# The Dialogues of Plato, Vol. IV (Jowett, 2nd ed.) - Author: Plato - Source: Internet Archive item `dialoguesofplato04platuoft` (https://archive.org/details/dialoguesofplato04platuoft) - Note: OCR plain text from a scanned public-domain edition; minor OCR artifacts may remain. --- presented to Xibrarp or tbe of Toronto The lasses Kilpatrick THE DIALOGUES OF PLATO JOWETT VOL. IV. Honton MACMILLAN AND CO. PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY OF THE DIALOGUES OF PLATO TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH ANALYSES AND INTRODUCTIONS BY B. JOWETT, M.A. MASTER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN FIVE VOLUMES VOL. IV SECOND EDITION REVISED AND CORRECTED THROUGHOUT, WITH ADDITIONS AND AN INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PROPER NAMES A*v AT THE CLARENDON PRESS M DCCC LXXV [All rights reserved ~] y 6 , 2. CONTENTS. PAGE PHILEBUS i PARMENIDES . . .119 THEAETETUS . . .221 SOPHIST . .371 STATESMAN . 493 VOL. IV. P H I L E B U S VOL. IV. I NTRODUCTION. THE Philebus appears to be one of the later writings of Plato, in which the style begins to alter, and the dramatic and poetical element has become subordinate to the speculative and philosophical. In the development of abstract thought great advances have been made on the Protagoras or the Phaedrus, and even on the Republic. But there is a corresponding diminution of artistic skill, a want of character in the persons, a laboured march in the dialogue, and a degree of confusion and incompleteness in the general design. As in the speeches of Thucydides, the multiplication of ideas seems to interfere with the power of expression. Instead of the equally diffused grace and ease of the earlier dialogues there occur two or three highly-wrought passages (pp. 15, 1 6, 63); instead of the ever-flowing play of humour, now appear ing, now concealed, but always present, are inserted a good many bad jests, as we may venture to term them (17 E, 23 A, 24 B, 29 B, 30 E, 34 D, 43 A, 36 C, 46 B). We may observe also an attempt at artificial ornament (43 E, 53 D, E), and far-fetched modes of statement (48 D), as well as other defects of style, which remind us of the Laws. The connexion is often abrupt and inharmonious (24 C, etc.), and at 42 D, E, 43 A, 48 A, B, 49, 50, far from clear. Many points require further explanation ; e. g. the reference of pleasure to the indefinite class (31 A), compared with the assertion which almost immediately follows, that pleasure and pain naturally have their seat in the third or mixed class : these two statements are unreconciled. In like manner, the table of goods does not clearly distinguish between the two heads of measure and symmetry ; and though a hint is given that the divine mind has the first place (22 C), nothing is said of this in the final summing up1. The relation of the goods to the sciences does not appear; though dialectic may be thought to correspond to the highest good, the sciences 1 See however p. 1 1 a. B 2 4 PHILEBUS. and arts and true opinions are enumerated in the fourth class. At p. 50 D, 67 B, we seem to have an intimation of a further discussion, in which some topics lightly passed over were to receive further considera tion. The various uses of the word ' mixed/ for the mixed life, the mixed class of elements, the mixture of pleasures, or of pleasure and pain, are a further source of perplexity. Our ignorance of the opinions which Plato is attacking, is also an element of obscurity. Many things in a controversy might seem relevant, if we knew to what they were intended to refer. But no conjecture will enable us to supply what Plato has not told us; or to explain, from our fragmentary knowledge of them, the relation in which his doctrine stood to the Eleatic Being or the Megarian good, or to the theories of Aristippus or Antisthenes respect ing pleasure. Nor are we able to say how far Plato in the Philebus conceives the finite and infinite (which occur both in the fragments of Philolaus (?) and in the Pythagorean table of opposites) in the same manner as contemporary Pythagoreans. There is little in the characters which is worthy of remark. The Socrates of the Philebus is devoid of any touch of Socratic irony, though here, as in the Phaedrus (235 C), he twice attributes the flow of his ideas to a sudden inspiration (20 B, 25 B, C). The interlocutor Protarchus, the son of Callias, who has been a hearer of Gorgias (58 A), is supposed to begin as a disciple of the partisans of pleasure, but is soon drawn over to the opposite side by the arguments of Socrates. The instincts of youth are easily induced to .take the better part. Philebus, who has withdrawn from the argument, is several times brought back again (pp. 1 8, 19, 22, 28), that he may support pleasure, of which he remains to the end the uncompromising advocate. On the other hand, the youthful group of listeners by whom he is surrounded, ' Philebus' boys ' as they are termed, whose presence is several times intimated (16 A, B, 19 D, 67 B), are described as all of them at last convinced by the arguments of Socrates. They bear a very faded resemblance to the interested audiences of the Charmides, Lysis, or Protagoras. Other signs of relation to external life in the dialogue, or mention of con temporary things and persons, with the single exception of the allusion to the anonymous enemies of pleasure (44 B, C), and the teachers of the flux (43 A), there are none. The omission of the doctrme_ of recollection, derived from a previous state of existence, is a note of progress in the philosophy of Plato. The INTRODUCTION. 5 transcendental theory of pre-exi§teijt ideas, which is chiefly discussed by him in the Meno, the Phaedo, and the Phaedrus, has given way to a psychological one. The omission is rendered more significant by his having occasion to speak of memory as the basis of desire. Of the ideas at all, he treats in the same sceptical spirit (15 A, B) which appears in his criticism of them in the Parmenides (131 ff.) He touches on the same difficulties and he gives no answer to them. His mode of speaking of the analytical and synthetical processes may be compared with his manner of discussing the same subject in the Phaedrus ; here he dwells on the importance of dividing the genera into all the species, while in the Phaedrus he conveys the same truth in a figure, when he speaks of carving the whole, which is described under the image of a victim, into parts or members, * according to their natural articulation, without breaking any of them/ There is also a difference, which may be noted, between the two dialogues. For whereas in the Phaedrus, and also in the Symposium, the dialectician is described as a sort of enthu siast or lover, in the Philebus, as in all the later writings of Plato, the element of loye_Js_jw.anting ; the topic is only introduced, as in the Republic, by way of illustration (cp. 53 D, Rep. v. 474 D, E). On other subjects of which they treat in common, such as the nature and kinds of pleasure, true and false opinion, the nature of the good, the order and relation of the sciences, the Republic is less advanced than the Philebus, which contains, perhaps, more metaphysical truth more obscurely expressed than any other Platonic dialogue. Here, as he expressly tells us, Plato is ' forging weapons of another make/ i. e. new categories and modes of conception, though ' some of the old ones might do again/ But if superior in thought and dialectical power, the Philebus falls very far short of the Republic in fancy and feeling. The development of the reason undisturbed by the emotions seems to be the ideal at which Plato aims in his later dialogues. There is no mystic enthusiasm or rapturous contemplation of ideas. Whether we attribute this change to the greater feebleness of age, or to the development of the quarrel between philo sophy and poetry in Plato's own mind; or perhaps, in some degree, to a carelessness about artistic effect, when he was absorbed in abstract ideas, we can hardly be wrong in assuming, amid such a variety of indications, derived from style as well as subject, that the Philebus belongs to the later period of his life and authorship. But in this, as in all the later 6 PHILEBUS. writings of Plato, there are not wanting thoughts and expressions in which he rises to his highest level (15, 17, 63, 67). The plan is complicated, or rather, perhaps, the want of plan renders the progress of the dialogue difficult to follow. A few leading ideas 0 seem to emerge : the relation of the one and many, the four original elements, the kinds of pleasure, the kinds of knowledge, the scale of good. These are only partially connected with one another. The dialogue is not rightly entitled ' concerning pleasure ' or ( concerning good,' but should rather be described as treating of the relations of pleasure or knowledge, after they have been duly analysed, to the good, (i) The question is asked: Whether pleasure or wisdom is the chief good, or some nature higher than either? and if the latter, how are pleasure and wisdom related to this higher good? (2) Before we can reply with exactness, we must know the kinds of pleasure and the kinds of knowledge : (3) But still we may affirm generally, that the combined life of pleasure and wisdom or knowledge has more of the character of the good than either of them when isolated : (4) To determine which of them partakes most of the higher nature, we must know under which of the four unities or elements they respectively fall. These are, first, the infinite ; secondly, the finjte ; thirdly, the union of the two ; fourthly, the cause of the union. Pleasure is of the first, wisdom or knowledge of the third class, while reason or mind is akin to the fourth or highest. (5) Pleasures are of two kinds, the mixed and unmixed. Of mixed pleasures there are three classes — (a) those in which both the pleasures and pains are corporeal, as in eating and hunger ; (£) those in which there is a remembered opposite of the actual bodily affection, as when you are hungry and remember some former repast ; (y) those in which the pleasure and pain are both mental. Of unmixed pleasures there are also three classes: (a) those of sight and hearing; (/3) those of smell; (y) those of mathematics. (6) The sciences are likewise divided into two classes, of mixed and unmixed, creative and theoretical ; and in each of them there is an architectonic element. This in the creative arts is arithmetic and men suration ; and arts like carpentering, which have an exact measure, are to be regarded as higher than music, which for the most part is mere guess-work and imitation. But there is also a higher arithmetic, and a higher mensuration, which is exclusively theoretical; and a dialectical science, which is higher still and the truest and purest knowledge. INTRODUCTION. 7 (7) We are now able to determine the composition of the perfect life. First, we admit the pure pleasures and the pure sciences. Secondly, the impure sciences, but not the impure pleasures. We have next to dis cover what element of goodness is contained in this mixture. There are three criteria of goodness — beauty, symmetry, truth. These are clearly more akin to reason than to pleasure, and will enable us to fix the places of both of them in the scale of good. First in the scale is measure ; the second place is assigned to symmetry ; the third, to reason and wisdom ; the fourth, to knowledge and true opinion ; the -fifth, to pure pleasures ; and here the Muse says ' Enough.' ' Bidding farewell to Philebus and Socrates/ we may now proceed to consider the metaphysical conceptions which are presented to us. These are, (I) the paradox of unity and plurality; (II) the table of categories or elements ; (III) the kinds of pleasure ; (IV) the kinds of knowledge ; (V) the conception of the good; (VI) we may examine the relation of the Philebus to the Republic, and to other dialogues. I. The paradox of the one and many originated in the restless dialectic of Zeno, who sought to prove the absolute_existence of the one- by showing the contradictions that are involved in admitting the exist ence of the many (cp. Farm. 128 ff.) Zeno illustrated the contradiction by well-known examples taken from outward objects. But Socrates seems to intimate that the time had arrived for discarding these hack neyed illustrations; such difficulties had long been solved by common sense (solvitur ambulando), as the mere familiarity with the fact was a sufficient answer to them. He will leave them to Cynics and Eristics; the youth of Athens may discourse of them to their parents. To no rational man could the circumstance that the body is one, but has many members, be any longer a stumbling-block. Plato's difficulty seems to begin in the region of ideas. He cannot understand how an absolute unity, such as the Eleatic being, can be broken up into a number of individuals, or be in and out of them at once. Philosophy had so deepened or intensified the nature of one or being, by the thoughts of successive generations, that the mind could no longer imagine ' being ' as in a state of change or division. To say that the verb of existence is the copula, or that unity is a mere unit, is to us easy; but to the Greek such an analysis involved the same kind of diffi culty as the conception of God existing both in and out of the world 8 PHILEBUS. would to ourselves. Nor was he assisted by the analogy of sensible objects. The sphere of mind was dark and mysterious to him; but instead of being illustrated by sense, the greatest light appeared to be thrown on the nature of ideas when they were contrasted with sense. Both here and in the Parmenides (129 ff.), where similar difficulties are raised, Plato seems prepared to desert his ancient ground. He cannot tell the relation in which abstract ideas stand to one another, and therefore he transfers the one and many out of his transcendental world, and proceeds to lay down practical rules for their application to different branches of knowledge. As in the Republic, he supposes the philosopher to proceed by regular steps, until he arrives at the idea of gOO.d; as in the Sophist and Politicus, he insists that in dividing the whole into its parts we should bisect in the middle in the hope of finding species; as in the Phaedrus (see above), he would have 'no limb broken' of the organism of knowledge ; — so in the Philebus, he urges the neces sity of filling up all the intermediate links which occur (compare Bacon's media axiomata) in the passage from unity to infinity. With him the idea of science may be said to anticipate science ; at a time when the sciences were not yet divided, he wants to impress upon us the im portance of classification; neither neglecting the many individuals, nor attempting to count them all, but finding the genera and species under which they naturally fall. Here, then, and in the parallel passages of the Phaedrus and of the Sophist, is found the germ of the most fruitful notion of modern science. At p. 15 Plato describes with ludicrous exaggeration the influence exerted by the one and many on the minds of young men in their first fervour of metaphysical enthusiasm (cp. Rep. 539). But they are none the less an everlasting quality of reason or reasoning which never grows old in us. At first we have but a confused conception of them, analo gous to the eyes blinking at the light in the Republic. To this Plato opposes the revelation from Heaven of the real relations of them, which some Prometheus, who gave the true fire from heaven, is supposed to have imparted to us. Plato is speaking at pp. 15, 16 of two things — (i) the crude notion of the one and many, which powerfully affects the ordinary mind when first beginning to think ; (2) the same notion when cleared up by the help of dialectic (16 C — E). To us the problem of the one and many has lost its chief interest and perplexity. We readily acknowledge that a whole has many parts, that INTRODUCTION. 9 the continuous is also the divisible, that in all objects of sense there is a one and many, and that a like principle may be applied by analogy to purely intellectual conceptions. If we attend to the meaning of the words, we are compelled to admit that two contradictory statements are true. But the antinomy is so familiar as to be scarcely observed by us. Our sense of the contradiction, like Plato's, only begins in a higher sphere, when we speak of necessity and free-will, of mind and body, of Three Persons and One Substance, and the like. The world of know ledge is always dividing more and more ; every truth is at first the enemy of every other truth. Yet without this division there can be no truth; nor any complete truth without the reunion of the parts into a whole. And hence the c^existence_of opposites in the_ unity of the ideg, is re garded by Hegel as the supreme principle of philosophy ; and the law of contradiction, which is affirmed by logicians to be an ultimate principle of the human mind, is displaced by another law, which asserts the coexistence of contradictories as imperfect and divided elements of the truth. Without entering further into the depths of Hegelianism, we may remark that this and all similar attempts to reconcile antinomies have their origin in the old Platonic problem of the ' One and Many.' II. i. The first of Plato's categories or elements is the infinite. This is the negative of measure or limit ; the unthinkable, the unknowable ; of which nothing can be affirmed; the mixture or chaos which preceded distinct kinds in the creation of the world ; the first vague impression of sense; the more or less which refuses to be reduced to rule, having certain affinities with evil, with pleasure, with ignorance, and which in the scale of being is farthest removed from the beautiful and good. To a Greek of the age of Plato, the idea of an infinite mind would have been an absurdity. He would have insisted that ' the good was of the nature of the finite/ and that the infinite is a mere negative, which is on the level of sensation, and not of thought. He was aware that there was a distinction between the infinitely great and the infinitely small, but he would have equally denied the claim of either to true existence. Of that positive infinity, or infinite reality, which we attribute to God, he had no conception. The Greek conception of the infinite would be more truly described, in our way of speaking, as the indefinite. To us, the notion of infinity is subsequent rather than prior to the finite, expressing not absolute vacancy or negation, but only the removal of limit or restraint, which we suppose to exist not before but after we have already set bounds io PHIL E BUS. to thought and matter, and divided them after their kinds. From dif ferent points of view, either the finite or infinite may be looked upon respectively both as positive and negative (cp. Omnis determinatio est negatio) ; and the conception of the one determines that of the other. The Greeks and the moderns seem to be nearly at the opposite poles in their manner of regarding them. And both are surprised when they make the discovery, as Plato has done in the Sophist, how large an element negation forms in the framework of their thoughts. 2, 3. The finite element which mingles with and regulates the infinite is best expressed to us by the word ' lajy.' It is that which measures all things and assigns to them their limit; which preserves them in their natural state, and brings them within the sphere of human cognition. This is described by the terms harmony, health, order, perfection, and the like. All things, in as far as they are good, even pleasures, which are for the most part indefinite, partake of this element. We should be wrong in attributing to Plato the conception of laws of nature derived from observation and experiment. And yet he has as intense a con viction as any modern philosopher that nature does not proceed by chance. But observing that the wonderful construction of number and figure which he had within himself, and which seemed to be prior to himself, explained a part of the phenomena of the external world, he extended their principles to the whole, finding in them the true type both of human life and of the order of nature. Two other points may be noticed respecting the third class. First, that Plato seems to be unconscious of any interval or chasm which sepa rates the finite from the infinite. The one is in various ways and degrees working in the other. Hence he has implicitly answered the difficulty with which he started, of how the one could remain one and yet be divided among many individuals, or ' how ideas could be in and out of themselves,' and the like. Secondly, that in this mixed class we find the idea of beauty. Good, when exhibited under the aspect of measure or symmetry, becomes beauty (64 E). And if we translate his language into corresponding modern terms, we shall not be far wrong in saying that here, as well as in the Republic, Plato conceives beauty under the idea of proportion. 4- Last and highest in the list of principles or elements, is the cause of the union of the finite and infinite, to which Plato ascribes the order of the world. Reasoning from man to the universe, he argues that as there INTR OD UCTION. 1 1 is a mind in one, there must be a mind in the other, which he identifies with the royal mind of Zeus. This is the first cause of whom 'our ancestors spoke/ as he says, appealing to tradition, in the Philebus as well as in the Timaeus. The 'one and many' is also supposed to have been revealed by tradition. For the mythical element has not altogether disappeared. Some characteristic differences may here be noted, which distinguish the ancient from the modern mode of conceiving God. a. To Plato, the idea of God or mind is both personal and impersonal. Nor in ascribing, as appears to us, both these attributes to him, and in speaking of God both in the masculine and neuter gender, did he seem to himself inconsistent. For the difference between the personal and impersonal was not marked to him as to ourselves. We make a funda mental distinction between a thing and a person, while to Plato, by the help of various intermediate abstractions, such as end, good, cause, they appear almost to meet in one, or to be two aspects of the same. Hence, without any reconciliation or even remark, in the Republic he speaks at one time of God or Gods, and at another time of the good. So in the Phaedrus he seems to pass unconsciously from the concrete to the abstract conception of the ideas in the same dialogue. Nor in the Philebus is he careful to show in what relation the idea of the divine mind stands to the supreme principle of measure. /3. Again, to us there is a strongly-marked distinction between a first cause and a final cause. And we should commonly identify a first cause with God, and the final cause with the world, which is His work. But Plato, though far from being a Pantheist, or confounding God with the world, tends to identify the first with the final cause. The cause of the union of the finite and infinite might be described as a higher law; the final measure which is the highest expression of the good may also be described as the supreme law. Both these conceptions are realized chiefly by the help of the material world ; and therefore when we pass into the sphere of ideas can hardly be distinguished. The four principles are required for the determination of the relative places of pleasure and wisdom. Plato has been saying that we should proceed by regular steps from the one to the many. Accordingly, before assigning the precedence either to good or pleasure, he must first find out and arrange in order the general principles of things. Mind is ascertained to be akin to the nature of the cause, while pleasure is 12 PHILEBUS. found in the infinite or indefinite class. We may now proceed to divide pleasure and knowledge after their kinds : III. i. Plato speaks of pleasure as indefinite, as relative, as a genera tion, and in all these points of view in a category distinct from good. For again we must repeat, that to the Greek ' the good is of the nature of the finite/ and, like virtue, either is, or is nearly allied to, knowledge. The modern philosopher would remark that the indefinite is equally real with the definite. Health and mental qualities are in the concrete unde fined; they are nevertheless real goods, and Plato rightly regards them as falling under the finite class. Again, we are able to define objects or ideas, not in so far as they are in the mind, but in so far as they are manifested externally, and can therefore be reduced to rule and mea sure. And if we adopt the test of definiteness, the pleasures of the body are more capable of being defined than any other pleasures. As in art and knowledge generally, we proceed from without inwards, beginning with facts of sense, and passing to the more ideal con ceptions of mental pleasure, happiness and the like. 2. Pleasure is depreciated as relative, while good is exalted as absolute. But this distinction seems to arise from an unfair mode of regarding them ; the abstract idea of the one is compared with the concrete expe rience of the other. For all pleasure and all knowledge may be viewed either abstracted from the mind, or in relation to the mind (cp. Arist. Nic. Ethics, x. 3, 4). The first is an idea only, which may be conceived as absolute and unchangeable, and then the abstract idea of pleasure will be equally unchangeable with that of knowledge. But when we come to view either as phenomena of consciousness, the same defects are for the most part incident to both of them. Our hold upon them is equally transient and uncertain ; the mind cannot be always in a state of intel lectual tension, any more than capable of feeling pleasure always. The knowledge which is at one time clear and distinct, at another seems to fade away, just as the pleasure of health after sickness, or of eating after hunger, soon passes into a neutral state of unconsciousness and indif ference. Change and alternation are necessary for the mind as well as for the body ; and in this, not any element of evil, but a law of nature, is rather to be acknowledged. The chief difference between the subjective pleasure and subjective knowledge in respect of permanence is that the latter, when our feeble faculties are able to grasp it, still conveys to us an idea of unchangeableness which cannot be got rid of. INTRODUCTION. 13 3. In the language of ancient philosophy, the relative character of pleasure is described as becoming or generation. This is relative to being or essence, and from one point of view may be regarded as the Heracleitean flux in contrast with the Eleatic being; from another, as the transient enjoyment of eating and drinking compared with the sup posed permanence of intellectual pleasures. But to us the distinction is unmeaning, and belongs to a stage of philosophy which has passed away. Plato himself seems to have suspected that the continuance or life of things is quite as much to be attributed to a principle of rest as of motion (cp. Charm. 159, 160; Cratyl. 437). A later view of pleasure is found in Aristotle, who agrees with Plato in many points ; e. g. in his view of pleasure as a restoration to nature, in his distinction between bodily and mental, between necessary and non-necessary pleasures : but is also in advance of him. For he affirms that pleasure is not in the body at all ; hence even the bodily pleasures are not to be spoken of as gene rations, but as accompanied with generation. (Nic. Eth. x. 3, 6.) 4. Plato attempts to identify vicious pleasures with some form of error, and insists that the term false may be applied to them : in this he appears to be carrying out in a confused manner the Socratic doctrine, that virtue is knowledge, vice ignorance. He will allow of no distinction between the pleasures and the erroneous opinions, whether arising out of the illusion of distance or not, on which they are founded. But to this we naturally reply with Protarchus, that the pleasure is what it is, although the calculation may be false, or the after effects painful. It is difficult to acquit Plato, in his own language, of being a tyro in dialectics, when he overlooks such a distinction. Yet, on the other hand, we are hardly fair judges of confusions of thought in those who view things differently from ourselves. 5. There appears also to be an incorrectness in the notion which occurs both here and in the Gorgias, of the simultaneousness of merely bodily pleasures and pains. We may, perhaps, admit, though even this is not free from doubt, that the feeling of pleasurable hope or recollection is, or rather may be, simultaneous with acute bodily suffering. But there is no such coexistence of the pain of thirst with the pleasures of drinking; they are not really simultaneous, for the one expels the other. Nor does Plato seem to have considered that the bodily pleasures, except in cer tain extreme cases, are unattended with pain. Few philosophers will deny that a degree of pleasure attends eating and drinking : and yet i4 PHILEBUS. surely we might as well speak of the pains of digestion which follow, as of the pains of hunger and thirst which precede them. Plato's concep tion is derived partly from the extreme case of a man suffering pain from hunger or thirst ; partly from the image of a full and empty vessel. But the truth is rather, that while the gratification of our bodily desires constantly affords some degree of pleasure, the antecedent pains are scarcely perceived by us, being almost done away with by use and regularity. 6. The desire to classify pleasures as accompanied or not accom panied by antecedent pains, has led Plato to place under one head the pleasures of smell and sight, as well as those derived from simple sounds of music and from mathematical figures. He would have done better to connect the pleasures of smell through the medium of taste with the bodily appetites to which they seem to minister. The pleasures of sight and sound might then have been regarded as being the expression of ideas. But this higher and truer point of view never appears to have occurred to Plato. He has no distinction between the fine arts and the mechanical; and neither here nor anywhere has he an adequate con ception of the beautiful in external things. 7. Plato agrees partially with certain ' surly or fastidious ' philosophers, as he terms them, who defined pleasure to be the absence of pain. They are also described as eminent in physics. There is unfortunately no school of Greek philosophy known to us which combined these two characteristics. Antisthenes, who was an enemy of pleasure, was not a physical philosopher; the atomists, who were physical philosophers, were not enemies of pleasure. Yet such a combination of opinions is far from being impossible. Plato's omission to mention them distinctly has created the same uncertainty respecting them which also occurs respecting the friends of the ideas and the materialists in the Sophist. On the whole, this discussion is one of the least satisfactory in the dialogues of Plato. While the ethical nature of pleasure is scarcely con sidered, and the merely physical phenomenon imperfectly analysed, too much weight is given to ideas of measure and number as the sole prin ciple of good. The comparison of pleasure and knowledge is really a comparison of two elements, which have no common measure, and which cannot be excluded from each other. Feeling is not opposed to knowledge, and in all consciousness there is an element of both. The most abstract kinds of knowledge are inseparable from some pleasure INTRODUCTION. 15 or pain which accompanies the acquisition or possession of them : the student is liable to grow weary of them, and soon discovers that contin uous mental energy is not granted to men. The most sensual pleasure, on the other hand, is inseparable from the consciousness of pleasure ; no man can be happy who, to borrow Plato's illustration, is leading the life of an oyster. Hence (by his own confession) the main thesis is not worth determining ; the real interest lies in the incidental discussion. We can no more separate pleasure from knowledge in the Philebus than we can separate justice from happiness in the Republic. IV. An interesting account is given in the Philebus of the rank and order of the sciences or arts, which agrees generally with the scheme of knowledge in the sixth Book of the Republic. The chief difference is, that the position of the arts is more exactly defined. They are divided into an empirical part and a scientific part, of which the first is mere guess-work, the second is determined by rule and measure. Of the more empirical arts, music is given as an example ; this, although affirmed to be necessary to human life, is depreciated ; and no attempt is made, as in the Republic, to base harmony on scientific principles, but a preference is expressed for simple melodies, and flute music is espe cially condemned. According to the standard of accuracy which is here adopted, music is rightly placed lower in the scale than carpentering, because the latter is more capable of being reduced to measure. The theoretical element of the arts may also become a purely abstract science, when separated from matter, and is then said to be pure and unmixed. The distinction which Plato here makes seems to be the same as that between pure and applied mathematics, and may be ex pressed in the modern formula — science is art theoretical, art is science practical. In the reason which he gives for the superiority of the pure science of number over the mixed or applied, we can only agree with him in part. He says that the numbers which the philosopher employs are always the same, whereas the numbers which are used in practice represent different sizes or quantities. He does not see that this power of expressing different quantities by the same symbol is the characteristic and not the defect of numbers, and is due to their abstract nature; — although we admit of course what Plato seems to feel in his distinctions between pure and impure knowledge, that the imperfection of matter enters into the applications of them. Above the other sciences, as in the Republic, towers dialectic, which is 1 6 PHILEBUS. the science of eternal being, and has the purest mind and reason. The lower sciences, including the mathematical, are akin to opinion rather than to reason, and are placed together in the fourth class of goods. The relation in which they stand to dialectic is obscure in the Republic, and is not cleared up in the Philebus. V. Thus far we have only attained to the vestibule or ante-chamber of the good ; for there is a good exceeding knowledge, exceeding essence, which, like Glaucon in the Republic (p. 509), we find a difficulty in apprehending. This good is now to be exhibited to us under various aspects and gradations. The relative dignity of pleasure and knowledge has been determined ; but they have not yet received their exact position in the scale of goods. Some difficulties occur to us in the enumeration : First, how are we to distinguish the first from the second class of goods ; or the second from the third. Secondly, why is there no mention of the supreme mind? Thirdly, the nature of the fourth class. Fourthly, the seeming allusion to a sixth class, which is not further investigated. Plato seems to proceed in his table of goods, from the more abstract to the less abstract ; from the objective to the subjective ; until at the lower end of the scale we fairly descend into the region of human action and feeling. To him, the greater the abstraction the greater the truth, and he is always tending to see abstraction within abstraction ; like the ideas in the Parmenides, which are always appearing one behind another. Hence we find a difficulty in following him into the sphere of thought which he is seeking to attain. First in his scale of goods he places measure, in which he finds the eternal nature : this would be more naturally expressed in modern language as eternal law, and seems to be akin both to the finite and to the mind or cause, which were two of the elements in the former table. Like the supreme nature in the Timaeus, like the ideal beauty in the Symposium or the Phaedrus, or like the ideal good in the Republic, this is the absolute and unapproach able being. But (2) this being is manifested in symmetry and beauty everywhere, in the order of nature and of mind, in the relations of men to one another. For the word ' measure ' he now substitutes the word ' symmetry/ as if intending to express measure conceived as relation. (3) He proceeds to regard the good no longer in an objective form, but as the human reason seeking to attain truth by the aid of dialectics ; such at least we naturally infer to be his meaning, when we consider that both here and in the Republic, the sphere of vovs or mind is assigned INTRODUCTION. 17 to dialectic. It is remarkable (see above) that this personal conception of mind is confined to the human mind, and not, as at p. 22 C, extended to the divine. (4) If we may be allowed to interpret one dialogue of Plato by another, the sciences of figure and number are probably classed with the arts and true opinions, because they proceed from hypotheses ; cp. Rep. 511. (5) The mention of a sixth class is merely due to the quotation from Orpheus ; that Plato had no intention of filling up this class either with the necessary pleasures or any other, is evident from the brief recapitulation which follows (67 A), in which he speaks of pleasure as holding the fifth rank. VI. We may now endeavour to ascertain the relation of the Philebus to the other dialogues. Here appears the same polemic against the ideas which is carried farther in the Parmenides and the Sophist. The principle of the one and many of which he here speaks, is illustrated by examples in the Sophist and Politicus. Notwithstanding the differences of style, many resemblances may be noticed between the Philebus and Gorgias. The theory of the simultaneousness of pleasure and pain is common to both of them ; there is also a common tendency in them to take up arms against pleasure, although the view of the Philebus, which is probably the later of the two dialogues, is the more moderate. At p. 46 A, B, there seems to be an allusion to the passage in the Gor gias (494), in which Socrates dilates on the pleasures of itching and scratching. Nor is there any real discrepancy in the manner in which Gorgias and his art are spoken of in the two dialogues. For Socrates, at p. 58, is far from implying that the art of rhetoric has a real sphere of practical usefulness : he only means that the refutation of the claims of Gorgias is not necessary for his present purpose. He is saying in effect : ' Admit, if you please, that rhetoric is the greatest and usefullest of sciences:— this does not prove that dialectic is not the purest and most exact.' From the Sophist and Politicus we know that his hostility towards the sophists and rhetoricians was not mitigated in later life ; and yet both in the Politicus and Laws he admits of a higher use of rhetoric. Reasons have been already given for assigning a late date to the Philebus. That the date is probably later than that of the Republic, may be further argued on the following grounds : i . The general resem blance to the later dialogues and to the Laws. 2. The more complete account of the nature of good and pleasure. 3. The distinction between VOL. IV. ;,; C 1 8 P PULE BUS. perception, memory, recollection, and opinion (pp. 34, 38) indicates a great progress in psychology ; also between understanding and imagina tion, described under the figure of the scribe and the painter (p. 39). A superficial notion may arise that Plato probably wrote shorter dialogues, such as the Philebus, the Sophist, arid the Politicus, as studies or prepara tions for longer ones. This view may be natural, but on further reflection is seen to be fallacious ; because these three dialogues are found to make an advance upon the metaphysical conceptions of the Republic. And we can more easily suppose that Plato composed shorter writings after longer ones, than suppose that he lost hold of further points of view which he had once attained. It is more easy to find traces of the Pythagoreans, Eleatics, Megarians, Cynics, and of the ideas of Anaxagoras, in the Philebus, than to say how much is to be ascribed to each of them. Had we fuller records of those old philosophers, we should probably find Plato in the midst of the fray attempting to combine Eleatic and Pythagorean doctrines, and seeking to find a truth beyond either being or number; setting up his own concrete conception of good against the abstract practical good of the Cynics, or the abstract intellectual good of the Megarians ; and his own idea of classification against the denial of plurality in unity which is also attributed to them : warring against the Eristics as destructive of truth, as he had formerly fought against the Sophists, taking up a middle position between the Cynics and Cyrenaics in his doctrine of pleasure, asserting with more consistency than Anaxagoras the existence of an intelligent mind and cause. Of the Heracliteans, whom he is said by Aristotle to have cultivated in his youth, he speaks in the Philebus, as in the Theaetetus and Cratylus, with irony and contempt. But we have not the knowledge which would enable us to pursue further the line of reflection here indicated ; nor can we expect to find perfect clearness or order in the first efforts of mankind to understand the working of their own minds. The ideas which they are attempting to analyse, they are also in process of creating ; the abstract universals of which they are seeking to adjust the relations have been already excluded by them from the category of relation. The Philebus, like the Cratylus, is supposed to be the continuation of a previous discussion. An argument respecting the comparative claims of pleasure and wisdom to rank as the chief good has been already INTRODUCTION. 19 carried on between Philebus and Socrates. The argument is now trans ferred to Protarchus, the son of Callias (19 B), a noble Athenian youth, sprung from a family which had spent more on the Sophists than all the rest of the world (cp. Apol. 20 A, B ; Cratylus, 391 C). Philebus, who appears to be the teacher (16 B, 36 D), or elder friend, and perhaps the lover (53 D), of Protarchus, takes no further part in the discussion beyond asserting in the strongest manner his adherence, under all circumstances, to the cause of pleasure. Socrates suggests that they shall have a first and second palm of vic tory. For there may be a good higher than either pleasure or wisdom, and then neither of them will gain the first prize, but whichever of the two is more akin to this higher good will have a right to the second. They agree, and Socrates opens the game by enlarging on the diverse and multiform nature of pleasure. For there are pleasures of all kinds, good and bad, wise and foolish — pleasures of the temperate as well as of the intemperate. Nay, replies Protarchus, pleasure is pleasure, and therefore in some sense one. Yes, retorts Socrates, pleasure is one. and also many, just as figure is one, and colour is one, and yet there are many colours and many figures. Protarchus is unable to understand him, and insists that, at any rate, all pleasures are good. But how, retorts Socrates, can Protarchus have a right to attribute to them a new predicate, when he cannot deny that they are different ? What common property in all of them does he mean to indicate by the term ' good ' ? If he continues to assert that there is some trivial sense in which pleasure is one, Socrates may retort by saying that knowledge is one, but the result will be that such merely verbal and trivial conceptions, whether of knowledge or pleasure, will spoil the discussion, and will prove the incapacity of the two disputants. In order to avoid this danger, he proposes that they shall beat a retreat, and, before they proceed, come to an understanding about the ' high argument ' of the one and the many. Protarchus agrees to the proposal, but he is under the impression that Socrates means to discuss the common question— how an individual can be one, and yet have opposite attributes, such as great and small, light and heavy, or how there can be many members in one body ? and the like wonders. Socrates has long ceased to see any wonder in these phenomena ; his difficulty begins with the application of number to abstract ideas, e. g. when we say that man is one, or that good is one. C 2 20 PHILEBUS. For have these unities of idea any real existence ? Are they always the same ? And if the same, how can they be dispersed in others ? Or do they remain entire ? or both ? These difficulties are but imperfectly answered by Socrates in what follows. We speak of a one and many, which is ever flowing in and about all things, concerning which a young man often runs wild in his first meta physical enthusiasm, talking about analysis and synthesis to his father and mother and the neighbours, hardly sparing even his dog. This ' one in many ' is a revelation of the order of the world, which some Prometheus first made known to our ancestors; and they, who were better men and nearer the gods than we are, have handed down to us. To know how to proceed by regular steps from one to many, and from many to one, is just what makes the difference between eristic and dia lectic. And the right way of proceeding is to look for one idea or class in all things, and when you have found one to look for more than one, and all that there are, and when you have found them all and regularly divided a particular field of knowledge into classes, you may leave the further consideration of individuals. But you must not pass at once either from unity to infinity, or from infinity to unity. In music, for example, you may begin with the most general notion, but this alone will not make you a musician : you must know also the number and nature of the intervals, and the systems which are framed out of them, and the rhythms of the dance which correspond to them. And when you have a similar knowledge of any other subject, you may be said to know that subject. In language again there are infinite varieties of sound, and some one who was a wise man, or more than man, comprehended them all in the classes of mutes, vowels, and semivowels, and gave to each of them a name, and assigned them to the art of grammar. ' But whither, Socrates, are you going ? And what has this to do with the comparative eligibility of pleasure and wisdom ?' Socrates replies, that before we can adjust their respective claims, we want to know the number and kinds of both of them. What are they ? He is requested to answer that question himself. That he will, if he may be allowed to make one or two preliminary remarks. In the first place he has a dreamy recol lection of hearing that neither pleasure nor knowledge is the highest good, for the good should be perfect and sufficient. But is the life of pleasure perfect and sufficient, when deprived of memory, consciousness, anticipation ? Would not that be the life of an oyster ? Or is the life INTRODUCTION. 21 of mind sufficient, if devoid of any particle of pleasure ? Must not the union of the two be higher and more eligible than either separately ? And is not the element which makes this mixed life eligible more akin to mind than to pleasure ? Thus pleasure is rejected and mind is rejected. And yet there may be a life of mind, not human but divine, which conquers still. But, if we are to pursue this argument further we shall require some new weapons ; and by this, I mean a new classification of existence, (i) There is a finite element of existence, and (2) an infinite, and (3) the union of the two, and (4) the cause of the union. More may be added if they are wanted, but at present we can do without them. And first of the infinite or indefinite : — That is the class which is denoted by the terms more or less, and is always in a state of comparison. All words or ideas to which the words ' gently/ ' extremely,' and other com parative expressions are applied, fall under this class. The infinite would be no longer infinite, if limited or reduced to measure by number and quantity. The opposite class is the limited or finite, and includes all things which have number and quantity. And there is a third class of generation into essence by the union of the finite and infinite, in which the finite gives law to the infinite ; — under this are comprehended health, strength, temperate seasons, harmony, beauty, and the like. The goddess of beauty saw the universal wantonness of all things, and gave law and order to be the salvation of the soul. But no effect can be generated without a cause, and therefore there must be a fourth class, which is the cause of generation; for the cause or agent is not the same as the patient or effect. And now, having obtained our classes, we may determine in which our conqueror life is to be placed : Clearly in the third or mixed class, in which the finite gives law to the infinite. And in which is pleasure to find a place ? As clearly in the infinite or indefinite, which alone, as Protarchus thinks (who seems to confuse the infinite with the super lative), gives to pleasure the character of the absolute good. Yes, retorts Socrates, and also to pain the character of absolute evil. And there fore the infinite cannot be that which imparts to pleasure the nature of the good. But where shall we place mind ? That is a very serious and awful question, which may be prefaced by another. Is mind or chance the lord of the universe ? All philosophers will say the first, and yet, perhaps, they may be only magnifying themselves. And for this reason 22 P PULE BUS. I should like to consider the matter a little more deeply, even though some lovers of disorder in the world should ridicule my attempt. Now the elements earth, air, fire, water, exist in us, and they exist in the cosmos ; but they are purer and fairer in the cosmos than they are in us, and they come to us from thence. And as we have a soul as well as a body, in like manner the elements of the finite, the infinite, the union of the two, and the cause, are found to exist in us. And if they, like the elements, exist in us, and the three first exist in the world, must not the fourth or cause which is the noblest of them, exist in the world ? And this cause is wisdom or mind, the royal mind of Zeus, who is the king of all, as there are other Gods who have other noble attributes. Observe how well this agrees with the testimony of men of old, who affirmed mind to be the ruler of the universe. And remember that mind belongs to the class which we term the cause, and pleasure to the infinite or indefinite class. We will examine the place and origin of both. What is the origin of pleasure ? Her natural seat is the mixed class, in which health and harmony were placed. Pain is the violation, and pleasure the restoration of limit. There is a natural union of finite and infinite, which in hunger, thirst, heat, cold, is impaired — this is painful, and the return to nature, in which the elements are restored to their normal proportions, is pleasant. Here is our first class of pleasures. And another class of pleasures and pains are hopes and fears ; these are in the mind only. And inasmuch as both these classes are free from any actual admixture of pain, the examination of them may show us whether all pleasure is to be desired, or whether this entire desirableness is not rather the attribute of another class. But if pleasures and pains consist in the violation and restoration of limit, may there not be a neutral state, in which there is neither dissolution nor restoration ? That is a further question, and admitting, as we must, the possibility of such a state, there seems to be no reason why the life of wisdom should not exist in this neutral state, which is, moreover, the state of the gods, who cannot, without indecency, be supposed to feel either joy or sorrow. The second class of pleasures involves memory. There are pleasures which are extinguished before they reach the soul, and of these there is no consciousness, and therefore no memory. And there are pleasures which the body and soul feel together, and this feeling is termed con sciousness. And memory is the preservation of consciousness, and reminiscence is the recovery of consciousness. Now the memory of INTRODUCTION. 23 pleasure is the memory of a state opposite to that which the person who has the desire actually feels, and is therefore in the mind. And there may be also an intermediate state, in which the person desiring is balanced between pleasure and pain, or has two pains, when he is in pain of body as well as in despair of being satisfied. But also he may be quite sure that he will be satisfied, and then he has an actual pain, but a hope and recollection of pleasure. Here arises another question : May not pleasures, like opinions, be true and false ? In the sense of being real, both must be admitted to be true : nor can we deny that to both of them qualities may be attributed ; for pleasures as well as opinions may be described as good or bad. And though we do not all of us allow that there are true and false pleasures, we all acknowledge that there are some pleasures associated with right opinion, and others with falsehood and ignorance. Let us endeavour to analyse the nature of this association. Opinion is based on perception, which may be correct or mistaken. You may see a figure at a distance, and say first of all, ' This is a man,' and then say, ' No, this is an image made by the shepherds.' And you may affirm this in a proposition to your companion, or make the remark mentally to yourself. Whether the words are actually spoken or not, on such occasions there is a scribe within who registers them, and a painter who paints the images of them, which he abstracts from sense, in the soul, — at least that is my own notion of the process ; and the words and images which are inscribed by them may be either true or false ; and they may represent either past, present, or future. And, representing the future, they must also represent the pleasures and pains of anticipation — the visions of gold and other fancies which are never wanting in the mind of man. Now these hopes, as they are termed, are propositions, which are sometimes true, and sometimes false ; for the good, who are the friends of the gods, see true pictures of the future, and the bad false ones. And as there may be opinion about things which are not, were not, and will not be, which is opinion still, so there may be pleasure about things which are not, were not, and will not be, which is pleasure still,— that is to say, false pleasure; and only when false can pleasure, like opinion, be vicious. Against this conclusion Protarchus reclaims. Leaving his denial for the present, Socrates proceeds to show that some pleasures are false from another point of view. In desire, as we admitted, the body is divided from the soul, and hence pleasures and 24 PHILEBUS. pains are often simultaneous. And we further admitted that both of them belonged to the infinite class. How, then, can we compare them ? Are we not liable, or rather certain, as in the case of sight, to be deceived by distance ? Observe, that in this case not only are the plea sures and pains based upon false opinion, but they are themselves false. And there is another illusion : pain has often been said by us to arise out of the derangement — pleasure out of the restoration — of our nature. But in passing from one to the other, do we not experience neutral states, which although they appear pleasurable or painful are really neither? For even if we admit, with the wise man whom Protarchus loves (and only a wise man could have ever entertained such a notion), that all things are in a perpetual flux, still these changes are often unconscious, and devoid either of pleasure or pain. We assume, then, that there are three states — pleasurable, painful, neutral, which we may embellish a little by calling them gold, silver, and that which is neither. But there are other philosophers who regard these three states as two only. Their instinctive dislike to pleasure leads them to affirm that pleasure is only the absence of pain. They are noble fellows, and, although we do not agree with them, we may use them as diviners who will indicate to us the right track. They will say, that the nature of anything is best known from the examination of extreme cases, e. g. the nature of hardness from the examination of the hardest things ; and that the nature of pleasure will be best understood from an examination of the most intense pleasures. Now these are the pleasures of the body, not of the mind ; the pleasures of disease and not of health, the pleasures of the intemperate and not of the temperate. I am speaking, not of the frequency or continuance, but only of the intensity of such pleasures, and this is given them by contrast with the pain or sickness of body which precedes them. Their morbid nature is illustrated by the lesser instances of itching and scratching, respecting which I swear that I cannot tell whether they are a pleasure or a pain, (i) Some of these arise out of a transition from cold to hot, from bitter to sweet, and the like; (2) others are partly pains, and are caused by the contrast of different bodily feelings, in which pain predominates, as in scratching or tickling when the pleasure on the surface contrasts with some internal pain ; (3) others again are produced by other kinds of violent excitement; — both these and the last are accompanied by all sorts of unutterable feelings — there is a death of delights in them. But there are also mixed pleasures INTRODUCTION. 25 which are in the mind only. For are not love and sorrow as well as anger, sweeter than honey, and also full of pain ? Is there not a mix ture of feelings in the spectator of tragedy ? and of comedy also ? ' I do not understand that last.' Well, then, with the view of lighting up the obscurity of these mixed feelings, let me ask whether envy is painful ? ' Yes.' And yet the envious man finds something pleasing in the mis fortunes of others ? ' True.' And ignorance is a misfortune ? * Certainly/ And the ignorant is entirely devoid of self-knowledge—he may fancy himself richer, fairer, better, wiser than he is ? ' Yes/ And he may be strong or weak in his ignorant superiority ? ' He may/ And if he is strong we fear him, and if he is weak we laugh at him, and yet we envy him, and like to see him suffer ? These mixed feelings are the rationale of tragedy and comedy, and equally the rationale of the greater drama of human life1. Having explained sorrow, fear, anger, envy, I will reserve ' the analysis of the remainder for another occasion. Next follow the unmixed pleasures ; which, unlike the philosophers of whom I was speaking, I believe to be real. These unmixed pleasures are : (i) The pleasures derived from beauty of form, colour, sound, smell, which are absolutely pure; and in general those which are unalloyed with pain: (2) The pleasures derived from the acquisition of knowledge, which in themselves are pure, but may be attended by an accidental pain of forgetting; this, however, arises from a subsequent act of reflection, which is not to be included in them. At the same time, we admit that the latter pleasures are the property of a very few. To these pure and unmixed pleasures we ascribe measure, whereas all others belong to the class of the infinite, and are liable to every species of excess. And here several questions arise for consideration : — What is the meaning of pure and impure ; of moderate and immoderate ? We may answer the question by an illustration : Purity of white paint consists in the clear ness or quality of the white, and this is distinct from the quantity or 1 There appears to be some confusion in this passage. There is no diffi culty in seeing that in comedy, as in tragedy, the spectator may view the performance with mixed feelings of pain as well as of pleasure ; nor is there any difficulty in understanding that envy is a mixed feeling, which rejoices not without pain at the misfortunes of others, and laughs at their ignorance of themselves. But Plato seems to think further that he has explained the feeling of the spectator in comedy sufficiently by a theory which only applies to comedy in so far as in comedy we laugh at the conceit or weakness of others. He has certainly given a very partial explanation of the ridiculous. 26 PHILEBUS. amount of white paint; a little pure white is fairer than a great deal which is impure. But there is another question : — Pleasure is affirmed by ingenious philosophers to be a generation ; they say that there are two natures — one self-existent, the other dependent; the one noble and majestic, the other failing in both these qualities. — ' I do not understand.' There are lovers and there are loves. ' Yes, I know, but what is the application?' The argument is in play, and desires to intimate that there are relatives and there are absolutes, and that the relative is for the sake of the absolute ; and generation is for the sake of essence. Under rela tives I class all things done with a view to generation ; and essence is of the class of good. But if essence is of the class of good, generation must be of some other class ; and our friends, who affirm that pleasure is a generation, would laugh at the notion that pleasure is a good ; and at that other notion, that pleasure is satisfied in generation, which is only the alternative of destruction. Who would prefer such an alter nation to the equable life of pure thought ? Here is one absurdity, and not the only one, to which the friends of pleasure are reduced. For is there not also an absurdity in affirming that good is of the soul only, and at the same time declaring that the best of men, if he be in pain, is bad? And now, from the consideration of pleasure, we pass to that of knowledge. Let us reflect that there are two kinds of knowledge — the one creative or productive, and the other educational and philosophical. Of the creative arts, there is one part purer or more akin to knowledge than the other. There is an element of guess-work and an element of number and measure in them. In music, for example, especially in flute-playing, the conjectural element prevails ; while in carpentering there is more application of ru]e^a»4- measure. Of the creative arts, then, we may make two classes — the less exact and the more exact. And the exacter part of all of them is really arithmetic and mensuration. But arithmetic and mensuration again may be subdivided with reference either to their use in the concrete, or to their nature in the abstract — as they are applied popularly to various magnitudes, or by philosophers to one only. And, borrowing the analogy of pleasure, we may say that the philoso phical use of them is purer than the other. Thus we have two arts of arithmetic, and two of mensuration. And truest of all in the estimation of every rational man is dialectic, or the science of being, which will forget and disown us, if we forget and disown her. INTRODUCTION. 27 ' But, Socrates, I have heard Gorgias say that rhetoric is the greatest and usefullest of arts ; and I should not like to quarrel either with him or you/ Neither is there any inconsistency, Protarchus, with his state ment in what I am now saying ; for I am not maintaining that dialectic is the greatest or usefullest, but only the truest of arts ; my remark is not quantitative but qualitative, and has reference not to advantage or reputation, but to the love of knowledge and truth, in which Gorgias will not care to compete ; these are what we affirm to be possessed in the highest degree by dialectic. And do not let us appeal to Gorgias or Philebus or Socrates, but ask, on behalf of the argument, what are the highest truths which the soul has the power of attaining. And is not this the science which has a firmer grasp of them than any other ? For the arts generally are only occupied with matters of opinion, and with the production and action and passion of this sensible world. But the highest truth is that which is eternal and unchangeable. And reason and wisdom are concerned with this ; and they are the very claimants, if not for the first, at least for the second place, whom I propose as rivals to pleasure. And now, having the materials, we may proceed to mix them — first recapitulating the question at issue. Philebus affirmed pleasure to be the good, and assumed them to be one nature ; I affirmed that they were two natures, and declared that knowledge was more akin to the good than pleasure. I said that the two together were more eligible than either taken singly ; and to this we adhere. Reason intimates, as at first, that we should seek the good not in the unmixed life, but in the mixed. The cup is ready, waiting to be mingled, and there are two fountains, one of honey, the other of pure water, out of which we make the fairest possible mixture. There were pure and impure pleasures — pure and impure sciences. And first, let us take the pure pleasures, and pour them in, not allowing the impure to enter, for that would be dangerous. Next, let us take the pure sciences ; but shall we mingle the impure — the art which uses the false rule and the false measure ? That we must, if we are any of us to find our way home ; man cannot live upon pure mathe matics alone. And must I include music, which is admitted to be guess work ? ' Yes, you must, if human life is to have any humanity.' Well, then, I will open the door and let them all in ; they shall mingle in an Homeric meeting of the waters. And now we turn to the pleasures ; 28 PHILEBUS. shall I admit them ? ' Admit first of all the pure pleasures ; secondly, the necessary/ And what shall we say about the rest ? First, ask the plea sures—they will be too happy to dwell with wisdom. Secondly, ask the arts and sciences — they reply that the excesses of intemperance are the ruin of them ; and that they would rather only have the pleasures of health and temperance, which are the handmaidens of virtue. But still we want truth? That is now added; and so the argument is complete, and may be compared to an incorporeal law, holding fair rule over a living body. And now we are at the vestibule of the good, in which there are three chief elements — truth, symmetry, and beauty. These will be the criterion of the comparative claims of pleasures and wisdom. Which has the greater share of truth ? Surely wisdom ; for pleasure is the veriest impostor in the world, and the perjuries of lovers have passed into a proverb. Which of symmetry ? Wisdom again ; for nothing is more immoderate than pleasure. Which of beauty? Once more, wisdom; for pleasure is often un seemly, and the greatest pleasures are put out of sight. Not pleasure, then, ranks first in the scale of good ; but measure, and eternal harmony. Secondly : The symmetrical and beautiful and perfect. Thirdly : Mind and wisdom. Fourthly : Sciences and arts and true opinions. Fifthly : Painless pleasures. Of a sixth class, I have nothing to say. Thus, pleasure and mind may both renounce the claim to the first place. But mind is ten thousand times nearer to the chief good than pleasure. Pleasure ranks fifth and not first, even though all the animals in the world assert the contrary. From the days of Aristippus and Epicurus to our own times the nature of pleasure has occupied the attention of philosophers. ' Is pleasure an evil? a good? the only good?' are the simple forms which the enquiry assumed among the Socratic schools. But at an early stage of the controversy another question was asked : ' Do pleasures differ in kind? and are some bad, some good, and some neither bad nor good ? ' There are bodily and there are mental pleasures, which were INTR OD UCTION. 29 at first confused but afterwards distinguished. A distinction was also made between necessary and unnecessary pleasures ; and again between pleasures which had or had not corresponding pains. The ancient philosophers were fond of asking, in the language of their age, Was pleasure a 'becoming' only, and therefore transient and relative, or did some pleasures partake of truth and being ? To these ancient speculations the moderns have added a further question : — ' Whose pleasure ? ' ' The pleasure of yourself, or of your neighbour, of the individual, or of the world?' This little addition has changed the whole aspect of the discussion : the same word is now supposed to include two principles as widely different as benevolence and self- love. Some modern writers have also distinguished between pleasure the test, and pleasure the motive of actions. For the universal test of the Tightness of actions (how I know them) may not always be the highest or best motive of them (why I do them). Socrates, as we learn from the Memorabilia of Xenophon, first drew attention to the consequences of actions. Mankind were said by him to act rightly when they knew what they were doing, or, in the language of the Gorgias, did what they would. He seems to have been the first who maintained that the good was the useful (Mem. iv. 6, 8). In his eager ness for generalization, seeking, as Aristotle says, for the universal in Ethics (Metaph. i. 6), he took the most obvious intellectual aspect of human action which occurred to him. He meant to emphasize not plea sure but the calculation of pleasure ; neither is he arguing that pleasure is the chief good, but that we should have a principle of choice. He did not intend to oppose ' the useful ' to some higher conception, such as the Platonic ideal, but to chance and caprice. The Platonic Socrates pursues the same vein of thought in the Protagoras (351 foil.), where he argues against the so-called sophist that pleasure and pain are the final standards and motives of good and evil, and that the salvation of human life de pends upon a right estimate of pleasures greater or less when seen near and at a distance. The testimony of Xenophon is thus confirmed by that of Plato, and we are therefore justified in calling Socrates the first utilitarian ; as indeed there is no side or aspect of philosophy which may not with reason be ascribed to him — he is Cynic and Cyrenaic, Platonist and Aristotelian in one. But in the Phaedo the Socratic has already passed into a more ideal point of view (pp. 68, 69) ; and he, or rather Plato speaking in his person, expressly repudiates the notion that the 30 PHILEBUS. exchange of a less pleasure for a greater can be the exchange of virtue. Such virtue is the virtue of ordinary men who live in the world of appearance ; they are temperate only that they may enjoy the pleasures of intemperance, and courageous from fear of danger. Whereas the philosopher is seeking after wisdom and not after pleasure, whether near or distant : he is the mystic, the initiated, who has learnt to despise the body and is yearning all his life long for a truth which will hereafter be revealed to him. In the Republic (ix. 582) the plea sures of knowledge are affirmed to be superior to other pleasures, because the philosopher so estimates them ; and he alone has had experience of both kinds. (Compare a similar argument urged by one of the latest defenders of Utilitarianism, Mill on Utility, p. 12.) In the Philebus, Plato, although he regards the enemies of pleasure with complacency, still further modifies the transcendentalism of the Phaedo. For he is compelled to confess, rather reluctantly, perhaps, that some pleasures, i. e. those which have no antecedent pains, claim a place in the scale of goods. There have been many reasons why not only Plato but mankind in general have been unwilling to acknowledge that 'pleasure is the chief good.' Either they have heard a voice calling to them out of another world ; or the life and example of some great teacher has cast their thoughts of right and wrong in another mould ; or the word ' pleasure ' has been associated in their mind with merely animal enjoyment. They could not believe that what they were always striving to overcome, and the power or principle in them which overcame, were of the same nature. The pleasure of doing good to others and of bodily self- indulgence ; the pleasures of intellect and the pleasures of sense, are so different : — Why then should they be called by a common name ? Or, if the equivocal or metaphorical use of the word is justified by custom (like the use of other words which at first referred only to the body, and then by a figure have been transferred to the mind) still, why should we make an ambiguous word the corner-stone of moral philosophy ? To many the Utilitarian or hedonistic mode of speaking has appeared to be at variance with religion and with any higher conception both of politics and of morals. It has not satisfied their imagination ; it has offended their taste. To elevate pleasure the most fleeting of all things into a general idea seems to them a contradiction. They do not desire to bring down their theory to the level of their practice. The simplicity INTR OD UCTION. 3 1 of the ' greatest happiness ' principle has been acceptable to philo sophers, but the world in general has been slow to receive it. Before proceeding, we may make a few admissions which will narrow the field of dispute ; and we may as well leave behind a few prejudices, which intelligent opponents of Utilitarianism have by this time ' agreed to discard.' We admit then that Utility is co-extensive with right, and that no action can be right which does not tend to the happiness of mankind ; we acknowledge that a large class of actions are made right or wrong by their consequences only ; we say further that mankind are not too mindful, but that they are far too regardless of consequences, and that they need to have the doctrine of utility habitually inculcated on them. We recognize the simplicity of the principle which supplies a connecting link between Ethics and Politics, and under which all human actions are or may be included. The desire to promote happiness is no mean pre ference of expediency to right, but one of the highest and noblest motives by which human nature can be animated. Neither in referring actions to the test of utility have we to make a laborious calculation, any more than in trying them by other standards of morals. For long ago they have been classified sufficiently for all practical purposes by the thinker, by the legislator, by the opinion of the world. Whatever may be the hypo thesis on which they are explained, or which in doubtful cases may be applied to the regulation of them, we are very rarely, if ever, called upon at the moment of action to determine their effect upon the happiness of mankind. There is a theory which has been contrasted with Utility by Paley and others — the theory of a moral sense : Are our ideas of right and wrong innate or derived from experience ? This, perhaps, is another of those speculations which intelligent men might ' agree to discard.' For it has been worn threadbare ; and either alternative is equally consistent with a transcendental or with an eudaemonistic system of ethics, with a greatest happiness principle or with Kant's law of duty. Yet to avoid miscon ception, what appears to be the truth about the origin of our moral ideas may be shortly summed up as follows : — To each of us individually our moral ideas come first of all in childhood through the medium of educa tion, from parents and teachers, assisted by the unconscious influence of language ; they are impressed upon a mind which at first is like a waxen tablet, adapted to receive them ; but they soon become fixed or set, and in after life are strengthened, or perhaps weakened by the force of 32 PHI LE BUS. public opinion. They may be corrected and enlarged by experience, they may be reasoned about, they may be brought home to us by the circumstances of our lives, they may be intensified by imagination, by reflection, by a course of action likely to confirm them. Under the influence of religious feeling or by an effort of thought, any one begin ning with the ordinary rules of morality may create out of them for himself ideals of holiness and virtue. They slumber in the minds of most men, yet in all of us there remains some tincture of affection, some desire of good, some fear of the law. Something like this is the state or process which each individual is conscious of in himself, and if he com pares his own experience with that of others he will find to be the same in them. All of us have entered into an inheritance which we have the power of appropriating and making our own. No great effort of mind is required on our part ; we learn morals, as we learn to talk, instinct ively, from conversing with others, in an enlightened age, in a civilized country, in a good home. A well-educated child of ten years old already knows the essentials of morals : ' Thou shalt not steal/ ' thou shalt speak the truth/ ' thou shalt love thy parents/ ' thou shalt fear God.' What more does he want ? But whence comes this common inheritance or stock of moral ideas ? Their beginning, like all other beginnings of human things, is obscure, and is the least important part of them. Imagine, if you will, that Society originated in the herding of brutes, in their parental instincts, in their rude attempts at self-preservation : — Man is not man in that he resembles, but in that he differs from them. We have passed into another cycle of existence, before we can discover in him by any evidence accessible to us even the germs of our moral ideas. In the history of the world, which viewed from within is the history of the human mind, they have been slowly created by religion, by poetry, by law, having their foundation in the natural affections and in the necessity of some degree of truth and justice in a social state ; they have been deepened and enlarged by the efforts of great thinkers who have idealized and connected them — by the lives of saints and prophets who have taught and exemplified them. The schools of ancient philo sophy which seem so far from us — Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Epicureans, a few modern teachers such as Kant and Bentham have each of them supplied ' moments ' of thought to the world. The life of Christ has embodied a divine love, wisdom, patience, reasonableness. INTR OD UCTION. 33 From his image, however imperfectly handed down to us, the modern world has received a standard more perfect in idea than the socie ties of ancient times, but also further removed from practice. For there is certainly a greater interval between the theory and practice of Christians than between the theory and practice of the Greeks and Romans ; the ideal is more above us, and the aspiration after good has often lent a strange power to evil And sometimes, as at the Reformation, or French Revolution, when the upper classes of a so-called Christian country have become corrupted by priestcraft, by casuistry, by licentiousness, by despotism, the lower have risen up and re-asserted the natural sense of religion and right. We may further remark that our moral ideas, as the world grows older, perhaps as w7e grow older ourselves, unless they have been undermined in us by false philosophy or the practice of mental analysis, or infected by the corruption of society, or by some moral disorder in the individual, are constantly assuming a more natural and necessary character. The habit of the mind, the opinion of the world, familiarizes them to us ; and they take more and more the form of immediate in tuition. The moral sense comes last and not first in the order of their development, and is the instinct which we have inherited or acquired, not the nobler effort of reflection which created and which keeps them alive. We do not stop to reason about common honesty. Whenever we are not blinded by self-deceit, as for example in judging the actions of others, we have no hesitation in determining what is right and wrong. The principles of morality, when not at variance with some desire or worldly interest of our own, or with the opinion of the public, are hardly per ceived by us ; but in the conflict of reason and passion they assert their authority and are not overcome without remorse. Such is a brief outline of the history of our moral ideas. We have to distinguish, first of all, the manner in which they have grown up in the world from the manner in which they have been communicated to each of us. We may represent them to ourselves as flowing out of the boundless ocean of language and thought, in little rills which convey them to the heart and brain of each individual. But neither must we confound the theories or aspects of morality with the origin of our moral ideas. These are not the roots or ' origines ' of morals, but the latest efforts of reflection, the lights in which the whole moral world has been regarded by different thinkers and successive generations of men. If we VOL. IV. D 34 PHILEBUS. ask Which of these many theories is the true one ? we may answer All of them — moral sense, innate ideas, a priori, a posteriori notions, the philo sophy of experience, the philosophy of intuition — all of them have added something to our conception of Ethics ; no one of them is the whole truth. But to decide how far our ideas of morality are derived from one source or another ; to determine what history, what philosophy has con tributed to them ; to distinguish the original, simple elements from the manifold and complex applications of them, would be a long enquiry too far removed from the question which we are now pursuing. • Bearing in mind the distinction which we have been seeking to establish between our earliest and our most mature ideas of morality, we may now proceed to state the theory of Utility, not exactly in the words, but in the spirit of one of its ablest and most moderate sup porters 1 : — * That which alone makes actions either right or desirable is their utility, or tendency to promote the happiness of mankind, or, in other words, to increase the sum of pleasure in the world. But all pleasures are not the same: they differ in quality as well as in quantity, and the pleasure which is superior in quality is incommen surable with the inferior. Neither is the pleasure or happiness which we seek, our own pleasure, but that of others, — of our family, of our country, of mankind. The desire of this, and even the sacrifice of our own interest to that of other men, may become a passion to a rightly educated nature. The Utilitarian finds a place in his system for this virtue and for every other/ Good or happiness or pleasure is thus regarded as the true and only end of human life. To this all our desires will be found to tend, and in accordance with this all the virtues, including justice, may be explained. Admitting that men rest for a time in inferior ends, and do not cast their eyes beyond them, these ends are really dependent on the greater end of happiness, and would not be pursued, unless in general they had been found to lead to it. The existence of such an end is proved, as in Aristotle's time, so in our own, by the universal fact that men desire it. The obligation to promote it is based upon the social nature of man, a feeling which is shared by all of us in some degree, and is capable of being greatly fostered and. strengthened. So far from being inconsistent with religion, the greatest happiness principle is in the highest degree 1 Mill on Utility. IN TR OD UCTION. 3 5 agreeable to it. For what can be more reasonable than that God should will the happiness of all his creatures? and in working out their happiness we may be said to be ' working together with him/ Nor is it inconceivable that a new enthusiasm of the future, far stronger than any old religion, may be based upon such a conception. But then for the familiar phrase of the ' greatest happiness principle/ it seems as if we ought now to read ' the noblest happiness principle/ ' the happiness of others principle ' — the principle not of the greatest, but of the highest pleasure, pursued with no more regard to our own immediate interest than is required by the law of self-preservation. Transfer the thought of happiness to another life, dropping the external circumstances which form so large a part of our idea of happiness in this, and the meaning of the word becomes indistinguishable from holiness, harmony, wisdom, love. By the slight addition 'of others/ all the associations of the word are altered; we seem to have passed over from one theory of morals to the opposite. For allowing that the happiness of others is reflected on ourselves, and also that every man must live before he can do good to others, still the last limitation is a very trifling excep tion, and the happiness of another is very far from compensating for the loss of our own. According to Mr. Mill, he would best carry out the principle of utility who sacrificed his own pleasure most to that of his fellow men. But if so, Hobbes and Butler, Shaftesbury and Hume, are not so far apart as they and their followers imagine. The thought of self and the thought of others are alike superseded in the more general notion of the happiness of mankind at large. But in this composite good, until society becomes perfected, the friend of man himself has generally the least share, and may be a great sufferer. And now what objection have we to urge against a system of moral philosophy so beneficent, so enlightened, so ideal, and at the same time so practical, — so Christian, as without exaggeration we may say, — and which has the further advantage of resting morality on a principle intel ligible to ail capacities ? Have we not found that which Socrates and Plato grew old in seeking for ? Are we not desirous of happiness, at any rate for ourselves and our friends, if not for all mankind ? If, as is natural, we begin by thinking of ourselves first, we are easily led on to think of others ; for we cannot help acknowledging that what is right for us is the right and inheritance of others. ' We feel the advantage of an abstract principle wide enough and strong enough to override D 2 36 PHILEBUS. all the particularisms of mankind; which acknowledges a universal good, truth, right, which is capable of inspiring men like a passion, and is the symbol of a cause for which they are ready to contend to their life's end. And if we test this principle by the lives of its professors, it would certainly appear inferior to none as a rule of action. From the days of Eudoxus (Arist. Ethics, x. 2) and Epicurus to our own, the votaries of pleasure have gained belief for their principles by their practice. Two of the noblest and most disinterested men who have lived in this century, Bentham and J. S. Mill, have been the most conspicuous advocates of the doctrine. Their lives were a long devotion to the service of their fellow-men ; while among their contemporaries, some who were of a more mystical turn of mind, have ended rather in aspiration than in action, and have been found unequal to the duties of life. Looking back on them now that they are removed from the scene, we feel that mankind has been the better for them. The world was against them while they lived ; but this is rather a reason for admiring than for depre ciating them. Nor can any one doubt that the influence of their philo sophy on politics, especially on foreign politics, on law, on social life, has been upon the whole beneficial. Nevertheless, they will never have justice done to them, for they do not agree either with the better feeling of the multitude or with the idealism of more refined thinkers. Without Bentham, a great word in the history of philosophy would have remained unspoken. Yet to this day it is rare to hear his name received with any mark of respect such as would be freely granted to the ambiguous memory of some father of the Church. The odium which attached to him when alive has not been removed by his death. For he shocked the prejudices of mankind, perhaps from a certain egotism and want of taste ; and this generation which has reaped the benefit of his labours has inherited the feeling of the last. While acknowledging the benefits which the greatest happiness prin ciple has conferred upon mankind, the time appears to have arrived, not for denying its claims, but for criticizing them and comparing them with other principles which equally claim to lie at the foundation of ethics. Any one who adds a general principle to knowledge has been a bene factor to the world. But there is a danger that, in his first enthusiasm, he may not recognize the proportions or limitations to which his truth is subjected; he does not see how far he has given birth to a truism, or how INTRODUCTION. 37 far that which is a truth to him is a truism to the rest of the world, or may become so to the next generation. He believes that to be the whole which is only a part, — to be the necessary foundation which is really only a valuable aspect of the truth. The systems of all philo sophers require the criticism of ' the morrow,' when the heat of imagina tion which forged them has cooled, and they are seen in the temperate light of day. All of them have contributed to the thoughts of the civilized world ; none of them occupy that supreme or exclusive place which their authors would have assigned to them. We may preface the criticism with a few preliminary remarks : — Mr. Mill, Mr. Austin, and others, in their eagerness to maintain the doctrine of utility, are fond of repeating that we are in a lamentable state of uncertainty about morals. While other branches of knowledge have made extraordinary progress, in moral philosophy we are supposed by them to be no better than children, and with few exceptions — that is to say, Bentham and his admirers — to be no further advanced than men were in the age of Socrates and Plato, who, in their turn, are deemed to be as backward in ethics as they necessarily were in physics. But this, though often asserted, is recanted almost in a breath by the same writers who speak thus depreciatingly of our modern ethical philosophy. For they are the first to acknowledge that we have not now to begin classi fying actions under the head of utility ; they would not deny that about the general conceptions of morals there is a practical agreement. There is no more doubt that falsehood is wrong than that a stone falls to the ground, although the first does not admit of the same ocular proof as the second. There is no greater uncertainty about the duty of obedience to parents and to the law of the land than about the properties of tri angles. Unless we are looking for a new moral world which has no marrying and giving in marriage, there is no greater disagreement in theory about the right relations of the sexes than about the composition of water. These and a few other simple principles, as they have endless applications in practice, so also may be developed in theory into counsels of perfection. To what then is to be attributed this opinion which has been often entertained about the uncertainty of morals ? Chiefly to this, — that philo sophers have not always distinguished the theoretical and the casuistical uncertainty of morals from the practical certainty. There is an uncer tainty about details, — whether, for example, under given circumstances 38 PHILEBUS. such and such a moral principle is to be enforced, or whether in some cases there may not be a conflict of principles : these are the exceptions to the ordinary rules of morality, important, indeed, but not extending to the one thousandth or one ten-thousandth part of human actions. This is the domain of casuistry. Secondly, the aspects under which the most general principles of morals may be presented to us are many and various. The mind of man has been more than usually active in thinking about man. The conceptions of harmony, happiness, right, freedom, benevo lence, self-love, have all of them seemed to some philosopher or other the truest and most comprehensive expression of morality. There is no difference, or at any rate no great difference, of opinion about the right and wrong of actions, but only about the general notion which furnishes the best explanation or gives the most comprehensive view of them. This, in the language of Kant, is the sphere of the metaphysic of ethics. But these two uncertainties at either end, eV rots /xaXto-ra Ka66\ov and eV rots- K.nff cjeaora, leave space enough for an intermediate principle which is practically certain. The rule of human life is not dependent on the theories of philo sophers : we know what our duties are for the most part before we speculate about them. And the use of speculation is not to teach us what we already know, but to inspire in our minds an interest about morals in general, to strengthen our conception of the virtues by showing that they confirm one another, to prove to us, as Socrates would have said, that they are not many, but one. There is the same kind of pleasure and use in reducing morals, as in reducing physics, to a few very simple truths. And not unfrequently the more general principle may correct prejudices and misconceptions, and enable us to regard our fellow men in a larger and more generous spirit. The two qualities which seem to be most required in first principles of ethics are, (i) that they should afford a real explanation of the facts, (2) that they should inspire the mind, — should harmonize, strengthen, settle us. We can hardly estimate the influence which a simple principle such as ' act so as to promote the happiness of mankind/ or ' act so that the rule on which thou actest may be adopted as a law by all rational beings,' may exercise on the mind of an individual. They will often seem to open a new world to him, like the religious conceptions of faith or the spirit of God. The difficulties of ethics disappear when we do not suffer ourselves to be distracted between different points of view. INTRODUCTION. 39 But to maintain their hold on us, the general principles must also be psychologically true — they must agree with our experience, they must accord with the habits of our minds. When we are told that actions are right or wrong only in so far as they tend towards happiness, we naturally ask what is meant by ' happi ness/ For the term in the common use of language is only to a certain extent commensurate with moral good and evil. We should hardly say that a good man could be utterly miserable (Arist. Ethics, i. 1 1), or place a bad man in the first rank of happiness. But yet, from various circum stances, the measure of a man's happiness may be out of all proportion to his desert. And if we insist on calling the good man alone happy, we shall be using the term in some new and transcendental sense, as synonymous with well-being. We have already seen that happiness includes the happiness of others as well as our own ; we must now com prehend unconscious as well as conscious happiness under the same word. There is no harm in this extension of the meaning, but a word which admits of such an extension can hardly be made the basis of a philosophical system. The exactness whicH is required in philosophy will not allow us to comprehend under the same term two ideas so different as the subjective feeling of pleasure or happiness and the objective reality of a state which receives our moral approval. Like Protarchus in the Philebus, we can give no answer to the ques tion, ' What is that common quality which in all states of human life we call happiness?' which includes the lower and the higher kind of happi ness, and is the aim of the noblest, as well as of the meanest of mankind. If we say Not pleasure, not virtue, not wisdom, nor yet any quality which we can abstract from these — what then? After seeming to hover for a time on the verge of a great truth, we have gained only a truism. Let us ask the question in another form. What is that which consti tutes happiness, over and above the several ingredients of health, wealth, pleasure, virtue, knowledge, which are included under it ? Perhaps we answer, ' the subjective feeling of them.' But this is very far from being coextensive with right. Or we may reply that happiness is the whole of which the above-mentioned are the parts. Still the question recurs, ' In what does the whole differ from all the parts ?' And if we are unable to distinguish them, happiness will be the mere aggregate of the goods, of life. Again, while admitting that in all right action there is an element 40 PHILEBUS. of happiness, we cannot help seeing that the utilitarian theory supplies a much easier explanation of some virtues than of others. Of many patriotic or benevolent actions we can give a straight forward account by their tendency to promote happiness. For the explanation of justice, on the other hand, we have to go a long way round. No man is indignant with a thief because he has not promoted the greatest happiness of the greatest number, but because he has done him a wrong. There is an immeasurable interval between a crime against property or life, and the omission of an act of charity or benevo lence. Yet of this interval the utilitarian theory takes no cognizance. The greatest happiness principle strengthens our sense of positive duties towards others, but weakens our recognition of their rights. To pro mote in every way possible the happiness of others may be a counsel of perfection, but hardly seems to offer any ground for a theory of obliga tion. For admitting that our ideas of obligation are partly derived from religion and custom, yet they seem also to contain other essential elements which cannot be explained by the tendency of actions to pro mote happiness. Whence comes the necessity of them ? Why are some actions rather than others which equally tend to the happiness of man kind imposed upon us with the authority of law? 'You ought' and 'you had better' are fundamental distinctions in human thought; and having such distinctions, why should we seek to efface and unsettle them ? Bentham and Mr. Mill are earnest in maintaining that happiness includes the happiness of others as well as of ourselves. But what two notions can be more opposed in many cases than these ? Granting that in a perfect state of the world my own happiness and that of all other men would coincide, in the imperfect state they often diverge, and I cannot truly bridge over the difficulty by saying that men will always find pleasure in sacrificing themselves or in suffering for others. Upon the greatest happiness principle it is admitted that I am to have a share, and in consistency I should pursue my own happiness as impartially as that of my neighbour. But who can decide what proportion should be mine and what his, except on the principle that I am most likely to be deceived in my own favour, and had therefore better give the larger share, if not all, to him? Further, it is admitted that utility and right coincide, not in particular instances, but in classes of actions. But is it not distracting to the conscience of a man to be told that in the particular case they are INTRODUCTION. 41 opposed? Happiness is said to be the ground of moral obligation, yet he must not do what clearly conduces to his own happiness if it is at variance with the good of the whole. Nay, further, he will be taught that when utility and right are in partial conflict any amount of utility short of the greatest (for then the useful would be the good) does not alter a hair's-breadth the morality of the action ; and that the non-detection of an immoral act, say of telling a lie, which may often make the greatest difference in the consequences, not only to himself, but to all the world, makes none whatever in the act itself. Again, if we are concerned not with particular actions but with classes of actions, is the tendency of actions to happiness a principle upon which we can classify them ? There is a universal law which declares the same acts to be right or wrong in all men: — can there be any universality in the law which measures actions by their tendencies towards happiness ? For an act which is the cause of happiness to one person may be the cause of unhappiness to another ; or an act which if performed by one person may increase the happiness of mankind may have the opposite effect, if performed by another. Right can never be wrong, or wrong right, but there are no actions which tend to the hap piness of mankind which may not under other circumstances tend to their unhappiness. Unless we say not only that all right actions tend to happiness, but that they tend to happiness in the same degree in which they are right (and in that case the word ' right ' is plainer), we weaken the absoluteness of our moral standard ; we reduce differences in kind to differences in degree ; we obliterate the stamp which the au thority of ages has set upon human actions. Once more : turning from theory to practice we feel the importance of retaining the received distinctions of morality. Words such as truth, justice, honesty, virtue, love, have a simple meaning ; they have become sacred to us, — 'the word of God' written on the human heart: to no other words can the same associations be attached. We cannot explain them adequately on principles of utility; in attempting to do so we rob them of their true character. We give them a meaning often para doxical and distorted, and generally weaker than their signification in common language. And as words influence men's thoughts, we fear that the hold of morality may also be weakened, and the sense of duty im paired, if virtue and vice are explained only as the qualities which do or do not contribute to the pleasure of the world. In that very expression 42 PHILEBUS. we seem to detect a false ring, for pleasure is individual not universal ; we speak of eternal and immutable justice, but not of eternal and immu table pleasure ; nor by any refinement can we avoid some taint of bodily sense adhering to the meaning of the word. Again : the higher the view which men take of life, the more they lose sight of their own pleasure or interest. True religion is not working for a reward only, but is ready to work equally without a reward. It is not ' doing the will of God for the sake of eternal happiness,' but doing the will of God because it is best, whether rewarded or unrewarded. And this applies to others as well as to ourselves. For he who sacri fices himself for the good of others, does not sacrifice himself that they may be saved from the persecution which he endures for their sakes, but rather that they in their turn may be able to undergo similar sufferings, and like him stand fast in the truth. To promote their happiness is not his first object, but to elevate their moral nature. Both in his own case and that of others there may be happiness in the distance, but if there were no happiness he would equally act as he does. We are speaking of the highest and noblest natures : and once more the question arises ' Whether that can be the first principle of morals which has been hardly thought of by the greatest benefactors of mankind ? ' The admissions that pleasures differ in kind, and that actions are already classified; the acknowledgment that happiness includes the happiness of others, as well as of ourselves; the confusion (not made by Aristotle) between conscious and unconscious happiness, or between happiness the energy and happiness the result of the energy, introduce uncertainty and inconsistency into the whole enquiry. We reason readily and cheerfully from a greatest happiness principle. But the partisans of utility are disagreed among themselves when we ask the meaning of the word. Still less can they impart to others a common conception or con viction of the nature of happiness. The meaning of the word is always insensibly slipping away from us, into pleasure, out of pleasure, now ap pearing as the motive, now as the test of actions, and sometimes varying in successive sentences. And as in a mathematical demonstration an error in the original number disturbs the whole calculation which follows, this fundamental uncertainty about the word vitiates all the applications of it. Must we not admit that a notion so uncertain in meaning, so void of content, so at variance with common language and opinion, does not comply adequately with either of our two requirements ? It can neither INTR OD UCTION. 43 strike the imaginative faculty, nor give an explanation of phenomena which is in accordance with our individual experience. It supplies only a partial account of human actions : it is one among many theories of philosophers. It may be compared with other notions, such as the chief good of Plato, which may be best expressed to us under the form of a harmony; or with Kant's obedience to law, which may be summed up under the word * duty ' ; or with the Stoical ' Follow nature,' and seems to have no advantage over them. All of these present a certain aspect of moral truth. None of them are, or indeed profess to be, the only principle of morals. And this brings us to speak of the most serious objection to the utili tarian system — its exclusiveness. There is no place for Kant or Hegel, for Plato and Aristotle alongside of it. They do not reject the greatest happiness principle, but it rejects them. Now the phenomena of moral action differ, and some are best explained upon one principle and some upon another : the virtue of justice seems to be naturally connected with one theory of morals, the virtues of temperance and benevolence with another. The characters of men also differ; and some are more at tracted by one aspect of the truth, some by another. The firm stoical nature will conceive virtue under the conception of law, the philan thropist under that of doing good, the quietist under that of resignation, the enthusiast under that of faith or love. The upright man of the world will desire above all things that morality should be plain and fixed, and should use words in their ordinary sense. Persons of an imaginative temperament will generally be dissatisfied with the words 'utility' or ' pleasure ' : their principle of right is of a far higher character, what or where to be found they cannot always distinctly tell ; — deduced from the laws of human nature, says one ; resting on the will of God, says another ; based upon some transcendental idea which animates more worlds than one, says a third ; a>v vofjioi, TTpoKelvTdi u'v^tTroSes', ovpaviav di aiflepa To satisfy an imaginative nature in any degree, the doctrine of utility must be so transfigured that it becomes altogether different and loses all simplicity. But why, since there are different characters among men, should we not allow them to envisage morality accordingly, and be thankful to the 44 PHILEBUS. great men who have provided for all of us modes and instruments of thought ? Would the world have been better if there had been no Stoics or Kantists, no Platonists or Cartesians ? No more than if the other pole of moral philosophy had been excluded. If we regard, not their actions but what they think right, all men are agreed about the essentials of morals. In asserting liberty of speculation we are not encouraging indi viduals to make right or wrong for themselves, but only conceding to them that they may choose the form or aspect under which they prefer to contemplate them. Nor do we say that one of these aspects is as true and good as another ; but that they all of them, if they are not mere sophisms and illusion, define and bring into relief some part of the truth which would have been obscure without their light. Why should we endeavour to bind all men within the limits of a single metaphysical con ception ? The necessary imperfection of language seems to require that we should view the same truth under more than one aspect. We are living in the second age of utilitarianism, when the charm of novelty and the fervour of the first disciples has passed away. The doctrine is no longer stated in the forcible paradoxical manner of Bentham, but has to be adapted to meet objections; its corners are rubbed off, and the meaning of its most characteristic expressions is softened. The array of the enemy melts away when we approach him. The greatest happiness of the greatest number was a great ori ginal idea when enunciated by Bentham, which leavened a generation and has left its mark on thought and civilization in all succeeding times. His grasp of it had the intensity of genius. In the spirit of an ancient philosopher he would have denied that pleasures differed in kind, or that by happiness he meant anything but pleasure. He would perhaps have revolted us by his thoroughness. The 'guardianship of his doc trine ' has passed into other hands ; and now we seem to see its weak points, its ambiguities, its want of exactness while assuming the highest exactness, its one-sidedness, its paradoxical explanation of several of the virtues. No philosophy has ever stood this criticism of the next generation, though the founders of all of them have imagined that they were built upon a rock. And the utilitarian system, like others, has yielded to the inevitable analysis. Even in the opinion of its sup porters it ' has had a terrible downfall,' and is no longer the only moral philosophy, but one among many which have contributed in various degrees to the intellectual progress of mankind. INTRODUCTION. 45 But because the utilitarian philosophy can no longer claim ' the prize/ we must not refuse to acknowledge the great benefits conferred by it on the world. All philosophies are refuted in their turn, says the sceptic, and he looks forward to all future systems sharing the fate of the past. All philosophies remain, says the thinker ; they have done a great work in their own day, and they supply posterity with aspects of the truth and with instruments of thought. Though they may be shorn of their glory, they retain their place in the organism of knowledge. And still there remain many rules of morals which are better explained and more forcibly inculcated on the principle of utility than on any other. The question Will such and such an action promote the happi ness of myself, my family, my country, the world ? may check the rising feeling of pride or honour which would cause a quarrel, an estrange ment, a war. * How can I contribute to the greatest happiness of others?' is another form of the question which will be more attractive to the minds of many than a deduction of the duty of benevolence from a priori principles. In politics especially hardly any other argument can be allowed to have weight except the happiness of a people. All parties alike profess to aim at this, which though often used only as the disguise of self-interest has a great and real influence on the minds of statesmen. In religion, again, nothing can more tend to mitigate super stition than the belief that the good of man is also the will of God. This is an easy test to which the prejudices and superstitions of men may be brought : — whatever does not tend to the good of men is not of God. The picture of the greatest happiness of mankind, especially if believed to be the will of God, when compared with the actual fact, will be one of the strongest motives to do good to others. On the other hand, when the temptation is to speak falsely, to be dishonest or unjust, or in any way to interfere with the rights of others, the argument that these actions regarded as a class will not conduce to the happiness of mankind, though true enough, seems to have less force than the feeling which is already implanted in the mind by conscience and authority. To resolve this feeling into the greatest happiness prin ciple takes away from its sacred and authoritative character. The martyr will not go to the stake in order that he may promote the happiness of mankind, but for the sake of the truth : neither will the soldier advance to the cannon's mouth merely because he believes military discipline to be for the good of mankind. It is better and 46 P PULE BUS. safer for him to know that he will be shot, that he will be disgraced, if he runs away — he has no need to look beyond military honour, patriotism, l England expects every man to do his duty.' These are to his mind far more definite motives than the greatest happiness of the greatest number. For in human actions men do not always require broad principles : they come home to them with more force when they are limited and defined, and sanctioned by custom and public opinion. Lastly, if we turn to the history of ethics, we shall find that our moral ideas have originated not in utility but in religion, in law, in conceptions of nature, of an ideal good, and the like. And many may be inclined to think that this conclusively disproves the claim of utility to be the basis of morals. But the utilitarian will fairly reply (see above) that we must distinguish the origin of ethics from the principles of them — the historical germ from the later growth of reflection. And he may also truly add that for two thousand years and more, utility, if not the originating, has been the great corrective principle in law, in politics, in religion, leading men to ask how evil may be diminished and good increased — by what course of policy the public interest may be promoted, and to understand that God wills the happiness, not of some of his creatures and in this world only, but of all of them and in every stage of their existence. ' What is the place of happiness or utility in a system of moral philo sophy?' is analogous to the question asked in the Philebus, 'What rank does pleasure hold in the scale of goods ?' Admitting the greatest happi ness principle to be true and valuable, and the necessary foundation of that part of morals which relates to the consequences of actions, we still have to consider whether this or some other general notion is the highest principle of human life. We may try them in this comparison by three tests — definiteness, comprehensiveness, and motive power. There are three subjective principles of morals, — sympathy, benevo lence, self-love. But sympathy seems to rest morality on feelings which differ widely even in good men ; benevolence and self-love torture one half of our virtuous actions into the likeness of the other. The greatest happiness principle, which includes both, has the advantage over all these in comprehensiveness, but the advantage is purchased at the expense of definiteness. Again, there are the legal and political principles of morals — freedom, equality, rights of persons ; ' Every man to count for one and no man for more than one/ ' Every man equal in the eye of the law and of the INTR OD UCTION. 47 legislator.' There is also the other sort of political morality, which if not beginning with ' might is right,' at any rate seeks to deduce our ideas of justice from the necessities of the state and of society. Ac cording to this view the greatest good of men is obedience to law : the best human government is a rational despotism, and the best idea which we can form of a divine being is that of a despot acting not wholly without regard to law and order. To such a view the present mixed state of the world, not wholly evil or wholly good, is supposed to be a witness. More we might desire to have, but are not permitted. Though a human tyrant would be intolerable, a divine tyrant is a very tolerable governor of the universe. This is the doctrine of Thrasy- machus adapted to the public opinion of modern times. There is yet a third view which combines the two : — freedom is obe dience to the law, and the greatest order is also the greatest freedom ; ' Act so that thy action may be the law of every intelligent being.' This view is noble and elevating ; but it seems to err, like other transcendental principles of ethics, in being too abstract. For there is the same diffi culty in connecting the idea of duty with particular duties as in bridging the gulf between ^aivop-eva and 6Wa; and when, as in the system of Kant, this universal idea or law is held to be independent of space and time, such a /^aratof eldos becomes almost unmeaning. Once more there are the religious principles of morals : — the will of God revealed in Scripture and in nature. No philosophy has supplied a sanction equal in authority to this, or a motive equal in strength to the belief in another life. Yet about these too we must ask What will of God ? How revealed to us, and by what proofs ? Religion, like happi ness, is a word which has great influence apart from any consideration of its content : it may be for great good or for great evil. But true reli gion is the synthesis of religion and morality, beginning with divine per fection in which all human perfection is embodied. It moves among ideas of holiness, justice, love, wisdom, truth ; these are to God, in whom they are personified, what the Platonic ideas are to the idea of good. It is the consciousness of the will of God that all men should be as he is. It lives in this world and is known to us only through the phenomena of this world, but it extends to worlds beyond. Ordinary religion which is alloyed with motives of this world may easily be in excess, may be fanatical, may be interested, may be the mask of ambition, may be perverted in a thousand ways. But of that religion which combines 48 PHILEBUS. the will of God with our highest ideas of truth and right there can never be too much. This impossibility of excess is the note of divine mode ration. So then, having briefly passed in review the various principles of moral philosophy, we may now arrange our goods in order, though, like the reader of the Philebus, we have a difficulty in distinguishing the different aspects of them from one another, or defining the point at which the human passes into the divine. First, the eternal will of God in this world and in another, — justice, holiness, wisdom, love, without succession of acts (ov% ?/ yi veais TrpoVeo-ni/), which is known to us in part only, and reverenced by us as divine perfection. Secondly, human perfection, or the fulfilment of the will of God in this world, and co-operation with his laws revealed to us by reason and experience, in nature, history, and in our own minds. Thirdly, the elements of human perfection, — virtue, knowledge, and right opinion. Fourthly, the external conditions of perfection, — health and the goods of life. Fifthly, beauty and happiness ; the inward enjoyment of that which is best and fairest in this world and in the human soul. PHILEBUS. PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE. SOCRATES. PROTARCHUS. PHILEBUS. Steph. Socrates. OBSERVE, Protarchus, the nature of the position 1 1 which you are now going to take from Philebus, and what the other position is which. I maintain, and which, if you do not approve of my argument, is to be controverted by you. Shall you and I sum up the two sides? Protarchus. By all means. Soc. Philebus was saying that enjoyment and pleasure and delight, and the class of feelings akin to them, are a good to every living being, whereas I contend, that not these, but wisdom and knowledge and memory, and tl]£Jjr_Jdtidred, right opinion and true reasonings, are better and more desirable than pleasure fo£ all who are able to_ partake of them, and that to all such who are or ever will be they are the most advantageous of all things. Have I not given, Philebus, a fair statement of the two sides of the argument? Philebus. Nothing can be fairer, Socrates. Soc. And do you, Protarchus, accept the position which is assigned to you? Pro. I cannot do otherwise, since our excellent Philebus has left the field. Soc. Certainly the truth about these matters ought, by all means, to be ascertained. Pro. To be sure. Soc. Shall we further agree Pro. To what ? VOL. IV. E 5o PHILEBUS. Soc. That the good which both you and I affirm to have the property of making all men happy is some state and disposition of the soul. Pro. Yes, by all means. Soc. And you say that pleasure, and I say that wisdom, is such a state? Pro. True. Soc. And what if there be a third state, which is better than either? Then both of us are vanquished — are we not? But if this higher and more lasting state turn out to be more akin to pleasure than to wisdom, the life of pleasure may still have the advantage over the life of wisdom. 12 Pro. True. Soc. Or suppose that the better life is more nearly allied to wisdom, then wisdom conquers, and pleasure is defeated ;— do you agree? Pro. Certainly, I should say as you do. Soc. And what does Philebus say? for he ought to be consulted. Phi. I say, and shall always say, that pleasure is the con queror ; but you must decide for yourself, Protarchus. Pro. You, Philebus, having handed over the argument to me, have no longer a voice in the matter ? Phi. True enough. Nevertheless I would clear myself and deliver my soul of you, as I hereby call the goddess herself to witness that I now do. Pro. You may appeal to us, as far as that goes, to be witnesses of your words. And now, Socrates, never mind whether Phi lebus approves or not, we will regularly finish the argument. Soc. Then let us begin with the goddess herself, of whom Philebus says that she is called Aphrodite, but that her true name is Pleasure. Pro. Very good. Soc. The awe which I always feel, Protarchus, about the names of the gods is more than human, and now I would not sin against Aphrodite by naming her amiss ; of her, then, I say no thing. But I will begin with Pleasure which I know to be diverse, and will consider and ask what her nature is. She has one name, and therefore you would imagine that she is one, and PHI LE BUS. 51 yet surely she takes the most various and even unlike forms. For do we not say that the intemperate has pleasure, and that the temperate has pleasure in his very temperance, and that the fool is pleased when he is full of foolish fancies and hopes, and that the wise man has pleasure in his wisdom ; and how foolish would any one be who affirmed that all these opposite pleasures are severally alike. Pro. Why, Socrates, they are opposed in so far as they spring, from opposite causes, but they are not in themselves , opposite, for must not pleasure be of all things most absolutely ' like pleasure, — that is, like itself? ~Soc~. Yes, my good friend, just as colour is like colour ; — in so far as they are colours, there is no difference between them ; and yet we all know that black is not only unlike, but even absolutely opposed to white : or again, as figure is like figure, for they are all comprehended under one class ; and yet some figures are absolutely opposed to one another, and 13 there is an infinite diversity of them. And we might find similar examples in many other things ; therefore do not rely upon this argument, which would go to prove the unity of the most extreme opposites. And I suspect that we shall find a similar opposition among pleasures. Pro. Very likely ; but how will this invalidate the argument ? Soc. Why, I shall reply, that dissimilar as they are, you apply to them a new predicate, for you say that all pleasant thingsjire good • now although no one can argue that pleasure is not pleasure, he may argue, as we are doing, that pleasures are oftener bad than good ; but you call them all good (he would say), and at the same time are compelled, if you are pressed, to acknowledge that they are unlike. And he will want to know what is that identical quality .existing alike in good and bad pleasures, which makes you designate all of them as good. Pro. What do you mean, Socrates? Do you think that any one who asserts pleasure to be the good, will tolerate the notion that some pleasures are good and some bad ? Soc. And yet you will acknowledge that they are different from one another, and even opposite to one another ? Pro. Not in so far as they are pleasures. E 2 52 PHILEBUS. Soc. That is a return to the old position, Protarchus, and so we are to say (are we?) that there is no difference in pleasures, but that they are all alike ; and the examples which have just been cited do not pierce our dull minds, but we go on arguing all the same, like the weakest and most inex perienced reasoners?1 Pro. What do you mean ? Soc. Why, I mean to say, that in self-defence I may, if I like, follow your example, and assert boldly that the two things most unlike are most absolutely alike ; and the result will be that you and I will prove ourselves to be very tyros in the art of disputing ; and the argument will be blown away and lost. Suppose that we put back, and return to the old position ; then perhaps we may come to an understanding with one another. Pro. How do you mean ? Soc. Shall I, Protarchus, have my own question asked of me by you? Pro. What question ? Soc. Ask me whether wisdom and the sciences and mind, and those other qualities which I, when asked by you at first what is the nature of the good, affirmed to be good, are not in the same case with the pleasures of which you spoke. Pro. How so ? Soc. The sciences are a numerous class, and will be found to present great differences. But even admitting that, like the pleasures, they are opposite as well as different, should I be 14 worthy of the name of dialectician if, in order to avoid this diffi culty, I were to say (as you are saying of pleasure), that there is no difference between one science and another ; — would not the argument founder and disappear like an idle tale, although we might escape drowning by clinging to a fallacy? Pro. I agree that we should save ourselves, but not in that way. And I like the even-handed justice which is applied to both our arguments. Let us assume, then, that there are many and diverse pleasures, and many and different sciences. Sec. And let us have no concealment, Protarchus, of the differences between my good and yours ; but let us bring them 1 Probably corrupt. PHILEBUS. 53 to the light in the hope that, in the process of testing them, they may show whether pleasure is to be called the good, or wisdom, or some third quality ; for surely we are not now simply contending in order that my view or that yours may prevail, but I presume that we ought both of us to be fighting . for the truth. Pro. Certainly we ought. Soc. Then let us establish this principle of differences by a more definite agreement. Pro. What principle? Soc. A principle about which all men are always in a dif ficulty, and some men sometimes against their will. Pro. Speak plainer. ~ Soc. The principle which has just turned up, which is a marvel of nature ; for that one should be many or many one, are wonderful propositions ; and he who affirms either is very open to attack. Pro. Do you mean, when a person says that I, Protarchus, am by nature one and also many, dividing the single ' me' into many ' me's,' which he distinguishes and opposes as great and small, light and heavy, and in ten thousand other ways ? Soc. Those, Protarchus, are the common and acknowledged paradoxes about the one and many, which I may say that everybody has by this time agreed to dismiss as childish and obvious and detrimental to the true course of thought ; and no more favour is shown to that other puzzle, in which a person proves the members and parts of anything to be divided, and then confessing that they are all one, says laughingly in dis proof of his own words : Why, here is a miracle, the one is many and infinite, and the many are only one. Pro. But what, Socrates, are those other marvels which, as you imply, have not yet become common and acknowledged, 15 relating to the same principle? Soc. When, my boy, the_one does not belong to the class of tnings^that are born and perish, as in the instances which we were giving, for in those cases, and when unity is of this concrete nature, there is, as I was saying, a universal consent that no refutation is needed ; but when the assertion is made that man is one, or ox is one, or beauty one, or the good one, V 54 PHILEBUS. then the interest which attaches to these and similar unities and the attempt which is made to divide them gives birth to a controversy. Pro. Of what nature ? Soc. In the first place, as to whether these unities have a real existence ; and then how each individual unity, being always the same, and incapable either of generation or of destruction, but retaining a permanent individuality, can be conceived either as dispersed and multiplied in the infinity of the world of generation, or as still entire and yet derived from (\ itself, which latter would seem to be the greatest impossibility of all, for how can one and the same thing be at the same time in one and in many things? These, Protarchus, are the real difficulties, and this is the one and many to which they relate ; they are the source of great perplexity if ill decided, and the right determination of them is very helpful. Pro. Then, Socrates, let us begin by clearing up these questions. Soc. That is what I should wish. Pro. And I am sure that all my other friends will be glad to hear them discussed ; Philebus is peaceful and we had better not stir him up with questions. Soc. Good ; and where shall we begin this great and com prehensive battle, in which such various points are at issue? Shall we begin thus? Pro. How? Soc. We say that the one and many are identified by rea soning,, and that they run about everywhere together, in and out of every word which is uttered, as they have done in all time past as well as present, and that this union of them will never cease, and is not now beginning, but is; as I believe, an everlasting quality of thought itself, which never grows old in us. Any young man, when he first tastes these subtleties, is delighted, and fancies that he has found a treasure of wisdom ; in the first enthusiasm of his joy he leaves no stone, or rather no thought unturnodj now converting the many into the one, and kneading them together, now unfolding and dividing them ; he puzzles himself first and above all, and then he proceeds to puzzle his neighbours, whether they are older or younger, PHILEBUS. 55 1 6 or of his own age — that makes no difference; neither father nor mother does he spare ; no human being who has ears is safe from him, hardly even his dog, and a barbarian would have no chance of escaping him, if an interpreter could only be found. Pro. Considering, Socrates, how many we are, and that all of us are young men, is there not a danger that we and Philebus may conspire and attack you, if you speak evil of us ? But we understand what you mean ; and if there is any better way or manner of quietly escaping out of all this turmoil and perplexity, and arriving at the truth, we hope that you will guide us into that way, and we will do our best to follow, for the enquiry in which we are engaged, Socrates, is not a small one. Soc. Certainly not a small one, my boys, as Philebus calls you, and there neither is nor ever will be a better than my own favourite way, which has nevertheless already often de serted me in the hour of need. Pro. Tell us what that is ? Soc. One which may be easily explained, but is by no means easy of application ; and which is the parent of all the dis coveries in the arts. Pro. Say only what. Soc. A gift of heaven, which, as I conceive, the gods tossed among men by the hands of a new Prometheus, and therewith a blaze of light ; and the ancients, who were our betters and nearer the gods than we, handed down the tradition, that all things of which we say ' they are ' draw their existence from the one and majry_, and have the finite and infinite implanted in them : seeing, then, that such^Js the order of the world, we ^ ^ toovought in every enquiry to begin by laying down one idea of that which is the subject of enquiry; this unity we shall find in everything, and having found, we may next proceed to look for two, if there be two, or, if not, then for three or some other number, subdividing each of these units, until at last the unity with which we began is seen not only as one and many and infinite, but also as a definite number : the infinite must not be suffered to approach the many until the entire number of the species intermediate between unity and infinity 56 PHILEBUS. has been found out,— then, and not till then, we may rest from division, and without further troubling ourselves about the endless individuals may allow them to drop into infinity. This, as I was saying, is the way of considering and learning and teaching one another, which the gods have handed down to us. But the wise men of our time are either too quick or too slow in conceiving plurality in unity. Having no^methojd, they make their one and many anyhow, and from unity pass at once to infinity, without thinking of the intermediate steps. And this, I repeat, is what makes the difference between the mere art of disputation and true dialectic. Pro. I think that I partly understand you, Socrates, but I should like to have a clearer notion. Soc. I may illustrate my meaning by the letters of the alphabet, Protarchus, which you were made to learn as a child. Pro. How do they afford an illustration? Sec. The sound which passes through the lips whether of an individual or of all men is one and yet infinite. Pro. Very true. Soc. And yet not by knowing either that sound is one or that sound is infinite, are we perfect in the art, but the know ledge of the number and nature of sounds is what makes a man a grammarian. Pro. Very true. Soc. And the knowledge which makes a man a musician is of the same kind. Pro. How is that? Soc. Sound is one in music as well as in grammar ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. And there is a flat and sharp tone, and a third tone which is natural : — may we affirm so much ? Pro. Yes. Soc. But you would not be a real musician if this was all that you knew ; though if you did not know this you would know almost nothing of music. Pro. Nothing. Soc. But when you have learned what sounds are flat and what sharp, and the number and nature of the intervals and PHILEBUS. 57 their differences, and the systems compounded out of them, which our fathers discovered, and have handed down to us who are their descendants under the name of harmonies ; and the corresponding principles in the movements of the human body, which when measured by numbers ought, as they say, to be called rhythms and measures ; and they tell us that there is a similar principle in every one and many ; — when, I say, you have learned all this, then, my dear friend, you are perfect ; and you may be said to understand any other subject, when you have a similar grasp of it. But the infinity of kinds and the infinity of individuals which there is in each of them, when not classified, makes in each individual a state of infinite ignorance ; and he who never looks for number, in- -anything, will_nqt^ himselLheJooked Jpr in the number^of famous men. 1 8 Pro. I think that what Socrates is now saying is excellent, Philebus. Phi. I think so too, but I wish that I could see how his words bear upon us and upon the argument. Soc. Philebus is right in asking that question of us, Protarchus. Pro. Indeed he is, and you must answer him. Soc. I will ; but you must let me make one little remark first ; I was saying, that he who begins with any individual ngity, jjinnld proceed from that, not to infinity, but to a definite number, and now I say conversely, that he who begins with infinity should not jump to unity, but he should look about for some number representing a certain quantity, and thus out of all end in one. And now let us return for an illustration of our principle to the case of letters. Pro. What do you mean ? Soc. Some god or sage, who in the Egyptian legend is said to have been Theuth, observing that sound was infinite, first distinguished in the infinity of sound a certain number of vowels, and then other letters which had a measure of vocal sound, but were not pure vowels (i. e. the semivowels) also having a definite number ; and lastly, he distinguished a third class of letters which we now call mutes, and he divided these mutes, and likewise the two other classes of vowels and semivowels, into the individual sounds, and told the number of them, and gave to each and all of them the name of letters ; and observing 58 PHILEBUS. that none of us could learn any one of them and not learn them all, and in consideration of this common bond which in a manner united them, he assigned to them all a single art, and this he called the art of grammar or letters. Phi. The illustration, Protarchus, has assisted me in under standing the original statement, but I still feel the deficiency of which I just now complained. Soc. Are you going to ask, Philebus, what this has to do with the argument? Phi. Yes, that is a question which Protarchus and I have been long asking. Soc. Then assuredly you are very near the answer to the question which you have been long asking ? Phi. How so ? Soc. Did we not begin by enquiring into the comparative eligibility of pleasure and wisdom ? Phi. Certainly. Soc. And we maintain that they are each of them one ? Phi. True. y Soc. And the precise question to which the previous clis- /cussion desires an answer is, how the^axe^ one jmd also many, /and not at once infinite [i.e. how they have one genus and / many species], and what number of species is to be assigned 1 to either of them before we allow them to drop into infinity. Pro. That is a very serious question, Philebus, to which 19 Socrates has ingeniously brought us round, and please to con sider which of us shall answer him ; there may be something ridiculous in my being unable to answer, and therefore imposing the task upon you, when I have undertaken the whole charge of the argument, but if neither of us were able to answer, that methinks would be still more ridiculous. Let us consider, then, what we are to do : — Socrates, if I understood him rightly, is asking whether there are not kinds of pleasure, and what is the number and nature of them, and the same of wisdom. Soc. Most true, O son of Callias ; and the previous argument showed that if we are not able to tell the kinds of everything that has unity, likeness, sameness, or diversity and unlikeness, none of us will be of the smallest use in any enquiry. Pro. That seems to be very near the truth, Socrates, and PHILEBUS. 59 happy would the wise man be if he knew all things, and the next best thing for him would be that he should not be ignorant of himself. Why do I say so at this moment? I will tell you why. You, Socrates, have granted us this op portunity of conversing with you, and are ready to assist us in determining what is the best of human goods. For when Philebus said that pleasure and delight and enjoyment and the like was the chief good, you answered — No, not that, but another class of goods ; and we are constantly reminding our selves of what you said, and very properly, in order that we may not forget to examine and compare the two. And these goods, which in your opinion are to be designated as superior to pleasure, and are the true objects of pursuit, are mind and knowledge and understanding and art, and the like. There was a dispute about which were the best, and we playfully threatened that you should not be allowed to go home until the question was settled, and you agreed, and granted our request. And now, as children say, what has been fairly given cannot be taken back ; cease then to fight against us in this way. Soc. In what way ? 20 Phi. Do not perplex us, and keep asking questions of us to which at the moment we have no sufficient answer to offer ; let us not imagine that a general puzzling of us all is to be the end of our discussion, but if we are unable to answer, do you answer, as you have promised. Consider, then, whether you will yourself determine the question which you have asked about the kinds of pleasure and knowledge, or whether you can and will find some other mode of clearing up our con troversy. Soc. If you say that, I have nothing to fear, for the words 'can and will' dispel fear; and, moreover, some god appears to have recalled something to my mind. Phi. What is that? Soc. I remember to have heard certain discussions about pleasure and wisdom, whether awake or in a dream I cannot tell ; they were to the effect that neither the one nor the other of them was the good, but some third thing, which was different from them, and better than either. If this be clearly 6o PHILEBUS. established, then pleasure will lose the victory, for the good will cease to be identified with her : — Am I not right ? Pro. Yes. Soc. And there will cease to be any need of distinguishing the kinds of pleasures, as I am inclined to think, but the truth will appear more clearly as we proceed. Pro. Capital, Socrates ; pray go on as you propose. Soc. But, let us just agree on some little points. Pro. What are they ? Soc. Is the good perfect or imperfect ? Pro. The most perfect, Socrates, of all things. Soc. And is the good sufficient ? Pro. Yes, certainly, and in a degree surpassing all other things. Soc. And no one can deny that all percipient beings desire and hunt after good, and are eager to catch and have the good about them, and care not for the attainment of anything of which good is not a part. Pro. That is undeniable. Soc. Now let us part off the life of pleasure from the life of wisdom, and pass them separately in review. Pro. How do you mean ? Soc. Let__there be no wisdom in the. life. .nL-pleasure, nor any pleasure in the life of wisdom, for if either of them is the chief good, it cannot be supposed to want anything, but if either is shown to want anything, then it cannot really be the chief good. Pro. Impossible. 21 Soc. Shall we administer the question to them through you ? Pro. Very good. Soc. Then answer. Pro. Ask. Soc. Would you choose, Protarchus, to live all your life long in the enjoyment of the greatest pleasures ? Pro. Certainly I should. Soc. Would you consider that there was still anything wanting to you if you had perfect pleasure ? Pro. Certainly not. Soc. Reflect ; would you not want wisdom and intelligence PHI LE BUS. 6 1 and forethought, and the like? would you not at any rate want sight ? Pro. Why should I ? Having pleasure I should have all things. Soc. Living thus always, and all your life, you would have the greatest pleasures? Pro. I should. Soc. But if you had neither mind, nor memory, nor knowledge, nor true opinion, you would in the first place be utterly ignorant of whether you were pleased or not, because you would be entirely devoid of sense. . Pro. Certainly. Soc. And similarly, if you had no memory you would not recollect that you had ever been pleased, nor would the slight est recollection of the pleasure which you feel at any moment remain with you ; and if you had no true opinion you would not think that you were pleased when you were ; and if you had no power of calculation you would not be able to calcu late on future pleasure, and your life would be the life, not of a man, but of an oyster or ' pulmo marinus.' Can this be imagined otherwise? Pro. No. Soc. But is such a life eligible? Pro. I cannot answer you, Socrates ; the argument has taken from me the power of speech. Soc. Well, but you should not faint ; — and now let us examine in turn the life of mind. Pro. And what is this life of mind ? Soc. I want to know whether any one of us would consent to live, having wisdom and mind and knowledge and memory of all things, but having no fraction of a sense of pleasure or pain, and wholly unaffected by these and the like feelings ? Pro. Neither life, Socrates, appears eligible to me, nor is likely, as I should imagine, to be chosen by any one else. 22 Soc. What would you say, Protarchus, to both of these in one, or to one that was made out of the union of the two ? Pro. Out of the union, that is, of pleasure with mind and wisdom ? Sec. Yes. 62 PHILEBUS. Pro. There can be no difference of opinion about that ; not some but all would surely choose this third rather than either of the other two, and in addition to them. Soc. But do you see the consequence? Pro. To be sure I do. The consequence is, that two out of the three lives which have been proposed are neither sufficient nor eligible for man nor for animal. Soc. Then now there can be no doubt that neither of them has the good, for the one which had would certainly have been sufficient and perfect and eligible for every living creature or thing that was able thus to live ; and if any of us had chosen any other, he would have chosen contrary to the nature of the truly eligible, and not of his own free will, but either through ignorance or from some unhappy necessity. Pro. Certainly that seems to be true. Soc. And now have I not sufficiently shown that Philebus' goddess is not to be regarded as identical with the good ? Phi. Neither is your ' mind ' the good, Socrates, for that will be open to the same objections. Soc. Perhaps, Philebus, you may be right in saying so of my ' mind ' ; but of the true, which is also the divine mind, far otherwise. However, I will not at present claim the first place for mind as against the mixed life ; but we must come to some understanding about the second place. For you might affirm pleasure and I mind to be the cause^of the jnixed_Jjfe ; and in that case although neither of them would be the good, one of them might be imagined to be the, cause of the good. And I might proceed further to argue in opposition to Philebus, that the element which makes this mixe_dJifeidigible\ and\ good,^)is more akin and more similar to mind than to pleasure. And if this is true, pleasure cannot be truly said to share either in the first or second place, and does not, if I may trust my own mind, attain even to the third. Pro. Truly, Socrates, pleasure appears to me to have had a blow ; after having fought for the palm, she has been smitten 23 by the argument, and is fallen. I must say that mind would have fallen too, and may therefore be thought wise in not making a similar claim. And certainly pleasure having been deprived not only of the first but of the second place will be PHIL E BUS. 63 terribly damaged in the eyes of her admirers, for not even to them can she still appear as fair as before. Soc. Well, but had we not better leave her now, and not pain her by applying the crucial test, and finally detecting her ? Pro. Nonsense, Socrates. Soc. Why ? because I said that we had better not pain pleasure, which is an impossibility ? Pro. Yes, and more than that, because you do not seem to be aware that none of us will let you go home until you have finished the argument. Soc. Heavens! Protarchus, that will be a long business, and not a very easy one. For in going to war for mind, who is aspiring to the second prize, I ought to have weapons of another make from those which I used before ; some, however, of the old ones may do again. And must I then finish the argument ? Pro. Of course you must. Soc. Let us be very careful in laying the foundation. Pro. What do you mean ? Sec. Let us divide all existing things into two, or rather, if you do not object, into three classes. Pro. Upon what principle would you make the division ? Soc. Let us take some of our newly-found notions. Pro. Which of them ? Soc. Were we not saying that God revealed a finite element of existence, and also an infinite.? Pro. Certainly. Soc. Let us assume these two principles, and also a third, which is compounded out of them ; but I fear that I am very clumsy at these processes of division and enumeration. Pro. What do you mean my good friend ? Soc. I say still that a fourth class is wanted. Pro. What will that be ? Soc. Find the cause of the third or compound, and add this as a fourth class to the three others. Pro. And would you like to have a fifth class or cause of resolution as well as a cause of composition ? Soc. Not, I think, at present ; but if I want a fifth at some future time you shall allow me to have one. 64 PHILEBUS. Pro. Certainly. Soc. Let us begin with the three first ; and as we find two out of the three greatly divided and dispersed, let us endeavour to reunite them, and see how in each of them there is a one and many. Pro. If you would explain to me a little more about them, 24 perhaps I might be able to follow you. Soc. Well, the two classes are the same, which I mentioned before, one the finite, and the other the infinite ; I will first show that the infinite is in a certain sense many, and the finite may be hereafter discussed. Pro. I agree. Soc. And now consider well ; for the question to which I invite your attention is difficult and controverted. When you speak of hotter and colder, can you conceive any limit in those qualities? Does not the moreandjess^ which dwells in their very nature, prevent their having any end ? for if they had an end, the more and less would themselves have an end. Pro. That is most true. Soc. Ever, as we say, into the hotter and the colder there enters a more and a less. Pro. True. Soc. Then, says the argument, they have never any end, and being endlessjrmst^alsQ_heJnfinitev Pro. Yes, Socrates, that is exceedingly true. Soc. Yes, my dear Protarchus, and the word which you have just uttered suggests to me that such expressions as 'exceed ingly,' and also the term 'mildly,' mean the same as more or less ; for whenever they occur they do not allow of the existence of quantity — they are always introducing degreesJuito actions, instituting a comparison of the more or less violent or more or less mild, and at each creation of more or less, quantity disappears. For, as I was just now saying, if quantity and measure did not disappear, but were : allowed- to intrude in the sphere of more and less and the other comparatives, these last would themselves be driven out of their own domain. When definite quantity is once admitted, there can be no longer a 'hotter' or a 'colder' (for these are always progressing, and are never in one stay) ; but definite quantity is at rest, and PHILEBUS. 65 progresses not. Which proves that comparatives, such as the hotter and the colder, are to be ranked in the class of the infinite. Pro. Your remark certainly has the look of truth, Socrates ; but these subjects, as you were saying, are difficult to follow at first. I think, however, that if I could hear the argument repeated by you once or twice, there would be a substantial agreement between us. Soc. Yes, and I will try to meet your wish ; but, as I would rather not waste time in tedious particulars, let me know whether I may not assume as a note of the infinite -- 25 Pro. What? Soc. I want to know whether such things as appear to us to admit of more or less, or are denoted by the words ' exceedingly,' ' mildly,' ' extremely,' and the like, may not be referred to the class of the infinite, which is their unity, for, as was asserted in the previous argument, all thiiigs— th.at were- di^'^d and dispersed should be brought together, and have the mark or seal of some one nature, if possible, set upon them ; do you remember ? Pro. Yes. Soc. And all things which do not admit of more or less, but admit their opposites, that is to say, first of all, equality, and the equal, or again, the double, or any other ratio of number and measure — all these may, I think, be rightly reckoned in the class of the limited or finite ; what do you say ? Pro. Excellent, Socrates. Soc. And now what shall we say of the third or compound kind? Pro. That you will also have to tell me, I think. Soc. Rather God will tell you, if there be any God who will listen to my prayers. Pro. Offer up a prayer, then, and think. Soc. I have thought, Protarchus, and I believe that there is a God who has answered my prayer. Pro. What do you mean, and what proof have you to offer of what you are saying ? Soc. I will tell you, and do you listen to my words. Pro. Proceed. VOL. IV. F 66 PHILEBUS. Soc. Were we not speaking just now of hotter and colder? Pro. True. Soc. Add to them drier, wetter, more, less, swifter, slower, greater, smaller, and all which in the preceding argument we placed under the unity of more and less. Pro. In the class of the infinite, that is ? Soc. Yes ; and now mingle that with the other. Pro. What is the other ? Soc. The class of the finite which we ought to have brought | together as we did the infinite ; but, perhaps, it will come to the / same thing if we do so now ; — when the two are combined, a I third will appear. Pro. Of what class are you. speaking, and what do you mean? Soc. The class of the equal and the double, and any class which puts an end to difference and opposition, and by bringing the different elements into harmony and proportion creates number. Pro. I understand ; you seem to me to mean that the various opposites, when you mingle these ratios with them, take certain forms. Soc. Yes, that is my meaning. Pro. Proceed. Soc. Does not the right participation in these ratios give health — in disease, for instance ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. And whereas the sharp and flat, the swift and the slow 26 are infinite ojroinlimited, does not the addition of them introduce a limit, andLperfect t)he whole frame of music ? Pro. Yes, certainly. Soc. Or, again, when cold and heat prevail, does not the intro duction of them take away excess and indefiniteness, and infuse moderation and harmony ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. And from a like admixture of the finite and infinite come the seasons, and all the delights of life ? Pro. Most true. Soc. I omit to speak of ten thousand other things, such as beauty and health and strength, and of the many beauties and high perfections of the soul : methinks, O my fair Philebus, that PHI LE BUS. 67 the goddess saw the universal wantonness and wickedness of all things, having no limit of pleasure or satiety, and she devised the limit of law and order, tormenting, as you say, Philebus, or, as I affirm, saving the soul.— But what think you, Protarchus? Pro. I am quite of your mind, Socrates. Soc. And you will observe that I have spoken of three classes ? Pro. Yes, I think that I understand you : you mean to say that the infinite is one class, and that the finite is a second class of existences ; but what you would make the third I am not so certain. Soc. That is because the amazing variety of the third class is too much for you, my dear friend ; but there was not this difficulty with the infinite, which also comprehended many classes, for all of them were sealed with the note of more and less, and therefore appeared one. Pro. True. Soc. And the finite or limit had no divisions, and was readily acknowledged to be by nature one ? Pro. Yes. Soc. Yes, indeed ; and when I speak of the third class, under stand me to mean any ^offspring of the union of these two which is a generation into true foeing-, and_js_egected by the measure which the limit introduces. Pro. I understand. Soc. Still there was, as we said, a fourth class to be investi gated, and you must assist in the investigation ; for does not everything which comes into being of necessity come into being through a cause ? Pro. Yes, certainly ; for how can there be anything which has no cause? Soc. And is not the agent the same as the cause in all except name ; the agent and the cause may be truly called one ? 27 Pro. Very true. Soc. And the same may be said of the patient, or effect; we shall find that they too differ, as I was saying, only in name — shall we not ? Pro. We shall. Soc. The agent or cause always naturally leads, and the patient or effect naturally follows it ? F 2 68 PHI LE BUS. Pro. Certainly. Soc. Then the cause and that which obeys the cause in generation are not the same? Pro. Certainly not. Soc. Did not the things which were generated, and the things out of which they were generated, furnish all the three classes ? Pro, Yes. Soc. And the creator or cause of them has been satisfactorily proven to be distinct from them, — and may we not call that a fourth principle? Pro. Surely we may. Soc. And now, having distinguished the four, I think that we had better refresh our memories by recapitulating^ each of them in order. Pro. By all means. Soc. Then the first I will call the infinite or unlimited, and the second the finite or limited, the third a mixed element generated out of them ; and I do not think that I shall be far wrong in speaking of the cause of mixture and generation as the fourth. Pro. Certainly not Soc. And now what was the question, and how came we hither ? Were we not enquiring whether the second place belonged to pleasure or wisdom? Pro. We were. Soc. And having determined these points, shall we not be better able to decide about the first and second place, which was the original subject of dispute ? Pro. I dare say. Soc. We said, if you remember, that the mixed life of pleasure and wisdom was the conqueror — did we not ? Pro. True. Soc. And we see to what class this life is to be assigned ? Pro. Beyond a doubt. Soc. This is evidently comprehended in the third or mixed class ; which is not composed of any two particular ingredients, but of all the elements of infinity, bound down by the finite, and may therefore be truly said to comprehend the conqueror life. Pro. Most true. PHILEBUS. 69 Soc. And what shall we say, Philebus, of your life which is all sweetness ; and in which of the aforesaid classes is that to be placed ? Perhaps you will allow me to ask you a question before you answer? Phi. Let me hear. Soc. Have pleasure and pain a limit, or do they belong to the class which admits of more and less ? Phi. They belong to the class which admits of more, Socrates ; for pleasure would not be the absolute good if she were not 28 infinitejnj^uantity and degree. Soc. Nor would pain, Philebus, be the absolute evil. And therefore the infinite cannot be that element which imparts to pleasure anything of good. But now — admitting, if you like, that pleasure is of the nature of the infinite — in which of the aforesaid classes, O Protarchus and Philebus, may we reverently place wisdom and knowledge and mind ? And let us be careful, for I think that the danger will be very serious if we err on this point. Phi. You magnify, Socrates, the importance of your favourite god. Soc. And you, my friend, are also magnifying your goddess ; but still I must beg you to answer the question. Pro. Socrates is quits right, Philebus, and we must obey him. Phi. And did you not, Protarchus, propose to answer in my place ? Pro. Certainly I did ; but I am now in a great strait, and I must entreat you, Socrates, to be our teacher, and then we shall not say anything wrong or disrespectful of your favourite. Soc. I must obey you, Protarchus ; nor is the task which you impose a difficult one ; but have I really, as Philebus implies, disconcerted you with my playful solemnity, when I asked the question to what class mind and knowledge belong ? Pro. You have, indeed, Socrates. Soc. Yet the answer is easy, since all philosophers are agreed that mind is the king of heaven and earth ; in this way truly they magnify themselves. And perhaps they are right. But still I should like to consider the class of mind, if you do not object, a little more fully. 7o PHILEBUS. Phi. Take your own course, Socrates, and do not abridge the length ; for we shall be glad to hear you at any length. Soc. Very good ; let us begin then, Protarchus, by asking whether all this which they call the universe is left to the guidance of unreason and chance medley, or, on the contrary, as our fathers have declared, ordered and governed by a marvellous intelligence and wisdom. Pro. Wide asunder are the two assertions, illustrious Socrates, for that which you were just now saying is blasphemy ; but the other assertion, that mind orders all things, is worthy of the aspect of the world, and of the sun, and of the moon, and of the whole circle of the heavens ; and never will I say or think other wise. Soc. Shall we, then, agree with them of old time in maintain ing this doctrine, — nor merely reasserting the notions of others, 29 without risk to ourselves, — but shall we venture also to share in the risk, and bear the reproaches which will await us, when an ingenious individual declares that all is disorder ? Pro. That would certainly be my wish. Soc. Then now please to consider the next stage of the argument. Pro. Let me hear. Soc. We see the elements which enter into the nature of the bodies of all animals, fire, water, air, and, as the storm- tossed sailor cries, ' land ahead,' in the constitution of the world. Pro. The proverb may be applied to us ; for truly the storm gathers over us, and we are at our wit's -end. Soc. Consider now that each of these elements, as they exist in us, is but a small fraction of any one of them, and of a mean sort, and not in any way pure, or having any power worthy of its nature. One instance will prove this of all of them ; there is a fire within us, and in the universe. Pro. True. Soc. And is not our fire small and weak and mean, but the fire in the universe is wonderful in quantity and beauty, and in every power that fire has ? Pro. Most true. Soc. And is that universal element nourished and generated PHILEBUS. 71 and ruled by our fire, or is the fire in you and me, and in other animals, dependent on the universal fire ? Pro. That is a question which does not deserve an answer. Soc. Right ; and you would say the same, if I am not mis taken, of the earth which is in animals and the earth which is in the universe, and you would give a similar reply about all the other elements ? Pro. Why, how could any man who gave any other be deemed in his senses ? Soc. I do not think that he could — but now go a step further ; when we see those elements of which we have been speaking gathered up in one, do we not call them a body ? Pro. Very true. Soc. And the same may be said of the cosmos, which for the same reason may be considered as a body, because made up of the same elements. Pro. Very true. Soc. But is our body nourished wholly by this body, or is this body nourished by our body, thence deriving and having the qualities of which we were just now speaking ? Pro. That again, Socrates, is a question which does not deserve to be asked. 30 Soc. Well, will you deign to give me an answer to another question ? Pro. What is that ? Soc. May our body be said to have a soul ? Pro. Clearly. Soc. And whence comes that soul, my dear Protarchus, unless the body of the universe, which contains elements similar to our bodies but fairer, had also a soul ? Can there be another source ? Pro. Clearly, Socrates, that is the only source. Soc. Why, yes, Protarchus : for surely we cannot imagine that of the four classes, the finite, the infinite, the composition of the two, and the cause or fourth class, wjiich ejiters into_alL things^ giving to our bodies souls, and the art of self-management, and of healing disease, and operating in other ways to heal and organize ; — we cannot, I say, imagine that this last should have all the attributes of wisdom, and that whereas the elements exist, both in the entire heaven and in great provinces of the heaven, 72 PHILEBUS. only fairer and purer, this should not also in that higher sphere have designed the noblest and fairest of natures ? Pro. The supposition is quite unreasonable. Soc. Then if that is denied, should we not be wise in adopting the other view and maintaining that there is in the universe a might^iriQliite_.and an adequate limit^of which we have often spoken, as well as a cause of no mean power, which orders and arranges years and seasons and months, and may be justly called wisdom and mind ? Pro. Most justly. Soc. And wisdom and mind cannot exist without soul ? Pro. Certainly not. Soc. And in the divine nature of Zeus would you not say that there is the soul and mind of a king, because there is in him the power of the cause? And other gods have other noble attri butes, whereby they love severally to be called. Pro. Very true. Soc. Do not then suppose that these words are rashly spoken by us, O Protarchus, for they are in harmony with the testimony of those who said of oldjjmejihat _mind_rul_es_th_e universe. Pro. True. Soc. And they furnish an answer to my enquiry (cp. 28 A) ; for they imply that mind1 belongs to that class of the four which is the cause of all, — and now I think that you have my answer. Pro. I have indeed, and yet I did not know that you had answered. Soc. You are merry, Protarchus, and a jest may sometimes pleasantly interrupt earnest. Pro. Very true. 31 Soc. I think, friend, that we have now pretty clearly set forth the class to which mind belongs and what is the power of mind ? Pro. True. Soc. And the class to which pleasure belongs has also been set forth? Pro. Yes. Soc. And let us remember, too, of both of them, that (i) mind * Reading yevovs rov TTO.VTWV. PHILEBUS. 73 was akin to the cayse and of this family ; (2) and that pleasure is infinite and belongs to the class which neither has, nor ever will have, a beginning, middle, or end of its own. Pro. I shall be sure to remember. Soc. And next we must examine when and how they are generated, beginning with pleasure, as her class came first in the enquiry ; and yet pleasure cannot be adequately examined when separated from pain. Pro. If this is the road, let us take it. Soc. I wonder whether you would agree with me about the origin of pleasures. Pro. What do you mean ? Soc. I mean to say that their natural seat is in the mjx^ed class. Pro. And Would you tell me once more, sweet Socrates, which of the aforesaid classes is the mixed one ? Soc. I will, my fine fellow, to the best of my ability. Pro. Very good. Soc. Let us then understand the mixed class to be that which is third in the list of four. Pro. That which followed the infinite and the finite ; and in which you ranked health, and, if I am not mistaken, harmony. Soc. Capital ; and now will you please to give me your best attention ? Pro. Proceed ; I am attending. Soc. I say that when the harmony in animals is dissolved, there t is also a dissolution of nature and a generation of pain. Pro. That is very probable. Soc. And the restoration of harmony and return to nature is the source of pleasure, if I may be allowed to speak in the fewest and shortest words about matters of the greatest moment. Pro. I believe that you are right, Socrates ; but will you try to be a little plainer ? Soc. I think that every-day phenomena will furnish the readiest illustration. Pro. What phenomena do you mean ? Soc. I should take the case of hunger,. which is a dissolution and a pain. Pro. True. 74 PHI LE BUS. Soc. Whereas eating is a replenishment and a pleasure ? Pro. Yes. 32 Soc. Thirst again is a destruction and a pain [and a disso lution,] but the effect of moisture replenishing the dry place is a pleasure ; again, the unnatural separation and dissolution caused by heat is painful, and the natural restoration and refrigeration is pleasant. Pro. Very true. Soc. And the unnatural freezing of the moisture in the animal is pain, and the natural process of resolution and return of the elements to their original state is pleasure. And would not the general proposition seem to you to hold, that the destroying of the natural junion of the finite and infinite, which, as I was observing before, make up the class of living beings, is pain, and that the process and return of all things to their own nature is pleasure? Pro. Granted ; I see in a general way what you mean. Soc. Here then is one kind of pleasures and pains originating severally in the two processes which we have described ? Pro. Good. Soc. Let us next assume that in the soul herself there^is an antecedent hope of pleasure which is sweet and consoling, and an expectation of pain, fearful and anxious. Pro. Yes ; this is another class of pleasures and pains, which is of the soul only, and is produced by expectation without the body. Soc. Right ; and I think that the examination of these two kinds, unalloyed as I suppose them to be, and not compounds of pleasure and pain, will most clearly show whether the whole class of pleasure is to be desired, or whether this quality of entire desirableness is not rather to be attributed to another of the classes which have been mentioned ; and whether plea sure and pain, like heat and cold, and other things of the same kind, are not sometimes to be desired and sometimes not to be desired, as being not in themselves good, but sometimes and in some instances admitting of the nature of good. Pro. You say most truly that this is the track which the investigation should follow. Soc. Well, then, assuming that pain ensues on the dissolution, PHILEBUS. 75 and pleasure on the restoration of the harmony, let us now ask what will be the condition of animated beings who are neither in process of restoration nor of dissolution. And mind what you are going to say : I ask whether any animal who is in that condition can possibly have any feeling of pleasure or pain, great or small ? Pro. Certainly not. 33 Soc. Then here we have a third state, over and above that of pleasure and of pain ? Pro. Very true. Soc. And do not forget that there is such a state, of which the recognition will very considerably affect our judgment of pleasure, and I should like to say a word or two about it. Pro. What have you to say ? Soc. Why, you know that if a man chooses the life of wisdom, there is no reason why he should not live in this neutral .state. Pro. You mean that he may live neither rejoicing nor sorrowing? Soc. Yes ; and if I remember rightly, when the lives were compared, no degree of pleasure, whether great or small, was thought to be necessary to him who chose the life of thought and wisdom. Pro. Yes, certainly, that was said. Soc. Then he may live without pleasure ; and who knows whether this may not be the most divine of all lives ? Pro. At any rate, the gods cannot be supposed to have either joy or sorrow. Soc. Certainly not — there would be great impropriety in their having either of them : the indifference, however, of the gods to pleasures, may be considered hereafter if necessary, and may be reckoned to the advantage of mind who will fight for the second place, if she must resign the first. Pro. Just so. Soc. The other class of pleasures, which as we were saying, is purely mental, is entirely derived from memory. Pro. What do you mean ? Soc. I must first of all analyse memory, or rathejc_p££C£ptipn which is prior to memory, if the nature of these mental states is ever to be properly cleared up. 76 PHIL E BUS. Pro. How will you proceed ? Soc. Let us imagine affections of the body which are ex tinguished before they reach the soul, which remains unaffected by them ; and again, other affections which vibrate through both soul and body, and impart a shock to both of them. Pro. Granted. Soc. And the soul may be said to be oblivious of the first but not of the second ? Pro. Quite true. Soc. When I say oblivious, do not suppose that I mean forgetfulness in a literal sense ; for forgetfulness is the exit of memory, which in this case has not yet entered ; and to speak of the loss of that which is not yet in existence, and never has been, is a contradiction ; do you see ? Pro. Yes. Soc. Then just be so good as change the terms. Pro. To what shall I change them ? Soc. Instead of the oblivion of the soul, when you are de- 34 scribing the state in which she is unaffected by the shocks of the body, say unconsciousness. Pro. I see. Soc. And the union or communion of soul and body in one feeling and motion, may be truly called consciousness ? Pro. Most truly. Soc. Then now we know the meaning of the word ? Pro. Very true. Soc. And menjory may, I think, be rightly described as the preservation of consciousness ? Pro. Right. Soc. But do we not distinguish memory from recollection ? Pro. I think so. Soc. And do we not mean by recollection the power which the soul has of recovering, when by herself, some feeling which she experienced when in company with the body ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. And when she recovers of herself the lost recollection of some consciousness or knowledge, the recovery is termed recollection and reminiscence? Pro. Very true. PHILEBUS. 77 Soc. Why do I say all this? Pro. Why? Soc. Because I want to attain the plainest possible notion of pleasure and desire, as they exist j'n thf* mind f>nlyx (fcgrr£ from the Jx)Hy ; and in these states of the mind they seem to be most clearly displayed. Pro. Then now, Socrates, let us proceed to the next point. Soc. There are certainly many things relating to the gene ration and whole complexion of pleasure, which require to be considered ; and first, as to the nature and seat of desire. Pro. Ay ; let us enquire into that, for we will lose nothing. Soc. Nay, Protarchus, we shall surely lose the puzzle if we find the answer. Pro. A fair retort ; but let us proceed, Soc. Do we not speak of hunger, thirst, and the like, as desires ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. And yet they are very different ; what common nature have we then in view when we call them by a single name ? Pro. By heavens, Socrates, that is a question which is not easily answered ; but it must be answered. Soc. Then let us go back to our old illustrations. Pro. Where shall we begin ? Soc. Do we mean anything when we say he 'thirsts'? Pro. Yes. Soc. We mean to say that he is empty ? Pro. Of course. Soc. And is not thirst desire ? Pro. Yes, of drink. 35 Soc. Would you say of drink, or of replenishment with drink ? Pro. I should say, of replenishment with drink. Soc. Then he who is empty desires, as would appear, the orjposite of what he experiences : for he is empty and desires to be full ? Pro. That is quite clear. Soc. But how can he who is empty for the first time, attain either by perception or memory any apprehension of replenish ment, which he has never yet experienced, either now or at any former time ? 78 PHILEBUS. Pro. Impossible. Soc. And yet he who desires, surely desires something ? Pro. Of course. Soc. Then he does not desire that which he experiences, for he is thirsty, and thirst is emptiness, but he desires replenish ment? Pro. True. Soc. There must be something in the thirsty man which in some way apprehends replenishment ? Pro. There must. Soc. And that cannot be the body, for the body is supposed to be emptied ? Pro. Yes. Soc. The only remaining alternative is that the soul appre hends th^j^glenishment by the help of memory ; as is obvious, for what other way can there be ? Pro. I cannot imagine any other. Soc. But do you see the consequence ? Pro. What is the consequence ? Soc. That there is no such thing as desire of the body. Pro. Why so ? Soc. Why, because the argument shows that the endeavour of every animal is to the reverse of his bodily state. Pro. Yes. Soc. And the impulse which leads him to the opposite of his experience proves that he has a memory of the opposite state. Pro. True. Soc. And the argument which proves that memory attracts us towards the objects of desire, proves also that the impulses and the desires and the moving principle in every living being have their origin in ^esoul. Pro. Most true. Soc. The argument will not allow that our body either hungers or thirsts or has any similar experience. Pro. Quite right. Soc. Let me make a further observation ; the argument appears to me to imply that there is a kind of life which consists in these affections. PHILEBUS. 79 Pro. Of what affections, and of what kind of life, are you speaking ? Soc. I am speaking of emptiness and replenishment, and all that relates to the preservation and destruction of living beings, and of the alternations of pain and joy which accompany them in their transitions. Pro. True. Soc. And what would you say of the kind of life which is intermediate between them? Pro. What do you mean by 'intermediate'? Soc. I mean when a person is in actual suffering and yet remembers the pleasures which, if they would only come, would relieve him ; but as yet he has them not. May we not say of 36 him, that he is in an intermediate state ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. Would you say that he was in pain or in pleasure ? Pro. Nay, I should say that he has two pains ; in his body there is the actual experience of pain, and in his soul longing and expectation. Soc. What do you mean, Protarchus, by the two pains ? May not a man who is empty have at one time a sure hope of being filled, and at other times be quite in despair? Pro. Very true. Soc. And has he not the pleasure of memory when he is hoping to be filled, and yet in that he is empty is he not at the same time in pain ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. Then man and the other animals have at one time both pleasure and pain ? Pro. I suppose so. Soc. But when a man is empty and has no hope of being filled, there will be the double experience of pain, and you observing this were led to suppose that the doubling was the single case possible. l Pro. Quite true, Socrates. Soc. Shall we make the enquiry into these feelings the occasion of raising a question ? co? StrrXoui/ is an almost untranslateable play of words. So PHILEBUS. Pro. What question ? Soc. Whether we ought to say that the pleasures and pains of which we are speaking are true or false? or partly true and partly false ? Pro. But how, Socrates, can there be false pleasures and pains ? Soc. And how, Protarchus, can there be true and false fears, or true and false expectations, or true and false opinions ? Pro. I grant that opinions may be true or false, but not pleasures. Soc. What do you mean? I am afraid that we are raising a very serious enquiry. Pro. There I agree. Soc. And yet, my boy, for you are one of Philebus' boys (cp. 1 6 A), the point to be considered, is, whether the enquiry is relevant to the argument. Pro. Surely. Soc. No tedious and irrelevant discussion can be allowed ; what is said should be pertinent. Pro. Right. Soc. I am always wondering at the question which has now been raised. Pro. How so ? Soc. Do you deny that some pleasures are false, and others true ? Pro. To be sure I do. Soc. Would you say that no one ever seemed to rejoice and yet did not rejoice, or seemed to feel pain and yet did not feel pain, sleeping or waking, mad or moonstruck ? Pro. That is what we have always held, Socrates. Soc. But were you right? Shall we enquire into the truth 37 of your opinion ? Pro. I think that we should. Soc. Let us then put into more precise terms the question which has arisen about pleasure and opinion. Is there such a thing as opinion ? Pro. Yes. Soc. And such a thing as pleasure? Pro. Yes. PHI LE BUS. 8 1 Soc. And there must be something about which a man has an opinion? Pro. True. Soc. And something which gives pleasure ? Pro. Quite correct. Soc. And whether his opinion is right or wrong, makes no difference ; he will still always have an opinion ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. And he who is pleased, whether he is rightly pleased or not, will always have a real feeling of pleasure ? Pro. Yes ; that is also quite true. Soc. Then, how can opinion be true and false, and pleasure only true ; and yet the state of being pleased, or holding an opinion, may be both real ? Pro. Yes ; that is the question. Soc. You moa£L4jiat_ppinion has_thp aftrihuto °f true and false, and hence becomes not merely opinion, but opinion of a certain quality ; and this is what you think should be examined ? Pro. Yes. Soc. And further, we must consider, whether admitting the existence of qualities in some objects, pleasure and pain may not be simple and devoid of quality ? Pro. Clearly. Soc. But there is no difficulty in seeing that pleasure and pain as well as opinion have qualities, for they are great or small, and have various degrees of intensity ; as was indeed said long ago by us. Pro. Quite true. Soc. And if there is badness in any of them, Protarchus, then we should speak of a bad opinion or of a bad pleasure ? Pro. Quite true, Socrates. Soc. And if there is Tightness in any of them, should we not speak of a right opinion or right pleasure ; and in like manner of the reverse of Tightness ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. And if the thing opined be erroneous, might we not say that the opinion is erroneous, and not rightly opined ? Pro. Certainly. VOL. IV. G 82 PHILEBUS. Soc. And if we see a pleasure or pain which errs in respect of the object of pleasure or pain, shall we call that right or good, or by any honourable name ? Pro. Not if the pleasure is mistaken ; we could not. Soc. And surely pleasure often appears to accompany an opinion which is not true, but false ? Pro. That is quite correct ; and in that case, Socrates, we 38 call the opinion false, but no one could call the actual pleasure false. Soc. How eagerly, Protarchus, do you rush to the defence of pleasure ! Pro. Nay, Socrates, I only say what I hear. Soc. And is there no difference, my friend, between that pleasure which is associated with right opinion and knowledge, and that which is often found in us associated with falsehood and ignorance ? Pro. There must be a very great difference between them. Soc. Then, now let us proceed to contemplate this difference. Pro. Lead, and I will follow. Soc. Well, then, my view is — Pro. What? Soc. I ask first of all, whether you would not acknowledge that there is such a thing as false, and that there is such a thing as true opinion ? Pro. There is. Soc. And pleasure and pain, as I was saying, are often conse quent upon them, — upon true and false opinion, I mean. Pro. Very true. | Soc. And do not opinion and the endeavour to form an opinion \ always spring from memory and perception ? ^ Pro. Certainly. Soc. Might we imagine the process to be something of this sort? An object, let us say, is seen at a distance not very clearly, and the seer wants to determine what it is which he sees. \ Pro. Very likely. Soc. He asks, first of all — ' what is the image which is stand ing by a rock under a tree ?' That is the question which he may be supposed to put to himself when he sees such an image. Pro. True. P NILE BUS. 83 Soc. To which he guesses the right answer, and says as if in a whisper to himself — ' this is a man.' Pro. Very good. Soc. Or again, he is misled, and then he says — 'No, it is a figure made by the shepherds.' Pro. Yes. Soc. And if he has a companion, he repeats his thought to him in articulate sounds, and what was before an opinion, has now herorne a Pro. Certainly. Soc. But if he be alone he keeps the thought in his mind, not unfrequently for a considerable time, as he is walking along. Pro. Very true. Soc. Well, now, I wonder whether you would agree in my ex planation of this phenomenon ? Pro. What is your explanation ? Soc. I think that the soul at such times is like a book. Pro. How so ? 39 Soc. MemQry and perception meet, and they and their at tendant feelings seem to me almost to wrjtp__Hnwn words in the soul, and when the inscribing feeling writes truly, then true opinion and true propositions grow in our souls — but when the 'scribe \within us writes falsely the result is false. Pro. I quite assent and agree to your statement. Soc. I must bespeak your favour also for another artist, who is busy at the same*time in the chambers of the soul. Pro. Who is that ? Soc. The \painter^ who paints the images of the words which the scribe or registrar has already written down. Pro. But when and how does he do this ? Soc. When abstracting from sight, or some other sense, the opinions which he then received or the words which he heard, he retains the image of them in his mind ; — that is a very common mental phenomenon. Pro. Certainly. Soc. And the images of true opinions and words are true, and of false opinions and words false ; are they not ? Pro. They are. Soc. If we are right so far, there arises a further question. G 2 84 PHILEBUS. Pro. What is that ? Soc. Whether we experience the feeling of which I am speak ing only in relation to the present and the past, or in relation to the future also ? Pro. I should say in relation to all times alike. Soc. Have not purely mental pleasures and pains been de scribed already as in some cases anticipations of the bodily ones ; from which we may infer that there is an anticipatory pleasure and pain having to do with the future ? Pro. Most true. Soc. And do all those writings and paintings wrhich a little while ago we were supposing to exist in our minds relate to the past and present only, and not to the future ? Pro. To_the future, very much. Soc. When you say ' very much,' you mean to imply that all these anticipations are hopes, and that mankind are filled with hopes in every stage of existence ? Pro. Exactly. Soc. Answer me another question. Pro. What question ? Soc. A just and pious and good man is the friend of the gods ; is he not ? Pro. Certainly he is. Soc. And the unjust and the bad man is the reverse ? Pro. True. 40 Soc. And all men, as we were saying just now, are always filled with hopes ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. And these hopes, as they are termed, are propositions which exist in the minds of each of us ? Pro. Yes. Soc. And the fancies of hope are also pictured in us ; a man may often have a vision of a heap of gold, and pleasures ensuing, and in the picture there may be a likeness of himself mightily rejoicing over his good fortune. Pro. True. Soc. And may we not say that the good, being friends of the gods, have generally true pictures presented to them, and the bad false pictures ? PHI LE BUS. 85 Pro. Certainly. Soc. And yet the bad have pleasures painted in their fancy as well as the good ; but I presume that they are false pleasures ? Pro. They are. Soc. The bad then commonly delight in false pleasures, and the good in true pleasures ? Pro. That is most certain. Soc. Then upon this view there are false pleasures in the souls of men which are a ludicrous imitation of the true, and there are pains also ? Pro. There are. Soc. And did we not allow that a man who had an opinion at all had a real opinion, but often about things which had no existence either in the past, present, or future ? Pro. Quite true. Soc. And this was the source of false opinion and opinings ; am I not right ? Pro. Yes. Soc. And must we not attribute to pleasure and pain a similar real but illusory condition ? Pro. How do you mean ? Soc. I mean to say that a man must be admitted to have real pleasure who is pleased with anything or anyhow ; and he may be pleased about things which neither have nor ever had any real existence, and, more often than not, are never likely to exist. Pro. Yes, Socrates, that is undeniable. Soc. And may not the same be said about fear and anger and the like ; are they not often false ? Pro. Quite true. Soc. And can opinions be good or bad except in as far as they are true or false ? Pro. In no other way. 41 Soc. Nor can pleasures be conceived to be bad except in so far as they are false ? Pro. Nay, Socrates, that is the very opposite of the truth ; for no one would call pleasures and pains bad because they are false, but by reason of some other corruption to which they are liable. Soc. Well, of pleasures which are corrupt and caused by 86 PHILEBUS. corruption we will hereafter speak, if we care to continue the enquiry ; for the present I would rather show by another argu ment that there are many false pleasures existing or coming into existence in us, because this may assist our final decision. Pro. Very true ; that is to say, if there are such pleasures. Soc. I think that there are, Protarchus ; but this is an opinion which should be put to the proof, and not left unsettled by us. Pro. Very good. Soc. Then now, like wrestlers, let us approach and grasp this new argument. Pro. Proceed. Soc. We were maintaining a little while since, that when desires, as they are termed, exist in us, then the body has separate feelings apart from the soul — do you remember ? Pro. Yes, I remember that you said so. Soc. And the soul was supposed to desire the opposite of the bodily state, while the body was the source of any pleasure or pain which was experienced. Pro. True. Soc. Then now you may infer what happens in such cases. Pro. What am I to infer ? Soc. That in such cases pleasures and pains come simultan eously, and opposite feelings of pleasure and pain are expe rienced together, as has been already shown. Pro. Clearly. Soc. And have we not further agreed that pleasure and pain both admit of more and less, and that they are of the class of infinites ? Pro. Certainly, that was said. Soc. But how can we rightly judge of them ? Pro. How can we ? Soc. Is our intention to judge of their comparative quality or intensity, and to measure pleasure against pain, or pain against pain, or pleasure against pleasure ? Pro. Yes that was certainly our intention and mode of judging of them. Soc. Well, to return to the case of sight. Does not the near- 42 ness or distance of magnitudes darken their true proportion, and PHI LE BUS. 87 make us opine falsely : and do we not find the same illusion happening in the case of pleasures and pains ? Pro. Yes, Socrates, and in a degree far greater. Soc. Then what we are now saying is the opposite of what we were saying before. Pro. What was that ? Soc. Then the opinions were true and false, and infected the pleasures and pains with their own falsehood. Pro. Very true. Soc. But now the pleasures are said to be true or false because they are seen at various distances, and subjected to comparison ; the pleasures appear to be greater and more vehement when compared with the pains, and the pains when compared with the pleasures. Pro. Certainly, and for the reason which you mention. Soc. And when you subtract the greater and less amount, which is apparent and not real, you will acknowledge that the appearance is illusory, and you will never say that the correspond ing excess or defect of pleasure or pain is real. or true. Pro. Certainly not. Soc. Next let us see whether in another direction we may not find pleasures and pains existing and appearing in living beings, which are still more false than these. Pro. What are they, and how shall we find them ? Soc. If I am not mistaken, I have often repeated that pains and afflictions, and aches and uneasiness of all sorts arise out of a corruption of nature caused by coagulations, and dissolutions, and repletions, and evacuations, and also by growth and decay? Pro. Yes, that has been often said. Soc. And we have also agreed that the restoration of the natural state is pleasure ? Pro. Right. Soc. But now let us suppose an interval of time at which the body experiences none of these changes. Pro. When, Socrates? Soc. That, Protarchus, does not help the argument. Pro. Why not, Socrates ? Soc. Because your question does not prevent me from repeat ing mine. 88 PHILEBUS. Pro. Which question of yours ? Soc. Why, Protarchus, admitting that there is no such in terval, I may ask what would be the necessary result if there were ? Pro. You mean, what would happen if the body were not changed either for good or bad ? Soc. Yes. Pro. Why then, Socrates, I should suppose that there would be neither pleasure nor pain. Soc. Very good ; but still, if I am not mistaken, you do assert 43 that we must always be experiencing one of them ; that is what the wise tell us ; for, say they, all things are ever flowing up and down. Pro. Yes, and their words are of no mean authority. Soc. Of course, for they are no mean authorities themselves ; and I should like to avoid the brunt of their argument. Shall I tell you how I mean to escape from them ? And I hope that you will run away with me. Pro. How? Soc. To them we will say : { Good ; but are we, or living things in general, always conscious of what happens to us — for example, of our growth, or the like ? Are we not on the contrary, almost wholly unconscious of this and similar phenomena ?' You must answer for them. Pro. The latter, certainly. Soc. Then we were not right in saying, just now, that these upward and downward changes cause pleasures and pains ? Pro. True. Soc. A better and more unexceptionable way of speaking will be- Pro. What? Soc. If we say that the great changes produce pleasures and pains, but that the moderate and lesser ones do neither. Pro. That, Socrates, is the better and safer mode of state ment. Soc. But if this be true, the life of which I was just now speak ing again appears. Pro. What life? Soc. The life which I said was devoid either of pain or of joy. PHILEBUS. 89 Pro. Very true. Soc. We may assume then that there are three lives, one plea sant, one painful, and the third which is neither ; or how would you describe them ? Pro. I should say as you do that there are three of them. Soc. But if so, the negation of pain will not be the same as pleasure. Pro. Certainly not. Soc. Then when you hear a person saying, that always to live without pain is the pleasantest of all things, what would you understand him to mean by that statement ? Pro. I think that by pleasure he must mean the negative of pain. Soc. Let us take any three things ; or suppose that we em bellish a little and call the first gold, the second silver, and there shall be a third which is neither. Pro. Very good. Soc. Now, can that which is neither be either gold or silver ? Pro. Impossible. Soc. No more can that neutral or middle life be rightly or reasonably regarded or spoken of as pleasant or painful. Pro. Certainly not. 44 Soc. And yet, my friend, there are, as we know, persons who say and think thus. Pro. Certainly. Soc. And do they think that they have pleasure when they are free from pain ? Pro. They say so. Soc. And they must think or they would not say that they have pleasure. Pro. I suppose not. Soc. And yet if pleasure and the negation of pain are of distinct natures, they are wrong. Pro. But they are undoubtedly of distinct natures. Soc. Then shall we take the view that they are three, as we were just now saying, or two only — the one being a state of pain, which is an evil, and the other a cessation of pain, which is of itself a good, and is designated pleasure ? Pro. But why, Socrates, do we ask the question at all ? I do not see the reason why. 90 PHILEBUS. Soc. You, Protarchus, have clearly never heard of certain enemies of our friend Philebus. Pro. And who may they be ? Soc. Certain who are reputed to be masters in natural philo sophy, and who deny the very existence of pleasure. Pro. Indeed ! Soc. They say that what the school of Philebus calls pleasures are all of them only avoidances of pain. Pro. And would you, Socrates, have us agree with them ? Soc. Why, no, I would rather use them as a sort of diviners, who are enabled to divine the truth, not by any rules of art, but by an instinctive repugnance and extreme detestation which a noble nature has of the power of pleasure, in which they think that there is nothing sound, and whose seductive influence is declared by them to be witchcraft, and not pleasure. This is the use which you may make of them ; you shall consider the various grounds of their dislike, and then you shall hear from me what I deem to be true pleasures ; and when the nature of pleasures has been examined from both points of view, we will bring her up for judgment. Pro. True. Soc. Then let us enter into an alliance with these philosophers and follow in the track of their dislike. I imagine that they would say something of this sort ; they would begin at the foundation, and ask whether, if we wanted to know the nature and qualities of any class, we should be more likely to discover the quality, shall I say of hardness, by looking at the hardest things, or at the least hard ? You, Protarchus, shall answer these severe gentlemen who address you through me. Pro. By all means, and I reply to them, that you should look at the greatest instances. Soc. Then if we want to see the true nature of pleasures as a class, we should not look at the most diluted pleasures, but at 45 the most extreme and most vehement ? Pro. In that every one will be ready to agree. Soc. And the most obvious instances of the greatest plea sures as we have often said are pleasures of the body r Pro. Certainly. Soc. And are they felt by us to be or become greater, when PHILEBUS. 91 we are sick or when we are in health? And here we must be careful in our answer, and not make a mistake. Pro. How are we likely to mistake ? Soc. Why, because we might be tempted to answer rashly, * when we are in health.' Pro. Yes, that is the natural answer. Soc. Well, but are not those pleasures the greatest of which mankind have the greatest desires ? Pro. True. Soc. And do not people who are in a fever, or any similar illness, feel cold or thirst or other bodily affection more intensely? Am I not right in saying that they have a deeper want and greater pleasure in the satisfaction of their want ? Pro. That is clear when you say so. Soc. Well, then, shall we not be right in saying, that if a person would wish to see the greatest pleasures he ought to go and look, not at health, but at disease ? And here you must distinguish : — do not imagine that I am asking whether those who are very ill have more pleasure than those who are well, but understand that I am speaking of the intensity of plea sure ; I want to know where pleasures are found to be most in excess. For, as I say, we have to discover what is pleasure, and what nature they attribute to her who deny her very existence. Pro. I believe that I follow you. Soc. We shall soon see whether you do or not, Protarchus, for you shall answer me ; tell me then whether you see I will not say more but more intense and excessive pleasures in wantonness than in temperance ? and please to think before you speak. Pro. I understand you, and see that there is a great difference between them ; the temperate are restrained by the wise man's aphorisms of 'never too much,' which is their rule, but excess of pleasure possessing the minds of fools and wantons quite maddens and infuriates them. Soc. Very good, and if this be true, then the greatest plea sures and pains will clearly be found in some vicious state of soul and body, and not in the right state. Pro. Certainly. 92 PHILEBUS. Soc. And ought we not to select some of these for examina- 46 tion, and see what makes them the greatest ? Pro. We ought. Soc. Take the case of the pleasures which arise out of certain disorders. Pro. What disorders ? Soc. The pleasures of unseemly disorders, which our severe friends utterly detest. Pro. What pleasures ? Soc. Such, for example, as the relief of itching and other ailments by scratching, which is the only remedy required. For what in Heaven's name is the feeling to be called which is thus produced in us ? — Pleasure or pain ? Pro. A villainous mixture of some kind, Socrates, I should say. Soc. I did not introduce the argument, O Protarchus, with any personal reference to Philebus, but because, without the consideration of these and similar pleasures, we shall not be able to determine the point at issue. Pro. Then we had better proceed to analyse this family of pleasures. Soc. You mean the pleasures which have a common mixed nature ? Pro. Exactly. Soc. There are some mixtures which are of the body, and only in the body, and others which are of the soul, and only in the soul ; while there are other mixtures of pleasures with pains, common both to soul and body, which in their composite state are called sometimes pleasures and sometimes pains. Pro. How is that ? Soc. Whenever, in the restoration or in the derangement of nature, a man experiences two opposite feelings ; for example, when he is cold and is growing warm, or again, when he is hot and is being cooled, and he wants to have the one and be free from the other ; — the sweet has a bitter, as they say, and both together fasten upon him and create irritation and in time drive him to distraction. Pro. That description is very true to nature. Soc. And in these sorts of mixtures the pleasures and pains PHILEBUS. 93 are sometimes equal, and sometimes one or other of them predominates ? Pro. True. Soc. Of the greater pain an example is afforded by scratching and tickling, of which we were just now speaking, when the fiery and boiling element is within, and the rubbing and motion1 only relieves the surface, and does not reach the parts affected ; then if you put them to the fire, or in the last resort apply cold to them, you may often give the most intense pleasure ; or a contrast of pleasures and pains within and on the surface may be produced, which ever of the two prevail, and this is 47 due to the forcible separation of what is united, and the union of what is separated, causing a juxtaposition of pleasure and pain. Pro. Quite so. Soc. Sometimes the element of pleasure prevails in a man, and the slight underfeeling of pain just tickles him, and causes a gentle irritation ; or again, the excessive infusion of pleasure creates an excitement in him, and he will even leap for joy, and display all sorts of colours, attitudes, pantings, and be quite amazed, and utter the most irrational exclamations. Pro. Yes, indeed. Soc. He will say of himself, and others will say of him, that he is dying with these delights ; and the more dissipated and good-for-nothing he is, the more vehemently he pursues them in every way ; of all pleasures he declares them to be the greatest ; and he reckons him who lives in the most constant enjoyment of them to be the happiest of mankind. Pro. That, Socrates, is a very true description of the opinions of the majority about pleasures. Soc. Yes, Protarchus, quite true of the mixed pleasures, which arise out of the communion of external and internal sensations in the body only ; but where feelings of the mind mingle with the body2 the combination takes place in another way — there is a contrast of pleasure and pain, which ends in a coalition between them. I have already remarked, that when a man is 1 Reading with the MSS. 2 Reading Trepi Se TWV eV x/^u^ry (jcb/zari, ravavTia £t'/z/3u\Aerm. 94 PHILEBUS. empty he desires to be full, and has pleasure in hope and pain in vacuity. But now I must further add what I omitted before, that in all these and similar emotions in which body and mind are opposed (and they are innumerable), pleasure and pain coalesce in one. Pro. I believe that to be quite true. Soc. There still remains one other sort of admixture of pleasures and pains. Pro. What is that ? Soc. The union which, as we were saying, the mind often experiences of purely mental feelings. Pro. What do you mean ? Soc. Why, do we not speak of anger, fear, desire, sorrow, love, emulation, envy, and the like, as pains which belong to the soul only ? Pro. Yes. Soc. And shall we not find them also full of the most wonder ful pleasures ? need I remind you of the anger ' Which stirs even a wise man to violence, And is sweeter than honey and the honeycomb?' And you remember how pleasures mingle with pains in lamenta- 4 8 tion and bereavement ? Pro. Yes> there is a natuxaj_^o4irie^oii_between them. Soc. And you remember also how at the sight of tragedies the spectators smile through their tears ? Pro. Certainly I do. Soc. And are you aware that even at a comedy the soul experiences a mixed feeling of pain and pleasure ? Pro. I do not understand you. Soc. I admit, Protarchus, that there is some difficulty in recognizing this mixture of feelings at a comedy. Pro. There is, I think. Soc. And the greater the difficulty the more desirable is the examination of the case, because the difficulty of examining other cases of mixed pleasures and pains will be less. Pro. Proceed. Soc. I have just mentioned envy ; would you not call that a pain of the soul ? PHILEBUS. 95 Pro. Yes. Soc. And yet the envious man finds something in the mis fortunes of his neighbours at which he is pleased ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. And ignorance, and what is termed clownishness, are surely an evil ? Pro. To be sure. Soc. From these considerations learn to know the nature of the ridiculous. Pro. Explain. Soc. The ridiculous may be described generally as the name of a state ; and is that part of vice in general which is the op posite to the state of which the inscription at Delphi speaks. Pro. You mean, Socrates, ' Know thyself.3 . Soc. I do, and the opposite would be, ' Know not thyself.' Pro. Certainly. Soc. And now, O Protarchus, try to divide this into three. Pro. Indeed I am afraid that I cannot. Soc.- Do you mean to say that I must make the division for you? Pro. Yes, and what is more, I beg that you will. Soc. Are there not three ways in which ignorance of self may be shown ? Pro. What are they ? Soc. In the first place, about money ; the ignorant may fancy himself richer than he is. Pro. Yes, that is a very common error. Soc. And still more often he will fancy that he is taller or fairer than he is, or that he has some other advantage of person which he has not really. Pro. Of course. Soc. And yet surely by far the greatest number err about the goods of the mind ; they imagine that they are a great deal better than they are. Pro. Yes, that is by far the commonest delusion. 49 Soc. And of all the virtues, is not wisdom the one which the mass of mankind are always claiming, and which most arouses in them a spirit of contention and lying conceit of wisdom ? Pro. Certainly. 96 PHILEBUS. Soc. And may not all this be truly called an evil condition ? Pro. Very evil. Soc. But we must pursue the division a step further, Pro- tarchus, if we would find the singular mixture of pleasure and pain ; — pain is envy of the playful sort. Pro. How can we make the further division which you suggest ? Soc. All who are silly enough to entertain this lying conceit of themselves may be divided, like the rest of mankind, into two classes — one having power and might ; and the other the reverse. Pro. Certainly. Soc. Let this, then, be the principle of division ; those of them who are weak and unable to revenge themselves, when they are laughed at, may be truly called ridiculous, but those who can defend themselves may be more truly described as strong and formidable, for ignorance in the powerful is hateful and horrible, because hurtful to others both in reality and in fiction, but power less ignorance may be reckoned, and in truth is, ridiculous. Pro. That is very true, but I do not as yet see where is the admixture of pleasures and pains. Soc. Well then, let us examine the nature of envy. Pro. Proceed. Soc. Is not envy an unrighteous pleasure, and also a pain ? Pro. Most true. Soc. There is nothing envious or wrong in rejoicing at the misfortunes of enemies ? Pro. Certainly not. Soc. But to feel joy instead of sorrow at the sight of our friends' misfortunes — is not that envy ? Pro. Undoubtedly. Soc. Did we not say that ignorance was always an evil ? Pro. True. Soc. And the vain conceits of our friends about their beauty, wisdom, wealth, of which we made three divisions, are ridiculous if they are weak, and detestable when they are powerful : May we not say, as I was saying before, that our friends who are in this state of mind, when harmless to others, are simply ridiculous ? PHILEBUS. 97 Pro. They are ridiculous. Soc. And do we not acknowledge this ignorance of theirs to be a misfortune ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. And do we feel pain or pleasure in laughing at it ? Pro. Clearly we feel pleasure. 50 Soc. And was not envy the source of this pleasure which we feel at the misfortunes of friends ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. Then the argument shows that when we laugh at the folly of our friends, pleasure, in mingling with envy, mingles with pain, for envy has been acknowledged by us to be mental pain, and laughter is pleasant, and we envy and laugh at the same instant. Pro. True. Soc. And the argument implies that there are combinations of pleasure and pain in lamentations, and in tragedy and comedy, not only on the stage, but on the greater stage of human life, and in ten thousand ways. Pro. I -do not see how any one can deny what you say, Socrates, however eager he may be to assert the opposite opinion. Soc. I have laid before you the examples of anger, desire, sorrow, fear, love, emulation, envy, and similar emotions, in which, as I was saying, there is a mixture of the two elements so often named ; have I not ? Pro. Yes. Soc. Note, however, that our conclusions hitherto have had reference only to sorrow and envy and anger. Pro. I perceive. Soc. But are these all, or are there a great many others remaining ? Pro. Certainly there are many others. Soc. And why do you suppose that I showed you the ad mixture which takes place in comedy? In order that I might by an easy example prove to you the mixed nature of these affections of fear and love and the like ; and I thought that when I had given you the illustration, you would have let me off, and acknowledged at once that the body without the soul, VOL. IV. H 98 PHILEBUS. and the soul without the body, as well as the two united, are susceptible of all sorts of admixtures of pleasures and pains, and that further discussion would thus become unnecessary. And now I want to know whether you will let me off: Or must I stay here until midnight ? I fancy that I may obtain my release without many words ; — if I promise that to-morrow I will give you an account of all of them. But at present I would rather sail in another direction, and go to other matters which remain to be settled, preliminary to the judgment which Philebus demands. Pro. Very good, Socrates ; in what remains take your own course. Sac. Then after the mixed pleasures the unmixed should have their turn ; this is the natural and necessary order. Pro. Excellent. 51 Soc. These, in turn, then, I will now endeavour to explain ; for with the opinion that all pleasures are a cessation of pain, I do not agree, but, as I was saying, use the maintainers of this opinion as witnesses, that there are pleasures which seem only and are not, and others again which have great power and appear in many forms, yet are intermingled with pains, and are partly alleviations of agonies and distresses, both of body and mind. Pro. Then which are the true pleasures, Socrates, and what is the right conception of them ? Soc. True pleasures are those which are given colour and form, and most of those which arise from smells ; those of sound, again, and in general those of which the want is painless and unconscious, and the gratification afforded by them palpable to sense and pleasant and unalloyed with pain. Pro. Once more, Socrates, I must ask what you mean. Soc. My meaning is certainly not obvious, and I will en deavour to be plainer. I do not mean by the beauty of form such beauty as that of animals or pictures, which the many would suppose to be my meaning ; but, says the argument, understand me to mean straight lines and circles, and the plane or solid figures which are formed out of them by turning-lathes o J o and rulers and measurers of angles ; for these I affirm to be not only relatively beautiful, like other things, but they are eternally PHILEBUS. 99 and absolutely beautiful, and they have peculiar pleasures, quite unlike the pleasures of scratching. And there are colours which are of the same character, and have similar pleasures ; now do you understand my meaning ? Pro. I am trying to understand, Socrates, and I hope that you will try to make the meaning clearer. Soc. When sounds are smooth and clear, and utter a single pure tone, then I mean to say that they are not relatively but absolutely beautiful, and have a natural pleasure associated with them. Pro. Yes, there is such a class. Soc. The pleasures of smell are of a less ethereal sort, but in asmuch as they have no admixture of necessary pain, I regard this freedom from pain, wherever and in whatever experienced, as the mark of an analogous class. Here then are two kinds of pleasures. Pro. I understand. 52 Soc. To these may be added the pleasures of knowledge, if they appear to us to have no hunger of knowledge, and no pain of hunger attaching to them. Pro. And they have not. Soc. Well, but are there not pains of forgetfulness, if a man is full of knowledge and his knowledge is lost ? Pro. They are not natural or necessary, but there may be times of reflection, when he feels grief at the loss of his know ledge. Soc. Yes, my friend, but at present we are enumerating only the natural perceptions, and have nothing to do with reflection. Pro. In that case you are right in saying that the loss of know ledge is not attended with pain. Soc. These pleasures of knowledge, then, are unmixed with pain ; and they are not the pleasures of the many but of a very few. Pro. Quite true. Soc. And now, having fairly separated the pure pleasures and those which may be rightly termed impure, let us further add to our description of them, that the pleasures which are in excess have no measure, but that those which are not in excess have a measure ; the great, the excessive, the more or less frequent, and H 2 ioo PHILEBUS. all which are denoted by such terms, we shall be right in referring to the class of the infinite, which is always pouring, with more or less force, through body and soul alike ; and the others we shall refer to the class which has measure. Pro. That is most true, Socrates. Soc. Still there is something more to be considered about pleasures. Pro. What is that ? Soc. When you speak of pure and clear, or of excessive and much, or of great and enough, how do they stand in reference to the truth ? Pro. Why do you ask, Socrates ? Soc. Because, Protarchus, I should wish to test pleasure and knowledge in every possible way, in order that if there be a pure and impure element in either of them, I may present the pure element for judgment, and then they will be more easily judged of by you and me and all of us. Pro. Most true. Soc. Let us consider all the pure kinds ; and for the better consideration of them, let us select a single instance. Pro. What instance shall we select ? Soc. Suppose that we take whiteness. 53 Pro. Very good. Soc. How can there be purity in whiteness, and what purity ? Is it that which is greatest or most in quantity, or that which is most unadulterated and freest from any admixture of other colours ? Pro. Clearly that which is most unadulterated. Soc. True, Protarchus ; the purest and not the greatest or largest quantity of white, is to be deemed the truest and most beautiful white ? Pro. Right. Soc. And we shall be quite right in saying that a little pure white is whiter and fairer and truer than a great deal that is mixed. Pro. Perfectly right. Soc. There is no need of adducing many similar examples in illustration of the argument about pleasure ; one such is sufficient to prove to us that a small pleasure, if pure or unalloyed with PHI LED US. 10 1 pain, is always pleasanter and truer and fairer than a great or often-repeated one of another kind. Pro. Assuredly ; and the instance you have given is quite sufficient. Soc. But what do you say of another question : — have we not heard that pleasure is always a generation, and has no true being? Do not certain ingenious philosophers affirm this, and ought not we to be grateful to them ? Pro. What do they mean ? Soc. Dear Protarchus, I will explain to you what they mean by putting a question. Pro. Ask, and I will answer. Soc. I assume that there are two natures, one self-existent, and the other ever in want of something ? Pro. What manner of natures are they ? Soc. The one eternal and majestic, the other inferior. Pro. You speak riddles. Soc. You have seen loves good and gentle, and also brave lovers of them. Pro. I should think so. Soc. Find two terms in all correlations which are like these two. Pro. I wish that you would be a little more intelligible. Soc. There is no difficulty, Protarchus ; the argument is only in play, and insinuates that some things are for the sake of some thing else (relatives), and that other things are the ends to which something else subserves (absolutes). Pro. After many repetitions, at last I understand. 54 Soc. As the argument proceeds, my boy, I dare say that the meaning will become clearer. Pro. Very likely. Soc. Here are two new principles. Pro. What are they ? Soc. One is the generation of all things, and another is essence. Pro. I readily accept both generation and essence at your hands. Soc. Very right ; and would you say that generation is for the sake of essence, or essence for the sake of generation ? Pro. You want to know whether that which is called essence is, properly speaking, for the sake of generation ? 102 PHI LE BUS. Soc. Yes. Pro. By the gods, I wish that you would repeat your ques tion. Soc. I mean, O my Protarchus, to ask whether you would tell me that ship-building is for the sake of ships, or are ships for the sake of ship-building ? and in all similar cases I should ask the same question. Pro. Why do you not answer yourself, Socrates ? Soc. I have no objection, but you must take your part. Pro. Certainly. Soc. My answer is, that all things instrumental, remedial, mate- ria.1, are always used with a view to generation, and that each gene ration is relative to, or for the sake of, some being or essence, and that the whole of generation is relative to the whole of essence. Pro. Assuredly. Soc. Then pleasure, being a generation, will surely be for the sake of some essence ? Pro. True. Soc. And that for the sake of which something is done must be placed in the class of good, and that which is done for the sake of another thing, in some other class, my good friend. Pro. Most certainly. Soc. Then pleasure, being a generation, will be rightly placed in some other class than that of good ? Pro. Quite right. Soc. Then, as I said at first, we ought to be very grateful to him who first pointed out that pleasure was a generation only, and had no true being ; for he is clearly one who laughs at the notion of pleasure being a good. Pro. Assuredly. Soc. And he would surely laugh also at those who make gene ration their highest end. Pro. Of whom are you speaking, and what do they mean ? Soc. I am speaking of those who when they cure hunger or thirst or any other defect by some process of generation are as much delighted as if the generation were itself pleasure ; and they say that they would not wish to live without these and the like feelings. Pro. That is certainly what they appear to think. 55 PHILEBUS. 103 Soc. And is not destruction universally admitted to be the opposite of generation ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. Then he who chooses thus, would choose generation and destruction rather than that third sort of life, in which, as we were saying, was neither pleasure nor pain, but only the purest possible thought. Pro. He who would make us believe pleasure to be a good, is involved in great absurdity, Socrates. Soc. Great, indeed ; and there is yet another of them. Pro. What is that ? Soc. Is there not an absurdity in arguing that there is nothing good or noble in the body, or in anything else, but that good is in the soul only, and that the only good of the soul is pleasure ; and that courage or temperance or understanding, or any other good of the soul, is not really a good ? — and is there not a further absurdity in our being compelled to say that he who has the feeling of pain and not of pleasure is bad at the time when he is suffering pain, even though he be the best of men ; and again, that he who has the feeling of pleasure, at the time when he is pleased, and in as far as he is pleased, excels in virtue ? Pro. Nothing, Socrates, can be more irrational than all this. Soc. And now, having subjected pleasure to every sort of test, let us not appear to spare mind and knowledge : let us ring their metal bravely, and see if there be unsoundness in any part, until we have found out what in them is of the purest nature ; and then the truest elements both of pleasure and knowledge may be brought up for judgment. Pro. Right. Soc. Knowledge has two parts ; the one productive, and the other educational ? Pro. True. Soc. And in the productive or handicraft arts, is not one part more akin to knowledge, and the other less ; and may not the one part be regarded as the pure, and the other as the impure? Pro. Certainly. Soc. Let us separate the superior or dominant elements in each of them. Pro. What are they, and how do you separate them ? 104 PHILEBUS. Soc.\ mean to say, that if arithmetic, mensuration, and weighing be taken away from any art, that which remains will not be much. Pro. Not much, certainly. Soc. The rest will be only conjecture, and the better use of the senses which is given by experience and exercise, in addition to a certain power of guessing, which is commonly called art, and is perfected by attention and practice, Pro. Nothing more, assuredly. Soc. Music, for instance, is full of this empiricism ; as is seen in the harmonising of sounds, not by rule, but by conjecture ; the music of the flute is always trying to guess the pitch of each vibrating note, and is therefore mixed up with much that is doubtful and has very little certainty. Pro. Most true. Soc. And the same will be found to hold good of medicine and husbandry and piloting and generalship. Pro. Very true. Soc. The art of the builder, on the other hand, which has a number of measures and instruments, attains from them a greater degree of accuracy than the other arts. Pro. How is that ? Soc. In ship-building and house-building, and in other branches of the art of carpentering, the builder has his rule, lathe, plum met, level, and a most ingenious machine for straightening wood. Pro. Very true, Socrates. Soc. Then now let us divide the arts of which we were speak ing into two kinds ; the arts which, like music, are less exact in their results, and those which, like carpentering, are more exact. Pro. Let us make that division. Soc. Of the latter class, the most exact of all are those which I mentioned at first. Pro. I see that you mean arithmetic, and the kindred arts of weighing and measuring. Soc. Certainly, Protarchus ; but are not these also distinguish able into two kinds ? Pro. What are the two kinds ? Soc. In the first place, arithmetic is of two kinds ; one of which is popular, and the other philosophical. PHI LE BUS. 105 Pro. How would you distinguish them ? Soc. There is a wide distinction between them, Protarchus ; some arithmeticians reckon unequal units ; as for example, two armies, two oxen ; the one a very large and the other a very small two. The party who are opposed to them insists that every unit in ten thousand must be the same as every other unit. Pro. Undoubtedly there is, as you say, a great difference among the votaries of the science ; and there may be reasonably supposed to be two sorts of arithmetic. Soc. And what of the arts of computation and mensuration 57 which are used in building and trading, — when we compare them with philosophical geometry and exact calculation, shall we say that they are one or two ? Pro. On the analogy of what has preceded, I should be of opinion that they were two. Soc. Right ; but do you understand why I have discussed the subject? Pro. I think so, but I should like to be told by you. Soc. The argument has all along been seeking a parallel to pleasure, and true to that original design, has gone on to ask whether one sort of knowledge is purer than another, as one pleasure is purer than another. Pro. Clearly ; that was the intention. Soc. And has not the argument in what has preceded, already shown that the arts have different provinces, and vary in their degree of certainty ? Pro. Very true. Soc. And just now did not the argument first designate a particular art by a common term, thus making us believe in the unity of art ; and then again, as if speaking of two different things, proceed to enquire whether the art as pursued by philo sophers, or as pursued by non-philosophers, has more of certainty and purity ? Pro. That is the question which the argument is at this moment asking. Soc. And how, Protarchus, shall we answer the enquirer ? Pro. O Socrates, we have reached a point at which the difference of clearness in different kinds of knowledge is enormous. 1 06 PHILEBUS. Soc. Then the answer will be the easier. Pro. Certainly ; and let us say in reply, that those arts into which arithmetic and mensuration enter, far surpass all others ; and that of these the arts or sciences which are animated by the pure philosophic impulse are infinitely superior in accuracy and truth about measures and numbers. Soc. Then this is your judgment ; and this is the answer which, upon your authority, we will give to all masters of the art of misinterpretation ? Pro. What answer? Soc. That there are two arts of arithmetic, and two of mensura tion ; and also several other arts which in like manner have this double nature, and yet only one name. Pro. Let us boldly return this answer to the masters of whom you speak, Socrates, and hope for good luck. Soc. We have explained what we term the most exact arts or sciences? Pro. Very good. Soc. And yet, Protarchus, dialectic will refuse to acknowledge us, if we do not acknowledge her to have the first place. Pro. And what_Ls-4kl£ctic ? 58 Soc. Clearly the science which knows all that knowledge of which we are-Jiaw^srjeaking ; for I am sure that all men who have a grain of intelligence will admit that the knowledge which has to do with being^ and reality,, and sameness and unchange- ableness, Ls_by far the truest of all. And would you, Protarchus, say or decide otherwise ? Pro. I have often heard Gorgias maintain, Socrates, that the art of persuasion far surpassed every other ; this, as he says, is by far the best of them all, for to it all things submit, not by com pulsion, but of their own free will. Now, I should not like to quarrel either with you or with him. Soc. You mean to say that you would like to desert, if you were not ashamed ? Pro. As you please. Soc. May I not have led you into a misapprehension ? Pro. How? Soc. Dear Protarchus, I never asked which was the greatest or best or usefullest of arts or sciences, but which had clearness and PHILEBUS. 107 accuracy, and the greatest degree of truth, however humble and little useful an art. And as for Gorgias, if you do not deny that his art has the advantage in usefulness to mankind, he will not quarrel with you for saying that the study of which I am speak ing is superior in this particular of absolute truth ; as in the comparison of white colour, a little whiteness, if that little be only pure, was shown to be superior to a great mass which is impure. And now let us give our best attention and consider well, not the comparative use or estimation of the sciences, but the power or faculty, if there be such, which the soul has of loving the truth, and of doing all things for the sake of the truth ; let us search into the pure element of mind and intelligence, and then we shall be able to say whether the science of which I have been speaking is most likely to possess the faculty, or whether there be some other which has higher claims. Pro. Well, I have been considering, and I can hardly think that any other science or art has a firmer grasp of the truth than this. 59 Soc. You mean to say that the arts in general and similar pursuits make use of opinion, and are laboriously engaged in the investigation of matters of opinion. Even he who supposes himself to be occupied with nature is really occupied with the things of this world, how created, how acting or acted upon. Is not this the sort of enquiry in which his life is spent ? Pro. True. Soc. He is labouring, not after eternal being, but about things which are changing, or will change, or have changed ? Pro. Very true. Soc. And can we say that any of these things which neither are nor have been nor will be unchangeable, when judged by the strict rule of truth ever become certain ? Pro. Impossible. Soc. How can there be any certainty about that which has no fixedness ? Pro. How indeed ? Soc. Then mind and science when employed about these changing things do not attain the highest truth ? Pro. I should imagine not. Soc. And now let us bid farewell, a long farewell, to you or io8 PHI LE BUS. me or Philebus or Gorgias, and urge on behalf of the argument a single point. Pro. What point ? Soc. Let us say that the stable and pure and true and un alloyed, has to do with the things which are eternal and un changeable and unmixed, or if not, at any rate with that which is most akin to them ; and that all other things are to be placed in a second or inferior class. Pro. Very true. Soc. And of the names expressing cognition, ought not the fairest to be given to the fairest things ? Pro. That is natural. Soc. And are not mind and wisdom the names which are to be honoured most ? Pro. Yes. Soc. And these names may be said to have their truest and most exact application when the mind is engaged in the con templation of true being ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. And these were the names which I adduced as rivals of pleasure ? Pro. Very true. Soc. In the next place, as to the task of mixing pleasure and wisdom, here are the ingredients or materials, and we may be compared to artists who have them ready to their hands ? Pro. Yes. Soc. And now we must begin to mix them ? Pro. By all means. Soc. But had we not better have a recapitulation and rehearsal first? Pro. Of what? Soc. Of that which I have already mentioned. Well says the proverb, that we ought to repeat not twice but thrice that which 60 is good. Pro. Certainly. Soc. Well, then, by Zeus, let us proceed, and I will make what I believe to be a fair summary of the argument. Pro. Let me hear. Soc. Philebus says that pleasure is the true end of all living PHILEBUS. 109 beings, at which all ought to aim, and moreover that it is the chief good of all, and that the two names ' good ' and ' pleasant ' are correctly given to one thing and ^ne natur^ • Socrates, on the other hand, begins by denying this, and further says, that in nature as in name they are two, and that wisdom partakes more than pleasure of the good. Is not and was not that what we were saying, Protarchus ? Pro. Certainly. Soc. And is not and was not this a further point which was conceded between us — Pro. What was the point ? Soc. That the good differs from all other things ? Pro. In what way ? Soc. In that the being who possesses good always everywhere and in all things, has the most^ perfect sufficiency, and is never in need of anything else. Pro. Exactly. Soc. And did we not endeavour to make an ideal division of them into two distinct lives, so that pleasure was wholly ex cluded from wisdom, and wisdom in like manner had no part whatever in pleasure ? Pro. We did. Soc. And did we think that either of them alone would be sufficient ? Pro. Certainly not. Soc. And if we erred in any point, then let any one who will, take up the enquiry again ; and assuming memory and wisdom and knowledge and true opinion to belong to the same class, let him consider whether he would desire tcr possess or acquire, — I will not say pleasure, however abundant or intense, if he has no real perception that he is pleased, nor any conscious ness of what he feels, nor any recollection, however momentary, of the feeling, — but would he desire to have anything at all, if these were wanting to him ? And about wisdom I ask the same question ; can you conceive that any one would choose to have all wisdom absolutely devoid of pleasure, rather than having a certain degree of pleasure, or all plea sure devoid of wisdom, rather than having a certain degree of wisdom ? no PHILEBUS. Pro. Certainly not, Socrates ; but why repeat such questions any more ? Soc. Then the perfect and universally eligible and entirely 61 good cannot possibly be either of them ? Pro. Impossible. Soc. Then now we must ascertain the nature of the good more or less accurately, in order, as we were saying, that the second place may be duly assigned ? Pro. Right. Soc. Have we not found a road which leads towards the good ? Pro. What road ? Soc. Supposing that a man had to be found, and you could discover in what house he lived, would not that be a great step towards the discovery of the man himself? Pro. Certainly. Soc. And now reason intimates to us, as at our first beginning that we should seek the good, not in the unmixed life but jn_the mixed? Pro. True. Soc. There is greater hope of finding that which we are seek ing in the life which is well mixed than in that which is not ? Pro. Far greater. Soc. Then now let us mingle, Protarchus, at the same time offering up a prayer to Dionysus or Hephaestus, or whoever is the god who presides over the ceremony of mixing. Pro. By all means. Soc. Are not we the cup-bearers ? and here are two fountains which are flowing at our side : one, which is pleasure, may be likened to a fountain of honey ; the other, which is a sober draught in which no wine mingles, is of water temperate and healthful ; out of these we must seek to make the fairest of all possible mixtures. Pro. Certainly. Soc. Tell me first ; — should we be most likely to succeed if we mingled every sort of pleasure with every sort of wisdom ? Pro. Perhaps we might. Soc. But I should be afraid of the risk, and I think that I can show a safer plan. PHILEBUS. in Pro. What is your plan ? Soc. One pleasure was supposed by us to be truer than an other, and one axLto .be more certain than another. Pro. Exactly. Soc. There was also supposed to be a difference in sciences ; one science regarding only the transient and perishing, and the other the permanent and imperishable and everlasting and im mutable ; and when judged by the standard of truth, the latter, as we thought, was truer than the former. Pro. Very good and right. Soc. If, then, we consider the sections of each which have the most of truth, and begin by mingling them, will not the union suffice to give us the loveliest of lives, or shall we still want some elements of another kind ? 62 Pro. I think that you should do as you say. Soc. Let us suppose a man who understands justice, and has reason as well as understanding about the true nature of this and of all other things. Pro. Let that be supposed. Soc. Will such an one have enough of knowledge if he is acquainted only with the divine circle and sphere, and knows nothing of our human spheres and circles, and with a like igno rance uses these or any other figures or rules in the building of a house ? l Pro. The knowledge which is only superhuman, Socrates, is ridiculous in man. Soc. What do you mean ? Do you mean that you are to throw into the cup and mingle the impure and uncertain art which uses the false rule and the false circle ? Pro. Yes, that must be done, if any of us is ever to find his way home. Soc. And must I include music, which, as I was saying just now, is full of guesswork and imitation, and is wanting in purity ? Pro. Yes, I think that you must, if human life is to be a life at all. Soc. Well, then, suppose that I give way, and, like a doorkeeper 1 Or, supplying &(W, but uses only these and other divine rules, &c. ii2 PHILEBUS. who is pushed and overborne by the mob, I open the door wide, and let knowledge of every sort stream in, and the pure and im pure mingle? Pro. I do not know, Socrates, that any great harm would come of having them all, if only you have the first sort. Soc. Well, then, shall I let them all flow, into what Homer poetically terms ' a meeting of the waters ? ' Pro. By all means. Soc. There — I have let them in, and now I must return to the fountain of pleasure. For we were not permitted to mingle first of all the portions which had truth in them according to our original intention ; but the love of all knowledge constrained us to let all the sciences flow out together before the pleasures. Pro. Quite true. Soc. And now the time has come for us to consider about the pleasures also, whether we shall in like manner let them out all at once, or at first only the true ones. Pro. Let out the true ones first ; that will be far the safer course. Soc. Let them out, then ; and now, if there are any necessary pleasures, as there were arts and sciences necessary, must we not mingle them ? Pro. Yes ; the necessary pleasures should certainly be allowed to mingle. Soc. And as the knowledge of the arts has been admitted to be 63 innocent and useful always, may I say the same of the pleasures — if they are all of them always good and innocent for all of us, must not all of them mingle ? Pro. What shall we say and do about them ? Soc. Do not ask me, Protarchus ; but ask the daughters of pleasure and wisdom themselves, and let them answer about one another. Pro. How? Soc. Tell us, O beloved — shall we call you pleasures or by some other name ? — would you rather live with or without wisdom ? I am of opinion that they would certainly answer as follows : Pro. How? Soc. They would answer, as we said before, that for anydass tojbe^ alone and in ..perfect., solitude _is_HQt good, nor altogetKer PHILEBUS. 113 possible ; and that if we are to make comparisons of one class with another and choose, there is no better companion than knowledge of things in general, and likewise the perfect know ledge, if that may be, of ourselves. Pro. And our answer will be ; — In that ye have spoken well. Soc. Very true. And now let us go back and interrogate wisdom and mind ; — would you like to have any pleasures in the mixture ? And they will reply : — What pleasures do you mean ? Pro. Likely enough. Soc. And we shall take up our parable and say : Do you wish to have the greatest and most vehement pleasures for your com panions in addition to the true ones ? Why, Socrates, they will say, how can we ? seeing that they are the source of ten thousand hindrances to us ; they trouble the souls of men, which are our habitation, with their madness ; they prevent us from coming to the birth, and are commonly the ruin of our children when they do come to the birth, causing them to be forgotten and un heeded ; but the other true and pure pleasures, of which you spoke, know to be of our kindred, and the pleasures which ac company health and temperance, and are in a manner the hand maidens and inseparable attendants of virtue as of a god, — mingle these and not the others ; there would be great want of sense 64 in any one who desires to see the fair and untroubled stream, and to find in the admixture what is the highest good in man and in the universe, and to divine what is the true form of good — there would be great want of sense in his allowing the pleasures, which are always in the company of folly and vice, to mingle with mind in the cup : Is not this a very rational and suitable reply, which mind has made, both on her own behalf, as well as on that of memory and true opinion, to the question which has been asked of us ? Pro. Most certainly. Soc. And still there must be something more added, which is a necessary ingredient in every mixture. Pro. What is that ? Soc. Unless truth enter into the composition, nothing can truly be created or subsist. Pro. Certainly not. Soc. Certainly not ; and now you and Philebus must tell me VOL. IV. I ii4 PHILEBUS. whether anything is still wanting in the mixture, for to my way of thinking the argument is now completed, and may be com pared to an incorporeal law, which is going to hold fair rule over a living body. Pro. I agree with you, Socrates. Soc. And may we not say truly that we are now at the vestibule of the good, and of the habitation of the good ? Pro. I think that we are. Soc. What, then, is there in the mixture which is most precious, and which is the principal cause why such a state is universally beloved by all ? When we have discovered, we will proceed to ask whether in the order of the universe this highest nature is more akin to pleasure or to mind ? Pro. Quite right ; in that way we shall be better able to judge. Soc. And there is no difficulty in seeing the cause which renders any mixture either of the highest value or of none at all. Pro. What do you mean ? Soc. Every man knows. Pro. What? Soc. He knows that any want of measure and symmetry in any mixture must always of necessity be fatal, both to the elements and to the mixture, which is then not a mixture, but only a disorderly jumble disordering the possessor of it. Pro. Most true. Soc. And now the power of the good has retired into the region of the beautiful ; for measure and symmetry everywhere pass into beauty and virtue. Pro. True. Soc. Also we said that truth was to form an element in the mixture. Pro. Certainly. 65 Soc. Then, if we are not able to hunt the good with one idea only, with three we may take our prey ; Beauty, Symmetry, Truth are the three, and these when united we may regard as the cause of the mixture, and the mixture as being good by reason of the admixture of them. Pro. Quite right. Soc. And now, Protarchus, every one may judge well enough PHILEBUS. 115 whether pleasure or wisdom is more akin to the highest good, and more honourable among gods and men. Pro. There is no doubt, and yet perhaps the argument had better be pursued to the end. Soc. We must take each of them separately in their relation to pleasure and mind, and pronounce upon them ; for we ought to see to which of the two they are severally most akin. Pro. You are speaking of beauty, truth, and measure ? Soc. Yes, Protarchus, take truth first, and, after a considera tion of all three, mind, truth, pleasure, pause awhile and make answer to yourself, — as to whether pleasure or mind is more akin to truth. Pro. There is no need to pause, for the difference between them is palpable ; pleasure is the veriest impostor in the world ; and the proverb says that in the pleasures of love, which appear to be the greatest, perjury is excused by the gods ; the pleasures are children, who have not yet attained any degree of reason ; whereas mind is either the same as truth, or the most like truth, and the truest. Soc. Shall we next consider measure, in like manner, and ask whether pleasure has more of this than wisdom, or wisdom than pleasure ? Pro. Here is another question which may be easily answered ; for I imagine that nothing can ever be more immoderate than the transports of pleasure, or more in conformity with measure than mind and knowledge. Soc. Very good ; but there still remains the third test : has mind a greater share of beauty than pleasure, and is mind or pleasure the fairer of the two ? Pro. Never, Socrates, were mind or wisdom seen or known to be in aught unseemly, waking or sleeping, at any time, past, present, or future. Soc. Right. Pro. But pleasures, and the greatest pleasures, when some 66 ridiculous or foul effect accompanies them, make us ashamed of the sight of them, and we put them out of sight, and consign them to darkness, under the idea that they ought not to meet the eye of day. Soc. Then, Protarchus, you will proclaim everywhere by word I 3 u6 PHILEBUS. of mouth to this company, and will send messengers of the tidings far and wide, that pleasure is not the first of possessions, nor yet the second, but that in measure, and the measured, and the suitable, and the like, the eternal nature has been found. Pro. Yes, that seems to be the result of what has been now said. Soc. In the second class is the symmetrical and beautiful and perfect or sufficient, and all which are of that family. Pro. True. Soc. And if you reckon in the third class mind and wisdom, you will not be far wrong, if I divine aright. Pro. I dare say. Soc. And would you not put in the fourth class the goods which we were affirming to appertain specially to the soul — sciences and arts and true opinions as we called them ; these come after the third class, and form the fourth, as they are cer tainly more akin to good than to pleasure. Pro. Surely. Soc. The fifth class are those which are defined by us painless pleasures, being the pure pleasures of the soul herself, as we termed them, which accompany, some the sciences, and some the senses 1. Pro. Perhaps. Soc. And in the sixth generation, as Orpheus says, ' Cease the glory of my song.' Here, at the sixth award, let us make an end ; all that remains is to put the top on our discourse. Pro. True. Soc. Then, by way of a third libation to the saviour Zeus, let us sum up and reassert what has been said. Pro. How? Soc. Philebus affirmed that pleasure was always and absolutely the good. Pro. I understand ; this third libation, Socrates, of which you spoke, meant another recapitulation. Soc. Yes, but listen to the sequel ; convinced of what I have just been saying, and feeling indignant at the argument, which is 1 Reading eVto-rr//Ltoi?, TUS de according to Professor Campbell's emendation. PHILEBUS. 117 maintained, not by Philebus only, but by thousands of others, I affirmed that mind was far better and far more excellent, as an element of human life, than pleasure. Pro. True. Soc. But, suspecting that there were other things which were better still, I said also, that if there was anything better than either, then I would claim the second place for mind over plea sure, and pleasure would lose the second place as well as the first. Pro. You did. 67 Soc. Nothing could be more satisfactorily shown than the in sufficiency of both of them. Pro. Very true. Soc. The claims both of pleasure and mind to be the absolute good have been entirely disproven in this argument, because they are both wanting in sufficiency and also in adequacy and perfection. Pro. Most true. Soc. But, though they must both resign in favour of another, mind is ten thousand times nearer and more akin to the nature of the conqueror than pleasure. Pro. Certainly. Soc. And, according to the judgment which has now been given, pleasure will rank fifth. Pro. True. Soc. But not first ; no, not even if all the oxen and horses and animals in the world in their pursuit of enjoyment affirm this ; and the many trusting in them, as diviners trust in birds, deter mine that pleasures make up the good of life, and deem the lusts of animals to be better witnesses than the inspirations of divine philosophy. Pro. And now, Socrates, we tell you that the truth of what you have been saying is approved by the judgment of all of us. Soc. And will you let me go ? Pro. There is a little which yet remains, and I will remind you of it, for I am sure that you will not be the first to weary1 of an argument. 1 Reading dircpels. FARM EN IDES. INTRODUCTION, THE awe with which Plato regarded the character of Parmenides has extended to the dialogue which he calls by his name. There is none of the writings of Plato which has been more copiously illustrated, both in ancient and modern times, and in none of them have the interpreters been more at variance with one another. Nor is this surprising. For the Parmenides is more fragmentary and isolated than any other dialogue, and the design of the writer is not expressly stated. The date is uncer tain ; the relation to the other writings of Plato is also uncertain ; the connection between the two parts is at first sight extremely obscure ; and in the latter of the two we are left in doubt as to whether Plato is speaking his own sentiments by the lips of Parmenides, and overthrowing him out of his own mouth, or whether he is propounding consequences which would have been admitted by Zeno and Parmenides themselves. The contradictions which follow from the hypotheses of the one and many have been regarded by some as transcendental mysteries ; by others as a mere illustration, taken at random, of a new method. The criticism on his own doctrine of ideas has also been considered, not as a real criticism, but as an exuberance of the metaphysical imagination which enabled Plato to go beyond himself. To the latter part of the dialogue we may certainly apply the words in which he himself describes the earlier philosophers in the Sophist (243 A), 'that they went on their way rather regardless of whether we understood them or not/ The Parmenides in point of style is one of the best of the Platonic writings; the first portion of the dialogue is in no way defective in ease and grace and dramatic interest ; nor in the second part, where there was no room for such qualities, is there any want of clearness or precision. Like the Protagoras, Phaedo, and others, it is a narrated dialogue, com bining with the mere recital of the words spoken, the observations of the 122 PARMENIDES. reciter on the effect produced by them. Thus we are informed by him that Zeno and Parmenides were not altogether pleased at the request of Socrates that they would examine into the nature of the one and many in the sphere of ideas, although they received his suggestion with approving smiles. And we are glad to be told that Parmenides was ' aged but well- favoured/ and that Zeno was ' very good-looking ' ; also that Parmenides affected to decline the great argument, on which, as Zeno knew from experience, he was very willing to enter. The character of Antiphon, the half-brother of Plato, who had once been inclined to philosophy, but has now shown the hereditary disposition for horses, is very naturally de scribed. He is the sole depositary of the famous dialogue ; but, although he receives the strangers like a courteous gentleman, he is impatient of the trouble of reciting it. As they enter, he has been giving orders to a bridle-maker; by this slight touch Plato verifies the description of him. After a little persuasion he is induced to favour the Clazomenians, who come from a distance, with a rehearsal. Respecting the visit of Zeno and Parmenides to Athens, we may observe — first, that such a visit is consistent with dates, and may possibly have occurred; secondly, that Plato is very likely to have invented the meeting ('You, Socrates, can easily invent Egyptian tales or anything else ') ; thirdly, that no reliance can be placed on the circumstance as determining the date of Parmenides and Zeno. Many interpreters have regarded the Parmenides as a ' reductio ad absurdum ' of the Eleatic philosophy. But would Plato have been likely to place this in the mouth of the great Parmenides himself, who appeared to him, in Homeric language, to be ' venerable and awful/ and to have a 'most generous depth of mind'? It may be admitted that he has ascribed to an Eleatic stranger in the Sophist opinions which went beyond the doctrines of the Eleatics. But the Eleatic stranger expressly criticises the doctrines in which he had been brought up ; he admits that he is going to ' lay hands on his father Parmenides.' Nothing of this kind is said of Zeno and Parmenides. How then, without a word of explanation, could Plato assign to them the refutation of their own tenets ? The conclusion at which we must arrive is that the Parmenides is not a refutation of the Eleatic philosophy. Nor would such an explanation afford any satisfactory connection of the first and second parts of the dialogue. And it is quite inconsistent with Plato's own relation to the Eleatics. For of all the pre-Socratic philosophers, he speaks of them INTRODUCTION. 123 with the greatest respect. But he could hardly have passed upon them a more unmeaning slight than to ascribe to their great master tenets the reverse of those which he actually held. Two preliminary remarks may be made. First, that whatever latitude we may allow to Plato in bringing together by a ' tour de force/ as in the Phaedrus, dissimilar themes, yet he always in some way seeks to find a connection for them. Many threads join together in one the love and dialectic of the Phaedrus. We cannot conceive that the great artist would place in juxtaposition two absolutely divided and incoherent subjects. And hence we are led to make a second remark : viz. that no explanation of the Parmenides can be satisfactory which does not indicate the connection of the first and second parts. To suppose that Plato would first go out of his way to make Parmenides attack the Platonic ideas, and then proceed to a similar but more fatal assault on his own doctrine of Being, appears to be the height of absurdity. Perhaps there is no passage in Plato showing greater metaphysical power than that in which he assails his own theory of ideas. The argu ments are nearly, if not quite, those of Aristotle ; they are the objections which naturally occur to a modern student of philosophy. Many persons will be surprised to find Plato criticising the very conceptions which have been supposed in after ages to be peculiarly characteristic of him. How can he have placed himself so completely without them ? How can he have ever persisted in them after seeing the fatal objections which might be urged against them ? The consideration of this difficulty has led a recent critic (Ueberweg), who in general accepts the authorised canon of the Platonic writings, to condemn the Parmenides as spurious. The acci dental want of external evidence, at first sight, seems to favour this opinion. In answer, it might be sufficient to say, that no ancient writing of equal length and excellence is known to be spurious. Nor is the silence of Aristotle to be hastily assumed; there is at least a doubt whether his use of the same arguments does not involve the inference that he knew the work. And, if the Parmenides is spurious, like Ueberweg we are led on further than we originally intended, to pass a similar condemna tion on the Theaetetus and Sophist, and therefore on the Politicus (cp. Theaet. 183 E, Soph. 217). But the objection is in reality fanciful, and rests on the assumption that the doctrine of the ideas was held by Plato throughout his life in the same form. For the truth is, that the Platonic ideas were in constant process of growth and trans- 124 PARMENIDES. mutation ; sometimes veiled in poetry and mythology, then again emerging as abstract ideas, in some passages regarded as absolute and eternal, and in others as relative to the human mind, existing in and derived from external objects as well as transcending them. The anamnesis of the ideas is chiefly insisted upon in the mythical portions of the dialogues, and really occupies a very small space in the entire works of Plato. Their transcendental existence is not asserted, and is therefore implicitly denied in the Republic and Philebus ; and they are mentioned in the Theaetetus, the Sophist, the Politicus, and the Laws, much as Universals would be spoken of in modern books. Indeed, there are very faint traces of the transcendental doctrine of ideas, that is, of their existence apart from the mind, in any of Plato's writings, with the exception of the Meno, the Phaedrus, and the Phaedo. The stereotyped form which Aristotle has given to them is not found in Plato. The full discussion of this subject involves a comprehensive survey of the philosophy of Plato, which would be out of place here. But, without digressing further from the immediate subject of the Parmenides, we may remark that Plato is quite serious in his objections to his own doctrines \ this is proved by the circumstance that they are not answered by Socrates. The perplexities which surround the one and many in the sphere of the ideas are also alluded to in the Philebus, and no answer is given to them. Nor have they ever been answered, nor can they be answered by any one else who separates the phenomenal from the real. To suppose that Plato, at a later period of his life, reached a point of view from which he was able to answer them, is a mere groundless assumption. The real progress of Plato's own mind has been partly concealed from us by the dogmatic statements of Aristotle, and also by the degeneracy of his own followers, with whom a doctrine of numbers quickly superseded ideas. As a preparation for answering some of the difficulties which have been suggested, we may begin, by sketching the first portion of the dialogue : — Cephalus, of Clazomenae in Ionia, the birthplace of Anaxagoras, a citizen of no mean city in the history of philosophy, who is the narrator of the dialogue, describes himself as meeting Adeimantus and Glaucon in the Agora at Athens. ' Welcome, Cephalus : can we do anything for you in Athens ? ' ' Why, yes : I came to ask a favour of you. First, tell me your half-brother's name, which I have forgotten — he was a mere child when I was last here ; — I know his father's, which is Pyrilampes/ ' Yes, INTR OD UCTION. 1 2 5 and the name of our brother, Antiphon. But why do you ask ? ' ' On behalf of some countrymen of mine, who are lovers of philosophy ; they have heard that Antiphon remembers a conversation of Socrates with Parmenides and Zeno, of which the report came to him from Pythodorus, Zeno's friend/ ' That is quite true/ ' And can we hear the dialogue ? ' 'Nothing easier; in the days of his youth he made a careful study of the piece ; at present, his thoughts have another direction : he takes after his grandfather, and has given up philosophy for horses/ ' We went to look for him, and found him giving instructions to a worker in brass about a bridle. When he had done with him, and had learned from his brother the purpose of our visit, he saluted me as an acquaintance whom he remembered of old, and we asked him to repeat the dialogue. At first, he complained of the trouble, but he soon con sented. He told us that Pythodorus described to him the appearance of Parmenides and Zeno; they had come to Athens at the great Pan- athenaea, the former being at the time about sixty-five years old, aged but well-favoured — Zeno, who was said to have been beloved of Par menides in the days of his youth, about forty, and very good-looking : — • that they lodged with Pythodorus at the Ceramicus outside the wall, whither Socrates, who was at that time a very young man, came to see them : Zeno was reading one of his theses, which he had nearly finished, when Pythodorus entered with Parmenides and Aristoteles, who was after wards one of the Thirty — (Pythodorus himself had heard them before)— and Socrates was requesting that the first thesis of the treatise might be read again/ ' You mean, Zeno/ said Socrates, * to argue that the many, if they exist, must be both like and unlike, which is a contradiction ; and each division of your argument is intended to elicit a similar absurdity, which may be supposed to follow from the assumption of the existence of the many/ ' That is my meaning/ ' I see/ said Socrates, turning to Par menides, ' that Zeno is your second self in his writings too ; you prove admirably that the all is one : he gives proofs no less convincing that the many are nought. To deceive the world by saying the same thing in entirely different forms, is a strain of art beyond most of us/ ' Yes, Socrates/ said Zeno ; ' but though you are as keen as a Spartan hound, you do not quite catch the motive of the piece, which was only intended to protect Parmenides against ridicule by showing that the hypothesis of the existence of the many involved greater absurdities than the hypothesis i26 PARMENIDES. of the one. The book was a youthful composition of mine, which was stolen from me, and therefore I had no choice about the publication.' ' I quite believe you,' said Socrates ; ' but will you answer me a question ? I should like to know, whether you would assume an idea of likeness in the abstract, which is the contradictory of unlikeness in the abstract, by participation in either or both of which, things are like or unlike or partly both. For the same things may very well partake of like and unlike in the concrete, though like and unlike in the abstract are irreconcileable. Nor does there appear to me to be any absurdity in maintaining that the same things may partake of the one and many, though I should be indeed surprised to hear that the absolute one is also many. For example, I, being many, that is to say, having many parts or members, am yet also one, and partake of the one, being one of seven who are here present. (Cp. Philebus 14, 15.) This is not an absurdity, but a truism. But I should be amazed if there were a similar entanglement in the nature of the ideas themselves, nor can I believe that one and many, like and unlike, rest and motion, in the abstract, are capable either of admixture or of separation. Pythodorus said that in his opinion Parmenides and Zeno were not very well pleased at the questions which were raised ; nevertheless, they looked at one another and smiled in seeming delight and admiration of Socrates. ' Tell me/ said Parmenides, ' was this your own distinction between the abstract ideas of likeness, unity, and the rest, and the individuals which partake of the ideas ? ' 'I think that there are such ideas/ ' And would you make abstract ideas of the just, the beautiful, the good ? ' ' Yes/ he said. ' And of human beings like ourselves, of water, fire, and the like ? ' 'I am not certain.' ' And would you be undecided also about ideas of which the mention will, perhaps, appear laughable : of hair, mud, filth, and other things which are base and vile ? ' ' No, Parmenides ; visible things like these are, as I believe, only what they appear to be : though I am sometimes disposed to imagine that there is nothing without an idea ; but I repress any such notion, from a fear of falling into an abyss of nonsense/ ' You are young, Socrates, and therefore naturally regard the opinions of men ; the time will come when philosophy will have a firmer hold of you, and you will not despise even the meanest things. But tell me, is your meaning that things become like by partaking of likeness, great by partaking of greatness, just and beautiful by partaking of justice and beauty, and so INTRODUCTION. 127 of other ideas ? ' ' Yes, that is my meaning.' 'And do you suppose the individual to partake of the whole, or of the part ? ' ' Why not in the whole?' said Socrates. 'Because/ said Parmenides, 'in that case the whole, which is one, will become many.' ' Nay/ said Socrates, ' the whole may be like the day, which is one and in many places : in this way the ideas may be one and also many.' ' In the same sort of way/ said Parmenides, ' as a sail, which is one, may be a cover to many — that is your meaning ?' ' Yes.' * And would you say that each man is covered by the whole sail, or by a part only ? ' ' By a part.' ' Then the ideas have parts, and the objects partake of a part of them only ? ' ' That seems to follow.' ' And would you like to say that the ideas are really divisible and yet remain one ? ' ' Certainly not.' ' Would you venture to affirm that great objects have a portion of greatness transferred to them ; or that small or equal objects become small or equal by the addition of a portion of smallness or equality which is greater than the portion which they originally have ? ' ' Impossible.' ' But in what other way can indi viduals participate in ideas, except those mentioned ? ' ' That is not an easy question to answer.' ' Is not the way in which you are led to con ceive ideas as follows : you see great objects pervaded by a common form or idea of greatness, which you abstract ? ' * That is quite true.' ' And supposing you add the idea of greatness thus gained to the class of great objects, a further idea of greatness arises, which makes both great ; and this may go on to infinity.' Socrates replies that the ideas may be thoughts in the mind only ; in this case, the consequence would no longer follow. But must not the thought be of something which is the same in all and is the idea ? ' But if the world partakes in the ideas, and the ideas are thoughts, must not all things think ? Or can thought be without thought ? ' 'I acknowledge the unmeaningness of this/ says Socrates, ' and would rather have recourse to the explanation that the ideas are types in nature, and that other things partake of them by becoming like them.' ' But to become like them is to be comprehended in the same idea ; and the likeness of the idea and the individuals implies another idea of likeness, and another without end.' ' Quite true.' ' The theory, then, of participation by likeness has to be given up. You have hardly yet, Socrates, found out the real difficulty of maintaining abstract ideas.' ' What difficulty ? ' ' The greatest of all perhaps is this : an opponent will argue that the ideas are not within the range of human knowledge ; and you cannot disprove the assertion without a long and iz8 PARMENIDES. laborious demonstration, which he may be unable or unwilling to follow. In the first place, neither you nor any one who maintains the existence of absolute ideas will affirm that they are subjective.' ' That would be a contradiction.' ' True ; and therefore any relation in these ideas is a relation which concerns themselves only; and the objects which are named after them, are relative to one another only, and have nothing to do with the ideas themselves.' f How do you mean ? ' said Socrates. ' I may illustrate my meaning in this way : one of us has a slave ; and the idea of a slave in the abstract is relative to the idea of a master in the abstract ; this correspondence of ideas, however, has nothing to do with the particular relation of our slave to us. — Do you see my meaning ? ' 'Perfectly.7 'And absolute knowledge in the same way corresponds to absolute truth and being, and particular knowledge to particular truth and being/ ' Clearly.' * And there is a subjective knowledge which is of subjective truth, having many kinds, general and particular. But the ideas themselves are not subjective, and therefore are not within our ken/ ' They are not/ ' Then the beautiful and the good in their own nature are unknown to us ? ' 'It would seem so/ ' There is a worse conse quence yet/ ' What is that ? ' 'I think we must admit that absolute knowledge is the most exact knowledge, which we must therefore attribute to God. But then see what follows : God, having this exact knowledge, can have no knowledge of human things, as we have divided the two spheres, and forbidden any passing from one to the other: — the gods have knowledge and authority in their world only, as we have in ours. Yet, surely, to deprive God of knowledge is monstrous. — These are some of the difficulties which are involved in the assumption of absolute ideas ; the learner will find them nearly impossible to understand, and the teacher who has to impart them will require superhuman ability; there will always be a suspicion, either that they have no existence, or are beyond human knowledge.' * I agree in that,' said Socrates. ' Yet if these difficulties induce you to give up universal ideas, what becomes of the mind ? and where are the reasoning and reflecting powers ? philosophy is at an end/ ' I certainly do not see my way/ ' I think,' said Parmenides, ' that this arises out of your attempting to define abstractions, such as the good and the beautiful and the just, before you have had sufficient previous training; I noticed your deficiency when you were talking with Aristoteles, the day before yesterday. Your enthusiasm is a wonderful gift ; but I fear that unless you discipline INTR OD UCTION. 1 29 enthusiasm is a wonderful gift ; but I fear that unless you discipline yourself by dialectic while you are young, truth will elude your grasp.' 'And what kind of discipline would you recommend?' 'The training which you heard Zeno practising ; at the same time, I admire your saying to him that you did not care to consider the difficulty in reference to visible objects, but only in relation to ideas.' 'Yes; because I think that in visible objects you may easily show any number of inconsistent consequences.' ' Yes ; and you should consider, not only the conse quences which follow from a given hypothesis, but the consequences also which follow from the denial of the hypothesis. For example, what follows from the assumption of the existence of the many, and the counter-argument of what follows from the denial of the existence of the many : and similarly of likeness and unlikeness, motion, rest, gene ration, corruption, being and not being. And the consequences must include consequences to the things supposed and to other things, in themselves and in relation to one another, to individuals whom you select, to the many, and to the all ; these must be drawn out both on the affirmative and on the negative hypothesis, — that is, if you are to train yourself perfectly to the intelligence of the truth.' ' What you are sug gesting seems to be a tremendous process, and one of which I do not quite understand the nature,' said Socrates ; ' will you give me an example ? ' 4 You must not impose such a task on a man of my years,' said Par- menides. ' Then will you, Zeno ?' ' Let us rather,' said Zeno, with a smile, ' ask Parmenides, for the undertaking is a serious one, as he truly says ; nor could I urge him to make the attempt, except in a select audience, who will understand him.' The whole party joined in the request. Here we have, first of all, an unmistakable attack made by the youthful Socrates on the paradoxes of Zeno. He perfectly understands their drift, and Zeno himself is supposed to admit this. But they appear to him, as he says in the Philebus also, to be rather truisms than paradoxes. For every one must acknowledge the obvious fact, that the body being one has many members, and that, in a thousand ways, the like partakes of the unlike, the many of the one. The real difficulty begins with the re lations of ideas in themselves, whether of the one and many, or of any other ideas, to one another and to the mind. But this was a problem which the Eleatic philosophers had never considered ; their thoughts had not gone beyond the contradictions of matter, motion, space, and the like. VOL. IV. K 130 PARMENIDES. It was no wonder that Parmenides and Zeno should hear the novel speculations of Socrates with mixed feelings of admiration and dis pleasure. . He was going out of the received circle of disputation into a region in which they could hardly follow him. From the rude idea of being in the abstract, he was about to proceed to universals or general notions. There is no contradiction in material things par taking of the ideas of one and many ; neither is there any contra diction in the ideas of one and many, like and unlike, in themselves. But the contradiction arises when we attempt to conceive ideas in their connection, or to ascertain their relation to phenomena. Still he affirms the existence of such ideas ; and this is the position which is now in turn submitted to the criticisms of Parmenides. To appreciate truly the character of these criticisms, we must remem ber the place held by Parmenides in the history of Greek philosophy. He is the founder of idealism, and also of dialectic, or, in modern phraseology, of metaphysics and logic. Like Plato, he is struggling after something wider and deeper than satisfied the contemporary Pythagoreans. And Plato with a true instinct recognises him as his spiritual father, whom he ' revered and honoured more than all other philosophers together/ He may be supposed to have thought more than he said, or was able to express. And, although he could not, as a matter of fact, have criticised the ideas of Plato without an anachronism, the criticism is appropriately placed in the mouth of the founder of the ideal philosophy. There was probably a time in the life of Plato when the ethical teaching of Socrates came into conflict with the metaphysical theories of the earlier philosophers, and he sought to supplement the one by the other. The older philosophers were great and awful; and they had the charm of antiquity. Something which found a response in his own mind seemed to have been lost as well as gained in the Socratic dialectic. He felt no incongruity in the veteran Parmenides correcting the youthful Socrates. Two points in his criticism are especially deserving of notice. First of all, Parmenides tries him by the test of consistency. Socrates is willing to assume ideas or prin ciples of the just, the beautiful, the good, and to extend them to man (cp. Phaedo 98) ; but he is reluctant to admit that there are general ideas of hair, mud, filth, etc. There is an ethical universal or idea, but is there also a universal of physics? of the meanest IN TROD UCTION. \ 3 1 things in the world as well as of the greatest ? Parmenides rebukes this want of consistency in Socrates, which he attributes to his youth. As he grows older, philosophy will take a firmer hold of him, and then he will despise neither great things nor small, and he will think less of the opinions of mankind. (Cp. Soph. 227 A.) Here is lightly touched one of the most familiar principles of modern philosophy, that in the meanest operations of nature, as well as in the noblest, in mud and filth, as well as in the sun and stars, great truths are contained. At the same time, we may note also the transition in the mind of Plato, to which Aristotle alludes (Met. i. 6, 2), when, as he says, he transferred the Socratic universal of ethics to the whole of nature. The other criticism of Parmenides on Socrates attributes to him a want of practice in dialectic. He has observed this deficiency in him when talking to Aristoteles on a previous occasion. Plato seems to imply that there was something more in the dialectic of Zeno than in the mere interrogation of Socrates. Here, again, he may perhaps be describing the process which his own mind went through when he first became more intimately acquainted, whether at Megara or elsewhere, with the Eleatic and Megarian philosophers. Still, Par menides does not deny to Socrates the credit of having gone beyond them in seeking to apply the paradoxes of Zeno to ideas ; and this is the application which he himself makes of them in the latter part of the dialogue. He then proceeds to explain to him the sort of mental gymnastic which he should practise. He should consider not only what would follow from a given hypothesis, but what would follow from the denial of it, to that which is the subject of the hypothesis, and to all other things. There is no trace in the Memorabilia of Xenophon of any such method being attributed to Socrates; nor is the dialectic here spoken of that 'favourite method' of proceeding by regular divisions, which is described in the Phaedrus and Philebus, and of which examples are given in the Politicus and in the Sophist. It is expressly spoken of (p. 135 E) as the method which Socrates had heard Zeno practise in the days of his youth. (Cp. Soph. 217 C.) The discussion of Socrates with Parmenides is one of the most remarkable passages in Plato. Few writers have ever been able to anticipate 'the criticism of the morrow' on their own favourite notions. But Plato may here be said to anticipate the judgment not only of the morrow, but of all after-ages on the Platonic ideas. For in some K 2 132 PARMENIDES. points he touches questions which have not yet received their solu tion in modern philosophy. The first difficulty which Parmenides raises respecting the Platonic ideas relates to the manner in which individuals are connected with them. Do they participate in the ideas, or do they merely resemble them ? Parmenides shows that objections may be urged against either of these modes of conceiving the connection. Things are little by partaking of littleness, great by partaking of greatness, and the like. But they cannot partake of a part of greatness, for that will not make them great, &c. ; nor can each object monopolise the whole. The only answer to this is, that ' partaking ' is a figure of speech, really corresponding to the processes which a later logic designates by the terms * abstraction ' and ' generalization/ When we have described accurately the methods or forms which the mind employs, we cannot further criticise them ; at least we can only criticise them with reference to their fitness as instruments of thought to express facts. Socrates attempts to support his view of the ideas by the parallel of the day, which is one and in many places ; but he is easily driven from this by a counter illustration of Parmenides, who compares the idea of greatness to a sail. He truly explains to Socrates that he has attained the conception of ideas by a process of generalization. At the same time, he points out a difficulty, which appears to be involved — viz. that the process of generalization will go on to infinity. Socrates meets the supposed difficulty by a flash of light, which is indeed the true answer ' that the ideas are in our minds only/ Neither realism is the truth, nor nominalism is the truth, but conceptualism ; and conceptualism or any other psychological theory falls very far short of the infinite subtlety of language and thought. But the realism of ancient philosophy will not admit of this answer, which is vigorously repelled by Parmenides with another half truth of later philosophy, ' Every subject or subjective must have an object/ Here is the great though unconscious truth (shall we say?) or error, which underlay the early Greek philosophy. ' Ideas must have a real existence/ they are not mere forms or opinions, which may be changed arbitrarily by individuals. But the early Greek philosopher never clearly sawr that true ideas were only universal facts, and that there might be error in universals as well as in particulars. Socrates makes one more attempt to defend the Platonic ideas by INTR OD UCTION. 1 33 representing them as paradigms; this is again answered by the 'argu- mentum ad infinitum.' We may remark, in passing, that the process which is thus described has no real existence. The mind, after having obtained a general idea, does not really go on to form another which includes that, and all the individuals contained under it, and another and another without end. The difficulty belongs in fact to the Megarian age of philosophy, and is due to their illogical logic, and to the general ignorance of the ancients respecting the part played by language in the process of thought. No such perplexity could ever trouble a modern metaphysician, any more than the fallacy of ' calvus ' or ' acervus,' or of 'Achilles and the tortoise.' These 'surds' of metaphysics ought to occasion no more difficulty in speculation than a perpetually recurring fraction in arithmetic. It is otherwise with the objection which follows : How are we to bridge the chasm between phenomena and onta, between gods and men ? This is the difficulty of philosophy in all ages : How can we get beyond the circle of our own ideas, or how, remaining within them, can we have any criterion of a truth beyond and independent of them ? Parmenides draws out this difficulty with great clearness. According to him, there are not only one but two chasms : the first, between individuals and the ideas which have a common name; the second, between the ideas in us and the ideas absolute. The first of these two difficulties mankind, as we may say, a little parodying the language of the Philebus, have long agreed to treat as obsolete; the second remains a difficulty for us as well as for the Greeks of the fourth century before Christ, and is the stumblingblock of Kant's critic, and of the Hamiltonian adaptation of Kant, as well as of the Platonic ideas. It has been said that ' you cannot criticise Revelation.' ' Then how do you know what is Revelation, or that there is one at all/ is the immediate rejoinder, — ' You know nothing of things in themselves.' 'Then how do you know that there are things in themselves?' In some respects, the difficulty pressed harder upon the Greek than upon ourselves. For conceiving of God more under the attribute of know ledge than we do, he was more under the necessity of separating the divine from the human, as two spheres which had no communication with one another. It is remarkable that Plato, speaking by the mouth of Parmenides, does not treat even this second class of difficulties as hopeless or 1 34 PA R MEN WE S. insoluble. He says only that they cannot be explained without a long and laborious demonstration : ' the teacher will require superhuman ability, and the learner will be hard of understanding/ But an attempt must be made to find an answer to them; for, as Socrates and Par- menides both admit, the denial of abstract ideas is the destruction of the mind. We can easily imagine that among the Greek schools of philosophy in the fourth century before Christ a panic might arise from the denial of universals, similar to that which arose in the last century from Hume's denial of our ideas of cause and effect. Men do not at first recognise that thought, like digestion, will go on much the same, notwithstanding any theories which may be entertained respecting the nature of the process. Parmenides attributes the diffi culties in which Socrates is involved to a want of comprehensiveness in his mode of reasoning; he should consider every question on the negative as well as the positive hypothesis, with reference to the con sequences which flow from the denial as well as from the assertion of a given statement. The argument which follows is one of the most singular in Plato. It appears to be an imitation, or parody, of the Zenonian dialectic, just as the speeches in the Phaedrus are an imitation of the style of Lysias, or as the derivations in the Cratylus, or the fallacies of the Euthydemus are a parody of some contemporary Sophist. The interlo cutor is not supposed, as in most of the other Platonic dialogues, to take a living part in the argument ; he is only required to say ' Yes ' and ' No ' in the right places. A hint has been already given that the paradoxes of Zeno admitted of a higher application (p. 129, 135 E). This hint is the thread by which Plato connects the two parts of the dialogue. The paradoxes of Parmenides seem trivial to us, because the words to which they relate have become trivial ; their true nature as abstract terms is perfectly understood by us, and we are inclined to regard the treatment of them in Plato as a mere straw-splitting, or leger demain of words. Yet there was a power in them which fascinated the Neoplatonists for centuries afterwards. Something that they found in them, or brought to them — some echo or anticipation of a great truth or error, exercised a wonderful influence over their minds. To do the Parmenides justice, we should imagine similar anoplat raised on themes as sacred to us, as the notions of one or being were to INTRODUCTION. 135 an ancient Eleatic. ' If God is, what follows ? if God is not, what follows?' Or again: "If God is or is not the world; or if God is or is not many, or has or has not parts, or is or is not in the world, or in time ; or is or is not finite or infinite. Or if the world is or is not ; or has or has not a beginning or end ; or is or is not infinite, or infinitely divisible. Or again: if God is or is not identical with his laws ; or if man is or is not identical with the laws of nature. We can easily see that here are many subjects for thought, and that from these and similar hypotheses questions of great interest might arise. And we also remark, that the conclusions derived from either \ of the two alternative propositions might be equally impossible and contradictory. When we ask what is the object of these paradoxes, some have answered that they are a mere logical puzzle, while others have seen in them an Hegelian propaedeutic of the doctrine of ideas. The first of these views derives support from the manner in which Parmenides speaks of a similar method being applied to all ideas. Yet it is hard to suppose that Plato would have furnished so elaborate an example, not of his own but of the Eleatic dialectic, had he intended only to give an illustration of method. The second view has been often over stated by those who, like Hegel himself, have tended to confuse ancient with modern philosophy. We need not deny that Plato, trained in the school of Cratylus and Heracleitus, may have seen that a contra diction in terms is sometimes the best expression of a truth higher than either (Soph. 255 ff). But his ideal theory is not based on anti nomies. The correlation of ideas was the metaphysical difficulty of the age in which he lived ; and the Megarian and Cynic philosophy was a ' reductio ad absurdum ' of their isolation. To restore them to their natural connection, and to detect the negative element in them is the aim of Plato in the Sophist. But his view of their connection falls very far short of the Hegelian identity of Being and Not-being. The Being and Not-being of Plato never merge in each other, though he is aware that ' determination is only negation/ After criticising the hypotheses of others, it may appear presumptuous to add another guess to the many which have been already offered. May we say, in Platonic language, that we still seem to see vestiges of a track which has not yet been taken ? It is quite possible that the obscurity of the Parmenides would not have existed to a contemporary 136 PARMENIDES. student of philosophy, and, like the similar difficulty in the Philebus, is really due to our ignorance of the philosophy of the age. There is an obscure Megarian influence on Plato which cannot wholly be cleared up, and is not much illustrated by the doubtful tradition of his retirement to Megara after the death of Socrates. For Megara was within a walk of Athens (Phaedr. 227 E), and Plato might have learned the Megarian doctrines without settling there. We may begin by remarking that the theses of Parmenides are expressly said to follow the method of Zeno, and that the complex dilemma, though declared to be capable of universal application, is applied in this instance to Zeno's familiar question of the ' one and many.' Here, then, is a double indication of the connection of the Parmenides with the Eristic school. The old Eleatics had asserted the existence of Being, which they at first regarded as finite, then as infinite, then as neither finite nor infinite, to which some of them had given what Aristotle calls 'a form/ others had ascribed a material nature only. The tendency of their philosophy was to deny to Being all predicates. The Megarians, who succeeded them, like the Cynics, affirmed that no predicate could be asserted of any subject j they also converted the idea of Being into that of Good, perhaps with the view of preserving a sort of neutrality or indifference between the mind and things. As if they had said, in the language of modern philosophy: 'Being is not only neither finite nor infinite, neither at rest nor in motion, but neither subjective nor objective.' This is the track along which Plato is leading us. Zeno had attempted to prove the existence of the one by disproving the exist ence of the many, and Parmenides seems to aim at proving the existence of the subject by showing the contradictions which follow from the assertion of any predicates. Take the simplest of all notions, 1 unity '; you cannot even assert being or time of this without involving a contradiction. But is the contradiction also the final conclusion? Probably no more than of Zeno's denial of the many, or of Parmenides' assault upon the Ideas ; no more than of the earlier dialogues ' of search/ To us there seems to be no residuum of this long piece of dialectics. But to the mind of Parmenides and Plato, * Gott-betrunkene menschen,' there still remained the idea of ' being ' or ' good,' which could not be conceived, defined, uttered, but could not be got rid of. Neither of them would have imagined that their disputation ever touched the Divine Being. INTR OD UCTION. 1 3 7 (Cp. Phil. 22 C.) The same difficulties about Unity and Being are raised in the Sophist (250 ff) ; but there only as preliminary to their final solution. If this view is correct, the real aim of the hypotheses of Par- menides is to criticise the earlier Eleatic philosophy from the point of view of Zeno or the Megarians. It is the same kind of criticism which Plato has extended to his own doctrine of ideas. Nor is there anything inconsistent in attributing to the 'father Parmenides' the last review of the Eleatic doctrines. The latest phases of all philo sophies were fathered upon the founder of the school. Other critics have regarded the final conclusion of the Parmenides either as sceptical or as Heraclitean. In the first case, they assume that Plato means to show the impossibility of any truth. But this is not the spirit of Plato, and could not with propriety be put into the mouth of Parmenides, who, in this very dialogue, is urging Socrates, not to doubt everything, but to discipline his mind with a view to the more precise attainment of truth. The same remark applies to the second of the two theories. Plato everywhere ridicules (perhaps un fairly) his Heraclitean contemporaries : and if he had intended to support an Heraclitean thesis, would hardly have chosen Parmenides the condemner of the ' undiscerning tribe who say that things both are and are not/ to be the speaker. Nor, thirdly, can we easily persuade ourselves with Zeller that by the ' one ' he means the idea ; and that he is seeking to prove indirectly the unity of the idea in the multiplicity of phenomena. We may now endeavour to thread the mazes of the labyrinth which Parmenides knew so well, and trembled at the thought of them. The argument has two divisions : There is the hypothesis that i. One is. ii. One is not. If one is, it is nothing.- If one is not, it is everything. But is and is not may be taken in two senses : Either one is one, Or, one has being, from which opposite consequences are deduced, i. a. If one is one, it is nothing (137 0—142 B). i. b. If one has being, it is all things (142 B — 157 B), PARMENIDES. To which are appended two subordinate consequences : i. aa. If one has being, all other things are (157 B — 159 B). i. bb. If one is one, all other things are not (159 B — 160 B). The same distinction is then applied to the negative hypothesis : ii. a. If one is not one, it is all things (160 B — 163 B). ii. b. If one has not being, it is nothing (163 B — 164 B). Involving two parallel consequences respecting the other or remainder : ii. aa. If one is not one, other things are all (164 B — 165 E). ii. bb. If one has not being, other things are not (165 E to the end). ' I cannot refuse,' said Parmenides, ' since, as Zeno remarks, we are alone, though I may say with Ibycus, who in his old age fell in love, I, like the old racehorse, tremble at the prospect of the course which I am to run, and which I know so well. But as I must attempt this laborious game, what shall be the subject? Suppose I take my own hypothesis of the one.' ' By all means,' said Zeno. * And who will answer me ? Shall I propose the youngest ? he will be the most likely to say what he thinks, and his answers will give me time to breathe/ I 1 am the youngest,' said Aristoteles, ' and at your service ; proceed with your questions.' — The result may be summed up as follows: i. a. One is not many, and therefore has no parts, and therefore is not a whole, which is a sum of parts, and therefore has neither begin ning, middle, nor end, and is therefore unlimited, and therefore neither round nor straight, because the round has a centre and circumference, and in the straight there is a middle which is between the extremes ; and therefore is not in place, whether in another which would encircle and touch the one at many points and in many parts; or in itself, because that which is self-containing is also contained, and therefore not one but two. This being premised, let us consider whether one is capable either of motion or rest. Motion is either change of sub stance, or motion on an axis, or from one place to another. But the one is incapable of change of substance, which implies change from one to another, or of motion on an axis, because the axis has parts around the axis ; and any other motion involves change of place. But existence in place has been already shown to be impossible; and yet more impossible is coming into being, which implies partial existence INTR OD UCTION. 1 39 in two places at once, or entire existence neither within nor without the same ; and how can this be ? And more impossible still is the coming into being either as a whole or parts of that which is neither a whole nor parts. The one, then, is incapable of motion. But neither can the one be in anything, and therefore not in the same, whether itself or some other, and is therefore incapable of rest. Neither is one the same with itself or any other, or other of itself or any other. For if other of itself, then other of one, and therefore no longer one ; and, if the same with other, it would be other, and other of one. Neither can one while remaining one be other of other ; for other, and not one, is the other of other. But if not other by virtue of being one, not by virtue of itself; and if not by virtue of itself, not itself other, and if not itself other, not the other of anything. Neither will one be the same with itself. For the nature of the same is not that of the one, but a thing which becomes the same with anything does not necessarily become one ; for example, that which becomes the same with the many becomes many and not one. And therefore if the one is the same with itself, the one is not one with itself; and therefore one and not one. And therefore one is neither other of other, nor the same with itself. Neither will the one be like or unlike itself or other ; for likeness is sameness of affections, and the one and the same are different. And one having any affection which is other than the one would be more than one. The one, then, cannot be like, or have the same affection with, itself or other ; nor can the one have any other affection, that is, be unlike itself or any other, for that would involve more than one. The one, then, is neither like nor unlike itself or other. This being the case, neither can the one be equal or unequal to itself or other. For equality implies sameness of measure, as inequality implies a greater or less number or size of measures. But the one, not having sameness, cannot have sameness of measure; nor a greater or less number of measures, for that would imply parts and multitude. Once more, can one be older or younger than itself? or of the same age with itself? That would imply like ness and unlikeness, sameness and difference. Therefore one cannot be in time, because that which is in time is ever becoming older and younger than itself, (for older and younger are relative terms, and he who becomes older becomes younger,) and is also of the same age with itself. None of which, or any other expressions of time, whether 140 PARMENIDE&. past, future, or present, can be affirmed of one. One neither is, has been, nor will be, nor becomes, nor has, nor will become. And, as these are the only modes of being, one is not, and is not one. But to that which is not, there is no attribute or relation, neither name nor word nor idea nor science nor perception nor opinion appertaining. One, then, is neither named, nor uttered, nor known, nor perceived, nor imagined. But can all this be true ? ' I think not.' i. b. Let us, however, commence the inquiry again. Assume that one is, and what new train of consequences will follow? If one is, one partakes of being, which is, and is not the same with one; the words ' being ' and ' one ' have different meanings. Observe the con sequence : In the one of being or the being of one are two parts, being and one, which form one whole. And each of the two parts is also a whole, and involves the other, and may be further subdivided into one and being, and is therefore not one but two; and thus one is never one, and the one being in this way becomes many and infinite. Again, let us conceive of a one which by an effort of abstraction we separate from being : will this abstract one be one or many ? You say one only; let us see. In the first place, the being of one is other of one ; and one and being, if separate, mutually exclude each other : and the very term ' each other ' implies that both partake of the nature of other, which is therefore neither one nor being; and whether we take being and other, or being and one, or one and other, in any case we have two things which separately are called either, and together both. And both are two and either of two is severally one, and if one be added to any of the pairs, the sum is three; — as two they are even, as three they are odd ; and being two units they exist twice, and therefore are twice two; and being three units, they exist thrice, and therefore are thrice three, and taken together they are twice three and thrice two : they are even numbers multiplied into even, and odd into even, and even into odd numbers; But if one is, and both odd and even numbers are included in one, must not every number exist ? And number is infinite, and therefore existence must be infinite, for every number partakes of being, and every fraction of every number partakes of being; therefore being has the greatest number of parts, and every part, however great or however small, is equally one. But can one be in many places and yet be a whole ? If not a whole it must be divided into parts and represented by a number corresponding INTRODUCTION. 141 to the number of the parts. And if so, we were wrong in saying that being has the greatest number of parts; for being is coequal and coextensive with one, and has no more parts than one ; and the one broken up into parts by being is many and infinite. But the parts are parts of a whole, and the whole is a limit, and the one is therefore limited as well as infinite ; and that which is a whole has beginning, middle, and end, and a middle is equidistant from the extremes ; and one is therefore of a certain round or straight figure, which being a whole includes all the parts which are the whole, and is therefore self-contained. But then, again, the whole is not in the parts, whether all or some. Not in all, because, if in all, also in one ; for, if wanting in any one, how in all ? — not in some, because the greater would then be contained in the less. But if not in all, nor in any, nor in some, either nowhere or in other. And if nowhere, nothing; therefore in other. The one as a whole, then, is in another, but regarded as a sum of parts is in itself; and is, therefore, both in itself and in another. This being the case, the one is at once both at rest and in motion : at rest, because resting in itself; in motion, because it is ever in other. And if there is truth in what has preceded, one is the same and not the same with itself and all other. For everything in relation to every other thing is either the same with it or other; or if neither the same nor other, then in the relation of part to a whole or whole to a part. But one cannot be a part or whole in relation to one, nor other than one ; and is therefore the same with one. Yet this sameness is again contradicted by one being in another place from itself which is in the same place; this follows from one being in itself and in another ; one, therefore, is other than itself. But if anything is other of anything, will it not be other of other? And the not one is other of the one, and the one of the not one ; therefore one is other of all others. But the same and the other exclude one another, and therefore the other can never be in the same ; nor can the other be in anything for ever so short a time, as for that time the other will be in the same. And the other, if never in the same, cannot be either in the one or the not one. And one is not other than not one, either by reason of other or of itself; and therefore they are not other of one another at all. Neither can the not one partake of one, for it would cease to be not one, and therefore it cannot be a part ; nor can the not one be number, for that also 142 PARMENWES, involves one. And therefore, not being other or related to other as a whole to parts or parts to a whole, not one is the same as one. Wherefore the one is the same and also not the same with the others and also with itself; and is therefore like and unlike itself and the others, and just as different from the others as they are from the one, neither more nor less. But if neither more nor less, equally different ; and therefore the one and the others are in the same relations. This may be illustrated by the case of names : when you repeat the same name twice over, you mean the same thing; and when you say that the other is other of the one, or the one other of the other, this very word other (crepov), which is attributed to both, implies sameness. One, then, as being other of others, and other as being other of one, are alike in the relation of other; and likeness is similarity of relations. And everything as being other of everything is also like everything. Again, the like is opposed to the unlike, and the other to the same, and the one has been shown to be the same with the others. Now to be the same with the others is the opposite of being other of the others ; and the one, as other of the others, has been shown to be like the others; and therefore, being the same, is unlike. One, then, is both like and unlike the others ; like, as being other, unlike, as being the same. Again, one, as having the same relations, has no difference of relation, and is therefore not unlike, and therefore like ; or, as having different relations, is different and unlike. Thus, one, as being the same and not the same with itself and others — for both these reasons and for either of them — is also like and unlike itself and the others. Again, how far can one touch itself and the others? As existing in others, it touches the others; and as existing in itself, touches only itself. But in another point of view, that which touches another must be next in order of place ; one, therefore, must be next in order of place to itself, and would therefore be two, and in two places. But one cannot be two, and therefore cannot be in contact with itself. Neither can one touch the other ; for that which touches another must touch immediately, without any middle or intermediate term. Two objects are required to make one contact; three objects make two contacts ; and all the objects in the world have as many contacts as there are objects, less one. But if one only exists, and not two, there is no contact. And the others are other than one, and have no part in one, and therefore none in number, and therefore two has no exist- INTR OD UCTION. 1 43 ence, and therefore there is no contact. For all which reasons, one has and has not contact with itself and the others. Once more, Is one equal and unequal to itself and the others? Suppose one and the others to be greater or less than each other or equal to one another, they will not be greater or less or equal in themselves, but by reason of equality or greatness or smallness inhering in them in addition to their own proper nature. Let us begin by assuming smallness to be inherent in one : in this case the inherence is either in the whole or in a part. If the first, smallness is either coex tensive with the whole one, or contains the whole, and, if coextensive with the one, is equal to the one, or if containing the one will be greater than the one. But smallness is thus identified with equality or with greatness, which is impossible. Again, if the inherence be in a part, the same contradiction follows : smallness will be equal to the part or greater than the part; therefore smallness will not inhere in anything, and except the idea of smallness there will be nothing small. Neither will greatness ; for greatness is relative to smallness. And there will be no great or small in objects, but only greatness or small- ness in relation to each other; therefore the others cannot be greater or less than the one, or in any relation of magnitude to the one; also they can neither exceed nor be exceeded by one another, and are therefore equal to one another. And this will be true also of the one in relation to itself: one will be equal to itself and the others (raAAa). Yet one, being in itself, must also be about itself, containing and contained, and is therefore greater and less than itself. Further, there is nothing beside the one and the others ; and as these must be in something, they must therefore be in one another ; and as that in which a thing is is greater than the thing, the inference is that they are both greater and less than one another, because containing and contained in one another. Therefore the one is equal to and greater and less than itself or other, having also measures or parts or numbers equal to or greater or less than itself or other. But does one partake of time ? This must be acknowledged, if the one partakes of being. For to be is the participation of being, present, past, or future. And as time is ever moving forward, the one becomes older than itself; and in becoming older becomes younger; and is older and also younger when it arrives at the present ; and therefore becomes and is not older and younger than itself and all other 144 PARMENIDES. things: — for becoming is a progress into the future which cannot leave the past without resting in the present ; this is ever the case in all things to which the term 'is' or 'being' can be applied. Yet 'one' being in time is and becomes always in the same time with itself, and is therefore contemporary \vith itself, and therefore neither older nor younger than itself. And what are the relations of the one to the others? Are they older or younger than one another? At any rate the others are more than one, and one, being the lesser number, must have been prior to the greater, or many. But on the other hand, one must come into being in a manner accordant with its own nature. Now one has parts, and has therefore a beginning, middle, and end, of which the beginning is first and the end last. And the parts come into exist ence first, and the whole contemporaneously with the end last, and is therefore younger, and the parts older than one. But, again, the one comes into being in each of the parts as much as in the whole, and must be of the same age with them. Therefore one is at once older and younger than the parts, and also contemporaneous with them, for no part can be a part which is not one. Is this true of becoming as well as being? Thus much may be affirmed, that the same things which are older or younger cannot become older or younger by the addition of equal times in a greater degree than they were at first. But, on the other hand, one, if older than other things, has come into being a longer time than they have. And when equal time is added to a longer and shorter, the relative difference between them is dimi nished. In this way that which was older becomes younger, and that which was younger becomes older, that is to say, younger and older than at first; and they ever become and never have become, for then they would be. Thus the one and others are always in a process of not becoming and becoming younger and also older than one another. And one, partaking of time and also partaking of becoming elder and younger, admits of all time, present, past, and future — was, is, shall be — was becoming, is becoming, will become. And there is a science and opinion and name and definition of the one, as is already implied in the fact of our inquiry. Yet once more, if one be one and many, and neither one nor many, and also participant of time, must there not be a time at which one as one partakes of being, and a time when one as not being one is deprived of being ? But these two contradictory states cannot be experienced by INTR OD UCTION. 1 45 the one both together: there must be a time of transition. And the transition is a process of generation and destruction, into and from being and not being, the one and the others. For the generation of the one is the destruction of the others, and the generation of the others is the destruction of the one. There is also separation and aggrega tion, assimilation and dissimilation, increase, diminution, equalization, a passage from motion to rest, and from rest to motion in the one and many. But when do all these changes take place ? When does motion become rest, or rest motion? The answer to this question will throw a light upon all the others. Nothing can be in motion and at rest at the same time ; and therefore the change takes place 'in a moment' — which is a strange expression, and seems to mean change in no time. Which is true also of all the other changes, which likewise take place in no time. i. aa. But if one is, what happens to the others, which in the first place are not one, yet may partake of one in a certain way? The others are other of the one because they have parts, for if they had no parts they would be simply one, and parts imply a whole to which they belong ; otherwise they would be parts of others, that is, of them selves and of all other parts, which is absurd. For a part, if not a part of one, must be a part of all but this one, and if so not a part of each one ; and if not a part of each one, not a part of any one of many, and so not of one ; and if of none, how of all ? Therefore a part is neither a part of many nor of all, but of an absolute and perfect whole or one. And if the others have parts, they must partake of the whole, and must be the whole of which they are the parts. And each part, as the word ' each ' implies, is also an absolute one which is abstracted from the rest. And both the whole and the parts partake of one, for the one is a whole of which the parts are parts, and each one is one part of the whole ; and whole and parts as participating in one are other of one, and as being other of one are many and infinite ; for however small a fraction you separate from them is many and not one. Yet the fact of their being parts furnishes them with a limit towards other parts and towards the whole ; they are finite and also infinite : finite through parti cipation in the one, infinite in their own nature. And as being finite, they are alike ; and as being infinite, they are alike ; but as being both finite and also infinite, they are in the highest degree unlike. And all other opposites might without difficulty be shown to unite in them. VOL. IV. L 146 PARMENIDES. i. bb. Once more, leaving all this : Is there not also an opposite series of consequences which is equally true of the others, and may be deduced from the existence of one ? There is. One is distinct from the others, and the others from one; for one and the others are all things, and there is no third existence besides them. And as they exclude each other, they are not in the relation of whole and parts, nor can the others have any unity, and therefore not plurality, nor duality, nor any other number, nor any opposition or distinction, such as likeness and unlike - ness, some and other, generation and corruption, odd and even. For if they had these they would partake either of one opposite, and this would be a participation in one ; or of two opposites, and this would be a par ticipation in two. Thus if one exists, one is all things, and likewise nothing, in relation to one and to the others. / ii. a. But, again, assume the opposite hypothesis, that the one is not, and what is the consequence ? In the first place, the proposition, that one is not, is clearly opposed to the proposition, that not one is not. In the words ' one is not ' there is an assumption of a known difference, which is implied in the word ' one ' ; for the subject of every proposition is a particular thing, whether the verb of existence is affirmed or denied. If then the one is not, there must be knowledge of the one, or that which is not would be unknown; and the one which is not must be different from other things; moreover, this and that, some and other, may be all attributes of the one which is not, and which though non existent may and must have many attributes, if the one only is non existent and not the others ; but if all is not-being there is nothing which can be spoken of. Also the one which is not differs, and is different in kind from the others, and therefore unlike them ; and they being other than the one, are unlike the one, which is therefore unlike them. But one, being unlike other, must be like itself; for the unlike- ness of one to itself is the destruction of the hypothesis of the one ; and if like itself, one cannot be equal to the others ; for that would suppose being in the one, and the others would be equal to one and like one ; both which are impossible, if one does not exist. The one which is not, then, if not equal is unequal to the others, and inequality implies great and small, and equality is in a mean between great and small, and there fore the one which is not partakes of equality. Further, the one which is not has being ; for if you deny the being of the non-existent, in that case the not being of the one would be untruly affirmed ; but if truly, INTR OD UCTION. 1 47 then we must affirm being of the one which is not, for that which is true is. And so the one which is not, if remitting aught of the being of non-existence, would become being. For not being implies the being of not-being, and being the not-being of not being ; or more truly being partakes both of the being of being and of the not-being of not-being, and not being of the not being of not-being and of the being of being. And therefore the one which is not has being and also not-being. And the union of being and not being involves change or motion. But how can not-being, which is nowhere, move or change, either from one place to another or in the same place ? And whether it is or is not, it would cease to be one if experiencing a change of substance. The one which is not, then, is both in motion and at rest, is changed and unchanged, and created and destroyed, and uncreated and undestroyed. ii. b. Once more, let us ask the question, If one is not, what happens in regard to one ? The expression ' is not ' implies negation of being : — do we mean by this to say that a thing, which is not, in a certain sense is ? or do we mean absolutely to deny being to one ? The latter. Then the one which is not can neither be nor become nor perish nor expe rience change of substance or place. Neither can rest, or motion, or greatness, or smallness, or equality, or unlikeness, or likeness either to itself or other, or of or to another, or this or that, or any other relation, or now or hereafter or formerly, or knowledge or opinion or perception or name or anything else be attributed to that which is not. ii aa. Once more, if one is not, what becomes of the others ? If we speak of them they must be, and their very name implies difference, and difference implies relation, not to the one, which is not, but to one another. And they are others of each other not as units but as infinities, the least of which is also infinity, and capable of infinitesimal division, as in a dream the single image multiplies, and the least things when you approach them, grow large. And they will have no unity or number, but only a semblance of unity and number; and the least fraction of them will appear large and manifold in comparison with the infinitesimal fractions into which they may be divided. Further, each of them will have the appearance of being equal with the fractions. For in passing from the greater to the less there is an intermediate point, which is equality. Moreover, each particle in relation to itself and to some other is also infinite; there is a beginning before the beginning, and a middle of the middle, and an end beyond the end, because the L 2 148 PARMENIDES. infinitesimal division is never arrested by the one. Thus all being is one at a distance, and broken up when near, and like at a distance and unlike when near; and also the particles which compose being seem to be like and unlike, in rest and motion, in generation and corruption, in contact and separation, if one is not. ii. bb. Once more, let us inquire, If the one is not, and the others of the one are, what follows ? In the first place, the others will not be the one, nor the many, for in that case the one would be contained in them ; neither will they appear to be one or many ; because they have no com munion or participation in that which is not, nor semblance of that which is not. If one is not, the others neither are, nor appear to be one or many, like or unlike, in contact or separation. In short, if one is not, nothing is. The result of all which is, that whether one is or is not, one and the others, in relation to themselves and to one another, are and are not, and appear and appear not, in all manner of ways. I. On the first hypothesis we may remark : first, That one is one is an identical proposition, from which we might expect that no further con sequences could be deduced. The train of consequences which follows, is inferred by altering the predicate into ' not many.' Yet, perhaps, if a strict Eristic had been present, olos dv^p el KOL vvv nap^v, he might have affirmed that the not many presented a different aspect of the conception from the one, and was therefore not identical with it. Such a subtlety would be very much in character with the Zenonian dialectic. Secondly, we may note, that the conclusion is really involved in the beginning. For one is conceived as one, in a sense which excludes all predicates. When the meaning of one has been reduced to a point, there is no use in saying that it has neither parts nor magnitude. Thirdly, The con ception of the same is, first of all, identified with the one ; and then by a further analysis distinguished from, and even opposed to, the one. Fourthly, We may detect notions, which have reappeared in modern philosophy, e. g. the bare abstraction of undefined unity, answering to the Hegelian ' Seyn/ or the identity of contradictions ' that which is older is also younger/ etc., cp. 152, or the Kantian conception of an a priori synthetical proposition 'one is/ INTRODUCTION. 149 II. In the first series of propositions the word ' is ' is the copula ; in the second, the verb of existence. As in the first series, the negative consequence followed from one being affirmed to be equivalent to the not many; so here the affirmative consequence is deduced from one being equivalent to the many. In the former case, nothing could be predicated of the one, but now everything — multitude, relation, place, time, transition. One is regarded in all the aspects of one, and with a reference to all the consequences which flow, either from the combination or the separation of them. The notion of transition involves the singular extra temporal conception of ' suddenness.' This idea of 'suddenness' is a mere fiction, and yet we may observe that similar antinomies have led modern philosophers to deny the reality of time and space. It is not the infinitesimal of time, but the negative of time. By the help of this invention the conception of change, which sorely exercised the minds of early thinkers, seems to be, but is not really at all explained. The processes by which Parmenides obtains his remarkable results may be summed up as follows : ( i ) Compound or correlative ideas which involve each other, such as, being and not being, part and whole, one and others, are conceived sometimes in a state of composition, and sometimes of division : (2) The division or distinction is heightened into total opposition, e. g. between one and same : or (3) The idea, which has been already divided, is regarded, like a number, as capable of further infinite subdivision: (4) The idea of being or not-being is identified with existence or non-existence in place or time : (5) The same ideas are regarded sometimes as in process of transition, some times as alternatives or opposites : (6) There are no degrees of sameness, likeness, difference, nor any conception of motion or change : (7) One, being, etc., like space in Zeno's puzzle of Achilles and the tortoise, are regarded sometimes as continuous and sometimes as discrete : (8) In some parts of the argument the abstraction is so rarefied as to become not only fallacious, but almost unintelligible, e. g. in the process by which odd numbers are multiplied into even numbers, or even numbers into odd ones (143 E); or in the contradiction which is elicited out of the relative terms older and younger at p. 152 : (9) Words are used through long chains of argument, sometimes loosely, sometimes with the precision of numbers or geometrical figures. In all this we seem to breathe the spirit of the Megarian philosophy. 150 PARMENIDES. Plato has gone beyond his Megarian contemporaries ; he has split their straws over again, and admitted more than they would have desired. He is indulging the analytical tendencies of his age, which can divide but not combine. And he does not stop to inquire whether the dis tinctions which he makes are shadowy and fallacious, but ' whither the argument blows ' he follows. III. The negative series of propositions contains the first conception of the negation of a negation. Two minus signs in arithmetic or algebra make a plus. Two negatives destroy each other. This subtle notion is the foundation of the Hegelian logic. The mind must not only admit that determination is negation, but must get through negation into affir mation. Whether this process is real, or in any way an assistance to thought, or, like some other logical forms, a mere figure of speech trans ferred from the sphere of mathematics, may be doubted. That Plato and the most subtle philosopher of the nineteenth century should have lighted upon the same notion, is a singular coincidence of ancient and modern thought. IV. The one and the many or others are reduced to their strictest arithmetical meaning. That one is three or three one, is a proposition which has, perhaps, given rise to more controversy in the world than any other. But no one has ever meant to say that three and one are to be taken in the same sense. Whereas the one and many of the Par- menides have precisely the same meaning; there is no notion of one personality or substance having many attributes or qualities. The truth seems to be rather the opposite of that which Socrates implies at p. 129 : There is no contradiction in the concrete, but in the abstract, and the more abstract the idea, the more palpable will be the contradiction. For just as nothing can persuade us that the number one is the number three, so neither can we be persuaded that any abstract idea is identical with its opposite, although they may both inhere together in some external object, or some more comprehensive conception. Ideas, per sons, things may be one in one sense and many in another, and may have various degrees of unity and plurality. But in whatever sense and in whatever degree they are one they cease to be many ; and in whatever degree or sense they are many they cease to be one. Two points remain to be considered : i st, the connection between the first and second parts of the dialogue; 2ndly, the relation of the Par- menides to the other dialogues. INTR OD UCTION. 1 5 1 I. In both divisions of the dialogue the principal speaker is the same, and the method pursued by him is also the same, being a criticism on received opinions: first, on the doctrine of ideas; secondly, of being. From the Platonic ideas we naturally proceed to the Eleatic one or being which is the foundation of them. They are the same philosophy in two forms, and the simpler form is the truer and deeper. For the Platonic ideas are mere numerical differences, and the moment we attempt to distinguish between them, their transcendental character is lost; ideas of justice, temperance, and good, are really distinguishable only with reference to their application in the world. If we once ask how they are related to individuals or to the ideas of the divine mind, they are again merged in the aboriginal notion of being. No one can answer the questions which Parmenides asks of Socrates. And yet these ques tions are asked with the express acknowledgment that the denial of ideas will be the destruction of the human mind. The true answer to the difficulty here thrown out is the establishment of a rational psychology ; and this is a work which is commenced in the Sophist. Plato, in urging the difficulty of his own doctrine of ideas, is far from denying that some doctrine of ideas is necessary, and for this he is paving the way. In a similar spirit he criticises the Eleatic doctrine of being, not intend ing to deny ontology, but showing that the old Eleatic notion, and the very name ' being,' is unable to maintain itself against the subtleties of the Megarians. He did not mean to say that Being or Substance had no existence, but he is preparing for the development of his later view, that ideas were capable of relation. The fact that contradictory conse quences follow from the existence or non-existence of one or many, does not prove that they have or have not existence, but rather that some different mode of conceiving them is required. Parmenides may still have thought that 'Being was/ just as Kant would have asserted the existence of ' things in themselves,' while denying the transcendental use of the Categories. Several lesser links also connect the first and second parts of the dialogue: (i) The thesis is the same as that which Zeno has been already discussing : (2) Parmenides has intimated in the first part, that the method of Zeno should, as Socrates desired, be extended to ideas : (3) The difficulty of participating in greatness, smallness, equality is urged against the ideas as well as against the one. II. The Parmenides is not only a criticism of the Eleatic notion of 152 PARMENIDES. being, but also of the methods of reasoning then in existence, and in this point of view, as well as in the other, may be regarded as an introduction to the Sophist. Long ago, in the Euthydemus, the vulgar application of the 'both and neither' Eristic had been subjected to a similar criticism, which there takes the form of banter and irony, here of illustration. The germs of the attack upon the ideas, and the transition to a more rational philosophy, have also been discernible in the Philebus. The perplexity of the one and many has there been confined to the region of ideas, and replaced by a theory of classification ; the good arranged in classes is also contrasted with the barren abstraction of the Megarians. The war is carried on against the Eristics in all the later dialogues, sometimes with a playful irony, at other times with a sort of contempt. But there is no lengthened refutation of them. The Parmenides belongs to that stage of the dialogues of Plato, in which he is partially under their influence, using them as a sort of ' critics or diviners ' of the truth of his own, and of the Eleatic theories. In the Theaetetus a similar negative dialectic is employed in the attempt to define science, which after every effort remains undefined still. The same question is revived from the objective side in the Sophist: being and not being are no longer exhibited in opposition, but are now reconciled; and the true nature of not being is discovered and made the basis of the correlation of ideas. Some links are probably missing which might have been supplied if we had trustworthy accounts of Plato's oral teaching. To sum up : the Parmenides of Plato is a critic, first, of the Platonic ideas, and secondly, of the Eleatic doctrine of being. Neither are abso lutely denied. But certain difficulties and consequences are shown in the assumption of either, which prove that the Platonic as well as the Eleatic doctrine must be remodelled. The negation and contradiction which are involved in the conception of the one and many are pre liminary to their final adjustment. The Platonic ideas are tested by the interrogative method of Socrates; the Eleatic one or being is tried by the severer and perhaps impossible method of hypothetical consequences, negative and affirmative. In the latter we have an example of the Zeno- nian or Megarian dialectic, which proceeded not ' by assailing premises but conclusions'; this is worked out and improved by Plato. When primary abstractions are used in every conceivable sense, any or every conclusion may be deduced from them. The words 'one,' 'other,' INTR OD UCTION. 1 5 3 ' being/ ' like/ ' same/ ' whole/ and their opposites, have slightly different meanings, as they are applied to objects of thought or objects of sense — to number, time, place, and to the higher ideas of the reason ; — and out of their different meanings this ' feast ' of contradictions ' has been provided.' The Parmenides of Plato belongs to a stage of philosophy which has passed away. At first we read it with a purely antiquarian or historical interest; and with difficulty throw ourselves back into a state of the human mind in which Unity and Being occupied the attention of philo sophers. We admire the precision of the language, in which, as in some curious puzzle, each word is exactly fitted into every other, and long trains of argument are carried out with a sort of geometrical accuracy. We doubt whether any abstract notion could stand the searching cross- examination of Parmenides; and may at last perhaps arrive at the conclusion that Plato has been using an imaginary method to work out an unmeaning conclusion. But the truth is, that he is carrying on a process which is not either useless or unnecessary in any age of philo sophy. We fail to understand him, because we do not realize that the questions which he is discussing could have had any value or importance. We suppose them to be like the speculations of some of the schoolmen, which end in nothing. But in truth he is trying to get rid of the stum- blingblocks of thought which beset his contemporaries. Seeing that the Megarians and Cynics were making knowledge impossible, he takes their ' catch-words ' and analyses them from every conceivable point of view. He is criticising the simplest and most general of our ideas, in which, as they are the most comprehensive, the danger of error is the most serious ; for, if they remain unexamined, as in a mathematical demonstration, all that flows from them is affected, and the error pervades knowledge far and wide. In the beginning of philosophy this correction of human ideas was even more necessary than in our own times, because they were more bound up with words; and words when once presented to the mind exercised a greater power over thought. There is a natural realism which says, ' Can there be a word devoid of meaning, or an idea which is an idea of nothing ? ' In modern times mankind have often given too great importance to a word or idea. The philosophy of the ancients was still more in slavery to them, because they had not the experience of error, which would have placed them above the illusion. 154 PARMENIDES. The method of the Parmenides may be compared with the process of purgation, which Bacon sought to introduce into philosophy. Plato is warning us against two sorts of ' Idols of the Den' : first, his own ideas, which he himself having created is unable to connect in any way with the external world; secondly, against two idols in particular, 'Unity' and ' Being/ which had grown up in the pre-Socratic philosophy, and were still standing in the way of all progress and development of thought. He does not say with Bacon, 'Let us make truth by experiment,' or ' from these vague and inexact notions let us turn to facts/ The time has not yet arrived for a purely inductive philosophy, The instruments of thought must first be forged, that they may be used hereafter by modern inquirers. How, while mankind were disputing about universals, could they classify phenomena? How could they investigate causes, when they had not as yet learned to distinguish between a cause and an end ? How could they make any progress in the sciences without first arranging them ? These are the deficiencies which Plato is seeking to supply in an age when knowledge was a shadow of a name only. In the earlier dialogues the Socratic conception of universals is illustrated by his genius ; in the Phaedrus the nature of division is explained j in the Republic the law of contradiction and the unity of knowledge are asserted ; in the later dialogues he is constantly engaged both with the theory and practice of classification. These were the ' new weapons,' as he terms them in the Philebus, which he was preparing for the use of some who, in after ages, would be found ready enough to disown their obligations to the great master, or rather, perhaps, would be incapable of understanding them. Numberless fallacies, as we are often truly told, have originated in a confusion of the ' copula,' and the ' verb of existence.' Would not the distinction which Plato makes between * one is ' and ' one has being ' have saved us from this and many similar confusions? We see again that a long period in the history of philosophy was a barren tract, not uncultivated, but unfruitful, because there was no inquiry into the relation of language and thought, and the metaphysical imagination was in capable of supplying the missing link between words and things. The famous dispute between nominalists and realists would never have been heard of, if, instead of transferring the Platonic ideas into a crude Latin phraseology, the spirit of Plato had been truly understood and appre ciated. Upon the term substance at least two celebrated theological INTRODUCTION. 1 5 5 controversies appear to hinge, which would not have existed, or at least not in their present form, if we had ' interrogated ' the word substance, as Plato has the notions of Unity and Being. These weeds of philo sophy have struck their roots deep into the soil, and are always tending to reappear, sometimes in new-fangled forms; while similar words, such as development, evolution, law, and the like, are constantly put in the place of facts, even by writers who profess to base truth entirely upon fact. In an unmetaphysical age there is probably more metaphysics in the common sense (i. e. more a priori assumption) than in any other, because there is more complete unconsciousness that we are resting on our own ideas, while we please ourselves with the conviction that we are resting on facts. We do not consider how much metaphysics are required to place us above metaphysics, or how difficult it is to pre vent the forms of expression which are ready made for our use from outrunning actual observation and experiment. In the last century the educated world were astonished to find that the whole fabric of their ideas was falling to pieces, because Hume amused himself by analysing the word * cause ' into uniform sequence. Then arose a philosophy which, equally regardless of the history of the mind, sought to save mankind from scepticism by assigning to our notions of * cause and effect,' ' substance and accident/ ' whole and part,' a necessary place in human thought. Without them we could have no experience, and therefore they were supposed to be prior to experience — to be incrusted on the ' I ' ; although in the phraseology of Kant there could be no transcendental use of them, or, in other words, they were only applic able within the range of our knowledge. But into the origin of these ideas, which he obtains partly by an analysis of the proposition, partly by development of the 'ego/ he never enquires — they seem to him to have a necessary existence ; nor does he attempt to analyse the various senses in which the word ' cause ' or ' substance ' may be employed. The philosophy of Berkeley could never have had any meaning, even to himself, if he had first analysed from every point of view the concep tion of ' matter.' This poor forgotten word (which was ' a very good word' to describe the simplest generalization of external objects) is now superseded in the vocabulary of physical philosophers by ' force/ which seems to be accepted without any rigid examination of its meaning, as if the general idea of ' force ' in our minds furnished an explanation of the infinite variety of forces which exist in the universe. A similar ambiguity 156 PA RMENIDE S. occurs in the use of the favourite word ' law,' which is sometimes regarded as a mere abstraction, and then elevated into a real power or entity, almost taking the place of God. Theology, again, is full of undefined terms which have distracted the human mind for ages. Mankind have reasoned from them, but not to them ; they have drawn out the conclusions without proving the premises; they have asserted the premises without examining the terms. The passions of religious parties have been roused to the utmost about words of which they could have given no explanation, and which had really no distinct meaning. One sort of them, faith, grace, justification, have been the symbols of one class of disputes ; as the words substance, nature, person, of another, revelation, inspiration, and the like, of a third. All of them have been the subject of endless reasonings and inferences ; but a spell has hung over the minds of theologians or philosophers which has prevented them from examining the words themselves. Either the effort to rise above and beyond their own first ideas was too great for them, or there might, perhaps, have seemed to be an irreverence in doing so. About the Divine Being himself, in whom all true theological ideas live and move, men have spoken and reasoned much, and have fancied that they in stinctively know Him. But they hardly suspect that under the name of God even Christians have included two characters or natures as much opposed as the good and evil principle of the Persians. To have the true use of words we must place ourselves above them ; and in using them we must acknowledge their imperfection. In like manner, after having interrogated our ideas, to many of them we return and acknowledge their value and truth, though not always in the sense which we supposed. And Plato, while he criticises the inconsistency of his own doctrine of universals and draws out the endless consequences which flow from the assertion either that ' Being is ' or that ' Being is not/ by no means intends to deny the existence of universals or the unity under which they are comprehended. There is nothing further from his thoughts than scepticism. (Cp. 135 B, C.) But before proceed ing he must examine the foundations which he and others have been laying; there is nothing true which is not from some point of view untrue, nothing absolute which is not also relative. (Cp. Rep. vi. 507.) And so, in modern times, because we are called upon to analyse our ideas and to come to a distinct understanding about the meaning of words ; because we know that the powers of language are very unequal INTRODUCTION. 157 to the subtlety of nature or of mind, we do not therefore renounce the use of them ; but we replace them in their old connexion, having first tested their meaning and quality, and having corrected the error which is involved in them ; or rather always remembering to make allowance for the adulteration or alloy which they contain. We cannot call a new metaphysical world into existence any more than we can frame a new universal language; in thought, as in speech, we are dependent on the past. We know that the words ' cause ' and ' effect ' are very far from representing to us the continuity or the complexity of nature or the different modes or degrees in which phenomena are connected. Yet we accept them as the best expression which we have of the correlation of forces or objects. We see that the term ' law ' is a mere abstraction, under which laws of matter and of mind, the law of nature and the law of the land are included, and some of these uses of the word are confusing, because they introduce into one sphere of thought associations which belong to another; for example, order or sequence is apt to be con founded with external compulsion and the internal workings of the mind with their material antecedents. Yet none of them can be dispensed with ; we can only be on our guard against the error or confusion which arises out of them. So in the use of the word 'substance' we are far from supposing that there is any mysterious substratum apart from the objects which we see, and we acknowledge that the negative notion is very likely to become a positive one. Still we retain the word as a convenient generalization, though riot without a double sense, substance, and essence, derived from the two-fold translation of the Greek ovo-ia. So the human mind makes the reflection that God is not a person like ourselves — is not a cause like the material causes in nature, nor even an intelligent cause like a human agent — nor an individual, for He is uni versal, and that every possible conception which we can form of Him is limited by the human faculties. We cannot by any effort of thought or exertion of faith be in and out of our own minds at the same instant. How can we conceive Him under the forms of time and space, who is out of time and space ? How can we imagine His relation to the world or to ourselves ? Innumerable contradictions follow from either of the two alter natives ' that God is ' or ' that He is not.' Yet we are far from saying that we know nothing of Him, because all that we know is subject to the conditions of human thought. To the old belief in Him we return, but with corrections. He is a person, but not like ourselves ; a mind, but I58 PARMENIDES. not a human mind ; a cause, but not a material cause, nor yet a maker or artificer. The words which we use are imperfect expressions of His true nature ; but we do not therefore lose faith in what is best and highest in ourselves and in the world. < A little philosophy takes us away from God ; a great deal brings us back to Him/ When we begin to reflect, our first thoughts respecting Him and ourselves are apt to be sceptical. For we can analyse our religious as well as our other ideas ; we can trace their history ; we can criticise their perversion; we see that they are relative to the human mind and to one another. But when we have carried our criticism to the furthest point, they still remain, a necessity of our moral nature, better known and understood by us, and less liable to be shaken, because we are more aware of their necessary imperfection. They come to us with ' better opinion, better confirmation/ not merely as the inspirations either of ourselves or of another, but deeply rooted in history and in the human mind. PARMENIDES. PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE. CEPHALUS. SOCRATES. ADEIMANTUS. ZENO. GLAUCON. PARMENIDES. ANTIPHON. ARISTOTELES, PYTHODORUS. Cephalus rehearses a dialogue which is supposed to have been narrated in his presence by Antiphon, the half-brother of Adeimantus and Glaucon, to certain Clazomenians. Steph. 126 WE went from our home at Clazomenae to Athens, and met Adeimantus and Glaucon in the Agora. Welcome, Cephalus, said Adeimantus, taking me by the hand ; is there anything which we can do for you in Athens? Why, yes, I said, I am come to ask a favour of you. What is that ? he said. I want you to tell me the name of your half-brother, which I have forgotten ; he was a mere child when I last came hither from Clazomenae, but that was a long time ago ; his father's name, if I remember rightly, was Pyrilampes ? Yes, he said, and the name of our brother, Antiphon ; but why do you ask ? Let me introduce some countrymen of mine, I said ; they are lovers of philosophy, and have heard that Antiphon was in the habit of meeting Pythodorus, the friend of Zeno, and remembers certain arguments which Socrates and Zeno and Parmenides had together, and which Pythodorus had often repeated to him. That is true. And could we hear them ? I asked. 160 PARMENIDES. Nothing easier, he replied ; when he was a youth he made a careful study of the pieces ; at present his thoughts run in another direction ; like his grandfather, Antiphon, he is devoted to horses. But, if that is what you want, let us go and look for him ; he dwells at Melita, which is quite near, and he has only just left us to go home. Accordingly we went to look for him; he was at home, and in the act of giving a bridle to a smith to be fitted. When he had done with the smith, his brothers told him the purpose of our visit ; and he saluted me as an acquaintance whom he re membered from my former visit, and we asked him to repeat the dialogue. At first he was not very willing, and complained of the trouble, but at length he consented. He told us that Pythodorus had described to him the appearance of Parme- nides and Zeno ; they came to Athens, he said, at the great Panathenaea ; the former was, at the time of his visit, about 65 years old, very white \vith age, but well favoured. Zeno was nearly 40 years of age, of a noble figure and fair aspect ; and in the days of his youth he was reported to have been beloved of Parmenides. He said that they lodged with Pythodorus in the Ceramicus, outside the wall, whither Socrates, then a very young man, and others came to see them ; they wanted to hear some writings of Zeno, which had been brought to Athens by them for the first time. These Zeno himself read to them in the absence of Parmenides, and had nearly finished when Pythodorus entered, and with him Parmenides and Aristoteles who was afterwards one of the Thirty ; there was not much more to hear, and Pythodorus had heard Zeno repeat them before. When the recitation was completed, Socrates requested that the first thesis of the first argument might be read over again, and this having been done, he said : What is your meaning, Zeno? Do you maintain that if being is many, it must be both like and unlike, and that this is impossible, for neither can the like be unlike, nor the unlike like ; is that your position ? Just so, said Zeno. And if the unlike cannot be like, or the like unlike, then according to you, the many could not be, and their being would PA RMENIDES. 1 6 1 be an impossibility. Is the design of your argument only to disprove the being of the many ? and is each part of your dis course intended to furnish a separate proof of this, there being in all as many proofs of the non-being of the many as you have composed arguments ? Is that your meaning, or have I misunderstood you? 128 No, said Zeno ; you have correctly understood my general purpose. I see, Parmenides, said Socrates, that Zeno is your second self in his writings too ; he puts what you say in another way, and would feign deceive us into believing that he is telling us what is new. For you, in your poems, say All is one, and of this you adduce excellent proofs ; and he on the other hand says There is no many ; and on behalf of this he offers overwhelm ing evidence. To deceive the world, as you have done, by saying the same thing in different ways, one of you affirming the one, and the other denying the many, is a strain of art beyond the reach of most of us. Yes, Socrates, said Zeno. But although you are as keen as a Spartan hound in pursuing the track, you do not quite appre hend the true motive of the composition, which is not really such an ambitious work as you imagine ; for what you speak of was an accident ; I had no serious intention of de ceiving the world. The truth is, that these writings of mine were meant to protect the arguments of Parmenides against those who scoff at him and show the many ridiculous and contradictory results which they suppose to follow from the affirmation of the one. My answer is an address to the par tisans of the many, whose attack I return with interest by retorting upon them that their hypothesis of the being of many if carried out appears in a still more ridiculous light than the hypothesis of the being of one. A love of contro versy led me to write the book in the days of my youth, and some one stole the copy ; and therefore I had no choice whether it should be published or not ; the motive, however, of writing, was not the ambition of an old man, but the pug nacity of a young one. This you do not seem to see, Socrates ; though in other respects, as I was saying, your notion is a very just one. VOL. IV. M 1 6 2 PA RMENIDES. I understand, said Socrates, and quite accept your account. But tell me, Zeno, do you not further think that there is an idea of likeness in itself, and another idea of unlikeness, which 129 is the opposite of likeness, and that in these two, you and I and all other things to which we apply the term many, parti cipate ; and that the things which participate in likeness are in that degree and manner like ; and that those which parti cipate in unlikeness are in that degree unlike, or both like and unlike in the degree in which they participate in both? And all things may partake of both opposites, and be both like and unlike themselves, by reason of this participation. So far there is nothing wonderful. If a person could prove the absolute like to become unlike, or the absolute unlike to become like, that, in my opinion, would be a real wonder ; but what is there extraordinary, Zeno, in showing that the things which partake of likeness and unlikeness experience both? Nor, again, if a person were to show that all is one by partaking of one, and at the same time many by partaking of many, would that be very wonderful. But if he were to show me that the absolute one was many, or the absolute many one, I should be truly amazed. And so of other things : I should be surprised to hear that the natures or ideas themselves had these opposite qualities ; but not if a person wanted to prove of me that I was many and also one. When he wanted to show that I was many he would say that I have a right and a left side, and a front and a back, and an upper and a lower half, for I cannot deny that I partake of multitude ; when, on the other hand, he wants to prove that I am one, he will say, that we who are here assembled are seven, and that I am one and partake of the one, and in saying both he speaks truly. So again, if a person shows that such things as wood, stones, and the like, being many are also one, we admit that he shows the coexist ence of the one and many, but he does not show that the many are one or the one many ; he is uttering not a paradox but a truism. If, however, as I just now suggested, taking the simple notions of like, unlike, one, many, rest, motion, and similar ideas, we could show that these in their abstract form admit of admixture and separation, I should be very much astonished. This part of the argument appears to be treated PARMENIDES. 163 by you, Zeno, in a very spirited manner ; nevertheless, as I was saying, I should be far more amazed if any one found in the 1 30 ideas themselves which are apprehended by reason, the same puzzle and entanglement which you have shown to exist in visible objects. While Socrates was speaking, Pythodorus thought that Par menides and Zeno were not altogether pleased at the successive steps of the argument ; but still they gave the closest attention, and often looked at one another, and smiled as if in admiration of him. When he had finished, Parmenides expressed these feelings in the following words : — Socrates, he said, I admire the bent of your mind towards philosophy ; tell me now, was this your own distinction be tween ideas in themselves and the things which partake of them? and do you think that there is an idea of likeness apart from the likeness which we possess, and of the one and many, and of the other notions of which Zeno has been speaking? I think that there are such ideas, said Socrates. Parmenides proceeded : And would you also make ideas of the just and the beautiful and the good, and of all that class ? Yes, he said, I should. And would you make an idea of man apart from us and from all other human creatures, or of fire and water? I am often undecided, Parmenides, as to whether I ought to include them or not. And would you feel equally undecided, Socrates, about things of which the mention may provoke a smile ? — I mean such things as hair, mud, dirt, or anything else that is foul and base ; would you suppose that each of these has an idea distinct from the actual objects with which we come into contact, or not ? Certainly not, said Socrates ; visible things like these are such as they appear to us, and I am afraid that there would be an absurdity in assuming any idea of them, although I some times get disturbed, and begin to think that there is nothing without an idea ; but then again, when I have taken up this position, I run away, because I am afraid that I may fall into a bottomless pit of nonsense, and perish ; and so I return to the ideas of which I was just now speaking, and occupy myself with them. M 2 1 64 PA RMENIDES. Yes, Socrates, said Parmenides ; that is because you are still young ; the time will come when philosophy will have a firmer grasp of you, if I am not mistaken, and then you will not despise even the meanest things ; at your age, you are too much disposed to regard the opinions of men. But I should like to know whether you mean that there are certain ideas of which all other things partake, and from which they are there fore named ; that similars, for example, become similar, because 13 l they partake of similarity ; and great things become great, be cause they partake of greatness ; and that just and beautiful things become just and beautiful, because they partake of justice and beauty? Yes, certainly, said Socrates, that is my meaning. Then each individual partakes either of the whole of the idea or else of a part of the idea? Is any third way possible? Impossible, he said. Then do you think that the whole idea is one. and yet being one, is in each one of the many ? ^ Why not, Parmenides ? said Socrates. Because one and the same whole existing in many separate individuals, will thus be in a state of separation from itself. Nay, but the idea may be like the day which is one and the same in many places at once, and yet continuous with itself; in this way each idea may be one and the same in all at once. I like your way, Socrates, of making one in many places at once. You mean to say, that if I were to spread out a sail and cover a number of men, there would be one whole in or on many — is not that your meaning? I think so. And would you say that the whole sail is over each man, or a part only? A part only. Then, Socrates, the ideas themselves will be divisible, and the individuals will have a part of them only and not the whole idea existing in each of them ? That seems to follow. Then would you like to say, Socrates, that the one idea is really divisible and yet remains one? PARMENIDES. 165 Certainly not, he said. Suppose that you divide greatness, and that of many great things each one is great by having a portion of greatness less than absolute greatness — is that conceivable? No. Or will each equal thing, taking some portion of equality less than absolute equality, be equal to some other thing by virtue of that portion ? Impossible. Or suppose one of us to have a portion of smallness ; this is but a part of the small, and therefore the small is greater ; and while the absolute small is greater, that to which the part of the small is added, will be smaller and not greater than before. Impossible. Then in that way, Socrates, will all things participate in the ideas, if they are unable to participate in them either as parts ' or wholes ? Indeed, he said, you have asked a question which is not easily answered. Well, said Parmenides, and what do you say of another question ? What question ? I imagine that the way in which you are led to assume one 132 idea of each kind is as follows: — You see a number of great objects, and when you look at them together there seems to you to be one and the same idea (or nature) in them all ; hence you conceive of greatness as one. Very true, said Socrates. And if you go on and allow your mind in like manner to embrace in one view the idea of greatness and of great things which are not the idea, and to compare them, will not another greatness arise, which will appear to be the source of all these ? That is true. Then another kind of greatness now comes into view over and above absolute greatness, and the individuals which par take of it ; and then another, over and above all these, by virtue of which they will all be great, and so each idea instead of being one will be infinitely subdivided. 1 66 PA RMENIDES. But may not the ideas, asked Socrates, be thoughts only, and have no proper existence except in our minds, Parmen ides? For in that case each idea may still be one, and not experience this infinite subdivision. And can there be individual thoughts which are thoughts of nothing ? That is impossible, he said. The thought must be of something ? Yes. Of something that is or is not ? Of something that is. Must it not be of a single something, which the thought re cognises as attaching to all, being a single form or nature ? Yes. And will not the something so apprehended which is always the same in all, be an idea ? From that, again, there is no escape. Then, said Parmenides, if you say that everything else par ticipates in the ideas, must you not say either that everything is made up of thoughts, and that all things think ; or that they are thoughts having no thought ? But that, Parmenides, is no more rational than the other. The more probable view is, that the ideas are, as -Lt were, pat terns fixed in nature, and that other things are likej them, and resemblances of them ; and that what is meant By the parti cipation of other things in the ideas, is really assimilation to them. But if, said he, the individual is like the idea, must not the idea also be like the individual, in so far as the individual is a resemblance of the idea ? That which is like, cannot be con ceived of as other than the like of like. Impossible. And when two things are alike, must they not partake of the same idea? They must. And will not that of which the two partake, and which makes them alike, be the idea itself? Certainly. Then the idea cannot be like the individual, or the indi- PARMENIDES. 167 vidual like the idea; for if they are alike, some further Jdea^ i33 of likeness will always be coming to light, and if that be Tftce anything else, another and another; and new ideas will be always arising, if the idea resembles that which partakes of it ? Quite true. The theory, then, that other things participate in the ideas by resemblance, has to be given up, and some other mode of participation devised ? That is true. Do you see then, Socrates, how great is the difficulty of affirming the ideas to be absolute? Yes, indeed. And, further, let me say that as yet you only understand a small part of the difficulty which is involved if you make the idea a single entity apart from things. What difficulty ? he said. There are many, but the greatest of all is this : — If an oppo nent argues that these ideas, being such as we affirm them to be, are by their nature unknown, no one can prove to him that he is" wrong, unless he who is disputing their existence be a man of great ability and knowledge, and is willing to follow a long and laborious demonstration— he will remain unconvinced, and still insist that they cannot be known. How is that, Parmenides? said Socrates. In the first place, I think, Socrates, that you, or any one who maintains the existence of absolute ideas, will admit that they cannot exist in us. No, said Socrates ; for then they would be no longer absolute. True, he said ; and therefore any relation of the absolute ideas is a relation which is among themselves only, and has nothing to do with the resemblances, or whatever they are to be termed, which are' in our sphere, and from which we receive this or that name when we participate in them. And the objects which are within our sphere and have the same names with them, are like wise only relative to one another, and not to the ideas which have the same names with them, and belong to themselves, and not to them. What do you mean ? said Socrates. I may illustrate my meaning in this way, said Parmenides :— 1 68 PARMENIDES. A master has a slave ; now there is nothing absolute in the relation between them, which is simply a relation of one man to another. But there is also an idea of mastership in the abstract, which is relative to the idea of slavery in the ab stract. These natures have nothing to do with us, nor we 134 with them ; they are concerned with themselves only, and we with ourselves. Do you see my meaning? Yes, said Socrates, I quite see your meaning. And will not knowledge — I mean absolute knowledge — answer to absolute truth ? Certainly. And each kind of absolute knowledge will answer to each kind of absolute being ? Yes. But the knowledge which we have, will answer to the truth which we have ; and again, each kind of knowledge which we have, will be a knowledge of each kind of being which we have ? Certainly. But the ideas themselves, as you admit, we have not, and cannot have? No, we cannot. And the absolute ideas or natures are known by the absolute idea of knowledge ? Yes. And we have not got the idea of knowledge ? No. vThen none of the ideas are known to us, because we have no share in absolute knowledge ? I suppose not. Then the beautiful itself, and the good itself, and all other absolute ideas, as we suppose them to be, are unknown to us ? That appears to be true. I think that there is a stranger consequence still. What is it ? Would you, or would you not, say, that absolute knowledge, if there is such a thing, must be a far more exact knowledge than our knowledge ; and the same of beauty and of all other things ? PARMENIDES. 169 Yes. And if there be such a thing as participation in absolute know ledge, no one is more likely than God to have this most exact knowledge ? Certainly. But then, will God, having absolute knowledge, have a know ledge of human things ? Why not ? Because, Socrates, said Parmenides, we have admitted that the ideas are not relative to human things, nor human things to them ; the relations of either are in their respective spheres. Yes, that has been admitted. And if God has this perfect authority, and perfect knowledge, his authority cannot rule us, nor his knowledge know us, or any human thing ; just as our authority does not extend to the gods, / nor our knowledge know anything which is divine, so by parity of reason they, being gods, are not our masters, neither do they know the things of men. Yet, surely, said Socrates, to deprive God of knowledge is monstrous. 135 These, Socrates, said Parmenides, are a few, and only a few, of the difficulties which arise on the hypothesis that there are ideas of things, and that each idea is an absolute and determinate unity ; they will lead him who is told of them to doubt the very existence of ideas — he will say that even if they do exist, they must of necessity be unknown to man ; and he will seem to have reason on his side, and as we were remarking just now, will be very difficult to convince ; a man must be a man of very considerable ability before he can learn that everything has a class and an absolute essence ; and still more remarkable will he be who discovers all these things for himself, and can teach another to understand them thoroughly. I agree with you, Parmenides, said Socrates ; and what you say is very much to my mind. And yet, Socrates, said Parmenides, if a man, fixing his mind on these and the like difficulties, refuses to allow that there are ./ ideas of things, and that every individual thing has its deter minate idea which is always one and the same,* he will have nothing on which his mind can rest ; and so he will utterly 1 70 PARMENIDES. destroy the power of reasoning, as you seem to me to have particularly noted. Very true, he said. But. then, what is to become of philosophy ? What resource is there, if the ideas are unknown ? I certainly do not see my way at present. Yes, said Parmenides ; and I think that this arises, Socrates, out of your attempting to define the beautiful, the just, the good, and the ideas generally, without sufficient previous training. I noticed your deficiency, when I heard you talking here with your friend Aristoteles, the day before yesterday. The impulse that carries you towards philosophy is assuredly noble and divine ; but still there is an art which is called by the vulgar idle talking, and is often imagined to be useless ; in that you must train and exercise yourself, now that you are young, or truth will elude your grasp. And what is the nature of this exercise, Parmenides, which you would recommend ? That which you heard Zeno practising ; at the same time, I give you credit for saying to him that you did not care to solve the perplexity in reference to visible objects, or to consider the question in that way ; but only in reference to thought, and to what may be called ideas. Why, yes, he said, there appears to me to be no difficulty in showing that visible things experience likeness or unlikeness or anything else. Quite true, he said ; but I think that you should go a step further, and consider not only the consequences which flow from a given hypothesis, but also the consequences which flow from 136 denying the hypothesis ; and that will be still better training for you. What do you mean ? he said. I mean, for example, that in the case of this very hypothesis of Zeno's about the many, you should inquire not only what will be the consequences to the many in relation to themselves and to the one, and to the one in relation to itself and the many, on the hypothesis of the being of the many, but also what will be the consequences to the one and the many in their relation to themselves and to each other, on the opposite hypothesis. Or, PARMENIDES. 171 again, if likeness is or is not, what will be the consequences in either of these cases to the subject of the hypothesis, and to other things, in relation both to themselves and to one another, and so of unlikeness ; and the same principle applies to motion and rest, to generation and destruction, and even to being and not-being. In a word, when you suppose anything to be or not to be, or to be in any way affected, you must look at the conse quences in relation to the thing itself, and to any other things which you choose, — to each of them singly, to more than one, and to all ; and so with the other things, you must look at them in relation to themselves and to anything else which you suppose either to be or not to be, if you would train yourself perfectly and see the real truth. That, Parmenides, is a tremendous work of which you speak, and I do not quite understand you ; will you take some hypo thesis and go through the steps, and then I shall apprehend you better? That, Socrates, is a serious task to impose on a man of my years. Then will you, Zeno ? said Socrates. Zeno answered, with a smile : — Let us make our petition to Parmenides himself, who is quite right in saying that you are hardly aware of the extent of the task which you are imposing on him, and if there were more of us I should not ask him, for these are not subjects which any one, especially at his age, can well speak of before a large audience ; most people are not aware that this roundabout progress through all things is the only way in which the mind can attain truth. And therefore, Parmenides, I join in the request of Socrates, that I may hear the process again which I have not heard for a long time. When Zeno had thus spoken, Pythodorus, according to Anti- phori's report of him, said, that he himself and Aristoteles and the whole company entreated Parmenides to give an example of the process. I cannot refuse, said Parmenides ; and yet I 137 feel rather like Ibycus, who, when in his old age, against his will, he fell in love, compared himself to an old racehorse, who was about to run in a chariot race, shaking with fear at the course he knew so well — this was his simile of himself. And 1 72 PARMENIDES. I also experience a trembling when I remember through what an ocean of words I have to wade at my time of life. But I must indulge you, as Zeno says that I ought, and we are alone. Where shall I begin ? And what shall be our first hypothesis, if I am to attempt this laborious pastime? Shall I begin with myself, and take my own hypothesis of the one? and consider the consequences which follow on the supposition either of the being or of the not-being of one ? By all means, said Zeno. And who will answer me? he said. Shall I propose the youngest? He will not raise difficulties and will be the most likely to say what he thinks ; and his answers will give me time to breathe. I am the one whom you mean, Parmenides, said Aristoteles ; for I am the youngest, and at your service. Ask, and I will answer. Parmenides proceeded : i. a. If one is, he said, the one cannot be many? Impossible. Then the one cannot have parts, and cannot be a whole ? How is that ? Why, every part is part of a whole ; is it not ? Yes. And what is a whole? would not that of which no part is wanting be a whole ? Certainly. Then, in either case, the one would be made up of parts ; both as being a whole, and also as having parts? Certainly. And in either case, the one would be many, and not one ? True. But, surely, it ought to be one and not many ? It ought. Then, if the one is to remain one, it will not be a whole, and will not have parts ? No. But if it has no parts, it will have neither beginning, middle, nor end ; for if it had they would be parts of it ? Right. PARMENIDES. 173 But then, again, a beginning and an end are the limits of everything ? Certainly. Then the one, neither having beginning nor end, is unlimited ? Yes, unlimited. And therefore formless, as not being able to partake either of round or straight. How is that ? Why, the round is that of which all the extreme points are equidistant from the centre ? Yes. And the straight is that of which the centre intercepts the view of the extremes? True. Then the one would have parts, and would be many, whether 138 it partook of a straight or of a circular form ? Assuredly. But having no parts, it will be neither straight nor round ? Right. And, being of such a nature, it cannot be in any place, for it cannot be either in another or in itself. How is that ? If it were in another, it would be encircled by that in which it was, and would touch it at many points ; but that which is one and indivisible, and does not partake of a circular nature, cannot be touched all round in many places. Certainly not. But if, on the other hand, one were in itself, it would also contain and be itself; that is to say, if it were really in itself; for nothing can be in anything which does not contain it. Impossible. But then, that which contains must be other than that which is contained ? for the same whole cannot act and be acted upon at once ; and so one will be no longer one, but two ? True. Then one cannot be anywhere, either in itself or in another ? No. Further consider, whether that which is of such a nature can have either rest or motion. i74 PARMENIDES. Why not ? Why, because the one, if it were moved, would be either moved in place or altered ; for these are the only kinds of motion. Yes. And the one, when altered and ceasing to be itself cannot be any longer one. It cannot. And therefore cannot experience this sort of motion or change? Clearly not. Then can the motion of the one be in place ? Perhaps. But if the one moved in place, must it not either move round and round in the same place, or from one place to another ? Certainly. And that which moves in a circle must rest upon a centre ; and that which goes round upon a centre must have parts which all move round the centre ; but that which has no centre and no parts cannot possibly be carried round upon a centre ? Impossible. But perhaps the motion of the one consists in going from one place to another? Perhaps so, if it moves at all. And have we not already shown that it cannot be in any thing ? Yes. Then its coming into being in anything is still more impos sible ; is it not ? I do not see why. Why, because anything which comes into being in anything, can neither as yet be in that other thing while still coming into being, nor be altogether out of it, if already coming into being in it. Certainly not. And therefore whatever comes into being in another must have parts, and then the one part may be in, and the other part out of that other ; but that which has no parts must always be at one and the same time either wholly within or wholly without anything. PA RMENIDES. 1 7 5 True. And is there not a still greater impossibility in that which has no parts, and is not a whole, coming into being anywhere 139 either as a part or as a whole? Clearly. Then, as it does not change by going round in the same place, so neither does it change by going somewhere and coming into being in something ; nor again, by change in itself? True. The one, then, is incapable of any kind of motion ? Incapable. But neither can the one be in anything, as we affirm ? Yes, that is affirmed by us. Then it is never in the same ? Why not ? Because being in the same is being in something which is the same. Certainly. But we said that it could not be in itself, and could not be in other? True. Then one is never in the same ? It would seem not. But that which is never in the same is never quiet or at rest ? Never. One then, as would seem, is neither at rest nor in motion ? Clearly not. Neither will it be the same with itself or other ; nor again, other of itself or other. How is that ? If other of itself it would be other of one, and would not be one. True. And if the same with other, it would be that other, and not itself ; so that upon this supposition too, it would not have the nature of one, but would be other than one ? It would. Then it will not be the same with other, or other of itself? It will not. 176 PA RMENIDES. Neither will it be other of other, while it remains one ; for not one, but only other, can be other of other, and nothing else. True. Then not by virtue of being one will it be other ? Certainly not. But if not by virtue of being one, not by virtue of itself ; and if not by virtue of itself, not itself, and itself not being other at all, will not be other of anything ? Right. Neither will one be the same with itself. Why not ? Surely the nature of the one is not the nature of the same. Why is that ? Because when anything becomes the same with anything, it does not become one. Why not ? That which becomes the same with the many, necessarily becomes many and not one. True. But, if there were no difference between the one and the same, when a thing became the same, it would always become one ; and when it became one, the same ? Certainly. And, therefore, if one be the same with itself, it is not one with itself, and will therefore be one and also not one. Surely that is impossible. And therefore the one can neither be other of other, nor the same with itself. Impossible. And thus the one can neither be the same, nor other, either in relation to itself or other? No. Neither will the one be like or unlike itself or other. Why not ? Because likeness is sameness of affections. Yes. And sameness has been shown to be of a nature distinct from oneness? That has been shown. PARMENIDES. 177 140 But if the one had any other affection than that of being one, it would be affected in such a way as to be more than one ; which is impossible. True. Then the one can never be so affected as to be the same either with another or with itself? Clearly not. Then it cannot be like another, or like itself? No. Nor can it be affected so as to be other, for then it would be affected in such a way as to be more than one. It would. That which is affected otherwise than itself or another, will be unlike itself or another, if sameness of affections is likeness. True. But the one, as appears, never being affected otherwise than itself, is never unlike itself or other ? Never. Then the one will never be either like or unlike itself or other? Plainly not. Again, being of this nature, it can neither be equal or unequal either to itself or to other. How is that? Why, because the one if equal must be of the same measure as that to which it is equal. True. And if greater or less than things which are commensurable with it, the one will have more measures than that which is less, and fewer than that which is greater ? Yes. And so of things which are not commensurate with it, the one will have greater measures than that which is less and less than that which is greater. Certainly. But how can that which does not partake of sameness, have either the same measures or have anything else the same ? Impossible. And not having the same measures, the one cannot" be equal either with itself or with another? VOL. iv. N 1 78 PA RMENIDES. Clearly not. • But again, whether it have fewer or more measures, it will have as many parts as it has measures ; and thus again the one having as many parts as measures will be no longer one. Right. And if it were of one measure, it would be equal to that measure ; and it has been shown to be incapable of equality. It has. Then it will neither partake of one measure, nor of many, nor of few, nor of the same at all, nor be equal to itself or another ; nor be greater or less than itself, or other ? Certainly. Well, and do we suppose that one can be older, or younger than anything, or of the same age with it ? Why not ? Why, because that which is of the same age with itself or other, must partake of equality or likeness of time ; and we said that the one did not partake of equality or likeness? We did say so. And we also said, that it did not partake of inequality or unlikeness. Very true. How then can one being of this nature be either older or younger than anything, or have the same age with it ? In no way. Then one cannot be older or younger, or of the same age, either with itself or with another? Clearly not. Then the one, being of this nature, cannot be in time at all ; for must not that which is in time, be always growing older than itself? Certainly. And that which is older, must be always older than some thing , "which is younger? True. Then, that which becomes older than itself, also becomes at the same time younger than itself, if it is to have something to become older than. What do you mean_? PARMENIDES. 179 I mean this : — A thing does not need to become different from another thing, when the difference already exists ; the difference of that which is, is,— of that which has become, has become, — of that which will be, will be ; but of that which is becoming, there cannot have been, or be about to be, or be, any difference ; — the only difference possible is one that is becoming. Certainly. But, surely, the elder is a difference relative to the younger, and to no other. True. Then that which becomes older than itself must also, at the same time, become younger than itself? Yes. But again, it is true that it cannot become for a longer or for a shorter time than itself, but it must become, and be, and have become, and be about to be, the same time with itself? Yes, inevitably. Then things which are in time, and partake of time, must be inferred in every case, I suppose, to be of the same age with themselves ; and must also become older and younger than themselves ? That must be inferred. But the one did not partake of those affections ? Not at all. Then it does not partake of time, and is not in any time ? That is what the argument proves. Well, but do not the expressions 'was,' and 'has become,' and c was becoming,' signify a participation of past time ? Certainly. And do not 'will be,' 'will become,' 'will have become,' signify a participation of future time? Yes. And 'is/ or 'becomes,' signifies a participation of present time? Certainly. And if the one is absolutely without participation in time, it never has become, or was becoming, or was at any time, or N 1 1 80 PA RMENIDES. has now become or is becoming, or is, or will become, or will have become, or will be, hereafter. Most true. But are there any modes of partaking of being other than these ? There are none. Then the one cannot possibly partake of being? That is the inference. Then the one is not at all ? Clearly not. Then the one has no existence as one, for in that case it would be, and would partake of being ; but if the argument is to be believed, the one neither is nor is one? That appears to be true. 142 But that which is not admits of no attribute or relation ? Surely not. Then there is no name, nor description, nor sense, nor con ception, nor knowledge of it ? Clearly not. Then it is neither named, nor uttered, nor conceived, nor known, nor does anything that is perceive it. That is the inference. But can all this be true about the one ? I think not. i. b. Suppose, now, that we once more resume the hypothesis, and see whether, on a further review, any new aspect of the question appears. I shall be very happy to do so. We say that we have to work out all the consequences that follow, if the one is ? Yes. Then we will begin at the beginning: — If one is, can one be, and not partake of being ? Impossible. Then the one will have being, and being will not be the same with the one ; for if the same, it would not be the being of the one ; nor would the one have participated in being, for the two propositions — that one is, and that one is one — would have been PARMENIDES. 181 identical ; but our hypothesis is not if one is one, what will follow, but if one is : — am I not right ? Certainly. And we mean to say, that one has not the same significance as being ? Of course. And when we put them together, and say ' one is,' that is equivalent to saying, ' partakes of being ' ? Quite true. Once more then let us ask, if one is what will follow ? Con sider whether this hypothesis does not involve that one is of such a nature as to have parts. How so ? Why, in this way : — If being is predicated of one which is, and one is predicated of being which is one ; and being and one are not the same, but belong to that same one of which we have assumed the being, must not this one which is be a whole, and the one and the being its parts ? Certainly. And is each of these parts — one and being — to be simply called a part, or must the word ' part ' be relative to the word ' whole'? The latter. Then that which is one is both a whole and has a part ? Certainly. Again, of the parts of the one which is — I mean being and one — is either wanting to the other? is the one wanting to being, or being to the one ? Impossible. Once more, then each of the parts has both one and being, and is at the least made up of two parts ; and the same prin ciple goes on for ever, and every part whatever has always these two parts; for being always involves one, and one being; so that two are always appearing, instead of one. 143 Certainly. And so the one which is must be infinite in multiplicity? That appears to be true. Let us take another direction. What direction ? 1 82 PARMENIDES. We say that the one partakes of being because it is ? Yes. And in this way, the one which is turns out to be many ? True. But now, let us abstract the one which, as we say, partakes of being, and try to imagine it apart from that of which we say that it partakes — will this abstract one be one or many ? One, I think. Let us see : — Must not the being of one be other of one, if the one is not being, but, considered as one, only partakes of being? Certainly. If being and the one be two different things, it is not because the one is one that it is other of being ; nor because being is being that it is other of the one ; but they differ from one another by being other and different. Certainly. So that the other is not the same — either with the one or with being ? Certainly not. And therefore whether we take being and the other, or being and the one, or the one and the other, in every such case we take two things, which may be rightly called both. How is that ? In this way — you may speak of being ? Yes. And also of one ? Yes. Then, now we have spoken of either of them ? Yes. Well, and when I speak of being and one, I speak of them both? Certainly. And if I speak of being and the other, or of the one and the other, — in any case do I not speak of both ? Yes. And must not that which is correctly called both, be also two? Undoubtedly, PA RMENIDES. 1 8 3 And must not either of two be one ? Certainly. Then, if the individuals of the pair arc together two, they must be severally one? Clearly. And if each of them is one, then by the addition of any one to any pair, the whole becomes three ? Yes. And three are odd, and two are even ? Of course. And if there are two they must also be twice, and if there are three they must be thrice ; that is, if twice one makes two, and thrice one three ? Certainly. There are two, and there is twice, and therefore there is twice two ; and there are three, and there is thrice, and therefore there is thrice three ? Of course. If there are three and there is twice, and there are two and there is thrice, then you have twice three and thrice two ? Undoubtedly. Here, then, we have even taken even times, and odd taken odd times, and even taken odd times, and odd taken even times. True. 144 And if this is true, is any number left out or not necessarily included ? Assuredly not. Then if one is, number must also be? It must. But if there is number, there must also be many and infinite multiplicity ; for number is infinite in multiplicity and part also of being : am I not right ? Certainly. And if all number participates in being, every part of number will also participate ? Yes. Then being is distributed over the multitude of things, and nothing that is, however small or however great, is devoid of 1 84 PA RM EN I DBS. it ? And, indeed, the very supposition of this is absurd, for how can that which is, be devoid of being? In no way. And it is divided into the greatest and into the smallest, and into all kinds of being, and is broken up more than all things ; the divisions of it have no limit. True. Then it has the greatest number of parts ? Yes, the greatest number. Is there any of these which is a part of being, and yet no part? Impossible. But if it is at all and so long as it is, it must be one, and cannot be none? Certainly. Then the one attaches to every single part of being, and does not fail in any part, whether great or small ? True. But reflect : — Can one be in many places at the same time, and still be a whole? No ; I see the impossibility of that. And if not a whole, then it is divided ; for it cannot be present with all the parts of being, unless divided. True. And that which has parts will be as many as the parts are ? Certainly. Then we were wrong in saying just now, that being was distributed into a very great number of parts. For it is not distributed into parts more than the one, but into parts equal to the one ; the one is never wanting to being, or being to the one, but being two they are co-extensive and co-equal. Certainly that is true. The one itself, then, having been broken up into parts by being, is many and infinite ? True. Then not only the one which has being is many, but the one itself distributed by being, must also be many ? Certainly. Further, inasmuch as the parts are parts of a whole, the one, PA RMENIDES. 1 8 5 as a whole, will be limited ; for are not the parts contained by the whole ? Certainly. And that which contains, is a limit ? Of course. Then the one which has being is one and many, whole and parts, limited and yet unlimited in number? Clearly. And because limited, also having extremes ? Certainly. And if a whole, having beginning and middle and end. For can anything be a whole without these three ? And if any one of them is wanting to anything, will that any longer be a whole ? No. Then the one, as appears, will have beginning, middle, and end ? It will. But, again, the middle will be equidistant from the extremes ; that is the nature of the middle ? Yes. Then the one will partake of figure, either rectilinear or round, or a union of the two ? True. And if this is the case, it will be both in itself and in another too. How is that ? Every part is in the whole, and none is outside the whole. True. And all the parts are contained by the whole ? Yes. And the one is all its parts, and neither more nor less than all? No. Then the one is the whole ? Of course. But if all the parts are in the whole, and all of them are the one and the whole and they are all contained by the whole, the one will be contained by the one ; and thus the one will be in itself. 1 86 PA RMENIDES. That is true. But then, again, the whole is not in the parts — neither in all the parts, nor in some of them. For if it were in all, it would necessarily be also in one ; for if there were any one in which it was not, it could not be in all the parts ; for the part in which it is wanting is one of all, and if the whole is not in this, how can it be in them all ? It cannot. Nor can the whole be in some of the parts ; for if the whole were in some of the parts, the greater would be in the less, which is impossible. Yes, impossible. But if the whole is neither in one, nor in more than one, nor in all of the parts, it must be in something else, or cease to be anywhere at all ? Certainly. If it were nowhere, it would be nothing ; but being a whole, and not being in itself, it must be in another. Very true. The one then, regarded as a whole, is in another, but regarded as being all its parts, is in itself; and therefore the one must be itself in itself and also in another. Certainly. The one then, being of this nature, is, of necessity, both at rest and in motion ? How is that ? The one is at rest since it is in itself, for being in one, and not passing out of this, it is in the same, which is itself. 146 True. And that which is ever in the same, must be ever at rest ? Certainly. Well, and must not that, on the contrary, which is ever in other, never be in the same place ; and if never in the same place, never at rest, and if not at rest, in motion ? True. Then the one being always itself in itself and other, must always be both at rest and in motion ? Clearly. And must be the same with itself, and other of itself; and PA RMENIDES. 1 8 7 also the same with the other, and other of the other ; this fol lows from its previous affections. How so ? Everything in relation to every other thing, is either the same or other ; or if neither the same nor other, then in the relation of a part to a whole, or of a whole to a part. That is clear. And is the one a part of itself? Certainly not. Then it cannot be a whole in relation to itself regarded as a part of itself? Impossible. But is the one other of one ? No. And therefore not other of itself ? Certainly not. If then it be neither other, nor a whole, nor a part in relation to itself, must it not be the same with itself? Certainly. But then, again, that which is in another place from itself remaining in the same place with itself, must be other of itself, if it is to be in another place ? True. Then the one has been shown to be at once in itself and in another? Yes. Thus, then, as appears, the one will be other of itself? True. Well, then, if anything be other of anything, will it not be other of other? Certainly. And will not all things that are not one, be other of the one, and the one other of the not one ? Of course. Then the one will be other of all others ? True. But, consider :— Are not the absolute same, and the absolute other, opposites to one another? Of course. 1 88 PARMENIDES. Then will the same ever be in the other, or the other in the same ? They will not. If then the other is never in the same, there is nothing in which the other is during any space of time ; for during that space of time, however small, the other would be in the same. Is not that true? Yes. And since the other is never in the same, it can never be in anything that is. True. Then the other will never be either in the not one, or in the one? Certainly not. Then not by reason of the other is the one other than the not one, or the not one other than the one. No. Nor by reason of themselves will they be other than one another, if not partaking of the other. 147 How can they be ? But if they are not other, either by reason of themselves or of the other, there will be no possibility of their being other of one another at all. There will not. Again, the not-one cannot partake of the one ; otherwise it would not have been not -one, but would have been one. True. Nor can the not-one be number ; for having number, it would not have been not-one at all. It would not. Again, is the not-one part of the one ; or rather, would it not in that case partake of the one? It would. If then, in every point of view, the one and the not-one are distinct, then neither is the one part or whole of the not-one, nor is the not-one part or whole of the one ? No. But we said that things which are neither parts nor wholes PARMENIDES. 189 of one another, nor other than one another, will be the same with one another : — that was what we said ? Yes. Then shall we say that the one, being in this relation to the not-one, is the same with it ? Let us say so. Then it is the same with itself and the others, and also other of itself and the others. That appears to be the inference. And it will also be like and unlike itself and the others ? Perhaps. Since the one was shown to be other of the others, the others will also be other of one. Yes. Other of the one in the same degree that the one is other of the others, and neither more nor less ? True. And if neither more nor less, then in a like degree ? Yes. In so far then as its condition is to be other of others, and theirs in like manner to be other of it, the condition of the one is the same as that of the others, and that of the others the same as that of the one. How do you mean ? I may take as an illustration the case of names : You give a name to a thing? Yes. And you may say the name once or oftener? Yes. And when you say it once, you mention that of which it is the name? and when more than once, is it something else which you mention ? or must it always be the same thing of which you speak, whether you utter the name once or more than once ? Of course it is the same. And is not ' other ' a name given to a thing ? Certainly. Whenever, then, you use the word 'other,' whether once or 1 90 PA RMENIDES. oftener, you name that of which it is the name, and to no other do you give the name ? True. Then when we say that the others are other of the one, and the one other of the others, in repeating the word ' other ' we speak of that nature to which the name is applied, and of no other ? Quite true. Then the one which is other of others, and the other which is other of the one, in that the word 'other' is applied to both, 148 will be in the same condition ; and that which is in the same condition is like ? Yes. In so far then as the one is other of the other, every thing will be like every thing, for every thing is the other of every thing. True. Again, the like is opposed to the unlike ? Yes. And the other to the same r True again. And the one was also shown to be the same with the others ? Yes. And to be the same with the others is the opposite of being other of the others ? Certainly. And in that it was other it was shown to be like ? Yes. But in that it was the same it will be unlike by virtue of the opposite affection to that which made it like ; and this was the affection of the other. Yes. The same then will make it unlike ; otherwise it will not be the opposite of the other. True. Then the one will be both like and unlike the others ; like in so far as it is other, and unlike in so far as it is same. Yes, that argument may be used. And there is another argument. What? PARMENIDES. 191 In so far as it is affected by the same it is not affected otherwise, and not being affected otherwise is not unlike, and not being unlike, is like ; but in so far as it is affected by other it is otherwise, and being otherwise affected is unlike. True. Then because the one is the same with the others and other than the others, on either of these two grounds, or on both of them, it will be both like and unlike the others ? Certainly. And in the same way as being other than itself and the same with itself, on either of these two grounds and on both of them, it will be like and unlike ? Of course. Again, how far can the one touch or not touch itself and others ? — consider. I am considering. The one was shown to be in itself as a whole? True. And also in other things ? Yes. In so far as it is in other things it would touch other things, and in so far as it is in itself it would be debarred from touch ing other things, and would touch itself only. Clearly. Then the inference is that it would touch both ? It would. But what do you say to a new point of view ? Must not that which is to touch another be next in place or position to that which it touches ? True. Then the one if it is to touch itself ought to be situated next to itself, and have the place next to the place in which itself is ? It ought. And that would require that the one should be two, and be 149 in two places at once, and this, while it is one, it will not be. No. Then the one cannot touch itself any more than it can be two ? 1 9 2 PA RMENIDES. It cannot. Neither can it touch others. Why not ? The reason is, that whatever touches another is in separation from, and must be next to, that which it is to touch, and have no third or intermediate. True. Two things, then, at the least are necessary to make contact possible ? They are. And if to the two a third be added, the number of terms will be three, and the contacts two ? Yes. And every additional term makes one additional contact, whence it follows that the contacts are one less in number than the terms ; the first two terms exceeded the number of contacts by one, and the \vhole number of terms exceeds the whole number of contacts in like ratio ; and for every one which is afterwards added to the number of terms, one contact is added to the contacts. True. Whatever is the whole number of things, the contacts will be always one less. True. But if there be only one, and not two, there will be no contact ? Clearly not. And do we not say that the others being other of the one are not one and have no part in the one? True. Then they have no number, if they have no one in them ? Of course not. Then the others are neither one nor two, nor are they called by any number? No. One, then, alone is one, and there are not two ? Clearly not. And if there are not two, there is no contact ? No. PARMENIDES. 193 Then neither does the one touch the others, nor the others the one, if there is no contact ? Certainly not. For all which reasons the one touches and does not touch itself and the others? True. Further — is the one equal and unequal to itself and others? How do you mean ? If the one were greater or less than the others, or the others greater or less than the one, they would not be greater or less than each other in virtue of their being the one and the others, but, if in addition to their being what they are they had equality, they would be equal to one another, or if the one had smallness and the others greatness, or the one had greatness and the others smallness— whichever kind had greatness would be greater, and whichever had smallness would be smaller ? Certainly. Then greatness and smallness too have a being of their own ; for if they had not they could not be opposed to each other and be present in that which is. They could not. 150 If, then, smallness is present in the one it will be present either in the whole or in a part of the whole ? Certainly. Suppose the first ; it will be either coequal and coextensive with the whole one, or will contain the one ? Clearly. If it be coextensive with the one it will be equal with the one, or if containing the one it will be greater than the one? Of course. But can smallness be equal to anything or greater than any thing, and have the functions of greatness and equality and not its own functions ? Impossible. Then smallness cannot be in the whole of one, but, if at all, in a part only? Yes. And surely not in all of a part, for then the difficulty of the VOL. iv. O J 94 PA RM EN I DBS. whole will recur ; it will be equal to or greater than any part in which it is ? Certainly. Then smallness will not be in anything, whether in a whole or in a part ; nor will there be anything small but actual smallness. True. Neither will greatness be in the one, for if greatness be in anything there will be something greater, other and besides greatness itself, namely, that in which greatness is ; and this too when the small itself is not there, which it, if it is great, must exceed ; this, however, is impossible, seeing that small- ness is wholly absent. True. But greatness is only greater than absolute smallness, and smallness is only smaller than absolute greatness. Very true. Then other things are not greater or less than the one, for they have neither greatness nor smallness ; nor have greatness or smallness any power of exceeding or being exceeded in rela tion to the one, but only in relation to one another ; nor will the one be greater or less than them or others, because having neither greatness nor smallness. Clearly not. Then if the one is neither greater nor less than the others, it cannot either exceed or be exceeded by them? Certainly not. And that which neither exceeds nor is exceeded, must be on an equality ; and being on an equality, must be equal. Of course. And this will be true also of the relation of the one to itself; having neither greatness nor smallness in itself, it will neither exceed nor be exceeded by itself, but will be on an equality and equal to itself. Certainly. Then the one will be equal both to itself and the others ? That is evident. And yet the one, being itself in itself, will also surround and be without itself ; and, as containing itself, will be greater than PARMENIDES. 195 151 itself; and, as contained in itself, will be less; and will thus be greater and less than itself. It will. Now there cannot possibly be anything which is not included in the one and the others ? Of course not. But, surely, that which is must always be somewhere ? Yes. But that which is in anything will be less, and that in which it is will be greater ; in no other way can one thing be in another. True. And since there is nothing other of, or separated from, the one and the other, and they must be in something, must they not be in one another, the one in the others and the others in the one. if they arc to be anywhere ? That is clear. But inasmuch as the one is in the others, the others will be greater than the one, and contain the one, which will be less than the others, and will be contained in them ; and inasmuch as the others are in the one, the one on the same principle will be greater than the others, and the others less than the one. True. The one, then, will be equal to and greater and less than itself and the others? Clearly. And if it be greater and less and equal, it will be of equal and more and less measures than itself and the others, and if of measures also of parts? Of course. And if of equal and more and less measures, it will be in number more or less than itself and the others, and likewise equal in number to itself and to the others. How is that ? It will be of more measures than those things which it exceeds, and of as many measures as parts ; and so with that to which it is equal, and that than which it is less. True. And being greater and less than itself, and equal to itself, O 2 196 PARMENIDES. it will be of equal measures with itself and of more and fewer measures than itself ; and if of measures then also of parts ? Certainly. And being of equal parts with itself, it will be numerically equal to itself; and being of more parts, more, and being of less, less than itself. Certainly. And the same will hold of its relation to other things ; inas much as it is greater than them, it will be more in number than them ; and inasmuch as it is smaller, it will be less in number ; and inasmuch as it is equal to other things, it will be equal to them in number. Certainly. Once more, then, as would appear, the one will be in number both equal to and more and less than both itself and all other things. It will. Does the one also partake of time? And is it and does it become older and younger than itself and others, and again neither younger nor older than itself and others by virtue of participation in time? How do you mean ? If one is, being must be predicated of it ? Yes. But to be (eivai) is only participation of being in company with present time, and to have been is the participation of being in company with past time, and to be about to be is the par ticipation of being in company with future time ? Very true. Then the one if it partakes of being partakes of time ? Certainly. And is not time always moving forward ? Yes. Then the one is always becoming older than itself, if it moves forward in time? Certainly. And do we remember that the older becomes older than that which becomes younger ? PARMENIDES. 197 Yes, we remember that. Then since the one becomes older than itself, it is becoming older while itself is becoming younger ? Certainly. Thus, then, the one becomes older as well as younger than itself? Yes. And it is older (is it not ?) when in becoming, it gets to the point of time between ' was ' and ' will be,' which is ' now ' : for surely in going from the past to the future, it cannot pass over the present ? No. And when it arrives at the present it stops from becoming older, and no longer becomes, but is older, for if it went on it would never be reached by the present, for it is the nature of that which goes on, to touch both the present and the future, letting go the present and seizing the future, while in process of becoming between them. True. But that which is becoming cannot pass the present ; when it reaches the present it ceases to become, and is then whatever it may happen to become. That is clear. And so the one, when in becoming older it reaches the pre sent, ceases to become, and then is older. Certainly. And it is older than that which it was becoming older than, and it was becoming older than itself. Yes. And that which is older is older than that which is younger? True. Then the one is younger than itself, when in becoming older it reaches the present ? Certainly. But the present is always present with the one during all its being ; for whenever it is it is always now. Certainly. Then the one always both is and becomes older or younger than itself? i98 PARMENIDES. Truly. And is it or does it become a longer time than itself or an equal time with itself? An equal time. But that which becomes or is for an equal time is of the same age? Of course. And that which is of the same age, is neither older nor younger ? No. The one, then, becoming and being the same time with itself, neither is nor becomes older or younger than itself? i53 I should say not. And what are its relations to other things? Is it older or younger than they are? I cannot tell you. You can at least tell me that the others are more than the one — other would have been one, but the others have multi tude, and are more than one? True. A multitude implies a number larger than one ? Of course. And shall we say that the lesser or the greater is the first to come or to have come into existence ? The lesser. Then the least is the first ? And that is the one ? Yes. Then the one of all things that have number is the first to come into being ; but all other things have also number, being plural and not singular. They have. And that which came into being first must be supposed to have come into being prior to the others, and the others later ; and the things which came into being later, are younger than that which preceded them? And so the other things will be younger than the one, and the one older than other things ? True. What would you say of another question ? Can the one have PA RMENIDES. 1 9 9 come into being contrary to its own nature, or is that impos sible? Impossible. And yet, surely, the one was shown to have parts ; and if parts, then a beginning, middle and end ? Yes. And a beginning is the first of everything to come into being, both of the one itself and of all other things ; and after the beginning, the others follow, until you reach the end? Certainly. And all these others we shall affirm to be parts of the whole and the one, which, as soon as the end is reached, has become whole and one? Yes ; that is what we shall say. But the end comes last, and the one is by nature so consti tuted as to come into being with the end ; so that if the one cannot come into being except in accordance with its own nature, its nature will require that it should come into being after the others, simultaneously with the end. Clearly. Then the one is younger than the others and the others older than the one. That also is clear in my judgment. Well, and must not a beginning or any other part of the one or of anything, if it be a part and not parts, being a part, be also of necessity one ? Certainly. And will not the one come into being together with each part — together with the first part as it comes into being, and together with the second part and with all the rest, and will not be wanting to any part which is added until it has reached the last and become one whole ; it will be wanting neither to the middle, nor to the first, nor to the last, nor to any of them, while the process of becoming is going on ? True. Then the one is of the same age with all the others, so that if the one is to come into being in a manner not contrary to its nature, it will be neither prior nor posterior to the others, but 154 simultaneous ; and according to this argument the one will be 200 PARMENIDES. neither older nor younger than the others, nor the others than the one, but according to the previous argument the one will be older and younger than the others and the others than the one. Certainly. After this manner then the one is and has become. But as to its becoming older and younger than the others, and the others than the one, and neither older nor younger, what shall we say? Shall we say as of being so also of becoming, or otherwise ? I cannot answer. But I can venture to say, that even if the one is older or younger than another, it will not become older or younger in a greater degree than it was at first ; for equals added to un- equals, whether to time or to anything else, leave the difference between them the same as at first. Of course. Then that which is, cannot become older or younger than that which is, if the difference of age is always the same ; the one is and has come to be older and the other younger ; but they do not become so. True. And the one which is does not therefore become either older or younger than the others which are. No. But consider whether they may not become older and younger in this way. In what way? Inasmuch as the one \vas proven to be older than the others and the others than the one. And what of that ? If the one is older than the others, it has come into being a longer time than the others. Yes. But consider again ; if we add equal time to a greater and a less time, will the greater differ from the less time by an equal or by a smaller portion? By a smaller portion. Then the difference between the age of the one and the age of the others will not be afterwards so great as at first, but if PARMENIDES. 20 1 an equal time be added to both of them they will differ less and less in age? Yes. And that which differs in age from some other less than formerly, from being older will become younger in relation to that other ? Yes, younger. And if the one becomes younger the others will become older than they were before in relation to the one. Certainly. Then that which has become younger becomes older rela tively to that which previously was and has become older, but 155 never is older, for the one is always growing on the side of youth and the other on the side of age. And in like manner the older is always in process of becoming younger than the younger ; for as they are always going in opposite directions they become the opposite of one another, the younger older than the older, and the older younger than the younger. They cannot, however, have become ; for if they had already become they would be and not merely become. But that is impossible ; for they are always becoming both older and younger than one another : the one becomes younger than the others because it was seen to be older and prior, and the others become older than the one because they came into being later ; and in the same way the others are in the same relation to the one, because they were seen to be older and prior to the one. That is clear. Inasmuch then, as one thing does not become older or younger than another, in that they differ from each other by an equal number, the one cannot become older or younger than the others, nor the others than the one ; but inasmuch as that which came into being earlier and that which came into being later must continually differ from each other by a different portion — in this point of view the others must become older and younger than the one, and the one than the others. Certainly. For all these reasons, then, the one is and becomes older and younger than itself and the others, and neither is nor becomes older or younger than itself or the others. 202 PARMENIDES. Certainly. But since the one partakes of time, and partakes of becoming older and younger, must it not also partake of the past, the present, and the future? Of course. Then the one was and is and will be, and was becoming and is becoming and will become? Certainly. And there is and was and will be something which is in relation to it and belongs to it? True. And if we at this moment have opinion and knowledge and perception of the one, then there is opinion and knowledge and perception of it? Quite right. Then it has name and definition, and is named and described, and everything of this kind which appertains to other things appertains to the one. Certainly, that is true. Yet once more and for the third time, let us consider : If the one is both one and many, as we have described, and is neither one nor many, and participant of time, must it not, in as far as it is one, at times partake of being, and in as far as it is not one, at times not partake of being? Certainly. But can it partake of being when not partaking of being, or not partake of being when partaking of being? Impossible. Then the one partakes and does not partake of being at different times, for that is the only way in which it can par take and not partake of the same. True. And is there not also a time at which it assumes being and 156 relinquishes being — for how can it have and not have the same thing unless it receives and also gives it up at some time? Impossible. And the assuming of being is what you would call becoming ? I should. PARMENIDES. 203 And the relinquishing of being you would call destruction? I should. The one then, as would appear, becomes and is destroyed by taking and giving up being. Certainly. And being one and many and in process of becoming and being destroyed, when it becomes one the being of the many is destroyed, and when many, the being of the one is destroyed ? Certainly. And as it becomes one and many, must it not inevitably experience separation and aggregation ? Inevitably. And whenever it becomes like and unlike it must be assimi lated and dissimilated ? Yes. And when it becomes greater or less or equal it must grow or diminish or be equalised ? True. And when being in motion it rests, and when being at rest it changes to motion, it can surely be in no time at all ? How can it ? But that a thing which is previously at rest should be after wards in motion, or previously in motion and afterwards at rest, without experiencing change, is impossible. Impossible. And surely there cannot be a time in which a thing can be at once neither in motion nor at rest ? There cannot. But neither can it change without changing. True. When then does it change ; for it cannot change either when at rest, or when in motion, or when in time? It cannot. And perhaps this strange thing in which it is at the time of changing is — Is what? The moment. For the moment seems to imply a some thing out of which change takes place into either of two states ; for the change is not from the state of rest as such, 204 PARMENIDES. nor from the state of motion as such ; but there is this curious nature which we call the moment lying between rest and motion, not being in any time ; and into this and out of this what is in motion changes into rest, and what is at rest into motion. So it appears. And the one then, if it is in rest and also in motion, will change to either, for only in this way can it be both. And in changing it changes in a moment, and when it is changing it will be in no time, and will not then be either in motion or at rest. True. And it will be in the same case in relation to the other 157 changes, when it passes from being into destruction, or from not being into becoming — then it passes between certain states of motion and rest, and neither is nor is not, nor becomes nor is destroyed. Very true. And on the same principle, in the passage from one to many and from many to one, the one is neither one nor many, neither separated nor aggregated ; and in the passage from like to unlike, and from unlike to like, it is neither like nor unlike, neither in a state of assimilation nor of dissimilation ; and in the passage from small to great and equal and back again, it will be neither small nor great, nor equal, nor in a state of increase, or diminution, or equalisation. True. All these, then, are the affections of the one, if the one is. Of course. i. aa. But if one is, what will happen to the others — is not that to be considered ? Yes. Let us show then, if one is, what will be the affections of that which is other than the one. Let us do so. Inasmuch as there are things other than the one, the others are not the one ; for if they were they could not be other than the one. PARMENIDES. 205 Very true. Nor are the others altogether without the one, but in a certain way they participate in the one. How so ? Because the others are other than the one inasmuch as they have parts ; for if they had no parts they would be simply one. Right. And parts, as we affirm, have relation to a whole? That is what we say. And a whole must necessarily be one made up of many ; and the parts will be parts of the one, for each of the parts is not a part of many, but of a whole. How do you mean? If anything were a part of many, being itself one among many, it will surely be a part of itself, which is impossible, and it will be a part of each one of the other parts, if of all ; for if not a part of some one, it will be a part of all the others but this one, and thus will not be a part of each one ; and if not a part of each one, it will not be a part of any one of the many ; and not being a part of any one, it cannot be a part or anything else of all those things of none of which is it anything. That is clear. Then the part is not a part of the many, nor of all, but is of a certain single form, which we call a whole, being one perfect unity framed out of all — of this the part will be a part. Certainly. If, then, the others have parts, they will participate in the whole and the one. True. Then the others of the one must be one perfect whole, having parts. Certainly. And the same argument holds of each part, for the part 158 must participate in the one; for if each of the parts is a part, this means, I suppose, that it is one separate from the rest and self related ; otherwise it is not each. True. 206 PARMENIDES. But when we speak of the part participating in the one, it must clearly be other than one ; for if not, it would not merely have participated, but would have been one ; whereas only the one itself can be one. Very true. Both the whole and the part must participate in the one ; for the whole will be one whole, of which the parts will be parts ; and the part in each case will be one part of the whole which is the whole of the part. True. And will not the things which participate in the one, be other than it? Of course. And the things which are other of the one will be many ; for if the things which are other of the one were neither one nor more than one, they would be nothing. True. But, seeing that the things which participate in the one as a part, and in the one as a whole, are more than one, must not those very things which participate in the one be infinite in number? How is that? Let us look at the matter thus : — Is it not a fact that in partaking of the one they are not one, and do not participate in the one at the very time when they are partaking of it? Clearly. They do so then as multitudes in which the one is not present ? Very true. And if we were to abstract from them in idea the very smallest fraction, must not that least fraction, if it does not partake of the one, be a multitude and not one? Certainly. And if we continue to look at the others, regarded simply, and in themselves, will not they, as far as we see them, be unlimited in number? Certainly. And yet, when each several part becomes a part, then the PARMENIDES. 207 parts have a limit in relation to the whole and to each other, and the whole in relation to the parts. No doubt. The result to the others than the one is that the union of themselves and the one appears to create a new element in them which gives limitation in relation to one another ; whereas in their own nature they have no limit. That is clear. Then the others of the one, both as whole and parts, are infinite, and also partake of limit. Certainly. Then they are both like and unlike one another and them selves. How is that? Inasmuch as they are unlimited in their own nature, they are all affected in the same way. True. And inasmuch as they all partake of limit, they are all affected in the same way. Of course. But inasmuch as their state is both limited and unlimited, they are affected in opposite ways. Yes. 159 And opposites are the most unlike of things. Certainly. Considered, then, in regard to either one of their affections, they will be like themselves and one another ; considered in reference to both of them together, most opposed and most unlike. That appears to be true. Then the others are both like and unlike themselves and one another? True. And they are the same and also different from one another, and in motion and at rest, and experience every sort of opposite affection, as may be proved without difficulty of them, and as, in the case of the affections aforesaid, has been already proved? True. 208 PARMENIDES. i. bb. Suppose, now, that we leave the further discussion of these matters as evident, and consider again upon the hypo thesis that the one is, whether the opposite of all this is or is not equally true of the others. By all means. Then let us begin again, and ask, If one is, what must be the affections of the others? Let us ask that question. Must not the one be distinct from the others, and the others from the one? Why so? Why, because there is nothing else beside them which is distinct from both of them ; for the expression ' one and the others' includes all things. Yes, all things. Then we cannot suppose that there is anything different from them in which the one and the others might exist ? There is nothing. Then the one and the others are never in the same? True. Then they are separated from each other? Yes. And we surely cannot say that what is truly one has parts? Impossible. ' Then the one will not be in the others as a whole, nor the parts of the one, if it be separated from the others, and has no parts? Impossible. Then there is no way in which the many can partake of the one, if they do not partake either in whole or in part? It would seem not. Then there is no way in which the others are one, or have in themselves any unity? No. Nor are the others many ; for if they were many, each part of them would be a part of the whole ; but now the others, not partaking in any way of the one, are neither one nor many, nor whole, nor part. True. PA RMENIDES. 209 Then the others neither are nor contain two or three, if entirely deprived of the one ? True. Then the others are neither like nor unlike the one, nor is likeness and imlikeness in them ; for if they were like and unlike, or had in them likeness and unlikeness, they would have two natures in them opposite to one another. That is clear. But for that which partakes of nothing to partake of two things was held by us to be impossible? Impossible. 1 60 Then the others are neither like nor unlike nor both, for if they were like or unlike they would partake of one of those two natures, which would be one thing, and if they were both they would partake of the opposites which would be two things, and this has been shown to be impossible. True. Therefore they are neither the same, nor other, nor in motion, nor at rest, nor in a state of becoming, nor of being destroyed, nor greater, nor less, nor equal, nor have they experienced anything else of the sort ; for, if they are capable of experi encing any such affection, they will participate in one and two and three, and odd and even, and in these, as has been proved, they do not participate, seeing that they are altogether and in every way devoid of the one. Very true. Therefore if one is, the one is all things, and also nothing, both in relation to itself and to other things. Certainly. ii. a. Well, and ought we not to consider next what will be the consequence if the one is not? Yes ; we ought. What is the meaning of the hypothesis — If the one is not ; is there any difference between this and the hypothesis — If the not one is not ? There is a difference, certainly. Is there a difference only, or rather are not the two expressions — if the one is not, and if the not one is not, entirely opposed ? VOL. IV. p 210 PA RMENIDES. They are entirely opposed. And suppose a person to say : — If greatness is not, if small- ness is not, or anything of that sort, does he not mean by using this expression that ' not being ' is other than other things ? To be sure. And so when he says ' If one is not ' he clearly means, by what is not, what is other of all others ; we know what he means — do we not? Yes, we do. When then he says one, he says firstly something which is known, and secondly something which is other of all other things ; it makes no difference whether he predicate of it being or not-being, for that which is said 'not to be' is known all the same, and is distinguished from all other things. Certainly. Then I will begin again, and ask : If one is not, what are the consequences? In the first place, as would appear, there is a knowledge of it, or the very meaning of the words, ' if one is not,' would not be known. True. Secondly, the others differ from it, or it could not be described as different from the others ? Certainly. Difference, then, belongs to it as well as knowledge ; for in speaking of the one as different from the others, we do not speak of a difference in the others, but in the one. That is clear. Moreover, the one that is not partakes of ' that,' and ' some/ and ' this,' and ' relation to this,' and ' these,' and the like ; for the one, or the others of the one, could not have been spoken of, nor could any attribute or relative of the one be or be spoken of, if the one did not partake of 'some,' or of the other attributes just now mentioned. True. Being, then, cannot be ascribed to the one, if the one is not ; but the one that is not may or rather must participate in many, 161 if the one only and nothing else is not ; if, however, neither the one nor anything else is not, and we are speaking of some- PARMENIDES. 211 thing else, we can predicate nothing of it l. But supposing that one and nothing else is not, then it must participate in the predicate 'that,' and in much besides. Certainly. And it will have unlikeness in relation to the others, for the others being different from the one will be of a different kind. Certainly. And are not things of a different kind also other in kind ? Of course. And are not things other in kind unlike? They are unlike. And if they are unlike the one, they will be clearly unlike that which is unlike? That is clear. Then the one will have unlikeness in respect of which the others will be unlike it? That would seem to be true. And if unlikeness to other things is attributed to it, it must have likeness to itself. How is that? If the one have unlikeness to the one, it cannot be anything of the nature of the one which is spoken of ; nor will the hypo thesis relate to the one ; but it will relate to something other than one ? Quite so. But that cannot be. No. Then the one must have likeness to itself? True. Again, it is not equal to the others ; for if it were equal, then it would at once be and be like them in virtue of the equality ; but if one has no being, then it can neither be nor be equal ? Impossible. But if it is not equal to the others, neither are the others equal to it? Certainly not. And things that are not equal are unequal ? True. 1 The text is obscure and uncertain. P 2 212 PA RMENIDES. And they are unequal by reason of inequality ? Of course. Then the one partakes of inequality, and in respect of this the others are unequal to it ? Very true. And inequality implies greatness and smallness ? Yes. Then, on this supposition, the one has greatness and small- ness? That appears to be true. And greatness and smallness always stand apart from one another ? True. Then there is always something between them ? There is. And can you think of anything else which is between them other than equality? No, it is equality. Then that which has greatness and smallness also has equality, which lies between them ? That is clear. Then the one, which is not, partakes, as would appear, of greatness and smallness and equality? Clearly. Further, it must surely in a sort partake of being ? How so? It must be as we say, for if not, then we should not say the truth in saying that the one is not. But if we say the truth, we must suppose ourselves to say what is. Am I not right ? Yes. 162 And since we affirm that we speak truly, we must also be supposed to be saying that which is. Certainly. Then, as would appear, the one is not, for if it were not to be not being, but1 to admit something of being into not being, it would at once become being. Quite true. Then not being, if it is to maintain1 itself, must have the 1 Or, ' to remit something of the existence of not-being.' PARMENIDES. 213 being of not-being as the bond of not-being, just as being must have as a bond the not-being of not-being in order to perfect its own being ; for the truest assertion of the being of being and of the not-being of not-being is when being par takes of the being of being, and of the not-being of the being of not-being — that is, the perfection of being ; and when not- being as not-being partakes both of the not-being of not-being and of the being of being — that is the perfection of not- being. Most true. Since then what is partakes of not-being, and what is not of being, must not the one also partake of being in order not to be? Certainly. Then the one, if it is not, clearly has being? Clearly. And not-being also, if it is not ? Of course. But can anything which is in a certain state not be in that state without changing? Impossible. Then everything which is and is not in a certain state, implies change? Certainly. And change is motion — we may say that ? Yes, motion. And the one has been proved both to be and not to be ? Yes. And therefore is and is not in the same state ? Yes. And thus also the one that is not has been shown to have motion, because it changes from being to not-being? That appears to be true. But surely if it is nowhere among what is, as is the fact, since it is not, it cannot change from one place to another ? Impossible. Then it cannot move by changing place ? No. Nor can it turn on the same spot, for it nowhere touches the 2 1 4 PARMENIDES. same, for the same is being, and that which is not cannot be in any being ? It cannot. Then the one, if it is not, cannot turn in that in which it is not? No. Neither can the one, whether it is or is not, be altered into other than itself, for if it altered from itself, then we should not be speaking of the one, but of something else, if it changed from itself? True. But if the one is neither altered from itself, nor turns round in the same place, nor changes place, can it still be capable of motion ? Impossible. Now that which is unmoved must surely be at rest, and that which is at rest must stand ? Certainly. Then the one that is not, stands, and is also in motion ? That seems to be true. But if it be in motion it must necessarily undergo alteration, for anything which is moved, in so far as it is moved, is no 163 longer in the same state, but in another? Yes. Then the one, being moved, is altered ? Yes. And, further, if not moved in any way, it will not be altered in any way ? No. Then, in so far as the one that is not is moved, it is altered, but in so far as it is not moved, it is not altered ? Right. Then the one that is not is altered and is not altered ? That is clear. And must not that which is altered become other than it previously was, and lose its former state and be destroyed ; but that which is not altered can neither come into being nor perish ? Very true. PARMENIDES. 215 And the one that is not, being altered, becomes and is destroyed ; and not being altered, neither becomes nor is destroyed ; and so the one that is not becomes and is destroyed, and neither becomes nor is destroyed ? True. ii. b. And now, let us go back once more to the beginning, and see whether any new consequences will follow. Let us do as you say. If one is not, we ask what is to follow in respect of one? That is the question. Yes. Do not the words ' is not,' imply absence of being in that of which we say 'is not'? Just so. And when we say that a thing is not, do we mean that it is not in one way but is in another? do we not mean, abso lutely, that what is not has in no sort or way or kind, parti cipation of being ? In the most absolute sense. Then, that which is not cannot be, or in any way participate in being? It cannot. And did we not mean by becoming, and being destroyed, the assumption of being and the loss of being ? Nothing but that. And can that which has no participation in being, either assume or lose being? Impossible. The one then which in no way is cannot have or lose or assume being in any way? True. Then the one that is not, since it in no way partakes of being, neither perishes nor becomes? No. Then it is not altered at all ; for if it were it would become and be destroyed ? True. But if it be not altered it cannot be moved ? 2 1 6 PARMENIDES. Certainly not. Nor can we say that it stands, if it is nowhere ; for that which stands must always be in some place which is the same ? The same of course. Then we must say, once more, that what is not neither stands nor is in motion ? Neither. Nor has it anything related to it ; for if it had, it* would partake of being? 164 That is clear. Neither can smallness, nor greatness, nor equality, be attri buted to it? No. Nor likeness nor difference, either in relation to itself or to other ? Clearly not. Well, and if it has no attribute or relation, can other things be related to it ? Certainly not. And therefore other things can neither be like or unlike, the same, or different in relation to it ? They cannot. No more can of or to, or some, or this, or of this, or of or to another, or past or future or present, or knowledge, or opinion, or perception, or description, or name, or any other thing that is, have any concern with not being? They have none. Then the one that is not in no way is ? That appears to be the conclusion. ii. aa. Yet once more ; if one is not, what becomes of the others? Let us determine that. Yes ; let us determine that. They must surely be, for if they were not, we could not speak of them ? True. But if we speak of the others, that implies difference — the terms ' other ' and ' different ' are synonymous ? PA RMENIDES. 2 1 7 True. Other means other of other, and different, different from the different ? Yes. Then, if the others are supposed to be, there must be some thing of which they will be others ? Certainly. And what can that be ? — for if the one is not, they will not be others of the one. They will not. Then they will be others of each other ; for failing of that, they are others of nothing. True. Then they are each the others of one another, in the plural and not in the singular ; for if one is not, they cannot be singulars, but every particle of them is infinite in number ; and even if a person takes that which appears to be the smallest fraction, this, which seemed one, in a moment evanesces into many, as in a dream, and from being very small becomes very great, in comparison with the fractions of it ? Very true. And in such particles the others will be the others of one another, if others are, and not the one ? Exactly. And will there not be many particles, each appearing to be and not being one, if one is not? True. And there will seem to be a number of them, if each of them is one, and they are many ? Yes, there will. And there will be odd and even among them, which will also have no reality, if one is not ? No. And they will appear to have a least fraction ; and even this 165 will seem large and manifold in comparison with the littleness of each of the fractions into which it is divided ? Certainly. And each particle will appear equal to the many and little ; 2 1 8 PA RMENIDES. for it could not have appeared to pass from the greater to the less without having appeared to arrive at the middle ; and thus would arise the appearance of equality. Yes. And having neither beginning, middle, nor end, each separate particle yet appears to have a limit in relation to itself and other. How is that ? Because, when a person conceives of any one of these, prior to the beginning another beginning appears, and there is another end, remaining after the end, and in the middle a truer middle within but smaller, because no unity can be conceived of any of them, if the one is not. Very true. And so all being which any one can possibly conceive, must be broken up into fractions, for a particle will have to be con ceived of without unity ? Certainly. And such being when seen indistinctly and at a distance, appears to be one ; but when seen near and with keen vision, every single thing appears to be infinite, if deprived of the one which is not ? That is most certain. Then each of the others must appear to be infinite and finite, and one and many, if the others of the one exist and not the one. They must. Then will they not appear to be like and unlike ? How is that ? Just as in a picture things appear to be all one to a person standing at a distance, and to be in the same state and alike ? True. But when you approach them, they appear to be many and different ; and because of the appearance of the other different in kind, and unlike themselves ? True. And so must the particles appear to be like and unlike them selves and each other. Certainly. PARMENIDES. 219 And must they not be the same and yet different from another, and in contact and also in separation, and having every sort of motion, and every sort of rest, and becoming and being destroyed, and in neither state, and the like, all which things may be easily enumerated if the one is not and the many are? Most true. ii. bb. Once more, let us go back to the beginning, and ask if the one is not, and the others of the one are, what will follow. Let us ask that question. In the first place, the others will not be one ? Impossible. Nor will they be many ; for if they were many one would be contained in them. But if no one of them is one, all of them are nought, and therefore they will not be many. True. If there be no one in the others, the others are neither many nor one. 1 66 They are not. Nor do they appear either as one or many. Why is that ? Because the others have no sort or mariner or way of com munion with any sort of not-being, nor can anything which is not be connected with any of the others ; for that which is not has no parts. True. Nor is there an opinion or any appearance of not-being in connection with the others, nor is not-being ever in any way attributed to the others. No. Then if one is not, there is no conception of the others either as one or many; for you cannot conceive the many without the one. You cannot. Then if one is not, the others neither are, nor can be con ceived to be either one or many? It would seem not. Nor as like or unlike ? 220 PARMENIDES. No. Nor as the same or different, nor in contact or separation, nor in any of those states which we spoke of as apparent ; — the others neither are nor appear to be any of these, if one is not? True. Then may we not sum up the argument in a word and say truly : If one is not, then nothing is ? Certainly. Then now that is said ; and let us say further, as seems to be the truth, that, whether one is or is not, one and the others in relation to themselves and one another, all of them, in every way, are and are not, and appear and appear not. Most true. THEAETETUS. INTRODUCTION. THERE are some dialogues of Plato whose place in the series and relation to the other dialogues cannot be determined with any degree of certainty. The Theaetetus, like the Parmenides, has points of simi larity both with his earlier and his later writings. The perfection of style, the humour, the dramatic interest, the complexity of structure, the fertility of illustration, the shifting of the points of view, are characteristic of his best period of authorship. The vain search, the negative con clusion, the figure of the midwives, the constant profession of ignorance on the part of Socrates, also bear the stamp of the early dialogues, in which the original Socrates is not yet Platonized. Had we no other indications, we should be disposed to range the Theaetetus with the Apology and the Phaedrus, and perhaps even with the Protagoras and the Laches. But when we pass from the style to an examination of the subject, we trace a connexion with the later rather than with the earlier dialogues. In the first place there is the connexion, indicated by Plato himself at the end of the dialogue, with the Sophist, to which in many respects the Theaetetus is so little akin. The same persons reappear (i) including the younger Socrates, whose name is just mentioned in the Theaetetus, 147 C; (2) the theory of rest, which at p. 133 D, Socrates has declined to consider, is resumed by the Eleatic Stranger ; (3) there is a similar allusion in both dialogues to the meeting of Parmenides and Socrates, Theaet. 183 E, Soph. 217; and (4) the inquiry into not-being in the Sophist supplements the question of false opinion which is raised in the Theaetetus. (Compare also Theaet. 168 A, 210, and Soph. 230 B; Theaet. 174 D, E, and Soph. 227 A; Theaet. 188 E, and Soph. 237 D; Theaet. 179 A, and Soph. 233 B; Th?a^t. 172 D, Soph, 253 C, for parallel 224 THEAETETUS. turns of thought). Secondly, the later date of the dialogue is con firmed by the absence of the doctrine of recollection and of any doctrine of ideas except that which derives them from generalization and from reflection of the mind upon itself. The general character of the Theae- tetus is dialectical, and there are traces of the same Megarian influences which appear in the Parmenides, and which later writers, in their matter of fact way, have explained by the residence of Plato at Megara. Socrates disclaims the character of a professional eristic, 164 C, and also, with a sort of ironical admiration, expresses his inability to attain the Megarian precision in the use of terms, 197 A. Yet he too employs a similar sophistical skill in overturning every conceivable theory of knowledge. The direct indications of a date amount to no more than this : the conversation is said to have taken place when Theaetetus was a youth, and shortly before the death of Socrates. At the time of his own death he is supposed to be a full-grown man. Allowing nine or ten years for the interval between youth and manhood, the dialogue could not have been written earlier than 390, when Plato was about thirty-nine years of age. No more definite date is indicated by the engagement in which Theaetetus is said to have fallen or to have been wounded, and which may have taken place any time during the Corinthian war, between the years 390-387. The later date which has been suggested, 369, when the Athenians and Lacedaemonians disputed the Isthmus with Epami- nondas, would make the age of Theaetetus at his death forty-five or forty-six. This a little impairs the beauty of Socrates' remark, ' that he would be a great man if he lived.' In this uncertainty about the place of the Theaetetus, it seemed better, as in the case of the Republic, Timaeus, Critias, to retain the order in which Plato himself has arranged this and the two companion dialogues. We cannot exclude the possibility which has been already noticed in reference to other works of Plato, that the Theaetetus may not have been all written at one time ; or the still greater probability that the Sophist and Politicus, which differ greatly in style, were only appended after a long interval of time. The allusion to Parmenides at 183, compared with Sophist 217, would probably imply that the dialogue which is called by his name was already in existence ; unless, indeed, we suppose the passage in which the allusion occurs to have been inserted afterwards. Again, the Theaetetus may be connected with the Gorgias, either dia logue from different points of view containing an analysis of the real and INTRODUCTION. 225 apparent (Schleiermacher) ; and both may be brought into relation with the Apology as illustrating the personal life of Socrates. The Philebus, too, may with equal reason be placed either after or before what, in the language of Thrasyllus, may be called the Second Platonic Trilogy. Both the Parmenides and the Sophist, and still more the Theaetetus, have points of affinity with the Cratylus, in which the principles of rest and motion are again contrasted, and the Sophistical or Protagorean theory of language is opposed to that which is attributed to the disciple of Heracleitus, not to speak of lesser resemblances in thought and lan guage. The Parmenides, again, has been thought by some to hold an intermediate position between the Theaetetus and the Sophist; upon this view, Soph. 250 foil, may be regarded as the answer to the problems about One and Being which have been raised in the Parmenides. Any of these arrangements may suggest new views to the student of Plato ; none of them can lay claim to an exclusive probability in its favour. The Theaetetus is one of the narrated dialogues of Plato, and is the only one which is supposed to have been written down. In a short introductory scene, Euclides and Terpsion are described as meeting before the door of Euclides' house in Megara. This may have been a spot familiar to Plato (for Megara was within a walk of Athens), but no importance can be attached to the accidental introduction of the founder of the Megarian philosophy. The real intention of the preface is to create an interest about the person of Theaetetus, who has just been carried up from the army at Corinth in a dying state. The expectation of his death recalls the promise of his youth, and especially the famous conversation which Socrates hafl with him when he was quite young, a few days before his own trial and death, as we are once more reminded at the end of the dialogue. Yet we may observe that Plato has himself forgotten this, when he represents Euclides as from time to time coming to Athens and correcting the copy from Socrates' own mouth. The narrative, having introduced Theaetetus, and having guaranteed the authenticity of the dialogue (cp. Symposium, Phaedo, Parmenides) is then dropped. No further use is made of the device. As Plato himself remarks, who in this as in some other minute points, is imitated by Cicero (De Amicitia, c. i), the interlocutory words are omitted. Theaetetus, the hero of the battle of Corinth and of the dialogue, is a disciple of Theodorus, the great geometrician, whose science is thus indicated to be the propaedeutic to philosophy. An interest has been VOL. IV. Q 226 THEAETETUS. already excited about him by his approaching death, and now he is introduced to us anew by the praises of his master Theodoms. He is a youthful Socrates, and exhibits the same contrast of the fair soul and the ungainly face and frame, the Silenus mask and the god within, which are described in the Symposium. The picture which Theodorus gives of his courage and patience and intelligence and modesty is verified in the course of the dialogue. His courage is shown by his behaviour in the battle, and his other qualities shine forth as the argument proceeds. Socrates takes an evident delight in ' the wise Theaetetus,' who has more in him than ' many bearded men ' ; he is quite inspired by his answers. At first the youth is lost in wonder, and is almost too modset to speak (151 E), but, encouraged by Socrates, he rises to the occasion, and grows full of interest and enthusiasm about the great question. Like a youth (162 D) he has not finally made up his mind, and is very ready to follow the lead of Socrates, and to enter into each successive phase of the dis cussion which turns up. His great dialectical talent is shown in his power of drawing distinctions (163 E), and of foreseeing the conse quences of his own answers (154 D). The enquiry about the nature of knowledge is not new to him ; long ago he has felt the ' pang of philosophy,' and has experienced the youthful intoxication which is depicted in the Philebus (p. 15). But he has hitherto been unable to make the transition from mathematics to metaphysics. He can form a general conception of square and oblong numbers (p. 148), but he is unable to attain a similar expression of knowledge in the abstract. Yet at length (p. 185), he begins to recognise that there are universal conceptions of being, likeness, sameness, number, which the mind con templates in herself, and with the help of Socrates is conducted from a theory of sense to a theory of ideas. There is no reason to doubt that Theaetetus was a real person, whose name survived in the next generation. But neither can any importance be attached to the notices of him in Suidas and Proclus, which are prob ably based on the mention of him in Plato. According to a confused statement in Suidas, who mentions him twice over as a pupil, first of Socrates and then of Plato, he is said to have written the first work on the Five Solids. But no early authority cites the work, the invention of which may have been easily suggested by the division of roots, which Plato attributes to him, and the allusion to the backward state of solid geometry in the Republic (vii. 528 B). At any rate, there is no INTR OD UCTION. 227 occasion to recall him to life again (Muller) after the battle of Corinth in order that we may allow time for the completion of such a work. Such a supposition entirely destroys the pathetic interest of the introduction. Theodorus, the geometrician, had once been the friend and disciple of Protagoras, and is reluctantly drawn from his retirement to defend his old master. He is too old to learn Socrates' game of question and answer, and prefers the digressions to the main argument, because he finds them easier to follow. The mathematician, as Socrates says in the Republic, is not capable of giving a reason in the same manner as the dialectician (vii. 531 D, E), and Theodorus could not therefore have been appropriately introduced as the chief respondent. But he may be fairly appealed to, when the honour o'f his master is at stake. He is the 'guardian of his orphans/ although this is a responsibility which he wishes to throw upon Callias, the friend and patron of all Sophists, declaring that he himself had early 'run away ' from philosophy, and was absorbed in mathematics. His extreme dislike to the Heraclitean fana tics, (like the dislike of Theaetetus (155 E) to the repulsive materialists,) and his ready acceptance of the noble words of Socrates (175, 176) are noticeable traits of character. The Socrates of the Theaetetus is the same as the Socrates of the earlier dialogues. He is the invincible disputant, now advanced in years, of the Protagoras and Symposium; he is still pursuing his divine mission, his ' Herculean labours,' of which he has described the origin in the Apology : and he still hears the voice of his oracle, bidding him receive or not receive the truant souls. There he is supposed to have a mission to convict men of self-conceit; in the Theaetetus he has assigned to him by God the functions of a man-midwife, who delivers men from their errors, and under this character he is present throughout the dialogue. He is the true prophet who has an insight into the natures of men, and can divine their future (142 C) ; and he knows that sympathy is the secret power which unlocks their thoughts. The hit at Aristides, the son of Lysima- chus, who was specially committed to his charge in the Laches, may be remarked by the way. The attempt to discover the definition of know- . ledge is in accordance with the character of Socrates as he is described in the Memorabilia, asking What is justice ? what is temperance ? and the like. But there is no reason to suppose that he would have analysed the nature of perception, or traced the connection of Protagoras and Heracleitus, or have raised the difficulty respecting false opinion. The Q 2 228 THEAETETUS. humorous illustrations as well as the serious thoughts run through the dialogue. The snubnosedness of Theaetetus, which is characteristic both of him and Socrates, and the man-midwifery of Socrates, are not for gotten in the closing words. At the end of the dialogue, as in the Euthyphro, he is expecting to meet Meletus at the porch of the king Archon, but with the same indifference to the result which is everywhere displayed by him, he proposes that they shall reassemble on the following day at the same spot. The day comes, and in the Sophist the three friends again meet, but no further allusion is made to the trial, and the principal share in the argument is assigned, not to Socrates, but to an Eleatic stranger ; the youthful Theaetetus also plays a different and less independent part. And there is no allusion in the Introduction to the second and third dialogues, which are afterwards appended. There seems, therefore, reason to think that there is a real change, both in the characters and in the design. The dialogue is an enquiry into the nature of knowledge, which is interrupted by two digressions. The first is, the digression about the midwives, which is also a leading thought or continuous image, like the wave in the Republic, appearing and reappearing at intervals. Again and again we are reminded that the successive conceptions of knowledge are extracted from Theaetetus, who in his turn truly declares that Socrates has got a great deal more out of him than ever was in him. Socrates is never weary of working out the image in humorous details ; discern ing the symptoms of labour, carrying the child round the hearth, fearing that Theaetetus will bite him, comparing the argument to a wind-egg, asserting an hereditary right to the occupation. There is also a serious side to the image, which is an apt similitude of the Socratic theory of education (cp. Republic, 518 D, Sophist, 230), and accords with the ironical spirit in which the wisest of men delights to speak of himself. The other digression is the famous contrast of the lawyer and philo sopher. This is a sort of landing-place or break in the middle of the dialogue. At the commencement of a great discussion, the reflection naturally arises, How happy are they who, like the philosopher, have time for such discussions (cp. Rep. v. 450). There is no reason for the introduction of such a digression ; nor is a reason always needed, any more than for the introduction of an episode in a poem, or of a topic in conversation. That which is given by Socrates is quite sufficient, viz. that the philosopher may talk and write as he pleases. But though INTRODUCTION. 229 not very closely connected, neither is the digression out of keeping with the rest of the dialogue. The philosopher naturally desires to pour forth the thoughts which are always present to him, and to discourse of the higher life. The idea of knowledge, although hard to be defined, is realised in the life of philosophy. And the contrast is the favourite anti thesis between the world, in the various characters of sophist, lawyer, statesman, speaker, and the philosopher — between opinion and know ledge, between the conventional and the true. The greater part of the dialogue is devoted to setting up and throwing down definitions of science and knowledge. Proceeding from the lower to the higher by three stages, in which perception, opinion, reasoning, are successively examined, first, we get rid of the confusion of the idea of knowledge and specific kinds of knowledge; — a confusion which has been already noticed in the Lysis, Laches, Meno, and other dialogues. In the infancy of logic, a form of thought has to be invented before the content can be filled up. We cannot define knowledge until the nature of definition has been ascertained. Having succeeded in making his meaning plain, Socrates proceeds to analyse the first definition which Theaetetus proposes : ' Knowledge is sensible perception.' This is speedily identified with the Protagorean saying, ' Man is the measure of all things ' ; and of this again the foundation is discovered in the perpetual flux of Hera- cleitus. The relativeness of sensation is then developed at length, and for a moment the definition appears to be accepted. But soon the Protagorean thesis is pronounced to be suicidal ; for the adversaries of Protagoras are as good a measure as he is, and they deny his doctrine. He is then supposed to reply that the perception may be true at any given instant. But the reply is in the end shown to be inconsistent with the Hera- clitean foundation, on which the 'doctrine has been affirmed to rest. For if the Heraclitean flux is extended to every sort of change in every instant of time, how can any thought or word be detained even for an instant ? Sensible perception, like everything else, is tumbling to pieces. Nor can Protagoras himself maintain that one man is as good as another in his knowledge of the future ; and ' the expedient,' if not ' the just and true,' belongs to the sphere of the future. II. And so we must ask again, What is knowledge ? The comparison of sensations with one another implies a principle which is above sensa tion, and which resides in the mind itself. We are thus led to look for knowledge in a higher sphere, and accordingly Theaetetus, when again 230 THEAETETUS. interrogated, replies that ' knowledge is true opinion/ But how is false opinion possible ? The Megarian or Eristic spirit within us revives the question, which has been already asked and indirectly answered in the Meno. * How can a man be ignorant of that which he knows ? ' No answer is given to this not unanswerable question. The comparison of the mind to a block of wax, or to a decoy of birds, is found wanting. III. But are we not inverting the natural order in looking for opinion before we have found knowledge ? And knowledge is not true opinion, for the Athenian dicasts have true opinion but not knowledge. What then is knowledge? We answer, 'true opinion, with definition or ex planation/ But all the different ways in which this statement may be understood are set aside ; like the definitions of courage in the Laches, or of friendship in the Lysis, or of temperance in the Charmides. At length we arrive at the conclusion, in which nothing is concluded. There are two special difficulties which beset the student of the The- aetetus: (i) he is uncertain how far he can trust Plato's account of the theory of Protagoras; and he is also doubtful (2) how far, and in what parts of the dialogue, Plato is expressing his own opinion. The dramatic character of the work renders the answer to both these questions difficult. In reply to the first of them, we have only probabilities to offer. There seem to be three main points which have to be decided : (i) Would Protagoras have identified his own thesis, 'man is the measure of all things,' with the other, 'All knowledge is sensible perception ' ? (2) Would he have based the relativity of knowledge on the Heraclitean flux? (3) Would he have asserted the absoluteness of sensation at each instant? Of the work of Protagoras on ' Truth ' we know nothing, with the excep tion of the two famous fragments, which are cited in this dialogue, ' Man is the measure of all things/ and, ' Whether there are gods or not, I cannot tell/ Nor have we any other trustworthy evidence of the tenets of Protagoras, or of the sense in which his words are used. For later writers, including Aristotle in his Metaphysics, have mixed up the Pro tagoras of Plato, as they have the Socrates of Plato, with the real person. i. Returning then to the Theaetetus, as the only possible source from which an answer to these questions can be obtained, we may remark, that Plato had 'the Truth' of Protagoras before him, and frequently refers to the book. He seems to say expressly, that in this work the doctrine of the Heraclitean flux was not to be found, p. 152; 'he told the real INTRODUCTION. 231 truth ' (not in the book, which is so entitled, but) ' privately to his dis ciples ' — words which imply that the connection between the doctrines of Protagoras and Heracleitus was not generally recognised in Greece, but was really discovered or invented by Plato. On the other hand, the doctrine that ' Man is the measure of all things,' is expressly identified by Socrates with the other statement, ' that what appears to each man is to him ' : and a reference is made to the books in which the statement occurs ; — this Theaetetus, who has ' often read the books,' is supposed to acknowledge (152 A : so Cratylus 385 E). And in the speech attri buted to Protagoras, he never says that he has been misunderstood : at p. 1 66 C he rather seems to imply that the absoluteness of sensation at each instant was to be found in his words (cp. 158 E). He is only indignant at the 'reductio ad absurdum' which Socrates devises of his ' homo mensura ' ; and in this complaint his friend Theodorus agrees. The question may be raised, how far Plato in the Theaetetus could have misrepresented Protagoras without violating the laws of dramatic probability. Could he have pretended to cite from a well-known writing what was not to be found there ? But such a shadowy enquiry is not worth pursuing further. We need only remember that, in the criticism which follows, on the thesis of Protagoras, we are criticising the Protagoras of Plato, and not attempting to draw a precise line between his real senti ments and those which Plato has attributed to him. 2. The other difficulty is a more subtle, and also a more important one, because bearing on the general character of the Platonic dialogues. On a first reading of them, we are apt to imagine that the truth is only spoken by Socrates, who is never guilty of a fallacy himself, and is the great detector of the errors and fallacies of others. But this natural presumption is disturbed by the discovery that the Sophists are some times in the right and Socrates in the wrong. Like the hero of a novel, he is not to be supposed always to represent the sentiments of the author. There are few modern readers who do not side with Prota goras, rather than with Socrates, in the dialogue which is called by his name. The Cratylus presents a similar difficulty: in his etymologies, as in the number of the State, we cannot tell how far Socrates is serious; for the Socratic irony will not allow him to distinguish between his real and his assumed wisdom. No one is the superior of the invincible Socrates in argument (except in the first part of the Parmenides, where 232 THEAETETUS. he is introduced as a youth) ; but he is by no means supposed to be in possession of the whole truth. Arguments are often put into his mouth (cp. Introduction to the Gorgias) which must have seemed quite as untenable to Plato as to a modern writer. In this dialogue great part of the answer of Protagoras is just and sound ; remarks are made by him on verbal criticism, and on the importance of understanding an oppo nent's meaning, which are conceived in the true spirit of philosophy. And the distinction which he is supposed to draw between Eristic and Dialectic (167, 168), is really a criticism of Plato on himself and his own criticism of Protagoras. The difficulty seems to arise from not attending to the dramatic cha racter of the writings of Plato. There are two, or perhaps many, sides to questions ; which are parted among the different speakers. Sometimes one view or aspect of a question is made to predominate over the rest, as in the Gorgias or Sophist ; but in other dialogues truth is divided, as in the Laches and Protagoras, and the interest of the piece consists in the contrast of opinions. The confusion caused by the irony of Socrates, who, if he is true to his character, cannot say anything of his own knowledge, is increased by the circumstance that in the Theaetetus and some other dialogues, he is occasionally playing both parts himself, and even charging his own arguments with unfairness. In the Theaetetus he is designedly held back from arriving at a conclusion. For we cannot suppose that Plato conceived a definition of knowledge to be impossible. But this is his manner of approaching and surrounding a question. The lights which he throws on his subject are indirect, but they are not the less real for that. He has no intention of proving a thesis by a cut and dried argument; nor does he imagine that a great philosophical problem can be tied up within the limits of a definition. If he has analysed a proposition or notion, even with the severity of an impossible logic, if half-truths have been compared by him with other half-truths, if he has cleared up or advanced popular ideas, or illustrated a new method, the aim of a Platonic dialogue has been attained. The writings of Plato belong to an age in which the power of analysis had outrun the means of knowledge ; and through a spurious use of dialectic, the distinctions which had been already 'won from the void and formless infinite/ seemed to be rapidly returning to their original chaos. The two great speculative philosophies, which a century earlier had so deeply impressed the mind of Hellas, were now degenerating into Eristic. INTRODUCTION. 233 The contemporaries of Plato and Socrates were vainly trying to find new combinations of them, or to transfer them from the object to the subject. The Megarians, in their first attempts to attain a severer logic, were making knowledge impossible. (Cp. Theaet. 202.) They were asserting * the one good under many names/ and, like the Cynics, seem to have denied predication; while the Cynics themselves were 'depriving virtue of all which made virtue desirable in the eyes of Socrates and Plato. And besides these, we find mention in the later writings of Plato, especially in the Theaetetus, Sophist, and Laws, of certain repulsive godless persons, who will not believe what they ' cannot hold in their hands ' ; and cannot be approached in argument, because they cannot argue. (Theaet. 155 E; Soph. 246 A). No school of Greek philosophers exactly answers to these persons, in whom Plato may perhaps have blended some features of the Atomists with the vulgar materialistic tendencies of mankind in general. (Cp. Introduction to the Sophist.) And not only was there a conflict of opinions, but the stage which the mind had reached presented other difficulties hardly intel ligible to us, who live in a different cycle of human thought. All times of mental progress are times of confusion; we only see, or rather seem to see things clearly, when they have been long fixed and defined. In the age of Plato, the limits of the world of ima- nation and of pure abstraction, of the old world and the new, were not yet fixed. The Greeks, in the fourth century before Christ, had no words for 'subject' and 'object,' and no distinct conception of them ; yet they were always hovering about the question involved in them. The analysis of sense, and the analysis of thought, were equally difficult to them; and hopelessly confused by the attempt to solve them, not through an appeal to facts, but by the help of general theories respecting the nature of the universe. Plato, in his Theaetetus, gathers up the sceptical tendencies of his age, and compares them. But he does not seek to reconstruct out of them a theory of knowledge. The time at which such a theory could be framed had not yet arrived. For there was no measure of experience with which the ideas swarming in men's minds could be compared; the meaning of the word ' science ' could scarcely be explained to them, except from the mathematical sciences, which alone offered the type of universality and certainty. Philosophy was becoming more and more vacant and abstract, and not only the Platonic ideas and 234 THEAETETUS. the Eleatic being, but all abstractions seemed to be at variance with sense and at war with one another. The want of the Greek mind in the fourth century before Christ, was not another theory of rest or motion, or being or atoms, but rather a philosophy which could free the mind from the power of abstractions and alternatives, and show how far rest and how far motion, how far the universal principle of being, and the multitudinous principle of atoms, entered into the composition of the world; which could distinguish between the true and false analogy, and allow the negative as well as the positive a place in human thought. To such a philosophy Plato, in the Theaetetus, offers many contributions. He has followed philo sophy into the region of mythology, and pointed out the similarities of opposing phases of thought. He has also shown that extreme abstractions are self-destructive; and, indeed, hardly distinguishable from one another. But his intention is not to unravel the whole subject of knowledge, if this had been possible; and several times in the course of the dialogue he rejects explanations of knowledge which have germs of truth in them ; as, for example, ' the resolution of the compound into the simple'; or, 'right opinion with a mark of difference.' Terpsion, who has come to Megara from the country, is described as looking in vain for Euclides in the Agora ; the latter explains that he had been down to the harbour, and on his way thither had met Theaetetus, who was being carried up from the army to Athens. He was scarcely alive, for he had been badly wounded at the battle of Corinth, and had taken the dysentery, which prevailed in the camp. The mention of his condition suggests the reflection, ' what a loss he will be/ ' Yes, indeed,' replies Euclid ; ' only just now I was hearing of his noble conduct in the battle.' ' That I should expect ; but why did he not remain at Megara?' 'I wanted him to remain, but he would not ; so I went with him as far as Erineum ; and as I parted from him, I remembered that Socrates had seen him when he was a youth, and had a remarkable conversation with him, not long before his own death ; and he then prophesied of him, that he would be a great man if he lived/ ' How true that has been ; how like aH that Socrates said ! And could you repeat the conversation?' 'Not from memory; but I took notes when I returned home, which I afterwards filled up at INTRODUCTION. 235 leisure, and got Socrates to correct them from time to time, when I came to Athens. Terpsion had long intended to ask for a sight of this writing, of which he had already heard. They are both tired, and agree to rest and have the conversation of Socrates read to them by a servant. Here is the roll, Terpsion ; I need only observe that I have omitted, for the sake of convenience, the interlocutory words, 'said I,' 'said he'; and that Theaetetus, and Theodorus, the geome trician of Cyrene, are the persons with whom Socrates is conversing. Socrates begins by asking Theodorus whether, in his visit to Athens, he has found any among the Athenian youth who were likely to attain distinction in science. ' Yes, Socrates, there is one very remarkable youth, with whom I have become acquainted. He is no beauty, and therefore you need not imagine that I am in love with him; and, to say the truth, he is very like you, for he has a snub nose, and projecting eyes, although these features are not so marked in him as in you. He combines the most various qualities, quickness, patience, courage ; and he is gentle as well as wise, always silently flowing on, like a river of oil. Look; he is the middle one of those who are coming out of the court into the palestra.' Socrates, who does not know his name, recognizes the son of Euphronius, who was himself a good man and a rich. He is informed by Theodorus that the youth is named Theaetetus, but the property of his father has disappeared in the hands of trustees ; this does not, however, prevent him from adding liberality to his other virtues. At the desire of Socrates, he invites Theaetetus to sit by them. ' Yes/ says Socrates, ' that I may see in you, Theaetetus, the image of my ugly self, as Theodorus declares. Not that his remark is of any importance, for though he is a philosopher he is not a painter, and therefore he is no judge of our faces, though, as he is a man of science, he may be a judge of our minds. And if he were to praise the mental endowments of either of us, in that case the hearer of the eulogy ought to examine into what he says, and the subject should not refuse to be examined.' Theaetetus consents, and is caught in a trap. (Cp. the similar trap which is laid for Theodorus, at p. 166, 168 D.) 'Then now, Theaetetus, you will have to be examined, for he has been praising you in a style of which I never heard the like.' * He was only jesting.' ' Nay, that is not his way ; and I cannot allow you, on that pretence, to retract the assent which you have already 236 THEAETETUS. given, or I shall make Theodorus repeat your praises, and swear to them.' Theaetetus, in reply, professes that he is -willing to be examined, and Socrates begins by asking him, * What he learns of Theodorus ?' He is himself anxious to learn anything of anybody ; and now he has a little question to which he wants Theaetetus or Theodorus (or whichever of the company would not be ' donkey ' to the rest) to find an answer. Without further preface, but at the same time apologizing for his eager ness, he asks, 'What is knowledge?' Theodorus is too old to answer questions, and begs him to interrogate Theaetetus, who has the advan tage of youth. Theaetetus replies, that knowledge is what he learns of Theodorus, i. e. geometry and arithmetic ; and that there are other kinds of know ledge — shoemaking, carpentering, and the like. But Socrates rejoins, that this answer contains too much and also too little. For although Theaetetus has enumerated several kinds of knowledge, he has not explained the common nature of them ; as if he had been asked, ' What is clay?' and instead of saying, 'Clay is moistened earth/ he had answered, ' There is one clay of image-makers, another of potters, another of oven-makers.' Theaetetus at once divines that Socrates means him to extend to all kinds of knowledge the same process of generalization which he has already learned to apply to arithmetic. For he has discovered a division of numbers into square numbers, 4, 9, 1 6, &c., which are composed of equal factors, and represent figures which have equal sides, and oblong numbers, 3, 5, 6, 7, &c., which are composed of unequal factors, and represent figures which have unequal sides. But he has never succeeded in attaining a similar conception of knowledge, though he has often tried; and, when this and similar questions were brought to him from Socrates, has been sorely distressed by them. Socrates explains to him that he is in labour. For men as well as women have pangs of labour; and both at times require the assistance of midwives. And he, Socrates, is a midwife, although this is a secret; he has inherited the art from his mother bold and bluff, and he ushers into light, not children, but the thoughts of men. Like the midwives, he has no children — the God will not allow him to bring anything into the world of his own. He also reminds Theaetetus that the midwives are or ought to be the only matchmakers; (this is the preparation for a biting jest, 151 B;) for those who reap the fruit are most likely to know on what soil INTRODUCTION. 237 the plants will grow. But the midwives avoid this department of prac tice, because they have a character to lose, and do not want to be called procuresses. There are some other differences between his own art and that of the midwives, and between the two sorts of pregnancy. For women bring forth in due course, never anything but children, whereas the offspring of the brain are often monstrous and capricious. And there is no difficulty in discerning the signs of the coming labour in the one case, but in the other the difficulty is far greater. My patients, he says, are barren and stolid at first, but after a while they 'round apace/ if the gods are propitious to them ; and this is due not to me but to themselves ; I and the god only assist in bringing their ideas to the birth. Many of them have left me too soon, and the result has been that they have produced abortions; or when I have delivered them of children they have given them an ill bringing up, and have ended by seeing themselves, as others see them, to be great fools. Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, is one of these, and there have been others. The truants often return to me and beg to be readmitted ; and then, if my familiar allows me, which is not always the case, I receive them, and they begin to grow again. There come to me also those who have nothing in them, and have no need of my art ; and I am their matchmaker (see above), and marry them to Prodicus or some other inspired sage who is likely to suit them. I tell you this long story because I suspect that you are in labour. Come then to me, who am a midwife, and the son of a midwife, and I will deliver you. And do not bite me, as the women do, if I abstract your first-born ; for I am acting out of good will towards you ; the God who is within me is the friend of man, though he will not allow me to dissemble the truth. Once more then, Theaetetus, I repeat my old question — 'What is knowledge?' Take courage, and by the help of God you will discover an answer. ' My answer is, that knowledge is perception.' That is the theory of Protagoras, who has another way of expressing the same thing when he says, ' man is the measure of all things.' He was a very wise man, and we should try to understand him. In order to illustrate his meaning let me suppose that there is the same wind blowing in our faces, and one of us may be hot and the other cold. How is this ? Protagoras will reply that the wind is hot to him who is cold, cold to him who is hot. And 'is' means 'appears/ and when you say ' appears,' that means ' he feels.' Thus feeling, appearance, perception, coincide with being. I suspect, however, that this was only a ' fa£on 238 THEAETETUS. de parler,' which he imposed on the common herd like you and me ; he told * the truth ' (in allusion to the title of his book, which was called ' the truth ') in secret to his disciples. For he was really a votary of that famous philosophy in which all things are said to be relative ; nothing is great or small, or heavy or light, or one, but all is in motion and mixture and transition and flux and generation, not ' being,' as we ignorantly affirm, but ' becoming.' This has been the doctrine, not of Protagoras only, but of all philosophers, with the single exception of Parmenides ; Empedocles, Heracleitus, and others, and all the poets, with Epicharmus, the king of Comedy, and Homer, the king of Tragedy, at their head, have said the same ; the latter has these words — * Ocean, the generation of gods, and mother Tethys.' And many arguments are used to show, that motion is the source of life, and rest of death ; fire and warmth are produced by friction, and living creatures owe their origin to a similar cause ; the bodily frame is pre served by exercise and destroyed by indolence ; and if the sun ceased to move, ' chaos would come again.' Now apply this doctrine of ' all is motion ' to the senses, and first of all to the sense of sight. The colour of white, or any other colour, is neither in the eyes nor out of them, but ever in motion between the object and the eye, and varying in the case of every percipient. All is relative, and, as the followers of Protagoras remark, endless contradictions arise when we deny this ; e. g. here are six dice ; they are more than four and less than twelve ; more and also less — (you would say that, would you not? 'Yes'). And Protagoras will retort: 'But can anything be more or less without addition?' ' I should say " no " if I were not afraid of contradicting my former answer.' And if you say 'yes' the tongue will escape conviction but not the mind, as Euripides would say ? ' True/ The thoroughbred Sophists, who know all that can be known, would have a sparring match over this, but we, who have no professional pride, want only to discover whether our ideas are clear and consistent. And we cannot be wrong in saying, first, that nothing can be greater or less while remaining equal : secondly, that there can be no becoming greater or less without addition or sub traction; thirdly, that what is and was not, cannot be without having become. But then how is this reconcileable with the case of the dice, and with similar examples ? — that is the question. ' I am often perplexed INTRODUCTION. 239 and amazed, Socrates, by these difficulties.' That is because you are a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder; Iris is the child of ,'Thaumas. Do you know the original principle on which the doctrine of Protagoras is based ? ' No.' Then I will tell you ; but we must not let the uninitiated hear, and by the uninitiated I mean the repulsive people /who believe in nothing which they cannot hold in their hands. The brethren whose mysteries I am about to unfold to you are far more ingenious. They maintain that all is motion ; and that motion has two forms, action and passion, out of which endless phenomena are created also in two forms — sense and the object of sense — which come to the birth together. Motions have various degrees of swiftness ; the motions of the agent and the patient are slower, because they move and create in and about themselves, but the things which are born of them have a swifter motion, and pass rapidly from place to place. The eye and the appropriate object come together, and give birth to whiteness and the sensation of whiteness ; the eye is filled with seeing, and becomes not sight but a seeing eye, and the object is filled with whiteness, and becomes not whiteness but white ; and no other compound of either with another would have produced the same effect. All sensation is to be resolved into a similar combination of an agent and patient. Of either, taken separately, no idea can be formed, and the agent may become a patient, and the patient an agent. Hence there arises a general reflection that nothing is, but all things become; no name can detain or fix them. Are not these speculations charming, Theae- tetus, and very good for a person in your interesting situation ? I am offering you specimens of other men's wisdom, because I have no wisdom of my own, and I want to deliver you of something; and presently we will see whether you have brought forth wind or not. Tell me, then, what do you think of the notion 'that all things are becoming'? ' When I hear your arguments, I am marvellously ready to assent/ But I ought not to conceal from you that there is a serious objection which may be urged against this doctrine of Protagoras. For there are states, such as madness and dreaming, in which perception is false ; and half our life is spent in dreaming ; and who can say that at this instant we are not dreaming? Even the fancies of madmen are real at the time. But if knowledge is perception, how can we distinguish between the true and the false in such caces? Having stated the objection, 240 THEAETETUS. I will now state the answer. Protagoras would deny the continuity of phenomena ; he would say that what is different is entirely different, and whether active or passive has a different power. There are infinite agents and patients in the world, and these produce in every com bination of them a different perception. Take myself as an instance : — Socrates may be ill or he may be well, and remember that Socrates, with all his accidents, is spoken of. The wine which I drink when I am well is pleasant to me, but the same wine is unpleasant to me when I am ill. And there is nothing else from which I can receive the same impression, nor can another receive the same impression from the wine. Neither can I and the object of sense become sepa rately what we become together. For the one in becoming is relative to the other, but they have no other relation; and the combination of them is absolute at each moment. [In modern language the act of sensation is really indivisible, though capable of a mental analysis into subject and object.] My sensation alone is true, and true to me only. And therefore, as Protagoras says, ' To myself I am the judge of what is and what is not.' Thus the flux of Homer and Heracleitus, the great Protagorean saying, 'that man is the measure of all things/ the doctrine of Theaetetus, 'that knowledge is perception/ have all the same meaning. And this is thy new-born child, which by my art I have brought to light ; and you must not be angry if instead of rearing your infant we expose him. ' Theaetetus will not be angry ; he is very good-natured. But I should like to know, Socrates, whether you mean to say that all this is untrue?' First reminding you that I am not the bag which contains the argu ments, but that I extract them from Theaetetus, shall I tell you what amazes me in your friend Protagoras ? 'What may that be?' I like his doctrine that what appears is ; but I wonder that he did not begin his great work on truth with a declaration that a pig, or a dog- faced baboon, or any other monster which has sensation, is a measure of all things; then while we were reverencing him as a god he might have produced a magnificent effect by expounding to us that he was no wiser than a tadpole. For if truth is only sensation, and one man's discernment is as good as another's, and every man is his own judge, and everything that he judges is right and true, then what need of INTRODUCTION. 241 Protagoras to be our instructor at a high figure; and why should we be less knowing than he is, or have to go to him, if every man is the measure of all things ? My own art of midwifery, and all dialectic, is an enormous folly, if Protagoras' ' truth ' be indeed truth, and the philosopher is not merely amusing himself by giving oracles out of his book. Theodorus thinks that Socrates is unjust to his master, Protagoras ; but he is too old and stiff to try a fall with him, and therefore refers him to Theaetetus, who is already driven out of his former opinion by the arguments of Socrates. Socrates then takes up the defence of Protagoras, who is supposed to reply in his own person — Good people, you sit and declaim about the gods, of whose existence or non-existence I have nothing to say, or you discourse about man being reduced to the level of the brutes ; but what proof have you of your statements ? And yet surely you and Theodorus had better reflect whether probability is a safe guide. Theodorus would be a bad geometrician if he had nothing better to offer. Theaetetus is affected by the appeal to geometry, and Socrates is induced by him to put the question in a new form. He proceeds as follows : — Should we say that we know what we see and hear, e. g. the sound of words or the sight of letters in a foreign tongue ? ' We should say that the figures of the letters, and the pitch of the voice in uttering them, were known to us, but not the meaning of them/ Excellent ; I want you to grow, and therefore I will leave that answer and ask another question : Is not seeing perceiving ? * Very true.' And he who sees knows ? ' Yes.' And he who remembers, remembers that which he sees and knows ? ' Very true.' But if he closes his eyes does he not remember ? ' He does.' Then he may remember and not see ; and if seeing is knowing, he may remember and not know. Is not this a ' reductio ad absurdum ' of the hypothesis that knowledge is sensible perception ? Yet perhaps we are crowing too soon ; and if Protagoras, ' the father of the myth/ had been alive, the result might have been very different. But he is dead, and Theodorus, whom he left guardian of his 'orphan/ has not been very zealous in defending him. Theodorus objects that Callias is the true guardian, but he hopes that Socrates will come to the rescue. Socrates prefaces his defence by resuming the attack. He asks whether a man can know and not know at the same time ? ' Impossible.' Quite possible, if you maintain that VOL. IV. R 242 THEAETETUS. seeing is knowing. The confident adversary, suiting the action to the word, shuts one of your eyes ; and now, says he, you see and do not see, but do you know and not know ? And a fresh opponent darts from his ambush, and transfers to knowledge the terms which are commonly applied to sight. He asks whether you can know near and not at a distance ; whether you can have a sharp and also a dull knowledge. While you are wondering at his incomparable wisdom, he gets you into his power, and you will not escape until you have come to an under standing with him about the money which is to be paid for your release. But Protagoras has not yet made his defence ; and already he may be heard contemptuously replying that he is not responsible for the admis sions which were made by a boy, who could not foresee the coming move, and therefore had answered in a manner which enabled Socrates to raise a laugh against him. But I cannot be fairly charged, he will say, with an answer which I should not have given ; for I never maintained that the memory of a feeling is the same as a feeling, or denied that a man might know and not know the same thing at the same time. Or, if you will have extreme precision, I say that man in different relations is many or rather infinite in number. And I challenge you, either to show that his perceptions are not individual, or that if they are, what appears to him is not what is. As to your pigs and baboons, you are yourself a pig, and you make my writings a sport of other swine. But I still affirm that man is the measure of all things, although I admit that one man may be a thousand times better than another, in proportion as he has better impressions. Neither do I deny the existence of wisdom or of the wise man. But I maintain that wisdom is a practical remedial power of turning evil into good, the bitterness of disease into the sweet ness of health, and not any greater truth or superiority of knowledge. For the impressions of the sick are as true as the impressions of the healthy ; and the sick are as wise as the healthy. Nor can any man be cured of a false opinion, for there is no such thing ; but he may be cured of the evil habit which generates in him an evil opinion. This is effected in the body by the drugs of the physician, and in the soul by the words of the Sophist ; and the new state or opinion is not truer, but only better than the old. And philosophers are not tadpoles, but physicians and husbandmen, who till the soil and infuse health into animals and plants, and make the good take the place of the evil, both in individuals and INTR OD UCTION. 243 states. Wise and good rhetoricians make the good to appear just in states (for that is just which appears just to a state), and in return, they deserve to be well paid. And you, Socrates, whether you please or not, must continue to be a measure. This is my defence, and I must request you to meet me fairly. We are professing to reason, and not merely to dispute ; and there is a great difference between reasoning and dis putation. For the disputer is always seeking to trip up his opponent ; and this is a mode of argument which disgusts men as they grow older with philosophy. But the reasoner is trying to understand him and to point out his errors to him, whether arising from his own or from his companions' fault ; he does not argue from the customary use of names, which the vulgar pervert in all manner of ways. If you are gentle to an adversary he will follow and love you ; and if defeated he will lay the blame on himself, and seek to escape from his own prejudices into philo sophy. I would recommend you, Socrates, to adopt this humaner method, and to avoid captious and verbal criticisms. Such, Theodorus, is the very slight help which I am able to afford to your friend ; had he been alive, he would have helped himself in far better style. ' You have made a most valorous defence.' Yes ; but did you observe that Protagoras bid me be serious, and com plained of our getting up a laugh against him with the aid of a boy ? He meant to intimate that you must take the place of Theaetetus, who may be wiser than many bearded men, but not wiser than you, Theodorus. ' The rule of the Spartan Palaestra is, strip or depart ; but you are like the giant Antaeus, and will not let me depart unless I try a fall with you.' Yes, that is the nature of my complaint. And many a Hercules, many a Theseus mighty in deeds and words has broken my head ; but I am always at this rough game. Please, then, to favour me. * On the condition of not exceeding a single fall, I consent/ Socrates now resumes the argument. As he is very desirous of doing justice to Protagoras, he insists on citing his own words, — ' What appears to each man is to him.' And how, asks Socrates, are these words recon- cileable with the fact that all mankind are agreed in thinking themselves wiser than others in some respects, and inferior to them in others ? In the hour of danger they are ready to fall down and worship any one who R 2 244 THEAETETUS, is their superior in wisdom as if he were a god. And the world is full of men who are asking to be taught and willing to be ruled, and of other men who are willing to rule and teach them. All which implies that men do judge of one another's impressions, and think some wise and others foolish. How will Protagoras answer this argument ? For he cannot say that no one deems another ignorant or mistaken. If you form a judg ment, thousands and ten of thousands are ready to maintain the oppo site. The multitude may not and do not agree in Protagoras' own thesis, * that man is the measure of all things/ and then who is to decide ? Upon his own showing must not his ' truth ' depend on the number of suffrages, and be more or less true in proportion as he has more or fewer of them ? And he must acknowledge further, that they speak truly who deny him to speak truly, which is a famous jest. And if he admits that they speak truly who deny him to speak truly, he must admit that he himself does not speak truly. But his opponents will refuse to admit this of themselves, and he must admit that they are right in their refusal. The conclusion is, that all mankind, including Protagoras himself, will deny that he speaks truly ; and his truth will be true neither to himself nor to anybody else. Theodorus is inclined to think that this is going too far. Socrates ironically replies) that he is not going beyond the truth. But if the old Protagoras could only pop his head out of the world below, he would doubtless give them both a sound castigation and be off to the shades in an instant. Seeing that he is not within call, we must examine the ques tion for ourselves ; and there are clearly great differences in the under standings of men. Admitting, with Protagoras, that immediate sensa tions of hot, cold, and the like, are to each one such as they appear, yet this hypothesis cannot be extended to judgments or opinions. And even if we were to admit further, (and this is the view of some who are not thorough-going followers of Protagoras,) that right and wrong, holy and unholy, are to each state or individual such as they appear, still Prota goras will not venture to maintain that every man is equally the measure of expediency, or that the thing which seems is expedient to every one. But this begins a new question. ' Well, Socrates, we have plenty of leisure.' Yes, we have, and, after the manner of philosophers, we are digressing; I have often observed how ridiculous this habit of theirs makes them when they appear in court. ' What do you mean ? ' I mean to say that a philosopher is a gentleman, but a lawyer is a servant. The one INTR OD UCTION. 245 can have his talk out, and wander at will from, one subject to another, as the fancy takes him; like ourselves, he may be long or short, as he pleases. But the lawyer is always in a hurry; there is the clepsydra limiting his time, and the brief limiting his topics, and his adversary is standing over him and exacting his rights. He is a servant disputing about a fellow-servant before his master, who holds the cause in his hands ; the path never diverges, and often the race is for his life. Such experiences render him keen and shrewd ; he learns the arts of flattery, and is perfect in the practice of crooked ways ; dangers have come upon him too soon, when the tenderness of youth was unable to meet them with truth and honesty, and he has resorted to counter-acts of dishonesty and falsehood, and become warped and distorted ; without any health or freedom or truth in him he has grown up to manhood, and is or esteems himself to be a master of cunning. Such are the lawyers ; will you have the companion picture of philosophers ? or will this be too much of a digression ? * Nay, Socrates, the argument is our servant, and not our master. Who is the judge or where is the spectator, having a right to con trol us ? ' I will describe the leaders, then ; for the inferior sort are not worth the trouble. The lords of philosophy have not learned the way to the dicastery or ecclesia; they are ignorant of the laws and votes of the state, recited or written ; societies, whether political or festive, clubs, and singing maidens do not enter even into their dreams. And the scandals of persons or their ancestors, male and female, they know no more than they can tell the number of pints in the ocean. Neither are they con scious of their own ignorance ; for they do not practise singularity in order to gain reputation, but the truth is, that the outer form of them only is residing in the city ; the inner man, as Pindar says, is going on a voyage of discovery, measuring as with line and rule the things which are under and in the earth, interrogating the whole of nature, only not condescending to what is near them. ' What do you mean, Socrates ? ' I will illustrate my meaning by the jest of the witty maid-servant, who saw Thales tumbling into a well, and said of him, that he was so eager to know what was going on in heaven, that he could not see what was before his feet. This is applicable to all philosophers. The philosopher is unacquainted with the world ; he hardly knows whether his neighbour 246 THEAETETUS. is a man or an animal. For he is always contemplating the nature of man, and inquiring what such a nature ought to do or suffer different from any other. Hence, on every occasion in private life and public, as I was saying, when he appears in a law-court or anywhere, he is the joke, not only of maid-servants, but of the general herd, falling into wells and every sort of disaster; he looks such an awkward, inexperienced creature, unable to say anything personal, when he is abused, in answer to his adversaries (for he knows no evil of any one) ; and when he hears the praises of others, he cannot help laughing from the bottom of his soul at their pretensions; and this also gives him a ridiculous appearance. A king or tyrant appears to him to be a kind of swine-herd or cow-herd, milking away at an animal who is much more troublesome and dangerous than cows or sheep ; like the cow-herd, he has no time to be educated, and the pen in which he keeps his flock in the mountains is surrounded by a wall. When he hears of large landed properties of ten thousand acres or more, he thinks of the whole earth ; or if he is told of the anti quity of a family, he remembers that every one has had myriads of pro genitors, rich and poor, Greeks and barbarians, kings and slaves. And he who boasts of his descent from Amphitryon in the twenty-fifth gene ration, may, if he pleases, add as many more, and double that again, and our philosopher only laughs at his inability to do a larger sum. Such is the man at whom the vulgar scoff; he seems to them as if he could not mind his feet. ' That is very true, Socrates/ But when he tries to draw the quick-witted lawyer out of his pleas and rejoinders to the contempla tion of absolute justice or injustice in their own nature, or from the popular praises of wealthy kings to the view of happiness and misery in themselves, or to the reasons why a man should seek after the one and avoid the other, then the situation is reversed; the little wretch turns giddy, and is ready to fall over the precipice; his utterance becomes thick, and he makes himself ridiculous, not to servant-maids, but to every man of liberal education. Such are the two pictures : the one of the philosopher and gentleman, who may be excused for not having learned how to make a bed, or cook up flatteries ; the other a serviceable knave, who hardly knows how to wear his cloak, still less can he awaken harmonious thoughts or hymn virtue's praises. ' If the world, Socrates, were as ready to receive your words as I am, there would be greater peace and less evil among mankind/ Evil, Theodorus, must ever remain in this world to be the antagonist INTR OD UCTION. 247 of good, out of the way of the gods in heaven. Wherefore also we should fly away from ourselves to them ; and to fly to them is to become like them ; and to become like them is to become holy, just and true. But many live in the old wives' fable of appearances; they think that you should follow virtue in order that you may seem to be good. And yet the truth is, that God is righteous ; and of men, he is most like him who is most righteous. To know this is wisdom ; and in comparison of this the wisdom of the arts or the seeming wisdom of politicians is mean and common. The unrighteous man is apt to pride himself on his cunning ; when others call him rogue, he says to himself : ' They only mean that I am one who ought to live, and not a mere burden of the earth.' But he should reflect that his ignorance makes his condition worse than if he knew. For the penalty of injustice is not death or stripes, but the fatal necessity of becoming more and more unjust. Two patterns of life are set before him ; the one blessed and divine, the other godless and wretched ; and he is growing more and more like the one and unlike the other. He does not see that if he continues in his cunning, the place of innocence will not receive him after death. And yet if such a man has the courage to hear the argument out, he often becomes dissatisfied with himself, and has no more strength in him than a child. — But we have digressed enough. * For my part, Socrates, I like the digressions better than the argu ment, because I understand them better.' To return. When we left off, the Protagoreans and Heracliteans were maintaining that the ordinances of the State were just, while they lasted. But no one would maintain that the laws of the State were always good or expedient, although this may be the intention of them. For the expe dient has to do with the future, about which we are liable to mistake. Now, would Protagoras maintain that man is the measure not only of the present and past, but of the future ; and that there is no difference in the judgments of men about the future ? Would a private person, for example, be as likely to know when he is going to have a fever, as the physician who attended him ? And if they differ in opinion, which of them is likely to be right ; or are they both right ? Is not a vine-grower a better judge of a vintage which is not yet gathered, or a cook of a dinner which is in preparation, or Protagoras of the probable effect of a speech than any indifferent person ? The last example speaks ' ad hominem.' For Protagoras would never have amassed a fortune if every 248 THEAETETUS. man could judge of the future for himself. He is, therefore, compelled to admit that he is a measure ; but I, who know nothing, am not equally convinced that I am. This is one way of refuting him ; and he is refuted also by the authority which he attributes to the opinions of others, who deny his opinions. I am not equally sure that we can disprove the truth of immediate states of feeling. But this leads us to the doctrine of the universal flux, about which a battle-royal is always going on in the cities of Ionia. ' Yes ; the Ephesians are downright mad about the flux ; they cannot stop to argue with you, but are perpetually moving themselves in obedience to their text-books. Their restlessness is beyond expression, and if you ask any of them a question, they will not answer, but dart at you some unintelligible saying, and another and another, making no way either themselves or with others ; for nothing is fixed in them or their ideas, — they are at war with fixed principles/ I suppose, Theo- dorus, that you have never seen them in time of peace, when they dis course at leisure to their disciples ? ' Disciples ! they have none ; they are a set of uneducated fanatics, and each of them says of the other that they have no knowledge : we must trust to ourselves, and not to them for the solution of the problem.' Well, the doctrine is old, being derived from the poets, who speak in a figure of Oceanus and Tethys ; the truth was once concealed, but is now revealed by the superior wisdom of a later generation, and made intelligible to the cobbler, who, on hearing that all is in motion, and not some things only, as he ignorantly fancied, may be expected to fall down and worship his teachers. And the opposite doctrine must not be forgotten : — ' That is alone unmoved which is named the Universe,' as Parmenides affirms. Thus \ve are in the midst of the fray ; both parties are dragging us to their side ; and we are not certain which of them are in the right, and if neither, then we shall be in a ridiculous posi tion, having to set up our own opinion against ancient and famous men. Let us first approach the river-gods, or patrons of the flux. When they speak of motion, must they not include two kinds of motion, change of place and change of- nature ? — And all things must be supposed to have both kinds of motion ; for if not, the same things would be at rest and in motion, which is contrary to their theory. And did we not say, that all sensations of whiteness, heat, and the like arose out of a relation and motion between the patient and agent ; the patient INTR OD UCTION. 249 being distinguished from the perception, and the agent not a ' qualitas ' but a ' quale,' and neither of them having any absolute existence ? But now we make the further discovery, that neither white or whiteness, nor any sense or sensation, can be predicated of anything, for they are in a perpetual flux. And therefore we must modify the doctrine of Theaetetus and Protagoras, by asserting further that knowledge is and is not sensation ; and of everything we must say equally, that this is and is not, or becomes or becomes not. And still the word ' this ' is not quite correct, for language fails in the attempt to express their meaning. At the close of the discussion, Theodoras claims to be released from the argument, according to his agreement. But Theaetetus insists that they shall proceed to consider the doctrine of rest. This is declined by Socrates, who has too much reverence for the great Parmenides lightly to attack him. We shall find that he returns to the doctrine of rest in the Sophist ; but at present he does not wish to be diverted from his main purpose, which is, to deliver Theaetetus of his conception of know ledge. He proceeds to interrogate him further. When he says, ' That knowledge is perception/ with what does he perceive ? The first answer is, 'That he perceives sights with the eye, and sounds with the ear/ This leads Socrates to make the reflection : That nice distinctions of words are sometimes pedantic, but sometimes necessary; and he pro poses in this case to substitute the word ' through ' for ' with/ For the senses are not like the Trojan warriors in the horse, but have a common centre of perception, from which they spring. This common principle is able to compare them with one another, and must therefore be distinct from them. (Cp. Rep. vii. 523, 524.) And as there are facts of sense which are perceived through the organs of the body, there are also mathematical and other abstractions, such as sameness and difference, likeness and unlikeness, which the soul perceives by herself. Being is the most universal of these abstractions. The good and the beautiful are abstractions of another kind, which exist in relation and which above all others the mind perceives in herself, comparing within her past, present, and future. For example ; we know a thing to be hard or soft by the touch, of which the perception is given at birth to men and animals. But the essence of hardness or softness, or the fact that this hardness is, and is the opposite of softness, is slowly learned by reflection, and expe rience. Mere perception does not reach being, and therefore fails of truth ; and therefore has no share in knowledge. But if so, knowledge 250 THEAETETUS. is not perception. What then is knowledge ? The mind, when occu pied by herself with being, is said to have opinion — shall we say that ' knowledge is true opinion ' ? But still an old difficulty recurs ; we ask ourselves, 'How is false opinion possible?' This difficulty may be stated as follows : — Either we know or do not know a thing (for the intermediate pro cesses of learning and forgetting need not at present be considered) ; and in thinking or having an opinion, we must either know or not know that which we think, and we cannot know and be ignorant at the same time ; we cannot confuse one thing which we do not know, with another thing which we do not know ; nor can we think that which we do not know to be that which we know, or that which we know to be that which we do not know. And what other case is conceivable, upon the supposition that we either know or do not know all things ? Let us try another answer in the sphere of being : ' When a man thinks, and thinks that which is not.' But would this hold in any parallel case ? Can a man see and see nothing ? or hear and hear nothing ? or touch and touch nothing? Must he not see, hear, or touch some one existing thing? For if he thinks about nothing he does not think, and not thinking he cannot think falsely. And so the path of being is closed against us, as well as the path of knowledge. But may there not be ' heterodoxy/ or transference of opinion ; — I mean, may not one thing be supposed to be another? Theaetetus is confident that this must be c the true falsehood,' when a man puts good for evil or evil for good. Socrates will not discourage him by attacking the paradoxical expression ' true falsehood,' but passes on. The new notion involves a process of thinking about two things, either together or alternately. And think ing is the conversing of the mind with herself, which is carried on in question and answer, until she no longer doubts, but determines and forms an opinion. And false opinion consists in saying to yourself, that one thing is another. But did you ever say to yourself, that good is evil, or evil good ? Even in sleep, did you ever imagine that odd was even ? Or did any man in his senses ever fancy that an ox was a horse, or that two are one? So that we can never think that one thing is another ; for you must not meet me with the verbal quibble that other is always other (i.e. that both one and other in Greek are called other erepov, erepov). He who has both the two things in his mind, cannot misplace them : and he who has only one of them in his mind, cannot IN TR OD UCTION. 2 5 1 misplace them — on either supposition the notion of transplacement is inconceivable. But perhaps there may still be a sense in which we can think that which we do not know to be that which we know : e. g. Theaetetus may know Socrates, but at a distance he may mistake another person for him. This process may be conceived by the help of an image. Let us suppose that every man has in his mind a block of wax of various qualities, the gift of Memory, the mother of the Muses ; and on this he receives the seal or stamp of those sensations and perceptions which he wishes to remember. That which he succeeds in stamping is remem bered and known by him as long as the impression lasts ; but that, of which the impression is rubbed out or imperfectly made, is forgotten, and not known. No one can think one thing to be another, when he has the memorial or seal of both of these in his soul, and a sensible impression of neither; or when he knows one and does not know the other, and has no memorial or seal of the other ; or when he knows neither ; or when he perceives both, or one and not the other, or neither ; or when he perceives and knows both, and identifies what he perceives with what he knows (this is still more impossible) ; or when he does not know one, and does not know and does not perceive the other ; or does not perceive one, and does not know and does not perceive the other; or has no perception or knowledge of either — all these cases must be excluded. But he may err when he confuses what he knows or perceives, or what he perceives and does not know, with what he knows, or what he knows and perceives with what he knows and perceives. Theaetetus is unable to follow these distinctions ; which Socrates pro ceeds to illustrate by examples : first of all remarking, that knowledge may exist without perception, and perception without knowledge. I may know Theodoras and Theaetetus and not see them; I may see them, and not know them. 'That I understand.' But I could not mistake one for the other if I knew you both, and had no perception of either ; or if I knew one only, and perceived neither ; or if I knew and perceived neither, or in any other of the excluded cases. The only possibility of error is: ist, when knowing you and Theodorus, and having the im pression of both of you on the waxen block — I, seeing you both imper fectly and at a distance, put the foot in the wrong shoe — that is to say, put the seal or stamp on the wrong object : or 2ndly, when knowing 252 THEAETETUS. both of you I only see one; or when, seeing and knowing you both, I fail to identify the impression and the object. But there could be no error when perception and knowledge correspond. The waxen block in the heart of a man's soul, as I may say in the words of Homer, who played upon the word Krjp nypos, may be smooth and deep, and large enough, and then the signs are clearly marked and lasting, and do not get confused. But in the 'hairy heart/ as the all- wise poet sings, when the wax is muddy or hard or moist, there is a cor responding confusion and want of retentiveness ; in the muddy and impure there is indistinctness, and still more in the hard, for there the impressions have no depth of wax, and in the moist they are too soon effaced. Yet greater is the indistinctness when they are all jolted to gether in a little soul, which is narrow and has no room. These are the sort of natures which have false opinion; from stupidity they see and hear and think amiss ; and this is falsehood and ignorance. Error, then, is a confusion of thought and sense. Theaetetus is delighted with this explanation. But Socrates has no sooner found the new solution than he sinks into a fit of despondency. For an objection occurs to him : — May there not be errors where there is no confusion of mind and sense ? e. g. in numbers. No one can con fuse the man whom he has in his thoughts with the horse which he has in his thoughts, but he may err in the addition of five and seven ; and observe that these are purely mental conceptions. Thus we are involved once more in the dilemma of saying, either that there is no such thing as false opinion, or that a man knows what he does not know. We are at our wit's end, and may therefore be excused for making a bold diversion. All this time we have been repeating the words 1 know,' ' understand/ and we do not know what knowledge is. ' Why, Socrates, how can you argue at all without using them?' Nay, but the true hero of dialectic would have forbad me to use them until I had explained them. And I must explain them now. The verb ' to know ' has two senses, to have and to possess knowledge, and I distinguish ' having ' from ' possessing/ A man may possess a garment which he does not wear; or he may have wild birds in an aviary; these in one sense he possesses, and in another he has none of them. Let this aviary be an image of the mind, as the waxen block was ; when we are young, the aviary is empty ; after a time the birds are put in ; for under this figure we may describe different forms of knowledge ; — INTR OD UCTION. 2 5 3 there are some of them in groups, and some single, which are flying about everywhere ; and let us suppose a hunt after the science of odd and even, or some other science. The possession of the birds is clearly not the same as the having them in the hand. And the original chase of them is not the same as taking them in the hand when they are already caged. This distinction between use and possession saves us from the ab surdity of supposing that we do not know what we know, because we may know in one sense, i. e. possess, what we do not know in another, i. e. use. But have we not escaped one difficulty only to encounter a greater ? For how can the exchange of two kinds of knowledge ever become false opinion ? As well might we suppose that ignorance could make a man know, or that blindness could make him see. Theaetetus suggests that in the aviary there may be flying about mock birds, or forms of ignorance, and we put forth our hands and grasp ignorance, when we are intending to grasp knowledge. But how can he who knows the forms of knowledge and the forms of ignorance imagine one to be the other? Is there some other form of knowledge which distinguishes them? and another, and another? Thus we go round and round in a circle and make no progress. All this confusion arises out of our attempt to explain false opinion without having explained knowledge. What then is knowledge ? Theae tetus once more repeats that knowledge is true opinion. But this seems to be refuted by the instance of orators and judges. For surely the orator cannot convey a true knowledge of crimes at which the judges were not present ; he can only persuade them, and the judge may form a true opinion and truly judge. But if true opinion were knowledge they could not have judged without knowledge. Once more. Theaetetus offers a definition which he has heard : Knowledge is true opinion accompanied by definition or explanation. Socrates has had a similar dream, and has further heard that the first elements are names only, and that definition or explanation begins when they are combined ; the letters are unknown, the syllables or com bination are known. But this new hypothesis when tested by the letters of the alphabet is found to break down. The first syllable of Socrates' name is SO. But what is SO ? Two letters, S and O, a sibilant and a vowel, of which no further explanation can be given. And how can any one be ignorant of either of them, and yet know both of them ? 254 THEAETETUS. There is, however, another alternative : — We may suppose that the syl lable has a separate form or idea distinct from the letters or parts. The all of the parts may not be the whole. Theaetetus is very much inclined to adopt this suggestion, but when interrogated by Socrates he is unable to draw any distinction between the whole and all the parts. And if the syllables have no parts, then they are those original elements of which there is no explanation. But how can the syllable be known if the letter remains unknown ? In learning to read as children, we are first taught the letters and then the syllables. And in music, the notes, which are the letters, have a much more distinct meaning to us than the combination of them. Once more, then, we must ask the meaning of the statement, that ' knowledge is right opinion, accompanied by explanation or definition/ Explanation may mean, (T) the reflection or expression of a man's thoughts. But every man who is not deaf and dumb is able to express his thoughts; or (2) the enumeration of the elements of which anything is composed. A man may have a true opinion about a waggon, but when he is able to enumerate the hundred planks of Hesiod — then, and not till then, he has knowledge of a \vaggon. Or he may know the syllables of the name Theaetetus, but not the letters — and not until he knows both can he be said to have knowledge as well as opinion. But on the other hand he may know the syllable ' The ' in the name Theaetetus, yet he may be mistaken about the same syllable in the name Theodorus, and in learning to read we often make such mistakes. And even if he could write out all the letters and syllables of your name in order, still he would only have right opinion. Yet there may be a third meaning of the definition besides (i) the image or expression of the mind; (2) the enumeration of the elements; — to these may now be added (3) perception of difference. For example, I may see a man who has eyes, nose, and mouth ; — that will not distinguish him from any other man. Or he may have a snub- nose and prominent eyes; — that will not distinguish him from myself and you and others who are like me. But when I see a certain kind of snub-nosedness, then I recognise Theaetetus. And having this sign of difference, I have knowledge. But have I knowledge or opinion of this difference? If I have only opinion I have not knowledge; if I have knowledge we assume a disputed term — for knowledge is right opinion with knowledge of difference. INTRODUCTION. 255 And so, Theaetetus, knowledge is neither perception nor true opinion, nor yet definition accompanying true opinion. And I have shown that the children of your brain are not worth rearing. Are you still in labour, or have you brought all you have to say about knowledge to the birth? If you have any more thoughts, you will be the better for having got rid of these ; or if you have none, you will be the better for not fancying that you know what you do not know. Observe the limits of my art, which, like my mother's, is an art of midwifery; I do not pretend to compare with the good and wise of this and other ages. And now I go to meet Meletus at the porch of the King Archon ; but to-morrow I shall hope to see you again, Theodorus, at this place. I. The saying of Theaetetus, that * knowledge is sensible perception/ may be assumed to be a current philosophical opinion of the age. ' The ancients,' as Aristotle (De Anim. iii. 3) says, citing a verse of Empe- docles, 'affirmed knowledge to be the same as perception.' We may now examine these words, first with reference to their place in the history of philosophy, and secondly, in relation to modern speculations. (a) In the age of Socrates the mind was passing from the object to the subject. The same impulse which a century before had led men to form conceptions of the world, now led them to frame general notions of the human faculties and feelings, such as memory, opinion, and the like. The simplest of these is sensation, or sensible perception, by which Plato seems to mean the generalised notion of feelings and impressions of sense, without determining whether they are conscious or not. The theory that ' knowledge is sensible perception ' is the antithesis of that which derives knowledge from the mind (Theaet. 185), or which assumes the existence of ideas independent of the mind (Farm. 134). Yet from their extreme abstraction these theories do not represent the opposite poles of thought in the same way that the corresponding differ ences would in modern philosophy. The most ideal and the most sensa tional have a tendency to pass into one another; Heracleitus, like his great successor Hegel, has both aspects. The Eleatic isolation of being and the Megarian or Cynic isolation of individuals are placed in the same class by Plato, Soph. 251 C, D; and the same principle which is 256 THEAETETUS. the symbol of motion to one mind is the symbol of rest to another. The Atomists, who are sometimes regarded as the Materialists of Plato, denied the reality of sensation. And in the ancient as well as the modern world there were reactions from theory to experience, from ideas to sense. This is a point of view from which the philosophy of sensa tion presented great attraction to the ancient thinker. Amid the conflict of ideas and the variety of opinions, the impression of sense remained certain and uniform. Hardness, softness, cold, heat, &c. are not abso lutely the same to different persons (cp. 171 D), but the art of measuring could at any rate reduce them all to definite natures (Rep. X, 602 D). Thus the doctrine that knowledge is perception supplies or seems to supply a firm standing ground. Like the other notions of the earlier Greek philosophy, it was held in a very simple way, without much basis of reasoning, and without suggesting the questions which naturally arise in our own minds on the same subject. (/3) The fixedness of impressions of sense furnishes a link of con nection between ancient and modern philosophy. The modern thinker often repeats the parallel axiom, ' that all knowledge is experience/ He means to say that the outward and not the inward is both the original source and the final criterion of truth, because the outward can be observed and analysed; the inward is only known by external results, and is dimly perceived by each man for himself. In what does this differ from the saying of Theaetetus ? Chiefly in this— that the modern term ' experience/ while implying a point of departure in sense and a return to sense, also includes all the processes of reasoning and imagi nation which have intervened. The necessary connection between them by no means affords a measure of the relative degree of importance which is to be ascribed to either element. For the inductive portion of any science may be small, as in mathematics or ethics, compared with that which the mind has attained by reasoning and reflection on a very few facts. II. The saying that ' all knowledge is sensation ' is identified by Plato with the Protagorean thesis that 'man is the measure of all things.' The interpretation which Protagoras himself is supposed to give of these latter words is, ' Things are to me as they appear to me, and to you as they appear to you.' But there remains still an ambiguity both in the text and in the explanation, which has to be cleared up. \j Did Protagoras merely mean to assert the relativity of knowledge to the INTR OD UCTION. 257 human mind ? or did he mean to deny that there is an objective standard of truth ? These two questions have not been always clearly distinguished; the relativity of knowledge has been sometimes confounded with uncertainty. The untutored mind is apt to suppose that objects exist independently of the human faculties, because they really exist independently of the facul ties of any individual. In the same way, knowledge appears to be a body of truths stored up in books, which when once ascertained are inde pendent of the discoverer. Further consideration shows us that these truths are not really independent of the mind ; there is an adaptation of one to the other, of the eye to the object of sense, of the mind to the conception. There would be no world, if there neither were, nor ever had been any one to perceive the world. A slight effort of reflection enables us to understand this ; but no effort of reflection will enable us to pass beyond the limits of our own faculties, or to imagine the relation or adaptation of objects to the mind to be different from that of which we have experience. There are certain laws of language and logic to which we are compelled to conform, and to which our ideas naturally adapt themselves ; and we can no more get rid of them than we can cease to be ourselves. The absolute and infinite, whether explained as self-existence, or as the totality of human thought, or as the Divine nature, if known to us at all, cannot escape from the category of relation. But because knowledge is subjective or relative to the mind, we are not to suppose that we are therefore deprived of any of the tests or criteria of truth. One man still remains wiser than another, a more accurate observer and relater of facts, a truer measure of the proportions of knowledge. The nature of testimony is not altered, nor the verifica tion of causes by prescribed methods less certain. Again, the truth must often come to a man through others, according to the measure of his capacity and education. But neither does this affect the testimony, whether written or oral, which he knows by experience to be trust worthy. He cannot escape from the laws of his own mind; and he cannot escape from the further accident of being dependent for his knowledge on others. But still this is no reason why he should always be in doubt ; of many personal, of many historical and scientific facts he may indeed be absolutely assured. And having such a mass of acknow ledged truth in the mathematical and physical, not to speak of the moral VOL. IV. S 258 THEAETETUS. sciences, the moderns have certainly no reason to acquiesce in the state ment, that truth is appearance only, or that there is no difference between appearance and truth. The relativity of knowledge is a truism to us, but was a great psycho logical discovery in the fifth century before Christ. Of this discovery, the first distinct assertion is contained in the thesis of Protagoras. Prob ably he had no intention either of denying or affirming an objective standard of truth. He did not consider whether man in the higher or man in the lower sense was a ' measure of all things.' Like other great thinkers, he was absorbed with one idea, and that idea was the absolute ness of perception. Like Socrates, he seemed to see that philosophy must be brought back from ' nature ' to ' truth,' from the world to man. But he did not stop to analyse whether he meant ' man ' in the concrete or man in the abstract ; any man or some men, ' quod semper quod ubique,' or individual private judgment. Such an analysis lay beyond his sphere of thought ; the age before Socrates had not arrived at these distinctions. Like the Cynics, again, he discarded knowledge in any higher sense than perception. For ' truer ' or ' wiser ' he substituted the word * better,' and is riot unwilling to admit that both states and indi viduals are capable of practical improvement. But this improvement does not arise from intellectual enlightenment, nor yet from the exertion of the will, but from a change of circumstances and impressions ; and he who can effect this change in himself or others may be deemed a philo sopher. In the mode of effecting it, while agreeing with Socrates and the Cynics in the importance \vhich he attaches to practical life, he is at variance with both of them. To suppose that practice can be divorced from speculation, or that we may do good without caring about truth, is by no means singular, either in philosophy or life. The singularity of this, as of some other (so-called) sophistical doctrines, is the frankness with which they are avowed, instead of being veiled, as in modern times, under ambiguous and convenient phrases. Plato appears to treat Protagoras much as he himself is treated by Aristotle ; that is to say, he does not attempt to understand him from his own point of view. But he entangles him in the meshes of a more advanced logic. To which Protagoras is supposed to reply by Megarian quibbles, which destroy logic, ' Not only man, but each man, and each man at each moment.' In the arguments about sight and memory there is a palpable unfairness which is worthy of the great ' brainless brothers/ INTR OD UCTION. 2 5 9 Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, and may be compared with the ey*e- KaAv/x/ieW (' obvelatus ') of Eubulides. For he who sees with one eye only cannot be truly said both to see and not to see ; nor is memory, which is liable to forget, the immediate knowledge to which Protagoras applies the term. Theodorus justly charges Socrates with going beyond the truth ; and Protagoras has equally right on his side when he protests against Socrates arguing from the common use of words, which ' the vulgar pervert in all manner of ways.' III. The theory of Protagoras is connected by Aristotle as well as Plato with the flux of Heracleitus. But Aristotle is only following Plato, and Plato, as we have already seen, did not mean to imply that such a connection was admitted by Protagoras himself. His metaphysical genius saw or seemed to see a common tendency in them, just as the modern historian of ancient philosophy might perceive a parallelism between two thinkers of which they were probably unconscious themselves. We must remember throughout that Plato is not speaking of Heracleitus, but of the Heracliteans, who succeeded him ; nor of the great original ideas of the master, but of the Eristic into which they had degenerated a hun dred years later. There is nothing in the fragments of Heracleitus which at all justifies Plato's account of him. His philosophy may be resolved into two elements — first, change ; secondly, law or measure pervading the change : these he saw everywhere, and often expressed in strange mytho logical symbols. But he has no analysis of sensible perception such as Plato attributes to him; nor is there any reason to suppose that he pushed his philosophy into that absolute negation in which Heraclitean- ism was sunk in the age of Plato. He never said that ' change meant every sort of change,' and he expressly distinguished between ' the general and particular understanding.' Like a poet, he surveyed the elements of mythology, nature, thought, which lay before him, and sometimes by the light of genius he saw or seemed to see a mysterious principle working behind them. But as has been the case with other great philosophers, and with Plato and Aristotle themselves, what was really permanent and original could not be understood by the next generation, while a per verted logic carried out his chance expressions with an illogical con sistency. His simple and noble thoughts, like those of the great Eleatic, soon degenerated into a mere strife of words. And when thus reduced to mere words, they seem to have exercised a far wider influence in the cities of Ionia (where the people 'were mad about them') than in S 1 26o THEAETETUS. the life-time of Heracleitus — a phenomenon which, though at first sight singular, is not without a parallel in the history of philosophy and theology. It is this perverted form of the Heraclitean philosophy which is sup posed to effect the final overthrow of Protagorean sensationalism. For if all things are changing at every moment, in all sorts of ways, then there is nothing fixed or defined at all, and therefore no sensible per ception, nor any word by which that or anything else can be described. Of course Protagoras would not have admitted the justice of this argu ment any more than Heracleitus would have acknowledged the ' unedu cated fanatics ' who appealed to his writings. He might have said, ' The excellent Socrates has first confused me with Heracleitus, and Heracleitus with his Ephesian successors, and has then disproved the existence both of knowledge and sensation. But I am not responsible for what I never said, nor will I admit that my common-sense account of knowledge can be overthrown by unintelligible Heraclitean paradoxes/ IV. Still at the bottom of the arguments there remains a truth, ' that knowledge is something more than sensible perception ; ' — that alone would not distinguish man from a tadpole. The absoluteness of sensa tions at each moment destroys the very consciousness of sensations (cp. Phileb. 21 D), or the power of comparing them. The senses are not mere holes in a ' Trojan horse/ but the organs of a presiding nature, in which they meet. A great advance has been made in psychology when the senses are recognised as organs of sense, and we are admitted to see or feel ' through them ' and not ' by them/ — that is a distinction of words which, as Socrates observes, is by no means pedantic. A still further step has been made when the most abstract notions, such as being and not-being, sameness and difference, unity and plurality, are acknowledged to be the creations of the mind herself, working upon the feelings or impressions of sense. In this manner Plato describes the process of acquiring them, in the words (186 D) 'knowledge consists not in the feelings or affections (iraQrjpacn), but in the process of reasoning about them (o-uXXoytcr/iw).' Here, as in the Parmenides (132 A), he means something not really different from generalization. As in the Sophist, he is laying the foundation of a rational psychology, which is to super sede the Platonic reminiscence of ideas as well as the Eleatic being and the individualism of Megarians and Cynics. V. Having rejected the doctrine that ' knowledge is perception/ we INTRODUCTION. 261 now proceed to look for a definition of knowledge in the sphere of opinion. But here we are met by a singular difficulty : How is false opinion possible ? For we must either know or not know that which is presented to the mind or sense. We of course should answer at once : No ; the alternative is not necessary, for there may be degrees of know ledge ; and we may know and have forgotten, or we may be learning, or we may have a general but not a particular knowledge, or we may know but not be able to explain ; and many other ways may be imagined in which we know and do not know at the same time. But these answers belong to a later stage of metaphysical discussion ; whereas the question seems to belong rather to the childhood of the human mind, together with the parallel question of not-being. Men had only recently arrived at the notion of opinion ; they could not at once define the true and pass beyond into the false. The very word §o'£a was full of ambiguity, being sometimes, as in the Eleatic philosophy, applied to the sensible world, and again used in the more ordinary sense of opinion. There is no connection between sensible appearance and probability, and yet both of them met in the word &>£a, and could only with difficulty be dis engaged in the mind of the Greek. To this was often added, as at the end of the fifth book of the Republic, the idea of relation, which is equally distinct from either of them ; also a fourth notion, the conclusion of the dialectical process, the making up of the mind after she has been ' talking to herself (p. 190). We are not then surprised that the sphere of opinion and of not-being should be a dusky, half-lighted place (Rep. v. p. 478), belonging neither to the old world of sense and imagination, nor to the new world of reflection and reason. Plato attempts to clear up this darkness. In his accustomed manner he passes from the lower to the higher, without omitting the intermediate stages. This appears to be the reason why he seeks for the definition of knowledge first in the sphere of opinion. Hereafter we shall find that something more than opinion is required. False opinion is explained by Plato at first as a confusion of mind and sense, which arises when the impression in the mind does not correspond to the impression on the senses. It is obvious that this explanation (supposing the distinction between impressions in the mind and impres sions on the senses to be admitted) does not account for all forms of error; and Plato has excluded himself from the consideration of the greater number, by designedly omitting the intermediate processes of 262 THEAETETUS. learning and forgetting ; nor does he include fallacies in the use of lan guage or erroneous inferences. But he is struck by one possibility of error, which is not covered by his theory, viz. errors in arithmetic. For in numbers and calculation there is no combination of thought and sense, and yet errors may often happen. Hence he is led to discard the explanation which might nevertheless have been supposed to hold good (for anything that he says to the contrary) as a rationale of error, in the case of facts derived from sense. Another attempt is made to explain false opinion by assigning to error a sort of positive existence. But error or ignorance is essentially negative — a not-knowing ; if we knew an error, we should be no longer in error. We may veil our difficulty under figures of speech, but these, although telling arguments with the multitude, can never be the real foundation of a system of psychology. The figure of the mind receiving impressions, is one of those images which, whether an assistance to thought or not, have rooted themselves for ever in language. The other figure of the enclosure, is also remarkable as affording the first hint of universal all-pervading ideas, which is further carried out in the Sophist. This is implied in the birds, some in flocks, some solitary, which fly about anywhere and everywhere. Plato discards both figures, as not really solving the question which to us appears so simple: 'How we make mistakes ? ' The failure of the enquiry seems to show that we should return to knowledge, and begin with that; and we may after wards proceed with a better hope of success, to the examination of opinion. But is true opinion really distinct from knowledge ? The difference between these he seeks to establish by an argument, which to us appears singular and unsatisfactory. The existence of true opinion is proved by the rhetoric of the law courts, which cannot give knowledge, but may give true opinion. The rhetorician cannot put the judge or juror in pos session of all the facts which prove an act of violence, but he may truly persuade them of the commission of such an act. Here the idea of true opinion seems to be a right conclusion from imperfect knowledge. But the correctness of such an opinion will be purely accidental ; and is really the effect of one man, who has the means of knowing, persuading another who has not. Plato would have done better, if he had said that true opinion was a contradiction in terms. Assuming the distinction between knowledge and opinion, Theaetetus, INTRODUCTION. 263 in answer to Socrates, proceeds to define knowledge : — True opinion, with definite or rational explanation. This Socrates identifies with another and different theory, of those who assert that knowledge first begins with a proposition. The elements may be perceived by sense, but they are names, and cannot be defined. When we assign to them some predicate, they first begin to have a meaning (ovop-drwv o-vfj.rr\oKr] \6yov ovp.oTos. THEAETETUS. 301 Soc. The thoroughbred Sophists, who know all that can be known about the mind, and argue only out of the superfluity of their wits, would have had a regular sparring-match over this. But you and I, who have no professional aims, only desire to see what is the real nature of our ideas, and whether they are consistent with each other or not. TJicaet. Yes, that would be my desire. Soc. And mine too. But since this is our feeling, and there is plenty of time, why should we not gently and patiently review 155 our own thoughts, and examine and see what these appearances in us really are ? Concerning which, if I am not mistaken, we shall say : — first, that nothing can be greater or less, either in number or magnitude, while remaining equal to itself— you would agree ? TJicaet. Yes. Soc. Secondly, that without addition or subtraction there is no increase or diminution of anything, but only equality. Theaet. Quite true. Soc. Thirdly, that what once was not and afterwards was, could not be, without becoming and having become. Theaet. Yes, truly. Soc. These three axioms, if I am not mistaken, were fighting with one another in our minds in the case of the dice, or, again, in such a case as this — when I say that I, at my age, who neither gain nor lose in height, may this year be taller than you, who are still a youth, and next year not so tall — not that I have lost, but that you have increased : in such a case, I am after wards what I once was not ; and yet I have not become, for certainly I could not have become shorter without becoming, neither could I have become less without losing somewhat of my height ; and I could give you ten thousand examples of similar contradictions, if we admit them at all. I believe that you understand me, Theaetetus ; for I suspect that you have thought of these questions before. Theaet. Yes, Socrates, and I am amazed when I think of them ; indeed I am ; and I want to know what is the meaning of them, and there are times when my head quite swims with the contemplation of them. Soc. I see, my dear Theaetetus, that Theodorus had a true 302 THEAETETUS. insight into your nature when he said that you were a philo sopher, for wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. He was not a bad genealogist who said that Iris the messenger of heaven is the child of Thaumas (wonder). But do you know what is the explanation of this perplexity on the hypothesis which we attribute to Protagoras ? Theaet. Not as yet. j Soc. Then you will be obliged to me if I help you to unearth the hidden truth or wisdom of a famous man or men. Theaet. To be sure, I shall be very much obliged. Soc. Take a look round, then, and see that none of the uninitiated are listening. Now by the uninitiated I mean the people who believe in nothing but what they can hold fast in their hands, and who will not allow that action or generation or anything invisible can have real existence. TJieaet. Yes, indeed, Socrates, they are very stubborn and repulsive mortals. Soc. Yes, my boy, outer barbarians. Far more ingenious 156 are the brethren whose mysteries I am about to reveal to you. Their principle is, that all is motion, and upon this all the affections of which we were just now speaking are supposed to depend : there is nothing but motion, which has two forms, one active and the other passive, both in endless number, and out of the union and friction of them there is generated a progeny endless in number, having two forms, sense and the object of sense, which are ever breaking forth and coming to the birth at the same moment. The senses are variously named hearing, seeing, smelling ; there is the sense of heat, cold, pleasure, pain, desire, fear, and many more which are named, as well as innumerable others which have no name ; with each of them there is born an object of sense, — all sorts of colours born with all sorts of sight and sounds in like manner with hearing, and other objects with the other senses. Do you see, Theaetetus, the bearing of this tale on the pre ceding argument ? Theaet. Indeed I do not. Soc. Then attend, for I hope to finish the story. The purport is that all these things are in motion, as I was saying, THEAETETUS. 303 and that this motion has degrees of swiftness or slowness ; and the slower elements have their motions in the same place and about things near them, and thus beget, but the things begotten are quicker, for their motions are from place to place. Apply this to sense : — When the eye and the appropriate object meet together and give birth to whiteness and the sensation of white, which could not have been given by either of them going to any other [subject or object], then, while the sight is flowing from the eye, whiteness proceeds from the object which combines in producing the colour ; and so the eye is fulfilled with sight, and sees, and becomes, not sight, but a seeing eye ; and the object which combines in forming the colour is fulfilled with whiteness, and becomes not whiteness but white, whether wood or stone or whatever the object may be which happens to be coloured white1. And this is true of all sensations, hard, warm, and the like, which are similarly to be regarded, as I J57 was saying before, not as having any absolute existence, but as being all of them generated by motion in their inter course with one another, according to their kinds ; for of the agent and patient, taken singly, as they say, no fixed idea can be framed, for the agent has no existence until united with the patient, and the patient has no existence until united with the agent ; and that which by uniting with something becomes an agent, by meeting with some other thing is converted into a patient. And from all these considerations, as I said at first, there arises a general reflection, that there is no one or self-existent thing, but everything is becoming and in relation ; and being has to be altogether abolished, although from habit and ignorance we are compelled even in this dis cussion to retain the use of the term. But philosophers tell us that we are not to allow either the word * something,' or ' belong ing to something/ or 'to me,' or 'this' or 'that,' or any other detaining name to be used ; in the language of nature all things are being created and destroyed, coming into being and passing into new forms ; nor can any name fix or detain them ; he who attempts to fix them is easily refuted. And this should be the way of speaking, not only of particulars but of 1 Omittin Za. 304 THE A E TE TUS. aggregates ; such aggregates as are expressed in the word ' man,' or ' stone,' or any name of an animal or of a class. 0 Theaetetus, are not these speculations charming ? And do you not like the taste of them ? Theaet. I do not know what to say, Socrates ; for, indeed, I cannot make out whether you are giving your own opinion or only wanting to draw me out. Soc. You forget, my friend, that I neither know, nor pretend to know, anything of myself; I am barren, and attend on you as a midwife, and this is why I soothe you, and offer you one good thing after another, that you may taste them. And 1 hope that I may at last help to bring your own opinion into the light of day : when this has been accomplished, then we will determine whether what you have brought forth is only a wind-egg or a real and genuine creation. Therefore, keep up your spirits, and answer like a man what you think. Theaet. Ask me. Soc. Is your opinion that nothing is but what becomes? — the good and the noble, as well as all the other things which we were mentioning? Theaet. When I hear you discoursing in this style, I think that there is a great deal in what you say, and I am very ready to assent. Soc. Let us not leave the argument unfinished, then ; as there still remains to be considered an objection which may be raised about dreams and diseases, in particular about mad ness, and the various illusions of hearing and sight, or of other senses. For you know that in all these cases the theory of the truth of perception appears to be unmistakably refuted, as in dreams and illusions we certainly have false perceptions ; 158 and far from saying that everything is which appears, we should rather say that nothing is which appears. Theaet. Very true, Socrates. Soc. But then, my boy, how can any one contend that knowledge is perception, or that things are to each one as they appear? Theaet. I am afraid to say, Socrates, that I have nothing to answer, because you rebuked me just now for saying so ; but I certainly cannot undertake to argue that madmen or THEAETETUS. 505 dreamers think truly, when they imagine some of them that they are gods, and others that they can fly, and are flying in their sleep. Soc. Do you know a question which is raised about these illusions, and especially about waking and sleeping ? Theaet. What question ? Soc. A question which I think that you must often have heard persons ask : — How can you determine whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream ; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state ? Theaet. Indeed, Socrates, I do not know how you can prove that the one is any more true than the other, for all the phenomena correspond ; and there is no difficulty in supposing that during all this discussion we have been talking to one an other in a dream ; and when we are actually dreaming and talk in our dreams, the resemblance of the two states is quite astonishing. Soc. You see, then, that a doubt about the reality of sense is easily raised, since there may even be a doubt whether weCJ J are awake or in a dream. And as the time is equally divided in which we are asleep or awake, in either sphere of existence the soul contends that the thoughts which are present to our minds at the time are true ; and during one half of our lives we affirm the truth of the one, and, during the other half, of the other ; and are equally confident of both. Theaet. Certainly. Soc. And may not the same be said of madness and other disorders ? the difference is only that the times are not equal. Theaet. Certainly. Soc. And are truth or falsehood to be determined by dura tion of time ? Theaet. That would be very ridiculous. Soc. But can you certainly determine in any other way which of these opinions is true ? Theaet. I do not think that I can. Soc. Listen, then, to a statement of the other side of the argument, which is made by the champions of appearance. They would say, as I should imagine — Can that which is VOL. IV. X 3o6 THEAETETUS. wholly other, have any similar quality or power ? and observe, Theaetetus, that the word 'other' means not 'partially,' but * wholly other.' Theaet. Certainly, that which is wholly other cannot have 159 any power or anything the same. Soc. And must therefore be admitted to be unlike ? Theaet. True. Soc. If, then, anything happens to become like or unlike itself or another, that which becomes like we call the same— that which becomes unlike, other ? Theaet. Certainly. Soc. Were we not saying that there are agents many and infinite, and patients many and infinite ? Theaet. Yes. Soc. And also that different combinations will produce results which are not the same, but different ? Theaet. Certainly. Soc. Let us take you and me, or anything as an example : — • there is Socrates in health, and Socrates sick — Are they like or unlike? Theaet. You mean to compare Socrates in health as a whole, and Socrates in sickness as a whole ? Soc. Exactly ; that is my meaning. Theaet. I answer, they are unlike. Soc. And if unlike, they are other ? Theaet. Certainly. Soc. And would you not say the same of Socrates sleeping and waking, or in any of the states which we were mentioning ? Theaet. I should. Soc. All agents have a different patient in Socrates, accord ingly as he is well or ill. Theaet. Of course. Soc. And I who am the patient, and that which is the agent, will produce something different in each of the two cases ? Theaet. Certainly. Soc. The wine which I drink when I am in health, appears sweet and pleasant to me ? Theaet. True. Soc. For, as has been already acknowledged, the patient THEAETETUS. 307 and agent meet together and produce sweetness and a per ception of sweetness, which are in simultaneous motion, and the perception which comes from the patient makes the tongue percipient, and the quality of sweetness which arises out of and is moving about the wine, makes the wine both to be and to appear sweet to the healthy tongue. Theaet. Certainly ; that has been already acknowledged. Soc. But when I am sick, the wine really acts upon me as if I were another and a different person ? Theaet. Yes. Soc. The combination of the draught of wine, and the Socrates who is sick, produces quite another result ; which is the sensation of bitterness in the tongue, and the motion and creation of bitterness in the wine, which becomes, not bitterness but bitter ; as I myself become not perception but percipient ? Theaet. True. Soc. There is no other object of which I shall ever have 60 the same perception, for another object would give another perception, and would make the percipient other and dif ferent ; nor can that object which affects me meeting another subject, produce the same or become similar, for that too will produce another result from another subject, and become different. Theaet. True. Soc. Neither can I for myself, have this sensation, nor the object by or for itself, this quality. Theaet. Certainly not. Soc. When I perceive I must become percipient of something — there can be no such thing as perceiving and perceiving nothing ; the quality of the object, whether sweet, bitter, or any other quality, must have relation to a percipient ; there cannot be anything sweet which is sweet to no one. Theaet. Certainly not. Soc. Then the inference is, that we [the agent and patient] are or become in relation to one another ; there is a law which binds us one to the other, but not to any other existence, nor yet to ourselves ; and therefore we can only be bound to one another ; so that whether a person says that a thing x 2 3o8 THEAETETUS. is or becomes, he must say that it is or becomes to or of or in relation to something else ; but he must not say or allow any one else to say that anything is or becomes absolutely : — such is our conclusion. Theaet. Very true, Socrates. Soc. Then, if that which acts upon me has relation to me and to no other, I and no other am the percipient of it ? Theaet. Of course. Soc. Then my perception is true to me, and inseparable from my own being ; and, as Protagoras says, to myself I am judge of what is and what is not to me. Theaet. I suppose so. Soc. How then, if 'I never err, and if my mind never trips in the conception of being or becoming, can I fail of knowing that which I perceive ? Theaet. You cannot. Soc. Then you were quite right in affirming that knowledge is only perception ; and the meaning turns out to be the same, whether with Homer and Heracleitus, and all that company, you say that all is motion and flux, or with the great sage Protagoras, that man is the measure of all things ; or with Theaetetus, that, granting these premises, perception is know ledge. Am I not right, Theaetetus, and is not this your new born child, of which I have delivered you — What say you ? Theaet. I cannot but agree, Socrates. Soc. Then this is the child, however he may turn out, which you and I have with difficulty brought into the world. And now that he is born, we must run round the hearth with him, and see whether he is worth rearing, or is only a wind-egg 161 and a sham. Is he to be reared in any case, and not exposed ? or will you bear to see an assault made upon him, and not get into a passion if I take away your first-born ? Theod. Theaetetus will not be angry, for he is very good- natured. But I should like to know, Socrates, by heaven I should, whether all this is true or not ? Soc. You are fond of an argument, Theodorus, and now you innocently fancy that I am a bag full of arguments, and can easily pull one out which will refute what has been said. But you do not see that in reality none of these arguments come THEAETETUS. 309 from me ; they all come from him who talks with me. I only know just enough to extract them from the wisdom of another, and to receive them in a spirit of fairness. And now I shall ' say nothing of myself, but shall endeavour to elicit something from our friend. Theod. Do as you say, Socrates ; you are quite right. Soc. Shall I tell you, Theodorus, what amazes me in your acquaintance Protagoras. Theod. What is that ? Soc. I am charmed with his doctrine, that what appears is to each one, but I wonder that he did not begin his great work on Truth with a declaration that a pig or a dog-faced baboon, or some other yet stranger monster which has sensation, is the measure of all things ; then, when we were reverencing him as a god, he might have condescended to inform us that he was no wiser than a tadpole, not to speak of his fellow men — would not this have produced an overpowering effect ? For if truth is only sensation, and one man's discernment is as good as another's, and no man has any superior right to determine whether the opinion of any other is true or false, but each man, as we have several times repeated, is to himself the sole judge, and everything that he judges is true and right, why should Protagoras be preferred to the place of wisdom and instruction, and deserve to be well paid, and we poor ignoramuses have to go to him, if each one is the measure of his own wisdom? Must he not be talking cad captandum' in all this? I say nothing of the ridiculous predicament in which my own midwifery and the whole art of dialectic is placed ; for the attempt to supervise or refute the notions or opinions of others would be a tedious and enormous piece of folly, if to each man they are equally right ; and this must be the case if Protagoras' Truth is the real truth, and the philosopher is not merely amusing himself by giving oracles out of the shrine of his book. 162 Theod. He was a friend of mine, Socrates, as you were say ing, and therefore I cannot have him refuted by my lips, nor can I oppose you when I agree with you ; please, then, to take Theaetetus again ; he seemed to answer very nicely. Soc. If you were to go into a Lacedaemonian palestra, Theo- 3io THEAETETUS. dorus, would you have a right to look on at the naked wrestlers, some of them making a poor figure, if you did not strip and give them an opportunity of judging of your own form ? Theod. Why not, Socrates, if they would allow me, as I think you will, in consideration of my age and stiffness ; let more supple youth try a fall with you, and do not drag me into the gymnasium. Soc. Your will is my will, Theodorus, as the proverbial philo sophers say, and therefore I will return to the sage Theaetetus : Tell me, Theaetetus, in reference to what I was saying, are you not amazed at finding yourself all of a sudden raised to the level of the wisest of men, or indeed of the gods? — for you would assume the measure of Protagoras to apply to the gods as well as men ? Theaet. Certainly I should, and I am amazed, as you say. At first hearing, I was quite satisfied with the doctrine, that whatever appears is to each one, but now the face of things has changed. Soc. Why, my dear boy, you are young, and your ear is quickly caught and your mind influenced by popular argu ments. Protagoras, or some one speaking on his behalf, will doubtless say in reply, — Good people, young and old, you meet and harangue, and bring in the gods, whose existence or non- existence I banish from writing and speech, or you talk about the reason of man being degraded to the level of the brutes, which is a telling argument with the multitude, but not one word of proof or demonstration do you offer. All is probability with you, and yet surely you and Theodorus had better reflect whether you are disposed to admit of probability and figures of speech in matters of such importance. He or any other 163 mathematician who argued from probabilities and likelihoods in geometry, would not be worth an ace. Theaet. Neither you nor we, Socrates, would be satisfied with such arguments. Soc. Then you and Theodorus mean to say that we must look at the matter in some other way? Theaet. Yes, in quite another way. Soc. And the way will be to ask whether sensation is or is not the same as knowledge ; for this was the real point of our THEAETETUS. 3" argument, and with a view to this we raised (did we not ?) those many strange questions. Theaet. Certainly. Soc. Shall we say that we know every thing which we see and hear? for example, shall we say that not having learned, we do not know the language of foreigners when they speak to us? or shall we say that hearing them, we also know what they are saying ? Or again, if we see letters which we do not understand, shall we say that we do not see them ? or shall we maintain that, seeing them, we must know them ? Theaet. We shall say, Socrates, that we know what we actually see and hear of them — that is to say, we see and know the figure and colour of the letters, and we hear and know the elevation or depression of the sound of them ; but we do not perceive by sight and hearing, or know, that which grammarians and interpreters teach about them. Soc. Capital, Theaetetus ; and about this there shall be no dispute, because I want you to grow ; but there is another difficulty coming, which you will also have to repulse. Theaet. What is it? Soc. Some one will say, Can a man who has ever known anything, and still has and preserves a memory of that which he knows, not know that which he remembers at the time when he remembers ? I have, I fear, a tedious way of putting a simple question, which is only, whether a man who has learned, and remembers, can fail to know? Theaet. Impossible, Socrates ; and an absurdity. Soc. Am I dreaming, then ? Think : is not seeing perceiving, and is not sight perception ? Theaet. True. Soc. And if our recent definition holds, every man knows that which he has seen ? Theaet. Yes. Soc. And you would admit that there is such a thing as memory ? Theaet. Yes. Soc. And is memory of something or of nothing ? Theaet. Of something, surely. Soc. Of things learned and perceived, that is ? 312 THEAETETUS. Theaet. Certainly. Soc. Often a man remembers that which he has seen ? Theaet. True. Soc. And if he closed his eyes, would he forget ? Theaet. Who, Socrates, would dare to say so ? Soc. But we must say so, if the previous argument is to be maintained. Theaet. What do you mean? I am not quite sure that I understand you, though I have a strong suspicion that you are right. Soc. As thus : he who sees knows, as we say, that which he sees ; for perception and sight and knowledge are admitted to be the same. Theaet. Certainly. Soc. But he who saw, and has knowledge of that which he saw, remembers, when he closes his eyes, that which he no longer sees. Theaet. True. Soc. And seeing is knowing, and therefore not seeing is not knowing ? Theaet. Very true. Soc. Then the inference is, that a man may have attained the knowledge of something, which he may remember and yet not know, because he does not see ; and this has been affirmed by us to be an absurdity. Theaet. Most true. Soc. Thus, then, the assertion that knowledge and perception are one, involves a manifest impossibility ? Theaet. Yes. Soc. Then they must be distinguished? Theaet. I suppose that they must. Soc. Once more we shall have to begin, and ask 'What is knowledge?' and yet, Theaetetus, what are we going to do? Theaet. About what ? Soc. Like a good-for-nothing cock, without having won the victory, we walk away from the argument and crow. Theaet. How do you mean ? Soc. After the manner of disputers, we drew inferences from words, and were well pleased if in this way we could gain an THEAETETUS. 313 advantage. And, although professing not to be mere Eristics, but philosophers, I suspect that we have unconsciously fallen into the error of that ingenious class of persons. Theaet. I do not as yet understand you. Soc. Then I will try to explain myself: just now we asked the question, whether a man who had learned and remembered could fail to know, and we showed that a person who had seen might remember when he had his eyes shut and could not see, and then he would at the same time remember and not know. But this was an impossibility, and so the Protagorean fable came to nought, and yours also, who maintained that knowledge is the same as perception. Theaet. True. Soc. And yet, my friend, I rather suspect that the result would have been different if Protagoras, who was the father of the first of the two brats, had been alive ; he would have had a great deal to say for himself. But he is dead, and we insult over his orphan child ; and even the guardians whom he left, and of whom Theodorus is one, are unwilling to give any help, and therefore I suppose that I must take up his cause myself, and see justice done? 165 Theod. Not I, Socrates, but rather Callias, the son of Hippo- nicus, is guardian of his orphans. I was too soon diverted from the abstractions of dialectic to geometry. Nevertheless, I shall be grateful to you if you assist him. Soc. Very good, Theodorus ; you shall see how I will come to the rescue. If a person does not attend to the meaning of the terms which are commonly used in argument, he may be involved even in greater paradoxes than these. Shall I explain this matter to you or to Theaetetus ? Theod. To both of us, and let the younger answer ; he will incur less disgrace if he is discomfited. Soc. Then now let me ask the awful question, which is this : — Can a man know and also not know that which he knows ? Theod. How shall we answer, Theaetetus ? Theaet. He cannot, I should say. Soc. He can, if you maintain that seeing is knowing. When you are caught in a well, as they say, and the self-assured adversary closes one of your eyes with his hand, and asks 3i4 THEAETETUS. whether you can see his cloak with the eye which he has * closed, how will you answer the inevitable man? The act. I should answer, not with that eye but with the other. Soc. Then you see and do not see the same thing at the same time. Theaet. Yes, in a certain sense. Soc. That is not an answer to my question, he will reply ; I do not ask 'in what sense you know,' but only whether you know that which you do not know. You have been proved to see that which you do not see ; and you have already ad mitted that seeing is knowing, and that not seeing is not know ing : I leave you to draw the inference. Theaet. Yes ; the inference is the contradictory of my asser tion. Soc. Yes, my marvel, and there may be yet worse things in store for you : an opponent will ask whether you can have a sharp and also a dull knowledge, and whether you can know near, but not at a distance, or know the same thing with more or less intensity, and so on without end. When you took up the position, that sense is knowledge, there was lying in wait a light-armed mercenary, who argues for pay ; he will dart from his ambush, and make his assault upon hearing, smelling, and the other senses ; — he will show you no mercy ; and while you are lost in envy and admiration of his wisdom, he will have got you into his net, out of which you will not escape until you have come to an understanding about the sum which is to be paid for your release. Well, you say, and how will Pro tagoras reinforce his position ? Shall I answer for him ? Theaet. By all means. Soc. After touching on the points which I have mentioned in defending him, he will close with us in disdain, and say : — 166 The worthy Socrates asked a little boy, whether the same man could remember and not know the same thing, and the boy said no, because he was frightened, and could not see wrhat was coming, and then Socrates made a fool of me. The truth is, O slatternly Socrates, that when you ask questions about any assertion of mine, and the person asked is found tripping, if he has answered as I should have answered, then I am re- THEAETETUS. 315 futed, but if he answers what I should not have answered, he is refuted and not I. For do you suppose that any one would admit the memory of a feeling afterwards to be the same as the feeling was at the time ? Certainly not. Or that he would hesitate to acknowledge that the same man may know and not know the same thing at the same time? Or, if he is afraid of making this admission, would he grant that one who has become unlike was the same as before he became unlike? Or would he admit that a man is one at all, and not rather many and infinite as the changes which take place in him? I speak by the card in order to avoid entanglements of words. But O, my good sir, he will say, come to the argument in a more generous spirit ; and either show, if you can, that our sensations are not relative and individual, or, if you admit them to be so, prove that this does not involve the consequence that the appearance becomes, or, if you will have it so, is, to the individual only. As to your talk about pigs and baboons, you are yourself a pig, and you make my writings the sport of other swine, which is not right. For I declare that the truth is as I have written, and that each of us is a measure of existence and of non- existence. Yet one man may be a thousand times better than another in proportion as things are and appear different to him. And I am far from saying that wisdom and the wise man have no existence ; but I say that the wise man is he who makes the evils which appear and are to a man, into goods which are and appear to him. And I would beg you not to press my words in the letter, but to take the meaning of them as I will explain them. Remember how I said before, that to the sick man his food appears to be and is bitter, and to the man in health the opposite of bitter. Now I cannot conceive that one of these men can be or ought to be made wiser than the 1 67 other: nor can you assert that the sick man because he has one impression is foolish, and the healthy man because he has another is wise ; but the one state requires to be changed into the other, the worse into the better. As in education, a change of state has to be effected, and the sophist accom plishes by words the change which the physician works by the aid of drugs. Not that any one ever made another think truly, who previously thought falsely. For no one can think 316 THEAETETUS. what is not, or think anything different from that which he feels, and which is always true. But as the inferior habit of mind has thoughts of a kindred nature, so I conceive that a good mind causes men to have good thoughts ; and these which the inexperienced call true, I maintain to be only better, and not truer than others. And, O my dear Socrates, I do not call wise men tadpoles : far otherwise ; I say that they are the physicians of the human body, and the husbandmen of plants — for the husbandmen also take away the evil and dis ordered sensations of plants, and infuse into them good and healthy sensations and not merely true ones1 ; and the wise and good rhetoricians make the good instead of the evil to seem just to states ; for whatever appears to be just and fair to a state, while sanctioned by a state, is just and fair to it ; but the teacher of wisdom causes the good to take the place of the evil, both in appearance and in reality. And the sophist who is able to train his pupils in this spirit is a wise man, and deserves to be well paid by them. And in this way one man is wiser than another ; and yet no one thinks falsely, and you, whether you will or not, must endure to be a measure. On these points the argument stands firm, which you, Socrates, may, if you please, overthrow by an opposite argument, or if you like you may put questions to me, (no intelligent person will object to the method of questions, — quite the reverse.) " But I must beg you to put fair questions : for there is great inconsistency in saying that you have a zeal for virtue, and then always behaving unfairly in argument. The unfairness of which I complain is that you never distinguish between mere disputa tion and dialectic : the disputer may trip up his opponent as often as he likes, and make fun ; but the dialectician will be in earnest, and only correct his adversary when necessary, tell ing him the errors into which he has fallen through his own fault, or that of the company which he has previously kept. If you do so, your adversary will lay the blame of his own 168 confusion and perplexity on himself, and not on you. He will follow and love you, and will hate himself, and escape from himself into philosophy, in order that he may become different 1 Reading aX^eis-, but ? THEAETETUS. 317 from what he was. But the other mode of arguing, which is practised by the many, will have just the opposite effect upon him ; and as he grows older, instead of turning philosopher, he will learn to hate philosophy. I would recommend you, therefore, as I said before, not to encourage yourself in this polemical and controversial temper, but to find out, in a friendly and congenial spirit, what we really mean when we say that all things are in motion, and that what appears is to individuals and states. In this way you will see whether knowledge and sensation are the same or different, but not by arguing, as you are doing, from the customary use of names and words, which the vulgar pervert in all manner of ways, causing infinite per plexity to one another. Such, Theodorus, is the very slight help which I am able to offer to your old friend l ; had he been living, he would have helped himself in a far grander style. Theod. You are jesting, Socrates ; indeed, your defence of him has been most valorous. Soc. Thank you, friend ; and I hope that you observed Pro tagoras bidding us be serious, as the text, ' man is the measure of all things/ was a solemn one ; and he reproached us with making a boy the medium of discourse, and said that the boy's timidity was made to tell against his argument ; he also com plained that we made a joke of him. Theod. How could I fail to observe all that, Socrates? Soc. Well, and shall we do as he says? Theod. By all means. Soc. But if his wishes are to be regarded, you and I must take up his argument in good earnest2, and ask and answer one another, for you see that the rest of us are all boys. In no other way can we escape the imputation, that we are making fun of him, and examining his thesis with boys. ^Theod. Well, and is not Theaetetus better able to follow a philosophical enquiry than a great many men who have long beards ? Soc. Yes, Theodorus, but not better than you ; and therefore please not to imagine that I am to defend by every means in 1 Reading Trpoo-^pKeo-a. 2 Reading aurov TWV \6yu>v. 318 THEAETETUS. my power your departed friend ; and that you are to defend nothing and nobody. At any rate, my good man, do not sheer 169 off until we know whether you are the true measure of diagrams, or whether all men are equally measures and sufficient for them selves in astronomy and geometry, and other branches of know ledge in which you are supposed to excel them. Theod. He who is sitting by you, Socrates, will not easily avoid being drawn into an argument ; and I am afraid that when I said that you would excuse me, and not, like the Lace daemonians, compel me to strip and fight, I said a stupid thing — I should rather compare you to Scirrhon, who threw travellers from the rocks ; for the Lacedaemonian rule is ' strip or depart,' but you seem to go about your work more after the fashion of Antaeus : you will not allow any one who approaches you to depart until you have stripped him, and he has tried a fall with you in argument. Soc. I see, Theodorus, that you perfectly apprehend the nature of my complaint ; but I am even more pugnacious than the giants of old, for I have met with no end of heroes ; many a Heracles, many a Theseus, mighty in words, has broken my head ; nevertheless I am always at this rough exercise, which inspires me like a passion. Please, then, to try a fall with me, whereby you will do me good as well as yourself. Theod. I consent ; lead me whither you will, for I know that you are like destiny ; nor can any man escape from any argu ment which you may weave for him ; but I am not disposed to go further than you suggest. Soc. Once will be enough ; and now take particular care that we do not again unwittingly expose ourselves to the reproach of talking childishly. Theod. I will try to avoid that error, as far as I am able. Soc. In the first place, let us return to our old objection, and see whether we were right in blaming and taking offence at Protagoras on the ground that he assumed all to be equal and sufficient in wisdom ; although he admitted that there was a better and worse, and that in respect of this, some who as he said were the wise excelled others. Theod. Very true. Soc. Had Protagoras been living and answered for himself, THEAETETUS. 319 instead of our answering for him, there would have been no need of our reviewing or reinforcing the argument. But as he is not here, and some one may accuse us of speaking without authority on his behalf, had we not better come to a clearer agreement on this head, as a great deal may be at stake ? Theod. That is true. 170 Soc, Then let us obtain from his own statement, in the fewest words possible, the basis of agreement. Theod. In what way ? Soc. In this way : — His words are, 'to whom a thing seems, that which seems is.' Theod. Yes, that is what he says. Soc. And are not we, Protagoras, uttering the opinion of man, or rather of all mankind, when we say that every man thinks himself wiser than other men in some things, and their inferior in others ? And in the hour of danger, when they are in perils of war, or of the sea, or of sickness, do they not look up to their commanders as gods, and expect salvation from them, only because they excel them in knowledge ? Is not the world full of men in their several employments, who are looking for teachers and rulers of themselves and of the animals? and there are plenty who think that they are able to teach and able to rule. Now, in all this is implied that ignorance and wisdom exist among them, at least in their own opinion. Theod. Certainly. Soc. And wisdom is assumed by them to be true thought, and ignorance to be false opinion. Theod. Exactly. Soc. How then, Protagoras, would you have us treat the argu ment ? Shall we say that the opinions of men are always true, or sometimes true and sometimes false ? In either case, the result is the same, and their opinions are not always true, but sometimes true and sometimes false. For tell me, Theodorus, do you suppose that any friend of Protagoras, or you yourself, would contend that no one deems another ignorant or mistaken in his opinion ? Theod. The thing is incredible, Socrates. Soc. And yet that absurdity is necessarily involved in the thesis which declares man to be the measure of all things. 320 THEAETETUS. Theod. How so ? Soc. Why, suppose that you determine in your own mind something to be true, and declare your opinion to me ; let us assume, as he argues, that this is true to you. Now if so you must either say that the rest of us are not the judges of this opinion or judgment of yours, or that we judge you always to have a true opinion? But are there not thousands upon thou sands who, whenever you form a judgment, take up arms and have an opposite judgment and opinion, deeming that you judge falsely? Theod. Yes, indeed, Socrates, thousands and tens of thousands, as Homer says, who give me a world of trouble. Soc. And will you assert, in that case, that what you say is true to you and false to the ten thousand others. Theod. No other inference is possible. Soc. And what is to be said of Protagoras himself? If neither he nor the multitude thought, as indeed they do not think, that man is the measure of all things, then the truth of which Protagoras wrote would be true to no one. But if you suppose that he himself thought this, and that the multi tude does not agree with him, you must begin by allowing that in whatever proportion the many are more than one, in that proportion his truth is more untrue than true. Theod. That would follow if the truth is supposed to vary with individual opinion. Soc. And the best of the joke is, that he acknowledges the truth of their opinion who believe his opinion to be false ; for in admitting that the opinions of all men are true, he in effect grants that the opinion of his opponents is true. Theod. Certainly. Soc. And does he not allow that his own opinion is false, if he admits that the opinion of those who think him false is true? Theod. Of course. Soc. But the other side do not admit that they speak falsely. Theod. They do not. Soc. And he, as may be inferred from his writings, agrees that this opinion is also true. Theod. Clearly. THEAETETUS. 321 Soc. Then all mankind, including Protagoras, will contend, or rather, I should say that he will allow, when he concedes that his adversary has a true opinion — Protagoras, I say, will himself allow that neither a dog nor any ordinary man is the measure of anything which he has not learned — am I not right ? Theod. Yes. Soc. And the truth of Protagoras being doubted by all, will be true neither to himself nor to any one else ? Theod. I think, Socrates, that we are running my old friend too hard. Soc. But I do. not know that we are going beyond the truth. Doubtless, as he is older, he may be expected to be wiser than we are. And if he could only just get his head out of the world below, he would have overthrown both of us again and again, me for talking nonsense and you for assenting to me, and have been off and underground in no time. But as he is not within call, we must make the best use of our own faculties, such as they are, and say honestly what we think ; and one thing which every man thinks is, that there are great differences in the understandings of men. TJieod. In that opinion I quite agree. Soc. And is there not most likely to be firm ground in the distinction which we drew on behalf of Protagoras, viz. that immediate sensations, such as hot, dry, sweet, are in general only such as they appear, but that if judgments are allowed to differ at all, this certainty of sensation cannot be extended to the knowledge of health or disease, which every woman, child, or living creature is by no means able to cure, neither have they any perception of what is wholesome for themselves ; and that in this, if in anything, the difference in different men will appear ? Theod. I quite agree. Soc. Again, in politics, while affirming that right and wrong, honourable and disgraceful, holy and unholy, are in reality to each state such as the state thinks and makes lawful, and that in determining these matters no individual or state is wiser than another, still the followers of Protagoras will not deny that in determining the sphere of expediency one counsellor VOL. IV. Y 322 THEAETETUS. is better than another, and one state wiser than another — they will scarcely venture to maintain, that what a city deems expedient will always be really expedient. But in the other case, I mean when they speak of justice and injustice, piety and impiety, they are confident that these have no natural or essen tial basis — the truth is that which is agreed on at the time of the agreement, and as long as the agreement lasts ; and this is the philosophy of many who do not altogether go along with Protagoras. Here arises a new question, Theodorus, which is more serious than the last. Theod. Well, Socrates, we have plenty of leisure. Soc. That is true, and your remark recalls to my mind an observation which I have often made, that those who have passed their days in the pursuit of philosophy are ridiculously at fault when they have to appear and plead in court. How natural is this ! Theod. What do you mean ? Soc. I mean to say, that those who have been trained in philo sophy and liberal pursuits compared with those who from their youth upwards have been knocking about in the courts and such like places, are in their way of life as freemen are to slaves. Theod. In what is the difference seen ? Soc. In the leisure spoken of by you, which a freeman can always command : he has his talk out in peace, and, like our selves, wanders at will from one subject to another, and from a second to a third, if his fancy prefers a new one, caring not whether his words are many or few ; his only aim is to attain the truth. But the lawyer is always in a hurry ; there is the water of the clepsydra driving him on, and not allowing him to expatiate at will : and there is his adversary standing over him, enforcing his rights ; the affidavit, which in their phrase ology is termed the brief, is recited : and from this he must not deviate. He is a servant, and is disputing about a fellow-servant before his master, who is seated, and has the cause in his hands ; the trial is never about some indifferent matter, but always concerns himself; and often the race is for his life. The con- 173 sequence has been, that he has become keen and shrewd ; he has learned how to flatter his master in word and indulge him THEAETETUS. 323 in deed ; but his soul is small and unrighteous. His slavish condition has deprived him of growth and uprightness and in dependence ; dangers and fears, which were too much for his truth and honesty, came upon him in early years, when the tenderness of youth was unequal to them, and he has been driven into crooked ways ; from the first he has practised decep tion and retaliation, and has become stunted and warped. And so he has passed out of youth into manhood, having no sound ness in him ; and is now, as he thinks, a master in wisdom. Such is the lawyer, Theodorus, Will you have the companion picture of the philosopher, who is of our brotherhood ; or shall we return to the argument? Do not let us abuse the freedom of digression which we claim. Theod. Nay, Socrates, let us finish what we are about ; for you truly said that we belong to a brotherhood which is free, and are not the servants of the argument ; but the argument is our servant, and must wait our leisure. Who is our judge? Or where is the spectator having any right to censure or control us, as he might the poets ? Soc. Then, as this is your wish, I will describe the leaders ; for there is no use in talking about the inferior sort. In the first place, the lords of philosophy have never, from their youth upwards, known their way to the Agora, or the dicastery, or the council, or any other political assembly ; they neither see nor hear the laws or votes of the state written or recited ; the eagerness of political societies in the attainment of offices — clubs, and banquets, and revels, and singing-maidens, — do not enter even into their dreams. Whether any event has turned out well or ill in the city, what disgrace may have descended to any one from his ancestors, male or female, are matters of which the philosopher no more knows than he can tell, as they say, how many pints are contained in the ocean. Neither is he conscious of his ignorance. For he does not hold aloof in order that he may gain a reputation ; but the truth is, that the outer form of him only is in the city : his mind, disdaining the little nesses and nothingnesses of human things, is 'flying all abroad' as Pindar says, measuring with line and rule the things which are under and on the earth and above the heaven, interrogating the Y 2 324 THEAETETUS. whole nature of each and all, but not condescending to anything 174 which is within reach. Theod. What do you mean, Socrates ? Soc. I will illustrate my meaning, Theodorus, by the. jest which the clever witty Thracian handmaid made about Thales, when he fell into a well as he was looking up at the stars. She said, that he was so eager to know what was going on in heaven, that he could not see what was before his feet. This is a jest which is equally applicable to all philosophers. For the philosopher is wholly unacquainted with his next door neighbour ; he is ignorant, not only of what he is doing, but he hardly knows whether he is a man or an animal ; he is searching into the essence of man, and busy in enquiring what belongs to such a nature to do or suffer different from any other ; — I think that you understand me, Theodorus ? Theod. I do, and what you say is true. Soc. And thus, my friend, on every occasion, private as well as public, as I said at first, when he appears in a law-court, or in any place in which he has to speak of things which are at his feet and before his eyes, he is the jest, not only of Thracian handmaids but of the general herd, tumbling into wells and every sort of disaster through his inexperience. His awkward ness is fearful, and gives the impression of imbecility. When he is reviled, he has nothing personal to say in answer to the civilities of his adversaries, for he knows no scandals of any one, and they do not interest him ; and therefore he is laughed at for his sheepishness ; and when others are being praised and glorified, in the simplicity of his heart he cannot help laughing openly and unfeignedly ; and this again makes him look like a fool. When he hears a tyrant or king eulogized, he fancies that he is listening to the praises of some keeper of cattle — a swineherd, or shepherd, or cowherd, who is congratulated on the quantity of milk which he squeezes from them ; and he remarks that the creature whom they tend, and out of whom they squeeze the wealth, is of a less tractable and more insidious nature. Then, again, he observes that the great man is of necessity as ill-mannered and uneducated as any shepherd— for he has no leisure, and he is surrounded by a wall, which is his mountain-pen. Hearing of enormous landed proprietors of ten THEAETETUS. 325 thousand acres and more, our philosopher deems this to be a trifle, because he has been accustomed to think of the whole earth ; and when they sing the praises of family, and say that some one is a gentleman because he has had seven generations of wealthy ancestors, he thinks that their sentiments only 1 75 betray a dull and narrow vision in those who utter them, and who are not educated enough to look at the whole, nor to consider that every man has had thousands and thousands of progenitors, and among them have been rich and poor, kings and slaves, Hellenes and barbarians, many times over. And when people pride themselves on having a pedigree of twenty-five ancestors, which goes back to Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, he cannot understand their poverty of ideas. Why are they unable to calculate that Amphitryon had a twenty-fifth ancestor, who might have been anybody, and was such as fortune made him, and he had a fiftieth, and so on ? He amuses himself with the notion that they cannot count, and thinks that a little arithmetic would have got rid of their senseless vanity. Now, in all these cases our philosopher is derided by the vulgar, partly because he is thought to despise them, and also because he is ignorant of what is before him, and always at a loss. Theod. That is very true, Socrates. Soc. But, O my friend, when he draws the other into upper air, and gets him out of his pleas and rejoinders into the contem plation of justice and injustice in their own nature and in their difference from one another and from all other things ; or from the commonplaces about the happiness of kings to the considera tion of government, and of human happiness and misery in general — what they are, and how a man is to attain the one and avoid the other — when that narrow, keen, little legal mind is called to account about all this, he gives the philosopher his revenge ; for dizzied by the height at which he is hanging, whence he looks into space, which is a strange experience to him, he being dis mayed, and lost, and stammering out broken words, is laughed at, not by Thracian handmaidens or any other uneducated per sons, for they have no eye for the situation, but by every man who has not been brought up as a slave. Such are the two characters, Theodorus : the one of the freeman called by you 326 THEAETETUS. useless when he has to perform some menial office, such as packing up a bag, or flavouring a sauce or fawning speech ; the other, of the man who is able to do all this kind of service smartly and neatly, but knows not how to wear his cloak like 176 a gentleman ; still less with the music of discourse can he hymn the true life which is lived by immortals or men blessed of heaven. Theod. If you could only persuade everybody, Socrates, as you do me, of the truth of your words, there would be more peace and fewer evils among men. Soc. Evils, Theodorus, can never pass away ; for there must always remain something which is antagonist to good. Having no place among the gods in heaven, of necessity they hover around the earthly nature, and this mortal sphere. Wherefore we ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can ; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible ; and to become like him, is to become holy and just and wise. But, O my friend, you cannot easily convince man kind that they should pursue virtue or avoid vice, not in order that a man may seem to be good, which is the reason given by the world, and in my judgment is only a repetition of an old wives' fable. Whereas, the truth is that God is never unrighteous at all— he is perfect righteousness ; and he of us who is the most righteous is most like him. Herein is seen the true cleverness of a man, and also his nothingness and want of manhood. For to know this is true wisdom and virtue, and ignorance of this is too plainly folly and vice. All other kinds of wisdom or cleverness, which seem only, such as the wisdom of politicians, or the wisdom of the arts, are coarse and vulgar. The un righteous man, or the sayer and doer of unholy things, had far better not yield to the illusion that his roguery is clever ; for men glory in their shame — they fancy that they hear others saying of them, 'these are not mere good-for-nothing persons, burdens of the earth, but such as men should be who mean to dwell safely in a state.' Let us tell them that they are all the more truly what they do not know that they are ; for they do not know the penalty of injustice, which above all things they ought to know — not stripes and death, as they suppose, a philosopher, who may be excused for appearing simple and THEAETETUS. 327 which evil-doers often escape, but a penalty which cannot be escaped. Theod. What is that ? Soc. There are two patterns eternally set before them ; the one blessed and divine, the other godless and wretched : and they do not see, in their utter folly and infatuation, that they are growing like the one and unlike the other, by reason of their evil deeds ; and the penalty is, that they lead a life answer ing to the pattern which they resemble. And if we tell them, that unless they depart from their cunning, the place of inno cence will not receive them after death ; and that here on earth, they will live ever in the likeness of their own evil selves, and with evil friends — when they hear this they in their superior cunning will seem to be listening to fools. Theod. Very true, Socrates. Soc. Too true, my friend, as I well know ; there is, however, one peculiarity in their case : when they begin to reason in private about their dislike of philosophy, if they have the courage to hear the argument out, and do not run away, they grow at last strangely discontented with themselves ; their rhetoric fades away, and they become helpless as children. These however are digressions from which we must now desist, or they will overflow, and drown the original argument ; to which, if you please, we will now return. Theod. For my part, Socrates, I would rather have the digres sions, for at my age I find them easier to follow ; but if you wish, let us go back to the argument. ^X Soc. Had we not reached the point at which the partisans of the perpetual flux, who say that things are as they seem to each one, were confidently maintaining that the ordinances which the state commanded and thought just, were just to the state which imposed them, while they were in force ; this was especially asserted of justice ; but as to the good, no one had ever yet had the hardihood to contend that the ordinances which the state thought and enacted to be good, were really good while they lasted ; — he who said this, would only be playing with the name 'good,' and would not really touch our ques tion? Theod. True. 328 THEAETETUS. Soc. And 1 would not have him speak of the name, but of the thing which is intended by the name. Theod. Right. Soc. Whatever name he gives to the thing, he would allow that the good or expedient is the aim of legislation, and that the state as far as possible imposes all laws with a view to the greatest expediency ; can legislation have any other aim ? Theod. Certainly not. Soc. But is the aim attained always? do not mistakes often happen ? Theod. Yes, I think that there are mistakes. Soc. The possibility of error will be more distinctly recog nised, if we put the question in reference to the whole class under which the good or expedient falls. That whole class has to do with the future, and laws are passed under the idea that they will be useful in after time ; which, in other words, is the future. Theod. Very true. Soc. Suppose now, that we ask Protagoras, or one of his disciples, a question : — O, Protagoras, we will say to him, Man, as you declare, is the measure of all things — -white, heavy, light : there is nothing of this sort of which he is not the judge ; for he has the criterion of them in himself, and when he thinks what he feels, he thinks what is and is true to himself. Is it not so ? Theod. Yes. Soc. And do you extend your doctrine, Protagoras (as we shall further say) to the future as well as to the present ; and has he the criterion not only of what is but of what will be, and do things always happen to him as he expected? For example, take the case of heat : — When a private person thinks that he is going to have a fever, and that this kind of heat is coming on, and another person, who is a physician, thinks the contrary, whose opinion is likely to prove right? Or are they both right? — he will have a heat or fever in his own judgment, and not have a fever in the physician's judgment? Theod. That would be ludicrous. Soc. And the vinegrower, if I am not mistaken, is likely to be a better prophet of the sweetness or dryness of the vintage which is not yet gathered than the harp-player ? THEAETETUS. 329 Theod. Certainly. Soc. And the musician will be a better judge than the gymnastic-master of the excellence of the music, which the gymnastic-master will himself approve, when he hears the per formance ? Theod. Of course. Soc. And the cook will be a better judge than the guest, who is not a cook, of the pleasure to be derived from the dinner which is in preparation ; for of present or past pleasure we are not now arguing, but of the pleasure which will seem to be and will be to each of us in the future, will every one be to himself the best judge? — nay, would not you, Protagoras, be a better judge of the topics which are likely to produce an effect upon us in a court than any private individual? jf, r Theod. Certainly, Socrates, he used to profess in the strongest manner that he was the superior of all men in this respect. Soc. To be sure, friend : who would have paid a large sum 179 for the privilege of talking to him, if he had really1 persuaded his visitors that neither a prophet nor any other man was better able to judge \vhat will be and seem to be in the future than every one for himself? Theod. Who indeed ? ' Soc. And legislation and expediency are all concerned with the future ; and every one will admit that states, in passing laws, must often fail of their highest interests ? Theod. Quite true. Soc. Then we may fairly argue against your master, that he must admit one man to be wiser than another, and that the wiser is a measure : but I, who know nothing, am not at all obliged to accept the honour which the advocate of Protagoras was just now forcing upon me, whether I would or not, of being a measure of anything. Theod. That is the way, Socrates, in which his argument is best refuted ; although he is also caught when he ascribes truth to the opinions of others, who give the lie direct to his own opinion. Soc. There are many ways, Theodorus, in which the doctrine 1 Reading drj. 330 THEAETETUS. that the opinion of every man is true may be refuted ; but there is more difficulty in proving that momentary states of feeling, out of which arise sensations and opinions in accordance with them, are also untrue. And perhaps I may be talking nonsense about them ; for very likely they are really unassailable, and those who say that there is evidence of them, and that they are matters of knowledge, may probably be right ; in which case our friend Theaetetus has not been far from the mark in identi fying perception and knowledge. Here, then, let us approach nearer, as the advocate of Protagoras desires, and give the truth of the universal flux a ring : is the theory sound or not ? at any rate, no small war is raging about this way, and there are many combatants. Theod. No small war, indeed, for in Ionia the sect makes rapid strides ; the disciples of Heracleitus are most energetic upholders of the doctrine. Soc. Then we are the more bound, my dear Theodorus, to examine the question from the beginning as set forth by them selves. Theod. Certainly we are. About these speculations of Hera cleitus, which, as you say, are as old as Homer, or even older still, the Ephesians themselves, who profess to know them, are downright mad, and you cannot talk with them about them. For, in accordance with their text-books, they are always in motion ; but as for dwelling upon an argument or a question, and quietly asking and answering in turn, they are absolutely 180 incapable of doing so ; or rather, they have no particle of rest in them, and they are in a state of negation of rest which no words can express. If you ask any of them a question, he will produce, as from a quiver, sayings brief and dark, and shoot them at you ; and if you enquire the reason of what he has said, you will be hit by some other new-fangled word, and will make no way with any of them, nor they with one another ; for their great care is, not to allow of any settled principle either in their arguments or in their minds, conceiving, as I imagine, that any such principle would be stationary ; and they are at war with the stationary, which they would like, if they could, to banish utterly. Soc. I suppose, Theodorus, that you have only seen them when they were fighting, and have never stayed with them in THEAETETUS. 331 time of peace, for they are no friends of yours ; and their peace doctrines are only communicated by them at leisure, as I imagine, to those disciples of theirs whom they want to make like themselves. Theod. Disciples ! my good sir, they have none ; men of this sort are not one another's disciples, but they grow up anyhow, and get their inspiration anywhere, each of them saying of his neighbour that he knows nothing. From these men, then, as I was going to remark, you will never get a reason, whether with their will or without their will ; we must take the question out of their hands, and make the analysis ourselves, as if we were doing a geometrical problem. Soc. Quite right too ; but as touching the said problem, have we not heard from the ancients, who concealed their wisdom from the many in poetical figures, that Oceanus and Tethys, the origin of all things, are streams, and that nothing is at rest ; and now the moderns, in their superior wisdom, have declared the same openly, that the cobbler too may hear and learn of them, and no longer foolishly imagine that some things are at rest and others in motion — having learned that all is motion, he will duly honour his teachers ? I had almost forgotten the opposite doc trine, Theodorus, ' That is alone unmoved which is named the universe.' This is the language of Parmenides, Melissus, and their followers, who stoutly maintain that all being is one and self-contained, and has no place in which to move. What shall we do, friend, with all these people ; for, advancing step by step, we have imperceptibly got between the combatants, and, unless we can 181 protect our retreat, we shall pay the penalty of our rashness — like the players in the palaestra who are caught upon the line, and are dragged different ways by the two parties. Therefore I think that we had better begin by considering those whom we first accosted, ' the river-gods,' and, if we find any truth in them, we will pull ourselves over to their side, and try to get away from the others. But if the partisans of ' the whole ' appear to speak more truly, we will fly off from the party which would move the immovable, to them. And if we find that neither of them have anything reasonable to say, we shall be in a ridiculous 332 THEAETETUS. position, having ourselves to assert our own poor opinion and reject that of ancient and famous men. O Theodorus, do you think that there is any use in proceeding when the danger is so great ? Theod. Nay, Socrates, not to examine thoroughly what the two parties have to say would be quite intolerable. Soc. Then examine we must, if you will insist. The first question which, I fancy, has to be determined, is about motion. What do they mean when they say that all things are in motion ? Is there only one kind of motion, or, as I incline to think, two ? I should like to have your opinion upon the point, that I may err, if I am to err, in your company ; tell me, then, when a thing changes from one place to another, or goes round in the same place, is not that motion ? Theod. Yes. Soc. Here then we have one kind of motion. But when a thing grows old, or becomes black from being white, or hard from being soft, or undergoes any other change, while remaining in the same place, may not that be properly described as motion of another kind ? Theod. I think so. Soc. Of course, it must be so. I say, then, that of motion there are these two kinds, ' change,' and ' motion in place.' Theod. You are right. Soc. And now, having made this distinction, let us address ourselves to those who say that all is motion, and ask them whether all things according to them have the two kinds of motion, and are changed as well as move in place, or is one thing moved in both ways, and another only in one way ? Theod. Indeed, I do not know what to answer ; but I think they would say ' that all things are moved in both ways.' Soc. Yes, my friend ; for, if not, then manifestly the same things would be in motion and at rest, and there would be no more truth in saying that all things are in motion, than that all things are at rest. Theod. To be sure. Soc. And if they are to be in motion, and nothing is to be devoid of motion, they must suppose that all things have always 182 every sort of motion ? THE A E TE TUS. 3 3 3 Theod. Most true. Soc. Consider a further point : did we not understand them to explain the generation of heat, whiteness, or anything else, in some such manner as this:— were they not saying that each of them is moving between the agent and the patient, together with a perception, and the patient then becomes percipient but not perception,, and the agent a quale but not a quality r I suspect that quality may appear a strange term to you, and that you do not understand the word when thus generalised. Then I will take particular cases : I mean to say that the producing power or agent becomes neither heat nor whiteness, but hot and white, and the like of other things. For I must repeat what I said before, that neither the agent nor patient have any absolute existence, but when they come together and generate sensations and sensible things, the one becomes of a certain quality, and the other percipient. You remember? Theod. Of course. Soc. We may leave the rest of their theory unexamined, but we must not forget to ask them the only question with which we are concerned : Are all things in motion and flux ? Theod. Yes, they will reply. Soc. And they are moved in both those ways which we distin guished ; that is to say, they move and are also changed ? Theod. Of course, if the motion is to be perfect. Soc. If they only moved, and were not changed, we should be able to say what are the kinds of things which are in motion and flux? Theod. Exactly. Soc. But now, since not even white continues to flow white, and the very whiteness is a flux or change which is passing into another colour, and will not remain white, can the name of any colour be rightly used at all ? Theod. How is that possible, Socrates, either in the case of this or of any other quality — if while we are using the word the object is escaping in the flux? Soc. And what would you say of perceptions, such as sight and hearing, or any other kind of perception? Is there any stopping in the act of seeing and hearing? Theod. Certainly not, if all things are in motion. 3 34 THE A E TE TUS. Soc. Then we must not speak of seeing any more than of not seeing, nor of any other perception more than of any non-per ception, if all things have any and every kind of motion ? Theod. Certainly not. Soc. Yet science is perception, as Theaetetus and I were saying. Theod. That was said. Soc. Then when we were asked what is knowledge, we no more answered what is knowledge than what is not know ledge ? Theod. I suppose not. Soc. Here, then, is a fine result : we corrected our first answer 183 in our eagerness to prove that nothing is at rest. But if nothing is at rest, every answer upon whatever subject is equally right : you may say that a thing is or is not this ; or, if you prefer, ' becomes ' this ; and if we say ' becomes,' we shall not then hamper them with words expressive of rest. Theod. You are right. Soc. Yes, Theodorus, except in saying ' this ' and ' not this.' But you ought not to use the word ' this ' or ' not this/ for there is no motion in ' this ' or ' not this ' ; the maintainers of the doctrine have as yet no words to express themselves, and must get a new language. I know of no word that will suit them, except perhaps ' in no way/ which is perfectly indefinite. Theod. Yes, that is a manner of speaking in which they will be quite at home. Soc. And so, Theodorus, we have got rid of your friend with out assenting to his doctrine, that every man is the measure of all things — a wise man only is a measure ; neither can we allow that knowledge is perception, certainly not on the hypo thesis of a perpetual flux, unless our friend Theaetetus is able to convince us. Theod. Very good, Socrates ; and now that the argument about the doctrine of Protagoras has been completed, I am absolved from answering, according to the agreement. Theaet. Not, Theodorus, until you and Socrates have dis cussed the doctrine of those who say that all things are at rest, as you were proposing. Theod. You, Theaetetus, who are a young rogue, must not THEAETETUS. 335 instigate your elders to a breach of faith, but prepare yourself to answer Socrates in the remainder of the argument. Theaet. Yes, if he wishes; but I would rather have heard about the doctrine of rest. TJieod. Invite Socrates to an argument — invite horsemen to the open plain ; do but ask him, and he will answer. Soc. Nevertheless, Theodorus, I am afraid that I shall not be able to comply with the request of Theaetetus. Theod. Not comply ! for what reason ? Soc. My reason is that I have a kind of reverence ; not so much for Melissus and the others, who say that ' all is one and at rest,' as for the great leader himself, Parmenides, venerable and awful, as in Homeric language he may be called ; — him I should be ashamed to approach in a spirit unworthy of him. I met him when he was an old man, and I was a mere youth, 184 and he appeared to me to have a glorious depth of mind. And I am afraid that we may not understand his language, and may fall short even more of his meaning; and I fear above all that the nature of knowledge, which is the main subject of our dis cussion, may be thrust out of sight by the unbidden guests who will come pouring in upon our feast of discourse, if they are permitted — besides, the question which we are now stirring is of immense extent, and will be treated unfairly if only con sidered by the way ; or if treated adequately and at length, will put into the shade the other question of knowledge. Neither the one nor the other can be allowed ; but I must try by my art of midwifery to deliver Theaetetus of his conceptions about knowledge. Theaet. Very well ; do so if you will. Soc. Then now, Theaetetus, take another view of the subject : you answered that knowledge is perception ? Theaet. I did. Soc. And if any one were to ask you : With what does a man see black and white colours ? and with what does he hear sharp and flat sounds ? — you would say, if I am not mistaken, ' With the eyes and with the ears.' Theaet. I should. Soc. The free use of words and phrases, rather than minute precision, is generally characteristic of a liberal education, and 336 THEAE TE TUS. the opposite is pedantic ; but sometimes precision is neces sary, and I believe that the answer which you have just given is open to the charge of incorrectness ; for which is more correct, to say that we see or hear with the eyes and with the ears, or through the eyes and through the ears. Theaet. I should say, Socrates, 'through,' rather than 'with.' Soc. Yes, my boy ; for no one can suppose that we are Trojan horses, in whom are perched several unconnected senses, not meeting in some one nature, of which they are the instruments, whether you term this soul or not, with which through these we perceive objects of sense. Theaet. I agree with you in that opinion. Soc. The reason why I am thus precise is. because I want to know whether we perceive black and white through the eyes indeed, but with one and the same part of ourselves, and again, other qualities through other organs, and whether, if asked the question, you would refer all such perceptions to the body. Perhaps, however, I had better allow you to answer for your self. Tell me, then, are not the organs through which y6u perceive warm and hard and light and sweet, organs of the body? Theaet. Of the body, certainly. Soc. And you would admit that what you perceive through 185 one faculty you cannot perceive through another ; the objects of hearing, for example, cannot be perceived through sight, or the objects of sight through hearing? Theaet. Of course not. Soc. If you have any thought about both of them, this com mon perception cannot come to you, either through the one or the other organ ? Theaet. It cannot. Soc. How about sounds and colours : in the first place you would admit that they both exist? Theaet. Yes. Soc. And that either of them is different from the other, and the same with itself? Theaet. Certainly. Soc. And that both are two and each of them one ? Theaet. Yes. THEAETETUS. 337 Soc. You can further observe whether they are like or unlike one another ? Theaet. I dare say. Soc. But through what do you perceive all this about them ? for neither through hearing nor yet through seeing can you apprehend that which they have in common. Let me give you an illustration : — if I were to ask whether sounds and colours are saline or not (supposing that there were any mean ing in such a question), you would be able to tell me what faculty would determine that — not sight nor hearing, as is evident, but something else? Theaet. Certainly ; the faculty of taste. Soc. Very good ; and what power or instrument will deter mine the general notions which are common, not only to the senses but to all things, and which you call being and not being, and the rest of them, about which I was just now asking — what organs will you assign for the perception of these ? Theaet. You are speaking of being and not being, likeness arid unlikeness, sameness and difference, and also of unity and other numbers which are applied to objects of sense ; and you mean to ask, through what bodily organ the soul perceives odd and even numbers and other arithmetical notions. Soc. You follow me excellently, Theaetetus ; that is precisely what I am asking. Theaet. Indeed, Socrates, I cannot answer ; my only notion is, that they have no separate organ, but that the soul, by a power of her own, contemplates the universals in all things. Soc. You are a beauty, Theaetetus, and not ugly, as Theo- dorus was saying ; for he who utters the beautiful is himself beautiful and good. And besides being beautiful, you have done well in releasing me from a very long discussion, if you are clear that the soul views some things by herself and others through the bodily organs. For that was my own opinion, and I wanted you to agree with me. Theaet. I am clear on that head. 1 86 Soc. And to which class would you refer being or essence; for this, of all our notions, is the most universal ? Theaet. I should say, to that class which the soul aspires to know of herself. VOL. IV. z 338 THEAETETUS. Soc. And would you say this also of like and unlike, some and other? Theaet. Yes. Soc. And would you say the same of the noble and base, and of good and evil ? Theaet. These I conceive to be notions which are essentially relative, and which the soul also perceives by comparing in her self things past and present with the future. Soc. And does she not perceive the hardness of that which is hard by the touch, and the softness of that which is soft equally by the touch? Theaet. Yes. Soc. But their essence and what they are, and their oppo sition to one another, and the essential nature of this opposi tion, the soul herself endeavours to decide for us by the review and comparison of them ? Theaet. Certainly. Soc. The simple sensations which reach the soul through the body, are given at birth to men and animals by nature, but their reflections on these and on their relations to being and use, are slowly and hardly gained, if they are ever gained, by education and long experience. Theaet. Assuredly. Soc. And can a man attain truth who fails of attaining being ? Theaet. Impossible. Soc. And can he who misses the truth of anything, have a knowledge of that thing ? Theaet. He cannot. Soc. Then knowledge does not consist in impressions of sense, but in reasoning about them ; in that only, and not in the mere impression, truth and being can be attained ? Theaet. Clearly. Soc. And would you call the two processes by the same name, when there is so great a difference between them? Theaet. That would not be right. Soc. And what name would you give to seeing, hearing, smelling, being cold and being hot? Theaet. I should call all of them perceiving — what other name could be given them ? THEAE TE TUS. 339 Soc. Perception would be the collective name of them ? Theaet. Certainly. Soc. Which, as we say, has no part in the attainment of truth any more than of being ? Theaet. Certainly not. Soc. And therefore cannot have any part in science or know ledge ? Theaet. No. Soc. Then perception, Theaetetus, can never be the same as knowledge or science? Theaet. That is evident, Socrates ; knowledge is now most clearly proved to be different from perception. 187 Soc. But the original aim of our discussion was to find out rather what knowledge is than what it is not ; at the same time we have made some progress, for we no longer seek for knowledge in perception at all, but in that other process, how ever called, in which the mind is alone and engaged with being. Theaet. That, Socrates, as I conceive, is called thinking. Soc. You conceive truly. And now, my friend, please to begin again at this point ; and having wiped out of your memory all that has preceded, see if you have arrived at any clearer view, and once more say what is knowledge. Theaet. I cannot say, Socrates, that knowledge is all opinion, because there may be a false opinion ; but I will venture to say, that knowledge is true opinion : let this then be my answer ; and if this is hereafter disproved, I must try to find another. Soc. That is the way in which you ought to answer, Theae tetus, and not in your former hesitating strain, for if we are bold we shall gain one of two advantages ; either we shall find that which we seek, or we shall be less likely to think that we know what we do not know — and this surely is no mean reward. And now, what are you saying? — that there are two sorts of opinion, one true and the other false ; and you define know ledge to be the true? Theaet. Yes, according to my present view. Soc. Is it worth while for us to resume the discussion touch ing opinion ? Theaet. To what are you alluding? z 2 340 THEAETETUS. Soc. There is a point which often troubles me, and is a great perplexity to me, both in relation to myself and others. I cannot make out the nature or origin of the mental experience to which I refer. Theaet. Pray what is it? Soc. How there can be false opinion — that difficulty still troubles the eye of my mind ; and I am uncertain whether I shall leave the question, or begin over again in a new way. Theaet. Begin again, Socrates, — at least if you think that there is the slightest necessity for doing so. Were not you and Theodorus remarking truly that in discussion of this kind we may take our own time? Soc. You are right in reminding me, and perhaps there will be no harm in retracing our steps and beginning again. Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly. Theaet. Certainly. Soc. Well, and what is the difficulty? Do we not speak of false opinion, and say that one man holds a false and another a true opinion, as though there were some natural distinction between them? Theaet. That is what we say. Soc. All things and everything are either known or not 188 known. I leave out of view the intermediate conceptions of forgetting and learning, because they have nothing to do with our present question. Theaet. There can be no doubt, Socrates, if you exclude these, that there is no other alternative but knowing or not knowing a thing. Soc. And must not he who has an opinion, have an opinion about something which he knows or does not know? Theaet. He must. Soc. He who knows, cannot but know ; and he who does not know, cannot know? Theaet. Of course. Soc. What shall we say then? When a man has a false opinion does he think that which he knows to be some other thing which he knows, and knowing both, is he at the same time ignorant of both? Theaet* That, Socrates, is impossible. THEAETETUS. 341 Soc. But perhaps he thinks of something which he does not know as some other thing which he does not know ; for ex ample, he knows neither Theaetetus nor Socrates, and yet he fancies that Theaetetus is Socrates, or Socrates Theaetetus? Theaet. How can he? Soc. But surely he cannot suppose that what he does not know is what he knows, or that what he knows is what he does not know? Theaet. That would be monstrous. Soc. Where, then, is false opinion? For if all things are either known or unknown, there can be no opinion which is not comprehended under the alternative just offered, and so false opinion is excluded. Theaet. Most true. Soc. Suppose that we remove the question out of the sphere of knowing or not knowing, into that of being and not being. Theaet. How do you mean? Soc. May we not suspect that he who thinks of anything which is not, will think what is false, whatever in other respects may be the state of his mind ? Theaet. That, again, I should imagine to be true, Socrates. Soc. Then suppose some one to say to us, Theaetetus : — Is this possible — can any man think that which is not, either as a self-existent substance or a predicate of another ? And suppose that we answer, ' Yes, he can, when he thinks tHat which is not true.' — That will be our answer. Theaet. Yes. Soc. And is the like of this to be found anywhere else ? Theaet. What do you mean? Soc. Can a man see something and yet see nothing? Theaet. Impossible. Soc. But if he sees any one thing, he sees something that exists. Do you suppose that one thing is ever to be found among non-existing things? Theaet. I do not. Soc. He then who sees anything, sees that which is? Theaet. Clearly. 189 Soc. And he who hears anything, hears some one thing, and hears that which is? 342 THEAETETUS. Theaet. Yes. Soc. And he who touches something, touches some one thing which is one and therefore is ? Theaet. That again is true. Soc. And does not he who thinks, think some one thing ? Theaet. Certainly. Soc. And does not he who thinks some one thing, think something which is? Theaet. I agree. Soc. Then he who thinks of that which is not, thinks of nothing? Theaet. Clearly. Soc. And he who thinks of nothing, does not think at all ? Theaet. Obviously. Soc. Then no one can think that which is not, either as a self-existent substance or a predicate of another? Theaet. Clearly not. Soc. Then to think falsely is different from thinking that which is not? Theaet. Yes, different. Soc. Then false opinion has no existence in us, either in the sphere of being or of knowledge ? Theaet. Certainly not. Soc. But may not the following be the description of what we express by this name? Theaet. What? Soc. May we not suppose that false opinion or thought is a sort of heterodoxy ; a person may make an exchange in his mind, and say that one real object is another real object. For thus he always thinks that which is, but he misplaces the objects of his thought, and missing of what he is considering, he may be truly said to have false opinion. Theaet. Now you appear to me to have said the exact truth : when a man puts the base in the place of the noble, or the noble in the place of the base, then he has truly false opinion. Soc. I see, Theaetetus, that your fear has disappeared, and that you are beginning to despise me. Theaet. What makes you say so? Soc. You think, if I am not mistaken, that your ' truly false ' TUEAETETUS. 343 is safe from censure, and that I shall never ask whether there can be a swift which is slow, or a heavy which is light, or any process of nature which is a contradiction in terms. But I will not insist upon this, because I do not wish to discourage you. And so you are satisfied that false opinion is heterodoxy, or the thought of something else ? Theaet. I am. Soc. Then upon your view the mind is able to conceive of one thing as another? Theaet. True. Soc. But must not -: the mind, or thinking power, which mis places them, have a conception either of both objects or of one of them ? 77ieact. Certainly. Soc. Either together or in succession? Theaet. Very good. Soc. And do you mean by thinking the same which I mean ? Theaet. What is that ? Soc. I mean the conversation which the soul holds with her self in considering of anything. I speak of what I scarcely 190 know ; but the soul when thinking appears to me to be just talking — asking questions of herself and answering them, affirm ing and denying. And when she has arrived at a decision, either gradually or by a sudden impulse, and has at last agreed, and does not doubt, this is called her opinion. I say, then, that to form an opinion is to speak, and opinion is a word spoken, I mean, to oneself and in silence, not aloud or to another. Theaet. True. Soc. Then when any one thinks of one thing as another, he is saying to himself that one thing is another ? Theaet. Quite true. Soc. Now recollect whether you have ever said to yourself that the noble is certainly base, or the unjust just ; or, take the primary conception of all — have you ever attempted to convince yourself that one thing is another ? Nay, even in sleep, did you ever venture to say to yourself that odd is even, or anything of that sort? Theaet. Never. 344 THEAETETUS. Soc. And do you suppose that any other man, either in his senses or out of them, ever seriously tried to persuade himself that an ox is a horse, or that two are one ? Theaet. Certainly not. Soc. But if thinking is speaking to oneself, no one speaking and thinking of two objects, and apprehending them both in his soul, will say and think that the one is the other of them, and I must add, that you will have to let the word ' other ' alone [i. e. not insist that ' one ' and ' other ' are both in Greek called 'other,' trtpov. Cp. Par. 147 C.] I mean to say, that no one thinks the noble to be base, or anything of the kind. Theaet. I will give up the word ' other,' Socrates ; and I agree in what you say. Soc. If a man has both of them in his thoughts, he cannot think that the one of them is the other? Theaet. True. Soc. Neither, if he has one of them in his mind and not the other, can he think that one is the other? Theaet. True ; for we should have to suppose that he appre hends that which is not in his thoughts at all. Soc. Then no one who has either both or only one of the two objects in his mind can think that the one is the other. And therefore, he who maintains that false ' doxy ' is heterodoxy is talking nonsense ; for neither in this, any more than in the previous way, can false opinion exist in us. Theaet. No. Soc. But if, Theaetetus, this is not admitted, then we shall be driven into many strange absurdities. Theaet. What are they ? Soc. I will not tell you until I have endeavoured to consider the matter in every point of view. For I should be ashamed 191 of us if we were driven in our perplexity to admit the absurd consequences of which I speak. But if we find the solution, and get away from them, we may regard them only as the difficulties of others, and the ridicule will not attach to us. On the other hand, if we utterly fail, I suppose that we must be humble, and allow the argument to trample us under foot, as the sea-sick passenger is trampled upon by the sailor, and to THEAETETUS. 345 do anything to us. Listen, then, while I tell you how I hope to find a way out of our difficulty. Theaet. Let me hear. Soc. I think that we were wrong in denying that a man could think what he did not know to be what he knew ; and that there is a way in which such a deception is possible. Theaet. You mean to say, as I suspected at the time, that I may know Socrates, and at a distance see some one who is unknown to me, and whom I mistake for him — and then the deception will occur ? Soc. But has not that position been relinquished by us, be cause involving the absurdity that we should know and not know the things which we know? Theaet. True. Soc. Let us make the assertion in another form, which may or may not have a favourable issue ; but as we are in a great strait, every argument should be turned over and tested. Tell me, then, whether I am right in saying that you may learn a thing which at one time you did not know ? Theaet. Certainly you may. Soc. And this may happen over and over again ? Theaet. Yes. Soc. I would have you imagine, then, that there exists in the mind of man a block of wax, which is of different sizes in different men; harder, moister, and having more or less of purity in one than another, and in some of an intermediate quality. Theaet. I see. Soc. Let us say that this tablet is a gift of Memory, the mother of the Muses; and that when we wish to remember anything which we have seen, or heard, or thought in our own minds, we hold the wax to the perceptions and thoughts, and in that receive the impression of them as from the seal of a ring; and that we remember and know what is imprinted as long as the image lasts ; but when the image is effaced, or cannot be taken, then we forget and do not know. Theaet. Very good. Soc. Now, when a person has this knowledge, and is con- 346 THEAETETUS. sidering something which he sees or hears, may not false opinion arise in the following manner? Theact. In what manner? Soc. When he thinks what he knows sometimes to be what he knows, and sometimes to be what he does not know. We were wrong before in denying the possibility of this. Theaet. And how would you amend the former statement ? Soc. I should begin by making a list of the impossible cases T92 which must be excluded. No one can think one thing to be another when he does not perceive either of them, but has the memorial or seal of both of them in his mind ; nor can any mistaking of one thing for another occur, when he only knows one, and does not know, and has no impression of the other ; nor can he think that what he does not know is what he does not know, or that what he knows is what he does not know ; nor that one thing which he perceives is another thing which he perceives, or that a thing which he does not perceive is a thing which he perceives ; or that one thing which he does not per ceive is another thing which he does not perceive ; or that a thing which he perceives is a thing which he does not perceive ; nor again, can he think that one thing which he knows and perceives, and of which he has the impression coinciding with sense, is another thing which he knows and perceives, and of which he has the impression coinciding with sense ; — this last case, if possible, is still more inconceivable than the others ; nor can he think that a thing which he knows is any other thing which he knows and perceives, and of which he has the memo rial coinciding with sense ; nor so long as these agree, can he think that a thing which he perceives is another thing which he knows and perceives ; or that a thing which he does not know and does not perceive, is the same as another thing which he does not know and does not perceive ; — nor again, can he sup pose that a thing which he does not know is the same as another thing which he does not know and does not perceive ; or that a thing which he does not perceive is another thing which he does not know and does not perceive : — All these utterly and absolutely exclude the possibility of false opinion. The only cases, if any, which remain, are the following. Theaet. What are they? If you tell me, I may perhaps THEAETETUS. 347 understand you better ; but at present I am unable to follow you. Soc. A person may think that some things which he knows and perceives, or which he perceives and does not know, are some other things which he knows ; or that some things which he knows and perceives, are other things which he knows and perceives. Theaet. I understand you less than ever now. Soc. Hear me once more, then : — I, knowing Theodorus, and remembering in my own mind what sort of person he is, and what sort of person Theaetetus is, at one time see them, and at another time do not see them, and sometimes I touch them, and at another time not, or at one time I may hear them or perceive them in some other way, and at another time not perceive them, but still I remember them, and know them in my own mind. Theaet. Very true. Soc. Then, first of all, I want you to understand that a man may or may not perceive that which he knows. Tlieaet. True. Soc. And that which he does not know will sometimes not be perceived by him and sometimes will be perceived and only perceived ? Theaet. That is true again. 193 Soc. See whether you can follow me better now: Socrates knows Theodorus and Theaetetus, but he sees neither of them, nor does he perceive them in any other way ; he cannot then by any possibility imagine in his own mind that Theaetetus is Theodorus. Am I not right? Theaet. You are quite right. Soe. Then that was the first case of which I spoke ? Theaet. Yes. Soc. The second case was, that I, knowing one of you and not knowing the other, and perceiving neither, can never think that he whom I do not know is he whom I know. Theaet. True. Soc. In the third case, not knowing and not perceiving either of you, I cannot think that a person whom I do not know is some one else whom I do not know. I need not again go over 348 THEAETETUS. the catalogue of excluded cases, in which I cannot form a false opinion about you and Theodorus, either when I know both or when I am in ignorance of both, or as knowing one and not knowing the other. And the same of perceiving : do you under stand me? Theaet. I do. • Soc. The only possibility of erroneous opinion is, when know ing you and Theodorus, and having the seal or impression of both of you in the wax block, but seeing you both imperfectly and at a distance, I try to assign the right impression of memory visual to the right impression, and fit this into the proper mould : if I succeed, recognition will take place ; but if I fail and trans pose them, putting the foot into the wrong shoe — that is to say, putting the vision of either of you on to the wrong seal, or seeing you as in a mirror when the sight flows from right to left — then ' heterodoxy ' and false opinion ensues. Theaet. Yes, Socrates, you have described the nature of opinion with wonderful exactness. Soc. Or again, when I know both of you, and see as well as know one and not the other, and knowledge does not coincide with perception — that was a case which you did not understand just now? Theaet. No, I did not. Soc. I meant to say, that when a person knows and perceives one of you, and his knowledge coincides with his perception, he will never think him to be some other person, whom he knows and perceives, and the knowledge of whom coincides with his perception — we agreed to that? Theaet. Yes. Soc. But there was an omission of the further case, in which, as we now say, false opinion may arise, when knowing both, 194 or seeing, or having some other sensible perception of both, I fail in holding the seal over against the corresponding sen sation ; like a bad archer, I miss and fall wide of the mark — and this is called falsehood. Theaet. Yes, truly. Soc. When, therefore, perception is present to one of the seals or impressions and not to the other, and the mind fits the seal of the absent perception on the one which is present, in any case THEAETETUS. 349 of this sort the mind is deceived ; in a word, if our view is sound, there can be no error or deception about things which a man does not know and has never perceived, but only in things which are known and perceived ; in these alone opinion turns and twists about, and becomes alternately true and false ; — true when the seals and impressions of sense meet straight and oppo site — false when they go awry and are crooked. Theaet. And is not that, Socrates, nobly said ? Soc. Nobly ! yes ; but wait a little and hear the explanation, and then you will say so with more reason ; for to think truly is noble and to be deceived is base. Theaet. Assuredly. Soc. And the explanation of truth and error is as follows : — When the wax in the soul of any one is deep and abundant, and smooth and perfectly tempered, then the impressions which pass through the senses and sink into the [waxen] heart of the soul, as Homer says in a parable, meaning to indicate the like ness of the soul to wax (KTJP Krjpbs) ; these, I say, being pure and clear, and having a sufficient depth of wax, are also lasting, and minds, such as these, easily learn and easily retain, and are not liable to confusion, but have true thoughts, for they have plenty of room, and having clear impressions of things, as we term them,, quickly distribute them into their proper places on the block. And such men are called wise. Do you agree ? Theaet. Entirely. Soc. But when the heart of any one is shaggy, as the poet who knew everything says, or muddy and of impure wax, or very soft, or very hard, then there is a corresponding defect in the mind — the soft are good at learning, but apt to forget ; and the hard are the reverse ; the shaggy and rugged and gritty, or those who have an admixture of earth or dung in their com- 195 position, have the impressions indistinct, as also the hard, for there is no depth in them ; and the soft too are indistinct, for their impressions are easily confused and effaced. Yet greater is the indistinctness when they are all jostled together in a little soul, which has no room. These are the natures which have false opinion; for when they see or hear or think of anything, they are slow in assigning the right objects to the right impres sions — in their stupidity they confuse them, and are apt to see 350 THEAETETUS. and hear and think amiss — and such men are said to be deceived in their knowledge of objects, and ignorant. Theaet. No man, Socrates, can say anything truer than that. Soc. Then now we may admit the existence of false opinion in us? Theaet. Certainly. Soc. And of true opinion also ? Theaet. Yes. Soc. We have at length satisfactorily proven that beyond a doubt there are these two sorts of opinion ? Theaet. Undoubtedly. Soc. Alas, Theaetetus, what a tiresome being is a man who is fond of talking ! Theaet. What makes you say that ? Soc. Because I am disheartened at my own stupidity and tiresome garrulity ; for what other term will describe the habit of a man who is always arguing on all sides of a question ; whose dulness cannot be convinced, and yet he will not leave off? Theaet. But what puts you out of heart ? Soc. I am not only out of heart, but in positive despair ; for I do not know what to answer if any one were to ask me :— O Socrates, have you indeed discovered that false opinion arises neither in the comparison of the perceptions with one another nor in the thoughts, but in the union of thought and perception ? Yes, I shall say, with the complacence of one who thinks that he has made a noble discovery. Theaet. I see no reason why we should be ashamed of the demonstration, Socrates. Soc. He will say : You mean to assert that the man whom we only think of and do not see, cannot be confused with the horse which we do not see or touch, but only think of and do not per ceive ? That I believe to be my meaning, I shall reply. Theaet. Quite right. Soc. Well; then, he will say, according to that argument, the number eleven, which is only thought, can never be mistaken for twelve, which is only thought. How would you answer him ? Theaet. I should say that a mistake may very likely arise between the eleven or twelve which are seen or handled, but THEAETETUS. 351 that no similar mistake can arise between the eleven and twelve which are in the mind. Soc. Well, but do you think that no one ever did put before 196 his own mind five and seven, — I am not saying five or seven men or horses, but five or seven in the abstract ; and these we affirm to be the actual impressions on the waxen block, in which false opinion is held to be impossible ; — I say, did no man ever ask himself how many are the numbers five and seven when added, and answer that they are eleven, while another man thinks that they are twelve, or would all agree in thinking and saying that they are twelve? TJieaet. Certainly not ; many would think they are eleven, and in the higher numbers the chance of error is greater still ; for I assume you to be speaking of numbers in general. Soc. Exactly ; and I want you to consider whether this does not imply that the twelve in the waxen block are supposed to be eleven? Theaet. Yes, that seems to be the case. Soc. Then do we not come back to the old difficulty? For he who makes such a mistake does think one thing which he knows to be another thing which he knows ; but this, as we said, was impossible, and afforded an irresistible proof of the non- existence of false opinion, because otherwise the same person would inevitably know and not know the same thing at the same time. Theaet. Most true. Soc. Then false opinion cannot be explained as a confusion of thought and sense, for in that case we could not have been mis taken about pure conceptions of thought ; and thus we are obliged to say, either that false opinion does not exist, or that a man may not know that which he knows ; — which alternative do you choose ? Theaet. There is no possibility of choosing either, Socrates. Soc. And yet the argument will scarcely admit of both. But, as we are at our wits' end, suppose that we do a shame less thing? Theaet. What is it ? Soc. Let us attempt to explain the verb ' to know.' Theaet. And why is that shameless ? 352 THEAETETUS. Soc. You do not seem to be aware that the whole of our discussion from the very beginning has been a search after knowledge, of which we are assumed not to know the nature. Theaet. Nay, I am aware. Soc. And is it not shameless when we do not know what knowledge is, to be explaining the verb ' to know ' ? The truth is, Theaetetus, that we have long been infected with logical impurity. Thousands of times have we repeated the words ' we know,' and ' do not know,' and ' we have or have not science or knowledge,' as if we could understand what we are saying to one another, so long as we remain ignorant about knowledge ; and at this moment mark how we are using the words 'we understand,' 'we are ignorant,' as though we could still employ them if we were deprived of knowledge or science. Theaet. But if you avoid these expressions, Socrates, how will you ever argue at all ? Soc. I could not, unless I ceased to be myself. The case would be different if I were a true hero of dialectic : and O that such an one were present ! for he would have told us to avoid the use of these terms ; at the same time he would not have spared in you and me the faults which I have noted. But, seeing that we are no great wits, shall I venture to say what knowing is? for I think that the attempt may be worth making. Theaet. Then by all means venture, and no one shall find fault with you for using the forbidden terms. Soc. You have heard the common explanation of the verb ' to know ' ? Theaet. I do not know that I remember at the moment. Soc. They explain the word ' to know ' as meaning ' to have knowledge.' Theaet. True. Soc. I should like to make a slight change, and say ' to pos sess ' knowledge. Theaet. How do the two expressions differ? Soc. Perhaps there may be no difference ; but still I should like you to hear and help to test my view. Theaet. I will, if I can. Soc. I should distinguish ' having ' from ' possessing ' : for ex- THEAETETUS. 353 ample, a man may buy and keep under his control a garment which he does not wear ; and then we should say, not that he has, but that he possesses the garment. Theaet. That would be the correct expression. Soc. Well, may not a man ' possess ' and yet not ' have ' knowledge in the sense of which I am speaking? As you may suppose a man to have caught wild birds — doves or any other birds — and to be keeping them in an aviary which he has constructed at home ; and then we might say, in one sense, that he always has them because he possesses them, might we not? Theaet. Yes. Soc. And yet, in another sense, he has none of them ; but he has power over them, and has them under his hand in an en closure of his own, and can take and have them whenever he likes; — he can catch any which he likes, and let the bird go again, and he may do so as often as he pleases. TJieaet. True. Soc. Once more, then, as in what preceded we made a sort of waxen figment in the mind, so let us now suppose that in the mind of each man there is an aviary of all sorts of birds — some flocking together apart from the rest, others in small groups, others solitary, flying anywhere and everywhere. Theaet. Let us imagine such an aviary — and what is to follow ? Soc. We may suppose this receptacle to be empty while we are young, and that the birds are kinds of knowledge ; when a man has gotten and detained in the enclosure any of those different kinds of knowledge, then he may be said to have learned or discovered the thing of which the knowledge is : and this is to know. Theaet. Granted. 198 Soc. And again, when any one wishes to catch any of these knowledges or sciences, and hold any of them after he has taken them, and again to let them go, how will he express himself? — will he describe the 'catching' of them and the original ' possession ' in the same words ? I will make my meaning clearer by an example : — You admit that there is an art of arithmetic ? VOL. IV. A a 354 THEAETETUS. Theaet. Very good. Soc. Conceive this under the form of a hunt after the science of odd and even in general. Theaet. I follow. Soc. Having the use of the art, the arithmetician, if I am not mistaken, has the conceptions of number under his hand, and can transmit them to another. Theaet. Yes. Soc. And he who transmits them may be said to teach them, and he who receives to learn them, and he who has them in possession in the aforesaid aviary may be said to know them. Theaet. Exactly. Soc. Attend to what follows : must not the perfect arithme tician know all numbers, for he has the science of all numbers in his mind ? Theaet. True. Soc. And he can calculate a sum of numbers in his head, or he can enumerate the things about him ? Theaet. Of course he can. Soc. And to calculate is simply to consider how much such and such a number amounts to ? Theaet. Very true. Soc. Then he considers as if he did not know that which he does know, for we have already admitted that he knows all numbers; — you have heard of these perplexing questions? Theaet. I have. Soc. May we not pursue the image of the doves, and say that the chase after knowledge is of two kinds? one kind is prior to possession and for the sake of possession, and the other for the sake of taking and holding in the hands that which is pos sessed already. And thus, when a man has learned and known something long ago, he may resume and get hold of his know ledge which he has long ago possessed, but has not at hand in his mind. Theaet. True. Soc. That was my reason for asking what is calculation ; and how we ought to speak when an arithmetician sets about numbering, or a grammarian about reading? Shall we say? THEAETETUS. 355 that although he knows, he comes to learn of himself what he knows ? Theaet. That would be too absurd, Socrates. Soc. Shall we say that he is going to read or number what 199 he does not know, although we have admitted that he knows all letters and all numbers ? Theaet. That, again, would be an absurdity. Soc. Then shall we say that about names we care nothing ? — any one may twist and turn the words ' knowing ' and ' learn ing' in any way which he likes, but since we have determined that the possession of knowledge is not the having or using knowledge, we do assert that a man cannot not possess that which he possesses ; and, therefore, in no case can a man not know that which he knows, but he may get a false opinion about it ; for he may have the knowledge, not of this particular thing, but of some other ; — when the various numbers and forms of knowledge are flying about in the aviary, and he takes out of them a particular one for use, and sometimes the wrong one, that is to say, when he thought eleven to be twelve, he got hold of the ring-dove which he had in his mind, when he wanted the pigeon. Theaet. A very rational explanation. Soc. But when he catches the one which he wants, then he is not deceived, and has an opinion of what is, and thus false and true opinion may exist, and the difficulties which were previously raised disappear. I dare say that you agree with me, do you not? Theaet. Yes. Soc. Then now we are rid of the difficulty of a man's not knowing what he knows, for we are not driven to the inference that he does not possess what he possesses, even though we suppose him to be deceived. And yet I fear that a greater difficulty is looking in at the window. Theaet. What is that r Soc. How can the exchange of one knowledge for another ever become false opinion? Theaet. How do you mean? Soc. In the first place, how can a man who has the know ledge of anything be ignorant of that which he knows, not A a 2 356 THEAETETUS. by reason of ignorance, but by reason of his own knowledge ? And, again, is it not an extreme absurdity that he should suppose another thing to be this, and this to be another thing ; — that, having knowledge present with him in his mind, he should still know nothing and be ignorant of all things? — you might as well argue that ignorance may make a man know, and blindness make him see, as that knowledge can make him ignorant. Theaet. Perhaps, Socrates, we may have been wrong in making only forms of knowledge our birds : there ought to have been forms of ignorance as well, flying about together in the mind, and he who sought to take one of them may sometimes have caught a form of knowledge, and then a form of ignorance ; and thus he will have a false opinion from ignorance, but a true one from knowledge, about the same thing. Soc. I cannot help praising you, Theaetetus, and yet I must beg you to reconsider your words ; let us grant what you say 200 — then, according to you, he who takes ignorance will have a false opinion — am I right? Theaet. Yes. Soc. He will certainly not think that he has a false opinion? Theaet. Of course not. Soc. He will think that his opinion is true, and he will fancy that he knows the things about which he has been deceived ? Theaet. Certainly. Soc. Then he will think that he has captured knowledge and not ignorance? Theaet. Clearly. Soc. And thus, after a long journey, we come back to our original difficulty. The adversary will retort upon us : — ' O my excellent friends, he will say, laughing, if a man knows the form of ignorance and the form of knowledge, can he think that one of them which he knows is the other which he knows? or, if he knows neither of them, can he think that one which he knows not is another which he knows not ? or, if he knows one and not the other, can he think that the one which he does not know is the one which he knows? or that the one which he knows is the one which he does not know? or will you tell me that there are other forms of knowledge which distinguish THEAETETUS. 35/ the right and wrong birds, and which the owner keeps in some other aviaries or waxen blocks according to your foolish images, and which he may be said to know while he possesses them, even though he have them not at hand in his mind ? And thus, in a perpetual circle, you will be compelled to go round and round and make no progress.' What are we to say in reply, Theaetetus ? Theaet. Indeed, Socrates, I do not know what we are to say. Soc. Are not his reproaches just, and does not the argument truly show that we are wrong in seeking for false opinion until we know what knowledge is ; that must be first sought after, and, afterwards, the nature of false opinion? Theaet. I cannot but agree with you, Socrates. Soc. Then, once more, what shall we say that knowledge is ? — for we are not going to lose heart as yet. Theaet. Certainly, I shall not lose heart, if you do not. Soc. What definition will be most consistent with our former views ? Theaet. I cannot think of any but our old one, Socrates. Soc. What was it ? Theaet. That knowledge was true opinion ; and true opinion is surely unerring, and the results which follow from it are all noble and good. Soc. He who led the way into the river, Theaetetus, said * the o i experiment will show;' and perhaps if we go forward in the search, we may stumble upon the thing which we are looking- for ; but if we stay where we are, nothing will come to light. Theaet. Very true ; let us go forward and try. Soc. The trail soon comes to an end, for a whole profession is against us. Theaet. How is that, and what profession do you mean ? Soc. The profession of the great wise ones who are called orators and lawyers ; for these persuade men by their art and do not teach them, but make them think whatever they like. Do you imagine that there are any teachers in the world so clever as to be able to convey to others the truth about acts of robbery or violence, of which they were not eye-witnesses, while a little water is flowing? Theaet. Certainly not, they can only persuade them. 358 THEAETETUS. Soc. And would you not say that persuading them is making them have an opinion ? Theaet. To be sure. Soc. When, therefore, judges are justly persuaded about mat ters which you can know only by seeing them, and not in any other way, and when thus judging of them from report they attain a true opinion about them, they judge without know ledge, and yet are rightly persuaded, if they have judged well. Theaet. Certainly. Soc. And yet, O my friend, if true opinion in law courts l and knowledge are the same, the perfect judge could not have judged rightly without knowledge ; and therefore I must infer that they are not the same. Theaet. I remember now, Socrates, what I heard some one say, and had forgotten : he said that true opinion, accompanied with reason, was knowledge, but that the opinion which had no reason was out of the sphere of knowledge ; and that things of which there is no rational account are not knowable — such was the singular expression which he used — and that things which have a definition or explanation are knowable. Soc. Excellent ; but then, how did he distinguish between things which are and are not 'knowable'? I wish that you would repeat to me what he said, and then I shall know whether you and I have heard the same tale. Theaet. I do not know whether I can recall it ; but if another person would tell me, I think that I could follow him. Soc. Let me give you, then, a dream in return for a dream : — Methought that I too had a dream, and I heard in my dream that the primeval letters or elements out of which you and I and all other things are compounded, have no reason or explana tion, but are names only, of which not even existence or non- existence can be predicated ; you cannot say of them that they 202 are or are not, for either of the two implies existence, which must not be added on, if one means to speak of this or that thing taken by itself alone. You may not say itself, or that, or each, or alone, or this, or the like ; for these go about every where and are applied to all things, and are distinct from them ; 1 Reading Kara diKaarrjpia : an emendation suggested by Professor Campbell. THEAETETUS. 359 whereas, if the first elements could be described3 and had a definition suitable to them, they would be spoken of apart from all else. But none of these primeval elements can be defined ; they can only be named, for they have nothing but a name, and the things which are compounded of them, as they are complex5 are expressed by a combination of names, for the combination of names is the essence of a proposition. Thus, then, the elements or letters are only objects of perception, and cannot be defined or known ; but the combinations or syllables of them are known and expressed and apprehended by true opinion. When, therefore, any one forms the true opinion of anything without definition, you may say that his mind is truly exercised, but has no knowledge ; for he who cannot give and receive a definition of a thing, has no knowledge of that thing ; but when he adds the definition, then, he is perfected in knowledge and may be all that I have been denying of him. Was that the form in which the dream appeared to you ? Theaet. Precisely. Soc. And you allow and maintain that true opinion, combined with definition, is knowledge ? Theaet. Exactly. Soc. Then may we assume, Theaetetus, that to-day, and in this casual manner, we have found a truth which in former times many wise men have grown old and have not found ? Theaet. At any rate, Socrates, I am satisfied with the present statement. Soc. Which is probably correct — for how can there be know ledge apart from definition and true opinion ? And yet there is one point in what has been said which does not quite satisfy me. Theaet. What was it ? Soc. What might seem to be the most ingenious notion of all : — That the elements or letters are unknown, but the combina tion or syllables known. Theaet. And was that wrong ? Soc. We shall soon know ; for we have as hostages the instances which the author of the argument himself used. Theaet. What hostages ? Soc. The letters, which are the elements; and the syllables, 36o THEAETETUS. which are the combinations ; — he reasoned, did he not, from the letters of the alphabet ? Theaet. Yes ; he did. 203 Soc. Let us examine them, or rather, examine ourselves : — What was the way in which we learned letters ? and, first of all, are we right in saying that syllables have a meaning, but that letters have no meaning? Theaet. I think so. Soc. I think so too ; for, suppose that some one asks you to spell the first syllable of my name : — Theaetetus, he says, what is 2&? Theaet. I should reply 2 and 12. Soc. That is the definition which you would give of the syllable? Theaet. I should. Soc. I wish that you would give me a similar definition of the 2. Theaet. But how can any one, Socrates, tell the elements of an element? I can only reply, that 2 is a consonant, a mere noise, as of the tongue hissing ; B, and most other letters, again, have no sound, and are not even noises. Letters may be most truly said to be undefined ; and the most distinct of them, which are the seven vowels, have a sound only, but no definition at all. Soc. Then, I suppose, my friend, that we have been so far right in our idea about science ? Theaet. Yes ; I think that we have. Soc. Well, but have we been right in maintaining that the syllables can be known, but not the letters ? Theaet. I think that we have been right. Soc. And do we mean by a syllable two letters, or if there are more, all of them, or an idea which arises out of the combination of them ? Theaet. I should say that we mean all the letters. Soc. Take the case of the two letters S and O, which form the first syllable of my own name ; must not he who knows the syllable, know both of them ? Theaet. Certainly. Soc. He knows, that is, the S and O ? THEAETETUS. 361 Theaet. Yes. Soc. But can you say that he is ignorant of either of them, and yet knows both ? Theaet. Such a supposition, Socrates, is monstrous and un meaning. Soc. But if he cannot know both without knowing each, then if he is ever to know the syllable, he must know the letters first ; and thus the fine theory has again taken wings and departed. Theaet. Well, that is very sudden. Soc. Yes, we did not keep watch properly. Perhaps we ought to have maintained that a syllable is not the letters, but rather one single idea framed out of them, having a separate form distinct from them. Theaet. Very true ; and a more likely notion than the other. Soc. Let us consider carefully, and not weakly give up a great and imposing theory. 204 TJieaet. No, indeed. Soc. Let us assume then, as we now say, that the syllable is a simple form arising out of the several combinations of harmonious elements — of letters or of any other elements. Theaet. Very good. Soc. And it must have no parts. Theaet. Why not ? Soc. Because that which has parts must be a whole of all the parts. Or would you say that a whole, although formed out of the parts, is a single notion different from all the parts ? TJieaet. I should. Soc. And would you say that all and the whole are the same, or different ? Theaet. I am not certain ; but, as you like me to answer at once, I shall hazard the reply, that they are different. Soc. I approve of your readiness, Theaetetus, but I must take time to think whether I equally approve of your answer. Theaet. Yes ; the approval must be of the answer. Soc. According to this new view, the whole is supposed to differ from all? Theaet. Yes. Soc. Well, but is there any difference between all [in the plural] and the all [in the singular] ? Take the case of number : 562 THEAETETUS. — When we say one, two, three, four, five, six ; or when we say twice three, or three times two, or four and two, or three and two and one, are we speaking of the same or of different numbers? Theaet. Of the same. Soc. That is of six ? Theaet. Yes. Soc. And in each form of expression we spoke of all the six ? Theaet. True. Soc. And in speaking of all [in the plural] do we not speak of all one thing l ? Theaet. Of course. Soc. And that is six ? Theaet. Yes. Soc. Then in predicating the word ' all ' of things measured by number, we predicate at the same time a unity of all ? Theaet. That is evident. Soc. Again, the number of the acre and the acre are the same ; are they not ? Theaet. Yes. Soc. And the number of the stadium in like manner is the stadium ? Theaet. Yes. Soc. And the army is the number of the army ; and in all similar cases, the entire number of anything is the entirety of anything ? Theaet. True. Soc. And the number of each is the parts of each ? Theaet. Exactly. Soc. Then as many things as have parts are made up of parts ? Theaet. Clearly. Soc. But all the parts are admitted to be the all, if the entire number is the all ? Theaet. True. Soc. Then the whole is not made up of parts, for it would be the all, if consisting of all the parts ? 1 Reading, according to Professor Campbell's conjecture, /rav 6' ovSe THEAETETUS. 363 Theaet. That is the inference. Soc. But is a part a part of anything but the whole ? Theaet. Yes, of the all. 205 Soc. You make a valiant defence, Theaetetus. And yet is not the all that of which nothing is wanting? Theaet. Certainly. Soc. And is not a whole that from which nothing is absent ? but that from which anything is absent is neither a whole nor all ; — if wanting in anything, both equally lose their entirety of nature. Theaet. I now think that there is no difference between a whole and all. Soc. But were we not saying that when a thing has parts, all the parts will be a whole and all ? Theaet. Certainly. Soc. Then, as I was saying before, must not the alternative be that either the syllable is not the letters, and then the letters are not parts of the syllable, or that the syllable will be the same with the letters, and will therefore be equally known with them ? Theaet. You are right. Soc. And, in order to avoid this, we suppose it to be different from them ? Theaet. Yes. Soc. But if letters are not parts of syllables, can you tell me of any other parts of syllables which are not letters ? Theaet. No, indeed, Socrates ; for if I admit the existence of parts in a syllable, it would be ridiculous in me to give up letters and seek for other parts. Soc. Quite true, Theaetetus, and therefore, according to our present view, a syllable must surely be some indivisible form ? Theaet. True. Soc. But do you remember, my friend, that only a little while ago we admitted and approved the statement, that of the first elements out of which all other things are compounded there could be no definition, because each of them when taken by itself is uncompounded, nor can one rightly attribute to them the words 'being' or 'this,' because they are alien and foreign 64 THEAETETUS. words, and for this reason the letters or elements were inde finable and unknown ? Theaet. I remember. Soc. And is not this also the reason why they are simple and indivisible ? I do not see that there is any other. Theaet. No other reason can be given. Soc. Then is not the syllable in the same case as the elements or letters, if it has no parts and is one form ? Theaet. To be sure. Soc. If, then, a syllable is a whole, and has many parts or letters, the letters as well as the syllables must be intelligible and expressible, since all the parts are acknowledged to be the same as the whole ? Theaet. True. Soe. But if it be one and indivisible, then the syllables and the letters are alike undefined and unknown, and for the same reason ? Theaet. I cannot deny that. Soc. We cannot, therefore, agree in the opinion of him who says that the syllable can be known and expressed, but not the 206 letters. Theaet. Certainly not ; if we may trust the argument. Soc. Well, but will you not be equally inclined to disagree with him, when you remember your own experience in learning to read? Theaet. What experience? Soc. Why, that in learning you were kept trying to distin guish the separate letters both by the eye and by the ear, in order that, when you heard them spoken or saw them written, you might not be confused by their sequence. Theaet. That is very true. Soc. And is a musical education complete, unless we know what string answers to a particular note ; the notes, as every one would allow, are the elements or letters of music ? Theaet. Exactly. Soc. Then, if we argue from the letters and syllables which we know to other simples and compounds, we shall say that the letters or simple elements as a class are much more cer tainly known than the syllables, and much more indispensable THEAETETUS. 365 to a perfect knowledge of each branch ; and if any one says that the syllable is known and the letter unknown, we shall consider that either intentionally or unintentionally he is talking nonsense ? Theaet. Exactly. Soc. And there might be given other proofs of this belief, if I am not mistaken. But do not let us in looking for them lose sight of the question before us, which is the meaning of the statement, that right opinion with rational definition or explanation is the most perfect form of knowledge. Theaet. We will not. Soc. Well, and what is the meaning of the term 'explana tion ' ? I think that we have a choice of three meanings. Theaet. What are they ? Soc. In the first place, the meaning may be, manifesting one's thought by the voice with verbs and nouns, imaging the opinion in the stream which flows from the lips, as in a mirror or water. Does not explanation or definition appear to be of this nature ? Theaet. Certainly ; he who so manifests his thought, is said to explain or define. Soc. And every one who is not born deaf or dumb is able sooner or later to manifest what he thinks of anything ; and if so, all those who have a right opinion about anything will also have right explanation ; nor will right opinion be anywhere found to exist apart from knowledge. Theaet. True. Soc. Let us not, therefore, hastily charge him who gave this account of knowledge with uttering an unmeaning word ; for perhaps he only intended to say, that when a person was 207 asked what was the nature of anything, he should be able to answer his questioner by giving the elements of the thing. TJieaet. As for example, Socrates ? Soc. As, for example, when Hesiod says that a waggon is made up of a hundred planks. Now, neither you nor I could describe all of them individually ; but if any one asked what is a waggon, we should be content to answer, that a waggon consists of wheels, axle, body, rims, yoke. Theaet. Certainly. 366 THEAETETUS. Soc. And our opponent will probably laugh at us, just as he would if we professed to be grammarians and to give a gram matical account of the name of Theaetetus, and yet could only tell the syllables and not the letters of your name — that would be true opinion, and not knowledge ; for knowledge is not attained until, combined with true opinion, there is an enumera tion of the elements out of which anything is composed. Theaet. Yes. Soc. In the same general way, we might also have true opinion about a waggon ; but he who can describe the essence by an enumeration of the hundred planks, adds rational expla nation to true opinion, and instead of opinion has art and knowledge of the nature of a waggon, in that he attains to the whole through the elements. Theaet. And do you not agree in that view, Socrates ? Soc. If you do, my friend ; but I want to know first, whether you admit the resolution of all things into their elements to be a rational explanation of them, and the consideration of them in syllables or larger combinations of them to be irrational ; what is your view ? Theaet. I quite agree with you. Soc. Well, and do you conceive that a man has knowledge of any element who at one time affirms and at another time denies that element of something, or says that the same thing is composed of different elements at different times ? Theaet. Assuredly not. Soc. And do you not remember that in your case and in that of others this often occurred in the process of learning to read? Theaet. You mean that I mistook the letters and misspelt the syllables ? Soc. Yes. Theaet. To be sure ; I perfectly remember, and I am very far from supposing that they have knowledge who are in this condition. Soc. When a person at the time of learning writes the name of Theaetetus, and thinks that he ought to write and does write 6 and € ; or, again, meaning to write the name of Theo- 208 dorus, thinks that he ought to write and does write r and e THE A E TE TUS, 367 — can we suppose that he knows the first syllables of your two names ? Theaet. We have already admitted that such a one has not yet attained knowledge. Soc. And in like manner he may enumerate without knowing them the second and third and fourth syllables of your name ? Theaet. He may. Soc. And in that case, when he writes out your name, he will write all the letters in order, and will then have right opinion ? Theaet. Clearly. Soc. But although we admit that he has right opinion, he will still be without knowledge? Theaet. Yes. Soc. And yet he will have right explanation, as well as right opinion, for he knew the order of the letters when he wrote ; and this we admit to be right explanation. Theaet. True. Soc. Then, my friend, there is such a thing as right opinion united with definition or explanation, which does not as yet attain to the exactness of knowledge ? Theaet. That seems to be true. Soc. And what we fancied to be a perfect definition of know ledge is a dream only. But perhaps we had better not say so as yet, for were there not three explanations of knowledge, one of which must, as we said, be adopted ? And very likely there may be found some one who will not prefer this but the third. Theaet. You are right in reminding me that there is still one remaining. The first was the image or expression of the mind in sound ; the second, which has just been mentioned, is a way of reaching the whole by an enumeration of the elements. But what is the third definition ? Soc. There is, further, the popular notion of telling the mark or sign of difference which distinguishes the thing in question from all others. Theaet. Can you give me any example of such a definition ? Soc. As, for example, in the case of the sun, I think that 368 THEAETETUS. you may be contented with saying that the sun is the brightest of the heavenly bodies which revolve about the earth. Theaet. Certainly. Soc. Understand why : — just now the reason is, as I was saying, that if you get at the difference and distinguishing characteristic of each thing, then, as many persons affirm, you will get at the definition or explanation of it ; but while you lay hold only of the common and not of the characteristic notion, you will only have the definition of those things to which this common quality belongs. Theaet. I understand you, and your account of definition is in my judgment correct. Soc. But he, who having right opinion about anything, can find out the difference which distinguishes it from other things will know that of which before he had only an opinion. Theaet. Yes ; that is what we are maintaining. Soc. Nevertheless, Theaetetus, on a nearer view, I find myself quite disappointed in the picture, which at a distance was not so bad. Theaet. What do you mean ? Soc. I will endeavour to explain : I will suppose myself to 20 have true opinion of you, and if to this I add your definition, then I have knowledge, but if not, opinion only. Theaet. Yes. Soc. The definition was assumed to be the interpretation of your difference. Theaet. True. Soc. But when I had only opinion, I had no conception of your distinguishing characteristics. Theaet. I suppose not. Soc. Then I must have conceived of some general or common nature which no more belonged to you than to another. Theaet. True. Soc. Tell me, now ; how in that case could I have formed a judgment of you any more than of any one else? Suppose that I knew Theaetetus to be a man who has nose, eyes, and mouth, and every member complete ; how would that enable me to distinguish Theaetetus from Theodorus, or from some outer barbarian ? THEAETETUS. 369 Theaet. Very true. Soc. Or if I had further known you, not only as having nose and eyes, but as having a snub nose and prominent eyes, should I have any more notion of you than of myself and others who resemble me? Theaet. Certainly not. Soc. Surely I can have no conception of Theaetetus until your snub-nosedness has left an impression on my mind dif ferent from the snub-nosedness of all others whom I have ever seen ; and your other peculiarities have a like distinctness ; and so when I meet you to-morrow the right opinion will be re called ? Theaet. Most true. Soc. Then right opinion implies the perception of differences? Theaet. Clearly. Soc. What, then, shall we say of adding reason or explanation to right opinion ? If the meaning is, that we should form an opinion of the way in which something differs from another thing, the proposal is ridiculous. Theaet. How so ? Soc. We are required to have a right opinion of the differences which distinguish one thing from another when we have already a right opinion of them, and so we go round and round ;— the revolution of the scytal, or pestle, or any other rotatory engine, in the same circles, is as nothing compared to our mode of pro ceeding ; and we may be truly described as the blind directing the blind ; for to add those things which we already have, in order that we may learn what we already think, implies a depth of darkness. Theaet. Tell me, then ; what were you going to say just now, when you asked the question ? Soc. If, my boy, the argument, when speaking of adding the definition, had used the word to * know,' and not merely ' have an opinion ' of the difference, this which is the most promising of all the definitions of knowledge would have come to a pretty end, for to know is surely to get knowledge. 77ieaet. True. Soc. Then when the question is asked, What is knowledge? this fair argument will answer * right opinion with knowledge/ VOL. IV. B b 370 THEAETETUS. — knowledge, that is, of difference, for this, as the said argument maintains, is the explanation or definition to be added. Theaet. That seems to be true. See. But how utterly foolish, when we are asking what is knowledge, that the reply should only be, right opinion with knowledge of difference or of anything! And so, Theaet etus, knowledge is neither sensation nor true opinion,, nor yet defini tion and explanation accompanying true opinion? Theaet. I suppose not. Soc. And are you still in labour and travail, my dear friend, or have you brought all that you have to say about knowledge to the birth? Jlieaet. I am sure, Socrates, that you have brought a good deal more out of me than ever was in me. Soc. And does not my art show that you have brought forth wind, and that the offspring of your brain are not worth bring ing up? 77ieaet. Very true. Soc. But if, Theaetetus, you chance to conceive again, you will be all the better for the present investigation, and if not, you will be soberer and humbler and gentler to other men, not fancying that you know what you do not know. These are the limits of my art ; I can no further go, nor do I know aught of the things which great and famous men know or have known in this or former ages. The office of a midwife I, like my mother, have received from God ; she delivered women, and I deliver men ; but they must be young and noble and fair. And now I have to go to the porch of the King Archon, where I am to meet Meletus and his indictment. To-morrow morning, Theodorus, I shall hope to see you again at this place. SOPHIST. B b 2 INTRODUCTION. THE dramatic power of the dialogues of Plato appears to diminish as the metaphysical interest of them increases. (Cp. Introd. to the Philebus.) There are no descriptions of time, place or persons, in the Sophist and Politicus ; but we are plunged at once into philosophical discussions ; the poetical charm has disappeared, and those who have no taste for abstruse metaphysics will greatly prefer the earlier dialogues to the later ones. Plato is conscious of the change, and in the Politicus (p. 286 B) expressly accuses himself of a tediousness in the two dialogues, which he ascribes to his desire of developing the dialectical method. On the other hand, the kindred spirit of Hegel seemed to find in the Sophist the crown and summit of the Platonic philosophy — here was the place at which Plato most nearly approached to the Hegelian identity of Being and not-Being. Nor will the great importance of the two dialogues be doubted by any one who forms a conception of the state of mind and opinion which they are intended to meet. The sophisms of the day were undermining philosophy ; the denial of the existence of not-being, and of the connection of ideas, was making truth and falsehood equally impossible. It has been said that Plato would have written differently, if he had been acquainted with the Organon of Aristotle. But could the Organon of Aristotle ever have been written unless the Sophist and Politicus had preceded? The swarm of fallacies which arose in the infancy of mental science, and which was born and bred in the decay of the pre-Socratic philosophies, was not dispelled by Aristotle, but by Socrates and Plato. The summa genera of thought, the nature of the proposition, of definition, of generalization, of synthesis and analysis, of division and cross-division, are clearly described, and the processes of induction and deduction are constantly employed in the dialogues of 374 SOPHIST. Plato. The 'slippery' nature of comparison, the danger of putting words in the place of things, the fallacy of arguing ' a dicto secundum/ and in a circle, are frequently indicated by him. To all these processes of truth and error, Aristotle, in the next generation, gave distinctness ; he brought them together in a separate science. But he is not to be regarded as the original inventor of any of the great logical forms, with the exception of the syllogism. There is little worthy of remark in the characters of the Sophist. The most noticeable point is the final retirement of Socrates from the field of argument, and the substitution for him of an Eleatic stranger, who is described as a pupil of Parmenides and Zeno, and is supposed to have descended from a higher world in order to convict the Socratic circle of error. As in the Timaeus, Plato seems to intimate that he is passing beyond the limits of the teaching of Socrates ; and in the Sophist and Politicus, as well as in the Parmenides, he probably means to imply that he is making a closer approach to the schools of Elea and Megara. He had much in common with them, but he must first submit their ideas to criticism and revision. He had once thought, as he says, speaking by the mouth of the Eleatic, that he understood their doctrine of not-Being; but now he does not even comprehend the nature of Being. Thejriends of ideas (p. 248) are alluded to by him as distant acquaintances, whom he criticises ab extra ; we do not recognise at first sight that he is criticising himself. The character of the Eleatic stranger is • colourless ; he is to a certain extent the reflection of his father and master, Parmenides, who is also the protagonist in the dialogue which is called by his name. Theaetetus himself is not distinguished by the remarkable traits which are attributed to him in the former dialogue. He is no longer under the spell of Socrates, or subject to the operation of his midwifery, though the fiction of question and answer is still maintained ; and the necessity of taking Theaetetus along with him, is several times insisted upon by his partner in the discussion. There is a reminiscence of the old The aetetus in his remark that he will not tire of the argument, and in his conviction, which the Eleatic thinks likely to be permanent, that the course of events is governed by the will of God. Throughout the two dialogues Socrates continues a silent auditor, in the Politicus just remind ing us of his presence at the commencement, by a characteristic jest about the statesman and the philosopher, and by an allusion to his namesake, with whom on that ground he claims affinity, as he had INTRODUCTION. 375 already claimed affinity with Theaetetus, grounded on the likeness of his ugly face. But in neither dialogue, any more than in the Timaeus, does he offer any criticism on the views which are propounded by another. The style, though wanting in dramatic power, in this respect resem bling the Philebus and the Laws, is very clear and accurate, and has several touches of humour and satire. The language is less fanciful and imaginative than that of the earlier dialogues ; and there is more of bitterness, as in the Laws, though traces of a similar temper may also be observed in the description of the ' great brute' in the Republic, and in the contrast of the lawyer and philosopher in the Theaetetus. The following are characteristic passages : ' The ancient philosophers, of whom we may say without offence, that they went on their way rather regardless of whether we understood them or not.' Or, again, the picture of the materialists, or earth-born giants, ' who grasped oaks and rocks in their hands/ and must be improved before they can be reasoned with ; and the equally humorous delineation of the friends of ideas, who defend themselves from a fastness in the invisible world ; or the comparison of the Sophist to a painter or maker (cp. Rep. x.), and the hunt after him in the rich meadow-lands of youth and wealth. Or, again, the light and graceful touch with which the older philosophies are painted (Italian and Sicilian muses), and the fear of the Eleatic that he will be counted a parricide if he ventures to lay hands on his father Parmenides. Or, once more, the likening of the Eleatic stranger to a god from heaven. — All these passages, notwithstanding the decline of the style, retain the impress of the great master of language. But the equably diffused grace is gone ; instead of the endless variety of the early dialogues, traces of the rhythmical mono tonous cadence of the Laws begin to appear ; and already an approach is made to the technical language of Aristotle, in the frequent use of the words 'essence/ 'power/ 'generation/ 'motion/ 'rest/ 'action/ 'passion/ and the like. The Sophist, like the Phaedrus, has a double character, and unites two enquiries, which are only in a somewhat forced manner connected with each other. The first is the search after the Sophist, the second is ' the enquiry into the nature of not-being, which occupies the middle part / of the work. For 'not-being' is the hole or division of the dialectical net in which the Sophist has hidden himself. He is the imaginary im personation of false opinion. But he denies the reality of false opinion ; for falsehood is that which is not, and therefore has no existence. At 376 SOPHIST. length the difficulty is solved ; the answer, in the language of the Re public, appears tumbling out at our feet. Acknowledging that there is a communion of kinds with kinds, and not merely one being or good having different names, or several isolated ideas or classes incapable of communion, we discover ' not-being' to be the other, of ' being/ Trans ferring this to language and thought, we have no difficulty in apprehend ing that a proposition ma^jjejalse asjvell as true. The Sophist, drawn out of the shelter which Cynic and Megarian paradoxes have temporarily afforded him, is proved to be a dissembler and juggler with words. The chief points of interest in the Sophist are : (i) the character attri buted to the Sophist: (2) the dialectical method: (3) the nature of the puzzle about 'not-being': (4) the battle of the philosophers: (5) the rela tion of the Sophist to other dialogues. The Sophist in Plato is the master of the art of illusion ; the charlatan, the foreigner, the prince of esprits-faux, the hireling who is not a teacher, and who, from whatever point of view he is regarded, is the opposite of the true teacher, He is the ' evil one,' the ideal representative of all that Plato most disliked in the moral and intellectual tendencies of his own age ; the adversary of the almost equally ideal Socrates. He seems to be always growing in the fancy of Plato, now boastful, now eristic, now clothing himself in rags of philosophy, now more akin to the rhetorician or lawyer, now haranguing, now questioning, until the final appearance in the Politicus of his departing shadow in the disguise of a statesman. We are not to suppose that Plato intended by such a description to depict Protagoras or Gorgias, or even Thrasymachus, who all turn out to be ' very good sort of people when we know them,' and all of them part on good terms with Socrates. But he is speaking of a Being as imaginary as the wise man of the Stoics, and whose character varies in different dialogues. Like mythology, Greek philosophy has a tendency to personify ideas. And the Sophist is truly a creation of Plato's in which the falsehood of all mankind is reflected. A milder tone is adopted towards the Sophists in a well-known passage of the Republic (vi. 492), where they are described as the followers rather than the leaders of the rest of mankind. Plato ridicules the notion that any individuals can corrupt youth to a degree worth speaking of in comparison with the greater influence of public opinion. But there is no real inconsistency between this and other descriptions of the Sophist •which occur in the Platonic writings. For Plato is not justifying the INTR OD UCTION. 377 Sophists in the passage just quoted, but only representing their power to be contemptible ; they are to be despised rather than feared, and are no worse than the rest of mankind. But a teacher or statesman may be justly condemned, who is on a level with mankind when he ought to be above them. There is another point of view in which this passage should also be considered. The great enemy of Plato is the world, not exactly in the theological sense, yet in one not wholly different — the world as the hater of truth and lover of appearance, occupied in the pursuit of gain and pleasure rather than of knowledge, banded together against the few good and wise men, and devoid of true education. This creature has many heads : rhetoricians, lawyers, statesmen, poets, sophists. But the Sophist is the Proteus who takes the likeness of all of them ; all other deceivers have a piece of him in them. And sometimes he is represented as the corrupter of the world; and sometimes the world as the more dangerous corrupter of the two. Of late years the Sophists have found an enthusiastic defender in the distinguished historian of Greece. He appears to maintain that (i) the term ' Sophist' is not the name of a particular class, and would have been applied indifferently to Socrates and Plato, as well as to Gorgias and Protagoras; (2) that the bad sense was imprinted on the word by the genius of Plato ; (3) that the principal Sophists were not the corrupters of youth (for that the Athenian youth were no more corrupted in the time of Demosthenes than in the time of Pericles), but honourable and estim able persons, who supplied a training in literature which was generally wanted in their own age. We will briefly consider how far these state ments appear to be justified by facts : and, ; About the meaning of the word there arises an interesting question : — i. Many words are used both in a general and a specific sense, and the .two senses .are not always clearly distinguished. Sometimes the generic meaning has been narrowed to the specific, while in other cases the •specific meaning has been enlarged or altered. Examples of the former class are furnished by some ecclesiastical terms: apostles, pro- ,phets, bishops, elders, catholics. Examples of the latter class may also ,be found in a similar field : Jesuits, puritans, methodists, and the like. Sometimes the meaning is both narrowed and enlarged; and a good or bad sense will subsist side by side with a neutral one. A curious effect ,is produced on the meaning of a word when the very term which is stig- ,matised by the world is adopted by the obnoxious or derided class ; this 378 SOPHIST. tends to define the meaning. Or, again, the opposite result is produced, when the world refuses to allow to some sect or body of men the possession of some honourable name which they have assumed. The term ' Sophist5 is one of those words of which the meaning has been both contracted and enlarged. Passages may be quoted from Herodotus and the tragedians, in which the word is used in a neutral sense for a contriver or deviser or inventor, without including any ethical idea of goodness or badness. Poets as well as philosophers were called Sophists in the fifth century before Christ. In Plato himself the term is applied in the sense of a ' master in art/ without any bad meaning attach ing (Symp. 208 C, Meno 85 B). In the later Greek, again, ' sophist' and ' philosopher' became almost indistinguishable. There was no reproach conveyed by the word ; the additional association, if any, was only that of rhetorician or teacher. Philosophy had become eclecticism and imita tion : in the decline of Greek literature there was no original voice lifted up ' which reached to a thousand years because of the god '; and the two words, like the characters represented by them, tended to pass into one another. Yet even here some differences appeared ; for the term * Sophist ' would hardly have been applied to the greater names, such as Plotinus, and would have been more often used of a professor of philosophy in general than of a maintainer of particular tenets. But the question is, not really whether the word ' Sophist' has all these senses, but whether there is not also a specific bad sense in which the term is applied to certain contemporaries of Socrates. Would an Athe nian, as Mr. Grote supposes, in the fifth century before Christ, have included Socrates and Plato, as well as Gorgias and Protagoras, under the specific class of Sophists ? To this question we must answer, No : wherever the word is so applied, the application is made either by an enemy of Socrates and Plato, or in a neutral sense. Plato, Xenophon, Isocrates, Aristotle, all give a bad import to the word ; and the Sophists are regarded as a separate class in all of them. And in later Greek litera ture, the distinction is quite marked between the succession of philoso phers from Thales to Aristotle, and the Sophists of the age of Socrates, .who appeared like meteors for a short time in different parts of Greece. For the purposes of comedy, Socrates may have been identified with the Sophists, and he seems to complain of this in the Apology. But there is no reason to suppose that Socrates, differing by so many outward marks, would really have been confounded in the mind of Anytus, or Callicles, INTRODUCTION. 379 or of any intelligent Athenian, with the splendid foreigners who from time to time visited Athens, or appeared at the Olympic games. The man of genius, the great original thinker, the disinterested seeker after truth, the master of repartee whom no one ever defeated in an argument, was separated, even in the mind of the vulgar Athenian, by an ' interval which no geometry can express/ from the balancer of sentences, the inter preter and reciter of the poets, the divider of the meanings of words, the teacher of rhetoric, the professor of morals and manners. 2. The use of the term ' Sophist' in the dialogues of Plato also shows that the bad sense was not affixed by his genius, but already current. When Protagoras says, ' I confess that I am a Sophist/ he implies that he pro fesses an art denoted by an obnoxious term ; or when the young Hippo crates, with a blush upon his face which is just seen by the light of dawn, admits that he is going to be made ' a Sophist/ these words would lose their point, unless the term had been already discredited. There is nothing surprising in the Sophists having an evil name ; that, whether deserved or not, was a natural consequence of their vocation. That they were foreigners, that they made fortunes, that they taught novelties, that they excited the minds of youth, are quite sufficient reasons to account for the opprobrium which attached to them. The genius of Plato could not have stamped the word anew, or have imparted the associations which occur in contemporary writers, such as Xenophon and Isocrates. Changes in the meaning of. words can only be made with great difficulty, and not unless they are supported by a strong current of popular feeling. There is nothing improbable in supposing that Plato may have extended and envenomed the meaning, or that he may have done the Sophists the same kind of disservice with posterity which Pascal did to the Jesuits. But the bad sense of the word is not and could not have been invented by him, and is found in the earlier dialogues, e. g. the Protagoras, as well as in the later. 3. There is no ground for denying that the principal Sophists, Gorgias, Protagoras, Prodicus, Hippias, were good and honourable men. The notion that they were corrupters of the Athenian youth has no real foun dation, and partly arises out of the use of the term ' Sophist' in modern times. The truth is, that we know little about them ; and the witness of Plato in their favour is probably not much more historical than his witness against them. Of that national decline of genius, unity, political force, which has been sometimes described as the corruption of youth, the •380 SOPHIST. Sophists were one among many signs;— in these respects Athens may have degenerated; but, as Mr. Grote remarks, there is no reason to suspect any greater moral corruption in the age of Demosthenes than in the age of Pericles. The Athenian youth were not corrupted in this sense, and therefore the Sophists could not have corrupted them. It is remarkable, and may be fairly set down to their credit, that Plato nowhere attributes to them that peculiar Greek sympathy with youth, which he ascribes to Parmenides, and which is evidently common in the Socratic circle. Plato delights to exhibit them in a ludicrous point of view, and to show them always at a disadvantage in the company of Socrates. But he has no quarrel with their characters, and does not deny that they are respectable men. The Sophist, in the dialogue which is called after him, is exhibited in many different lights, and appears and reappears in a variety of forms. There is some want of the higher Platonic art in the Eleatic Stranger eliciting his true character by a laborious process of enquiry, when he had already admitted that he knew quite well the difference between the Sophist and the Philosopher, and had often heard the question discussed ; — such an anticipation would hardly have occurred in the earlier dia logues. But Plato could not altogether give up his Socratic method, of •which another trace may be thought to be discerned in his adoption of a common instance before he proceeds to the greater matter in hand. Yet the example is also chosen in order to damage the 'hooker of men' as much as possible; each step in the pedigree of the angler sug gests some injurious reflection about the Sophist. They are both hunters after a living prey, nearly related to tyrants and thieves, and the Sophist is the cousin of the parasite and flatterer. The effect of this is height ened by the accidental manner in which the discovery is made, as the result of a scientific division. His descent in another branch affords the opportunity of more 'unsavoury comparisons.' For he is a retail trader, and his wares are either imported or home-made, like those of other retail traders ; his art is thus deprived of the character of a liberal pro fession. But the most distinguishing characteristic of him is, that he is a disputant, and higgles over an argument. A feature of the Eristic here seems to blend with Plato's usual description of the Sophists, who in the early dialogues, and in the Republic, are frequently depicted as endeavouring to save themselves from disputing with Socrates by making long orations. In this character he parts company from the vain and INTRODUCTION. 381 impertinent talker in private life, and his differentia is, that he makes, while the other loses money. But there is another general division under which his art may be also supposed to fall, and that is purification ; and from purification is de scended education, and the new principle of education is to interrogate men after the manner of Socrates, and make them teach themselves. Here again we catch a glimpse rather of a Socratic or Eristic than of a Sophist in the ordinary sense of the term. And Plato does not on this ground reject the claim of the Sophist to be the true philosopher. One more feature of the Eristic rather than of the Sophist is the tendency of the troublesome animal to run away into the darkness of not-being. Upon the whole, we detect in him a sort of Hybrid or double nature, of which, except perhaps in the Euthydemus of Plato, we find no other trace in Greek philosophy ; he combines the teacher of virtue with the Eristic ; while in his omniscience, in his ignorance of himself, in his arts of deception, and in his lawyer-like habit of writing and speaking about all things, he is still the antithesis of Socrates and of the true teacher. II. The question has been asked, whether this method of ' abscissio infiniti/ by which the Sophist is taken, is a real and valuable logical process. Modern science feels that this, like other processes of formal logic, presents a very inadequate conception of the actual complex pro cedure of the mind by which scientific truth is detected and verified. Plato himself seems to be aware that mere division is an unsafe and uncertain weapon. First, in the Politicus, when he says that we should divide in the middle, for in that way we are more likely to attain species ; secondly, in the parallel precept of the Philebus, that we should not pass from the most general notions to infinity, but include all the intervening middle principles, until, as he also says in the Politicus, we arrive at the infima species; thirdly, in the Phaedrus, when he says that the dia lectician will carve the limbs of truth without mangling them ; or, as he repeats once more in the Politicus, if we cannot bisect species, we must carve them as nearly as we can. No better image of nature or truth, as an organic whole, can be conceived than this. So far is Plato from supposing that mere division and subdivision of general notions will guide men into all truth. Plato does not really mean to say that the Sophist or the Statesman can be caught in this way. But these divisions and subdivisions were favourite logical exercises of the age in which he lived; and while 382 SOPHIST. indulging his dialectical fancy, and making a contribution to logical method, he delights also to transfix the Eristic Sophist with weapons borrowed from his own armoury. As we have already seen, the division gives him the opportunity of making the most damaging reflections on the Sophist and all his kith and kin, and to exhibit him in the most discreditable light. Nor need we seriously consider whether Plato was right in assuming that no animal so various could be confined within the limits of a single definition. In the infancy of logic, men sought only to obtain a defini tion of an unknown or uncertain term; the after reflection scarcely occurred to them that the word might have several senses, which shaded off into one another, and were not capable of being comprehended in a single notion. There is no trace of this reflection in Plato. But neither is there any reason to think, even if the reflection had occurred to him, that he would have been deterred from carrying on the war with weapons fair or unfair against the outlaw Sophist. III. The puzzle about * not-being' appears to us to be one of the most unreal difficulties of ancient philosophy. We cannot understand the attitude of mind which could imagine that falsehood had no existence, if reality was denied to not-being : How could such a question arise at all, much less become of serious importance ? The answer to this, and to all other difficulties of early Greek philosophy, is to be sought for in the history of ideas, and the answer is only unsatisfactory because our knowledge is defective. In the passage from the world of sense and imagination and common language to that of opinion and reflection the human mind was exposed to many dangers, and often ' Found no end in wandering mazes lost.' The discovery of abstractions was the great source of all mental improve ment in after ages. But each one of this company of abstractions, if we may speak in the metaphorical language of Plato, became in turn the tyrant of the mind, the dominant idea, which would allow no other to have a share in the throne. This is especially true of the Eleatic philo sophy: while the absoluteness of being was asserted in every form of language, the sensible world and all the phenomena of experience were comprehended under not-being. Nor did this lead to any difficulty or perplexity, so long as the mind, lost in the contemplation of being, asked no more questions, and never thought of applying the categories of being or not-being to mind or opinion or practical life. INTRODUCTION. 383 But the negative as well as the positive idea had sunk deep into the intellect of man. The effect of the paradoxes of Zeus extended far beyond the Eleatic circle. And now an unforeseen consequence began to arise. If the many were not, if all things were names of the one, and nothing could be predicated of any other thing, how could truth be distinguished from falsehood? The Eleatic philosopher would have replied that ' being was alone true.' But mankind had got beyond his barren abstractions : they were beginning to analyse, to classify, to define, to ask what is the nature of knowledge, opinion, sensation. Still less could they be content with the descriptions which Achilles gives in Homer of the man whom his soul hates — os p Zrepov p,ev KevQei eVt (ppecr\v aXXo de /3a£ft. For their difficulty was not a practical but a metaphysical one ; and their conception of falsehood was really impaired and weakened by a meta physical illusion. The strength of the illusion seems to lie in the alternative : If we once admit the existence of being and not-being, as two spheres which exclude each other, no being or reality can be ascribed to not-being, and there fore not to falsehood, which is the image or expression of not-being. Falsehood is wholly false ; and to speak of true falsehood, as Theaetetus does, is a contradiction in terms. The fallacy to us is ridiculous and transparent; no better than those which Plato satirizes in the Euthy- demus. It is a confusion of falsehood and negation, from which Plato himself is not entirely free. Instead of saying, ' this is not in accordance with facts,' 'this is proved by experience to be false,' and from such examples forming a general notion of falsehood, the mind of the Greek thinker was lost in the mazes of the Eleatic philosophy. And the greater importance which Plato attributes to this fallacy, compared with others, is due to the influence which the Eleatic philosophy exerted over him. He sees clearly to a certain extent ; but he has not yet attained a com plete mastery over the ideas of his predecessors — they are still ends to him, and not mere instruments of thought. They are too rough-hewn to be harmonised in a single structure, and may be compared to rocks which project or overhang in some ancient city's walls. There are many such imperfect syncretisms or eclecticisms in the history of philosophy. A modern philosopher, though emancipated from scholastic notions of essence or substance, might still be seriously affected by the abstract idea 384 SOPHIST. of necessity ; though accustomed, like Bacon, to criticise abstract notions, he might not extend his criticism to the syllogism. The saying or thinking the thing that is not, would be the popular definition of falsehood or error. If we were met by the Sophist's objection, the reply would probably be an appeal to experience. Ten thousands, as Homer would say (juciXa /zvptoi), tell falsehoods and fall into errors. And this is Plato's reply, both in the Cratylus (4290) and Sophist. ' Theaetetus is flying/ is a sentence in form quite as grammatical as ' Theaetetus is sitting ' ; the difference between the two sentences is, that the one is true and the other false. But, before making this appeal to common sense, Plato propounds for our consideration a theory of the nature of the negative. The theory is, that ' not-being is relation/ Not-being is the other of being, and has as many kinds as there are differences in being. This doctrine is the simple converse of the famous proposition of Spinoza, not ' omnis determinatio est negatio/ but ' omnis negatio est determinatio ' ; —not, all distinction is negation, but, all negation is distinction. Not- being is the unfolding or determining of being, and is a necessary element in all other things that are. We should be careful to observe, first, that Plato does not identify being with not-being ; he has no idea of progression by antagonism, or of the Hegelian vibration of moments : he would not have said with Heracleitus, ' All things are and are not, and become and become not.' Secondly, he has lost sight altogether of the other sense of not-being, as the negative of being ; although he again and again recognises the validity of the law of contradiction. Thirdly, he seems to confuse falsehood with negation. Nor is he quite consistent in regarding not-being as one class of being, and yet as coextensive with being in general. Before analysing further the topics thus suggested, we will endeavour to trace the manner in which Plato arrived at his conception of not-being. In all the later dialogues of Plato, the idea of mind or intelligence becomes more and more prominent. That idea which Anaxagoras em ployed inconsistently in the construction of the world, Plato, in the Philebus, the Sophist, and the Laws, extends to all things ; attributing to Providence a care, infinitesimal as well as infinite, of all creation. The divine mind is the leading religious thought of the later works of Plato. The human mind is a sort of reflection of this, having ideas of being, sameness, and the like. At times they seem to be parted by a great gulf IN TR OD UCTION. 3 85 (Parmenides) ; at other times they have a common nature, and the light of a common intelligence. But this ever-growing idea of mind is really irreconcileable with the abstract Pantheism of the Eleatics. To the passionate language of Par menides, Plato replies in a strain equally passionate: — What! has not being mind ? and is not being capable of being known ? and, if this is admitted, then capable of being affected or acted upon ? — in motion, then, and yet not wholly incapable of rest. Already we have been compelled to attribute opposite determinations to being. And the answer to this difficulty may be equally the answer to the difficulty about not-being. The answer is, that in these and all other determinations of any notion we are attributing to it ' not-being.' We went in search of not-being and seemed to lose being, and now in the hunt after being we recover both. Not-being is a kind of being, and in a sense co-extensive with being. And there are as many divisions of not-being as of being. To every positive idea— ' just,' ' beautiful/ and the like, there is a corresponding negative idea — ' not just/ ' not beautiful/ and the like. A doubt may be raised whether this account of the negative is really the true one. The common logicians would say that the 'not just/ 'not beau tiful/ are not really classes at all, but are merged in one great class of the infinite or negative. The conception of Plato, in the days before logic, seems to be more correct than this. For the word 'not' does not alto gether annihilate the positive meaning of the word 'just': at least, it does not prevent our looking for the ' not just' in or about the same class in which we might expect to find the ' just/ * Not just is not honourable ' is neither a false nor an unmeaning proposition. The reason is that the negative proposition has really passed into an undefined positive. To say that 'not just' has no more meaning than 'not honourable' — that is to say, that the two cannot in any degree be distinguished — is clearly repugnant to the common use of language. The ordinary logic is also jealous of the explanation of negation as relation, because seeming to take away the principle of contradiction. Plato, as far as we know, is the first philosopher who distinctly enun ciated this principle ; and though we need not suppose him to have been always consistent with himself, there is no real inconsistency between his explanation of the negative and the principle of contradiction. Neither the Platonic notion of the negative as the principle of difference, nor the Hegelian identity of being and not-being, at all touch the principle of VOL. IV. C c 386 SOPHIST. contradiction. For what is asserted about being and not-being only relates to our most abstract notions, and in no way interferes with the principle of contradiction employed in the concrete. Because not-being is identified with other, or being with not-being, this does not make the proposition 'some have not eaten' any the less a contradiction of ' all have eaten/ The explanation of the negative given by Plato in the Sophist is a true but partial one ; for the word ' not/ besides the meaning of ' other/ may also imply ' opposition.' And difference or oppositionmay be either total or partial : the not-beautiful may be other than the beautiful, or in no relation to the beautiful, or a specific class in various degrees opposed to the beautiful. And the negative may be a negation of fact or of thought (ou and /*g). Lastly, there are certain ideas, such as ' beginning/ ' becoming/ ' the finite/ ' the abstract/ in which the negative cannot be separated from the positive, and 'being' and 'not-being' are inextricably blended. Plato restricts the conception of not-being to difference. Man is a rational animal, and is not — as many other things as are not included under this definition. He is and is not, and is because he is not. Besides the positive class to which he belongs, there are endless negative classes to which he may be referred. This is certainly intelligible, but useless. To refer a subject to a negative class is unmeaning, unless the ' not ' is a mere modification of the positive, as in the example of ' not honourable' and 'dishonourable'; or unless the class is characterised by the absence rather than the presence of a particular quality. Nor is it easy to see how not-being any more than sameness or otherness is one of the classes of being. They are aspects rather than classes of being. Not-being can only be included in being, as the denial of any particular class of being. If we are to attempt to pursue such airy phantoms at all, the Hegelian identity of being and not-being is a more apt and intelligible expression of the same mental pheno menon. For Plato has not distinguished between the being which is prior to not-being, and the being which is the negation of not-being. (Cf. Par. 162 A,B.) But he is not thinking of this when he says that being compre hends not-being. Again, we should probably go back for the true explanation to the influence which the Eleatic philosophy exercised over him. Under ' not-being ' the Eleatic had included all the realities of the INTRODUCTION. 387 sensible world. Led by this association and by the common use of lan guage, which has been already noticed, we cannot be much surprised that Plato should have made classes of not-being. It is observable that he does not absolutely deny that there is an opposite of being. He is inclined to leave the question, merely remarking that the opposition, if admissible at all, is not expressed by the term ' not-being.' On the whole, we must allow that the great service rendered by Plato to psychology in the Sophist, is not his explanation of ' not-being* as difference. With this he certainly laid the ghost of 'not-being'; and we may attribute to him in a measure the credit of anticipating Spinoza and Hegel. But his conception is not clear or consistent; he does not recognise the different senses of the negative, and he confuses the dif ferent classes of not-being with the abstract notion. As the pre-Socratic philosopher failed to distinguish between the universal and the true, while he placed the particulars of sense under the false and apparent, so Plato appears to identify negation with falsehood, or is unable to distinguish them. The greater service rendered by him to mental science is the recognition of the communion of classes, which, although based by him on his account of ' not-being/ is independent of this. He clearly saw that the isolation of ideas or classes is the annihilation of reasoning. Thus, after wandering in many diverging paths, we return to common sense. And for this reason we may be inclined to do less than justice to Plato, — because the truth which he attains by a real effort of thought is to us a familiar and unconscious truism, which no one would any longer think either of doubting or examining. IV. The later dialogues of Plato contain many references to con temporary philosophy. Both in the Theaetetus and in the Sophist he recognises that he is in the midst of a fray ; a huge irregular battle everywhere surrounds him (Theaet. 153 A). First, there are the two great philosophies going back into cosmogony and poetry : the philo sophy of Heracleitus, supposed to have a poetical origin in Homer, and that of the Eleatics, which in a similar spirit he conceives to be even older than Xenophanes (compare Protagoras, 316 E). Still older were theories of two and three principles, hot and cold, moist and dry, which were ever marrying and given in marriage : in speaking of these, he is probably referring to Pherecydes and the early lonians. In the philo sophy of motion there were different accounts of the relation of plurality and unity, which were supposed to be joined and severed by love and C C 2 388 SOPHIST. hate, some maintaining that this process was perpetually going on (Heracleitus) ; others (Empedocles) that there was an alternation of them. Of the Pythagoreans or of Anaxagoras he makes no distinct mention. His chief opponents are, first, Eristics or Megarians; secondly, the Materialists. The picture which he gives of both these latter schools is indistinct ; and he appears reluctant to mention the names of their teachers. Nor can we easily determine how much is to be assigned to the Cynics, how much to the Megarians, or whether the 'repulsive Materialists' are Cynics or Atomists, or represent some unknown phase of opinion at Athens. To the Cynics and Antisthenes is commonly attributed, on the authority of Aristotle, the denial of predication, while the Megarians are said to have been Nominalists, asserting the one good under many names to be the true being of Zeno and the Eleatics, and, like Zeno, employing their negative dialectic in the refutation of opponents. But the later Megarians also denied predication; and this tenet, which is attributed to all of them by Simplicius, is certainly in character with their over-refining philosophy. The ' tyros young and old/ of whom Plato speaks, probably include both. At any rate, we shall be safer in accepting the general description of them which he has given, and in not attempting to draw a precise line between them. Of these Eristics, whether Cynics or Megarians, several characteristics are found in Plato. i. They pursue verbal oppositions; 2. They make reasoning impos sible by their over-accuracy in the use of language ; 3. They deny predi cation ; 4. They go from unity to plurality, without passing through the intermediate stages ; 5. They refuse to attribute motion or power to being ; 6. They are the enemies of sense ; — whether they are the * friends of ideas ' who carry on the polemic against sense, is uncertain ; probably under this remarkable expression Plato designates those who more nearly approached himself, and may be criticising an earlier form of his own doctrines. We may observe that (i) he professes only to give us a few opinions out of many which were at that time current in Greece; (2) that he nowhere alludes to the ethical teaching of the Cynics ; unless the argument in the Protagoras, that ' the virtues are one and not many,' may be supposed to contain a reference to their views, as well as to those of Socrates ; and unless they are the school alluded to in INTRODUCTION. 389 the Philebus, which is described as ' being very skilful in physics, and as maintaining pleasure to be the absence of pain.' That Antisthenes wrote a book called ' Physicus,' is hardly a sufficient reason for describing them as skilful in physics, which appear to have been very alien to the tendency of the Cynics. The Idealism of the fourth century before Christ in Greece, as in other ages and countries, seems to have provoked a reaction towards Materialism. The maintainers of this doctrine are described in the Theaetetus as repulsive persons who will not believe what they cannot hold in their hands, and in the Sophist as incapable of argument. They are probably the same who are said in the tenth book of the Laws to attribute the course of events to nature, art, and chance. Who they were, we have no means of determining except from Plato's description of them. His silence respecting the Atomists might lead us to suppose that here we have a trace of them. But the Atomists were not Mate rialists in the grosser sense of the term, nor were they incapable of reasoning; and Plato would hardly have described a great genius like Democritus in the disdainful terms which he uses of the Materialists. Upon the whole, we must infer that the persons here spoken of are unknown to us, like the many other writers and talkers at Athens and elsewhere, of whose endless activity of mind Aristotle in his Metaphysics has preserved an anonymous memorial. V. The Sophist is the sequel of the Theaetetus, and is connected with the Parmenides by a direct allusion. (Cp. Introduction to Theaetetus and Parmenides.) In the Theaetetus we sought to discover the nature of knowledge and false opinion. But the nature of false opinion seemed impenetrable ; for we were unable to understand how there could be any reality in not-being. In the Sophist the question is taken up again; the nature of not-being is detected, and there is no longer any meta physical impediment in the way of admitting the possibility of falsehood. To the Parmenides, the Sophist stands in a less defined and more remote relation. There human thought is in process of disorganization ; no absurdity or inconsistency is too great to be elicited from the analysis of the simple ideas of unity or being. In the Sophist the same contra dictions are pursued to a certain extent, but only with a view to their resolution. The aim of the dialogue is to show how the few elemental conceptions of the human mind admit of a natural connection in 390 SOPHIST. thought and speech, which Megarian or other sophistry vainly attempts to deny. True to the appointment of the previous day, Theodoras and The- aetetus meet Socrates at the same spot, bringing with them an Eleatic Stranger, whom Theodoras introduces as a true philosopher. Socrates, half in jest, half in earnest, declares that he must be a god in disguise, who, as Homer would say, has come to earth that he may visit the good and evil among men, and detect the foolishness of Athenian wisdom. At any rate he is a divine person, one of a class who are hardly recognised on earth, in divers forms appearing — now as statesmen, now as sophists, and they are often deemed madmen. Philosopher, statesman, sophist, says Socrates, repeating the words — I should like to ask our Eleatic friend what his countrymen think of them ; do they regard them as one, or three ? The Stranger has been already asked this very question by Theodoras and Theaetetus ; and he has no difficulty in replying that they are three ; but to explain the difference fully would take time. He is pressed to give the fuller explanation, either in the form of a speech or of question and answer. He prefers the latter, and chooses as his respondent The aetetus, whom he already knows, and who is recommended to him by Socrates. We are agreed, he says, about the name Sophist, but we are not equally agreed about his nature. Great subjects should be approached through familiar examples, and, considering that he is a creature not easily caught, I think that, before approaching him, we should try our hand upon some more obvious animal, who may be made the subject of logical experi ment ; shall we say an angler ? ' Very good.' In the first place, the angler is an aiiist, and there are two kinds of art; — productive art, which includes husbandry, manufactures, imita tions ; and acquisitive art, which includes learning, trading, hunting. The angler's is an acquisitive art, and acquisition may be effected either by (exchanged or by^conquest); in the latter case, either by force or craft : conquest by craft is called hunting, and of hunting there is one kind which pursues inanimate, and another which pursues animate objects ; and animate objects may be either land animals or water animals, and water animals either fly over the water or live in the water. The hunting of the last is called fishing; and of fishing, one kind uses INTRODUCTION. 391 enclosures, catching the fish in nets and baskets, and another kind strikes them either with spears by night or with barbed spears or barbed hooks by day ; the spears are impelled from above, the hooks are jerked into the head and lips of the fish which is drawn from below upwards. Thus, by a series of divisions, we have arrived at the definition of the angler's art. And now we may endeavour by a similar process to draw the Sophist from his hiding-place. Like the angler, he is an artist, and the resem blance does not end here. For they are both hunters, and hunters of animals ; the one of water, and the other of land animals. But at this point they diverge, the one going to the sea and the rivers, and the other to the rivers of wealth and rich meadow-lands, in which -generous youth abide. You may hunt tame animals on land, or you may hunt wild animals. And man is a tame animal, and he may be hunted either by force or persuasion ; — either by the pirate, man-stealer, soldier, or by the lawyer, orator, talker. The latter use persuasion, and persuasion is either private or public. Of the private practitioners of the art, some bring gifts to those whom they hunt : these are lovers. And others take hire ; and some of these flatter, and in return are fed ; others profess to teach virtue and receive a round sum. And who are these last ? Tell me who ? Have we not unearthed the Sophist ? But, 2, he is a many-sided creature, and may still be traced in another line of descent. The acquisitive art had a branch of exchange as well as of hunting, and exchange is either giving or selling ; and the seller is either a manufacturer or a merchant ; and the merchant either retails or exports ; and the exporter may export either food for the body or food for the mind. And of this trade of food for the mind, one kind may be termed the art of display, and another the sale of learning ; and learning may be a learning of the arts or of virtue. The seller of the arts may be called an art-seller ; the teacher of virtue, a Sophist. Again, 3, there is a third line, in which a Sophist may be traced. For is he less a Sophist when, instead of exporting his wares to another country, he stays at home, and either buys or manufactures and then retails them ? Or, 4, he may descend from the acquisitive in the combative line, through the pugnacious, the controversial, the disputatious ; and he will be found at last in the eristic section of the latter, disputing in private for gain about the general principles of right and wrong. -392 SOP PI I ST. And still there is a track of him which has not yet been followed out by us. Do not our household servants talk of sifting, straining, scouring ? And they also speak of carding, warping, and the like : all these are processes of division, but they are of two kinds ; while in the last-men tioned, like is divided from like — wrhereas in the former, the good is separated from the bad. The former of the two is termed purification ; and again, of purification, there are two sorts— first of bodies, whether animate or inanimate, there are purifications both internal and external — medicine and gymnastic are the internal purifications of the animate, and bathing the external ; and of the inanimate, fulling and cleaning and other humble processes, some of which have ludicrous names. Not that dialectic is a respecter of names or persons, or a despiser of humble oc cupations ; nor does she think much of the greater or less benefits con ferred by them. For her aim is knowledge ; — she wants to know how the arts are related to one another, and would quite as soon learn the nature of hunting from the vermin-destroyer as from the general. And she only desires to have a general name, which shall distinguish purifications of the soul from purifications of the body. Now purification is the taking away of evil ; and there are two kinds of evil in the soul ; the one answering to disease in the body, and the other to deformity. Disease is the discord or war of opposite principles in the .soul ; and deformity is the want of symmetry, or failure in the attainment of a mark or measure. The latter arises from ignorance, and no one is voluntarily ignorant ; ignorance is only the aberrationjiLthe_sotil moving towards knowledge. And as medicine cures the diseases and gymnastic the deformity of the body, so correction cures the injustice, and education (which differs among the Hellenes from mere instruction in the arts) cures the ignorance of the soul. Again, ignorance is twofold ; simple ignorance, and ignorance which is conceited of knowledge. And educa tion is also twofold ; there is the old-fashioned moral training of our fore fathers, which was very troublesome and not very successful ; and another, of a more subtle nature, which proceeds upon a notion that all ignorance ^s involuntary. The latter convicts a man out of his own mouth, by pointing out to him his inconsistencies and contradictions ; and the con sequence is that he quarrels with himself, instead of quarrelling with his neighbours, and is cured of prejudices and obstructions by a mode of treatment which is equally entertaining and effectual. The physician of the soul is aware that his patient will receive no nourishment unless he INTRODUCTION. 393 has been cleared out; and the soul of the great king himself, if he has not undergone this purification, is unclean and impure. And who are the ministers of the purification ? Sophists I may not call them. Yet they bear about the same likeness to Sophists as the dog, who is the gentlest of animals, does to the wolf, who is the fiercest. Comparisons are slippery things ; but for the present let us assume the resemblance, which may probably be disallowed hereafter. And so, from division comes purification ; and from this, mental purification ; and from mental purification, instruction ; and from instruction, education ; and from education, that glorious art of Sophistry, which is engaged in the detection of conceit. I do not think that we have yet found the Sophist, or that his will ultimately prove to be the desired art of education ; but • neither do I think that he can long escape me, for every way is blocked. Before we make the final assault, let us take breath, and reckon up the i many forms which he has assumed : i, he was the paid hunter of wealth and birth; 2, he was the trader in the goods of the soul ; 3, he was the retailer of them ; 4, he was the manufacturer of his own learned wares ; 5, he was the disputant ; and 6, he was the purger away of prejudices ; although this latter point is admitted to be doubtful. Now, there must surely be something wrong in the professor of any art having so many names and kinds of knowledge. Does not the very number of them imply that the nature of his art is not understood ? And that we may not be involved in the misunderstanding, let us observe which of his characteristics is the most prominent : Above all things he is a disputant. He will dispute and teach others to dispute about things visible and invisible — about man, about the gods, about politics, about law, about wrestling, about all things. But can he know all things ? ' He cannot.' Then how can he give an answer satisfactory to any one who knows ? ' Impossible/ Then what is the trick of his art, and why does he receive money from his admirers ? ' Because he is supposed by them to know all things.' You mean to say that he seems to have a knowledge of them. ' Yes.' Suppose a person were to say, not that he would dispute about all things, but that he would make all things, you and me, and all other creatures, the earth and the heavens and the gods, and would sell them all for a few pence— this would be a great jest; but not greater than a man saying that he knows all things, and can teach them in a short fime, and at a small cost. For all imitation is a jest, and the most 394 SOPHIST. graceful form of jest. The painter is able to deceive children, who see his pictures at a distance, into the belief that he can make anything ; and the Sophist can steal away the hearts of youths, who are still at a dis tance from the truth, not through their eyes, but through their ears, by the mummery of words ; and they, too, are induced to believe that he knows all things. But as they grow older, and come into contact with realities, they learn by experience to see the true proportions of things. The Sophist, then, has not real knowledge; he is only an imitator, or image-maker. And now, having got him in a corner of the dialectical net, let us divide and subdivide until we catch him. Of image-making there are two kinds ; the art of making likenesses, and the art of making_appear- ances. The latter may be illustrated by sculpture and painting, which alter the proportions of figures, and use illusions in order to adapt their works to the eye. And the Sophist also uses illusion, and his imitations are apparent and not real. But how can any thing be an appearance only ? Here arises a difficulty which has always beset the subject of appearances. For the argument is asserting the existence of not-being. And this is what the great Parmenides was all his life denying in prose and also in verse. ' You will never find/ he says, ' that not-being is.' And the words prove themselves ! Not-being cannot be attributed to any being ; for how can any being be wholly abstracted from being ? Again, in every predication there is an attribution of singular or plural. But number is the most real of all things, and cannot be attributed to not-being. Therefore not-being cannot be predicated or expressed ; for how can we say ' it is,' ' are not,' without number ? And now arises the greatest difficulty of all. If no_t^being is incon ceivable, how can not-being be refuted ? And am I not contradicting myself at this moment, in speaking either in the singular or the plural of that to which I deny either plurality or unity ? You, Theaetetus, have the might of youth, and I conjure you to exert yourself, and, if you can, to find an expression of not-being which does not imply being and number. * But I cannot.' Then the Sophist must be left in his hole. We may call him an image-maker if we please, but he will only say, ' And pray, what is an image ?' And we shall reply, ' A reflection in the water, or in a mirror ' ; and he will say, * Let us shut our eyes and open our minds ; what is the common notion of all images?' *I should answer, Such another, made in the likeness of the true.' Real or not real? ' Not real; INTRODUCTION. 395 at least, not in a true sense.' And real means ' is,' and not real ' is not' ? * Yes/ Then a likeness is really unreal, and essentially not. Here is a complication of being and not-being, in which the many-headed Sophist has entangled us. He will at once point out that he is compelling us to contradict ourselves, by affirming being of not-being. I think that we must give up looking for him in the class of imitators. But ought we to give him up ? 'I should say, certainly not/ Then I fear that I must lay hands on my father Parmenides; but do not think me a parricide ; for there is no way except to show that in some sense not-being is ; and if this is not admitted, no one can speak of falsehood, or false opinion, or imitation, without falling into a contra diction. You observe how unwilling I am to undertake the task, because I know that I am exposing myself to the charge of inconsistency in asserting not- being. But if I am to make the attempt, I think that I had better begin at the beginning. Lightly in the days of our youth, Parmenides and others told us tales about the origin of the universe : one spoke of three principles warring and at peace again, marrying and begetting children; another of two principles, hot and cold, dry and moist, which also formed relationships. There were the Eleatics in our part of the world, saying that all things are one ; their doctrine begins with Xenophanes, and is even older. Ionian, and, more recently, Sicilian muses speak of a one and many which are held together by enmity and friendship, ever parting, ever meeting. Some of them do not insist on the perpetual strife, but adopt a gentler strain, and speak of alternation only. Whether they are right or not, who can say ? But one thing we can say— that they went on their way without much caring whether we understood them or not : tell me, Theaetetus, do you understand what they mean by their assertion of unity, or by their combinations and separations of two or more principles? I used to think, when I was young, that I knew all about not-being, and now being is as great a puzzle to me as not-being. Let us proceed first to the examination of being. Turning to the dualist philosophers, we say to them : Is being a third element besides hot and cold? or do you identify one of the two elements with being? At any rate, you can hardly avoid resolving them both into one. Let us next interrogate the patrons of the one. To them we say : Are being and one the same ? And how can there be two names of one thing ? If you admit of two names, that implies two things ; or if you identify 396 SOPHIST. them, then the name will be either the name of nothing or of itself, i. e. a name. Again, the notion of being is conceived of as a whole — in the words of Parmenides, * like every way unto a rounded sphere.' And a whole has parts ; but that which has parts is not one, for unity has no parts. Is being, then, one, because the parts of being are one, or shall we say that being is not a whole ? In the former case, one is made up of parts ; and in the latter there is still plurality, viz. being, and a whole which is apart from being. And being, if not a whole, lacks something of the nature of being, and becomes not-being. Nor can being ever have come into existence, for nothing comes into existence except as a whole ; nor can being have number, for that which has number is a whole or sum of number. These are a few of the difficulties which are accumulating one upon another in the consideration of being. We may proceed now to the less exact sort of philosophers. Some of them drag down everything to earth, and carry on a war like that of the giants, grasping rocks and oaks in their hands. Their adversaries defend themselves warily from an invisible world, and reduce the substances of their opponents to the minutest fractions, until they are lost in generation and flux. The last sort are civil people enough ; but the materialists are rude and ignorant of dialectics ; they must be taught how to argue before they can answer. Yet, for the sake of the argument, we may assume them to be better than they are, and able to give an account of them selves. They admit the existence of a mortal living creature, which is a body containing a soul, and to this they would not refuse to attribute qualities — wisdom, folly, justice and injustice. The soul, as they say, has a kind of body, but they do not like to assert of these qualities of the soul, either that they are corporeal, or that they have no existence ; at this point they begin to make distinctions. ' Sons of earth/ we say to them, ' if both visible and invisible qualities exist, what is the common nature which is attributed to them by the term " being" or " existence " ?' And, as they are incapable of answering this question, we may as well reply for them, that ' being is the power of doing or suffering.' Then we turn to the friends of ideas : to them we say, ' you distinguish becoming from being?' ' Yes/ they will reply. ' And in becoming you participate through the bodily senses, and in being, by thought and the mind ? ' 'Yes.' And you mean by the word ' participation ' a power of doing or suffering? To this they answer (I am acquainted with them, Theae- tetus, and know their ways better than you do), ' that being can neither INTRODUCTION. 397 do nor suffer, though becoming may.' And we rejoin : Does not the soul know ? And is not ' being ' known ? And are not ' knowing ' and being ' known ' active and passive ? That which is known is affected by knowledge, and therefore is in motion. And, indeed, how can we imagine that being is a mere everlasting form, devoid of motion and life or soul ; for there can be no thought without soul, nor can soul be devoid of motion. But neither can thought nor mind be devoid of some principle of rest or stability. And as children say entreatingly, ' Give us both/ so the philosopher must include both the moveable and immoveable in his idea of being. And yet, alas ! he and we are in the same difficulty with which we reproached the dualists ; for motion and rest are contradic tions — how then can they both exist ? Does he who affirms this mean to say that motion is rest, or rest motion ? ' No ; he means to assert the existence of some third thing, different from them both, which neither rests nor moves.' But how can there be anything which neither rests nor moves? Here is a second difficulty about being, quite as great as that about not-being. And we may hope that any light which is thrown upon the one may extend ^to the other. Leaving them for the present, let us enquire what we mean by giving many names to the same thing, e. g. white, good, tall, to man ; out of which tyros old and young derive such a feast of amusement. Their meagre minds refuse to attribute anything to anything; they say that good is good, and man is man ; and that to affirm one of the other would be making the many one and the one many. Let us place them in a class with our previous opponents, and interrogate both of them at once. Shall we assume (i) .that being and rest and motion, and all other things, are incommunicable with one another ; or (2) that they all have indiscriminate communion ; or (3) that there is communion of some and not of others ? And we will consider the first hypothesis first of all. If we suppose the universal separation of kinds, all theories alike are swept away ; the patrons of a single principle of rest or of motion, or of a plurality of immutable ideas — all alike have the ground cut from under them ; and all creators of the universe by theories of composition and division, whether out of or into a finite or infinite number of elemental forms in alternation or continuance, share the same fate. Most ridiculous is the discomfiture which attends the opponents of predication, who have the voice that answers them, like the ventriloquist Eurycles, in their own breast. For they cannot help using the words ' is,' ' apart.' ' from others/ 398 SOPHIST. and the like ; and their adversaries are thus saved the trouble of refuting them. But (2) if all things have communion with all things, motion will rest, and rest will move ; here is a reductio ad absurdum. Two out of the three hypotheses are thus seen to be false ; the third (3) remains, which affirms that only certain things communicate with certain other things. In the alphabet and the scale there are some letters and notes which combine with others, and some which do not ; and the laws according to which they combine or are separated are known to the grammarian and musician. And there is a science which teaches not only what notes and letters, but what classes admit of combination with one another, and what not. This is a noble science, on which we have stumbled unawares ; in seeking after the Sophist we have found the philosopher. He is the master who discerns one whole or form pervading a scattered multitude, and many such wholes combined under a higher one, and many en tirely apart — he is the true dialectician. Like the Sophist, he is hard to recognise, though for the opposite reasons; the Sophist runs away into the obscurity of not-being, the philosopher is dark from excess of light. And now, leaving him, we will return to our pursuit of the Sophist. Agreeing in the truth of the third hypothesis, that some things have communion and others not, and that some may have communion with all, let us examine the most important kinds which are capable of ad mixture : and in this way we may perhaps find out a sense in which not- being may be affirmed to have being. Now the highest kinds are being, rest, motion ; and of these, rest and motion exclude each other, but both of them are included in being ; and again, they are the same with them selves and the other of each other. What is the meaning of these words, ' same ' and ' other ' ? Are there two more kinds to be added to the three others ? For sameness cannot be either rest or motion, because predi cated both of rest and motion ; nor yet being, because if being were attributed to both of them we should attribute sameness to both of them. Nor can other be identified with being ; for then other, which is relative, would have the absoluteness of being. Therefore we must assume a fifth principle, which is universal, and runs through all things, for all things are the others of others. Thus there are five principles : (i) being, (2) motion, which is not, (3) rest, and because participating both in the same and other, is and is not the (4) same with itself, and is (5) other than the other. And motion is not being, but partakes of being, INTR OD UCTION. 399 and therefore is and is not in the most absolute sense. Thus we have dis covered that not-being is the principle of the other which runs through all things, being not excepted. And ' being ' is one thing, and ' not- being' includes and is all other things. And not-being is not the opposite of being, but only the other. Knowledge has many branches, and the other or difference has as many, each of which is described by prefixing the word ' not ' to some kind of knowledge. The not-beautiful is as real as the beautiful, the not-just as the just. And the essence of the not- beautiful is to be separated from and opposed to a certain kind of existence which is termed beautiful. And this opposition and negation is the not-being of which we are in search, and is one kind of being. Thus, in spite of Parmenides, we have not only discovered the existence, but also the nature of not-being — that nature we have found to be rela - tion. In the communion of different kinds, being and other mutually inter penetrate ; other is, but is other than being, and other than each and all of the remaining kinds, and therefore in an infinity of ways * is not/ And the argument has shown that the pursuit of contradictions is childish and useless, and the very opposite of that higher spirit which criticises the words of another according to the natural meaning of them. Nothing can be more unphilosophical than the denial of all communion of kinds. And we are fortunate in having established such a communion for another reason, because in continuing the hunt after the Sophist we have to examine the nature of discourse, and there could be no discourse if there were no communion. For the Sophist, although he can no longer deny the existence of not-being, may still affirm that not-being cannot enter into discourse, and as he was arguing before that there could be no such thing as falsehood, because there was no such thing as not-being, he may continue to argue that there is no such thing as the art of image- making and phantastic, because not-being has no place in language. Hence arises the necessity of examining speech, opinion, and imagi nation. And first concerning speech ; let us ask the same question about words which we have already answered about the kinds of being and the letters of the alphabet. To what extent do they admit of combina tion ? Some words have a meaning when combined, and others have no meaning. One class of words describe action, another class agents : walks, runs, sleeps are examples of the first; stag, horse, lion of the second. But no combination of words can be formed without a verb 400 SOPHIST. and a noun, e.g. a man learns; the simplest sentence is composed of two words, and one of these must be a subject. For example, in the sentence, * Theaetetus sits/ which is not very long, Theaetetus is the subject, or in the sentence ( Theaetetus flies,' Theaetetus is again the subject. And those two sentences differ in quality, for the first says of you that which is true, and the second says of you that which is not true, or, in other words, attributes to you things which are not as though they were. This is false discourse in the shortest form. And thus not only speech, but thought and opinion and imagination are proved to be both true and false. For thought is only the process of silent speech, and opinion is only the silent assent or denial which follows this, and imagination is only the expression of this in some form of sense. All of them are akin to speech, and therefore, like speech, admit of true and false. And we have discovered false opinion, which is an encouraging sign of our probable success in the rest of the enquiry. Then now let us return to our old division of likeness-making and phantastic. When we were going to place the Sophist in one of them, a doubt arose whether there could be such a thing as a likeness, because there was no such thing as falsehood. At length falsehood has been discovered by us, and we have acknowledged that the Sophist is to be discovered in the class of imitators. All art was divided originally by us •into two branches — productive and acquisitive. And now we may divide both on a different principle into the creations or imitations which are of human, and those which are of divine, origin. For we must admit that the world and ourselves and the animals did not come into existence by chance, or the spontaneous working of nature, but by divine reason and knowledge. And there are not only divine creations but divine imita tions, such as apparitions and shadows and reflections, which are equally the work of a divine mind. And there are human creations and human imitations too, the art of building and the art of drawing a house. Nor must we forget that image -making may be an imitation of realities or an imitation of falsehoods, which last has been called by us phantastic. And this phantastic may be again divided into imitation by the help of instruments, and impersonations. And the latter may be either dissembling or unconscious, either with or without knowledge. A man cannot imitate you, Theaetetus, without knowing you, but he can imitate the form of justice or virtue if he have a sentiment or opinion about them. Not being well provided with names, the former I will INTRODUCTION. 401 venture to call the imitation of science, and the latter the imitation of opinion. The latter is our present concern, for the Sophist has no claims to science or knowledge. But the imitator, who has only opinion, may be divided into two classes — the simple imitator, who thinks that he knows, and the dissembler, who knows and disguises his ignorance. And the last may be either a maker of long speeches, or of shorter speeches which compel the person conversing to contradict himself. The maker of longer speeches is the popular orator ; the maker of the shorter is the Sophist, whose art may be traced as being the I contradictious l dissembling l without knowledge l human and not divine juggling with words I phantastic or unreal art of image-making. In commenting on the dialogue in which Plato most nearly approaches the great modern master of metaphysics it will be interesting and instructive to compare them chiefly on two points: — ist, the Platonic and Hegelian doctrine of the unity of opposites ; 2ndly, their use of the terms idea and dialectic. Or in other words, the idealism of Plato and of Hegel. i. The unity of opposites was the crux of ancient thinkers in the age of Plato: How could one thing be or become another? That substances have attributes was implied in common language ; that heat and cold, day and night, pass into one another was a matter of experience ' on a level with the cobbler's understanding ' (Theaet. 180 D). But how could philosophy explain the connection of ideas ? how justify the passing of them into one another ? The abstractions of one, other, being, not- being, rest, motion, individual, universal, which successive generations of philosophers had recently discovered, seemed to be beyond the reach of VOL. IV. D d 402 SOPHIST. human thought, like stars shining in a distant heaven. They were the symbols of different schools of philosophy; in what relation did they stand to one another and to the world of sense ? It was hardly con ceivable that one could be other, or the same different. Yet without some reconciliation of these elementary ideas thought was impossible. There was no distinction between truth and falsehood, between the Sophist and the philosopher. Everything could be predicated of everything, or nothing of anything. To these difficulties Plato finds what to us appears to be the answer of common sense — 'that not-being is the relative or other of being, the defining and distinguishing principle, and that some ideas combine with others, but not all with all.' It is remarkable however that he offers this obvious reply only as the result of a long and tedious enquiry ; by a great effort he is able to look down as 'from a height' on the 'friends of the ideas' (248 A) as well as on the pre-Socratic philosophies. The Platonic unity of differences or opposites is the beginning of the modern view that all knoidedgfLJS-of relations ; it also anticipates the doctrine of Spinoza that all^determination is negation. Plato takes or gives so much of either of these theories as was necessary or possible in the age in which he lived. In the Sophist, as in the Cratylus, he is opposed to the Heraclitean flux and equally to the Megarian and Cynic denial of predication, because he regards both of them as making knowledge impossible. He does not assert that everything is and is not, or that the same thing can be affected and not affected in opposite ways at the same time and in respect of the same part of itself. The la^y aLcontradiction^jg. ,as, .ctearljMajdjciQam by hirtLjiQhe Republic, (436 ff, iv. v. 454 C,D), as by Aristotle in his Organon. Xe)f he is aware that in the negative there is also a positive element, and that opposi tions may be only differences. And in the Parmenides he deduces the many from the one and not-being from being, and yet shows that the many are included in the one, and that not-being returns to being. In several of the later dialogues Plato is occupied with the connection of the sciences, which in the Philebus he divides into two classes of pure and applied, adding to them there as elsewhere (Phaedr., Crat., Rep., Polit.) a superintending science of dialectic. This is the origin of Aristotle's Architectonic, which seems, however, to have passed into an imaginary science of essence, and no longer to retain any relation to other branches of knowledge. Of such a science, whether described INTRODUCTION. 4°3 as 'philosophia prima,' the science of ouo-t'a, logic or metaphysics, philosophers have often dreamed. But even now the time has not arrived when the anticipation of Plato can be realized. Though many a thinker has framed a ' hierarchy of the sciences/ no one has as yet found the higher science which arrays them in harmonious order, giving to the organic and inorganic, to the physical and moral, their respective limits, and showing how they all work together in the world and in man. Plato arranges in order the stages of knowledge and of existence. They are the steps or grades by which he rises from sense and the shadows of sense to the idea of beauty and good. Mindjs in motion as well as at rest (Soph. 249 B) ; and may be described as a dialectical progress which passes from one limit or determination of thought to another and back again to the first. This is the account of dialectic given by Plato in the Sixth Book of the Republic (511), which regarded under another aspect is the mysticism of the Symposium (Symp. 211). He does not deny the existence of objects of sense, but according to him they only receive their true meaning when they are incorporated in a principle which is above them (Rep. vi. 5 1 1 A,B). In modern language they might be said to come first in the order of experience, last in the order of nature and reason. They are assumed, as he is fond of repeating, upon the condition that they shall give an account of themselves and that the truth of their existence shall be hereafter proved. For philosophy must begin somewhere and may begin anywhere, with outward objects, with statements of opinion, with abstract principles. But objects of sense must lead us onward to the ideas or universals which are contained in them ; the statements of opinion must be verified ; the abstract prin ciples must be filled up and connected with one another. In Plato we find, as we might expect, the germs of many thoughts which have been further developed by the genius of Spinoza and Hegel. But there is a difficulty in separating the germ from the flower, or in drawing the line which divides ancient from modern philosophy. Many co incidences which occur in them are unconscious, seeming to show a natural tendency in the human mind towards certain ideas and forms of thought. And there are many speculations of Plato which would have passed away unheeded, and their meaning, like that of some hieroglyphic, would have remained undeciphered, unless two thousand years and more afterwards an interpreter had arisen of a kindred spirit D d 2, 404 SOPHIST. and of the same intellectual family. For example in the Sophist Plato begins with the abstract and goes on to the concrete, not in the lower sense of returning to outward objects, but to the Hegelian concrete or unity of abstractions. In the intervening period hardly any importance would have been attached to the question which is so full of meaning to Plato and Hegel. They differ however in their manner of regarding the question. For Plato is answering a difficulty ; he is seeking to justify the use of common language and of ordinary thought into which philosophy had intro duced a principle of doubt and dissolution. Whereas Hegel tries to go beyond common thought, and to combine abstractions in a higher unity : the ordinary mechanism of language and logic is carried by him into another region in which all oppositions are absorbed and all con tradictions affirmed, only that they may be done away with. But Plato, unlike Hegel, nowhere bases his system on the unity of opposites, although in the Parmenides he shows an Hegelian subtlety in the analysis of one and being. It is difficult within the compass of a few pages to give even a faint outline of the Hegelian dialectic. No philosophy which is worth under standing can be understood in a moment ; common sense will not teach us metaphysics any more than mathematics. If all sciences demand of us protracted study and attention, the highest of all can hardly be matter of immediate intuition. Neither can we appreciate a great system with out yielding a half assent to it — like flies we are caught in the spider's web — and we can only judge of it truly when we place ourselves at a distance from it. Of all philosophies Hegelianism is the most obscure : the difficulty inherent in the subject is increased by the use of a technical language. The saying of Socrates respecting the writings of Hera- cleitus — 'Noble is that which I understand, and that which I do not understand may be as noble; but the strength of a Delian diver is needed to swim through it ' — expresses the feeling with which the reader rises from the perusal of Hegel. We may truly apply to him the words in which Plato describes the pre-Socratic philosophers, ' He wrent on his way rather regardless of whether we understood him or not ' : or, as he is reported himself to have said of his own pupils, * There is only one of you who understands me, and he does not understand me/ Nevertheless the consideration of a few general aspects of the Hege lian philosophy may help to dispel some errors and to awaken an interest INTR OD UCTION. 405 about it. (i.) It is an ideal philosophy which, in popular phraseology, maintains not matter but mind to be the truth of things, and this not by a mere crude substitution of one word for another, but by showing either of them to be the complement of the other. Both are creations of thought, and the difference in kind which seems to divide them may also be regarded as a difference of degree. One is to the other as the real to the ideal, and both may be conceived together under the higher form of the notion, (ii.) Under another aspect he views all the forms of sense and knowledge as stages of thought which have always existed implicitly and unconsciously, and to which the mind of the world, gradually disen gaged from sense, has become awakened. The present has been the past — the succession in time of human ideas is also the eternal ' now.' It is historical and also a divine ideal. The history of philosophy stripped of personality and of the other accidents of time and place is gathered up into philosophy, and again philosophy clothed in cir cumstance expands into history, (iii.) Whether regarded as present or past, under the form of time or of eternity, the spirit of dialectic is always moving onwards from one determination of thought to another, receiving each successive system of philosophy and subordinating it to that which follows — impelled by an irresistible necessity from one idea to another until the cycle of human thought and existence is complete. It follows from this that all previous philosophies which are worthy of the name are not mere opinions or speculations, but stages or moments of thought which have a necessary place in the world of mind- They are no longer the last word of philosophy, for another and another has succeeded them, but they still live and are mighty — in the language of the Greek poet, ' There is a great God in them, and he grows not old/ (iv.) This vast ideal system is supposed to be based upon expe rience. At each step it professes to carry with it the ' witness of eyes and ears' and of common sense, as well as the internal evidence of its own consistency ; it has a place for every science, and affirms that no philo sophy of a narrower type is capable of comprehending all true facts. The Hegelian dialectic may be also described as a movement from the simple to the complex. Beginning with the generalizations of sense, (i) passing through ideas of quality, quantity, measure, number, and the like, (2) ascending from presentations, that is pictorial forms of sense, to representations in which the picture vanishes and the essence is detached in thought from the outward form, (3) combining the I and the 4c6 SOPHIST. not-I, or the subject and object, the natural order of thought is at last found to include the leading ideas of the sciences and to arrange them in relation to one another. Abstractions grow together and again become concrete in a new and higher sense. They also admit of developement from within in their own spheres. Everywhere there is a movement of attraction and repulsion going on — an attraction or repulsion of ideas of which the physical phenomenon described under a similar name is a figure. Freedom and necessity, mind and matter, the continuous and the discrete, cause and effect, are perpetually being severed from one another in thought, only to be perpetually reunited. The finite and infinite, the absolute and relative are not really opposed ; the finite and the negation of the finite are alike lost in a higher or posi tive infinity, and the absolute is the sum or correlation of all relatives. When this reconciliation of opposites is finally completed in all its stages, the mind may come back again and review the things of sense, the opinions of philosophers, the strife of theology and politics, without being disturbed by them. Whatever is, if not the very best — (and what is the best, who can tell?) — is, at any rate, historical and rational, suit able to its own age, unsuitable to any other. Nor can any efforts of speculative thinkers or of soldiers and statesmen materially quicken the ' process of the suns.' Hegel was very sensible how great would be the difficulty of present ing philosophy to mankind under the form of opposites. Most of us live in the one-sided truth wrhich the understanding offers to us, and if occasionally we come across difficulties like the time-honoured controversy of necessity and free will, or the Eleatic puzzle of Achilles and the tortoise, we relegate some of them to the sphere of mystery, others to the book of riddles, and go on our way rejoicing. Most men (like Aristotle) have been accustomed to regard a contradiction in terms as the end of strife; to be told that contradiction is the life and mainspring of the intellectual world is indeed a paradox to them. Every abstraction is at first the enemy of every other, yet they are linked together, each with all, in the chain of being. The struggle for existence is not confined to the animals, but appears in the kingdom of thought. The divisions which arise in thought between the physical and moral and between the moral and intellectual, and the like, are deepened and widened by the formal logic which elevates the defects of the human faculties into Laws of Thought ; they become a part of the mind which INTRODUCTION. 407 makes them and is also made up of them. Such distinctions become so familiar to us that we regard the thing signified by them as absolutely fixed and denned. These are some of the illusions from which Hegel delivers us by placing us above ourselves, by teaching us to analyse the growth of ' what we are pleased to call our minds/ by reverting to a time when our present distinctions of thought and language had no existence. Of the great dislike and childish impatience of his system which would be aroused among his opponents, he was fully aware, and would often anticipate the jests which the rest of the world, ' in the superfluity of their wits/ were likely to make upon him. Men are annoyed at what puzzles them ; they think what they cannot easily understand to be full of danger. Many a sceptic has stood, as he supposed, firmly rooted in the categories of the understanding which Hegel resolves into their original nothingness. For, like Plato, he 'leaves no stone unturned' in the intellectual world. Nor can we deny that he is unnecessarily difficult, or that his own mind, like that of all metaphysicians, was too much under the dominion of his system and unable to see beyond : or that the study of philosophy, if made a serious business (cp. Rep. vii. 538), involves grave results to the mind and life of the student. For it may encumber him without enlightening his path ; and it may weaken his natural faculties of thought and expression without increasing his philosophical power. The mind easily becomes entangled among ab stractions, and loses hold of facts. The glass which is adapted to distant objects takes away the vision of what is near and present to us. To Hegel, as to the ancient Greek thinkers, philosophy was a religion, a principle of life as well as of knowledge, like the idea of good in the Sixth Book of the Republic, a cause as well as an effect, the source of growth as well as of light. In forms of thought which by most of us are regarded as mere categories, he saw or thought that he saw a gradual revelation of the Divine Being. He would have been said by his oppo nents to have confused God with the history of philosophy, and to have been incapable of distinguishing ideas from facts. And certainly we can scarcely understand how a deep thinker like Hegel could have hoped to revive or supplant the old traditional faith by an unintelligible abstraction : or how he could have imagined that philosophy consisted only or chiefly in the categories of logic. For abstractions, though combined by him in the notion, seem to be never really concrete ; they are a metaphysical anatomy, not a living and thinking substance. 408 SOPHIST. Though we are reminded by him again and again that we are gathering up the world in ideas, we feel after all that we have not really spanned the gulph which separates <^aiv6^eva from ovra. Having in view some of these difficulties, he seeks— and we may follow his example — to make the understanding of his system easier (a) by illus trations, and (b] by pointing out the coincidence of the speculative idea and the historical order of thought. (a) If we ask how opposites can coexist, we are told that many different qualities inhere in a flower or a tree or in any other concrete object, and that any conception of space or matter or time involves the two contradictory attributes of divisibility and continuousness. We may ponder over the thought of number, reminding ourselves that every unit both implies and denies the existence of every other, and that the one is many — a sum of fractions, and the many one — a sum of units. We may be reminded that in nature there is a centripetal as well as a centrifugal force, a regulator as well as a spring, a law of attraction as well as of repulsion. The way to the West is the way also to the East ; the north pole of the magnet cannot be divided from the south pole ; two minus signs make a plus in Arithmetic and Algebra. Again we may liken the successive layers of thought to the deposits of geological strata which were once fluid and are now solid, which have once been uppermost in the series and are now hidden in the earth; or to the successive rinds or barks of trees which year by year pass inward ; or to the ripple of water which appears and reappears in an ever widening circle. Or our attention may be drawn to ideas which the moment we analyse them involve a contradiction, such as ' beginning' or ' becoming/ or to the opposite poles, as they are sometimes termed, of necessity and freedom, of idea and fact. We may be told to observe that every negative is a positive, that differences of kind are resolvable into differences of degree, and that differences of degree may be heightened into differences of kind. We may remember the common remark ' that there is much to be said on both sides of a question.' We may be recommended to look within and to explain how opposite ideas can coexist in our own minds ; and we may be told to imagine the minds of all mankind as one mind in which the true ideas of all ages and countries inhere. In our conception of God in his relation to man or of any union of the divine and human nature, a contradiction appears to be unavoidable. Is not the reconciliation of mind and body a necessity, not only of INTR OD UCTION. 409 speculation but of practical life ? Reflections such as these will furnish the best preparation and give the right attitude of mind for understanding the Hegelian philosophy. (b) Hegel's treatment of the early Greek thinkers affords the readiest illustration of his meaning in conceiving all philosophy under the form of opposites. The first abstraction is to him the beginning of thought. Hitherto there had only existed a tumultuous chaos of mythological fancy, but when Thales said ' all is water ' a new era began to dawn upon the world. Man was seeking to grasp the universe under a single form which was at first only a material element, the most equable and colourless and universal which could be found. But soon the human mind became dissatisfied with the emblem, and after ringing the changes on one element after another, demanded a more abstract and perfect conception, such as one or being, which was absolutely at rest. But the positive had its negative, the conception of being involved not- being, the conception of one, many, the conception of a whole, parts. Then the pendulum swung to the other side, from rest to motion, from Xenophanes to Heracleitus, The opposition of being and not- being projected into space became the atoms and void of Leucippus and Democritus. Until the Atomists, the abstraction of the individual did not exist; in the philosophy of Anaxagoras the idea of mind, whether human or divine, was beginning to be realized. The pendulum gave another swing, from the individual to the universal, from the object to the subject. The Sophist first uttered the word ' man is the measure of all things/ which Socrates presented in a new form as the study of ethics. Once more we return from mind to the object of mind, which is knowledge, and out of knowledge the various degrees or kinds of know ledge more or less abstract were gradually developed. The threefold division of logic, physic, and ethics, foreshadowed in Plato, was finally established by Aristotle and the Stoics. Thus, according to Hegel, in the course of about two centuries by a process of antagonism and negation the leading thoughts of philosophy were evolved. There is nothing like this progress of opposites in Plato, who in the Symposium denies the possibility of reconciliation until the opposition has passed away. In his own words, there is an absurdity in supposing that ' harmony is discord ; for in reality harmony consists of notes of a higher and lower pitch which disagreed once, but are now reconciled by the art of music.5 (Symp. 187 A, B.) He does indeed describe objects 410 SOPHIST. of sense as regarded by us sometimes from one point of view and sometimes from another. As he says at the end of the Fifth Book of the Republic, ' There is nothing light which is not heavy, or great which is not small/ And he extends this relativity to the conceptions of just and good, as well as to great and small. In like manner he ac knowledges that the same number may be more or less in relation to other numbers without any increase or diminution. (Theaet. 155 A, B.) But this perplexity only arises out of the confusion of the human faculties ; the art of measuring shows us what is truly great and truly small. Though the just and good in particular instances may vary, the idea of good is eternal and unchangeable. And the idea of good is the source of knowledge and also of being, in which all the stages of sense and knowledge are gathered up and from being hypotheses become realities. Leaving the comparison with Plato we may now consider the value of this invention of Hegel. There can be no question of the importance of showing that two contraries or contradictories may in certain cases be both true. The silliness of the so-called laws of thought ('all A — A/ or, in the negative form, ' nothing can at the same time be both A, and not A/) has been well exposed by Hegel himself (Wallace's Hegel, p. 184), who remarks that ' the form of the maxim is virtually self-contradictory, for a proposition implies a distinction between subject and predicate, whereas the maxim of identity, as it is called, A = A, does not fulfil what its form requires. Nor does any mind ever think or form concep tions in accordance with this law, nor does any existence conform to it.' Wisdom of this sort is well parodied in Shakespeare *. Unless we are willing to admit that two contradictories may be true, many questions which lie at the threshold of mathematics and of morals will be in soluble puzzles to us. The influence of opposites is felt in practical life. The understanding sees one side of a question only — the common sense of mankind joins one of two parties in politics, in religion, in philosophy. Yet, as every body knows, truth is not wholly the possession of either. But the char acters of men are one-sided and accept this or that aspect of the truth. The understanding is strong in a single abstract principle and with 1 Twelfth Night, Act iv. Sc. 2 : ' Clown. For as the old hermit of Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc, " That that is is "... for what is " that " but " that," and " is " but " is " ? ' INTR OD UCTION. 4 1 1 this lever moves mankind. Few attain to a balance of principles or recognize truly how in all human things there is a thesis and antithesis, a law of action and of reaction. In politics we require order as well as liberty, and have to consider the proportions in which under given cir cumstances they may be safely combined. In religion there is a tendency to lose sight of morality, to separate goodness from the love of truth, to worship God without attempting to know him. In philosophy again there are two opposite principles, of immediate experience and of those general or a priori truths which are supposed to transcend experience. But the common sense or common opinion of mankind is incapable of apprehending these opposite sides or views — men are determined by their natural bent to one or other of them ; they go straight on for a time in a single line, and may be many things by turns but not at once. Hence the importance of familiarizing the mind with forms which will assist us in conceiving or expressing the complex or contrary aspects of life and nature. The danger is that they may be too much for us, and obscure our appreciation of facts. As the complexity of mechanics cannot be understood without mathematics, so neither can the many-sidedness of the mental and moral world be truly apprehended without the assistance of new forms of thought. One of these forms is the unity of opposites. Abstractions have a great power over us, but they are apt to be partial and one-sided, and only when modified by other abstractions do they make an approach to the truth. Many a man has become a fatalist because he has fallen under the dominion of a single idea. He says to himself, for example, that he must be either free or necessary — he cannot be both. Thus in the ancient world whole schools of philosophy passed away in the vain attempt to solve the problem of the continuity or divisibility of matter. And in comparatively modern times, though in the spirit of an ancient philosopher, Bishop Berkeley, feeling a similar perplexity, is inclined to deny the truth of infinitesimals in mathematics. Many difficulties arise in practical religion from the impossibility of con ceiving body and mind at once and in adjusting their movements to one another. There is a border ground between them which seems to belong to both; and there is as much difficulty in conceiving the body without the soul as the soul without the body. To the ' either' and 'or' philosophy ('Everything is either A or not A') should at least be added the clause 'or neither,' 'or both.' The double form 412 SOPHIST. makes reflection easier and more conformable to experience, and also more comprehensive. But in order to avoid paradox and the danger of giving offence to the unmetaphysical part of mankind, we may speak of it as due to the imperfeclion of language or the limitation of human faculties. It is nevertheless a discovery which, in Platonic language, may be termed a * most gracious aid to thought.' The doctrine of opposite moments of thought or of progression by antagonism, further assists us in framing a scheme or system of the sciences. The negation of one gives birth to another of them. The double notions are the joints which hold them together. The simple is developed into the complex, the complex returns again into the simple. Beginning with the highest notion of mind or thought, we may descend by a series of negations to the first generalizations of sense. Or again we may begin with the simplest elements of sense and proceed upwards to the highest being or thought. Metaphysic is the negation or absorption of physiology — physiology of chemistry — chemistry of mechanical philosophy. Or again in mechanics, when we can no further go we arrive at chemistry — when chemistry becomes organic we arrive at physiology : when we pass from the outward and animal to the inward nature of man we arrive at moral and metaphysical philosophy. These sciences have each of them their own methods and are pursued independently of one another. But to the mind of the thinker they are all one — latent in one another — developed out of one another. This method of opposites has supplied new instruments of thought for the solution of metaphysical problems, and has thrown down many of the walls within which the human mind was confined. Formerly when philosophers arrived at the infinite and absolute, they seemed to be lost in a region beyond human comprehension. But Hegel has shown that the absolute and infinite are no more true than the relative and finite, and that they must alike be negatived before we arrive at a true absolute or a true infinite. The conceptions of the infinite and absolute as ordinarily understood are tiresome because they are unmeaning, but there is no peculiar sanctity or mystery in them. We might as well make an infinitesimal series of fractions or a perpetually recurring decimal the object of our worship. They are the widest and also the thinnest of human ideas, or, in the language of logicians, they have the greatest extension and the least compre- INTR OD UCTION. 4 1 3 hension. Of all words they may be truly said to be the most inflated with a false meaning. They have been handed down from one philo sopher to another until they have acquired a religious character. They seem also to derive a sacredness from their association with the Divine Being. Yet they are the poorest of the predicates under which we describe him — signifying no more than this, that he is not finite, that he is not relative, and tending to obscure his higher attributes of wisdom, good ness, truth. The system of Hegel frees the mind from the dominion of abstract ideas. We acknowledge his originality, and some of us delight to wander in the mazes of thought which he has opened to us. For Hegel has found admirers in England and Scotland when his popu larity in Germany has departed, and he, like the philosophers whom he criticises, is of the past. No other thinker has ever dissected the human mind with equal patience and minuteness. He has lightened the burden of thought because he has shown us that the chains which we wear are of our own forging. To be able to place ourselves not only above the opinions of men but above their modes of thinking, is a great height of philosophy. This dearly obtained freedom, how ever, we are not disposed to part with, or to allow him to build up in a new form the ' beggarly elements' of scholastic logic which he has thrown down. So far as they are aids to reflection and expression, forms of thought are useful, but no further : — we may easily have too many of them. And when we are asked to believe the Hegelian to be the sole or universal logic, we naturally reply that there are other ways in which our ideas may be connected. The triplets of Hegel, the division into being, essence, and notion, are not the only or necessary modes in which the world of thought can be conceived. There may be an evolution by degrees as well as by opposites. The word 'continuity' suggests the possibility of resolving all differences into differences of quantity. Again the opposites themselves may vary from the least degree of diversity up to contradictory opposition. They are not like numbers and figures, always and everywhere of the same value. And therefore the edifice which is constructed out of them has only an imaginary symmetry, and is really irregular and out of proportion. The spirit of Hegelian criticism should be applied to his own system, and the terms being, not being, existence, essence, notion, and the 414 SOPHIST. like challenged and defined. For if Hegel introduces a great many distinctions, he obliterates a great many others by the help of the universal solvent ' is not/ which appears to be the simplest of negations, and yet admits of several meanings. Neither are we able to follow him in the play of metaphysical fancy which conducts him from one determination of thought to another. But we begin to suspect that this vast system is not God within us, or God immanent in the world, and may be only the invention of an individual brain. The 'beyond' is always coming back upon us however often we expel it. We do not easily believe that we have within the compass of the mind the form of universal knowledge. We rather incline to think that the method of knowledge is inseparable from actual knowledge, and wait to see what new forms may be developed out of our increasing experience and observation of man and nature. We are conscious of a Being who is without us as well as within us. Even if inclined to Pantheism we are unwilling to imagine that the meagre categories of the understanding, however ingeniously arranged or displayed, are the image of God; — that what all religions were seeking after from the beginning was the Hegelian philosophy which has been revealed in the latter days. The great metaphysician, like a prophet of old, was naturally inclined to believe that his own thoughts were divine realities. We may almost say that whatever came into his head seemed to him to be a necessary truth. He never appears to have criticised himself, or to have subjected his own ideas to the process of analysis which he applies to every other philosopher. Hegel would have insisted that his philosophy should be accepted as a whole or not at all. He would have urged that the parts derived their meaning from one another and from the whole. He thought that he had supplied an outline large enough to contain all future knowledge, and a method to which all future philosophies must conform. His meta physical genius is especially shown in the construction of the categories — a work which was only begun by Kant, and elaborated to the utmost by himself. But is it really true that the part has no meaning when separated from the whole, or that knowledge to be knowledge at all must be universal ? Do all abstractions shine only by the reflected light of other abstractions ? May they not also find a nearer explanation in their relation to phenomena ? If many of them are correlatives they are not all so, and the relations which subsist between them, vary from a mere INTR OD UCTION. 4 1 5 association up to a necessary connection. Nor is it easy to determine how far the unknown element affects the known, whether, for example, new discoveries may not one day supersede our most elementary notions about nature. To a certain extent all our knowledge is conditional upon what may be known in future ages of the world. We must admit this hypothetical element, which we cannot get rid of by an assumption that we have already discovered the method to which all philosophy must conform. Hegel is right in preferring the concrete to the abstract, in setting actuality before possibility, in excluding from the philosopher's vocabulary the word ' inconceivable/ But he is too well satisfied with his own system ever to consider the effect of what is unknown on the element which is known. To the Hegelian all things are plain and clear, while he who is outside the charmed circle is in the mire of ignorance and 'logical impurity': he who is within is omni scient, or at least has all the elements of knowledge under his hand. Hegelianism may be said to be a transcendental defence of the world as it is. There is no room for aspiration and no need of any : ' what is actual is rational, what is rational is actual.' But a good man will not readily acquiesce in this aphorism. He knows of course that all things proceed according to law whether for good or evil. But when he sees the misery and ignorance of mankind he is convinced that without any interruption of the uniformity of nature the condition of the world may be indefinitely improved by human effort. There is also an adaptation of persons to times and countries, but this is very far from being the fulfilment of their higher natures. The man of the seventeenth century is unfitted for the eighteenth, the man of the eighteenth for the nine teenth, and most of us would be out of place in the world of a hundred years hence. But all higher minds are much more akin than they are different : genius is of all ages, and there is perhaps more uniformity in excellence than in mediocrity. The sublimer intelligences of mankind — Plato, Dante, Sir Thomas More, — meet in a higher sphere above the ordinary ways of men ; they understand one another from afar, notwithstanding the interval which separates them. They are ' the spectators of all time and of all existence ' ; their works live for ever ; and there is nothing to prevent the force of their individuality breaking through the uniformity which surrounds them. But such disturbers of the order of thought Hegel is reluctant to acknowledge. The doctrine of Hegel will to many seem the expression of an 4i 6 SOPHIST. indolent conservatism, and will at any rate be made an excuse for it. The mind of the patriot rebels when he is told that the worst tyranny and oppression has a natural fitness : he cannot be persuaded, for example, that the conquest of Prussia by Napoleon I. was either natural or neces sary, or that any similar calamity befalling a nation should be a matter of indifference to the poet or philosopher. We may need such a philo sophy or religion to console us under evils which are irremediable, but we see that it is fatal to the higher life of man. It seems to say to us, ' The world is a vast system or machine which can be conceived under the forms of logic, but in which no single man can do any great good or any great harm. Even if it were a thousand times worse than it is, it could be arranged in categories and explained by philo sophers — what more do we want ? ' The philosophy of Hegel appeals to an historical criterion : the ideas of men have a succession in time as well as an order of thought. But when we are told that the order of thought in nature is the same as the order of thought in the history of philosophy, is there any sufficient foundation for this statement ? In later systems the forms of thought are too numerous and complex to admit of our tracing in them a regular succession. They seem also to be in part reflections of the past, and it is difficult to separate in them what is original and what is borrowed. Doubtless they have a relation to one another — the tran sition from Descartes to Spinoza or from Locke to Berkeley is not a matter of chance, but it can hardly be described as an alternation of opposites or figured to the mind by the vibrations of a pendulum. Even in Aristotle and Plato, rightly understood, we cannot trace this law of action and reaction. They are both idealists, although to the one the idea is actual and immanent, — to the other only potential and trans cendent, as Hegel himself has pointed out (Wallace's Hegel, p. 223). The true meaning of Aristotle has been disguised from us by his own appeal to fact and the opinions of mankind in his more popular works, and by the use made of his writings in the Middle Ages. No book, except the Scriptures, has been so much read, and so little under stood. The pre-Socratic philosophies are simpler, and we may observe a progress in them, but is there any regular succession ? The ideas of being, change, number, seem to have sprung up contemporaneously in different parts of Greece and we have no difficulty in constructing them out of one another — we can see that the union of being and INTRODUCTION. 417 not-being gave birth to the idea of change or becoming and that one might be another aspect of being. Again, the Eleatics may be regarded as developing in one direction into the Megarian school, in the other into the Atomists, but there is no necessary connection between them. Nor is there any indication that the deficiency which was felt in one school was supplemented or compensated by another. They were all efforts to supply the want which the Greeks began to feel at the beginning of the sixth century before Christ, — the want of abstract ideas. Nor must we forget the uncertainty of chronology :— if, as Aristotle says, there were Atomists before Leucippus, Eleatics before Xenophanes, and perhaps ' patrons of the flux ' before Heracleitus, Hegel's order of thought in the history of philosophy would be as much disarranged as his order of religious thought by recent discoveries in the history of religion. Hegel is fond of repeating that all philosophies still live and that the earlier are preserved in the later ; they are refuted, and they are not refuted, by those who succeed them. Once they reigned supreme, now they are subordinated to a power or idea greater or more comprehensive than their own. The thoughts of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle have certainly sunk deep into the mind of the world, and have exercised an influence which will never pass away ; but can we say that they have the same meaning in modern and ancient philosophy ? Some of them, as for example, the words ' being/ ' essence,' ' matter,' ' form,' either have become obsolete, or are used in new senses, whereas ' individual/ ' cause/ ' motive/ have acquired an exaggerated importance. Is the manner in which the logical determinations of thought, or ' categories ' as they may be termed, have been handed down to us, really different from that in which other words have come down to us ? Have they not been equally sub ject to accident, and are they not often used by Hegel himself in senses which would have been quite unintelligible to their original inventors — as for example, when he speaks of the ' ground ' of Leibnitz (' Everything has a sufficient ground') as identical with his own doctrine of the 'notion' (Wallace's Hegel, p. 195), or the 'being and not-being' of Heracleitus as the same with his own 'becoming'? As the historical order of thought has been adapted to the logical, so we have reason for suspecting that the Hegelian logic has been in some degree adapted to the order of thought in history. There is un fortunately no criterion to which either of them can be subjected, and not much forcing was required to bring either into near relations with VOL. IV. E e 4i 8 SOPHIST. the other. We may fairly doubt whether the division of the first arid second parts of logic in the Hegelian system has not really arisen from a desire to make them accord with the first and second stages of the early Greek philosophy. Is there any reason why the conception of measure in the first part, which is formed by the union of quality and quantity, should not have been equally placed in the second division of mediate or reflected ideas ? The more we analyse them the less exact does the coincidence of philosophy and the history of philosophy appear. Many terms which were used absolutely in the beginning of philosophy, such as ' being/ ' matter/ ' cause/ and the like, became relative in the subsequent history of thought. But Hegel employs some of them abso lutely, some relatively, seemingly without any principle and without any regard to their original significance. The divisions of the Hegelian logic bear a superficial resemblance to the divisions of the scholastic logic. The first part answers to the term, the second to the proposition, the third to the syllogism. These are the grades of thought under which we conceive the world first in the general terms of quality, quantity, measure ; secondly under the relative forms of ground and existence, substance and accidents, and the like ; thirdly in syllogistic forms of the individual mediated with the universal by the help of the particular. Of syllogisms there are various kinds, — qualitative, quantitative, jnductive, mechanical, ideological, which are de veloped out of one another. But is there any meaning in reintroducing the forms of the old logic ? Who ever thinks of the world as a syllogism ? What connection is there between the proposition and our ideas of reci procity, cause and effect, and similar relations ? It is difficult enough to conceive all the powers of nature and mind gathered up in one. The difficulty is greatly increased when the new is confused with the old, and the common logic is the Procrustes' bed into which they are forced. The Hegelian philosophy claims, as we have seen, to be based upon experience : it abrogates the distinction of a priori and a posteriori truth. It also acknowledges that many differences of kind are resolvable into differences of degree. It is familiar with the terms ' evolution ' ' develop ment/ and the like. Yet it can hardly be said to have considered the forms of thought which are best adapted for the expression of facts. It has never applied the categories to experience ; it has not defined the differences in our ideas of opposition, or development, or cause and effect, in the different sciences which make use of these terms. It rests IN TR OD UCTION. 4 1 9 on a knowledge which is not the result of exact or serious enquiry, but is floating in the air ; the mind has been imperceptibly informed of some of the methods required in the sciences. Hegel boasts that the move ment of dialectic is at once necessary and spontaneous: in reality it goes beyond experience and is unverified by it. Further, the Hegelian philosophy, while giving us the power of thinking a great deal more than we are able to fill up, seems also to be wanting in some determinations of thought which we require. We cannot say that physical science, which at present occupies so large a share of popular attention, has been made easier or more intelligible by the distinctions of Hegel. Nor can we deny that he has sometimes interpreted physics by metaphysics, and confused his own philosophical fancies with the laws of nature. The very freedom of the movement is not without suspicion, seeming to imply a state of the human mind which has entirely lost sight of facts. Nor can the necessity which is attributed to it be very stringent, seeing that the successive categories or determinations of thought in different parts of his writings are arranged by the philosopher in different ways. What is termed necessary evolution seems to be only the order in which a succession of ideas presented themselves to the mind of Hegel at a particular time. The nomenclature of Hegel has been made by himself out of the language of common life. He uses a few words only which are borrowed from his predecessors, or from the Greek philosophy, and these generally in a sense peculiar to himself. The first stage of his philosophy answers to the word ' is,' the second to the word * has been,' the third to the words 'has been' and ' is' combined. In other words, the first sphere is immediate, the second mediated by reflection, the third or highest returns into the first, and is both mediate and immediate. As Luther's Bible was written in the language of the common people, so Hegel seems to have thought that he gave his philosophy a truly German character by the use of idiomatic German words. But it may be doubted whether the attempt has been successful. First because such words as ' in sich seyn,' ' an sich seyn/ ' an und fur sich seyn/ though the simplest combination of nouns and verbs, require a difficult and elaborate explanation. The simplicity of the words contrasts with the hardness of their meaning. Secondly, the use of technical phraseology necessarily separates philo sophy from general literature ; the student has to learn a new language of uncertain meaning which he with difficulty remembers. No former E e 2, 420 SOPHIST. philosopher had ever carried the use of technical terms to the same extent as Hegel. The language of Plato or even of Aristotle is but slightly removed from that of common life, and was introduced naturally by a series of thinkers : the language of the scholastic logic has become technical to us, but in the Middle Ages was the vernacular Latin of priests and students. The higher spirit of philosophy, the spirit of Plato and Socrates, rebels against the Hegelian use of language as mechanical and technical. Hegel is fond of etymologies and often seems to trifle with words. He gives etymologies which are bad, and never considers that the mean ing of a word may have nothing to do with its derivation. He lived before the days of Comparative Philology or of Comparative Mythology and Religion, which would have opened a new world to him. He makes no allowance for the element of chance either in language or thought ; and perhaps there is no greater defect in his system than the want of a sound theory of language. He speaks as if thought, instead of being identical with language, was wholly independent of it. It is not the actual growth of the mind, but the imaginary growth of the Hegelian system, which is attractive to him. Neither are we able to say why of the common forms of thought some are rejected by him, while others have an undue prominence given to them. Some of them, such as ; ground ' and ' existence/ have hardly any basis either in language or philosophy, while others, such as ' cause and effect,' are but slightly considered. All abstractions are supposed by Hegel to derive their meaning from one another. This is true of some, but not of all, and in different degrees. There is an explanation of abstractions by the phenomena which they represent, as well as by their relation to other abstractions. If the knowledge of all were necessary to the knowledge of any one of them, the mind would sink under the load of thought. Again, in every process of reflection we seem to require a standing ground, and in the attempt to obtain a complete analysis we lose all fixedness. If, for example, the mind is viewed as the complex of ideas, or the difference between things and persons denied, such an analysis may be justified from the point of view of Hegel : but we shall find that in the attempt to criticise thought we have lost the power of thinking, and, like the Heracliteans of old, have no words in which our meaning can be expressed. Such an analysis may be useful as a corrective of popular language or thought, but should still allow us to retain the fundamental distinctions of philosophy. INTRODUCTION. 421 In the Hegelian system ideas supersede persons. The world of thought, though sometimes described as spirit or ' geist,' is really im personal. The minds of men are to be regarded as one mind, or more correctly as a succession of ideas. Any comprehensive view of the world must necessarily be general, and there may be a use with a view to comprehensiveness in dropping individuals and their lives and actions. In all things, if we leave out details, a certain degree of order begins to appear ; at any rate we can make an order which, with a little ex aggeration or disproportion in some of the parts, will cover the whole field of philosophy. But are we therefore justified in saying that ideas are the causes of the great movement of the world rather than the per sonalities which conceived them ? The great man is the expression of his time, and there may be peculiar difficulties in his age which he cannot overcome. He may be out of harmony with his circumstances, too early or too late, and then all his thoughts perish ; his genius passes away unknown. But not therefore is he to be regarded as a mere waif or stray in human history, any more than he is the mere creature or expression of the age in which he lives. His ideas are inseparable from himself, and would have been nothing without him. Through a thousand personal influences they have been brought home to the minds of others. He starts from antecedents, but he is great in proportion as he dis engages himself from them. Moreover the types of greatness differ ; while one man is the expression of the influences of his age another is in antagonism to them. One man is borne on the surface of the water ; another is carried forward by the current which flows beneath. The character of an individual, whether he be independent of circumstances or not, inspires others quite as much as his words. What is the teaching of Socrates apart from his personal history, or the doctrines of Christ apart from the Divine life in which they are embodied ? Has not Hegel himself delineated the greatness of the life of Christ as consisting in his ' shicksallosigkeit ' or independence of the destiny of his race ? Do not persons become ideas, and is there any distinction between them ? Take away the five greatest legislators, the five greatest warriors, the five greatest poets, the five greatest founders or teachers of a religion, the five greatest philosophers, the five greatest inventors, — where would have been all that we most value in knowledge or in life ? And can that be a true theory of the history of philosophy which, in Hegel's own lan guage, ' does not allow the individual to have his right'? Once more, while we readily admit that the world is relative to the 422 SOPHIST. mind, and the mind to the world, and that we must suppose a common or correlative growth in them, we shrink from saying that this complex nature can contain, even in outline, all the endless forms of being and knowledge. Are we not ' seeking the living among the dead ' and dignifying a mere logical skeleton with the name of philosophy and almost of God ? When we look far away into the primeval sources of thought and belief, do we suppose that the mere accident of our being the heirs of the Greek philosophers can give us a right to set ourselves up as having the true and only standard of reason in the world ? Or when we contemplate the infinite worlds in the expanse of heaven can we imagine that a few meagre categories derived from language and invented by the genius of one or two great thinkers contain the secret of the universe ? Or, having regard to the ages during which the human race may yet endure, do we suppose that we can anti cipate the proportions human knowledge may attain even within the short space of one or two thousand years ? Again we have a difficulty in understanding how ideas can be causes, which to us seems to be as much a ' figure of speech as the old notion of a creator artist who makes the world by the help of the demigods' (Plato, Tim.), or with ' a golden pair of compasses ' measures out the circumference of the universe (Milton, P. L.). We can understand how the idea in the mind of an inventor is the cause of the work which is produced by it ; and we can dimly imagine how this universal frame may be animated by a divine intelligence. But we cannot conceive how all the thoughts of men that ever were, which are themselves subject to so many external conditions of climate, country, and the like, even if regarded as the single thought of a divine being, can be supposed to have made the world. We seem to be only wrapping up ourselves in our own conceits — to be confusing cause and effect — to be losing the distinction between reflection and action, between the human and divine. These are some of the doubts and suspicions which arise in the mind of a student of Hegel, when, after living for a time within the charmed circle, he removes to a little distance and looks back upon what he has learnt, from the vantage ground of history and experience. The enthusiasm of his youth has passed away, the authority of the master no longer retains a hold upon him. But he does not regret the time spent in the study of him. He finds that he has received from him a real enlargement of mind, and much of the true spirit of philosophy, even when he has ceased to believe in him. He returns INTRODUCTION. 423 again and again to his writings as to the recollections of a first love, not undeserving of his admiration still. Perhaps if he were asked how he can admire without believing, or what value he can attribute to what he knows to be erroneous, he might answer in some such manner as the following : T. That in Hegel he finds glimpses of the genius of the poet and of the common sense of the man of the world. His system is not cast in a poetic form, but neither has all this load of logic extinguished in him the feeling of poetry. He is the true countryman of his con temporaries Goethe and Schiller. Many fine expressions are scattered up and down in his writings, as when he tells us that ' the Crusaders went to the Sepulchre but found it empty/ He delights to find vestiges of his own philosophy in the older German mystics. And though he can be scarcely said to have mixed much in the affairs of men, for, as his biographer tells us, ' he lived for thirty years in a single room/ yet he is far from being ignorant of the world. No one can read his writings without acquiring an insight into life. He loves to touch with the spear of logic the follies and self-deceptions of mankind, and make them appear in their natural form, stripped of the disguises of language and custom. He will not allow men to defend themselves by an appeal to one-sided or abstract principles. In this age of reason any one can easily find a reason for doing what he likes (Wallace, p. 197). He is suspicious of a distinction which is often made between a person's character and his conduct. His spirit is the opposite of that of Jesuitism or casuistry (Wallace, p. 181). He affords an example of a remark which has been often made, that in order to know the world it is not necessary to have had a great experience of it. 2. Hegel, if not the greatest philosopher, is certainly the greatest critic of philosophy who ever lived. No one else has equally mastered the opinions of his predecessors or traced the connection of them in the same manner. No one has equally raised the human mind above the trivialities of the common logic and the unmeaningness of ' mere' abstractions, and above imaginary possibilities, which, as he truly says, have no place in philosophy. No one has won so much for the kingdom of ideas. Whatever may be thought of his own system it will hardly be denied that he has overthrown Locke, Kant, Hume, and the so-called philosophy of common sense. He shows us that only by the study of metaphysics can we get rid of metaphysics, and that those who are in theory most opposed to them are in fact most entirely 424 SOPHIST. and hopelessly enslaved by them : ' die reine Physiker sind nur die thieren.' The disciple of Hegel will hardly become the slave of any other system-maker. What Bacon seems to promise him he will find realized in the great German thinker, a complete emancipation from the influences of the scholastic logic. 3. Many of those who are least disposed to become the votaries of Hegelianism nevertheless recognize in his system a new logic supplying a variety of instruments and methods hitherto unemployed. We may not be able to agree with him in assimilating the natural order of human thought with the history of philosophy, and still less in identifying both with the divine idea or nature. But we may acknowledge that the great thinker has thrown a light on many parts of human knowledge, and has solved many difficulties. We cannot receive his doctrine of opposites as the last word of philosophy, but we may still regard it as a very important contribution to logic. We cannot affirm that words have no meaning when taken out of their connection in the history of thought. But we recognize that their meaning is to a great extent due to association, and to their correlation with one another. We see the advantage of viewing in the concrete what mankind regard only in the abstract. There is much to be said for his faith or conviction, that God is immanent in the world, — within the sphere of the human mind, and not beyond it. It was natural that he himself, like a prophet of old, should regard the philosophy which he had invented as the voice of God in man. But this by no means implies that he conceived himself as creating God in thought. He was the servant of his own ideas and not the master of them. The philosophy of history and the history of philosophy may be almost said to have been discovered by him. He has thrown greater light upon Greek thought than all other writers put together. Many ideas of development, evolution, reciprocity, which have become the symbols of another school of thinkers may be traced to his speculations. In the theology and philosophy of England as well as of Germany and also in the lighter literature of both countries there are always appearing ' fragments of the great banquet ' of Hegel. SOPHIST. PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE. THEODORUS. THEAETETUS. SOCRATES. An ELEATIC STRANGER, whom Theodorus and Theaetetus bring with them. >teph. 216 Theodorus. HERE we are, as in duty bound, Socrates, accord ing to the agreement of yesterday, bringing with us a stranger from Elea, who is the follower of Parmenides and Zeno, and a true philosopher. Socrates. Is he not rather a god, Theodorus, who comes to us in the disguise of a stranger ? For Homer says that all the gods, and especially the god of strangers, are companions of the meek and just, and visit the good and evil among men. And may not your companion be one of those higher powers, a cross-examining deity, who, seeing our weakness in argument, has come to inspect and cross-examine us ? Theod. Nay, Socrates, he is not one of the disputatious set — he is too good for that. And, in my opinion, he is not a god at all ; but I do caJlJiim^ divine, for this is a title which I should give to all philosophers. Soc. Very true indeed, my friend ; and they are certainly as hard to be discerned as the gods. For the true philosophers, and such as are not merely made up for the occasion, appear in various forms unrecognised by the ignorance of men, and they ' walk to and fro in cities,' as Homer says, looking from above upon human life ; and some think nothing of them, and others can never think enough ; and sometimes they appear as states - men, and sometimes as sophists ; and then, again, they seem to 426 SOPHIST. many to be no better than madmen. I should like to ask our Eleatic friend, if he would tell us, what is thought in his country 21 about them, and to whom the terms are applied. Theod. What terms ? Soc. Sophist, statesman, philosopher. Theod. What is your difficulty about them, and what do you want to ask ? Soc. I want to know whether his countrymen regard them as one or two, or whether, as there are three names, there are not also three classes to which they assign them ? Theod. I dare say that the Stranger will not object to discuss them ? what do you say, Stranger ? Stranger. I am far from objecting, Theodorus, nor have I any difficulty in replying that they are regarded by us as tliree. But to define precisely the nature of each of them is anything but a slight or easy task. Theod. You have happened to light, Socrates, almost on the very question which we were asking our friend before we came hither, and he excused himself to us, as he does now to you ; although he admitted that the question had been well discussed, and that he remembered the answer. Soc. Then do not, Stranger, deny us the first favour which we ask of you : I am sure that you will not, and therefore I shall only beg you to say whether you like and are accustomed to speak at length on the subject which you want to explain to another, or to proceed by the method of questions. I remember hearing a very noble discussion in which Parmenides employed the latter of the two methods, when I was a young man, and he was far advanced in years. Sir. I prefer to talk with another when he responds plea santly, and is light in hand ; if not, I would rather have my own say. Soc. Any one of the present company will respond kindly to you, and you can choose whom you like of them ; I should recommend you to take a young person — Theaetetus, for ex ample — unless you have a preference for some one else. Sir. I feel ashamed, Socrates, at just coming into a new society, instead of talking a little and hearing others talk, to be spinning out a long soliloquy or address, as if I wanted to show SOPHIST. 427 off. For the true answer will be a very long one, and a great deal longer than might be expected from such a simple question. At the same time, I fear that I may seem ungracious if I refuse 218 your courteous request, especially after what you have said. For I certainly cannot object to your proposal, that Theaetetus should respond, having already myself conversed with him, and having your recommendation of him. Theaetetiis. But are you sure, Stranger, that this will be quite so acceptable to the rest of the company as Socrates imagines ? Str. You hear them applaud us, Theaetetus ; after that, there is nothing more to be said. Well then, I am to argue with you, and if you tire of the argument, you may complain of your friends and not of me. Theaet. I do not think that I shall tire, and if I do, I shall get my friend, young Socrates, the namesake of the other Socrates, to help ; he is about my own age, and my partner at the gym nasium, and is constantly accustomed to work with me. Str. Very good ; you can decide about that for yourself as we proceed. Meanwhile you and I will begin together and enquire into the nature of the Sophist, first of the three : I should like you to make him out and bring him to light in an argument ; for at present we are only agreed about the name. I dare say that we may both of us have the thing in our minds, but we ought always to come to an understanding about the thing in terms of a definition, and not merely about the name minus the definition. Now the tribe of Sophists which we are investigating is not easily caught or defined ; and the world has long ago agreed, that if great subjects are to be adequately treated, they must be studied in the lesser instances of them before we proceed to the greatest of all. And as I know that the tribe of Sophists is troublesome and hard to be caught, I should recommend that we first practise the method of dis covery in something easier, unless you can suggest any better plan. Theaet. Indeed I cannot. Str. Then suppose that we work out some lesser example which will be a pattern of the greater ? Theaet. Good. Str. What is there which is well known and not great, and is 428 SOPHIST. yet as susceptible of definition as any larger thing ? Shall I say an angler ? He is familiar to all of us, and not a very interest ing or important person. Thcaet. True. Sir. I suspect that he will supply us with a definition and 211 process of enquiry just such as we want. The act. Very true. Sir. Let us begin by asking whether he is a man having art or not having, but having some other power. Theact. He is clearly a man of art. Str. And there are two kinds of arts ? Theact. What are they ? Str. There is agriculture, and the tending of mortal creatures, and the art of constructing or moulding vessels, as we term them, and there is the art of imitation — all these may be pro perly called by a single name. Theaet. What do you mean ? And what is the name ? Str. He who brings into existence something that did not exist before is said to be a producer^ and that which is brought into existence is said to be produced. Theaet. True. Str. And all the arts which were just now mentioned are characterised by this power of producing ? Theaet. They are. Str. Then let us sum them up under the name of productive Theaet. Very good. Str. Next follows the whole class of learning and cognition, together with trade, fighting, hunting ; since none of these pro duces anything, but is only engaged in conquering by word or deed, or in preventing others from conquering things which exist and have been already produced — in each and all of these branches there appears to be an art which may be caHed acauisitive. Theaet. Yes, that is the proper name. Str. Seeing, then, that all arts are either acquisitive or crea tive, in which class shall we place the art of the angler ? Theaet. Clearly in the acquisitive class. Str. And the acquisitive may be subdivided into two parts : SOPHIST. 429 there is voluntary exchange, which is effected by gifts, hire, purchase ; and the other part of acquisitive, which takes by force of word or deed, may be termed forcible exchange ? Theaet. That is implied in what has been said. Sir. And may not this forcible exchange be again sub divided ? Theaet. How? Str. Open force may be called fighting, and secret force may have the general name of hunting ? Theaet. Yes. Str. And there will be a want of discrimination in not further dividing the art of hunting. Tlieaet. How would you make the division ? Str. Into the hunting of living and of lifeless prey. Theaet. Yes, if both kinds exist. 220 Str. Of course they exist ; but the hunting after lifeless things having no special name, except in the case of diving, and such small matters, may be omitted ; the hunting after living things may be called animal hunting. Theaet. Yes. Str. And animal hunting may be truly said to have two divisions, land animal hunting, which has many kinds and names, and the other the hunting after animals who swim — • water animal hunting? Theaet. True. Str. And of swimming animals, one class lives on the wing and the other in the water ? Theaet. Certainly. Str. Fowling is the general term under which the hunting of all birds is included. Theaet. True. Str. The hunting of animals who live in the water has the general name of fishing. Theaet. Yes. Str. And this sort of hunting may be further divided also into two principal kinds ? Theaet. What are they ? Str. There is one kind which takes them in nets, the other which takes them by a blow. 430 SOPHIST. Theaet. What do you mean, and how do you distinguish them ? Sir. As to the first kind — since all that surrounds and en closes anything to prevent egress, may be rightly called an enclosure Theaet. Very true. Str. For which reason twig baskets, casting-nets, nooses, cruives, and the like may all be termed 'enclosures'? Theaet. True. Str. And therefore this first kind of hunting may be called by us hunting with enclosures, or something of that sort ? TJieaet. Yes. Str. The other kind, which is practised with hooks and three- pronged spears, when summed up under one name, may be called striking, unless you, Theaetetus, can find some better name ? Theaet. No matter about the name—that will do very well. Str. There is one mode of striking, which is done at night, and by the light of a fire, and is called by the hunters them selves firing, or spearing by firelight. TJieaet. True. Str. And the fishing by day is called by the general name of ' fishing with barbs,' since the spears, too, are barbed at the point. Theaet. Yes, that is the term. Str. Of this barb -fishing, that which strikes the fish who is below from above is called spearing, because this is the way in which the three-pronged spears are used. Theaet. Yes, so it is often called. Str. Then now there is only one kind remaining. Theaet. What is that ? Str. When a hook is used, and the fish is not struck as with the spear, in any part, but only about the head and mouth, and is then drawn out from below upwards \vith reeds and rods : — 22 What is the right name of that mode of fishing, Theaetetus ? TJieaet. I suspect that we have now discovered the object of our search. Str. Then now you and I have come to an understanding not only about the name of the angler's art, but about the definition SOPHIST. 431 of the thing. One half of all art was acquisitive — half of the acquisitive art was conquest or taking by force, half of this was hunting, and half of the hunting was hunting animals, half of this was hunting water animals — of this again, the under half was fishing, half of fishing was striking ; the first half of striking was fishing with a barb, and one half of this again being the kind which strikes with a hook and draws the fish from below up wards, is the kind which we are now seeking, and which is hence denoted angling (a I may be one of those who see things at a distance only. 448 SOPHIST. Str. And the wish of all of us, who are your friends, is and always will be to bring you as near to the truth as we can 23^ without the sad reality. And now I should like you to tell me, whether the Sophist is not ^visibly a magician and imitator of true being ; or are we still disposed to think that he may have a true knowledge of the various matters about which he disputes ? Theaet. But how is that possible, Stranger? Is there any doubt, after what has been said, that he is to be located in one of the divisions of children's play ? Str. Then we must place him in the class of magicians and mimics. Theaet. Certainly we must. Str. And now our business is not to let the animal out, for we have got him in a sort ofAiialectical netXand there is one thing which_he certainly will not escape : Theaet. What is that ? Str. The inference that he is a juggler. Theaet. Precisely my own opinion of him. Str. Then, clearly, we ought as soon as possible to divide the image-making art, and go down into the net, and, if the Sophist does not run away from us, to seize him and deliver him over to reason, who is the lord of the hunt, and announce the capture of him ; and if he creeps into the recesses of the imitative art, and secretes himself in one of them, to divide again and follow him up, until in some subsection of imitation he is caught. For our method of~fackimg each andHTTls one which neither he nor any other creature will ever escape in triumph. Theaet. That is good, and let us do as you say. Str. Well, then, pursuing the same analytic method as before, I think that I can discern two divisions of the imitative art, but I am not as yet able to see in which of them the desired form is to be found. Theaet. Will you tell me first what are the two divisions of which you are speaking ? Str. One is the art of likeness-making ; — generally a likeness is made by producing a copy which is executed according to ^^"/ the proportions of the original, similar in length and breadth and depth, and also having colours answering to the several parts. SOPHIST. 449 Theaet. But is not this always the case in imitation ? Str. Not always ; in works either of sculpture or of painting, which are of any magnitude, there is a certain degree -of de- 236 ception ; for .if the true proportions were given, the upper part, which is farther off, would appear to be out of proportion in comparison with the lower, which is nearer ; and so our artists give up the truth in their images and make only the pro portions which appear to be beautiful, disregarding the real ones. Theaet. Quite true. Str. And that which being other is also like, may we not fairly call a likeness or image ? Theaet. Yes. Str. And may we not, as I did just now, call that part of the imitative art which is cpncerned with making such images the art of likeness-making ? Theaet. Let that be the name. Str. And what shall we call that resemblance of the beautiful, which is due to the unfavourable position of the spectator, but if a person had the power of seeing the great works of which I was speaking as they truly are, would appear not even like that to which it professes to be like? May we not call this an^appearance^since it appears only and isjio^eally like ? Theaet. Certainly. Str. There is a great deal of this in painting, and in all imitation ? Theaet. Of course. Str. And may we not fairly call the sort of art, which pro duces an appearance and not an image, phantastic art ? Theaet. That is very fair. Str. Then there are two kinds of image-making — the_art_of makJngJikenesseSg and phanta.stic^or the art of making appear- a rices? Theaet. True. Str. I was doubtful before in which of them I should place the Sophist, nor am I even now able to see clearly ; verily he is a wonderful being who has the art of making himself invisible. And now in the cleverest manner he has got into an impossible place. VOL. IV. G g 450 SOPHIST. Theaet. Yes, he has. Sir. Do you speak advisedly, or are you carried away by the current of the argument into giving a hasty assent ? Theaet. May I ask to what you are referring? Sir. My dear friend, we are engaged^m-a-vei^^difficult spe culation — there can be no doubt of that ; for how a thing can appear and seem and not be; or how a man can say a thing which is not true, has always been and still remains a very perplexing 237 question ; — Can any one say or think that falsehood really exists, and avoid contradiction? Indeed, Theaetetus, these are very difficult questions. Theaet. Why? Sir. He who says that falsehood exists has the audacity to assert the being of not-being, for that is implied in the possibility of falsehood. But, my boy, in the days when I was a boy, the great Parmenides protested against this, and to the end of his life he continued to inculcate the same lesson — always repeating both in verse and out of verse : ' Keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is:' Such is his testimony, which is confirmed by the very expres sion when sifted a little. Would you object to begin with the consideration of the words themselves? Theaet. Never mind about me ; I am only desirous that you should carry on the argument in the best way, and that you should take me with you. Sir. Very good ; and now say, do we venture to utter that forbidden word, ' not-being '? Theaet. Certainly we do. Str. Seriously then, and considering the question neither in strife nor play ; suppose that one of those present were asked 'to what is the term "not-being" to be applied;' how and to what would he apply the term, and what answer would he make to the enquirer? Theaet. A difficult question, and one not to be answered by a person like myself. Str. Well, there is no difficulty in seeing that the predicate ' not^being-' is not applicable to any being. Theaet. Certainly not. SOPHIST. 45 1 Str. And if not to any being, then not to something. T/ieaet. Of course not. Str. This is also plain, that in speaking of something we speak of being, for to speak of an abstract something naked and isolated from all being is impossible. Theaet. Impossible. Str. You mean by assenting to imply that he who says | something must say some one thing ? Theaet. Yes. Str. Some (rt) in the singular you would say is the sign of one, some in the dual (rive) of two, some in the plural of many (iWs). Theaet. Exactly. Str. Then he who says * not something' must absolutely say nothing. Theaet. Most assuredly. Str. And as we cannot admit that a man speaks and says nothing, he whjxsa^s-i-not-being' does not speak at all. Theaet. The difficulty of the argument can no further go. 238 Str. Not yet, my friend, is the time for such a word ; for there still remains of all perplexities the first and greatest, touching the very foundation of the matter. Theaet. What do you mean ? Do not be afraid to speak. Sir. To that which is, may be attributed some other thing which is? Theaet. Certainly. Str. But can anything which is, be attributed to that which is not ? Theaet. Impossible. Str. And all number is to be reckoned among things which are? Theaet. Yes, surely number, if anything, has a real existence. Str. Then we must not attempt to attribute to not-being number either in the singular or plural? Theaet. The argument implies that we should be wrong in doing so. Str. But how can a man either express or even conceive not-being or nonentities without number? Theaet. Tell me where is the difficulty. 452 SOPHIST. Str. When we speak of nonentities or _not-b ei ng_ JJXTJ ovra] in the plural, are we not attributing plurality to not-being? Theaet. Certainly. Str. But, on the other hand, when we say not-being in the singular, do we not attribute unity ? Theaet. Manifestly. Str. Nevertheless, we maintain that you may not and ought not to attribute being to not-being? Theaet. Most true. Soc. Do you see, then, that not-being in the abstract is inconceivable, unutterable, unspeakable, indescribable ? Theaet. Quite true. Str. But I was wrong then in telling you just now that the difficulty which was coming is the greatest of all. Theaet. What ! is there a greater still behind ? Str. Well, I am surprised that you do not see the difficulty in which he who would refute the notion of not-being is in volved. For the very words which I used imply that he is compelled to contradict himself as soon as he makes the attempt. Theaet. What do you mean ? Speak more clearly. Str. Do not expect clearness from me. For I, who maintain that not-being has no part either in the one or many, just now spoke and am still speaking of not-being as one. For I say not-being, — do you understand ? Theaet. Yes. Str. And a little while ago I said that not-being is unutter able, unspeakable, indescribable. Theaet. I follow after a fashion. Str. When I said ' Js^l did I not contradict what I said before ? Theaet. That is evident. 23$ Str. And in using the singular verb, did I not speak of not-being as one ? Theaet. Yes. Str. And when I spoke of not-being as indescribable and unspeakable and unutterable, in using each of these words in the singular, did I not refer to not-being as one ? Theaet. Certainly. Str. And yet we say that, strictly speaking, it should not be /\ SOPHIST. 453 defined either as one or many, and should not be called ' it,' for even the mere use of the word ' it' would imply a form of unity. Theaet. Quite true. Str. How, then, can any one put any faith in me ? For I am at a loss, as I have ever been found to be, in the refutation of not-being. And therefore, as I was saying, you had better not trust to the correctness of my way of speaking about not- being ; but let us try the question on you. Theaet. What do you mean ? Str. Make a noble effort, as becomes youth, and try with all your might to speak of not-being according to reason, without implying either existence or unity or plurality. Theaet. It would be a strange boldness in me which would make the attempt when I see you thus discomfited. Str. Say no more of ourselves ; but until we find some one or other who can speak of nothing without number, say rather that the Sophist is a clever rogue who will not be got out of his hole. Theaet. Most true. Str. And if we say to him that he has some art of making appearances, he will retort our argument upon ourselves, tying our words behind our backs ; and wrhen we call him an image- maker he will say, ' Pray_jadia/Ldo you mean by_ajiJiriage ? ' and I should like to know, Theaetetus, how we can possibly answer the younker's question ? Theaet. We shall doubtless tell him of the images which are reflected in water or in mirrors ; also of sculptures, pictures, and other duplicates. Str. I see, Theaetetus, that you have never made the ac quaintance of the Sophist. Theaet. Why do you say so ? Str. He will make believe that his eyes are shut, or that he has none. Theaet. What do you mean ? Str. When you tell him of something existing in a mirror, 240 or of statues, and address him as though he had eyes, he will laugh at your words, and will pretend that he knows nothing of mirrors and streams, or of sight at all ; he will say that he is asking about an idea. 454 SOPHIST. Theaet. What does he mean ? Str. The common notion which pervades these many objects, which you call by one name, and speak of as one when you pronounce the word ' image.' How will you maintain your ground against him? Theaet. How can I describe an image except as such another made in the likeness of the true ? Str. When you say such another do you mean another real thing, or what do you mean by ' such '? Theaet. Certainly not another real thing, but only a resem blance. Str. And you mean by true or real that which really is ? Theaet. Yes. Str. And the not true or not real is that which is the opposite of the true or real ? Theaet. Exactly. Str. A resemblance, then, is not real if, as you say, not true ? Theaet. Yes, it is in a certain sense real. Str. But you mean to say not in a true sense ? x? Theaet. No, only realjji being ajikeriess. Str. Then what we call a likeness is really unreal, and essen tially not. Theaet. In what a strange complication of being and not- being we are involved ! Str. Strange ! I should think so. See how, by the help of this reciprocation of opposites, the many-headed Sophist has con trived to make us admit the existence of not-being, much against our will. Theaet. Yes, indeed, I see. Str. The difficulty is how to define his art without falling into a contradiction. Theaet. How do you mean? And where does the danger lie? Str. When we say that he deceives us with an illusion, and that his art is illusory, shall we say that our soul is led by his arts to think falsely, or what shall we say? Theaet. There is nothing else to be said. Str. Again, false opinion is that form of opinion which thinks the opposite of the truth : — You would assent ? SOPHIST. 455 TJicaet. Certainly. Str. You mean to say that false opinion thinks what is not? Theaet. Of course. Str. Does false opinion hold that things which are not are not, or that in a certain sense they are ? Theaet. Things that are not must be imagined to exist in a certain sense, if any degree of falsehood is to be admitted. Str. And does not false opinion also think that things which most certainly are, are not ? Theaet. Yes. Str. And this, again, is falsehood ? TJieaet. Falsehood — yes. Str. And in like manner, a_jfalse proposition will be con sidered to be one which__as_serts the non-existence of things which are, and the existence of things which are not. Theaet. There is no other way in which a false proposition can be conceived. 241 Str. There is not ; but the Sophist will deny these state ments. And indeed how can any rational man assent to them, seeing that the very expressions which we have just used were before acknowledged by us to be unutterable, unspeakable, in describable, inconceivable ? Do you see his point, Theaetetus ? Theaet. Of course he will say that we are contradicting our selves when we hazard the assertion, that falsehood exists in opinion and in words ; for in maintaining this, we are compelled over and over again to assert being of not-being, which we have admitted just now to be an utter impossibility. Str. You remember well ; and now I think we had better hold a consultation as to what we ought to do about the Sophist ; for if we persist in looking for him in the class of false workers and magicians, you see that the handles for objection and the difficulties which will arise are very numerous and obvious. Theaet. Very true. Str. We have gone through a very small portion of them, and they are really infinite. Theaet. If that is the case, we cannot possibly take the Sophist. 456 SOPHIST. Str. Shall we be faint-hearted and give him up ? Theaet. Certainly not, I should say, if we can get the slightest hold of him. Str. Will you then forgive me, and, as your words imply, be contented if I slightly flinch from the grasp of such a sturdy argument ? Theaet. To be sure I will. Str. I have also another request to make. Theaet. Which is — ? Str. That you will promise not to regard me as a parricide. Theaet. Why do you say that ? Str. Because, in self-defence, I must test the philosophy of my father Parmenides, and try to prove by main force that in a certain sense not-being is, and that being is not. Theaet. Some attempt of the kind is clearly needed. Str. Yes, a blind man, as they say, might see that, and, unless these questions are decided, no one when he speaks of false words, or false opinion, or idols, or images, or imitations, or appearances, or about the arts which are concerned with them, can avoid falling into ridiculous contradictions. Theaet. Most true. Str. And therefore I must venture to lay hands on my father's 242 argument ; if I am to be over scrupulous, I must entirely give the matter up. Theaet. Nothing in the world should ever induce us to do so. Str. I have a third little excuse which I wish to offer. Theaet. What is it ? Str. You heard me say what I have always felt and still feel — that I have no heart for this argument ? Theaet. I did. Str. I tremble at the thought of what I have said, and expect that you will deem me mad, when you hear of my sudden changes and shiftings ; let me therefore observe to you, that I am examining the question entirely out of regard for you. Theaet. You certainly need not fear my bad opinion, or that I shall impute any impropriety to you, if you attempt this refutation and proof; take heart, therefore, and proceed. Str. And where shall I begin the perilous enterprise ? I think that the road which I had Letter take is SOPHIST. 457 TJieaet. Which ? — Let me hear. Str. I think that we had better, first of all, consider the points which at present are regarded as self-evident, lest we should have fallen into some confusion about them, and be too ready to assent to one another, fancying that we have the means of judging. Theaet. Say more clearly what you mean. Str. I think that Parmenides, and all who undertook to deter mine the number and nature of existences, talked to us in rather a light and easy strain. Theaet. How did they talk to us ? Str. As if we had been children, to whom they repeated each their own particular mythus or story ; — one said that there were three principles at one time warring in a manner with one another, and then at peace again ; and they were married and begat children, and brought them up ; and another spoke of two principles, — a moist and dry, or hot and cold, which he brought together and gave in marriage to one another. The Eleatics in our part of the world say that all things are many in name, but in nature one ; this is their mythus, which begins with Xenophanes, and is even older. Then there are Ionian, and in more recent times Sicilian muses, who have conceived the thought that to unite the two principles is safer ; and they say that being is one and many, which are held together by enmity and friendship, ever parting, ever meeting, as the more potent masters of harmony assert, while the gentler ones do not insist on the perpetual strife 243 and peace, but admit a relaxation and alternation of them ; peace and friendship sometimes prevailing under the sway of Aphrodite, and then again diversity and war, by reason of a principle of strife. Whether any of them spoke the truth in all this is hard to determine ; antiquity and famous men should have reverence, and not be liable to accusations so serious. Yet one thing may be said of them without offence — Theaet. What thing ? Str. That they went on their several ways with a good deal of disdain of people like ourselves ; they did not care whether they took us with them, or left us behind them. Theaet. How do you mean ? Str. I mean to say, that when they talk of one, two, or more 458 SOPHIST. elements, which are or have become or are becoming, or again of heat mingling with cold, and in some other part of their works assume separations and combinations of them, — tell me, Theae- tetus, do you understand what they mean by these expressions ? When I was a younger man, I used to fancy that I understood quite well what was meant by the term ' not-being,' which is our present subject of dispute ; and now you see in what a per plexity we are. Theaet. I see. Str. And very likely we have been getting into the same difficulty about ' being,' and yet may fancy that when anybody utters the word, we understand him and are in no difficulty, although we still admit that we are ignorant of not-being, when the truth is, that we are equally ignorant of both. Theaet. I dare say. Str. And the same may be said of all the subjects of the previous discussion. Theaet. True. Str. Most of them may be deferred for the present ; but we had better now consider the chief captain and leader of them. Theaet. I suppose that you are speaking of being, and you- want to take this first, and discover what they mean who use the word ? Str. You follow close at my heels, Theaetetus. For the right method, I conceive, will be to call into our presence and interro gate the dualistic philosophers. To them we will say, ' O ye, who speak of hot and cold, or of any other two principles of which the universe consists, what term is this which you apply to both of them, and what do you mean when you say that both and each of them are? How are we to understand the word " are " ? Are we to suppose that there is a third principle over and above the other two, and that there are three in all, and not two, according to your notions? For clearly you cannot say that one of the two principles is being, and yet attribute being equally to both of them ; for, if you did, whichever of the two is identified with being, will comprehend the other, and so they will be one and not two.' TJicact. Very true. Str. You mean, then, to call the sum of both of them 'being'? SOPHIST. 459 Thcaet. I suppose so. 244 Str. 'Then, friends,' we shall reply to them, 'the answer is plainly that the two will thus be resolved into one.' Theaet. Most true. Sir. ' Since, then, we are in a difficulty, please to tell us what you mean, when you speak of being ; for there can be no doubt that you always from the first understood your own meaning, whereas we once thought that we understood you, but now we are in a great strait. Please to begin by explaining this matter to us, and let us no longer fancy that we understand you, when we entirely misunderstand you.' There will be no impro priety in our thus enquiring either of the dualists or of the pluralists? Thcaet. Certainly not. Sir. And what about the assertors of the oneness of the all — • must we not endeavour to ascertain from them what they mean by 'being' ? Theaet. By all means. Str. Then let us ask a question of them : ' One, you say, alone is ? Yes, they will reply.' Theaet. True. Str. 'And, again, being is?' Theaet. Yes. Str. ' And is being the same as one, and do you apply two names to the same thing ? ' Theaet. What will be their answer, Stranger ? Str. It is clear, Theaetetus, that he who asserts the unity of being will find a difficulty in answering this or any other question. Thcaet. Why so ? Str. To admit of two names, and to affirm that there is nothing but unity, is surely ridiculous ? Thcaet. Certainly. Str. And equally irrational to admit that a name has any real existence l ? TJieaet. How so ? Str. To distinguish the name from the thing, implies duality. TJicact. Yes. Str. And yet he who identifies the name with the thing will 1 Readin oi. 460 SOPHIST. be compelled to say that the name is of nothing, or if he says that the name is of a thing, even then the name will only be the name of a name, and of nothing else. Theaet. True. Sir. The one in the same way will be only one of one, and being unity itself, will not be of a name 1. Tkeaet. Certainly. Sir. And would they say that the whole is other than the one that is, or the same with it ? TJieaet. To be sure they will, and do say so. Str.\Ify the one is a whole, as Parmenides sings, — 0. ' Every way like the fullness of a well-formed sphere, *f Equally balanced from the centre on every side, And must needs be neither greater nor less, Neither on this side nor on that ' then being has a centre and extremes, and, having these, must also have parts. Theaet. True. Str. And that which has parts may have the attribute of unity 245 in all the parts, and in this way being all and a whole, may be one ? TJieaet. Certainly. Str. But that of which this is the condition cannot be absolute unity ? Theaet. How is that? Str. Because, according to right reason, that which is absolutely one must be affirmed to be indivisible. Theaet. Certainly. Str. But this indivisible, if made up of parts, will contradict reason. Theaet. I understand. Str. Shall we say that being is one and a whole only as having the attribute of unity? Or shall we say that being is not a whole at all ? Theaet. That is a hard alternative to offer. Str. Most true ; far being having in a certain sense the attri- 1 The text is uncertain ; or, reading with Heindorf in the last clause *al TOVTO ovofjictTos ad TO fv ov — * And one is but the name of one, and that one proves to be a name.' SOPHIST. 461 bute of one, is yet proved not to be the same as one, and the all is therefore more than one. Theaet. Yes. Sir. And yet if being, having the attribute of one, be not a whole, and there be such a thing as an absolute whole, then being lacks something of the nature of being ? Theaet. Certainly. Str. Upon this view, again, being, having a defect of being, will become not-being ? Theaet. True. , Str. And, again, the all becomes more than one, for being and the whole will each have their separate nature. Theaet. Yes. Str. But if the whole does not exist at all, all the previous difficulties remain the same, and there will be the further diffi culty, that besides having no being, being can never have come into being. Theaet. Why so ? Str, Because that which comes into being always comes into being as a whole, so that he who does not give whole a place among beings, cannot speak either of essence or generation as existing. Theaet. Yes, that certainly appears to be true. Str. Again ; how can that which is not a whole have any quantity ? For that which is of a certain quantity must neces sarily be of that quantity taken as a whole. Theaet. Exactly. Str. And there will be innumerable other points, each of them involving infinite perplexity to him who says that being is either one or two. Theaet. The difficulties which are already appearing prove this ; for one objection connects with another, and they are always increasing in difficulty and eliciting fresh doubts about what has preceded. Str. We are far from having exhausted the more exact thinkers who treat of being and not-being. But let us be con tent to leave them, and proceed to view those who speak less 246 precisely ; and we shall find as the result of all, that the nature of being is quite as difficult to comprehend as that of not-being. 462 SOPHIST. Theaet. Then now we are to go to the others. Str. There appears to be a sort of war of Giants and Gods going on amongst them ; they are fighting about the nature of essence. Theaet. How is that ? Str. Some of them are dragging down all things from heaven and from the unseen to earth, and seem determined to grasp in their hands rocks and oaks ; of these they lay hold, and are obstinate in maintaining, that the things only which can be touched or handled have being or essence, because they define being and body as one, and if any one else says that what is not a body exists they altogether despise him, and will hear of nothing but body. Theaet. I have often met with such men, and terrible fellows they are. Str. And that is the reason why their opponents cautiously defend themselves from above, out of an unseen world, mightily contending that true essence consists of certain intelligible and incorporeal ideas ; the bodies of the materialists, which by them are maintained to be the very truth, they break up into little bits by their arguments, and affirm them to be generation and not essence. O, Theaetetus, there is an endless war upon this theme which is always being waged between the two armies. Theaet. True. Str. Let us ask each of them, in turn, to give an account of that which they call essence. TJieaet* How shall we get it out of them ? Str. With those who make being to consist in ideas, there will be less difficulty, for they are civil people enough ; but there will be very great difficulty, or rather an absolute impossibility, in arguing with those who drag everything down to matter. I will tell you what I think that we must do. Theaet. What r Str. Let us, if we can, really improve them ; but if this is not possible, let us imagine them to be better than they are, and more willing to answer in accordance with the rules of argument, and then their opinion will be more worth having ; for that which better men acknowledge has more weight than that which SOPHIST. 463 is acknowledged by inferior men. And we are no respecters of persons, but seekers of the truth. Theaet. Very good. Str. Then now, on the supposition that they are improved, let us ask them to state their views, and do you interpret them. Theaet. Agreed. Str. Let them say whether they would admit that there is such a thing as a mortal animal. Theaet. Of course they would. Str. And do they not acknowledge this to be a body having a soul ? Theaet. Certainly they do. Str. Meaning to say that the soul is a being ? 247 Tlieaet. True. Str. And do they not say that one soul is just, and another unjust, and that one soul is wise, and another foolish? Theaet. Certainly. Str. And that the just and wise soul becomes just and wise by the possession and presence of justice, and the opposite by the opposite ? Theaet. Yes, they do. Str. But surely that which may be present or may be absent will be admitted by them to exist ? Theaet. Certainly. Str. And, allowing that these qualities of virtue, justice, and the like all exist, as well as the soul in which they inhere, do they affirm any of them to be visible and tangible, or are they all invisible ? Theaet. None of them surely are invisible. Str. And would they say that they are corporeal ? Theaet. They would distinguish : the soul would be said by them to have a body ; but as to the other qualities of justice, wisdom, and the like, about which you asked, they would not venture either to deny their existence, or to maintain that they were all corporeal. Str. Verily, Theaetetus, I perceive a great improvement in them ; the real aborigines, children of the dragon's teeth, would have been deterred by no shame at all, but would have obstin- 464 SOPHIST. ately asserted that nothing is which they are not able to compress in their hands. Theaet. That is pretty much their notion. Sir. Let us push the question ; for if they will admit that any, even the smallest particle of being, is incorporeal, that is enough ; they must then say what that nature is which is com mon to both the corporeal and incorporeal, and which they have in their mind's eye when they say of both of them that they ' are.' Perhaps they may be in a difficulty ; and if this is the case, there is a possibility that they may accept a notion of ours respecting the nature of essence, having nothing of their own to offer. Theaet. What is the notion ? Tell us, and we shall see. Str. My notion would be, that anything which possesses any sort of power to affect another, or to be affected by another even for a moment, however trifling the cause and however slight and momentary the effect, has-ieai-exislejice ; and I hold that the definition of being is simply power. Theaet. They accept your suggestion, having nothing better of their own to offer. Str. Very good ; perhaps we, as well as they, may one day change our mind ; but, for the present, this may be regarded as 24 the understanding which is established with them. Theaet. Agreed. Str. Let us now go to the friends of ideas ; of their opinions, too, you shall be the interpreter. Theaet. I will. Str. To them we say — You would distinguish essence from generation. Theaet. Yes ; they reply. Str. And you would allow that we participate in generation with the body, and by perception ; but we participate with the soul by thought in true essence, and essence you would affirm to be always the same and immutable, whereas gene ration varies. Theaet. Yes ; that is what we should affirm. Str. Well, fair sirs, we say to them, what is this participation, which you assert of both? Do you agree with our recent de finition ? SOPHIST. 465 Theaet. What definition ? Str. We said that participation is an active or passive energy, which arises out of a certain power of elements meeting with one another. Perhaps your ears, Theaetetus, may fail to catch their answer, which I recognise because I am accustomed to them. Theaet. And what is their answer? Str. They deny the truth of what we were just now saying to the aborigines respecting essence. Theaet. What was that ? Str. Any power of doing or suffering in a degree however slight was held by us to be the definition of existence : Theaet. True. Str. They deny this, and say that . the power of doing or suffering is confined to generation, and that neither idea ac cords with being. Theaet. And is there not something in what they say ? Str. Yes, but our reply will be, that we want to ascertain from them distinctly, whether they admit that the soul knows, and that being or essence is known. Theaet. There can be no doubt that they say so. Str. And is knowing and being known, doing or suffering or both, or is the one doing and the other suffering, or has neither any share in either ? Theaet. Clearly, neither has any share in either ; for if they say anything else, they will contradict themselves. Str. I understand ; but still they will allow that if to know is active, then, of course, to be known is passive — And on this view being, as being known, is acted upon by knowledge, and is therefore in motion, for that which is in a state of rest cannot be acted upon, as we affirm. Theaet. True. 249 Str. And, O heavens, can we ever be made to believe that motion and life and soul and mind are not present with absolute being? Can we imagine being to be devoid of life and mind, and to remain in awful unmeaningness an everlast ing fixture? Theaet. A terrible admission, Stranger. Str. But shall we say that being has mind and not life ? VOL. IV. H h 466 SOPHIST. TJieaet. How can that be ? Sir. Or both, but that there is no soul in which they exist ? Theaet. And how else can they exist ? Sir. Or that being has mind and life and soul, but although endowed with soul remains entirely unmoved ? Theaet. All three suppositions appear to me to be irrational. Sir. Under being, then, we must include motion, and that which is moved. Theaet. Certainly. Str. Then, Theaetetus, our inference is, that if there is no motion, neither is there any mind anywhere, or about anything or belonging to any one. Theaet. Quite true. Str. And yet this equally follows, if we grant that all things are in motion — upon this view too mind has no existence. Theaet. How so ? Str. Do you think that sameness and permanence and relation to the same could exist not having rest ? Theaet. Certainly not. Str. Do you suppose that without them mind could exist, or could come into existence anywhere ? Theaet- No. Str. And surely contend we must in every possible way against him who would annihilate knowledge and reason and mind, and yet ventures to speak confidently about anything. Theaet. Very true. Str. Then the philosopher, who has the truest reverence for being, cannot possibly accept the notion of those who say that the whole is at rest, either in one or many forms : and he will be equally deaf to those who assert universal motion ; but as children say entreatingly 'Give us both1,' so he must include both the moveable and immoveable in his definition of being and all. Theaet. Most true. Str. And now, do we not seem to have gained a fair notion of being ? Theaet. Yes truly. 1 The text of this passage is probably corrupt. SOPHIST. 467 Str. Alas, Theaetetus, methinks that we are now only begin ning to see the real difficulty of the enquiry about being. Theaet. What do you mean ? Str. O my friend, do you not see that nothing can exceed our ignorance, and yet we fancy that we are saying something good ? Theaet. I certainly thought that we were ; and I do not at all understand why you assume this desponding tone. 50 Str. Reflect : after having made these admissions, may we not be justly asked the same questions which we were asking of those who said that all was hot and cold ? Theaet. What were they ? Will you recall them to my mind ? Str. To be sure I will, and I will remind you of them, by putting the same questions to you which I did to them, and then we shall get on. Theaet. True. Str. Would you not say that rest and motion are in the most entire opposition to one another? Theaet. Of course. Str. And yet you would say that both and either of them equally are ? Theaet. I should. Str. And when you say that both or either of them are, do you mean to say that both or either of them are in motion ? Theaet. Certainly not. Str. Or do you mean that they are both at rest, when you say that they are ? Theaet. Of course not. Str. Then you conceive of being as some third and distinct nature, under which rest and motion are included ; and, ob serving that they both participate in being, you declare that they are. Theaet. I suspect that we must conceive of being as some third thing, when we say that rest and motion are. Str. Then being is not the combination of rest and motion, but something different from them. Theaet. That seems to be true. Str. Being, then, according to its pwn nature, is neither in motion nor at rest. H h 2 468 SOPHIST. Theaet. That is very much the truth. Str. Where, then,, is he to look for help who would attain any clear or fixed notion of being in his own mind ? Theaet. Where, indeed? Str. I do not think that he can look anywhere ; for that which is not in motion must be at rest, and again, that which is not at rest must be in motion ; but being is placed outside of both these classes. Is this possible ? Theaet. Utterly impossible. Str. Here, then, is another thing which we ought to bear in mind. Theaet. What? Str. When we were asked to what we were to assign the appellation of not-being, we were in the greatest difficulty : — do you remember? Theaet. To be sure. Str. And are we not now in as great a difficulty about being? Theaet. I should say, Stranger, that we are in one which, if possible, is even greater. Str. Then let us acknowledge the difficulty, and as being and not-being are involved in a like perplexity, there may be hope that when the one appears more or less distinctly, the other will equally appear ; and if we are able to see neither, there may 25 still be a chance of steering our way in between them, without any great discredit. Theaet. Very good. Str. Let us enquire, then, how we come to predicate many names of the same thing. Theaet. Give an example. Str. I mean that we speak of man, for example, under many names — that we attribute to him colours and forms and magni tudes and virtues and vices, in all of which and in ten thousand other cases, we not only speak of him as a man, but also as good, and having numberless other attributes ; and in the same way anything else which we originally supposed to be one is described by us as many, and under many names. Theaet. That is true. Str. And thus we provide a rich feast for tyros, whether SOPHIST. 469 young or old ; for there is nothing easier than to argue that the one cannot be many, or the many one ; and great is their delight in denying that a man is good ; but man, they insist, is man and good is good. I dare say that you have met with persons who take an interest in such matters — they are often elderly men, whose meagre sense is thrown into amazement by these discoveries of theirs, which they regard as the highest form of wisdom. TJieact. Certainly, I have. Str. Then, not to exclude any one who has ever speculated at all upon the nature of being, let us put our questions to them as well as to our former friends. TJieaet. What questions ? Str. Shall we refuse to attribute being to motion and rest, or anything to anything, but assume that they do not mingle, and are incapable of participating in one another? Or shall we gather all into one class of things communicable with one another? Or are some things communicable and others not? — Which of these alternatives, Theaetetus, will they prefer ? TJieaet. I have nothing to answer on their behalf. Suppose that you take all these hypotheses in turn, and see what are the consequences which follow from each of them. Str. Very good, and first let us assume them to say that nothing is capable of participating in anything else ; in that 252 case rest and motion cannot participate in being at all. Thcact. They cannot. Str. Would either of them exist if devoid of participation in being? Theaet. No. Str. Then by this admission everything is instantly over turned, as well the doctrine of universal motion as of universal rest, and also the doctrine of those who distribute being into immutable and everlasting kinds, for all these add on a notion of being, some affirming that there is a 'being' of motion, and others that there is a 'being' of rest. TJieaet. Certainly. Str. Again, those who would at one time compound, and at another resolve all things, whether making them into one and out of one creating infinity, or dividing them into finite 470 SOPHIST. elements, and compounding them out of these ; whether they suppose the processes of creation to be successive or continuous, would be talking nonsense in all this if there were no ad mixture. Theaet. True. Sir. Most ridiculous of all will be the men themselves, who forbid us to call anything, because participating in some affection from another, by the name of that other. Theaet. Why so ? Str. Why, because they are compelled to use the words ' to be,' 'apart,' 'from others,' 'in itself/ and ten thousand more, which they cannot give up, but must make the connecting links of discourse ; and therefore they do not require to be refuted by others, but their enemy, as the saying is, inhabits the same house with them ; like the wonderful ventriloquist, Eurycles, they are always carrying about with them an ad versary who out of their own bellies audibly contradicts them. Theaet. That is a very exact illustration of them. Str. And now, if we suppose that all things have the power of communion with one another — what will follow ? Theaet. Even I can answer that supposition. Str. How? Theaet. Why, if all things have communion with all, this implies that rest has motion, and motion has rest. Str. Than which surely nothing can be a greater absurdity ? Theaet. Of course. Str. Then only the third hypothesis remains. Theaet. True. Str. But, surely, either all things have communion with all, or nothing with any other thing ; or some things communicate with some things and others not. Theaet. Certainly. Str. And two out of these three suppositions have been proved to be impossible. Theaet. Yes. Str. Every one then, who desires to answer truly, will adopt the third or remaining hypothesis of the communion of some with some. Theaet. Quite true. SOPHIST. 471 253 Sir. This communion of some with some may be illustrated by the case of letters ; for some letters do not fit each other, but others do. Theaet. Of course. Str. And the vowels, especially, are a sort of bond which pervades all the other letters, so that without a vowel one consonant cannot be joined to another. Theaet. True. Str. But does every one know what letters will unite with what ? Or is art required in order to know ? Theaet. Art is required. Str. What art ? Theaet. The art of grammar. Str. And is not this also true of sounds sharp and flat? — Is not he who has the art to know what sounds mingle, a musician, and he who does not know, not a musician ? Theaet. Yes. Str. And we shall find this to be generally true of art or the absence of art. Theaet. Of course. Str. And as classes are admitted by us in like manner to be some of them capable and others incapable of admixture, must not he who would rightly show what kinds will unite and what will not, proceed by the help of reason and science ? And will he not ask whether there are any universal classes which bind them all together and make them capable of admixture ; and other universals, which are necessary in all division ? Theaet. To be sure he will require science, and, if I am not mistaken, the very greatest of all sciences. Str. And what is the name of this science? Have we not unintentionally fallen upon a gentle art, and in looking for the Sophist have entertained the philosopher unawares ? Theaet. What do you mean ? Str. Should we not say that the division according to classes, which neither makes the same other, nor makes other the same, is the business of the dialectical science ? Theaet. That is what we should say. Str. Then, surely, he who can divide rightly is able to see clearly one form pervading many individuals which lie apart, 472 SOPHIST. and many different forms contained under one higher form ; and again, one comprehensive form pervading many such wholes, and many others, existing only in separation and isolation. This is the knowledge of classes which determines where theyj can have communion with one another and where not. Theaet. Quite true. Sir. And the art of dialectic would be attributed by you only to the philosopher pure and true ? TJtcact. Who but he can be worthy ? Str. This is the region in which we shall always discover the philosopher, both now and hereafter ; like the Sophist, he is not easily discovered, but for a different reason. 254 Theaet. For what reason ? Str. Because the Sophist runs away into the darkness of not-being, in which he has learned by habit to feel about, and cannot be discovered himself because of the darkness of the place. Is not that true ? Theaet. Quite so. Str. And the philosopher, always holding converse through reason with the idea of being, is also dark from excess of light ; for the eyes of the soul of the multitude are unable to endure the vision of the divine. Theaet. Yes ; that is quite as true as the other. Str. Well, the philosopher may hereafter be more fully considered by us, if we are disposed ; but the Sophist plainly must not be allowed to escape until we have had a good look at him. Theaet. Very good. Str. Since, then, we are agreed that some classes have a communion with one another, and others not, and some have communion with a few and others with many, and that there is no reason why some should not have universal communion with all, let us now pursue the enquiry, not in relation to all ideas, lest the multitude of them should confuse us, but let us select a few of those which are reckoned to be the principal ones, and consider their several natures and their capacity of communion with one another, in order that if we are not able to apprehend with perfect clearness the notions of being and not-being, we may at least reason about them, as far as the SOPHIST. 473 method of the present enquiry permits, and see whether we may be allowed to assert the reality of not-being, and yet escape unscathed. Theaet. That is what we must do. Str. The most important of all the genera are those which we were just now mentioning — being and rest and motion. Theaet. They are by far the most important. Str. And two of these are, as we affirm, incapable of com munion with one another. Theaet. No doubt. Str. Whereas being surely has communion with both of them, for both of them are ? Theaet. Of course. Str. That makes up three of them. Theaet. To be sure. Str. And each of them is other than the two others, and the same with itself. Theaet. True. Str. But then, what is the meaning of these two words, 'same' and 'other'? Are they two new kinds other than the three, and yet always of necessity holding communion with them, and are we to have five kinds instead of three, or when we speak of the same and other, are we unconsciously speaking 255 of one of the three first kinds ? Theaet. Very likely we may be. Str. But, surely, motion and rest are neither the other nor the same. Theaet. How is that ? Str. Whatever we attribute to motion and rest in common, cannot be either of them. Theaet. Why not ? Str. Because motion would be at rest and rest in motion, for either of them, being predicated of both, will compel the other to change into the opposite of its own nature, because partaking of its opposite. Theaet. Quite true. Str. Yet they surely both partake of the same and of the other ? TJieaet. Yes. 474 SOPHIST. Sir. Then we must not assert that motion, any more than rest, is either the same or the other. Theaet. No ; we must not. Str. But are we to conceive that being and the same are identical ? Theaet. Possibly. Str. But if they are identical, then again in saying that motion and rest have being, we should also be saying that they are the same. Theaet. And that surely cannot be. Str. Then being and the same cannot be one. Theaet. Scarcely. Str. Then we may suppose the same to be a fourth class, which is now to be added to the three others. Theaet. Quite true. Str. And shall we call 'the other' a fifth class? Or shall we say that being and other are two names of the same class ? Theaet. Very likely. Str. But you would agree, if I am not mistaken, that exis tences are relative as well as absolute. Theaet. Certainly. Str. And the other is always relative of other. Theaet. True. Str. But this would not be the case unless being and the other entirely differed ; for, if the other, like being, were abso lute as well as relative, then there would have been a kind of other which was not other of other. And now we find that what is other must of necessity be in relation to some other. Theaet. That is the true state of the case. Str. Then we must admit the 'other' as the fifth of our selected classes. Theaet. Yes. Str. And the fifth class pervades all classes, for they all differ from one another, not by reason of their own nature, but because they partake of the idea of the other. Theaet. Quite true. Str. Then let us now put the case with reference to each of the five. Theaet. How? SOPHIST. 475 Str. First there is motion, which we affirm to be the absolute ' other ' of rest : that is what we should say. Theaet. True. Str. And therefore is not rest. TJieaet. Certainly not. Str. And yet is, because partaking of being. 256 Theaet. True. Str. Again motion is other than the same ? Theaet. Quite true. Str. And is therefore not the same. Theaet. Certainly not. Str. Yet, surely, motion is the same, because all things partake of the same. Theaet. True. Str. Then we must admit, and not object to say, that motion is the same and is not the same, for we do not apply the terms ' same ' and ' not the same,' in the same sense ; but we call it the same in relation to itself, because partaking of the same, and not the same, because having communion with the other, and being thereby separated from the same, and becoming not that but other, and therefore rightly spoken of as not the same. Theaet. Quite true. Str. And if absolute motion in any point of view partook of rest, there would be no absurdity in calling motion stationary. Theaet. Right, — that is, on the supposition that some classes mingle with one another, and others not. Str. That the communion of kinds is according to nature, we had already proved (254 B) before we arrived at this part of our discussion. Theaet. Of course. Str. Let us proceed, then. May we not say that motion is other than the other, having been also proved by us to be other than the same and other than rest ? Theaet. That is certain. Str. Then, according to this view, motion is other and also not other ? TJieaet. True. Str. What is the next step ? Shall we say that motion is 476 SOPHIST. other than the three and not other than the fourth, as we agreed that there are five classes, which we had undertaken to con sider? Theaet. Surely we cannot suppose that the number is less than appeared just now. Sir. Then we may fearlessly assert that motion is other than being. Theaet. There is no reason for fear at all. Str. The plain result is that motion, in partaking of being, is and also is not ? TJieaet. Nothing can be plainer. Str. Then not-being is of necessity attributed to motion and to every other class ; for the nature of the other entering into them all, makes each of them other than being, and so not- being ; and therefore of all of them, in like manner, we may say that they are not ; and again, inasmuch as they partake of being, that they are. TJieaet. That appears to be true. Str. Every class, then, has plurality of being and infinity of not-being. Theaet. That seems to be true. 257 Str. Then being itself may be said to be other than the other kinds. Theaet. Certainly. Str. And we infer that being is not — just as many other things as there are ; for not being these it is itself alone, and is not the other things, which are infinite in number. Theaet. That is pretty much the truth. Str. Neither must we object to this, since the nature of classes is that they participate in one another ; and if any one denies our present statement [viz. that being is not, etc.], let him argue with our former arguments [i.e. respecting the com munion of ideas] , and then he may proceed to argue with us. Theaet. That is very fair. Str. Let me ask you to consider a further question. Theaet. What question ? Str. When we speak of not-being, we speak not of some thing opposed to being, buj^only differeiit. Theaet. How is that ? SOPHIST. 477 Sir. When we speak of something as not great, does the expression seem to you to imply what is little any more than what is equal ? Theaet. Certainly not. Str. The negative particles, ov and /m?/, when prefixed to words, do not necessarily imply opposition, but only difference from the words, or more correctly from the things represented by the words which follow them. Theaet. Quite true. Str. There is another point about which I should like to know what you think. Theaet. What is it ? Str. The nature of the other appears to me to be divided into fractions like knowledge. Theaet. How so ? Str. Knowledge is one ; and yet the various parts of know ledge have each of them a particular name, and hence there are many arts and sciences. Theaet. Quite true. Str. And the other is one and yet has many parts. Theaet. Very likely, but will you tell me how ? Str. There is some part of the other which is opposed to the beautiful ? Theaet. There is. Str. Shall we say that this has or has not a name ? Theaet. That it has ; for that which we call not-beautiful is the other of the beautiful. Str. And now tell me something else. Theaet. What? Str. Is not the name not-beautiful a description of nature parted off, and attached to a particular class, and, again, opposed to another class of being ? Theaet. True. Str. Then the not-beautiful is the contrast of being with being ? Theaet. Very true. Str. But upon this view, is the beautiful a more real and the not-beautiful a less real existence ? Theaet. Not at all. 478 SOPHIST. Str, And the not-great may be said to exist, equally with the 25< great ? Theaet. Yes. Str. And, in the same way, the just must be placed in the same category with the not-just ; and one cannot be said to have any more existence than the other. TJieaet. True. Str. The same may be said of other things ; seeing that the nature of the other has a real existence, the parts of this nature must equally be supposed to exist. Theaet. Of course. Str. Then, as would appear, the opposition of the part of the other, and of the part of being, to one another is, if I may venture to say the word, as truly essence as being itself, and signifies not the opposite of being, but only other of being. Theaet. That is most evident. Str. What then shall we call this ? Theaet. Clearly, not-being ; and this is the very nature which the Sophist compelled us to examine. Str. And has not this, as you were saying, as real an exis tence as any other class? May I not say with confidence thnt not-being has an assured nature of its own? Just as the great is great and the beautiful is beautiful, and the not-great is not great, and the not-beautiful is not beautiful, in the same manner not-being is not being, and is to be reckoned one among many classes of being. Do you, Theaetetus, feel any doubt of this ? Theaet. None whatever. Str. Do you observe that our scepticism has carried us far beyond the range of Parmenides' prohibition ? Theaet. In what ? Str. We have advanced to a further point, and shown him more than he forbad us to investigate. Theaet. How is that? Str. Why, because he says — 'Not-being never is, and do thou keep thy thoughts from this way of enquiry.' Theaet. Yes, he says so. Str. Whereas, we have not only shown that things which are not are, but we have also shown what form of being not- SOPHIST. 479 being is ; for we have shown that the nature of the other is, and is distributed over all things in their mutual relations, and when each part of the other is contrasted with being, that is precisely what we have ventured to call not-being. Theaet. And surely, Stranger, we were right. Sir. Let not any one say, then, that while affirming the being of not-being, we still assert the opposition of not-being to being, for we have long ago given up speaking of an opposite of being ; — that may or may not be, and may or may not be capable of 259 definition. But as touching our present account of not-being, let a man refute that, and convince us of our error, or, so long as he cannot, he too must say, as we are saying, that there is a communion of classes, and that being, and difference or other, traverse all things and mutually interpenetrate, so that the other partakes of being, and is, by reason of this participa tion, and yet is not that of which it partakes, but other, and being other than being, is clearly and manifestly not-being. And again, being, through partaking of the other, becomes a class other than the remaining classes, and being other than all of them, is-not each one of them, and is-not all the rest, so that there are thousands upon thousands of cases in which being is not as well as is, and all other things whether regarded individually, or collectively in many respects are, and in many respects, are not. Theaet. True. Str. And he who is sceptical of these sort of oppositions, must think how he can find something better to say ; or if he sees a puzzle, and his pleasure is to drag words this way and that, the argument will prove to him, that he is not making a worthy use of his faculties ; for there is no charm in such puzzles, and there is no difficulty in them ; but we can tell him of something else in the pursuit of which there is a great charm and also a difficulty. Theaet. What is that ? Str. A thing of which I have already spoken ; — letting alone these puzzles as involving no difficulty, he should be able to follow and criticise in detail every argument, and when a man says that the same is in a manner other, or that other is the same, to understand and refute him from his own point of view, 480 SOPHIST. and in the same respect in which he asserts either of these affections. But to show that somehow and in some sense the same is other, or the other same, or the great small, or the like unlike ; and to delight in always thus bringing forward oppositions in argument, is no true refutation, but only proves that he who uses such arguments is a neophyte who has got but a little way in the investigation of truth. The act. To be sure. Sir. For certainly, my friend, the attempt to separate all existences from one another is not only tasteless but also illite rate and unphilosophical. Theaet. Why so ? Str. The attempt at universal separation is the final annihila tion of all reason ; for only by the union of conceptions with 260 one another do we attain to discourse of reason. Theaet. True. Str. And, observe that we were only just in time in making a resistance to such separatists, and compelling them to make the admission that other did mingle with other. Theaet. Why so ? Str. Why, that we might be able to assert discourse to be a kind of being, since if we were deprived of this we should be deprived of philosophy, which would be the greatest of cala mities ; and not only so, but the necessity for determining the nature of discourse presses upon us at this moment ; whereas if we had allowed that there were no such thing at all we could no longer discourse ; and there would have been no such thing if we admitted that there was no admixture of natures at all. Theaet. Very true. But I do not understand why at this moment we must determine the nature of discourse. Str. Perhaps you will see more clearly by the help of the following explanation. Theaet. What explanation? Str. Not-being has been acknowledged by us to be one among many classes of being, diffused over all being. Theaet. True. Str. And thence arises the question, whether not-being mingles with opinion and language. Theaet. How so ? SOPHIST. 481 Str. If not-being has no part in the proposition, then all things must be true ; but if not-being has a part, then false opinion and false speech are possible, for to think or to say what is not — is falsehood, which thus arises in the region of thought and in speech. Theaet. That is quite true. Str. And if there is falsehood there is deceit. Theaet. Yes. Str. And if there is deceit, then all things must be full of idols and images and fancies. Theaet- To be sure. Str. Into that region the Sophist, as we said, made his escape, and, when he had got there, denied the very possibility of falsehood ; no one, he argued, either conceived or uttered falsehood, inasmuch as not-being did not in any way partake of being. Theaet. True. Str. And now, not-being having been shown to partake of being, he will probably not continue fighting in this direction, but he will say that some ideas partake of not-being, and some not, and that language and opinion are of the non- partaking class ; and he will still deny the existence of the image-making and phantastic art, in which we have placed him, because, as he will say, opinion and language do not partake of not-being, and unless this participation subsists, there can be no such thing as falsehood. And, with the view of meeting this evasion, we must begin by enquiring into the nature of language, opinion, and phantasy, in order that when we find them we may find also that they have communion with not-being, and, having made out the connection of them, we may then prove the reality of falsehood ; there we will 261 imprison the Sophist, if he can be there detained, or, if not, we will let him go again and look for him in another class. Theaet. Certainly, Stranger, there appears to be truth in what was said about the Sophist at first, that he was of a class not easily caught, for he seems . to have abundance of defences, which he throws up, and which must every one of them be stormed before he can be reached himself. And even now, we have hardly got through his first defence, which is the VOL. iv. I i 482 SOPHIST. not-being of not-being, and lo ! here is another ; for we have still to show that falsehood is concerned with language and opinion, and there will be another and another, and never any end. Str. Any one, Theaetetus, who is able to advance even a little ought to be of good cheer, for what would he who is dispirited at a little progress do, if he were making none at all, or even undergoing a repulse? Such a faint heart, as the proverb says, will never take a city : but now that we have succeeded thus far, the citadel is ours, and what remains is easier. Theaet. Very true. Str. Then, as I was saying, let us first of all obtain a concep tion of language and opinion, in order that we may have better data for determining, whether not-being has any concern with them, or whether they are both always true, and neither of them ever false. Theaet. True. Str. Then, now, let us speak of names, as before we were speaking of ideas and letters ; for that is the direction in which the answer may be expected. Theaet. And what is the question at issue about names ? Str. The question at issue is whether all names may be connected with one another, or none, or only some of them. Theaet. Clearly the last is true. Str. I understand you to say that words which have a meaning in their sequence may be connected, but that words which have no meaning in their sequence cannot be connected ? Theaet. What are you saying ? Str. What I thought that you intended when you gave your assent, for there are two sorts of intimation of being which are given by the voice. Theaet. What are they ? Str. One of them is called nouns, and the other verbs. Theaet. Describe them. Str. That which denotes action \ve call a verb. 262 Theaet. True. Str. And the other, which is an articulate mark set on those who do the actions, we call a noun. SOPHIST. 483 Theaet. Quite true. Sir. The succession of nouns only is not a sentence, any more than of verbs without nouns. Theaet. I do not understand you. Str. I see that when you gave your assent you had something else in your mind. But what I intended to say was, that a mere succession of nouns or of verbs is not discourse. 7Yieaet. What do you mean ? Str. I mean that words like ' walks,' ' runs,' ' sleeps,' or any other words which denote action, however many of them you string together, do not make discourse. Theaet. Of course not. Str. Or, again, when you say ' lion/ ' stag,' ' horse,' or any other words which denote agents — neither in this way of string ing words together do you attain to discourse ; for there is no expression of action or inaction, or of existence or non-existence indicated by the sounds, until verbs are mingled with nouns ; then the words fit, and the first combination of them forms language, and is the simplest and least of all discourse. Theaet. Again I ask, what do you mean? Str. When any one says ' man learns,' should you not call this the simplest and least of sentences ? TJieaet. Yes. Str. Yes, for he now arrives at the point of giving an intima tion about something which is, or is becoming, or has become, or will be. And he not only names, but he does something, by connecting verbs with nouns ; and therefore we say that he discourses, and to this connection of words we give the name of discourse. Theaet. True. Str. And as there are some things which fit one another, and other things which do not fit, so there are some vocal signs which do, and others which do not, combine and form discourse. Theaet. Quite true. Str. There is another small matter. Theaet. What is that ? Str. A sentence must and cannot help having a subject. Theaet. True. Str. And must be of a certain quality. I i 2 484 SOPHIST. Theaet. Certainly. Sir. And now let us give our best attention. Theaet. By all means. Str. I will repeat a sentence to you in which an action is combined with an agent, by the help of a noun and a verb ; and you shall tell me of whom the sentence speaks. Theaet. I will, to the best of my power. Str. 'Theaetetus sits': that is not a very long sentence. 26; Theaet. Not very. Str. Of whom does the sentence speak, and who is the subject? that is what you have to tell. Theaet. Of me, and I am the subject. Str. Or this sentence, again — TJieaet. What sentence ? Str. ' Theaetetus, with whom I am now speaking, is flying/ TJieaet. That also is a sentence which will be admitted by every one to speak of me, and to apply to me. Str. We agreed that every sentence must necessarily have a certain quality. TJieaet. Yes. Str. And what is the quality of each of these two sentences ? Theaet. The one, as I imagine, is false, and the other true. Str. The true one says what is true about you ? Theaet. Yes. Str. And the false one says what is other than true ? TJieaet. Yes. Str. And therefore speaks of things which are not as though they were ? Theaet. True. Str. And says of you things really other than what really are ; for, as we were saying, in regard to each thing, there is much that is and much that is not. TJieaet. Quite true. Str. The second of the two sentences which related to you was in the shortest form that was consistent with our definition. Theaet. In the form which was certainly said by us just now to be the shortest. Str. And, in the second place, it related to a subject? TJieaet. True. SOPHIST. 485 Str. Who must be you, and can be nobody else ? Theaet. Unquestionably. Str. And this would be no sentence if there were no subject, for, as we proved, a sentence which has no subject is im possible. Theaet. Quite true. Str. When other, then, is asserted of you as the same, and not-being as being, that combination of nouns and verbs is really and truly false discourse. Theaet. Most true. Str. And therefore thought, opinion, and phantasy are now proved to exist in our minds both as true and false. Theaet. How so ? Str. You will know better if you first gain a knowledge of what they are, and in what they severally differ from one another. Theaet. Give me the knowledge which you would wish me to gain. Str. Is not thought the same as speech, with this exception : thought is the unuttered conversation of the soul with herself? Theaet. Quite true. Str. But the stream of thought which flows through the lips and is audible is called speech ? Theaet. True. Str. And we know that in speech there is affirmation and denial ? 264 Theaet. Yes, that we know. Str. When the affirmation or denial takes place silently and in the mind only, what would you call that but opinion ? Theaet. There can be no other name. Str. And when opinion is presented, not simply, but in some form of sense, would you not call it phantasy ? Theaet. Certainly. Str. And seeing that language is true and false, and that thought is the conversation of the soul with herself, and opinion is the end of thinking, and phantasy or imagination is the union of sense and opinion, the inference is that these also, as they are akin to language, should have an element of false as well as true? 486 SOPHIST. Theact. Certainly. Sir. Do you perceive, then, that false opinion and speech have been discovered sooner than we expected? — For just now we seemed to be undertaking a task which would never be accomplished. Theact. I perceive. Str. Then let us not be discouraged about the future ; but now having made this discovery, let us go back to our previous classification. TJieact. What classification ? Str. We divided image-making into two sorts ; the one like ness-making, the other phantastic. Theaet. True. Str. And we said that we were uncertain in which we should place the Sophist ? Theact. That was so. Str. And the twilight deepened into darkness in our minds, when the assertion wras made, that there was no such thing as likeness, or image, or appearance, because there was no such thing as falsehood. Thcaet. True. Str. And now, since there has been shown to be false speech and false opinion, imitations of real existences are possible, and out of this condition of the mind, an art of deception may arise. Theaet. Quite possible. Str. And we have already admitted, in what preceded, that the Sophist was lurking in one of the divisions of the likeness- making art. Theaet. Yes. Str. Let me, then, renew the attempt, and divide the proposed class, always proceeding from left to right, and holding fast to that which holds the Sophist, until we have stripped him of all his common properties, and reached his difference or peculiar, and he stands confessed as he is in his true nature, first by our- 26* selves and then by kindred dialectical spirits. Theaet. Very good. Str. You may remember that all art was originally divided by us into creative and acquisitive. SOPHIST. 487 TJteact. Yes. Str. And the Sophist was flitting before us in the acquisitive class, in the subdivisions of hunting, and of contests, and of merchandize, and other similar classes. Theaet. Very true. Str. But now that the imitative art has enclosed him, it is clear that we must begin by dividing the original art of creation; for imitation is a kind of creation — of images, however, as we affirm, and not of real things. Theaet. Quite true. Str. In the first place, there are two kinds of creation. Theaet. What are they ? Str. One of them is human and the other divine. Theaet. I do not follow. Str. Every power, as you may remember our saying ori ginally, which is the cause of things afterwards existing which did not exist before, was defined by us as creative. Theaet. I remember. Str. Looking, now, at the world and all the animals and plants which grow upon the earth from seeds and roots, and at inanimate substances which form within the earth, fusile or non-fusile, shall we say that they come into existence — not having existed previously — by the creation of God, or shall we agree with vulgar opinion about them ? Theaet. What is that ? Str. The opinion that nature brings them into being from some spontaneous and unintelligent cause. Shall we say this, or that they come from God, and are created by divine reason and knowledge? Theaet. I dare say that, owing to my youth, I may often waver in my view, but when I look at you and see that you incline to refer them to God, at present I defer to your authority. Str. Nobly said, Theaetetus, and if I thought that you were one of those who would hereafter change your mind, I would have gently argued with you, and forced you to assent ; but as I perceive that you will come of yourself and without any argument of man, to that belief which, as you say, attracts you, I will leave time to do the rest. Let me suppose, then, that things which are made by nature are the work of divine art, 488 SOPHIST. and that things which are made by man out of these are works of human art. And so there are two kinds of making and production, the one human and the other divine. Theaet. True. Sir. Then, now, subdivide each of the two sections which we have already. Theaet. How do you mean ? Sir. I mean to say that you should make a vertical division 266 of production or invention, as you have already made a lateral one. Theaet. I have done so. Sir. Then, now, there are in all four parts or segments — two of them have reference to us and are human, and two of them have reference to the gods and are divine. Theaet. True. Str. And, again, in the division which was supposed to be made in the other way, one part is the making of the things themselves, but the two remaining parts may be called the making of images ; and so the productive art is again divided into two parts. Theaet. Tell me the divisions once more. Str. I suppose that we, and the other animals, and the elements out of which they are made— fire, water, and the like — • are known by us to be the realities which are the creation and work of God. Theaet. True. Str. And there are images of them, which are not them, but which follow them ; and these are also the creation of divine skill. Theaet. What are they ? Str. The appearances which spring up of themselves in sleep or by day, such as the shadow which arises from intercepting the light of the fire, or when the light belonging to things bright and smooth meeting in one upon their surface with the light external to them, makes a reflection which is the reverse of that given by our ordinary sight. Theaet. Yes ; and the images as well as the creation are equally the work of a divine mind. Str. And what shall we say of human art ? Do we not make SOPHIST. 489 a house by the art of building, and then by the art of drawing another house, which is a sort of dream created by man for those who are awake ? Theaet. Quite true. Sir. And in other works of human art there are two divisions, the one of creation, the other of imitation ? Theaet. Now I begin to understand, and am ready to suppose that there are two kinds of production, and each of them two fold ; in the vertical division there is a divine and human pro duction ; in the lateral there are realities and similitudes. Sir. And let us not forget that of the imitative class the one part was to have been likeness-making, and the other phan- tastic, if it could be shown that falsehood is a reality and belongs to the class of real being. Theaet. Yes. Sir. And this appeared to be the case ; and therefore now, without hesitation, we shall number the different kinds as two. TJieaet. True. Str. Then, now, let us divide the phantastic art. 67 Theaet. Where shall we make the division? Str. There is one kind which is produced by an instrument, and another in which the creator of the appearance is himself the instrument. TJieaet. What do you mean ? Str. When any one makes himself appear like another in his figure or his voice, imitation is the name for this part of the phantastic art. Theaet. Yes. Str. Let this, then, be named the art of mimicry, and this the province assigned to it ; as for the other division, we are weary and will give that up, leaving to some one else the duty of making and naming the class. Theaet. Let us do as you say — assign a sphere to the one and leave the other. Str. There is a further distinction, Theaetetus, which is worthy of our consideration, and for a reason which I will tell you. Theaet. Let me hear. Str. There are some who imitate, knowing what they imitate, 490 SOPHIST. and some who do not know. And what line of distinction can there possibly be greater than that which divides ignorance from knowledge? Tkcaet. There can be no greater. Str. Was not the sort of imitation of which we spoke just now the imitation of those who know? He who imitates you would surely know you and your figure ? Theaet. He would. Str. And what would you say of the figure or form of justice or of virtue in general ? Are we not well aware that many who, having no knowledge of either, have nevertheless a sort of opinion of them, endeavour to make their sentiment or opinion appear to be a reality, which they embody as far as they can in their words and actions ? Theaet. Yes, that is very common. Str. And do they always fail in their attempt to be thought just, when they are not? Is not the very opposite rather true? Theaet. The very opposite. Str. Such an one, then, should be described as an imitator who is to be distinguished from the other, as he who is ignorant is distinguished from him who knows ? Theaet. True. Str. Can we find a suitable name for each of them ? This is clearly not an easy task ; for among the ancients there was some confusion of ideas, which prevented their rightly dividing genera into species, and no one ever attempted to divide them ; wherefore there is no great abundance of names, and yet, for the sake of distinction, I will make bold to call the imitation which coexists with opinion, the imitation of appearance — that which coexists with science, a scientific or learned imitation. Theaet. Granted. Str. The former is our present concern, for the Sophist was classed with imitators indeed, but not among those who have knowledge. Theaet. Very true. Str. Let us, then, examine our imitator of appearance, and see whether he is all of a piece or whether there is any cleft in him. Theaet. Let us examine him. SOPHIST. 491 Str. Indeed, there is a very considerable cleft in him ; for if you unfold him you find that one of the two classes of imitators is a simple being, who thinks that he knows that which he only fancies ; the other sort has knocked about among arguments, until he suspects and fears that he is ignorant of that which to the many he pretends to know. Theaet. There are certainly the two kinds which you de scribe. Str. Shall we regard one as the simple imitator — the other as the dissembling or ironical imitator ? Theaet. That is good. Str. And shall we further speak of this latter class as having one or two members ? Theaet. Answer yourself. Str. Upon consideration, then, there appear to me to be two ; there is the dissembler, who harangues a multitude in public in a long speech, and the dissembler, who in private and in short speeches compels the person who is conversing with him to contradict himself. Theaet. What you say is most true. Str. And who is the maker of the longer speeches ? Is he the statesman or the public orator ? Theaet. The latter. Str. And what shall we call the other ? Is he the philo sopher or the Sophist? Theaet. The philosopher he cannot be, for upon our view he is ignorant ; but since he is an imitator of the wise he will have a name which is formed by an adaptation of the word 0-0909. What shall we name him ? I am pretty sure that I cannot be mistaken in terming him the true and very Sophist. Str. Shall we bind up his name as we did before, making a chain from one end to the other ? Theaet. By all means. Str. He, then1, who traces the pedigree of his art as follows : — He who, belonging to the conscious or dissembling section of the art of making contradictions, is an imitator of appear ance, and has divided off from the art of image-making which 1 Reading roi/ 817. 492 SOPHIST. is a branch of phantastic, that further division of creative art, the juggling of words, a creation human, and not divine — any one who affirms the real Sophist to be of this blood and lineage will say the very truth. Theaet. Undoubtedly. STATESMAN. INTRODUCTION. IN the Phaedrus, the Republic, the Philebus, the Parmenides, and the Sophist, we have observed the tendency of Plato to combine two or more subjects or different aspects of the same subject in a single dia logue. And in his later writings we have remarked a decline of style, and of dramatic power; the characters excite little or no interest, and the digressions are apt to overlay the main thesis ; there is not the ' callida junctura' of an artistic whole. Both the serious discussions and the jests are sometimes out of place. The invincible Socrates is withdrawn from view; and new foes begin to appear under old names. Plato is now chiefly concerned, not with the original Sophist, but with the sophistry of the schools of philosophy, who are making reasoning impossible ; and is driven by them out of the regions of transcendental speculation back into the path of common sense. A logical or psychological phase takes the place of the doctrine of ideas in his mind. He is constantly dwelling on the importance of regular classification, and of not putting words in the place of things. He has banished the poets, and is beginning to use a technical language. He is bitter and satirical, and seems to be sadly conscious of the realities of human life. Yet the ideal glory of the Platonic philosophy is not extinguished. He is still looking for a city in which kings are either philosophers or gods. (Cp. Laws, iv, 713.) The Politicus exemplifies these remarks more than any of the pre ceding dialogues. The idea of the king or statesman and the illustration of method are connected, not like the love and rhetoric of the Phaedrus, by ' little invisible pegs/ but in a confused and inartistic manner, which fails to produce any impression of a whole on the mind of the reader. Plato apologises for his tediousriess, and acknowledges that the improve ment of his audience has been his onlv aim in some of his digressions. 496 STATESMAN. His own image may be used as a motto of his style ; like an inexpert statuary (277 A) he has made the figure or outline too large, and is unable to give the proper colours or proportions ; he is always making mistakes and correcting them — this seems to be his way of drawing attention to common dialectical errors. The Eleatic stranger, here, as in the Sophist, has no appropriate character, and appears only as the expositor of a political ideal, in the delineation of which he is fre quently interrupted by purely logical illustrations. The younger Socrates resembles his namesake in nothing but a name. The dramatic character is so completely forgotten, that a special reference is twice made to discussions in the Sophist; and this, perhaps, is the strongest ground which can be urged for doubting the genuineness of the work. But, when we remember that a similar allusion is made in the Laws (v. 739) to the Republic, we see that the entire disregard of dramatic propriety is not always a sufficient reason for doubting the genuineness of a Platonic writing (see infra). The search after the Statesman, which is carried on, like that of the Sophist, by the method of dichotomy, gives an opportunity for many humorous and satirical remarks. As in the Philebus, several of the jests are mannered and laboured : for example, the turn of the words with which the dialogue opens ; or the clumsy joke about man being an animal, who has a power of two-feet — both which are suggested by the presence of Theodorus, the geometrician. There is political as well as logical insight in refusing to admit the division of mankind into Hellenes and Barbarians : ' if a crane could speak, he would in like manner oppose men and animals to cranes/ 'The pride of the Hellene is further humbled, by being compared to a Phrygian or Lydian. Plato glories in this im partiality of the dialectical method, which places birds in juxtaposition with men, and the king side by side with the bird-catcher ; king or vermin-destroyer are objects of equal interest to science. There are other passages which show that the irony of Socrates was a lesson which Plato was not slow in learning — as, for example, the passing remark, that * the kings and statesmen of our day are in their breeding and education very like their subjects ' ; or the anticipation that the rivals of the king will be found in the class of servants ; or the imposing attitude of the priests, who are the established interpreters of the will of heaven, author ised by law. Nothing is more bitter in all his writings than his com parison of the contemporary politicians to lions, centaurs, satyrs, and INTR OD UCTION. 49 7 other animals of a feebler sort, who are ever changing their forms and natures. But, as in the Philebus and the Sophist, the play of humour and the charm of poetry have departed, never to return. Still the Politicus contains a higher and more ideal conception of politics than any other of Plato's writings. The city of which there is a pattern in heaven (Rep. ix), is here described as a Paradisiacal state of human society. In the truest sense of all, the ruler is not man but God ; and such a government existed in a former cycle of human history, and may again exist when the gods resume their care of man kind. In a secondary sense, the true form of government is that which has scientific rulers, who are irresponsible to their subjects. Not power but knowledge is the characteristic of a king or royal person. And the rule of a man is better and higher than law, because he is more able to deal with the infinite complexity of human affairs. But mankind, in despair of finding a true ruler, are willing to acquiesce in any law or custom which will save them from the caprice of individuals. They are ready to accept any of the six forms of government which prevail in the world. To the Greek, nomos was a sacred word, but the political idealism of Plato soars into a region beyond ; for the laws he would substitute the intelligent will of the legislator. Education is originally to implant in men's minds a sense of truth and justice, which is the divine bond of states, and the legislator is to contrive human bonds, by which dis similar natures may be united in marriage and supply the deficiencies of one another. As in the Republic, the government of philosophers, the causes of the perversion of states, the regulation of marriages, are still the political problems with which Plato's mind is occupied. He treats them more slightly, partly because the dialogue is shorter, and also because the discussion of them is perpetually crossed by the other interest of dialectic, which has begun to absorb him. The plan of the Politicus or Statesman may be briefly sketched as follows: (i) By a process of division and subdivision we discover the true herdsman or king of men. But before we can rightly distinguish him from his rivals, we must view him, (2) as he is presented to us in a famous ancient tale : this will enable us to distinguish the divine from the human herdsman or shepherd : (3) and besides our fable, we must have an example ; for our example we will select the art of weaving, which will have to be distinguished from the kindred arts; and then, following this pattern, we will separate the king from his subordinates or VOL. IV. K k 49« STATESMAN. competitors : (4) But are we not exceeding all due limits ; and is there not a measure of all arts and sciences, to which the art of discourse must conform? There is; but before we can apply this measure, we must know what is the aim of discourse : and our discourse only aims at the dialectical improvement of ourselves and others. — Having made our apology, we return once more to the king or statesman, and proceed to contrast him with pretenders in the same line with him, under their various forms of government: (5) His characteristic is, that he alone has science, which is superior to law and written enactments ; these spring out of the necessities of mankind, when they are in despair of finding the true king: (6) The sciences which are most akin to the royal are the sciences of the general, the judge, the orator, which minister to him, but even these are subordinate to him : (7) Fixed principles are implanted by education, and the king or statesman com pletes the political web by marrying together dissimilar natures, the courageous and the temperate, the bold and the gentle, who are the warp and the woof of society. The outline may be filled up as follows : I have reason to thank you, Theodorus, for the acquaintance of Theaetetus and the Stranger. Theod. And you will have three times greater reason to thank me when they have delineated the Statesman and Philosopher, as well as the Sophist. Soc. Does the great geome trician apply the same measure to all three ? Are they not divided by an interval which no geometrical ratio can express ? Theod. By the god Ammon, Socrates, you are right ; and I am glad to see that you have not forgotten your geometry. But before I retaliate, I must request the Stranger to finish the argument. . . . The Stranger suggests that Theaetetus shall be allowed to rest, and that Socrates the younger shall respond in his place ; Theodorus agrees to the suggestion, and Socrates remarks that the name of the one and the face of the other give him a right to claim relationship with them. They propose to take the Statesman after the Sophist ; his path they must determine, and part off all other ways, stamping upon them a single negative form (cp. Soph. 257). The Stranger begins the enquiry by making a division of the arts and sciences into theoretical and practical — the one concerned exclusively INTRODUCTION. 499 with knowledge, and the other with action ; arithmetic and the mathe matical sciences are examples of the one, and carpentering and handi craft arts of the other (cp. Philebus, 55 if.). Under which of the two shall we place the Statesman ? Or rather, shall we not first ask, whether the king, statesman, master, householder, practise one art or many ? The adviser of a physician may be said to have medical science, and the adviser of a king to have royal science. Hence the Statesman, even if he be a private person, is a king, and there is one science, the science of exercising authority, which embraces all these names and functions. And this science is akin to knowledge rather than to action. For a king rules with his mind, and not with his hands. But theoretical science may be a science either of judging, like arith metic, or of ruling and superintending, like that of the architect or master- builder. And the science of the king is of the latter nature, only differing in that he exercises an underived and uncontrolled power, by which he is distinguished from heralds, prophets, and other inferior officers. He is the wholesale dealer in command, and the herald, or other officer, retails his commands to others. Again, a ruler is concerned with the production of some object, and objects may be divided into living and lifeless, and rulers into the rulers of living and lifeless objects. And the king is not like the master-builder, concerned with lifeless matter, but has the task of managing living animals. And the tending of living animals may be either a tending of individuals, or a managing of herds. And the States man is not a groom, but a herdsman, and his art may be called either the art of managing the herd, or the art of collective management : — Which do you prefer ? ' No matter/ Very good, Socrates, and if you are not too particular about words you will be all the richer some day in true wisdom. How would you subdivide the herdsman's art ? ' I should say, that there is one management of men, and another of beasts.' Very good, but you are in too great a hurry to get to man. All divisions which are rightly made should cut through the middle ; if you attend to this rule, you will be more likely to arrive at classes. ' I do not understand the nature of my mistake.' Your division was like a division of the human race into Hellenes and barbarians, or into Lydians or Phrygians and all other nations ; or like a division of number into ten thousand and all other numbers, instead of dividing number into odd and even, or the human race into male and female. And I should like you to observe further, that though I maintain a class to be a part, there is no similar K k 2 500 STATESMAN. necessity for a part to be a class. But to return to your division, you spoke of men and animals as two classes — the second of which you comprehended under the general name of beasts. Now suppose that an intelligent crane were to make a division of animals; — he would put cranes into a class by themselves for their special glory, and jumble together all others, including man, in the class of beasts. An error of this sort can only be escaped by a more regular subdivision. The whole class of animals had been already divided by us into wild and tame, but political science is concerned exclusively with tame animals in flocks : and we forgot this in our hurry to arrive at man, and found by experience, as the proverb says, that ' the more haste the worse speed.' And now let us begin again at the art of managing herds. You have probably heard of the fish- preserves in the Nile and in the ponds of the great king, and of the nurseries of geese and cranes in Thessaly. Thus arises a new division into the rearing or management of land-herds or of water-herds : — I need not say with which the king is concerned. And land-herds may be divided into walking and flying ; and every idiot knows that the political animal is a pedestrian. At this point we may take a longer or a shorter road, and as we are already near the end, I see no harm in taking the longer, which is the way of mesotomy, and accords with the principle which we were laying down. The tame, walking, herding animal, may be divided into two classes — the horned and the hornless, and the king is concerned with the hornless ; and these again may be subdivided into animals having or not having cloven feet, or mixing or not mixing the breed ; and the king or statesman has the care of animals which have not cloven feet, and which do not mix the breed. And now, if we omit dogs, who can hardly be said to herd, I think that we have only two species left which remain undivided : and how are we to distinguish them ? To geometricians, like you and Theaetetus, I can have no difficulty in explaining that man is a diameter, having a power of two feet ; and the power of other animals being the double of two feet, may be said to be the diameter of our diameter. There is another excellent jest which I spy in the two remaining species. Men and birds are both bipeds, and human beings are running a race with the airiest and freest of creation, in which they are far behind their competitors ; — this is a great joke, and there is a still better in the juxta position of the bird-taker and the king, who may be seen scampering after them. For, as we were remarking in the Sophist, the dialectical INTR OD UCTION. 50 1 method is no respecter of persons. But we might have proceeded, as I was saying, by another and a shorter road. Then we should have begun by dividing land animals into bipeds and quadrupeds, and bipeds into winged and wingless ; and we might have taken the Statesman and set him over the ' bipes implume/ and put the reins of government into his hands. Here let us sum up : — The science of pure knowledge had a part which was the science of command, and this had a part which was a science of wholesale command ; and this was divided into the manage ment of animals, and was again parted off into the management of animals in herds, and again into land animals, and these into hornless, and these into bipeds ; and so at last we arrived at man, and found the political and royal science. And yet we have not clearly distinguished the political shepherd from his rivals. No one would think of usurping the prerogatives of the ordinary shepherd, who on all hands is admitted to be the trainer, matchmaker, doctor, musician of his flock. But the royal shepherd has numberless competitors, from whom he must be distinguished; there are merchants, husbandmen, physicians, who will all claim to be shepherds. I think that we can best distinguish him by having recourse to a famous old tradition, which may amuse as well as instruct us; the narrative is perfectly true, although the scepticism of mankind is prone to doubt the tales of old. You have heard what happened in the quarrel of Atreus and Thyestes ? ' You mean about the golden lamb?' No, not that; but another part of the story, which tells how the sun and stars once arose in the west and set in the east, and that the god reversed their motion, as a witness to the right of Atreus. ' There is such a story.' And no doubt you have heard of the empire of Cronos and of the earthborn men ? The origin of these and the like stories is to be found in the tale which I am about to narrate. There was a time when God went round with the world, but at the completion of a certain cycle he let go; and the world, of necessity, turned back, and went round the other way. For divine things alone are unchangeable; but the earth and heavens, although endowed with many glories, have a body, and are therefore liable to perturbation. In the case of the world, the perturbation is very slight, and amounts only to a reversal of motion. For the lord of moving things is alone self- moved ; neither can piety allow that he goes at one time in one direction 502 STATESMAN. and at another time in another; or that God has given the universe opposite motions ; or that there are two gods contending for pre eminence in the motion of the world. But the truth is; that there are two cycles of the world, and in one of them the universe is governed by an immediate Providence, and receives life and immortality, and in the other is let go again, and has a reverse action during infinite ages. This new action is spontaneous, and is maintained by exquisite perfection of balance— the greatest of bodies moving on the smallest pivot. All changes in the heaven affect the animal world, and this being the greatest of them, is most destructive to men and animals. At the beginning of the cycle before our own very few of them had survived ; and on these a mighty change passed. For their life was reversed like the motion of the world, and first of all coming to a stand then quickly returned to youth and beauty. The white locks of the aged became black ; the cheeks of the bearded man were restored to their youth and fineness ; the young men grew softer and smaller, and, being reduced to the condition of children in mind as well as body, began to vanish away ; and the bodies of those who had died by violence, in a few moments underwent a parallel change and disappeared. In that cycle of existence there was no such thing as the procreation of animals from one another, but they were born of the earth, and of this our ancestors, who came into being immediately after the end of the last cycle and at the beginning of this, have preserved the recollection. Such traditions are often now unduly discredited, and yet they may be proved by internal evidence. For observe how consistent the narrative is ; as the old returned to youth, so the dead returned to life; the wheel of their existence having being reversed, they rose again in the opposite order : a few only were reserved by God for another destiny. Such was the origin of the earthborn men. 'And is this cycle, of which you are speaking, the reign of Cronos, or our present state of existence?' No, Socrates, that blessed and spontaneous life belongs not to this, but to the previous state, in which God was the governor of the whole world, and there were other gods who ruled over parts of the world, as is still the case in certain places. They were shepherds of men and animals, each of them sufficing for those of whom he had the care. And there was no violence among them, or war, or devouring of one another. Their life was spontaneous, because in those days God ruled over man ; and he was to man what INTR OD UCTION. 503 man is now to the animals. Under his government there were no estates, or private possessions, or families; but the earth produced a sufficiency of all things, and men were born out of the earth, having no traditions of the past ; and as the temperature of the seasons was mild, they took no thought for raiment, and had no beds, but lived and dwelt in the open air. Such was the life of Cronos, and the life of Zeus is our own. Tell me, which is the happier of the two ? Or rather, shall I tell you that the happiness of these children of Cronos must have depended on how they used their time? If having boundless leisure, and the power of discoursing not only with one another but with the animals, they had employed these advantages with a view to philosophy, gathering from every nature some addition to their store of knowledge ; — or again, if they had merely eaten and drunk, and told stories to one another, and to the beasts; in either case, I say, there would be no difficulty in answering the question. But as nobody knows which they did, the question must remain unanswered. And here is the point of my tale. In the fullness of time, when the earthborn men had all passed away, the ruler of the universe let go the helm, and became a spectator; and destiny and passion swayed the world. At the same instant all the inferior deities gave up their hold; the whole universe rebounded, and there was a great earthquake, and utter ruin of all manner of animals. After a while the tumult ceased, and the universal creature settled down in his accustomed course, having authority over all other creatures, and following the instructions of his God and Father, at first more precisely, afterwards with less exactness. The reason of the falling off was the disengagement of a former chaos; 'a muddy vesture of decay' was a part of his original nature, out of which he was brought by his Creator, under whose immediate guidance, while he remained in that former cycle, the evil was minimised and the good increased to the utmost. And in the beginning of the new cycle all was well enough, but as time went on, discord entered in; at length the good was minimised and the evil everywhere diffused, and there was a danger of universal ruin. Then the Creator, seeing the world in great straits, and fearing that chaos and infinity would come again, in his tender care again placed himself at the helm and restored order, and made the world immortal and imperishable. Once more the cycle of life and generation was reversed ; the infants grew into young men, and the young men 504 STATESMAN. became greyheaded ; no longer did the animals spring out of the earth ; the parts of the world, like the whole, were in future to be self-created. At first the case of men was very helpless and pitiable ; for they were alone among the wild beasts, and had to carry on the struggle for existence without arts or knowledge, and had no food, and did not know how to get any. That was the time when Prometheus brought them fire, Hephaestus and Athene gave them arts, and other gods brought them seeds and plants ; and out of these human life was framed, for men were left to themselves, and ordered their own ways; living, like the universe, in one cycle after one manner, and in another cycle after another manner. Enough of the myth, which may show us two errors of which we were guilty in our account of the king. The first and grand error was in choosing a god, who belongs to the other cycle, instead of a man for our king; there was a lesser error also in our failure to define the nature of the royal functions. The myth gave us only the image of a divine shepherd, whereas the statesmen and kings of our own day very much resemble their subjects in education and breeding. On retracing our steps we find that we gave too narrow a designation to the art which was concerned with the feeding of animals in flocks. This would apply to all shepherds, with the exception of the Statesman; but if we say managing or tending animals, the term would include him as well. Having remodelled the name, we may subdivide as before, first sepa rating the human from the divine shepherd or manager. Then we may subdivide the human art of governing into the government of willing and unwilling subjects — royalty and tyranny — which are the extreme opposites of one another, although we in our simplicity have hitherto confounded them. And yet the figure of the king is still defective. We have taken up a lump of fable, and have used more than we needed. Like statuaries, we have made some, of the features out of proportion, and shall lose time in reducing them. Or our mythus may be compared to a picture, which is well drawn in outline, but is not yet enlivened by colour. And to intelligent persons language is, or ought to be, a better instrument of description than any picture. ' But what, Stranger, is the deficiency of which you speak?' No higher truth can be made clear without an example ; every man seems to know all things in a dream, and to know nothing when he is awake. And the nature of example can only INTR OD UCTION. 505 be illustrated by an example. Children are taught to read by placing the letters which they do not know side by side with those which they know, until they learn to recognise them in all their combinations. Example comes into use when we identify something unknown with that which is known, and form a common notion of both of them. Like the child who is learning his letters, the soul recognises some of the first elements of things ; and then again is at fault and unable to recognise them when they are translated into the difficult language of facts. Let us, then, take an example, which will illustrate the nature of example, and will also assist us in characterising the political science, and in separating the true king from his rivals. I will select the example of weaving, or, more precisely, weaving of wool. In the first place, all possessions are either productive or preventive; of the preventive sort are spells and antidotes, divine and human, and also defences, and defences are either arms or screens, and screens are veils and also shields against heat and cold, and shields against heat and cold are shelters and coverings, and coverings are blankets or garments, and garments are in one piece or have many parts; and of these latter, some are pierced and others are fastened, and of these again some are made of fibres of plants and some of hair, and of these some are cemented with water and earth, and some are fastened with their own material; the latter are called clothes, and are made by the art of clothing, from which the art of weaving differs only in name, as the political differs from the royal science. Thus we have drawn several distinctions, but as yet have not distinguished the weaving of garments from the kindred and co-operative arts. For the first process to which the material is subjected is the opposite of weaving — I mean carding. And the art of carding, and the whole art of the fuller and the mender, are concerned with the treatment and production of clothes, as well as the art of weaving. Again, there are the arts which make the weaver's tools. And if we say that the weaver's art is the greatest and noblest of those which have to do with woollen garments, — this, although true, is not sufficiently distinct ; because these other arts require to be first cleared away. Let us proceed, then, by regular steps:— There are causal or principal, and co-operative or subordinate arts. To the causal class belong the arts of washing and mending, of carding and spinning the threads, and the other arts of working in wool ; these are chiefly of two kinds, falling 5o6 STATESMAN. under the two great categories of composition and division. Carding is of the latter sort. But our concern is chiefly with that part of the art of wool-working which composes, and of which one kind twists and the other interlaces the threads, whether the firmer texture of the warp or the looser texture of the woof. These are adapted to each other, and the orderly composition of them forms a woollen garment. And the art which presides over these operations is the art of weaving. But why did we go through this circuitous process, instead of saying at once that weaving is the art of entwining the warp and the woof? In order that our labour may not seem to be lost, I must explain the whole nature of excess and defect. There are two arts of measuring — one is concerned with relative size, and the other has reference to a mean or standard of what is meet. The difference between good and evil is the difference between a mean or measure and excess or defect. All things require to be compared, not only with one another, but with the mean, without which there would be no beauty and no art, whether the art of the statesman or the art of weaving or any other ; for all these arts guard against excess or defect, which are real evils. This we must endeavour to show, if the arts are to exist ; and the proof of this will be a harder piece of work than the demonstration of the non-existence of not-being which we proved in the Sophist. At present I am content with the indirect proof that the existence of such a standard is necessary to the existence of the arts. The standard or measure, which we are now only applying to the arts, may be some day required with a view to the demonstration of absolute truth. We may now divide this art of measurement into two parts ; placing in the one part all the arts which measure the relative size or number of objects, and in the other all those which depend upon a mean or standard. Many accomplished men say that the art of measurement has to do with all things, but these persons are apt to fail in seeing the differences of classes — they jumble together in one the 'more' and the ' too much; which are very different things. Whereas the right way is to find the differences of classes, and to comprehend the things which have any affinity under the same class. I will make one more observation by the way. When a pupil at a school is asked the letters which make up a particular word, is he not asked with a view to his knowing the same letters in all words ? And our enquiry about the Statesman in like manner is intended not only to INTR OD UCTION. 507 improve our knowledge of politics, but of philosophy generally. Still less would any one analyse the nature of weaving for its own sake. There is no difficulty in exhibiting sensible images, but the greatest and noblest truths have no outward form adapted to the eye of sense, and are only revealed in thought. And all that we are now saying is said for the sake of them. I make these remarks, because I want you to get rid of any impression, that our discussion about weaving and about the reversal of the universe, or the other discussion about the Sophist and not-being, were tedious and irrelevant. Please to observe that they can only be fairly judged when compared with what is meet ; and yet not with what is meet for producing pleasure, nor even meet for making discoveries, but for the great end of developing the dialectical method and sharpening the wits of the auditors. He who censures us, should prove that, if our words had been fewer, they would have been better calculated to make us dialecticians. And now let us return to our king or statesman, and transfer to him the example of weaving. The royal art has been separated from that of other herdsmen, but not from the causal and co-operative arts which exist in states ; these do not admit of dichotomy, and therefore they must be carved neatly, like the limbs of a victim, not into more parts than are necessary. And first we have a large class, (i) of instruments, which includes almost everything in the world ; from these may be parted off (2) vessels which are framed for the preservation of things, moist or dry, in the fire or out of the fire. The royal or political art has nothing to do with either of these, any more than with the arts of making, (3) vehicles, or (4) defences, whether dresses, or arms, or walls, or (5) with the art of making ornaments, whether pictures or other playthings, as they may be fitly called, for they have no serious use. Then (6) there are the arts which furnish gold, silver, wood, bark, and other materials which should have been put first ; these, again, have no concern with the kingly science; any more than the arts, (7) which provide food and nourishment for the human body, and which furnish occupation to the husbandman, huntsman, doctor, cook, and the like, but not to the king or statesman. Besides these seven classes, there are small things, such as coins, seals, stamps, which may with a little violence be comprehended in the class of implements or ornaments. Under the preceding seven heads every species of property may be arranged with the exception of animals, — but these have been already included in the art of tending 5o8 STATESMAN. herds. There remains only the class of slaves or ministers, among whom I expect that the real rivals of the king will be discovered. I am not speaking of the veritable slave bought with money, nor of the hireling who lets himself out for service, nor of the trader or merchant, who at best can only lay claim to economical and not to royal science. Nor am I referring to government officials, such as heralds and scribes, for these are only the servants of the rulers, and not the rulers them selves. I admit that there may be something strange in any servants pretending to be masters, but I hardly think that I could have been wrong in supposing that the principal claimants to the throne will be of this class. Let us try once more : There are diviners and priests, who are full of pride and prerogative ; these, as the law declares, know how to give gifts to the gods which gain a corresponding amount of blessings for men, and in many parts of Hellas the duty of performing solemn sacrifices is assigned to the chief magistrate, as at Athens, to the king Archon. At last, then, we have found a trace of those whom we were seeking. But still they are only servants and ministers. And who are these who next come into view in various forms of men and animals and other monsters appearing — lions and centaurs and satyrs — who are these? I did not know them at first, for every one looks strange when he is unexpected. But now I recognise the politician and his troop, the chief of Sophists, the prince of charlatans, the most accomplished of wizards, who must be carefully distinguished from the true king or statesman. And here I will interpose a question : What are the true forms of government ? Are they not three — monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy ? and the distinctions of freedom and compulsion, law and no law, poverty and riches expand these three into six. Monarchy may be divided into royalty and tyranny ; oligarchy into aristocracy and plutocracy ; and in democracy there is law and no law, two things expressed by one word. But are any of these govern ments worthy of the name ? Is not government a science, and are we to suppose that scientific government is secured by the rulers being many or few, rich or poor, or by the rule being compulsory or voluntary ? Can the many attain to science ? In no Hellenic city are there fifty good draught players, and certainly there are not as many kings, for by kings we mean all those who are possessed of the political science. A true government must therefore be the government of one, or of a few. And they may govern us either with or without law, and whether INTR OD UCTION. 509 they are poor or rich, and however they govern, provided they govern on some scientific principle, — that makes no difference. And as the physician may cure us with our will, or against our will, and by any mode of treatment, burning, bleeding, lowering, fattening, if he only proceeds scientifically; so the true governor may reduce or fatten or bleed the body corporate, while he acts according to the rules of wisdom, and with a view to the good of the state, whether according to law or without law. ' I do not like the notion, that there can be good government without law.' I must explain : Law-making certainly is the business of a king ; and yet the best thing of all is, not that the law should rule, but that the king should rule, for the varieties of circumstances are endless, and no simple or universal rule can suit them all, or last for ever. The law is just an ignorant brute of a tyrant, who insists always on his commands being fulfilled, under all circumstances. ' Then why have we laws at all ? ' I will answer that question by asking you whether the training master gives a different discipline to each of his pupils, or whether he has a general rule of diet and exercise which is suited to the constitutions of the majority ? ' The latter/ The legislator, too, is obliged to lay down general laws, and cannot exact what is precisely suitable to each particular case. He cannot be sitting at every man's side all his life, and prescribe for him the minute particulars of his duty, and therefore he is compelled to impose on himself and others the restriction of a written law. Let me suppose now, that a physician or trainer, having left directions for his patients or pupils, goes into a far country, and comes back sooner than he intended ; owing to some unexpected change in the weather, the patient or pupil seems to require a different mode of treatment : Would he persist in his old commands, under the idea that all others are noxious and heterodox ? Viewed in the light of science, would not the continuance of such regulations be ridiculous ? And if the legislator, or another like him, comes back from a far country, is he to be pro hibited from altering his own laws ? The common people say : Let a man persuade the city first, and then let him impose new laws. But is a physician only to cure his patients by persuasion, and not by force ? Is he a worse physician who uses a little gentle violence in effecting the cure ? Or shall we say, that the violence is just, if exercised by a rich man, and unjust, if by a poor man ? May not any man, rich 510 STATESMAN. or poor, with or without law, and whether the citizens like or not, do what is for their good ? The pilot saves the lives of his citizens, not by laying down rules, but by making his art a law, and, like him, the true governor has a strength of art which is superior to the law. This is scientific government, and all others are imitations only. Yet no great number of persons can attain to this science. And hence follows an important result. The best course of politicians is to assert the inviolability of the law, which, though not the best thing possible, is best for the imperfect condition of man. I will explain my meaning by an illustration : Suppose that mankind, indignant at the rogueries and caprices of physicians and pilots, call together an assembly, in which all who like may speak, the skilled as well as the unskilled, and that in their assembly they make decrees for regulating the practice of navigation and medicine which are to be binding on these professions for all time. Suppose that they elect annually by vote or lot those to whom authority in either department is to be delegated. And let us further imagine, that when the term of their magistracy has expired, the magistrates appointed by them are summoned before an ignorant and unprofessional court, and may be condemned or punished for breaking the regulations. They even go a step further, and enact, that he who is found enquiring into the truth of navigation and medicine, and is seeking to be wise above what is written, shall be called no artist, but a dreamer or prating Sophist or corrupter of youth ; and if he try to persuade others to investigate those sciences in a manner contrary to the law, he shall be punished with the utmost severity ; like rules might be extended to any art or science : — now what would be the consequence ? ' The arts would utterly perish, and human life, which is bad enough already, would become intolerable.' But suppose, once more, that we were to appoint some one as the guardian of the law, who was both ignorant and interested, and who perverted the law ; would not this be a still worse evil than the other ? ' Certainly/ For the laws are based on some experience and wisdom. Hence the better course is, that they should be observed, although this is not the best thing of all, but only the second best. And whoever, having skill, should try to improve them, would act in the spirit of the law-giver. But then, as we have seen, no great number of men, whether poor or rich, is capable of making laws. And so, the nearest approach which INTRODUCTION. 511 we can make to true government is, when men do nothing contrary to their own written laws and national customs. When the rich preserve their customs and maintain the law, this is called aristocracy, or if they neglect the law, oligarchy. When an individual rules according to law, whether by the help of science or opinion, this is called monarchy, and when he has royal science he is called a king, but when he rules in spite of law, and is blind with ignorance and passion, he is called a tyrant. These forms of government exist, because men despair of the true king ever appearing among them ; if he were to appear, they would joyfully hand over to him the reins of government. But, as there is no natural ruler of the hive, they meet together and make laws. And do we wonder, when the foundation of politics are in the letter only, that many evils should arise ? Ought we not rather to admire the strength of the political bond ? For cities have endured time out of mind, though many of them have been shipwrecked, and some are like ships founder ing, because their pilots are absolutely ignorant of the science which they profess. Let us next ask, which of these untrue forms of government is the least bad, and which of them is the worst ? I said at the beginning, that each of the three forms of government, royalty, aristocracy, and demo cracy might be divided into two, so that the whole number of them, including the best, will be seven. Under monarchy we have already distinguished royalty and tyranny; of oligarchy there were two kinds, aristocracy and plutocracy, and democracy may be divided on a similar principle, for there is a democracy which observes, and a democracy which neglects, the laws. The government of one is- the best and the worst — the government of a few is less bad and less good — the govern ment of the many is the least bad and least good of them all, being the best of all lawless governments, and the worst of all lawful ones. But the rulers of all these states, unless they have knowledge, are main- tainers of idols, and themselves idols — wizards, and also Sophists; for, after many windings the term ' Sophist ' comes home to them. And now enough of centaurs and satyrs : the play is ended, and they may quit the political stage. Still there remain some other and better elements, which adhere to the royal science, and must be drawn off in the refiner's fire before the gold can be left pure. The arts of the general, the judge, and the orator, will have to be separated from the royal art ; when the separation has been made, the nature of the king 512 STATESMAN. will be unalloyed. Now there are inferior sciences, such as music and others ; and there is a superior science, which determines whether music is to be learnt or not, and this is different from them, and the governor of them. The science which determines whether we are to use persua sion, or not, is higher than the art of persuasion ; the science which determines whether we are to go to war, is higher than the art of the general. The science which makes the laws, is higher than that which only administers them. And the science which has authority over the rest, is the science of the king or statesman. Once more we will endeavour to view this royal science by the light of our example. We may compare the state to a web, and I will show you how the different threads are drawn into one. You would admit (would you not ?) that there are parts of virtue (although this position is sometimes assailed by Eristics), and one part of virtue is temperance, and another courage. These are two principles which are in a manner antagonists of one another; and they pervade all nature; the whole class of the good and beautiful is included under them. The beautiful may be subdivided into two lesser classes : one of these is described by us in terms expressive of motion or energy, and the other in terms ex pressive of rest and quietness. We say, how manly ! how vigorous ! how ready ! and we say also, how calm, how temperate, how dignified ! This opposition of terms is extended by us to all actions, to the tones of the voice, the notes of music, the workings of the mind, the characters of men. The two classes both have their exaggerations ; and the exaggera tions of the one are termed 'hardness,' 'violence,' 'madness'; of the other ' cowardness/ or ' sluggishness/ And if we pursue the enquiry, we find that these opposite characters are naturally at variance, and can hardly be reconciled. In lesser matters the antagonism between them is ludicrous, but in the State may be the occasion of grave disorders, and may disturb the whole course of human life. For the orderly class are always wanting to be at peace, and hence they pass imperceptibly into the condition of slaves ; and the courageous sort are always wanting to go to war, even when the odds are against them, and are soon destroyed by their enemies. But the true art of government, first preparing the material by education, weaves the two elements into one, maintaining authority over the carders of the wool, and selecting the proper subsidiary arts which are necessary for making the web. The royal science is queen of educators, and begins by choosing the natures which she is to train, INTRODUCTION. 513 punishing with death and exterminating those who are violently carried away to atheism and injustice, and enslaving those who are wallowing in the mire of ignorance. The rest of the citizens she blends into one, combining the stronger element of courage, which we may call the warp, with the softer element of temperance, which we may imagine to be the woof. These she binds together, first taking the eternal elements of the honourable, the good, and the just, and fastening them with a divine cord in a heaven-born race, and then fastening the animal elements with a human cord. The good legislator can implant by education the higher principles ; and where they exist there is no difficulty in inserting the lesser human bonds, by which the State is held together ; these are the laws of intermarriage, and of union for the sake of offspring. Most persons in their marriages seek after wealth or power; or they are clannish, and choose those who are like themselves, — the temperate marrying the temperate, and the courageous the courageous. The two classes thrive and flourish at first, but they soon degenerate ; the one be come mad, and the other feeble and useless. This would not have been the case, if they had both originally held the same notions about the honourable and the good ; for then they never would have allowed the temperate natures to be separated from the courageous, but they would have bound them together by common honours and reputations, by inter marriage, and by the choice of rulers who combine both qualities. The temperate are careful and just, but are wanting in the power of action ; the courageous fall short of them in justice, but are superior to them in action : and no state can prosper in which either of these qualities is wanting. The noblest and best of all webs or states is that which the royal science weaves, combining the two sorts of natures in a single texture, and in this enfolding freeman and slave and every other social element, and presiding over them all. ' You have made, Stranger, a very perfect image of the king and the statesman/ The principal subjects in the Politicus may be conveniently embraced under six or seven heads :— (i) the myth; (2) the dialectical interest; (3) the political aspects of the dialogue ; (4) the satirical and paradoxical vein; (5) the necessary imperfection of law ; (6) the relation of the work to the other writings of Plato ; lastly, we may briefly consider the VOL. IV. L 1 514 STATESMAN. genuineness of the Sophist and Politicus, which can hardly be assumed without proof, since the two dialogues have been questioned by three such eminent Platonic scholars as Socher, Schaarschmidt, and Uberweg. I. The hand of the master is clearly visible in the myth. First in the connection with mythology ; — he wins a kind of verisimilitude for this as for his other myths, by adopting received traditions, of which he pretends to find an explanation in his own larger conception (cp. Introduction to Critias). The young Socrates has heard of the sun rising in the west and setting in the east, and of the earth-born men ; but he has never heard the origin of these remarkable phenomena. Nor is Plato, here or elsewhere, wanting in denunciations of the incredulity of ' this latter age/ on which the lovers of the marvellous have always delighted to enlarge. And he is not without express testimony to the truth of his narrative ; — such testimony as, in the Timaeus, the first men gave of the names of the gods (' they must surely have known their own ancestors'). For the first generation of the new cycle, who lived near the time, are supposed to have preserved a recollection of a previous one. He also appeals to internal evidence ; viz. the perfect coherence of the tale, though he is very well aware, as he says in the Cratylus (436 C, D), that there may be consistency in error as well as in truth. The gravity and minuteness with which some particulars are related also lend an artful aid. The profound interest and ready assent of the young Socrates, who is not too old to be amused ' with a tale which a child would love to hear,' are a further assistance. To those who were naturally inclined to believe that the fortunes of mankind are influenced by the stars, or who maintained that some one principle, like the principle of the same and the other in the Timaeus, pervades all things in the world, the reversal of the motion of the heavens seemed necessarily to produce a reversal of the order of human life. The spheres of knowledge, which to us appear wide asunder as the poles, astronomy and medicine, were naturally connected in the minds of early thinkers, because there was little or nothing in the space between them. Thus there is a basis of philosophy, on which the improbabilities of the tale may be said to rest. These are some of the devices by which Plato, like a modern novelist, seeks to familiarize the marvellous. The myth, like that of the Timaeus and Critias, is rather historical than poetical ; in this respect corresponding to the general change in the later writings of Plato, when compared with the earlier ones. It is hardly INTRODUCTION. 515 a myth in the sense in which the term might be applied to the myth of the Phaedrus, the Republic, the Phaedo, or the Gorgias, but may be more aptly compared with the didactic tale in which Protagoras describes the fortunes of primitive man, or with the description of the gradual rise of a new society in the third book of the Laws. Some discrepancies may be observed between the mythology of the Politicus and the Timaeus, and between the Timaeus and the Republic. But there is no reason to expect that all Plato's visions of a former, any more than of a future, state of existence, should conform exactly to the same pattern. We do not find perfect consistency in his philosophy ; and still less have we any right to demand this of him in his use of mythology and figures of speech. And we observe that while employing all the resources of a writer of fiction to give credibility to his tales, he is not disposed to insist upon their literal truth. Rather, as in the Phaedo, he says, ' something of the kind is true ' ; or, as in the Gorgias, ' this you will think a myth, but I believe to be a truth'; or, as in the Politicus, he describes his work as a ' tolerably credible tale/ or as a ' mass of mythology,' which was introduced in order to teach certain lessons. The greater interest of the myth consists in the philosophical lessons which Plato presents to us in this veiled form. Here, as in the tale of Er, the son of Armenius, he touches upon the question of freedom and necessity, both in relation to God and nature. For at first the universe is governed by the immediate providence of God, — this is the golden age, — but after a while the wheel is reversed, and man is left to himself. Like other theologians and philosophers, Plato relegates his explanation of the problem to a transcendental world; he speaks of what in modern language might be termed ' impossibilities in the nature of things,' hinder ing God from continuing immanent in the world. But there is some inconsistency; for the 'letting go' is spoken of as a divine act, and is at the same time attributed to the necessary imperfection of matter; there is also a numerical necessity for the successive births of souls. At first, man and the world retain their divine instincts, but gradually de generate. As in the Book of Genesis, the first fall of man is succeeded by a second ; the misery and wickedness of the world increase continually. The reason of this further decline is supposed to be the disorganisation of matter : the latent seeds of a former chaos are disengaged, and envelope all things. The condition of man becomes more and more miserable ; he is perpetually waging an unequal warfare with the beasts. At length L 1 2 516 STATESMAN. he obtains such a measure of education and help as is necessary for his existence. He is aided by God, but not wholly inspired or controlled by him ; he has received from Athene and Hephaestus a knowledge of the arts; other gods give him seeds and plants; and out of these human life is reconstructed. He now eats bread in the sweat of his brow, and has dominion over the animals ; subjected to the conditions of his nature, and yet able to cope with them by divine help. Thus Plato may be said to represent in a figure — (i) the state of innocence; (2) the fall of man; (3) the still deeper decline into barbarism; (4) the restoration of man by the partial interference of God, and the natural growth of the arts and of civilised society. Two lesser features of this description should not pass unnoticed, (i) the primitive men are supposed to be created out of the earth, and not after the ordinary manner of human generation — half the causes of moral evil are in this way removed ; (2) the arts are attributed to a divine revelation : and so the greatest difficulty in the history of pre historic man is solved. Though no one knew better than Plato that the introduction of the gods is not a reason, but an excuse for not giving a reason (Cratylus, 426), yet, considering that more than two thousand years later mankind are still discussing these problems, we may be satisfied to find in Plato a statement of the difficulties which arise in conceiving the relation of man to God and nature, without expecting to obtain from him a solution of them. In such a tale, as in the Phaedrus, various aspects of the ideas were doubtless indicated to Plato's own mind, as the corresponding theological problems are to us. The immanence of things in the ideas, or the partial separation of them, and the self-motion of the supreme idea, are probably the forms in which he would have interpreted his own parable. He touches upon another question of great interest — the consciousness of evil — what in the Jewish Scriptures is called ' eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.' At the end of the narrative (272 B) the Eleatic asks his companion whether this life of innocence, or that which men live at present, is the better of the two. He wants to distinguish between the mere animal life of innocence, the ' city of pigs,' at the mention of which Glaucon, in the Republic, revolts, and the higher life of reason and philosophy. But as no one can determine what prevailed in the world before the Fall, the question must remain unanswered. Similar questions have occupied the minds of theologians in later ages; but they can hardly be said to have found an answer. INTRODUCTION. 517 Professor Campbell well observes, that the general spirit of the myth may be summed up in the words of the Lysis : ' If evil were to perish, should we hunger any more, or thirst any more, or have any similar sensations? Yet perhaps the question what will or will not be is a foolish one, for who can tell?' As in the Theaetetus, evil is supposed to continue, — here, as the consequence of a former state of the world, a sort of mephitic vapour exhaling from some ancient chaos, — there, as involved in the possibility of good, and incident to the mixed state of man. Once more (and this is the point of connection with the rest of the dialogue), the myth is intended to bring out the difference between the ideal and the actual state of man. In all ages of the world men have dreamed of a state of perfection, which has been, and is to be, but never is, and seems to disappear under the necessary conditions of human society. The uselessness, the danger, the true value of such political ideals have often been discussed; youth is too ready to believe in them ; age to disparage them. Plato's ' prudens quaestio' respecting the comparative happiness of men in this and in a former cycle of existence is intended to elicit this contrast between the golden age and ' the life of Zeus' which is our own. To confuse the divine and human, or hastily apply one to the other, is a ' tremendous error/ Of the ideal or divine government of the world we can form no true or adequate conception; and this our mixed state of life, in which we are partly left to ourselves, but not wholly deserted by God, may contain some higher elements of good and knowledge than could have existed in the days of innocence under the rule of Cronos. So we may venture slightly to enlarge a Platonic thought which admits of a further application to Christian theology. Here are suggested also the distinctions between God causing and permitting evil, and between his more and less immediate government of the world. II. The dialectical interest of the Politicus seems to contend in Plato's mind with the political ; the dialogue might have been designated by two equally descriptive titles — either the ' Statesman,' or ' Concerning Method/ Dialectic, which in the earlier writings of Plato is almost exclusively confined to the Socratic question and answer, is now wholly occupied with classification; there is nothing in which he takes greater delight than in processes of division (cp. Phaedr. 266 B); he pursues them to a length out of proportion to his main subject, and appears to value 518 STATESMAN. them as a dialectical exercise, and for their own sake. A poetical vision of some order or hierarchy of ideas or sciences has already been floating before us in the Symposium and the Republic. And in the Phaedrus this aspect of dialectic is further sketched out, and the art of rhetoric is based on the division of the characters of mankind into their several classes. The same love of divisions is apparent in the Gorgias. But in a well-known passage of the Philebus occurs the first criticism on the nature of classification. There we are exhorted not to fall into the common error of passing from unity to infinity, but to find the intermediate classes; and we are reminded that in any process of generalisation, there may be more than one class to which individuals may be referred, and that we must carry on the process of division until we have arrived at the infima species. These precepts are not forgotten, either in the Sophist or in the Politicus. The Sophist contains four examples of division, carried on by Regular steps, until in four different lines of descent we detect the Sophist. In the Politicus the king or statesman is discovered by a similar process ; and we have a summary, probably made for the first time, of possessions appropriated by the labour of man, which are distributed into seven classes. We are warned against preferring the shorter to the longer method; — if we divide in the middle, we are most likely to light upon species; at the same time, the important remark is made, that ' a part is not to be confounded with a class.' Having discovered the genus under which the king falls, we proceed to distinguish him from the collateral species. To assist our imagination in making this separation, we require an example. The higher ideas, of which we have a dreamy knowledge, can only be represented by images taken from the external world. But, first of all, the nature of example is explained by an example. The child is taught to read by comparing the letters in words which he knows with the same letters in unknown combinations; and this is the sort of process which we are about to attempt. As a parallel to the king we select the worker in wool, and compare the art of weaving with the royal science, trying to separate either of them from the inferior classes to which they are akin. This has the incidental advantage, that weaving and the web furnish us with a figure of speech, which we can afterwards transfer to the State. There are two uses of examples or images— in the first place, they INTRODUCTION. 519 suggest thoughts — secondly, they give them a distinct form. In the infancy of philosophy, as in childhood, the language of pictures is natural to man : truth in the abstract is hardly won, and only by use familiarised to the mind. Examples are akin to analogies, and have a reflex influence on thought ; they people the vacant mind, and may often originate new directions of enquiry. Plato seems to be conscious of the suggestiveness of imagery; the general analogy of the arts is constantly employed by him as well as the comparison of particular arts — weaving, the refining of gold, the learning to read, music, statuary, painting, medicine, the art of the pilot — all of which occur in this dialogue alone : though he is also aware that ' comparisons are slippery things/ and may often give a false clearness to ideas. A division of sciences has been made in the Philebus, into practical and speculative, and into more or less speculative. To this a new class is now added, of master-arts, or sciences, which control inferior ones. Besides the supreme science of dialectic, 'which will forget us, if we forget her,' another master-science for the first time appears in view — the science of government, which fixes the limits of all the rest. This conception of the political or royal science as, from another point of view, the science of sciences, which holds sway over the rest, is not originally found in Aristotle, but in Plato. The doctrine that virtue and art are in a mean, which is familiarised to us by the study of the Nicomachean Ethics, is also first distinctly stated in the Politicus of Plato. The too much and the too little are in restless motion : they must be fixed by a mean, which is also a standard external to them. The art of measuring or finding a mean between excess and defect, like the principle of division in the Phaedrus, receives a particular application to the art of discourse. The excessive length of a discourse may be blamed ; but who can say what is excess, unless he is furnished with a measure or standard? Measure is the life of the arts, and may some day be discovered to be the single ultimate principle in which all the sciences are contained. Other forms of thought may be noted — the distinction between causal and co operative arts, which may be compared with the distinction between primary and co-operative causes in the Timaeus, 46 D, or between cause and condition in the Phaedo, 99 ; the passing mention of economical science ; the opposition of rest and motion, which is found in all nature ; the general conception of two great arts of composition 520 STATESMAN* and division, in which are contained weaving, politics, dialectic : and in connection with the conception of a mean, the two arts of measuring. In the Theaetetus, Plato remarks that precision in the use of terms, though sometimes pedantic, is sometimes necessary. Here he makes the opposite reflection, that there may be a philosophical disregard of words. The evil of mere verbal oppositions, the requirement of an impossible accuracy in the use of terms, the error of supposing that philo sophy was to be found in language, the danger of word- catching, have frequently been discussed by him in the previous dialogues, but nowhere has the spirit of modern inductive philosophy been more happily in dicated than in the words of the Politicus : — ' If you think more about things, and less about words, you will be richer as you grow older in wisdom/ A similar spirit is discernible in the remarkable expressions, 'the long and difficult language of facts'; and 'the interrogation of every nature, in order to obtain the particular contribution of each to the store of knowledge.' Who has described ' the feeble intelligence of all things' given by metaphysics better than the Eleatic Stranger in the words — ' The higher ideas can hardly be set forth except through the medium of examples; every man seems to know all things in a kind of dream, and then again nothing when he is awake ' ? Or where is the value of metaphysical pursuits more truly expressed than in the words, — 'The greatest and noblest things have no outward image of themselves visible to man : therefore we ought to practise ourselves in reasoning' (286 A)? III. The political aspects of the dialogue are closely connected with the dialectical. As in the Cratylus, the legislator has ' the dialectician standing on his right hand'; so in the Politicus, the king or statesman is the dialectician, who, although he may be in a private station, is still a king. Whether he has the power or not, is a mere accident; or rather he has the power, for what ought to be is (was ist vernunftlich das ist wirklich) ; and he ought to be and is the true governor of mankind. There is a reflection in this idealism of the Socratic ' virtue is knowledge'; and, without idealism, we may remark that knowledge is a great part of power. Plato does not trouble himself to construct a machinery by which ' philosophers shall be made kings,' as in the Republic : he merely holds up the ideal, and affirms that in some sense science is really supreme over human life. INTR OD UCTION. 521 He is struck by the observation ' quam parva sapientia regitur mundus/ and is touched with a feeling of the ills which afflict states. The condition of Megara before and during the Peloponnesian War, of Athens under the Thirty and afterwards, of Syracuse and the other Sicilian cities in their alternations of democratic excess and tyranny, might naturally suggest such reflections. Some states he sees already shipwrecked, others foundering for want of a pilot; and he wonders not at their destruction, but at their endurance. For they ought to have perished long ago, if they had depended on the wisdom of their rulers. The mingled pathos and satire of this remark is characteristic of Plato's later style. The king is the personification of political science. And yet he is something more than this, — the perfectly good and wise tyrant of the Laws (iv. 710), whose will is better than any law. He is the special providence who is always interfering with and regulating all things. Such a conception has sometimes been entertained by modern theo logians, and by Plato himself, of the Supreme Being. But whether applied to Divine or to human governors the conception is faulty for two reasons, neither of which are noticed by Plato ; first, because all good government supposes a degree of co-operation in the ruler and his subjects, — an 'education in polities' as well as in moral virtue; secondly, because government, whether Divine or human, implies that the subject has a previous knowledge of the rules under which he is living. There is a fallacy, too, in comparing unchangeable laws with a personal governor. For the law need not necessarily be an ' ignorant and brutal tyrant.' but gentle and humane, capable of being altered in the spirit of the legislator, and of being administered so as to meet the cases of individuals. Not only in fact, but in idea, both elements must remain — the fixed law and the living will ; the written word and the spirit ; the principles of obligation and of freedom ; and their applications whether made by law or equity in particular cases. There are two sides from which positive laws may be attacked : either from the side of nature, which rises up and rebels against them in the spirit of Callicles in the Gorgias; or from the side of idealism, which attempts to soar above them, — and this is the spirit of Plato in the Politicus. But he soon falls, like Icarus, and is content to walk instead of flying; that is, to accommodate himself to the actual state of human things. Mankind have long been in despair of finding the 522 STATESMAN. true ruler ; and therefore are ready to acquiesce in any of the five or six received forms of government as better than none. And the best thing which they can do (though only the second best in reality), is to reduce the ideal state to the conditions of actual life. Thus in the Politicus, as in the Laws, we have three forms of government, which we may venture to term, (i) the ideal; (2) the practical; (3) the sophistical — what ought to be, what might be, what is. And thus Plato seems to stumble, almost by accident, on the notion of a con stitutional monarchy, or of a monarchy ruling by laws. The divine foundations of a State are to be laid deep in education (Rep. iv. 423), and at the same time some little violence may be used in exterminating natures which are incapable of education (cp. Laws, x). Plato is strongly of opinion that the legislator, like the physician, may do men good against their will (cp. Gorgias, 522 foil.). The human bonds of states are formed by the intermarriage of dispositions adapted to supply the defects of each other. As in the Republic, Plato has observed that there are opposite natures in the world, the strong and the gentle, the courageous and the temperate, which, borrowing an expression derived from the image of weaving, he calls the warp and the woof of human society. To interlace these is the crowning achievement of political science. In the Protagoras, Socrates was maintaining that there was only one virtue, and not many : now Plato is inclined to think that there are not only parallel, but opposite virtues, and seems to see a similar opposition pervading all art and nature. But he is satisfied with laying down the principle, and does not inform us by what further steps the union of opposites is to be effected. In the loose framework of a single dialogue Plato has thus com bined two distinct subjects — politics and method. Yet they are not so far apart as they appear : in his own mind there was a secret link of connection between them. For the philosopher or dialectician is also the only true king or statesman. In the execution of his plan Plato has invented or distinguished several important forms of thought, and made incidentally many valuable remarks. Questions of interest both in ancient and modern politics also arise in the course of the dialogue, which may with advantage be further considered by us: — a. The imaginary ruler, whether God or man, is above the law, and is a law to himself and to others. Among the Greeks as among the Jews, law was a sacred name, the gift of God, the bond of states. INTR OD UCTION. 523 But in the Politicus of Plato, as in the New Testament, the word has also become the symbol of an imperfect good, which is almost an evil. The law sacrifices the individual to the universal, and is the tyranny of the many over the few (cp. Rep. i. 359). It has fixed rules which are the props of order, and will not swerve or bend in extreme cases. It is the beginning of political society, but there is something higher — an intelligent ruler, whether God or man, who is able to adapt himself to the endless varieties of circumstances. Plato is fond of picturing the advantages which would result from the union of the tyrant who has power with the legislator who has wisdom : he regards this as the best and speediest way of reforming mankind. But institutions cannot thus be artificially created, nor can the external authority of a ruler impose laws for which a nation is unprepared. The greatest power, the highest wisdom, can only proceed orie or two steps in advance of public opinion. In all stages of civilisation human nature, after all our efforts, remains intractable ; not like clay in the hands of the potter, or marble under the chisel of the sculptor. Great changes occur in the history of nations, but they are brought about slowly, like the changes in the frame of nature, upon which the puny arm of man hardly makes an impression. And, speaking generally, the slowest growths, both in nature and in politics, are the most permanent. b. Whether the best form of the ideal is a person or a law may fairly be doubted. The former is more akin to us : it clothes itself in poetry and art, and appeals to reason more in the form of feeling: in the latter there is less danger of allowing ourselves to be deluded by a figure of speech. The ideal of the Greek state found an expression in the deification of law, the ancient Stoic spoke of a wise man perfect in virtue, who was fancifully said to be a king ; but neither they nor Plato had arrived at the conception of a person who was also a law. Nor is it easy for the Christian to think of God as wisdom, truth, holiness, and also as the wise, true, and holy one. He is always wanting to break through the abstraction and interrupt the law, in order that he may present to himself the more familiar image of a divine friend. While the impersonal has too slender a hold upon the affections to be made the basis of religion, the conception of a person on the other hand tends to degenerate into a new kind of idolatry. Neither criticism nor experience allows us to suppose that there are interferences with 524 STATESMAN. the laws of nature; the idea is inconceivable to us and at variance with facts. The philosopher or theologian who could realise to mankind that a person is a law, that the higher rule has no exception, that goodness, like knowledge, is also power, would breathe a new religious life into the world. c. Besides the imaginary rule of a philosopher or a God, the actual forms of government have to be considered. In the infancy of political science, men naturally ask whether the rule of the many or of the few is to be preferred — The rule of the few good or of the many bad? To the question put in this form there could be but one answer — The rule of the one good and all the rest bad ? To this again there would be one reply, which might be expressed in the words of Heracleitus— ' One is ten thousand, if he be the best/ Or, putting the question in another form, — The rule of a class, neither better nor worse than other classes, not devoid of a feeling of right, but guided mostly by a sense of their own interests, or the rule of all classes, similarly under the influence of mixed motives ? To the question put in this form, no one would hesitate to answer — The rule of all rather than one, because all classes are more likely to take care of all than one of another; and the government has greater power and stability when resting on a wider basis. Both in ancient and modern times the best balanced form of government has been held to be the best ; and yet it should not be so nicely balanced as to make action and movement impossible. The statesman who builds his hope upon the aristocracy, upon the middle classes, upon the people, will probably, if he have sufficient experience of them, conclude that all classes are much alike, and that one is as good as another, and that the liberties of no class are safe in the hands of the rest. The higher ranks have the advantage in education and manners, the middle and lower in industry and self-denial; in every class, to a certain extent, a natural sense of right prevails, sometimes communicated from the lower to the higher, sometimes from the higher to the lower, which is too strong for class interests. There have been crises in the history of nations, as in the Crusades or the Reformation, or the French Revolution, when the same fever or inspiration has taken hold of whole peoples, and permanently raised the sense of freedom and justice among mankind. But even supposing the different classes of a nation, when viewed INTRODUCTION. 525 impartially, to be on a level with each other in moral virtue, there remain two considerations of opposite kinds which enter into the problem of government Admitting of course that the upper and lower classes are equal in the eye of God and of the law, yet the one may be by nature fitted to govern and the other to be governed. A ruling caste does not soon altogether lose the governing qualities, nor a subject class easily acquire them. Hence the phenomenon so often observed in the old Greek revolutions, and not without parallel in modern times, that the leaders of the democracy have been themselves of aristocratic origin. The people are expecting to be governed by representatives of their own, but the true man of the people either never appears, or is quickly altered by circumstances. Their real wishes hardly make themselves felt, although their lower interests and prejudices may sometimes be flattered and yielded to for the sake of ulterior objects by those who have political power. They will often learn by experience that the democracy has become a plutocracy. The influence of wealth, though not the enjoyment of it, has become diffused among the poor as well as among the rich ; and society, instead of being safer, is more at the mercy of the tyrant, who, when things are at the worst, obtains a guard — that is, an army — and announces himself as the saviour. The other consideration is of an opposite kind. Admitting that a few wise men are likely to be better governors than the unwise many, yet it is not in their power to fashion an entire people according to their behest. When with the best intentions the benevolent despot begins his regime, he finds the world hard to move. A succession of good kings has at the end of a century left the people an inert and unchanged mass. The Roman world was not permanently improved by the hundred years of Hadrian and the Antonines. The kings of Spain during the last century were at least equal to any contemporary sovereigns in virtue and ability. In certain states of the world the means are wanting to render a benevolent power effectual. These means are not a mere external organisation of posts or telegraphs, hardly the introduction of new laws or modes of industry. A change must be made in the spirit of a people as well as in their externals. The ancient legislator did not really take a blank tablet and inscribe upon it the rules which reflection and experience had taught him to be for a nation's interest ; no one would have obeyed him if he had. But he took the customs which he found already existing in a half 526 STATESMAN. civilised state of society : these he reduced to form and inscribed on pillars ; he denned what had before been undefined, and gave certainty to what was uncertain. No legislation ever sprang, like Athene, in full power out of the head either of God or man. Plato and Aristotle are sensible of the difficulty of combining the wisdom of the few with the power of the many. According to Plato, he is a physician who has the knowledge of a physician, and he is a king who has the knowledge of a king. But how the king, one or more, is to obtain the required power, is hardly at all considered by him. He presents the idea of a perfect government, but except the regulation for mixing different tempers in marriage, he never makes any provision for the attainment of it. Aristotle, casting aside ideals, would place the government in a middle class of citizens, suf ficiently numerous for stability, without admitting the populace ; and such appears to have been the constitution which actually prevailed for a short time at Athens — the rule of the five thousand — characterised by Thucydides as the best government of Athens which he had known. It may however be doubted how far, either in a Greek or modern state, such a limitation is practicable or desirable ; for those who are left outside the pale will always be dangerous to those who are within, and the leaven of the mob can hardly affect the representation of a great country. There is reason for the argument in favour of a property qualification ; there is reason also in the arguments of those who would include all and so exhaust the political situation. The true answer to the question is relative to the circumstances of nations. How can we get the greatest intelligence combined with the greatest power? The ancient legislator would have found this question more easy than we do. For he would have required that all persons who had a share of government should have received their education from the state and have borne her burdens, and should have served in her fleets and armies. But though we sometimes hear the cry that we must educate the masses, for they are our masters, who would listen to a proposal that the franchise should be confined to the educated or to those who fulfil political duties? Then again, we know that the masses are not our masters, and that they are more likely to become so if we educate them. In modern politics so many interests have to be consulted that we are compelled to do, not what is best, but what is possible. IN TROD UCTION. 527 d. Law is the first principle of society, but it cannot supply all the wants of society, and may easily cause more evils than it cures. Plato is aware of the imperfection of law in failing to meet the varieties of circumstances : he is also aware that human life would be intolerable if every detail of it were placed under legal regulation. It may be a great evil that physicians should kill their patients or captains cast away their ships, but it would be a far greater evil if each particular in the practice of medicine or seamanship were regulated by law. Much has been said in modern times about the duty of leaving men to themselves, which is supposed to be the best way of taking care of them. The question is often asked, What are the limits of legislation in relation to morals? And the answer is to the same effect, That morals must take care of themselves. There is a one-sided truth in these answers, if they are regarded as condemnations of the interference with com merce in the last century or of clerical inquisition in the middle ages. But laissez faire is not the best but only the second best. What the best is, Plato does not attempt to determine; he only contrasts the imperfection of law with the wisdom of the perfect ruler. Laws should be just, but they must also be certain, and we are obliged to sacrifice something of their justice to their certainty. Suppose a wise and good judge, who paying little or no regard to the law, attempted to decide with perfect justice the cases that were brought before him. To the uneducated person he would appear to be the ideal of a judge. Such justice has been often exercised in primitive times, or at the present day among eastern rulers. But in the first place it depends entirely on the personal character of the judge. He may be honest, but there is no check upon his dishonesty, and his opinion can only be overruled, not by any principle of law, but by the opinion of another judging like himself without law. In the second place, even if he be ever so honest, his mode of deciding questions would introduce an element of uncertainty into human life; no one would know beforehand what would happen to him, or would seek to conform in his conduct to any rule of law. For the compact which the law makes with men, that they shall be protected if they observe the law in their dealings with one another, would have to be substituted another principle of a more general character, that they shall be protected by the law if they act rightly in their dealings with one another. The complexity of human actions and also the 528 STATESMAN. uncertainty of their effects would be increased tenfold. For one of the principal advantages of law is not merely that it enforces honesty, but that it makes men act in the same way, and requires them to produce the same evidence of their acts. Too many laws may be the sign of a corrupt and overcivilised state of society, too few are the sign of an uncivilised one: as soon as commerce begins to grow men make themselves customs which have the validity of laws. Even equity, which is the exception to the law, conforms to fixed rules and lies for the most part within the limits of previous decisions. IV. The bitterness of the Politicus is characteristic of Plato's later style, in which the thoughts of youth and love have fled away, and we are no longer attended by the Muses or the Graces. We do not venture to say that Plato was soured by old age, but certainly the kindliness and courtesy of the older dialogues have disappeared. He sees the world under a harder and grimmer aspect : he is dealing with the reality of things, not with visions or pictures of them : he is seeking by the aid of dialectic only, to arrive at truth: he is deeply impressed with the importance of classification. In this alone he finds the true measure of human things ; and very often in the pro cess of division, curious results are obtained. For the dialectical art is no respecter of persons : king and vermin-taker are all alike to the philosopher. There may have been a time when the king was a god, but he now is pretty much on a level with his subjects in breeding and education. Man should be well advised that he is only one of the animals, and the Hellene in particular should be aware that he himself was the author of the distinction between Hellene and Barbarian, and that the Phrygian would equally divide mankind into Phrygians and Barbarians, and that some intelligent animal, like a crane, might go a step further, and divide the animal world into cranes and all other animals. Plato cannot help laughing (cp. Theaet. 174) when he thinks of the king running after his subjects, like the pig-driver or the bird-taker. He would seriously have him consider how many competitors there are to his throne, chiefly among the class of serving- men. A good deal of meaning is lurking in the expression — ' There is no art of feeding mankind worthy the name/ There is a similar depth in the remark,—' The wonder about states is not that they are short-lived, but that they last so long in spite of the badness of their rulers.' INTRODUCTION. 529 V. There is also a paradoxical element in the Statesman which delights in reversing the accustomed use of words. The law which to the Greek was the highest object of reverence is an ignorant and brutal tyrant — the tyrant is converted into a beneficent king. The sophist too is no longer as in the earlier dialogues, the rival of the statesman, but assumes his form. Plato sees that the ideal of the state in his own day is more and more severed from the actual. From such ideals as he had once formed, he turns away to contemplate the decline of the Greek cities which were far worse now in his old age than they had been in his youth, and were to become worse and worse in the ages which followed. He cannot contain his disgust at the con temporary statesmen, sophists who had turned politicians, in various forms of men and animals appearing, some like lions and centaurs, others like satyrs and monkeys. In this new disguise the Sophists make their last appearance on the scene : in the Laws Plato appears to have forgotten them, or at any rate makes only a slight allusion to them in a single passage (Laws x, 908 D). VI. The Politicus is naturally connected with the Sophist. At first sight we are surprised to find that the Eleatic stranger discourses to us, not only concerning the nature of being and not-being, but con cerning the king and statesman. We perceive, however, that there is no inappropriateness in his maintaining the character of chief speaker, when we remember the close connection which is assumed by Plato to exist between politics and dialectic. In both dialogues the Proteus Sophist is exhibited, first, in the disguise of an Eristic, secondly, of a false statesman. There are several lesser features which the two dialogues have in common. The styles and the situations of the speakers are very similar; there is the same love of division, and in both of them the mind of the writer is greatly occupied about method ; to which he had probably intended to return in the projected ' Philosopher/ The Politicus stands midway between the Republic and the Laws, and is also related to the Timaeus. The mythical or cosmical element reminds us of the Timaeus, the ideal of the Republic. A previous chaos in which the elements as yet were not, is hinted at both in the Timaeus and Politicus. The same ingenious arts of giving veri similitude to a fiction are practised in both dialogues, and in both, as well as in the myth at the end of the Republic, Plato touches on VOL. IV. M m 530 STATESMAN. the subject of necessity and free-will. The words in which he describes the miseries of states seem to be an amplification of the ' cities will never cease from ill' of the Republic. The point of view in both is the same ; and the differences not really important, e. g. in the myth, or in the account of the different kinds of states. But the treatment of the subject in the Politicus is fragmentary, and the shorter and later work, as might be expected, is less finished, and less worked out in detail. The idea of measure and the arrangement of the sciences, supply connecting links both with the Republic and the Philebus. More than any of the preceding dialogues, the Politicus seems to approximate in thought and language to the Laws. There is the same decline and tendency to monotony in style, the same self- consciousness, awkwardness, and over-civility, 286 B, 293 A, 263 B, 265 B, 277 A, B, 283 C, 286 B; and in the Laws is contained the pattern of that second best form of government, which, after all, is admitted to be the only attainable one in this world. The ' gentle violence/ the marriage of dissimilar natures, the figure of the warp and the woof, are also found in the Laws. Both expressly recognise the conception of a first or ideal state, which has receded into an invisible heaven. Nor does the account of the origin and growth of society really differ in them, if we make allowance for the mythic character of the narrative in the Politicus. The virtuous tyrant is common to both of them ; and the Eleatic Stranger takes up a position similar to that of the Athenian Stranger in the Laws. VII. There would have been little disposition to doubt the genuineness of the Sophist and Politicus, if they had been compared with the Laws rather than with the Republic, and the Laws had been received, as they ought to be, on the authority of Aristotle, as an undoubted work of Plato. The detailed consideration of the genuineness and order of the Platonic dialogues has been reserved for another place : a few of the reasons for defending the Sophist and Politicus may be here given. 1. The excellence, importance, and metaphysical originality of the two dialogues : no works at once so good and of such length, are known to have proceeded from the hands of a forger. 2. The resemblances in them to other dialogues of Plato are such as might be expected to be found in works of the same author, and not in those of an imitator ; being too subtle and minute to have been invented by another. The similar passages and turns of thought are generally INTR OD UCTION. ' 53 r inferior to the parallel passages in his earlier writings ; and we might h priori have expected that, if altered, they would have been improved. But the comparison of the Laws proves that this repetition of his own thoughts and words in an inferior form, is characteristic of Plato's later style. 3. The close connection of them with the Theaetetus, Parmenides, and Philebus, involves the fate of these dialogues, as well as of the two suspected ones. 4. The suspicion of them seems mainly to rest on a presumption that in Plato's writings we may expect to find an uniform type of doctrine and opinion. But however we arrange the order, or narrow the circle of the dialogues, we must admit that they exhibit a growth and progress in the mind of Plato. And the appearance of change or progress is not to be regarded as impugning the genuineness of any particular writings, but may be even an argument in their favour. If we suppose the Sophist and Politicus to stand halfway between the Republic and the Laws, and in near connection with the Theaetetus, the Parmenides, the Philebus, the arguments against them derived from differences of thought and style disappear or may be said without paradox in some degree to confirm their genuineness. There is no such interval between the Republic or Phaedrus and the two suspected dialogues, as that which separates all the earlier writings of Plato from the Laws. And the Theaetetus, Parmenides, and Philebus, supply links, by which, how ever different from them, they may be reunited with the great body of the Platonic writings. M m 2 STATESMAN. PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE. THEODORUS. THE ELEATIC STRANGER. SOCRATES. YOUNG SOCRATES. teph. Socrates. I OWE you many thanks, indeed, Theodorus, for the 257 acquaintance both of Theaetetus and of the Stranger. Theodorus. And in a little while, Socrates, you will owe me three times as many ; when they have completed for you the delineation of the Statesman and of the Philosopher, as well as of the Sophist. Soc. Sophist, statesman, philosopher ! O, my dear Theodorus, do my ears truly witness that this is the estimate formed of them by the great calculator and geometrician ? Theod. What do you mean, Socrates ? Soc. I mean that you rate them all at the same value, whereas they are really separated by an interval, which no geometrical ratio can express. Theod. By Ammon, the god of Cyrene, Socrates, that is a very fair hit ; and shows that you have not forgotten your geometry. I will retaliate on you at some other time, but I must now ask the Stranger, who will not, I hope, tire of his goodness to us, to proceed either with the Statesman or with the Philosopher, whichever he prefers. Stranger. That is my duty, Theodorus ; having begun I must go on, and not leave the work unfinished. But what shall be done with Theaetetus ? Theod. In what respect do you mean ? Str. Shall we relieve him, and take his companion, the Young Socrates, instead of him ? What do you advise ? 534 STATESMAN. Thcod. Let the other be taken instead of him, as you propose. The young always do better when they have intervals of rest. Soc. I think, Stranger, that both of them may be said to be in some way related to me ; for the one bears my name and style, and the other, as you affirm, has the cut of my ugly face. 25 (Cp. Theaet. 143 E.) And we should be always ready to acknow ledge relations by holding discourse with them. I myself was discoursing with Theaetetus yesterday, and I have just been listening to his answers ; my namesake I have not yet examined, but I must. Another time will do for me ; to-day let him answer you. Sir. .Very good. Young Socrates, do you hear what the elder Socrates is proposing? Young Socrates. I do. Sir. And do you agree ? Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. As you do not object, still less can I. After the Sophist, then, I think that the Statesman naturally follows next in the order of enquiry. And please to say, Whether he, too, should be ranked among those who have science ? Y. Soc. Yes. Str. Then the sciences must be divided as before ? Y. Soc. I dare say. Str. But yet the division would not be the same ? Y. Soc. How then ? Str. They will be divided at some other point. Y. Soc. Yes. Str. Where shall we discover the path of the Statesman ? We must find and separate off, and set a seal upon this, and we will set the mark of another class upon all diverging paths. Thus the soul will conceive of all kinds of knowledge under two classes. Y. Soc. To find the path is your business, Stranger, and not mine. Str. Yes, Socrates, but the discovery, when once made, will belong to both of us. Y. Soc. Very good. Str. Well, and are not arithmetic and certain other kindred arts, merely abstract knowledge, wholly separated from action ? STA TESMAN. 535 Y. Soc. That is true. Sir. But the knowledge of which the art of carpentering, or the other handicraft arts are possessed, seems to reside in the operation ; they know and bring into existence simultaneously the bodies which are produced by them. Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. Then let us divide sciences in general into those which are practical and those which are purely intellectual. F. Soc. Let us suppose these to be the two principal divisions of the whole of science, which is one. Str. And is he whom we variously term ' statesman,' ' king,' ' master,' or ' householder,' one and the same ; or are there so many different sciences or arts which correspond to these names? Or rather, allow me to put the matter in another way. •59 Y. Soc. Let me hear. Str. If any one who is in a private station has the skill to advise one of the public physicians, must not he also be called a physician ? F. Soc. Yes. Str. And if any one who is in a private station has the art to advise the ruler of a country, must not he be said to have the knowledge which the ruler ought to have ? F. Soc. True. Str. But surely the science of a true king is royal science ? F. Soc. Yes. Str. And will not he who possesses this knowledge, whether he happens to be a ruler or a private man, when regarded only in reference to his art, be truly called ' royal'? F Soc. He certainly ought to be. Str. And the householder and master are the same ? F. Soc. Of course. Str. Again, a large household may be compared to a small state: — will they differ at all, as far as government is con cerned ? F. Soc. They will not. Str. Then, returning to the point which we were just now dis cussing, do we not clearly see that there will be one science of all of them ; and this science may be either royal or political or economical ; we will not quarrel with any one about the name. 536 STATESMAN. Y. Soc. Certainly not. Str. This, too, is evident, that the king cannot do much with his hands, or with his whole body, towards the maintenance of his empire, compared with what he does by the intelligence and strength of his soul. F. Soc, That is evident. Str. Then, shall we say that the king has a greater affinity to knowledge than to manual arts or to practical life in general ? F. Soc. Certainly he has. Str. Then we may put all together as one and the same — statesmanship and the statesman — kingship and the king. F. Soc. Clearly. Str. And now we shall only be proceeding in due order, if we divide the sphere of knowledge ? F. Soc. Very good. Str. Think whether you can find any joint or parting in knowledge ? F. Soc. Tell me of what sort. Str. Such as this ; — you may remember that we made an art of calculation ? F. Soc. Yes. Str. Which was, unmistakeably, one of the arts of knowledge ? F. Soc. Certainly. Str. And which knew the difference of numbers, and would form a judgment on them, and had no other function ? F. Soc. Very true. Str. Just as the architect does not work himself, but is the ruler of workmen ? F. Soc. Yes. Str. He contributes knowledge, but not manual labour ? F. Soc. True. Str. And may therefore be justly said to share in theoretical 260 science ? F. Soc. Quite true. Str. But he ought not, when he has formed a judgment, to regard his functions as at an end, like the calculator ; — he must assign to the individual workmen their appropriate task until they have completed their work ? F. Soc. True. STATESMAN. 537 Sir. Does not this class of sciences, as well as arithmetic and the other kindred arts, belong to pure knowledge ; and is not the difference between them, that the one sort has the power of judging only, and the other of ruling as well? F. Soc. That is evident. Str. May we not truly say, that of all knowledge, there are two divisions — one which rules, and the other which judges? Y. Soc. That is my view. Str. And surely, when men have anything to do in com mon, that they should be of one mind is a pleasant thing ? F. Soc. Very true. Str. Then while we ourselves are of one mind, we need not mind about the views of others ? F. Soc. Certainly not. Str. And now, in which of these divisions shall we place the king? — Is he a judge and spectator? Or shall we assign to him the art of rule or command — for he is assuredly a ruler ? F. Soc. The latter, clearly. Str. Then we must see whether there is any mark of division in the art of command. I am inclined to think that there is a division similar to that of manufacturer and retail dealer, which distinguishes the king from the herald. F. Soc. How is that ? Str. Why, does not the retailer receive and sell over again the productions of others, which have been sold before ? F. Soc. Certainly he does. Str. And is not the herald under command, and does he not receive orders, and in his turn order others ? F. Soc. Very true. Str. Then shall we mingle the kingly art in the same class with the art of the herald, the interpreter, the boatswain, the prophet, and the numerous other arts which exercise command ; or, as in the preceding comparison we spoke of manufacturers, or sellers for themselves and retailers, — seeing, too, that the class of supreme rulers, or rulers for themselves, is almost nameless — shall we make a word following the same analogy, and refer kings to a supreme or ruling-for-self science, leaving the rest to receive a name from some one else? For we are seeking 538 STATESMAN. the ruler ; and our enquiry is not concerned with him who is not a ruler. F. Soc. Very good. Sir. Thus a very fair distinction has been attained between 261 the man who gives his own commands, and him who gives another's ; and now let us see if the supreme power will allow of any further division. F. Soc. By all means. Str. I think that there may be ; and please to assist me in making the division. F. Soc. At what point ? Str. May not all rulers be supposed to command for the sake of producing something ? F. Soc. Certainly. Str. Nor is there any difficulty in dividing articles of pro duction into two classes. F. Soc. How would you divide them ? Str. Of the whole class, some have life and some are without life. F. Soc. True. Str. And by the help of these differences there may be a subdivision, if we please, of the section of knowledge which commands. F. Soc. How is that ? Str. There may be a division into command of the production of lifeless and of living objects ; and in this way the whole will be divided. F. Soc. Certainly. Str. That division, then, is complete ; and now we may leave one half, and take up the other ; which may also be exhaustively divided. F. Soc. What half do you mean ? Str. Of course that which exercises command about animals. For, surely, the royal science is not like that of a master- workman, a science presiding over lifeless objects ; — the king has a nobler function, which is the management and control of living beings. F. Soc. True. Str. And the breeding and tending of living beings may be STATESMAN. 539 observed to be sometimes a tending of the individual ; in other cases, a common care of creatures in flocks ? Y. Soc. True. Sir. But the statesman is not a tender of individuals — not like the driver or groom of a single ox or horse ; he is rather to be compared with the keeper of a drove of horses or oxen. F. Soc. That seems to be a true remark. Sir. Shall we call this art of tending many animals together, the art of managing a herd, or the art of collective management ? Y. Soc. No matter ; — whichever may happen to occur to us in the course of conversation. Str. Very good, Socrates ; and, if you continue to be not too particular about names, you will be all the richer in wisdom when you are an old man. And now, as you say, without further discussion of the name, can you see a way in which a 162 person, by showing the art of herding to be of two kinds, may cause that which is now sought amongst twice the number of things, to be then sought amongst half that number ? F. Soc. I will try ; — there appears to me to be one manage ment of men and another of beasts. Str. You have certainly divided them in a most straight forward and manly style ; but you have fallen into an error which hereafter, I think that we had better avoid. F. Soc. What is the error ? Str. I think that we had better not cut off a small portion which is not a species, from many larger portions ; the part should be a species. To separate off at once the subject of in vestigation, is a most excellent plan, if only the separation be rightly made ; and you were under the impression that you were right, because you saw that you would come to man ; and this led you to hasten the steps. But you should not chip off too small a piece, my friend ; the safer way is to cut through the middle ; which is also the more likely way of finding classes. Attention to this principle makes all the difference in a process of enquiry. F. Soc. What do you mean, Stranger? Str. I will endeavour to speak more plainly out of love to your good parts, Socrates ; and, although I cannot at present en tirely explain myself, I will try, as we proceed, to be a little clearer. 540 STATESMAN. Y. Soc. What was the error of which, as you say, we were guilty in our division ? S-tr. The error was just as if some one who wanted to divide the human race, were to divide them after the fashion which prevails in this part of the world ; here they cut off the Hellenes as one species, and all the other species of mankind, which are innumerable, and have no connection or common language, they include under the single name of ' barbarians,' and because they have one name they are supposed to be of one species also. Or suppose that in dividing numbers you were to cut off ten thousand from all the rest, and make of them one species, comprehending the rest under another separate name, you might say that here too was a single class, because you had given it a single name. Whereas you would make a much better and more equal and artistic classification of numbers, if you divided them into odd and even ; or of the human species, if you divided them into male and female ; and only separated off Lydians or Phrygians, or any other tribe, and arrayed them against the rest of the world, when you could no longer make a division into parts which were also classes. Y. Soc. Very true ; but I wish that this distinction between a part and a class could still be made somewhat plainer. Str. O Socrates, best of men, that is not an easy task which you impose. We have already digressed further from our original intention than we ought, and you would have us wander still further away. But we must now return to our subject ; and hereafter, when there is a leisure hour, we will follow up the other track ; at the same time, I wish you to guard against imagining that you ever heard me declare— F. Soc. What ? Str. That a class and a part are distinct. F. Soc. What did I hear, then ? Str. That a class is necessarily a part, but there is no similar necessity that a part should be a class ; that is the sense which I should always wish you to attribute to my words, Socrates. F. Soc. Good. Str. There is another thing which I should like to know. F. Soc. What is it ? STATESMAN. 541 Str. The point at which we digressed ; for, if I am not mis taken, the exact place was at the question, Where you would divide the management of herds, to which you appeared rather too ready to answer that there were two species of animals ; man being one, and all other animals making up the other. Y. Soc. True. Str. I thought that in taking away a part, you imagined that the remainder equally formed a part, because you were able to call them by the common name of brutes. Y. Soc. That is also quite true. Str. Suppose now, O most courageous of dialecticians, that some wise and understanding creature, such as a crane is reputed to be, were, in imitation of you, to make a similar division, and set up cranes against all other animals to their own special glorification, at the same time jumbling together all the others, including man, under the appellation of brutes, — here would be the sort of error which we must try to avoid. Y. Soc. How can we be safe ? Str. If we do not divide the whole class of animals, we shall be less likely to fall into that error. Y. Soc. We had better not take the whole ? Str. Yes, there lay the source of our error in a former division. F. Soc. Of what error ? Str. You remember how that part of the art of knowledge which was concerned with command, had to do with the rearing of live stock, — I mean, with animals in herds ? F. Soc. Yes. 264 Str. In that case, there was already implied a division of all animals into tame and wild ; those whose nature could be tamed were called tame, and those which could not be tamed were called wild. F. Soc. True. Str. And the political science of which we are in search, is and ever was concerned with tame animals, and is also confined to gregarious animals. F. Soc. Yes. Str. But then we ought not to divide, as we did, taking the whole class at once. Neither let us be in too great haste to 542 STATESMAN. arrive quickly at the political science ; for this mistake has already brought upon us the misfortune of which the proverb speaks. Y. Soc. What misfortune? Str. The misfortune of too much haste, which is too little speed. Y. Soc. And all the better, Stranger. Str. Very well : But let us begin again, and endeavour to divide the collective rearing of animals ; for, probably, if the argument proceeds by regular steps, your object will be better accomplished than by hasty anticipation. Tell me, then — F. Soc. What ? Str. Did you ever hear, as you very likely may — for I do not suppose that you ever actually visited them — of the preserves of fishes in the Nile, and in the ponds of the great king, or you may have 'seen similar preserves in wells at home ? Y. Soc. Yes, to be sure, I have seen them, and I have often heard the others described. Str. And you may have heard also, and are assured by report, although you have not been in those regions, of the nurseries of geese and cranes which exist in the plains of Thessaly ? F Soc. Certainly. Str. I asked you, because here is a new division of the management of herds, into the management of land and of water herds. F. Soc. There is. Str. And do you agree that we ought to divide the collective rearing of herds into two corresponding parts, the one the rear ing of the watery, and the other of the land herds ? F. Soc. I do. Str. There is surely no need to ask which of these two con tains the royal art, for it is evident to everybody. Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. Any one can divide the herds which feed on dry land ? F. Soc. How would you divide them ? Str. I should distinguish between flying and walking. F. Soc. Most true. Str. And where shall we look for the political animal ? Might not an idiot know that he is a pedestrian ? F. Soc. Certainly. STATESMAN. 543 Str. The art of managing the walking animal has to be further divided, just as you might halve an even number. Y. Soc. That is true. 65 Str. Let me note that here appear in view two ways to that part or class to which the argument is going, — the one a speedier way, which cuts off a small portion from a large ; the other, which agrees better with the principle which we were laying down, is the way of dividing in the middle ; but this is longer. We can take either of them, whichever we please. Y. Soc. Cannot we have both ways ? Str. Together ? What a thing to ask ! but, if you take them in turn, you clearly may. Y. Soc. Then I should like to take them in turn. Str. There will be no difficulty, as we are near the end ; if we had been at the beginning, or in the middle, I should have demurred to your request ; but now, in accordance with your desire, let us begin with the longer way ; while we are fresh, we shall get on better. And now attend to the division. Y. Soc. Let me hear. Str. The tame walking herding animals are distributed by nature into two classes. Y. Soc. Upon what principle ? Str. The one grows horns ; and the other is without horns. Y. Soc. Clearly. Str. Suppose that you divide the science which manages pedestrian animals into two corresponding parts, and define them ; for if you wish to name them, the complexity will be too great. Y. Soc. How must I speak of them, then ? Str. In this way : let the science of rearing pedestrian animals be divided into two parts, and one part assigned to the horned . class, and the other to the class that has no horns. Y. Soc. All this has been abundantly proved, and may there fore be assumed. Str. The king is clearly the shepherd of the polled herd, who have no horns. Y. Soc. That is evident. Str. Shall we break up this hornless herd into sections, and see which falls to the king ? 544 STATESMAN. Y. Soc. By all means. Str. Shall we distinguish them by their having or not having cloven feet, or by their mixing or not mixing the breed ? You know what I mean. Y..Soc. What? Str. I mean that the nature of horses and asses is to breed from one another. Y. Soc. Yes. Str. But the remainder of the hornless herd of tame animals will not mix the breed. Y. Soc. Very true. Str. And of which has the Statesman charge, of the mixed or of the unmixed ? Y. Soc. Clearly of the unmixed. Str. I suppose that we must divide this again as before. F. Soc. We must. Str. And now every tame and herding animal has been 26 divided into portions, with the exception of two species ; for I hardly think that dogs ought to be reckoned among herding animals. Y. Soc. Certainly not ; but how shall we divide the two re maining species ? Str. There is a measure of difference which may be appro priately employed by you and Theaetetus, who are geome tricians. Y. Soc. What is that ? Str. The diameter ; and, again, the diameter of a diameter. F. Soc. What do you mean ? Str. How does man walk, but as a diameter whose power is two feet l ? F. Soc. Just so. Str. And the power of the remaining kind, being the power, of twice two feet, may be said to be the diameter of our diameter 2. F. Soc. Certainly ; and now I think that I pretty nearly understand you. Str. I descry, Socrates, another famous jest in these divisions. 1 The diameter of one foot square = J 2 square feet. - The diameter of two square feet = the root or side of four square feet. STA TESMAN. 545 Y. Soc. What is it? Str. Human beings have come out in the same class with the freest and airiest of creation, and are running a race with them. Y. Soc. I remark that very singular result. Str. And would you not expect that, being the slowest, they will arrive last ? Y. Soc. Indeed I should. Str. And there is a still more ridiculous consequence, that the king is running about with the herd, and in unequal race with the bird-taker, who of all mankind is most of an adept at the airy life1. Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. Then here, Socrates, is still clearer evidence of the truth of what was said in the discussion about the Sophist. Y. Soc. What? Str. That the dialectical method is no respecter of persons, and cares not for great or small, but always arrives in her own way at the truest result. Y. Soc. Clearly. Str. And now, I will not wait for you to ask me, but will of my own accord take you by the shorter road to the definition of a king. Y. Soc. By all means. Str. I say that we should have begun at first by dividing land animals into biped and quadruped, and as the winged herd, and that alone, comes out in the same class with man, we should divide bipeds into those which have wings and have no wings, and when that is divided, and the art of the management of mankind is brought to light, the time will have come to produce our Statesman and ruler, and place him as charioteer in the State, and hand over to him the reins, for that is his proper science and vocation. 267 Y. 'Soc. Very good ; you have paid me the debt ; I mean, that you have completed the argument, and I suppose that you added the digression by way of interest. 1 Plato is not introducing a new class, but only making a reflection on the two kinds of bipeds. Others refer the passage to pigs and a pig-driver. Ac cording to this explanation we must translate the words above, ' freest and airiest of creation,' 'worthiest and laziest of creation.' VOL. IV. N n 546 STA TESMAN. Sir. Then now, let us go back to the beginning, and join the links, which together make the definition of the name of the Statesman's art. Y. Soc. By all means. Str. The science of pure knowledge originally had a part which was the science of rule or command, and from this was derived another part, which was called that of command for self, and illustrated by the analogy of wholesale dealing ; an important section of this was the management of living animals, and this again was further limited by the management of them in herds, and again in herds of pedestrian animals, — of pedestrian animals who are without horns ; here, again, was an important line of demarcation. He who desires to comprehend the right- hand section of this latter class under a single name, must make three folds; he will speak of a science of (i) the shepherding, (2) of animals, (3) who do not mix the breed. The only further sub-division is the art of man-herding, — this has to do with bipeds, and is what we were seeking after, and have now found, being at once the royal and political. Y. Soc. To be sure we have. Str. And do you think, Socrates, that we really have found, as you say, the desired end ? F. Soc. What is the end ? Str. Do you think, I mean, that we have really fulfilled our intention? — There has been a sort of discussion, and yet the investigation seems to me not to be perfectly worked out. F. Soc. I do not understand. Str. I will try to make the thought which is at this moment present in my mind, clearer to us both. Y. Soc. Let me hear. Str. There were many arts of shepherding, and one of them was the political, which had the charge of one particular herd ? F. Soc. There were. Str. And this the argument defined to be the art of rearing not horses or other animals, but the art of rearing man collectively ? F. Soc. True. Str. Note, however, a difference which distinguishes the king from all other shepherds. STA TESMAN. 547 Y. Soc. To what do you refer? Str. I want to ask, whether any of the other herdsmen has a rival who assumes that he is joint-manager of the herd1? Y. Soc. What do you mean ? Str. I mean to say that merchants, husbandmen, providers of food, and also training-masters and physicians, will all con tend with the herdsmen of humanity, whom we call Statesmen, declaring that they themselves have the care of rearing or 68 managing mankind, and that they rear not only the common herd, but also the rulers themselves. Y. Soc. Is there not truth in that ? Str. Very likely there may be, and we will consider their claim. But I mean to say that no one will raise a similar claim as against the shepherd, who is allowed on all hands to be the sole and only feeder and physician of his flock ; he is also their match-maker and accoucheur ; no one else knows that depart ment of science. And he is their merry-maker and musician, and no one can console and soothe his own flock better than he can, either with the tones of his voice or with instruments, as far as their nature is susceptible of such influences. And the same may be said of herdsmen in general. Y. Soc. Very true. Str. But if this is true, can our argument about the king be true and unimpeachable ? Were we right in selecting him out of ten thousand other claimants to be the shepherd and rearer of the human flock? Y. Soc. Surely not. Str. And if not, have we not reason to apprehend, that although we may have described a sort of royal form, we have not as yet accurately worked out the true image of the Statesman? and that we cannot reveal him as he truly is in his own nature, until we have disengaged and separated him from those who hang about him and claim to share in his prerogatives? Y. Soc. Very true. Str. And that, Socrates, is what we must do, if we mean not to bring dishonour on the argument. 1 Reading ei TIS TO>V a\\a>v roJ. N n 2 548 STA TESMAN. Y. Soc. We must certainly keep up the credit of the argument. Str. Then let us make a new beginning, and travel by a different road. Y. Soc. What road ? Str. I think that we may have a little amusement ; there is a famous tale, of which a good portion may with advantage be interwoven, and then we may resume our series of divisions, and proceed in the old path until we arrive at the summit or desired end. Shall we do as I say ? Y. Soc. By all means. Str. Listen, then, to a tale which a child would love to hear, and you are not too old to be amused as a child. Y. Soc. Let me hear. Str. There did really happen, and will again happen, like many other events of which ancient tradition has preserved the record, the portent which is traditionally said to have occurred in the quarrel of Atreus and Thyestes. You remember what that was ? Y. Soc. I suppose you to mean the token of the birth of the golden lamb? Str. No, not that ; but another part of the story, which tells how the sun and the stars rose in the west, and set in the east, and that the god reversed their motion, and gave them that which they have at present as a testimony to the right of Atreus. Y. S'oc. Yes ; there is such a legend. Str. Again, we have been often told of the reign of Cronos. F. Soc. Yes, very often. Str. Did you ever hear that the men of former times were earth-born, and not begotten of one another ? Y. Soc. Yes, that is another old tradition. Str. All these stories, and ten thousand others which are still more wonderful, have a common origin ; many of them have been lost in the lapse of ages, or exist only in fragments ; but the origin of them is what no one has told, and may as well be told now ; for the tale is suited to throw light on the nature of the king. Y. Soc. Very good ; and I hope that you will give the whole story, and leave out nothing. STA TESMAN. 549 Str. Listen, then. There is a time when God goes round with the world, which he himself guides and helps to roll ; and there is a time, on the completion of a certain cycle, when he lets go, and the world being a living creature, and having originally received intelligence from its author and creator, turns about and by an inherent necessity revolves in the opposite direction. Y. Soc. Why is that? Str. Why, because only the most divine things of all are unchangeable, and body is not included in this class. Heaven and the universe, as we have termed them, although they have been endowed by the Creator with many glories, partake of a bodily nature, and therefore cannot be entirely free from perturbations. But the heavenly motion is, as far as possible, single and in the same place, and in relation to the same ; and is therefore only subject to a reversal, which is the least alteration possible. For the lord of all moving things is alone able to move of himself; and to think that he can go at one time in one direction and at another time in another, is unlawful. Hence we must not say that the world is either self-moved always, or all made to go round by God in two opposite courses ; 270 or that two Gods, having opposite purposes make it move round. But as I have already said (and this is the only remaining alternative) the world is governed by an accompanying divine power and receives life and immortality by the appointment of the Creator, and then, when let go again, moves spontaneously, being let go at such a time as to have, during infinite cycles of years, a reverse movement : this is due to exquisite perfection of balance, and the size of the universe ; which is the greatest of bodies, and turns on the smallest pivot. Y. Soc. Your account of the world seems to be very reasonable indeed. Str. Let us now reflect upon what has been said, and try to comprehend the nature of this great mythological wonder, which has been called by us, and assuredly is, the cause of the other wonders. Y. Soc. To what are you referring ? Str. To the reversal which takes place from time to time of the motion of the universe. 550 STATESMAN. Y. Soc. How is that the cause of the others ? Str. Of all changes of the heavenly motions, this is the greatest and mightiest. Y. Soc. I should imagine so. Str. And may be supposed to result in the greatest changes to the human beings who are the inhabitants of the world at the time. Y. Soc. Such changes would naturally occur. Str. And animals, as we know, are seriously affected by great changes of many different kinds happening together. F. Soc. Very true. Str. Hence there necessarily occurs a great destruction of them, which extends also to the life of man ; few survivors of the race are left, and those who remain become the subjects of several novel and remarkable phenomena, and of one in particular, which was simultaneous with the revulsion, and took place at the time when the transition was made to the cycle opposite to that in which we live. Y. Soc. What was it ? Str. The life of all animals first came to a stand, and the mortal nature ceased to be or look older, and was then reversed and grew young and delicate ; the white locks of the aged darkened again, and the cheeks of the bearded man became smooth, and he was restored to his original youth ; the bodies of the young grew finer and smaller, continually by day and night returning and becoming assimilated to the nature of a newly-born child in mind as well as body ; in the succeeding stage they wasted away and wholly disappeared. And the bodies of those who had died by violence quickly passed through the like changes, and in a few days were no more seen. Y. Soc. Then how, Stranger, were the animals created in those 27 days ; and in what way were they begotten of one another ? Str. It is evident, Socrates, that there was no such thing in the then order of nature as the procreation of animals from one another ; what we have heard of as the earth-born race was the one which existed in that second cycle — they sprang out of the ground in which they were sown ; and of this tradition, which is now-a-days often unduly discredited, our ancestors, who came into being immediately after the end of the last period and at STATESMAN. 551 the beginning of this, are the heralds to us. For mark how consistent the sequel of the tale is ; after the return of age to youth, follows the return of the dead, who are lying in the earth, to life ; the wheel of their existence has been turned back, and they come together and rise and live in the opposite order, unless God has carried any of them away to some other lot. Such is the tradition of the so-called earth-born men, and so, of necessity they came into being. Y. Soc. Certainly that is quite consistent with what has preceded ; but let me interrupt you to ask whether the life which you said existed in the reign of Cronos was in that cycle of the world, or in this ? For the change in the course of the stars and the sun must have occurred in both. Str. I see that you enter into my meaning ; — no, that blessed and spontaneous life does not belong to the present cycle of the world, but to the previous one, in which God superintended the whole revolution of the universe ; and the several parts of the universe were distributed under the rule of certain inferior deities, which is the way in some places still. There were demigods, who were the shepherds of the various species and herds of animals, and each one was in all respects sufficient for those of whom he was the shepherd ; neither was there any violence, or devouring of one another, or war or quarrel among them ; and I might tell of ten thousand other blessings, which belonged to that dispensation. The reason why the life of which the tradition speaks was spontaneous, is as follows : In those days God himself was their shepherd, and ruled over them, just as man, who is by comparison a divine being, still rules over the animals. Under him there were no governments or separate 2/2 possessions of women and children. For all men rose again from the earth, having no memory of any past events ; and they had no property or families, but the earth gave them abundance of fruits, which grew on trees and shrubs unbidden, and were not planted by the hand of man. And they dwelt naked, and mostly in the open air, for the temperature of their seasons was mild ; and they had no beds, but lay on soft couches of grass, which grew plentifully out of the earth. Such was the life of man in the days of Cronos, Socrates ; the character of our present life, which is said to be under Zeus, you know from your 552 STATESMAN, own experience. Can you, and will you, determine which of them you deem the happier? Y. Soc. I cannot. Str. Then shall I determine for you as well as I can ? Y. Soc. By all means. Str. Suppose that the children of Cronos, having this bound less leisure, and the power of holding intercourse, not only with men but with the animal creation, had used all these advantages with a view to philosophy, conversing with the animals as well as with one another, and learning of every nature which was gifted with any special power, and was able to contribute some special experience to the store of wisdom, there would be no difficulty in deciding that they would be a thousand times happier than the men of our own day. Or, again, if they had merely eaten and drunk until they were full, and told stories to one another and to the animals — such stories as are now told of them — in this case also, as I should imagine, the an swer would be easy. But as there is no satisfactory reporter of the desires and thoughts of those times, I think that we must leave the question unanswered, and go at once to the reason why we have unearthed this tale, and then we will proceed on our journey. In the fulness of time, when the change was to take place, and the earth-born race had all perished, and every soul had fallen into the earth and been sown her appointed number of times, the governor of the uni verse let the helm go, and retired to his place of view ; and then Fate and innate desire reversed the motion of the world. Then also all the inferior deities who share the rule of the supreme power, being informed of what was happening, let go the parts of the world of which they were severally the guardians. And the world turning round with a sudden shock, 273 having received an opposite impulse at both ends, was shaken by a mighty earthquake, producing a new destruction of all manner of animals. After awhile the tumult and confusion and earthquake ceased, and the universal creature, once more at peace, attained to a calm, and settled down into his own orderly and accustomed course, having the charge and rule of himself and of all other creatures, and remembering and executing the instructions of the Father and Creator of the STATESMAN. 553 world, more particularly at first, but afterwards with less ex actness. The reason of the falling oft" was the admixture of matter in the world ; this was inherent in the primal nature, which was full of disorder, until attaining to the present cosmos or order. From God, the constructor, the world indeed received every good, but from a previous state came elements of violence and injustice, which, thence derived, first of all passed into the world, and were transmitted to the animals. While the world was producing animals in unison with God, the evil was small, and great the good which worked within, but in the process of separation from him, when the world was let go, at first all proceeded well enough ; but, as time went on, there was more and more forgetting, and the old discord again entered in and got the better, and burst forth ; and at last small was the good, and great*was the admixture of the elements of evil, and there was a danger of universal ruin of the world and the things in the world. Wherefore God, the orderer of all, in his tender care, seeing that the world was in great straits, and fearing that all might be dissolved in the storm, and go to the place of chaos and infinity, again seated himself at the helm ; and reversing the elements which had fallen into dissolution and disorder when left to themselves in the previous cycle, he set them in order and restored them, and made the world imperishable and immortal. And this is the whole tale, of which the first part will suffice to illustrate the nature of the king. For when the world returned to the present cycle of generation, the age of man again stood still, and another change was the result. The small creatures which had almost disappeared grew in stature, and the newly-born children of the earth became grey and died and sank into the earth again. All things changed, imitating and following the condition of the universe, and of necessity 7 4 agreeing with that in their mode of conception and generation and nurture ; for no animal was any longer allowed to come into being in the earth through the agency of other creative beings, but as the world was ordained to be the lord of his own progress, in like manner the parts were ordained to grow and generate and give nourishment, as far as they could, of themselves, im pelled by a similar movement. And so we have arrived at the real end of this discourse ; for although there might be much 554 STATESMAN. to tell of the lower animals, and of the reasons and causes of their changes, about men there is not much, and that little is more to the purpose. Deprived of the care of God, who had possessed and tended them, they were left helpless and defence less, and were torn in pieces by the wild beasts, who had grown more savage ; moreover, in the first ages they carried on the struggle for existence without arts or resources ; the food which once grew spontaneously had failed, and they knew not how to procure any more, because no necessity had hitherto compelled them. For all these reasons they were in a great strait ; where fore also the gifts spoken of in the old tradition were imparted to them by the gods, together with the indispensable knowledge and information of their uses ; fire was given to them by Pro metheus, the arts by Hephaestus and his fellow-worker (Athene), seeds and plants by others. Out of these human life was framed ; since the care of the Gods, as I was saying, had now failed men, and they had to order their course of life for them selves, and were their own masters, just like the universal crea ture whom they imitate and follow, ever living and being born into the world, at one time after this manner, at another time after another manner. Enough of the story, which may be of use in showing us how greatly we erred in the delineation of the king and the statesman in our previous discourse. Y. Soc. What was this great error of which you speak ? Str. There were two ; the first a lesser one, the other was an error on a much larger and grander scale. Y. Soc. What do you mean ? Str. I mean to say that when we were asked about a king 27 and statesman of the present cycle and generation, we told of a shepherd who belonged to the other cycle, and of one who was a god when he ought to have been a man ; and this was a great error. Again, in so far as we declared him to be the ruler of the entire State, without explaining the nature of his rule, this was not the whole truth, nor clearly expressed, but still was true, and therefore the second error was not so great as the first. Y. Soc. Very good. Str. Before we can expect to have a perfect description of the statesman we must define the nature of his office. Y. Soc. Certainly. STA TESMAN. 555 Str. And the mythus was introduced in order to show, not only that all others are rivals of the true shepherd who is the object of our search, but in order that we might have a clearer view of him who is alone worthy to receive this appellation, because he alone of shepherds and herdsmen, according to the image which we have employed, has the care of human beings. Y. Soc. Very true. Str. And I cannot help thinking, Socrates, that the form of the divine Shepherd is above even that of a king ; whereas the statesmen who are now on earth seem to be much more like their subjects in character, and much more nearly to partake of their breeding and education. Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. Still they must be investigated all the same, whether, like the divine Shepherd, they are above their subjects or on a level with them. Y. Soc. Of course. Str. To resume : — do you remember that we spoke of a supreme art which had the charge of animals, not singly but collectively, which we called the art of the herdsman ? Y. Soc. Yes, I remember. Str. There, somewhere, lay our error ; for we never included or mentioned the Statesman ; and we did not observe that he had no place in our nomenclature. Y. Soc. How was that ? Str. All herdsmen rear their herds, but this is not a suitable term to apply to the Statesman, who should have a more general name. Y. Soc. True, if there be such a name. Str. Why, is not care of herds a more general name ? For this implies no feeding, or any special duty ; if we say either tending the herds, or managing the herds, or having the care of them, that will include all, and then we may wrap up the States man with the rest, as the argument seems to require. 276 Y. Soc. Quite right; but how shall we take the next step in the division ? Str. As before we divided the art of rearing herds into land and water animals, winged and wingless, mixing or not mixing the breed, horned and hornless, so we may divide by these same 556 STATESMAN. differences the tending of herds, comprehending in one word both the life which now is, and the rule of Cronos. F. Soc. That is clear ; but I still ask, what is to follow ? Str. If the word had been 'managing' herds, instead of feeding or rearing them, no one would have argued that there was no care of them in the case of the politician, although it was justly contended, that there was no human art of feeding them which was worthy of the name, or at least, if there were, many other arts had more right to the name than any king. Y. Soc. True. Str. But no other art or science will claim or have a better or greater right than the royal science to care for human society and men in general. Y. Soc. Quite true. Str. In the next place, Socrates, we must surely notice that a great error was committed at the end of our analysis. F. Soc. What was that ? Str. Why, supposing there to be such an art as the art of rearing or nourishing bipeds, there was no reason why we should call this the royal or political art, as though there were no more to be said. F. Soc. Certainly not. Str. Our first duty, as we were saying, was to remodel the name, so as to have the notion of care rather than of feeding, and then to divide, for there may be still considerable divisions. F. Soc. How can they be made? Str. First, by separating the divine shepherd from the human guardian or manager. F. Soc. True. Str. And the art of management which is assigned to man would again have to be subdivided. F. Soc. On what principle? Str. On the principle of voluntary and compulsory. F. Soc. Why? Str. Because, if I am not mistaken, there has been an error here ; for our simplicity led us to rank them together, whereas they are utterly different, and their modes of government are different. F. Soc. True. STATESMAN. 557 Str. Then, now, as I said, let us make the correction and divide human care into two parts, on the principle of voluntary and compulsory. F. Soc. Certainly. Str. And if we call the management of violent rulers tyranny, and the voluntary management of voluntary bipeds politics, may we not further assert that he who has this latter art of manage ment is the true king and statesman ? 277 Y. Soc. I think, Stranger, that we have now completed the account of the Statesman. Str. Would that we had, Socrates, but I have to satisfy myself as well as you ; and in my judgment the figure of the king is not yet perfected ; like statuaries who, in their too great haste, having overdone the several parts of their work, lose time in correcting them, so too we, partly out of haste, partly out of a magnanimous desire to detect our former error, and also because we imagined that a king required grand illustrations, have taken up a marvellous lump of fable, and have been obliged to use more than was necessary. This made us discourse at large, and, nevertheless, the story never came to an end. And our discussion might be compared to a picture of some living being which had been fairly drawn in outline, but had not yet attained the life and clearness which is given by the blending of colours. Now to intelligent persons a living being is more truly delineated by language and discourse than by any painting or work of art : to the duller sort by works of art. Y. Soc. Very true ; but what is the imperfection which still remains ? I wish that you would tell me. Str. The higher ideas, my dear friend, can hardly be set forth except through the medium of examples ; every man seems to know all things in a kind of dream, and then again to know nothing when he awakes. Y. Soc. What do you mean ? Str. I fear that I have been unfortunate in my attempt to describe our experience of knowledge. Y. Soc. Why so ? Str. Why, because my 'example' requires the assistance of another example. F. Soc. Proceed, I shall be interested to hear. 558 STATESMAN. Str. I will proceed, finding, as I do, such a ready listener in you : when children are beginning to know their letters Y. Soc. What are you going to say ? Str. That they easily recognise the several letters in very short and easy syllables, and are able to tell you them correctly. Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. Whereas in other syllables they do not recognise them, and think and speak falsely of them. F. Soc. Very true. Str. Will not the best and easiest way of guiding them to the letters which they do not as yet know, be to refer them to the same letters in the words which they know, and to compare these with the letters which as yet they do not know, and show them that they are the same, and have the same character in their different combinations, until the letters, which they do not know, have been all placed side by side with the letters which they do know ? in this way they have examples, and are made to learn that every letter in every combination is pronounced always either as the same or not the same. Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. Are not examples formed in this manner? We take that which is the same with something in some other separate thing, and when this is rightly conceived and compared with the first, out of the comparison their arises one true notion, which includes both of them. Y. Soc. Exactly. Str. Can we wonder, then, that the soul has the same un certainty about the alphabet of things, and sometimes and in some cases is firmly fixed by the truth, and then, again, in other cases is all abroad ; having somehow or other a correct notion of certain combinations ; but when the elements are translated into the long and difficult language of facts, is again ignorant of them? Y. Soc. There is nothing wonderful in that. Str. Could any one, my friend, who began with false opinion ever expect to attain wisdom, or to arrive even at a small portion of truth ? F Soc. Hardly. Str. Then you and I will not be far wrong in trying to see STA TESMAN. 559 in a small and partial instance the nature of example in general ; that lesser instance we shall transfer to the similar nature of the king, and to the royal class which is the greatest of all, and by the help of example endeavour to recognise scientifically his calling ; and then the dream will become a reality to us. Y. Soc. Very true. 79 Str. Then, once more, let us resume the previous argument, and as there were innumerable rivals of the royal race who claim to have the care of states, let us part them all off, and leave him alone ; and, as I was saying, a model or example of this process has first to be framed. Y. Soc. Exactly. Str. What model is there which is small, and yet has any analogy with the political occupation ? Suppose, Socrates, that if we have no other example at hand, we choose weaving, or, more precisely, weaving of wool — this will be quite enough, without taking the whole of weaving, to illustrate our meaning ? F. Soc. Certainly. Str. Why should we not apply to weaving the same processes of division and subdivision which we have already applied to other classes ; going as rapidly as we can through all the steps until we come to that which is needed for our purpose ? F. Soc. How do you mean ? Str. I shall answer that by actually performing the process. F. Soc. Very good. Str. All things which we create or possess are either creative or preventive ; of the preventive class are spells and antidotes, divine and human, and also defences ; and defences are either military weapons or protections ; and protections are veils, and also shields against heat and cold ; and shields against heat and cold are shelters and coverings ; and coverings are blankets and garments ; and garments are some of them in one piece, and others of them are made in several parts ; and of these latter some are pierced, others are fastened and not pierced ; and of the not pierced, some are made of the sinews of plants, and some of hair ; and of these, again, some are cemented with water and earth, and others are fastened together by them selves. And these last defences and coverings which are fastened together by themselves are called clothes, and the 560 STATESMAN. art which superintends them is called, from the nature of the operation, the art of clothing, just as before the art of the Statesman was derived from the State ; and may we not say 28 that the art of weaving, at least that large portion of it which was concerned with the making of clothes (cp. 279 B), differs only in name from this art of clothing, in the same way that, in the previous case, the royal science differed from the political ? Y. Soc. Most true. Str. In the next place, let us make the reflection, that the art which we term the weaving of clothes, and which an in competent person might fancy to have been sufficiently described, has been separated off from several others which are of the same family, but not from the co-operative arts. Y. Soc. And what arts are of the same family ? Str. I see that I have not taken you with me. I think, therefore, that we had better go back and begin at the end once more. We just now parted off from clothing the making of blankets, which differ from clothes in that one is put under and the other is put around : and these are what I termed arts of the same family. Y. Soc. I understand. Str. And we have subtracted the manufacture of all articles made of flax and cords, and all that which we just now metaphorically termed the sinews of plants, and we have also separated off the process of felting and the putting together of materials by piercing and sewing, of which the most important part is the cobbler's art. Y. Soc. Precisely. Str. Then we separated off the currier's art, which prepared coverings in entire pieces, and subtracted the various arts of sheltering which are employed in building, and in general in carpentering, the art of making water-tight, and all such arts as furnish impediments to thieving and acts of violence, and are concerned with making the lids of boxes and the mortising of doors, being divisions of the art of joining; and we also cut off the manufacture of arms, which is a section of the great and manifold art of making defences ; and we originally began by parting off the whole of the magic art which is concerned with antidotes, and have left, as would appear, the very art STATESMAN. 561 of which we were in search, which is an art of protection against winter cold, and fabricates woollen defences, and has the name of weaving. F Soc. Very true. 281 Sir. Yes, my boy, but that is not all, for the first process to which the material is subjected is the opposite of weaving. F. Soc. How is that ? Str. Weaving is a sort of uniting ? F. Soc. Yes. Str. But the first process is a separation of the clotted and matted fibres ? F. Soc. What do you mean ? Str. I mean the work of the carder's art ; for we cannot say that carding is weaving, or that the carder is a weaver. F. Soc. Certainly not. Str. Again, if a person were to say that the art of making the warp and the woof was the art of weaving, he would say what was unmeaning and false. F. Soc. To be sure. Str. Shall we say that the whole art of the fuller or of the mender has nothing to do with the care and treatment of clothes, or are we to regard all these as arts of weaving? F. Soc. Certainly not. Str. And yet surely all these arts will maintain that they are concerned with the treatment and production of clothes ; and will dispute the exclusive prerogative of weaving, and though assigning a large sphere to that, will still reserve a considerable field for themselves. F. Soc. Very true. Str. Besides these, there are the arts which make tools for the weaver's use, and which will claim to be co-operators in every work of the weaver. F. Soc. Most true. Str. Well, then, suppose that we define weaving, or rather that part of weaving which has been selected by us, to be the greatest and noblest of arts which are concerned with woollen garments— shall we be right? Is not the definition, although true, wanting in deafness and completeness ; for do not all those other arts require to be first cleared away ? VOL. IV. o o 562 STA TESMAN. Y. Soc. True. Str. Then the next thing will be to separate them, in order that the argument may proceed by regular steps. Let us consider, in the first place, that there are two kinds of arts, which have to do with all processes. F. Soc. What are they? Str. The one is the conditional or co-operative, the other the principal cause. F. Soc. What do you mean ? Str. The arts which do not manufacture the actual thing, but which furnish the necessary tools for the manufacture, and without which the several arts could not fulfil their appointed work, I call co-operative, but those which make the things themselves I call causal. F. Soc. I see the principle. Str. The arts which make spindles, shuttles, and other in struments of the production of clothes, I call co-operative, and those which treat and fabricate the things themselves, causal. Y. Soc. Very true. Str. To the causal class belong the arts of washing and 28 mending, and the preparatory arts ; these may be all com prehended under the art of the fuller, which is a division of the larger sphere of the art of adornment. F. Soc. Very good. Str. Another art has to do with carding and spinning threads, and the various arts of manufacturing a woollen garment ; and this is just the common art which is called working in wool. F. Soc. To be sure. Str. Of the wool-working, again, there are two divisions, and both these are parts of two arts at once. F. Soc. How is. that ? Str. Carding and one half of the use of the shuttle, and the other processes of wool-working which separate the composite, may be said to belong both to the art of wool-working, and also to one of the two great arts which are of universal application — the art of composition and the art of division. F. Soc. Yes. Str. To the latter belongs carding, and the other processes of which I was speaking ; the art of discernment or division STATESMAN. 563 in wool and yarn, which is effected in one manner with the shuttle and in another with the hands, is variously described under all the names which I just now mentioned. Y. Soc. Very true. Str. Again, let us take some process of wool-working which is a portion of the art of composition, and, dismissing the elements of division which we found there, make two halves, one on the principle of composition, and the other on the principle of division. Y. Soc. Let that be done. Str. And once more, Socrates, you must divide the part, which belongs at once both to wool-working and composition, if we are ever to discover satisfactorily the aforesaid art of weaving. Y. Soc. That will be requisite. Str. Yes, certainly, and let us call one part of the art the art of twisting threads, the other the art of combining them. Y. Soc. Do I understand you, in speaking of twisting, to be referring to the warp ? Str. Yes, and to the woof also ; how, if not by twisting, is the woof made ? Y. Soc, There is no other way. Str. Then suppose that you define the warp and the-woof, for I think that the definition will be of use to you. Y. Soc. How shall I define them ? Str. As thus : A piece of carded wool which is drawn out lengthwise and breadthwise is said to be pulled out. Y. Soc. Yes. Str. And the wool thus prepared, which is twisted by the spindle, and made into a firm thread, is called the warp, and the art which regulates these operations may be called the art of spinning the warp. Y. Soc. True. Str. And the threads which are more loosely spun having a softness proportioned to the intertexture of the warp and relative to the degree of force to be used in dressing the 83 cloth, — the threads which are thus spun are called the woof, and the art which is set over them may be called the art of spinning the woof. u o 2 564 STATESMAN. Y. Soc. Very true. Str. And, now, there can be no mistake about the nature of the part of weaving which we have undertaken to define. For when that part of the art of composition which is employed in working of wool forms a web by the regular intertexture of warp and woof, the entire woven substance is called by us a woollen garment, and the art which presides over this is the art of weaving. Y. Soc. Very true. Str. But why did we not say at once that weaving is the art of entwining warp and woof, instead of making a long and useless circuit? Y. Soc. I thought, Stranger, that there was nothing useless in what was said. Str. Very likely, but you may not always think the same ; and in case any feeling of dissatisfaction should hereafter arise in your mind, let me lay down a principle which will apply to arguments in general : Y. Soc. Proceed. Str. Let us begin by considering the whole nature of excess and defect, and then we shall have a rational ground on which we may praise or blame the too great length or conciseness of speeches in discussions of this kind. Y. Soc. Let us do so. Str, The points on which I think that we ought to dwell are the following : — Y. Soc. What are they ? Str. The points that I mean are length and shortness, excess and defect, with all of which the art of measurement is conversant. Y. Soc. Yes. Str. And the art of measurement has to be divided into two parts, with a view to our present purpose. Y. Soc. Where would you make the division ? Str. As thus : I would make two parts, one which has to do with relative size ; and there is another, without which the existence of production would be impossible. Y. Soc. What do you mean ? Str. Does not the greater in the order of nature appear to STA TESMAN. 565 you to be only relative to the less, and the less only relative to the greater ? Y. Soc. Yes. Str. Well, but is there not also a greater and less exceeding and exceeded by the principle of the mean, both in words and deeds, and is not this a reality, 'and does not the chief difference between good and bad men consist in this ? Y. Soc. Plainly. Str. Then we must suppose that the great and small exist and are discerned in both these ways, and not, as we were saying before, only relatively to one another, but there must also be another comparison of them with the mean or ideal standard ; would you like to hear the reason why ? Y. Soc. Certainly. 284 Str. If we assume the greater to exist only in relation to the less, there will never be any comparison of either with the mean. Y. Soc. True. Str. And would not this doctrine be the ruin of all the arts and their creations ; would not the art of the Statesman and the aforesaid art of weaving disappear? For all these arts are on the watch against excess and defect, not as unrealities, but as real evils, which occasion a difficulty in action ; and the excellence or beauty of every work of art is due to this observance of measure. Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. But if the science of the Statesman disappears, there will be no possibility of finding out the royal science. Y. Soc. Very true. Str. Well, then, as in the Sophist we extorted the inference that not-being had an existence, because here was the point at which the argument eluded our grasp, so in this we must endeavour to show that the greater and less are .not only to be measured with one another, but also have to do with the production of the mean ; for if this is not admitted, neither a statesman nor any other man of action can be an undisputed master of his science. Y. Soc. Yes, we must certainly do again what we did then. Str. But this, Socrates, is a greater work than the other. 566 STATESMAN. of which we only too well remember the length. I think, however, that we may fairly assume something of this sort : — F. Soc. What? Str. That we shall some day require this notion of a standard with a view to the demonstration of absolute truth ; meanwhile, the argument that the very existence of the arts must be held to depend on the possibility of measuring more or less, not only with one another, but also with a view to the attainment of the mean, seems to afford a grand support and satisfactory proof of the doctrine which we are maintaining ; for if there are arts, there is a standard of measure, and if there is a standard of measure, there are arts ; but if either is wanting, there is neither. Y. Soc. True ; and what is the next step ? Str. The next step clearly is to divide the art of measure ment into two parts, and place in the one part all the arts which measure number, length, depth, breadth, swiftness 1, with their opposites ; and to have another part in which they are measured with the mean, and the fit, and the opportune, and the due, and with all those words, in short, which denote a mean or standard removed from the extremes. F. Soc. Here are two vast divisions, embracing two very different spheres. Str. There are many accomplished men, Socrates, who say 28 that the art of measurement is universal, and has to do with all things. And this means what we are now saying, for there is certainly a sense in which all things that are within the pro vince of art partake of measure. But these persons, from not being accustomed to distinguish classes according to their real forms, jumble together two widely different things, relation to one another, and to a standard, under the idea that they are the same, and fall into the converse error of dividing other things not according to their real parts. Whereas the right way is, when a man once sees the unity of things, to go on with the enquiry and not desist until he has found all the differences which exist in distinct classes, nor should he be able to rest satisfied in the contemplation of the innumerable diversities of 1 Reading STA TESMAN. 567 kinds until he has comprehended all that have any affinity to each other within the" sphere of a single class, notion, or essence. Thus much of excess and defect, and of the art of measurement in general ; we have only to keep in mind that the two divisions of the art have been discovered, and not to forget what they are. Y. Soc. We will not forget. Str. And now that this discussion is completed, let us go on to another question, which will embrace not this argument only but arguments in general. Y. Soc. What is this new question? Str. Suppose that some one should desire us to tell him, Whether, when one of the pupils at a school is asked what letters make up a name, — he is asked in order to improve his grammatical knowledge of the particular word, or of all words ? F. Soc. Clearly, in order that he may have a better knowledge of all words. Str. And is our enquiry about the Statesman intended only to improve our knowledge of politics, or our knowledge of philosophy generally ? F. Soc. Clearly, as in the former example, the purpose is general. Str. Still less would any rational man seek to analyse the notion of weaving for its own sake. But people seem to forget that some things have sensible images, which may be easily shown, when any one desires to exhibit any of them or explain them to an enquirer, without any trouble or argument ; while the greatest and noblest truths have no outward image of 286 themselves visible to man, which he who wishes to satisfy the longing soul of the enquirer can adapt to the eye of sense, and therefore we ought to practise reasoning ; for immaterial things, which are the highest and greatest, are shown only in thought and idea, and in no other way, and all that we are now saying is said for the sake of them. Moreover, there is always less difficulty in fixing the mind on small matters than on great. F. Soc. Very good. Str. Let us keep in mind the bearing of all this. 568 STA TESMAN. Y. Soc. What is the bearing ? Str. I wanted to get rid of any impression of tediousness which we may have experienced in the discussion about weaving, and the reversal of the universe, and in the discussion concerning the Sophist and the essence of not-being. I know that they were felt to be too long and irrelevant. I reproached myself with this, and all that I have now said is only designed to prevent the recurrence of any such disagreeables for the future. Y. Soc. Very good. Will you proceed ? Str. Then I would like to observe that you and I, remember ing what has been said, would praise or blame the shortness of discussions, not by comparing them with one another, but according to a standard of measure, having in view what is fitting, wiiich, as we were saying, must be borne in mind. Y. Soc. Very true. Str. And yet, not everything is to be judged even with a view to what is fitting in all respects ; for we do not want such a length as is suited to give pleasure, which is quite a secondary matter ; and reason tells us, that we should be contented to make the ease or rapidity with which an enquiry is attained, not the first, but the second object ; the first and highest of all being to assert the great method of division according to species, — whether the discourse be shorter or longer is not to the point. No offence should be taken at length, but the longer and shorter are to be employed indifferently, according as either of them is better calculated to sharpen the wits of the auditors. Reason would also say to him who censures the length of discourses and cannot away with their circumlocution, that he should not at once lay them aside or censure them as tedious, but he should 28 prove that if they had been shorter they would have made those who took part in them better dialecticians, and more capable of expressing the truth of things — about any other praise and blame, he need not trouble himself ; he need not be supposed to hear them. But we have had enough of this, as you will probably agree with me in thinking. Let us return to our Statesman, and apply to his case the aforesaid example of weaving. Y. Soc. Very good ; — let us do as you say. STATESMAN. 569 Str. The art of the king has been separated from the similar arts of shepherds, and, indeed, from all those which have to do with herds at all. There still remain, however, those causal and co-operative arts which are immediately concerned with States, and which must first be distinguished from one another. Y. Soc. Very good. Str. You know that these arts cannot easily be divided into two halves ; the reason will be evident as we go forward. Y. Soc. We had better go forward. Str. Then we must carve them like a victim into members or limbs if we cannot bisect them. For we certainly should divide everything into as few parts as possible. Y. Soc. How is that to be accomplished in this case ? Str. As in the example of weaving, all those arts which furnished the tools of weaving were regarded by us as co operative. Y. Soc. Yes. Str. So now, and with still more reason, all arts which make any implement in a State, whether great or small, may be re garded by us as co-operative, for without them neither State nor Statesman could exist ; and yet we are not inclined to say that any of them is the work of the kingly art. Y. Soc. No, indeed. Str. The task of separating this class from others is not an easy one ; for there is plausibility in saying that anything in the world is the instrument of doing something. But there is another class of possessions in a city, of which I have something to say. Y. Soc. What class ? Str. A class which may be described as not having this power l ; that is to say, not like an instrument, designed for production, but for the preservation of that which is produced. Y. Soc. What do you mean ? Str. The class of vessels, as they are comprehensively termed, which are framed for the preservation of things moist and dry, in the fire or out of the fire ; this is a very large class, and has, 1 Or, taking the words in a different context, ' As not having political power— I say another class, because not like an instrument,' &c. 570 STATESMAN. if I am not mistaken, literally nothing to do with the royal art. F. Soc. Certainly not. Str. There is a third class also to be discovered, different from these, and very extensive, moving or resting on land or water, honourable and also dishonourable, having a name de scriptive of sitting, because always intended to be a seat for something. F. Soc. What is that ? Str. A vehicle, which is certainly not the work of the States man, but of the carpenter, potter, and brassfounder. F. Soc. I understand. Str. And is there not a fourth class which is again different, and in which most of the things formerly mentioned are con tained ? — Every kind of dress, most sorts of arms, walls and enclosures, whether of earth or stone, and ten thousand other things ; all of which being made for the sake of defence, may be truly called defences, and are for the most part to be regarded as the work of the builder or of the weaver, rather than of the Statesman ? F. Soc. Certainly. Str. Shall we add a fifth class, of ornamentation and drawing, and of the imitations produced by drawing and music, which are designed for amusement only, and may be fairly comprehended under one name ? . F. Soc. What is it? Str. Plaything is the name. F. Soc. Certainly. Str. That is a name which may be fitly predicated of all of them, for none of these things have a serious purpose — amuse ment is the aim of them all. F. Soc. I understand. Str. Then, again, there is a class which provides materials for all these ; out of which and in which the arts already mentioned fabricate their works, — this manifold class, I say, which is the creation and offspring of many other arts, may I not rank sixth ? F. Soc. What do you mean ? Str. I am speaking of gold, silver, and other metals, and all STATESMAN. 571 that wood-cutting and every other sort of cutting provides for the art of carpentry and plaiting ; and there is the process of barking and stripping the cuticle of plants, and the currier's art, which strips off the skins of animals, and other similar arts which manufacture corks and papyri and cords, and provide for the manufacture of composite species out of simple kinds — the whole class may be termed the primitive and simple pos session of man, and with this the kingly science has no concern at all. Y. Soc. True. Str. The provision of food and of all other things which mingle their particles with the particles of the human body, and minister to the body, may form a seventh class, which may be called by the general term of nourishment, unless you have any better name to offer. This, however, appertains rather to the husbandman, huntsman, trainer, doctor, cook, and is not to be assigned to the Statesman's art. Y. Soc. Certainly not. Str. These seven classes include nearly every description of property, with the exception of tame animals. Consider ; — there was the original material, which ought to have been placed first ; next came instruments, vessels, vehicles, defences, playthings, nourishment ; small things, which may be included under any of these — as for example, coins, seals and stamps, are omitted, for they have not in them the character of any larger kind which comprehends them ; but some of them may, with a little forcing, be placed among ornaments, and others may be made to harmonize with the class of implements. The art of herding, which has been already divided into parts, will include all property in animals except slaves. Y. Soc. Very true. Str. The class of slaves and ministers only remains, and, I suspect, that in this the real aspirants for the throne, who are the rivals of the king in the formation of the political web, will be discovered ; just as spinners, carders, and the rest of them, were the rivals of the weaver : all the rest were termed co- operators, and have been already got rid of among the occupa tions already mentioned, and separated from the royal and political science. 572 STATESMAN. Y. Soc. I agree. Str. Let us go a little nearer, in order that we may be more certain of the complexion of this remaining class. F. Soc. Let us do so. Str. We shall find that the greatest servants, and those who appear to us from our present point of view to be most truly servants, are in a case and condition which is the reverse of what we anticipated. F. Soc. Who are they ? Str. Those who are purchased, and who are unmistakeably slaves — they certainly do not claim royal science. F. Soc. Certainly not. Str. Again, freemen who of their own accord become the servants of the other classes in a State, and who exchange and equalise the products of husbandry and the other arts, some sitting in the market-place, others going from city to city by land or sea, and giving money in exchange for money or for other productions— the money-changer, the merchant, 290 the ship-owner, the retailer, will not put in any claim to state craft or politics. F. Soc. No ; unless, indeed, to commercial politics. Str. But surely men whom we see acting as hirelings and serfs, and too happy to turn their hand to anything, will not profess to share in royal science. F. Soc. Certainly not. Str. But what would you say of some other serviceable officials? F. Soc. Who are they, and what services do they perform ? Str. There are heralds and scribes, perfected by practice, and divers others who have great skill in various sorts of business connected with the government of states — what shall we call them? F. Soc. They are the officials, and servants of the rulers, as you just now called them, not themselves rulers. Str. There may be something strange in any servant pre tending to be a ruler, and yet I do not think that I could have been dreaming when I imagined that the principal claim ants to political science belonged to the class of servants. F. Soc. Very true. STATESMAN. 573 Str. Well, let us draw nearer, and try the claims of others who have not yet been sifted : in the first place, there are diviners, who have a portion of servile or ministerial science, and are thought to be the interpreters of the gods to men. Y. Soc. True. Str. There are also priests who, as the law declares, know how to give the gods gifts from men in the form of sacrifices, which are acceptable to them, and to ask for us a return of blessings from them. Now both these are branches of the servile or ministerial art. Y. Soc. Yes, clearly. Str. And here I think that we seem to be getting on the right track ; for the priest and the diviner also are full of pride and prerogative — this is due to the greatness of their employments ; and in Egypt, the king himself is not allowed to reign, unless he have priestly powers, and if he should be of another class and has thrust himself in, he must get en rolled in the priesthood. In many parts of Hellas, the duty of offering the most solemn propitiatory sacrifices is assigned to the highest magistracies, and here, at Athens, the most solemn and national of the ancient sacrifices are supposed to be cele brated by the King Archon of the year. Y. Soc. Precisely. 291 Str. But who are these elected kings and priests who now come into view with a crowd of retainers, as the former class disappears and the scene changes? F. Soc. Whom can you mean ? Str. How strangely they look ! F. Soc. Why strangely ? Str. A minute ago I thought that they were all sorts of animals ; for many of them are like lions and centaurs, and many more like satyrs and the weak and versatile sort of animals; — Protean shapes ever changing their form and nature; and now, Socrates, I begin to see who they are. F. Soc. Who are they? You seem to be gazing on some strange vision. Str. Yes ; every one looks strange when you do not know him ; and at first sight, coming suddenly upon him, I did not recognise the politician and his troop. 574 STATESMAN. Y. Soc. Who is he? Str. The chief of sophists and most accomplished of wizards who must at any cost be separated from the true king or States man, if we are ever to see daylight in the present enquiry. Y. Soc. That certainly is not a hope to be lightly renounced. Str. Nay, never, if I can help ; and, first, let me ask you a question. Y. Soc. What are you going to ask ? Str. Is not monarchy a recognised form of government ? F. Soc. Yes. Str. And, after monarchy, next in order comes the govern ment of the few ? Y. Soc. Of course. Str. Is not the third form of government the rule of the multitude, which is called by the name of democracy? F. Soc. Certainly. Str. And do not these three expand in a manner into five, producing out of themselves two other names ? F. Soc. What are they? Str. There is a criterion of voluntary and involuntary, poverty and riches, law and the absence of law, which men apply to them ; the two first they subdivide accordingly, and ascribe to monarchy two forms and two corresponding names, royalty and tyranny. F. Soc. Very true. Str. And the government of the few they distinguish by the names of aristocracy and oligarchy. F. Soc. Certainly. Str. Democracy alone, whether respecting the laws or not, 29 and whether the multitude rule ove*r the men of property with their consent or against their consent, always in ordinary lan guage has the same name. F. Sot\ True. Str. But do you suppose that any form of government which is distinguished by these characteristics of the one, the few, or the many, of poverty or wealth, of compulsion or freedom, of written or unwritten law, is a right one ? F. Soc. Why not? Str. Think a little ; and let me take you with me. STATESMAN. 575 Y. Soc. In what direction ? Str. Shall we abide by what we said at first, or shall we retract our words ? F. Soc. To what do you refer? Str. If I am not mistaken, we said that royal power was a science ? F. Soc. Yes. Str. And a science of a peculiar kind, which was selected out of the rest as having at once a judicial and commanding nature ? F. Soc. Yes. Str. And there was one kind of command of lifeless things and another of living animals ; and so we proceeded in the division step by step up to this point, not losing the idea of science, but unable as yet to determine the nature of the particular science? F. Soc. True. Str. Hence we are led to observe that the several forms of government cannot be defined by the words few or many, voluntary or compulsory, poverty or riches ; but some notion of science must enter in, if we are to be consistent with what has preceded. F. Soc. And we must be consistent. Str. Well, then, in which of these various forms of States may the science of government, which is among the greatest and most difficult of all sciences, be supposed to reside ? That we must discover, and then we shall see who are the false politicians who win popularity and pretend to be politicians and are not, and separate them from the wise king. F. Soc. That, as the argument has already intimated, is our duty. Str. Do you think that the multitude in a State can attain political science ? F. Soc. Impossible. Str. But, perhaps, in a city of a thousand men, there would be a hundred, or say fifty, who could ? F. Soc. In that case political science would certainly be the easiest of all sciences ; there could not be found in a city of that number as many really first-rate draught-players, if judged 576 STATESMAN. by the standard of the rest of Hellas, and there would certainly not be as many kings. For kings we may truly call those who possess royal science, whether they rule or not, as was shown in the previous argument. Str. Thank you for reminding me ; and the consequence is 2( that any true form of government can only be supposed to be the government of one, two, or, at any rate, of a few. Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. And these, whether they rule with the will, or against the will, of their subjects, with written laws or without written laws, and whether they are poor or rich, and whatever be the nature of their rule, must be supposed, according to our present view, to rule on some scientific principle ; just as the physician, whether he cures us against our will or with our will, and what ever be his mode of treatment, — bleeding, burning, or the infliction of some other pain, whether he practises out of a book or not out of a book, and whether he be rich or poor, whether he purges or reduces in some other way, or even fattens his patients, is a physician all the same, while he exercises authority over them according to rules of art, if he only does them good and heals and saves them. And this we lay down to be the only proper test of the art of medicine, or of any other art of command. Y. Soc. Quite true. Str. Then that can be the only true form of government in which the governors are found to possess true science, and are not mere pretenders, whether they rule according to law or without law, over willing or unwilling subjects, and are rich or poor themselves, — none of these things can properly be included in the notion of the ruler. Y. Soc. True. Str. And whether with a view to the public good they purge the State by killing some, or exiling some ; whether they lower or increase the body corporate, by sending out or receiving into the hive swarms of citizens, while they act according to the rules of wisdom and justice, whether with or without laws, if they use their power with a view to the general security and improvement, then the city over which they rule, and which has these characteristics, may be described as the only true STATESMAN. 577 State. All other governments are not genuine or real, but only imitations of this, and some of them are better and some of them are worse ; the better are said to be well governed, but they are mere imitations like the others. Y. Soc. I agree, Stranger, in the greater part of what you say ; but as to their ruling without laws — the expression has a harsh sound. 94 Sir. I was just going to ask, Socrates, whether you objected to any of my statements ; and now I see that this notion of there being good government without laws will require some further consideration. Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. There can be no doubt that legislation is in a manner the business of a king, and yet the best thing of all is not that the law should rule, but that a man should rule sup posing him to have wisdom and royal power. Do you see why this is? Y. Soc. Why? Str. Because the law in aiming at what is noblest or most just cannot at once comprise what is best for all. The dif ferences of men and actions, and the endless irregular movements of human things, do not admit of any universal and simple rule. No art whatsoever can lay down a rule which will last for all time. Y. Soc. Of course not. Str. But the law is always striving to make one ; — like an obstinate and ignorant tyrant, who will not allow anything to be done contrary to his appointment, or any question to be asked — not even in sudden changes of circumstances, when something happens to be better than what he commanded for some one. Y. Soc. True; such is the manner in which the law treats us. Str. A perfectly simple principle can never be applied to a state of things which is the reverse of simple. Y. Soc. True. Str. Then if the law is not the perfection of right, why are we compelled to make laws at all ? The reason of this has next to be investigated. Y. Soc. Certainly. VOL. IV. P p STATESMAN. Str. Let me ask, whether you have not meetings for gym nastic exercises in your city, such as there are in other cities, at which men compete in running, wrestling, and the like ? Y. Soc. Yes ; they are very common among us. Str. And what are the rules which those who are in authority impose on the pupils at such meetings ? Can you remember ? Y. Soc. To what do you refer ? Str. The training-masters do not issue minute rules for indi viduals., or give every individual what is exactly suited to his constitution ; they think that they ought to go more roughly to work, and give a general rule for what will benefit the constitu tions of the majority. Y. Soc. Very true. Str. And therefore they assign equal amounts of exercise to them all ; they send them forth together, and let them rest together from their running, wrestling, or whatever the bodily exercise may be which they prescribe for them. Y. Soc. True. Str. Let us consider further, that the legislator who has to 29 preside over the herd, and to enforce justice in their dealings with one another, will not be able, in enacting for the general good, to provide exactly what is suitable for each particular case. Y. Soc. He cannot be expected to do so. Str. He will lay down laws in a general form for the majority, roughly meeting the cases of individuals ; and some of them he will deliver in writing, and others will be unwritten ; and these last will be traditional customs of the country. F Soc. That will be right. Str. Yes ; that will be right, for how can he sit at every man's side all through his life, and prescribe for him the exact par ticulars of his duty ? Who, Socrates, would be sufficient for such a task ? [_No one who really had the royal science, if he had been able to do this, would have imposed upon himself the re striction of having a written code of laws. £1 Y. Soc. So I should infer from what has now been said. Str. And yet more, my good friend, from what is going to be said. F. Soc. What is that ? STATESMAN. 579 Str. Let us put to ourselves the case of a physician, or trainer, who is about to go into a far country, and is expecting to be a long time away from his patients ; he leaves written instructions for the patients or pupils, under the idea that they will not be remembered unless they are written down. F. Soc. True. Str. But what would you say, if he came back sooner than he intended, and, owing to an unexpected change of the winds or other celestial influences, some other remedies happened to be better for them, — would he not venture to suggest those other remedies, although differing from his former prescription ? Would, he persist in observing the original law, neither himself giving any new commandments, nor the patient daring to do otherwise than was prescribed, under the idea that this course only was healthy and medicinal, all others noxious and heterodox ? Viewed in the light of science and true art, would not all such regulations be utterly ridiculous ? Y. Soc. Quite true. Str. And if he who gave laws, written or unwritten, deter mining what was good or bad, honourable or dishonourable, just or unjust to the tribes of men who herd in their several cities, and are governed in accordance with them; if, I say, the wise 96 legislator were suddenly to come again, or another like to him, is he to be prohibited from changing them ; — would not this pro hibition be in reality quite as ridiculous as the other ? Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. Do you know a plausible saying of the common people which is in point ? F. Soc. I do not recall what you mean at the moment. Str. They say that if any one knows how the ancient laws may be improved, he must first persuade his own State of the improvement, and then he may legislate, but not otherwise. F. Soc. And are they not right ? Str. I dare say. But supposing that he does use some gentle violence for their good, what is this violence to be called ? Or rather, before you answer, let me ask the same question in reference to our previous instances. F. Soc. What do you mean ? Str. Suppose that a skilful physician has a patient, of what- p p 2 580 STATESMAN. ever sex or age, whom he compels against his will to do something for his good which is contrary to the written rules, what is this compulsion to be called ? Would you ever dream of calling it a violation of the art, or breach of the laws of health? Nothing could be more unjust than for the patient to whom such a gentle violence is applied, to charge the physician who practises the violence with wanting skill or aggravating his disease. F. Soc. Most true. Str. In the political art the error is not called disease, but evil, or disgrace, or injustice. Y. Soc. Quite true. Str. And when the citizen, contrary to law and custom, is compelled to do what is juster and better and nobler than he did before, and this sort of violence is blamed, the last and most absurd thing which he could say, is that he has incurred disgrace or evil or injustice at the hands of the legislator who uses the violence. Y. Soc. That is very true. Str. And shall we say that the violence, if exercised by a rich man, is just, and if by a poor man, unjust ? May not any man, rich or poor, with or without written laws, with the will of the citizens or against the will of the citizens, do what is for their interest ? Is not this the true principle of government, in accord ance with which the wise and good man will order the affairs of his subjects ? As the pilot watches over the interests of the ship, or of the crew, and preserves the lives of his fellow-sailors, not by laying down rules, but by making his art a law — even so, and in the self-same way, may there not be a true form of polity created by those who are able to govern in a similar spirit, and who show a strength of art which is superior to the law ? Nor can wise rulers ever err while they regard the one great rule of distributing justice to the citizens with intelligence and art, and are able to preserve, and, so far as that is possible, to improve them. F. Soc. No one can deny what has been said. Str. Neither, if you consider, can any one deny the other statement. F. Soc. What was it ? STATESMAN. 581 Str. We said that no great number of persons, whoever they may be, can have political knowledge, or order a State wisely, but that the true government is to be found in a small body, or in an individual, and that other States are but imitations, as has been already said, some for the better and some for the worse, but all of them imitations of this one. F. Soc. What are you saying ? I must acknowledge that I did not understand at the time the remark which you made about the imitations. Str. And yet the mere suggestion thus thrown out, even if the error which men now commit [of not keeping the law] be no further investigated, is highly important. F. Soc. What do you mean ? Str. The idea which has to be grasped by us is not easy or familiar ; but what I mean to say, may be expressed as follows : — Supposing the government of which I have been speaking to be the only true model, then the others must use the written laws of this, which will be their salvation, if they will only do what is now generally approved, although not the best thing in the world, F. Soc. What is generally approved ? Str. That no citizen should do anything contrary to the laws, and that any infringement of them should be punished with death and the most extreme penalties ; and this is very right and good when regarded as the second best thing, if you set aside the first, of which I was just now speaking. Shall I ex plain the nature of what I call the second best ? F. Soc. By all means. Str. I must again have recourse to my favourite images ; through them, and them alone, can I describe kings and rulers. F. Soc. What images ? Str. The noble pilot and the wise physician, who ' is worth many another man' — in the similitude of these let us endeavour to discover some image of the king. F. Soc. What sort of an image ? 298 Str. Well, such as this : — Every man will reflect that he suffers strange things at their hands ; the physician saves any whom he wishes to save, and any whom he wishes to injure he injures — cutting or burning them, and at the same time requiring them to 582 STATESMAN. bring him payments, which are a sort of tribute, of which a very small part is spent upon the sick man, and the greater part is consumed by him and his domestics ; and the finale is that he receives money from the relations of the sick man or from some enemy of his, and puts him out of the way. And the captains of ships are guilty of numberless evil deeds of the same kind ; they play false and leave you ashore when the hour of sailing arrives ; or they wreck their vessels and cast away freight and lives ; not to speak of other rogueries. Now suppose that we, bearing all this in mind, were to determine, after consideration, that neither of these arts shall any longer be allowed to exercise absolute control either over freemen or over slaves, but that we will sum mon an assembly either of all the people, or of the rich only, and that anybody who likes, whatever may be his calling, or even if he have no calling, may offer an opinion either about ships or about diseases — whether as to the manner in which physic or surgical instruments are to be applied to the patient, or about the vessels and the nautical instruments which are re quired in navigation, and how to meet the dangers of winds and waves which are incidental to the voyage, how to behave when encountering pirates, and what is to be done with the old- fashioned galleys, if they have to fight with others of a similar build — and that, whatever shall be decreed by the multitude on these points, upon the advice of persons skilled or unskilled, shall be written down on triangular tablets and columns, or em balmed unwritten as national customs ; and that in all future time vessels shall be navigated and remedies administered to the patient after this fashion. Y. Soc. What a strange notion ! Str. Suppose further, that the admirals and physicians are appointed annually, either out of the rich, or out of the whole people, and that they are elected by lot ; and that after their election they navigate vessels and heal the sick according to the written rules. Y. Soc. Worse and worse. Str. But hear what follows : — When the year of office has expired, the admiral or physician has to come before a court of review, in which the judges are either selected from the wealthy 299 classes or chosen by lot out of the whole people ; and anybody STA TESMAN. 583 who pleases may accuse them, and he will lay to their charge, that during the past year they have not navigated their vessels or healed their patients according to the letter of the law or according to the ancient customs of their ancestors ; and if either of them is condemned, there must be persons to fix what he is to suffer or pay. F. Soc. He who is willing to take a command under such con ditions, deserves to suffer any penalty. Str. Yet once more, we shall have to enact that if any one is detected enquiring into sailing and navigation or health, or into the true nature of medicine, or about the winds, or other con ditions of the atmosphere, contrary to the written rules, and has any ingenious notions about such matters, he is not to be called a pilot or physician, but a cloudy talking sophist ; — also a cor- rupter of the young, who would persuade them to follow the art of medicine or piloting in an unlawful manner, as the irre sponsible masters of the patients or ships ; and any one who is qualified by law may inform against him, and indict him in some court, and then if he is found to be corrupting any, whether young or old, he is to be punished with the utmost rigour of the law ; for no one should presume to be wiser than the laws ; and as touching healing and health and piloting and navigation, the nature of them is known to all, for anybody may learn the written laws and the national customs. If such were the mode of procedure, Socrates, about these sciences and about general ship, and any branch of hunting, or about painting or imitation in general, or carpentry, or any sort of manufacture, or hus bandry, or planting, or if we were to see an art of rearing horses, or tending herds, or divination, or any ministerial service, or draught-playing, or any science conversant with number, whether simple or square or cube, or comprising motion, — I say, if all these things were done in this way according to written regu lation, and not according to art, what would be the result ? F. Soc. All the arts would utterly perish, and could never be recovered, because enquiry would be unlawful. And human life, which is bad enough already, would then become utterly unen durable. 300 Str. But what, if while compelling all these operations to be regulated by written law, we were to appoint as the guardian of 584 STA TESMAN. the laws some one elected by a show of hands, or by lot, and he caring nothing about the laws, were to act contrary to them from motives of interest or favour, and without knowledge, — would not this be a still worse evil than the former ? Y. Soc. Very true. Str. To go against the laws, which are based upon long expe rience, and the wisdom of counsellors who have persuaded the multitude to pass them, would be a far greater and more ruinous error than any adherence to written law ? Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. Therefore, as there is a danger of this, the next best thing in legislating is to have the laws observed alike by one and all. Y. Soc. True. Str. The laws would be copies of the true particulars of action as far as they admit of being written down from the lips of those who have knowledge ? Y. Soc. Certainly they would. Str. And. as we were saying, he who has knowledge and is a true Statesman, will do many things by his art without regard to the laws, when he is of opinion that something other than that which he has written down and enjoined to be observed during his absence would be better. Y. Soc. Yes, we said so. Str. And any individual or State, which has fixed laws, would only be acting like the true Statesman, in acting contrary to the laws with a view to something better ? Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. If they had no knowledge of what they were doing, they would imitate the truth, and they would always imitate ill ; but if they had knowledge, the imitation would be the perfect truth, and an imitation no longer. Y. Soc. Quite true. Str. And the principle that no number of men are able to acquire a knowledge of any art, has been already admitted by us. Y. Soc. Yes, that has been admitted. Str. Then the royal or political art, if there be such an art, will never be attained either by the wealthy or by the other mob. STA TESMAN. 585 Y. Soc. Impossible. Str. Then the nearest approach which these lower forms of 301 government can ever make to the true government of the one scientific ruler, is to do nothing contrary to their own written laws and national customs. F. Soc. Very good. Str. When the rich imitate the true form, such a government is called aristocracy ; and when they are regardless of the laws, oligarchy. Y. Soc. True. Str. Or again, when an individual rules according to law in imitation of him who knows, we call him a king ; and if he rules according to law, we give him the same name, whether he rules with opinion or with knowledge. Y. Soc. To be sure. Str. And when an individual truly possessing knowledge rules, his name will surely be the same — he will be called a king ; and thus the five names of governments, as they are now reckoned, become one. Y. Soc. That is true. Str. And when an individual ruler governs neither by law nor by custom, but following in the steps of the true man of science pretends that he can only act for the best by violating the laws, while in reality appetite and ignorance direct the imitation, may not such an one be called a tyrant? Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. And this we believe to be the origin of the tyrant and the king, of oligarchies, and aristocracies, and democracies ; because men are offended at the one monarch, and can never be made to believe that any one can be worthy of such autho rity, or can unite the will and the power in the spirit of virtue and knowledge to do justly and holily to all ; they fancy that he will be a despot who will wrong and harm and slay whom he pleases of us ; for if there could be such a despot as we describe, they would acknowledge that we ought to be too glad to have him, and that he alone would be the happy ruler of a true and perfect State. Y. Soc. Certainly. Str. But then, as the State is not like a beehive, and has 586 STATESMAN. no natural head who is the recognized superior in body and mind, mankind are obliged to meet and make laws, and endea vour to approach as nearly as they can to the true form of government. Y. Soc. True. Sir. And when the foundation of politics is in the letter only and in custom, and knowledge is divorced from action, can we wonder, Socrates, at the miseries that there are, and always will be, in States? Any other art, built on such a foundation, would be utterly undermined, — there can be no doubt of that, Ought we not rather to wonder at the strength of the political bond ? For States have endured all this, time out of mind, and yet some of them still remain and are not overthrown, though many of them, like ships foundering at sea, are perish ing and have perished and will hereafter perish, through the incapacity of their pilots and crews, who have the worst sort of ignorance of the highest truths — I mean to say, that they are wholly unacquainted with politics, of which, above all other sciences, they believe themselves to have acquired the most perfect knowledge. Y. Soc. Very true. Str. Then the question comes : — which of these untrue forms of government is the least oppressive to their subjects, though they are all oppressive ; and which is the worst of them ? Here is a consideration which is beside our present enquiry, but which we all of us should keep in view in all our actions. Y. Soc. Certainly we should. Str. You may say that of the three forms, the same is at once the hardest and the easiest. Y. Soc. What do you mean ? Str. I mean that there are three forms of government, as I said at the beginning of this discussion — monarchy, the rule of the few, and the rule of the many. Y. Soc. True. Str. If we divide each of these we shall have six, from which the true one may be distinguished as a seventh. Y. Soc. How would you make the distinction ? Str. Monarchy divides into royalty and tyranny ; the rule of the few into aristocracy, which has an auspicious name, and STATESMAN. 587 oligarchy ; and democracy or the rule of the many, which before was one, must now be divided. Y. Soc. On what principle of division ? Sir. On the same principle as before, although the name is equivocal. For the distinction of ruling with law or without law, applies to this as well as to the rest. Y. Soc. Yes. Str. There was no use in having such a division, as we showed before, when we were looking for the true State. But now that this has been separated off, and we spoke of the others as the best which we had, the principle of law and the absence of law will bisect them all. Y. Soc. That would seem to follow, from what has been said. Str. Then monarchy, when bound by good prescriptions or laws, is the best, and when lawless is the most bitter and op pressive to the subject? Y. Soc. True. 303 Str. The government of the few, which is intermediate be tween that of the one and many, is also intermediate in good and evil ; but the government of the many is in every respect weak and unable to do either any great good or any great evil, when compared with the others, because the offices are too much subdivided and too many hold them. And this therefore is the worst of all lawful governments, and the best of all lawless ones. If they are all without the restraints of law, democracy is the form in which to live is best ; if they are well ordered, then this is the last which you should choose, as royalty is the best, with the exception of the seventh, for that excels them all, and is among States what God is among men. Y. Soc. You are quite right, and we should choose that above all. Str. The members of all the other States, with the exception of that which has knowledge, may be set aside as being not Statesmen but partisans, — upholders of the most monstrous idols, and themselves idols ; and, being the greatest imitators and magicians, they are also the worst of sophists. Y. Soc. The name of Sophist after many windings appears to have been most deservedly applied to the politicians, as they are called. 588 STATESMAN. Str. And so the satyric drama has been played out ; and now the troop of centaurs and satyrs, however unwilling to leave the political stage, have taken their departure. Y. Soc. So I perceive. Str. There are, however, natures more nearly akin to the king, and more difficult to discern ; the examination of them may be compared to the process of refining gold. Y. Soc. What is your meaning? Str. The workmen begin by sifting away the earth and stones and the like ; they then draw off in the fire, which is the only way of abstracting them, the more precious elements of copper, silver, or other metallic substance, which have an affinity to gold ; these are at last refined away by the use of tests, and the gold is left quite pure. Y. Soc. Yes, that is the way in which these things are said to be done. Str. In like manner, all alien and uncongenial matter has been separated from political science, and what is precious and of a kindred nature has been left ; there remain the nobler arts of the general and the judge, and the higher sort of oratory which is an ally of the royal art, and persuades men to do justice, and assists in guiding the helm of States : — What way 30 can be found of taking them away, leaving him whom we seek alone and unalloyed ? F. Soc. That is clearly what has to be attempted. Str. If the attempt is all that is wanting, he shall certainly be brought to light ; and I think that the illustration of music may assist in exhibiting him. Please to answer me a question. Y. Soc. What question ? Str. There is such a thing as learning music or other handi craft art ? Y. Soc. There is. Str. And is there any other and further science which has to do with judging what sciences are and are not to be learned ; — what do you say ? Y. Soc. I should answer that there is. Str. And is this science to be acknowledged as different from the other ? F. Soc. Yes. STA TESMAN. 589 Str. And ought no science to be superior, or ought the other sciences to be superior to this ; or ought this science to be the overseer and governor of all the others? Y. Soc. The latter. Str. You mean to say that the science which judges whether we ought to learn or not, must be superior to the science which is learned or which teaches ? Y. Soc. Far superior. Str. And the science which determines whether we ought to persuade or not, must be superior to the science which is able to persuade? Y. Soc. Of course. Str. Very good ; and to what science do we assign the power of persuading a multitude by a pleasing tale and not by teaching ? Y. Soc. That power, I think, must clearly be assigned to rhetoric. Str. And to what science do we give the power of deter mining whether we are to use persuasion or force in relation to any particular thing or person, or whether the use of them is to be allowed at all? Y. Soc. To that science which governs the arts of speech and persuasion. Str. Which, if I am not mistaken, will be politics? Y. Soc. Very good. Str. Rhetoric seems to be quickly distinguished from politics, as a different species, which is the handmaiden of the other. Y. Soc. Yes. Str. But what would you think of another sort of power or science ? Y. Soc. What science ? Str. The science which has to do with military operations against our enemies — is that to be regarded as a science or not? Y. Soc. How can generalship and military tactics be regarded as other than a science ? Str. And is the art which is able and knows how to advise when we are to go to war, or to make peace, the same as this or different ? 590 STA TESMAN. Y. Soc. If we are to be consistent, we must say different. Str. And we must also suppose that this rules the other, if 3°i we are not to give up our former notion? F. Soc. True. Str. And, considering how great and terrible the whole art of war is, can we imagine any superior art but the truly royal ? F. Soc. None but that. Str. The art of the general is only ministerial, and therefore not political ? F. Soc. Exactly. Str. Once more let us consider the nature of the righteous judge. F. Soc. Very good. Str. Does he do anything but decide the dealings of men with one another to be just or unjust in accordance with the standard which he receives from the king and legislator, — showing his own peculiar virtue only in this, that he is not perverted by gifts, or fears, or pity, or any sort of love or hatred, into deciding the suits of men with one another contrary to the appointment of the legislator ? F. Soc. No ; his office is such as you describe. Str. Then the inference is that the power of the judge is not royal, but only the power of a guardian of the law which minis ters to the royal power ? F. Soc. True. Str. The review of all these sciences shows that none of them is political or royal. For the truly royal ought not to act, but to rule over those who are able to act, and to take the initiative ; the king ought to know when to begin, and to seize the opportunities of action, whilst others execute his orders. F. Soc. True. Str. And, therefore, the arts which we have described, as they have no authority over themselves or one another, but are each of them concerned with some special action of their own, have, as they ought to have, special names corresponding to their several actions. F. Soc. I agree. Str. And that common science which is over them all, and STATESMAN. 591 guards the laws, and all. things that there are in the State, and truly weaves them all into one, if we would describe under a name characteristic of this common nature, most truly we may call politics. Y. Soc. By all means. Str. Then, now that we have discovered the various classes in a State, shall I analyse politics after the pattern which weaving supplied ? Y. Soc. I greatly wish that you would. ;o6 Str. Then I must describe the nature of the royal web, and show how the various threads are drawn into one. Y. Soc. Clearly. Str. A task has to be accomplished, which, although diffi cult, appears to be necessary. Y. Soc. Certainly the attempt must be made. Str. To assume that one part of virtue differs in kind from another, is a position easily assailable by contentious disputants, who appeal to common opinion. Y. Soc. I do not understand. Str. Let me put the matter in another way : I suppose that you would consider courage to be a part of virtue ? Y. Soc. Certainly I should. Str. And you would think temperance to be different from courage ; and that would also be a part of virtue ? Y. Soc. True. Str. I shall venture to put forward a strange theory about them. Y. Soc. What is it ? Str. That they are two principles which are full of hatred and antagonism to one another, and pervade a great part of nature. Y. Soc. How singular ! Str. Yes, very — for all the parts of virtue are commonly said to be friendly to one another. Y. Soc. Yes. Str. Then let us carefully investigate whether this is univer sally true, or whether there are not parts of virtue which are at war with their kindred in some respect. Y. Soc. Tell me how we shall consider that question. Str. We must extend the question to all those things which 592 STATESMAN. we consider beautiful and at the same time place in two oppo site classes. Y. Soc. Explain ; what are they ? Str. Acuteness and quickness, whether in body or soul or speech, and in the imitations of them which painting and poetry supply, you must have often praised, and have observed others to praise them. F. Soc. Certainly. Str. And do you remember the terms in which they are praised ? Y. Soc. I do not. Str. I wonder whether I can explain to you in words the thought which is passing in my mind. F. Soc. Why not? Str. You fancy that this is all so easy : Well, let us consider these notions with reference to the opposite classes1 of action under which they fall. When we praise quickness and energy and acuteness, whether of mind or body or speech, we express our praise of the quality which we admire by one word, and that one word is manliness or courage. F. Soc. How? Str. We speak of an action as energetic and manly, quick and manly, and vigorous and manly ; which is the common epithet applicable to all persons of this class. F. Soc. True. Str. And do we not often praise the quiet strain of action also? 307 F. Soc. To be sure. Str. And do we not then say the opposite of what we said of the other ? F. Soc. How do you mean? Str. In speaking of the mind, we say how calm ! how tem perate ! These are the terms in which we describe the working of the intellect ; and again we speak of actions as soft and slow, and of the voice as smooth and deep, and of all rhythmical movement and of music in general as having a proper solemnity. Of all such actions we predicate not courage, but a name indi cative of order. 1 Or reading, as Professor Campbell suggests, ycveo-eai, ( in their opposite workings.' STATESMAN. 593 Y. Soc. Very true. Str. But when, on the other hand, either of these is out of place, the names of either are changed into terms of censure. F. Soc. How is that ? Str. Too great sharpness or quickness or hardness is termed violence or madness ; too great slowness or gentleness is called cowardice or sluggishness ; and we may observe, that these qualities, and in general the temperance of one class of cha racters and the manliness of another, are arrayed as enemies on opposite sides, and do not mingle with one another in their respective actions ; and if we pursue the enquiry, we shall find that the men who have these qualities are at variance with one another. F. Soc. How do you mean ? Str. In the instance which I mentioned, and very likely in many others, there are some things which they praise as being like themselves, and other things which they blame as belonging to the opposite characters — and out of this many quarrels and occasions of quarrels arise among them. F. Soc. True. Str. The difference between the two classes is amusing enough at times ; but when affecting really important matters, becomes a most utterly hateful disorder in the State. F. Soc. To what do you refer ? Str. To nothing short of the whole course of human life. For the orderly class are always ready to lead a peaceful life, and do their own business ; this is their way of living with all men at home, and they are equally ready to keep the peace with foreign States. And on account of this fondness of theirs for peace, which is often out of season where their influence prevails, they become by degrees unwarlike, and bring up their young men to be like themselves ; they are at the command of others ; and hence in a few years they and their children and the whole city often pass imperceptibly from the condition of freemen into that of slaves. 308 F. Soc. What a cruel fate ! Str. And now think of what happens with the more cour ageous natures. Are they not always inciting their country to go to war, owing to their excessive love of the military life — VOL. IV. Q q 594 STA TESMAN. their enemies are many and mighty — and they either utterly destroy their cities or they enslave and subject them to their enemies ? Y. Soc. That, again, is true. Str. Must we not admit, then, that these two classes are always in the greatest antipathy and antagonism to one another ? F. Soc. We cannot deny it. Str. Have we not found, as we said at first, that considerable portions of virtue are at variance with one another, and give rise to a similar opposition in the characters who are endowed with them? F. Soc. True. Str. Let us consider a further point. F. Soc. What is it? Str. I want to know, whether any constructive art will make any, even the smallest thing, out of bad and good materials indifferently, if this can be avoided? whether all art does not rather reject the bad as far as possible, and accept the good and fit materials, and out of these elements whether like or unlike, gathering all into one, work out some form or idea ? F. Soc. To be sure. Str. Then the true natural art of statesmanship will never allow any State to be formed by a combination of good and bad men, if this can be avoided ; but will begin by testing human natures in play, and after testing them, will entrust them to proper teachers who are her ministers — she will herself give orders, and maintain authority ; like weaving, which continually gives orders and maintains authority over the carders and all the others who prepare the material for the work, showing to the subsidiary arts, the works which she deems necessary for making the web. F. Soc. Quite true. Str, In like manner, the royal science appears to me to be the mistress of all careful educators and instructors, and having this queenly power, will not allow any of them to train characters unsuited to the political constitution which she desires to create, but such as are suitable only. Other natures, which have no share of manliness and temperance, or any other STA TESMAN. 595 virtuous inclination, and, from the necessity of an evil nature, are violently carried away to godlessness and injustice and violence, she exterminates by death, and punishes them by exile and the greatest of disgraces. Y. Soc. That is commonly said. 309 Sir. But those who are wallowing in ignorance and baseness she bows under the yoke of slavery. Y. Soc. Quite right. Str. The rest of the citizens, of whom, if they have education, something noble may be made, and who are capable of social science, the kingly art blends and weaves together ; taking on the one hand those whose natures tend rather to courage, which is the stronger element and may be regarded as the warp, and on the other hand those which incline to order and gentleness, and which are represented in the figure as spun thick and soft, after the manner of the woof — these, which are naturally opposed, she seeks to bind and weave together in the following manner — Y. Soc. In what manner ? Str. First of all, she takes the eternal element and binds that with a kindred, that is, with a divine cord, and then the element of life, and binds that with human cords. Y. Soc. I do not understand what you mean. Str. The meaning is, that the opinion about the honourable and the just and good and their opposites, which is true and confirmed by reason, is a divine principle, and when implanted in the soul, is implanted, as I maintain, in a nature of hea venly birth. Y. Soc. Yes ; what else should it be ? Str. Only the Statesman and the good legislator, having the inspiration of the royal muse, can implant this opinion, and he, only in the rightly educated, whom we were just now describing. Y. Soc. Likely enough. Str. But him who cannot, we will not designate by any of the names which are the subject of the present enquiry. Y. Soc. Very right. Str. The courageous soul when attaining this truth, becomes civilized, and rendered more capable of partaking of justice ; but when not partaking, is inclined to brutality. Is not that true ? Q q 2 596 STA TESMAN. Y. Soc. Certainly. Sir. And again, the peaceful and orderly nature, if sharing in these opinions, becomes temperate and wise, as far as there can be wisdom in States, but if not, is justly styled silly. Y. Soc. Quite true. Str. Can we say that such a connection as this will lastingly unite the evil with one another or with the good, or that there is any science which would seriously think of using a bond of this kind to join such materials ? Y. Soc. Impossible. Str. But in those which were originally noble natures, and sic have been trained accordingly — in those only may we not say that the bond of union is implanted by law, and that this is the medicine which art prescribes for them, and the divine bond, which, as I was saying, heals and unites dissimilar and contrary parts of virtue ? F. Soc. Very true. Str. Where this divine bond exists there is no difficulty in imagining, or when you have imagined, in creating the other human bonds. F. Soc. How is that, and of what bonds do you speak ? Str. Those of intermarriage, and those which are formed be tween States by giving and taking children in marriage, as well as by private betrothals and espousals. For many persons form unions of an improper kind, with a view to the procreation of children. F. Soc. In what way? Str. They seek after wealth and power, which in matrimony are objects not worthy even of a serious censure. Y. Soc. There is no need to consider them at all. Str. More reason is there to consider the practice of those who make family their chief aim, and to indicate their error. F. Soc. Yes, that is reasonable. Str. They act on no principle at all ; they seek their ease and receive with open arms those who are like themselves, and hate those who are unlike them ; and are wholly under the influence of their feelings of dislike. F. Soc. How is that? Str. The quiet orderly class seek for natures like their own, STATESMAN. 597 and as far as they can they marry and give in marriage exclu sively in this class, and the courageous do the same ; they seek natures like their own, whereas they should both do precisely the opposite. y. Soc. How and why is that ? Str. Because courage, when untempered by the gentler nature during many generations, may at first bloom and strengthen, but at last bursts forth into every sort of madness. y. Soc. Like enough. Str. And then, again, the soul which is over-full of modesty and has no element of courage in many successive generations, is apt to grow very indolent, and at last to become utterly paralyzed and useless. y. Soc. That, again, is quite likely. Str. It was of these bonds I said that there would be no diffi culty in creating them, if only both classes originally held the same opinion about the honourable and good ; — indeed, in this single word, the whole process of royal weaving is comprised — never to allow temperate natures to be separated from the brave, but to weave them together, like the warp and the woof, by 311 common sentiments and honours and opinions, and by the giving of pledges to one another ; and out of them forming one smooth and even web, to entrust to them the offices of State. Y. Soc. How do you mean ? Str. Where one officer only is needed, you must choose a ruler who has both these qualities — when many, you must mingle some of each, for the temperate ruler is very careful and just and safe, but is wanting in thoroughness and go. F. Soc. Certainly, that is very true. Str. The character of the courageous, on the other hand, falls short of the former in justice and caution, but has the power of action in a remarkable degree, and where either of these two qualities is wanting, there cities cannot altogether prosper either in their public or private life. F. Soc. Certainly they cannot. Str. This then, according to our view, is the perfection of the web of political action. There is a direct intertexture of the brave and temperate natures, when the kingly science has drawn the two sorts of lives into communion by unanimity and kind- VOL. IV. R r 598 STATESMAN. ness ; and having completed the noblest and best of all the webs which civic life admits, and enveloping therein all other inha bitants of cities, whether slaves or freemen, binds them in one fabric and governs and presides over them, omitting no element of a city's happiness. Y. Soc. You have completed, Stranger, a very perfect image of the king and of the Statesman. BINDING LIST ;,;AR151S46 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY B Plato Dialogues of ELato. ad. ed., rev 1S75 v,4 cop«2 NOT WANTED