrogations, a teacher may thus recall to the memory of his pupils many facts and judgments which have been hitherto forgotten: he may bring into juxtaposition those which have never before been put together in the mind: and he may thus make them elicit instructive comparisons and inferences. He may provoke the pupils to strike out new results for themselves, or to follow, by means of their own stock of knowledge, in the path suggested by the questions. He may farther lead them to perceive the fallacy of erroneous analogies which at first presented themselves as plausible; and to become painfully sensible of embarrassment and perplexing ignorance, before he puts those questions which indicate the way of escape from it. Upon the necessity of producing such painful consciousness of ignorance Plato insists emphatically, as is his custom.44

251 Plato’s doctrine about à priori reasonings — Different from the modern doctrine.

Plato does not intend here to distinguish (as many modern writers distinguish) geometry from other sciences, as if geometry were known à priori, and other sciences known à posteriori or from experience. He does not suppose that geometrical truths are such that no man can possibly believe the contrary of them; or that they are different in this respect from the truths of any other science. He here maintains that all the sciences lie equally in the untaught mind,45 but buried, forgotten, and confused: so as to require the skill of the questioner not merely to recall them into consciousness, but to disentangle truth from error. Far from supposing that the untaught mind has a natural tendency to answer correctly geometrical questions, he treats erroneous answers as springing up more naturally than true answers, and as requiring a process of painful exposure before the mind can be put upon the right track. The questioner, without possessing any knowledge himself, (so Plato thinks,) can nevertheless exercise an influence at once stimulating, corrective, and directive. He stimulates the action of the associative process, to call up facts, comparisons, and analogies, bearing on the question: he arrests the respondent on a wrong answer, creating within him a painful sense of ignorance and embarrassment: he directs him by his subsequent questions into the path of right answers. His obstetric aid (to use the simile in Plato’s Theætetus), though presupposing the pregnancy of the respondent mind, is indispensable both to forward the childbirth, and to throw away any offspring which may happen to be deformed. In the Theætetus, the main stress is laid on that part of the dialogue which is performed by the questioner: in the Menon, upon the latent competence and large dead stock of an untaught respondent.

The mind of the slave questioned by Sokrates is discovered to be pregnant. Though he has received no teaching from any professed geometer, he is nevertheless found competent, when subjected to a skilful interrogatory, to arrive at last, through a series of mistakes, at correct answers, determining certain simple problems252 of geometry. He knows nothing about geometry: nevertheless there exist in his mind true opinions respecting that which he does not know. These opinions are “called up like a dream” by the interrogatories: which, if repeated and diversified, convert the opinions into knowledge, taken up by the respondent out of himself.46 The opinions are inherited from an antecedent life and born with him, since they have never been taught to him during this life.

Plato’s theory about pre-natal experience. He took no pains to ascertain and measure the extent of post-natal experience.

It is thus that Plato applies to philosophical theory the doctrine (borrowed from the Pythagoreans) of pre-natal experience and cognitions: which he considers, not as inherent appurtenances of the mind, but as acquisitions made by the mind during various antecedent lives. These ideas (Plato argues) cannot have been acquired during the present life, because the youth has received no special teaching in geometry. But Plato here takes no account of the multiplicity and diversity of experiences gone through, comparisons made, and acquirements lodged, in the mind of a youthful adult however unlettered. He recognises no acquisition of knowledge except through special teaching. So, too, in the Protagoras, we shall find him putting into the mouth of Sokrates the doctrine — That virtue is not taught and cannot be taught, because there were no special masters or times of teaching. But in that dialogue we shall also see Plato furnishing an elaborate reply to this doctrine in the speech of Protagoras; who indicates the multifarious and powerful influences which are perpetually operative, even without special professors, in creating and enforcing ethical sentiment. If Plato had taken pains to study the early life of the untaught slave, with its stock of facts, judgments, comparisons, and inferences suggested by analogy, &c., he might easily have found enough to explain the competence of the slave to answer the questions appearing in the dialogue. And even if enough could not have been found, to afford a direct and specific explanation — 253we must remember that only a very small proportion of the long series of mental phenomena realised in the infant, the child, the youth, ever comes to be remembered or recorded. To assume that the large unknown remainder would be insufficient, if known, to afford the explanation sought, is neither philosophical nor reasonable. This is assumed in every form of the doctrine of innate ideas: and assumed by Plato here without even trying any explanation to dispense with the hypothesis: simply because the youth interrogated had never received any special instruction in geometry.

Little or nothing is said in the Menon about the Platonic Ideas or Forms.

I have already observed, that though great stress is laid in this dialogue upon the doctrine of opinions and knowledge inherited from an antecedent life — upon the distinction between true opinion and knowledge — and upon the identity of the process of learning with reminiscence — yet nothing is said about universal Ideas or Forms, so much dwelt upon in other dialogues. In the Phædrus and Phædon, it is with these universal Ideas that the mind is affirmed to have had communion during its prior existence, as contrasted with the particulars of sense apprehended during the present life: while in the Menon, the difference pointed out between true opinions and knowledge is something much less marked and decisive. Both the one and the other are said to be, not acquired during this life, but inherited from antecedent life: to be innate, yet unperceived — revived by way of reminiscence and interrogation. True opinions are affirmed to render as much service as knowledge, in reference to practice. There is only this distinction between them — that true opinions are transient, and will not remain in the mind until they are bound in it by causal reasoning, or become knowledge.

What Plato meant by Causal Reasoning — his distinction between knowledge and right opinion.

What Plato meant by this “causal reasoning, or computation of cause,” is not clearly explained. But he affirms very unequivocally, first, that the distinction between true opinion and knowledge is one of the few things of which he feels assured47 — next, with somewhat less confidence, that the distinction consists only in 254the greater security which knowledge affords for permanent in-dwelling in the mind. This appears substantially the same distinction as what is laid down in other words towards the close of the dialogue — That those, who have only true opinions and not knowledge, judge rightly without knowing how or why; by an aptitude not their own but supplied to them from without for the occasion, in the nature of inspiration or prophetic œstrus. Hence they are unable to teach others, or to transfer this occasional inspiration to any one else. They cannot give account of what they affect to know, nor answer scrutinizing questions to test it. This power of answering and administering cross-examination, is Plato’s characteristic test of real knowledge — as I have already observed in my eighth chapter.

This distinction compared with modern philosophical views.

To translate the views of Plato into analogous views of a modern philosopher, we may say — That right opinion, as contrasted with knowledge, is a discriminating and acute empirical judgment: inferring only from old particulars to new particulars (without the intermediate help and guarantee of general propositions distinctly enunciated and interpreted), but selecting for every new case the appropriate analogies out of the past, with which it ought to be compared. Many persons judge in this manner fairly well, and some with extreme success. But let them be ever so successful in practice, they proceed without any conscious method; they are unable to communicate the grounds of their inferences to others: and when they are right, it is only by haphazard — that is (to use Plato’s language), through special inspiration vouchsafed to them by the Gods. But when they ascend to knowledge, and come to judge scientifically, they then distribute these particular facts into classes — note the constant sequences as distinguished from the occasional — and draw their inferences in every new case according to such general laws or uniformities of antecedent and consequent. Such uniform and unconditional antecedents are the only causes of which we have cognizance. They admit of being described in the language which Plato here uses (αἰτίας λογισμῷ), and they also serve as reasons for justifying or explaining our inferences to others.48

255 Manifestation of Anytus — intense antipathy to the Sophists and to philosophy generally.

The manner in which Anytus, the accuser of Sokrates before the Dikastery, is introduced into this dialogue, deserves notice. The questions are put to him by Sokrates — “Is virtue teachable? How is Menon to learn virtue, and from whom? Ought he not to do as he would do if he wished to learn medicine or music: to put himself under some paid professional man as teacher?” Anytus answers these questions in the affirmative: but asks, where such professional teachers of virtue are to be found. “There are the Sophists,” replies Sokrates. Upon this Anytus breaks out into a burst of angry invective against the Sophists; denouncing them as corruptors of youth, whom none but a madman would consult, and who ought to be banished by public authority.

256Why are you so bitter against the Sophists? asks Sokrates. Have any of them ever injured you? Anyt. — No; never: I have never been in the company of any one of them, nor would I ever suffer any of my family to be so. Sokr. — Then you have no experience whatever about the Sophists? Anyt. — None: and I hope that I never may have. Sokr. — How then can you know about this matter, how far it is good or bad, if you have no experience whatever about it? Anyt. — Easily. I know what sort of men the Sophists are, whether I have experience of them or not. Sokr. — Perhaps you are a prophet, Anytus: for how else you can know about them, I do not understand, even on your own statement.49

Anytus then declares, that the persons from whom Menon ought to learn virtue are the leading practical politicians; and that any one of them can teach it. But Sokrates puts a series of questions, showing that the leading Athenian politicians, Themistoklês, Periklês, &c., have not been able to teach virtue even to their own sons: à fortiori, therefore, they cannot teach it to any one else. Anytus treats this series of questions as disparaging and calumnious towards the great men of Athens. He breaks off the conversation abruptly, with an angry warning to Sokrates to be cautious about his language, and to take care of his own safety.

The dialogue is then prosecuted and finished between Sokrates and Menon: and at the close of it, Sokrates says — “Talk to Anytus, and communicate to him that persuasion which you have yourself contracted,50 in order that he may be more mildly disposed: for, if you persuade him, you will do some good to the Athenians as well as to himself.”

The enemy of Sokrates is also the enemy of the sophists — Practical statesmen.

The enemy and accuser of Sokrates is here depicted as the bitter enemy of the Sophists also. And Plato takes pains to exhibit the enmity of Anytus to the Sophists as founded on no facts or experience. Without having seen or ascertained anything about them, Anytus hates them as violently as if he had sustained from them some personal injury; a sentiment which many 257Platonic critics and many historians of philosophy have inherited from him.51 Whether the corruption which these Sophists were accused of bringing about in the minds of youth, was intentional or not intentional on their part — how such corruption could have been perpetually continued, while at the same time the eminent Sophists enjoyed long and unabated esteem from the youth themselves and from their relatives — are difficulties which Anytus does not attempt to explain, though they are started here by Sokrates. Indeed we find the same topics employed by Sokrates himself, in his defence before the Dikasts against the same charge.52 Anytus has confidence in no one except the practical statesmen: and when a question is raised about their power to impart their own excellence to others, he presently takes offence against Sokrates also. The same causes which have determined his furious antipathy against the Sophists, make him ready to transfer the like antipathy to Sokrates. He is a man of plain sense, practical habits, and conservative patriotism — who worships what he finds accredited as virtue, and dislikes the talkers and theorisers about virtue in general: whether they debated in subtle interrogation and dialectics, like Sokrates — or lectured in eloquent continuous discourse, like Protagoras. He accuses the Sophists, in this dialogue, of corrupting the youth; just as he and Melêtus, before the Dikastery, accused Sokrates of the same offence. He understands the use of words, to discuss actual business before the assembly or dikastery; but he hates discourse on the generalities of ethics or philosophy. He is essentially μισόλογος. The point which he condemns in the Sophists, is that which they have in common with Sokrates.

The Menon brings forward the point of analogy between Sokrates and the Sophists, in which both were disliked by the practical statesmen.

In many of the Platonic dialogues we have the antithesis between Sokrates and the Sophists brought out, as to the different point of view from which the one and 258the other approached ethical questions. But in this portion of the Menon, we find exhibited the feature of analogy between them, in which both one and the other stood upon ground obnoxious to the merely practical politicians. Far from regarding hatred against the Sophists as a mark of virtue in Anytus, Sokrates deprecates it as unwarranted and as menacing to philosophy in all her manifestations. The last declaration ascribed to Anytus, coupled with the last speech of Sokrates in the dialogue, show us that Plato conceives the anti-Sophistic antipathy as being anti-Sokratic also, in its natural consequences. That Sokrates was in common parlance a Sophist, disliked by a large portion of the general public, and ridiculed by Aristophanes, on the same grounds as those whom Plato calls Sophists — is a point which I have noticed elsewhere.

[END OF CHAPTER XXII]

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