PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XII.

ALKIBIADES I. AND II.

ALKIBIADES I. — ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

Situation supposed in the dialogue. Persons — Sokrates and Alkibiades.

This dialogue is carried on between Sokrates and Alkibiades. It introduces Alkibiades as about twenty years of age, having just passed through the period of youth, and about to enter on the privileges and duties of a citizen. The real dispositions and circumstances of the historical Alkibiades (magnificent personal beauty, stature, and strength, high family and connections, great wealth already possessed, since his father had died when he was a child, — a full measure of education and accomplishments — together with exorbitant ambition and insolence, derived from such accumulated advantages) are brought to view in the opening address of Sokrates. Alkibiades, during the years of youth which he had just passed, had been surrounded by admirers who tried to render themselves acceptable to him, but whom he repelled with indifference, and even with scorn. Sokrates had been among them, constantly present and near to Alkibiades, but without ever addressing a word to him. The youthful beauty being now exchanged for manhood, all these admirers had retired, and Sokrates alone remains. His attachment is to Alkibiades himself: to promise of mind rather than to attractions of person. Sokrates has been always hitherto restrained, 2by his divine sign or Dæmon, from speaking to Alkibiades. But this prohibition has now been removed; and he accosts him for the first time, in the full belief that he shall be able to give improving counsel, essential to the success of that political career upon which the youth is about to enter.1

Exorbitant hopes and political ambition of Alkibiades.

You are about to enter on public life (says Sokrates to Alkibiades) with the most inordinate aspirations for glory and aggrandisement. You not only thirst for the acquisition of ascendancy such as Perikles possesses at Athens, but your ambition will not be satisfied unless you fill Asia with your renown, and put yourself upon a level with Cyrus and Xerxes. Now such aspirations cannot be gratified except through my assistance. I do not deal in long discourses such as you have been accustomed to hear from others: I shall put to you only some short interrogatories, requiring nothing more than answers to my questions.2

Questions put by Sokrates, in reference to Alkibiades in his intended function as adviser of the Athenians. What does he intend to advise them upon? What has he learnt, and what does he know?

Sokr. — You are about to step forward as adviser of the public assembly. Upon what points do you intend to advise them? Upon points which you know better than they? Alk. — Of course. Sokr. — All that you know, has been either learnt from others or found out by yourself. Alk. — Certainly. Sokr. — But you would neither have learnt any thing, nor found out any thing, without the desire to learn or find out: and you would have felt no such desire, in respect to that which you believed yourself to know already. That which you now know, therefore, there was a time when you believed yourself not 3to know? Alk. — Necessarily so. Sokr. — Now all that you have learnt, as I am well aware, consists of three things — letters, the harp, gymnastics. Do you intend to advise the Athenians when they are debating about letters, or about harp-playing, or about gymnastics? Alk. — Neither of the three. Sokr. — Upon what occasions, then, do you propose to give advice? Surely, not when the Athenians are debating about architecture, or prophetic warnings, or the public health: for to deliver opinions on each of these matters, belongs not to you but to professional men — architects, prophets, physicians; whether they be poor or rich, high-born or low-born? If not then, upon what other occasions will you tender your counsel? Alk. — When they are debating about affairs of their own.

Alkibiades intends to advise the Athenians on questions of war and peace. Questions of Sokrates thereupon. We must fight those whom it is better to fight — to what standard does better refer? To just and unjust.

Sokr. — But about what affairs of their own? Not about affairs of shipbuilding: for of that you know nothing. Alk. — When they are discussing war and peace, or any other business concerning the city. Sokr. — You mean when they are discussing the question with whom they shall make war or peace, and in what manner? But it is certain that we must fight those whom it is best to fight — also when it is best — and as long as it is best. Alk. — Certainly. Sokr. — Now, if the Athenians wished to know whom it was best to wrestle with, and when or how long it was best which of the two would be most competent to advise them, you or the professional trainer? Alk. — The trainer, undoubtedly. Sokr. — So, too, about playing the harp or singing. But when you talk about better, in wrestling or singing, what standard do you refer to? Is it not to the gymnastic or musical art? Alk. — Yes. Sokr. — Answer me in like manner about war or peace, the subjects on which you are going to advise your countrymen, whom, and at what periods, it is better to fight, and better not to fight? What in this last case do you mean by better? To what standard, or to what end, do you refer?3 Alk. — I cannot say. Sokr. — But is it not a disgrace, 4since you profess to advise your countrymen when and against whom it is better for them to war, — not to be able to say to what end your better refers? Do not you know what are the usual grounds and complaints urged when war is undertaken? Alk. — Yes: complaints of having been cheated, or robbed, or injured. Sokr. — Under what circumstances? Alk. — You mean, whether justly or unjustly? That makes all the difference. Sokr. — Do you mean to advise the Athenians to fight those who behave justly, or those who behave unjustly? Alk. — The question is monstrous. Certainly not those who behave justly. It would be neither lawful nor honourable. Sokr. — Then when you spoke about better, in reference to war or peace, what you meant was juster — you had in view justice and injustice? Alk. — It seems so.

How, or from whom, has Alkibiades learnt to discern or distinguish Just and Unjust? He never learnt it from any one; he always knew it, even as a boy.

Sokr. — How is this? How do you know, or where have you learnt, to distinguish just from unjust? Have you frequented some master, without my knowledge, to teach you this? If you have, pray introduce me to him, that I also may learn it from him. Alk. — You are jesting. Sokr. — Not at all: I love you too well to jest. Alk. — But what if I had no master? Cannot I know about justice and injustice, without a master? Sokr. — Certainly: you might find out for yourself, if you made search and investigated. But this you would not do, unless you were under the persuasion that you did not already know. Alk. — Was there not a time when I really believed myself not to know it? Sokr. — Perhaps there may have been: tell me when that time was. Was it last year? Alk. — No: last year I thought that I knew. Sokr. — Well, then two years, three years, &c., ago? Alk. — No: the case was the same then, also, I thought that I knew. Sokr. — But before that, you were a mere boy; and during your boyhood you certainly believed yourself to know what was just and unjust; for I well recollect hearing you then complain confidently of other boys, for acting unjustly towards you. Alk. — Certainly: I was not then ignorant on the point: I knew distinctly that they were acting unjustly towards me. 5Sokr. — You knew, then, even in your boyhood, what was just and what was unjust? Alk. — Certainly: I knew even then. Sokr. — At what moment did you first find it out? Not when you already believed yourself to know: and what time was there when you did not believe yourself to know? Alk. — Upon my word, I cannot say.

Answer amended. Alkibiades learnt it from the multitude, as he learnt to speak Greek. — The multitude cannot teach just and unjust, for they are at variance among themselves about it. Alkibiades is going to advise the Athenians about what he does not know himself.

Sokr. — Since, accordingly, you neither found it out for yourself, nor learnt it from others, how come you to know justice or injustice at all, or from what quarter? Alk. — I was mistaken in saying that I had not learnt it. I learnt it, as others do, from the multitude.4 Sokr. — Your teachers are none of the best: no one can learn from them even such small matters as playing at draughts: much less, what is just and unjust. Alk. — I learnt it from them as I learnt to speak Greek, in which, too, I never had any special teacher. Sokr. — Of that the multitude are competent teachers, for they are all of one mind. Ask which is a tree or a stone, — a horse or a man, — you get the same answer from every one. But when you ask not simply which are horses, but also which horses are fit to run well in a race — when you ask not merely about which are men, but which men are healthy or unhealthy — are the multitude all of one mind, or all competent to answer? Alk. — Assuredly not. Sokr. — When you see the multitude differing among themselves, that is a clear proof that they are not competent to teach others. Alk. — It is so. Sokr. — Now, about the question, What is just and unjust — are the multitude all of one mind, or do they differ among themselves? Alk. — They differ prodigiously: they not only dispute, but quarrel and destroy each other, respecting justice and injustice, far more than about health and sickness.5 Sokr. How, then, can we say that the multitude know what is just and unjust, when they thus fiercely dispute about it among themselves? Alk. — I now perceive that we cannot say so. Sokr. — 6How can we say, therefore, that they are fit to teach others: and how can you pretend to know, who have learnt from no other teachers? Alk. — From what you say, it is impossible.

Sokr. — No: not from what I say, but from what you say yourself. I merely ask questions: it is you who give all the answers.6 And what you have said amounts to this — that Alkibiades knows nothing about what is just and unjust, but believes himself to know, and is going to advise the Athenians about what he does not know himself?

Answer farther amended. The Athenians do not generally debate about just or unjust — which they consider plain to every one — but about expedient and inexpedient, which are not coincident with just and unjust. But neither does Alkibiades know the expedient. He asks Sokrates to explain. Sokrates declines: he can do nothing but question.

Alk. — But, Sokrates, the Athenians do not often debate about what is just and unjust. They think that question self-evident; they debate generally about what is expedient or not expedient. Justice and expediency do not do not always coincide. Many persons commit great crimes, and are great gainers by doing so: others again behave justly, and suffer from it.7 Sokr — Do you then profess to know what is expedient or inexpedient? From whom have you learnt — or when did you find out for yourself? I might ask you the same round of questions, and you would be compelled to answer in the same manner. But we will pass to a different point. You say that justice and expediency are not coincident. Persuade me of this, by interrogating me as I interrogated you. Alk. — That is beyond my power. Sokr. — But when you rise to address the assembly, you will have to persuade them. If you can persuade them, you can persuade me. Assume me to be the assembly, and practise upon me.8 Alk. — You are too hard upon me, Sokrates. It is for you to speak and prove the point. Sokr — No: I can only question: you must answer. You will be most surely persuaded when the point is determined by your own answers.9

Comment on the preceding — Sokratic method — the respondent makes the discoveries for himself.

Such is the commencing portion (abbreviated or abstracted) 7of Plato’s First Alkibiadês. It exhibits a very characteristic specimen of the Sokratico-Platonic method: both in its negative and positive aspect. By the negative, false persuasion of knowledge is exposed. Alkibiades believes himself competent to advise about just and unjust, which he has neither learnt from any teacher nor investigated for himself — which he has picked up from the multitude, and supposes to be clear to every one, but about which nevertheless there is so much difference of appreciation among the multitude, that fierce and perpetual quarrels are going on. On the positive side, Sokrates restricts himself to the function of questioning: he neither affirms nor denies any thing. It is Alkibiades who affirms or denies every thing, and who makes all the discoveries for himself out of his own mind, instigated indeed, but not taught, by the questions of his companion.

Alkibiades is brought to admit that whatever is just, is good, honourable, expedient: and that whoever acts honourably, both does well, and procures for himself happiness thereby. Equivocal reasoning of Sokrates.

By a farther series of questions, Sokrates next brings Alkibiades to the admission that what is just, is also honourable, good, expedient — what is unjust, is dishonourable, evil, inexpedient: and that whoever acts justly, and honourably, thereby acquires happiness. Admitting, first, that an act which is good, honourable, just, expedient, &c., considered in one aspect or in reference to some of its conditions — may be at the same time bad, dishonourable, unjust, considered in another aspect or in reference to other conditions; Sokrates nevertheless brings his respondent to admit, that every act, in so far as it is just and honourable, is also good and expedient.10 And he contends farther, that whoever acts honourably, does well: now every man who does well, becomes happy, or secures good things thereby: therefore8 the just, the honourable, and the good or expedient, coincide.11 The argument, whereby this conclusion is here established, is pointed out by Heindorf, Stallbaum, and Steinhart, as not merely inconclusive, but as mere verbal equivocation and sophistry — the like of which, however, we find elsewhere in Plato.12

Humiliation of Alkibiades. Other Athenian statesmen are equally ignorant. But the real opponents, against whom Alkibiades is to measure himself, are, the kings of Sparta and Persia. Eulogistic description of those kings. To match them, Alkibiades must make himself as good as possible.

Alkibiades is thus reduced to a state of humiliating embarrassment, and stands convicted, by his own contradictions and confession, of ignorance in its worst form: that is, of being ignorant, and yet believing himself to know.13 But other Athenian statesmen are no wiser. Even Perikles is proved to be equally deficient — by the fact that he has never been able to teach or improve any one else, not even his own sons and those whom he loved best.14 “At any rate” (contends Alkibiades) “I am as good as my competitors, and can hold my ground against them.” But Sokrates reminds him that the real competitors with whom he ought to compare himself, are foreigners, liable to become the enemies of Athens, and against whom he, if he pretends to lead Athens, must be able to contend. In an harangue of unusual length, Sokrates shows that the kings of Sparta and Persia are of nobler breed, as well as more highly and carefully trained, than the Athenian statesmen.15 Alkibiades must be rescued from his present ignorance, and exalted, so as to be capable of competing with these kings: which object cannot be attained except through the auxiliary interposition of Sokrates. Not that Sokrates professes to be himself already on this elevation, and to stand in need of no farther improvement. But he can, nevertheless, help others to attain it for themselves, through the discipline and stimulus of his interrogatories.16

9

But good — for what end, and under what circumstances? Abundant illustrative examples.

The dialogue then continues. Sokr. — We wish to become as good as possible. But in what sort of virtue? Alk. — In that virtue which belongs to good men. Sokr. — Yes, but good, in what matters? Alk. — Evidently, to men who are good in transacting business. Sokr. — Ay, but what kind of business? business relating to horses, or to navigation? If that be meant, we must go and consult horse-trainers or mariners? Alk. — No, I mean such business as is transacted by the most esteemed leaders in Athens. Sokr. — You mean the intelligent men. Every man is good, in reference to that which he understands: every man is bad, in reference to that which he does not understand. Alk. — Of course. Sokr. — The cobbler understands shoemaking, and is therefore good at that: he does not understand weaving, and is therefore bad at that. The same man thus, in your view, will be both good and bad?17 Alk. — No: that cannot be. Sokr. — Whom then do you mean, when you talk of the good? Alk. — I mean those who are competent to command in the city. Sokr. — But to command whom or what — horses or men? Alk. — To command men. Sokr. — But what men, and under what circumstances? sick men, or men on shipboard, or labourers engaged in harvesting, or in what occupations? Alk. — I mean, men living in social and commercial relation with each other, as we live here; men who live in common possession of the same laws and government. Sokr. — When men are in communion of a sea voyage and of the same ship, how do we name the art of commanding them, and to what purpose does it tend? Alk. — It is the art of the pilot; and the purpose towards which it tends, is, bringing them safely through the dangers of the sea. Sokr. — When men are in social and political communion, to what purpose does the art of commanding them tend? Alk. — Towards the better preservation and administration of the city.18 Sokr. — But what do you mean by better? What is that, the presence or absence of which makes better or worse? If in regard to the 10management of the body, you put to me the same question, I should reply, that it is the presence of health, and the absence of disease. What reply will you make, in the case of the city? Alk. — I should say, when friendship and unanimity among the citizens are present, and when discord and antipathy are absent. Sokr. — This unanimity, of what nature is it? Respecting what subject? What is the art or science for realising it? If I ask you what brings about unanimity respecting numbers and measures, you will say the arithmetical and the metrêtic art. Alk. — I mean that friendship and unanimity which prevails between near relatives, father and son, husband and wife. Sokr. — But how can there be unanimity between any two persons, respecting subjects which one of them knows, and the other does not know? For example, about spinning and weaving, which the husband does not know, or about military duties, which the wife does not know, how can there be unanimity between the two? Alk. — No: there cannot be. Sokr. — Nor friendship, if unanimity and friendship go together? Alk. — Apparently there cannot. Sokr. — Then when men and women each perform their own special duties, there can be no friendship between them. Nor can a city be well administered, when each citizen performs his own special duties? or (which is the same thing) when each citizen acts justly? Alk. — Not so: I think there may be friendship, when each person performs his or her own business. Sokr. — Just now you said the reverse. What is this friendship or unanimity which we must understand and realise, in order to become good men?

Alkibiades, puzzled and humiliated, confesses his ignorance. Encouragement given by Sokrates. It is an advantage to make such discovery in youth.

Alk. — In truth, I am puzzled myself to say. I find myself in a state of disgraceful ignorance, of which I had no previous suspicion. Sokr. — Do not be discouraged. If you had made this discovery when you were fifty years old, it would have been too late for taking care of yourself and applying a remedy: but at your age, it is the right time for making the discovery. Alk. — What am I to do, now that I have made it? Sokr. — You must answer my questions. If my auguries are just, we shall soon be both of us better for the process.19

11 Platonic Dialectic — its actual effect — its anticipated effect — applicable to the season of youth.

Here we have again, brought into prominent relief, the dialectic method of Plato, under two distinct aspects: 1. Its actual effects, in exposing the false supposition of knowledge, in forcing upon the respondent the humiliating conviction, that he does not know familiar topics which he supposed to be clear both to himself and to others. 2. Its anticipated effects, if continued, in remedying such defect: and in generating out of the mind of the respondent, real and living knowledge. Lastly, it is plainly intimated that this shock of humiliation and mistrust, painful but inevitable, must be undergone in youth.

Know Thyself — Delphian maxim — its urgent importance — What is myself? My mind is myself.

The dialogue continues, in short questions and answers, of which the following is an abstract. Sokr. — What is meant by a man taking care of himself? Before I can take care of myself, I must know what myself is: I must know myself, according to the Delphian motto. I cannot make myself better, without knowing what myself is.20 That which belongs to me is not myself: my body is not myself, but an instrument governed by myself.21 My mind or soul only, is myself. To take care of myself is, to take care of my mind. At any rate, if this be not strictly true,22 my mind is the most important and dominant element within me. The physician who knows his own body, does not for that reason know himself: much less do the husbandman or the tradesman, who know their own properties or crafts, know themselves, or perform what is truly their own business.

I cannot know myself, except by looking into another mind. Self-knowledge is temperance. Temperance and Justice are the conditions both of happiness and of freedom.

Since temperance consists in self-knowledge, neither of these professional men, as such, is temperate: their professions are of a vulgar cast, and do not belong to the 12virtuous life.23 How are we to know our own minds? We know it by looking into another mind, and into the most rational and divine portion thereof: just as the eye can only know itself by looking into another eye, and seeing itself therein reflected.24 It is only in this way that we can come to know ourselves, or become temperate: and if we do not know ourselves, we cannot even know what belongs to ourselves, or what belongs to others: all these are branches of one and the same cognition. We can have no knowledge of affairs, either public or private: we shall go wrong, and shall be unable to secure happiness either for ourselves or for others. It is not wealth or power which are the conditions of happiness, but justice and temperance. Both for ourselves individually, and for the public collectively, we ought to aim at justice and temperance, not at wealth and power. The evil and unjust man ought to have no power, but to be the slave of those who are better than himself.25 He is fit for nothing but to be a slave: none deserve freedom except the virtuous.

Alkibiades feels himself unworthy to be free, and declares that he will never quit Sokrates.

Sokr. — How do you feel your own condition now, Alkibiades. Are you worthy of freedom? Alk. — I feel but too keenly that I am not. I cannot emerge from this degradation except by your society and help. From this time forward I shall never leave you.26

ALKIBIADES II.

Second Alkibiades — situation supposed.

The other Platonic dialogue, termed the Second Alkibiades, introduces Alkibiades as about to offer prayer and sacrifice to the Gods.

Danger of mistake in praying to the Gods for gifts which may prove mischievous. Most men are unwise. Unwise is the generic word: madmen, a particular variety under it.

Sokr. — You seem absorbed in thought, Alkibiades, and not unreasonably. In supplicating the Gods, caution is required not to pray for gifts which are really mischievous. The Gods sometimes grant men’s prayers, even when ruinously destructive; as they 13granted the prayers of Œdipus, to the destruction of his own sons. Alk. — Œdipus was mad: what man in his senses would put up such a prayer? Sokr. — You think that madness is the opposite of good sense or wisdom. You recognise men wise and unwise: and you farther admit that every man must be one or other of the two, — just as every man must be either healthy or sick: there is no third alternative possible? Alk. — I think so. Sokr. — But each thing can have but one opposite:27 to be unwise, and to be mad, are therefore identical? Alk. — They are. Sokr. — Wise men are only few, the majority of our citizens are unwise: but do you really think them mad? How could any of us live safely in the society of so many mad-men? Alk. — No: it cannot be so: I was mistaken. Sokr. — Here is the illustration of your mistake. All men who have gout, or fever, or ophthalmia are sick; but all sick men have not gout, or fever, or ophthalmia. So, too, all carpenters, or shoemakers, or sculptors, are craftsmen; but all craftsmen are not carpenters, or shoemakers, or sculptors. In like manner, all mad men are unwise; but all unwise men are not mad. Unwise comprises many varieties and gradations of which the extreme is, being mad: but these varieties are different among themselves, as one disease differs from another, though all agree in being disease and one art differs from another, though all agree in being art.28

Relation between a generic term, and the specific terms comprehended under it, was not then familiar.

(We may remark that Plato here, as in the Euthyphron, brings under especial notice one of the most important distinctions in formal logic — that between a generic between a term and the various specific terms comprehended under it. Possessing as yet no technical language for characterising this distinction, he makes it understood by an induction of several separate but analogous cases. Because the distinction is familiar now to instructed men, we must not suppose that it was familiar then.) 14

Frequent cases, in which men pray for supposed benefits, and find that when obtained, they are misfortunes. Every one fancies that he knows what is beneficial: mischiefs of ignorance.

Sokr. — Whom do you call wise and unwise? Is not the wise man, he who knows what it is proper to say and do — and the unwise man, he who does not know? Alk. — Yes. Sokr. — The unwise man will thus often unconsciously say or do what ought not to be said or done? Though not mad like Œdipus, he will nevertheless pray to the Gods for gifts, which will be hurtful to him if obtained. You, for example, would be overjoyed if the Gods were to promise that you should become despot not only over Athens, but also over Greece. Alk. — Doubtless I should: and every one else would feel as I do. Sokr. — But what if you were to purchase it with your life, or to damage yourself by the employment of it? Alk. — Not on those conditions.29 Sokr. — But you are aware that many ambitious aspirants, both at Athens and elsewhere (among them, the man who just now killed the Macedonian King Archelaus, and usurped his throne), have acquired power and aggrandisement, so as to be envied by every one: yet have presently found themselves brought to ruin and death by the acquisition. So, also, many persons pray that they may become fathers; but discover presently that their children are the source of so much grief to them, that they wish themselves again childless. Nevertheless, though such reverses are perpetually happening, every one is still not only eager to obtain these supposed benefits, but importunate with the Gods in asking for them. You see that it is not safe even to accept without reflection boons offered to you, much less to pray for boons to be conferred.30 Alk. — I see now how much mischief ignorance produces. Every one thinks himself competent to pray for what is beneficial to himself; but ignorance makes him unconsciously imprecate mischief on his own head.

Mistake in predications about ignorance generally. We must discriminate. Ignorance of what? Ignorance of good, is always mischievous: ignorance of other things, not always.

Sokr. — You ought not to denounce ignorance in this unqualified manner. You must distinguish and specify. Ignorance of what? and under what modifications of persons and circumstances? Alk. — How? Are there 15any matters or circumstances in which it is better for a man to be ignorant, than to know? Sokr. — You will see that there are such. Ignorance of good, or ignorance of what is best, is always mischievous: moreover, assuming that a man knows what is best, then all other knowledge will be profitable to him. In his special case, ignorance on any subject cannot be otherwise than hurtful. But if a man be ignorant things of good, or of what is best, in his case knowledge on other subjects will be more often hurtful than profitable. To a man like Orestes, so misguided on the question, “What is good?” as to resolve to kill his mother, it would be a real benefit, if for the time he did not know his mother. Ignorance on that point, in his state of mind, would be better for him than knowledge.31 Alk. — It appears so.

Wise public counsellors are few. Upon what ground do we call these few wise? Not because they possess merely special arts or accomplishments, but because they know besides, upon what occasions and under what limits each of these accomplishments ought to be used.

Sokr. — Follow the argument farther. When we come forward to say or do any thing, we either know what we are about to say and do, or at least believe ourselves to know it. Every statesman who gives counsel to the public, does so in the faith of such knowledge. Most citizens are unwise, and ignorant of good as well as of other things. The wise are but few, and by their advice the city is conducted. Now upon what ground do we call these few, wise and useful public counsellors? If a statesman knows war, but does not know whether it is best to go to war, or at what juncture it is best — should we call him wise? If he knows how to kill men, or dispossess them, or drive them into exile, — but does not know upon whom, or on what occasions, it is good to inflict this treatment — is he a useful counsellor? If he can ride, or shoot, or wrestle, well, — we give him an epithet derived from this special accomplishment: we do not call him wise. What would be the condition of a community composed of bowmen, horsemen, wrestlers, rhetors, &c., accomplished and excellent each in his own particular craft, yet none of them knowing what is good, nor when, nor on what occasions, it is good to employ 16their craft? When each man pushes forward his own art and speciality, without any knowledge whether it is good on the whole either for himself or for the city, will not affairs thus conducted be reckless and disastrous?32 Alk. — They will be very bad indeed.

Special accomplishments, without the knowledge of the good or profitable, are oftener hurtful than beneficial.

Sokr. — If, then, a man has no knowledge of good or of the better — if upon this cardinal point he obeys fancy without reason — the possession of knowledge upon special subjects will be oftener hurtful than profitable to him; because it will make him more forward in action, without any good result. Possessing many arts and accomplishments, and prosecuting one after another, but without the knowledge of good, — he will only fall into greater trouble, like a ship sailing without a pilot. Knowledge of good is, in other words, knowledge of what is useful and profitable. In conjunction with this, all other knowledge is valuable, and goes to increase a man’s competence as a counsellor: apart from this, all other knowledge will not render a man competent as a counsellor, but will be more frequently hurtful than beneficial.33 Towards right living, what we need is, the knowledge of good: just as the sick stand in need of a physician, and the ship’s crew of a pilot. Alk. — I admit your reasoning. My opinion is changed. I no longer believe myself competent to determine what I ought to accept from the Gods, or what I ought to pray for. I incur serious danger of erring, and of asking for mischiefs, under the belief that they are benefits.

It is unsafe for Alkibiades to proceed with his sacrifice, until he has learnt what is the proper language to address to the Gods. He renounces his sacrifice, and throws himself upon the counsel of Sokrates.

Sokr. — The Lacedæmonians, when they offer sacrifice, pray simply that they may obtain what is honourable and good, without farther specification. This language is 17acceptable to the Gods, more acceptable than the costly festivals of Athens. It has procured for the Spartans more continued prosperity than the Athenians have enjoyed.34 The Gods honour wise and just men, that is, men who know what they ought to say and do both towards Gods and towards men — more than numerous and splendid offerings.35 You see, therefore, that it is not safe for you to proceed with your sacrifice, until you have learnt what is the proper language to be used, and what are the really good gifts to be prayed for. Otherwise your sacrifice will not prove acceptable, and you may even bring upon yourself positive mischief.36 Alk. — When shall I be able to learn this, and who is there to teach me? I shall be delighted to meet him. Sokr. — There is a person at hand most anxious for your improvement. What he must do is, first to disperse the darkness from your mind, next, to impart that which will teach you to discriminate evil from good, which at present you are unable to do. Alk. — I shall shrink from no labour to accomplish this object. Until then, I postpone my intended sacrifice: and I tender my sacrificial wreath to you, in gratitude for your counsel.37 Sokr. — I accept the wreath as a welcome augury of future friendship and conversation between us, to help us out of the present embarrassment.

Different critical opinions respecting these two dialogues.

The two dialogues, called First and Second Alkibiadês, of which I have just given some account, resemble each other more than most of the Platonic dialogues, not merely in the personages introduced, but in general spirit, in subject, and even in illustrations. The First Alkibiadês was recognised as authentic by all critics without exception, until the days of Schleiermacher. Nay, it was not only recognised, but extolled as one of the most valuable and important of all the Platonic compositions; proper to be studied first, as a key to all the rest. Such was the view of 18Jamblichus and Proklus, transmitted to modern times; until it received a harsh contradiction from Schleiermacher, who declared the dialogue to be both worthless and spurious. The Second Alkibiadês was also admitted both by Thrasyllus, and by the general body of critics in ancient times: but there were some persons (as we learn from Athenæus)38 who considered it to be a work of Xenophon; perceiving probably (what is the fact) that it bears much analogy to several conversations which Xenophon has set down. But those who held this opinion are not to be considered as of one mind with critics who reject the dialogue as a forgery or imitation of Plato. Compositions emanating from Xenophon are just as much Sokratic, probably even more Sokratic, than the most unquestioned Platonic dialogues, besides that they must of necessity be contemporary also. Schleiermacher has gone much farther: declaring the Second as well as the First to be an unworthy imitation of Plato.39

Grounds for disallowing them — less strong against the Second than against the First.

Here Ast agrees with Schleiermacher fully, including both the First and Second Alkibiades in his large list of the spurious. Most of the subsequent critics go with Schleiermacher only half-way: Socher, Hermann, Stallbaum, Steinhart, Susemihl, recognise the First Alkibiadês, but disallow the Second.40 In my judgment, Schleiermacher and Ast are more consistently right, or more consistently wrong, in rejecting both, than the other critics who find or make so capital a distinction between the two. The similarity of tone and topics between the two is obvious, and is indeed admitted by all. Moreover, if I were compelled to make a choice, I should say that the grounds for suspicion are rather less strong against the Second than against the First; and that Schleiermacher, reasoning upon the objections admitted by his opponents as conclusive against the Second, would have no difficulty in showing that his own objections against the First were still more forcible. The long speech 19assigned in the First Alkibiadês to Sokrates, about the privileges of the Spartan and Persian kings,41 including the mention of Zoroaster, son of Oromazes, and the Magian religion, appears to me more unusual with Plato than anything which I find in the Second Alkibiadês. It is more Xenophontic42 than Platonic.

The supposed grounds for disallowance are in reality only marks of inferiority.

But I must here repeat, that because I find, in this or any other dialogue, some peculiarities not usual with Plato, I do not feel warranted thereby in declaring the dialogue spurious. In my judgment, we must look for a large measure of diversity in the various dialogues; and I think it an injudicious novelty, introduced by Schleiermacher, to set up a canonical type of Platonism, all deviations from which are to be rejected as forgeries. Both the First and the Second Alkibiadês appear to me genuine, even upon the showing of those very critics who disallow them. Schleiermacher, Stallbaum, and Steinhart, all admit that there is in both the dialogues a considerable proportion of Sokratic and Platonic ideas: but they maintain that there are also other ideas which are not Sokratic or Platonic, and that the texture, style, and prolixity of the Second Alkibiadês (Schleiermacher maintains this about the First also) are unworthy of Plato. But if we grant these premisses, the reasonable inference would be, not to disallow it altogether, but to admit it as a work by Plato, of inferior merit; perhaps of earlier days, before his powers of composition had attained their maturity. To presume that because Plato composed many excellent dialogues, therefore all that he composed must have been excellent, is a pretension formally disclaimed by many critics, and asserted by none.43 Steinhart himself allows that the Second Alkibiadês, though not composed by Plato, is the work of some other author contemporary, an untrained Sokratic disciple attempting to imitate Plato.44 But we do not know that there 20were any contemporaries who tried to imitate Plato: though Theopompus accused him of imitating others, and called most of his dialogues useless as well as false: while Plato himself, in his inferior works, will naturally appear like an imitator of his better self.

The two dialogues may probably be among Plato’s earlier compositions.

I agree with Schleiermacher and the other recent critics in considering the First and Second Alkibiadês to be inferior in merit to Plato’s best dialogues; and I contend that their own premisses justify no more. They may probably be among his earlier productions, though I do not believe that the First Alkibiadês was composed during the lifetime of Sokrates, as Socher, Steinhart, and Stallbaum endeavour to show.45 I have already given my 21reasons, in a previous chapter, for believing that Plato composed no dialogues at all during the lifetime of Sokrates; still less in that of Alkibiadês, who died four years earlier. There is certainly nothing in either Alkibiadês I. or II. to shake this belief.

Analogy with various dialogues in the Xenophontic Memorabilia — Purpose of Sokrates to humble presumptuous young men.

If we compare various colloquies of Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, we shall find Alkibiadês I. and II. very analogous to them both in purpose and spirit. In Alkibiadês I. the situation conceived is the same as that of Sokrates and Glaukon, in the third book of the Memorabilia. Xenophon recounts how the presumptuous Glaukon, hardly twenty years of age, fancied himself already fit to play a conspicuous part in public affairs, and tried to force himself, in spite of rebuffs and humiliations, upon the notice of the assembly.46 No remonstrances of friends could deter him, nor could anything, except the ingenious dialectic of Sokrates, convince him of his own impertinent forwardness and exaggerated self-estimation. Probably Plato (Glaukon’s elder brother) had heard of this conversation, but whether the fact be so or not, we see the same situation idealised by him in Alkibiadês I., and worked out in a way of his own. Again, we find in the Xenophontic Memorabilia another colloquy, wherein Sokrates cross-questions, perplexes, and humiliates, the studious youth Euthydemus,47 whom he regards as over-confident in his persuasions and too well satisfied with himself. It was among the specialties of Sokrates to humiliate confident young men, with a view to their future improvement. He made his conversation “an instrument of chastisement,” in the language of Xenophon: or (to use a phrase of Plato himself in the Lysis) he conceived. “that the proper way of talking to youth whom you love, was, not to exalt and puff them up, but to subdue and humiliate them”.48

Fitness of the name and character of Alkibiades for idealising this feature in Sokrates.

If Plato wished to idealise this feature in the character of 22 Sokrates, no name could be more suitable to his purpose than that of Alkibiades: who, having possessed as a youth the greatest personal beauty (to which Sokrates was exquisitely sensible) had become in his mature life distinguished not less for unprincipled ambition and insolence, than for energy and ability. We know the real Alkibiadês both from Thucydides and Xenophon, and we also know that Alkibiades had in his youth so far frequented the society of Sokrates as to catch some of that dialectic ingenuity, which the latter was expected and believed to impart.49 The contrast, as well as the companionship, between Sokrates and Alkibiades was eminently suggestive to the writers of Sokratic dialogues, and nearly all of them made use of it, composing dialogues in which Alkibiades was the principal name and figure.50 It would be surprising indeed if Plato had never done the same: which is what we must suppose, if we adopt Schleiermacher’s view, that both Alkibiadês I. and II. are spurious. In the Protagoras as well as in the Symposion, Alkibiades figures; but in neither of them is he the principal person, or titular hero, of the piece. In Alkibiadês I. and II., he is introduced as the solitary respondent to the questions of Sokrates — κολαστηρίου ἕνεκα: to receive from Sokrates a lesson of humiliation such as the Xenophontic Sokrates administers to Glaukon and Euthydemus, taking care to address the latter when alone.51

Plato’s manner of replying to the accusers of Sokrates. Magical influence ascribed to the conversation of Sokrates.

I conceive Alkibiadês I. and II. as composed by Plato among his earlier writings (perhaps between 399-390 B.C.)52 giving an imaginary picture of the way in which 23“Sokrates handled every respondent just as he chose” (to use the literal phrase of Xenophon53): taming even that most overbearing youth, whom Aristophanes characterises as the lion’s whelp.54 In selecting Alkibiades as the sufferer under such a chastising process, Plato rebuts in his own ideal style that charge which Xenophon answers with prosaic directness — the charge made against Sokrates by his enemies, that he taught political craft without teaching ethical sobriety; and that he had encouraged by his training the lawless propensities of Alkibiades.55 When Schleiermacher, and others who disallow the dialogue, argue that the inordinate insolence ascribed to Alkibiades, and the submissive deference towards Sokrates also ascribed to him, are incongruous and incompatible attributes, — I reply that such a conjunction is very improbable in any real character. But this does not hinder Plato from combining them in one and the same ideal character, as we shall farther see when we come to the manifestation of Alkibiades in the Symposion: 24in which dialogue we find a combination of the same elements, still more extravagant and high-coloured. Both here and there we are made to see that Sokrates, far from encouraging Alkibiades, is the only person who ever succeeded in humbling him. Plato attributes to the personality and conversation of Sokrates an influence magical and almost superhuman: which Cicero and Plutarch, proceeding probably upon the evidence of the Platonic dialogues, describe as if it were historical fact. They represent Alkibiades as shedding tears of sorrow and shame, and entreating Sokrates to rescue him from a sense of degradation insupportably painful.56 Now Xenophon mentions Euthydemus and other young men as having really experienced these profound and distressing emotions.57 But he does not at all certify the same about Alkibiades, whose historical career is altogether adverse to the hypothesis. The Platonic picture is an idéal, drawn from what may have been actually true about other interlocutors of Sokrates, and calculated to reply to Melêtus and his allies.

The purpose proclaimed by Sokrates in the Apology is followed out in Alkib. I. Warfare against the false persuasion of knowledge.

Looking at Alkibiadês I. and II. in this point of view, we shall find them perfectly Sokratic both in topics proclaimed and in manner — whatever may be said about unnecessary prolixity and common-place here and there. The leading ideas of Alkibiadês I. may be found, nearly all, in the Platonic Apology. That warfare, which Sokrates proclaims in the Apology as having been the mission of his life, against the false persuasion of knowledge, or against beliefs ethical and æsthetical, firmly entertained without having been preceded by conscious study or subjected to serious examination — is exemplified in Alkibiadês I. and II. as emphatically as in any Platonic composition. In both these dialogues, indeed (especially in the first), we find an excessive repetition of specialising illustrations, often needless and sometimes tiresome: a defect easily intelligible if we assume them to have been written when Plato was still a novice in the art of dialogic composition. But both dialogues are fully impregnated with the spirit of the Sokratic process, exposing, though with exuberant prolixity, the 25firm and universal belief, held and affirmed by every one even at the age of boyhood, without any assignable grounds or modes of acquisition, and amidst angry discordance between the affirmation of one man and another. The emphasis too with which Sokrates insists upon his own single function of merely questioning, and upon the fact that Alkibiades gives all the answers and pronounces all the self-condemnation with his own mouth58 — is remarkable in this dialogue: as well as the confidence with which he proclaims the dialogue as affording the only, but effective, cure.59 The ignorance of which Alkibiades stands unexpectedly convicted, is expressly declared to be common to him with the other Athenian politicians: an exception being half allowed to pass in favour of the semi-philosophical Perikles, whom Plato judges here with less severity than elsewhere60 — and a decided superiority being claimed for the Spartan and Persian kings, who are extolled as systematically trained from childhood.

Difficulties multiplied for the purpose of bringing Alkibiades to a conviction of his own ignorance.

The main purpose of Sokrates is to drive Alkibiades into self-contradictions, and to force upon him a painful consciousness of ignorance and mental defect, upon grave and important subjects, while he is yet young enough to amend it. Towards this purpose he is made to lay claim to a divine mission similar to that which the real Sokrates announces in the Apology61 A number of perplexing questions and difficulties are accumulated: it is not meant that these difficulties are insoluble, but that they cannot be solved by one who has never seriously reflected on them — by one who (as the Xenophontic Sokrates says to Euthydemus),62 is so confident of knowing the subject that he has never meditated upon it at all. The disheartened Alkibiades feels the necessity of improving himself and supplicates the assistance of Sokrates:63 who reminds him that he must first determine what “Himself” is. Here again we find ourselves upon the track of Sokrates in the Platonic Apology, and under the influence of the memorable inscription at Delphi — Nosce teipsum. Your mind is yourself; your body is a mere instrument of your 26mind: your wealth and power are simple appurtenances or adjuncts. To know yourself, which is genuine Sophrosynê or temperance, is to know your mind: but this can only be done by looking into another mind, and into its most intelligent compartment: just as the eye can only see itself by looking into the centre of vision of another eye.64

Sokrates furnishes no means of solving these difficulties. He exhorts to Justice and Virtue — but these are acknowledged Incognita.

At the same time, when, after having convicted Alkibiades of deplorable ignorance, Sokrates is called upon to prescribe remedies — all distinctness of indication disappears. It is exacted only when the purpose is to bring difficulties and contradictions to view: it is dispensed with, when the purpose is to solve them. The conclusion is, that assuming happiness as the acknowledged ultimate end,65 Alkibiades cannot secure this either for himself or for his city, by striving for wealth and power, private or public: he can only secure it by acquiring for himself, and implanting in his country-men, justice, temperance, and virtue. This is perfectly Sokratic, and conformable to what is said by the real Sokrates in the Platonic Apology. But coming at the close of Alkibiadês I., it presents no meaning and imparts no instruction: because Sokrates had shown in the earlier part of the dialogue, that neither he himself, nor Alkibiades, nor the general public, knew what justice and virtue were. The positive solution which Sokrates professes to give, is therefore illusory. He throws us back upon those old, familiar, emotional, associations, unconscious products and unexamined transmissions from mind to mind — which he had already shown to represent the fancy of knowledge without the reality — deep-seated belief without any assignable intellectual basis, or outward standard of rectitude.

Prolixity of Alkibiadês I. — Extreme multiplication of illustrative examples — How explained.

Throughout the various Platonic dialogues, we find alternately two distinct and opposite methods of handling — the generalising of the special, and the specialising of the general. In Alkibiadês I, the specialising of the general preponderates — as it does in most of the conversations of the Xenophontic Memorabilia: the 27number of exemplifying particulars is unusually great. Sokrates does not accept as an answer a general term, without illustrating it by several of the specific terms comprehended under it: and this several times on occasions when an instructed reader thinks it superfluous and tiresome: hence, partly, the inclination of some modern critics to disallow the dialogue. But we must recollect that though a modern reader practised in the use of general terms may seize the meaning at once, an Athenian youth of the Platonic age would not be sure of doing the same. No conscious analysis had yet been applied to general terms: no grammar or logic then entered into education. Confident affirmation, without fully knowing the meaning of what is affirmed, is the besetting sin against which Plato here makes war: and his precautions for exposing it are pushed to extreme minuteness. So, too, in the Sophistês and Politikus, when he wishes to illustrate the process of logical division and subdivision, he applies it to cases so trifling and so multiplied, that Socher is revolted and rejects the dialogues altogether. But Plato himself foresees and replies to the objection; declaring expressly that his main purpose is, not to expound the particular subject chosen, but to make manifest and familiar the steps and conditions of the general classifying process — and that prolixity cannot be avoided.66 We must reckon upon a similar purpose in Alkibiadês I. The dialogue is a specimen of that which Aristotle calls Inductive Dialectic, as distinguished from Syllogistic: the Inductive he considers to be plainer and easier, suitable when you have an ordinary collocutor — the Syllogistic is the more cogent, when you are dealing with a practised disputant.67

Alkibiadês II. leaves its problem avowedly undetermined.

It has been seen that Alkibiadês I, though professing to give something like a solution, gives what is really no solution at all. Alkibiadês II., similar in many respects, is here different, inasmuch as it does not even profess to solve the difficulty which had been raised. The general mental defect — false persuasion of knowledge28 without the reality — is presented in its application to a particular case. Alkibiades is obliged to admit that he does not know what he ought to pray to the Gods for: neither what is good, to be granted, nor what is evil, to be averted. He relies upon Sokrates for dispelling this mist from his mind: which Sokrates promises to do, but adjourns for another occasion.

Sokrates commends the practice of praying to the Gods for favours undefined — his views about the semi-regular, semi-irregular agency of the Gods — he prays to them for premonitory warnings.

Sokrates here ascribes to the Spartans, and to various philosophers, the practice of putting up prayers in undefined language, for good and honourable things generally. He commends that practice. Xenophon tells us that the historical Sokrates observed it:68 but he tells us also that the historical Sokrates, though not praying for any special presents from the Gods, yet prayed for and believed himself to receive special irregular revelations and advice as to what was good to be done or avoided in particular cases. He held that these special revelations were essential to any tolerable life: that the dispensations of the Gods, though administered upon regular principles on certain subjects and up to a certain point, were kept by them designedly inscrutable beyond that point: but that the Gods would, if properly solicited, afford premonitory warnings to any favoured person, such as would enable him to keep out of the way of evil, and put himself in the way of good. He declared that to consult and obey oracles and prophets was not less a maxim of prudence than a duty of piety: for himself, he was farther privileged through his divine sign or monitor, which he implicitly followed.69 Such premonitory warnings were the only special favour which he thought it suitable to pray for — besides good things generally. For special presents he did not pray, because he professed not to know whether any of the ordinary objects of desire were good or bad. He proves in his conversation with Euthydêmus, that all those acquisitions which are usually accounted means of happiness — beauty, strength, wealth, reputation,29 nay, even good health and wisdom — are sometimes good or causes of happiness, sometimes evil or causes of misery; and therefore cannot be considered either as absolutely the one or absolutely the other.70

Comparison of Alkibiadês II. with the Xenophontic Memorabilia, especially the conversation of Sokrates with Euthydemus. Sokrates not always consistent with himself.

This impossibility of determining what is good and what is evil, in consequence of the uncertainty in the dispensations of the Gods and in human affairs — is a doctrine forcibly insisted on by the Xenophontic Sokrates in his discourse with Euthydêmus, and much akin to the Platonic Alkibiadês II., being applied to the special case of prayer. But we must not suppose that Sokrates adheres to this doctrine throughout all the colloquies of the Xenophontic Memorabilia: on the contrary, we find him, in other places, reasoning upon such matters, as health, strength, and wisdom, as if they were decidedly good.71 The fact is, that the arguments of Sokrates, in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, vary materially according to the occasion and the person with whom he is discoursing: and the case is similar with the Platonic dialogues: illustrating farther the questionable evidence on which Schleiermacher and other critics proceed, when they declare one dialogue to be spurious, because it contains reasoning inconsistent with another.

We find in Alkibiadês II. another doctrine which is also proclaimed by Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia: that the Gods are not moved by costly sacrifice more than by humble sacrifice, according to the circumstances of the offerer:72 they attend only to the mind of the offerer, whether he be just and wise: that is, “whether he knows what ought to be done both towards Gods and towards men”.73

Remarkable doctrine of Alkibiadês II. — that knowledge is not always Good. The knowledge of Good itself is indispensable: without that, the knowledge of other things is more hurtful than beneficial.

But we find also in Alkibiadês II. another doctrine, more remarkable. Sokrates will not proclaim absolutely that knowledge is good, and that ignorance is evil. In some cases, he contends, ignorance is good; and he discriminates which the cases are. That which we 30 are principally interested in knowing, is Good, or The Best — The Profitable:74 phrases used as equivalent. The knowledge of this is good, and the ignorance of it mischievous, under all supposable circumstances. And if a man knows good, the more he knows of everything else, the better; since he will sure to make a good use of his knowledge. But if he does not know good, the knowledge of other things will be hurtful rather than beneficial to him. To be skilful in particular arts and accomplishments, under the capital mental deficiency supposed, will render him an instrument of evil and not of good. The more he knows — and the more he believes himself to know — the more forward will he be in acting, and therefore the greater amount of harm will he do. It is better that he should act as little as possible. Such a man is not fit to direct his own conduct, like a freeman: he must be directed and controlled by others, like a slave. The greater number of mankind are fools of this description — ignorant of good: the wise men who know good, and are fit to direct, are very few. The wise man alone, knowing good, follows reason: the rest trust to opinion, without reason.75 He alone is competent to direct both his own conduct and that of the society.

The stress which is laid here upon the knowledge of good, as distinguished from all other varieties of knowledge — the identification of the good with the profitable, and of the knowledge of good with reason (νοῦς), while other varieties of knowledge are ranked with opinion (δόξα) — these are points which, under one phraseology or another, pervade many of the Platonic dialogues. The old phrase of Herakleitus — Πολυμαθίη νόον οὐ διδάσκει — “much learning does not teach reason” — seems to have been present to the mind of Plato in composing this dialogue. The man of much learning and art, without the knowledge of good, and surrendering himself to the guidance of one or other among 31his accomplishments, is like a vessel tossed about at sea without a pilot.76

Knowledge of Good — appears postulated and divined, in many of the Platonic dialogues, under different titles.

What Plato here calls the knowledge of Good, or Reason — the just discrimination and comparative appreciation of Ends and Means — appears in the Politikus and Euthydêmus, under the title of the Regal or Political Art, of employing or directing77 the results of all other arts, which are considered as subordinate: in the Protagoras, under the title of art of calculation or mensuration: in the Philêbus, as measure and proportion: in the Phædrus (in regard to rhetoric) as the art of turning to account, for the main purpose of persuasion, all the special processes, stratagems, decorations, &c., imparted by professional masters. In the Republic, it is personified in the few venerable Elders who constitute the Reason of the society, and whose directions all the rest (Guardians and Producers) are bound implicitly to follow: the virtue of the subordinates consisting in this implicit obedience. In the Leges, it is defined as the complete subjection in the mind, of pleasures and pains to right Reason,78 without which, no special aptitudes are worth having. In the Xenophontic Memorabilia, it stands as a Sokratic authority under the title of Sophrosynê or Temperance:79 and the Profitable is declared identical with the Good, as the directing and limiting principle for all human pursuits and proceedings.80

The Good — the Profitable — what is it? — How are we to know it? Plato leaves this undetermined.

But what are we to understand by the Good, about which there are so many disputes, according to the acknowledgment of Plato as well as of Sokrates? And what are we to understand by the Profitable? In what relation does it stand to the Pleasurable and the Painful?

These are points which Plato here leaves undetermined. We shall find him again touching them, and trying different ways of determining them, in the Protagoras, the Gorgias, the Republic, 32and elsewhere. We have here the title and the postulate, but nothing more, of a comprehensive Teleology, or right comparative estimate of ends and means one against another, so as to decide when, how far, under what circumstances, &c., each ought to be pursued. We shall see what Plato does in other dialogues to connect this title and postulate with a more definite meaning.

CHAPTER XIII.

HIPPIAS MAJOR — HIPPIAS MINOR.

Hippias Major — situation supposed — character of the dialogue. Sarcasm and mockery against Hippias.

Both these two dialogues are carried on between Sokrates and the Eleian Sophist Hippias. The general conception of Hippias — described as accomplished, eloquent, and successful, yet made to say vain and silly things — is the same in both dialogues: in both also the polemics of Sokrates against him are conducted in a like spirit, of affected deference mingled with insulting sarcasm. Indeed the figure assigned to Hippias is so contemptible, that even an admiring critic like Stallbaum cannot avoid noticing the “petulans pene et proterva in Hippiam oratio,” and intimating that Plato has handled Hippias more coarsely than any one else. Such petulance Stallbaum attempts to excuse by saying that the dialogue is a youthful composition of Plato:1 while Schleiermacher numbers it among the 34reasons for suspecting the dialogue, and Ast, among the reasons for declaring positively that Plato is not the author.2 This last conclusion I do not at all accept: nor even the hypothesis of Stallbaum, if it be tendered as an excuse for improprieties of tone: for I believe that the earliest of Plato’s dialogues was composed after he was twenty-eight years of age — that is, after the death of Sokrates. It is however noway improbable, that both the Greater and Lesser Hippias may have been among Plato’s earlier compositions. We see by the Memorabilia of Xenophon that there was repeated and acrimonious controversy between Sokrates and Hippias: so that we may probably suppose feelings of special dislike, determining Plato to compose two distinct dialogues, in which an imaginary Hippias is mocked and scourged by an imaginary Sokrates.

Real debate between the historical Sokrates and Hippias in the Xenophontic Memorabilia — subject of that debate.

One considerable point in the Hippias Major appears to have a bearing on the debate between Sokrates and Hippias in the Xenophontic Memorabilia: in which debate, Hippias taunts Sokrates with always combating and deriding the opinions of others, while evading to give opinions of his own. It appears that some antecedent debates between the two had turned upon the definition of the Just, and that on these occasions Hippias had been the respondent, Sokrates the objector. Hippias professes to have reflected upon these debates, and to be now prepared with a definition which neither Sokrates nor any one else can successfully assail, but he will not say what the definition is, until Sokrates has laid down one of his own. In reply to this challenge, Sokrates declares the Just to be equivalent to the Lawful or Customary: he defends this against various 35objections of Hippias, who concludes by admitting it.3 Probably this debate, as reported by Xenophon, or something very like it, really took place. If so, we remark with surprise the feebleness of the objections of Hippias, in a case where Sokrates, if he had been the objector, would have found such strong ones — and the feeble replies given by Sokrates, whose talent lay in starting and enforcing difficulties, not in solving them.4 Among the remarks which Sokrates makes in illustration to Hippias, one is — that Lykurgus had ensured superiority to Sparta by creating in the Spartans a habit of implicit obedience to the laws.5 Such is the character of the Xenophontic debate.

Opening of the Hippias Major — Hippias describes the successful circuit which he had made through Greece, and the renown as well as the gain acquired by his lectures.

Here, in the beginning of the Hippias Major, the Platonic Sokrates remarks that Hippias has been long absent from Athens: which absence, the latter explains, by saying that he has visited many cities in Greece, giving lectures with great success, and receiving high pay: and that especially he has often visited Sparta, partly to give lectures, but partly also to transact diplomatic business for his countrymen the Eleians, who trusted him more than any one else for such duties. His lectures (he says) were eminently instructive and valuable for the training of youth: moreover they were so generally approved, that even from a small Sicilian town called Inykus, he obtained a considerable sum in fees.

Hippias had met with no success at Sparta. Why the Spartans did not admit his instructions — their law forbids.

Upon this Sokrates asks — In which of the cities were your gains the largest: probably at Sparta? Hip. — No; I received nothing at all at Sparta. Sokr. — How? You amaze me! Were not your lectures calculated to improve the Spartan youth? or did not the Spartans desire to have their youth improved? or had they no money? Hip. — Neither one nor the other. The Spartans, like others, desire the improvement of their youth: they also have plenty of money: moreover 36my lectures were very beneficial to them as well as to the rest.6 Sokr. — How could it happen then, that at Sparta, a city great and eminent for its good laws, your valuable instructions were left unrewarded; while you received so much at the inconsiderable town of Inykus? Hip. — It is not the custom of the country, Sokrates, for the Spartans to change their laws, or to educate their sons in a way different from their ordinary routine. Sokr. — How say you? It is not the custom of the country for the Spartans to do right, but to do wrong? Hip. — I shall not say that, Sokrates. Sokr. — But surely they would do right, in educating their children better and not worse? Hip. — Yes, they would do right: but it is not lawful for them to admit a foreign mode of education. If any one could have obtained payment there for education, I should have obtained a great deal; for they listen to me with delight and applaud me: but, as I told you, their law forbids.

Question, What is law? The law-makers always aim at the Profitable, but sometimes fail to attain it. When they fail, they fail to attain law. The lawful is the Profitable: the Unprofitable is also unlawful.

Sokr. — Do you call law a hurt or benefit to the city? Hip. — Law is enacted with a view to benefit: but it sometimes hurts if it be badly enacted.7 Sokr. — But what? Do not the enactors enact it as the maximum of good, without which the citizens cannot live a regulated life? Hip. — Certainly: they do so. Sokr. — Therefore, when those who try to enact laws miss the attainment of good, they also miss the lawful and law itself. How say you? Hip. — They do so, if you speak with strict propriety: but such is not the language which men commonly use. Sokr. — What men? the knowing? or the ignorant? Hip. — The Many. Sokr. — The Many; is it they who know what truth is? Hip. — Assuredly not. Sokr. — But surely those who do know, account the profitable to be in truth more lawful than the unprofitable, to all men. Don’t you admit this? Hip. — Yes, I admit they account it so in truth. Sokr. — Well, and it is so, too: the truth is as the knowing men account it. Hip. — Most certainly. Sokr. — Now you affirm, that it is more profitable to the Spartans to be educated according to your scheme, foreign as it is, than according to their own native scheme. Hip. — I affirm it, 37and with truth too. Sokr. — You affirm besides, that things more profitable are at the same time more lawful? Hip. — I said so. Sokr. — According to your reasoning, then, it is more lawful for the Spartan children to be educated by Hippias, and more unlawful for them to be educated by their fathers — if in reality they will be more benefited by you? Hip. — But they will be more benefited by me. Sokr. — The Spartans therefore act unlawfully, when they refuse to give you money and to confide to you their sons? Hip. — I admit that they do: indeed your reasoning seems to make in my favour, so that I am noway called upon to resist it. Sokr. — We find then, after all, that the Spartans are enemies of law, and that too in the most important matters — though they are esteemed the most exemplary followers of law.8

Comparison of the argument of the Platonic Sokrates with that of the Xenophontic Sokrates.

Perhaps Plato intended the above argument as a derisory taunt against the Sophist Hippias, for being vain enough to think his own tuition better than that of the Spartan community. If such was his intention, the argument might have been retorted against Plato himself, for his propositions in the Republic and Leges: and we know that the enemies of Plato did taunt him with his inability to get these schemes adopted in any actual community. But the argument becomes interesting when we compare it with the debate before referred to in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, where Sokrates maintains against Hippias that the Just is equivalent to the Lawful. In that Xenophontic dialogue, all the difficulties which embarrass this explanation are kept out of sight, and Sokrates is represented as gaining an easy victory over Hippias. In this Platonic dialogue, the equivocal use of the word νόμιμον is expressly adverted to, and Sokrates reduces Hippias to a supposed absurdity, by making him pronounce the Spartans to be enemies of law: παρανομούς bearing a double sense, and the proposition being true in one sense, false in the other. In the argument of the Platonic Sokrates, a law which does not attain its intended purpose of benefiting the 38community, is no law at all, — not lawful:9 so that we are driven back again upon the objections of Alkibiades against Perikles (in the Xenophontic Memorabilia) in regard to what constitutes a law. In the argument of the Xenophontic Sokrates, law means a law actually established, by official authority or custom — and the Spartans are produced as eminent examples of a lawfully minded community. As far as we can assign positive opinion to the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias Major, he declares that the profitable or useful (being that which men always aim at in making law) is The Lawful, whether actually established or not: and that the unprofitable or hurtful (being that which men always intend to escape) is The Unlawful, whether prescribed by any living authority or not. This (he says) is the opinion of the wise men who know: though the ignorant vulgar hold the contrary opinion. The explanation of τὸ δίκαιον given by the Xenophontic Sokrates (τὸ δίκαιον = τὸ νόμιμον), would be equivalent, if we construe τὸ νόμιμον in the sense of the Platonic Sokrates (in Hippias Major) as an affirmation that The Just was the generally useful — Τὸ δίκαιον = τὸ κοινῇ σύμφορον.

The Just or Good is the beneficial or profitable. This is the only explanation which Plato ever gives and to this he does not always adhere.

There exists however in all this, a prevalent confusion between Law (or the Lawful) as actually established, and Law (or the Lawful) as it ought to be established, in the judgment of the critic, or of those whom he follows: that is (to use the phrase of Mr. Austin in his ‘Province of Jurisprudence’) Law as it would be, if it conformed to its assumed measure or test. In the first of these senses, τὸ νόμιμον is not one and the same, but variable according to place and time — one thing at Sparta, another thing elsewhere: accordingly it would not satisfy the demand of Plato’s mind, when he asks for an explanation of τὸ δίκαιον. It is an explanation in the second of the two senses which Plato seeks — a common measure or test applicable universally, at all times and places. In so far as he ever finds one, it is that which I have mentioned above as delivered by the Platonic Sokrates in this dialogue: viz., the Just or Good, that which ought to be the measure or test of Law and Positive 39Morality, is, the beneficial or profitable. This (I repeat) is the only approach to a solution which we ever find in Plato. But this is seldom clearly enunciated, never systematically followed out, and sometimes, in appearance, even denied.

Lectures of Hippias at Sparta not upon geometry, or astronomy, &c., but upon the question — What pursuits are beautiful, fine, and honourable for youth.

I resume the thread of the Hippias Major. Sokrates asks Hippias what sort of lectures they were that he delivered with so much success at Sparta? The Spartans (Hippias replies) knew nothing and cared nothing about letters, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy: but they took delight in hearing tales about heroes, early ancestors, foundation-legends of cities, &c., which his mnemonic artifice enabled him to deliver.10 The Spartans delight in you (observes Sokrates) as children delight in old women’s tales. Yes (replies Hippias), but that is not all: I discoursed to them also, recently, about fine and honourable pursuits, much to their admiration: I supposed a conversation between Nestor and Neoptolemus, after the capture of Troy, in which the veteran, answering a question put by his youthful companion, enlarged upon those pursuits which it was fine, honourable, beautiful for a young man to engage in. My discourse is excellent, and obtained from the Spartans great applause. I am going to deliver it again here at Athens, in the school-room of Pheidostratus, and I invite you, Sokrates, to come and hear it, with as many friends as you can bring.11

Question put by Sokrates, in the name of a friend in the background, who has just been puzzling him with it — What is the Beautiful?

I shall come willingly (replied Sokrates). But first answer me one small question, which will rescue me from a present embarrassment. Just now, I was shamefully puzzled in conversation with a friend, to whom I had been praising some things as honourable and beautiful, — blaming other things as mean and ugly. He surprised me by the interrogation — How do you know, Sokrates, what things are beautiful, and what are ugly? Come now, can you tell me, What is the Beautiful? I, in my stupidity, was altogether puzzled, and could not answer the question. But after I had parted from 40him, I became mortified and angry with myself; and I vowed that the next time I met any wise man, like you, I would put the question to him, and learn how to answer it; so that I might be able to renew the conversation with my friend. Your coming here is most opportune. I entreat you to answer and explain to me clearly what the Beautiful is; in order that I may not again incur the like mortification. You can easily answer: it is a small matter for you, with your numerous attainments.

Hippias thinks the question easy to answer.

Oh — yes — a small matter (replies Hippias); the question is easy to answer. I could teach you to answer many questions harder than that: so that no man shall be able to convict you in dialogue.12

Sokrates then proceeds to interrogate Hippias, in the name of the absentee, starting one difficulty after another as if suggested by this unknown prompter, and pretending to be himself under awe of so impracticable a disputant.

Justice, Wisdom, Beauty must each be something. What is Beauty, or the Beautiful?

All persons are just, through Justice — wise, through Wisdom — good, through Goodness or the Good — beautiful, through Beauty or the Beautiful. Now Justice, Wisdom, Goodness, Beauty or the Beautiful, must each be something. Tell me what the Beautiful is?

Hippias does not understand the question. He answers by indicating one particularly beautiful object.

Hippias does not conceive the question. Does the man want to know what is a beautiful thing? Sokr. — No; he wants to know what is The Beautiful. Hip. — I do not see the difference. I answer that a beautiful maiden is a beautiful thing. No one can deny that.13

Sokr. — My disputatious friend will not accept your answer. He wants you to tell him, What is the Self-Beautiful? — that Something through which all beautiful things become beautiful. Am I to tell him, it is because a beautiful maiden is a beautiful thing? He will say — Is not a beautiful mare a beautiful thing also? and a beautiful lyre as well? Hip. — Yes; — both of them are so. Sokr. — Ay, and a beautiful pot, my friend will add, well moulded and rounded by a skilful potter, is a beautiful thing too. Hip. — How, Sokrates? Who can your 41disputatious friend be? Some ill-taught man, surely; since he introduces such trivial names into a dignified debate. Sokr. — Yes; that is his character: not polite, but vulgar, anxious for nothing else but the truth. Hip. — A pot, if it be beautifully made, must certainly be called beautiful; yet still, all such objects are unworthy to be counted as beautiful, if compared with a maiden, a mare, or a lyre.

Cross-questioning by Sokrates — Other things also are beautiful; but each thing is beautiful only by comparison, or under some particular circumstances — it is sometimes beautiful, sometimes not beautiful.

Sokr. — I understand. You follow the analogy suggested by Herakleitus in his dictum — That the most beautiful ape is ugly, if compared with the human race. So you say, the most beautiful pot is ugly, when compared with the race of maidens. Hip — Yes. That is my meaning. Sokr. — Then my friend will ask you in return, whether the race of maidens is not as much inferior to the race of Gods, as the pot to the maiden? whether the most beautiful maiden will not appear ugly, when compared to a Goddess? whether the wisest of men will not appear an ape, when compared to the Gods, either in beauty or in wisdom.14 Hip. — No one can dispute it. Sokr. — My friend will smile and say — You forget what was the question put. I asked you, What is the Beautiful? — the Self-Beautiful: and your answer gives me, as the Self-Beautiful, something which you yourself acknowledge to be no more beautiful than ugly? If I had asked you, from the first, what it was that was both beautiful and ugly, your answer would have been pertinent to the question. Can you still think that the Self-Beautiful, — that Something, by the presence of which all other things become beautiful, — is a maiden, or a mare, or a lyre?

Second answer of Hippias — Gold, is that by the presence of which all things become beautiful — scrutiny applied to the answer. Complaint by Hippias about vulgar analogies.

Hip. — I have another answer to which your friend can take no exception. That, by the presence of which all things become beautiful, is Gold. What was before ugly, will (we all know), when ornamented with gold, appear beautiful. Sokr. — You little know what sort of man my friend is. He will laugh at your answer, and ask you — Do you think, then, that Pheidias did not know his profession as a sculptor? How came 42he not to make the statue of Athênê all gold, instead of making (as he has done) the face, hands, and feet of ivory, and the pupils of the eyes of a particular stone? Is not ivory also beautiful, and particular kinds of stone? Hip. — Yes, each is beautiful, where it is becoming. Sokr. — And ugly, where it is not becoming.15 Hip. — Doubtless. I admit that what is becoming or suitable, makes that to which it is applied appear beautiful: that which is not becoming or suitable, makes it appear ugly. Sokr. — My friend will next ask you, when you are boiling the beautiful pot of which we spoke just now, full of beautiful soup, what sort of ladle will be suitable and becoming — one made of gold, or of fig-tree wood? Will not the golden ladle spoil the soup, and the wooden ladle turn it out good? Is not the wooden ladle, therefore, better than the golden? Hip. — By Hêraklês, Sokrates! what a coarse and stupid fellow your friend is! I cannot continue to converse with a man who talks of such matters. Sokr. — I am not surprised that you, with your fine attire and lofty reputation, are offended with these low allusions. But I have nothing to spoil by intercourse with this man; and I entreat you to persevere, as a favour to me. He will ask you whether a wooden soup-ladle is not more beautiful than a ladle of gold, — since it is more suitable and becoming? So that though you said — The Self-Beautiful is Gold — you are now obliged to acknowledge that gold is not more beautiful than fig-tree wood?

Third answer of Hippias — questions upon it — proof given that it fails of universal application.

Hip. — I acknowledge that it is so. But I have another answer ready which will silence your friend. I presume you wish me to indicate as The Beautiful, something which will never appear ugly to any one, at any time, or at any place.16 Sokr. — That is exactly what I desire. Hip. — Well, I affirm, then, that to every man, always, and everywhere, the following is most beautiful. A man being healthy, rich, honoured by the Greeks, having come to old age and buried his own parents well, to be himself buried by his own sons well and magnificently. Sokr. — Your answer sounds imposing; but my friend will laugh it to scorn, and will remind me again, that his question pointed to the 43Beautiful itself17 — something which, being present as attribute in any subject, will make that subject (whether stone, wood, man, God, action, study, &c.) beautiful. Now that which you have asserted to be beautiful to every one everywhere, was not beautiful to Achilles, who accepted by preference the lot of dying before his father — nor is it so to the heroes, or to the sons of Gods, who do not survive or bury their fathers. To some, therefore, what you specify is beautiful — to others it is not beautiful but ugly: that is, it is both beautiful and ugly, like the maiden, the lyre, the pot, on which we have already remarked. Hip. — I did not speak about the Gods or Heroes. Your friend is intolerable, for touching on such profanities.18 Sokr. — However, you cannot deny that what you have indicated is beautiful only for the sons of men, and not for the sons of Gods. My friend will thus make good his reproach against your answer. He will tell me, that all the answers, which we have as yet given, are too absurd. And he may perhaps at the same time himself suggest another, as he sometimes does in pity for my embarrassment.

Farther answers, suggested by Sokrates himself — 1. The Suitable or Becoming — objections thereunto — it is rejected.

Sokrates then mentions, as coming from hints of the absent friend, three or four different explanations of the Self-Beautiful: each of which, when first introduced, he approves, and Hippias approves also: but each of which he proceeds successively to test and condemn. It is to be remarked that all of them are general explanations: not consisting in conspicuous particular instances, like those which had come from Hippias. His explanations are the following: —

1. The suitable or becoming (which had before been glanced at). It is the suitable or becoming which constitutes the Beautiful.19

To this Sokrates objects: The suitable, or becoming, is what causes objects to appear beautiful — not what causes them to be really beautiful. Now the latter is that which we are seeking. The two conditions do not always go together. Those objects, institutions, and pursuits which are really beautiful (fine, honourable) very often do not appear so, either to individuals or to 44cities collectively; so that there is perpetual dispute and fighting on the subject. The suitable or becoming, therefore, as it is certainly what makes objects appear beautiful, so it cannot be what makes them really beautiful.20

2. The useful or profitable — objections — it will not hold.

2. The useful or profitable. — We call objects beautiful, looking to the purpose which they are calculated or intended to serve: the human body, with a view to running, wrestling, and other exercises — a horse, an ox, a cock, looking to the service required from them — implements, vehicles on land and ships at sea, instruments for music and other arts all upon the same principle, looking to the end which they accomplish or help to accomplish. Laws and pursuits are characterised in the same way. In each of these, we give the name Beautiful to the useful, in so far as it is useful, when it is useful, and for the purpose to which it is useful. To that which is useless or hurtful, in the same manner, we give the name Ugly.21

Now that which is capable of accomplishing each end, is useful for such end: that which is incapable, is useless. It is therefore capacity, or power, which is beautiful: incapacity, or impotence, is ugly.22

Most certainly (replies Hippias): this is especially true in our cities and communities, wherein political power is the finest thing possible, political impotence, the meanest.

Yet, on closer inspection (continues Sokrates), such a theory will not hold. Power is employed by all men, though unwillingly, for bad purposes: and each man, through such employment of his power, does much more harm than good, beginning with his childhood. Now power, which is useful for the doing of evil, can never be called beautiful.23

You cannot therefore say that Power, taken absolutely, is beautiful. You must add the qualification — Power used for the production of some good, is beautiful. This, then, would be the profitable — the cause or generator of good.24 But the cause is different from its effect: the generator or father is different 45from the generated or son. The beautiful would, upon this view, be the cause of the good. But then the beautiful would be different from the good, and the good different from the beautiful? Who can admit this? It is obviously wrong: it is the most ridiculous theory which we have yet hit upon.25

3. The Beautiful is a variety of the Pleasurable — that which is received through the eye and the ear.

3. The Beautiful is a particular variety of the agreeable or pleasurable: that which characterises those things which cause pleasure to us through sight and hearing. Thus the men, the ornaments, the works of painting or sculpture, upon which we look with admiration,26 are called beautiful: also songs, music, poetry, fable, discourse, in like manner; nay even laws, customs, pursuits, which we consider beautiful, might be brought under the same head.27

Objections to this last — What property is there common to both sight and hearing, which confers upon the pleasures of these two senses the exclusive privilege of being beautiful?

The objector, however, must now be dealt with. He will ask us — Upon what ground do you make so marked a distinction between the pleasures of sight and hearing, and other pleasures? Do you deny that these others (those of taste, smell, eating, drinking, sex) are really pleasures? No, surely (we shall reply); we admit them to be pleasures, — but no one will tolerate us in calling them beautiful: especially the pleasures of sex, which as pleasures are the greatest of all, but which are ugly and disgraceful to behold. He will answer — I understand you: you are ashamed to call these pleasures beautiful, because they do not seem so to the multitude: but I did not ask you, what seems beautiful to the multitude — I asked you, what is beautiful.28 You mean to affirm, that all pleasures which do not belong to sight and hearing, are not beautiful: Do you mean, all which do 46not belong to both? or all which do not belong to one or the other? We shall reply — To either one of the two — or to both the two. Well! but, why (he will ask) do you single out these pleasures of sight and hearing, as beautiful exclusively? What is there peculiar in them, which gives them a title to such distinction? All pleasures are alike, so far forth as pleasures, differing only in the more or less. Next, the pleasures of sight cannot be considered as beautiful by reason of their coming through sight — for that reason would not apply to the pleasures of hearing: nor again can the pleasures of hearing be considered as beautiful by reason of their coming through hearing.29 We must find something possessed as well by sight as by hearing, common to both, and peculiar to them, — which confers beauty upon the pleasures of both and of each. Any attribute of one, which does not also belong to the other, will not be sufficient for our purpose.30 Beauty must depend upon some essential characteristic which both have in common.31 We must therefore look out for some such characteristic, which belongs to both as well as to each separately.

Answer — There is, belonging to each and to both in common, the property of being innocuous and profitable pleasures — upon this ground they are called beautiful.

Now there is one characteristic which may perhaps serve. The pleasures of sight and hearing, both and each, are distinguished from other pleasures by being the most innocuous and the best.32 It is for this reason that we call them beautiful. The Beautiful, then, is profitable pleasure — or pleasure producing good — for the profitable is, that which produces good.33

This will not hold — the Profitable is the cause of Good, and is therefore different from Good — to say that the beautiful is the Profitable, is to say that it is different from Good but this has been already declared inadmissible.

Nevertheless the objector will not be satisfied even with this. He will tell us — You declare the Beautiful to be Pleasure producing good. But we before 47agreed, that the producing agent or cause is different from what is produced or the effect. Accordingly, the Beautiful is different from the good: or, in other words, the Beautiful is not good, nor is the Good beautiful — if each of them is a different thing.34 Now these propositions we have already pronounced to be inadmissible, so that your present explanation will not stand better than the preceding.

Remarks upon the Dialogue — the explanations ascribed to Hippias are special conspicuous examples: those ascribed to Sokrates are attempts to assign some general concept.

Thus finish the three distinct explanations of Τὸ καλὸν, which Plato in this dialogue causes to be first suggested by Sokrates, successively accepted by Hippias, and successively refuted by Sokrates. In comparing them with the three explanations which he puts into the mouth of Hippias, we note this distinction: That the explanations proposed by Hippias are conspicuous particular exemplifications of the Beautiful, substituted in place of the general concept: as we remarked, in the Dialogue Euthyphron, that the explanations of the Holy given by Euthyphron in reply to Sokrates, were of the same exemplifying character. On the contrary, those suggested by Sokrates keep in the region of abstractions, and seek to discover some more general concept, of which the Beautiful is only a derivative or a modification, so as to render a definition of it practicable. To illustrate this difference by the language of Dr. Whewell respecting many of the classifications in Natural History, we may say — That according48 to the views here represented by Hippias, the group of objects called beautiful is given by Type, not by Definition:35 while Sokrates proceeds like one convinced that some common characteristic attribute may be found, on which to rest a Definition. To search for Definitions of general words, was (as Aristotle remarks) a novelty, and a valuable novelty, introduced by Sokrates. His contemporaries, the Sophists among them, were not accustomed to it: and here the Sophist Hippias (according to Plato’s frequent manner) is derided as talking nonsense,36 because, when asked for an explanation of The Self-Beautiful, he answers by citing special instances of beautiful objects. But we must remember, first, that Sokrates, who is introduced as trying several general explanations of the Self-Beautiful, does not find one which will stand: next, that even if one such could be found, particular instances can never be dispensed with, in the way of illustration; lastly, that there are many general terms (the Beautiful being one of them) of which no definitions can be provided, and which can only be imperfectly explained, by enumerating a variety of objects to which the term in question is applied.37 Plato 49thought himself entitled to objectivise every general term, or to assume a substantive Ens, called a Form or Idea, corresponding to it. This was a logical mistake quite as serious as any which we know to have been committed by Hippias or any other Sophist. The assumption that wherever there is a general term, there must also be a generic attribute corresponding to it — is one which Aristotle takes much pains to negative: he recognises terms of transitional analogy, as well as terms equivocal: while he also especially numbers the Beautiful among equivocal terms.38

Analogy between the explanations here ascribed to Sokrates, and those given by the Xenophontic Sokrates in the Memorabilia.

We read in the Xenophontic Memorabilia a dialogue between Sokrates and Aristippus, on this same subject — What is the Beautiful, which affords a sort of contrast between the Dialogues of Search and those of Exposition. In the Hippias Major, we have the problem approached on several different sides, various suggestions being proposed, and each successively disallowed, on reasons shown, as failures: while in the Xenophontic dialogue, Sokrates declares an affirmative doctrine, and stands to it — but no pains are taken to bring out the objections against it and rebut them. The doctrine is, that the Beautiful is coincident with the Good, and that both of them are resolvable into the Useful: thus all beautiful objects, unlike as they may be to the eye or touch, bear that name because they have in common the attribute of conducing to one and the same purpose — the security, advantage, or gratification, of man, in some form or other. This is one of the three explanations broached by the Platonic Sokrates, and afterwards refuted by him, in the Hippias: while his declaration (which Hippias puts aside as unseemly) — that a pot and a wooden soup-ladle conveniently made are beautiful is perfectly in harmony with that of the Xenophontic Sokrates, that a basket for carrying dung is beautiful, if it performs its work well.39 We must moreover 50remark, that the objections whereby the Platonic Sokrates, after proposing the doctrine and saying much in its favour, finds himself compelled at last to disallow it — these objections are not produced and refuted, but passed over without notice, in the Xenophontic dialogue, wherein Sokrates affirms it decidedly.40 The 51affirming Sokrates, and the objecting Sokrates, are not on the stage at once.

The concluding observations of this dialogue, interchanged between Hippias and Sokrates, are interesting as bringing out the antithesis between rhetoric and dialectic — between the concrete and exemplifying, as contrasted with the abstract and analytical. Immediately after Sokrates has brought his own third suggestion to an inextricable embarrassment, Hippias remarks —

Concluding thrust exchanged between Hippias and Sokrates.

“Well, Sokrates, what do you think now of all these reasonings of yours? They are what I declared them to be just now, — scrapings and parings of discourse, divided into minute fragments. But the really beautiful and precious acquirement is, to be able to set out well and finely a regular discourse before the Dikastery or the public assembly, to persuade your auditors, and to depart carrying with you not the least but the greatest of all prizes — safety for yourself, your property, and your friends. These are the real objects to strive for. Leave off your petty cavils, that you may not look like an extreme simpleton, handling silly trifles as you do at present.”41

“My dear Hippias,” (replies Sokrates) “you are a happy man, since you know what pursuits a man ought to follow, and have yourself followed them, as you say, with good success. But I, as it seems, am under the grasp of an unaccountable fortune: for I am always fluctuating and puzzling myself, and when I lay my puzzle before you wise men, I am requited by you with hard words. I am told just what you have now been telling me, that I busy myself about matters silly, petty, and worthless. When on the contrary, overborne by your authority, I declare as you do, that it is the finest thing possible to be able to set out well and beautifully a regular discourse before the public assembly, and bring it to successful conclusion — then there are other men at hand who heap upon me bitter reproaches: especially that one man, my nearest kinsman and inmate, who never omits to convict me. When on my return home he hears me repeat what you have told me, he asks, if I am not ashamed of my impudence in talking about beautiful (honourable) pursuits, when I am so 52manifestly convicted upon this subject, of not even knowing what the Beautiful (Honourable) is. How can you (he says), being ignorant what the Beautiful is, know who has set out a discourse beautifully and who has not — who has performed a beautiful exploit and who has not? Since you are in a condition so disgraceful, can you think life better for you than death? Such then is my fate — to hear disparagement and reproaches from you on the one side, and from him on the other. Necessity however perhaps requires that I should endure all these discomforts: for it will be nothing strange if I profit by them. Indeed I think that I have already profited both by your society, Hippias, and by his: for I now think that I know what the proverb means — Beautiful (Honourable) things are difficult.”42

Rhetoric against Dialectic.

Here is a suitable termination for one of the Dialogues of Search: “My mind has been embarrassed by contradictions as yet unreconciled, but this is a stage indispensable to future improvement”. We have moreover an interesting passage of arms between Rhetoric and Dialectic: two contemporaneous and contending agencies, among the stirring minds of Athens, in the time of Plato and Isokrates. The Rhetor accuses the Dialectician of departing from the conditions of reality — of breaking up the integrity of those concretes, which occur in nature each as continuous and indivisible wholes. Each of the analogous particular cases forms a continuum or concrete by itself, which may be compared with the others, but cannot be taken to pieces, and studied in separate fragments.43 The Dialectician on his side treats the Abstract (τὸ καλὸν) as the real Integer, and the highest abstraction as the first of all integers, containing in itself and capable of evolving all the subordinate integers: the various accompaniments, which go along with each Abstract to make up a concrete, he disregards as shadowy and transient disguises.

Men who dealt with real life, contrasted with the speculative and analytical philosophers.

Hippias accuses Sokrates of never taking into his view Wholes, 53and of confining his attention to separate parts and fragments, obtained by logical analysis and subdivision. Aristophanes, when he attacks the Dialectic of Sokrates, takes the same ground, employing numerous comic metaphors to illustrate the small and impalpable fragments handled, and the subtle transpositions which they underwent in the reasoning. Isokrates again deprecates the over-subtlety of dialectic debate, contrasting it with discussions (in his opinion) more useful; wherein entire situations, each with its full clothing and assemblage of circumstances, were reviewed and estimated.44 All these are protests, by persons accustomed to deal with real life, and to talk to auditors both numerous and commonplace, against that conscious analysis and close attention to general and abstract terms, which Sokrates first insisted on and transmitted to his disciples. On the other side, we have the emphatic declaration made by the Platonic Sokrates (and made still earlier by the Xenophontic45 or historical Sokrates) — That a man was not fit to talk about beautiful things in the concrete — that he had no right to affirm or deny that attribute, with respect to any given subject — that he was not even fit to live unless he could explain what was meant by The Beautiful, or Beauty in the abstract. Here are two distinct and conflicting intellectual habits, the antithesis between which, indicated in this dialogue, is described at large and forcibly in the Theætêtus.46

Concrete Aggregates — abstract or logical Aggregates. Distinct aptitudes required by Aristotle for the Dialectician.

When Hippias accuses Sokrates of neglecting to notice Wholes or Aggregates, this is true in the sense of Concrete Wholes — the phenomenal sequences and co-existences, perceived by sense or imagined. But the Universal (as Aristotle says)47 is one kind of Whole: a Logical 54Whole, having logical parts. In the minds of Sokrates and Plato, the Logical Whole separable into its logical parts and into them only, were preponderant.

Antithesis of Absolute and Relative, here brought into debate by Plato, in regard to the Idea of Beauty.

One other point deserves peculiar notice, in the dialogue under our review. The problem started is, What is the Beautiful — the Self-Beautiful, or Beauty per se: and it is assumed that this must be Something,48 that from the accession of which, each particular beautiful thing becomes beautiful. But Sokrates presently comes to make a distinction between that which is really beautiful and that which appears to be beautiful. Some things (he says) appear beautiful, but are not so in reality: some are beautiful, but do not appear so. The problem, as he states it, is, to find, not what that is which makes objects appear beautiful, but what it is that makes them really beautiful. This distinction, as we find it in the language of Hippias, is one of degree only:49 that is beautiful which appears so to every one and at all times. But in the language of Sokrates, the distinction is radical: to be beautiful is one thing, to appear beautiful is another; whatever makes a thing appear beautiful without being so in reality, is a mere engine of deceit, and not what Sokrates is enquiring for.50 The Self-Beautiful or real Beauty is so, whether any one perceives it to be beautiful or not: it is an Absolute, which exists per se, having no relation to any sentient or percipient subject.51 At any rate, such is the manner in which Plato 55conceives it, when he starts here as a problem to enquire, What it is.

Herein we note one of the material points of disagreement between Plato and his master: for Sokrates (in the Xenophontic Memorabilia) affirms distinctly that Beauty is altogether relative to human wants and appreciations. The Real and Absolute, on the one hand, wherein alone resides truth and beauty — as against the phenomenal and relative, on the other hand, the world of illusion and meanness — this is an antithesis which we shall find often reproduced in Plato. I shall take it up more at large, when I come to discuss his argument against Protagoras in the Theætêtus.

Hippias Minor — characters and situation supposed.

I now come to the Lesser Hippias: in which (as we have already seen in the Greater) that Sophist is described by epithets, affirming varied and extensive accomplishments, as master of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, poetry (especially that of Homer), legendary lore, music, metrical and rhythmical diversities, &c. His memory was prodigious, and he had even invented for himself a technical scheme for assisting memory. He had composed poems, epic, lyric, and tragic, as well as many works in prose: he was, besides, a splendid lecturer on ethical and political subjects, and professed to answer any question which might be asked. Furthermore, he was skilful in many kinds of manual dexterity: having woven his own garments, plaited his own girdle, made his own shoes, engraved his own seal-ring, and fabricated for himself a curry-comb and oil-flask.52 Lastly, he is described as wearing fine and showy apparel. What he is made to say is rather in harmony with this last point of character, than with the preceding. He talks with silliness and presumption, so as to invite and excuse the derisory sting of Sokrates, There is a third interlocutor, Eudikus: but he says very little, and other auditors are alluded to generally, who say nothing.53

56 Hippias has just delivered a lecture, in which he extols Achilles as better than Odysseus — the veracious and straightforward hero better than the mendacious and crafty.

In the Hippias Minor, that Sophist appears as having just concluded a lecture upon Homer, in which he had extolled Achilles as better than Odysseus: Achilles being depicted as veracious and straightforward, Odysseus as mendacious and full of tricks. Sokrates, who had been among the auditors, cross-examines Hippias upon the subject of this affirmation.

Homer (says Hippias) considers veracious men, and mendacious men, to be not merely different, but opposite: and I agree with him. Permit me (Sokrates remarks) to ask some questions about the meaning of this from you, since I cannot ask any from Homer himself. You will answer both for yourself and him.54

57Mendacious men (answers Hippias, to a string of questions, somewhat prolix) are capable, intelligent, wise: they are not incapable or ignorant. If a man be incapable of speaking falsely, or ignorant, he is not mendacious. Now the capable man is one who can make sure of doing what he wishes to do, at the time and occasion when he does wish it, without let or hindrance.55

This is contested by Sokrates. The veracious man and the mendacious man are one and the same — the only man who can answer truly if he chooses, is he who can also answer falsely if he chooses, i.e. the knowing man — the ignorant man cannot make sure of doing either the one or the other.

You, Hippias (says Sokrates), are expert on matters of arithmetic: you can make sure of answering truly any question put to you on the subject. You are better on the subject than the ignorant man, who cannot make sure of doing the same. But as you can make sure of answering truly, so likewise you can make sure of answering falsely, whenever you choose to do so. Now the ignorant man cannot make sure of answering falsely. He may, by reason of his ignorance, when he wishes to answer falsely, answer truly without intending it. You, therefore, the intelligent man and the good in arithmetic, are better than the ignorant and the bad for both purposes — for speaking falsely, and for speaking truly.56

Analogy of special arts — it is only the arithmetician who can speak falsely on a question of arithmetic when he chooses.

What is true about arithmetic, is true in other departments also. The only man who can speak falsely whenever he chooses is the man who can speak truly whenever he chooses. Now, the mendacious man, as we agreed, is the man who can speak falsely whenever he chooses. Accordingly, the mendacious man, and the veracious man, are the same. They are not different, still less opposite: nay, the two epithets belong only to one and the same person. The veracious man is not better than the mendacious — seeing that he is one and the same.57

58You see, therefore, Hippias, that the distinction, which you drew and which you said that Homer drew, between Achilles and Odysseus, will not hold. You called Achilles veracious, and Odysseus, mendacious: but if one of the two epithets belongs to either of them, the other must belong to him also.58

View of Sokrates respecting Achilles in the Iliad. He thinks that Achilles speaks falsehood cleverly. Hippias maintains that if Achilles ever speaks falsehood, it is with an innocent purpose, whereas Odysseus does the like with fraudulent purpose.

Sokrates then tries to make out that Achilles speaks falsehood in the Iliad, and speaks it very cleverly, because he does so in a way to escape detection from Odysseus himself. To this Hippias replies, that if Achilles ever speaks falsehood, he does it innocently, without any purpose of cheating or injuring any one; whereas the falsehoods of Odysseus are delivered with fraudulent and wicked intent.59 It is impossible (he contends) that men who deceive and do wrong wilfully and intentionally, should be better than those who do so unwillingly and without design. The laws deal much more severely with the former than with the latter.60

Issue here taken — Sokrates contends that those who hurt, or cheat, or lie wilfully, are better than those who do the like unwillingly — he entreats Hippias to enlighten him and answer his questions.

Upon this point, Hippias (says Sokrates), I dissent from you entirely. I am, unhappily, a stupid person, who cannot find out the reality of things: and this appears plainly enough when I come to talk with wise men like you, for I always find myself differing from you. My only salvation consists in my earnest anxiety to put questions and learn from you, and in my gratitude for your answers and teaching. I think that those who hurt mankind, or cheat, or lie, or do wrong, wilfully — are better than those who do the same unwillingly. Sometimes, indeed, from my stupidity, the opposite view presents itself to me, and I become confused: but now, after talking with you, the fit of confidence has come round upon me again, to pronounce and characterise the persons who do wrong unwillingly, as worse than those who do wrong wilfully. I entreat you to heal this disorder of my 59mind. You will do me much more good than if you cured my body of a distemper. But it will be useless for you to give me one of your long discourses: for I warn you that I cannot follow it. The only way to confer upon me real service, will be to answer my questions again, as you have hitherto done. Assist me, Eudikus, in persuading Hippias to do so.

Assistance from me (says Eudikus) will hardly be needed, for Hippias professed himself ready to answer any man’s questions.

Yes — I did so (replies Hippias) — but Sokrates always brings trouble into the debate, and proceeds like one disposed to do mischief.

Eudikus repeats his request, and Hippias, in deference to him, consents to resume the task of answering.61

Questions of Sokrates — multiplied analogies of the special arts. The unskilful artist, who runs, wrestles, or sings badly, whether he will or not, is worse than the skilful, who can sing well when he chooses, but can also sing badly when he chooses.

Sokrates then produces a string of questions, with a view to show that those who do wrong wilfully, are better than those who do wrong unwillingly. He appeals to various analogies. In running, the good runner is he who runs quickly, the bad runner is he who runs slowly. What is evil and base in running is, to run slowly. It is the good runner who does this evil wilfully: it is the bad runner who does it unwillingly.62 The like is true about wrestling and other bodily exercises. He that is good in the body, can work either strongly or feebly, — can do either what is honourable or what is base; so that when he does what is base, he does it wilfully. But he that is bad in the body does what is base unwillingly, not being able to help it.63

What is true about the bodily movements depending upon strength, is not less true about those depending on grace and elegance. To be wilfully ungraceful, belongs only to the well-constituted body: none but the badly-constituted body is ungraceful without wishing it. The same, also, about the feet, voice, eyes, ears, nose: of these organs, those which act badly through will and intention, are preferable to those which act badly without will or intention. Lameness of feet is a misfortune60 and disgrace: feet which go lame only by intention are much to be preferred.64

Again, in the instruments which we use, a rudder or a bow, — or the animals about us, horses or dogs, — those are better with which we work badly when we choose; those are worse, with which we work badly without design, and contrary to our own wishes.

It is better to have the mind of a bowman who misses his mark only by design, than that of one who misses even when he intends to hit.

It is better to have the mind of a bowman who misses his mark by design, than that of one who misses when he tries to hit. The like about all other arts — the physician, the harper, the flute-player. In each of these artists, that mind is better, which goes wrong only wilfully — that mind is worse, which goes wrong unwillingly, while wishing to go right. In regard to the minds of our slaves, we should all prefer those which go wrong only when they choose, to those which go wrong without their own choice.65

Having carried his examination through this string of analogous particulars, and having obtained from Hippias successive answers — “Yes — true in that particular case,” Sokrates proceeds to sum up the result:—

Sokr. — Well! should we not wish to have our own minds as good as possible? Hip. — Yes. Sokr. — We have seen that they will be better if they do mischief and go wrong wilfully, than if they do so unwillingly? Hip. — But it will be dreadful, Sokrates, if the willing wrong-doers are to pass for better men than the unwilling.

Dissent and repugnance of Hippias.

Sokr. — Nevertheless — it seems so: from what we have said. Hip. — It does not seem so to me. Sokr. — I thought that it would have seemed so to you, as it does to me. However, answer me once more — Is not justice either a certain mental capacity? or else knowledge? or both together?66 Hip. — Yes! it is. Sokr. — If justice be a capacity of the mind, the more capable mind will also be the juster: and we have already seen that the more capable soul is the better. Hip. — We have. Sokr. — If it be knowledge, the more knowing or wiser 61mind will of course be the juster: if it be a combination of both capacity and knowledge, that mind which is more capable as well as more knowing, — will be the juster that which is less capable and less knowing, will be the more unjust. Hip. — So it appears. Sokr. — Now we have shown that the more capable and knowing mind is at once the better mind, and more competent to exert itself both ways — to do what is honourable as well as what is base — in every employment. Hip. — Yes. Sokr. — When, therefore, such a mind does what is base, it does so wilfully, through its capacity or intelligence, which we have seen to be of the nature of justice? Hip. — It seems so. Sokr. — Doing base things, is acting unjustly: doing honourable things, is acting justly. Accordingly, when this more capable and better mind acts unjustly, it will do so wilfully; while the less capable and worse mind will do so without willing it? Hip. — Apparently.

Conclusion — That none but the good man can do evil wilfully: the bad man does evil unwillingly. Hippias cannot resist the reasoning, but will not accept the conclusion — Sokrates confesses his perplexity.

Sokr. — Now the good man is he that has the good mind: the bad man is he that has the bad mind. It belongs therefore to the good man to do wrong wilfully, to the bad man, to do wrong without wishing it — that is, if the good man be he that has the good mind? Hip. — But that is unquestionable — that he has it. Sokr. — Accordingly, he that goes wrong and does base and unjust things wilfully, if there be any such character — can be no other than the good man. Hip. — I do not know how to concede that to you, Sokrates.67 Sokr. — Nor I, how to concede it to myself, Hippias: yet so it must appear to us, now at least, from the past debate. As I told you long ago, I waver hither and thither upon this matter; my conclusions never remain the same. No wonder indeed that I and other vulgar men waver; but if you wise men waver also, that becomes a fearful mischief even to us, since we cannot even by coming to you escape from our embarrassment.68

I will here again remind the reader, that in this, as in the other dialogues, the real speaker is Plato throughout: and that 62it is he alone who prefixes the different names to words determined by himself.

Remarks on the dialogue. If the parts had been inverted, the dialogue would have been cited by critics as a specimen of the sophistry and corruption of the Sophists.

Now, if the dialogue just concluded had come down to us with the parts inverted, and with the reasoning of Sokrates assigned to Hippias, most critics would probably have produced it as a tissue of sophistry justifying the harsh epithets which they bestow upon the Athenian Sophists — as persons who considered truth and falsehood to be on a par — subverters of morality — and corruptors of the youth of Athens.69 But as we read it, all that, which in the mouth of Hippias would have passed for sophistry, is here put forward by Sokrates; while Hippias not only resists his conclusions, and adheres to the received ethical sentiment tenaciously, even when he is unable to defend it, but hates the propositions forced upon him, protests against the perverse captiousness of Sokrates, and requires much pressing to induce him to continue the debate. Upon the views adopted by the critics, Hippias ought to receive credit for this conduct, as a friend of virtue and morality. To me, such reluctance to debate appears a defect rather than a merit; but I cite the dialogue as illustrating what I have already said in another place — that 63Sokrates and Plato threw out more startling novelties in ethical doctrine, than either Hippias or Protagoras, or any of the other persons denounced as Sophists.

Polemical purpose of the dialogue — Hippias humiliated by Sokrates.

That Plato intended to represent this accomplished Sophist as humiliated by Sokrates, is evident enough: and the words put into his mouth are suited to this purpose. The eloquent lecturer, so soon as his admiring crowd of auditors has retired, proves unable to parry the questions of a single expert dialectician who remains behind, upon a matter which appears to him almost self-evident, and upon which every one (from Homer downward) agrees with him. Besides this, however, Plato is not satisfied without making him say very simple and absurd things. All this is the personal, polemical, comic scope of the dialogue. It lends (whether well-placed or not) a certain animation and variety, which the author naturally looked out for, in an aggregate of dialogues all handling analogous matters about man and society.

But though the polemical purpose of the dialogue is thus plain, its philosophical purpose perplexes the critics considerably. They do not like to see Sokrates employing sophistry against the Sophists: that is, as they think, casting out devils by the help of Beelzebub. And certainly, upon the theory which they adopt, respecting the relation between Plato and Sokrates on one side, and the Sophists on the other, I think this dialogue is very difficult to explain. But I do not think it is difficult, upon a true theory of the Platonic writings.

Philosophical purpose of the dialogue — theory of the Dialogues of Search generally, and of Knowledge as understood by Plato.

In a former chapter, I tried to elucidate the general character and purpose of those Dialogues of Search, which occupy more than half the Thrasyllean Canon, and of which we have already reviewed two or three specimens — Euthyphron, Alkibiadês, &c. We have seen that they are distinguished by the absence of any affirmative conclusion: that they prove nothing, but only, at the most, disprove one or more supposable solutions: that they are not processes in which one man who knows communicates his knowledge to ignorant hearers, but in which all are alike ignorant, and all are employed, either in groping, or guessing, or testing the guesses of the rest. We have farther seen that the value of these 64Dialogues depends upon the Platonic theory about knowledge; that Plato did not consider any one to know, who could not explain to others all that he knew, reply to the cross-examination of a Sokratic Elenchus, and cross-examine others to test their knowledge: that knowledge in this sense could not be attained by hearing, or reading, or committing to memory a theorem, together with the steps of reasoning which directly conducted to it: — but that there was required, besides, an acquaintance with many counter-theorems, each having more or less appearance of truth; as well as with various embarrassing aspects and plausible delusions on the subject, which an expert cross-examiner would not fail to urge. Unless you are practised in meeting all the difficulties which he can devise, you cannot be said to know. Moreover, it is in this last portion of the conditions of knowledge, that most aspirants are found wanting.

The Hippias is an exemplification of this theory — Sokrates sets forth a case of confusion, and avows his inability to clear it up. Confusion shown up in the Lesser Hippias — Error in the Greater.

Now the Greater and Lesser Hippias are peculiar specimens of these Dialogues of Search, and each serves the purpose above indicated. The Greater Hippias enumerates a string of tentatives, each one of which ends in acknowledged failure: the Lesser Hippias enunciates a thesis, which Sokrates proceeds to demonstrate, by plausible arguments such as Hippias is forced to admit. But though Hippias admits each successive step, he still mistrusts the conclusion, and suspects that he has been misled — a feeling which Plato70 describes elsewhere as being frequent among the respondents of Sokrates. Nay, Sokrates himself shares in the mistrust — presents himself as an unwilling propounder of arguments which force themselves upon him,71 and complains of his own mental embarrassment. Now you may call this sophistry, if you please; and you may silence 65its propounders by calling them hard names. But such ethical prudery — hiding all the uncomfortable logical puzzles which start up when you begin to analyse an established sentiment, and treating them as non-existent because you refuse to look at them — is not the way, to attain what Plato calls knowledge. If there be any argument, the process of which seems indisputable, while yet its conclusion contradicts, or seems to contradict, what is known, upon other evidence — the full and patient analysis of that argument is indispensable, before you can become master of the truth and able to defend it. Until you have gone through such analysis, your mind must remain in that state of confusion which is indicated by Sokrates at the end of the Lesser Hippias. As it is a part of the process of Search, to travel in the path of the Greater Hippias — that is, to go through a string of erroneous solutions, each of which can be proved, by reasons shown, to be erroneous: so it is an equally important part of the same process, to travel in the path of the Lesser Hippias — that is, to acquaint ourselves with all those arguments, bearing on the case, in which two contrary conclusions appear to be both of them plausibly demonstrated, and in which therefore we cannot as yet determine which of them is erroneous — or whether both are not erroneous. The Greater Hippias exhibits errors, — the Lesser Hippias puts before us confusion. With both these enemies the Searcher for truth must contend: and Bacon tells us, that confusion is the worst enemy of the two — “Citius emergit veritas ex errore, quam ex confusione”. Plato, in the Lesser Hippias, having in hand a genuine Sokratic thesis, does not disdain to invest Sokrates with the task (sophistical, as some call it, yet not the less useful and instructive) of setting forth at large this case of confusion, and avowing his inability to clear it up. It is enough for Sokrates that he brings home the painful sense of confusion to the feelings of his hearer as well as to his own. In that painful sentiment lies the stimulus provocative of farther intellectual effort.72 The dialogue ends but the process of search, far from ending along with it, is emphatically declared to be unfinished, and, to be 66in a condition not merely unsatisfactory but intolerable, not to be relieved except by farther investigation, which thus becomes a necessary sequel.

There are two circumstances which lend particular interest to this dialogue — Hippias Minor. 1. That the thesis out of which the confusion arises, is one which we know to have been laid down by the historical Sokrates himself. 2. That Aristotle expressly notices this thesis, as well as the dialogue in which it is contained, and combats it.

The thesis maintained here by Sokrates, is also affirmed by the historical Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia.

Sokrates in his conversation with the youthful Euthydemus (in the Xenophontic Memorabilia) maintains, that of two persons, each of whom deceives his friends in a manner to produce mischief, the one who does so wilfully is not so unjust as the one who does so unwillingly.73 Euthydemus (like Hippias in this dialogue) maintains the opposite, but is refuted by Sokrates; who argues that justice is a matter to be learnt and known like letters; that the lettered man, who has learnt and knows letters, can write wrongly when he chooses, but never writes wrongly unless he chooses — while it is only the unlettered man who writes wrongly unwillingly and without intending it: that in like manner the just man, he that has learnt and knows justice, never commits injustice unless when he intends it — while the unjust man, who has not learnt and does not know justice, commits injustice whether he will or not. It is the just man therefore, and none but the just man (Sokrates maintains), who commits injustice knowingly and wilfully: it is the unjust man who commits injustice without wishing or intending it.74

This is the same view which is worked out by the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias Minor: beginning with the antithesis between the veracious and mendacious man (as Sokrates begins in Xenophon); and concluding with the general result — that it 67belongs to the good man to do wrong wilfully, to the bad man to do wrong unwillingly.

Aristotle combats the thesis. Arguments against it.

Aristotle,75 in commenting upon this doctrine of the Hippias Minor, remarks justly, that Plato understands the epithets veracious and mendacious in a sense different from that which they usually bear. Plato understands the words as designating one who can tell the truth if he chooses — one who can speak falsely if he chooses: and in this sense he argues plausibly that the two epithets go together, and that no man can be mendacious unless he be also veracious. Aristotle points out that the epithets in their received meaning are applied, not to the power itself, but to the habitual and intentional use of that power. The power itself is doubtless presupposed or implied as one condition to the applicability of the epithets, and is one common condition to the applicability of both epithets: but the distinction, which they are intended to draw, regards the intentions and dispositions with which the power is employed. So also Aristotle observes that Plato’s conclusion — “He that does wrong wilfully is a better man than he that does wrong unwillingly,” is falsely collected from induction or analogy. The analogy of the special arts and accomplishments, upon which the argument is built, is not applicable. Better has reference, not to the amount of intelligence but to the dispositions and habitual intentions; though it presupposes a certain state and amount of intelligence as indispensable.

Mistake of Sokrates and Plato in dwelling too exclusively on the intellectual conditions of human conduct.

Both Sokrates and Plato (in many of his dialogues) commit the error of which the above is one particular manifestation — that of dwelling exclusively on the intellectual conditions of human conduct,76 and omitting to give proper attention to the emotional and volitional, as essentially co-operating or preponderating in the complex meaning of ethical attributes. The reasoning ascribed to the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias 68Minor exemplifies this one-sided view. What he says is true, but it is only a part of the truth. When he speaks of a person “who does wrong unwillingly,” he seems to have in view one who does wrong without knowing that he does so: one whose intelligence is so defective that he does not know when he speaks truth and when he speaks falsehood. Now a person thus unhappily circumstanced must be regarded as half-witted or imbecile, coming under the head which the Xenophontic Sokrates called madness:77 unfit to perform any part in society, and requiring to be placed under tutelage. Compared with such a person, the opinion of the Platonic Sokrates may be defended — that the mendacious person, who can tell truth when he chooses, is the better of the two in the sense of less mischievous or dangerous. But he is the object of a very different sentiment; moreover, this is not the comparison present to our minds when we call one man veracious, another man mendacious. We always assume, in every one, a measure of intelligence equal or superior to the admissible minimum; under such assumption, we compare two persons, one of whom speaks to the best of his knowledge and belief, the other, contrary to his knowledge and belief. We approve the former and disapprove the latter, according to the different intention and purpose of each (as Aristotle observes); that is, looking at them under the point of view of emotion and volition — which is logically distinguishable from the intelligence, though always acting in conjunction with it.

They rely too much on the analogy of the special arts — They take no note of the tacit assumptions underlying the epithets of praise and blame.

Again, the analogy of the special arts, upon which the Platonic Sokrates dwells in the Hippias Minor, fails in sustaining his inference. By a good runner, wrestler, harper, singer, speaker, &c., we undoubtedly mean one who can, if he pleases, perform some one of these operations well; although he can also, if he pleases, perform them badly. But the epithets good or bad, in this case, consider exclusively that element which was left out, and leave out that element which was exclusively considered, in the former case. The good singer is declared to stand distinguished from the bad 69singer, or from the ἰδιώτης, who, if he sings at all, will certainly sing badly, by an attribute belonging to his intelligence and vocal organs. To sing well is a special accomplishment, which is possessed only by a few, and which no man is blamed for not possessing. The distinction between such special accomplishments, and justice or rectitude of behaviour, is well brought out in the speech which Plato puts into the mouth of the Sophist Protagoras.78 “The special artists (he says) are few in number: one of them is sufficient for many private citizens. But every citizen, without exception, must possess justice and a sense of shame: if he does not, he must be put away as a nuisance — otherwise, society could not be maintained.” The special artist is a citizen also; and as such, must be subject to the obligations binding on all citizens universally. In predicating of him that he is good or bad as a citizen, we merely assume him to possess the average intelligence, of the community; and the epithet declares whether his emotional and volitional attributes exceed, or fall short of, the minimum required in the application of that intelligence to his social obligations. It is thus that the words good or bad when applied to him as a citizen, have a totally different bearing from that which the same words have when applied to him in his character of special artist.

Value of a Dialogue of Search, that it shall be suggestive, and that it shall bring before us different aspects of the question under review.

The value of these debates in the Platonic dialogues consists in their raising questions like the preceding, for the reflection of the reader — whether the Platonic Sokrates may or may not be represented as taking what we think the right view of the question. For a Dialogue of Search, the great merit is, that it should be suggestive; that it should bring before our attention the conditions requisite for a right and proper use of these common ethical epithets, and the state of circumstances which is tacitly implied whenever any one uses them. No man ever learns to reflect upon the meaning of such familiar epithets, which he has been using all his life — unless the process be forced upon his attention by some special conversation which brings home to him an uncomfortable sentiment of perplexity and contradiction. If a man intends to 70acquire any grasp of ethical or political theory, he must render himself master, not only of the sound arguments and the guiding analogies but also of the unsound arguments and the misleading analogies, which bear upon each portion of it.

Antithesis between Rhetoric and Dialectic.

There is one other point of similitude deserving notice, between the Greater and Lesser Hippias. In both of them, Hippias makes special complaint of Sokrates, for breaking the question in pieces and picking out the minute puzzling fragments — instead of keeping it together as a whole, and applying to it the predicates which it merits when so considered.79 Here is the standing antithesis between Rhetoric and Dialectic: between those unconsciously acquired mental combinations which are poured out in eloquent, impressive, unconditional, and undistinguishing generalities — and the logical analysis which resolves the generality into its specialities, bringing to view inconsistencies, contradictions, limits, qualifications, &c. I have already touched upon this at the close of the Greater Hippias.

71

CHAPTER XIV.

HIPPARCHUS — MINOS.

In these two dialogues, Plato sets before us two farther specimens of that error and confusion which beset the enquirer during his search after “reasoned truth”. Sokrates forces upon the attention of a companion two of the most familiar words of the market-place, to see whether a clear explanation of their meaning can be obtained.

Hipparchus — Question — What is the definition of Lover of Gain? He is one who thinks it right to gain from things worth nothing. Sokrates cross-examines upon this explanation. No man expects to gain from things which he knows to be worth nothing: in this sense, no man is a lover of gain.

In the dialogue called Hipparchus, the debate turns on the definition of τὸ φιλοκερδὲς or ὁ φιλοκερδής — the love of gain or the lover of gain. Sokrates asks his Companion to define the word. The Companion replies — He is one who thinks it right to gain from things worth nothing.1 Does he do this (asks Sokrates) knowing that the things are worth nothing? or not knowing? If the latter, he is simply ignorant. He knows it perfectly well (is the reply). He is cunning and wicked; and it is because he cannot resist the temptation of gain, that he has the impudence to make profit by such things, though well aware that they are worth nothing. Sokr. — Suppose a husbandman, knowing that the plant which he is tending is worthless — and yet thinking that he ought to gain by it: does not that correspond to your description of the lover of gain? Comp. — The lover of gain, Sokrates, thinks that he ought to gain from every thing. Sokr. — Do not answer in that reckless manner,2 as if you had been wronged by any one; but answer with 72attention. You agree that the lover of gain knows the value of that from which he intends to derive profit; and that the husbandman is the person cognizant of the value of plants. Comp. — Yes: I agree. Sokr. — Do not therefore attempt, you are so young, to deceive an old man like me, by giving answers not in conformity with your own admissions; but tell me plainly, Do you believe that the experienced husbandman, when he knows that he is planting a tree worth nothing, thinks that he shall gain by it? Comp. — No, certainly: I do not believe it.

Sokrates then proceeds to multiply illustrations to the same general point. The good horseman does not expect to gain by worthless food given to his horse: the good pilot, by worthless tackle put into his ship: the good commander, by worthless arms delivered to his soldiers: the good fifer, harper, bowman, by employing worthless instruments of their respective arts, if they know them to be worthless.

Gain is good. Every man loves good: therefore all men are lovers of gain.

None of these persons (concludes Sokrates) correspond to your description of the lover of gain. Where then can you find a lover of gain? On your explanation, no man is so.3 Comp. — I mean, Sokrates, that the lovers of gain are those, who, through greediness, long eagerly for things altogether petty and worthless; and thus display a love of gain.4 Sokr. — Not surely knowing them to be worthless — for this we have shown to be impossible — but ignorant that they are worthless, and believing them to be valuable. Comp. — It appears so. Sokr. — Now gain is the opposite of loss: and loss is evil and hurt to every one: therefore gain (as the opposite of loss) is good. Comp. — Yes. Sokr. — It appears then that the lovers of good are those whom you call lovers of gain? Comp. — Yes: it appears so. Sokr. — Do not you yourself love good — all good things? Comp. — Certainly. Sokr. — And I too, and every one else. All men love good things, and hate evil. Now we agreed that gain was a good: so that by this reasoning, it appears that all men are lovers of gain while by the former reasoning, we made out that none were so.5 Which of the two 73shall we adopt, to avoid error. Comp. — We shall commit no error, Sokrates, if we rightly conceive the lover of gain. He is one who busies himself upon, and seeks to gain from, things from which good men do not venture to gain.

Apparent contradiction. Sokrates accuses the companion of trying to deceive him. Accusation is retorted upon Sokrates.

Sokr. — But, my friend, we agreed just now, that gain was a good, and that all men always love good. It follows therefore, that good men as well as others love all gains, if gains are good things. Comp. — Not, certainly, those gains by which they will afterwards be hurt. Sokr. — Be hurt: you mean, by which they will become losers. Comp. — I mean that and nothing else. Sokr. — Do they become losers by gain, or by loss? Comp. — By both: by loss, and by evil gain. Sokr. — Does it appear to you that any useful and good thing is evil? Comp. — No. Sokr. — Well! we agreed just now that gain was the opposite of loss, which was evil; and that, being the opposite of evil, gain was good. Comp. — That was what we agreed. Sokr. — You see how it is: you are trying to deceive me: you purposely contradict what we just now agreed upon. Comp. — Not at all, by Zeus: on the contrary, it is you, Sokrates, who deceive me, wriggling up and down in your talk, I cannot tell how.6 Sokr. — Be careful what you say: I should be very culpable, if I disobeyed a good and wise monitor. Comp. — Whom do you mean: and what do you mean? Sokr. — Hipparchus, son of Peisistratus.

Precept inscribed formerly by Hipparchus the Peisistratid — ”Never deceive a friend”. Eulogy of Hipparchus by Sokrates.

Sokrates then describes at some length the excellent character of Hipparchus: his beneficent rule, his wisdom, his anxiety for the moral improvement of the Athenians: the causes, different from what was commonly believed, which led to his death; and the wholesome precepts which he during his life had caused to be inscribed on various busts of Hermes throughout Attica. One of these busts or Hermæ bore the words — Do not deceive a friend.7

74The Companion resumes: Apparently, Sokrates, either you do not account me your friend, or you do not obey Hipparchus: for you are certainly deceiving me in some unaccountable way in your talk. You cannot persuade me to the contrary.

Sokrates allows the companion to retract some of his answers. The companion affirms that some gain is good, other gain is evil.

Sokr. — Well then! in order that you may not think yourself deceived, you may take back any move that you choose, as if we were playing at draughts. Which of your admissions do you wish to retract — That all men desire good things? That loss (to be a loser) is evil? That gain is the opposite of loss: that to gain is the opposite of to lose? That to gain, as being the opposite of evil is a good thing? Comp. — No. I do not retract any one of these. Sokr. — You think then, it appears, that some gain is good, other gain evil? Comp. — Yes, that is what I do think.8 Sokr. — Well, I give you back that move: let it stand as you say. Some gain is good: other gain is bad. But surely the good gain is no more gain, than the bad gain: both are gain, alike and equally. Comp. — How do you mean?

Questions by Sokrates — bad gain is gain, as much as good gain. What is the common property, in virtue of which both are called Gain? Every acquisition, made with no outlay, or with a smaller outlay, is gain. Objections — the acquisition may be evil — embarrassment confessed.

Sokrates then illustrates his question by two or three analogies. Bad food is just as much food, as good food: bad drink, as much drink as good drink: a good man is no more man than a bad man.9

Sokr. — In like manner, bad gain, and good gain, are (both of them) gain alike — neither of them more or less than the other. Such being the case, what is that common quality possessed by both, which induces 75you to call them by the same name Gain?10 Would you call Gain any acquisition which one makes either with a smaller outlay or with no outlay at all?11 Comp. — Yes. I should call that gain. Sokr. — For example, if after being at a banquet, not only without any outlay, but receiving an excellent dinner, you acquire an illness? Comp. — Not at all: that is no gain. Sokr. — But if from the banquet you acquire health, would that be gain or loss? Comp. — It would be gain. Sokr. — Not every acquisition therefore is gain, but only such acquisitions as are good and not evil: if the acquisition be evil, it is loss. Comp. — Exactly so. Sokr. — Well, now, you see, you are come round again to the very same point: Gain is good. Loss is evil. Comp. — I am puzzled what to say.12 Sokr. — You have good reason to be puzzled.

It is essential to gain, that the acquisition made shall be greater not merely in quantity, but also in value, than the outlay. The valuable is the profitable — the profitable is the good. Conclusion comes back. That Gain is Good.

But tell me: you say that if a man lays out little and acquires much, that is gain? Comp. — Yes: but not if it be evil: it is gain, if it be good, like gold or silver. Sokr. — I will ask you about gold and silver. Suppose a man by laying out one pound of gold acquires two pounds of silver, is it gain or loss? Comp. — It is loss, decidedly, Sokrates: gold is twelve times the value of silver. Sokr. — Nevertheless he has acquired more: double is more than half. Comp. — Not in value: double silver is not more than half gold. Sokr. — It appears then that we must include value as essential to gain, not merely quantity. The valuable is gain: the valueless is no gain. The valuable is that which is valuable to possess: is that the profitable, or the unprofitable? Comp. — It is the profitable. Sokr. — But the profitable is good? Comp. — Yes: it is. Sokr. — Why then, here, the same conclusion comes back to us as agreed, for the third or fourth time. The gainful is good. Comp. — It appears so.13

Recapitulation. The debate has shown that all gain is good, and that there is no evil gain — all men are lovers of gain — no man ought to be reproached for being so. The companion is compelled to admit this, though he declares that he is not persuaded.

Sokr. — Let me remind you of what has passed. You contended 76 that good men did not wish to acquire all sorts of gain, but only such as were good, and not such as were evil. But now, the debate has compelled us to acknowledge that all gains are good, whether small or great. Comp. — As for me, Sokrates, the debate has compelled me rather than persuaded me.14 Sokr. — Presently, perhaps, it may even persuade you. But now, whether you have been persuaded or not, you at least concur with me in affirming that all gains, whether small or great, are good. That all good men wish for all good things. Comp. — I do concur. Sokr. — But you yourself stated that evil men love all gains, small and great? Comp. — I said so. Sokr. — According to your doctrine then, all men are lovers of gain, the good men as well as the evil? Comp. — Apparently so. Sokr. — It is therefore wrong to reproach any man as a lover of gain: for the person who reproaches is himself a lover of gain, just as much.

Minos. Question put by Sokrates to the companion. What is Law, or The Law? All law is the same, quatenus law: what is the common constituent attribute?

The Minos, like the Hipparchus, is a dialogue carried on between Sokrates and a companion not named. It relates to Law, or The Law —

Sokr. — What is Law (asks Sokrates)? Comp. — Respecting what sort of Law do you enquire (replies the Companion)? Sokr. — What! is there any difference between one law and another law, as to that identical circumstance, of being Law? Gold does not differ from gold, so far as the being gold is concerned — nor stone from stone, so far as being stone is concerned. In like manner, one law does not differ from another, all are the same, in so far as each is Law alike:— not, one of them more, and another less. It is about this as a whole that I ask you — What is Law?

Answer — Law is, 1. The consecrated and binding customs. 2. The decree of the city. 3. Social or civic opinion.

Comp. — What should Law be, Sokrates, other than the various assemblage of consecrated and binding customs and beliefs?15 Sokr. — Do you think, then, that discourse 77is, the things spoken: that sight is, the things seen? that hearing is, the things heard? Or are they not distinct, in each of the three cases — and is not Law also one thing, the various customs and beliefs another? Comp. — Yes! I now think that they are distinct.16 Sokr. — Law is that whereby these binding customs become binding. What is it? Comp. — Law can be nothing else than the public resolutions and decrees promulgated among us. Law is the decree of the city.17 Sokr. — You mean, that Law is social opinion. Comp. — Yes I do.

Cross-examination by Sokrates — just and lawfully-behaving men are so through law; unjust and lawless men are so through the absence of law. Law is highly honourable and useful: lawlessness is ruinous. Accordingly, bad decrees of the city — or bad social opinion — cannot be law.

Sokr. — Perhaps you are right: but let us examine. You call some persons wise:— they are wise through wisdom. You call some just:— they are just through justice. In like manner, the lawfully-behaving men are so through law: the lawless men are so through lawlessness. Now the lawfully-behaving men are just: the lawless men are unjust. Comp. — It is so. Sokr. — Justice and Law, are highly honourable: injustice and lawlessness, highly dishonourable: the former preserves cities, the latter ruins them. Comp. — Yes — it does. Sokr. — Well, then! we must consider law as something honourable; and seek after it, under the assumption that it is a good thing. You defined law to be the decree of the city: Are not some decrees good, others evil? Comp. — Unquestionably. Sokr. — But we have already said that law is not evil. Comp. — I admit it. Sokr. — It is incorrect therefore to answer, as you did broadly, that law is the decree of the city. An evil decree cannot be law. Comp. — I see that it is incorrect.18

Suggestion by Sokrates — Law is the good opinion of the city — but good opinion is true opinion, or the finding out of reality. Law therefore wishes (tends) to be the finding out of reality, though it does not always succeed in doing so.

Sokr. — Still — I think, myself, that law is opinion of some sort; and since it is not evil opinion, it must be good opinion. Now good opinion is true opinion: and true opinion is, the finding out of reality. Comp. — I admit it. Sokr. — Law therefore wishes or tends to 78be, the finding out of reality.19 Comp. — But, Sokrates, if law is the finding out of reality — if we have therein already found out realities — how comes it that all communities of men do not use the same laws respecting the same matters? Sokr. — The law does not the less wish or tend to find out realities; but it is unable to do so. That is, if the fact be true as you state — that we change our laws, and do not all of us use the same. Comp. — Surely, the fact as a fact is obvious enough.20

Objection taken by the Companion — That there is great discordance of laws in different places — he specifies several cases of such discordance at some length. Sokrates reproves his prolixity, and requests him to confine himself to question or answer.

(The Companion here enumerates some remarkable local rites, venerable in one place, abhorrent in another, such as the human sacrifices at Carthage, &c., thus lengthening his answer much beyond what it had been before. Sokrates then continues):

Sokr. — Perhaps you are right, and these matters have escaped me. But if you and I go on making long speeches each for ourselves, we shall never come to an agreement. If we are to carry on our research together, we must do so by question and answer. Question me, if you prefer:— if not, answer me. Comp. — I am quite ready, Sokrates, to answer whatever you ask.

Farther questions by Sokrates — Things heavy and light, just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable, &c., are so, and are accounted so everywhere. Real things are always accounted real. Whoever fails in attaining the real, fails in attaining the lawful.

Sokr. — Well, then! do you think that just things are just and unjust things are unjust? Comp. — I think they are. Sokr. — Do not all men in all communities, among the Persians as well as here, now as well as formerly, think so too? Comp. — Unquestionably they do. Sokr. — Are not things which weigh more, accounted heavier; and things which weigh less, accounted lighter, here, at Carthage, and everywhere else?21 Comp. — Certainly. Sokr. — It seems, then, that honourable things are accounted honourable everywhere, and dishonourable 79things dishonourable? not the reverse. Comp. — Yes, it is so. Sokr. — Then, speaking universally, existent things or realities (not non-existents) are accounted existent and real, among us as well as among all other men? Comp. — I think they are. Sokr. — Whoever therefore fails in attaining the real fails in attaining the lawful.22 Comp. — As you now put it, Sokrates, it would seem that the same things are accounted lawful both by us at all times, and by all the rest of mankind besides. But when I reflect that we are perpetually changing our laws, I cannot persuade myself of what you affirm.

There are laws of health and of cure, composed by the few physicians wise upon those subjects, and unanimously declared by them. So also there are laws of farming, gardening, cookery, declared by the few wise in those respective pursuits. In like manner, the laws of a city are the judgments declared by the few wise men who know how to rule.

Sokr. — Perhaps you do not reflect that pieces on the draught-board, when their position is changed, still remain the same. You know medical treatises: you know that physicians are the really knowing about matters of health: and that they agree with each other in writing about them. Comp. — Yes — I know that. Sokr. — The case is the same whether they be Greeks or not Greeks: Those who know, must of necessity hold the same opinion with each other, on matters which they know: always and everywhere. Comp. — Yes — always and everywhere. Sokr. — Physicians write respecting matters of health what they account to be true, and these writings of theirs are the medical laws? Comp. — Certainly they are. Sokr. — The like is true respecting the laws of farming — the laws of gardening — the laws of cookery. All these are the writings of persons, knowing in each of the respective pursuits? Comp. — Yes.23 Sokr. — In like manner, what are the laws respecting the government of a city? Are they not the writings of those who know how to govern — kings, statesmen, and men of superior excellence? Comp. — Truly so. Sokr. — Knowing men like these will not write differently from each other about the same things, nor change what they 80have once written. If, then, we see some doing this, are we to declare them knowing or ignorant? Comp. — Ignorant — undoubtedly.

That which is right is the regal law, the only true and real law — that which is not right, is not law, but only seems to be law in the eyes of the ignorant.

Sokr. — Whatever is right, therefore, we may pronounce to be lawful; in medicine, gardening, or cookery: whatever is not right, not to be lawful but lawless. And the like in treatises respecting just and unjust, prescribing how the city is to be administered: That which is right, is the regal law — that which is not right, is not so, but only seems to be law in the eyes of the ignorant — being in truth lawless. Comp. — Yes. Sokr. — We were correct therefore in declaring Law to be the finding out of reality. Comp. — It appears so.24 Sokr. — It is the skilful husbandman who gives right laws on the sowing of land: the skilful musician on the touching of instruments: the skilful trainer, respecting exercise of the body: the skilful king or governor, respecting the minds of the citizens. Comp. — Yes — it is.25

Minos, King of Krete — his laws were divine and excellent, and have remained unchanged from time immemorial.

Sokr. — Can you tell me which of the ancient kings has the glory of having been a good lawgiver, so that his laws still remain in force as divine institutions? Comp. — I cannot tell. Sokr. — But can you not say which among the Greeks have the most ancient laws? Comp. — Perhaps you mean the Lacedæmonians and Lykurgus? Sokr. — Why, the Lacedæmonian laws are hardly more than three hundred years old: besides, whence is it that the best of them come? Comp. — From Krete, they say. Sokr. — Then it is the Kretans who have the most ancient laws in Greece? Comp. — Yes. Sokr. — Do you know those good kings of Krete, from whom these laws are derived — Minos and Rhadamanthus, sons of Zeus and Europa? Comp. — Rhadamanthus certainly is said to have been a just man, Sokrates; but Minos quite the reverse — savage, ill-tempered, unjust. Sokr. — What you affirm, my friend, is a fiction of the Attic tragedians. It is not stated either by Homer or Hesiod, who are far more worthy of credit than all the tragedians put 81together. Comp. — What is it that Homer and Hesiod say about Minos?26

Question about the character of Minos — Homer and Hesiod declare him to have been admirable, the Attic tragedians defame him as a tyrant, because he was an enemy of Athens.

Sokrates replies by citing, and commenting upon, the statements of Homer and Hesiod respecting Minos, as the cherished son, companion, and pupil, of Zeus; who bestowed upon him an admirable training, teaching him wisdom and justice, and thus rendering him consummate as a lawgiver and ruler of men. It was through these laws, divine as emanating from the teaching of Zeus, that Krete (and Sparta as the imitator of Krete) had been for so long a period happy and virtuous. As ruler of Krete, Minos had made war upon Athens, and compelled the Athenians to pay tribute. Hence he had become odious to the Athenians, and especially odious to the tragic poets who were the great teachers and charmers of the crowd. These poets, whom every one ought to be cautious of offending, had calumniated Minos as the old enemy of Athens.27

That Minos was really admirable — and that he has found out truth and reality respecting the administration of the city — we may be sure from the fact that his laws have remained so long unaltered.

But that these tales are mere calumny (continues Sokrates), and that Minos was truly a good lawgiver, and a good shepherd (νομεὺς ἀγαθός) of his people — we have proof through the fact, that his laws still remain unchanged: which shows that he has really found out truth and reality respecting the administration of a city.28 Comp. — Your view seems plausible, Sokrates. Sokr. — If I am right, then, you think that the Kretans have more ancient laws than any other Greeks? and that Minos and Rhadamanthus are the best of all ancient lawgivers, rulers, and shepherds of mankind? Comp. — I think they are.

The question is made more determinate — What is it that the good lawgiver prescribes and measures out for the health of the mind, as the physician measures out food and exercise for the body? Sokrates cannot tell. Close.

Sokr. — Now take the case of the good lawgiver and good shepherd for the body — If we were asked, what it is that he prescribes for the body, so as to render it better? we should answer, at once, briefly, and well, by saying — food and labour: the former to sustain the body, the latter to exercise and consolidate it. 82Comp. — Quite correct. Sokr. — And if after that we were asked, What are those things which the good lawgiver prescribes for the mind to make it better, what should we say, so as to avoid discrediting ourselves? Comp. — I really cannot tell. Sokr. — But surely it is discreditable enough both for your mind and mine — to confess, that we do not know upon what it is that good and evil for our minds depends, while we can define upon what it is that the good or evil of our bodies depends?29

The Hipparchus and Minos are analogous to each other, and both of them inferior works of Plato, perhaps unfinished.

I have put together the two dialogues Hipparchus and Minos, partly because of the analogy which really exists between them, partly because that analogy is much insisted on by Boeckh, Schleiermacher, Stallbaum, and other recent critics; who not only strike them both out of the list of Platonic works, but speak of them with contempt as compositions. On the first point, I dissent from them altogether: on the second, I agree with them thus far — that I consider the two dialogues inferior works of Plato:— much inferior to his greatest and best compositions, — certainly displaying both less genius and less careful elaboration — probably among his early performances — perhaps even unfinished projects, destined for a farther elaboration, which they never received, and not published until after his decease. Yet in Hipparchus as well as in Minos, the subjects debated are important as regards ethical theory. Several questions are raised and partially canvassed: no conclusion is finally attained. These characteristics they have in common with several of the best Platonic dialogues.

Hipparchus — Double meaning of φιλοκερδὴς and κέρδος.

In Hipparchus, the question put by Sokrates is, about the definition of ὁ φιλοκερδὴς (the lover of gain), and of κέρδος itself — gain. The first of these two words (like many in Greek as well as in English) is used in two senses. In its plain, etymological sense, it means an attribute belonging to all men: all men love gain, hate loss. 83But since this is predicable of all, there is seldom any necessity for predicating it of any one man or knot of men in particular. Accordingly, when you employ the epithet as a predicate of A or B, what you generally mean is, to assert something more than its strict etymological meaning: to declare that he has the attribute in unusual measure; or that he has shown himself, on various occasions, wanting in other attributes, which on those occasions ought, in your judgment, to have countervailed it. The epithet thus comes to connote a sentiment of blame or reproach, in the mind of the speaker.30

State or mind of the agent, as to knowledge, frequent inquiry in Plato. No tenable definition found.

The Companion or Collocutor, being called upon by Sokrates to explain τὸ φιλοκερδὲς, defines it in this last sense, as conveying or connoting a reproach. He gives three different explanations of it (always in this sense), each of which Sokrates shows to be untenable. A variety of parallel cases are compared, and the question is put (so constantly recurring in Plato’s writings), what is the state of the agent’s mind as to knowledge? The cross-examination makes out, that if the agent be supposed to know, — then there is no man corresponding to the definition of a φιλοκερδής: if the agent be supposed not to know — then, on the contrary, every man will come under the definition. The Companion is persuaded that there is such a thing as “love of gain” in the blamable sense. Yet he cannot find any tenable definition, to discriminate it from “love of gain” in the ordinary or innocent sense.

Admitting that there is bad gain, as well as good gain, what is the meaning of the word gain? None is found.

The same question comes back in another form, after Sokrates has given the liberty of retractation. The Collocutor maintains that there is bad gain, as well as good gain. But what is that common, generic, quality, designated well as good by the word gain, apart from these two distinctive epithets? He cannot find it out or describe it. He gives two definitions, each of which is torn up by Sokrates. To deserve the name of gain, that which a man acquires must be good; and it must surpass, in value as well 84as in quantity, the loss or outlay which he incurs in order to acquire it. But when thus understood, all gains are good. There is no meaning in the distinction between good and bad gains: all men are lovers of gain.

Purpose of Plato in the dialogue — to lay bare the confusion, and to force the mind of the respondent into efforts for clearing it up.

With this confusion, the dialogue closes. The Sokratic notion of good, as what every one loves — evil as what every one hates — also of evil-doing, as performed by every evil-doer only through ignorance or mistake is brought out and applied to test the ethical phraseology of a common-place respondent. But it only serves to lay bare a state of confusion and perplexity, without clearing up any thing. Herein, so far as I can see, lies Plato’s purpose in the dialogue. The respondent is made aware of the confusion, which he did not know before; and this, in Plato’s view, is a progress. The respondent cannot avoid giving contradictory answers, under an acute cross-examination: but he does not adopt any new belief. He says to Sokrates at the close — “The debate has constrained rather than persuaded me”.31 This is a simple but instructive declaration of the force put by Sokrates upon his collocutors; and of the reactionary effort likely to be provoked in their minds, with a view to extricate themselves from a painful sense of contradiction. If such effort be provoked, Plato’s purpose is attained.

One peculiarity there is, analogous to what we have already seen in the Hippias Major. It is not merely the Collocutor who charges Sokrates, but also Sokrates who accuses the Collocutor — each charging the other with attempts to deceive a friend.32 This seems intended by Plato to create an occasion for introducing what he had to say about Hipparchus — apropos of the motto on the Hipparchean Hermes — μὴ φίλον ἐξαπάτα.

Historical narrative and comments given in the dialogue respecting Hipparchus — afford no ground for declaring the dialogue to be spurious.

The modern critics, who proclaim the Hipparchus not to be the work of Plato, allege as one of the proofs of spuriousness, the occurrence of this long narrative and comment upon the historical Hipparchus and his behaviour; which narrative (the critics maintain) Plato would never have introduced, seeing that it 85contributes nothing to the settlement of the question debated. But to this we may reply, first, That there are other dialogues33 (not to mention the Minos) in which Plato introduces recitals of considerable length, historical or quasi-historical recitals; bearing remotely, or hardly bearing at all, upon the precise question under discussion; next, — That even if no such analogies could be cited, and if the case stood single, no modern critic could fairly pretend to be so thoroughly acquainted with Plato’s views and the surrounding circumstances, as to put a limit on the means which Plato might choose to take, for rendering his dialogues acceptable and interesting. Plato’s political views made him disinclined to popular government generally, and to the democracy of Athens in particular. Conformably with such sentiment, he is disposed to surround the rule of the Peisistratidæ with an ethical and philosophical colouring: to depict Hipparchus as a wise man busied in instructing and elevating the citizens; and to discredit the renown of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, by affirming them to have been envious of Hipparchus, as a philosopher who surpassed themselves by his own mental worth. All this lay perfectly in the vein of Plato’s sentiment; and we may say the same about the narrative in the Minos, respecting the divine parentage and teaching of Minos, giving rise to his superhuman efficacy as a lawgiver and ruler. It is surely very conceivable, that Plato, as a composer of ethical dialogues or dramas, might think that such recitals lent a charm or interest to some of them. Moreover, something like variety, or distinctive features as between one dialogue and another, was a point of no inconsiderable moment. I am of opinion that Plato did so conceive these narratives. But at any rate, what I here contend is, that no modern critics have a right to assume as certain that he did not.

86 Minos. Question — What is the characteristic property connoted by the word νόμος or law?

I now come to the Minos. The subject of this dialogue is, the explanation or definition of Law. Sokrates says to his Companion or Collocutor, — Tell me what is the generic constituent of Law: All Laws are alike quatenus Law. Take no note of the difference between one law and another, but explain to me what characteristic property it is, which is common to all Law, and is implied in or connoted by the name Law.

This question is logically the same as that which Sokrates asks in the Hipparchus with reference to κέρδος or gain.

This question was discussed by the historical Sokrates, Memorabilia of Xenophon.

That the definition of νόμος or Law was discussed by Sokrates, we know, not only from the general description of his debates given in Xenophon, but also from the interesting description (in that author) of the conversation between the youthful Alkibiades and Perikles.34 The interrogations employed by Alkibiades on that occasion are Sokratic, and must have been derived, directly or indirectly, from Sokrates. They are partially analogous to the questions of Sokrates in the dialogue Minos, and they end by driving Perikles into a confusion, left unexplained, between Law and Lawlessness.

Definitions of law — suggested and refuted. Law includes, as a portion of its meaning, justice, goodness, usefulness, &c. Bad decrees are not laws.

Definitions of νόμος are here given by the Companion, who undergoes a cross-examination upon them. First, he says, that Νόμος = τὰ νομιζόμενα. But this is rejected by Sokrates, who intimates that Law is not the aggregate of laws enacted or of customs held binding: but that which lies behind these laws and customs, imparting to them their binding force.35 We are to enquire what this is. The Companion declares that it is the public decree of the city: political or social opinion. But this again Sokrates contests: putting questions to show that Law includes, as a portion of its meaning, justice, goodness, beauty, and preservation of the city with its possessions; while lawlessness includes injustice, evil, ugliness, and destruction. There can be no such thing as bad or wicked law.36 But among decrees of the city, 87some are bad, some are good. Therefore to define Law as a decree of the city, thus generally, is incorrect. It is only the good decree, not the bad decree, which is Law. Now the good decree or opinion, is the true opinion: that is, it is the finding out of reality. Law therefore wishes or aims to be the finding out of reality: and if there are differences between different nations, this is because the power to find out does not always accompany the wish to find out.

Sokrates affirms that law is everywhere the same — it is the declared judgment and command of the Wise man upon the subject to which it refers — it is truth and reality, found out and certified by him.

As to the assertion — that Law is one thing here, another thing there, one thing at one time, another thing at another — Sokrates contests it. Just things are just (he says) everywhere and at all times; unjust things are unjust also. Heavy things are heavy, light things light, at one time, as well as at another. So also honourable things are everywhere honourable, base things everywhere base. In general phrase, existent things are everywhere existent,37 non-existent things are not existent. Whoever therefore fails to attain the existent and real, fails to attain the lawful and just. It is only the man of art and knowledge, in this or that department, who attains the existent, the real, the right, true, lawful, just. Thus the authoritative rescripts or laws in matters of medicine, are those laid down by practitioners who know that subject, all of whom agree in what they lay down: the laws of cookery, the laws of agriculture and of gardening — are rescripts delivered by artists who know respectively each of those subjects. So also about Just and Unjust, about the political and social arrangements of the city — the authoritative rescripts or laws are, those laid down by the artists or men of knowledge in that department, all of whom agree in laying down the same: that is, all the men of art called kings or lawgivers. It is only the right, the true, the real — that which these artists attain — which is properly a law and is entitled to be so called. That which is not right is not a law, — ought not to be so called — and is only supposed to be a law by the error of ignorant men.38

88 Reasoning of Sokrates in the Minos is unsound, but Platonic. The Good, True, and Real, coalesce in the mind of Plato — he acknowledges nothing to be Law, except what he thinks ought to be Law.

That the reasoning of Sokrates in this dialogue is confused and unsound (as M. Boeckh and other critics have remarked), I perfectly agree. But it is not the less completely Platonic; resting upon views and doctrines much cherished and often reproduced by Plato. The dialogue Minos presents, in a rude and awkward manner, without explanation or amplification, that worship of the Abstract and the Ideal, which Plato, in other and longer dialogues, seeks to diversify as well as to elaborate. The definitions of Law here combated and given by Sokrates, illustrate this. The good, the true, the right, the beautiful, the real — all coalesce in the mind of Plato. There is nothing (in his view) real, except The Good, The Just, &c. (τὸ αὐτο-ἀγαθὸν; αὐτο-δίκαιον — Absolute Goodness and Justice): particular good and just things have no reality, they are no more good and just than bad and unjust — they are one or the other, according to circumstances — they are ever variable, floating midway between the real and unreal.39 The real alone is knowable, correlating with knowledge or with the knowing Intelligence Νοῦς. As Sokrates distinguishes elsewhere τὸ δίκαιον or αὐτο-δίκαιον from τὰ δίκαια — so here he distinguishes (νόμος from τὰ νομιζόμενα) Law, from the assemblage of actual commands or customs received as laws among mankind. These latter are variable according to time and place; but Law is always one and the same. Plato will acknowledge nothing to be Law, except that which (he thinks) ought to be Law: that which emanates from a lawgiver of consummate knowledge, who aims at the accomplishment of the good and the real, and knows how to discover and realise that end. So far as “the decree of the city” coincides with what would have been enacted by this lawgiver (i. e. so far as it is good and right), Sokrates admits it as a valid explanation of Law; but no farther. He considers the phrase bad law to express a logical impossibility, involving a contradiction in adjecto.40 What others call a bad law, he regards as being 89no real law, but only a fallacious image, mistaken for such by the ignorant. He does not consider such ignorant persons as qualified to judge: he recognises only the judgment of the knowing one or few, among whom he affirms that there can be no difference of opinion. Every one admits just things to be just, — unjust things to be unjust, — heavy things to be heavy, — the existent and the real, to be the existent and the real. If then the lawgiver in any of his laws fails to attain this reality, he fails in the very purpose essential to the conception of law:41 i. e. his pretended law is no law at all.

Plato worships the Ideal of his own mind — the work of systematic constructive theory by the Wise Man.

By Law then, Plato means — not the assemblage of actual positive rules, nor any general property common to and characteristic of them, nor the free determination of an assembled Demos as distinguished from the mandates of a despot — but the Type of Law as it ought to be, and as it would be, if prescribed by a perfectly wise ruler, aiming at good and knowing how to realise it. This, which is the ideal of his own mind, Plato worships and reasons upon as if it were the only reality; as Law by nature, or natural Law, distinguished from actual positive laws: which last have either been set by some ill-qualified historical ruler, or have grown up insensibly. Knowledge, art, philosophy, systematic and constructive, applied by some one or few exalted individuals, is (in his view) the only cause capable of producing that typical result which is true, good, real, permanent, and worthy of the generic name.

Different applications of this general Platonic view, in the Minos, Politikus, Kratylus, &c. Natural Rectitude of Law, Government, Names, &c.

In the Minos, this general Platonic view is applied to Law: in the Politikus, to government and social administration: in the Kratylus, to naming or language. In the Politikus, we find the received classification of governments (monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy) discarded as improper; and the assertion advanced, That there is only one government right, true, genuine, really existing — government by the uncontrolled authority and superintendence of the man of exalted intelligence: he who is master in the 90art of governing, whether such man do in fact hold power anywhere or not. All other governments are degenerate substitutes for this type, some receding from it less, some more.42 Again, in the Kratylus, where names and name-giving are discussed, Sokrates43 maintains that things can only be named according to their true and real nature — that there is, belonging to each thing, one special and appropriate Name-Form, discernible only by the sagacity of the intelligent Lawgiver: who alone is competent to bestow upon each thing its right, true, genuine, real name, possessing rectitude by nature (ὀρθότης φύσει).44 This Name-Form (according to Sokrates) is the same in all languages in so far as they are constructed by different intelligent Lawgivers, although the letters and syllables in which they may clothe the Form are very different.45 If names be not thus apportioned by the systematic purpose of an intelligent Lawgiver, but raised up by insensible and unsystematic growth — they will be unworthy substitutes for the genuine type, though they are the best which actual societies possess; according to the opinion announced by Kratylus in that same dialogue, they will not be names at all.46

Eulogy on Minos, as having established laws on this divine type or natural rectitude.

The Kretan Minos (we here find it affirmed), son, companion, and pupil of Zeus, has learnt to establish laws of this divine type or natural rectitude: the proof of which is, that the ancient Kretan laws have for immemorial91 ages remained, and still do remain,47 unchanged. But when Sokrates tries to determine, Wherein consists this Law-Type? What is it that the wise Lawgiver prescribes for the minds of the citizens — as the wise gymnastic trainer prescribes proper measure of nourishment and exercise for their bodies? — the question is left unanswered. Sokrates confesses with shame that he cannot answer it: and the dialogue ends in a blank. The reader — according to Plato’s manner — is to be piqued and shamed into the effort of meditating the question for himself.

The Minos was arranged by Aristophanes at first in a Trilogy along with the Leges.

An attempt to answer this question will be found in Plato’s Treatise De Legibus — in the projected Kretan colony, of which he there sketches the fundamental laws. Aristophanes of Byzantium very naturally placed this treatise as sequel to the Minos; second in the Trilogy of which the Minos was first.48

Explanations of the word Law — confusion in its meaning.

Whoever has followed the abstract of the Minos, which I have just given, will remark the different explanations of the word Law — both those which are disallowed, and that which is preferred, though left incomplete, by Sokrates. On this same subject, there are in many writers, modern as well an ancient, two distinct modes of confusion traceable — pointed out by eminent recent jurists, such as Mr. Bentham, Mr. Austin, and Mr. Maine. 1. Between Law as it is, and Law as it ought to be. 2. Between Laws Imperative, set by intelligent rulers, and enforced by penal sanction — and Laws signifying uniformities of fact expressed in general terms, such as the Law of Gravitation, Crystallisation, &c. — We can hardly say that in the dialogue Minos, Plato falls into the first of these two modes of confusion: for he expressly says that he only recognises the Ideal of Law, or Law as it ought to be (actual Laws everywhere being disallowed, except in so far as they conform thereunto). But he does fall into the second, when he identifies the Lawful with the Real or Existent. His Ideal stands in place of generalisations of fact.

There is also much confusion, if we compare the Minos with other dialogues; wherein Plato frequently talks of Laws as the 92laws and customs actually existing or imperative in any given state — Athens, Sparta, or elsewhere (Νόμος = τὰ νομιζόμενα, according to the first words in the Minos). For example, in the harangue which he supposes to be addressed to Sokrates in the Kriton, and which he invests with so impressive a character — the Laws of Athens are introduced as speakers: but according to the principles laid down in the Minos, three-fourths of the Laws of Athens could not be regarded as laws at all. If therefore we take Plato’s writings throughout, we shall not find that he is constant to one uniform sense of the word Law, or that he escapes the frequent confusion between Law as it actually exists and Law as it ought to be.49

APPENDIX.

In continuing to recognise Hipparchus and Minos as Platonic works, contrary to the opinion of many modern critics, I have to remind the reader, not only that both are included in the Canon of Thrasyllus, but that the Minos was expressly acknowledged by Aristophanes of Byzantium, and included by him among the Trilogies: showing that it existed then (220 B.C.) in the Alexandrine Museum as a Platonic work. The similarity between the Hipparchus and Minos is recognised by all the Platonic critics, most of whom declare that both of them are spurious. Schleiermacher affirms and vindicates this opinion in his Einleitung and notes: but it will be convenient to take the arguments advanced to prove the spuriousness, as they are set forth by M. Boeckh, in his “Comment. in Platonis qui vulgo fertur Minoem”: in which treatise, though among his early works, the case is argued with all that copious learning and critical ability, which usually adorn his many admirable contributions to the improvement of philology.

M. Boeckh not only rejects the pretensions of Hipparchus and Minos to be considered as works of Plato, but advances an affirmative hypothesis to show what they are. He considers these two dialogues, together with those De Justo, and De Virtute (two short dialogues in the pseudo-Platonic list, not recognised by Thrasyllus) as among the dialogues published by Simon; an Athenian citizen and a shoemaker by trade, in whose shop Sokrates is said to have held many of his conversations. Simon is reported to have made many notes of these conversations, and to have composed and published, from them, a volume of thirty-three dialogues (Diog. L. ii. 122), among the titles of which there are two — Περὶ Φιλκερδοῦς and Περὶ Νόμου. Simon was, of course, contemporary with Plato; but somewhat older in years. With this part of M. Boeckh’s treatise, respecting the supposed authorship of Simon, I have nothing to do. I only notice the arguments by which he proposes to show that Hipparchus and Minos are not works of Plato.

In the first place, I notice that M. Boeckh explicitly recognises them 94as works of an author contemporary with Plato, not later than 380 B.C. (p. 46). Hereby many of the tests, whereby we usually detect spurious works, become inapplicable.

In the second place, he admits that the dialogues are composed in good Attic Greek, suitable to the Platonic age both in character and manners — “At veteris esse et Attici scriptoris, probus sermo, antiqui mores, totus denique character, spondeat,” p. 32.

The reasons urged by M. Boeckh to prove the spuriousness of the Minos, are first, that it is unlike Plato — next, that it is too much like Plato. “Dupliciter dialogus a Platonis ingenio discrepat: partim quod parum, partim quod nimium, similis ceteris ejusdem scriptis sit. Parum similis est in rebus permultis. Nam cum Plato adhuc vivos ac videntes aut nuper defunctos notosque homines, ut scenicus poeta actores, moribus ingeniisque accurate descriptis, nominatim producat in medium — in isto opusculo cum Socrate colloquens persona plané incerta est ac nomine carens: quippe cum imperitus scriptor esset artis illius colloquiis suis dulcissimas veneres illas inferendi, quæ ex peculiaribus personarum moribus pingendis redundant, atque à Platone ut flores per amplos dialogorum hortos sunt disseminatæ” (pp. 7-8): again, p. 9, it is complained that there is an “infinitus secundarius collocutor” in the Hipparchus.

Now the sentence, just transcribed from M. Boeckh, shows that he had in his mind as standard of comparison, a certain number of the Platonic works, but that he did not take account of all of them. The Platonic Protagoras begins with a dialogue between Sokrates and an unknown, nameless person; to whom Sokrates, after a page of conversation with him, recounts what has just passed between himself, Protagoras, and others. Next, if we turn to the Sophistês and Politikus, we find that in both of them, not simply the secundarius collocutor, but even the principal speaker, is an unknown and nameless person, described only as a Stranger from Elea, and never before seen by Sokrates. Again, in the Leges, the principal speaker is only an Ἀθηναῖος ξένος, without a name. In the face of such analogies, it is unsafe to lay down a peremptory rule, that no dialogue can be the work of Plato, which acknowledges as collocutor an unnamed person.

Then again — when M. Boeckh complains that the Hipparchus and Minos are destitute of those “flores et dulcissimæ Veneres” which Plato is accustomed to spread through his dialogues — I ask, Where are the “dulcissimæ Veneres” in the Parmenidês, Sophistês, Politikus, Leges, Timæus, Kritias? I find none. The presence of “dulcissimæ Veneres” is not a condition sine quâ non, in every composition which 95pretends to Plato as its author: nor can the absence of them be admitted as a reason for disallowing Hipparchus and Minos.

The analogy of the Sophistês and Politikus (besides Symposium, Republic, and Leges) farther shows, that there is nothing wonderful in finding the titles of Hipparchus and Minos derived from the subjects (Περὶ Φιλκερδοῦς and Περὶ Νόμου), not from the name of one of the collocutors:— whether we suppose the titles to have been bestowed by Plato himself, or by some subsequent editor (Boeckh, p. 10).

To illustrate his first ground of objection — Dissimilarity between the Minos and the true Platonic writings — M. Boeckh enumerates (pp. 12-23) several passages of the dialogue which he considers unplatonic. Moreover, he includes among them (p. 12) examples of confused and illogical reasoning. I confess that to me this evidence is noway sufficient to prove that Plato is not the author. That certain passages may be picked out which are obscure, confused, inelegant — is certainly no sufficient evidence. If I thought so, I should go along with Ast in rejecting the Euthydêmus, Menon, Lachês, Charmidês, Lysis, &c., against all which Ast argues as spurious, upon evidence of the same kind. It is not too much to say, that against almost every one of the dialogues, taken severally, a case of the same kind, more or less plausible, might be made out. You might in each of them find passages peculiar, careless, awkwardly expressed. The expression τὴν ἀνθρωπείαν ἀγέλην τοῦ σώματος, which M. Boeckh insists upon so much as improper, would probably have been considered as a mere case of faulty text, if it had occurred in any other dialogue: and so it may fairly be considered in the Minos.

Moreover as to faults of logic and consistency in the reasoning, most certainly these cannot be held as proving the Minos not to be Plato’s work. I would engage to produce, from most of his dialogues, defects of reasoning quite as grave as any which the Minos exhibits. On the principle assumed by M. Boeckh, every one who agreed with Panætius in considering the elaborate proof given in the Phædon, of the immortality of the soul, as illogical and delusive — would also agree with Panætius in declaring that the Phædon was not the work of Plato. It is one question, whether the reasoning in any dialogue be good or bad: it is another question, whether the dialogue be written by Plato or not. Unfortunately, the Platonic critics often treat the first question as if it determined the second.

M. Boeckh himself considers that the evidence arising from dissimilarity (upon which I have just dwelt) is not the strongest part of his case. He relies more upon the evidence arising from too much similarity,96 as proving still more clearly the spuriousness of the Minos. “Jam pergamus ad alteram partem nostræ argumentationis, eamque etiam firmiorem, de nimia similitudine Platonicorum aliquot locorum, quæ imitationem doceat subesse. Nam de hoc quidem conveniet inter omnes doctos et indoctos, Platonem se ipsum haud posse imitari: nisi si quis dubitet de sanâ ejus mente” (p. 23). Again, p. 26, “Jam vero in nostro colloquio Symposium, Politicum, Euthyphronem, Protagoram, Gorgiam, Cratylum, Philêbum, dialogos expressos ac tantum non compilatos reperies”. And M. Boeckh goes on to specify various passages of the Minos, which he considers to have been imitated, and badly imitated, from one or other of these dialogues.

I cannot agree with M. Boeckh in regarding this nimia similitudo as the strongest part of his case. On the contrary, I consider it as the weakest: because his own premisses (in my judgment) not only do not prove his conclusion, but go far to prove the opposite. When we find him insisting, in such strong language, upon the great analogy which subsists between the Minos and seven of the incontestable Platonic dialogues, this is surely a fair proof that its author is the same as their author. To me it appears as conclusive as internal evidence ever can be; unless there be some disproof aliunde to overthrow it. But M. Boeckh produces no such disproof. He converts these analogies into testimony in his own favour, simply by bestowing upon them the name imitatio, — stulta imitatio (p. 27). This word involves an hypothesis, whereby the point to be proved is assumed — viz.: difference of authorship. “Plato cannot have imitated himself” (M. Boeckh observes). I cannot admit such impossibility, even if you describe the fact in that phrase: but if you say “Plato in one dialogue thought and wrote like Plato in another” — you describe the same fact in a different phrase, and it then appears not merely possible but natural and probable. Those very real analogies, to which M. Boeckh points in the word imitatio, are in my judgment cases of the Platonic thought in one dialogue being like the Platonic thought in another. The similitudo, between Minos and these other dialogues, can hardly be called nimia, for M. Boeckh himself points out that it is accompanied with much difference. It is a similitude, such as we should expect between one Platonic dialogue and another: with this difference, that whereas, in the Minos, Plato gives the same general views in a manner more brief, crude, abrupt — in the other dialogues he works them out with greater fulness of explanation and illustration, and some degree of change not unimportant. That there should be this amount of difference between one dialogue of Plato and another appears to me perfectly natural. On the other hand — that there should have been a 97contemporary falsarius (scriptor miser, insulsus, vilissimus, to use phrases of M. Boeckh), who studied and pillaged the best dialogues of Plato, for the purpose of putting together a short and perverted abbreviation of them — and who contrived to get his miserable abbreviation recognised by the Byzantine Aristophanes among the genuine dialogues notwithstanding the existence of the Platonic school — this, I think highly improbable.

I cannot therefore agree with M. Boeckh in thinking, that “ubique se prodens Platonis imitatio” (p. 31) is an irresistible proof of spuriousness: nor can I think that his hypothesis shows itself to advantage, when he says, p. 10 — “Ipse autem dialogus (Minos) quum post Politicum compositus sit, quod quædam in eo dicta rebus ibi expositis manifesté nitantur, ut paullo post ostendemus — quis est qui artificiosissimum philosophum, postquam ibi (in Politico) accuratius de naturâ legis egisset, de eâ iterum putet negligenter egisse?” — I do not think it so impossible as it appears to M. Boeckh, that a philosopher, after having written upon a given subject accuratius, should subsequently write upon it negligenter. But if I granted this ever so fully, I should still contend that there remains another alternative. The negligent workmanship may have preceded the accurate: an alternative which I think is probably the truth, and which has nothing to exclude it except M. Boeckh’s pure hypothesis, that the Minos must have been copied from the Politikus.

While I admit then that the Hipparchus and Minos are among the inferior and earlier compositions of Plato, I still contend that there is no ground for excluding them from the list of his works. Though the Platonic critics of this century are for the most part of an adverse opinion, I have with me the general authority of the critics anterior to this century — from Aristophanes of Byzantium down to Bentley and Ruhnken — see Boeckh, pp. 7-32.

Yxem defends the genuineness of the Hipparchus — (Ueber Platon’s Kleitophon, p. 8. Berlin, 1846).

98

CHAPTER XV.

THEAGES.

Theagês — has been declared spurious by some modern critics — grounds for such opinion not sufficient.

This is among the dialogues declared by Schleiermacher, Ast, Stallbaum, and various other modern critics, to be spurious and unworthy of Plato: the production of one who was not merely an imitator, but a bad and silly imitator.1 Socher on the other hand defends the dialogue against them, reckoning it as a juvenile production of Plato.2 The arguments which are adduced to prove its spuriousness appear to me altogether insufficient. It has some features of dissimilarity with that which we read in other dialogues — these the above-mentioned critics call un-Platonic: it has other features of similarity — these they call bad imitation by a falsarius: lastly, it is inferior, as a performance, to the best of the Platonic dialogues. But I am prepared to expect (and have even the authority of Schleiermacher for expecting) that some dialogues will be inferior to others. I also reckon with certainty, that between two dialogues, both genuine, there will be points of similarity as well as points of dissimilarity. Lastly, the critics find marks of a bad, recent, un-Platonic style: but Dionysius of Halikarnassus — a judge at least equally competent upon such a matter — found no such marks. He expressly cites the dialogue as the work of 99Plato,3 and explains the peculiar phraseology assigned to Demodokus by remarking, that the latter is presented as a person of rural habits and occupations.

Persons of the dialogue — Sokrates, with Demodokus and Theagês, father and son. Theagês (the son), eager to acquire knowledge, desires to be placed under the teaching of a Sophist.

Demodokus, an elderly man (of rank and landed property), and his youthful son Theagês, have come from their Deme to Athens, and enter into conversation with Sokrates: to whom the father explains, that Theagês has contracted, from the conversation of youthful companions, an extraordinary ardour for the acquisition of wisdom. The son has importuned his father to put him under the tuition of one of the Sophists, who profess to teach wisdom. The father, though not unwilling to comply with the request, is deterred by the difficulty of finding a good teacher and avoiding a bad one. He entreats the advice of Sokrates, who invites the young man to explain what it is that he wants, over and above the usual education of an Athenian youth of good family (letters, the harp, wrestling, &c.), which he has already gone through.4

Sokrates questions Theagês, inviting him to specify what he wants.

Sokr. — You desire wisdom: but what kind of wisdom? That by which men manage chariots? or govern horses? or pilot ships? Theag. — No: that by which men are governed. Sokr. — But what men? those in a state of sickness — or those who are singing in a chorus — or those who are under gymnastic training? Each of 100these classes has its own governor, who bears a special title, and belongs to a special art by itself — the medical, musical, gymnastic, &c. Theag. — No: I mean that wisdom by which we govern, not these classes alone, but all the other residents in the city along with them — professional as well as private — men as well as women.5

Theagês desires to acquire that wisdom by which he can govern freemen with their own consent.

Sokrates now proves to Theagês, that this function and power which he is desirous of obtaining, is, the function and power of a despot: and that no one can aid him in so culpable a project. I might yearn (says Theagês) for such despotic power over all: so probably would you and every other man. But it is not that to which I now aspire. I aspire to govern freemen, with their own consent; as was done by Themistokles, Perikles, Kimon, and other illustrious statesmen,6 who have been accomplished in the political art.

Sokr. — Well, if you wished to become accomplished in the art of horsemanship, you would put yourself under able horsemen: if in the art of darting the javelin, under able darters. By parity of reasoning, since you seek to learn the art of statesmanship, you must frequent able statesmen.7

Incompetence of the best practical statesmen to teach any one else. Theagês requests that Sokrates will himself teach him.

Theag. — No, Sokrates. I have heard of the language which you are in the habit of using to others. You pointed out to them that these eminent statesmen cannot train their own sons to be at all better than curriers: of course therefore they cannot do me any good.8 101Sokr. — But what can your father do for you better than this, Theagês? What ground have you for complaining of him? He is prepared to place you under any one of the best and most excellent men of Athens, whichever of them you prefer. Theag. — Why will not you take me yourself, Sokrates? I look upon you as one of these men, and I desire nothing better.9

Demodokus joins his entreaties with those of Theagês to prevail upon Sokrates to undertake this function. But Sokrates in reply says that he is less fit for it than Demodokus himself, who has exercised high political duties, with the esteem of every one; and that if practical statesmen are considered unfit, there are the professional Sophists, Prodikus, Gorgias, Polus, who teach many pupils, and earn not merely good pay, but also the admiration and gratitude of every one — of the pupils as well as their senior relatives.10

Sokrates declares that he is not competent to teach — that he knows nothing except about matters of love. Theagês maintains that many of his young friends have profited largely by the conversation of Sokrates.

Sokr. — I know nothing of the fine things which these Sophists teach: I wish I did know. I declare everywhere, that I know nothing whatever except one small matter — what belongs to love. In that, I surpass every one else, past as well as present.11 Theag. — Sokrates is only mocking us. I know youths (of my own age and somewhat older), who were altogether worthless and inferior to every one, before they went to him; but who, after they had frequented his society, became in a short time superior to all their former rivals. The like will happen with me, if he will only consent to receive me.12

Sokrates explains how this has sometimes happened — he recites his experience of the divine sign or Dæmon.

Sokr. — You do not know how this happens; I will explain it to you. From my childhood, I have had a peculiar superhuman something attached to me by divine appointment: a voice, which, whenever it occurs, warns me to abstain from that which I am 102about to do, but never impels me.13 Moreover, when any one of my friends mentions to me what he is about to do, if the voice shall then occur to me it is a warning for him to abstain. The examples of Charmides and Timarchus (here detailed by Sokrates) prove what I say: and many persons will tell you how truly I forewarned them of the ruin of the Athenian armament at Syracuse.14 My young friend Sannion is now absent, serving on the expedition under Thrasyllus to Ionia: on his departure, the divine sign manifested itself to me, and I am persuaded that some grave calamity will befall him.

The Dæmon is favourable to some persons, adverse to others. Upon this circumstance it depends how far any companion profits by the society of Sokrates. Aristeides has not learnt anything from Sokrates, yet has improved much by being near to him.

These facts I mention to you (Sokrates continues) because it is that same divine power which exercises paramount influence over my intercourse with companions.15 Towards many, it is positively adverse; so that I cannot even enter into companionship with them. Towards others, it does not forbid, yet neither does it co-operate: so that they derive no benefit from me. There are others again in whose case it co-operates; these are the persons to whom you allude, who make rapid progress.16 With some, such improvement is lasting: others, though they improve wonderfully while in my society, yet relapse into commonplace men when they leave me. Aristeides, for example (grandson of Aristeides the Just), was one of those who made rapid progress while he was with me. But he was forced to absent himself on military service; and on returning, he found as my companion Thucydides (son of Melesias), who however had quarrelled with me for some debate of the day before. I understand (said Aristeides to me) that Thucydides has taken offence and gives himself airs; he forgets what a poor creature he was, before he came to you.17 I 103myself, too, have fallen into a despicable condition. When I left you, I was competent to discuss with any one and make a good figure, so that I courted debate with the most accomplished men. Now, on the contrary, I avoid them altogether — so thoroughly am I ashamed of my own incapacity. Did the capacity (I, Sokrates, asked Aristeides) forsake you all at once, or little by little? Little by little, he replied. And when you possessed it (I asked), did you get it by learning from me? or in what other way? I will tell you, Sokrates (he answered), what seems incredible, yet is nevertheless true.18 I never learnt from you any thing at all. You yourself well know this. But I always made progress, whenever I was along with you, even if I were only in the same house without being in the same room; but I made greater progress, if I was in the same room — greater still, if I looked in your face, instead of turning my eyes elsewhere — and the greatest of all, by far, if I sat close and touching you. But now (continued Aristeides) all that I then acquired has dribbled out of me.19

Theagês expresses his anxiety to be received as the companion of Sokrates.

Sokr. — I have now explained to you, Theagês, what it is to become my companion. If it be the pleasure of the God, you will make great and rapid progress: if not, not. Consider, therefore, whether it is not safer for you to seek instruction from some of those who are themselves masters of the benefits which they impart, rather than to take your chance of the result with me.20 Theag. — I shall be glad, Sokrates, to become your companion, and to make trial of this divine coadjutor. If he shows himself propitious, that will be the best of all: if not, we can then take counsel, whether I shall try to propitiate him by prayer, sacrifice, or any other means which the prophets may recommend or whether I shall go to some other teacher.21

104 Remarks on the Theagês — analogy with the Lachês.

The Theagês figured in the list of Thrasyllus as first in the fifth Tetralogy: the other three members of the same Tetralogy being Charmidês, Lachês, Lysis. Some persons considered it suitable to read as first dialogue of all.22 There are several points of analogy between the Theagês and the Lachês, though with a different turn given to them. Aristeides and Thucydides are mentioned in both of them: Sokrates also is solicited to undertake the duty of teacher. The ardour of the young Theagês to acquire wisdom reminds us of Hippokrates at the beginning of the Protagoras. The string of questions put by Sokrates to Theagês, requiring that what is called wisdom shall be clearly defined and specialised, has its parallel in many of the Platonic dialogues. Moreover the declaration of Sokrates, that he knows nothing except about matters of love, but that in them he is a consummate master — is the same as what he explicitly declares both in the Symposion and other dialogues.23

Chief peculiarity of the Theagês — stress laid upon the divine sign or Dæmon.

But the chief peculiarity of the Theagês consists in the stress which is laid upon the Dæmon, the divine voice, the inspiration of Sokrates. This divine auxiliary is here described, not only as giving a timely check or warning to Sokrates, when either he or his friends contemplated any inauspicious project — but also as intervening, in the case of those youthful companions with whom he conversed, to promote the improvement of one, to obstruct that of others; so that whether Sokrates will produce any effect or not in improving any one, depends neither upon his own efforts nor upon those of the recipient, but upon the unpredictable concurrence of a divine agency.24

Plato employs this divine sign here to render some explanation of the singularity and eccentricity of Sokrates, and of his unequal influence upon different companions.

Plato employs the Sokratic Dæmon, in the Theagês, for a philosophical purpose, which, I think, admits of reasonable explanation. During the eight (perhaps ten) years of his personal communion with Sokrates, 105he had had large experience of the variable and unaccountable effect produced by the Sokratic conversation upon different hearers: a fact which is also attested by the Xenophontic Memorabilia. This difference of effect was in no way commensurate to the unequal intelligence of the hearers. Chærephon, Apollodôrus, Kriton, seem to have been ordinary men:—25 while Kritias and Alkibiades, who brought so much discredit both upon Sokrates and his teaching, profited little by him, though they were among the ablest pupils that he ever addressed: moreover Antisthenes, and Aristippus, probably did not appear to Plato (since he greatly dissented from their philosophical views) to have profited much by the common companionship with Sokrates. Other companions there must have been also personally known to Plato, though not to us: for we must remember that Sokrates passed his whole day in talking with all listeners. Now when Plato in after life came to cast the ministry of Sokrates into dramatic scenes, and to make each scene subservient to the illustration of some philosophical point of view, at least a negative — he was naturally led to advert to the Dæmon or divine inspiration, which formed so marked a feature in the character of his master. The concurrence or prohibition of this divine auxiliary served to explain why it was that the seed, sown broadcast by Sokrates, sometimes fructified, and sometimes did not fructify, or speedily perished afterwards — when no sufficient explanatory peculiarity could be pointed out in the ground on which it fell. It gave an apparent reason for the perfect singularity of the course pursued by Sokrates: for his preternatural acuteness in one direction, and his avowed incapacity in another: for his mastery of the Elenchus, convicting men of ignorance, and his inability to supply them with knowledge: for his refusal to undertake the duties of a teacher. All these are mysterious features of the Sokratic character. The intervention of the Dæmon appears to afford an explanation, by converting them into religious mysteries: which, though it be no explanation at all, yet is equally efficacious by stopping the mouth of the questioner, and by making him believe that it is guilt and impiety to 106ask for explanation — as Sokrates himself declared in regard to astronomical phenomena, and as Herodotus feels, when his narrative is crossed by strange religious legends.26

Sokrates, while continually finding fault with other teachers, refused to teach himself — difficulty of finding an excuse for his refusal. The Theagês furnishes an excuse.

In this manner, the Theagês is made by Plato to exhibit one way of parrying the difficulty frequently addressed to Sokrates by various hearers: “You tell us that the leading citizens cannot even teach their own sons, and that the Sophists teach nothing worth having: you perpetually call upon us to seek for better teachers, without telling us where such are to be found. We entreat you to teach us yourself, conformably to your own views.”

If a leader of political opposition, after years employed in denouncing successive administrators as ignorant and iniquitous, refuses, when invited, to take upon himself the business of administration — an intelligent admirer must find some decent pretence to colour the refusal. Such a pretence is found for Sokrates in the Theagês: “I am not my own master on this point. I am the instrument of a divine ally, without whose active working I can accomplish nothing: who forbids altogether my teaching of one man — tolerates, without assisting, my unavailing lessons to another — assists efficaciously in my teaching of a third, in which case alone the pupil receives any real benefit. The assistance of this divine ally is given or withheld according to motives of his own, which I cannot even foretell, much less influence. I should deceive you therefore if I undertook to teach, when I cannot tell whether I shall do good or harm.”

The reply of Theagês meets this scruple. He asks permission to make the experiment, and promises to propitiate the divine auxiliary by prayer and sacrifice; under which reserve Sokrates gives consent.

Plato does not always, nor in other dialogues, allude to the divine sign in the same way. Its character and working essentially impenetrable. Sokrates a privileged person.

It is in this way that the Dæmon or divine auxiliary serves the purpose of reconciling what would otherwise be an inconsistency in the proceedings of Sokrates. I mean, that such is the purpose served in this dialogue: I know perfectly that Plato deals with the 107case differently elsewhere: but I am not bound (as I have said more than once) to force upon all the dialogues one and the same point of view. That the agency of the Gods was often and in the most important cases, essentially undiscoverable and unpredictable, and that in such cases they might sometimes be prevailed on to give special warnings to favoured persons — were doctrines which the historical Sokrates in Xenophon asserts with emphasis.27 The Dæmon of Sokrates was believed, both by himself and his friends, to be a special privilege and an extreme case of divine favour and communication to him.28 It was perfectly applicable to the scope of the Theagês, though Plato might not choose always to make the same employment of it. It is used in the same general way in the Theætêtus;29 doubtless with less expansion, and blended with another analogy (that of the mid-wife) which introduces a considerable difference.30

108

APPENDIX.

Τὸ δαιμόνιον σημεῖον.

Here is one of the points most insisted on by Schleiermacher and Stallbaum, as proving that the Theagês is not the work of Plato. These critics affirm (to use the language of Stallbaum, Proleg. p. 220) “Quam Plato alias de Socratis dæmonio prodidit sententiam, ea longissimè recedit ab illâ ratione, quæ in hoc sermone exposita est”. He says that the representation of the Dæmon of Sokrates, given in the Theagês, has been copied from a passage in the Theætêtus, by an imitator who has not understood the passage, p. 150, D, E. But Socher (p. 97) appears to me to have shown satisfactorily, that there is no such material difference as these critics affirm between this passage of the Theætêtus and the Theagês. In the Theætêtus, Sokrates declares, that none of his companions learnt any thing from him, but that all of them οἷσπερ ἂν ὁ θεὸς παρείκῃ (the very same term is used at the close of the Theagês — 131 A, ἐὰν μὲν παρείκῃ ἡμῖν — τὸ δαιμόνιον) made astonishing progress and improvement in his company. Stallbaum says, “Itaque ὁ θεὸς, qui ibi memoratur, non est Socratis dæmonium, sed potius deus i.e. sors divina. Quod non perspiciens noster tenebrio protenus illud dæmonium, quod Socrates sibi semper adesse dictitabat, ad eum dignitatis et potentiæ gradum evexit, ut, &c.” I agree with Socher in thinking that the phrase ὁ θεὸς in the Theætêtus has substantially the same meaning as τὸ δαιμόνιον in the Theagês. Both Schleiermacher (Notes on the Apology, p. 432) and Ast (p. 482), have notes on the phrase τὸ δαιμόνιον — and I think the note of Ast is the more instructive of the two. In Plato and Xenophon, the words τὸ δαιμόνιον, τὸ θεῖον, are in many cases undistinguishable in meaning from ὁ δαίμων, ὁ θεός. Compare the Phædrus, 242 E, about θεὸς and θεῖόν τι. Sokrates, in his argument against Meletus in the Apology (p. 27) emphatically argues that no man could believe in any thing δαιμόνιον, without also believing in δαιμόνες. The special θεῖόν τι καὶ 109δαιμόνιον (Apol. p. 31 C), which presented itself in regard to him and his proceedings, was only one of the many modes in which (as he believed) ὁ θεός commanded and stimulated him to work upon the minds of the Athenians:— ἐμοὶ δὲ τοῦτο, ὡς ἐγώ φημι, προστέτακται ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ πράττειν καὶ ἐκ μαντειῶν καὶ ἐξ ἐνυπνίων καὶ παντὶ τρόπῳ, ᾧπέρ τίς ποτε καὶ ἄλλη θεία μοῖρα ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ ὁτιοῦν προσέταξε πράττειν (Apol. p. 33 C). So again in Apol. p. 40 A, B, ἡ εἰωθυῖά μοι μαντικὴ ἡ τοῦ δαιμονίου — and four lines afterwards we read the very same fact intimated in the words, τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ σημεῖον, where Sokratis dæmonium — and Deus — are identified: thus refuting the argument above cited from Stallbaum. There is therefore no such discrepancy, in reference to τὸ δαιμόνιον, as Stallbaum and Schleiermacher contend for. We perceive indeed this difference between them — that in the Theætêtus, the simile of the obstetric art is largely employed, while it is not noticed in the Theagês. But we should impose an unwarrantable restriction upon Plato’s fancy, if we hindered him from working out his variety and exuberance of metaphors, and from accommodating each dialogue to the metaphor predominant with him at the time.

Moreover, in respect to what is called the Dæmon of Sokrates, we ought hardly to expect that either Plato or Xenophon would always be consistent even with themselves. It is unsafe for a modern critic to determine beforehand, by reason or feelings of his own, in what manner either of them would speak upon this mysterious subject. The belief and feeling of a divine intervention was very real on the part of both, but their manner of conceiving it might naturally fluctuate: and there was, throughout all the proceedings of Sokrates, a mixture of the serious and the playful, of the sublime and the eccentric, of ratiocinative acuteness with impulsive superstition — which it is difficult to bring into harmonious interpretation. Such heterogeneous mixture is forcibly described in the Platonic Symposium, pp. 215-222. When we consider how undefined, and undefinable, the idea of this δαιμόνιον was, we cannot wonder if Plato ascribes to it different workings and manifestations at different times. Stallbaum affirms that it is made ridiculous in the Theagês: and Kühner declares that Plutarch makes it ridiculous, in his treatise De Genio Sokratia (Comm. ad. Xenoph. Memor. p. 23). But this is because its agency is described more in detail. You can easily present it in a ridiculous aspect, by introducing it as intervening on petty and insignificant matters. Now it is remarkable, that in the Apology, we are expressly told that it actually did intervene on the most trifling occasions — πάνυ 110ἐπὶ σμικροῖς ἐναντιουμένη. The business of an historian of philosophy is, to describe it as it was really felt and believed by Sokrates and Plato — whether a modern critic may consider the description ridiculous or not.

When Schleiermacher says (Einleitung, p. 248), respecting the falsarius whom he supposes to have written the Theagês — “Damit ist ihm begegnet, auf eine höchst verkehrte Art wunderbar zusammenzurühren diese göttliche Schickung, und jenes persönliche Vorgefühl welches dem Sokrates zur göttlichen Stimme ward”. — I contend that the mistake is chargeable to Schleiermacher himself, for bisecting into two phenomena that which appears in the Apology as the same phenomenon under two different names — τὸ δαιμόνιον — τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ σημεῖον. Besides, to treat the Dæmon as a mere “personal presentiment” of Sokrates, may be a true view:— but it is the view of one who does not inhale the same religious atmosphere as Sokrates, Plato, and Xenophon. It cannot therefore be properly applied in explaining their sayings or doings. Kühner, who treats the Theagês as not composed by Plato, grounds this belief partly on the assertion, that the δαιμόνιον of Sokrates is described therein as something peculiar to Sokrates; which, according to Kühner, was the fiction of a subsequent time. By Sokrates and his contemporaries (Kühner says) it was considered “non sibi soli tanquam proprium quoddam beneficium a Diis tributum, sed commune sibi esse cum cæteris hominibus” (pp. 20-21). I dissent entirely from this view, which is contradicted by most of the passages noticed even by Kühner himself. It is at variance with the Platonic Apology, as well as with the Theætêtus (150 D), and Republic (vi. 496 C). Xenophon does indeed try, in the first Chapter of the Memorabilia, as the defender of Sokrates, to soften the invidia against Sokrates, by intimating that other persons had communications from the Gods as well as he. But we see plainly, even from other passages of the Memorabilia, that this was not the persuasion of Sokrates himself, nor of his friends, nor of his enemies. They all considered it (as it is depicted in the Theagês also) to be a special privilege and revelation.

CHAPTER XVI.

ERASTÆ OR ANTERASTÆ — RIVALES.

The main subject of this short dialogue is — What is philosophy? ἡ φιλοσοφία — τὸ φιλοσοφεῖν. How are we to explain or define it? What is its province and purport?

Erastæ — subject and persons of the dialogue — dramatic introduction — interesting youths in the palæstra.

Instead of the simple, naked, self-introducing, conversation, which we read in the Menon, Hipparchus, Minos, &c. Sokrates recounts a scene and colloquy, which occurred when he went into the house of Dionysius the grammatist or school-master,1 frequented by many elegant and high-born youths as pupils. Two of these youths were engaged in animated debate upon some geometrical or astronomical problem, in the presence of various spectators; and especially of two young men, rivals for the affection of one of them. Of these rivals, the one is a person devoted to music, letters, discourse, philosophy:— the other hates and despises these pursuits, devoting himself to gymnastic exercise, and bent on acquiring the maximum of athletic force.2 It is much the same contrast as that between the brothers Amphion and Zethus in the Antiopê of Euripides — which is beautifully employed as an illustration by Plato in the Gorgias.3

Two rival Erastæ — one of them literary, devoted to philosophy — the other gymnastic, hating philosophy.

As soon as Sokrates begins his interrogatories, the two youths relinquish4 their geometrical talk, and turn to him as attentive listeners. Their approach affects his emotions hardly less than those of the Erastes. He first 112enquires from the athletic Erastes, What is it that these two youths are so intently engaged upon? It must surely be something very fine, to judge by the eagerness which they display? How do you mean fine (replies the athlete)? They are only prosing about astronomical matters — talking nonsense — philosophising! The literary rival, on the contrary, treats this athlete as unworthy of attention, speaks with enthusiastic admiration of philosophy, and declares that all those to whom it is repugnant are degraded specimens of humanity.

Question put by Sokrates — What is philosophy? It is the perpetual accumulation of knowledge, so as to make the largest sum total.

Sokr. — You think philosophy a fine thing? But you cannot tell whether it is fine or not, unless you know what it is.5 Pray explain to me what philosophy is. Erast. — I will do so readily. Philosophy consists in the perpetual growth of a man’s knowledge — in his going on perpetually acquiring something new, both in youth and in old age, so that he may learn as much as possible during life. Philosophy is polymathy.6 Sokr. — You think philosophy not only a fine thing, but good? Erast. — Yes — very good. Sokr. — But is the case similar in regard to gymnastic? Is a man’s bodily condition benefited by taking as much exercise, or as much nourishment, as possible? Is such very great quantity good for the body?7

In the case of the body, it is not the maximum of exercise which does good, but the proper, measured quantity. For the mind also, it is not the maximum of knowledge, but the measured quantity which is good. Who is the judge to determine this measure?

It appears after some debate (in which the other or athletic Erastes sides with Sokrates8) that in regard to exercise and food it is not the great quantity or the small quantity, which is good for the body — but the moderate or measured quantity.9 For the mind, the case is admitted to be similar. Not the much, nor the little, of learning is good for it but the right or measured amount. Sokr. — And who is the competent judge, 113how much of either is right measure for the body? Erast. — The physician and the gymnastic trainer. Sokr. — Who is the competent judge, how much seed is right measure for sowing a field? Erast. — The farmer. Sokr. — Who is the competent judge, in reference to the sowing and planting of knowledge in the mind, which varieties are good, and how much of each is right measure?

No answer given. What is the best conjecture? Answer of the literary Erastes. A man must learn that which will yield to him the greatest reputation as a philosopher — as much as will enable him to talk like an intelligent critic, though not to practise.

The question is one which none of the persons present can answer.10 None of them can tell who is the special referee, about training of mind; corresponding to the physician or the farmer in the analogous cases. Sokrates then puts a question somewhat different: Sokr. — Since we have agreed, that the man who prosecutes philosophy ought not to learn many things, still less all things — what is the best conjecture that we can make, respecting the matters which he ought to learn? Erast. — The finest and most suitable acquirements for him to aim at, are those which will yield to him the greatest reputation as a philosopher. He ought to appear accomplished in every variety of science, or at least in all the more important; and with that view, to learn as much of each as becomes a freeman to know:— that is, what belongs to the intelligent critic, as distinguished from the manual operative: to the planning and superintending architect, as distinguished from the working carpenter.11 Sokr. — But you cannot learn even two different arts to this extent — much less several considerable arts. Erast. — I do not of course mean that the philosopher can be supposed to know each of them accurately, like the artist himself — but only as much as may be expected from the free and cultivated citizen. That is, he shall be able to appreciate, better than other hearers, the observations made by the artist: and farther to deliver a reasonable opinion of his own, so as to be accounted, by all the hearers, more accomplished in the affairs of the art than themselves.12

The philosopher is one who is second-best in several different arts — a Pentathlus — who talks well upon each.

Sokr. — You mean that the philosopher is to be second-best in 114several distinct pursuits: like the Pentathlus, who is not expected to equal either the runner or the wrestler in their own separate departments, but only to surpass competitors in the five matches taken together.13 Erast. — Yes — I mean what you say. He is one who does not enslave himself to any one matter, nor works out any one with such strictness as to neglect all others: he attends to all of them in reasonable measure.14

On what occasions can such second-best men be useful? There are always regular practitioners at hand, and no one will call in the second-best man when he can have the regular practitioner.

Upon this answer Sokrates proceeds to cross-examine: Sokr. — Do you think that good men are useful, bad men useless? Erast. — Yes I do. Sokr. — You think that philosophers, as you describe them, are useful? Erast. — Certainly: extremely useful. Sokr. — But tell me on what occasions such second-best men are useful: for obviously they are inferior to each separate artist. If you fall sick will you send for one of them, or for a professional physician? Erast. — I should send for both. Sokr. — That is no answer: I wish to know, which of the two you will send for first and by preference? Erast. — No doubt I shall send for the professional physician. Sokr. — The like also, if you are in danger on shipboard, you will entrust your life to the pilot rather than to the philosopher: and so as to all other matters, as long as a professional man is to be found, the philosopher is of no use? Erast. — So it appears. Sokr. — Our philosopher then is one of the useless persons: for we assuredly have professional men at hand. Now we agreed before, that good men were useful, bad men useless.15 Erast. — Yes; that was agreed.

Philosophy cannot consist in multiplication of learned acquirements.

Sokr. — If then you have correctly defined a philosopher to be one who has a second-rate knowledge on many subjects, he is useless so long as there exist professional artists on each subject. Your definition cannot therefore be correct. Philosophy must be something quite apart from this multifarious and busy meddling with 115different professional subjects, or this multiplication of learned acquirements. Indeed I fancied, that to be absorbed in professional subjects and in variety of studies, was vulgar and discreditable rather than otherwise.16

Let us now, however (continues Sokrates), take up the matter in another way. In regard to horses and dogs, those who punish rightly are also those who know how to make them better, and to discriminate with most exactness the good from the bad? Erast. — Yes: such is the fact.

Sokrates changes his course of examination — questions put to show that there is one special art, regal and political, of administering and discriminating the bad from the good.

Sokr. — Is not the case similar with men? Is it not the same art, which punishes men rightly, makes them better, and best distinguishes the good from the bad? whether applied to one, few, or many? Erast. — It is so.17 Sokr. — The art or science, whereby men punish evil-doers rightly, is the judicial or justice: and it is by the same that they know the good apart from the bad, either one or many. If any man be a stranger to this art, so as not to know good men apart from bad, is he not also ignorant of himself, whether he be a good or a bad man? Erast. — Yes: he is. Sokr. — To be ignorant of yourself, is to be wanting in sobriety or temperance; to know yourself is to be sober or temperate. But this is the same art as that by which we punish rightly — or justice. Therefore justice and temperance are the same: and the Delphian rescript, Know thyself, does in fact enjoin the practice both of justice and of sobriety.18 Erast. — So it appears. Sokr. — Now it is by this same art, when practised by a king, rightly punishing evil-doers, that cities are well governed; it is by the same art practised by a private citizen or house-master, that the house is well-governed: so that this art, justice or sobriety, is at the same time political, regal, economical; and the just and sober man is at once the true king, statesman, house-master.19 Erast. — I admit it.

In this art the philosopher must not only be second-best, competent to talk — but he must be a fully qualified practitioner, competent to act.

Sokr. — Now let me ask you. You said that it was discreditable for the philosopher, when in company with a physician or any other craftsman talking about matters of his own craft, not to be able to follow what he said 116and comment upon it. Would it not also be discreditable to the philosopher, when listening to any king, judge, or house-master, about professional affairs, not to be able to understand and comment? Erast. — Assuredly it would be most discreditable upon matters of such grave moment. Sokr. — Shall we say then, that upon these matters also, as well as all others, the philosopher ought to be a Pentathlus or second-rate performer, useless so long as the special craftsman is at hand? or shall we not rather affirm, that he must not confide his own house to any one else, nor be the second-best within it, but must himself judge and punish rightly, if his house is to be well administered? Erast. — That too I admit.20 Sokr. — Farther, if his friends shall entrust to him the arbitration of their disputes, — if the city shall command him to act as Dikast or to settle any difficulty, — in those cases also it will be disgraceful for him to stand second or third, and not to be first-rate? Erast. — I think it will be. Sokr. — You see then, my friend, philosophy is something very different from much learning and acquaintance with multifarious arts or sciences.21

Close of the dialogue — humiliation of the literary Erastes.

Upon my saying this (so Sokrates concludes his recital of the conversation) the literary one of the two rivals was ashamed and held his peace; while the gymnastic rival declared that I was in the right, and the other hearers also commended what I had said.

Remarks — animated manner of the dialogue.

The antithesis between the philo-gymnast, hater of philosophy, — and the enthusiastic admirer of philosophy, who nevertheless cannot explain what it is — gives much point and vivacity to this short dialogue. This last person is exhibited as somewhat presumptuous and confident; thus affording a sort of excuse for the humiliating 117cross-examination put upon him by Sokrates to the satisfaction of his stupid rival. Moreover, the dramatic introduction is full of animation, like that of the Charmidês and Lysis.

Besides the animated style of the dialogue, the points raised for discussion in it are of much interest. The word philosophy has at all times been vague and ambiguous. Certainly no one before Sokrates — probably no one before Plato — ever sought a definition of it. In no other Platonic dialogue than this, is the definition of it made a special topic of research.

Definition of philosophy — here sought for the first time — Platonic conception of measure — referee not discovered.

It is here handled in Plato’s negative, elenchtic, tentative, manner. By some of his contemporaries, philosophy was really considered as equivalent to polymathy, or to much and varied knowledge: so at least Plato represents it as being considered by Hippias the Sophist, contrary to the opinion of Protagoras.22 The exception taken by Sokrates to a definition founded on simple quantity, without any standard point of sufficiency by which much or little is to be measured, introduces that governing idea of τὸ μέτριον (the moderate, that which conforms to a standard measure) upon which Plato insists so much in other more elaborate dialogues. The conception of a measure, of a standard of measurement — and of conformity thereunto, as the main constituent of what is good and desirable — stands prominent in his mind,23 though it is not always handled in the same way. We have seen it, in the Second Alkibiadês, indicated under another name as knowledge of Good or of the Best: without which, knowledge on special matters was declared to be hurtful rather than useful.24 Plato considers that this Measure is neither discernible nor applicable except by a specially trained intelligence. In the Erastæ as elsewhere, such an intelligence is called for in general terms: but when it is asked, Where is the person possessing such intelligence, available in the case of mental training — neither Sokrates nor any one else can point him out. To suggest a question, and direct 118attention to it, yet still to leave it unanswered — is a practice familiar with Plato. In this respect the Erastæ is like other dialogues. The answer, if any, intended to be understood or divined, is, that such an intelligence is the philosopher himself.

View taken of the second-best critical talking man, as compared with the special proficient and practitioner.

The second explanation of philosophy here given — that the philosopher is one who is second-best in many departments, and a good talker upon all, but inferior to the special master in each — was supposed by Thrasyllus in ancient times to be pointed at Demokritus. By many Platonic critics, it is referred to those persons whom they single out to be called Sophists. I conceive it to be applicable (whether intended or not) to the literary men generally of that age, the persons called Sophists included. That which Perikles expressed by the word, when he claimed the love of wisdom and the love of beauty as characteristic features of the Athenian citizen — referred chiefly to the free and abundant discussion, the necessity felt by every one for talking over every thing before it was done, yet accompanied with full energy in action as soon as the resolution was taken to act.25 Speech, ready and pertinent, free conflict of opinion on many different topics — was the manifestation and the measure of knowledge acquired. Sokrates passed his life in talking, with every one indiscriminately, and upon each man’s particular subject; often perplexing the artist himself. Xenophon recounts conversations with various professional men — a painter, a sculptor, an armourer — and informs us that it was instructive to all of them, though Sokrates was no practitioner in any craft.26 It was not merely Demokritus, but Plato and Aristotle also, who talked or wrote upon almost every subject included in contemporary observation. The voluminous works of Aristotle, — the Timæus, Republic, and Leges, of Plato, — embrace a large variety of subjects, on each of which, severally taken, these two great men were second-best or inferior to some special proficient. Yet both of them had judgments to give, 119which it was important to hear, upon all subjects:27 and both of them could probably talk better upon each than the special proficient himself. Aristotle, for example, would write better upon rhetoric than Demosthenes — upon tragedy, than Sophokles. Undoubtedly, if an oration or a tragedy were to be composed — if resolution or action were required on any real state of particular circumstances — the special proficient would be called upon to act: but it would be a mistake to infer from hence, as the Platonic Sokrates intimates in the Erastæ, that the second-best, or theorizing reasoner, was a useless man. The theoretical and critical point of view, with the command of language apt for explaining and defending it, has a value of its own; distinct from, yet ultimately modifying and improving, the practical. And such comprehensive survey and comparison of numerous objects, without having the attention exclusively fastened or enslaved to any one of them, deserves to rank high as a variety of intelligence whether it be adopted as the definition of a philosopher, or not.

Plato’s view — that the philosopher has a province special to himself, distinct from other specialties — dimly indicated — regal or political art.

Plato undoubtedly did not conceive the definition of the philosopher in the same way as Sokrates. The close of the Erastæ is employed in opening a distant and dim view of the Platonic conception. We are given to understand, that the philosopher has a province of his own, wherein he is not second-best, but a first-rate actor and adviser. To indicate, in many different ways, that there is or must be such a peculiar, appertaining to philosophy — distinct from, though analogous to, the peculiar of each several art — is one leading purpose in many Platonic dialogues. But what is the peculiar of the philosopher? Here, as elsewhere, it is marked out in a sort of misty outline, not as by one who already knows and is familiar with it, but as one who is trying to find it without being sure that he has succeeded. Here, we have it described as the art of discriminating good from evil, governing, and applying penal sanctions rightly. This is the supreme art or 120science, of which the philosopher is the professor; and in which, far from requiring advice from others, he is the only person competent both to advise and to act: the art which exercises control over all other special arts, directing how far, and on what occasions, each of them comes into appliance. It is philosophy, looked at in one of its two aspects: not as a body of speculative truth, to be debated, proved, and discriminated from what cannot be proved or can be disproved — but as a critical judgment bearing on actual life, prescribing rules or giving directions in particular cases, with a view to the attainment of foreknown ends, recognised as expetenda.28 This is what Plato understands by the measuring or calculating art, the regal or political art, according as we use the language of the Protagoras, Politikus, Euthydêmus, Republic. Both justice and sobriety are branches of this art; and the distinction between the two loses its importance when the art is considered as a whole — as we find both in the Erastæ and in the Republic.29

Philosopher — the supreme artist controlling other artists.

Here, in the Erastæ, this conception of the philosopher as the supreme artist controlling all other artists, is darkly indicated and crudely sketched. We shall find the same conception more elaborately illustrated in other dialogues; yet never passing out of that state.

121

APPENDIX.

This is one of the dialogues declared to be spurious by Schleiermacher, Ast, Socher, and Stallbaum, all of them critics of the present century. In my judgment, their grounds for such declaration are altogether inconclusive. They think the dialogue an inferior composition, unworthy of Plato; and they accordingly find reasons, more or less ingenious, for relieving Plato from the discredit of it. I do not think so meanly of the dialogue as they do; but even if I did, I should not pronounce it to be spurious, without some evidence bearing upon that special question. No such evidence, of any value, is produced.

It is indeed contended, on the authority of a passage in Diogenes (ix. 37), that Thrasyllus himself doubted of the authenticity of the Erastæ. The passage is as follows, in his life of Demokritus — εἴπερ οἱ Ἀντερασταὶ Πλάτωνός εἰσι, φησὶ Θράσυλλος, οὗτος ἂν εἴη ὁ παραγενόμενος ἀνώνυμος, τῶν περὶ Οἰνοπίδην καὶ Ἀναξαγόραν ἕτερος, ἐν τῇ πρὸς Σωκράτην ὁμιλίᾳ διαλεγόμενος περὶ φιλοσοφίας· ᾧ, φησίν, ὡς πεντάθλῳ ἔοικεν ὁ φιλόσοφος· καὶ ἦν ὡς ἀληθῶς ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ πένταθλος (Demokritus).

Now in the first place, Schleiermacher and Stallbaum both declare that Thrasyllus can never have said that which Diogenes here makes him say (Schleierm. p. 510; Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad. Erast. p. 266, and not. p. 273).

Next, it is certain that Thrasyllus did consider it the undoubted work of Plato, for he enrolled it in his classification, as the third dialogue in the fourth tetralogy (Diog. L. iii. 59).

Yxem, who defends the genuineness of the Erastæ (Ueber Platon’s Kleitophon, pp. 6-7, Berlin, 1846), insists very properly on this point; not merely as an important fact in itself, but as determining the sense of the words εἴπερ οἱ Ἀντερασταὶ Πλάτωνός εἰσι, and as showing that the words rather affirm, than deny, the authenticity of the dialogue. “If the Anterastæ are the work of Plato, as they are universally admitted to be.” You must supply the parenthesis in this way, in order to make Thrasyllus consistent with himself. Yxem cites a passage 122from Galen, in which εἴπερ is used, and in which the parenthesis must be supplied in the way indicated: no doubt at all being meant to be hinted. And I will produce another passage out of Diogenes himself, where εἴπερ is used in the same way; not as intended to convey the smallest doubt, but merely introducing the premiss for a conclusion immediately following. Diogenes says, respecting the Platonic Ideas, εἴπερ ἐστὶ μνήμη, τὰς ἰδέας ἐν τοῖς οὖσιν ὑπάρχειν (iii. 15). He does not intend to suggest any doubt whether there be such a fact as memory. Εἴπερ is sometimes the equivalent of ἐπειδήπερ: as we learn from Hermann ad Viger. VIII. 6, p. 512.

There is therefore no fair ground for supposing that Thrasyllus doubted the genuineness of the Erastæ. And when I read what modern critics say in support of their verdict of condemnation, I feel the more authorised in dissenting from it. I will cite a passage or two from Stallbaum.

Stallbaum begins his Prolegomena as follows, pp. 205-206: “Quanquam hic libellus genus dicendi habet purum, castum, elegans, nihil ut inveniri queat quod à Platonis aut Xenophontis elegantiâ, abhorreat — tamen quin à Boeckhio, Schleiermachero, Astio, Sochero, Knebelio, aliis jure meritoque pro suppositicio habitus sit, haudquaquam dubitamus. Est enim materia operis adeo non ad Platonis mentem rationemque elaborata, ut potius cuivis alii Socraticorum quam huic rectè adscribi posse videatur.”

After stating that the Erastæ may be divided into two principal sections, Stallbaum proceeds:— “Neutra harum partium ita tractata est, ut nihil desideretur, quod ad justam argumenti explicationem merito requiras — nihil inculcatum reperiatur, quod vel alio modo illustratum vel omnino omissum esse cupias”.

I call attention to this sentence as a fair specimen of the grounds upon which the Platonic critics proceed when they strike dialogues out of the Platonic Canon. If there be anything wanting in it which is required for what they consider a proper setting forth of the argument — if there be anything which they would desire to see omitted or otherwise illustrated — this is with them a reason for deciding that it is not Plato’s work. That is, if there be any defects in it of any kind, it cannot be admitted as Plato’s work; — his genuine works have no defects. I protest altogether against this ratio decidendi. If I acknowledged it and applied it consistently I should strike out every dialogue in the Canon. Certainly, the presumption in favour of the Catalogue of Thrasyllus must be counted as nil, if it will not outweigh such feeble counter-arguments as these.

123One reason given by Stallbaum for considering the Erastæ as spurious is, that the Sophists are not derided in it. “Quis est igitur, qui Platonem sibi persuadeat illos non fuisse castigaturum, et omnino non significaturum, quinam illi essent, adversus quos hanc disputationem instituisset?” It is strange to be called on by learned men to strike out all dialogues from the Canon in which there is no derision of the Sophists. Such derision exists already in excess: we hear until we are tired how mean it is to receive money for lecturing. Again, Stallbaum says that the persons whose opinions are here attacked are not specified by name. But who are the εἰδῶν φίλοι, attacked in the Sophistês? They are not specified by name, and critics differ as to the persons intended.

CHAPTER XVII.

ION.

Ion. Persons of the dialogue. Difference of opinion among modern critics as to its genuineness.

The dialogue called Ion is carried on between Sokrates and the Ephesian rhapsode Ion. It is among those disallowed by Ast, first faintly defended, afterwards disallowed, by Schleiermacher,1 and treated contemptuously by both. Subsequent critics, Hermann,2 Stallbaum, Steinhart, consider it as genuine, yet as an inferior production, of little worth, and belonging to Plato’s earliest years.

Rhapsodes as a class in Greece. They competed for prizes at the festivals. Ion has been triumphant.

I hold it to be genuine, and it may be comparatively early; but I see no ground for the disparaging criticism which has often been applied to it. The personage whom it introduces to us as subjected to the cross-examination of Sokrates is a rhapsode of celebrity; one among a class of artists at that time both useful and esteemed. They recited or sang,3 with appropriate accent and gesture, the compositions of Homer and of other epic poets: thus serving to the Grecian epic, the same purpose as the actors served to the dramatic, and the harp-singers (κιθαρῳδοὶ) to the lyric. There were various solemn festivals such as that of Æsculapius at Epidaurus, and (most especially) the Panathenæa at Athens, where prizes were awarded for the competition of the rhapsodes. Ion is described as having competed triumphantly in the festival at Epidaurus, and carried off the first prize. He appeared there in a splendid costume, crowned 125with a golden wreath, amidst a crowd which is described as containing more than 20,000 persons.4

Functions of the Rhapsodes. Recitation — Exposition of the poets. Arbitrary exposition of the poets was then frequent.

Much of the acquaintance of cultivated Greeks with Homer and the other epic poets was both acquired and maintained through such rhapsodes; the best of whom contended at the festivals, while others, less highly gifted as to vocal power and gesticulation, gave separate declamations and lectures of their own, and even private lessons to individuals.5 Euthydêmus, in one of the Xenophontic conversations with Sokrates, and Antisthenes in the Xenophontic Symposion, are made to declare that the rhapsodes as a class were extremely silly. This, if true at all, can apply only to the expositions and comments with which they accompanied their recital of Homer and other poets. Moreover we cannot reasonably set it down (though some modern critics do so) as so much incontestable truth: we must consider it as an opinion delivered by one of the speakers in the conversation, but not necessarily well founded.6 Unquestionably, the comments made upon Homer (both in that age and afterwards) were often fanciful and misleading. Metrodorus, Anaxagoras, and others, resolved the Homeric narrative into various allegories, physical, ethical, and theological: and most men who had an opinion to defend, rejoiced to be able to support or enforce it by some passages of Homer, well or ill-explained — just as texts of the Bible are quoted in modern times. In this manner, Homer was pressed into the service of every disputant; and the Homeric poems were presented as containing, or at least as implying, doctrines quite foreign to the age in which they were composed.7

The popularity of the Rhapsodes was chiefly derived from their recitation. Powerful effect which they produced.

The Rhapsodes, in so far as they interpreted Homer, were 126probably not less disposed than others to discover in him their own fancies. But the character in which they acquired most popularity, was, not as expositors, but as reciters, of the poems. The powerful emotion which, in the process of reciting, they both felt themselves and communicated to their auditors, is declared in this dialogue: “When that which I recite is pathetic (says Ion), my eyes are filled with tears: when it is awful or terrible, my hair stands on end, and my heart leaps. Moreover I see the spectators also weeping, sympathising with my emotions, and looking aghast at what they hear.”8 This assertion of the vehement emotional effect produced by the words of the poet as declaimed or sung by the rhapsode, deserves all the more credit — because Plato himself, far from looking upon it favourably, either derides or disapproves it. Accepting it as a matter of fact, we see that the influence of rhapsodes, among auditors generally, must have been derived more from their efficacy as actors than from their ability as expositors.

Ion both reciter and expositor — Homer was considered more as an instructor than as a poet.

Ion however is described in this dialogue as combining the two functions of reciter and expositor: a partnership like that of Garrick and Johnson, in regard to Shakspeare. It is in the last of the two functions, that Sokrates here examines him: considering Homer, not as a poet appealing to the emotions of hearers, but as a teacher administering lessons and imparting instruction. Such was the view of Homer entertained by a large proportion of the Hellenic world. In that capacity, his poems served as a theme for rhapsodes, as well as for various philosophers and Sophists who were not rhapsodes, nor accomplished reciters.

Plato disregards and disapproves the poetic or emotional working.

The reader must keep in mind, in following the questions put by Sokrates, that this pædagogic and edifying view of Homer is the only one present to the men of the Sokratic school — and especially to Plato. Of the genuine functions of the gifted poet, who touches the chords of strong and diversified emotion — “qui 127pectus inaniter angit, Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet” (Horat. Epist. II. 1, 212) — Plato takes no account: or rather, he declares open war against them, either as childish delusions9, or as mischievous stimulants, tending to exalt the unruly elements of the mind, and to overthrow the sovereign authority of reason. We shall find farther manifestations on this point in the Republic and Leges.

Ion devoted himself to Homer exclusively. Questions of Sokrates to him — How happens it that you cannot talk equally upon other poets? The poetic art is one.

Ion professes to have devoted himself to the study of Homer exclusively, neglecting other poets: so that he can interpret the thoughts, and furnish reflections upon them, better than any other expositor.10 How does it happen (asked Sokrates) that you have so much to say about Homer, and nothing at all about other poets? Homer may be the best of all poets: but he is still only one of those who exercise the poetic art, and he must necessarily talk about the same subjects as other poets. Now the art of poetry is One altogether — like that of painting, sculpture, playing on the flute, playing on the harp, rhapsodizing, &c.11 Whoever is competent to judge and explain one artist, — what he has done well and what he has done ill, — is competent also to judge any other artist in the same profession.

I cannot explain to you how it happens (replies Ion): I only know the fact incontestably — that when I talk about Homer, my thoughts flow abundantly, and every one tells me that my discourse is excellent. Quite the reverse, when I talk of any other poet.12

Explanation given by Sokrates. Both the Rhapsode and the Poet work, not by art and system, but by divine inspiration. Fine poets are bereft of their reason, and possessed by inspiration from some God.

I can explain it (says Sokrates). Your talent in expounding Homer is not an art, acquired by system and method — otherwise it would have been applicable to other poets besides. It is a special gift, imparted to you by divine power and inspiration. The like is true of the poet whom you expound. His genius does not spring from art, system, or method: it is a special gift emanating128 from the inspiration of the Muses.13 A poet is a light, airy, holy, person, who cannot compose verses at all so long as his reason remains within him.14 The Muses take away his reason, substituting in place of it their own divine inspiration and special impulse, either towards epic, dithyramb, encomiastic hymns, hyporchemata, &c., one or other of these. Each poet receives one of these special gifts, but is incompetent for any of the others: whereas, if their ability had been methodical or artistic, it would have displayed itself in all of them alike. Like prophets, and deliverers of oracles, these poets have their reason taken away, and become servants of the Gods.15 It is not they who, bereft of their reason, speak in such sublime strains: it is the God who speaks to us, and speaks through them. You may see this by Tynnichus of Chalkis; who composed his Pæan, the finest of all Pæans, which is in every one’s mouth, telling us himself, that it was the invention of the Muses — but who never composed anything else worth hearing. It is through this worthless poet that the God has sung the most sublime hymn:16 for the express purpose of showing us that these fine compositions are not human performances at all, but divine: and that the poet is only an interpreter of the Gods, possessed by one or other of them, as the case may be.

Analogy of the Magnet, which holds up by attraction successive stages of iron rings. The Gods first inspire Homer, then act through him and through Ion upon the auditors.

Homer is thus (continues Sokrates) not a man of art or reason, but the interpreter of the Gods; deprived of his reason, but possessed, inspired, by them. You, Ion, are the interpreter of Homer: and the divine inspiration, carrying away your reason, is exercised over you through him. It is in this way that the influence of 129the Magnet is shown, attracting and holding up successive stages of iron rings.17 The first ring is in contact with the Magnet itself: the second is suspended to the first, the third to the second, and so on. The attractive influence of the Magnet is thus transmitted through a succession of different rings, so as to keep suspended several which are a good way removed from itself. So the influence of the Gods is exerted directly and immediately upon Homer: through him, it passes by a second stage to you: through him and you, it passes by a third stage to those auditors whom you so powerfully affect and delight, becoming however comparatively enfeebled at each stage of transition.

This comparison forms the central point of the dialogue. It is an expansion of a judgment delivered by Sokrates in the Apology.

The passage and comparison here given by Sokrates — remarkable as an early description of the working of the Magnet — forms the central point or kernel of the dialogue called Ion. It is an expansion of a judgment delivered by Sokrates himself in his Apology to the Dikasts, and it is repeated in more than one place by Plato.18 Sokrates declares in his Apology that he had applied his testing cross-examination to several excellent poets; and that finding them unable to give any rational account of their own compositions, he concluded that they composed without any wisdom of their own, under the same inspiration as prophets and declarers of oracles. In the dialogue before us, this thought is strikingly illustrated and amplified.

Platonic Antithesis: systematic procedure distinguished from unsystematic: which latter was either blind routine, or madness inspired by the Gods. Varieties of madness, good and bad.

The contrast between systematic, professional, procedure, deliberately taught and consciously acquired, capable of being defended at every step by appeal to intelligible rules founded upon scientific theory, and enabling the person so qualified to impart his qualification to others — and a different procedure purely impulsive and unthinking, whereby the agent, having in his mind a conception of the end aimed at, proceeds from one intermediate step to another, without knowing why he does so or how he has come to do so, and 130without being able to explain his practice if questioned or to impart it to others — this contrast is a favourite one with Plato. The last-mentioned procedure — the unphilosophical or irrational — he conceives under different aspects: sometimes as a blind routine or insensibly acquired habit,19 sometimes as a stimulus applied from without by some God, superseding the reason of the individual. Such a condition Plato calls madness, and he considers those under it as persons out of their senses. But he recognises different varieties of madness, according to the God from whom it came: the bad madness was a disastrous visitation and distemper — the good madness was a privilege and blessing, an inspiration superior to human reason. Among these privileged madmen he reckoned prophets and poets; another variety under the same genus, is, that mental love, between a well-trained adult, and a beautiful, intelligent, youth, which he regards as the most exalted of all human emotions.20 In the Ion, this idea of a privileged madness — inspiration from the Gods superseding reason — is applied not only to the poet, but also to the rhapsode who recites the poem, and even to the auditors whom he addresses. The poet receives the inspiration directly from the Gods: he inoculates the rhapsode with it, who again inoculates the auditors — the fervour is, at each successive communication, diminished. The auditor represents the last of the rings; held in suspension, through the intermediate agency of other rings, by the inherent force of the magnet.21

Special inspiration from the Gods was a familiar fact in Grecian life. Privileged communications from the Gods to Sokrates — his firm belief in them.

We must remember, that privileged communications from the Gods to men, and special persons recipient thereof, were acknowledged and witnessed everywhere as a constant phenomenon of Grecian life. There were not only numerous oracular temples, which every one could visit to ask questions in matters of doubt — but also favoured persons who had received from the Gods the gift of predicting the future, of interpreting omens, of determining the good or bad indications 131furnished by animals sacrificed.22 In every town or village — or wherever any body of men were assembled — there were always persons who prophesied or delivered oracles, and to whom special revelations were believed to be vouchsafed, during periods of anxiety. No one was more familiar with this fact than the Sokratic disciples: for Sokrates himself had perhaps a greater number of special communications from the Gods than any man of his age: his divine sign having begun when he was a child, and continuing to move him frequently, even upon small matters, until his death: though the revelations were for the most part negative, not affirmative — telling him often what was not to be done — seldom what was to be done — resembling in this respect his own dialogues with other persons. Moreover Sokrates inculcated upon his friends emphatically, that they ought to have constant recourse to prophecy: that none but impious men neglected to do so: that the benevolence of the Gods was nowhere more conspicuous than in their furnishing such special revelations and warnings, to persons whom they favoured: that the Gods administered the affairs of the world partly upon principles of regular sequence, so that men by diligent study might learn what they were to expect, — but partly also, and by design, in a manner irregular and undecypherable, such that it could not be fathomed by any human study, and could not be understood except through direct and special revelation from themselves.23

Condition of the inspired person — his reason is for the time withdrawn.

Here, as well as elsewhere, Plato places inspiration, both of the prophet and the poet, in marked contrast with reason and intelligence. Reason is supposed to be for the time withdrawn or abolished, and inspiration is introduced132 by the Gods into its place. “When Monarch Reason sleeps, this mimic wakes.” The person inspired (prophet or poet) becomes for the time the organ of an extraneous agency, speaking what he neither originates nor understands. The genuine gift of prophecy24 (Plato says) attaches only to a disabled, enfeebled, distempered, condition of the intelligence; the gift of poetry is conferred by the Gods upon the most inferior men, as we see by the case of Tynnichus — whose sublime pæan shows us, that it is the Gods alone who utter fine poetry through the organs of a person himself thoroughly incompetent.

Ion does not admit himself to be inspired and out of his mind.

It is thus that Plato, setting before himself a process of systematised reason, — originating in a superior intellect, laying down universal principles and deducing consequences from them — capable of being consistently applied, designedly taught, and defended against objections — enumerates the various mental conditions opposed to it, and ranks inspiration as one of them. In this dialogue, Sokrates seeks to prove that the success of Ion as a rhapsode depends upon his being out of his mind or inspired. But Ion does not accept the compliment: Ion. — You speak well, Sokrates; but I should be surprised if you spoke well enough to create in me the new conviction, that I am possessed and mad when I eulogize Homer. I do not think that you would even yourself say so, if you heard me discourse on the subject.25

Homer talks upon all subjects — Is Ion competent to explain what Homer says upon all of them? Rhapsodic art. What is its province?

Sokr. — But Homer talks upon all subjects. Upon which of them can you discourse? Ion. — Upon all. Sokr. — Not surely on such as belong to special arts, professions. Each portion of the matter of knowledge is included under some special art, and is known through that art by those who possess it. Thus, you and I, both of us, know the number of our fingers; we know it through the same art, which both of us possess — the arithmetical. But Homer talks of matters belonging133 to many different arts or occupations, that of the physician, the charioteer, the fisherman, &c. You cannot know these; since you do not belong to any of these professions, but are a rhapsode. Describe to me what are the matters included in the rhapsodic art. The rhapsodic art is one art by itself, distinct from the medical and others: it cannot know every thing; tell me what matters come under its special province.26 Ion. — The rhapsodic art does not know what belongs to any one of the other special arts: but that of which it takes cognizance, and that which I know, is, what is becoming and suitable to each variety of character described by Homer: to a man or woman — to a freeman or slave — to the commander who gives orders or to the subordinate who obeys them, &c. This is what belongs to the peculiar province of the rhapsode to appreciate and understand.27 Sokr. — Will the rhapsode know what is suitable for the commander of a ship to say to his seamen, during a dangerous storm, better than the pilot? Will the rhapsode know what is suitable for one who gives directions about the treatment of a sick man, better than the physician? Will the rhapsode know what is suitable to be said by the herdsman when the cattle are savage and distracted, or to the female slaves when busy in spinning? Ion. — No: the rhapsode will not know these things so well as the pilot, the physician, the grazier, the mistress, &c.28 Sokr. — Will the rhapsode know what is suitable for the military commander to say, when he is exhorting his soldiers? Ion. — Yes: the rhapsode will know this well: at least I know it well.

The Rhapsode does not know special matters, such as the craft of the pilot, physician, farmer, &c., but he knows the business of the general, and is competent to command soldiers, having learnt it from Homer.

Sokr. — Perhaps, Ion, you are not merely a rhapsode, but possess also the competence for being a general. If you know matters belonging to military command, do you know them in your capacity of general, or in your capacity of rhapsode? Ion. — I think there is no difference. Sokr. — How say you? Do you affirm that the rhapsodic art, and the strategic art, are one? Ion. — I think they are one. Sokr. — Then whosoever is a good rhapsode, is also a good general? Ion. — Unquestionably. Sokr. — And of course, whoever is a good general, 134is also a good rhapsode? Ion. — No: I do not think that. Sokr. — But you do maintain, that whosoever is a good rhapsode, is also a good general? Ion. — Decidedly. Sokr. — You are yourself the best rhapsode in Greece? Ion. — By far. Sokr. — Are you then also the best general in Greece? Ion. — Certainly I am, Sokrates: and that too, by having learnt it from Homer.29

After putting a question or two, not very forcible, to ask how it happens that Ion, being an excellent general, does not obtain a military appointment from Athens, Sparta, or some other city, Sokrates winds up the dialogue as follows:—

Conclusion. Ion expounds Homer, not with any knowledge of what he says, but by divine inspiration.

Well, Ion, if it be really true that you possess a rational and intelligent competence to illustrate the beauties of Homer, you wrong and deceive me, because after promising to deliver to me a fine discourse about Homer, you will not even comply with my preliminary entreaty — that you will first tell me what those matters are, on which your superiority bears. You twist every way like Proteus, until at last you slip through my fingers and appear as a general. If your powers of expounding Homer depend on art and intelligence, you are a wrong-doer and deceiver, for not fulfilling your promise to me. But you are not chargeable with wrong, if the fact be as I say; that is, if you know nothing about Homer, but are only able to discourse upon him finely and abundantly, through a divine inspiration with which you are possessed by him. Choose whether you wish me to regard you as a promise-breaker, or as a divine man. Ion. — I choose the last: it is much better to be regarded as a divine man.30

The generals in Greece usually possessed no professional experience — Homer and the poets were talked of as the great teachers — Plato’s view of the poet, as pretending to know everything, but really knowing nothing.

It seems strange to read such language put into Ion’s mouth (we are not warranted in regarding it as what any rhapsode ever did say), as the affirmation — that every good rhapsode was also a good general, and that he 135had become the best of generals simply through complete acquaintance with Homer. But this is only a caricature of a sentiment largely prevalent at Athens, according to which the works of the poets, especially the Homeric poems, were supposed to be a mine of varied instruction, and were taught as such to youth.31 In Greece, the general was not often required (except at Sparta, and not always even there) to possess professional experience.32 Sokrates, in one of the Xenophontic conversations, tries to persuade Nikomachides, a practised soldier (who had failed in getting himself elected general, because a successful Chorêgus had been preferred to him), how much the qualities of an effective Chorêgus coincided with those of an effective general.33 The poet Sophokles was named by the Athenians one of the generals of the very important armament for reconquering Samos: though Perikles, one of his colleagues, as well as his contemporary declared that he was an excellent poet, but knew nothing of generalship.34 Plato frequently seeks to make it evident how little the qualities required for governing numbers, either civil or military, were made matter of professional study or special teaching. The picture of Homer conveyed in the tenth book of the Platonic Republic is, that of a man who pretends to know 136everything, but really knows nothing: an imitative artist, removed by two stages from truth and reality, — who gives the shadows of shadows, resembling only enough to satisfy an ignorant crowd. This is the picture there presented of poets generally, and of Homer as the best among them. The rhapsode Ion is here brought under the same category as the poet Homer, whom he has by heart and recites. The whole field of knowledge is assumed to be distributed among various specialties, not one of which either of the two can claim. Accordingly, both of them under the mask of universal knowledge, conceal the reality of universal ignorance.

Knowledge, opposed to divine inspiration without knowledge.

Ion is willing enough (as he promises) to exhibit before Sokrates one of his eloquent discourses upon Homer. But Sokrates never permits him to arrive at it: arresting him always by preliminary questions, and requiring him to furnish an intelligible description of the matter which his discourse is intended to embrace, and thus to distinguish it from other matters left untouched. A man who cannot comply with this requisition, — who cannot (to repeat what I said in a previous chapter) stand a Sokratic cross-examination on the subject — possesses no rational intelligence of his own proceedings: no art, science, knowledge, system, or method. If as a practitioner he executes well what he promises (which is often the case), and attains success — he does so either by blind imitation of some master, or else under the stimulus and guidance of some agency foreign to himself — of the Gods or Fortune.

This is the Platonic point of view; developed in several different ways and different dialogues, but hardly anywhere more conspicuously than in the Ion.

Illustration of Plato’s opinion respecting the uselessness of written geometrical treatises.

I have observed that in this dialogue, Ion is anxious to embark on his eloquent expository discourse, but Sokrates will not allow him to begin: requiring as a preliminary stage that certain preliminary difficulties shall first be cleared up. Here we have an illustration of Plato’s doctrine, to which I adverted in a former chapter,35 — that no written geometrical treatise 137could impart a knowledge of geometry to one ignorant thereof. The geometrical writer begins by laying down a string of definitions and axioms; and then strikes out boldly in demonstrating his theorems. But Plato would refuse him the liberty of striking out, until he should have cleared up the preliminary difficulties about the definitions and axioms themselves. This the geometrical treatise does not even attempt.36

CHAPTER XVIII.

LACHES.

The main substance of this dialogue consists of a discussion, carried on by Sokrates with Nikias and Lachês, respecting Courage. Each of the two latter proposes an explanation of Courage: Sokratês criticises both of them, and reduces each to a confessed contradiction.

Lachês. Subject and persons of the dialogue, Whether it is useful that two young men should receive lessons from a master of arms. Nikias and Lachês differ in opinion.

The discussion is invited, or at least dramatically introduced, by two elderly men — Lysimachus, son of Aristeides the Just, — and Melêsias, son of Thucydides the rival of Perikles. Lysimachus and Melêsias, confessing with shame that they are inferior to their fathers, because their education has been neglected, wish to guard against the same misfortune in the case of their own sons: respecting the education of whom, they ask the advice of Nikias and Lachês. The question turns especially upon the propriety of causing their sons to receive lessons from a master of arms just then in vogue. Nikias and Lachês, both of them not merely distinguished citizens but also commanders of Athenian armies, are assumed to be well qualified to give advice. Accordingly they deliver their opinions: Nikias approving such lessons as beneficial, in exalting the courage of a young man, and rendering him effective on the field of battle: while Lachês takes an opposite view, disparages the masters of arms as being no soldiers, and adds that they are despised by the Lacedæmonians, to whose authority on military matters general deference was paid in Greece.1 Sokratês, — commended greatly by 139Nikias for his acuteness and sagacity, by Lachês for his courage in the battle of Delium, — is invited to take part in the consultation. Being younger than both, he waits till they have delivered their opinions, and is then called upon to declare with which of the two his own judgment will concur.2

Sokrates is invited to declare his opinion. He replies that the point cannot be decided without a competent professional judge.

Sokr. — The question must not be determined by a plurality of votes, but by superiority of knowledge.3 If we were debating about the proper gymnastic discipline for these young men, we should consult a known artist or professional trainer, or at least some one who had gone through a course of teaching and practice under the trainer. The first thing to be enquired therefore is, whether, in reference to the point now under discussion, there be any one of us professionally or technically competent, who has studied under good masters, and has proved his own competence as a master by producing well-trained pupils. The next thing is, to understand clearly what it is, with reference to which such competence is required.4 Nikias. — Surely the point before us is, whether it be wise to put these young men under the lessons of the master of arms? That is what we want to know. Sokr. — Doubtless it is: but that is only one particular branch of a wider and more comprehensive enquiry. When you are considering whether a particular ointment is good for your eyes, it is your eyes, and their general benefit, which form the subject of investigation — not the ointment simply. The person to assist you will be, he who understands professionally the general treatment of the eyes. So in this case, you are enquiring whether lessons in arms will be improving for the minds and character of your sons. Look out therefore for some one who is professionally competent, from having studied under good masters, in regard to the general treatment of the mind.5 Lachês. — But there are various persons who, without ever having studied under masters, possess greater technical competence140 than others who have so studied. Sokr. — There are such persons: but you will never believe it upon their own assurance, unless they can show you some good special work actually performed by themselves.

Those who deliver an opinion must begin by proving their competence to judge — Sokrates avows his own incompetence.

Sokr. — Now then, Lysimachus, since you have invited Lachês and Nikias, as well as me, to advise you on the means of most effectively improving the mind of your son, it is for us to show you that we possess competent professional skill respecting the treatment of the youthful mind. We must declare to you who are the masters from whom we have learnt, and we must prove their qualifications. Or if we have had no masters, we must demonstrate to you our own competence by citing cases of individuals, whom we have successfully trained, and who have become incontestably good under our care. If we can fulfil neither of these two conditions, we ought to confess our incompetence and decline advising you. We must not begin to try our hands upon so precious a subject as the son of a friend, at the hazard of doing him more harm than good.6

As to myself, I frankly confess that I have neither had any master to impart to me such competence, nor have I been able to acquire it by my own efforts. I am not rich enough to pay the Sophists, who profess to teach it. But as to Nikias and Lachês, they are both older and richer than I am: so that they may well have learnt it from others, or acquired it for themselves. They must be thoroughly satisfied of their own knowledge on the work of education; otherwise they would hardly have given such confident opinions, pronouncing what pursuits are good or bad for youth. For my part, I trust them implicitly: the only thing which surprises me, is, that they dissent from each other.7 It is for you therefore, Lysimachus, to ask Nikias and Lachês, — Who have been their masters? Who have been their fellow-pupils? If they have been their own masters, what proof can they produce of previous success in teaching, and what examples can they cite of pupils whom they have converted from bad to good?8

141 Nikias and Lachês submit to be cross-examined by Sokrates.

Nikias. — I knew from the beginning that we should both of us fall under the cross-examination of Sokrates, and be compelled to give account of our past lives. For my part, I have already gone through this scrutiny before, and am not averse to undergo it again. Lachês. — And I, though I have never experienced it before, shall willingly submit to learn from Sokrates, whom I know to be a man thoroughly courageous and honest in his actions. I hate men whose lives are inconsistent with their talk.9 — Thus speak both of them.

Both of them give opinions offhand, according to their feelings on the special case — Sokrates requires that the question shall be generalised, and examined as a branch of education.

This portion of the dialogue, which forms a sort of preamble to the main discussion, brings out forcibly some of the Platonic points of view. We have seen it laid down in the Kriton — That in questions about right and wrong, good and evil, &c., we ought not to trust the decision of the Many, but only that of the One Wise Man. Here we learn something about the criteria by which this One man may be known. He must be one who has gone through a regular training under some master approved in ethical or educational teaching: or, if he cannot produce such a certificate, he must at least cite sufficient examples of men whom he has taught well himself. This is the Sokratic comparison, assimilating the general art of living well to the requirements of a special profession, which a man must learn through express teaching, from a master who has proved his ability, and through conscious application of his own. Nikias and Lachês give their opinions offhand and confidently, upon the question whether lessons from the master of arms be profitable to youth or not. Plato, on the contrary, speaking through Sokrates, points out that this is only one branch of the more comprehensive question as to education generally — “What are the qualities and habits proper to be imparted to youth by training? What is the proper treatment of the mind? No one 142is competent to decide the special question, except he who has professionally studied the treatment of the mind.” To deal with the special question, without such preliminary general preparation, involves rash and unverified assumptions, which render any opinion so given dangerous to act upon. Such is the judgment of the Platonic Sokrates, insisting on the necessity of taking up ethical questions in their most comprehensive aspect.

Appeal of Sokrates to the judgment of the One Wise Man — this man is never seen or identified.

Consequent upon this preamble, we should expect that Lachês and Nikias would be made to cite the names of those who had been their masters; or to produce some examples of persons effectively taught by themselves. This would bring us a step nearer to that One Wise Man — often darkly indicated, but nowhere named or brought into daylight — from whom alone we can receive a trustworthy judgment. But here, as in the Kriton and so many other Platonic dialogues, we get only a Pisgah view of our promised adviser — nothing more. The discussion takes a different turn.

We must know what virtue is, before we give an opinion on education. Virtue, as a whole, is too large a question. We will enquire about one branch of virtue — courage.

Sokr. — “We will pursue a line of enquiry which conducts to the same result; and which starts even more decidedly from the beginning.10 We are called upon to advise by what means virtue can be imparted to these youths, so as to make them better men. Of course, this implies that we know what virtue is: otherwise how can we give advice as to the means of acquiring it? Lachês. — We could give no advice at all. Sokr. — We affirm ourselves therefore to know what virtue is? Lachês. — We do. Sokr. — Since therefore we know, we can farther declare what it is.11 Lachês. — Of course we can. Sokr. — Still, we will not at once enquire as to the whole of virtue, which might be an arduous task, but as to a part of it — Courage: that part to which the lessons of the master of arms are supposed to tend. We will 143first enquire what courage is: after that has been determined, we will then consider how it can best be imparted to these youths.”

“Try then if you can tell me, Lachês, what courage is. Lachês. — There is no difficulty in telling you that. Whoever keeps his place in the rank, repels the enemy, and does not run away, is a courageous man.”12

Question — what is courage? Lachês answers by citing one particularly manifest case of courage. Mistake of not giving a general explanation.

Here is the same error in replying, as was committed by Euthyphron when asked, What is the Holy? and by Hippias, about the Beautiful. One particular case of courageous behaviour, among many, is indicated, as if it were an explanation of the whole: but the general feature common to all acts of courage is not declared. Sokrates points out that men are courageous, not merely among hoplites who keep their rank and fight, but also among the Scythian horsemen who fight while running away; others also are courageous against disease, poverty, political adversity, pain and fear of every sort; others moreover, against desires and pleasures. What is the common attribute which in all these cases constitutes Courage? If you asked me what is quickness — common to all those cases when a man runs, speaks, plays, learns, &c., quickly — I should tell you that it was that which accomplished much in a little time. Tell me in like manner, what is the common fact or attribute pervading all cases of courage?

Lachês at first does not understand the question:13 and Sokrates elucidates it by giving the parallel explanation of quickness. Here, as elsewhere, Plato takes great pains to impress the conception in its full generality, and he seems to have found difficulty in making others follow him.

Second answer. Courage is a sort of endurance of the mind. Sokrates points out that the answer is vague and incorrect. Endurance is not always courage: even intelligent endurance is not always courage.

Lachês then gives a general definition of courage. It is a sort of endurance of the mind.14

Surely not all endurance (rejoins Sokrates)? You admit that courage is a fine and honourable thing. 144But endurance without intelligence is hurtful and dishonourable: it cannot therefore be courage. Only intelligent endurance, therefore, can be courage. And then what is meant by intelligent? Intelligent — of what — or to what end? A man, who endures the loss of money, understanding well that he will thereby gain a larger sum, is he courageous? No. He who endures fighting, knowing that he has superior skill, numbers, and all other advantages on his side, manifests more of intelligent endurance, than his adversary who knows that he has all these advantages against him, yet who nevertheless endures fighting. Nevertheless this latter is the most courageous of the two.15 Unintelligent endurance is in this case courage: but unintelligent endurance was acknowledged to be bad and hurtful, and courage to be a fine thing. We have entangled ourselves in a contradiction. We must at least show our own courage, by enduring until we can get right. For my part (replies Lachês) I am quite prepared for such endurance. I am piqued and angry that I cannot express what I conceive. I seem to have in my mind clearly what courage is: but it escapes me somehow or other, when I try to put it in words.16

Sokrates now asks aid from Nikias. Nikias. — My explanation of courage is, that it is a sort of knowledge or intelligence. Sokr. — But what sort of intelligence? Not certainly intelligence of piping or playing the harp. Intelligence of what?

Confusion. New answer given by Nikias. Courage is a sort of intelligence — the intelligence of things terrible and not terrible. Objections of Lachês.

Nikias. — Courage is intelligence of things terrible, and things not terrible, both in war and in all other conjunctures. Lachês. — What nonsense! Courage is a thing totally apart from knowledge or intelligence.17 The intelligent physician knows best what is terrible, and what is not terrible, in reference to disease: the husbandman, in reference to agriculture. But they are not for that reason courageous. Nikias. — They are not; but neither do they know what is terrible, or what is not terrible. Physicians can predict the result of a 145patient’s case: they can tell what may cure him, or what will kill him. But whether it be better for him to die or to recover — that they do not know, and cannot tell him. To some persons, death is a less evil than life:— defeat, than victory:— loss of wealth, than gain. None except the person who can discriminate these cases, knows what is really terrible and what is not so. He alone is really courageous.18 Lachês. — Where is there any such man? It can be only some God. Nikias feels himself in a puzzle, and instead of confessing it frankly as I have done, he is trying to help himself out by evasions more fit for a pleader before the Dikastery.19

Questions of Sokrates to Nikias. It is only future events, not past or present, which are terrible; but intelligence of future events cannot be had without intelligence of past or present.

Sokr. — You do not admit, then, Nikias, that lions, tigers, boars, &c., and such animals, are courageous? Nikias. — No: they are without fear — simply from not knowing the danger — like children: but they are not courageous, though most people call them so. I may call them bold, but I reserve the epithet courageous for the intelligent. Lachês. — See how Nikias strips those, whom every one admits to be courageous, of this honourable appellation! Nikias. — Not altogether, Lachês: I admit you, and Lamachus, and many other Athenians, to be courageous, and of course therefore intelligent. Lachês. — I feel the compliment: but such subtle distinctions befit a Sophist rather than a general in high command.20 Sokr. — The highest measure of intelligence befits one in the highest command. What you have said, Nikias, deserves careful examination. You remember that in taking up the investigation of courage, we reckoned it only as a portion of virtue: you are aware that there are other portions of virtue, such as justice, temperance, and the like. Now you define courage to be, intelligence of what is terrible or not terrible: of that which causes 146fear, or does not cause fear. But nothing causes fear, except future or apprehended evils: present or past evils cause no fear. Hence courage, as you define it, is intelligence respecting future evils, and future events not evil. But how can there be intelligence respecting the future, except in conjunction with intelligence respecting the present and the past? In every special department, such as medicine, military proceedings, agriculture, &c., does not the same man, who knows the phenomena of the future, know also the phenomena of present and past? Are they not all inseparable acquirements of one and the same intelligent mind?21

Courage therefore must be intelligence of good and evil generally. But this definition would include the whole of virtue, and we declared that courage was only a part thereof. It will not hold therefore as a definition of courage.

Since therefore courage, according to your definition, is the knowledge of futurities evil and not evil, or future evil and good — and since such knowledge cannot exist without the knowledge of good and evil generally — it follows that courage is the knowledge of good and evil generally.22 But a man who knows thus much, cannot be destitute of any part of virtue. He must possess temperance and justice as well as courage. Courage, therefore, according to your definition, is not only a part of virtue, it is the whole. Now we began the enquiry by stating that it was only a part of virtue, and that there were other parts of virtue which it did not comprise. It is plain therefore that your definition of courage is not precise, and cannot be sustained. We have not yet discovered what courage is.23

Remarks. Warfare of Sokrates against the false persuasion of knowledge. Brave generals deliver opinions confidently about courage without knowing what it is.

Here ends the dialogue called Lachês, without any positive result. Nothing is proved except the ignorance of two brave and eminent generals respecting the moral attribute known by the name Courage: which nevertheless147 they are known to possess, and have the full sentiment and persuasion of knowing perfectly; so that they give confident advice as to the means of imparting it. “I am unaccustomed to debates like these” (says Lachês): “but I am piqued and mortified — because I feel that I know well what Courage is, yet somehow or other I cannot state my own thoughts in words.” Here is a description24 of the intellectual deficiency which Sokrates seeks to render conspicuous to the consciousness, instead of suffering it to remain latent and unknown, as it is in the ordinary mind. Here, as elsewhere, he impugns the false persuasion of knowledge, and the unconscious presumption of estimable men in delivering opinions upon ethical and social subjects, which have become familiar and interwoven with deeply rooted associations, but have never been studied under a master, nor carefully analysed and discussed, nor looked at in their full generality. This is a mental defect which he pronounces to be universal: belonging not less to men of action like Nikias and Lachês, than to Sophists and Rhetors like Protagoras and Gorgias.

No solution given by Plato. Apparent tendency of his mind, in looking for a solution. Intelligence — cannot be understood without reference to some object or end.

Here, as elsewhere, Plato (or the Platonic Sokrates) exposes the faulty solutions of others, but proposes no better solution of his own, and even disclaims all ability to do so. We may nevertheless trace, in the refutation which he gives of the two unsatisfactory explanations, hints guiding the mind into that direction in which Plato looks to supply the deficiency. Thus when Lachês, after having given as his first answer (to the question, What is Courage?) a definition not even formally sufficient, is put by Sokrates upon giving his second answer, — That Courage is intelligent endurance: Sokrates asks him25 — “Yes, intelligent: but intelligent to 148what end? Do you mean, to all things alike, great as well as little?” We are here reminded that intelligence, simply taken, is altogether undefined; that intelligence must relate to something — and when human conduct is in question, must relate to some end; and that the Something, and the End, to which it relates, must be set forth, before the proposition can be clearly understood.

Object — is supplied in the answer of Nikias. Intelligence — of things terrible and not terrible. Such intelligence is not possessed by professional artists.

Coming to the answer given by Nikias, we perceive that this deficiency is in a certain manner supplied. Courage is said to consist in knowledge: in knowledge of things terrible, and things not terrible. When Lachês applies his cross-examination to the answer, the manner in which Nikias defends it puts us upon a distinction often brought to view, though not always adhered to, in the Platonic writings. There can be no doubt that death, distemper, loss of wealth, defeat, &c. are terrible things (i.e. the prospect of them inspires fear) in the estimation of mankind generally. Correct foresight of such contingencies, and of the antecedents tending to produce or avert them, is possessed by the physician and other professional persons: who would therefore, it should seem, possess the knowledge of things terrible and not terrible. But Nikias denies this. He does not admit that the contingencies here enumerated are, always or necessarily, proper objects of fear. In some cases, he contends, they are the least of two evils. Before you can be said to possess the knowledge of things terrible and not terrible, you must be able to take correct measure not only of the intervening antecedents or means, but also of the end itself as compared with other alternative ends: whether, in each particular case, it be the end most to be feared, or the real evil under the given circumstances. The professional man can do the former, but he cannot do the latter. He advises as to means, and executes: but he assumes his own one end as an indisputable datum. The physician seeks to cure his patient, without ever enquiring whether it may not be a less evil for such patient to die than to survive.

Postulate of a Science of Ends, or Teleology, dimly indicated by Plato. The Unknown Wise Man — correlates with the undiscovered Science of Ends.

The ulterior, yet not less important, estimate of the comparative worth of different ends, is reserved for that unknown master whom Nikias himself does not farther 149specify, and whom Lachês sets aside as nowhere to be found, under the peculiar phrase of “some God”. Subjectively considered, this is an appeal to the judgment of that One Wise Man, often alluded to by Plato as an absent Expert who might be called into court — yet never to be found at the exact moment, nor produced in visible presence: Objectively considered, it is a postulate or divination of some yet undiscovered Teleology or Science of Ends: that Science of the Good, which (as we have already noticed in Alkibiadês II.) Plato pronounces to be the crowning and capital science of all — and without which he there declared, that knowledge on all other topics was useless and even worse than useless.26 The One Wise Man — the Science of Good — are the Subject and Object corresponding to each other, and postulated by Plato. None but the One Wise Man can measure things terrible and not terrible: none else can estimate the good or evil, or the comparative value of two alternative evils, in each individual case. The items here directed to be taken into the calculation, correspond with what is laid down by Sokrates in the Protagoras, not with that laid down in the Gorgias: we find here none of that marked antithesis between pleasure and good — between pain and evil — upon which Sokrates expatiates in the Gorgias.

Perfect condition of the intelligence — is the one sufficient condition of virtue.

This appears still farther when the cross-examination is taken up by Sokrates instead of by Lachês. We are then made to perceive, that the knowledge of things terrible and not terrible is a part, but an inseparable part, of the knowledge of good and evil generally: the lesser cannot be had without the greater — and the greater carries with it not merely courage, but all the other virtues besides. None can know good or evil generally except the perfectly Wise Man. The perfect condition of the Intelligence, is the sole and all-sufficient condition of virtue. None can possess one mode of virtue separately.

This is the doctrine to which the conclusion of the Lachês points, though the question debated is confessedly left without solution. It is a doctrine which seems to have been really maintained150 by the historical Sokrates, and is often implied in the reasonings of the Platonic Sokrates, but not always nor consistently.

Dramatic contrast between Lachês and Sokrates, as cross-examiners.

In reference to this dialogue, the dramatic contrast is very forcible, between the cross-examination carried on by Lachês, and that carried on by Sokrates. The former is pettish and impatient, bringing out no result, and accusing the respondent of cavil and disingenuousness: the latter takes up the same answer patiently, expands it into the full generality wrapped up in it, and renders palpable its inconsistency with previous admissions.

APPENDIX.

Ast is the only critic who declares the Lachês not to be Plato’s work (Platon’s Leben und Schr. pp. 451-456). He indeed even finds it difficult to imagine how Schleiermacher can accept it as genuine (p. 454). He justifies this opinion by numerous reasons — pointing out what he thinks glaring defects, absurdity, and bad taste, both in the ratiocination and in the dramatic handling, also dicta alleged to be un-Platonic. Compare Schleiermacher’s Einleitung zum Lachês, p. 324 seq.

I do not concur with Ast in the estimation of those passages which serve as premisses to his conclusion. But even if I admitted his premisses, I still should not admit his conclusion. I should conclude that the dialogue was an inferior work of Plato, but I should conclude nothing beyond. Stallbaum (Prolegg. ad Lachet. p. 29-30, 2nd ed.) and Socher discover “adolescentiæ vestigia” in it, which are not apparent to me.

Socher, Stallbaum, and K. F. Hermann pass lightly over the objections of Ast; and Steinhart (Einleit. p. 355) declares them to be unworthy of a serious answer. For my part, I draw from these dissensions among the Platonic critics a conviction of the uncertain evidence upon which all of them proceed. Each has his own belief as to what Plato must say, ought to say, and could not have said; and each adjudicates thereupon with a degree of confidence which surprises me. The grounds upon which Ast rejects Lachês, Charmidês, and Lysis, though inconclusive, appear to me not more inconclusive than those on which he and other critics reject the Erastæ, Theagês. Hippias Major, Alkibiadês II., &c.

The dates which Stallbaum, Schleiermacher, Socher, and Steinhart assign to the Lachês (about 406-404 B.C.) are in my judgment erroneous. I have already shown my reasons for believing that not one of the Platonic dialogues was composed until after the death of Sokrates. The hypotheses also of Steinhart (p. 357) as to the special purposes of Plato in composing the dialogue are unsupported by any evidence; 152and are all imagined so as to fit his supposition as to the date. So also Schleiermacher tells us that a portion of the Lachês is intended by Plato as a defence of himself against accusations which had been brought against him, a young man, for impertinence in having attacked Lysias in the Phædrus, and Protagoras in the Protagoras, both of them much older than Plato. But Steinhart justly remarks that this explanation can only be valid if we admit Schleiermacher’s theory that the Phædrus and the Protagoras are earlier compositions than the Lachês, which theory Steinhart and most of the others deny. Steinhart himself adapts his hypotheses to his own idea of the date of the Lachês: and he is open to the same remark as he himself makes upon Schleiermacher.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHARMIDES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All knowledge must be relative to some object.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Different ethical points of view in different Platonic dialogues.

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

Self-knowledge is here declared to be impossible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

APPENDIX.

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XX.

LYSIS.

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

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

Scenery and personages of the Lysis.

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

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

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

Conversation of Sokrates with Lysis.

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