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Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. \ AUTHOR: TEMPLE, WILLIAM TITLE: P LATO AND CHRISTIANITY; THREE PLACE: LONDON DA TE : 1916 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENI Master Negative # PHIC MTCROFORM TARHFT Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record Restrictions on Use: .88PP T247 Temple, WiUlam, abp. of Canterbury, 1881- 1944 Plato and Christianity ; three lectures bv Willinn, t1«, pie... London, MacmiUan and coSted, 1916 4 p. 1., 102 p. 19-. ^'^S'^''^:^ioTI^^;%^,^!)^J^l^^t church. Oxford. and0.rilfe5^. °*'"^ PWlosophy.-n. Ethics and poHtics.-m. PUto l^Plato. 2J>hilosophy and religion. i. Title. Library of Congress O 17-5705 B395.T4 32. joa IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA DATE FILMED: SL TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA IB nB REDUCTION RATIO:___j_/jC '£i INITIALS. £VL-_ FILMED BY: RESEARCH PUBUCATTnNS. 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OF CANADA, Lxix TORONTO PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY LECTURE I GENERAL PHILOSOPHY It is very difficult to say what constitutes the peculiar genius of any race or nation, but in the case of the Ancient Greeks this is easier than in most. We may perhaps best sum- marise their predominant characteristic and their great gift to the world in the phrase, " Intellectual passion." Both terms are necessary. To most of us the intellect and the search for truth appear lacking in human warmth ; men contrast reason with intuition on one side, and with feeUng on the other. Of course, there is a ground for this contrast, but in the great Greeks feeling and intellect are united with astonishing closeness. The B 2 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY i r great minds among them had a living passion for truth, such as among us is only stimulated as a rule by a person to whom we are devoted, or a practical cause to which we have given our lives ; the only metaphors adequate to describe the yearning of their souls for truth or the rapture of attainment are drawn from human love in its intensest shape. It is be- cause of this that their great gifts to the world are twofold — both scientific and artistic. The beauty which they express is, upon the whole, what we should call intellectual beauty ; even in their subUmest moments they shrink from anything that suggests licence or lack of order. Their typical art is sculpture, and in sculpture what happens is that the artist gives significance to a shapeless mass of marble, or whatever it may be, by reducing it within limits that are themselves deter- mined by the principle of proportion. A Greek temple gains its beauty by proportion and nothing else ; it has none of the wild efflorescence of Gothic art. This is partly, perhaps, because civiUsation was a thing so new. so precious, and so permanently threat- ened both by the barbarism of surrounding I GENERAL PHILOSOPHY 3 nations and by the survival of barbarism in the souls of the Greeks themselves, that they never really dared to let themselves go. But this is not the whole reason ; it is also true to say that their appreciation and love was for the orderly, the coherent, the pro- portioned. Beauty is for them the sensuous form of truth, and truth is the indweUing and vital principle of beauty. The intuition of Keats was quite right when he put his lines — " Beauty is truth, truth beauty,— that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know " at the end of the poem on the "Grecian Urn." For us the search for truth has become more comphcated,more scientific and argumentative; while, so far at any rate as we have dared to trust the spirit of Christianity, the pursuit of beauty has become less restrained and more freely impulsive. For the Greeks the two things are almost one ; for them science and art are as near together as they can ever be. Truth and beauty are twin apprehensions of the same aspiring intellect, and it is in Plato that this passion of intellect, at once in its scientific B 2 n 4 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY i and in its artistic forms, reaches its supreme expression. Plato was the disciple of Socrates, and it is appropriate to say something, with the dog- matism necessary to brevity, about the place of Socrates in Greek life, a^d the relation of Plato to him. Socrates was regarded by his enemies as one of the sophists. The sophists were men who arose in response to the demand created by the growth of democracy ; it suddenly became possible for men to achieve power and fame by influencing their fellow citizens. In the law courts and in the pubHc assemblies there was a great opening for per- . suasive speakers. The sophists undertook to instruct men in the art of success. There is an American advertisement which represents a truculent man shaking his fist in the reader's face, and saying — *' I can make you a forcible speaker " ; that is the advertisement of a sophist, though in all probability this sophist is a quack, while many of the Greek sophists were genuinely great men. Great as they were, however, it remains true that their aim was to teach success, and that only. The natural result of the sharpening of a GENERAL PHILOSOPHY young man's argumentative power is that he becomes critical of all conventions which thwart his own desires, including the most fundamental moral conventions, and the influence of the sophist upon the young men of Greece was to make them even more rebellious than the younger generation in- variably is against the wisdom of its elders. Moreover, the elders had not been in the habit of asking questions about these matters, and were consequently ill able to meet on intellectual grounds the questions raised by the juniors. The result was that the younger generation began to break more and more away from the code of morality on which Greek civilisation rested. The task of Socrates was to insist that the moral code, in principle at least, is right, but that its real grounds are not those conventionally accepted. This was the only way in which the rising tide of moral infideUty could be stemmed ; but naturally the respectable old Athenians did not under- stand it. When a man remarked on the justice of Aristides or some other common- place, and Socrates would approach him with such words as — " I am deeply inter- 6 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY i GENERAL PHILOSOPHY ested in what you say ; now can you tell me what is that quality in Aristides in virtue of which you call him just ? " — ^and when the respectable Athenian found himself unable to give an answer which the criticism of Socrates did not at once reduce to siUiness, he only came to the conclusion that Socrates was concerned to pour ridicule on moraUty. In the end they condemned him to death for setting up false gods and corrupting the young men. He is the first martyr to intellectual truth, and his martyrdom is the most in- fluential single event in the history of in- tellectual progress. It is very difficult to determine whether or not Socrates was himself a great philosopher. It depends upon the view we take of the respective merits, from an historical point of view, of Plato and Xenophon. Considerable reason has lately been shown for holding that the Platonic works down to, and including, the Republic and PhaedruSy and even the ThecBtetus, are to be traced to Socrates him-* seH, and that Plato's independent develop- ment only starts with the Parmenides and the Sophist. The view which has been traditional I in England is rather that the philosphy of the Platonic Dialogues is only Socratic down to the end of the Protagoras, On the former view, Socrates must be regarded, not only as a mart)nr to the philosophic cause, but also as himself a supremely great philosopher. According to the latter and more traditional view, his contribution was little more than the impetus which he gave to his disciples, and particularly to Plato. I shall myself follow this traditional view, not so much because I feel convinced of its truth, though my in- cUnation is in that direction, but because it enables us more easily than the other to take the works of Plato as they stand, without discussing at any given point where the independent thought of Plato starts, for, according to this view, all the really im- portant Dialogues represent such independent thought. After all, the question of origin is mainly one of antiquarian interest. For us the works of Plato are a complete whole which we can read and study. Socrates left no writings. It is the living thought which is of consequence to us, not the question who should have the credit for it. We will there- If f 8 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY i fore take the Dialogues as they stand and try to summarise their leading points. Aristotle tells us in the first book of his Metaphysics that Plato was a disciple, not only of Socrates, but also of Cratylus. From Socrates, he learned to look for definitions and to pursue inquiry by means of relevant instances ; and from Socrates also he learned to beUeve in the certainty of our knowledge of moral principles. Cratylus was himself a disciple of Heraclitus, and from him Plato learned to beUeve in the universal flux of the whole phenomenal world. The development of his thought may be regarded as a product of the collision between Socrates' doctrine of moral certainty and HeracUtus' doctrine of universal flux. We have become quite used to this latter idea ; we have found that in practice it does not make life insecure nor any more transitory than it would be if the perpetual change of physical objects had never been discovered at all. But this was not so at first ; in the early days men were ex- ceedingly perplexed as to the possibiUty of any knowledge or certainty in a perpetually chang- ing world. We have become indifferent to the I GENERAL PHILOSOPHY 9 problem, but the problem is still there, and every now and then some new appUcation of the law of fiux raises it again in an acute form. For example, when Darwin suddenly popularised the idea of biological evolution, it seemed to very many people that everything was now reduced to a transition from one phase to another. ^Morality was merely a convention of the passing period ; it had no permanent significance or application. We have again largely outgrown this perplexity, but again it is rather through becoming in- different to it than through properly solving it ; the problem is still there. It is because of this combination of ideas, due to Socrates ^ on the one hand and to Cratylus on the other, that Plato, in the words of Edward Caird, " did more than anyone else before or since to open up all the questions with which the ^ philosophy of religion has to deal." While still entirely under the Socratic influ- ence, Plato begins with the question so com- monly asked in Greece— Can virtue be taught ? This is the problem of the Protagoras, It has been pointed out that in that Dialogue Socrates, though victorious of course in 7- 10 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY GENERAL PHILOSOPHY 11 dialectic, concludes by establishing the oppo- site position to that which he had set out to defend, while Protagoras himself has similarly changed his ground. This suggests that Plato at this date is already feeling the need of passing beyond the historic teaching of Socrates. In the next Dialogue, the Meno, he continues the same subject. His conclusion here is that most virtue is based on opinion only, not upon knowledge. Knowledge is distinguished from right opinion simply by the thinking out of its ground. When we know, we not only believe what is in fact true, but we are able to say why it is true. For practical purposes, right opinion is entirely equivalent to knowledge while it lasts. If I want to know the road to Larissa or to Abingdon and ask a passer-by, he may possibly say— " That is the road: I know, because I have just come along it " ; or he may only be able to say " I think it is that road." Supposing that he is right, his opinion is as good a guide as his knowledge would have been. But opinion is unstable ; it may easily be changed, and a right opinion which can give no reasoned justification for M / I \ If 4 itself is therefore a precarious basis for life. This, then, is the answer to the question — " Why have not the men of great virtue imparted their virtue to their sons ? " It is because they were good through right opinion only, and not through knowledge. They could not give the reason for their principles of action, and consequently, while they had virtue in themselves, they could not convince others of its claim. Here for the moment the question is dropped ; but most characteristically the new-found distinction between knowledge and opinion is immediately applied to politics in the Gorgias. But here the reflection has gone further; it is no longer admitted that the great statesmen of Athens had virtue at all ; they were not even really statesmen ; for they did not fill the city with its true treasures, which are Temperance and Justice, but only with harbours, war-ships and tribute, and rubbish of this character. Socrates himself is the only real statesman, for only he has even tried to base political action upon rational principle (517-522). The Meno, besides containing the first 12 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY iyjBi GENERAL PHILOSOPHY 13 definite distinction between knowledge and opinion, also sets the problem how it is possible to learn anything. I set out in search of some idea which is to be the solution of a per- plexity ; but either I already know that of which I am in search, or else I do not ; if I know it, the search is endless, and if I do not know it, it is futile, for I should not. recognise the object of the search even if I came upon it. The answer to this is somewhat starthng. Without argument Plato throws down the tremendous dogma, and that, ; moreover, as it were by the way in a sub- ' ordinate clause — "/Seeing that nature is all of it akin." (81 c.) The result of this kinship in all nature is , that there is a genuine connection between any one apprehended fact or truth and all other facts and truths. Consequently, the presence in the mind of any apprehension may ^ give rise to the grasp of kindred truths. He < goes further ; inasmuch as before birth the soul in the spiritual world has had a vision of all truth, but has at birth forgotten it, the i perception of the various facts which con- 1 stitute our experience may revive in the mind .) a recollection of the kindred facts, which in I that pre-natal vision the soul had apprehended. [Knowledge, in other words, is recollection. The evidence of this is a dialogue between Socrates and a slave boy, from whom, by [means of extraordinarily leading questions, [Socrates succeeds in educing mathematical knowledge which the boy had never Jearned.^ This doctrine of "recollection," however, does not supply knowledge with an adequate object ; the empirical facts, which are the occasion of the recollection, belong to the world of flux, but it is not possible that the object of knowledge should itself be per- petually changing, for if it were, the knowledge would become false — that is, ignorance — ^in the very process of its own formation. In the Cratylus the two persons who carry on the discussion are. Cratylus and Socrates, that is to say the two men from whom, according to Aristotle, Plato received his own philosophic 1 It may be worth while in passing to note the fact that the boy answers in a straightforward way so long as his answers seem to be right, but on discovering that they are not, at once starts swearing, ov yM Aia (83 b.) 14 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY i training — Socrates, from wliom he had learned to beUeve in the possibility of knowledge, at least in the moral sphere, and Cratylus, from whom he had learned to beheve in the incessant changefulness of all empirical facts. At the end of this dialogue Socrates raises the question whether there are eternal forms or ideas, which remain themselves absolutely unchanged while various physical objects conform to them in greater or less degree as their changeful process runs its course. The existence of these forms or ideas is something which Socrates, says he often dreams to be true, but there is no definite assertion of the doctrine, and the dialogue ends with the statement that perhaps they exist and perhaps they do not. (440 d.) It is also noticeable that in this dialogue the idea seems to be, not an independent entity, but a teleological principle. The form of the shuttle is simply that which will meet the weaver's purpose. (389 b.) \ In the Symposium the atmosphere is quite different, and the same is true of the Phaedo, Here there is no doubt at all about the ex- istence of the eternal Ideas. Either Plato u I GENERAL PHILOSOPHY 15 now reaches this beUef himself, or else he now gives it an entirely new prominence ; for a mere outUne understanding of his thought such as we are attempting, it does not very much matter which. Proper study leads to an apprehension of the Ideas by the pure in- [tellect, and therein to a perfect satisfaction of the soul. The language used, both of the apprehension itself and of the satisfaction which it brings, is the language of rapture and ecstasy. This is largely borrowed from the experience of those who were initiated in the mysteries at Eleusis. In the Symposium, Plato speaks in such as way as to suggest that he had himself received a vision of the perfect beauty. I have attempted elsewhere (Mind, N.S. XVII, p. 502) to give an account of the psychological occasion of this vision and the particular influence which it may have had upon the line of his philosophic thought. The other Dialogue which most definitely suggests the occurrence of such a vision is the Phaedrus, It is of some interest to notice that another man of genius, not imUke Plato in some points of his temperament, has re- corded a similar experience. In Shelley's 16 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY i GENERAL PHILOSOPHY 17 N Hymn to Intellectical Beauty these lines occur — Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form, — ^where art thou gone ? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state. This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ? Ask why the sunlight not for ever Weaves rainbows o*er yon moimtain river. Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom, — ^why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope ? Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart And come, for some uncertain moments lent, Man were immortal, and omnipotent. Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art. Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. Thou messenger of sympathies. That wax and wane in lovers* eyes — Thou — that to human thought art nourishment. Like darkness to a d3dng flame ! Depart not as thy shadow came. Depart not — ^lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality. While yet a boy I sought for ghosta, and sped Thro' many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. I cetUed on poisonous names with which our youth is fed; I was not heard — I saw them not — When musing deeply on the lot (( Of life, at the sweet time when winds are wooing All vital things that wake to bring News of birds and blossoming, — Sudden, thy shadow fell on me ; I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy t I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine — have I not kept the vow ? ») But whatever the occasion, whether there ras any actual vision or not, at least belief fill the eternal Ideas becomes now the governing principle of Plato's thought. In the Sym- fosium (210 a-211 c) he describes the ascent of the soul towards the perfect beauty ; suddenly, he says, she will behold something marvellously beautiful, not beautiful by parts or by seasons as is the case with material beauty, but itself abiding true to itself for ever. This is very different from the tentative [language about the absolute Idea with which [the Cratylus closed. In both Dialogues in which the eternal Ideas first appear in this liconspicuous position, they are associated with "the thought of immortaUty. In the Sym- {'posium the association is comparatively little stressed. In the Phaedo it is the main theme of the Dialogue. The capacity to apprehend the eternal Ideas marks the soul off as c 18 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY iWt GENERAL PHILOSOPHY 19 akin to the eternal world, which is its real home. t Just as the discovery of the differences between ** knowledge " and *' opinion " iv the Meno had been immediately applied tc problems of statesmanship in the Gorgias so the new conviction concerning the eterna Ideas is made the basis of a philosophy o\ statesmanship in Plato's masterpiece — ^the Republic, The Phaedo had asserted that the true method of explanation is teleology, that is to say, the exposition of the purpose which determines the thing being what it is. With the characteristic honesty which leads Plato always to offer an extreme instance, he now illustrates his meaning by desiring that some- one should prove whether the world is round or flat by demonstrating that one or the other is better ; for whichever is better, that it will be. {Phaedo 97 d, e.) In the Republic this principle becomes the metaphysical background of all his poUtical thought. The Ideas are all of them subordinate to a supreme Idea — the Idea of Good. The statesman, therefore, is to be so trained that he may apprehend this 'supreme principle of the universe, and may then so govern his state that he will cause it to fulfil its true place in the universe which that supreme Idea controls. The relation of his pohtics and ethics to his ultimate |philosophy must concern us more precisely lin the next lecture ; at present it will be best ; to illustrate, as far as we can, what he means jby an Idea. [An Idea is the most real things I in the world ; it is that by conformity to which 'all physical objects have their qualities ; it is that in physical objects which the mind grasps ; and it is the perfect satisfaction of the mind [tJat grasps it. To these four functions of the [dea we have four corresponding EngUsh rords— Fact, Law, Meaning, and Truth. Let ^us consider the Idea in each of these functions^/ (a) The Idea of Justice which he is seeking J in the Republic then becomes what we may call Ithe Fact of Justice. When we use this phrase Iwe do not simply refer to the just quahty of jjust acts ; one might say, for example, " the fact of the justice in the world makes the [pursuit of selfish ends a fool's game"; or we might say— " the fact of generosity is itself the refutation of cynicism." In each of c 2 20 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY i r' GENERAL PHILOSOPHY 21 these two sentences what we should beli insisting upon would not be the just quaUty, or the generous quality, of certain acts orsj powers, but the reahty of the justice and of the generosity, and this particularly as throw- ing Ught upon the scheme of reality as a whole. If love is real, the whole world is different from what it would be if love were not real. How different, is a question stiU to be deter- ^} mined ; but such a phrase as " the fact of love," as of justice or generosity above, would only j be used by someone who wished to imply certain inferences with regard to reality at large. (b) We are all familiar with the conception of Laws of Nature, for example, the Law of' Gravitation. But no one has ever experi- enced a Law of Nature ; they are grasped by the mind only. And there are some of them, as I am assured by students of science, which never can represent any actual facts ;j| and yet they are true. The Law of Gravita-I] tion itself, for example, only acts in co-opera- J tion with other laws or forces, e.g., friction and the like. No one ever saw it at work in its purity. I remember once asking a scientific ffriend about a Law which I believe is known as Boyle's Law of Gases; I asked whether all gases really behaved exactly as the Law described them, and he replied — " Oh no ! none of them do ; they would not be gases if they did." And yet the Law is a true Law ; only some- thing else about the gas prevents it from quite coming off ; the particular never reahses the idea. I must add that I know nothing con- cerning gases on my own account, and I always have a shrewd suspicion that the students of science spend their time in pulling the leg of the lay public. (c) Meaning is something which the mind grasps on the occasion of certain experiences of the senses, but which the senses themselves can never reach. Physically regarded, the Plays of Shakespeare consist entirely of twenty-six curiously shaped black marks on white paper, arbitrarily arranged. Anyone who did not know English might look at the printer's ink for ever and ever without getting any further ; but on the occasion of seeing this printer's ink arranged in curious shapes the mind of an Enghsh reader grasps the meaning of Shakespeare. The meaning then 22 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY it' is in some sense contained in the physical fact, 3 but it is certainly not the same as the physical fact. So people ask with regard to the war — ** What is the meaning of such things happen- ing in God's world ? " The facts are certain enough ; the meaning seems to be something other than facts. (d) All this is most of all conspicuous in relation t o Truth ^ When people ask for the real Truth about the world, or about hfe, they are wanting something beyond what their experience has given them ; otherwise they would not ask, and there would be no philo- sophy and no art. The truth of the world must be the interpretation of experience, no doubt, but it is something which in our ordinary work-a-day experience we have not found. When, then, we consider the four great functions of the Platonic Idea, we see easily enough that Plato had full warrant for in- sisting that it is something distinct from the physical reaUty which partially embodies it, and that it must be grasped by the mind alone and can never be reached by the senses. The eternal Ideas which are thus appre- .hended by the intellect supply the object of 1 GENERAL PHILOSOPHY 23 knowledge which could not be found in the perpetually changing material world. Con- cerning everything that belongs to this terres- trial existence we can never have real know- ledge, but only opinion. In the Meno the difference between right opinion and know- ledge had consisted in the addition to the former of its ground, but now the two have different spheres altogether, and it is only . of the intellectual world that knowledge is ' possible. The relation between the Ideas and ' their Particulars is at this stage described under three figures : (a) the Particular par- I ticipates in the Idea (Symposium, 211 b) ; (6) The Idea is present in the Particular {Phaedo, 100 d) ; (c) The Particular imitates the Idea (Republic, X, 597, 598). In this last book of the Republic, for the first time since the explicit formulation of the ideal theory of the Symposium and Phaedo we are con- fronted with Ideas, not only of attributes such as the " beautiful," the " just," and the like, but of things such as a " bed."^ Plato there speaks of the ideal bed which is the creation of God, and in imitation of which the ^ But ef. the ideal shuttle in the Cratylua, 24 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY carpenter, or whoever else it may be, makes a material bed. (We note in passing how all this is preparing for the line of thought • famihar in the Epistle to the Hebrews, con- cerning the Heavenly Tabernacle and its earthly counterpart.) We shall see in a moment that this development, while in- herent in the logic of the whole Ideal theory, none the less prepares the way for a great/ change which was to come over Plato's philo-' sophy ; but not yet. The Phaedrus belongs to' the same date as the Republic ; the great myth, which is its supreme glory, shows just that ' combination of philosophic grasp and poetic intuition which is the great characteristic of • this period in Plato's work ; but the Dialogue ends with an expression of despair concerning philosophic writing, and it would seem that after it there was a long pause. The next Dialogue in date is probably the Thewtetus, but it may be the Parmenides, which belongs to the same period. Let us take the latter first for convenience in ex- » position. In Repitbli^, Book X, there had appeared the argument known as the rplro^ d.^fHoiro, argument. The argument was there i I I GENERAL PHILOSOPHY 25 introduced to prove that each Idea is single, for if there were two, this would not be the real Idea, which would appear behind them as the principle of their unity ; e.g., if we sup- pose two ideal beds, we shall have to suppose another which gives to each its character, and this will be the real Idea. (597 c). In the Parmenides this same argument is applied with ruinous effect to a certain form of the Ideal theory itself (132 a), for a third Idea is wanted connecting the Idea with its Particulars, and so ad infinitum. The same fate awaits the extension made in Republic, X, of the Ideal theory to physical objects. He asserts there the existence of the Ideal bed. But this, too, leads to absurdities. In the Parmenides (130 c) Socrates confesses per- plexity as to whether there are Ideas of Man, Fire, Water, and so on, and himself urges that to maintain the existence of Ideal Hair or Ideal Mud would be to fall into an abyss of absurdity. We see then that two of the developments contained in Republic, X, supply the occasion for attack on a certain form of Ideal theory, which attack is developed in the Parmenides ; moreover, I believe this forin ■'M 26 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY i to be one which Plato himself had at least provisionally held. Socrates, the represen- tative of the Ideal theory, is here defeated in the argument. Surely it is legitimate to infer that the Ideal theory here refuted— refuted by Parmenides and upheld by Socrates— is meant to be that which in former Dialogues Socrates has so often maintained. Moreover, the precise point of attack in the Parmenides is the relation between the Ideas and Particulars, and especially three theories of this relation^ namely, those of the Symposium, the Phaedo, and the Republic, mentioned above. We are therefore not surprised that in the ^he(Btetus, which belongs to the same period, a wholly new start is made with regard to the question—" What is knowledge ? " Whether we call this the new Platonism, or the first genuine Platonism, will depend upon our views about the responsibility of Socrates or Plato for the doctrines mentioned hitherto. At any rate, there can be no doubt that, from this time onwards, Plato's thought makes a new start and follows a new Hne. The Thewtetus begins with the question—" What ib know- ledge ? " Ite main contribution is to be found I GENERAL PHILOSOPHY 27 in its assertion of certain known principles which qualify all experience (184-186). These are " being " and '* not-being," " likeness " and " un-likeness," " identity " and " differ- \ ence," " unity " and " plurality." It is maintained that inasmuch as these are applic- able to the objects of all the several senses, they cannot be actually received through sensation. They are principles belonging to the mind itself, which is thus shown to be one and the same agent in all acts of sensation — seeing, hearing, smelling, and the Uke. It will be noticed that in this argument Plato has anticipated the Kantian theory of Categories and of the Unity of Apperception. It is curious that this great argument should have lain for all the centuries almost unheeded until Kant set it forth with far less lucidity than f Plato. The fact is that here, as so often, Plato's grasp of the problem is so direct and complete, that men whose minds are less clear do not realise that he has handled it at all. When the argument is developed in a couple of hundred pages it begins to impress us ; when its essence is stated in two pages we have not yet reached the problem by the time that 28 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY GENERAL PHILOSOPHY 29 Plato has given a solution and passed on. While I am dealing with the capacity of Plato's insight to leap the centuries and anticipate the greatest advances of modern philosophy, .•11,^1 must allude to the section of the Sophist, where, reviving the problem of error from the Thewtetus (188-200), he solves it by means of a doctrine of negation which anticipates what we often regard as Hegel's chief contribution to Logic (236-260). y We may now sum up the results of this discussion. Plato begins with the conviction that man possesses moral knowledge. This at once impUes the existence of a permanent object of knowledge, at least in the moral sphere, but our ordinary experience does not itself give the ground for such knowledge ; it is itself perpetually changing and it does not perfectly represent the principles of which it is the expression. The truth which corresponds to real knowledge is only found by deeper insight and wider apprehension than is obtain- able at the level of ordinary experience. At the crown of the whole system as repre- sented in the Republic is the Idea of Good ; whether or not Plato thought of this as some- \ thing personal when writing the Republic, there is no doubt that later on his supreme principle is the purpose or thought of a Living God. So he exclaims in the Sophist (248 e) : " Can we ever be made to believe that motion, and life, and soul, and mind, are not present with perfect being ? Can we imagine that being is devoid of life and mind, and exists in awful unmeaningness, an ever- lasting fixture ? " Again, in the Philebus (30 c), we find him speaking of the " royal mind of Zeus." In the myth of the Timceus, written near the end of his life, he tells us that God made the world because He was free from all jealousy, and desired to share His own perfection as widely as possible (29 e). | Per- haps the greatest height that he ever reaches is in the Thecetetus (176 a, b), where he says that the wisdom of man is to fly from this world to the spiritual world, and this flight consists in becoming holy and just and good. '' Evils cannot perish, Theodorus, for there must always be something opposing good, nor can they find their place among the gods, but they attend of necessity upon our mortal nature and this terrestrial sphere. We should f\\r / s 30 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY i endeavour to flee from this region to that with all speed ; and by flight is meant a resemblance to God as far as is possible ; but to resemble Him is to become just and holy with wisdom. Indeed it is no easy task, my friend, to per- suade men that the majority are wrong in the reason which they assign for fleeing wicked- ness, and pursuing virtue:—! mean, the avoidance of a bad reputation, or the acquire- ment of a good one ; this, as it seems to me, is an ' old wives' tale,' as the saying is. The truth we may put in this way. (God is in m /manner of way unjust but utterly and abso- lutely just, nor is there anything more like to pm than whosoever among men becomes as just as possible." LECTURE II ETHICS AND POLITICS /. Plato starts, as we saw in the last Lecture, from Socrates' conviction of moral certainty. Morality, the sphere in which this certainty is found, is itself the science or art of social life. The principles which Socrates regards as un- questionably knowable are those which govern the relations between men within the system which is called Society, the City, or the State. Plato's whole thought on this subject is deter- mined by his belief in human immortality. All the concerns of this world, public and private alike, are to be viewed in the Ught of eternity. One of the strongest instances of the effect which this produced is to be found in his account of the life that the true philo- sopher should live in this wretched world. " He will be like one," says Plato, " who \ . ^ ) ■ ^ > 31 32 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY ii cowers behind a wall out of the storm of hail and sleet, counting himself happy if he can escape unspotted to the other world." (496 d, e.)^ With this, of course, we must con- trast the duty of the philosopher in the ideal State ; there he will take his full part, de- serting his contemplations to share in the government, because in that State he will be genuinely at home. Politics for Plato becomes, in consequence of this perspective, entirely subordinate to yl ethics. The State is to be so fashioned that the influence of its organisation may create in the souls of its individual citizens that habit and proportion which is profitable for eternity. It is quite true that in the details of his political organisation Plato seem^'^nSrely JG^imcrifice the individual to^ociety ; but this, after all, is in the end for the individual's own sake. Justice in the State is a mere image of the true justice which is a condition of the individual soul (443 c). The true criterion of a Constitution is to be found by asking what ^ training for eternity it affords. To make the ^ AU references in this Lecture are to the JRepublic unless otherwise specified. ( II ETHICS AND POLITICS 33 matter clear, we may at this point contrast the view of Aristotle, who believed indeed in the eternity of spirit, but not at all in individual immortality. The result is that for him there is nothing beyond the life of society by which that life itself is to be judged. The test of a Constitution would seem to be its stability and capacity for resisting change ; while the ideal life for man is something not socially serviceable in any high degree, so that ethics and politics fall right apart. Aristotle seems to care more for the individual, because he cares more for the individual's temporal con- cerns and freedom, but inasmuch as he prefers the good citizen to the good man when these two ideals fall apart, it is clear that for him the State comes first, and the individual second ; while in Plato the individual as an eternal soul comes first, and it is only his temporal concerns that are sacrificed to the State — ^this sacrifice itself being demanded for the sake of the Individual's eternal welfare. The ideal method which Plato would wish to apply in the sphere of politics and ethics is that which he outlines as actually at work in his ideal State. Kings are philosophers, but they 34 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY n \ are ideal philosophers ; in other words, govern- ment is to be conducted by knowledge of the eternal truth. The philosopher king, who has seen the Idea of Good which is the governing principle of the whole universe, will so order his State that it may properly discharge its func- tion as that function is determined by this ^ ^supreme Idea. In modern or Christian terms, ' Plato's demand is for a State which shall be governed in all its details in accordance with the known purpose of God for His universe. This explains the curious, and at first sight bafiiing, extension of the area of inquiry in the Republic. He begins with the search for individual justice (Book I). He then remarks that justice is a term used of States, not only of Individuals, and we shall see it on a larger scale and therefore in a more easily recognisable form in the State than in the Individual. He there- fore constructs his ideal State to embody the principle of justice. Alike in the State and Individual soul, justice turns out to consist in the true performance of its own function by each constituent element (Books II-V). But then this same law suddenly expands into the governing principle of the universe, for the / \ ii ETHICS AND POLITICS 35 Idea of Good which allots to all other principles their sphere of operation is nothing but justice on a cosmic scale ; and so through individual morality. State organisation, and ultimate theology, he traces one principle. He has found it indeed by beginning with the individual, but it is only perfectly imderstood when it is grasped as cosmic ; consequently the philosopher king must be trained up to that apprehension, and in the light of it will administer the State. From this it follows that the perfect con- stitution and the perfect science of politics alike require as their starting point and ground a knowledge of the Idea of Good ; but this knowledge Plato emphatically says that he does not himself possess (506 c-507 a) . He believes that the most intellectually gifted of citizens, if trained according to his scheme of education, and under the influence of the whole moral atmosphere of his ideal State, would attain to this knowledge and govern their State in the light of it. Plato himself must fall back upon a provisional method ; and his method in ethics and politics is as a fact not metaphysical but psychological. A political D 2 A:. \ i 36 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY II II ETHICS AND POLITICS 37 constitution, he says, both springs from the characters of the citizens, and then reproduces itself in those characters again (435 e, 544 d, 491 a-497 a, 547 b-580 a). If, for example, a State gives great honour to wealth, this can only be because the citizens regard wealth as of peculiar' importance ; but children born in the State' which thus honours wealth will be led by its institutions to pay to wealth the same honour. A plutocracy is bad, not chiefly because it is unstable and liable to revolution, but because it rests upon a moral standard which is false and a symptom of disease in the soul. It is from this conviction that the whole analogy between the State and the Individual springs. No doubt Plato constructs his State in such a way as to make the parallel as close as possible, but he shows in one or two casual phrases ' that he is himself quite aware that the parallel is not actually so close as he has drawn it, and in two passages, widely separ- ated, he insists that it is from the spiritual root, and not from the superficial resemblance, that the analogy springs (435 e, 544 d). There * E.g., ft aXXa arra fiera^v Tvyxdv€t ovra (443 e). I I t is a condition of the soul which is inherently good and healthy. A good constitution in the State is therefore one which springs from and perpetuates the good spiritual condition of the Individual. The excellence of this spiritual condition is entirely independent of the fact of the soul's eternity, but when that is brought into account everything other than spiritual excellence immediately becomes negli- gible. So the State is criticised from a rigidly moral point of view, and the ideal State is that which is at once the expression and the seed-plot of beautiful characters, and is, more- f over, the best school for eternity. We have already noticed that Aristotle seems to have no ultimate principle by which he criticises the State. His method is for the most part inductive ; he considers what in- stitutions there have been, and tries to infer from their merits and defects in working what is the best available. Plato, looking into human nature with the thought of immor- tality always present to him, imagines a State which should be the perfectly congruous home of the perfect character. No doubt by the end of Book IX this has become a city in 38 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY II II ETHICS AND POLITICS 39 Heaven, which he despairs of realising com- pletely upon earth ; but it is one upon which a man may gaze and fashion the constitution within his own soul after its pattern. In a similar way, with regard to individual ethics we find that Aristotle is in the end of the day purely intuitionist ; there are many acts which are to be done merely because to do them is noble, and to shirk them is base. At one time we had thought that he was going to give us the principle which determines nobihty and baseness, when he tells us that virtue lies in a mean between two extremes, and that this mean is determined by that principle which the wise man {p6vifw^) would apply. But when we ask who is the wise man we are only told that it is he who apphes the right principle. For practical purposes this works well enough. We do know as a fact the kind of man whose moral advice we value in cases of perplexity. But as science the position is plainly in- tolerable ; we have not been brought any nearer to understanding why a given act is ^ —1 ngli*- Plato is intuitionist, as every man must be, about the end ; but there is only one end, which is justice. With regard to all particular actions and principles Plato is ruthlessly utilitarian : the useful is noble, and the harmful is base (457 b). The general objec- tion to a utilitarian criticism of morals is not really that it justifies moral action by an end beyond itself, but that the end which it pro- poses is pleasure. It is the hedonism of Bentham and Mill, not their utilitarianism, that is the real flaw. With regard to such questions as the relation of the sexes most men need to fall back either upon prejudice or intuition ; the two are not always easy to distinguish. Bentham would consider what arrangement most conduces to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and inter- prets happiness in terms of pleasure. Plat< will be equally utilitarian ; the arrangements and conventions must be such as most effec- tively serve the highest good ; but for him th^ highest good is by no means pleasure — ^it i^ Justice. And here we may parenthetically Iremark that his whole system fails just in proportion as justice itself falls short of Love.\ About the end, if there be an end, man must be intuitionist, and therefore Plato does not try to justify his ideal man or his ideal State. I- ^ ^ 40 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY ii He draws the picture and says— Do you like it or not ? But once that ideal is accepted as the end, everything else falls into place as means to that end. He is very near that interpretation of morality which says that to love God and to love man is the whole of the moral law, and that all particular actions or departmental principles are to be determined as love to God and man on each occasion prompt. For this reason Plato is, of course, rather shocking to respectability, and no doubt there is in his work a lack of reverence for the authority of tradition. But the tradition of civiUsation in his time was still very short ; the Greeks, whose life is symbolised by their walled cities, knew that barbarism lay all about them and that they were only just raised above it. They did not look back to two thousand years of history in a society which they believed to be inspired, even though the treasure be in earthen vessels. And so Plato is able practically to ignore all conventions, and try to think out the whole problem for himself. Of course his solution . will not work. His proposed abolition of the family, his communism in husbands, wives, V i! II ETHICS AND POLITICS 41 and children, however wisely regulated and however strictly conducted, ignores elementary facts in human nature, and would result in making men more selfish, not, as he hoped, more self -devoted ; moreover, it postulates an understanding by the rulers of the intimate characters of their subjects such as no philo- sopher king, nor anyone less than Divine, could ever have. But then the honesty and thoroughness of the attempt make his failure more instructive than the success of most other men, here as in so many departments of his work. At least his method is one by which a complete systematic grasp of the moral life of man, whether individual as in ethics, or corporate as in politics, is possible. ,; We now turn to the actual analogy between / the State and the Individual which is the most familiar feature of the Republic, It is really i based upon an analysis of the human soul, though Plato develops the outUne of his Constitution first, and only discovers the psychological parallel afterwards. Let us therefore change his order and take first the analysis of the Soul. Its governing principle is simply this. 42 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY ii There are three primary relations in which a man may stand to other men, and there are only three. He may ignore them, he may compete with them, and he may co-operate with them. No doubt these three can be combined in an infinite variety of ways. For example, in a game of football the two teams co-operate in creating the enjoyment of the game, but the enjoyment depends upon the competition between them, for if one side does not play up there is no fun. Consequently, within the whole co-operative system of the game there is a competitive element which is vital to it. But again in this competition each team co-operates ; to be a good in- dividual player is to be good in co-operation ; the selfish player, however brilliant, is always an inferior player. But there may in either team be some wretched individual who plays, not for the sake of the game, but for the sake of exercise, and so far as motive is concerned he has no regard to other persons at all, whether in the way of competition or co- operation ; he takes advantage of this com- petitive co-operative activity to satisfy a purely seH-regarding desire. This illustrates II ETHICS AND POLITICS the way in which by being mixed together the three primary relations may be concealed from anything but rather close observation. It remains true, however, that one or other of these three relations must be present between any two men existing in the same universe, while all may of course exist together. The elementary desires pay no attention to other persons. When I am hungry I need food, when I am thirsty I need drink. ^ Here there is no relation to other people impUed at all. In a vicious social system it may be true that I can only get my food by virtually robbing someone else of it, and so far I become involved in competition ; or like Sir Philip Sidney, I may when thirsty forgo satisfaction ^ In order to insist on our thinking of the desires in their simplicity, Plato introduces a long section (437 b-439 c) to explain that each desire is of an object and that the object is only qualified if the desire is. Thirst is desire for drink ; if I am very thirsty I desire much drink ; if I am hot and thirsty I desire a cold drink ; if I am cold and thirsty I desire a hot drink. Will it be believed that some German critics, thinking that the qualification should be the same on both sides of the relation, alter the MS. and make Plato say that if I am hot and thirsty I desire a hot drink and if I am cold and thirsty I desire a cold drink ? One wonders if even a German professor was ever known to run into a shop out of a blizzard and exclaim, " I am frozen to death ; give me an iced lemon squash." /i Ik 44 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY n of my thirst for the sake of another, but this IS not done in so far as I am thirsty, but in so far as I am also generous. The Ufe of desire then is purely self-regarding, and the function of the desires is simply to maintain the basis of hfe. But the separate desires are not only entirely void of relation to other persons, but they are atomistic in themselves. The desire for food may be quite isolated from the real nature of the whole self, so may the desire for drink. In fact, these desires may easily conflict with the real good of the whole person, or even with his deUberate purpose, so that by mdulging in them a man may wreck both himself and the purpose of his life. They are ' self-regarding, but do not attain to the level of self-respect. This is reached by the second division of the So\il—0v,i6'!. which we may perhaps re- present in English by the word "spirit," understood in that sense which it bears in the phrase—" A man of spirit," or by the word " devil " in the sense which it bears when we say of someone—" He has a^evil in him."i , 'J*.^^P°^^^^ that a very profound phUosophy of evU lurks in tins expression, ^th its apparent recognition of the value of qualities clearly evil if held in proper subordination. II ETHICS AND POLITICS ')1 Ovfio^ does regard the self as a whole in con- trast with the desires which ignore the whole that they constitute ; but it sees the man always in distinction from, and in competition with, other men. Its leading word is Honour, and perhaps its temper is best expressed in the words attributed by Blougram to Gigadibs : " Best be yourself, imperial, plain and true." Above this stands reason, whose function it is to realise the self as a member of the com- munity, and therefore to perform those tasks which fall to it as such a member ; in other words, it is co-operative. Two things are clear about this scheme. In the first place there is a real function for each of the elements of the soul in the perfect life. If the desires are not satisfied life will cease altogether ; Ovfw<: will play its part in protecting reason against any attempt of desires to go beyond their true province or against such oppression by other men as might deprive the man of scope for the service he is qualified to render ; for the man who has once learned that he is essentially a member of a community will only satisfy his self- Vf 46 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY ii II ETHICS AND POLITICS 47 respect, will only gain such honour as he cares to have, by hving up to his membership. Conseqi^ently, if reason is^ sup remft^t.Wp. is a place found for the ot her e lements ; butTI Ovfw-«-**' 64 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY ii arise if men were wholly free from selfishness, for men have different gifts, and each needs the gifts of all ; and so, apart from all competition or selfishness, men would as a matter of fact co-operate according to some ordered scheme. The ideal State is society as it would be if men were thus wholly free from selfishness. Actually society no doubt rests upon both principles at once. In so far as it is repre- sented by the poUce and the law courts, Glauco's theory is true ; and most of us would have to confess that if the penal sanctions of moraUty were all aboUshed, our own standard of conduct would be Ukely in one respect or another to decHne. But there is also in actual society an immense element of fellowship and co-operation ; and political progress has, in fact, consisted in the development of the element of fellowship as against the element of mutual antagonism ; that is to say, in the development from society as Glauco repre- sents it, towards the ideal State which Socrates constructs. Justice as the governing principle of the ideal State is, as we have seen, the requiring from each man of the service he is fitted to II ETHICS AND POLITICS 65 render. No doubt in abstract logic this works out as identical with justice, as Polemarchus following Simonides defined it — the rendering to each his due. For rights and duties are correlative terms ; my neighbour's duties are constituted by my rights, and my duties by his rights. But in practice the two are very different. In the first place, it is much easier for a man to determine whether he is doing his utmost for society than to determine what is really due (that is, what will be truly bene- ficial) to any given individual. If all men will solve their own problem of doing their very best, the other problem will have solved itself. But even more important than this is the distinction in moral atmosphere. Polemar- chus' phrase lays all the emphasis on rights, and would suggest a society of persons, each claiming his just rights. Socrates' definition lays the emphasis on duties, and suggests a society of persons eager to render each his just meed of service. Perhaps there is nothing so important for our modern democracy as to learn this transference of emphasis from rights to d ities. Glauco, then, is answered by the construc- F s. < t-~ 66 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY ii tion of the Ideal State. Morality as we know it is very often adopted as a mere compromise ; but it need not be so ; and morality in its own nature and when loved for its own sake turns out to be the highest good for men. The answer to Adeimantus follows similar lines. Contemporary education is very apt to be as bad as he says it is ; but it is capable of reform ; and we can conceive a type of education which will be a real training in morality. The governing principle in Plato's ; J - educational scheme is that character must be moulded before the intellect is trained. The primary business of elementary education is so to mould the impulses and instincts that the child will spontaneously love and hate the right things. The child is to be brought up in such surroundings as will make goodness attractive. It must have no personal ex- perience of evil at aU. When it meets with evil in later life it will recognise it by the jarring discord between it and the character that its early environment has moulded. Morahty here differs from Science. It may be a good thing that a doctor should have had experience of disease, for he heals body with II ETHICS AND POLITICS 67 / i> mind, and the bodily disease may not damage his mind. But the judge must not have experienced moral evil in his own soul, for he has to heal soul with soul. We cannot make moral experiments, for to introduce evil into the soul vitiates the very faculty by which we afterwards pronounce judgment (408 d-409 d). There is a danger that the soul itself may become possessed by a lie, and then it can no more grasp the truth, even if it gazes on it, than a warped mirror can accurately reflect what is before it (382 a and b). To train the intellect if the character is unsound may only enable a man to be successful in his villainy ; this will be bad for society but also for himself, for it will make him content with vice (376e-403c). Plato is under no illusion with regard to the greatness of the moral task. He knows that virtue is only attained at great cost and effort. The apparent sacrifice of the in- dividual to the State in Book V is the measure of his apprehension of the difficulties in the way. Perhaps, however, the parable in Book IX represents the matter still more forcibly. He says that we must fashion in our minds a F 2 68 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY II II ETHICS AND POLITICS 69 composite image. First there shall be a many- headed monster which represents the life of desire, and then smaller, but very formidable, a lion, representing the element of self-assertion or evfih of a deb t ; even tnen, while no iniury, itig s till from the in 3ividuars point of view* regrettable. Thisis""air3u^ToTEeTaStrt!r^ III PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY relN his mind has never grasped that for a man ta s acrifice himself for the community is good, not only for the community, but for the man ton ; hft never pr asped th e excellence that is i n sacrifice itse lf, and he is trying to judge it by an outside standard ; but he knows that the whole life of Socrates was a sacrifice, and still more bi3 death. He knows that he chose to die rather than live after an abandonment of his mission, which would suggest that his mission had been false, and even rather than escape from prison when the duties of good citizenship called upon him to remain and submit to the sentence ; and again his heart told him that this sacrifice was excellent, though his theory lags behind. I n short, we feel t hat, noble as is the pictit pfe o f^ Justice, it is still not lo yg^ lor love finds^ sa cnlice its most nat ural expression and does' not stop to balance up the good abandoned the good secured, for it knows that 15 an V it self, active in sacrifice as it is, it has a value gre ater than either . /It is just this failure to pass from justice to Igxe-'Which prevents Plato from finally rounding off his system ; for the Idea of Good, as we have seen, is justice in the universe. All the parts exist to serve the whole ; so far so good ; but he never went on to say that the whole exists' for service of the parts ; nor did anyone else say so until God came into the world and shewed His love alike by life and by death. It is now obvious that Plato's works afford a definite anticipation of much that Christianity > v ire / / 92 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY iii III PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY 98 gave to the world. Partly, this is apparent in the actual conclusions which he reaches, still more in the fact that he stops short at a point where satisfaction is not forthcoming. He represents at once an approach to the per- fect satisfaction of the soul, and a confession of failure to attain to it until there was given something that was then not yet given. But more important even than this is the prepara- tion which he accomplishes in what may be called the spirit of thought. His quite reckless idealism, his relentless criticism, and his combination of passion with the cold light of reason, kindle desire for a truth which shall be able to stand firm without artificial supports, and can satisfy, not only the intellect, but the entire soul. At Alexandria the spirit of Plato met with the tradition of Judaism, and in Philo we find a deliberate attempt to combine his writings with the Old Testament. Plato had not himself made any prominent use of the doctrine of the Logos, which began with HeracUtus and became the domi- nant element in Stoicism ; but his analysis of the soul, with the conception of^^^istte e .realised only when the rational element is ii sup reme and allots to each of the other ele- ments tneir sphere oi action, and the exp anst?^ of j ustice into the Idea of Good as govermng the universe, is substantially very near the Logos doctrine. For the Logos alike in Heraclitus and the Stoics is the supreme rational principle by which the world is governed. This Philo combines with "the word of the Lord " in the Old Testament, the word which is the expression — and therefore revelation — of the transcendent God of Judaism ; so that everything is ready, so far as intellectual apparatus is concerned, for St. John's interpretation of Christ when He comes. Moreover, it is the Platonism of Alexandria which lies behind the whole theology of St. Athanasius and provides the language in which the Nicene Creed and the great orthodox formularies generally are drawn up. In fact, at the time of the Council of Nicea, it may, broadly speaking, be said that to accept Plato as philosophical master was almost essential to orthodoxy, while Aristotle was undoubtedly regarded with suspicion. All through the great formative period, while the human mind was attempting to master more and more ) 94 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY iii elements of Christian truth, Plato was its guide. When this task was for the time ac- compUshed, Aristotle, whose supreme genius lay mainly in analysis, took Plato's place; for the work now to be done was not so much the conquest of new fields as the consoKdation of that which had been won, and the ordering of it ; so medieval theology, which is more concerned to correlate what is known than to reach new knowledge, is Aristotelian rather than Platonic in principle. It is curious to modern readers that the Dialogue which had most influence in the early times was the Timceus. This is partly because it hints at certain Christian ideas (for people have traced in it an outHne of the doctrine of the Trinity, and the Universe, which is called the " Son of God," is also expressly called " Only-begotten "), and also partly because of the relatively accidental fact that of it alone a Latin translation was available. But the ItLconception in the Rejmblic of a City in H eaven o f which we may even now be trz ' ' ' ' ci tizens, also had enormous influenc e. When St. Paul says " our citizenship is in Heaven "^ ^ Philippians iii, 20, III PLATO AND CHRISTIANITX^Ia^ he is talking pure Platonism ; when the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of t he earthly taber - tabernacle in the Heavens, of which it is an i mperfect copy, it is speaking in a wavT5 w hich the Platonic th eory of Ideas had pre- pared. But perhaps more important than pro- viding material of expression to each of these writers, was the service which Plato rendered to the Church through St. Augustine. When Rome, which had called itself the Eternal City and had been regarded as such by all civiUsa- tion, fell before the invasion of the Goths, St. Augustine was able to rally the spiritual forces of Christendom in loyalty to the Eternal City of God. Of course his interpretation of this is thoroughly Christian, but the idea behind it originates with Plato ; and his discussion of civilisation as displaying two tendencies — the one towards selfishness and antagonism, the other towards co-operation and fellowship — ^is drawn straight from the Republic itself. Before leaving this part of the subject, it is worth while to point out that the two strands in Plato's thought with regard to the eternal 96 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY iii realities correspond to two permanent and permanently different interpretations of the universe. [When he speaks of the separati on of the Ideas f rom tneir particulars he is using Ifae language of ordinar y Mysticism ; th e sei^ker afteT tr uth"^r reality must tur n his Back on this worldand grasp the eternal in a pure in tuition.J "Wl^n he speaks of the par - ticul ar as participatin^Sji. the IdeaTor ^ofthe Tde a as present in the pammilar ( a s in the S ymposium and the Phaedo), he is on the verge of that sacramental view of the physical world which may be said to constitute Chris- tian mysticism, and to be the inevitable result of belief in the Incarnation.^ The former leads to Plotinus, the latter to St. John. It is curious to notice how close is the parallel between the Papal theory of medieval Europe and the outline of Plato's Ideal State. In that Ideal State there were three main classes — the philosopher-kings who governed in the light of eternal truth ; the warrior class obedient to the kings, and fighting either ^ This does not turn its back upon the creature in seeking the Creator, but adores the Creator in His creatures. It must be admitted that many mystics who were members of the Church have belonged to the other school. « IP III PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY 97 for the defence of the State or for the sake of civilisation against barbarism ; and the crafts- men who produced the necessities and com- forts of life generally. So in the medieval theory, at any rate in its Papal form, there stood at the head of Christendom the Pope, whose voice was to be taken as the voice of God. Below him and under his supreme authority, spiritually if not secularly, stood the kings of the nations, each having subor- dinate to him the feudal barons, just as the kings were themselves subordinate to the Pope. The main concern of the barons at least was with war, and the pursuit of such pleasures and exercises as were fitted for warriors. Below these again came the mass of citizens, whether serfs or free, mainly con- cerned in the different departments of material production. Europe under Innocent III was - an attempt to set up something remarkably like Plato's Ideal State ; but of course it had not the two great cementing virtues of Tem- perance and Justice ; it lacked Temperance as Plato defines it, inasmuch as the two lower classes consisting, one of kings and barons, and the other of citizens generally, did not 9S PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY iii confine themselves to the performance of their own functions, but perpetually invaded the prerogatives both of one another and of the supreme ruler. The system also lacked Justice in so far as the Pope himself had not, as indeed he could not have, that complete knowledge of the ultimate truth which alone can enable the philosopher-king to govern a city by the light of it. It is made clear in the Republic itself that unless the philosopher is a perfect philosopher he had much better not be king. ^Political power and philosophic insight can only safely be combined when the philosophic insight is absolute^ And of course it is for precisely this reason that the Papacy broke down. The Papacy failed chiefly be- cause the Popes themselves were not content with spiritual authority derived from their knowledge of truth, but endeavoured to back their spiritual authority by worldly power, and so first came under, and then fell before, the temptation of worldliness. But while there is this close parallel between the medieval theory of Christendom and the Platonic Ideal State, it is also true that the temper of mind in these ages was rather m III PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY 99 Aristotelian than Platonic. Indeed, this whole scheme of government is an application to politics of the subsumptive logic of the Prior Analytics — the logic of pure deduction, which the medieval scholastics endeavoured on all sides to apply. For the whole principle of this logic is to arrange terms in pyramids ; at the apex the summum genus ; below this the various genera or kinds ; below each of these again its constituent species ; below each of these the sub-species, and at last the indi- vidual facts or persons. All medievahsts regarded society in much this way, but there were two rival pyramids. According to the Papal scheme the Pope actually represented God on earth ; of him held the Emperor ; the various kings held of the Emperor ; the barons of the kings ; and so on till we reach the serfs. According to the Imperial theory, God is Himself the apex of the p3rramid ; the Pope and Emperor, who stand on a level, both hold of him, and from them proceed the authorities of the ecclesiastical and temporal officers. [It is interesting to note that the first philosophic attempt to arrive at a theory of society from another basis simply inverts 100 PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY iii the same process, and beginning with the isolated individuals proceeds to construct a pyramid with absolute monarchy at its head. The influence of this pyramidal scheme upon Hobbe's " Leviathan " is made perfectly plain by the frontispiece to that work. The theology of the Middle Ages also is entirely AristoteUan. St. Thomas Aquinas, the supreme expression of medieval thought, represents the attempt to co-ordinate the whole of Christian doctrine by means of the Aris- toteUan logic, as that logic was then understood. /The Renaissance was no doubt a movement to which very many causes contributed ; but one main element in it was the revival of the Platonic spirit as against the dominant Aris- ^totelian. Plato again began to be read, having for many centuries been almost forgotten ; and his spirit chimed in with the aspirations of the time, giving encouragement to the desire to press forward into ^new fields of thought, instead of being content to move round and round the estabUshed orthodox scheme. But even during the centuries in which Plato himself was little known, his spirit had III PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY 101 been at work on one most important side of theology, for there was a steady stream of Christian mysticism whose fountain head was St. Augustine, and St. Augustine himself is emphatic with regard to his debt to Platon- ism. From him and through St. Bernard the Platonic tendency is maintained at least so far as concerns the aspirations of the individual soul. But if Plato was a considerable factor in bringing about the Renaissance, and in forming the mind of St. Augustine, anyone who reflects how much the Reformation owed to the Renaissance in spite of its quarrels with it, and how much Luther owed to St. Augustine, will see at once how immensely great Plato's influence has been upon the modern world. This is, indeed, what might have been expected. The Greek nation has been the source of nearly all that is alive in thought or civihsation as distinct from pure reUgion, and Plato is the culmination of the Greek genius. It has, indeed, been said that Plato is not a typical Greek ; that is true, but only because he is more Greek than all the other Greeks together. In him the intellectual passion — ^which is the 102 PLATO AxND CHRISTIANITY iii conspicuous mark of the Greek genius — comes not only to flower but to fruit, which bursts and scatters its seed broadcast. Hellenism here comes to its utmost limits and bursts them, and Plato is left at last, wondering whether perhaps his Ideal State may not, even as he writes, exist somewhere outside the knowledge of the Greeks, in what they would call a barbarian land, and with his whole system manifestly incomplete because it is waiting for just that one final touch — that one crowning glory — which only Christianity could give. PRIKTKD IN GREAT BRITAIN BY R. Cl-AY AND SONS, LTD., •R0NSWICK STREKT, STAMFORD STREET, S.B., AND BDNOAY, SUFFOLK. By the REV. WILLIAM TEMPLE. ^"p^H^H^t.^^^. NATION. The Bishop fs 6d.'net "'^^ ^^' '^'^-'5- Crown 8vo^ THE FAITH AND MODERN THOUGHT Six Lectures With an Introduction by Pro- ^^f^^^ MicHAFL Sadler. Crown 8vo. 2S. 6d. ne^ Globe 8vo. is. net. g.ve to the lectures a singular attraction- *" <'"<^"««. THE KINGDOM OF GOD. A Course of pen to disclose his thouchts on th. c k-" / 7''!>' "^'"S ^is ethics to the average man^" ""^ ^"^'"^^ "' ""^o'^gy and THE NATURE OF PERSONALITY A Course of Lectures. Crown 8vo zs^j net wi2r; '"r^rd-'.f delerTi^'^,,"",!! """'S -"•• - '-»'• "e very liberal, so thoughtfu and ea nest aTd " ," f " ««»• 'or so of the truth is fare in these"or"Tn*de:3''an; tys"' "" ^"P""^^' London: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. By the REV. WILLIAM TEMPLE, ^^^OF^cnni^lf^J^^ ^^^ 'TRUTH ?nH "JR|STIANirY. Being University and School Sermons. 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