PLATO,

CHAPTER XXIX.

SOPHISTES — POLITIKUS.

Persons and circumstances of the two dialogues.

These two dialogues are both of them announced by Plato as forming sequel to the Theætêtus. The beginning of the Sophistês fits on to the end of the Theætêtus: and the Politikus is even presented as a second part or continuation of the Sophistês.1 In all the three, the 186same interlocutors are partially maintained. Thus Sokrates, Theodôrus, and Theætêtus are present in all three: and Theætêtus makes the responses, not only in the dialogue which bears his name, but also in the Sophistês. Both in the Sophistês and Politikus, however, Sokrates himself descends from the part of principal speaker to that of listener: it is he, indeed, who by his question elicits the exposition, but he makes no comment either during the progress of it or at the close. In both the dialogues, the leading and expository function is confided to a new personage introduced by Theodôrus:— a stranger not named, but announced as coming from Elea — the friend and companion of Parmenides and Zeno. Perhaps (remarks Sokrates) your friend may, without your knowledge, be a God under human shape; as Homer tells us that the Gods often go about, in the company of virtuous men, to inspect the good and bad behaviour of mankind. Perhaps your friend may be a sort of cross-examining God, coming to test and expose our feebleness in argument. No (replies Theodôrus) that is not his character. He is less given to 187dispute than his companions. He is far from being a God, but he is a divine man: for I call all true philosophers divine.2

This Eleate performs the whole task of exposition, by putting questions to Theætêtus, in the Sophistês — to the younger Sokrates in the Politikus. Since the true Sokrates is merely listener in both dialogues, Plato provides for him an additional thread of connection with both; by remarking that the youthful Sokrates is his namesake, and that Theætêtus resembles him in flat nose and physiognomy.3

Relation of the two dialogues to the Theætêtus.

Though Plato himself plainly designates the Sophistês as an intended sequel to the Theætêtus, yet the method of the two is altogether different, and in a certain sense even opposite. In the Theætêtus, Sokrates extracts answers from the full and pregnant mind of that youthful respondent: he himself professes to teach nothing, but only to canvass every successive hypothesis elicited from his companion. But the Eleate is presented to us in the most imposing terms, as a thoroughly accomplished philosopher: coming with doctrines established in his mind,4 and already practised in the task of exposition which Sokrates entreats him to undertake. He is, from beginning to end, affirmative and dogmatical: and if he declines to proceed by continuous lecture, this is only because he is somewhat ashamed to appropriate all the talk to himself.5 He therefore prefers to accept Theætêtus as respondent. But Theætêtus is no longer pregnant, as in the preceding dialogue. He can do no more than give answers signifying assent and dissent, which merely serve to break and diversify the exposition. In fact, the dialogue in the Sophistês and Politikus is assimilated by Plato himself,6 not to that in the Theætêtus, but to that in the last half of the Parmenides; wherein Aristotelês the respondent answers little more than Ay or No, to leading questions from the interrogator.

188Plato declares that his first purpose is to administer a lesson in logical method: the special question chosen, being subordinate to that purpose.

In noticing the circumlocutory character, and multiplied negative criticism, of the Theætêtus, without any ultimate profit realised in the form of positive result — I remarked, that Plato appreciated dialogues, not merely as the road to a conclusion, but for the mental discipline and suggestive influence of the tentative and verifying process. It was his purpose to create in his hearers a disposition to prosecute philosophical research of their own, and at the same time to strengthen their ability of doing so with effect. This remark is confirmed by the two dialogues now before us, wherein Plato defends himself against reproaches seemingly made to him at the time.7 “To what does all this tend? Why do you stray so widely from your professed topic? Could you not have reached this point by a shorter road?” He replies by distinctly proclaiming — That the process, with its improving influence on the mind, stands first in his thoughts — the direct conclusion of the enquiry, only second: That the special topic which he discusses, though in itself important, is nevertheless chosen principally with a view to its effect in communicating general method and dialectic aptitude: just as a schoolmaster, when he gives out to his pupils a word to be spelt, looks mainly, not to their exactness in spelling that particular word, but to their command of good spelling generally.8 To form inquisitive, testing minds, fond of philosophical debate as a pursuit, and looking at opinions on the negative as well as on the positive side, is the first object in most of Plato’s dialogues: to teach positive truth, is only a secondary object.

Method of logical Definition and Division.

Both the Sophistes and the Politikus are lessons and specimens of that process which the logical manuals recognise under the names — Definition and Division. What is a Sophist? What is a politician or statesman? What is a philosopher? In the first place — Are the three really distinct189 characters? for this may seem doubtful: since the true philosopher, in his visits of inspection from city to city, is constantly misconceived by an ignorant public, and confounded with the other two.9 The Eleate replies that the three are distinct. Then what is the characteristic function of each? How is he distinguished from other persons or other things? To what class or classes does each belong: and what is the specific character belonging to the class, so as to mark its place in the scheme descending by successive logical subdivision from the highest genus down to particulars? What other professions or occupations are there analogous to those of Sophist and Statesman, so as to afford an illustrative comparison? What is there in like manner capable of serving as illustrative contrast?

Sokrates tries the application of this method, first, upon a vulgar subject. To find the logical place and deduction of the Angler. Superior classes above him. Bisecting division.

Such are the problems which it is the direct purpose of the two dialogues before us to solve. But a large proportion of both is occupied by matters bearing only indirectly upon the solution. The process of logical subdivision, or the formation of classes in subordination to each other, can be exhibited just as plainly in application to an ordinary craft or profession, as to one of grave importance. The Eleate Stranger even affirms that the former case will be simpler, and will serve as explanatory introduction to the latter.10 He therefore selects the craft of an angler, for which to find a place in logical classification. Does not an angler belong to the general class — men of art or craft? He is not a mere artless, non-professional, private man. This being so, we must distribute the class Arts — Artists, into two subordinate classes: Artists who construct or put together some new substance or compound — Artists who construct nothing new, but are employed in getting, or keeping, or employing, substances already made. Thus the class Artists is bisected into Constructive — Acquisitive. The angler constructs nothing: he belongs to the acquisitive branch. We now bisect this latter branch. Acquirers either obtain by consent, or appropriate without consent. Now the angler is one of the last-mentioned class: which is again bisected into two sub-classes, according as 190the appropriation is by force or stratagem — Fighters and Hunters. The angler is a hunter: but many other persons are hunters also, from whom he must be distinguished. Hunters are therefore divided into, Those who hunt inanimate things (such as divers for sponges, &c.), and Those who hunt living things or animals, including of course the angler among them. The hunters of animals are distinguished into hunters of walking animals, and hunters of swimming animals. Of the swimming animals some are in air, others in water:11 hence we get two classes, Bird-Hunters and Fish-Hunters; to the last of whom the angler belongs. The fish-hunters (or fishermen) again are bisected into two classes, according as they employ nets, or striking instruments of one kind or another, such as tridents, &c. Of the striking fishermen there are two sorts: those who do their work at night by torch-light, and those who work by day. All these day-fishermen, including among them the angler, use instruments with hooks at the end. But we must still make one bisection more. Some of them employ tridents, with which they strike from above downwards at the fishes, upon any part of the body which may present itself: others use hooks, rods, and lines, which they contrive to attach to the jaws of the fish, and thereby draw him from below upward.12 This is the special characteristic of the angler. We have now a class comprehending the anglers alone, so that no farther sub-division is required. We have obtained not merely the name of the angler, but also the rational explanation of the function to which the name is attached.13

Such a lesson in logical classification was at that time both novel and instructive. No logical manuals then existed.

This is the first specimen which Plato gives of a systematic classification descending, by successive steps of bifurcation, through many subordinations of genera and species, each founded on a real and proclaimed distinction — and ending at last in an infima species. He repeats the like process in regard to the Sophist, the Statesman, and other professions to which he compares the one or the other: but it will suffice to have 191given one specimen of his method. If we transport ourselves back to his time, I think that such a view of the principles of classification implies a new and valuable turn of thought. There existed then no treatises on logic; no idea of logic as a scheme of mental procedure; no sciences out of which it was possible to abstract the conception of a regular method more or less diversified. On no subject was there any mass of facts or details collected, large enough to demand some regular system for the purpose of arranging and rendering them intelligible. Classification to a certain extent is of necessity involved, consciously or unconsciously, in the use of general terms. But the process itself had never been made a subject of distinct consciousness or reflection to any one (as far as our knowledge reaches), in the time of Plato. No one had yet looked at it as a process natural indeed to the human intellect, up to a certain point and in a loose manner, — but capable both of great extension and great improvement, and requiring especial study, with an end deliberately set before the mind, in order that it might be employed with advantage to regularise and render intelligible even common and well-known facts. To determine a series of descending classes, with class-names, each connoting some assignable characteristic — to distribute the whole of each class between two correlative sub-classes, to compare the different ways in which this could be done, and to select such membra condividentia as were most suitable for the purpose — this was in the time of Plato an important novelty. We know from Xenophon14 that Sokrates considered Dialectic to be founded, both etymologically and really, upon the distribution of particular things into genera or classes. But we find little or no intentional illustration of this process in any of the conversations of the Xenophontic Sokrates: and we are farther struck by the fact that Plato, in the two dialogues which we are here considering, assigns all the remarks on the process of classification, not to Sokrates himself, but to the nameless Eleatic Stranger.

Plato describes the Sophist as analogous to an angler. He traces the Sophist by descending subdivision from the acquisitive genus of art.

After giving the generic deduction of the angler from the comprehensive idea of Art, distributed into two sections, constructive and acquisitive, Plato proceeds to notice 192the analogy between the Sophist and an angler: after which he deduces the Sophist also from the acquisitive section of Art. The Sophist is an angler for rich young men.15 To find his place in the preceding descending series, we must take our departure from the bisection — hunters of walking animals, hunters of swimming animals. The Sophist is a hunter of walking animals: which may be divided into two classes, wild and tame. The Sophist hunts a species of tame animals — men. Hunters of tame animals are bisected into such as hunt by violent means (robbers, enslavers, despots, &c.),16 and such as hunt by persuasive means. Of the hunters by means of persuasion there are two kinds: those who hunt the public, and those who hunt individuals. The latter again may be divided into two classes: those who hunt to their own loss, by means of presents, such as lovers, &c., and those who hunt with a view to their own profit. To this latter class belongs the Sophist: pretending to associate with others for the sake of virtue, but really looking to his own profit.17

The Sophist traced down from the same, by a second and different descending subdivision.

Again, we may find the Sophist by descending through a different string of subordinate classes from the genus — Acquisitive Art. The professors of this latter may be bisected into two sorts — hunters and exchangers. Exchangers are of two sorts — givers and sellers. Sellers again sell either their own productions, or the productions of others. Those who sell the productions of others are either fixed residents in one city, or hawkers travelling about from city to city. Hawkers again carry about for sale either merchandise for the body, or merchandise for the mind, such as music, poetry, painting, exhibitions of jugglery, learning, and intellectual accomplishments, and so forth. These latter (hawkers for the mind) may be divided into two sorts: 193those who go about teaching; for money, arts and literary accomplishments — and those who go about teaching virtue for money. They who go about teaching virtue for money are the Sophists.18 Or indeed if they sell virtue and knowledge for money, they are not the less Sophists — whether they buy what they sell from others, or prepare it for themselves — whether they remain in one city or become itinerant.

Also, by a third.

A third series of subordinate classes will also bring us down from the genus — Acquisitive Art — down to the infima species — Sophist. In determining the class-place of the angler, we recognised a bisection of acquisitive art into acquirers by exchange, or mutual consent — and acquirers by appropriation, or without consent.19 These latter we divided according as they employed either force or stratagem: contenders and hunters. We then proceeded to bisect the class hunters, leaving the contenders without farther notice. Now let us take up the class contenders. It may be divided into two: competitors for a set prize (pecuniary or honorary), and fighters. The fighters go to work either body against body, violently — or tongue against tongue, as arguers. These arguers again fall into two classes: the pleaders, who make long speeches, about just or unjust, before the public assembly and dikastery: and the dialogists, who meet each other in short question and answer. The dialogists again are divided into two: the private, untrained antagonists, quarrelling with each other about the particular affairs of life (who form a species by themselves, since characteristic attributes may be assigned to them; though these attributes are too petty and too indefinite to have ever received a name in common language, or to deserve a name from us20) — and the trained practitioners or wranglers, who dispute not about particular incidents, but about just and unjust in general, and 194other general matters.21 Of wranglers again there are two sorts: the prosers, who follow the pursuit from spontaneous taste and attachment, not only without hope of gain, but to the detriment of their private affairs, incurring loss themselves, and wearying or bothering their hearers: and those who make money by such private dialogues. This last sort of wrangler is the Sophist.22

The Sophist is traced down, from the genus of separating or discriminating art.

There is yet another road of class-distribution which will bring us down to the Sophist. A great number of common arts (carding wool, straining through a sieve, &c.) have, in common, the general attribute of separating matters confounded in a heap. Of separation there are two sorts: you may separate like from like (this has no established name) — or better from worse, which is called purification. Purification is of two sorts: either of body or of mind. In regard to body, the purifying agents are very multifarious, comprising not only men and animals, but also inanimate things: and thus including many varieties which in common estimation are mean, trivial, repulsive, or ludicrous. But all these various sentiments (observes Plato) we must disregard. We must follow out a real analogy wherever it leads us, and recognise a logical affinity wherever we find one; whether the circumstances brought together be vile or venerable, or some of them vile and some venerable, in the eyes of mankind. Our sole purpose is to improve our intelligence. With that view, all particulars are of equal value in our eyes, provided only they exhibit that real likeness which legitimates them as members of the same class — purifiers of body: the correlate of that other class which we now proceed to study — purifiers of mind.23

195In a logical classification, low and vulgar items deserve as much attention as grand ones. Conflict between emotional and scientific classification.

This precept (repeated by Plato also in the Politikus) respecting the principles of classification, deserves notice. It protests against, and seeks to modify, one of the ordinary turns in the associating principles of the human mind. With unreflecting men, classification is often emotional rather than intellectual. The groups of objects thrown together in such minds, and conceived in immediate association, are such as suggest the same or kindred emotions: pleasure or pain, love or hatred, hope or fear, admiration, contempt, disgust, jealousy, ridicule. Community of emotion is a stronger bond of association between different objects, than community in any attribute not immediately interesting to the emotions, and appreciable only intellectually. Thus objects which have nothing else in common, except appeal to the same earnest emotion, will often be called by the same general name, and will be constituted members of the same class. To attend to attributes in any other point of view than in reference to the amount and kind of emotion which they excite, is a process uncongenial to ordinary taste: moreover, if any one brings together, in the same wording, objects really similar, but exciting opposite and contradictory emotions, he usually provokes either disgust or ridicule. All generalizations, and all general terms connoting them, are results brought together by association and comparison of particulars somehow resembling. But if we look at the process of association in an unreflecting person, the resemblances which it fastens upon will be often emotional, not intellectual: and the generalizations founded upon such resemblances will be emotional also.

It is against this natural propensity that Plato here enters his protest, in the name of intellect and science. For the purpose of obtaining a classification founded on real, intrinsic affinities, we 196must exclude all reference to the emotions: we must take no account whether a thing be pleasing or hateful, sublime or mean:24 we must bring ourselves to rank objects useful or grand in the same logical compartment with objects hurtful or ludicrous. We must examine only whether the resemblance is true and real, justifying itself to the comparing intellect: and whether the class-term chosen be such as to comprise all these resemblances, holding them apart (μόνον ἐχέτω χωρὶς) from the correlative and opposing class.25

197The purifier — a species under the genus discriminator — separates good from evil. Evil is of two sorts; the worst sort is, Ignorance, mistaking itself for knowledge.

After these just remarks on classification generally, the Eleate pursues the subdivision of his own theme. To purify the mind is to get rid of the evil, and retain or improve the good. Now evil is of two sorts — disease (injustice, intemperance, cowardice, &c.) and ignorance. Disease, which in the body is dealt with by the physician, is in the mind dealt with by the judicial tribunal: ignorance (corresponding to ugliness, awkwardness, disability, in the body, which it is the business of the gymnastic trainer to correct) falls under the treatment of the teacher or instructor.26 Ignorance again may be distributed into two heads: one, though special, being so grave as to counterbalance all the rest, and requiring to be set apart by itself — that is — ignorance accompanied with the false persuasion of knowledge.27

Exhortation is useless against this worst mode of evil. Cross-examination, the shock of the Elenchus, must be brought to bear upon it. This is the sovereign purifier.

To meet this special and gravest case of ignorance, we must recognise a special division of the art of instruction or education. Exhortation, which is the common mode of instruction, and which was employed by our forefathers universally, is of no avail against this false persuasion of knowledge: which can only be approached and cured by the Elenchus, or philosophical cross-examination. So long as a man believes himself to be wise, you may lecture for ever without making impression upon him: you do no good by supplying food when the stomach is sick. But the examiner, questioning him upon those subjects which he professes to know, soon entangles him in contradictions with himself, making him feel with shame and humiliation his own 198real ignorance. After having been thus disabused — a painful but indispensable process, not to be accomplished except by the Elenchus — his mind becomes open and teachable, so that positive instruction may be communicated to him with profit. The Elenchus is the grand and sovereign purification: whoever has not been subjected to it, were he even the Great King, is impure, unschooled, and incompetent for genuine happiness.28

The application of this Elenchus is the work of the Sophist, looked at on its best side. But looked at as he really is, he is a juggler who teaches pupils to dispute about every thing — who palms off falsehood for truth.

This cross-examining and disabusing process, brought to bear upon the false persuasion of knowledge and forming the only antidote to it, is the business of the Sophist looked at on its best side.29 But Plato will not allow the Elenchus, the great Sokratic accomplishment and mission, to be shared by the Sophists: and he finds or makes a subtle distinction to keep them off. The Sophist (so the Eleate proceeds) is a disputant, and teaches all his youthful pupils to dispute about everything as if they knew it — about religion, astronomy, philosophy, arts, laws, politics, and everything else. He teaches them to argue in each department against the men of special science: he creates a belief in the minds of others that he really knows all those different subjects, respecting which he is able to argue and cross-examine successfully: he thus both possesses, and imparts to his pupils, a seeming knowledge, an imitation and pretence of reality.30 He is a sort of juggler: an imitator who palms off 199upon persons what appears like reality when seen from a distance, but what is seen to be not like reality when contemplated closely.31

Doubt started by the Eleate. How can it be possible either to think or to speak falsely?

Here however (continues Plato) we are involved in a difficulty. How can a thing appear to be what it is not? How can a man who opines or affirms, opine or affirm falsely — that is, opine or affirm the thing that is not? To admit this, we must assume the thing that is not (or Non-Ens, Nothing) to have a real existence. Such an assumption involves great and often debated difficulties. It has been pronounced by Parmenides altogether inadmissible.32

We have already seen that Plato discussed this same question in the Theætêtus, and that after trying and rejecting many successive hypotheses to show how false supposition, or false affirmation, might be explained as possible, by a theory involving no contradiction, he left the question unsolved. He now resumes it at great length. It occupies more than half33 the dialogue. Near the close, but only then, he reverts to the definition of the Sophist.

He pursues the investigation of this problem by a series of questions.

First, the Eleate states the opinion which perplexes him, and which he is anxious either to refute or to explain away. (Unfortunately, we have no statement of the opinion, nor of the grounds on which it was held, from those who actually held it.) Non-Ens, or Nothing, is not the name of any existing thing, or of any Something. But every one who speaks must speak something: therefore if you try to speak of Non-Ens, you are trying to speak nothing — which is equivalent to not speaking at all.34 Moreover, 200to every Something, you can add something farther: but to Non-Ens, or Nothing, you cannot add any thing. (Non-Entis nulla sunt prædicata.) Now Number is something, or included among the Entia: you cannot therefore apply number, either singular or plural, to Non-Ens: and inasmuch as every thing conceived or described must be either one or many, it is impossible either to conceive or describe Non-Ens. You cannot speak of it without falling into a contradiction.35

The Sophist will reject our definition and escape, by affirming that to speak falsely is impossible. He will require us to make out a rational theory, explaining Non-Ens.

When therefore we characterise the Sophist as one who builds up phantasms for realities — who presents to us what is not, as being like to what is, and as a false substitute for what is — he will ask us what we mean? If, to illustrate our meaning, we point to images of things in mirrors or clear water, he will pretend to be blind, and will refuse the evidence of sense: he will require us to make out a rational theory explaining Non-Ens or Nothing.36 But when we try to do this, we contradict ourselves. A phantasm is that which, not being a true counterpart of reality, is yet so like it as to be mistaken for reality. Quatenus phantasm, it is Ens: quatenus reality, it is Non-Ens: thus the same thing is both Ens, and Non-Ens: which we declared before to be impossible.37 When therefore we accuse the Sophist of passing off phantasms for realities, we suppose falsely: we suppose matters not existing, or contrary to those which exist: we suppose the existent not to exist, or the non-existent to exist But this assumes as done what cannot be done: since we have admitted more than once that Non-Ens can neither be described in language by itself, nor joined on in any manner to Ens.38

Stating the case in this manner, we find that to suppose falsely, or affirm falsely, is a contradiction. But there is yet another possible way out of the difficulty (the Eleate continues).

The Eleate turns from Non-Ens to Ens. Theories of various philosophers about Ens.

Let us turn for a moment (he says) from Non-Ens to Ens. 201The various physical philosophers tell us a good deal about Ens. They differ greatly among themselves. Some philosophers represent Ens as triple, comprising three distinct elements, sometimes in harmony, sometimes at variance with each other. Others tell us that it is double — wet and dry — or hot and cold. A third sect, especially Xenophanes and Parmenides, pronounce it to be essentially One. Herakleitus blends together the different theories, affirming that Ens is both many and one, always in process of disjunction and conjunction: Empedokles adopts a similar view, only dropping the always, and declaring the process of disjunction to alternate with that of conjunction, so that Ens is sometimes Many, sometimes One.39

Difficulties about Ens are as great as those about Non-Ens.

Now when I look at these various theories (continues the Eleate), I find that I do not follow or understand them; and that I know nothing more or better about Ens than about Non-Ens. I thought, as a young man, that I understood both: but I now find that I understand neither.40 The difficulties about Ens are just as great as those about Non-Ens. What do these philosophers mean by saying that Ens is double or triple? that there are two distinct existing elements — Hot and Cold — or three? What do you mean by saying that Hot and Cold exist? Is existence any thing distinct from Hot and Cold? If so, then there are three elements in all, not two. Do you mean that existence is something belonging to both and affirmed of both? Then you pronounce both to be One: and Ens, instead of being double, will be at the bottom only One.

Whether Ens is Many or One? If Many, how Many? Difficulties about One and the Whole. Theorists about Ens cannot solve them.

Such are the questions which the Eleatic spokesman of Plato puts to those philosophers who affirm Ens to be plural: He turns next to those who affirm Ens to be singular, or Unum. Do you mean that Unum is identical with Ens — and are they only two names for the same One and only thing? There cannot be two distinct names belonging to one and the same thing: and yet, if this be not so, one of the names must be the name of nothing. At any rate, if there be only one name and one thing, still the name itself is 202different from the thing — so that duality must still be recognised. Or if you take the name as identical with the One thing, it will either be the name of nothing, or the name of a name.41

Again, as to the Whole:— is the Whole the same with the Ens Unum, or different from it. We shall be told that it is the same: but according to the description given by Parmenides, the whole is spherical, thus having a centre and circumference, and of course having parts. Now a whole divisible into parts may have unity predicable of it, as an affection or accident in respect to the sum of its parts: but it cannot be the genuine, essential, self-existent, One, which does not admit of parts or division. If Ens be One by accident, it is not identical with One, and we thus have two existent things: and if Ens be not really and essentially the Whole, while nevertheless the Whole exists — Ens must fall short of or be less than itself, and must to this extent be Non-Ens: besides that Ens, and Totum, being by nature distinct, we have more things than One existing. On the other hand, if we assume Totum not to be Ens, the same result will ensue. Ens will still be something less than itself; — Ens can never have any quantity, for each quantum is necessarily a whole in itself — and Ens can never be generated, since everything generated is also necessarily a whole.42

Theories of those who do not recognise a definite number of Entia or elements. Two classes thereof.

Such is the examination which the Eleate bestows on the theories of theories of those philosophers who held one, two, or a definite number of self-existent Entia or elements. His purpose is to show, that even on their schemes, Ens is just as unintelligible, and involves as many contradictions, as Non-Ens. And to complete the same demonstration, he proceeds to dissect the theories of those who do not recognise any definite or specific number of elements or Entia.43 Of these he distinguishes two classes; in direct and strenuous opposition to each other, respecting what constituted Essentia.44

1. The Materialist Philosophers. 2. The Friends of Forms or Idealists, who recognise such Forms as the only real Entia.

First, the Materialist Philosophers, who recognise nothing 203as existing except what is tangible; defining Essence as identical with Body, and denying all incorporeal essence. Plato mentions no names: but he means (according to some commentators) Leukippus and Demokritus — perhaps Aristippus also. Secondly, other philosophers who, diametrically opposed to the Materialists, affirmed that there were no real Entia except certain Forms, Ideas, genera or species, incorporeal and conceivable only by intellect: that true and real essence was not to be found in those bodies wherein the Materialists sought it: that bodies were in constant generation and disappearance, affording nothing more than a transitory semblance of reality, not tenable45 when sifted by reason. By these last are understood (so Schleiermacher and others think, though in my judgment erroneously) Eukleides and the Megaric school of philosophers.

Argument against the Materialists — Justice must be something, since it may be either present or absent, making sensible difference — But Justice is not a body.

The Eleate proceeds to comment upon the doctrines held by these opposing schools of thinkers respecting Essence or Reality. It is easier (he says) to deal with the last-mentioned, for they are more gentle. With the Materialists it is difficult, and all but impossible, to deal at all. Indeed, before we can deal with them, we must assume them to be for this occasion better than they show themselves in reality, and ready to answer in a more becoming manner than they actually do.46 These Materialists will admit (Plato continues) that man exists — an animated body, or a compound of mind and body: they will farther allow that the mind of one man differs from that of another:— one is just, prudent, &c., another is unjust and imprudent. One man is just, through the habit and presence of justice: another is unjust, through the habit and presence of injustice. But justice must surely be 204something — injustice also must be something — if each may be present to, or absent from, any thing; and if their presence or absence makes so sensible a difference.47 And justice or injustice, prudence or imprudence, as well as the mind in which the one or the other inheres, are neither visible or tangible, nor have they any body: they are all invisible.

At least many of them will concede this point, though not all Ens is common to the corporeal and the incorporeal. Ens is equivalent to potentiality.

Probably (replies Theætêtus) these philosophers would contend that the soul or mind had a body; but they would be ashamed either to deny that justice, prudence, &c., existed as realities — or to affirm that justice, prudence, &c. were all bodies.48 These philosophers must then have become better (rejoins the Eleate): for the primitive and genuine leaders of them will not concede even so much as that. But let us accept the concession. If they will admit any incorporeal reality at all, however small, our case is made out. For we shall next call upon them to say, what there is in common between these latter, and those other realities which have bodies connate with and essential to them — to justify the names real — essence — bestowed upon both.49 Perhaps they would accept the following definition of Ens or the Real — of Essence or Reality. Every thing which possesses any sort of power, either to act upon any thing else or to be acted upon by any thing else, be it only for once or to the smallest degree — every such thing is true and real Ens. The characteristic mark or definition of Ens or the Real is, power or potentiality.50

Argument against the Idealists — who distinguish Ens from the generated, and say that we hold communion with the former through our minds, with the latter through our bodies and senses.

The Eleate now turns to the philosophers of the opposite school — the Mentalists or Idealists, — whom he terms the friends of Forms, Ideas, or species.51 These men 205(he says) distinguish the generated, transitory and changeable — from Ens or the Real, which is eternal, unchanged, always the same: they distinguish generation from essence. With the generated (according to their doctrine) we hold communion through our bodies and our bodily perceptions: with Ens, we hold communion through our mind and our intellectual apprehension. But what do they mean (continues the Eleate) by this “holding of communion”? Is it not an action or a passion produced by a certain power of agent and patient coming into co-operation with each other? and is not this the definition which we just now laid down, of Ens or the Real.

Holding communion — What? Implies Relativity. Ens is known by the mind. It therefore suffers or undergoes change. Ens includes both the unchangeable and the changeable.

No — these philosophers will reply — we do not admit your definition as a definition of Ens: it applies only to the generated. Generation does involve, or emanate from, a reciprocity of agent and patient: but neither power nor action, nor suffering, have any application to Ens or the Real. But you admit (says the Eleate) that the mind knows Ens:— and that Ens is known by the mind. Now this knowing, is it not an action — and is not the being known, a passion? If to know is an action, then Ens, being known, is acted upon, suffers something, or undergoes some change, — which would be impossible if we assume Ens to be eternally unchanged. These philosophers might reply, that they do not admit to know as an action, nor to be known as a passion. They affirm Ens to be eternally unchanged, and they hold to their other affirmation that Ens is known by the mind. But (urges the Eleate) can they really believe that Ens is eternally the same and unchanged, — that it has neither life, nor mind, nor intelligence, nor change, nor movement? This is incredible. They must concede that Change, and the Changeable, are to be reckoned as Entia or Realities: for if these be not so reckoned, and if all Entia are unchangeable, no Ens can be an object of knowledge to any mind. But though the changeable belongs to Ens, we must not affirm that all Ens is changeable. There cannot be either intellect or knowledge, without something constant and unchangeable. It is equally necessary to recognise 206something as constant and unchangeable — something else as moving and changeable: Ens or reality includes alike one and the other. The true philosopher therefore cannot agree with those “Friends of Forms” who affirm all Ens or Reality to be at rest and unchangeable, either under one form or under many:— still less can he agree with those opposite reasoners, who maintain all reality to be in perpetual change and movement. He will acknowledge both and each — rest and motion — the constant and the changeable — as making up together total reality or Ens Totum.

Motion and rest are both of them Entia or realities. Both agree in Ens. Ens is a tertium quid — distinct from both. But how can anything be distinct from both?

Still, however, we have not got over our difficulties. Motion and Rest are contraries; yet we say that each and both are Realities or Entia. In what is it that they both agree? Not in moving, nor in being at rest, but simply in existence or reality. Existence or reality therefore must be a tertium quid, apart from motion and rest, not the sum total of those two items. Ens or the Real is not, in its own proper nature, either in motion or at rest, but is distinct from both. Yet how can this be? Surely, whatever is not in motion, must be at rest — whatever is not at rest, must be in motion. How can any thing be neither in motion nor at rest; standing apart from both?52

Here the Eleate breaks off without solution. He declares his purpose to show, That Ens is as full of puzzle as Non-Ens,

Here the Eleate breaks off his enquiry, without solving the problems which he has accumulated. My purpose was (he says53) to show that Ens was just as full of difficulties and embarrassments as Non-Ens. Enough has been said to prove this clearly. When we can once get clear of obscurity about Ens, we may hope to be equally successful with Non-Ens.

Argument against those who admit no predication to be legitimate, except identical. How far Forms admit of intercommunion with each other.

Let us try (he proceeds) another path. We know that it is a common practice in our daily speech to apply many different predicates to one and the same subject. We say of the same man, that he is fair, tall, just, brave, &c., and several other epithets. Some persons deny our right to do this. They say that the predicate ought always to be identical with 207the subject: that we can only employ with propriety such propositions as the following — man is man — good is good, &c.: that to apply many predicates to one and the same subject is to make one thing into many things.54 But in reply to these opponents, as well as to those whom we have before combated, we shall put before them three alternatives, of which they must choose one. 1. Either all Forms admit of intercommunion one with the other. 2. Or no Forms admit of such intercommunion. 3. Or some Forms do admit of it, and others not. Between these three an option must be made.55

No intercommunion between any distinct forms. Refuted. Common speech is inconsistent with this hypothesis.

If we take the first alternative — that there is no intercommunion of Forms — then the Forms motion and rest can have no intercommunion with the Forms, essence or reality. In other words, neither motion nor rest exist: and thus the theory both of those who say that all things are in perpetual movement, and of those who say that all things are in perpetual rest, becomes unfounded and impossible. Besides, these very men, who deny all intercommunion of Forms, are obliged to admit it implicitly and involuntarily in their common forms of speech. They cannot carry on a conversation without it, and they thus serve as a perpetual refutation of their own doctrine.56

Reciprocal intercommunion of all Forms — inadmissible.

The second alternative — that all Forms may enter into communion with each other — is also easily refuted. If this were true, motion and rest might be put together: motion would be at rest, and rest would be in motion — which is absurd. These and other forms are contrary to each other. They reciprocally exclude and repudiate all intercommunion.57

Some Forms admit of intercommunion, others not. This is the only admissible doctrine. Analogy of letters and syllables.

Remains only the third alternative — that some forms admit of intercommunion — others not. This is the real truth (says the Eleate). So it stands in regard to letters and words in language: some letters come together in words frequently and conveniently — others rarely and 208awkwardly — others never do nor ever can come together. The same with the combination of sounds to obtain music. It requires skill and art to determine which of these combinations are admissible.

Art and skill are required to distinguish what Forms admit of intercommunion, and what Forms do not. This is the special intelligence of the Philosopher, who lives in the bright region of Ens: the Sophist lives in the darkness of Non-Ens.

So also, in regard to the intercommunion of Forms, skill and art are required to decide which of them will come together, and which will not. In every special art and profession the case is similar: the ignorant man will fail in deciding this question — the man of special skill alone will succeed. — So in regard to the intercommunion of Forms or Genera universally with each other, the comprehensive science of the true philosopher is required to decide.58 To note and study these Forms, is the purpose of the philosopher in his dialectics or ratiocinative debate. He can trace the one Form or Idea, stretching through a great many separate particulars; he can distinguish it from all different Forms: he knows which Forms are not merely distinct from each other, but incapable of alliance and reciprocally repulsive — which of them are capable of complete conjunction, the one circumscribing and comprehending the other — and which of them admit conjunction partial and occasional with each other.59 The philosopher thus keeps close to the Form of eternal and unchangeable Ens or Reality — a region of such bright light that the eyes of the vulgar cannot clearly see him: while the Sophist on the other hand is also difficult to be seen, but for an opposite reason — from the darkness of that region of Non-Ens or Non-Reality wherein he carries on his routine-work.60

He comes to enquire what Non-Ens is. He takes for examination five principal Forms — Motion — Rest — Ens — Same — Different.

We have still to determine, however (continues Plato), what this Non-Ens or Non-Reality is. For this purpose we will take a survey, not of all Forms or Genera, but of some few the most important. We will begin with the two before noticed — Motion and Rest 209( = Change and Permanence), which are confessedly irreconcileable and reciprocally exclusive. Ens however enters into partnership with both: for both of them are, or exist.61 This makes up three Forms or Genera — Motion, Rest, Ens: each of the three being the same with itself, and different from the other two. Here we have pronounced two new words — Same — Different.62 Do these words designate two other Forms, over and above the three before-named, yet necessarily always intermingling in partnership with those three, so as to make five Forms in all? Or are these two — Same and Different — essential appendages of the three before-named? This last question must be answered in the negative. Same and Different are not essential appendages, or attached as parts, to Motion, Rest, Ens. Same and Different may be predicated both of Motion and of Rest: and whatever can be predicated alike of two contraries, cannot be an essential portion or appendage of either. Neither Motion nor Rest therefore are essentially either Same or Different: though both of them partake of Same or Different — i.e., come into accidental co-partnership with one as well as the other.63 Neither can we say that Ens is identical with either Idem or Diversum. Not with Idem — for we speak of both Motion and Rest as Entia or Existences: but we cannot speak of them as the same. Not with Diversum — for different is a name relative to something else from which it is different, but Ens is not thus relative. Motion and Rest are or exist, each in itself: but each is different, relatively to the other, and to other things generally. Accordingly we have here five Forms or Genera — Ens, Motion, Rest, Idem, Diversum: each distinct from and independent of all the rest.64

Form of Diversum pervades all the others.

This Form of Diversum or Different pervades all the others: for each one of them is different from the others, not through any thing in its own nature, but because it partakes of the Form of Difference.65 Each of the five is different from others: or, to express the same fact 210in other words, each of them is not any one of the others. Thus motion is different from rest, or is not rest: but nevertheless motion is or exists, because it partakes of the Form — Ens. Again, Motion is different from Idem: it is not the Same: yet nevertheless it is the same, because it partakes of the nature of Idem, or is the same with itself. Thus then both predications are true respecting motion: it is the same: it is not the same, because it partakes of or enters into partnership with both Idem and Diversum.66 If motion in any way partook of Rest, we should be able to talk of stationary motion: but this is impossible: for we have already said that some Forms cannot come into intercommunion — that they absolutely exclude each other.

Motion is different from Diversum, or is not Diversum. Motion is different from Ens — in other words, it is Non-Ens. Each of these Forms is both Ens and Non-Ens.

Again, Motion is different not only from Rest, and from Idem, but also from Diversum itself. In other words, it is both Diversum in a certain way, and also not Diversum: different and not different.67 As it is different from Rest, from Idem, from Diversum — so also it is different from Ens, the remaining one of the five forms or genera. In other words Motion is not Ens, — or is Non-Ens. It is both Ens, and Non-Ens: Ens, so far as it partakes of Entity or Reality — Non-Ens, so far as it partakes of Difference, and is thus different from Ens as well as from the other Forms.68 The same may be said of the other Forms, — Rest, Idem, Diversum: each of them is Ens, because it partakes of entity or reality: each of them is also Non-Ens, or different from Ens, because it partakes of Difference. Moreover, Ens itself is different from the other four, and so far as these others go, it is Non-Ens.69

By Non-Ens, we do not mean anything contrary to Ens — we mean only something different from Ens. Non-Ens is a real Form, as well as Ens.

Now note the consequence (continues the Eleate). When we speak of Non-Ens, we do not mean any thing contrary to Ens, but only something different from Ens. When we call any thing not great, we do not affirm it 211to be the contrary of great, or to be little: for it may perhaps be simply equal: we only mean that it is different from great.70 A negative proposition, generally, does not signify anything contrary to the predicate, but merely something else distinct or different from the predicate.71 The Form of Different, though of one and the same general nature throughout, is distributed into many separate parts or specialties, according as it is attached to different things. Thus not beautiful is a special mode of the general Form or Genus Different, placed in antithesis with another Form or Genus, the beautiful. The antithesis is that of one Ens or Real thing against another Ens or Real thing: not beautiful, not great, not just, exist just as much and are quite as real, as beautiful, great, just. If the Different be a real Form or Genus, all its varieties must be real also. Accordingly Different from Ens is just as much a real Form as Ens itself:72 and this is what we mean by Non-Ens:— not any thing contrary to Ens.

The Eleate claims to have refuted Parmenides, and to have shown both that Non-Ens is a real Form, and also what it is.

Here then the Eleate professes to have found what Non-Ens is: that it is a real substantive Form, numerable among the other Forms, and having a separate constant nature of its own, like not beautiful, not great:73 that it is real and existent, just as much as Ens, beautiful, great, &c. Disregarding the prohibition of Parmenides, we have shown (says he) not only that Non-Ens exists, but also what it is. Many Forms or Genera enter into partnership or communion with each other; and Non-Ens is the partnership between Ens and 212Diversum. Diversum, in partnership with Ens, is (exists), in consequence of such partnership:— yet it is not that with which it is in partnership, but different therefrom — and being thus different from Ens, it is clearly and necessarily Non-Ens: while Ens also, by virtue of its partnership with Diversum, is different from all the other Forms, or is not any one of them, and to this extent therefore Ens is Non-Ens. We drop altogether the idea of contrariety, without enquiring whether it be reasonably justifiable or not: we attach ourselves entirely to the Form — Different.74

The theory now stated is the only one, yet given, which justifies predication as a legitimate process, with a predicate different from the subject.

Let those refute this explanation, who can do so (continues the Eleate), or let them propose a better of their own, if they can: if not, let them allow the foregoing as possible.75 Let them not content themselves with multiplying apparent contradictions, by saying that the same may be in some particular respect different, and that the different may be in some particular respect the same, through this or the other accidental attribute.76 All these sophisms lead but to make us believe — That no one thing can be predicated of any other — That there is no intercommunion of the distinct Forms one with another, no right to predicate of any subject a second name and the possession of a new attribute — That therefore there can be no dialectic debate or philosophy, which is all founded upon such intercommunion of Forms.77 We have shown that Forms do 213really come into conjunction, so as to enable us to conjoin, truly and properly, predicate with subject, and to constitute proposition and judgment as taking place among the true Forms or Genera. Among these true Forms or Genera, Non-Ens is included as one.78

Enquiry, whether the Form of Non-Ens can come into intercommunion with the Forms of Proposition, Opinion, Judgment.

The Eleate next proceeds to consider, whether these two Genera or Forms — Proposition, Judgment, Opinion, on the one hand, and Non-Ens on the other — are among those which may or do enter into partnership and conjunction with each other. For we have admitted that there are some Forms which cannot come into partnership; and the Sophist against whom we are reasoning, though we have driven him to concede that Non-Ens is a real Form, may still contend that it is one of those which cannot come into partnership with Proposition, Judgment, Opinion — and he may allege that we can neither embody in language, nor in mental judgment, that which is not.79

Analysis of a Proposition. Every Proposition must have a noun and a verb — it must be proposition of Something. False propositions, involve the Form of Non-Ens, in relation to the particular subject.

Let us look attentively what Proposition, Judgment, Opinion, are. As we said about Forms and letters, so about words: it is not every combination of words which is possible, so as to make up a significant proposition. A string of nouns alone will not make one, nor a string of verbs alone. To compose the simplest proposition, you must put together at least one noun and one verb, in order to signify something respecting things existing, or events past, present, and future.80 Now every proposition must be a proposition about something, or belonging to a certain subject: every proposition must also be of a certain quality.81 Theætêtus is sitting down — Theætêtus is flying. Here are two propositions, both belonging to the same subject, but with opposite qualities: the former true, the latter false. The true proposition affirms respecting Theætêtus real things as they are; the false proposition affirms respecting him things 214different from real, or non-real, as being real. The attribute of flying is just as real in itself as the attribute of sitting: but as respects Theætêtus, or as predicated concerning him, it is different from the reality, or non-real.82 But still Theætêtus is the subject of the proposition, though the predicate flying does not really belong to him: for there is no other subject than he, and without a subject the proposition would be no proposition at all. When therefore different things are affirmed as the same, or non-realities as realities, respecting you or any given subject, the proposition so affirming is false.83

Opinion, Judgment, Fancy, &c., are akin to Proposition, and may be also false, by coming into partnership with the Form Non-Ens.

As propositions may be true or false, so also opinion or judgment or conception, may be true or false: for opinion or judgment is only the concluding result of deliberation or reflection — and reflection is the silent dialogue of the mind with itself: while conception or phantasy is the coalescence or conjunction of opinion with present perception.84 Both opinion and conception are akin to proposition. It has thus been shown that false propositions, and false opinions or judgments, are perfectly real, and involve no contradiction: and that the Form or Genus — Proposition, Judgment, Opinion — comes properly and naturally into partnership with the Form Non-Ens.

This was the point which Plato’s Eleate undertook to prove against Parmenides, and against the plea of the Sophist founded on the Parmenidean doctrine.

It thus appears that Falsehood, imitating Truth, is theoretically possible, and that there may be a profession, like that of the Sophist, engaged in producing it.

Here Plato closes his general philosophical discussion, and reverts to the process of logical division from which he had deviated. In descending the predicamental steps, to find the logical place of the Sophist, Plato had reached a point where he assumed Non-Ens, together215 with false propositions and judgments affirming Non-Ens. To which the Sophist is conceived as replying, that Non-Ens was contradictory and impossible, and that no proposition could be false. On these points Plato has produced an elaborate argument intended to refute him, and to show that there was such a thing as falsehood imitating truth, or passing itself off as truth: accordingly, that there might be an art or profession engaged in producing such falsehood.

Logical distribution of Imitators — those who imitate what they know, or what they do not know — of these last, some sincerely believe themselves to know, others are conscious that they do not know, and designedly impose upon others.

Now the imitative profession may be distributed into those who know what they imitate — and those who imitate without knowing.85 The man who mimics your figure or voice, knows what he imitates: those who imitate the figure of justice and virtue often pass themselves off as knowing it, yet do not really know it, having nothing better than fancy or opinion concerning it. Of these latter again — (i.e. the imitators with mere opinion, but no knowledge, respecting that which sincerely they imitate) — there are two classes: one, those who sincerely mistake their own mere opinions for knowledge, and are falsely persuaded that they really know: the other class, those who by their perpetual occupation in talking, lead us to suspect and apprehend that they are conscious of not knowing things, which nevertheless they discuss before others as if they did know.86

Last class divided — Those who impose on numerous auditors by long discourse, the Rhetor — Those who impose on select auditors, by short question and answer, making the respondent contradict himself — the Sophist.

Of this latter class, again, we may recognise two sections: those who impose upon a numerous audience by long discourses on public matters: and those who in private, by short question and answer, compel the person conversing with them to contradict himself.87 The man of long discourse is not the true statesman, but the popular orator: the man of short discourse, but without any real knowledge, is not the truly wise 216man, since he has no real knowledge — but the imitator of the wise man, or Sophist.

Dialogue closed. Remarks upon it. Characteristics ascribed to a Sophist.

We have here the conclusion of this abstruse and complicated dialogue, called Sophistês. It ends by setting forth, as the leading characteristics of the Sophist — that he deals in short question and answer so as to make the respondent contradict himself: That he talks with small circles of listeners, upon a large variety of subjects, on which he possesses no real knowledge: That he mystifies or imposes upon his auditors; not giving his own sincere convictions, but talking for the production of a special effect. He is ἐναντιοποιολογικὸς and εἴρων, to employ the two original Platonic words, neither of which is easy to translate.

These characteristics may have belonged to other persons, but they belonged in an especial manner to Sokrates himself.

I dare say that there were some acute and subtle disputants in Athens to whom these characteristics belonged, though we do not know them by name. But we know one to whom they certainly belonged: and that was, Sokrates himself. They stand manifest and prominent both in the Platonic and in the Xenophontic dialogues. The attribute which Xenophon directly predicates about him, that “in conversation he dealt with his interlocutors just as he pleased,”88 is amply exemplified by Plato in the Protagoras, Gorgias, Euthyphron, Lachês, Charmides, Lysias, Alkibiadês I. and II., Hippias I. and II., &c. That he cross-examined and puzzled every one else without knowing the subjects on which he talked, better than they did — is his own declaration in the Apology. That the 217Athenians regarded him as a clever man mystifying them — talking without sincere persuasion, or in a manner so strange that you could not tell whether he was in jest or in earnest — overthrowing men’s established convictions by subtleties which led to no positive truth — is also attested both by what he himself says in the Apology, and by other passages of Plato and Xenophon.89

The conditions enumerated in the dialogue (except the taking of a fee) fit Sokrates better than any other known person.

Moreover, if we examine not merely the special features assigned to the Sophist in the conclusion of the dialogue, but also those indicated in the earlier part of it, we shall find that many of them fit Sokrates as well as they could have fitted any one else. If the Sophists hunted after rich young men,90 Sokrates did the same; seeking opportunities for conversation with them by assiduous frequentation of the palæstræ, as well as in other ways. We see this amply attested by Plato and Xenophon:91 we see farther that Sokrates announces 218it as a propensity natural to him, and meritorious rather than otherwise. Again, the argumentative dialogue — disputation or eristic reduced to an art, and debating on the general theses of just and unjust, which Plato notes as characterising the Sophists92 — belonged in still higher perfection to Sokrates. It not only formed the business of his life, but is extolled by Plato elsewhere,93 as the true walk of virtuous philosophy. But there was undoubtedly this difference between Sokrates and the Sophists, that he conversed and argued gratuitously, delighting in the process itself: while they both asked and received money for it. Upon this point, brought forward by Plato both directly and with his remarkable fertility in multiplying indirect allusions, the peculiarity of the Sophist is made mainly to turn. To ask or receive a fee for communicating knowledge, virtue, aptitude in debate, was in the view of Sokrates and Plato a grave enormity: a kind of simoniacal practice.94

The art which Plato calls “the thoroughbred and noble Sophistical Art” belongs to Sokrates and to no one else. The Elenchus was peculiar to him. Protagoras and Prodikus were not Sophists in this sense.

We have seen also that Plato assigns to what he terms “the thoroughbred and noble Sophistic Art” (ἡ γένει γενναία σοφιστικὴ), the employment of the Elenchus, for the purpose of destroying, in the minds of others, that false persuasion of existing knowledge which was the radical impediment to their imbibing acquisitions of real knowledge from the teacher.95 Here Plato draws 219a portrait not only strikingly resembling Sokrates, but resembling no one else. As far as we can make out, Sokrates stood alone in this original conception of the purpose of the Elenchus, and in his no less original manner of working it out. To prove to others that they knew nothing, is what he himself represents to be his mission from the Delphian oracle. Sokrates is a Sophist of the most genuine and noble stamp: others are Sophists, but of a more degenerate variety. Plato admits the analogy with reluctance, and seeks to attenuate it.96 We may remark, however, that according to the characteristic of the true Sophist here given by Plato, Protagoras and Prodikus were less of Sophists than Sokrates. For though we know little of the two former, yet there is good reason to believe, That the method which they generally employed was, that of continuous and eloquent discourse, lecture, exhortation: that disputation by short question and answer was less usual with them, and was not their strong point: and that the Elenchus, in the Sokratic meaning, can hardly be said to have been used by them at all. Now Plato, in this dialogue, tells us that the true and genuine Sophist renounces the method of exhortation as unprofitable; or at least employs it only subject to the condition of having previously administered the Elenchus with success, as his own patent medicine.97 Upon this definition, Sokrates is more truly a Sophist than either Protagoras or Prodikus: neither of whom, so far as we know, made it their business to drive the respondent to contradictions.

Universal knowledge — was professed at that time by all Philosophers — Plato, Aristotle, &c.

Again, Plato tells us that the Sophist is a person who disputes about all matters, and pretends to know all matters: respecting the invisible Gods, respecting the visible Gods, Sun, Moon, Stars, Earth, &c., respecting transcendental philosophy, generation and essence — and respecting all civil, social, and political questions — and respecting special arts. On all these miscellaneous topics, according to Plato, the Sophists pretended to be themselves instructed, and to qualify their disciples for arguing on all of them.

220Now it is possible that the Sophists of that day may have pretended to this species of universal knowledge; but most certainly Plato and Aristotle did the same. The dialogues of Plato embrace all that wide range of topics which he tells us that the Sophists argued about, and pretended to teach. In an age when the amount of positive knowledge was so slender, it was natural for a clever talker or writer to fancy that he knew every thing. In reference to every subject then discussed, an ingenious mind could readily supply deductions from both hypotheses — generalities ratiocinative or imaginative — strung together into an apparent order sufficient for the exigencies of hearers. There was no large range of books to be studied; no stock of facts or experience to be mastered. Every philosopher wove his own tissue of theory for himself, without any restraint upon his intellectual impulse, in regard to all the problems then afloat. What the theories of the Sophists were, we do not know: but Plato, author of the Timæus, Republic, Leges, Kratylus, Menon — who affirmed the pre-existence as well as post-existence of the mind, and the eternal self-existence of Ideas — has no fair ground for reproaching them with blamable rashness in the extent and diversity of topics which they presumed to discuss. They obtained indeed (he says justly) no truth or knowledge, but merely a fanciful semblance of knowledge — an equivocal show or imitation of reality.98 But Plato himself obtains nothing more in the Timæus: and we shall find Aristotle pronouncing the like condemnation on the Platonic self-existent Ideas. If the Sophists professed to be encyclopedists, this was an error natural to the age; and was the character of Grecian philosophy generally, even in its most illustrious manifestations.

Inconsistency of Plato’s argument in the Sophistês. He says that the Sophist is a disputatious man who challenges every one for speaking falsehood. He says also that the Sophist is one who maintains false propositions to be impossible.

Having traced the Sophist down to the character of a man of delusion and imposture, passing off appearance as if it were reality, and falsehood as if it were truth — Plato 221(as we have seen) suddenly turns round upon himself, and asks how such a character is possible. He represents the Sophist as maintaining that no man could speak falsely99 — that a false proposition was self-contradictory, inasmuch as Non-Ens was inconceivable and unutterable. I do not see how the argument which Plato here ascribes to the Sophist, can be reconciled with the character which he had before given of the Sophist — as a man who passed his life in disputation and controversy; which involves the perpetual arraigning of other men’s opinions as false. A professed disputant may perhaps be accused of admitting nothing to be true: but he cannot well be charged with maintaining that nothing is false.

Reasoning of Plato about Non-Ens — No predications except identical.

To pass over this inconsistency, however — the reasoning of Plato himself on the subject of Non-Ens is an interesting relic of ancient speculation. He has made for himself an opportunity of canvassing, not only the doctrine of Parmenides, who emphatically denied Non-Ens — but also the opposite doctrine of other schools. He farther comments upon a different opinion, advanced by other philosophers — That no proposition can be admitted, in which the predicate is different from the subject: That no proposition is true or valid, except an identical proposition. You cannot say, Man is good: you can only say, Man is Man, or Good is good. You cannot say — Sokrates is good, brave, old, stout, flat-nosed, &c., because you thereby multiply the one Sokrates into many. One thing cannot be many, nor many things one.100

Misconception of the function of the copula in predication.

This last opinion is said to have been held by Antisthenes, one of the disciples of Sokrates. We do not know how he explained or defended it, nor what reserves he may have admitted to qualify it. Plato takes no pains to inform us on this point. He treats the opinion with derision, as an absurdity. We may conceive it as one of the many errors arising from a misconception of the purpose and function of the copula in predication. Antisthenes 222probably considered that the copula implied identity between the predicate and the subject. Now the explanation or definition of man is different from the explanation or definition of good: accordingly, if you say, Man is good, you predicate identity between two different things: as if you were to say Two is Three, or Three is Four. And if the predicates were multiplied, the contradiction became aggravated, because then you predicated identity not merely between one thing and another different thing, but between one thing and many different things. The opinion of Antisthenes depends upon two assumptions — That each separate word, whether used as subject or as predicate, denotes a Something separate and existent by itself: That the copula implies identity. Now the first of these two assumptions is not unfrequently admitted, even in the reasonings of Plato, Aristotle, and many others: while the latter is not more remarkable than various other erroneous conceptions which have been entertained, as to the function of the copula.

No formal Grammar or Logic existed at that time. No analysis or classification of propositions before the works of Aristotle.

What is most important to observe is — That at the time which we are here discussing, there existed no such sciences either grammar or formal logic. There was a copious and flexible language — a large body of literature, chiefly poetical — and great facility as well as felicity in the use of speech for the purposes of communication and persuasion. But no attempt had yet been made to analyse or theorise on speech: to distinguish between the different functions of words, and to throw them into suitable classes: to generalise the conditions of good or bad use of speech for proving a conclusion: or to draw up rules for grammar, syntax, and logic. Both Protagoras and Prodikus appear to have contributed something towards this object, and Plato gives various scattered remarks going still farther. But there was no regular body either of grammar or of formal logic: no established rules or principles to appeal to, no recognised teaching, on either topic. It was Aristotle who rendered the important service of filling up this gap. I shall touch hereafter upon the manner in which he proceeded: but the necessity of laying down a good theory of predication, and precepts respecting the employment of propositions in reasoning, is best shown by such misconceptions as this 223of Antisthenes; which naturally arise among argumentative men yet untrained in the generalities of grammar and logic.

Plato’s declared purpose in the Sophistês — To confute the various schools of thinkers — Antisthenes, Parmenides, the Materialists, &c.

Plato announces his intention, in this portion of the Sophistês, to confute all these different schools of thinkers, to whom he has made allusion.101 His first purpose, in reasoning against those who maintained Non-Ens to be an incogitable absurdity, is, to show that there are equal difficulties respecting Ens: that the Existent is just as equivocal and unintelligible as the Non-Existent. Those who recognise two co-ordinate and elementary principles (such as Hot and Cold) maintain that both are really existent, and call them both, Entia. Here (argues Plato) they contradict themselves: they call their two elementary principles one. What do they mean by existence, if this be not so?

Then again, Parmenides — and those who affirm that Ens Totum was essentially Unum, denying all plurality — had difficulties on their side to surmount. Ens could not be identical with Unum, nor was the name Ens, identical with the thing named Ens. Moreover, though Ens Unum was Totum, yet Totum was not identical with Ens or with Unum. Totum necessarily implied partes: but the Unum per se was indivisible or implied absence of parts. Though it was true therefore that Ens was both Unum and Totum, these two were both of them essentially different from Ens, and belonged to it only by way of adjunct accident. Parmenides was therefore wrong in saying that Unum alone existed.

Plato’s refutation throws light upon the doctrine of Antisthenes.

The reasoning here given from Plato throws some light upon the doctrine just now cited from Antisthenes. You cannot say (argues Plato against the advocates of duality) that two elements (Hot and Cold) are both of them Entia or Existent, because by so doing you call them one. You cannot say (argues Antisthenes) that Sokrates is good, brave, old, &c., because by such speech you call one thing three. Again, in controverting the doctrine of Parmenides,224 Plato urges, That Ens cannot be Unum, because it is Totum (Unum having no parts, while Totum has parts): but it may carry with it the accident Unum, or may have Unum applied to it as a predicate by accident. Here again, we have difficulties similar to those which perplexed Antisthenes. For the same reason that Plato will not admit, That Ens is Unum — Antisthenes will not admit, That Man is good. It appeared to him to imply essential identity between the predicate and the subject.

All these difficulties and others to which we shall come presently, noway peculiar to Antisthenes — attest the incomplete formal logic of the time: the want of a good theory respecting predication and the function of the copula.

Plato’s argument against the Materialists.

Pursuing the purpose of establishing his conclusion (viz. That Ens involved as many perplexities as Non-Ens), Plato comes to the two opposite sects:— 1. Those (the Materialists) who recognised bodies and nothing else, as the real Entia or Existences. 2. Those (the Friends of Forms, the Idealists) who maintained that incorporeal and intelligible Forms or Species were the only real existences; and that bodies had no existence, but were in perpetual generation and destruction.102

Respecting the first, Plato says that they must after all be ashamed not to admit, that justice, intelligence, &c., are something real, which may be present or absent in different individual men, and therefore must exist apart from all individuals. Yet justice and intelligence are not bodies. Existence therefore is something common to body and not-body. The characteristic mark of existence is, power or potentiality. Whatever has power to act upon any thing else, or to be acted on by any thing else, is a real Ens or existent something.103

Reply open to the Materialists.

Unfortunately we never know any thing about the opponents of Plato, nor how they would have answered his objection — except so much as he chooses to tell us. But it appears to me that the opponents whom he is here 225confuting would have accepted his definition, and employed it for the support of their own opinion. “We recognise (they would say) just men, or hard bodies, as existent, because they conform to your definition: they have power to act and be acted upon. But justice, apart from just men — hardness, apart from hard bodies — has no such power: they neither act upon any thing, nor are acted on by any thing: therefore we do not recognise them as existent.” According to their view, objects of perception acted on the mind, and therefore were to be recognised as existent: objects of mere conception did not act on the mind, and therefore had not the same claim to be ranked as existent: or at any rate they acted on the mind in a different way, which constitutes the difference between the real and unreal. Of this difference Plato’s definition takes no account.104

Plato’s argument against the Idealists or Friends of Forms. Their point of view against him.

Plato now presents this same definition to the opposite class of philosophers: to the Idealists, or partisans of the incorporeal — or of self-existent and separate Forms. These thinkers drew a marked distinction between the Existent and the Generated — between Ens and Fiens — τὸ ὂν and τὸ γιγνόμενον. Ens or the Existent was eternal and unchangeable: Fiens or the Generated was always in change or transit, coming or going. We hold communion (they said) with the generated or transitory, through our bodies and sensible perceptions: we hold communion with unchangeable Ens through our mind and by intellection. They did not admit the definition of existence just given by Plato. They contended that that definition applied only to Fiens or to the sensible world — not to Ens or the intelligible world.105 Fiens had power to act and be acted upon, and existed only under the condition of being so: that is, its existence was only temporary, conditional, relative: it had no permanent or absolute existence at all. Ens was the real existent, absolute and independent — neither acting upon any thing nor being acted upon. They considered that Plato’s definition was not a definition of Existence, or the Absolute: but rather of Non-Existence, or the Relative.

226Plato argues — That to know, and be known, is action and passion, a mode of relativity.

But (asks Plato in reply) what do you mean by “the mind holding communion” with the intelligible world? You mean that the mind knows, comprehends, conceives, the intelligible world: or in other words, that the intelligible world (Ens) is known, is comprehended, is conceived, by the mind. To be known or conceived, is to be acted on by the mind.106 Ens, or the intelligible world, is thus acted upon by the mind, and has a power to be so acted upon: which power is, in Plato’s definition here given, the characteristic mark of existence. Plato thus makes good his definition as applying to Ens, the world of intelligible Forms — not less than to Fiens, the world of sensible phenomena.

The definition of existence, here given by Plato, and the way in which he employs it against the two different sects of philosophers — Materialists and Idealists — deserves some remark.

Plato’s reasoning — compared with the points of view of both.

According to the Idealists or Immaterialists, Plato’s definition of existence would be supposed to establish the case of their opponents the Materialists, who recognised nothing as existing except the sensible world: for Plato’s definition (as the Idealists thought) fitted the sensible world, but fitted nothing else. Now these Idealists did not recognise the sensible world as existent at all. They considered it merely as Fiens, ever appearing and vanishing. The only Existent, in their view, was the intelligible world — Form or Forms, absolute, eternal, unchangeable, but neither visible nor perceivable by any of the other senses. This is the opinion against which Plato here reasons, though in various other dialogues he gives it as his own opinion, or at least, as the opinion of his representative spokesman.

In this portion of the present dialogue (Sophistês) the point which he makes is, to show to the Idealists, or Absolutists, that their Forms are not really absolute, or independent of the mind: that the existence of these forms is relative, just as much as that of the sensible world. The sensible world exists relatively to our senses, really or potentially exercised: the intelligible world 227exists relatively to our intelligence, really or potentially exercised. In both cases alike, we hold communion with the two worlds: the communion cannot be left out of sight, either in the one case or in the other. The communion is the entire and fundamental fact, of which the Subject conceiving and the Object conceived, form the two opposite but inseparable faces — the concave and convex, to employ a favourite illustration of Aristotle. Subject conceiving, in communion with Object conceived, are one and the same indivisible fact, looked at on different sides. This is, in substance, what Plato urges against those philosophers who asserted the absolute and independent existence of intelligible Forms. Such forms (he says) exist only in communion with, or relatively to, an intelligent mind: they are not absolute, not independent: they are Objects of intelligence to an intelligent Subject, but they are nothing without the Subject, just as the Subject is nothing without them or some other Object. Object of intelligence implies an intelligent Subject: Object of sense implies a sentient Subject. Thus Objects of intelligence, and Objects of sense, exist alike relatively to a Subject — not absolutely or independently.

The argument of Plato goes to an entire denial of the Absolute, and a full establishment of the Relative.

This argument, then, of Plato against the Idealists is an argument against the Absolute — showing that there can be no Object of intelligence or conception without its obverse side, the intelligent or concipient Subject. The Idealists held, that by soaring above the sensible world into the intelligible world, they got out of the region of the Relative into that of the Absolute. But Plato reminds them that this is not the fact. Their intelligible world is relative, not less than the sensible; that is, it exists only in communion with a mind or Subject, but with a Cogitant or intelligent Subject, not a percipient Subject.

Coincidence of his argument with the doctrine of Protagoras in the Theætêtus.

The argument here urged by Plato coincides in its drift and result with the dictum of Protagoras — Man is the measure of all things. In my remarks on the Theætêtus,107 I endeavoured to make it appear that the Protagorean dictum was really a negation of the Absolute, of the Thing in itself, of the Object without a Subject:— 228and an affirmation of the Relative, of the Thing in communion with a percipient or concipient mind, of Object implicated with Subject — as two aspects or sides of one and the same conception or cognition. Though Plato in the Theætêtus argued at length against Protagoras, yet his reasoning here in the Sophistês establishes by implication the conclusion of Protagoras. Here Plato impugns the doctrine of those who (like Sokrates in his own Theætêtus) held that the sensible world alone was relative, but that the intelligible world or Forms were absolute. He shows that the latter were no less relative to a mind than the former; and that mind, either percipient or cogitant, could never be eliminated from “communion” with them.

The Idealists maintained that Ideas or Forms were entirely unchangeable and eternal. Plato here denies this, and maintains that ideas were partly changeable, partly unchangeable.

These same Idealist philosophers also maintained — That Forms, or the intelligible world, were eternally the same and unchangeable. Plato here affirms that this ideas or opinion is not true: he contends that the intelligible world includes both change and unchangeableness, motion and rest, difference and sameness, life, mind, intelligence, &c. He argues that the intelligible world, whether assumed as consisting of one Form or of many Forms, could not be regarded either as wholly changeable or wholly unchangeable: it must comprise both constituents alike. If all were changeable, or if all were unchangeable, there could be no Object of knowledge; and, by consequence, no knowledge.108 But the fact that there is knowledge (cognition, conception), is the fundamental fact from which we must reason; and any conclusion which contradicts this must be untrue. Therefore the intelligible world is not all homogeneous, but contains different and even opposite Forms — change and unchangeableness — motion and rest — different and same.109

Plato’s reasoning against the Materialists.

Let us now look at Plato’s argument, and his definition of existence, as they bear upon the doctrine of the opposing Materialist philosophers, whom he states to have held that bodies alone existed, and that the Incorporeal did not exist:— in other words that all real existence was concrete and particular: that the abstract 229(universals, forms, attributes) had no real existence, certainly no separate existence. As I before remarked, it is not quite clear what or how much these philosophers denied. But as far as we can gather from Plato’s language, what they denied was, the existence of attributes apart from a substance. They did not deny the existence of just and wise men, but the existence of justice and wisdom, apart from men real or supposable.

Difference between Concrete and Abstract, not then made conspicuous. Large meaning here given by Plato to Ens — comprehending not only objects of Perception, but objects of Conception besides.

In the time of Plato, distinction between the two classes of words, Concrete and Abstract, had not become so clearly matter of reflection as to be noted by two appropriate terms: in fact, logical terminology was yet in its first rudiments. It is therefore the less matter of wonder that Plato should not here advert to the relation between the two, or to the different sense in which existence might properly be predicable of both. He agrees with the materialists or friends of the Concrete, in affirming that sensible objects, Man, Horse, Tree, exist (which the Idealists or friends of the Abstract denied): but he differs from them by saying that other Objects, super-sensible and merely intelligible, exist also — namely, Justice, Virtue, Whiteness, Hardness, and other Forms or Attributes. He admits that these last-mentioned objects do not make themselves manifest to the senses; but they do make themselves manifest to the intelligence or the conception: and that is sufficient, in his opinion, to authenticate them as existent. The word existent, according to his definition (as given in this dialogue), includes not only all that is or may be perceived, but also all that is or may be known by the mind; i.e., understood, conceived, imagined, talked or reasoned about. Existent, or Ens, is thus made purely relative: having its root in a Subject, but ramifying by its branches in every direction. It bears the widest possible sense, co-extensive with Object universally, either of perception or conception. It includes all fictions, as well as all (commonly called) realities. The conceivable and the existent become equivalent.

Narrower meaning given by Materialists to Ens — they included only Objects of Perception. Their reasoning as opposed to Plato.

Now the friends of the Concrete, against whom Plato reasons, used the word existent in a narrower sense, as comprising only the concretes of the sensible world. They probably admitted the existence of the abstract, 230along with and particularised in the concrete: but they certainly denied the separate existence of the Abstract — i.e., of Forms, Attributes, or classes, apart from particulars. They would not deny that many things were conceivable, more or less dissimilar from the realities of the sensible world: but they did not admit that all those conceivable things ought to be termed existent or realities, and put upon the same footing as the sensible world. They used the word existent to distinguish between Men, Horses, Trees, on the one hand — and Cyclopes, Centaurs, Τραγέλαφοι, &c., on the other. A Centaur is just as intelligible and conceivable as either a man or a horse; and according to this definition of Plato, would be as much entitled to be called really existent. The attributes of man and horse are real, because the objects themselves are real and perceivable: the class man and the class horse is real, for the same reason: but the attributes of a Centaur, and the class Centaurs, are not real, because no individuals possessing the attributes, or belonging to the class, have ever been perceived, or authenticated by induction. Plato’s Materialist opponents would here have urged, that if he used the word existent or Ens in so wide a sense, comprehending all that is conceivable or nameable, fiction as well as reality — they would require some other words to distinguish fiction from reality — Centaur from Man: which is what most men mean when they speak of one thing as non-existent, another thing as existent. At any rate, here is an equivocal sense of the word Ens — a wider and a narrower sense — which, we shall find frequently perplexing us in the ancient metaphysics; and which, when sifted, will often prove, that what appears to be a difference of doctrine, is in reality little more than a difference of phraseology.110

231Different definitions of Ens — by Plato — the Materialists, the Idealists.

This enquiry respecting Ens is left by Plato professedly unsettled; according to his very frequent practice. He pretends only to have brought it to this point: that Ens or the Existent is shown to present as many difficulties and perplexities as Non-Ens or the non-existent.111 I do not think that he has shown thus much; for, according to his definition, Non-Ens is an impossibility: the term is absolutely unmeaning: it is equivalent to the Unknowable or Inconceivable — as Parmenides affirmed it to be. But he has undoubtedly shown that Ens is in itself perplexing: which, instead of lightening the difficulties about Non-Ens, aggravates them: for all the difficulties about Ens must be solved, before you can pretend to understand Non-Ens. Plato has shown that Ens is used in three different meanings:—

1. According to the Materialists, it means only the concrete and particular, including all the attributes thereof, essential and accidental.

2. According to the Idealists or friends of Forms, it means only Universals, Forms, and Attributes.

3. According to Plato’s own definition here given, it means both the one and the other: whatever the mind can either perceive or conceive: whatever can act upon the mind in any way, or for any time however short. It is therefore wholly relative to the mind: yet not exclusively to the perceiving mind (as the Materialists said), nor exclusively to the conceiving mind (as the friends of Forms said): but to both alike.

Plato’s views about Non-Ens examined.

Here is much confusion, partly real but principally verbal, about Ens. Plato proceeds to affirm, that the difficulty about Non-Ens is no greater, and that it admits of being elucidated. The higher Genera or Forms (he says) are such that some of them will combine or enter into communion with each other, wholly or partially, others will not, 232but are reciprocally exclusive. Motion and Rest will not enter into communion, but mutually exclude each other: neither of them can be predicated of the other. But each or both of them will enter into communion with Existence, which latter may be predicated of both. Here are three Genera or Forms: motion, rest, and existence. Each of them is the same with itself, and different from the other two. Thus we have two new distinct Forms or Genera — Same and Different — which enter into communion with the preceding three, but are in themselves distinct from them.112 Accordingly you may say, motion partakes of (or enters into communion with) Diversum, because motion differs from rest: also you may say, motion partakes of Idem, as being identical with itself: but you cannot say, motion is different, motion is the same; because the subject and the predicate are essentially distinct and not identical.113

Some things are always named or spoken of per se, others with reference to something else. Thus, Diversum is always different from something else: it is relative, implying a correlate.114 In 233this, as well as in other points, Diversum (or Different) is a distinct Form, Genus, or Idea, which runs through all other things whatever. Each thing is different from every other thing: but it differs from them, not through any thing in its own nature, but because it partakes of the Form or Idea of Diversum or the Different.115 So, in like manner, the Form or Idea of Idem (or Same) runs through all other things: since each thing is both different from all others, and is also the same with itself.

His review of the select Five Forms.

Now motion is altogether different from rest Motion therefore is not rest. Yet still motion is, because it partakes of existence or Ens. Accordingly, motion both is and is not.

Again, motion is different from Idem or the Same. It is therefore not the same. Yet still motion is the same; because every thing partakes of identity, or is the same with itself. Motion therefore both is the same and is not the same. We must not scruple to advance both these propositions. Each of them stands on its own separate ground.116 So also motion is different from Diversum or The Different; in other words, it is not different, yet still it is different. And, lastly, motion is different from Ens, in other words, it is not Ens, or is non-Ens: yet still it is Ens, because it partakes of existence. Hence motion is both Ens, and Non-Ens.

Here we arrive at Plato’s explanation of Non-Ens, τὸ μὴ ὂν: the main problem which he is now setting to himself. Non-Ens is equivalent to, different from Ens. It is the Form or Idea of Diversum, considered in reference to Ens. Every thing is Ens, or partakes of entity, or existence. Every thing also is different from Ens, or partakes of difference in relation to Ens: it is thus Non-Ens. Every thing therefore is at the same time both Ens, and Non-Ens. Nay, Ens itself, inasmuch as it is different from all other things, is Non-Ens in reference to them. It is Ens only as one, in reference to itself: but it is Non-Ens an infinite number of times, in reference to all other things.117

Plato’s doctrine — That Non-Ens is nothing more than different from Ens.

When we say Non-Ens, therefore (continues Plato), we do not 234mean any thing contrary to Ens, but merely something different from Ens. When we say Not-great, we nothing do not mean any thing contrary to Great, but only something different from great. The negative generally, when annexed to any name, does not designate any thing contrary to what is meant by that name, but something different from it. The general nature or Form of difference is disseminated into a multitude of different parts or varieties according to the number of different things with which it is brought into communion: Not-great, Not-just, &c., are specific varieties of this general nature, and are just as much realities as great, just. And thus Non-Ens is just as much a reality as Ens being not contrary, but only that variety of the general nature of difference which corresponds to Ens. Non-Ens, Not-great, Not-just, &c., are each of them permanent Forms, among the many other Forms or Entia, having each a true and distinct nature of its own.118

I say nothing about contrariety (concludes Plato), or about any thing contrary to Ens; nor will I determine whether Non-Ens in this sense be rationally possible or not. What I mean by Non-Ens is a particular case under the general doctrine of the communion or combination of Forms: the combination of Ens with Diversum, composing that which is different from Ens, and which is therefore Non-Ens. Thus Ens itself, being different from all other Forms, is Non-Ens in reference to them all, or an indefinite number of times119 (i.e. an indefinite number of negative predications may be made concerning it).

Non-Ens being thus shown to be one among the many other Forms, disseminated among all the others, and entering into communion with Ens among the rest — we have next to enquire whether it enters into communion with the Form of Opinion and Discourse. It is the communion of the two which constitutes false opinion and false proposition: if therefore such communion be possible, false opinion and false proposition are possible, which is the point that Plato is trying to prove.120

235Communion of Non-Ens with proposition — possible and explicable.

Now it has been already stated (continues Plato) that some Forms or Genera admit of communion with each other, others do not. In like manner some words admit of communion with each other — not others. Those alone admit of communion, which, when put together, make up a proposition significant or giving information respecting Essence or Existence. The smallest proposition must have a noun and a verb put together: the noun indicating the agent, the verb indicating the act. Every proposition must be a proposition concerning something, or must have a logical subject: every proposition must also be of a certain quality. Let us take (he proceeds) two simple propositions: Theætêtus is sitting down — Theætêtus is flying.121 Of both these two, the subject is the same: but the first is true, the second is false. The first gives things existing as they are, respecting the subject: the second gives respecting the subject, things different from those existing, or in other words things non-existent, as if they did exist.122 A false proposition is that which gives things different as if they were the same, and things non-existent as if they were existent, respecting the subject.123

Imperfect analysis of a proposition — Plato does not recognise the predicate.

The foregoing is Plato’s explanation of Non-Ens. Before we remark upon it, let us examine his mode of analysing a proposition. He conceives the proposition as consisting of a noun and a verb. The noun marks the logical subject, but he has no technical word equivalent to subject: his phrase is, that a proposition must be of something or concerning something. Then again, he not only has no word to designate the predicate, but he does not even seem to conceive the predicate as distinct and separable: it stands along with the copula embodied in the verb. The two essentials of a proposition, as he states them, are — That it should have a certain subject — That it should be of a certain quality, 236true or false.124 This conception is just, as far as it goes: but it does not state all which ought to be known about proposition, and it marks an undeveloped logical analysis. It indicates moreover that Plato, not yet conceiving the predicate as a distinct constituent, had not yet conceived the copula as such: and therefore that the substantive verb ἔστιν had not yet been understood by him in its function of pure and simple copula. The idea that the substantive verb when used in a proposition must mark existence or essence, is sufficiently apparent in several of his reasonings.

I shall now say a few words on Plato’s explanation of Non-Ens. It is given at considerable length, and was, in the judgment of Schleiermacher, eminently satisfactory to Plato himself. Some of Plato’s expressions125 lead me to suspect that his satisfaction was not thus unqualified: but whether he was himself satisfied or not, I cannot think that the explanation ought to satisfy others.

Plato’s explanation of Non-Ens is not satisfactory — Objections to it.

Plato here lays down the position — That the word Not signifies nothing more than difference, with respect to that other word to which it is attached. It does not signify (he says) what is contrary; but simply what is different. Not-great, Not-beautiful — mean what is different from great or beautiful: Non-Ens means, not what is contrary to Ens, but simply what is different from Ens.

First, then, even if we admit that Non-Ens has this latter meaning and nothing beyond — yet when we turn to Plato’s own definition of Ens, we shall find it so all-comprehensive, that there can be absolutely nothing different from Ens:— these last words can have no place and no meaning. Plato defines Ens so as to include all that is knowable, conceivable, thinkable.126 One portion of this total differs from another: but there can be nothing which differs from it all. The Form or nature of Diversum (to 237use Plato’s phrase) as it is among the knowable or conceivable, is already included in the total of Ens, and comes into communion (according to the Platonic phraseology) with one portion of that total as against another portion. But with Ens as a whole, it cannot come into communion, for there is nothing apart from Ens. Whenever we try to think of any thing apart from Ens, we do by the act of thought include it in Ens, as defined by Plato. Different from great — different from white (i.e. not great, not white, sensu Platonico) is very intelligible: but Different from Ens, is not intelligible: there is nothing except the inconceivable and incomprehensible: the words professing to describe it, are mere unmeaning sound. Now this is just127 what Parmenides said about Non-Ens. Plato’s definition of Ens appears to me to make out the case of Parmenides about Non-Ens; and to render the Platonic explanation — different from Ens — open to quite as many difficulties, as those which attach to Non-Ens in the ordinary sense.

Secondly, there is an objection still graver against Plato’s explanation. When he resolves negation into an affirmation of something different from what is denied, he effaces or puts out of sight one of the capital distinctions of logic. What he says is indeed perfectly true: Not-great, Not-beautiful, Non-Ens, are respectively different from great, beautiful, Ens. But this, though true, is only a part of the truth; leaving unsaid another portion of the truth which, while equally essential, is at the same time special and characteristic. The negative not only differs from the affirmative, but has such peculiar meaning of its own, as to exclude the affirmative: both cannot be true together. Not-great is certainly different from great: so also, white, hard, rough, just, valiant, &c, are all different from great. But there is nothing in these latter epithets to exclude the co-existence of great. Theætêtus is great — Theætêtus is white; in the second of these two propositions I affirm something respecting Theætêtus quite different from what I affirm in the first, yet nevertheless noway excluding what is affirmed in the first.128 The two propositions may both 238be true. But when I say — Theætêtus is dead — Theætêtus is not dead: here are two propositions which cannot both be true, from the very form of the words. To explain not-great, as Plato does, by saying that it means only something different from great,129 is to suppress this peculiar meaning and virtue of the negative, whereby it simply excludes the affirmative, without affirming any thing in its place. Plato is right in saying that not-great does not affirm the contrary of great, by which he means little.130 The negative does not affirm any thing: it simply denies. Plato seems to consider the negative as a species of affirmative:131 only affirming something different from what is affirmed by the term which it accompanies. Not-Great, Not-Beautiful, Not-Just — he declares to be Forms just as real and distinct as Great, Beautiful, Just: only different from these latter. This, in my opinion, is a conception logically erroneous. Negative stands opposed to affirmative, as one of the modes of distributing both terms and propositions. A purely negative term cannot stand alone in the subject of a proposition: Non-Entis nulla sunt prædicata — was 239the scholastic maxim. The apparent exceptions to this rule arise only from the fact, that many terms negative in their form have taken on an affirmative signification.

Plato’s view of the negative is erroneous. Logical maxim of contradiction.

The view which Plato here takes of the negative deserves the greater notice, because, if it were adopted, what is called the maxim of contradiction would be divested of its universality. Given a significant proposition with the same subject and the same predicate, each taken in one and the same signification — its affirmative and its negative cannot both be true. But if by the negative, you mean to make a new affirmation, different from that contained in the affirmative — the maxim just stated cannot be broadly maintained as of universal application: it may or may not be valid, as the case happens to stand. The second affirmation may be, as a matter of fact, incompatible with the first: but this is not to be presumed, from the mere fact that it is different from the first: proof must be given of such incompatibility.

Examination of the illustrative propositions chosen by Plato — How do we know that one is true, the other false?

We may illustrate this remark by looking at the two propositions which Plato gives as examples of true and false. Theætêtus is sitting down — Theætêtus is flying. Both the examples are of affirmative propositions: and it seems clear that Plato, in all this reasoning, took no account of negative propositions: those which simply deny, affirming nothing. The second of these propositions (says Plato) affirms what is not, as if it were, respecting the subject But how do we know this to be so? In the form of the second proposition there is nothing to show it: there is no negation of any thing, but simply affirmation of a different positive attribute. Although it happens, in this particular case, that the two attributes are incompatible, and that the affirmation of the one includes the negation of the other — yet there is nothing in the form of either proposition to deny the other:— no formal incompatibility between them. Both are alike affirmative, with the same subject, but different predicates. These two propositions therefore do not serve to illustrate the real nature of the negative, which consists precisely in this formal incompatibility. The proper negative belonging to the proposition — Theætêtus is sitting down — would be, Theætêtus is not sitting down. Plato ought to maintain, if he followed out his previous 240argument, that Not-Sitting down is as good a Form as Sitting-down, and that it meant merely — Different from Sitting down. But instead of doing this Plato gives us a new affirmative proposition, which, besides what it affirms, conceals an implied negation of the first proposition. This does not serve to illustrate the purpose of his reasoning — which was to set up the formal negative as a new substantive attribute, different from its corresponding affirmative. As between the two, the maxim of contradiction applies: both cannot be true. But as between the two propositions given in Plato, that maxim has no application: they are two propositions with the same subject, but different predicates; which happen in this case to be, the one true, the other false — but which are not formally incompatible. The second is not false because it differs from the first; it has no essential connection with the first, and would be equally false, even if the first were false also.

The function of the negative is to deny. Now denial is not a species of affirmation, but the reversal or antithesis of affirmation: it nullifies a belief previously entertained, or excludes one which might otherwise be entertained, — but it affirms nothing. In particular cases, indeed, the denial of one thing may be tantamount to the affirmation of another: for a man may know that there are only two suppositions possible, and that to shut out the one is to admit the other. But this is an inference drawn in virtue of previous knowledge possessed and contributed by himself: another man without such knowledge would not draw the same inference, nor could he learn it from the negative proposition per se. Such then is the genuine meaning of the negative; from which Plato departs, when he tells us that the negative is a kind of affirmation, only affirming something different — and when he illustrates it by producing two affirmative propositions respecting the same subject, affirming different attributes, the one as matter of fact incompatible with the other.

Necessity of accepting the evidence of sense.

But how do we know that the first proposition — Theætêtus is sitting down — affirms what is:— and that the second proposition — Theætêtus is flying — affirms what is not? If present, our senses testify to us the truth of the first, and the falsehood of the second: if absent, we have the testimony of a witness, combined with our own past experience 241attesting the frequency of facts analogous to the one, and the non-occurrence of facts analogous to the other. When we make the distinction, then, — we assume that what is attested by sense or by comparisons and inductions from the facts of sense, is real, or is: and that what is merely conceived or imagined, without the attestation of sense (either directly or by way of induction), is not real, or is not. Upon this assumption Plato himself must proceed, when he takes it for granted, as a matter of course, that the first proposition is true, and the second false. But he forgets that this assumption contradicts the definition which, in this same dialogue,132 he had himself given of Ens — of the real or the thing that is. His definition was so comprehensive, as to include not only all that could be seen or felt, but also all that had capacity to be known or conceived by the mind: and he speaks very harshly of those who admit the reality of things perceived, but refuse to admit equal reality to things only conceived. Proceeding then upon this definition, we can allow no distinction as to truth or falsehood between the two propositions — Theætêtus is sitting down — Theætêtus is flying: the predicate of the second affirms what is, just as much as the predicate of the first: for it affirms something which, though neither perceived nor perceivable by sense, is distinctly conceivable and conceived by the mind. When Plato takes for granted the distinction between the two, that the first affirms what is, and the second what is not — he unconsciously slides into that very recognition of the testimony of sense (in other words, of fact and experience), as the certificate of reality, which he had so severely denounced in the opposing materialist philosophers: and upon the ground of which he thought himself entitled, not merely to correct them as mistaken, but to reprove them as wicked and impudent.133

Errors of Antisthenes — depended partly on the imperfect formal logic of that day.

I have thus reviewed a long discussion — terminating in a conclusion which appears to me unsatisfactory — of the meaning and function of the negative. I hardly think that Plato would have given such an explanation of it, if he had had the opportunity of studying the Organon of Aristotle. Prior to Aristotle, the principles and distinctions of formal logic were hardly 242at all developed; nor can we wonder that others at that time fell into various errors which Plato scornfully derides, but very imperfectly rectifies. For example, Antisthenes did not admit the propriety of any predication, except identical, or at most essential, predication: the word ἔστιν appeared to him incompatible with any other. But we perceive in this dialogue, that Plato also did not conceive the substantive verb as performing the simple function of copula in predication: on the contrary he distinguishes ἔστιν, as marking identity between subject and predicate — from μετέχει, as marking accidental communion between the two. Again, there were men in Plato’s day who maintained that Non-Ens (τὸ μὴ ὂν) was inconceivable and impossible. Plato, in refuting these philosophers, gives a definition of Ens (τὸ ὂν), which puts them in the right — fails in stating what the true negative is — and substitutes, in place of simple denial, a second affirmation to overlay and supplant the first.

Doctrine of the Sophistês — contradicts that of other Platonic dialogues.

To complete the examination of this doctrine of the Sophistês, respecting Non-Ens, we must compare it with the doctrine on the same subject laid down in other Platonic dialogues. It will be found to contradict, very distinctly, the opinion assigned by Plato to Sokrates both in the Theætêtus and in the fifth Book of the Republic:134 where Sokrates deals with Non-Ens in its usual 243sense as the negation of Ens: laying down the position that Non-Ens can be neither the object of the cognizing Mind, nor the object of the opining (δοξάζων) or cogitant Mind: that it is uncognizable and incogitable, correlating only with Non-Cognition or Ignorance. Now we find that this doctrine (of Sokrates, in Theætêtus and Republic) is the very same as that which is affirmed, in the Sophistês, to be taken up by the delusive Sophist: the same as that which the Eleate spends much ingenuity in trying to refute, by proving that Non-Ens is not the negation of Ens, but only that which differs from Ens, being itself a particular variety of Ens. It is also the same doctrine as is declared, both by the Eleate in the Sophistês and by Sokrates in the Theætêtus, to imply as an undeniable consequence, that the falsehood of any proposition is impossible. “A false proposition is that which speaks the thing that is not (τὸ μὴ ὄν). But this is an impossibility. You can neither know, nor think, nor speak, the thing that is not. You cannot know without knowing something: you cannot speak without speaking something (i. e. something that is).” Of this consequence — which is expressly announced as included in the doctrine, both by the Eleate in the Sophistês and by the Platonic Sokrates in the Theætêtus — no notice is taken in the Republic.135

Again, the doctrine maintained by the Eleate in the Sophistês respecting Ens, as well as respecting Ideas or Forms, is in other ways inconsistent with what is laid down in other Platonic dialogues. The Eleate in the Sophistês undertakes to refute two different classes of opponents; first, the Materialists, of whom he speaks with derision and antipathy — secondly, others of very opposite doctrines, whom he denominates the Friends of Ideas or Forms, speaking of them in terms of great respect. Now by these Friends of Forms or Ideas, Schleiermacher conjectures that Plato intends to denote the Megaric philosophers. M. Cousin, and most other critics (except Ritter), have taken up this opinion. But to me it seems that Socher is right in declaring the doctrine, ascribed to these Friends of Ideas, to be the very same as that which is laid down by Plato himself in other important dialogues — Republic, Timæus, Phædon, Phædrus, Kratylus, &c. — and which is generally understood as that of the Platonic Ideas.136 In all these dialogues, the capital contrast and antithesis 245is that between Ens or Entia on one side, and Fientia (the transient, ever generated and ever perishing), on the other: between the eternal, unchangeable, archetypal Forms or Ideas — and the ever-changing flux of particulars, wherein approximative likeness of these archetypes is imperfectly manifested. Now it is exactly this antithesis which the Friends of Forms in the Sophistês are represented as upholding, and which the Eleate undertakes to refute.137 We shall find Aristotle, over and over again, impugning the total separation or demarcation between Ens and Fientia (εἴδη — γένεσις — χωριστά), both as the characteristic dogma, and the untenable dogma, of the Platonic philosophy: it is exactly the same issue which the Eleate in the Sophistês takes with the Friends of Forms. He proves that Ens is just as full of perplexity, and just as difficult to understand, as Non-Ens:138 whereas, in the other Platonic dialogues, Ens is 246constantly spoken of as if it were plain and intelligible. In fact, he breaks down the barrier between Ens and Fientia, by including motion, change, the moving or variable, among the world of Entia.139 Motion or Change belongs to Fieri; and if it be held to belong to Esse also (by recognising a Form or Idea of Motion or Change, as in the Sophistês), the antithesis between the two, which is so distinctly declared in other Platonic dialogues, disappears.140

The persons whom Plato here attacks as Friends of Forms are those who held the same doctrine as Plato himself espouses in Phædon, Republic, &c.

If we examine the reasoning of the Eleate, in the Sophistês, against the persons whom he calls the Friends of Forms, we shall see that these latter are not Parmenideans only, but also Plato himself in the Phædon, Republic, and elsewhere. We shall also see that the ground, taken up by the Eleate, is much the same as that which was afterwards taken up by Aristotle against the Platonic Ideas. Plato, in most of his dialogues, declares Ideas, Forms, Entia, to be eternal substances distinct and apart from the flux and movement of particulars: yet he also declares, nevertheless, that particulars have a certain communion or participation with the Ideas, and are discriminated and denominated according to such participation. Aristotle controverts both these doctrines: 247first, the essential separation of the two, which he declares to be untrue: next, the participation or coming together of the two separate elements — which he declares to be an unmeaning fiction or poetical metaphor, introduced in order to elude the consequences of the original fallacy.141 He maintains that the two (Entia and Fientia — Universals and Particulars) have no reality except in conjunction and implication together; though they are separable by reason (λόγῳ χωριστὰ — τῷ εἰναι, χωριστά) or abstraction, and though we may reason about them apart, and must often reason about them apart.142 Now it is this implication and conjunction of the Universal with its particulars, which is the doctrine of the Sophistês, and which distinguishes it from other Platonic dialogues, wherein the Universal is transcendentalized — lodged in a separate world from particulars. No science or intelligence is possible (says the Eleate in the Sophistês) either upon the theory of those who pronounce all Ens to be constant and unchangeable, or upon that of those who declare all Ens to be fluent and variable. We must recognise both together, the constant and the variable, as equally real and as making up the totality of Ens.143 This result, though not stated in the language which Aristotle would have employed, coincides very nearly with the Aristotelian doctrine, in one of the main points on which Aristotle distinguishes his own teaching from that of his master.

The Sophistês recedes from the Platonic point of view, and approaches the Aristotelian.

That the Eleate in the Sophistes recedes from the Platonic point of view and approaches towards the Aristotelian, will be seen also if we look at the lesson of logic which he gives to Theætêtus. In his analysis of a proposition — and in discriminating such conjunctions of 248words as are significant, from such as are insignificant — he places himself on the same ground as that which is travelled over by Aristotle in the Categories and the treatise De Interpretatione. That the handling of the topic by Aristotle is much superior, is what we might naturally expect from the fact that he is posterior in time. But there is another difference between the two which is important to notice. Aristotle deals with this topic, as he does with every other, in the way of methodical and systematic exposition. To expound it as a whole, to distribute it into convenient portions each illustrating the others, to furnish suitable examples for the general principles laid down — are announced as his distinct purposes. Now Plato’s manner is quite different. Systematic exposition is not his primary purpose: he employs it up to a certain point, but as means towards another and an independent purpose — towards the solution of a particular difficulty, which has presented itself in the course of the dialogue. — “Nosti morem dialogorum.” Aristotle is demonstrative: Plato is dialectical. In our present dialogue (the Sophistês), the Eleate has been giving a long explanation of Non-Ens; an explanation intended to prove that Non-Ens was a particular sort of Ens, and that there was therefore no absurdity (though Parmenides had said that this was absurdity) in assuming it as a passable object of Cognition, Opination, Affirmation. He now goes a step further, and seeks to show that it is, actually and in fact, an object of Opination and Affirmation.144 It is for this purpose, and for this purpose only, that he analyses a proposition, specifies the constituent elements requisite to form it, and distinguishes one proposition from another.

Accordingly, the Eleate, — after pointing out that neither a string of nouns repeated one after the other, nor a string of verbs so repeated, would form a significant proposition, — declares that the conjunction of a noun with a verb is required to form one; and that opination is nothing but that internal mental process which the words of the proposition express. The smallest proposition must combine a noun with a verb:— the former signifying the agent, the latter, the action or thing done.145 Moreover, 249the proposition must be a proposition of something; and it must be of a certain quality. By a proposition of something, Plato means, that what is called technically the subject of the proposition (in his time there were no technical terms of logic) must be something positive, and cannot be negative: by the quality of the proposition, he means that it must be either true or false.146

Aristotle assumes without proof, that there are some propositions true, others false.

This early example of rudimentary grammatical or logical analysis, recognising only the two main and principal parts of speech, is interesting as occurring prior to Aristotle; by whom it is repeated in a manner more enlarged, systematic,147 and instructive. But Aristotle assumes, without proof and without supposing that any one will dispute the assumption — that there are some propositions true, other propositions false: that a name or noun, taken separately, is neither true nor false:148 that propositions (enunciations) only can be true or false.

Plato in the Sophistês has undertaken an impossible task — He could not have proved, against his supposed adversary, that there are false propositions.

The proceeding of Plato in the Sophistês is different. He supposes a Sophist who maintains that no proposition either is false or can be false, and undertakes to prove against him that there are false propositions: he farther supposes this antagonist to reject the evidence of sense and visible analogies, and to acknowledge no proof except what is furnished by reason and philosophical deduction.149 Attempting, under these restrictions, to prove his point, Plato’s Eleatic disputant rests entirely upon the peculiar meaning which he professes to have shown to attach to Non-Ens. He 250applies this to prove that Non-Ens may be predicated as well as Ens: assuming that such predication of Non-Ens constitutes a false proposition. But the proof fails. It serves only to show that the peculiar meaning ascribed by the Eleate to Non-Ens is inadmissible. The Eleate compares two distinct propositions — Theætêtus is sitting down — Theætêtus is flying. The first is true: the second is false. Why? Because (says the Eleate) the first predicates Ens, the second predicates Non-Ens, or (to substitute his definition of Non-Ens) another Ens different from the Ens predicated in the first.150 But here the reason assigned, why the second proposition is false, is not the real reason. Many propositions may be assigned, which predicate attributes different from the first, but which are nevertheless quite as much true as the first. I have already observed, that the reason why the second proposition is false is, because it contradicts the direct testimony of sense, if the persons debating are spectators: if they are not spectators, then because it contradicts the sum total of their previous sensible experience, remembered, compared, and generalised, which has established in them the conviction that no man does or can fly. If you discard the testimony of sense as unworthy of credit (which Plato assumes the Sophist to do), you cannot prove that the second proposition is false — nor indeed that the first proposition is true. Plato has therefore failed in giving that dialectic proof which he promised. The Eleate is forced to rely (without formally confessing it), on the testimony of sense, which he had forbidden Theætêtus to invoke, twenty pages before.151 The long intervening piece of dialectic about Ens and Non-Ens is inconclusive for his purpose, and might have been omitted. The proposition — Theætêtus is flying — does undoubtedly predicate attributes which are not as if they were,152 and is thus 251false. But then we must consult and trust the evidence of our perception: we must farther accept are not in the ordinary sense of the words, and not in the sense given to them by the Eleate in the Platonic Sophistês. His attempt to banish the specific meaning of the negative particle, and to treat it as signifying nothing more than difference, appears to me fallacious.153

What must be assumed in all dialectic discussion.

In all reasoning, nay in all communication by speech, you must assume that your hearer understands the meaning of what is spoken: that he has the feelings of belief and disbelief, and is familiar with those forms of the language whereby such feelings are expressed: that there are certain propositions which he believes — in other words, which he regards as true: that there are certain other propositions which he disbelieves, or regards as false: that he has had experience of the transition from belief to disbelief, and vice versâ — in other words, of having fallen into error and afterwards come to perceive that it was error. These are the mental facts realised in each man and assumed by him to be also realised in his neighbours, when communication takes place by speech. If a man could be supposed to believe nothing, and to disbelieve nothing; — if he had no forms of speech to express his belief, disbelief, affirmation, and denial — no information could be given, no discussion would be possible. Every child has to learn this lesson in infancy; and a tedious lesson it undoubtedly is.154 Antisthenes (who composed several dialogues) and the other 252disputants of whom we are now speaking, must have learnt the lesson as other men have: but they find or make some general theory which forbids them to trust the lesson when learnt. It was in obedience to some such theory that Antisthenes discarded all predication except essential predication, and discarded also the form suited for expressing disbelief — the negative proposition: maintaining, That to contradict was impossible. I know no mode of refuting him, except by showing that his fundamental theory is erroneous.

Discussion and theorising presuppose belief and disbelief, expressed in set forms of words. They imply predication, which Antisthenes discarded.

Discussion and theorising can only begin when these processes, partly intellectual, partly emotional, have become established and reproducible portions of the train of mental association. As processes, they are common to all men. But though two persons agree in having expressed the feeling of belief, and in expressing that feeling by one form of proposition — also in having the feeling of disbelief, and in expressing it by another form of proposition — yet it does not follow that the propositions which these two believe or disbelieve are the same. How far such is the case must be ascertained by comparison — by appeal to sense, memory, inference from analogy, induction, feeling, consciousness, &c. The ground is now prepared for fruitful debate: for analysing the meaning, often confused and complicated, of propositions: for discriminating the causes, intellectual and emotional, of belief and disbelief, and for determining how far they harmonise in one mind and another: for setting out general rules as to sequence, or inconsistency, or independence, of one belief as compared with another. To a certain extent, the grounds of belief and disbelief in all men, and the grounds of consistency or inconsistency between some beliefs and others, will be found to harmonise: they can be embodied in methodical forms of language, and general rules can be laid down preventing in many cases inadvertence or erroneous combination. It is at this point that Aristotle takes up rational grammar and logic, with most profitable effect. But he is obliged to postulate (what Antisthenes professed to discard) predication, not merely identical, but also accidental as well as essential — together with names and propositions both negative and affirmative.155253 He cannot avoid postulating thus much: though he likewise postulates a great deal more, which ought not to be granted.

Precepts and examples of logical partition, illustrated in the Sophistês.

The long and varied predicamental series, given in the Sophistês, illustrates the process of logical partition, as Plato conceived it, and the definition of a class-name founded thereupon. You take a logical whole, and you subtract from it part after part until you find the quæsitum isolated from every thing else.156 But you must always divide into two parts (he says) wherever it can be done: dichotomy or bipartition is the true logical partition: should this be impracticable, trichotomy, or division into the smallest attainable number of parts, must be sought for.157 Moreover, the bipartition must be made according to Forms (Ideas, Kinds): the parts which you recognise must be not merely parts, but Forms: every form is a part, but every part is not a form.158 Next, you must draw the line of division as nearly as you can through the middle of the dividendum, so that the parts on both sides may be nearly equal: it is in this way that your partition is most likely to coincide with forms on both sides of the line.159 This is the longest way of proceeding, but the safest. It is a logical mistake to divide into two parts very unequal: you may find a form on one side of the line, but you obtain none on the other side. Thus, it is bad classification to distribute the human race into Hellênes + Barbari: the Barbari are of infinite number and diversity, having no one common form to which the name can apply. It is also improper to distribute Number into the myriad on side, and all other numbers on the other — for a similar reason. You ought to distribute the human 254race into the two forms, Male — Female: and number into the two, Odd — Even.160 So also, you must not divide gregarious creatures into human beings on one side, and animals on the other; because this last term would comprise numerous particulars utterly disparate. Such a classification is suggested only by the personal feeling of man, who prides himself upon his intelligence. But if the classification were framed by any other intelligent species, such as Cranes,161 they would distinguish Cranes on the one side from animals on the other, including Man as one among many disparate particulars under animal.

Recommendation of logical bipartition.

The above-mentioned principle — dichotomy or bipartition into two equal or nearly equal halves, each resting upon a characteristic form — is to be applied as far as it will go. Many different schemes of partition upon this principle may be found, each including forms subordinated one to the other, descending from the more comprehensive to the less comprehensive. It is only when you can find no more parts which are forms, that you must be content to divide into parts which are not forms. Thus after all the characteristic forms, for dividing the human race, have been gone through, they may at last be partitioned into Hellênes and Barbari, Lydians and non-Lydians, Phrygians and non-Phrygians: in which divisions there is no guiding form at all, but only a capricious distribution into fractions with separate names162 — meaning by capricious, a distribution founded on some feeling or circumstance peculiar to the distributor, or shared by him only with a few others; such as the fact, that he is himself a Lydian or a Phrygian, &c.

Precepts illustrated by the Philêbus.

These precepts in the Sophistês and Politikus, respecting the process of classification, are illustrated by an important passage of the Philêbus:163 wherein Plato tells us that the constitution of things includes the Determinate and the Indeterminate implicated with each other, and requiring study to disengage them. Between the highest One, Form, or Genus — and the lowest array of indefinite particulars — 255there exist a certain number of intermediate Ones or Forms, each including more or fewer of these particulars. The process of study or acquired cognition is brought to bear upon these intermediate Forms: to learn how many there are, and to discriminate them in themselves as well as in their position relative to each other. But many persons do not recognise this: they apprehend only the Highest One, and the Infinite Many, not looking for any thing between: they take up hastily with some extreme and vague generality, below which they know nothing but particulars. With knowledge thus imperfect, you do not get beyond contentious debate. Real, instructive, dialectic requires an understanding of all the intermediate forms. But in descending from the Highest Form downwards, you must proceed as much as possible in the way of bipartition, or if not, then of tripartition, &c.: looking for the smallest number of forms which can be found to cover the whole field. When no more forms can be found, then and not till then, you must be content with nothing better than the countless indeterminate particulars.

This instructive passage of the Philêbus — while it brings to view a widespread tendency of the human mind, to pass from the largest and vaguest generalities at once into the region of particulars, and to omit the distinctive sub-classes which lie between — illustrates usefully the drift of the Sophistês and Politikus. In these two last dialogues it is the method itself of good logical distribution which Plato wishes to impress upon his readers: the formal part of the process.164 With this view, he not only makes the process intentionally circuitous and diversified, but also selects by preference matters of common sensible experience, though in themselves indifferent, such as the art of weaving,165 &c.

Importance of founding logical Partition on resemblances perceived by sense.

The reasons given for this preference deserve attention. In these common matters (he tells us) the resemblances upon which Forms are founded are perceived by sense, and can be exhibited to every one, so that the form is readily understood and easily discriminated. The general terms can there be explained by reference to sense. But in regard to incorporeal matters, the 256higher and grander topics of discussion, there is no corresponding sensible illustration to consult. These objects can be apprehended only by reason, and described only by general terms. By means of these general terms, we must learn to give and receive rational explanations, and to follow by process of reasoning from one form to another. But this is more difficult, and requires a higher order of mind, where there are no resemblances or illustrations exposed to sense. Accordingly, we select the common sensible objects as an easier preparatory mode of a process substantially the same in both.166

Province of sensible perception — is not so much narrowed by Plato here as it is in the Theætêtus.

This explanation given by Plato, in itself just, deserves to be compared with his view of sensible objects as knowable, and of sense as a source of knowledge. I noticed in a preceding chapter the position which Sokrates is made to lay down in the Theætêtus,167 — That (αἴσθησις) sensible perception reaches only to the separate impressions of sense, and does not apprehend the likeness and other relations between them. I have also noticed the contrast which he establishes elsewhere between Esse and Fieri: i.e., between Ens which alone (according to him) is knowable, and the perpetual flux of Fientia which is not knowable at all, but is only matter of opinion or guess-work. Now in the dialogue before us, the Politikus, there is no such marked antithesis between opinion and knowledge. Nor is the province of αἴσθησις so strictly confined: on the contrary, Plato here considers sensible perception as dealing with Entia, and as appreciating resemblances and other relations between them. It is by an attentive study and comparison of these facts of sense that Forms are detected. “When a man (he says) has first perceived by sense the points of communion between the Many, he must not desist from attentive observation until he has discerned in that communion all the differences which reside in Forms: and when 257he has looked at the multifarious differences which are visible among these Many, he must not rest contented until he has confined all such as are really cognate within one resemblance, tied together by the essence of one common Form.”168

Comparison of the Sophistês with the Phædrus.

These passages may be compared with others of similar import in the Phædrus.169 Plato here considers the Form, not as an Entity per se separate from and independent of the particulars, but as implicated in and with the particulars: as a result reached by the mind through the attentive observation and comparison of particulars: as corresponding to what is termed in modern language abstraction and generalisation. The self-existent Platonic Ideas do not appear in the Politikus:170 which approximates rather to the Aristotelian doctrine:— that is, the doctrine of the universal, logically distinguishable from its particulars, but having no reality apart from them (χωριστὰ λόγῳ μόνον). But in other dialogues of Plato, the separation between the two is made as complete as possible, especially in the striking passages of the Republic: wherein we read that the facts of sense are a delusive juggle — that we must turn our back upon them and cease to study them — and that we must face about, away from the sensible world, to contemplate Ideas, the separate and unchangeable furniture of the intelligible world — and that the whole process of acquiring true Cognition, consists in passing from the higher to the lower Forms or Ideas, without any misleading illustrations of sense.171 Here, in the Sophistês and Politikus, instead of having the Universal behind our backs when the particulars are before our faces, we see it in and amidst particulars: the illustrations of sense, instead of deluding us, being declared to conduce, 258wherever they can be had, to the clearness and facility of the process.172 Here, as well as in the Phædrus, we find the process of Dialectic emphatically recommended, but described as consisting mainly in logical classification of particulars, ascending and descending divisions and conjunctions, as Plato calls them173 — analysis and synthesis. We are enjoined to divide and analyse the larger genera into their component species until we come to the lowest species which can no longer be divided: also, conversely, to conjoin synthetically the subordinate species until the highest genus is attained, but taking care not to omit any of the intermediate species, in their successive gradations.174 Throughout all this process, as described both in the Phædrus and in the Politikus, the eye is kept fixed upon the constituent individuals. The Form is studied in and among the particulars which it comprehends: the particulars are looked at in groups put together suitably to each comprehending Form. And in both dialogues, marked stress is laid upon the necessity of making the division dichotomous; as well as according to Forms, and not according to fractions which are not legitimate Forms.175 Any other method, we are told, would be like the wandering of a blind man.

What distinguishes the Sophistês and Politikus from most other dialogues of Plato, is, that the method of logical classification is illustrated by setting the classifier to work upon one or a few given subjects, some in themselves trivial, some important. Though the principles of the method are enunciated in general terms, yet their application to the special example is kept constantly before us; so that we are never permitted, much less required, to divorce the Universal from its Particulars.

Comparison of the Politikus with the Parmenidês.

As a dialogue illustrative of this method, the Politikus (as I 259have already pointed out) may be compared to the Phædrus: in another point of view, we shall find instruction in comparing it to the Parmenidês. This last too is a dialogue illustrative of method, but of a different variety of method.

Variety of method in dialectic research — Diversity of Plato.

What the Sophistês and Politikus are for the enforcement of logical classification, the Parmenidês is for another part of the philosophising process — laborious evolution of all the consequences deducible from the affirmative as well as from the negative of every hypothesis bearing upon the problem. And we note the fact, that both in the Politikus and Parmenidês, Plato manifests the consciousness that readers will complain of him as prolix, tiresome, and wasting ingenuity upon unprofitable matters.176 In the Parmenidês, he even goes the length of saying that the method ought only to be applied before a small and select audience; to most people it would be repulsive, since they cannot be made to comprehend the necessity for such circuitous preparation in order to reach truth.177

[END OF CHAPTER XXIX]

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