Bot-S: The Complete Works of Plato

THEAETETUS: No, I did not.
SOCRATES: I meant to say, that when a person knows and perceives one of you, his
knowledge coincides with his perception, he will never think him to be some other
person, whom he knows and perceives, and the knowledge of whom coincides with his
perception—for that also was a case supposed.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: But there was an omission of the further case, in which, as we now say, false
opinion may arise, when knowing both, and seeing, or having some other sensible
perception of both, I fail in holding the seal over against the corresponding sensation;
like a bad archer, I miss and fall wide of the mark—and this is called falsehood.
THEAETETUS: Yes; it is rightly so called.
SOCRATES: When, therefore, perception is present to one of the seals or impressions
but not to the other, and the mind fits the seal of the absent perception on the one
which is present, in any case of this sort the mind is deceived; in a word, if our view is
sound, there can be no error or deception about things which a man does not know and
has never perceived, but only in things which are known and perceived; in these alone
opinion turns and twists about, and becomes alternately true and false;—true when the
seals and impressions of sense meet straight and opposite—false when they go awry
and crooked.
THEAETETUS: And is not that, Socrates, nobly said?
SOCRATES: Nobly! yes; but wait a little and hear the explanation, and then you will say
so with more reason; for to think truly is noble and to be deceived is base.
THEAETETUS: Undoubtedly.
SOCRATES: And the origin of truth and error is as follows:—When the wax in the soul of
any one is deep and abundant, and smooth and perfectly tempered, then the
impressions which pass through the senses and sink into the heart of the soul, as Homer
says in a parable, meaning to indicate the likeness of the soul to wax (Kerh Kerhos);
these, I say, being pure and clear, and having a sufficient depth of wax, are also lasting,
and minds, such as these, easily learn and easily retain, and are not liable to confusion,
but have true thoughts, for they have plenty of room, and having clear impressions of
things, as we term them, quickly distribute them into their proper places on the block.
And such men are called wise. Do you agree?
THEAETETUS: Entirely.
SOCRATES: But when the heart of any one is shaggy—a quality which the all-wise poet
commends, or muddy and of impure wax, or very soft, or very hard, then there is a
corresponding defect in the mind—the soft are good at learning, but apt to forget; and
the hard are the reverse; the shaggy and rugged and gritty, or those who have an
admixture of earth or dung in their composition, have the impressions indistinct, as also
the hard, for there is no depth in them; and the soft too are indistinct, for their
impressions are easily confused and effaced. Yet greater is the indistinctness when they
are all jostled together in a little soul, which has no room. These are the natures which
have false opinion; for when they see or hear or think of anything, they are slow in
assigning the right objects to the right impressions—in their stupidity they confuse
them, and are apt to see and hear and think amiss—and such men are said to be
deceived in their knowledge of objects, and ignorant.
THEAETETUS: No man, Socrates, can say anything truer than that.
SOCRATES: Then now we may admit the existence of false opinion in us?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And of true opinion also?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: We have at length satisfactorily proven beyond a doubt there are these two
sorts of opinion?
THEAETETUS: Undoubtedly.
SOCRATES: Alas, Theaetetus, what a tiresome creature is a man who is fond of talking!
THEAETETUS: What makes you say so?
SOCRATES: Because I am disheartened at my own stupidity and tiresome garrulity; for
what other term will describe the habit of a man who is always arguing on all sides of a
question; whose dulness cannot be convinced, and who will never leave off?
THEAETETUS: But what puts you out of heart?
SOCRATES: I am not only out of heart, but in positive despair; for I do not know what to
answer if any one were to ask me:—O Socrates, have you indeed discovered that false
opinion arises neither in the comparison of perceptions with one another nor yet in
thought, but in union of thought and perception? Yes, I shall say, with the complacence
of one who thinks that he has made a noble discovery.
THEAETETUS: I see no reason why we should be ashamed of our demonstration,
Socrates.
SOCRATES: He will say: You mean to argue that the man whom we only think of and do
not see, cannot be confused with the horse which we do not see or touch, but only think
of and do not perceive? That I believe to be my meaning, I shall reply.
THEAETETUS: Quite right.
SOCRATES: Well, then, he will say, according to that argument, the number eleven,
which is only thought, can never be mistaken for twelve, which is only thought: How
would you answer him?
THEAETETUS: I should say that a mistake may very likely arise between the eleven or
twelve which are seen or handled, but that no similar mistake can arise between the
eleven and twelve which are in the mind.
SOCRATES: Well, but do you think that no one ever put before his own mind five and
seven,—I do not mean five or seven men or horses, but five or seven in the abstract,
which, as we say, are recorded on the waxen block, and in which false opinion is held to
be impossible; did no man ever ask himself how many these numbers make when added
together, and answer that they are eleven, while another thinks that they are twelve, or
would all agree in thinking and saying that they are twelve?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not; many would think that they are eleven, and in the higher
numbers the chance of error is greater still; for I assume you to be speaking of numbers
in general.
SOCRATES: Exactly; and I want you to consider whether this does not imply that the
twelve in the waxen block are supposed to be eleven?
THEAETETUS: Yes, that seems to be the case.
SOCRATES: Then do we not come back to the old difficulty? For he who makes such a
mistake does think one thing which he knows to be another thing which he knows; but
this, as we said, was impossible, and afforded an irresistible proof of the non-existence
of false opinion, because otherwise the same person would inevitably know and not
know the same thing at the same time.
THEAETETUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: Then false opinion cannot be explained as a confusion of thought and sense,
for in that case we could not have been mistaken about pure conceptions of thought;
and thus we are obliged to say, either that false opinion does not exist, or that a man
may not know that which he knows;— which alternative do you prefer?
THEAETETUS: It is hard to determine, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And yet the argument will scarcely admit of both. But, as we are at our wits’
end, suppose that we do a shameless thing?
THEAETETUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: Let us attempt to explain the verb ‘to know.’
THEAETETUS: And why should that be shameless?
SOCRATES: You seem not to be aware that the whole of our discussion from the very
beginning has been a search after knowledge, of which we are assumed not to know the
nature.
THEAETETUS: Nay, but I am well aware.
SOCRATES: And is it not shameless when we do not know what knowledge is, to be
explaining the verb ‘to know’? The truth is, Theaetetus, that we have long been infected
with logical impurity. Thousands of times have we repeated the words ‘we know,’ and
‘do not know,’ and ‘we have or have not science or knowledge,’ as if we could
understand what we are saying to one another, so long as we remain ignorant about
knowledge; and at this moment we are using the words ‘we understand,’ ‘we are
ignorant,’ as though we could still employ them when deprived of knowledge or science.
THEAETETUS: But if you avoid these expressions, Socrates, how will you ever argue at
all?
SOCRATES: I could not, being the man I am. The case would be different if I were a true
hero of dialectic: and O that such an one were present! for he would have told us to
avoid the use of these terms; at the same time he would not have spared in you and me
the faults which I have noted. But, seeing that we are no great wits, shall I venture to say
what knowing is? for I think that the attempt may be worth making.
THEAETETUS: Then by all means venture, and no one shall find fault with you for using
the forbidden terms.
SOCRATES: You have heard the common explanation of the verb ‘to know’?
THEAETETUS: I think so, but I do not remember it at the moment.
SOCRATES: They explain the word ‘to know’ as meaning ‘to have knowledge.’
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: I should like to make a slight change, and say ‘to possess’ knowledge.
THEAETETUS: How do the two expressions differ?
SOCRATES: Perhaps there may be no difference; but still I should like you to hear my
view, that you may help me to test it.
THEAETETUS: I will, if I can.
SOCRATES: I should distinguish ‘having’ from ‘possessing’: for example, a man may buy
and keep under his control a garment which he does not wear; and then we should say,
not that he has, but that he possesses the garment.
THEAETETUS: It would be the correct expression.
SOCRATES: Well, may not a man ‘possess’ and yet not ‘have’ knowledge in the sense of
which I am speaking? As you may suppose a man to have caught wild birds—doves or
any other birds—and to be keeping them in an aviary which he has constructed at
home; we might say of him in one sense, that he always has them because he possesses
them, might we not?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And yet, in another sense, he has none of them; but they are in his power,
and he has got them under his hand in an enclosure of his own, and can take and have
them whenever he likes;—he can catch any which he likes, and let the bird go again, and
he may do so as often as he pleases.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: Once more, then, as in what preceded we made a sort of waxen figment in
the mind, so let us now suppose that in the mind of each man there is an aviary of all
sorts of birds—some flocking together apart from the rest, others in small groups,
others solitary, flying anywhere and everywhere.
THEAETETUS: Let us imagine such an aviary—and what is to follow?
SOCRATES: We may suppose that the birds are kinds of knowledge, and that when we
were children, this receptacle was empty; whenever a man has gotten and detained in
the enclosure a kind of knowledge, he may be said to have learned or discovered the
thing which is the subject of the knowledge: and this is to know.
THEAETETUS: Granted.
SOCRATES: And further, when any one wishes to catch any of these knowledges or
sciences, and having taken, to hold it, and again to let them go, how will he express
himself?—will he describe the ‘catching’ of them and the original ‘possession’ in the
same words? I will make my meaning clearer by an example:—You admit that there is an
art of arithmetic?
THEAETETUS: To be sure.
SOCRATES: Conceive this under the form of a hunt after the science of odd and even in
general.
THEAETETUS: I follow.
SOCRATES: Having the use of the art, the arithmetician, if I am not mistaken, has the
conceptions of number under his hand, and can transmit them to another.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And when transmitting them he may be said to teach them, and when
receiving to learn them, and when receiving to learn them, and when having them in
possession in the aforesaid aviary he may be said to know them.
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
SOCRATES: Attend to what follows: must not the perfect arithmetician know all
numbers, for he has the science of all numbers in his mind?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: And he can reckon abstract numbers in his head, or things about him which
are numerable?
THEAETETUS: Of course he can.
SOCRATES: And to reckon is simply to consider how much such and such a number
amounts to?
THEAETETUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And so he appears to be searching into something which he knows, as if he
did not know it, for we have already admitted that he knows all numbers;—you have
heard these perplexing questions raised?
THEAETETUS: I have.
SOCRATES: May we not pursue the image of the doves, and say that the chase after
knowledge is of two kinds? one kind is prior to possession and for the sake of
possession, and the other for the sake of taking and holding in the hands that which is
possessed already. And thus, when a man has learned and known something long ago,
he may resume and get hold of the knowledge which he has long possessed, but has
not at hand in his mind.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: That was my reason for asking how we ought to speak when an
arithmetician sets about numbering, or a grammarian about reading? Shall we say, that
although he knows, he comes back to himself to learn what he already knows?
THEAETETUS: It would be too absurd, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Shall we say then that he is going to read or number what he does not
know, although we have admitted that he knows all letters and all numbers?
THEAETETUS: That, again, would be an absurdity.
SOCRATES: Then shall we say that about names we care nothing?—any one may twist
and turn the words ‘knowing’ and ‘learning’ in any way which he likes, but since we have
determined that the possession of knowledge is not the having or using it, we do assert
that a man cannot not possess that which he possesses; and, therefore, in no case can a
man not know that which he knows, but he may get a false opinion about it; for he may
have the knowledge, not of this particular thing, but of some other;—when the various
numbers and forms of knowledge are flying about in the aviary, and wishing to capture
a certain sort of knowledge out of the general store, he takes the wrong one by mistake,
that is to say, when he thought eleven to be twelve, he got hold of the ring-dove which
he had in his mind, when he wanted the pigeon.
THEAETETUS: A very rational explanation.
SOCRATES: But when he catches the one which he wants, then he is not deceived, and
has an opinion of what is, and thus false and true opinion may exist, and the difficulties
which were previously raised disappear. I dare say that you agree with me, do you not?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And so we are rid of the difficulty of a man’s not knowing what he knows,
for we are not driven to the inference that he does not possess what he possesses,
whether he be or be not deceived. And yet I fear that a greater difficulty is looking in at
the window.
THEAETETUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: How can the exchange of one knowledge for another ever become false
opinion?
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: In the first place, how can a man who has the knowledge of anything be
ignorant of that which he knows, not by reason of ignorance, but by reason of his own
knowledge? And, again, is it not an extreme absurdity that he should suppose another
thing to be this, and this to be another thing;—that, having knowledge present with him
in his mind, he should still know nothing and be ignorant of all things?—you might as
well argue that ignorance may make a man know, and blindness make him see, as that
knowledge can make him ignorant.
THEAETETUS: Perhaps, Socrates, we may have been wrong in making only forms of
knowledge our birds: whereas there ought to have been forms of ignorance as well,
flying about together in the mind, and then he who sought to take one of them might
sometimes catch a form of knowledge, and sometimes a form of ignorance; and thus he
would have a false opinion from ignorance, but a true one from knowledge, about the
same thing.
SOCRATES: I cannot help praising you, Theaetetus, and yet I must beg you to reconsider
your words. Let us grant what you say—then, according to you, he who takes ignorance
will have a false opinion—am I right?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: He will certainly not think that he has a false opinion?
THEAETETUS: Of course not.
SOCRATES: He will think that his opinion is true, and he will fancy that he knows the
things about which he has been deceived?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then he will think that he has captured knowledge and not ignorance?
THEAETETUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And thus, after going a long way round, we are once more face to face with
our original difficulty. The hero of dialectic will retort upon us:—‘O my excellent friends,
he will say, laughing, if a man knows the form of ignorance and the form of knowledge,
can he think that one of them which he knows is the other which he knows? or, if he
knows neither of them, can he think that the one which he knows not is another which
he knows not? or, if he knows one and not the other, can he think the one which he
knows to be the one which he does not know? or the one which he does not know to be
the one which he knows? or will you tell me that there are other forms of knowledge
which distinguish the right and wrong birds, and which the owner keeps in some other
aviaries or graven on waxen blocks according to your foolish images, and which he may
be said to know while he possesses them, even though he have them not at hand in his
mind? And thus, in a perpetual circle, you will be compelled to go round and round, and
you will make no progress.’ What are we to say in reply, Theaetetus?
THEAETETUS: Indeed, Socrates, I do not know what we are to say.
SOCRATES: Are not his reproaches just, and does not the argument truly show that we
are wrong in seeking for false opinion until we know what knowledge is; that must be
first ascertained; then, the nature of false opinion?
THEAETETUS: I cannot but agree with you, Socrates, so far as we have yet gone.
SOCRATES: Then, once more, what shall we say that knowledge is?—for we are not
going to lose heart as yet.
THEAETETUS: Certainly, I shall not lose heart, if you do not.
SOCRATES: What definition will be most consistent with our former views?
THEAETETUS: I cannot think of any but our old one, Socrates.
SOCRATES: What was it?
THEAETETUS: Knowledge was said by us to be true opinion; and true opinion is surely
unerring, and the results which follow from it are all noble and good.
SOCRATES: He who led the way into the river, Theaetetus, said ‘The experiment will
show;’ and perhaps if we go forward in the search, we may stumble upon the thing
which we are looking for; but if we stay where we are, nothing will come to light.
THEAETETUS: Very true; let us go forward and try.
SOCRATES: The trail soon comes to an end, for a whole profession is against us.
THEAETETUS: How is that, and what profession do you mean?
SOCRATES: The profession of the great wise ones who are called orators and lawyers; for
these persuade men by their art and make them think whatever they like, but they do
not teach them. Do you imagine that there are any teachers in the world so clever as to
be able to convince others of the truth about acts of robbery or violence, of which they
were not eye- witnesses, while a little water is flowing in the clepsydra?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not, they can only persuade them.
SOCRATES: And would you not say that persuading them is making them have an
opinion?
THEAETETUS: To be sure.
SOCRATES: When, therefore, judges are justly persuaded about matters which you can
know only by seeing them, and not in any other way, and when thus judging of them
from report they attain a true opinion about them, they judge without knowledge, and
yet are rightly persuaded, if they have judged well.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And yet, O my friend, if true opinion in law courts and knowledge are the
same, the perfect judge could not have judged rightly without knowledge; and therefore
I must infer that they are not the same.
THEAETETUS: That is a distinction, Socrates, which I have heard made by some one else,
but I had forgotten it. He said that true opinion, combined with reason, was knowledge,
but that the opinion which had no reason was out of the sphere of knowledge; and that
things of which there is no rational account are not knowable—such was the singular
expression which he used—and that things which have a reason or explanation are
knowable.
SOCRATES: Excellent; but then, how did he distinguish between things which are and are
not ‘knowable’? I wish that you would repeat to me what he said, and then I shall know
whether you and I have heard the same tale.
THEAETETUS: I do not know whether I can recall it; but if another person would tell me, I
think that I could follow him.
SOCRATES: Let me give you, then, a dream in return for a dream:—Methought that I too
had a dream, and I heard in my dream that the primeval letters or elements out of which
you and I and all other things are compounded, have no reason or explanation; you can
only name them, but no predicate can be either affirmed or denied of them, for in the
one case existence, in the other non-existence is already implied, neither of which must
be added, if you mean to speak of this or that thing by itself alone. It should not be
called itself, or that, or each, or alone, or this, or the like; for these go about everywhere
and are applied to all things, but are distinct from them; whereas, if the first elements
could be described, and had a definition of their own, they would be spoken of apart
from all else. But none of these primeval elements can be defined; they can only be
named, for they have nothing but a name, and the things which are compounded of
them, as they are complex, are expressed by a combination of names, for the
combination of names is the essence of a definition. Thus, then, the elements or letters
are only objects of perception, and cannot be defined or known; but the syllables or
combinations of them are known and expressed, and are apprehended by true opinion.
When, therefore, any one forms the true opinion of anything without rational
explanation, you may say that his mind is truly exercised, but has no knowledge; for he
who cannot give and receive a reason for a thing, has no knowledge of that thing; but
when he adds rational explanation, then, he is perfected in knowledge and may be all
that I have been denying of him. Was that the form in which the dream appeared to
you?
THEAETETUS: Precisely.
SOCRATES: And you allow and maintain that true opinion, combined with definition or
rational explanation, is knowledge?
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
SOCRATES: Then may we assume, Theaetetus, that to-day, and in this casual manner, we
have found a truth which in former times many wise men have grown old and have not
found?
THEAETETUS: At any rate, Socrates, I am satisfied with the present statement.
SOCRATES: Which is probably correct—for how can there be knowledge apart from
definition and true opinion? And yet there is one point in what has been said which
does not quite satisfy me.
THEAETETUS: What was it?
SOCRATES: What might seem to be the most ingenious notion of all:—That the
elements or letters are unknown, but the combination or syllables known.
THEAETETUS: And was that wrong?
SOCRATES: We shall soon know; for we have as hostages the instances which the author
of the argument himself used.
THEAETETUS: What hostages?
SOCRATES: The letters, which are the clements; and the syllables, which are the
combinations;—he reasoned, did he not, from the letters of the alphabet?
THEAETETUS: Yes; he did.
SOCRATES: Let us take them and put them to the test, or rather, test ourselves:—What
was the way in which we learned letters? and, first of all, are we right in saying that
syllables have a definition, but that letters have no definition?
THEAETETUS: I think so.
SOCRATES: I think so too; for, suppose that some one asks you to spell the first syllable
of my name:—Theaetetus, he says, what is SO?
THEAETETUS: I should reply S and O.
SOCRATES: That is the definition which you would give of the syllable?
THEAETETUS: I should.
SOCRATES: I wish that you would give me a similar definition of the S.
THEAETETUS: But how can any one, Socrates, tell the elements of an element? I can only
reply, that S is a consonant, a mere noise, as of the tongue hissing; B, and most other
letters, again, are neither vowel-sounds nor noises. Thus letters may be most truly said
to be undefined; for even the most distinct of them, which are the seven vowels, have a
sound only, but no definition at all.
SOCRATES: Then, I suppose, my friend, that we have been so far right in our idea about
knowledge?
THEAETETUS: Yes; I think that we have.
SOCRATES: Well, but have we been right in maintaining that the syllables can be known,
but not the letters?
THEAETETUS: I think so.
SOCRATES: And do we mean by a syllable two letters, or if there are more, all of them,
or a single idea which arises out of the combination of them?
THEAETETUS: I should say that we mean all the letters.
SOCRATES: Take the case of the two letters S and O, which form the first syllable of my
own name; must not he who knows the syllable, know both of them?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: He knows, that is, the S and O?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But can he be ignorant of either singly and yet know both together?
THEAETETUS: Such a supposition, Socrates, is monstrous and unmeaning.
SOCRATES: But if he cannot know both without knowing each, then if he is ever to know
the syllable, he must know the letters first; and thus the fine theory has again taken
wings and departed.
THEAETETUS: Yes, with wonderful celerity.
SOCRATES: Yes, we did not keep watch properly. Perhaps we ought to have maintained
that a syllable is not the letters, but rather one single idea framed out of them, having a
separate form distinct from them.
THEAETETUS: Very true; and a more likely notion than the other.
SOCRATES: Take care; let us not be cowards and betray a great and imposing theory.
THEAETETUS: No, indeed.
SOCRATES: Let us assume then, as we now say, that the syllable is a simple form arising
out of the several combinations of harmonious elements—of letters or of any other
elements.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
SOCRATES: And it must have no parts.
THEAETETUS: Why?
SOCRATES: Because that which has parts must be a whole of all the parts. Or would you
say that a whole, although formed out of the parts, is a single notion different from all
the parts?
THEAETETUS: I should.
SOCRATES: And would you say that all and the whole are the same, or different?
THEAETETUS: I am not certain; but, as you like me to answer at once, I shall hazard the
reply, that they are different.
SOCRATES: I approve of your readiness, Theaetetus, but I must take time to think
whether I equally approve of your answer.
THEAETETUS: Yes; the answer is the point.
SOCRATES: According to this new view, the whole is supposed to differ from all?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well, but is there any difference between all (in the plural) and the all (in the
singular)? Take the case of number:—When we say one, two, three, four, five, six; or
when we say twice three, or three times two, or four and two, or three and two and one,
are we speaking of the same or of different numbers?
THEAETETUS: Of the same.
SOCRATES: That is of six?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And in each form of expression we spoke of all the six?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: Again, in speaking of all (in the plural) is there not one thing which we
express?
THEAETETUS: Of course there is.
SOCRATES: And that is six?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then in predicating the word ‘all’ of things measured by number, we
predicate at the same time a singular and a plural?
THEAETETUS: Clearly we do.
SOCRATES: Again, the number of the acre and the acre are the same; are they not?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the number of the stadium in like manner is the stadium?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the army is the number of the army; and in all similar cases, the entire
number of anything is the entire thing?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: And the number of each is the parts of each?
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
SOCRATES: Then as many things as have parts are made up of parts?
THEAETETUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: But all the parts are admitted to be the all, if the entire number is the all?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: Then the whole is not made up of parts, for it would be the all, if consisting
of all the parts?
THEAETETUS: That is the inference.
SOCRATES: But is a part a part of anything but the whole?
THEAETETUS: Yes, of the all.
SOCRATES: You make a valiant defence, Theaetetus. And yet is not the all that of which
nothing is wanting?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And is not a whole likewise that from which nothing is absent? but that from
which anything is absent is neither a whole nor all;—if wanting in anything, both equally
lose their entirety of nature.
THEAETETUS: I now think that there is no difference between a whole and all.
SOCRATES: But were we not saying that when a thing has parts, all the parts will be a
whole and all?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then, as I was saying before, must not the alternative be that either the
syllable is not the letters, and then the letters are not parts of the syllable, or that the
syllable will be the same with the letters, and will therefore be equally known with them?
THEAETETUS: You are right.
SOCRATES: And, in order to avoid this, we suppose it to be different from them?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But if letters are not parts of syllables, can you tell me of any other parts of
syllables, which are not letters?
THEAETETUS: No, indeed, Socrates; for if I admit the existence of parts in a syllable, it
would be ridiculous in me to give up letters and seek for other parts.
SOCRATES: Quite true, Theaetetus, and therefore, according to our present view, a
syllable must surely be some indivisible form?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: But do you remember, my friend, that only a little while ago we admitted
and approved the statement, that of the first elements out of which all other things are
compounded there could be no definition, because each of them when taken by itself is
uncompounded; nor can one rightly attribute to them the words ‘being’ or ‘this,’
because they are alien and inappropriate words, and for this reason the letters or
elements were indefinable and unknown?
THEAETETUS: I remember.
SOCRATES: And is not this also the reason why they are simple and indivisible? I can see
no other.
THEAETETUS: No other reason can be given.
SOCRATES: Then is not the syllable in the same case as the elements or letters, if it has
no parts and is one form?
THEAETETUS: To be sure.
SOCRATES: If, then, a syllable is a whole, and has many parts or letters, the letters as well
as the syllable must be intelligible and expressible, since all the parts are acknowledged
to be the same as the whole?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: But if it be one and indivisible, then the syllables and the letters are alike
undefined and unknown, and for the same reason?
THEAETETUS: I cannot deny that.
SOCRATES: We cannot, therefore, agree in the opinion of him who says that the syllable
can be known and expressed, but not the letters.
THEAETETUS: Certainly not; if we may trust the argument.
SOCRATES: Well, but will you not be equally inclined to disagree with him, when you
remember your own experience in learning to read?
THEAETETUS: What experience?
SOCRATES: Why, that in learning you were kept trying to distinguish the separate letters
both by the eye and by the ear, in order that, when you heard them spoken or saw them
written, you might not be confused by their position.
THEAETETUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And is the education of the harp-player complete unless he can tell what
string answers to a particular note; the notes, as every one would allow, are the
elements or letters of music?
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
SOCRATES: Then, if we argue from the letters and syllables which we know to other
simples and compounds, we shall say that the letters or simple elements as a class are
much more certainly known than the syllables, and much more indispensable to a
perfect knowledge of any subject; and if some one says that the syllable is known and
the letter unknown, we shall consider that either intentionally or unintentionally he is
talking nonsense?
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
SOCRATES: And there might be given other proofs of this belief, if I am not mistaken.
But do not let us in looking for them lose sight of the question before us, which is the
meaning of the statement, that right opinion with rational definition or explanation is
the most perfect form of knowledge.
THEAETETUS: We must not.
SOCRATES: Well, and what is the meaning of the term ‘explanation’? I think that we have
a choice of three meanings.
THEAETETUS: What are they?
SOCRATES: In the first place, the meaning may be, manifesting one’s thought by the
voice with verbs and nouns, imaging an opinion in the stream which flows from the lips,
as in a mirror or water. Does not explanation appear to be of this nature?
THEAETETUS: Certainly; he who so manifests his thought, is said to explain himself.
SOCRATES: And every one who is not born deaf or dumb is able sooner or later to
manifest what he thinks of anything; and if so, all those who have a right opinion about
anything will also have right explanation; nor will right opinion be anywhere found to
exist apart from knowledge.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: Let us not, therefore, hastily charge him who gave this account of
knowledge with uttering an unmeaning word; for perhaps he only intended to say, that
when a person was asked what was the nature of anything, he should be able to answer
his questioner by giving the elements of the thing.
THEAETETUS: As for example, Socrates...?
SOCRATES: As, for example, when Hesiod says that a waggon is made up of a hundred
planks. Now, neither you nor I could describe all of them individually; but if any one
asked what is a waggon, we should be content to answer, that a waggon consists of
wheels, axle, body, rims, yoke.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And our opponent will probably laugh at us, just as he would if we professed
to be grammarians and to give a grammatical account of the name of Theaetetus, and
yet could only tell the syllables and not the letters of your name—that would be true
opinion, and not knowledge; for knowledge, as has been already remarked, is not
attained until, combined with true opinion, there is an enumeration of the elements out
of which anything is composed.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: In the same general way, we might also have true opinion about a waggon;
but he who can describe its essence by an enumeration of the hundred planks, adds
rational explanation to true opinion, and instead of opinion has art and knowledge of
the nature of a waggon, in that he attains to the whole through the elements.
THEAETETUS: And do you not agree in that view, Socrates?
SOCRATES: If you do, my friend; but I want to know first, whether you admit the
resolution of all things into their elements to be a rational explanation of them, and the
consideration of them in syllables or larger combinations of them to be irrational—is
this your view?
THEAETETUS: Precisely.
SOCRATES: Well, and do you conceive that a man has knowledge of any element who at
one time affirms and at another time denies that element of something, or thinks that
the same thing is composed of different elements at different times?
THEAETETUS: Assuredly not.
SOCRATES: And do you not remember that in your case and in that of others this often
occurred in the process of learning to read?
THEAETETUS: You mean that I mistook the letters and misspelt the syllables?
SOCRATES: Yes.
THEAETETUS: To be sure; I perfectly remember, and I am very far from supposing that
they who are in this condition have knowledge.
SOCRATES: When a person at the time of learning writes the name of Theaetetus, and
thinks that he ought to write and does write Th and e; but, again, meaning to write the
name of Theododorus, thinks that he ought to write and does write T and e—can we
suppose that he knows the first syllables of your two names?
THEAETETUS: We have already admitted that such a one has not yet attained
knowledge.
SOCRATES: And in like manner be may enumerate without knowing them the second
and third and fourth syllables of your name?
THEAETETUS: He may.
SOCRATES: And in that case, when he knows the order of the letters and can write them
out correctly, he has right opinion?
THEAETETUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: But although we admit that he has right opinion, he will still be without
knowledge?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And yet he will have explanation, as well as right opinion, for he knew the
order of the letters when he wrote; and this we admit to be explanation.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: Then, my friend, there is such a thing as right opinion united with definition
or explanation, which does not as yet attain to the exactness of knowledge.
THEAETETUS: It would seem so.
SOCRATES: And what we fancied to be a perfect definition of knowledge is a dream
only. But perhaps we had better not say so as yet, for were there not three explanations
of knowledge, one of which must, as we said, be adopted by him who maintains
knowledge to be true opinion combined with rational explanation? And very likely there
may be found some one who will not prefer this but the third.
THEAETETUS: You are quite right; there is still one remaining. The first was the image or
expression of the mind in speech; the second, which has just been mentioned, is a way
of reaching the whole by an enumeration of the elements. But what is the third
definition?
SOCRATES: There is, further, the popular notion of telling the mark or sign of difference
which distinguishes the thing in question from all others.
THEAETETUS: Can you give me any example of such a definition?
SOCRATES: As, for example, in the case of the sun, I think that you would be contented
with the statement that the sun is the brightest of the heavenly bodies which revolve
about the earth.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Understand why:—the reason is, as I was just now saying, that if you get at
the difference and distinguishing characteristic of each thing, then, as many persons
affirm, you will get at the definition or explanation of it; but while you lay hold only of
the common and not of the characteristic notion, you will only have the definition of
those things to which this common quality belongs.
THEAETETUS: I understand you, and your account of definition is in my judgment
correct.
SOCRATES: But he, who having right opinion about anything, can find out the difference
which distinguishes it from other things will know that of which before he had only an
opinion.
THEAETETUS: Yes; that is what we are maintaining.
SOCRATES: Nevertheless, Theaetetus, on a nearer view, I find myself quite disappointed;
the picture, which at a distance was not so bad, has now become altogether
unintelligible.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: I will endeavour to explain: I will suppose myself to have true opinion of you,
and if to this I add your definition, then I have knowledge, but if not, opinion only.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: The definition was assumed to be the interpretation of your difference.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: But when I had only opinion, I had no conception of your distinguishing
characteristics.
THEAETETUS: I suppose not.
SOCRATES: Then I must have conceived of some general or common nature which no
more belonged to you than to another.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: Tell me, now—How in that case could I have formed a judgment of you any
more than of any one else? Suppose that I imagine Theaetetus to be a man who has
nose, eyes, and mouth, and every other member complete; how would that enable me
to distinguish Theaetetus from Theodorus, or from some outer barbarian?
THEAETETUS: How could it?
SOCRATES: Or if I had further conceived of you, not only as having nose and eyes, but as
having a snub nose and prominent eyes, should I have any more notion of you than of
myself and others who resemble me?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Surely I can have no conception of Theaetetus until your snub- nosedness
has left an impression on my mind different from the snub- nosedness of all others
whom I have ever seen, and until your other peculiarities have a like distinctness; and so
when I meet you to-morrow the right opinion will be re-called?
THEAETETUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: Then right opinion implies the perception of differences?
THEAETETUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: What, then, shall we say of adding reason or explanation to right opinion? If
the meaning is, that we should form an opinion of the way in which something differs
from another thing, the proposal is ridiculous.
THEAETETUS: How so?
SOCRATES: We are supposed to acquire a right opinion of the differences which
distinguish one thing from another when we have already a right opinion of them, and
so we go round and round:—the revolution of the scytal, or pestle, or any other rotatory
machine, in the same circles, is as nothing compared with such a requirement; and we
may be truly described as the blind directing the blind; for to add those things which we
already have, in order that we may learn what we already think, is like a soul utterly
benighted.
THEAETETUS: Tell me; what were you going to say just now, when you asked the
question?
SOCRATES: If, my boy, the argument, in speaking of adding the definition, had used the
word to ‘know,’ and not merely ‘have an opinion’ of the difference, this which is the
most promising of all the definitions of knowledge would have come to a pretty end, for
to know is surely to acquire knowledge.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: And so, when the question is asked, What is knowledge? this fair argument
will answer ‘Right opinion with knowledge,’—knowledge, that is, of difference, for this,
as the said argument maintains, is adding the definition.
THEAETETUS: That seems to be true.
SOCRATES: But how utterly foolish, when we are asking what is knowledge, that the
reply should only be, right opinion with knowledge of difference or of anything! And so,
Theaetetus, knowledge is neither sensation nor true opinion, nor yet definition and
explanation accompanying and added to true opinion?
THEAETETUS: I suppose not.
SOCRATES: And are you still in labour and travail, my dear friend, or have you brought
all that you have to say about knowledge to the birth?
THEAETETUS: I am sure, Socrates, that you have elicited from me a good deal more than
ever was in me.
SOCRATES: And does not my art show that you have brought forth wind, and that the
offspring of your brain are not worth bringing up?
THEAETETUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: But if, Theaetetus, you should ever conceive afresh, you will be all the better
for the present investigation, and if not, you will be soberer and humbler and gentler to
other men, and will be too modest to fancy that you know what you do not know. These
are the limits of my art; I can no further go, nor do I know aught of the things which
great and famous men know or have known in this or former ages. The office of a
midwife I, like my mother, have received from God; she delivered women, I deliver men;
but they must be young and noble and fair.
And now I have to go to the porch of the King Archon, where I am to meet Meletus and
his indictment. To-morrow morning, Theodorus, I shall hope to see you again at this
place.
THE END
PARMENIDES
BY
PLATO
TRANSLATED BY
BENJAMIN
JOWETT
Plato
Parmenides
INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.
The awe with which Plato regarded the character of ‘the great’ Parmenides has extended
to the dialogue which he calls by his name. None of the writings of Plato have been
more copiously illustrated, both in ancient and modern times, and in none of them have
the interpreters been more at variance with one another. Nor is this surprising. For the
Parmenides is more fragmentary and isolated than any other dialogue, and the design
of the writer is not expressly stated. The date is uncertain; the relation to the other
writings of Plato is also uncertain; the connexion between the two parts is at first sight
extremely obscure; and in the latter of the two we are left in doubt as to whether Plato is
speaking his own sentiments by the lips of Parmenides, and overthrowing him out of his
own mouth, or whether he is propounding consequences which would have been
admitted by Zeno and Parmenides themselves. The contradictions which follow from the
hypotheses of the one and many have been regarded by some as transcendental
mysteries; by others as a mere illustration, taken at random, of a new method. They
seem to have been inspired by a sort of dialectical frenzy, such as may be supposed to
have prevailed in the Megarian School (compare Cratylus, etc.). The criticism on his own
doctrine of Ideas has also been considered, not as a real criticism, but as an exuberance
of the metaphysical imagination which enabled Plato to go beyond himself. To the latter
part of the dialogue we may certainly apply the words in which he himself describes the
earlier philosophers in the Sophist: ‘They went on their way rather regardless of whether
we understood them or not.’
The Parmenides in point of style is one of the best of the Platonic writings; the first
portion of the dialogue is in no way defective in ease and grace and dramatic interest;
nor in the second part, where there was no room for such qualities, is there any want of
clearness or precision. The latter half is an exquisite mosaic, of which the small pieces
are with the utmost fineness and regularity adapted to one another. Like the Protagoras,
Phaedo, and others, the whole is a narrated dialogue, combining with the mere recital of
the words spoken, the observations of the reciter on the effect produced by them. Thus
we are informed by him that Zeno and Parmenides were not altogether pleased at the
request of Socrates that they would examine into the nature of the one and many in the
sphere of Ideas, although they received his suggestion with approving smiles. And we
are glad to be told that Parmenides was ‘aged but well-favoured,’ and that Zeno was
‘very good-looking’; also that Parmenides affected to decline the great argument, on
which, as Zeno knew from experience, he was not unwilling to enter. The character of
Antiphon, the half-brother of Plato, who had once been inclined to philosophy, but has
now shown the hereditary disposition for horses, is very naturally described. He is the
sole depositary of the famous dialogue; but, although he receives the strangers like a
courteous gentleman, he is impatient of the trouble of reciting it. As they enter, he has
been giving orders to a bridle-maker; by this slight touch Plato verifies the previous
description of him. After a little persuasion he is induced to favour the Clazomenians,
who come from a distance, with a rehearsal. Respecting the visit of Zeno and
Parmenides to Athens, we may observe—first, that such a visit is consistent with dates,
and may possibly have occurred; secondly, that Plato is very likely to have invented the
meeting (‘You, Socrates, can easily invent Egyptian tales or anything else,’ Phaedrus);
thirdly, that no reliance can be placed on the circumstance as determining the date of
Parmenides and Zeno; fourthly, that the same occasion appears to be referred to by
Plato in two other places (Theaet., Soph.).
Many interpreters have regarded the Parmenides as a ‘reductio ad absurdum’ of the
Eleatic philosophy. But would Plato have been likely to place this in the mouth of the
great Parmenides himself, who appeared to him, in Homeric language, to be ‘venerable
and awful,’ and to have a ‘glorious depth of mind’? (Theaet.). It may be admitted that he
has ascribed to an Eleatic stranger in the Sophist opinions which went beyond the
doctrines of the Eleatics. But the Eleatic stranger expressly criticises the doctrines in
which he had been brought up; he admits that he is going to ‘lay hands on his father
Parmenides.’ Nothing of this kind is said of Zeno and Parmenides. How then, without a
word of explanation, could Plato assign to them the refutation of their own tenets?
The conclusion at which we must arrive is that the Parmenides is not a refutation of the
Eleatic philosophy. Nor would such an explanation afford any satisfactory connexion of
the first and second parts of the dialogue. And it is quite inconsistent with Plato’s own
relation to the Eleatics. For of all the pre-Socratic philosophers, he speaks of them with
the greatest respect. But he could hardly have passed upon them a more unmeaning
slight than to ascribe to their great master tenets the reverse of those which he actually
held.
Two preliminary remarks may be made. First, that whatever latitude we may allow to
Plato in bringing together by a ‘tour de force,’ as in the Phaedrus, dissimilar themes, yet
he always in some way seeks to find a connexion for them. Many threads join together
in one the love and dialectic of the Phaedrus. We cannot conceive that the great artist
would place in juxtaposition two absolutely divided and incoherent subjects. And hence
we are led to make a second remark: viz. that no explanation of the Parmenides can be
satisfactory which does not indicate the connexion of the first and second parts. To
suppose that Plato would first go out of his way to make Parmenides attack the Platonic
Ideas, and then proceed to a similar but more fatal assault on his own doctrine of Being,
appears to be the height of absurdity.
Perhaps there is no passage in Plato showing greater metaphysical power than that in
which he assails his own theory of Ideas. The arguments are nearly, if not quite, those of
Aristotle; they are the objections which naturally occur to a modern student of
philosophy. Many persons will be surprised to find Plato criticizing the very conceptions
which have been supposed in after ages to be peculiarly characteristic of him. How can
he have placed himself so completely without them? How can he have ever persisted in
them after seeing the fatal objections which might be urged against them? The
consideration of this difficulty has led a recent critic (Ueberweg), who in general accepts
the authorised canon of the Platonic writings, to condemn the Parmenides as spurious.
The accidental want of external evidence, at first sight, seems to favour this opinion.
In answer, it might be sufficient to say, that no ancient writing of equal length and
excellence is known to be spurious. Nor is the silence of Aristotle to be hastily assumed;
there is at least a doubt whether his use of the same arguments does not involve the
inference that he knew the work. And, if the Parmenides is spurious, like Ueberweg, we
are led on further than we originally intended, to pass a similar condemnation on the
Theaetetus and Sophist, and therefore on the Politicus (compare Theaet., Soph.). But the
objection is in reality fanciful, and rests on the assumption that the doctrine of the Ideas
was held by Plato throughout his life in the same form. For the truth is, that the Platonic
Ideas were in constant process of growth and transmutation; sometimes veiled in poetry
and mythology, then again emerging as fixed Ideas, in some passages regarded as
absolute and eternal, and in others as relative to the human mind, existing in and
derived from external objects as well as transcending them. The anamnesis of the Ideas
is chiefly insisted upon in the mythical portions of the dialogues, and really occupies a
very small space in the entire works of Plato. Their transcendental existence is not
asserted, and is therefore implicitly denied in the Philebus; different forms are ascribed
to them in the Republic, and they are mentioned in the Theaetetus, the Sophist, the
Politicus, and the Laws, much as Universals would be spoken of in modern books.
Indeed, there are very faint traces of the transcendental doctrine of Ideas, that is, of their
existence apart from the mind, in any of Plato’s writings, with the exception of the
Meno, the Phaedrus, the Phaedo, and in portions of the Republic. The stereotyped form
which Aristotle has given to them is not found in Plato (compare Essay on the Platonic
Ideas in the Introduction to the Meno.)
The full discussion of this subject involves a comprehensive survey of the philosophy of
Plato, which would be out of place here. But, without digressing further from the
immediate subject of the Parmenides, we may remark that Plato is quite serious in his
objections to his own doctrines: nor does Socrates attempt to offer any answer to them.
The perplexities which surround the one and many in the sphere of the Ideas are also
alluded to in the Philebus, and no answer is given to them. Nor have they ever been
answered, nor can they be answered by any one else who separates the phenomenal
from the real. To suppose that Plato, at a later period of his life, reached a point of view
from which he was able to answer them, is a groundless assumption. The real progress
of Plato’s own mind has been partly concealed from us by the dogmatic statements of
Aristotle, and also by the degeneracy of his own followers, with whom a doctrine of
numbers quickly superseded Ideas.
As a preparation for answering some of the difficulties which have been suggested, we
may begin by sketching the first portion of the dialogue:—
Cephalus, of Clazomenae in Ionia, the birthplace of Anaxagoras, a citizen of no mean
city in the history of philosophy, who is the narrator of the dialogue, describes himself as
meeting Adeimantus and Glaucon in the Agora at Athens. ‘Welcome, Cephalus: can we
do anything for you in Athens?’ ‘Why, yes: I came to ask a favour of you. First, tell me
your half- brother’s name, which I have forgotten—he was a mere child when I was last
here;—I know his father’s, which is Pyrilampes.’ ‘Yes, and the name of our brother is
Antiphon. But why do you ask?’ ‘Let me introduce to you some countrymen of mine,
who are lovers of philosophy; they have heard that Antiphon remembers a conversation
of Socrates with Parmenides and Zeno, of which the report came to him from
Pythodorus, Zeno’s friend.’ ‘That is quite true.’ ‘And can they hear the dialogue?’
‘Nothing easier; in the days of his youth he made a careful study of the piece; at present,
his thoughts have another direction: he takes after his grandfather, and has given up
philosophy for horses.’
‘We went to look for him, and found him giving instructions to a worker in brass about a
bridle. When he had done with him, and had learned from his brothers the purpose of
our visit, he saluted me as an old acquaintance, and we asked him to repeat the
dialogue. At first, he complained of the trouble, but he soon consented. He told us that
Pythodorus had described to him the appearance of Parmenides and Zeno; they had
come to Athens at the great Panathenaea, the former being at the time about sixty-five
years old, aged but well-favoured—Zeno, who was said to have been beloved of
Parmenides in the days of his youth, about forty, and very good-looking:— that they
lodged with Pythodorus at the Ceramicus outside the wall, whither Socrates, then a very
young man, came to see them: Zeno was reading one of his theses, which he had nearly
finished, when Pythodorus entered with Parmenides and Aristoteles, who was afterwards
one of the Thirty. When the recitation was completed, Socrates requested that the first
thesis of the treatise might be read again.’
‘You mean, Zeno,’ said Socrates, ‘to argue that being, if it is many, must be both like and
unlike, which is a contradiction; and each division of your argument is intended to elicit
a similar absurdity, which may be supposed to follow from the assumption that being is
many.’ ‘Such is my meaning.’ ‘I see,’ said Socrates, turning to Parmenides, ‘that Zeno is
your second self in his writings too; you prove admirably that the all is one: he gives
proofs no less convincing that the many are nought. To deceive the world by saying the
same thing in entirely different forms, is a strain of art beyond most of us.’ ‘Yes,
Socrates,’ said Zeno; ‘but though you are as keen as a Spartan hound, you do not quite
catch the motive of the piece, which was only intended to protect Parmenides against
ridicule by showing that the hypothesis of the existence of the many involved greater
absurdities than the hypothesis of the one. The book was a youthful composition of
mine, which was stolen from me, and therefore I had no choice about the publication.’ ‘I
quite believe you,’ said Socrates; ‘but will you answer me a question? I should like to
know, whether you would assume an idea of likeness in the abstract, which is the
contradictory of unlikeness in the abstract, by participation in either or both of which
things are like or unlike or partly both. For the same things may very well partake of like
and unlike in the concrete, though like and unlike in the abstract are irreconcilable. Nor
does there appear to me to be any absurdity in maintaining that the same things may
partake of the one and many, though I should be indeed surprised to hear that the
absolute one is also many. For example, I, being many, that is to say, having many parts
or members, am yet also one, and partake of the one, being one of seven who are here
present (compare Philebus). This is not an absurdity, but a truism. But I should be
amazed if there were a similar entanglement in the nature of the ideas themselves, nor
can I believe that one and many, like and unlike, rest and motion, in the abstract, are
capable either of admixture or of separation.’
Pythodorus said that in his opinion Parmenides and Zeno were not very well pleased at
the questions which were raised; nevertheless, they looked at one another and smiled in
seeming delight and admiration of Socrates. ‘Tell me,’ said Parmenides, ‘do you think
that the abstract ideas of likeness, unity, and the rest, exist apart from individuals which
partake of them? and is this your own distinction?’ ‘I think that there are such ideas.’
‘And would you make abstract ideas of the just, the beautiful, the good?’ ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And of human beings like ourselves, of water, fire, and the like?’ ‘I am not certain.’ ‘And
would you be undecided also about ideas of which the mention will, perhaps, appear
laughable: of hair, mud, filth, and other things which are base and vile?’ ‘No,
Parmenides; visible things like these are, as I believe, only what they appear to be:
though I am sometimes disposed to imagine that there is nothing without an idea; but I
repress any such notion, from a fear of falling into an abyss of nonsense.’ ‘You are
young, Socrates, and therefore naturally regard the opinions of men; the time will come
when philosophy will have a firmer hold of you, and you will not despise even the
meanest things. But tell me, is your meaning that things become like by partaking of
likeness, great by partaking of greatness, just and beautiful by partaking of justice and
beauty, and so of other ideas?’ ‘Yes, that is my meaning.’ ‘And do you suppose the
individual to partake of the whole, or of the part?’ ‘Why not of the whole?’ said Socrates.
‘Because,’ said Parmenides, ‘in that case the whole, which is one, will become many.’
‘Nay,’ said Socrates, ‘the whole may be like the day, which is one and in many places: in
this way the ideas may be one and also many.’ ‘In the same sort of way,’ said
Parmenides, ‘as a sail, which is one, may be a cover to many—that is your meaning?’
‘Yes.’ ‘And would you say that each man is covered by the whole sail, or by a part only?’
‘By a part.’ ‘Then the ideas have parts, and the objects partake of a part of them only?’
‘That seems to follow.’ ‘And would you like to say that the ideas are really divisible and
yet remain one?’ ‘Certainly not.’ ‘Would you venture to affirm that great objects have a
portion only of greatness transferred to them; or that small or equal objects are small or
equal because they are only portions of smallness or equality?’ ‘Impossible.’ ‘But how
can individuals participate in ideas, except in the ways which I have mentioned?’ ‘That is
not an easy question to answer.’ ‘I should imagine the conception of ideas to arise as
follows: you see great objects pervaded by a common form or idea of greatness, which
you abstract.’ ‘That is quite true.’ ‘And supposing you embrace in one view the idea of
greatness thus gained and the individuals which it comprises, a further idea of greatness
arises, which makes both great; and this may go on to infinity.’ Socrates replies that the
ideas may be thoughts in the mind only; in this case, the consequence would no longer
follow. ‘But must not the thought be of something which is the same in all and is the
idea? And if the world partakes in the ideas, and the ideas are thoughts, must not all
things think? Or can thought be without thought?’ ‘I acknowledge the unmeaningness
of this,’ says Socrates, ‘and would rather have recourse to the explanation that the ideas
are types in nature, and that other things partake of them by becoming like them.’ ‘But
to become like them is to be comprehended in the same idea; and the likeness of the
idea and the individuals implies another idea of likeness, and another without end.’
‘Quite true.’ ‘The theory, then, of participation by likeness has to be given up. You have
hardly yet, Socrates, found out the real difficulty of maintaining abstract ideas.’ ‘What
difficulty?’ ‘The greatest of all perhaps is this: an opponent will argue that the ideas are
not within the range of human knowledge; and you cannot disprove the assertion
without a long and laborious demonstration, which he may be unable or unwilling to
follow. In the first place, neither you nor any one who maintains the existence of
absolute ideas will affirm that they are subjective.’ ‘That would be a contradiction.’ ‘True;
and therefore any relation in these ideas is a relation which concerns themselves only;
and the objects which are named after them, are relative to one another only, and have
nothing to do with the ideas themselves.’ ‘How do you mean?’ said Socrates. ‘I may
illustrate my meaning in this way: one of us has a slave; and the idea of a slave in the
abstract is relative to the idea of a master in the abstract; this correspondence of ideas,
however, has nothing to do with the particular relation of our slave to us.—Do you see
my meaning?’ ‘Perfectly.’ ‘And absolute knowledge in the same way corresponds to
absolute truth and being, and particular knowledge to particular truth and being.’
Clearly.’ ‘And there is a subjective knowledge which is of subjective truth, having many
kinds, general and particular. But the ideas themselves are not subjective, and therefore
are not within our ken.’ ‘They are not.’ ‘Then the beautiful and the good in their own
nature are unknown to us?’ ‘It would seem so.’ ‘There is a worse consequence yet.’ ‘What
is that?’ ‘I think we must admit that absolute knowledge is the most exact knowledge,
which we must therefore attribute to God. But then see what follows: God, having this
exact knowledge, can have no knowledge of human things, as we have divided the two
spheres, and forbidden any passing from one to the other:—the gods have knowledge
and authority in their world only, as we have in ours.’ ‘Yet, surely, to deprive God of
knowledge is monstrous.’—‘These are some of the difficulties which are involved in the
assumption of absolute ideas; the learner will find them nearly impossible to
understand, and the teacher who has to impart them will require superhuman ability;
there will always be a suspicion, either that they have no existence, or are beyond
human knowledge.’ ‘There I agree with you,’ said Socrates. ‘Yet if these difficulties
induce you to give up universal ideas, what becomes of the mind? and where are the
reasoning and reflecting powers? philosophy is at an end.’ ‘I certainly do not see my
way.’ ‘I think,’ said Parmenides, ‘that this arises out of your attempting to define
abstractions, such as the good and the beautiful and the just, before you have had
sufficient previous training; I noticed your deficiency when you were talking with
Aristoteles, the day before yesterday. Your enthusiasm is a wonderful gift; but I fear that
unless you discipline yourself by dialectic while you are young, truth will elude your
grasp.’ ‘And what kind of discipline would you recommend?’ ‘The training which you
heard Zeno practising; at the same time, I admire your saying to him that you did not
care to consider the difficulty in reference to visible objects, but only in relation to
ideas.’ ‘Yes; because I think that in visible objects you may easily show any number of
inconsistent consequences.’ ‘Yes; and you should consider, not only the consequences
which follow from a given hypothesis, but the consequences also which follow from the
denial of the hypothesis. For example, what follows from the assumption of the
existence of the many, and the counter-argument of what follows from the denial of the
existence of the many: and similarly of likeness and unlikeness, motion, rest, generation,
corruption, being and not being. And the consequences must include consequences to
the things supposed and to other things, in themselves and in relation to one another,
to individuals whom you select, to the many, and to the all; these must be drawn out
both on the affirmative and on the negative hypothesis,—that is, if you are to train
yourself perfectly to the intelligence of the truth.’ ‘What you are suggesting seems to be
a tremendous process, and one of which I do not quite understand the nature,’ said
Socrates; ‘will you give me an example?’ ‘You must not impose such a task on a man of
my years,’ said Parmenides. ‘Then will you, Zeno?’ ‘Let us rather,’ said Zeno, with a smile,
‘ask Parmenides, for the undertaking is a serious one, as he truly says; nor could I urge
him to make the attempt, except in a select audience of persons who will understand
him.’ The whole party joined in the request.
Here we have, first of all, an unmistakable attack made by the youthful Socrates on the
paradoxes of Zeno. He perfectly understands their drift, and Zeno himself is supposed to
admit this. But they appear to him, as he says in the Philebus also, to be rather truisms
than paradoxes. For every one must acknowledge the obvious fact, that the body being
one has many members, and that, in a thousand ways, the like partakes of the unlike,
the many of the one. The real difficulty begins with the relations of ideas in themselves,
whether of the one and many, or of any other ideas, to one another and to the mind.
But this was a problem which the Eleatic philosophers had never considered; their
thoughts had not gone beyond the contradictions of matter, motion, space, and the like.
It was no wonder that Parmenides and Zeno should hear the novel speculations of
Socrates with mixed feelings of admiration and displeasure. He was going out of the
received circle of disputation into a region in which they could hardly follow him. From
the crude idea of Being in the abstract, he was about to proceed to universals or general
notions. There is no contradiction in material things partaking of the ideas of one and
many; neither is there any contradiction in the ideas of one and many, like and unlike, in
themselves. But the contradiction arises when we attempt to conceive ideas in their
connexion, or to ascertain their relation to phenomena. Still he affirms the existence of
such ideas; and this is the position which is now in turn submitted to the criticisms of
Parmenides.
To appreciate truly the character of these criticisms, we must remember the place held
by Parmenides in the history of Greek philosophy. He is the founder of idealism, and
also of dialectic, or, in modern phraseology, of metaphysics and logic (Theaet., Soph.).
Like Plato, he is struggling after something wider and deeper than satisfied the
contemporary Pythagoreans. And Plato with a true instinct recognizes him as his
spiritual father, whom he ‘revered and honoured more than all other philosophers
together.’ He may be supposed to have thought more than he said, or was able to
express. And, although he could not, as a matter of fact, have criticized the ideas of
Plato without an anachronism, the criticism is appropriately placed in the mouth of the
founder of the ideal philosophy.
There was probably a time in the life of Plato when the ethical teaching of Socrates
came into conflict with the metaphysical theories of the earlier philosophers, and he
sought to supplement the one by the other. The older philosophers were great and
awful; and they had the charm of antiquity. Something which found a response in his
own mind seemed to have been lost as well as gained in the Socratic dialectic. He felt no
incongruity in the veteran Parmenides correcting the youthful Socrates. Two points in
his criticism are especially deserving of notice. First of all, Parmenides tries him by the
test of consistency. Socrates is willing to assume ideas or principles of the just, the
beautiful, the good, and to extend them to man (compare Phaedo); but he is reluctant
to admit that there are general ideas of hair, mud, filth, etc. There is an ethical universal
or idea, but is there also a universal of physics?—of the meanest things in the world as
well as of the greatest? Parmenides rebukes this want of consistency in Socrates, which
he attributes to his youth. As he grows older, philosophy will take a firmer hold of him,
and then he will despise neither great things nor small, and he will think less of the
opinions of mankind (compare Soph.). Here is lightly touched one of the most familiar
principles of modern philosophy, that in the meanest operations of nature, as well as in
the noblest, in mud and filth, as well as in the sun and stars, great truths are contained.
At the same time, we may note also the transition in the mind of Plato, to which
Aristotle alludes (Met.), when, as he says, he transferred the Socratic universal of ethics
to the whole of nature.
The other criticism of Parmenides on Socrates attributes to him a want of practice in
dialectic. He has observed this deficiency in him when talking to Aristoteles on a
previous occasion. Plato seems to imply that there was something more in the dialectic
of Zeno than in the mere interrogation of Socrates. Here, again, he may perhaps be
describing the process which his own mind went through when he first became more
intimately acquainted, whether at Megara or elsewhere, with the Eleatic and Megarian
philosophers. Still, Parmenides does not deny to Socrates the credit of having gone
beyond them in seeking to apply the paradoxes of Zeno to ideas; and this is the
application which he himself makes of them in the latter part of the dialogue. He then
proceeds to explain to him the sort of mental gymnastic which he should practise. He
should consider not only what would follow from a given hypothesis, but what would
follow from the denial of it, to that which is the subject of the hypothesis, and to all
other things. There is no trace in the Memorabilia of Xenophon of any such method
being attributed to Socrates; nor is the dialectic here spoken of that ‘favourite method’
of proceeding by regular divisions, which is described in the Phaedrus and Philebus, and
of which examples are given in the Politicus and in the Sophist. It is expressly spoken of
as the method which Socrates had heard Zeno practise in the days of his youth
(compare Soph.).
The discussion of Socrates with Parmenides is one of the most remarkable passages in
Plato. Few writers have ever been able to anticipate ‘the criticism of the morrow’ on their
favourite notions. But Plato may here be said to anticipate the judgment not only of the
morrow, but of all after- ages on the Platonic Ideas. For in some points he touches
questions which have not yet received their solution in modern philosophy.
The first difficulty which Parmenides raises respecting the Platonic ideas relates to the
manner in which individuals are connected with them. Do they participate in the ideas,
or do they merely resemble them? Parmenides shows that objections may be urged
against either of these modes of conceiving the connection. Things are little by
partaking of littleness, great by partaking of greatness, and the like. But they cannot
partake of a part of greatness, for that will not make them great, etc.; nor can each
object monopolise the whole. The only answer to this is, that ‘partaking’ is a figure of
speech, really corresponding to the processes which a later logic designates by the
terms ‘abstraction’ and ‘generalization.’ When we have described accurately the
methods or forms which the mind employs, we cannot further criticize them; at least we
can only criticize them with reference to their fitness as instruments of thought to
express facts.
Socrates attempts to support his view of the ideas by the parallel of the day, which is
one and in many places; but he is easily driven from his position by a counter illustration
of Parmenides, who compares the idea of greatness to a sail. He truly explains to
Socrates that he has attained the conception of ideas by a process of generalization. At
the same time, he points out a difficulty, which appears to be involved—viz. that the
process of generalization will go on to infinity. Socrates meets the supposed difficulty by
a flash of light, which is indeed the true answer ‘that the ideas are in our minds only.’
Neither realism is the truth, nor nominalism is the truth, but conceptualism; and
conceptualism or any other psychological theory falls very far short of the infinite
subtlety of language and thought.
But the realism of ancient philosophy will not admit of this answer, which is repelled by
Parmenides with another truth or half-truth of later philosophy, ‘Every subject or
subjective must have an object.’ Here is the great though unconscious truth (shall we
say?) or error, which underlay the early Greek philosophy. ‘Ideas must have a real
existence;’ they are not mere forms or opinions, which may be changed arbitrarily by
individuals. But the early Greek philosopher never clearly saw that true ideas were only
universal facts, and that there might be error in universals as well as in particulars.
Socrates makes one more attempt to defend the Platonic Ideas by representing them as
paradigms; this is again answered by the ‘argumentum ad infinitum.’ We may remark, in
passing, that the process which is thus described has no real existence. The mind, after
having obtained a general idea, does not really go on to form another which includes
that, and all the individuals contained under it, and another and another without end.
The difficulty belongs in fact to the Megarian age of philosophy, and is due to their
illogical logic, and to the general ignorance of the ancients respecting the part played
by language in the process of thought. No such perplexity could ever trouble a modern
metaphysician, any more than the fallacy of ‘calvus’ or ‘acervus,’ or of ‘Achilles and the
tortoise.’ These ‘surds’ of metaphysics ought to occasion no more difficulty in
speculation than a perpetually recurring fraction in arithmetic.
It is otherwise with the objection which follows: How are we to bridge the chasm
between human truth and absolute truth, between gods and men? This is the difficulty
of philosophy in all ages: How can we get beyond the circle of our own ideas, or how,
remaining within them, can we have any criterion of a truth beyond and independent of
them? Parmenides draws out this difficulty with great clearness. According to him, there
are not only one but two chasms: the first, between individuals and the ideas which have
a common name; the second, between the ideas in us and the ideas absolute. The first
of these two difficulties mankind, as we may say, a little parodying the language of the
Philebus, have long agreed to treat as obsolete; the second remains a difficulty for us as
well as for the Greeks of the fourth century before Christ, and is the stumblingblock of
Kant’s Kritik, and of the Hamiltonian adaptation of Kant, as well as of the Platonic ideas.
It has been said that ‘you cannot criticize Revelation.’ ‘Then how do you know what is
Revelation, or that there is one at all,’ is the immediate rejoinder—‘You know nothing of
things in themselves.’ ‘Then how do you know that there are things in themselves?’ In
some respects, the difficulty pressed harder upon the Greek than upon ourselves. For
conceiving of God more under the attribute of knowledge than we do, he was more
under the necessity of separating the divine from the human, as two spheres which had
no communication with one another.
It is remarkable that Plato, speaking by the mouth of Parmenides, does not treat even
this second class of difficulties as hopeless or insoluble. He says only that they cannot be
explained without a long and laborious demonstration: ‘The teacher will require
superhuman ability, and the learner will be hard of understanding.’ But an attempt must
be made to find an answer to them; for, as Socrates and Parmenides both admit, the
denial of abstract ideas is the destruction of the mind. We can easily imagine that
among the Greek schools of philosophy in the fourth century before Christ a panic
might arise from the denial of universals, similar to that which arose in the last century
from Hume’s denial of our ideas of cause and effect. Men do not at first recognize that
thought, like digestion, will go on much the same, notwithstanding any theories which
may be entertained respecting the nature of the process. Parmenides attributes the
difficulties in which Socrates is involved to a want of comprehensiveness in his mode of
reasoning; he should consider every question on the negative as well as the positive
hypothesis, with reference to the consequences which flow from the denial as well as
from the assertion of a given statement.
The argument which follows is the most singular in Plato. It appears to be an imitation,
or parody, of the Zenonian dialectic, just as the speeches in the Phaedrus are an
imitation of the style of Lysias, or as the derivations in the Cratylus or the fallacies of the
Euthydemus are a parody of some contemporary Sophist. The interlocutor is not
supposed, as in most of the other Platonic dialogues, to take a living part in the
argument; he is only required to say ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ in the right places. A hint has been
already given that the paradoxes of Zeno admitted of a higher application. This hint is
the thread by which Plato connects the two parts of the dialogue.
The paradoxes of Parmenides seem trivial to us, because the words to which they relate
have become trivial; their true nature as abstract terms is perfectly understood by us,
and we are inclined to regard the treatment of them in Plato as a mere straw-splitting,
or legerdemain of words. Yet there was a power in them which fascinated the
Neoplatonists for centuries afterwards. Something that they found in them, or brought
to them—some echo or anticipation of a great truth or error, exercised a wonderful
influence over their minds. To do the Parmenides justice, we should imagine similar
aporiai raised on themes as sacred to us, as the notions of One or Being were to an
ancient Eleatic. ‘If God is, what follows? If God is not, what follows?’ Or again: If God is or
is not the world; or if God is or is not many, or has or has not parts, or is or is not in the
world, or in time; or is or is not finite or infinite. Or if the world is or is not; or has or has
not a beginning or end; or is or is not infinite, or infinitely divisible. Or again: if God is or
is not identical with his laws; or if man is or is not identical with the laws of nature. We
can easily see that here are many subjects for thought, and that from these and similar
hypotheses questions of great interest might arise. And we also remark, that the
conclusions derived from either of the two alternative propositions might be equally
impossible and contradictory.
When we ask what is the object of these paradoxes, some have answered that they are a
mere logical puzzle, while others have seen in them an Hegelian propaedeutic of the
doctrine of Ideas. The first of these views derives support from the manner in which
Parmenides speaks of a similar method being applied to all Ideas. Yet it is hard to
suppose that Plato would have furnished so elaborate an example, not of his own but of
the Eleatic dialectic, had he intended only to give an illustration of method. The second
view has been often overstated by those who, like Hegel himself, have tended to
confuse ancient with modern philosophy. We need not deny that Plato, trained in the
school of Cratylus and Heracleitus, may have seen that a contradiction in terms is
sometimes the best expression of a truth higher than either (compare Soph.). But his
ideal theory is not based on antinomies. The correlation of Ideas was the metaphysical
difficulty of the age in which he lived; and the Megarian and Cynic philosophy was a
‘reductio ad absurdum’ of their isolation. To restore them to their natural connexion and
to detect the negative element in them is the aim of Plato in the Sophist. But his view of
their connexion falls very far short of the Hegelian identity of Being and Not-being. The
Being and Not-being of Plato never merge in each other, though he is aware that
‘determination is only negation.’
After criticizing the hypotheses of others, it may appear presumptuous to add another
guess to the many which have been already offered. May we say, in Platonic language,
that we still seem to see vestiges of a track which has not yet been taken? It is quite
possible that the obscurity of the Parmenides would not have existed to a contemporary
student of philosophy, and, like the similar difficulty in the Philebus, is really due to our
ignorance of the mind of the age. There is an obscure Megarian influence on Plato
which cannot wholly be cleared up, and is not much illustrated by the doubtful tradition
of his retirement to Megara after the death of Socrates. For Megara was within a walk of
Athens (Phaedr.), and Plato might have learned the Megarian doctrines without settling
there.
We may begin by remarking that the theses of Parmenides are expressly said to follow
the method of Zeno, and that the complex dilemma, though declared to be capable of
universal application, is applied in this instance to Zeno’s familiar question of the ‘one
and many.’ Here, then, is a double indication of the connexion of the Parmenides with
the Eristic school. The old Eleatics had asserted the existence of Being, which they at first
regarded as finite, then as infinite, then as neither finite nor infinite, to which some of
them had given what Aristotle calls ‘a form,’ others had ascribed a material nature only.
The tendency of their philosophy was to deny to Being all predicates. The Megarians,
who succeeded them, like the Cynics, affirmed that no predicate could be asserted of
any subject; they also converted the idea of Being into an abstraction of Good, perhaps
with the view of preserving a sort of neutrality or indifference between the mind and
things. As if they had said, in the language of modern philosophy: ‘Being is not only
neither finite nor infinite, neither at rest nor in motion, but neither subjective nor
objective.’
This is the track along which Plato is leading us. Zeno had attempted to prove the
existence of the one by disproving the existence of the many, and Parmenides seems to
aim at proving the existence of the subject by showing the contradictions which follow
from the assertion of any predicates. Take the simplest of all notions, ‘unity’; you cannot
even assert being or time of this without involving a contradiction. But is the
contradiction also the final conclusion? Probably no more than of Zeno’s denial of the
many, or of Parmenides’ assault upon the Ideas; no more than of the earlier dialogues
‘of search.’ To us there seems to be no residuum of this long piece of dialectics. But to
the mind of Parmenides and Plato, ‘Gott- betrunkene Menschen,’ there still remained
the idea of ‘being’ or ‘good,’ which could not be conceived, defined, uttered, but could
not be got rid of. Neither of them would have imagined that their disputation ever
touched the Divine Being (compare Phil.). The same difficulties about Unity and Being
are raised in the Sophist; but there only as preliminary to their final solution.
If this view is correct, the real aim of the hypotheses of Parmenides is to criticize the
earlier Eleatic philosophy from the point of view of Zeno or the Megarians. It is the same
kind of criticism which Plato has extended to his own doctrine of Ideas. Nor is there any
want of poetical consistency in attributing to the ‘father Parmenides’ the last review of
the Eleatic doctrines. The latest phases of all philosophies were fathered upon the
founder of the school.
Other critics have regarded the final conclusion of the Parmenides either as sceptical or
as Heracleitean. In the first case, they assume that Plato means to show the impossibility
of any truth. But this is not the spirit of Plato, and could not with propriety be put into
the mouth of Parmenides, who, in this very dialogue, is urging Socrates, not to doubt
everything, but to discipline his mind with a view to the more precise attainment of
truth. The same remark applies to the second of the two theories. Plato everywhere
ridicules (perhaps unfairly) his Heracleitean contemporaries: and if he had intended to
support an Heracleitean thesis, would hardly have chosen Parmenides, the condemner
of the ‘undiscerning tribe who say that things both are and are not,’ to be the speaker.
Nor, thirdly, can we easily persuade ourselves with Zeller that by the ‘one’ he means the
Idea; and that he is seeking to prove indirectly the unity of the Idea in the multiplicity of
phenomena.
We may now endeavour to thread the mazes of the labyrinth which Parmenides knew so
well, and trembled at the thought of them.
The argument has two divisions: There is the hypothesis that
1. One is. 2. One is not. If one is, it is nothing. If one is not, it is everything.
But is and is not may be taken in two senses: Either one is one, Or, one has being,
from which opposite consequences are deduced, 1.a. If one is one, it is nothing. 1.b. If
one has being, it is all things.
To which are appended two subordinate consequences: 1.aa. If one has being, all other
things are. 1.bb. If one is one, all other things are not.
The same distinction is then applied to the negative hypothesis: 2.a. If one is not one, it
is all things. 2.b. If one has not being, it is nothing.
Involving two parallel consequences respecting the other or remainder: 2.aa. If one is
not one, other things are all. 2.bb. If one has not being, other things are not.
...
‘I cannot refuse,’ said Parmenides, ‘since, as Zeno remarks, we are alone, though I may
say with Ibycus, who in his old age fell in love, I, like the old racehorse, tremble at the
prospect of the course which I am to run, and which I know so well. But as I must
attempt this laborious game, what shall be the subject? Suppose I take my own
hypothesis of the one.’ ‘By all means,’ said Zeno. ‘And who will answer me? Shall I
propose the youngest? he will be the most likely to say what he thinks, and his answers
will give me time to breathe.’ ‘I am the youngest,’ said Aristoteles, ‘and at your service;
proceed with your questions.’—The result may be summed up as follows:—
1.a. One is not many, and therefore has no parts, and therefore is not a whole, which is a
sum of parts, and therefore has neither beginning, middle, nor end, and is therefore
unlimited, and therefore formless, being neither round nor straight, for neither round
nor straight can be defined without assuming that they have parts; and therefore is not
in place, whether in another which would encircle and touch the one at many points; or
in itself, because that which is self-containing is also contained, and therefore not one
but two. This being premised, let us consider whether one is capable either of motion or
rest. For motion is either change of substance, or motion on an axis, or from one place
to another. But the one is incapable of change of substance, which implies that it ceases
to be itself, or of motion on an axis, because there would be parts around the axis; and
any other motion involves change of place. But existence in place has been already
shown to be impossible; and yet more impossible is coming into being in place, which
implies partial existence in two places at once, or entire existence neither within nor
without the same; and how can this be? And more impossible still is the coming into
being either as a whole or parts of that which is neither a whole nor parts. The one, then,
is incapable of motion. But neither can the one be in anything, and therefore not in the
same, whether itself or some other, and is therefore incapable of rest. Neither is one the
same with itself or any other, or other than itself or any other. For if other than itself,
then other than one, and therefore not one; and, if the same with other, it would be
other, and other than one. Neither can one while remaining one be other than other; for
other, and not one, is the other than other. But if not other by virtue of being one, not
by virtue of itself; and if not by virtue of itself, not itself other, and if not itself other, not
other than anything. Neither will one be the same with itself. For the nature of the same
is not that of the one, but a thing which becomes the same with anything does not
become one; for example, that which becomes the same with the many becomes many
and not one. And therefore if the one is the same with itself, the one is not one with
itself; and therefore one and not one. And therefore one is neither other than other, nor
the same with itself. Neither will the one be like or unlike itself or other; for likeness is
sameness of affections, and the one and the same are different. And one having any
affection which is other than being one would be more than one. The one, then, cannot
have the same affection with and therefore cannot be like itself or other; nor can the
one have any other affection than its own, that is, be unlike itself or any other, for this
would imply that it was more than one. The one, then, is neither like nor unlike itself or
other. This being the case, neither can the one be equal or unequal to itself or other. For
equality implies sameness of measure, as inequality implies a greater or less number of
measures. But the one, not having sameness, cannot have sameness of measure; nor a
greater or less number of measures, for that would imply parts and multitude. Once
more, can one be older or younger than itself or other? or of the same age with itself or
other? That would imply likeness and unlikeness, equality and inequality. Therefore one
cannot be in time, because that which is in time is ever becoming older and younger
than itself, (for older and younger are relative terms, and he who becomes older
becomes younger,) and is also of the same age with itself. None of which, or any other
expressions of time, whether past, future, or present, can be affirmed of one. One
neither is, has been, nor will be, nor becomes, nor has, nor will become. And, as these
are the only modes of being, one is not, and is not one. But to that which is not, there is
no attribute or relative, neither name nor word nor idea nor science nor perception nor
opinion appertaining. One, then, is neither named, nor uttered, nor known, nor
perceived, nor imagined. But can all this be true? ‘I think not.’
1.b. Let us, however, commence the inquiry again. We have to work out all the
consequences which follow on the assumption that the one is. If one is, one partakes of
being, which is not the same with one; the words ‘being’ and ‘one’ have different
meanings. Observe the consequence: In the one of being or the being of one are two
parts, being and one, which form one whole. And each of the two parts is also a whole,
and involves the other, and may be further subdivided into one and being, and is
therefore not one but two; and thus one is never one, and in this way the one, if it is,
becomes many and infinite. Again, let us conceive of a one which by an effort of
abstraction we separate from being: will this abstract one be one or many? You say one
only; let us see. In the first place, the being of one is other than one; and one and being,
if different, are so because they both partake of the nature of other, which is therefore
neither one nor being; and whether we take being and other, or being and one, or one
and other, in any case we have two things which separately are called either, and
together both. And both are two and either of two is severally one, and if one be added
to any of the pairs, the sum is three; and two is an even number, three an odd; and two
units exist twice, and therefore there are twice two; and three units exist thrice, and
therefore there are thrice three, and taken together they give twice three and thrice two:
we have even numbers multiplied into even, and odd into even, and even into odd
numbers. But if one is, and both odd and even numbers are implied in one, must not
every number exist? And number is infinite, and therefore existence must be infinite, for
all and every number partakes of being; therefore being has the greatest number of
parts, and every part, however great or however small, is equally one. But can one be in
many places and yet be a whole? If not a whole it must be divided into parts and
represented by a number corresponding to the number of the parts. And if so, we were
wrong in saying that being has the greatest number of parts; for being is coequal and
coextensive with one, and has no more parts than one; and so the abstract one broken
up into parts by being is many and infinite. But the parts are parts of a whole, and the
whole is their containing limit, and the one is therefore limited as well as infinite in
number; and that which is a whole has beginning, middle, and end, and a middle is
equidistant from the extremes; and one is therefore of a certain figure, round or straight,
or a combination of the two, and being a whole includes all the parts which are the
whole, and is therefore self- contained. But then, again, the whole is not in the parts,
whether all or some. Not in all, because, if in all, also in one; for, if wanting in any one,
how in all?—not in some, because the greater would then be contained in the less. But if
not in all, nor in any, nor in some, either nowhere or in other. And if nowhere, nothing;
therefore in other. The one as a whole, then, is in another, but regarded as a sum of
parts is in itself; and is, therefore, both in itself and in another. This being the case, the
one is at once both at rest and in motion: at rest, because resting in itself; in motion,
because it is ever in other. And if there is truth in what has preceded, one is the same
and not the same with itself and other. For everything in relation to every other thing is
either the same with it or other; or if neither the same nor other, then in the relation of
part to a whole or whole to a part. But one cannot be a part or whole in relation to one,
nor other than one; and is therefore the same with one. Yet this sameness is again
contradicted by one being in another place from itself which is in the same place; this
follows from one being in itself and in another; one, therefore, is other than itself. But if
anything is other than anything, will it not be other than other? And the not one is other
than the one, and the one than the not one; therefore one is other than all others. But
the same and the other exclude one another, and therefore the other can never be in
the same; nor can the other be in anything for ever so short a time, as for that time the
other will be in the same. And the other, if never in the same, cannot be either in the
one or in the not one. And one is not other than not one, either by reason of other or of
itself; and therefore they are not other than one another at all. Neither can the not one
partake or be part of one, for in that case it would be one; nor can the not one be
number, for that also involves one. And therefore, not being other than the one or
related to the one as a whole to parts or parts to a whole, not one is the same as one.
Wherefore the one is the same and also not the same with the others and also with
itself; and is therefore like and unlike itself and the others, and just as different from the
others as they are from the one, neither more nor less. But if neither more nor less,
equally different; and therefore the one and the others have the same relations. This
may be illustrated by the case of names: when you repeat the same name twice over,
you mean the same thing; and when you say that the other is other than the one, or the
one other than the other, this very word other (eteron), which is attributed to both,
implies sameness. One, then, as being other than others, and other as being other than
one, are alike in that they have the relation of otherness; and likeness is similarity of
relations. And everything as being other of everything is also like everything. Again,
same and other, like and unlike, are opposites: and since in virtue of being other than
the others the one is like them, in virtue of being the same it must be unlike. Again, one,
as having the same relations, has no difference of relation, and is therefore not unlike,
and therefore like; or, as having different relations, is different and unlike. Thus, one, as
being the same and not the same with itself and others—for both these reasons and for
either of them—is also like and unlike itself and the others. Again, how far can one
touch itself and the others? As existing in others, it touches the others; and as existing in
itself, touches only itself. But from another point of view, that which touches another
must be next in order of place; one, therefore, must be next in order of place to itself,
and would therefore be two, and in two places. But one cannot be two, and therefore
cannot be in contact with itself. Nor again can one touch the other. Two objects are
required to make one contact; three objects make two contacts; and all the objects in
the world, if placed in a series, would have as many contacts as there are objects, less
one. But if one only exists, and not two, there is no contact. And the others, being other
than one, have no part in one, and therefore none in number, and therefore two has no
existence, and therefore there is no contact. For all which reasons, one has and has not
contact with itself and the others.
Once more, Is one equal and unequal to itself and the others? Suppose one and the
others to be greater or less than each other or equal to one another, they will be greater
or less or equal by reason of equality or greatness or smallness inhering in them in
addition to their own proper nature. Let us begin by assuming smallness to be inherent
in one: in this case the inherence is either in the whole or in a part. If the first, smallness
is either coextensive with the whole one, or contains the whole, and, if coextensive with
the one, is equal to the one, or if containing the one will be greater than the one. But
smallness thus performs the function of equality or of greatness, which is impossible.
Again, if the inherence be in a part, the same contradiction follows: smallness will be
equal to the part or greater than the part; therefore smallness will not inhere in
anything, and except the idea of smallness there will be nothing small. Neither will
greatness; for greatness will have a greater;—and there will be no small in relation to
which it is great. And there will be no great or small in objects, but greatness and
smallness will be relative only to each other; therefore the others cannot be greater or
less than the one; also the one can neither exceed nor be exceeded by the others, and
they are therefore equal to one another. And this will be true also of the one in relation
to itself: one will be equal to itself as well as to the others (talla). Yet one, being in itself,
must also be about itself, containing and contained, and is therefore greater and less
than itself. Further, there is nothing beside the one and the others; and as these must be
in something, they must therefore be in one another; and as that in which a thing is is
greater than the thing, the inference is that they are both greater and less than one
another, because containing and contained in one another. Therefore the one is equal
to and greater and less than itself or other, having also measures or parts or numbers
equal to or greater or less than itself or other.
But does one partake of time? This must be acknowledged, if the one partakes of being.
For ‘to be’ is the participation of being in present time, ‘to have been’ in past, ‘to be
about to be’ in future time. And as time is ever moving forward, the one becomes older
than itself; and therefore younger than itself; and is older and also younger when in the
process of becoming it arrives at the present; and it is always older and younger, for at
any moment the one is, and therefore it becomes and is not older and younger than
itself but during an equal time with itself, and is therefore contemporary with itself.
And what are the relations of the one to the others? Is it or does it become older or
younger than they? At any rate the others are more than one, and one, being the least
of all numbers, must be prior in time to greater numbers. But on the other hand, one
must come into being in a manner accordant with its own nature. Now one has parts or
others, and has therefore a beginning, middle, and end, of which the beginning is first
and the end last. And the parts come into existence first; last of all the whole,
contemporaneously with the end, being therefore younger, while the parts or others are
older than the one. But, again, the one comes into being in each of the parts as much as
in the whole, and must be of the same age with them. Therefore one is at once older
and younger than the parts or others, and also contemporaneous with them, for no part
can be a part which is not one. Is this true of becoming as well as being? Thus much
may be affirmed, that the same things which are older or younger cannot become older
or younger in a greater degree than they were at first by the addition of equal times.
But, on the other hand, the one, if older than others, has come into being a longer time
than they have. And when equal time is added to a longer and shorter, the relative
difference between them is diminished. In this way that which was older becomes
younger, and that which was younger becomes older, that is to say, younger and older
than at first; and they ever become and never have become, for then they would be.
Thus the one and others always are and are becoming and not becoming younger and
also older than one another. And one, partaking of time and also partaking of becoming
older and younger, admits of all time, present, past, and future—was, is, shall be—was
becoming, is becoming, will become. And there is science of the one, and opinion and
name and expression, as is already implied in the fact of our inquiry.
Yet once more, if one be one and many, and neither one nor many, and also participant
of time, must there not be a time at which one as being one partakes of being, and a
time when one as not being one is deprived of being? But these two contradictory
states cannot be experienced by the one both together: there must be a time of
transition. And the transition is a process of generation and destruction, into and from
being and not-being, the one and the others. For the generation of the one is the
destruction of the others, and the generation of the others is the destruction of the one.
There is also separation and aggregation, assimilation and dissimilation, increase,
diminution, equalization, a passage from motion to rest, and from rest to motion in the
one and many. But when do all these changes take place? When does motion become
rest, or rest motion? The answer to this question will throw a light upon all the others.
Nothing can be in motion and at rest at the same time; and therefore the change takes
place ‘in a moment’—which is a strange expression, and seems to mean change in no
time. Which is true also of all the other changes, which likewise take place in no time.
1.aa. But if one is, what happens to the others, which in the first place are not one, yet
may partake of one in a certain way? The others are other than the one because they
have parts, for if they had no parts they would be simply one, and parts imply a whole to
which they belong; otherwise each part would be a part of many, and being itself one of
them, of itself, and if a part of all, of each one of the other parts, which is absurd. For a
part, if not a part of one, must be a part of all but this one, and if so not a part of each
one; and if not a part of each one, not a part of any one of many, and so not of one; and
if of none, how of all? Therefore a part is neither a part of many nor of all, but of an
absolute and perfect whole or one. And if the others have parts, they must partake of
the whole, and must be the whole of which they are the parts. And each part, as the
word ‘each’ implies, is also an absolute one. And both the whole and the parts partake
of one, for the whole of which the parts are parts is one, and each part is one part of the
whole; and whole and parts as participating in one are other than one, and as being
other than one are many and infinite; and however small a fraction you separate from
them is many and not one. Yet the fact of their being parts furnishes the others with a
limit towards other parts and towards the whole; they are finite and also infinite: finite
through participation in the one, infinite in their own nature. And as being finite, they
are alike; and as being infinite, they are alike; but as being both finite and also infinite,
they are in the highest degree unlike. And all other opposites might without difficulty be
shown to unite in them.
1.bb. Once more, leaving all this: Is there not also an opposite series of consequences
which is equally true of the others, and may be deduced from the existence of one?
There is. One is distinct from the others, and the others from one; for one and the others
are all things, and there is no third existence besides them. And the whole of one cannot
be in others nor parts of it, for it is separated from others and has no parts, and
therefore the others have no unity, nor plurality, nor duality, nor any other number, nor
any opposition or distinction, such as likeness and unlikeness, some and other,
generation and corruption, odd and even. For if they had these they would partake
either of one opposite, and this would be a participation in one; or of two opposites,
and this would be a participation in two. Thus if one exists, one is all things, and likewise
nothing, in relation to one and to the others.
2.a. But, again, assume the opposite hypothesis, that the one is not, and what is the
consequence? In the first place, the proposition, that one is not, is clearly opposed to
the proposition, that not one is not. The subject of any negative proposition implies at
once knowledge and difference. Thus ‘one’ in the proposition—‘The one is not,’ must be
something known, or the words would be unintelligible; and again this ‘one which is not’
is something different from other things. Moreover, this and that, some and other, may
be all attributed or related to the one which is not, and which though non-existent may
and must have plurality, if the one only is non-existent and nothing else; but if all is notbeing
there is nothing which can be spoken of. Also the one which is not differs, and is
different in kind from the others, and therefore unlike them; and they being other than
the one, are unlike the one, which is therefore unlike them. But one, being unlike other,
must be like itself; for the unlikeness of one to itself is the destruction of the hypothesis;
and one cannot be equal to the others; for that would suppose being in the one, and
the others would be equal to one and like one; both which are impossible, if one does
not exist. The one which is not, then, if not equal is unequal to the others, and in
equality implies great and small, and equality lies between great and small, and
therefore the one which is not partakes of equality. Further, the one which is not has
being; for that which is true is, and it is true that the one is not. And so the one which is
not, if remitting aught of the being of non-existence, would become existent. For not
being implies the being of not-being, and being the not-being of not- being; or more
truly being partakes of the being of being and not of the being of not-being, and notbeing
of the being of not-being and not of the not-being of not-being. And therefore
the one which is not has being and also not-being. And the union of being and notbeing
involves change or motion. But how can not-being, which is nowhere, move or
change, either from one place to another or in the same place? And whether it is or is
not, it would cease to be one if experiencing a change of substance. The one which is
not, then, is both in motion and at rest, is altered and unaltered, and becomes and is
destroyed, and does not become and is not destroyed.
2.b. Once more, let us ask the question, If one is not, what happens in regard to one?
The expression ‘is not’ implies negation of being:—do we mean by this to say that a
thing, which is not, in a certain sense is? or do we mean absolutely to deny being of it?
The latter. Then the one which is not can neither be nor become nor perish nor
experience change of substance or place. Neither can rest, or motion, or greatness, or
smallness, or equality, or unlikeness, or likeness either to itself or other, or attribute or
relation, or now or hereafter or formerly, or knowledge or opinion or perception or
name or anything else be asserted of that which is not.
2.aa. Once more, if one is not, what becomes of the others? If we speak of them they
must be, and their very name implies difference, and difference implies relation, not to
the one, which is not, but to one another. And they are others of each other not as units
but as infinities, the least of which is also infinity, and capable of infinitesimal division.
And they will have no unity or number, but only a semblance of unity and number; and
the least of them will appear large and manifold in comparison with the infinitesimal
fractions into which it may be divided. Further, each particle will have the appearance of
being equal with the fractions. For in passing from the greater to the less it must reach
an intermediate point, which is equality. Moreover, each particle although having a limit
in relation to itself and to other particles, yet it has neither beginning, middle, nor end;
for there is always a beginning before the beginning, and a middle within the middle,
and an end beyond the end, because the infinitesimal division is never arrested by the
one. Thus all being is one at a distance, and broken up when near, and like at a distance
and unlike when near; and also the particles which compose being seem to be like and
unlike, in rest and motion, in generation and corruption, in contact and separation, if
one is not.
2.bb. Once more, let us inquire, If the one is not, and the others of the one are, what
follows? In the first place, the others will not be the one, nor the many, for in that case
the one would be contained in them; neither will they appear to be one or many;
because they have no communion or participation in that which is not, nor semblance of
that which is not. If one is not, the others neither are, nor appear to be one or many, like
or unlike, in contact or separation. In short, if one is not, nothing is.
The result of all which is, that whether one is or is not, one and the others, in relation to
themselves and to one another, are and are not, and appear to be and appear not to be,
in all manner of ways.
I. On the first hypothesis we may remark: first, That one is one is an identical
proposition, from which we might expect that no further consequences could be
deduced. The train of consequences which follows, is inferred by altering the predicate
into ‘not many.’ Yet, perhaps, if a strict Eristic had been present, oios aner ei kai nun
paren, he might have affirmed that the not many presented a different aspect of the
conception from the one, and was therefore not identical with it. Such a subtlety would
be very much in character with the Zenonian dialectic. Secondly, We may note, that the
conclusion is really involved in the premises. For one is conceived as one, in a sense
which excludes all predicates. When the meaning of one has been reduced to a point,
there is no use in saying that it has neither parts nor magnitude. Thirdly, The conception
of the same is, first of all, identified with the one; and then by a further analysis
distinguished from, and even opposed to it. Fourthly, We may detect notions, which
have reappeared in modern philosophy, e.g. the bare abstraction of undefined unity,
answering to the Hegelian ‘Seyn,’ or the identity of contradictions ‘that which is older is
also younger,’ etc., or the Kantian conception of an a priori synthetical proposition ‘one
is.’
II. In the first series of propositions the word ‘is’ is really the copula; in the second, the
verb of existence. As in the first series, the negative consequence followed from one
being affirmed to be equivalent to the not many; so here the affirmative consequence is
deduced from one being equivalent to the many.
In the former case, nothing could be predicated of the one, but now everything—
multitude, relation, place, time, transition. One is regarded in all the aspects of one, and
with a reference to all the consequences which flow, either from the combination or the
separation of them. The notion of transition involves the singular extra-temporal
conception of ‘suddenness.’ This idea of ‘suddenness’ is based upon the contradiction
which is involved in supposing that anything can be in two places at once. It is a mere
fiction; and we may observe that similar antinomies have led modern philosophers to
deny the reality of time and space. It is not the infinitesimal of time, but the negative of
time. By the help of this invention the conception of change, which sorely exercised the
minds of early thinkers, seems to be, but is not really at all explained. The difficulty arises
out of the imperfection of language, and should therefore be no longer regarded as a
difficulty at all. The only way of meeting it, if it exists, is to acknowledge that this rather
puzzling double conception is necessary to the expression of the phenomena of motion
or change, and that this and similar double notions, instead of being anomalies, are
among the higher and more potent instruments of human thought.
The processes by which Parmenides obtains his remarkable results may be summed up
as follows: (1) Compound or correlative ideas which involve each other, such as, being
and not-being, one and many, are conceived sometimes in a state of composition, and
sometimes of division: (2) The division or distinction is sometimes heightened into total
opposition, e.g. between one and same, one and other: or (3) The idea, which has been
already divided, is regarded, like a number, as capable of further infinite subdivision: (4)
The argument often proceeds ‘a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter’ and
conversely: (5) The analogy of opposites is misused by him; he argues indiscriminately
sometimes from what is like, sometimes from what is unlike in them: (6) The idea of
being or not-being is identified with existence or non-existence in place or time: (7) The
same ideas are regarded sometimes as in process of transition, sometimes as
alternatives or opposites: (8) There are no degrees or kinds of sameness, likeness,
difference, nor any adequate conception of motion or change: (9) One, being, time, like
space in Zeno’s puzzle of Achilles and the tortoise, are regarded sometimes as
continuous and sometimes as discrete: (10) In some parts of the argument the
abstraction is so rarefied as to become not only fallacious, but almost unintelligible, e.g.
in the contradiction which is elicited out of the relative terms older and younger: (11)
The relation between two terms is regarded under contradictory aspects, as for example
when the existence of the one and the non-existence of the one are equally assumed to
involve the existence of the many: (12) Words are used through long chains of
argument, sometimes loosely, sometimes with the precision of numbers or of
geometrical figures.
The argument is a very curious piece of work, unique in literature. It seems to be an
exposition or rather a ‘reductio ad absurdum’ of the Megarian philosophy, but we are
too imperfectly acquainted with this last to speak with confidence about it. It would be
safer to say that it is an indication of the sceptical, hyperlogical fancies which prevailed
among the contemporaries of Socrates. It throws an indistinct light upon Aristotle, and
makes us aware of the debt which the world owes to him or his school. It also bears a
resemblance to some modern speculations, in which an attempt is made to narrow
language in such a manner that number and figure may be made a calculus of thought.
It exaggerates one side of logic and forgets the rest. It has the appearance of a
mathematical process; the inventor of it delights, as mathematicians do, in eliciting or
discovering an unexpected result. It also helps to guard us against some fallacies by
showing the consequences which flow from them.
In the Parmenides we seem to breathe the spirit of the Megarian philosophy, though we
cannot compare the two in detail. But Plato also goes beyond his Megarian
contemporaries; he has split their straws over again, and admitted more than they
would have desired. He is indulging the analytical tendencies of his age, which can
divide but not combine. And he does not stop to inquire whether the distinctions which
he makes are shadowy and fallacious, but ‘whither the argument blows’ he follows.
III. The negative series of propositions contains the first conception of the negation of a
negation. Two minus signs in arithmetic or algebra make a plus. Two negatives destroy
each other. This abstruse notion is the foundation of the Hegelian logic. The mind must
not only admit that determination is negation, but must get through negation into
affirmation. Whether this process is real, or in any way an assistance to thought, or, like
some other logical forms, a mere figure of speech transferred from the sphere of
mathematics, may be doubted. That Plato and the most subtle philosopher of the
nineteenth century should have lighted upon the same notion, is a singular coincidence
of ancient and modern thought.
IV. The one and the many or others are reduced to their strictest arithmetical meaning.
That one is three or three one, is a proposition which has, perhaps, given rise to more
controversy in the world than any other. But no one has ever meant to say that three
and one are to be taken in the same sense. Whereas the one and many of the
Parmenides have precisely the same meaning; there is no notion of one personality or
substance having many attributes or qualities. The truth seems to be rather the opposite
of that which Socrates implies: There is no contradiction in the concrete, but in the
abstract; and the more abstract the idea, the more palpable will be the contradiction. For
just as nothing can persuade us that the number one is the number three, so neither can
we be persuaded that any abstract idea is identical with its opposite, although they may
both inhere together in some external object, or some more comprehensive conception.
Ideas, persons, things may be one in one sense and many in another, and may have
various degrees of unity and plurality. But in whatever sense and in whatever degree
they are one they cease to be many; and in whatever degree or sense they are many
they cease to be one.
Two points remain to be considered: 1st, the connexion between the first and second
parts of the dialogue; 2ndly, the relation of the Parmenides to the other dialogues.
I. In both divisions of the dialogue the principal speaker is the same, and the method
pursued by him is also the same, being a criticism on received opinions: first, on the
doctrine of Ideas; secondly, of Being. From the Platonic Ideas we naturally proceed to
the Eleatic One or Being which is the foundation of them. They are the same philosophy
in two forms, and the simpler form is the truer and deeper. For the Platonic Ideas are
mere numerical differences, and the moment we attempt to distinguish between them,
their transcendental character is lost; ideas of justice, temperance, and good, are really
distinguishable only with reference to their application in the world. If we once ask how
they are related to individuals or to the ideas of the divine mind, they are again merged
in the aboriginal notion of Being. No one can answer the questions which Parmenides
asks of Socrates. And yet these questions are asked with the express acknowledgment
that the denial of ideas will be the destruction of the human mind. The true answer to
the difficulty here thrown out is the establishment of a rational psychology; and this is a
work which is commenced in the Sophist. Plato, in urging the difficulty of his own
doctrine of Ideas, is far from denying that some doctrine of Ideas is necessary, and for
this he is paving the way.
In a similar spirit he criticizes the Eleatic doctrine of Being, not intending to deny
Ontology, but showing that the old Eleatic notion, and the very name ‘Being,’ is unable
to maintain itself against the subtleties of the Megarians. He did not mean to say that
Being or Substance had no existence, but he is preparing for the development of his
later view, that ideas were capable of relation. The fact that contradictory consequences
follow from the existence or non-existence of one or many, does not prove that they
have or have not existence, but rather that some different mode of conceiving them is
required. Parmenides may still have thought that ‘Being was,’ just as Kant would have
asserted the existence of ‘things in themselves,’ while denying the transcendental use of
the Categories.
Several lesser links also connect the first and second parts of the dialogue: (1) The thesis
is the same as that which Zeno has been already discussing: (2) Parmenides has
intimated in the first part, that the method of Zeno should, as Socrates desired, be
extended to Ideas: (3) The difficulty of participating in greatness, smallness, equality is
urged against the Ideas as well as against the One.
II. The Parmenides is not only a criticism of the Eleatic notion of Being, but also of the
methods of reasoning then in existence, and in this point of view, as well as in the other,
may be regarded as an introduction to the Sophist. Long ago, in the Euthydemus, the
vulgar application of the ‘both and neither’ Eristic had been subjected to a similar
criticism, which there takes the form of banter and irony, here of illustration.
The attack upon the Ideas is resumed in the Philebus, and is followed by a return to a
more rational philosophy. The perplexity of the One and Many is there confined to the
region of Ideas, and replaced by a theory of classification; the Good arranged in classes
is also contrasted with the barren abstraction of the Megarians. The war is carried on
against the Eristics in all the later dialogues, sometimes with a playful irony, at other
times with a sort of contempt. But there is no lengthened refutation of them. The
Parmenides belongs to that stage of the dialogues of Plato in which he is partially under
their influence, using them as a sort of ‘critics or diviners’ of the truth of his own, and of
the Eleatic theories. In the Theaetetus a similar negative dialectic is employed in the
attempt to define science, which after every effort remains undefined still. The same
question is revived from the objective side in the Sophist: Being and Not-being are no
longer exhibited in opposition, but are now reconciled; and the true nature of Not-being
is discovered and made the basis of the correlation of ideas. Some links are probably
missing which might have been supplied if we had trustworthy accounts of Plato’s oral
teaching.
To sum up: the Parmenides of Plato is a critique, first, of the Platonic Ideas, and
secondly, of the Eleatic doctrine of Being. Neither are absolutely denied. But certain
difficulties and consequences are shown in the assumption of either, which prove that
the Platonic as well as the Eleatic doctrine must be remodelled. The negation and
contradiction which are involved in the conception of the One and Many are preliminary
to their final adjustment. The Platonic Ideas are tested by the interrogative method of
Socrates; the Eleatic One or Being is tried by the severer and perhaps impossible
method of hypothetical consequences, negative and affirmative. In the latter we have an
example of the Zenonian or Megarian dialectic, which proceeded, not ‘by assailing
premises, but conclusions’; this is worked out and improved by Plato. When primary
abstractions are used in every conceivable sense, any or every conclusion may be
deduced from them. The words ‘one,’ ‘other,’ ‘being,’ ‘like,’ ‘same,’ ‘whole,’ and their
opposites, have slightly different meanings, as they are applied to objects of thought or
objects of sense—to number, time, place, and to the higher ideas of the reason;—and
out of their different meanings this ‘feast’ of contradictions ‘has been provided.’
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The Parmenides of Plato belongs to a stage of philosophy which has passed away. At
first we read it with a purely antiquarian or historical interest; and with difficulty throw
ourselves back into a state of the human mind in which Unity and Being occupied the
attention of philosophers. We admire the precision of the language, in which, as in some
curious puzzle, each word is exactly fitted into every other, and long trains of argument
are carried out with a sort of geometrical accuracy. We doubt whether any abstract
notion could stand the searching cross-examination of Parmenides; and may at last
perhaps arrive at the conclusion that Plato has been using an imaginary method to work
out an unmeaning conclusion. But the truth is, that he is carrying on a process which is
not either useless or unnecessary in any age of philosophy. We fail to understand him,
because we do not realize that the questions which he is discussing could have had any
value or importance. We suppose them to be like the speculations of some of the
Schoolmen, which end in nothing. But in truth he is trying to get rid of the
stumblingblocks of thought which beset his contemporaries. Seeing that the Megarians
and Cynics were making knowledge impossible, he takes their ‘catch-words’ and
analyzes them from every conceivable point of view. He is criticizing the simplest and
most general of our ideas, in which, as they are the most comprehensive, the danger of
error is the most serious; for, if they remain unexamined, as in a mathematical
demonstration, all that flows from them is affected, and the error pervades knowledge
far and wide. In the beginning of philosophy this correction of human ideas was even
more necessary than in our own times, because they were more bound up with words;
and words when once presented to the mind exercised a greater power over thought.
There is a natural realism which says, ‘Can there be a word devoid of meaning, or an
idea which is an idea of nothing?’ In modern times mankind have often given too great
importance to a word or idea. The philosophy of the ancients was still more in slavery to
them, because they had not the experience of error, which would have placed them
above the illusion.
The method of the Parmenides may be compared with the process of purgation, which
Bacon sought to introduce into philosophy. Plato is warning us against two sorts of
‘Idols of the Den’: first, his own Ideas, which he himself having created is unable to
connect in any way with the external world; secondly, against two idols in particular,
‘Unity’ and ‘Being,’ which had grown up in the pre-Socratic philosophy, and were still
standing in the way of all progress and development of thought. He does not say with
Bacon, ‘Let us make truth by experiment,’ or ‘From these vague and inexact notions let
us turn to facts.’ The time has not yet arrived for a purely inductive philosophy. The
instruments of thought must first be forged, that they may be used hereafter by modern
inquirers. How, while mankind were disputing about universals, could they classify
phenomena? How could they investigate causes, when they had not as yet learned to
distinguish between a cause and an end? How could they make any progress in the
sciences without first arranging them? These are the deficiencies which Plato is seeking
to supply in an age when knowledge was a shadow of a name only. In the earlier
dialogues the Socratic conception of universals is illustrated by his genius; in the
Phaedrus the nature of division is explained; in the Republic the law of contradiction and
the unity of knowledge are asserted; in the later dialogues he is constantly engaged
both with the theory and practice of classification. These were the ‘new weapons,’ as he
terms them in the Philebus, which he was preparing for the use of some who, in after
ages, would be found ready enough to disown their obligations to the great master, or
rather, perhaps, would be incapable of understanding them.
Numberless fallacies, as we are often truly told, have originated in a confusion of the
‘copula,’ and the ‘verb of existence.’ Would not the distinction which Plato by the mouth
of Parmenides makes between ‘One is one’ and ‘One has being’ have saved us from this
and many similar confusions? We see again that a long period in the history of
philosophy was a barren tract, not uncultivated, but unfruitful, because there was no
inquiry into the relation of language and thought, and the metaphysical imagination
was incapable of supplying the missing link between words and things. The famous
dispute between Nominalists and Realists would never have been heard of, if, instead of
transferring the Platonic Ideas into a crude Latin phraseology, the spirit of Plato had
been truly understood and appreciated. Upon the term substance at least two
celebrated theological controversies appear to hinge, which would not have existed, or
at least not in their present form, if we had ‘interrogated’ the word substance, as Plato
has the notions of Unity and Being. These weeds of philosophy have struck their roots
deep into the soil, and are always tending to reappear, sometimes in new-fangled forms;
while similar words, such as development, evolution, law, and the like, are constantly put
in the place of facts, even by writers who profess to base truth entirely upon fact. In an
unmetaphysical age there is probably more metaphysics in the common sense (i.e. more
a priori assumption) than in any other, because there is more complete unconsciousness
that we are resting on our own ideas, while we please ourselves with the conviction that
we are resting on facts. We do not consider how much metaphysics are required to
place us above metaphysics, or how difficult it is to prevent the forms of expression
which are ready made for our use from outrunning actual observation and experiment.
In the last century the educated world were astonished to find that the whole fabric of
their ideas was falling to pieces, because Hume amused himself by analyzing the word
‘cause’ into uniform sequence. Then arose a philosophy which, equally regardless of the
history of the mind, sought to save mankind from scepticism by assigning to our
notions of ‘cause and effect,’ ‘substance and accident,’ ‘whole and part,’ a necessary
place in human thought. Without them we could have no experience, and therefore they
were supposed to be prior to experience—to be incrusted on the ‘I’; although in the
phraseology of Kant there could be no transcendental use of them, or, in other words,
they were only applicable within the range of our knowledge. But into the origin of
these ideas, which he obtains partly by an analysis of the proposition, partly by
development of the ‘ego,’ he never inquires—they seem to him to have a necessary
existence; nor does he attempt to analyse the various senses in which the word ‘cause’
or ‘substance’ may be employed.
The philosophy of Berkeley could never have had any meaning, even to himself, if he
had first analyzed from every point of view the conception of ‘matter.’ This poor
forgotten word (which was ‘a very good word’ to describe the simplest generalization of
external objects) is now superseded in the vocabulary of physical philosophers by ‘force,’
which seems to be accepted without any rigid examination of its meaning, as if the
general idea of ‘force’ in our minds furnished an explanation of the infinite variety of
forces which exist in the universe. A similar ambiguity occurs in the use of the favourite
word ‘law,’ which is sometimes regarded as a mere abstraction, and then elevated into a
real power or entity, almost taking the place of God. Theology, again, is full of undefined
terms which have distracted the human mind for ages. Mankind have reasoned from
them, but not to them; they have drawn out the conclusions without proving the
premises; they have asserted the premises without examining the terms. The passions of
religious parties have been roused to the utmost about words of which they could have
given no explanation, and which had really no distinct meaning. One sort of them, faith,
grace, justification, have been the symbols of one class of disputes; as the words
substance, nature, person, of another, revelation, inspiration, and the like, of a third. All
of them have been the subject of endless reasonings and inferences; but a spell has
hung over the minds of theologians or philosophers which has prevented them from
examining the words themselves. Either the effort to rise above and beyond their own
first ideas was too great for them, or there might, perhaps, have seemed to be an
irreverence in doing so. About the Divine Being Himself, in whom all true theological
ideas live and move, men have spoken and reasoned much, and have fancied that they
instinctively know Him. But they hardly suspect that under the name of God even
Christians have included two characters or natures as much opposed as the good and
evil principle of the Persians.
To have the true use of words we must compare them with things; in using them we
acknowledge that they seldom give a perfect representation of our meaning. In like
manner when we interrogate our ideas we find that we are not using them always in the
sense which we supposed. And Plato, while he criticizes the inconsistency of his own
doctrine of universals and draws out the endless consequences which flow from the
assertion either that ‘Being is’ or that ‘Being is not,’ by no means intends to deny the
existence of universals or the unity under which they are comprehended. There is
nothing further from his thoughts than scepticism. But before proceeding he must
examine the foundations which he and others have been laying; there is nothing true
which is not from some point of view untrue, nothing absolute which is not also relative
(compare Republic).
And so, in modern times, because we are called upon to analyze our ideas and to come
to a distinct understanding about the meaning of words; because we know that the
powers of language are very unequal to the subtlety of nature or of mind, we do not
therefore renounce the use of them; but we replace them in their old connexion, having
first tested their meaning and quality, and having corrected the error which is involved
in them; or rather always remembering to make allowance for the adulteration or alloy
which they contain. We cannot call a new metaphysical world into existence any more
than we can frame a new universal language; in thought as in speech, we are dependent
on the past. We know that the words ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ are very far from representing
to us the continuity or the complexity of nature or the different modes or degrees in
which phenomena are connected. Yet we accept them as the best expression which we
have of the correlation of forces or objects. We see that the term ‘law’ is a mere
abstraction, under which laws of matter and of mind, the law of nature and the law of
the land are included, and some of these uses of the word are confusing, because they
introduce into one sphere of thought associations which belong to another; for
example, order or sequence is apt to be confounded with external compulsion and the
internal workings of the mind with their material antecedents. Yet none of them can be
dispensed with; we can only be on our guard against the error or confusion which arises
out of them. Thus in the use of the word ‘substance’ we are far from supposing that
there is any mysterious substratum apart from the objects which we see, and we
acknowledge that the negative notion is very likely to become a positive one. Still we
retain the word as a convenient generalization, though not without a double sense,
substance, and essence, derived from the two-fold translation of the Greek ousia.
So the human mind makes the reflection that God is not a person like ourselves—is not
a cause like the material causes in nature, nor even an intelligent cause like a human
agent—nor an individual, for He is universal; and that every possible conception which
we can form of Him is limited by the human faculties. We cannot by any effort of
thought or exertion of faith be in and out of our own minds at the same instant. How
can we conceive Him under the forms of time and space, who is out of time and space?
How get rid of such forms and see Him as He is? How can we imagine His relation to the
world or to ourselves? Innumerable contradictions follow from either of the two
alternatives, that God is or that He is not. Yet we are far from saying that we know
nothing of Him, because all that we know is subject to the conditions of human thought.
To the old belief in Him we return, but with corrections. He is a person, but not like
ourselves; a mind, but not a human mind; a cause, but not a material cause, nor yet a
maker or artificer. The words which we use are imperfect expressions of His true nature;
but we do not therefore lose faith in what is best and highest in ourselves and in the
world.
‘A little philosophy takes us away from God; a great deal brings us back to Him.’ When
we begin to reflect, our first thoughts respecting Him and ourselves are apt to be
sceptical. For we can analyze our religious as well as our other ideas; we can trace their
history; we can criticize their perversion; we see that they are relative to the human mind
and to one another. But when we have carried our criticism to the furthest point, they
still remain, a necessity of our moral nature, better known and understood by us, and
less liable to be shaken, because we are more aware of their necessary imperfection.
They come to us with ‘better opinion, better confirmation,’ not merely as the inspirations
either of ourselves or of another, but deeply rooted in history and in the human mind.
PARMENIDES
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Cephalus, Adeimantus, Glaucon, Antiphon, Pythodorus,
Socrates, Zeno, Parmenides, Aristoteles.
Cephalus rehearses a dialogue which is supposed to have been narrated in his presence
by Antiphon, the half-brother of Adeimantus and Glaucon, to certain Clazomenians.
We had come from our home at Clazomenae to Athens, and met Adeimantus and
Glaucon in the Agora. Welcome, Cephalus, said Adeimantus, taking me by the hand; is
there anything which we can do for you in Athens?
Yes; that is why I am here; I wish to ask a favour of you.
What may that be? he said.
I want you to tell me the name of your half brother, which I have forgotten; he was a
mere child when I last came hither from Clazomenae, but that was a long time ago; his
father’s name, if I remember rightly, was Pyrilampes?
Yes, he said, and the name of our brother, Antiphon; but why do you ask?
Let me introduce some countrymen of mine, I said; they are lovers of philosophy, and
have heard that Antiphon was intimate with a certain Pythodorus, a friend of Zeno, and
remembers a conversation which took place between Socrates, Zeno, and Parmenides
many years ago, Pythodorus having often recited it to him.
Quite true.
And could we hear it? I asked.
Nothing easier, he replied; when he was a youth he made a careful study of the piece; at
present his thoughts run in another direction; like his grandfather Antiphon he is
devoted to horses. But, if that is what you want, let us go and look for him; he dwells at
Melita, which is quite near, and he has only just left us to go home.
Accordingly we went to look for him; he was at home, and in the act of giving a bridle to
a smith to be fitted. When he had done with the smith, his brothers told him the
purpose of our visit; and he saluted me as an acquaintance whom he remembered from
my former visit, and we asked him to repeat the dialogue. At first he was not very
willing, and complained of the trouble, but at length he consented. He told us that
Pythodorus had described to him the appearance of Parmenides and Zeno; they came
to Athens, as he said, at the great Panathenaea; the former was, at the time of his visit,
about 65 years old, very white with age, but well favoured. Zeno was nearly 40 years of
age, tall and fair to look upon; in the days of his youth he was reported to have been
beloved by Parmenides. He said that they lodged with Pythodorus in the Ceramicus,
outside the wall, whither Socrates, then a very young man, came to see them, and many
others with him; they wanted to hear the writings of Zeno, which had been brought to
Athens for the first time on the occasion of their visit. These Zeno himself read to them
in the absence of Parmenides, and had very nearly finished when Pythodorus entered,
and with him Parmenides and Aristoteles who was afterwards one of the Thirty, and
heard the little that remained of the dialogue. Pythodorus had heard Zeno repeat them
before.
When the recitation was completed, Socrates requested that the first thesis of the first
argument might be read over again, and this having been done, he said: What is your
meaning, Zeno? Do you maintain that if being is many, it must be both like and unlike,
and that this is impossible, for neither can the like be unlike, nor the unlike like—is that
your position?
Just so, said Zeno.
And if the unlike cannot be like, or the like unlike, then according to you, being could
not be many; for this would involve an impossibility. In all that you say have you any
other purpose except to disprove the being of the many? and is not each division of
your treatise intended to furnish a separate proof of this, there being in all as many
proofs of the not-being of the many as you have composed arguments? Is that your
meaning, or have I misunderstood you?
No, said Zeno; you have correctly understood my general purpose.
I see, Parmenides, said Socrates, that Zeno would like to be not only one with you in
friendship but your second self in his writings too; he puts what you say in another way,
and would fain make believe that he is telling us something which is new. For you, in
your poems, say The All is one, and of this you adduce excellent proofs; and he on the
other hand says There is no many; and on behalf of this he offers overwhelming
evidence. You affirm unity, he denies plurality. And so you deceive the world into
believing that you are saying different things when really you are saying much the same.
This is a strain of art beyond the reach of most of us.
Yes, Socrates, said Zeno. But although you are as keen as a Spartan hound in pursuing
the track, you do not fully apprehend the true motive of the composition, which is not
really such an artificial work as you imagine; for what you speak of was an accident;
there was no pretence of a great purpose; nor any serious intention of deceiving the
world. The truth is, that these writings of mine were meant to protect the arguments of
Parmenides against those who make fun of him and seek to show the many ridiculous
and contradictory results which they suppose to follow from the affirmation of the one.
My answer is addressed to the partisans of the many, whose attack I return with interest
by retorting upon them that their hypothesis of the being of many, if carried out,
appears to be still more ridiculous than the hypothesis of the being of one. Zeal for my
master led me to write the book in the days of my youth, but some one stole the copy;
and therefore I had no choice whether it should be published or not; the motive,
however, of writing, was not the ambition of an elder man, but the pugnacity of a young
one. This you do not seem to see, Socrates; though in other respects, as I was saying,
your notion is a very just one.
I understand, said Socrates, and quite accept your account. But tell me, Zeno, do you not
further think that there is an idea of likeness in itself, and another idea of unlikeness,
which is the opposite of likeness, and that in these two, you and I and all other things to
which we apply the term many, participate—things which participate in likeness become
in that degree and manner like; and so far as they participate in unlikeness become in
that degree unlike, or both like and unlike in the degree in which they participate in
both? And may not all things partake of both opposites, and be both like and unlike, by
reason of this participation?—Where is the wonder? Now if a person could prove the
absolute like to become unlike, or the absolute unlike to become like, that, in my
opinion, would indeed be a wonder; but there is nothing extraordinary, Zeno, in
showing that the things which only partake of likeness and unlikeness experience both.
Nor, again, if a person were to show that all is one by partaking of one, and at the same
time many by partaking of many, would that be very astonishing. But if he were to show
me that the absolute one was many, or the absolute many one, I should be truly
amazed. And so of all the rest: I should be surprised to hear that the natures or ideas
themselves had these opposite qualities; but not if a person wanted to prove of me that
I was many and also one. When he wanted to show that I was many he would say that I
have a right and a left side, and a front and a back, and an upper and a lower half, for I
cannot deny that I partake of multitude; when, on the other hand, he wants to prove
that I am one, he will say, that we who are here assembled are seven, and that I am one
and partake of the one. In both instances he proves his case. So again, if a person shows
that such things as wood, stones, and the like, being many are also one, we admit that
he shows the coexistence of the one and many, but he does not show that the many are
one or the one many; he is uttering not a paradox but a truism. If however, as I just now
suggested, some one were to abstract simple notions of like, unlike, one, many, rest,
motion, and similar ideas, and then to show that these admit of admixture and
separation in themselves, I should be very much astonished. This part of the argument
appears to be treated by you, Zeno, in a very spirited manner; but, as I was saying, I
should be far more amazed if any one found in the ideas themselves which are
apprehended by reason, the same puzzle and entanglement which you have shown to
exist in visible objects.
While Socrates was speaking, Pythodorus thought that Parmenides and Zeno were not
altogether pleased at the successive steps of the argument; but still they gave the
closest attention, and often looked at one another, and smiled as if in admiration of him.
When he had finished, Parmenides expressed their feelings in the following words:—
Socrates, he said, I admire the bent of your mind towards philosophy; tell me now, was
this your own distinction between ideas in themselves and the things which partake of
them? and do you think that there is an idea of likeness apart from the likeness which
we possess, and of the one and many, and of the other things which Zeno mentioned?
I think that there are such ideas, said Socrates.
Parmenides proceeded: And would you also make absolute ideas of the just and the
beautiful and the good, and of all that class?
Yes, he said, I should.
And would you make an idea of man apart from us and from all other human creatures,
or of fire and water?
I am often undecided, Parmenides, as to whether I ought to include them or not.
And would you feel equally undecided, Socrates, about things of which the mention may
provoke a smile?—I mean such things as hair, mud, dirt, or anything else which is vile
and paltry; would you suppose that each of these has an idea distinct from the actual
objects with which we come into contact, or not?
Certainly not, said Socrates; visible things like these are such as they appear to us, and I
am afraid that there would be an absurdity in assuming any idea of them, although I
sometimes get disturbed, and begin to think that there is nothing without an idea; but
then again, when I have taken up this position, I run away, because I am afraid that I
may fall into a bottomless pit of nonsense, and perish; and so I return to the ideas of
which I was just now speaking, and occupy myself with them.
Yes, Socrates, said Parmenides; that is because you are still young; the time will come, if
I am not mistaken, when philosophy will have a firmer grasp of you, and then you will
not despise even the meanest things; at your age, you are too much disposed to regard
the opinions of men. But I should like to know whether you mean that there are certain
ideas of which all other things partake, and from which they derive their names; that
similars, for example, become similar, because they partake of similarity; and great
things become great, because they partake of greatness; and that just and beautiful
things become just and beautiful, because they partake of justice and beauty?
Yes, certainly, said Socrates that is my meaning.
Then each individual partakes either of the whole of the idea or else of a part of the
idea? Can there be any other mode of participation?
There cannot be, he said.
Then do you think that the whole idea is one, and yet, being one, is in each one of the
many?
Why not, Parmenides? said Socrates.
Because one and the same thing will exist as a whole at the same time in many separate
individuals, and will therefore be in a state of separation from itself.
Nay, but the idea may be like the day which is one and the same in many places at once,
and yet continuous with itself; in this way each idea may be one and the same in all at
the same time.
I like your way, Socrates, of making one in many places at once. You mean to say, that if
I were to spread out a sail and cover a number of men, there would be one whole
including many—is not that your meaning?
I think so.
And would you say that the whole sail includes each man, or a part of it only, and
different parts different men?
The latter.
Then, Socrates, the ideas themselves will be divisible, and things which participate in
them will have a part of them only and not the whole idea existing in each of them?
That seems to follow.
Then would you like to say, Socrates, that the one idea is really divisible and yet remains
one?
Certainly not, he said.
Suppose that you divide absolute greatness, and that of the many great things, each
one is great in virtue of a portion of greatness less than absolute greatness—is that
conceivable?
No.
Or will each equal thing, if possessing some small portion of equality less than absolute
equality, be equal to some other thing by virtue of that portion only?
Impossible.
Or suppose one of us to have a portion of smallness; this is but a part of the small, and
therefore the absolutely small is greater; if the absolutely small be greater, that to which
the part of the small is added will be smaller and not greater than before.
How absurd!
Then in what way, Socrates, will all things participate in the ideas, if they are unable to
participate in them either as parts or wholes?
Indeed, he said, you have asked a question which is not easily answered.
Well, said Parmenides, and what do you say of another question?
What question?
I imagine that the way in which you are led to assume one idea of each kind is as
follows:—You see a number of great objects, and when you look at them there seems to
you to be one and the same idea (or nature) in them all; hence you conceive of
greatness as one.
Very true, said Socrates.
And if you go on and allow your mind in like manner to embrace in one view the idea of
greatness and of great things which are not the idea, and to compare them, will not
another greatness arise, which will appear to be the source of all these?
It would seem so.
Then another idea of greatness now comes into view over and above absolute
greatness, and the individuals which partake of it; and then another, over and above all
these, by virtue of which they will all be great, and so each idea instead of being one will
be infinitely multiplied.
But may not the ideas, asked Socrates, be thoughts only, and have no proper existence
except in our minds, Parmenides? For in that case each idea may still be one, and not
experience this infinite multiplication.
And can there be individual thoughts which are thoughts of nothing?
Impossible, he said.
The thought must be of something?
Yes.
Of something which is or which is not?
Of something which is.
Must it not be of a single something, which the thought recognizes as attaching to all,
being a single form or nature?
Yes.
And will not the something which is apprehended as one and the same in all, be an
idea?
From that, again, there is no escape.
Then, said Parmenides, if you say that everything else participates in the ideas, must you
not say either that everything is made up of thoughts, and that all things think; or that
they are thoughts but have no thought?
The latter view, Parmenides, is no more rational than the previous one. In my opinion,
the ideas are, as it were, patterns fixed in nature, and other things are like them, and
resemblances of them—what is meant by the participation of other things in the ideas,
is really assimilation to them.
But if, said he, the individual is like the idea, must not the idea also be like the individual,
in so far as the individual is a resemblance of the idea? That which is like, cannot be
conceived of as other than the like of like.
Impossible.
And when two things are alike, must they not partake of the same idea?
They must.
And will not that of which the two partake, and which makes them alike, be the idea
itself?
Certainly.
Then the idea cannot be like the individual, or the individual like the idea; for if they are
alike, some further idea of likeness will always be coming to light, and if that be like
anything else, another; and new ideas will be always arising, if the idea resembles that
which partakes of it?
Quite true.
The theory, then, that other things participate in the ideas by resemblance, has to be
given up, and some other mode of participation devised?
It would seem so.
Do you see then, Socrates, how great is the difficulty of affirming the ideas to be
absolute?
Yes, indeed.
And, further, let me say that as yet you only understand a small part of the difficulty
which is involved if you make of each thing a single idea, parting it off from other things.
What difficulty? he said.
There are many, but the greatest of all is this:—If an opponent argues that these ideas,
being such as we say they ought to be, must remain unknown, no one can prove to him
that he is wrong, unless he who denies their existence be a man of great ability and
knowledge, and is willing to follow a long and laborious demonstration; he will remain
unconvinced, and still insist that they cannot be known.
What do you mean, Parmenides? said Socrates.
In the first place, I think, Socrates, that you, or any one who maintains the existence of
absolute essences, will admit that they cannot exist in us.
No, said Socrates; for then they would be no longer absolute.
True, he said; and therefore when ideas are what they are in relation to one another,
their essence is determined by a relation among themselves, and has nothing to do with
the resemblances, or whatever they are to be termed, which are in our sphere, and from
which we receive this or that name when we partake of them. And the things which are
within our sphere and have the same names with them, are likewise only relative to one
another, and not to the ideas which have the same names with them, but belong to
themselves and not to them.
What do you mean? said Socrates.
I may illustrate my meaning in this way, said Parmenides:—A master has a slave; now
there is nothing absolute in the relation between them, which is simply a relation of one
man to another. But there is also an idea of mastership in the abstract, which is relative
to the idea of slavery in the abstract. These natures have nothing to do with us, nor we
with them; they are concerned with themselves only, and we with ourselves. Do you see
my meaning?
Yes, said Socrates, I quite see your meaning.
And will not knowledge—I mean absolute knowledge—answer to absolute truth?
Certainly.
And each kind of absolute knowledge will answer to each kind of absolute being?
Yes.
But the knowledge which we have, will answer to the truth which we have; and again,
each kind of knowledge which we have, will be a knowledge of each kind of being which
we have?
Certainly.
But the ideas themselves, as you admit, we have not, and cannot have?
No, we cannot.
And the absolute natures or kinds are known severally by the absolute idea of
knowledge?
Yes.
And we have not got the idea of knowledge?
No.
Then none of the ideas are known to us, because we have no share in absolute
knowledge?
I suppose not.
Then the nature of the beautiful in itself, and of the good in itself, and all other ideas
which we suppose to exist absolutely, are unknown to us?
It would seem so.
I think that there is a stranger consequence still.
What is it?
Would you, or would you not say, that absolute knowledge, if there is such a thing, must
be a far more exact knowledge than our knowledge; and the same of beauty and of the
rest?
Yes.
And if there be such a thing as participation in absolute knowledge, no one is more
likely than God to have this most exact knowledge?
Certainly.
But then, will God, having absolute knowledge, have a knowledge of human things?
Why not?
Because, Socrates, said Parmenides, we have admitted that the ideas are not valid in
relation to human things; nor human things in relation to them; the relations of either
are limited to their respective spheres.
Yes, that has been admitted.
And if God has this perfect authority, and perfect knowledge, his authority cannot rule
us, nor his knowledge know us, or any human thing; just as our authority does not
extend to the gods, nor our knowledge know anything which is divine, so by parity of
reason they, being gods, are not our masters, neither do they know the things of men.
Yet, surely, said Socrates, to deprive God of knowledge is monstrous.
These, Socrates, said Parmenides, are a few, and only a few of the difficulties in which we
are involved if ideas really are and we determine each one of them to be an absolute
unity. He who hears what may be said against them will deny the very existence of
them—and even if they do exist, he will say that they must of necessity be unknown to
man; and he will seem to have reason on his side, and as we were remarking just now,
will be very difficult to convince; a man must be gifted with very considerable ability
before he can learn that everything has a class and an absolute essence; and still more
remarkable will he be who discovers all these things for himself, and having thoroughly
investigated them is able to teach them to others.
I agree with you, Parmenides, said Socrates; and what you say is very much to my mind.
And yet, Socrates, said Parmenides, if a man, fixing his attention on these and the like
difficulties, does away with ideas of things and will not admit that every individual thing
has its own determinate idea which is always one and the same, he will have nothing on
which his mind can rest; and so he will utterly destroy the power of reasoning, as you
seem to me to have particularly noted.
Very true, he said.
But, then, what is to become of philosophy? Whither shall we turn, if the ideas are
unknown?
I certainly do not see my way at present.
Yes, said Parmenides; and I think that this arises, Socrates, out of your attempting to
define the beautiful, the just, the good, and the ideas generally, without sufficient
previous training. I noticed your deficiency, when I heard you talking here with your
friend Aristoteles, the day before yesterday. The impulse that carries you towards
philosophy is assuredly noble and divine; but there is an art which is called by the vulgar
idle talking, and which is often imagined to be useless; in that you must train and
exercise yourself, now that you are young, or truth will elude your grasp.
And what is the nature of this exercise, Parmenides, which you would recommend?
That which you heard Zeno practising; at the same time, I give you credit for saying to
him that you did not care to examine the perplexity in reference to visible things, or to
consider the question that way; but only in reference to objects of thought, and to what
may be called ideas.
Why, yes, he said, there appears to me to be no difficulty in showing by this method
that visible things are like and unlike and may experience anything.
Quite true, said Parmenides; but I think that you should go a step further, and consider
not only the consequences which flow from a given hypothesis, but also the
consequences which flow from denying the hypothesis; and that will be still better
training for you.
What do you mean? he said.
I mean, for example, that in the case of this very hypothesis of Zeno’s about the many,
you should inquire not only what will be the consequences to the many in relation to
themselves and to the one, and to the one in relation to itself and the many, on the
hypothesis of the being of the many, but also what will be the consequences to the one
and the many in their relation to themselves and to each other, on the opposite
hypothesis. Or, again, if likeness is or is not, what will be the consequences in either of
these cases to the subjects of the hypothesis, and to other things, in relation both to
themselves and to one another, and so of unlikeness; and the same holds good of
motion and rest, of generation and destruction, and even of being and not-being. In a
word, when you suppose anything to be or not to be, or to be in any way affected, you
must look at the consequences in relation to the thing itself, and to any other things
which you choose,—to each of them singly, to more than one, and to all; and so of other
things, you must look at them in relation to themselves and to anything else which you
suppose either to be or not to be, if you would train yourself perfectly and see the real
truth.
That, Parmenides, is a tremendous business of which you speak, and I do not quite
understand you; will you take some hypothesis and go through the steps?—then I shall
apprehend you better.
That, Socrates, is a serious task to impose on a man of my years.
Then will you, Zeno? said Socrates.
Zeno answered with a smile:—Let us make our petition to Parmenides himself, who is
quite right in saying that you are hardly aware of the extent of the task which you are
imposing on him; and if there were more of us I should not ask him, for these are not
subjects which any one, especially at his age, can well speak of before a large audience;
most people are not aware that this roundabout progress through all things is the only
way in which the mind can attain truth and wisdom. And therefore, Parmenides, I join in
the request of Socrates, that I may hear the process again which I have not heard for a
long time.
When Zeno had thus spoken, Pythodorus, according to Antiphon’s report of him, said,
that he himself and Aristoteles and the whole company entreated Parmenides to give an
example of the process. I cannot refuse, said Parmenides; and yet I feel rather like
Ibycus, who, when in his old age, against his will, he fell in love, compared himself to an
old racehorse, who was about to run in a chariot race, shaking with fear at the course he
knew so well—this was his simile of himself. And I also experience a trembling when I
remember through what an ocean of words I have to wade at my time of life. But I must
indulge you, as Zeno says that I ought, and we are alone. Where shall I begin? And what
shall be our first hypothesis, if I am to attempt this laborious pastime? Shall I begin with
myself, and take my own hypothesis the one? and consider the consequences which
follow on the supposition either of the being or of the not-being of one?
By all means, said Zeno.
And who will answer me? he said. Shall I propose the youngest? He will not make
difficulties and will be the most likely to say what he thinks; and his answers will give me
time to breathe.
I am the one whom you mean, Parmenides, said Aristoteles; for I am the youngest and
at your service. Ask, and I will answer.
Parmenides proceeded: 1.a. If one is, he said, the one cannot be many?
Impossible.
Then the one cannot have parts, and cannot be a whole?
Why not?
Because every part is part of a whole; is it not?
Yes.
And what is a whole? would not that of which no part is wanting be a whole?
Certainly.
Then, in either case, the one would be made up of parts; both as being a whole, and also
as having parts?
To be sure.
And in either case, the one would be many, and not one?
True.
But, surely, it ought to be one and not many?
It ought.
Then, if the one is to remain one, it will not be a whole, and will not have parts?
No.
But if it has no parts, it will have neither beginning, middle, nor end; for these would of
course be parts of it.
Right.
But then, again, a beginning and an end are the limits of everything?
Certainly.
Then the one, having neither beginning nor end, is unlimited?
Yes, unlimited.
And therefore formless; for it cannot partake either of round or straight.
But why?
Why, because the round is that of which all the extreme points are equidistant from the
centre?
Yes.
And the straight is that of which the centre intercepts the view of the extremes?
True.
Then the one would have parts and would be many, if it partook either of a straight or
of a circular form?
Assuredly.
But having no parts, it will be neither straight nor round?
Right.
And, being of such a nature, it cannot be in any place, for it cannot be either in another
or in itself.
How so?
Because if it were in another, it would be encircled by that in which it was, and would
touch it at many places and with many parts; but that which is one and indivisible, and
does not partake of a circular nature, cannot be touched all round in many places.
Certainly not.
But if, on the other hand, one were in itself, it would also be contained by nothing else
but itself; that is to say, if it were really in itself; for nothing can be in anything which
does not contain it.
Impossible.
But then, that which contains must be other than that which is contained? for the same
whole cannot do and suffer both at once; and if so, one will be no longer one, but two?
True.
Then one cannot be anywhere, either in itself or in another?
No.
Further consider, whether that which is of such a nature can have either rest or motion.
Why not?
Why, because the one, if it were moved, would be either moved in place or changed in
nature; for these are the only kinds of motion.
Yes.
And the one, when it changes and ceases to be itself, cannot be any longer one.
It cannot.
It cannot therefore experience the sort of motion which is change of nature?
Clearly not.
Then can the motion of the one be in place?
Perhaps.
But if the one moved in place, must it not either move round and round in the same
place, or from one place to another?
It must.
And that which moves in a circle must rest upon a centre; and that which goes round
upon a centre must have parts which are different from the centre; but that which has
no centre and no parts cannot possibly be carried round upon a centre?
Impossible.
But perhaps the motion of the one consists in change of place?
Perhaps so, if it moves at all.
And have we not already shown that it cannot be in anything?
Yes.
Then its coming into being in anything is still more impossible; is it not?
I do not see why.
Why, because anything which comes into being in anything, can neither as yet be in that
other thing while still coming into being, nor be altogether out of it, if already coming
into being in it.
Certainly not.
And therefore whatever comes into being in another must have parts, and then one part
may be in, and another part out of that other; but that which has no parts can never be
at one and the same time neither wholly within nor wholly without anything.
True.
And is there not a still greater impossibility in that which has no parts, and is not a
whole, coming into being anywhere, since it cannot come into being either as a part or
as a whole?
Clearly.
Then it does not change place by revolving in the same spot, nor by going somewhere
and coming into being in something; nor again, by change in itself?
Very true.
Then in respect of any kind of motion the one is immoveable?
Immoveable.
But neither can the one be in anything, as we affirm?
Yes, we said so.
Then it is never in the same?
Why not?
Because if it were in the same it would be in something.
Certainly.
And we said that it could not be in itself, and could not be in other?
True.
Then one is never in the same place?
It would seem not.
But that which is never in the same place is never quiet or at rest?
Never.
One then, as would seem, is neither at rest nor in motion?
It certainly appears so.
Neither will it be the same with itself or other; nor again, other than itself or other.
How is that?
If other than itself it would be other than one, and would not be one.
True.
And if the same with other, it would be that other, and not itself; so that upon this
supposition too, it would not have the nature of one, but would be other than one?
It would.
Then it will not be the same with other, or other than itself?
It will not.
Neither will it be other than other, while it remains one; for not one, but only other, can
be other than other, and nothing else.
True.
Then not by virtue of being one will it be other?
Certainly not.
But if not by virtue of being one, not by virtue of itself; and if not by virtue of itself, not
itself, and itself not being other at all, will not be other than anything?
Right.
Neither will one be the same with itself.
How not?
Surely the nature of the one is not the nature of the same.
Why not?
It is not when anything becomes the same with anything that it becomes one.
What of that?
Anything which becomes the same with the many, necessarily becomes many and not
one.
True.
But, if there were no difference between the one and the same, when a thing became
the same, it would always become one; and when it became one, the same?
Certainly.
And, therefore, if one be the same with itself, it is not one with itself, and will therefore
be one and also not one.
Surely that is impossible.
And therefore the one can neither be other than other, nor the same with itself.
Impossible.
And thus the one can neither be the same, nor other, either in relation to itself or other?
No.
Neither will the one be like anything or unlike itself or other.
Why not?
Because likeness is sameness of affections.
Yes.
And sameness has been shown to be of a nature distinct from oneness?
That has been shown.
But if the one had any other affection than that of being one, it would be affected in
such a way as to be more than one; which is impossible.
True.
Then the one can never be so affected as to be the same either with another or with
itself?
Clearly not.
Then it cannot be like another, or like itself?
No.
Nor can it be affected so as to be other, for then it would be affected in such a way as to
be more than one.
It would.
That which is affected otherwise than itself or another, will be unlike itself or another, for
sameness of affections is likeness.
True.
But the one, as appears, never being affected otherwise, is never unlike itself or other?
Never.
Then the one will never be either like or unlike itself or other?
Plainly not.
Again, being of this nature, it can neither be equal nor unequal either to itself or to
other.
How is that?
Why, because the one if equal must be of the same measures as that to which it is equal.
True.
And if greater or less than things which are commensurable with it, the one will have
more measures than that which is less, and fewer than that which is greater?
Yes.
And so of things which are not commensurate with it, the one will have greater
measures than that which is less and smaller than that which is greater.
Certainly.
But how can that which does not partake of sameness, have either the same measures
or have anything else the same?
Impossible.
And not having the same measures, the one cannot be equal either with itself or with
another?
It appears so.
But again, whether it have fewer or more measures, it will have as many parts as it has
measures; and thus again the one will be no longer one but will have as many parts as
measures.
Right.
And if it were of one measure, it would be equal to that measure; yet it has been shown
to be incapable of equality.
It has.
Then it will neither partake of one measure, nor of many, nor of few, nor of the same at
all, nor be equal to itself or another; nor be greater or less than itself, or other?
Certainly.
Well, and do we suppose that one can be older, or younger than anything, or of the
same age with it?
Why not?
Why, because that which is of the same age with itself or other, must partake of equality
or likeness of time; and we said that the one did not partake either of equality or of
likeness?
We did say so.
And we also said, that it did not partake of inequality or unlikeness.
Very true.
How then can one, being of this nature, be either older or younger than anything, or
have the same age with it?
In no way.
Then one cannot be older or younger, or of the same age, either with itself or with
another?
Clearly not.
Then the one, being of this nature, cannot be in time at all; for must not that which is in
time, be always growing older than itself?
Certainly.
And that which is older, must always be older than something which is younger?
True.
Then, that which becomes older than itself, also becomes at the same time younger
than itself, if it is to have something to become older than.
What do you mean?
I mean this:—A thing does not need to become different from another thing which is
already different; it IS different, and if its different has become, it has become different;
if its different will be, it will be different; but of that which is becoming different, there
cannot have been, or be about to be, or yet be, a different—the only different possible
is one which is becoming.
That is inevitable.
But, surely, the elder is a difference relative to the younger, and to nothing else.
True.
Then that which becomes older than itself must also, at the same time, become younger
than itself?
Yes.
But again, it is true that it cannot become for a longer or for a shorter time than itself,
but it must become, and be, and have become, and be about to be, for the same time
with itself?
That again is inevitable.
Then things which are in time, and partake of time, must in every case, I suppose, be of
the same age with themselves; and must also become at once older and younger than
themselves?
Yes.
But the one did not partake of those affections?
Not at all.
Then it does not partake of time, and is not in any time?
So the argument shows.
Well, but do not the expressions ‘was,’ and ‘has become,’ and ‘was becoming,’ signify a
participation of past time?
Certainly.
And do not ‘will be,’ ‘will become,’ ‘will have become,’ signify a participation of future
time?
Yes.
And ‘is,’ or ‘becomes,’ signifies a participation of present time?
Certainly.
And if the one is absolutely without participation in time, it never had become, or was
becoming, or was at any time, or is now become or is becoming, or is, or will become, or
will have become, or will be, hereafter.
Most true.
But are there any modes of partaking of being other than these?
There are none.
Then the one cannot possibly partake of being?
That is the inference.
Then the one is not at all?
Clearly not.
Then the one does not exist in such way as to be one; for if it were and partook of being,
it would already be; but if the argument is to be trusted, the one neither is nor is one?
True.
But that which is not admits of no attribute or relation?
Of course not.
Then there is no name, nor expression, nor perception, nor opinion, nor knowledge of
it?
Clearly not.
Then it is neither named, nor expressed, nor opined, nor known, nor does anything that
is perceive it.
So we must infer.
But can all this be true about the one?
I think not.
1.b. Suppose, now, that we return once more to the original hypothesis; let us see
whether, on a further review, any new aspect of the question appears.
I shall be very happy to do so.
We say that we have to work out together all the consequences, whatever they may be,
which follow, if the one is?
Yes.
Then we will begin at the beginning:—If one is, can one be, and not partake of being?
Impossible.
Then the one will have being, but its being will not be the same with the one; for if the
same, it would not be the being of the one; nor would the one have participated in
being, for the proposition that one is would have been identical with the proposition
that one is one; but our hypothesis is not if one is one, what will follow, but if one is:—
am I not right?
Quite right.
We mean to say, that being has not the same significance as one?
Of course.
And when we put them together shortly, and say ‘One is,’ that is equivalent to saying,
‘partakes of being’?
Quite true.
Once more then let us ask, if one is what will follow. Does not this hypothesis necessarily
imply that one is of such a nature as to have parts?
How so?
In this way:—If being is predicated of the one, if the one is, and one of being, if being is
one; and if being and one are not the same; and since the one, which we have assumed,
is, must not the whole, if it is one, itself be, and have for its parts, one and being?
Certainly.
And is each of these parts—one and being—to be simply called a part, or must the word
‘part’ be relative to the word ‘whole’?
The latter.
Then that which is one is both a whole and has a part?
Certainly.
Again, of the parts of the one, if it is—I mean being and one—does either fail to imply
the other? is the one wanting to being, or being to the one?
Impossible.
Thus, each of the parts also has in turn both one and being, and is at the least made up
of two parts; and the same principle goes on for ever, and every part whatever has
always these two parts; for being always involves one, and one being; so that one is
always disappearing, and becoming two.
Certainly.
And so the one, if it is, must be infinite in multiplicity?
Clearly.
Let us take another direction.
What direction?
We say that the one partakes of being and therefore it is?
Yes.
And in this way, the one, if it has being, has turned out to be many?
True.
But now, let us abstract the one which, as we say, partakes of being, and try to imagine
it apart from that of which, as we say, it partakes—will this abstract one be one only or
many?
One, I think.
Let us see:—Must not the being of one be other than one? for the one is not being, but,
considered as one, only partook of being?
Certainly.
If being and the one be two different things, it is not because the one is one that it is
other than being; nor because being is being that it is other than the one; but they differ
from one another in virtue of otherness and difference.
Certainly.
So that the other is not the same—either with the one or with being?
Certainly not.
And therefore whether we take being and the other, or being and the one, or the one
and the other, in every such case we take two things, which may be rightly called both.
How so.
In this way—you may speak of being?
Yes.
And also of one?
Yes.
Then now we have spoken of either of them?
Yes.
Well, and when I speak of being and one, I speak of them both?
Certainly.
And if I speak of being and the other, or of the one and the other,—in any such case do
I not speak of both?
Yes.
And must not that which is correctly called both, be also two?
Undoubtedly.
And of two things how can either by any possibility not be one?
It cannot.
Then, if the individuals of the pair are together two, they must be severally one?
Clearly.
And if each of them is one, then by the addition of any one to any pair, the whole
becomes three?
Yes.
And three are odd, and two are even?
Of course.
And if there are two there must also be twice, and if there are three there must be thrice;
that is, if twice one makes two, and thrice one three?
Certainly.
There are two, and twice, and therefore there must be twice two; and there are three,
and there is thrice, and therefore there must be thrice three?
Of course.
If there are three and twice, there is twice three; and if there are two and thrice, there is
thrice two?
Undoubtedly.
Here, then, we have even taken even times, and odd taken odd times, and even taken
odd times, and odd taken even times.
True.
And if this is so, does any number remain which has no necessity to be?
None whatever.
Then if one is, number must also be?
It must.
But if there is number, there must also be many, and infinite multiplicity of being; for
number is infinite in multiplicity, and partakes also of being: am I not right?
Certainly.
And if all number participates in being, every part of number will also participate?
Yes.
Then being is distributed over the whole multitude of things, and nothing that is,
however small or however great, is devoid of it? And, indeed, the very supposition of
this is absurd, for how can that which is, be devoid of being?
In no way.
And it is divided into the greatest and into the smallest, and into being of all sizes, and is
broken up more than all things; the divisions of it have no limit.
True.
Then it has the greatest number of parts?
Yes, the greatest number.
Is there any of these which is a part of being, and yet no part?
Impossible.
But if it is at all and so long as it is, it must be one, and cannot be none?
Certainly.
Then the one attaches to every single part of being, and does not fail in any part,
whether great or small, or whatever may be the size of it?
True.
But reflect:—Can one, in its entirety, be in many places at the same time?
No; I see the impossibility of that.
And if not in its entirety, then it is divided; for it cannot be present with all the parts of
being, unless divided.
True.
And that which has parts will be as many as the parts are?
Certainly.
Then we were wrong in saying just now, that being was distributed into the greatest
number of parts. For it is not distributed into parts more than the one, into parts equal
to the one; the one is never wanting to being, or being to the one, but being two they
are co-equal and co-extensive.
Certainly that is true.
The one itself, then, having been broken up into parts by being, is many and infinite?
True.
Then not only the one which has being is many, but the one itself distributed by being,
must also be many?
Certainly.
Further, inasmuch as the parts are parts of a whole, the one, as a whole, will be limited;
for are not the parts contained by the whole?
Certainly.
And that which contains, is a limit?
Of course.
Then the one if it has being is one and many, whole and parts, having limits and yet
unlimited in number?
Clearly.
And because having limits, also having extremes?
Certainly.
And if a whole, having beginning and middle and end. For can anything be a whole
without these three? And if any one of them is wanting to anything, will that any longer
be a whole?
No.
Then the one, as appears, will have beginning, middle, and end.
It will.
But, again, the middle will be equidistant from the extremes; or it would not be in the
middle?
Yes.
Then the one will partake of figure, either rectilinear or round, or a union of the two?
True.
And if this is the case, it will be both in itself and in another too.
How?
Every part is in the whole, and none is outside the whole.
True.
And all the parts are contained by the whole?
Yes.
And the one is all its parts, and neither more nor less than all?
No.
And the one is the whole?
Of course.
But if all the parts are in the whole, and the one is all of them and the whole, and they
are all contained by the whole, the one will be contained by the one; and thus the one
will be in itself.
That is true.
But then, again, the whole is not in the parts—neither in all the parts, nor in some one of
them. For if it is in all, it must be in one; for if there were any one in which it was not, it
could not be in all the parts; for the part in which it is wanting is one of all, and if the
whole is not in this, how can it be in them all?
It cannot.
Nor can the whole be in some of the parts; for if the whole were in some of the parts,
the greater would be in the less, which is impossible.
Yes, impossible.
But if the whole is neither in one, nor in more than one, nor in all of the parts, it must be
in something else, or cease to be anywhere at all?
Certainly.
If it were nowhere, it would be nothing; but being a whole, and not being in itself, it
must be in another.
Very true.
The one then, regarded as a whole, is in another, but regarded as being all its parts, is in
itself; and therefore the one must be itself in itself and also in another.
Certainly.
The one then, being of this nature, is of necessity both at rest and in motion?
How?
The one is at rest since it is in itself, for being in one, and not passing out of this, it is in
the same, which is itself.
True.
And that which is ever in the same, must be ever at rest?
Certainly.
Well, and must not that, on the contrary, which is ever in other, never be in the same;
and if never in the same, never at rest, and if not at rest, in motion?
True.
Then the one being always itself in itself and other, must always be both at rest and in
motion?
Clearly.
And must be the same with itself, and other than itself; and also the same with the
others, and other than the others; this follows from its previous affections.
How so?
Everything in relation to every other thing, is either the same or other; or if neither the
same nor other, then in the relation of a part to a whole, or of a whole to a part.
Clearly.
And is the one a part of itself?
Certainly not.
Since it is not a part in relation to itself it cannot be related to itself as whole to part?
It cannot.
But is the one other than one?
No.
And therefore not other than itself?
Certainly not.
If then it be neither other, nor a whole, nor a part in relation to itself, must it not be the
same with itself?
Certainly.
But then, again, a thing which is in another place from ‘itself,’ if this ‘itself’ remains in the
same place with itself, must be other than ‘itself,’ for it will be in another place?
True.
Then the one has been shown to be at once in itself and in another?
Yes.
Thus, then, as appears, the one will be other than itself?
True.
Well, then, if anything be other than anything, will it not be other than that which is
other?
Certainly.
And will not all things that are not one, be other than the one, and the one other than
the not-one?
Of course.
Then the one will be other than the others?
True.
But, consider:—Are not the absolute same, and the absolute other, opposites to one
another?
Of course.
Then will the same ever be in the other, or the other in the same?
They will not.
If then the other is never in the same, there is nothing in which the other is during any
space of time; for during that space of time, however small, the other would be in the
same. Is not that true?
Yes.
And since the other is never in the same, it can never be in anything that is.
True.
Then the other will never be either in the not-one, or in the one?
Certainly not.
Then not by reason of otherness is the one other than the not-one, or the not-one other
than the one.
No.
Nor by reason of themselves will they be other than one another, if not partaking of the
other.
How can they be?
But if they are not other, either by reason of themselves or of the other, will they not
altogether escape being other than one another?
They will.
Again, the not-one cannot partake of the one; otherwise it would not have been notone,
but would have been in some way one.
True.
Nor can the not-one be number; for having number, it would not have been not-one at
all.
It would not.
Again, is the not-one part of the one; or rather, would it not in that case partake of the
one?
It would.
If then, in every point of view, the one and the not-one are distinct, then neither is the
one part or whole of the not-one, nor is the not-one part or whole of the one?
No.
But we said that things which are neither parts nor wholes of one another, nor other
than one another, will be the same with one another:—so we said?
Yes.
Then shall we say that the one, being in this relation to the not-one, is the same with it?
Let us say so.
Then it is the same with itself and the others, and also other than itself and the others.
That appears to be the inference.
And it will also be like and unlike itself and the others?
Perhaps.
Since the one was shown to be other than the others, the others will also be other than
the one.
Yes.
And the one is other than the others in the same degree that the others are other than
it, and neither more nor less?
True.
And if neither more nor less, then in a like degree?
Yes.
In virtue of the affection by which the one is other than others and others in like manner
other than it, the one will be affected like the others and the others like the one.
How do you mean?
I may take as an illustration the case of names: You give a name to a thing?
Yes.
And you may say the name once or oftener?
Yes.
And when you say it once, you mention that of which it is the name? and when more
than once, is it something else which you mention? or must it always be the same thing
of which you speak, whether you utter the name once or more than once?
Of course it is the same.
And is not ‘other’ a name given to a thing?
Certainly.
Whenever, then, you use the word ‘other,’ whether once or oftener, you name that of
which it is the name, and to no other do you give the name?
True.
Then when we say that the others are other than the one, and the one other than the
others, in repeating the word ‘other’ we speak of that nature to which the name is
applied, and of no other?
Quite true.
Then the one which is other than others, and the other which is other than the one, in
that the word ‘other’ is applied to both, will be in the same condition; and that which is
in the same condition is like?
Yes.
Then in virtue of the affection by which the one is other than the others, every thing will
be like every thing, for every thing is other than every thing.
True.
Again, the like is opposed to the unlike?
Yes.
And the other to the same?
True again.
And the one was also shown to be the same with the others?
Yes.
And to be the same with the others is the opposite of being other than the others?
Certainly.
And in that it was other it was shown to be like?
Yes.
But in that it was the same it will be unlike by virtue of the opposite affection to that
which made it like; and this was the affection of otherness.
Yes.
The same then will make it unlike; otherwise it will not be the opposite of the other.
True.
Then the one will be both like and unlike the others; like in so far as it is other, and
unlike in so far as it is the same.
Yes, that argument may be used.
And there is another argument.
What?
In so far as it is affected in the same way it is not affected otherwise, and not being
affected otherwise is not unlike, and not being unlike, is like; but in so far as it is affected
by other it is otherwise, and being otherwise affected is unlike.
True.
Then because the one is the same with the others and other than the others, on either
of these two grounds, or on both of them, it will be both like and unlike the others?
Certainly.
And in the same way as being other than itself and the same with itself, on either of
these two grounds and on both of them, it will be like and unlike itself?
Of course.
Again, how far can the one touch or not touch itself and others?—consider.
I am considering.
The one was shown to be in itself which was a whole?
True.
And also in other things?
Yes.
In so far as it is in other things it would touch other things, but in so far as it is in itself it
would be debarred from touching them, and would touch itself only.
Clearly.
Then the inference is that it would touch both?
It would.
But what do you say to a new point of view? Must not that which is to touch another be
next to that which it is to touch, and occupy the place nearest to that in which what it
touches is situated?
True.
Then the one, if it is to touch itself, ought to be situated next to itself, and occupy the
place next to that in which itself is?
It ought.
And that would require that the one should be two, and be in two places at once, and
this, while it is one, will never happen.
No.
Then the one cannot touch itself any more than it can be two?
It cannot.
Neither can it touch others.
Why not?
The reason is, that whatever is to touch another must be in separation from, and next to,
that which it is to touch, and no third thing can be between them.
True.
Two things, then, at the least are necessary to make contact possible?
They are.
And if to the two a third be added in due order, the number of terms will be three, and
the contacts two?
Yes.
And every additional term makes one additional contact, whence it follows that the
contacts are one less in number than the terms; the first two terms exceeded the
number of contacts by one, and the whole number of terms exceeds the whole number
of contacts by one in like manner; and for every one which is afterwards added to the
number of terms, one contact is added to the contacts.
True.
Whatever is the whole number of things, the contacts will be always one less.
True.
But if there be only one, and not two, there will be no contact?
How can there be?
And do we not say that the others being other than the one are not one and have no
part in the one?
True.
Then they have no number, if they have no one in them?
Of course not.
Then the others are neither one nor two, nor are they called by the name of any
number?
No.
One, then, alone is one, and two do not exist?
Clearly not.
And if there are not two, there is no contact?
There is not.
Then neither does the one touch the others, nor the others the one, if there is no
contact?
Certainly not.
For all which reasons the one touches and does not touch itself and the others?
True.
Further—is the one equal and unequal to itself and others?
How do you mean?
If the one were greater or less than the others, or the others greater or less than the
one, they would not be greater or less than each other in virtue of their being the one
and the others; but, if in addition to their being what they are they had equality, they
would be equal to one another, or if the one had smallness and the others greatness, or
the one had greatness and the others smallness—whichever kind had greatness would
be greater, and whichever had smallness would be smaller?
Certainly.
Then there are two such ideas as greatness and smallness; for if they were not they
could not be opposed to each other and be present in that which is.
How could they?
If, then, smallness is present in the one it will be present either in the whole or in a part
of the whole?
Certainly.
Suppose the first; it will be either co-equal and co-extensive with the whole one, or will
contain the one?
Clearly.
If it be co-extensive with the one it will be co-equal with the one, or if containing the
one it will be greater than the one?
Of course.
But can smallness be equal to anything or greater than anything, and have the functions
of greatness and equality and not its own functions?
Impossible.
Then smallness cannot be in the whole of one, but, if at all, in a part only?
Yes.
And surely not in all of a part, for then the difficulty of the whole will recur; it will be
equal to or greater than any part in which it is.
Certainly.
Then smallness will not be in anything, whether in a whole or in a part; nor will there be
anything small but actual smallness.
True.
Neither will greatness be in the one, for if greatness be in anything there will be
something greater other and besides greatness itself, namely, that in which greatness is;
and this too when the small itself is not there, which the one, if it is great, must exceed;
this, however, is impossible, seeing that smallness is wholly absent.
True.
But absolute greatness is only greater than absolute smallness, and smallness is only
smaller than absolute greatness.
Very true.
Then other things not greater or less than the one, if they have neither greatness nor
smallness; nor have greatness or smallness any power of exceeding or being exceeded
in relation to the one, but only in relation to one another; nor will the one be greater or
less than them or others, if it has neither greatness nor smallness.
Clearly not.
Then if the one is neither greater nor less than the others, it cannot either exceed or be
exceeded by them?
Certainly not.
And that which neither exceeds nor is exceeded, must be on an equality; and being on
an equality, must be equal.
Of course.
And this will be true also of the relation of the one to itself; having neither greatness nor
smallness in itself, it will neither exceed nor be exceeded by itself, but will be on an
equality with and equal to itself.
Certainly.
Then the one will be equal both to itself and the others?
Clearly so.
And yet the one, being itself in itself, will also surround and be without itself; and, as
containing itself, will be greater than itself; and, as contained in itself, will be less; and
will thus be greater and less than itself.
It will.
Now there cannot possibly be anything which is not included in the one and the others?
Of course not.
But, surely, that which is must always be somewhere?
Yes.
But that which is in anything will be less, and that in which it is will be greater; in no
other way can one thing be in another.
True.
And since there is nothing other or besides the one and the others, and they must be in
something, must they not be in one another, the one in the others and the others in the
one, if they are to be anywhere?
That is clear.
But inasmuch as the one is in the others, the others will be greater than the one,
because they contain the one, which will be less than the others, because it is contained
in them; and inasmuch as the others are in the one, the one on the same principle will
be greater than the others, and the others less than the one.
True.
The one, then, will be equal to and greater and less than itself and the others?
Clearly.
And if it be greater and less and equal, it will be of equal and more and less measures or
divisions than itself and the others, and if of measures, also of parts?
Of course.
And if of equal and more and less measures or divisions, it will be in number more or
less than itself and the others, and likewise equal in number to itself and to the others?
How is that?
It will be of more measures than those things which it exceeds, and of as many parts as
measures; and so with that to which it is equal, and that than which it is less.
True.
And being greater and less than itself, and equal to itself, it will be of equal measures
with itself and of more and fewer measures than itself; and if of measures then also of
parts?
It will.
And being of equal parts with itself, it will be numerically equal to itself; and being of
more parts, more, and being of less, less than itself?
Certainly.
And the same will hold of its relation to other things; inasmuch as it is greater than
them, it will be more in number than them; and inasmuch as it is smaller, it will be less in
number; and inasmuch as it is equal in size to other things, it will be equal to them in
number.
Certainly.
Once more, then, as would appear, the one will be in number both equal to and more
and less than both itself and all other things.
It will.
Does the one also partake of time? And is it and does it become older and younger than
itself and others, and again, neither younger nor older than itself and others, by virtue of
participation in time?
How do you mean?
If one is, being must be predicated of it?
Yes.
But to be (einai) is only participation of being in present time, and to have been is the
participation of being at a past time, and to be about to be is the participation of being
at a future time?
Very true.
Then the one, since it partakes of being, partakes of time?
Certainly.
And is not time always moving forward?
Yes.
Then the one is always becoming older than itself, since it moves forward in time?
Certainly.
And do you remember that the older becomes older than that which becomes younger?
I remember.
Then since the one becomes older than itself, it becomes younger at the same time?
Certainly.
Thus, then, the one becomes older as well as younger than itself?
Yes.
And it is older (is it not?) when in becoming, it gets to the point of time between ‘was’
and ‘will be,’ which is ‘now’: for surely in going from the past to the future, it cannot skip
the present?
No.
And when it arrives at the present it stops from becoming older, and no longer
becomes, but is older, for if it went on it would never be reached by the present, for it is
the nature of that which goes on, to touch both the present and the future, letting go
the present and seizing the future, while in process of becoming between them.
True.
But that which is becoming cannot skip the present; when it reaches the present it
ceases to become, and is then whatever it may happen to be becoming.
Clearly.
And so the one, when in becoming older it reaches the present, ceases to become, and
is then older.
Certainly.
And it is older than that than which it was becoming older, and it was becoming older
than itself.
Yes.
And that which is older is older than that which is younger?
True.
Then the one is younger than itself, when in becoming older it reaches the present?
Certainly.
But the present is always present with the one during all its being; for whenever it is it is
always now.
Certainly.
Then the one always both is and becomes older and younger than itself?
Truly.
And is it or does it become a longer time than itself or an equal time with itself?
An equal time.
But if it becomes or is for an equal time with itself, it is of the same age with itself?
Of course.
And that which is of the same age, is neither older nor younger?
No.
The one, then, becoming and being the same time with itself, neither is nor becomes
older or younger than itself?
I should say not.
And what are its relations to other things? Is it or does it become older or younger than
they?
I cannot tell you.
You can at least tell me that others than the one are more than the one— other would
have been one, but the others have multitude, and are more than one?
They will have multitude.
And a multitude implies a number larger than one?
Of course.
And shall we say that the lesser or the greater is the first to come or to have come into
existence?
The lesser.
Then the least is the first? And that is the one?
Yes.
Then the one of all things that have number is the first to come into being; but all other
things have also number, being plural and not singular.
They have.
And since it came into being first it must be supposed to have come into being prior to
the others, and the others later; and the things which came into being later, are younger
than that which preceded them? And so the other things will be younger than the one,
and the one older than other things?
True.
What would you say of another question? Can the one have come into being contrary to
its own nature, or is that impossible?
Impossible.
And yet, surely, the one was shown to have parts; and if parts, then a beginning, middle
and end?
Yes.
And a beginning, both of the one itself and of all other things, comes into being first of
all; and after the beginning, the others follow, until you reach the end?
Certainly.
And all these others we shall affirm to be parts of the whole and of the one, which, as
soon as the end is reached, has become whole and one?
Yes; that is what we shall say.
But the end comes last, and the one is of such a nature as to come into being with the
last; and, since the one cannot come into being except in accordance with its own
nature, its nature will require that it should come into being after the others,
simultaneously with the end.
Clearly.
Then the one is younger than the others and the others older than the one.
That also is clear in my judgment.
Well, and must not a beginning or any other part of the one or of anything, if it be a
part and not parts, being a part, be also of necessity one?
Certainly.
And will not the one come into being together with each part—together with the first
part when that comes into being, and together with the second part and with all the
rest, and will not be wanting to any part, which is added to any other part until it has
reached the last and become one whole; it will be wanting neither to the middle, nor to
the first, nor to the last, nor to any of them, while the process of becoming is going on?
True.
Then the one is of the same age with all the others, so that if the one itself does not
contradict its own nature, it will be neither prior nor posterior to the others, but
simultaneous; and according to this argument the one will be neither older nor younger
than the others, nor the others than the one, but according to the previous argument
the one will be older and younger than the others and the others than the one.
Certainly.
After this manner then the one is and has become. But as to its becoming older and
younger than the others, and the others than the one, and neither older nor younger,
what shall we say? Shall we say as of being so also of becoming, or otherwise?
I cannot answer.
But I can venture to say, that even if one thing were older or younger than another, it
could not become older or younger in a greater degree than it was at first; for equals
added to unequals, whether to periods of time or to anything else, leave the difference
between them the same as at first.
Of course.
Then that which is, cannot become older or younger than that which is, since the
difference of age is always the same; the one is and has become older and the other
younger; but they are no longer becoming so.
True.
And the one which is does not therefore become either older or younger than the
others which are.
No.
But consider whether they may not become older and younger in another way.
In what way?
Just as the one was proven to be older than the others and the others than the one.
And what of that?
If the one is older than the others, has come into being a longer time than the others.
Yes.
But consider again; if we add equal time to a greater and a less time, will the greater
differ from the less time by an equal or by a smaller portion than before?
By a smaller portion.
Then the difference between the age of the one and the age of the others will not be
afterwards so great as at first, but if an equal time be added to both of them they will
differ less and less in age?
Yes.
And that which differs in age from some other less than formerly, from being older will
become younger in relation to that other than which it was older?
Yes, younger.
And if the one becomes younger the others aforesaid will become older than they were
before, in relation to the one.
Certainly.
Then that which had become younger becomes older relatively to that which previously
had become and was older; it never really is older, but is always becoming, for the one is
always growing on the side of youth and the other on the side of age. And in like
manner the older is always in process of becoming younger than the younger; for as
they are always going in opposite directions they become in ways the opposite to one
another, the younger older than the older, and the older younger than the younger.
They cannot, however, have become; for if they had already become they would be and
not merely become. But that is impossible; for they are always becoming both older and
younger than one another: the one becomes younger than the others because it was
seen to be older and prior, and the others become older than the one because they
came into being later; and in the same way the others are in the same relation to the
one, because they were seen to be older, and prior to the one.
That is clear.
Inasmuch then, one thing does not become older or younger than another, in that they
always differ from each other by an equal number, the one cannot become older or
younger than the others, nor the others than the one; but inasmuch as that which came
into being earlier and that which came into being later must continually differ from each
other by a different portion —in this point of view the others must become older and
younger than the one, and the one than the others.
Certainly.
For all these reasons, then, the one is and becomes older and younger than itself and
the others, and neither is nor becomes older or younger than itself or the others.
Certainly.
But since the one partakes of time, and partakes of becoming older and younger, must
it not also partake of the past, the present, and the future?
Of course it must.
Then the one was and is and will be, and was becoming and is becoming and will
become?
Certainly.
And there is and was and will be something which is in relation to it and belongs to it?
True.
And since we have at this moment opinion and knowledge and perception of the one,
there is opinion and knowledge and perception of it?
Quite right.
Then there is name and expression for it, and it is named and expressed, and everything
of this kind which appertains to other things appertains to the one.
Certainly, that is true.
Yet once more and for the third time, let us consider: If the one is both one and many,
as we have described, and is neither one nor many, and participates in time, must it not,
in as far as it is one, at times partake of being, and in as far as it is not one, at times not
partake of being?
Certainly.
But can it partake of being when not partaking of being, or not partake of being when
partaking of being?
Impossible.
Then the one partakes and does not partake of being at different times, for that is the
only way in which it can partake and not partake of the same.
True.
And is there not also a time at which it assumes being and relinquishes being—for how
can it have and not have the same thing unless it receives and also gives it up at some
time?
Impossible.
And the assuming of being is what you would call becoming?
I should.
And the relinquishing of being you would call destruction?
I should.
The one then, as would appear, becomes and is destroyed by taking and giving up
being.
Certainly.
And being one and many and in process of becoming and being destroyed, when it
becomes one it ceases to be many, and when many, it ceases to be one?
Certainly.
And as it becomes one and many, must it not inevitably experience separation and
aggregation?
Inevitably.
And whenever it becomes like and unlike it must be assimilated and dissimilated?
Yes.
And when it becomes greater or less or equal it must grow or diminish or be equalized?
True.
And when being in motion it rests, and when being at rest it changes to motion, it can
surely be in no time at all?
How can it?
But that a thing which is previously at rest should be afterwards in motion, or previously
in motion and afterwards at rest, without experiencing change, is impossible.
Impossible.
And surely there cannot be a time in which a thing can be at once neither in motion nor
at rest?
There cannot.
But neither can it change without changing.
True.
When then does it change; for it cannot change either when at rest, or when in motion,
or when in time?
It cannot.
And does this strange thing in which it is at the time of changing really exist?
What thing?
The moment. For the moment seems to imply a something out of which change takes
place into either of two states; for the change is not from the state of rest as such, nor
from the state of motion as such; but there is this curious nature which we call the
moment lying between rest and motion, not being in any time; and into this and out of
this what is in motion changes into rest, and what is at rest into motion.
So it appears.
And the one then, since it is at rest and also in motion, will change to either, for only in
this way can it be in both. And in changing it changes in a moment, and when it is
changing it will be in no time, and will not then be either in motion or at rest.
It will not.
And it will be in the same case in relation to the other changes, when it passes from
being into cessation of being, or from not-being into becoming —then it passes
between certain states of motion and rest, and neither is nor is not, nor becomes nor is
destroyed.
Very true.
And on the same principle, in the passage from one to many and from many to one, the
one is neither one nor many, neither separated nor aggregated; and in the passage from
like to unlike, and from unlike to like, it is neither like nor unlike, neither in a state of
assimilation nor of dissimilation; and in the passage from small to great and equal and
back again, it will be neither small nor great, nor equal, nor in a state of increase, or
diminution, or equalization.
True.
All these, then, are the affections of the one, if the one has being.
Of course.
1.aa. But if one is, what will happen to the others—is not that also to be considered?
Yes.
Let us show then, if one is, what will be the affections of the others than the one.
Let us do so.
Inasmuch as there are things other than the one, the others are not the one; for if they
were they could not be other than the one.
Very true.
Nor are the others altogether without the one, but in a certain way they participate in
the one.
In what way?
Because the others are other than the one inasmuch as they have parts; for if they had
no parts they would be simply one.
Right.
And parts, as we affirm, have relation to a whole?
So we say.
And a whole must necessarily be one made up of many; and the parts will be parts of
the one, for each of the parts is not a part of many, but of a whole.
How do you mean?
If anything were a part of many, being itself one of them, it will surely be a part of itself,
which is impossible, and it will be a part of each one of the other parts, if of all; for if not
a part of some one, it will be a part of all the others but this one, and thus will not be a
part of each one; and if not a part of each, one it will not be a part of any one of the
many; and not being a part of any one, it cannot be a part or anything else of all those
things of none of which it is anything.
Clearly not.
Then the part is not a part of the many, nor of all, but is of a certain single form, which
we call a whole, being one perfect unity framed out of all—of this the part will be a part.
Certainly.
If, then, the others have parts, they will participate in the whole and in the one.
True.
Then the others than the one must be one perfect whole, having parts.
Certainly.
And the same argument holds of each part, for the part must participate in the one; for
if each of the parts is a part, this means, I suppose, that it is one separate from the rest
and self-related; otherwise it is not each.
True.
But when we speak of the part participating in the one, it must clearly be other than
one; for if not, it would not merely have participated, but would have been one; whereas
only the itself can be one.
Very true.
Both the whole and the part must participate in the one; for the whole will be one
whole, of which the parts will be parts; and each part will be one part of the whole which
is the whole of the part.
True.
And will not the things which participate in the one, be other than it?
Of course.
And the things which are other than the one will be many; for if the things which are
other than the one were neither one nor more than one, they would be nothing.
True.
But, seeing that the things which participate in the one as a part, and in the one as a
whole, are more than one, must not those very things which participate in the one be
infinite in number?
How so?
Let us look at the matter thus:—Is it not a fact that in partaking of the one they are not
one, and do not partake of the one at the very time when they are partaking of it?
Clearly.
They do so then as multitudes in which the one is not present?
Very true.
And if we were to abstract from them in idea the very smallest fraction, must not that
least fraction, if it does not partake of the one, be a multitude and not one?
It must.
And if we continue to look at the other side of their nature, regarded simply, and in
itself, will not they, as far as we see them, be unlimited in number?
Certainly.
And yet, when each several part becomes a part, then the parts have a limit in relation to
the whole and to each other, and the whole in relation to the parts.
Just so.
The result to the others than the one is that the union of themselves and the one
appears to create a new element in them which gives to them limitation in relation to
one another; whereas in their own nature they have no limit.
That is clear.
Then the others than the one, both as whole and parts, are infinite, and also partake of
limit.
Certainly.
Then they are both like and unlike one another and themselves.
How is that?
Inasmuch as they are unlimited in their own nature, they are all affected in the same
way.
True.
And inasmuch as they all partake of limit, they are all affected in the same way.
Of course.
But inasmuch as their state is both limited and unlimited, they are affected in opposite
ways.
Yes.
And opposites are the most unlike of things.
Certainly.
Considered, then, in regard to either one of their affections, they will be like themselves
and one another; considered in reference to both of them together, most opposed and
most unlike.
That appears to be true.
Then the others are both like and unlike themselves and one another?
True.
And they are the same and also different from one another, and in motion and at rest,
and experience every sort of opposite affection, as may be proved without difficulty of
them, since they have been shown to have experienced the affections aforesaid?
True.
1.bb. Suppose, now, that we leave the further discussion of these matters as evident,
and consider again upon the hypothesis that the one is, whether opposite of all this is or
is not equally true of the others.
By all means.
Then let us begin again, and ask, If one is, what must be the affections of the others?
Let us ask that question.
Must not the one be distinct from the others, and the others from the one?
Why so?
Why, because there is nothing else beside them which is distinct from both of them; for
the expression ‘one and the others’ includes all things.
Yes, all things.
Then we cannot suppose that there is anything different from them in which both the
one and the others might exist?
There is nothing.
Then the one and the others are never in the same?
True.
Then they are separated from each other?
Yes.
And we surely cannot say that what is truly one has parts?
Impossible.
Then the one will not be in the others as a whole, nor as part, if it be separated from the
others, and has no parts?
Impossible.
Then there is no way in which the others can partake of the one, if they do not partake
either in whole or in part?
It would seem not.
Then there is no way in which the others are one, or have in themselves any unity?
There is not.
Nor are the others many; for if they were many, each part of them would be a part of
the whole; but now the others, not partaking in any way of the one, are neither one nor
many, nor whole, nor part.
True.
Then the others neither are nor contain two or three, if entirely deprived of the one?
True.
Then the others are neither like nor unlike the one, nor is likeness and unlikeness in
them; for if they were like and unlike, or had in them likeness and unlikeness, they would
have two natures in them opposite to one another.
That is clear.
But for that which partakes of nothing to partake of two things was held by us to be
impossible?
Impossible.
Then the others are neither like nor unlike nor both, for if they were like or unlike they
would partake of one of those two natures, which would be one thing, and if they were
both they would partake of opposites which would be two things, and this has been
shown to be impossible.
True.
Therefore they are neither the same, nor other, nor in motion, nor at rest, nor in a state
of becoming, nor of being destroyed, nor greater, nor less, nor equal, nor have they
experienced anything else of the sort; for, if they are capable of experiencing any such
affection, they will participate in one and two and three, and odd and even, and in these,
as has been proved, they do not participate, seeing that they are altogether and in every
way devoid of the one.
Very true.
Therefore if one is, the one is all things, and also nothing, both in relation to itself and to
other things.
Certainly.
2.a. Well, and ought we not to consider next what will be the consequence if the one is
not?
Yes; we ought.
What is the meaning of the hypothesis—If the one is not; is there any difference
between this and the hypothesis—If the not one is not?
There is a difference, certainly.
Is there a difference only, or rather are not the two expressions—if the one is not, and if
the not one is not, entirely opposed?
They are entirely opposed.
And suppose a person to say:—If greatness is not, if smallness is not, or anything of that
sort, does he not mean, whenever he uses such an expression, that ‘what is not’ is other
than other things?
To be sure.
And so when he says ‘If one is not’ he clearly means, that what ‘is not’ is other than all
others; we know what he means—do we not?
Yes, we do.
When he says ‘one,’ he says something which is known; and secondly something which
is other than all other things; it makes no difference whether he predicate of one being
or not-being, for that which is said ‘not to be’ is known to be something all the same,
and is distinguished from other things.
Certainly.
Then I will begin again, and ask: If one is not, what are the consequences? In the first
place, as would appear, there is a knowledge of it, or the very meaning of the words, ‘if
one is not,’ would not be known.
True.
Secondly, the others differ from it, or it could not be described as different from the
others?
Certainly.
Difference, then, belongs to it as well as knowledge; for in speaking of the one as
different from the others, we do not speak of a difference in the others, but in the one.
Clearly so.
Moreover, the one that is not is something and partakes of relation to ‘that,’ and ‘this,’
and ‘these,’ and the like, and is an attribute of ‘this’; for the one, or the others than the
one, could not have been spoken of, nor could any attribute or relative of the one that is
not have been or been spoken of, nor could it have been said to be anything, if it did
not partake of ‘some,’ or of the other relations just now mentioned.
True.
Being, then, cannot be ascribed to the one, since it is not; but the one that is not may or
rather must participate in many things, if it and nothing else is not; if, however, neither
the one nor the one that is not is supposed not to be, and we are speaking of
something of a different nature, we can predicate nothing of it. But supposing that the
one that is not and nothing else is not, then it must participate in the predicate ‘that,’
and in many others.
Certainly.
And it will have unlikeness in relation to the others, for the others being different from
the one will be of a different kind.
Certainly.
And are not things of a different kind also other in kind?
Of course.
And are not things other in kind unlike?
They are unlike.
And if they are unlike the one, that which they are unlike will clearly be unlike them?
Clearly so.
Then the one will have unlikeness in respect of which the others are unlike it?
That would seem to be true.
And if unlikeness to other things is attributed to it, it must have likeness to itself.
How so?
If the one have unlikeness to one, something else must be meant; nor will the
hypothesis relate to one; but it will relate to something other than one?
Quite so.
But that cannot be.
No.
Then the one must have likeness to itself?
It must.
Again, it is not equal to the others; for if it were equal, then it would at once be and be
like them in virtue of the equality; but if one has no being, then it can neither be nor be
like?
It cannot.
But since it is not equal to the others, neither can the others be equal to it?
Certainly not.
And things that are not equal are unequal?
True.
And they are unequal to an unequal?
Of course.
Then the one partakes of inequality, and in respect of this the others are unequal to it?
Very true.
And inequality implies greatness and smallness?
Yes.
Then the one, if of such a nature, has greatness and smallness?
That appears to be true.
And greatness and smallness always stand apart?
True.
Then there is always something between them?
There is.
And can you think of anything else which is between them other than equality?
No, it is equality which lies between them.
Then that which has greatness and smallness also has equality, which lies between
them?
That is clear.
Then the one, which is not, partakes, as would appear, of greatness and smallness and
equality?
Clearly.
Further, it must surely in a sort partake of being?
How so?
It must be so, for if not, then we should not speak the truth in saying that the one is not.
But if we speak the truth, clearly we must say what is. Am I not right?
Yes.
And since we affirm that we speak truly, we must also affirm that we say what is?
Certainly.
Then, as would appear, the one, when it is not, is; for if it were not to be when it is not,
but (Or, ‘to remit something of existence in relation to not-being.’) were to relinquish
something of being, so as to become not- being, it would at once be.
Quite true.
Then the one which is not, if it is to maintain itself, must have the being of not-being as
the bond of not-being, just as being must have as a bond the not-being of not-being in
order to perfect its own being; for the truest assertion of the being of being and of the
not-being of not-being is when being partakes of the being of being, and not of the
being of not- being—that is, the perfection of being; and when not-being does not
partake of the not-being of not-being but of the being of not-being—that is the
perfection of not-being.
Most true.
Since then what is partakes of not-being, and what is not of being, must not the one
also partake of being in order not to be?
Certainly.
Then the one, if it is not, clearly has being?
Clearly.
And has not-being also, if it is not?
Of course.
But can anything which is in a certain state not be in that state without changing?
Impossible.
Then everything which is and is not in a certain state, implies change?
Certainly.
And change is motion—we may say that?
Yes, motion.
And the one has been proved both to be and not to be?
Yes.
And therefore is and is not in the same state?
Yes.
Thus the one that is not has been shown to have motion also, because it changes from
being to not-being?
That appears to be true.
But surely if it is nowhere among what is, as is the fact, since it is not, it cannot change
from one place to another?
Impossible.
Then it cannot move by changing place?
No.
Nor can it turn on the same spot, for it nowhere touches the same, for the same is, and
that which is not cannot be reckoned among things that are?
It cannot.
Then the one, if it is not, cannot turn in that in which it is not?
No.
Neither can the one, whether it is or is not, be altered into other than itself, for if it
altered and became different from itself, then we could not be still speaking of the one,
but of something else?
True.
But if the one neither suffers alteration, nor turns round in the same place, nor changes
place, can it still be capable of motion?
Impossible.
Now that which is unmoved must surely be at rest, and that which is at rest must stand
still?
Certainly.
Then the one that is not, stands still, and is also in motion?
That seems to be true.
But if it be in motion it must necessarily undergo alteration, for anything which is
moved, in so far as it is moved, is no longer in the same state, but in another?
Yes.
Then the one, being moved, is altered?
Yes.
And, further, if not moved in any way, it will not be altered in any way?
No.
Then, in so far as the one that is not is moved, it is altered, but in so far as it is not
moved, it is not altered?
Right.
Then the one that is not is altered and is not altered?
That is clear.
And must not that which is altered become other than it previously was, and lose its
former state and be destroyed; but that which is not altered can neither come into being
nor be destroyed?
Very true.
And the one that is not, being altered, becomes and is destroyed; and not being altered,
neither becomes nor is destroyed; and so the one that is not becomes and is destroyed,
and neither becomes nor is destroyed?
True.
2.b. And now, let us go back once more to the beginning, and see whether these or
some other consequences will follow.
Let us do as you say.
If one is not, we ask what will happen in respect of one? That is the question.
Yes.
Do not the words ‘is not’ signify absence of being in that to which we apply them?
Just so.
And when we say that a thing is not, do we mean that it is not in one way but is in
another? or do we mean, absolutely, that what is not has in no sort or way or kind
participation of being?
Quite absolutely.
Then, that which is not cannot be, or in any way participate in being?
It cannot.
And did we not mean by becoming, and being destroyed, the assumption of being and
the loss of being?
Nothing else.
And can that which has no participation in being, either assume or lose being?
Impossible.
The one then, since it in no way is, cannot have or lose or assume being in any way?
True.
Then the one that is not, since it in no way partakes of being, neither perishes nor
becomes?
No.
Then it is not altered at all; for if it were it would become and be destroyed?
True.
But if it be not altered it cannot be moved?
Certainly not.
Nor can we say that it stands, if it is nowhere; for that which stands must always be in
one and the same spot?
Of course.
Then we must say that the one which is not never stands still and never moves?
Neither.
Nor is there any existing thing which can be attributed to it; for if there had been, it
would partake of being?
That is clear.
And therefore neither smallness, nor greatness, nor equality, can be attributed to it?
No.
Nor yet likeness nor difference, either in relation to itself or to others?
Clearly not.
Well, and if nothing should be attributed to it, can other things be attributed to it?
Certainly not.
And therefore other things can neither be like or unlike, the same, or different in relation
to it?
They cannot.
Nor can what is not, be anything, or be this thing, or be related to or the attribute of this
or that or other, or be past, present, or future. Nor can knowledge, or opinion, or
perception, or expression, or name, or any other thing that is, have any concern with it?
No.
Then the one that is not has no condition of any kind?
Such appears to be the conclusion.
2.aa. Yet once more; if one is not, what becomes of the others? Let us determine that.
Yes; let us determine that.
The others must surely be; for if they, like the one, were not, we could not be now
speaking of them.
True.
But to speak of the others implies difference—the terms ‘other’ and ‘different’ are
synonymous?
True.
Other means other than other, and different, different from the different?
Yes.
Then, if there are to be others, there is something than which they will be other?
Certainly.
And what can that be?—for if the one is not, they will not be other than the one.
They will not.
Then they will be other than each other; for the only remaining alternative is that they
are other than nothing.
True.
And they are each other than one another, as being plural and not singular; for if one is
not, they cannot be singular, but every particle of them is infinite in number; and even if
a person takes that which appears to be the smallest fraction, this, which seemed one, in
a moment evanesces into many, as in a dream, and from being the smallest becomes
very great, in comparison with the fractions into which it is split up?
Very true.
And in such particles the others will be other than one another, if others are, and the
one is not?
Exactly.
And will there not be many particles, each appearing to be one, but not being one, if
one is not?
True.
And it would seem that number can be predicated of them if each of them appears to
be one, though it is really many?
It can.
And there will seem to be odd and even among them, which will also have no reality, if
one is not?
Yes.
And there will appear to be a least among them; and even this will seem large and
manifold in comparison with the many small fractions which are contained in it?
Certainly.
And each particle will be imagined to be equal to the many and little; for it could not
have appeared to pass from the greater to the less without having appeared to arrive at
the middle; and thus would arise the appearance of equality.
Yes.
And having neither beginning, middle, nor end, each separate particle yet appears to
have a limit in relation to itself and other.
How so?
Because, when a person conceives of any one of these as such, prior to the beginning
another beginning appears, and there is another end, remaining after the end, and in
the middle truer middles within but smaller, because no unity can be conceived of any
of them, since the one is not.
Very true.
And so all being, whatever we think of, must be broken up into fractions, for a particle
will have to be conceived of without unity?
Certainly.
And such being when seen indistinctly and at a distance, appears to be one; but when
seen near and with keen intellect, every single thing appears to be infinite, since it is
deprived of the one, which is not?
Nothing more certain.
Then each of the others must appear to be infinite and finite, and one and many, if
others than the one exist and not the one.
They must.
Then will they not appear to be like and unlike?
In what way?
Just as in a picture things appear to be all one to a person standing at a distance, and to
be in the same state and alike?
True.
But when you approach them, they appear to be many and different; and because of the
appearance of the difference, different in kind from, and unlike, themselves?
True.
And so must the particles appear to be like and unlike themselves and each other.
Certainly.
And must they not be the same and yet different from one another, and in contact with
themselves, although they are separated, and having every sort of motion, and every
sort of rest, and becoming and being destroyed, and in neither state, and the like, all
which things may be easily enumerated, if the one is not and the many are?
Most true.
2.bb. Once more, let us go back to the beginning, and ask if the one is not, and the
others of the one are, what will follow.
Let us ask that question.
In the first place, the others will not be one?
Impossible.
Nor will they be many; for if they were many one would be contained in them. But if no
one of them is one, all of them are nought, and therefore they will not be many.
True.
If there be no one in the others, the others are neither many nor one.
They are not.
Nor do they appear either as one or many.
Why not?
Because the others have no sort or manner or way of communion with any sort of notbeing,
nor can anything which is not, be connected with any of the others; for that which
is not has no parts.
True.
Nor is there an opinion or any appearance of not-being in connexion with the others,
nor is not-being ever in any way attributed to the others.
No.
Then if one is not, there is no conception of any of the others either as one or many; for
you cannot conceive the many without the one.
You cannot.
Then if one is not, the others neither are, nor can be conceived to be either one or
many?
It would seem not.
Nor as like or unlike?
No.
Nor as the same or different, nor in contact or separation, nor in any of those states
which we enumerated as appearing to be;—the others neither are nor appear to be any
of these, if one is not?
True.
Then may we not sum up the argument in a word and say truly: If one is not, then
nothing is?
Certainly.
Let thus much be said; and further let us affirm what seems to be the truth, that,
whether one is or is not, one and the others in relation to themselves and one another,
all of them, in every way, are and are not, and appear to be and appear not to be.
Most true.
THE END

The Sophist
BY
PLATO
TRANSLATED BY
BENJAMIN
JOWETT

INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.
The dramatic power of the dialogues of Plato appears to diminish as the metaphysical
interest of them increases (compare Introd. to the Philebus). There are no descriptions
of time, place or persons, in the Sophist and Statesman, but we are plunged at once into
philosophical discussions; the poetical charm has disappeared, and those who have no
taste for abstruse metaphysics will greatly prefer the earlier dialogues to the later ones.
Plato is conscious of the change, and in the Statesman expressly accuses himself of a
tediousness in the two dialogues, which he ascribes to his desire of developing the
dialectical method. On the other hand, the kindred spirit of Hegel seemed to find in the
Sophist the crown and summit of the Platonic philosophy—here is the place at which
Plato most nearly approaches to the Hegelian identity of Being and Not-being. Nor will
the great importance of the two dialogues be doubted by any one who forms a
conception of the state of mind and opinion which they are intended to meet. The
sophisms of the day were undermining philosophy; the denial of the existence of Notbeing,
and of the connexion of ideas, was making truth and falsehood equally
impossible. It has been said that Plato would have written differently, if he had been
acquainted with the Organon of Aristotle. But could the Organon of Aristotle ever have
been written unless the Sophist and Statesman had preceded? The swarm of fallacies
which arose in the infancy of mental science, and which was born and bred in the decay
of the pre-Socratic philosophies, was not dispelled by Aristotle, but by Socrates and
Plato. The summa genera of thought, the nature of the proposition, of definition, of
generalization, of synthesis and analysis, of division and cross-division, are clearly
described, and the processes of induction and deduction are constantly employed in the
dialogues of Plato. The ‘slippery’ nature of comparison, the danger of putting words in
the place of things, the fallacy of arguing ‘a dicto secundum,’ and in a circle, are
frequently indicated by him. To all these processes of truth and error, Aristotle, in the
next generation, gave distinctness; he brought them together in a separate science. But
he is not to be regarded as the original inventor of any of the great logical forms, with
the exception of the syllogism.
There is little worthy of remark in the characters of the Sophist. The most noticeable
point is the final retirement of Socrates from the field of argument, and the substitution
for him of an Eleatic stranger, who is described as a pupil of Parmenides and Zeno, and
is supposed to have descended from a higher world in order to convict the Socratic circle
of error. As in the Timaeus, Plato seems to intimate by the withdrawal of Socrates that
he is passing beyond the limits of his teaching; and in the Sophist and Statesman, as
well as in the Parmenides, he probably means to imply that he is making a closer
approach to the schools of Elea and Megara. He had much in common with them, but he
must first submit their ideas to criticism and revision. He had once thought as he says,
speaking by the mouth of the Eleatic, that he understood their doctrine of Not- being;
but now he does not even comprehend the nature of Being. The friends of ideas (Soph.)
are alluded to by him as distant acquaintances, whom he criticizes ab extra; we do not
recognize at first sight that he is criticizing himself. The character of the Eleatic stranger
is colourless; he is to a certain extent the reflection of his father and master,
Parmenides, who is the protagonist in the dialogue which is called by his name.
Theaetetus himself is not distinguished by the remarkable traits which are attributed to
him in the preceding dialogue. He is no longer under the spell of Socrates, or subject to
the operation of his midwifery, though the fiction of question and answer is still
maintained, and the necessity of taking Theaetetus along with him is several times
insisted upon by his partner in the discussion. There is a reminiscence of the old
Theaetetus in his remark that he will not tire of the argument, and in his conviction,
which the Eleatic thinks likely to be permanent, that the course of events is governed by
the will of God. Throughout the two dialogues Socrates continues a silent auditor, in the
Statesman just reminding us of his presence, at the commencement, by a characteristic
jest about the statesman and the philosopher, and by an allusion to his namesake, with
whom on that ground he claims relationship, as he had already claimed an affinity with
Theaetetus, grounded on the likeness of his ugly face. But in neither dialogue, any more
than in the Timaeus, does he offer any criticism on the views which are propounded by
another.
The style, though wanting in dramatic power,—in this respect resembling the Philebus
and the Laws,—is very clear and accurate, and has several touches of humour and satire.
The language is less fanciful and imaginative than that of the earlier dialogues; and
there is more of bitterness, as in the Laws, though traces of a similar temper may also be
observed in the description of the ‘great brute’ in the Republic, and in the contrast of the
lawyer and philosopher in the Theaetetus. The following are characteristic passages:
‘The ancient philosophers, of whom we may say, without offence, that they went on their
way rather regardless of whether we understood them or not;’ the picture of the
materialists, or earth-born giants, ‘who grasped oaks and rocks in their hands,’ and who
must be improved before they can be reasoned with; and the equally humourous
delineation of the friends of ideas, who defend themselves from a fastness in the
invisible world; or the comparison of the Sophist to a painter or maker (compare
Republic), and the hunt after him in the rich meadow-lands of youth and wealth; or,
again, the light and graceful touch with which the older philosophies are painted
(‘Ionian and Sicilian muses’), the comparison of them to mythological tales, and the fear
of the Eleatic that he will be counted a parricide if he ventures to lay hands on his father
Parmenides; or, once more, the likening of the Eleatic stranger to a god from heaven.—
All these passages, notwithstanding the decline of the style, retain the impress of the
great master of language. But the equably diffused grace is gone; instead of the endless
variety of the early dialogues, traces of the rhythmical monotonous cadence of the Laws
begin to appear; and already an approach is made to the technical language of Aristotle,
in the frequent use of the words ‘essence,’ ‘power,’ ‘generation,’ ‘motion,’ ‘rest,’ ‘action,’
‘passion,’ and the like.
The Sophist, like the Phaedrus, has a double character, and unites two enquirers, which
are only in a somewhat forced manner connected with each other. The first is the search
after the Sophist, the second is the enquiry into the nature of Not-being, which occupies
the middle part of the work. For ‘Not-being’ is the hole or division of the dialectical net
in which the Sophist has hidden himself. He is the imaginary impersonation of false
opinion. Yet he denies the possibility of false opinion; for falsehood is that which is not,
and therefore has no existence. At length the difficulty is solved; the answer, in the
language of the Republic, appears ‘tumbling out at our feet.’ Acknowledging that there is
a communion of kinds with kinds, and not merely one Being or Good having different
names, or several isolated ideas or classes incapable of communion, we discover ‘Notbeing’
to be the other of ‘Being.’ Transferring this to language and thought, we have no
difficulty in apprehending that a proposition may be false as well as true. The Sophist,
drawn out of the shelter which Cynic and Megarian paradoxes have temporarily
afforded him, is proved to be a dissembler and juggler with words.
The chief points of interest in the dialogue are: (I) the character attributed to the
Sophist: (II) the dialectical method: (III) the nature of the puzzle about ‘Not-being:’ (IV)
the battle of the philosophers: (V) the relation of the Sophist to other dialogues.
I. The Sophist in Plato is the master of the art of illusion; the charlatan, the foreigner,
the prince of esprits-faux, the hireling who is not a teacher, and who, from whatever
point of view he is regarded, is the opposite of the true teacher. He is the ‘evil one,’ the
ideal representative of all that Plato most disliked in the moral and intellectual
tendencies of his own age; the adversary of the almost equally ideal Socrates. He seems
to be always growing in the fancy of Plato, now boastful, now eristic, now clothing
himself in rags of philosophy, now more akin to the rhetorician or lawyer, now
haranguing, now questioning, until the final appearance in the Politicus of his departing
shadow in the disguise of a statesman. We are not to suppose that Plato intended by
such a description to depict Protagoras or Gorgias, or even Thrasymachus, who all turn
out to be ‘very good sort of people when we know them,’ and all of them part on good
terms with Socrates. But he is speaking of a being as imaginary as the wise man of the
Stoics, and whose character varies in different dialogues. Like mythology, Greek
philosophy has a tendency to personify ideas. And the Sophist is not merely a teacher of
rhetoric for a fee of one or fifty drachmae (Crat.), but an ideal of Plato’s in which the
falsehood of all mankind is reflected.
A milder tone is adopted towards the Sophists in a well-known passage of the Republic,
where they are described as the followers rather than the leaders of the rest of mankind.
Plato ridicules the notion that any individuals can corrupt youth to a degree worth
speaking of in comparison with the greater influence of public opinion. But there is no
real inconsistency between this and other descriptions of the Sophist which occur in the
Platonic writings. For Plato is not justifying the Sophists in the passage just quoted, but
only representing their power to be contemptible; they are to be despised rather than
feared, and are no worse than the rest of mankind. But a teacher or statesman may be
justly condemned, who is on a level with mankind when he ought to be above them.
There is another point of view in which this passage should also be considered. The
great enemy of Plato is the world, not exactly in the theological sense, yet in one not
wholly different—the world as the hater of truth and lover of appearance, occupied in
the pursuit of gain and pleasure rather than of knowledge, banded together against the
few good and wise men, and devoid of true education. This creature has many heads:
rhetoricians, lawyers, statesmen, poets, sophists. But the Sophist is the Proteus who
takes the likeness of all of them; all other deceivers have a piece of him in them. And
sometimes he is represented as the corrupter of the world; and sometimes the world as
the corrupter of him and of itself.
Of late years the Sophists have found an enthusiastic defender in the distinguished
historian of Greece. He appears to maintain (1) that the term ‘Sophist’ is not the name of
a particular class, and would have been applied indifferently to Socrates and Plato, as
well as to Gorgias and Protagoras; (2) that the bad sense was imprinted on the word by
the genius of Plato; (3) that the principal Sophists were not the corrupters of youth (for
the Athenian youth were no more corrupted in the age of Demosthenes than in the age
of Pericles), but honourable and estimable persons, who supplied a training in literature
which was generally wanted at the time. We will briefly consider how far these
statements appear to be justified by facts: and, 1, about the meaning of the word there
arises an interesting question:—
Many words are used both in a general and a specific sense, and the two senses are not
always clearly distinguished. Sometimes the generic meaning has been narrowed to the
specific, while in other cases the specific meaning has been enlarged or altered.
Examples of the former class are furnished by some ecclesiastical terms: apostles,
prophets, bishops, elders, catholics. Examples of the latter class may also be found in a
similar field: jesuits, puritans, methodists, and the like. Sometimes the meaning is both
narrowed and enlarged; and a good or bad sense will subsist side by side with a neutral
one. A curious effect is produced on the meaning of a word when the very term which is
stigmatized by the world (e.g. Methodists) is adopted by the obnoxious or derided class;
this tends to define the meaning. Or, again, the opposite result is produced, when the
world refuses to allow some sect or body of men the possession of an honourable name
which they have assumed, or applies it to them only in mockery or irony.
The term ‘Sophist’ is one of those words of which the meaning has been both contracted
and enlarged. Passages may be quoted from Herodotus and the tragedians, in which the
word is used in a neutral sense for a contriver or deviser or inventor, without including
any ethical idea of goodness or badness. Poets as well as philosophers were called
Sophists in the fifth century before Christ. In Plato himself the term is applied in the
sense of a ‘master in art,’ without any bad meaning attaching to it (Symp.; Meno). In the
later Greek, again, ‘sophist’ and ‘philosopher’ became almost indistinguishable. There
was no reproach conveyed by the word; the additional association, if any, was only that
of rhetorician or teacher. Philosophy had become eclecticism and imitation: in the
decline of Greek thought there was no original voice lifted up ‘which reached to a
thousand years because of the god.’ Hence the two words, like the characters
represented by them, tended to pass into one another. Yet even here some differences
appeared; for the term ‘Sophist’ would hardly have been applied to the greater names,
such as Plotinus, and would have been more often used of a professor of philosophy in
general than of a maintainer of particular tenets.
But the real question is, not whether the word ‘Sophist’ has all these senses, but whether
there is not also a specific bad sense in which the term is applied to certain
contemporaries of Socrates. Would an Athenian, as Mr. Grote supposes, in the fifth
century before Christ, have included Socrates and Plato, as well as Gorgias and
Protagoras, under the specific class of Sophists? To this question we must answer, No: if
ever the term is applied to Socrates and Plato, either the application is made by an
enemy out of mere spite, or the sense in which it is used is neutral. Plato, Xenophon,
Isocrates, Aristotle, all give a bad import to the word; and the Sophists are regarded as a
separate class in all of them. And in later Greek literature, the distinction is quite
marked between the succession of philosophers from Thales to Aristotle, and the
Sophists of the age of Socrates, who appeared like meteors for a short time in different
parts of Greece. For the purposes of comedy, Socrates may have been identified with the
Sophists, and he seems to complain of this in the Apology. But there is no reason to
suppose that Socrates, differing by so many outward marks, would really have been
confounded in the mind of Anytus, or Callicles, or of any intelligent Athenian, with the
splendid foreigners who from time to time visited Athens, or appeared at the Olympic
games. The man of genius, the great original thinker, the disinterested seeker after
truth, the master of repartee whom no one ever defeated in an argument, was separated,
even in the mind of the vulgar Athenian, by an ‘interval which no geometry can express,’
from the balancer of sentences, the interpreter and reciter of the poets, the divider of the
meanings of words, the teacher of rhetoric, the professor of morals and manners.
2. The use of the term ‘Sophist’ in the dialogues of Plato also shows that the bad sense
was not affixed by his genius, but already current. When Protagoras says, ‘I confess that
I am a Sophist,’ he implies that the art which he professes has already a bad name; and
the words of the young Hippocrates, when with a blush upon his face which is just seen
by the light of dawn he admits that he is going to be made ‘a Sophist,’ would lose their
point, unless the term had been discredited. There is nothing surprising in the Sophists
having an evil name; that, whether deserved or not, was a natural consequence of their
vocation. That they were foreigners, that they made fortunes, that they taught novelties,
that they excited the minds of youth, are quite sufficient reasons to account for the
opprobrium which attached to them. The genius of Plato could not have stamped the
word anew, or have imparted the associations which occur in contemporary writers,
such as Xenophon and Isocrates. Changes in the meaning of words can only be made
with great difficulty, and not unless they are supported by a strong current of popular
feeling. There is nothing improbable in supposing that Plato may have extended and
envenomed the meaning, or that he may have done the Sophists the same kind of
disservice with posterity which Pascal did to the Jesuits. But the bad sense of the word
was not and could not have been invented by him, and is found in his earlier dialogues,
e.g. the Protagoras, as well as in the later.
3. There is no ground for disbelieving that the principal Sophists, Gorgias, Protagoras,
Prodicus, Hippias, were good and honourable men. The notion that they were
corrupters of the Athenian youth has no real foundation, and partly arises out of the use
of the term ‘Sophist’ in modern times. The truth is, that we know little about them; and
the witness of Plato in their favour is probably not much more historical than his
witness against them. Of that national decline of genius, unity, political force, which has
been sometimes described as the corruption of youth, the Sophists were one among
many signs;—in these respects Athens may have degenerated; but, as Mr. Grote
remarks, there is no reason to suspect any greater moral corruption in the age of
Demosthenes than in the age of Pericles. The Athenian youth were not corrupted in this
sense, and therefore the Sophists could not have corrupted them. It is remarkable, and
may be fairly set down to their credit, that Plato nowhere attributes to them that
peculiar Greek sympathy with youth, which he ascribes to Parmenides, and which was
evidently common in the Socratic circle. Plato delights to exhibit them in a ludicrous
point of view, and to show them always rather at a disadvantage in the company of
Socrates. But he has no quarrel with their characters, and does not deny that they are
respectable men.
The Sophist, in the dialogue which is called after him, is exhibited in many different
lights, and appears and reappears in a variety of forms. There is some want of the higher
Platonic art in the Eleatic Stranger eliciting his true character by a labourious process of
enquiry, when he had already admitted that he knew quite well the difference between
the Sophist and the Philosopher, and had often heard the question discussed;— such an
anticipation would hardly have occurred in the earlier dialogues. But Plato could not
altogether give up his Socratic method, of which another trace may be thought to be
discerned in his adoption of a common instance before he proceeds to the greater matter
in hand. Yet the example is also chosen in order to damage the ‘hooker of men’ as much
as possible; each step in the pedigree of the angler suggests some injurious reflection
about the Sophist. They are both hunters after a living prey, nearly related to tyrants and
thieves, and the Sophist is the cousin of the parasite and flatterer. The effect of this is
heightened by the accidental manner in which the discovery is made, as the result of a
scientific division. His descent in another branch affords the opportunity of more
‘unsavoury comparisons.’ For he is a retail trader, and his wares are either imported or
home-made, like those of other retail traders; his art is thus deprived of the character of
a liberal profession. But the most distinguishing characteristic of him is, that he is a
disputant, and higgles over an argument. A feature of the Eristic here seems to blend
with Plato’s usual description of the Sophists, who in the early dialogues, and in the
Republic, are frequently depicted as endeavouring to save themselves from disputing
with Socrates by making long orations. In this character he parts company from the vain
and impertinent talker in private life, who is a loser of money, while he is a maker of it.
But there is another general division under which his art may be also supposed to fall,
and that is purification; and from purification is descended education, and the new
principle of education is to interrogate men after the manner of Socrates, and make
them teach themselves. Here again we catch a glimpse rather of a Socratic or Eristic
than of a Sophist in the ordinary sense of the term. And Plato does not on this ground
reject the claim of the Sophist to be the true philosopher. One more feature of the Eristic
rather than of the Sophist is the tendency of the troublesome animal to run away into
the darkness of Not-being. Upon the whole, we detect in him a sort of hybrid or double
nature, of which, except perhaps in the Euthydemus of Plato, we find no other trace in
Greek philosophy; he combines the teacher of virtue with the Eristic; while in his
omniscience, in his ignorance of himself, in his arts of deception, and in his lawyer-like
habit of writing and speaking about all things, he is still the antithesis of Socrates and of
the true teacher.
II. The question has been asked, whether the method of ‘abscissio infinti,’ by which the
Sophist is taken, is a real and valuable logical process. Modern science feels that this,
like other processes of formal logic, presents a very inadequate conception of the actual
complex procedure of the mind by which scientific truth is detected and verified. Plato
himself seems to be aware that mere division is an unsafe and uncertain weapon, first,
in the Statesman, when he says that we should divide in the middle, for in that way we
are more likely to attain species; secondly, in the parallel precept of the Philebus, that
we should not pass from the most general notions to infinity, but include all the
intervening middle principles, until, as he also says in the Statesman, we arrive at the
infima species; thirdly, in the Phaedrus, when he says that the dialectician will carve the
limbs of truth without mangling them; and once more in the Statesman, if we cannot
bisect species, we must carve them as well as we can. No better image of nature or truth,
as an organic whole, can be conceived than this. So far is Plato from supposing that
mere division and subdivision of general notions will guide men into all truth.
Plato does not really mean to say that the Sophist or the Statesman can be caught in this
way. But these divisions and subdivisions were favourite logical exercises of the age in
which he lived; and while indulging his dialectical fancy, and making a contribution to
logical method, he delights also to transfix the Eristic Sophist with weapons borrowed
from his own armoury. As we have already seen, the division gives him the opportunity
of making the most damaging reflections on the Sophist and all his kith and kin, and to
exhibit him in the most discreditable light.
Nor need we seriously consider whether Plato was right in assuming that an animal so
various could not be confined within the limits of a single definition. In the infancy of
logic, men sought only to obtain a definition of an unknown or uncertain term; the after
reflection scarcely occurred to them that the word might have several senses, which
shaded off into one another, and were not capable of being comprehended in a single
notion. There is no trace of this reflection in Plato. But neither is there any reason to
think, even if the reflection had occurred to him, that he would have been deterred from
carrying on the war with weapons fair or unfair against the outlaw Sophist.
III. The puzzle about ‘Not-being’ appears to us to be one of the most unreal difficulties of
ancient philosophy. We cannot understand the attitude of mind which could imagine
that falsehood had no existence, if reality was denied to Not-being: How could such a
question arise at all, much less become of serious importance? The answer to this, and
to nearly all other difficulties of early Greek philosophy, is to be sought for in the history
of ideas, and the answer is only unsatisfactory because our knowledge is defective. In the
passage from the world of sense and imagination and common language to that of
opinion and reflection the human mind was exposed to many dangers, and often
‘Found no end in wandering mazes lost.’
On the other hand, the discovery of abstractions was the great source of all mental
improvement in after ages. It was the pushing aside of the old, the revelation of the new.
But each one of the company of abstractions, if we may speak in the metaphorical
language of Plato, became in turn the tyrant of the mind, the dominant idea, which
would allow no other to have a share in the throne. This is especially true of the Eleatic
philosophy: while the absoluteness of Being was asserted in every form of language, the
sensible world and all the phenomena of experience were comprehended under Notbeing.
Nor was any difficulty or perplexity thus created, so long as the mind, lost in the
contemplation of Being, asked no more questions, and never thought of applying the
categories of Being or Not-being to mind or opinion or practical life.
But the negative as well as the positive idea had sunk deep into the intellect of man. The
effect of the paradoxes of Zeno extended far beyond the Eleatic circle. And now an
unforeseen consequence began to arise. If the Many were not, if all things were names of
the One, and nothing could be predicated of any other thing, how could truth be
distinguished from falsehood? The Eleatic philosopher would have replied that Being is
alone true. But mankind had got beyond his barren abstractions: they were beginning to
analyze, to classify, to define, to ask what is the nature of knowledge, opinion, sensation.
Still less could they be content with the description which Achilles gives in Homer of the
man whom his soul hates—
os chi eteron men keuthe eni phresin, allo de eipe.
For their difficulty was not a practical but a metaphysical one; and their conception of
falsehood was really impaired and weakened by a metaphysical illusion.
The strength of the illusion seems to lie in the alternative: If we once admit the existence
of Being and Not-being, as two spheres which exclude each other, no Being or reality can
be ascribed to Not-being, and therefore not to falsehood, which is the image or
expression of Not-being. Falsehood is wholly false; and to speak of true falsehood, as
Theaetetus does (Theaet.), is a contradiction in terms. The fallacy to us is ridiculous and
transparent,—no better than those which Plato satirizes in the Euthydemus. It is a
confusion of falsehood and negation, from which Plato himself is not entirely free.
Instead of saying, ‘This is not in accordance with facts,’ ‘This is proved by experience to
be false,’ and from such examples forming a general notion of falsehood, the mind of the
Greek thinker was lost in the mazes of the Eleatic philosophy. And the greater
importance which Plato attributes to this fallacy, compared with others, is due to the
influence which the Eleatic philosophy exerted over him. He sees clearly to a certain
extent; but he has not yet attained a complete mastery over the ideas of his
predecessors—they are still ends to him, and not mere instruments of thought. They are
too rough-hewn to be harmonized in a single structure, and may be compared to rocks
which project or overhang in some ancient city’s walls. There are many such imperfect
syncretisms or eclecticisms in the history of philosophy. A modern philosopher, though
emancipated from scholastic notions of essence or substance, might still be seriously
affected by the abstract idea of necessity; or though accustomed, like Bacon, to criticize
abstract notions, might not extend his criticism to the syllogism.
The saying or thinking the thing that is not, would be the popular definition of falsehood
or error. If we were met by the Sophist’s objection, the reply would probably be an
appeal to experience. Ten thousands, as Homer would say (mala murioi), tell falsehoods
and fall into errors. And this is Plato’s reply, both in the Cratylus and Sophist.
‘Theaetetus is flying,’ is a sentence in form quite as grammatical as ‘Theaetetus is
sitting’; the difference between the two sentences is, that the one is true and the other
false. But, before making this appeal to common sense, Plato propounds for our
consideration a theory of the nature of the negative.
The theory is, that Not-being is relation. Not-being is the other of Being, and has as
many kinds as there are differences in Being. This doctrine is the simple converse of the
famous proposition of Spinoza,—not ‘Omnis determinatio est negatio,’ but ‘Omnis
negatio est determinatio’;— not, All distinction is negation, but, All negation is
distinction. Not- being is the unfolding or determining of Being, and is a necessary
element in all other things that are. We should be careful to observe, first, that Plato
does not identify Being with Not-being; he has no idea of progression by antagonism, or
of the Hegelian vibration of moments: he would not have said with Heracleitus, ‘All
things are and are not, and become and become not.’ Secondly, he has lost sight
altogether of the other sense of Not- being, as the negative of Being; although he again
and again recognizes the validity of the law of contradiction. Thirdly, he seems to
confuse falsehood with negation. Nor is he quite consistent in regarding Not-being as
one class of Being, and yet as coextensive with Being in general. Before analyzing further
the topics thus suggested, we will endeavour to trace the manner in which Plato arrived
at his conception of Not-being.
In all the later dialogues of Plato, the idea of mind or intelligence becomes more and
more prominent. That idea which Anaxagoras employed inconsistently in the
construction of the world, Plato, in the Philebus, the Sophist, and the Laws, extends to
all things, attributing to Providence a care, infinitesimal as well as infinite, of all
creation. The divine mind is the leading religious thought of the later works of Plato. The
human mind is a sort of reflection of this, having ideas of Being, Sameness, and the like.
At times they seem to be parted by a great gulf (Parmenides); at other times they have a
common nature, and the light of a common intelligence.
But this ever-growing idea of mind is really irreconcilable with the abstract Pantheism of
the Eleatics. To the passionate language of Parmenides, Plato replies in a strain equally
passionate:—What! has not Being mind? and is not Being capable of being known? and,
if this is admitted, then capable of being affected or acted upon?—in motion, then, and
yet not wholly incapable of rest. Already we have been compelled to attribute opposite
determinations to Being. And the answer to the difficulty about Being may be equally
the answer to the difficulty about Not-being.
The answer is, that in these and all other determinations of any notion we are
attributing to it ‘Not-being.’ We went in search of Not-being and seemed to lose Being,
and now in the hunt after Being we recover both. Not-being is a kind of Being, and in a
sense co-extensive with Being. And there are as many divisions of Not-being as of Being.
To every positive idea—‘just,’ ‘beautiful,’ and the like, there is a corresponding negative
idea—‘not-just,’ ‘not-beautiful,’ and the like.
A doubt may be raised whether this account of the negative is really the true one. The
common logicians would say that the ‘not-just,’ ‘not- beautiful,’ are not really classes at
all, but are merged in one great class of the infinite or negative. The conception of Plato,
in the days before logic, seems to be more correct than this. For the word ‘not’ does not
altogether annihilate the positive meaning of the word ‘just’: at least, it does not prevent
our looking for the ‘not-just’ in or about the same class in which we might expect to find
the ‘just.’ ‘Not-just is not- honourable’ is neither a false nor an unmeaning proposition.
The reason is that the negative proposition has really passed into an undefined positive.
To say that ‘not-just’ has no more meaning than ‘not-honourable’—that is to say, that
the two cannot in any degree be distinguished, is clearly repugnant to the common use
of language.
The ordinary logic is also jealous of the explanation of negation as relation, because
seeming to take away the principle of contradiction. Plato, as far as we know, is the first
philosopher who distinctly enunciated this principle; and though we need not suppose
him to have been always consistent with himself, there is no real inconsistency between
his explanation of the negative and the principle of contradiction. Neither the Platonic
notion of the negative as the principle of difference, nor the Hegelian identity of Being
and Not-being, at all touch the principle of contradiction. For what is asserted about
Being and Not-Being only relates to our most abstract notions, and in no way interferes
with the principle of contradiction employed in the concrete. Because Not-being is
identified with Other, or Being with Not-being, this does not make the proposition
‘Some have not eaten’ any the less a contradiction of ‘All have eaten.’
The explanation of the negative given by Plato in the Sophist is a true but partial one; for
the word ‘not,’ besides the meaning of ‘other,’ may also imply ‘opposition.’ And
difference or opposition may be either total or partial: the not-beautiful may be other
than the beautiful, or in no relation to the beautiful, or a specific class in various degrees
opposed to the beautiful. And the negative may be a negation of fact or of thought (ou
and me). Lastly, there are certain ideas, such as ‘beginning,’ ‘becoming,’ ‘the finite,’ ‘the
abstract,’ in which the negative cannot be separated from the positive, and ‘Being’ and
‘Not-being’ are inextricably blended.
Plato restricts the conception of Not-being to difference. Man is a rational animal, and is
not—as many other things as are not included under this definition. He is and is not,
and is because he is not. Besides the positive class to which he belongs, there are endless
negative classes to which he may be referred. This is certainly intelligible, but useless. To
refer a subject to a negative class is unmeaning, unless the ‘not’ is a mere modification of
the positive, as in the example of ‘not honourable’ and ‘dishonourable’; or unless the
class is characterized by the absence rather than the presence of a particular quality.
Nor is it easy to see how Not-being any more than Sameness or Otherness is one of the
classes of Being. They are aspects rather than classes of Being. Not-being can only be
included in Being, as the denial of some particular class of Being. If we attempt to
pursue such airy phantoms at all, the Hegelian identity of Being and Not-being is a more
apt and intelligible expression of the same mental phenomenon. For Plato has not
distinguished between the Being which is prior to Not-being, and the Being which is the
negation of Not-being (compare Parm.).
But he is not thinking of this when he says that Being comprehends Not- being. Again,
we should probably go back for the true explanation to the influence which the Eleatic
philosophy exercised over him. Under ‘Not- being’ the Eleatic had included all the
realities of the sensible world. Led by this association and by the common use of
language, which has been already noticed, we cannot be much surprised that Plato
should have made classes of Not-being. It is observable that he does not absolutely deny
that there is an opposite of Being. He is inclined to leave the question, merely remarking
that the opposition, if admissible at all, is not expressed by the term ‘Not-being.’
On the whole, we must allow that the great service rendered by Plato to metaphysics in
the Sophist, is not his explanation of ‘Not-being’ as difference. With this he certainly laid
the ghost of ‘Not-being’; and we may attribute to him in a measure the credit of
anticipating Spinoza and Hegel. But his conception is not clear or consistent; he does
not recognize the different senses of the negative, and he confuses the different classes
of Not-being with the abstract notion. As the Pre- Socratic philosopher failed to
distinguish between the universal and the true, while he placed the particulars of sense
under the false and apparent, so Plato appears to identify negation with falsehood, or is
unable to distinguish them. The greatest service rendered by him to mental science is
the recognition of the communion of classes, which, although based by him on his
account of ‘Not-being,’ is independent of it. He clearly saw that the isolation of ideas or
classes is the annihilation of reasoning. Thus, after wandering in many diverging paths,
we return to common sense. And for this reason we may be inclined to do less than
justice to Plato,—because the truth which he attains by a real effort of thought is to us a
familiar and unconscious truism, which no one would any longer think either of
doubting or examining.
IV. The later dialogues of Plato contain many references to contemporary philosophy.
Both in the Theaetetus and in the Sophist he recognizes that he is in the midst of a fray;
a huge irregular battle everywhere surrounds him (Theaet.). First, there are the two
great philosophies going back into cosmogony and poetry: the philosophy of
Heracleitus, supposed to have a poetical origin in Homer, and that of the Eleatics, which
in a similar spirit he conceives to be even older than Xenophanes (compare Protag.).
Still older were theories of two and three principles, hot and cold, moist and dry, which
were ever marrying and being given in marriage: in speaking of these, he is probably
referring to Pherecydes and the early Ionians. In the philosophy of motion there were
different accounts of the relation of plurality and unity, which were supposed to be
joined and severed by love and hate, some maintaining that this process was perpetually
going on (e.g. Heracleitus); others (e.g. Empedocles) that there was an alternation of
them. Of the Pythagoreans or of Anaxagoras he makes no distinct mention. His chief
opponents are, first, Eristics or Megarians; secondly, the Materialists.
The picture which he gives of both these latter schools is indistinct; and he appears
reluctant to mention the names of their teachers. Nor can we easily determine how
much is to be assigned to the Cynics, how much to the Megarians, or whether the
‘repellent Materialists’ (Theaet.) are Cynics or Atomists, or represent some unknown
phase of opinion at Athens. To the Cynics and Antisthenes is commonly attributed, on
the authority of Aristotle, the denial of predication, while the Megarians are said to have
been Nominalists, asserting the One Good under many names to be the true Being of
Zeno and the Eleatics, and, like Zeno, employing their negative dialectic in the
refutation of opponents. But the later Megarians also denied predication; and this tenet,
which is attributed to all of them by Simplicius, is certainly in accordance with their
over-refining philosophy. The ‘tyros young and old,’ of whom Plato speaks, probably
include both. At any rate, we shall be safer in accepting the general description of them
which he has given, and in not attempting to draw a precise line between them.
Of these Eristics, whether Cynics or Megarians, several characteristics are found in
Plato:—
1. They pursue verbal oppositions; 2. they make reasoning impossible by their overaccuracy
in the use of language; 3. they deny predication; 4. they go from unity to
plurality, without passing through the intermediate stages; 5. they refuse to attribute
motion or power to Being; 6. they are the enemies of sense;—whether they are the
‘friends of ideas,’ who carry on the polemic against sense, is uncertain; probably under
this remarkable expression Plato designates those who more nearly approached himself,
and may be criticizing an earlier form of his own doctrines. We may observe (1) that he
professes only to give us a few opinions out of many which were at that time current in
Greece; (2) that he nowhere alludes to the ethical teaching of the Cynics—unless the
argument in the Protagoras, that the virtues are one and not many, may be supposed to
contain a reference to their views, as well as to those of Socrates; and unless they are the
school alluded to in the Philebus, which is described as ‘being very skilful in physics, and
as maintaining pleasure to be the absence of pain.’ That Antisthenes wrote a book called
‘Physicus,’ is hardly a sufficient reason for describing them as skilful in physics, which
appear to have been very alien to the tendency of the Cynics.
The Idealism of the fourth century before Christ in Greece, as in other ages and
countries, seems to have provoked a reaction towards Materialism. The maintainers of
this doctrine are described in the Theaetetus as obstinate persons who will believe in
nothing which they cannot hold in their hands, and in the Sophist as incapable of
argument. They are probably the same who are said in the Tenth Book of the Laws to
attribute the course of events to nature, art, and chance. Who they were, we have no
means of determining except from Plato’s description of them. His silence respecting
the Atomists might lead us to suppose that here we have a trace of them. But the
Atomists were not Materialists in the grosser sense of the term, nor were they incapable
of reasoning; and Plato would hardly have described a great genius like Democritus in
the disdainful terms which he uses of the Materialists. Upon the whole, we must infer
that the persons here spoken of are unknown to us, like the many other writers and
talkers at Athens and elsewhere, of whose endless activity of mind Aristotle in his
Metaphysics has preserved an anonymous memorial.
V. The Sophist is the sequel of the Theaetetus, and is connected with the Parmenides by
a direct allusion (compare Introductions to Theaetetus and Parmenides). In the
Theaetetus we sought to discover the nature of knowledge and false opinion. But the
nature of false opinion seemed impenetrable; for we were unable to understand how
there could be any reality in Not-being. In the Sophist the question is taken up again;
the nature of Not-being is detected, and there is no longer any metaphysical impediment
in the way of admitting the possibility of falsehood. To the Parmenides, the Sophist
stands in a less defined and more remote relation. There human thought is in process of
disorganization; no absurdity or inconsistency is too great to be elicited from the
analysis of the simple ideas of Unity or Being. In the Sophist the same contradictions are
pursued to a certain extent, but only with a view to their resolution. The aim of the
dialogue is to show how the few elemental conceptions of the human mind admit of a
natural connexion in thought and speech, which Megarian or other sophistry vainly
attempts to deny.
...
True to the appointment of the previous day, Theodorus and Theaetetus meet Socrates
at the same spot, bringing with them an Eleatic Stranger, whom Theodorus introduces
as a true philosopher. Socrates, half in jest, half in earnest, declares that he must be a
god in disguise, who, as Homer would say, has come to earth that he may visit the good
and evil among men, and detect the foolishness of Athenian wisdom. At any rate he is a
divine person, one of a class who are hardly recognized on earth; who appear in divers
forms—now as statesmen, now as sophists, and are often deemed madmen.
‘Philosopher, statesman, sophist,’ says Socrates, repeating the words—‘I should like to
ask our Eleatic friend what his countrymen think of them; do they regard them as one,
or three?’
The Stranger has been already asked the same question by Theodorus and Theaetetus;
and he at once replies that they are thought to be three; but to explain the difference
fully would take time. He is pressed to give this fuller explanation, either in the form of a
speech or of question and answer. He prefers the latter, and chooses as his respondent
Theaetetus, whom he already knows, and who is recommended to him by Socrates.
We are agreed, he says, about the name Sophist, but we may not be equally agreed about
his nature. Great subjects should be approached through familiar examples, and,
considering that he is a creature not easily caught, I think that, before approaching him,
we should try our hand upon some more obvious animal, who may be made the subject
of logical experiment; shall we say an angler? ‘Very good.’
In the first place, the angler is an artist; and there are two kinds of art,—productive art,
which includes husbandry, manufactures, imitations; and acquisitive art, which includes
learning, trading, fighting, hunting. The angler’s is an acquisitive art, and acquisition
may be effected either by exchange or by conquest; in the latter case, either by force or
craft. Conquest by craft is called hunting, and of hunting there is one kind which
pursues inanimate, and another which pursues animate objects; and animate objects
may be either land animals or water animals, and water animals either fly over the water
or live in the water. The hunting of the last is called fishing; and of fishing, one kind uses
enclosures, catching the fish in nets and baskets, and another kind strikes them either
with spears by night or with barbed spears or barbed hooks by day; the barbed spears
are impelled from above, the barbed hooks are jerked into the head and lips of the fish,
which are then drawn from below upwards. Thus, by a series of divisions, we have
arrived at the definition of the angler’s art.
And now by the help of this example we may proceed to bring to light the nature of the
Sophist. Like the angler, he is an artist, and the resemblance does not end here. For they
are both hunters, and hunters of animals; the one of water, and the other of land
animals. But at this point they diverge, the one going to the sea and the rivers, and the
other to the rivers of wealth and rich meadow-lands, in which generous youth abide. On
land you may hunt tame animals, or you may hunt wild animals. And man is a tame
animal, and he may be hunted either by force or persuasion;—either by the pirate, manstealer,
soldier, or by the lawyer, orator, talker. The latter use persuasion, and
persuasion is either private or public. Of the private practitioners of the art, some bring
gifts to those whom they hunt: these are lovers. And others take hire; and some of these
flatter, and in return are fed; others profess to teach virtue and receive a round sum.
And who are these last? Tell me who? Have we not unearthed the Sophist?
But he is a many-sided creature, and may still be traced in another line of descent. The
acquisitive art had a branch of exchange as well as of hunting, and exchange is either
giving or selling; and the seller is either a manufacturer or a merchant; and the
merchant either retails or exports; and the exporter may export either food for the body
or food for the mind. And of this trading in food for the mind, one kind may be termed
the art of display, and another the art of selling learning; and learning may be a learning
of the arts or of virtue. The seller of the arts may be called an art-seller; the seller of
virtue, a Sophist.
Again, there is a third line, in which a Sophist may be traced. For is he less a Sophist
when, instead of exporting his wares to another country, he stays at home, and retails
goods, which he not only buys of others, but manufactures himself?
Or he may be descended from the acquisitive art in the combative line, through the
pugnacious, the controversial, the disputatious arts; and he will be found at last in the
eristic section of the latter, and in that division of it which disputes in private for gain
about the general principles of right and wrong.
And still there is a track of him which has not yet been followed out by us. Do not our
household servants talk of sifting, straining, winnowing? And they also speak of carding,
spinning, and the like. All these are processes of division; and of division there are two
kinds,—one in which like is divided from like, and another in which the good is
separated from the bad. The latter of the two is termed purification; and again, of
purification, there are two sorts,—of animate bodies (which may be internal or external),
and of inanimate. Medicine and gymnastic are the internal purifications of the animate,
and bathing the external; and of the inanimate, fulling and cleaning and other humble
processes, some of which have ludicrous names. Not that dialectic is a respecter of
names or persons, or a despiser of humble occupations; nor does she think much of the
greater or less benefits conferred by them. For her aim is knowledge; she wants to know
how the arts are related to one another, and would quite as soon learn the nature of
hunting from the vermin-destroyer as from the general. And she only desires to have a
general name, which shall distinguish purifications of the soul from purifications of the
body.
Now purification is the taking away of evil; and there are two kinds of evil in the soul,—
the one answering to disease in the body, and the other to deformity. Disease is the
discord or war of opposite principles in the soul; and deformity is the want of symmetry,
or failure in the attainment of a mark or measure. The latter arises from ignorance, and
no one is voluntarily ignorant; ignorance is only the aberration of the soul moving
towards knowledge. And as medicine cures the diseases and gymnastic the deformity of
the body, so correction cures the injustice, and education (which differs among the
Hellenes from mere instruction in the arts) cures the ignorance of the soul. Again,
ignorance is twofold, simple ignorance, and ignorance having the conceit of knowledge.
And education is also twofold: there is the old-fashioned moral training of our
forefathers, which was very troublesome and not very successful; and another, of a more
subtle nature, which proceeds upon a notion that all ignorance is involuntary. The latter
convicts a man out of his own mouth, by pointing out to him his inconsistencies and
contradictions; and the consequence is that he quarrels with himself, instead of
quarrelling with his neighbours, and is cured of prejudices and obstructions by a mode
of treatment which is equally entertaining and effectual. The physician of the soul is
aware that his patient will receive no nourishment unless he has been cleaned out; and
the soul of the Great King himself, if he has not undergone this purification, is unclean
and impure.
And who are the ministers of the purification? Sophists I may not call them. Yet they
bear about the same likeness to Sophists as the dog, who is the gentlest of animals, does
to the wolf, who is the fiercest. Comparisons are slippery things; but for the present let
us assume the resemblance of the two, which may probably be disallowed hereafter. And
so, from division comes purification; and from this, mental purification; and from
mental purification, instruction; and from instruction, education; and from education,
the nobly-descended art of Sophistry, which is engaged in the detection of conceit. I do
not however think that we have yet found the Sophist, or that his will ultimately prove to
be the desired art of education; but neither do I think that he can long escape me, for
every way is blocked. Before we make the final assault, let us take breath, and reckon up
the many forms which he has assumed: (1) he was the paid hunter of wealth and birth;
(2) he was the trader in the goods of the soul; (3) he was the retailer of them; (4) he was
the manufacturer of his own learned wares; (5) he was the disputant; and (6) he was the
purger away of prejudices—although this latter point is admitted to be doubtful.
Now, there must surely be something wrong in the professor of any art having so many
names and kinds of knowledge. Does not the very number of them imply that the nature
of his art is not understood? And that we may not be involved in the misunderstanding,
let us observe which of his characteristics is the most prominent. Above all things he is a
disputant. He will dispute and teach others to dispute about things visible and
invisible—about man, about the gods, about politics, about law, about wrestling, about
all things. But can he know all things? ‘He cannot.’ How then can he dispute
satisfactorily with any one who knows? ‘Impossible.’ Then what is the trick of his art,
and why does he receive money from his admirers? ‘Because he is believed by them to
know all things.’ You mean to say that he seems to have a knowledge of them? ‘Yes.’
Suppose a person were to say, not that he would dispute about all things, but that he
would make all things, you and me, and all other creatures, the earth and the heavens
and the gods, and would sell them all for a few pence—this would be a great jest; but not
greater than if he said that he knew all things, and could teach them in a short time, and
at a small cost. For all imitation is a jest, and the most graceful form of jest. Now the
painter is a man who professes to make all things, and children, who see his pictures at a
distance, sometimes take them for realities: and the Sophist pretends to know all things,
and he, too, can deceive young men, who are still at a distance from the truth, not
through their eyes, but through their ears, by the mummery of words, and induce them
to believe him. But as they grow older, and come into contact with realities, they learn
by experience the futility of his pretensions. The Sophist, then, has not real knowledge;
he is only an imitator, or image-maker.
And now, having got him in a corner of the dialectical net, let us divide and subdivide
until we catch him. Of image-making there are two kinds,— the art of making likenesses,
and the art of making appearances. The latter may be illustrated by sculpture and
painting, which often use illusions, and alter the proportions of figures, in order to adapt
their works to the eye. And the Sophist also uses illusions, and his imitations are
apparent and not real. But how can anything be an appearance only? Here arises a
difficulty which has always beset the subject of appearances. For the argument is
asserting the existence of not-being. And this is what the great Parmenides was all his
life denying in prose and also in verse. ‘You will never find,’ he says, ‘that not-being is.’
And the words prove themselves! Not-being cannot be attributed to any being; for how
can any being be wholly abstracted from being? Again, in every predication there is an
attribution of singular or plural. But number is the most real of all things, and cannot be
attributed to not-being. Therefore not-being cannot be predicated or expressed; for how
can we say ‘is,’ ‘are not,’ without number?
And now arises the greatest difficulty of all. If not-being is inconceivable, how can notbeing
be refuted? And am I not contradicting myself at this moment, in speaking either
in the singular or the plural of that to which I deny both plurality and unity? You,
Theaetetus, have the might of youth, and I conjure you to exert yourself, and, if you can,
to find an expression for not-being which does not imply being and number. ‘But I
cannot.’ Then the Sophist must be left in his hole. We may call him an image-maker if
we please, but he will only say, ‘And pray, what is an image?’ And we shall reply, ‘A
reflection in the water, or in a mirror’; and he will say, ‘Let us shut our eyes and open
our minds; what is the common notion of all images?’ ‘I should answer, Such another,
made in the likeness of the true.’ Real or not real? ‘Not real; at least, not in a true sense.’
And the real ‘is,’ and the not-real ‘is not’? ‘Yes.’ Then a likeness is really unreal, and
essentially not. Here is a pretty complication of being and not-being, in which the manyheaded
Sophist has entangled us. He will at once point out that he is compelling us to
contradict ourselves, by affirming being of not-being. I think that we must cease to look
for him in the class of imitators.
But ought we to give him up? ‘I should say, certainly not.’ Then I fear that I must lay
hands on my father Parmenides; but do not call me a parricide; for there is no way out
of the difficulty except to show that in some sense not-being is; and if this is not
admitted, no one can speak of falsehood, or false opinion, or imitation, without falling
into a contradiction. You observe how unwilling I am to undertake the task; for I know
that I am exposing myself to the charge of inconsistency in asserting the being of notbeing.
But if I am to make the attempt, I think that I had better begin at the beginning.
Lightly in the days of our youth, Parmenides and others told us tales about the origin of
the universe: one spoke of three principles warring and at peace again, marrying and
begetting children; another of two principles, hot and cold, dry and moist, which also
formed relationships. There were the Eleatics in our part of the world, saying that all
things are one; whose doctrine begins with Xenophanes, and is even older. Ionian, and,
more recently, Sicilian muses speak of a one and many which are held together by
enmity and friendship, ever parting, ever meeting. Some of them do not insist on the
perpetual strife, but adopt a gentler strain, and speak of alternation only. Whether they
are right or not, who can say? But one thing we can say—that they went on their way
without much caring whether we understood them or not. For tell me, Theaetetus, do
you understand what they mean by their assertion of unity, or by their combinations
and separations of two or more principles? I used to think, when I was young, that I
knew all about not-being, and now I am in great difficulties even about being.
Let us proceed first to the examination of being. Turning to the dualist philosophers, we
say to them: Is being a third element besides hot and cold? or do you identify one or
both of the two elements with being? At any rate, you can hardly avoid resolving them
into one. Let us next interrogate the patrons of the one. To them we say: Are being and
one two different names for the same thing? But how can there be two names when
there is nothing but one? Or you may identify them; but then the name will be either the
name of nothing or of itself, i.e. of a name. Again, the notion of being is conceived of as a
whole—in the words of Parmenides, ‘like every way unto a rounded sphere.’ And a whole
has parts; but that which has parts is not one, for unity has no parts. Is being, then, one,
because the parts of being are one, or shall we say that being is not a whole? In the
former case, one is made up of parts; and in the latter there is still plurality, viz. being,
and a whole which is apart from being. And being, if not all things, lacks something of
the nature of being, and becomes not-being. Nor can being ever have come into
existence, for nothing comes into existence except as a whole; nor can being have
number, for that which has number is a whole or sum of number. These are a few of the
difficulties which are accumulating one upon another in the consideration of being.
We may proceed now to the less exact sort of philosophers. Some of them drag down
everything to earth, and carry on a war like that of the giants, grasping rocks and oaks in
their hands. Their adversaries defend themselves warily from an invisible world, and
reduce the substances of their opponents to the minutest fractions, until they are lost in
generation and flux. The latter sort are civil people enough; but the materialists are rude
and ignorant of dialectics; they must be taught how to argue before they can answer.
Yet, for the sake of the argument, we may assume them to be better than they are, and
able to give an account of themselves. They admit the existence of a mortal living
creature, which is a body containing a soul, and to this they would not refuse to attribute
qualities—wisdom, folly, justice and injustice. The soul, as they say, has a kind of body,
but they do not like to assert of these qualities of the soul, either that they are corporeal,
or that they have no existence; at this point they begin to make distinctions. ‘Sons of
earth,’ we say to them, ‘if both visible and invisible qualities exist, what is the common
nature which is attributed to them by the term “being” or “existence”?’ And, as they are
incapable of answering this question, we may as well reply for them, that being is the
power of doing or suffering. Then we turn to the friends of ideas: to them we say, ‘You
distinguish becoming from being?’ ‘Yes,’ they will reply. ‘And in becoming you
participate through the bodily senses, and in being, by thought and the mind?’ ‘Yes.’ And
you mean by the word ‘participation’ a power of doing or suffering? To this they
answer—I am acquainted with them, Theaetetus, and know their ways better than you
do—that being can neither do nor suffer, though becoming may. And we rejoin: Does
not the soul know? And is not ‘being’ known? And are not ‘knowing’ and ‘being known’
active and passive? That which is known is affected by knowledge, and therefore is in
motion. And, indeed, how can we imagine that perfect being is a mere everlasting form,
devoid of motion and soul? for there can be no thought without soul, nor can soul be
devoid of motion. But neither can thought or mind be devoid of some principle of rest or
stability. And as children say entreatingly, ‘Give us both,’ so the philosopher must
include both the moveable and immoveable in his idea of being. And yet, alas! he and we
are in the same difficulty with which we reproached the dualists; for motion and rest are
contradictions—how then can they both exist? Does he who affirms this mean to say that
motion is rest, or rest motion? ‘No; he means to assert the existence of some third thing,
different from them both, which neither rests nor moves.’ But how can there be anything
which neither rests nor moves? Here is a second difficulty about being, quite as great as
that about not-being. And we may hope that any light which is thrown upon the one may
extend to the other.
Leaving them for the present, let us enquire what we mean by giving many names to the
same thing, e.g. white, good, tall, to man; out of which tyros old and young derive such a
feast of amusement. Their meagre minds refuse to predicate anything of anything; they
say that good is good, and man is man; and that to affirm one of the other would be
making the many one and the one many. Let us place them in a class with our previous
opponents, and interrogate both of them at once. Shall we assume (1) that being and rest
and motion, and all other things, are incommunicable with one another? or (2) that they
all have indiscriminate communion? or (3) that there is communion of some and not of
others? And we will consider the first hypothesis first of all.
(1) If we suppose the universal separation of kinds, all theories alike are swept away; the
patrons of a single principle of rest or of motion, or of a plurality of immutable ideas—all
alike have the ground cut from under them; and all creators of the universe by theories
of composition and division, whether out of or into a finite or infinite number of
elemental forms, in alternation or continuance, share the same fate. Most ridiculous is
the discomfiture which attends the opponents of predication, who, like the ventriloquist
Eurycles, have the voice that answers them in their own breast. For they cannot help
using the words ‘is,’ ‘apart,’ ‘from others,’ and the like; and their adversaries are thus
saved the trouble of refuting them. But (2) if all things have communion with all things,
motion will rest, and rest will move; here is a reductio ad absurdum. Two out of the
three hypotheses are thus seen to be false. The third (3) remains, which affirms that only
certain things communicate with certain other things. In the alphabet and the scale
there are some letters and notes which combine with others, and some which do not;
and the laws according to which they combine or are separated are known to the
grammarian and musician. And there is a science which teaches not only what notes and
letters, but what classes admit of combination with one another, and what not. This is a
noble science, on which we have stumbled unawares; in seeking after the Sophist we
have found the philosopher. He is the master who discerns one whole or form pervading
a scattered multitude, and many such wholes combined under a higher one, and many
entirely apart—he is the true dialectician. Like the Sophist, he is hard to recognize,
though for the opposite reasons; the Sophist runs away into the obscurity of not-being,
the philosopher is dark from excess of light. And now, leaving him, we will return to our
pursuit of the Sophist.
Agreeing in the truth of the third hypothesis, that some things have communion and
others not, and that some may have communion with all, let us examine the most
important kinds which are capable of admixture; and in this way we may perhaps find
out a sense in which not-being may be affirmed to have being. Now the highest kinds are
being, rest, motion; and of these, rest and motion exclude each other, but both of them
are included in being; and again, they are the same with themselves and the other of
each other. What is the meaning of these words, ‘same’ and ‘other’? Are there two more
kinds to be added to the three others? For sameness cannot be either rest or motion,
because predicated both of rest and motion; nor yet being; because if being were
attributed to both of them we should attribute sameness to both of them. Nor can other
be identified with being; for then other, which is relative, would have the absoluteness of
being. Therefore we must assume a fifth principle, which is universal, and runs through
all things, for each thing is other than all other things. Thus there are five principles: (1)
being, (2) motion, which is not (3) rest, and because participating both in the same and
other, is and is not (4) the same with itself, and is and is not (5) other than the other.
And motion is not being, but partakes of being, and therefore is and is not in the most
absolute sense. Thus we have discovered that not-being is the principle of the other
which runs through all things, being not excepted. And ‘being’ is one thing, and ‘notbeing’
includes and is all other things. And not- being is not the opposite of being, but
only the other. Knowledge has many branches, and the other or difference has as many,
each of which is described by prefixing the word ‘not’ to some kind of knowledge. The
not- beautiful is as real as the beautiful, the not-just as the just. And the essence of the
not-beautiful is to be separated from and opposed to a certain kind of existence which is
termed beautiful. And this opposition and negation is the not-being of which we are in
search, and is one kind of being. Thus, in spite of Parmenides, we have not only
discovered the existence, but also the nature of not-being—that nature we have found to
be relation. In the communion of different kinds, being and other mutually
interpenetrate; other is, but is other than being, and other than each and all of the
remaining kinds, and therefore in an infinity of ways ‘is not.’ And the argument has
shown that the pursuit of contradictions is childish and useless, and the very opposite of
that higher spirit which criticizes the words of another according to the natural meaning
of them. Nothing can be more unphilosophical than the denial of all communion of
kinds. And we are fortunate in having established such a communion for another
reason, because in continuing the hunt after the Sophist we have to examine the nature
of discourse, and there could be no discourse if there were no communion. For the
Sophist, although he can no longer deny the existence of not-being, may still affirm that
not-being cannot enter into discourse, and as he was arguing before that there could be
no such thing as falsehood, because there was no such thing as not-being, he may
continue to argue that there is no such thing as the art of image-making and phantastic,
because not-being has no place in language. Hence arises the necessity of examining
speech, opinion, and imagination.
And first concerning speech; let us ask the same question about words which we have
already answered about the kinds of being and the letters of the alphabet: To what
extent do they admit of combination? Some words have a meaning when combined, and
others have no meaning. One class of words describes action, another class agents:
‘walks,’ ‘runs,’ ‘sleeps’ are examples of the first; ‘stag,’ ‘horse,’ ‘lion’ of the second. But no
combination of words can be formed without a verb and a noun, e.g. ‘A man learns’; the
simplest sentence is composed of two words, and one of these must be a subject. For
example, in the sentence, ‘Theaetetus sits,’ which is not very long, ‘Theaetetus’ is the
subject, and in the sentence ‘Theaetetus flies,’ ‘Theaetetus’ is again the subject. But the
two sentences differ in quality, for the first says of you that which is true, and the second
says of you that which is not true, or, in other words, attributes to you things which are
not as though they were. Here is false discourse in the shortest form. And thus not only
speech, but thought and opinion and imagination are proved to be both true and false.
For thought is only the process of silent speech, and opinion is only the silent assent or
denial which follows this, and imagination is only the expression of this in some form of
sense. All of them are akin to speech, and therefore, like speech, admit of true and false.
And we have discovered false opinion, which is an encouraging sign of our probable
success in the rest of the enquiry.
Then now let us return to our old division of likeness-making and phantastic. When we
were going to place the Sophist in one of them, a doubt arose whether there could be
such a thing as an appearance, because there was no such thing as falsehood. At length
falsehood has been discovered by us to exist, and we have acknowledged that the
Sophist is to be found in the class of imitators. All art was divided originally by us into
two branches—productive and acquisitive. And now we may divide both on a different
principle into the creations or imitations which are of human, and those which are of
divine, origin. For we must admit that the world and ourselves and the animals did not
come into existence by chance, or the spontaneous working of nature, but by divine
reason and knowledge. And there are not only divine creations but divine imitations,
such as apparitions and shadows and reflections, which are equally the work of a divine
mind. And there are human creations and human imitations too,— there is the actual
house and the drawing of it. Nor must we forget that image-making may be an imitation
of realities or an imitation of appearances, which last has been called by us phantastic.
And this phantastic may be again divided into imitation by the help of instruments and
impersonations. And the latter may be either dissembling or unconscious, either with or
without knowledge. A man cannot imitate you, Theaetetus, without knowing you, but he
can imitate the form of justice or virtue if he have a sentiment or opinion about them.
Not being well provided with names, the former I will venture to call the imitation of
science, and the latter the imitation of opinion.
The latter is our present concern, for the Sophist has no claims to science or knowledge.
Now the imitator, who has only opinion, may be either the simple imitator, who thinks
that he knows, or the dissembler, who is conscious that he does not know, but disguises
his ignorance. And the last may be either a maker of long speeches, or of shorter
speeches which compel the person conversing to contradict himself. The maker of
longer speeches is the popular orator; the maker of the shorter is the Sophist, whose art
may be traced as being the / contradictious / dissembling / without knowledge / human
and not divine / juggling with words / phantastic or unreal / art of image-making.
...
In commenting on the dialogue in which Plato most nearly approaches the great modern
master of metaphysics there are several points which it will be useful to consider, such
as the unity of opposites, the conception of the ideas as causes, and the relation of the
Platonic and Hegelian dialectic.
The unity of opposites was the crux of ancient thinkers in the age of Plato: How could
one thing be or become another? That substances have attributes was implied in
common language; that heat and cold, day and night, pass into one another was a
matter of experience ‘on a level with the cobbler’s understanding’ (Theat.). But how
could philosophy explain the connexion of ideas, how justify the passing of them into
one another? The abstractions of one, other, being, not-being, rest, motion, individual,
universal, which successive generations of philosophers had recently discovered,
seemed to be beyond the reach of human thought, like stars shining in a distant heaven.
They were the symbols of different schools of philosophy: but in what relation did they
stand to one another and to the world of sense? It was hardly conceivable that one could
be other, or the same different. Yet without some reconciliation of these elementary
ideas thought was impossible. There was no distinction between truth and falsehood,
between the Sophist and the philosopher. Everything could be predicated of everything,
or nothing of anything. To these difficulties Plato finds what to us appears to be the
answer of common sense—that Not- being is the relative or other of Being, the defining
and distinguishing principle, and that some ideas combine with others, but not all with
all. It is remarkable however that he offers this obvious reply only as the result of a long
and tedious enquiry; by a great effort he is able to look down as ‘from a height’ on the
‘friends of the ideas’ as well as on the pre-Socratic philosophies. Yet he is merely
asserting principles which no one who could be made to understand them would deny.
The Platonic unity of differences or opposites is the beginning of the modern view that
all knowledge is of relations; it also anticipates the doctrine of Spinoza that all
determination is negation. Plato takes or gives so much of either of these theories as was
necessary or possible in the age in which he lived. In the Sophist, as in the Cratylus, he is
opposed to the Heracleitean flux and equally to the Megarian and Cynic denial of
predication, because he regards both of them as making knowledge impossible. He does
not assert that everything is and is not, or that the same thing can be affected in the
same and in opposite ways at the same time and in respect of the same part of itself. The
law of contradiction is as clearly laid down by him in the Republic, as by Aristotle in his
Organon. Yet he is aware that in the negative there is also a positive element, and that
oppositions may be only differences. And in the Parmenides he deduces the many from
the one and Not-being from Being, and yet shows that the many are included in the one,
and that Not-being returns to Being.
In several of the later dialogues Plato is occupied with the connexion of the sciences,
which in the Philebus he divides into two classes of pure and applied, adding to them
there as elsewhere (Phaedr., Crat., Republic, States.) a superintending science of
dialectic. This is the origin of Aristotle’s Architectonic, which seems, however, to have
passed into an imaginary science of essence, and no longer to retain any relation to
other branches of knowledge. Of such a science, whether described as ‘philosophia
prima,’ the science of ousia, logic or metaphysics, philosophers have often dreamed. But
even now the time has not arrived when the anticipation of Plato can be realized.
Though many a thinker has framed a ‘hierarchy of the sciences,’ no one has as yet found
the higher science which arrays them in harmonious order, giving to the organic and
inorganic, to the physical and moral, their respective limits, and showing how they all
work together in the world and in man.
Plato arranges in order the stages of knowledge and of existence. They are the steps or
grades by which he rises from sense and the shadows of sense to the idea of beauty and
good. Mind is in motion as well as at rest (Soph.); and may be described as a dialectical
progress which passes from one limit or determination of thought to another and back
again to the first. This is the account of dialectic given by Plato in the Sixth Book of the
Republic, which regarded under another aspect is the mysticism of the Symposium. He
does not deny the existence of objects of sense, but according to him they only receive
their true meaning when they are incorporated in a principle which is above them
(Republic). In modern language they might be said to come first in the order of
experience, last in the order of nature and reason. They are assumed, as he is fond of
repeating, upon the condition that they shall give an account of themselves and that the
truth of their existence shall be hereafter proved. For philosophy must begin somewhere
and may begin anywhere,—with outward objects, with statements of opinion, with
abstract principles. But objects of sense must lead us onward to the ideas or universals
which are contained in them; the statements of opinion must be verified; the abstract
principles must be filled up and connected with one another. In Plato we find, as we
might expect, the germs of many thoughts which have been further developed by the
genius of Spinoza and Hegel. But there is a difficulty in separating the germ from the
flower, or in drawing the line which divides ancient from modern philosophy. Many
coincidences which occur in them are unconscious, seeming to show a natural tendency
in the human mind towards certain ideas and forms of thought. And there are many
speculations of Plato which would have passed away unheeded, and their meaning, like
that of some hieroglyphic, would have remained undeciphered, unless two thousand
years and more afterwards an interpreter had arisen of a kindred spirit and of the same
intellectual family. For example, in the Sophist Plato begins with the abstract and goes
on to the concrete, not in the lower sense of returning to outward objects, but to the
Hegelian concrete or unity of abstractions. In the intervening period hardly any
importance would have been attached to the question which is so full of meaning to
Plato and Hegel.
They differ however in their manner of regarding the question. For Plato is answering a
difficulty; he is seeking to justify the use of common language and of ordinary thought
into which philosophy had introduced a principle of doubt and dissolution. Whereas
Hegel tries to go beyond common thought, and to combine abstractions in a higher
unity: the ordinary mechanism of language and logic is carried by him into another
region in which all oppositions are absorbed and all contradictions affirmed, only that
they may be done away with. But Plato, unlike Hegel, nowhere bases his system on the
unity of opposites, although in the Parmenides he shows an Hegelian subtlety in the
analysis of one and Being.
It is difficult within the compass of a few pages to give even a faint outline of the
Hegelian dialectic. No philosophy which is worth understanding can be understood in a
moment; common sense will not teach us metaphysics any more than mathematics. If
all sciences demand of us protracted study and attention, the highest of all can hardly be
matter of immediate intuition. Neither can we appreciate a great system without
yielding a half assent to it—like flies we are caught in the spider’s web; and we can only
judge of it truly when we place ourselves at a distance from it. Of all philosophies
Hegelianism is the most obscure: and the difficulty inherent in the subject is increased
by the use of a technical language. The saying of Socrates respecting the writings of
Heracleitus— ‘Noble is that which I understand, and that which I do not understand
may be as noble; but the strength of a Delian diver is needed to swim through it’—
expresses the feeling with which the reader rises from the perusal of Hegel. We may
truly apply to him the words in which Plato describes the Pre-Socratic philosophers: ‘He
went on his way rather regardless of whether we understood him or not’; or, as he is
reported himself to have said of his own pupils: ‘There is only one of you who
understands me, and he does NOT understand me.’
Nevertheless the consideration of a few general aspects of the Hegelian philosophy may
help to dispel some errors and to awaken an interest about it. (i) It is an ideal
philosophy which, in popular phraseology, maintains not matter but mind to be the
truth of things, and this not by a mere crude substitution of one word for another, but by
showing either of them to be the complement of the other. Both are creations of thought,
and the difference in kind which seems to divide them may also be regarded as a
difference of degree. One is to the other as the real to the ideal, and both may be
conceived together under the higher form of the notion. (ii) Under another aspect it
views all the forms of sense and knowledge as stages of thought which have always
existed implicitly and unconsciously, and to which the mind of the world, gradually
disengaged from sense, has become awakened. The present has been the past. The
succession in time of human ideas is also the eternal ‘now’; it is historical and also a
divine ideal. The history of philosophy stripped of personality and of the other accidents
of time and place is gathered up into philosophy, and again philosophy clothed in
circumstance expands into history. (iii) Whether regarded as present or past, under the
form of time or of eternity, the spirit of dialectic is always moving onwards from one
determination of thought to another, receiving each successive system of philosophy and
subordinating it to that which follows—impelled by an irresistible necessity from one
idea to another until the cycle of human thought and existence is complete. It follows
from this that all previous philosophies which are worthy of the name are not mere
opinions or speculations, but stages or moments of thought which have a necessary
place in the world of mind. They are no longer the last word of philosophy, for another
and another has succeeded them, but they still live and are mighty; in the language of
the Greek poet, ‘There is a great God in them, and he grows not old.’ (iv) This vast ideal
system is supposed to be based upon experience. At each step it professes to carry with it
the ‘witness of eyes and ears’ and of common sense, as well as the internal evidence of
its own consistency; it has a place for every science, and affirms that no philosophy of a
narrower type is capable of comprehending all true facts.
The Hegelian dialectic may be also described as a movement from the simple to the
complex. Beginning with the generalizations of sense, (1) passing through ideas of
quality, quantity, measure, number, and the like, (2) ascending from presentations, that
is pictorial forms of sense, to representations in which the picture vanishes and the
essence is detached in thought from the outward form, (3) combining the I and the notI,
or the subject and object, the natural order of thought is at last found to include the
leading ideas of the sciences and to arrange them in relation to one another.
Abstractions grow together and again become concrete in a new and higher sense. They
also admit of development from within their own spheres. Everywhere there is a
movement of attraction and repulsion going on—an attraction or repulsion of ideas of
which the physical phenomenon described under a similar name is a figure. Freedom
and necessity, mind and matter, the continuous and the discrete, cause and effect, are
perpetually being severed from one another in thought, only to be perpetually reunited.
The finite and infinite, the absolute and relative are not really opposed; the finite and
the negation of the finite are alike lost in a higher or positive infinity, and the absolute is
the sum or correlation of all relatives. When this reconciliation of opposites is finally
completed in all its stages, the mind may come back again and review the things of
sense, the opinions of philosophers, the strife of theology and politics, without being
disturbed by them. Whatever is, if not the very best—and what is the best, who can
tell?—is, at any rate, historical and rational, suitable to its own age, unsuitable to any
other. Nor can any efforts of speculative thinkers or of soldiers and statesmen materially
quicken the ‘process of the suns.’
Hegel was quite sensible how great would be the difficulty of presenting philosophy to
mankind under the form of opposites. Most of us live in the one-sided truth which the
understanding offers to us, and if occasionally we come across difficulties like the timehonoured
controversy of necessity and free-will, or the Eleatic puzzle of Achilles and the
tortoise, we relegate some of them to the sphere of mystery, others to the book of
riddles, and go on our way rejoicing. Most men (like Aristotle) have been accustomed to
regard a contradiction in terms as the end of strife; to be told that contradiction is the
life and mainspring of the intellectual world is indeed a paradox to them. Every
abstraction is at first the enemy of every other, yet they are linked together, each with
all, in the chain of Being. The struggle for existence is not confined to the animals, but
appears in the kingdom of thought. The divisions which arise in thought between the
physical and moral and between the moral and intellectual, and the like, are deepened
and widened by the formal logic which elevates the defects of the human faculties into
Laws of Thought; they become a part of the mind which makes them and is also made
up of them. Such distinctions become so familiar to us that we regard the thing signified
by them as absolutely fixed and defined. These are some of the illusions from which
Hegel delivers us by placing us above ourselves, by teaching us to analyze the growth of
‘what we are pleased to call our minds,’ by reverting to a time when our present
distinctions of thought and language had no existence.
Of the great dislike and childish impatience of his system which would be aroused
among his opponents, he was fully aware, and would often anticipate the jests which the
rest of the world, ‘in the superfluity of their wits,’ were likely to make upon him. Men are
annoyed at what puzzles them; they think what they cannot easily understand to be full
of danger. Many a sceptic has stood, as he supposed, firmly rooted in the categories of
the understanding which Hegel resolves into their original nothingness. For, like Plato,
he ‘leaves no stone unturned’ in the intellectual world. Nor can we deny that he is
unnecessarily difficult, or that his own mind, like that of all metaphysicians, was too
much under the dominion of his system and unable to see beyond: or that the study of
philosophy, if made a serious business (compare Republic), involves grave results to the
mind and life of the student. For it may encumber him without enlightening his path;
and it may weaken his natural faculties of thought and expression without increasing his
philosophical power. The mind easily becomes entangled among abstractions, and loses
hold of facts. The glass which is adapted to distant objects takes away the vision of what
is near and present to us.
To Hegel, as to the ancient Greek thinkers, philosophy was a religion, a principle of life
as well as of knowledge, like the idea of good in the Sixth Book of the Republic, a cause
as well as an effect, the source of growth as well as of light. In forms of thought which by
most of us are regarded as mere categories, he saw or thought that he saw a gradual
revelation of the Divine Being. He would have been said by his opponents to have
confused God with the history of philosophy, and to have been incapable of
distinguishing ideas from facts. And certainly we can scarcely understand how a deep
thinker like Hegel could have hoped to revive or supplant the old traditional faith by an
unintelligible abstraction: or how he could have imagined that philosophy consisted
only or chiefly in the categories of logic. For abstractions, though combined by him in
the notion, seem to be never really concrete; they are a metaphysical anatomy, not a
living and thinking substance. Though we are reminded by him again and again that we
are gathering up the world in ideas, we feel after all that we have not really spanned the
gulf which separates phainomena from onta.
Having in view some of these difficulties, he seeks—and we may follow his example—to
make the understanding of his system easier (a) by illustrations, and (b) by pointing out
the coincidence of the speculative idea and the historical order of thought.
(a) If we ask how opposites can coexist, we are told that many different qualities inhere
in a flower or a tree or in any other concrete object, and that any conception of space or
matter or time involves the two contradictory attributes of divisibility and
continuousness. We may ponder over the thought of number, reminding ourselves that
every unit both implies and denies the existence of every other, and that the one is
many— a sum of fractions, and the many one—a sum of units. We may be reminded that
in nature there is a centripetal as well as a centrifugal force, a regulator as well as a
spring, a law of attraction as well as of repulsion. The way to the West is the way also to
the East; the north pole of the magnet cannot be divided from the south pole; two minus
signs make a plus in Arithmetic and Algebra. Again, we may liken the successive layers
of thought to the deposits of geological strata which were once fluid and are now solid,
which were at one time uppermost in the series and are now hidden in the earth; or to
the successive rinds or barks of trees which year by year pass inward; or to the ripple of
water which appears and reappears in an ever-widening circle. Or our attention may be
drawn to ideas which the moment we analyze them involve a contradiction, such as
‘beginning’ or ‘becoming,’ or to the opposite poles, as they are sometimes termed, of
necessity and freedom, of idea and fact. We may be told to observe that every negative is
a positive, that differences of kind are resolvable into differences of degree, and that
differences of degree may be heightened into differences of kind. We may remember the
common remark that there is much to be said on both sides of a question. We may be
recommended to look within and to explain how opposite ideas can coexist in our own
minds; and we may be told to imagine the minds of all mankind as one mind in which
the true ideas of all ages and countries inhere. In our conception of God in his relation to
man or of any union of the divine and human nature, a contradiction appears to be
unavoidable. Is not the reconciliation of mind and body a necessity, not only of
speculation but of practical life? Reflections such as these will furnish the best
preparation and give the right attitude of mind for understanding the Hegelian
philosophy.
(b) Hegel’s treatment of the early Greek thinkers affords the readiest illustration of his
meaning in conceiving all philosophy under the form of opposites. The first abstraction
is to him the beginning of thought. Hitherto there had only existed a tumultuous chaos
of mythological fancy, but when Thales said ‘All is water’ a new era began to dawn upon
the world. Man was seeking to grasp the universe under a single form which was at first
simply a material element, the most equable and colourless and universal which could
be found. But soon the human mind became dissatisfied with the emblem, and after
ringing the changes on one element after another, demanded a more abstract and
perfect conception, such as one or Being, which was absolutely at rest. But the positive
had its negative, the conception of Being involved Not-being, the conception of one,
many, the conception of a whole, parts. Then the pendulum swung to the other side,
from rest to motion, from Xenophanes to Heracleitus. The opposition of Being and Not-
being projected into space became the atoms and void of Leucippus and Democritus.
Until the Atomists, the abstraction of the individual did not exist; in the philosophy of
Anaxagoras the idea of mind, whether human or divine, was beginning to be realized.
The pendulum gave another swing, from the individual to the universal, from the object
to the subject. The Sophist first uttered the word ‘Man is the measure of all things,’
which Socrates presented in a new form as the study of ethics. Once more we return
from mind to the object of mind, which is knowledge, and out of knowledge the various
degrees or kinds of knowledge more or less abstract were gradually developed. The
threefold division of logic, physic, and ethics, foreshadowed in Plato, was finally
established by Aristotle and the Stoics. Thus, according to Hegel, in the course of about
two centuries by a process of antagonism and negation the leading thoughts of
philosophy were evolved.
There is nothing like this progress of opposites in Plato, who in the Symposium denies
the possibility of reconciliation until the opposition has passed away. In his own words,
there is an absurdity in supposing that ‘harmony is discord; for in reality harmony
consists of notes of a higher and lower pitch which disagreed once, but are now
reconciled by the art of music’ (Symp.). He does indeed describe objects of sense as
regarded by us sometimes from one point of view and sometimes from another. As he
says at the end of the Fifth Book of the Republic, ‘There is nothing light which is not
heavy, or great which is not small.’ And he extends this relativity to the conceptions of
just and good, as well as to great and small. In like manner he acknowledges that the
same number may be more or less in relation to other numbers without any increase or
diminution (Theat.). But the perplexity only arises out of the confusion of the human
faculties; the art of measuring shows us what is truly great and truly small. Though the
just and good in particular instances may vary, the IDEA of good is eternal and
unchangeable. And the IDEA of good is the source of knowledge and also of Being, in
which all the stages of sense and knowledge are gathered up and from being hypotheses
become realities.
Leaving the comparison with Plato we may now consider the value of this invention of
Hegel. There can be no question of the importance of showing that two contraries or
contradictories may in certain cases be both true. The silliness of the so-called laws of
thought (‘All A = A,’ or, in the negative form, ‘Nothing can at the same time be both A,
and not A’) has been well exposed by Hegel himself (Wallace’s Hegel), who remarks that
‘the form of the maxim is virtually self-contradictory, for a proposition implies a
distinction between subject and predicate, whereas the maxim of identity, as it is called,
A = A, does not fulfil what its form requires. Nor does any mind ever think or form
conceptions in accordance with this law, nor does any existence conform to it.’ Wisdom
of this sort is well parodied in Shakespeare (Twelfth Night, ‘Clown: For as the old hermit
of Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc,
“That that is is”...for what is “that” but “that,” and “is” but “is”?’). Unless we are willing
to admit that two contradictories may be true, many questions which lie at the threshold
of mathematics and of morals will be insoluble puzzles to us.
The influence of opposites is felt in practical life. The understanding sees one side of a
question only—the common sense of mankind joins one of two parties in politics, in
religion, in philosophy. Yet, as everybody knows, truth is not wholly the possession of
either. But the characters of men are one-sided and accept this or that aspect of the
truth. The understanding is strong in a single abstract principle and with this lever
moves mankind. Few attain to a balance of principles or recognize truly how in all
human things there is a thesis and antithesis, a law of action and of reaction. In politics
we require order as well as liberty, and have to consider the proportions in which under
given circumstances they may be safely combined. In religion there is a tendency to lose
sight of morality, to separate goodness from the love of truth, to worship God without
attempting to know him. In philosophy again there are two opposite principles, of
immediate experience and of those general or a priori truths which are supposed to
transcend experience. But the common sense or common opinion of mankind is
incapable of apprehending these opposite sides or views—men are determined by their
natural bent to one or other of them; they go straight on for a time in a single line, and
may be many things by turns but not at once.
Hence the importance of familiarizing the mind with forms which will assist us in
conceiving or expressing the complex or contrary aspects of life and nature. The danger
is that they may be too much for us, and obscure our appreciation of facts. As the
complexity of mechanics cannot be understood without mathematics, so neither can the
many-sidedness of the mental and moral world be truly apprehended without the
assistance of new forms of thought. One of these forms is the unity of opposites.
Abstractions have a great power over us, but they are apt to be partial and one-sided,
and only when modified by other abstractions do they make an approach to the truth.
Many a man has become a fatalist because he has fallen under the dominion of a single
idea. He says to himself, for example, that he must be either free or necessary—he
cannot be both. Thus in the ancient world whole schools of philosophy passed away in
the vain attempt to solve the problem of the continuity or divisibility of matter. And in
comparatively modern times, though in the spirit of an ancient philosopher, Bishop
Berkeley, feeling a similar perplexity, is inclined to deny the truth of infinitesimals in
mathematics. Many difficulties arise in practical religion from the impossibility of
conceiving body and mind at once and in adjusting their movements to one another.
There is a border ground between them which seems to belong to both; and there is as
much difficulty in conceiving the body without the soul as the soul without the body. To
the ‘either’ and ‘or’ philosophy (‘Everything is either A or not A’) should at least be
added the clause ‘or neither,’ ‘or both.’ The double form makes reflection easier and
more conformable to experience, and also more comprehensive. But in order to avoid
paradox and the danger of giving offence to the unmetaphysical part of mankind, we
may speak of it as due to the imperfection of language or the limitation of human
faculties. It is nevertheless a discovery which, in Platonic language, may be termed a
‘most gracious aid to thought.’
The doctrine of opposite moments of thought or of progression by antagonism, further
assists us in framing a scheme or system of the sciences. The negation of one gives birth
to another of them. The double notions are the joints which hold them together. The
simple is developed into the complex, the complex returns again into the simple.
Beginning with the highest notion of mind or thought, we may descend by a series of
negations to the first generalizations of sense. Or again we may begin with the simplest
elements of sense and proceed upwards to the highest being or thought. Metaphysic is
the negation or absorption of physiology— physiology of chemistry—chemistry of
mechanical philosophy. Similarly in mechanics, when we can no further go we arrive at
chemistry—when chemistry becomes organic we arrive at physiology: when we pass
from the outward and animal to the inward nature of man we arrive at moral and
metaphysical philosophy. These sciences have each of them their own methods and are
pursued independently of one another. But to the mind of the thinker they are all one—
latent in one another—developed out of one another.
This method of opposites has supplied new instruments of thought for the solution of
metaphysical problems, and has thrown down many of the walls within which the
human mind was confined. Formerly when philosophers arrived at the infinite and
absolute, they seemed to be lost in a region beyond human comprehension. But Hegel
has shown that the absolute and infinite are no more true than the relative and finite,
and that they must alike be negatived before we arrive at a true absolute or a true
infinite. The conceptions of the infinite and absolute as ordinarily understood are
tiresome because they are unmeaning, but there is no peculiar sanctity or mystery in
them. We might as well make an infinitesimal series of fractions or a perpetually
recurring decimal the object of our worship. They are the widest and also the thinnest of
human ideas, or, in the language of logicians, they have the greatest extension and the
least comprehension. Of all words they may be truly said to be the most inflated with a
false meaning. They have been handed down from one philosopher to another until they
have acquired a religious character. They seem also to derive a sacredness from their
association with the Divine Being. Yet they are the poorest of the predicates under which
we describe him—signifying no more than this, that he is not finite, that he is not
relative, and tending to obscure his higher attributes of wisdom, goodness, truth.
The system of Hegel frees the mind from the dominion of abstract ideas. We
acknowledge his originality, and some of us delight to wander in the mazes of thought
which he has opened to us. For Hegel has found admirers in England and Scotland when
his popularity in Germany has departed, and he, like the philosophers whom he
criticizes, is of the past. No other thinker has ever dissected the human mind with equal
patience and minuteness. He has lightened the burden of thought because he has shown
us that the chains which we wear are of our own forging. To be able to place ourselves
not only above the opinions of men but above their modes of thinking, is a great height
of philosophy. This dearly obtained freedom, however, we are not disposed to part with,
or to allow him to build up in a new form the ‘beggarly elements’ of scholastic logic
which he has thrown down. So far as they are aids to reflection and expression, forms of
thought are useful, but no further:—we may easily have too many of them.
And when we are asked to believe the Hegelian to be the sole or universal logic, we
naturally reply that there are other ways in which our ideas may be connected. The
triplets of Hegel, the division into being, essence, and notion, are not the only or
necessary modes in which the world of thought can be conceived. There may be an
evolution by degrees as well as by opposites. The word ‘continuity’ suggests the
possibility of resolving all differences into differences of quantity. Again, the opposites
themselves may vary from the least degree of diversity up to contradictory opposition.
They are not like numbers and figures, always and everywhere of the same value. And
therefore the edifice which is constructed out of them has merely an imaginary
symmetry, and is really irregular and out of proportion. The spirit of Hegelian criticism
should be applied to his own system, and the terms Being, Not-being, existence, essence,
notion, and the like challenged and defined. For if Hegel introduces a great many
distinctions, he obliterates a great many others by the help of the universal solvent ‘is
not,’ which appears to be the simplest of negations, and yet admits of several meanings.
Neither are we able to follow him in the play of metaphysical fancy which conducts him
from one determination of thought to another. But we begin to suspect that this vast
system is not God within us, or God immanent in the world, and may be only the
invention of an individual brain. The ‘beyond’ is always coming back upon us however
often we expel it. We do not easily believe that we have within the compass of the mind
the form of universal knowledge. We rather incline to think that the method of
knowledge is inseparable from actual knowledge, and wait to see what new forms may
be developed out of our increasing experience and observation of man and nature. We
are conscious of a Being who is without us as well as within us. Even if inclined to
Pantheism we are unwilling to imagine that the meagre categories of the understanding,
however ingeniously arranged or displayed, are the image of God;—that what all
religions were seeking after from the beginning was the Hegelian philosophy which has
been revealed in the latter days. The great metaphysician, like a prophet of old, was
naturally inclined to believe that his own thoughts were divine realities. We may almost
say that whatever came into his head seemed to him to be a necessary truth. He never
appears to have criticized himself, or to have subjected his own ideas to the process of
analysis which he applies to every other philosopher.
Hegel would have insisted that his philosophy should be accepted as a whole or not at
all. He would have urged that the parts derived their meaning from one another and
from the whole. He thought that he had supplied an outline large enough to contain all
future knowledge, and a method to which all future philosophies must conform. His
metaphysical genius is especially shown in the construction of the categories—a work
which was only begun by Kant, and elaborated to the utmost by himself. But is it really
true that the part has no meaning when separated from the whole, or that knowledge to
be knowledge at all must be universal? Do all abstractions shine only by the reflected
light of other abstractions? May they not also find a nearer explanation in their relation
to phenomena? If many of them are correlatives they are not all so, and the relations
which subsist between them vary from a mere association up to a necessary connexion.
Nor is it easy to determine how far the unknown element affects the known, whether, for
example, new discoveries may not one day supersede our most elementary notions
about nature. To a certain extent all our knowledge is conditional upon what may be
known in future ages of the world. We must admit this hypothetical element, which we
cannot get rid of by an assumption that we have already discovered the method to which
all philosophy must conform. Hegel is right in preferring the concrete to the abstract, in
setting actuality before possibility, in excluding from the philosopher’s vocabulary the
word ‘inconceivable.’ But he is too well satisfied with his own system ever to consider
the effect of what is unknown on the element which is known. To the Hegelian all things
are plain and clear, while he who is outside the charmed circle is in the mire of
ignorance and ‘logical impurity’: he who is within is omniscient, or at least has all the
elements of knowledge under his hand.
Hegelianism may be said to be a transcendental defence of the world as it is. There is no
room for aspiration and no need of any: ‘What is actual is rational, what is rational is
actual.’ But a good man will not readily acquiesce in this aphorism. He knows of course
that all things proceed according to law whether for good or evil. But when he sees the
misery and ignorance of mankind he is convinced that without any interruption of the
uniformity of nature the condition of the world may be indefinitely improved by human
effort. There is also an adaptation of persons to times and countries, but this is very far
from being the fulfilment of their higher natures. The man of the seventeenth century is
unfitted for the eighteenth, and the man of the eighteenth for the nineteenth, and most
of us would be out of place in the world of a hundred years hence. But all higher minds
are much more akin than they are different: genius is of all ages, and there is perhaps
more uniformity in excellence than in mediocrity. The sublimer intelligences of
mankind—Plato, Dante, Sir Thomas More—meet in a higher sphere above the ordinary
ways of men; they understand one another from afar, notwithstanding the interval
which separates them. They are ‘the spectators of all time and of all existence;’ their
works live for ever; and there is nothing to prevent the force of their individuality
breaking through the uniformity which surrounds them. But such disturbers of the
order of thought Hegel is reluctant to acknowledge.
The doctrine of Hegel will to many seem the expression of an indolent conservatism,
and will at any rate be made an excuse for it. The mind of the patriot rebels when he is
told that the worst tyranny and oppression has a natural fitness: he cannot be
persuaded, for example, that the conquest of Prussia by Napoleon I. was either natural
or necessary, or that any similar calamity befalling a nation should be a matter of
indifference to the poet or philosopher. We may need such a philosophy or religion to
console us under evils which are irremediable, but we see that it is fatal to the higher life
of man. It seems to say to us, ‘The world is a vast system or machine which can be
conceived under the forms of logic, but in which no single man can do any great good or
any great harm. Even if it were a thousand times worse than it is, it could be arranged in
categories and explained by philosophers. And what more do we want?’
The philosophy of Hegel appeals to an historical criterion: the ideas of men have a
succession in time as well as an order of thought. But the assumption that there is a
correspondence between the succession of ideas in history and the natural order of
philosophy is hardly true even of the beginnings of thought. And in later systems forms
of thought are too numerous and complex to admit of our tracing in them a regular
succession. They seem also to be in part reflections of the past, and it is difficult to
separate in them what is original and what is borrowed. Doubtless they have a relation
to one another—the transition from Descartes to Spinoza or from Locke to Berkeley is
not a matter of chance, but it can hardly be described as an alternation of opposites or
figured to the mind by the vibrations of a pendulum. Even in Aristotle and Plato, rightly
understood, we cannot trace this law of action and reaction. They are both idealists,
although to the one the idea is actual and immanent,—to the other only potential and
transcendent, as Hegel himself has pointed out (Wallace’s Hegel). The true meaning of
Aristotle has been disguised from us by his own appeal to fact and the opinions of
mankind in his more popular works, and by the use made of his writings in the Middle
Ages. No book, except the Scriptures, has been so much read, and so little understood.
The Pre- Socratic philosophies are simpler, and we may observe a progress in them; but
is there any regular succession? The ideas of Being, change, number, seem to have
sprung up contemporaneously in different parts of Greece and we have no difficulty in
constructing them out of one another—we can see that the union of Being and Not-being
gave birth to the idea of change or Becoming and that one might be another aspect of
Being. Again, the Eleatics may be regarded as developing in one direction into the
Megarian school, in the other into the Atomists, but there is no necessary connexion
between them. Nor is there any indication that the deficiency which was felt in one
school was supplemented or compensated by another. They were all efforts to supply the
want which the Greeks began to feel at the beginning of the sixth century before
Christ,—the want of abstract ideas. Nor must we forget the uncertainty of chronology;—
if, as Aristotle says, there were Atomists before Leucippus, Eleatics before Xenophanes,
and perhaps ‘patrons of the flux’ before Heracleitus, Hegel’s order of thought in the
history of philosophy would be as much disarranged as his order of religious thought by
recent discoveries in the history of religion.
Hegel is fond of repeating that all philosophies still live and that the earlier are
preserved in the later; they are refuted, and they are not refuted, by those who succeed
them. Once they reigned supreme, now they are subordinated to a power or idea greater
or more comprehensive than their own. The thoughts of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle
have certainly sunk deep into the mind of the world, and have exercised an influence
which will never pass away; but can we say that they have the same meaning in modern
and ancient philosophy? Some of them, as for example the words ‘Being,’ ‘essence,’
‘matter,’ ‘form,’ either have become obsolete, or are used in new senses, whereas
‘individual,’ ‘cause,’ ‘motive,’ have acquired an exaggerated importance. Is the manner
in which the logical determinations of thought, or ‘categories’ as they may be termed,
have been handed down to us, really different from that in which other words have come
down to us? Have they not been equally subject to accident, and are they not often used
by Hegel himself in senses which would have been quite unintelligible to their original
inventors—as for example, when he speaks of the ‘ground’ of Leibnitz (‘Everything has a
sufficient ground’) as identical with his own doctrine of the ‘notion’ (Wallace’s Hegel), or
the ‘Being and Not-being’ of Heracleitus as the same with his own ‘Becoming’?
As the historical order of thought has been adapted to the logical, so we have reason for
suspecting that the Hegelian logic has been in some degree adapted to the order of
thought in history. There is unfortunately no criterion to which either of them can be
subjected, and not much forcing was required to bring either into near relations with the
other. We may fairly doubt whether the division of the first and second parts of logic in
the Hegelian system has not really arisen from a desire to make them accord with the
first and second stages of the early Greek philosophy. Is there any reason why the
conception of measure in the first part, which is formed by the union of quality and
quantity, should not have been equally placed in the second division of mediate or
reflected ideas? The more we analyze them the less exact does the coincidence of
philosophy and the history of philosophy appear. Many terms which were used
absolutely in the beginning of philosophy, such as ‘Being,’ ‘matter,’ ‘cause,’ and the like,
became relative in the subsequent history of thought. But Hegel employs some of them
absolutely, some relatively, seemingly without any principle and without any regard to
their original significance.
The divisions of the Hegelian logic bear a superficial resemblance to the divisions of the
scholastic logic. The first part answers to the term, the second to the proposition, the
third to the syllogism. These are the grades of thought under which we conceive the
world, first, in the general terms of quality, quantity, measure; secondly, under the
relative forms of ‘ground’ and existence, substance and accidents, and the like; thirdly in
syllogistic forms of the individual mediated with the universal by the help of the
particular. Of syllogisms there are various kinds,—qualitative, quantitative, inductive,
mechanical, teleological,—which are developed out of one another. But is there any
meaning in reintroducing the forms of the old logic? Who ever thinks of the world as a
syllogism? What connexion is there between the proposition and our ideas of
reciprocity, cause and effect, and similar relations? It is difficult enough to conceive all
the powers of nature and mind gathered up in one. The difficulty is greatly increased
when the new is confused with the old, and the common logic is the Procrustes’ bed into
which they are forced.
The Hegelian philosophy claims, as we have seen, to be based upon experience: it
abrogates the distinction of a priori and a posteriori truth. It also acknowledges that
many differences of kind are resolvable into differences of degree. It is familiar with the
terms ‘evolution,’ ‘development,’ and the like. Yet it can hardly be said to have
considered the forms of thought which are best adapted for the expression of facts. It
has never applied the categories to experience; it has not defined the differences in our
ideas of opposition, or development, or cause and effect, in the different sciences which
make use of these terms. It rests on a knowledge which is not the result of exact or
serious enquiry, but is floating in the air; the mind has been imperceptibly informed of
some of the methods required in the sciences. Hegel boasts that the movement of
dialectic is at once necessary and spontaneous: in reality it goes beyond experience and
is unverified by it. Further, the Hegelian philosophy, while giving us the power of
thinking a great deal more than we are able to fill up, seems to be wanting in some
determinations of thought which we require. We cannot say that physical science, which
at present occupies so large a share of popular attention, has been made easier or more
intelligible by the distinctions of Hegel. Nor can we deny that he has sometimes
interpreted physics by metaphysics, and confused his own philosophical fancies with the
laws of nature. The very freedom of the movement is not without suspicion, seeming to
imply a state of the human mind which has entirely lost sight of facts. Nor can the
necessity which is attributed to it be very stringent, seeing that the successive categories
or determinations of thought in different parts of his writings are arranged by the
philosopher in different ways. What is termed necessary evolution seems to be only the
order in which a succession of ideas presented themselves to the mind of Hegel at a
particular time.
The nomenclature of Hegel has been made by himself out of the language of common
life. He uses a few words only which are borrowed from his predecessors, or from the
Greek philosophy, and these generally in a sense peculiar to himself. The first stage of
his philosophy answers to the word ‘is,’ the second to the word ‘has been,’ the third to
the words ‘has been’ and ‘is’ combined. In other words, the first sphere is immediate, the
second mediated by reflection, the third or highest returns into the first, and is both
mediate and immediate. As Luther’s Bible was written in the language of the common
people, so Hegel seems to have thought that he gave his philosophy a truly German
character by the use of idiomatic German words. But it may be doubted whether the
attempt has been successful. First because such words as ‘in sich seyn,’ ‘an sich seyn,’ ‘an
und fur sich seyn,’ though the simplest combinations of nouns and verbs, require a
difficult and elaborate explanation. The simplicity of the words contrasts with the
hardness of their meaning. Secondly, the use of technical phraseology necessarily
separates philosophy from general literature; the student has to learn a new language of
uncertain meaning which he with difficulty remembers. No former philosopher had ever
carried the use of technical terms to the same extent as Hegel. The language of Plato or
even of Aristotle is but slightly removed from that of common life, and was introduced
naturally by a series of thinkers: the language of the scholastic logic has become
technical to us, but in the Middle Ages was the vernacular Latin of priests and students.
The higher spirit of philosophy, the spirit of Plato and Socrates, rebels against the
Hegelian use of language as mechanical and technical.
Hegel is fond of etymologies and often seems to trifle with words. He gives etymologies
which are bad, and never considers that the meaning of a word may have nothing to do
with its derivation. He lived before the days of Comparative Philology or of Comparative
Mythology and Religion, which would have opened a new world to him. He makes no
allowance for the element of chance either in language or thought; and perhaps there is
no greater defect in his system than the want of a sound theory of language. He speaks
as if thought, instead of being identical with language, was wholly independent of it. It is
not the actual growth of the mind, but the imaginary growth of the Hegelian system,
which is attractive to him.
Neither are we able to say why of the common forms of thought some are rejected by
him, while others have an undue prominence given to them. Some of them, such as
‘ground’ and ‘existence,’ have hardly any basis either in language or philosophy, while
others, such as ‘cause’ and ‘effect,’ are but slightly considered. All abstractions are
supposed by Hegel to derive their meaning from one another. This is true of some, but
not of all, and in different degrees. There is an explanation of abstractions by the
phenomena which they represent, as well as by their relation to other abstractions. If the
knowledge of all were necessary to the knowledge of any one of them, the mind would
sink under the load of thought. Again, in every process of reflection we seem to require a
standing ground, and in the attempt to obtain a complete analysis we lose all fixedness.
If, for example, the mind is viewed as the complex of ideas, or the difference between
things and persons denied, such an analysis may be justified from the point of view of
Hegel: but we shall find that in the attempt to criticize thought we have lost the power of
thinking, and, like the Heracliteans of old, have no words in which our meaning can be
expressed. Such an analysis may be of value as a corrective of popular language or
thought, but should still allow us to retain the fundamental distinctions of philosophy.
In the Hegelian system ideas supersede persons. The world of thought, though
sometimes described as Spirit or ‘Geist,’ is really impersonal. The minds of men are to
be regarded as one mind, or more correctly as a succession of ideas. Any comprehensive
view of the world must necessarily be general, and there may be a use with a view to
comprehensiveness in dropping individuals and their lives and actions. In all things, if
we leave out details, a certain degree of order begins to appear; at any rate we can make
an order which, with a little exaggeration or disproportion in some of the parts, will
cover the whole field of philosophy. But are we therefore justified in saying that ideas
are the causes of the great movement of the world rather than the personalities which
conceived them? The great man is the expression of his time, and there may be peculiar
difficulties in his age which he cannot overcome. He may be out of harmony with his
circumstances, too early or too late, and then all his thoughts perish; his genius passes
away unknown. But not therefore is he to be regarded as a mere waif or stray in human
history, any more than he is the mere creature or expression of the age in which he lives.
His ideas are inseparable from himself, and would have been nothing without him.
Through a thousand personal influences they have been brought home to the minds of
others. He starts from antecedents, but he is great in proportion as he disengages
himself from them or absorbs himself in them. Moreover the types of greatness differ;
while one man is the expression of the influences of his age, another is in antagonism to
them. One man is borne on the surface of the water; another is carried forward by the
current which flows beneath. The character of an individual, whether he be independent
of circumstances or not, inspires others quite as much as his words. What is the teaching
of Socrates apart from his personal history, or the doctrines of Christ apart from the
Divine life in which they are embodied? Has not Hegel himself delineated the greatness
of the life of Christ as consisting in his ‘Schicksalslosigkeit’ or independence of the
destiny of his race? Do not persons become ideas, and is there any distinction between
them? Take away the five greatest legislators, the five greatest warriors, the five greatest
poets, the five greatest founders or teachers of a religion, the five greatest philosophers,
the five greatest inventors,—where would have been all that we most value in knowledge
or in life? And can that be a true theory of the history of philosophy which, in Hegel’s
own language, ‘does not allow the individual to have his right’?
Once more, while we readily admit that the world is relative to the mind, and the mind
to the world, and that we must suppose a common or correlative growth in them, we
shrink from saying that this complex nature can contain, even in outline, all the endless
forms of Being and knowledge. Are we not ‘seeking the living among the dead’ and
dignifying a mere logical skeleton with the name of philosophy and almost of God?
When we look far away into the primeval sources of thought and belief, do we suppose
that the mere accident of our being the heirs of the Greek philosophers can give us a
right to set ourselves up as having the true and only standard of reason in the world? Or
when we contemplate the infinite worlds in the expanse of heaven can we imagine that a
few meagre categories derived from language and invented by the genius of one or two
great thinkers contain the secret of the universe? Or, having regard to the ages during
which the human race may yet endure, do we suppose that we can anticipate the
proportions human knowledge may attain even within the short space of one or two
thousand years?
Again, we have a difficulty in understanding how ideas can be causes, which to us seems
to be as much a figure of speech as the old notion of a creator artist, ‘who makes the
world by the help of the demigods’ (Plato, Tim.), or with ‘a golden pair of compasses’
measures out the circumference of the universe (Milton, P.L.). We can understand how
the idea in the mind of an inventor is the cause of the work which is produced by it; and
we can dimly imagine how this universal frame may be animated by a divine
intelligence. But we cannot conceive how all the thoughts of men that ever were, which
are themselves subject to so many external conditions of climate, country, and the like,
even if regarded as the single thought of a Divine Being, can be supposed to have made
the world. We appear to be only wrapping up ourselves in our own conceits—to be
confusing cause and effect—to be losing the distinction between reflection and action,
between the human and divine.
These are some of the doubts and suspicions which arise in the mind of a student of
Hegel, when, after living for a time within the charmed circle, he removes to a little
distance and looks back upon what he has learnt, from the vantage-ground of history
and experience. The enthusiasm of his youth has passed away, the authority of the
master no longer retains a hold upon him. But he does not regret the time spent in the
study of him. He finds that he has received from him a real enlargement of mind, and
much of the true spirit of philosophy, even when he has ceased to believe in him. He
returns again and again to his writings as to the recollections of a first love, not
undeserving of his admiration still. Perhaps if he were asked how he can admire without
believing, or what value he can attribute to what he knows to be erroneous, he might
answer in some such manner as the following:—
1. That in Hegel he finds glimpses of the genius of the poet and of the common sense of
the man of the world. His system is not cast in a poetic form, but neither has all this load
of logic extinguished in him the feeling of poetry. He is the true countryman of his
contemporaries Goethe and Schiller. Many fine expressions are scattered up and down
in his writings, as when he tells us that ‘the Crusaders went to the Sepulchre but found it
empty.’ He delights to find vestiges of his own philosophy in the older German mystics.
And though he can be scarcely said to have mixed much in the affairs of men, for, as his
biographer tells us, ‘he lived for thirty years in a single room,’ yet he is far from being
ignorant of the world. No one can read his writings without acquiring an insight into
life. He loves to touch with the spear of logic the follies and self- deceptions of mankind,
and make them appear in their natural form, stripped of the disguises of language and
custom. He will not allow men to defend themselves by an appeal to one-sided or
abstract principles. In this age of reason any one can too easily find a reason for doing
what he likes (Wallace). He is suspicious of a distinction which is often made between a
person’s character and his conduct. His spirit is the opposite of that of Jesuitism or
casuistry (Wallace). He affords an example of a remark which has been often made, that
in order to know the world it is not necessary to have had a great experience of it.
2. Hegel, if not the greatest philosopher, is certainly the greatest critic of philosophy who
ever lived. No one else has equally mastered the opinions of his predecessors or traced
the connexion of them in the same manner. No one has equally raised the human mind
above the trivialities of the common logic and the unmeaningness of ‘mere’ abstractions,
and above imaginary possibilities, which, as he truly says, have no place in philosophy.
No one has won so much for the kingdom of ideas. Whatever may be thought of his own
system it will hardly be denied that he has overthrown Locke, Kant, Hume, and the socalled
philosophy of common sense. He shows us that only by the study of metaphysics
can we get rid of metaphysics, and that those who are in theory most opposed to them
are in fact most entirely and hopelessly enslaved by them: ‘Die reinen Physiker sind nur
die Thiere.’ The disciple of Hegel will hardly become the slave of any other system-
maker. What Bacon seems to promise him he will find realized in the great German
thinker, an emancipation nearly complete from the influences of the scholastic logic.
3. Many of those who are least disposed to become the votaries of Hegelianism
nevertheless recognize in his system a new logic supplying a variety of instruments and
methods hitherto unemployed. We may not be able to agree with him in assimilating the
natural order of human thought with the history of philosophy, and still less in
identifying both with the divine idea or nature. But we may acknowledge that the great
thinker has thrown a light on many parts of human knowledge, and has solved many
difficulties. We cannot receive his doctrine of opposites as the last word of philosophy,
but still we may regard it as a very important contribution to logic. We cannot affirm
that words have no meaning when taken out of their connexion in the history of
thought. But we recognize that their meaning is to a great extent due to association, and
to their correlation with one another. We see the advantage of viewing in the concrete
what mankind regard only in the abstract. There is much to be said for his faith or
conviction, that God is immanent in the world,—within the sphere of the human mind,
and not beyond it. It was natural that he himself, like a prophet of old, should regard the
philosophy which he had invented as the voice of God in man. But this by no means
implies that he conceived himself as creating God in thought. He was the servant of his
own ideas and not the master of them. The philosophy of history and the history of
philosophy may be almost said to have been discovered by him. He has done more to
explain Greek thought than all other writers put together. Many ideas of development,
evolution, reciprocity, which have become the symbols of another school of thinkers
may be traced to his speculations. In the theology and philosophy of England as well as
of Germany, and also in the lighter literature of both countries, there are always
appearing ‘fragments of the great banquet’ of Hegel.
SOPHIST
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Theodorus, Theaetetus, Socrates. An Eleatic Stranger,
whom Theodorus and Theaetetus bring with them. The younger Socrates, who is a silent
auditor.
THEODORUS: Here we are, Socrates, true to our agreement of yesterday; and we bring
with us a stranger from Elea, who is a disciple of Parmenides and Zeno, and a true
philosopher.
SOCRATES: Is he not rather a god, Theodorus, who comes to us in the disguise of a
stranger? For Homer says that all the gods, and especially the god of strangers, are
companions of the meek and just, and visit the good and evil among men. And may not
your companion be one of those higher powers, a cross-examining deity, who has come
to spy out our weakness in argument, and to cross-examine us?
THEODORUS: Nay, Socrates, he is not one of the disputatious sort—he is too good for
that. And, in my opinion, he is not a god at all; but divine he certainly is, for this is a title
which I should give to all philosophers.
SOCRATES: Capital, my friend! and I may add that they are almost as hard to be
discerned as the gods. For the true philosophers, and such as are not merely made up
for the occasion, appear in various forms unrecognized by the ignorance of men, and
they ‘hover about cities,’ as Homer declares, looking from above upon human life; and
some think nothing of them, and others can never think enough; and sometimes they
appear as statesmen, and sometimes as sophists; and then, again, to many they seem to
be no better than madmen. I should like to ask our Eleatic friend, if he would tell us,
what is thought about them in Italy, and to whom the terms are applied.
THEODORUS: What terms?
SOCRATES: Sophist, statesman, philosopher.
THEODORUS: What is your difficulty about them, and what made you ask?
SOCRATES: I want to know whether by his countrymen they are regarded as one or two;
or do they, as the names are three, distinguish also three kinds, and assign one to each
name?
THEODORUS: I dare say that the Stranger will not object to discuss the question. What
do you say, Stranger?
STRANGER: I am far from objecting, Theodorus, nor have I any difficulty in replying
that by us they are regarded as three. But to define precisely the nature of each of them
is by no means a slight or easy task.
THEODORUS: You have happened to light, Socrates, almost on the very question which
we were asking our friend before we came hither, and he excused himself to us, as he
does now to you; although he admitted that the matter had been fully discussed, and
that he remembered the answer.
SOCRATES: Then do not, Stranger, deny us the first favour which we ask of you: I am
sure that you will not, and therefore I shall only beg of you to say whether you like and
are accustomed to make a long oration on a subject which you want to explain to
another, or to proceed by the method of question and answer. I remember hearing a
very noble discussion in which Parmenides employed the latter of the two methods,
when I was a young man, and he was far advanced in years. (Compare Parm.)
STRANGER: I prefer to talk with another when he responds pleasantly, and is light in
hand; if not, I would rather have my own say.
SOCRATES: Any one of the present company will respond kindly to you, and you can
choose whom you like of them; I should recommend you to take a young person—
Theaetetus, for example—unless you have a preference for some one else.
STRANGER: I feel ashamed, Socrates, being a new-comer into your society, instead of
talking a little and hearing others talk, to be spinning out a long soliloquy or address, as
if I wanted to show off. For the true answer will certainly be a very long one, a great deal
longer than might be expected from such a short and simple question. At the same time,
I fear that I may seem rude and ungracious if I refuse your courteous request, especially
after what you have said. For I certainly cannot object to your proposal, that Theaetetus
should respond, having already conversed with him myself, and being recommended by
you to take him.
THEAETETUS: But are you sure, Stranger, that this will be quite so acceptable to the
rest of the company as Socrates imagines?
STRANGER: You hear them applauding, Theaetetus; after that, there is nothing more to
be said. Well then, I am to argue with you, and if you tire of the argument, you may
complain of your friends and not of me.
THEAETETUS: I do not think that I shall tire, and if I do, I shall get my friend here,
young Socrates, the namesake of the elder Socrates, to help; he is about my own age,
and my partner at the gymnasium, and is constantly accustomed to work with me.
STRANGER: Very good; you can decide about that for yourself as we proceed.
Meanwhile you and I will begin together and enquire into the nature of the Sophist, first
of the three: I should like you to make out what he is and bring him to light in a
discussion; for at present we are only agreed about the name, but of the thing to which
we both apply the name possibly you have one notion and I another; whereas we ought
always to come to an understanding about the thing itself in terms of a definition, and
not merely about the name minus the definition. Now the tribe of Sophists which we are
investigating is not easily caught or defined; and the world has long ago agreed, that if
great subjects are to be adequately treated, they must be studied in the lesser and easier
instances of them before we proceed to the greatest of all. And as I know that the tribe of
Sophists is troublesome and hard to be caught, I should recommend that we practise
beforehand the method which is to be applied to him on some simple and smaller thing,
unless you can suggest a better way.
THEAETETUS: Indeed I cannot.
STRANGER: Then suppose that we work out some lesser example which will be a
pattern of the greater?
THEAETETUS: Good.
STRANGER: What is there which is well known and not great, and is yet as susceptible
of definition as any larger thing? Shall I say an angler? He is familiar to all of us, and not
a very interesting or important person.
THEAETETUS: He is not.
STRANGER: Yet I suspect that he will furnish us with the sort of definition and line of
enquiry which we want.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: Let us begin by asking whether he is a man having art or not having art,
but some other power.
THEAETETUS: He is clearly a man of art.
STRANGER: And of arts there are two kinds?
THEAETETUS: What are they?
STRANGER: There is agriculture, and the tending of mortal creatures, and the art of
constructing or moulding vessels, and there is the art of imitation—all these may be
appropriately called by a single name.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean? And what is the name?
STRANGER: He who brings into existence something that did not exist before is said to
be a producer, and that which is brought into existence is said to be produced.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And all the arts which were just now mentioned are characterized by this
power of producing?
THEAETETUS: They are.
STRANGER: Then let us sum them up under the name of productive or creative art.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: Next follows the whole class of learning and cognition; then comes trade,
fighting, hunting. And since none of these produces anything, but is only engaged in
conquering by word or deed, or in preventing others from conquering, things which
exist and have been already produced—in each and all of these branches there appears
to be an art which may be called acquisitive.
THEAETETUS: Yes, that is the proper name.
STRANGER: Seeing, then, that all arts are either acquisitive or creative, in which class
shall we place the art of the angler?
THEAETETUS: Clearly in the acquisitive class.
STRANGER: And the acquisitive may be subdivided into two parts: there is exchange,
which is voluntary and is effected by gifts, hire, purchase; and the other part of
acquisitive, which takes by force of word or deed, may be termed conquest?
THEAETETUS: That is implied in what has been said.
STRANGER: And may not conquest be again subdivided?
THEAETETUS: How?
STRANGER: Open force may be called fighting, and secret force may have the general
name of hunting?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And there is no reason why the art of hunting should not be further
divided.
THEAETETUS: How would you make the division?
STRANGER: Into the hunting of living and of lifeless prey.
THEAETETUS: Yes, if both kinds exist.
STRANGER: Of course they exist; but the hunting after lifeless things having no special
name, except some sorts of diving, and other small matters, may be omitted; the
hunting after living things may be called animal hunting.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And animal hunting may be truly said to have two divisions, land-animal
hunting, which has many kinds and names, and water-animal hunting, or the hunting
after animals who swim?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And of swimming animals, one class lives on the wing and the other in the
water?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Fowling is the general term under which the hunting of all birds is
included.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: The hunting of animals who live in the water has the general name of
fishing.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And this sort of hunting may be further divided also into two principal
kinds?
THEAETETUS: What are they?
STRANGER: There is one kind which takes them in nets, another which takes them by a
blow.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean, and how do you distinguish them?
STRANGER: As to the first kind—all that surrounds and encloses anything to prevent
egress, may be rightly called an enclosure.
THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: For which reason twig baskets, casting-nets, nooses, creels, and the like
may all be termed ‘enclosures’?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And therefore this first kind of capture may be called by us capture with
enclosures, or something of that sort?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: The other kind, which is practised by a blow with hooks and three-pronged
spears, when summed up under one name, may be called striking, unless you,
Theaetetus, can find some better name?
THEAETETUS: Never mind the name—what you suggest will do very well.
STRANGER: There is one mode of striking, which is done at night, and by the light of a
fire, and is by the hunters themselves called firing, or spearing by firelight.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And the fishing by day is called by the general name of barbing, because
the spears, too, are barbed at the point.
THEAETETUS: Yes, that is the term.
STRANGER: Of this barb-fishing, that which strikes the fish who is below from above is
called spearing, because this is the way in which the three- pronged spears are mostly
used.
THEAETETUS: Yes, it is often called so.
STRANGER: Then now there is only one kind remaining.
THEAETETUS: What is that?
STRANGER: When a hook is used, and the fish is not struck in any chance part of his
body, as he is with the spear, but only about the head and mouth, and is then drawn out
from below upwards with reeds and rods:—What is the right name of that mode of
fishing, Theaetetus?
THEAETETUS: I suspect that we have now discovered the object of our search.
STRANGER: Then now you and I have come to an understanding not only about the
name of the angler’s art, but about the definition of the thing itself. One half of all art
was acquisitive—half of the acquisitive art was conquest or taking by force, half of this
was hunting, and half of hunting was hunting animals, half of this was hunting water
animals—of this again, the under half was fishing, half of fishing was striking; a part of
striking was fishing with a barb, and one half of this again, being the kind which strikes
with a hook and draws the fish from below upwards, is the art which we have been
seeking, and which from the nature of the operation is denoted angling or drawing up
(aspalieutike, anaspasthai).
THEAETETUS: The result has been quite satisfactorily brought out.
STRANGER: And now, following this pattern, let us endeavour to find out what a
Sophist is.
THEAETETUS: By all means.
STRANGER: The first question about the angler was, whether he was a skilled artist or
unskilled?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And shall we call our new friend unskilled, or a thorough master of his
craft?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not unskilled, for his name, as, indeed, you imply, must surely
express his nature.
STRANGER: Then he must be supposed to have some art.
THEAETETUS: What art?
STRANGER: By heaven, they are cousins! it never occurred to us.
THEAETETUS: Who are cousins?
STRANGER: The angler and the Sophist.
THEAETETUS: In what way are they related?
STRANGER: They both appear to me to be hunters.
THEAETETUS: How the Sophist? Of the other we have spoken.
STRANGER: You remember our division of hunting, into hunting after swimming
animals and land animals?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And you remember that we subdivided the swimming and left the land
animals, saying that there were many kinds of them?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Thus far, then, the Sophist and the angler, starting from the art of
acquiring, take the same road?
THEAETETUS: So it would appear.
STRANGER: Their paths diverge when they reach the art of animal hunting; the one
going to the sea-shore, and to the rivers and to the lakes, and angling for the animals
which are in them.
THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: While the other goes to land and water of another sort—rivers of wealth
and broad meadow-lands of generous youth; and he also is intending to take the animals
which are in them.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: Of hunting on land there are two principal divisions.
THEAETETUS: What are they?
STRANGER: One is the hunting of tame, and the other of wild animals.
THEAETETUS: But are tame animals ever hunted?
STRANGER: Yes, if you include man under tame animals. But if you like you may say
that there are no tame animals, or that, if there are, man is not among them; or you may
say that man is a tame animal but is not hunted—you shall decide which of these
alternatives you prefer.
THEAETETUS: I should say, Stranger, that man is a tame animal, and I admit that he is
hunted.
STRANGER: Then let us divide the hunting of tame animals into two parts.
THEAETETUS: How shall we make the division?
STRANGER: Let us define piracy, man-stealing, tyranny, the whole military art, by one
name, as hunting with violence.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: But the art of the lawyer, of the popular orator, and the art of conversation
may be called in one word the art of persuasion.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And of persuasion, there may be said to be two kinds?
THEAETETUS: What are they?
STRANGER: One is private, and the other public.
THEAETETUS: Yes; each of them forms a class.
STRANGER: And of private hunting, one sort receives hire, and the other brings gifts.
THEAETETUS: I do not understand you.
STRANGER: You seem never to have observed the manner in which lovers hunt.
THEAETETUS: To what do you refer?
STRANGER: I mean that they lavish gifts on those whom they hunt in addition to other
inducements.
THEAETETUS: Most true.
STRANGER: Let us admit this, then, to be the amatory art.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: But that sort of hireling whose conversation is pleasing and who baits his
hook only with pleasure and exacts nothing but his maintenance in return, we should
all, if I am not mistaken, describe as possessing flattery or an art of making things
pleasant.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And that sort, which professes to form acquaintances only for the sake of
virtue, and demands a reward in the shape of money, may be fairly called by another
name?
THEAETETUS: To be sure.
STRANGER: And what is the name? Will you tell me?
THEAETETUS: It is obvious enough; for I believe that we have discovered the Sophist:
which is, as I conceive, the proper name for the class described.
STRANGER: Then now, Theaetetus, his art may be traced as a branch of the
appropriative, acquisitive family—which hunts animals,—living—land—tame animals;
which hunts man,—privately—for hire,—taking money in exchange— having the
semblance of education; and this is termed Sophistry, and is a hunt after young men of
wealth and rank—such is the conclusion.
THEAETETUS: Just so.
STRANGER: Let us take another branch of his genealogy; for he is a professor of a great
and many-sided art; and if we look back at what has preceded we see that he presents
another aspect, besides that of which we are speaking.
THEAETETUS: In what respect?
STRANGER: There were two sorts of acquisitive art; the one concerned with hunting,
the other with exchange.
THEAETETUS: There were.
STRANGER: And of the art of exchange there are two divisions, the one of giving, and
the other of selling.
THEAETETUS: Let us assume that.
STRANGER: Next, we will suppose the art of selling to be divided into two parts.
THEAETETUS: How?
STRANGER: There is one part which is distinguished as the sale of a man’s own
productions; another, which is the exchange of the works of others.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And is not that part of exchange which takes place in the city, being about
half of the whole, termed retailing?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And that which exchanges the goods of one city for those of another by
selling and buying is the exchange of the merchant?
THEAETETUS: To be sure.
STRANGER: And you are aware that this exchange of the merchant is of two kinds: it is
partly concerned with food for the use of the body, and partly with the food of the soul
which is bartered and received in exchange for money.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: You want to know what is the meaning of food for the soul; the other kind
you surely understand.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Take music in general and painting and marionette playing and many
other things, which are purchased in one city, and carried away and sold in another—
wares of the soul which are hawked about either for the sake of instruction or
amusement;—may not he who takes them about and sells them be quite as truly called a
merchant as he who sells meats and drinks?
THEAETETUS: To be sure he may.
STRANGER: And would you not call by the same name him who buys up knowledge and
goes about from city to city exchanging his wares for money?
THEAETETUS: Certainly I should.
STRANGER: Of this merchandise of the soul, may not one part be fairly termed the art
of display? And there is another part which is certainly not less ridiculous, but being a
trade in learning must be called by some name germane to the matter?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: The latter should have two names,—one descriptive of the sale of the
knowledge of virtue, and the other of the sale of other kinds of knowledge.
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: The name of art-seller corresponds well enough to the latter; but you must
try and tell me the name of the other.
THEAETETUS: He must be the Sophist, whom we are seeking; no other name can
possibly be right.
STRANGER: No other; and so this trader in virtue again turns out to be our friend the
Sophist, whose art may now be traced from the art of acquisition through exchange,
trade, merchandise, to a merchandise of the soul which is concerned with speech and
the knowledge of virtue.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: And there may be a third reappearance of him;—for he may have settled
down in a city, and may fabricate as well as buy these same wares, intending to live by
selling them, and he would still be called a Sophist?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Then that part of the acquisitive art which exchanges, and of exchange
which either sells a man’s own productions or retails those of others, as the case may be,
and in either way sells the knowledge of virtue, you would again term Sophistry?
THEAETETUS: I must, if I am to keep pace with the argument.
STRANGER: Let us consider once more whether there may not be yet another aspect of
sophistry.
THEAETETUS: What is it?
STRANGER: In the acquisitive there was a subdivision of the combative or fighting art.
THEAETETUS: There was.
STRANGER: Perhaps we had better divide it.
THEAETETUS: What shall be the divisions?
STRANGER: There shall be one division of the competitive, and another of the
pugnacious.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: That part of the pugnacious which is a contest of bodily strength may be
properly called by some such name as violent.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And when the war is one of words, it may be termed controversy?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And controversy may be of two kinds.
THEAETETUS: What are they?
STRANGER: When long speeches are answered by long speeches, and there is public
discussion about the just and unjust, that is forensic controversy.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And there is a private sort of controversy, which is cut up into questions
and answers, and this is commonly called disputation?
THEAETETUS: Yes, that is the name.
STRANGER: And of disputation, that sort which is only a discussion about contracts,
and is carried on at random, and without rules of art, is recognized by the reasoning
faculty to be a distinct class, but has hitherto had no distinctive name, and does not
deserve to receive one from us.
THEAETETUS: No; for the different sorts of it are too minute and heterogeneous.
STRANGER: But that which proceeds by rules of art to dispute about justice and
injustice in their own nature, and about things in general, we have been accustomed to
call argumentation (Eristic)?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And of argumentation, one sort wastes money, and the other makes
money.
THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: Suppose we try and give to each of these two classes a name.
THEAETETUS: Let us do so.
STRANGER: I should say that the habit which leads a man to neglect his own affairs for
the pleasure of conversation, of which the style is far from being agreeable to the
majority of his hearers, may be fairly termed loquacity: such is my opinion.
THEAETETUS: That is the common name for it.
STRANGER: But now who the other is, who makes money out of private disputation, it
is your turn to say.
THEAETETUS: There is only one true answer: he is the wonderful Sophist, of whom we
are in pursuit, and who reappears again for the fourth time.
STRANGER: Yes, and with a fresh pedigree, for he is the money-making species of the
Eristic, disputatious, controversial, pugnacious, combative, acquisitive family, as the
argument has already proven.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: How true was the observation that he was a many-sided animal, and not to
be caught with one hand, as they say!
THEAETETUS: Then you must catch him with two.
STRANGER: Yes, we must, if we can. And therefore let us try another track in our
pursuit of him: You are aware that there are certain menial occupations which have
names among servants?
THEAETETUS: Yes, there are many such; which of them do you mean?
STRANGER: I mean such as sifting, straining, winnowing, threshing.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And besides these there are a great many more, such as carding, spinning,
adjusting the warp and the woof; and thousands of similar expressions are used in the
arts.
THEAETETUS: Of what are they to be patterns, and what are we going to do with them
all?
STRANGER: I think that in all of these there is implied a notion of division.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Then if, as I was saying, there is one art which includes all of them, ought
not that art to have one name?
THEAETETUS: And what is the name of the art?
STRANGER: The art of discerning or discriminating.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: Think whether you cannot divide this.
THEAETETUS: I should have to think a long while.
STRANGER: In all the previously named processes either like has been separated from
like or the better from the worse.
THEAETETUS: I see now what you mean.
STRANGER: There is no name for the first kind of separation; of the second, which
throws away the worse and preserves the better, I do know a name.
THEAETETUS: What is it?
STRANGER: Every discernment or discrimination of that kind, as I have observed, is
called a purification.
THEAETETUS: Yes, that is the usual expression.
STRANGER: And any one may see that purification is of two kinds.
THEAETETUS: Perhaps so, if he were allowed time to think; but I do not see at this
moment.
STRANGER: There are many purifications of bodies which may with propriety be
comprehended under a single name.
THEAETETUS: What are they, and what is their name?
STRANGER: There is the purification of living bodies in their inward and in their
outward parts, of which the former is duly effected by medicine and gymnastic, the
latter by the not very dignified art of the bath-man; and there is the purification of
inanimate substances—to this the arts of fulling and of furbishing in general attend in a
number of minute particulars, having a variety of names which are thought ridiculous.
THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: There can be no doubt that they are thought ridiculous, Theaetetus; but
then the dialectical art never considers whether the benefit to be derived from the purge
is greater or less than that to be derived from the sponge, and has not more interest in
the one than in the other; her endeavour is to know what is and is not kindred in all arts,
with a view to the acquisition of intelligence; and having this in view, she honours them
all alike, and when she makes comparisons, she counts one of them not a whit more
ridiculous than another; nor does she esteem him who adduces as his example of
hunting, the general’s art, at all more decorous than another who cites that of the
vermin-destroyer, but only as the greater pretender of the two. And as to your question
concerning the name which was to comprehend all these arts of purification, whether of
animate or inanimate bodies, the art of dialectic is in no wise particular about fine
words, if she may be only allowed to have a general name for all other purifications,
binding them up together and separating them off from the purification of the soul or
intellect. For this is the purification at which she wants to arrive, and this we should
understand to be her aim.
THEAETETUS: Yes, I understand; and I agree that there are two sorts of purification,
and that one of them is concerned with the soul, and that there is another which is
concerned with the body.
STRANGER: Excellent; and now listen to what I am going to say, and try to divide
further the first of the two.
THEAETETUS: Whatever line of division you suggest, I will endeavour to assist you.
STRANGER: Do we admit that virtue is distinct from vice in the soul?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And purification was to leave the good and to cast out whatever is bad?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Then any taking away of evil from the soul may be properly called
purification?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And in the soul there are two kinds of evil.
THEAETETUS: What are they?
STRANGER: The one may be compared to disease in the body, the other to deformity.
THEAETETUS: I do not understand.
STRANGER: Perhaps you have never reflected that disease and discord are the same.
THEAETETUS: To this, again, I know not what I should reply.
STRANGER: Do you not conceive discord to be a dissolution of kindred elements,
originating in some disagreement?
THEAETETUS: Just that.
STRANGER: And is deformity anything but the want of measure, which is always
unsightly?
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
STRANGER: And do we not see that opinion is opposed to desire, pleasure to anger,
reason to pain, and that all these elements are opposed to one another in the souls of
bad men?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And yet they must all be akin?
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: Then we shall be right in calling vice a discord and disease of the soul?
THEAETETUS: Most true.
STRANGER: And when things having motion, and aiming at an appointed mark,
continually miss their aim and glance aside, shall we say that this is the effect of
symmetry among them, or of the want of symmetry?
THEAETETUS: Clearly of the want of symmetry.
STRANGER: But surely we know that no soul is voluntarily ignorant of anything?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
STRANGER: And what is ignorance but the aberration of a mind which is bent on truth,
and in which the process of understanding is perverted?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Then we are to regard an unintelligent soul as deformed and devoid of
symmetry?
THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: Then there are these two kinds of evil in the soul—the one which is
generally called vice, and is obviously a disease of the soul...
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And there is the other, which they call ignorance, and which, because
existing only in the soul, they will not allow to be vice.
THEAETETUS: I certainly admit what I at first disputed—that there are two kinds of
vice in the soul, and that we ought to consider cowardice, intemperance, and injustice to
be alike forms of disease in the soul, and ignorance, of which there are all sorts of
varieties, to be deformity.
STRANGER: And in the case of the body are there not two arts which have to do with
the two bodily states?
THEAETETUS: What are they?
STRANGER: There is gymnastic, which has to do with deformity, and medicine, which
has to do with disease.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And where there is insolence and injustice and cowardice, is not
chastisement the art which is most required?
THEAETETUS: That certainly appears to be the opinion of mankind.
STRANGER: Again, of the various kinds of ignorance, may not instruction be rightly
said to be the remedy?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And of the art of instruction, shall we say that there is one or many kinds?
At any rate there are two principal ones. Think.
THEAETETUS: I will.
STRANGER: I believe that I can see how we shall soonest arrive at the answer to this
question.
THEAETETUS: How?
STRANGER: If we can discover a line which divides ignorance into two halves. For a
division of ignorance into two parts will certainly imply that the art of instruction is also
twofold, answering to the two divisions of ignorance.
THEAETETUS: Well, and do you see what you are looking for?
STRANGER: I do seem to myself to see one very large and bad sort of ignorance which is
quite separate, and may be weighed in the scale against all other sorts of ignorance put
together.
THEAETETUS: What is it?
STRANGER: When a person supposes that he knows, and does not know; this appears
to be the great source of all the errors of the intellect.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And this, if I am not mistaken, is the kind of ignorance which specially
earns the title of stupidity.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: What name, then, shall be given to the sort of instruction which gets rid of
this?
THEAETETUS: The instruction which you mean, Stranger, is, I should imagine, not the
teaching of handicraft arts, but what, thanks to us, has been termed education in this
part the world.
STRANGER: Yes, Theaetetus, and by nearly all Hellenes. But we have still to consider
whether education admits of any further division.
THEAETETUS: We have.
STRANGER: I think that there is a point at which such a division is possible.
THEAETETUS: Where?
STRANGER: Of education, one method appears to be rougher, and another smoother.
THEAETETUS: How are we to distinguish the two?
STRANGER: There is the time-honoured mode which our fathers commonly practised
towards their sons, and which is still adopted by many—either of roughly reproving their
errors, or of gently advising them; which varieties may be correctly included under the
general term of admonition.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: But whereas some appear to have arrived at the conclusion that all
ignorance is involuntary, and that no one who thinks himself wise is willing to learn any
of those things in which he is conscious of his own cleverness, and that the admonitory
sort of instruction gives much trouble and does little good—
THEAETETUS: There they are quite right.
STRANGER: Accordingly, they set to work to eradicate the spirit of conceit in another
way.
THEAETETUS: In what way?
STRANGER: They cross-examine a man’s words, when he thinks that he is saying
something and is really saying nothing, and easily convict him of inconsistencies in his
opinions; these they then collect by the dialectical process, and placing them side by
side, show that they contradict one another about the same things, in relation to the
same things, and in the same respect. He, seeing this, is angry with himself, and grows
gentle towards others, and thus is entirely delivered from great prejudices and harsh
notions, in a way which is most amusing to the hearer, and produces the most lasting
good effect on the person who is the subject of the operation. For as the physician
considers that the body will receive no benefit from taking food until the internal
obstacles have been removed, so the purifier of the soul is conscious that his patient will
receive no benefit from the application of knowledge until he is refuted, and from
refutation learns modesty; he must be purged of his prejudices first and made to think
that he knows only what he knows, and no more.
THEAETETUS: That is certainly the best and wisest state of mind.
STRANGER: For all these reasons, Theaetetus, we must admit that refutation is the
greatest and chiefest of purifications, and he who has not been refuted, though he be the
Great King himself, is in an awful state of impurity; he is uninstructed and deformed in
those things in which he who would be truly blessed ought to be fairest and purest.
THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: And who are the ministers of this art? I am afraid to say the Sophists.
THEAETETUS: Why?
STRANGER: Lest we should assign to them too high a prerogative.
THEAETETUS: Yet the Sophist has a certain likeness to our minister of purification.
STRANGER: Yes, the same sort of likeness which a wolf, who is the fiercest of animals,
has to a dog, who is the gentlest. But he who would not be found tripping, ought to be
very careful in this matter of comparisons, for they are most slippery things.
Nevertheless, let us assume that the Sophists are the men. I say this provisionally, for I
think that the line which divides them will be marked enough if proper care is taken.
THEAETETUS: Likely enough.
STRANGER: Let us grant, then, that from the discerning art comes purification, and
from purification let there be separated off a part which is concerned with the soul; of
this mental purification instruction is a portion, and of instruction education, and of
education, that refutation of vain conceit which has been discovered in the present
argument; and let this be called by you and me the nobly-descended art of Sophistry.
THEAETETUS: Very well; and yet, considering the number of forms in which he has
presented himself, I begin to doubt how I can with any truth or confidence describe the
real nature of the Sophist.
STRANGER: You naturally feel perplexed; and yet I think that he must be still more
perplexed in his attempt to escape us, for as the proverb says, when every way is
blocked, there is no escape; now, then, is the time of all others to set upon him.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: First let us wait a moment and recover breath, and while we are resting, we
may reckon up in how many forms he has appeared. In the first place, he was discovered
to be a paid hunter after wealth and youth.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: In the second place, he was a merchant in the goods of the soul.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: In the third place, he has turned out to be a retailer of the same sort of
wares.
THEAETETUS: Yes; and in the fourth place, he himself manufactured the learned wares
which he sold.
STRANGER: Quite right; I will try and remember the fifth myself. He belonged to the
fighting class, and was further distinguished as a hero of debate, who professed the
eristic art.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: The sixth point was doubtful, and yet we at last agreed that he was a
purger of souls, who cleared away notions obstructive to knowledge.
THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: Do you not see that when the professor of any art has one name and many
kinds of knowledge, there must be something wrong? The multiplicity of names which is
applied to him shows that the common principle to which all these branches of
knowledge are tending, is not understood.
THEAETETUS: I should imagine this to be the case.
STRANGER: At any rate we will understand him, and no indolence shall prevent us. Let
us begin again, then, and re-examine some of our statements concerning the Sophist;
there was one thing which appeared to me especially characteristic of him.
THEAETETUS: To what are you referring?
STRANGER: We were saying of him, if I am not mistaken, that he was a disputer?
THEAETETUS: We were.
STRANGER: And does he not also teach others the art of disputation?
THEAETETUS: Certainly he does.
STRANGER: And about what does he profess that he teaches men to dispute? To begin
at the beginning—Does he make them able to dispute about divine things, which are
invisible to men in general?
THEAETETUS: At any rate, he is said to do so.
STRANGER: And what do you say of the visible things in heaven and earth, and the
like?
THEAETETUS: Certainly he disputes, and teaches to dispute about them.
STRANGER: Then, again, in private conversation, when any universal assertion is made
about generation and essence, we know that such persons are tremendous argufiers, and
are able to impart their own skill to others.
THEAETETUS: Undoubtedly.
STRANGER: And do they not profess to make men able to dispute about law and about
politics in general?
THEAETETUS: Why, no one would have anything to say to them, if they did not make
these professions.
STRANGER: In all and every art, what the craftsman ought to say in answer to any
question is written down in a popular form, and he who likes may learn.
THEAETETUS: I suppose that you are referring to the precepts of Protagoras about
wrestling and the other arts?
STRANGER: Yes, my friend, and about a good many other things. In a word, is not the
art of disputation a power of disputing about all things?
THEAETETUS: Certainly; there does not seem to be much which is left out.
STRANGER: But oh! my dear youth, do you suppose this possible? for perhaps your
young eyes may see things which to our duller sight do not appear.
THEAETETUS: To what are you alluding? I do not think that I understand your present
question.
STRANGER: I ask whether anybody can understand all things.
THEAETETUS: Happy would mankind be if such a thing were possible!
SOCRATES: But how can any one who is ignorant dispute in a rational manner against
him who knows?
THEAETETUS: He cannot.
STRANGER: Then why has the sophistical art such a mysterious power?
THEAETETUS: To what do you refer?
STRANGER: How do the Sophists make young men believe in their supreme and
universal wisdom? For if they neither disputed nor were thought to dispute rightly, or
being thought to do so were deemed no wiser for their controversial skill, then, to quote
your own observation, no one would give them money or be willing to learn their art.
THEAETETUS: They certainly would not.
STRANGER: But they are willing.
THEAETETUS: Yes, they are.
STRANGER: Yes, and the reason, as I should imagine, is that they are supposed to have
knowledge of those things about which they dispute?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And they dispute about all things?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And therefore, to their disciples, they appear to be all-wise?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: But they are not; for that was shown to be impossible.
THEAETETUS: Impossible, of course.
STRANGER: Then the Sophist has been shown to have a sort of conjectural or apparent
knowledge only of all things, which is not the truth?
THEAETETUS: Exactly; no better description of him could be given.
STRANGER: Let us now take an illustration, which will still more clearly explain his
nature.
THEAETETUS: What is it?
STRANGER: I will tell you, and you shall answer me, giving your very closest attention.
Suppose that a person were to profess, not that he could speak or dispute, but that he
knew how to make and do all things, by a single art.
THEAETETUS: All things?
STRANGER: I see that you do not understand the first word that I utter, for you do not
understand the meaning of ‘all.’
THEAETETUS: No, I do not.
STRANGER: Under all things, I include you and me, and also animals and trees.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: Suppose a person to say that he will make you and me, and all creatures.
THEAETETUS: What would he mean by ‘making’? He cannot be a husbandman;— for
you said that he is a maker of animals.
STRANGER: Yes; and I say that he is also the maker of the sea, and the earth, and the
heavens, and the gods, and of all other things; and, further, that he can make them in no
time, and sell them for a few pence.
THEAETETUS: That must be a jest.
STRANGER: And when a man says that he knows all things, and can teach them to
another at a small cost, and in a short time, is not that a jest?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And is there any more artistic or graceful form of jest than imitation?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not; and imitation is a very comprehensive term, which
includes under one class the most diverse sorts of things.
STRANGER: We know, of course, that he who professes by one art to make all things is
really a painter, and by the painter’s art makes resemblances of real things which have
the same name with them; and he can deceive the less intelligent sort of young children,
to whom he shows his pictures at a distance, into the belief that he has the absolute
power of making whatever he likes.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And may there not be supposed to be an imitative art of reasoning? Is it
not possible to enchant the hearts of young men by words poured through their ears,
when they are still at a distance from the truth of facts, by exhibiting to them fictitious
arguments, and making them think that they are true, and that the speaker is the wisest
of men in all things?
THEAETETUS: Yes; why should there not be another such art?
STRANGER: But as time goes on, and their hearers advance in years, and come into
closer contact with realities, and have learnt by sad experience to see and feel the truth
of things, are not the greater part of them compelled to change many opinions which
they formerly entertained, so that the great appears small to them, and the easy difficult,
and all their dreamy speculations are overturned by the facts of life?
THEAETETUS: That is my view, as far as I can judge, although, at my age, I may be one
of those who see things at a distance only.
STRANGER: And the wish of all of us, who are your friends, is and always will be to
bring you as near to the truth as we can without the sad reality. And now I should like
you to tell me, whether the Sophist is not visibly a magician and imitator of true being;
or are we still disposed to think that he may have a true knowledge of the various
matters about which he disputes?
THEAETETUS: But how can he, Stranger? Is there any doubt, after what has been said,
that he is to be located in one of the divisions of children’s play?
STRANGER: Then we must place him in the class of magicians and mimics.
THEAETETUS: Certainly we must.
STRANGER: And now our business is not to let the animal out, for we have got him in a
sort of dialectical net, and there is one thing which he decidedly will not escape.
THEAETETUS: What is that?
STRANGER: The inference that he is a juggler.
THEAETETUS: Precisely my own opinion of him.
STRANGER: Then, clearly, we ought as soon as possible to divide the image- making
art, and go down into the net, and, if the Sophist does not run away from us, to seize him
according to orders and deliver him over to reason, who is the lord of the hunt, and
proclaim the capture of him; and if he creeps into the recesses of the imitative art, and
secretes himself in one of them, to divide again and follow him up until in some subsection
of imitation he is caught. For our method of tackling each and all is one which
neither he nor any other creature will ever escape in triumph.
THEAETETUS: Well said; and let us do as you propose.
STRANGER: Well, then, pursuing the same analytic method as before, I think that I can
discern two divisions of the imitative art, but I am not as yet able to see in which of them
the desired form is to be found.
THEAETETUS: Will you tell me first what are the two divisions of which you are
speaking?
STRANGER: One is the art of likeness-making;—generally a likeness of anything is
made by producing a copy which is executed according to the proportions of the
original, similar in length and breadth and depth, each thing receiving also its
appropriate colour.
THEAETETUS: Is not this always the aim of imitation?
STRANGER: Not always; in works either of sculpture or of painting, which are of any
magnitude, there is a certain degree of deception; for artists were to give the true
proportions of their fair works, the upper part, which is farther off, would appear to be
out of proportion in comparison with the lower, which is nearer; and so they give up the
truth in their images and make only the proportions which appear to be beautiful,
disregarding the real ones.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: And that which being other is also like, may we not fairly call a likeness or
image?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And may we not, as I did just now, call that part of the imitative art which
is concerned with making such images the art of likeness-making?
THEAETETUS: Let that be the name.
STRANGER: And what shall we call those resemblances of the beautiful, which appear
such owing to the unfavourable position of the spectator, whereas if a person had the
power of getting a correct view of works of such magnitude, they would appear not even
like that to which they profess to be like? May we not call these ‘appearances,’ since they
appear only and are not really like?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: There is a great deal of this kind of thing in painting, and in all imitation.
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: And may we not fairly call the sort of art, which produces an appearance
and not an image, phantastic art?
THEAETETUS: Most fairly.
STRANGER: These then are the two kinds of image-making—the art of making
likenesses, and phantastic or the art of making appearances?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: I was doubtful before in which of them I should place the Sophist, nor am I
even now able to see clearly; verily he is a wonderful and inscrutable creature. And now
in the cleverest manner he has got into an impossible place.
THEAETETUS: Yes, he has.
STRANGER: Do you speak advisedly, or are you carried away at the moment by the
habit of assenting into giving a hasty answer?
THEAETETUS: May I ask to what you are referring?
STRANGER: My dear friend, we are engaged in a very difficult speculation— there can
be no doubt of that; for how a thing can appear and seem, and not be, or how a man can
say a thing which is not true, has always been and still remains a very perplexing
question. Can any one say or think that falsehood really exists, and avoid being caught in
a contradiction? Indeed, Theaetetus, the task is a difficult one.
THEAETETUS: Why?
STRANGER: He who says that falsehood exists has the audacity to assert the being of
not-being; for this is implied in the possibility of falsehood. But, my boy, in the days
when I was a boy, the great Parmenides protested against this doctrine, and to the end
of his life he continued to inculcate the same lesson—always repeating both in verse and
out of verse:
‘Keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not- being is.’
Such is his testimony, which is confirmed by the very expression when sifted a little.
Would you object to begin with the consideration of the words themselves?
THEAETETUS: Never mind about me; I am only desirous that you should carry on the
argument in the best way, and that you should take me with you.
STRANGER: Very good; and now say, do we venture to utter the forbidden word ‘notbeing’?

THEAETETUS: Certainly we do.
STRANGER: Let us be serious then, and consider the question neither in strife nor play:
suppose that one of the hearers of Parmenides was asked, ‘To what is the term “notbeing”
to be applied?’—do you know what sort of object he would single out in reply, and
what answer he would make to the enquirer?
THEAETETUS: That is a difficult question, and one not to be answered at all by a
person like myself.
STRANGER: There is at any rate no difficulty in seeing that the predicate ‘not-being’ is
not applicable to any being.
THEAETETUS: None, certainly.
STRANGER: And if not to being, then not to something.
THEAETETUS: Of course not.
STRANGER: It is also plain, that in speaking of something we speak of being, for to
speak of an abstract something naked and isolated from all being is impossible.
THEAETETUS: Impossible.
STRANGER: You mean by assenting to imply that he who says something must say
some one thing?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Some in the singular (ti) you would say is the sign of one, some in the dual
(tine) of two, some in the plural (tines) of many?
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
STRANGER: Then he who says ‘not something’ must say absolutely nothing.
THEAETETUS: Most assuredly.
STRANGER: And as we cannot admit that a man speaks and says nothing, he who says
‘not-being’ does not speak at all.
THEAETETUS: The difficulty of the argument can no further go.
STRANGER: Not yet, my friend, is the time for such a word; for there still remains of all
perplexities the first and greatest, touching the very foundation of the matter.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean? Do not be afraid to speak.
STRANGER: To that which is, may be attributed some other thing which is?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: But can anything which is, be attributed to that which is not?
THEAETETUS: Impossible.
STRANGER: And all number is to be reckoned among things which are?
THEAETETUS: Yes, surely number, if anything, has a real existence.
STRANGER: Then we must not attempt to attribute to not-being number either in the
singular or plural?
THEAETETUS: The argument implies that we should be wrong in doing so.
STRANGER: But how can a man either express in words or even conceive in thought
things which are not or a thing which is not without number?
THEAETETUS: How indeed?
STRANGER: When we speak of things which are not, are we not attributing plurality to
not-being?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: But, on the other hand, when we say ‘what is not,’ do we not attribute
unity?
THEAETETUS: Manifestly.
STRANGER: Nevertheless, we maintain that you may not and ought not to attribute
being to not-being?
THEAETETUS: Most true.
STRANGER: Do you see, then, that not-being in itself can neither be spoken, uttered, or
thought, but that it is unthinkable, unutterable, unspeakable, indescribable?
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: But, if so, I was wrong in telling you just now that the difficulty which was
coming is the greatest of all.
THEAETETUS: What! is there a greater still behind?
STRANGER: Well, I am surprised, after what has been said already, that you do not see
the difficulty in which he who would refute the notion of not- being is involved. For he is
compelled to contradict himself as soon as he makes the attempt.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean? Speak more clearly.
STRANGER: Do not expect clearness from me. For I, who maintain that not- being has
no part either in the one or many, just now spoke and am still speaking of not-being as
one; for I say ‘not-being.’ Do you understand?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And a little while ago I said that not-being is unutterable, unspeakable,
indescribable: do you follow?
THEAETETUS: I do after a fashion.
STRANGER: When I introduced the word ‘is,’ did I not contradict what I said before?
THEAETETUS: Clearly.
STRANGER: And in using the singular verb, did I not speak of not-being as one?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And when I spoke of not-being as indescribable and unspeakable and
unutterable, in using each of these words in the singular, did I not refer to not-being as
one?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And yet we say that, strictly speaking, it should not be defined as one or
many, and should not even be called ‘it,’ for the use of the word ‘it’ would imply a form
of unity.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: How, then, can any one put any faith in me? For now, as always, I am
unequal to the refutation of not-being. And therefore, as I was saying, do not look to me
for the right way of speaking about not-being; but come, let us try the experiment with
you.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: Make a noble effort, as becomes youth, and endeavour with all your might
to speak of not-being in a right manner, without introducing into it either existence or
unity or plurality.
THEAETETUS: It would be a strange boldness in me which would attempt the task
when I see you thus discomfited.
STRANGER: Say no more of ourselves; but until we find some one or other who can
speak of not-being without number, we must acknowledge that the Sophist is a clever
rogue who will not be got out of his hole.
THEAETETUS: Most true.
STRANGER: And if we say to him that he professes an art of making appearances, he
will grapple with us and retort our argument upon ourselves; and when we call him an
image-maker he will say, ‘Pray what do you mean at all by an image?’—and I should like
to know, Theaetetus, how we can possibly answer the younker’s question?
THEAETETUS: We shall doubtless tell him of the images which are reflected in water or
in mirrors; also of sculptures, pictures, and other duplicates.
STRANGER: I see, Theaetetus, that you have never made the acquaintance of the
Sophist.
THEAETETUS: Why do you think so?
STRANGER: He will make believe to have his eyes shut, or to have none.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: When you tell him of something existing in a mirror, or in sculpture, and
address him as though he had eyes, he will laugh you to scorn, and will pretend that he
knows nothing of mirrors and streams, or of sight at all; he will say that he is asking
about an idea.
THEAETETUS: What can he mean?
STRANGER: The common notion pervading all these objects, which you speak of as
many, and yet call by the single name of image, as though it were the unity under which
they were all included. How will you maintain your ground against him?
THEAETETUS: How, Stranger, can I describe an image except as something fashioned
in the likeness of the true?
STRANGER: And do you mean this something to be some other true thing, or what do
you mean?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not another true thing, but only a resemblance.
STRANGER: And you mean by true that which really is?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And the not true is that which is the opposite of the true?
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
STRANGER: A resemblance, then, is not really real, if, as you say, not true?
THEAETETUS: Nay, but it is in a certain sense.
STRANGER: You mean to say, not in a true sense?
THEAETETUS: Yes; it is in reality only an image.
STRANGER: Then what we call an image is in reality really unreal.
THEAETETUS: In what a strange complication of being and not-being we are involved!
STRANGER: Strange! I should think so. See how, by his reciprocation of opposites, the
many-headed Sophist has compelled us, quite against our will, to admit the existence of
not-being.
THEAETETUS: Yes, indeed, I see.
STRANGER: The difficulty is how to define his art without falling into a contradiction.
THEAETETUS: How do you mean? And where does the danger lie?
STRANGER: When we say that he deceives us with an illusion, and that his art is
illusory, do we mean that our soul is led by his art to think falsely, or what do we mean?
THEAETETUS: There is nothing else to be said.
STRANGER: Again, false opinion is that form of opinion which thinks the opposite of
the truth:—You would assent?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: You mean to say that false opinion thinks what is not?
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: Does false opinion think that things which are not are not, or that in a
certain sense they are?
THEAETETUS: Things that are not must be imagined to exist in a certain sense, if any
degree of falsehood is to be possible.
STRANGER: And does not false opinion also think that things which most certainly
exist do not exist at all?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And here, again, is falsehood?
THEAETETUS: Falsehood—yes.
STRANGER: And in like manner, a false proposition will be deemed to be one which
asserts the non-existence of things which are, and the existence of things which are not.
THEAETETUS: There is no other way in which a false proposition can arise.
STRANGER: There is not; but the Sophist will deny these statements. And indeed how
can any rational man assent to them, when the very expressions which we have just used
were before acknowledged by us to be unutterable, unspeakable, indescribable,
unthinkable? Do you see his point, Theaetetus?
THEAETETUS: Of course he will say that we are contradicting ourselves when we
hazard the assertion, that falsehood exists in opinion and in words; for in maintaining
this, we are compelled over and over again to assert being of not-being, which we
admitted just now to be an utter impossibility.
STRANGER: How well you remember! And now it is high time to hold a consultation as
to what we ought to do about the Sophist; for if we persist in looking for him in the class
of false workers and magicians, you see that the handles for objection and the difficulties
which will arise are very numerous and obvious.
THEAETETUS: They are indeed.
STRANGER: We have gone through but a very small portion of them, and they are really
infinite.
THEAETETUS: If that is the case, we cannot possibly catch the Sophist.
STRANGER: Shall we then be so faint-hearted as to give him up?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not, I should say, if we can get the slightest hold upon him.
STRANGER: Will you then forgive me, and, as your words imply, not be altogether
displeased if I flinch a little from the grasp of such a sturdy argument?
THEAETETUS: To be sure I will.
STRANGER: I have a yet more urgent request to make.
THEAETETUS: Which is—?
STRANGER: That you will promise not to regard me as a parricide.
THEAETETUS: And why?
STRANGER: Because, in self-defence, I must test the philosophy of my father
Parmenides, and try to prove by main force that in a certain sense not-being is, and that
being, on the other hand, is not.
THEAETETUS: Some attempt of the kind is clearly needed.
STRANGER: Yes, a blind man, as they say, might see that, and, unless these questions
are decided in one way or another, no one when he speaks of false words, or false
opinion, or idols, or images, or imitations, or appearances, or about the arts which are
concerned with them; can avoid falling into ridiculous contradictions.
THEAETETUS: Most true.
STRANGER: And therefore I must venture to lay hands on my father’s argument; for if I
am to be over-scrupulous, I shall have to give the matter up.
THEAETETUS: Nothing in the world should ever induce us to do so.
STRANGER: I have a third little request which I wish to make.
THEAETETUS: What is it?
STRANGER: You heard me say what I have always felt and still feel—that I have no
heart for this argument?
THEAETETUS: I did.
STRANGER: I tremble at the thought of what I have said, and expect that you will deem
me mad, when you hear of my sudden changes and shiftings; let me therefore observe,
that I am examining the question entirely out of regard for you.
THEAETETUS: There is no reason for you to fear that I shall impute any impropriety to
you, if you attempt this refutation and proof; take heart, therefore, and proceed.
STRANGER: And where shall I begin the perilous enterprise? I think that the road
which I must take is—
THEAETETUS: Which?—Let me hear.
STRANGER: I think that we had better, first of all, consider the points which at present
are regarded as self-evident, lest we may have fallen into some confusion, and be too
ready to assent to one another, fancying that we are quite clear about them.
THEAETETUS: Say more distinctly what you mean.
STRANGER: I think that Parmenides, and all ever yet undertook to determine the
number and nature of existences, talked to us in rather a light and easy strain.
THEAETETUS: How?
STRANGER: As if we had been children, to whom they repeated each his own mythus or
story;—one said that there were three principles, and that at one time there was war
between certain of them; and then again there was peace, and they were married and
begat children, and brought them up; and another spoke of two principles,—a moist and
a dry, or a hot and a cold, and made them marry and cohabit. The Eleatics, however, in
our part of the world, say that all things are many in name, but in nature one; this is
their mythus, which goes back to Xenophanes, and is even older. Then there are Ionian,
and in more recent times Sicilian muses, who have arrived at the conclusion that to
unite the two principles is safer, and to say that being is one and many, and that these
are held together by enmity and friendship, ever parting, ever meeting, as the severer
Muses assert, while the gentler ones do not insist on the perpetual strife and peace, but
admit a relaxation and alternation of them; peace and unity sometimes prevailing under
the sway of Aphrodite, and then again plurality and war, by reason of a principle of
strife. Whether any of them spoke the truth in all this is hard to determine; besides,
antiquity and famous men should have reverence, and not be liable to accusations so
serious. Yet one thing may be said of them without offence—
THEAETETUS: What thing?
STRANGER: That they went on their several ways disdaining to notice people like
ourselves; they did not care whether they took us with them, or left us behind them.
THEAETETUS: How do you mean?
STRANGER: I mean to say, that when they talk of one, two, or more elements, which are
or have become or are becoming, or again of heat mingling with cold, assuming in some
other part of their works separations and mixtures,—tell me, Theaetetus, do you
understand what they mean by these expressions? When I was a younger man, I used to
fancy that I understood quite well what was meant by the term ‘not-being,’ which is our
present subject of dispute; and now you see in what a fix we are about it.
THEAETETUS: I see.
STRANGER: And very likely we have been getting into the same perplexity about
‘being,’ and yet may fancy that when anybody utters the word, we understand him quite
easily, although we do not know about not-being. But we may be; equally ignorant of
both.
THEAETETUS: I dare say.
STRANGER: And the same may be said of all the terms just mentioned.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: The consideration of most of them may be deferred; but we had better now
discuss the chief captain and leader of them.
THEAETETUS: Of what are you speaking? You clearly think that we must first
investigate what people mean by the word ‘being.’
STRANGER: You follow close at my heels, Theaetetus. For the right method, I conceive,
will be to call into our presence the dualistic philosophers and to interrogate them.
‘Come,’ we will say, ‘Ye, who affirm that hot and cold or any other two principles are the
universe, what is this term which you apply to both of them, and what do you mean
when you say that both and each of them “are”? How are we to understand the word
“are”? Upon your view, are we to suppose that there is a third principle over and above
the other two,—three in all, and not two? For clearly you cannot say that one of the two
principles is being, and yet attribute being equally to both of them; for, if you did,
whichever of the two is identified with being, will comprehend the other; and so they
will be one and not two.’
THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: But perhaps you mean to give the name of ‘being’ to both of them
together?
THEAETETUS: Quite likely.
STRANGER: ‘Then, friends,’ we shall reply to them, ‘the answer is plainly that the two
will still be resolved into one.’
THEAETETUS: Most true.
STRANGER: ‘Since, then, we are in a difficulty, please to tell us what you mean, when
you speak of being; for there can be no doubt that you always from the first understood
your own meaning, whereas we once thought that we understood you, but now we are in
a great strait. Please to begin by explaining this matter to us, and let us no longer fancy
that we understand you, when we entirely misunderstand you.’ There will be no
impropriety in our demanding an answer to this question, either of the dualists or of the
pluralists?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
STRANGER: And what about the assertors of the oneness of the all—must we not
endeavour to ascertain from them what they mean by ‘being’?
THEAETETUS: By all means.
STRANGER: Then let them answer this question: One, you say, alone is? ‘Yes,’ they will
reply.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And there is something which you call ‘being’?
THEAETETUS: ‘Yes.’
STRANGER: And is being the same as one, and do you apply two names to the same
thing?
THEAETETUS: What will be their answer, Stranger?
STRANGER: It is clear, Theaetetus, that he who asserts the unity of being will find a
difficulty in answering this or any other question.
THEAETETUS: Why so?
STRANGER: To admit of two names, and to affirm that there is nothing but unity, is
surely ridiculous?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And equally irrational to admit that a name is anything?
THEAETETUS: How so?
STRANGER: To distinguish the name from the thing, implies duality.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And yet he who identifies the name with the thing will be compelled to say
that it is the name of nothing, or if he says that it is the name of something, even then
the name will only be the name of a name, and of nothing else.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And the one will turn out to be only one of one, and being absolute unity,
will represent a mere name.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And would they say that the whole is other than the one that is, or the
same with it?
THEAETETUS: To be sure they would, and they actually say so.
STRANGER: If being is a whole, as Parmenides sings,—
‘Every way like unto the fullness of a well-rounded sphere, Evenly balanced from the
centre on every side, And must needs be neither greater nor less in any way, Neither on
this side nor on that—’
then being has a centre and extremes, and, having these, must also have parts.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Yet that which has parts may have the attribute of unity in all the parts,
and in this way being all and a whole, may be one?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: But that of which this is the condition cannot be absolute unity?
THEAETETUS: Why not?
STRANGER: Because, according to right reason, that which is truly one must be
affirmed to be absolutely indivisible.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: But this indivisible, if made up of many parts, will contradict reason.
THEAETETUS: I understand.
STRANGER: Shall we say that being is one and a whole, because it has the attribute of
unity? Or shall we say that being is not a whole at all?
THEAETETUS: That is a hard alternative to offer.
STRANGER: Most true; for being, having in a certain sense the attribute of one, is yet
proved not to be the same as one, and the all is therefore more than one.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And yet if being be not a whole, through having the attribute of unity, and
there be such a thing as an absolute whole, being lacks something of its own nature?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Upon this view, again, being, having a defect of being, will become notbeing?

THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And, again, the all becomes more than one, for being and the whole will
each have their separate nature.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: But if the whole does not exist at all, all the previous difficulties remain the
same, and there will be the further difficulty, that besides having no being, being can
never have come into being.
THEAETETUS: Why so?
STRANGER: Because that which comes into being always comes into being as a whole,
so that he who does not give whole a place among beings, cannot speak either of essence
or generation as existing.
THEAETETUS: Yes, that certainly appears to be true.
STRANGER: Again; how can that which is not a whole have any quantity? For that
which is of a certain quantity must necessarily be the whole of that quantity.
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
STRANGER: And there will be innumerable other points, each of them causing infinite
trouble to him who says that being is either one or two.
THEAETETUS: The difficulties which are dawning upon us prove this; for one objection
connects with another, and they are always involving what has preceded in a greater and
worse perplexity.
STRANGER: We are far from having exhausted the more exact thinkers who treat of
being and not-being. But let us be content to leave them, and proceed to view those who
speak less precisely; and we shall find as the result of all, that the nature of being is quite
as difficult to comprehend as that of not-being.
THEAETETUS: Then now we will go to the others.
STRANGER: There appears to be a sort of war of Giants and Gods going on amongst
them; they are fighting with one another about the nature of essence.
THEAETETUS: How is that?
STRANGER: Some of them are dragging down all things from heaven and from the
unseen to earth, and they literally grasp in their hands rocks and oaks; of these they lay
hold, and obstinately maintain, that the things only which can be touched or handled
have being or essence, because they define being and body as one, and if any one else
says that what is not a body exists they altogether despise him, and will hear of nothing
but body.
THEAETETUS: I have often met with such men, and terrible fellows they are.
STRANGER: And that is the reason why their opponents cautiously defend themselves
from above, out of an unseen world, mightily contending that true essence consists of
certain intelligible and incorporeal ideas; the bodies of the materialists, which by them
are maintained to be the very truth, they break up into little bits by their arguments, and
affirm them to be, not essence, but generation and motion. Between the two armies,
Theaetetus, there is always an endless conflict raging concerning these matters.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Let us ask each party in turn, to give an account of that which they call
essence.
THEAETETUS: How shall we get it out of them?
STRANGER: With those who make being to consist in ideas, there will be less difficulty,
for they are civil people enough; but there will be very great difficulty, or rather an
absolute impossibility, in getting an opinion out of those who drag everything down to
matter. Shall I tell you what we must do?
THEAETETUS: What?
STRANGER: Let us, if we can, really improve them; but if this is not possible, let us
imagine them to be better than they are, and more willing to answer in accordance with
the rules of argument, and then their opinion will be more worth having; for that which
better men acknowledge has more weight than that which is acknowledged by inferior
men. Moreover we are no respecters of persons, but seekers after truth.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: Then now, on the supposition that they are improved, let us ask them to
state their views, and do you interpret them.
THEAETETUS: Agreed.
STRANGER: Let them say whether they would admit that there is such a thing as a
mortal animal.
THEAETETUS: Of course they would.
STRANGER: And do they not acknowledge this to be a body having a soul?
THEAETETUS: Certainly they do.
STRANGER: Meaning to say that the soul is something which exists?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And do they not say that one soul is just, and another unjust, and that one
soul is wise, and another foolish?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And that the just and wise soul becomes just and wise by the possession of
justice and wisdom, and the opposite under opposite circumstances?
THEAETETUS: Yes, they do.
STRANGER: But surely that which may be present or may be absent will be admitted by
them to exist?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And, allowing that justice, wisdom, the other virtues, and their opposites
exist, as well as a soul in which they inhere, do they affirm any of them to be visible and
tangible, or are they all invisible?
THEAETETUS: They would say that hardly any of them are visible.
STRANGER: And would they say that they are corporeal?
THEAETETUS: They would distinguish: the soul would be said by them to have a body;
but as to the other qualities of justice, wisdom, and the like, about which you asked, they
would not venture either to deny their existence, or to maintain that they were all
corporeal.
STRANGER: Verily, Theaetetus, I perceive a great improvement in them; the real
aborigines, children of the dragon’s teeth, would have been deterred by no shame at all,
but would have obstinately asserted that nothing is which they are not able to squeeze in
their hands.
THEAETETUS: That is pretty much their notion.
STRANGER: Let us push the question; for if they will admit that any, even the smallest
particle of being, is incorporeal, it is enough; they must then say what that nature is
which is common to both the corporeal and incorporeal, and which they have in their
mind’s eye when they say of both of them that they ‘are.’ Perhaps they may be in a
difficulty; and if this is the case, there is a possibility that they may accept a notion of
ours respecting the nature of being, having nothing of their own to offer.
THEAETETUS: What is the notion? Tell me, and we shall soon see.
STRANGER: My notion would be, that anything which possesses any sort of power to
affect another, or to be affected by another, if only for a single moment, however trifling
the cause and however slight the effect, has real existence; and I hold that the definition
of being is simply power.
THEAETETUS: They accept your suggestion, having nothing better of their own to offer.
STRANGER: Very good; perhaps we, as well as they, may one day change our minds;
but, for the present, this may be regarded as the understanding which is established
with them.
THEAETETUS: Agreed.
STRANGER: Let us now go to the friends of ideas; of their opinions, too, you shall be the
interpreter.
THEAETETUS: I will.
STRANGER: To them we say—You would distinguish essence from generation?
THEAETETUS: ‘Yes,’ they reply.
STRANGER: And you would allow that we participate in generation with the body, and
through perception, but we participate with the soul through thought in true essence;
and essence you would affirm to be always the same and immutable, whereas generation
or becoming varies?
THEAETETUS: Yes; that is what we should affirm.
STRANGER: Well, fair sirs, we say to them, what is this participation, which you assert
of both? Do you agree with our recent definition?
THEAETETUS: What definition?
STRANGER: We said that being was an active or passive energy, arising out of a certain
power which proceeds from elements meeting with one another. Perhaps your ears,
Theaetetus, may fail to catch their answer, which I recognize because I have been
accustomed to hear it.
THEAETETUS: And what is their answer?
STRANGER: They deny the truth of what we were just now saying to the aborigines
about existence.
THEAETETUS: What was that?
STRANGER: Any power of doing or suffering in a degree however slight was held by us
to be a sufficient definition of being?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: They deny this, and say that the power of doing or suffering is confined to
becoming, and that neither power is applicable to being.
THEAETETUS: And is there not some truth in what they say?
STRANGER: Yes; but our reply will be, that we want to ascertain from them more
distinctly, whether they further admit that the soul knows, and that being or essence is
known.
THEAETETUS: There can be no doubt that they say so.
STRANGER: And is knowing and being known doing or suffering, or both, or is the one
doing and the other suffering, or has neither any share in either?
THEAETETUS: Clearly, neither has any share in either; for if they say anything else,
they will contradict themselves.
STRANGER: I understand; but they will allow that if to know is active, then, of course,
to be known is passive. And on this view being, in so far as it is known, is acted upon by
knowledge, and is therefore in motion; for that which is in a state of rest cannot be acted
upon, as we affirm.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And, O heavens, 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 everlasting fixture?
THEAETETUS: That would be a dreadful thing to admit, Stranger.
STRANGER: But shall we say that has mind and not life?
THEAETETUS: How is that possible?
STRANGER: Or shall we say that both inhere in perfect being, but that it has no soul
which contains them?
THEAETETUS: And in what other way can it contain them?
STRANGER: Or that being has mind and life and soul, but although endowed with soul
remains absolutely unmoved? THEAETETUS: All three suppositions appear to me to be
irrational.
STRANGER: Under being, then, we must include motion, and that which is moved.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Then, Theaetetus, our inference is, that if there is no motion, neither is
there any mind anywhere, or about anything or belonging to any one.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: And yet this equally follows, if we grant that all things are in motion—upon
this view too mind has no existence.
THEAETETUS: How so?
STRANGER: Do you think that sameness of condition and mode and subject could ever
exist without a principle of rest?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
STRANGER: Can you see how without them mind could exist, or come into existence
anywhere?
THEAETETUS: No.
STRANGER: And surely contend we must in every possible way against him who would
annihilate knowledge and reason and mind, and yet ventures to speak confidently about
anything.
THEAETETUS: Yes, with all our might.
STRANGER: Then the philosopher, who has the truest reverence for these qualities,
cannot possibly accept the notion of those who say that the whole is at rest, either as
unity or in many forms: and he will be utterly deaf to those who assert universal motion.
As children say entreatingly ‘Give us both,’ so he will include both the moveable and
immoveable in his definition of being and all.
THEAETETUS: Most true.
STRANGER: And now, do we seem to have gained a fair notion of being?
THEAETETUS: Yes truly.
STRANGER: Alas, Theaetetus, methinks that we are now only beginning to see the real
difficulty of the enquiry into the nature of it.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: O my friend, do you not see that nothing can exceed our ignorance, and yet
we fancy that we are saying something good?
THEAETETUS: I certainly thought that we were; and I do not at all understand how we
never found out our desperate case.
STRANGER: Reflect: after having made these admissions, may we not be justly asked
the same questions which we ourselves were asking of those who said that all was hot
and cold?
THEAETETUS: What were they? Will you recall them to my mind?
STRANGER: To be sure I will, and I will remind you of them, by putting the same
questions to you which I did to them, and then we shall get on.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Would you not say that rest and motion are in the most entire opposition
to one another?
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: And yet you would say that both and either of them equally are?
THEAETETUS: I should.
STRANGER: And when you admit that both or either of them are, do you mean to say
that both or either of them are in motion?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
STRANGER: Or do you wish to imply that they are both at rest, when you say that they
are?
THEAETETUS: Of course not.
STRANGER: Then you conceive of being as some third and distinct nature, under which
rest and motion are alike included; and, observing that they both participate in being,
you declare that they are.
THEAETETUS: Truly we seem to have an intimation that being is some third thing,
when we say that rest and motion are.
STRANGER: Then being is not the combination of rest and motion, but something
different from them.
THEAETETUS: So it would appear.
STRANGER: Being, then, according to its own nature, is neither in motion nor at rest.
THEAETETUS: That is very much the truth.
STRANGER: Where, then, is a man to look for help who would have any clear or fixed
notion of being in his mind?
THEAETETUS: Where, indeed?
STRANGER: I scarcely think that he can look anywhere; for that which is not in motion
must be at rest, and again, that which is not at rest must be in motion; but being is
placed outside of both these classes. Is this possible?
THEAETETUS: Utterly impossible.
STRANGER: Here, then, is another thing which we ought to bear in mind.
THEAETETUS: What?
STRANGER: When we were asked to what we were to assign the appellation of notbeing,
we were in the greatest difficulty:—do you remember?
THEAETETUS: To be sure.
STRANGER: And are we not now in as great a difficulty about being?
THEAETETUS: I should say, Stranger, that we are in one which is, if possible, even
greater.
STRANGER: Then let us acknowledge the difficulty; and as being and not- being are
involved in the same perplexity, there is hope that when the one appears more or less
distinctly, the other will equally appear; and if we are able to see neither, there may still
be a chance of steering our way in between them, without any great discredit.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: Let us enquire, then, how we come to predicate many names of the same
thing.
THEAETETUS: Give an example.
STRANGER: I mean that we speak of man, for example, under many names—that we
attribute to him colours and forms and magnitudes and virtues and vices, in all of which
instances and in ten thousand others we not only speak of him as a man, but also as
good, and having numberless other attributes, and in the same way anything else which
we originally supposed to be one is described by us as many, and under many names.
THEAETETUS: That is true.
STRANGER: And thus we provide a rich feast for tyros, whether young or old; for there
is nothing easier than to argue that the one cannot be many, or the many one; and great
is their delight in denying that a man is good; for man, they insist, is man and good is
good. I dare say that you have met with persons who take an interest in such matters—
they are often elderly men, whose meagre sense is thrown into amazement by these
discoveries of theirs, which they believe to be the height of wisdom.
THEAETETUS: Certainly, I have.
STRANGER: Then, not to exclude any one who has ever speculated at all upon the
nature of being, let us put our questions to them as well as to our former friends.
THEAETETUS: What questions?
STRANGER: Shall we refuse to attribute being to motion and rest, or anything to
anything, and assume that they do not mingle, and are incapable of participating in one
another? Or shall we gather all into one class of things communicable with one another?
Or are some things communicable and others not?—Which of these alternatives,
Theaetetus, will they prefer?
THEAETETUS: I have nothing to answer on their behalf. Suppose that you take all these
hypotheses in turn, and see what are the consequences which follow from each of them.
STRANGER: Very good, and first let us assume them to say that nothing is capable of
participating in anything else in any respect; in that case rest and motion cannot
participate in being at all.
THEAETETUS: They cannot.
STRANGER: But would either of them be if not participating in being?
THEAETETUS: No.
STRANGER: Then by this admission everything is instantly overturned, as well the
doctrine of universal motion as of universal rest, and also the doctrine of those who
distribute being into immutable and everlasting kinds; for all these add on a notion of
being, some affirming that things ‘are’ truly in motion, and others that they ‘are’ truly at
rest.
THEAETETUS: Just so.
STRANGER: Again, those who would at one time compound, and at another resolve all
things, whether making them into one and out of one creating infinity, or dividing them
into finite elements, and forming compounds out of these; whether they suppose the
processes of creation to be successive or continuous, would be talking nonsense in all
this if there were no admixture.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Most ridiculous of all will the men themselves be who want to carry out the
argument and yet forbid us to call anything, because participating in some affection
from another, by the name of that other.
THEAETETUS: Why so?
STRANGER: Why, because they are compelled to use the words ‘to be,’ ‘apart,’ ‘from
others,’ ‘in itself,’ and ten thousand more, which they cannot give up, but must make the
connecting links of discourse; and therefore they do not require to be refuted by others,
but their enemy, as the saying is, inhabits the same house with them; they are always
carrying about with them an adversary, like the wonderful ventriloquist, Eurycles, who
out of their own bellies audibly contradicts them.
THEAETETUS: Precisely so; a very true and exact illustration.
STRANGER: And now, if we suppose that all things have the power of communion with
one another—what will follow?
THEAETETUS: Even I can solve that riddle.
STRANGER: How?
THEAETETUS: Why, because motion itself would be at rest, and rest again in motion, if
they could be attributed to one another.
STRANGER: But this is utterly impossible.
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: Then only the third hypothesis remains.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: For, surely, either all things have communion with all; or nothing with any
other thing; or some things communicate with some things and others not.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And two out of these three suppositions have been found to be impossible.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Every one then, who desires to answer truly, will adopt the third and
remaining hypothesis of the communion of some with some.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: This communion of some with some may be illustrated by the case of
letters; for some letters do not fit each other, while others do.
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: And the vowels, especially, are a sort of bond which pervades all the other
letters, so that without a vowel one consonant cannot be joined to another.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: But does every one know what letters will unite with what? Or is art
required in order to do so?
THEAETETUS: Art is required.
STRANGER: What art?
THEAETETUS: The art of grammar.
STRANGER: And is not this also true of sounds high and low?—Is not he who has the
art to know what sounds mingle, a musician, and he who is ignorant, not a musician?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And we shall find this to be generally true of art or the absence of art.
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: And as classes are admitted by us in like manner to be some of them
capable and others incapable of intermixture, must not he who would rightly show what
kinds will unite and what will not, proceed by the help of science in the path of
argument? And will he not ask if the connecting links are universal, and so capable of
intermixture with all things; and again, in divisions, whether there are not other
universal classes, which make them possible?
THEAETETUS: To be sure he will require science, and, if I am not mistaken, the very
greatest of all sciences.
STRANGER: How are we to call it? By Zeus, have we not lighted unwittingly upon our
free and noble science, and in looking for the Sophist have we not entertained the
philosopher unawares?
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: Should we not say that the division according to classes, which neither
makes the same other, nor makes other the same, is the business of the dialectical
science?
THEAETETUS: That is what we should say.
STRANGER: Then, surely, he who can divide rightly is able to see clearly one form
pervading a scattered multitude, and many different forms contained under one higher
form; and again, one form knit together into a single whole and pervading many such
wholes, and many forms, existing only in separation and isolation. This is the knowledge
of classes which determines where they can have communion with one another and
where not.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: And the art of dialectic would be attributed by you only to the philosopher
pure and true?
THEAETETUS: Who but he can be worthy?
STRANGER: In this region we shall always discover the philosopher, if we look for him;
like the Sophist, he is not easily discovered, but for a different reason.
THEAETETUS: For what reason?
STRANGER: Because the Sophist runs away into the darkness of not-being, in which he
has learned by habit to feel about, and cannot be discovered because of the darkness of
the place. Is not that true?
THEAETETUS: It seems to be so.
STRANGER: And the philosopher, always holding converse through reason with the
idea of being, is also dark from excess of light; for the souls of the many have no eye
which can endure the vision of the divine.
THEAETETUS: Yes; that seems to be quite as true as the other.
STRANGER: Well, the philosopher may hereafter be more fully considered by us, if we
are disposed; but the Sophist must clearly not be allowed to escape until we have had a
good look at him.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: Since, then, we are agreed that some classes have a communion with one
another, and others not, and some have communion with a few and others with many,
and that there is no reason why some should not have universal communion with all, let
us now pursue the enquiry, as the argument suggests, not in relation to all ideas, lest the
multitude of them should confuse us, but let us select a few of those which are reckoned
to be the principal ones, and consider their several natures and their capacity of
communion with one another, in order that if we are not able to apprehend with perfect
clearness the notions of being and not-being, we may at least not fall short in the
consideration of them, so far as they come within the scope of the present enquiry, if
peradventure we may be allowed to assert the reality of not-being, and yet escape
unscathed.
THEAETETUS: We must do so.
STRANGER: The most important of all the genera are those which we were just now
mentioning—being and rest and motion.
THEAETETUS: Yes, by far.
STRANGER: And two of these are, as we affirm, incapable of communion with one
another.
THEAETETUS: Quite incapable.
STRANGER: Whereas being surely has communion with both of them, for both of them
are?
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: That makes up three of them.
THEAETETUS: To be sure.
STRANGER: And each of them is other than the remaining two, but the same with itself.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: But then, what is the meaning of these two words, ‘same’ and ‘other’? Are
they two new kinds other than the three, and yet always of necessity intermingling with
them, and are we to have five kinds instead of three; or when we speak of the same and
other, are we unconsciously speaking of one of the three first kinds?
THEAETETUS: Very likely we are.
STRANGER: But, surely, motion and rest are neither the other nor the same.
THEAETETUS: How is that?
STRANGER: Whatever we attribute to motion and rest in common, cannot be either of
them.
THEAETETUS: Why not?
STRANGER: Because motion would be at rest and rest in motion, for either of them,
being predicated of both, will compel the other to change into the opposite of its own
nature, because partaking of its opposite.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: Yet they surely both partake of the same and of the other?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Then we must not assert that motion, any more than rest, is either the
same or the other.
THEAETETUS: No; we must not.
STRANGER: But are we to conceive that being and the same are identical?
THEAETETUS: Possibly.
STRANGER: But if they are identical, then again in saying that motion and rest have
being, we should also be saying that they are the same.
THEAETETUS: Which surely cannot be.
STRANGER: Then being and the same cannot be one.
THEAETETUS: Scarcely.
STRANGER: Then we may suppose the same to be a fourth class, which is now to be
added to the three others.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: And shall we call the other a fifth class? Or should we consider being and
other to be two names of the same class?
THEAETETUS: Very likely.
STRANGER: But you would agree, if I am not mistaken, that existences are relative as
well as absolute?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And the other is always relative to other?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: But this would not be the case unless being and the other entirely differed;
for, if the other, like being, were absolute as well as relative, then there would have been
a kind of other which was not other than other. And now we find that what is other must
of necessity be what it is in relation to some other.
THEAETETUS: That is the true state of the case.
STRANGER: Then we must admit the other as the fifth of our selected classes.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And the fifth class pervades all classes, for they all differ from one another,
not by reason of their own nature, but because they partake of the idea of the other.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: Then let us now put the case with reference to each of the five.
THEAETETUS: How?
STRANGER: First there is motion, which we affirm to be absolutely ‘other’ than rest:
what else can we say?
THEAETETUS: It is so.
STRANGER: And therefore is not rest.
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
STRANGER: And yet is, because partaking of being.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Again, motion is other than the same?
THEAETETUS: Just so.
STRANGER: And is therefore not the same.
THEAETETUS: It is not.
STRANGER: Yet, surely, motion is the same, because all things partake of the same.
THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: Then we must admit, and not object to say, that motion is the same and is
not the same, for we do not apply the terms ‘same’ and ‘not the same,’ in the same sense;
but we call it the ‘same,’ in relation to itself, because partaking of the same; and not the
same, because having communion with the other, it is thereby severed from the same,
and has become not that but other, and is therefore rightly spoken of as ‘not the same.’
THEAETETUS: To be sure.
STRANGER: And if absolute motion in any point of view partook of rest, there would be
no absurdity in calling motion stationary.
THEAETETUS: Quite right,—that is, on the supposition that some classes mingle with
one another, and others not.
STRANGER: That such a communion of kinds is according to nature, we had already
proved before we arrived at this part of our discussion.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Let us proceed, then. May we not say that motion is other than the other,
having been also proved by us to be other than the same and other than rest?
THEAETETUS: That is certain.
STRANGER: Then, according to this view, motion is other and also not other?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: What is the next step? Shall we say that motion is other than the three and
not other than the fourth,—for we agreed that there are five classes about and in the
sphere of which we proposed to make enquiry?
THEAETETUS: Surely we cannot admit that the number is less than it appeared to be
just now.
STRANGER: Then we may without fear contend that motion is other than being?
THEAETETUS: Without the least fear.
STRANGER: The plain result is that motion, since it partakes of being, really is and also
is not?
THEAETETUS: Nothing can be plainer.
STRANGER: Then not-being necessarily exists in the case of motion and of every class;
for the nature of the other entering into them all, makes each of them other than being,
and so non-existent; and therefore of all of them, in like manner, we may truly say that
they are not; and again, inasmuch as they partake of being, that they are and are
existent.
THEAETETUS: So we may assume.
STRANGER: Every class, then, has plurality of being and infinity of not- being.
THEAETETUS: So we must infer.
STRANGER: And being itself may be said to be other than the other kinds.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Then we may infer that being is not, in respect of as many other things as
there are; for not-being these it is itself one, and is not the other things, which are
infinite in number.
THEAETETUS: That is not far from the truth.
STRANGER: And we must not quarrel with this result, since it is of the nature of classes
to have communion with one another; and if any one denies our present statement [viz.,
that being is not, etc.], let him first argue with our former conclusion [i.e., respecting the
communion of ideas], and then he may proceed to argue with what follows.
THEAETETUS: Nothing can be fairer.
STRANGER: Let me ask you to consider a further question.
THEAETETUS: What question?
STRANGER: When we speak of not-being, we speak, I suppose, not of something
opposed to being, but only different.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: When we speak of something as not great, does the expression seem to you
to imply what is little any more than what is equal?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
STRANGER: The negative particles, ou and me, when prefixed to words, do not imply
opposition, but only difference from the words, or more correctly from the things
represented by the words, which follow them.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: There is another point to be considered, if you do not object.
THEAETETUS: What is it?
STRANGER: The nature of the other appears to me to be divided into fractions like
knowledge.
THEAETETUS: How so?
STRANGER: Knowledge, like the other, is one; and yet the various parts of knowledge
have each of them their own particular name, and hence there are many arts and kinds
of knowledge.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: And is not the case the same with the parts of the other, which is also one?
THEAETETUS: Very likely; but will you tell me how?
STRANGER: There is some part of the other which is opposed to the beautiful?
THEAETETUS: There is.
STRANGER: Shall we say that this has or has not a name?
THEAETETUS: It has; for whatever we call not-beautiful is other than the beautiful, not
than something else.
STRANGER: And now tell me another thing.
THEAETETUS: What?
STRANGER: Is the not-beautiful anything but this—an existence parted off from a
certain kind of existence, and again from another point of view opposed to an existing
something?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Then the not-beautiful turns out to be the opposition of being to being?
THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: But upon this view, is the beautiful a more real and the not- beautiful a less
real existence?
THEAETETUS: Not at all.
STRANGER: And the not-great may be said to exist, equally with the great?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And, in the same way, the just must be placed in the same category with
the not-just—the one cannot be said to have any more existence than the other.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: The same may be said of other things; seeing that the nature of the other
has a real existence, the parts of this nature must equally be supposed to exist.
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: Then, as would appear, the opposition of a part of the other, and of a part
of being, to one another, is, if I may venture to say so, as truly essence as being itself,
and implies not the opposite of being, but only what is other than being.
THEAETETUS: Beyond question.
STRANGER: What then shall we call it?
THEAETETUS: Clearly, not-being; and this is the very nature for which the Sophist
compelled us to search.
STRANGER: And has not this, as you were saying, as real an existence as any other
class? May I not say with confidence that not-being has an assured existence, and a
nature of its own? Just as the great was found to be great and the beautiful beautiful,
and the not-great not-great, and the not-beautiful not-beautiful, in the same manner
not-being has been found to be and is not-being, and is to be reckoned one among the
many classes of being. Do you, Theaetetus, still feel any doubt of this?
THEAETETUS: None whatever.
STRANGER: Do you observe that our scepticism has carried us beyond the range of
Parmenides’ prohibition?
THEAETETUS: In what?
STRANGER: We have advanced to a further point, and shown him more than he forbad
us to investigate.
THEAETETUS: How is that?
STRANGER: Why, because he says—
‘Not-being never is, and do thou keep thy thoughts from this way of enquiry.’
THEAETETUS: Yes, he says so.
STRANGER: Whereas, we have not only proved that things which are not are, but we
have shown what form of being not-being is; for we have shown that the nature of the
other is, and is distributed over all things in their relations to one another, and whatever
part of the other is contrasted with being, this is precisely what we have ventured to call
not-being.
THEAETETUS: And surely, Stranger, we were quite right.
STRANGER: Let not any one say, then, that while affirming the opposition of not-being
to being, we still assert the being of not-being; for as to whether there is an opposite of
being, to that enquiry we have long said good-bye—it may or may not be, and may or
may not be capable of definition. But as touching our present account of not-being, let a
man either convince us of error, or, so long as he cannot, he too must say, as we are
saying, that there is a communion of classes, and that being, and difference or other,
traverse all things and mutually interpenetrate, so that the other partakes of being, and
by reason of this participation is, and yet is not that of which it partakes, but other, and
being other than being, it is clearly a necessity that not-being should be. And again,
being, through partaking of the other, becomes a class other than the remaining classes,
and being other than all of them, is not each one of them, and is not all the rest, so that
undoubtedly there are thousands upon thousands of cases in which being is not, and all
other things, whether regarded individually or collectively, in many respects are, and in
many respects are not.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And he who is sceptical of this contradiction, must think how he can find
something better to say; or if he sees a puzzle, and his pleasure is to drag words this way
and that, the argument will prove to him, that he is not making a worthy use of his
faculties; for there is no charm in such puzzles, and there is no difficulty in detecting
them; but we can tell him of something else the pursuit of which is noble and also
difficult.
THEAETETUS: What is it?
STRANGER: A thing of which I have already spoken;—letting alone these puzzles as
involving no difficulty, he should be able to follow and criticize in detail every argument,
and when a man says that the same is in a manner other, or that other is the same, to
understand and refute him from his own point of view, and in the same respect in which
he asserts either of these affections. But to show that somehow and in some sense the
same is other, or the other same, or the great small, or the like unlike; and to delight in
always bringing forward such contradictions, is no real refutation, but is clearly the newborn
babe of some one who is only beginning to approach the problem of being.
THEAETETUS: To be sure.
STRANGER: For certainly, my friend, the attempt to separate all existences from one
another is a barbarism and utterly unworthy of an educated or philosophical mind.
THEAETETUS: Why so?
STRANGER: The attempt at universal separation is the final annihilation of all
reasoning; for only by the union of conceptions with one another do we attain to
discourse of reason.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And, observe that we were only just in time in making a resistance to such
separatists, and compelling them to admit that one thing mingles with another.
THEAETETUS: Why so?
STRANGER: Why, that we might be able to assert discourse to be a kind of being; for if
we could not, the worst of all consequences would follow; we should have no philosophy.
Moreover, the necessity for determining the nature of discourse presses upon us at this
moment; if utterly deprived of it, we could no more hold discourse; and deprived of it we
should be if we admitted that there was no admixture of natures at all.
THEAETETUS: Very true. But I do not understand why at this moment we must
determine the nature of discourse.
STRANGER: Perhaps you will see more clearly by the help of the following explanation.
THEAETETUS: What explanation?
STRANGER: Not-being has been acknowledged by us to be one among many classes
diffused over all being.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And thence arises the question, whether not-being mingles with opinion
and language.
THEAETETUS: How so?
STRANGER: If not-being has no part in the proposition, then all things must be true;
but if not-being has a part, then false opinion and false speech are possible, for to think
or to say what is not—is falsehood, which thus arises in the region of thought and in
speech.
THEAETETUS: That is quite true.
STRANGER: And where there is falsehood surely there must be deceit.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And if there is deceit, then all things must be full of idols and images and
fancies.
THEAETETUS: To be sure.
STRANGER: Into that region the Sophist, as we said, made his escape, and, when he
had got there, denied the very possibility of falsehood; no one, he argued, either
conceived or uttered falsehood, inasmuch as not-being did not in any way partake of
being.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And now, not-being has been shown to partake of being, and therefore he
will not continue fighting in this direction, but he will probably say that some ideas
partake of not-being, and some not, and that language and opinion are of the nonpartaking
class; and he will still fight to the death against the existence of the imagemaking
and phantastic art, in which we have placed him, because, as he will say, opinion
and language do not partake of not-being, and unless this participation exists, there can
be no such thing as falsehood. And, with the view of meeting this evasion, we must begin
by enquiring into the nature of language, opinion, and imagination, in order that when
we find them we may find also that they have communion with not-being, and, having
made out the connexion of them, may thus prove that falsehood exists; and therein we
will imprison the Sophist, if he deserves it, or, if not, we will let him go again and look
for him in another class.
THEAETETUS: Certainly, Stranger, there appears to be truth in what was said about the
Sophist at first, that he was of a class not easily caught, for he seems to have abundance
of defences, which he throws up, and which must every one of them be stormed before
we can reach the man himself. And even now, we have with difficulty got through his
first defence, which is the not-being of not-being, and lo! here is another; for we have
still to show that falsehood exists in the sphere of language and opinion, and there will
be another and another line of defence without end.
STRANGER: Any one, Theaetetus, who is able to advance even a little ought to be of
good cheer, for what would he who is dispirited at a little progress do, if he were making
none at all, or even undergoing a repulse? Such a faint heart, as the proverb says, will
never take a city: but now that we have succeeded thus far, the citadel is ours, and what
remains is easier.
THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: Then, as I was saying, let us first of all obtain a conception of language and
opinion, in order that we may have clearer grounds for determining, whether not-being
has any concern with them, or whether they are both always true, and neither of them
ever false.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Then, now, let us speak of names, as before we were speaking of ideas and
letters; for that is the direction in which the answer may be expected.
THEAETETUS: And what is the question at issue about names?
STRANGER: The question at issue is whether all names may be connected with one
another, or none, or only some of them.
THEAETETUS: Clearly the last is true.
STRANGER: I understand you to say that words which have a meaning when in
sequence may be connected, but that words which have no meaning when in sequence
cannot be connected?
THEAETETUS: What are you saying?
STRANGER: What I thought that you intended when you gave your assent; for there are
two sorts of intimation of being which are given by the voice.
THEAETETUS: What are they?
STRANGER: One of them is called nouns, and the other verbs.
THEAETETUS: Describe them.
STRANGER: That which denotes action we call a verb.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And the other, which is an articulate mark set on those who do the actions,
we call a noun.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: A succession of nouns only is not a sentence, any more than of verbs
without nouns.
THEAETETUS: I do not understand you.
STRANGER: I see that when you gave your assent you had something else in your mind.
But what I intended to say was, that a mere succession of nouns or of verbs is not
discourse.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: I mean that words like ‘walks,’ ‘runs,’ ‘sleeps,’ or any other words which
denote action, however many of them you string together, do not make discourse.
THEAETETUS: How can they?
STRANGER: Or, again, when you say ‘lion,’ ‘stag,’ ‘horse,’ or any other words which
denote agents—neither in this way of stringing words together do you attain to
discourse; for there is no expression of action or inaction, or of the existence of existence
or non-existence indicated by the sounds, until verbs are mingled with nouns; then the
words fit, and the smallest combination of them forms language, and is the simplest and
least form of discourse.
THEAETETUS: Again I ask, What do you mean?
STRANGER: When any one says ‘A man learns,’ should you not call this the simplest
and least of sentences?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Yes, for he now arrives at the point of giving an intimation about
something which is, or is becoming, or has become, or will be. And he not only names,
but he does something, by connecting verbs with nouns; and therefore we say that he
discourses, and to this connexion of words we give the name of discourse.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And as there are some things which fit one another, and other things
which do not fit, so there are some vocal signs which do, and others which do not,
combine and form discourse.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: There is another small matter.
THEAETETUS: What is it?
STRANGER: A sentence must and cannot help having a subject.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And must be of a certain quality.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And now let us mind what we are about.
THEAETETUS: We must do so.
STRANGER: I will repeat a sentence to you in which a thing and an action are
combined, by the help of a noun and a verb; and you shall tell me of whom the sentence
speaks.
THEAETETUS: I will, to the best of my power.
STRANGER: ‘Theaetetus sits’—not a very long sentence.
THEAETETUS: Not very.
STRANGER: Of whom does the sentence speak, and who is the subject? that is what you
have to tell.
THEAETETUS: Of me; I am the subject.
STRANGER: Or this sentence, again—
THEAETETUS: What sentence?
STRANGER: ‘Theaetetus, with whom I am now speaking, is flying.’
THEAETETUS: That also is a sentence which will be admitted by every one to speak of
me, and to apply to me.
STRANGER: We agreed that every sentence must necessarily have a certain quality.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And what is the quality of each of these two sentences?
THEAETETUS: The one, as I imagine, is false, and the other true.
STRANGER: The true says what is true about you?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And the false says what is other than true?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And therefore speaks of things which are not as if they were?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And say that things are real of you which are not; for, as we were saying, in
regard to each thing or person, there is much that is and much that is not.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: The second of the two sentences which related to you was first of all an
example of the shortest form consistent with our definition.
THEAETETUS: Yes, this was implied in recent admission.
STRANGER: And, in the second place, it related to a subject?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Who must be you, and can be nobody else?
THEAETETUS: Unquestionably.
STRANGER: And it would be no sentence at all if there were no subject, for, as we
proved, a sentence which has no subject is impossible.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: When other, then, is asserted of you as the same, and not-being as being,
such a combination of nouns and verbs is really and truly false discourse.
THEAETETUS: Most true.
STRANGER: And therefore thought, opinion, and imagination are now proved to exist
in our minds both as true and false.
THEAETETUS: How so?
STRANGER: You will know better if you first gain a knowledge of what they are, and in
what they severally differ from one another.
THEAETETUS: Give me the knowledge which you would wish me to gain.
STRANGER: Are not thought and speech the same, with this exception, that what is
called thought is the unuttered conversation of the soul with herself?
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: But the stream of thought which flows through the lips and is audible is
called speech?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And we know that there exists in speech...
THEAETETUS: What exists?
STRANGER: Affirmation.
THEAETETUS: Yes, we know it.
STRANGER: When the affirmation or denial takes Place in silence and in the mind only,
have you any other name by which to call it but opinion?
THEAETETUS: There can be no other name.
STRANGER: And when opinion is presented, not simply, but in some form of sense,
would you not call it imagination?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And seeing that language is true and false, and that thought is the
conversation of the soul with herself, and opinion is the end of thinking, and
imagination or phantasy is the union of sense and opinion, the inference is that some of
them, since they are akin to language, should have an element of falsehood as well as of
truth?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Do you perceive, then, that false opinion and speech have been discovered
sooner than we expected?—For just now we seemed to be undertaking a task which
would never be accomplished.
THEAETETUS: I perceive.
STRANGER: Then let us not be discouraged about the future; but now having made this
discovery, let us go back to our previous classification.
THEAETETUS: What classification?
STRANGER: We divided image-making into two sorts; the one likeness-making, the
other imaginative or phantastic.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And we said that we were uncertain in which we should place the Sophist.
THEAETETUS: We did say so.
STRANGER: And our heads began to go round more and more when it was asserted that
there is no such thing as an image or idol or appearance, because in no manner or time
or place can there ever be such a thing as falsehood.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And now, since there has been shown to be false speech and false opinion,
there may be imitations of real existences, and out of this condition of the mind an art of
deception may arise.
THEAETETUS: Quite possible.
STRANGER: And we have already admitted, in what preceded, that the Sophist was
lurking in one of the divisions of the likeness-making art?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Let us, then, renew the attempt, and in dividing any class, always take the
part to the right, holding fast to that which holds the Sophist, until we have stripped him
of all his common properties, and reached his difference or peculiar. Then we may
exhibit him in his true nature, first to ourselves and then to kindred dialectical spirits.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: You may remember that all art was originally divided by us into creative
and acquisitive.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And the Sophist was flitting before us in the acquisitive class, in the
subdivisions of hunting, contests, merchandize, and the like.
THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: But now that the imitative art has enclosed him, it is clear that we must
begin by dividing the art of creation; for imitation is a kind of creation—of images,
however, as we affirm, and not of real things.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: In the first place, there are two kinds of creation.
THEAETETUS: What are they?
STRANGER: One of them is human and the other divine.
THEAETETUS: I do not follow.
STRANGER: Every power, as you may remember our saying originally, which causes
things to exist, not previously existing, was defined by us as creative.
THEAETETUS: I remember.
STRANGER: Looking, now, at the world and all the animals and plants, at things which
grow upon the earth from seeds and roots, as well as at inanimate substances which are
formed within the earth, fusile or non- fusile, shall we say that they come into
existence—not having existed previously—by the creation of God, or shall we agree with
vulgar opinion about them?
THEAETETUS: What is it?
STRANGER: The opinion that nature brings them into being from some spontaneous
and unintelligent cause. Or shall we say that they are created by a divine reason and a
knowledge which comes from God?
THEAETETUS: I dare say that, owing to my youth, I may often waver in my view, but
now when I look at you and see that you incline to refer them to God, I defer to your
authority.
STRANGER: Nobly said, Theaetetus, and if I thought that you were one of those who
would hereafter change your mind, I would have gently argued with you, and forced you
to assent; but as I perceive that you will come of yourself and without any argument of
mine, to that belief which, as you say, attracts you, I will not forestall the work of time.
Let me suppose, then, that things which are said to be made by nature are the work of
divine art, and that things which are made by man out of these are works of human art.
And so there are two kinds of making and production, the one human and the other
divine.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Then, now, subdivide each of the two sections which we have already.
THEAETETUS: How do you mean?
STRANGER: I mean to say that you should make a vertical division of production or
invention, as you have already made a lateral one.
THEAETETUS: I have done so.
STRANGER: Then, now, there are in all four parts or segments—two of them have
reference to us and are human, and two of them have reference to the gods and are
divine.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And, again, in the division which was supposed to be made in the other
way, one part in each subdivision is the making of the things themselves, but the two
remaining parts may be called the making of likenesses; and so the productive art is
again divided into two parts.
THEAETETUS: Tell me the divisions once more.
STRANGER: I suppose that we, and the other animals, and the elements out of which
things are made—fire, water, and the like—are known by us to be each and all the
creation and work of God.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And there are images of them, which are not them, but which correspond
to them; and these are also the creation of a wonderful skill.
THEAETETUS: What are they?
STRANGER: The appearances which spring up of themselves in sleep or by day, such as
a shadow when darkness arises in a fire, or the reflection which is produced when the
light in bright and smooth objects meets on their surface with an external light, and
creates a perception the opposite of our ordinary sight.
THEAETETUS: Yes; and the images as well as the creation are equally the work of a
divine hand.
STRANGER: And what shall we say of human art? Do we not make one house by the art
of building, and another by the art of drawing, which is a sort of dream created by man
for those who are awake?
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: And other products of human creation are also twofold and go in pairs;
there is the thing, with which the art of making the thing is concerned, and the image,
with which imitation is concerned.
THEAETETUS: Now I begin to understand, and am ready to acknowledge that there are
two kinds of production, and each of them twofold; in the lateral division there is both a
divine and a human production; in the vertical there are realities and a creation of a
kind of similitudes.
STRANGER: And let us not forget that of the imitative class the one part was to have
been likeness-making, and the other phantastic, if it could be shown that falsehood is a
reality and belongs to the class of real being.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And this appeared to be the case; and therefore now, without hesitation,
we shall number the different kinds as two.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Then, now, let us again divide the phantastic art.
THEAETETUS: Where shall we make the division?
STRANGER: There is one kind which is produced by an instrument, and another in
which the creator of the appearance is himself the instrument.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: When any one makes himself appear like another in his figure or his voice,
imitation is the name for this part of the phantastic art.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Let this, then, be named the art of mimicry, and this the province assigned
to it; as for the other division, we are weary and will give that up, leaving to some one
else the duty of making the class and giving it a suitable name.
THEAETETUS: Let us do as you say—assign a sphere to the one and leave the other.
STRANGER: There is a further distinction, Theaetetus, which is worthy of our
consideration, and for a reason which I will tell you.
THEAETETUS: Let me hear.
STRANGER: There are some who imitate, knowing what they imitate, and some who do
not know. And what line of distinction can there possibly be greater than that which
divides ignorance from knowledge?
THEAETETUS: There can be no greater.
STRANGER: Was not the sort of imitation of which we spoke just now the imitation of
those who know? For he who would imitate you would surely know you and your figure?
THEAETETUS: Naturally.
STRANGER: And what would you say of the figure or form of justice or of virtue in
general? Are we not well aware that many, having no knowledge of either, but only a
sort of opinion, do their best to show that this opinion is really entertained by them, by
expressing it, as far as they can, in word and deed?
THEAETETUS: Yes, that is very common.
STRANGER: And do they always fail in their attempt to be thought just, when they are
not? Or is not the very opposite true?
THEAETETUS: The very opposite.
STRANGER: Such a one, then, should be described as an imitator—to be distinguished
from the other, as he who is ignorant is distinguished from him who knows?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Can we find a suitable name for each of them? This is clearly not an easy
task; for among the ancients there was some confusion of ideas, which prevented them
from attempting to divide genera into species; wherefore there is no great abundance of
names. Yet, for the sake of distinctness, I will make bold to call the imitation which
coexists with opinion, the imitation of appearance—that which coexists with science, a
scientific or learned imitation.
THEAETETUS: Granted.
STRANGER: The former is our present concern, for the Sophist was classed with
imitators indeed, but not among those who have knowledge.
THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: Let us, then, examine our imitator of appearance, and see whether he is
sound, like a piece of iron, or whether there is still some crack in him.
THEAETETUS: Let us examine him.
STRANGER: Indeed there is a very considerable crack; for if you look, you find that one
of the two classes of imitators is a simple creature, who thinks that he knows that which
he only fancies; the other sort has knocked about among arguments, until he suspects
and fears that he is ignorant of that which to the many he pretends to know.
THEAETETUS: There are certainly the two kinds which you describe.
STRANGER: Shall we regard one as the simple imitator—the other as the dissembling or
ironical imitator?
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: And shall we further speak of this latter class as having one or two
divisions?
THEAETETUS: Answer yourself.
STRANGER: Upon consideration, then, there appear to me to be two; there is the
dissembler, who harangues a multitude in public in a long speech, and the dissembler,
who in private and in short speeches compels the person who is conversing with him to
contradict himself.
THEAETETUS: What you say is most true.
STRANGER: And who is the maker of the longer speeches? Is he the statesman or the
popular orator?
THEAETETUS: The latter.
STRANGER: And what shall we call the other? Is he the philosopher or the Sophist?
THEAETETUS: The philosopher he cannot be, for upon our view he is ignorant; but
since he is an imitator of the wise he will have a name which is formed by an adaptation
of the word sophos. What shall we name him? I am pretty sure that I cannot be
mistaken in terming him the true and very Sophist.
STRANGER: Shall we bind up his name as we did before, making a chain from one end
of his genealogy to the other?
THEAETETUS: By all means.
STRANGER: He, then, who traces the pedigree of his art as follows—who, belonging to
the conscious or dissembling section of the art of causing self-contradiction, is an
imitator of appearance, and is separated from the class of phantastic which is a branch
of image-making into that further division of creation, the juggling of words, a creation
human, and not divine—any one who affirms the real Sophist to be of this blood and
lineage will say the very truth.
THEAETETUS: Undoubtedly.

THE END

THE STATESMAN
BY
PLATO
TRANSLATED BY
BENJAMIN
JOWETT

INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.
In the Phaedrus, the Republic, the Philebus, the Parmenides, and the Sophist, we may
observe the tendency of Plato to combine two or more subjects or different aspects of
the same subject in a single dialogue. In the Sophist and Statesman especially we note
that the discussion is partly regarded as an illustration of method, and that analogies are
brought from afar which throw light on the main subject. And in his later writings
generally we further remark a decline of style, and of dramatic power; the characters
excite little or no interest, and the digressions are apt to overlay the main thesis; there is
not the ‘callida junctura’ of an artistic whole. Both the serious discussions and the jests
are sometimes out of place. The invincible Socrates is withdrawn from view; and new
foes begin to appear under old names. Plato is now chiefly concerned, not with the
original Sophist, but with the sophistry of the schools of philosophy, which are making
reasoning impossible; and is driven by them out of the regions of transcendental
speculation back into the path of common sense. A logical or psychological phase takes
the place of the doctrine of Ideas in his mind. He is constantly dwelling on the
importance of regular classification, and of not putting words in the place of things. He
has banished the poets, and is beginning to use a technical language. He is bitter and
satirical, and seems to be sadly conscious of the realities of human life. Yet the ideal
glory of the Platonic philosophy is not extinguished. He is still looking for a city in which
kings are either philosophers or gods (compare Laws).
The Statesman has lost the grace and beauty of the earlier dialogues. The mind of the
writer seems to be so overpowered in the effort of thought as to impair his style; at least
his gift of expression does not keep up with the increasing difficulty of his theme. The
idea of the king or statesman and the illustration of method are connected, not like the
love and rhetoric of the Phaedrus, by ‘little invisible pegs,’ but in a confused and
inartistic manner, which fails to produce any impression of a whole on the mind of the
reader. Plato apologizes for his tediousness, and acknowledges that the improvement of
his audience has been his only aim in some of his digressions. His own image may be
used as a motto of his style: like an inexpert statuary he has made the figure or outline
too large, and is unable to give the proper colours or proportions to his work. He makes
mistakes only to correct them—this seems to be his way of drawing attention to common
dialectical errors. The Eleatic stranger, here, as in the Sophist, has no appropriate
character, and appears only as the expositor of a political ideal, in the delineation of
which he is frequently interrupted by purely logical illustrations. The younger Socrates
resembles his namesake in nothing but a name. The dramatic character is so completely
forgotten, that a special reference is twice made to discussions in the Sophist; and this,
perhaps, is the strongest ground which can be urged for doubting the genuineness of the
work. But, when we remember that a similar allusion is made in the Laws to the
Republic, we see that the entire disregard of dramatic propriety is not always a sufficient
reason for doubting the genuineness of a Platonic writing.
The search after the Statesman, which is carried on, like that for the Sophist, by the
method of dichotomy, gives an opportunity for many humorous and satirical remarks.
Several of the jests are mannered and laboured: for example, the turn of words with
which the dialogue opens; or the clumsy joke about man being an animal, who has a
power of two-feet—both which are suggested by the presence of Theodorus, the
geometrician. There is political as well as logical insight in refusing to admit the division
of mankind into Hellenes and Barbarians: ‘if a crane could speak, he would in like
manner oppose men and all other animals to cranes.’ The pride of the Hellene is further
humbled, by being compared to a Phrygian or Lydian. Plato glories in this impartiality
of the dialectical method, which places birds in juxtaposition with men, and the king
side by side with the bird- catcher; king or vermin-destroyer are objects of equal interest
to science (compare Parmen.). There are other passages which show that the irony of
Socrates was a lesson which Plato was not slow in learning—as, for example, the passing
remark, that ‘the kings and statesmen of our day are in their breeding and education
very like their subjects;’ or the anticipation that the rivals of the king will be found in the
class of servants; or the imposing attitude of the priests, who are the established
interpreters of the will of heaven, authorized by law. Nothing is more bitter in all his
writings than his comparison of the contemporary politicians to lions, centaurs, satyrs,
and other animals of a feebler sort, who are ever changing their forms and natures. But,
as in the later dialogues generally, the play of humour and the charm of poetry have
departed, never to return.
Still the Politicus contains a higher and more ideal conception of politics than any other
of Plato’s writings. The city of which there is a pattern in heaven (Republic), is here
described as a Paradisiacal state of human society. In the truest sense of all, the ruler is
not man but God; and such a government existed in a former cycle of human history,
and may again exist when the gods resume their care of mankind. In a secondary sense,
the true form of government is that which has scientific rulers, who are irresponsible to
their subjects. Not power but knowledge is the characteristic of a king or royal person.
And the rule of a man is better and higher than law, because he is more able to deal with
the infinite complexity of human affairs. But mankind, in despair of finding a true ruler,
are willing to acquiesce in any law or custom which will save them from the caprice of
individuals. They are ready to accept any of the six forms of government which prevail in
the world. To the Greek, nomos was a sacred word, but the political idealism of Plato
soars into a region beyond; for the laws he would substitute the intelligent will of the
legislator. Education is originally to implant in men’s minds a sense of truth and justice,
which is the divine bond of states, and the legislator is to contrive human bonds, by
which dissimilar natures may be united in marriage and supply the deficiencies of one
another. As in the Republic, the government of philosophers, the causes of the
perversion of states, the regulation of marriages, are still the political problems with
which Plato’s mind is occupied. He treats them more slightly, partly because the
dialogue is shorter, and also because the discussion of them is perpetually crossed by the
other interest of dialectic, which has begun to absorb him.
The plan of the Politicus or Statesman may be briefly sketched as follows: (1) By a
process of division and subdivision we discover the true herdsman or king of men. But
before we can rightly distinguish him from his rivals, we must view him, (2) as he is
presented to us in a famous ancient tale: the tale will also enable us to distinguish the
divine from the human herdsman or shepherd: (3) and besides our fable, we must have
an example; for our example we will select the art of weaving, which will have to be
distinguished from the kindred arts; and then, following this pattern, we will separate
the king from his subordinates or competitors. (4) But are we not exceeding all due
limits; and is there not a measure of all arts and sciences, to which the art of discourse
must conform? There is; but before we can apply this measure, we must know what is
the aim of discourse: and our discourse only aims at the dialectical improvement of
ourselves and others.—Having made our apology, we return once more to the king or
statesman, and proceed to contrast him with pretenders in the same line with him,
under their various forms of government. (5) His characteristic is, that he alone has
science, which is superior to law and written enactments; these do but spring out of the
necessities of mankind, when they are in despair of finding the true king. (6) The
sciences which are most akin to the royal are the sciences of the general, the judge, the
orator, which minister to him, but even these are subordinate to him. (7) Fixed
principles are implanted by education, and the king or statesman completes the political
web by marrying together dissimilar natures, the courageous and the temperate, the
bold and the gentle, who are the warp and the woof of society.
The outline may be filled up as follows:—
SOCRATES: I have reason to thank you, Theodorus, for the acquaintance of Theaetetus
and the Stranger.
THEODORUS: And you will have three times as much reason to thank me when they
have delineated the Statesman and Philosopher, as well as the Sophist.
SOCRATES: Does the great geometrician apply the same measure to all three? Are they
not divided by an interval which no geometrical ratio can express?
THEODORUS: By the god Ammon, Socrates, you are right; and I am glad to see that you
have not forgotten your geometry. But before I retaliate on you, I must request the
Stranger to finish the argument...
The Stranger suggests that Theaetetus shall be allowed to rest, and that Socrates the
younger shall respond in his place; Theodorus agrees to the suggestion, and Socrates
remarks that the name of the one and the face of the other give him a right to claim
relationship with both of them. They propose to take the Statesman after the Sophist;
his path they must determine, and part off all other ways, stamping upon them a single
negative form (compare Soph.).
The Stranger begins the enquiry by making a division of the arts and sciences into
theoretical and practical—the one kind concerned with knowledge exclusively, and the
other with action; arithmetic and the mathematical sciences are examples of the former,
and carpentering and handicraft arts of the latter (compare Philebus). Under which of
the two shall we place the Statesman? Or rather, shall we not first ask, whether the king,
statesman, master, householder, practise one art or many? As the adviser of a physician
may be said to have medical science and to be a physician, so the adviser of a king has
royal science and is a king. And the master of a large household may be compared to the
ruler of a small state. Hence we conclude that the science of the king, statesman, and
householder is one and the same. And this science is akin to knowledge rather than to
action. For a king rules with his mind, and not with his hands.
But theoretical science may be a science either of judging, like arithmetic, or of ruling
and superintending, like that of the architect or master-builder. And the science of the
king is of the latter nature; but the power which he exercises is underived and
uncontrolled,—a characteristic which distinguishes him from heralds, prophets, and
other inferior officers. He is the wholesale dealer in command, and the herald, or other
officer, retails his commands to others. Again, a ruler is concerned with the production
of some object, and objects may be divided into living and lifeless, and rulers into the
rulers of living and lifeless objects. And the king is not like the master-builder,
concerned with lifeless matter, but has the task of managing living animals. And the
tending of living animals may be either a tending of individuals, or a managing of herds.
And the Statesman is not a groom, but a herdsman, and his art may be called either the
art of managing a herd, or the art of collective management:—Which do you prefer? ‘No
matter.’ Very good, Socrates, and if you are not too particular about words you will be all
the richer some day in true wisdom. But how would you subdivide the herdsman’s art? ‘I
should say, that there is one management of men, and another of beasts.’ Very good, but
you are in too great a hurry to get to man. All divisions which are rightly made should
cut through the middle; if you attend to this rule, you will be more likely to arrive at
classes. ‘I do not understand the nature of my mistake.’ Your division was like a division
of the human race into Hellenes and Barbarians, or into Lydians or Phrygians and all
other nations, instead of into male and female; or like a division of number into ten
thousand and all other numbers, instead of into odd and even. And I should like you to
observe further, that though I maintain a class to be a part, there is no similar necessity
for a part to be a class. But to return to your division, you spoke of men and other
animals as two classes—the second of which you comprehended under the general name
of beasts. This is the sort of division which an intelligent crane would make: he would
put cranes into a class by themselves for their special glory, and jumble together all
others, including man, in the class of beasts. An error of this kind can only be avoided by
a more regular subdivision. Just now we divided the whole class of animals into
gregarious and non-gregarious, omitting the previous division into tame and wild. We
forgot this in our hurry to arrive at man, and found by experience, as the proverb says,
that ‘the more haste the worse speed.’
And now let us begin again at the art of managing herds. You have probably heard of the
fish-preserves in the Nile and in the ponds of the Great King, and of the nurseries of
geese and cranes in Thessaly. These suggest a new division into the rearing or
management of land-herds and of water-herds:— I need not say with which the king is
concerned. And land-herds may be divided into walking and flying; and every idiot
knows that the political animal is a pedestrian. At this point we may take a longer or a
shorter road, and as we are already near the end, I see no harm in taking the longer,
which is the way of mesotomy, and accords with the principle which we were laying
down. The tame, walking, herding animal, may be divided into two classes—the horned
and the hornless, and the king is concerned with the hornless; and these again may be
subdivided into animals having or not having cloven feet, or mixing or not mixing the
breed; and the king or statesman has the care of animals which have not cloven feet, and
which do not mix the breed. And now, if we omit dogs, who can hardly be said to herd, I
think that we have only two species left which remain undivided: and how are we to
distinguish them? To geometricians, like you and Theaetetus, I can have no difficulty in
explaining that man is a diameter, having a power of two feet; and the power of fourlegged
creatures, being the double of two feet, is the diameter of our diameter. There is
another excellent jest which I spy in the two remaining species. Men and birds are both
bipeds, and human beings are running a race with the airiest and freest of creation, in
which they are far behind their competitors;—this is a great joke, and there is a still
better in the juxtaposition of the bird-taker and the king, who may be seen scampering
after them. For, as we remarked in discussing the Sophist, the dialectical method is no
respecter of persons. But we might have proceeded, as I was saying, by another and a
shorter road. In that case we should have begun by dividing land animals into bipeds
and quadrupeds, and bipeds into winged and wingless; we should than have taken the
Statesman and set him over the ‘bipes implume,’ and put the reins of government into
his hands.
Here let us sum up:—The science of pure knowledge had a part which was the science of
command, and this had a part which was a science of wholesale command; and this was
divided into the management of animals, and was again parted off into the management
of herds of animals, and again of land animals, and these into hornless, and these into
bipeds; and so at last we arrived at man, and found the political and royal science. And
yet we have not clearly distinguished the political shepherd from his rivals. No one
would think of usurping the prerogatives of the ordinary shepherd, who on all hands is
admitted to be the trainer, matchmaker, doctor, musician of his flock. But the royal
shepherd has numberless competitors, from whom he must be distinguished; there are
merchants, husbandmen, physicians, who will all dispute his right to manage the flock. I
think that we can best distinguish him by having recourse to a famous old tradition,
which may amuse as well as instruct us; the narrative is perfectly true, although the
scepticism of mankind is prone to doubt the tales of old. You have heard what happened
in the quarrel of Atreus and Thyestes? ‘You mean about the golden lamb?’ No, not that;
but another part of the story, which tells how the sun and stars once arose in the west
and set in the east, and that the god reversed their motion, as a witness to the right of
Atreus. ‘There is such a story.’ And no doubt you have heard of the empire of Cronos,
and of the earthborn men? The origin of these and the like stories is to be found in the
tale which I am about to narrate.
There was a time when God directed the revolutions of the world, but at the completion
of a certain cycle he let go; and the world, by a necessity of its nature, turned back, and
went round the other way. For divine things alone are unchangeable; but the earth and
heavens, although endowed with many glories, have a body, and are therefore liable to
perturbation. In the case of the world, the perturbation is very slight, and amounts only
to a reversal of motion. For the lord of moving things is alone self-moved; neither can
piety allow that he goes at one time in one direction and at another time in another; or
that God has given the universe opposite motions; or that there are two gods, one
turning it in one direction, another in another. But the truth is, that there are two cycles
of the world, and in one of them it is governed by an immediate Providence, and
receives life and immortality, and in the other is let go again, and has a reverse action
during infinite ages. This new action is spontaneous, and is due to exquisite perfection
of balance, to the vast size of the universe, and to the smallness of the pivot upon which
it turns. All changes in the heaven affect the animal world, and this being the greatest of
them, is most destructive to men and animals. At the beginning of the cycle before our
own very few of them had survived; and on these a mighty change passed. For their life
was reversed like the motion of the world, and first of all coming to a stand then quickly
returned to youth and beauty. The white locks of the aged became black; the cheeks of
the bearded man were restored to their youth and fineness; the young men grew softer
and smaller, and, being reduced to the condition of children in mind as well as body,
began to vanish away; and the bodies of those who had died by violence, in a few
moments underwent a parallel change and disappeared. In that cycle of existence there
was no such thing as the procreation of animals from one another, but they were born of
the earth, and of this our ancestors, who came into being immediately after the end of
the last cycle and at the beginning of this, have preserved the recollection. Such
traditions are often now unduly discredited, and yet they may be proved by internal
evidence. For observe how consistent the narrative is; as the old returned to youth, so
the dead returned to life; the wheel of their existence having been reversed, they rose
again from the earth: a few only were reserved by God for another destiny. Such was the
origin of the earthborn men.
‘And is this cycle, of which you are speaking, the reign of Cronos, or our present state of
existence?’ No, Socrates, that blessed and spontaneous life belongs not to this, but to the
previous state, in which God was the governor of the whole world, and other gods
subject to him ruled over parts of the world, as is still the case in certain places. They
were shepherds of men and animals, each of them sufficing for those of whom he had
the care. And there was no violence among them, or war, or devouring of one another.
Their life was spontaneous, because in those days God ruled over man; and he was to
man what man is now to the animals. Under his government there were no estates, or
private possessions, or families; but the earth produced a sufficiency of all things, and
men were born out of the earth, having no traditions of the past; and as the temperature
of the seasons was mild, they took no thought for raiment, and had no beds, but lived
and dwelt in the open air.
Such was the age of Cronos, and the age of Zeus is our own. Tell me, which is the
happier of the two? Or rather, shall I tell you that the happiness of these children of
Cronos must have depended on how they used their time? If having boundless leisure,
and the power of discoursing not only with one another but with the animals, they had
employed these advantages with a view to philosophy, gathering from every nature some
addition to their store of knowledge;—or again, if they had merely eaten and drunk, and
told stories to one another, and to the beasts;—in either case, I say, there would be no
difficulty in answering the question. But as nobody knows which they did, the question
must remain unanswered. And here is the point of my tale. In the fulness of time, when
the earthborn men had all passed away, the ruler of the universe let go the helm, and
became a spectator; and destiny and natural impulse swayed the world. At the same
instant all the inferior deities gave up their hold; the whole universe rebounded, and
there was a great earthquake, and utter ruin of all manner of animals. After a while the
tumult ceased, and the universal creature settled down in his accustomed course, having
authority over all other creatures, and following the instructions of his God and Father,
at first more precisely, afterwards with less exactness. The reason of the falling off was
the disengagement of a former chaos; ‘a muddy vesture of decay’ was a part of his
original nature, out of which he was brought by his Creator, under whose immediate
guidance, while he remained in that former cycle, the evil was minimized and the good
increased to the utmost. And in the beginning of the new cycle all was well enough, but
as time went on, discord entered in; at length the good was minimized and the evil
everywhere diffused, and there was a danger of universal ruin. Then the Creator, seeing
the world in great straits, and fearing that chaos and infinity would come again, in his
tender care again placed himself at the helm and restored order, and made the world
immortal and imperishable. Once more the cycle of life and generation was reversed; the
infants grew into young men, and the young men became greyheaded; no longer did the
animals spring out of the earth; as the whole world was now lord of its own progress, so
the parts were to be self-created and self-nourished. At first the case of men was very
helpless and pitiable; for they were alone among the wild beasts, and had to carry on the
struggle for existence without arts or knowledge, and had no food, and did not know
how to get any. That was the time when Prometheus brought them fire, Hephaestus and
Athene taught them arts, and other gods gave them seeds and plants. Out of these
human life was framed; for mankind were left to themselves, and ordered their own
ways, living, like the universe, in one cycle after one manner, and in another cycle after
another manner.
Enough of the myth, which may show us two errors of which we were guilty in our
account of the king. The first and grand error was in choosing for our king a god, who
belongs to the other cycle, instead of a man from our own; there was a lesser error also
in our failure to define the nature of the royal functions. The myth gave us only the
image of a divine shepherd, whereas the statesmen and kings of our own day very much
resemble their subjects in education and breeding. On retracing our steps we find that
we gave too narrow a designation to the art which was concerned with command- forself
over living creatures, when we called it the ‘feeding’ of animals in flocks. This would
apply to all shepherds, with the exception of the Statesman; but if we say ‘managing’ or
‘tending’ animals, the term would include him as well. Having remodelled the name, we
may subdivide as before, first separating the human from the divine shepherd or
manager. Then we may subdivide the human art of governing into the government of
willing and unwilling subjects—royalty and tyranny—which are the extreme opposites of
one another, although we in our simplicity have hitherto confounded them.
And yet the figure of the king is still defective. We have taken up a lump of fable, and
have used more than we needed. Like statuaries, we have made some of the features out
of proportion, and shall lose time in reducing them. Or our mythus may be compared to
a picture, which is well drawn in outline, but is not yet enlivened by colour. And to
intelligent persons language is, or ought to be, a better instrument of description than
any picture. ‘But what, Stranger, is the deficiency of which you speak?’ No higher truth
can be made clear without an example; every man seems to know all things in a dream,
and to know nothing when he is awake. And the nature of example can only be
illustrated by an example. Children are taught to read by being made to compare cases
in which they do not know a certain letter with cases in which they know it, until they
learn to recognize it in all its combinations. Example comes into use when we identify
something unknown with that which is known, and form a common notion of both of
them. Like the child who is learning his letters, the soul recognizes some of the first
elements of things; and then again is at fault and unable to recognize them when they
are translated into the difficult language of facts. Let us, then, take an example, which
will illustrate the nature of example, and will also assist us in characterizing the political
science, and in separating the true king from his rivals.
I will select the example of weaving, or, more precisely, weaving of wool. In the first
place, all possessions are either productive or preventive; of the preventive sort are
spells and antidotes, divine and human, and also defences, and defences are either arms
or screens, and screens are veils and also shields against heat and cold, and shields
against heat and cold are shelters and coverings, and coverings are blankets or
garments, and garments are in one piece or have many parts; and of these latter, some
are stitched and others are fastened, and of these again some are made of fibres of
plants and some of hair, and of these some are cemented with water and earth, and
some are fastened with their own material; the latter are called clothes, and are made by
the art of clothing, from which the art of weaving differs only in name, as the political
differs from the royal science. Thus we have drawn several distinctions, but as yet have
not distinguished the weaving of garments from the kindred and co-operative arts. For
the first process to which the material is subjected is the opposite of weaving—I mean
carding. And the art of carding, and the whole art of the fuller and the mender, are
concerned with the treatment and production of clothes, as well as the art of weaving.
Again, there are the arts which make the weaver’s tools. And if we say that the weaver’s
art is the greatest and noblest of those which have to do with woollen garments,— this,
although true, is not sufficiently distinct; because these other arts require to be first
cleared away. Let us proceed, then, by regular steps: —There are causal or principal, and
co-operative or subordinate arts. To the causal class belong the arts of washing and
mending, of carding and spinning the threads, and the other arts of working in wool;
these are chiefly of two kinds, falling under the two great categories of composition and
division. Carding is of the latter sort. But our concern is chiefly with that part of the art
of wool-working which composes, and of which one kind twists and the other interlaces
the threads, whether the firmer texture of the warp or the looser texture of the woof.
These are adapted to each other, and the orderly composition of them forms a woollen
garment. And the art which presides over these operations is the art of weaving.
But why did we go through this circuitous process, instead of saying at once that
weaving is the art of entwining the warp and the woof? In order that our labour may not
seem to be lost, I must explain the whole nature of excess and defect. There are two arts
of measuring—one is concerned with relative size, and the other has reference to a mean
or standard of what is meet. The difference between good and evil is the difference
between a mean or measure and excess or defect. All things require to be compared, not
only with one another, but with the mean, without which there would be no beauty and
no art, whether the art of the statesman or the art of weaving or any other; for all the
arts guard against excess or defect, which are real evils. This we must endeavour to
show, if the arts are to exist; and the proof of this will be a harder piece of work than the
demonstration of the existence of not-being which we proved in our discussion about
the Sophist. At present I am content with the indirect proof that the existence of such a
standard is necessary to the existence of the arts. The standard or measure, which we
are now only applying to the arts, may be some day required with a view to the
demonstration of absolute truth.
We may now divide this art of measurement into two parts; placing in the one part all
the arts which measure the relative size or number of objects, and in the other all those
which depend upon a mean or standard. Many accomplished men say that the art of
measurement has to do with all things, but these persons, although in this notion of
theirs they may very likely be right, are apt to fail in seeing the differences of classes—
they jumble together in one the ‘more’ and the ‘too much,’ which are very different
things. Whereas the right way is to find the differences of classes, and to comprehend
the things which have any affinity under the same class.
I will make one more observation by the way. When a pupil at a school is asked the
letters which make up a particular word, is he not asked with a view to his knowing the
same letters in all words? And our enquiry about the Statesman in like manner is
intended not only to improve our knowledge of politics, but our reasoning powers
generally. Still less would any one analyze the nature of weaving for its own sake. There
is no difficulty in exhibiting sensible images, but the greatest and noblest truths have no
outward form adapted to the eye of sense, and are only revealed in thought. And all that
we are now saying is said for the sake of them. I make these remarks, because I want you
to get rid of any impression that our discussion about weaving and about the reversal of
the universe, and the other discussion about the Sophist and not-being, were tedious
and irrelevant. Please to observe that they can only be fairly judged when compared with
what is meet; and yet not with what is meet for producing pleasure, nor even meet for
making discoveries, but for the great end of developing the dialectical method and
sharpening the wits of the auditors. He who censures us, should prove that, if our words
had been fewer, they would have been better calculated to make men dialecticians.
And now let us return to our king or statesman, and transfer to him the example of
weaving. The royal art has been separated from that of other herdsmen, but not from
the causal and co-operative arts which exist in states; these do not admit of dichotomy,
and therefore they must be carved neatly, like the limbs of a victim, not into more parts
than are necessary. And first (1) we have the large class of instruments, which includes
almost everything in the world; from these may be parted off (2) vessels which are
framed for the preservation of things, moist or dry, prepared in the fire or out of the fire.
The royal or political art has nothing to do with either of these, any more than with the
arts of making (3) vehicles, or (4) defences, whether dresses, or arms, or walls, or (5)
with the art of making ornaments, whether pictures or other playthings, as they may be
fitly called, for they have no serious use. Then (6) there are the arts which furnish gold,
silver, wood, bark, and other materials, which should have been put first; these, again,
have no concern with the kingly science; any more than the arts (7) which provide food
and nourishment for the human body, and which furnish occupation to the
husbandman, huntsman, doctor, cook, and the like, but not to the king or statesman.
Further, there are small things, such as coins, seals, stamps, which may with a little
violence be comprehended in one of the above-mentioned classes. Thus they will
embrace every species of property with the exception of animals,—but these have been
already included in the art of tending herds. There remains only the class of slaves or
ministers, among whom I expect that the real rivals of the king will be discovered. I am
not speaking of the veritable slave bought with money, nor of the hireling who lets
himself out for service, nor of the trader or merchant, who at best can only lay claim to
economical and not to royal science. Nor am I referring to government officials, such as
heralds and scribes, for these are only the servants of the rulers, and not the rulers
themselves. I admit that there may be something strange in any servants pretending to
be masters, but I hardly think that I could have been wrong in supposing that the
principal claimants to the throne will be of this class. Let us try once more: There are
diviners and priests, who are full of pride and prerogative; these, as the law declares,
know how to give acceptable gifts to the gods, and in many parts of Hellas the duty of
performing solemn sacrifices is assigned to the chief magistrate, as at Athens to the King
Archon. At last, then, we have found a trace of those whom we were seeking. But still
they are only servants and ministers.
And who are these who next come into view in various forms of men and animals and
other monsters appearing—lions and centaurs and satyrs—who are these? I did not
know them at first, for every one looks strange when he is unexpected. But now I
recognize the politician and his troop, the chief of Sophists, the prince of charlatans, the
most accomplished of wizards, who must be carefully distinguished from the true king
or statesman. And here I will interpose a question: What are the true forms of
government? Are they not three—monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy? and the
distinctions of freedom and compulsion, law and no law, poverty and riches expand
these three into six. Monarchy may be divided into royalty and tyranny; oligarchy into
aristocracy and plutocracy; and democracy may observe the law or may not observe it.
But are any of these governments worthy of the name? Is not government a science, and
are we to suppose that scientific government is secured by the rulers being many or few,
rich or poor, or by the rule being compulsory or voluntary? Can the many attain to
science? In no Hellenic city are there fifty good draught players, and certainly there are
not as many kings, for by kings we mean all those who are possessed of the political
science. A true government must therefore be the government of one, or of a few. And
they may govern us either with or without law, and whether they are poor or rich, and
however they govern, provided they govern on some scientific principle,—it makes no
difference. And as the physician may cure us with our will, or against our will, and by
any mode of treatment, burning, bleeding, lowering, fattening, if he only proceeds
scientifically: so the true governor may reduce or fatten or bleed the body corporate,
while he acts according to the rules of his art, and with a view to the good of the state,
whether according to law or without law.
‘I do not like the notion, that there can be good government without law.’
I must explain: Law-making certainly is the business of a king; and yet the best thing of
all is, not that the law should rule, but that the king should rule, for the varieties of
circumstances are endless, and no simple or universal rule can suit them all, or last for
ever. The law is just an ignorant brute of a tyrant, who insists always on his commands
being fulfilled under all circumstances. ‘Then why have we laws at all?’ I will answer that
question by asking you whether the training master gives a different discipline to each of
his pupils, or whether he has a general rule of diet and exercise which is suited to the
constitutions of the majority? ‘The latter.’ The legislator, too, is obliged to lay down
general laws, and cannot enact what is precisely suitable to each particular case. He
cannot be sitting at every man’s side all his life, and prescribe for him the minute
particulars of his duty, and therefore he is compelled to impose on himself and others
the restriction of a written law. Let me suppose now, that a physician or trainer, having
left directions for his patients or pupils, goes into a far country, and comes back sooner
than he intended; owing to some unexpected change in the weather, the patient or pupil
seems to require a different mode of treatment: Would he persist in his old commands,
under the idea that all others are noxious and heterodox? Viewed in the light of science,
would not the continuance of such regulations be ridiculous? And if the legislator, or
another like him, comes back from a far country, is he to be prohibited from altering his
own laws? The common people say: Let a man persuade the city first, and then let him
impose new laws. But is a physician only to cure his patients by persuasion, and not by
force? Is he a worse physician who uses a little gentle violence in effecting the cure? Or
shall we say, that the violence is just, if exercised by a rich man, and unjust, if by a poor
man? May not any man, rich or poor, with or without law, and whether the citizens like
or not, do what is for their good? The pilot saves the lives of the crew, not by laying
down rules, but by making his art a law, and, like him, the true governor has a strength
of art which is superior to the law. This is scientific government, and all others are
imitations only. Yet no great number of persons can attain to this science. And hence
follows an important result. The true political principle is to assert the inviolability of
the law, which, though not the best thing possible, is best for the imperfect condition of
man.
I will explain my meaning by an illustration:—Suppose that mankind, indignant at the
rogueries and caprices of physicians and pilots, call together an assembly, in which all
who like may speak, the skilled as well as the unskilled, and that in their assembly they
make decrees for regulating the practice of navigation and medicine which are to be
binding on these professions for all time. Suppose that they elect annually by vote or lot
those to whom authority in either department is to be delegated. And let us further
imagine, that when the term of their magistracy has expired, the magistrates appointed
by them are summoned before an ignorant and unprofessional court, and may be
condemned and punished for breaking the regulations. They even go a step further, and
enact, that he who is found enquiring into the truth of navigation and medicine, and is
seeking to be wise above what is written, shall be called not an artist, but a dreamer, a
prating Sophist and a corruptor of youth; and if he try to persuade others to investigate
those sciences in a manner contrary to the law, he shall be punished with the utmost
severity. And like rules might be extended to any art or science. But what would be the
consequence?
‘The arts would utterly perish, and human life, which is bad enough already, would
become intolerable.’
But suppose, once more, that we were to appoint some one as the guardian of the law,
who was both ignorant and interested, and who perverted the law: would not this be a
still worse evil than the other? ‘Certainly.’ For the laws are based on some experience
and wisdom. Hence the wiser course is, that they should be observed, although this is
not the best thing of all, but only the second best. And whoever, having skill, should try
to improve them, would act in the spirit of the law-giver. But then, as we have seen, no
great number of men, whether poor or rich, can be makers of laws. And so, the nearest
approach to true government is, when men do nothing contrary to their own written
laws and national customs. When the rich preserve their customs and maintain the law,
this is called aristocracy, or if they neglect the law, oligarchy. When an individual rules
according to law, whether by the help of science or opinion, this is called monarchy; and
when he has royal science he is a king, whether he be so in fact or not; but when he rules
in spite of law, and is blind with ignorance and passion, he is called a tyrant. These
forms of government exist, because men despair of the true king ever appearing among
them; if he were to appear, they would joyfully hand over to him the reins of
government. But, as there is no natural ruler of the hive, they meet together and make
laws. And do we wonder, when the foundation of politics is in the letter only, at the
miseries of states? Ought we not rather to admire the strength of the political bond? For
cities have endured the worst of evils time out of mind; many cities have been
shipwrecked, and some are like ships foundering, because their pilots are absolutely
ignorant of the science which they profess.
Let us next ask, which of these untrue forms of government is the least bad, and which
of them is the worst? I said at the beginning, that each of the three forms of government,
royalty, aristocracy, and democracy, might be divided into two, so that the whole
number of them, including the best, will be seven. Under monarchy we have already
distinguished royalty and tyranny; of oligarchy there were two kinds, aristocracy and
plutocracy; and democracy may also be divided, for there is a democracy which
observes, and a democracy which neglects, the laws. The government of one is the best
and the worst—the government of a few is less bad and less good—the government of
the many is the least bad and least good of them all, being the best of all lawless
governments, and the worst of all lawful ones. But the rulers of all these states, unless
they have knowledge, are maintainers of idols, and themselves idols—wizards, and also
Sophists; for, after many windings, the term ‘Sophist’ comes home to them.
And now enough of centaurs and satyrs: the play is ended, and they may quit the
political stage. Still there remain some other and better elements, which adhere to the
royal science, and must be drawn off in the refiner’s fire before the gold can become
quite pure. The arts of the general, the judge, and the orator, will have to be separated
from the royal art; when the separation has been made, the nature of the king will be
unalloyed. Now there are inferior sciences, such as music and others; and there is a
superior science, which determines whether music is to be learnt or not, and this is
different from them, and the governor of them. The science which determines whether
we are to use persuasion, or not, is higher than the art of persuasion; the science which
determines whether we are to go to war, is higher than the art of the general. The
science which makes the laws, is higher than that which only administers them. And the
science which has this authority over the rest, is the science of the king or statesman.
Once more we will endeavour to view this royal science by the light of our example. We
may compare the state to a web, and I will show you how the different threads are drawn
into one. You would admit—would you not?— that there are parts of virtue (although
this position is sometimes assailed by Eristics), and one part of virtue is temperance,
and another courage. These are two principles which are in a manner antagonistic to
one another; and they pervade all nature; the whole class of the good and beautiful is
included under them. The beautiful may be subdivided into two lesser classes: one of
these is described by us in terms expressive of motion or energy, and the other in terms
expressive of rest and quietness. We say, how manly! how vigorous! how ready! and we
say also, how calm! how temperate! how dignified! This opposition of terms is extended
by us to all actions, to the tones of the voice, the notes of music, the workings of the
mind, the characters of men. The two classes both have their exaggerations; and the
exaggerations of the one are termed ‘hardness,’ ‘violence,’ ‘madness;’ of the other
‘cowardliness,’ or ‘sluggishness.’ And if we pursue the enquiry, we find that these
opposite characters are naturally at variance, and can hardly be reconciled. In lesser
matters the antagonism between them is ludicrous, but in the State may be the occasion
of grave disorders, and may disturb the whole course of human life. For the orderly class
are always wanting to be at peace, and hence they pass imperceptibly into the condition
of slaves; and the courageous sort are always wanting to go to war, even when the odds
are against them, and are soon destroyed by their enemies. But the true art of
government, first preparing the material by education, weaves the two elements into
one, maintaining authority over the carders of the wool, and selecting the proper
subsidiary arts which are necessary for making the web. The royal science is queen of
educators, and begins by choosing the natures which she is to train, punishing with
death and exterminating those who are violently carried away to atheism and injustice,
and enslaving those who are wallowing in the mire of ignorance. The rest of the citizens
she blends into one, combining the stronger element of courage, which we may call the
warp, with the softer element of temperance, which we may imagine to be the woof.
These she binds together, first taking the eternal elements of the honourable, the good,
and the just, and fastening them with a divine cord in a heaven-born nature, and then
fastening the animal elements with a human cord. The good legislator can implant by
education the higher principles; and where they exist there is no difficulty in inserting
the lesser human bonds, by which the State is held together; these are the laws of
intermarriage, and of union for the sake of offspring. Most persons in their marriages
seek after wealth or power; or they are clannish, and choose those who are like
themselves,—the temperate marrying the temperate, and the courageous the
courageous. The two classes thrive and flourish at first, but they soon degenerate; the
one become mad, and the other feeble and useless. This would not have been the case, if
they had both originally held the same notions about the honourable and the good; for
then they never would have allowed the temperate natures to be separated from the
courageous, but they would have bound them together by common honours and
reputations, by intermarriages, and by the choice of rulers who combine both qualities.
The temperate are careful and just, but are wanting in the power of action; the
courageous fall short of them in justice, but in action are superior to them: and no state
can prosper in which either of these qualities is wanting. The noblest and best of all
webs or states is that which the royal science weaves, combining the two sorts of natures
in a single texture, and in this enfolding freeman and slave and every other social
element, and presiding over them all.
‘Your picture, Stranger, of the king and statesman, no less than of the Sophist, is quite
perfect.’
...
The principal subjects in the Statesman may be conveniently embraced under six or
seven heads:—(1) the myth; (2) the dialectical interest; (3) the political aspects of the
dialogue; (4) the satirical and paradoxical vein; (5) the necessary imperfection of law;
(6) the relation of the work to the other writings of Plato; lastly (7), we may briefly
consider the genuineness of the Sophist and Statesman, which can hardly be assumed
without proof, since the two dialogues have been questioned by three such eminent
Platonic scholars as Socher, Schaarschmidt, and Ueberweg.
I. The hand of the master is clearly visible in the myth. First in the connection with
mythology;—he wins a kind of verisimilitude for this as for his other myths, by adopting
received traditions, of which he pretends to find an explanation in his own larger
conception (compare Introduction to Critias). The young Socrates has heard of the sun
rising in the west and setting in the east, and of the earth-born men; but he has never
heard the origin of these remarkable phenomena. Nor is Plato, here or elsewhere,
wanting in denunciations of the incredulity of ‘this latter age,’ on which the lovers of the
marvellous have always delighted to enlarge. And he is not without express testimony to
the truth of his narrative;—such testimony as, in the Timaeus, the first men gave of the
names of the gods (‘They must surely have known their own ancestors’). For the first
generation of the new cycle, who lived near the time, are supposed to have preserved a
recollection of a previous one. He also appeals to internal evidence, viz. the perfect
coherence of the tale, though he is very well aware, as he says in the Cratylus, that there
may be consistency in error as well as in truth. The gravity and minuteness with which
some particulars are related also lend an artful aid. The profound interest and ready
assent of the young Socrates, who is not too old to be amused ‘with a tale which a child
would love to hear,’ are a further assistance. To those who were naturally inclined to
believe that the fortunes of mankind are influenced by the stars, or who maintained that
some one principle, like the principle of the Same and the Other in the Timaeus,
pervades all things in the world, the reversal of the motion of the heavens seemed
necessarily to produce a reversal of the order of human life. The spheres of knowledge,
which to us appear wide asunder as the poles, astronomy and medicine, were naturally
connected in the minds of early thinkers, because there was little or nothing in the space
between them. Thus there is a basis of philosophy, on which the improbabilities of the
tale may be said to rest. These are some of the devices by which Plato, like a modern
novelist, seeks to familiarize the marvellous.
The myth, like that of the Timaeus and Critias, is rather historical than poetical, in this
respect corresponding to the general change in the later writings of Plato, when
compared with the earlier ones. It is hardly a myth in the sense in which the term might
be applied to the myth of the Phaedrus, the Republic, the Phaedo, or the Gorgias, but
may be more aptly compared with the didactic tale in which Protagoras describes the
fortunes of primitive man, or with the description of the gradual rise of a new society in
the Third Book of the Laws. Some discrepancies may be observed between the
mythology of the Statesman and the Timaeus, and between the Timaeus and the
Republic. But there is no reason to expect that all Plato’s visions of a former, any more
than of a future, state of existence, should conform exactly to the same pattern. We do
not find perfect consistency in his philosophy; and still less have we any right to demand
this of him in his use of mythology and figures of speech. And we observe that while
employing all the resources of a writer of fiction to give credibility to his tales, he is not
disposed to insist upon their literal truth. Rather, as in the Phaedo, he says, ‘Something
of the kind is true;’ or, as in the Gorgias, ‘This you will think to be an old wife’s tale, but
you can think of nothing truer;’ or, as in the Statesman, he describes his work as a ‘mass
of mythology,’ which was introduced in order to teach certain lessons; or, as in the
Phaedrus, he secretly laughs at such stories while refusing to disturb the popular belief
in them.
The greater interest of the myth consists in the philosophical lessons which Plato
presents to us in this veiled form. Here, as in the tale of Er, the son of Armenius, he
touches upon the question of freedom and necessity, both in relation to God and nature.
For at first the universe is governed by the immediate providence of God,—this is the
golden age,— but after a while the wheel is reversed, and man is left to himself. Like
other theologians and philosophers, Plato relegates his explanation of the problem to a
transcendental world; he speaks of what in modern language might be termed
‘impossibilities in the nature of things,’ hindering God from continuing immanent in the
world. But there is some inconsistency; for the ‘letting go’ is spoken of as a divine act,
and is at the same time attributed to the necessary imperfection of matter; there is also a
numerical necessity for the successive births of souls. At first, man and the world retain
their divine instincts, but gradually degenerate. As in the Book of Genesis, the first fall of
man is succeeded by a second; the misery and wickedness of the world increase
continually. The reason of this further decline is supposed to be the disorganisation of
matter: the latent seeds of a former chaos are disengaged, and envelope all things. The
condition of man becomes more and more miserable; he is perpetually waging an
unequal warfare with the beasts. At length he obtains such a measure of education and
help as is necessary for his existence. Though deprived of God’s help, he is not left
wholly destitute; he has received from Athene and Hephaestus a knowledge of the arts;
other gods give him seeds and plants; and out of these human life is reconstructed. He
now eats bread in the sweat of his brow, and has dominion over the animals, subjected
to the conditions of his nature, and yet able to cope with them by divine help. Thus Plato
may be said to represent in a figure—(1) the state of innocence; (2) the fall of man; (3)
the still deeper decline into barbarism; (4) the restoration of man by the partial
interference of God, and the natural growth of the arts and of civilised society. Two
lesser features of this description should not pass unnoticed:—(1) the primitive men are
supposed to be created out of the earth, and not after the ordinary manner of human
generation—half the causes of moral evil are in this way removed; (2) the arts are
attributed to a divine revelation: and so the greatest difficulty in the history of prehistoric
man is solved. Though no one knew better than Plato that the introduction of
the gods is not a reason, but an excuse for not giving a reason (Cratylus), yet,
considering that more than two thousand years later mankind are still discussing these
problems, we may be satisfied to find in Plato a statement of the difficulties which arise
in conceiving the relation of man to God and nature, without expecting to obtain from
him a solution of them. In such a tale, as in the Phaedrus, various aspects of the Ideas
were doubtless indicated to Plato’s own mind, as the corresponding theological
problems are to us. The immanence of things in the Ideas, or the partial separation of
them, and the self-motion of the supreme Idea, are probably the forms in which he
would have interpreted his own parable.
He touches upon another question of great interest—the consciousness of evil—what in
the Jewish Scriptures is called ‘eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.’ At
the end of the narrative, the Eleatic asks his companion whether this life of innocence,
or that which men live at present, is the better of the two. He wants to distinguish
between the mere animal life of innocence, the ‘city of pigs,’ as it is comically termed by
Glaucon in the Republic, and the higher life of reason and philosophy. But as no one can
determine the state of man in the world before the Fall, ‘the question must remain
unanswered.’ Similar questions have occupied the minds of theologians in later ages;
but they can hardly be said to have found an answer. Professor Campbell well observes,
that the general spirit of the myth may be summed up in the words of the Lysis: ‘If evil
were to perish, should we hunger any more, or thirst any more, or have any similar
sensations? Yet perhaps the question what will or will not be is a foolish one, for who
can tell?’ As in the Theaetetus, evil is supposed to continue,—here, as the consequence of
a former state of the world, a sort of mephitic vapour exhaling from some ancient
chaos,—there, as involved in the possibility of good, and incident to the mixed state of
man.
Once more—and this is the point of connexion with the rest of the dialogue—the myth is
intended to bring out the difference between the ideal and the actual state of man. In all
ages of the world men have dreamed of a state of perfection, which has been, and is to
be, but never is, and seems to disappear under the necessary conditions of human
society. The uselessness, the danger, the true value of such political ideals have often
been discussed; youth is too ready to believe in them; age to disparage them. Plato’s
‘prudens quaestio’ respecting the comparative happiness of men in this and in a former
cycle of existence is intended to elicit this contrast between the golden age and ‘the life
under Zeus’ which is our own. To confuse the divine and human, or hastily apply one to
the other, is a ‘tremendous error.’ Of the ideal or divine government of the world we can
form no true or adequate conception; and this our mixed state of life, in which we are
partly left to ourselves, but not wholly deserted by the gods, may contain some higher
elements of good and knowledge than could have existed in the days of innocence under
the rule of Cronos. So we may venture slightly to enlarge a Platonic thought which
admits of a further application to Christian theology. Here are suggested also the
distinctions between God causing and permitting evil, and between his more and less
immediate government of the world.
II. The dialectical interest of the Statesman seems to contend in Plato’s mind with the
political; the dialogue might have been designated by two equally descriptive titles—
either the ‘Statesman,’ or ‘Concerning Method.’ Dialectic, which in the earlier writings of
Plato is a revival of the Socratic question and answer applied to definition, is now
occupied with classification; there is nothing in which he takes greater delight than in
processes of division (compare Phaedr.); he pursues them to a length out of proportion
to his main subject, and appears to value them as a dialectical exercise, and for their
own sake. A poetical vision of some order or hierarchy of ideas or sciences has already
been floating before us in the Symposium and the Republic. And in the Phaedrus this
aspect of dialectic is further sketched out, and the art of rhetoric is based on the division
of the characters of mankind into their several classes. The same love of divisions is
apparent in the Gorgias. But in a well-known passage of the Philebus occurs the first
criticism on the nature of classification. There we are exhorted not to fall into the
common error of passing from unity to infinity, but to find the intermediate classes; and
we are reminded that in any process of generalization, there may be more than one class
to which individuals may be referred, and that we must carry on the process of division
until we have arrived at the infima species.
These precepts are not forgotten, either in the Sophist or in the Statesman. The Sophist
contains four examples of division, carried on by regular steps, until in four different
lines of descent we detect the Sophist. In the Statesman the king or statesman is
discovered by a similar process; and we have a summary, probably made for the first
time, of possessions appropriated by the labour of man, which are distributed into seven
classes. We are warned against preferring the shorter to the longer method;—if we
divide in the middle, we are most likely to light upon species; at the same time, the
important remark is made, that ‘a part is not to be confounded with a class.’ Having
discovered the genus under which the king falls, we proceed to distinguish him from the
collateral species. To assist our imagination in making this separation, we require an
example. The higher ideas, of which we have a dreamy knowledge, can only be
represented by images taken from the external world. But, first of all, the nature of
example is explained by an example. The child is taught to read by comparing the letters
in words which he knows with the same letters in unknown combinations; and this is
the sort of process which we are about to attempt. As a parallel to the king we select the
worker in wool, and compare the art of weaving with the royal science, trying to separate
either of them from the inferior classes to which they are akin. This has the incidental
advantage, that weaving and the web furnish us with a figure of speech, which we can
afterwards transfer to the State.
There are two uses of examples or images—in the first place, they suggest thoughts—
secondly, they give them a distinct form. In the infancy of philosophy, as in childhood,
the language of pictures is natural to man: truth in the abstract is hardly won, and only
by use familiarized to the mind. Examples are akin to analogies, and have a reflex
influence on thought; they people the vacant mind, and may often originate new
directions of enquiry. Plato seems to be conscious of the suggestiveness of imagery; the
general analogy of the arts is constantly employed by him as well as the comparison of
particular arts—weaving, the refining of gold, the learning to read, music, statuary,
painting, medicine, the art of the pilot—all of which occur in this dialogue alone: though
he is also aware that ‘comparisons are slippery things,’ and may often give a false
clearness to ideas. We shall find, in the Philebus, a division of sciences into practical and
speculative, and into more or less speculative: here we have the idea of master-arts, or
sciences which control inferior ones. Besides the supreme science of dialectic, ‘which
will forget us, if we forget her,’ another master-science for the first time appears in
view—the science of government, which fixes the limits of all the rest. This conception of
the political or royal science as, from another point of view, the science of sciences,
which holds sway over the rest, is not originally found in Aristotle, but in Plato.
The doctrine that virtue and art are in a mean, which is familiarized to us by the study of
the Nicomachean Ethics, is also first distinctly asserted in the Statesman of Plato. The
too much and the too little are in restless motion: they must be fixed by a mean, which is
also a standard external to them. The art of measuring or finding a mean between excess
and defect, like the principle of division in the Phaedrus, receives a particular
application to the art of discourse. The excessive length of a discourse may be blamed;
but who can say what is excess, unless he is furnished with a measure or standard?
Measure is the life of the arts, and may some day be discovered to be the single ultimate
principle in which all the sciences are contained. Other forms of thought may be noted—
the distinction between causal and co-operative arts, which may be compared with the
distinction between primary and co-operative causes in the Timaeus; or between cause
and condition in the Phaedo; the passing mention of economical science; the opposition
of rest and motion, which is found in all nature; the general conception of two great arts
of composition and division, in which are contained weaving, politics, dialectic; and in
connexion with the conception of a mean, the two arts of measuring.
In the Theaetetus, Plato remarks that precision in the use of terms, though sometimes
pedantic, is sometimes necessary. Here he makes the opposite reflection, that there may
be a philosophical disregard of words. The evil of mere verbal oppositions, the
requirement of an impossible accuracy in the use of terms, the error of supposing that
philosophy was to be found in language, the danger of word-catching, have frequently
been discussed by him in the previous dialogues, but nowhere has the spirit of modern
inductive philosophy been more happily indicated than in the words of the Statesman:—
‘If you think more about things, and less about words, you will be richer in wisdom as
you grow older.’ A similar spirit is discernible in the remarkable expressions, ‘the long
and difficult language of facts;’ and ‘the interrogation of every nature, in order to obtain
the particular contribution of each to the store of knowledge.’ Who has described ‘the
feeble intelligence of all things; given by metaphysics better than the Eleatic Stranger in
the words—‘The higher ideas can hardly be set forth except through the medium of
examples; every man seems to know all things in a kind of dream, and then again
nothing when he is awake?’ Or where is the value of metaphysical pursuits more truly
expressed than in the words, —‘The greatest and noblest things have no outward image
of themselves visible to man: therefore we should learn to give a rational account of
them?’
III. The political aspects of the dialogue are closely connected with the dialectical. As in
the Cratylus, the legislator has ‘the dialectician standing on his right hand;’ so in the
Statesman, the king or statesman is the dialectician, who, although he may be in a
private station, is still a king. Whether he has the power or not, is a mere accident; or
rather he has the power, for what ought to be is (‘Was ist vernunftig, das ist wirklich’);
and he ought to be and is the true governor of mankind. There is a reflection in this
idealism of the Socratic ‘Virtue is knowledge;’ and, without idealism, we may remark
that knowledge is a great part of power. Plato does not trouble himself to construct a
machinery by which ‘philosophers shall be made kings,’ as in the Republic: he merely
holds up the ideal, and affirms that in some sense science is really supreme over human
life.
He is struck by the observation ‘quam parva sapientia regitur mundus,’ and is touched
with a feeling of the ills which afflict states. The condition of Megara before and during
the Peloponnesian War, of Athens under the Thirty and afterwards, of Syracuse and the
other Sicilian cities in their alternations of democratic excess and tyranny, might
naturally suggest such reflections. Some states he sees already shipwrecked, others
foundering for want of a pilot; and he wonders not at their destruction, but at their
endurance. For they ought to have perished long ago, if they had depended on the
wisdom of their rulers. The mingled pathos and satire of this remark is characteristic of
Plato’s later style.
The king is the personification of political science. And yet he is something more than
this,—the perfectly good and wise tyrant of the Laws, whose will is better than any law.
He is the special providence who is always interfering with and regulating all things.
Such a conception has sometimes been entertained by modern theologians, and by Plato
himself, of the Supreme Being. But whether applied to Divine or to human governors
the conception is faulty for two reasons, neither of which are noticed by Plato:—first,
because all good government supposes a degree of co- operation in the ruler and his
subjects,—an ‘education in politics’ as well as in moral virtue; secondly, because
government, whether Divine or human, implies that the subject has a previous
knowledge of the rules under which he is living. There is a fallacy, too, in comparing
unchangeable laws with a personal governor. For the law need not necessarily be an
‘ignorant and brutal tyrant,’ but gentle and humane, capable of being altered in the
spirit of the legislator, and of being administered so as to meet the cases of individuals.
Not only in fact, but in idea, both elements must remain—the fixed law and the living
will; the written word and the spirit; the principles of obligation and of freedom; and
their applications whether made by law or equity in particular cases.
There are two sides from which positive laws may be attacked:—either from the side of
nature, which rises up and rebels against them in the spirit of Callicles in the Gorgias; or
from the side of idealism, which attempts to soar above them,—and this is the spirit of
Plato in the Statesman. But he soon falls, like Icarus, and is content to walk instead of
flying; that is, to accommodate himself to the actual state of human things. Mankind
have long been in despair of finding the true ruler; and therefore are ready to acquiesce
in any of the five or six received forms of government as better than none. And the best
thing which they can do (though only the second best in reality), is to reduce the ideal
state to the conditions of actual life. Thus in the Statesman, as in the Laws, we have
three forms of government, which we may venture to term, (1) the ideal, (2) the
practical, (3) the sophistical—what ought to be, what might be, what is. And thus Plato
seems to stumble, almost by accident, on the notion of a constitutional monarchy, or of
a monarchy ruling by laws.
The divine foundations of a State are to be laid deep in education (Republic), and at the
same time some little violence may be used in exterminating natures which are
incapable of education (compare Laws). Plato is strongly of opinion that the legislator,
like the physician, may do men good against their will (compare Gorgias). The human
bonds of states are formed by the inter-marriage of dispositions adapted to supply the
defects of each other. As in the Republic, Plato has observed that there are opposite
natures in the world, the strong and the gentle, the courageous and the temperate,
which, borrowing an expression derived from the image of weaving, he calls the warp
and the woof of human society. To interlace these is the crowning achievement of
political science. In the Protagoras, Socrates was maintaining that there was only one
virtue, and not many: now Plato is inclined to think that there are not only parallel, but
opposite virtues, and seems to see a similar opposition pervading all art and nature. But
he is satisfied with laying down the principle, and does not inform us by what further
steps the union of opposites is to be effected.
In the loose framework of a single dialogue Plato has thus combined two distinct
subjects—politics and method. Yet they are not so far apart as they appear: in his own
mind there was a secret link of connexion between them. For the philosopher or
dialectician is also the only true king or statesman. In the execution of his plan Plato has
invented or distinguished several important forms of thought, and made incidentally
many valuable remarks. Questions of interest both in ancient and modern politics also
arise in the course of the dialogue, which may with advantage be further considered by
us:—
a. The imaginary ruler, whether God or man, is above the law, and is a law to himself
and to others. Among the Greeks as among the Jews, law was a sacred name, the gift of
God, the bond of states. But in the Statesman of Plato, as in the New Testament, the
word has also become the symbol of an imperfect good, which is almost an evil. The law
sacrifices the individual to the universal, and is the tyranny of the many over the few
(compare Republic). It has fixed rules which are the props of order, and will not swerve
or bend in extreme cases. It is the beginning of political society, but there is something
higher—an intelligent ruler, whether God or man, who is able to adapt himself to the
endless varieties of circumstances. Plato is fond of picturing the advantages which
would result from the union of the tyrant who has power with the legislator who has
wisdom: he regards this as the best and speediest way of reforming mankind. But
institutions cannot thus be artificially created, nor can the external authority of a ruler
impose laws for which a nation is unprepared. The greatest power, the highest wisdom,
can only proceed one or two steps in advance of public opinion. In all stages of
civilization human nature, after all our efforts, remains intractable,—not like clay in the
hands of the potter, or marble under the chisel of the sculptor. Great changes occur in
the history of nations, but they are brought about slowly, like the changes in the frame of
nature, upon which the puny arm of man hardly makes an impression. And, speaking
generally, the slowest growths, both in nature and in politics, are the most permanent.
b. Whether the best form of the ideal is a person or a law may fairly be doubted. The
former is more akin to us: it clothes itself in poetry and art, and appeals to reason more
in the form of feeling: in the latter there is less danger of allowing ourselves to be
deluded by a figure of speech. The ideal of the Greek state found an expression in the
deification of law: the ancient Stoic spoke of a wise man perfect in virtue, who was
fancifully said to be a king; but neither they nor Plato had arrived at the conception of a
person who was also a law. Nor is it easy for the Christian to think of God as wisdom,
truth, holiness, and also as the wise, true, and holy one. He is always wanting to break
through the abstraction and interrupt the law, in order that he may present to himself
the more familiar image of a divine friend. While the impersonal has too slender a hold
upon the affections to be made the basis of religion, the conception of a person on the
other hand tends to degenerate into a new kind of idolatry. Neither criticism nor
experience allows us to suppose that there are interferences with the laws of nature; the
idea is inconceivable to us and at variance with facts. The philosopher or theologian who
could realize to mankind that a person is a law, that the higher rule has no exception,
that goodness, like knowledge, is also power, would breathe a new religious life into the
world.
c. Besides the imaginary rule of a philosopher or a God, the actual forms of government
have to be considered. In the infancy of political science, men naturally ask whether the
rule of the many or of the few is to be preferred. If by ‘the few’ we mean ‘the good’ and
by ‘the many,’ ‘the bad,’ there can be but one reply: ‘The rule of one good man is better
than the rule of all the rest, if they are bad.’ For, as Heracleitus says, ‘One is ten
thousand if he be the best.’ If, however, we mean by the rule of the few the rule of a class
neither better nor worse than other classes, not devoid of a feeling of right, but guided
mostly by a sense of their own interests, and by the rule of the many the rule of all
classes, similarly under the influence of mixed motives, no one would hesitate to
answer—‘The rule of all rather than one, because all classes are more likely to take care
of all than one of another; and the government has greater power and stability when
resting on a wider basis.’ Both in ancient and modern times the best balanced form of
government has been held to be the best; and yet it should not be so nicely balanced as
to make action and movement impossible.
The statesman who builds his hope upon the aristocracy, upon the middle classes, upon
the people, will probably, if he have sufficient experience of them, conclude that all
classes are much alike, and that one is as good as another, and that the liberties of no
class are safe in the hands of the rest. The higher ranks have the advantage in education
and manners, the middle and lower in industry and self-denial; in every class, to a
certain extent, a natural sense of right prevails, sometimes communicated from the
lower to the higher, sometimes from the higher to the lower, which is too strong for class
interests. There have been crises in the history of nations, as at the time of the Crusades
or the Reformation, or the French Revolution, when the same inspiration has taken hold
of whole peoples, and permanently raised the sense of freedom and justice among
mankind.
But even supposing the different classes of a nation, when viewed impartially, to be on a
level with each other in moral virtue, there remain two considerations of opposite kinds
which enter into the problem of government. Admitting of course that the upper and
lower classes are equal in the eye of God and of the law, yet the one may be by nature
fitted to govern and the other to be governed. A ruling caste does not soon altogether
lose the governing qualities, nor a subject class easily acquire them. Hence the
phenomenon so often observed in the old Greek revolutions, and not without parallel in
modern times, that the leaders of the democracy have been themselves of aristocratic
origin. The people are expecting to be governed by representatives of their own, but the
true man of the people either never appears, or is quickly altered by circumstances.
Their real wishes hardly make themselves felt, although their lower interests and
prejudices may sometimes be flattered and yielded to for the sake of ulterior objects by
those who have political power. They will often learn by experience that the democracy
has become a plutocracy. The influence of wealth, though not the enjoyment of it, has
become diffused among the poor as well as among the rich; and society, instead of being
safer, is more at the mercy of the tyrant, who, when things are at the worst, obtains a
guard—that is, an army—and announces himself as the saviour.
The other consideration is of an opposite kind. Admitting that a few wise men are likely
to be better governors than the unwise many, yet it is not in their power to fashion an
entire people according to their behest. When with the best intentions the benevolent
despot begins his regime, he finds the world hard to move. A succession of good kings
has at the end of a century left the people an inert and unchanged mass. The Roman
world was not permanently improved by the hundred years of Hadrian and the
Antonines. The kings of Spain during the last century were at least equal to any
contemporary sovereigns in virtue and ability. In certain states of the world the means
are wanting to render a benevolent power effectual. These means are not a mere
external organisation of posts or telegraphs, hardly the introduction of new laws or
modes of industry. A change must be made in the spirit of a people as well as in their
externals. The ancient legislator did not really take a blank tablet and inscribe upon it
the rules which reflection and experience had taught him to be for a nation’s interest; no
one would have obeyed him if he had. But he took the customs which he found already
existing in a half-civilised state of society: these he reduced to form and inscribed on
pillars; he defined what had before been undefined, and gave certainty to what was
uncertain. No legislation ever sprang, like Athene, in full power out of the head either of
God or man.
Plato and Aristotle are sensible of the difficulty of combining the wisdom of the few with
the power of the many. According to Plato, he is a physician who has the knowledge of a
physician, and he is a king who has the knowledge of a king. But how the king, one or
more, is to obtain the required power, is hardly at all considered by him. He presents the
idea of a perfect government, but except the regulation for mixing different tempers in
marriage, he never makes any provision for the attainment of it. Aristotle, casting aside
ideals, would place the government in a middle class of citizens, sufficiently numerous
for stability, without admitting the populace; and such appears to have been the
constitution which actually prevailed for a short time at Athens—the rule of the Five
Thousand— characterized by Thucydides as the best government of Athens which he
had known. It may however be doubted how far, either in a Greek or modern state, such
a limitation is practicable or desirable; for those who are left outside the pale will always
be dangerous to those who are within, while on the other hand the leaven of the mob can
hardly affect the representation of a great country. There is reason for the argument in
favour of a property qualification; there is reason also in the arguments of those who
would include all and so exhaust the political situation.
The true answer to the question is relative to the circumstances of nations. How can we
get the greatest intelligence combined with the greatest power? The ancient legislator
would have found this question more easy than we do. For he would have required that
all persons who had a share of government should have received their education from
the state and have borne her burdens, and should have served in her fleets and armies.
But though we sometimes hear the cry that we must ‘educate the masses, for they are
our masters,’ who would listen to a proposal that the franchise should be confined to the
educated or to those who fulfil political duties? Then again, we know that the masses are
not our masters, and that they are more likely to become so if we educate them. In
modern politics so many interests have to be consulted that we are compelled to do, not
what is best, but what is possible.
d. Law is the first principle of society, but it cannot supply all the wants of society, and
may easily cause more evils than it cures. Plato is aware of the imperfection of law in
failing to meet the varieties of circumstances: he is also aware that human life would be
intolerable if every detail of it were placed under legal regulation. It may be a great evil
that physicians should kill their patients or captains cast away their ships, but it would
be a far greater evil if each particular in the practice of medicine or seamanship were
regulated by law. Much has been said in modern times about the duty of leaving men to
themselves, which is supposed to be the best way of taking care of them. The question is
often asked, What are the limits of legislation in relation to morals? And the answer is to
the same effect, that morals must take care of themselves. There is a one-sided truth in
these answers, if they are regarded as condemnations of the interference with commerce
in the last century or of clerical persecution in the Middle Ages. But ‘laissez-faire’ is not
the best but only the second best. What the best is, Plato does not attempt to determine;
he only contrasts the imperfection of law with the wisdom of the perfect ruler.
Laws should be just, but they must also be certain, and we are obliged to sacrifice
something of their justice to their certainty. Suppose a wise and good judge, who paying
little or no regard to the law, attempted to decide with perfect justice the cases that were
brought before him. To the uneducated person he would appear to be the ideal of a
judge. Such justice has been often exercised in primitive times, or at the present day
among eastern rulers. But in the first place it depends entirely on the personal character
of the judge. He may be honest, but there is no check upon his dishonesty, and his
opinion can only be overruled, not by any principle of law, but by the opinion of another
judging like himself without law. In the second place, even if he be ever so honest, his
mode of deciding questions would introduce an element of uncertainty into human life;
no one would know beforehand what would happen to him, or would seek to conform in
his conduct to any rule of law. For the compact which the law makes with men, that they
shall be protected if they observe the law in their dealings with one another, would have
to be substituted another principle of a more general character, that they shall be
protected by the law if they act rightly in their dealings with one another. The
complexity of human actions and also the uncertainty of their effects would be increased
tenfold. For one of the principal advantages of law is not merely that it enforces honesty,
but that it makes men act in the same way, and requires them to produce the same
evidence of their acts. Too many laws may be the sign of a corrupt and overcivilized state
of society, too few are the sign of an uncivilized one; as soon as commerce begins to
grow, men make themselves customs which have the validity of laws. Even equity, which
is the exception to the law, conforms to fixed rules and lies for the most part within the
limits of previous decisions.
IV. The bitterness of the Statesman is characteristic of Plato’s later style, in which the
thoughts of youth and love have fled away, and we are no longer tended by the Muses or
the Graces. We do not venture to say that Plato was soured by old age, but certainly the
kindliness and courtesy of the earlier dialogues have disappeared. He sees the world
under a harder and grimmer aspect: he is dealing with the reality of things, not with
visions or pictures of them: he is seeking by the aid of dialectic only, to arrive at truth.
He is deeply impressed with the importance of classification: in this alone he finds the
true measure of human things; and very often in the process of division curious results
are obtained. For the dialectical art is no respecter of persons: king and vermin-taker are
all alike to the philosopher. There may have been a time when the king was a god, but he
now is pretty much on a level with his subjects in breeding and education. Man should
be well advised that he is only one of the animals, and the Hellene in particular should
be aware that he himself was the author of the distinction between Hellene and
Barbarian, and that the Phrygian would equally divide mankind into Phrygians and
Barbarians, and that some intelligent animal, like a crane, might go a step further, and
divide the animal world into cranes and all other animals. Plato cannot help laughing
(compare Theaet.) when he thinks of the king running after his subjects, like the pigdriver
or the bird-taker. He would seriously have him consider how many competitors
there are to his throne, chiefly among the class of serving-men. A good deal of meaning
is lurking in the expression—‘There is no art of feeding mankind worthy the name.’
There is a similar depth in the remark,—‘The wonder about states is not that they are
short-lived, but that they last so long in spite of the badness of their rulers.’
V. There is also a paradoxical element in the Statesman which delights in reversing the
accustomed use of words. The law which to the Greek was the highest object of
reverence is an ignorant and brutal tyrant—the tyrant is converted into a beneficent
king. The sophist too is no longer, as in the earlier dialogues, the rival of the statesman,
but assumes his form. Plato sees that the ideal of the state in his own day is more and
more severed from the actual. From such ideals as he had once formed, he turns away to
contemplate the decline of the Greek cities which were far worse now in his old age than
they had been in his youth, and were to become worse and worse in the ages which
followed. He cannot contain his disgust at the contemporary statesmen, sophists who
had turned politicians, in various forms of men and animals, appearing, some like lions
and centaurs, others like satyrs and monkeys. In this new disguise the Sophists make
their last appearance on the scene: in the Laws Plato appears to have forgotten them, or
at any rate makes only a slight allusion to them in a single passage (Laws).
VI. The Statesman is naturally connected with the Sophist. At first sight we are
surprised to find that the Eleatic Stranger discourses to us, not only concerning the
nature of Being and Not-being, but concerning the king and statesman. We perceive,
however, that there is no inappropriateness in his maintaining the character of chief
speaker, when we remember the close connexion which is assumed by Plato to exist
between politics and dialectic. In both dialogues the Proteus Sophist is exhibited, first,
in the disguise of an Eristic, secondly, of a false statesman. There are several lesser
features which the two dialogues have in common. The styles and the situations of the
speakers are very similar; there is the same love of division, and in both of them the
mind of the writer is greatly occupied about method, to which he had probably intended
to return in the projected ‘Philosopher.’
The Statesman stands midway between the Republic and the Laws, and is also related to
the Timaeus. The mythical or cosmical element reminds us of the Timaeus, the ideal of
the Republic. A previous chaos in which the elements as yet were not, is hinted at both
in the Timaeus and Statesman. The same ingenious arts of giving verisimilitude to a
fiction are practised in both dialogues, and in both, as well as in the myth at the end of
the Republic, Plato touches on the subject of necessity and free-will. The words in which
he describes the miseries of states seem to be an amplification of the ‘Cities will never
cease from ill’ of the Republic. The point of view in both is the same; and the differences
not really important, e.g. in the myth, or in the account of the different kinds of states.
But the treatment of the subject in the Statesman is fragmentary, and the shorter and
later work, as might be expected, is less finished, and less worked out in detail. The idea
of measure and the arrangement of the sciences supply connecting links both with the
Republic and the Philebus.
More than any of the preceding dialogues, the Statesman seems to approximate in
thought and language to the Laws. There is the same decline and tendency to monotony
in style, the same self-consciousness, awkwardness, and over-civility; and in the Laws is
contained the pattern of that second best form of government, which, after all, is
admitted to be the only attainable one in this world. The ‘gentle violence,’ the marriage
of dissimilar natures, the figure of the warp and the woof, are also found in the Laws.
Both expressly recognize the conception of a first or ideal state, which has receded into
an invisible heaven. Nor does the account of the origin and growth of society really differ
in them, if we make allowance for the mythic character of the narrative in the
Statesman. The virtuous tyrant is common to both of them; and the Eleatic Stranger
takes up a position similar to that of the Athenian Stranger in the Laws.
VII. There would have been little disposition to doubt the genuineness of the Sophist
and Statesman, if they had been compared with the Laws rather than with the Republic,
and the Laws had been received, as they ought to be, on the authority of Aristotle and on
the ground of their intrinsic excellence, as an undoubted work of Plato. The detailed
consideration of the genuineness and order of the Platonic dialogues has been reserved
for another place: a few of the reasons for defending the Sophist and Statesman may be
given here.
1. The excellence, importance, and metaphysical originality of the two dialogues: no
works at once so good and of such length are known to have proceeded from the hands
of a forger.
2. The resemblances in them to other dialogues of Plato are such as might be expected to
be found in works of the same author, and not in those of an imitator, being too subtle
and minute to have been invented by another. The similar passages and turns of thought
are generally inferior to the parallel passages in his earlier writings; and we might a
priori have expected that, if altered, they would have been improved. But the
comparison of the Laws proves that this repetition of his own thoughts and words in an
inferior form is characteristic of Plato’s later style.
3. The close connexion of them with the Theaetetus, Parmenides, and Philebus, involves
the fate of these dialogues, as well as of the two suspected ones.
4. The suspicion of them seems mainly to rest on a presumption that in Plato’s writings
we may expect to find an uniform type of doctrine and opinion. But however we arrange
the order, or narrow the circle of the dialogues, we must admit that they exhibit a
growth and progress in the mind of Plato. And the appearance of change or progress is
not to be regarded as impugning the genuineness of any particular writings, but may be
even an argument in their favour. If we suppose the Sophist and Politicus to stand
halfway between the Republic and the Laws, and in near connexion with the Theaetetus,
the Parmenides, the Philebus, the arguments against them derived from differences of
thought and style disappear or may be said without paradox in some degree to confirm
their genuineness. There is no such interval between the Republic or Phaedrus and the
two suspected dialogues, as that which separates all the earlier writings of Plato from
the Laws. And the Theaetetus, Parmenides, and Philebus, supply links, by which,
however different from them, they may be reunited with the great body of the Platonic
writings.
STATESMAN
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Theodorus, Socrates, The Eleatic Stranger, The
Younger Socrates.
SOCRATES: I owe you many thanks, indeed, Theodorus, for the acquaintance both of
Theaetetus and of the Stranger.
THEODORUS: And in a little while, Socrates, you will owe me three times as many,
when they have completed for you the delineation of the Statesman and of the
Philosopher, as well as of the Sophist.
SOCRATES: Sophist, statesman, philosopher! O my dear Theodorus, do my ears truly
witness that this is the estimate formed of them by the great calculator and
geometrician?
THEODORUS: What do you mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I mean that you rate them all at the same value, whereas they are really
separated by an interval, which no geometrical ratio can express.
THEODORUS: By Ammon, the god of Cyrene, Socrates, that is a very fair hit; and shows
that you have not forgotten your geometry. I will retaliate on you at some other time, but
I must now ask the Stranger, who will not, I hope, tire of his goodness to us, to proceed
either with the Statesman or with the Philosopher, whichever he prefers.
STRANGER: That is my duty, Theodorus; having begun I must go on, and not leave the
work unfinished. But what shall be done with Theaetetus?
THEODORUS: In what respect?
STRANGER: Shall we relieve him, and take his companion, the Young Socrates, instead
of him? What do you advise?
THEODORUS: Yes, give the other a turn, as you propose. The young always do better
when they have intervals of rest.
SOCRATES: I think, Stranger, that both of them may be said to be in some way related
to me; for the one, as you affirm, has the cut of my ugly face (compare Theaet.), the
other is called by my name. And we should always be on the look-out to recognize a
kinsman by the style of his conversation. I myself was discoursing with Theaetetus
yesterday, and I have just been listening to his answers; my namesake I have not yet
examined, but I must. Another time will do for me; to-day let him answer you.
STRANGER: Very good. Young Socrates, do you hear what the elder Socrates is
proposing?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I do.
STRANGER: And do you agree to his proposal?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: As you do not object, still less can I. After the Sophist, then, I think that the
Statesman naturally follows next in the order of enquiry. And please to say, whether he,
too, should be ranked among those who have science.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: Then the sciences must be divided as before?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I dare say.
STRANGER: But yet the division will not be the same?
YOUNG SOCRATES: How then?
STRANGER: They will be divided at some other point.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: Where shall we discover the path of the Statesman? We must find and
separate off, and set our seal upon this, and we will set the mark of another class upon
all diverging paths. Thus the soul will conceive of all kinds of knowledge under two
classes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To find the path is your business, Stranger, and not mine.
STRANGER: Yes, Socrates, but the discovery, when once made, must be yours as well as
mine.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: Well, and are not arithmetic and certain other kindred arts, merely
abstract knowledge, wholly separated from action?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But in the art of carpentering and all other handicrafts, the knowledge of
the workman is merged in his work; he not only knows, but he also makes things which
previously did not exist.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Then let us divide sciences in general into those which are practical and
those which are purely intellectual.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let us assume these two divisions of science, which is one whole.
STRANGER: And are ‘statesman,’ ‘king,’ ‘master,’ or ‘householder,’ one and the same; or
is there a science or art answering to each of these names? Or rather, allow me to put the
matter in another way.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let me hear.
STRANGER: If any one who is in a private station has the skill to advise one of the
public physicians, must not he also be called a physician?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And if any one who is in a private station is able to advise the ruler of a
country, may not he be said to have the knowledge which the ruler himself ought to
have?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But surely the science of a true king is royal science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And will not he who possesses this knowledge, whether he happens to be a
ruler or a private man, when regarded only in reference to his art, be truly called ‘royal’?
YOUNG SOCRATES: He certainly ought to be.
STRANGER: And the householder and master are the same?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
STRANGER: Again, a large household may be compared to a small state:—will they
differ at all, as far as government is concerned?
YOUNG SOCRATES: They will not.
STRANGER: Then, returning to the point which we were just now discussing, do we not
clearly see that there is one science of all of them; and this science may be called either
royal or political or economical; we will not quarrel with any one about the name.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: This too, is evident, that the king cannot do much with his hands, or with
his whole body, towards the maintenance of his empire, compared with what he does by
the intelligence and strength of his mind.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly not.
STRANGER: Then, shall we say that the king has a greater affinity to knowledge than to
manual arts and to practical life in general?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly he has.
STRANGER: Then we may put all together as one and the same—statesmanship and the
statesman—the kingly science and the king.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly.
STRANGER: And now we shall only be proceeding in due order if we go on to divide the
sphere of knowledge?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: Think whether you can find any joint or parting in knowledge.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Tell me of what sort.
STRANGER: Such as this: You may remember that we made an art of calculation?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: Which was, unmistakeably, one of the arts of knowledge?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And to this art of calculation which discerns the differences of numbers
shall we assign any other function except to pass judgment on their differences?
YOUNG SOCRATES: How could we?
STRANGER: You know that the master-builder does not work himself, but is the ruler of
workmen?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: He contributes knowledge, not manual labour?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And may therefore be justly said to share in theoretical science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: But he ought not, like the calculator, to regard his functions as at an end
when he has formed a judgment;—he must assign to the individual workmen their
appropriate task until they have completed the work.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Are not all such sciences, no less than arithmetic and the like, subjects of
pure knowledge; and is not the difference between the two classes, that the one sort has
the power of judging only, and the other of ruling as well?
YOUNG SOCRATES: That is evident.
STRANGER: May we not very properly say, that of all knowledge, there are two
divisions—one which rules, and the other which judges?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I should think so.
STRANGER: And when men have anything to do in common, that they should be of one
mind is surely a desirable thing?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Then while we are at unity among ourselves, we need not mind about the
fancies of others?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: And now, in which of these divisions shall we place the king?— Is he a
judge and a kind of spectator? Or shall we assign to him the art of command—for he is a
ruler?
YOUNG SOCRATES: The latter, clearly.
STRANGER: Then we must see whether there is any mark of division in the art of
command too. I am inclined to think that there is a distinction similar to that of
manufacturer and retail dealer, which parts off the king from the herald.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How is this?
STRANGER: Why, does not the retailer receive and sell over again the productions of
others, which have been sold before?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly he does.
STRANGER: And is not the herald under command, and does he not receive orders, and
in his turn give them to others?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Then shall we mingle the kingly art in the same class with the art of the
herald, the interpreter, the boatswain, the prophet, and the numerous kindred arts
which exercise command; or, as in the preceding comparison we spoke of
manufacturers, or sellers for themselves, and of retailers,—seeing, too, that the class of
supreme rulers, or rulers for themselves, is almost nameless—shall we make a word
following the same analogy, and refer kings to a supreme or ruling-for-self science,
leaving the rest to receive a name from some one else? For we are seeking the ruler; and
our enquiry is not concerned with him who is not a ruler.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: Thus a very fair distinction has been attained between the man who gives
his own commands, and him who gives another’s. And now let us see if the supreme
power allows of any further division.
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: I think that it does; and please to assist me in making the division.
YOUNG SOCRATES: At what point?
STRANGER: May not all rulers be supposed to command for the sake of producing
something?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Nor is there any difficulty in dividing the things produced into two classes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How would you divide them?
STRANGER: Of the whole class, some have life and some are without life.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And by the help of this distinction we may make, if we please, a
subdivision of the section of knowledge which commands.
YOUNG SOCRATES: At what point?
STRANGER: One part may be set over the production of lifeless, the other of living
objects; and in this way the whole will be divided.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: That division, then, is complete; and now we may leave one half, and take
up the other; which may also be divided into two.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Which of the two halves do you mean?
STRANGER: Of course that which exercises command about animals. For, surely, the
royal science is not like that of a master-workman, a science presiding over lifeless
objects;—the king has a nobler function, which is the management and control of living
beings.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And the breeding and tending of living beings may be observed to be
sometimes a tending of the individual; in other cases, a common care of creatures in
flocks?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But the statesman is not a tender of individuals—not like the driver or
groom of a single ox or horse; he is rather to be compared with the keeper of a drove of
horses or oxen.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, I see, thanks to you.
STRANGER: Shall we call this art of tending many animals together, the art of
managing a herd, or the art of collective management?
YOUNG SOCRATES: No matter;—whichever suggests itself to us in the course of
conversation.
STRANGER: Very good, Socrates; and, if you continue to be not too particular about
names, you will be all the richer in wisdom when you are an old man. And now, as you
say, leaving the discussion of the name,—can you see a way in which a person, by
showing the art of herding to be of two kinds, may cause that which is now sought
amongst twice the number of things, to be then sought amongst half that number?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I will try;—there appears to me to be one management of men and
another of beasts.
STRANGER: You have certainly divided them in a most straightforward and manly
style; but you have fallen into an error which hereafter I think that we had better avoid.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is the error?
STRANGER: I think that we had better not cut off a single small portion which is not a
species, from many larger portions; the part should be a species. To separate off at once
the subject of investigation, is a most excellent plan, if only the separation be rightly
made; and you were under the impression that you were right, because you saw that you
would come to man; and this led you to hasten the steps. But you should not chip off too
small a piece, my friend; the safer way is to cut through the middle; which is also the
more likely way of finding classes. Attention to this principle makes all the difference in
a process of enquiry.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean, Stranger?
STRANGER: I will endeavour to speak more plainly out of love to your good parts,
Socrates; and, although I cannot at present entirely explain myself, I will try, as we
proceed, to make my meaning a little clearer.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What was the error of which, as you say, we were guilty in our
recent division?
STRANGER: The error was just as if some one who wanted to divide the human race,
were to divide them after the fashion which prevails in this part of the world; here they
cut off the Hellenes as one species, and all the other species of mankind, which are
innumerable, and have no ties or common language, they include under the single name
of ‘barbarians,’ and because they have one name they are supposed to be of one species
also. Or suppose that in dividing numbers you were to cut off ten thousand from all the
rest, and make of it one species, comprehending the rest under another separate name,
you might say that here too was a single class, because you had given it a single name.
Whereas you would make a much better and more equal and logical classification of
numbers, if you divided them into odd and even; or of the human species, if you divided
them into male and female; and only separated off Lydians or Phrygians, or any other
tribe, and arrayed them against the rest of the world, when you could no longer make a
division into parts which were also classes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true; but I wish that this distinction between a part and a
class could still be made somewhat plainer.
STRANGER: O Socrates, best of men, you are imposing upon me a very difficult task.
We have already digressed further from our original intention than we ought, and you
would have us wander still further away. But we must now return to our subject; and
hereafter, when there is a leisure hour, we will follow up the other track; at the same
time, I wish you to guard against imagining that you ever heard me declare—
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: That a class and a part are distinct.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What did I hear, then?
STRANGER: That a class is necessarily a part, but there is no similar necessity that a
part should be a class; that is the view which I should always wish you to attribute to me,
Socrates.
YOUNG SOCRATES: So be it.
STRANGER: There is another thing which I should like to know.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: The point at which we digressed; for, if I am not mistaken, the exact place
was at the question, Where you would divide the management of herds. To this you
appeared rather too ready to answer that there were two species of animals; man being
one, and all brutes making up the other.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: I thought that in taking away a part, you imagined that the remainder
formed a class, because you were able to call them by the common name of brutes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That again is true.
STRANGER: Suppose now, O most courageous of dialecticians, that some wise and
understanding creature, such as a crane is reputed to be, were, in imitation of you, to
make a similar division, and set up cranes against all other animals to their own special
glorification, at the same time jumbling together all the others, including man, under
the appellation of brutes,— here would be the sort of error which we must try to avoid.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How can we be safe?
STRANGER: If we do not divide the whole class of animals, we shall be less likely to fall
into that error.
YOUNG SOCRATES: We had better not take the whole?
STRANGER: Yes, there lay the source of error in our former division.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How?
STRANGER: You remember how that part of the art of knowledge which was concerned
with command, had to do with the rearing of living creatures,—I mean, with animals in
herds?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: In that case, there was already implied a division of all animals into tame
and wild; those whose nature can be tamed are called tame, and those which cannot be
tamed are called wild.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And the political science of which we are in search, is and ever was
concerned with tame animals, and is also confined to gregarious animals.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: But then we ought not to divide, as we did, taking the whole class at once.
Neither let us be in too great haste to arrive quickly at the political science; for this
mistake has already brought upon us the misfortune of which the proverb speaks.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What misfortune?
STRANGER: The misfortune of too much haste, which is too little speed.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And all the better, Stranger;—we got what we deserved.
STRANGER: Very well: Let us then begin again, and endeavour to divide the collective
rearing of animals; for probably the completion of the argument will best show what you
are so anxious to know. Tell me, then—
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: Have you ever heard, as you very likely may—for I do not suppose that you
ever actually visited them—of the preserves of fishes in the Nile, and in the ponds of the
Great King; or you may have seen similar preserves in wells at home?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, to be sure, I have seen them, and I have often heard the
others described.
STRANGER: And you may have heard also, and may have been assured by report,
although you have not travelled in those regions, of nurseries of geese and cranes in the
plains of Thessaly?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: I asked you, because here is a new division of the management of herds,
into the management of land and of water herds.
YOUNG SOCRATES: There is.
STRANGER: And do you agree that we ought to divide the collective rearing of herds
into two corresponding parts, the one the rearing of water, and the other the rearing of
land herds?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: There is surely no need to ask which of these two contains the royal art, for
it is evident to everybody.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Any one can divide the herds which feed on dry land?
YOUNG SOCRATES: How would you divide them?
STRANGER: I should distinguish between those which fly and those which walk.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Most true.
STRANGER: And where shall we look for the political animal? Might not an idiot, so to
speak, know that he is a pedestrian?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: The art of managing the walking animal has to be further divided, just as
you might halve an even number.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly.
STRANGER: Let me note that here appear in view two ways to that part or class which
the argument aims at reaching,—the one a speedier way, which cuts off a small portion
and leaves a large; the other agrees better with the principle which we were laying down,
that as far as we can we should divide in the middle; but it is longer. We can take either
of them, whichever we please.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Cannot we have both ways?
STRANGER: Together? What a thing to ask! but, if you take them in turn, you clearly
may.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Then I should like to have them in turn.
STRANGER: There will be no difficulty, as we are near the end; if we had been at the
beginning, or in the middle, I should have demurred to your request; but now, in
accordance with your desire, let us begin with the longer way; while we are fresh, we
shall get on better. And now attend to the division.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let me hear.
STRANGER: The tame walking herding animals are distributed by nature into two
classes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Upon what principle?
STRANGER: The one grows horns; and the other is without horns.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly.
STRANGER: Suppose that you divide the science which manages pedestrian animals
into two corresponding parts, and define them; for if you try to invent names for them,
you will find the intricacy too great.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How must I speak of them, then?
STRANGER: In this way: let the science of managing pedestrian animals be divided into
two parts, and one part assigned to the horned herd, and the other to the herd that has
no horns.
YOUNG SOCRATES: All that you say has been abundantly proved, and may therefore be
assumed.
STRANGER: The king is clearly the shepherd of a polled herd, who have no horns.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That is evident.
STRANGER: Shall we break up this hornless herd into sections, and endeavour to assign
to him what is his?
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: Shall we distinguish them by their having or not having cloven feet, or by
their mixing or not mixing the breed? You know what I mean.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: I mean that horses and asses naturally breed from one another.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: But the remainder of the hornless herd of tame animals will not mix the
breed.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And of which has the Statesman charge,—of the mixed or of the unmixed
race?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly of the unmixed.
STRANGER: I suppose that we must divide this again as before.
YOUNG SOCRATES: We must.
STRANGER: Every tame and herding animal has now been split up, with the exception
of two species; for I hardly think that dogs should be reckoned among gregarious
animals.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not; but how shall we divide the two remaining species?
STRANGER: There is a measure of difference which may be appropriately employed by
you and Theaetetus, who are students of geometry.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is that?
STRANGER: The diameter; and, again, the diameter of a diameter. (Compare Meno.)
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: How does man walk, but as a diameter whose power is two feet?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Just so.
STRANGER: And the power of the remaining kind, being the power of twice two feet,
may be said to be the diameter of our diameter.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly; and now I think that I pretty nearly understand you.
STRANGER: In these divisions, Socrates, I descry what would make another famous
jest.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: Human beings have come out in the same class with the freest and airiest
of creation, and have been running a race with them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I remark that very singular coincidence.
STRANGER: And would you not expect the slowest to arrive last?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Indeed I should.
STRANGER: And there is a still more ridiculous consequence, that the king is found
running about with the herd and in close competition with the bird-catcher, who of all
mankind is most of an adept at the airy life. (Plato is here introducing a new suddivision,
i.e. that of bipeds into men and birds. Others however refer the passage to the division
into quadrupeds and bipeds, making pigs compete with human beings and the pigdriver
with the king. According to this explanation we must translate the words above,
‘freest and airiest of creation,’ ‘worthiest and laziest of creation.’)
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Then here, Socrates, is still clearer evidence of the truth of what was said
in the enquiry about the Sophist? (Compare Sophist.)
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: That the dialectical method is no respecter of persons, and does not set the
great above the small, but always arrives in her own way at the truest result.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly.
STRANGER: And now, I will not wait for you to ask the, but will of my own accord take
you by the shorter road to the definition of a king.
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: I say that we should have begun at first by dividing land animals into biped
and quadruped; and since the winged herd, and that alone, comes out in the same class
with man, we should divide bipeds into those which have feathers and those which have
not, and when they have been divided, and the art of the management of mankind is
brought to light, the time will have come to produce our Statesman and ruler, and set
him like a charioteer in his place, and hand over to him the reins of state, for that too is a
vocation which belongs to him.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good; you have paid me the debt,—I mean, that you have
completed the argument, and I suppose that you added the digression by way of interest.
(Compare Republic.)
STRANGER: Then now, let us go back to the beginning, and join the links, which
together make the definition of the name of the Statesman’s art.
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: The science of pure knowledge had, as we said originally, a part which was
the science of rule or command, and from this was derived another part, which was
called command-for-self, on the analogy of selling-for- self; an important section of this
was the management of living animals, and this again was further limited to the
management of them in herds; and again in herds of pedestrian animals. The chief
division of the latter was the art of managing pedestrian animals which are without
horns; this again has a part which can only be comprehended under one term by joining
together three names—shepherding pure-bred animals. The only further subdivision is
the art of man-herding,—this has to do with bipeds, and is what we were seeking after,
and have now found, being at once the royal and political.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To be sure.
STRANGER: And do you think, Socrates, that we really have done as you say?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: Do you think, I mean, that we have really fulfilled our intention?—There
has been a sort of discussion, and yet the investigation seems to me not to be perfectly
worked out: this is where the enquiry fails.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I do not understand.
STRANGER: I will try to make the thought, which is at this moment present in my
mind, clearer to us both.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let me hear.
STRANGER: There were many arts of shepherding, and one of them was the political,
which had the charge of one particular herd?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And this the argument defined to be the art of rearing, not horses or other
brutes, but the art of rearing man collectively?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Note, however, a difference which distinguishes the king from all other
shepherds.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?
STRANGER: I want to ask, whether any one of the other herdsmen has a rival who
professes and claims to share with him in the management of the herd?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: I mean to say that merchants, husbandmen, providers of food, and also
training-masters and physicians, will all contend with the herdsmen of humanity, whom
we call Statesmen, declaring that they themselves have the care of rearing or managing
mankind, and that they rear not only the common herd, but also the rulers themselves.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Are they not right in saying so?
STRANGER: Very likely they may be, and we will consider their claim. But we are
certain of this,—that no one will raise a similar claim as against the herdsman, who is
allowed on all hands to be the sole and only feeder and physician of his herd; he is also
their match-maker and accoucheur; no one else knows that department of science. And
he is their merry-maker and musician, as far as their nature is susceptible of such
influences, and no one can console and soothe his own herd better than he can, either
with the natural tones of his voice or with instruments. And the same may be said of
tenders of animals in general.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: But if this is as you say, can our argument about the king be true and
unimpeachable? Were we right in selecting him out of ten thousand other claimants to
be the shepherd and rearer of the human flock?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Surely not.
STRANGER: Had we not reason just to now to apprehend, that although we may have
described a sort of royal form, we have not as yet accurately worked out the true image
of the Statesman? and that we cannot reveal him as he truly is in his own nature, until
we have disengaged and separated him from those who hang about him and claim to
share in his prerogatives?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And that, Socrates, is what we must do, if we do not mean to bring disgrace
upon the argument at its close.
YOUNG SOCRATES: We must certainly avoid that.
STRANGER: Then let us make a new beginning, and travel by a different road.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What road?
STRANGER: I think that we may have a little amusement; there is a famous tale, of
which a good portion may with advantage be interwoven, and then we may resume our
series of divisions, and proceed in the old path until we arrive at the desired summit.
Shall we do as I say?
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: Listen, then, to a tale which a child would love to hear; and you are not too
old for childish amusement.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let me hear.
STRANGER: There did really happen, and will again happen, like many other events of
which ancient tradition has preserved the record, the portent which is traditionally said
to have occurred in the quarrel of Atreus and Thyestes. You have heard, no doubt, and
remember what they say happened at that time?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I suppose you to mean the token of the birth of the golden lamb.
STRANGER: No, not that; but another part of the story, which tells how the sun and the
stars once rose in the west, and set in the east, and that the god reversed their motion,
and gave them that which they now have as a testimony to the right of Atreus.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes; there is that legend also.
STRANGER: Again, we have been often told of the reign of Cronos.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, very often.
STRANGER: Did you ever hear that the men of former times were earth-born, and not
begotten of one another?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, that is another old tradition.
STRANGER: All these stories, and ten thousand others which are still more wonderful,
have a common origin; many of them have been lost in the lapse of ages, or are repeated
only in a disconnected form; but the origin of them is what no one has told, and may as
well be told now; for the tale is suited to throw light on the nature of the king.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good; and I hope that you will give the whole story, and leave
out nothing.
STRANGER: Listen, then. There is a time when God himself guides and helps to roll the
world in its course; and there is a time, on the completion of a certain cycle, when he lets
go, and the world being a living creature, and having originally received intelligence
from its author and creator, turns about and by an inherent necessity revolves in the
opposite direction.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why is that?
STRANGER: Why, because only the most divine things of all remain ever unchanged
and the same, and body is not included in this class. Heaven and the universe, as we
have termed them, although they have been endowed by the Creator with many glories,
partake of a bodily nature, and therefore cannot be entirely free from perturbation. But
their motion is, as far as possible, single and in the same place, and of the same kind;
and is therefore only subject to a reversal, which is the least alteration possible. For the
lord of all moving things is alone able to move of himself; and to think that he moves
them at one time in one direction and at another time in another is blasphemy. Hence
we must not say that the world is either self-moved always, or all made to go round by
God in two opposite courses; or that two Gods, having opposite purposes, make it move
round. But as I have already said (and this is the only remaining alternative) the world is
guided at one time by an external power which is divine and receives fresh life and
immortality from the renewing hand of the Creator, and again, when let go, moves
spontaneously, being set free at such a time as to have, during infinite cycles of years, a
reverse movement: this is due to its perfect balance, to its vast size, and to the fact that it
turns on the smallest pivot.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Your account of the world seems to be very reasonable indeed.
STRANGER: Let us now reflect and try to gather from what has been said the nature of
the phenomenon which we affirmed to be the cause of all these wonders. It is this.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: The reversal which takes place from time to time of the motion of the
universe.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How is that the cause?
STRANGER: Of all changes of the heavenly motions, we may consider this to be the
greatest and most complete.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I should imagine so.
STRANGER: And it may be supposed to result in the greatest changes to the human
beings who are the inhabitants of the world at the time.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Such changes would naturally occur.
STRANGER: And animals, as we know, survive with difficulty great and serious changes
of many different kinds when they come upon them at once.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Hence there necessarily occurs a great destruction of them, which extends
also to the life of man; few survivors of the race are left, and those who remain become
the subjects of several novel and remarkable phenomena, and of one in particular, which
takes place at the time when the transition is made to the cycle opposite to that in which
we are now living.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: The life of all animals first came to a standstill, and the mortal nature
ceased to be or look older, and was then reversed and grew young and delicate; the
white locks of the aged darkened again, and the cheeks the bearded man became
smooth, and recovered their former bloom; the bodies of youths in their prime grew
softer and smaller, continually by day and night returning and becoming assimilated to
the nature of a newly-born child in mind as well as body; in the succeeding stage they
wasted away and wholly disappeared. And the bodies of those who died by violence at
that time quickly passed through the like changes, and in a few days were no more seen.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Then how, Stranger, were the animals created in those days; and
in what way were they begotten of one another?
STRANGER: It is evident, Socrates, that there was no such thing in the then order of
nature as the procreation of animals from one another; the earth-born race, of which we
hear in story, was the one which existed in those days—they rose again from the ground;
and of this tradition, which is now-a-days often unduly discredited, our ancestors, who
were nearest in point of time to the end of the last period and came into being at the
beginning of this, are to us the heralds. And mark how consistent the sequel of the tale
is; after the return of age to youth, follows the return of the dead, who are lying in the
earth, to life; simultaneously with the reversal of the world the wheel of their generation
has been turned back, and they are put together and rise and live in the opposite order,
unless God has carried any of them away to some other lot. According to this tradition
they of necessity sprang from the earth and have the name of earth-born, and so the
above legend clings to them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly that is quite consistent with what has preceded; but tell
me, was the life which you said existed in the reign of Cronos in that cycle of the world,
or in this? For the change in the course of the stars and the sun must have occurred in
both.
STRANGER: I see that you enter into my meaning;—no, that blessed and spontaneous
life does not belong to the present cycle of the world, but to the previous one, in which
God superintended the whole revolution of the universe; and the several parts the
universe were distributed under the rule of certain inferior deities, as is the way in some
places still. There were demigods, who were the shepherds of the various species and
herds of animals, and each one was in all respects sufficient for those of whom he was
the shepherd; neither was there any violence, or devouring of one another, or war or
quarrel among them; and I might tell of ten thousand other blessings, which belonged to
that dispensation. The reason why the life of man was, as tradition says, spontaneous, is
as follows: In those days God himself was their shepherd, and ruled over them, just as
man, who is by comparison a divine being, still rules over the lower animals. Under him
there were no forms of government or separate possession of women and children; for
all men rose again from the earth, having no memory of the past. And although they had
nothing of this sort, the earth gave them fruits in abundance, which grew on trees and
shrubs unbidden, and were not planted by the hand of man. And they dwelt naked, and
mostly in the open air, for the temperature of their seasons was mild; and they had no
beds, but lay on soft couches of grass, which grew plentifully out of the earth. Such was
the life of man in the days of Cronos, Socrates; the character of our present life, which is
said to be under Zeus, you know from your own experience. Can you, and will you,
determine which of them you deem the happier?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Impossible.
STRANGER: Then shall I determine for you as well as I can?
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: Suppose that the nurslings of Cronos, having this boundless leisure, and
the power of holding intercourse, not only with men, but with the brute creation, had
used all these advantages with a view to philosophy, conversing with the brutes as well
as with one another, and learning of every nature which was gifted with any special
power, and was able to contribute some special experience to the store of wisdom, there
would be no difficulty in deciding that they would be a thousand times happier than the
men of our own day. Or, again, if they had merely eaten and drunk until they were full,
and told stories to one another and to the animals—such stories as are now attributed to
them—in this case also, as I should imagine, the answer would be easy. But until some
satisfactory witness can be found of the love of that age for knowledge and discussion,
we had better let the matter drop, and give the reason why we have unearthed this tale,
and then we shall be able to get on. In the fulness of time, when the change was to take
place, and the earth-born race had all perished, and every soul had completed its proper
cycle of births and been sown in the earth her appointed number of times, the pilot of
the universe let the helm go, and retired to his place of view; and then Fate and innate
desire reversed the motion of the world. Then also all the inferior deities who share the
rule of the supreme power, being informed of what was happening, let go the parts of
the world which were under their control. And the world turning round with a sudden
shock, being impelled in an opposite direction from beginning to end, was shaken by a
mighty earthquake, which wrought a new destruction of all manner of animals.
Afterwards, when sufficient time had elapsed, the tumult and confusion and earthquake
ceased, and the universal creature, once more at peace, attained to a calm, and settled
down into his own orderly and accustomed course, having the charge and rule of himself
and of all the creatures which are contained in him, and executing, as far as he
remembered them, the instructions of his Father and Creator, more precisely at first,
but afterwords with less exactness. The reason of the falling off was the admixture of
matter in him; this was inherent in the primal nature, which was full of disorder, until
attaining to the present order. From God, the constructor, the world received all that is
good in him, but from a previous state came elements of evil and unrighteousness,
which, thence derived, first of all passed into the world, and were then transmitted to
the animals. While the world was aided by the pilot in nurturing the animals, the evil
was small, and great the good which he produced, but after the separation, when the
world was let go, at first all proceeded well enough; but, as time went on, there was more
and more forgetting, and the old discord again held sway and burst forth in full glory;
and at last small was the good, and great was the admixture of evil, and there was a
danger of universal ruin to the world, and to the things contained in him. Wherefore
God, the orderer of all, in his tender care, seeing that the world was in great straits, and
fearing that all might be dissolved in the storm and disappear in infinite chaos, again
seated himself at the helm; and bringing back the elements which had fallen into
dissolution and disorder to the motion which had prevailed under his dispensation, he
set them in order and restored them, and made the world imperishable and immortal.
And this is the whole tale, of which the first part will suffice to illustrate the nature of the
king. For when the world turned towards the present cycle of generation, the age of man
again stood still, and a change opposite to the previous one was the result. The small
creatures which had almost disappeared grew in and stature, and the newly-born
children of the earth became grey and died and sank into the earth again. All things
changed, imitating and following the condition of the universe, and of necessity agreeing
with that in their mode of conception and generation and nurture; for no animal was
any longer allowed to come into being in the earth through the agency of other creative
beings, but as the world was ordained to be the lord of his own progress, in like manner
the parts were ordained to grow and generate and give nourishment, as far as they
could, of themselves, impelled by a similar movement. And so we have arrived at the
real end of this discourse; for although there might be much to tell of the lower animals,
and of the condition out of which they changed and of the causes of the change, about
men there is not much, and that little is more to the purpose. Deprived of the care of
God, who had possessed and tended them, they were left helpless and defenceless, and
were torn in pieces by the beasts, who were naturally fierce and had now grown wild.
And in the first ages they were still without skill or resource; the food which once grew
spontaneously had failed, and as yet they knew not how to procure it, because they had
never felt the pressure of necessity. For all these reasons they were in a great strait;
wherefore also the gifts spoken of in the old tradition were imparted to man by the gods,
together with so much teaching and education as was indispensable; fire was given to
them by Prometheus, the arts by Hephaestus and his fellow-worker, Athene, seeds and
plants by others. From these is derived all that has helped to frame human life; since the
care of the Gods, as I was saying, had now failed men, and they had to order their course
of life for themselves, and were their own masters, just like the universal creature whom
they imitate and follow, ever changing, as he changes, and ever living and growing, at
one time in one manner, and at another time in another. Enough of the story, which
may be of use in showing us how greatly we erred in the delineation of the king and the
statesman in our previous discourse.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What was this great error of which you speak?
STRANGER: There were two; the first a lesser one, the other was an error on a much
larger and grander scale.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: I mean to say that when we were asked about a king and statesman of the
present cycle and generation, we told of a shepherd of a human flock who belonged to
the other cycle, and of one who was a god when he ought to have been a man; and this a
great error. Again, we declared him to be the ruler of the entire State, without explaining
how: this was not the whole truth, nor very intelligible; but still it was true, and
therefore the second error was not so great as the first.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: Before we can expect to have a perfect description of the statesman we
must define the nature of his office.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And the myth was introduced in order to show, not only that all others are
rivals of the true shepherd who is the object of our search, but in order that we might
have a clearer view of him who is alone worthy to receive this appellation, because he
alone of shepherds and herdsmen, according to the image which we have employed, has
the care of human beings.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And I cannot help thinking, Socrates, that the form of the divine shepherd
is even higher than that of a king; whereas the statesmen who are now on earth seem to
be much more like their subjects in character, and much more nearly to partake of their
breeding and education.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Still they must be investigated all the same, to see whether, like the divine
shepherd, they are above their subjects or on a level with them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
STRANGER: To resume:—Do you remember that we spoke of a command-for-self
exercised over animals, not singly but collectively, which we called the art of rearing a
herd?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, I remember.
STRANGER: There, somewhere, lay our error; for we never included or mentioned the
Statesman; and we did not observe that he had no place in our nomenclature.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How was that?
STRANGER: All other herdsmen ‘rear’ their herds, but this is not a suitable term to
apply to the Statesman; we should use a name which is common to them all.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True, if there be such a name.
STRANGER: Why, is not ‘care’ of herds applicable to all? For this implies no feeding, or
any special duty; if we say either ‘tending’ the herds, or ‘managing’ the herds, or ‘having
the care’ of them, the same word will include all, and then we may wrap up the
Statesman with the rest, as the argument seems to require.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite right; but how shall we take the next step in the division?
STRANGER: As before we divided the art of ‘rearing’ herds accordingly as they were
land or water herds, winged and wingless, mixing or not mixing the breed, horned and
hornless, so we may divide by these same differences the ‘tending’ of herds,
comprehending in our definition the kingship of to- day and the rule of Cronos.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That is clear; but I still ask, what is to follow.
STRANGER: If the word had been ‘managing’ herds, instead of feeding or rearing them,
no one would have argued that there was no care of men in the case of the politician,
although it was justly contended, that there was no human art of feeding them which
was worthy of the name, or at least, if there were, many a man had a prior and greater
right to share in such an art than any king.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But no other art or science will have a prior or better right than the royal
science to care for human society and to rule over men in general.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: In the next place, Socrates, we must surely notice that a great error was
committed at the end of our analysis.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What was it?
STRANGER: Why, supposing we were ever so sure that there is such an art as the art of
rearing or feeding bipeds, there was no reason why we should call this the royal or
political art, as though there were no more to be said.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: Our first duty, as we were saying, was to remodel the name, so as to have
the notion of care rather than of feeding, and then to divide, for there may be still
considerable divisions.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How can they be made?
STRANGER: First, by separating the divine shepherd from the human guardian or
manager.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And the art of management which is assigned to man would again have to
be subdivided.
YOUNG SOCRATES: On what principle?
STRANGER: On the principle of voluntary and compulsory.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why?
STRANGER: Because, if I am not mistaken, there has been an error here; for our
simplicity led us to rank king and tyrant together, whereas they are utterly distinct, like
their modes of government.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Then, now, as I said, let us make the correction and divide human care into
two parts, on the principle of voluntary and compulsory.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And if we call the management of violent rulers tyranny, and the voluntary
management of herds of voluntary bipeds politics, may we not further assert that he
who has this latter art of management is the true king and statesman?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I think, Stranger, that we have now completed the account of the
Statesman.
STRANGER: Would that we had, Socrates, but I have to satisfy myself as well as you;
and in my judgment the figure of the king is not yet perfected; like statuaries who, in
their too great haste, having overdone the several parts of their work, lose time in
cutting them down, so too we, partly out of haste, partly out of a magnanimous desire to
expose our former error, and also because we imagined that a king required grand
illustrations, have taken up a marvellous lump of fable, and have been obliged to use
more than was necessary. This made us discourse at large, and, nevertheless, the story
never came to an end. And our discussion might be compared to a picture of some living
being which had been fairly drawn in outline, but had not yet attained the life and
clearness which is given by the blending of colours. Now to intelligent persons a living
being had better be delineated by language and discourse than by any painting or work
of art: to the duller sort by works of art.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true; but what is the imperfection which still remains? I wish
that you would tell me.
STRANGER: The higher ideas, my dear friend, can hardly be set forth except through
the medium of examples; every man seems to know all things in a dreamy sort of way,
and then again to wake up and to know nothing.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: I fear that I have been unfortunate in raising a question about our
experience of knowledge.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why so?
STRANGER: Why, because my ‘example’ requires the assistance of another example.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Proceed; you need not fear that I shall tire.
STRANGER: I will proceed, finding, as I do, such a ready listener in you: when children
are beginning to know their letters—
YOUNG SOCRATES: What are you going to say?
STRANGER: That they distinguish the several letters well enough in very short and easy
syllables, and are able to tell them correctly.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Whereas in other syllables they do not recognize them, and think and
speak falsely of them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Will not the best and easiest way of bringing them to a knowledge of what
they do not as yet know be—
YOUNG SOCRATES: Be what?
STRANGER: To refer them first of all to cases in which they judge correctly about the
letters in question, and then to compare these with the cases in which they do not as yet
know, and to show them that the letters are the same, and have the same character in
both combinations, until all cases in which they are right have been placed side by side
with all cases in which they are wrong. In this way they have examples, and are made to
learn that each letter in every combination is always the same and not another, and is
always called by the same name.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Are not examples formed in this manner? We take a thing and compare it
with another distinct instance of the same thing, of which we have a right conception,
and out of the comparison there arises one true notion, which includes both of them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Exactly.
STRANGER: Can we wonder, then, that the soul has the same uncertainty about the
alphabet of things, and sometimes and in some cases is firmly fixed by the truth in each
particular, and then, again, in other cases is altogether at sea; having somehow or other
a correct notion of combinations; but when the elements are transferred into the long
and difficult language (syllables) of facts, is again ignorant of them?
YOUNG SOCRATES: There is nothing wonderful in that.
STRANGER: Could any one, my friend, who began with false opinion ever expect to
arrive even at a small portion of truth and to attain wisdom?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Hardly.
STRANGER: Then you and I will not be far wrong in trying to see the nature of example
in general in a small and particular instance; afterwards from lesser things we intend to
pass to the royal class, which is the highest form of the same nature, and endeavour to
discover by rules of art what the management of cities is; and then the dream will
become a reality to us.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Then, once more, let us resume the previous argument, and as there were
innumerable rivals of the royal race who claim to have the care of states, let us part them
all off, and leave him alone; and, as I was saying, a model or example of this process has
first to be framed.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Exactly.
STRANGER: What model is there which is small, and yet has any analogy with the
political occupation? Suppose, Socrates, that if we have no other example at hand, we
choose weaving, or, more precisely, weaving of wool— this will be quite enough, without
taking the whole of weaving, to illustrate our meaning?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Why should we not apply to weaving the same processes of division and
subdivision which we have already applied to other classes; going once more as rapidly
as we can through all the steps until we come to that which is needed for our purpose?
YOUNG SOCRATES: How do you mean?
STRANGER: I shall reply by actually performing the process.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: All things which we make or acquire are either creative or preventive; of
the preventive class are antidotes, divine and human, and also defences; and defences
are either military weapons or protections; and protections are veils, and also shields
against heat and cold, and shields against heat and cold are shelters and coverings; and
coverings are blankets and garments; and garments are some of them in one piece, and
others of them are made in several parts; and of these latter some are stitched, others
are fastened and not stitched; and of the not stitched, some are made of the sinews of
plants, and some of hair; and of these, again, some are cemented with water and earth,
and others are fastened together by themselves. And these last defences and coverings
which are fastened together by themselves are called clothes, and the art which
superintends them we may call, from the nature of the operation, the art of clothing, just
as before the art of the Statesman was derived from the State; and may we not say that
the art of weaving, at least that largest portion of it which was concerned with the
making of clothes, differs only in name from this art of clothing, in the same way that, in
the previous case, the royal science differed from the political?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Most true.
STRANGER: In the next place, let us make the reflection, that the art of weaving clothes,
which an incompetent person might fancy to have been sufficiently described, has been
separated off from several others which are of the same family, but not from the cooperative
arts.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And which are the kindred arts?
STRANGER: I see that I have not taken you with me. So I think that we had better go
backwards, starting from the end. We just now parted off from the weaving of clothes,
the making of blankets, which differ from each other in that one is put under and the
other is put around: and these are what I termed kindred arts.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I understand.
STRANGER: And we have subtracted the manufacture of all articles made of flax and
cords, and all that we just now metaphorically termed the sinews of plants, and we have
also separated off the process of felting and the putting together of materials by stitching
and sewing, of which the most important part is the cobbler’s art.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Precisely.
STRANGER: Then we separated off the currier’s art, which prepared coverings in entire
pieces, and the art of sheltering, and subtracted the various arts of making water-tight
which are employed in building, and in general in carpentering, and in other crafts, and
all such arts as furnish impediments to thieving and acts of violence, and are concerned
with making the lids of boxes and the fixing of doors, being divisions of the art of
joining; and we also cut off the manufacture of arms, which is a section of the great and
manifold art of making defences; and we originally began by parting off the whole of the
magic art which is concerned with antidotes, and have left, as would appear, the very art
of which we were in search, the art of protection against winter cold, which fabricates
woollen defences, and has the name of weaving.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Yes, my boy, but that is not all; for the first process to which the material is
subjected is the opposite of weaving.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How so?
STRANGER: Weaving is a sort of uniting?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: But the first process is a separation of the clotted and matted fibres?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: I mean the work of the carder’s art; for we cannot say that carding is
weaving, or that the carder is a weaver.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: Again, if a person were to say that the art of making the warp and the woof
was the art of weaving, he would say what was paradoxical and false.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To be sure.
STRANGER: Shall we say that the whole art of the fuller or of the mender has nothing to
do with the care and treatment of clothes, or are we to regard all these as arts of
weaving?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: And yet surely all these arts will maintain that they are concerned with the
treatment and production of clothes; they will dispute the exclusive prerogative of
weaving, and though assigning a larger sphere to that, will still reserve a considerable
field for themselves.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Besides these, there are the arts which make tools and instruments of
weaving, and which will claim at least to be co-operative causes in every work of the
weaver.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Most true.
STRANGER: Well, then, suppose that we define weaving, or rather that part of it which
has been selected by us, to be the greatest and noblest of arts which are concerned with
woollen garments—shall we be right? Is not the definition, although true, wanting in
clearness and completeness; for do not all those other arts require to be first cleared
away?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Then the next thing will be to separate them, in order that the argument
may proceed in a regular manner?
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: Let us consider, in the first place, that there are two kinds of arts entering
into everything which we do.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What are they?
STRANGER: The one kind is the conditional or co-operative, the other the principal
cause.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: The arts which do not manufacture the actual thing, but which furnish the
necessary tools for the manufacture, without which the several arts could not fulfil their
appointed work, are co-operative; but those which make the things themselves are
causal.
YOUNG SOCRATES: A very reasonable distinction.
STRANGER: Thus the arts which make spindles, combs, and other instruments of the
production of clothes, may be called co-operative, and those which treat and fabricate
the things themselves, causal.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: The arts of washing and mending, and the other preparatory arts which
belong to the causal class, and form a division of the great art of adornment, may be all
comprehended under what we call the fuller’s art.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: Carding and spinning threads and all the parts of the process which are
concerned with the actual manufacture of a woollen garment form a single art, which is
one of those universally acknowledged,—the art of working in wool.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To be sure.
STRANGER: Of working in wool, again, there are two divisions, and both these are parts
of two arts at once.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How is that?
STRANGER: Carding and one half of the use of the comb, and the other processes of
wool-working which separate the composite, may be classed together as belonging both
to the art of wool-working, and also to one of the two great arts which are of universal
application—the art of composition and the art of division.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: To the latter belong carding and the other processes of which I was just
now speaking; the art of discernment or division in wool and yarn, which is effected in
one manner with the comb and in another with the hands, is variously described under
all the names which I just now mentioned.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Again, let us take some process of wool-working which is also a portion of
the art of composition, and, dismissing the elements of division which we found there,
make two halves, one on the principle of composition, and the other on the principle of
division.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let that be done.
STRANGER: And once more, Socrates, we must divide the part which belongs at once
both to wool-working and composition, if we are ever to discover satisfactorily the
aforesaid art of weaving.
YOUNG SOCRATES: We must.
STRANGER: Yes, certainly, and let us call one part of the art the art of twisting threads,
the other the art of combining them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Do I understand you, in speaking of twisting, to be referring to
manufacture of the warp?
STRANGER: Yes, and of the woof too; how, if not by twisting, is the woof made?
YOUNG SOCRATES: There is no other way.
STRANGER: Then suppose that you define the warp and the woof, for I think that the
definition will be of use to you.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How shall I define them?
STRANGER: As thus: A piece of carded wool which is drawn out lengthwise and
breadthwise is said to be pulled out.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And the wool thus prepared, when twisted by the spindle, and made into a
firm thread, is called the warp, and the art which regulates these operations the art of
spinning the warp.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And the threads which are more loosely spun, having a softness
proportioned to the intertexture of the warp and to the degree of force used in dressing
the cloth,—the threads which are thus spun are called the woof, and the art which is set
over them may be called the art of spinning the woof.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And, now, there can be no mistake about the nature of the part of weaving
which we have undertaken to define. For when that part of the art of composition which
is employed in the working of wool forms a web by the regular intertexture of warp and
woof, the entire woven substance is called by us a woollen garment, and the art which
presides over this is the art of weaving.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: But why did we not say at once that weaving is the art of entwining warp
and woof, instead of making a long and useless circuit?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I thought, Stranger, that there was nothing useless in what was
said.
STRANGER: Very likely, but you may not always think so, my sweet friend; and in case
any feeling of dissatisfaction should hereafter arise in your mind, as it very well may, let
me lay down a principle which will apply to arguments in general.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Proceed.
STRANGER: Let us begin by considering the whole nature of excess and defect, and
then we shall have a rational ground on which we may praise or blame too much length
or too much shortness in discussions of this kind.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let us do so.
STRANGER: The points on which I think that we ought to dwell are the following:—
YOUNG SOCRATES: What? STRANGER: Length and shortness, excess and defect; with
all of these the art of measurement is conversant.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And the art of measurement has to be divided into two parts, with a view
to our present purpose.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Where would you make the division?
STRANGER: As thus: I would make two parts, one having regard to the relativity of
greatness and smallness to each other; and there is another, without which the existence
of production would be impossible.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: Do you not think that it is only natural for the greater to be called greater
with reference to the less alone, and the less less with reference to the greater alone?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: Well, but is there not also something exceeding and exceeded by the
principle of the mean, both in speech and action, and is not this a reality, and the chief
mark of difference between good and bad men?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Plainly.
STRANGER: Then we must suppose that the great and small exist and are discerned in
both these ways, and not, as we were saying before, only relatively to one another, but
there must also be another comparison of them with the mean or ideal standard; would
you like to hear the reason why?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: If we assume the greater to exist only in relation to the less, there will
never be any comparison of either with the mean.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And would not this doctrine be the ruin of all the arts and their creations;
would not the art of the Statesman and the aforesaid art of weaving disappear? For all
these arts are on the watch against excess and defect, not as unrealities, but as real evils,
which occasion a difficulty in action; and the excellence or beauty of every work of art is
due to this observance of measure.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: But if the science of the Statesman disappears, the search for the royal
science will be impossible.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Well, then, as in the case of the Sophist we extorted the inference that notbeing
had an existence, because here was the point at which the argument eluded our
grasp, so in this we must endeavour to show that the greater and less are not only to be
measured with one another, but also have to do with the production of the mean; for if
this is not admitted, neither a statesman nor any other man of action can be an
undisputed master of his science.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, we must certainly do again what we did then.
STRANGER: But this, Socrates, is a greater work than the other, of which we only too
well remember the length. I think, however, that we may fairly assume something of this
sort—
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: That we shall some day require this notion of a mean with a view to the
demonstration of absolute truth; meanwhile, the argument that the very existence of the
arts must be held to depend on the possibility of measuring more or less, not only with
one another, but also with a view to the attainment of the mean, seems to afford a grand
support and satisfactory proof of the doctrine which we are maintaining; for if there are
arts, there is a standard of measure, and if there is a standard of measure, there are arts;
but if either is wanting, there is neither.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True; and what is the next step?
STRANGER: The next step clearly is to divide the art of measurement into two parts, as
we have said already, and to place in the one part all the arts which measure number,
length, depth, breadth, swiftness with their opposites; and to have another part in which
they are measured with the mean, and the fit, and the opportune, and the due, and with
all those words, in short, which denote a mean or standard removed from the extremes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Here are two vast divisions, embracing two very different spheres.
STRANGER: There are many accomplished men, Socrates, who say, believing
themselves to speak wisely, that the art of measurement is universal, and has to do with
all things. And this means what we are now saying; for all things which come within the
province of art do certainly in some sense partake of measure. But these persons,
because they are not accustomed to distinguish classes according to real forms, jumble
together two widely different things, relation to one another, and to a standard, under
the idea that they are the same, and also fall into the converse error of dividing other
things not according to their real parts. Whereas the right way is, if a man has first seen
the unity of things, to go on with the enquiry and not desist until he has found all the
differences contained in it which form distinct classes; nor again should he be able to
rest contented with the manifold diversities which are seen in a multitude of things until
he has comprehended all of them that have any affinity within the bounds of one
similarity and embraced them within the reality of a single kind. But we have said
enough on this head, and also of excess and defect; we have only to bear in mind that
two divisions of the art of measurement have been discovered which are concerned with
them, and not forget what they are.
YOUNG SOCRATES: We will not forget.
STRANGER: And now that this discussion is completed, let us go on to consider another
question, which concerns not this argument only but the conduct of such arguments in
general.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is this new question?
STRANGER: Take the case of a child who is engaged in learning his letters: when he is
asked what letters make up a word, should we say that the question is intended to
improve his grammatical knowledge of that particular word, or of all words?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly, in order that he may have a better knowledge of all words.
STRANGER: And is our enquiry about the Statesman intended only to improve our
knowledge of politics, or our power of reasoning generally?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly, as in the former example, the purpose is general.
STRANGER: Still less would any rational man seek to analyse the notion of weaving for
its own sake. But people seem to forget that some things have sensible images, which are
readily known, and can be easily pointed out when any one desires to answer an
enquirer without any trouble or argument; whereas the greatest and highest truths have
no outward image of themselves visible to man, which he who wishes to satisfy the soul
of the enquirer can adapt to the eye of sense (compare Phaedr.), and therefore we ought
to train ourselves to give and accept a rational account of them; for immaterial things,
which are the noblest and greatest, are shown only in thought and idea, and in no other
way, and all that we are now saying is said for the sake of them. Moreover, there is
always less difficulty in fixing the mind on small matters than on great.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: Let us call to mind the bearing of all this.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: I wanted to get rid of any impression of tediousness which we may have
experienced in the discussion about weaving, and the reversal of the universe, and in the
discussion concerning the Sophist and the being of not-being. I know that they were felt
to be too long, and I reproached myself with this, fearing that they might be not only
tedious but irrelevant; and all that I have now said is only designed to prevent the
recurrence of any such disagreeables for the future.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good. Will you proceed?
STRANGER: Then I would like to observe that you and I, remembering what has been
said, should praise or blame the length or shortness of discussions, not by comparing
them with one another, but with what is fitting, having regard to the part of
measurement, which, as we said, was to be borne in mind.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And yet, not everything is to be judged even with a view to what is fitting;
for we should only want such a length as is suited to give pleasure, if at all, as a
secondary matter; and reason tells us, that we should be contented to make the ease or
rapidity of an enquiry, not our first, but our second object; the first and highest of all
being to assert the great method of division according to species—whether the discourse
be shorter or longer is not to the point. No offence should be taken at length, but the
longer and shorter are to be employed indifferently, according as either of them is better
calculated to sharpen the wits of the auditors. Reason would also say to him who
censures the length of discourses on such occasions and cannot away with their
circumlocution, that he should not be in such a hurry to have done with them, when he
can only complain that they are tedious, but he should prove that if they had been
shorter they would have made those who took part in them better dialecticians, and
more capable of expressing the truth of things; about any other praise and blame, he
need not trouble himself—he should pretend not to hear them. But we have had enough
of this, as you will probably agree with me in thinking. Let us return to our Statesman,
and apply to his case the aforesaid example of weaving.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good;—let us do as you say.
STRANGER: The art of the king has been separated from the similar arts of shepherds,
and, indeed, from all those which have to do with herds at all. There still remain,
however, of the causal and co-operative arts those which are immediately concerned
with States, and which must first be distinguished from one another.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: You know that these arts cannot easily be divided into two halves; the
reason will be very evident as we proceed.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Then we had better do so.
STRANGER: We must carve them like a victim into members or limbs, since we cannot
bisect them. (Compare Phaedr.) For we certainly should divide everything into as few
parts as possible.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is to be done in this case?
STRANGER: What we did in the example of weaving—all those arts which furnish the
tools were regarded by us as co-operative.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: So now, and with still more reason, all arts which make any implement in a
State, whether great or small, may be regarded by us as co- operative, for without them
neither State nor Statesmanship would be possible; and yet we are not inclined to say
that any of them is a product of the kingly art.
YOUNG SOCRATES: No, indeed.
STRANGER: The task of separating this class from others is not an easy one; for there is
plausibility in saying that anything in the world is the instrument of doing something.
But there is another class of possessions in a city, of which I have a word to say.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What class do you mean?
STRANGER: A class which may be described as not having this power; that is to say, not
like an instrument, framed for production, but designed for the preservation of that
which is produced.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?
STRANGER: To the class of vessels, as they are comprehensively termed, which are
constructed for the preservation of things moist and dry, of things prepared in the fire or
out of the fire; this is a very large class, and has, if I am not mistaken, literally nothing to
do with the royal art of which we are in search.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: There is also a third class of possessions to be noted, different from these
and very extensive, moving or resting on land or water, honourable and also
dishonourable. The whole of this class has one name, because it is intended to be sat
upon, being always a seat for something.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: A vehicle, which is certainly not the work of the Statesman, but of the
carpenter, potter, and coppersmith.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I understand.
STRANGER: And is there not a fourth class which is again different, and in which most
of the things formerly mentioned are contained,—every kind of dress, most sorts of
arms, walls and enclosures, whether of earth or stone, and ten thousand other things?
all of which being made for the sake of defence, may be truly called defences, and are for
the most part to be regarded as the work of the builder or of the weaver, rather than of
the Statesman.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Shall we add a fifth class, of ornamentation and drawing, and of the
imitations produced by drawing and music, which are designed for amusement only,
and may be fairly comprehended under one name?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: Plaything is the name.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: That one name may be fitly predicated of all of them, for none of these
things have a serious purpose—amusement is their sole aim.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That again I understand.
STRANGER: Then there is a class which provides materials for all these, out of which
and in which the arts already mentioned fabricate their works;—this manifold class, I
say, which is the creation and offspring of many other arts, may I not rank sixth?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: I am referring to gold, silver, and other metals, and all that wood-cutting
and shearing of every sort provides for the art of carpentry and plaiting; and there is the
process of barking and stripping the cuticle of plants, and the currier’s art, which strips
off the skins of animals, and other similar arts which manufacture corks and papyri and
cords, and provide for the manufacture of composite species out of simple kinds—the
whole class may be termed the primitive and simple possession of man, and with this
the kingly science has no concern at all.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: The provision of food and of all other things which mingle their particles
with the particles of the human body, and minister to the body, will form a seventh
class, which may be called by the general term of nourishment, unless you have any
better name to offer. This, however, appertains rather to the husbandman, huntsman,
trainer, doctor, cook, and is not to be assigned to the Statesman’s art.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: These seven classes include nearly every description of property, with the
exception of tame animals. Consider;—there was the original material, which ought to
have been placed first; next come instruments, vessels, vehicles, defences, playthings,
nourishment; small things, which may be included under one of these—as for example,
coins, seals and stamps, are omitted, for they have not in them the character of any
larger kind which includes them; but some of them may, with a little forcing, be placed
among ornaments, and others may be made to harmonize with the class of implements.
The art of herding, which has been already divided into parts, will include all property in
tame animals, except slaves.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: The class of slaves and ministers only remains, and I suspect that in this
the real aspirants for the throne, who are the rivals of the king in the formation of the
political web, will be discovered; just as spinners, carders, and the rest of them, were the
rivals of the weaver. All the others, who were termed co-operators, have been got rid of
among the occupations already mentioned, and separated from the royal and political
science.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I agree.
STRANGER: Let us go a little nearer, in order that we may be more certain of the
complexion of this remaining class.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let us do so.
STRANGER: We shall find from our present point of view that the greatest servants are
in a case and condition which is the reverse of what we anticipated.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Who are they?
STRANGER: Those who have been purchased, and have so become possessions; these
are unmistakably slaves, and certainly do not claim royal science.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: Again, freemen who of their own accord become the servants of the other
classes in a State, and who exchange and equalise the products of husbandry and the
other arts, some sitting in the market-place, others going from city to city by land or sea,
and giving money in exchange for money or for other productions—the money-changer,
the merchant, the ship- owner, the retailer, will not put in any claim to statecraft or
politics?
YOUNG SOCRATES: No; unless, indeed, to the politics of commerce.
STRANGER: But surely men whom we see acting as hirelings and serfs, and too happy
to turn their hand to anything, will not profess to share in royal science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: But what would you say of some other serviceable officials?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Who are they, and what services do they perform?
STRANGER: There are heralds, and scribes perfected by practice, and divers others who
have great skill in various sorts of business connected with the government of states—
what shall we call them?
YOUNG SOCRATES: They are the officials, and servants of the rulers, as you just now
called them, but not themselves rulers.
STRANGER: There may be something strange in any servant pretending to be a ruler,
and yet I do not think that I could have been dreaming when I imagined that the
principal claimants to political science would be found somewhere in this
neighbourhood.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Well, let us draw nearer, and try the claims of some who have not yet been
tested: in the first place, there are diviners, who have a portion of servile or ministerial
science, and are thought to be the interpreters of the gods to men.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: There is also the priestly class, who, as the law declares, know how to give
the gods gifts from men in the form of sacrifices which are acceptable to them, and to
ask on our behalf blessings in return from them. Now both these are branches of the
servile or ministerial art.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, clearly.
STRANGER: And here I think that we seem to be getting on the right track; for the
priest and the diviner are swollen with pride and prerogative, and they create an awful
impression of themselves by the magnitude of their enterprises; in Egypt, the king
himself is not allowed to reign, unless he have priestly powers, and if he should be of
another class and has thrust himself in, he must get enrolled in the priesthood. In many
parts of Hellas, the duty of offering the most solemn propitiatory sacrifices is assigned to
the highest magistracies, and here, at Athens, the most solemn and national of the
ancient sacrifices are supposed to be celebrated by him who has been chosen by lot to be
the King Archon.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Precisely.
STRANGER: But who are these other kings and priests elected by lot who now come
into view followed by their retainers and a vast throng, as the former class disappears
and the scene changes?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Whom can you mean?
STRANGER: They are a strange crew.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why strange?
STRANGER: A minute ago I thought that they were animals of every tribe; for many of
them are like lions and centaurs, and many more like satyrs and such weak and shifty
creatures;—Protean shapes quickly changing into one another’s forms and natures; and
now, Socrates, I begin to see who they are.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Who are they? You seem to be gazing on some strange vision.
STRANGER: Yes; every one looks strange when you do not know him; and just now I
myself fell into this mistake—at first sight, coming suddenly upon him, I did not
recognize the politician and his troop.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Who is he?
STRANGER: The chief of Sophists and most accomplished of wizards, who must at any
cost be separated from the true king or Statesman, if we are ever to see daylight in the
present enquiry.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That is a hope not lightly to be renounced.
STRANGER: Never, if I can help it; and, first, let me ask you a question.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: Is not monarchy a recognized form of government?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And, after monarchy, next in order comes the government of the few?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
STRANGER: Is not the third form of government the rule of the multitude, which is
called by the name of democracy?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And do not these three expand in a manner into five, producing out of
themselves two other names?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What are they?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What are they?
STRANGER: There is a criterion of voluntary and involuntary, poverty and riches, law
and the absence of law, which men now-a-days apply to them; the two first they
subdivide accordingly, and ascribe to monarchy two forms and two corresponding
names, royalty and tyranny.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And the government of the few they distinguish by the names of
aristocracy and oligarchy.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Democracy alone, whether rigidly observing the laws or not, and whether
the multitude rule over the men of property with their consent or against their consent,
always in ordinary language has the same name.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But do you suppose that any form of government which is defined by these
characteristics of the one, the few, or the many, of poverty or wealth, of voluntary or
compulsory submission, of written law or the absence of law, can be a right one?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why not?
STRANGER: Reflect; and follow me.
YOUNG SOCRATES: In what direction?
STRANGER: Shall we abide by what we said at first, or shall we retract our words?
YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?
STRANGER: If I am not mistaken, we said that royal power was a science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And a science of a peculiar kind, which was selected out of the rest as
having a character which is at once judicial and authoritative?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And there was one kind of authority over lifeless things and another other
living animals; and so we proceeded in the division step by step up to this point, not
losing the idea of science, but unable as yet to determine the nature of the particular
science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Hence we are led to observe that the distinguishing principle of the State
cannot be the few or many, the voluntary or involuntary, poverty or riches; but some
notion of science must enter into it, if we are to be consistent with what has preceded.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And we must be consistent.
STRANGER: Well, then, in which of these various forms of States may the science of
government, which is among the greatest of all sciences and most difficult to acquire, be
supposed to reside? That we must discover, and then we shall see who are the false
politicians who pretend to be politicians but are not, although they persuade many, and
shall separate them from the wise king.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That, as the argument has already intimated, will be our duty.
STRANGER: Do you think that the multitude in a State can attain political science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Impossible.
STRANGER: But, perhaps, in a city of a thousand men, there would be a hundred, or say
fifty, who could?
YOUNG SOCRATES: In that case political science would certainly be the easiest of all
sciences; there could not be found in a city of that number as many really first-rate
draught-players, if judged by the standard of the rest of Hellas, and there would
certainly not be as many kings. For kings we may truly call those who possess royal
science, whether they rule or not, as was shown in the previous argument.
STRANGER: Thank you for reminding me; and the consequence is that any true form of
government can only be supposed to be the government of one, two, or, at any rate, of a
few.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And these, whether they rule with the will, or against the will, of their
subjects, with written laws or without written laws, and whether they are poor or rich,
and whatever be the nature of their rule, must be supposed, according to our present
view, to rule on some scientific principle; just as the physician, whether he cures us
against our will or with our will, and whatever be his mode of treatment,—incision,
burning, or the infliction of some other pain,—whether he practises out of a book or not
out of a book, and whether he be rich or poor, whether he purges or reduces in some
other way, or even fattens his patients, is a physician all the same, so long as he
exercises authority over them according to rules of art, if he only does them good and
heals and saves them. And this we lay down to be the only proper test of the art of
medicine, or of any other art of command.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: Then that can be the only true form of government in which the governors
are really found to possess science, and are not mere pretenders, whether they rule
according to law or without law, over willing or unwilling subjects, and are rich or poor
themselves—none of these things can with any propriety be included in the notion of the
ruler.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And whether with a view to the public good they purge the State by killing
some, or exiling some; whether they reduce the size of the body corporate by sending
out from the hive swarms of citizens, or, by introducing persons from without, increase
it; while they act according to the rules of wisdom and justice, and use their power with
a view to the general security and improvement, the city over which they rule, and which
has these characteristics, may be described as the only true State. All other governments
are not genuine or real; but only imitations of this, and some of them are better and
some of them are worse; the better are said to be well governed, but they are mere
imitations like the others.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I agree, Stranger, in the greater part of what you say; but as to
their ruling without laws—the expression has a harsh sound.
STRANGER: You have been too quick for me, Socrates; I was just going to ask you
whether you objected to any of my statements. And now I see that we shall have to
consider this notion of there being good government without laws.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: There can be no doubt that legislation is in a manner the business of a
king, and yet the best thing of all is not that the law should rule, but that a man should
rule supposing him to have wisdom and royal power. Do you see why this is?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why?
STRANGER: Because the law does not perfectly comprehend what is noblest and most
just for all and therefore cannot enforce what is best. The differences of men and
actions, and the endless irregular movements of human things, do not admit of any
universal and simple rule. And no art whatsoever can lay down a rule which will last for
all time.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course not.
STRANGER: But the law is always striving to make one;—like an obstinate and ignorant
tyrant, who will not allow anything to be done contrary to his appointment, or any
question to be asked—not even in sudden changes of circumstances, when something
happens to be better than what he commanded for some one.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly; the law treats us all precisely in the manner which you
describe.
STRANGER: A perfectly simple principle can never be applied to a state of things which
is the reverse of simple.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Then if the law is not the perfection of right, why are we compelled to
make laws at all? The reason of this has next to be investigated.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Let me ask, whether you have not meetings for gymnastic contests in your
city, such as there are in other cities, at which men compete in running, wrestling, and
the like?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes; they are very common among us.
STRANGER: And what are the rules which are enforced on their pupils by professional
trainers or by others having similar authority? Can you remember?
YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?
STRANGER: The training-masters do not issue minute rules for individuals, or give
every individual what is exactly suited to his constitution; they think that they ought to
go more roughly to work, and to prescribe generally the regimen which will benefit the
majority.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And therefore they assign equal amounts of exercise to them all; they send
them forth together, and let them rest together from their running, wrestling, or
whatever the form of bodily exercise may be.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And now observe that the legislator who has to preside over the herd, and
to enforce justice in their dealings with one another, will not be able, in enacting for the
general good, to provide exactly what is suitable for each particular case.
YOUNG SOCRATES: He cannot be expected to do so.
STRANGER: He will lay down laws in a general form for the majority, roughly meeting
the cases of individuals; and some of them he will deliver in writing, and others will be
unwritten; and these last will be traditional customs of the country.
YOUNG SOCRATES: He will be right.
STRANGER: Yes, quite right; for how can he sit at every man’s side all through his life,
prescribing for him the exact particulars of his duty? Who, Socrates, would be equal to
such a task? No one who really had the royal science, if he had been able to do this,
would have imposed upon himself the restriction of a written law.
YOUNG SOCRATES: So I should infer from what has now been said.
STRANGER: Or rather, my good friend, from what is going to be said.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And what is that?
STRANGER: Let us put to ourselves the case of a physician, or trainer, who is about to
go into a far country, and is expecting to be a long time away from his patients—thinking
that his instructions will not be remembered unless they are written down, he will leave
notes of them for the use of his pupils or patients.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But what would you say, if he came back sooner than he had intended,
and, owing to an unexpected change of the winds or other celestial influences,
something else happened to be better for them,—would he not venture to suggest this
new remedy, although not contemplated in his former prescription? Would he persist in
observing the original law, neither himself giving any new commandments, nor the
patient daring to do otherwise than was prescribed, under the idea that this course only
was healthy and medicinal, all others noxious and heterodox? Viewed in the light of
science and true art, would not all such enactments be utterly ridiculous?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Utterly.
STRANGER: And if he who gave laws, written or unwritten, determining what was good
or bad, honourable or dishonourable, just or unjust, to the tribes of men who flock
together in their several cities, and are governed in accordance with them; if, I say, the
wise legislator were suddenly to come again, or another like to him, is he to be
prohibited from changing them?— would not this prohibition be in reality quite as
ridiculous as the other?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Do you know a plausible saying of the common people which is in point?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I do not recall what you mean at the moment.
STRANGER: They say that if any one knows how the ancient laws may be improved, he
must first persuade his own State of the improvement, and then he may legislate, but
not otherwise.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And are they not right?
STRANGER: I dare say. But supposing that he does use some gentle violence for their
good, what is this violence to be called? Or rather, before you answer, let me ask the
same question in reference to our previous instances.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: Suppose that a skilful physician has a patient, of whatever sex or age,
whom he compels against his will to do something for his good which is contrary to the
written rules; what is this compulsion to be called? Would you ever dream of calling it a
violation of the art, or a breach of the laws of health? Nothing could be more unjust than
for the patient to whom such violence is applied, to charge the physician who practises
the violence with wanting skill or aggravating his disease.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Most true.
STRANGER: In the political art error is not called disease, but evil, or disgrace, or
injustice.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: And when the citizen, contrary to law and custom, is compelled to do what
is juster and better and nobler than he did before, the last and most absurd thing which
he could say about such violence is that he has incurred disgrace or evil or injustice at
the hands of those who compelled him.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And shall we say that the violence, if exercised by a rich man, is just, and if
by a poor man, unjust? May not any man, rich or poor, with or without laws, with the
will of the citizens or against the will of the citizens, do what is for their interest? Is not
this the true principle of government, according to which the wise and good man will
order the affairs of his subjects? As the pilot, by watching continually over the interests
of the ship and of the crew,—not by laying down rules, but by making his art a law,—
preserves the lives of his fellow-sailors, even so, and in the self-same way, may there not
be a true form of polity created by those who are able to govern in a similar spirit, and
who show a strength of art which is superior to the law? Nor can wise rulers ever err
while they observing the one great rule of distributing justice to the citizens with
intelligence and skill, are able to preserve them, and, as far as may be, to make them
better from being worse.
YOUNG SOCRATES: No one can deny what has been now said.
STRANGER: Neither, if you consider, can any one deny the other statement.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What was it?
STRANGER: We said that no great number of persons, whoever they may be, can attain
political knowledge, or order a State wisely, but that the true government is to be found
in a small body, or in an individual, and that other States are but imitations of this, as
we said a little while ago, some for the better and some for the worse.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean? I cannot have understood your previous
remark about imitations.
STRANGER: And yet the mere suggestion which I hastily threw out is highly important,
even if we leave the question where it is, and do not seek by the discussion of it to expose
the error which prevails in this matter.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: The idea which has to be grasped by us is not easy or familiar; but we may
attempt to express it thus:—Supposing the government of which I have been speaking to
be the only true model, then the others must use the written laws of this—in no other
way can they be saved; they will have to do what is now generally approved, although
not the best thing in the world.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is this?
STRANGER: No citizen should do anything contrary to the laws, and any infringement
of them should be punished with death and the most extreme penalties; and this is very
right and good when regarded as the second best thing, if you set aside the first, of
which I was just now speaking. Shall I explain the nature of what I call the second best?
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: I must again have recourse to my favourite images; through them, and
them alone, can I describe kings and rulers.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What images?
STRANGER: The noble pilot and the wise physician, who ‘is worth many another man’—
in the similitude of these let us endeavour to discover some image of the king.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What sort of an image?
STRANGER: Well, such as this:—Every man will reflect that he suffers strange things at
the hands of both of them; the physician saves any whom he wishes to save, and any
whom he wishes to maltreat he maltreats—cutting or burning them; and at the same
time requiring them to bring him payments, which are a sort of tribute, of which little or
nothing is spent upon the sick man, and the greater part is consumed by him and his
domestics; and the finale is that he receives money from the relations of the sick man or
from some enemy of his, and puts him out of the way. And the pilots of ships are guilty
of numberless evil deeds of the same kind; they intentionally play false and leave you
ashore when the hour of sailing arrives; or they cause mishaps at sea and cast away their
freight; and are guilty of other rogueries. Now suppose that we, bearing all this in mind,
were to determine, after consideration, that neither of these arts shall any longer be
allowed to exercise absolute control either over freemen or over slaves, but that we will
summon an assembly either of all the people, or of the rich only, that anybody who likes,
whatever may be his calling, or even if he have no calling, may offer an opinion either
about seamanship or about diseases—whether as to the manner in which physic or
surgical instruments are to be applied to the patient, or again about the vessels and the
nautical implements which are required in navigation, and how to meet the dangers of
winds and waves which are incidental to the voyage, how to behave when encountering
pirates, and what is to be done with the old- fashioned galleys, if they have to fight with
others of a similar build— and that, whatever shall be decreed by the multitude on these
points, upon the advice of persons skilled or unskilled, shall be written down on
triangular tablets and columns, or enacted although unwritten to be national customs;
and that in all future time vessels shall be navigated and remedies administered to the
patient after this fashion.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What a strange notion!
STRANGER: Suppose further, that the pilots and physicians are appointed annually,
either out of the rich, or out of the whole people, and that they are elected by lot; and
that after their election they navigate vessels and heal the sick according to the written
rules.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Worse and worse.
STRANGER: But hear what follows:—When the year of office has expired, the pilot or
physician has to come before a court of review, in which the judges are either selected
from the wealthy classes or chosen by lot out of the whole people; and anybody who
pleases may be their accuser, and may lay to their charge, that during the past year they
have not navigated their vessels or healed their patients according to the letter of the law
and the ancient customs of their ancestors; and if either of them is condemned, some of
the judges must fix what he is to suffer or pay.
YOUNG SOCRATES: He who is willing to take a command under such conditions,
deserves to suffer any penalty.
STRANGER: Yet once more, we shall have to enact that if any one is detected enquiring
into piloting and navigation, or into health and the true nature of medicine, or about the
winds, or other conditions of the atmosphere, contrary to the written rules, and has any
ingenious notions about such matters, he is not to be called a pilot or physician, but a
cloudy prating sophist;—further, on the ground that he is a corrupter of the young, who
would persuade them to follow the art of medicine or piloting in an unlawful manner,
and to exercise an arbitrary rule over their patients or ships, any one who is qualified by
law may inform against him, and indict him in some court, and then if he is found to be
persuading any, whether young or old, to act contrary to the written law, he is to be
punished with the utmost rigour; for no one should presume to be wiser than the laws;
and as touching healing and health and piloting and navigation, the nature of them is
known to all, for anybody may learn the written laws and the national customs. If such
were the mode of procedure, Socrates, about these sciences and about generalship, and
any branch of hunting, or about painting or imitation in general, or carpentry, or any
sort of handicraft, or husbandry, or planting, or if we were to see an art of rearing
horses, or tending herds, or divination, or any ministerial service, or draught-playing, or
any science conversant with number, whether simple or square or cube, or comprising
motion,—I say, if all these things were done in this way according to written regulations,
and not according to art, what would be the result?
YOUNG SOCRATES: All the arts would utterly perish, and could never be recovered,
because enquiry would be unlawful. And human life, which is bad enough already,
would then become utterly unendurable.
STRANGER: But what, if while compelling all these operations to be regulated by
written law, we were to appoint as the guardian of the laws some one elected by a show
of hands, or by lot, and he caring nothing about the laws, were to act contrary to them
from motives of interest or favour, and without knowledge,—would not this be a still
worse evil than the former?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: To go against the laws, which are based upon long experience, and the
wisdom of counsellors who have graciously recommended them and persuaded the
multitude to pass them, would be a far greater and more ruinous error than any
adherence to written law?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Therefore, as there is a danger of this, the next best thing in legislating is
not to allow either the individual or the multitude to break the law in any respect
whatever.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: The laws would be copies of the true particulars of action as far as they
admit of being written down from the lips of those who have knowledge?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly they would.
STRANGER: And, as we were saying, he who has knowledge and is a true Statesman,
will do many things within his own sphere of action by his art without regard to the
laws, when he is of opinion that something other than that which he has written down
and enjoined to be observed during his absence would be better.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, we said so.
STRANGER: And any individual or any number of men, having fixed laws, in acting
contrary to them with a view to something better, would only be acting, as far as they are
able, like the true Statesman?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: If they had no knowledge of what they were doing, they would imitate the
truth, and they would always imitate ill; but if they had knowledge, the imitation would
be the perfect truth, and an imitation no longer.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: And the principle that no great number of men are able to acquire a
knowledge of any art has been already admitted by us.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, it has.
STRANGER: Then the royal or political art, if there be such an art, will never be attained
either by the wealthy or by the other mob.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Impossible.
STRANGER: Then the nearest approach which these lower forms of government can
ever make to the true government of the one scientific ruler, is to do nothing contrary to
their own written laws and national customs.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: When the rich imitate the true form, such a government is called
aristocracy; and when they are regardless of the laws, oligarchy.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Or again, when an individual rules according to law in imitation of him
who knows, we call him a king; and if he rules according to law, we give him the same
name, whether he rules with opinion or with knowledge.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To be sure.
STRANGER: And when an individual truly possessing knowledge rules, his name will
surely be the same—he will be called a king; and thus the five names of governments, as
they are now reckoned, become one.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That is true.
STRANGER: And when an individual ruler governs neither by law nor by custom, but
following in the steps of the true man of science pretends that he can only act for the
best by violating the laws, while in reality appetite and ignorance are the motives of the
imitation, may not such an one be called a tyrant?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And this we believe to be the origin of the tyrant and the king, of
oligarchies, and aristocracies, and democracies,—because men are offended at the one
monarch, and can never be made to believe that any one can be worthy of such
authority, or is able and willing in the spirit of virtue and knowledge to act justly and
holily to all; they fancy that he will be a despot who will wrong and harm and slay whom
he pleases of us; for if there could be such a despot as we describe, they would
acknowledge that we ought to be too glad to have him, and that he alone would be the
happy ruler of a true and perfect State.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To be sure.
STRANGER: But then, as the State is not like a beehive, and has no natural head who is
at once recognized to be the superior both in body and in mind, mankind are obliged to
meet and make laws, and endeavour to approach as nearly as they can to the true form
of government.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And when the foundation of politics is in the letter only and in custom, and
knowledge is divorced from action, can we wonder, Socrates, at the miseries which there
are, and always will be, in States? Any other art, built on such a foundation and thus
conducted, would ruin all that it touched. Ought we not rather to wonder at the natural
strength of the political bond? For States have endured all this, time out of mind, and
yet some of them still remain and are not overthrown, though many of them, like ships
at sea, founder from time to time, and perish and have perished and will hereafter
perish, through the badness of their pilots and crews, who have the worst sort of
ignorance of the highest truths—I mean to say, that they are wholly unaquainted with
politics, of which, above all other sciences, they believe themselves to have acquired the
most perfect knowledge.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Then the question arises:—which of these untrue forms of government is
the least oppressive to their subjects, though they are all oppressive; and which is the
worst of them? Here is a consideration which is beside our present purpose, and yet
having regard to the whole it seems to influence all our actions: we must examine it.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, we must.
STRANGER: You may say that of the three forms, the same is at once the hardest and
the easiest.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: I am speaking of the three forms of government, which I mentioned at the
beginning of this discussion—monarchy, the rule of the few, and the rule of the many.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: If we divide each of these we shall have six, from which the true one may
be distinguished as a seventh.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How would you make the division?
STRANGER: Monarchy divides into royalty and tyranny; the rule of the few into
aristocracy, which has an auspicious name, and oligarchy; and democracy or the rule of
the many, which before was one, must now be divided.
YOUNG SOCRATES: On what principle of division?
STRANGER: On the same principle as before, although the name is now discovered to
have a twofold meaning. For the distinction of ruling with law or without law, applies to
this as well as to the rest.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: The division made no difference when we were looking for the perfect
State, as we showed before. But now that this has been separated off, and, as we said,
the others alone are left for us, the principle of law and the absence of law will bisect
them all.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That would seem to follow, from what has been said.
STRANGER: Then monarchy, when bound by good prescriptions or laws, is the best of
all the six, and when lawless is the most bitter and oppressive to the subject.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: The government of the few, which is intermediate between that of the one
and many, is also intermediate in good and evil; but the government of the many is in
every respect weak and unable to do either any great good or any great evil, when
compared with the others, because the offices are too minutely subdivided and too many
hold them. And this therefore is the worst of all lawful governments, and the best of all
lawless ones. If they are all without the restraints of law, democracy is the form in which
to live is best; if they are well ordered, then this is the last which you should choose, as
royalty, the first form, is the best, with the exception of the seventh, for that excels them
all, and is among States what God is among men.
YOUNG SOCRATES: You are quite right, and we should choose that above all.
STRANGER: The members of all these States, with the exception of the one which has
knowledge, may be set aside as being not Statesmen but partisans, —upholders of the
most monstrous idols, and themselves idols; and, being the greatest imitators and
magicians, they are also the greatest of Sophists.
YOUNG SOCRATES: The name of Sophist after many windings in the argument appears
to have been most justly fixed upon the politicians, as they are termed.
STRANGER: And so our satyric drama has been played out; and the troop of Centaurs
and Satyrs, however unwilling to leave the stage, have at last been separated from the
political science.
YOUNG SOCRATES: So I perceive.
STRANGER: There remain, however, natures still more troublesome, because they are
more nearly akin to the king, and more difficult to discern; the examination of them may
be compared to the process of refining gold.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is your meaning?
STRANGER: The workmen begin by sifting away the earth and stones and the like; there
remain in a confused mass the valuable elements akin to gold, which can only be
separated by fire,—copper, silver, and other precious metal; these are at last refined
away by the use of tests, until the gold is left quite pure.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, that is the way in which these things are said to be done.
STRANGER: In like manner, all alien and uncongenial matter has been separated from
political science, and what is precious and of a kindred nature has been left; there
remain the nobler arts of the general and the judge, and the higher sort of oratory which
is an ally of the royal art, and persuades men to do justice, and assists in guiding the
helm of States:—How can we best clear away all these, leaving him whom we seek alone
and unalloyed?
YOUNG SOCRATES: That is obviously what has in some way to be attempted.
STRANGER: If the attempt is all that is wanting, he shall certainly be brought to light;
and I think that the illustration of music may assist in exhibiting him. Please to answer
me a question.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What question?
STRANGER: There is such a thing as learning music or handicraft arts in general?
YOUNG SOCRATES: There is.
STRANGER: And is there any higher art or science, having power to decide which of
these arts are and are not to be learned;—what do you say?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I should answer that there is.
STRANGER: And do we acknowledge this science to be different from the others?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And ought the other sciences to be superior to this, or no single science to
any other? Or ought this science to be the overseer and governor of all the others?
YOUNG SOCRATES: The latter.
STRANGER: You mean to say that the science which judges whether we ought to learn
or not, must be superior to the science which is learned or which teaches?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Far superior.
STRANGER: And the science which determines whether we ought to persuade or not,
must be superior to the science which is able to persuade?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
STRANGER: Very good; and to what science do we assign the power of persuading a
multitude by a pleasing tale and not by teaching?
YOUNG SOCRATES: That power, I think, must clearly be assigned to rhetoric.
STRANGER: And to what science do we give the power of determining whether we are
to employ persuasion or force towards any one, or to refrain altogether?
YOUNG SOCRATES: To that science which governs the arts of speech and persuasion.
STRANGER: Which, if I am not mistaken, will be politics?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: Rhetoric seems to be quickly distinguished from politics, being a different
species, yet ministering to it.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: But what would you think of another sort of power or science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What science?
STRANGER: The science which has to do with military operations against our
enemies—is that to be regarded as a science or not?
YOUNG SOCRATES: How can generalship and military tactics be regarded as other
than a science?
STRANGER: And is the art which is able and knows how to advise when we are to go to
war, or to make peace, the same as this or different?
YOUNG SOCRATES: If we are to be consistent, we must say different.
STRANGER: And we must also suppose that this rules the other, if we are not to give up
our former notion?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And, considering how great and terrible the whole art of war is, can we
imagine any which is superior to it but the truly royal?
YOUNG SOCRATES: No other.
STRANGER: The art of the general is only ministerial, and therefore not political?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Exactly.
STRANGER: Once more let us consider the nature of the righteous judge.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: Does he do anything but decide the dealings of men with one another to be
just or unjust in accordance with the standard which he receives from the king and
legislator,—showing his own peculiar virtue only in this, that he is not perverted by gifts,
or fears, or pity, or by any sort of favour or enmity, into deciding the suits of men with
one another contrary to the appointment of the legislator?
YOUNG SOCRATES: No; his office is such as you describe.
STRANGER: Then the inference is that the power of the judge is not royal, but only the
power of a guardian of the law which ministers to the royal power?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: The review of all these sciences shows that none of them is political or
royal. For the truly royal ought not itself to act, but to rule over those who are able to
act; the king ought to know what is and what is not a fitting opportunity for taking the
initiative in matters of the greatest importance, whilst others should execute his orders.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And, therefore, the arts which we have described, as they have no authority
over themselves or one another, but are each of them concerned with some special
action of their own, have, as they ought to have, special names corresponding to their
several actions.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I agree.
STRANGER: And the science which is over them all, and has charge of the laws, and of
all matters affecting the State, and truly weaves them all into one, if we would describe
under a name characteristic of their common nature, most truly we may call politics.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Exactly so.
STRANGER: Then, now that we have discovered the various classes in a State, shall I
analyse politics after the pattern which weaving supplied?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I greatly wish that you would.
STRANGER: Then I must describe the nature of the royal web, and show how the
various threads are woven into one piece.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly.
STRANGER: A task has to be accomplished, which, although difficult, appears to be
necessary.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly the attempt must be made.
STRANGER: To assume that one part of virtue differs in kind from another, is a position
easily assailable by contentious disputants, who appeal to popular opinion.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I do not understand.
STRANGER: Let me put the matter in another way: I suppose that you would consider
courage to be a part of virtue?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly I should.
STRANGER: And you would think temperance to be different from courage; and
likewise to be a part of virtue?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: I shall venture to put forward a strange theory about them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: That they are two principles which thoroughly hate one another and are
antagonistic throughout a great part of nature.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How singular!
STRANGER: Yes, very—for all the parts of virtue are commonly said to be friendly to
one another.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: Then let us carefully investigate whether this is universally true, or
whether there are not parts of virtue which are at war with their kindred in some
respect.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Tell me how we shall consider that question.
STRANGER: We must extend our enquiry to all those things which we consider
beautiful and at the same time place in two opposite classes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Explain; what are they?
STRANGER: Acuteness and quickness, whether in body or soul or in the movement of
sound, and the imitations of them which painting and music supply, you must have
praised yourself before now, or been present when others praised them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And do you remember the terms in which they are praised?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I do not.
STRANGER: I wonder whether I can explain to you in words the thought which is
passing in my mind.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why not?
STRANGER: You fancy that this is all so easy: Well, let us consider these notions with
reference to the opposite classes of action under which they fall. When we praise
quickness and energy and acuteness, whether of mind or body or sound, we express our
praise of the quality which we admire by one word, and that one word is manliness or
courage.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How?
STRANGER: We speak of an action as energetic and brave, quick and manly, and
vigorous too; and when we apply the name of which I speak as the common attribute of
all these natures, we certainly praise them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And do we not often praise the quiet strain of action also?
YOUNG SOCRATES: To be sure.
STRANGER: And do we not then say the opposite of what we said of the other?
YOUNG SOCRATES: How do you mean?
STRANGER: We exclaim How calm! How temperate! in admiration of the slow and
quiet working of the intellect, and of steadiness and gentleness in action, of smoothness
and depth of voice, and of all rhythmical movement and of music in general, when these
have a proper solemnity. Of all such actions we predicate not courage, but a name
indicative of order.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: But when, on the other hand, either of these is out of place, the names of
either are changed into terms of censure.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How so?
STRANGER: Too great sharpness or quickness or hardness is termed violence or
madness; too great slowness or gentleness is called cowardice or sluggishness; and we
may observe, that for the most part these qualities, and the temperance and manliness
of the opposite characters, are arrayed as enemies on opposite sides, and do not mingle
with one another in their respective actions; and if we pursue the enquiry, we shall find
that men who have these different qualities of mind differ from one another.
YOUNG SOCRATES: In what respect?
STRANGER: In respect of all the qualities which I mentioned, and very likely of many
others. According to their respective affinities to either class of actions they distribute
praise and blame,—praise to the actions which are akin to their own, blame to those of
the opposite party—and out of this many quarrels and occasions of quarrel arise among
them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: The difference between the two classes is often a trivial concern; but in a
state, and when affecting really important matters, becomes of all disorders the most
hateful.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?
STRANGER: To nothing short of the whole regulation of human life. For the orderly
class are always ready to lead a peaceful life, quietly doing their own business; this is
their manner of behaving with all men at home, and they are equally ready to find some
way of keeping the peace with foreign States. And on account of this fondness of theirs
for peace, which is often out of season where their influence prevails, they become by
degrees unwarlike, and bring up their young men to be like themselves; they are at the
mercy of their enemies; whence in a few years they and their children and the whole city
often pass imperceptibly from the condition of freemen into that of slaves.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What a cruel fate!
STRANGER: And now think of what happens with the more courageous natures. Are
they not always inciting their country to go to war, owing to their excessive love of the
military life? they raise up enemies against themselves many and mighty, and either
utterly ruin their native-land or enslave and subject it to its foes?
YOUNG SOCRATES: That, again, is true.
STRANGER: Must we not admit, then, that where these two classes exist, they always
feel the greatest antipathy and antagonism towards one another?
YOUNG SOCRATES: We cannot deny it.
STRANGER: And returning to the enquiry with which we began, have we not found that
considerable portions of virtue are at variance with one another, and give rise to a
similar opposition in the characters who are endowed with them?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Let us consider a further point.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: I want to know, whether any constructive art will make any, even the most
trivial thing, out of bad and good materials indifferently, if this can be helped? does not
all art rather reject the bad as far as possible, and accept the good and fit materials, and
from these elements, whether like or unlike, gathering them all into one, work out some
nature or idea?
YOUNG SOCRATES: To, be sure.
STRANGER: Then the true and natural art of statesmanship will never allow any State
to be formed by a combination of good and bad men, if this can be avoided; but will
begin by testing human natures in play, and after testing them, will entrust them to
proper teachers who are the ministers of her purposes—she will herself give orders, and
maintain authority; just as the art of weaving continually gives orders and maintains
authority over the carders and all the others who prepare the material for the work,
commanding the subsidiary arts to execute the works which she deems necessary for
making the web.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: In like manner, the royal science appears to me to be the mistress of all
lawful educators and instructors, and having this queenly power, will not permit them to
train men in what will produce characters unsuited to the political constitution which
she desires to create, but only in what will produce such as are suitable. Those which
have no share of manliness and temperance, or any other virtuous inclination, and, from
the necessity of an evil nature, are violently carried away to godlessness and insolence
and injustice, she gets rid of by death and exile, and punishes them with the greatest of
disgraces.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That is commonly said.
STRANGER: But those who are wallowing in ignorance and baseness she bows under
the yoke of slavery.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite right.
STRANGER: The rest of the citizens, out of whom, if they have education, something
noble may be made, and who are capable of being united by the statesman, the kingly
art blends and weaves together; taking on the one hand those whose natures tend rather
to courage, which is the stronger element and may be regarded as the warp, and on the
other hand those which incline to order and gentleness, and which are represented in
the figure as spun thick and soft, after the manner of the woof—these, which are
naturally opposed, she seeks to bind and weave together in the following manner:
YOUNG SOCRATES: In what manner?
STRANGER: First of all, she takes the eternal element of the soul and binds it with a
divine cord, to which it is akin, and then the animal nature, and binds that with human
cords.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I do not understand what you mean.
STRANGER: The meaning is, that the opinion about the honourable and the just and
good and their opposites, which is true and confirmed by reason, is a divine principle,
and when implanted in the soul, is implanted, as I maintain, in a nature of heavenly
birth.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes; what else should it be?
STRANGER: Only the Statesman and the good legislator, having the inspiration of the
royal muse, can implant this opinion, and he, only in the rightly educated, whom we
were just now describing.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Likely enough.
STRANGER: But him who cannot, we will not designate by any of the names which are
the subject of the present enquiry.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very right.
STRANGER: The courageous soul when attaining this truth becomes civilized, and
rendered more capable of partaking of justice; but when not partaking, is inclined to
brutality. Is not that true?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And again, the peaceful and orderly nature, if sharing in these opinions,
becomes temperate and wise, as far as this may be in a State, but if not, deservedly
obtains the ignominious name of silliness.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: Can we say that such a connexion as this will lastingly unite the evil with
one another or with the good, or that any science would seriously think of using a bond
of this kind to join such materials?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Impossible.
STRANGER: But in those who were originally of a noble nature, and who have been
nurtured in noble ways, and in those only, may we not say that union is implanted by
law, and that this is the medicine which art prescribes for them, and of all the bonds
which unite the dissimilar and contrary parts of virtue is not this, as I was saying, the
divinest?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Where this divine bond exists there is no difficulty in imagining, or when
you have imagined, in creating the other bonds, which are human only.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How is that, and what bonds do you mean?
STRANGER: Rights of intermarriage, and ties which are formed between States by
giving and taking children in marriage, or between individuals by private betrothals and
espousals. For most persons form marriage connexions without due regard to what is
best for the procreation of children.
YOUNG SOCRATES: In what way?
STRANGER: They seek after wealth and power, which in matrimony are objects not
worthy even of a serious censure.
YOUNG SOCRATES: There is no need to consider them at all.
STRANGER: More reason is there to consider the practice of those who make family
their chief aim, and to indicate their error.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: They act on no true principle at all; they seek their ease and receive with
open arms those who are like themselves, and hate those who are unlike them, being too
much influenced by feelings of dislike.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How so?
STRANGER: The quiet orderly class seek for natures like their own, and as far as they
can they marry and give in marriage exclusively in this class, and the courageous do the
same; they seek natures like their own, whereas they should both do precisely the
opposite.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How and why is that?
STRANGER: Because courage, when untempered by the gentler nature during many
generations, may at first bloom and strengthen, but at last bursts forth into downright
madness.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Like enough.
STRANGER: And then, again, the soul which is over-full of modesty and has no element
of courage in many successive generations, is apt to grow too indolent, and at last to
become utterly paralyzed and useless.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That, again, is quite likely.
STRANGER: It was of these bonds I said that there would be no difficulty in creating
them, if only both classes originally held the same opinion about the honourable and
good;—indeed, in this single work, the whole process of royal weaving is comprised—
never to allow temperate natures to be separated from the brave, but to weave them
together, like the warp and the woof, by common sentiments and honours and
reputation, and by the giving of pledges to one another; and out of them forming one
smooth and even web, to entrust to them the offices of State.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How do you mean?
STRANGER: Where one officer only is needed, you must choose a ruler who has both
these qualities—when many, you must mingle some of each, for the temperate ruler is
very careful and just and safe, but is wanting in thoroughness and go.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly, that is very true.
STRANGER: The character of the courageous, on the other hand, falls short of the
former in justice and caution, but has the power of action in a remarkable degree, and
where either of these two qualities is wanting, there cities cannot altogether prosper
either in their public or private life.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly they cannot.
STRANGER: This then we declare to be the completion of the web of political action,
which is created by a direct intertexture of the brave and temperate natures, whenever
the royal science has drawn the two minds into communion with one another by
unanimity and friendship, and having perfected the noblest and best of all the webs
which political life admits, and enfolding therein all other inhabitants of cities, whether
slaves or freemen, binds them in one fabric and governs and presides over them, and, in
so far as to be happy is vouchsafed to a city, in no particular fails to secure their
happiness.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Your picture, Stranger, of the king and statesman, no less than of
the Sophist, is quite perfect.
THE END

PHILEBUS
BY
PLATO
TRANSLATED BY
BENJAMIN
JOWETT

Introduction and Analysis.
The Philebus appears to be one of the later writings of Plato, in which the style has
begun to alter, and the dramatic and poetical element has become subordinate to the
speculative and philosophical. In the development of abstract thought great advances
have been made on the Protagoras or the Phaedrus, and even on the Republic. But there
is a corresponding diminution of artistic skill, a want of character in the persons, a
laboured march in the dialogue, and a degree of confusion and incompleteness in the
general design. As in the speeches of Thucydides, the multiplication of ideas seems to
interfere with the power of expression. Instead of the equally diffused grace and ease of
the earlier dialogues there occur two or three highly-wrought passages; instead of the
ever-flowing play of humour, now appearing, now concealed, but always present, are
inserted a good many bad jests, as we may venture to term them. We may observe an
attempt at artificial ornament, and far-fetched modes of expression; also clamorous
demands on the part of his companions, that Socrates shall answer his own questions,
as well as other defects of style, which remind us of the Laws. The connection is often
abrupt and inharmonious, and far from clear. Many points require further explanation;
e.g. the reference of pleasure to the indefinite class, compared with the assertion which
almost immediately follows, that pleasure and pain naturally have their seat in the third
or mixed class: these two statements are unreconciled. In like manner, the table of
goods does not distinguish between the two heads of measure and symmetry; and
though a hint is given that the divine mind has the first place, nothing is said of this in
the final summing up. The relation of the goods to the sciences does not appear; though
dialectic may be thought to correspond to the highest good, the sciences and arts and
true opinions are enumerated in the fourth class. We seem to have an intimation of a
further discussion, in which some topics lightly passed over were to receive a fuller
consideration. The various uses of the word ‘mixed,’ for the mixed life, the mixed class of
elements, the mixture of pleasures, or of pleasure and pain, are a further source of
perplexity. Our ignorance of the opinions which Plato is attacking is also an element of
obscurity. Many things in a controversy might seem relevant, if we knew to what they
were intended to refer. But no conjecture will enable us to supply what Plato has not
told us; or to explain, from our fragmentary knowledge of them, the relation in which
his doctrine stood to the Eleatic Being or the Megarian good, or to the theories of
Aristippus or Antisthenes respecting pleasure. Nor are we able to say how far Plato in
the Philebus conceives the finite and infinite (which occur both in the fragments of
Philolaus and in the Pythagorean table of opposites) in the same manner as
contemporary Pythagoreans.
There is little in the characters which is worthy of remark. The Socrates of the Philebus
is devoid of any touch of Socratic irony, though here, as in the Phaedrus, he twice
attributes the flow of his ideas to a sudden inspiration. The interlocutor Protarchus, the
son of Callias, who has been a hearer of Gorgias, is supposed to begin as a disciple of the
partisans of pleasure, but is drawn over to the opposite side by the arguments of
Socrates. The instincts of ingenuous youth are easily induced to take the better part.
Philebus, who has withdrawn from the argument, is several times brought back again,
that he may support pleasure, of which he remains to the end the uncompromising
advocate. On the other hand, the youthful group of listeners by whom he is surrounded,
‘Philebus’ boys’ as they are termed, whose presence is several times intimated, are
described as all of them at last convinced by the arguments of Socrates. They bear a very
faded resemblance to the interested audiences of the Charmides, Lysis, or Protagoras.
Other signs of relation to external life in the dialogue, or references to contemporary
things and persons, with the single exception of the allusions to the anonymous enemies
of pleasure, and the teachers of the flux, there are none.
The omission of the doctrine of recollection, derived from a previous state of existence,
is a note of progress in the philosophy of Plato. The transcendental theory of preexistent
ideas, which is chiefly discussed by him in the Meno, the Phaedo, and the
Phaedrus, has given way to a psychological one. The omission is rendered more
significant by his having occasion to speak of memory as the basis of desire. Of the ideas
he treats in the same sceptical spirit which appears in his criticism of them in the
Parmenides. He touches on the same difficulties and he gives no answer to them. His
mode of speaking of the analytical and synthetical processes may be compared with his
discussion of the same subject in the Phaedrus; here he dwells on the importance of
dividing the genera into all the species, while in the Phaedrus he conveys the same truth
in a figure, when he speaks of carving the whole, which is described under the image of a
victim, into parts or members, ‘according to their natural articulation, without breaking
any of them.’ There is also a difference, which may be noted, between the two dialogues.
For whereas in the Phaedrus, and also in the Symposium, the dialectician is described as
a sort of enthusiast or lover, in the Philebus, as in all the later writings of Plato, the
element of love is wanting; the topic is only introduced, as in the Republic, by way of
illustration. On other subjects of which they treat in common, such as the nature and
kinds of pleasure, true and false opinion, the nature of the good, the order and relation
of the sciences, the Republic is less advanced than the Philebus, which contains,
perhaps, more metaphysical truth more obscurely expressed than any other Platonic
dialogue. Here, as Plato expressly tells us, he is ‘forging weapons of another make,’ i.e.
new categories and modes of conception, though ‘some of the old ones might do again.’
But if superior in thought and dialectical power, the Philebus falls very far short of the
Republic in fancy and feeling. The development of the reason undisturbed by the
emotions seems to be the ideal at which Plato aims in his later dialogues. There is no
mystic enthusiasm or rapturous contemplation of ideas. Whether we attribute this
change to the greater feebleness of age, or to the development of the quarrel between
philosophy and poetry in Plato’s own mind, or perhaps, in some degree, to a
carelessness about artistic effect, when he was absorbed in abstract ideas, we can hardly
be wrong in assuming, amid such a variety of indications, derived from style as well as
subject, that the Philebus belongs to the later period of his life and authorship. But in
this, as in all the later writings of Plato, there are not wanting thoughts and expressions
in which he rises to his highest level.
The plan is complicated, or rather, perhaps, the want of plan renders the progress of the
dialogue difficult to follow. A few leading ideas seem to emerge: the relation of the one
and many, the four original elements, the kinds of pleasure, the kinds of knowledge, the
scale of goods. These are only partially connected with one another. The dialogue is not
rightly entitled ‘Concerning pleasure’ or ‘Concerning good,’ but should rather be
described as treating of the relations of pleasure and knowledge, after they have been
duly analyzed, to the good. (1) The question is asked, whether pleasure or wisdom is the
chief good, or some nature higher than either; and if the latter, how pleasure and
wisdom are related to this higher good. (2) Before we can reply with exactness, we must
know the kinds of pleasure and the kinds of knowledge. (3) But still we may affirm
generally, that the combined life of pleasure and wisdom or knowledge has more of the
character of the good than either of them when isolated. (4) to determine which of them
partakes most of the higher nature, we must know under which of the four unities or
elements they respectively fall. These are, first, the infinite; secondly, the finite; thirdly,
the union of the two; fourthly, the cause of the union. Pleasure is of the first, wisdom or
knowledge of the third class, while reason or mind is akin to the fourth or highest.
(5) Pleasures are of two kinds, the mixed and unmixed. Of mixed pleasures there are
three classes—(a) those in which both the pleasures and pains are corporeal, as in eating
and hunger; (b) those in which there is a pain of the body and pleasure of the mind, as
when you are hungry and are looking forward to a feast; (c) those in which the pleasure
and pain are both mental. Of unmixed pleasures there are four kinds: those of sight,
hearing, smell, knowledge.
(6) The sciences are likewise divided into two classes, theoretical and productive: of the
latter, one part is pure, the other impure. The pure part consists of arithmetic,
mensuration, and weighing. Arts like carpentering, which have an exact measure, are to
be regarded as higher than music, which for the most part is mere guess-work. But there
is also a higher arithmetic, and a higher mensuration, which is exclusively theoretical;
and a dialectical science, which is higher still and the truest and purest knowledge.
(7) We are now able to determine the composition of the perfect life. First, we admit the
pure pleasures and the pure sciences; secondly, the impure sciences, but not the impure
pleasures. We have next to discover what element of goodness is contained in this
mixture. There are three criteria of goodness—beauty, symmetry, truth. These are
clearly more akin to reason than to pleasure, and will enable us to fix the places of both
of them in the scale of good. First in the scale is measure; the second place is assigned to
symmetry; the third, to reason and wisdom; the fourth, to knowledge and true opinion;
the fifth, to pure pleasures; and here the Muse says ‘Enough.’
‘Bidding farewell to Philebus and Socrates,’ we may now consider the metaphysical
conceptions which are presented to us. These are (I) the paradox of unity and plurality;
(II) the table of categories or elements; (III) the kinds of pleasure; (IV) the kinds of
knowledge; (V) the conception of the good. We may then proceed to examine (VI) the
relation of the Philebus to the Republic, and to other dialogues.
I. The paradox of the one and many originated in the restless dialectic of Zeno, who
sought to prove the absolute existence of the one by showing the contradictions that are
involved in admitting the existence of the many (compare Parm.). Zeno illustrated the
contradiction by well-known examples taken from outward objects. But Socrates seems
to intimate that the time had arrived for discarding these hackneyed illustrations; such
difficulties had long been solved by common sense (‘solvitur ambulando’); the fact of the
co-existence of opposites was a sufficient answer to them. He will leave them to Cynics
and Eristics; the youth of Athens may discourse of them to their parents. To no rational
man could the circumstance that the body is one, but has many members, be any longer
a stumbling-block.
Plato’s difficulty seems to begin in the region of ideas. He cannot understand how an
absolute unity, such as the Eleatic Being, can be broken up into a number of individuals,
or be in and out of them at once. Philosophy had so deepened or intensified the nature
of one or Being, by the thoughts of successive generations, that the mind could no longer
imagine ‘Being’ as in a state of change or division. To say that the verb of existence is the
copula, or that unity is a mere unit, is to us easy; but to the Greek in a particular stage of
thought such an analysis involved the same kind of difficulty as the conception of God
existing both in and out of the world would to ourselves. Nor was he assisted by the
analogy of sensible objects. The sphere of mind was dark and mysterious to him; but
instead of being illustrated by sense, the greatest light appeared to be thrown on the
nature of ideas when they were contrasted with sense.
Both here and in the Parmenides, where similar difficulties are raised, Plato seems
prepared to desert his ancient ground. He cannot tell the relation in which abstract ideas
stand to one another, and therefore he transfers the one and many out of his
transcendental world, and proceeds to lay down practical rules for their application to
different branches of knowledge. As in the Republic he supposes the philosopher to
proceed by regular steps, until he arrives at the idea of good; as in the Sophist and
Politicus he insists that in dividing the whole into its parts we should bisect in the
middle in the hope of finding species; as in the Phaedrus (see above) he would have ‘no
limb broken’ of the organism of knowledge;— so in the Philebus he urges the necessity
of filling up all the intermediate links which occur (compare Bacon’s ‘media axiomata’)
in the passage from unity to infinity. With him the idea of science may be said to
anticipate science; at a time when the sciences were not yet divided, he wants to impress
upon us the importance of classification; neither neglecting the many individuals, nor
attempting to count them all, but finding the genera and species under which they
naturally fall. Here, then, and in the parallel passages of the Phaedrus and of the
Sophist, is found the germ of the most fruitful notion of modern science.
Plato describes with ludicrous exaggeration the influence exerted by the one and many
on the minds of young men in their first fervour of metaphysical enthusiasm (compare
Republic). But they are none the less an everlasting quality of reason or reasoning which
never grows old in us. At first we have but a confused conception of them, analogous to
the eyes blinking at the light in the Republic. To this Plato opposes the revelation from
Heaven of the real relations of them, which some Prometheus, who gave the true fire
from heaven, is supposed to have imparted to us. Plato is speaking of two things—(1) the
crude notion of the one and many, which powerfully affects the ordinary mind when
first beginning to think; (2) the same notion when cleared up by the help of dialectic.
To us the problem of the one and many has lost its chief interest and perplexity. We
readily acknowledge that a whole has many parts, that the continuous is also the
divisible, that in all objects of sense there is a one and many, and that a like principle
may be applied to analogy to purely intellectual conceptions. If we attend to the
meaning of the words, we are compelled to admit that two contradictory statements are
true. But the antinomy is so familiar as to be scarcely observed by us. Our sense of the
contradiction, like Plato’s, only begins in a higher sphere, when we speak of necessity
and free-will, of mind and body, of Three Persons and One Substance, and the like. The
world of knowledge is always dividing more and more; every truth is at first the enemy
of every other truth. Yet without this division there can be no truth; nor any complete
truth without the reunion of the parts into a whole. And hence the coexistence of
opposites in the unity of the idea is regarded by Hegel as the supreme principle of
philosophy; and the law of contradiction, which is affirmed by logicians to be an
ultimate principle of the human mind, is displaced by another law, which asserts the
coexistence of contradictories as imperfect and divided elements of the truth. Without
entering further into the depths of Hegelianism, we may remark that this and all similar
attempts to reconcile antinomies have their origin in the old Platonic problem of the
‘One and Many.’
II. 1. The first of Plato’s categories or elements is the infinite. This is the negative of
measure or limit; the unthinkable, the unknowable; of which nothing can be affirmed;
the mixture or chaos which preceded distinct kinds in the creation of the world; the first
vague impression of sense; the more or less which refuses to be reduced to rule, having
certain affinities with evil, with pleasure, with ignorance, and which in the scale of being
is farthest removed from the beautiful and good. To a Greek of the age of Plato, the idea
of an infinite mind would have been an absurdity. He would have insisted that ‘the good
is of the nature of the finite,’ and that the infinite is a mere negative, which is on the
level of sensation, and not of thought. He was aware that there was a distinction
between the infinitely great and the infinitely small, but he would have equally denied
the claim of either to true existence. Of that positive infinity, or infinite reality, which we
attribute to God, he had no conception.
The Greek conception of the infinite would be more truly described, in our way of
speaking, as the indefinite. To us, the notion of infinity is subsequent rather than prior
to the finite, expressing not absolute vacancy or negation, but only the removal of limit
or restraint, which we suppose to exist not before but after we have already set bounds
to thought and matter, and divided them after their kinds. From different points of view,
either the finite or infinite may be looked upon respectively both as positive and
negative (compare ‘Omnis determinatio est negatio’)’ and the conception of the one
determines that of the other. The Greeks and the moderns seem to be nearly at the
opposite poles in their manner of regarding them. And both are surprised when they
make the discovery, as Plato has done in the Sophist, how large an element negation
forms in the framework of their thoughts.
2, 3. The finite element which mingles with and regulates the infinite is best expressed
to us by the word ‘law.’ It is that which measures all things and assigns to them their
limit; which preserves them in their natural state, and brings them within the sphere of
human cognition. This is described by the terms harmony, health, order, perfection, and
the like. All things, in as far as they are good, even pleasures, which are for the most part
indefinite, partake of this element. We should be wrong in attributing to Plato the
conception of laws of nature derived from observation and experiment. And yet he has
as intense a conviction as any modern philosopher that nature does not proceed by
chance. But observing that the wonderful construction of number and figure, which he
had within himself, and which seemed to be prior to himself, explained a part of the
phenomena of the external world, he extended their principles to the whole, finding in
them the true type both of human life and of the order of nature.
Two other points may be noticed respecting the third class. First, that Plato seems to be
unconscious of any interval or chasm which separates the finite from the infinite. The
one is in various ways and degrees working in the other. Hence he has implicitly
answered the difficulty with which he started, of how the one could remain one and yet
be divided among many individuals, or ‘how ideas could be in and out of themselves,’
and the like. Secondly, that in this mixed class we find the idea of beauty. Good, when
exhibited under the aspect of measure or symmetry, becomes beauty. And if we translate
his language into corresponding modern terms, we shall not be far wrong in saying that
here, as well as in the Republic, Plato conceives beauty under the idea of proportion.
4. Last and highest in the list of principles or elements is the cause of the union of the
finite and infinite, to which Plato ascribes the order of the world. Reasoning from man
to the universe, he argues that as there is a mind in the one, there must be a mind in the
other, which he identifies with the royal mind of Zeus. This is the first cause of which
‘our ancestors spoke,’ as he says, appealing to tradition, in the Philebus as well as in the
Timaeus. The ‘one and many’ is also supposed to have been revealed by tradition. For
the mythical element has not altogether disappeared.
Some characteristic differences may here be noted, which distinguish the ancient from
the modern mode of conceiving God.
a. To Plato, the idea of God or mind is both personal and impersonal. Nor in ascribing,
as appears to us, both these attributes to him, and in speaking of God both in the
masculine and neuter gender, did he seem to himself inconsistent. For the difference
between the personal and impersonal was not marked to him as to ourselves. We make a
fundamental distinction between a thing and a person, while to Plato, by the help of
various intermediate abstractions, such as end, good, cause, they appear almost to meet
in one, or to be two aspects of the same. Hence, without any reconciliation or even
remark, in the Republic he speaks at one time of God or Gods, and at another time of the
Good. So in the Phaedrus he seems to pass unconsciously from the concrete to the
abstract conception of the Ideas in the same dialogue. Nor in the Philebus is he careful
to show in what relation the idea of the divine mind stands to the supreme principle of
measure.
b. Again, to us there is a strongly-marked distinction between a first cause and a final
cause. And we should commonly identify a first cause with God, and the final cause with
the world, which is His work. But Plato, though not a Pantheist, and very far from
confounding God with the world, tends to identify the first with the final cause. The
cause of the union of the finite and infinite might be described as a higher law; the final
measure which is the highest expression of the good may also be described as the
supreme law. Both these conceptions are realized chiefly by the help of the material
world; and therefore when we pass into the sphere of ideas can hardly be distinguished.
The four principles are required for the determination of the relative places of pleasure
and wisdom. Plato has been saying that we should proceed by regular steps from the one
to the many. Accordingly, before assigning the precedence either to good or pleasure, he
must first find out and arrange in order the general principles of things. Mind is
ascertained to be akin to the nature of the cause, while pleasure is found in the infinite
or indefinite class. We may now proceed to divide pleasure and knowledge after their
kinds.
III. 1. Plato speaks of pleasure as indefinite, as relative, as a generation, and in all these
points of view as in a category distinct from good. For again we must repeat, that to the
Greek ‘the good is of the nature of the finite,’ and, like virtue, either is, or is nearly allied
to, knowledge. The modern philosopher would remark that the indefinite is equally real
with the definite. Health and mental qualities are in the concrete undefined; they are
nevertheless real goods, and Plato rightly regards them as falling under the finite class.
Again, we are able to define objects or ideas, not in so far as they are in the mind, but in
so far as they are manifested externally, and can therefore be reduced to rule and
measure. And if we adopt the test of definiteness, the pleasures of the body are more
capable of being defined than any other pleasures. As in art and knowledge generally, we
proceed from without inwards, beginning with facts of sense, and passing to the more
ideal conceptions of mental pleasure, happiness, and the like.
2. Pleasure is depreciated as relative, while good is exalted as absolute. But this
distinction seems to arise from an unfair mode of regarding them; the abstract idea of
the one is compared with the concrete experience of the other. For all pleasure and all
knowledge may be viewed either abstracted from the mind, or in relation to the mind
(compare Aristot. Nic. Ethics). The first is an idea only, which may be conceived as
absolute and unchangeable, and then the abstract idea of pleasure will be equally
unchangeable with that of knowledge. But when we come to view either as phenomena
of consciousness, the same defects are for the most part incident to both of them. Our
hold upon them is equally transient and uncertain; the mind cannot be always in a state
of intellectual tension, any more than capable of feeling pleasure always. The knowledge
which is at one time clear and distinct, at another seems to fade away, just as the
pleasure of health after sickness, or of eating after hunger, soon passes into a neutral
state of unconsciousness and indifference. Change and alternation are necessary for the
mind as well as for the body; and in this is to be acknowledged, not an element of evil,
but rather a law of nature. The chief difference between subjective pleasure and
subjective knowledge in respect of permanence is that the latter, when our feeble
faculties are able to grasp it, still conveys to us an idea of unchangeableness which
cannot be got rid of.
3. In the language of ancient philosophy, the relative character of pleasure is described
as becoming or generation. This is relative to Being or Essence, and from one point of
view may be regarded as the Heraclitean flux in contrast with the Eleatic Being; from
another, as the transient enjoyment of eating and drinking compared with the supposed
permanence of intellectual pleasures. But to us the distinction is unmeaning, and
belongs to a stage of philosophy which has passed away. Plato himself seems to have
suspected that the continuance or life of things is quite as much to be attributed to a
principle of rest as of motion (compare Charm. Cratyl.). A later view of pleasure is found
in Aristotle, who agrees with Plato in many points, e.g. in his view of pleasure as a
restoration to nature, in his distinction between bodily and mental, between necessary
and non-necessary pleasures. But he is also in advance of Plato; for he affirms that
pleasure is not in the body at all; and hence not even the bodily pleasures are to be
spoken of as generations, but only as accompanied by generation (Nic. Eth.).
4. Plato attempts to identify vicious pleasures with some form of error, and insists that
the term false may be applied to them: in this he appears to be carrying out in a
confused manner the Socratic doctrine, that virtue is knowledge, vice ignorance. He will
allow of no distinction between the pleasures and the erroneous opinions on which they
are founded, whether arising out of the illusion of distance or not. But to this we
naturally reply with Protarchus, that the pleasure is what it is, although the calculation
may be false, or the after-effects painful. It is difficult to acquit Plato, to use his own
language, of being a ‘tyro in dialectics,’ when he overlooks such a distinction. Yet, on the
other hand, we are hardly fair judges of confusions of thought in those who view things
differently from ourselves.
5. There appears also to be an incorrectness in the notion which occurs both here and in
the Gorgias, of the simultaneousness of merely bodily pleasures and pains. We may,
perhaps, admit, though even this is not free from doubt, that the feeling of pleasureable
hope or recollection is, or rather may be, simultaneous with acute bodily suffering. But
there is no such coexistence of the pain of thirst with the pleasures of drinking; they are
not really simultaneous, for the one expels the other. Nor does Plato seem to have
considered that the bodily pleasures, except in certain extreme cases, are unattended
with pain. Few philosophers will deny that a degree of pleasure attends eating and
drinking; and yet surely we might as well speak of the pains of digestion which follow, as
of the pains of hunger and thirst which precede them. Plato’s conception is derived
partly from the extreme case of a man suffering pain from hunger or thirst, partly from
the image of a full and empty vessel. But the truth is rather, that while the gratification
of our bodily desires constantly affords some degree of pleasure, the antecedent pains
are scarcely perceived by us, being almost done away with by use and regularity.
6. The desire to classify pleasures as accompanied or not accompanied by antecedent
pains, has led Plato to place under one head the pleasures of smell and sight, as well as
those derived from sounds of music and from knowledge. He would have done better to
make a separate class of the pleasures of smell, having no association of mind, or
perhaps to have divided them into natural and artificial. The pleasures of sight and
sound might then have been regarded as being the expression of ideas. But this higher
and truer point of view never appears to have occurred to Plato. Nor has he any
distinction between the fine arts and the mechanical; and, neither here nor anywhere,
an adequate conception of the beautiful in external things.
7. Plato agrees partially with certain ‘surly or fastidious’ philosophers, as he terms them,
who defined pleasure to be the absence of pain. They are also described as eminent in
physics. There is unfortunately no school of Greek philosophy known to us which
combined these two characteristics. Antisthenes, who was an enemy of pleasure, was not
a physical philosopher; the atomists, who were physical philosophers, were not enemies
of pleasure. Yet such a combination of opinions is far from being impossible. Plato’s
omission to mention them by name has created the same uncertainty respecting them
which also occurs respecting the ‘friends of the ideas’ and the ‘materialists’ in the
Sophist.
On the whole, this discussion is one of the least satisfactory in the dialogues of Plato.
While the ethical nature of pleasure is scarcely considered, and the merely physical
phenomenon imperfectly analysed, too much weight is given to ideas of measure and
number, as the sole principle of good. The comparison of pleasure and knowledge is
really a comparison of two elements, which have no common measure, and which
cannot be excluded from each other. Feeling is not opposed to knowledge, and in all
consciousness there is an element of both. The most abstract kinds of knowledge are
inseparable from some pleasure or pain, which accompanies the acquisition or
possession of them: the student is liable to grow weary of them, and soon discovers that
continuous mental energy is not granted to men. The most sensual pleasure, on the
other hand, is inseparable from the consciousness of pleasure; no man can be happy
who, to borrow Plato’s illustration, is leading the life of an oyster. Hence (by his own
confession) the main thesis is not worth determining; the real interest lies in the
incidental discussion. We can no more separate pleasure from knowledge in the
Philebus than we can separate justice from happiness in the Republic.
IV. An interesting account is given in the Philebus of the rank and order of the sciences
or arts, which agrees generally with the scheme of knowledge in the Sixth Book of the
Republic. The chief difference is, that the position of the arts is more exactly defined.
They are divided into an empirical part and a scientific part, of which the first is mere
guess- work, the second is determined by rule and measure. Of the more empirical arts,
music is given as an example; this, although affirmed to be necessary to human life, is
depreciated. Music is regarded from a point of view entirely opposite to that of the
Republic, not as a sublime science, coordinate with astronomy, but as full of doubt and
conjecture. According to the standard of accuracy which is here adopted, it is rightly
placed lower in the scale than carpentering, because the latter is more capable of being
reduced to measure.
The theoretical element of the arts may also become a purely abstract science, when
separated from matter, and is then said to be pure and unmixed. The distinction which
Plato here makes seems to be the same as that between pure and applied mathematics,
and may be expressed in the modern formula—science is art theoretical, art is science
practical. In the reason which he gives for the superiority of the pure science of number
over the mixed or applied, we can only agree with him in part. He says that the numbers
which the philosopher employs are always the same, whereas the numbers which are
used in practice represent different sizes or quantities. He does not see that this power
of expressing different quantities by the same symbol is the characteristic and not the
defect of numbers, and is due to their abstract nature;—although we admit of course
what Plato seems to feel in his distinctions between pure and impure knowledge, that
the imperfection of matter enters into the applications of them.
Above the other sciences, as in the Republic, towers dialectic, which is the science of
eternal Being, apprehended by the purest mind and reason. The lower sciences,
including the mathematical, are akin to opinion rather than to reason, and are placed
together in the fourth class of goods. The relation in which they stand to dialectic is
obscure in the Republic, and is not cleared up in the Philebus.
V. Thus far we have only attained to the vestibule or ante-chamber of the good; for there
is a good exceeding knowledge, exceeding essence, which, like Glaucon in the Republic,
we find a difficulty in apprehending. This good is now to be exhibited to us under
various aspects and gradations. The relative dignity of pleasure and knowledge has been
determined; but they have not yet received their exact position in the scale of goods.
Some difficulties occur to us in the enumeration: First, how are we to distinguish the
first from the second class of goods, or the second from the third? Secondly, why is there
no mention of the supreme mind? Thirdly, the nature of the fourth class. Fourthly, the
meaning of the allusion to a sixth class, which is not further investigated.
(I) Plato seems to proceed in his table of goods, from the more abstract to the less
abstract; from the subjective to the objective; until at the lower end of the scale we fairly
descend into the region of human action and feeling. To him, the greater the abstraction
the greater the truth, and he is always tending to see abstractions within abstractions;
which, like the ideas in the Parmenides, are always appearing one behind another.
Hence we find a difficulty in following him into the sphere of thought which he is
seeking to attain. First in his scale of goods he places measure, in which he finds the
eternal nature: this would be more naturally expressed in modern language as eternal
law, and seems to be akin both to the finite and to the mind or cause, which were two of
the elements in the former table. Like the supreme nature in the Timaeus, like the ideal
beauty in the Symposium or the Phaedrus, or like the ideal good in the Republic, this is
the absolute and unapproachable being. But this being is manifested in symmetry and
beauty everywhere, in the order of nature and of mind, in the relations of men to one
another. For the word ‘measure’ he now substitutes the word ‘symmetry,’ as if intending
to express measure conceived as relation. He then proceeds to regard the good no longer
in an objective form, but as the human reason seeking to attain truth by the aid of
dialectic; such at least we naturally infer to be his meaning, when we consider that both
here and in the Republic the sphere of nous or mind is assigned to dialectic. (2) It is
remarkable (see above) that this personal conception of mind is confined to the human
mind, and not extended to the divine. (3) If we may be allowed to interpret one dialogue
of Plato by another, the sciences of figure and number are probably classed with the arts
and true opinions, because they proceed from hypotheses (compare Republic). (4) The
sixth class, if a sixth class is to be added, is playfully set aside by a quotation from
Orpheus: Plato means to say that a sixth class, if there be such a class, is not worth
considering, because pleasure, having only gained the fifth place in the scale of goods, is
already out of the running.
VI. We may now endeavour to ascertain the relation of the Philebus to the other
dialogues. Here Plato shows the same indifference to his own doctrine of Ideas which he
has already manifested in the Parmenides and the Sophist. The principle of the one and
many of which he here speaks, is illustrated by examples in the Sophist and Statesman.
Notwithstanding the differences of style, many resemblances may be noticed between
the Philebus and Gorgias. The theory of the simultaneousness of pleasure and pain is
common to both of them (Phil. Gorg.); there is also a common tendency in them to take
up arms against pleasure, although the view of the Philebus, which is probably the later
of the two dialogues, is the more moderate. There seems to be an allusion to the passage
in the Gorgias, in which Socrates dilates on the pleasures of itching and scratching. Nor
is there any real discrepancy in the manner in which Gorgias and his art are spoken of in
the two dialogues. For Socrates is far from implying that the art of rhetoric has a real
sphere of practical usefulness: he only means that the refutation of the claims of Gorgias
is not necessary for his present purpose. He is saying in effect: ‘Admit, if you please, that
rhetoric is the greatest and usefullest of sciences:—this does not prove that dialectic is
not the purest and most exact.’ From the Sophist and Statesman we know that his
hostility towards the sophists and rhetoricians was not mitigated in later life; although
both in the Statesman and Laws he admits of a higher use of rhetoric.
Reasons have been already given for assigning a late date to the Philebus. That the date
is probably later than that of the Republic, may be further argued on the following
grounds:—1. The general resemblance to the later dialogues and to the Laws: 2. The
more complete account of the nature of good and pleasure: 3. The distinction between
perception, memory, recollection, and opinion which indicates a great progress in
psychology; also between understanding and imagination, which is described under the
figure of the scribe and the painter. A superficial notion may arise that Plato probably
wrote shorter dialogues, such as the Philebus, the Sophist, and the Statesman, as studies
or preparations for longer ones. This view may be natural; but on further reflection is
seen to be fallacious, because these three dialogues are found to make an advance upon
the metaphysical conceptions of the Republic. And we can more easily suppose that
Plato composed shorter writings after longer ones, than suppose that he lost hold of
further points of view which he had once attained.
It is more easy to find traces of the Pythagoreans, Eleatics, Megarians, Cynics, Cyrenaics
and of the ideas of Anaxagoras, in the Philebus, than to say how much is due to each of
them. Had we fuller records of those old philosophers, we should probably find Plato in
the midst of the fray attempting to combine Eleatic and Pythagorean doctrines, and
seeking to find a truth beyond either Being or number; setting up his own concrete
conception of good against the abstract practical good of the Cynics, or the abstract
intellectual good of the Megarians, and his own idea of classification against the denial
of plurality in unity which is also attributed to them; warring against the Eristics as
destructive of truth, as he had formerly fought against the Sophists; taking up a middle
position between the Cynics and Cyrenaics in his doctrine of pleasure; asserting with
more consistency than Anaxagoras the existence of an intelligent mind and cause. Of the
Heracliteans, whom he is said by Aristotle to have cultivated in his youth, he speaks in
the Philebus, as in the Theaetetus and Cratylus, with irony and contempt. But we have
not the knowledge which would enable us to pursue further the line of reflection here
indicated; nor can we expect to find perfect clearness or order in the first efforts of
mankind to understand the working of their own minds. The ideas which they are
attempting to analyse, they are also in process of creating; the abstract universals of
which they are seeking to adjust the relations have been already excluded by them from
the category of relation.
...
The Philebus, like the Cratylus, is supposed to be the continuation of a previous
discussion. An argument respecting the comparative claims of pleasure and wisdom to
rank as the chief good has been already carried on between Philebus and Socrates. The
argument is now transferred to Protarchus, the son of Callias, a noble Athenian youth,
sprung from a family which had spent ‘a world of money’ on the Sophists (compare
Apol.; Crat.; Protag.). Philebus, who appears to be the teacher, or elder friend, and
perhaps the lover, of Protarchus, takes no further part in the discussion beyond
asserting in the strongest manner his adherence, under all circumstances, to the cause
of pleasure.
Socrates suggests that they shall have a first and second palm of victory. For there may
be a good higher than either pleasure or wisdom, and then neither of them will gain the
first prize, but whichever of the two is more akin to this higher good will have a right to
the second. They agree, and Socrates opens the game by enlarging on the diversity and
opposition which exists among pleasures. For there are pleasures of all kinds, good and
bad, wise and foolish—pleasures of the temperate as well as of the intemperate.
Protarchus replies that although pleasures may be opposed in so far as they spring from
opposite sources, nevertheless as pleasures they are alike. Yes, retorts Socrates, pleasure
is like pleasure, as figure is like figure and colour like colour; yet we all know that there
is great variety among figures and colours. Protarchus does not see the drift of this
remark; and Socrates proceeds to ask how he can have a right to attribute a new
predicate (i.e. ‘good’) to pleasures in general, when he cannot deny that they are
different? What common property in all of them does he mean to indicate by the term
‘good’? If he continues to assert that there is some trivial sense in which pleasure is one,
Socrates may retort by saying that knowledge is one, but the result will be that such
merely verbal and trivial conceptions, whether of knowledge or pleasure, will spoil the
discussion, and will prove the incapacity of the two disputants. In order to avoid this
danger, he proposes that they shall beat a retreat, and, before they proceed, come to an
understanding about the ‘high argument’ of the one and the many.
Protarchus agrees to the proposal, but he is under the impression that Socrates means to
discuss the common question—how a sensible object can be one, and yet have opposite
attributes, such as ‘great’ and ‘small,’ ‘light’ and ‘heavy,’ or how there can be many
members in one body, and the like wonders. Socrates has long ceased to see any wonder
in these phenomena; his difficulties begin with the application of number to abstract
unities (e.g.‘man,’ ‘good’) and with the attempt to divide them. For have these unities of
idea any real existence? How, if imperishable, can they enter into the world of
generation? How, as units, can they be divided and dispersed among different objects?
Or do they exist in their entirety in each object? These difficulties are but imperfectly
answered by Socrates in what follows.
We speak of a one and many, which is ever flowing in and out of all things, concerning
which a young man often runs wild in his first metaphysical enthusiasm, talking about
analysis and synthesis to his father and mother and the neighbours, hardly sparing even
his dog. This ‘one in many’ is a revelation of the order of the world, which some
Prometheus first made known to our ancestors; and they, who were better men and
nearer the gods than we are, have handed it down to us. To know how to proceed by
regular steps from one to many, and from many to one, is just what makes the difference
between eristic and dialectic. And the right way of proceeding is to look for one idea or
class in all things, and when you have found one to look for more than one, and for all
that there are, and when you have found them all and regularly divided a particular field
of knowledge into classes, you may leave the further consideration of individuals. But
you must not pass at once either from unity to infinity, or from infinity to unity. In
music, for example, you may begin with the most general notion, but this alone will not
make you a musician: you must know also the number and nature of the intervals, and
the systems which are framed out of them, and the rhythms of the dance which
correspond to them. And when you have a similar knowledge of any other subject, you
may be said to know that subject. In speech again there are infinite varieties of sound,
and some one who was a wise man, or more than man, comprehended them all in the
classes of mutes, vowels, and semivowels, and gave to each of them a name, and
assigned them to the art of grammar.
‘But whither, Socrates, are you going? And what has this to do with the comparative
eligibility of pleasure and wisdom:’ Socrates replies, that before we can adjust their
respective claims, we want to know the number and kinds of both of them. What are
they? He is requested to answer the question himself. That he will, if he may be allowed
to make one or two preliminary remarks. In the first place he has a dreamy recollection
of hearing that neither pleasure nor knowledge is the highest good, for the good should
be perfect and sufficient. But is the life of pleasure perfect and sufficient, when deprived
of memory, consciousness, anticipation? Is not this the life of an oyster? Or is the life of
mind sufficient, if devoid of any particle of pleasure? Must not the union of the two be
higher and more eligible than either separately? And is not the element which makes
this mixed life eligible more akin to mind than to pleasure? Thus pleasure is rejected
and mind is rejected. And yet there may be a life of mind, not human but divine, which
conquers still.
But, if we are to pursue this argument further, we shall require some new weapons; and
by this, I mean a new classification of existence. (1) There is a finite element of
existence, and (2) an infinite, and (3) the union of the two, and (4) the cause of the
union. More may be added if they are wanted, but at present we can do without them.
And first of the infinite or indefinite:—That is the class which is denoted by the terms
more or less, and is always in a state of comparison. All words or ideas to which the
words ‘gently,’ ‘extremely,’ and other comparative expressions are applied, fall under
this class. The infinite would be no longer infinite, if limited or reduced to measure by
number and quantity. The opposite class is the limited or finite, and includes all things
which have number and quantity. And there is a third class of generation into essence by
the union of the finite and infinite, in which the finite gives law to the infinite;—under
this are comprehended health, strength, temperate seasons, harmony, beauty, and the
like. The goddess of beauty saw the universal wantonness of all things, and gave law and
order to be the salvation of the soul. But no effect can be generated without a cause, and
therefore there must be a fourth class, which is the cause of generation; for the cause or
agent is not the same as the patient or effect.
And now, having obtained our classes, we may determine in which our conqueror life is
to be placed: Clearly in the third or mixed class, in which the finite gives law to the
infinite. And in which is pleasure to find a place? As clearly in the infinite or indefinite,
which alone, as Protarchus thinks (who seems to confuse the infinite with the
superlative), gives to pleasure the character of the absolute good. Yes, retorts Socrates,
and also to pain the character of absolute evil. And therefore the infinite cannot be that
which imparts to pleasure the nature of the good. But where shall we place mind? That
is a very serious and awful question, which may be prefaced by another. Is mind or
chance the lord of the universe? All philosophers will say the first, and yet, perhaps, they
may be only magnifying themselves. And for this reason I should like to consider the
matter a little more deeply, even though some lovers of disorder in the world should
ridicule my attempt.
Now the elements earth, air, fire, water, exist in us, and they exist in the cosmos; but
they are purer and fairer in the cosmos than they are in us, and they come to us from
thence. And as we have a soul as well as a body, in like manner the elements of the
finite, the infinite, the union of the two, and the cause, are found to exist in us. And if
they, like the elements, exist in us, and the three first exist in the world, must not the
fourth or cause which is the noblest of them, exist in the world? And this cause is
wisdom or mind, the royal mind of Zeus, who is the king of all, as there are other gods
who have other noble attributes. Observe how well this agrees with the testimony of
men of old, who affirmed mind to be the ruler of the universe. And remember that mind
belongs to the class which we term the cause, and pleasure to the infinite or indefinite
class. We will examine the place and origin of both.
What is the origin of pleasure? Her natural seat is the mixed class, in which health and
harmony were placed. Pain is the violation, and pleasure the restoration of limit. There
is a natural union of finite and infinite, which in hunger, thirst, heat, cold, is impaired—
this is painful, but the return to nature, in which the elements are restored to their
normal proportions, is pleasant. Here is our first class of pleasures. And another class of
pleasures and pains are hopes and fears; these are in the mind only. And inasmuch as
the pleasures are unalloyed by pains and the pains by pleasures, the examination of
them may show us whether all pleasure is to be desired, or whether this entire
desirableness is not rather the attribute of another class. But if pleasures and pains
consist in the violation and restoration of limit, may there not be a neutral state, in
which there is neither dissolution nor restoration? That is a further question, and
admitting, as we must, the possibility of such a state, there seems to be no reason why
the life of wisdom should not exist in this neutral state, which is, moreover, the state of
the gods, who cannot, without indecency, be supposed to feel either joy or sorrow.
The second class of pleasures involves memory. There are affections which are
extinguished before they reach the soul, and of these there is no consciousness, and
therefore no memory. And there are affections which the body and soul feel together,
and this feeling is termed consciousness. And memory is the preservation of
consciousness, and reminiscence is the recovery of consciousness. Now the memory of
pleasure, when a man is in pain, is the memory of the opposite of his actual bodily state,
and is therefore not in the body, but in the mind. And there may be an intermediate
state, in which a person is balanced between pleasure and pain; in his body there is want
which is a cause of pain, but in his mind a sure hope of replenishment, which is
pleasant. (But if the hope be converted into despair, he has two pains and not a balance
of pain and pleasure.) Another question is raised: May not pleasures, like opinions, be
true and false? In the sense of being real, both must be admitted to be true: nor can we
deny that to both of them qualities may be attributed; for pleasures as well as opinions
may be described as good or bad. And though we do not all of us allow that there are
true and false pleasures, we all acknowledge that there are some pleasures associated
with right opinion, and others with falsehood and ignorance. Let us endeavour to
analyze the nature of this association.
Opinion is based on perception, which may be correct or mistaken. You may see a figure
at a distance, and say first of all, ‘This is a man,’ and then say, ‘No, this is an image made
by the shepherds.’ And you may affirm this in a proposition to your companion, or make
the remark mentally to yourself. Whether the words are actually spoken or not, on such
occasions there is a scribe within who registers them, and a painter who paints the
images of the things which the scribe has written down in the soul,—at least that is my
own notion of the process; and the words and images which are inscribed by them may
be either true or false; and they may represent either past, present, or future. And,
representing the future, they must also represent the pleasures and pains of
anticipation—the visions of gold and other fancies which are never wanting in the mind
of man. Now these hopes, as they are termed, are propositions, which are sometimes
true, and sometimes false; for the good, who are the friends of the gods, see true pictures
of the future, and the bad false ones. And as there may be opinion about things which
are not, were not, and will not be, which is opinion still, so there may be pleasure about
things which are not, were not, and will not be, which is pleasure still,—that is to say,
false pleasure; and only when false, can pleasure, like opinion, be vicious. Against this
conclusion Protarchus reclaims.
Leaving his denial for the present, Socrates proceeds to show that some pleasures are
false from another point of view. In desire, as we admitted, the body is divided from the
soul, and hence pleasures and pains are often simultaneous. And we further admitted
that both of them belonged to the infinite class. How, then, can we compare them? Are
we not liable, or rather certain, as in the case of sight, to be deceived by distance and
relation? In this case the pleasures and pains are not false because based upon false
opinion, but are themselves false. And there is another illusion: pain has often been said
by us to arise out of the derangement— pleasure out of the restoration—of our nature.
But in passing from one to the other, do we not experience neutral states, which
although they appear pleasureable or painful are really neither? For even if we admit,
with the wise man whom Protarchus loves (and only a wise man could have ever
entertained such a notion), that all things are in a perpetual flux, still these changes are
often unconscious, and devoid either of pleasure or pain. We assume, then, that there
are three states—pleasureable, painful, neutral; we may embellish a little by calling them
gold, silver, and that which is neither.
But there are certain natural philosophers who will not admit a third state. Their
instinctive dislike to pleasure leads them to affirm that pleasure is only the absence of
pain. They are noble fellows, and, although we do not agree with them, we may use them
as diviners who will indicate to us the right track. They will say, that the nature of
anything is best known from the examination of extreme cases, e.g. the nature of
hardness from the examination of the hardest things; and that the nature of pleasure
will be best understood from an examination of the most intense pleasures. Now these
are the pleasures of the body, not of the mind; the pleasures of disease and not of health,
the pleasures of the intemperate and not of the temperate. I am speaking, not of the
frequency or continuance, but only of the intensity of such pleasures, and this is given
them by contrast with the pain or sickness of body which precedes them. Their morbid
nature is illustrated by the lesser instances of itching and scratching, respecting which I
swear that I cannot tell whether they are a pleasure or a pain. (1) Some of these arise out
of a transition from one state of the body to another, as from cold to hot; (2) others are
caused by the contrast of an internal pain and an external pleasure in the body:
sometimes the feeling of pain predominates, as in itching and tingling, when they are
relieved by scratching; sometimes the feeling of pleasure: or the pleasure which they
give may be quite overpowering, and is then accompanied by all sorts of unutterable
feelings which have a death of delights in them. But there are also mixed pleasures
which are in the mind only. For are not love and sorrow as well as anger ‘sweeter than
honey,’ and also full of pain? Is there not a mixture of feelings in the spectator of
tragedy? and of comedy also? ‘I do not understand that last.’ Well, then, with the view of
lighting up the obscurity of these mixed feelings, let me ask whether envy is painful.
‘Yes.’ And yet the envious man finds something pleasing in the misfortunes of others?
‘True.’ And ignorance is a misfortune? ‘Certainly.’ And one form of ignorance is selfconceit—a
man may fancy himself richer, fairer, better, wiser than he is? ‘Yes.’ And he
who thus deceives himself may be strong or weak? ‘He may.’ And if he is strong we fear
him, and if he is weak we laugh at him, which is a pleasure, and yet we envy him, which
is a pain? These mixed feelings are the rationale of tragedy and comedy, and equally the
rationale of the greater drama of human life. (There appears to be some confusion in
this passage. There is no difficulty in seeing that in comedy, as in tragedy, the spectator
may view the performance with mixed feelings of pain as well as of pleasure; nor is there
any difficulty in understanding that envy is a mixed feeling, which rejoices not without
pain at the misfortunes of others, and laughs at their ignorance of themselves. But Plato
seems to think further that he has explained the feeling of the spectator in comedy
sufficiently by a theory which only applies to comedy in so far as in comedy we laugh at
the conceit or weakness of others. He has certainly given a very partial explanation of
the ridiculous.) Having shown how sorrow, anger, envy are feelings of a mixed nature, I
will reserve the consideration of the remainder for another occasion.
Next follow the unmixed pleasures; which, unlike the philosophers of whom I was
speaking, I believe to be real. These unmixed pleasures are: (1) The pleasures derived
from beauty of form, colour, sound, smell, which are absolutely pure; and in general
those which are unalloyed with pain: (2) The pleasures derived from the acquisition of
knowledge, which in themselves are pure, but may be attended by an accidental pain of
forgetting; this, however, arises from a subsequent act of reflection, of which we need
take no account. At the same time, we admit that the latter pleasures are the property of
a very few. To these pure and unmixed pleasures we ascribe measure, whereas all others
belong to the class of the infinite, and are liable to every species of excess. And here
several questions arise for consideration:—What is the meaning of pure and impure, of
moderate and immoderate? We may answer the question by an illustration: Purity of
white paint consists in the clearness or quality of the white, and this is distinct from the
quantity or amount of white paint; a little pure white is fairer than a great deal which is
impure. But there is another question:—Pleasure is affirmed by ingenious philosophers
to be a generation; they say that there are two natures—one self-existent, the other
dependent; the one noble and majestic, the other failing in both these qualities. ‘I do not
understand.’ There are lovers and there are loves. ‘Yes, I know, but what is the
application?’ The argument is in play, and desires to intimate that there are relatives
and there are absolutes, and that the relative is for the sake of the absolute; and
generation is for the sake of essence. Under relatives I class all things done with a view
to generation; and essence is of the class of good. But if essence is of the class of good,
generation must be of some other class; and our friends, who affirm that pleasure is a
generation, would laugh at the notion that pleasure is a good; and at that other notion,
that pleasure is produced by generation, which is only the alternative of destruction.
Who would prefer such an alternation to the equable life of pure thought? Here is one
absurdity, and not the only one, to which the friends of pleasure are reduced. For is
there not also an absurdity in affirming that good is of the soul only; or in declaring that
the best of men, if he be in pain, is bad?
And now, from the consideration of pleasure, we pass to that of knowledge. Let us
reflect that there are two kinds of knowledge—the one creative or productive, and the
other educational and philosophical. Of the creative arts, there is one part purer or more
akin to knowledge than the other. There is an element of guess-work and an element of
number and measure in them. In music, for example, especially in flute-playing, the
conjectural element prevails; while in carpentering there is more application of rule and
measure. Of the creative arts, then, we may make two classes—the less exact and the
more exact. And the exacter part of all of them is really arithmetic and mensuration. But
arithmetic and mensuration again may be subdivided with reference either to their use
in the concrete, or to their nature in the abstract—as they are regarded popularly in
building and binding, or theoretically by philosophers. And, borrowing the analogy of
pleasure, we may say that the philosophical use of them is purer than the other. Thus we
have two arts of arithmetic, and two of mensuration. And truest of all in the estimation
of every rational man is dialectic, or the science of being, which will forget and disown
us, if we forget and disown her.
‘But, Socrates, I have heard Gorgias say that rhetoric is the greatest and usefullest of
arts; and I should not like to quarrel either with him or you.’ Neither is there any
inconsistency, Protarchus, with his statement in what I am now saying; for I am not
maintaining that dialectic is the greatest or usefullest, but only that she is the truest of
arts; my remark is not quantitative but qualitative, and refers not to the advantage or
repetition of either, but to the degree of truth which they attain—here Gorgias will not
care to compete; this is what we affirm to be possessed in the highest degree by dialectic.
And do not let us appeal to Gorgias or Philebus or Socrates, but ask, on behalf of the
argument, what are the highest truths which the soul has the power of attaining. And is
not this the science which has a firmer grasp of them than any other? For the arts
generally are only occupied with matters of opinion, and with the production and action
and passion of this sensible world. But the highest truth is that which is eternal and
unchangeable. And reason and wisdom are concerned with the eternal; and these are
the very claimants, if not for the first, at least for the second place, whom I propose as
rivals to pleasure.
And now, having the materials, we may proceed to mix them—first recapitulating the
question at issue.
Philebus affirmed pleasure to be the good, and assumed them to be one nature; I
affirmed that they were two natures, and declared that knowledge was more akin to the
good than pleasure. I said that the two together were more eligible than either taken
singly; and to this we adhere. Reason intimates, as at first, that we should seek the good
not in the unmixed life, but in the mixed.
The cup is ready, waiting to be mingled, and here are two fountains, one of honey, the
other of pure water, out of which to make the fairest possible mixture. There are pure
and impure pleasures—pure and impure sciences. Let us consider the sections of each
which have the most of purity and truth; to admit them all indiscriminately would be
dangerous. First we will take the pure sciences; but shall we mingle the impure—the art
which uses the false rule and the false measure? That we must, if we are any of us to find
our way home; man cannot live upon pure mathematics alone. And must I include
music, which is admitted to be guess-work? ‘Yes, you must, if human life is to have any
humanity.’ Well, then, I will open the door and let them all in; they shall mingle in an
Homeric ‘meeting of the waters.’ And now we turn to the pleasures; shall I admit them?
‘Admit first of all the pure pleasures; secondly, the necessary.’ And what shall we say
about the rest? First, ask the pleasures—they will be too happy to dwell with wisdom.
Secondly, ask the arts and sciences—they reply that the excesses of intemperance are the
ruin of them; and that they would rather only have the pleasures of health and
temperance, which are the handmaidens of virtue. But still we want truth? That is now
added; and so the argument is complete, and may be compared to an incorporeal law,
which is to hold fair rule over a living body. And now we are at the vestibule of the good,
in which there are three chief elements—truth, symmetry, and beauty. These will be the
criterion of the comparative claims of pleasure and wisdom.
Which has the greater share of truth? Surely wisdom; for pleasure is the veriest
impostor in the world, and the perjuries of lovers have passed into a proverb.
Which of symmetry? Wisdom again; for nothing is more immoderate than pleasure.
Which of beauty? Once more, wisdom; for pleasure is often unseemly, and the greatest
pleasures are put out of sight.
Not pleasure, then, ranks first in the scale of good, but measure, and eternal harmony.
Second comes the symmetrical and beautiful and perfect.
Third, mind and wisdom.
Fourth, sciences and arts and true opinions.
Fifth, painless pleasures.
Of a sixth class, I have no more to say. Thus, pleasure and mind may both renounce the
claim to the first place. But mind is ten thousand times nearer to the chief good than
pleasure. Pleasure ranks fifth and not first, even though all the animals in the world
assert the contrary.
...
From the days of Aristippus and Epicurus to our own times the nature of pleasure has
occupied the attention of philosophers. ‘Is pleasure an evil? a good? the only good?’ are
the simple forms which the enquiry assumed among the Socratic schools. But at an early
stage of the controversy another question was asked: ‘Do pleasures differ in kind? and
are some bad, some good, and some neither bad nor good?’ There are bodily and there
are mental pleasures, which were at first confused but afterwards distinguished. A
distinction was also made between necessary and unnecessary pleasures; and again
between pleasures which had or had not corresponding pains. The ancient philosophers
were fond of asking, in the language of their age, ‘Is pleasure a “becoming” only, and
therefore transient and relative, or do some pleasures partake of truth and Being?’ To
these ancient speculations the moderns have added a further question:— ‘Whose
pleasure? The pleasure of yourself, or of your neighbour,—of the individual, or of the
world?’ This little addition has changed the whole aspect of the discussion: the same
word is now supposed to include two principles as widely different as benevolence and
self-love. Some modern writers have also distinguished between pleasure the test, and
pleasure the motive of actions. For the universal test of right actions (how I know them)
may not always be the highest or best motive of them (why I do them).
Socrates, as we learn from the Memorabilia of Xenophon, first drew attention to the
consequences of actions. Mankind were said by him to act rightly when they knew what
they were doing, or, in the language of the Gorgias, ‘did what they would.’ He seems to
have been the first who maintained that the good was the useful (Mem.). In his
eagerness for generalization, seeking, as Aristotle says, for the universal in Ethics
(Metaph.), he took the most obvious intellectual aspect of human action which occurred
to him. He meant to emphasize, not pleasure, but the calculation of pleasure; neither is
he arguing that pleasure is the chief good, but that we should have a principle of choice.
He did not intend to oppose ‘the useful’ to some higher conception, such as the Platonic
ideal, but to chance and caprice. The Platonic Socrates pursues the same vein of thought
in the Protagoras, where he argues against the so-called sophist that pleasure and pain
are the final standards and motives of good and evil, and that the salvation of human life
depends upon a right estimate of pleasures greater or less when seen near and at a
distance. The testimony of Xenophon is thus confirmed by that of Plato, and we are
therefore justified in calling Socrates the first utilitarian; as indeed there is no side or
aspect of philosophy which may not with reason be ascribed to him— he is Cynic and
Cyrenaic, Platonist and Aristotelian in one. But in the Phaedo the Socratic has already
passed into a more ideal point of view; and he, or rather Plato speaking in his person,
expressly repudiates the notion that the exchange of a less pleasure for a greater can be
an exchange of virtue. Such virtue is the virtue of ordinary men who live in the world of
appearance; they are temperate only that they may enjoy the pleasures of intemperance,
and courageous from fear of danger. Whereas the philosopher is seeking after wisdom
and not after pleasure, whether near or distant: he is the mystic, the initiated, who has
learnt to despise the body and is yearning all his life long for a truth which will hereafter
be revealed to him. In the Republic the pleasures of knowledge are affirmed to be
superior to other pleasures, because the philosopher so estimates them; and he alone
has had experience of both kinds. (Compare a similar argument urged by one of the
latest defenders of Utilitarianism, Mill’s Utilitarianism). In the Philebus, Plato, although
he regards the enemies of pleasure with complacency, still further modifies the
transcendentalism of the Phaedo. For he is compelled to confess, rather reluctantly,
perhaps, that some pleasures, i.e. those which have no antecedent pains, claim a place in
the scale of goods.
There have been many reasons why not only Plato but mankind in general have been
unwilling to acknowledge that ‘pleasure is the chief good.’ Either they have heard a voice
calling to them out of another world; or the life and example of some great teacher has
cast their thoughts of right and wrong in another mould; or the word ‘pleasure’ has been
associated in their mind with merely animal enjoyment. They could not believe that
what they were always striving to overcome, and the power or principle in them which
overcame, were of the same nature. The pleasure of doing good to others and of bodily
self-indulgence, the pleasures of intellect and the pleasures of sense, are so different:—
Why then should they be called by a common name? Or, if the equivocal or
metaphorical use of the word is justified by custom (like the use of other words which at
first referred only to the body, and then by a figure have been transferred to the mind),
still, why should we make an ambiguous word the corner-stone of moral philosophy? To
the higher thinker the Utilitarian or hedonist mode of speaking has been at variance
with religion and with any higher conception both of politics and of morals. It has not
satisfied their imagination; it has offended their taste. To elevate pleasure, ‘the most
fleeting of all things,’ into a general idea seems to such men a contradiction. They do not
desire to bring down their theory to the level of their practice. The simplicity of the
‘greatest happiness’ principle has been acceptable to philosophers, but the better part of
the world has been slow to receive it.
Before proceeding, we may make a few admissions which will narrow the field of
dispute; and we may as well leave behind a few prejudices, which intelligent opponents
of Utilitarianism have by this time ‘agreed to discard’. We admit that Utility is
coextensive with right, and that no action can be right which does not tend to the
happiness of mankind; we acknowledge that a large class of actions are made right or
wrong by their consequences only; we say further that mankind are not too mindful, but
that they are far too regardless of consequences, and that they need to have the doctrine
of utility habitually inculcated on them. We recognize the value of a principle which can
supply a connecting link between Ethics and Politics, and under which all human
actions are or may be included. The desire to promote happiness is no mean preference
of expediency to right, but one of the highest and noblest motives by which human
nature can be animated. Neither in referring actions to the test of utility have we to
make a laborious calculation, any more than in trying them by other standards of
morals. For long ago they have been classified sufficiently for all practical purposes by
the thinker, by the legislator, by the opinion of the world. Whatever may be the
hypothesis on which they are explained, or which in doubtful cases may be applied to
the regulation of them, we are very rarely, if ever, called upon at the moment of
performing them to determine their effect upon the happiness of mankind.
There is a theory which has been contrasted with Utility by Paley and others—the theory
of a moral sense: Are our ideas of right and wrong innate or derived from experience?
This, perhaps, is another of those speculations which intelligent men might ‘agree to
discard.’ For it has been worn threadbare; and either alternative is equally consistent
with a transcendental or with an eudaemonistic system of ethics, with a greatest
happiness principle or with Kant’s law of duty. Yet to avoid misconception, what
appears to be the truth about the origin of our moral ideas may be shortly summed up as
follows:—To each of us individually our moral ideas come first of all in childhood
through the medium of education, from parents and teachers, assisted by the
unconscious influence of language; they are impressed upon a mind which at first is like
a waxen tablet, adapted to receive them; but they soon become fixed or set, and in after
life are strengthened, or perhaps weakened by the force of public opinion. They may be
corrected and enlarged by experience, they may be reasoned about, they may be brought
home to us by the circumstances of our lives, they may be intensified by imagination, by
reflection, by a course of action likely to confirm them. Under the influence of religious
feeling or by an effort of thought, any one beginning with the ordinary rules of morality
may create out of them for himself ideals of holiness and virtue. They slumber in the
minds of most men, yet in all of us there remains some tincture of affection, some desire
of good, some sense of truth, some fear of the law. Of some such state or process each
individual is conscious in himself, and if he compares his own experience with that of
others he will find the witness of their consciences to coincide with that of his own. All of
us have entered into an inheritance which we have the power of appropriating and
making use of. No great effort of mind is required on our part; we learn morals, as we
learn to talk, instinctively, from conversing with others, in an enlightened age, in a
civilized country, in a good home. A well-educated child of ten years old already knows
the essentials of morals: ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ ‘thou shalt speak the truth,’ ‘thou shalt
love thy parents,’ ‘thou shalt fear God.’ What more does he want?
But whence comes this common inheritance or stock of moral ideas? Their beginning,
like all other beginnings of human things, is obscure, and is the least important part of
them. Imagine, if you will, that Society originated in the herding of brutes, in their
parental instincts, in their rude attempts at self-preservation:—Man is not man in that
he resembles, but in that he differs from them. We must pass into another cycle of
existence, before we can discover in him by any evidence accessible to us even the germs
of our moral ideas. In the history of the world, which viewed from within is the history
of the human mind, they have been slowly created by religion, by poetry, by law, having
their foundation in the natural affections and in the necessity of some degree of truth
and justice in a social state; they have been deepened and enlarged by the efforts of
great thinkers who have idealized and connected them—by the lives of saints and
prophets who have taught and exemplified them. The schools of ancient philosophy
which seem so far from us—Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and a
few modern teachers, such as Kant and Bentham, have each of them supplied ‘moments’
of thought to the world. The life of Christ has embodied a divine love, wisdom, patience,
reasonableness. For his image, however imperfectly handed down to us, the modern
world has received a standard more perfect in idea than the societies of ancient times,
but also further removed from practice. For there is certainly a greater interval between
the theory and practice of Christians than between the theory and practice of the Greeks
and Romans; the ideal is more above us, and the aspiration after good has often lent a
strange power to evil. And sometimes, as at the Reformation, or French Revolution,
when the upper classes of a so-called Christian country have become corrupted by
priestcraft, by casuistry, by licentiousness, by despotism, the lower have risen up and reasserted
the natural sense of religion and right.
We may further remark that our moral ideas, as the world grows older, perhaps as we
grow older ourselves, unless they have been undermined in us by false philosophy or the
practice of mental analysis, or infected by the corruption of society or by some moral
disorder in the individual, are constantly assuming a more natural and necessary
character. The habit of the mind, the opinion of the world, familiarizes them to us; and
they take more and more the form of immediate intuition. The moral sense comes last
and not first in the order of their development, and is the instinct which we have
inherited or acquired, not the nobler effort of reflection which created them and which
keeps them alive. We do not stop to reason about common honesty. Whenever we are
not blinded by self-deceit, as for example in judging the actions of others, we have no
hesitation in determining what is right and wrong. The principles of morality, when not
at variance with some desire or worldly interest of our own, or with the opinion of the
public, are hardly perceived by us; but in the conflict of reason and passion they assert
their authority and are not overcome without remorse.
Such is a brief outline of the history of our moral ideas. We have to distinguish, first of
all, the manner in which they have grown up in the world from the manner in which
they have been communicated to each of us. We may represent them to ourselves as
flowing out of the boundless ocean of language and thought in little rills, which convey
them to the heart and brain of each individual. But neither must we confound the
theories or aspects of morality with the origin of our moral ideas. These are not the roots
or ‘origines’ of morals, but the latest efforts of reflection, the lights in which the whole
moral world has been regarded by different thinkers and successive generations of men.
If we ask: Which of these many theories is the true one? we may answer: All of them—
moral sense, innate ideas, a priori, a posteriori notions, the philosophy of experience,
the philosophy of intuition—all of them have added something to our conception of
Ethics; no one of them is the whole truth. But to decide how far our ideas of morality are
derived from one source or another; to determine what history, what philosophy has
contributed to them; to distinguish the original, simple elements from the manifold and
complex applications of them, would be a long enquiry too far removed from the
question which we are now pursuing.
Bearing in mind the distinction which we have been seeking to establish between our
earliest and our most mature ideas of morality, we may now proceed to state the theory
of Utility, not exactly in the words, but in the spirit of one of its ablest and most
moderate supporters (Mill’s Utilitarianism):—‘That which alone makes actions either
right or desirable is their utility, or tendency to promote the happiness of mankind, or,
in other words, to increase the sum of pleasure in the world. But all pleasures are not the
same: they differ in quality as well as in quantity, and the pleasure which is superior in
quality is incommensurable with the inferior. Neither is the pleasure or happiness,
which we seek, our own pleasure, but that of others,—of our family, of our country, of
mankind. The desire of this, and even the sacrifice of our own interest to that of other
men, may become a passion to a rightly educated nature. The Utilitarian finds a place in
his system for this virtue and for every other.’
Good or happiness or pleasure is thus regarded as the true and only end of human life.
To this all our desires will be found to tend, and in accordance with this all the virtues,
including justice, may be explained. Admitting that men rest for a time in inferior ends,
and do not cast their eyes beyond them, these ends are really dependent on the greater
end of happiness, and would not be pursued, unless in general they had been found to
lead to it. The existence of such an end is proved, as in Aristotle’s time, so in our own, by
the universal fact that men desire it. The obligation to promote it is based upon the
social nature of man; this sense of duty is shared by all of us in some degree, and is
capable of being greatly fostered and strengthened. So far from being inconsistent with
religion, the greatest happiness principle is in the highest degree agreeable to it. For
what can be more reasonable than that God should will the happiness of all his
creatures? and in working out their happiness we may be said to be ‘working together
with him.’ Nor is it inconceivable that a new enthusiasm of the future, far stronger than
any old religion, may be based upon such a conception.
But then for the familiar phrase of the ‘greatest happiness principle,’ it seems as if we
ought now to read ‘the noblest happiness principle,’ ‘the happiness of others principle’—
the principle not of the greatest, but of the highest pleasure, pursued with no more
regard to our own immediate interest than is required by the law of self-preservation.
Transfer the thought of happiness to another life, dropping the external circumstances
which form so large a part of our idea of happiness in this, and the meaning of the word
becomes indistinguishable from holiness, harmony, wisdom, love. By the slight addition
‘of others,’ all the associations of the word are altered; we seem to have passed over from
one theory of morals to the opposite. For allowing that the happiness of others is
reflected on ourselves, and also that every man must live before he can do good to
others, still the last limitation is a very trifling exception, and the happiness of another is
very far from compensating for the loss of our own. According to Mr. Mill, he would best
carry out the principle of utility who sacrificed his own pleasure most to that of his
fellow-men. But if so, Hobbes and Butler, Shaftesbury and Hume, are not so far apart as
they and their followers imagine. The thought of self and the thought of others are alike
superseded in the more general notion of the happiness of mankind at large. But in this
composite good, until society becomes perfected, the friend of man himself has generally
the least share, and may be a great sufferer.
And now what objection have we to urge against a system of moral philosophy so
beneficent, so enlightened, so ideal, and at the same time so practical,—so Christian, as
we may say without exaggeration,—and which has the further advantage of resting
morality on a principle intelligible to all capacities? Have we not found that which
Socrates and Plato ‘grew old in seeking’? Are we not desirous of happiness, at any rate
for ourselves and our friends, if not for all mankind? If, as is natural, we begin by
thinking of ourselves first, we are easily led on to think of others; for we cannot help
acknowledging that what is right for us is the right and inheritance of others. We feel the
advantage of an abstract principle wide enough and strong enough to override all the
particularisms of mankind; which acknowledges a universal good, truth, right; which is
capable of inspiring men like a passion, and is the symbol of a cause for which they are
ready to contend to their life’s end.
And if we test this principle by the lives of its professors, it would certainly appear
inferior to none as a rule of action. From the days of Eudoxus (Arist. Ethics) and
Epicurus to our own, the votaries of pleasure have gained belief for their principles by
their practice. Two of the noblest and most disinterested men who have lived in this
century, Bentham and J. S. Mill, whose lives were a long devotion to the service of their
fellows, have been among the most enthusiastic supporters of utility; while among their
contemporaries, some who were of a more mystical turn of mind, have ended rather in
aspiration than in action, and have been found unequal to the duties of life. Looking
back on them now that they are removed from the scene, we feel that mankind has been
the better for them. The world was against them while they lived; but this is rather a
reason for admiring than for depreciating them. Nor can any one doubt that the
influence of their philosophy on politics—especially on foreign politics, on law, on social
life, has been upon the whole beneficial. Nevertheless, they will never have justice done
to them, for they do not agree either with the better feeling of the multitude or with the
idealism of more refined thinkers. Without Bentham, a great word in the history of
philosophy would have remained unspoken. Yet to this day it is rare to hear his name
received with any mark of respect such as would be freely granted to the ambiguous
memory of some father of the Church. The odium which attached to him when alive has
not been removed by his death. For he shocked his contemporaries by egotism and want
of taste; and this generation which has reaped the benefit of his labours has inherited
the feeling of the last. He was before his own age, and is hardly remembered in this.
While acknowledging the benefits which the greatest happiness principle has conferred
upon mankind, the time appears to have arrived, not for denying its claims, but for
criticizing them and comparing them with other principles which equally claim to lie at
the foundation of ethics. Any one who adds a general principle to knowledge has been a
benefactor to the world. But there is a danger that, in his first enthusiasm, he may not
recognize the proportions or limitations to which his truth is subjected; he does not see
how far he has given birth to a truism, or how that which is a truth to him is a truism to
the rest of the world; or may degenerate in the next generation. He believes that to be
the whole which is only a part,—to be the necessary foundation which is really only a
valuable aspect of the truth. The systems of all philosophers require the criticism of ‘the
morrow,’ when the heat of imagination which forged them has cooled, and they are seen
in the temperate light of day. All of them have contributed to enrich the mind of the
civilized world; none of them occupy that supreme or exclusive place which their
authors would have assigned to them.
We may preface the criticism with a few preliminary remarks:—
Mr. Mill, Mr. Austin, and others, in their eagerness to maintain the doctrine of utility,
are fond of repeating that we are in a lamentable state of uncertainty about morals.
While other branches of knowledge have made extraordinary progress, in moral
philosophy we are supposed by them to be no better than children, and with few
exceptions—that is to say, Bentham and his followers—to be no further advanced than
men were in the age of Socrates and Plato, who, in their turn, are deemed to be as
backward in ethics as they necessarily were in physics. But this, though often asserted, is
recanted almost in a breath by the same writers who speak thus depreciatingly of our
modern ethical philosophy. For they are the first to acknowledge that we have not now
to begin classifying actions under the head of utility; they would not deny that about the
general conceptions of morals there is a practical agreement. There is no more doubt
that falsehood is wrong than that a stone falls to the ground, although the first does not
admit of the same ocular proof as the second. There is no greater uncertainty about the
duty of obedience to parents and to the law of the land than about the properties of
triangles. Unless we are looking for a new moral world which has no marrying and
giving in marriage, there is no greater disagreement in theory about the right relations
of the sexes than about the composition of water. These and a few other simple
principles, as they have endless applications in practice, so also may be developed in
theory into counsels of perfection.
To what then is to be attributed this opinion which has been often entertained about the
uncertainty of morals? Chiefly to this,—that philosophers have not always distinguished
the theoretical and the casuistical uncertainty of morals from the practical certainty.
There is an uncertainty about details,—whether, for example, under given circumstances
such and such a moral principle is to be enforced, or whether in some cases there may
not be a conflict of duties: these are the exceptions to the ordinary rules of morality,
important, indeed, but not extending to the one thousandth or one ten-thousandth part
of human actions. This is the domain of casuistry. Secondly, the aspects under which the
most general principles of morals may be presented to us are many and various. The
mind of man has been more than usually active in thinking about man. The conceptions
of harmony, happiness, right, freedom, benevolence, self-love, have all of them seemed
to some philosopher or other the truest and most comprehensive expression of morality.
There is no difference, or at any rate no great difference, of opinion about the right and
wrong of actions, but only about the general notion which furnishes the best explanation
or gives the most comprehensive view of them. This, in the language of Kant, is the
sphere of the metaphysic of ethics. But these two uncertainties at either end, en tois
malista katholou and en tois kath ekasta, leave space enough for an intermediate
principle which is practically certain.
The rule of human life is not dependent on the theories of philosophers: we know what
our duties are for the most part before we speculate about them. And the use of
speculation is not to teach us what we already know, but to inspire in our minds an
interest about morals in general, to strengthen our conception of the virtues by showing
that they confirm one another, to prove to us, as Socrates would have said, that they are
not many, but one. There is the same kind of pleasure and use in reducing morals, as in
reducing physics, to a few very simple truths. And not unfrequently the more general
principle may correct prejudices and misconceptions, and enable us to regard our
fellow-men in a larger and more generous spirit.
The two qualities which seem to be most required in first principles of ethics are, (1) that
they should afford a real explanation of the facts, (2) that they should inspire the
mind,—should harmonize, strengthen, settle us. We can hardly estimate the influence
which a simple principle such as ‘Act so as to promote the happiness of mankind,’ or ‘Act
so that the rule on which thou actest may be adopted as a law by all rational beings,’ may
exercise on the mind of an individual. They will often seem to open a new world to him,
like the religious conceptions of faith or the spirit of God. The difficulties of ethics
disappear when we do not suffer ourselves to be distracted between different points of
view. But to maintain their hold on us, the general principles must also be
psychologically true—they must agree with our experience, they must accord with the
habits of our minds.
When we are told that actions are right or wrong only in so far as they tend towards
happiness, we naturally ask what is meant by ‘happiness.’ For the term in the common
use of language is only to a certain extent commensurate with moral good and evil. We
should hardly say that a good man could be utterly miserable (Arist. Ethics), or place a
bad man in the first rank of happiness. But yet, from various circumstances, the
measure of a man’s happiness may be out of all proportion to his desert. And if we insist
on calling the good man alone happy, we shall be using the term in some new and
transcendental sense, as synonymous with well-being. We have already seen that
happiness includes the happiness of others as well as our own; we must now
comprehend unconscious as well as conscious happiness under the same word. There is
no harm in this extension of the meaning, but a word which admits of such an extension
can hardly be made the basis of a philosophical system. The exactness which is required
in philosophy will not allow us to comprehend under the same term two ideas so
different as the subjective feeling of pleasure or happiness and the objective reality of a
state which receives our moral approval.
Like Protarchus in the Philebus, we can give no answer to the question, ‘What is that
common quality which in all states of human life we call happiness? which includes the
lower and the higher kind of happiness, and is the aim of the noblest, as well as of the
meanest of mankind?’ If we say ‘Not pleasure, not virtue, not wisdom, nor yet any
quality which we can abstract from these’—what then? After seeming to hover for a time
on the verge of a great truth, we have gained only a truism.
Let us ask the question in another form. What is that which constitutes happiness, over
and above the several ingredients of health, wealth, pleasure, virtue, knowledge, which
are included under it? Perhaps we answer, ‘The subjective feeling of them.’ But this is
very far from being coextensive with right. Or we may reply that happiness is the whole
of which the above-mentioned are the parts. Still the question recurs, ‘In what does the
whole differ from all the parts?’ And if we are unable to distinguish them, happiness will
be the mere aggregate of the goods of life.
Again, while admitting that in all right action there is an element of happiness, we
cannot help seeing that the utilitarian theory supplies a much easier explanation of
some virtues than of others. Of many patriotic or benevolent actions we can give a
straightforward account by their tendency to promote happiness. For the explanation of
justice, on the other hand, we have to go a long way round. No man is indignant with a
thief because he has not promoted the greatest happiness of the greatest number, but
because he has done him a wrong. There is an immeasurable interval between a crime
against property or life, and the omission of an act of charity or benevolence. Yet of this
interval the utilitarian theory takes no cognizance. The greatest happiness principle
strengthens our sense of positive duties towards others, but weakens our recognition of
their rights. To promote in every way possible the happiness of others may be a counsel
of perfection, but hardly seems to offer any ground for a theory of obligation. For
admitting that our ideas of obligation are partly derived from religion and custom, yet
they seem also to contain other essential elements which cannot be explained by the
tendency of actions to promote happiness. Whence comes the necessity of them? Why
are some actions rather than others which equally tend to the happiness of mankind
imposed upon us with the authority of law? ‘You ought’ and ‘you had better’ are
fundamental distinctions in human thought; and having such distinctions, why should
we seek to efface and unsettle them?
Bentham and Mr. Mill are earnest in maintaining that happiness includes the happiness
of others as well as of ourselves. But what two notions can be more opposed in many
cases than these? Granting that in a perfect state of the world my own happiness and
that of all other men would coincide, in the imperfect state they often diverge, and I
cannot truly bridge over the difficulty by saying that men will always find pleasure in
sacrificing themselves or in suffering for others. Upon the greatest happiness principle it
is admitted that I am to have a share, and in consistency I should pursue my own
happiness as impartially as that of my neighbour. But who can decide what proportion
should be mine and what his, except on the principle that I am most likely to be
deceived in my own favour, and had therefore better give the larger share, if not all, to
him?
Further, it is admitted that utility and right coincide, not in particular instances, but in
classes of actions. But is it not distracting to the conscience of a man to be told that in
the particular case they are opposed? Happiness is said to be the ground of moral
obligation, yet he must not do what clearly conduces to his own happiness if it is at
variance with the good of the whole. Nay, further, he will be taught that when utility and
right are in apparent conflict any amount of utility does not alter by a hair’s-breadth the
morality of actions, which cannot be allowed to deviate from established law or usage;
and that the non-detection of an immoral act, say of telling a lie, which may often make
the greatest difference in the consequences, not only to himself, but to all the world,
makes none whatever in the act itself.
Again, if we are concerned not with particular actions but with classes of actions, is the
tendency of actions to happiness a principle upon which we can classify them? There is a
universal law which imperatively declares certain acts to be right or wrong:—can there
be any universality in the law which measures actions by their tendencies towards
happiness? For an act which is the cause of happiness to one person may be the cause of
unhappiness to another; or an act which if performed by one person may increase the
happiness of mankind may have the opposite effect if performed by another. Right can
never be wrong, or wrong right, that there are no actions which tend to the happiness of
mankind which may not under other circumstances tend to their unhappiness. Unless
we say not only that all right actions tend to happiness, but that they tend to happiness
in the same degree in which they are right (and in that case the word ‘right’ is plainer),
we weaken the absoluteness of our moral standard; we reduce differences in kind to
differences in degree; we obliterate the stamp which the authority of ages has set upon
vice and crime.
Once more: turning from theory to practice we feel the importance of retaining the
received distinctions of morality. Words such as truth, justice, honesty, virtue, love, have
a simple meaning; they have become sacred to us,—‘the word of God’ written on the
human heart: to no other words can the same associations be attached. We cannot
explain them adequately on principles of utility; in attempting to do so we rob them of
their true character. We give them a meaning often paradoxical and distorted, and
generally weaker than their signification in common language. And as words influence
men’s thoughts, we fear that the hold of morality may also be weakened, and the sense
of duty impaired, if virtue and vice are explained only as the qualities which do or do not
contribute to the pleasure of the world. In that very expression we seem to detect a false
ring, for pleasure is individual not universal; we speak of eternal and immutable justice,
but not of eternal and immutable pleasure; nor by any refinement can we avoid some
taint of bodily sense adhering to the meaning of the word.
Again: the higher the view which men take of life, the more they lose sight of their own
pleasure or interest. True religion is not working for a reward only, but is ready to work
equally without a reward. It is not ‘doing the will of God for the sake of eternal
happiness,’ but doing the will of God because it is best, whether rewarded or
unrewarded. And this applies to others as well as to ourselves. For he who sacrifices
himself for the good of others, does not sacrifice himself that they may be saved from
the persecution which he endures for their sakes, but rather that they in their turn may
be able to undergo similar sufferings, and like him stand fast in the truth. To promote
their happiness is not his first object, but to elevate their moral nature. Both in his own
case and that of others there may be happiness in the distance, but if there were no
happiness he would equally act as he does. We are speaking of the highest and noblest
natures; and a passing thought naturally arises in our minds, ‘Whether that can be the
first principle of morals which is hardly regarded in their own case by the greatest
benefactors of mankind?’
The admissions that pleasures differ in kind, and that actions are already classified; the
acknowledgment that happiness includes the happiness of others, as well as of
ourselves; the confusion (not made by Aristotle) between conscious and unconscious
happiness, or between happiness the energy and happiness the result of the energy,
introduce uncertainty and inconsistency into the whole enquiry. We reason readily and
cheerfully from a greatest happiness principle. But we find that utilitarians do not agree
among themselves about the meaning of the word. Still less can they impart to others a
common conception or conviction of the nature of happiness. The meaning of the word
is always insensibly slipping away from us, into pleasure, out of pleasure, now appearing
as the motive, now as the test of actions, and sometimes varying in successive sentences.
And as in a mathematical demonstration an error in the original number disturbs the
whole calculation which follows, this fundamental uncertainty about the word vitiates
all the applications of it. Must we not admit that a notion so uncertain in meaning, so
void of content, so at variance with common language and opinion, does not comply
adequately with either of our two requirements? It can neither strike the imaginative
faculty, nor give an explanation of phenomena which is in accordance with our
individual experience. It is indefinite; it supplies only a partial account of human
actions: it is one among many theories of philosophers. It may be compared with other
notions, such as the chief good of Plato, which may be best expressed to us under the
form of a harmony, or with Kant’s obedience to law, which may be summed up under
the word ‘duty,’ or with the Stoical ‘Follow nature,’ and seems to have no advantage over
them. All of these present a certain aspect of moral truth. None of them are, or indeed
profess to be, the only principle of morals.
And this brings us to speak of the most serious objection to the utilitarian system—its
exclusiveness. There is no place for Kant or Hegel, for Plato and Aristotle alongside of it.
They do not reject the greatest happiness principle, but it rejects them. Now the
phenomena of moral action differ, and some are best explained upon one principle and
some upon another: the virtue of justice seems to be naturally connected with one
theory of morals, the virtues of temperance and benevolence with another. The
characters of men also differ; and some are more attracted by one aspect of the truth,
some by another. The firm stoical nature will conceive virtue under the conception of
law, the philanthropist under that of doing good, the quietist under that of resignation,
the enthusiast under that of faith or love. The upright man of the world will desire above
all things that morality should be plain and fixed, and should use language in its
ordinary sense. Persons of an imaginative temperament will generally be dissatisfied
with the words ‘utility’ or ‘pleasure’: their principle of right is of a far higher character—
what or where to be found they cannot always distinctly tell;—deduced from the laws of
human nature, says one; resting on the will of God, says another; based upon some
transcendental idea which animates more worlds than one, says a third:
on nomoi prokeintai upsipodes, ouranian di aithera teknothentes.
To satisfy an imaginative nature in any degree, the doctrine of utility must be so
transfigured that it becomes altogether different and loses all simplicity.
But why, since there are different characters among men, should we not allow them to
envisage morality accordingly, and be thankful to the great men who have provided for
all of us modes and instruments of thought? Would the world have been better if there
had been no Stoics or Kantists, no Platonists or Cartesians? No more than if the other
pole of moral philosophy had been excluded. All men have principles which are above
their practice; they admit premises which, if carried to their conclusions, are a sufficient
basis of morals. In asserting liberty of speculation we are not encouraging individuals to
make right or wrong for themselves, but only conceding that they may choose the form
under which they prefer to contemplate them. Nor do we say that one of these aspects is
as true and good as another; but that they all of them, if they are not mere sophisms and
illusions, define and bring into relief some part of the truth which would have been
obscure without their light. Why should we endeavour to bind all men within the limits
of a single metaphysical conception? The necessary imperfection of language seems to
require that we should view the same truth under more than one aspect.
We are living in the second age of utilitarianism, when the charm of novelty and the
fervour of the first disciples has passed away. The doctrine is no longer stated in the
forcible paradoxical manner of Bentham, but has to be adapted to meet objections; its
corners are rubbed off, and the meaning of its most characteristic expressions is
softened. The array of the enemy melts away when we approach him. The greatest
happiness of the greatest number was a great original idea when enunciated by
Bentham, which leavened a generation and has left its mark on thought and civilization
in all succeeding times. His grasp of it had the intensity of genius. In the spirit of an
ancient philosopher he would have denied that pleasures differed in kind, or that by
happiness he meant anything but pleasure. He would perhaps have revolted us by his
thoroughness. The ‘guardianship of his doctrine’ has passed into other hands; and now
we seem to see its weak points, its ambiguities, its want of exactness while assuming the
highest exactness, its one-sidedness, its paradoxical explanation of several of the virtues.
No philosophy has ever stood this criticism of the next generation, though the founders
of all of them have imagined that they were built upon a rock. And the utilitarian
system, like others, has yielded to the inevitable analysis. Even in the opinion of ‘her
admirers she has been terribly damaged’ (Phil.), and is no longer the only moral
philosophy, but one among many which have contributed in various degrees to the
intellectual progress of mankind.
But because the utilitarian philosophy can no longer claim ‘the prize,’ we must not
refuse to acknowledge the great benefits conferred by it on the world. All philosophies
are refuted in their turn, says the sceptic, and he looks forward to all future systems
sharing the fate of the past. All philosophies remain, says the thinker; they have done a
great work in their own day, and they supply posterity with aspects of the truth and with
instruments of thought. Though they may be shorn of their glory, they retain their place
in the organism of knowledge.
And still there remain many rules of morals which are better explained and more
forcibly inculcated on the principle of utility than on any other. The question Will such
and such an action promote the happiness of myself, my family, my country, the world?
may check the rising feeling of pride or honour which would cause a quarrel, an
estrangement, a war. ‘How can I contribute to the greatest happiness of others?’ is
another form of the question which will be more attractive to the minds of many than a
deduction of the duty of benevolence from a priori principles. In politics especially
hardly any other argument can be allowed to have weight except the happiness of a
people. All parties alike profess to aim at this, which though often used only as the
disguise of self-interest has a great and real influence on the minds of statesmen. In
religion, again, nothing can more tend to mitigate superstition than the belief that the
good of man is also the will of God. This is an easy test to which the prejudices and
superstitions of men may be brought:—whatever does not tend to the good of men is not
of God. And the ideal of the greatest happiness of mankind, especially if believed to be
the will of God, when compared with the actual fact, will be one of the strongest motives
to do good to others.
On the other hand, when the temptation is to speak falsely, to be dishonest or unjust, or
in any way to interfere with the rights of others, the argument that these actions
regarded as a class will not conduce to the happiness of mankind, though true enough,
seems to have less force than the feeling which is already implanted in the mind by
conscience and authority. To resolve this feeling into the greatest happiness principle
takes away from its sacred and authoritative character. The martyr will not go to the
stake in order that he may promote the happiness of mankind, but for the sake of the
truth: neither will the soldier advance to the cannon’s mouth merely because he believes
military discipline to be for the good of mankind. It is better for him to know that he will
be shot, that he will be disgraced, if he runs away—he has no need to look beyond
military honour, patriotism, ‘England expects every man to do his duty.’ These are
stronger motives than the greatest happiness of the greatest number, which is the thesis
of a philosopher, not the watchword of an army. For in human actions men do not
always require broad principles; duties often come home to us more when they are
limited and defined, and sanctioned by custom and public opinion.
Lastly, if we turn to the history of ethics, we shall find that our moral ideas have
originated not in utility but in religion, in law, in conceptions of nature, of an ideal good,
and the like. And many may be inclined to think that this conclusively disproves the
claim of utility to be the basis of morals. But the utilitarian will fairly reply (see above)
that we must distinguish the origin of ethics from the principles of them— the historical
germ from the later growth of reflection. And he may also truly add that for two
thousand years and more, utility, if not the originating, has been the great corrective
principle in law, in politics, in religion, leading men to ask how evil may be diminished
and good increased—by what course of policy the public interest may be promoted, and
to understand that God wills the happiness, not of some of his creatures and in this
world only, but of all of them and in every stage of their existence.
‘What is the place of happiness or utility in a system of moral philosophy?’ is analogous
to the question asked in the Philebus, ‘What rank does pleasure hold in the scale of
goods?’ Admitting the greatest happiness principle to be true and valuable, and the
necessary foundation of that part of morals which relates to the consequences of actions,
we still have to consider whether this or some other general notion is the highest
principle of human life. We may try them in this comparison by three tests—
definiteness, comprehensiveness, and motive power.
There are three subjective principles of morals,—sympathy, benevolence, self-love. But
sympathy seems to rest morality on feelings which differ widely even in good men;
benevolence and self-love torture one half of our virtuous actions into the likeness of the
other. The greatest happiness principle, which includes both, has the advantage over all
these in comprehensiveness, but the advantage is purchased at the expense of
definiteness.
Again, there are the legal and political principles of morals—freedom, equality, rights of
persons; ‘Every man to count for one and no man for more than one,’ ‘Every man equal
in the eye of the law and of the legislator.’ There is also the other sort of political
morality, which if not beginning with ‘Might is right,’ at any rate seeks to deduce our
ideas of justice from the necessities of the state and of society. According to this view the
greatest good of men is obedience to law: the best human government is a rational
despotism, and the best idea which we can form of a divine being is that of a despot
acting not wholly without regard to law and order. To such a view the present mixed
state of the world, not wholly evil or wholly good, is supposed to be a witness. More we
might desire to have, but are not permitted. Though a human tyrant would be
intolerable, a divine tyrant is a very tolerable governor of the universe. This is the
doctrine of Thrasymachus adapted to the public opinion of modern times.
There is yet a third view which combines the two:—freedom is obedience to the law, and
the greatest order is also the greatest freedom; ‘Act so that thy action may be the law of
every intelligent being.’ This view is noble and elevating; but it seems to err, like other
transcendental principles of ethics, in being too abstract. For there is the same difficulty
in connecting the idea of duty with particular duties as in bridging the gulf between
phainomena and onta; and when, as in the system of Kant, this universal idea or law is
held to be independent of space and time, such a mataion eidos becomes almost
unmeaning.
Once more there are the religious principles of morals:—the will of God revealed in
Scripture and in nature. No philosophy has supplied a sanction equal in authority to
this, or a motive equal in strength to the belief in another life. Yet about these too we
must ask What will of God? how revealed to us, and by what proofs? Religion, like
happiness, is a word which has great influence apart from any consideration of its
content: it may be for great good or for great evil. But true religion is the synthesis of
religion and morality, beginning with divine perfection in which all human perfection is
embodied. It moves among ideas of holiness, justice, love, wisdom, truth; these are to
God, in whom they are personified, what the Platonic ideas are to the idea of good. It is
the consciousness of the will of God that all men should be as he is. It lives in this world
and is known to us only through the phenomena of this world, but it extends to worlds
beyond. Ordinary religion which is alloyed with motives of this world may easily be in
excess, may be fanatical, may be interested, may be the mask of ambition, may be
perverted in a thousand ways. But of that religion which combines the will of God with
our highest ideas of truth and right there can never be too much. This impossibility of
excess is the note of divine moderation.
So then, having briefly passed in review the various principles of moral philosophy, we
may now arrange our goods in order, though, like the reader of the Philebus, we have a
difficulty in distinguishing the different aspects of them from one another, or defining
the point at which the human passes into the divine.
First, the eternal will of God in this world and in another,—justice, holiness, wisdom,
love, without succession of acts (ouch e genesis prosestin), which is known to us in part
only, and reverenced by us as divine perfection.
Secondly, human perfection, or the fulfilment of the will of God in this world, and cooperation
with his laws revealed to us by reason and experience, in nature, history, and
in our own minds.
Thirdly, the elements of human perfection,—virtue, knowledge, and right opinion.
Fourthly, the external conditions of perfection,—health and the goods of life.
Fifthly, beauty and happiness,—the inward enjoyment of that which is best and fairest in
this world and in the human soul.
...
The Philebus is probably the latest in time of the writings of Plato with the exception of
the Laws. We have in it therefore the last development of his philosophy. The extreme
and one-sided doctrines of the Cynics and Cyrenaics are included in a larger whole; the
relations of pleasure and knowledge to each other and to the good are authoritatively
determined; the Eleatic Being and the Heraclitean Flux no longer divide the empire of
thought; the Mind of Anaxagoras has become the Mind of God and of the World. The
great distinction between pure and applied science for the first time has a place in
philosophy; the natural claim of dialectic to be the Queen of the Sciences is once more
affirmed. This latter is the bond of union which pervades the whole or nearly the whole
of the Platonic writings. And here as in several other dialogues (Phaedrus, Republic,
etc.) it is presented to us in a manner playful yet also serious, and sometimes as if the
thought of it were too great for human utterance and came down from heaven direct. It
is the organization of knowledge wonderful to think of at a time when knowledge itself
could hardly be said to exist. It is this more than any other element which distinguishes
Plato, not only from the presocratic philosophers, but from Socrates himself.
We have not yet reached the confines of Aristotle, but we make a somewhat nearer
approach to him in the Philebus than in the earlier Platonic writings. The germs of logic
are beginning to appear, but they are not collected into a whole, or made a separate
science or system. Many thinkers of many different schools have to be interposed
between the Parmenides or Philebus of Plato, and the Physics or Metaphysics of
Aristotle. It is this interval upon which we have to fix our minds if we would rightly
understand the character of the transition from one to the other. Plato and Aristotle do
not dovetail into one another; nor does the one begin where the other ends; there is a
gulf between them not to be measured by time, which in the fragmentary state of our
knowledge it is impossible to bridge over. It follows that the one cannot be interpreted
by the other. At any rate, it is not Plato who is to be interpreted by Aristotle, but
Aristotle by Plato. Of all philosophy and of all art the true understanding is to be sought
not in the afterthoughts of posterity, but in the elements out of which they have arisen.
For the previous stage is a tendency towards the ideal at which they are aiming; the later
is a declination or deviation from them, or even a perversion of them. No man’s
thoughts were ever so well expressed by his disciples as by himself.
But although Plato in the Philebus does not come into any close connexion with
Aristotle, he is now a long way from himself and from the beginnings of his own
philosophy. At the time of his death he left his system still incomplete; or he may be
more truly said to have had no system, but to have lived in the successive stages or
moments of metaphysical thought which presented themselves from time to time. The
earlier discussions about universal ideas and definitions seem to have died away; the
correlation of ideas has taken their place. The flowers of rhetoric and poetry have lost
their freshness and charm; and a technical language has begun to supersede and
overgrow them. But the power of thinking tends to increase with age, and the experience
of life to widen and deepen. The good is summed up under categories which are not
summa genera, but heads or gradations of thought. The question of pleasure and the
relation of bodily pleasures to mental, which is hardly treated of elsewhere in Plato, is
here analysed with great subtlety. The mean or measure is now made the first principle
of good. Some of these questions reappear in Aristotle, as does also the distinction
between metaphysics and mathematics. But there are many things in Plato which have
been lost in Aristotle; and many things in Aristotle not to be found in Plato. The most
remarkable deficiency in Aristotle is the disappearance of the Platonic dialectic, which in
the Aristotelian school is only used in a comparatively unimportant and trivial sense.
The most remarkable additions are the invention of the Syllogism, the conception of
happiness as the foundation of morals, the reference of human actions to the standard
of the better mind of the world, or of the one ‘sensible man’ or ‘superior person.’ His
conception of ousia, or essence, is not an advance upon Plato, but a return to the poor
and meagre abstractions of the Eleatic philosophy. The dry attempt to reduce the
presocratic philosophy by his own rather arbitrary standard of the four causes, contrasts
unfavourably with Plato’s general discussion of the same subject (Sophist). To attempt
further to sum up the differences between the two great philosophers would be out of
place here. Any real discussion of their relation to one another must be preceded by an
examination into the nature and character of the Aristotelian writings and the form in
which they have come down to us. This enquiry is not really separable from an
investigation of Theophrastus as well as Aristotle and of the remains of other schools of
philosophy as well as of the Peripatetics. But, without entering on this wide field, even a
superficial consideration of the logical and metaphysical works which pass under the
name of Aristotle, whether we suppose them to have come directly from his hand or to
be the tradition of his school, is sufficient to show how great was the mental activity
which prevailed in the latter half of the fourth century B.C.; what eddies and whirlpools
of controversies were surging in the chaos of thought, what transformations of the old
philosophies were taking place everywhere, what eclecticisms and syncretisms and
realisms and nominalisms were affecting the mind of Hellas. The decline of philosophy
during this period is no less remarkable than the loss of freedom; and the two are not
unconnected with each other. But of the multitudinous sea of opinions which were
current in the age of Aristotle we have no exact account. We know of them from
allusions only. And we cannot with advantage fill up the void of our knowledge by
conjecture: we can only make allowance for our ignorance.
There are several passages in the Philebus which are very characteristic of Plato, and
which we shall do well to consider not only in their connexion, but apart from their
connexion as inspired sayings or oracles which receive their full interpretation only from
the history of philosophy in later ages. The more serious attacks on traditional beliefs
which are often veiled under an unusual simplicity or irony are of this kind. Such, for
example, is the excessive and more than human awe which Socrates expresses about the
names of the gods, which may be not unaptly compared with the importance attached by
mankind to theological terms in other ages; for this also may be comprehended under
the satire of Socrates. Let us observe the religious and intellectual enthusiasm which
shines forth in the following, ‘The power and faculty of loving the truth, and of doing all
things for the sake of the truth’: or, again, the singular acknowledgment which may be
regarded as the anticipation of a new logic, that ‘In going to war for mind I must have
weapons of a different make from those which I used before, although some of the old
ones may do again.’ Let us pause awhile to reflect on a sentence which is full of meaning
to reformers of religion or to the original thinker of all ages: ‘Shall we then agree with
them of old time, and merely reassert the notions of others without risk to ourselves; or
shall we venture also to share in the risk and bear the reproach which will await us’: i.e.
if we assert mind to be the author of nature. Let us note the remarkable words, ‘That in
the divine nature of Zeus there is the soul and mind of a King, because there is in him
the power of the cause,’ a saying in which theology and philosophy are blended and
reconciled; not omitting to observe the deep insight into human nature which is shown
by the repetition of the same thought ‘All philosophers are agreed that mind is the king
of heaven and earth’ with the ironical addition, ‘in this way truly they magnify
themselves.’ Nor let us pass unheeded the indignation felt by the generous youth at the
‘blasphemy’ of those who say that Chaos and Chance Medley created the world; or the
significance of the words ‘those who said of old time that mind rules the universe’; or the
pregnant observation that ‘we are not always conscious of what we are doing or of what
happens to us,’ a chance expression to which if philosophers had attended they would
have escaped many errors in psychology. We may contrast the contempt which is
poured upon the verbal difficulty of the one and many, and the seriousness with the
unity of opposites is regarded from the higher point of view of abstract ideas: or
compare the simple manner in which the question of cause and effect and their mutual
dependence is regarded by Plato (to which modern science has returned in Mill and
Bacon), and the cumbrous fourfold division of causes in the Physics and Metaphysics of
Aristotle, for which it has puzzled the world to find a use in so many centuries. When we
consider the backwardness of knowledge in the age of Plato, the boldness with which he
looks forward into the distance, the many questions of modern philosophy which are
anticipated in his writings, may we not truly describe him in his own words as a
‘spectator of all time and of all existence’?
PHILEBUS
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Protarchus, Philebus.
SOCRATES: Observe, Protarchus, the nature of the position which you are now going to
take from Philebus, and what the other position is which I maintain, and which, if you
do not approve of it, is to be controverted by you. Shall you and I sum up the two sides?
PROTARCHUS: By all means.
SOCRATES: Philebus was saying that enjoyment and pleasure and delight, and the class
of feelings akin to them, are a good to every living being, whereas I contend, that not
these, but wisdom and intelligence and memory, and their kindred, right opinion and
true reasoning, are better and more desirable than pleasure for all who are able to
partake of them, and that to all such who are or ever will be they are the most
advantageous of all things. Have I not given, Philebus, a fair statement of the two sides
of the argument?
PHILEBUS: Nothing could be fairer, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And do you, Protarchus, accept the position which is assigned to you?
PROTARCHUS: I cannot do otherwise, since our excellent Philebus has left the field.
SOCRATES: Surely the truth about these matters ought, by all means, to be ascertained.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Shall we further agree—
PROTARCHUS: To what?
SOCRATES: That you and I must now try to indicate some state and disposition of the
soul, which has the property of making all men happy.
PROTARCHUS: Yes, by all means.
SOCRATES: And you say that pleasure, and I say that wisdom, is such a state?
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And what if there be a third state, which is better than either? Then both of
us are vanquished—are we not? But if this life, which really has the power of making
men happy, turn out to be more akin to pleasure than to wisdom, the life of pleasure
may still have the advantage over the life of wisdom.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: Or suppose that the better life is more nearly allied to wisdom, then
wisdom conquers, and pleasure is defeated;—do you agree?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And what do you say, Philebus?
PHILEBUS: I say, and shall always say, that pleasure is easily the conqueror; but you
must decide for yourself, Protarchus.
PROTARCHUS: You, Philebus, have handed over the argument to me, and have no
longer a voice in the matter?
PHILEBUS: True enough. Nevertheless I would clear myself and deliver my soul of you;
and I call the goddess herself to witness that I now do so.
PROTARCHUS: You may appeal to us; we too will be the witnesses of your words. And
now, Socrates, whether Philebus is pleased or displeased, we will proceed with the
argument.
SOCRATES: Then let us begin with the goddess herself, of whom Philebus says that she
is called Aphrodite, but that her real name is Pleasure.
PROTARCHUS: Very good.
SOCRATES: The awe which I always feel, Protarchus, about the names of the gods is
more than human—it exceeds all other fears. And now I would not sin against Aphrodite
by naming her amiss; let her be called what she pleases. But Pleasure I know to be
manifold, and with her, as I was just now saying, we must begin, and consider what her
nature is. She has one name, and therefore you would imagine that she is one; and yet
surely she takes the most varied and even unlike forms. For do we not say that the
intemperate has pleasure, and that the temperate has pleasure in his very temperance,—
that the fool is pleased when he is full of foolish fancies and hopes, and that the wise
man has pleasure in his wisdom? and how foolish would any one be who affirmed that
all these opposite pleasures are severally alike!
PROTARCHUS: Why, Socrates, they are opposed in so far as they spring from opposite
sources, but they are not in themselves opposite. For must not pleasure be of all things
most absolutely like pleasure,—that is, like itself?
SOCRATES: Yes, my good friend, just as colour is like colour;—in so far as colours are
colours, there is no difference between them; and yet we all know that black is not only
unlike, but even absolutely opposed to white: or again, as figure is like figure, for all
figures are comprehended under one class; and yet particular figures may be absolutely
opposed to one another, and there is an infinite diversity of them. And we might find
similar examples in many other things; therefore do not rely upon this argument, which
would go to prove the unity of the most extreme opposites. And I suspect that we shall
find a similar opposition among pleasures.
PROTARCHUS: Very likely; but how will this invalidate the argument?
SOCRATES: Why, I shall reply, that dissimilar as they are, you apply to them a new
predicate, for you say that all pleasant things are good; now although no one can argue
that pleasure is not pleasure, he may argue, as we are doing, that pleasures are oftener
bad than good; but you call them all good, and at the same time are compelled, if you are
pressed, to acknowledge that they are unlike. And so you must tell us what is the
identical quality existing alike in good and bad pleasures, which makes you designate all
of them as good.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, Socrates? Do you think that any one who asserts
pleasure to be the good, will tolerate the notion that some pleasures are good and others
bad?
SOCRATES: And yet you will acknowledge that they are different from one another, and
sometimes opposed?
PROTARCHUS: Not in so far as they are pleasures.
SOCRATES: That is a return to the old position, Protarchus, and so we are to say (are
we?) that there is no difference in pleasures, but that they are all alike; and the examples
which have just been cited do not pierce our dull minds, but we go on arguing all the
same, like the weakest and most inexperienced reasoners? (Probably corrupt.)
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: Why, I mean to say, that in self-defence I may, if I like, follow your
example, and assert boldly that the two things most unlike are most absolutely alike;
and the result will be that you and I will prove ourselves to be very tyros in the art of
disputing; and the argument will be blown away and lost. Suppose that we put back, and
return to the old position; then perhaps we may come to an understanding with one
another.
PROTARCHUS: How do you mean?
SOCRATES: Shall I, Protarchus, have my own question asked of me by you?
PROTARCHUS: What question?
SOCRATES: Ask me whether wisdom and science and mind, and those other qualities
which I, when asked by you at first what is the nature of the good, affirmed to be good,
are not in the same case with the pleasures of which you spoke.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: The sciences are a numerous class, and will be found to present great
differences. But even admitting that, like the pleasures, they are opposite as well as
different, should I be worthy of the name of dialectician if, in order to avoid this
difficulty, I were to say (as you are saying of pleasure) that there is no difference
between one science and another;—would not the argument founder and disappear like
an idle tale, although we might ourselves escape drowning by clinging to a fallacy?
PROTARCHUS: May none of this befal us, except the deliverance! Yet I like the evenhanded
justice which is applied to both our arguments. Let us assume, then, that there
are many and diverse pleasures, and many and different sciences.
SOCRATES: And let us have no concealment, Protarchus, of the differences between my
good and yours; but let us bring them to the light in the hope that, in the process of
testing them, they may show whether pleasure is to be called the good, or wisdom, or
some third quality; for surely we are not now simply contending in order that my view
or that yours may prevail, but I presume that we ought both of us to be fighting for the
truth.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly we ought.
SOCRATES: Then let us have a more definite understanding and establish the principle
on which the argument rests.
PROTARCHUS: What principle?
SOCRATES: A principle about which all men are always in a difficulty, and some men
sometimes against their will.
PROTARCHUS: Speak plainer.
SOCRATES: The principle which has just turned up, which is a marvel of nature; for that
one should be many or many one, are wonderful propositions; and he who affirms either
is very open to attack.
PROTARCHUS: Do you mean, when a person says that I, Protarchus, am by nature one
and also many, dividing the single ‘me’ into many ‘me’s,’ and even opposing them as
great and small, light and heavy, and in ten thousand other ways?
SOCRATES: Those, Protarchus, are the common and acknowledged paradoxes about
the one and many, which I may say that everybody has by this time agreed to dismiss as
childish and obvious and detrimental to the true course of thought; and no more favour
is shown to that other puzzle, in which a person proves the members and parts of
anything to be divided, and then confessing that they are all one, says laughingly in
disproof of his own words: Why, here is a miracle, the one is many and infinite, and the
many are only one.
PROTARCHUS: But what, Socrates, are those other marvels connected with this subject
which, as you imply, have not yet become common and acknowledged?
SOCRATES: When, my boy, the one does not belong to the class of things that are born
and perish, as in the instances which we were giving, for in those cases, and when unity
is of this concrete nature, there is, as I was saying, a universal consent that no refutation
is needed; but when the assertion is made that man is one, or ox is one, or beauty one, or
the good one, then the interest which attaches to these and similar unities and the
attempt which is made to divide them gives birth to a controversy.
PROTARCHUS: Of what nature?
SOCRATES: In the first place, as to whether these unities have a real existence; and then
how each individual unity, being always the same, and incapable either of generation or
of destruction, but retaining a permanent individuality, can be conceived either as
dispersed and multiplied in the infinity of the world of generation, or as still entire and
yet divided from itself, which latter would seem to be the greatest impossibility of all, for
how can one and the same thing be at the same time in one and in many things? These,
Protarchus, are the real difficulties, and this is the one and many to which they relate;
they are the source of great perplexity if ill decided, and the right determination of them
is very helpful.
PROTARCHUS: Then, Socrates, let us begin by clearing up these questions.
SOCRATES: That is what I should wish.
PROTARCHUS: And I am sure that all my other friends will be glad to hear them
discussed; Philebus, fortunately for us, is not disposed to move, and we had better not
stir him up with questions.
SOCRATES: Good; and where shall we begin this great and multifarious battle, in which
such various points are at issue? Shall we begin thus?
PROTARCHUS: How?
SOCRATES: We say that the one and many become identified by thought, and that now,
as in time past, they run about together, in and out of every word which is uttered, and
that this union of them will never cease, and is not now beginning, but is, as I believe, an
everlasting quality of thought itself, which never grows old. Any young man, when he
first tastes these subtleties, is delighted, and fancies that he has found a treasure of
wisdom; in the first enthusiasm of his joy he leaves no stone, or rather no thought
unturned, now rolling up the many into the one, and kneading them together, now
unfolding and dividing them; he puzzles himself first and above all, and then he
proceeds to puzzle his neighbours, whether they are older or younger, or of his own
age—that makes no difference; neither father nor mother does he spare; no human
being who has ears is safe from him, hardly even his dog, and a barbarian would have no
chance of escaping him, if an interpreter could only be found.
PROTARCHUS: Considering, Socrates, how many we are, and that all of us are young
men, is there not a danger that we and Philebus may all set upon you, if you abuse us?
We understand what you mean; but is there no charm by which we may dispel all this
confusion, no more excellent way of arriving at the truth? If there is, we hope that you
will guide us into that way, and we will do our best to follow, for the enquiry in which we
are engaged, Socrates, is not unimportant.
SOCRATES: The reverse of unimportant, my boys, as Philebus calls you, and there
neither is nor ever will be a better than my own favourite way, which has nevertheless
already often deserted me and left me helpless in the hour of need.
PROTARCHUS: Tell us what that is.
SOCRATES: One which may be easily pointed out, but is by no means easy of
application; it is the parent of all the discoveries in the arts.
PROTARCHUS: Tell us what it is.
SOCRATES: A gift of heaven, which, as I conceive, the gods tossed among men by the
hands of a new Prometheus, and therewith a blaze of light; and the ancients, who were
our betters and nearer the gods than we are, handed down the tradition, that whatever
things are said to be are composed of one and many, and have the finite and infinite
implanted in them: seeing, then, that such is the order of the world, we too ought in
every enquiry to begin by laying down one idea of that which is the subject of enquiry;
this unity we shall find in everything. Having found it, we may next proceed to look for
two, if there be two, or, if not, then for three or some other number, subdividing each of
these units, until at last the unity with which we began is seen not only to be one and
many and infinite, but also a definite number; the infinite must not be suffered to
approach the many until the entire number of the species intermediate between unity
and infinity has been discovered,—then, and not till then, we may rest from division,
and without further troubling ourselves about the endless individuals may allow them to
drop into infinity. This, as I was saying, is the way of considering and learning and
teaching one another, which the gods have handed down to us. But the wise men of our
time are either too quick or too slow in conceiving plurality in unity. Having no method,
they make their one and many anyhow, and from unity pass at once to infinity; the
intermediate steps never occur to them. And this, I repeat, is what makes the difference
between the mere art of disputation and true dialectic.
PROTARCHUS: I think that I partly understand you Socrates, but I should like to have a
clearer notion of what you are saying.
SOCRATES: I may illustrate my meaning by the letters of the alphabet, Protarchus,
which you were made to learn as a child.
PROTARCHUS: How do they afford an illustration?
SOCRATES: The sound which passes through the lips whether of an individual or of all
men is one and yet infinite.
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And yet not by knowing either that sound is one or that sound is infinite
are we perfect in the art of speech, but the knowledge of the number and nature of
sounds is what makes a man a grammarian.
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And the knowledge which makes a man a musician is of the same kind.
PROTARCHUS: How so?
SOCRATES: Sound is one in music as well as in grammar?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And there is a higher note and a lower note, and a note of equal pitch:—
may we affirm so much?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But you would not be a real musician if this was all that you knew; though
if you did not know this you would know almost nothing of music.
PROTARCHUS: Nothing.
SOCRATES: But when you have learned what sounds are high and what low, and the
number and nature of the intervals and their limits or proportions, and the systems
compounded out of them, which our fathers discovered, and have handed down to us
who are their descendants under the name of harmonies; and the affections
corresponding to them in the movements of the human body, which when measured by
numbers ought, as they say, to be called rhythms and measures; and they tell us that the
same principle should be applied to every one and many;—when, I say, you have learned
all this, then, my dear friend, you are perfect; and you may be said to understand any
other subject, when you have a similar grasp of it. But the infinity of kinds and the
infinity of individuals which there is in each of them, when not classified, creates in
every one of us a state of infinite ignorance; and he who never looks for number in
anything, will not himself be looked for in the number of famous men.
PROTARCHUS: I think that what Socrates is now saying is excellent, Philebus.
PHILEBUS: I think so too, but how do his words bear upon us and upon the argument?
SOCRATES: Philebus is right in asking that question of us, Protarchus.
PROTARCHUS: Indeed he is, and you must answer him.
SOCRATES: I will; but you must let me make one little remark first about these matters;
I was saying, that he who begins with any individual unity, should proceed from that,
not to infinity, but to a definite number, and now I say conversely, that he who has to
begin with infinity should not jump to unity, but he should look about for some number
representing a certain quantity, and thus out of all end in one. And now let us return for
an illustration of our principle to the case of letters.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: Some god or divine man, who in the Egyptian legend is said to have been
Theuth, observing that the human voice was infinite, first distinguished in this infinity a
certain number of vowels, and then other letters which had sound, but were not pure
vowels (i.e., the semivowels); these too exist in a definite number; and lastly, he
distinguished a third class of letters which we now call mutes, without voice and without
sound, and divided these, and likewise the two other classes of vowels and semivowels,
into the individual sounds, and told the number of them, and gave to each and all of
them the name of letters; and observing that none of us could learn any one of them and
not learn them all, and in consideration of this common bond which in a manner united
them, he assigned to them all a single art, and this he called the art of grammar or
letters.
PHILEBUS: The illustration, Protarchus, has assisted me in understanding the original
statement, but I still feel the defect of which I just now complained.
SOCRATES: Are you going to ask, Philebus, what this has to do with the argument?
PHILEBUS: Yes, that is a question which Protarchus and I have been long asking.
SOCRATES: Assuredly you have already arrived at the answer to the question which, as
you say, you have been so long asking?
PHILEBUS: How so?
SOCRATES: Did we not begin by enquiring into the comparative eligibility of pleasure
and wisdom?
PHILEBUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And we maintain that they are each of them one?
PHILEBUS: True.
SOCRATES: And the precise question to which the previous discussion desires an
answer is, how they are one and also many (i.e., how they have one genus and many
species), and are not at once infinite, and what number of species is to be assigned to
either of them before they pass into infinity (i.e. into the infinite number of individuals).
PROTARCHUS: That is a very serious question, Philebus, to which Socrates has
ingeniously brought us round, and please to consider which of us shall answer him;
there may be something ridiculous in my being unable to answer, and therefore
imposing the task upon you, when I have undertaken the whole charge of the argument,
but if neither of us were able to answer, the result methinks would be still more
ridiculous. Let us consider, then, what we are to do:—Socrates, if I understood him
rightly, is asking whether there are not kinds of pleasure, and what is the number and
nature of them, and the same of wisdom.
SOCRATES: Most true, O son of Callias; and the previous argument showed that if we
are not able to tell the kinds of everything that has unity, likeness, sameness, or their
opposites, none of us will be of the smallest use in any enquiry.
PROTARCHUS: That seems to be very near the truth, Socrates. Happy would the wise
man be if he knew all things, and the next best thing for him is that he should know
himself. Why do I say so at this moment? I will tell you. You, Socrates, have granted us
this opportunity of conversing with you, and are ready to assist us in determining what
is the best of human goods. For when Philebus said that pleasure and delight and
enjoyment and the like were the chief good, you answered—No, not those, but another
class of goods; and we are constantly reminding ourselves of what you said, and very
properly, in order that we may not forget to examine and compare the two. And these
goods, which in your opinion are to be designated as superior to pleasure, and are the
true objects of pursuit, are mind and knowledge and understanding and art, and the
like. There was a dispute about which were the best, and we playfully threatened that
you should not be allowed to go home until the question was settled; and you agreed,
and placed yourself at our disposal. And now, as children say, what has been fairly given
cannot be taken back; cease then to fight against us in this way.
SOCRATES: In what way?
PHILEBUS: Do not perplex us, and keep asking questions of us to which we have not as
yet any sufficient answer to give; let us not imagine that a general puzzling of us all is to
be the end of our discussion, but if we are unable to answer, do you answer, as you have
promised. Consider, then, whether you will divide pleasure and knowledge according to
their kinds; or you may let the matter drop, if you are able and willing to find some other
mode of clearing up our controversy.
SOCRATES: If you say that, I have nothing to apprehend, for the words ‘if you are
willing’ dispel all my fear; and, moreover, a god seems to have recalled something to my
mind.
PHILEBUS: What is that?
SOCRATES: I remember to have heard long ago certain discussions about pleasure and
wisdom, whether awake or in a dream I cannot tell; they were to the effect that neither
the one nor the other of them was the good, but some third thing, which was different
from them, and better than either. If this be clearly established, then pleasure will lose
the victory, for the good will cease to be identified with her:—Am I not right?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And there will cease to be any need of distinguishing the kinds of pleasures,
as I am inclined to think, but this will appear more clearly as we proceed.
PROTARCHUS: Capital, Socrates; pray go on as you propose.
SOCRATES: But, let us first agree on some little points.
PROTARCHUS: What are they?
SOCRATES: Is the good perfect or imperfect?
PROTARCHUS: The most perfect, Socrates, of all things.
SOCRATES: And is the good sufficient?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, certainly, and in a degree surpassing all other things.
SOCRATES: And no one can deny that all percipient beings desire and hunt after good,
and are eager to catch and have the good about them, and care not for the attainment of
anything which is not accompanied by good.
PROTARCHUS: That is undeniable.
SOCRATES: Now let us part off the life of pleasure from the life of wisdom, and pass
them in review.
PROTARCHUS: How do you mean?
SOCRATES: Let there be no wisdom in the life of pleasure, nor any pleasure in the life of
wisdom, for if either of them is the chief good, it cannot be supposed to want anything,
but if either is shown to want anything, then it cannot really be the chief good.
PROTARCHUS: Impossible.
SOCRATES: And will you help us to test these two lives?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then answer.
PROTARCHUS: Ask.
SOCRATES: Would you choose, Protarchus, to live all your life long in the enjoyment of
the greatest pleasures?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly I should.
SOCRATES: Would you consider that there was still anything wanting to you if you had
perfect pleasure?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Reflect; would you not want wisdom and intelligence and forethought, and
similar qualities? would you not at any rate want sight?
PROTARCHUS: Why should I? Having pleasure I should have all things.
SOCRATES: Living thus, you would always throughout your life enjoy the greatest
pleasures?
PROTARCHUS: I should.
SOCRATES: But if you had neither mind, nor memory, nor knowledge, nor true opinion,
you would in the first place be utterly ignorant of whether you were pleased or not,
because you would be entirely devoid of intelligence.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And similarly, if you had no memory you would not recollect that you had
ever been pleased, nor would the slightest recollection of the pleasure which you feel at
any moment remain with you; and if you had no true opinion you would not think that
you were pleased when you were; and if you had no power of calculation you would not
be able to calculate on future pleasure, and your life would be the life, not of a man, but
of an oyster or ‘pulmo marinus.’ Could this be otherwise?
PROTARCHUS: No.
SOCRATES: But is such a life eligible?
PROTARCHUS: I cannot answer you, Socrates; the argument has taken away from me
the power of speech.
SOCRATES: We must keep up our spirits;—let us now take the life of mind and examine
it in turn.
PROTARCHUS: And what is this life of mind?
SOCRATES: I want to know whether any one of us would consent to live, having wisdom
and mind and knowledge and memory of all things, but having no sense of pleasure or
pain, and wholly unaffected by these and the like feelings?
PROTARCHUS: Neither life, Socrates, appears eligible to me, nor is likely, as I should
imagine, to be chosen by any one else.
SOCRATES: What would you say, Protarchus, to both of these in one, or to one that was
made out of the union of the two?
PROTARCHUS: Out of the union, that is, of pleasure with mind and wisdom?
SOCRATES: Yes, that is the life which I mean.
PROTARCHUS: There can be no difference of opinion; not some but all would surely
choose this third rather than either of the other two, and in addition to them.
SOCRATES: But do you see the consequence?
PROTARCHUS: To be sure I do. The consequence is, that two out of the three lives
which have been proposed are neither sufficient nor eligible for man or for animal.
SOCRATES: Then now there can be no doubt that neither of them has the good, for the
one which had would certainly have been sufficient and perfect and eligible for every
living creature or thing that was able to live such a life; and if any of us had chosen any
other, he would have chosen contrary to the nature of the truly eligible, and not of his
own free will, but either through ignorance or from some unhappy necessity.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly that seems to be true.
SOCRATES: And now have I not sufficiently shown that Philebus’ goddess is not to be
regarded as identical with the good?
PHILEBUS: Neither is your ‘mind’ the good, Socrates, for that will be open to the same
objections.
SOCRATES: Perhaps, Philebus, you may be right in saying so of my ‘mind’; but of the
true, which is also the divine mind, far otherwise. However, I will not at present claim
the first place for mind as against the mixed life; but we must come to some
understanding about the second place. For you might affirm pleasure and I mind to be
the cause of the mixed life; and in that case although neither of them would be the good,
one of them might be imagined to be the cause of the good. And I might proceed further
to argue in opposition to Philebus, that the element which makes this mixed life eligible
and good, is more akin and more similar to mind than to pleasure. And if this is true,
pleasure cannot be truly said to share either in the first or second place, and does not, if
I may trust my own mind, attain even to the third.
PROTARCHUS: Truly, Socrates, pleasure appears to me to have had a fall; in fighting
for the palm, she has been smitten by the argument, and is laid low. I must say that
mind would have fallen too, and may therefore be thought to show discretion in not
putting forward a similar claim. And if pleasure were deprived not only of the first but of
the second place, she would be terribly damaged in the eyes of her admirers, for not
even to them would she still appear as fair as before.
SOCRATES: Well, but had we not better leave her now, and not pain her by applying the
crucial test, and finally detecting her?
PROTARCHUS: Nonsense, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Why? because I said that we had better not pain pleasure, which is an
impossibility?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, and more than that, because you do not seem to be aware that
none of us will let you go home until you have finished the argument.
SOCRATES: Heavens! Protarchus, that will be a tedious business, and just at present
not at all an easy one. For in going to war in the cause of mind, who is aspiring to the
second prize, I ought to have weapons of another make from those which I used before;
some, however, of the old ones may do again. And must I then finish the argument?
PROTARCHUS: Of course you must.
SOCRATES: Let us be very careful in laying the foundation.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: Let us divide all existing things into two, or rather, if you do not object, into
three classes.
PROTARCHUS: Upon what principle would you make the division?
SOCRATES: Let us take some of our newly-found notions.
PROTARCHUS: Which of them?
SOCRATES: Were we not saying that God revealed a finite element of existence, and
also an infinite?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Let us assume these two principles, and also a third, which is compounded
out of them; but I fear that I am ridiculously clumsy at these processes of division and
enumeration.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, my good friend?
SOCRATES: I say that a fourth class is still wanted.
PROTARCHUS: What will that be?
SOCRATES: Find the cause of the third or compound, and add this as a fourth class to
the three others.
PROTARCHUS: And would you like to have a fifth class or cause of resolution as well as
a cause of composition?
SOCRATES: Not, I think, at present; but if I want a fifth at some future time you shall
allow me to have it.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Let us begin with the first three; and as we find two out of the three greatly
divided and dispersed, let us endeavour to reunite them, and see how in each of them
there is a one and many.
PROTARCHUS: If you would explain to me a little more about them, perhaps I might be
able to follow you.
SOCRATES: Well, the two classes are the same which I mentioned before, one the finite,
and the other the infinite; I will first show that the infinite is in a certain sense many,
and the finite may be hereafter discussed.
PROTARCHUS: I agree.
SOCRATES: And now consider well; for the question to which I invite your attention is
difficult and controverted. When you speak of hotter and colder, can you conceive any
limit in those qualities? Does not the more and less, which dwells in their very nature,
prevent their having any end? for if they had an end, the more and less would
themselves have an end.
PROTARCHUS: That is most true.
SOCRATES: Ever, as we say, into the hotter and the colder there enters a more and a
less.
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then, says the argument, there is never any end of them, and being endless
they must also be infinite.
PROTARCHUS: Yes, Socrates, that is exceedingly true.
SOCRATES: Yes, my dear Protarchus, and your answer reminds me that such an
expression as ‘exceedingly,’ which you have just uttered, and also the term ‘gently,’ have
the same significance as more or less; for whenever they occur they do not allow of the
existence of quantity—they are always introducing degrees into actions, instituting a
comparison of a more or a less excessive or a more or a less gentle, and at each creation
of more or less, quantity disappears. For, as I was just now saying, if quantity and
measure did not disappear, but were allowed to intrude in the sphere of more and less
and the other comparatives, these last would be driven out of their own domain. When
definite quantity is once admitted, there can be no longer a ‘hotter’ or a ‘colder’ (for
these are always progressing, and are never in one stay); but definite quantity is at rest,
and has ceased to progress. Which proves that comparatives, such as the hotter and the
colder, are to be ranked in the class of the infinite.
PROTARCHUS: Your remark certainly has the look of truth, Socrates; but these
subjects, as you were saying, are difficult to follow at first. I think however, that if I
could hear the argument repeated by you once or twice, there would be a substantial
agreement between us.
SOCRATES: Yes, and I will try to meet your wish; but, as I would rather not waste time
in the enumeration of endless particulars, let me know whether I may not assume as a
note of the infinite—
PROTARCHUS: What?
SOCRATES: I want to know whether such things as appear to us to admit of more or
less, or are denoted by the words ‘exceedingly,’ ‘gently,’ ‘extremely,’ and the like, may
not be referred to the class of the infinite, which is their unity, for, as was asserted in the
previous argument, all things that were divided and dispersed should be brought
together, and have the mark or seal of some one nature, if possible, set upon them—do
you remember?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And all things which do not admit of more or less, but admit their
opposites, that is to say, first of all, equality, and the equal, or again, the double, or any
other ratio of number and measure—all these may, I think, be rightly reckoned by us in
the class of the limited or finite; what do you say?
PROTARCHUS: Excellent, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And now what nature shall we ascribe to the third or compound kind?
PROTARCHUS: You, I think, will have to tell me that.
SOCRATES: Rather God will tell you, if there be any God who will listen to my prayers.
PROTARCHUS: Offer up a prayer, then, and think.
SOCRATES: I am thinking, Protarchus, and I believe that some God has befriended us.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, and what proof have you to offer of what you are
saying?
SOCRATES: I will tell you, and do you listen to my words.
PROTARCHUS: Proceed.
SOCRATES: Were we not speaking just now of hotter and colder?
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: Add to them drier, wetter, more, less, swifter, slower, greater, smaller, and
all that in the preceding argument we placed under the unity of more and less.
PROTARCHUS: In the class of the infinite, you mean?
SOCRATES: Yes; and now mingle this with the other.
PROTARCHUS: What is the other.
SOCRATES: The class of the finite which we ought to have brought together as we did
the infinite; but, perhaps, it will come to the same thing if we do so now;—when the two
are combined, a third will appear.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean by the class of the finite?
SOCRATES: The class of the equal and the double, and any class which puts an end to
difference and opposition, and by introducing number creates harmony and proportion
among the different elements.
PROTARCHUS: I understand; you seem to me to mean that the various opposites, when
you mingle with them the class of the finite, takes certain forms.
SOCRATES: Yes, that is my meaning.
PROTARCHUS: Proceed.
SOCRATES: Does not the right participation in the finite give health—in disease, for
instance?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And whereas the high and low, the swift and the slow are infinite or
unlimited, does not the addition of the principles aforesaid introduce a limit, and perfect
the whole frame of music?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, certainly.
SOCRATES: Or, again, when cold and heat prevail, does not the introduction of them
take away excess and indefiniteness, and infuse moderation and harmony?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And from a like admixture of the finite and infinite come the seasons, and
all the delights of life?
PROTARCHUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: I omit ten thousand other things, such as beauty and health and strength,
and the many beauties and high perfections of the soul: O my beautiful Philebus, the
goddess, methinks, seeing the universal wantonness and wickedness of all things, and
that there was in them no limit to pleasures and self-indulgence, devised the limit of law
and order, whereby, as you say, Philebus, she torments, or as I maintain, delivers the
soul.— What think you, Protarchus?
PROTARCHUS: Her ways are much to my mind, Socrates.
SOCRATES: You will observe that I have spoken of three classes?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, I think that I understand you: you mean to say that the infinite is
one class, and that the finite is a second class of existences; but what you would make
the third I am not so certain.
SOCRATES: That is because the amazing variety of the third class is too much for you,
my dear friend; but there was not this difficulty with the infinite, which also
comprehended many classes, for all of them were sealed with the note of more and less,
and therefore appeared one.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And the finite or limit had not many divisions, and we readily
acknowledged it to be by nature one?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Yes, indeed; and when I speak of the third class, understand me to mean
any offspring of these, being a birth into true being, effected by the measure which the
limit introduces.
PROTARCHUS: I understand.
SOCRATES: Still there was, as we said, a fourth class to be investigated, and you must
assist in the investigation; for does not everything which comes into being, of necessity
come into being through a cause?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, certainly; for how can there be anything which has no cause?
SOCRATES: And is not the agent the same as the cause in all except name; the agent
and the cause may be rightly called one?
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And the same may be said of the patient, or effect; we shall find that they
too differ, as I was saying, only in name—shall we not?
PROTARCHUS: We shall.
SOCRATES: The agent or cause always naturally leads, and the patient or effect
naturally follows it?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then the cause and what is subordinate to it in generation are not the
same, but different?
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: Did not the things which were generated, and the things out of which they
were generated, furnish all the three classes?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the creator or cause of them has been satisfactorily proven to be
distinct from them,—and may therefore be called a fourth principle?
PROTARCHUS: So let us call it.
SOCRATES: Quite right; but now, having distinguished the four, I think that we had
better refresh our memories by recapitulating each of them in order.
PROTARCHUS: By all means.
SOCRATES: Then the first I will call the infinite or unlimited, and the second the finite
or limited; then follows the third, an essence compound and generated; and I do not
think that I shall be far wrong in speaking of the cause of mixture and generation as the
fourth.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And now what is the next question, and how came we hither? Were we not
enquiring whether the second place belonged to pleasure or wisdom?
PROTARCHUS: We were.
SOCRATES: And now, having determined these points, shall we not be better able to
decide about the first and second place, which was the original subject of dispute?
PROTARCHUS: I dare say.
SOCRATES: We said, if you remember, that the mixed life of pleasure and wisdom was
the conqueror—did we not?
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And we see what is the place and nature of this life and to what class it is to
be assigned?
PROTARCHUS: Beyond a doubt.
SOCRATES: This is evidently comprehended in the third or mixed class; which is not
composed of any two particular ingredients, but of all the elements of infinity, bound
down by the finite, and may therefore be truly said to comprehend the conqueror life.
PROTARCHUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: And what shall we say, Philebus, of your life which is all sweetness; and in
which of the aforesaid classes is that to be placed? Perhaps you will allow me to ask you
a question before you answer?
PHILEBUS: Let me hear.
SOCRATES: Have pleasure and pain a limit, or do they belong to the class which admits
of more and less?
PHILEBUS: They belong to the class which admits of more, Socrates; for pleasure would
not be perfectly good if she were not infinite in quantity and degree.
SOCRATES: Nor would pain, Philebus, be perfectly evil. And therefore the infinite
cannot be that element which imparts to pleasure some degree of good. But now—
admitting, if you like, that pleasure is of the nature of the infinite—in which of the
aforesaid classes, O Protarchus and Philebus, can we without irreverence place wisdom
and knowledge and mind? And let us be careful, for I think that the danger will be very
serious if we err on this point.
PHILEBUS: You magnify, Socrates, the importance of your favourite god.
SOCRATES: And you, my friend, are also magnifying your favourite goddess; but still I
must beg you to answer the question.
PROTARCHUS: Socrates is quite right, Philebus, and we must submit to him.
PHILEBUS: And did not you, Protarchus, propose to answer in my place?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly I did; but I am now in a great strait, and I must entreat you,
Socrates, to be our spokesman, and then we shall not say anything wrong or
disrespectful of your favourite.
SOCRATES: I must obey you, Protarchus; nor is the task which you impose a difficult
one; but did I really, as Philebus implies, disconcert you with my playful solemnity,
when I asked the question to what class mind and knowledge belong?
PROTARCHUS: You did, indeed, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Yet the answer is easy, since all philosophers assert with one voice that
mind is the king of heaven and earth—in reality they are magnifying themselves. And
perhaps they are right. But still I should like to consider the class of mind, if you do not
object, a little more fully.
PHILEBUS: Take your own course, Socrates, and never mind length; we shall not tire of
you.
SOCRATES: Very good; let us begin then, Protarchus, by asking a question.
PROTARCHUS: What question?
SOCRATES: Whether all this which they call the universe is left to the guidance of
unreason and chance medley, or, on the contrary, as our fathers have declared, ordered
and governed by a marvellous intelligence and wisdom.
PROTARCHUS: Wide asunder are the two assertions, illustrious Socrates, for that
which you were just now saying to me appears to be blasphemy; but the other assertion,
that mind orders all things, is worthy of the aspect of the world, and of the sun, and of
the moon, and of the stars and of the whole circle of the heavens; and never will I say or
think otherwise.
SOCRATES: Shall we then agree with them of old time in maintaining this doctrine,—
not merely reasserting the notions of others, without risk to ourselves,—but shall we
share in the danger, and take our part of the reproach which will await us, when an
ingenious individual declares that all is disorder?
PROTARCHUS: That would certainly be my wish.
SOCRATES: Then now please to consider the next stage of the argument.
PROTARCHUS: Let me hear.
SOCRATES: We see that the elements which enter into the nature of the bodies of all
animals, fire, water, air, and, as the storm-tossed sailor cries, ‘land’ (i.e., earth),
reappear in the constitution of the world.
PROTARCHUS: The proverb may be applied to us; for truly the storm gathers over us,
and we are at our wit’s end.
SOCRATES: There is something to be remarked about each of these elements.
PROTARCHUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: Only a small fraction of any one of them exists in us, and that of a mean
sort, and not in any way pure, or having any power worthy of its nature. One instance
will prove this of all of them; there is fire within us, and in the universe.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And is not our fire small and weak and mean? But the fire in the universe is
wonderful in quantity and beauty, and in every power that fire has.
PROTARCHUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: And is the fire in the universe nourished and generated and ruled by the
fire in us, or is the fire in you and me, and in other animals, dependent on the universal
fire?
PROTARCHUS: That is a question which does not deserve an answer.
SOCRATES: Right; and you would say the same, if I am not mistaken, of the earth which
is in animals and the earth which is in the universe, and you would give a similar reply
about all the other elements?
PROTARCHUS: Why, how could any man who gave any other be deemed in his senses?
SOCRATES: I do not think that he could—but now go on to the next step. When we saw
those elements of which we have been speaking gathered up in one, did we not call them
a body?
PROTARCHUS: We did.
SOCRATES: And the same may be said of the cosmos, which for the same reason may be
considered to be a body, because made up of the same elements.
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: But is our body nourished wholly by this body, or is this body nourished by
our body, thence deriving and having the qualities of which we were just now speaking?
PROTARCHUS: That again, Socrates, is a question which does not deserve to be asked.
SOCRATES: Well, tell me, is this question worth asking?
PROTARCHUS: What question?
SOCRATES: May our body be said to have a soul?
PROTARCHUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And whence comes that soul, my dear Protarchus, unless the body of the
universe, which contains elements like those in our bodies but in every way fairer, had
also a soul? Can there be another source?
PROTARCHUS: Clearly, Socrates, that is the only source.
SOCRATES: Why, yes, Protarchus; for surely we cannot imagine that of the four classes,
the finite, the infinite, the composition of the two, and the cause, the fourth, which
enters into all things, giving to our bodies souls, and the art of self-management, and of
healing disease, and operating in other ways to heal and organize, having too all the
attributes of wisdom;—we cannot, I say, imagine that whereas the self-same elements
exist, both in the entire heaven and in great provinces of the heaven, only fairer and
purer, this last should not also in that higher sphere have designed the noblest and
fairest things?
PROTARCHUS: Such a supposition is quite unreasonable.
SOCRATES: Then if this be denied, should we not be wise in adopting the other view
and maintaining that there is in the universe a mighty infinite and an adequate limit, of
which we have often spoken, as well as a presiding cause of no mean power, which
orders and arranges years and seasons and months, and may be justly called wisdom
and mind?
PROTARCHUS: Most justly.
SOCRATES: And wisdom and mind cannot exist without soul?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And in the divine nature of Zeus would you not say that there is the soul
and mind of a king, because there is in him the power of the cause? And other gods have
other attributes, by which they are pleased to be called.
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: Do not then suppose that these words are rashly spoken by us, O
Protarchus, for they are in harmony with the testimony of those who said of old time
that mind rules the universe.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And they furnish an answer to my enquiry; for they imply that mind is the
parent of that class of the four which we called the cause of all; and I think that you now
have my answer.
PROTARCHUS: I have indeed, and yet I did not observe that you had answered.
SOCRATES: A jest is sometimes refreshing, Protarchus, when it interrupts earnest.
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: I think, friend, that we have now pretty clearly set forth the class to which
mind belongs and what is the power of mind.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And the class to which pleasure belongs has also been long ago discovered?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And let us remember, too, of both of them, (1) that mind was akin to the
cause and of this family; and (2) that pleasure is infinite and belongs to the class which
neither has, nor ever will have in itself, a beginning, middle, or end of its own.
PROTARCHUS: I shall be sure to remember.
SOCRATES: We must next examine what is their place and under what conditions they
are generated. And we will begin with pleasure, since her class was first examined; and
yet pleasure cannot be rightly tested apart from pain.
PROTARCHUS: If this is the road, let us take it.
SOCRATES: I wonder whether you would agree with me about the origin of pleasure
and pain.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: I mean to say that their natural seat is in the mixed class.
PROTARCHUS: And would you tell me again, sweet Socrates, which of the aforesaid
classes is the mixed one?
SOCRATES: I will, my fine fellow, to the best of my ability.
PROTARCHUS: Very good.
SOCRATES: Let us then understand the mixed class to be that which we placed third in
the list of four.
PROTARCHUS: That which followed the infinite and the finite; and in which you ranked
health, and, if I am not mistaken, harmony.
SOCRATES: Capital; and now will you please to give me your best attention?
PROTARCHUS: Proceed; I am attending.
SOCRATES: I say that when the harmony in animals is dissolved, there is also a
dissolution of nature and a generation of pain.
PROTARCHUS: That is very probable.
SOCRATES: And the restoration of harmony and return to nature is the source of
pleasure, if I may be allowed to speak in the fewest and shortest words about matters of
the greatest moment.
PROTARCHUS: I believe that you are right, Socrates; but will you try to be a little
plainer?
SOCRATES: Do not obvious and every-day phenomena furnish the simplest
illustration?
PROTARCHUS: What phenomena do you mean?
SOCRATES: Hunger, for example, is a dissolution and a pain.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: Whereas eating is a replenishment and a pleasure?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Thirst again is a destruction and a pain, but the effect of moisture
replenishing the dry place is a pleasure: once more, the unnatural separation and
dissolution caused by heat is painful, and the natural restoration and refrigeration is
pleasant.
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And the unnatural freezing of the moisture in an animal is pain, and the
natural process of resolution and return of the elements to their original state is
pleasure. And would not the general proposition seem to you to hold, that the destroying
of the natural union of the finite and infinite, which, as I was observing before, make up
the class of living beings, is pain, and that the process of return of all things to their own
nature is pleasure?
PROTARCHUS: Granted; what you say has a general truth.
SOCRATES: Here then is one kind of pleasures and pains originating severally in the
two processes which we have described?
PROTARCHUS: Good.
SOCRATES: Let us next assume that in the soul herself there is an antecedent hope of
pleasure which is sweet and refreshing, and an expectation of pain, fearful and anxious.
PROTARCHUS: Yes; this is another class of pleasures and pains, which is of the soul
only, apart from the body, and is produced by expectation.
SOCRATES: Right; for in the analysis of these, pure, as I suppose them to be, the
pleasures being unalloyed with pain and the pains with pleasure, methinks that we shall
see clearly whether the whole class of pleasure is to be desired, or whether this quality of
entire desirableness is not rather to be attributed to another of the classes which have
been mentioned; and whether pleasure and pain, like heat and cold, and other things of
the same kind, are not sometimes to be desired and sometimes not to be desired, as
being not in themselves good, but only sometimes and in some instances admitting of
the nature of good.
PROTARCHUS: You say most truly that this is the track which the investigation should
pursue.
SOCRATES: Well, then, assuming that pain ensues on the dissolution, and pleasure on
the restoration of the harmony, let us now ask what will be the condition of animated
beings who are neither in process of restoration nor of dissolution. And mind what you
say: I ask whether any animal who is in that condition can possibly have any feeling of
pleasure or pain, great or small?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Then here we have a third state, over and above that of pleasure and of
pain?
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And do not forget that there is such a state; it will make a great difference
in our judgment of pleasure, whether we remember this or not. And I should like to say
a few words about it.
PROTARCHUS: What have you to say?
SOCRATES: Why, you know that if a man chooses the life of wisdom, there is no reason
why he should not live in this neutral state.
PROTARCHUS: You mean that he may live neither rejoicing nor sorrowing?
SOCRATES: Yes; and if I remember rightly, when the lives were compared, no degree of
pleasure, whether great or small, was thought to be necessary to him who chose the life
of thought and wisdom.
PROTARCHUS: Yes, certainly, we said so.
SOCRATES: Then he will live without pleasure; and who knows whether this may not be
the most divine of all lives?
PROTARCHUS: If so, the gods, at any rate, cannot be supposed to have either joy or
sorrow.
SOCRATES: Certainly not—there would be a great impropriety in the assumption of
either alternative. But whether the gods are or are not indifferent to pleasure is a point
which may be considered hereafter if in any way relevant to the argument, and whatever
is the conclusion we will place it to the account of mind in her contest for the second
place, should she have to resign the first.
PROTARCHUS: Just so.
SOCRATES: The other class of pleasures, which as we were saying is purely mental, is
entirely derived from memory.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: I must first of all analyze memory, or rather perception which is prior to
memory, if the subject of our discussion is ever to be properly cleared up.
PROTARCHUS: How will you proceed?
SOCRATES: Let us imagine affections of the body which are extinguished before they
reach the soul, and leave her unaffected; and again, other affections which vibrate
through both soul and body, and impart a shock to both and to each of them.
PROTARCHUS: Granted.
SOCRATES: And the soul may be truly said to be oblivious of the first but not of the
second?
PROTARCHUS: Quite true.
SOCRATES: When I say oblivious, do not suppose that I mean forgetfulness in a literal
sense; for forgetfulness is the exit of memory, which in this case has not yet entered; and
to speak of the loss of that which is not yet in existence, and never has been, is a
contradiction; do you see?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then just be so good as to change the terms.
PROTARCHUS: How shall I change them?
SOCRATES: Instead of the oblivion of the soul, when you are describing the state in
which she is unaffected by the shocks of the body, say unconsciousness.
PROTARCHUS: I see.
SOCRATES: And the union or communion of soul and body in one feeling and motion
would be properly called consciousness?
PROTARCHUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: Then now we know the meaning of the word?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And memory may, I think, be rightly described as the preservation of
consciousness?
PROTARCHUS: Right.
SOCRATES: But do we not distinguish memory from recollection?
PROTARCHUS: I think so.
SOCRATES: And do we not mean by recollection the power which the soul has of
recovering, when by herself, some feeling which she experienced when in company with
the body?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And when she recovers of herself the lost recollection of some
consciousness or knowledge, the recovery is termed recollection and reminiscence?
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: There is a reason why I say all this.
PROTARCHUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: I want to attain the plainest possible notion of pleasure and desire, as they
exist in the mind only, apart from the body; and the previous analysis helps to show the
nature of both.
PROTARCHUS: Then now, Socrates, let us proceed to the next point.
SOCRATES: There are certainly many things to be considered in discussing the
generation and whole complexion of pleasure. At the outset we must determine the
nature and seat of desire.
PROTARCHUS: Ay; let us enquire into that, for we shall lose nothing.
SOCRATES: Nay, Protarchus, we shall surely lose the puzzle if we find the answer.
PROTARCHUS: A fair retort; but let us proceed.
SOCRATES: Did we not place hunger, thirst, and the like, in the class of desires?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And yet they are very different; what common nature have we in view when
we call them by a single name?
PROTARCHUS: By heavens, Socrates, that is a question which is not easily answered;
but it must be answered.
SOCRATES: Then let us go back to our examples.
PROTARCHUS: Where shall we begin?
SOCRATES: Do we mean anything when we say ‘a man thirsts’?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: We mean to say that he ‘is empty’?
PROTARCHUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: And is not thirst desire?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, of drink.
SOCRATES: Would you say of drink, or of replenishment with drink?
PROTARCHUS: I should say, of replenishment with drink.
SOCRATES: Then he who is empty desires, as would appear, the opposite of what he
experiences; for he is empty and desires to be full?
PROTARCHUS: Clearly so.
SOCRATES: But how can a man who is empty for the first time, attain either by
perception or memory to any apprehension of replenishment, of which he has no
present or past experience?
PROTARCHUS: Impossible.
SOCRATES: And yet he who desires, surely desires something?
PROTARCHUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: He does not desire that which he experiences, for he experiences thirst, and
thirst is emptiness; but he desires replenishment?
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: Then there must be something in the thirsty man which in some way
apprehends replenishment?
PROTARCHUS: There must.
SOCRATES: And that cannot be the body, for the body is supposed to be emptied?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: The only remaining alternative is that the soul apprehends the
replenishment by the help of memory; as is obvious, for what other way can there be?
PROTARCHUS: I cannot imagine any other.
SOCRATES: But do you see the consequence?
PROTARCHUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: That there is no such thing as desire of the body.
PROTARCHUS: Why so?
SOCRATES: Why, because the argument shows that the endeavour of every animal is to
the reverse of his bodily state.
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the impulse which leads him to the opposite of what he is experiencing
proves that he has a memory of the opposite state.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And the argument, having proved that memory attracts us towards the
objects of desire, proves also that the impulses and the desires and the moving principle
in every living being have their origin in the soul.
PROTARCHUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: The argument will not allow that our body either hungers or thirsts or has
any similar experience.
PROTARCHUS: Quite right.
SOCRATES: Let me make a further observation; the argument appears to me to imply
that there is a kind of life which consists in these affections.
PROTARCHUS: Of what affections, and of what kind of life, are you speaking?
SOCRATES: I am speaking of being emptied and replenished, and of all that relates to
the preservation and destruction of living beings, as well as of the pain which is felt in
one of these states and of the pleasure which succeeds to it.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And what would you say of the intermediate state?
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean by ‘intermediate’?
SOCRATES: I mean when a person is in actual suffering and yet remembers past
pleasures which, if they would only return, would relieve him; but as yet he has them
not. May we not say of him, that he is in an intermediate state?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Would you say that he was wholly pained or wholly pleased?
PROTARCHUS: Nay, I should say that he has two pains; in his body there is the actual
experience of pain, and in his soul longing and expectation.
SOCRATES: What do you mean, Protarchus, by the two pains? May not a man who is
empty have at one time a sure hope of being filled, and at other times be quite in
despair?
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And has he not the pleasure of memory when he is hoping to be filled, and
yet in that he is empty is he not at the same time in pain?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then man and the other animals have at the same time both pleasure and
pain?
PROTARCHUS: I suppose so.
SOCRATES: But when a man is empty and has no hope of being filled, there will be the
double experience of pain. You observed this and inferred that the double experience
was the single case possible.
PROTARCHUS: Quite true, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Shall the enquiry into these states of feeling be made the occasion of raising
a question?
PROTARCHUS: What question?
SOCRATES: Whether we ought to say that the pleasures and pains of which we are
speaking are true or false? or some true and some false?
PROTARCHUS: But how, Socrates, can there be false pleasures and pains?
SOCRATES: And how, Protarchus, can there be true and false fears, or true and false
expectations, or true and false opinions?
PROTARCHUS: I grant that opinions may be true or false, but not pleasures.
SOCRATES: What do you mean? I am afraid that we are raising a very serious enquiry.
PROTARCHUS: There I agree.
SOCRATES: And yet, my boy, for you are one of Philebus’ boys, the point to be
considered, is, whether the enquiry is relevant to the argument.
PROTARCHUS: Surely.
SOCRATES: No tedious and irrelevant discussion can be allowed; what is said should be
pertinent.
PROTARCHUS: Right.
SOCRATES: I am always wondering at the question which has now been raised.
PROTARCHUS: How so?
SOCRATES: Do you deny that some pleasures are false, and others true?
PROTARCHUS: To be sure I do.
SOCRATES: Would you say that no one ever seemed to rejoice and yet did not rejoice, or
seemed to feel pain and yet did not feel pain, sleeping or waking, mad or lunatic?
PROTARCHUS: So we have always held, Socrates.
SOCRATES: But were you right? Shall we enquire into the truth of your opinion?
PROTARCHUS: I think that we should.
SOCRATES: Let us then put into more precise terms the question which has arisen
about pleasure and opinion. Is there such a thing as opinion?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And such a thing as pleasure?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And an opinion must be of something?
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And a man must be pleased by something?
PROTARCHUS: Quite correct.
SOCRATES: And whether the opinion be right or wrong, makes no difference; it will still
be an opinion?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And he who is pleased, whether he is rightly pleased or not, will always
have a real feeling of pleasure?
PROTARCHUS: Yes; that is also quite true.
SOCRATES: Then, how can opinion be both true and false, and pleasure true only,
although pleasure and opinion are both equally real?
PROTARCHUS: Yes; that is the question.
SOCRATES: You mean that opinion admits of truth and falsehood, and hence becomes
not merely opinion, but opinion of a certain quality; and this is what you think should be
examined?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And further, even if we admit the existence of qualities in other objects,
may not pleasure and pain be simple and devoid of quality?
PROTARCHUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: But there is no difficulty in seeing that pleasure and pain as well as opinion
have qualities, for they are great or small, and have various degrees of intensity; as was
indeed said long ago by us.
PROTARCHUS: Quite true.
SOCRATES: And if badness attaches to any of them, Protarchus, then we should speak
of a bad opinion or of a bad pleasure?
PROTARCHUS: Quite true, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And if rightness attaches to any of them, should we not speak of a right
opinion or right pleasure; and in like manner of the reverse of rightness?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And if the thing opined be erroneous, might we not say that the opinion,
being erroneous, is not right or rightly opined?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And if we see a pleasure or pain which errs in respect of its object, shall we
call that right or good, or by any honourable name?
PROTARCHUS: Not if the pleasure is mistaken; how could we?
SOCRATES: And surely pleasure often appears to accompany an opinion which is not
true, but false?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly it does; and in that case, Socrates, as we were saying, the
opinion is false, but no one could call the actual pleasure false.
SOCRATES: How eagerly, Protarchus, do you rush to the defence of pleasure!
PROTARCHUS: Nay, Socrates, I only repeat what I hear.
SOCRATES: And is there no difference, my friend, between that pleasure which is
associated with right opinion and knowledge, and that which is often found in all of us
associated with falsehood and ignorance?
PROTARCHUS: There must be a very great difference, between them.
SOCRATES: Then, now let us proceed to contemplate this difference.
PROTARCHUS: Lead, and I will follow.
SOCRATES: Well, then, my view is—
PROTARCHUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: We agree—do we not?—that there is such a thing as false, and also such a
thing as true opinion?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And pleasure and pain, as I was just now saying, are often consequent upon
these—upon true and false opinion, I mean.
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And do not opinion and the endeavour to form an opinion always spring
from memory and perception?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Might we imagine the process to be something of this nature?
PROTARCHUS: Of what nature?
SOCRATES: An object may be often seen at a distance not very clearly, and the seer may
want to determine what it is which he sees.
PROTARCHUS: Very likely.
SOCRATES: Soon he begins to interrogate himself.
PROTARCHUS: In what manner?
SOCRATES: He asks himself—‘What is that which appears to be standing by the rock
under the tree?’ This is the question which he may be supposed to put to himself when
he sees such an appearance.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: To which he may guess the right answer, saying as if in a whisper to
himself—‘It is a man.’
PROTARCHUS: Very good.
SOCRATES: Or again, he may be misled, and then he will say—‘No, it is a figure made by
the shepherds.’
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And if he has a companion, he repeats his thought to him in articulate
sounds, and what was before an opinion, has now become a proposition.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But if he be walking alone when these thoughts occur to him, he may not
unfrequently keep them in his mind for a considerable time.
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: Well, now, I wonder whether you would agree in my explanation of this
phenomenon.
PROTARCHUS: What is your explanation?
SOCRATES: I think that the soul at such times is like a book.
PROTARCHUS: How so?
SOCRATES: Memory and perception meet, and they and their attendant feelings seem
to almost to write down words in the soul, and when the inscribing feeling writes truly,
then true opinion and true propositions which are the expressions of opinion come into
our souls—but when the scribe within us writes falsely, the result is false.
PROTARCHUS: I quite assent and agree to your statement.
SOCRATES: I must bespeak your favour also for another artist, who is busy at the same
time in the chambers of the soul.
PROTARCHUS: Who is he?
SOCRATES: The painter, who, after the scribe has done his work, draws images in the
soul of the things which he has described.
PROTARCHUS: But when and how does he do this?
SOCRATES: When a man, besides receiving from sight or some other sense certain
opinions or statements, sees in his mind the images of the subjects of them;—is not this
a very common mental phenomenon?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And the images answering to true opinions and words are true, and to false
opinions and words false; are they not?
PROTARCHUS: They are.
SOCRATES: If we are right so far, there arises a further question.
PROTARCHUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: Whether we experience the feeling of which I am speaking only in relation
to the present and the past, or in relation to the future also?
PROTARCHUS: I should say in relation to all times alike.
SOCRATES: Have not purely mental pleasures and pains been described already as in
some cases anticipations of the bodily ones; from which we may infer that anticipatory
pleasures and pains have to do with the future?
PROTARCHUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: And do all those writings and paintings which, as we were saying a little
while ago, are produced in us, relate to the past and present only, and not to the future?
PROTARCHUS: To the future, very much.
SOCRATES: When you say, ‘Very much,’ you mean to imply that all these
representations are hopes about the future, and that mankind are filled with hopes in
every stage of existence?
PROTARCHUS: Exactly.
SOCRATES: Answer me another question.
PROTARCHUS: What question?
SOCRATES: A just and pious and good man is the friend of the gods; is he not?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly he is.
SOCRATES: And the unjust and utterly bad man is the reverse?
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And all men, as we were saying just now, are always filled with hopes?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And these hopes, as they are termed, are propositions which exist in the
minds of each of us?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the fancies of hope are also pictured in us; a man may often have a
vision of a heap of gold, and pleasures ensuing, and in the picture there may be a
likeness of himself mightily rejoicing over his good fortune.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And may we not say that the good, being friends of the gods, have generally
true pictures presented to them, and the bad false pictures?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: The bad, too, have pleasures painted in their fancy as well as the good; but I
presume that they are false pleasures.
PROTARCHUS: They are.
SOCRATES: The bad then commonly delight in false pleasures, and the good in true
pleasures?
PROTARCHUS: Doubtless.
SOCRATES: Then upon this view there are false pleasures in the souls of men which are
a ludicrous imitation of the true, and there are pains of a similar character?
PROTARCHUS: There are.
SOCRATES: And did we not allow that a man who had an opinion at all had a real
opinion, but often about things which had no existence either in the past, present, or
future?
PROTARCHUS: Quite true.
SOCRATES: And this was the source of false opinion and opining; am I not right?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And must we not attribute to pleasure and pain a similar real but illusory
character?
PROTARCHUS: How do you mean?
SOCRATES: I mean to say that a man must be admitted to have real pleasure who is
pleased with anything or anyhow; and he may be pleased about things which neither
have nor have ever had any real existence, and, more often than not, are never likely to
exist.
PROTARCHUS: Yes, Socrates, that again is undeniable.
SOCRATES: And may not the same be said about fear and anger and the like; are they
not often false?
PROTARCHUS: Quite so.
SOCRATES: And can opinions be good or bad except in as far as they are true or false?
PROTARCHUS: In no other way.
SOCRATES: Nor can pleasures be conceived to be bad except in so far as they are false.
PROTARCHUS: Nay, Socrates, that is the very opposite of truth; for no one would call
pleasures and pains bad because they are false, but by reason of some other great
corruption to which they are liable.
SOCRATES: Well, of pleasures which are corrupt and caused by corruption we will
hereafter speak, if we care to continue the enquiry; for the present I would rather show
by another argument that there are many false pleasures existing or coming into
existence in us, because this may assist our final decision.
PROTARCHUS: Very true; that is to say, if there are such pleasures.
SOCRATES: I think that there are, Protarchus; but this is an opinion which should be
well assured, and not rest upon a mere assertion.
PROTARCHUS: Very good.
SOCRATES: Then now, like wrestlers, let us approach and grasp this new argument.
PROTARCHUS: Proceed.
SOCRATES: We were maintaining a little while since, that when desires, as they are
termed, exist in us, then the body has separate feelings apart from the soul—do you
remember?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, I remember that you said so.
SOCRATES: And the soul was supposed to desire the opposite of the bodily state, while
the body was the source of any pleasure or pain which was experienced.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: Then now you may infer what happens in such cases.
PROTARCHUS: What am I to infer?
SOCRATES: That in such cases pleasures and pains come simultaneously; and there is a
juxtaposition of the opposite sensations which correspond to them, as has been already
shown.
PROTARCHUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And there is another point to which we have agreed.
PROTARCHUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: That pleasure and pain both admit of more and less, and that they are of
the class of infinites.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly, we said so.
SOCRATES: But how can we rightly judge of them?
PROTARCHUS: How can we?
SOCRATES: Is it our intention to judge of their comparative importance and intensity,
measuring pleasure against pain, and pain against pain, and pleasure against pleasure?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, such is our intention, and we shall judge of them accordingly.
SOCRATES: Well, take the case of sight. Does not the nearness or distance of
magnitudes obscure their true proportions, and make us opine falsely; and do we not
find the same illusion happening in the case of pleasures and pains?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, Socrates, and in a degree far greater.
SOCRATES: Then what we are now saying is the opposite of what we were saying
before.
PROTARCHUS: What was that?
SOCRATES: Then the opinions were true and false, and infected the pleasures and pains
with their own falsity.
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: But now it is the pleasures which are said to be true and false because they
are seen at various distances, and subjected to comparison; the pleasures appear to be
greater and more vehement when placed side by side with the pains, and the pains when
placed side by side with the pleasures.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly, and for the reason which you mention.
SOCRATES: And suppose you part off from pleasures and pains the element which
makes them appear to be greater or less than they really are: you will acknowledge that
this element is illusory, and you will never say that the corresponding excess or defect of
pleasure or pain is real or true.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Next let us see whether in another direction we may not find pleasures and
pains existing and appearing in living beings, which are still more false than these.
PROTARCHUS: What are they, and how shall we find them?
SOCRATES: If I am not mistaken, I have often repeated that pains and aches and
suffering and uneasiness of all sorts arise out of a corruption of nature caused by
concretions, and dissolutions, and repletions, and evacuations, and also by growth and
decay?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, that has been often said.
SOCRATES: And we have also agreed that the restoration of the natural state is
pleasure?
PROTARCHUS: Right.
SOCRATES: But now let us suppose an interval of time at which the body experiences
none of these changes.
PROTARCHUS: When can that be, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Your question, Protarchus, does not help the argument.
PROTARCHUS: Why not, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Because it does not prevent me from repeating mine.
PROTARCHUS: And what was that?
SOCRATES: Why, Protarchus, admitting that there is no such interval, I may ask what
would be the necessary consequence if there were?
PROTARCHUS: You mean, what would happen if the body were not changed either for
good or bad?
SOCRATES: Yes.
PROTARCHUS: Why then, Socrates, I should suppose that there would be neither
pleasure nor pain.
SOCRATES: Very good; but still, if I am not mistaken, you do assert that we must always
be experiencing one of them; that is what the wise tell us; for, say they, all things are
ever flowing up and down.
PROTARCHUS: Yes, and their words are of no mean authority.
SOCRATES: Of course, for they are no mean authorities themselves; and I should like to
avoid the brunt of their argument. Shall I tell you how I mean to escape from them? And
you shall be the partner of my flight.
PROTARCHUS: How?
SOCRATES: To them we will say: ‘Good; but are we, or living things in general, always
conscious of what happens to us—for example, of our growth, or the like? Are we not, on
the contrary, almost wholly unconscious of this and similar phenomena?’ You must
answer for them.
PROTARCHUS: The latter alternative is the true one.
SOCRATES: Then we were not right in saying, just now, that motions going up and
down cause pleasures and pains?
PROTARCHUS: True.

The Complete Works of Plato - Part 5