I 2 3 >, i 2 2 2 2» > | 3. H =: >> >» >> > FIND 3) DDD IW) pr) Hy >> 33% ae Ri „Mi | Sgt vy % ave 4 19K, N 4 Ay nf Ue LONDON : PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET SEHE OLDER. ACADEMY TRANSLATED WITH THE AUTHORS SANCTION FROM THE GERMAN AF DR. EDUARD ZELLER BY SARAH FRANCES ALLEYNE AND ALFRED GOODWIN, M.A. Fellow and Lecturer of Balliol College, Oxford LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1876 All rights reserved Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2009 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https ://archive.org/details/platoolderacadem00zell PREFACE. THIS TRANSLATION of Dr. ZuLuur’s ‘ Plato und die ältere Akademie ’—Section 2, Part 2, Vol. II. of his “ Philoso- phie der Griechen ’—has been made from the third and enlarged edition of that work, an earlier portion of which (* Sokrates und die Sokratiker’) has already ap- peared in English in the translation of Dr. Rrıcher. The text has been translated by Miss ALLEYNE, who desires to express her grateful acknowledgments to Dr. ZELLER for his courteous approval of the undertaking. For the notes, and for the revision of the whole, Mr. GooDwin is responsible. _ The references in the notes require some explana- tion: Simple figures, with or without supra or infra, indicate the pages and notes of the English translation. Vol. I. means the first (German) volume of the ¢ Philo- sophie der Griechen,’ and Part I. the Erste Abtheilung of the second volume. Of the value of Dr. Zuuzer’s work in the original, it vi PREFACE. is unnecessary to speak. Professor Jowert has recently borne ample and honourable testimony to it in the preface to the second edition of his Plato. It is hoped that the present translation may be of use to some students of Plato who are perhaps less familiar with German than Greek. CONTENTS. — CHAPTER I. PLATO'S LIFE. Childhood and Youth . Relation to Socrates R Sojourn at Megara. Travels Teaching in the Academy : Attitude to Politics. Second and third ala Gaurneye : Death P » é ? : : - Character CHAPTER II. PLATO'S WRITINGS. General Enquiry into the State of our Collection ; its Completeness Genuineness External Evidence References of Aristotle Review of these Value of their Tesfimony ‘Criterion of Authenticity in Fisionte Weitinga Particular Dialogues 5 Plato’s Writings the Records of his Phiinadyliy ; CHAPTER III. THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WORKS. Scope and Design of the Enquiry Early Attempts at an Arrangement of the Writings 45 49 50 54 64 72 77 81 87 viii CONTENTS. PAGE Schleiermacher . ‘ ‘ : : : ; : ; . 99 Hermann , 2 A ; : Z ‘ ‘ R ; 102 Their Followers . f j 4 ‘ 4 R i ’ . 104 Standard of Criticism . 4 : : : : 3 ‘ 109 Its application to our Collection . : : : : : v7 Early Works . s - . - ‘ 119 Gorgias, Meno, Thestetus, ubhy dante, Pheddiens : 125 Sophist, Politicus, Parmenides, Philebus, Euthydemus, Cratyine, Symposium, Phado . a < 2 < : : une 186 Republic, Timeus, Critias, Laws . R 5 ‘ P , 139 CHAPTER IV. CHARACTER, METHOD, AND DIVISION OF PLATO’S PHILOSOPHY 144 Character in relation to Socrates. ‘ : f ; : 144 To the pre-Socraties . ; : , 2 é . ‘ . 147 Dialectic Method . i : ; ; ‘ ; ; 150 ~ Form of Plato’s ae Philosophie Dialogue £ 2 . 153 Connection with the Personality of Socrates . : 5 ; 159 Myths 2 : 2 ; : : 5 ; . 160 —_ Division of the ee A : 3 . J £ 164 CHAPTER V. PROPEDEUTIC GROUNDWORK OF PLATO’S DOCTRINE . 170 1. Ordinary Consciousness. Its Theoretic Side . - ‘ 170 Its Practical Side . : : - =) ie 2. Sophistie Doctrine. Its pial of Knowledge é ‘ 183 Its Ethics. e . : . 184 Sophistie as a Whole : : ‘ ‘ : i 4 189 Philosophy . : ; 2 : F - 190 The Philosophie oes Eros - ‘ ; : : 191 The Philosophie Method, Dialectic . ie : . 196 Its Elements; Formation of Concepts . ‘ - : 199 Classification . 3 é : . > : - . 204 Logical Determinations ; ; : 2 ; .@ 208 Language ; 210 Philosophy as a W hole; ‘Stages of Philosophie Develop: ment . : é ‘ ‘ . : ‘ » 214 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. DIALECTIC, OR THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS. 1. The Doctrine of Ideas founded upon that of SH And of Being 2 Proofs as given by ee Historie Origin of the Doctrine 2. Concept of Ideas < Ideas as Universals or Genera As Substances As Concrete Unities Or Numbers As Living Powers 3. The World of Ideas Extent Subdivisions The most Universal er ‘ : The Highest Idea, the Good, and God CHAPTER VII. PHYSICS, General Causes of the World of Phenomena 1. Matter. Its Derivation Description of Matter . ‘ Not a Primeval, Corporeal Suhsiknes . Not the Product of Envisagement or Opinion But of Space . : ; Difficulties of this Akad 2 2. Relation of Sensible Objects to the Teg, Immanence of Things in Ideas No derivation of the World of Sense Reasons against the Identification of Matter ih the Tin. » limited in the Ideas Lacuna in the System at this EN Partieipation of things in Ideas 4 Reason and Necessity ; Physical and Final Sanues x CONTENTS. 3. The World-Soul e : Connection of this Doctrine ‘with Plato’ s wile By Nature of the Soul . The Soul and the Mathörmatienl Prinsiple The Soul as the Cause of Motion And of Knowledge : CHAPTER VIII. PHYSICS (CONTINUED). The World-System and its Parts How far these Discussions are valuable and ee 1. The Origin of the World. Question of its beginning in Time . = ; - : : - 2. Formation of the lement Teleologieal Derivation. Physical Derivation Properties, Distribution, Alınichnes? Moti: wee tion . : 3. The World-System ; Ans Hesveily Bodies; Time; the the: mical Year . - : The World as the Ba (Gewardéne) God - CHAPTER IX. PHYSICS (CONTINUED). Man . - . : : Nature of the Human Soul Its Mythical History . S Dogmatie Element in this mode of Rrapheecntetan - Immortality : Pre-existence . Recollection, ne a Bates Horse : Parts of the Soul Freewill . Relation of the Soul to the Body : E ; F Physiological Theories ; : : . : : SR Plants and Animals Difference of Sex Diseases . PAGE 341 343 345 351 356 356 361 361 363 368 371 375 379 386 388 389 390 396 397 404 406 417 419 421 423 432 433 433 CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER X. PAGE ETHICS 5 5 A = . 435 1. The Highest Good . . F > . ; 436 Withdrawal from the World of ae é } ‘ . 438 Relative Value ascribed to it ; 5 . F A 441 2. Virtue ‘ Sy” : : . ; . 444 - Virtue and ee, : : : : 445 r Soeratie and Platonie Doctrine of Vistus i : . 448 Natural Disposition . : E 2 : 449 Customary and Philosophie Ts Z - ; = . 450 Plurality of Virtues; Primary Virtues . , . - 451 The Distinctive Peculiarities of Plato’s Ethics : . 454 CHAPTER XI. ETHICS (CONTINUED). The State : h ; ; . : ! 461 End and Problem of the State : : : : ; . 461 Philosophy as the Condition of the true State : P ‘ : 466 The Constitution of the State : : 468 Importance of Public Institutions ; ine ade of the Platonie Constitution . : : 5 P : ; : 469 Separation and Relation of Classes . ‚ P . 471 This Constitution based upon Plato’s whole Brom : : 2 473 Social Regulations; Parentage . ; ‚ i ; : 2 O77 Edueation : 478 Citizens’ Manner of Life; unibrof Band Wives: and Children 48] Significance of this Political Ideal from Plato’s Point of View. Influences that led him to it . : F 1 : 3 . 482 Its affinity with the Modern State . - : ; ; : 490 Defective States . f ; : F 5 ; ; ; . 492 CHAPTER XII. PLATO'S VIEWS ON RELIGION AND ART . : 494 1. Religion. The Religion of the per Purification of the Popular Faith F : : + ‘ . 495 Visible Gods : F : : ‘ ; : 499 Popular Religion . - : ‘ ö - i . 600 General Result . . P e : : A . 503 xii CONTENTS. PAGE 2. Art . . : R ; : ; : - 606 The Beaute ' : : : : - - : - 506 Artistic Inspiration . - - : : : ; - 6508 Imitation . x : : - - : - : 509 Supervision of Art . ; ; : : x : - dll Particular Arts . - : : : : : » 513 Rhetorie : - - - : - - : . 514 CHAPTER XIII. THE LATER FORM OF PLATONIC DOCTRINE, THE LAWS . 517 ~—— The Platonic Doctrine according to Aristotle . : : : 517 The Laws. Point of View . ; - 5 - - ; . 522 Philosophy less prominent. : - - - - : 523 Religious Character . ‘ . ; . : : E . 525 Importance of Mathematics . : : a o : 5 527 Ethies 2 dr? lee ; tc eal . 529 Particular Posssn. - : : . : : . : 531 Politics ; 5 - - - E - : . . . 983 Constitution . : - } : : ‘ d - - 533 Social Regulations . - ; - - b . 540 General Character of the lee Divergenred from Plato’s original Point of View—the Evil World-Soul : ; . : : 543 Authenticity 4 : : - A ; . : : . 548 CHAPTER XIV. THE OLDER ACADEMY. SPEUSIPPUS . : . 583 Platonic School. External History . : A : 2 : 553 Character of its Philosophy : = . - ’ ; . 665 Speusippus’ Theory of Knowledge . 5 - ; : : 566 First Principles; the Good and the Soul . 3 E : . 568 Numbers . ‘ - : A J : . . : = 572 Magnitudes. : b 2 : . 2 - 3 . 575 Fragments of his Fhynios : : - R = 4 P 576 Ethies A ; R ; = : ‘ x s : . 578 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. THE OLDER ACADEMY CONTINUED. XENOCRATES, Divisions of Philosophy . - Kinds and Stages of Ben - First Principles Number and Ideas Spatial Magnitudes . The Soul . Cosmology Gods and Dzemons Elements. Formation of the World Psychology . Ethics CHAPTER XVI. OTHER PHILOSOPHERS OF THE ACADEMY Metaphysical Inquiries : . Heraclides : £ Eudoxus The Epinomis . Polemo Crates, Crantor xili PAGE 581 582 583 584 586 587 589 591 523 595 596 597 604 604 606 611 612 617 618 She? we ey pee a is Ma PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. CHAPTER I, PLATO’S LIFE. Tuere is hardly another philosopher of antiquity with whose life we are so intimately acquainted as with Plato’s; yet even in his case, tradition is often uncer- tain and still more often incomplete.! Born some years ! According to Simplicius, Phys. 268 a. m. Schol. 427 a. 15. De Celo, 8 b. 16 sq. 41 b. 1 sq. Karst. (Schol. 470 a. 27, where, instead of Karsten’s reading Bly, should be read ßlov, 474 a. 12.) Xenocrates had already written mepl tov TlAdrwvos Biov. Whether this means a special work or merely an incidental notice in connection with some other dis- quisition must remain undecided. (Steinhart, Plato's Leben, 8. 260 sq. adopts the latter supposition on account of Diogenes’ silence as to any such work.) Speusippus apud Diogenem, iv. 5. Apuleius de Dog- mate Platonis i. mentions an éy«- pov TIAdrwvos (which must be iden- tical with the wep{Seumvov TIAdrwvos ap. Diog. iii. 2, unless we suppose with Hermann and Steinhart, that the titles of the writings of Speu- sippus and Clearchus are confused: see respectively Plat. 97, 45, loc. cit. 7, 260). Finally we know ofa treatise of Plato’s scholar Hermo- dorus, which gave information both about his life and his philosophy, and likewise of a work of Philippus of Opus wep! IIAdrwvos (see Diog. ii. 106, iii. 6. Dereyllides ap. Simpl. Phys. 54 b. 56 b. Vol. Hereul. Coll. Alt. i. 162 sqq. Col. 6; ef. my Diatribe de Hermodoro, Marb. 1859, p. 18 sq. and for the latter Suidas s. v. d:Adcopos). But from these most ancient sources we have only a few notices preserved to us. Later writers, the greater part of whom are known to us only from Diogenes, are of very unequal value (a review of them is to be found in Steinhart, loc. cit. 13 sqq.); Diogenes himself is to be relied on only so far as he indicates his authorities; and this is equally true of the MpoAeydueva (in Hermann’s edition of Plato, vi. 196 sqq.) and of the short bio- graphies of Olympiodorus and the anonymous writer who for the most part simply copies these. Of the Platonie letters the 7th is the u. 2 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. after the commencement of the Peloponnesian war,? most important for the history of Plato’s life; still, it cannot be ac- cepted as genuine, nor does it merit the unlimited confidence placed in it by Grote (Plato, i. 113 sqq.), who is actuated not so much by the interest of a true historian as by that of an advocate. The remaining Platonic letters are quite worthless as historical evidence. On the other hand, Plato’s genuine writings give but very few points from which we can derive any knowledge of his life. The minor accredited accounts are false and not seldom self-contradictory. The more recent literature bearing on Plato’s life is given by Ueberweg, Hist. of Phil. i. § 39. Steinhart, loe. cit. 28 sq. 2 A tradition in Diogenes Laer- tius, iii. 3, says that he was born at /Egina, in which island his father had received an allotment on its oceupation by an Athenian colony, about 430 ».c. This state- ment is doubtful in itself, and is rendered more so by the obvious falsity of the succeeding statement, that he only returned to Athens after the Spartan expulsion of the colonists, B.c. 404. The date of Plato’s birth is uncertain. Apol- lodorus, according to Diog. iii. 2 sq., assigned it to the 88th Olympiad (i.e. Olympiad 88, i.), B.c. 427, on the 7th of Thargelion (May 21) (on the reduction to our months ef. Ueberweg, Exam. of the Platonie Writings—Steinhart, loe. cit. 284); and this, according to Plutarch, Questiones Convivales 8, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, and Apuleius, De Dogm. Plat. 1, was really kept as his birthday. With this Hermodorus (ap. Diog. 6) agrees, when he says that Plato was 28 years old when he went to Megara, ie. directly after Socrates’ death, vide p. 14, 26, supra. On the other hand, Athen- zeus, v. 217 a. says that he was born in the archonship of Apollodorus, Ol. 87, 3 (».c. 429), and with this we may connect Diogenes’ state- ment, loc. cit., that the year of Plato’s birth was that of Pericles’ death, if (as Hermann, History and System of the Platonie Phi- losophy, i. 85, A 9, points out) we assume that Diogenes follows Roman reckoning. Pericles died two and a half years after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, in the autumn of B.c. 429 (Ol. 87, 4), in the archonship of Epameinon. The statement in the pseudo-Plutarch (Vita Isocra- tis 2, p. 836), that Isocrates was seven years older than Plato, points to the same date. Isoerates was born Ol. 86, ] (436 B.c.); vide loe. cit. and Diog. iii. 2; Dionysius, Judicium de Isocrate, init. Di- ogenes himself. in assigning Plato’s birth to the archonship of Epamei- non, and accordingly making him only six years younger than Iso- crates, is going on a false reckon- ing, exclusive of the year of Pericles’ death. It may be ob- served that Diogenes, or our pre- sent text of him, has én’ ’Aueıvlov instead of em’ ’Erauelvwvos; and in connection with this is the assertion of the TIpoAeyduera ris TMAdrwvos procopias, C. 2 (Plato, ed. Herm. vi. 197. Diog. Laert. ed. Cobet, appendix, p. 6), that Plato was born while Pericles was still alive, in the archonship of Ameinias, Ol. 88. This introduces mere confusion; and Eusebius, in his Chronicon, followed by the Paschal Chronicle, in dating his birth Ol. PLATO'S LIFE. 3 the son of an ancient aristocratic house,’ favoured 89 i., has only given an instance of his own carelessness. As to the year of Plato’s death, tradition is more consistent. Apol- lodorus apud Diog. v. 9, Dionysius Halicarnassiensis Ad Ammzeum, 5, and Athensus v. 217 b, agree in assigning it to the archonship of Theophilus, 01.108, i. The ac- counts of his age, however, again present a great discrepaney. Her- mippus apud Diog. iii. 2 (with whom are Lucian, Macrobii 20, Augustine, De Civitate Dei viii. 11, Censorinus, De Die Natali, 15, 1, and the Prolegomena C. 6) says he was 81. Seneca states even more definitely (epistle 58, 31), that he died on his 82nd birthday; and it seems only an inexact expression of Cicero’s (De Senectute 5, 13) that he died writing in his 81st year, with which we may compare what Dionysius says (De Compo- sitione Verborum, p. 208), that he had been constantly polishing his works up to his 80th year. On the other hand, Athenzus loc. cit., and Valerius Maximus viii. 7, 3, make him 82; Neanthes apud Diog. loc. cit., 84. This statement is highly improbable, as it would compel us to put back the birth of the philosopher to 431 or 432 3B.c. However, the statement which allows him to attain 81 years would very well agree with the supposition that he was born ».c. 429, and died B.c. 348. But even if he was born 2.c. 427 and died a short time after completing his 80th year, in one case his death falls under the archonship of The- ophilus, in the other case in his 8lst year. For this determi- nation of the date we have the authority not only of the careful chronologist Apollodorus, but also that of Hermodorus, who, as a personal pupil of Plato, more than all other witnesses has the pre- sumption on his side of being well informed on this point. (The opinions against his trustworthi- ness will be tested pp. 14, 26, note.) He may therefore be depended upon for the chronology of his own times, (I here retract the opinion I formerly shared with earlier writers), and the most probable supposition is that Plato was born B.c. 427, and died 347 B.c., perhaps shortly before the middle of the year. This con- clusion is favoured, amongst others, by Grote, Plato i. 114 ; Ueberweg, Hist. of Phil. i. § 39 ; Examina- tion of Plato’s writings 113; and Steinhart loc. cit. 37, without ab- solutely rejecting the date 428 2.c. for his birth. To the latter sup- position is of course opposed the fact that Plato, if his birthday actually fell on the 7th of Thar- gelion and consequently earlier than Socrates’ death, had already attained his 29th year at the time of the flight to Megara, and could not rightly be said by Hermodorus to have been only 28. That Plato’s nominal birth- day might very possibly belong to the mythie traits of his Apolline character (as O. Miller, The Dori- ans, i. 830, conjectures: ef. Leutsch ap. Hermann, Plato 85 A. 7 ; Stein- hart loe. cit. 39 sq.) has been already remarked p. 43. The whole question is specially treated by Corsini De die Natali Platonis (in Gorius’ Symbola Literaria vi. 97 sqq.) Cf. Fasti Attici iii. 229 sq. ® His father Aristo, according .B2 4 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. also by wealth‘ no less than birth, he must have found in his education and surroundings abundant intellect- to Plutarch, De Amore Prolis 4, p. 496, died before Plato reached manhood. Beyond this, we know nothing of him; and of the grand- father, Aristocles, we only know that Plato himself bore his name, until it was superseded by the nick- name TAdray given him by his gymnastic master on account of "his powerful build. Cf. Alexander and Neanthes apud Diog. iii. 4— transcribed by Olympiodorus, Vita Platonis 2, and the Prolegomena, c. 1—Seneca, ep. 58, 30; Sextus Empiricus adversus Mathematicos 1, 258; Apuleius, Dogm. Plat. 1, &e. Thrasylus, however, apud Diog. 1, and after him Apuleius, loc. cit., notice his father as a de- scendant of Codrus: Olympiodorus, c. 1, says, of Solon; but this is obviously an oversight. His mother, Perictione, as she is called by the great majority of the biographers —while a few are said (Diog. 1) to have substituted Potone, the name of his sister, Speusippus’ mother (vide Diog. iii. 4, iv. 1)— was a sister of Charmides (vide supra, p. 106, 1), and cousin of Critias, deriving her. descent from Dropides, a friend and kinsman of Solon’s, and through him from ‘Neleus, the ancestor of the last kings of Attica, vide Diog. 1, who, however, wrongly makes Dropides Solon’s brother. (In this he is followed by several writers, and is partly misunderstood by Olym- piodorus, e. 1, and the Prolego- mena, ce. 1). See also Apuleius, Dogm. Plat., init.; Plato, Char- mides, 155 A, 157 E; Timeus 20 D, and Ast, Life and Writings of Plato, 16 sq., together with Hermann, Plato 23 sq., 93, and Martin, Etudes sur le Timée, 1, 246. On the further question as to Plato’s brothers, and their re- lation to the Glaueon and Adeiman- tus of the Republic, and Parmeni- des, vide on one side Hermann, Allgemeine Schulzeitung for 1831, p- 653; his Plato, 24,94; and his Disputatio de Reipublice Platonis tempore (Marburg, 1839), forming part of the Vindicie Platonice ; and Steinhart, Works of Plato, 4, 48 sq.: on the other, Böckh’s Ber- lin Lectures. for the summer of 1839; Munk, Die Natiirliche Ord- nung der Platonischen Schriften, page 63 seqq., 264 sq., (his argu- ments and conjectures are of very unequal merit). Susemihl, Gene- tische Entwicklung der Platonis- chen Philosophie 2, 76 sqq. The former authorities recognise, both in the Republic and the Parmeni- des, two older relations of Plato’s, his mother’s brothers, who are as little known to us as their father Aristo. The latter, following Plu- tarch and others, see in these characters Plato's own brothers. On the grounds given in the Abhandl. d. Berl. Akad. v. J. 1873, Hist. Phil. Kl. S. 86, the latter supposition alone seems to me to be tenable. Whether in Repub. H, 368, A. Plato’s father is mentioned as still living at the supposed time of this dialogue (403 ».c.) cannot be made out with certainty; according to Apol. 34 A, 38 B, we must suppose that he did not live to see the trial of Socrates. Cf. Plut. de Amore Prolis 4, S. 496. Antiphon, a half- brother of Plato, and the son of PLATO'S LIFE. 5 ual food; and even without the express testimony of history,’ we might conclude that he profited by these Pyrilampes, appears in the intro- duction of the Parmenides, and (128 B) appears to be younger than the sons of Aristo (that this Anti- phon was Plato's half-brother, and not an older relation, has been shown by Böckh loc. cit.). How- ever, the legends of Plato's Apolline descent cannot be appealed to as evidence that he was the first child of his mother (vide supra, pp. 44, 111: according to Plato’s Apology 34 A. Adeimantus appears to be older. * The later writers certainly re- present Plato as a comparatively poor man: eg. Gellius; Noctes Attic iii. 17, 1 (according to tradition he was tenui admodum pecunia familiari) ; Damascius, Vita Isidori 158; mevns yap Av 6 TiAdtwy ; repeated by Suidas, voce TiAdrwy, and Apuleius, Dogm. Plat. 4. The story in Plutarch, Solon e. 2 fin., of his getting the means to travel by selling oil in Egypt, points the same way. ZElian, Varie Historie 3, 27, says that he had heard a tale (which he doubts, in this place, though in 5. 9 he repeats the like about Aristotle without hesitation) of Plato’s having once been ready, under pressure of poverty, to serve -as a mercenary soldier, when Socrates dissuaded him. Cf. Her- mann, Plato 77 sq., 98, 122. All these accounts, however, were no doubt invented by ascetic admirers or opponents of the philosopher _in later times. Plato’s whole family belongs to the aristocratic party, who were generally the great land-holders ; his uncle Char- mides had been rich, and was. only reduced to necessity by the Peloponnesian war (Xenophon, Symposium 4, 29 sqq.; Memora- bilia iii. 6, 14), but that Plato’s parents were not involved in this calamity, we may see from the Memorabilia, loc. cit., where So- crates advises Glaucon, before he aims’at the care of the whole state, to undertake’that of an individual ; for instance, of his uncle, who really needed it. Had his father and mother been poor, the example lay nearer to hand. Apart from this, none but the son of a rich family could have entertained the notion of pressing forward, before his twentieth year, to the leader- ship of public affairs. Again, Plato names himself (Apoi.' 38 B) as one of the four who’ offered to bail Socrates for 30 minz ; so that he must have been a solvent person, Eyyunrns aéd- xpews. His journeys, too, are evi- dence of his being well off; for the tale about the oil-selling does not look much like the philosopher who despised trade; if true at all, it can only mean that he took some of his own produce with him to Egypt instead of ready money. Finally, even though his choregia (Plutarch, Aristides 1, Dion 17; Diog. 3) as a freewill service, the cost of which was borne by Dion, be no proof of wealth, and the purchase of the writings of Philo- laus (vide subter), involving great expense, be not quite well authen- ticated, or may have been effected with other people’s money, we still have sufficient evidence of his haying been a man of some means, not only in his will, (in Diogenes 6 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. advantages to the fullest expansion of his brilliant genius. Among the few further particulars that have descended to us respecting his earlier years, our atten- 41 sq.), but also in what is told of his way of life and domestic management; vide Diog. 6, 25 sq. Hieronymus adversus Jovinianum 2, 203, ed. Martianay, certainly establishes nothing. 5 Apuleius, dogm. Plat. 2: nam Speusippus domestieis instructus documentis pueri ejus acre in per- eipiendo ingenium et admirandse verecundie indolem laudat: et pubescentis primitias labore atque amore studendi imbutas refert: et in viro harum incrementa virtutum et ceterarum testatur. Cf. Her- mann, Plato 97. 6 To these belong specially the tales about his early education and teachers. Reading and writing he is said to have learnt from the Dionysius who is immortalized in the Anteraste, gymnastic from Aristo of Argos, who brought him on so well that he entered the Isthmian games as a wrestler. (For his gymnastic, cf. after Diexarchus, Diogenes 4; Servius on Asneid 6, 668; Apul. c. 2; Olympiod. c.2; Prolegomena, e. 2. Apuleius and Porphyry apud Cyrillum contra Julianum, 208 D, make him enter at the Pythian games as well; the Prolegomena remove the victory to the Isthmian and Olympic contests). Music he learned under Draco, a pupil of Damon, and Metellus of Agrigen- tum (Plutarch, De Musica 17, 1; Olymp. and Proleg., loc. cit.; ef. Hermann, p. 99). How much of these acconnts is historical eannot be determined, and is a matter of comparative indifference. That he repeatedly appeared and was vic- torious in publie contests is cer- tainly not true; whether he even entered at the Isthmia may be doubted, for after his acquaintance with Socrates had begun he hardly ever took part in athletic struggles, and previous to that he was too young. (Hermann, p. 100, con- jeetures that the origin of the story may be traced in the Crito, 52 B.) The name of his writing master is probably derived from the Anterastz ; and, similarly, the story in Diog. 5 (Apul. loc. cit. ; Olymp. 2; Prolegg. 3), to the effect that he enjoyed instruction from artists, and thence acquired the knowledge of colour shown in the Timzus, may be merely an ar- bitrary assumption based on that dialogue. The strange assertion of Aristoxenus apud Diog. 8 (cf. /Blian V. H. 7. 14), that he took part in three campaigns, not only to Corinth (Olympiad 96), but to Delium (Ol. 89, 1), and Tanagra (OL. 88, 3), and at Delium obtained the prize for valour, is doubtless modelled on the three campaigns of Socrates (vide supra, p. 50), whose words with reference to them (Apol. 28, D.) are put into Plato’s mouth in Diogenes 24. What we know of the state of Athens towards the end of the Peloponnesian war would certainly lead us to conclude that he must have seen some military service, and perhaps he also took part in that action at Megara (409 B.c., Diodorus xiii. 65), in which, ac- cording to his own statement in Rep. ii. 868 A., his brother dis- tinguished himself, PLATO'S LIFE. 7 tion is principally drawn to three points, important in their influence on his mental development. Of these we may notice first the general condi- tion of his country, and the political position of his family. Plato’s youth coincided with that unhappy period succeeding the Sicilian defeat when all the faults of the previous Athenian government were so terribly avenged, all the disadvantages of unlimited democracy so nakedly exposed, all the pernicious results of the self-seeking ethics and sophistical culture of the time so unreservedly displayed. He himself belonged to a social class and to a family which regarded the exist- ing constitution with undisguised, and not always groundless discontent. Several of his nearest relations were among the spokesmen of the aristocratic party.’ But when that party had itself been raised to power by the common enemy, on the ruins of Athenian great- ness, it so misused its strength that the eyes of its blindest adherents were inevitably opened. It is easy to see how a noble, high-minded youth, in the midst of such experiences and influences, might be disgusted, not only with democracy, but with existing State sys- . tems in general, and take refuge in political Utopias, which would further tend to draw off his mind from the actual towards the ideal. Again, there were other circumstances simulta- neously working in the same direction. We know that Plato in his youth occupied himself with poetical ? Critias, as is well known; Memorab. 111, 7, 1, 3; Hellenica Charmides, according to Xenophon, ii. 4, 19. 8 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. attempts,® and the artistic ability already evinced by some of his earliest writings,’ coupled with the poetical character of his whole system, would lead us to suppose that these studies went far beyond the superficiality of a fashionable pursuit.!° There is, therefore, little reason to doubt (however untrustworthy may be our more pre- cise information on the subject !!) that he was intimate with the great poets of his country. Lastly, he had, even before his acquaintance with 8 Diog. 5. He is said to have practised composition in verse, at first dithyrambs, and then songs and tragedies; and even to have conceived the idea of becoming a competitor in the tragic contests, when he became acquainted with Socrates, and, following his ex- ample, burnt his poems. So Olymp. 3, Proleg. 3. ZElian, V. H. ii. 30, gives a somewhat different account. According to him, Plato’s first essay was in epos; but seeing how far short his productions came of their Homerie model, he de- stroyed them (on this, however, cf. Hermann, Plato 100, 54), and next composed a tragie tetralogy, which was actually in the per- formers’ hands, when his acquaint- ance with Socrates decided him to abandon poetry for ever. Of the epigrams ascribed to Plato (some ascribed as early as Aristippus, ep} maAalas rpubns, apud Diog. 29; who is followed by Diogenes him- self, loc. cit., Apuleius de Magia c. 10; Gellius xix. 11; Athenzus xiii. 589 C.; and others: cf. Bergk, Lyriei Greci, 489 sq.), which are mostly amatory trifles, the great majority are evidently forgeries, or attributed to him by some con- fusion ; the rest are at least quite uncertain, and so is the little epic fragment in the Anthologia Pla- nudea, 210.. Cf. Bergk, loc. cit., and Hermann, Plato, 101. ® Specially m the Protagoras ; but in some of the minor dialogues too, e.g. the Lysis, Charmides, and Laches, the dramatic element is greatly in excess of the dialectic. 10 That poetry in Athens at that time was largely of this character is shown, among other testimony, by the passages from Aristophanes quoted by Hermann on page 100; Frogs 88 sq.; Birds 1444 sq. 1 Diog. iii. 8, says that he first brought Sophron’s mimes to Athens (this, however, could only have been after his journey), and took such delight in them that he used to keep them under his pillow. The latter statement also oceurs in Val. Max. 8, 7, sectn. 3; Olymp. 3; and Proleg. 3 (with re- gard to Sophron and Aristophanes). Probably, however, these assertions only originate in the endeavour to find models for his dialogues. He is also said to have taken Epichar- mus as a pattern, but not much reliance can be placed on this. Vide Part 1, p. 428 sq. PLATO'S LIFE. 9 Socrates, turned his attention to philosophy, and through Cratylus the Heraclitean!? had become ac- quainted with a doctrine which in combination with other elements essentially contributed to his later system.'? All these influences, however, appear as of little importance by the side of Plato’s acquaintance with Socrates. We cannot, of course, say what direction his mind might have taken without this teacher, but the question may well remain unanswered. We know enough to prove from all historical traces that the deepest, most lasting, most decisive impression was produced by the philosophic reformer on his congenial disciple. Plato himself is said to have esteemed it as the highest of Fortune’s favours, that he should have been born in the lifetime of Socrates,!* and later tradi- tion has adorned with a significant myth’ the first 12 Vide Part 1, p. 601 sq. 13 Aristotle, Metaphysics 1, 6, init., &k véou re ydp owvnOns yerdue- vos mp@tov KpatvAw kal tats ‘Hpa- KAeitelois Ödkaıs, ws amdyTwy Tey aiOntay Gel pedytwr, kal emorhuns mepl abr@v ovk odens, TadTa wey Kal botepoy obtws bmeAaßev. Zwkpdrous dE mepl wey Ta OKA mpayuarevoue- vou, &e. ; éxeivoy dmodetduevos, &e. Diog. 6, Olymp. 4, and Proleg. 4 date the acquaintance with Cratylus after Socrates’ death; but, in face of Aristotle's express testimony, we can, of course, attach no weight to this. Diogenes also mentions, in connection with Cratylus, the Par- menidean Hermogenes (whoappears in the Prolegomena as Hermippus) ; but this is merely an arbitrary in- ference from the dialogue Cratylus ; the Hermogenes of which (vide Cratyl. 384 A, 391 C.) is certainly the well-known disciple of Socrates, (vide supra 166, note 1). Similarly trom the Parmenides is derived the assertion (Anonymus apud Pho- tium, Cod. 249, p. 439 a.), that Zeno and Parmenides instructed Plato in logie. 4 Compare the expression in Plutarch, Marius 46; Lactantius, Institutiones Divine 3, 19; though its genuineness may be doubted, as we have the same put into the mouth of Socrates, or even Thales, ap. Diog. 1, 33. 15 Pausanias, 1, 30,3; Diog. 5; Olymp. 4; Proleg. 1; Apul. dogm. Plat. 1; Socrates is said to have dreamt that a swan, the bird of Apollo, flew towards him with a 10 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. meeting of the two men. But apart from this, the fact must always be regarded as one of those remark- able contingencies which are too important in their bearing on the course of history to be severed from it in our thought. During a long '® and confidential in- tercourse,'? Plato penetrated so deeply into the spirit of his distinguished friend that the portrait of that spirit which he was able to bequeath to us is at once the most faithful and the most ideal that we possess. Whether at that time he directed his attention to other teachers of philosophy, and if so, to what extent, we do not know ;!8 but it is scarcely credible that a youth so melodious song. Next morning Plato presented himself, and Socrates immediately recognised the meaning of the dream. ‘© According to Hermodorusapud Diog. 6, he was twenty years old when he became acquainted with Socrates, and twenty-eight when he went to Euclid, after Socrates’ death. According to this. he would be born in Ol. 88, 1 (vide supra, 286, 1). Exact information, how- ever, can hardly be got on this point. The absurd statements of Suidas, sub voce TlAdtwy, and Eudoeia in Villoison’s Anecdota 1, 362, about a twenty years’ intercourse with Socrates, are obviously wrong. How close the two were to each other is shown by the whole attitude of the Platonie writings, and by the portraiture of Socrates in them, more completely even than by some single passages. We may, however, compare Xenophon, Mem. 8, 6, 1; Plato, Apology, 34 A, 38 B; Phado, 59 B. Is That he was already acquainted with the Pythagorean philosophy might beinferred from the Pheedrus, if it were certain that this dialogue was composed before Socrates’ death. But the accounts which might warrant such a conclusion (e.g.the statement that the Ph&drus was his earliest work, and that the subsequent Lysis had been read and disowned by Socrates, for which wide Diog. 38, 35. Olymp. 3. Prolegg. 3) are not trustworthy enough, and the supposition itself is far too improbable. Still more dubious is the conjecture (Susemihl Genet. Entw. 1, 8, 444; Munk, Natür. Ordn. 497 sqq.; and ef. Herm. Plat. 528), that, in the Pheedo, 95 E sqq., Plato puts the history of his own philosophie development in the mouth of Socrates. This assumption has given rise to a string of others equally untenable. The influence on the earlier formation of Plato’s mind which can alone be certainly attested, that, namely, of the He- raclitean philosophy, is obviously not touched upon here. Nor does PLATO'S LIFE. 11 highly educated, and so eager for knowledge—whose first impulse, moreover, towards philosophy had not come from Socrates—should have made no attempt until his thirtieth year to inform himself as to the achievements of the earlier philosophers, should have learned nothing from his friend Euclid about the Elea- tics, nor from Simmias and Cebes about Philolaus: that he should have enquired no further respecting the doctrines continually brought to the surface by the public lectures and disputations of the Sophists, and left unread the writings of Anaxagoras, so easily to be obtained in Athens.!® It is nevertheless probable that the overpowering influence of the Socratic teaching may have temporarily weakened his interest in the earlier natural philosophies, and that close and repeated study may afterwards have given him a deeper insight into their doctrines. Similarly, his own imaginative nature, under the restraining influence of his master’s dialectic, was probably habituated to severer thought and more cautious investigation; perhaps, indeed, his idealistic tendencies received at first an absolute check ; ceptual philosophy.’ Brucke, Plat. the passage in the Phxdo, on the whole, convey the impression of ‘a biographical account : it is rather an exposition of the universal necessity of progress from the material to final causes, and thence to the Ideas. It takes the form of a personal confession ; but ‘Plato is not giving a historical narration of the philosophical development either ot himself or Socrates ; he is laying down in out- line the principles which lead from the philosophy of nature to con- Stud. iii, 427, with whom Steinhart agrees in the main, in spite of the admission that the development of Soerates is here described. Ue- berweg, Exam. of Plat. Writings, 92 sq. 19 Plato Apol., 26 D. Phedo, 97 B. With regard, too, to the writings of Parmenides and Zeno, Schaarschmidt rightly observes that they were read quite as much in Athens as in Megara, 12: PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. and conceptual science, together with the art of form- ing concepts, was only to be attained by him—a stranger like his contemporaries to all such things— through the dry prosaic method of the Socratic en- quiry.?® But Plato needed this schooling to give him the repose and certainty of the scientific method—to develope him from a poet into a philosopher; nor did he in the process permanently lose anything for which his natural temperament designed him. Socrates’ con- ceptual philosophy had given him a glance into a new world, and he forthwith set out to explore it. The tragic end of his aged master, a consumma- tion which he seems at ‘the outset to have thought wholly impossible,?! must have been a fearful blow to Plato; and one consequence of this shock, which still seems long years afterwards to vibrate so sensibly in the thrilling description of the Phedo, may have been perhaps the illness which prevented the faithful dis- ciple from attending his master at the last.” 20 As I have observed in the Zeitschrift für Alterthumswissen- schaft for 1851, page 254, this is rendered probable by the con- stitution of those minor Platonic dialogues which we are justified in dating before the death of Socrates. If in these dialogues the dry formality of the dialectic discussions is found to present a striking contrast to the complete- ness and vivacity of the dramatic investiture ; if there is a remark- able absence in them of youthful fire; if, in later works, e.g. the Phedrus and Symposium, similar subjects are treated with much greater vigour and élan than in an We are, early production like the Lysis; the most obvious explanation seems to lie in the influence of Socrates. 21 Cf. p. 161, note 1. 22 Phedo, 59 B. Cf. Herm. Plat. 84, 103 ; Plutarch, De Virtute Morali 10, p. 449, does not seem to warrant any conclusion. It is not impossible that his absence owing to ill-health is a mere fiction, by means of which he wished to secure greater freedom for himself in narrating the speeches which preceded the death of Socrates. His readiness to stand bail for Socrates has been already mentioned, p. 288 sq. The statement of Justus of Tiberias, PLATOS LIFE. 13 however, more immediately concerned with the enquiry as to the effect of the fate of» Socrates on Plato’s philo- sophic development and view of the world; and if for this enquiry we are thrown upon conjectures, these are not entirely devoid of probability. On the one hand, for example, we shall find no diffieulty in understand- ing how his reverence for his departed teacher was immeasurably increased by the destiny which overtook him, and the magnanimity with which he yielded to it; how the martyr of philosophy, faithful unto death, became idealized in his heart and memory as the very type of the true philosopher ; how principles tested by this fiery ordeal received in his eyes the consecration of a higher truth ; how at once his judgment on the men and circumstances concerned in the sacrifice of Socrates grew harder,” and his hope as to any political efficiency in those circumstances fainter ; ** nay, how the general tendency was fostered in him to contemplate reality in a gloomy light, and to escape from the ills of the pre- sent life into a higher, supersensuous world. On the other hand, it may perhaps have been better for his scientific growth that his ap. Diog. 2, 41, Proleg. 3, that Plato wished to undertake So- erates’ defence himself, but was prevented by the clamour of the judges, like everything else about Socrates’ trial, is disputed. Cf. p. 161 sq.; and Herm. loc. cit. *8 Cf. specially the way in which he speaks of the great Athenian statesmen in the Gorgias, 515 C sq., and 521 C sq.; Thezetetus, 173 C sq., on the condition of his native eity and the relation of the philosopher to politics; besides connection with Socrates later judgments, e.g. Politicus, 298 A sq.; Republic, vi. 488 A— 497 A; viii. 557 A sq.; 562 A sq. *4 According to the 7th Platonic letter, 324 B sq., Plato had in- tended to take an active part in politics, first under the Thirty Tyrants, and, after their expulsion, under the democracy ; but was de- terred both times by the state of affairs, and specially by the attack on Socrates. We cannot, of course, give much weight to this debate- able testimony. 14 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. lasted no longer than it did. During the years of their intercourse he had made his teacher’s spirit his own, in completer fulness than was possible to any of his fellow students; it was now for him to perfect the Socratic science by the addition of new elements, and to fit himself by the utmost expansion in many directions for erecting it on an independent basis: his apprentice- ship (Lehrjahre) was over, his travelling time (Wander- jahre) was come.” After the death of Socrates, Plato, with others of his pupils, first betook himself to Megara, where a circle of congenial minds had gathered round Euclid.” 25 ] borrow this denomination from Schwegler, Hist. of Phil. 41. 26 Hermodor. ap. Diog. ii. 106, iii. 6. The migration took place according to this authority when Plato was twenty-eight ; doubtless immediately after the execution of Socrates. He indicates its motive in the words—delsavras thy aud- nra Tav rupavvov. Formerly by these rÜpavvoı were understood the so-called Thirty Tyrants, and little weight was therefore attributed to the evidence of Hermodorus. But this explanation can no longer be entertained, now that we know from Simplie. Phys. 54 b. 56 b. (supra 1, 1), that the Hermo- dorus whose statement is preserved for us in Diogenes, is no other than the well-known Platonist. How can it be supposed that a personal pupil of Plato, like Her- modorus, could have been so ig- norant as to think that Socrates was executed under the tyranny of the Thirty? We need not understand the tvpavvo: in this sense. Indeed, often as the Thirty are mentioned, the expression ‘ the Thirty Tyrants,’ or simply ‘the Tyrants’ (without rpıdkovra), is not used as the ordinary appella- tion for ‘the Thirty’in any writer of that period, or, in fact, in any writer preserved to us before the time of Cicero and Diodorus. The invariable title is of rpıdkovra. A tupavyos, according to the Greek view, is a single chief who rules without laws; a rule like that of ‘the Thirty’ is not a tyranny. but, as it is often called, an oligarchy. The Thirty are only once called ripavvoı in oratorical exaggera- tions, e.g. by Polyerates in Arist. Rhet. ii. 24, 1401, a. 33; but we cannot conclude from this that it was the usual appellation for them, and that every one who spoke of the tépavvo: must have meant the Thirty. Hermodorus’ expression must be understood in a different way; the rupayva are the democrats who brought about the execution of Socrates, just as Xenophon, Hellen. iv. 4, 6, calls the democrats who held sway at PLATO'S LIFE. 15 He afterwards undertook” journeys which led him to Egypt, Cyrene, Magna Grecia, and Sieily.® Owing to Corinth robs rupavvebovras on ac- count of their reign of terror. Similarly the seventh Platonic letter, 325 B, calls the accusers of Socrates Suvacrevorrés tives. (The distinction which Steinhart, Pl. L., 122 sq., draws between rupayvor and rupavvebovres is, I think, too fine, and I see no reason why an adversary might not have applied the term tUpavvo: to violent de- mocrats just as much as to violent oligarchs. I will not, of course, dispute the possibility that this expression is not borrowed from Hermodorus himself. Stein (Sieben Biicher z. Gesch. d. Plat. ii. 66, 170 sq.), and after him Schaar- schmidt *(Sammlung d. plat. Schr. 65 sq.), have been led into error through a false pre-supposition, in rejecting Hermodorus’s date and his evidence for Plato’s sojourn in Megara, on the ground that répay- vot can only mean ‘the tépavva so-called kar’ &£oxnv’—those who ‘have always been understood as the Tyrants at Athens,’ viz. the Thirty only. Schaarschmidt has so far misconstrued the TUpayvot of Hermodorus as to identify, in a hasty reading of the seventh Pla- tonic letter, the Ööuvarrebovres who brought Socrates to trial with the ‘röpavvoı’ mentioned earlier (the quotation marks are Schaar- schmidt’s); but in the Platonie letter there is not a word about ‘rbpavvot, whereas the Tpıdkovra are twice mentioned (324 C, 325 B). (According to Schaarschmidt’s theory Hermodorus could not of course have been the immediate pupil of Plato, in spite of Der- eyllides, who still possessed his work, and in spite of the other witnesses cited on p. 1, 1). Equally unjustifiable is the asser- tion of Stein against Hermodorus, with regard to some of the well- known Socraties, such as Xenophon, Antisthenes, /Eschines, that it is highly improbable, if not quite impossible, that they were with Plato at Megara. Hermodorus does not state that all the Socratic students had gone there : Diog. merely says, iii. 6, Ereıra RT: kadd pnow "Epuödupos eis Méyapa mpds EurAelönv oby Kal %AAas Tiol Swxparicots bare xépnoev [4 TAdray}; and if we compare ii. 106: pos tovtoy (Euclid) pnoty 6 "Epuodwpos aplker bar TAdtwva kal rovs Aourovs piAocdpous,the meaning isobviously not (as Steinhart, Pl. L. 121, un- derstands) all the philosophers who were at that time in Athens, but the rest known to the reader (i.e. the reader of Hermodorus, or of the writer whose statement is here made use of) who had left Athens with Plato. We might be more ready to doubt, with Steinhart (Pl. L. 121) whether danger threatening one of their number afforded Plato and his friends any ground for apprehen- sion. It is quite possible that Hermodorus attributed this motive to them from his own conjecture, in which he was really mistaken. However, the state of affairs after the death of Socrates is so little known to us that we cannot de- cide whether there was not some occasion, though perhaps unwar- ranted, for apprehension. 27, On what follows cf. Herm. Plat. 51 sq.; 109 sq. 78 All testimony agrees that his travels extended at least thus far. 16 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. the meagreness, and sometimes the contradictoriness, of the traditions,” it is impossible to ascertain with cer- For his travels in Egypt, we may quote his acquaintance with Egyp- tian institutions (vide page 358, note 2). The order of the journeys is variously given. According to Cicero, Republic, i. 10; De Fini- bus, v. 29, 87; Valerius Maximus, vill. 7, ext. 3; Augustine, De Civitate Dei, viii. 4, he went first to Egypt, and then to Italy and Sicily. It should be re- marked, that Valerius, like the declamator he is, transfers the date of the travels to the period when Plato had become famous. On the other hand, Diogenes, iii. 6 (with whom is Quintilian, Insti- tutes, i. 12, 15), makes him visit Cyrene first, then the Pythagoreans in Italy, then Egypt (accompanied by Euripides, who had died some time before, however), and thence return to Athens. According to Apuleius, Dogm. Plat. i. 3; and the Prolegomena, c. 4, he went first to Italy to visit the Pythagoreans, then to Cyrene and Egypt, and thence back again to Italy and Sicily. The most credible of these statements is the first. We can scarcely suppose that Plato visited Italy twice running (the 7th Pla- tonic letter, 326 B, only knows of one Italo-Sicilian journey), while everything is in favour of Sicily’s having been the end of his travels (vide subter). And the opposite account gives us an unhistorie motive in the assertion of Apuleius and the Prolegomena, that he visited Cyrene and Egypt to inves- tigate the sources of Pythagorean- ism. The conjecture of Stallbaum, Plat. Polit. 88; Plat. Opp. i. xix., that Apul. is following Speusippus, is quite indemonstrable. Accord- ing to Diog. 7, he had intended to visit the Magi (and according to Apul. loc. cit., the Indians too), but was prevented by the wars in Asia. Lactantius, Institut. 4, 2, actually makes him travel to the Magi and Persians; Clemens, Co- hortationes 46, to the Babylonians, Assyrians, Hebrews, and Thra- cians. Cicero, Tusculans, 4, 19, 44, speaks of the ultim& terre which he had explored; according to Olymp. 4, Prolegg. 4, he had been initiated in the doctrines of Zoro- aster by Persians in Pheenicia; Pausanias, iv. 32, 4, repeats this, and says that he was also ac- quainted with Chaldean lore; and according to Pliny, Natural History 30, 2, 9, he acquired the Persian magic while on histravels. These, however, are doubtless the inven- tions of later times, analogous to the tales about Pythagoras, and perhaps to some extent modelled onthem. A still more palpable fiction is the alleged acquaintance with Jews and Jewish scriptures, on which ef. Brucker, i. 635 sq. Her- mann, p. 114 A, 125; with the writers he quotes, and the 3rd part of the present work, 221, 300, 2nd edit. Lactantius, loc. cit. wonders that Plato and Pythagoras had not visited the Jews. 29 Diogenes 6 would lead us to suppose that he went from Megara straight to Cyrene, and from thence to Sicily. On the other hand, the 7th Platonic letter makes a long interval of active teaching elapse before his coming to Megara, Vide next note. PLATO'S LIFE. 17 tainty how long he continued in Megara, when he com- menced his travels, whether they immediately succeeded the Megaric sojourn, or a return to Athens intervened ; whether his stay in Athens was long or short; and whether he had or had not become a teacher of philo- sophy before his departure. But if he really returned from Sicily only ten or twelve years after the death of Socrates,*° there is great probability, and even some *0 The only source for this is, of course, the 7th Platonic letter, 324 A; and that account becomes sus- picious, because it is connected with the assertion in 325 C sq. that even before his journeys Plato had acquired and expressed the conviction, kak@v ob Ankew Ta av- Opava yévn, mply by 4 7d Tov diAocopviytwy apas ye kal aAndws yévos eis apxas AOn Tas moAırıkas N Tb tev SuvactevdyTay ev Tats mércow Ex Tivos polpas Oelas byTws procophon. If with this we compare Rep. v. 473 C, we can hardly doubt that the above-quoted words are to be referred to this place in the Republic. Conse- quently, the composition of the Republic must be dated before Plato’s first Sicilian journey. But this (vide subter) is in the highest degree improbable. At the same time, the statement of the letter as to Plato’s age at the time of his journey receives a confirmation which has been noticed by Stall- baum, Plat. Polit. p. 44, in cor- recting his earlier theory (De Ar- gumento et Artificio Thezteti, 13) that Plato did not return till the year 386. The confirmation is this. On his way back from Sicily, Plato is said to have been sold for a slave at Dionysius’ instigation, in ZEgina, and, according to an apparently accurate account in Diog. iii. 19, his execution was actually debated on, as a plebiscite punished all Athenians who entered the island with death. ZEgina, therefore, must at this time have been at open war with Athens. Now, according to Xenophon, Hel- lenica, v. 1, 1, this state of things cannot be dated before the last years of the Corinthian war; up to that time, the intercourse between Athens and ZEgina had received no check. This would give us 389 or at most 390 2.c., and we may therefore accede to the views of Hermann (p. 63) and almost all the later writers, that it was about this time that Plato returned to Athens. Grote, Hist. of Greece, xi. 52, would date his arri- val at Syracuse not earlier than 387; on the ground that Dionysius would hardly have had leisure, before that time, during his war with Rheginm, to attend to the philosopher. We need not, how- ever, attach much importance to this argument; and, according to Diodorus, xiv. 110 sq., the con- quest of Rhegium dates later than the peace of Antalcidas, after which the treatment experienced by Plato in /Egina was impossible. *o 18 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. external evidence,*! that long before this journey he had Some time, too, must be allowed between Plato’s arrival and his departure. Tennemann, Platon’s Philosophie, i. 46, inclines to the belief that Plato’s first appearance in the Academy was in Ol. 99: an opinion which needs no special refutation, in face of the previous remarks and the facts to be pre- sently adduced. 31 We may not be inelined to give much weight to the expres- sions of the 7th letter on this point (quoted on pp. 15, 28;17, 30), orto Valerius Maximus, both being too little trustworthy. But the theory is undoubtedly favoured by the circumstance that we possess a series of important works of Plato’s, composed in all probability before his return from Sicily, and at least some of them after his sojourn at Megara. The first of these is the Theztetus. The oc- casion of the dialogue is connected with a meeting with Theztetus, who is returning sick to Athens from the army at Corinth. This can only refer to the Corinthian War, B.c. 394-387. Munk (Nat. Ordn. d. Pl. Schr. 391 sq.) and Ueberweg (Exam. of Plat. writings, 227 sq.) make the reference to ».c. 368: ef. Diodor. 15, 68. At that date, however, Thestetus would have been no longer under any obligation to take part in a foreign campaign, and the dialogue would have to be dated later than various considerations, to be brought for- ward presently, will warrant. Be- tween the two dates given there _was no Athenian army at Corinth. In its later years the Corinthian war was carried on by Athens with mercenaries only (Xen. Hell. 4, 4, 1; 14: Diodor. 14, 86, 91 sq.), so the dialogue must refer to the first period. 393. The date of its com- position cannot be much later; the introduction—almost a dedication to Euclid—points to a time at which Plato had not so decidedly broken with the Megara School as he has in the Sophist, and gives us the impression that it relates to matters still fresh in the Greek reader’s mind. (Ueberweg, p. 235, thinks such a dedication awkward; I only say that the frame in which the dialogue is set amounts to a dedication, Cicero has dedicated his ‘Posterior Academics’ to Varro in the same way.) Munk and Ueberweg object that if Plato wrote the Theztetus so early, he must have foreseen Thezetetus’ achievements in mathematics, at- tested by Proclus in Euel. p. 19, 25. But Socrates does not say (These. 142 D) that Theztetus will live to be a distinguished mathe- matician ; he only predicts that he will become an eAAdyimos avhp; and there was no reason why he should not have said this at the date 392-388. If Thetetus is called (143 E sq.) weıpakıor in B.C. 399, it does not follow that he was no more than 16, as Munk thinks; in the Symposium 223 A, Agathon, at the time of his first victory, is called petodkiov; and in Plutarch, Pericl. 36, Pericles’ betrothed son is denoted by the same title: on the other hand, Thestetus is called &vnp in pagel44D. Several other works (vide subter) seem to have preceded the Theztetus, and probably most of them were com- posed at Athens: Plato could not have given the requisite pains and concentration while on his travels; and to suppose them written at PLATO'S LIFE. 19 settled in Athens,?? and there worked as teacher and author ; even granting that at this period his instruc- tions were confined to a select few, and that the open- ing of his school in the Academy took place later on.** What, in this case, we are to think about the journey to Egypt and Cyrene—whether the visit to Sicily was immediately connected with it, or whether ** Plato first returned to Athens from Egypt, and only undertook the Italian journey after an interval of some years, cannot be certainly determined, but there is a good deal in favour of the latter alternative.’ Megara would be to assume a ‚ longer residence there than our evidence warrants. (See following note.) Some trace of such a stay, beyond the notice in Hermodorus, would naturally have been pre- served. The sharp polemic of the Thezetetus, (which Hermann, 499, and Steinhart, Plat. Werk. iii. 81, 556, appear to be wrong in ignor- ing), and the probably contem- poraneous Euthydemus against Antisthenes (vide supra, pp. 248, 15044 252,8; 264, 15: 255, 2; 256, 1;) might indeed warrant the conjeeture, that at the time when he wrote these dialogues, Plato had already had some per- sonal encounters with Euclid, and known him as his opponent in Athens. If at this period Plato had already passed some years of literary activity at Athens, we can hardly imagine that the philosopher who will only allow a written document as a reminder to oral - delivery (Phedrus 276 D sq.) should have refrained from enun- ciating his views in personal inter- course with others. = If fear for his personal safety was the reason of his retire- ment to Megara, he must soon have been enabled to return home without danger; and again, as the philosophie intercourse with Euclid, supposing this to be Plato’s object, could just as well be enjoyed from the neighbouring Athens, it is impossible to see what could detain the philosopher a year at Megara. 83 Grote agrees with the above, Plato i. 121. He rightly considers it highly improbable that Plato should have spent the 13 (strictly speaking 10-12) years before his return from Sicily in voluntary banishment. 3 As Steinhart conjectures, Pl. W. iii. 100, 218, 316, 473. 85 Most of our authorities take it for granted that he came straight from Egypt to Italy. But the varying accounts of the order of his travels, noticed above, show the utter want of exact informa- tion on the point. The 7th letter is silent about the journey to Egypt; if we are to follow it, we must conclude that he went straight from home to Italy; and c 2 20 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. If, indeed, Plato had already attained to manhood when he visited the countries of the south and west ; had already, that is, before his personal, acquaintance with the Italian Pythagoreans, found the scientific bases of his system, and laid them down in writings,*® these journeys cannot have had the striking effect on his philosophical development which is often ascribed to them in ancient and modern days. Besides the general enlargement of his views and knowledge of human nature, his chief gain from them seems to have consisted in a closer acquaintance with the Pythago- rean school ®” (whose principal written book he appears to have purchased ),?* and in a deeper study of mathe- Plutarch’s statement (Plut. de Ge- nio Socratis 7, p. 579) which makes Plato visit Delos on his return from Egypt, perhaps goes on the presupposition that he was not on a voyage to Italy, but to Athens. The main point, however, is that this theory gives the easiest ar- rangement of his works with reference to his life. The Politicus shows traces of his acquaintance with Egypt (vide subter, p. 22, 41). But on these points conjecture is all that is possible. 86 We shall see presently that the Thezetetus and dialogues of the same date presuppose the doctrine of Ideas, and a certain acquaint- ance with Pythagorean tenets. 87 The details on this point seem to rest on mere conjecture. Cicero, loc. cit., names Archytas, Eche- crates, Timzeus, and Acrion, or Arion (Valerius Maximus adds Cetus), as Pythagoreans, whose acquaintance he had made at that time. Olympiodorus gives Archy- tas, (the name of Timzeus seems to have dropped out). Apuleius, loc. cit., Eurytus and Archytas ; Dio- genes, Eurytus and Philolaus (the latter can scarcely have been alive at the time). Cf. Böckh, Philol. 5 sq.; and Pt. 1, p. 287, of the present work. ss The first writer known to us who mentions the purchase of Philolaus’ works by Plato is Timon the Sillographer, apud Gellium, iii. 17. He only says, however, that Plato bought a small book for a large price, and with its help wrote his Tim&us. That the purchase was made on his travels, he does not say; nor does the price of the book—as given by Gellius, 10,000 denarii=100 Attie mine—seem to come from him. On the other hand, Hermippus, ap. Diog. viii. 85 (about B.c, 230), says, on the authority of a writer not named, but doubtless an Alex- andrian, that Plato, on his visit to Sicily, bought Philolaus’ work from his relations for 40 Alexan- drine mine, and copied his Timeus PLATO'S LIFE. matics. 21 To this study, Theodorus is said to have in- troduced him,* and we have at any rate no proof against the correctness of the statement.‘ He may have re- ceived further mathematical instruction from Archytas and other Pythagoreans, so that we can searcely be wrong in connecting with this journey his predilection for the science,*! and his remarkable knowledge of it : *? from it. Others (ibid.) say that the book was a present in acknow- ledgment of Plato’s having ob- tained the freedom of one of Philolaus’ scholars from Dionysius. Cicero, Rep. i. 10, says less de- finitely that Plato acquired it during his stay in Sicily. Accord- ing to Satyrus ap. Diog. iii. 9, viii. 15 (followed by Iamblichus de vita Pythagorica, 199) it was not Plato himself, but Dion by his commission, who bought it for 100 mine. This sum, adds Diogenes, he could easily afford; for he is said to have been well off, and, as Onetor tells, to have received from Dionysius more than eighty talents. (The latter statement is not merely exaggerated, but plainly fictitious ; ef. also Diog. ii. 81, and page 312, 2). Tzetzes, Chiliades x. 790 sq., 999 sq., xi. 37, makes Dion buy it for him from Philo- laus’ heirs for 100 mine. We may probably agree with Böckh, Phi- lologus 18 sq., Susemihl, Genet. Entwickl., 1, 2, sq., and Steinhart, Pl. C. 149, sq., in saying that Plato certainly was acquainted with the work of Philolaus, per- haps actually possessed it; but beyond this, when, where, and how he acquired it, cannot be deter- mined, owing to the eontradictory, ambiguous, and partially improb- able nature of the accounts that have come down to us. A priori, it would be more likely that it came to him at Athens through the instrumentality of Simmias and Cebes. The Prolegomena, c. 5, transfer the myth of the world soul to the pseudo Timeus. % Diog. iii. 6; Apul. loc. cit. That Plato was acquainted with Theodorus seems probable from the Theetetus, 143 D sqq., and the opening of the Sophist. and Poli- ticus. The acquaintance had doubtless been made at. Athens. Theodorus had visited Athens shortly. before the death of So- crates. (Plato, loc. cit.; and ef. Xen. Memor. iv. 2, 10.) 1° The possibility, of course, re- mains that the journey to Cyrene was a mere invention, in order to assign. to Plato the mathematical teacher on whom he bestows the acknowledgment of. mention. 4 We shall see later on what significance Plato attached to ma- thematical relations, and how much he valued a scientifie knowledge of them. They are to him the pecu- liar connecting link between Idea and Phenomenon; and thus the knowledge of them is the inter- mediate step, leading from sensuous envisagement to rational contempla- tion of the idea. Cf. Plut. Quest. Conviv. viii. 2, init.; Philop. de An. D, 6, o. David Schol. in Arist. 22 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. while, on the contrary, the stories about the mathema- - tical lore, priestly mysteries, and political ideas which he is stated to have acquired in Egypt,** are in the 26, a, 10 ; Tzetz. Chil., viii. 972 sq. ascribe to him, without sufficient authority, the inscription over his lecture-room, pndels aryewmerpntos eioirw, which is generally stated to have been of Pythagorean origin. 42 Vide Ciceron. de Oratore, i. -50, 217; and Proclus in Euclidem, 11. 19, who notices him as one of the most important contributors to the advance of mathematical science. Phavorinus apud Diog. iii. 24, and 'Proclus, loe. cit. and p. 58, attribute the invention of analysis and the conic section to him. Both state- ‘ments, however, are doubtful; Proclus himself, p. 31, gives Menschmus as discoverer of the conie section. See, however, Ideler on Eudemus, Abh. d. Berl. Ak. 1828, Hist. Phil. Kl. S. 207, for Phavorinus’ statement. The tale of his solving the Delian problem — (how to double a cube), while at the same time he found fault with the usual mathematical processes, is widely spread. Plut. de Ei. 6, 386 ; De Genio Socratis 7, p. 519; Quest. Conviy. viii. 2, 1, 7, p. 718; Marcellus, e. 14; Theo Smyrn. e.1. Still, the accounts are very mythical: he reduced the problem to the finding two mean propor- tionals between two given lines. This may be correct. Cf. Euto- cius in Archim. de Sph. et Cyl. Archim. ed. Torelli, p. 135. Philop. in An. Post. p. 24, 117. (Schol. in Ar. 209 a, 36 b, 21 sq.) Ideler, loc. cit. He is also said to have in- vented a time-piece, Athen. iv. 174 c. In the Thestetus, 147 D sqq., he puts several new arithme- tical definitions in Thezetetus’s mouth, doubtless his own dis- coveries; as the idea of stereometry, in Republic vii. 528 A sq., is re- presented to be, with special refer- ence to the ad£n ray kußwv. For mathematical passages in his writ- ings, the reader may be referred to Meno 82 A sq. 87 A; Rep. viii. 546 B; Timeeus, 35 A sqq., 31 C sqq., 53 C sqq. 43 Aecording to Cicero de Fini- bus, v. 29, 87, he learned from the Priests numeros et ccelestia (so Val. Max. viii. 7, 3); according to Clemens, Cohort. 46 A (cf. Stro- mata, i. 303 C) he learned geo- metry from the Egyptians, astro- nomy from the Babylonians, magic from the Thracians (evidently a reminiscence of Charmides, 156 D), and the rest from the Assyrians and Jews. Strabo (xvii. 1, 29, p. 806) was actually shown the house in Heliopolis where Plato had stayed with Eudoxus for thirteen years! (For thirteen, some MSS. of the Epitome read three, arbitrarily: vid. Strabo, ed. Kramer.) Against the whole statement, vid. Diog. viii. 86 sq. Ideler, loc. cit. 191 sq. Plato is said to have stayed at Heliopolis until he induced the priests to communicate some of their astronomical loretohim. At all events, they kept the greater part to themselves. Clemens (Strom. loe. eit.: ef. Diog. viii. 90) even knows the names of the priests who taught Plato and Eudoxus. He separates the two latter in time. Plut. Gen. Soer. e. 7, p. 518, gives him Simmias for a com- PLATO'S LIFE. 23 highest degree improbable.“* In Sicily, Plato visited panion. Apuleius, Dogm. Plat. 3, and the Proleg. 4, make him learn sacred rites in Egypt, as well as geometry and astronomy. Vide Olymp.5 ; Lucan, Pharsalia x. 181. Philostratus, Vita Apollonii 1, 4, only speaks of geometry and as- tronomy, which Plutarch de Iside, e. 10, p. 354, also mentions. Quin- tilian, 1, 12, 15, speaks indefinitely of the secrets of the priests; Dio- dorus, 1, 98, mentions the laws which Plato, like Solon and Lyeurgus, had borrowed from Egypt. He is here following Manetho or some other Egyptian authority. 44 The external evidence has no authority per se. It belongs altogether to a time far removed from Plato’s, and abounding in arbitrary fictions which derived all Greek wisdom from the East. Some of the oldest legends, as in Strabo and Diodorus, sound so in- credible and point so plainly to dim Egyptian sources, that we cannot attach the slightest weight to them. There is no historic probability that Plato borrowed anything of importance from the Egyptians (vide pt. 1, p. 31 sqq.). And if we seek traces of the alleged Egyptian influence in Plato's doc- trines and writings, we find pretty nearly the opposite of what, aecord- ing to these later traditions, we might expect. He certainly shows some knowledge of Egypt (Polit. 264 C, Phedr. 274 C); he makes use, perhaps, once of an Egyptian myth (Pheedr. loc. cit.) ; he derives another, really of his own inven- tion, from Egypt, while he enlarges on the great antiquity of Egyptian legends (Time. 21 E sqq.); he praises particularinstitutions(Laws il. 656 D; vii. 799; the gravity and religious character of the music, ibid. vii. 819 A; the re- gard paid to arithmetic in the popular education); while he blames others (loc. cit. ii. 657 A, GAN’ Erepa pavr’ by evpois abrößı. Specially, in xii. 953 E, if the remarkable words kadanep K.7.A. are really Plato’s, he censures the Egyptian cruelty towards strangers). On the ‘whole, he is inclined to disparage the moral condition and mental capacity of the Egyptians, and ascribes to them not the scientific, but only the industrial character. (Rep. iv. 435 E; Laws, v. 747 C). This does not look as if he were sensible of any great philosophie debt to Egypt ; and there is really nothing in his system to point to Egyptian sources. Throughout, his philo- sophicattitude appears independent of any but Greek influences: the mathematical element in him is most nearly connected with Pytha- goreism ; (cf. p. 301, and Arist. Metaphysics, 1, 6, init.); his re- ligious references are confined to the Greek eultus; his polities find their illustration only in Greek types and Greek circumstances. Even the separation of classes in the Republic, as will be shown in its place, is not to be explained as an imitation of the Egyptian caste- system. Indeed, the most marked feature in the Egyptian constitu- tion, the priestly rule, is altogether absent in Plato; and in the Poli- ticus, 290 D sqq., with express re- ference to Egypt, he very decidedly disapproves of it. Cf. with the preceding Herm. p. 54 sqq., 112 sqq-, where there are fuller quota- tions ; and my Part i. p. 25 sq. 24 the court of Dionysius the elder.* PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. But in spite of his close intimacy with Dion,*® he gave great offence there by his plain speaking,'” and the tyrant in wrath deli- vered up the troublesome moraliser to the Spartan ambassador Pollis, by whom he was exposed for sale in the slave-market of AKgina. Ransomed by Anniceris, a Cyrenian, he thence returned to his native eity.“® 45 Of this there can really be no doubt. All our authorities are unanimous on the point, and Plato himself, in drawing the picture of the tyrant (Rep. viii. fin. ix. init.) seems to be speaking from per- sonal experience of what he de- scribes. The circumstances of the visit are variously given. We find, in quite ancient times, a calumnious story to the effect that it was the Sicilian kitchen which attracted the philosopher to Syra- euse. (Cf. Ep. Plat. vii. 326 B sq.; Apul. Dogm. Plat. 4; The- mistius, Orationes, 23, 285 c.; Aristides, Orationes 46 de qua- tuor viris, T. 301, Dind.; Lucian, Parasite, 34; Olymp. 4; Diog. iii. 34; vi. 25, &e. We find a similar account in Philostr. v. Apoll.1, 35, Ömep mAolToU ZıkeAıkod.) The usual account is that he went to see the voleano (Diog. ili. 18; Apul. 4; Olymp. 4; Proleg. 4; Hegesander ap. Athen. xi. 507 b; the seventh Platonie letter is less definite, 326 D ; and Plat. Dion. 4, follows it, in saying that chance or sume Divine guidance brought him to Sicily). According to Diog., Dionysius obliged Plato to visit him ; accord- ing to Plutarch, it was Dion who introduced Plato to his brother-in- law. Olymp. says that he sought out the tyrant uninvited, to induce him to lay down his power. Cor- nelius Nepos, x. 2 (with whom, in the main, Diodor. xv. 7 agrees), says that Dionysius invited Plato from Tarentum at Dion’s request. 16 Vide the places quoted; specially the 7th Platonic letter. This of course is as little trust- worthy as any of the other letters ; but it shows that Dion was gene- rally assumed to have stood in close relations with Plato. For his alleged services to him, cf. Nepos, Plutarch, Cie. de or. iii. 34, 139, and pp. 288 sq., 300, 3. 47 Thus much is probably correct. The more detailed accounts in Plut., Diog., Olymp., loc. cit., appear to be mere arbitrary colour- ings of the main fact. The anec- dotes about Plato’s meeting with Aristippus (referred by many to this period) are equally uncertain. Vide supra, 291, 2, 312, 2. 48 Here too there isa great diver- sity In the accounts. According to Diodorus xv. 7, Dionysius sold the philosopher in the Syracusan slave market, for 20 min; his friends freed him, and sent him to a friendly country. Diogenes, 19 sq., on Phavorinus’ authority, says that Dionysius was at first disposed to put Plato to death, but was dis- suaded by Dion and Aristomenes, and only delivered him to Pollis to sell. Pollis took him to ZEgina ; and there, in accordance with a PLATO'S LIFE. 25 Plato seems now to have made his first formal appearance as a teacher. Following the example of Socrates, who had sought out intelligent youths in the Gymnasia and other public places,—he, too, first chose as the scene of his labours a gymnasium, the Academy, whence, however, he subsequently withdrew into his own garden, which was adjacent." decree of the people, Plato would have been executed, as being an Athenian, but was allowed, as a favour, to be soldinstead. Diogenes adds, that Dion or other friends wished to repay Anniceris his expenses, 20 or 30 mins; this he refused to take, but bought with it, for Plato’s use, the garden in the Academy, the price of which is given in Plutarch (de exilio 10 S. 603) as 3000 drachme (30 mins). So Heraclitus, Alles. Homer C. 74, S. 150. Plutarch himself (Dion 5, cf. de tranquillitate animi 12, 471), and an account in Olympiodorus in Gorg. 164, says that when Plato had ineurred Dionysius’ enmity, his friends hurried him away on board the ship with which Pollis sailed to Greece (this is scarcely credible, if Sparta and Athens were then at war). Diony- sius had given Pollis secret orders to kill Plato, or sell him; and to effect this Pollis brought him to fEgina. Tzetzes, Chil. x. 995 sq., has a wonderful version; Plato was bought by Archytas from Pollis, and then instructed in the Pythagorean philosophy. Seneca (ep. 47, 12, and apud Lactant. Inst. iii. 25, 15 sq.), mentions the transaction, while he blames An- niceris for only having paid 8000 sestertii—20 mine—for a Plato. Olympiodorus, 4, actually puts the Concerning his whole occurrence in the second Journey. Göttling, Geschichtlichen Abhandlungen 1, 369, endeavours to free Dionysius from the guilt of the sale; but his arguments, doubtful in themselves, are hardly in accord with Plutarch’s state- ment. There is no real certainty in any of the various versions of the affair ; cf. Steinhart’s critique (Plato’s Leben, 151 sqq.). 9 Diog. ili. 5, 7.41; cf. Herm. 121 sq., who makes the necessary remarks on the statements of Olymp. c. 6, and the Proleg. ce. 4. According to ARlian, 111.19, it was after his third Sicilian journey that he withdrew for some months into his garden, being dislodged by Aris- totle; which is manifestly false. Elian again, ix. 10,and Porphyry, De Abstinentia 1, 36, tell us that the Academy was reputed to be unhealthy, but that Plato refused to move from it for the sake of longer life. It could not, however, have been very bad; for Plato, Xeno- erates, and Polemo lived to a good age init. Hieron. adv. Jovin. ii. 203, Mart., actually thinks that Plato betook himself to the un- healthy spot, ut cura et assiduitate morborum libidinis impetus fran- geretur ; judging the philosopher rather too much by his own ex- perience. So too Aineas of Gaza, Theophr. ed. Barth, p. 25. 26 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. manner of instruction tradition tells us nothing ; °° but if we consider how decidedly he expresses himself against the rhetoricians who made long speeches, but knew neither how to ask questions nor how to answer them ;?! and how low, on the same ground, was his esti- mation of written exposition, open to every misunder- standing and abuse,—in comparison with the living personal agency of conversation,’®—if we mark the fact, that in his own works, the development of thought by dialogue is a law, from which in his long literary career he allowed himself not a single noteworthy de- parture,—we can scarcely doubt that in his oral teach- ing he remained true to these main principles, On the other hand, however, we hear of a discourse on the Good, published by Aristotle ** and some of his fellow pupils, and belonging to Plato’s later years. Aris- totle himself mentions discourses on Philosophy; °* and that these were not conversations, but in their general character at any rate continuous discourses, is witnessed partly by express testimony, partly by their inter- nal evidence, which can be taken in no other way. 8° Olymp. 6 has not the value of a witness, and can lead us to no conclusion of any moment. 5! Prot. 328 E sqq., 334 C sqq. ; Gorgias 449 B. 52 Phadr. 275 D sq.; 276 E. 53 The references on this point, from Simplicius, Physica 32 b, 104, 117; Alexander on the Metaphy- sies 1, 6 (Schol. in Aristot. 551, b. 19); Philoponus De Anima OC, 2, are given by Brandis, De perditis Aristotelis libris de ideis et de Bono, p. 3 sq., 23 sqq. To the same treatise may be referred the statement of Aristoxenus (on Aris- totle’s authority), Harmonie Ele- menta, ii. p. 30, and this work, Part ii. b. 48. 2, 771, d. 2. 54 De Anima i. 2, 204 b. 18; on the question whether the Aristote- lian books (and consequently the Platonic discourses) on the Good were identical with those on phi- losophy, or not, vide Brandis loc. cit. 6 sq.; Gr. R. Phil. ii. b. 1, 84 89. ss Aristot. loc. cit.’ calls them axpdacis, Simpl. Adyoı and auwv- ovola, PLATO'S LIFE. 27 Also, there are many portions of the Platonic system which from their nature could not well be imparted conversationally. It is most probable, therefore, that Plato, according to circumstances, made use of both forms ; while the supposition must be admitted that as in his writings, so in his verbal instruction, question and answer gave place to unbroken exposition, in pro- portion, partly to the diminished vivacity of increasing years, partly to the necessary advance in his teaching, from preparatory enquiries to the dogmatic statement of his doctrine in detail. That, side by side with the communications intended for the narrower circle of his friends, he should have given other discourses designed for the general public, is not likely.° It is more credible that he may have brought his writings into connection with his spoken instruction, and imparted them to his scholars by way of stimulus to their memories.*” On this point, however, we are 58 Diog. iii. 37 (vide note 4) does not warrant such a conelusion ; the reference there seems to be to a prelection in the school. On the other hand Themist., or. xxi. 295 D, tells us that Plato once de- livered a discourse which a large audience flocked to hear from Athens and the country. When, however, he came to the doctrine of the Good, the whole assembly, down to Plato’s usual hearers, dis- persed. No doubt this is only an arbitrary expansion of what Aris- tox. loc. cit. tells on Aristotle's authority, that the majority of Plato's disciples were greatly as- tonished, in the discourse on the Good, to hear, not of things usually considered good, but of mathe- matics, astronomy, and finally of the One Good. Plato certainly would not expound the most ideal part of his system to a miscella- neous concourse of hearers, as Themistius imagines; and, apart from that, with his views as to the conditions of any fruitful study of philosophy, and his low estimate of mere popular display speeches, he is hardly likely to have troubled himself with giving discourses to people who had not fulfilled his requirements. 57 Cf. Pheedr. 276 D. Instead of other amusement, a man might write books, &aur@ te drouvhuara Onmavpılöuevos, eis 7d AHOns yüpas eav Icmraı, kal maytl Ta TavTdv Ixvos weriöyri, 28 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. entirely without information.** Platodoubtless combined with intellectual intercourse that friendly life-in-com- mon to which he himself had been accustomed in the Socratic circle and the Pythagorean Society. With a philosopher so little able to separate philosophie from moral endeavour, it might be expected that community of knowledge would naturally grow into community of life. In this way he appears to have joined his scho- lars at stated intervals in social repasts.°? There can be no doubt, from what we know of his sentiments on the subject,‘ that his instructions were altogether gra- tuitous; and if, on certain occasions, he accepted pre- sents from some of his rich friends," there is no reason 58 The tale given by Diog. 37, from Phavorinus, that at the read- ing of the Pheedo all present, ex- cept Aristotle, gradually withdrew, is highly improbable. Philosophie interest and respect for the master cannot have been so scanty, even in Plato’s inferior scholars, as to allow of anything of the kind, least of all at the delivery of such a masterpiece. Besides, at the time when Aristotle was Plato’s pupil, the Phedo must have been long published. ® Athensus xii. 547, d. sqq., quoting Antigonus Carystius, tells with some censure of the extrava- gance introduced by Lycon the Peripatetic at certain meals held on the first day of each month, to which the scholars contributed. They were connected with sacrifices to the Muses. Athen. continues, od yap iva auppuevres em 7d add THs €ws Tov OpOpiov ‘yevomevns Tpare(ns &roAabawoıv,?} xapıv efo- vias €roicavTo Tas ovyddous Tavras ol mepl TAdtwva Kal ’Ereloımmov, add’ iva dalvwvraı kal To Oeloy TIu@vres kal Quoik@s GAAHALS Fuumepidepd- Mevot Kal TO MAELOTOV Evexev avETEwS kat gidodoylas. It would appear from this that monthly banquets of the Muses were an institution of the Academy, and with them we may eonnect the well-known tale about the general Timotheus, who, after a meal with Plato, said, ‘ With such company one need fear no headaches to-morrow.’ (Plat. de sanitate tuen- da9,p.127; Queest.Cony.vi. proem.; Athen. x. 419 c.; lian, V. H. ii. 18, from the same source.) At all events, Athen. loc. cit. says, as of something well known, 7d Ev ’Aka- dnula oupmécioy, and so again i. 4 E, év t@ MlAdtwvos cucoitiw. To what new Pythagorean, however, he is indebted for the information in the second passage that the number of the guests used to be 28 (4x 7) he has not informed us. 6° On which compare Part I. 888. 6) Anniceris is said to have PLATO'S LIFE. 29 to conclude that such voluntary offerings were therefore customary among his disciples in the Academy. Plato’s sphere of work seemed to him to be limited to this intellectual and educational activity, more and more, as experience deepened his conviction that in the then state of Athens, no diplomatic career was compat- ible with the principles he held. The desire, however, that it might be otherwise was none the less strong in him ;® and that he had not abandoned the hope of somehow and somewhere gratifying this desire is proved by his two great political works, which are designed not merely to set forth theoretical ideals, but at the same time to exert a regulative influence on actual con- ditions. Consequently though he, as little as his great master, himself wished to be a statesman, both may bought for him the garden in the Academy, Dion defrayed the ex- penses for the purchase of the writings of Philolaus and for equipping a chorus (supra 24, 48; 20, 38; 4,5). Not one of these accounts is sufficiently established, the two first only on feeble evidence. The statement of the 13th Plat. Let. 361 A sq. is quite worthless. #2 Cf. p. 13. Of the illustra- tions given there, only the most apposite, Rep. vi. 496 C, need be quoted here. In the present con- dition of society, says Plato, few ever succeed in deyoting themselves to Philosophy and remaining true to her. Kal robrwv 5) trav dAlywv of yevouevor kal yevoduevor &s HdV Kal nakdpıov Td KTäua, Kal THY TOAAGY ab ixavas iddvtes Thy wavlay, kal Sri obdels oddity byes ds eros elmeiv mepl TA TÜV möAewv mpdrTE od fori Evuuaxos uel’ Srov Tis iy emi Thy Tov Bikaiwy Bonbeıav odCor? tv, GAN damep eis Onpla kvOpwros eumer ey, ote tvvadinety EdeAwv od- Te ixavds dv eis maow ayplous davré- xew, amply te thy wéAw 4) pirous OvigoL mpoamoAöuevos avwpedrys ait@ Te Kal Tols HAAas by Yevoıro, TATA TaVTAhoyioUG AaBwvr, novxlav Exwv kal Ta abrod TpatTwY, ciov Ev xeıuwvı KoviopToD Kal CdAns smd mvevpatos pepouevou bd Teixloy amootds, Öp@v tovs &AdAous kara- mumAauevous dvoulas, ayand, el an autos Kabapds Adırlas Te Kad avoolwy Epyav Bidoerat. K.T.A. 63 "AAAd Tot, is the rejoinder, loc. cit., ob Ta eAdxıora ky Siampa- Eduevos amadAdrroiro: to which Soerates replies, obd€ ye Ta ueyıora, un Tux&v moAırelas mpornkovans: ev yap mpoonkoton autos Te uaAAov abinreraı kal peta tov DBlwy ra kowa odoe, Cf. ibid. v. 473 C sq. 50 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. certainly be credited with the aim of forming states- men; and if he repudiated political activity in cir- % Tt has truly been said of a series of men who distinguished themselves by their political ac- tivity that they came out of the Platonie school. However, even in antiquity, the opinions as re- gards the political character of this school were very divided; and if the admirers of Plato like Plutarch adv. Col. 32, 6, sqq. p. 1126, bring into connection with him as pupils as many as possible of the greatest statesmen of his time, not seldom exceeding the bounds of historical fact, it cannot be expected that adversaries like Athenzeus xi. 508, d. sqq., and his predecessors, will be precise about their evidence for the statement that the majority of the Platonic pupils were rupavvırol ties Kal diaBordo. According to Plutarch. loe. cit. Dion (concerning whom vide pp. 24, 46, 32 sq.) belonged to Plato’s pupils, together with Aristonymus, Phormio (Plu- tarch Precepta. Reip. ger. 10, 15) and Menedemus, who respectively gave laws to the Areadians, Eleans, and Pyrrheans. (Menedemus is mentioned by the contemporary comedian Epierates in Athenzus, 59, d. in connection with Plato and Speusippus, in Plutarch Sto. Rep. 20, 6, p. 1043 in connection with Xeuoerates); further Delius of Ephesus (called in Philostratus, Vit. Soph. 1, 3, p. 485 through a slip of the pen Alas), who under Philip and Alexander was the active promoter of the expedition against Persia, together with Py- tho and Heraclides of AZnos, the murderers of the Thracian king Cotys (Arist. Polit. v. 10, 1311 b. 20, mentions as such the brothers Parrhon and Heraclides, with whom Pytho appears to have con- nected himself), the first of whom is known as the speaker and agent of King Philip (ef. Steinhart, Life of Plato 195, 322, 16); both are cited as Platonists by Diogenes iii. 46. It must be from a confusion with the above-mentioned Hera- clides, that Demetrius of Magnesia according to Diogenes y. 89 as- signed the murder of a tyrant to Heraclides Pontieus, who bore the same name. Besides these we have Chio (the supposed writer of a letter in the Epist. Soerat.) and Leonides, who perished in the murder of the tyrant Clearchus of Heraclea (Justin xvi. 5, Suidas, KAéapxos, who adds to them as a third Antitheus; opposed to this Memnon ap. Phot. Cod. 224, p. 225, a. 10 sqq., says that Lysimachus killed him and his brother, because they had murdered their mother) ; Euphrzus of Oreos (Suid. Edop.) about whose influence at the court of Perdiecas (to whom the Plat. epist. v. recommends him). Athen- wus it is true (loc. cit. cf. 506, E), according to Antigonus of Karystus, expresses himself very unfavour- ably, but who we learn from De- mosth. Philipp. iii. p. 126 sqq. (by which Athensus’ account of his death is set right) was a martyr to Greeian liberty; Leo, who as statesman and commander defended his mother-eity Byzantium against Philip. (Plut. Phoe..14, Philostr. Vit. Soph. 1, 2. Suidas Acwv); Hermias, prince of Atarneus, the well-known friend of Aristotle (Diog. v. 3, 5 sqq. Strabo xiii. 1, 59, p. 610. Diodor. xvi. 52, PLATO'S LIFE. sl cumstances which he considered hopeless,® there was, at the same time, nothing in Dionys. ep. ad. Arum. 1, 5. Suidas ‘Epulas. Part ii. b. 16 sqq. 2nd edit.) Besides these Diog. ili. 46, mentions Euzeon of Lampsacus and Timolaus of Cyzicus, both of whom according to Athenz. 508 sqq. (who calls the one Euagon and the other Timzus) made unsuccessful at- tempts to usurp tyrannical power in their respective cities; Athenzeus adds to them Charon of Pellene as one of the profligate tyrants who came out of the school of Plato and Xenocrates, with what justice we do not know. According to Athenzus loc. cit. Diog. iii. 46, Callippus, also, the murderer of Dion, was a scholar of Plato, which statement is opposed by the Plat. epist. vil. 333 C; Plut. Dion, 34. The Clearchus mentioned above, according to Suidas KAéapx., at- tended the Academy only a short time. Itis very improbable that Chabrias was a student of the Academy (Plut. adv. Col. 32, 6, ef. Pseudo-Ammon, vita Arist. p. 10, West., who makes him out a rela- tion of Plato’s). The. account (Aéyos in Diog. iii. 23 sq.) that Plato alone stood by him at his trial is worth little historically, as Arist. Rhetor. iii. 10, 1411, p. 6, mentions another defender of Cha- brias; and the defence which in Diog. is put in the mouth of Plato obviously originated from the Apology, 28 E. Timotheus (ARlian, Varia Hist. ii. 10, supra 28, 59) it is true was proved to bea friend but by no means a pupil of Plato; his relation to him cannot at all have been so intimate as Ps.-Ammon loe. cit. would have it. Phocion in his younger days may have his principles to keep him heard Plato, and later on Xeno- erates (Plut. Phocion, 4, adv. Col. 32, 6); with regard to the latter, however, he must have confined himself to being present at isolated discourses. Though Chamzleon and Polemo in Diog. iii. 46 repre- sent the orators Hyperides and Lyeurgus (of whom also the Pseudo- Plutarch vite decem Orat. vii. p. 841 makes the same assertion) as pupils of Plato, their speeches (as Steinhart remarks, Plato’s Life, 174 sqq.) show no proofs of the influence of Platonic thought and expression. Still less can we claim ZEschines for a pupil of Plato (with the scholiast on Esch. de falsa legat. i., who appeals to Demetrius Phalereus, compare Apollon. Vit. ZEsch. p. 14); and though Demosthenes, his great adversary, is variously stated, sometimes with greater and some- times with less precision, to have been a pupil of Plato, still, how- ever, in his orations no influence of Platonic philosophy appears, significant as may have been Plato’s influence on him as a stylist. (Plut. Demosth. 5, accord- ing to an anonymous writer in Hermippus, vite X orat. viii. 3, p. 844. Mnesistratus in Diog. iii. 47. Cie. de Orat. i. 20, 89. Brut. 31, 121; Orat. iv. 15; Off. i. 4; Quintil. xii. 2, 22, 10, 24; Lucian, Encomium Demosthenis, 12, 47; Schol. in Demosth. contra Androt. 40; Olympiod. in Gorg. 166.) The 5th letter attributed to him does not make Demosthenes to speak as a Platonist, but only to express his good opinion of the Platonic school, under which he 32 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. back from it, should there arise a favourable opportu- nity for the realization of his ideas.‘ Such an oppor- tunity seemed to offer after the death of the elder Dio- nysius,” when Dion, and, at his instigation, Dionysius the younger, invited him pressingly to Syracuse.‘%® obviously does not include himself. Cf. Steinhart loc. cit. 175 sqq. Schiifer, Demosth. 1, 280 sqq.; and besides the authorities mentioned above, particularly Hermann, Plat. 74 sq., 119 sq. Steinhart, 171- 189. With regard to the relations of Isocrates with Plato we shall speak later on (p. 345, 2, 2nd edit.). No one represents him as his pupil, as he was eight or nine years older than Plato, and their friendship asserted in Diog. iii. 8, is estab- lished only for the earlier years of their lives by the writings of both. 65 According to Plutarch, Ad principem ineruditum, i. p. 779; Lucullus, C 2; Zlian, V. H. xii. 30, the people of Cyrene (beside whom Diog. iii. 23 and ALL. V. H. ii. 42, give the Arcadians and Thebans at the founding of Mega- lopolis) asked him for a scheme of laws; but he refused both, in the former case because Cyrene was too luxurious for him, in the latter because he perceived toov Exew ob OéAovras, ov meloew avTods TIuav tv icovoulay. The last statement is very improbable, for Plato would without doubt have given them a constitution just as little demo- eratic as they gave themselves; and moreover it is incredible that Epaminondas, who after the vie- tory of Leuetra promoted the founding of Megalopolis for the protection of Arcadia against Sparta, should have invited an Athenian, and partieularly so out- spoken a friend of Sparta as Plato undoubtedly was, to lay down the new constitution. The absurd 11th Platonic letter cannot come under consideration as historical evi- dence. 6° Plato himself lays it down as a necessary condition, that phi- losophers should not withdraw from polities. The corresponding duty is an immediate consequence. And that this duty should only be binding with regard to one’s own state, would hardly be a maxim with one so fully possessed by his political ideal as Plato. # This happened Ol. 103, 1, at the beginning of the winter, and therefore 368 B.c. Diodor. xv. 73 sq. Plato’s journey must be assigned to the following year. Cie. de Sen. 12, 41 (with which ef. Part i. p. 244, 3) dates it, or at all events, according to Fin. v. 29, 87, the first journey, 405 a.v.c., which needs no refutation. 68 Ep. Plat. vii. 327 B sqq.; ii. 311 E; iii. 316 C sq.; Plut. Dion, 10 sq. (ef. e. prine. Phil. 4, 6, p. 779), who adds that the Py- thagoreans in Italy joined their entreaties to Dion’s. Cf. Corn. Nep., Dion, C 3, &e. The 7th Platonie letter is certainly not trustworthy, and all the following ones depend on it. What other sources of information Plutarch may have had we do not know. That Plato, however, did make a PLATO'S LIFE. 33 Could this potentate indeed be won over to Philosophy and to Plato’s political beliefs—(and of this Plato, or at any rate Dion, appears certainly to have indulged a hope),°® the most important results might be expected to follow, not only in his own kingdom, but in all Sicily and Magna Grecia, indeed throughout the Hel- lenic states. Meanwhile the event proved, only too soon, how insufficiently this hope was founded. When Plato arrived in Syracuse, the young Prince received him most politely, and at first showed lively interest in the philosopher and his endeavours; but he very shortly became weary of these serious conversations, and when his jealousy of Dion, which was not entirely groundless, had led to an open rupture with that states- man, and at length to the banishment of the latter, Plato must have been glad to escape from the painful position in which he found himself, by a second return home.’! Nevertheless, after some years, at the renewed second and a third journey to Sicily cannot be doubted. The testimony is unanimous; and if he had not taken the journey, the composer of the letter would have had no reason for defending him on that score. That his motives were actually those ascribed to him is probable in itself, and made more so by the whole politi- eal situation; and this is borne out by the passage in the Laws, iv. 709 E sqq., in which Hermann, p- 69, rightly recognises an expres- - sion of the hopes which led Plato to Syracuse. These hopes, he later on maintains, have not failed in regard to their universal foun- dation, even though they were not accomplished on that particular occasion. 8 Diogenes’ counter-statement, iii. 21, that he asked Dionysius for land and people towards the realization of his state, is certainly false. Apul. dogm. Pl. 4 is a misunderstanding. 70 More detailed information, but of doubtful worth, may be found in Plut. Dion 13; De Adu- latione 7, p. 52, 26, p. 67; Pliny, Natural History, vii. 30; Zl. V. H. iv. 18; Nepos, loc. cit. The allegel meeting of Plato and Aristippus at the Syracusan Court has been already discussed, Part i. pp. 291, 2; 312, 3. 71 Ep. Plat. iii, 229 B sqq., ili. *p 34 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. solicitations of the tyrant and entreaties of his friends, he resolved upon yet another voyage to Sicily. His immediate aim was doubtless to attempt a reconciliation between Dion and Dionysius; to this may have linked themselves more distantly, new political hopes: the undertaking, however, turned out so unfortunately that Plato was even in considerable danger from the mis- trust of the passionate prince,” and only evaded it by the intervention of the Pythagoreans, who were then at the head of the Tarentine state. Whether, after his return,’ he approved of Dion’s hostile aggression on Dionysius, we do not know; but for his own part, from 318 C; Plut. Dion 14, 16; Diog. iii, 21 sq. The latter assigns to this journey what, according to better authorities, happened in the third; and he therefore puts an incident in the first, which Plu- tarch relates of the second. Cf. also Stobzeus, Florilegium, 13, 36, who, however, connects with it a circumstance generally told of Dionysius and Aristippus. Dion, who appears in the two previous journeys as Plato’s enthu- siastic admirer, had, according to Plutareh, Dion 17, become still more intimate with him during a long stay at Athens, in the course of which he also became a close friend of Speusippus. 78 Ep. Plat. ii. 316 D sqq.; vii. 330 B; 33 D; 337 E sqq.; and from these sources Plutarch, Dion 18-20; Maximus Tyrius, Dis- sertationes xxi. 9; Diog. 23. The particulars are uncertain; the letter of Archytas ap. Diog. 22 is certainly spurious. According to Plut. e. 22 (ef. Ep. Plat. ii. 314 D) Speusippus accompanıed him to Syracuse; according to Diog., Xenocrates. He is said to have left the conduct of his school at Athens during his absence to Heraclides. (Suidas, voe. ‘Hpa- kAelöns.) The Epistole Hera- clidis, quoted there by Ast, and even by Brandis—the former in Pl. Leben u. Schr. p. 30, the latter Gk.-Röm. Phil. ii. a. 145—do not exist. The quotation is due to a misunderstanding of Tennemann’s words, Plat. Phil. i. 54; ‘Suidas in Heraclides Epistol. (Platonic se.) ii. p. 73’ (Bipont.). 4 According to Ep. vii. 350 B (ef. p. 345 D) this must be dated in the spring of 360 ».c., for he is said to have met Dion at the Olympie games (which can only be those of the year named) and in- formed him of events in Syracuse. His hither journey would then be 361. Cf. Herm. p. 66. 5 Plutarch. adv. Col. 32, 6, p. 1126. Cie. de Orat. ni. 34, 139, and AElian, V. H. iii. 17, represent the impulse as coming from Plato. But this is an exaggerated infer- PLATO'S LIFE. 35 this time, having now attained his seventieth year, he seems to have renounced all active interference with politics.”® tinued amidst the reverence of countrymen The activity of his intellect, however, con- and foreigners,’ unabated till his death,”® which, after a happy and peaceful old age,” is said to have overtaken _ him at a wedding feast.*° Ep. Plat. vii. 326 E. Dion found warm sup- port from Speusippus and other Platonists, Plut. Dio 22,17. His companion and subsequent enemy, Callippus, is noticed as a scholar of Flato’s (vide p. 31). 7% Athenzus, xi. 506, indeed says that he was intimate with Archelaus of Macedonia, and later on, paved the way for Philip’s supremacy : so that we might infer his sympathies to have been in general with the Macedonian party. As regards Archelaus, however, the statement is refuted by chrono- ence from Cf. Ep. iv. logy, and by the Gorgias, 470 D sq.; and the alleged support of Philip narrows itself down, even on Athenzeus’s own quotations, to the circumstance that Plato's scholar Euphreus had obtained for Philip a certain territory from Perdiccas, and this Philip used for the fur- therance of greater designs. Any personal intercourse between Plato and Philip there does not seem to have been. ABl. V. H. iv. 19, cer- tainly says that Philip paid honour to Plato, as to other learned men ; but, according to Speusippus ap. Athen. loc. cit., and Diog. 40, he expressed himself unfavourably about him. ™ Cf. (besides what has been quoted, p. 32, 65, and about his relution to Dion and Dionysius), Diogenes, 25, and what will be presently remarked on the exten- sion of the Platonic school. 78 Of his literary works this is expressly witnessed (vid. supr. p. 3, and Diog. 37; Dionys. comp. verb, p. 208; Quint. viii. 6, 64; on which however ef. Susemihl, Gen. Ent. 11, 90 sq.). And we may safely conclude that it was the same with his activity as teacher. The alleged interruption of his work by Aristotle will be dis- cussed later in the life of that philosopher. 79 Cicero, de Senect. 5, 13. 80 Hermippus ap. Diog. iii. 2. Augustine, ©. D. viii. 2. Suid. voe. IAgr. Cicero's seribens est mor- tuus, loc. eit., is not at varianee with this latter, if we remember that it need not be taken literally. According to Diog. 40, a certain Philo had used the proverbial expression IIAdrwvos dBeipes ; and Myronianus coneluded from this that Plato died of $Beıplanıs, as it is said Phereeydes and others did. Of course this is false. Perhaps the expression comes originally from the place in the Sophist, 227 B; or the passage may at least have given a handle to the story. As to Plato’s burial, monu- ment, and will, vide Diog. iii. 25, 41 sqq. Olymp. 6 ; Pausan. 1, 30,3; ‘Herm. p. 125, 197. D2 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. to oO Even in antiquity, the character of Plato was the subject of many calumnies.*! The jests of the comic poets which have come down to us * are indeed harm- less enough, and concern the philosopher more than the man; but there are other reproaches, for the silencing of which Seneca’s apology ®—that the life of a philosopher can never entirely correspond with his doetrine,—is scarcely sufficient. On the one hand, he is accused of connections, which, if proved, would for ever throw a shadow on his memory;** on the other of unfriendly, and even of hostile behaviour towards several of his fellow disciples.** 81 One of these erities of Plato was Timzeus the Locrian, Plut. Nie. 1; two others we shall meet with in Aristoxenus and Theopompus, the pupils of Isoerates, who, in this way, retaliated for the attacks of Plato and the Platonists on Isocrates and Rhetoric: ef. Dion. Hal. ep. ad Pomp. p. 757; De pre. Hist. 782; Athen. xi. 508 c. Epiet. Dyes a1. 7,5. 8 Ap. Diog. iii. 26 sq.; Athen. ji. 59 c. sq.; xi. 509 c. 83 Vita beata, 18, 1. #1 Vide Diog. 29; ZElian. V. H. iv. 21; Athen. xiii. 589 ¢., and supra, p. 8, 8. Even Dion is here called his favourite; and an epitaph is quoted, which Plato (at the age of seventy-three) is said to have composed on his friend, who must have been sixty at least. That Antisthenes alluded to some amours of Plato’s by the title of his Sd@wy is a mere arbitrary con- jecture. The censure of Diesar- chus ap. Cie. Tuse. iv. 34, 71, is levelled not at his character, but his philosophy. On the other He has hand, Suidas, p. 3000, ed. Gaisford, affirms that he never entered into any sexual relations. But this, again, can only be a dogmatic invention, originating with the asceticism of later schools. ® The only hostility that can be demonstrated, however, is between Antisthenes and Plato; vide Part 1. 255,and supra, p. 18, 31. Antisthe- nes is allowed on all hands to have been the aggressor, and always to have displayed the greater vehe- tence and passion. The assertion that Plato behaved ill to Eschines has been discussed, Part i. p. 167, 6; 204,3; and his alleged neglect of him in Sicily (Diog. 11. 61) is con- tradieted by Plut. de Adul. ce. 26, p.67. He certainly passed censure on Aristippus, vide Part i. p. 242; but it was well merited, and we may well believe there was no love lost between them, even though the anecdotes of their meeting in Syracuse (vide Part i. p. 291, 2) do not tell us much, and the accounts | of acertain He:esander ap. Athen. — xi. 507 b. still less. At all events, PLATO'S LIFE. 37 also been charged with censoriousness and self-love ; *® not to mention the seditious behaviour after the death of Socrates which scandal has laid to his account.®” His relation with the Syracusan court was early ®® made the handle for divers accusations, such as love of pleasure,*® avarice,” flattery of tyrants; °! and his political character what we do know cannot turn to Plato’s disadvantage. We get re- peated assertions of an enmity existing between Plato and Xeno- phon (Diog. iii. 34; Gell. N. A. xiv. 3; Athen. xi. 504 e.). But Böckh has shown (de simultate quie Platoni cum Xenophonte inter- cepisse fertur, Berlin, 1811) how little ground there is for such a belief in the writings of either; and the writings are the only real authority. Most likely the whole story is an invention. Cf. Stein- hart, Pl. L. 93 sq. 86 Dionysius ad Pompeium, p. 775 sq.; Athen. xi. 506 a. sqq.; Antisthenes and Diogenes ap. Diog. vi. 7, 26; Aristides de quatuoryiris. The accusation is mainly grounded on Plato’s writings, which cannot be said to justify it, however one-sided many of his judgments may be. The conscious superiority, to which he had a real right, may have been too prominent in particular cases ; even disadvantageously so, some- times, for others. Cf. the quota- tion from Aristotle, Part i. p. 289, 2. But this can hardly bear out such accusations as the above. Of the anecdotes given in Plutarch de adul. c. 32, p. 70; Alian, V. H. xiv. 33 (Diog. vi. 40); the first is irrelevant, the second certainly untrue; and what Hermippus ap. Athen. xi. 505 d., gives, looks un- historical too. Aristoxenus apud Diog. ix. 40, taxes Plato with the childish design of buying up and destroying the writings of Demo- critus. But of this we may un- hesitatingly acquit him. Aris- toxenus is too untrustworthy a witness; and we may at least eredit Plato with the sense to see that a widely spread mode of thought could not be abolished by the burning of a few books. His own distaste for merely material science and his general disparage- ment of such studies may perhaps account for his never mentioning the physicist of Abdera. 87 Hegesander ap. Athen. xi. 507 a. sq.; the falsehood of the statements need not be pointed out to any reader of the Pheedo or the Symposium. The dream of So- crates related ibid. is a malicious parody of that mentioned above, p. 9, 15. # The seventh Platonic letter is a refutation of such charges. According to Diog. iii. 84; vi. 25, the charges were openly made even in Plato's lifetime. 89 Vide p. 23, 45. 8 Philostr.-v. Apoll. 1, 35; Diog. iii. 9. The anonymous assertionin Arsen. Violet. ed. Katz, 508, and the Florilegium Mona- cense (Stob. Flor. ed. Meineke, T. iv. 285), No. 227, that in old age he became avaricious, is of the sume kind. Seneca, v. 6, 27, 5, remarks that he was reproached 38 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. has especially suffered at the hands of those who were themselves unable to grasp his ideas.°? Lastly, if we are to believe his accusers, he not only, as an author, allowed himself numerous false assertions "? respecting his predecessors, but also such indiscriminate quotation from their works, that a considerable portion of his own writings can be nothing more than a robbery from them.** All these complaints, however, so far as we are for taking money. Others say (v. supr. Part i. p. 312, 3; and Diog. ii. 81) that he did not do so even at Syracuse. The seventh letter re- cognises no reason for defending him against the charge. 9! Diog. vi. 58. Against which it is unnecessary to refer to Plut. Dion 13, 19, and the quotations on p- 24, 47. % The quotations given by Athenzus, xi. 506 e. sqq., 508 d. sqq., have but little importance. Some are plainly untrue (vide supra, p. 34, 76), or misrepresenta- tions; and the rest, even if true, wonld not have much reference to Plato himself. On the other hand, we may see from the places quoted, pp. 29, 62; 32, 68, that Plato had oceasion to explain his political inactivity and his relation to the younger Dionysius. And we may expect to find that both were cast in his teeth, just as his political idealism and his preferepce for aristocratic government must neces- sarily have given offence. Cf. also Rep. v. 472 A, 473 C, E. *3 Cf. the list of offences in Athen. v. ec. 55, 57-61 ; the correc- tion of which we may spare our- selves, together with the absurd complaints about the fictitious speeches which he puts in the mouth of Socrates and others: xi. 505 e. 507 c.; Diog. 35. * So he is said to have borrowed from Philolaus’ writings for his Timeus (v. supr. 20, 35), and from a work of Protagoras for the Re- publie (Aristox. and Phav. ap. Diog. iii. 37, 57). According to Porphyry ap. Euseb. Preeparatio Evangelica, x. 3, 24, he is indebted to the same source for his objec- tions to the Eleatics. Alcimus ap. Diog. ili. 9 sq., reproached him with having taken the foundations of his system from Epicharmus: Theopompus, ap. Athen. xi. 508 ¢., said that he borrowed most of his dialogues from Aristippus, Antis- thenes, and Bryso. With regard to Epicharmus, the assertion is groundless, as has been shown in Vol. i. 428 sq. To the statements of Aristoxenus and Theopompus no one who knows the untrust- worthiness of the writers will be inclined to give much weight. The statement of the former (whom his assertions about Socrates already sufficiently characterise, supra, öl sq., 48, 54, 6, 59, 5) is im- probable on the face of it; if true at all, it can’ only have reference to some unimportant points, And the same applies to Theopompus’s story (ef. supra, 36, 81), apart from PLATO'S LIFE. 39 in a position to test them, appear so unfounded that searcely a fraction of them will stand the process of investigation ;” and the rest are supported by such weak evidence, that they ought not to affect that reverence for the character of the philosopher which is certain to ensue from the perusal of his works. So far as a man may be judged by what he has written, only the very highest opinion can be formed of the personality of Plato. To appreciate him ‘correctly, however, he must be measured bya standard that takes account of his natural disposition and historical place. Plato was a Greek, and he was proud of being one. He belonged to a rank and to a family, the prejudices as well as the advantages of which he was content to share. He lived at a time when Greece had touched the highest point of her national life, and was steadily declining from political greatness. His nature was ideal, adapted rather to artistic creation and scientific research than to practical action; which tendency, nourished and confirmed by the whole course of his life, and the strong influence of the Socratic School, eould not fail to be still further strengthened by his own political experiences. From such a temperament and. such influences might be evolved all the virtues of the common Socratic element, which Plato did not need to borrow of anyone. Porphyry’s assertion may ssibly have some basis of truth ; ut it can hardly redound to Plato's discredit. Finally, if Plato was indebted to Philolaus for the construction of the elements and other details of physical science in the Timzeus, and for the deductions as to the limit and the illimitable in the Philebus, we can find no fault with him for this in itself; and in both cases he has sufficiently pointed out his sources in making a general reference to the Pytha- goreans, even if he has not named Philolaus. % Vide preceding note. 40 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. a man and a philosopher, but nought of the grandeur of a politician. Plato might desire the very best for his country, and be ready to sacrifice for her sake everything except his convictions: but that he should have thrown himself into the turmoil of political life, for which he was quite unfitted,—that he should have lavished his soul’s strength in propping up a constitu- tion, the foundations of which he thought rotten,®*— that he should have used means that he felt to be use- less to stem the torrent of opposing fate,—that he, like Demosthenes, should have led the forlorn hope among the ruins of Grecian freedom,— would be too much to expect. His province was to examine into State prob- lems and the conditions of their solution ; their prac- tical realization he abandoned to others. Thus inner disposition and outward circumstances alike designed him for philosophy rather than state-craft. But even his philosophy had to be pursued differently from that of Socrates, nor could his habits of life exactly resemble his master’s. He desired to be true in the main to the Socratic pattern, and by no means to return to the mode of teaching adopted by the Sophists.”” But aim- ing as he did at the formation and propagation of a comprehensive system,—aphoristic conversation, condi- tioned by a hundred accidental circumstances, was not enough for him; he wanted more extensive machinery, %6 Vide supra; p. 29, 62; cf. Ritter ii. 171 sqq. 97 He not only took no fees for his teaching (Diog. iv. 2, and Proleg. e. 5, ef. p. 314, 4), strongly disapproving of the Sophists’ con- duct in this respect (vide Vol. i. p. ‘888 sq.), but he also censured the form in which the Sophistie doctrine was enunciated (Protag. 328 E sqq.; 334 C sq.; Gorg. 449 B. sq.; Hipp. Min. 373 A. Cf. supra, p. 26, 51), PLATO'S LIFE. 41 skilled labour, intellectual quiet; he wanted hearers who would follow his enquiries in their entire connec- tion, and devote to them their whole time; his philoso- phy was forced to withdraw itself from street and mar- ket, within the precincts of a school.?® Here already were many deviations from the Socratic way of life; many more sprang from Plato’s own habits and inclinations, which were generally opposed to it. Simplicity and temperance were indeed required by his principles,” and are expressly ascribed to him;'°° but the entire freedom from wants and posses- sions to which Socrates attained, would not have suited a man of his education and circumstances. Himself full of artistic taste, he could not deny all worth to life’s external adornments; !°! extending his scientific research unreservedly to all reality, he could hardly, in ordi- nary life, be so indifferent to the outward, as they who, like Socrates, were satisfied with moral introspection. Socrates, in spite of his anti-democratic politics, was, by nature, a thorough man of the people: Plato’s per- sonality, like his philosophy, bears a more aristocratic 8 Cf. Diog. 40: eferömile de kal 101 Plato is indeed said not to aurds Ta mAelota, Kala Tıves hace Olymp. c. 6. * Cf. specially Rep. iii. 403 E 89. ; Gorg. 464 D. 100 Vide the places quoted p. 28, 59; and Diog. 39. In the same connection we may notice the doubtful tale in Stobzeus, Flor. 17 36 (attributed to Pythagoras by Flor. Monae. 231), of his pouring away the water with which he meant to quench his thirst, as an exercise of self-denial. have disdained a certain amount of luxury in domestic management (Diog. vi. 26); some of his pupils were ridiculed by contemporary comie writers on account of their fine clothes and their haughty be- haviour. (Athens. xi. 509; xii. 544 sq.) On the other hand Seneca ad Helv. 12, 4, says that Plato only had three slaves; his Will in Diog. ii. 42 mentions five, 42 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. stamp. He loves to shut himself up in his own circle, to ward off what is vulgar and disturbing ; his interest and solicitude are not for all without distinction, but only or chiefly for the elect who are capable of sharing his culture, his knowledge, his view of life. The aris- toeracy of intelligence on which his State rests has deep roots in the character of Plato. But precisely to this circumstance are owing the grandeur and completeness that make his character in its particular sphere unique. As Plato in his capacity of philosopher unites the boldest idealism with rare acuteness of thought, a dis- position for abstract critical enquiry with the freshness of artistic creativeness ;—so does he, as a man, combine severity of moral principles !% with lively susceptibility for beauty, nobility and loftiness of mind with tender- ness of feeling, passion with self-control,!® enthusiasm for his purpose with philosophic calm, gravity with mildness,! magnanimity with human kindliness,'™ dignity !'% with gentleness. He is great because he knew how to blend these apparently conflicting traits 102 An epitaph in Diog. 48 calls him cwopociyvn mpopepwy Ovntaey Hoe Te dıkalw. 103 To this belongs the well- known tale, that Plato asked a friend to chastise his slave because he himself was angry. Another version is, that he said to the slave himself, ‘Luckily for you, I am angry; or you would get stripes.’ Plut. de educatione puerorum, 14, p. 10; de sera numinis vindicta 5, p. 551. Sen. de Ira iii. 12, 5; Diog. 38 sq.; Stob. Flor. 20, 43, 57; Flor. Mon. 284. Perhaps it is with reference to this story that Themistius, Or. 2, 30 d., holds him up as a model of gentleness. 1% Of. the quotations in Parti. p. 286, 9. 105 A beautiful instance is given by Alian, V. H. iv. 9. 106 Heraclides ap. Diog. 26 tells us, that in his youth he never allowed himself to laugh immoder- ately; and Aflian, V. H. iii. 35, says laughter was forbidden in the Old Academy. We need not take either of these statements literally, but they show that Plato was re- garded as a very serious character. Another instance is given by Seneca, de Ira ii. 21, 10. —————— PLATO'S LIFE. 45 into unity, to complement opposites by means of each other, to develcpe on all sides the exuberance of his powers and capabilities into a perfect harmony,'" without losing himself in their multiplicity. That moral beauty and soundness of the whole life, which Plato, as a true Greek, requires betore all thing»,! he has, if his nature be truly represented in his works, brought to typical perfection in his own personality.!" Nor is the picture marred by incongruity of outward semblance with inward reality, for his bodily strengthand beauty have been especially recorded.!"" But through- out, the most striking peculiarity of the philosopher is that close connection of his character with his scientific aims, which he owes to the Socratic school. The moral perfection of his life is rooted in the clearness of his understanding ; it is the light of science which dis- perses the mists in his soul, and causes that Olympian serenity which breathes so refreshingly from his works. In a word, Plato’s is an Apollo-like nature, and it is a fitting testimony to the impression produced by 07 Olympiodorus says (C 6) of Plato and Homer, dvVo yap adraı Wuxal Aéyovra: yevéoOar mavap- pédviot, "se Eig. Rep. iii. 401 B sq.; 403 C. Phileb. 64 C sq.; 66 A. 1 Cf. also Panetius ap. Cie. Tuse. i. 32, 79, and the verses of Aristotle quoted, ii. 9, 2, 2nd edit. N Epiet. Diss. i. 8, 13, kaAds jv Tdrav nal ioxupds. Further ef. Apul. dogm. Plat. 1, and the * quotations supra 339, 1, 242, 2, on Plato's build and gymnastie dex- terity. Among the portraits of Plato (on which see Visconti. Icono- graphie grecque, i. 169 [228] sq.), the statuette, a drawing of which Jahn after Braun, Mon. Ined. d. Instit. iii. 7, had prefixed to his edition of the Symposium (the original has vanished), is the only one which bears his name and dis- plays any likeness. Other supposed busts of Plato represent Asclepios or the bearded Dionysos. Pha- vorinus in Diog. iii. 25 mentions a statue on his tomb by Silanion. According to Plut. adul. et amor. e. 9, p. 53, Plato had high shoulders which his affected admirers tried to imitate, and according to Diog. 5, a thin clear voice. 44 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. himself on his contemporaries, and by his writings on after generations, that many myths should have placed him, like Pythagoras, in the closest union with the god who, in the bright clearness of his spirit, was to the Greeks the very type of moral beauty, proportion, and harmony.!!! 1 This view had influence in the celebration of his birthday feast, and perhaps even in the par- tieular date assigned for it: vide- supr. 338, 1. We find from Diog. 2 (Olymp. i. Prol. 1), Plut. Qu. Conv. viii. 1, 2, 4: Apul. dogm. Pl. 1, #1. V. H. x. 21, that even in Speusippus’ time the tale went that Plato was a son of Apollo. As throwing light on the origin of these stories Steinhart (Pl. L. 8, 36, 282) refers to the Greek eultus of heroes, and particularly to the similar stories about Alex- ander; he indeed conjectures that it was owing to these same stories that people wished to place Plato as a spirit-hero beside the deified world-conqueror; for we cannot believe that this legend belongs to the time of Speusippus. I think we are not entitled to deny the possibility of this; especially as the stories about Pythagoras offer a still closer parallel than the stories about Alexander (ef. Vol. i. 265 sq.). However, it cannot be proved that the further amplifica- tion of the myth was already known to Speusippus, according to which a vision had forbidden Aristo to touch his wife before the birth of her first child. At the most im- portant crisis of his life he is said to have been introduced to Socrates by a significant dream as the swan of Apollo, supra, p. 9, 15. He himself dreamed, just before his death (according to Olymp. 6, Proleg. 2), that he had become a swan. We may recognise the theme of all these myths in the Pheedo, 85 B. Later writers com- pare him, as Physician of Souls, with Apollo's other son, Asclepius, the Physician of the Body. (Cf. Diog. 45; the idea can hardly be hisown; out of his epigram Olymp. 6 makes an epitaph ; and the Prol. 6, with some additions, an oracle.) The pleasing story (given in Cie. Div. 1. 36, 78, Val. Max. i. 6, ext. 3; Olymp. 1), of the bees on Hy- mettus feeding the child Plato with their honey, is brought by the Prol. C 2, into connection with a sacri- fice to the shepherd god Apollo. Probably, however, it had an in- dependent origin in the Apolline myth, as a natural symbol for one from whose lips, as from Nestor’s, ‘flowed forth speech, sweeter than honey.’ CHAPTER II. PLATO’S WRITINGS. ENQUIRY AS TO THE COMPLETENESS AND GENUINENESS OF OUR COLLECTION. Tue most eloquent monument of the Platonic spirit, and the most important source for our knowledge of _ the Platonic doctrine, are in the writings of the philo- sopher himself.! His literary activity extends over the greater part of his life, a period of more than fifty years,?—and by a special favour of Fortune, it has so happened that not one of the works which he intended for publicity has been lost. ! Schleiermacher, Platon’s Werke, 6 Bde. 1804 (2nd edition 1816). ‚Ast, Platon’s Leben u. Schriften, 1816. Socher, Ueber Platon’s Schriften, 1820. Hermann, Ges- chiehte und System des Platonis- mus, 1830, p. 343 sqq. Ritter, Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. ii. 181-211. Brandis, Griech-Röm. Phil. ii. a. 151-182. Stallbaum, in his Introductions. Steinhart, in the Introductions to Plato’s Works, translated by Miller, 1850. Suckow, Die Wissenschaftliche und Künst- lerische Form der Platonischen Schriften, 1855. Munk, Die Natür- "liche Ordnung der Plat. Schriften, 1857. Susemihl, Die Genetische Entwickelung der Plat. Phil., 1855. Ueberweg, Untersuchungen über d. Echtheit und Zeitfolge der Plat. This is at any rate a Schrft, 1861. H. v. Stein 7 Bucher z. Gesch. d. Plat. vol. 1, 2, 1862-1864. Schaarschmidt, die Sammlung d. plat. Schrift. 1866. Bonitz, Plat. Studien, 1858. Grote, Plato, 3 vols. 1865. Ribbing, Genet. Entw. d. plat. Ideenlehre, Partai: 2 We shall find that in all pro- bability several of his dialogues were composed, partly after the death of Socrates, partly perhaps eren before; ancient testimony abundantly proves his having con- tinued his literary labours to the last (vide pp. 3; 35, 78). The Laws are said to have been found unfinished after his death (Diog. iii. 37), and there is also internal evidence that this work was his ‚latest (vide subter). 46 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. reasonable inference from the fact that no reliable trace of the existence of any Platonic writing no longer in our possession has come down to us; for the spuriousness of the lost dialogues of which we do hear? is beyond question,‘ and some other writings which might be sup- posed to be Platonic,—the ‘ Divisions’ (dvaipécevs),° 2 Ap. Diog. iii. 62: Midwv, bala- kes, XeAıdav, ‘EBSdun, "Empevidns, ap. Athen. xi. 506, d., Kiuwv, ap. Doxopat. in Aphthon., Rhet. Gree. ed. Walz. II. 130, cf. Simpl. in Categ. 4 (, Bas. ®euiorökAns (un- less this is after all merely another title for the Cimon, in which, ac- cording to Athenzeus, Themistocles was strongly criticised; we have no right with Hermann to conjec- ture‘ Theztetus’ instead of Themis- toeles, or to assume in the Cimon of Athenzsus a confusion with the Gor- gias). Other apocryphal writings are given by the Arabian in Casiri’s Biblioth. Arab. i. 302, who pro- fesses to quote Theo. 4 Dios. loc. cit. introduces the list of the above mentioned and some other dialogues with the words vodebovraı duodroyoupevws. If we consider how ready the scholars of the Alexandrine period were to accept as Platonie a series of writings, the spuriousness of which we can scarcely doubt, we cannot avoid concluding that those writings which they unamimously rejected must have had very dis- tinct signs of spuriousness, and must have appeared at a compara- tively late period. 5 Aristotle mentions repeatedly Platonic dS:atpéeoers, Gen. et Corr. ii. 3, 330, b. 15; those who presup- pose only two original elements, represent the rest as a mixture of these ; @raurws dt Kal of tpia Ae- yovres, kaßdrep TlAdtwy Ev Tais Siaipéceow * Tb yap ueroy (sc. aroi- xeloy) wtywa moet, Part. Anim. 1, 2, 642, b. 10; we must not form a classification of animals on dif- ferent arrangements of the limbs, olov tovs Öpridas Tobs wey ev THE robs 5& Ev AAN dtaipeaeı, Kabdmep Exovow at yeypauméevar Siaipéceis - exe? yap Tovs uev wera TOY evbdpwy gvpBaiver Sinpjaba robs d’ Ev BAAw yeveı, The first of these passages can refer neither to Philebus, 16 E, nor to Timzeus, 27 D, 48 E sq., or 31 B sq. 53 A sq.; for neither is the denotation diapéoes ap- propriate to any of these pas- sages, nor does any one of them contain the quotation here from the diapéoets. The first four are not concerned with the corporeal elements, the a@mA&@ odpata, to which the remark of Aristotle applies (though Ueberweg, Unters. Plat. Schrift. disputes this); the Timeus 31 B sq. 53 A sq. cer- tainly treats of these, but neither of the passages could well be de- noted by diopéoers, and both have four elements instead of the three which Aristotle found in the diaiperecs, elements, so far from exhibiting a mixture of the two exterior, are rather (p. 53 B), according to their stereometrie combination, related to only one of them, and with it stand in contrast to the other. We cannot, however, think of a refer- and the two middle © 7 PLATO'S WRITINGS. 47 Discourses about Philosophy, and about the Good,® the ence to a merely orally delivered utterance of Plato’s (Ueberweg, loc. cit. Susemihl, Genet. Entw. 11, 548), because in this case, according to Aristotle’s invariable custom, instead of the present more? a past tense must stand, and an oral ex- position would without doubt have received some further notice. The diapéoers here mentioned must therefore be a composition not in- eluded in our collection of Plato’s works, either written by Plato him- self, or else an exposition of Pla- tonic doctrines. In the second passage (Part. An.), Aristotle can only mean a written treatise by Yyeypanuevar Siapéces ; and for this we must not think of any of the Platonie writings which have survived to us, because that deno- tation for any one of them or for any paragraph out of one of them would be very strange; and the quotation of Aristotle, about the birds being placed partly in the same class with the aquatic animals, partly in another class, is not to be found in the passages to which one would most readily turn in this case, Soph. 220 A sq.; Polit. 264 D (the former passage is referred to by Hermann, Plat. 594; Susemihl, loc. cit. Pilger über die Atheteso d. Plat. Soph. 6, the latter by Ueber- weg, loc. cit. 153 sq.). On the contrary, the d:a:péorers here are not referred to Plato, and so far the passage in Part. Anim. taken by itself, would not contradict the sup- on of Suckow (Form d. lat. Schr. 97 sq.) that the yeypau- eva Ödiaipeoeıs were neither a written treatise of Plato’s, nor an exposition of Platonie doctrines. (Suckow is entirely mistaken in saying that they could not be so because Plato is not here named; as we shall find, Aristotle very often refers to Plato without naming him.) If, however, we are quite convinced from the passage De Gen. et Corr. that Aristotle actually had in his hands an exposition of Platonic Classi- fications, it is most natural to con- clude that he is referring to the same book in De Part. Anim. It cannot however be supposed that this proceeded from Plato himself, or was at least given out as his work, because in that case Aristotle would have (Part. Anim. 1, 2) ex- pressed himself differently, and doubtless either this treatise itself or some more authentic trace of its existence would have been pre- served than is found in its alleged transmission to Dionysius, Ep. Plat. xiii. 360 B. The latter passage seems rather to refer to the diaipéoers which Alexander apud Philoponum in Arist. De Gen. et Corr. 50 b., med. mentions among the spurious writings in circulation at his time under Plato’s name, of which however Philoponus him- self knew nothing. The d:apéres referred to by Aristotle were a collection of classifications of mun- dane existences, used in the Acad- emic school and based on Platonic enunciations. The existence of such a writing is shown by the fact that diapéoes are attributed to Speusippus (Diog. iv. 5), Xeno- erates (Ib. 13), and Aristotle (Diog. v. 23. Simpl. Categ. Schol. in Arist. 47 b. 40: the Arabian ap. Rose, Arist. Fragm, in 5th vol. Berl. Acad. Arist. 1471, 52); Her- modorus ap. Simpl. Phys. 54 b. (transcribed in my Diatribe de Hermodoro, p. 20, and Susemihl’s 48 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. ‘unwritten doctrines ’’—originally never claimed to be the works of Plato at all.® There is no ground even for Genet. Entw. ii. 522), seems to refer to Platonie discourses in which such classifications occurred. The assumption (Alberti Geist. und Ordn. d. Plat. Schrf. 37, 64), that Aristotle was himself the composer of the S:aipéoers which he refers to, is rendered highly improbable by the way in which they are cited and criticised; if the diapécess attributed to Aristotle by the later writers were the same as those from which Diog. iii. 80-109 borrowed what he tells us, with repeated re- ference to Aristotle, about the Pla- tonie Classifications, they cannot be either (as Suckow thinks loe. cit. 96) a work of Aristotle, or one used by him, but merely a work of the later schools. Just as little can we look for the Araipécers referred to in Aristotle’s exposition ofthe Platonie diseourses on the Good (with Brandis, De perd. Arist. libris 12). (On these dis- courses cf. Part ii. b. 48, 2, 2nd edit.) We should sooner look for the reference in the &ypapa Sdy- para (vide p. 382, 2), Philop. loe. eit.; Karsten de Plat. epist. 218; Schaarschmidt, Samml. d. Plat. Schr. 104; still the different de- notation makes us suppose different writings. But however that may be, in any case we cannot consider the Auarpeoeıs referred to by Aris- totle to be either a Platonie or an Aristotelian writing. The Acaupe- oets which were subsequently cur- rent under the name of one or the other of these two philosophers can only be considered as a post-Aristo- telian interpolation or perhaps a recasting of the older work. 6 Cf. p. 26, 53, 54, and Part ii, b. 48, 2, 2nd edit. 7 Phys. iv. 2, 209 b. 13. Aristotle says, after he has mentioned the determinations of the Timzus about space, &AAoy de Tp6mov exe? TE A€ywy Td ueraAnmrıkdv Kal Ev Tots Aeyouevois Aypdpoıs Bdypacw, Suws tov témov Kal thy Xapav 7d avtTd amebnvaro. It is manifest that no Platonic written treatise can be intended by these &ypapa déyuara; yet on the other hand this name is not suited for a refer- ence to an oral discourse as such; we can therefore only understand by it a collection of notes of such Platonic views as were still up to that time &ypapa, embodying the contents of Platonic discourses. The way, however, in which the allusion is made precludes the supposition that Aristotle himself was the author of this collection (as Philop. ib., Schol. in Ar. 371 b. 25, and Gen. et Corr. 50 b. thinks); and though Simplicius (Phys. 126 a. m. 127 a. 0. Schol. in Ar. 371 b. 3, 372 a. 21)is rightin referring the &ypapa déyu. to &ypaboı cuvov- ola of Plato, still he is hardly justified in understanding by them cuvovela specially on the Good. Themist. on the passage (p. 259, Speng.), states on mere conjecture (his own or some one’s else) that in the &yp. Séyu. Plato represented matter as participating in the ideas not Kara ueßekı, as in the Timzeus, but xa0 duolwow: Aristotle is speaking merely of a variation in the denotation of the participating matter itself. 8 The expressions which Arist. Top. vi. 2, 140 a. 3, cites as Platonie occurred not in lost lia a - PLATO'S WRITINGS. 49 thinking that any Platonic writing was ever more com- plete than it is now.” Fortune has indeed bestowed less care on the purity of the Platonic collection. Even the learned among the Greeks regarded as spurious several of the writings that bore Plato’s name;!? the critics of our own century, writings, but in oral discourses ; whatever in Timeus’ Platonic Lexicon is alien to Plato’s works as we have them, comes generally not from Plato, but from another writer; vide Hermann, Plato, 556. As regards the remarkable state- ment of an obscure myth-writer of the middle ages (in A. Mai’s Auct. Class. 183) who appeals to an alleged ‘ Philosophus’ of Plato in support of a very un-Platonic view of the origin of the belief in Gods, ef. Schaarschmidt, Samm]. d. plat. Schr. 89. ® For, from Menander m. emideıkr. p. 143 W. 337 Sp. (6 yoov TAdtwyv buvoy rod mavrds Thy Tiuaıov kaAe? év 7G Kpitia) we cannot con- clude that this rhetorician had the Critias in a more complete form than we have. Had this been so, still further traces of it would have been preserved; whereas we see from Plut. Solon, 32, that in Plu- tarch’s time only the introduction and the beginning of the narra- tive remained; his words seem rather to be merely an inexact ex- pression, meaning that the sub- ject of the Timzeus was treated in _ the beginning of the Critias as a hymn of praise to the Cosmos, because Timzus here prays to the God, whose origin he has described, that, in case he has uttered any- thing rapa ueros, God would Tor mAnuueAoUvra eupmEAT moleiv, 10 All the lost dialogues (vide p. 46, 3) and those of the exist- ing number marked in the editions as Dialogi nothi, except the Clito- phon (vide Hermann, pp. 424, 594, 225, et cet.). Even in ancient times the Epinomis (Diog. iii. 37, Suid. piAdcopos. Prolegg. in Plat. e. 25, following Proclus) was by many ascribed to Philippus of Opus, the second Aleibiades (Athen. xi. 506 e.), to Xenophon (this cannot possibly be right), and the Ante- raste and Hipparchus were con- sidered doubtful (Thrasylus, ap. Diog. ix. 37, and AEl. V. H. viii. 2 respectively). On the contrary, it is scarcely credible that Panzetius actually condemned the Phedo as spurious, in order to deprive the belief in immortality of the autho- rity of Plato (Asclepius, Schol. in Ar. 576 a. 39. Anthol. Gree. ix. 358; according to David, Schol. in Ar. 30 b. 8 Syrian, as out text stands, the latter Epigram was written on the Phadrus, for which, however, the Phxdo is obviously to be read); this statement seems to have originated in a misunder- standing of the tradition of Pa- neetius’ doubts as to the genuineness of the Pheedo, and of his opposition to the Platonic doctrine of immor- tality (Cie. Tuse. i. 32, 79). Had he declared the Phzedo spurious on the grounds stated, he would have spared himself this opposition. *p 50 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. sometimes unanimously, sometimes by an overwhelming majority, have rejected a still greater number; others are yet upon their trial, and among these, as formerly happened on the first appearance of Ast '! and Socher,!? is to be found more than one work the repudiation of which would considerably affect our apprehension of the Platonic philosophy. Though an exhaustive inves- tigation of this subject would exceed the limits of the present treatise, we must to a certain extent examine it, and notice the points of view on which our judg- ment of it depends. With regard then first to the external evidence, from the consideration of which every such enquiry must start,—by far the most important is that of Aristotle. For setting this aside, very few re- marks of ancient authors concerning the works of Plato have been handed down to us,!? either from his own or 1 Platon’s Leben und Schriften, 1816. 12 Ueber Platon’s Schriften, 1820. 18 Isocrates certainly seems to mean Plato’s political writings by his mention (Philippie 13, written 346 B.c.) of vöuoıs Kal moArrelaus als Ord) TAY VObLOT@V yeypanuevaıs. Still this reference, if the passage be taken by itself, cannot prove that Plato was the only one or the first who had written on the formation of the state and on laws; we know of several similar works, besides those of Plato, in the period before Isocrates: the TloAıreia of Protagoras, the work of Antisthenes . véuou 9 m. moAırelas (Diog. vi. 16), those of Phaleas and Hippodamus (Arist. Polit. ii. 7, 8, who also 1267 b. 37, 1268 a. 6, in reference to the latter of the two, expressly mentions his proposals as regards the vduor), and Polit. 1, 6, 1255 a. 7, Arist. speaks of moAAol tay Ev Tots vöuoıs, who dispute the right of enslaving captives made in war. Still less can we, with Suckow (Form. d. plat. Sehr. 103 sq.), infer from the plural vodıo rar, that Isocrates attributed the Re- public and the Laws to different authors; ef. Ueberweg, Plat. Schr. 184 sq. From the statement of Theopompus, quoted p. 388, 94, we cannot gather what Platonic writings he had before him. On the contrary, it appears from Plut. An. Proer. 3, 1; Alex. on Metaph.- 1091 a. 27; ef. Arist. De Celo, 1, 10, 279 b. 32; and other authori- ties to be mentioned later on, that — Xenocrates noticed the Timzus; according to Suid. Zevoxp. he also wrote ep) tis TMdrwvos moditelas ; Diog. iv. 82, how- PLATOS WRITINGS. 51 the succeeding century ; and these relate almost entirely to writings which Aristotle, too, distinctly ascribes to Plato. Towards the end of the third century, Aristo- phanes of Byzantium first arranged a portion of the works in those five Trilogies which we know from Diog. iii. 61: and fully two centuries later, Thrasylus made a catalogue of them in nine Tetralogies,'? which catalogue, with a few very unimportant exceptions, contains all the writings transmitted to us as Platonie.!® Grote '’ thinks we may place entire confidence, not only in the statements of Aristophanes, but even in the cata- logue of Thrasylus. It cannot be supposed, he argues, that the school of Athens, which was continued in an ever, mentions only a treatise 7. moAırelas. Theophrastus refers to the Timeeus, (Fragm. 28, 34-49 Wimm ;) to the Laws (xi. 915 D). See Fr. 97,5 (Stobzeus, Florilegium 44, 22, end). Eudemus, Eth. Eud. vii. 14, 1247, b. 15, must refer to the Euthydemus (279 D sq., 281 B), inasmuch as what is here quoted as Socratie is to be found there and there only; Eth. Eud. vil. 13, 1246, b. 34, seems to refer to the Protagoras, 352, B, C; and Eth. Eud. iii. 1, 1229, a. 15, to Protag. 360 D; Eth. Eud. vii. 5, 6, 1239, b. 13, 1240, b. 17, seems to be eonnected with the Lysis, 214 C sq., for here the Eudemian text comes nearer the Platonic dialogue than the par- allel passage of the Nicomachean Ethies, ix. 10, 1159, b. 7. Aris- totle (vide sup. 38, 94) speaks of the Platonic Republic ; Diczearchus of the Phaedrus (ap. Diog. iii. 38) ; Timon of the Timzus (vide p. 20, 38); the first commentary on the latter dialogue was written by Crantor (supra, p. 696 d. 2nd edit.); the Stoic Pers&us wrote against Plato’s Laws, 260-250 B.c. (Diog. vii. 36). “ The first included the Repub- lie, Timeeus, Critias; the second the Sophist, Politieus, Cratylus; the third the Laws, Minos, Epinomis ; the fourth the Theztetus, Euthy- phro, Apology ; the fifth the Crito, Pheedo, the Letters; ‘ra 8 &AAa Kad’ ey Kal ardktws. Suckow, Form. d. plat. Schr. 163, I think wrongly, denies that this division into trilogies really belongs to Aristophanes. 15 Ap. Diog. iii. 56 sq. 1 Besides the dialogues men- tioned p. 46, 5, there are wanting in it only the two small dialogues m.dikalov and m. &perjs, the Defini- tions, and the Letters nos. 14-19, first admitted by Hermann in his edition. 7 Plato and the other Com- panions of Socrates, 1, 132 sq. E2 52 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. unbroken line from its commencement, should not have been completely and accurately informed of all ‘that its founder had written. On the contrary, there can be no doubt that his very handwriting was care- fully preserved there ; and the members of the Academy were thus in a position to furnish the most trustworthy information to anyone who sought it, concerning the © authenticity or the text of a Platonic work. Such an opportunity would surely not have been neglected by Demetrius Phalereus and his successors at the founding of the Alexandrian Library. They would either have procured copies of the original manuscripts of Plato, or have instituted enquiries in Athens as to the authenti- city of the works which they received into their collec- tion, causing a catalogue to be made of all the un- doubted writings; and since Aristophanes certainly, and Thrasylus probably, followed in their catalogues the Alexandrian tradition, the statements of these writers may be fairly supposed entitled to a high degree of credit. This theory, however, rests wholly upon a series of uncertain presuppositions. It may be that the ori- ginal manuscripts of Plato, or copies of his works used by himself, were preserved in the Academy, though not a particle of historical evidence on the subject exists; but even supposing such to have been the case, who can guarantee that not only Plato’s personal disci- ples, but their successors, were so convinced of the completeness of their collection, and so jealously watch- ful over its purity, as to deny admittance to every book not included in it, and represented to them as Platonic? Not to mention that there are many con- a PLATO'S WRITINGS. 53 ceivable cases in which the manuscript collection in possession of the school might have to be completed by genuine Platonic works.'* And granted that the Academy had indeed never admitted any spurious writ- ing into their library, how can we be sure that the Alexandrian librarians were equally scrupulous? They certainly might, on the above presupposition, have in- formed themselves in Athens as to the works which were there acknowledged to be authentic, but how can we know that they actually did this? There is not the slightest warrant for the assertion; but on the other hand we are told that the high prices paid for writings in Alexandria and Pergamus gave great’ encouragement to forgery,'® and that in particular many works were !s If we suppose that letters of Plato really existed, there is no necessity that copies of them should be found in his literary remains ; supposing that the libra- ries of Speusippus and Xenocrates’ met with any accident, as might easily have happened during the struggles of the Diadochi for the possession of Athens, or that some of their parts were lost, nothing would have remained but to supply them from without. However, we cannot take into account these sibilities, as has been said: it is sufficient that we know nothing as to how Plato’s writings were preserved in his school, or what precautions were taken to main- tain the collection in its integrity. . " Galen in Hippocr. de nat. hom. 1, 42, xv. 105, K: amply yap robs ev’Arekavdpela Te Kal Tlepyaup Yeveodaı Bacircls el erhoet BiBAlwy SiAorıumdevras ovdérw Wevdas érre- yeyparro obyypaypa, Aaußdvev & Gipkapevwy pucbdy Tay kouıldvrwv avtois obyypauna madaiod Tivos avSpds, ovtTws dn moAAa wWevdais emvypdpovtes exdurCov. (Similarly Simpl. in Categ, 2 e. Schol. in Ar. 28, a. infra.) Galen obviously goes too far here in supposing that before the establishment. of these two great libraries there had been no forging of books; and still less can we agree with the conclusion of Grote (loc. cit. 155), that as the rivalry of these two libraries first gave occasion for such forgeries, and the library of Pergamus was not founded till 230 ».c., we are not to suppose any forgeries before thistime. Of this supposed rivalry Galen says nothing ; piAotimeto ba means simply to seek after reputa- tion or glory in anything, to dis- play zeal; Simplicius uses the word omovdda ey for it. 54 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. falsely attributed to Aristotle, in order that they might be bought by Ptolemy Philadelphus.”” When we fur- ther consider the state of literary criticism in the post Aristotelian period, it seems unreasonable to credit the Alexandrians with having tested the authenticity of works bearing illustrious names, so carefully and accurately as Grote presupposes. The catalogues of Aristophanes and Thrasylus therefore merely prove that the writings they include were held to be Platonic at-the time of these grammarians ; whether they really were so or not, can only be determined by a particular enquiry into each work, according to the general rules of criticism. The statements of Aristotle afford a much safer criterion ;?! but even with regard to these, the case is by no means so simple as might be supposed. In the first place, it is sometimes doubtful whether the writing ‚or the passage which refers to a saying of Plato’s in truth emanates from Aristotle; and this doubt has already destroyed or weakened the argumentative force of some quotations.?” But even though the Aristotelian Cf. Part ‘11. b.‘87, 6, 2nd edit. 2! A collection of all ‘the re- ferences in Aristotle- to Plato’s “writings was attempted by Trend- ‚lenburg, Plat de id. et num. doctr. 13 sq.; then in my Platon. Stud. 201 sq. Next Suckow (Form. d. plat. Schr. 49 sq.), Ueberweg (Unters. plat. Schr. 131. sq.), and Schaarschmidt (Samml. d. plat. Schr. 90 sq.) thoroughly examined these evidences. Still, Bonitz, in his Index Aristotelieus, 598 sq., gives the most exhaustive cata- logue of them. To this reference is to be made in case of dialogues, the citations from which in what follows are not discussed in detail. * As the citation of the Laws (iv. 715, E sq.) at the end of the spurious work 7, kdauov, p. 401; of the Timaus (77 B), m. uray, 1, 815 a. 21; of the Euthydemus (279 D sq.), in the Eudemian Ethies (vide p. 50, 13). The cita- tion of the Sophist also (254 A) in the xi. Bk. of the Metaphysies c. 8, 1064, b. 29, might also be claimed, because not merely 1s the PLATO'S WRITINGS. 55 authorship of a passage apparently relating to Platonic writings be fully established, the reference is not second part of this book decidedly spurious, but the genuineness of the first is anything but firmly established (c. 1-8, 1065, a. 26). Still, after repeated examination, I think it is more probably an earlier abstract, perhaps a rough sketch noted down by Aristotle for the purposes of his lectures, rather than a later epitome of Bks. iii. iv. vi. The quotation of the Apology and of the Menexenus, in the 3rd Bk. of the Rhetoric, gives almost more ground for doubt. For though the contents of this book, as a whole, seem sufficiently Aristotelian in character, still the question arises whether, in the form in which we have it, it con- stituted an original part of Aris- totle’s Rhetoric, or whether it was not added by a later writer to the first books, perhaps based on notes or a lecture of Aristotle’s. In support of the latter supposition, besides other points, might be quoted the fact, that, according to Rhetor. 1, 1, especially p. 1054, b. 16 sq., it seems doubtful whether Aristotle would, on the whole, have treated in his Rhetoric the sub- jects discussed in the 8rd Bk.; and again, the 3rd Bk. ce. 17, re- turns to the question of the wiareıs, which the first two books had already thoroughly entered into. Especially might we be inclined to suspect a different hand in many of the examples which are accumulated in the 8rd Book and worked out with propor- tionate detail; and in reference to this, it is worth noticing that quotations, which have already occurred in the first and second books, repeatedly appear in the third book in a more complete form. In i. 9, 1367, b. 8, a saying of the historical Socrates i is briefly mentioned (éomep yap 5 Swxp. EXeyev, ov xaAembv ’Adnvalous Ev ’Aönvaloıs enaıveiv;) in Bk. iii. 14, 1415, b. 30, this is more fully quoted from the Menexenus (235 D, 236 A): öyap Acyeı Zwrp. ev To emıradlp GAnbes, ÖTı ov xaAemdv ’Afnvalous ev ’Almvaloıs Emauveiv, GAN Ev Aakedatpovlois, Whereas, li. 23, 1398, a. 15, as an example of a proof, é Spioy00, the following is quoted: oiov örı td Saimdvioy ovdev €or GAN A Oeds 7) Oeod Epyor, in iii. 18, 1419, a. 8, we find a quotation of four lines from the Platonic Apology, 27 B-D. The quotation from Theodectes, ii. 23, 1399, b. 28, oceurs again, III. 15, and is treated of at greater length ; from 1416, b. 1-8, we learn the particulars about a passage of the Teucer of Sophocles, which, in 1398, a. 4, was briefly al- luded to. Again, it is remarkable that, iii. 14, the Menexenus is denoted by 6 émtdows (without any specification), while by the like expression, 111, 10, 14, 11, a. 31, the Epitaphios of Lysias is meant. These circumstances certainly give some grounds for doubting whether the fuller quotations of the Apology and Menexenus in the 8rd Bk. of the Rhetorie proceed from Aristotle himself. On the other hand, I cannot agree with Schaarschmidt (Samml. d. plat. Schrf. 383), who remarks, from the passages in Metaph. v. 29, 1025, a. 6, relative to the Lesser Hippias, that it is 56 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. always of a kind that implies an unequivocal recogni- tion of the writings. If not merely the name of the writing is given, but also that of the author ; if Aristotle says, ‘Plato remarks in the Timeus, Republic, * &c., there can of course be no hesitation as to his meaning. But not unfrequently the writing in which some passage -is to be found is named without mention of its author; or conversely, utterances and opinions are ascribed to Plato, and nothing is stated concerning the writings in which they occur; or lastly, reference is made to theo- ries and expressions contained in our Platonie collec- tion, and yet there is no allusion either to Plato as their author, or to a particular writing as their source. It also happens sometimes that a passage from some dia- logue is quoted with an express mention of the dialogue,. and yet is attributed to Socrates, and not to Plato.” In all these cases, the question arises whether or not we can claim Aristotelian evidence for the Platonic origin of the writings concerned; but a portion of them only need occasion us any serious doubt. If Aristotle, in naming a dialogue, remarks, ‘Socrates more than improbable that Aris- totle himself published the book quoted, especially in the form we have it. Undoubtedly the 6th Bk. of the Metaphysics is proved to be genuine by Aristotle himself (cf. Part ii. b. 58, 2nd edit., and Arist. Gen. et Corr. 11, 10, 356, b. 29, ef. Metaph. v. 7)—possibly not as a part of this work, but at any rate as an independent Aristotelian treatise—and there is no reason at all to suppose that we have it merely in the form of a later recasting. 28 The quotations to which Bonitz in his Index has prefixed a. *4 The three cases denoted by Bonitz b. e. d. 2 E.g..Gen. et Corr. 11, 9, 335, b. 9: of uev tkavhy @HOnoay airlav elvaı mpds Tb yerdodaı Thy TAY eldav plaıy, dorep 6 Ev baldwrı Swxparns. Bonitz ranges these cases in the first elass, distinguished, however, from those in which Plato is men- tioned by the addition of a Zwrp. PLATO'S WRITINGS. 57 here maintains this or that,’ he always means by it that Plato in this dialogue has put the remark into the mouth of Socrates. For not only does he employ the same mode of expression as to writings which he else- where most emphatically attributes to Plato,?° but he never quotes an opinion or a saying of Socrates from any writing that is not in our Platonic collection ; though he must certainly have been acquainted with the Socratic dialogues of Xenophon, /Eschines, and Antisthenes.”” Indeed the Socratic utterances are re- garded by him as so completely identical with Plato’s works, that he even designates the Laws as Socratic,”* although Socrates never appears in them, and is pro- bably not intended by the Athenian stranger; and he quotes views which were entirely originated by Plato and put in the mouth of his master, simply as the views of Socrates,” without any discrimination of the » As in the criticism of the Platonic Republic, Polit. ii. 1, ¢. 6, 1065, b. 1; Ibid. iv. 4, 1291, a. 11 (nel yap 6 Zwrpdrns). viii. 7.1342, a, 83, 23; vs 12, 1316, a. 1 sqq. (ev de TH moAıreiu Aeyera wey . . . . bad TOD Zwrpd- rovs, and the like): Gen. et Corr. 11, 9, vide previous note. Simi- fariy Polit; 11, ‘4,.1262, b. 11, after it has been mentioned that Socrates (i.e. the Platonic Socrates in the Republic) wished the State to have the greatest possible unity, come the words, Ka@daep &v rots épwrikots Yowev Aéyovra Toy Apioro- gavny, where Plato’s Symposium is meant. *7 Arist. relates in the historic tense (Zwkp. @ero, ihre, &c.) many things about Socrates which he may have borrowed from Xeno- phon or some other source of tra- dition; but he never quotes in the present tense (Zwxp. onal, &e.) and from a writing mentioned by name, anything Soeratie which is not to be found in our Platonic dialogues. In the historic tense there is only one undoubted refer- ence to the Memorabilia of Xe- nophon, (Mem. i, 2, 54) in Eu- demus (Eth. Eud. vii. 1. 1235, a. 37). 8 Polit. ii. 6, 1265, a. 10 (with reference to the Laws): rd uev oöv mepittoy exovo. maytes of Tov Zwkparovs Adyou K.r.A. In the preceding passage, too, the gram- matical subject to ‘ elpnkev’ &e. is SwKparns. 29 Cf, Polit. ii. 8, 1261, b. 19, 58 Platonic from the historic Socrates. PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. If, therefore, a dialogue in our collection is thus treated by Aristotle, we may be certain that he considers it a work of Plato.*° The same holds good as to dialogues which are cited without the name either of Socrates or Plato.?! This kind of quotation only presupposes that the writing in question is known to the reader, and will not be mis- taken for anything else ; we therefore find it employed 21: rovro yap oleraı 6 Swxp.... BotdAera roieiy 6 Swxp. c. 4. 1262, b. 6: 80 Av aitlay 6 Swxp. oürws oleraı Oeiv rarreıv, c. 5. 1263, b. 29: alrıovy de re Zwrpareı THs mapakpobaews xp7 voulCew THs Umo- Bec our odoav opOjy. Polit. viii. 7. 1842, b. 23: 51d kaAas emitinador kal rovTo Swkpdre: (i.e. the Soer. of the Republic) r@v rep) thy pov- OUKhy TIVES K.T.A. 80 Ueberweg in contending that the Menexenus in Rhet. ii. 14. 1415, b. 30 is not quoted as Pla- tonic, has paid too little attention to the true state of the case. If this citation is really Aristotle’s (on this cf. p. 54, 22), we can only conclude that in conformity with his invariable custom he wished here to denote the Men- exenus as Platonic, just as much as in the cases of the Republic, the Phedo, and the Symposium quoted at page 57, 26. 31 As the Timzus, De calo iii. 2. 300, b. 17: ndOamep ev Ta Tıualw yeyparraı. De Animä i. 3, 406, b. 26: Tov alrdv de rpömov (as Demo- eritus) kat 6 Tluaos pucoroyel, and frequently (see Bonitz’s In- dex); the Phzedo, Meteorol. ii. 2, 355, b. 32: rd 8 & rg baldwn yeypaumevoy .. . addvardv Earı (I must retract the doubts of my Platon. Stud. 207, as regards the authenticity of this passage); the Pheedrus, Rhet. iii. 7, 1408, b. 20: Ömep Topylas Emoleı Kat Ta ev TE $alöpw; the Meno, Anal. post. 71, a. 29: ef dé un, 7d ev TE Mevor Amöpnua cuuBhoera. Anal. prior. ii. 21, 67, a. 21: duolws de nad 6 ev TG Mevwvı Adyos, bri n wdOnots avduynots; the Gorgias, Soph. Elench. 12, 173, a. 7: &omep kal 6 KaAAikaAjjs ev TB Topyla yeyparraı A&ywv: the Lesser Hippias, Metaph. v. 29, 1025, a. 6: 6d 6 & Te ‘Imig Adyos mapaxpoverat, &e. Schaarschmidt (Samml. d. plat. Schr. 383) says indeed of the latter quotation: ‘ The writer of the dialogue is here spoken of in a tone of depreciation which we can hardly imagine Aristotle employing with regard to Plato.’ However, for the estimation of this assertion it is sufficient to refer to the pas- sages quoted in note 29 from Polit. ii. 5; viii, 7. In addition to this, Schaarschmidt himself remarks on the same page, ‘ the condemnatory judgment of Aristotle on the dia- logue before us, taken by itself, does not prove that he considered Plato to be the author. For a further objection to this assertion, vide p. 54, 22. PLATO'S WRITINGS. 59 about other works that are universally famous ;*? but among the philosophic writings which Aristotle men- tions in this way, there is none which does not belong to our Platonic collection: the Platonic writings, as before remarked, are the only writings of the Socratic school to which he ever refers. This circumstance makes it extremely probable that Aristotle really in- tends to ascribe all the writings quoted by him in this form to Plato, otherwise we should certainly have had a right to expect that those which he considered spu- rious, especially if in their style and treatment they might claim to be Platonic, would not have been intro- duced without some hint as to the true state of the ease. For he could not presuppose this to be neces- sarily known to his readers.** As to those passages which attribute to Plato or Socrates theories and sayings to be met with in the Platonic writings, but which do not mention the writ- ings, Aristotle himself very often furnishes us with a proof that he is really referring to these by his use of the present tense: ‘Plato maintains, ‘Socrates says, and the like When he employs this form * F.g. the Iliad and Odyssee, and many passages of Sophocles and Euripides; ef. Index Aristotelicus under “lAias, 'Odvosela, Zopoxdjjs, Eipimléns. Even the funeral ora- tion of Lysias ($ 60) is quoted Rhet. iii. 10, 1411, a. 31 (on which, however, cf. p. 54, 22) merely with the words: olov &v t@ émtapiw, and the Meaonviakds of Aleidamas, which had been already cited, Rhet. i. 13, 1373, b. 18, is referred to, II. 23, 1397, a. 11 equally with- out the author’s:name. 88 Schaarschmidt (plat. Schr. 342, 383) is therefore wrong, in my opinion, in denying that the Meno and the Lesser Hippias were attributed to Plato by Aristotle. 31 As Metaph. xii. 6; 1071, b. 32 (Aebkımmos Kat TIAdrwv) del elval gact Klynow (which acc. to De Ceelo iii. 2, 300, b. 16, comes from the Timeus, 30, A.). Ibid. 37, GAAG phy ovde TlAdrwvl ye olöv Te A€yew hy oleraı Evlare (Phadr. 245, 60 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. of expression, it is a sure indication that he has in his mind those Socratic or Platonic discourses which are laid down in writings ;*° and when we find these very discourses in a work that tradition assures us to be Platonic, it is hardly possible to doubt that this is the work to which the quotation relates. An appeal of this kind to Socratic or Platonic utterances, therefore, if these conditions fully obtain, has no less force than the literal mention of the particular writing, and the express acknowledgment of its Platonic origin. On the other hand, however, we must not conclude that Aristotle, whenever he makes use of the preterite in mentioning a doctrine of Socrates or Plato, refers only indirectly, or not at all,** to the writings that contain it. Several cases are here to be distinguished. In the first place, the perfect tense may properly be employed, and is very commonly employed by Aristotle, in quot- ing the sayings of Plato, or of the Platonic Socrates, from a writing.*” It is somewhat different with the C sq. Laws x. 895, E sq.) apxiv elvaı, Td adrd &aurd Kivody. tortepoy yap kal &ua TH ovpare n Wx os gnoly (Tim. 34, B sq.). Phys. vill. 1, 251, b. 17: MAdtay & abrdy [rdv xpdvov] yevva uövos‘ Gua wey yap abrbv TG ovpavG yeyovévar . . . önclv (Tim. 37, D sq.). Metaph. ii. 5, 1010, b. 12: üomep xal TIAdrwv Aéye: (Thezxt. 171, E 178, C). Top. iv. 2, 122, b. 26: ös IINarwv Öplferaı gopay thy Kara térov kivnow (Thezt. 181, C; the same statement occurs also Parm. 138, Bsq.). Eth. x. 2, 1172, b. 28: rowbrw dh Ady Kal MWAdtar (Phileb. 22, A 60, C sq.) avaipe? örı odk Eorıv Hdovh Tayabdy. ® Asa rule, where the writings are named, the reference is made in the present tense: cf. the quo- tations in the Index Arist. denoted by a. of As Ueberweg believes, Plat. Schr. 140 sq. Cf. on the other side, Bernays apud Schaarschmidt Rhein. Mus. N. F. xviii, 3 sq. Alberti Geist u. Ordn. d, plat. Schr. 54. 87 E.g. Polit. ii. 5, 1264, a. 12: ovr’ elpnkev 56 Swxpdrns (in the Platonic Republic). Ibid. b. 24: 7 moAıtela wept hs 6 Swxp. elpnker, c. 6, 1264, b. 28, 36 : ev rn moAırela mepl oAlywv mdumay Siapixey 6 Swxp. . mepl TovTwr older Sidpixev 6 2, PLATO'S WRITINGS. 61 narrative forms—the imperfect and aorist. These are only used in respect to Socrates when some theory is to be ascribed to the historic Socrates, supposing it to have become known to Aristotle through certain writ- ings. For it might very well be said of the Platonic Socrates that he maintains something (in the present}, or that something is in question as said by him (in the perfect), but not that he formerly has said something, because as this ideal person he exists for the reader of the Platonic writings, and for him only, in the present ; he has no existence independently of the reader and belonging to the past. If, however, Plato himself is mentioned as having said or thought something, this consideration has no longer any force. 1266, a.1 : év 5& rots vduos elpmraı robrois. c. 9. 1271, a. 41: TH brobéce: Tov vouoderovu emiriunoeiev ty tis, Ömep kal TlAdrwv Ev ois vouots emereriunkev. Top. vi. 3, 140, b. 3: kdßarep IIAdrav üpıorau. Soph. Elench. 12, 173, a. 8: 6 Kaa- AuKAjis ev TE Topyla yeyparraı Aéyov. Phys. iv. 2, 210, a. 1: domep ev TH Tiualp Yeypaper. Likewise Gen. et Corr. 1, 8, 325, b. 24: domep ev TE Timalw yEeypape TAdrwv, and frequently. . 8 Eg. Eth. N. vii. 3, 1145, b. 23 4 : @s mero Zwkpdrns . . . Zwkp. bev yap bAws Eudxero mpds Toy Adyov x.7.A. Cf. Protag. 352, B sq. Polit. i. 18, 1260, a. 21: the virtue of the man and of the woman is not the same, xddarep dero Zwkp. Cf. Meno 73, A sq. So, too, Eth. N. iii. 11, 1116, b. 3 the quotation from Socrates, which occurs in Protag. 349 E sq. 360, C sq. is denoted by the past tense 46m (in the parallel passage in Eth. His utterances Eud. iii. 1, 1229, a. 15 by &pn), Rhet. iii. 18, 1419, a. 8 sq. the conversation between Socrates and Meletus, which Plato narrates Apol. 27, B sq., is denoted as his- torical by the past tenses e/pnkev, hpero, &bn, &e., and Rhet. ii. 9, 1367, b. 8 the saying that it is easy enough to panegyrize the Athen- ians in Athens, is attributed to the historical Socrates by the in- troduetory formula &omep yap 6 Zwkpdrns EXeyev; Rhet. iii. 14, 1415, b. 30, where the same ex- pression is quoted from the Men- exenus, the words are quite in conformity with Aristotle’s custom : 6 yao Akyeı Swxp. ev ro Emıradlw. On the other hand, in Gen. et Corr. ii. 9, 335, b. 9 (of uev ikavhy @hOnoay aitlay elvar mpds Td yeve- odaı Thy Tav ciddv plow, domep ev baliwvi Swxparns) we must supply the present ofera: as the finite verb to domep, K.T.A. 62 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. are not merely sayings which are present to us in his works, but also acts which he completed in the com- pilation of those works; in that case, therefore, a his- toric tense, as well as a present, might be used in quoting them. Though this does not occur very fre- quently, it is sometimes to be met with,*” and we have consequently no right to conclude from the use of the preterite in the quotation of a Platonic saying, that it is not derived from any written work.‘ But there are also many passages in Aristotle where neither Plato nor any one of his dialogues is mentioned, but which have internal evidence to show that Aristotle in writing them had definitely in view particular works of Plato, and which very often allude to these *! unmistakably, though indirectly. The argu- 39 Eth. N. i. 2, 1095, a. 32 (ed ryip Kal TIAdrwv hmöpeı TodTo Kal &(hrei) need not be brought in here, because in this case (besides Republie vi. 511, B) the refer- ence seems rather to oral utter- ances. But the use of the past tense above remarked occurs de- cidedly Gen. et Corr. ii. 5, 332, a. 29: domep ev TS Tipale MAdrwyv eypawev. (hate, in Timeeus 52, A sq.) Tov Tomov Kal Thy xapav Td abrb Ameon- vero. Polit. ii. 7, 1266, b. 5: TlAdtov dt robs vduous Ypdbav . . . gero, Also Gen. et Corr. 12, 315, a. 29, the words: IIAdrwv uer odv uövov mepl yeverews dakeyaro k.r.A. refer to the Timzus, as we see from what follows (315, b. 30; 316, a.2sq.). A similar expres- sion is used De sensu ce. 5, 443, b. 30, in referring to a verse from the Phenisse of Strattis, äAndes yap Phys. iv. 2, 209, b. 15, wep Ebpırlönv oramrwv elme Zrpär- mis. 40 As Ueberweg, Plat. Schr. 153 sq. in remarking on Metaph. vi. 2, 1026, b. 14 and xi. 8, 1064, b. 29 (vide p. 399, 2) the past tenses here used, ératey and e/pnke phoas, (which latter, except as a perfect, cannot be brought under consider- ation here, in accordance with the above remarks) refer to oral utter- ances. | The formule which Aristotle makes use of here are all pretty much to the same effect, Phys. iv. 7, 214, a. 13: aot ties elva rd kevdy THY ToD owuaros ‘Any (Tim. 52, A sq.); De An. ii, 2, 413, b. 27: Ta de Aoıma udpıa THS WuxXis . . obk tort xwpıora, kadamep tives ¢aow (Tim. 69 e.—though here the reference to a definite passage is questionable) ; Pol. vii. 7, 1327, b. 38: Ömep yap paci tives Beiv bmdp- PLATO'S WRITINGS. 63 mentative value of these passages can only be deter- mined in each case by an appeal to the ordinary rules of criticism. xew Tos Plaats «.7.A. (Rep. ii. 375 A sq.); Pol. vii. 10, 1329 b. 41: otre kolvnv danev elvar Ödeiv Thy Krhow, bowep ties eiphkanın (Rep. iii. 416 D); De An. 1, 5, 411, b. 5: Aéyoust 59 Ties peprorhy aibthy (thy Yuxmv), &e. (Rep. iv. 436 sq.); Part. Anim. 11, 6 begin, fort de Ö pvedds . . . ok Haomep olovral tives THS yovjs amepuarırn) divauıs (Tim. 86 C?); De Ceelo, iii. 1, 298 b. 33; eiol de ries, of kal wavy caua yervntdy molovar, ouvribevres Kal Siadrdvoytes e& émimeé- dwv Kal eis Enimeda (Tim. 53 C sq.); De Celo, ii. 3, 286 b. 27: Erı de kal ol Ötaıpouyres eis enlmeda... , Menaprupnkevaı dalvovrat Tovroıs &e. (Tim. loc. eit.); De Celo, ii. 13, 293 b. 30: G01 de... . daclv abrnv MAeodaı similarly Ibid. 1, 10, 280 a. 28; ... dawep &v TG Tiualp (40 B) Yeyparraı; part. Anim. iv. 2, 676 b. 22: Slomep of A€yortes Thy iow ths xoAns alodnress Tıvos elvar xdpır, ov KaAG@s Aeyovaıv. paol yap, &e. (Tim. 71 A-D) Pol. vii. 17, 1336 a. 34: mas de Siatdceis Tay maldwv Kal kAauduovs ouk dp0Gs amayopevovow ol kwAvovres ev Tois vöuoıs (Laws, vii. 791 E sq.) By these ex- amples the scruples raised as to Polit. iv. 2, 1289 b. 5, being a reference to Plato (Polit. 303 A), are, so far as concerns the manner of the reference, now settled. Aristotle says there: #37 uev ody Tis Gmephvaro Kal tev mpdtepoy otrws, ob phy eis trabtd PAkbas hiv, exeivos ev yap Expwe, maoady Bey [sc, Tay moditeiwy] odcav The more perfect is the coincidence . xetplorny SnuoKpa- riav, patAwy 8 aplornv. Schaar- schmidt (Sind. Soph. u. Polit. echt., &c. Rhein. Mus. N. F. xix. p. 2) thinks that he perhaps wishes to give us to understand that he did not know the author of the Politieus, or else that he did not consider it to be Plato’s. ‘As far as I know, Plato is never cited by him in this way or in any way at all approaching this.’ Similarly Ueber- weg (Zeitschr. f. Philos. N. F. lvii. &e.) says that the Sophist and Politicus are not attested by Aris- totle as writings of Plato, but only of tls T@v mpdtepoy, and Suckow (Form d. plat. Schr. 87 sq.) argues in detail that Aristotle, if he knew and accepted the Politicus as Pla- tonic, could not possibly have failed to mention Plato’s name in our passages. Even Steinhart (Ztschr. f. Philos. lviii. 47) finds the anonymous mention of Plato in the Politics so inexplicable that he prefers to attribute the reference in the passage before us to an un- known writer whose views Plato had appropriated. In reality, how- ever, the way in which the passage of the Politicus is here referred to differs from the references to the Republic, Timzeus, and Laws before quoted only in this respect, that the author of this dialogue is denoted not by rıves or Evıoı, but by rls in the singular number, that is to say, the definite person, whom Aristotle is thinking about, is more distinctly and clearly referred to than in the other places. emleiK@v .. 64 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. between the passage in Aristotle and the corresponding passage of a Platonic dialogue, and the less reason we have for supposing that the author of the dialogue made use of the Aristotelian writing, the clearer it becomes that the dialogue in question was known to — Aristotle, and the greater the probability that this, like other portions of our Platonic collection, simi- larly quoted and employed, was recognised by him as genuine. Among the writings that have been transmitted to us as Platonic, those which are most frequently criti- cised by Aristotle, with continual mention both of the author and the dialogue, are the three great expository works—the Republic, the Timzus, and the Laws. Besides these, the Phedo only is expressly designated by him as a work of Plato.? The Phzdrus is once named,** and its definition of the soul is twice quoted as Platonic.* The speech of Aristophanes from the Symposium is treated in a manner that presupposes the authenticity of that dialogue; * and the same may be said of the allusions to the Gorgias, Meno, and 42 Metaph. 1.9, 991 b. 3, xiii. 5, 1080, 2 a. Gen. et Corr. ii. 9, 335 b. 9 (these three quotations refer to Phedo, 100 B_ sq.). Further references are given in Index Arist. 48 Rhet. iii. 7 (vide p. 58, 31), a passage which gives no occasion for the scruples entertained on p. dd. i “ Top. vii. 3, 140 b.3; Metaph. xii. 6, 1071 b.37. Both places in their statement of this definition coincide more closely with the Phie- drus, 245 C, than with the Laws, x. 896 A; that they have borrowed from one and the same writing is shown by the passage in the Meta- physies in its use of the present oleraı. Of. p. 59 sq. Polit. i. METTZBZUH- FAN kdhamep Ev Tots epwrikots Adyoıs Youev A€yovta toy "Apıorobdmv. Previously a tenet of the Platonie Republic was mentioned; still it would not follow as a matter of course that the Symposium was also attributed to Plato; it is clear, however, from the remarks on p, 58 sq. that this was the case. PLATO'S WRITINGS. Lesser Hippias.*® 65 The Thestetus is not actually men- tioned, but passages are adduced as from Platonic writings, which are only there to be found.” Similarly the Philebus is not named by Aristotle; but in certain passages of his Ethics he evidently has it in mind,’ and in one of these passages he cites expressly from a Platonic exposition, propositions which the Philebus alone contains.‘ 4° Cf. p. 58, 30; p.59, 33 ; as re- gards the Meno, also p. 61, 38. On the other hand, of all the further pa- rallel passages to the Gorgias quoted in Bonitz, Ind. Arist. 598 b. 32 sq., there is not one strong enough to prove its being made use of; Eth. N. vii. 12, 1152 b. 8 refers rather to Speusippus (on whom see 663, 5, 2nd edit.) than to the Gorgias 495 sq., because here it is not asserted that xo pleasure is a good, but it is merely denied that every pleasure is a good. # See p. 59, 34. # Eth. N. vii. 13, p.1153 a. 13 hardly refers to Phil. 53 C, for the remarkable expression aie@nrH yéveois emphasised there is wanting here. On the other hand, in what precedes, Z. 8 (€repdv tt BeArıov elvaı Tis ndorns, Sowep Tıves pact, 7» Tédos Tis yevéecews), he refers to Phil. 54 B sq. Possibly the Aristotelian origin of this para- graph is uncertain (cf. Part ii. b. 72, 1, 2nd edit.); should it, how- ever, only proceed from Eudemus, its evidence is none the less worthy of consideration. Further ef. my Platon. Stud. 281 sq. BEER N.:% 2 1172 b,28: roobrw 5) Ady kal TIAdrwv avaipet briobvK tori Hdov) Tayabdy’ aiperd- Tepov yao elva thy Hdvy Blov pera Hpovhrews N xwpls, el GE Td nınröv We therefore cannot doubt that he kpeittov, ovk elvar Thy Ndovhv Taya- Odv - ovdevds yap mpooredevros aurb Tayabbdy aiperwrepov yeverdaı. What is here quoted from Plato, and more particularly, as the present &vaıper shows, from a Platonic written treatise, stands line for line, even to the particular expressions, in the Philebus (20 E-22 A, 60 B-61 A). The supposition of Schaarschmidt (Samml. d, plat. Schr. 278 sq.) is entirely inadmissißle (as Georgii Jahrb. f. Philol. 1868, vol. 97, 300 sq. clearly shows). He refers the quotation of Aristotle to Protag. 353 C-358 C, instead of the Phile- bus, and would account for the great conformity of if with the Philebus by supposing the writer of the Philebus to have made use of the pussage of Aristotle. Not. merely are the expressions different in the Protagoras—there is no mention of pdynats, of alperdy, of the mixed life and of the separation (xwpls) of pleasure and knowledge, as in the Philebus,—but there is simply nothing at all that Aristotle quotes from Plato. The Prota- goras does not refute the identifi- cation of the good with pleasure, by showing that pleasure joined with knowledge is better than pleasure alone; but from the presupposition that the good consists in pleasure (a presupposition, the problematical *y 66 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. was acquainted with this dialogue and recognised its authenticity. There are also in the writings of Aris- totle many indications, which sometimes taken inde- pendently, sometimes in their coincidence,*® unmistak-, correctness of which is indeed hinted at, p. 358 B, which, how- ever, Socrates himself makes and never attacks) it is demonstrated that every man does that from which he anticipates for himself most enjoyment and least pain; it is therefore impossible to sin against his better knowledge, through being overcome by plea- sure-—a tenet which Aristotle loc, cit. does not mention. 50 Indeed the value of Aristotle’s evidence is in a high degree strengthened thereby. In an en- tire series of passages from differ- ent works, widely distant in point of time, Aristofle shows an agree- ment with two writings in our collection of Plato’s works (which, owing to their reciprocal references (Soph. 217 A Polit. ad init.), must stand or fall together), so striking, not only in thought but in expression, that it cannot pos- sibly be attributed merely to acci- dent. He alludes in one (perh. two) of these passages expressly to Plato, in a second (Metaph. xiv. 2; see previous note) clearly enough to a Platonic written trea- tise, in a third (Polit. iv. 2, see p. 62, 41) to a tls r@v mpdrepoy, in the rest indefinitely to views and assertions, the author of which indeed he does not name, but which he had already before him from various sources, How are these facts to be explained, if Aristotle either did not know the Sophist and Politicus, or did not acknowledge them as Platonic ? (two cases, the difference between which Schaarschmidt loc. cit. 98 sq., 237 sq. does not clearly dis- tinguish). The first of these sup- positions is disproved by the definite and repeated allusion of Aristotle to his predecessors whose views are here noticed; for it is quite beyond the bounds of probability to suppose either that Aristotle picked up and retailed out of oral tradition or lost writings all that is found in our dialogues, (the mention of which is most simply explained by his having made use of these dialogues,) or that the writer of those dialogues only collected these scattered notices by way of a supplement, either from the same sources as Aristotle, or from his own works. If on the other hard we suppose that the Sophist and Politicus were indeed used by Aristotle, but not acknow- ledged as Platonic, we shall seek in vain for any explanation of the fact that, Metaph. vi. 2 (xi. §), he quotes as Platonic a passage which is found in a dialogue recognised by himself to be spurious ; or that, Metaph. xiv. 2, in his statement of the grounds which gave rise toa far-reaching determination of Pla- tonie doctrines, he follows the thoughts and expressions of a supposititious writing of Plato's in reference to the same subjects ; and again that he repeatedly favours a second pseudo-Platonie dialogue with a notice, of which, one would have imagined, he would scarcely have thought such an apocryphal PLATO'S WRITINGS. 67 ably prove that both the Sophist *! and the Politicus ®2 production worthy, considering that generally (cf. 57) he refers to no Socratie dialogues, except those which are contained in our collec- tion of Plato’s works, and conse- quently, aswe must conclude, tosuch only as he recognised to be Platonic. 51 The following passages seem to refer to the Sophist: (1) Metaph. vi. 2, 1026, b. 14: 8d Iladrwv tpdmov tive od KaKas Thy copicTiKhy mepl rd um bv Eratev. If Aristotle here alludes to a Platonic dialogue, this can only be the Sophist, in which 254, A stands the following : the Sophist, drod:5pdackwy eis Thy Tov un övros akorewörnra, TpiBA rpocanröuevos adrijs can with dif- fieulty be caught sight of; and Schaarschmidt is entirely mistaken (Samml. d. plat. Schr. 196) in re- ferring instead of this to the Re- public vi, 492 A—494 B, where there is nothing about the relation of Sophistie to the uy öv. From the same passage comes (2) Metaph. xi. 8,a paragraph which is only another recension of vi. 2, 1064, b. 29: db TlAdrwr od kak@s elpmke gioas roy copiorhy wept Td u dV diarplßeiv. Here the quotation of the Sophist is so perfectly obvious, that even Schaarschmidt allows it (Samml. d. plat. Schr. 101); and even if thispart of the Metaphysies does not come from Aristotle (on which vide p. 54, 22), still tlıe passage has its importance as evi- dence for the reference, which the words in Metaph. vi. 2 had given before. However, there is no need - of this evidence; even of itself it is highly improbable that a judg- ment which occurs in a written treatise handed down as Platonic F and here only, should be quoted by Aristotle as indeed Platonic, but not out of this treatise. (On the past tense €rafe cf. p. 62,39.) Still if this passage stood alone, we might have some doubt. But we find in Aristotle still further ex- press references to the Sophist. (3) In Metaph. xiv. 2, 1088, b. 35, Aristotle remarks, in connec- tion with the question, whether the Ideas and Numbers are com- posed of certain aroıxeia: moAAG ev oby Ta alrıa Tis emi rabtas Tas obalas Ekrpormns, uaAyıora de Tb amopijoat apxaikas. Edoke yap abrois mdr évecOau ev 7a bvTa, auto Td dy, el un tis Avoe Kal dudce Badietrar — 7@ HoapuevldovAdyp “ od yap unmore TovTo dans elvat un €ovta,” GAN avayrn elvat Tb wh ov Betta Orı&orıv. oftw yap ek tov üvros Kal &AAov Twos Ta övra Eveodaı, ei MOAAG éorw. Cf. 1089, a. 19: ex molov otv byTos Kai ul byTOS TOAAG Te övra ; BovrAeTrat uev 67) Tb Wed5os kal rabınv thy dtow rA€yew (Alex. Aeyeı) 7d ok by. .7.A. Now that in this passage Aristotle did not merely (as Schaarschmidt, Rhein, Mus. xviii. 7; Samml. d. Plat: Schr, 105 wishes to make out) in- tend us to understand Platonic scholars, but, primarily Plato himself, is at once clear from the beginning, in which his object is to display the grounds which gave rise originally to the suppo- sition of elements of the Ideas ; for this supposition was undoubted- ly first propounded by Plato, and Schaarschmidt loe. cit. is wrong in believing that the reference here cannot be to Plato, inasmuch as the doctrine of Ideas in Aristotle’s 2 68 were regarded by him as Platonic; and as the Politicus PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. is plainly referred to in the Laws, it has the further support of all the evidence on the side of the latter. Metaph. xiii. 4. 1078, b. 12, 1, 6, 987, a. 29, is derived from Socratic and Heraclitean doctrines, whereas the view of the &vıoı in our passage [together with another, it runs: TOAAG wey ody TA alrıa] is derived from a reference to the Parmenides. There the question is concerned with the Ideas, here with the ele- ments, unity, and the great and small. Further, the reference of the passage before us to Plato follows from the singular BotAerat and (according to Alexander's read- ing) Aéyet; these same expressions, ~ however (ef. p. 59 sq.), show that Arist. is referring to a definite written treatise of Plato’s, which can be no other than the Sophist, for in the Sophist only does what we have here oceur. Again, though Aristotle, as usual, does not quote word for word, only formulating more precisely what Plato says, in conformity with his supposed meaning (BovAerat), and further on (1089, a. 21) adding a remini- scence from lectures or oral disqui- sitions (See on this point Bonitz ad loc.; Ueberweg. Plat. Schr. 157, f); still the allusion to pas- sages like Soph. 237 A, 241 D, 242 A, 258 D, E, cannot be mis- taken (as Pilger, in his Programm üb. d. Athetese des plat. Soph. Berl. 1869, p. 7, sq., thoroughly proves). (4) It must remain un- decided whether Metaph. vii. 4, 1030, a. 25; Rhet. 24, 1402, a. 4; Soph. El. 25, 180, a. 32, are to be referred specially to the remarks in the Sophist (258 E, 260 C) abo tt the ad bv; in De Interpr. 11,°21, a. 32 (rd de 4) Ov, örı dotaordv, ovk GANGES eimeiv by Ti), and Soph. El. 5, 167, a. 1 (ofov ei md un ov €or dokacroy, ti rd un dv Earır), it is exceedingly probable, though not strictly proved, that there is an allusion to Soph. 240 D—241, B; for with the point which is expressly emphasised in this pas- sage,—that we cannot use expres- sions like wevd% dofaleıw, without asserting Wevd9 as Earıy Ev döfaıs Te kal kar& Adyous, and conse- quently attributing the dv to the u öv,—parallel passages like Thextet. 189, A. Rep. v., 476, E. 478, B. do not correspond so closely. (5) The reference of Top. vi. 7, 146, a. 22 sq. to Soph. 247 D, is more certain: in the latter passage as an example of a dis- junctive definition, which is there- fore open to certain objections, is quoted, örı 7d dv Tb Suvarby madeiy 7) motjoat; in the former also we read: Aéyw 8) 7d xa dro.avody kekrnuevovdbvauır, elt’eis Td moleiv Erepoy Örıouv mebukds eilt’ eis rd maßeiv. . ,„ . Wav TOUTO Övrws elvaı ; this is again repeated 248, c. and it is shown that this.deter- mination is also applicable to su- persensuous existence. It is incredi- ble that so characteristic a defini- tion was propounded earlier by any other philosopher; it seems rather as if it was first put forward by its author in connection with the in- quiry introduced in the Sophist, for "the purpose of solving the questions there raised, and it is moreover actually brought in as something new and hitherto un- known to the opponents at p. 247 1% —————E G PLATO'S WRITINGS. 69 It is clear from the Rhetoric that the Apology was acknowledged by Aristotle ; 52 The passage of the Politics where Arist. mentions the judg- ment of one of his predecessors on democracy has been already quoted, p. 62, 41. If we compare with it Polit. 303 A: &d yéyove [7 Tod mAhdous apx)| marav uev voul- pw TOY moALTelwv OVT@Y TOUT WY XEL- plorn, rapavöuwv Poicav tyumacaev BeArlorn, the complete harmony in thought; and in words too, as far 2s can be expected in a quotation from memory; makes it almost un- imaginable that Aristotle had any other passage in his mind, Not less decided are the two passages Polit. iii. 15, 16, 1286, a. 7, 1287, a. 33. The first proposes the ques- tion: möTepov ouudéeper aAAov bmd Tod aplatov avdpds upxecOat 7) bd av üplorwv vouwv, and remarks dokodaı 5} Tots voulCovor auubepev Bacttever@a: Tb Kabddrov pdvoy of vomot Akyeıv, GAA’ ov mpos TH mpoonimtovra emitartew, dor ev Oroigiy TEXVN To Kara Ypaunar’ tpxew MAldıov ; the second in criti- eising this view mentions partieu- larly the latter point: rd dt ray Texvav elvyat doKel mapdderyua Yevdos, brt Tb Kara Ypaunara larpebeodaı puidoy. The assertions here combated are developed at length in the Politieus; p. 294 A. af it is shown: 7d S&pioroy ov Tovs vouous eotiv icxvew, Grr vipa Tov pera bporhaews BaciArkdy, and this is supported by the argument that the law lays down the same or- dinance for all persons and cases ' without regard to particular cir- cumstances,—that it is a dı& mayrds yeyouevov ämAovv, mpbs Ta underore @mA@; and in the further working out of this position occurs (295. but some doubt exists with B, and previously 293 A) the comparison with the physicians, who do not bind themselves strictly to the rules of their art, when that art itself shows them that under given circumstances a de- parture therefrom is advisable. We must conclude that this was actually the comparison to which Aristotle loc. cit. alludes, although we do not know that the Politicus was in his possession: for there can be no question as to an ac- eidental coincidence in such a cha- racteristie thought; and it is just as incredible that the author of the Politicus based his own theory, self-eonsistent as it is, and deduced from Socratico-Platonie pre-sup- positions with such consummate aceuracy and justness, merely on the passages in Aristotle, and still more incredible that he should have done this without attempting to remoye the objectionsof Aristotle at all. Now Aristotle actually met with the views which he com- bats: where else can he have found them except in the dialogue be- fore us? Jor otherwise we must suppose before our Politieus ano- ther treatise forming its counter- part, belonging likewise to the Platonie school, and corresponding with it, even in the particulars of the thoughts and the exposition. —Moreover the assertion which Arist. Polit. Vy. 1,5 1262s. 2. 7; combats: moAırırdv Kal Barı&ırdv kal olkovonikdv kal dermorikdv elvan tov av’tdv, is found together with the reason; as obderv dLadepovoar peyaanv oi«lay 7) wicpay wéAw, al- most word for word in the Poli- ticus 259 B, C; the same asser- 70 regard to the Menexenus.™ PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. He nowhere mentions the Parmenides ; there is only one minor particular, which may possibly be quoted from it.” But if the Philebus really alludes to the Parmenides,** the evidence for the one dialogue would indirectly apply to the other. The Protagoras, too, is never specified; but it was ap- parently known to Aristotle,*” and used by him as a ion is repeatedly spoken of by Aristotle, Pol. i. 3, 1253, b. 18, ce. 7, beg. vii., 3. 1325, a. 27.— Further parallel passages, the evidence of which is however infe- rior to those hitherto quoted, are given in the Index Arist. 53 This follows from a compari- son of the Laws, iv. 713 C sq. (on the golden age), with Polit. 271 D sq. Schaarschmidt, however (Samm. d. plat. Schr.), thinks the passage of the Laws imitated in the Politicus. In my opinion, the freshness and originality of the exposition in the passage before us is so decided, that the grounds for its spuriousness must be very strong, before we should be justi- fied in Jooking for the origin of the Politicus in the wider amplifi- cations of the Laws, which even here (713 E) obviously contain an allusion to the Republic (v. 473, ce. 8q.) 54 The passages with which we are here concerned were quoted on p. 54, and the grounds on which the citations of the 3rd Bk. of the Rhetoric were called in question were there indicated. Apart from these, however, the use of the Apo- logy is proved by Rhet. 11, 23; al- though the saying of Socrates, which is quoted 1, 9, with the words Zwkpdrns fAeyey may, ac- cording to what we have said at p. 60 sq., have come to Aristotle from other quarters, as for instance from the Menexenus. Even if he knew this dialogue, we must still suppose other sources of tradition for Socratic sayings, for he could scarcely have attributed it to the historic Socrates merely on the authority of the Menexenus. 55 In the passage mentioned p. 59, 34, which certainly may come from the Parmenides as well as from the Thezetetus. 56 T have already supported this in my Platon. Stud. 194, by the argument that the first part of the Parmenides (129 B sq., 130 E sq.) is as good as directly cited in the Philebus (14 C, 15 B), and this reason I still think is quite valid. Schaarschmidt (Samml. d. plat. Schr. 277) also agrees with me; he, however, makes use of this supposition in a different di- rection from that above, and con- cludes from the spuriousness of the Parmenides, which he believes to be ineontestable, that the Philebus likewise cannot be genuine. 57 The proof is furnished by the passage quoted in Bonitz’s Index, Part. Anim. iv. 10, 687, a. 24: people complain &s auverrnkev ob kaa@s 5 &vOpwros GAAG xelpıora av (dwv‘ avurdinrdy Te yap abtoy elval pact kal yuuvdy Kal obdk Exovra ÖmAov mpds thy GAxhy. Cf. Prot. a PLATO'S WRITINGS. 71 historical authority.°® He seems also to have been ac- quainted with the Lysis, Charmides, and Laches; though this is not so certain as in the case of the Pro- tagoras.’’ It is still more doubtful whether or not two passages relate to the Cratylus and the Greater Hip- pias.°! The Euthydemus is indeed referred to by Eu- demus ;°? but the fallacies which Aristotle quotes from the sophist of that name ® are not to be found in the Platonic dialogue; and though certainly on the suppo- 21 C (Protagoras’s Myth.) : kal dpa Ta pev BAAa (Ba eumedas mdvrwv Exovra, Toy de UvOpwrov yuurdy Te kal ävyumööntov Kal Botpwrov Kat bomAov. 58 For instance Prot. 352 B sq. is the source of the account about Socrates Eth. N. vii. 3 ad init., and the notice of Protag. Ethic. N. x. 1, 1164, a. 24 refers to Prot. $28 Bsq. Also Eth. N. iii. 9, 1115, a. 9 approaches nearer Prot. 358 D than Lach. 198 B. 5? Cf. the references in Bonitz’s Index Arist. 599 a. and the pre- ceding note. % De An. 1, 2.405, b. 27: 8d Kad Tols övduarıv dkoAuuBovcıv, of wey TO Oepudy Akyovres (sc. THY ux), bri bia todTo Kal rd Civ a@vduacta, of de rd Wuxpdy da TV avamvohy Kab Thy Kardyutw kareodaı Yuxhv. Crat. 399 D: in the name uy} the consideration seems to have been, as roüro dpa, bray map TE Cdpari, alrıdv eort Tov Civ alra, Thy Tov dyamveiy Sivauiv mapexov Kal dvalixoy. ° Hipp. Maj. 298 A, Socrates puts forth the definition tentatively, and immediately shows it to be useless, Ott 7d Kaddy eore Td BV &xojs re kal übews H5v. Tho same definition is also mentioned by Aristotle, Top. vi. 7,146, a. 21 as an example of a faulty disjunctive definition (olov 7d Kady Tb di öyews A Tb dr Akons 750). He does not, however, say whence he got it, and there is nothing to pre- vent our supposing that, like the definition quoted in Top. v. 5, 135, a, 12, it was originally propounded by some writer of the Sophistie period (some Prodicus or Gorgias), or else by some one unknown to us, and was met with by Aristotle in- dependently of the Hippias; or that it was current in the Academic school (based on Phileb. 51 B sq., or a corresponding oral discussion) and was therefore known to Aris- totle just as much as to the author of the Hippias, supposing him to have been other than Plato. The statement of it in Aristotle also varies considerably from that in the Hippias, and according to Metaph. v. 29 (vide p. 392, 3) Aristotle seems to have been ac- quainted with only one Hippias, viz. the Hippias Minor. Cf, p. 50, 13. 68 Soph. El. 20, 177, b. 12.6q.3 Rhet. 11, 24, 1401, a. 26; cf. vol. i. 914, 4, 3rd edit. 72 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. sition of its genuineness, we should expect Aristotle to have used it in his examination of fallacies which often brought him in contact with it, this relation of the two expositions is not sufficiently established to serve as proof for the authenticity of the Euthydemus. If, then, any dialogue in our collection is mentioned by Aristotle as Platonic, or used by him in a manner that presupposes it to be so, this circumstance is greatly in favour of its authenticity. For twenty years before the death of Plato, Aristotle was a member of the Platonic School at Athens; after that event he quitted the city, but returned twelve or thirteen years later for the rest of his life. That during the lifetime of the master any writing should have been falsely regarded as his work, by scholars who were already well instructed on the subject, or had the opportunity at any moment of becoming so, is quite impossible. Even in the generation succeeding his death, while Speusip- pus and Xenocrates were at the head of the Academy, and Aristotle and other personal disciples of Plato lived in Athens, this could only have occurred under quite peculiar conditions, and to a very limited extent. It is indeed conceivable that some one of the less important dialogues might after the death of Plato have been admitted even by his immediate disciples without previous acquaintance with it, as an earlier work that had escaped their attention, or under certain circumstances as a posthumous bequest. Cases of this kind have occurred in our own times, though we are so much richer than the ancients in resources, and more Cf, Part I. 910 sq. PLATOS WRITINGS. 73 practised in literary criticism. It might still more easily happen that an imperfect sketch of Plato’s, com- pleted by another after his death—an_ unfinished writing, worked up by one of his disciples—might be received as wholly genuine, without accurate discrimi- nation of the original from the later ingredients. But it is incredible that such things should frequently have repeated themselves in the first generation after the master’s death; or that reputed works of his, which, had they existed, must on account of their importance have been owned during his lifetime by the School, should afterwards have emerged, and have been univer- sally recognised. If the testimony of Aristotle to Platonic writings, so far as it is clear and undoubted, does not absolutely guarantee their authenticity, it is at all events so strong an argument in their favour, that only the weightiest internal evidence should be suffered to countervail it; and if any criticism of the Platonic collection starts from presuppositions requiring the rejection of numerous works recognised by Aristotle, there is enough in this one circumstance to prove these presuppositions incorrect. But if the evidence of Aristotle has this importance on the side of the writings from which he quotes, can we ‚with certainty conclude that those about which he is silent are spurious? No one would maintain this with- out some qualification. Aristotle is not passing judg- ment on Plato’s works as a literary historian who is bound to furnish a complete catalogue of them, and to tell all that he knows. Nor does he deal with them as a modern writer of the history of philosophy, whose object 74 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. it is to combine their whole philosophic content into a representation of the Platonic theory ; he only mentions them when occasion offers, in stating his own views, or criticising or opposing those of Plato and Socrates. We must not expect him, therefore, to name everything that is known to him as Platonic, but only such writings as it was necessary or desirable to mention for the purposes of any scientific discussion he might happen to be pur- suing. Even this canon, however, must be cautiously applied. Plato’s works are for us the sole, or at any rate the principal, source of our knowledge concerning his system: we cannot speak of the Platonic philosophy without continually recurring to them. In the case of Aristotle it was otherwise. He owes his knowledge of the Platonic doctrines in the first place to verbal com- munication and personal intercourse; in the second place only, to the writings of Plato. They were to him but subsidiary sources; in the exposition of the doc- trines, he uses them sometimes for the confirmation of that which he already knows from Plato’s oral dis- courses ; but he has no occasion. to enter more deeply into their contents except on subjects which were not examined in those discourses. Of such subjects, the most important seem to be the application of philoso- phical principles to the explanation of nature and to political institutions: hence the numerous quotations from the Republic, the Timzus, and the Laws. The metaphysical bases of the system, on the other hand, are indeed frequently and searchingly criticised by Aris- totle, but in by far the greater number of cases on the ground of Plato’s discourses: the propzedeutic enqui- 9 PLATO'S WRITINGS. 75. ries into the conception of knowledge, true virtue, and the art of governing, love, the right scientific method, and its opposition to the Sophistic teaching, are seldom touched upon. Only one of the many pas- sages from which we derive our knowledge of the theory of ideas is quoted by him; he makes no allusion to what is said on this subject in the Republic, Timeus, Symposium, Pheedrus, and Theztetus; nor to the ex- planations of the Sophist, Parmenides, and Philebus, though there was abundant opportunity for it. Even the well-known discussions of the Republic upon the Good are merely glanced at with an uncertain hint,"° despite the frequent occasions when they might have been aptly introduced. If we turn to those dialogues the authenticity of which has never been questioned, we find the Protagoras, as before remarked,” apparently made use of in some passages, but it is never named, and nothing is quoted from it as Platonic. The Thex- tetus is twice mentioned, the Gorgias and the Sympo- sium once; and none of these quotations relate to the main content of the dialogues—they are only incidental recollections of certain particulars in them, the notice of which seems entirely fortuitous. All this being con- sidered, we may well hesitate to conclude from Aris- _totle’s silence with regard to any Platonic writing, that he was unacquainted with it;° and this so much the more, as we do not even possess the whole of Aristotle’s * Tho Phzedo 100 B sq., quoted 2110, p. 56, 24; p. 64, 42. * As is the case with the Par- rd Eth, iv. 1, 2, 1095, a. 26is a menides; Ueberweg. plat. Schr. reminiscence of Rep. vi. 507 A; 176 sq.; Schaarschmidt, Sammi. d. vil. 517 Cy pl. Sehr. 164. 76 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. works, and some lost writing or fragment might very possibly contain citations from dialogues for which we have now no Aristotelian evidence. It is certainly surprising that Aristotle should assert that Plato never enquired wherein the participation of things in ideas consists ;°° while in the Parmenides (130 E sqq.) the dif- ficulties with which this theory has to contend are clearly pointed out. But it is not more surprising than that he should assail the doctrine of ideas with the question : ‘Who formed the things of sense after the pattern of the ideas?’ ”—though it is distinctly stated in the Timzus (28 C sq.) that the Creator of the world did this in looking on the eternal archetypes.” Nor, again, that he should maintain, notwithstanding the well-known explanation in the Phedo,” often al- luded to by himself—notwithstanding the doctrine in the Republic, of the Good being the absolute end of the world—that the final cause is not touched by the ideas.” We should have expected that in attacking 69 Metaph. 1, 987, b. 13: thy pevror ye webct 7) Thy plunow 71 Or if it should be maintained in the latter case, that the Demiur- Aris by ein Tay eidwv, apeicay (Plato and the Pythagoreans) ev kow@ nreiv. 7 Metaph. 1, 9, 991, a. 20: 7d dE Adye mapadelyuara adra [sc. Ta en] elvar kevoAoyeiv datı.... Th ydp darı Td Epyal- Öuevov mpbs tas idéas AmoßAcıor ; Ibid. 992, a. 24; xii. 10, 1075, b. 19. In my Platon. Stud. 215, I have mentioned a similar instance, where Arist. (only incidentally) denies to Plato researches which he had actually made (Gen. et Corr. 1, 2, 315 a., 29 sq.; cf, Tim. 68 D sq., 70 B sq., 73-81). gus is not a scientific explanation and might therefore have been left out of account by Aristotle, he might just as well waive the diffi- culties of the Parmenides because no positive determination is there given as to how we are to under- stand the participation of things in the Ideas. ‘= On which see p. 64, 42. *8 Metaph. 1, 9, 992) a, 29: ovde 5) d wept ras émorhuas (so Alex. and Cod. A®; perhaps, however, movjoers should be read instead of érioT.) öp@uer dv alrıoy, bd Kal mas voids Kal müca pots motel, ovdé PLATOS WRITINGS. 77 Plato about the rpiros dvOpwros,™ Aristotle, had. he been acquainted with the Parmenides, would have re- ferred to the fact that in that dialogue (1324) the same objection is raised. But might we not also have ex- pected after the further stricture: ¢ Plato ought then to assume ideas of art productions, mere relations, &e., which he does not,’ 7° some such remark as this: ‘ In his writings he certainly does speak of such ideas?’ And in the discussions concerning the Platonic theory of the world-soul,’® should we not have anticipated some men- tion of the passage in the Laws about the evil soul,” which has given so many handles to criticism? Many other things besides these might reasonably have been looked for on the supposition that the writings of Plato had the same significance, as sources of his doctrines, for Aristotle as for us, and were used by him in a similar manner. But this we have no right to presup- pose; and therefore his not alluding to a writing is by no means sufficient to prove that it was unknown to him, or that he did not acknowledge it to be Platonic. By means of Aristotle’s testimony, supplemented sometimes from other quarters,’* we are thus enabled to ascribe a number of writings to Plato with all the cer- tainty that can be attained in this way.’ These works acquaint us with the scientific and literary character of their author, and so furnish us with a criterion for the rabrns Ths alrlas . . . ov0ty änre- p. 635 sq., 2nd edit. Tat Ta elön. 77 Laws x. 896, 897. ™ Vide on this Part II., b. 220, 78 See p. 50. 1, 2nd edit. Platon. Stud. 257. 7 How far this goes was dis- 5 Cf. Part II. b. 217 sq., 2nd cussed on p. 72 sq. edit. and p. 113 sq. of this vol. 1# De An. 1, 3, 406, b. 25; cf. 78 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. criticism of other works or portions of works which are either insufficiently supported by external evidence, or in their form or contents are open to suspicion. Great care, however, is necessary in fixing and applying this standard; and in some cases even the most cautious weighing of favourable and adverse considerations can- not insure absolute certainty.*° In the first place we must decide, on which of the dialogues noticed by Aris- totle our Platonic criterion is to be based. If we con- fine ourselves to those which he expressly attributes to Plato, we shall have only the Republic, the Timezeus, the Phiedo, and the Laws; and important as these works are, it is questionable whether they represent the scientific and literary individuality of the many-sided Plato exhaustively enough to make everything appear un-Platonie that at all departs from their type. If, on the other hand, we also take into account those writings of which Aristotle makes use without mentioning their author, or from which he quotes something that Plato has said, without naming the dialogue,—we find that the Philebus is as well attested as the Thestetus; the Sophist, Politicus, Meno, and the Lesser Hippias, as the Gorgias and Symposium; and all of them better than the Protagoras, the authenticity of which no one doubts. Our Platonic criterion must, in this case, therefore be considerably wider than that of Ueberweg and Schaarschmidt. Moreover it must not be imagined that each divergence in a dialogue from those works considered normal is necessarily a proof of its spurious- so On what follows cf. the valuable paper of Steinhart, Ztschr. f. Phil. lviii. 54 sq. PLATO'S WRITINGS, 79 ness; these normal works themselves present deviations one from the other, equal in importance to many that have formed the basis of adverse judgments. If it be objected against the Philebus that it wants dramatic liveliness, and the flow of conversational development, the Protagoras may be charged with meagreness of scientific content, with the entire failure of the theory of ideas, with the apparent barrenness of result in the whole enquiry, and the fatiguing prolixity of the dis- cussion about the verse of Simonides. If the antinomie development of conceptions is peculiar to the Parmen- ides, and elaborate classifications to the Sophist and Politicus,—the Timzus stands alone not only in its theories of the Creator and antemundane matter, the mathematical construction of the elements, the arith- metical division, and distribution of the soul in space, but in its minute treatment of the whole subject. of Physics, to which no other dialogue makes an approach. The Laws are separated by a far greater interval from the Republic and from the other normal works than from the Politicus, and in an artistic point of view are open to much graver criticism than the dialectical dia- logues ; the later form of the Platonic philosophy, known to us through Aristotle, has a much more abstruse and formal character than the logical and me- taphysical statements of the Laws. We cannot, indeed, go quite so far as Grote,*! who sometimes speaks as if Plato in none of his works had the least regard to those already written, and thought nothing of contradicting himself in the most glaring manner, even in one and *! Plato, i. 349, 360, 439, 559; ii. 89, 125; iii. 165, 463, 521, 1. 80 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. the same dialogue. But we ought not, on the other hand, to forget that so exuberant a spirit as Plato’s was not limited for its expression to one particular form; that the purpose of a dialogue might make it necessary to emphasize some points in it, and to pass slightly over others: that the nature of a subject or the readers for whom it was intended might require the style of a work to be more or less ornate, and the treatment to be more or less popular; that much that now seems to us incomprehensible might be explained by special oc- casions and personal references; that we are not justified in expecting, even from a Plato, nothing but produc- tions of equal finish and importance; that as we might have anticipated, even without the evidence establish- ing it, during the sixty years of Plato’s literary activity both his philosophy and his artistic method underwent a considerable change, and that on this account, if on no other, a standard derived from a portion of his works cannot be applicable to them all without condi- tion or modification. These considerations certainly render a decision concerning the genuineness of Platonic writings, so far as this depends on internal arguments, very difficult and complicated. It is not enough simply to compare one dialogue with others, we must enquire whether Plato, as we know him from his undoubted works, might be supposed to have produced the writing in question at a certain date and under cer- — tain circumstances. This of course cannot always be answered with equal assurance, either affirmatively or negatively. It is sometimes hard to distinguish with perfect accuracy the work of a tolerably expert imitator PLATO'S WRITINGS. 81 from a less important work of the master ; what is un- Platonic from what is unfinished, or the result of Plato’s advanced age; and therefore it is almost unavoidable that among the dialogues which can be vouched for as Platonic, or the reverse, others should creep in, with respect to which a certain degree of probability is all we can attain. Those writings, however, on which our knowledge and estimate of the Platonic philosophy chiefly depend, can well maintain their ground in any impartial investigation; while, on the other hand, our general view of Platonism would be very little affected by the genuineness or spuriousness of several of the lesser dialogues. It is impossible in this place to pursue this subject more particularly, or to discuss the reasons which may be urged for or against the Platonic origin of each work. But it seems necessary to point out those writ- ings on which, as original sources of the Platonic philo- sophy, our exposition of that philosophy will be founded, if even the critical grounds which determine the posi- tion of these writings should not at once be explained, and receive only partial notice hereafter. Our collection of Platonic works contains, besides those dialogues which even in ancient times were ac- knowledged to be spurious,*? thirty-five dialogues, thir- teen letters,®® and a number of definitions, mostly relat- ing to ethics. Among these there are a few—the Prota- goras, Phadrus, Symposium, Gorgias, Theztetus, and Republic—the authenticity of which has never been ® Of. p. 49, 10. mann has admitted ef. 57, 16, #° On the six others which Her- *4 82 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. questioned: the Phzedo also has been as little affected by the suspicion of Panzetius (if it really existed )**—as the Timzus by Schelling’s temporary doubt.” The genuineness of all these works may be considered as fully established. There are, besides, several other im- portant dialogues—the Philebus, Sophist, Politicus, Parmenides, and Cratylus,—which, in spite of the re- peated assaults upon them in modern days,“ are certainly to be regarded as Platonic—not only on the strength of the Aristotelian testimony which can be cited for 81 Cf. on this p. 49, 10. #5 Schelling himself in fact re- tracted his decision against this dialogue (Philos. u. Rel. WW. 1, Abth. vi. 36) subsequently (WW. Abth. vii. 374); previously, how- ever, it had been answered by Böckh (Stud. v. Daub. u. Creuzer iii. 28). Its repetition by certain writers, as for instance Weisse (z. Arist. Physik 274, 350, 471; Idee d. Gotth. 97) will nowadays lead no one into error. Among the express opponents of this view are Hermann, Plat. 699, and Steinhart, vi. 68 sq. 8 Socher (Pl. Schr. 258-294) was the first to reject as spurious the Sophist, Politieus, and Par- menides, but he met with little support : afterwards Suckow (Form d. plat. Schr. 1855, p. 78 sq., 86 sq.) tried to establish the same charge with regard to the Politicus, as did Ueberweg with regard to the Parmenides (Unters. plat. Sehr. 1861, p. 176 sq.; Jahrb. £. Philol. Ixxxv. 1863, p. 97 sq.); Schaar- schmidt (Samml. d. plat. Schr. 1856, p. 160 sq., and previously in the Rhein. Mus. f. Philol. vol. xviii, 1; xix. 63 sq.; xx. 321 sq.) extended it from the Parmenides to the Sophist, Politieus, Cratylus, and Philebus, and Ueberweg (Gesch. d. Phil. i. 3, edit. 1867, p. 116; Philos. Monatschr. 1869, p- 473 sq.) agreed with him with regard to all these dialogues more or less decidedly ; afterwards, how- ever (4th edit. of Gesch. d. Phil. p. 124; Zeitschr. f. Philos. lvii. 84), he retracted his opinion so far as to recognise the Cratylus and Philebus, while the Sophist and Politicus he regarded as composed from notes of Plato’s oral doctrines. The treatises in which Hayduck, Alberti, Deussen, Peipers, Pilger defend as Platonic the Sophist (Hayduck also the Politicus and Cratylus), Georgii the Philebus, Alberti, Benfey, Lehrs, Suckow, Dreykorn the Cratylus, and Druschl», Neumann, Susemihl, Schramm the Parmenides respec- tively, are mentioned by Ueberweg, Grundriss, i. 117, 4th edit.: for further details ef. Steinhart, Pl. St. Ztschr. f. Philos. lviii. 32 sq., 193 sq.; K. Planck on the Parmenides, Jahrb, f. Philol. ev. 433 sq., 529 sq. SS __ «< s De PLATO'S WRITINGS. 83 most of them,” but also on account of conclusive inter- nal evidence. The position of the Laws will be the subject of a future discussion. There is all the less reason to mistrust the Critias,*® since its contents, so far as they go, are entirely in harmony with the opening of the Timzus. The Meno ° is protected by a clear reference in the Pheedo,*! as well as by Aristotle’s quo- tations; and though not one of Plato’s most per- fect dialogues, there is no good reason to suspect its authenticity. The Euthydemus is at any rate made use of by Eudemus,” and, though often attacked,” may be 87 See p. 64 sq. 88 We shall have an opportunity later on, in speaking of the doctrines contained in these works, to ex- amine with more detail one or two of the points which are declared to be not Platonic: to notice all the rticular objections of this kind is impossible in the limits of the present treatise. Iwill here merely point out how improbable it is, that works so valuable and written with so much dialectic skill, in spite of allthe objections that we can make against them, could ever have been composed by anyone in the Old Academy, which, as we know from Aristotle and other accounts, ac- quitted itself but poorly in ab- struse speculation. The points of view which are to be adopted in the more intimate criticism of the writings have been already dis- cussed, p. 77 sq. » As Socher 369 sq.; Suckow 158 sq.: against him Susemihl, Jahrb. f. Philol. Ixxi. 703 ; Ueber- weg, Plat. Schr. 186 sq. % Rejected by Ast, Pl. L. und Sehr. 394 sq., and Schaarschmidt $42 sq., doubted by Ueberweg in G his Grundriss i, 123, 4th edit. sı P. 72 Esq. Cebes here says that pre-existence and immortality follow also Kar’ ekeivov Toy Adyoy, .. ov av (Socr.) elwdas baud Adye, that wa@nos is nothing but avduynoıs ; and he proves this not only in reference to former diss courses (€v) uev Adyw KadAlorw Örı, &c.), but by the fact worked out at length in the Meno, viz. that by means of properly arranged ques- tions, we can elicit everything from a man, as is shown, for instance, in the case of geometrical figures. That there is a reference here to an earlier written treatise, which can only be the Meno, will be more obvious from a comparison of this brief allusion to something already known to the reader, with the prolix development of a further reason on p. 73 B sq., which is un- doubtedly treated with such detail only because it has not oceurred in any dialogue hitherto. »= Cf. p. 50, 13. Schaarschmidt, p- 341, has asserted that on the eontrary the author of the Euthy- demus made use of Aristotle's So- phistical Fallacies. But he has not 9) 84 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. easily defended, if we bear in mind the proper design of this dialogue, and sufficiently discriminate between what is seriously intended and what is satirical exag- geration or irony: it would be hard to deny to Plato proved this, for the coincidence of many of the Sophisms which he quotes is by no means conclusive. It would rather, on this supposition, be very extraordinary that the very fallacy which Aristotle attributes to Euthydemus does not occur in the Platonic Euthydemus (vide p. 71, 63). Should we, however, adopt this supposition, and at the sıme time assert that the Euthy- demus was used in the Politicus (Schaarschmidt, 326), we cannot leave the question undecided as to whether Aristotle had the Politi- cus, or the author of the Politicus had the Aristotelian treatise, be- fore him. (This, however, Schaar- schmidt does, p. 237 f.) ®3 Ast, 414, sq. Schaarschmidt, 326 sq. % The object of the Euthyde- mus (on which Bonitz, Plat. Stud. 11, 28 sq., ought especially to be consulted) is to represent the op- position of Socratic and Sophistic views with regard to their value in the training and education of youth ; and this opposition is brought before us here, not by means of a scientific and detailed statement, but by the actual expo- sition of thetwo parties themselves, in the form of a (narrated) drama, or rather of a satyric comedy. In the exposition of this subjeet Plato had to do, not merely with the views of the elder Sophists and their later developments, but also (as was found probable, Purt i. p. 255, 2; 256, 1; cf. 248, 4; 253, 1; 254, 1) with Antisthenes, who seem- ed to him in true Sophistie fashion to destroy all possibility of eogni- tion, to confuse Socratie with Sophis- tic views, and thereby spoil them, and with those refiners of language of the stamp of Isocrates (for that he is intended p. 305 B sq. is put beyond doubt after the proofs of Spengel, Abh.d. philos. philol. Kl. of the Acad. of Baireuth, vii. 764 sq.), who did not know how to dis- tinguish between Socratic and So- phistie views, and hoped to get rid of the rivalry of the true philoso- phers if they brought the Sophists into discredit. In conformity with this object, the scientific refutation of the Sophistie views is not touched upon beyond a few allu- sions, while the Socratıe philosophy is expounded only in its simplest practical form—nothing new is propounded nor any speculative views enunciated, which might weaken the impression intended to be conveyed here, and in the eyes of an unphilosophical reader might wear the appearance of Sophistry. If Plato voluntarily exercised this self-restraint at a time when he was already firmly in possession of his doctrine of Ideas (Euthyd. 300 E sq.), he must certainly have had some special inducement ; and the present theory will sufficiently ex- plain the fact. » Supporters as well as oppo- nents of the Euthydemus have net seldom failed to make this distine- tion. E.g., Schaarschmidt, p. 339, amongst many other censures of the artificiality of this dialogue i. PLATO'S WRITINGS. 85 on trivial grounds so charming a sketch, abounding in comic power and humour. The Apology, which was known to Aristotle,” is as little really doubtful” as the Crito: both are perfectly comprehensible if we regard the one as in the main a true statement of facts,” and the other as apparently a freer representation of the motives which deterred Socrates from flight. We may consider the Lysis, Charmides, and Laches, with all of which Aristotle seems to have been acquainted, to be youthful productions, written when Plato had not as yet essentially advanced beyond the Socratic stand- point; the Lesser Hippias, which is supported by very (which are not clear to me), takes offence because Ctesippus, 303 A., when the buffoonery of Dionyso- dorus has reached its height, gives up further opposition, with the words a@iorauat’ Gudyw TH trope, where, however, the irony is palpable. Still more unintelligi- ble, at least in my opinion, is the assertion on p. 334 that the mention of Isocrates as the head of a school (Euthyd. 305 B) is such a flagrant violation of chronology that we cannot attribute it to Plato. If this is an un-Platonie anachronism, what must Schaar- sehmidt think of the anachronisms in the Symposium, the Gorgias, the Protagoras, and the Laws (ef. my treatise on the Anachron- isms of the Plat. Dial., Abh. d. Berl. Akad. 1873. Hist.-Phil. Kl. 79 6q.), which, however, he rightly aecepts without scruple? But the Euthydemus not only does not mention Isocrates as the head of a school, but does not men- tion him at all; it simply repre- sents Socrates as drawing a scien- tifie character, in which the reader was to recognise Isocrates. This was just as possible and just as little an anachronism as Schaar- schmidt’s supposed reference to Antisthenes in the Theeetetus. Grote (Plato, vol. i. 559), without doubting the genuineness of the Euthydemus, remarks that Euthy- demus is treated as the represen- tative of true philosophy and dia- lectic, though this is in glaring contradiction with all that pre- eedes. But Plato states nothing of the kind: he merely says certain people regard the Sophists (rods audi Evvdnuor) as their rivals, and seek therefore (because they con- found the Sophists with the true philosophers) to disparage the phi- losophers, Of, p. 70, 54. 9” As Ast, 474 sq. 492 sq. de- cides with his usual confidence : on the other hand Schaarschmidt does not give any decided opinion. % Vide Part i. p. 163, 1, and Ueberweg, Plat. Schr. 237 sq. 86 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. decisive Aristotelian evidence, as a first attempt ; and the Euthyphro as an occasional writing,’ of a slight and hasty character. On the other hand, there are so many weighty internal arguments against the Menexe- nus, that notwithstanding the passages in Aristotle’s Rhetoric,' it is difficult to believe this work Platonic : if Aristotle really meant to attest it, we might suppose that in this one instance he was deceived by a forgery ventured upon soon after Plato’s death.'"' The Ion is probably, and the Greater Hippias and First Alcibiades are still more probably, spurious.'°? The remainder of the dialogues in our collection, the Second Alcibiades, the Theages, the Anterasti, Hippar- Following the precedent of Hermann, Brandis and Steinhart (differing from my Plat. Stud. 150 in reference to the Hippias Minor), I have endeavoured to prove this inthe Ztschr. f. Alterthumsw., 1851, p- 250 sq. The same view is em- braced by Susemihland Munkinthe works I have so frequently quoted, also by Stein, Gesch. d. Plat. i. 80 sq., 135 sq., and Ueberweg (Gesch. d. Phil. 4th edit. i. 121 sq.) : on the contrary, Ribbing, Genet. Darst. d. plat. Ideenl. ii. 129 sq., 103 sq., decides that the Euthyphro, Laches, Charmides, and Lysis, are genuine, while the Hippias Minor he considers to be spurious. Schaarschmidt (Samml. d. plat. Schr. 382 sq.) rejects the whole five dialogues. The latter is opposed by Bonitz in an exhaustive disquisition Zur. Erkl. plat. Dialoge (Hermes v.), 429 sq., specially with regard to the Laches. On the evidence of Aristotle vide p. 58, 31, 70; on the Euthyphro, Part i. p. 161, 1. 100 On which ef. 54. tol With this judgment as re- gards the Menexenus, which I have already put forward in my Platonic Stud. 144 sq., following Ast, most of those who have treated the question, besides Grote, have since declared themselves in agreement; the question is dis- cussed with particular thorough- ness by Steinhart (Plat. W.W. vi. 372 sq.). I will refrain from en- tering upon it here, especially as the Menexenus is in no way an independent source for Platonic philosophy; Plato’s relation to Rhetoric can in no instance be determined from this dialogue, and, in fact, even if genuine, its scope can only be conceived according to the explanations we give of other dialogues. 102 Cf. Ztschr. f. Alterthumsw., 1851, p. 256 sq. Nordo I find any- thing in Munk to contradict this view. = PLATO'S WRITINGS. 7 87 chus, Minos, Clitophon, and Epinomis, have been rightly abandoned almost unanimously by all modern critics with the exception of Grote. It is impossible for a moment to allow any genuineness to the Defini- tions; and Karsten!® and Steinhart,!" following the example of Meiners, Hermann, and others, have con- clusively shown that the Letters, as has so often hap- pened, were foisted upon their reputed author at various dates. It has indeed been questioned whether even the un- doubted works of Plato present a true pieture of his system. According to some, partly to increase his own importance, partly as a precautionary measure, Plato designedly concealed in his writings the real sense and connection of his doctrines, and only disclosed this in secret to his more confidential pupils.'® This notion has been, however, since Schleiermacher !°° justly and almost universally abandoned.!” 105 Commentatio. Critica de Pla- tonis que feruntur epistolis. Utr. 1864, 4 Pl, Werke, viii. 279 sq. PI, L., 9 sq. A review of the earlier literature is given by the first of these passages, and by Karsten in the Introduction. 5 This is the general opinion of earlier scholars. We may re- fer once for all to Brucker, 1, 659 sq., who gives a thorough and sensible investigation of the reasons for this concealment and the artifices employed ; and Tenne- mann, System d. Plat. 1, 128 sq. 264, 111, 126, 129. Ast, Plat. Leb. u. Sehr. 511, gives further details. It can be supported 108 Plato's’ Werke, 1,1, 11 sq:; ef. Ritter, ii. 178 sq., and Socher, Pl. Schr. 392 sq. 107 One of its last supporters is Weisse, in the notes to his trans- lation of Aristotle's Physics (pp. 271 sq.; 313, 329 sq.; 403 sqq.; 37 sq.; 445 sq.; 471 sq.). and de Anima, pp. 123-143. Hermann (Ueber Plato’s Schrifstell Motive. Ges. Abh. 281 sq.) comes rather close to it when he asserts that we must not look for the nucleus of Plato’s doctrine in his writings, and that his literary activity never aimed at establishing and develop- ing an organic system of philo- sophy. Hermann would hardly say that Plato ignored or gave up 88 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY, neither on Platonic nor Aristotelian evidence : !° the assertions of later writers who transferred their concep- all philosophie scope in his writings. But, according to his view, the writings only contain incidental hints of the real principles of Plato's system, the supra-sensuous doctrine of ideas. The application of the principles to questions and circumstances of the phenomenal world is given in the writings ; the enunciation of the principles them- selves was reserved for oral dis- course. If, however, the inquiries of the Thezetetus on the conception of knowledge, the discussions of the Sophist, Parmenides, Philebus, Symposium, Phedo, Republie, and Timzus on the nature of concep- tions, the intended exposition in the ‘ Philosopher,’ and, in fact, all the passages from which we are now able to form so complete a representation of the doctrine of Ideas—if these were not meant to expound and establish the prin- ciples of the system, it becomes difficult to account for them. ‘I hey may sometimes exhibit a connection with alien questions ; but it would argue little acquaintance with Plato's artistic method to con- elude from this that they were introduced only incidentally. And Plato—v. Phedrus, 274 B sqq.— makes no division between the principles and their application. Indeed, it would have been rather preposterous to communicate the application of philosophie prin- ciples, by means of his writings, to all the world, even beyond the limits of his school, while he with- held the prineiples themselves, without which the application could not fail to be misunderstood. Ueberweg (Unters. plat. Schr. 65) brings forward in support of Her- mann the fact that the Timzeus and other writings give merely brief references to many points of essential importance. But he adds that it is the doctrine of the elements of the ideal world and of the soul that is dismissed with these passing notices, rather than the doctrine of ideas. And how do we know that at the time these treatises were written (there can be no question here, it must be remem- bered, of the Laws), the former doctrine had received its full de- velopment? Hermann eventually finds himself obliged to qualify considerably ; and, in fact, his for- mer assertions almost disappear. He allows, p. 298, that the Sophist and Parmenides, for instance, are concerned with philosophie prin- ciples; but he would account for this by referring them to an earlier period than the Phedrus. This may be disputed ; and, at any rate, is in itself no justification for saying that philosophic principles are only incidentally referred to in Plato's writings. On page 300 he makes a further concession: the writings of the Middle Period—the Sophist, &e. — ‘are directly motived by scientific instruction, and seek to expound systematically the philo- sophers fundamental opinions.” Finally, he contents himself with saying of the later writings, ‘We eannot expect to find his highest principles enunciated here in broad unmistakable terms’ (no intelli- gent student would have any such expectations); ‘such enunciations were reserved for his oral dis- courses’ (which seems highly im- PLATO'S WRITINGS. 89 tions of the Pythagorean mystical doctrine to Plato,' consequently prove nothing. It is besides utterly in- credible in itself that a philosopher like Plato should have spent a long life in literary labours, designed not probable). ‘But,’ continues Her- mann, ‘these principles are so stamped upon the dialogues, that none with eyes to see can miss any point of real importance ; and the dialogues may be used as trust- worthy authorities for his philo- sophic system.’ In these words we have everything we could wish for granted. 18 The Phedrus, 274 B sqq., eannot be quoted in support. Plato is only showing there that the thing written is of no worth in itself, but only in so far as it helps recollection of the thing spoken. He does not say that the content of what is orally delivered should not be written down, but con- versely, that that only should be written which has passed in per- sonal intercourse. The Timzus, 28 C, is not more relevant; for, granted the impossibility of dis- eussing anything except with per- sons of special knowledge, it does not follow that such discussion may not be in written works. Written works may be designed for specialists, and composed so that only they can understand them. In Ep. Plat. vii. 341 B sq. ; 11, 312 D sq., we find for the first time something of the alleged secretiveness, in the assertion that no true philosopher entrusts his real thoughts to writing. But this is only one more proof of the spuriousness of the letters, and there is a great deal required to prove that the seventh letter (with Herm. loc. cit.) is just as authentic as anything that Plato tells us about Socrates. As to Aristotle's frequent quotations from Plato’s oral discourses (vide subter, and p- 46, 5), several questions pre- cent themselves. First: How far do his accounts vary from the contents of the Platonic writings ? Secondly: Are these variations to be aseribed to Plato himself, or to our informant? And, thirdly : May they not be explained by sup+ posing a real change in Plato's way of thought or teaching? We shall discuss these points further on. 109 E.g., the Platonic letters just quoted, which betray themselves at once by their clumsy exaggerations. The second letter, by the way, says that the Platonie writings were the work of Socrates in his youth. Another instance is Numenius apud Eusebium, Pre- paratio Evangelica, xiv. 5, 7 (ef. xiii. 5), who says that Plato wrote in a purposely obscure style, as a measure of precaution ; Simpl. De Anim. 7, loe. cit. (of Plato and his pupils); ev amoppnroıs uövoıs Tors afloıs mapadıdövres thy pidocoplay mpös Tos &AAOus ba TOY uaßnuarırav abthy éredelkvuvto dvoudtwy; cf. Cicero De Universo, 2, who sup- poses Platg to say (in the Timzus, 28 ¢.}, that it is not safe to speak openly of the Deity ; and Josephus contra Apionem, 11, 31, ef. Krische Forschungen, 183 sq. 90 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. to impart his views, but to hide them; a purpose far more effectually and simply carried out by silence. Further he himself assigns the same content to the written as to the spoken word, when he makes the aim of the one to be the reminding us of the other.!!? And Aristotle could not have been aware of any essential difference between Plato’s oral and written teaching, otherwise he would not have based his own exposition and criticism equally on both, without ever drawing attention to the fact that the true sense of the writings could only be determined by the spoken comments of their author. Still less would he have taken the mythical or half mythical portions in a literal manner, only possible to one who had never conceived the idea of a secret doctrine pervading them.!!! Nor can this theory be brought into connection with Plato’s habit of indirectly hinting at his opinion and gradually arriving at it, instead of distinctly stating it when formed; with his occasional pursuit, in pure caprice as it might seem, of accidental digressions ; with the confessions of ignorance or the doubting questions that, instead of a fixed unequivocal decision, conclude many of the dialogues; or with the method that in particular eases invests philosophic thoughts with the many- coloured veil of the mythus. All this, it is true, is found in Plato; and the reasons for such a method will hereafter disclose themselves. Meanwhile the form of the dialogues will offer no insuperable hindrance to their comprehension by anyone who has penetrated no Pheedrus, 276 D; ef. preceding ™ Cf. on this my Plat. Stud. p. note, 201 sq. PLATO'S WRITINGS. 91 their aim and plan, and learned to consider each in the light of the whole, and as explicable only in its relation to others ; nor again is there anything in this form to weaken the belief !!? that in the writings of Plato we have trustworthy records of his philosophy. If, lastly, we find in these writings, side by side with philosophic enquiry, a considerable space allotted to historical de- scription and dramatic imagery, it is yet easy in some cases to separate these elements, in others to recognise the philosophic kernel which they themselves contain. 12 Cf, also Hegel, Gesch. 1. Phil. II. 157 sq , 161 sq. 92 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. CHAPTER III. THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. Our historical comprehension of the Platonic philoso- phy would be greatly facilitated did we possess more accurate knowledge of the dates of the several works, and the circumstances which influenced or gave rise to them. We should not only then understand much that now in particular dialogues either escapes our notice or remains a mystery, and be better informed as to their design and treatment, but we should also be in a position to judge with greater certainty of the mutual relations of the several works, and to follow step by step the development of Plato’s system, so far as it is reflected in his writings. Unfortunately, how- ever, we have not the means of accomplishing all this. The scanty notices of ancient authors as to the date and purpose of certain works are sometimes so untrust- worthy that we cannot at all depend upon them,' and 1 This holds good of the assertion Plat. 3, that the Phidrus was (Diog. iii. 35, brought in by ¢act), that Socrates had heard the Lysis read, and Aristotle (ib. 37, ace. to Phavorinus) had heard the Phaedo (presumably at its first publica- tion); of the supposition in Diog. iii, 38 (ef. ibid, 62), Olympiod. v. Plato's first written treatise (Cicero, however, Orat. 13, 42 places it later); of the statement of Athe- neus (xi. 505 E), that Gorgias outlived the appearance of the dialogue named after him—of Gel- lius (N. A. xiv. 3, 3) that Xeno- THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 93 sometimes tell us nothing more than we might our- selves have derived from the works.” The information to be obtained from these as to their interconnection, design, and time of composition is necessarily of a very limited character. For as they profess to be records of Socratic dialogues, we find indeed in many of them the date and occasion of the alleged conversa- tion either directly or indirectly given; but as to the time when they themselves were composed they are silent, and we can only in a few cases discover from the setting of a dialogue or from one of those ana- chronisms which Plato allowed himself with so much poetic license, the earliest date to which it can be assigned, and with some probability that also of its composition.’ phon composed his Cyropzdia in opposition to the first two books of the Republic, and of Plutarch (Sol. 32), that Plato’s death prevented the completion of the Critias. Cf. Ueberweg, Plat. Schr. 210 sq. ® E.g. Arist. Polit. ii. 6, beginn. and 1265, a. b. remarks that the Laws were composed later than the Republic, and that Plato wished to describe in them a state approach- ing nearer to actually existing states; but little by little it was brought round again to the ideal state of the Republic. 3 It appears from the beginning of the Thesetetus that this dialogue is not earlier than the campaign against Corinth, in which Theete- tus took part; but what campaign this was we do not learn (vide p. 18, 31). The Meno (ace. to p. 90, A) and the Symposium (ace. to 193, B) cannot have been composed It is likewise a consequence of their before ».c. 395 and 385 respec- tively (for it is very improbable that the passage of the Meno can refer, as Susemihl believes, Jahrb. f. Philol. Ixxvii. 854, not to the well-known event mentioned in Xen. Hell. iii. 5, but to some inci- dent which has remained unknown to us; we cannot suppose that this incident, which clearly excited so much attention, could have been twice repeated in the course of a few years; and, moreover, before the successful attack of Agesilaus, Persian politics had no occasion to make such sacrifices in order to gain the goodwill of a Theban party- leader ; both dialogues, however, seem to be not far distant from these dates. As to the date of the Menexenus, if it is really Platonie, it must have been written after the Peace of Antalcidas, and cannot by any means be placed before that D4 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY, dramatic form, that the conversation should often develope itself from apparently accidental cireum- stances, without any definite theme being proposed ; and even where there is such a theme, we still cannot be sure that it is the sole, or even the ultimate, end of the dialogue—the end by which we are to estimate its relations to other works; for the reply to this main question is often interwoven with farther enquiries of such importance and scope that it is impossible to regard them as merely subsidiary to the solution of the more limited problem at first proposed.* The final result also seems not unfrequently to be purely nega- tive, consisting in the failure of all attempts to answer some query;° and though we cannot with Grote ® conclude from this that Plato’s design never extended beyond the refutation of every dogmatic assertion, and the exposition of that elenchtic method by which time; the Parmenides, 126, B sq., pre-supposes that Plato’s half- brother Pyrilampes, and conse- quently Plato himself, were no lon- ger very young when this dialogue was written. The Apology, Crito, and Pheedo, from whatisimplied in their contents, cannot come before the death of Socrates, nor the Eu- thyphro, Thestetus, Meno (accord- ing to 94 E), Gorgias (521 C), and Politieus (299 B) before the aceu- sation of Socrates; how much later they are (except in the case of the Meno) cannot be determined by any historical data containedin the dialogues themselves. As regards the Republic, even if there were no other grounds for the supposition, Bk. ix. 577, A sq. makes it to a certain degree probable that this dialogue is earlier than Plato’s first Sicilian visit. It no more fol- lows from Bk. i. 336 A that the first book at least was written be- fore the execution of Ismenias, B.c. 382 (Ueberweg, plat. Schr. 221), than that it was written before the death of Perdieeas and Xerxes. Cf. on the foregoing points Ueber- weg, loc. cit. 217-265. * E.g. (besides the Sophist, Poli- ticus, and Philebus), in the Repub- lie, the working out of which goes far beyond the problem propounded Bk. ii. 867 E. 5 Cf. Prot. 361 A; Charm. 175 A sq.; Lach. 199 E; Lys. 223 B; Hipp. Min. 876 C; Meno, 100 B; Theet. 210 A sqq.; Parm. 166 C. ® Plato i. 246, 269 sq.: 252, 515; ii. 278, 387 sq. ; 500, 550 sq. THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 95 Socrates confounded the fancied knowledge of his in- terlocutors; and that his criticism and dialectics neither rest on any positive conviction, nor even in- directly lead to any ;’ yet the positive element, that which is wanted to complete the critical discussions, is not always so evident as to be unmistakable. Again, if a dialogue relates to phenomena of. the post-Socratic period, and perhaps is partly occasioned by them, Plato can only in the rarest instance® allow his Socrates plainly to speak of these phenomena; he is therefore restricted to hints, which were probably sufficiently comprehensible to the majority of his first readers, but may easily be overlooked or misinterpreted by us.? The same holds good with regard to the mutual inter- 7 It is of itself scarcely eredi- ble that a philosopher who has ereated such a perfect system as Plato should have composed a whole series of writings, criticising . alien views, without at the same time wishing to do anything to- wards the establishment of his own; Grote’s assertion (i. 269, 292, ii. 563 sq.) that the affirmative and negative currents of his speculation are throughout independent of one another, each of them having its own channel, and that in his posi- tive theories he pays as little re- gurd as Socrates to difficulties and contradictions, which he had de- veloped in the details of polemical discussions, is the natural conse- quence of his presuppositions, but it is in contradiction to all psycho- logical probability. Consideration shows that many scruples thrown out in one dialogue receive in another the solution which Plato's point of view admits; and if this does not always happen, if many objections which Plato main- tains against others might also be maintained against himself, this is simply a phenomenon which occurs in the case of Aristotle and many others as well, because it is gene- rally easier to criticise than to im- prove—to expose difficulties than to solve them; it does not, how- ever, follow that Plato in his dialectical discussions aimed at no positive result. 8 Pheedr. 278 E, about Isocrates, in the beginning of the Theztetus about Thezetetus. ® Part i. 214 sq. We found it probable thatin the Sophist he re- ferred to the Megarians, Part i. p. 248, 4, 252 sqq.; in the Theetetus, Sophist, Euthydemus to Antis- thenes, Part i. 303, 1; in the Phi- lebus to Aristippus, p. 84, 94; in the Euthydemus to Isocrates. Many such allusions may oceur in the Platonie writings without being remarked. 96 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. dependence of the dialogues. There cannot be a direct allusion in one dialogue to another, unless the same persons appear in both;!° where this is not the case, the only way in which the later dialogue can point to the earlier is by shortly summing up the results of the | former discussions, with the remark that the matter has been already considered." But here again it is easy to make mistakes—to overlook the relation be- tween two dialogues, or to imagine one that does not exist; and even when there is no doubt of such inter- dependence, the question may still sometimes arise which of the writings is the earlier and which the later. There are thus many difficulties, not only in the way of a decision respecting the motive, aim, and plan of the several dialogues,!? but even of an enquiry into their order, date, and interdependence. Are they so related to each other as to form one, or perhaps more than one, connected series, or ought we to regard them merely as isolated productions, in which Plato, according as occasion or inclination prompted him, disclosed now one and now another fragment of his system; and brought his theories of life and of the world to bear on various subjects, sometimes even on those which had no direct reference to his philosophy ? '* 10 E.g.in the Theztetus, Sophist and Politicus, the Republic, Ti- meus and Critias. 1 In this way in all probability he refers in the Pheedo to the Meno (vide p. 83, 91), in the Philebus to the Parmenides (cf. 70, 56), in the Republic, vi. 505 B, to the Phile- bus, x. 611 A sq., to the Phaedo (vide p. 532, 2nd edit.), vi. 50, 6 C, to the Meno (97 A, D sq.), in the Timzeus (51 B sq.), and also in the Symposium (202 A) to the Meno (97 sq.) and the Thezetetus (200 E sq.), in the Laws (v. 739 B sq.; also iv. 713 E; ef. Repub. v. 473 C), to the Republie and (iv. 713 C sq.) to the Politieus (vide 70, 53). 2 A question on which I cannot enter here. The latter is the view of Socher, p. 43 sq., and, essentially THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 97 Supposing the former alternative to be the case,—is the connection of the writings the result of calculation and design? Or did it evolve itself naturally in the course of the author’s life and mental development ? Or were all these causes simultaneously at work, so _ that the origin and sequence of the Platonic writings ; should be ascribed partly to the philosopher’s mental growth, partly to literary and artistic design, and partly iso to accidental occasions? What influence again had each of these moments generally and particularly ? And how, lastly, on either of the above presuppositions, are we to decide on the date and succession of the several works? On all these points, as is well known, opinions differ widely. Many of the ancient gramma- rians and commentators divided the works of Plato into certain groups and classes,'* according to the affinity of of Ast, p. 38 sqq., not to mention the older scholars, such as Tenne- mann, Plat. Phil. i. 137, 264. _ 4 We get a division according to form in Diog. ili. 49 sq., and Proleg. 17; the divisions are into matic, narrative, and mixed - dialogues. Diog. himself, loc. cit., _ approves of a division according to matter; we have one like this given by Albinus, Isagoge in Plat. dial. ¢. 3,6. Albinus divides the didac- tic from the zetetie dialogues (ipn- Ynrırol from (nraricol), and sub- _ divides the didactic into theoretic and practical; the zetetie into gymnastic and agonistic. These again have further subdivisions; the theoretie dialogues into physi- eal and logical, the practical dia- logues into ethical and political. Under the head of gymnastic dia- logues come the so-called maieutic and peirastic; under that of ago- nistic the endeietie and anatreptie writings. Diogenes makes the same primary division into didae- tie and zetetie dialozues, but pro- ceeds to a triple subdivision, ofthe zetetic into physical, ethical (in- cluding political), and logical (ac- cording to the scheme of é:da0xaAla, mpaéis, amödeıkıs), and of the didac- tie into gymnastie (peirastic and maieutic), elenchtic, and agonistic (anatreptie). Aristophanes too in his determination of the trilogies, into which he divided a part of the Platonic dialogues (vide p. 51, 14), in correspondence with the con- nection which Plato himself has made between certain of them (Aristophanes’ first trilogy is that of the Republic, and this seems to have been the standard which occasioned his whole arrangement), *H 98 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. their form or contents; and by this they apparently meant that they were following, at any rate partially, the order observed by Plato himself.’ Their assump- tions are, however, so arbitrary; Platonic doctrines are grouped from such un-Platonie points of view --the spirit and deeper reference of individual works are so little understood—the spurious is so greatly in- termingled with the genuine, that this first attempt to determine the order of the writings was rather deter- seems to have been directed partly by the relation of the contents of the dialogues, partly by referring to the supposed time of publication. The former, on the other hand, is the only starting point for Thra- syllus’ arrangement. This gram- marian (particulars about whom are given Part iii. a. 542, 3, 2nd edit., and in the authorities quoted there) divides the dialogues (ace. to Diog. iii. 56 sqq., Albin. Isag. 4) in one respect just as Diogenes; into physical, logical, ethical, poli- tical, maieutic, peirastie, endeictie, anatreptie. This division,and also thedouble titles of certain dialogues, taken from their contents (#aldwy A rept Wuxns and so forth), he either borrowed from some one else or was the first to introduce; but he further divides the whole of the Platonie writings into the nine fol- lowing tetralogies:—(1) Euthy- phro, Apology, Crito, Pheedo; (2) Cratylus, Thezetetus, Sophist, Poli- ticus; (3) Parmenides, Philebus, Symposium, Phadrus; (4) the two Alcibiades, Hipparchus, Anterastze ; (5) Theages, Charmides, Laches, Lysis ; (6) Euthydemus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno; (7) the two Hip- pie, Ion, Menexenus; (8) Clito- phon, Republic, Timezeus, Critias; (9) Minos, Laws, Epinomis, Let- ters. The standard in this com- bination is unmistakably the con- tents of the writings; only in the first tetralogy the philosophical aims are not so much considered as the reference to the fate of Socrates personally. The existence of a series of different arrangements of the Platonie writings is proved (as Nietzsche remarks, Beitr. z. Quellenkunde d. Diog. Laert., Basel, 1870, 13 sq.) by the fact that Diog. iii. 62 mentions no less than nine dialogues, which were placed by different writers at the beginning of their catalogues, among them the Republic and Euthyphro, with which Aristo- phanes and Thrasyllus had com- menced their lists respectively. !5 According to Diogenes, Thra- syllus maintained that Plato him- self published the dialogues in tetralogies. . The much-debated question as to the order in which they should be read is of itself, strictly speaking, a presumption that they were arranged on a defi- nite plan. Cf. Diog. 62, Albin, C 4 sqq. THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 99 rent than encouraging ;!° and the same judgment must be passed on those modern attempts which followed in the track of Thrasylus and Albinus.!” Even Tenne- mann’s enquiries into the chronological order of the Platonic works,'* useful as they were in their time, are generally superficial in their neglect of any fixed and decisive point of view. The notion of an arrangement based upon the internal connection of the dialognes was first fully and satisfactorily carried out in Schleier- macher’s brilliant work. According to this author,!® Plato, as he certainly considered written instruction inferior to spoken,” and yet continued writing to such an extent even in old age, must have manifestly sought to make his writings resemble conversation as much as possible. Now the weak point of written teaching, as he himself intimates, is this: that it must always re- main uncertain whether the reader has really appre- hended the thought of the writer; and that there is no opportunity for defence against objections, or for the removal of misunderstandings. In order, as far as might be, to remedy these defects, Plato in his writings must, have*made it a rule so to conduct and plan every enquiry that the reader should be driven either to the origination of the required thought, or to the distinet eonsciousness of having missed it; and as the plan of 1% Against recent defenders of 24 sq.; Ast, 49 sq. ; Hermann, 562. the Thrasyllic tetralogies, cf. Herm. 18 Syst. d. plat. Phil. 1, 115 sqq. de Thrasyllo, Ind. lect. Gott. He and his followers up to Her- 1854. 13 sq. mann are mentioned by Ueberweg, " E.g. Serranus, Petit, Syden- Unters. d. plat. Schr. 7-111. ham, Eberhard, and Geddes. With 19 Loe. cit. p. 17 sqq. regard to these, it will suffice to re- 20 Phaedr. 274 Bsqq. Cf. Pro- fer to Schleiermacher, Pl. W. 1, 1, . tagoras, 329 A, H 2 100 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. each separate dialogue clearly shows this design, there arises a natural sequence and a necessary mutual refe- rence in the dialogues collectively. Plato could make no advance in any dialogue unless he presumed a cer- tain effect to have been produced by its predecessor ; consequently that which formed the conclusion of one must be presupposed as the basis and commencement — of another. And as he regarded the various philoso- phical sciences, not as many and separate, but as es- sentially united and indivisible, there would result from this not many parallel independent orders of Pla- tonic dialogues, but one all-embracing order. In this order, Schleiermacher proceeds to distinguish three divi- sions : 7! the elementary, the indirectly enquiring, and the expository or constructive dialogues. He does not maintain that the chronological succession of the works must necessarily and minutely correspond with this internal relation, nor that occasionally from some acci- dental reason that which came earlier in order of thought may not have appeared later in order of time. He claims only that his order should coincide in the main with the chronological order.” He Mlows that secondary works of comparatively less importance are intermingled with the principal dialogues, and he would also make room for those occasional writings which do not lie at all within the sphere of philo- sophy.”> These concessions, however, do not affect his general canon.”4 21 Loe. cit. p. 44 sqq. first class of Plato’s writings, the 22 Loe. cit. p. 27 sq. Pheedrus, Protagoras, and Parme- 3 38 gq. nides as chief works; the Lysis, » 4 Schleiermacher reckons, in the Laches, Charmides, and Euthyphro En % _ element _ (Thesetetus, Sophist, Politicus, Par- “menides, Cratylus); purely seien- THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 101 Ast agrees with Schleiermacher in distinguishing three classes of dialogues ;* but differs from him con- siderably in his principle of classification, in his dis- tribution of particular dialogues among the three classes, and in his judgment of their authenticity. Schleiermacher is still more decidedly opposed by Socher % and Stallbaum ? in their attempt at a chro- nological order,”® but neither of these writers fully as secondary works ; the Apology and Crito as occasional pieces of essentially historical import, and other minor dialogues as probably spurious. In the second class he puts the Gorgias and Theztetus, with the Meno as an appanage, and at a further interval the Euthyde- mus and Cratylus ; then come the Sophist, Politicus, Symposium, Phiedo, and Philebus. Some few dialogues are passed over as spu- rious, or at least doubtful. His third class contains the Republic, Timeus, and Critias; and the Laws, again as an appanage. % Socratic, in which the poetic and dramatic element predomi- nates; e.g. the Protagoras, Phe- drus, Gorgias, and Phedo ; dialec- tic or Megarian, in which the poetic is in the background tific, or Socratie-Platonie, in which the poetic and dialectic elements interpenetrate reciprocally (Phile- bus, Symposium, Republic, Timeus, Critias). All the rest he regards as spurious. Cf. the criticisms of * Brandis, 1, a. 163. 2° Loe. cit. p. 41 sqq., &e. * De Platonis vita, ingenio et seriptis (Dialogi selecti, 1827, Tom. i. 2A; Opera, 1833, Tom. i.) developed, and in some points modified, in the Introductions to single dialogues, and in numerous Dissertations. 8 Socher assumes four periods in his writings. 1. Up to Socrates’ accusation and death: comprising the Theages, Laches, Hippias Mi- nor, Ist Alcibiades, De Virtute, Meno, Cratylus, Euthyphro, Apo- logia, Crito, Pheedo, 2. Up tothe establishment of the school in the Academy: comprising the Ion, Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Pro- tagoras, Thestetus, Gorgias, Phi- lebus. 3. From that time to about the 45th or 60th year of Plato’s life, to which belong the Phedrus, Menexenus, Symposium, Republic, and Timeus. 4. The period of old age, comprising the Laws. Stallbaum makes three periods: one, up to the time just after Socrates’ death, including the Lysis, two Hippize, Charmides, Laches, Euthydemys, Cratylus, Ist Alcibiades, Meno, Protagoras, Euthyphro, Ion, Apology, Crito, Gorgias. Of these he dates the Charmides about B.c. 405, and the Laches soon after (Plat. Opp. v.i. 1834, p. 86, vi. 2, 1836, p. 142); the Euthydemus 403 (loc. cit. vi. 1, 63, sqq)—Ol. 94, 1; Cratylus, Olympiad 94, 2 (loc. 102 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. established this order, or reduced it to a fixed prin- ciple. Hermann was the first to controvert the conclu- sions of Schleiermacher by a new theory, founded on a definite view of the origin of the Platonic writings ; ” for his predecessor Herbart, while seeking to prove the gradual transformation of the doctrine of ideas by the help of the dialogues,?’ had not applied this point of view to our collection asa whole. Like Schleierma- cher, Hermann is convinced that the Platonie writings, collectively, represent a living, organic development ; but he seeks the cause of this phenomenon, not in any design or calculation on the part of their author, but in the growth of his mind. They are not, in his opinion, a mere exposition of philosophic development for others, but a direct consequence of Plato’s indivi- dual development. cit. v. 2, 26); Alcibiades, at the time when Anytus began his proceedings against Socrates (loc. cit. vi. 1, 187); Meno, Olympiad 94, 3 (loc. cit. vi. 2, 20); Prota- goras, Olympiad 94, 3 or 4 (Dial. Sel. 11, 2, 16; Opp. vi. 2, 142); Euthyphro, Olympiad 95, 1=2.c. 399, at the beginning of the prose- cution (loc. cit.) ; Ion same period (loc. cit. iv. 2, 289), and the remaining three, Olympiad 95, 1, soon after Soerates’ death (Dial. Sel. 11, 1, 24). His second period ranges between the first and second Sicilian journey, and comprises the Thesetetus, Sophist, Politicus, Parmenides, all four written between ».c. 399 and 388, and published immediately afterwards (ef. Rep. pp. 28-45; previously, in his treatise De Arg. et Art. Plato, he thinks, ripened only Theet. 12 sqq., and Parm. 290 sq., Stallbaum had dated them two years later); soon after these the Phzdrus, followed by the Sym- posium, a little later than | B.c. 385 (Dial. Sel. iv. 1, xx. sqq.); then the Phzedo, Philebus, and Republic, Olympiads 99-100: (Dial. Sel. iii. 1, Ixii. sq.). The third period is between the second Sicilian journey and Plato’s death, including the Laws and the Cri- tias; the latter begun before the Laws, but finished after. (Cf. Opp. vii. 377.) ® Loe. cit. : ef. especially 346 sq., 384 sq., 489 sqq. 80 In the treatise De Plat. Sys- tematis fundamento, 1808 (Wks xii. 61 sqq.), but especially in the appendix (ibid. 88 sq.: ef. Ueber- weg, loc. cit. 38 sq.) THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 108 gradually, and under the influences of his time; the stadia along his course are marked by the different classes of his writings. The two events of greatest consequence in his mental history are, according to Hermann, the death of Socrates, with its immediate result, Plato’s withdrawal to Megara; and his own first journey, which acquainted him with the Pythagorean doctrine.*! While these indicate the chief periods of his intellectual life and literary activity, they also fur- nish us with three classes of dialogues—the Socratic or elementary ; the dialectic or mediatising ; the ex- pository or constructive. The dialogues of the first class, written in part before the death of Socrates, in part immediately after, have a fragmentary, more ex- elusively elenchtic and protreptie character, confine themselves almost entirely to the Socratic manner, and as yet go no deeper into the fundamental ques- tions of philosophy. The second class is distinguished by greater dryness, less liveliness, less carefulness of form, and by that searching criticism (sometimes ap- proving, sometimes polemical) of the Megaro-Eleatic philosophy, which occupied the time of Plato’s sojourn in Megara. In the third period, there is on the one hand, as to style, a return to the freshness and fulness of the first ;°? while on the other, Plato’s horizon has 1 Hermann himself says, p. philosophie development. 384, ‘the return to his native city and the beginning of his career as teacher in the Academy. But in what follows he really assigns Plato's acquaintance with Pytha- goreanism, acquired on his travels, as the deciding motive in his 32 Hermann accounts for this, p- 397, as follows: ‘It was not till his return to his native city that the reminiscences of his youth could once more rise before his soul.’ This would certainly be a remarkable effect of external cir- 104 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. been enlarged by the enquiries of the Megarian period, by residence in foreign countries, and especially by the knowledge he there acquired of the Pythagorean philo- sophy; and from the fusion of all these elements we get the most perfect expositions of his system, in which the Socratic form receives the deepest content, and thus attains its highest ideal.” The views of modern writers on this question fluctuate for the most part between Schleiermacher and Hermann. For ex- ample, Ritter ** and Brandis,*° and more recently Rib- cumstances on a character „like Plato's ; but scarcely more remark- able, perhaps, than the influence which Hermann ibid. suspects, of the separation—a separation of a few miles—from the metropolis of Greek classicality, in producing the crudities of the Megarian dialogues. 83 Hermann gives a full discus- sion of the Lysis, as the type of the first class, which includes the Lesser Hippias, Ion, Ist Alei- biades, Charmides, Laches, and in completion the Protagoras and Euthydemus. The Apology, Crito, and Gorgias are a transition to the second class, and the Euthy- phro, Meno, and Hippias Major come still nearer to it; but its proper representatives are the Theztetus, Sophist, Politicus, and Parmenides. The third class is headed by the Phadrus, as an inaugural lecture at the opening of the Academy. Socher, 307 sq., and Stallbaum, Introd. Phaed. iv. 1, xx. sq., had already conceived this to be the position of the Phaedrus. The Menexenus is an appendage to this, and the Symposium, Phaedo, and Philebus are riper productions of the same period, which is com- pleted by the Republic, Timzus, and Critias. The Laws come last, suggested by the experiences of the latter Sicilian journeys. 34 Ritter, Gesch. d. Phil. ii. 186, attaches only a secondary impor- tance to the enquiry into the order of the Platonic writings, as he impugns the existence of any im- portant difference of doctrine in them, and does not allow a purely Soeratie period in Plato’s literary activity to the extent to which its recognition is justified. He gives up all certainty of results before- hand, but is inclined to think— agreeing with Schleiermacher’s three literary periods—that the Phadrus was written before the Protagoras (an inference from p. 275 sqq., compared with Prot. 329, A., which does not seem decisive to me), and before and after these the Lesser Hippias, Lysis, Laches, Charmides; then the Apology, Crito, Euthyphro; next the Gorgias, Parmenides, Theetetus, Sophist, Politicus ; perhaps about the same time the Euthydemus, Meno, and Cratylus ; later on, the Pheedo, Philebus, and Symposium; and THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 105 bing,® follow Schleiermacher in the main; Schweg- ler 37 and Steinhart ally themselves with Hermann ; * last the Republic, Timzeus (Crit.) and Laws. 5 Brandis, ii. 152 sqq., defends Schleiermacher's view with much force and acuteness against the attacks of Hermann, without main- taining the former's arrangement in all its details. He would assign the Parmenides to the second lite- rary period, and not place the Meno, Euthydemus, and Cratylus between the Thezetetus and Sophist. He sets the Phzdrus, however, in the front rank, with Schleier- macher, and next to it the Lysis, Protagoras, Charmides, Laches, Euthyphro ; and assents generally to the leading ideas of Schleier- macher's arrangement. % Ribbing, in his ‘Genet. Dar- stellung der plat. Ideenlehre’ (Leipz. 1863), the second part of which is devoted to an examination into the genuineness and arrangement of the writings, puts forward the hypothesis that the scientific con- tents and the scientific form of the Platonie writings must be the standard for their arrangement, and that the order arrived at from this point of view must coincide with their proper chronological order. In accordance with this supposition he marks out, in agreement with Schleiermacher, three classes, among which he divides the particular dialogues in the following way: (1) Socratic Dialogues, i.e. such as particularly keep to the Soeratie method of phi- losophizing, and are connected with the Platonie system propzedeuti- eally : Pheedrus, Protagoras, Char- mides (ace. to p. 131 sq. also Lysis), Laches, Euthyphro, Apolo- gy, Crito, and as a trans'tion to the second class, Gorgias. (2) Dia- lectico-theoretie dialogues : Thez- tetus, Meno, Euthydemus, Cratylus, Sophist, Politicus, Parmenides. (3) Synthetieand progressive dialogues: Symposium, Phaedo, Philebus, Re- public, with which (p. 117 sq.) the Timeeus, together with the Critias and the doubtful Hermoerates, must be connected, though not inti- mately, on account of their expo- sition of peculiar views. The re- maining writings, and amongst these the Laws, Ribbing considers spurious. §7 Hist. of Phil., 3rd edit. p. 43 sq. 38 Steinhart arranges the dia- logues as follows: Ist, Purely So- eratic : Ion, Hippias Major and Mi- nor, Ist Alcibiades (before Alci- biades’ second banishment, B.c. 406), Lysis, Charmides (at the beginning of the rule of the Thirty, B.c. 404), Laches, Protagoras. Socratic, transitional tothe doctrine of Ideas: Euthydemus, 2.c. 402; Meno, 399 ; Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, same year; Gorgias, soon after the be- ginning of the sojourn at Megara; Cratylus, somewhat later. 2nd, Dia- lectical: Thezetetus, B.c. 393, com- posed perhaps at Cyrene ; Parmen- ides, probably between the Egyptian and Sicilian journey; Sophist and Politieus, same time or perhaps during the Italian journey. 3rd, Works belonging to Plato's matu- rity, after his travels in Italy and more exact acquaintance with Py- thagorean philosophy: the Pheedrus, B.C. 388 ; Symposium, 385; Phaeilo, Philebus, Republic, about 367 ; Timeeus, Laws. Inhis Life of Plato, however (301, 2, 232 sq.), the Meno 106 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. Susemihl tries to reconcile both,?” and similarly Ueber- weg,*” holding that the view of Plato’s works, as evinc- ing a gradual development of his philosophy, has no less historical justification than the other view of a methodical design determining the order of the works, demands that the two principles should be to some extent the limit, and to some extent the complement, one of the other. He ultimately inclines very much to the side of Schleiermacher, placing, however, the commencement of Plato’s literary career much later than Schleiermacher does, and differing considerably from all his predecessors with regard to the order of the several writings."! is placed in the time after So- erates’ death: and the Philebus, with Ueberweg in Plato's last period, between the Timeeus and the laws. . 8° He agrees with Hermann in saying that at the beginning of his literary career Plato had not his whole system already mapped out. But he does not agree with Hermann’s further theory, viz., that Plato was unacquainted with earlier philosophies in Socrates’ lifetime, and that therefore the acquaintance shown with Eleatie and Pythagorean doctrines is a decisive criterion of the date of any work. His arrangement, ac- cordingly, is slightly different from his predecessor's; the first series comprises Socratic or propz#deutie ethical dialogues,—Hippias Minor, Lysis, Charmides, Laches, Prota- goras, Meno (399 n.c.), Apology, Crito, Gorgias (soon after Socrates’ death), Euthyphro (rather later). The 2nd series, dialectic dialogues The theories of Munk and of indirect teaching: Euthydemus, Cratylus (both perhaps written at Megara), hezetetus (after 394 and the visit to Cyrene), Phadrus (389-8), Sophist, Politieus, Par- menides, Symposium (383-4), Phedo. Third series, constructive dialogues: Philebus, Republic (between 380 and 370), Timzeus, Critias, Laws. * Enquiry into the Platonic writings, 89-111, 74 sq., 81. ‘1 In the above-mentioned work (p. 100 sq. 293) with regard to the Protagoras, Lesser Hippias, Lysis, Charmides, and Laches, Ueberweg considers it probable that they were composed in Socrates’ life- time, while the Apology and Crito (p. 246 sq.) were composed imme- diately after his death. To the same period he thinks the Gorgias must belong (p. 249); the Pheedrus on the contrary (252 sq., 101) to the years 377-5 B.c. ; that the Sym- posium must have been written 385-4 (219 sq.), not long after the THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 107 Weisse stand almost alone. While most commentators since Schleiermacher have based their enquiry into the order of the Platonic books chiefly on the contents, these two writers pay much more attention to the form ; Munk taking his criterion of earlier or later author- ship from the date to which each dialogue is internally assigned,*? and Weisse from the distinction of direct and narrated dialogues.‘ Phedrus; the Euthydemus (258, 265), between the Phzedrus and the Phedo, the Republic and the Timzus, and still earlier before the Phedo the Meno (281 sq.). The Thestetus Ueberweg (227 sq.) places in the year 368, or there- abouts ; the Sophist, Politieus, and Philebus (p. 204 sq., 275, 171, 290 sq.), as also the Laws, in Plato’s last years (p. 221, 171). The Parmenides he considers spurious (supra, 82, 86). These views are modified in the treatise ‘ Ueber den Gegensatz zwischen Methodikern und Genetikern,’ Ztschr. f. Philos. N. F. cvii. 1870, p. 55 sq.: ef. Grundr. i. 121, 4th edit. (besides the statements about the Sophist, Politicus, and Meno, quoted pp. 82, 86 ; 83, 90). Ueberweg now thinks it likely that Plato's writings as a whole belong to the period after the founding of the school in the Academy ; and further, as a neces- sary consequence of this supposi- tion, he deduces the sequence of all the writings without exception from a deliberate and systematic plan; and, finally, in harmony with this, he places the Protagoras and the kindred dialogues between the Symposium and the Republic. “ In his treatise: ‘ The Natural Arrangement of the Platonic A few other authors, who Writings’ (cf. especially p. 25 sq.) Murk goes on the supposition that Plato wished to give in the main body of his writings—‘in the Soeratie eyele'—not so much an exposition of his own system, as a complete, «detailed. and idealised pieture of the life of the true philosopher, Socrates ; and as that presupposes a plan in accordance with which he determined the ex- ternal investiture of the dialogues, so the times of publication show the order in which Plato intended them to be read, and on the whole also that in which they were com- posed. In particular Munk makes the dialogues of the Soeratie eyele follow one another thus, in three divisions: (1) Parmenides, Prota- goras, Charmides, Laches, Gorgias, Ion, Hippias Major, Cratylus, Euthydemus, Symposium; (2) Phedrus, Philebus, Republic, Timeus, Critias; (3) Meno, The- ztetus, Sophist, Politicus, Euthy- phro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo. Outside the cycle come the dia- logues which were composed be- fore Socrates’ death, or on special oceasions, such as on the one hand Alcibiades I., Lysis, and Hippias II., on the other the Laws and the Menexenus. 43 Schöne (on Plato's Protagoras, 108 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. have never sought definitely to establish their theories,“ can only be shortly mentioned in this place. 1862, p. 8 sq.) wishes to make this distinction the ground of an en- quiry into the chronological order of Plato’s writings. He appeals to the passage in the Republie, iii. 392 C sq., where Plato banishes the drama from his state, and to- gether with lyric poetry allows only narrative poetry, and that too under fixed and limited conditions. With him he combines as standards for judgment, the esthetic and stylistic points of view, because the style of the particular writings is a more universal and trustworthy criterion of their genuineness and date than their subject matter, and the affinity of style will be very closely connected with the time of production. According to this point of view, as he remarks, the Pla- tonie works will arrange them- selves somewhat as follows: (1) Laws, Cratylus, Theztetus, So- phist, Politicus, Philebus, Timzeus, Critias, Meno, Phaedrus: (2) Men- exenus, Apology, Crito, Gorgias, Laches, Charmides, Protagoras, Symposium, Parmenides, Republic, Pheedo: the direct dialogues are— Gorgias, Cratylus, Critias, Crito, Laches, Meno, Laws, Phedrus, Philebus, Politicus, Sophist, The- setetus, Timzens; the indirect are— Charmides, Parmenides, Phzedo, Protagoras, Republic, Symposium, The Apology is related to the direct, the Menexenus to the in- direct dialogues. The writings not mentioned here Schöne apparently does not allow to be Plato's. He says, however, in his preface that he is indebted to a lecture of Weisse for his fundamental eoncep- tions as to the Platonie question, and also for many details in his treatise. 44 Suckow, Form d. Plat. Schrift. 508 sq., supposes with Schleier- macher ‘ an arrangement and sequence of the Platonic dialogues according to deliberate and special aims.’ His arrangement, however, widely deviating from Schleier- macherisas follows: (1) Parmenides, Protagoras, Symposium, Pheedrus ; (2) Republic and Timzus; (3) Phile- bus, Thezetetus, Sophist, Apology, Phedo. (The Politicus and the Laws he considers spurious: as re- gards the remaining dialogues he expresses no opinion.) Stein (Sieb. Bücher z. Gesch. d. Plat. i. 80 sq.) separates the Platonic dialogues into three groups: (1) introductory (Lysis, Pheedrus, Symposium); (2) such as work out the system in its particular elements, Ethies (Meno, Protagoras, Charmides, Laches, Euthyphro, Euthydemus), Seience (Thesetetus), the theory of the Good (Gorgias and Philebus), the theory of Ideas (Parmenides, So- phist, and Politieus), Psychology (Phaedo) ; — (3) the dialogues which construet the State and the sys- tem of Nature (Republic, Timzus, Critias, Laws). He regards as supplementary the Apology, Crito, Menexenus, the two Hippie, Ion, Alcibiades I, and Cratylus. The relation of this division to the time of the composition of the dialogues he has not yet explained. Rose, De Arist. libr. ord. 25, proposes the following arrange- ment: Apology, Crito, Alcibiades I, Euthyphro, Laches, Lysis, Charmides, two Hippie, Ion, Menexenus, Protagoras, Euthyde- THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 109 If we would gain a sure standard for this enquiry, the ostensible date of the dialogues and the historical position which Socrates occupies in them must not be taken into account; for we have no proof at all that the order which would thus result is the order in which they were composed, or that Plato ever in- tended to portray his master in a continuous, bio- graphical manner. Indeed, this assumption is refuted, not only by the indications given in several of the works as to the time when they were written,’ but also by the circumstance that the Socrates of Plato discourses of philosophy *° in exactly the same manner, in age and in youth ; and during the last years of his life pursues enquiries which formed the elementary groundwork of dialogues purporting to be earlier.” The fact that Plato in the Thestetus explicitly makes choice of the direct dramatic form of conversation to avoid the inconveniences of second-hand repetition,** mus, Gorgias, Meno, Sophist, Cratylus, Parmenides, Politicus, Phzedrus, Symposium, Theztetus, resembles that in the Protagoras, where he is a young man; and in the Euthyphro, a short time before Phedo, Republic, Timzus, Critias, Philebus, Laws, Epinomis, and as Plato's last work a letter composed of our 7th and 8th Platonic letters, written Olymp. 107, 1. Alcibiades U. and Theages, if they are genuine, precede the Protagoras. #% According to this the Meno, and probably also the Theztetus, must be earlier than the Symposium and the Timzeus: vide supra 93, 3; 96, 11. According to Munk they were later. ‘© For instance in the Euthyde- mns, where he is #5n mpeoßürepos (272 B), his philosophie method his death, it resembles that in the Charmides (B.c. 432) and the Laches (420 2.c.) : ef. Grote, i. 191. “ Cf. eg. the relation of the Thezsetetus to the Parmenides, of the Republic to the Timzeus, of the Politicus, Gorgias, Meno, and Euthyphro to the Republic, of the Pheedrus to the Symposium. Munk perverts these relations in a very unsatisfactory way. Cf. also Suse- mihl’s thorough criticism of Mank’s work, Jahrb. für Philol. Ixxvü. 829 sq. 48 Page 143 B. sq., a passage which can only be explained on 110 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. and that he elsewhere more than once connects, either expressly or by an unmistakeable reference, a direct dialogue with an indirect one preceding it,’ would of itself suffice to rebut the theory of Weisse; for the suppositions that are necessary to countervail this evidence *° go much farther than is permissible to pure conjecture. Nor have we any right to suppose that Plato gave unconditional preference to the re- peated dialogue, except in cases where it was important for the attainment of the required end—to describe with some minuteness the persons, motives, and accompany- ing circumstances of the conversation ;°! he doubtless, during his whole literary career, employed both forms indifferently, as occasion offered. There are other and more important clues by which we can to some extent determine the chronological order of the writings, and the supposition that the Thezetetus was preceded by other narrated dialogues (as the Lysis, Charmides, and Protagoras). 49 The Timzeus and the Laws to the Republic, the Philebus (supra, 70, 56) to the Parmenides. 50 That the introduction of the Theetetus is not genuine, that the Republic in an earlier recension had the form of a direct dialogue, that the Laws (in spite of the evidences and proo!s mentioned supra, pp. 93, 2; 96, 11) were written before the Republic, but were only acknowledged after Plato’s death ; Schöne, p. 6 sq. 51 For the passage in the Re- public which refers only to dramatic, epic, and lyric poetry, allows no reasoning from analogy as to Plato's procedure in writings which serve quite another aim, the philesophic- didactic. Here the question is not about the imitation of different characters, but about the exposition of philosophie views. Should, how- ever, that inference be drawn, we fail to see what advantage the narrated dialogues had in this respect over the direct, inasmuch as the expressions of the Sophists and like persons, at the representa- tion of whom offence might have been taken, in the one just as much as in the other were related in direct speech, consequently &a& Miunoews and not Amin Sinyjoe (Rep. 392 D). The most unworthy traits which Plato represents, such as the obstinacy and buffoonery ot Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, are deseribed by Socrates, just asmuch as the bluntness of Thrasymachus in Rep. i. 336 B, # THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 111 also the question whether or not that order arises from conscious design. Such are the references in various dialogues to events in Plato’s lifetime: they are, how- . ever, but few in number, and point only to the date before, and not after, which a dialogue could not have been written.°? While, therefore, much valuable infor- mation of a particular kind is to be gained from them, they do not nearly suffice for the arrangement of the works as a whole. A further criterion might be found in the development of Plato’s literary art. But though first attempts, as a rule, are wont to betray themselves by a certain amount of awkwardness, it does not follow that the artistic excellence of an author’s works keeps exact pace with his years. For liveliness of mimetic description and dramatic movement, even delicacy of taste and sensitiveness to form, are with most persons, after a certain age, on the decline; and even before that period, artistic form may be kept in the back- ground by the exigencies of strictly scientific enquiry ; the mood of an author, the circumstances in which he writes, the purpose for which particular works were composed, may determine the amount of care bestowed and of finish attained, without affording us a clue as to their relative dates; and again, that which Plato in- tended for the narrow circle of his personal disciples would probably be less ornate as to style than writings designed to awaken scientific interest in a large and _ mixed number of readers, and to give them their first introduction to philosophy. On similar grounds, * Cf. supra, 93, 3. this on p.80 (as to the genuineness ** The remark in reference to of the writings), finds an analogous 112 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. however, the scientific method in each later work is not necessarily more perfect than in the earlier, though, on . the whole, the fluctuations may be slighter and the progress more steady and continuous. Although, therefore, in considering the mutual relation of two dialogues, this point of view ought not to be disre- garded, in many cases the question cannot be decided by reference to it alone. The philosophic content of the various writings affords a safer test. But here also we must begin by enquiring to what extent and under what conditions the relative dates of the dialogues may be inferred from differences in their contents ; and what are the characteristics which show whether an exposi- tion really belongs to an earlier stage of its author's development or was purposely carried less far. Plato’s own statements give us no information on this point. In a much criticised passage of the Phedrus (274 C sqq.) he objects to written expositions on the ground that they are not restricted to persons who are capable of understanding them, but come into the hands of every one alike, and are therefore liable to all kinds of application to the order of compo- sition. Even in the case of poets and artists, the supposition that their more complete works are always their latest would lead to mistakes without end; and though in many of them of course the epochs of their development are shown by marked stylistic peculiar- ities, still it would be exceedingly difficult for us in most cases to de- termine these epochs precisely, and to assign to them their proper works, if, as in the case of Plato, we had preserved to us only the works themselves, and not any trustworthy accounts about the time of their origin as well. This difficulty is still greater in dealing with a writer to whom the mere artistic form of his works is not an independent and separate object, but only the means to other aims, which themselves limit the con- ditions and direetion of its appli- cation, THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 113 misconception and unfounded abuse; he would have them regarded in the light of a mere pastime, useful indeed for reminding those already instructed of what in after years they may have forgotten, but far less valuable than personal influence, by which others are scientifically educated and led to right moral con- victions. However important this passage may be in another connection, it affords us no help in de- termining the order, date, and interdependence of the Platonic writings. We cannot conclude from it, as Schleiermacher does, that Plato in each of the dialogues must have assumed the result of an earlier one—unless it be previously shown that there existed among the dialogues a single inter-connected order ; for particular dialogues could serve very well for a reminder of oral discourse, and the thoughts engendered by it, even were there no such connection among them. Nor can we presuppose, with Socher ** and his followers, that Plato could only have expressed himself in this manner at the time when he had commenced, or was about to commence, his school in the Academy ; for, in the first place, there was nothing to hinder his exercising that intellectual influence on others—the planting of words in souls fitted for them—of which he here speaks, even before the establishment of regular teaching in the Academy ; and, secondly, it is quite possible that in this passage he is not contrasting his literary activity _ with that kind of instruction which, as a matter of Plato's Schriften, 307. Like- 286; and further references), Ue- wise Stallbaum, Hermann, Stein- berweg (Plat. Schr. 252, 128). hart, Susemihl (Genet, Entwick. i. = 114 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY, fact, he employed, but with the kind he desired, and, according to the Socratic precedent, kept before him as his ideal.’ Still less can the quotation from the Pheedrus lend support to the theory that the com- pilation of all the dialogues was bound up with Plato’s instructions in the Academy ; °° for, understand it as we will, it only expresses the opinion of the author at that particular time, and we do not know how early it was adopted nor how long retained. That in his more comprehensive works at least, he entered upon subjects which in his oral teaching he either passed over, or dealt with more slightly, is in itself likely, and is con- firmed by the citations of Aristotle.°’ If, however, it is impossible, even from this passage, to discover either the principles followed by Plato in the arrangement of his writings, or the time when these were composed, the scientific contents themselves contain evidences by which we can distinguish, with more or less certainty, the earlier from the later works. It cannot, indeed, be expected that Plato should expound his whole system in each individual work : it is, on the contrary, sufficiently clear that he often starts in a preliminary and tentative manner from presuppositions of which he is himself certain. But in all the strictly philo- sophie writings, the state of his own scientific conviction is sure to be somehow betrayed: he either directly enunciates it, if only by isolated hints, when he is designedly confining an enquiry to a subordinate and 55 In the Protagoras also (347 E, ence. Cf. too the Phadrus, 329 A), which most critics rightly 56 Ueberweg, Ztschr. f. Philos, place far earlier (387 ».c.), he con- Ilvii. 64. trasts the songs of poets, and books 57 Cf, page 74. generally, with personal confer- THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS, 115 merely preparatory stage; or he allows it to be in- directly perceived in ordering the whole course of the argument toward a higher aim, and foreshadows in the statement of problems their solution in ‘the spirit of his system. If, therefore, out of a number of works, ‘otherwise related to one another, we find some that are wanting in certain fundamental determinations of Platonism, and do not even indirectly require them ; while in others these very determinations unmistake- ably appear—we must conclude that at the time when the former were written, these points were not clearly established in Plato’s own mind, or at any rate not so clearly as when he wrote the latter. If, again, two writings essentially presuppose the same scientific stand-point, but in one of them it is more definitely stated and more fully evolved; if that which in the one case is only prepared for indirectly, or generally established, in the other is distinctly maintained and carried out into particulars, it is probable that the preparatory and less advanced exposition was purposely meant to precede the more perfect and more systemati- cally developed. The same holds good of Plato’s re- ferences to the pre-Socratic doctrines. He may indeed have been acquainted with these doctrines to a greater or less extent, without expressly touching on them ; but as we find him in the majority of his works either openly concerned with the most important, or at any _ rate unmistakeably pointing to them, while in others he silently passes them by—it is at least highly probable that the latter, generally speaking, date from a time when he did not bestow much attention on those 7 Is 116 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. doctrines, or was much less influenced by them than he afterwards became. Even if we suppose that he purposely abstained from mentioning them, we must still, in the absence of any internal proof to the con- trary, consider those writings as the earlier in which such mention does not occur; for in that case the most probable assumption would be that his silence proceeded from a desire to ground his readers thoroughly on a Socratic foundation, before introducing them to the pre-Socratic science. Lastly, great weight must be allowed to the allusions of one dialogue to another. These allusions indeed, as before remarked,** can very seldom take the form of direct citation ; yet there are often clear indi- cations that the author intended to bring one of his works into close connection with some other. If in a particular dialogue an enquiry is taken up at a point where in another it is broken off; if thoughts which in the one case are stated problematically or vaguely suggested, in the other are definitely announced and scientifically established ; or if, conversely, conceptions and theories are in one place attained only after long search, and are elsewhere treated as acknowledged truths, everything favours the supposition that the one dialogue must be later in date than the other, and in- tended as the application of its results. The author may either, in the composition of the earlier dialogue, have had the later one in view, or he may himself only have attained to the more advanced stand-point in the interval of time between them. In certain cases it 58 Pp. 95, 96. THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 117 may still be doubtful whether a discussion is related to another as preparatory groundwork or complementary superstructure: in general, however, further enquiry will decide. If then we attempt to apply these principles to the question before us, we shall find, as might be expected, that none of the theories we have been considering can be rigidly carried out; that the order of the Platonic writings cannot depend wholly either on design and calculation to the exclusion of all the influences arising from external circumstances and Plato’s own development; or on the gradual growth of Plato’s mind, to the exclusion of any ulterior plan; or, still less, on particular moods, occasions, and impulses. We shall not press the assumptions of Schleiermacher to the extent of supposing that Plato’s whole system of philosophy and the writings in which it is contained stood from the first moment of his literary activity complete before his mind, and that during the fifty years or more over which that activity extended he was merely executing the design thus formed in his youth. Even Schleiermacher did not go so far as this; and though he con- stantly refers the order of the Platonic works too ex- elusively to conscious design, we shall not very greatly diverge from his real opinion if we suppose that when Plato began to write, he was indeed clear about the _ fundamental points of his system, and had traced out the general plan by which he meant to unfold it in his writings ; that this plan, however, was not at once completed in its details, but that the grand outlines which alone in the commencement floated before him 118 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. were afterwards gradually filled in—perhaps, also, . sometimes in compliance with special circumstances altered and enlarged, according to the growth of his knowledge and the recognition of more definite scien- tific necessities.°? On the other hand Hermann’s point of view does not involve the conclusion, though he himself seems to arrive at it—that Plato put together his system from outside, mechanically joining piece to piece, and expounding it in writings farther and farther, according as he became acquainted with this or that elder school. The same principle of interpretation applies equally on the supposition that he developed the Socratic doctrine from within; and that, instead of his acquaintance with another system of philosophy being the cause of his advance to another stage of his philosophic development, the progress of his own philo- sophie conviction was in fact the cause of increased attention to his predecessors. Lastly, if, in explaining the origin and sequence of the Platonie writings, we chiefly rely on external circumstances and personal moods,® even then we need not, with Grote,®! pro- nounce the whole question hopeless, we can still enquire whether the contents of the works do. not prove a gradual change in their avthor’s stand-point, or the relation of one dialogue to another. This whole matter, however, is not to be decided on & 59 So Brandis, i. a. 160, defin- clear and precise from the first, ing more precisely Herme inn’s ob- their innate strength attained a jections (p. 351) toSchleiermacher’s gradual and regular development.’ view: ‘Plato's creative genius early (fm, 90; evolved from the Socratic doctrines s! Plato, i. 186 sq. the outlines of his future system; THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 119 priovi grounds, but only by careful consideration of the Platonic writings themselves. Among these writings, then, there are certainly several which not only make passing allusion to pheno- mena of the time, but are only comprehensible in relation to definite historical events. The chief purpose of the Apology is to give the speech of Socrates in his own defence; that of the Crito, to explain the reasons by which he was deterred from flight out of prison ;°? the Euthyphro seems to have been occasioned by the in- dictment of Socrates, in conjunction with another con- eurrent incident ; % the Euthydemus by the appearance of Antisthenes together with that of Isocrates, and the charges brought by both against Plato.“* But even in such works as these, which, strietly speaking, are to be considered as occasional, the stand-point of the author is so clearly manifest that we can without difficulty assign them to a particular period of his life. The main purpose, however, of the great majority of the dialogues, be their outer motive what it may, is the representation and establishment of the Platonic phi- losophy : it is therefore all the more to be expected that we should in some measure be able to trace in them how far Plato at the time of their composition had either himself advanced in the formation of his system, or to what point he then desired to conduct the reader; and on what grounds he assumes that his system might be known to the reader from earlier #2 And at the same time in the Part 1. 161, 1, defence of his friends against the ei Of. p. 84, 94, rumours intimated 44 B. 120 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY, writings. Now we can discover in one part of these writings, nothing that carries us essentially beyond the Socratic stand-point. In the Lesser Hippias, Lysis, Charmides, Laches, Protagoras, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, there is as yet not a hint of that doctrine which marks the fundamental distinction between the Platonic and Socratic eonceptional Philosophy : the doctrine of the independent existence of ideas, above and beside that of phenomena.” Neither do they contain any discussions on Natural Science or Anthropology ;® the belief in immortality is but doubtfully touched on in the Apology ;®" and the Crito (54 B) only presupposes the popular notions about Hades, without a reference to the more philosophic belief, or to the Pythagorean myths, which later on are hardly ever left unnoticed in passages treating of future retribution. In none of these dialogues does Socrates occupy himself with any- thing beyond those ethical enquiries, in which, accord- 65 Socrates’ desire in the Euthy- phro, 5 D, 6 D, to hear, not merely of some particular Sc1ov, GAN Exeivo aitd rd eldos, & Tdyta Ta Sod Eatı, and his explanation mig iöeq rd Te avborıa avdoıa elvar kal Ta daıa Bora (ef. Ritter, ii. 208; Steinhart, ii. 195; Susemihl, i. 122), must not be made to prove too much, Socrates had, indeed, already insisted on tho constancy of universal ideas: the separate existence of genera is not, however, hinted at in the Euthy- phro. We cannot draw any in- ferences from the names elöos and idea: whereas in Xenophon univer- sal concepts are called yévn, Plato ean express them in the Socratic acceptation by ıdea or eldas, which after all means merely method or form. Plato in fact is standing on the threshold of the Socratic doc- trine of ideas, but has not yet stepped beyond it. Still less can be inferred from the Lysis, 217 C sq.; and even if with Steinhart, i. 232 sq., we discover here the dawn of the doctrine of separate Ideas, we must still allow that the passage, as universally understood, does not pass out of the circle of Soeratie tenets. 6 E.g.: that the Platonic divi- sion of the soul is intimated in the Protagoras, 352 B; on which point I cannot agree with Ritter. 6 Vide Part i. 149, THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 121 ing to history, the real Socrates was entirely absorbed ; in none does he exhibit more intimate knowledge of the earlier systems,—in none does he cope with other adversaries than those who actually did oppose him, the Sophists. The doctrine of virtue has still the older originally Socratic stamp: the virtue of the wise is alone regarded as virtue, and all particular virtues are reduced to knowledge, without the recognition of an unphilosophical virtue side by side with the philosoph- ical, or the admission of a plurality of virtues, such as we afterwards find.°® A certain crudity of method is also evident in all these dialogues. The amount of mimetic by-play bears no proportion to the meagreness of the philosophic contents: throughout the dramatic description is lively, while the scientific conversation proceeds laboriously and interruptedly with elemen- tary determinations. Even the Protagoras, with all its artistic excellence, is not free from discussions of fatiguing prolixity, and the explanation of the verse of Simonides (338 E sqq.) especially disturbs the trans- parency of its plan, and looks very like a piece of youthful ostentation. Finally, if we compare the argument of the Gorgias (495 sqq.) against the identity of the good and pleasure, with that of the Protagoras (351 B sqq.), which leaves this identity still as a hypo- thesis, it is clear that the latter must be earlier than the former, and consequently than all the dialogues succeeding it.”? Separately all these indications may ® As regards the division be- Crito are to be excepted, which tween philosophic and ordinary are not concerned with philosophi- virtue, Meno, 96 D sq. cal enquiries. ® Only the Apology and tho 7 The opposite view is main- 122 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY, be inconclusive; collectively, they certainly warrant the opinion, that at the time of his composing the above- named works, Plato, as regards the scientific form, was less skilled in the art of developing conceptions; and as regards the contents, was the scope and results of the tained by Schöne, Plat. Prot. 88 sq. He wishes to make out that the advance is rather on the side of the Protagoras. He says that whereas the Gorgias identified the ayabdy and the aPeAmoyv, which is, however, nothing else than the continued ed Bidva of the Protago- ras, it contents itself with a mere apparent difference between ayaddv and 760; the Protagoras on the other hand abolishes this appear- ance, and draws out in outspoken eudzmonism the consequence of the Socratie stand-point. However, supposing eudsemonism were really this consequence (we have examined this, Part i. 124 sq.), are we to believe that Plato recognised it as, such? According to our subse- quent knowledge of his Ethies, cer- tainly not. And is it correct to say that the Gorgias by apéamor, which is identified with the good, means merely the same as the ed (iv of the Protagoras (351 B), viz. ndews Bi@vat continued to the end of life? Surely the discussion with Polus, 474 C sq., refutes this supposition ; for although it shows that the right is, indeed, not more agreeable, but more profitable than the wrong, yet it seeks this profit exclusively in the health of the soul (477 A sqq.). Further on, 495 A, the position that 750 and ayaboy are the same, and that all pleasure as such is good, and therefore the very supposition still essentially limited to Socratic teaching.”! This acted upon by. Socrates in his whole argument Protag. 351 C, is fundamentally contested. I cannot believe, that after making Socrates refute a principle so decidedly in this passage, in the Republic, in the Philebus, and elsewhere, Plato should, in a later dialogue, make him repeat the same principle without the slightest modification ; and the same must, I think, hold good in a still greater degree of the Philebus, which Schöne, following Weisse's theory (supra, p. 107, 43), likewise considers later than the Protagoras. 71 The above holds good also, if we suppose that the object of the Protagoras and the kindred dia- logues was not so much the ex- position of philosophig theories as the painting of the character of Soerates. For as in this case (leaving out of the question the Apology and the Crito) the ques- tion is still not about historical accuracy, but about an ideal pie- ture of Socrates, we must ask why the same man, as regards his philo- sophical convictions, should be here depicted in so many respects diffe- rently from the representations of, e.g. the Symposium and Pheedo; and it would be very difficult to bring forward any sufficient reason for this, if Plato himselfasa philoso- pher took just the same stand-point there as he does here. The truth is, the two sides, the depicting of the THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 123 must doubtless have been the case while he remained under the personal influence of Socrates, and we might therefore be inclined to place all these dialogues in the period before or immediately after the death of Socrates.”? But there are many to which this theory could not be extended without ascribing to the youthful Plato an improbable amount of creative skill in the use of the philosophie dialogue, an artistic form which he had himself introduced ; and even if we restrict it to the works already named, it may still be asked” whether Plato, while his master was still alive, and everyone might listen to his discourses, would have as- cribed to him other discourses of his own invention. This, however, does not make it impossible that Plato may have attempted to compose Socratic dialogues, even in the lifetime of Socrates, and may perhaps have written them down, without allowing them to go beyond the circle of his intimate friends; “ but it is very unlikely that he should at that time have pro- duced so elaborate a work as the Protagoras, which, by its whole plan and design, was evidently meant for the public. This may more properly perhaps be assigned with the Apology and Crito ” to the interval between genuine philosopher and the ex- position of a philosophie system, cannot be divided in Plato: he draws Socrates for us in such a way, that he at the same time leaves to him the develop- ment which to his mind was the Socratic, that is, the true philoso- phy. * So Hermann, Steinhart, Suse- mihl ; earlier also Ueberweg, supra, pp. 105, 106. 73 Cf. Schöne, Pl. Protag. 72; Grote, Plato, i. 196 sq. (who brings forward my view with less authori- tative grounds) ; with him, Ueber- weg agrees in what follows, supra, p. 106, 41, ™ The Hippias may be such an earlier literary experiment: ef. pp. 85, 86. 5 It is probable that the Apolo- gy was published immediately after Socrates’ death, perhaps written 124 the death of Socrates and the commencement of the Egyptian journey; and down even before, inasmuch as a faithful report of the speech which Socrates delivered before the tribu- nal must have been the more easy to Plato, the fresher it was in his remembrance. And indeed it was then that he had the most pressing summons to set right the ideas of his fellow-citizens about his teacher by a narrative of the facts. The latter reason, however, would lead us to place the Crito not much later, the more so because here the interest intimated in the Crito itself is added, namely, to defend the friends of Socrates against the appearance of haying done nothing at allto save him. It might cer- tainly appear that Plato could not have spoken of the preparations for Socrates’ escape, immediately after his death, without endanger- ing the safety of the parties in- volved therein. But it is question- able whether, on the whole, the discovery of aplan which remained. unaccomplished could have led to prosecutions, and whether the plan was not already known even be- fore the appearance of the Crito; again, we do not know how long Crito out-lived Socrates, and whether Plato does not wish to de- fend the dead against unfavourable judgments; moreover, if Crito was no longer living, he had greater freedom in referring to him; yet besides Crito, he mentions by name none of the persons implicated (p. 45 B), such as the Thebans Sim- mias and Cebes, who without doubt had already returned home. 76 A more precise arrangement is impossible from the fact that the particulars of this period of PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. in conjunction with the Plato's life are not known. If his stay at Megara could have lasted longer, he might have composed the dialogues in question there. But it has been already remarked, p. 17 sq., that we have no right to make this supposition, and it is a wide departure from authen- ticated tradition to speak, as Her- mann does, of a Megaric period and Megarie dialogues. Ueberweg (Zeitschr. f. Phil. lvii., 1870, p. 76 sq. supra, 106, 41) wishes to put back the Protagoras and the kindred dialogues to 387 B.C., and he believes that for this chronology he finds a strong exter- nal support in the fact that Iso- crates (Bus. 5), six years after Socrates’ death, reproaches the rhetorician Polyerates: ’AAkıBıdönv Ewkas ate (Socr.) uadnrHv, dv im éxelvou uev oddels N adero madeud- pevoy, which, after the appearance of the Protagoras, could no longer have been said. But if this asser- tion is not mere imagination (and certainly in the Busiris, which pays little regard to historical truth, we may very well expecü this from Isocrates). it cannot mean to deny the intercourse of Alei- biades with Soerates, but only to deny, what Xenophon also, Mem. i. 2. 12 sq. refutes, that his opinions and conduct were mo- tived by the Socratic teaching. That on the other hand he was connected with Socrates for a con- siderable length of time must also be universally known from Xen. loc. cit. This result, however, is also obtained from the Protagoras: Alcibiades is not here represented as tawWevduevos tbr) Zwrpdrous, THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 125 Laches, Charmides, and Lysis, may have been intended as a portrayal of Socrates and his philosophy, which, though full of poetic freedom and invention, was in the main true to nature, and might therefore be used by Aristotle as historical evidence.” About the same date, but rather earlier than the Apology, the Euthyphro may have been written with a similar design: unless indeed it belongs to the time of Socrates’ trial.’3 It is otherwise with the Gorgias, Meno, Thex- tetus, and Euthydemus. These four dialogues, judging from the references in them to contemporary events, must not only be later, and for the most part many years later, than the Protagoras and the death of Socrates; 7° but they also in their scientific content 7 Of. p. 85. 73 The fact, however, that the view of Plato’s literary activity developed above makes him begin, not with epoch-making works, which give a glimpse of all that is to follow, but with essays of smaller scientific pretensions (as Ribbing, Plato’s Ideenl. ii. 76 sq. objects), can hardly be construed to his prejudice. The same is the case (to say nothing of our great ets) with Kant, Leibnitz, Schel- En and many others. Before Plato had discovered in the theory ‘of Ideas the peculiar principle of his system, which could only have happened after long pre- paration, he was of necessity li- mited to the setting forth the Socratic philosophy in detail. That there was need of some practice in the literary form which was first used by him can cause us no sur- prise: seeing, however, that, so scon after the first experiments, he was able to produce such a work of art as the Protagoras, we have no reason to look in vain for traits of his high genius even in the essays of this period ; on the other hand we can hardly imagine how, after the Pheedrus, he could have writ- ten a Lysis, a Laches, and a Char- mides, and also in the Protagoras how he could so entirely have re- frained from any reference to the theories which separate his stand- point from the Soeratie. It has been already shown, p- 93, 3 ; 18, 31; pp. 83, 84; that the Meno cannot have been written before 395, nor the Thexte- tus before 394 ».c. ; and the Euthy- demus gives evidence of the activity of Antisthenes in Athens, and his attacks upon Plato, as well as the attack of Isocrates on the Sophists (ef. on this point also p. 132, 94). Even apart from the obvious allusions, Gorg. 486 A, 508 C sq., 521 B sq., we must 126 point unmistakeably to a time when Plato had already. PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. laid the corner stone of his system in the theory of ideas,*° when he had appropriated the Pythagorean notions of the transmigration of souls and a retribu- tion after death,*' and connected them by means of the doctrine of Anamnesis with that theory ;*? with which suppose the Gorgias to have been written not before Socrates’ death: this, however, does not help us much, x % In the Euthydemus, 301 A, KaAG Tpdyuara are Erepa aurTov Ye TOD KaAOD* MÄpeoTı pévToL ExdoTw avr@v kaAAos tt. In these words I see not merely, with Steinhart, ‘a close approximation to the doctrine of Ideas,’ but the actual enunciation of this doctrine. The abrokaAdr, the ideally fair, which, separate from individual things that are fair, gives them their fairness by its present indwelling, is actually the idea of the kaAdr. This enunciation is immediately followed by an objection which Antisthenes appears to have used against the participation of Things in the Ideas: v. Parti. p. 255, 2. The words of the Theetetus, 176 E, are even clearer: wopa- deıynarwv ev TB öyrı EctHtTwv—cf. 175 C—is a plain assertion of the doctrine, which is expressed in the Parmenides, 132 D, in almost the same words. The ‘Here’ as the dwelling-place of evil, and the ‘There’ to which we are told to flee in the Thestetus, 176 A, is another deeisive example of Plato’s idealism being already formed. *! These Pythagorean doctrines are seen clearly, not only in the Meno (v. following note), but in the Gorgias. 508 A of the latter (ef. vol. i. 380, 3) shows its author's acquaintance with Pythagoreism: Gorgias, 393 A, D, Plato employs Philolaus’ comparison of the cépa to acnue(v. vol. i. 388, 5), and indi- cates its source by the words kouyds avip tows ZıkeAös “tts 7) “Iradtkés. ZıreAds koupds avnp is the begin- ning of a well-known song of Timo- creon’s, given in Bergk’s Poete Lyrici, p. 941; and the addition of ’IraAıkös points to the Italian philo- sophers, and in partieularto Philo- laus of Tarentum. The reference is not quite so clear, 523 A sqq., where the ordinary notions about the judges of the dead, the islands of the Blessed,and Hades, are given. But the belief in immortality appears unequivocally here, as in the Theetetus, 177 A, and in 524 B is connected with the same thoughts as meet us afterwards in the Pheedo, 64 C,80 C. The Gorgias, 525 B sqq., distinguishes between curable and incurable sins, tem- poral and eternal punishments in the future world; just as later on the Republic, x. 615 D sq., does, following Pythagorean doctrines. So we cannot doubt that at the time he wrote the Gorgias, Plato's views of a future state were in the main settled. 8 Vide the well-known passage in the Meno, which will be noticed further in a subsequent place, 81 A sq. The reference in this to the Pythagorean doctrine of metem- er THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 127 indeed the whole belief in immortality as he under- stood it was so bound up that both must have arisen almost simultaneously. * sychosis is perfectly plain, though lato (with Philolaus, v. Pt. i. 327, 1) only appeals to Pindar and the Orphic tradition; the proof, as is well known, is in a tenet of the Pythagorean Mathe- maties—the Pythagorean funda- mental theory. And it seems equally clear to me that the doc- trine of Reminiscence (avduvnots) really presupposes that of the Ideas. The objects of reminis- cence can only be the universal concepts (aAndela tay övrwv)—-the sensuous forms of which meet us in individual things — not in- dividual presentations which we ‚have experienced in our former lives: v. Meno, 86A ; ef. Phado, 99 E. Plato expresses himself as if the latter were his meaning, but this is merely the same mythical - form of exposition which we find elsewhere ; he states in the Phzedo, 72 E sqq., with unmistakable reference to the Meno, the par- tieular way in which he wishes to be understood. I cannot, any more than Ribbing (Pl. Ideenl. i. 173 sq.) or Steger (Pl. Stud. i. 43). agree with Steinhart (loe. eit. 11, 96 ; iv. 85, 383, 416) and Suse- mihl (Genet. Entw. i. 85 sq.) in finding in the Meno an earlier and more immature form of the theory of Reminiscence than in the Phedrus, nor with Schaarsehmidt (Samml. d. plat. Schr. 356 sq.), who avails himself of the passage in question as evidence for the spuriousness of the Meno. ‘The Meno says, 81 ©, that the soul has learnt everything, inasmuch as it Since therefore these dia- has seen kal ra évOade kal ra ev” Adou kal mavra xphuara. Similarly in the Republic and the Timeus: in the former (x. 614 E), the souls after their wanderings through the world above and the world beneath are represented as narrating to one another what they have seen in both ; in the latter (41 D), each of them before entering into human existence is placed on a planet, in the revolutions of which it con- templates the universe; with the last description, the Phadrus agrees on the whole, although in it the ideas stand for that which the souls see during their journey round the world. The Meno again reckons moral and mathematical truths amongst the things which the soul knows from its pre-existence, 81 C, 82 A sq. Further on (p. 85 Esq.) we are met by the fallacy: If the soul were in possession of knowledge, dv &v D xpövov nal dv by wh 7} UvOpwros, it must always be in possession of knowledge. I will not undertake to defend the validity of this con- elusion. I would rather ask where is the valid conclusion, by which pre - existence is proved, and whether, for example, the method of proof in the Phaedo, 70 C sq., has in this respect any advantage over that of the Meno? In point of fact, our ‘fallacy’ is ex- pressly mentioned in the Phaedo, 72 E, as a well-known Socratic evidence for the immortality of the soul. 88 Plato himself gives his opinions on this connection in 128 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. logues occupy themselves quite disproportionately with elementary enquiries into the most universal moral principles, concerning the oneness and teachableness of virtue, the conception of knowledge, and the like; the reason cannot be that Plato had not himself advanced essentially beyond the Socratic stand-point and the earliest beginnings of his own system,—it must lie in methodical calculation. The author here intentionally confines himself to what is elementary, because he wants first to establish this on all sides, to secure the founda- tion of his building, before raising it higher. His method in the Cratylus, Sophist, Politicus, and Par- menides must be criticised from a similar point of view. These dialogues decidedly presuppose the doctrine of ideas:** in the Politicus Plato, besides laying down his theory of government, also gives ex- pression to several important determinations of his natural philosophy, betraying Pythagorean influence the external appearance, which, the Phedo, 76 D sq. If there is, with Plato, is closely connected he says, a beautiful, a good, &e., and generally if there are ideas, the soul must have already been in existence before birth; if we deny the former position, we can- not grant the latter. He says this in reference to the avdurnaıs, which is indeed really a recol- lection of the ideas.. The same, however, holds good of the later proofs for the immortality of the soul’s nature (Phado, 100 B sq.); as throughout he goes upon the relation in which the soul stands to the idea of life; and the con- ception of the soul in the Phedrus as dpxh Kwhoews (245 C sq.), all along presupposes the separation of the eternal and essential from with the theory of the absolute reality of the Ideas; the soul in its higher parts lives upon the intuition of the Ideas (247 D, 248 B.) 8¢ It will be shown later on how the Sophist and Parmenides estab- lish and carry out this doctrine. For the Cratylus, cf. 439 C sq. (where the expression övep@rrew can at most only mean that the doc- trine is new to the readers, not that it has oceurred to Plato only then for the first time), 386 D, 389 B, D, 390 E, 428 E; and the Politicus, 285 E sq., 269 D. ® Polit. 269 D sq., we find the opposition of the immutable & J THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 129 not only in these, but in other more distinct references to that school of his predecessors.*° Consequently it cannot be supposed that at the date of these dialogues he had not yet perfected his philosophic principle, nor occupied himself with the Pythagoreans; and though, as to contents and method, he is here most nearly allied with the Eleatic-Megarian philosophy, this merely proves that he desired to lead his readers onward from that starting point, not that he himself had not already passed it. As little are we compelled, on account of the definite _ prominence in the Phedrus of the doctrine of ideas, and the changing existences of the soul, to consider that dialogue as later than the Sophist, Statesman, and _ Parmenides,*’ or even than the Gorgias, Meno, Euthy- before in the Gorgias. demus, Cratylus, and Thestetus.*$ divine existence and the mutable corporeal world, and, as a con- sequence, the assumption of perjo- dical changes in mundane affairs. And in 272 D sq., 271 B sq., we t, in connection with this, the Bctrine that each soul in each mundane pericd has to run through a fixed number of earthly bodies, unless previously transferred to a higher destiny. In 273 B, D, the doctrine of the Timzeus on matter is clearly anticipated. % In the Cratylus, 400 B sq., we find Philolaus’ comparison of gaya and ofa, which occurred We are farther told that this life is a state of purification. In 405 D, we have the Pythagorean World Har- Mony; in 403 E, the Platonic doctrine of immortality, which is It is quite as pos- a reference to Pythagoreism. The Sophist, B, gives us the Pythagorean opposition of the Li- mited and Unlimited, which meet us again in the Parmerfides, 137 D, 143 D'sq., 144 E, 158 B sqq., with the addition of a contrast be- tween Odd and Even, One and Many; and, ibid. 143 D sq., the derivation of numbers is a reminis- cence of the Pythagoreans. In the Politieus, we have the Pythagorean tenets of the Mean, 284 E sq., and the doctrine of the Unlimited, 273 D. *7 So Hermann and Steinhart : vide supra, pp. 103, 104,; 105, 38. 88 As Susemihl: vide supra. Deuschle (The Platonie Politicus, p- 4) puts the Phadrus rather earlier, between the Euthydemus and Cratylus, 252 re 130 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. sible that Plato here mythically foretells convictions which were already in his mind during the writing of those dialogues, but which, for the sake of the sys- tematic evolution of his doctrines, he had for the present set aside: that the Pheedrus may thus be the introduc- tion to a longer series of writings, designed from its position to afford the reader a preliminary view of the goal, hereafter to be frequently hidden from his eyes, as he presses towards it by the long and tortuous road of methodical enquiry. This possibility rises into probability if we take into consideration all those traces of youthfulness which others have observed ; if we remark that some important points of doctrine are in this work, as in the glow of a first discovery, still wanting in the closer limitation which Plato was afterwards obliged to give them ;°° if we note how, in 89 In Diog. iii. 38, Olympiodorus 3 (vide p. 92,1), it is declared to be Plato’s first written treatise, by reference to the pe:paxi@des of its subject—the dithyrambie character of the exposition. Schleiermacher, Pl. W. 1 a. 69 sq., gives a more thorough exposition of the youth- ful character recognisable ‘in the whole texture and colour’ of the Pheedrus. He calls attention to the tendency to writing for dis- play, and the exhibition of the author's own superiority, which is discernible throughout; to the proud lavishness of material seen in the second and third refutation of the dialectic adversary, each of which outdoes its predecessor, only to result in the declaration that his whole literary production, and these speeches with it, are merely play. The Rhetors are discom- fited with ostentatious complete- ness ; and at every pause the by- play breaks out in renewed luxuri- ance, or an uncalled-for solemnity is imparted to the tone. Such are some of the points noticed by Schleiermacher; and to these we may add that even the famous. myth of the Phedrus lacks the intuitive faculty which marks Platonic myths as a rule. The dithyrambie tone of the whole work has none of the repose about it with which, in other dialogues, Plato treats the most exalted themes; it is indeed so signally different from the matured lucidity of the Symposium, that we can scarcely suppose there are only a few years between them. ° Courage and Desire, which according to the Timzus, 42 A) 69 C sq. (ef. Polit. 309 C; Rep. x THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 151 the second part, the elements of the scientifie method are as if for the first time laid down, and the name and conception of Dialectic, already familiar to us in the Euthydemus,*' are introduced as something new ; 611 B sqq.), compose the mortal _ soul which only comes into being at the union with the body, are here, 246 A sq., transferred to the pre-existent state, and in 249 D sq. we find the Love which is the ‘main theme of the Phedlrus con- -evived only in general terms as the striving after the Ideal, awakened by the action of beauty. Not till we come to the Symposium do we find the addition, that Love is concerned with production in the sphere of beauty. Kap, 290 C; also Cratylus, 390 C; Soph. 253 D sq.; Polit. ‚285 D, 287 A. 7» P. 265 C sqq. Dialectic is here deseribed on its formal logical ‘side only; and I cannot agree with Steinhart (Pl. W. iii. 459) in re- garding the representation given of it as more mature than that in the Sophist, where, loc. cit., the ogical problem of Dialectic is based the doctrine of the community ot concepts. Stallbaum’s attempt (De Art. Dial. in Pheedro doctr. Lpz. 1853, p. 13) to reconcile the elementary description of Dialectic in the Phedrus with the later @nuneiation does not satisfy me. _ He shys that the Phadrus only __ wants to represent Dialectic as the _ true artof Love. Even if this were s0, it would not follow that it Should be treated as something _ New, the very name of which has to be enquired. But there is no K 7 if, in fine, we compare the remarks on rhetoric in the Phedrus with those in the Gorgias: and the judg- justification in the dialogue itself for thus narrowing down the scope of its second part. ” The Phedrus, 260 E sqq., shows that Rhetoric is not an art at all, but only a Tpıßn &rexvos, and we find the same in the Gorgias, 463 A sqq. But the former not only takes no exception to the general description of Rhetorie as having only persuasion for its object (how- ever little this may have been Plato's own view), but makes this description the basis of its argu- ment. The latter contradicts this flatly, 458 E, 504 D sqq., and gives the Rhetor the higheraim of amend- ing and teaching his audience; and because Rhetorie does not satisfy these requirements, it is, in the The- wtetus, 201 A, Politicus, 304 C, al- lowed only a subordinate value, compared with Philosophy ; though the Phaedrus does not clearly divide the respective methods of the two. In face of these facts (which Ueberweg’s remarks, Plat. Schr. 294, fail to display in any other light) I cannot allow much im- portance either to the criticism of the Phzdrus on single Rhetors and their theories (Steinhart, iv. 43), nor to the eireumstanee which Hermann alone (Plat. 517) regards as decisive, viz. that the Phaedrus 270 A passes a judgment on Perieles so much more favourable than the Gorgias 515 U sq. 519 A. The former praises him as a 3 132 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. ment on Isocrates with that of the Euthydemus.” The opinion therefore seems justifiable that Plato up to the death of Socrates remained generally true to the Socratic manner of philosophy, and therefore in the writings of this period did not essentially advance beyond his teacher ; but that in the years immediately speaker of genius and scientific eulture ; the latter blames him as a statesman. Both this praise and blame are quite compatible (as Krische has «already remarked, Plat. Phedr. 114 sq.), at any rate just as much as e.g. the praise of Homer and other posts, Symp. 209 D, is compatible with expressions such as Gorg. 502 B sq.; Rep. ii. 377 C sq.; x. 598 D sq.; and even supposing it were otherwise, the question still remains whether the unfavourable judgment is the earlier or the later one: the judg- ment of the Gorgias is repeated in the Politieus, 303 B sq.; and as Plato always considered democracy to be bad, we cannot see how he ever could have arrived at a dif- ferent view as regards the states- man who most decidedly had paved the way for it. % In the Euthydemus, without mentioning Isocrates, yet with dis- tinct reference to him, his depreci- atory judgments as regards the Philosophers (or as he calls them the Eristies, the Sophists) are de- cidedly rebutted, and the middle position which he himself aimed at between a philosopher and a statesman is shown to be unten- able. The Phzdrus, on the con- trary, 278 Esq., represents Socrates as expressing a hope that Isocrates by virtue of the philosophie ten- dency of his mind will not merely leave all other orators far behind, but perhaps himself also turn to philosophy. Spengel (Isocrates u. Platon. Abh. d. Münchner Akad. philos.-philol. Kl. vii. 1855, p. 729-769 ; ef. espee. 762 sq.) is cer- tainly right in believing that the Pheedrus must have been written before the character of Isocrates had developed in that particular direetion which Plato’s defence in the Euthydemuschallenges—before the hope of still winning him over to the side of philosophy had vanished—and before he had pub- lished that series of attacks on the philosophers of his time (including Plato, though neither he nor any other is named) which we have in the speeches against the Sophists, Hel. i-7, Panath. 26-32, m. avrıdde. 195, 258 sq. Philipp. 12. As Isocrates was born B.c. 436, supposing the Phadrus to have been composed 387 B.c., he had already, at the time of its composition, attained an age to which this condition clearly no longer applied. The remark of Steinhart, Plat. Leben, 181 sq., in- tended to meet this conclusion, fails to carry conviction with it, as he finally supports his position with the mere assumption that neither was Plato in the Euthy- demus thinking of Isocrates, nor Isoerates of Plato in the speech against the Sophists, THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 133 succeeding that event, he discovered in the doctrine of % ideas and belief in the soul’s immortality the central point of his system, and thenceforward began, accord- ing to the announcement in the Phedrus, to develope his convictions in methodical progression. That these convictions became in course of. time more clearly defined and more distinctly apprehended—that the horizon of the philosopher gradually enlarged, and his method and form of expression to some extent altered— that his relation to the older schools was not throughout the same-—that it was long before his political, and far longer before his cosmical theories were completed as to detail; all this we shall probably find, even if the traces of such a development should be less marked in his writings than it was in fact; but the essential stand-point and general outlines of his doctrine must have been certain to him from the date indicated by the Pheedrus, Gorgias, Meno, and Theztetus. It can hardly be doubted that the Symposium and Phedo are later than the Phedrus, and belong to a time when the philosophy of Plato, and also his ar- tistic power, had reached full maturity ; °° the Philebus, too, can scarcely be assigned to an earlier period. But the difficulty of determining the order of these dia- logues with regard to one another, and the exact date of each, is so great that we cannot be surprised if the views of critics differ widely on these questions. Between those dialogues which definitely bring forward ® Ast and Socher would place this supposition, however, has been the Phzedo immediately after So- sufficiently refuted, supra. crates’ death (supra, 101, 25, 28): 134 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. the doctrine of ideas and the eternal life of the soul, and those from which it is absent, there must be a considerable interval; and if the former were for the most part not written till after the death of Socrates, we cannot venture to place either of the latter in the period closely succeeding that event. We may reasonably suppose that the dialogues primarily concerned with the delineation uf Socrates and the Socratic philosophy, as Plato then apprehended it, may have been written partly in Megara, partly after his return thence to Athens; that he then went to Egypt and Cyrene; that during this journey or immediately after it he formed the views which led him decidedly beyond the Socratic stand-point,—at any rate then first. resolved to proclaim them by his mas- ter’s mouth ; and thus this second epoch of his literary activity might commence about four or five years after Socrates’ death. But all this is mere conjecture, and eannot be substantiated. Among the writings of this time the Phedrus seems to be the earliest.”® The Gorgias and Meno may have fol- lowed ; their subject and treatment allying them, more than any dialogues of this class, to the Protagoras.” From the well-known anachronism in the Meno,® it would appear that this work was published not much later than 495 2.0.” The Theetetus is connected with the 96 My own arguments in favour expressly called 6 viv vewart ¢idn- of this supposition are given p. 130 düs ra IlvAurpdrous xphuara, which sq.: cf. 112 sq. in this case can only be said from * The Euthydemnus is omitted, the stand-point of the author, not for the reasons given on p. 84. of Socrates; on the other hand, if ss Of. p. 98, 8. the incident was still recent, and ® On the one hand Ismenias is Plato’s indignation at it still fresh, THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 135 Meno by its subject-matter; the Meno (89 C sq. 96 D sqq.) reduces the question of the teachableness of virtue to the preliminary question, ‘ Is virtue knowledge ?” but at the same time recognises that virtuous conduct can also spring from right opinion ; the Thesetetus enquires into the conception of knowledge, and its relation to right opinion. In point of date also, the Theztetus seems to approximate to the Meno. For if it was not written at the time of the Corinthian war, we cannot place it much earlier than 368 2.0.10 It is, however, very unlikelythat Plato should at so late a period have thought so elementary an enquiry to be necessary, for we find him in other dialogues !"! treating the distine- tion of knowledge and opinion as a thing universally acknowledged, and of which it was sufficient merely to remind his readers. Yet if, on the other hand, we place the Theztetus later than 368 B.c., the greater number of Plato’s most comprehensive and important works must be erowded into the two last decades of his life: this is in itself not probable, and it becomes still less so when we remember that in these twenty years occurred the two Sicilian journeys, and the alteration in the Platonie philosophy spoken of by Aristotle; which latter is so entirely untraceable in the writings of Plato that we are forced to assign it to a later date.'°? It is therefore almost certain that the it can easily be imagined how he gether with emıornun, Sdta and came to allow this remarkable ale@ncıs appear, plainly the two anachronism. eoncepts, the separation of which we Crp. 18, 81: from Knowledge is the subject of 11 Tim. 51 Dsq.; Rep. v. 477 enquiry in the Theetetus. : A, E; vii. 583 E; Symp. 202 A; 104 The Laws form an koantion also Parmen. 155 D, where? to- considering their general attitude 136 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. Thestetus must have been written a short time after the Meno; most likely between 392 and 390. 2.0.10 The Sophist is connected with the Thezstetus in a _ manner which seems to show that Plato not only meant in the former to refer his readers expressly to the latter, but also to prepare the way, in the conclusion of the Theetetus, for a further enquiry of a like nature.’ The Politicus, too, is immediately connected with the Sophist ;'°° and there is in both dialogues the announcement of a third discussion on the conception of a philosopher; a promise which Plato, for some reason unknown to us, never fulfilled. If this is not sufficient to prove that all these dialogues were com- posed in direct sequence, without the interruption of we cannot expect them to touch upon the metaphysics of Plato's later doctrines. 103 The point which Ueberweg, Plat. Schrift. 227 sqq., lays stress upon in support of his own and Munk’s supposition that the Thex- tetus was written before 368, seems to me much too uncertain to prove anything. On the contrary, it harmonizes very well with the common view, that Euclid and Theodorus play a part in the Theetetus; and with them, not long before the time assigned for the composition of the dialogue, Plato had had friendly intercourse. Cf. p. 18, 31. 104 In the Thesetetus, after it has been shown that of the different definitions of Knowledge, emiornun, as alo@nots, Ödla AAnOns, ddfa &AnOns wera Adyov, no one is sa- tisfactory (210 A); Socrates says in conclusion that he must now depart to the court ; &wdev dt, & Cewdwpe, Setpo madw amravT@uev, In reference to this, the Sophist opens with the words of Theo- dorus: kara thy xés ÖuoAoylar, & Xéxpates, Äjkouev. It is true, the concluding words of the Thee- tetus would not certainly esta- blish any design of a continua- tion in further dialogues (Bonitz, Plat. Stud. II., 41 in reference to the end of the Laches and Prota- goras); but if Plato has connected them with such a continuation, we may in this case certainly sup- pose that he refers to them in it; and, again, the beginning of the Sophist would have been unin- telligible to his readers if it was separated from the Thewtetus by a very great interval and by a series of other dialogues. '°S Politicus, init.; Sophist, 216 C sq. THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS, 137 other works, it is at any rate clear that Plato when he undertook the Sophist had already planned the Politi- eus, and he probably allowed himself no great delay in the execution of his design. We cannot be so certain about the Theetetus; but it is unlikely that many years can have intervened between this dialogue and the Sophist ; and thus there is some ground for believ- ing that the Sophist and Politicus also were composed before the first Sicilian journey, or about that time.’ 106 Ueberweg, Plat. Schrift. 275 sq., following Munk’s example, places the Theztetus trilogy far later. His chief evidence lies in the observation that the move- ment in the Ideas maintained by the Sophist (vide on this point, supra, note 42) must belong to a later form of the doctrine than the view of their abso- lute immutability which is im- pugned therein. Still, however, the question remains whether the view attacked here is that known to us as Plato’s from writings like the Pha&do, the Timzeus, &e. (ef. p. 215 sq.), and whether the view of the Ideas as moving and animated, sinks into the background in the remaining dia- logues besides the Sophist (that it is not quite wanting was shown loe. cit.), because he had not yet found it out, or because it lay too far out of the dominant tendency of his thoughts, and the difficulty of bringing it into harmony with other more important designs was too great to allow him to follow it out further; or whether we have in the Sophist really a later form of the doctrine of Ideas, and not rather an attempt (subsequently abandoned) to include motion in the concept of the Ideas. The last supposition, besides the other reasons alleged for the priority of the Sophist to the Parmenides and of the Politieus to the Republic, at once falls to the ground when we consider that in the account of the theory of Ideas known to us from Aristotle the characteristic of motion is wanting throughout, and moreover this deficiency is expressly made an objection to the doctrine (cf. Part ii. b. 220, 2nd edit.) ; so that the Sophist cannot be considered as an exposition of the Ideas in their latest form, but merely as the transition to it. Ueberweg further (p. 290 sq.) thinks that he discerns in the Politicus, as well as in the Phzedo, anthropological views which must be later than those of the Timzeus. The incorrectness of this remark will be proved later on (in chap- ter viii.). Finally Schaarschmidt (Samml. d. plat. Schrift. 239 sq.) endeavours to point out in the same dialogue a whole series of imitations of the Laws, but I cannot enter upon the theory here in detail; I have, however, not found one out of all the passages which he quotes, which contradicts the supposition that the Politicus 138 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. The Parmenides refers to the Sophist,'” the Philebus to the Parmenides ;'% and both the Philebus and the Politieus!® are presupposed by the Republie.!!® These dialogues must therefore have succeeded one another in the above order.'!! The precise date of each, and where the Euthydemus and Cratylus came in among them, cannot be ascertained; the Symposium was pro- is one of Plato’s works which pre- ceded the Laws. 107 ] have endeavoured to show the probability of this (in Plat. Stud. 186 sq. 192 sq.) by a com- parison of Parm. 128 E sq. with Soph. 253 D, 251 A; Parm. 143 A B, 145 A with Soph. 244 B sq., 254 D sq.; Parm. 133 C with Soph. 255 C. 108 Supra, 70, 56. 109 With regard to the latter I shall content myself with referring to Susemihl, Genet. Entw. ii. 303 sq. and chapter viii. of this volume, and with the remark that there seems to me to be no occasion for the conjecture that we have it not in its original shape, but in a second elaboration (Alberti, Jahrb. f. Philol. Suppl. N. F. 1, 166 sq.) 10 When it is said, Rep. vi. 505 B: aaXa phy Töde Ye oloda, brit Tots pev moAAols don dorer elvat Tb Gyabdy, Tots de koworepors $pövnois, when the question which forms the subject of the Philebus is thus discussed here as if it were a well-known one, and the two theories there criticised at length are dismissed with a few remarks, we cannot help seeing here in the Repub. a direct allusion to the Philebus, just as in the above-cited passages of the latter we find an allusion to the Parmenides; in the Phxdo, 72 E (supra, p. 83, 91), to the Meno; in the Laws, v. 739 B sq. (cf. Plat. Stud. 16 sq.) to the Republic. 11! Ueberweg, p. 204 sq., ob- serves correctly that in the So- phist, and in a still higher degree in the Philebus (to which the present work refers later on, in chapter vi.), there are many points of agreement with the later form of the doctrine of Ideas as represented by Aristotle. But it does not follow that these dia- logues are later than all those in which these points of agreement do not appear in the same way. As soon as the theory of Ideas arrived at a definite completion it must have also comprehended those views with which its later form was connected ; but Plato would only have had oe- easion to bring these views into prominence if the doctrine of Ideas as such had been propounded with the object of a dialectical diseus- sion; while in expositions like the Republic and the Timeeus, the chief object of which is the application of the theory of Ideas to the world of morality and the world of nature, they would not be mentioned. Ue- berweg, however, himself remarks of the Timeeus that the construe- tion of the world-soul goes on the same lines as that in the Sophist and Philebus. Cf. also p. 137, 106. THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 139 bably written in 384 2.c.,'"? but this fact gives us little help as to the chronology of the other works, since we cannot with certainty determine the place of the Symposium among the Platonic writings. Possibly Plato may have been prevented by his first Sicilian journey from completing the Trilogy of the Sophist,!! and after the dialectical labour of the Parmenides he may have set aside his intended enquiry concerning the ideal philosopher, and produced instead in the Sym- posium and the Phedo those matchless descriptions which show us in the one the wise man enjoying his life, and in the other drawing near to death.!!4 The Philebus forms the most direct preparation for the Republic and the Timzeus, and therefore we may sup- pose that in order of time, too, it immediately preceded them. These two dialogues must certainly be assigned to Plato’s maturity: "? the only approximation we can "2 The mention (Symp. 193 A) of the Arcadian dworkıruds, which, according to Diodor. xv. 12, took place in the autumn of Olymp. 98, 4 (385 B.c.), is probably to be ex- et by supposing Plato to have een induced by the recent impres- sion of that event to commit an anachronism tolerable only in the mouth of Aristophanes, and under the influence of his overflowing humour. 13 Supra, p. 137. 14 Tt will be shown later on (in chap. ix.) that we have no reason for considering, with Ueberweg, that the Phedo was later than the Timzus. "8 The seventh Platonic letter (vide p. 17, 30) does actually speak as if Plato had written the Republie before his first Sicilian journey ; and in modern times there have been many scholars of note to support the assumption that Aristophanes in the Ecclesi- azusze (Ol. 97, 1, B.c. 391) satirised the Platonic state, getting his ma- terials either from the Republic or from orally delivered doctrines to the same effect. We may name Morgenstern, Spengel, Bergk, Mei- neke, Tehorzewski, and others; vide the references apud Schnitzer (Aristoph. Werke x. 1264 sq.); Susemihl, Joc. cit. ii. 296. But such a doubtful source as the seventh letter cannot be allowed much weight; and with regard to Aristophanes, I can only agree with Susemihl (to whom I content my- self with referring, as he gives the 140 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. make to a more precise date is through the fact that the Critias has not only been handed down to us in an unfinished state, but was apparently never anything else than a fragment.!!® This phenomenon argues some external hindrance which prevented the com- pletion of the work, and we are thus led to think of views of his predecessors in full) that the Platonic Republic is not contemplated in the Ecclesiasuzz. If the attack was aimed at some definite person, the poet, to make himself intelligible to the mass of his audience, would undoubtedly have marked out this person (in spite of the new laws against ridiculing people on the stage, which still did not restrain others from personalities against Plato, supra, p. 36, 82), as clearly as he had done in a hundred other cases. This is not done; and in verse 578 he says explicitly that ‘these pro- jects,’ which have been supposed to parody Plato, ‘have never yet been set on foot.’ Nordo the con- tents of the play necessitate any reminiscence of Plato; broadly speaking, it is concerned, as the poet repeats and asserts beyond possibility of mistake, with the same moral and political cireum- stances as the Knights, Wasps, Lysistrata, and Thesmophoriazuse, in which there had been no altera- tion since Thrasybulus was re- stored. The community of women and goods is brought on the stage as a democratic extreme, not as the mere fancy of an aristocratic doc- trinaire. The resemblance to Plato in some particular traits, e.g. verse 590 sq., 635 sq. in my opinion (which differs from Susemihl’s, ii. 297) is not so special as to pre- elude the possibility of these traits having arisen quite independently from the supposition of such a community existing on Greek soil. Such particular instances must not be pressed too far, or we shall get at last a connection between Ecclesia- suze, 670, Av 8 arodin y aitds déce, and the corresponding Gospel precept. There is nothing to be said for the supposition (Ueberweg, Plat. Schr. 212 sq.) that Aristo- phanes had in his eye Plato’s oral teaching, for in this case we should all the more expect something to point out that Praxagora was in- debted to Plato for her knowledge, or at least (if Aristophanes had suddenly become too cautious to venture what others had ventured and could venture without any dan- ger) to the Philosophers: it is, moreover, very improbable that Plato had at that time so far de- veloped his theory of the State as to require community of wives and the participation of the women in war and government. Besides, there is the fact‘ that Ueberweg (loe cit. 128) plainly makes Plato’s activity as a teacher begin 3-4 years, at earliest, after the represen- tation of the Ecclesiazuse. Again, Rep. v. 452 A, 456 C, throughout contains no allusions to any plea- santries which the comedians had already indulged in at the expense of his proposals. 16 Supra, 49, 9. THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 141 the two last Sicilian journeys and the troubles they entailed.'” Even independently of this, we could hardly place the Republic and the Timzeus later than the years in which those troubles occurred, or there would not have been time for Plato to write the Laws and to modify his system, as Aristotle tells us he did. Supposing the Republic to have been finished before the second Sicilian journey, therefore in 370-368 B.c., and the Critias to have been interrupted by the third journey in 361-2 2.c.,!"®there would then be an interval sufficient for a comprehensive, thoughtful and artistic work like the former ;. for studies preparatory to the Timzus, which despite its deficiencies in natural science, and the help derived from Philolaus and other predecessors, must doubtless have occupied a consider- able time;'!® and sufficient also to account for the’ striking difference in tone and style between the two dialogues—a difference not so entirely dependent on the diversity of their contents,! as to make a further explanation, from the more advanced age of the author, unweleome.!?! Plato’s experiences in Syra- "7 Susemihl, Genet. Entw. ii. 20 To which alone Susemihl 503, agrees with this. "8 On the chronology cf. p. 32 sqq. 119 Before writing the Republic, Plato could not have entered upon these studies, at least if at that time he had not yet conceived the plan of the Timeeus: and that this ’ is really so is likely from the fact that the Republic contains no allusion to the persons who appear in the beginning of the Timens, nor to the dialoguo carried on with them. would here suppose a reference. 21 The solemn dogmatic tone of the Timsus is partly connected with purposcd avoidance of a dia- lectical treatment, partly with the adoption of the Pythagorean Physies and the writings of Philo- laus. Still, however, we cannot maintain that these reasons ren- dered a lucid exposition through- out impossible; and as, on the other hand, in spite of the difference of subject, similar traits are met with in the Laws, we may con- 142 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. cuse may have led him to abandon the further repre- sentation of the ideal state, begun in the Critias and designed for Hermocrates; and in its stead, after his own practical failure, to give account to himself and to the world, of the principles which must guide the philosopher in such enterprises; and also to enquire what means under existing circumstances are at his disposal, That this work is later than the Republic and belongs to Plato’s old age is beyond question ;'” that he devoted much time to it is also evident, not only because of its compass, which is greater than any other of his works, but from the mass of legislative detail it contains. The Republic too may have oecu- pied him for several years, and it is possible that the different parts may have appeared separately, but this theory has no trustworthy evidence to support it.!% jecture that they were in some degree at least owing to Plato's advancing years and increasing jnclination to Pythagorean specu- lations. 122 We shall speak with greater detail on this point later on (in chap. xi.). Provisionally may be compared, besides the statements quoted pp. 138, 110; 93, 2, the assertion (in Diog. iii. 37, Suid. Sirdcopos. Mpvdeydueva T. TlAdr. $1Aos. c. 24) that Philippus of Opus published the Laws from a rough draft of Plato’s. 128 Its only authority is in the assertion quoted p. 92, 1, in Gel- lius, that Xenophon composed the Cyropedia in opposition to the Platonic State, lectis ex eo duobus fere libris qui primi in volgus exierant. But this anonymous statement not only lacks authen- ticity, but carries with it its own refutation. Neither at the end of the second book of the Re- public nor in any other passage between the beginning of the first and the end of the third is there a single paragraph which could justify the supposition of a special publication of the part so far finished, and so much at least must have appeared to induce Xenophon to write the Cyropedia; Gellius, however, openly presupposes our division of the books, already familiar to Thrasyllus (Diog. iii. 57). Compare on these questions Susemthl, Genet. Entw. ii. 88 sq., Whose judgment is more cor- rect than Ueberyeg’s, Plat. Schr. 212. THE ORDER OF THE PLATONIC WRITINGS. 143 Nor is there any proof or likelihood that he recast the dialogue a second time.'** Modern critics have en- deavoured to separate the first and last book from the rest of the work, but neither tradition nor valid inter- nal evidence favours the supposition; while on the other hand the artistic and essential unity which appears throughout is an unanswerable argument to the contrary.'?° 121 According to Diog. iii. 37 Euphorio and Panztius reported: moAAdkıs CoTpaumervny ebpiaba Thy apxhv THs moAırelas. Dionys. De Comp. verb. p. 208 f. R; and Quintil. viii. 6, 64, says more pre- eisely : the first four (or according to Dion the first eight) words of the Republic were written in many different arrangements, on a tablet found after Plato's death. But from that we cannot with Dionysius, loc. cit., go so far as to conclude that Plato was engaged in polishing his writings up to the time of his death ; we plainly have here to do rather with an experiment before publication to see how the opening words would look in different posi- tions. Still less must we magnify these corrections of style into a Separate revision of the whole work. 125 It was, as is well known, Her- mann, Plat. i. 537 sq., who put forward the assertion that the first book was originally a separate and independent work of Plato's first or Socratic period, and was after- wards prepared as an introduction to the Republic, and that the tenth book was only added after a longer period. Also that the 5th, 6th, and 7th books were inserted be- tween the 4th and the 8th book by way of a supplement. However, he has not shown much care in sub- stantiating this sweeping assertion. I will not here enter into particu- lars, because Hermann’s assump- tion has already been tested, with especial reference to the first book, by Steinhart, Pl. W. v. 67 sq., 675 sq., and Susemihl, Genet. Entw. ii. 65 sqq. I would only point out that the end (x. 608 C sq.) is already prepared for in the introduction (i. 330 D). The discussion on Justice, to which the whole of Ethies and Polities is subordinated, starts from the re- mark, that only the just man awaits the life in the world to come with tranquillity; andat the end it returns, after settling all the intermediate questions, to the starting point, to find its sublime conclusion in the contemplation of reward in the world to come. This framework at once proves that we have to deal with a single self- consistent work, which with all its freedom in working out the details and additions during the process of elaboration, is still designed in accordance with a definite plan, 144 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY, CHAPTER IV. ON THE CHARACTER, METHOD, AND DIVISION OF THE PLATONIC PHILOSOPHY. Tue Platonic philosophy is on the one side the com- pletion of the Socratic ; but on the other, an extension and an advance upon it. As Socrates in his philosophie enquiries concerned himself with the moral quite as much as with the intellectual life—as with him right action was inseparably united with right cognition, philosophy with morality and religion, being indeed one and the same thiug--so is it in Plato; and as the aim of the one philosopher was to ground intelligence and conduct on conceptual knowledge, so to the other the standard of all action and of all convictions is the contemplation of universal ideas. Plato’s views con- cerning the problem and principle of philosophy thus rest entirely on a Socratic basis. But that which had been with Socrates only a universal axiom became with Plato a system; that which the former had laid down as the principle of knowledge was announced by the latter as the principle of metaphysics. Socrates had sought that conceptual knowledge for which he claimed existence, but he had only reduced to their primary concept particular activities and phenomena CHARACTER OF PLATO'S PHILOSOPHY. 145 in connection with the given case. He had never attempted to gain a whole from scientifically combined concepts, and thus to explain the totality of the Real. He confined himself on principle to ethical enquiries, and even these he pursued, not systematically, but in a merely inductory manner. It was Plato who first expanded the Socratic philosophy into a system, com- bined its ethics with the earlier natural philosophy, and founded both in dialectics, or the pure science of ideas. But the necessity immediately became apparent of a principle not only to guide thought in the scien- tific method, but also to interpret material things in their essence and existence. Plato, in transcending the Socratic ethics, transcends also the Socratic accep- tation of conceptual knowledge. The cognition of ideas, Socrates had said, is the condition of all true knowledge and right action. Therefore, concludes Plato, logical thought is alone true knowledge. All other ways of knowing—presentation, envisagement— afford no scientific certainty of conviction. But if the knowledge of the idea is alone real knowledge, this can only be, according to Plato, because that alone is a knowledge of the Real; because true Being be- longs exclusively to the essence of things presented in the idea, and to all else, in proportion only as it participates in the idea. Thus the idealizing of the concept, which with Socrates had been a logical postu- late involving a certain scientific dexterity, dialectical impulse, and dialectical art, was now raised to the | objective contemplation of the world, and perfected | into a system. be 146 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. This, however, was impossible without introducing a sharper discrimination between intellectual and moral activity. Their direct and unconditional unity, which Socrates had demanded, can only be maintained so long as no advance is made beyond his general view of the two-sided problems. The moment we proceed to particulars—either, on the one hand, examining the con- ditions of scientific thought, and directing that thought to subjects of no immediate moral import ; or, on the other, fixing the attention more steadily on that which is peculiar to moral activities and their various mani- festations—we can no longer conceal from ourselves that there is a difference, as well as a connection, be- tween knowledge and action. It will be shown here- after that this difference forced itself upon Plato too: herein, however, as in his whole conception of philo- sophy, he is far less widely separated than Aristotle from his master. He distinguishes more sharply than the one between the moral direction of the will and scientific cognition, but does not therefore, like the other, make philosophy an exclusively theoretical ac- tivity. He completes the Socratic ethics not only with dialectical but with physical investigations: the latter, however, never prosper in his hands; and what- ever may be the obligations of this branch of en- quiry to Plato, it is certain that his genius and zeal for natural science were far inferior to those of Aristotle, and that his achievements in this department bear no comparison with those of his scholar, either in extent of knowledge, acuteness of observation, exact- ness of interpretation, or fruitfulness of result. He CHARACTER OF PLATO'S PHILOSOPHY. 147 gives to concepts, as separate substances, the reality of Ideas; but in holding Ideas to be the only reality, and material things, as such, to be devoid of essence, and non-existent, he makes impossible to himself the explanation of the phenomenal world. He perfects the conceptual philosophy into a system, but is not im- pelled, like his successor, to enter deeply into par- ticulars: to him the idea only is the true object of thought; the individual phenomenon possesses no in- terest. He can indeed make use of it to bring to light the idea in which it participates, but that thorough completeness with which Aristotle works his way through empirical data is not his concern. The study of par- ticulars seems to him scarcely more than an intellectual pastime, and if he has for awhile occupied himself with it, he always returns, as if wearied out, to the contem- plation of pure ideas. In this respect, also, he stands | midway between Socrates and Aristotle; between the | philosopher who first taught the development of the | concept from presentation or envisagement, and him who more completely than any other Greek thinker has carried it into all the spheres of actual existence. In the same proportion, however, that Plato advanced beyond Socrates, it was inevitable that he should go back to the pre-Socratic doctrines, and regard as his co-disciples those who were then seeking to apply those theories to the perfecting of the Sccratic doctrine. To - what an extent he did both is well known. Plato is the first of the Greek philosophers who not merely knew and made use of his predecessors, but consciously completed their principles by means of each other, and L 2 — 148 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. bound them all together in one higher principle. What Socrates had tanght with regard to the concept of knowledge; Parmenides and Heraclitus, the Megarians and Cynics, on the difference between knowledge and opinion ; Heraclitus, Zeno, and the Sophists, on the subjectivity of sense perception—all this he built up into a developed theory of knowledge. The Eleatic principle of Being, and the Heraclitean of Becoming, the doctrine of the unity and that of the multiplicity of things, he has, in his doctrine of Ideas, quite_as much blended as opposed ; while at the same time he has perfected both by means of the Anaxagorean conception of Spirit, the Megaro-Socratic conception of the Good, and the idealised Pythagorean numbers. These latter, soul, and the Mathematical laws, as the mediating ele- ment between the idea and the world of sense. Their one élement, the concept of the Unlimited, held absolutely and combined with the Heraclitean view of the sensible world, gives the Platonic definition of Matter. The cosmological part of the Pythagorean system is repeated in Plato’s conception of the uni- verse: while in his theory of the elements and of physics proper, Empedocles anl Anaxagoras, and more distantly the Atomistic and older Ionie natural philo- sophies, find their echoes. His psychology is deeply coloured with the teaching of Anaxagoras on the immaterial nature of mind, and with that of Pytha- goras on immortality. In his ethics, the Socratic basis can as little be mistaken as, in his politics, his sym- Kathy with the Pythagorean aristocracy. Yet Plato CHARACTER OF PLATO'S PHILOSOPHY. 149 is neither the envious imitator that calumny has called him, nor the irresolute eclectic, who only owed it to favouring circumstances that what was scattered about in earlier systems united in him to form a harmonious whole. We may say more truly that this blending of the rays of hitherto isolated genius into one focus is the work of his originality and the fruit of his philosophie principle. The Socratic conceptual philosophy is from the outset directed to the contemplation of things in all their aspects, the dialectic combination of those various definitions of which now one, and now another, is mistaken by a one-sided apprehension for the whole— to the reduction of the multiplicity of experience to its permanent base.! Plato applies this method uni- versally, seeking not merely the essential nature of moral activities, but the essential nature of the Real. He is thus inevitably directed towards the assumptions of his predecessors, which had all started from some true perception; but while these assumptions had re- lated entirely and exclusively to one another, Platc’s scientific principles required that he should fuse them all into a higher and more comprehensive theory cf the world. As therefore Plato’s knowledge of the earlier doctrines gave him the most decided impulse in the development of the Socratic teaching, it was conversely that development which alone enabled him to use the combined achievements of the other philosophers for his own system. The Socratic con- ceptual philosophy was transplanted by him into the fruitful and well-tilled soil of the previous natural 1 Cf. Part i. page 93, 95 sqq. 159 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. philosophy, thence to appropriate to itself all kindred matter; and in thus permeating the older speculation with the spirit of Socrates, purifying and reforming it by dialectic, which was itself extended to metaphysical. speculation,—in thus perfecting ethics by natural phi- Josophy, and natural philosophy by ethics—Plato has accomplished one of the greatest intellectual creations ‘ever known. Philosophy could not indeed permanently remain in the form then given to it. Aristotle soon made very essential alterations in the theories of his. master; the older Academy itself could not maintain them in their purity, and the later systems that thought to reproduce the system of Plato were self-deceived. But this is precisely Plato’s greatness,—that he was able to give the progress of Philosophy an impulse so powerful, so far transcending the limits of his own system, and to proclaim the deepest principle of all right speculation—the Idealism of thought—with such energy, such freshness of youthful enthusiasm, that to him, despite all his ‚scientific deficiencies, belongs the honour of for ever conferring philosophic consecration on those in whom that principle lives. In Plato’s scientific method, also, we recognise the deepening, the purification and the progress of the So- cratic philosophy. From the principle of conceptual knowledge arises, as its immediate consequence, that dia- lectic of which Socrates must be considered the author.” But. while Socrates contented himself with developing | Sophists differs in being concerned the concept. * The dialectic of Zeno and the dialectic as areal agent in ae with refutation only : Socrates uses HIS SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 151 the concept out of mere envisagement, Plato further de- manded that conceptual science should be drawn out by methodical classification into a system; while Socrates, in forming concepts, starts from the contingencies of the given case, and never goes beyond the particular, Plato requires that thought shall rise, by continued analysis, from conditioned to unconditioned, from the phenome- non to the idea, from particular ideas to the highest and most universal. The Socratic dialectic’ only set itself to gain the art of right thinking for the immediate use of individuals, to purify their crude presentations into concepts: the practice of dialectic was therefore at the same time education; intellectual and moral activity coincided, as much for the work of the philosopher in itself as for its effect on others. The Platonic dialectic, on the other hand, was subservient to the formation of a system : it has, therefore, as compared with the Socratic, larger outlines and a more fixed form. What in the one was a matter of personal discipline, in the other becomes conscious method reduced to general rules; whereas the former aimed at educating individuals by true con- cepts, the latter seeks out the nature and connection of concepts in themselves: it enquires not merely into moral problems and activities, but into the essential nature of the Real, proposing as its end a scientific representation of the universe. But Plato does not go so far in this direction as Aristotle; the technicalities of logic were not formed by him, as by his pupil, into an exact, minutely particularising theory; neither for the derivation nor for the systematie application of concepts does he summon to his aid such a mass of 152 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. experimental material. He cares far less for that equal — spread of scientific knowledge into all departments which Aristotle desired, than for the contemplation of the idea as such. He regards the Empirical partly as a mere help to the attainment of the Idea—a ladder to be left behind if we would gain the heights of thought ; partly as a type of the nature and inherent force cf the ideas—a world of shadows, to which the Philo- sopher only temporarily descends, forthwith to return into the region of light and of pure being. Whereas, therefore, Socrates in the main confines himself to a search for concepts, the cognition of which is for him moral education ; whereas Aristotle extends induction and demonstration, purely in the interests of science, over all the Actual,—the special peculiarity of Pluto is that moral education, intellectual teaching, and, in science itself, the formation of concepts and their development, in spite of partial separation, are yet, with him, internally held together and united by their common aim, both leading to that contempla- tion of the idea, which is at the same time life in the idea.* This position is not indeed invariable. We see, in the dialogues, Socratic induction at first de- _cidedly predominating over the constructive element, \then both intermingling, and, lastly, inductive prepara- tion receding before systematic deduction ; correspond- ng to which there is also a gradual change from the orm of conversation to that of continued exposition. But the fundamental character of the method is never 8 Vide especially Rep. vi. 511 4 Cf. my Plat. Stud, p. 23 sq. A sq. ; vil. 614 A sqq. DIALOGUE. 153 effaced; and however deeply Plato may sometimes go into particulars, his ultimate design is only to exhibit with all possible clearness and directness the Idea shining through the phenomenon; to point out its reflection in the finite; to fill with its light not only the intellect, but the whole man. This speciality in the philosophy of Plato explains the form which he selected for its communication. An artistic nature was indispensable for the produc- tion of such a philosophy; conversely, this philo- sophy would infallibly demand to be informed artis- tically. The phenomenon, placed in such direct rela- tion to the idea, becomes a beautiful phenomenon ; the perception of the idea in the phenomenon an «esthetic perception.° Where science and life so com- pletely interpenetrate one another, as with Plato, science can only impart itself in lively description ; and as the communicating medium is ideal, this de- scription will necessarily be poetical. At the same time, however, the exposition must be dialectical, if it is to correspond with the subject matter of conceptual philosophy. Plato satisfies both these re- quirements in the philosophie dialogue, by means of which he occupies a middle position between the per- sonal converse of Socrates and the purely scientific con- tinuous exposition of Aristotle. The Socratic conver- sation is here idealised, the contingency of its motives > It is thus (says Plato him- ® Aristotle chose the dialogue self in the Phedrus, 250 B, D; form only for popular writings, and Symp. 206 D), that the philo- apparently only in his Platonic sophie idea first dawns upon the period. consciousness, 154 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. and conduct is corrected by a stricter method—the defects of personalities are covered by artistic treat- ment. Yet the speciality of verbal intercourse, the reciprocal kindling of thought, is still retained. Phi- losophy is set forth, not merely as a doctrine, but as a living power, in the person of the true philo- sopher, and a moral and artistic effect is thus pro- duced, of a kind that would have been impossible to bare scientific enquiry. Unbroken discourse is doubt- less better suited to the latter ; and Plato himself shows — this, for in proportion as his scientific discussions gain in depth and scope, they lose in freedom of conversa- tional movement. In the earlier works, this freedom not unfrequently disturbs the clearness of the logic, while in the dialectical dialogues of the middle order it is more and more subordinated to the logical deve- lopment of thought. In the later writings, dialogue is indeed employed with the accustomed skill for intro- ductory discussions or personal delineations ;7 but so far as the exposition of the system is concerned it sinks into a mere form, and in the Timzus is discarded at the very commencement.° We need not, with Her- mann,’ conclude from this that the form of dialogue — had for Plato a merely external value; that, in fact, it was like some favourite and traditional fashion of dress 7 E.g. in the Symposium, Phado, and first two books of the Re- public. adapted for dialogie exposition. This does not really contradict what has been observed* above. 8 Cf., on Plato’s oral instruction, pp. 25-2, and Hermann, Plat. 352. Steinhart (Plat. W. vi. 44) explains the withdrawal of the dialogue form in the Timeeus and Critias by say- ing that their subject was not Even where dialogue is employed throughout, there are many parts open to the same objection. ® Loc. cit. 352, 354 sq. Ges. Abhdl. 285 sqq. DIALOGUE. 155 inherited from his predecessors, adopted in his first, attempts as a Socratic pupil, and then adhered to out of piety and loyal attachment, in opposition to general usage. He certainly had an external motive for the choice of this form in the conversations of his master, and a pattern for its artistic treatment in dramatic poetry, especially such as dealt with reflections, morals, and manners, like that of Epicharmus,!® Sophron,!! and Euripides; but it cannot be proved’? that befere his time dialogue was already much in vogue for philoso- phic exposition; and even if it could, we might still be sure that Plato, independent and creative as he was, and endowed with rare artistic feeling, would 10 Vide vol. i. page 362 sqq. " Cf. page 8, note 11. 2 Zeno, Sophron, and Alexa- menus of Teos are named as pre- decessors of Plato. It is hardly probable, however, that Zeno used the dialogue form (vide vol. i. page 494); the Prolegomena, c. 5, end, name Parmenides with him: an addition no doubt due to the Pla- tonic Parmenidese Of Sophron, whom Diogenes (iii. 18) says he copied, Aristotle remarks (Poetics, ¢. 1, 1447, b. 9): odd€y yap dy Exoıuev - Övondeaı Kowdy Tos SHppovos Kar Bevdpxov uluovs kal tos Zwrparı- kobs Adyous. These mimes may indeed have been written in prose (Arist. ap. Athen. xi. 505 C), but are no proof of the existence of philosophie dialogues. Finally, Alexamenus may have written * Socratic conversations ;’ but they must have been very unlike the Platonic dialogues, as Aristotle (ap. Athen. loc. cit.) classes them with Sophron’s mimes as prose tales, Adyot kal wihoers (cf. on the passage Suckow’s Ferm. d. Plat. Schr. p. 50 sq.). And this solitary instance of dialogue being used before Plato by a writer so little known and so unimportant cannot go far to prove that the dialogic treatment of philosophic material was ‘established and popular. Indeed, it only became so through the Socratie school, in which the dialogue form was common enough. Vide Part i. pp. 198, 1; 204, 3;. 205, 8; 206, 1; 207, 2:42, 7; not to speak of the Memorabilia (with regard to the Diatribes of Aristippus, we do not know whe- ther they were composed in dia- logue form; and we are equally ignorant whether his twenty-five dialogues were genuine: v. p. 298). It is plain that the prevalence of dialogue in the Socratic school was due to its master. Perhaps, how- ever, when Plato wrote his first pieces, there were not, as yet, many Socratic dialogues extant. Xen. Mem. iv. 8, 2, cannot be alleged to- prove the opposite. 156 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. never on such purely external grounds have held to a form all his life long, even when it was most irksome to him; that mere antiquity would not have deter- mined him in its choice, nor custom in its persistent employment, unless there had been the closest internal connection between that form and his whole concep- tion of philosophy. What this connection was Plato himself points out,'” when in the Phedrus (275 D) he cemsures writing, as compared with speech, with its inability to defend itself, and its openness to all attacks and misconceptions; for if this censure holds good of written exposition in general, Plato must have been conscious that even his dialogues could not en- tirely escape it. Yet, on the other hand, his convic- tion of the advantages of speech presupposes the de- sign of appropriating as far as possible those advantages to his writing, that ‘image of the living and animated word ;’ and if those advantages, in Plato’s opinion, depend upon the art of scientific dialogue,!* we may 12 Cf. Schleiermacher, Plat. W. i. a. 17 sqq.; Brandis, Gr.-röm. Phil. viga. 154, 158 sqq. 14 Phedrus, 276 A. 15 Pheedrus, 276 E: woAd & oluaı, kaAAlwv omovöN mepl alta ylyverat, Stay Tis TH SiadrexTiKH TEXYN Xp&- nevos AaBov wWuxhv mpoarjxovcay Qurein te Kal amelpm pet’ emiorn- wns Adyous, &e. Dialectic is first ‘defined by Plato (Phedr. 266 B) only as the art of forming logical concepts and of making divisions. Its most suitable form was dialogue, as we may see from the explanation of diaAexruc} as the art of scientific question and an- ‚swer (Rep. vil, 531 E, 634 B, D; Cratylus, 390 C), from the etymo- logy given in Philebus, 57 E; Rep. vil. 5382 A; vi. 511 B (against which the derivation ap. Xen. Mem. iv. 5, 12, proves nothing), and from the opposition between dialectic and rhetoric, in the Pheedrus, loc. cit. And this is expressly affirmed in the Prota- goras, p. 328 E sqq., where people are censured for purely continuous» discourse, because, like books, they cannot either answer or ask ques- tions, and are therefore deficient in those advantages which the Pheedrus ascribes to oral instrue- tion (Hermann’s infelieitous con- jecture, odx domep BiBAla, com- DIALOGUE. 157 reasonably derive from this his own application of that art. But the dialogues themselves manifest beyond possibility of mistake the design of compelling the reader, by their peculiar form, to the independent origination of thoughts. ‘ Why should there so often be found in them, after the destruction of imaginary knowledge by the essentially Socratic method of prov- ing ignorance, only isolated and apparently uncon- nected lines of enquiry? why should some of these be hidden by others? why should the argument at last resolve itself in apparent contradictions? unless Plato presupposes his reader to be capable of completing by his own active participation what is wanting in any given enquiry, of discovering the central point in that enquiry, and of subordinating all the rest to that one point—presupposes also that only such a reader will attain any conviction of having understood at all.'® The above-named peculiarities are un- favourable to the systematic objective development of science. Since, therefore, Plato has employed them with the most consummate art and the most deliberate intention, he must have had a special reason for it, and this can only be that he considered objective expo- sition as generally insufficient, and sought instead for some other manner which should stimulate the reader to possess knowledge as a self-generated thing, in which objective instruction should be conditioned by previous pletely misses the sense of the to the Sophistic declamations: ef. passage). The dialogue is accord- 334 C sqq. ingly recommended (348 C) as the s A quotation from Brandis, best medium of instruction, and loc. cit. 159 sqq., with which I the retention of the dialogue form fully agree. repeate lly insisted on, as opposed 158 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. subjective culture. If this were the design of Plato, and he were at the same time convinced that the form of dialogue suited it better than continuous discourse, it naturally follows that he would select that form for his writings. Thought is to him a conversation of the soul with itself; 17 philosophie communica- tion, an engendering of truth in another; the logical element is therefore essentially dialogieal. His writ- ings, too, were probably in the first instance designed, not for the general publie,!® but for his friends, to whom he himself would have imparted them: they were in- tended to remind those friends of the substance of the scientifie conversations he was accustomed to carry on with them, or perhaps as a substitute for these.!? What therefore could be more natural than that he should adopt the form of their usual intereourse—that of the Socratic dialogue ??° Stricter science, in the sequel, wisely abandoned this form; but for Plato it was according to nature, and he stands alone and un- approached among all writers of philosophic dialogues, 17 Sophist, 263 E: Sidvoia wer Kal Adyos Tavröv' TARY 6 uev evTds Tis Wuxäis mpds abrmv Siddoyos &vev wvijs. yevduevos totr’ abrd Mur erwvoudcin Sidvoa . . TY de y am exelyns pedua dia TOU aröuaros toy pera POdyyou KerAnraı Adyos. Cf. Theet. 189 E. 18 There was as yet no book- selling in our sense of the term, although the first beginnings of it seem to come in that period. The usual method of making a work known was by means of recitation, which method Plato would have employed (vide p. 27, 56). The question arises whether Plato's writings had attained a cireulation extending beyond his own school before his death. After that event, Hermodorus is taxed with having made a trade of selling Plato’s writings; ef. the passages quoted in chapter xiv. 19 Vide p. 112. 2° From their original determina- tion in this form we can partly ex- plain the freedom with which Plato in his dialogues makes use of and characterises living personages of his acquaintance, e.g. his brothers in the Republic. and in the intro- duction to the Parmenides. POSITION OF SOCRATES IN THE DIALOGUES. 159 before and after him, because in the case of no other writer did the conditions under which his dialogues were produced exist in similar measure—in his person that rare combination of intellectual and artistic gifts, in his philosophy that equal perfection and inner fusion of the theoretical and practical, of the philosophic Eros, and of dialectic. The central point of the dialogues is Socrates. Not only does he appear in most of them as the leader in conversation, in the rest as an acute and important listener and occasional speaker, but his personality is pre-eminently the bond which artistically unites the several pieces ; and some of the most powerful and most delightful of the dialogues are devoted quite as much to the painting of this personality as to the philosophic | development of doctrine.?! This trait is primarily a tribute of gratitude and veneration offered by the dis- ciple to his master. Plato is conscious that he owes to Socrates what is best in his spiritual life, and under this conviction, gives back to him in his writings the noblest fruits of the borrowed seed as his own. That | Socrates should be brought forward was necessary, too, on artistic grounds ; for the unity of the Platonic doc- trine, and the intimate connection of all the writings devoted to it, could in no way be more artistically re- presented than by their association with one and the same personality ; and that the personality of Socrates was far more suitable than any other; that a nobler, pleasanter picture—a picture more capable of idealisa- *) Socrates is only omitted in and the omission is but one of its the Laws, the last of Plato's works; peculiarities. 160 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY, tion—resulted from Plato’s placing his opinions in the mouth of Socrates, instead of enunciating them him- self, needs no proof. His procedure has doubtless another and a deeper reason, rooted in the foundations of his manner of thought. Philosophy, according to his acceptation, being not merely a set of doctrines but the perfecting of the whole spiritual life ; and science, not a finished, communicable system, apart from the person that knows, but personal activity and mental development,—true philosophy could only be represented in the perfect philosopher, in the personality, words, and demeanour of Socrates.” This view of philosophy is closely con- nected with another trait, by which Plato’s literary individuality is marked with special clearness. This is his employment of myths, which he loves to combine with philosophie enquiry, and especially to bring for- ward for the opening or conclusion of a discussion.* 22 Cf. the striking observations of Baur, in his ‘Socrates and Christ, Tubingen Journal, 1837, 3, 97-121." *3 ] subjoin for convenience sake a list of all that properly belongs to this class : Protagoras, 320 C sqq., on Prometheus and Epimetheus and the origin of political virtue, perhaps from some writing of Protagoras; v. vol. i. page 575 sq.;—Politicus, 269 C sqq., the changing world-periods : cf. the Laws, iv. 713, 13 sq., for a short mythic picture of the Golden Age; — Timzeus, 21 A sq.,and Critias, the cosmie revolutions, the Atlantides, and Athenians ;—Symposium, 189 D sq., Aristophanes’ tale of how the difference in sex arose ;—Ibid. 203 A sq., the begetting of Eros. Republic, iii. 414 D sqq., triple classification of men ;—Phxdrus, 246 A sqq.; Meno, 81 A sqq.; Gorgias, 523 A sqq.; Pheedo, 110 B sqq.; Republic, x. 614 B sq.; Timzus, 41 A sqq., the Soul, its pre-existence, wanderings, its con- dition hereafter, its recollection of previous perceptions. The whole investiture of the Timsus is also mythie—the Demiurgus, together with the subordinate gods, and all the history of the ereation of the world; so is the Name-giver of the Cratylus. Ishall go more at length into the import of these myths in their proper places. The short narratives of the Cicadas and of Theuth have no esoterie MYTHS. 161 Here, however, another motive comes into play. On the one side, the mythus is the expression of the re- ligious and poetical character of the Platonic philo- sophy.”* Plato makes use of the traditions of the popular faith and of the mysteries (in which beneath the veil of fable he divines a deeper meaning) for the artistic representation of his ideas; he also extends and multiplies them by original inventions, which rise from the transparent personification of philosophic concep- tions, into lively epic description fully and exuberantly drawn out. But, on the other side, the mythus is not a mere garment, thrown over a thought that had pre- viously existed in a purely scientific shape; in many cases it is for Plato a positive necessity, and his masterly use of it is a consequence of the fact, that he does not turn back upon the path of reflection to seek a picture for his thought, but that from the very out- set, like a creative artist, he thinks in pictures: that the mythus does not reiterate that which the author has elsewhere dialectically expressed, but seizes by „anticipation, as with a presentiment, that for which logical expression is still wanting. The Platonie myths, in short, almost always point to a gap in scientific knowledge: they are introduced where some- thing has to be set forth, which the philosopher indeed acknowledges as true, but which he has no means of reference to philosophie doctrines. Phaedr. 259 A sq. 274 C sq. The legend of Gyges, Rep. xi. 359 D sq., is used by Plato for the elu- eidation of a position, but is not introduced in his own name. Rep. vii. 514 sqq., is an allegory, out of which a myth could be con- structed, but the narrative form is wanting. ** On the religious signification of the Platonic myths, cf. Baur, loc. cit. 91 sqq.; Theol, Stud. u. Krit. 1837, 3, 552 sqq. *M 162 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. establishing scientifically. This takes place chiefly in two cases: (1) when it is required to explain the origin of material things, the methodical derivation of which is impossible, according to the presupposi- tions of Plato’s system ;*° and (2) when circumstances are to be described which have no analogy with our present experience, and which cannot be more exactly delineated. The first is found in the mythological cosmogony of the Timzus;* the second in the nar- rations concerning the future life and the primeval history of man; for the essential purport of these latter is also the determination of the state in which human society would find itself under altered, ideal conditions. When Plato in these cases adopts the mythical representation, he indirectly confesses that his ordinary style would be impossible to him. His myths are consequently not only a proof of his ar- tistic ability, and an effect of the intimate relation still subsisting between his philosophy and his poetry, but they also betray the boundaries of his methodical thought. However admirable in themselves, therefore, they are, in a scientific point of view, rather a sign of 23 Plato himself shows this in his eschatologie myths: Phaedo, 114 D; Gorg. 523 A, 527 A; and Timzeus, 29 D, 59 C, he speaks of the eixws mobos, Stumpf (Verh. d. Plat. Gott. z. idee d. Gut. 37) confounds the myth with allegory in asserting (though he retracts the assertion virtually, p. 100), that ‘the myth excludes proba- bility, because, if taken literally, it could only be false, while it could only be true if understood in its general sense. This cannot be got out of Plato’s words, and is in itself mistaken. The signi- fication of a myth is simply what- ever the author wishes to express by it: but must this be invariably true? 26 As will be shown in its proper place. 2* The Name-giver of the Craty- lus andthe $vroupyds ris KAlyns of Republic, x. 597 B sqq., belong to this class, MYTHS. weakness than of strength : 163 they indicate the point at which it becomes evident that as yet he cannot be wholly a philosopher, because he is still too much of a poet.”8 *8 Cf. Hegel’s remarks, History of Philosophy, ii. 163 sqq. A. Jahn (Dissertatio Platonica, Bern, 1839, p. 20 sqq.) has rather strengthened than refuted Hegel’s position, though his perverse philo- sophie assumptions have done much to obscure the simple understand- ing of the case ; e.g. the arbitrary and unsatisfactory division of the myths(ibid. 31 sq.)into theological, psychological, cosmogonical, and physical—a division that reminds us of Sallust’s de Mundo, e. 4. Deuschle(Plat.Sprachphil. 38 sqq. ; Ueber plat. Mythen, 3 sqq.)is much more satisfactory on the nature and import of Plato’s myths ; and Suse- mihl (Genet. Entw. i. 228, 283 sq.) and Steinhart (Pl. W. vi. 73) in the main agree with him. He shows that the Platonic envisage- ment of the world, and the method of its development, was essentially ontological, not genetic ; and that, therefore, Platonic philosophy was not concerned, even if it had been able, to explain the genesis of the Existent. The Become, however, forced itself into consideration; and some form had to be found at once capable of a speculative con- tent, and demonstrating by its un- philosophie stamp the nothingness of the experiential substratum. This form was the mythus, “the value and charm of which” (as Steinhart says, loc. cit.) ‘lie in that mysterious union of Being and Becoming, which, unattainable by cognition, may only be grasped by imagination and feeling ;’ the essential import of which is ‘to give a pictorial envisagement, where pure thought can no longer help us, of the transition of the Idea into phenomena.” We may, therefore, expect a mythical re- presentation ‘ whereyer’ (Deuschle, Plat. M. 10) ‘ Plato’s doctrine in- volyes a difficulty between true Being and a process of Becoming : the former belongs to intellectual investigation ; the latter has to be brought before us by an envisage- ment which fills up its outlines,’ While acknowledging the ingenuity of these deductions, I am prevented by the following reasons from giving full adhesion to the theory. First, I cannot concede that Plato uses mythie representation only when he has to explain a process of Becoming. For (even to pass over Phedr. 259 A sq., 274 C sq,, and 247 C, 250 B; Rep. x. 597 B, where the Ideas themselves are thus treated) the myths in the Symposium and Politicus (as will be shown further on) are not con- cerned with the explanation of anything Become; in tho former the object is to give a description of Eros—a definition through con- eepts—which might just as well have been given in purely dialectic form. But artistic considerations decided Plato to clothe his thought in the light and transparent en- velopment of the mythus. In the Politicus, he merely follows out the position that the reduction of statecraft to the pastoral art is at most applicable only to the golden mu 2 164 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. Plato’s more comprehensive and methodical de- velopment of philosophy necessitates also a clearer distinction of its several branches with him than with earlier philosophers. Yet the dividing lines are not so sharply drawn in his writings as in those of Aris- totle ; nor is the precise determination of each branch quite certain.” Modern writers have not unfrequently ascribed to Plato classifications which are manifestly alien to him;*° and the same is true of the previously age, i and that, applied to our own times, it is wrong and overlooks the real distinction between the two. All the philosophie opinions contained in the myth of the States- man might have been dispensed with as far as its immediate object is concerned, Again, the myth of Rep. iii. does not stand in the place of an explanation. On this account, then, I cannot concede to Deuschle (Plat. M. 12) that a myth like that of the Symposium is necessary on philosophie grounds, though I entirely acknowledge its artistic propriety. Generally speak- ing, we shall find it best not to press the philosophical construc- tion too much, not to confine too strictly poetical invention. As regards the scientific worth of the Platonic myths, I do not think my judgment on them overthrown by the remark (Plat. Sprach. phil. 38) that this exposi- tion was necessary to Plato from his point of view. This I have endeavoured to prove myself: and the assertion that the deficiencies of Plato's seientifie procedure come into prominence in this very need of a mythical expo- sition is no contradiction. Deu- schle, plat. M. 4, virtually admits this. Fuller enquiries into the Platonic myths are given in Alb. Fischer De Mythis Plat. (Kénigsb. 1865), 27 sq.; Ueberweg, Grundr. i, 129. To these must now be added Volquardsen on the Platonie myths, Schlesw. 1871. Fischer’s elassifieation of the myths into poetical and philosophieal (loe. cit.) is inexact, because, if we under- stand by the first the purely poeti- cal (for they are all poetical on the whole, else they would not be myths), this class must be limited to the Pheedr. 259 (of the Cicadas); Phedr. 274 C sq. (about Theuth) is a didactie narrative, though without any philosophie content. Of the other instances placed hy Fischer in this class, Rep. ii. 359 D sq. is no myth at all, while Prot. 280 C sqq., and Symp. 189 D sqq., express definite philosophie suppositions. The further division of the philosophie myths into on- tological, methodic, cosmological, psychological, and political, is at once useless and inaccurate, inas- much as not unfrequently several of these elements are treated in the same myth. » Cf. on what follows Ritter, 1. 244 sqq. ” E.g. the division into a general DIVISION OF PLATO'S SYSTEM. 165 mentioned attempts *! of the old grammarians to arrange his works according to their contents. Though the ex- ternal evidence in its favour is insuflicient,?? there is far more to be said for the theory that he divided the whole subject matter of philosophy into three parts: Dialectics (or Logic), Physics, and Ethics. For not only is this distribution presupposed by Aristotle * and employed by Xenocrates,? but the most im- portant of the dialogues, in regard to their main subject, fall into three corresponding groups; though searcely one dialogue is wholly contained in either. and an applied part: (Marbach, Gesch. d. Phil. i. 215, who further subdivides the latter into Physics and Ethics ; similarly Schleierma- cher, Gesch. d. Phil. 98, speaks of a ‘twofold direetion of cogni- tion to unity and totality, and in the latter to Physics and Ethics ;’ to Plato himself is attributed merely the threefold division into Dialectics, Physics, and Ethics); a distinction which nowhere oc- curs. Nor again do we find a distinction between theoretical and practical philosophy: (Krug, Gesch. d. alt. Phil. 209; Buhle, Gesch. d. Phil. ii. 70 sq.; and Tenneman, Plat. Phil. i. 240 sqq., add as a third division Logie or Dialectics, by which, however, they only understand the theory of cognition). Van Heusde's distine- tion of a philosophia pulcri, veri et justi, is entirely modern and unplatonic. 227,97, 14. % See preceding note. The eclectic Antiochus is not an original source in questions of the Platonic philosophy; and this is true with- out exception of the writers of the second and third century of the Christian era. 38 Cic. Acad. i. 5, 19, who, ace. to c. 4, 14 (ef. Fin. v. 3, 8, 4, 9), follows Antiochus in this instance. Diog. iii. 56 : to Physies Socrates added Ethics, and Plato Dialectics (more correctly Apul. Dogm. Plat. 3: he had Ethies and Dialeciies from Socrates). Atticus ap. Euseb. pr. Ev. xi. 2, 2 sqq., Apul. loe. cit., both of whom, however, show their untrustworthiness, inranging Theo- logy and the doctrine of Ideas under Physies; so also Aristocl. apud Euseb, loe, cit. 3, 6, and Aleinous Isag. e. 7, who mentions the three divisions of dialectical, theoretical, and practical philosophy. Sextus Math. vii. 16, after detailing the three parts of philosophy, says far more circumspectly: oy duvdue bev TlAdrwv eorly apxnyds .... pnrérara de of wep) roy Zevoxpdrn kal of Grd Tod mepımarov Erı de of amd THs oToas ExovTat Tiode Tis diaipérews, Top: te 14, 100 b, 19; Anal. Post. i. 33, end. % See note 33. ef, 166 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. The Timeus, and, so far as Anthropology may be classed under Physics, the Phxdo also, is physical as to contents; the Republic, Politicus, Philebus, Gor- gias, ethical; the Theztetus, Sophist and Parmenides, dialectical. We may therefore venture to derive this division from Plato, though it is never brought for- ward in his writings,® and at any rate cannot be proved in the case of his oral discourses. But, however applicable it may be, it does not exhaust the philosophic content of the dialogues. It has already been pointed out that in these the Socratic induction,—discussion for scientific preparation and moral education,—is combined with systematic deve- lopment of doctrine, and at first even asserts itself to a far greater extent. What place, then, is to be assigned to such arguments? Where are we to arrange all those refutations of popular opinion and of customary virtue, of the Sophists and their Eude- monistie theories—all those passages which treat of the conception and the method of knowledge, the one- ness of virtue, and the relation of knowledge to moral action, of philosophic love and the stages of its deve- lopment? It is usual to place one part of them under Dialectic, another under Ethics. But by this procedure, either the coherent exposition of these 86 By Dialectic Plato under- stands Philosophy generally, as will be shown more thoroughly later on. He acknowledges a strictly scientific procedure only where pure concepts are dealt with; and, therefore, the limi- tution of Dialectic to the doe- trine of true existences is not opposed to his views. He does not know the names Physics and Ethics. Instead of the latter he would rather say Politics: ef. Polit. 303 E, 305 E, 259 B; and Euthy- dem. 291 C sqq.; Gorg. 464 B. DIVISION OF PLATO'S SYSTEM. 167 sciences is interrupted by elementary discussions which Plato, even where he introduces them, has left far behind—or the enquiries concerning true knowledge and right action, always in him so closely inter- mingled, are forced widely apart. To renounce an articulate division of the exposition based on the contents, and to adhere only to the conjectural ar- rangement of the dialogues,?’ seems unadvisable ; for if we thus gain a true representation of the order in which Plato propounded his thoughts, we get none of their internal connection; and it is evident from the frequent discussion in widely distant dialogues of one and the same thought, that the two orders do not necessarily coincide. Unless we would follow Plato even in his repetitions—in the want of perfect syste- matic clearness inseparable from his manner of explana- tion—we must, in considering dialogues which are the stronghold of any particular doctrine, adduce all parallel instances from among the other dialogues. But if in this manner the order of the writings be once aban- doned, we have no longer any reason for adhering to it at all; the problem will rather be to place ourselves at the inner source and centre of the Platonic system, and to rally round this nucleus the elements of that system, according to their internal relation in the mind of their author. On this subject Plato himself (Rep. vi. 511 B) 37 A commencement may be found in Brandis, cf. loc. cit. p. 182, 192: afterwards, however, he returns to an arrangement accord- ing to matter, which in the main agrees with the ordinary one. 3 I need not protest that in these remarks I do not dispa- rage the worth of investigations into the sequence and respective relations of the Platonic dia- logues, or accede to the sweeping sentence of Hegel against such inquiries (Gesch, d. Phil. xi. 156), 168 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. gives us a pregnant hint. The highest division of the thinkable, he says, and the proper object of philosophy is this: “What the reason as such attains by means of the dialectic faculty, using the hypotheses not as first principles, but merely as hypotheses, like steps and points of departure,? in order to reach out from them to the unconditioned, the first principle of all things; and laying hold of this, and then of that which follows from it, it again descends to the last step; so that it nowhere makes use of any sensible object, but proceeds wholly from ideas, through ideas, to ideas.’ In this passage, and also in a noteworthy passage of Aris- totle,*° a double way is clearly traced out for thought: the way from beneath, upward; and that from above, downward: the inductive ascent to the idea, effected by the cancelling of final hypotheses, and the syste- matic descent from the idea to the particular. Now we already know that these two ways correspond with the two elements united in the doctrine of Plato, and also distinguishable from each other in his literary exposition. We therefore pursue this indication, con- superficially reiterated by Mar- bach (Gesch. d. Phil. i. 198). These investigations are in their proper place of the highest value, but, in an exposition of the Platonie system, merely literary points must be subordinated to questions of the philosophie con- nexion, # Properly, ‘ onsets,’ dual: but here the word seems to signify not so much the actual onset, as the starting-point. Similarly Symp. 211 C: édomep éravaBabuois Xpw- mevov [Tols moAAots KaAot |. “ Eth. N. i. 2, 1095 a 222 ed yap kal TIAdrwv Hmöpeı todTo Kad €Chret, MOTEpoV amd Tay apxGr,?) emt Tas apxas early 7 bdos, dowep ev TE oradiw amd tay aPdoberay em) Td mepas }} avdnaxıv. This expression seems to refer to Plato’s procedure in oral instruction. The words nmöpeı Kal elnres are suitable neither to the passage in the Republie nor to the analogous (though not coincident) passage in the Phedo, 101 D. Cf. the refer ence later on from Phadr. 265 D §qq. Le 27 ei DIVISION OF PLATO'S SYSTEM. 169 sidering in the fo'lowing pages, first the propwedeutic groundwork, and then the systematic construction of the Platonic theory. This latter, again, may be divided into Dialecties, Physics, and Ethies.*! “ It needs no proof to show that these three divisions could only have been arranged in the order given above, and the reverse order adopted by Freis, Gesch. d. Phil. i, § 58 sqq., requires as little ro- futation as his assertion (loc. cit. p- 288), that Plato, as a true So- eratic, was occupied entirely with practical philosophy, and in his method did not go beyond the epigogic process, 170 =PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. CHAPTER V. THE PROPADEUTIC GROUNDWORK OF THE PLATONIC DOCTRINE. SPEAKING generally. Plato’s Propzdeutic consists in applying destructive criticism to the unphilosophical point of view, and demonstrating the necessity of true philosophy. In particular, three stages may be dis- tinguished in this process. Ordinary consciousness forms the point of departure. By the dialectical analysis of the presuppositions, which were regarded by ordinary consciousness as primary and certain truths, we next arrive at the negative result of the Sophists.! When this has been surmounted, and not till then, the philosophie point of view can be positively evolved. Plato has refuted the position of ordinary conscious- ness both on its theoretical and on its practical side. In theory, ordinary consciousness may be generally defined as the Envisaging Consciousness (Vorstellendes Bewusstsein); or, more exactly to discriminate its ele- ments, it apprehends truth partly as Sensuous Percep- tion, and partly as Envisagement (Vorstellen) in the ' Grote’s objections(Plato, i, 259 sq.) have been answered, Part i. p. 157. PERCEPTION AND OPINION. 171 narrower sense—Opinion, or what a man conceives (d0fa).? In opposition to this, Plato shows in the Thestetus that Knowledge (Zriornun) is something different from Perception (sensation, aloOnoıs) and Right Opinion. Perception is not Knowledge, for (Thext. 151 E) Per- ception is only the manner in which things appear to us (gavtacia): if, therefore, Knowledge consisted in Per- ception, it would follow that for each man that must be true which appears to him true—the principle of the Sophists, the refutation of which we shall presently consider. Perception shows us the self-same object in the most contradictory manner: at one time great, at another small; now hard, now soft; now straight, now crooked: how then can it be regarded as equally true with thought, which abolishes these contradictions ? 3 But even Right Opinion is not Knowledge ; inasmuch as Knowledge is to be sought in the activity of the soul as such, and not in yielding ourselves to external im- pressions ‘— Opinion is inadequate to the problem of Knowledge. If Right Opinion (this by way of indirect proof) were indeed Knowledge, the possibility of False Opinion would be inexplicable. For in the first place, False Opinion could relate neither to what is known nor to what is unknown : of the former we have Right Opi- nion, of the latter (if Knowledge and Opinion be really * Cf. Rep. v. 475 E sqq., and (nreiv aithy (thy emorhuny) ev passages to be presently cited. aicéhoe Tb mapdrav, GAN’ Ev exelyw * Rep. iii, 523 E sq.; x. 602 1G dvduari, örı wor exer } WX) C sq. brav aurn Kad’ abthy mpayuareinraı * Thest. 187 A: Sums dt To- ep! ra övra, covrdy ye mpoßeßhrkauev, Sore un 172 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. identical) none at all.® Further, if we suppose False Opinion to be’ an opinion corresponding to no object, this would presuppose that the non-existent might be conceived ; but that is impossible, since every notion is a notion of something that exists. If it be made to consist in the mistaking of one notion for another (aAAodoEia), it is equally inconceivable that a man should mistake one thing that he knows, by virtue of his very knowledge, for some other thing that he knows, or even for something he does not know.® That is to say, Knowledge and Right Opinion cannot be the same, for Right Opinion does not exclude the possibility of \ False, and Knowledge does exclude it ;7 Opinion can be 5 Vide 187 C sq. 6 Vide 189 B-200 D; and specially the end of this section. Briefly, the drift of the whole—in particular of the elaborate com- parisons of the soul to a wax- tablet and to a dove-cot—is to show that in supposing the identity of Knowledge and Right Opinion there is an incorrect combination of an opinion with a perception, not a confusion of the concepts themselves; and that, therefore, such a supposition is incorrect. In refuting what is false, Plato generally gives hints of the truth; and we find a series of acute and striking remarks in the course of his demonstration, specially in the distinction (afterwards so produc- tive in Aristotle’s hands) between actual and potential knowledge, and in the dictum that error is based, not in our particular opinions about or envisagements of things, but in an incorrect com- bination of these; in the case of sensible things, an incorrect com- bination of the pictures our memory makes with our percep- tions: 190 B sq. Steinhart (Pl. W. iii. 44, 93 sq.) lays such stress on this positive side of the dialogue as to assert that ‘the genetic development of the process of thought’ is to be recognised in it, as well as the refutation of error as to the nature of Knowledge. I cannot agree with him here: there is no investigation into the genesis of Knowledge; and even its nature is only indirectly hinted at in separating it from Perception and Opinion. .” On the other hand, Bonitz (Plat. Stud. i. 69 sq.) thinks that the question at 187 B, 200 C, is not as to the possibility of error, but the explanation of what goes on in the soul when error arises. To me the point seems to lie in the demonstration that if 56a &An@ns coincided with émoarhun, ddfa evd}s would be inexplicable; so Thetetus’ definition of émorhun as dda GAnéijs is refuted apago- OPINION AND KNOWLEDGE. 173 true or false—Knowledge only true: we cannot know falsely, but only know or not know.’ This diversity may also be proved by experience, for Knowledge is only produced by instruction ; Right Opinion, on the contrary, not unfrequently, as by rhetoricians, through mere persuasion. Knowledge, therefore, cannot lie in the sphere of Opinion, but must belong to some specifi- cally different activity.’ For the same reason, it cannot be defined !® as Right Opinion along with an explana- tion (Acyos) ; for whatever may be comprehended in the explanation, if this itself does not start from a cogni- tion, but only from a right envisagement, its addition can never transmute Opinion into Knowledge.!! gieally. This view, in my opinion, is favoured by the fact that it, and it alone, ean bring the section we are discussing into harmony with the theme of the whole dia- logue. Regarded in any other light, this section becomes an un- motived episode of disproportion- ate length, interrupting the en- quiry into the concept of émorhun. And the subsequent progress of the dialogue contirms my explana- tion. The difficulties with which the explanation of False Opinion has to contend come back finally to the contradiction: ‘what I know I must at the same time not know, or must confound with something else ;’ cf. p. 199 C sq.; 196 C et alibi. But the contra- diction disappears as soon as the supposition of 187 C (that the opposite of 56£a Wevd)s, 56Fa adndrs coincides with émorfun) is given up. Right Opinion (364 &Ané@js) may (as Plato says in the Meno, 97 E; Tim. 51 E) pass into error; Knowledge (morhun) cannot. The ® This is directly enunciated by the Gorgias, 454 D: Gp’ &arı ris — miotıs Vevöns Kal GAnOhs; dalns Av. @s éym oluat, Nal’ tl dé; emorhun eat! Yevdijs kal GAnbhs; Oddauas. AjjAov yap ad bt1 0) Tabrév Earıv. Mioris is here equivalent to the ddta of other passages; ef. Rep. iii. ö34 A sq. (infra, note 14), where that part of ödfa which relates to Reality as distinguished from mere pictures of things is called miorıs ; and ibid. v. 477 E: @uoAdyeıs ww) ab adtd elva emioriuny Te Ka ödlav. Tlas yap by pn, Tb Ye dvaudptntoy TB ph Avanaprıırw TavTOY MOTE Tis voov exw rıdeln; * Cf. Scehleiermacher, Platon’s Werke, ii. 1, 176. 10 With Antisthenes, v. Part i. p- 252 sq. u V,201 C-210. I cannot here go into the details of the argu- ment; v. Susemihl, i. 199 ¢q. ; Steinhart, ii. 81 sq. Hermann’s opinion (Plat. 498, 659. repeated by Alberti, z. Dialektik d. Pl., Jahn’s Jalirb. Suppl., New Series, 174 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. Meno tells '? us wherein they differ: Opinion lacks in- telligent insight into the necessity of the thing: it is consequently, even if true, an uncertain and variable possession. Knowledge alone, by supplying this want, guarantees abiding cognition of truth. And summing up all previous discussions, the Timeus (51 E) declares that Knowledge is implanted in us by instruction, Right Opinion by persuasion ; '* the one is always accompanied by true reason, the other is without reason ; the one is not to be moved by persuasion, the other may be moved; and lastly, every man may be said to partici- pate in Right Opinion, but in Reason only the gods, and very few men. The Republic," in a more objective manner, proves the inferior worth of Opinion, in that Knowledge has pure Being for its subject-matter, Opi- nion only something intermediate between Being and Non-Being: consequently Opinion must itself be inter- mediate between Knowledge and Ignorance. i. 123,sand favoured by Susemihl, p. 207 and Steinhart, p. 85) that the position apparently disputed really contains Plato's own view, contradicts the obvious sense of the passage. Right Opinion, according to Plato, beeomes Knowledge, not through any explanation in An- tisthenes’ sense, but through cog- nition of causes (aitlas Aoyıouz, Meno, 98 A). ı2 97 sq.; cf. Symp. 202 A; Rep. vi. 506 C. The same cha- raeteristie distinguishes rexın from éumerpia in the Gorgias, 465 A. 13 Gorgias, 454 E. 4 V.476D-478 D. Cf. Symp. 202 A; Phileb. 59 A sq. Simi- larly in Rep. vi. 509 D sq. ; vii. This ex- 533 E sq., the domain of the Visible and of Becoming is assigned to Opinion, that of the Iutellectual and of Being to Knowledge. The further subdivision of 6éf into opinion about (or envisagement of) real things on the one hand (#lerıs) and their mere pictures on the other (¢ixagia) is made to parallel the subdivision of Knowledge into symbolic and pure Knowledge: v. p. 510 D. In other places Plato puts atc@nois side by side with d0ga, eg. in the Parmenides, 155 D; Timeus, 28 B; 37 B; besides the Thesxtetus. Cf. also the passage (to be noticed presently) in Aris- totle, De Anima, i, 2, 404 b. 21. CUSTOMARY VIRTUE. 175 position to some extent presupposes the distinction between Knowledge and Opinion, and in some degree depends on limitations which belong to the further development of the system. That which in the sphere of theory is the antithesis of Opinion and Knowledge, becomes in practice the antithesis of common and philosophie Virtue.’? Ordi- nary virtue is even formally insufficient: it is a mere matter of custom, without clear understanding; allowing itself to be guided by Opinion instead of Knowledge. It thus becomes a plurality of individual activities, which are bound together by no internal unity; nay, which even partially contradict one another. It is also deficient in content, partly in making evil as well as good its aim; partly in desiring the good, not for its own sake but on extraneous grounds. In all these rela- tions Plato finds a higher conception of morality to be necessary. Customary virtue arises from habit; it is action with- out intelligent insight into the causes of that action ;'° it depends on Right Opinion, not on Knowledge: !7 whence it evidently follows that the possession of such Virtue is not combined with the capacity for imparting it to others; and that according to the usual view, or at any rate the usual practice, there are no teachers of > Cf. following note. © Meno, 99 A sq. etal. ; Phaedo, 82 A: of thy Önuorıchv Te Kal moAırınhv aperhy Edmirerndeukötes, mv 5) Kadovot cwppootyny Te Kal Bixavortyny ef &Bous Te Kal wedérns yeyovulav Gvev pirogopias te Kal vov. Rep. x. 619 C (of one who has brought unhappiness on him- self by an unwise choice in his second life): eva: de abrdv Tay éx Tov ovpovod jKdvTwY, ev TETAYMEYD) moAıtela ev TG mporepw Big BeBiw- Kéra, Cer Gvev didrocodias Aperns nereiAnpöra. Cf. Rep. iii. 402 A; vii. 522 A, 17 Meno, 97 sq.; especially 99 A-C; Rep. vii. 534 C. 176 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. virtue '*-—for those who profess to be teachers (the Sophists) are, as we shall presently see, recognised as such neither by Plato, nor by the popular verdiet.!? For the same reason this virtue has in itself no war- ranty of its own continuance; its origin and subsistence are dependent on chance and circumstances. All who are content with it, the famous statesmen of ancient Athens not excepted, are virtuous only by the Divine appointment; that is to say, they owe their virtue to accident ;”° they stand on no essentially higher ground 18 Protagoras, 319 Bsq.; Meno, 87 Bsq.; 93 sqq. 19 Meno, 91 B sq., where Anytus represents the men of önuorikn üpern. 2 This view of the #ela potpa was enunciated by Ritter, ii. 472, and opposed by Hermann (Jahn’s Archiv 1840, p. 56 sq.; ef. Plat. 484), Susemihl (Genet. Ent. i. 71), Fenerlein (Sittenl. d. Alterth. 82), Schaarschmidt (Samml. d. Plat. Sch. 350), and Stallbaum (Vind. loci leg. Plat. 22 sq.). It may be easily explained and supported. The expression denotes any divine dispensation, either in the dispo- sition of outward circumstances, or in the natural endowments and inward motives of individuals. We see the former exemplified in Socrates’ words (Phxdo, 58 E): und eis Aldouv idvta tvev elas nolpas i€vat, GAA KaKetoe agikd- pevoy ed mpdtew* the latter in Rep. vi. 492 E, where it is said that with ordinary human endow- ments no one can be saved for philosophy in the present corrup- tion of States; but 6 tt wep dv owl re Kal vyevnrat olov det ey ToIaurn Katacrdse modcte!wy, Beod potpay aitd caou Aéywy od kak@s epeis. (Schaarschmidt gives an inexact account of this in mak- ing Plato say that if a moral character does appear in the world, it is only through divine aid; the question is not of the world in general, but of the existing ka- TdoTaols Tay ToAitel@y.) Here the divine dispensation includes both ways of help: the extra- ordinary endowment of the indi- vidual, and the favourable dis- position of outward circumstances, which unite to preserve him from the bad influence of a corrupt state; ef. ibid. 496 B sq. Simi- larly, in Plato's Apology, 33 C (vide Part i. 49, 5), the dreams and oracles urging Socrates to oc- eupy himself with philosophy are attributed to @efa aoipa. In other passages the expression is applied to natural disposition, natural ex- cellenee of any sort, dela woipa properly denouing the divine in man, the divine inheritance which is his, because of his kinship to the gods (e.g. in Prot. 322 A; Phadrus, 230 A). In this sense the true ruler who has been brought to right practical knowledge \ CUSTOMARY VIRTUE. 177 than soothsayers and poets, and all those who produce what is true and beautiful from mere inspiration (wavia, (emorhun) by an unusually happy natural disposition, and has learnt to act correspondingly, is said (Laws, ix. 875 C) to be Ola poipa yevynbeis, ‘The same or a similar designation for the natural dis- position of men is found in Xen, Mem. ii. 3, 18; Arist. Eth. Ni. x. 16, 1179 b. 21, as pointed out by Hermann, loc. cit. p. 56; cf. also Epinomis, 985 A. In all these instances, dela potpa is simply used of the derivation of some fact from divine causation, without ex- eluding conscious human activity ; thus knowledge itself may be ulti- mately referred to divine dis- Ben. as in Rep. vi. 492 E; ws, ix. 875 C. In other places, dela wotpa is opposed to emorhun, when a thing is spoken of as due, not to conscious human activity motived by knowledge, but to mere natural disposition, to cir- cumstances, or to some inspiration of which no clear account can be given. Thus in Rep. ii. 366 C, eig pice (essentially equivalent to dela wolpa) and emiornun are opposed in the words (‘all love injustice’). mAyv ef tis dein pioe Övoxepalvav Tb Adıreiv 7) emorhunv AaBaoy Amexeraı adrod. Similarly, in the Laws, i. 642 C, ela wolpa is made parallel to abropu@s, as opposed to avdyxn: the man who is righteous at Athens, we are there told, must be really and unmistakably righteous, for there is no compulsion in the laws or institutions to keep him so, and he must be simply following the dictates of his own nature. Here, as in Rep. vi. 492 E (v. supra), the @ela wolpa must denote the virtue of an individual in an evilly constituted state, as an ex- ception only ascribable to a special dispensation of providence. Ana- logous to this is the opposition we find in the Phedrus, 244 C sq., between prophetic inspiration, which is spoken of in terms of praise as resulting @elu uolpg, and the (arnois trav euppdvwy: the same opposition is used in the Ion, 534 3B, with reference to poetic inspiration: poets are said to utter themselves ob rexvn GAAG ela poipa: and we may compare the similar expressions of the Apology, 22 C, örı ob copia rowotev & moiolev, GAA ioe Tivt Kal evdovoudlovres «.7.A., and Laws, ili. 682 A. In the Meno, the eon- trast to knowledge and to virtue dependent on knowledge denoted by Ola wolpa is clear: the great statesmen of old, we read in 99 B sq., achieved their business by pure evdotla, ob copia Tırl cdma övres: as tar as their wisdom went, they were on a level with soothsayers, &e. (ovdév dtapepdvTos Exovres mpds Td ppoveiy 7) oi xpno- bewdol x.7.A.), who often hit the truth unconsciously (votv un Exov- Tes—undev elddres wy Acyovaır). Virtue comes to those who cannot impart it to others by teaching, eig wolpa ävev vod: he who can so impart it may be compared to Tiresias: ofos mervuraı, ai dt akıal alacovow. A virtue to which such expressions are applicable is so far below philosophic morality, that if Plato in the Meno derived the latter from @ela woipa, he ‘could not’ (v. Feuerlein, loc. cit.) ‘have been clear in his own *N 178 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. évOovatacuos).”! On this account Plato (Rep. x. 619 D) makes the majority of those, who through unphiloso- phic virtue have gained the heavenly blessedness, fail on their re-entrance into this world; and in the Phedo (82 A) he says, satirically, that they have the cheerful prospect of being placed in the course of their trans- migrations among bees, wasps, ants, or some other well- mind as to the derivation of virtue ;’ and Hermann’s assertion (loc. cit. p. 61 sq.) that in the persons of whom Plato is here speaking, the imperfections of cus- tomary virtue are supposed to be complemented by divine aid, ta ut, st quis divinitus regatur, eum non minus firmiter wncedere signi- ficet, quam qui rationem ducem habeat, is altogether untenable. The passage in the Politicus, which he quotes to support his view (309 C), is not to the point: it deals not with the virtue dis- cussed in the Meno, but with philosophie virtue; if right opinion (aAnO}s Sd=2), as to Right and Wrong, duly substantiated (mera BeBaidcews), has been appropriated by the soul, then (according to the Politicus) the moral faculties of the soul are bound together by a divine bond. It is precisely in virtue of this confirmation (Seruds) that, according to the Meno, 97 E sq., right opinion becomes know- ledge. Finally, I cannot admit that Steinhart has given an ade- quate account of Plato's view, Pl. W. ii. 118. According to him, in practical life, even where cognition fails, or is incomplete, Plato would say that the element of divinity in man, combined with the correct practical judgment that experience gives, is able to produce a solidity and certainty of moral action, commendable in its sphere, having its source, equally with the higher virtue, in the divine life. It is precisely this certainty of moral action that Plato, loc. eit., denies to any virtue not based on knowledge ; yet there is no con- tradiction in his deriving cus- tomary virtue from a divine dispensation, and we need see no irony in the expression (as Mor- genstern, Stallbaum, and others do; cf. Hermann, loe. cit. p. 52 A, 4); he recognises the disposi- tion of God in the fact that virtue has not yet died out of the world, careless as men are of its preser- vation by means of thorough teaching—just as in Rep. vi. 492 E, he ascribes the appearance now and then in corrupt states of a genuine philosopher to the merey of heaven. Customary virtue, then, though not absolutely a thing of chance, is such to those who possess it, because they have not the means of producing it by scientific method in others, or of keeping it safe (Meno, 97 E sq. ; 100 A); and it is only in this sense that I have here, and in my Platonie Studies, p. 109, spoken of Oela wotpa as at all approximating to chance. 21 Meno, 96 D to end; Apology, 21 B sq. cf. 12> — a ie = al ee a CUSTOMARY VIRTUE. 179 regulated race—perhaps even once again in the ranks of peaceful citizens. The only means of delivering virtue from this sphere of contingency is to ground it upon knowledge. The theoretic apprehension of morality alone contains the cause of moral practice: All desire the good ; even when they desire evil, they do this only because they mistake evil for good. Consequently where there is true knowledge of that which is good and useful, there of necessity must be also moral will ; for it is altogether inconceivable that anyone should knowingly and designedly strive after that which is hurtful to him. All sins arise from ignorance, all right action from cognition of the right ;?? no one is volun- tarily bad. While, therefore, want of knowledge is usually made an excuse for crimes, Plato is so little of that opinion, that he rather maintains with Socrates, that it is better to err designedly than undesignedly :* that, for example, the involuntary lie or self-deception is much worse than conscious deception of others, and that every organ for the attainment of truth is wanting® to the 22 Prot. 352-357, 358 C; Gorg. 466 D; 468 E; Meno, 77 B sq.; Thext. 176 C sq.; Euthyd. 279 D sq., where ebruxla is reduced to wisdom. The eudemonistic premises that may seem to underlie any of these passages must be taken as kat’ &vOpwrov; where Plato gives us unconditional enun- ciation of his own views, the eu- deemonistie basis of morals is most decidedly rejected. = Tim. 86 D; vide beginning of next chapter. * We get this fully enunciated only in the Hippias Minor, of N which this assertion forms the theme; but it is clearly to be seen in other places, v. previous and two following notes, and Part i. p. 123, 1. * Rep. vii. 535 D: odxody nar mpbs aAndeıay tardy TodTo Avamn- pov Wuxi Onvouev, 7 av Td ev Erobaıov Wetdos won Kal yaden@s pépn abrn re Kal Erepwv Wevdoue- vov bmepayavarı)), Td 8 Akovaıor edkéAws mpoodéxntat Kal duabatvou- od mov GAiwkopévn mh ayavaxtp, GAN ebyepGs Sarep Onplov vesoy ev &uadia pordynra. Cf. ibid. ii, 382. 2 180 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. man who only avoids the one, and not in a far greater degree the other. Hence, however, the farther conse- quence simultaneously follows—that the faults of the wise are not real faults, but only infringements of the ordinary code of morals, justifiable from a higher stand- point.® With this want of self-consciousness on the part of conventional virtue is closely connected its view of morality as a plurality of particular activities, not as one and self-identical in all its various expressions. As against this, Plato, like Socrates, maintains (what naturally results from the reduction of virtue to know- ledge) the unity of all virtue; and he establishes this position by the argument that virtues can be contra- distinguished neither by means of the persons who possess them, nor yet by their own content: not by the former, for that which makes virtue to be virtue must be the same in all;?” and equally not by the latter, for the content of virtue consists only in know- ledge of the good in science or intelligence.” It will 26 Vide Part i. p. 123; and Hip- pias Minor, 376 B: 6 &pa Exwv auap- tdvev eimep tls &otıv ovTos ovK by &AAos ein 7) 6 Ayabös. *7 Meno, 71 D sq. 28 Plato repeats this Socratic dictum in his earlier dialogues, specially in the Protagoras. ‘The assertion that Sicaocdvn, cwopo- ctyvn, dovdrns, copa, and dvöpela ure so many parts of virtue is met (329 C-333 B) by several ob- jections, more subtle than con- vineing, but seriously meant by Plato: then in 349 B the question is taken up afresh; and, as Prota- goras concedes that the first four of the virtues mentioned resemble each other, but maintains that Courage is altogether diverse from each of them, he is shown (358 C sq.): (1) that no one chooses what he deems an evil rather than good; (2) that fear is the expec- tation of evil; (3) that, therefore, no one chooses what he deems fearful; (4) that the distinction between the courageous and the timid comes to the one knowing, and the other not knowing, what is fearful and what not; and that, therefore, Courage is sopla Tay Seay kal ph Sevov. A defi- nition identical with this (noticed CUSTOMARY VIRTUE. 181 hereafter be shown that Plato, notwithstanding, again assumes certain distinctions of virtues, without preju- dice, however, to their essential unity ; but he probably arrived at that determination (which is to be found in the Republic alone **) only in the later development of Part i. p. 120, 3) is combated by Socrates in the Laches, 198 A sq. But the objection brought against it there is, that courage, so defined, cannot be a part of virtue along with other parts, because we can- not know what is to be feared and what not, without knowing gene- rally what is good and what evil ; and such knowledge embraces all virtues. This plainly does not amount to a rejection of the de- finition as useless: the point enunciated is, that the different virtues are not a series of inde- pendent qualities, but merely dif- ferent forms of virtue as a whole, and the essence of virtue, according to the well-known Socratic doc- trine, resides in cognition of the good. In the Charmides, again, 173 A sq., where a doubt is raised as to the usefulness of cwppoctvn, regarded as self-knowledge, and therefore knowledge of qur know- ledge, there is not really any ob- jection raised to the reduction of Tuppocivn to knowledge; we are only shown that the relation of knowledge to happiness requires a more exact determination than that hitherto given. *® Bonitz (Hermes, v. 444 sq.) thinks that the definition of courage in the Laches virtually coincides with the later definition of the Republic. Taking the definition of 192 D (ppdvimos kaprepla) in connection with 194 E and 199 B 8q. (where virtue is said to consist in knowing what is good and what bad), we get the concept of courage, he thinks, as equivalent to constancy dependent on moral insight. This connection seems to me, however, to be reading more into the dialogue than is there properly. In 192 D sq. Socrates does not merely combat the notion that an unintelligent hardihood deserves the name of courage, but shows further that even to define the latter as ppdvimos kaprepia is incorrect. The arguments he uses to prove this may perhaps be, even from the Socratie-Platonie point of view, not irrefutable, but there is nothing to show that they are not seriously meant. Courage is proved to be neither a kaprepla ppörıuos nor an &ppwv kaprepnaus: we can but conclude that its essence is not xaprepla at all. On the other hand, the really Socratic definition proposed by Nicias, as has been remarked, is not uncon- ditionally disputed; it is shown to be irreconcilable with the sup- position that courage is merely a part of virtue, but we are not told whether the fault lies in that supposition or in Nicias’ definition. The former, in my opinion, is Plato’s meaning, judging from the point of view he adopts in the Protagoras ; so that the positive side of the question (hinted at by the apparently resultless discussion of the Laches) is given by the Soeratie principle, that courage, like all virtue, is reducible to know- ledge—the knowledge of the good. 182 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. his system. But if traditional virtue is imperfect because wanting in discernment of its true essential nature and the internal coherence of its parts, it is so no less with regard to its contents and motives. For the generally received principle of doing good to friends and evil to enemies, makes not only the doing of good but of evil to be virtuous ; °° and the incentives to virtue are usually derived, not from itself, but from external ends of advantage or pleasure?! True vir- tue, however, allows neither the one nor the other. He who is really virtuous will do evil to no one, for the good can only do good;* and as little will such a man do good for the attainment by his virtue of ulte- rior advantages present or future. For to be valiant through fear, and temperate through intemperance, is to love virtue for the sake of vice. This is only a mimicry of true virtue, a slavish virtue in which there is nothing genuine or sound—a justice which has self- interest for its heart’s core, and is chiefly prevented by weakness from breaking out into open wrong. 80 Meno, 71 E; Crito, 49 B sq.; Rep. i. 334 B. Cf. Part i. p. 142 s 31 Phedo, 68 Dsq.; 82 C; Rep. ii. 862 E sq. Justice is recom- mended only because of the reward it wins from men and gods, in this world and the next, not for its own sake; indeed, the happi- ness of the unjust is the subject of praise and envy, and even the gods are believed to be not in- exorable to their sacrifices. 8? Rep. i. 334 B sq.; Crito loc. cit. It is only from the point of view of universal consciousness’ True that Plato (Phil. 49 D) regards joy at an enemy’s misfortune as allowable; cf. Susemihl, ii. 38: here he is repeating a Socratic definition, v. Part i. p. 142, 3. 88 Plato shows (Rep. ii. 365 A sq.) that the most reckless self- seeking is a strict consequence from the motives generally ad- duced for justice; and in Rep. vi. 492 A sq., he points out that the masses which in political assem- blies rule states and statesmen are the only real perverters of youth,— the great Sophists, —whom the so- called Sophists merely follow, in | 3 te at ae +. ~ SOPHISTIC ETHICS. 183 virtue, on the contrary, consists in a man’s freeing himself from all these motives, and regarding know- ledge as the coin for which all else must be ex- changed.*4 What Plato, therefore, blames in the ordinary point of view is its general want of consciousness regarding its own action, and the contradiction in which it is consequently involved; it is satisfied with a truth containing error, and a virtue containing vice. This very contradiction the Sophists had pointed out, and employed for the bewildering of the popular con- science ; but instead of proceeding to a more thorough establishment of knowledge and morality, they stopped short at this negative result, and only positivized the unconditional validity of subjective opinion and will. We have shown in the foregoing pages that Plato builds on quite another foundation, and pursues quite another end. We shall now turn to consider his proced- ure in the scientific refutation of the Sophists. We may again distinguish a theoretic and a practical side. The theoretic principle of the Sophists may be gene- rally expressed in the proposition, ‘ Man is the measure of all things.’ Theoretically regarded, the import of this proposition is: ‘that is true for every man which appears to him true ;’ practically, ‘that is right for every studying and pandering to their inclinations. Sophistie ethies, in his opinion, are the simple con- sequence of the ethics of custom. * Phado, 68 B sq.; 82 C; 83 E; Rep. x. 612 A. The first, specially, of these passages is one of the purest and most beautiful that Plato ever wrote. One is tempted to quote many kindred passages ; perhaps I may be al- lowed to refer to the noble places in Spinoza, Eth. pr. 41; Ep. 34, p. 503. 184 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY, man which seems to him right.’ Both principles were thoroughly refuted by Plato. As against the theoretic principle, he adduces ® first the experimental fact that judgments about the future at any rate have often no truth even for the person that judges ; but in his opinion the decisive proof is that such a principle would destroy all possibility of know- ledge. If all is truth that appears true to the indivi- dual, there can be no truth at all; for of every proposi- tion, and of this among the rest, the contrary would be equally true: there can consequently be no distinction of knowledge and ignorance, wisdom and folly, virtue and vice; all must be in accordance with the doctrine of Heraclitus, in constant flux, so that all attributes, and equally their opposites,’® may be predicated of each particular. Above all, upon this hypothesis, that must remain unknown which forms the sole true sub- ject-matter of knowledge—the essence of things (the ovcta)—for this is unattainable by the sensuous percep- tion to which Protagoras restricts us; there could be nothing absolutely self-evident and fixed—nothing in itself beautiful, true, and good; therefore, also, no knowledge of truth. Truth and science can only be spoken of when they are sought, not in sensuous expe- rience, but in the soul’s pure energizing in the sphere of true Being. Plato has expressed himself more fully with regard to the ethical code of the Sophists, for the combating of which the Cyrenaic doctrine of pleasure » Theet. 170 A; 172 B; 177 iv. 4, 5)refutes the doctrine of He- C-157 A; Cratyl. 386 A sq.; 439 raclitus and Protagoras as denying C sq. the principle of contradiction. % Similarly Aristotle (Mctaph. SOPHISTIC ETHICS. 185 (coupled by him with the foregoing) gave an opening. It is first criticised in the Gorgias * in its association with the Rhetorie of the Sophists. On their side it is here maintained that the greatest happiness consists in the power of doing what one likes, and that this happi- ness is also the natural object of our actions; for natural right is only the right of the stronger. The Platonic Socrates shows, on the contrary, that to do what one likes (& Soxet reve) is in itself no happiness, but only to do what one wills (& BovAeTav): this alone will really benefit the doer, for all will the good. But the good is not pleasure, as common opinion admits, when it discriminates between the beautiful and the pleasant, the shameful and the unpleasant. This is required by the nature of the case; for good and evil exclude one another—pleasure and pain mutually presuppose each other; pleasure and pain belong equally to the good and to the bad man—goodness and badness do not. So far, therefore, from pleasure being the -highest good, and the striving after pleasure the uni- versal right, it is, conversely, better to suffer wrong than to do it—to be cured of evil by punishment than to remain unpunished ; for that only can be good which is just.?° The argument*® in the Philebus establishes the same conclusion more fully, but on that very account ” Cf. specially 466 C-479 E; 488 B-508 C. The conversation with the politician Callicles belongs to the refutation of the Sophistic principle, as I have shown in vol. i. p. 922, 6. According to Plato, Sophistie ethics are only the enuh- ciation in general principles of what the world is accustomed to do without talking about it: v. supra, p. 182, 33. Cf. Parti. p. 23. 38 Cf. Thest. 176 D sq. As to the apparently different exposition of the Protagoras, v. p. 188, 46. 37 Specially 23 B-55 C. 186 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. belongs rather to the objective part of the system. The question here discussed is, Whether pleasure or know- ledge be the highest good? the former the principle of the Sophists; the latter that of Socrates, and more definitely of the Megarians and Cynics. The answer imports that to perfect happiness both are requisite, but that knowledge is incomparably the higher and the more nearly related to the absolute good. The main line in the proof of this proposition is marked by the observation that pleasure belongs to the sphere of Be- coming ;*° the good, on the contrary, must be an abso- lute and essential existence: that all Becoming has Being for its end, but the good is itself the highest end; that pleasure is most nearly akin to the Unli- mited (Material); knowledge to the Divine Reason as the ordering and forming cause. Plato further draws attention to the fact that pleasure and pain are not seldom based upon a mere optical delusion ; that pleasure in most cases only occurs in conjunction with its contrary, pain:‘' that the intensest sensations of pleasure arise from a state of bodily or mental disease. Discarding such, there remains as unmixed pleasure only the theoretic enjoyment of sensuous beauty, of 40 Cf. Rep. ix. 583 E: rd 75% deed, in the Philebus, 27 E, 41 D, dv Wuxh Yıyvduevov Kal Tb Aumnpbv klvnois tis Auborepw Eotıwv. ‘Lim. G4. 41 Wehrmann (Plat. de summ. bon. doctr. p. 49,sq.) thinks that Plato cannot be here speaking of the feeling of pleasure as such, and would, therefore, understand, by 750v}, Desire. There is no hint of this in Plato's words; in- 7,00v) is shown to be the feeling of pleasure unmistakably by its op- position to Advwn. It is without limit (or indefinite), because always combined with its opposite(yv. supra, and Phiedo, p. 60 B ; Phzedrus, 258 E), and hence containing the possi- bility of continual increase, in proportion as it frees itself from that opposite. ME. Pr SOPHISTIC ETHICS. 187 which, however, Plato elsewhere declares (Tim. 47 A sqq.) that its true worth lies only in forming the indis- pensable groundwork of thought, and which, even in the Philebus, he decidedly places after knowledge. Lastly, in the Republic, we find an agreement with these discussions, and an evident reference to them in the remarks as to the doctrine of pleasure (vi. 505C). Even the adherents of that doctrine must admit that there are bad pleasures, while at the same time they hold pleasure to be the good: this is nothing less than to declare good and evil to be the same thing. Simi- larly, in another passage ?—* The philosopher only has true happiness, for his pleasure alone consists in being filled with something real; that is the sole pleasure which is unalloyed, and bound to no conditioning pain. The question whether justice is more profitable than injustice, is as absurd as would be the enquiry—is it better to be sick or well ?’ * The refutation (in the Republic “*) of the Sophistie assertion that justice is merely the interest of the ruler, by the exclusion of paid service from the art of govern- ment, is only a specia] application of the distinction ‘between relative and absolute good; for this is mani- festly grounded on the universal presupposition that the end of moral activity must be in, and not outside, itself. And when, finally, the superiority of justice to injustice is proved” from the argument that the just * Ix. 583 B; 587 A, and the the clearness of the thought (cor- previous quotations from 376 E, rect in itself) is marred by the onwards, equivocal use of the word mAeover- * Rep. iv. 445 A sq. reiv, the propriety of which I can- * Rep. i. 339-347. not recognise with Susemihl, ii. 101. 4° 348 B sq., where, however, 188 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. only tries to get the better of the unjust, but the latter is at strife both with the just and unjust; and, there- fore, that without justice no social polity and no com- mon action would be possible—for not even a band of robbers could entirely do without this virtue—the prac- tical principle of the Sophist is refuted in the same manner as the theoretical has already been refuted. As no knowledge is possible if instead of the concept of the thing, the opinion of each individual holds good, so no reasonable and teleological action is possible if the individual will and advantage become law, instead of being subordinated to a law of universal validity.‘® 46 The exposition given above seemsto be contradicted by the treat- ment of the ethical question in the Protagoras. To support his defini- tion of courage as copla T@v Sewaey kal u Sevar(360 D),Soerates asserts (350 B) that 75¢€ws Gjv is coincident with ed (hy, or the &yabby—andas (nv with the kardv. Protagoras objects that not every 75d is an ayaboy, nor every aviapby akardv. To this the answer is, 353 C sqq., that the Pleasant is called evil only when productive of greater unpleasant- ness, the Unpleasant is called good only when productive of greater pleasantness; and that the art of living consistsin rightly estimating the proportions of Pleasure and Pain resultant—not merely with reference to the present but the future—from our actions. If, Mpa Grote (Plato, ii. 78 sq.; 120, 559 ; 540), we here recognise the Positive expression of Plato's own convic- tion, we aro obliged to concede the existence of an irreconcilable contradiction between the Prota- goras and the other Dialogues, specially the Gorgias. We might, however, well hesitate to ascribe such inconsistency to Plato, even if we held with Grote that the sensualist theory of the Protago- ras were correct initself. The Crito and the Apology, which can searcely be younger, at all events not much younger, works than the Protagoras, enunciate views which are incom- patible with Grote’s interpretation of that dialogue (ef. p. 128). Plato shows that the theories put in Socrates’ mouth in the Protagoras are not his ultimatum, by the re- peated reference to the zwoAAol (3851 C, 353 E), who are mainly concerned—showing them that they have no right to assume the possi- bility of doing evil knowingly, be- cause evil, in the end, is always harmful to man. But why this is so, is not said: it remains unde- cided whether the Pleasure, which is to form the standard of the good, is sensuous pleasure (to which the concept of ndovn in the Philebus is limited), or that higher content- ment which arises from the healthi- SOPHISTIC ETHICS. 189 The fundamental defect, then, in the Sophistic Ethics appears to be this: that by its doctrine of pleasure it sets the transitory in place of the perma- nent, appearance in place of essence, ends which are relative, and therefore always changing into their op- posites, in place of the one absolute, self-consistent end. The polemic against their theoretic principle had established exactly the same point. Their doctrine in general is therefore apprehended by Plato as the con- summated perversion of the right view of the world, the systematic supplanting of Essence by show or ap- pearance ; of true knowledge by appearance-knowledge ; of moral action by a debased utilitarianism, in bondage to finite ends; it is (according to the definition at the conclusion of the Sophist) the art of giving, by means of quibbling criticism, an appearance of knowledge, where none is possessed, and when there is full con- sciousness of the deficiency: and so Rhetoric, the gene- ral application of Sophistic doctrine, is the art of producing glamour in whole masses of people, with the same show that Sophistic uses to glamour individuals.?7 Or if we take both together, the art of the Sophists consists in the study and dexterous management of that Great Beast, the people,** in all its moods and tempers. ness of the soul. This questionis ism such as Grote attributes to not discussed till we get to the Gorgias and the later Dialogues, nor is the Good expressly distin- guished from the Pleasant (v. supr. p. 121, 70). We thus see an ad- vance in the development of Plato’s Ethies, not so much in contrast as in scientific elaboration. Eudzemon- Plato, is alien even to the Prota- goras. 17 V. Soph. 268 B ; Pheedrus, 261 A sq. ; Gorg. 455 A; 462 B-166 A. The Euthydemus is a satire on the Eristie of the Sophists. Cf. vol. i. 885, 910 sq. 4 Rep. vi. 493. 190 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. The Sophist neither understands nor professes virtue :*? he is nothing better than a huckster and craftsman, who praises his wares indiscriminately, no matter how they may be made ;°° and the Rhetorician, instead of being a leader of the people, degrades himself into their slave.! In place of instructing the ignorant (which he, as possessing knowledge, ought to do), and improving the morally lost and neglected, he, being ignorant, uses ignorance to induce persuasion, and basely flatters folly and greed.?® Sophistry and Rhe- toric therefore, far from being true arts, are rather to be described as mere knacks (Zwreipiaı), or, still more accurately, as parts of the art of flattery,—as spurious arts, which are just as truly caricatures of law-giving and the administration of justice as the arts of dress and cookery are caricatures of gymnastic and medicine.” There is only a passing exception to this judgment when Plato in the Sophist (231 B sqq.) glances at the sifting and purgative efficacy of Sophistic, but he immediately retracts the observation, as doing it too much honour. If such be a true account of what usually passes for hilosophy, and if the position of unphilosophie con- sciousness be equally inadequate, where, in contra- 49 Meno, 96 A sq.; with which applied equally to the most famous ef. all the dialogues contrasting the Sophistie and Socratic theories of virtue: e.g. Hippias Minor, Prota- goras, Gorgias, the first book of the Republic, and ibid. vi. 495 C sqq.- 50 Prot. 313 C sqq.; Soph. 223 B-226 A; Rep. vi. 494 C sq. 51 Gorg. 517 B sq. This judgment Athenian statesmen, we are told, ibid. 515 C sqq. 52 Gorg. 458 E sq.; 463 A sq.; 504 D sq. Cf. Thext. 201 A sq. ; Polit. 304 C. 53 Gorg. 462 Bsq. Demagogy is compared to Cookery by Aristo- phanes, Equites, 215 sq. EROS. 191 distinction to both, shall we seek for true Philo- sophy ? It has already been shown that Plato gives to the idea of Philosophy a far larger signification than that to which we are now accustomed: while we understand by it only a definite manner of thought, it is to him quite as essentially a concern of life; nay, this practical element is the first, the universal groundwork, without which he cannot conceive the theoretic element at all. Herein he closely resembles Socrates, whose philosophy entirely coincided with his personal character; and though Plato transcended this narrowness of the So- cratic view in order to develope the idea into a system, he himself never apprehended Philosophy in so ex- elusively a theoretic light as Aristotle. If there- fore we would understand his determinations of the essence and problem of Philosophy, we must begin with its derivation from practical necessity, with the description of the philosophic impulse. The theoretic form of Philosophy, the philosophic method, will oc- cupy only the second place; thirdly, and arising from both, we get Plato’s collective view of Philosophy, and the philosophic education of men. The general groundwork of Philosophy is the philo- sophie impulse. But as with Socrates this never took the purely theoretie form of an intelleetual impulse, but simultaneously with the personal acquisition of knowledge aimed directly at the engendering of know- ledge and virtue in others; so with Plato it is essen- tially related to the practical realisation of truth, and 5) Cf. pp. 144, 146, 192 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY, is therefore more exactly defined as generative impulse or Eros. Philosophy, according to him, springs, like all higher life, from inspiration or enthusiasm (uavia).?> When the remembrance of the archetypes which the soul beheld in its heavenly existence awakens in it at sight of the earthly copies, it is possessed with a won- dering delight, is beside itself and falls into an ecstasy; ® and herein,—in the overpowering contrast of the Idea with the Phenomenon,—lies the ultimate ground of that wonder which Plato calls the beginning of Phi- losophy :”” of that bewilderment, that burning pain which consumes every noble spirit when first the pre- sentiment of a higher than itself arises in it,°*—of that singularity and maladroitness in worldly matters, which to the superficial gaze is the most striking trait in the philosopher.*® The reason that this ideal en- thusiasm assumes the form of love is said in the Phedrus (250 B, D) to 55 Religious or artistic inspira- tion generally is called frenzy in Greek. Cf. quotations in vol. i. 651, 1; 759, 3; and Heraclitus on p- Plat. Pyth. orae. c. 6, p. 397. 56 Pheedr. 244 A sq.; 249 D; Ion, 251 B. The unconditioned praise given inthe former of these passages to divine inspiration is in keeping with the dithyrambie tone of the speech : it is, however, considerably modified by other places, like Apo- logy, 22 C; Meno, 99 Bsq.; Timzeus, 71 Esq. (ef. Ion, 534 B); and the Phedrus itself, 248 D. 5 Phext. 165 D; cf, Arist. Metaph. i. 2; 982 b. 12, This wonder is, loc, cit., derived from the intution of the various contradic- be the special brightness tions encompassing ordinary notions or envisagements. It is precisely these in which the Idea announces itself indirectly. ss Phedr. 251 A sq.; Symp. 215 D sq. (v. Parti. p. 158); 218A sq.; Theet. 149 A, 151 A; Rep. vil. 515 E; Meno, 80 A. 5° Theeet. 173 C sqq.; 175 B, E; Rep. vii. 516 E-517 D. We get the type of this philosophie aroma in Soerates: in it he is the com- plete philosophie epwrırds, Epws personified, indeed ; v. Symp. 215 A sq., 221 D sq., and my translation, Part i. p. 86. Cf. Schwegler, on the Composition of Plato’s Symposium, p. 9 sqq.; Steinhart, Pl. W. iv. 258, &e. EROS. 193 which distinguishes the visible copies of the beautiful above those of all other ideas: therefore it is that they make the strongest impression on the mind. In the Symposium, this phenomenon is more precisely ac- counted for by the striving after immortality of mortal nature: having none of the divine unchangeableness, it feels the necessity of sustaining itself by continual self-propagation. This propagative impulse is love.‘ Love therefore on the one side springs from the higher, divinely related nature of man,*!—it is the yearning to become like the immortal. But on the other, it is no more than a yearning, not yet possession ; thus far it presupposes a want, and belongs only to the finite, not to the perfect divine Essence.°? Love is consequently a middle term between having and not having,— the transition from the one to the other; Eros is the son of Penia and Poros.®? The object of this yearning endeavour is, in general, the Good; or more exactly, the possession of the Good,—of happiness ; for happiness is what all men desire. And therefore it aims at immortality, because with the desire for happi- ness is directly given the wish that the possession of the Good may be eternal.“ So Love is, generally speaking, the endeavour of the finite to expand it- self to infinity, to fill itself with what is eternal and imperishable, to generate something enduring. The external condition of Love’s existence is the presence 6 Symp. 206 B sq. ; ef. Laws, vi. 62 Loe. cit. 202 B sq.; 203 E sq. 773 E; iv. 721 B sq. 63 Toc. cit. 199 C-204 B. 5! Poros, the father of Eros, is 6 Loc. cit. 204 E-200 A. called the son of Metis; v. note 66, 0 194 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY, of Beauty,” for this alone by its harmonious form, corresponding to the desire in ourselves, awakes desire for the infinite.® But Love is as various as Beauty, in kind and degree: he does not reveal himself from the beginning fully and perfectly; rising step by step from incompleteness to completeness, he is realised in a graduated series of different forms. The first is the love of beautiful shapes,—of one, and then of all: a higher step is the love of beautiful souls, which ope- 65 Loc. cit. 206 C sq.-209 B; cf. Pheedr. 250 B, D. 6 The above may serve to ex- plain the Myth in Symp.203. Eros is a daluwv, one of the beings mid- way between mortals and immor- tals, mediating between them. Ac- cordingly, he is at once poor and rich, ugly and full of love for the beautiful, knowing nothing and ever striving after knowledge; uniting the most contradictory qualities, because in Love the finite and the infinite sides of our nature meet and find their unity. He is the son of Penia and Poros, be- ‚cause Love springs partly from man’s need, partly from that higher faculty, which makes him ‚able to get the thing needed ; (möpos js not Wealth, but Getting, Indus- try). His father is called a son of Metis, because all gain or getting is the fruit of wit or cunning, and this particular gain, the gain of higher good, springs from the reasonable spiritual nature of man. And Eros is born on Aphrodite’s birthday, because it js the revelation of the Beautiful that first awakens Love, soliciting the higher in human nature to ructify the lower, finite, needing element, and unite with it in the struggle towards the Good (ef. 203 C with 206 C sq.). These are the main features of the doc- trine, laid down clearly enough in the myth, and hitherto pretty generally agreed on (v. Susemihl, i. 393 sq., with his quotations ; and Deuschle, Plat. -Myth. p. 13), with only unimportant differences of interpretation in details. Any- thing beyond this I class as poetie ornament, and I cannot, therefore, agree with the meaning seen by Susemihl, loc. eit., in the garden of Zeus and the drunkenness of Poros. Still less can I aecept the interpretation given by Jahn (with the partial approval of Brandis, ii. a, 422 sq.) in his Dissertationes Platonic, 64 sq.; 249 sq., which is really a return to the Neo- Platonic expositions collected with learned industry by him on p. 136 sq. (ef. Steinhart, Plat. W. iv. 388 sq.). According to Jahn, Metis means the divine reason, Poros and Aphrodite the Ideas of the Good and the Beautiful, Penia Matter, and Eros the human soul. This interpretation is as clearly excluded as the right one is un- mistakably enunciated by what in the dialogue precedes and follows about Eros without metaphor, EROS. 195 rates in moral words and efforts, in works of education, art, and legislation: a third is the love of beautiful sciences—the seeking out of beauty wherever it may be found; the highest of all is the love which rises up to the pure, shapeless, eternal and unchangeable beauty, unmixed with aught finite or material,—to the Idea, which brings forth true knowledge and true virtue, and which alone attains the goal of Eros—immortality.” If this be the first adequate realisation of that for which Eros strives, then plainly he has been aiming at nothing else from the very beginning ; all subordinate stages of his satisfaction were but imperfect and un- certain attempts to seize on the Idea in its copies.°® Eros therefore, in his true nature, is the philosophic impulse, the striving for the representation of abso- Inte beauty,—the struggle to inform the Finite with the Idea by means of speculative knowledge and a 87 Symp. 208 E-212 A. In the less fully developed exposition of the Phedrus, 249 D sq., this distinction is barely hinted at, and the philosophie &pws is still in im- mediate connection with raudepaoria in the good sense. 6 This circumstance is over- looked by Deuschle, Plat. Myth. 30, where he objects, as against the comparison of épws with the philosophie impulse, that the former only coincides with the latter in its highest completion. The proper object of Love, accord- ing to Plato, is primarily the Beautiful as such, the Eternal, the Idea; this can at first be only apprehended in its sensuons and finite copies, and the lover gets only by degrees any insight into the aim and scope of what he does. But this does not alter the case; the lower forms of love are only first steps to (Symp. 211 B sq.), or, if continued in, misunder- standings of, the true philosophic Eros. Properly, it is always the Good and the enduring posses- sion of the Good that all crave (Symp. 205 D sq.; Phedr. 249 D sq.). Immortality itself (the busi- ness, according to Plato, of all, even sensuous love) is only to be won through a philosophie life (Pheedr. 248 E; 256 A sq. ; Symp. 212 A, &c.). Plato does not merely understand by philosophy scientific investigation, but, so far as it bears relation to Truth and Reality, every branch of human activity. 02 196 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. philosophie life; and all delight in any particular beauty is to be considered as a moment only, in the development of this impulse. The philosophic impulse is then, in the first place, a striving for the possession of truth: but if we further enquire as to the means of attaining this possession, Plato answers (somewhat unexpectedly for his ordi- nary enthusiastic admirers)—The dialectic method.” All other moral and spiritual training— that whole course of preparation, which the Symposium has described to us, and the Republic will more exactly describe—leads but to the threshold of philosophy: through her proper domain, Dialectic alone can 6° Besides the Phedrus and the Symposium, the Lysis deserves mention here; cf. chap.ii. 99. The result of the enquiry into the con- cept of plaros, p. 219 A, is rd odre kakdy ore ayabdy %pa 5d 7d KaKdy kal rd ex Opdv Tod ayaod pirov eorly €vexa Tov ayabod Kal blAov. And this formula suits the doctrine of the Symposium on Eros com- pletely. Love, according to the Symposium, springs from a defect anda need (da rd kardv, therefore, or as we have it more precisely in the Lysis, 218 C, 8:4 kakov mapovelar), directs itself, for the sake of the absolute Good and Godlike (€vexa tov Ayadov), towards Beauty in eternal Existence (Tod ayalod glaov), and belongs only to a being standing midway between Finite and Infinite (the oöre kaxdv ovre ayaddy), And in p. 218 A we find the dictum of Symposium 203 E sq.—that the Gods, or the wise in general, do not philoso- phize, nor do the utterly ignorant, guide us. That this must but only those who are midway between both—given in almost the same words. If we are not to suppose that, at the time of © writing the Lysis, Plato had found the leading thoughts of his later system, there remains the hypo- thesis, that the psychological ana- lysis which is the basis of his later exposition had even then led him up to the point attainable from Socratic principles, but the further metaphysical elucidation of these psychological phenomena did not come till afterwards. This view might gain some .confirmation from the fact that the Symposium 199 C sq. makes Socrates say only what we get in the Lysis, whereas all advance on that is put in the mouth of Diotima. This cireum- stance, however, cannot be pressed far. 70 Steger, Die Platonische Dia- lektik (Plat. Stud. i. Instr. 1869, p. 33 sq.), where passages in point are fully given. DIALECTIC. 197 be superadded to the philosophic impulse is first announced in the Pheedrus, the representation of Eros in the earlier part of that dialogue being followed by an enquiry into the art of discourse further on.’! And though at first the necessity of the latter method is established (261 C) on the wholly external ground that without it the end of eloquence, namely the guidance of souls, cannot be attained—yet in the course of the argument this external view is again discarded (266 B, 270 D). The Sophist, going more deeply into the matter (251 A, 253 E), shows that as some concepts allow, and others resist, mutual combination, there must necessarily be a science of Combination of Concepts,—that is, Dialectic. The Philebus declares this science (16 B sqq.) to be the highest gift of the gods and the true fire of Prometheus, without which no workmanlike treatment of any subject is possible. Concerning the essential nature of Dialectic, we must premise that its object is exclusively the Idea: it is the instrument by means of which the pure Idea is freed from all sensuous form and presupposition, and developed.” It is therefore peculiar to the 71 V, Schleiermacher, Introd. to the Phzedrus, esp. p. 65 sq. 7 Rep. vi. 511 B (v. supra, 167): Tb Tolvuv Erepov pdvOave Tua TOU vonTod A&yovrd me TOUTO, ob abrbs 5 Adyos Gwreta TH Tov SiardéyeorOar Suvduer, Tas bmoßeaeıs mowvpmevos obk dpxas, GAAG TH byte tro@éces, olov @mıßdoeıs tre Kar Sppas, va uexpı tod Avumoßerou dm) thy tod mavtds apxhy li, äyduevos abtijs, maAıv ab exduevos av exelyns exouévwy, oürws em TedeuTI karaßalım aicOnT@ mave Tdmaciv ovder mporxpmmevos, GAD’ elec avrois dl aur@v eis aiTa kal teAevTaG eis eldn. Rep. vii. 532 A: Stay tis TH SiadreyerOar emixeiph bveu marav Tav alodhrewv dia «Tou Adyou Em’ aurd d Eat éxacrov Öpua, kbv wh aroorh mply dy abrd d €or Gyabdy abth voqoes AdBn, ew aitg@ yiyverar Te TOV vonrod TéAa. . . . Ti oöv; ov dta- Aekrikhy Tabrnv Tiv mopelav kakeis; Ibid. 533 C: 4 dtaderrırn) uelodos 198 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. philosopher ;** for he alone can recognise Being in itself—the essence and concept of things,’4 and by this knowledge can regulate all other arts and sciences.’ Dialectic has a double task—ovvaywy) and Ötalpecıs —the Formation of concepts and their Classifica- tion.”© The first reduces the Many of experience to one Genus, the second divides this Genus organi- cally into its Species, without breaking any of its natural articulations, or overlooking one division that really exists. He who is skilled to recognise the One concept pervading the Many and Divided—and, con- versely, to carry out the one concept methodically through the whole graduated scale of its sub-kinds uövn raurn mopeverau, Tas bwoGérets identifies the true ruler with the Gvaipotoa Em’ aitiy tiv apxiv true philosopher, we may transfer «7.A, Phileb. 58 A. Dialectic the assertion to philosophy. is7 mepl Td dv Kal Td byTws Kal Td 76 Heyder (Comparison of the Kate Tabtoy Ged repuxds Emornun. Aristotelian and Hegelian Dialec- Cf. following notes. tie, 1. 49 sq.) is wrong in adding 73 Soph. 253 E: aAaAad unv 7d to these, as a third clement, the ye Siadexrindy odk BAAR Öwaeıs, Gs Combination of Concepts. The eyguat, wry TE kabapas Te kal passages to be presently quoted dicalws pidocopotyr:. Cf. Phedr. from the Phaedrus, Philebus, and 278 D. Sophist plainly show that Plato 74 Rep. v. end; vi. 484 B. regards the business of Dialectic 7% Phileb. 58 A. Dialectic is as finished in the determination the science 7 wacay tiv ye viv and division of concepts. The Aeyouevnv (Arithmetic, Geometry, Sophist specially shows that the &e. ) ywoin. Euthyd. 290 Bsq.: of knowledge of the universality of ad yewuerpaı kal dorpovduot kal of concepts is given in division; Aoyiorikoi—mapadidéacr dhmov rots and it would be contradictory to diadrextikots karaxpnedaı aur@v tots Plato's view to say that division eiphuaciv, dco ye abr@v un mavrd- limits off concepts from all others, macıy davénrol eloıw. Cratyl. 390 while combination of concepts C: the Dialectician has to over- gives them their due relations to look the activity of the vouo@érns others. The § Sophist tells us that (here = dvouaroberns). The Poli- this relation is given by showing ticus, 305 B sq., gives the States- how far the concepts are identical man’s art the same relation to all or different, i.e. by their spheres practical arts; but as the Re- being limited off from cach other. public (v. 473 C and _ passim) DIALECTIC. 199 down to particulars, and, as a consequence of this procedure, to establish the mutual relations of con- cepts, and the possibility or impossibility of their combination—he is the true workman in Dialectic.” Of these two elements of Dialectic, one, the Forma- tion of concepts, had already been apprehended by Socrates, whose philosophic merit is essentially based on this fact. Plato throughout presupposes this So- eratic induction, and his own method with regard to it is generally distinguished from that of his master only by its more technical and conscious use. In the Con- cept, the What of things is to be determined; not this or that quality only in them must be given, but 7 > nw oe a elvat;—ovxody Bye rovTo Öuvards ™ Phedr. 265 D sq. (cf. 261 E, and specially 273 D, 277 B); the art of speech has two essential elements: eis play Te id€ay ouvo- pavra twyew Ta moAAaxn Öleormap- peva, ty’ Exacroy Öpılduevos diAov moln mepl ov by Gel diddoKew EDEAN —and mdAw Kar’ elön divacban Téu- vew, kat’ &p0pa 4 mwépune, kad ph emixetpeiy KaTayvGvatKaKod uayelpou Tpimy Xodmevoy ... Kal Tovs Su- vanuevovs alto Spay ei uev dpbds 7) u mpooayopeiw, Beds olde, Kade BE oby yexpı Toide dSiadrextikods, Soph. 253 B sq.: Gp’ ob per’ ém- oriuns twos üvaykalov bia Tov Adywv mopebeodaı Toy dp0Gs ueAAor- ra delkeıw mola moloıs cunpwvel T@v Yevwv kal moia UAANMAa ov déxeTaAL : Kul dh kal 51a mavrwv el cuvéxovta. arr arly, orte auuulyvuodaıdvvard, elvat, Kal maAıv Ev tais diaipéreoty ei Be bAwy érépa Tis diaipérews alria;—rd Kata yivn dtarpeiodau Kal uhre rabrbv eldos Erepov iyyh- vaodaı uh? Erepov dv Talrdv, u@v ob THs Siadrextixis phoowey emorhunys dpav ulav ideav dia moddrAay, Evds EKATTOU Kelnevov xwpls, mayTH dia- TeTamevny ikav@s Siaisbaverat, Kar moAAas Erepas tnd plas etwherv mepiexonevas, Kat ulav ab dl bAwy moAAav Ev Evi Zuvnuuernv, al ToAAas xwpls mavın Ötwpiouevas' TovTO d’ Eotıy, i) TE Koıvwveiv Exacta Övvuraı, kal brn wh, Staxpivery Kara yevos eriotacdaı, Polit. 285 A; Phileb. 16 C sq. ; vide subter, note 92. Only one of the elements here united in the concept of Dialectic is brought into promin- ence by Republic vii. 537 C. The disposition towards Dialectic, we are there told, consists in the ability to bring particulars under a concept—ö ouvorrikds diadeKTI- «ds, 6 de wh, od—and in x. 596 A, the peculiarity of dialectie process is described as the seeking ono general concept under which to bring the Many. Cf. Rep. vii. 531 E-534 B, D; Cratyl. 390 C. The dialectician is the man who 200 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. the marks that distinguish them from all others ;7% not the contingent in them, but the essential ;’” for with that only is Science concerned.*® But the essence of things consists solely in that wherein all belonging to the same class agree, in the common attribute. The determination of the concept is therefore something quite other than the enumeration of the multiplicity comprehended within that concept: it has to do with that which is equally present in ali particulars and individuals ; with the Universal, without which no par- ticular can be understood, because it is contained in each particular and is presupposed by it.*! , Briefly, then, the concept must determine the Essence of can give account of his convictions in question and answer, and this ability comes from Adyov éxdorwv AauBavew Tis ovolas. ”s Thezet. 208 D; Polit. 285 A. 79 V. e.g. Meno, 71 B: 6 de ph olda th Eorı, ras by Ömolov yé TI eidßeinv; Euthyph. 11 A: kw- duvevers, & Evdudppov, epwrduevos Tb Sowv Örı wor’ Eorı, Thy pmev ovolay por adtod ob BobAecdar ön- A@oa, mdBos dE Tt mepl. adtod Aeyeıv. Gorg. 448 B sqq., where Polus is asked what Gorgias is, and on answering that his art is the sovereign art, is informed that the question is not mola tis em 7 Topyiov rexvn, &AAG tls. s° V, supr. p. 175 sq. On this point, and the nature of real Being, fuller details in the exposition of the theory of Ideas, “t Meno, 71 D sq. Socrates asks what Virtue is. Meno re- plies that the virtue of man is so and so, the virtue of woman so and so, &e., and is brought up by Socrates saying that he does not want a cpijvos dperay, but the pla äpern, not a Virtue, but Virtue (73 E); or, in other words (72 E), he wants that in which the virtue of man, woman, &e. is not sepa- rate, but one and the same. So Thexet. 146 C sqa., where to So- erates’ question, what Knowledge is, Theetetus at first answers with an enumeration of the various sorts of knowledge, and is then told that he was not asked rlyvwy 7 emorhun, ov8 Ömdoaı tivés* ov yep apiOujoa aitas BovAduevor npöueda, GAAX yvaGvat emornunv ait) 8 ri wor’ early: the thought of any special form of knowledge always presupposes the general concept of knowledge—oxurikh is éemiothun tbmodnudrwv; with no concept of émorhun in general, there can be no concept of ckuTik? eriorhun in particular. Cf. Eu- thyph. 5 D, 6 D (the enquiry is into the abrd abt@ duoiov Kal Exov ulav twa idéav—the eldos aurd & rdvra Ta Sia bard ori), Lach. 191 D sq., and supr. p. 198. DIALECTIC, FORMATION OF CONCEPTS. 201 things, by establishing the distinguishing characteris- tics of Classes. For this purpose Plato, following his master, starts as much as possible from the known and universally acknowledged. He will not only express the truth, but will do so in such a manner that others may be convinced by it:*? and he therefore requires that the progress of knowledge be brought about through examples, so that we may understand the un- known from the known, and learn to recognise in the unknown, characteristics elsewhere familiar to us.®* This procedure is very usual with Plato.** It brings with it a danger already perceived by Socrates. When we start from individual observations and examples, and above all from individual experiences, we must take care lest our concepts represent only particular sides of the objects in question, and not the whole of their essence. Socrates tried to escape this danger by means of that dialectical comparison of the different eases, in which we have learned to recognise one of the most important peculiarities of his method. The skill of Plato in this dialectic is also well known, and even #2 Meno, 75 D: Se? 5) mpadrepdy mws kal diadeKTiKwTEpov ümoxplve- wat, ears de tows Tb diadrenTiKdrte- pov, ph uövov TaAnOh amorplveodau, GAAG Kal d1 exelvwv av ky mpooo- MoAoyi eldevar 6 epwrduevos. Cf. re Ben as to Socrates, Part - pp: 102,1; 109. ss Polit. 277 E sqq. ; as children in learning to read ‚go wrong over the same letters, in complicated words, as they read easily in simple ones, so with us in regard to the OTOLXEa TOY mdvrwy: and we must do as is done in teaching —évayew mp@tov Em eékeiva ev ois Taura Taira opbdas eddtaCov, dvayovras de TiWévat Tapa Ta uhmw yıyvwokbuera kal mapaßaAAovras Evdeikvüvar Thy adryv Öuosrnra Kal piow dv Ak- Horepaıs otcay Tais ovumAorals «.7.A., and the use of examples is that, by putting together related cases, we get to recognise an un- known as identical with a known. sı So Gorg. 448 B sq., 449 D; Meno 18 E sqq.; Thezet. 146 D sqq. ; Polit. 279 A sqq. 202 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. his earliest works show him to have been in this respect the apt disciple of Socrates. But as he has given to the Socratic philosophy in general a more scientific form, so in this particular he requires a stricter proce- dure. The truth of the conceptual determination is not merely to be tested by individual instances which are always selected with a certain arbitrariness, but; each assumption is to be developed in all its positive and negative consequences to prove its admissibility and necessity: all the results that may arise, on the one hand from itself, and on the other from the oppo- site hypothesis, are to be drawn out, and in this way we are to ascertain whether it is compatible with, and therefore required by, that which is elsewhere acknow- ledged as truth. This is that hypothetie discussion of the concept which Plato so emphatically recommends as dialectic training, on the ground that thus alone can the correctness of presuppositions be perfectly tested.® 85 The principal passage to re- fer to is the Parmenides, 155 C sqq. ‘Socrates has been brought into perplexity by the objections to the theory of Ideas, and Parme- nides says to him: mp@ yap, mply yuuvacdivaı, & Sdxpares, dplCec Ca Eirıxeipeis kaAdv TE Tt Kal SiKatoy nal ayabby Kal ev Exacroy Tay €iday ' ... Kad pty ody kal Bela, cb Yoh, 74 Opp tv Öpmas em robs Adyous: EA- Kurov de cavTov Kal yUuvacat uaAAov bia THs dorovans axphatov elvar kal Kadounéevns brd TAY TWOAAGY AdoAce- axlas, &ws Erı veos el’ el de par, ce diapevterar 7 aAndeıa. Tis ody 6 tpémos, pavat, & Tlapuevlön, rs yuuvaclas; Obros, eimeiv, övrep Ykov- cas Znvwvos (the indirect proof of an assumption by development of its consequences), xp dt kal öde ért mpds TOÜTY MoLelv, uN Mdvoy ei Eotıv Exacrov bmodeuevov akomeiv TH ovußalvovra ek THs bmoßerews, GAA kal el un eotı TO avTd TOVTO broTi- Oecbarei BovAcı maAAOV yuurasdävaı. And of this the whole of the second part of the Parmenides gives a de- tailed illustration. Of. Phxdo, 101 D: eiöerıs adrijs tis bmoßegews Exar- To, xalpeıv eans ay Kal odK Amukpl- vaio, ews by Taam’ exelyns öpunderra oKévato, el cor GAANAOLS Euudwvei 7} diadwver; ered) de exelyns aurnsdcor oe d1ddva1 Adyor, a@cavTws ky d5idolns, BAAnY ab brdbeow Sroleuevos, iris Tay kvwlev BeArlorn palvoito,ews ext Tt ikavdy €dOots, Gua de odk Gy Gupoto, domep of avrıAoyırol mepi Te THS Ap- xis Sdiadeyduevos kal tay e exel- DIALECTIC, DEVELOPMENT OF CONCEPTS. 203 The method seems to have been motived not only by the Socratic teaching, but also by the Eleatic dialectic as worked out by Zeno ;*° Zeno, however, only aims at refuting the ordinary notions by inference; Plato, as a true Socratic, has for his ultimate end a positive result, an exhaustive definition of the concept. And as he insists that with each assumption its opposite also shall be thoroughly sifted, in the manner described—his method where fully carried out, as in the Parmenides, takes the form of an antinomic exposition, the ultimate aim of which is, by refuting one-sided presuppositions, to establish those that are true. But however great may be the value set by Plato upon this hypothetie development of the concept, it is still, as he himself says, only a preparation, or, more exactly, a moment in the dialectic method—a part of that which Aristotle uns apunuevwr, elmep BovAow rı Tay bytwy edpeiv. (P. 100 A treats, not of the proof of the principles, but their application to particulars.) Meno, 86 E: cvyxépnoov e& trro- Oécews atrd aromelohaı. . .Aeywde rd eE bmoßenews Hde, Somep of yewpe- Tpat TOAAGKIS GkKOTOUYTGL. ..el ev eorırodto Td xwplov ToLovToY olovra- pa Thy doßeicav aurdv ypapudy mapa- relvavra, EANelreıy ToWbrp xwpie, oloy by abrb Tb raparerauevor 7} EAAO wt ovußalveıy pot Sorel, Kal BAADo al, ei ädlvarbv cori TadTa madeiv. Cf. Rep. vii. 534 Bsq. There is only an apparent contradiction in the Cratylus, 436 C sq., where the re- mark péyioroy de 001 €orw TeKunpiov bri our CoparraTijs GAnbelas 5 TiOE- Hevos* ob yap ty more olTrw Eluudw- va hy aitg@ ärayra is met by the answer: GAAG TodTO uev, & yale KpartaAe, oVdev eoriw AmoAoynus * ci yap To mp@rov oparels 6 rıdeuevos TaAAa on mpds Tour’ eBıalero Kal aitG Euubwveiv hvaykalev, ouder aAromov... Ta Aoıma maumoAAa Non bvra émbueva ÖwoAoyeiv GAANAoıS* der 5h wep) THs dpxiis mavrds mpdy- karos mavr) dvdpt roy morty Ad-yor elva kal Thy mOAAHY arelır, etre dp- OGs elite un umbreırau * Ekelvns de efe- rardelons ikav@s,raAoımackelvn pal- verdaı emöueva‘ for it is afterwards shown that Cratylus’ onesided sup- position beeomes involved in con- tradictions in its consequence—be- cause the e¢px7 has no real proof. s This he shows by the intro- duction and investiture of the Parmenides: the whole procedure of the dialogue reminds one forci- bly of Zeno’s method. Cf. vol.i. 494, 496 sqq. 204 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. ‚ calls induction: for its aim is to enquire into the truth of concepts, and to make possible their right definition. If the presuppositions of unphilosophie con- sciousness are subjected to this treatment, they are refuted and annulled in the Idea; if it is applied to philosophic propositions, as in the Parmenides, these receive their dialectical establishment and more exact determination: but if by this process we have arrived at the Idea as the Unconditioned—the indirect develop- ment of thought must give place to the direct, the analytic to the synthetic. We have remarked before that the speciality of the Synthetic method lies, according to Plato, in Classifi- cation or Division. As the Concept expresses the common attribute wherein a number of things agree, Division expresses the differences by which a class is 87 Brandis (Gr.-röm. Phil. ii. a. 264) calls this EE ümuherews oKo- zeiv a higher process of dialectic completing Division. He has gene- rally brought out this side of Plato's dialectic acutely and cor- rectly; but I cannot agree with him here. The object is not to find a corrective for Division, but to determine the truth of the dmo- Gécets, i.e. the right mental grasp of the Concepts on which an en- quiry proceeds: and this is exem- plified in the Meno,the Parmenides, and the Protagoras before them, 329 C sqq. And again, this é brobécews okomeıv seems to me not to be es- sentially separate from the elements of Dialectic above mentioned (form- ation of Concepts, and Division), but to belong to the former of them, as the critico-dialectical test of rightly applied Induction. I can- not, either agree with Ieyder(Com- parison of Aristotelian and Hege- lian Dialectic, i. 99 sqq.-113 sqq.) in thinking that the hypothetic- dialectic process aims not so much at the introduction and verification of means whereby Concepts in themselvesare explained or limited, as at the introduction and verifi- cation of certain Combinations of Concepts. Apart from what I have observed (note 76), this view will not agree with Plato’s own expla- nations, that throughout, the object of this process is only to test the ümoßeceıs. the correctness of the leading Concepts. Heyder cannot quote Arist. Metaph. xiii. 4, 1078 b. 25 on his side, and with as little reason can he appeal to the pro- cedureof Plato’s Parmenides, which is expressly concerned with in- vestigating the Concepts of Unity and Being. DIALECTIC, CLASSIFICATION. 205 separated into its kinds.** He, therefore, who would make a right division must not introduce arbitrary distinetions into things, but seek out those already existing in them—the natural articulations of the con- ceptual group.” For this purpose two things are to be observed: that the division is to be according to- real differences of Kind, not merely Quantitative dis- parity; and that the intermediate links by which the lower kinds are connected with the higher ure not to be passed over.”’ The former is necessary in order to obtain a logical, and not a merely external division; *! the latter, that we may judge rightly the relation of concepts, and learn to combine the unity of the class with the multi- § Pheedr. 265 E(v. p. 199 ?); Polit. 285 A: bia de 7d un Kar’ elön auv- eıdiodaı aromeiv Siatpoupevous TAUTG re rooodrov dlahepovra EuußarAov- ow ebdbs eis Taurby Öuoıa voulaayres, kal roivavrlov ab Tobrov dpaow Erepa ol karü uepn ÖLaıpouvres, deor, bray pty Thy Tey moAA@Y TIS TpÖ- Tepov aic@nrat Kowwrlay, um mpoa- dloracba mplv dy ev abt? Tas Siado- pas iin mdoas, drdca mep Ev eldenı kelvraı, Tas dt ab mavrodarmäs avomol- orntas, Stuy ev mAnderıw dp0Go1, pp) Suvardy elvar Svowrovmevoy mav- eodaı, mplv dy Ebumavra TH oikeia eyrbs pias duoidrntos Epkas yévous twos obola mepiBadrnrat. This is the tTéuvew Kat’ &pOpa so often insisted on by Plato: Pheedr. loc. cit. Ibid. 272 D: kar’ elön Te Siaipetobar ra dbvTa Kal ula ka nal’ Ev Exagroy mepiAauBdvew. 277 B: ka0’ aird re way Öpllerdaı.... Öpırduevbs Te mdAıv kat’ elön MEexpı Tov atuhrov reuvew, Polit. 287 C: karü péAn rolvuv abräs ofoy lepeiov Ötmp@ueda. Rep. v. 454 A: the main reason of lristie error is Td un Ödbvaordaı Kar’ dn Sicupormevoe Tb Acyöuevov emurkoreiv, GAAG Kar’ add Td bvoua Side TOD Aexdevros Thy évavtiwow, Cf. note 92. % Polit. 262 A: un owırpdv pd- pıov Ev mpds meydAa kal TOAAG Abaı- p@nev, umde eldovs xwpis' dAAG Td Mépos Gua eldos &xerw. *! Cf. foregoing note and Polit. 263 A sqq: yévos kad uepos ds ov TavTdv earov, GAN’ Erepov GAAHAOW .. 156s Te Kal uepos Erepov dAATAwr elvat, . .s eldos utv bray j Tov, Kad Hépos avTd Avaykaloy elvar Tov mpd- yuaros, Srourep ty eldos Adynrar* ue£pos de eldos ovdeuia ävdıyn. We get a hint of this distinetion in the Protagoras, 329 D, in the question (anticipating Aristotle's distine- tion of duowpepes and &vouorouepts) whether the alleged parts of vir- tue are as distinct as the parts of the face (nose and mouth, for in- stance), or only &omep r& Tod xpuood uöpıa oddity diapépa ta Erepa Tay érépwy GAAhA«y Kal Tov bAov, KAN’ N meyedeı Kal apınpörnti, 206 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY, plieity of that which is comprehended under it.”? The first is conditioned by the second; for only by a regular progression from universal to particular can we be sure that the kinds are rightly determined, and that merely collective concepts are not confounded with concepts of kind.% The problem is to survey logically, by means of a complete and methodical ®2 Phileb. 16 C: it is one of the most important discoveries, a true fire of Prometheus for science, os et Evds uev wad ek ToAAGY bvTaY TOY del Aeyouevwv elvat,mépas de Ka) ame- play Ev aurois Ebuburov Exövrwv. deiv oby Huas TobTwy otTw ÖLakero- Tunuevwv del ulav id€ay wep) mavrds Erdorore Oeucvous (nreiv' ebphoev yap Evovoav* av ody ueraAdßwuer, pera ulav Svo ei mws einl, akomeiv, ei Se un, Tpeis H Twa UAdroy Apıdubr kal av Ev Exelvwy Ekanrov (we should either read x. tv ev exeivo &«. with Stallbaum, ad loe., or kal ev éxelvwy Ekaorov) maAıy woabtws, nExpı mep by 7d Kar’ apxas ev um Sri Ev Kal TOAAA Kal ümeıpd eore peovoy %5n Tis, GAAK Kal Groce’ Thy Sé Tov amelpou idéav mpds Tb mAnBos Hh mpoobepei, mply ay Tis Thy apil- pov adrod mdvta Karlin Tov petatd Tod Amelpov TE Kal Tov evös‘ TÖTe D Non To Ev Exavroyv Tay wWayTwy eis To ümeipov wedevra xalpeıy eav. This is revealed of the gods: of de viv tay GvOpdrwy cupol Ev uev, Ömws by TUxXwot TL TOAAG OGrTov Kal Bpadv- Tepov motovat Tov deovros, meta de Tb Ev üreipa edOdss Ta BE péoa avtovs expevyet, ols diaKkexdpiora To Te ÖlaAektık@s maw kal Td Epi- OTIKGS nuas moreiodaı mpds GAAN- Aovs obs Adyovs (with the latter ef. ibid. 15 D; Phaedr. 261 D; Rep. vii. 589 B). Schaarschmidt, Samml. d. plat. Schr. 298 sq. tries to show in this place a misunderstanding of Aristotle’s statements as to the ele- ments of the Ideas, and a consequent proof of the spuriousness of the Phi- lebus. It has been, however, already pointed out (p. 398 sq.) that Aris- totle used the Philebus as a work of Plato’s ; and Schaarschmidt's ob- jection really rests on an incorrect interpretation of the passage before us. We have not to do here with the question as to the final meta- physical elements of things (still less, as Schaarschmidt says, with those of material things as such), but simply with the logical per- ception that in all Being there is unity and multiplicity, so far as on one side every class of existent may be reduced to one generic con- cept, and on the other every generic concept is brought before us in a multiplicity of individuals. This multiplicity is not merely an unlimited multiplicity (&eipos), but also a limited, in so far as the generic concept resolves itself, not directly into an indeterminate num- ber of individuals, but into a de- terminate number of species and subordinate species in succession : the indeterminate manifold of in- dividuals, susceptible of no further articulation, only begins with the lowest limit of this conceptual divi- sion. I fail to see anything un- Platonic in this. DIALECTIC, CLASSIFICATION. 207 enumeration of its divisions and subdivisions, the whole area included under a class; to follow all the ramifications of the concepts to the point where their regular co-articulated series ends and the indefinite mul- tiplicity of the phenomenon begins. By this method it is shown whether concepts are identical or diverse, in what respect they fall or do not fall under the same higher idea; how far they are consequently allied or opposed, capable of combination or the reverse,—in a word, their reciprocal relation is established, and we are enabled by this knowledge to make a methodical descent from the highest universal to the particular, to the very confines of the ideal world.“ But while insisting on the continuity of the progression and the completeness of all intermediate links, Plato as con- stantly urges that we should start from the simplest divisions. What he prefers, therefore, is bisection, which becomes quadrisection, when two grounds of division cross :*° but where such a classification is imprac- ticable, some other must be chosen which approaches dichotomy as nearly as the given case will allow.” #3 Polit. 262 B (cf. 264 A): a more hasty procedure has some- thing wrong about it ; GAAd yap, & plre, Aermroupyeiv (to go immedi- ately into details) ob« aaparés, dıa neowv BE dopadeatepoy levar Téu- vovras, Kal mwadAov ideas ty Tıs Tpootvyxdvot. Toto de Siapeper Td may mpos tas (nrnoes. An ex- ample of this faulty procedure is then given in the division of man- kind into Hellenes and Barbarians, in which one step is taken from the most universal to the most par- ticular, and the mistake is made of treating the infinitely various raecs of non-Greeks as one race. * V. supr. notes 92 and 72. Plato has no fixed phrase for the division of Genus and Species ex- pressed in this and the related pas- sages : yévos (which is not frequent) and eldos are equivalents with him (e.g. Soph. 258 D; Polit. 262 D sq-; 263 A; vid. supr. note 91), and in Tim, 57 C sq. he absolutely uses the former=species, the latter= genus: Tay Tots eldeot yévn. % ord mAdros and kara unkos reureıv. Soph. 266 A. 208 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. A completed logical system is not to be found in Plato ; and neither by inferences from his own method, nor by combination of single incidental expressions, are we justified in supplying this want. The whole gist of the question is, How far did he enunciate the laws of thought (which, in common with every reasoning man, he must certainly have followed)—in the shape of logical rules, and systematise those individual ob- servations concerning the forms and conditions of our thought which occasionally obtruded themselves upon him—into a distinct theory ? This he has only done in the two points that have just been considered. For the rest, his writings do indeed contain hints and germs of the later logic, but no comprehensive combination and development of these. Thus he sometimes says that all our convictions must agree; that contradic- tory determinations cannot at the same time belong to one and the same thing:”® that it is a proof of error, if concerning the same thing the opposite in the same reference is affirmed.*® Healso declares that knowledge 96 Phileb. loc. cit.; Polit.287 C: Kata meAn Tolvuv adtas .. . Siaipoue- Oa, ered) Sixa advvarodper* der yap eis Toy eyybrara OTt udAıora Teure Gpıdudv det. The Sophist (218 D- 231 E-235 B sq.; 264 C sqq.) gives elaborate instances of dichotomy carried out in detail: ef. Polit. 258 B-267 C; 279 C sqq. ” E.g. Phedo, 100 A; Laws, v. 746 C. % Rep.iv.436 B:5nAovörırauröv äavayrla moıeiv 7) mAoxeıy Kara Tal- Tov ye kal mpds Tabrdv ovK EdeAhceı Gua, dore edv mov evplokwuey dv avrois radra yiyvdpeva, eitöuel« örı ob TadTdv Fv GAAG TAElw, Pheedo, 162 D; 103C; Theet.190 B. In the world of phenomena, opposite properties are seen combined in one subject: but, according to Plato, as will be shown presently, these properties do not belong to the things simultaneously: they are detached in the flux of Becom- ing: and the subjects themselves are not simple but composite sub- stances: so the properties are not, strictly speaking, found together in One and the Same. Cf. Rep. loc. cit. ; Pheedo, 102 D sqq. ; Parm. 128 E sqq.; Soph. 258 E sqq. 9 Soph. 230 B; Rep. x. 602 E. LOGIC. 209 can only exist when we are conscious of the reasons for our assumptions.! But though we may here recog- nise the two laws of modern logic—the Law of Con- tradictories and that of the Sufficient Reason,!°! Plato nowhere says that all rules of thought may be reduced to these two propositions. -He has indeed enunciated them, but he has not yet placed them as the most uni- versal principles at the apex of the science of thought. Further, when he investigates the nature of concepts, the combination in them of the One and the Many, the possibility of their being connected, their mutual com- patibility and incompatibility, the relations of Genus and Species,—in all this he considers concepts, not as the product of our thought, but as something actually and absolutely existing independently of it: Logic is still veiled in Metaphysics. These enquiries, and others connected with them, into the conditions of truth and error, we must for that reason relegate to another place. In the remark that all discourse consists in the union of the concept of a predicate with that of a sub- ject ;'°? and that thought, as discourse without sound, is nothing else than affirming or denying, !% we can trace 100 Cf. p. 174 and Tim. 28 A, bination of the évoua denoting an Tennemann, Syst. d. plat. Phil. ii. 217 sqq.; Brandis, ii. a. 266 sq. 2 Soph. 259 E: if the combi- nation of concepts is denied (as by Antisthenes), the possibility of dis- course is taken away: dia yap Ti GAAhAwY T&v eld@v oUuTAOK)hY 6 A yeyover juiv. Ibid. 26 B: mere övöuara, like Lion, Goat, Horse, and mere verbs like Baölfeı, rpéxet, kadeldeı, give no continued mean- ing: this is only given by the com- ovoia with the fpjua expressing a doing or not doing. 198 Theet. 189 E: 7d de Öta- vociodaı ap’ brep eye Kadeis ... Adyov dv abth mpbs aithy i Wuxn dekep- XeTaL...avTh Eauryv epwraoa Kal Amorpivouern Kal pdcKkovoa Kal ov $dorovea, So Soph. 263 E (v. supr, p. 158, 17), and immediately, kai why ev Adyots abrol Youey bv,.. dow re Kal arédpacw—opinion (Ödfa) is therefore an affirmation or denial without discourse, 210 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. only the first, though very important, beginnings of the theory of judgments. Still less can a doctrine of syllogisms be derived from Platonic intimations ;!% and though, in the method of divisions, there is fore- shadowed the demonstrative process by which Aristotle descends from the universal to the particular, we must remember that it is precisely the syllogistie medium of this progression that is here wanting.’ On the whole, therefore, though we cannot but recognise in Plato essential elements of the Aristotelian logic, it would be a mistake to force these out of their original connection in order to construct from them a Platonic logic on a later model.!6 In relation to his scientific method, Plato also dis- cusses the question of the significance of language for Philosophy. An opening for such a discussion was given him on several sides.!” Among the older philo- sophers, Heraclitus especially had laid stress on lin- 1% E,o, the passages quoted p. 174, 12: ef. Polit. 280 A; Crat. 412 A; Phileb. 11 B. 105 Aristotle speaks clearly as to the difference of the two methods, Anal. Prior. i. 31; Anal. Post. ii. 5. He calls Division olov aodevns ovAAoyiomes, and points out that its defect lies in the minor being assumed without demonstration (o.g. tvOpwmos (Gov, &vOpwros me(ör). He is therefore enabled to say (Soph. Elench. 34, 183 b. 34), without disparagement of Plato's Division, that the subjects treated of in the Topies (among which the Conclusion stands in the first series — here the Conclusion of Proba- bility—) have never before received any scientific discussion. 106 Tennemann makes this mis- take, loc. cit. pp. 214-259: though he observes correctly enough that we must not (as Engel does in his Enquiry into a method of develop- ing the Logic of Plato’s Dialogues) lay down, in an exposition of his logic, all the rules actually fol- lowed by Plato. Prantl’s procedure (Gesch. d. Log. i. 59 sqq.) is much more accurate. „ 17 Cf. on what follows Classen, De Gramm. Gr. Primordiis (Bonn, 1829), p. 15 sqq.; Lersch, Sprach- philos. der Alten, i. 10 sqq. ; ii. 4 sqq.; Steinhart, Pl. WW. ii. 535 sq.; Steinthal, Gesch. d. Sprach- wissensch. bei Gr. u. Rom, 72 sqq. LANGUAGE. 211 guistic expression ;!"® and indeed the Greeks in general, with their quick wit and ready tongues, were fond of deriving and playing upon the words they used.' Various sophists had afterwards occupied themselves with philosophical questions,'!® while at the same time the Sophistic art of disputation necessitated a closer study of forms of speech, and the relation of expression to thought.'" Of the same date are also extant en- quiries of Democritus concerning Speech ;'!? and it is clear from the Platonic Cratylus that in the school of Heraclitus the principle that everything has its natural name, and from names the nature of things is infallibly to be known '!*—had led toendlessand most arbitrary play upon etymologies. This seems to have been likewise the case in the School of Anaxagoras.!'* Among the Socra- 108 We cannot, however, point out any really scientific enunciation of his on speech (cf. vol. i. 588, 2), and even Schuster (Heracl. 318 sq.) does not appear to have made much of this point. Even if He- raclitus did say that speech was given to men by the gods, or re- marked incidentally that the very name shows the Being of the thing (both of which are possible), this would not warrant our ascribing to him a definite theory of speech. Still less can any such thing be sought for in Pythagoras or his school: ef. loc. cit. 410, 1. 19 Cf. the instances quoted by Lersch, iii. 3 sqq. from poets. Ne Of. vol. 1. 932 sq. MV, loc. cit. 913 sq.: ef. p. 903. m2 Of, vol. i. 745, 1: and Diog. ix. 48, who names some of De- mocritus’ writings on verbal ex- pression. 18 Crat. 383 A ; 428 E sqq.; 435 D; 488 C; 439 A; 440 C; Lersch, i. 30; and Lassalle, Heracl. ii. 394: compare Hippoer.’De Arte, ii. b. i. 7 K: ra uev yap dvduara pibotos vouodernuara eotı. But we cannot draw any inference from this as to Heraclitus’ doctrines: as Steinthal, loe. cit. 90, remarks, Hippocrates continues, Ta de e%Sea ov vouode- Thuara GrAAG BAaoThuara; he knows the doctrine of Ideas, and, with Plato (v. subt. p. 213), attaches greater importance to the know- ledge of concepts than the know- ledge of names. We have no right to derive what he says on the latter from Heraclitus, especially with the Cratylus as a much more ob- vious source for him to draw on. 4 Crat. 412 C sqq. Plato here says that the name of the Ölkaror is thus explained by the supporters of an universal flux in things P2 212 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. tics, Antisthenes had written on names and languages as connected with his dialectical theories." And to say nothing of these predecessors, it was necessary for a philosopher like Plato,''® who distinctly acknowledged the close affinity between speech and thought, to make up his mind as to the significance of language for knowledge. It was of the greatest consequence to the Ideal philosophy to ascertain what worth attached to words, and how far a true imitation of things might be recognised in them. His ultimate conclusion, how- ever, is only this: that Philosophy must go her own way independently of Philology. In the Cratylus!” he shows that language is by no means to be regarded as the product of an arbitrary enactment, of which each man may dispose as he likes: for if there be any truth, and if everything has its determinate essence, those names alone can be true which, corresponding to the nature of things, instruct us with regard to their essence ;''!8 which, in other words, rightly imitate things. This is the problem of speech: to provide us with a picture, not of the external phenomenon, but of the there is asomething which pervades the flux, and emırporeveı Ta AAG adyra Siaiidy; and the name Ala is connected with this. If we inquire what this is, one answer will be, the Sun ; another Fire; a third, not Fire itself, but 7d depudv 7d ev 7a mupl évév: while a fourth, ridi- euling them all, will make the Sixaov equivalent to Anaxagoras’ vous. Cf. Pt. i. 804, 1. Plato seems to have some definite treatise in view which brought all these etymologies together ; for Hermo- genes says, 413 D, palver mo, & Sexpares, TaUTa ev AKmkoeva Tod kat odk abrooxedidleıv, 15 Cf. part i. p. 250, 7. Ne V. supr. p. 158, 17 ; and note 103 of this chapter. "7 Cf. on the interpretation of this dialogue Schleiermacher, Pl. W. ii. 2,1 sqq.; Brandis, ii. A 284 sqq.; Steinhart, Pl. W. ii. 543 sqq.; and specially Deuschle, Die Plat. Sprachphil. (Marb. 1852), who is followed almost throughout by Susemhl, Genet. Entw. 144 sqq. ıs V, 385 E-390 A. LANGUAGE. 213 essence of things ;'!* and this it accomplishes by express- ing the properties of things in sounds, which require cor- responding conditions and movements on the part of the organ of speech.’ On the other hand, however, as Plato remarks, we must not forget that a picture never completely reproduces its subject; and that as in painting, that other art of imitation, there are better and worse artists, so also the makers of words may have committed mistakes which perhaps may run through a whole language.'*! This may explain why particular words are not always logically formed,'” and why, as a whole, they do not represent one and the same view of the world. There are many etymologies, for instance, on which the Heraclitean doctrine of the flux of all things is based ;!*° but against all of them others might be advanced with equal conclusiveness to support the opposite view.!** Accordingly we must allow that ca- price, custom, and common consent have each had a share in language,!** and we must consequently give up seeking in words a knowledge of things.!”® As the first naming presupposes a knowledge of the things named,!”’ we must, like the first word-makers, turn our attention, not to names, but rather to the things themselves,'** and acknowledge the dialectian to be the superior critic, who has to overlook the work of the language-maker, 119 492 C-424 A; 430 A, E. mologies which are accumulated 12° Motion, e.g. by R; smooth- and pushed to the absurdest ness by L; size by A, &e. pp. 424 lengths in 391 D-421 E, and 426 C. A-427 D. 124 436 E-437 D. 1 428 D-433 B; 436 B-D. 125 434 E-435 C. 2 434 C sq. 126 435 D-436 B; 438 C sc. "3 We get a parody of the 127 437 E sqq. Heraclitie style in the purposely 128 439 A sq.; 440 C sq. exaggerated und extravagant ety- 214 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. and decide on the correctness or incorrectness of the names bestowed.!” Dialectic alone is that which go- verns and perfects all other arts: and philological en- quiries only afford another confirmation of this truth. , We have now considered separately the two con- ditions of philosophie activity,—philosophic impulse and philosophic method. It remains to show how, in the union of these, Philosophy as a whole developes itself in man. Plato, after some imperfect and partial hints in the Symposium,!*! gives a full representation of this process in the Republic. The groundwork of all culture and education is here said to be Musie (in the larger sense given to the word by the Greeks) and Gymnastic: a harmonious blending of the two will temper the soul aright, and free it alike from effemi- nacy and rudeness.'*? The chief thing, however, and the only direct preparation for Philosophy is Music. The ultimate aim of all musical education is that chil- dren growing up in a healthy moral atmosphere should get a taste for all that is good and noble, and accustom 129 389 A-390 E. cit. p. 8 sq. : so Classen, loc. cit. p. 130 Deuschle, loc. cit. pp. 8-20, points out all that is strietly gram- matical in Plato, besides these phi- lologieal diseussions: some points are borrewed from his predecessors, others are Plato's own. Among them are the distinction of dvoua and pia (Soph. 259 E; 261 E sqq. : v. supr. note 102; Thext. 206 D; Crat. 399 B; 425 A; 431 B, and passim: cf. Eudemus ap. Simpl. Phys. 21 b. Deuschle points out that the fnua is not merely the verb in the sense of Time, but every denotation of the predicate ; loc. 45 sq.): the concept of erwruula (Parm. 131 A; Pheedo, 103 B, et sepius ); the division of the letters into Vowels, Semivowels, and Mutes (Phileb. 18 B sq. ; Crat. 424 C; ef. Thet. 203 B); Number (Soph. 237 E); Tenses of the Verb (Parm. 151 E-155 D; 141 D, alibi); Ac- tive and Passive (Soph. 219 B; Phil. 26 E). 131 V, supra, 193 sq. 132 Rep. ii. 376 E sqq., and spe- cially iii. 410 B sqq.; ef. Tim. 87 C sqq. PHILOSOPHY AS A WHOLE. 215 themselves to practise it. Musical education must result in love of beauty, which is in its nature pure and undisturbed by sensuous admixture.'* (Here, also, Eros ‚is the beginning of philosophy.) This education, how- ever, is as yet without intelligence (Adyos), a thing of _ mere habit ;!*° its fruit is at first ordinary virtue, guided by Right Opinion ; not philosophie virtue, ruled by scien- tific Knowledge.'*® To attain this, scientific education must be added to musical. But the highest object of science is the Idea of the Good; and the inclination of the spirit to this Idea is its highest problem. The turn- ing towards true existence is in the beginning as painful to the spiritual eye as the vision of full sunlight to one who has lived all his life ina dark cavern. On the other hand, he who is accustomed to the contemplation of Being will at first only grope about uncertainly in the twilight of the world of phenomena, and so for a while appear to those who inhabit it as an ignorant and incapable person. The inference is, not that this turning to perfect truth should be unattempted, but only that it should be accomplished by natural gradations.'*? These stages or steps are formed by all the sciences, which, pointing out the inherence of 8 ty Somep ev tyiew@ té7yw oi- kouvres of véot dard TavTds wPEA@vTaL, Ömddev ty abrois amd tay Kad@y Epywv N mpds dw } mpds axohy Tı mpoaBdary, domwep atipa depovoa ard Xpnorav térwy üryleiav, kal edOds ex madlwy AavOdvy eis öuoısrnrd Te kat giAlay kal Euubwvlav TE Kadr@ Ady Hyouga, ep. iii. 401 C. ™ Rep. 402 Dsqq.; 403 0: de? de wou reAevräv TA uovoına eis TA Tov KaAov Epwrikd. 185 Cf. note 133; Rep. iii. 402 A ; vii. 522 A (musical education is fect madevovoa ... ovK emioThuny mapadıdouca ... udOnua obdey iy Ev avTn). 186 Cf. Symp. 202 A, and supra, p- 175 sq. 187 Rep. vi. 504 E sqq.; vil. 514 A-519 B; cf. Thest. 173 C sq. ; 175 B sq. 216 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. thought even in the sensuous form, at the same time induce consciousness of the inadequacy and contradic- toriness of the sensuous Perception. The mathematical sciences, e.g. (including Mechanics, Astronomy, and Acoustics), are a middle term between the ordinary Perception or Opinion attaching to Sense, and pure sciences, just as their object, according to Plato, stands midway between the Idea and the Phenomenon. They are distinguished from Opinion, as being occupied with the Essence of things, with the common and invariable basis which underlies the plurality of different and con- tradictory perceptions. And they are distinguished from science in the narrower acceptation, as making known the Idea, not purely in itself, but in the objects of Sense; they are therefore still fettered to certain dog- matic premises, instead of dialectically accounting for these, and thus cancelling them in the first prin- ciple of all, itself without presupposition.’% If, how- ever, the mathematical sciences are to be of any real use, they must be treated in some other than the usual manner. Instead of being pursued only for prac- tical ends, and in their application to the corporeal, the transition from Sense to Thought must be upheld as their proper aim; the pure contemplation of num- ber, magnitude, and the like, must be made their main object; in a word, they must be used philoso- phically and not empirically.'® In that case they 188 Rep. vi. 510 B sq.; vii. 523 subt. note 158), 62 A; ef. Tim. 91 A-533 E; and Symp. 210 C sq.; D; Phedo, 100 B sqq. On Plato 211 C. as a mathematician, v. my Pl. St. 189 Rep. vii. 525 Bsqq.; 527 A; 357. 529, 631 B; Phileb. 56 D sq. (v. PHILOSOPHY AS A WHOLE. 217 necessarily lead to Dialectic, which, as the highest and best of sciences, forms the coping stone of all the rest ; which alone comprehends all other sciences, and teaches their right application." In the whole of this exposition, the unity and internal relation of the theoretical and practical, the two consti- tuent parts which together form the essence of Philo- sophy, are set forth with more than usual decision. Elsewhere Philosophy is viewed, now as Eros, now as Dialectic : here it is most positively affirmed, that while mere love of beauty is inadequate without scientific culture, scientific culture is impossible without love of beauty: they are mutually related as different stages of one process. Philosophie love consummates itself in scientific contemplation.! Science, on the other hand, is not a mere concern of the intellect, but is also practical in its nature, occupied not with the ex- ternal accumulation of knowledge, but with the turn- ing of the spiritual eye, and the whole man, to the Ideal.? As they are one in principle,'*? they ulti- We V, notes 72 and 159. 1 V,supra, p. 69 sq. and Symp. 209 E sq.; where the contemplation of the pure Idea is discussed as the completion of the Art of Love. 42 Rep. vii. 518 B: (det 3) juas vouloa) thy madelay odx olay tives erayyerAAduevol paw elvar Toialrnv Kal elvaı. acl de mov obk evovons ev tH Yuxn emorhuns abeis évti- Bévai, olov rupAois dpOarpois dyyır dvrWévres ... 6 de ye viv Adyos... o7n- nalveı, rabrnv thy evovoay éxdaorou Bivauw ev TH WuxH Kal 7d Epyavor, @ xaranavddveı Ekacros, olov ei Supa un Öuvardv iv tAdws N Ev bAw TH ownarı oTpépew mpds Tb gavdy ex Tod akorwdous, otTw tidy dan TH WuXF ek TOU yryvouevou TeEpt- orpemreov elvat, Ews by eis TO Ev Kal too byros TO gavdtatoy BSuvaTh yernta dvarxéerbat dewuern‘ TodTo 3 elval payev tayabdy. The pro- blem is not €umomou auto Tb öpar, GAN’ ws Exovrı méev abrd, our dpOds de Terpauuevo ovde BAemovri ot et, TodTO dtaunxarnoarda. 533 O: 7 diarexrinh ueQvdos udvn Tabry mopeveras tas broleces avaipovca ex’ abthy Thy apxny iva BeBardonrat, kal T@ bvTt ev BopBdp~ Bapßapına Tit TO THS WuxTs duua KaTopwpvy- 218 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. mately coincide in their working and manifestation. In the Symposium,'* the pain of the philosophie new birth is represented as an effect of philosophic love ; here it appears as a consequence of the dialectical as- cent to the Idea. In the Phedrus, philosophic love is described as a wavia; in this place the same is vir- tually said of close attention to Dialectic; Dialectic at first causes unfitness for the affairs of practical life: and it is the very essence of pavia, that to the eye dazzled with the vision of the Ideal finite associations and relations should disappear.’ Prac- tice and theory are thus absolutely conjoined. He alone 6 is capable of philosophic cognition who has early learned the renunciation of things sensuous; con- versely in the Republic (x. 611 D), Philosophy appears as the raising of the whole man out of the ocean of sense, as the scraping off of the shells and weeds that have overgrown the soul; and in the Phedo (64 sq.), as the complete liberation from the dominion of the body—the death of the inner man: thought being set forth as the means of this liberation, since by it we rise above sensible impressions. In Philosophy, then, there is no longer any opposition of theory and prac- tice, and the different kinds of theoretic activity unite into a whole. All the various forms of knowledge —Perception, Opinion, intelligent Reflection—are but uevov Hpéua EAkeı kal Avdyeı &vw, anthropology)is essentially nothing cuveplOos Kal ocuumepiaywyots xpw- but reminiscence of the Idea; and uevn ais SindPouev téxvas. Cf. Eros (cf. supra) is the same. ibid. 514 A sq.; 517 B; Theet. 14 215 E.sqq.; v. Parti. 158. 175 B sq.; Soph. 254 A. 145 Cf. supra, p. 191. 48 Science, according to Plato M6 Cf, Rep. vil. 519 A sq. (as will be shown later on in the PHILOSOPHY AS A WHOLE. 219 stages of philosophic or reasoned Knowledge.” They stand to this last, therefore, in a double relation. On the one hand, they must be transcended if true Know- ledge is to be attained. He who would behold the absolutely real must free himself from the body; he must renounce the senses, 47 Aristotle, De An. i. 2, 404 b. 22, thus gives Plato’s enumeration of the stages of theoretic conscious- ness: (IIAdrwv) voDv uev rd Ev, ém- orhunv dt Ta dVo' povaxds yap eh’ Ev: roy de Tod emimedov Apıdudv (triad) Sdfav, alodnaıv de tov Tod arepeov (four). For further de- tails on the passage, v. chap. 7, note 103, and my Plat. St. 227 sq. So in the dialogues, Percep- tion and Opinion, or Enyisagement, are assigned to the unscientific consciousness, directed towards the phenomenal world (v. supra, p. 70 sq.); and the emiornuaı are noticed (Symp. 210 C; Phil. 66 B; ef. Rep. ix. 585 C) as the next pre- liminary stage of pure thought, or Dialectic: the highest stage is ealled vods (Tim. 51 D), and vovs kal ppdynois (Phil. loc. cit.). In Symp. 210 C, 211 C, it appears as émothun or pdénua; but Plato draws a clear distinction between the one émorhun, directed towards the pure Idea, and the other ém- oräuaı, which are merely prepa- ratory to it. The most exact correspondence with Aristotle's ex- position is found in the Time- us, 37 B: 86fu and alores are there assigned to the Sensuous and Mutable (xloris is used alone, 29 C), while vods and émorhun (aah- Gea, 29 C) belong to the Intelli- gible and Immutable. Rep. vi. 509 D sq.; vii. 533 E sq. is only a partial deviation from this: ém- which draw us away from orhun there stands first (vous or vénoits are equivalents), didvow second, rlorıs third, eikacla fourth. The first two, dealing with the In- visible, are combined under the name of vénois: the two others, dealing with the Visible, under the name of ööfa. Plato himself tells us that emiotnun here is the same as vovs elsewhere (as in Symp. loc. cit. and Pheedo, 247 C). Auavoıa corresponds to the Aristotelian ém- orhum, as is clearly shown by Rep. 533 D; 510 B sqq.; 511 D sq. There is a confusion here between the division elsewhere given of Knowledge based on Opinion and another division, not so important from Plato’s point of view—vide note 14. By didvoi or émorihun Plato means (as Brandis observes) exclusively mathematical science. This is expressly stated, Rep. vi. 510 B sq.; 511 C sq., and is a natural consequence of his doe- trines: mathematical laws are to him (vide subter) the sole me- diating elements between Idea and Phenomenon ; and therefore only a knowledge of these laws can me- diate between Opinion or Envisage- ment and the science of the Idea. In enumerations like the above Plato allows himself considerable laxity, as may be seen from the Philebus, 66 B, besides the places already quoted. The terminology is a matter of indifference. Rep. vil. 538 D. 220 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. pure contemplation, and intervene darkling between the spirit and truth; #% he must turn his eyes away from shadows and direct them to true Being,'*® must rise from the irrational Envisagement to Reason: °° he must remember that eyes and ears were given us, not that we might revel in sensuous sights and sounds, but to lead us, through the perception of the heavenly mo- tions and of audible harmony, to order and harmony in the soul’s movements.'*!_ We must not stop short at conditioned, mathematical thought, which makes use of certain presuppositions, but does not analyse them.!?? But, on the other hand, the sensuous Phenomenon is at any rate a copy of the Idea, and thus serves to awaken in us the recollection of the Idea: °? Right Opinion is only distinguished from Knowledge by the want of dia- lectic establishment.’ The mathematical sciences, too, are, in Plato’s view, the most direct and indispen- sable preliminaries of Dialectic ; for they represent in sensible form the concepts which the philosopher con- templated in their purity.’ It is therefore one and the same matter with which the different intellec- tual activities have to do, only that this matter is not apprehended by all as equally perfect and unal- loyed. That which is true in the sensuous Perception, in Opinion and in reflective Thought, is included in 48 Phado, 65 A-67 B; 67 D; A; Phedo, 75 A sq. Rep. vii. 532 A. 14 V, supra, 174. On account of 49 Rep. vii. 514 sq. this connection, Right Opinion is 150 Tim. 28 A; 61 D sq.; cf. actually set by the side of Know- supra, 174. ledge and commended: e.g. Theet. 1 Tim. 47 A sq. 202 D; Phileb. 66 B; Rep. ix. 152 Rep. vi. 510 B sq.; vil. 533 585 C; Laws, x. 896. C; ef. note 72, p. 215 sq. 155 Of, p. 215 sq. 153 Phaedr.250 D sq.; Symp. 210 PHILOSOPHY AS A WHOLE. 221 Philosophy as pure thought: the Idea is there grasped whole and entire, its confused and partial appropriation having already given to the lower forms of knowledge an import, and a relative share in truth.” Philosophy is consequently not one science among others, but Science absolutely, the only adequate manner of know- ing; and all the particular sciences *” must fall under this, so soon as they are rightly treated. They thus belong to the propzdeutic of Philosophy,'’® and find in Dialectic their end; and they are worthless in propor- tion and as long as they are withheld from the use of the dialectician.’° Nay, even the handicraft arts—con- 86 As will be proved in the fol- lowing sections. 157 Confined, however, in Plato, as we have seen, to the mathema- tical branches. ‘58 Rep. vii. 525 B: the guar- dians are to be admonished, er} Ao- yorikhy levar kal avdamreodaı adTis py ldiwrır®s, GAN’ Ews bv em) Peay rs av apibuav picews aplkovra TH vohoe: avy they are (525 D) no longer öpar& }) arra owuara Exovras apiOuors mporelverda, but Tb ey Toov te Exactov wav mayrl Kat ovde ouiKpdy diapepov, udpidy TE Exov Ev éaurg ovdév. Astronomy rightly studied is to use the course of the stars (529 C sq.) only as an example trav GAnbivav, &s Tb by Taxos Kal 7 oboa Bpadurns ev Ta GAnbia Kal maior Tots AaAmdEnı TXTmact popds re mpds LAANAG Hepe- Tat Kal Ta evdvta peper. Phileb. 56 D: of utv yap mov povddas avloous KarapiOpnotvTat tTav mepl GpiOudr, olov orpardmeda Sto Ka Bois dio kal 300 7a auıkpdrara A) Kal ra mar- Tov ueyıora‘ of 8 ovK by more abrois wuvaroAoußnoear, ei ph novdda wovddos Exdorns Tay uuplov umdeulav YAAnY BAANS dladepovodv wis 8hoe—and the mathematical sciences thus treated are ai mep) Thy av bvrws pirAocopotyTaY Spuhy. Ibid. 57 C. For further details, v. supra. 189 Rep. vii. 534 E: äp’ oby done? gol &omep Oprykds (coping stone) Tos nahnuarıy SiadreKtTikh Hiv érdyw keiodaı, K.T.A. Ibid. 531 C: oluaı de y’ jy 8 eye, Kal 7 Tobrwv mavrwy ov dıeAnAldauev uebod0s cay Mev em Thy GAANAwY Kowwviay apl- Knta Kal Luyyeveıav, Kal EvAAo- yO} TavTa, 7) eorw GAAHAdLS oikeia, pepe Tt abta@y eis & BovAdueda Thy mpayuarelav kal ovx dvovnra movei- Oat, ei de wh avdvnra. Cf. note 75. Ribbing’s idea that Plato here ‘identifies’ mathematies with Dia- lectie, is, I think, sufficiently dis- proved by foregoing remarks. Ma- thematies with him are only a preliminary to Dialectic, not Dia- lectic itself: they have to do with similar subjects—number, magni- tude, motion, &e.—but are differen- tiated by the method of procedure. 222 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. temptuously as the Republic repudiates them,'® and however little worth Plato in reality allowed to them— even they, by virtue of their relative share in truth else- where conceded, belong likewise to the first stages of Philosophy.!*! Philosophy is therefore, in a word, the focus which unites all the scattered rays of truth in human opinion and action; !® it is the absolute consummation of the spiritual life generally, the royal art sought in the Euthydemus !% by Socrates, in which making or produc- ing, and knowledge of the use of that which is made, coincide. Plato is, however, quite aware that Philosophy is never fully and perfectly represented in actuality. As early as the Phadrus we find him desiring that no man shall be called wise, but only at most a lover of wisdom, for God alone is wise.!° So in the Parmenides (134 ©) he declares that God alone has perfect knowledge: and on that ground he claims for men, in a celebrated passage of the Theetetus (176B), not divinity, but only the greatest possible likeness to God Still less does it appear to him conceivable that the soul in this earthly life, among the incessantly disturbing influ- ences of the body, should attain the pure intuition of truth : 165 even the endeavour for wisdom or the philo- sophie impulse, he derives not merely from the inclina- 169 Vij, 522 B; vi. 495 D. mans. 161 Symp. 209 A; Phileb. 55 C 168 289.35. 291 B. sqq.: ef. Ritter, Gesch. d. Phil. ii. 164 278 D: cf. Symp. 203 E: 237. Ocay ovdels dıAoroper od’ Eriduuel 16 Of, Rep. v. 473 B: roy pidd- copds yerkadar Eorı ydp, copov aoplas phoouey emibuunrhy 16 Phedo, 66 B sqq. elvat ov ris pev THs 8 ov, GAA PHILOSOPHY AS A WHOLE. 223 tion of man towards wisdom, but also from the feeling of ignorance: '’ and he confesses that the highest object of knowledge, the Good or God, is only to be arrived at with difficulty, and only to be beheld at spe- cially favourable moments.! Yet it by no means fol- lows from this that what he himself calls Philosophy is to him but an impracticable ideal—that he gives to the Divine science alone that high significance and un- bounded range, and regards human science, on the con- trary, as a manner of mental life, side by side with other activities equally good and useful. It is assur- edly human science developing itself, by a long series of means, out of the philosophic impulse, to which in the Symposium and Republic he assigns so lofty a place; for the engendering of which he gives detailed directions ; on which he grounds the whole organism of his state ; without which, as a ruling power, he sees no period to human misery. The philosophic sobriety and moderation of our own times, thankful for any crumbs that may be left for thought—was unknown to Plato. To him Philosophy is the totality of all mental activi- ties in their completed development, the only adequate realization of reasonable human nature, the queen whom all other realms must serve, and of whom alone they hold in fief their allotted share of truth. Whether or not this view is well founded, whether Plato con- ceives the idea of Philosophy with sufficient clearness, whether he does not over-estimate the compass of human intellectual powers, or rightly determines the 16 V, supra, pp. 192, 193. 197 Rep. vi. 506 E; vii. 517 B; Tim. 28 C; Phadr. 248 A. 224 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. relation of spiritual activities and the limits of the dif- ferent spheres of life—this is not the place to enquire. For the further development of the Platonic system, we distinguish, in accordance with the foregoing ob- servations—Dialectic, or the doctrine of the Idea— Physics, or the doctrine of the Phenomenon of the Idea in nature— Ethics, or the doctrine of its representation in human action. The question as to the relation of the Platonic Philosophy to Religion and Art will after- wards be supplementarily considered. - that Non-being cannot be thought DIALECTIC, OR THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS. 225 CHAPTER VI. DIALECTIC, OR THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS. Accorpine to Plato, the specific and primary subject- matter of Philosophy consists, as already shown, in Ideas ; for they alone contain true Being, the Essence of things. The enquiry into Ideas, which is Dialectic in the narrower sense, must therefore come first in the construction of his system: on that foundation only can a philosophic view of nature and of human life be built up. This enquiry is threefold® (1) Concerning the derivation of Ideas; (2) their Universal Concept ; and (3) their expansion into an organised Plurality, a World of Ideas. I. The Establishment of the Doctrine of Ideas.— The theory of Ideas is primarily connected with the Socratie-Platonie theory of the nature of Knowledge. Concepts alone guarantee true Knowledge. But in the same proportion that truth. belongs to our opinions (for Plato, like other philosophers, starts with this assumption '), reality must belong to their object, and ‘ Parmenides had already said impossible (ib. 905, 3, 4). Simi- larly the so-called Hippocr. De Arte, e. ii. b. i. 7 Kühn: ra uev edvra Gel Öparal Te kal Yırwakeran, or expressed ; that only Being could be thought (see vol. i. 470, 1). a This tenet was frequently taken advantage of by the Sophists, in order to prove that false opinion is Ta de uh edvta otre Öparaı alte yweoKerat, 226 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. That which may be known is, that which cannot be known is not. In the same measure that a thing exists, it is also knowable. Absolute Being is therefore absolutely knowable; absolute Non-being, absolutely unknowable ;? that which, uniting in itself Being and Non-being, lies in the midst between the ab- solutely real and the absolutely unreal,—must have a kind of knowledge corresponding to it, intermediate between Knowledge and Ignorance; it is not the pro- vince of Knowledge but of Opinion.’ As certainly, therefore, as Knowledge is something other than Opi- nion,? so must also the object of Knowledge be other than that of Opinion: the former is an unconditioned reality; the latter a something to which Being and Non-being equally belong. If Opinion refers to the Material, our congepts can only refer to that which vice versa. is Immaterial; and to this existence be attributed.? 2 We shall find this later on in the case of matter. 3 Rep. v. 476 E sq.; vi. 511 E. Cf. supra, p. 175 sq. Plato clearly expresses his agreement with the fundamental position that it is impossible to conceive Non-being (loc. cit. 478 B: Gp’ ody 7d un dv BokdCe; 7) adtvarov Kal dofdoa Tb un bv; Evvder der odx & dofdlwv em) Tl éper thy Sdtav; N oldv re ad dotdfew ev, SokdCew de undev; &e. Similarly Thezt. 188 D sqq. (ef. Parm. 132 B, 142 A, 164 A), and his attack on the sophistical con- elusion just mentioned is not di- rected against the major proposi- tion: he, allows that there can be no notion of Non-being, but denies that error is the notion alone cana full and true Plato thus expressly de- of Non-being as such. He refers error to the notion of relative Non-being or Other-being—to the confusion and incorrect association of notions. Theet. 189 B sq.; Soph. 261 A sq.: further details subter. * Cf. note 147, and p. 170 sqq. 5 Rep. v. 477 B: ap’ obv Aéyouev vt Sdtay elvar; Mas yap od; mörepov BAAnY Sivan emiornuns N Thy ad- Thy; "AAAnv. ’Em &AAw ipa rerax- rat Sdfa Kal em’ BAAW emioThun, Kara Thy Any Ölbvauıv Ekarepa THY airhs. Obrw. ovKody emothun wer en) TE Övrı wépuKe yvavar ws Eor: rd ov; opinion, on the other hand (478 D), belongs to something which being at the same time ex- istent and non-existent, is between DOCTRINE OF IDEAS. ITS ESTABLISHMENT. 227 signates the distinction between Knowledge and Right Opinion, as the point on which our decision concern- ing the reality of Ideas depends. If they are iden- tical, we can only assume the existence of the Cor- poreal; but if they are different, we must ascribe to Ideas, which are underived, unchangeable and im- perishable,—apprehended not by the senses but by reason alone,—an absolute and independent existence.® The reality of Ideas seems to him the direct ‘and in- evitable consequence of the Socratic philosophy of Concepts. Knowledge can only be employed on true existence, on the colourless, shapeless, immaterial Essence which the spirit alone beholds.’ If there is any Knowledge at all, there must also be a fixed and invari- able object of Knowledge,—an object that exists not only for us and by reason of us, but in and for itself. Only the invariable can be known. We can attribute no qua- lity to that which is conceived as constantly changing.® the ciAicpivas öv and the mavrws un by. 6 Tim. 51 B: the question is: ap’ tori tt wip adtd ed’ éavtod kal mayra wept ay A€youey ovTws aiTa Kal aita bvta €kasta, A) Taura ünep BAérouer, &e. ova dor! To- alrnv &xovra adAnbeav, BAAa dE odK &rtı rapa Tavra oddau7 ovdauas, GAAA udrnv Exdorore elval TI papyev eldos Ekdorov vonrdv, 7d de oVdev Kp’ Av mAhv Adyos: this question is not - to be discussed more fully in this place; el de tis bpos Öpıadels ueyas da Bpaxewv paveln, ToT uaAıor' Oykampısrarov Yevom' ty, ade oby Thy ¥ euhv adtds Tidenat Wipov" ei pty voids Kal Séta aAnbhs darov dbo yévn, mavrdranıv elraı Kad’ abrd Taira, avalcOnta bp juay elön, voobueva uövov‘ ed, &s Tist gai- verat, dda GANOHS vod Siapéper Td undev, wav0’ érdo’ ad dia TOD oda- Tos alodavdueda, Bereov BeBadrara. ÖVo de Aexréov exeivw (here follows what was quoted, p. 495). Tovtwr 5 obrws exdvtwy Suodroynréoy ty Mev elvar Td Kara Taira eldos &xov, ayévyntov Kal avddAcOpov, ob're eis Eaurd' eladexduevov YAO UAAuder odre aurd eis HAAO Tat idy, adpator de Kal 4AAwY avaicOnzov, ToITO d 5% vénots ElAMXEev Emiokomeiv' Tb 3° duovupoy Öuoıdv Te exelyw deurepov, aiadntbv, yevyntoy, mebopnuevov aet yıyvönevöv re Ev tit Tbm@ nal mdAıv eneidev AmoAAUuevov, 56k ner’ ai- odhrews mepıAnnTöv. 7 Pheedr. 247 C. ® Crat. 386 D; 439 C sq. ; Soph. a2 228 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. Therefore to deny the reality of Ideas is altogether to annihilate the possibility of scientifie enquiry.’ What is here derived from the idea of Knowledge, Plato also educes from the contemplation of Being; and, as the doctrine of Ideas is, on the one side, a result of the Socratic philosophy, on the other, it follows from the teaching of Heraclitus and the Eleaties. As Ideas are to Opinion in the region of Knowledge, so is true Exist- ence to Phenomena,—the Immaterial to the Material— in the region of Being. The Sensible, then, is a some- thing Becoming, but the end of Becoming is Being.!® The Sensible is many and divided; but these many things become what they are, only by reason of that which is common to them all; and this common ele- ment must be distinct from the particulars, nor can any notion of it be abstracted from individuals, for these never show us that common quality itself, but only an imperfect copy." No individual presents its essence purely, but each possesses its own qualities in combina- tion with their opposites. The manifold just is also unjust,—the manifold beautiful, ugly ; and so on. This totality is therefore to be regarded as a middle-term between Being and Non-being: pure and full reality 249 B sq.; Phileb. 58 A. Cf. also the remarks, p. 174, on the muta- bility of Right Opinion and the im mutability of Knowledge, and vol. i. 602, on the consequences of the doctrine of the flux of all things which are drawn out in the Cra- tylus. ® Parmen. 135 B sq. 1 Phil. 54 B: gnu 89 yevérews bev €vexa ddpuand te Kal marra bpyava Kal maray UAnv mwapatlbecOat maicw, Eexdornv dt yéeverw BAAnY %AAns obelas twds Exdorns Eveka ylyveodaı, £bumasav de yeveow ovolas Evera Ylyveodaı Euumdens. The doctrine of Flux and the par- tial non-existence of the sensible will be discussed at greater lengthin the beginning of the next chapter. 1 Parm. 182 A; Pheedo, 74 A sqq. DOCTRINE OF IDEAS. ITS ESTABLISHMENT, 229 can only be conceded to the one absolute self-identical beauty or justice, exalted above all opposition and re- strietion.” We must distinguish between that which ever is and never becomes (Tim. 27 D) and that which is ever in process of Becoming and never arrives at Being. The one, remaining always self-identical, can be apprehended by rational Thought ;—the other, arising and passing away, without ever really being, can only be the subject of Opinion and Perception without Reason : the former is the prototype, the latter the copy. The contemplation of Nature leads us to these proto- types; for the world is perfect and beautiful, simply because it is fashioned after an eternal and unchange- able pattern.” Things can only be understood by us in relation to their ultimate aim; their true causes are those by means of which they become good and fair ; and this they are, because they participate in beauty and goodness itself, in absolute Existence." Our moral life, too, presupposes moral prototypes, the perception | of which must guide us, so that our actions may tend towards right ends.!? There is, in short, nothing in the | 2 Rep. v. 479 A sq.; vii. 524 C; Pheedo, loc. cit.78 D sq.; 103 B. 18 Tim. 28 A-29 A; 30 C. M Of. the passages of the Pheedo _ and Timzeus (viz. 46 C sq.; 68 E and 100 B-E respectively) to be noticed later on. » Phiedo, 247 D; 250 B sq., in his sketch of the world of Ideas, Plato expressly particularises the aith Sixaocivn, swppoctyn, ém- orhun, together with the Idea of beauty ; Thest. 176 E, he speaks of the wapabdelyuata dv re dvri toTa@ra, Tov wey Oeiou ebdauuovertd- Tov, Tov de adeov dhAıwrdrov: Parm. 130 B; Phiedo, 65 D; Rep. v. 476 A, of the Idea of the ölkaıov, kaAdr, ayabby, &c.; and the highest of all ldeas to Plato is, as we shall find, that of the Good. Still (as Rib- bing remarks, Pl. Ideenl. i. 316 sq.) we cannot conclude that the practical Ideas alone or at any rate in preference to the others, formed the starting point of the doctrine of Ideas. In the Parmenides (loc. cit.) and Phedo (78 D; 101 A sqq.), together with or even before the Idea of justice, those of simi- 230 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. world which does not point us to the Idea; nothing which has not in the Idea the cause of its existence, and of such perfection as belongs to it. The dialectical exposition of this necessity of the theory of Ideas is attempted in the Sophist, and more fully in the Par- menides. The first proves, as against the doctrine of an original plurality of Being, from the concept of Being itself, that the All, in so far as Being belongs to it,is also One; '® as against Materialism, from the facts larity, equality, unity, plurality, duality, greatness, &c., are men- tioned, and from the passages quoted in the preceding note we see how great was the influence of Plato’s teleology on the formation of the theory of Ideas. It was not merely on the basis of a definite kind of hypostasized concepts that this doctrine arose, but from the universal conviction that in all ex- istence and becoming the thought given by its concept was the only true reality. 16 243 D, Plato asks those who suppose two original existences (the warm and the cold and the like): tf more &pa TovT’ em’ auoiv obéyyerbe, A€yovtes Audw kal éxdrepoy elvat; TI Td elyar TovTo bmoAgBwuev tu@v; mdtepoy Tpirov mapa Ta So exeiva, kal Tpla Td mar, GAAG wh) BVO Erı KAP ünas Tıdwuer ; (That this is not so is not ex- pressly proved, nor had Plato any need of proof, because the triplicity of existence directly contradicts its supposed duality, and the existent as such is only one, although it is a third together with the two ele- ments.) ob ydp mov rolv Ye dvoir kaAouvres Odrepov oy (calling only the one of them an existing thing, as Parmenides and the Atomists ; ef. Pt. i. 479 sq.; 687 sqq.) aupdrepa duolws elvam Aeyere' axeddv uev yap auooTtépws (i.e. whether we call only the one or only the other an existing thing) €v, aAA’ od dvo eirnv. ’AAnOn A€yets. 7AAA’ Epa Ta dudw Bovreode Kadeiy by; “Iows. AAN, & iro, pjoouer, kay otTw Ta dvo Aecyoır' by vaberrara Ev. "Opddrara eipnkas. By this explanation the above view seems to me to be per- fectly justified. It might indeed be objected (Bonitz, Plat. Stud. il. 51) that the possibility men- tioned by Plato in the above pas- sage—that existence itself is sepa- rate from the two elemeuts—is overlooked. This supposition, it is true, is not expressly contradicted by Plato, apparently from the reasons indicated above; but his design in mentioning it can only be to show the untenability of the assertion of an original duality of existence in any sense that could possibly be assigned to it. In the case before us, this is done by showing the contradiction such an assumption involves (viz. the necessity of three existents instead of the presup- posed two). The same argument would apply with equal force DOCTRINE OF IDEAS. ITS ESTABLISHMENT. 231 of moral and mental conditions, that there must be some otber Being than that of Sense.!7 The Parmenides takes up the question more generally and from a logical point of view (Parm. 137), developing both hypo- theses, —‘ the One is’ and ‘the One is not ’—in their consequences. From the Being of the One, contradic- tions arise conditionally; from the Non-being of the One, absolutely. It is thus proved that without the One Being, neither the thought of the One, nor the Being of the Many, would be possible: however inadequate may be the Eleatic view of the One Being, and however necessary it may be to rise from this abstract Unity excluding Plurality, to the comprehensive Unity of the Idea. The proper connection of the Platonic doctrine, however, is more clearly marked in other ex- positions. The theory of Ideas, then, is grounded on these two main points of view, that, to its author, neither true Knowledge nor true Being seems possible without the Reality of Ideas. These points of view overlap, and are mingled in Plato’s expositions; for the reason why Knowledge is impossible without Ideas is this: that against the assumption of three, four, or any additional quantity whatsoever, of original elements: and we have really an indirect assertion here of what has been directly stated in the two other cases, that the originally existent, qua existent, can only be one. 7 246 E sq.; cf. Theat. 155 E, where those who would allow nothing to be real, 4) ob &v övvwvrau ample Toiv xepoiv Aaßeadaı, mpdkeıs dt nal yerdaeıs Kal wav Tb dopator ober Amodexöuevor ws Ev obalas uepeı, are treated with unqualified con- tempt. '8 This view of the Parmenides, which I first propounded in my Plat. Stud. 159 sqq. and defended in the first edition of the present work, part i. p. 346 sqq., I cannot substantiate with greater detail in this place; besides the disserta- tions mentioned above, ef. Susemihl Genet. Entw. i. 341 sqq.; Ribbing, loc. cit. 221 sqq. — 232 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. sensible existence wants permanence and self-consis- tency, without which Knowledge is unthinkable. And that the material phenomenon has no true Being is proved by the impossibility of knowing it ideally. The same conclusion is reached by the Platonic proofs of the theory as represented by Aristotle in his work on Ideas,!” so far as we are acquainted with that work.” The first of these, the Aoyoı &x T@v éricTnuar, coincides with the proof above developed— that all Knowledge refers to the permanent, self-identical Ideas. The second, to &v émi moAA@r, is based on the proposition that the Universal which is in all particulars of the same Genus, must itself be distinct from these. ‘The third (To vosiv rı P8apévtwy), which is closely connected with the second, proves the independent existence of Ideas, by the argument that the universal concept re- mains in the soul even if the phenomenon be destroyed. Two other proofs, adduced by Alexander,—that things to which the same predicates belong, must be copied from the same archetype, and that things which are like one another can only be so by reason of participa- tion in one Universal,—concur with those already quoted from Parm. 132 and Phedo 74. The doctrine of Ideas therefore is ultimately based upon the con- viction that Reality belongs not to the Phenomenon with its self-contradictory divisions and variability, but to the Essence of things in its unity and iden- tity; not to the sensibly perceived but to the logically thought. 1 Of, my Plat. Stud. p. 232 sq., 20 From Arist. Metaph. i, 9, and Schwegler and Bonitz ad loc. 990 b. 8 sqq. 22, and Alex. ad Arist. locum, DOCTRINE OF IDEAS. ITS DERIVATION. 233 The theory being thus derived, we can also see how the hypothesis of Ideas connects itself with Plato’s his- torical position. Besides his relation to Socrates, Aris- totle refers us to the influence of the Heraclitean philosophy, and also to that of the Pythagoreans and Eleaties. ‘These systems,’ he says,?! ‘were followed by the enquiries of Plato, which indeed on most points were allied with the Pythagoreans, but in some par- ticulars diverged from the Italian philosophy. From his youth he agreed with Cratylus and the Heracli- teans, that all things sensible are in continual flux, - and that no knowledge of them is possible; and he remained true to that doctrine. At the same time, however, he embraced the Socratic philosophy, which occupied itself with Ethical investigations to the exclu- sion of natural science, yet in these sought out the universal and applied itself primarily to determination of concepts; and so Plato came to the conclusion that/ this procedure must refer to something different from Sense, for sensible things cannot be universally defined, being always liable to change. These classes of ex- istence, then, he called Ideas ; concerning sensible things, he maintained that they subsist side by side with Ideas, and are named after them, for the Manifold which bears like name with the Ideas is such by virtue of par- ticipation in the Ideas. This last definition is only a dif- ferent expression of the Pythagorean tenet, that things are the copies of numbers.’ * Moreover,’ continues Aris- totle at the conclusion of the chapter, ‘he assigns re- spectively to his two elements,—to the One and to 2! Metaph. i. 6, beginn. Cf. xiii. 9; 1086 a, 35 sqq. 234 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. Matter,—the causes of good and evil; in which he was anticipated by some of the earlier philosophers, as Empedocles and Anaxagoras.’ This passage sums up nearly all the elements from which the Platonic theory of Ideas was historically developed ; the Eleaties and Megarians might, however, have been more expressly mentioned. The Socratic demand for conceptual know- ledge unmistakably forms the starting point of the theory ; but Plato, by the utilization of all that the earlier philosophy offered, and in the direction which it traced out for him, enlarged this ground ; his greatness, indeed, consists in his having been able to draw forth . the result of the whole previous development, and shape from the given elements an entfrely new crea- tion. Socrates had declared that all true knowledge must rest upon right concepts: he had recognised in this conceptual knowledge the rule of all action ; he had shown that Nature herself could only be explained by the concept of an End. Plato follows him in these con- vietions, and combines with them what earlier philoso- phers—Parmenides and Heraclitus, Empedocles and Democritus—had taught on the uncertainty of the senses, and on the difference of rational Cognition from Opinion ?—together with Anaxagoras’ doctrines of the world-forming mind, and the intelligent dis- position of all things.” With those older philo- 22 See above, p. 170 sqq., with attached to this doctrine, and what which compare vol. i. p. 476 sq.; conclusions he drew from it, and at 583 sq.; 651; 741 sq. the same time how he regretted *8 Plato himself, Phaedo, 97 B the absence of its further develop- sq. (vide vol. i. 811); Phileb. 28C, ment in Anaxagoras. sqq., tells us what importance he CONCEPT OF IDEAS. 235 sophers, their view of knowledge was only a consequence of their metaphysics; Plato, on the contrary, reduces Socrates’ principles on scientific method to the meta- physical ideas they presuppose. He asks, How is the Real to be conceived by us, if only reasoning thought assures a true cognition of the Real? To this ques- tion Parmenides had already replied ; The one eternal invariable Essence can alone be regarded as the Real. And a similar answer was given by Plato’s fellow- disciple Euclides, who may possibly have anticipated Plato in the formation of his system.** Plato was drawn to such a view by several influences. In the first place, it seemed to him a direct result of the Socratic theory of conceptual knowledge that something real should correspond to our concepts, and that this should excel all else in reality as far as science excels all other ways of knowing in truth.” Similarly it became clear that the object of our thought must not be sought in the pheno- menon.” This, however, ensued still more definitely from the Heraclitean doctrines of the flux of all things ; for the permanent element, to which our ideas relate, could not lie in the sphere of unconditional change.” The Eleatie arguments against Plurality and Mutation were at any rate so far acknowledged by Plato that he excluded from true Being that unregulated movement and unlimited Multiplicity—not comprehended in the unity of the Idea, not co-articulated according to fixed differences of kind— which the world of Sense appeared 26 228. 2 Vide Part i. p. 218 sq. *6 Ibid. p. 2 * Vide supra, p. 225 sq. 2° Ibid. p. 2 236 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. to him to offer.® And Parmenides, having already, on these grounds, denied to Being all sensible pro- perties, and the Pythagoreans having, in their num- bers, declared that which is not palpable to the senses . to be the. Essence of things *’—Plato may have been all the more inclined to maintain the same of the Im- material which forms the subject-matter of our con- cepts. Nor, lastly, must we estimate too lightly the influence of that esthetic view of the world which was always uppermost in Plato’s artistic spirit. As the Greek everywhere loves clear limitation, firmly out- lined forms, definiteness, visibility, as in his mythology he places before us the whole contents of moral and natural life embodied in plastic shapes,—so does Plato feel the necessity of translating the matter of his thought out of the abstract form of the concept It does not satisfy him that our reason should distinguish the quali- fying realities embodied in things,—that we should separate them from the connection in which we per- ceive them; they must also exist in themselves apart into the concrete form of an ideal vision. from this inter-connection; they must condense into independent essences, concepts must become Ideas. The doetrine of Ideas thus appears as a truly Greek creation, 28 Vide loc. cit. and note 92. Further details will be given in the paragraph on Matter. reans, goes too far. Asclepius (ad loc. Metaph.) corrects Aristotle, but is also mistaken in his asser- #9 We shall find an opportunity later on to return to the importance attached by Plato to the Pytha- gorean doctrines of numbers, Aris- totle’s statement, Metaph. i. 6 beginn. that Plato had in most points adhered to the Pythago- tion that ‘he ought to have said in all points, for Plato was a tho- rough Pythagorean.” The same statement was frequently made in the Neo-Pythagorean and Neo- Platonic schools, CONCEPT OF IDEAS. 237 and, more particularly, as a fruit of that union be- tween the Socratic and pre-Socratic philosophy, which was accomplished in Plato’s comprehensive mind. The Ideas are the Socratic concepts, elevated from rules of knowledge into metaphysical principles, and applied to the speculations of natural philosophy concerning the essence and grounds of Existence.?’ II. The Concept of Ideas.—If, then, we would be clear as to the general concept and nature of Ideas, it primarily follows from the preceding discussion that they are that which, as unconditioned Reality, - is unaffected by the change and partial non-being of the phenomenon, and, as uniform and self-identical. is untouched by the multiplicity and contradictions of con- crete existence.*! 80 Further particulars on the relation of the doctrine of Ideas to earlier philosophie theories will be given presently. Schleiermacher, Gesch. d. Phil. 104, combats the above-mentioned Aristotelian ex- lanation, and wishes to refer the deas to a combination between Heraclitus and Anaxagoras—to a remodelling of the doctrine of homeomeries. This theory is en- tirely without historical justifiea- tion. Herbert, more correctly (in his treatise, which will still repay oe, De Plat. systematis fun- mento, Werko, xii. 63 sq.), sees in the doctrine of Ideas a combina- tion of Eleatie and Heraclitean ‘ elements, but leaves entirely out of account the main point, viz. the Soeratie conceptual philoso- phy. The formula in which he sums up the gist of his view: Divide Heracliti yéveow ovale Plato takes for this permanent and Parmenidis: habebis ideas Platonis (for which—in spite of Ueberweg, Unters. plat. Schr. 40—we could just as well say conversely: divide obaiav Parmenidis, &c.),is better adapted to the Atomistie doctrine than to that of Ideas: vide vol. i. 687 sqq. “ ” In the first reference Plato calls the Ideas ovela (Phaedr. 247 C; Crat. 386 D; Phaedo, 78 D; Parm. 135 A); adios obela (Tim. 37 E); del dy (ibid. 27 D); övrws by, dyrws övra (Phadr. 247 C, E; Rep. x. 597 D); mavreA@s dv (Soph. 248 E; Rep. v. 477 A); Kara raur& dv, doaitws by, del Kara Tabra exov bruvnrws (Tim. 35 A ; 38A; Pheedo, 78 D; ef. Soph. 248 B); the adjec- tive avrds or abrd d Zor (Pheedr. 247 D; Theet. 175 C; Crat. 389 D; Soph. 225 C; Parm. 130 B; 133 D; 134 D; Pheedo, 65 D sq. ; 78 D; 100 C; Phileb. 62 A; Rep. vi. —— 238 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. self-identical element (as the name of Ideas shows **) the Universal or Genus — that which by us in general concepts. is conceived This alone it is which as early as the Thestetus appears as the Essence of things and the sole object of science; ® with the 507.B; 493 E; Tim. 51 B; is an equivalent term; ef. Arist. Me- taph. iii. 2; 997 b. 8; vii. 16, 1040 b. 32; Eth. Nich. i. 4; 1096 b. 34. Other passages may be found Ind. Aristot. 124 b. 52 sqq. Parm. 132 C the Ideas are de- signated as &v; in Phileb. 15 A sq. as Evddes or movddes. % eldos and idea (for which kopph is used Phaedo, 103 E; 104 D; Phileb. 12 C) signify in Plato generally any form or shape, espe- cially, however, species or genus (for as yet these were not distin- guished, vide note 94), and from a subjective point of view the Idea or general concept; e.g. Euthy- phro, 6 D; Gorg. 454 E; Theet. 148 D; Meno, 72 C; Phaedr. 249 B; 265 D; Soph. 253 D; Parm. 129 C; 133 A-D; Symp. 205 B; 210 B; Rep. v. 454 A; vi. 507 B; viii. 544@D; Phileb. 15 D; 23 D; 32 C; cf. Ast, Lex. Plat.; Brandis, gr. rom. Phil. ii. 221 sqq. Ac- cording to Aristotle, Metaph. i. 6 (supra, p. 233), Plato seems to have established this usage. Both ancients and moderns have in vain tried to discover any distine- tion in the signification of the two expressions. Seneca e.g. has the assertion, of course not original, that idea is the exemplar, eldos the forma ab exemplari sumta —the archetype and the copy re- spectively. Further development of this is found in the Neo-Platonist Johannes Diaconus, Alleg. in Hes. Theog. 452 Ox., who was indebted to Proclus for his knowledge. He says that i3éa with a simple ¢ sig- nifies the purely simple, the auroer, the abroduas, &e., eldos with a diph- thong 7a obvbera ex Wuxijs Te Kal cduaros N wopbns (add kal vAns). These are, of course, mere fictions. I cannot agree with Richter (De Id. Plat. 28 sq.) and Schleierma- cher (Gesch. d. Phil. 104), who would make elöos signify the con- cept of a species, idea the arche- type ; nor with the view of Deu- schle (Plat. Sprachphil. 73), and Susemihl (Genet. Entw. 122), that in eldos we are to understand the subjective concept, in idéa the ob- jective fundamental form (Stein- hart inverts this order, but acknow- ledges both the expressions to be essentially the same). A compa- rison of the above and other pas- sages proves that Plato makes no distinetion at all between the two, as regards their scientific mean- ing; cf. eg. Parm. 132 A sq.; 135 B. 33 Thext. 185 B, after several concepts have been mentioned: Taira by mdvra bia Tivos wept abroiv diavoe?; obre yap SV axons odre di dWews oidy TE Td Kowdy AauBavew wept avtav., Ibid. C: 7 de da rivos duvanıs TOT’ emi mäcı Kowdy Kal Td émt rovrois SnAot gor; 186 D (with reference to this passage): ev wey tipa trois maßhuacıv (sensible im- pressions) odk &vı émiorhun, ev dt TE mepl exeivwy avAAnyıouß' ovolas CONCEPT OF IDEAS. 239 search for which, according to the Phadrus, all Know- ledge begins;®* which the Parmenides describes as alone true Being;* to say nothing of the above- quoted distinct and reiterated declarations. Plato,*® therefore, expressly defines the Idea as that which is common to the Many of like name; Aristotle similarly defines it *7 as the &v él moAAw@v, and on this founds his objection that it is a contradiction to assume the Universal as Substance and, in so far, as a parti- eular.?® yap kal aAndelas, Evrauda uev, ws foe, duvarov Garba, exe? de Adlvarov. s Phedr. 265 D (vide p. 199, where further proofs areadduced) ; ibid. 249 B. % E.g. 132 C, where the eldos is designated as the &v d ém räcı rd vonua émdy voei, ulav Tıva oboav ldeav, tho ev del dv Tb aurd em) mäacıy. 135 A: as ort yévos Tt éxdorou kal obela abth Kad’ airhy. Cf. Rep. vi. 507 B: moAAd Koda... Kal moAA& &yabd kal Exacta obrws elval dauer Te Kal dtopllouev TE Adyw. . . Kal abrb 5} kaAdv Kal abrd ayabdy Kal otrw mepl mävrwv, & Tore ds TOAAG erideuev, médw ab kar’ idéay ulay éxdorov ws müs obons TiWevTes d tori Exaotov mpocaryopetouer . . kal 7a uev 5) dpacbat payer, vociodaı 8 od, ras 8 ad idéas vociodaı pev öpaodaı 8 of, Tim. 31 A starts on the same supposition that for every plurality an Idea must be assumed as unity. _ % Rep. x.596 A: eldos yap mod rı ty Exarrov ecidbauev riderdaı ep) &karra Ta TWOAAG ols rabrdv Övoua @mibepouer. Ritter (ii. 306 ; ef. 303 A 3) translates this passage: ‘ An Iden is assigned to each thing which we designate as a number of things The view of modern criticism ® that Ideas by the same name,’ and he infers that, inasmuch as not merely every individual but also every attribute, every condition, and every relation, and even the variable, can be set forth in names, and every name signifies an Idea, therefore the Idea cannot merely express general con- cepts. Here however the main point is neglected ; viz. that what the Idea corresponds to is the dvopa common to many things. 87 Metaph. i. 9, 990 b. 6 (xiii. 4, 1079 a. 2): Kal Exacroy yap bur vupdy th ear (Ev Tots elSect) Kab mapa Tas ovotas (i.e. odoia in the Aristotelian sense, substances) r@v re (? cf. Bonitz ad loc.) &AAwy oy eorıv &v em roAA@Y. Hence in what follows the &v ém) moAA@y is men- tioned under the Platonie evidences for the doctrine of Ideas, vide p. 232. Cf. Metaph. xiii. 4, 1078 b. 30: GAA’ 6 uev Zwrpdrns Ta kadoAov ov xXwpıora Emoleı odd Tovs Öpı- opovs’ old exwpıoay kal 7a ToIaura av dvrwv idéas mpormyöpevoar. Ib. 1079 a. 9, 32; Anal. post. i. 11 beginn. 38 Metaph. vii. 16, 1040 b. 26 8qq.; xiii. 9, 1086 a. 31 sqq. # Ritter, loc. cit., with whom Volquardsen agrees, Plat. Idee. d. 240 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. contain not only the Universal in the sense we associate with the word, but also the individual, besides being ineapable of proof, is thus evidently opposed to Plato’s clear definitions. This Universal, which is the idea, he conceives as separate from the world of Pheno- mena, as absolutely existing Substance.‘ It is the heavenly sphere, in which alone lies the field of truth, in which the gods and pure souls behold colourless, shapeless, incorporeal Existence ;*' the justice, tem- pers. Geist. 17 sq., without, how- ever, adducing anything new. Rit- ter brings the following points in support of his view: (1) what has already been refuted, note 36. (2) The fact that in Crat. 386 D and elsewhere a permanent ex- istence is attributed not merely to things, but also to the actions or activities of things. From this, however, it does not follow that these activities individually—as distinct from their general con- cepts—go to form the content of the respective Ideas. (3) That according to Plato the soul is non-seusible and imperishable. But this is far from proving that it is an Idea. (4) That according to Theset. 184 D. the individual soul is con- sidered as an Jdea, and (Pheedo, 102 B) what Simmias is and what Soerates is, is distinguished from what is both of them. The latter passage, however, rather goes against Ritter, for what Simmias js and what Socrates is,—i.e. their individual existence,—is here se- parated from the Idea or common element in which both partake. In the first passage (Thezst. 184 D), certainly the argument is that the single experiences of sense coin- cide eis play tia idéav, efre Yoxhy eite & rı del kakeiv: but the latter qualification only proves that in the present case we have not to deal with the stricter philosophic usage of id€a or elöos. The word stands in an indefinite sense, just as in Tim. 28 A, 49 A, 52 A (where matter is called an eldos); 59 C, 69 C, 70 C, 71 A; Rep. vi. 507 E, &e.; and also in the pas- sage Thezt. 157 C, wrongly cited by Ritter on his side, It is dis- tinctly stated (Phedo, 103 E, 104 C, 105 C sq.) that the soul is not an Idea in the proper sense of the term. Vide infra. 40 This word, taken in the ori- ginal Aristotelian sense, signifies generally anything subsisting for itself, forming no inherent part or attribute of anything else, and having no need of any substratum separate from itself. Of course if we understund by substance, as Herbart does (loc. cit. Werke, xii. 76), that which contains several mutable properties, itself remain- ing constant in the permutations of these properties, we have every reason for combating as he does the assertion that the Ideas are substances. 4! Phadr. 247 C sq. CONCEPT OF IDEAS. 241 perance, and science that are exalted above all Becom- ing, and exist not in another, but in their own pure Essence. The true Beauty is in no living creature in earth or heaven or anywhere else, but remains in its purity everlastingly for itself and by itself, in one form (ait Ka aito pe? alrod povoeidés dei dv), unmoved by, the changes of that which participates in it.” The Essence of things exists absolutely for itself, one in kind, and subject to no vicissitude.*? The Ideas stand | as the eternal prototypes of Being-—all other things | are copied from them.‘* Purely for themselves (ara Ka?’ avira), and divided from that which has part in them (yepis), they are in the intelligible sphere (roros vonrös) to be beheld not with eyes, but by thought alone ;*° visible things are but their adumbrations : *° phenomena, we might say, are relative ; the Ideas alone “2 Symp. 211 A. Steinhart (Pl. Wk. iii. 424, 441; iv. 254, 641), following the Neo-Platonists (ef. vol. iii. b. 695; 723, 3, 2nd ed.), says: ‘The Ideas must not be confounded with the general concepts of the understanding ’—‘in the Sympo- sium (loc. cit.) they are most de- eidedly distinguished from generic concepts :’—‘ the concept of Spe- cies becomes an Idea only so far as it participates in the Ideal concept, of Genus.’ I agree with Bonitz (Plat. Stud. ii. 75 sq.) and others in opposing these views. The con- tent of the Ideas is given by ge- neral concepts,—hypostatised by Plato— without any difference being made between Ideal and other eon- cepts; nor are Species excluded from the sphere of Ideas: every Species, except the infima species, may be re- R garded asaGenus. Cf. further, Rep. vi. 511 C (v. sup. p. 168); Parmen. 130 C sq.; Phileb. 16 C (v. sup. 206, 92); and subsequent remarks on the extent of the World of Ideas. #3 Pheedo, 78 D: del ad’rav Exa- orov d Eorı, movoedes by adTd Kad? abrd, dcabrws kara rabra exer «at obdemore obdaun obdau@s adrAdolwow ovéeulay evdexerat. Phileb. 15B; Tim. 51 B; vide note 6, Tim. 28: As Pain: 182 DB; Thest. 176 E. 15 P,556, Pt. 1. ; Parmen. 128 E ; 130 B sq. ; 135 A; Plısedo, 100 B; Rep. vi. 507 B (vide note 35). # They are represented as such in the famous allegory of the Cave- dwellers, Rep. vil.: 514 B sq.; 516 E; 617 D. fn ~ “4 >» tee = 242 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. are absolute.” In a word, the Ideas are, to use an illustration of Aristotle’s, xopıaral': ** — i.e. there be- longs to them a Being entirely independent of, and different from, the Being of things: they are self-sub- sistent entities.*” Consequently, those theories which have confused the Platonic Ideas with sensible sub- stances, hypostasized images of the fancy (ideals), or with subjective conceptions, are neither of them correct. The first *° is now pretty generally abandoned, and has been already refuted by the preceding quotations from the Phedrus, Symposium, and Republic: we might also refer to the assertion of the Timzus (52 B), that only the copy of the Idea—in general, the Becoming, not the truly Existing—is in space ; together with the eorroborative testimony of Aristotle.?! 47 Plato draws a distinction in a general logical sense between the xa® aird and the mpös TL: ef. Soph, 255 C (ara ole ce ovyxwpely TOV dvrwv Ta ev auTa Ka’ aira, Tu de mpds BAAnNAG Gel Atyeodaı); also Parm. 133 C; Rep. iv. 438 A. Hermodorus, ap. Simpl. Phys. dt b. says: Tay dvrwv Ta wey Kad’ aita elvat A€yet [TAdrev}, as &vOpwrov kal Immov, 7a de mpbs € Ere pa, Kal ToUTwY Ta wey as mpbs evavrla, ws ayahdv kaka, Ta de ws mpös rı. But although this logical distinction ex- tends as such through both worlds —the world of sense and the world of Ideas (ef. on the Idea of the Re- lative, subter, note 126)—Zin a met: physical sense the Idea alone is an absolute. It is, as we havo . just been told, abrd Kae’ aurd; while of the phienome non of sense it is said Erepov Tiwds del beperal $avrasıa, dıa TadTa ev € en mpoo- Ket ul ylyvec@a (Tim. 52 C). It may be said The latter is a relative, only a copy of the Idea—has its exist- ence only in and through this re- lation. 48 Metaph. i. 9, 991 b. 2; xiii. 9, 1086 a. 31 sq.;xili.4; vide p. 554, 1; Phys. ii. 2, 193, b. 35 ef. Anal. Post. i. 77 a. 5; Metaph. i. 6, 987 b. 8, 29; and my Plat. Stud. 230. 4 ovcia as Aristotle calls them: ef. Metaph. i.9,990 b. 30; 991 b. 1; iii. 6, 1002 b. 29; vii. 16, 1040 b. 26. How this determination har- monises with the other, that things exist only in and through the Ideas, will be discussed later on. 50 Tiedemann, Geist. d. spek. Phil. ii. 91 sq., where by ‘sub- stances’ are understood sensible substances; cf. Van Heusde, Init. Phil. Plat. ii. 3, 30, 40. 5! Phys. iv. 1, 209 b. 33: MAdrawe mévro Aekteov .. . Sid TI ovdK ev tomm Ta eldn. ili. 4, 203 a. 8 « EB CONCEPT OF IDEAS. 245 that Plato speaks of the super-mundane sphere, and that his disciple describes Ideas as aio@nta cidva.*? But the figurative character of the former representa- tion is too apparent to allow of its serving as proof; and Aristotle’s remark is clearly not intended to convey Plato’s own view, but to disprove it by its consequence.** The other supposition, that the Platonic Ideas are sub- jective thoughts, is more prevalent. Hardly anyone would now regard them as mere conceptions of human reason ;°*4 but it has been maintained, even recently, that they have no absolute existence, but are only the thoughts of God.” TAdtwy de &w [rod odpavod] uev ovdéy clvar cua, ovde tas ldeas, did Tb underov elva: auras. 52 Arist. Metaph. iii. 2, 997 b. 5 sq.; ef. vii. 16, 1040 b. 30. 53 Of. Plat. Stud. p. 231. 5 Melanchthon, Opp. ed. Bretsch. xiii. 520; Buhle, Gesch. d. Phil. ii. 96 sq.; Tennemann, Syst. d. Plat. Phil. ii. 118 sq. (ef. Gesch. d. Phil. ii. 296 sqq.), who makes the Ideas (viewed as archetypes of things), notions or envisagements ; viewed as in the spirit of man, works of the Deity. Plat. ii. 125; ii. 11 sq., 155 sq.; Gesch. d. Phil. ii. 369 sqq. » This theory is met with in antiquity among the later Pla- tonists, and is generalin Neo-Pla- tonism (cf. vol. iii. a. 726; b. 105; 411 sq.; 469; 571,5; 694; 723, 3, 2nd edit.). There, however, “it was connected with the belief in the substantiality of the Ideas, and it was not observed that the two theories are contradictory. The same view of the doctrine of Ideas R This theory is as untrue as the is common among the Platonizing realists of the middleages. Among the moderns, cf. Meiners, Gesch. d. Wissensch. ji. 803 ; Stallbaum, Plat. Tim. 40; Parm. 269 sqq.; Richter, De Id. Plat. 21 sq., 36 sq. ; Trendelenburg, De Philebi Cons. 17 sq. The latter says that the Ideas are forme a mente artifice sus- cepte, creations of the divine rea- son, gue cogitando ita ideas gig- nat, ut sint, quia cogitentur; and when they are described as abso- lute and as xwpioral, the meaning merely is that they continue in the thoughts of the Divinity indeyen- dent of the vicissitudes of phzeno- menal appearance. Cf., to the same effect, Rettig, Alrla in the Philebus, &e. (Bern, 1866), 24 sq. ; Volquardsen, loe. cit. p. 16 sq., who, to support his view, quotes certain dieta from Rep. iv. 435, not to be found there at all. Kühn, De Dialectica Plat. p. 9, 47 sq., ap- proximates to this view in suppos- ing that the Ideas (as was held by the Neo-Platonists) subsist in 9 244 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. other and is altogether wanting in proof. Plato’s hav- ing been led to the doctrine of Ideas by his enquiry into the nature of knowledge proves nothing ; indeed,, it is more in agreement with the objective derivation of Ideas.*° The description of the Ideas as archetypes, according to which Divine Reason fashioned the world,” or again, as the objects which human Reason con- templates,’® does not make them mere products of divine or human Reason. The Ideas are here pre- supposed by the activity of Réason, just as external things are presupposed by the activity of the sense which perceives them. Nor can this theory be de- duced from the passage in the Philebus (28 D, 30 C), where the royal mind of Zeus is said to be the power which orders and governs all. Zeus here stands for the soul of the universe; that which he governs As the world,’ and reason, as is remarked, belongs to him from the cause above him—the Idea, which is accordingly treated not as the creation, but as the condition of the reason that thinks it. The propo- sition in the Parmenides (134 C) that God has know- ledge in itself is not more conclusive ; for this having is expressly described as participation, and the gods, not God, are spoken of ®' as the possessors of that God as the most perfectly real ex- jstence, and at the same time are ccmprehendel by his thoughts. Similarly Ebben, Plat. id. doetr, 78 sqq. 56 Supra, p. 228 sq. 57 Tim. 28 A; Rep. x. 596 A sq. ; Phedr. 247 A. 58 Tim. 52 A, and frequently. 39 Td5e Tb kKaAoınevovr ÖAor, the kbruos Kal Atos Kat FeAAın kat aorépes kal waca *) mepidopa, the — éviavtol Te Kal par Kal unves. 6 I shall return to this later on. sl odkcty e’mep Tı GAAO aurns emioThuns meTeXeEL, our iv TVA MaA- Aov 7) Oedy balns Exew Thy axpiBe- orarnv emiorhunv; . . . obkovv et mapa Te Oeg airy early. . . N aKpt- Beorarn emornun.. . eKeivor. . - 245 CONCEPT OF IDEAS. knowledge. It is impossible to deduce from the pas- sage that the Idea of knowledge as such exists only in the divine thought. And though, lastly, in the Republic (x. 597 B) God is called the Artist (moınrns), or Creator ($vrovpyös), who has created the ‘ Bed-in- itself, the Idea of the bed; it by no means follows from this that that Idea is only a thought of God, and has no existence except in the divine thought.”? We must remember that this is not intended for a strictly philosophie explanation of the origin of Ideas; and, that the Deity with Plato (as we shall presently find) - is convertible with the highest Idea. Derived Ideas may very fairly be called his creations without in- volving the existence of the Idea only in the thought, and by the thought of a personality distinct from it- self. The substantiality of Ideas is certified not only by\, the testimony of Aristotle, but also by the above-cited | _ Divinity. -obre yıyvackoveı Ta avOpdreva mpaywata Ccoi bytes. ® When we say, God made the world, we do not assert that the world is merely a thought of God. *§ With the Greeks, as every- where else, whatever is not made by man (and consequently all the works of Nature) is referred to the So here, the kAlvn ev TH pice odca is as such made by God. But this is merely the ex- planation of popular religion, a figure of speech used just as easily by those who expressly deny the attribute of roreiv to the Divinity, -as Aristotle does (cf. De Calo, i. 4, 271 a. 33; Eth. N. x. 9, 1179 a. 24; 1.10, 1099 b. 11; and on the other hand the passages quoted vol. ii. b. 276 sq. 2nd edit.); so that we cannot make it any real eri- terion of scientific views. This is particularly true of the case before us; for the sake of symme- try, three different «Aworoiol must exist, to correspond to the three different sorts of rAlvaı. % Hermann has therefore no reason for discovering in this pas- sage an entirely new development of the doctrine of Ideas, and an evi- dence for the later composition of the tenth book of the Republic (Plat. 540, 695); ef. Susemihl, Genet. Entw. ji. 262 sq.; Stein- . hart, iv, 258. 246 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. Platonic passages. Ideas which exist absolutely, in no other, but purely for themselves, which remain for ever the Archetypes of things, uncreated and imperishable, according to which even the divine intelligence moves itself, cannot at the same time be creatures of that in- telligence subsisting only in it,” owing their existence: to it alone. The eternity of Ideas is proclaimed by Plato most emphatically, and regarded as the most. essential of the characteristics by which they are to be discriminated from the phenomenon. How then — can they be likewise thoughts which first sprang from the thinking soul? This difficulty is not obviated by saying *’ that the origin of Ideas from the Divine ' Mind is not to be thought of as an origin in time: for not only an origin in time, but all and every origin is denied to them by Plato. Again, Plato 6 Cf. e.g. the passage of the Symposium, 211 A. Could Plato have thus maintained that the Idea of the Beautiful existed absolutely in none other, if his own opinion had been that it did exist only in köcuov), ‚mpos mörTepov Tay mapadeıy- yaßero, mörepov mpos Td Kata rabr& So in what follows: the creator of the world looked only mpds 7d atdıor paroy & rextowvdueros adroy amep- } ka) aocabrws Exov N mpds Tb yevyouds. \e some other, viz. the divine, under- standing ? ss Be. Tim. 27 D: éorw ody 5) ar’ ewhy Sdtav mparov diaper éov öde‘ Tl Tb ov ael yeverw SE vvK &xov, Kal rl Tb yeyvduevov uev det ov dt od5emore, Ke. Ibid. 28 C;Symp. 210 E. Aristotle frequently de- signates the Ideas as eternal ; e.g. Metaph. i. 9, 990 b. 33; 991: 26 : 20.2, "997 bid sqq. 6 Trendelenburg, loc. cit. 20; Stumpf. Verh. d. plat. Gott. zur Idee d. Guten, 78 sq. 38 E.g. Tim. 28 C: réde dt ody méAw emiokemreovmep) abrod (se. not pds 7d yeyovös. Wesee plainly f that Eternity and immutability of existence on the one hand, ande Becoming on the other, are to Plato opposite and contradictory I antitheses; the thought that any- thing could spring into being and yet be eternal and unchangeable, — ¥ which is Trendelenburg’s view’ of the Ideas, is quite beyond Plato’s — intellectual horizon. Cf. Phileb. — 15 B: plav éxaorny (each Idea) ovcav del Thy adtiy Kal wire yeve- ow pire üNEehpov mpordexouerny. Further details, supra, note 6, p. 228 sq. CONCEPT OF IDEAS. 247 himself mentions the supposition that Ideas may be merely thoughts, having no other existence than in the soul; and sets it aside with the observation, that if it were so, everything that participates in them must be a thinking subject ; °° it is self-evident, he says, that absolute entities as such cannot exist in us.” And in another place,’' he expressly guards himself against the notion that the Idea of beauty is a ‘speech or a know- ledge.’ Nor can Aristotle have been aware that the Platonic Ideas were the thoughts of the Essence of things, and not this Essence itself. Not only does . he never imply that they have their abode merely in human or Divine thought,’? but he describes them with all possible distinctness as self-subsistent sub- stances;7* and on this presupposition, subjects them to a criticism which would 69 Parm. 132 B ; cf. Tim. 51 C. It has been already remarked, Pt. i. p. 254, 1, end, that Plato here has in his mind the nominalism of Antisthenes. ~ Parm. 133 C: oluaı &v kal oé kal &AAov, Öorıs aurnv twa Kal’ alrııv éxdorou ovciay Tideraı elvan, öuoAoyhea: ay mpwrov uev umdeuiav adrav elva ev juiv. was yap ay abt) Kab’ abrhy Erı ein; 7 Symp. 211 A. 72 Aristotle nowhere describes the Ideas either as thoughts simply, or as thoughts of the Divinity; ‘but, as we have already seen, he expressly calls them eternal sub- stances. Can we, however, imagine thatif he had known anything of the theory discussed above, he would have neglected to object to the doctrine of Ideas the contradic- tion between this determination be utterly groundless, and and the other? *3 This is clear from the pas- sages cited supra, notes 48 and 48, and indeed from the single expres- sion xwpıords, to explain which as Trendelenburg does (vide note 55) is made absolutely impossible by Aristotelian usage and by the con- nection in which it is used of the Platonic Ideas. Cf. eg. (not to cite the whole of the passages ad- duced, Ind. ‘Arist. 860 a. 35 sq.) Metaph. vii. 16, 1040 b. 26 sq.; xiii. 9. 1086 a. 31 sqq., where he charges the doctrine of Ideas with a contradiction, in that the Ideas as concepts must be general and as xepiorat individual. With Trende- lenburg’s interpretation of Xwpt- orbs this criticism is objectless : the archetypes in the thoughts of God anterior to individual Being can only be general concepts. 248 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY, must throughout have taken quite another turn, if he had understood by Ideas either concepts abstracted by us from things, or such prototypes as preceded things only in the creative mind of God.” It is equally evident that he was unacquainted with any theory of \the Ideas being the creations of the Deity.” We are, therefore, fully justified in asserting that Plato held the Ideas neither as the thoughts of man nor of God.76 But if the Real, which is the object of thought, must be a substantial entity, it cannot on that very account be conceived in the manner of the Eleatics, as Unity without Multiplicity, Permanence without Motion. If *§ As regards the first of the above supposed eases (viz. that the Ideas are the concepts of human intelligence), this willbe at once conceded. And as to the second not the slightest doubt can remain. Of all the objections of Aristotle against the doctrine of Ideas (a review of them is given, Pt. 1. b. 216 sq. 2nd edit.), there is not a single one which does not lose its force as soon as we un- derstand by the Platonie Ideas, not substantial and self-subsisting concepts, but the thoughts of the Divinity expressing the essence of certain things. > This definition is never men- tioned either in his account of the doctrine of Ideas, or in his criticism of it, though the question was obvious (had he been aware of it)—How does the creation of the Ideas agree with their eternity? (an eternity so strongly emphasized by Aristotle). Plato, in the dis- quisitions which Aristotle had heard, seems never to have re- ferredto the Deity (vide p. 76, 70) as the agent through whom the Ideas are copied in things; still less would he have done so in order to explain the origin of the Ideas themselves, which were at once eternal and without origin. 76 If we say with Stallbaum (Parm. 269, cf. 272 ; Tim. 41): ideas esse sempiternas numinis divini cogitationes, in quibus inest ipsa rerum essentia ita quidem, ut quales res cogitantur, tales etiam sint et vi sua consistant . . . in ideis veram ovclay contineri, the question at once arises: Have the Ideas the essence of things merely as content and object, so that they themselves are distinct therefrom as subjective and objective, or are they actually the substance of things? And how can they be so if they are the thoughts of the divinity ? Must not we admit in full the inference by means of which Plato (Parm. loc. cit.) refutes the supposition that the Ideas are mere thoughts: 4 é« vonuatwy €Exacroy eivat kal mayTa voeiv, 2) vohuaru dvra aydnra elvaı ? rr-Eaes pal CONCEPT OF IDEAS. 249 the All is established as One, nothing (as shown in the Sophist ’”) can be predicated of it; for as soon as we combine a predicate with a subject, a name with a thing, we at once introduce a plurality. If we say the One is, we speak of the One and of Being as of two things; if we name the One or Being, we distinguish this naming from the thing named. Neither can Being be a whole,’* for the conception of a whole involves that of parts; the whole is not pure Unity, but a Plurality, the parts of which stand in relation to Unity. If Unity be predicated of Being,and Being thus becomes a Whole, Unity is therein discriminated from Being; we have then consequently instead of One Being, two—the One and Being. If Unity does not belong to Being, and Being is therefore not a Whole, then, supposing the conception of Whole to have a real import (the Whole as such exists), Being lacks the existence that belongs to the Whole, and is so far Non-existent. If it be maintained that there is no Whole, then Being would be deprived of magnitude, nor could it, generally speak- ing, be or become anything.” But still less can the All be assumed as merely Multiplicity. The right course must be to admit both Unity and Multi- plicity. How are they to be reconciled? Only, as before shown, by the theory of the communion of concepts. If no combination of concepts were 7 244 B-245 E. De Soph. Plat. ord. (Kiel. 1871), ”* Which must be the case ac- p. 9 sq., 38 sq.; and the authorities cording to Parmenides. Vide Pt. there quoted. It is impossible for i. 471, 1; 473. me tosubstantiate my view in detail * Cf. as to the train of thought here. of the above passages Ribbing, 80 Vide p. 228 sq. Plat. Ideenl. i, 196 sq.; Petersen, 250 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. possible, no attribute could be predicated of anything different from the thing itself:*! we could, therefore, only say of Being that it exists; in no relation, that it does not exist: whence, as a farther consequence, the Unity of all Being inevitably follows. This presup- position is, however, untrue, as indeed it must be, if speech and knowledge in general are to be possible.*? Closer investigation convinces us that certain con- cepts exclude, while others are compatible with, and even presuppose, each other. With the concept of Being, for example, all those concepts are compatible which express any determination of Being, even when these are mutually exclusive, as Rest and Motion. So far, then, as concepts may be combined, the being denoted by one of them belongs to the other. So far as they are different, or mutually exclusive, the Being denoted by one does not belong to the other; conse- quently the Being of the one is the Non-being of the other.” And as each concept may be combined with many others, but, as a concept, is at the same time different from all others, so to each in many relations there belongs Existence, but in an infinite number, Non-existence.‘* The Non-existent, therefore 81 The assertion of Antisthenes ; 81 956D: éorw &pa e& avaykns vide Part i. p. 252. Tb un dv emi Te Kwhoews elvat Kal #2959 Deg. ; 261 B sq. kara mdvra Ta yevn. Kata mdyra yap 3 Motion e.g. can be united with 7 Oarépov ptors Ereporv ämepyalouevn Being, because it is; itis, however, Tod dvros Exacroy ovK dv motel, Kal at the same time Erepov rod dvros, Zluravra 5) Kata TauTa ofrws ovK for its concept is different from övra dpOas epoduer, kal mdAıw, bre that of Being: odkoDv 8) capds 7 Merexeı rod bvTos, elval Te Kal dvTa v > ” > , + eo ~ an x klynois Övrws ob by Eorı Kal dv, ...mepl Ekamrov ipa Tay eld@v TOAD emeimep Tod Övros meréxet, 256D; wer eore Td dy, Kreipor 5E mAndeı Td 254 D. py ov. CONCEPT OF IDEAS. 251 is as well as the Existent; for Non-being is itself a Being, namely the Being of the Other (and therefore not absolute, but relative Non-being, the negation of a determinate Being) and thus in every Being there is also a Non-being,—the Difference.* That is to say: the veritably Existent is not pure but determinate. Being: there is not merely One Ex- | istent but many ; and these many stand reciprocally in the most various relations of identity and difference, exclusion and communion.‘ The Parmenides attains the same result, by a more abstract and thoroughgoing dialectic discussion.” The two propositions from which the second part of this dialogue starts,‘The One is’ and “The One is not,’ affirm the same as the two assumptions refuted in the Sophist—‘ The All is One,’ and ‘The All is Many.’ Both these propositions are reduced «id. absurdum by the derivation of contradictory conse- 8} Cf. on this particularly 256 Intely affirmed, then (not, as we E-259 B ; 260 C. 86 Tt is contrary to Plato’s clear and definite opinion to reduce the doctrine of the kowwvia trav yevav to ‘the possibility of some things connecting themselves with others in the being of the individual,’ as Stumpf does (Verh. d. plat. Gott. z. Idee d. Gut. 48 sq.). ‘Lhe question put was (p. 251 D), not whether a thing can partake in several Ideas at the same time, but whether obola, kivnoıs, ordots can enter into communion with one another. We are then shown that if it is abso- lutely denied that «lynotsand aracıs partake in ovale, the consequence is that they are not; if it is abso- should have expected, that any- thing in motion may at the same time be at rest, but) xlynols re aut mavrdnanıv Tora ky, Kah oracis mdAıv adh Kıvolro, and so throughout, e.g. 254 B sq., 254 D: klynots and otdots are Aulktw mpds GAAHAw, Being on the contrary aır- Tovaupoiy' Eorov yap kupw Tov, 255 A sq.: neither klvnsıs nor ordois is raurdv or Oarepov. 255 sq.: Klynows is Erepov ordcews: it participates in Being, in radrdy and Odrepov, without being identical with them : it is, and it rabröv or Erepor, &e. ®" With respect supra, note 187. is & to which ef. “252 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. quences ; and the inference is that true Being must be defined as a Unity including in itself Multiplicity. But at the same time, from the manner in which the concept of Being is regarded in this apagogie proof, and from the contradietions which arise from that view, it is intimated that this true Being is essentially different from empirical Being, which, bounded by time and space, has no real Unity. With this exposition is closely allied that of the Phile- bus 8 (14 C, 17 A), which unmistakably refers to it. The result of the earlier enquiries is here briefly summed up in the assertion that the One is Many, and the Many, One; and this holds good, not only of that which arises and passes away (70 yeyvouevov Kai amoAAU- aevov), but also of pure concepts ;—they also are com- pounded of One and Many, and have in themselves limit, and unlimitedness. Hence one and the same thing appears to thought, now as One, now as Many.“ Plato therefore declares true Existence to be only the Eternal, Self-identical, Indivisible, Uncontained by space; but on the other hand, he does not conceive it, with the Eleatics, as one Universal Substance, but re a multiplicity of substances, of which each without detriment to its Unity combines in itself a Plurality 88 Vide p. 70, 56. 8° 15 B: the quöstion is not whether a subject can unite in itself many attributes or a whole many parts—on this people are now agreed—but about simple or unit-concepts, mp@roy uev el tivas det rovadras elvar povddas bmoAau- Bdvew ddAnbds ottoas: elra ras ad Tavras, ulav ekdornv oboav cel iv avrhy Kal ware yeveow unre bAcbpoy mpocdexouernv, Suws elvar BeBaid- Tara ulav ralrnv' wera de Tour’ ev Tols yıyvouevors ab Kal Amelpoıs etre ÖLeomarueınv Kal mOoAAA )eyovviar dereov, el‘ SAny adrhy abris xwpls, d 5% wavtwy Gdwvardrarov palvoit’ dy, ralrdv kat ey dua dv Evi re Kal moAAots ylyverdaı. Cf. quotation on p. 206, 92. CONCEPT OF IDEAS. of relations and determinations.” This was required by the origin of the theory of Ideas; the Socratic concepts, which form the logical germ of Ideas, arose from the dialectical combination of the different sides and qualities of things into one. And such a defi- nition was indispensable to Plato; there would be an ‘end of any participation of things in Ideas, as well as of any combination of concepts, if these were to be regarded as Unity without Difference.” % There is no objection to Rib- bing’s view (Plat. Ideenl. i. 336), that every Idea is ‘also a concrete existence,’ allowing that ‘ concrete’ here has its true meaning, not of sensible being or individual exist- ence, but simply (as in Hegel, when he speaks of the concrete concept) of the universally Determined. On the other hand, I cannot see what Ribbing has to object from a his- torical point of view against my assertion that the Platonic Ideas are the universal, nor do I find any explanation in the detailed discus- sion of the matter, loc. cit. p. 325 8q.,855sq. By saying that the Ideas are the universal, we mean that every Idea contains that which oceurs equally in several individual things; these individual things may. be more or fewer, and the scope of the Ideas may be accord- ingly greater or less. It has already (p. 237 sq.) been incontrovertibly proved from Plato himself that this is the Platonie doctrine; nor indeed does Ribbing combat it, loc. cit. 374. It is, therefore, in- consistent of him to say (ibid.): ‘Plato no moro intended to define the universal by the Ideas than to This, then, define the individual as the really existing ; he wished simply to show the necessity of a constant Being as separate from Becoming. That the latter was his intention is beyond all doubt; but (as unde- niably shown by his most definite explanations) he knew that this constant Being was only to be found in the universal existence of genera. He hypostasizes this universal; he attributes to it, as we shall find, even intelligence and life, and, generally, determinations which we are accustomed to attri- bute to individuals only. But we cannot say that he was still unde- cided as to its universality or not ; we can only say that to him these determinations did not seem in- compatible with the nature of that which is thought of in general concepts. * Plato himself emphasizes this point of view. In the above-quoted passages of the Sophist he proves that the combination of concepts and the recognition of a Manifold in them are mutual conditions, and in the Philebus, loc. cit., he finds the key to the problem of the simple or unit-concept compre- 254 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. is the point at which the metaphysical doctrine of Plato most definitely diverges from that of the Elea- tics, and shows that its concern is not the denial but the explanation of Actual existence (des Gege- benen ). The union in Ideas of the One and the Many was also expressed by describing the Ideas as numbers.*? This view must have belonged to Plato’s later development : it has no place in his writings. We can distinguish between his scientific and empirical treatment of num- bers as well as of Mathematics in general ;% but his pure Mathematics is primarily a preparatory stage of Dialectic, the numbers with which it has to do are not Ideal, but mathematical numbers; not identi- cal with Ideas, but intermediate between them and the things of sense.“ Side by side with numbers, the Ideas of numbers are also spoken of,” but only in the same sense that Ideas generally are opposed hending the Many of the pheno- menon, in the position that the actual includes unity and plurality, finiteness and ihfinity. In the Parmenides, too, after the specu- lations about the participation of things in the Ideas (130 E sq.), we find that dialectical discus- sion of which the last result is (vide p. 251) a progress from the pure Being of the Eleatics to the expanded and manifold Idea. More details on this point will be given later on, #2 Cf. my Plat. Stud. p. sq., 236 nt.; Trendelenburg, Plat. de Id. et Numeris doctrina ex Arist. illustr. p, 71 sq.; Comm. in Arist. de An. p. 232; Brandis, in 239 Rhein. Mus. ii. (1828) 562 sq.; Gr. - Röm. Phil. ii. a. 315 sq. ; Rayaisson, Essai sur la Meta- physique d’Aristote, i. 176 sq.; Schwegler and Bonitz, ad loc., Metaph. (xiii. 6 sq.; Susemihl, Genet. Entw. ii. 525 sq.). » See p. 216. »! Theso-called numbers in which (Phileb. 56 D), unlike units, as e.g. two armies or two oxen are numbered together, the dpi@uol dpara }} axra auuara Exovres (Rep. vil. 525 D); the dpiOuod aic@nrot, as Arist. calls them, Metaph. i. 8, end; xiv. 3, 1090 b. 36; cf. c. 5, 1092 b. 22 (ap. cwuarikol). ® Rep. v.479 B; Phedo, 101 C. THE IDEAS AS NUMBERS. 255 to things: so that under the totality of Ideas, Ideas of numbers also appear,—not that Ideas in general are represented as numbers, or that all Ideas, as such, are at the same time denoted as being numbers. Aristotle likewise points out that the doctrine of Ideas was in its origin independent of the doctrine of numbers.’ The germs only of Plato’s later view may be perceived in - some passages of the dialogues. The Philebus declares the Pythagorean doctrine of the universal Combina- tion of the One and the Many, of the Limit and Un- limitedness, to be the keystone of Dialectic; % this dialogue, therefore, applies to concepts those laws which the Pythagoreans had demonstrated in num- bers. Plato further ** recognises in numbers and ma- thematical relations the connecting link between the Idea and the Phenomenon. Numbers represent the Ideas to us as the measure of the Corporeal and of that which is contained in Space: and if a symbolical expression had to be employed instead of a purely logical one, it was most obvious to express the Idea and its determinations in arithmetical formule. The actual blending of the two was first asserted by Aris- totle. According to his representation, the Platonic Ideas are nothing but numbers,” and when Plato % Metaph. xiii. 4,1078b.9:mept 20 sq.; c. 8, end; ce. 9, 991 b. Further de- de Trav ldewv mpGrov aithy Thy Kara tiv idéay Sdfav erickerréoy, under cuvdrtovras mpos THY Tay apiOuar | pbow, adr’ ds iréAaBor ef apxiis of mparoı Tas id€as phoavres elvan. % Vide p. 206, 92. » As will be shown later on, in chap, vii. » E.g. Metaph. i. 6, 987 b. 9 sqq. ; xili. 6 sq. tails in the following note, and Plat. Stud. 239. Theophrastus, Metaph. 313 Br. (Fragm. 12, 13, Wimm.), refers to the same form of the doctrine: MAdrwyr ., els ras lödas avdnrwv, rabras 8 eis Tobs dpıduods, éx de TOUTwV eis Tas apxas. a 256 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. said that things are what they are by reason of par- ticipation in Ideas, he only departed from the Pytha- gorean doctrine in distinguishing between mathematical and Ideal numbers,!” and separating the latter, as to their existence, from things perceptible to sense.!% The more exact distinction between the two kinds of numbers is this: that the mathematical consist of homo- geneous unities, which can therefore be reckoned to- gether, each with each, whereas with the Ideal num- bers this is not the case:!° consequently the former express merely quantitative, the latter, logical deter- minations. In the one, each number is like each in kind, and only different in quantity; whereas in the other, each is discriminated from each qualitatively. But a definite succession is also involved in the logi- \cal distinction of numbers. As the lower concepts are eonditioned by the higher, the numbers correspond- jr to them must also be conditioned; those which express the most universal and fundamental Ideas must precede all others. The Ideal numbers have ete as distinguished from the mathematical, this specific characteristic,—-that in them there is a Before | and After ;!% that is, a fixed succession. Though this : 100 apıduol eiönrırol (Metaph. xiii. 9, 1086 a. 5; xiv. 2, 1088 b. 34 c. 3, 1090 b. 35), ap. trav «(day (ibid. xiii. 7, 1081 a. 21, c. 8, 1083 b. 3; xiv. 3, 1090 b. 33), ap. vonrol (ibid. i. 8, end), mpara ap. (ibid. xiii. 6, 1080 b. 22, ce. 7, 1081 a. 21: sqq.; xiv. 4, beginn.). The expression, i. 6, 987 b. 34, is questionable. 101 Metaph. i. 6; especially p. 987 a. 29 b. 22 sq. 102 Aristotle expressly treats of this distinction, Metaph. xiii. 6-8; namely, c. 6, beginn. ce. 8, 1083 a. 31. Cf. Plat. Stud. 240 sq. 103 In my Platonic studies, 243 sqq-, I referred this expression with Trendelenburg to the mathe- matical numbers, and consequently agreed with his conjecture, that in Metaph. xiii. 6, 1080 b. 11 (08 uev auotépovs acy elvat rovs apıduods, roy wey Exovra Td mpdrepor nr ua eo THE IDEAS AS NUMBERS. 257 form of doctrine was in great favour with the older Academy, and though much quibbling and scholastic kal Ünrepov ras idéas, Tov dt naßn- parikby mapa ras idéas) a un has fallen out before &xovra. I must now, however, concede to Brandis, as Trendelenburg does, that this supposition is inadmissible, not merely because the manuscriptsand commentators know nothing of it, but also because Priority and Pos- teriority are attributed to Ideal and not to mathematical number. In Metaph. xiii. 6, 1080 a. 16, from the premiss: Td uev mpardy TL avTou | Tov apıduon]| rd 5’ Exönevor, Erepov ov TH eldcı ExagTov, we get the conclusion: “at todto N Em Trav povddwy ev0is ümapxeı nal forw aavuBAntos droiaody povas droigoty pdvad:; so that those numbers are heterogeneous (aovu- BAnro:), of which, on account of their diversity in concept, the one is earlier, the other later. So we find in c. 7, 1081 a. 17: if all units were heterogeneous, there could be not only no mathematical, but no Ideal number: od yap éora n dvas mpdtn . . . erecta of Ekijs @pıduol. Hencea Before and After is supposed in the Ideal numbers. This is still plainer in what fol- lows, and Z. 35 sqq., where both times the povddes mpdrepa Kal borepa are substituted for the povddes dovuBaAnro (cf. also c. 8, 1083 a. 33). So too 1081 b. 28, where, in reference to the mpaérn dväs, &e., it is asked: tiva tpdmov dx mporépwy povddwy Kal borépwy avykeivra; further, p. 1082, a. 26 sq., is very clear; Aristotle objects, as against the Platonic theory of Ideal numbers, that not merely all whole numbers, but the parts of them as well, must stand in the relation of Priority and Posteriority ; that they must, therefore, be Ideas, and that an Idea must consequently be com- posed of several Ideas (e.g. the Ideal Eight of two Ideal Fours). Further on, 1082 b. 19 sq., we read: if there is an apı@uds mp@ros kal dSevrepos, then the units in the Three-by-itself cannot be homo- geneous with those in the Two-by- itself (adıdpopoı = abußAnroı), and e. 8, 1083 a. 6, the supposition that the units of the Ideal num- bers are heterogeneous (d1apopoı = dovmBaAnror) is met by the ques- tion: Whether they differ quan- titatively or qualitatively, and whether, supposing the former to be the case, ai mp@ra: wellovs A eAdrrous «al al borepoy emdiddacw A robvavrıdv; Finally, p. 1083 b. 32, it is inferred that, as unity is prior to duality, unity must (ac- cording to Platonie doctrine) be the Idea of duality. Here, then, the Ideas stand in the relation of Priority and Posteriority. From these passages it is clear that with Aristotle the mpétepoy kal vorepov marks the peculiarity of the Ideal numbers, and at the same time some light is thrown on the meaning of that expression. That number is prior out of which another proceeds; the number two e.g. is prior to the number four; four is prior to eight; for the Four proceeds from the Ideal Two and the dvas doptoros, and from these the Eight proceeds (Metaph. xiii. 7, 1081 b. 21, 1082; a. 32), only not (cf. Arist. ibid.) Kata mpdo- Geotv, as if the Two were contained in the Four, but by yérvnous (what- 258 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. pedantry have been expended upon the relation of num- bers to [deas,' it can only have had a secondary impor- ever mıy be the exact meaning of that mysterious phrase), so that one number has the other as its product. The Before and After, therefore, signifies the relation of the factor to the product, of the conditioning to the conditioned. In support of this interpreta- tion Trendelenburg (Plat. de id. doct. p. 81) rightly refers to Metaph. v. 11, 1019 a.: 7a uev 54 otrw Acyeraı mpoTepa Kal tore- pa’ 7a dt Kata pvow Kal ovolay, Boa Evdexera elvar avev AAAwr, ekeiva de tyev erelvw, un‘ (cf. Phys. viii. 7, 260 b. 17; Eth. Eudem. i. 8; Theophr. Metaph. ii. p. 308, 12 Br., where the apxal correspond tothe mpérepa anda id tas apxas to the borepa) f Siaipérer @xphoaro MAdtwy. Cf. also Categ. e. 12: mpdérepov érépov Erepov Aéyerat TeTpax@s, Tp@Tov ev Kal kupiorara Kara xpövov . . deurepov de 7d un Gvtiotpepov Kata Thy Tod elvaı aKoAovOnaw, olov Td Ev Tay dbo mpérepov: droiv wey yap bvtwy axorovber evOis Tb Ev elvat, Evos BE övros obk dvaykatov Bvo elvat, &e. Plato, Parm. 153 B: mdvtwy dpa 70 Ev mpa@tov yeyove TOY apıdubr éxdvrwy . . . mp@rov dE ye, oluaı, yeyords mpdrepov yéyove, Ta BE arra tbarepov. The consideration which formerly made me doubtful of this, viz. that, according to Metaph. ili. 3, 999 a. 12, there is no Before or After in individuals (&roua), I no longer eonsider of any import- ance. Though these are condi- tioned by some other individual thing, still in individual exist- ences (into which the lowest concepts of species finally resolve themselves—and it is these alone which Aristotle is considering, ef. p- 998 b. 14 sqq.) we find, not the relation of Conditioning to Condi- tioned, of higher to lower concept, but a logical co-ordination. But how can this view of the Before and After be reconciled with the statement (Metaph. iii. 3, 999 a. 6; Eth. iv. 1, 4, 1096 a. 17; Eth. Eud. i. 8, 1218 a.; cf. my Plat. Stud. p. 243 sq.) that Plato and his school supposed no Ideas of things in which there is a Be- fore and After? Against Bran- dis’ expedient, of taking the mpd- Tepov Kal torepovy in these pas- sages in a different sense to that of those previously quoted, viz. here as signifying nutuerical, in Metaph. xiii. as signifying con- ceptual sequence, I must repeat my former objection (which Suse- mihl, loc, cit® ii. 527, has not succeeded in refuting) that a technical expression like mpdére- pov Kat totepov used by the same writer in the same way and in analogous connection, cannot pos- sibly have opposite meanings. Hitherto everything proves satis- factorily that the expression, ‘Things in which there is a Be- fore and an After,’ was the stand- ing denotation in the Platonic school for the peenliarity of cer- tain numbers. expression be used to signify the exactly opposite peculiarity of another class? The diffienlty comes before us in another way.- If we ask why no Ideas were presupposed of things in whieh there is a Before and an After, Aristotle answers: Because things which are separated in species, =, En , How could this _ > ~. THE IDEAS AS NUMBERS. 259 tancein its bearing on Plato’s original system,—other- wise more decided traces of it but at the same time stand in a definite relation of sequence, so that one of them is always first, another second, &e. cannot be reduced to any common con- cept. This reason is stated, Polit. iii. 1, 1275 a. 34 sqq.: Ae? de uh Aavodvew, Itt TOY Tpayudrwv ev ols 7a ümoxelueva Siapepa TE eldeı, kal Tb wey altay Earl mparov 7 5 deurepov Td B Exöuevov, 7 Tomapamay obdev Eorıv, n ToLavTa, 7) xowdv, N yAloxpws. This is ~ just the case in the constitu- tions of states: they are eldcı dia- pepovoat arAAAwY; at the same time, however, af uev borepa ai de mporépar; for the perverted are necessarily later than the good states, from the deterioration of which they take their rise. The question, therefore, cannot be answered according to the con- cept of the muAlrns by any ade- quate definition—no characteristic mark can be given which is ap- plicable to all. On the same ground, Aristotle, Eth. N. loe. cit., supports an objection against an Idea of the Good. The origina- tors of the theory of Ideas, he says, ob &molovv idéas Ev ols Th mpdtepov kal tb torepoy EXeyov, dıömep ovdE av apOuay idcav kareokebalor. Aceordingly, they ought to suppose no Idea of the Good; for the Good occurs in all the categories : there isa Substantial Good (Divinity and - Nous), a Qualitative, a Quantita- tive, a Relative Good, &e.; the Substantial, however, precedes the Qualitative, &c.; the Good, there- fore, falls under the determina- tion of the Before and the After, s 2 must have been somewhere bor ook tv eln kown tis em Tobrwv ldea (or as it is put subsequently : dnAov ws ovK bv ein Kody TL kaddAou kal €v). For the same reasons, numbers, if. they stand as con- ceptually separate in the relation of the Before and the After, can be reduced to no common concept, and therefore to no Idea. But it is in this relation that the Ideal numbers stand, and the Ideal num- bers only. There is consequently no Idea which ineludes them all in itself. Each is an Idea by itseif (cf. Metaph. vil. 11, 1036 b. 15, where the following statement is put in the mouth of the advocates of the doctrine of Ideas: &vıa ner yap elva ravr&a Td eldos Kal ob Td el5os, olov Sudda—the avrodvas— kal Tb eldos duddos), which in- cludes in itself a plurality of homogeneous things (e.g. the Ideal duality, the avrodvas, includes all mathematical dualities), but all of them together have no Idea above themselves, as they cannot be brought under a common con- cept. The Ideal two, three, four, &e., are specifically distinet; they are not coordinated as species in juxta-position, but are to be subordinated as prior and pos- terior, conditioning and condi- tioned ; they therefore cannot be looked upon merely as separate expressions of one Idea, the Idea of number. Eth. Eud. i. 8, also contains a reference to the doctrine of Ideal numbers: &rı ev Scots brdpxet Td mpdtepoy ‚nal Ürrepov. ook fort Kowdy Tt mapa Tatra Kal ToUTO xwnordy: en yap By TL TOU moétouv mporepov’ mpdrepoy yap Td 260 found in his works. PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. The main point, to him, is the thought which underlies the doctrine of numbers —that, Kowdy Kal xwpıordv 51a TO Avampov- uevov tor Kowod dyaveicbar TO mp@rov. olov el TO SimAdo.oy mp@Tov Tav mo\AarAaclwv, obK evdexeTat To moAAanmAdaoıov TO Koi) KaTnyo- pobuevov elvat Xwpıatov. Earaı Yyüp Tov dimAaciou mpöreporv, ei auußalveı Tb kowbv eivaı thy iöeav. In the words, 70 ÖwmAdovov, &e., Eudemus undoubtedly had in view the Pla- tonie theory of the indefinite duad from which, through its con- nection with the unit, the mporn duas must proceed as the first actual number (Metaph. xiii. 7, 1081 a. 14; 21. 1081 b. 1 sqq.). The only peculiarity is that in order to prove the impossibility of an Idea of that in which there is a Before and an After, he lays stress on the supposed separate existence of the Ideas. In Metaph. iii. 3, this reference to the Platonic Tdeal numbers appears to me to hold good ; although Bonitz (Arist. Metaph. ii. 153 sq. 251), while agreeing generally with the above _ explanation, here and v. 11 (ibid.) denies it, with the concurrence of Bonghi (Metafisica d’Arist. 115 sq. ; 253 sq.) and Susemihl. Aris- totle raises the question, whether the yérn or the evumdpxovra (the material elements of things) are to be considered as dpxat, and remarks among other objec- tions to the first of these suppo- sitions: @re @v ols TO mpdrepov Kat vorepdy eatt, ovxX olov te 7d Em rovtay elval Ti mapa Taira. oloy el porn av Apıduwr 7 Suds, our ~ora Tis apıluds mapa Ta elön Tay Apıduwr' öuolws dt odde axnua Tapa Ta elön av oxnudror. Still less, in any other ceses, will the yevn be mapa ra elön. Toutwv yap Soke? uaAımra elvaı yévn. .Moreover, of those eases Emov TO uev BéAtiov To BE xeipov, there can be no yévos, for the better is always prior. Aris- totle is speaking quite generally, but in the example that he quotes: olov ei mparn Tay Apıdu@v 7 Öväs, he seems to have the mpéros dvds in his mind (Metaph. xiii. 7, 1081 a. 23 b. 4), which alone is qualified to be an example of that in which the Before and After is, this being supposed to exist only in the Ideal numbers. However, the interpretation of these words is of no importance to the present question. I cannot agree with Susemihl, loc. eit., that ‘neither Eudemus nor Aristotle would have expressly proved the impossibility of Ideas of the Ideal numbers. be- cause the impossibility is self- evident.’ It is not proved, either in Eth. Eud. i. 8, or Metaph. iii. 3, that there are no Ideas of the Ideal numbers. In the former pas- sage it is shown that there are no Ideas of the things in which the Before and After is, and the num- bers are merely taken as an ex- ample, but not the only possible example. In the latter there is no proving at all; it is laid down as something, acknowledged, and again iliustrated by the numbers, only by way of example. And it is far from being self-evident that there can be no Ideas of Ideas; indeed, Aristotle Metaph. i. 9, 991 a. 29 sq.. xiii. 5, 1079 b. 3, remarks that Ideas of Ideas are a necessary consequence of the doctrine of Ideas. Still less ean I concede to Susemihl that my view THE IDEAS AS POWERS. 261 in Reality, Unity and Multiplieity must be organically combined. Plato is opposed to the distinctionless Unity of the Eleatic Substance. He declares himself equally against its motionless Invariability: and here he is in colli- sion with his friend Euclides, who at that time ap- pears to have admitted the Plurality of Being, while he denied to it all motion and activity.'°% This view, says Plato, would make Being incognizable for us, and in itself lifeless and irrational. If we are to par- ticipate in Being, we must act upon it, or be acted upon by it: if we are to know Being, a cupacity on its side of suffering (maoxeıv, the power of becoming known) must correspond to our faculty of knowledge. And suffering without motion is impossible. If true is inadmissible in the passage of Eth. iv. 1, 4. Susemihl thinks that, as the Good, an Idea of which the Idea of the Good is, is not it- self this Idea, the numbers of which Plato supposes no Idea, cannot themselves be the Ideal numbers. But because the separate kinds of the Good, which Plato reduces to one Idea, are not themselves Ideas, we can by no means infer that the numbers which he does not reduce to one Idea, are likewise not Ideas, However, in the comparison of the „several kinds of Good with the several numbers, the point is not whether one or the other are Ideas or not, but only that in both the Before and the After is found. Aristotle says that whatever stands in the relation of the Before and the After, has, according to Plato, no Idea. But not merely do the numbers (as Plato supposes) stand in this relation, but also the several kinds of the Good. Therefore, there can no more be any Idea of these than, according to Plato, there ean be of the numbers. ‘This conelu- sion remains equally valid, whether Plato says of the Ideal or the mathematical numbers, tat they stand in the relation of the Before and the After, and therefore can be reduced to no Idea. 4 Particulars on this point below. 105 Cf. Part i. p. 218 sq. 196 Soph. 248 A sqq.; Grote (Plato, ii. 439 sqq.) has mistaken Plato’s meaning ın trying to prove that, Plato here represents the Ideas as something relative—ex- isting merely in relation to the knowing subject—and that he thereby returns to the theory of Protagoras, refuted in the Thes- tetus Plato does not say that the existence of the Ideas is con- ditioned by our knowledge of them ; 262 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. Existence is not to be without mind and reason, it must also have life, soul, and motion.!” deny to it all permanence of Being We cannot , if knowledge is to be possible; yet we must not conceive it as absolutely unmoved,'!® but as possessing reason, life, and energy. The concept of Being must be reduced to that of Power.' Ideas are described as something ‘ energetic,’ what he asserts is merely that the Ideas, among other attributes, have the attribute of being known by us. If we follow Grote we must suppose that in speaking of a know- ledge of the Absolute or of the deity, we are at the same time making them into relatives of some sort. 107 Toc. cit. 248 E sq.: Ti 8é mods Atds; @s GAnOas Klynow Kal (ar Kal wuxhy Kal ppdyvntw A padiws meiodnsöueda TH mavreAws dvrı wh mapeiva, unde Giv auto unde bpoveiv, GAAG ceuvdy Kal äyıor, voy ovK &xov, äklvmrov Earos elvat; — Aewdy pert’ By, & Eeve, Adyov Fuyxwporuev.—"AAAG vody uev Exeıv, Cwhvy de uh bwuer ;—— Kal mas ;-- ’AAAA Tadra ev auddtepa Evort' ata A€youev, ov phy ev Yuxn Ye onoouer alrd Exew ata; kal tir’ hy Erepov Exot Tpdmov ;—'AAAA Öhra voDv uev kal Cwihy Kal Wuxhy, axlyn- Tov wevrot TO mapdmav Eupuxov ov éordvat ;—Ilavra &unıye tAoya rave’ elvat palverat, It is impossible to understand this passage as Her- mann does, viz. that intellect and motion are declared to be a true Being, but are not attributed to all true Being. 108 ‘Loc. cit. 249 B sq. : EyuBalver 5 obv, & Ocairnre, akwhtay re bvrwv vouv pndevi mepl undevös elvaı yunda- mov . . TE SH dıAocddo . . raca, ws Eoıkev, avdyın Sid ravta, ute av ev 2) kal 7d moAAG elön Acydrrwr 70 Tay Eeotnkös amodéxerOan, K.T.A. 109 Loe. cit. 247 D Plato meets the Materialists with the funda- mental position : Aéyw 57) 7d kal Ömoı- avobv. Kexrnuevov Övvanıv elt’ eis Td motelv Erepov StLovy meburds eit' eis Th) maßeiv Kal auıkpdorarov imd Tov gavarotarov, Khu el pdvov eiadmak, wav ToUTO tyTws elvar * rideuaı YAp öpov öplleıv Ta dvTa, ws Earıy OvK BAAO Tt wWAHY Öbvauıs. Even this position, we are told, 248 C, is not conceded by the Megarians, because doing and suffering be- long merely to Becoming, and as the above instances will hold good on the other side, the de- termination that the existent is nothing else than dvvayis, is proved quite generally of all that is real and actual. I can- not agree with Deuschle (Plat. Sprach. phil. 35) that we are to understand by duvauıs not power, but possibility of entering into relation with anything else. In the first place we can scarcely DIET N believe that Plato defined the övrws > dv by the concept of possibility, the very concept to which Aristotle reduces the Platonic u by, Matter. — Again, nu single passage is to be found in Plato where Sivauis signifies mere possibility; it jn- variably means power or ability | wherever it stands in a connec- THE IDEAS AS POWERS. 263 in the Phedo, where they are made the proper and only efficient causes of things;'!® and still more definitely tion analogous to that under dis- eussion. Finally, Plato himself ex- plains unmistakably what mean- ing he attached to the expression, in Rep. v. 477 C: phaoopev Öuvd- pets yevos Tt TOY byTwy, als N Kal Nueis duvaueda & Övvdueda Kal GAA wav 8 m1 wep dy Öbvnraı, olov Acyw bw kal &konv, ete. Each of these duvduers is something colourless and shapeless, generally speaking something not an object of sense, only known in its operations, i.e. - in a word, power. Stumpf, again (Verh. d. plat. Got. z. Idee d. Guten. 19, 30) asserts that Plato nowhere calls the Ideas efficient and operative causes; that Soph. 248, D sq., he attributes to them merely the passive motion of be- eoming known, not the faculty of putting something else in motion. This latter passage is quite irrelevant: for though Plato proves that the Ideas, in so far as they are known, are passive and therefore also moved, they are not excluded from ‘the possibility of having active as well as passive faculties. Stumpf, in order to support his’ view (to say nothing ot the Bewer which I quote from the public and the Philebus), is obliged to pervert the perfectly clear enunciation of the Phaedo (quoted in the following note) and the definite statement of Aristotle: while with regard to the Sophist he has to maintain that soul is attributed to the Ideas only ‘in a broad sense,’—as having self-movement, but not the faculty of operating on anything else. But even this self-movement is an suffer or. activity, and presupposes an active power. 0 95 E, Socrates passes on to speak of the doctrine of Ideas with the remark: we have now mepl yeverews Kal pOopas Thy aitiay diampayuarevoacdaı. In his youth he had been addieted to natural philosophy, to searching out the causes of things, da TI ylyvera Ekaotov kal dia Tl AmbAAuraı Kal bia ri &otı; he gave it up, however, without having attained any satis- faction. Hence he was all the more sanguine about the Nous of Anaxagoras. As a cosmoplastic Mind must adjust everything for the best, he had hoped to hear from Anaxagoras the final cause of all things. In this hope, how- ever, he was miserably deceived ; instead of intellectual causes An- axagoras had only mentioned material causes. But in reality these are merely the indispensable means (€keivo &vev ob Tb alrıov viK kv mor’ etn altıov); the actual and only operative causes are the final causes (Thy de Tod ws oldv Te BEA- rıora [-ov| avrad |heis speaking of the heavenly bodies] Te@jvat dbva- pw otw viv Kelodaı, tailtny obre (nrovow odre twa olovrat daınoviav inxiv Exew .„.. Kal bs aAnéas Tayabdy Kal deoy Euvdeiv Kal Evvexew ovdév olovraı, 99 B). As then no one has proved these causes to be in things, he has himself looked for them in the Ideas, and so sup- poses that it is the presence of the Idea (the kaAdv aurd, etc.) of anything which makes a thing what it is. In the whole of this explanation not merely is there no distinetion drawn between the 264 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. in the Philebus, where Plato ascribes to the highest cause (by which we can only understand Ideas),! conceptual, the efficient, and the final cause, but all three are clearly enunciated as one and the same. The Ideas, or, in Aris- totelian terminology, the concep- tual or formal causes, are to do just what Plato sought for in vain in Anaxagoras, viz. to bring out the äpıorov and BeArıorov; they eoincide with the final causes. Plato declares his unwillingness to have anything to do with any other causes besides these (100, D: ra why AAG xalpeıv &@, rapar- TOMA yap ev Tots UAAoıs mäcı, TODTO de amAas kal aréxvws Kal tows evnOws Exw Tap’ Euaur® Ort ovdK BAAo Tı moet [that which is beautiful] kaAdv 4 7 exelvouv rod kadod elite mapovala etre kowwvia etre San 5h Kal brws mpocyevouern * ov yap Erı TodtTo diicxuplCoua, GAN’ btt TE KAaAG Tavra TH KaAG ylyverat kadd). They are suffi- cient for him, nor does he find any further principle necessary; they are, as Aristotle says, in the passages quoted, p. 398, 1, on the occasion of the passage before us, kal tod elvar Kal tov ylyveodaı atria, alrıa kal yevérews kal pOopas. ul Plato (Philebus, 23 C sqq. ; ef. 16 C) makes a fourfold di- vision: the Finite, the Infinite, the Compound of the two, and the Cause of the Compound. He goes on to describe the Infinite in such a way that we can only under- stand by it the so-called Platonic Matter. By the Compound of the two he means the world of sense, in so far as it is ordered by defi- nite proportions, the yéveois eis “such & obelay ek T@v uerä TOU meparos Gr- eıpyaruevav uerpwv. Brandis (gr.- rom. Phil. ii. a. 332), Steinhart (Pl. W. iv. 641), Susemihl (Genet. Entw. ii. 13), and Rettig (Airia in the Philebus, &c. Bern. 1866, p. 13 sq.) refer the Finite to the Idea ; the fourth principle, the Cause, must, they think, signify the Divinity—either as identical with the Idea of the Good, or (as Rettig would have it) the creator of this and all other Ideas. But with regard to the first of these suppositions: Would Plato, who otherwise always opposes the Ideal world, as a whole, to the phenome- nal world, have made in this one case total distinetion between the highest Idea and the derivative Ideas, as to place them in two quite separate classes, and to par- allel the distinetion between them by that between Idea and pheno- menon? If, on the other hand, we understand by airla the Di- vinity as the creator of Ideas dis- tinct and separate from the Idea of the Good, this view is not only opposed by all the reasons (to be discussed later on) which favour the actual equalisation of the Good and the Divinity, but also obliges us to refer the Good to the sphere of the wepas, whereas, acc. to Rep. vi. 508 E sqq., it is elevated above all being and knowledge as the airla émorhuns «al Gdn- Ocias. In the Philebus (64 © sqq.) it is clearly described as the Cause of the Compound ; even a product of the good, vods and émorhyn, (28 C sqq.; 31 A) is classed with the airfa. And Plato’s de- j | ; 7 THE IDEAS AS POWERS. 265 reason and wisdom ; and thence deduces the adaptation of means to ends in the economy of the universe.!* scription of the mépas is not at all suitable to the Ideas. To the finite (p. 25 A, D) must be- long everything which does not admit (dexeodar) of more or less, but only of the opposite determi- nations, mp@tov uev Td Yoov Kal lodrnra, meta de 7d toov Tb SimAd- ciov kal way drt wep by mpbs apibudy apiOuds N MEerpov N mpds pétpor, that is to say, everything which is capable of exact numerical and metrical determination. The sphere of mathematical relations is thus clearly denoted by what would be a very imperfect description of the Ideal world. The field of the Ideas is in no way limited to numerical and metrical determinations, And. it is improbable that this point of view is emphasised ‘merely in opposition to the äreıpov without excluding the other determinations of the Ideas’ (Brandis, loc. cit.), because Plato clearly intends to give an accurate and universally valid enunciation of what we are to think of under the different principles. Further, as vovs and émoThun are reckoned not under the wépas, but under the fourth principle, the airla (v. sup.) and as accorling to a well-known fundamental principle of Plato’s (supra, p. 225 sq.) the value and truth of knowledge depend on the nature of its object, the Ideas, (which are the highest object of contemplation for vovs, and through the possession of which knowledge as such originates), cannot be placed a degree lower, in the sphere of the wepas. Finally, 27 D sqq., the preference is given to the composite life of pleasure and knowledge, because it belongs to the Tpirov yevos,, Evumdvrav Tov Anelpwv brd Tod meparus dedeuevwv. This pre ference of the compound to the mepas will not harmonise with the supposition, that we are to think of the Ideas under tlie latter principle. The faet that Plato elsewhere (Phedo, 74 A sqq.; 78 D; 100 D sq.; Rep. v. 479 A sqq.) makes use of the Equal, the Double, &e., as examples to elucidate the distinction between the Idea and the things in which the Idea occurs (Rettig, 15), is irrelevant; in similar passages he makes use of other Ideas (the Just, the Beautiful, the Great, the Small, &e.), in a similar way ; this has nothing to do with the present question. Rettig is also wrong in saying (p. 19) that ‘the mepas cannot signity the mathema- tical mépas, for the répas, according to 23 E, has different kinds, where- as quantity alone cannot estab- lish differences of kind.’ The lat- ter statement is signally mistaken : the mépas in numbers is different from that in figures, and that in tones or movements is different again. Plato says, 23 E, 26 C, sq., not that the Infinite and the Finite, but that the Infinite and the Mixed, are split up and di- vided in many ways, whereas r6 ye mepas vtte moAAA elxev, odr' edövokoAalvouer ws ovK Hv ev mice. Rettig (p. 16),—to quote one only of the many passages which he brings against me,—represents the well-known place in Aristox. Harm. El. 11, 30 Meib. (subter, note 166) 266 We shall also find that the Idea of the Good is at PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. \ the same time the highest efficient cause, the infi- , nite Reason ; and Aristotle, as we see from his writings, as being on his side, because the mépas here is put in the same position as, according to Plato's expositions elsewhere, is held by Dialectic or the doctrine of Ideas. I cannot, however, see how he understands the words: kal 7d mepas Sti ayabdy eotw Ev. Td mépas is evidently adverbial, and means ‘finally ;’ but Rettig seems to have considered it to be the subject of a sentence which in this connection would go tho- roughly against the sense. I can- not give up the view which I en- deavoured to establish in my Plat. Stud. 248 sqq., and with which in the meanwhile others have agreed (e.g. Siebeck Unters. z. Phil. d. Gr. 89 sqq.; Schneider, d. mat. Prine. d. plat. Phil. 14), viz. that it is not the mepas but the alrıor, which in the passage before us fills the place otherwise occupied by the Ideas. If this is described as the world-creating intellect, it merely shows that to Plato wots and the Idea coincide in the latter reference; and the two positions, —‘everything is the work of in- tellect (vovs), and ‘everything is what it is through the Idea,’ mean the same. This is seen unmis- takably in the enunciations of the Phedo, noticed above. My view at once clears up Schaar- schmidt’s objection against the Phi- lebus (Samml. d. plat. Schr. 294 sqq.) that there is no reference in it to the Ideas. He objects further that a mixture of the Finite and the Infinite is impossible, because the mépas would be destroyed by the entrance of the äreıpov. This objection arises from a misunder- standing: the Philebus says (loc. cit.) that the äreıpov admits of the More and Less, &e., the wépas, on the contrary, only admits of the opposite (cf. on this mean- ing of dexeoda: Tim. 52 A). As to the assertion that the Finite and the Infinite cannot exist to- gether in things, Plato states the exact contrary (supra, p. 206, 92). Finally, Schaarschmidt (ibid. 295) would find in the expres- sion yévos used for the* &mepoy, &e., not merely a departure from Platonie usage, but a proof that ‘these are, to the author of the dialogue, not world-forming Powers but only subjective pictures of Thought,’ He is satisfactorily answered by Schneider (loc. cit. p. 4), who refers to Tim. 48 E sq.; 50 C; 62 A. 2 The airia, which, p. 26 E sqq., is also called the moody or Syusoupyovr, is described p. 30 A 8qq., a8 Koruodga Te Kal ouvrdr- rovsa Evıa,robs re Kal Spas Kal unvas, copia kal vots Aeyouerm dıkaudrar' äv. (It has been already shown, 28 C sqq.; ef. 22 C, that vovs adjusted the world and still regulates it.) It is in all things, it invests us with the soul, which (as Socrates suid, Xen. Mem. i, 4, 8) must have its origin from the soul of the universe, just as our body from the body of the universe, and from it springs all knowledge; through it the uni- verse itself is endowed with its soul and intellect, 30 D: obdxovy THE IDEAS AS POWERS. 267 knew of no efficient cause as held by his master above and beside Ideas.''? We cannot doubt that Plato meant to set forth in Ideas not merely the archetypes and essence of all true Existence, but energetic powers ; that he regarded them as living and active, intelligent and reasonable. Nor is this view prejudiced by his distinguishing, in mythical or popular language, the efficient cause from Ideas.!!* dv pev TH Tod Aids epeis ioe Bamirikhy uev Wuxhyv BaoıAıkbv de voov Eyylyveodaı dıa Thy Tis aitlas duvanır, ey de BAAS AAAa KaAd. Cf. subter, note 172. 118 Aristotle frequently objects to the doctrine of Ideas, that it wants an efficient principle. E.g. Gen. et Corr. ii. 9, 335 b. 7 sqq.: generation and decay presuppose matter and form,. de? de mpoceivar kal thy tpirny, hy Üravres pev dveipérrovor, A€yer 5 ovdels, GAN of uev ikavıv ahOnoay aitiay eiva mpds 1d ylvecOa thy Tay eldar piacw, honep 6 ev Paldw Zw- kpärns, &c. Metaph. i. 9, 991 a. 19 sq. (xiii. 5, 1079 b. 23): the Ideas cannot be the causes of things: Tb 5& Adyeıv mapadelyuara abrü elvaı kal uerexeiv aur@v TaAAG Kevodoyeiy eats Kal werapopäs Akyeıv momrıras. TI yap éor 7d epyalöuevov mpbs Tas idé€as Amo- BAenov; Ibid. 992 a. 24 sqq.; Vill. 6, 1045 b. 7; xii. 6, 1071 b. 14. It is remarkable that Aristotle here takes no notice of the explanation of the Timzus —probably because he attached no scientific value to it, owing to its mystical character. And his ex- pressions make it highly probable that Plato in his oral discourses This is a necessary never mentioned special efficient causes ip conjunction with the Ideas, Cf. p. 76 on this point. ‘4 Plato, as is well known, often speaks of the Divinity and its activity in the world; he calls God the author of all good and of good only (Rep. ii. 379 A sqq.); he says that ail things, lifeless and living, must have been produced by God, and not by a blind and unconscious power of nature (Soph. 265 C; ef. Phileb. 28 C sqq.); he extols the care of the Divinity or of the gods for mankind, the righteousness of the divine govern- ment of the world (Phado, 62 B, D; Rep. x. 612 E sq. ; Laws, x. 899 D sqq.; iv. 715 E. &e.); he says that to imitate God is the highest object for mankind (Thewt. 176 B. and further below). Such popular expressions, however, can- not prove much; his scientific conception of the Divinity is the really important thing. Is the Divinity actually a second cause together with the Idea, or merely another expression for the causality of the Idea? The fact of God being called the author of the Ideas is of little weight, as has been shown p. 245. The explana- tion of the Timzus, which makes 268 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. result of the system: if Ideas are the only true and primary Reality, an equally primary efficient cause beside and together with themselves is impossible. They are the efficient principle that imparts Being to things, and as this Being is of a kind that can only be explained by Reason working to an end, Reason must be conceded to them. This position was certainly open to criticism. It was a difficult problem to con- ceive classes as self-existent substances; but it was far more difficult to endow these unchangeable en- tities with motion, life, and thought ; to suppose them as moved, and yet as invariable and not subject to Becoming ;'!° as powers, in spite of their absolute- ness, operating in things. The soul which Plato in the Sophist attributes to pure Being, he afterwards places midway between the world of Sense and the world of the world-creator build up the universe on the pattern of the Ideas, is, as we shall find later on, so mystical in all its parts that no dogmatic conclusions can be drawn from it. Phedr. 247 D, where @eds is merely a god, proves nothing, and Parm. 134 © sqq. not much more. 15 Deuschle has very rightly (Jahn’s Jahrbb. B. lxxi. p. 176 sq.) called attention to a difficulty involved in the question how the ideas can partake in Motion without partaking in Becoming, and how the soul can be that which is absolutely moved and at the same time have an eter- nal nature. ‘This question, as Deuschle rightly recognises, is to be answered by the fact that with Plato the Idea of motion is supe- rior to that of Becoming, and that therefore all Becoming is to be considered as a motion, but not every motion as a Becoming. If Plato in isolated passages (T'hezet. 181 C sq.; Parm. 138 B, where &Aolwors and Popa are separated as two distinct kinds of mo- tion) assumes a concept of mo- tion which is not applicable to the Ideas at all, and only im- properly to the soul, we must be content to make allowance for a mere inaccuracy which might easily have been corrected by a more exact determination. The actual difficulty, however, of im- agining motion without change, is not removed, ee = THE IDEAS AS POWERS. 269 Ideas. So far, however, as the two points of view came into collision, the dynamical aspect must neces- sarily, with Plato, have been overpowered by the onto- logical. His whole philosophy is from the outset directed far less to the explanation of Becoming, than to the consideration of Being; the concepts hypos- tasized in the Ideas represent to us primarily that which is permanent in the vicissitude of phenomena, not the causes of that vicissitude. If Plato conceives) them as living powers, this is only a concession forced from him by the facts of natural and spiritual life. But it is antagonistic to the main current of his system, and cannot be harmonized with his other theories re- specting Ideas. We can easily understand how in his attempt at a comprehensive establishment of his doc- trine of Ideas, this thought was not excluded. Such a determination naturally resulted from the univer- sal presuppositions of that doctrine; and we there- fore find traces of it, as has been shown, in other dialogues besides the Sophist.!'® But the difficulties 116 Schaarschmidt, loc. cit. 204 sq., sees in the above-mentioned discussion a distinct proof for the spuriousness of the Sophist. But this is only taking one side of the case into consideration. It is of course a contradiction to attribute motion, life, &c. to the Ideas, and at the same time (as in the pas- sage mentioned, p. 241 sq.) to assert that they are capable of no change whatever. But it is a contradiction, in which Plato must have become involved as soon as ever he tried to reconcile the two fundamental determinations of his doctrine of Ideas,—viz. that the Ideas on the one hand do not come into contact with the mutability, partiality, and incompleteness of sensible Being, while on the other hand they are the only original reality and the only source of all reality for derivative Being. It is just the same as with the theological problem, which has so often involved the greatest thinkers in flagrant contradictions, — the problem how to imagine the Di- vinity as at once a creative in- 270 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. which it involved were too great to allow of much progress in this direction. 117 Although, therefore, the necessity of regarding Ideas not only as archetypes, but as efficient causes, was constantly obtruding itself telligence and an absolute ex- istence elevated above all incom- pleteness and mutability. The contradiction in the Platonic ex- pressions is not to be denied, but we cannot say how Plato should have undertaken to escape from the contradiction on his own presuppositions. Its occurrence, however, does not justify the denial of a Platonic origin to a dialogue which shows such obvious traces of Plato’s genius, and which has such distinct Aristotelian and even (indirectly) Platonic evidence in its favour. In Rep. vii. 529 D, Plato ‘ speaks of the opal As rd by raxos kal 7 odoa Bpadurns beperau. It would not follow that all other Ideas are moved even if the dv taxos were the Idea of swift- ness; but it does follow that Plato did not think motion in- compatible with the immutability of the dv. He has, moreover (as Peipers, Philol. xxix. 4, 711 sq., rightly observes), attributed mo- tion to vovs (Tim. 47 B; 89 A; 34 A; 77 B; Symp. x. 897 C; 898 A), though he could not have meant either of the mo- tions described in the preceding note, or have considered vovs to be moved in the sense in which things of sense are, in opposi- tion to the Ideas. What we are really to understand by this mo- tion of vous he does not tell us. We must, after all, credit Plato with the remarkable and unde- niably false "argument 248 (, sq. (if odola is known, it mdoyet, for if knowing is a zoıeiv, be- coming known is a maexeıw), just as much as with many other diffi- culties in his writings; e.g. the dictum that we cannot imagine a un dv (Theet. 189 A; Rep. i. 478 B; Soph. 240 D sq.), or the argument Rep. i. 349 B sqq., which turns on the ambiguous meaning of mAeov €xew ; the deri- vation of the elements Tim. 31 B sq., and the like. 17 In this point seems to lie the explanation of the fact that the predicates, which Plato lays claim to for them, are not attributed to the Ideas with such definiteness in any other dialogue. This exposi- tion does not show us the latest form of the Platonic doctrine of ideas, as Ueberweg thinks (Un- ters. plat. Schr. 275 sq.; vide p. 106, 41), but is one from which Plato so far subsequently departed as not to pursue the road here in- dicated any further without en- tirely giving up the movement and life (the efficient Sdvauis) of the Ideas. In the latest form of the doctrine of Ideas known to us from the aceounts of ;Aristotle this point of view recedes alto- gether. It has been already proved, p. 136 sq., that all evi- dence from other sources forbids our reckoning the Sophist amongst Plato’s last works. THE WORLD OF IDEAS. 271 upon him, he could never really carry out this thought; he preferred to explain the phenomenal world by those mythical representations which poorly compensate for the gaps in the scientific develop- ment. So much the more productive, however, for Plato’s system is the other determination, that Unity and Multiplicity are combined in the Ideas. This alone enabled him to set in the place of the abstract Eleatic One, the concrete unity of the Socratic con- cept; to join concepts dialectically, and to place them in a positive relation to phenomena, where only a negative relation had existed. The Plurality of the phenomenon is sustained and comprehended by the Unity of the Concept. Only because he acknow- ledges Plurality in the Unity of the Concept has he the right to maintain not only One Idea, but a multiplicity of logically co-articulated Ideas—a World of Ideas. Ill. Lhe World of Ideas.—Plato hardly ever speaks of the Idea, but always of Ideas in the plural.'® How- ever little he himself would have allowed us to say 80,''9 the Ideas, arising out of the Socratic concepts, are, like them, abstracted from experience. They represent primarily a particular ; and thought can only ascend step by step from this particular to the uni- "3 As Ritter rightly remarks (Gött. Anz. 1840, 20; St. S. 188); only it does not follow from this that in explaining the Platonic doctrine we are not to speak of the Idea to express generally tho concept connected with the word eldos or idéa, us Aristotle does, e.g. Metaph. xii. 4, 1079 b. 9. Plato himself speaks of 7d elöos not only where (e.g. Parm. 131 A; Phado, 103 E) he is treating of a definite Idea, but also where he is treating of the concept of the eléos gene- rally: Polit. 263 B: cf.Symp. 210 B; Phredr. 249 B. MY Cr. on this poiat, p. 228. 272 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. versal, from the lower concepts to the higher. But the concepts being hypostasized, the particular in them cannot be so cancelled in the universal that collective concepts shall at last be reduced to one Highest prin- ciple, or several such, and, according to their whole contents, be derived from these principles, as mo- ments of their logical development. Each concept is something absolutely self-subsistent; and, the re- ciprocal interdependence of concepts (like the inter- connection of concepts with phenomena, to be con- sidered presently) has only the form of participation and communion.!*° Plato’s design does not extend to a purely & priori construction; it only embraces a complete logical arrangement of the Ideas which he himself has found by means of induction, or, if we prefer the expression, by means of Recollection, deve- loping itself in the region of Sense.!?! Of these Ideas there is an indefinite number.!” Since every generic and specific concept is, according to Plato, something substantial,—an Idea,—there must be as many Ideas as there are Genera and Species.!*% And since Ideas alone are the Real by virtue of which all things are what they are, there can be nothing, and there can be imagined nothing, of which there is no Idea. Such a thing would be altogether non-existent, and that which is absolutely non-existent cannot be conceived.'* It seems therefore to Plato a culpable 120 Supra, p. 249 sq. AdBew tas alrlas Erepa tovrois 121 Of. p. 204 sqq. You Toy Apıdudv exduocav, &e. 122 Arist. Metaph. i. 9, init.: of 123 Supra, p. 237, sq. dé ras idéas alrlas rıdeuevoı mp@Tov 124 Supra, p. 225, sq. uev (mroüvres twvdl tay Övrwr THE WORLD OF IDEAS. 273 want of philosophie maturity, that there should be any hesitation in assigning Ideas even to the very meanest things.’ He himself reduces to their Ideas not only those things which are great and perfect, but also the smallest and most worthless: not only natural objects but artistic productions ; not only substances, but mere conceptions of quality and relation ; activities and ways of life, mathematical figures and grammatical forms. He recognises Ideas of hair and of dirt, of the table and of the bed, of Greatness and of Smallness, of Likeness and Unlikeness, of the Double, &c.; an Idea of the noun, even Ideas of Non-Being and of that which is in its nature the direct contradictory of the Idea, Evil and Vice, !26 "5 In the well-known passage Parm. 130 B sqq. After Socrates has spoken of the Ideas of Simi- larity, the One, the Many, Right- eousness, "Beauty, the Good, Par- menides asks him whether he supposes a self-subsisting Idea of man, or of fire or water, and then whether he supposes an idea of hairs, dirt, &c. Socrates, already embarrassed by the first of these questions, thinks that he must answer the second in the negative. Parmenides, how ever, tells him by way of advice: véos yap el Erı, @ Zurpares, kal od mH cov üvrel- Antra 7 dıAocodla ws ert Avrı- Anıyera Kar’ euny Sdkav, bre older abrav armdoes: viv bt er mpds avOpdirwy aroBAewes Ödkas 5a Thy NAırlav. 6 The proofs, for the most part mentioned by Ritter, ii. 302 sqq., are to be found in the following passages besides those just quoted : Tim. 51 B (the fire xa’ abrd, In a word, there is absolutely nothing which which is distinct from visible fires ; the same holds good of the re- maining elements); Rep. x. 596 A; 6597 C sq. (the Idea of a bed, the xAlvn byTws odoa, exelyn d éort kAlvn, the Idea of a table); Crat. 389 B (the Idea of a shuttle, aurd d Earı kepkis); Parm. 133 C, D (the aurds Seandrns, d gor Senmrbaas and the avdrds dotAos d éott SovAos); Phedo, 65 D (the Sikatov, kaAdv, Ayabov avTd, the ovcia of Health, Greatness, and Strength); ibid. 100 D sqq. (the Beautiful a6’ atrd, Greatness, Smallness, Plurality, Unity, Du- ality, ka’ aird); Rep. v. 479 Asq. (the Beautiful, the Just, the Double, the Great, the Small, the Heary, the Light, xa0’ aörd. In vii. 529 D, by the motions of actual swift- ness and slownessin the actual numbers and the actual figures are meant, as the context shows, not the Ideas, but the intuitions of pure mathematics, which, however, 274 has not its Idea. PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY. Wherever a uniform Character of several phenomena can be proved to exist, the sphere in this place are not distinguished clearly enough from the corre- sponding Ideas). Phileb. 62 A (airs Sicaoolyns 6 rı €or . KUKAov Kal odbalpas aris Tis elas); Phedr. 247 D (the air) dıkamooivn, ocwhpoovyn, emornun, the &v ta 6 éorw by üvrws ém- ornun obea); Crat. 389 D; 390 F (aurb Ekeivo, d Ect Dvona . . . Td Th poe dv tvoua); ibid. 423 E (the ovefa of colour and sound); ibid. 386 D (all things, and con- sequently all activities, have an ovola BéBaos); Thet. 176 E (ma- paderyudrwy Ev Te övrı EoTaTay, Tov «ev Belov = evdayoverrarou, Tod d€ abéov aßAıwrarov, cf. the mapadelyuara Blwy, Rep. x. 617 D, 618 A, which of course taken by themselves would prove nothing on account of the mythical cha- racter of this exposition); Soph. 254 C sqq. (the most general eiön, the by, aracıs, Klynois, Tadbtdy and @drepov); ibid. 258 C (der dappovvra Hdn A€yew bri Td um Oy Beßalws &orı Thy abrod piow Exov . . evapiOuov Tay TOAAGY byTwy eldos ev; cf. 254 D: rd whe dy... ds Zor dvtws un bv); Rep. v. 476 A: Kat mept dıkalov kal Aölkov Kal Gyabvt Kal Kakod kal mdytTwy Tüv eid@v mepl 6 alrds Adyos, avTd wer ev €xaoroyv elvat, &e.; cf. ibid. iii. 402 C: aply by ra tis cwhpooiyns elön kad dvdpelas, &e.; «ot TA rovTwY ad evarrlu mavtaxod mepıibep- dueva yvwplCouey; and Thexet. 186 A: to those things which the soul contemplates without the aid of sense, belong the Soy and the dyduoov, the Tabrov and Erepov, the kaAdv kal alaxpdv, the ayabdy kal kardv. Susemihl (Genet. Entw. ii. 197) would make out that not merely the Ideas of the bad, but also the Ideas of special virtues are simply a provisional supposi- tion, because the latter only be- long to appearance, and because the Ideas of the bad would be in direct contradiction to the doe- trine that God is only the cause of the good. But Plato, as we see, supposed Ideas of many things which belong only to appearance ; and if the Ideas of the bad or of Non-being entangle us in contra- diction, such a contradiction does not, any more than the other in- stances objected by Aristotle, jus- tify us in departing from Plato’s definite statements where the state- ments are supported by the conse- quences of Plato’s doctrine. If there is an Idea corresponding to every concept, this must unavoid- ably hold good of the concepts of badness, Non-being, &e. The Idea of Being ought not to give us greater offence than any other. As Bonitz (plat. Stud. ii. 82) rightly remarks, reality as such (Being itself) does not belong to the essence of things represented in the Ideas, though Plato scarcely makes this distinction. Accord- ing to his original supposition, there is an Idea corresponding to every general concept without exception. This Idea is the con- tent of the concept; and one of the most general concepts is that of Being. Again Plato speaks of the vovas (Pheedo, 101 C), in which everything must participate in order to be one, although unity is given with the concept of the thing just as directly as Being. Bonitz THE WORLD OF IDEAS. 275 of Ideas extends. Only where that uniform character ceases, and the unity and permanence of the Concept fall asunder in the conceptless plurality and absolute unrest of Becoming,—the Ideal World finds its limit.!?7 Plato seems subsequently to have become somewhat confused, as well he might, as to these deductions from his theory. According to Aristotle, he assumed no Ideas of things artificially made, nor of negation and relation; '® but the original point of view was in finds the Idea of Being explicable enough, but he does not think it was required by the consequences of the doctrine of Ideas. Schaar- schmidt (Samml. d. plat. Schr. 202) sees in it something which eannot be attributed to Plato, but *which might just as well be main- tained of the Ideas of the table, bed, Blos &deos, unity, &c., and would actually be maintained, even if they occurred in the Sophist or Parmenides instead of the Repub- lie, Phzedo, and Thezetetus. 7 That Plato did suppose such a limit, is clear from Phileb. 16 C sq., not to mention other pas- Sages; vide p. 206, 92. To this point Ritter, loc. cit., rightly re- fers. Tim. 66 D: ep) de 8 Thy av uukrnpwv Sivauw clin wey odk vi: 7d yap Tay bouwv may juryevés, eldeı de ovddev. Zuußeßnke Euuue- tpla mpos T6 Twa oxeiv dan. Distinctions of kinds of smell are here denied, because smell always has to do with an incomplete -and undetermined Becoming,— because it belongs, as is said in what follows, only to a transient moment. “8 Metaph. xii. 3, 1070 a. 13 $qq.; in many things, as eg. in artistic products, the form can- not exist except in conjunction with the matter; if this is at all possible, it is only met with in natural products: 6d 57 ob kakws 6 IAdrav Eon, St lin éorly ‘éréoa pvce (that there are just as many Ideas as there are kinds of natural products. The fact would remain the same even if Plato’s name did not originally stand in the text, but was first introduced from Alexander, as Rose (Arist. libr. ord. 151) conjectures with great probability, for in any case Plato is meant). Ibid. i. 9, 991 b. 6: moAAG ylyverar Erepa, olov oikia Kal SarTiAwos, av ov gauev elön elva. Ibid. 990 b. 8 sqq.: the evidences for the doc- trine of Ideas are (1) not valid, (2) would lead to Ideas of things of which we (i.e. the Platonic schools — Aristotle in his criti- eism of the doctrines of Ideas is unintentionally communicative) presuppose no Ideas; kard Te yap Tovs Adyous robs ek Tay. em- oTnuay elön tora ravrav bowv emornpal eiot (which was actually Plato's original intention, accord- ing to the above account), kal card 7d Ev én) TOAAGY Kal Tay dropdcewr =e Erı GE of dupiBéorepa Tay Adyav of uty trav mpds Tt mode 7p 2 276 PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY these cases abandoned. In this way many difficulties, were evaded, but others arose in their place which were not less dangerous to his system. Ideas, as we already know, are related to one another, not merely as a multiplicity, but more pre— cisely, as parts of a whole. What holds good of con- cepts, must also hold good of the entities that are thought in concepts. They form a graduated series, descending in ordered coarticulation, and a sequence: of natural subdivisions, from the highest Genera to the lowest Species, from the most universal to the most particular.'? In all conceivable ways they cross, com- bine, exclude, or participate in, each other.'*° It is the: task of science fully to represent this system, to rise from the particular to the most universal principles,. to descend again from these to the particular, to define- all middle terms that intervene, to ascertain all rela- tions of concepts.'?! Plato idéas, Gv od bauev elvar Kad’ abtd yévos, &e. (which, in spite of Eb- ben's objection, Plat. id. doct. p. 96 sq., can only mean: ‘of which there can be no self-subsisting forms,’ i.e. no Ideas). Ibid. Z. 27 (xiii. 4, 1079 a. 24). Xenocrates according to Proclus in Parm. 136, Cons. defined the Ideas as alrla mupaderyparixh Tay Kara gptow del cvverrétav. From this, as Proclus remarks, it would follow that there are no Ideas of the products of art or of things contrary to nature. A similar definition is attributed to Plato in the exposition of Platonic doctrine, ap. Diog. iii. 77, which is possibly throughout inauthentic. This view is common among the later Pla- did not aim at a purely dia- tonists and was then, naturally enough, attributed to Plato; ef. the scholia on the passage of the- Metaph. and vol. iii. (2nd edit.). a. 726 b. 470; 695; 723, 3, the- references to Aleinous, Plotinus, Syrian, Proclus. Still, even Aris- totle mentions (in speaking of Health in itself) the Idea of a mere concept of an attribute, Metaph. iii. 2, 997 b. 8: abrd yap &y- Cpwrdy act elyat Kat Immov Kal öyleıav (they speak of an abrodr- Opwros, &e.). 12° Cf. p. 204 sqq., and the quota-- tions from Rep. vi. on pp. 168, 196. 190 Vide p. 248 eq. 131 Phileb. 16 C sqq.; Rep. vi. 511 B; Soph. 253 Bsqq. ; vide pp. 196, 205. THE WORLD OF IDEAS. 277 Aectical construction; he argues rather from several given concepts; '*? yet he demands that by an exhaus- tive enumeration and comparison of the sum total of collective concepts, a science comprehending the whole world of Ideas shall be attained. He himself, however, made but a small beginning in this direetion.”® He names as examples of universal concepts, Being and Non-being, Likeness and Unlike- ness, Sameness and Difference, Unity and Number, Straightness and Crookedness."** He uses the categories of Quality,'® of Quantity,'®° of Relation ; 137 and ac- -eording to Hermodorus,'?® distinguishes among the last "2 So in the expositions which follow the idea of an immanent dialectic, Soph. 244 B sqq. ; Parm. 142 Bsqq.; in both the separation of the One and the Existent is sup- posed, and further inferences are drawn from this supposition. 188 Cf, on what tollows, Tren- delenburg, Hist. Beiträge zur Phil. j. 205 sqq.; Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, i. 73 sq. 4 Theset. 184 C. The discus- sions of the Parmenides, 137 sqq., are occupied with similar concepts, and a further series such as the