7)
 
 Ancient Classics for English Readers 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 
 REV. \V. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. 
 
 PLATO
 
 The Volumes published of this Series contain 
 
 HOMER: THE ILIAD, BY THE EDITOR. 
 HOMER: THE ODYSSEY, BY THE SAME. 
 HERODOTUS, BY GEORGE C. SWAYNE, M.A. 
 CAESAR, BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 
 VIRGIL, BY THE EDITOR. 
 HORACE, BY THEODORE MARTIN. 
 AESCHYLUS, BY REGINALD S. COPLESTON, M.A. 
 XENOPHON, BY SIR ALEX. GRANT, BART., LL.D. 
 CICERO, BY THE EDITOR. 
 SOPHOCLES, BY CLIFTON W. COLLINS, M.A. 
 PLINY, BY A. CHURCH, M.A., AND W. J. 
 
 BRODRIBB, M.A. 
 
 EURIPIDES, BY WILLIAM BODHAM DONNE. 
 JUVENAL, BY EDWARD WALFORD, M.A. 
 ARISTOPHANES, BY THE EDITOR. 
 HESIOD & THEOGNIS, BY JAMES DAVIES, M.A. 
 PLAUTUS AND TERENCE, BY THE EDITOR. 
 TACITUS, BY WILLIAM BODHAM DONNE. 
 LUCIAN, BY THE EDITOR. 
 PLATO, BY CLIFTON W. COLLINS. 
 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY, BY LORD 
 
 NEAVES.
 
 PLATO 
 
 BY 
 
 CLIFTON W. COLLINS, M.A. 
 
 H.M INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 MDCCCLXXIV
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 THE Dialogues of Plato have been grouped together 
 in this little volume as their subject or argument 
 seemed to suit the requirements of the Chapter in 
 which they will be found, without regard to chrono- 
 logical order. Nor has the vexed question of the 
 "Platonic Canon," or what are or are not the gen- 
 uine works of Plato, been entered upon in these 
 pages. All the Dialogues attributed to him in 
 Stallbaum's edition are accepted here, and discussed 
 with more or less brevity, as their interest for the 
 general reader seemed to require. 
 
 The writer desires to express his deep sense of his 
 obligations to Professor Jowett for permission to use 
 his valuable translation of Plato, from which most 
 of the quotations found in the text (including the 
 extracts marked "J.") have been made. Those 
 
 2000515
 
 vi INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 marked "D." are taken from the translation of the 
 " Republic " by Messrs Davies and Vaughan. 
 
 The other authorities most frequently consulted are 
 Grote's ' Plato and the other Companions of Socrates,' 
 Whewell's ' Platonic Dialogues,' Zeller's ' Socrates and 
 the Socratic Schools,' and the Histories of Philosophy 
 by Maurice, Hitter, and Ueberweg. 
 
 The writer also wishes to record his sense of the 
 kindness of H. W. Chandler ("VVaynflete Professor of 
 Moral Philosophy at Oxford), who was good enough 
 to read through the proofs of the first four chapters of 
 this volume.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAP. I. LIFE OF PLATO, 1 
 
 ii II. PHILOSOPHERS AND SOPHISTS, ... 19 
 
 DIALOGUES : PARMESIDES SOPHISTES PROTA- 
 GORAS GORGIAS HIPPIAS EUTHYDEMUS. 
 
 n III. SOCRATES AND HIS FRIENDS, ... 49 
 
 SYMPOSIUM PH^DRUS APOLOGY CRITO 
 PH.EDO. 
 
 i IV. DIALOGUES OF SEARCH, .... 80 
 
 LACHES CHARMIDES LYSIS MENOEUTHY- 
 PHRO CRATYLUS THE^ETETUS. 
 
 " v. PLATO'S IDEAL STATES, 109 
 
 M VI. THE MYTHS OF PLATO, 146 
 
 ii VII. RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ART, . . . 169 
 
 K vin. LAT?:R PLATONISM, 185
 
 PLATO. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LIFE OF PLATO. 
 
 " Eagle ! why soarest thou above that tomb, 
 To what sublime and star-y-paven home 
 
 Floatest thou ? 
 
 I am the image of great Plato's spirit, 
 Ascending heaven ; Athens doth inherit 
 His corpse below." 
 (Epitaph translated from the Greek by Shelley.) 
 
 PLATO was born at ^Egina in B.C. 430 the same year 
 that Pericles died of a noble family which traced its 
 descent from Codrus, the last hero -king of Attica. 
 Little is told us of his early years beyond some stories 
 of the divinity which hedged him in his childhood, 
 and a dream of Socrates,* in which he saw a cygnet 
 
 * Athenseus tells us of another dream, by no means so com- 
 plimentary to Plato, in which his spirit appeared to Socrates 
 in the form of a crow, which planted its claws firmly in the 
 bald head of the philosopher, and flapped its wings. The in- 
 terpretation of this dream, according to Socrates (or Athenseus), 
 was, that Plato would tell many lies about him. 
 
 A. C. Vol. XiX. A
 
 2 PL A TO. 
 
 fly towards him, nestle in his breast, and then spread 
 its wings and soar upwards, singing most sweetly. The 
 next morning Ariston appeared, leading his son Plato 
 to the philosopher, and Socrates knew that his dream 
 was fulfilled. 
 
 It is easy to fill in the meagre outlines of the 
 biography as given us by Diogenes Laertius ; for 
 Plato lived in a momentous time, when Athens could 
 not afford to let any of her sons stand aloof from 
 military service, and when every citizen must have 
 been more or less an actor in the history of his times. 
 Plato of course underwent the usual training of an 
 Athenian gentleman, such as he has sketched it him- 
 self in the " Protagoras ; " first attending the grammar 
 school, where he learnt his letters, and committed to 
 memory long passages from the poets, which he was 
 taught to repeat with proper emphasis and modulation ; 
 and the frequent quotations from Homer in his Dia- 
 logues prove how thoroughly this part of his mental 
 training was carried out.* Then he was transferred to 
 the Master who was to infuse harmony and rhythm 
 into his soul by means of the lyre and vocal music. 
 Then he learned mathematics, for which subject he 
 showed a special aptitude ; and we hear of him 
 
 * Several pieces of poetry bearing Plato's name have come 
 clown to us; and there is a graceful epitaph on "Stella," 
 ascribed to him, which Shelley has thus translated : 
 
 " Thou wert the morning star among the living, 
 
 Till thy fair light had fled ; 
 Now having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving 
 New splendour to the dead."
 
 LIFE OF PLATO. 3 
 
 wrestling in the palasstra, where his breadth of shoul- 
 ders stood him in good stead, and winning prizes 
 at the Isthmian games. He also found time to study 
 "the old masters" of philosophy, and (as might be 
 expected) the two whose works attracted him the 
 most were Heraclitus and Pythagoras. The melan- 
 choly of the one, and the mysticism of the other, 
 found an echo in his own thoughts. 
 
 He was fifteen at the time of the expedition to 
 Sicily, and was probably among the crowd which 
 watched the great fleet sail out of the harbour of 
 Piraeus in all the pomp and circumstance of war ; and 
 two years afterwards he must have shared in the 
 general despair, when the news came that the fleet 
 and the flower of the army had perished, and with 
 them the hopes of Athens. 
 
 Then Decelea (only fifteen miles from the city) was 
 fortified by the Spartans, and proved a very thorn in 
 the side of Attica; for flocks and herds were destroyed, 
 slaves fled thither in numbers, and watch had to be 
 kept by the Athenians night and day, to check the con- 
 tinual sallies made from thence by the enemy. Plato 
 was now eighteen, and was enrolled in the list which 
 corresponded to the modern Landwehr, and had to take 
 his share in that harassing garrison duty which fell 
 on rich and poor alike, when the citizens (as Thucy- 
 dides tells us) slept in their armour on the ramparts, 
 and Athens more resembled a military fort than a 
 city. 
 
 Then followed the loss of prestige and the defection 
 of allies ; for the subject islands either openly revolted
 
 4 PL A TO. 
 
 or intrigued secretly with Sparta ; and Alcibiades, the 
 only Athenian who could have saved Athens, was an 
 exile and a renegade, using Persian gold to levy Spartan 
 troops against his country. Suddenly the Athenians, 
 with the energy of despair, made a prodigious effort to 
 recover the empire of the seas, which was passing from 
 their hands. They melted down their treasures ; they 
 used the reserve fund which Pericles had stored up 
 for such an emergency ; and within thirty days they 
 had equipped a fresh fleet of over a hundred sail. 
 Then followed a general levy of the citizens ; every 
 man who could bear arms was pressed into the service ; 
 freedom was promised to any slave who would volun- 
 teer ; and even the Knights (of whom Plato was one) 
 forgot the dignity of their order, hung up their bridles 
 in the Acropolis, and went on board the fleet as 
 marines. There is no reason to suppose that Plato 
 shunned his duty at such a crisis ; and we may there- 
 fore conclude that he volunteered with the rest, served 
 with the squadron which relieved Mitylene, and was 
 present at the victory of Arginusse shortly afterwards. 
 Soon Alcibiades was recalled, and his genius gave a 
 different character to the war ; but the success of the 
 Athenians was only temporary. Lysander came upon 
 the scene ; and on the fatal shore of yEgos-Potami the 
 Athenian fleet was destroyed almost without a blow 
 being struck. Then followed the blockade of Athens, 
 the consequent famine, and the despair of the citizens, 
 with the foe without and two rival factions within, 
 till at last the city surrendered, and the long walls 
 were pulled down to the sound of Spartan music.
 
 LIFE OF PLATO. 5 
 
 "We have no clue, beyond a casual reference in 
 Xenophon, as to what part Plato took in subsequent 
 events. His own tastes and sympathies lay with 
 the few; and all his intimate friends were among 
 the oligarchs (the " good men and true," as they termed 
 themselves), who, by a coup d'etat, effected what is 
 known as the Eevolution of the Four Hundred. A 
 section of these formed the execrated Thirty Tyrants. 
 Critias, the master-spirit of this body, was Plato's 
 uncle, and probably had considerable influence over 
 him. But be this as it may, we find Plato attracted 
 by the programme in which the oligarchs pledged 
 themselves to reform abuses and to purge the state 
 of evil-doers ; and for a time, at all events, he was an 
 avowed partisan of the Thirty. But they soon threw 
 off the mask, and a Eeign of Terror followed, which 
 made their name for ever a byword among the Athe- 
 nians. Plato was probably in the first instance dis- 
 gusted by the jealous intolerance of this new party, 
 which drove the aged Protagoras into exile, and pro- 
 scribed philosophical lectures ; but when this intoler- 
 ance was followed by numerous assassinations, he was 
 utterly horrified, and at once withdrew from public life, 
 and from all connection with his former friends. 
 
 There was little indeed to tempt a man of Plato's 
 spirit and principles to meddle with the politics of his 
 day. The great statesmen, and with them the bloom 
 and brilliancy of the Periclean age, had passed away ; 
 and the very name of Pericles, as De Quincey says, 
 " must have sounded with the same echo from the 
 past as that of Pitt to the young men of our first
 
 6 PL A TO. 
 
 Reform Bill." The long war had done its work. 
 Not only had it wellnigh exhausted the revenues and 
 strength of Athens, but it had brought in its train, 
 as necessary consequences, ignoble passions, a selfish 
 party spirit, a confusion of moral sentiments, and an 
 audacious scepticism, which were going far to under- 
 mine the foundations of right and wrong. One revo- 
 lution had followed another so rapidly that public 
 confidence in the constitution was fast disappearing ; 
 and the worst symptom of a declining nation had 
 already shown itself, in that men of genius and honour 
 were beginning to despair of their country and to with- 
 draw from public life. We can well believe that the 
 picture which Plato draws of the Philosopher in his 
 " Republic " was no fancy sketch : 
 
 Those who belong to this small class have tasted how 
 sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is, and have also 
 seen and been satisfied of the madness of the multitude, 
 and known that there is no one who ever acts honestly in 
 the administration of states, nor any helper who will save 
 any one who maintains the cause of the just. Such a saviour 
 would be like a man who has fallen among wild beasts, unable 
 to join in the wickedness of his friends, and would have to 
 throw away his life before he had done any good to himself 
 or others. And he reflects upon all this, and holds his peace, 
 and does his own business. He is like one who retires 
 under the shelter of a wall in the storm of dust and sleet 
 which the driving wind hurries along ; and when he sees 
 the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content if 
 only he can live his own life, and be pure from evil or 
 unrighteousness, and depart in peace and goodwill, with 
 bright hopes.* 
 
 * Republic, iv. (Jowett.)
 
 C] LIFE OF PLATO. 7 
 
 t 
 
 The next twelve years must have been the period of 
 Plato's greatest intimacy with Socrates; and he was the 
 great philosopher's constant companion until the day of 
 his death. He had now no ties to bind him to Athens 
 perhaps, indeed, he did not feel secure there and he 
 went to live at Megara with his friend Euclid. Then 
 he set out upon those travels of which we hear so 
 much and know so little ; "and" (says an old his- 
 torian), "whilst studious youth were crowding to 
 Athens from every quarter in search of Plato for 
 their master, that philosopher was wandering along 
 the banks of Kile or the vast plains of a barbarous 
 country, himself a disciple of the old men of Egypt." * 
 After storing his mind with the wisdom of the Egyp- 
 tians, Plato is said to have gone on to Palestine and 
 Phoenicia to have reached China disguised as an oil 
 merchant to have had the " Unknown God " revealed 
 to him by Jewish rabbis and to have learned the 
 secrets of the stars from Chaldaean astronomers. But 
 these extended travels are probably a fiction. 
 
 His visit to Sicily, however, rests on better evidence. 
 He made a journey thither in the year 387 B.C., with 
 the object of witnessing an eruption of Mount Etna 
 already fatal to one philosopher, Empedocles. On his 
 way he stayed at Tarentum with his friend Archytas, 
 the great mathematician, and a member of the Pytha- 
 gorean brotherhood. This order which, like the 
 Jesuits, was exclusive, ascetic, and ambitious had 
 formerly had its representatives in every city of Magna 
 
 * Valerius Maximus, quoted in Lewes's Hist, of Philos., 
 i. 200.
 
 8 PL A TO. 
 
 Graseia, and had influenced their political history ac- 
 cordingly. Even then their traditions and mystic 
 ritual, as well as the ability shown by individual 
 members, daily attracted new converts. Among these 
 was Dion, the young brother-in-law of Dionysius, 
 Tyrant of Syracuse. Dion was introduced by the 
 Pythagoreans to Plato, and their acquaintance soon 
 warmed into a friendship which has become historical. 
 There was much on both sides that was attractive. In 
 Plato, Dion found the friend who never flattered, the 
 teacher who never dogmatised, the companion who was 
 never wearisome. The gracious eloquence, the charm 
 of manner, the knowledge of life, and, above all, the 
 generous and noble thoughts so frankly expressed by 
 Plato, must have had the same effect upon him as the 
 conversation of Socrates had upon Alcibiades. His 
 heart was touched, his enthusiasm was kindled, and he 
 became a new man. There dawned upon him the con- 
 ception of another Syracuse, freed from slavery, and 
 from the oppressive presence of foreign guards self- 
 governed, and with contented and industrious citizens 
 and Dion himself, the author of her liberties and the 
 founder of her laws, idolised by a grateful people. 
 
 These day-dreams had a strong effect on Dion ; and 
 Plato partly shared in his enthusiasm. As in his own 
 model Republic, all might be accomplished " if philo- 
 sophers were kings." Even as things were, if Diony- 
 sius would but look with a favourable eye upon Plato 
 and his teaching, much might be done in the way of 
 easing the yoke of tyranny which pressed so heavily 
 upon the wretched Syracusans.
 
 LIFE OF PLATO. 9 
 
 Accordingly, Plato visited Syracuse in company with 
 Dion, and was formally presented at court. But the 
 results were unsatisfactory. It was not, indeed, likely 
 that the philosopher, who was the sworn foe of Tyranny 
 in the abstract, and who looked upon the Tyrant as the 
 incarnation of all that was evil in human nature, would, 
 either by flattery or plain speaking, convince Dionysius 
 of the error of his ways. Plato had several interviews 
 with Dionysius; and we are told that he enlarged 
 upon his favourite doctrine of the happiness of the 
 virtuous and the inevitable misery of the wicked, till all 
 who heard him were charmed by his eloquence, except 
 the despot himself, who in a rage ordered him to be 
 taken down to the market-place there and then, and 
 to be sold as a slave to the highest bidder ; that so he 
 might put his own philosophy to a practical test, and 
 judge for himself if the virtuous man was still happy 
 in chains or in prison. Plato was accordingly sold, and 
 was " bought in " by his friends for twenty mines. 
 Another account is, that he was put on board a trireme 
 and landed at ^Egina on the way home, where he was 
 sold, and bought by a generous stranger, who set him 
 at liberty and restored him to Athens. In any case, 
 Plato might consider himself fortunate in escaping from 
 such a lion's den as the court of the savage Dionysius ; 
 and he had learnt a salutary lesson, that theoretical 
 politics are not so easily put into practice as men think, 
 and that caution and discretion are necessary in deal- 
 ing with the powers that be. 
 
 On his return to Athens, weary of politics, and 
 wishing to escape from the turmoil and distractions
 
 10 PLATO. 
 
 of the town, he retired to a house and garden which 
 he had purchased (or inherited, for the accounts differ) 
 at Colonus. There, or in the famous " olive grove " of 
 the Academy close by, he gave lectures to, or held dis- 
 / cussions with, a distinguished and constantly increas- 
 ing body of pupils. Sauntering among the tall plane- 
 trees, or pacing those historical colonnades, might 
 be found all the wit and genius of the day, men 
 of science and men of letters artists, poets, and, in 
 greater numbers than all, would-be philosophers. The 
 pupils of Plato, unlike the p'oor crushed followers of 
 Socrates, are described by one comic poet as dandies 
 with curled hair, elegant dress, and affected walk ; and 
 we are told by another how the master's broad shoulders 
 towered above the rest, and how he charmed them with 
 his sweet speech, " melodious as the song of the cicalas 
 in the trees above his head." K"o one must suppose, 
 however, that the subjects of discussion in the Academy 
 were trivial or frivolous. Over the gates was to be seen 
 the formidable inscription " Let none but Geometri- 
 cians enter here ; " * and, according to Aristotle, the lec- 
 tures were on the Supreme Good i.e., the One, as con- 
 trasted with the Infinite. 
 
 Twenty years thus passed, and Plato's eloquence was 
 daily attracting to the Academy fresh students from all 
 parts of Greece, when he received a second summons 
 to visit Sicily from his old friend and pupil Dion, with 
 whom he had kept up a constant correspondence. 
 Dionysius I. was dead, and his empire, "fastened" 
 
 * Sir W. Hamilton considers this tradition "at least six cen- 
 turies too late." Essays, p. 27, note.
 
 LIFE OF PLATO. 11 
 
 (as he expressed it) " by chains of adamant," had 
 passed to his son a young, vain, and inexperienced 
 prince, who had not inherited either the ability or 
 energy of his father. Dion still retained his position 
 as minister and family adviser, and there seemed to be 
 at last an opening under the new regime for carrying 
 out his favourite scheme of restoring liberty to the 
 Syracusans. Accordingly he spared no pains to im- 
 press the young prince with the wisdom and eloquence 
 of Plato ; and so successfully did he work upon his 
 better feelings, that Dionysius, says Plutarch, "was 
 seized with a keen and frantic desire to hear and con- 
 verse with the philosopher." He accordingly sent a 
 pressing invitation to Plato, and this was coupled with 
 a touching appeal from Archytas and other Pytha- 
 goreans, who looked eagerly forward to a regeneration 
 of Syracuse. Plato (though reluctant to leave his work 
 at the Academy) felt constrained to revisit Sicily 
 "less with the hope of succeeding in the intended 
 conversion of Dionysius, than from the fear of hearing 
 both himself and his philosophy taunted with con- 
 fessed impotence, as fit only for the discussion of the 
 school, and shrinking from all application to practice."* 
 He was received at Syracuse with every mark of 
 honour and respect. Dionysius himself came in his 
 chariot to meet him on landing, and a public sacrifice 
 was offered as a thanksgiving for his arrival. And at 
 first all things went well. There was a reformation in 
 the manners of the court. The royal banquets were 
 
 * Grote, Hist, of Greece, vii. 517.
 
 12 PLATO. 
 
 curtailed ; the conversation grew intellectual ; and 
 geometry became so much the fashion that nothing 
 was to be seen in the palace but triangles and figures 
 traced in the sand. Many of the foreign soldiers were 
 dismissed ; and at an anniversary sacrifice, when the 
 herald made the usual prayer " May the gods long 
 preserve the Tyranny, and may the Tyrant live for ever," 
 Dionysius is said to have stopped him with the 
 words " Imprecate no such curse on me or mine." 
 So deeply was he impressed by Plato's earnest pleading 
 in behalf of liberty and toleration, that he was* even 
 t prepared, we are told, to establish a limited monarchy 
 in place of the existing despotism, and to restore free 
 government to those Greek cities in Sicily which had 
 been enslaved by his father. But Plato discounte- 
 nanced any such immediate action ; his pupil must go 
 through the prescribed training, must reform himself, 
 and be imbued with the true philosophical spirit, 
 before he could be allowed to put his principles into 
 practice. And thus, like other visionary schemes of 
 reform, the golden opportunity passed away for ever. 
 The ascendancy of " the Sophist from Athens " (as 
 Plato was contemptuously termed) roused the jealousy 
 of the old Sicilian courtiers, and their slanders poisoned 
 the mind of Dionysius, whose enthusiasm had already 
 cooled. He grew suspicious of the designs of Dion, 
 and, without giving him a chance of defending himself 
 against his accusers, had him put on board a vessel 
 and sent to Italy as an exile. Plato himself was de- 
 tained a state prisoner in the palace, flattered and 
 caressed by Dionysius, who appears to have had a
 
 LIFE OF PLATO. 13 
 
 sincere admiration and regard for him, but at the same 
 time to have found the Platonic discipline too severe a 
 trial for his own weak and luxurious nature. At last 
 he was allowed to depart, after giving a conditional 
 promise to return, in the event of Dion being recalled 
 from exile. It is said that, as he was embarking, 
 Dionysius said to him "When thou art in the 
 Academy with thy philosophers, thou wilt speak ill of 
 me." " God forbid," was Plato's answer, " that we 
 should have so much time to waste in the Academy as 
 to speak of Dionysius at all." 
 
 Ten years later Plato is induced for the third and 
 last time by the earnest appeal of Dionysius to revisit 
 Syracuse ; and a condition of his coming was to be the 
 recall of Dion. As before, he is affectionately wel- 
 comed, and is treated as an honoured guest ; but so far 
 from Dion being recalled, his property is confiscated 
 by Dionysius, and his wife given in marriage to another 
 man ; and Plato (who only obtains leave to depart 
 through the intercession of Archytas) is himself the 
 bearer of the unwelcome news to Dion, whom he meets ^ 
 at the Olympic games on his way home. Dfon (as we 
 may easily imagine) is bitterly incensed at this last 
 insult, and immediately sets about levying an army to 
 assert his rights and procure his return by force. At 
 Olympia he parts company from Plato, and the two 
 friends never meet again. The remainder of Dion's 
 eventful career (more romantic, perhaps, than that of 
 any other hero of antiquity) has been well sketched 
 by Mr Grote, who records his triumphant entry into 
 Syracuse, his short-lived popularity, the intrigues and
 
 
 14 PLATO. 
 
 conspiracy of Heraclides, whose life he had spared, and 
 his base assassination by his friend Callippus. 
 
 Once more restored to Athens, Plato continued his 
 lectures in the Academy, and also employed himself in 
 composing those philosophical Dialogues which bear 
 his name, and of which some. thirty have come down 
 to us. Several reasons probably contributed to make 
 Plato throw his thoughts into this form. First, it 
 was the only way in which he could give a just idea 
 of the Socratic method, and of the persistent exami- 
 nation through which Socrates was wont to put all 
 comers ; again, he wished to show the chain of argu- 
 ment gradually unwinding itself, and by using the milder 
 form of discussion and inquiry, to avoid even the ap- 
 pearance of dogmatism, especially as he must have often 
 felt that he was treading on dangerous ground. Prolix 
 and wearisome as some of these Dialogues may often 
 seem to modern ears, we must remember that they were 
 the first specimens of their kind ; that they were writ- 
 ten when the world was still young, when there was 
 little writing of any sort, and when romances, essays, 
 or " light literature " were unknown ; while at the 
 same time there was a clever, highly-educated, and 
 sympathetic " public " ready then as now to devour, 
 to admire, and to criticise. After the barren wastes of 
 the old philosophy, with its texts and axioms, its quo- 
 tations from the poets, and crude abstractions from 
 nature, these Dialogues must have burst upon the 
 Athenian world as an unexpected oasis upon weary 
 travellers in the desert ; and they must have hailed 
 with delight these fresh springs of truth, and these
 
 LIFE OF PLATO. 15 
 
 new pastures for thought and feeling. As a new 
 phase of literature, we may well believe that they 
 were received with the same interest and surprise as 
 the appearance of the ' Spectator ' in the last century, 
 or the ' "Waverley Novels ' at the beginning of our own. 
 They were, in fact, the causeries de Lundi of their age. 
 Plato assuredly knew well the lively and versatile 
 character of those for whom he was writing. The 
 grave and didactic tone of a modern treatise on philo- 
 sophy would have fallen very flat on the ears of an 
 Athenian audience, accustomed to see their gods, 
 statesmen, and philosophers brought upon the stage 
 in a grotesque medley, and unsparingly caricatured. 
 But not Momus himself (as a Greek would have said) 
 could have turned these Dialogues into ridicule ; and 
 their very faults their want of method and general 
 discursiveness must have been a relief after the for- 
 mal commonplaces of the Sophists. Plato himself 
 makes no pretence of following any rules or system. 
 " "Whither the argument blows, we will follow it," he 
 says in the " Eepublic," and he is fond of telling us 
 that a philosopher has plenty of time on his hands. But 
 the vivacity and variety, the subtle humour which 
 can never be exactly reproduced in a translation the 
 charming scenes which serve as a framework to the 
 discussion, and, above all, the purity and sweetness of 
 the language, which earned for the writer the title of 
 " The Attic Bee," all these were reasons for the 
 popularity which these Dialogues undoubtedly enjoyed. 
 There is no means of fixing the order in which they 
 were written, but they probably all belong to the last
 
 16 PLATO. 
 
 forty years of his life. A story is indeed extant to the 
 effect that Socrates heard the " Lysis " read to him, 
 and exclaimed " Good heavens ! what a heap of false- 
 hoods this young man tells about me ! " but Socrates 
 had in all probability died some years before the "Lysis" 
 was published. The speakers in these Dialogues are 
 no more historical than the characters in Shakspeare's 
 plays, and Plato was (perhaps purposely) careless 
 of dates and names. But the personages thus intro- 
 duced serve their purpose. They give a life and a real- 
 ity to the scenes and conversations which is wanting 
 in Berkeley's Dialogues, and in all modern imitations, 
 and their tempers and peculiarities are touched by a 
 master-hand. But there is one character which Plato 
 never paints, and that is his own. Except in two 
 casual allusions, he never directly or indirectly intro- 
 duces himself ; and no one can argue, from the internal 
 evidence of his writings, as to what he was or was not. 
 Like Shakspeare, he deserves Coleridge's epithei of 
 " myriad-minded," for he appears to us in all shapes and 
 characters. He was " sceptic, dogmatist, religious 
 mystic and inquisitor, mathematical philosopher, artist, 
 poet all in one, or at least all in succession, during 
 the fifty years of his philosophical life." * 
 
 There is one pervading feature of similarity in all 
 the Dialogues, and that is, the style.t If Jove had 
 spoken Greek (it was said of old), he would have 
 
 * Grote's Plato, i. 214. 
 
 t Sir Arthur Helps, himself a writer of purest English, has 
 given us in ' Realmah ' his ideas of what a perfect style should 
 be. Every word in his description would closely apply to Plato,
 
 LIFE OF PLATO. 17 
 
 spoken it like Plato ; and Quintilian no mean critic 
 declared that his language soared so far at times above 
 the ordinary prose, that it seemed as if the writer was 
 inspired by the Delphic Oracle. But these very sen- 
 tences which seem to us to flow so easily, and which 
 we think must have been written currents calamo, wore 
 really elaborate in their simplicity; and the anecdote 
 of thirteen different versions of the opening sentence 
 in the " Eepublic " having been found in the author's 
 handwriting is probably based upon fact. 
 
 Up to the age of eighty-one, Plato continued his liter- 
 ary work " combing, and curling, and weaving, and 
 unweaving his writings after a variety of fashions ; " * 
 and death, so Cicero tells us, came upon him as he 
 was seated at his desk, pen in hand. He was buried 
 among the olive-trees in his own garden; and his 
 disciples celebrated a yearly festival in his memory. 
 
 As might be expected, such a man did not escape 
 satire and detraction even in his own day. To say 
 that he was ridiculed by the comic poets, is merely to 
 say that he paid the penalty common to all eminence 
 at Athens ; but he was accused of vanity, plagiarism, 
 and what not, by writers such as Antisthenes and 
 Aristoxenus, whose philosophy might have taught 
 
 especially the concluding lines ; . . . " and withal there must 
 be a sense of felicity about it, declaring it to be the product of 
 a happy moment, so that you feel it will not happen again to 
 that man who writes the sentence, nor to any other of the sons 
 of men, to say the like thing so choicely, tersely, mellifluously, 
 and completely." Realmah, i. 175. 
 
 * Dionysius of Halicarnassus, quoted ill Sewell's Dialogues 
 of Plato, p. 55. 
 
 A. C. vol. xix. c
 
 18 PL A TO. 
 
 them better. Athenaeus, with whom no reputation is 
 sacred, devotes six successive chapters to a merciless 
 attack on his personal character ; and besides retailing 
 some paltry anecdotes as to his being fond of figs, and 
 inventing a musical water-clock which chimed the 
 hours at night, he accuses him of jealousy and malev- 
 olence towards his brother philosophers, and tells a 
 story to show his arrogance, and the dislike with which 
 his companions regarded him. On the same evening 
 that Socrates died (so says Athenseus), the select few 
 who had been with him in the prison, met together at 
 supper. All were sad and silent, and had not the 
 heart to eat or drink. But Plato filled a cup with 
 wine, and bade them be of good cheer, for he would 
 worthily fill their master's place ; and he invited 
 Apollodorus to drink his health, and passed him the 
 cup. But Apollodorus refused it with indignation, 
 and said, " I would rather have pledged Socrates in 
 his hemlock, than pledge you in this wine."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PHILOSOPHERS AND SOPHISTS. 
 
 IUALOGUES : PARMENIDES SOPHISTES PROTAGORAS 
 GORGIAS HIPPIAS ECTHYDEMUS. 
 
 " Divine Philosophy, 
 
 Not harsh and rugged, as dull fools suppose, 
 But musical as is Apollo's lute." Milton. 
 
 " PHILOSOPHY," says Plato in his ' Theaetetus,' " begins 
 in wonder, for Iris is the child of Thaumas." It is 
 the natural impulse of the savage, wherever he sees 
 force and motion that he cannot explain, to invent a 
 god; and so the first stage of Science is a sort of 
 Fetishism, or worship of the powers of nature. The 
 Greek, especially curious and inventive, carried this 
 tendency to its furthest limits ; and the result was an 
 elaborate Mythology, in which every object and oper- 
 ation in the physical world was referred to a special 
 god. Thus the thunder was caused by the wrath of 
 Zeus ; the earthquake was produced by Poseidon ; 
 and the pestilence by the arrows of Apollo. Poets 
 like Homer and Hesiod reduced these myths to a sys- 
 tem, and perpetuated them in their verse ; and so it 
 may be said that Greek philosophy springs from 
 poetry, for in this poetry are contained the germs of
 
 20 PLA TO. 
 
 all subsequent thought. Homer, indeed, has been 
 called " the Greek Bible ; " and every Athenian 
 gentleman is said to have known the Iliad and 
 Odyssey by heart. Their morality, it is true, was of 
 a rough and ready character, suited to the high spirit 
 of heroic times, when war and piracy were the hero's 
 proper profession ; but there are everywhere traces of 
 a strict code of honour and a keen sense of rights and 
 duties. The oath and the marriage tie, the claims of 
 age and weakness, the guest and the suppliant, are all 
 respected ; and though all stratagems are held to be 
 fair in war, Achilles, the poet's model hero, tells us 
 that his soul detests the liar " like the gates of hell." 
 
 Hesiod looks back with regret to the heroes of this 
 golden time, long since departed to the islands of the 
 blest. His own lot has fallen upon evil days ; the 
 earth has lost its bloom ; the present race of men are 
 sadly degenerate ; and Shame and Retribution, the 
 two last remaining virtues, have gone for ever. 
 
 Simonides and Theognis complete this gloomy pic- 
 ture ; they and the other " Gnomic " poets, fragments 
 of whose writings have come down to us, preach for 
 the most part a prudential morality, unlike the chival- 
 rous naivete of Homer, and expressed in mournful 
 sentences which read like verses from Ecclesiastes. 
 The uncertainty of fortune, the inconstancy of friends, 
 the miseries of poverty and sickness these are the 
 phases of life which strike them most. 
 
 Then come the " Seven Wise Men," of whom 
 Solon was one, who stand on the border-land of ro- 
 mance and history, like the Seven Champions of
 
 
 DIALOGUES. 21 
 
 Christendom. We know little of them beyond those 
 aphorisms ascribed to each of them, and said to 
 have been engraven in gold on the gates of Delphi, 
 which became as household words in Greece, and some 
 of which have found their way into modern proverbs 
 " The golden mean," " Know thyself," " Virtue is 
 difficult," " Call no man happy till he dies." Ano- 
 ther of the seven was Thales half star-gazer, half 
 man of business honoured by Aristotle with the 
 title of " the first philosopher." He and those who 
 followed him tried to discover some one element or 
 first principle underlying the incessant change and 
 motion which they saw in the world around them. 
 Thales believed this principle to be Water improving 
 on the old myth of Oceanus, the eternal river that 
 girds the universe. Anaximander thought the uni- 
 verse originally was a bath of flames, or a ring of 
 fire broken up into sun, moon, and stars, while the 
 earth remained balanced like a column in the centre. 
 Anaximenes, again, said that " Air ruled over all 
 things ; and the Soul, being Air, ruled in man." Thus 
 these three Ionian philosophers took each some one 
 element as the symbol of an abstract idea. 
 
 Then came Heraclitus of Ephesus, surnamed the 
 Obscure, " shooting," says Plato, " as from a quiver, 
 sayings brief and dark." He is oppressed with the 
 sense of the perpetual change in nature. Xothing is 
 at rest, all is in continual movement and progression. 
 Life and time are like a stream flowing on for ever, 
 in which thoughts and actions appear for a moment 
 and then vanish. Pythagoras, again, maintained that
 
 22 PL A TO. 
 
 Number was the sacred and unchangeable principle by 
 which the universe was regulated ; that there was a 
 " music of the spheres ;" and that the soul itself was a 
 harmony imprisoned in the body : while his contempo- 
 rary Democritus, " the first materialist," held that by 
 some law of necessity countless atoms had moved to- 
 gether in the void of space, and so produced a world. 
 
 Lastly, the Eleatics took higher ground, and con- 
 ceived the idea of one eternal and absolute Being 
 which alone exists, while non-existence is inconceiv- 
 able. Plurality and change, space and time, are 
 merely illusions of the senses. This doctrine is set 
 forth at some length by Parmenides, the founder of 
 this school of thought, in an epic poem, in which he 
 has been commissioned, he says, by the goddess of 
 wisdom, " to show unto men the unchangeable heart 
 of truth." Plato, who always speaks of him with re- 
 spect " more honoured than all the rest of philoso- 
 phers put together" has given his name to one of 
 his Dialogues, in which he introduces him as visiting 
 Athens in his old age, in company with Zeno, his 
 friend and pupil, and there discussing his theories 
 with Socrates, then a young man of twenty. 
 
 The Dialogue turns upon the difficulties involved in 
 the famous Eleatic saying, that " the All is one, and 
 the many are nought ; " but, by an easy transition, the 
 argument in the first part of the Dialogue discusses the 
 doctrine of Ideas the key-stone of Plato's philosophy. 
 This doctrine seems to have grown upon him, and en- 
 grossed his mind ; and his poetic feeling is continually 
 suggesting additions and embellishments to it, just as
 
 PARMENIDES. 23 
 
 an. artist adds fresh, touches to a favourite picture. 
 He admits, with Heraclitus, that all objects of sense 
 are fleeting and changeable ; and he admits with the 
 Eleatics that Being alone can really be said to exist ; 
 but he blends these two theories together. Everything 
 that we can name or see has its eternal Idea or pro- 
 totype; and this particular flower, with its sensible 
 bloom and fragrance, is merely the transitory image 
 or expression of the universal Flower that never fades. 
 And thus, far removed from this material world of t 
 birth and death, change and decay, Plato conceived 
 another world of pure and perfect forms, imperceptible 
 by earthly senses and perceived by the eye of reason 
 alone, each form in itself separate, unchangeable,' and 
 everlasting, and each answering to some visible object 
 to which it imparts a share of its own divine essence, 
 as the sun gives light to nature. 
 
 But (objects Parmenides in this Dialogue), how can 
 you bridge over the gulf which separates the sensible 
 from the Ideal world 1 How do these earthly imita- 
 tions of the Ideas partake of the essence of their di- 
 vine prototypes? And how far can you carry your 
 theory ? Have the meanest as well as the noblest ob- 
 jectshair and mud, for instance, as well as beauty 
 and truth their ideal Forms 1 Again, there may be 
 Ideas of Ideas, and so you may go on generalising to 
 infinity. Lastly, they cannot be only conceptions 
 the mind ; while, if they are types in nature and have 
 a real existence, we cannot know them ; for all human 
 knowledge is relative, and to comprehend these eter- 
 nal and absolute Ideas, we should require an Ideal and 
 
 to 
 of
 
 24 PLA TO. 
 
 absolute knowledge, such as the gods alone can pos- 
 sess. Of ourselves, therefore, we cannot know these 
 Ideas ; and yet, unless we admit that absolute and ab- 
 stract Ideas exist, all discussion nay, all philosophy 
 is at an end. 
 
 These objections, so skilfully put by Parmenides, are 
 not answered by Plato in this, or indeed in any other 
 Dialogue ; and he thus makes out a strong case against 
 his own favourite theory. Socrates himself is lectured 
 by Parmenides on his defective mental training. His 
 enthusiasm (says the old philosopher), which makes 
 him " keen as a Spartan hound " in the quest of 
 truth, is a noble impulse in itself ; but it will be use- 
 less unless he, so to speak, reads his adversary's brief, 
 and studies a question in all its bearings, tracing all 
 the consequences which may follow from the assump- 
 tion or denial of some hypothesis. Above all, So- 
 crates should cultivate " Dialectic," * which alone can 
 enable him to separate the ideal from the sensible, and 
 is an indispensable exercise, although most people re- 
 gard it as mere idle talking. 
 
 Parmenides is then prevailed upon himself to give 
 an example of this " laborious pastime ; " though, as he 
 says, he shakes with fear at the thought of his self-im- 
 posed task, " like an old race-horse before running the 
 course he knows so well." He selects for examination 
 his own Eleatic theory, and traces the consequences 
 which follow from the contradictory assumptions that 
 " One is," and " One is not." We need not follow him 
 
 * The process by which the definitions of Logic are attained.
 
 PARMEN1LES. 25 
 
 through the mazes of this chain of arguments, which 
 result after all in two contradictory conclusions. It is 
 doubtful if Plato had any other object in this "leger- 
 demain of words " than to stimulate the curiosity of 
 a youthful inquirer like Socrates with a series of argu- 
 ments as puzzling and equivocal as the riddle in his 
 " Republic," to which Mr Grote compares them : " A 
 man and no man, seeing and not seeing, a bird and no 
 bird, sitting upon wood and no wood, struck and did 
 not strike it with a stone and no stone." The only 
 difference is, that in one case the author knew the 
 solution of his riddle; while it may be doubted if 
 Plato himself held the key to the enigmas in his 
 " Parmenides." 
 
 In tliis Dialogue we are introduced also to Zeno 
 "Parmenides' second self" the able exponent of 
 the art of Dialectic, and a type of a new stage of Greek 
 thought which had just commenced with the Sophists. 
 The appearance of these professors at Athens was a 
 sign of the times. Hitherto, as we have seen, philo- 
 sophy had resulted in rough abstractions from Nature 
 or in a vague Idealism; but now thought was directed 
 to the practical requirements of life, and the Sophists 
 supplied a recognised want in the education of the 
 age. They were the professors of universal know- 
 ledge ; and, above all, they taught Rhetoric in the 
 view of an Athenian the most important of all branches 
 of learning. To speak with fluency and dignity was 
 not so much an accomplishment as a necessary safe- 
 guard at Athens, where " Informers " abounded, where 
 litigation was incessant, and where a citizen was liable
 
 26 PL A TO. 
 
 to be called upon to defend his life and property any 
 day, in one of the numerous law-courts. Again, elo- 
 quence, far more than with us, was a source of success 
 and popularity in public life ; and as a French soldier 
 was said to cany a marshal's baton in his knapsack, so 
 every citizen who had the natural or acquired gift of 
 eloquence might aspire to rise from the ranks, and be- 
 come president of Athens. Provided that he had a 
 ready and plausible tongue, neither his poverty nor 
 mean descent need stand in his way; for the foremost 
 placo in Athens had been occupied in succession by a 
 tanner and a lamp-seller. The small number of citizens, 
 as compared with slaves, made political power more 
 accessible than in our over-grown democracies ; and 
 every citizen was forced to become part and parcel of 
 the state in which he lived. Moreover, the Greek 
 Assembly was more easily moved by an appeal to their 
 feelings or imagination, especially on an occasion of 
 strong public interest, than a modern House of Com- 
 mons. Sometimes their enthusiasm broke through all 
 bounds, and Plato's description of the effect produced 
 by a popular orator is probably not exaggerated. 
 
 All motives, therefore policy, ambition, self-defence 
 combined to induce the Athenian to learn the art 
 of speaking, and there was an increasing demand for 
 teachers. The Sophists undertook to qualify the young 
 aspirant for political distinction ; to teach him to think, 
 speak, and act like a citizen, to convince or cajole the 
 Assembly, to hold his own in the law-court, and gen- 
 erally to give him the power of making " the worse 
 seem the better reason." Their lecture-rooms were
 
 SOPITISTES. 27 
 
 crowded ; they were idolised by the rising generation ; 
 and they not uncommonly made large fortunes, charg- 
 ing often as much as fifty drachmas (about two guineas) 
 a lesson ; for few of them would have the magnanimity 
 of Protagoras, who left it to the conscience of his pupils 
 to name their own fees. 
 
 The Sophists were the sceptics and rationalists of 
 their times, and they headed the reaction against the 
 dogmatism of previous philosophy. According to 
 them, there was no fixed standard of morality ; real 
 knowledge was impossible ; tradition was false ; reli- 
 gion was the invention of lying prophets; law and 
 justice were devices of the strong to ensnare the weak ; 
 pleasure and pain were the only criteria of right and 
 wrong ; each man should use his private judgment in 
 all matters, and do that which seemed good in his 
 own eyes. 
 
 "We can hardly estimate the mingled feelings of fear 
 and dislike with which an average Athenian citizen 
 would regard the influence undoubtedly possessed by 
 this class. Patriotism and religious prejudice would 
 intensify the hatred against these foreign sceptics ; 
 and added to this would be the popular antipathy 
 which has in all times shown itself against scheming 
 lawyers and ambitious churchmen 
 
 " Chicane in furs, and casuistry in lawn." 
 
 For, inasmuch as philosophy was closely blended with 
 their religion, the Sophist would seem to practise a sort 
 of intellectual simony ; tampering with and selling at 
 a high price the divinest mysteries ; holding the keys
 
 28 PLATO. 
 
 of knowledge themselves, but refusing to impart, except 
 to such as came with full purses, those truths which 
 were to the Greek as the very bread of life. 
 
 Doubtless Plato had sufficient reason to justify the 
 repulsive picture which he has drawn of the Sophist 
 in several of his Dialogues, as "the charlatan, the 
 foreigner, the prince of esprits faux, the hireling who 
 is not a teacher ; 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." * 
 
 In the Dialogue called THE SOPHIST, an attempt 
 is made to define, by a regular logical process called 
 " dichotomy," the real nature of this many-sided crea- 
 ture ; no easy task, says Plato, " for the animal is 
 troublesome, and hard to catch." He has a variety of 
 characters. Firstly, he is a sort of hunter, and his art 
 is like the angler's, with the difference that he is a 
 fisher of men, and baits his hook with pleasure, 
 " haunting the rich meadow-lands of generous youth." 
 Secondly, he is like a retail trader, but his merchandise 
 is a spurious knowledge which he buys from others or 
 fabricates for himself as he wanders from city to city. 
 Thirdly, he is a warrior, but his tongue is his sword 
 with which he is eternally wrangling about right and 
 wrong for money. Fourthly, since education purifies 
 the soul by casting out ignorance or the false conceit 
 of knowledge, men would have you believe that the 
 Sophist does this ; though, as a matter of fact, he is 
 
 * Jowett's Plato, iii. 448.
 
 PROTAGORAS. 29 
 
 about as like the real " purger of souls " as a wolf 
 is like a dog. Lastly, this creature aspires to universal 
 knowledge, and will argue ay, and teach others to 
 argue about any object in creation; and, like a clever 
 painter, he will impose upon you the appearance for 
 the reality, and thus he steals away the hearts of our 
 young men, deceiving their ears and deluding their 
 senses, while he disguises his own ignorance under a 
 cloud of words. In fact, he is a mere imitator and 
 an imitator of appearance, not of reality. 
 
 " But how " (an objector replies) " can a man be said 
 to affirm or imitate that which is only appearance, and 
 has no real existence 1 " This quibble is followed by a 
 perplexing discussion on "!Not- Being " the stumbling- 
 block of Eleatic philosophers. To us nothing can be 
 simpler than the distinction between " this is not," 
 i.e, does not exist and " this is not," i.e., is not true ; 
 but so oppressed was the Eleatic with the sense of 
 "Being" as alone having existence, that he held that 
 no reality could be attached to non-being ; and there- 
 fore falsehood, which was merely the expression of 
 non-being, was impossible. Nothing would be gained 
 by following out the threads of this difficult argument ; 
 and we may dismiss the Eleatic theory with the con- 
 solation that, as Professor Jowett says, Plato has effec- 
 tually " laid its ghost " we will hope, for ever. 
 
 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 The opening of this Dialogue is highly dramatic. 
 Socrates is awakened before daylight by the young 
 Hippocrates, who is all on fire to see and hear this Pro-
 
 30 PLA TO. 
 
 tagoras, who lias just come to Athens. Socrates calms 
 liis excitement, and advises him to be sure, before he 
 pays his money to the great Sophist, that he will get 
 his money's worth ; for it is a rash thing to commit his 
 soul to the instruction of a foreigner, before he knows 
 his real character, or whether his doctrines are for 
 good or for evil. " my friend ! " he says, earnestly, 
 " pause a moment before you hazard your dearest in- 
 terests on a game of chance ; for you cannot buy know- 
 ledge and carry it away in an earthly vessel : in your 
 own soul you must receive it, to be a blessing or a 
 curse." 
 
 Talking thus gravely on the way, they arrive at the 
 house of Callias, who had spent more money on the 
 Sophists so Plato tells us than any other Athenian 
 of his times. The doorkeeper is surly, and at first 
 refuses to admit them, thinking that his master has 
 had enough of the Sophists and their friends already. 
 But at last they enter, and find a large company 
 already assembled within. Protagoras himself is 
 walking up and down the colonnade, declaiming to 
 a troop of youths who had followed him from all 
 parts of Greece, attracted by the music of his words, 
 "as though he were a second Orpheus." Hippias, 
 another Sophist, whom we shall meet again, is lecturing 
 on astronomy to a select audience in the opposite 
 portico ; while the deep voice of Prodicus, a younger 
 professor, is heard from an adjoining room, where he 
 lies still warmly wrapped up in. bed, and conversing 
 from it to another circle of listeners. 
 
 Socrates at once steps up to Protagoras, and tells
 
 PROTAGORAS. 31 
 
 liim the purpose for which they have sought him ; 
 and the great man makes a gracious answer. " Yes 
 Hippocrates has done right to come to him, for he is 
 not as other Sophists. He will not treat him like a 
 schoolboy, and weary him with astronomy and music. 
 ]STo ; he will teach him nobler and more useful lessons 
 than these : prudence, that he may order his own 
 house well ', and political wisdom, that he may prove 
 himself a good citizen and a wise statesman." 
 
 " But," asks Socrates, half incredulously, " can such 
 wisdom and virtue as this be really taught at all 1 If 
 it were so, would not our statesmen have taught their 
 own children the art by which they became great them- 
 selves, and the mantle of Pericles have descended in 
 a measure upon his sons ? " 
 
 To this Protagoras replies by a parable. Man was 
 overlooked in the original distribution of gifts by 
 Epimetheus among mortal creatures, and was left the 
 only bare and defenceless animal in creation; and 
 though Prometheus strove to remedy his brother's 
 oversight as far as he could, by giving him fire and 
 other means of life, still there was no principle of 
 government, and man kept slaying and plundering his 
 brother man ; till at last Jove took pity on him, and 
 sent Hermes to distribute justice and friendship, not 
 to a favoured few, but to all alike. " For," said Jove, 
 " cities cannot exist, if a few only share in the virtues, 
 as in the arts ; and further, make a law by my order, 
 that he who has no part in reverence and justice shall 
 be put to death as a plague to the state." The very 
 fact that evil-doers are punished, not in retaliation for
 
 32 I'LA TO. 
 
 past wrong, but to prevent future wrong, is a proof 
 that certain virtues can be acquired " from study, and 
 exercise, and teaching." In fact, a man's education 
 begins in his cradle. From childhood he is placed 
 under tutors and governors, and stimulated to virtue 
 by admonitions, by threats, or blows. When he arrives 
 at man's estate, the law takes the place of his masters, 
 and compels him to live uprightly. He who rebels 
 against instruction or punishment is either exiled or 
 condemned to death, under the idea that he is in- 
 curable. " Who teaches virtue, say you 1 (Protagoras 
 continues) ; you might as well ask Avho teaches Greek. 
 The fact is, all men are its teachers, parents, guard- 
 ians, tutors, the laws, society each and all do their 
 part in forming a man's character." 
 
 Socrates professes himself charmed with the elo- 
 quence of Protagoras ; but there is one little ques- 
 tion further upon which he would like to have his 
 opinion. " Is there one virtue, or are there many 1 " 
 Protagoras, who at first argues that the virtues are 
 separate like the different features of a man's face 
 is forced much against his will to admit that holiness 
 is much the same as justice, and so on with the 
 several others. 
 
 Then a line from the poet Simonides is discussed 
 " It is hard to be good ; " and Protagoras, who had 
 been hitherto the chief speaker, is himself put to the 
 question by Socrates, with a reminder that short 
 answers are best for short memories like his own. 
 This discussion is simply a satire on the verbal criti- 
 cism so common in that age, and reduced to a science
 
 GORGIAS. 33 
 
 by the Sophists ; when men in the very exuberance of 
 thought, like the Euphuists in the Elizabethan age, 
 fenced with sharp sayings taking, as here, some well- 
 known text from a poet, illustrating its meaning, and 
 using it to point a moral, like a preacher in a modern 
 pulpit. 
 
 But this criticism is admitted by both sides to be a 
 somewhat commonplace amusement. To quote from 
 the poets, says Socrates, with some sarcasm, especially 
 when they are not present to tell us what they really 
 meant, is a mere waste of time ; it is like listening to 
 a flute-girl after dinner, and betrays a dearth of inven- 
 tion on the part of the company. So the original 
 argument on the plurality of Virtue is resumed ; and 
 it is proved, to the satisfaction at least of one dis- 
 putant, that knowledge is not only a power in itself, 
 but is also the main element in every virtue ; and that 
 even if pleasure were the rule of life which it is not 
 still knowledge would be required to strike the 
 balance between pleasure and pain. 
 
 Among the professors of the day none was more 
 distinguished than Gorgias of Leontini, who came as 
 an ambassador to Athens to obtain her aid against 
 Syracuse before the great Sicilian war. His doctrines 
 resulted in utter Nihilism. Nothing (he said) exists ; 
 if anything existed, it could not be known ; and, even 
 if it could be known, such knowledge could not be 
 imparted. In this Dialogue he is the guest of Cal- 
 licles, an accomplished Athenian gentleman ; and he is 
 
 A. c. vol. xix. c
 
 34 PLATO. 
 
 pressed by Socrates to give an account of himself and 
 his art. Rhetoric, replies Gorgias, is his art, and it is 
 used by him and by others for the best of purposes 
 namely, to give political freedom to all men, and 
 political power to a few. Of course, like other arts, 
 it is capable of abuse; but it is not the teacher's 
 fault if his pupils, bike a boxer in the mere wan- 
 tonness of strength, use their weapons injuriously or 
 unfairly. 
 
 Socrates (who seems to consider Sophistry quite fair 
 in war against a Sophist) uses a fallacy as gross as 
 any of those which he himself exposes in the " Euthy- 
 demus," and makes Gorgias contradict his previous as- 
 sertion. The Rhetorician is asserted to have learned 
 justice from his teacher granted ; he is therefore, ipso 
 facto, a just man, and his art is equally just. How, 
 then, can he act injuriously 1 
 
 Polus a young pupil of Gorgias who is sitting 
 near, is indignant at what he rightly thinks an inten- 
 tional misuse of words, and plunges into the discussion 
 with all the impetuosity of youth. Socrates, he says, 
 has no right to force such a plain contradiction in 
 terms upon Gorgias nay, it is positive ill-breeding in 
 him to do so. 
 
 " Most excellent Polus," says Socrates, in his po- 
 litest manner, " the chief object of our providing for 
 ourselves friends and children is that when we grow 
 old and begin to fail, a younger generation may be at 
 hand to set us on our legs again in our words and ac- 
 tions ; so now, if I and Gorgias are failing, we have 
 you here, ready to be help to us, as you ought to be ;
 
 OORGIAS. 35 
 
 and I, for my part, promise to retract any mistake 
 which you may think I have made on one condition." 
 
 And this condition is that his answers must be 
 brief. True, it is hard that Polus should be deprived 
 of his freedom of speech, especially in Athens ; but it 
 is harder still, says Socrates, for his hearers, to have to 
 listen to long-winded arguments. 
 
 Then Socrates gives his views on Ehetoric, which 
 was the question they had started with. It is not, 
 strictly speaking, an art at all, but, like cookery or 
 music, is a mere routine for gratifying the senses, 
 being, in fact, a part of flattery, and the shadow of a 
 part of politics, and bearing the same relation to jus- 
 tice that Sophistry bears to legislation.* 
 
 In the course of his argument with Polus, Socrates 
 makes two statements which sound to his audience 
 like the wildest paradoxes truisms as they may ap- 
 pear from a Christian point of view. It is better (he 
 says) to suffer than to do a wrong ; and the evil-doer, 
 though possessed of infinite wealth and power, must 
 inevitably be miserable. Though all the world should 
 be against him, he will maintain this to be the truth 
 yes, and he will go a step further. The evil-doer who 
 
 * The following table exhibits the respective places which 
 Socrates considers Rhetoric and Sophistry to hold in the edu- 
 cation of his day : 
 
 Training. 
 
 Real. 
 
 Of B 0( ]y/ Gymnastics, with its shain counterpart, Cosmetics. 
 I Medicine, ,, Cookery. 
 
 OfMind( Law - making> 
 
 * Judging, , , 
 
 Sophistry. 
 Rhetoric.
 
 36 PL A TO. 
 
 escapes the law, and lives on in his wickedness, is a 
 more miserable man than he who suffers the reward of 
 his crimes ; and though the tyrant or murderer may 
 avoid his earthly judge, as a sick child avoids the 
 doctor, still he carries about with him an incurable 
 cancer in his soul. For his own part, Socrates would 
 heap coals of fire upon the head of his enemy by let- 
 ting him escape punishment. " If he has stolen a 
 sum of money, let him keep it, and spend it on him 
 and his, regardless of religion and justice ; and if he 
 have done things worthy of death, let him not die, 
 but rather be immortal in his wickedness." 
 
 Callicles the shrewd man of the world is amazed 
 to hear such doctrines, which, if put into practice, 
 would, he thinks, turn society upside down. " Is 
 your master really in earnest, or is he joking?" he 
 asks Chserephon. 
 
 " He speaks in profound earnest," is the reply. 
 
 " Yes," says Socrates ; " and my words are but the 
 echo of the voice of truth speaking within my 
 breast." 
 
 But Callicles is not to be imposed upon by such 
 " brave words." Gorgias was too modest, and Polus 
 too clumsy an opponent to point out an obvious fal- 
 lacy. Socrates has been playing fast and loose with 
 the words Custom and Nature, and has confounded 
 two distinct things. To suffer wrong is better than 
 to do wrong by Custom, but not by Nature. Con- 
 ventional Justice is the refuge of the coward and 
 the slave, and was invented by the weak in self- 
 defence. Naturally, Might is Pdght
 
 GORGIAS. 37 
 
 " Tlie good old rule, the simple plan, 
 That they should take who have the power, 
 And they should keep who can." 
 
 Socrates is surely-not too old to learn a little common- 
 sense. Philosophy, as a part of education, is a good 
 thing, no doubt, to start with. But if a man carries it 
 with him into later life, he becomes a useless and ridicu- 
 lous member of society, at the mercy of any chance 
 accuser ; hiding in holes and corners, and whispering 
 to a few chosen youths, instead of standing forth 
 boldly before the world, and making his mark in life. 
 
 Socrates compliments Callicles on a frankness so 
 rarely met with, but presses him as to the exact sense 
 of " natural justice " i.e., the will of the stronger. 
 By "stronger" Callicles explains that he means the 
 wise and stout-hearted politician, who has the ambition 
 and spirit and desires of a king ; and who, moreover, 
 will not scruple to gratify them to the full. " Yes," 
 says Callicles, emphatically, "luxury, intemperance, 
 and licence, if they are duly supported, are happiness 
 and virtue all the rest is a mere bauble, custom con- 
 trary to nature, and nothing worth." 
 
 Socrates, in his ownfashion, disproves these monstrous 
 doctrines, and forces Callicles, though much against 
 his will, to admit that pleasure and virtue are not 
 always identical ; that really Virtue is, or should be, 
 the end of all our actions ; that in the long-run the 
 just and temperate man alone is happy ; and that he 
 who leads a robber's life is abhorred by gods and men 
 while upon earth, and goes down to Hades with his 
 soul branded with the scars of his crimes. There must
 
 38 PL A TO. 
 
 come a day of judgment and retribution, \vhen each 
 man shall receive the just reward of his deeds. 
 
 Now I (concludes Socrates) am persuaded of the truth of 
 these things, and I consider how I shall present my soul 
 whole and undefiled before the Judge in that day. Re- 
 nouncing the honours at which the world aims, I desire 
 only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, 
 when the time comes, to die. And to the utmost of my 
 power, I exhort all men to do the same. And in return 
 for your exhortation of me, I exhort you also to take part 
 in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and 
 greater than every other earthly conflict. J. 
 
 But in spite of his triumphant defence of Virtue, 
 there is a bitter tone of isolation and loneliness in the 
 last part of this Dialogue. " I, and I only, am left," 
 Socrates seems to say like Elijah upon Carmel 
 among ten thousand who know not the truth. My 
 own generation will not hear me or believe me ; they 
 will not even understand me ; and in the end I shall 
 probably be accused as a physician might be arraigned 
 by a pastry-cook before a jury of children ; and as I 
 cannot refer to any pleasures which I have provided 
 for the people, but can only appeal to my own blame- 
 less life, any one may foresee the verdict. " Not, that 
 I fear death " he says, with a noble scorn only the 
 coward and the profligate need fear that. There is 
 something nobler than mere ease and personal safety. 
 "He who is truly a man, ought not to care much 
 how long he lives ; he knows, as women say, that 
 none can escape the day of destiny, and therefore is 
 not too fond of life ; all that he leaves to heaven, and
 
 n IP PI AS. 39 
 
 thinks how he may best spend such term as is allotted 
 him." 
 
 THE "GREATER" AND "LESSER" HIPPIAS. 
 
 Two short Dialogues ascribed to Plato on doubtful 
 grounds have come down to us bearing the name of 
 Hippias, who is the representative of the younger 
 generation of Sophists, clever and accomplished, but, 
 as we shall see, intolerably vain of his personal merits. 
 
 "How is it," asks Socrates on meeting him, "that 
 the wise and handsome Hippias has been so long away 
 from Athens?" 
 
 " Public business has taken up all my time," Hippias 
 replies ; " for I am always singled out by my. country- 
 men of Elis on any important occasion, as being the 
 only man who can properly represent their city, and I 
 have just been on an embassy to Sparta." 
 
 "Lucky fellow!" says Socrates, "to combine such 
 dignity and usefulness, and to get large sums from the 
 youth in return for that knowledge which is more 
 precious than any gold. But how was it that the 
 wise men of old took no practical part in politics ? " 
 
 " Because they had not the ability to combine public 
 and private business, as we do now." 
 
 " Ah, well," says Socrates, " I suppose wisdom has 
 progressed, like everything else. Gorgias and Prodicus 
 have, I know, made immense sums from their pupils ; 
 but those old sages were too simple-minded to ask for 
 payment, or make an exhibition of their knowledge. 
 Nowadays, he is wisest who makes most money." 
 
 " You would be astonished," says Hippias, " if you
 
 40 PL A TO. 
 
 knew what a fortune I have made. I got a hundred 
 and fifty minae in Sicily alone, though Protagoras was 
 there at the same time." 
 
 "And where did you make most?" asks So- 
 crates. " I suppose at Sparta, for you have been there 
 oftenest." 
 
 " No," says Hippias; " not a penny could I get from 
 the Spartans, though they have plenty of money. 
 Indeed they care little for Astronomy or Music, or any 
 new sciences ; and as for Mathematics, they can hardly 
 count. The only thing they cared about was Archaeo- 
 logy the genealogies of their gods and heroes, and so 
 forth ; and they were also greatly pleased with a lecture 
 I gave in the form of advice from Nestor to Neoptole- 
 mus on the choice of a profession." 
 
 " By the way," says Socrates, suddenly, " there is 
 one question which I want answered, and I have been 
 waiting till I could find one of you wise men to tell 
 me What is the Beautiful?" 
 
 Hippias at first answers that a fair maiden is a beau- 
 tiful thing; but Socrates shows that this is merely 
 a relative term, and that compared with a goddess 
 she would be ugly, just as the wisest man is an ape 
 compared with a god. There must be some Form or 
 Essence which makes a maiden or a lyre beautiful. 
 It is not " gold " (as Hippias foolishly suggests), for 
 then Phidias would have made Athene's face of gold 
 instead of ivory : nor is it " the suitable," for that only 
 causes things in their right place to appear beautiful, 
 and does not really make them so. Nor, again, does 
 the glowing description of a prosperous life according
 
 II IP PI AS. 41 
 
 to Greek ideas, which is the next definition volunteered, 
 satisfy Socrates. 
 
 " It is a beautiful thing, when a man has lived in 
 health, wealth, and honour, to reach old age, and having 
 buried his parents handsomely, to be buried splendidly 
 by his descendants." * 
 
 Such vague language tells us nothing. Again, 
 Beauty is not " the useful," nor is it even " power for 
 the production of good," for this would make goodness 
 distinct from beauty. And lastly, Beauty is not 
 simply " that which pleases our sight and hearing." 
 And then by an argument more subtle than the occa- 
 sion seems to require Socrates shows that the plea- 
 sures from the other senses should not be excluded. 
 
 Finally, the question is left unanswered, and Hippias 
 expresses his dissatisfaction at these " shreds and par- 
 ings of argument." A man (he thinks) should take a 
 larger view of debate, and learn to make a telling 
 speech in court, instead of wasting time on this minute 
 criticism, which profits him nothing. 
 
 No doubt, Socrates replies, his own doubts and 
 difficulties, which some strange power compels him to 
 make known, seem small and valueless to a wise man 
 like Hippias. It has always been his unhappy destiny 
 to seek and inquire, and be reviled by the world for 
 doing so ; but this discipline must be endured, if the 
 result is his own improvement. In any' case, this 
 discussion has had one advantage, for it has taught him 
 the truth of the old proverb, that " What is beautiful 
 is difficult." 
 
 * Whewell's Platonic Dialogues, ii. 101.
 
 42 PLATO. 
 
 In the Dialogue known as the " LESSEE " HIPPIAS, 
 we again meet that philosopher, who has just deli- 
 vered a lecture on Homer at Athens, and who boasts 
 that he can talk on all subjects and answer all ques- 
 tions that may be asked ; in fact, he is a professor of 
 every science. Upon this, Socrates reminds him that 
 on his last appearance at Olympia he had worn a 
 tunic and embroidered girdle which he had -woven 
 himself, and a ring which he had engraved with his 
 own hand; and had brought with him a quantity 
 of his own writings in verse and prose, and, more 
 wonderful than all, an Art of Memory, which he had 
 himself invented. 
 
 The question on which Socrates wishes now to be 
 enlightened by Hippias is the characters of the tAvo 
 heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey. Hippias maintains 
 that Achilles is nobler than Ulysses, as being straight- 
 forward, and not mendacious. But Socrates objects 
 to this ; the mendacious man is capable, intelligent, 
 and wise : if a man cannot tell a lie on occasion, he 
 shows his ignorance. Those who do wrong wilfully 
 are better than those who do wrong through ignorance 
 or against their will just as to be wilfully ungraceful 
 is better than to be really awkward ; and as a good 
 runner can run fast or slow, and a good archer hit or 
 miss the mark when he chooses. 
 
 Again, Socrates continues, if justice is a mental 
 capacity, the more capable mind is the more just ; and 
 such a mind, being competent to exercise itself in 
 good or evil, will, if it does evil, do it willingly;
 
 EUTHYDEMUS. 43 
 
 and therefore the wilful wrong-doer is the good 
 man. 
 
 And with this gross paradox established by argu- 
 ments as sophistical as any which Socrates has else- 
 where exposed the Dialogue ends. He confesses 
 himself to be puzzled and bewildered by the conclu- 
 sion at which they have arrived ; but (he adds) it is 
 no great wonder that a plain simple man like himself 
 should be puzzled, if the great and wise Hippias is 
 puzzled as well. 
 
 ETJTHTDEMITS. 
 
 Nowhere is Plato's humour more sustained than in 
 this Dialogue, portions of which seem to have been 
 written in a spirit of broad farce. The arrogance and 
 self-conceit of the two principal personages, the mock 
 humility of Socrates and the impatience of Ctesippus, 
 form a contrast of character as amusing as a scene in 
 a clever comedy. 
 
 Euthydemus and Dionysodorus are introduced as 
 two brothers, possessed, by their own account, of uni- 
 versal genius able to use their swords and fight in 
 armour masters, also, of legal fence, and professors of 
 " wrangling " generally able and willing, moreover, 
 to give lessons in speaking, pleading, and writing 
 speeches. But all these accomplishments are now, as 
 they frankly tell Socrates, matters of merely secondary 
 consideration. 
 
 " Indeed," I said, " if such occupations are regarded by 
 you as secondary, what must the principal one be ? Tell 
 me, I beseech you, what that noble study is."
 
 44 PL A TO. 
 
 " The teaching of virtue, Socrates," he replied, " is our 
 principal occupation ; and we believe that we can impart 
 it better and quicker than any man." 
 
 " My God ! " I said, " and where did you learn that ? I 
 always thought, as I was saying just now, that your chief 
 accomplishment was the art of fighting in armour ; and 
 this was what I used to say of you, for I remember that 
 this was professed by you when you were here before. But 
 now, if you really have the other knowledge, O forgive me : 
 I address you as I would superior beings, and ask you to 
 pardon the impiety of my former expressions. But are 
 you quite sure about this, Dionysodorus and Euthydemus ? 
 the promise is so vast, that a feeling of incredulity will 
 creep in. 
 
 " You may take our word, Socrates, for the fact." 
 
 " Then I think you happier in having such a treasure 
 than the great king is in the possession of his kingdom. 
 And please to tell me whether you intend to exhibit this 
 wisdom, or what you will do." 
 
 " That is why we are come hither, Socrates ; and our 
 purpose is not only to exhibit, but also to teach any one 
 who likes to learn." J. 
 
 A circle is formed, and young Cleinias, a grandson 
 of Alcibiades, is selected as the victim to be improved 
 by their logic, and is questioned accordingly as to his 
 ideas of knowledge and ignorance. The poor youth is 
 puzzled and confounded by their ingenious question- 
 ing and contradicts himself almost immediately ; but 
 Socrates good-naturedly reassures him by telling him 
 that his tormentors are not really in earnest, and that 
 their jests are merely a sort of prelude to graver mys- 
 teries to which he will be presently admitted, as soon 
 as he has learnt the correct use of terms. Then 
 Socrates, with, the gracious permission of the two
 
 EUTHYDEMUS. 45 
 
 Sophists, gives an example of his own method, and 
 by a series of easy questions elicits from Cleinias the 
 admission that wisdom is the only good, that ignorance 
 is evil, and that to become wise is at present his heart's 
 desire. 
 
 Then Euthydemus begins again. " So you want 
 Cleinias to become wise, and he is not wise yet ? " 
 Socrates admits this. " Then you want the boy to be 
 no longer what he is that is, you want him to be done 
 away with ? A nice set of friends you must all be ! " 
 
 Socrates is amazed at this retort ; and Ctesippus, 
 who is a warm friend of Cleinias, is most indignant, and 
 calls the Sophists a pair of liars in plain language. To 
 this Euthydemus replies that there is no such thing 
 as a lie, and that contradiction is impossible. The 
 dispute is growing warm, when Socrates interposes. 
 There is no use, he says, in quarrelling about words ; 
 if by " doing away with him " the strangers mean that 
 they will make a new man out of Cleinias, by all means 
 let them destroy the youth, and make him wise, and 
 all of us with him. 
 
 But if you young men do not like to trust yourselves 
 with them, then, fiat experimentum, in corpore senis ; here 
 I offer my old person to Dionysodorus : he may put me 
 into the pot, like Medea the Colchian, kill me, pickle me, 
 eat me, if he will only make me good. Ctesippus said : 
 " And I, Socrates, am ready to commit myself to the 
 strangers ; they may skin me alive, if they please (and I 
 am pretty well skinned by them already), if only my skin 
 is made at last, not like that of Marsyas, into a leathern 
 bottle, but into a piece of virtue. And here is Dionyso- 
 dorus fancying that I am angry with him, when I am
 
 46 PL A TO. 
 
 really not angry at all. I do but contradict him when he 
 seems to me to be in the wrong ; and you must not con- 
 found abuse and contradiction, O illustrious Dionysodorus; 
 for they are quite different things." 
 
 " Contradiction ! " said Dionysodorus ; " why, there never 
 was such a thing." J. 
 
 And then he proves in his own fashion that false- 
 hood has no existence, and that a man must either say 
 what is true or say nothing at all. 
 
 One absurd paradox follows another ; and the two 
 brothers venture on the most extravagant assertions. 
 According to them, neither error nor ignorance are 
 possible ; and they themselves have known all things 
 from their birth dancing, carpentering, cobbling 
 nay, the very number of the stars and sands ; till even 
 Socrates loses patience, and Ctesippus cannot disguise 
 his disgust at their effrontery. 
 
 Several passages of arms take place, of which the 
 following may serve as an instance : 
 
 " You say," asks Euthydemus of Ctesippus, " that you 
 have a dog ? " 
 
 " Yes, a villain of a one," said Ctesippus. 
 
 " And he has puppies 1 " 
 
 " Yes, and they are very like himself." 
 
 "And the dog is the father of them ] " 
 
 " Yes," he said, " certainly." 
 
 " And is he not yours ? " 
 
 " To be sure he is." 
 
 " Then he is a father, and he is yours ; ergo, he is your 
 father, and the puppies are your brothers." 
 
 " Let me ask you one little question more," said Dio- 
 nysodorus, quickly interposing, in order that Ctesippus 
 might not get in his word "you beat this dog?"
 
 EUTHYDEMUS. 47 
 
 Ctesippus said, laughing, " Indeed I do ; and I only wish 
 that I could beat you instead of him." 
 
 " Then you beat your father," he said. 
 
 I should have had more reason to beat yours, said 
 Ctesippus ; " what could he have been thinking of when 
 he begat such wise sons ? Much good has this father of you 
 and other curs got out of your wisdom." J. 
 
 More arguments are advanced, in which the perver- 
 sion of words is no less gross and palpable than in the 
 passage above quoted even to the most illogical mind. 
 The fallacies, indeed, are generally so transparent as 
 hardly to require serious refutation. The bystanders, 
 however, are represented as being marvellously pleased 
 at the remarkable wit and ingenuity of the two 
 brethren ; and Socrates professes to be overcome by 
 this display of their powers of reasoning. He makes 
 them a speech in which he gravely compliments them 
 on their magnanimous disregard of all opinions besides 
 their own, and their " kind and public-spirited denial 
 of all differences, whether of white or black, good or 
 evil." 
 
 " But what appears to me to be more than all is, that this 
 art and invention of yours is so admirably contrived that 
 in a very short time it can be imparted to any one. I 
 observe that Ctesippus learned to imitate you in no time. 
 Now this quickness of attainment is an excellent thing ; 
 but at the same time I would advise you not to have any 
 more public entertainments there is a danger that men 
 may undervalue an art which they have so easy an oppor- 
 tunity of learning : the exhibition would be best of all, if 
 the discussion were confined to your two selves ; but if there 
 must be an audience, let him only be present who is will- 
 ing to pay a handsome fee ; you should be careful of this
 
 48 PL A TO. 
 
 and if you are wise, you will also bid your disciples dis- 
 course with no man but you and themselves. For only 
 what is rare is valuable ; and water, which, as Pindar says, 
 is the best of all things, is also the cheapest. And now I 
 have only to request that you will receive Cleinias and me 
 among your pupils." J.
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 SOCRATES AND HIS FRIENDS. 
 SYMPOSIUM PII^EDIIUS APOLOGY CRITO PH^EDO. 
 
 " There neither is, nor shall there ever be, any treatise of Plato. The 
 opinions called by the name of Plato are those of Socrates in the days of 
 his youthful vigour and glory." Plato, Ep. ii. 314 (Grote). 
 
 SOCRATES, in whom, as we have seen, Plato thus merges 
 his own personality, and who is the spokesman in 
 nearly every Dialogue, was the son of a sculptor at 
 Athens, and was born in the year B.C. 4G8. He left 
 his father's workshop at an early age, and devoted 
 himself to the task of public teaching, being, as he 
 believed, specially commissioned by the gods to ques- 
 tion and cross-examine all he met. Accordingly he 
 might be found, day after day, in the workshops, in 
 the public walks, in the market-place, or in the Palses- 
 tra, hearing and asking questions ; careless where or 
 when or with whom he talked. His personal ugliness 
 about which he makes a joke himself in the " These- 
 tetus " his thick lips, snub nose, and corpulent body, 
 and besides this, his mean dress and bare feet, made 
 him, perhaps, the most remarkable figure in Athens, 
 especially when contrasted with the rich dresses and 
 A. c. vol. xix. D
 
 50 PLA TO. 
 
 classic features of the youths who often followed him. 
 Yet under that Silenus mask (as Alcibiades described 
 it) was concealed the image of a god. None who had 
 ever heard him speak could easily forget the steady 
 gaze, the earnest .manner, and, above all, the impas- 
 sioned words which made their hearts burn within 
 them as they listened. Many youths would approach 
 the circle which always formed whenever Socrates 
 talked or argued, from mere curiosity or as a resource 
 to pass away an hour ; and at first they would look 
 with indifference or contempt on the mean and poorly- 
 dressed figure in the centre ; but gradually their inte- 
 rest was aroused, their attention grew fixed, and then 
 their hearts beat faster, their eyes swam with tears, and 
 their very souls were touched and thrilled by the voice 
 of the charmer. They came again and again to listen ; 
 and so by degrees that company of friends was formed, 
 whose devotion and affection to their master is the 
 best testimony to the magic power of his words. 
 
 Among these followers might be found men of every 
 shade of character the reckless and ambitious Critias, 
 the sceptic Pyrrho, the pleasure-seeking Aristippus, 
 "the madman" Apollodorus, and Euclid, who came 
 constantly twenty miles from Megara, although a decree 
 at that time existed that any Megarian found in Athens 
 should be put to death. Above all, Alcibiades was a 
 constant companion of Socrates ; and men wondered 
 at the friendship between this strangely-assorted pair 
 literally " Hyperion to a Satyr," the ugly barefooted 
 philosopher, and the graceful youth, the idol of the rising 
 generation, whose brilliant sayings were quoted, whose
 
 THE SYMPOSIUM. 51 
 
 wild escapades were laughed at, whose figure artists 
 loved to model for their statues of Hermes, and whose 
 very lisp became the fashion of the day. Surrounded 
 "by flatterers and admirers, Alcibiades found one man 
 who paid him no compliments, who cared nothing for 
 his rank and accomplishments, yet whose words had the 
 effect of exciting all that was noble in his nature. A 
 strong attachment grew up between the two, and they 
 shared the same tent, and messed together in the winter 
 siege of Potidasa. Alcibiades himself tells us, in the 
 Dialogue which follows, how easily Socrates bore the in- 
 tense cold of those northern regions, and how, " with 
 his bare feet on the ice, and in his ordinary dress, he 
 marched better than any of the other soldiers who had 
 their shoes on." His personal courage was also re- 
 markable. On one occasion he saved Alcibiades' life 
 at the risk of his own ; and in the disastrous retreat 
 after the battle of Delium, we are told that, while all 
 around him were hurrying in wild flight, he walked as 
 unmoved " as if he were in the streets of Athens, 
 stalking like a pelican, and rolling his eyes, while he 
 calmly contemplated friends and foes." 
 
 Though Socrates thus discharged his duties as a sol- 
 dier, he only twice, in the course of his long life, took 
 any prominent part in politics. The first occasion was 
 when he opposed the unjust sentence of death passed 
 by the assembly against the generals after the battle of 
 Arginusae ; and again when, at the peril of his own 
 life, he refused to obey the order of the Thirty Tyrants, 
 and arrest an innocent man. The " divine voice," of 
 which he speaks so frequently, and which interfered
 
 52 PL A TO. 
 
 and checked him at any important crisis of his life, 
 had forbidden him to take part in the affairs of the 
 state. He was, however, devoted to Athens; and 
 except on military service, we are told that he never 
 left the city walls. Two Thessalian princes once tried 
 to tempt him, by lavish offers of money, to settle at 
 their courts ; but he replied with noble independence 
 that it did not become him to accept benefits which he 
 could never hope to return, and that his bodily wants 
 were few, for he could buy four measures of meal for 
 an obolus at Athens, and there was excellent spring- 
 water to be got there for nothing. 
 
 One secret of the influence exercised by Socrates lay 
 in his genial humour, and in his entire freedom from 
 conventionality. He was not (he says himself) as 
 other men are. He conversed in the open air with all 
 chance-comers, rich and poor alike, instead of immur- 
 ing himself in a lecture-room. He would take no pay, 
 while the Sophists round him were realising fortunes. 
 Instead of wasting time in the barren field of science, 
 or wearying his hearers with the subtleties of rhetoric, 
 he discussed the great practical questions of life and 
 morality, and, as Cicero said, "brought down philo- 
 sophy from heaven to earth." "What is Truth ? What 
 is Virtue ? What is Justice 1 or, as he put it him- 
 self, "All the good and evil that has befallen a man in 
 his home," such were the subjects of his daily conver- 
 sation. He was the first who openly asserted that 
 
 " The proper study of mankind is man ;"- 
 that is, man's nature and happiness, his virtues and
 
 THE SYMPOSIUM. 53 
 
 his vices, his place in creation, and the end and object 
 of his life. 
 
 In the defence which Plato puts into his mouth at 
 his trial, Socrates gives an account 6f what he con- 
 ceived to Toe his own mission. His friend Chserephon 
 had asked the priestess of Delphi " if there was any 
 man on earth wiser than Socrates'? " and the oracle had 
 replied that there was none. Socrates then resolved 
 himself to test the truth of this reply, and accordingly 
 he had cross-examined statesmen, poets, philosophers, 
 all, in short, who had the reputation of wisdom in 
 their profession, and he had found that their pre- 
 tended knowledge was only ignorance, that God alone 
 was wise, that human wisdom was worthless, and that 
 among men he was wisest who, like himself, 
 
 " Professed 
 " To know this only, that he nothing knew." * 
 
 This was the great point of contrast between Socra- 
 tes and those professors of universal knowledge, the 
 Sophists. In their presence he always assumed the 
 humble position of a man " intellectually bankrupt," 
 who knows nothing, and who is seeking for informa- 
 tion. He addresses some master of rhetoric or science 
 with a modest and deferential air ; he will take it as 
 an infinite obligation if the great man will condescend 
 to relieve his doubts by answering a few easy questions 
 on some (apparently) obvious question of morality; 
 and, of course, the Sophist, to save his own reputa- 
 tion, has no alternative but to comply. Then Socra- 
 
 * Milton, Par. Reg., iv. 294.
 
 54 PLATO. 
 
 tes, like a skilful barrister, leads his unsuspecting 
 victim on through a series of what seem innocent ques- 
 tions, yet all bearing indirectly on the main point of 
 the argument, tfll at last his opponent is landed in 
 some gross absurdity or contradiction. This " irony " 
 has been well termed " a logical masked battery," and 
 is more or less a feature in every Dialogue of Plato. 
 
 The humour, the genial temper, and the quiet self- 
 possession of Socrates, must have made him a welcome 
 guest in many houses; and in the Dialogue called 
 " The Banquet " (SYMPOSIUM), we have a sketch of the 
 philosopher " at home," joking with his friends, and en- 
 tering into the humour of the hour ; and showing that, 
 though he could abstain, he could also, if the occasion 
 required it, drink as hard and as long as any reveller 
 in Athens. A goodly company are assembled at Aga- 
 thon's house. There is the host, a handsome young 
 dilettante poet : there is Phsedrus, another young as- 
 pirant in literature : there is Pausanias the historian, 
 and Aristophanes the comic poet, apparently on the 
 best of terms with the philosopher whom he had ridi- 
 culed so unsparingly in the " Clouds : " there is a 
 doctor, Eryximachus, genial and sociable, but " pro- 
 fessional " throughout : there is Socrates himself, who 
 has put on sandals for the occasion, and who comes 
 late, having fallen into a trance on the way ; and 
 lastly, there is his satellite Aristodernus, " the little 
 nnshod disciple," who gives the history of this sup- 
 per-party some time after to his friend Apollodorus. 
 
 "When the meal is ended, and the due libations have 
 been poured, and a hymn sung to the gods, Pausanias
 
 THE SYMPOSIUM. 55 
 
 proposes that instead of drinking and listening to the 
 flute-girl's music (" she may play to herself," says 
 the doctor, considerately, " or to the women inside, if 
 she prefers it ") they shall pass a sober evening, and 
 that each of the guests in turn shall make a speech in 
 praise of Love hitherto a much-neglected deity. This 
 prudent proposal is readily accepted by the company, 
 many of whom have hardly recovered from the effects 
 of the last night's carouse. 
 
 Phsedrus accordingly begins, in a high-flown poetic 
 style, and praises Love as being the best and oldest of 
 the gods, and the source of happiness in life and death. 
 It is Love (he says) that inspires such heroism as that 
 of Alcestis, who died to save her husband's life, 
 unlike that " cowardly harper " Orpheus, who went 
 alive to Hades after his wife, and was justly punished 
 afterwards for his impertinence. Love, again 
 passing that of women inspired Achilles, who 
 " foremost fighting fell " to avenge his friend Patro- 
 clus, and was carried after death to the islands of the 
 blest. 
 
 Pausanias follows in the same vein, but distin- 
 guishes between the ignoble and fleeting love of the 
 body and the pure and lasting love of the soul. 
 
 Aristophanes should properly have spoken next, 
 " but either he had eaten too much, or from some other 
 cause he had the hiccough." The doctor recommends 
 him to drink some water, or, if that fails, to " ticklo 
 his nose and sneeze ; " meanwhile he delivers his own 
 speech from a medical point of view and shows 
 how Love, like a good and great physician, reconciles
 
 56 PL A TO. 
 
 conflicting elements, and produces harmony both in 
 the physical world and in mankind. 
 
 Then Aristophanes (who has used the doctor's 
 remedy) opens, as he says, a new line of argument, 
 and gives a whimsical account of the origin of the sexes, 
 which reads as if Plato meant it as a parody of his 
 own myths. Once upon a time (he says) man had 
 three sexes and a double nature : besides this, he was 
 perfectly round, and had four hands and four feet, 
 one head, with two faces looking opposite ways, set on 
 a single neck. "When these creatures pleased, they 
 could walk as men do now, but if they wanted to go 
 faster, they would roll over and over with all their four 
 legs in the air, like a tumbler turning somersaults ; 
 and their pride and strength were such that they made 
 open war upon the gods. Jupiter resented their in- 
 solence, but hardly liked to kill them with thunder- 
 bolts, as the gods would then lose their sacrifices. At 
 last he hit upon a plan. " I will cut them in two," 
 he said, " so that they shall walk on two legs instead 
 of four. They will then be only half as insolent, but 
 twice as numerous, and we shall get twice as many 
 sacrifices." This was done, and the two halves are 
 continually going about looking for one another;* and 
 if we mortals (says Aristophanes, with a comic air of 
 apprehension) are not obedient to the gods, there is 
 
 * " He is the half part of a blessed man, 
 Left to be finished by such a she ; 
 And she a fair divided excellence 
 Whose fulness of perfection lies in him." 
 
 Shakspeare, " King John."
 
 THE SYMPOSIUM. 57 
 
 a danger that we shall be split up again, and we shall 
 have to go about in basso-relievo, like those figures 
 with only half a nose which you may see sculptured 
 on our columns. 
 
 Agathon, the young tragic poet, then takes up 
 the parable. Love is the best and fairest of the gods, 
 walking in soft places, with a grace that is all his own, 
 and nestling among the flowers of beauty. Again. 
 Love is 
 
 " the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods ; desired 
 by those who have no part in him, and precious to those 
 who have the better part in him ; parent of delicacy, 
 luxury, desire, fondness, softness, grace ; careful of the 
 good, uncareful of the evil. In every word, work, wish, 
 fear pilot, helper, defender, saviour ; glory of gods and 
 men." J. 
 
 Lastly, Socrates tells them a story, which he has 
 heard from Diotima, " a wise woman." Love is not 
 in reality a god at all, but a spirit which spans the 
 gulf between heaven and earth, carrying to the gods 
 the prayers of men, and to men the commands of 
 the gods. He is the child of Plenty and Poverty. 
 Like his mother, he is always poor and in misery, 
 without house or home to cover him ; like his father, 
 " he is a hunter of men, and a bold intriguer, philoso- 
 pher, enchanter, sorcerer, and sophist," hovering be- 
 tween life and death, plenty and want, knowledge and 
 ignorance. Love is something more than the desire of 
 beauty ; it is the instinct of immortality in a mortal 
 creature. Hence parents wish for children, who shall 
 come after them, and take their place and preserve their
 
 58 PL A TO. 
 
 names ; and the poet and the warrior are inspired by 
 the hope of a fame which shall live for ever. And Dio- 
 tima (continues Socrates) unfolded to me greater myster- 
 ies than these. He who has the instinct of true love, and 
 can discern the relations of true beauty in every form, 
 will go on from strength to strength until at last the 
 vision is revealed to him of a single science, and he 
 " will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty 
 in the likeness of no human face or form, but ab- 
 solute, simple, separate, and everlasting not clogged 
 with the pollutions of mortality, and all the coloiirs 
 and vanities of human life." 
 
 The murmur of applause with which this speech is 
 greeted has hardly died away, when a loud knocking 
 is heard at the outer gate, and the voice of Alcibiades 
 shouting for Agathon. Presently he staggers in, at 
 the head of a troop of revellers, flushed with wine, and 
 crowned with a wreath of ivy-leaves and violets. Though 
 he is drunk already (as he tells the company), he orders 
 one of the slaves to fill a huge wine-cooler " holding 
 more than two quarts," which he drains, and then has 
 it filled again for Socrates, who also empties it. " Why 
 are they so silent and sober ? " Alcibiades asks ; and 
 Agathon explains to him that they have all been 
 making speeches in praise of Love, and that it will be 
 his turn to speak next. 
 
 Alcibiades readily assents; but instead of taking Love 
 as his topic, he gives an account of his intercourse with 
 Socrates. His face (he says) is like those masks of 
 Silenus, which conceal the image of a god : he is as 
 ugly as the satjT Marsyas; but, like Marsyas, he charms
 
 THE SYMPOSIUM. 59 
 
 the souls of all who hear him with the music of his 
 words. " I myself am conscious" (Alcibiades continues) 
 " that if I did not shut my ears against him, and fly 
 from the voice of the charmer, he would enchain me 
 until I grew old sitting at his feet. For he makes mo 
 confess that I ought not to live as I do, neglecting the 
 needs of my own soul, and occupying myself with the 
 affairs of the Athenians ; therefore I stop my ears, and 
 tear myself away from him. He is the only person who 
 ever made me feel ashamed of myself a feeling which 
 you might think was not in my nature, and there is 
 no one else who has that effect on me. . . . And 
 oftentimes I wish he were dead ; and yet I know that I 
 should be much more sorry than glad, if he were to die." 
 
 Then he goes on to tell some anecdotes of the tem- 
 perance of Socrates, his endurance of fatigue, and his 
 personal courage ; and he assures them, in conclusion, 
 that they will never find any other man who in the 
 least resembles this wonderful being. 
 
 Again the doors are violently opened, and a fresh 
 band of revellers enter. All is now confusion and 
 uproar. Phsedrus, the physician, and some of the 
 more sober spirits, wisely take their departure ; while 
 the few who remain settle down to make a night of it. 
 Aristodemus (who tells the story) falls asleep himself, 
 and is only awakened by the cocks crowing at day- 
 break. All the last night's party have gone, or are 
 asleep on their couches in the room, except Agathon, 
 Aristophanes, and Socrates. These three are still pass- 
 ing a large wine -cup from one to the other; and 
 Socrates is giving the two dramatists a lecture on their
 
 60 PL A TO. 
 
 own art, and proving to his own satisfaction that the 
 genius of Tragedy and Comedy is the same. His 
 hearers are much too sleepy to argue with or contra- 
 dict him ; and at last the wine takes effect on Aris- 
 tophanes, who drops under the table, where Agathon 
 soon follows. Socrates puts them to sleep, and then 
 goes tranquilly -on his way takes his bath at the 
 Lyceum, and passes the day as usual. 
 
 The following Dialogue, though its main purpose is 
 an attack upon the popular passion for Rhetoric, is 
 perhaps more interesting as a social picture : 
 
 It is a hot summer afternoon, and Socrates meets 
 young Phaedrus (who was one of the guests at Aga- 
 thon's banquet) walking out for air and exercise be- 
 yond the city walls, for he has been sitting since dawn 
 listening to the famous rhetorician Lysias. Socrates 
 banters him on his admiration for Lysias, and at last 
 extorts from him the confession that he has the actual 
 manuscript of the essay which he had heard read 
 hidden under his cloak ; and, after some assumed 
 reluctance, Phsedrus consents that they shall walk on 
 to some quiet spot where they can read it together. 
 So they turn aside from the highroad, and follow the 
 stream of the Ilissus cooling their feet in the water 
 as they walk until they reach a charming resting- 
 place, shaded by a plane-tree, where the air is laden 
 with the scents and sounds of summer, and the acjnus 
 mstus, with its purple and white blossoms, is in full
 
 PHJSDRUS. 61 
 
 bloom ; while above them the cicalas are chirruping, 
 and at their feet is the soft grass and the cool water, 
 with images of the Xyrnphs who guard the spot. 
 
 " My dear Phrcdrus," says Socrates, " you are an 
 admirable guide." 
 
 "You, Socrates, are such a stay-at-home, that you 
 know nothing outside the city walls, and never take 
 a country walk." 
 
 " Very true," says Socrates ; " trees and fields tell me 
 nothing : men are my teachers ; * but only tempt me 
 with the chance of a discussion, and you may lead me 
 all round Attica. Read on." And Phaedrus accord- 
 ingly reads the formal and rhetorical essay to which 
 he hacl been listening in the morning. It is on a 
 somewhat wasted theme the advantages of a sober 
 friendship, which lasts a lifetime, over the jealousies 
 and torments caused by a spasmodic and fleeting love. 
 
 Socrates, with an irony which even Phsedrus sees 
 through, professes to be charmed with the balanced 
 phrases and the harmonious cadence of the essay which 
 lias just been read ; but he hints that, if he is allowed 
 to use a few commonplaces, he too might add some- 
 thing to what Lysias has said ; and then, inspired (as 
 he says) by the genius loci, he delivers himself of a 
 speech, denouncing, in a mock heroic style, the selfish 
 infatuation and the wolf -like passion of the lover. 
 Lut lie almost immediately pretends to be alarmed at 
 
 * Socrates would have agreed on this point with Dr Johnson. 
 " Sir, when you have seen one green field, you have seen all 
 green fields. Sir, I like to look upon men. Let us walk down 
 Cheapside."
 
 62 PLATO. 
 
 his own words ; for the divine monitor within tells him 
 that he has insulted the majesty of Cupid, and forbids 
 him to recross the brook until he has recanted his 
 blasphemy. And so he does. 
 
 He had previously said that the lover was mad; 
 but this madness is, he explains, really akin to the 
 inspiration of the prophet and Pythian priestess, or 
 the frenzy of the poet, and is, in fact, the greatest 
 blessing which heaven has given to men. And then 
 he weaves his ideas of the origin of Love into a famous 
 myth, which will be found elsewhere.* 
 
 " I can fancy," says Socrates, laughingly, " that our 
 friends the cicalas overhead are listening to our fine 
 talk, and will carry a good report of us to their mis- 
 tresses the Muses. For you must know that these little 
 creatures were once human beings, long before the 
 Muses were heard of; but, when the Muses came, 
 they forgot to eat or drink in their exceeding love of 
 song, and so died of hunger ; but now they sing on for 
 ever, and hunger and thirst no more. Let us talk, then, 
 instead of idling all the afternoon, or going to sleep 
 like a couple of slaves or sheep at a fountain-side." 
 
 Then follows a severe criticism on the Rhetoric of 
 the day. Truth and accurate definition, says Socrates, 
 are the two first requirements of good speaking ; but 
 neither of these are necessarily found in an essay like 
 that of Lysias : and rhetoric, though it undoubtedly 
 influences the rising generation, has done little in the 
 way of perfecting oratory, which depends rather on the 
 natural genius of the speaker than on any rules of art ; 
 
 * See p. 156.
 
 PHJEDRUS. 63 
 
 indeed, Pericles himself learnt more from Anaxa- 
 goras than from the Rhetoricians. 
 
 Writing, continues Socrates, is far inferior to speech. 
 It is a spurious form of knowledge ; and Thamuz, the 
 old king of Egypt, was right in denouncing letters as 
 likely to spoil men's memories, and produce an unreal 
 and evanescent learning. Letters, like paintings, 
 "preserve a solemn silence, and have not a word to 
 say for themselves ; " and, like hothouse plants, they 
 come quickly to their bloom, and as quickly fa.de aAvay. 
 " Nobler far," he says, " is the serious pursuit of the 
 dialectician, who finds a congenial soil, and there with 
 knowledge engrafts and sows words which are able to 
 help themselves and him who planted them, and are 
 not unfruitful, but have in them seeds which may bear 
 fruit in other natures nurtured in other ways making 
 the seed everlasting, and the possessors happy to the 
 utmost extent of human happiness." * 
 
 But severe as he is on ordinary Rhetoricians, he 
 makes an exception in favour of Isocrates. Some divine 
 instinct tells him that the temper of this young orator 
 is cast in a finer mould than that of Lysias and his 
 coterie ; and that some day, when he grows older, his 
 genius will surpass all the speakers of his day. 
 
 The heat of the day is now past, and the two 
 friends prepare to depart ; but first Socrates offers a 
 solemn prayer to the deities who guard this charming 
 spot where they have been resting all the afternoon. 
 
 " beloved Pan, and all ye gods whose dwelling is in 
 * Jowett's Plato, i. 614.
 
 64 PLATO. 
 
 this place, grant me to be beautiful in soul, and all that 
 I possess of outward things to be at peace with them 
 within. Teach me to think wisdom the only riches. And 
 give me so much wealth, and so much only, as a good ami 
 holy man could manage or enjoy. Phsedrus, want we any- 
 thing more ? For my prayer is finished.". 
 
 Plued. " Pray that I may be even as yourself ; for the 
 blessings of friends are common." * 
 
 It was hardly possible that Socrates should be popu- 
 lar puzzling and refuting all he met. " The world 
 cannot make me out " (he says to Thesetetus), " there- 
 fore they only say of me that I am an extremely strange 
 being, who drive men to their wits' end." His passion 
 for conversation in itself would annoy many ; and they 
 probably regarded him as a garrulous and impertinent 
 pedant, whom it was wise to avoid. "I hate this 
 beggar who is eternally talking" (says Eupolis, the 
 comedy-writer), " and who has debated every subject 
 upon earth, except where to get his dinner." And often 
 this vague feeling of dislike would grow into a strong 
 personal hatred. For no man likes to be defeated on his 
 own ground, or to be forced to confess himself ignorant 
 of his favourite subject or theory, still less to be stulti- 
 fied and made ridiculous before a crowd of bystanders. 
 There were numbers who had suffered this humiliation 
 from the unsparing " irony " of Socrates, and their col- 
 lective enmity grew daily more formidable. Again, 
 few who had seen the " Clouds " of Aristophanes acted 
 some twenty years previously, had forgotten Socrates, 
 as he appeared on the stage, dangling in a basket be- 
 tween heaven and earth, the master of " the think- 
 
 * Sewell's Dialogues of Plato, 199.
 
 APOLOGY. 65 
 
 ing-shop," who was ready to make, "for a considera- 
 tion," the worse appear the better reason. And some 
 probability had been given to this picture by the recent 
 career of two of his friends probably at that time the 
 most detested names in Athens Alcibiades, the selfish 
 renegade, and Critias, the worst of the Thirty Tyrants. 
 But after all, the great offence of Socrates (as Mr Grote 
 points out *) was one which no society, ancient or mo- 
 dern, ever forgives his disdain of conventionality, and 
 his disregard of the sovereign power of Custom. As we 
 shall see in the ' Dialogues of Search,' he questions 
 and criticises, and often destroys, the orthodox com- 
 monplaces of morality, handed down from father to 
 son, and consecrated in the eyes of the Athenians by 
 tradition, and by those mighty household goddesses, 
 " Use and Wont " 
 
 " Grey nurses, loving nothing new." 
 
 Li short, Socrates is a " dissenter," who will maintain 
 his right of private judgment, and will speak what his 
 conscience tells him to be right though it be his own 
 opinion against the world. Hence there grew up a 
 widespread antipathy against this man who continually 
 set at defiance the creed sanctioned by custom and 
 society. This at length found its vent in the tablet of 
 indictment, which was hung up one morning in the 
 portico where such notices were displayed " Socrates 
 is guilty of crime ; first, for not worshipping the gods, 
 whom the city worships, but introducing new divini- 
 
 * Plato, i. 250. 
 A. c. vol. xix. E
 
 66 PL A TO. 
 
 ties of his own ; secondly, for corrupting the youth. 
 The penalty due is Death." 
 
 His three accusers were Anytus, a wealthy trades- 
 man ; Meletus, an obscure poet ; and Lycon, a rhetori- 
 cian. Socrates himself seems to have been little moved 
 by the danger of his position, and to have hardly 
 wished for an acquittal. He felt that he had done his 
 work, and that " it was no wonder that the gods should 
 deem it better for him to die now than to live longer." * 
 I Certainly the tone of his Defence, as we have it from 
 Plato, is more like a defiance than an apology ; and the 
 speaker seems, as Cicero said, not BO much a suppliant 
 or an accused person, as the lord and master of his 
 judges.t 
 
 He begins by disclaiming any resemblance to that 
 Socrates whom they had seen on the stage the star- 
 gazer and arch-Sophist for he knows nothing of 
 science, and had never taken a fee for teaching. His 
 life has been passed in trying to find a wiser man than 
 himself, and in exposing self-conceit and pretentious 
 ignorance. To this mission he has devoted himself, in 
 spite of poverty and ill-repute. 
 
 Next he turns upon Meletus, his accuser, and cross- 
 examines him in open court. " How can you," he 
 asks, " call me the corrupter of the youth, when then- 
 fathers and brothers would bear witness that it is not 
 so ? How can you call roe the worshipper of strange 
 gods, when the heresies of Anaxagoras are declaimed 
 on the stage, and sold in our streets ? " 
 
 * Xen. Mem., IV. viii. 4. t Cic. de Orat, i. 54.
 
 APOLOGY. 67 
 
 Then he turns to the judges again. As for death, is 
 it likely that one who has never shunned danger on 
 the battle-field who dared to record his solitary vote 
 at the trial of the generals, in defence of the innocent 
 and in defiance of the popular clamour who had 
 braved the anger of the Thirty Tyrants, is it likely 
 that he would desert the post of duty now ? 
 
 " Athenians ! " he says solemnly, " I both love and 
 honour you ; but as long as I live and have the power, 
 I shall never cease to seek the truth, and exhort you to 
 follow it. For I seem to have been sent by God to rouse 
 you from your lethargy, as you may see a gadfly stinging 
 a strong and sluggish horse. Perhaps you will be angry 
 at being thus awakened from your sleep. Shake me off, 
 then, and take your rest, and sleep on for ever. I shall 
 not try (as others have done) to move your pity by tears 
 and prayers, or by the sight of my weeping children for 
 Socrates is not as other men are ; and if," he concludes, 
 " men of Athens, by force of persuasion or entreaty I 
 could overpower your oaths, then I should indeed be teach- 
 ing you to believe that there are no gods, and convict myself, 
 in my own defence, of not believing in them. But that is 
 not the case, for I do believe that there are gods, and in a 
 far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers 
 believe in them. And to you and to God I commit my 
 cause, to be determined by you as is best, both for you and 
 for me " J. 
 
 It was not likely that any jury would be convinced 
 by such a speech as this marked throughout by a 
 " contempt of court " unparalleled in Athenian history ; 
 and accordingly Socrates was found guilty on both counts 
 of the indictment though by a majority of only five
 
 68 PL A TO. 
 
 votes out of some 550. It now remained for himself 
 to propose (as was the custom in such trials at Athens) 
 some counter-penalty in place of death. 
 
 But now that he is a condemned criminal, his tone 
 becomes even more lofty than before. Of right, he 
 says, they should have honoured him as a public bene- 
 factor, and have maintained him, like an Olympic 
 victor, at the expense of the nation. For his own part, 
 he would not even trouble himself to propose an alter- 
 native penalty ; but as his friends wish it, and will 
 raise the sum (for he is too poor himself), then a fine 
 of thirty minse is what he will offer as the price of 
 life. 
 
 Such a sum (120) was plainly an utterly inade- 
 quate fine from an Athenian point of view, consider- 
 ing the gravity of the crimes of which he was accused, 
 and that the utmost penalty of the law was the alter- 
 native. The question is again put to the vote, and 
 Socrates is condemned to death the majority this 
 time being far larger than before. 
 
 Then he makes his farewell address to his judges. 
 They have condemned him because he would not con- 
 descend to tears or entreaties ; and perhaps if he had 
 done so he might have escaped. But on such terms 
 he prefers death to life, and indeed it is good for him 
 to die ; for death is either annihilation, where sense 
 .and feeling are not, or it is a passage of the soul from 
 this world to another. In either case, he will be at 
 rest. He will sleep for ever without a dream ; or he 
 will find in Hades better men, and a juster judgment, 
 and truer judges, than he has found on earth; and
 
 APOLOGY. 69 
 
 there he will converse with Homer and Orpheus, and 
 the great men of old ; questioning the heroic spirits 
 whom he meets there, as has been his wont to ques- 
 tion living men, and finding out who are wise and who 
 are foolish below the earth. 
 
 " What infinite delight," he concludes, " there would be 
 in conversing with them and asking them questions ! For 
 in that world they do not put a man to death for this, 
 certainly not. For besides being happier hi that world 
 than this, they will be immortal, if what is said is true. 
 
 " Wherefore, O ye judges, be of good cheer about death, 
 and know this of a truth that no evil can happen to a 
 good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not 
 neglected by the gods ; nor has my own approaching end 
 happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that to die 
 and be released was better for me ; and therefore the oracle 
 gave no sign. For which reason also I am not angry with 
 my accusers or condemners ; they have done me no harm, 
 though neither of them meant to do me any good ; and for 
 this I may gently blame them. . . . 
 
 " The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways 
 I to die, and you to live. Which is better, God only 
 knows." J. 
 
 So ends this famous defence which Plato has put into 
 his master's mouth ; and whether the substance of it 
 was actually delivered or not, assuredly " few persons 
 will be found to wish that Socrates should have de- 
 fended himself otherwise." The account of his subse- 
 quent imprisonment and death is given us in the two 
 following Dialogues.
 
 70 PLA TO. 
 
 CRITO. 
 
 Thirty days elapsed "before the sentence passed on 
 Socrates could be carried into effect. Every year the 
 Athenians sent a vessel on a pilgrimage to Delos, in 
 memory of the preservation of their city in the days 
 of Theseus ; and from the moment that the priest of 
 Apollo crowned the vessel before it left the harbour, to 
 the hour of its return, there intervened a holy season, 
 during which the city might be polluted by no exe- 
 cutions. Now it happened that the vessel sailed on 
 the day that Socrates was condemned, and his exe- 
 cution was accordingly deferred for a month. 
 
 His friends daily assembled in his prison, and the 
 long hours were passed in conversation on the usual 
 subjects. One morning Crito com.es earlier than usual 
 when it is hardly light and finds Socrates calmly 
 sleeping. " Why have you come at this unusual time ? " 
 asks Socrates on waking. " I bring sad news," is the 
 reply ; " the sacred vessel has been seen off Cape 
 Sunium on its way home, and will reach Athens by 
 to-morrow." But Socrates is prepared for this. He 
 has seen in a vision of the night " the likeness of a 
 woman, fair and comely, clothed in white raiment, Avho 
 called to him and said " Socrates, the third day 
 hence to Pthia thou shalt go." He is inclined to be- 
 lieve that the dream will prove true, and that on the 
 third day he will be dead. 
 
 Then Crito earnestly implores him to use the little 
 time that is left in making his escape. Neither friends 
 nor money will be wanting : the jailer can be bribed,
 
 CRITO. 71 
 
 and the mouths of the Informers stopped with gold. 
 He will find a home ready for him in Thessaly, where 
 he will "be loved and honoured. " It would be sheer 
 folly," Crito continues, "to play into the hands of 
 his enemies, and to leave his children outcasts on the 
 world. If the sentence of death is carried out, it will 
 be an absurd and miserable end of a trial which ought 
 to have been brought to another issue." 
 
 But Socrates has only one answer to these arguments, 
 which might have persuaded any but himself. Would 
 it be right or lawful for him to escape now ? Shall he 
 who for half a century has been preaching obedience 
 to the law, now, in the hour of trial, stultify the precepts 
 of a lifetime 1 For all those years he has been enjoy- 
 ing the privileges of citizenship and the blessings of a 
 free state, and shall he now be tempted by the fear of 
 death to break his tacit covenant with the laws, and 
 turn his back upon his city " like a miserable slave " ? 
 
 He can fancy the spirit of the laws themselves up- 
 braiding him : 
 
 " Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. 
 Think not of life and children first, and of justice after- 
 wards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before 
 the princeiTof the world below. For neither will you nor 
 any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this 
 life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now, 
 you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil ; 
 a victim not of laws but of men. But if you go forth 
 returning evil for evil and injury for injury, breaking the 
 covenants and agreements which you have made with us, 
 and wronging those whom you ought least to wrong that 
 is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us we
 
 72 PL A TO. 
 
 shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, 
 the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy, 
 for they will know that you have done your best to destroy 
 us. Listen, then, to us, and not to Crito." 
 
 This is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my 
 ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic ; 
 that voice, I say, is humming in my ears, and prevents me 
 from hearing any other. And I know that anything more 
 which you may say will be vain. Yet speak, if you have 
 anything to say. 
 
 Cr. I have nothing to say, Socrates. 
 
 Soc. Then let me follow the intimations of the will of 
 God.-J. 
 
 Two days after this, his friends assemble at the 
 prison-doors for the last time, somewhat earlier than 
 usual. There is a short delay, for the sheriffs have 
 come to take the chains off the prisoner preparatory to 
 his death. 
 
 The jailer soon admits them, and " on entering " (says 
 Phsedo, who had been present himself) " we found Socrates 
 just released from chains, and Xanthippe sitting by him 
 holding his child in her arms. When she saw us, she 
 uttered a cry and said, as women will, ' O Socrates, this 
 is the last time that either you will converse with yoxir 
 friends, or they with you !' Socrates turned to Crito and 
 said, ' Crito, let some one take her home.' Some of Crito's 
 people accordingly led her away, crying out and beating 
 herself." J. 
 
 Socrates then proceeds to talk in his usual easy 
 manner. He has several times been told in dreams 
 " to make music ; " and he has accordingly been turn-
 
 PH^EDO. 73 
 
 ing some fables of /Esop into verse. " Tell Evenus 
 this," he says, " and bid him be of good cheer ; say 
 that I would have him come after me, if he be a wise 
 man, and not tarry ; and that to-day I am likely to be 
 going, for the Athenians say I must." Then he con- 
 siders the question " Why, in a case where death is 
 better than life, a man should not hasten his own 
 end 1 " He finds the answer to be, Because man is a 
 prisoner, and has no right to release himself, being, in 
 fact, a sort of possession of the gods, who will summon 
 him at their pleasure.* 
 
 "Then," says Cebes, one of the party, "the wise 
 man will sorrow and the fool rejoice at leaving his 
 masters the gods, and passing out of life." 
 
 " JSTot so," is the reply; " for I am persuaded that I 
 am going to other gods, who are wise and good, and 
 also (I trust) to men departed, who are better than those 
 I leave behind ; therefore I do not grieve, as otherwise 
 I might, for I have good hope that there is yet some- 
 thing awaiting the dead, and, as has been said of old, 
 some far better lot for the good than for the wicked." 
 
 He then explains the grounds 011 which he builds 
 this hope of immortality. Death, he says, is the 
 happy release of the soul from the body. In this life 
 our highest and purest thoughts are distracted by cares 
 and lusts, and diseases inherent in the flesh. He is 
 wisest who keeps himself pure till the hour when the 
 Deity Himself is pleased to release him. " Then shall 
 
 * We may compare the argument used by Despair, and tlie 
 answer of the Red Cross Knight, in Spenser (Fairy Queen, I. 
 ix. 40, 41).
 
 74 PLATO. 
 
 the foolishness of the flesh be purged away, and 
 we shall be pure, and hold converse with other pure 
 souls, and recognise the pure light everywhere, which 
 is none other than the light of truth." Hence the wise 
 man leaves with joy a world where his higher and 
 ethereal sense is trammelled by evil and impurity; and 
 his whole life is but a preparation for death, or rather 
 an initiation into the mysteries of the unseen world. 
 Many, as they say, join the procession in such mys- 
 teries ; but few are really chosen for initiation. 
 . No fear that our souls will vanish like smoke, or 
 that the dead sleep on for ever, like Endymion. Our 
 souls are born again ; and as life passes into death, so, 
 in the circle of nature, the dead must pass into life ; 
 for if this were not so, all things must at last be 
 swallowed up in death. 
 
 Again, we have in our minds latent powers of 
 thought ideas of beauty and equality which are 
 not given us at our birth, and which we cannot have 
 learnt from experience. Such knowledge is but the 
 soul's recollection of a previous state of existence. 
 
 " Blank misgivings of a creature 
 Moving about in worlds not realised."* 
 
 It is only the mortal part of us (Socrates continues) 
 that dies when earth returns to earth. The pure soul, 
 herself invisible, departs to the invisible world to 
 the divine, the immortal, and the rational ; where she 
 dwells in bliss, in company with the gods, released 
 from the errors and follies of men, their fears, their 
 
 * Wordsworth's Ocle on Immortality.
 
 PHMDO. 75 
 
 unruly passions, and all other evils of humanity. But 
 the impure soul fears to go down to Hades, and haunts 
 the earth for a time like a restless ghost.* 
 
 Then, by a further train of reasoning, Socrates con- 
 cludes that the soul is beyond all doubt immortal and 
 imperishable. This being so, a graver question fol- 
 lows " What manner of persons ought we ourselves 
 to be 1 " " If death had been the end of all things, 
 then the wicked would gain by dying ; for they would 
 have been happily rid not of their bodies only, but of 
 their own wickedness, together with their souls. But 
 now, as the soul plainly appears to be immortal, no 
 release or salvation from evil can be found except in 
 the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For 
 the soul, on her journey to the world below, carries no- 
 thing with her but her nurture and education." After 
 death comes the judgment ; the guardian angel of 
 each soul conducts her through the road with many 
 windings that leads to the place where all are tried. 
 After this the impure soul wanders without a guide in 
 helpless misery, until a certain period is accomplished, 
 and then she is borne away to her own place. But 
 the pure soul, " arrayed in her proper jewels tem- 
 perance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and 
 truth " dwells for ever in the glorious mansions re- 
 served for the elect. 
 
 * "Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp, 
 Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres, 
 Lingering, and sitting by a new-made grave, 
 As loth to leave the body that it loved." 
 
 Milton, "Comus,"470.
 
 76 PL A TO. 
 
 Thus Socrates ends his noLle profession of faith in 
 a future life with him half instinct, half conviction. 
 His " Non omnis moriar " has a triumphant ring about 
 it ; and, like the swans to whom he compares himself, 
 " who sing more joyously on the day of their death 
 than they ever did before," he rejoices in the thought 
 of his speedy release from life, and looks confidently 
 beyond the grave. 
 
 The evening is fast drawing on, and the shadows 
 are lengthening on the Attic hills, when Crito asks 
 him if he has any last directions to give about his 
 children or about his burial. " Bury me in any way 
 you like," says Socrates, with a touch of his old humour; 
 " but be sure that you get hold of me, and that I don't 
 run away from you." Then he turns to the others 
 and says with a smile, " I cannot make Crito believe 
 that I am the same Socrates who have been talking 
 and conducting the argument. He fancies that I am 
 the other Socrates whom he will soon see a dead 
 body and he asks, ' How he shall bury me 1 ' You 
 must all be my sureties to Crito, that I shall go away, 
 and then he will sorrow less at my death, and not be 
 grieved when he sees my body burned or buried." 
 
 Then he takes his bath, and bids farewell to his wife 
 and children ; and by this time the sun is low in the 
 heavens, and the jailer comes in to tell him that his 
 hour is come weeping himself as he utters the words. 
 
 Soon the poison is brought. Socrates takes the cup, 
 and 
 
 "in the gentlest and easiest manner, without the least 
 fear or change of colour or feature, looking at the man with
 
 PII^EDO. 77 
 
 all his eyes, Echecrates, as his manner was, took the cup 
 and said, ' What do you say about making a libation out 
 of this cup to any god ? May I, or not ? ' The man 
 answered, '"We only prepare, Socrates, just so much as 
 we deem enough.' ' I understand,' he said, ' yet I may 
 and must pray to the gods to prosper my journey from 
 this to the other world : may this, then, which is my 
 prayer, be granted to me.' Then, holding the cup to his 
 lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison. 
 And hitherto most of us had been able to control our 
 sorrow ; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too 
 that he had finished the draught, we could no longer for- 
 bear, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast ; 
 so that I covered my face and wept over myself, for cer- 
 tainly I was not weeping over him, but in the thought of 
 my own calamity in having lost such a companion. Nor 
 was I the first ; for Crito, when he found himself unable to 
 restrain his tears, had got up and moved away, and I fol- 
 lowed ; and at that moment, Apollodorus, who had been 
 weeping all the time, broke out into a loud cry which made 
 cowards of us all. Socrates alone retained his calmness. 
 ' What is this strange outcry ? ' he said. ' I sent away the 
 women mainly in order that they might not offend in this 
 way, for I have heard that a man should die in peace. Be 
 quiet, then, and have patience.' When we heard that we 
 were ashamed, and refrained our tears ; and he walked 
 about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he 
 lay on his back, according to the directions, and the man 
 who gave him the poison now and then looked at his feet 
 and legs ; and after a while he pressed his foot hard, and 
 asked him if he could feel, and he said ' No ; ' and then 
 his leg, and so upwards and upwards, and showed us that 
 he was cold and stiff. And he felt them himself, and said, 
 ' When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end.' 
 He was beginning to feel cold about the groin, when he 
 uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and said
 
 78 PL A TO. 
 
 (they were his last words), ' Crito, I owe a cock to Asclep- 
 ius ; will you remember to pay the debt ? ' ' The debt 
 shall be paid,' said Crito ; ' is there anything else ? ' There 
 was no answer to this question ; but in a minute or two a 
 movement was heard, and the attendants uncovered him ; 
 his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth. 
 Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend, whom I may 
 truly call the wisest and justest and best of all the men 
 whom I have ever known." J, 
 
 So ends the " Phaedo ; " and as we close the volume, 
 we feel as though we too had lost a friend, so simply 
 and yet so touchingly has every detail of that last 
 scene in the prison been painted for us by a master- 
 hand. Even across the lapse of centuries the picture 
 rises before us distinct and lifelike, as it was to the 
 mind of the writer who described it, the passionate 
 grief of Apollodorus, the despair of Crito, the silent 
 tears of Phaedo even the jailer weeping, and turning 
 away his face and the composure meanwhile of the 
 central figure of the group, talking cheerfully, and 
 playing with Phaedo' s hair, who is sitting next him. 
 We can well understand the mingled feelings of the 
 spectators of the scene. 4< I could hardly believe " 
 (says Phaedo, telling the story to Echecrates) " that I 
 was present at the death of a friend, and therefore I 
 did not pity him ; his mien and his language were so 
 noble and fearless in the hour of death, that to me he 
 appeared blessed. I thought that, in going to the 
 other world, he could not be without a divine call, 
 and that he would be happy, if any man ever was, 
 when he arrived there; and therefore I did not pity 
 him, as might seem natural at such a time. But
 
 P IMS DO. 79 
 
 neither could I feel the pleasure which I usually felt 
 in philosophical discourse. I was pleased, and I was 
 also pained, because I knew that he was soon to die ; 
 and this strange mixture of feeling was shared by us 
 all : we were laughing and weeping by turns, espe- 
 cially the excitable Apollodorus." 
 
 Cicero (who was by no means tender-hearted) de- 
 clared that he could never read the " Phsedo " without 
 tears ; and we all know the story of " the fair pupil 
 of Ascham, who, while the horns were sounding and 
 dogs in full cry, sat in the lonely oriel with eyes rivet- 
 ed to that immortal page which tells how meekly and 
 bravely the first martyr of intellectual liberty took the 
 cup from his weeping jailer." ' 
 
 * Macaulay's Essay on Lord Bacon.
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 DIALOGUES OF SEARCH. 
 
 LACHES CHARMIDES LYSIS MEXO EUTUYPHIIO 
 CKATYLUS THE^TETUS. 
 
 " Socrates used to ask questions, but did not answer them, for he pro- 
 fessed not to know." Aristotle. 
 
 IN the Dialogues which follow, we have the negative 
 side of the teaching of Socrates strongly brought out. 
 Both sides of the questions raised are fully argued by 
 him, but no definite conclusion is arrived at. He never, 
 indeed, assumes any attitude of authority. He is a 
 searcher for truth, like the young men with whom he 
 talks ; the only difference being that his search is more 
 zealous and systematic than theirs. " We shall " (he 
 says in the Thesetetus) " either find what Ave are 
 looking for, or we shall get rid of the idea that we 
 know what we really do not know. And we philo- 
 sophers have plenty of leisure for our inquiries, for we 
 are not tied down to time, like a barrister pleading 
 in the hvw-courts, whose speech is measured by the 
 clock." Socrates had begun, as he tells us, by cate- 
 chising artisans and mechanics as to their arts and 
 occupations (hence the constant allusions in the Dia-
 
 DIALOGUES OF SEARCH. 81 
 
 logues to mechanical employments shoemaking, 
 swordmaking, and the like), and from them he had 
 got clear and satisfactory answers. But he found that 
 if he asked a man what was his real work or object in 
 life, or what was the meaning of the moral terms so 
 frequently in his mouth, he got only vague answers or 
 contradictions. Hence the questions which he exam- 
 ines in these ' Dialogues of Search' relate to the most 
 familiar and obvious terms that meet us on the thresh- 
 old of morality Holiness, Courage, Temperance, and 
 other cardinal virtues qualities which many might 
 possess themselves and easily recognise in others, but 
 which they could not explain with any logical pre- 
 cision. 
 
 It is true that custom and tradition had given to 
 these set phrases of morality a certain value and signi- 
 ficance in the minds of those who used them ; but few 
 had learned to define or analyse their full meaning, 
 and Socrates was the first who brought them under a 
 logical scrutiny examining their various uses, fixing 
 their strict sense, and referring the individuals to their 
 proper class, or, in the words of Aristotle, rallying the 
 stragglers to the main body of the regiment. 
 
 In his arguments with the Sophists, as we have 
 seen, Socrates shows his opponents no law. He proves 
 himself a bitter and determined antagonist turning 
 where he can their own weapons against themselves, 
 and leaving them to find out the fallacies in his state- 
 ments ; nor will he listen to any long defence from them, 
 for, as he tells Protagoras, he has a short memory, and 
 expects definite categorical answers. But when talk- 
 
 A. c. vol. xix. F
 
 82 PL A TO. 
 
 ing, as in these ' Dialogues of Search,' with some young 
 noble of the rising generation, whose character is hardly 
 formed and whose heart is still fresh and pure, the 
 manner of Socrates entirely changes, and his voice 
 softens ; he lays aside that terrible " irony " of his ; 
 he adapts his questions to the youth's comprehen- 
 sion, encourages and sympathises with his attempts 
 to answer, and uses the easiest language and the 
 homeliest illustrations to explain his meaning. 
 
 "We may take first the Dialogue entitled LACHES, in 
 which Courage the instinct of a child and the habit 
 of a man is discussed. The speakers bear historical 
 names. There is Lysimachus, the son of Aristides, 
 and Melesios, son of Thucydides (not the historian, but 
 a statesman contemporary with Themistocles); but the 
 genius of the fathers has not in this ca$p been inherited 
 by their sons, who are plain respectable citizens of 
 Athens, and nothing more. They are conscious, how- 
 ever, of their own degeneracy, and complain that their 
 education had been neglected, and that their fathers 
 had been so much engrossed in affairs of state as to 
 have neither time nor inclination to act as tutors to 
 their own children. " Both of us," says Lysimachus, 
 " often talk to our boys about the many noble deeds 
 which our fathers did in war and peace but neither 
 of us has any deeds of his own which he can show. 
 Xow we are somewhat ashamed of this contrast being 
 seen by them, and we blame our fathers for letting us 
 be spoiled in the days of our youth when they were oc- 
 cupied with the concerns of others ; and this we point 
 out to the lads, and tell them that they will not grow
 
 LACHES. 83 
 
 up to honour, if they are rebellious and take no pains 
 about themselves ; but that if they take pains they 
 may become worthy perhaps of the names they bear." 
 (The tAvo youths, as was often the case, had been 
 named after their grandfathers, Aristides and Thucy- 
 dides.) 
 
 In their doubt as to the best means of carrying out 
 these good intentions, the two fathers come to Laches 
 and Nicias both distinguished generals and statesmen 
 and ask their advice in the matter ; more especi- 
 ally as to whether the lessons of a certain swordsman, 
 who has just been going through a trial of arms, are 
 likely to be of use. The veterans discuss the merits of 
 this new style of fencing, just as two officers now 
 might criticise the last improved rifle. Mcias is much 
 in favour of the youths learning it, as it will usefully 
 occupy their spare time, will be of real service in war, 
 and will set them up and give them a military air and 
 carriage. But Laches has no opinion of this new- 
 fangled invention, and thinks that if it had been 
 worth anything, the Spartans, the first military power 
 in Greece, would have adopted it. He had indeed him- 
 self once been witness of a ridiculous scene in which 
 this very swordsman had left his last invention a 
 spear with a billhook at the end of it sticking fast 
 in the rigging of the enemy's vessel, and was laughed 
 at by friends and foes. " No," says Laches, " let us 
 have simplicity in all things in war as well as music : 
 but these young men must learn something ; so let us 
 appeal to Socrates, my old comrade in the battle-field, 
 who has much experience of youth."
 
 84 PL A TO. 
 
 Socrates, thus appealed to, joins in the discussion. 
 His opinion is that they should find some wise teacher, 
 not so much with a view to lessons in arms, as to a 
 general education of the mind. For no trilling ques- 
 tion, he says, is at issue. They are risking the most 
 precious of earthly possessions their children, upon 
 whose turning out well or ill depends the welfare of 
 the house. For his own part, he knows nothing of the 
 matter. He is neither professor nor inventor himself, 
 and is too poor to pay fees to the Sophists. Kicias 
 and Laches are wealthier and wiser men than he ; and 
 he will gladly abide by their decision. But why do 
 their opinions differ 1 ? 
 
 Nicias thinks they will be drawn into a Socratic 
 argument, as usual, but is very willing to go through 
 an examination ; and Laches, though not fond of 
 arguing as a rule, is very ready to listen when the 
 man is in harmony with his words, and willing there- 
 fore to be taught by Socrates, whom he knows as not 
 merely a talker, but a doer of brave deeds. 
 
 Socrates thinks it will be better to consider, not 
 so much the question of who are the teachers, as what 
 they profess to teach, namely, Virtue, or more espe- 
 cially that part of it which most concerns them at 
 present Courage. Then, by a series of questions, 
 he limits the vague definition first given by Laches, 
 and proves to him that there may be other forms of 
 courage as noble as that of the soldier who stands his 
 ground in battle such as the endurance of pain, 
 or poverty, or reproach ; and it generally seems to be 
 a certain wise strength of mind, the intelligent and
 
 CIIARMIDES. 85 
 
 reasonable fortitude of a man who foresees coming 
 evil and can calculate the consequences of his acts, 
 and is very different from the fearless courage of a 
 child, or the insensate fury of a wild beast. But then 
 the man who has this knowledge of good and evil, im- 
 plied in the possession of real courage, must have also 
 temperance and justice, and in fact all the virtues ; 
 and this would contradict the starting-point of their 
 discussion, in which they agreed that courage was 
 only a part of virtue. 
 
 " No," Socrates concludes ; "we shall have to leave 
 off where we began, and courage must still be to us 
 an unknown quantity. We must go to school again 
 ourselves, and make the education of these boys our 
 own education." 
 
 The introduction to the CHARMIDES is another speci- 
 men of that dramatic description in which Plato 
 excelled. " Yesterday evening," says Socrates, " I 
 came back from the camp at Potidsea ; and having 
 been a good while away, I thought I would go and 
 look in at my old haunts. So I went into the Palaestra 
 of Taureas, and there I found a number of persons, 
 most of whom I knew, though not all. My visit was 
 unexpected, and as soon as they saw me coming in 
 they hailed me at once from all sides ; and Chaerephon 
 (who is a kind of lunatic, you know) jumped up and 
 rushed to me, seizing my hand and exclaiming, " How 
 did you escape, Socrates'?" (I must explain that a 
 battle had taken place at Potidaea not long before we 
 left, the news of which had only just reached Athens.)
 
 86 PL A TO. 
 
 " You see," I replied, " that here I am." 
 " The report was," said he, " that the fighting was very 
 severe, and that several of our acquaintance had fallen." 
 " That was too nearly the truth," replied I. 
 " I suppose you were there ? " said he. 
 " I was." 
 " Then sit down and tell us the whole story." J. 
 
 So Socrates sits down between Chserephon and 
 Critias, and answers their eager inquiries after absent 
 friends. Then there enters a group of youths, laugh- 
 ing and talking noisily, and among them is Charmides, 
 a cousin of Critias, tall and handsome, and (so say his 
 friends) "as fair and good within as he is without." 
 He conies and sits near Socrates, who professes to 
 know a charm that will cure a headache of which he 
 has been complaining. This charm is a talisman given 
 to Socrates (as he tells Charmides) by Zamolxis, phy- 
 sician to the king of Thrace ; but which he is only 
 allowed to use on the condition of his never attempt- 
 ing to cure the body without first curing the soul, and 
 then temperance in the one will produce health in the 
 other. But the question is, " What is Temperance ? " 
 It is not always what Charmides understands by it, the 
 quietness of a gentleman who is never flurried and never 
 noisy; nor is it exactly modesty, though very like it ; 
 nor is it (as Critias defines it) " doing one's own busi- 
 ness," even though our work as men be nobly and 
 usefully done. Nor, again, is it true that the golden 
 characters on the gates of Delphi, " Know thyself," 
 simply meant, " Be temperate ; " nor is it a " science of 
 sciences," as Critias again explains it or rather, the 
 knowledge of what a man knows and does not know.
 
 CHARMIDEX. 87 
 
 All knowledge is relative, and must have some object- 
 matter ; and such, a universal knowledge as Critias 
 would imply by temperance would in no way conduce 
 to our happiness. 
 
 Finally, Socrates confesses himself puzzled and 
 baffled. They are no nearer the truth than at start- 
 ing ; and the argument, so to speak, " turns round 
 and laughs in their faces." He is sorry that Char- 
 mides has learnt so little from him ; " and still more," 
 he concludes 
 
 " am I grieved about the charm which I learned with 
 so much pain and to so little profit from the Thracian, for 
 the sake of a thing which is nothing worth. I think, 
 indeed, that there is a mistake, and that I must be a bad 
 inquirer ; for I am persuaded that wisdom or temperance 
 is really a great good ; and happy are you if you possess 
 that good. And therefore examine yourself, and see 
 whether you have this gift, and can do without the charm ; 
 for if you can, I would rather advise you to regard me 
 simply as a fool who is never able to reason out anything ; 
 and to rest assured that the more wise and temperate you 
 are, the happier you will be." 
 
 Charmides said : " I am sure t do not know, Socrates, 
 whether I have or have not this gift of wisdom and tem- 
 perance ; for how can I know whether I have that, the 
 very nature of which even you and Critias, as you say, are 
 unable to discover I (not that I believe you.) And further, 
 I am sure, Socrates, that I do need the charm ; and, so far 
 as I am concerned, I shall be willing to be charmed by you 
 daily, until you say I have had enough." 
 
 " Very good, Charmides," said Critias ; " if you do this I 
 shall have a proof of your temperance that is, if you allow 
 yourself to be charmed by Socrates, and never desert him 
 at all."
 
 88 PLA TO. 
 
 11 You may depend on my following and not deserting 
 him," said Charmides. " If you who are my guardian 
 command me, I should be very wrong not to obey you." 
 
 " Well, I do command you," he said. 
 
 " Then I will do as you say, and begin this very day." 
 
 J. 
 
 In the LYSIS, the scene is again a Palaestra, near a 
 school kept by Micon, a friend of Socrates. It is a 
 half-holiday (like a saint's day in some of our public 
 schools) in honour of the god Hermes ; and the boys 
 are scattered round the courtyard, some wrestling, 
 some playing at dice, and others looking on. Among 
 these last is Lysis, of noble birth and of high promise, 
 with his friend Menexenus. Socrates professes him- 
 self charmed at the attachment of the two boys, and 
 calls them very fortunate. All people, he says, have 
 their different objects of ambition horses, dogs, money, 
 honour, as the case may be ; but for his own part he 
 would rather have a good friend than all these put 
 together. It is what he has longed for all his life, 
 and here is Lysis already supplied. " But," he asks, 
 " what is Friendship, and who is a friend ?" 
 
 Is it sympathy is it, as the poets say, that " the 
 gods draw like to like " by some mysterious affinity 
 of souls ? In that case, the bad man can be no one's 
 friend ; for he is not always even like himself much 
 less like any one else ; while the good man is self- 
 sufficing, and therefore has no need of friends. Is not 
 Difference rather the principle ? Are not unlike char- 
 acters attracted by a sense of dependence, and do not 
 the weak thus love the strong, and the poor the rich ?
 
 LYSIS. 89 
 
 But this cannot be so always, for then by this very 
 law of contraries the good would love the bad, and the 
 just the unjust. No there must be a stage of in- 
 difference, between these two ; Avhen one whose char- 
 acter is hardly formed who is neither good nor bad 
 courts the society of the good, from some vague desire 
 of improvement. 
 
 But Socrates is not satisfied yet. He thinks there 
 must be some final principle or first cause of friend- 
 ship which they have uot discovered: "ant? here," he 
 says, 
 
 " I was going to invite the opinion of some older person, 
 when suddenly we were interrupted by the tutors of Lysis 
 and Meiiexenus, who came upon us like an evil apparition 
 with their brothers, and bade them go home, as it was 
 getting late. At first we and the bystanders drove them 
 off, but afterwards, as they would not mind, and only went 
 on shouting in their barbarous dialect, and got angry, and 
 kept calling the boys (they appeared to us to have been 
 drinking rather too much at the Herma3a, which made 
 them difficult to manage), we fairly gave way, and broke 
 up the company. I said, however, a few words to the boys 
 at parting. O Menexenus and Lysis, will not the bystand- 
 ers go away and say, ' Here is a jest : you two boys, and I, 
 an old boy, who would fain be one of you, imagine ourselves 
 to be friends, and we have not as yet been able to discover 
 what is a friend ! ' " J. 
 
 Aristotle devotes two books of his " Ethics " to this 
 much-debated question of Friendship always roman- 
 tic and interesting from a Greek point of view. He 
 looks upon- it in a political light, as filling up the void 
 left by Justice in the state ; and he traces its appear-
 
 90 PL A TO. 
 
 ance in different forms in different governments. It is 
 an extension of " Self-Love " very different from 
 Selfishness, for a good man (he says) will give up 
 honour and life and lands for his friend's sake, and 
 yet reserve to himself something still more excellent 
 the glory of a noble deed.* But Aristotle can, no 
 more than Plato, give the precise grounds for any 
 friendship, except that it should not be based on 
 pleasure or utility ; and we are told of his saying 
 more than once to his pupils, " my friends, there is 
 no friend ! " Perhaps, after all, Montaigne was right 
 friendship is inexplicable ; and the only reason that 
 can be given for liking such a person is the one given 
 by him, " Because it was he, because it was I." 
 
 The MENO of Plato, introduced in the Dialogue 
 which bears his name, is a very different character 
 from the Meno of history a traitor who did his best 
 to embarrass the retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks. 
 Plato represents him as a "Thessalian Alcibiades" a 
 rich young noble, the devoted pupil of the Sophists. 
 He meets Socrates, and abruptly asks him the old 
 question, whether Virtue can be taught ; and Socrates, 
 as usual, "professes' ignorance. He is not a Gorgias, that 
 he can answer such a question offhand " in the grand 
 style." He does not even know what Virtue is, much 
 less who are its teachers : and he adds, with mock 
 humility, that there is a singular dearth of wisdom at 
 Athens just now, for the rhetoricians have carried it 
 all away with them to Thrace. Perhaps Meno will 
 
 * Ethics, viii, ix.
 
 MENO. 91 
 
 kindly enlighten him with the opinions of Gorgias on 
 this difficult question ? 
 
 Yes, Meno will tell him. Every age and condition 
 of life has its special virtue. A man's virtue is states- 
 manship, in which he will guard his own and his 
 country's interests ; while " a woman's virtue is to 
 order her house and keep what is within doors, and 
 obey her husband ; " a stay-at-home view of her duties 
 which would find little favour with the modern advo- 
 cates of female suffrage. 
 
 But surely, objects Socrates, justice and temperance 
 are needed by all ages and professions. Must there 
 not be some one common element pervading these 
 separate virtues, which are merely individuals of a 
 class, like colours and figures? Virtue, like health, 
 must be a common quality, though it may take various 
 forms. 
 
 Meno then comes to understand that a definition is 
 what is wanted, and accordingly quotes one from the 
 poets. " Virtue is the desire of the honourable, and 
 the power of getting it." 
 
 But Socrates is not satisfied with this. You must, 
 he says, get what is honourable with justice (or it 
 would not be virtuous); and justice is a part of virtue. 
 
 Meno is puzzled by this, and complains that Socrates 
 is a wizard, and has bewitched him. His arguments 
 are like the shock of the torpedo they benumb and 
 stupefy. But Socrates declares that he is just as much 
 perplexed himself; he is ready, indeed, to search for 
 the truth, but he knows no more what the truth is 
 than Meno does.
 
 92 PL A TO. 
 
 " How then" (says Meno, acutely) " can you search 
 for that of which you know nothing ; and how, even 
 if you find it, can you be sure that you have got it ? " 
 
 This difficulty Socrates explains by that famous 
 doctrine of Reminiscence, which is so important a 
 principle in the Platonic philosophy. The soul (as 
 the poets say) is immortal, and is continually dying 
 and being born again passing from one body to 
 another. During these stages of existence, in Hades 
 and in the upper world, it has seen and learnt all 
 things, but has forgotten the greater part of its .know- 
 ledge. It is capable, however, of reviving by asso- 
 ciation all that it has learnt for all nature is akin, 
 and all knowledge and learning is only reminiscence. 
 Socrates then proves his theory by cross-examining a 
 boy one of Meno's slaves who gives the successive 
 stages of a problem in geometry ; and this implies that 
 the knowledge was already latent in his mind. 
 
 Then Socrates goes on to show that knowledge is 
 the distinctive element of virtue, without which all 
 good gifts, such as health, or beauty, or strength, are 
 unprofitable because not rightly used ; and if virtue 
 he knowledge, it cannot come by nature, but must 
 be taught. 
 
 " But who are its teachers 1 " he asks, appealing to 
 one of the company, Anytus, afterwards his own 
 accuser : for he has failed, hitherto, to find them. 
 " Shall Meno go to the Sophists the professed 
 teachers of all Greece ? " 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " answers Anytus ; " the Sophists 
 are the corrupters of our nation. The real teachers are
 
 EUTHYPHRO. 93 
 
 the good old Athenian gentlemen, and the statesmen 
 of a past age." 
 
 But this Socrates will not allow. These great 
 statesmen never imparted their own wisdom to their 
 sons, and yet they surely would have done so had it 
 been possible. 
 
 Anytus is indignant that his heroes should be so 
 lightly spoken of, and angrily bids Socrates be careful 
 of his words, and remember that it is easier to do men 
 harm in Athens than to do them good. 
 
 Still the original question has not been answered, 
 " Is Virtue teachable ? " and Socrates inclines to think 
 it " a gift from heaven," and that it may be directed 
 by another faculty, practically as useful as knowledge, 
 namely, " right opinion ; " and this is a sort of divine 
 instinct possessed by statesmen, but which they cannot 
 impart to others. The higher form of virtue the 
 ideal knowlege is possessed by none ; and if a man 
 could be found both possessing it and able to impart 
 it, he would be like Tiresias, as Ulysses saw him in 
 Hades, who alone had understanding in the midst of 
 a world of shadows. 
 
 EUTHYPHRO. 
 
 This Dialogue carries us back to the days when the 
 trial of Socrates was still impending. One morning 
 the philosopher meets the augur Euthyphro at the 
 entrance of the law-courts. 
 
 " What are you doing here ? " asks the augur. " I 
 am defendant," Socrates answers, " in a suit which a
 
 94 PLA TO, 
 
 young man named Meletus has brought against me on 
 a charge of corrupting the youth ; and you 1 " 
 
 " I am prosecuting my father for murder," is the 
 startling reply of Euthyphro ; and then he proceeds 
 to tell the story. A man employed on his father's 
 estate, in the island of Naxos, had killed a fellow- 
 slave in a drunken quarrel ; and his father had bound 
 the offender hand and foot, and thrown him into a 
 ditch, while he sent to inquire of a diviner at Athens 
 what he should do with him. But long before the mes- 
 senger could return, the unfortunate slave had died of 
 cold and hunger ; and Euthyphro had felt it his duty 
 to prosecute his father for murder. " My friends," 
 says he, " call me impious and a madman for so doing ; 
 but I know better than they do in what true filial 
 piety consists." 
 
 " And what is Piety 1 " asks Socrates ; " the know- 
 ledge may be of use to me in my approaching 
 trial." 
 
 " Doing as I am doing now," replies the other, in 
 the true spirit of a Pharisee " bringing a murderer to 
 justice without respect of persons, and following the 
 example set by the gods themselves." 
 
 But (asks Socrates again) what is the specific 
 character of piety? for there must be other pious 
 acts besides prosecuting one's father, and the gods may 
 disagree as to questions of right and wrong. Even 
 suppose they all agree in loving a certain act, the fact 
 of their loving it would not make it pious. 
 
 Then Euthyphro defines piety to be that branch 
 of justice which chiefly concerns the gods ; and that
 
 EUTHYPHRO. 95 
 
 man, he says, is most pious who knows best how to 
 propitiate their favour by prayer and sacrifice. Thus 
 piety becomes a sort of business transaction, on the 
 mutual benefit system, between gods and men ; where 
 worldly prosperity is bestowed on one side, and honour 
 and gratitude are rendered on the other. 
 
 But Socrates is not satisfied. They have, he says, 
 been arguing in a circle, and have got back to the de- 
 finition they before rejected that piety is " what is 
 dear to the gods:" for the honour we thus pay to 
 them by prayer and sacrifice is most dear to them. So 
 they must again seek for the true answer ; and Euthy- 
 phro must tell him, for if any man knows the nature 
 of piety, it is evidently he. But Euthyphro is in a 
 hurry, and cannot stay. 
 
 " If Socrates had thought like Euthyphro, he might 
 have died in his bed." Such is the moral M. Cousin * 
 draws from this Dialogue ; and undoubtedly the sub- 
 sequent impeachment of the philosopher might be 
 attributed in part to the enmity of the Athenian 
 priesthood always jealous and intolerant of any new 
 form of faith. Here the contrast is (as Plato probably 
 meant it to be) a striking one between the augur 
 Euthyphro perfect in the letter of the law, but 
 whose consistent "piety" is impelling him to be a 
 parricide and Socrates, even now about to be indicted 
 for worshipping strange gods, yet proving a self-de- 
 voted martyr who refuses to save his life by tamper- 
 ing with his conscience, and who dies rather than 
 
 * Fragm. de Philos. Anc., 117.
 
 96 PLATO. 
 
 break the law by attempting to escape, when escape 
 was easy. 
 
 CRATYLUS. 
 
 Tliis Dialogue turns entirely upon etymology, and 
 hence it is extremely difficult to reproduce it in a 
 modern form, as continual reference is made to Greek 
 nouns and names. The humour is so extravagant and 
 sustained, and the derivations, which Socrates gravely 
 propounds, are often so fanciful and far-fetched, that 
 Mr Jowett thinks Plato intended the Cratylus as a 
 satire upon the false and specious philology of the 
 day ; but that the meaning of his satire (as is often 
 the case) has " slept in the ear of posterity." 
 
 Cratylus, an admirer of Heraclitus, has been arguing 
 about names with Hermogenes a younger brother of 
 the rich Callias, whom we have met before as the 
 hospitable entertainer of Protagoras and his brother 
 Sophists. Hermogenes maintains that names are 
 merely conventional signs, which can be given or taken 
 away at pleasure ; and that any name which you 
 choose to give anything is correct until you change it : 
 while Cratylus holds that names are real and natural 
 expressions of thought, or else they would be mere 
 inarticulate sounds ; and that all truth comes from 
 language. They invite Socrates, who has just joined 
 them, to give his opinion. " Alas ! " says Socrates, 
 regretfully, " if I could only have afforded to attend 
 that fifty-drachma course of lectures given by the great 
 Prodicus, who advertised them as a complete education 
 in grammar and language, I could have told you all
 
 CRATYLUS. 97 
 
 about it; but I was only able to attend the single- 
 drachma course, and know as little of this difficult 
 question as you. Still, I should like a free discussion 
 on the subject." 
 
 We cannot (he goes on) accept Hermogenes' prin- 
 ciple, that each man has a private right of nomencla- 
 ture : for if anybody might name anything, and give 
 it as many names as he liked, all meaning and distinc- 
 tion of terms would soon perish there being as much 
 truth and falsehood implied in words as in sentences. 
 No, speaking and naming, like any other art, should 
 be done in the right way, with the right instrument, and 
 by the right man in the right place. " This giving of 
 names," he continues, " is no such light matter as you 
 fancy, or the work of chance persons; and Cratylus 
 is right in saying that things have names by nature, 
 and that not every man is an artificer of names, but 
 he only who looks to the thing which each name by 
 nature has, and is, will be able to express the ideal 
 forms of things in letters and syllables." It is the 
 law that gives names through the legislator, who is 
 advised in his work by the Dialectician, who alone 
 knows the right use of names, and who can ask and 
 answer questions properly. 
 
 The Sophists profess to teach you the correctness 
 of names ; but if you think lightly of them, turn to 
 the poets. In Homer you will find that the same 
 thing is called differently by gods and men for 
 instance, the river which the gods call Xanthus, men 
 call Scamander ; and there ia a solemn and mysterious 
 truth in this, for of course the gods must be right. 
 
 A. c. vol. xix. o
 
 98 PLATO. 
 
 And so with the two names that Hector's son went 
 by Astyanax and Scamandrius which did Homer 
 think correct ? Clearly, the name given by the men, 
 who are always wiser than the women. This is another 
 great truth ; and besides, in this case, there is a curious 
 coincidence, for the names of the father and son 
 thoiigh having only one letter (t) the same mean the 
 same thing Hector being "holder," and Astyanax 
 " defender," of the city. The mere difference of sylla- 
 bles matters nothing, if the same sense is retained.* 
 
 All these old heroic names, continues Socrates, carry 
 their history with them ; and, if you analyse them 
 properly, you learn the character of the men or gods 
 who bore them. Atreus is " the stubborn " or " de- 
 structive ; " Orestes, the wild " mountain ranger ; " 
 Zeus himself, the lord of " life " and so on with the 
 other personages in Hesiod's genealogy. 
 
 Hermogenes is startled by these derivations, and 
 thinks Socrates must be inspired his language is so 
 oracular. 
 
 " Yes," says Socrates, " and I caught this inspira- 
 tion from the great Euthyphro, with whom I have 
 been since daybreak, listening while he declaimed; 
 his divine wisdom has so filled my ears and possessed 
 my soul, that to-day I will give myself up to this mys- 
 terious influence, and examine fully the history of 
 names ; to-morrow I will go to some priest or sophist, 
 and be purified of this strange bewitchment." 
 
 Sometimes, he continues, we must change and shift 
 the letters to get at the real form of the word : thus 
 
 * So says Fluellen ; they " are all one reckonings, save the 
 phrase is a little variations." Henry V., act iv. sc. 7.
 
 CRATYLUS. 99 
 
 soma, " body," is the same as sema, " tomb " mean- 
 ing the grave in which our soul is buried, or perhaps 
 kept safe, as in a prison, till the last penalty is paid. 
 So also Pluto is the same as Plutus, and means the 
 giver of riches, for all wealth comes from the world 
 below, where he is king. It is true that we use his 
 name as a euphemism for Hades, but we do so wrongly, 
 for there is really nothing terrible connected with that 
 word. It does not mean the awful "unseen" world, 
 as people think ; but Pluto is called Hades because he 
 knows (eidenai) all goodness and beauty, and thus 
 binds all who come to him by the strongest chains 
 stronger than those of Father Time himself. And 
 so these other awful names, such as Persephatta and 
 Apollo, have really nothing terrible about them, if you 
 examine their derivation. But Socrates will have no 
 more discussion about the gods he is " afraid of 
 them." 
 
 " Only one more god," pleads Hermogenes. " I should 
 like to know about Hermes, of whom I am said not to be 
 a true son. Let us make him out, and then I shall know 
 if there is anything in what Cratylus says." 
 
 " I should imagine," says Socrates, " that the name 
 Hermes has to do with speech, and signifies that he is the 
 interpreter, or messenger, or thief, or liar, or bargainer ; 
 language has a great deal to say to all that sort of thing ; 
 and, as I was telling you, the word eirein is expressive of 
 the use of speech, and we have improved eiremes into 
 Hermes." 
 
 " Then I am very sure," says Hermogenes, in a tone of 
 conviction, " that Cratylus was quite right in saying that I 
 was no true son of Hermes, for I am not a good hand at 
 speeches." J.
 
 100 PLATO. 
 
 Then Socrates examines the names of the various 
 elements, virtues, and moral qualities, most of which 
 he derives in a manner that would shock a modern 
 philologist. Some of them, he says truly, have a 
 foreign origin, inasmuch as the Greek borrowed many 
 Avords from the Barbarians ; " for the Barbarians are 
 older than we are, and the original form of words may 
 have been lost in the lapse of ages." The word 
 dihaion "justice " says Socrates, has greatly puzzled 
 him. Some one had told him, as a great mystery, 
 that the word was the same as diaion the subtle and 
 penetrating power that enters into everything in crea- 
 tion ; and when he inquired further, he was told that 
 Justice was the Sun, the piercing or burning element 
 in nature. But when he quotes this beautiful notion 
 with great glee to a friend, he is met by the satirical 
 answer " What ! is there then no justice in the world 
 when the sun goes down?" And when Socrates begs his 
 friend to tell him his own honest opinion, he says, "Fire 
 in the abstract ;" which is not very intelligible. Another 
 says, " No, not fire in the abstract, but the abstrac- 
 tion of heat in fire." A third professes to laugh at 
 this, and says, with Anaxagoras, that Justice is Mind; 
 for Mind, they say, has absolute power, and mixes 
 with nothing, and governs all things, and permeates 
 all things. At last, he says, he found himself in 
 greater perplexity as to the nature of Justice than 
 when he began his inquiry. 
 
 Then follow other derivations, more extravagant 
 than any which we have noticed ; but Socrates con- 
 cludes with a long passage of serious etymology. "We
 
 THE^TETUS. 101 
 
 should get at primary names (he says), and separate 
 the letters, which have all a distinct meaning thus I 
 expresses " smoothness," r " motion," a " size," and e 
 "length." When we have fixed their meaning, we 
 ean form them into syllables and words ; and add and 
 subtract until we get a good and true image of the 
 idea we intend to express. Of course there are degrees 
 of accuracy in this process, where nature is helped out 
 by custom ; and a name, like a picture, may be a more 
 or less perfect likeness of a person or thought. Great 
 truths may be learned through names ; bxit there are 
 higher forms of knowledge, which can only be learnt 
 from the ideas themselves, of which our words are but 
 faint impressions ; and " no man of sense will put 
 himself or his education in the power of names," or 
 believe that the world is in a perpetual flux and tran- 
 sition, " like a leaky vessel." And with this parting 
 blow at Heraclitus, the Dialogue, with its mixture of 
 truth and- fiction, of jest and earnest, comes to an end. 
 But, wild and fanciful as many of the derivations un- 
 doubtedly are, it must still be admitted that " the 
 guesses of Plato are better than all the other theories 
 of the ancients respecting language put together."* 
 
 THEJETETUS. 
 
 Euclid (not the mathematician, but the philosopher 
 of that name) meets his friend Terpsion at the door of 
 his own house in Megara ; and their conversation hap- 
 pens to turn upon Theaetetus, whom Euclid has just 
 seen carried up towards Athens, almost dead of dysen- 
 
 * Jowett's Plato, i. 620
 
 102 PLATO. 
 
 tery, and of the wounds he had received in the battle 
 of Corinth. " What a gallant fellow he was, and what 
 a loss he will be ! " says Terpsion ; and then Euclid 
 remembers how Socrates had prophesied great things 
 of him in his youth, and had proved as he always 
 did a true prophet ; for Theaetetus had more than ful- 
 filled the promise of his early years. Euclid had 
 taken careful notes of a discussion between Socrates 
 and the young Thesetetus in days gone by, and this 
 paper is now read by a servant for the benefit of 
 Terpsion. 
 
 As Socrates said, Thesetetus was " a reflection of his 
 own ugly self," both in person and character. Snub- 
 nosed, and with projecting eyes, brave and patient, 
 slow and sure in the pursuit of knowledge, " full of 
 gentleness, and always making progress, like a noiseless 
 river of oil." His answers in the Dialogue bear out 
 this character : they are invariably shrewd and to the 
 point, -and would have done credit (says his examiner) 
 to " many bearded men." Socrates is still the same 
 earnest disputant, professing to know nothing himself, 
 but willing to assist others in bringing their thoughts 
 to the birth ; for so far, he tells Thesetetus, he has in- 
 herited the art of his mother Phsenarete, the midwife. 
 Hence those youths resort to him who are tortured by 
 the pangs of perplexity and doubt, and yearn to be 
 delivered of the conceptions which are struggling for 
 release within their breasts. If these children of their 
 souls are likely to prove a true and noble offspring, 
 they are suffered to see the light ; but if, as is often 
 the case, his divine inward monitor warns Socrates
 
 THE^ETETUS. 103 
 
 that they are but lies or shadows of the truth, they are 
 stifled in the birth. 
 
 The question discussed is Knowledge ; and the first 
 definition of it proposed is " sensible perception." This 
 Socrates connects with the old saying of Protagoras, 
 " Man is the measure of all things ; " and this he again 
 links on to the still older doctrine of Heraclitus, " All 
 things are becoming." " These ancient philosophers " 
 (he says) "the great Pannenides excepted agreed 
 that since we live in the midst of perpetual change 
 and transition, our knowledge of all things must be 
 relative. There is no such thing, they will tell you, 
 as real existence. You should not say, 'this is 
 white or black,' but, 'it is my (or your) impres- 
 sion that it is so.' And thus each man can only 
 know what he perceives; and so far his judgment 
 is true." 
 
 " Of course" (continues Socrates), "we might object 
 that our senses may deceive us ; that in cases where a 
 man is mad or dreaming who knows, indeed, whether 
 we are not dreaming at this very moment 1 he must 
 get false impressions : or, again, that our tastes may 
 become perverted ; and as wine is distasteful to a sick 
 man, so what is really good or true does not appear so 
 to us. But Protagoras would reply that the sick man's 
 dreams are real to him, that my impressions of wine 
 are certainly different in health and sickness ; but then 
 / am different, and my impressions in either case are 
 true." 
 
 " I wonder (says Socrates, ironically) that Protagoras did 
 not begin his great work on Truth with a declaration that a
 
 104 PLATO. 
 
 pig or a dog-faced baboon, or some other strange monster 
 which has sensation, is the measure of all things ; then, 
 when we were reverencing him as a god, he might have 
 condescended to inform us that he was no wiser than a tad- 
 pole, and did not even aspire to be a man would not this 
 have produced an overpowering effect ? For if truth is 
 only sensation, and one man's discernment is as good as 
 another's, and no man has any superior right to determine 
 whether the opinion of any other is true or false, but each 
 man, as we have several times repeated, is to himself the 
 sole judge, and everything that he judges is true and right, 
 why should Protagoras be preferred to the place of wisdom 
 and instruction, and deserve to be well paid, and we poor 
 ignoramuses have to go to him, if each one is the measure 
 of his own wisdom ? " J. 
 
 Then Socrates takes upon himself to defend Pro- 
 tagoras, who is made to qualify his original statement : 
 "Man is the measure of all things, but one man's 
 knowledge may be superior in proportion as his im- 
 pressions are better ; still, every impression is true and 
 real, and a false opinion is impossible." 
 
 Common - sense, replies Socrates, is against this 
 theory, which would reduce all minds to the same 
 level. Practically, men are always passing judgment 
 on the impressions of others, pronouncing them to be 
 true or false, and acting accordingly ; they recognise 
 superior minds, and submit to teachers and rulers : 
 thus Protagoras himself made a large fortune on the 
 reputation of having better judgment than his neigh- 
 bours. And if one man's judgment is as good as 
 another's, who is to decide? Is the question to be 
 settled by a plurality of votes, or what shall be the 
 last court of appeal? Protagoras may think this or
 
 THE^TETUS. 105 
 
 that, but there are probably ten thousand who will 
 think the opposite ; and, by his own rule, their judg- 
 ments are as good as his. 
 
 But even Socrates feels some compunction in thus 
 attacking the theories of a dead philosopher who can- 
 not defend himself. 
 
 " If he could only " (he says) " get his head out of the 
 world below, he would give both of us a sound drubbing 
 me for quibbling, and you for accepting my quibbles 
 and be off and underground again in a twinkling." J. 
 
 Then comes a break in the main argument, and 
 Socrates wanders off into a digression, in which he 
 draws a striking contrast between the characters of 
 the lawyer and philosopher the former always in a 
 hurry, with the water-clock urging him on busy and 
 preoccupied, the slave of his clients, keen and shrewd, 
 but narrow-minded, and from his early years versed 
 in the crooked paths of deceit : while the philoso- 
 pher is a gentleman at large, master of his own time, 
 abstracted and absorbed in thought, seeing nothing at 
 his feet, and knowing nothing of the scandals of the 
 clubs or the gossip of the town hardly even ac- 
 quainted with his next-door neighbour by sight shy, 
 awkward, and too simple-minded to retaliate an insult, 
 or understand the merits of a long pedigree.* 
 
 * The Philosopher here argues that a long line of ancestors 
 does not necessarily make a gentleman ; for any one, if ho 
 chooses, may reckon back to the first Parent, just as Tennyson 
 reminds Lady Clara that 
 
 " The grand old Gardener and his wife 
 Smile at the claims of long descent."
 
 106 PLATO. 
 
 "Knowledge, then," continues Socrates, resuming 
 the argument, "cannot be perception; for, after all, 
 it is the soul which perceives, and the senses are 
 merely organs of the body springing from a common 
 centre of life. In fact, we see and hear rather through 
 them than with them. Furthermore, there are certain 
 abstractions which we (that is, the trained and intel- 
 ligent few) perceive with the eye of reason alone." 
 
 Then Theaetetus suggests that knowledge may be de- 
 nned as " true opinion;" but then, says Socrates, the old 
 objection would be raised, that false opinion is impos- 
 sible ; for we must either know or not know, and in 
 either case we know what we know. The reply is, that 
 mistakes are always possible ; you may think one thing 
 to be another. Our souls, continues Socrates, using a 
 metaphor which has since passed into a commonplace, 
 are like waxen tablets some broad and deep, where 
 the impressions made by sight or hearing are clear and 
 indelible ; others cramped and narrow, where the im- 
 pressions from the senses are confused and crowded 
 together; and sometimes the wax itself is soft, or 
 shallow, or impure, and so the impression is soon 
 effaced. Often, too, we put, so to speak, the shoe on 
 the wrong foot, or stamp with the wrong seal; and 
 from these wrong and hasty impressions come false 
 opinions. There can be no mistake when perception 
 and knowledge correspond; but we often have one 
 without the other. I may see an inscription, but not 
 know its meaning ; or I may hear a foreigner talk, but 
 not understand a word he says. 
 
 But stay, says Socrates we have been rashly using
 
 THE<TETVS. 107 
 
 these words "know" and "understand," while all the 
 time we are ignorant of what " knowledge " is. We 
 must try again to define the term ; and first, to have 
 is quite different from to possess knowledge. Our soul 
 is like an aviary full of wild birds, flying all about the 
 place, singly or in groups. You may possess them, 
 but you have none in hand ; and until you collect, 
 comprehend, and grasp your winged thoughts, you 
 cannot be said to have them either. When you have 
 once caught your bird (or your thought), you cannot 
 mistake it ; but while they are flying about, you may 
 mistake the ring-dove for the pigeon, and so you may 
 mistake the various numbers and forms of knowledge. 
 
 " Perhaps," says Thesetetus, sharply, " there may be 
 sham birds in the aviary ; and you may put forth your 
 hand intending to grasp Knowledge, but catch Ignor- 
 ance instead. How then ? " 
 
 " No," says Socrates ; " it is a clever suggestion, 
 but if you once know the form of knowledge, you will 
 never mistake it for ignorance. Perhaps, however, 
 there may be higher forms of knowledge in other 
 aviaries, which help you to tell the wrong fr*m the 
 right thought ; but on this supposition we might go 
 on imagining forms to infinity." 
 
 A third and last definition of knowledge is now pro- 
 posed "True opinion plus definition or explanation." 
 But what is explanation 1 ? is it the expression of a 
 man's thoughts 1 But every one who is not deaf and 
 dumb can express his thoughts. Or is it the enumera- 
 tion of the elements of which anything is composed 1 
 But you may know the syllables of a name without
 
 108 PLATO. 
 
 being able to explain the letters. Or, lastly, is expla- 
 nation " the perception of difference " ? For instance 
 (says Socrates, somewhat rudely), I know and recog- 
 nise Theaetetus by his having a peculiar snub nose, 
 different from mine and all other snub noses in the 
 world. But is my perception of this difference 
 opinion or knowledge? If the first, I have only 
 opinion ; if the second, I am assuming the very term 
 which we are trying to define. 
 
 And thus, in the true " Socratic manner," abrupt 
 and unsatisfactory as it seems to us, the Dialogue ends ; 
 and " knowledge " remains the same unknown quantity 
 as before. And yet (Socrates thinks) the discussion 
 has not been altogether fruitless ; for he has shown 
 Thesetetus that the offspring of his brain were not 
 worth the bringing up. 
 
 " If,'* concludes the philosopher, " you are likely to have 
 any more embryo thoughts, such offspring will be all the 
 better for. our present investigation ; and if you should 
 prove barren, you will be less overbearing and gentler to 
 your friends, and modest enough not to fancy you know 
 what you do not know. So far only can my art go, and 
 no further ; for I know none of the secrets of your famous 
 teachers, past or present." J.
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 PLATO'S IDEAL STATES. 
 
 " II faut bien reflechir sui la Politique d'Aristote et sur les deiix Re- 
 publiques de Platon, si 1'on veut avoir une juste idee des lois et des mceurs 
 des aiiciens Grecs." Montesquieu. 
 
 THE BEPUBLIC. 
 
 IN this, the grandest and most complete of all his 
 works, Plato blends all the stores of past thought on 
 religion, politics, and art, into one great constructive 
 effort ; systematising, and, as far as might be, reconcil- 
 ing the conflicting theories and the various systems 
 which had preceded him. Thus he first passes in 
 review the prudential morality of an earlier age, built 
 on texts from the poets and on aphorisms which had 
 come down from the seven sages ; he then puts to the 
 proof the rash self-assertion of the Sophists, and the 
 ingenious scepticism of the rising generation. But both 
 these stages of thought, when tried, are found wanting, 
 and the object of his search seems as far off as ever ; 
 for perfect justice and wisdom (so Plato thinks) can- 
 not be found in any kingdom of this world. The 
 result is that he frames a State of his own, ideal in one
 
 110 PLATO. 
 
 sense, but purely Greek in another, which was to com- 
 bine the iron discipline of Sparta with the many-sided 
 culture of Athens a city where, as her own historian 
 said, men might unite elegance with simplicity, and 
 might be learned without being effeminate.* And 
 then, like some painter who copies a divine original, 
 to use his own comparison,t Plato first cleanses the 
 moral canvas of his visionary state, then sketches the 
 outline of the constitution, fills it in with the ideal 
 forms of virtue, and gives it a human complexion in 
 the godlike colouring of Homer ; and the result is a 
 glorious picture, as the world would acknowledge, he 
 thinks, if they could be brought to see the truth ; and 
 a picture which might be realised in history, could a 
 single king, or son of a king, become a philosopher. 
 
 Ethics and politics were so closely blended in 
 Plato's view, that he regards the virtues of the Man 
 as identical with those of the State, and thus exagger- 
 ates, says Jlr Grote, " the unity of the one and the 
 partibility of the other." But we must remember that 
 as the ancient state was smaller, so the public spirit 
 pervading it was more intense ; each man was, as we 
 might say, citizen, soldier, and member of Parliament ; 
 and unlike modern society, which has been defined as 
 " anarchy plus the policeman," where tolerance is car- 
 ried to its furthest limits, and where state interference 
 is restricted to the security of life and property, 
 the Greek theory was to secure as far as possible an 
 absolute uniformity of sentiment and character, and 
 
 * Thucyd., ii. 40. t Rep., vi. 501.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. Ill 
 
 to crush anything like heresy or dissent among the 
 members of the social body. The state, if it existed 
 at all, must be at one with itself; and they would 
 point to Sparta as a triumphant proof that a rational 
 character might be created by the all-powerful hand of 
 a legislator like Lycurgus. Pericles indeed might 
 boast that at Athens there were no sour looks at a 
 neighbour's eccentricities, and that it was emphatically 
 " A land, where, girt by friends and foes, 
 A man might say the thing he would : " 
 
 but, as we have seen in the case of Socrates, Athenian 
 tolerance might be tried too far, and theories which 
 tended in their view to outrage religion and morality, 
 could not be endured with the same equanimity as in 
 our sceptical and so-called enlightened age. 
 
 The opening scene in the " Eepublic" is such an ex- 
 cellent specimen of Plato's powers of description, that 
 it is well worth giving in full. It is Socrates who 
 speaks : 
 
 I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the 
 son of Ariston, to offer up prayer to the goddess, and 
 also from a wish to see how the festival, then to be held 
 for the first time, would be celebrated, I was very much 
 pleased with the native Athenian procession, though that 
 of the Thracians appeared to be no less brilliant. We had 
 finished our prayers, and satisfied our curiosity, and were 
 returning to the city, when Polemarchus, the son of Cepha- 
 lus, caught sight of us at a distance as we were on our way 
 towards home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait 
 for him. The servant came behind me, took hold of my 
 cloak, and said, " Polemarchus bids you wait." I turned 
 round, and asked him where his master was. " There he 
 is," he 1 replied, " coming on behind : pray wait for him."
 
 112 PLATO. 
 
 "We will wait," answered Glaucon. Soon afterwards 
 Polemarchus came up, with Adeimantus the brother of 
 Glaucon, and Niceratus the son of Nicias, and a few other 
 persons, apparently coming away from the procession. 
 Polemarchus instantly began : " Socrates, if I am not de- 
 ceived, you are taking your departure for the city." 
 
 "You are not wrong in your conjecture," I replied. 
 
 " Well, do you see what a large body we are ] " 
 
 " Certainly I do." 
 
 " Then either prove yourselves the stronger party, or 
 else stay where you are." 
 
 " No," I replied ; " there is still an alternative : suppose 
 we persuade you that you ought to let us go." 
 
 "Could you possibly persuade us, if we refused to 
 listen ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," replied Glaucon. 
 
 " Make up your minds, then, that we shall refuse to 
 listen." 
 
 Here Adeimantus interposed, and said : " Are you not 
 aware that towards evening there will be a torch-race on 
 horseback in honour of the goddess 1 " 
 
 " On horseback ! " I exclaimed ; " that is a novelty. Will 
 they carry torches, and pass them on to one another, while 
 the horses are racing ? or how do you mean ? " 
 
 " As you say," replied Polemarchus ; " besides, there will 
 be a night festival, which it will be worth while to look at. 
 We will rise after dinner, and go out to see this festival ; 
 and there we shall meet with many of our young men, 
 with whom we can converse. Therefore stay, and do not 
 refuse us." D. 
 
 And so they are persuaded to return with Polemar- 
 chus to his home, where they find his father, the aged 
 Cephalus, surrounded by his sons and friends. 
 
 " You should come to see me oftener," says Cephalus 
 to Socrates, " now that I cannot come to you. I find
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 113 
 
 that the older one grows, the fonder one becomes of 
 conversation." 
 
 "And what think you of old age itself?" asks 
 Socrates. " Is the road to the grave rough or smooth 1 " 
 
 " Smooth and peaceful enough," answers Cephalus 
 "that is, to one of easy temper like myself; though 
 some old men, I know, complain "bitterly of the mis- 
 eries of age, and mourn over the faded pleasures of 
 their youth." 
 
 " Yes," says Socrates ; " but the world would say 
 that your riches make old age an easy burden." 
 
 "There is something in that; but I should say 
 myself that a good man could not be happy in poverty 
 and old age, nor again would all the wealth of Croesus 
 make a bad man happy." 
 
 " What do you think, then, to be the chief advan- 
 tage of riches 1 " asks Socrates. 
 
 " If I mention it," he replied, " I shall perhaps get few 
 persons to agree with me. Be assured, Socrates, that when 
 a man is nearly persuaded that he is going to die, he feels 
 alarmed and concerned about things which never affected 
 him before. Till then, he has laughed at those stories about 
 the departed, which tell us that he who has done wrong 
 here must suffer for it in the other world ; but now his 
 mind is tormented with a fear that these stories may possi- 
 bly be true. And either owing to the infirmity of old age, 
 or because he is now nearer to the confines of the future 
 state, he has a clearer insight into those mysteries. How- 
 ever that may be, he becomes full of misgiving and appre- 
 hension, and sets himself to the task of calculating and reflect- 
 ing whether he has done any wrong to any one. Hereupon, 
 if he finds his life full of unjust deeds, he is apt to start out 
 of sleep in terror, as children do, and he lives haunted by 
 
 A. c. vol. xix. H
 
 114 PLATO. 
 
 gloomy anticipations. ' But if his conscience reproaches 
 him with no injustice, he enjoys the abiding presence of 
 sweet Hope, that ' kind nurse of old age,' as Pindar calls 
 it. ... And it is this consideration, as I hold, that makes 
 riches chiefly valuable, I do not say to everybody, but at 
 any rate to the good. For they contribute greatly to our 
 preservation from even unintentional deceit or falsehood, 
 and from that alarm which would attend our departure to 
 the other world, if we owed any sacrifices to a god, cr any 
 money to a man. They have also many other uses. But 
 after weighing them all separately, Socrates, I am inclined 
 to consider this service as anything but the least important 
 which riches can render to a wise and sensible man." D. 
 
 " So, then, this is the meaning of Justice," says 
 Socrates, seizing on the word Injustice " to tell the 
 truth and pay your debts ? " 
 
 " Certainly, if we are to believe the poet Simon- 
 ides," says Polemarchus (for Cephalus gives up the 
 discussion, and quits the company) ; " his words are 
 to pay "back what you owe to each is just." 
 
 " But you surely would never give back to a mad 
 friend a sword which he had lent you ? " 
 
 " No," says Polemarchus ; "for Simonides says again, 
 you should give back what is proper to each man 
 that is, good to your friends and evil to your foes ; 
 and if you ask how, by making alliance with one and 
 going to war with the other : and in peace, Justice is of 
 use in ordinary dealings between man and man espe- 
 cially when you wish your money to be safely kept." 
 
 " That is," says Socrates, " when your money is idle 
 and useless then only Justice is useful ! Again, since 
 the doctor can poison as well as heal, and the general
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 115 
 
 can overreach the enemy as well as protect himself, 
 Justice, if it can guard, must also steal; and the just 
 man is a sort of thief, like Homer's Autolycus 
 
 " Who best could steal, and swear he never stole." * 
 
 Your poets have brought Justice to a pretty pass ! 
 And may not men make mistakes, and injure their real 
 friends ? " 
 
 " Yes," says Polemarchus ; " but by a friend I mean 
 one who both seems and really is one ; and it is just 
 to injure one's enemy if he is bad, and to help one's 
 friend if he is good." 
 
 " But hurting a man is the same as making him 
 worse with respect to virtue, and such moral injury- 
 belongs not to good, but to its contrary, evil ; just as 
 it is not heat that chills, but its contrary, cold. So it 
 can never be just to injure either friend or foe; and this 
 definition must have been invented not by Simonides 
 but by Periander, or some other potentate, who thought 
 his power irresistible." 
 
 Then Thrasymachus, who had been growing more 
 and more impatient, takes advantage of a pause, and, 
 " like a wild beast gathering itself up for a spring," 
 bursts in upon the argument. 
 
 " No more of this foolish complaisance, Socrates ; 
 answer yourself, instead of asking what justice is ; and 
 don't tell me that it is ' the due,' or 'the profitable,' 
 or ' the expedient,' or ' the lucrative,' or any nonsense 
 of that sort. And let us have none of your usual 
 affectation of ignorance, if you please." 
 
 * Horn. Odyss., xix. 395.
 
 116 PLATO. 
 
 Socrates, who at first assumes to have been terror- 
 struck at this sudden attack, tries to soothe Thrasy- 
 machus. "A clever man like you," he says, "should 
 pity us in our perplexity, instead of treating us harshly ; 
 we are searching for what is more precious than any 
 gold, and want all the assistance we can get." 
 
 Thrasymachus is somewhat pacified by this flattery, 
 and gives his own theory, which is substantially the 
 same as that we have already seen advocated by Cal- 
 licles in the "Gorgias," that Justice is "the Interest 
 of the Stronger." Eulers always legislate with a view 
 to their own interests ; and as a shepherd fattens his 
 sheep for his own advantage, so do the " shepherds of 
 the people" regard their subjects as mere sheep, and 
 look only to the possible profit they may get from them. 
 Justice is thus the gain of the strong and the loss of 
 the weak ; for the just man's honesty is ruinous to 
 himself, while the unjust man, especially if he can 
 plunder wholesale like the tyrant, is happy and pros- 
 perous, and well spoken of; and thus Injustice itself is 
 a stronger and lordlier thing than Justice. 
 
 To this barefaced sophistry Socrates replies that the 
 unjust man may go too far ; in overreaching his neigh- 
 bours just and unjust alike he breaks all the rules 
 of art, and proves himself an unskilful and ignorant 
 workman, who has no fixed standard in life to act by. 
 And in an unjust state, where every man is thus trying 
 to get the better of his neighbour, there will be endless 
 discord and divisions, making all united action impos- 
 sible ; it will be like a house divided against itself. 
 And as it is with the unjust state, so will it be with
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 117 
 
 the unjust man. He will be ever at war with him- 
 self, and so unable to act decisively. Lastly, the soul 
 (like the ear or eye) has a work of its own to do, 
 and a virtue which enables it to do that work well. 
 Justice is a work of the soul, and the just man lives 
 well and is happy ; and as happiness is more profit- 
 able than misery, so is Justice more profitable than 
 Injustice. 
 
 Thrasymachus is now in a good temper again, and 
 readily acquiesces in all that Socrates has said ; but 
 Glaucon, shrewd and combative, takes upon himself 
 the office of " devil's advocate " (for he admits that his 
 own convictions are the other way), and revives the 
 defence of Injustice from a Sophist's point of view. 
 
 " Naturally," he says, " to do injustice is a good, 
 and to suffer it an evil : but as men found that the 
 evil was greater than the good, they made a compact 
 of mutual abstinence, and so justice is simply a useful 
 compromise under certain circumstances. If you were 
 to furnish the just and unjust man each with a ring 
 such as Gyges wore of old, making the wearer invisible 
 to all eyes, you would find them both following the 
 same lawless path; for no man would be so steeled 
 against temptation as to remain virtuous, if he were in- 
 visible. As things are, he finds honesty the best policy. 
 
 " Again, let us assume both characters the just and 
 unjust to be perfect in their parts, so that we may 
 decide which is the happier of the two. Our ideal 
 villain will reduce crime to a science he will have 
 wealth, and money, and honour, and influence all 
 that this world esteems precious ; he will have a high
 
 118 PLATO. 
 
 reputation for justice (for this is the crowning exploit 
 of injustice) ; he will accomplish all his ends by force 
 or fraud, and the gods, whose favour he will win by 
 costly offerings, will sanctify the means. While the 
 perfectly simple and noble man, clothed only in his 
 justice, will suffer the worst consequences of a lifelong 
 reputation for seeming to be that which he really is 
 not unjust. He Avill be put in chains, scourged, 
 tortured, and at last put to death. Which think you 
 the happier of these two 1 " 
 
 Then Adeimantus takes up the parable, for brother, 
 he says, should help brother. " Men too commonly 
 make the mistake of dwelling, not upon the beauty of 
 Justice in itself, but on the worldly advantages, the 
 honours, and the high reputation which attend a just 
 life. It is in this spirit that parents advise their chil- 
 dren, and that Homer and Hesiod recount the blessings 
 which the gods bestow upon the pious 
 
 " ' Like to a blameless king, who, godlike in virtue and 
 
 wisdom, 
 Justice ever maintains ; whose rich land fruitfully yields 
 
 him 
 Harvests of barley and wheat ; and his orchards are heavy 
 
 with fruitage. 
 Strong are the young of his flocks, and the sea gives him 
 
 fish in abundance.' * 
 
 And other poets describe the glories of a sensual para- 
 dise, where their heroes feast on couches, crowned with 
 flowers, and make the fairest reward of virtue to be 
 
 * Horn. Oilyss., xix. 109 (Davies and Vaughaii).
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 119 
 
 ' immortal drunkenness ; ' while they doom the unjust 
 to fill sieves and languish in a swamp through all 
 eternity. 
 
 " Others, again, strike out a different line, and will 
 tell you how narrow and difficult is the way of virtue, 
 and how broad and pleasant is the path of vice ; 
 and they affirm, too, that the gods bestow prosperity 
 on the wicked and adversity on the good. And lastly, 
 there is a doctrine of indulgences preached by mendi- 
 cant prophets, who profess to have power to absolve 
 the rich man from his sins, in this world and the next, 
 by spells and mystic rites ; and they quote the poets 
 to prove that vice and atonement are equally easy. 
 
 "What is a young man to do amidst all this conflict- 
 ing advice ? Shall he make Justice ' his strong tower 
 of defence,' as Pindar says ; or shall he fence his charac- 
 ter with the appearance of virtue, and so by fair means 
 or foul obtain that happiness which is the end of life ? 
 The gods if at least there are gods, and if they care 
 for men's affairs can easily be wrought upon by 
 prayer and sacrifice ; and we need have no fear of 
 Hades so long as we perform the mystic rites. And 
 so, if he combines injustice with the semblance of 
 justice, he will reap all the advantages of both, and 
 will fare well in both worlds. 
 
 " The blame of all this evil rests with our poets and 
 teachers, who have always dwelt on the glories and 
 rewards following on a just life, but haye never ade- 
 quately discussed what Justice and Injustice really are. 
 Could we see them as they are, we should choose the 
 one as the greatest good, and shun the other as the
 
 120 PLATO. 
 
 greatest evil. It rests with Socrates," concludes Ade- 
 imantus, "to show how Justice is itself a blessing, 
 and Injustice a curse, to the possessor ; and to leave 
 to others the task of describing the reputation and 
 rewards which indirectly follow from either." 
 
 Socrates agrees to this ; but he pleads that, as he 
 has weak eyes, he must be allowed to read the larger 
 writing first that is, to look for Justice in the 
 State, which is, after all, only the individual "writ 
 large." 
 
 " The State springs," he says, " from the mutual 
 needs of men, whose simplest outfit will require 
 food, shelter, and clothing, so that the least possible 
 city must consist of four or five men ; and as they 
 will have different natures, and one man can do one 
 tiling better than many, there will be a natural divi- 
 sion of labour. Soon, however, fresh wants will arise. 
 Smiths, carpenters, and shepherds will be found neces- 
 sary, and thus a population will soon spring up. Then 
 comes the necessity of importing and exporting, and 
 this will produce merchants and sailors ; and by 
 degrees the exchange of productions will give rise to a 
 market and a currency. Life in such a city will be 
 simple and frugal. Men will build, and plant, and till 
 the soil. Their food will be coarse but wholesome ; 
 and on holidays, 
 
 " spreading these excellent cakes and loaves upon mats of 
 straw or on clean leaves, and themselves reclining on rude 
 beds of yew or myrtle boughs, they will make merry, 
 themselves and their children, drinking their wine, wearing 
 garlands, and singing the praises of the gods, enjoying one
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 121 
 
 another's society, and not begetting children beyond their 
 means, through a prudent fear of poverty or war." D. 
 
 Glaucon objects that if Socrates had been founding 
 " a city of pigs," he could hardly have given them less; 
 and suggests that he should add the refinements of 
 modern life. 
 
 I see, continues Socrates, that we shall have to 
 enlarge and decorate our State with the fine arts, and 
 all the "fair humanities" of life; gold and ivory, 
 paintings and embroidery will be found there ; and a 
 host of ornamental trades will soon spring up danc- 
 ers, cooks, barbers, musicians, and confectioners. So 
 largely, in fact, will our population then increase, that 
 the land will not be able to support it. Hence fresh 
 territory must be acquired, and we must go to war to 
 get it. We shall thus want a camp and a standing 
 army. 
 
 Now the art of war, more than any other, must be 
 a separate craft ; and the soldier's profession requires 
 not only a natural aptitude, but the study of a life- 
 time. How shall we choose those who are to be 
 our Guardians? Clearly, they should have all the 
 qualities of well-bred dogs quick to see, swift to 
 follow, and strong to fight brave and spirited, gentle 
 to friends, but fierce against their foes. Their natures 
 must be harmonised by philosophy ; and philosophy 
 involves education. 
 
 In our education we will follow the old routine : 
 first, Music that is, all training by words and sounds. 
 But we will have a strict censorship of the press, and
 
 122 PLATO. 
 
 banish from our State all those lying fables of our 
 mythology, as well as the terrific descriptions of the 
 lower world. We will lay down, instead, types to 
 which all tales told to children must conform. Our 
 music, too, shall be simple and spirited strains after 
 the " Dorian mood ; " and in sculpture and in art we 
 will encourage the same pure taste. Thus, with fair 
 and graceful forms everywhere around them, our youth 
 will drink into their souls, "like gales blowing from 
 healthy lands," all inspirations of truth and beauty. 
 
 In their bodily training, we will encourage a plain 
 and healthy diet, and there shall be no sauces or made 
 dishes. Thus we shall want few lawyers and few phy- 
 sicians : no sleep)' judges, or doctors whose skill only 
 teaches them how to prolong worthless lives. Our 
 citizens will have no time to be invalids ; with us it 
 must be either " kill or cure," and the evil body must 
 be left to die, and the evil soul must be put to death. 
 
 Our Rulers must be chosen from our Guardians 
 the best and oldest of the number ; and they must be 
 tested as gold is tried in the furnace by pleasure 
 and fear ; and if they come forth unstained and un- 
 scathed from this trial, they shall be honoured both in 
 life and death. And in order that we may secure a 
 proper esprit de corps among them, we will invent and 
 impress upon them a " noble falsehood." " Ye are 
 children of earth (we will tell them), all brethren from 
 the same great mother, whom you are in duty bound 
 to protect. Your creator mingled gold in the nature 
 of your chiefs ; silver in that of the soldiers ; bronze 
 and iron went to form the artisans and labourers. It
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 123 
 
 is your business, Guardians, to keep intact this purity 
 of breed. No child of gold must remain among the 
 artisans ; 110 child of iron among the rulers : for the 
 State shall surely perish (so saith an oracle) when 
 ruled by brass or iron." And this story must be 
 handed down from father to son, as a sacred form of 
 faith in our State. 
 
 Now our Guardians must have neither houses, nor 
 lands, nor dwellings, nor storehouses of their own ; 
 but oidy fixed pay, and a soldier's lodging, and a com- 
 mon mess-table. 
 
 Adeimantus objects that the life of the Guardians can 
 scarcely be happy on these terms with no money to 
 spend on themselves or their friends, kept on " board- 
 wages," and always on duty. 
 
 It is not our business (answers Socrates) to insure 
 the happiness of a class. But our Guardians will be 
 happy that is, if they do their duty, preserve the 
 unity of the State, maintain the golden mean between 
 wealth and poverty, and be ever on the watch against 
 the spirit of innovation dangerous even in music, 
 doubly so in education and leave the highest and 
 most sacred legislation to our ancestral god of Delphi. 
 
 But (he interrupts himself suddenly) we are forget- 
 ting Justice all this time. We must light a candle and 
 search our city diligently, now that we have founded 
 one, till we find it. Clearly our State, if it be perfect, 
 will contain the four cardinal virtues ; and, if we can 
 first discover three out of the four, the unknown re- 
 mainder must be Justice. 
 
 Wisdom will be the science of protection, possessed
 
 124 PLATO. 
 
 by our Guardians ; and true Courage will be engrained 
 in the hearts of our soldiers by law and education; 
 and Temperance will be that social harmony pervading 
 the State, and making all the citizens to be of one 
 mind, like strings attempered to one scale. But where 
 is Justice ? Here at our feet, after all, for it can be 
 nothing else than our original principle of division of 
 labour : for a man is just when he does his own busi- 
 ness, and does not meddle with his neighbour's. 
 
 And, returning to Man, we shall also find three parts 
 in his soul corresponding to the three classes in our 
 State. Eeason, which should rule ; Desire, which 
 should obey ; and Passion,* which is properly the ally 
 of reason, and is restrained by it as a dog is restrained 
 by a shepherd. We shall also find the same cardinal 
 virtues in the man as in the State. 
 
 The just man will live uprightly, and will reduce all 
 the elements of his soul to unison and harmony ; and 
 as to the original question " whether injustice, if un- 
 detected, pays in this life 1 " we may answer that it is 
 a moral disease and that, as in the body, so in the 
 soul, if the constitution is ruined, life will not be worth 
 having. 
 
 Then Socrates lays down the details of the system 
 of Communism which he proposes to carry out in his 
 State. " Following further our comparison of sheep- 
 
 * There is no English equivalent for the Greek word tkumos 
 which combines the several meanings which we express in 
 the words spirit, passion, honour, anger, all in one
 
 TEE REPUBLIC. 125 
 
 dogs, men and women are to have the same employ- 
 ment (for there is no real difference between the sexes), 
 and will go out to war together. Marriages must be 
 strictly regulated ; and, as in the case of dogs or game- 
 fowl, we must keep up the purity of breed. The best 
 must marry the best, and the worst the worst ; and 
 the children of the former must be carefully reared, 
 while any offspring from the latter must be exposed. 
 There must be a public nursery, and no mother must 
 know her own child. Thus, where all have common sym- 
 pathies and interests, and there are no jealousies arising 
 from separate families or properties, the State will be 
 most thorouglily at unity with itself. 
 
 "These children of the State shall be present in 
 the battle-field but at safe distance to stimulate the 
 courage of our warriors, and accustom our young to the 
 scene of their future duties. And in war, the runaway 
 and coward shall be degraded : but the brave shall be 
 crowned and shall wed the fair ; he shall be honoured 
 at the sacrifice and banquet, and if he falls, we shall 
 proclaim that he sprang from the race of gold, and now 
 haunts the earth in the form of a holy and powerful 
 spirit. 
 
 "~\Yar between Greek and Greek is an unnatural 
 feud, and therefore we will not despoil the bodies of 
 the dead for there -is a meanness in injuring a body 
 whence the soul has fled ; nor will we enslave a free 
 Greek, nor lay waste Greek land, or burn houses, as 
 heretofore." 
 
 Glaucon is willing to admit that this ideal State will 
 have a thousand advantages over any at present in
 
 126 PLATO. 
 
 existence, if only it could be realised. How is this to 
 be brought about ? 
 
 Our State might be realised, Socrates replies, on one 
 condition preposterous as it will seem to the world 
 " philosophers must be kings ; " or, failing this, the 
 princes of this world must be imbued with the true 
 philosophic spirit. 
 
 And what, then, is a philosopher 1 He is a rare and 
 perfect being, who takes all knowledge and virtue as 
 his portion ; he is (l the spectator of all time and all 
 existence," for he knows the absolute and real ideas of 
 beauty, truth, and justice far removed from the uncer- 
 tain twilight of opinion. He is free from the mean- 
 ness or injustice of petty natures ; he is lordly in his 
 conceptions, gracious in manner, with a quick mem- 
 ory, and a well-adjusted mind. It is no argument, 
 continues Socrates, to say that among the so - called 
 philosophers of the present day you will find many 
 rogues and fools. It is so ; but the fault rests not with 
 philosophy itself, but with the ignorant multitude, and 
 with the pretentious teachers of our youth ; for rare 
 talents may be perverted by bad training, and strong 
 but ill-regulated minds will produce the greatest evils. 
 A young and noble character has indeed little chance 
 of withstanding the corruptions of the age. The ful- 
 some compliments of friends and advisers, the sense- 
 less clamour of the law-court or the Assembly, combine 
 to ruin him ; and, worse than all, the influence of the 
 Sophists, who act as keepers to this many-headed monster 
 of a people, understanding its habits and humouring 
 its caprices, calling what it fancies good and what it
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 127 
 
 dislikes evil. And thus Philosophy herself is left deso- 
 late, and a crowd of vulgar interlopers leave their 
 proper trades and rush in like escaped prisoners into a 
 sanctuary, and profane the Temple of Truth. There 
 can be but one result to such a debasing alliance as 
 this a host of spurious sophisms. Few and rare indeed 
 are the cases where men of nobler stamp have remained 
 uncorrupted ; whom some favourable accident, such as 
 exile, or indifference, or ill health or it may be (So- 
 crates adds), a8 in my own peculiar case, an inward 
 sign from heaven has saved from such entanglements. 
 
 Clearly, then, the real philosopher, who is to stand 
 aloof from that wild beast's den which we call public 
 life, has no place or lot among us as things are now. 
 He is like some rare exotic, which, if transplanted to 
 a foreign soil, would soon fade and wither ; for he re- 
 quires a perfect State to fulfil the perfection of his own 
 nature a State such as may perhaps have once existed 
 in the countless ages that are passed, or even exists 
 now " in some foreign clime far beyond the limits of 
 our own horizon." * 
 
 And in this State, of which we are giving the glo- 
 rious outlines, philosophers must rule, in spite of their 
 personal reluctance ; for they owe us nurture - wages 
 for their training, and must for a time forego their 
 higher life of contemplation. They will be nobly 
 fitted for their office, for their intellectual training will 
 
 * Here, at the end of the Sixth and the beginning of the 
 Seventh Book in the original, conies a description of the higher 
 education which these philosophers must undergo, and of which 
 a sketch is given in chap. vii.
 
 128 PLATO. 
 
 . have taken them step by step through the higher 
 ; branches of knowledge Arithmetic, Geometry, and 
 Astronomy all studied with a view to deeper and ideal 
 truths. By a strict and repeated process of selection, 
 all except those of a resolute and noble nature will be 
 excluded from the number of these " saviours of the 
 State ; " again and again these will be tested and ex- 
 amined, and a select list made, till at last the studies 
 of the chosen few will culminate in Dialectic, the cop- 
 ing-stone of all the Sciences. Their souls will then 
 have mounted from gloom to daylight ; they will com- 
 prehend first principles, and they will be privileged to 
 know and define in its real nature the Idea of Good. 
 At the age of fifty they shall be tested for their final 
 work, and if they come out unscathed from the trial, 
 the remainder of their life shall be passed partly in 
 philosophy, partly in practical politics till death shall 
 remove them to the Islands of the Blest, and a grate- 
 ful city shall honour them with monuments and 
 sacrifices. 
 
 Such is our State, continues Socrates in the Eighth 
 Book, perfect, so long as its various parts shall act in 
 harmony ; but, like other mortal productions, it is fated 
 to change and decay at a certain period, determined by 
 a mystic number. So also there is a cycle which con- 
 trols all human births for good or evil ; and, in the 
 lapse of years, it must be that our Guardians will miss 
 the propitious time ; a degenerate offspring will thus 
 come into being, Education will languish, and there 
 will be a gradual decline in the Constitution.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 129 
 
 The first stage in this " decline and fall " will be a 
 Timocracy, marked by a spirit of ambition and love of 
 gain ; in which the art of war will preponderate, and 
 our Guardians will think lightly of philosophy and 
 much of political power. 
 
 Then comes an Oligarchy, where gold is all-power- 
 ful and virtue is depreciated ; and the State becomes 
 divided into two hostile classes one enormously rich, 
 the other miserably poor ; and in it paupers and crim- 
 inals multiply, and education deteriorates. 
 
 There is a change, says our theorist, in the character 
 of the individual citizen corresponding to each of these 
 changes in the form of government ; but it must be 
 confessed that the minute analysis of the causes of 
 this change, and the result of certain characteristics 
 in each parent, would strike a modern reader as some- 
 thing more than fancifuL 
 
 The intemperate desire of riches, and the licence and 
 extravagance thus encouraged, do their own work in 
 the State, until you find everywhere grasping misers 
 and ruined spendthrifts. Meanwhile the lower orders 
 grow turbulent and conscious of their power. Their 
 insubordination soon brings matters to a crisis : there 
 is a revolution, and a pemocracY is the result. This 
 may be defined as " a pleasant and lawless and motley 
 constitution, giving equal rights to unequal persons ; " 
 and it is pervaded by a marvellous freedom in speech 
 and action, and a strange diversity of character. Each 
 man does what he likes in his own eyes, with a mag- 
 nanimous disregard of the law : he obeys or disobeys 
 at his own pleasure ; and if some criminal be sentences 
 
 A. o. voL xix. i
 
 130 PLATO. 
 
 to death or exile, you will probably meet him the next 
 day, come to life again, and parading the streets like a 
 hero. There is something splendid, concludes Socrates 
 comically, in the forbearance of such a commonwealth, 
 and in its entire superiority to all petty considerations. 
 
 Again, the democrat is like the democracy. Brought 
 up in a miserly and ignorant way by his father, the 
 oligarch, the young man is soon corrupted by bad com- 
 pany, and a swarm of passions and wild and presump- 
 tuous theories seize the citadel of his reason, whence 
 temperance and modesty are expelled. Even if not 
 thoroughly reprobate, he is at the mercy of each fleet- 
 ing caprice, and gives way to the humour of the hour, 
 now revelling with wine and music, now fasting on 
 bread and water now an idler, and now a student ; by 
 turns politician, general, or trader.* 
 
 In a thoroughgoing democracy we have liberty and 
 equality everywhere in fact, there is soon a uni- 
 versal anarchy. Respect for rank and age soon dies 
 out. Father and son, teacher and scholar, master and 
 servant, are all on the same dead level. The very 
 animals (says the speaker, with an amusing touch of 
 satire) become gorged with, freedom, and will run at 
 you if you get in their way. 
 
 * Professor Jowett quotes Dryden's well-known description 
 of the Duke of Buckingham 
 
 "A man so various that he seemed to be 
 Not one but all mankind's epitome." 
 
 He thinks that Alcibiades is referred to ; but the lines would 
 apply equally well to Critias, Plato's uncle (Curtius, Hist. Greece, 
 iii. 542).
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 131 
 
 But extremes in politics produce a reaction ; and the 
 result of excessive freedom is excessive slavery. From 
 a Democracy to a Tyranny is an easy stage. Some 
 demagogue, wlio has shown unusual talent in extort- 
 ing money from the richer class to feed those " sting- 
 ing and stingless drones" of -whom we spoke, is 
 adopted by the people as their champion, and gradually 
 strengthens his influence. It is always the same story 
 he banishes, confiscates, murders, and then his own 
 life is threatened, and he obtains a body-guard. Woe 
 to the rich man then, if he does not fly at once, for it 
 will be arrest and death if he lingers. 
 
 At first the Tyrant will be all smiles and promises ; 
 but, once firmly seated, he will change his tactics. He 
 will employ his citizens in incessant war to weaken 
 their strength, and rid the state of bold and powerful 
 spirits ; he will increase his guards, he will plunder 
 the rich and humble the strong, and thus free men will 
 pass under the yoke of slavery. 
 
 The man who answers to the Tyrant in private life 
 will have his soul under the dominion of monstrous 
 lusts and appetites, squandering and plundering, and 
 passing on from sin to sin. 
 
 Thus a Tyranny is the worst and most miserable 
 State of all. K"ot only are the citizens in it reduced 
 to slavery, and distracted by fear and grief, but the 
 Tyrant himself, with all his power and splendour, 
 never knows the blessings of peace and friendship. 
 Like some great slave-master in a desert, he lives 
 alone in a crowd : shunned and detested by those 
 about him, tortured by remorse, and haunted by a
 
 132 PLATO. 
 
 lifelong terror, he is himself the most pitiable slave 
 of all 
 
 The only pleasure that such a man ever knows is 
 mere sensual enjoyment in itself worthless and fleet- 
 ing. The attractions of gold or of glory are of a no- 
 bler stamp ; but the best and purest of all pleasures 
 that a man can feel, and the ineffable sweetness of 
 which the world can never realise, is that which the 
 philosopher alone finds in the study and contemplation 
 of existence. For he prunes close the hydra-headed 
 passions by which the many are enslaved, and sub- 
 jects the lion to the man, by making reason rule his 
 soul. Thus none can measure his happiness ; but it 
 cannot be possessed by any in perfection, save in our 
 own ideal state " which does not, indeed, at present 
 exist in this world, but has, perhaps, its pattern laid 
 up in heaven for him who is willing to see it, and, 
 seeing it, rules his life on earth accordingly." * 
 
 Such is the Platonic State, with its strange medley 
 of noble aspirations and impracticable details. How 
 far Plato himself believed it to be ideal, or how far, if he 
 had been Alexander's tutor, he would have tried to 
 carry it out in history, we have no means of telling. 
 But it is easy to understand his feeling, and the point 
 of view from which he wrote. He is weary of the pre- 
 tensions, the falsehood, and the low morality around 
 him (" it is dreadful to think," he says, " that half the 
 people we meet have perjured themselves in one of the 
 numerous law-courts ") and so he turns away with a 
 
 * Rep. ix. ad fin.
 
 TEE REPUBLIC. 133 
 
 sort of despair from the sad realities of Athenian life ; 
 and instead of writing a bitter satire, as a Roman might 
 have done, or waging war against the society he de- 
 spises in " latter-day pamphlets," he throws himself as 
 far as he can out of the present, with all its degrading 
 associations, and "builds for himself (as we have seen) 
 a new State after a divine and perfect pattern in 
 a world a thousand leagues from his own. 
 
 Those " three waves " of the " Republic " (as Socrates 
 terms them) the community of families and that of 
 property, and the assumption that philosophers must 
 be kings which threaten to swamp the argument even 
 with such friendly criticism as Glaucon and Adeimantus 
 venture to offer, prove with less partial opponents insur- 
 mountable obstacles to the realisation of the Platonic 
 State. Aristotle heads the list of objectors, and disap- 
 proves both of the end and the means to be pursued. 
 So far from promoting the unity of the State, he argues 
 that Plato's system of Communism will create an end- 
 less division of interests and sympathies : will tend to 
 destroy the security of life and property ; and, among 
 other evils, will do away with the virtues of charity 
 and liberality, by allowing no room for their exercise. 
 Modern critics generally touch upon the repression of 
 all individual energy, the cramping of all free thought 
 and action, and the necessary abolition of any sense of 
 mutual rights and obligations which are necessary parts 
 of Plato's system ; and De Qtiincey has denounced in 
 an eloquent passage the social immorality encouraged by 
 Plato's marriage regulations, and his " sensual bounty 
 on infanticide " " cutting adrift the little boat to go
 
 134 PLATO. 
 
 down the Niagara of violent death, in the very next 
 night after its launching on its unknown river of life." * 
 Plato's " Eepublic " is the first of a long series of ideal 
 States ;t and we find the original thought "Romanised " 
 by Cicero, " Christianised " by St Augustine in his 
 ' City of God,' and in more modern times reappearing 
 in Sir Thomas More's ' Utopia,' and in Lord Bacon's 
 ' New Atlantis,' with its wonderful anticipations of 
 modern science. We have in our own day seen speci- 
 mens of the same class of literature in works like 
 'Erewhon' and 'The Coming Race.' 
 
 THE LAWS. 
 
 This Dialogue is the last and the longest that Plato 
 wrote, and bears traces of the hand of old age. The 
 fire and spirit of his earlier works seems gone, while 
 Plato himself is changed ; he is not only older, but 
 more conservative, more dogmatic, and we must also 
 say more intolerant and narrower-minded than was 
 his wont. Much had happened since he wrote the 
 " Republic " to disenchant him of visionary politics. 
 His mission to Syracuse had proved, as we have seen, 
 a miserable failure, and his grand schemes of reform 
 had sadly ended in the violent death of his friend 
 Dion. And so the tone of the " Laws " is grave, prosaic, 
 and even commonplace in its trivial details. Tha 
 high aspirations of the " Republic " have sobered down 
 into a tedious and minute legislation. The king- 
 
 * De Quincey, viii. 
 
 t An interesting account of these States may be found in Sir 
 G. C. Lewis's Methods of Reasoning in Politics, II. ch. xxii.
 
 THE LAWS. 135 
 
 philosophers, with their golden pedigree and elaborate 
 training, are here superseded by a council of elderly 
 citizens elected by vote. The celestial world of " Ideas " 
 and the sublime heights of Dialectic have passed -from 
 view; the study of science is curtailed: and it is 
 even hinted that a young man may possibly have 
 too much of education. But Plato seems to have 
 grown even more impressed than before with the be- 
 lief that the State should mould the characters and 
 keep the consciences of its citizens : he is imbued, 
 says Mr Grote, "with the persecuting spirit of mediae- 
 val Catholicism j" there is a strict "Act of Uniformity," 
 and all dissenters from it are branded as criminals ; 
 while religion, poetry, music, and education generally 
 are placed under State surveillance 
 
 The first four books of the " Laws " form a kind 
 of desultory preface to the detailed legislation which 
 occupies the remaining eight. The scene of the Dia- 
 logue is laid in the island of Crete, and the speakers 
 are three old men an Atheman7~a Spartan, and a 
 Cretan who meet on the road to the temple of 
 Jupiter at Gnossus, and discuss, as they walk, the form 
 of government in their respective States. Sparta and 
 Crete were then standing instances of the perfection to 
 which military training might be brought, and a war- 
 like ideal realised. Both cities resembled permanent 
 camps, with severe discipline, continual drill, a public 
 mess, and barrack life taking the place of family 
 life and affections. But the Athenian, though not 
 denying the superiority of Spartan troops, finds much 
 to criticise in the principle of the Spartan system. It
 
 136 PLATO. 
 
 has only developed courage, which is, after all, but a 
 fourth-rate virtue ; and it has proceeded on the mis- 
 taken notion that man's natural state is war. Other 
 virtues such as wisdom and temperance are thus 
 made of little account j and Sparta has banished 
 pleasure, which is really as effectual a test of self- 
 control as pain. Wine, too, is forbidden there 
 though it is a most useful medium for discovering a 
 man's strength or weakness ; indeed, at the festival of 
 Bacchus there ought, the Athenian thinks, to be a 
 drinking tournament with a sober president and all 
 honour should be paid to the youth who could drink 
 hardest and longest. For it is clear that the man with 
 the strongest head at the banquet will be the coolest 
 and most imperturbable on the battle-field. Again, 
 wine softens and humanises the character; it cures 
 the sourness of old age, and under its influence we 
 renew our youth and forget our sorrows. And if you 
 want to try a friend's honour and integrity in vino 
 veritas ; ply him with wine, and you will read all the 
 secrets of his heart. But with all this, there should be 
 a stringent " Licensing Act." The times and seasons 
 when wine may be drunk should be strictly defined by 
 law; and no soldier on active service, no slave, no 
 judge or magistrate during his year of office, no pilot 
 on duty, should be allowed to drink wine at all ; and, 
 if these precautions are carried out, a city will not 
 need many vineyards. 
 
 The use of wine as a means of training opens the 
 general question of Education, which is examined again 
 at greater length in the Seventh Book of the treatise ;
 
 THE LAWS. 137 
 
 and then Plato passes on to the origin of society. In 
 the " Eepublic," the State is made to spring from the 
 mutual needs of men ; hut here it is developed from 
 the House in fact, we find in this treatise the 
 " patriarchal " theory. 
 
 In the illimitable past, says Plato, there must have 
 been thousands and thousands of cities which rose and 
 flourished for a time, and then were swept away ; for 
 at certain fixed periods a deluge comes, which covers 
 the whole earth and destroys all existing civilisation, 
 leaving only a vast expanse of desert, and a few sur- 
 vivors on the mountain-tops. This remnant clings 
 together with the instinct of self-preservation. Each 
 little family, under the strict rule of the " house 
 father," lives in a primitive and simple manner on the 
 produce of its flocks and herds, like the Homeric 
 Cyclops : 
 
 " Unsown, untended, corn and wine and oil 
 
 Spring to their hand ; but they no councils know, 
 
 Nor justice, but for ever lawless go. 
 
 Housed in the hills, they neither buy nor sell, 
 
 No kindly offices demand or show ; 
 
 Each in the hollow cave where he doth dwell 
 Gives law to wife and children, as he thinketh well."* 
 
 Gradually several of these isolated units coalesced, 
 and thus the family developed into the tribe, and 
 several tribes uniting made the State. Then came a 
 government, and a code of laws. 
 
 * Homer, Od. ix., "Worsley's transl. There is an interest- 
 ing account of this patriarchal age in Maine's Ancient Law, 
 chap. v.
 
 138 PLATO. 
 
 Plato next passes in review the ancient legends of 
 his own country the Trojan War, the Eeturn of the 
 Heraclidae, the Dorian settlement in the Peloponnese ; 
 and he traces in the history of those times seven 
 distinct and recognised titles to obedience namely, 
 the authority of parents over children, of nobles over 
 inferiors, of elder over younger, of master over slave, 
 the natural principle that the strong should rule the 
 weak, and the no less natural principle that the wise 
 should have dominion over the fool ; and lastly, there 
 is the power conferred by the casting of the lot in 
 which Plato recognises, as distinctly as the Hebrew 
 legislator, the hand of Heaven. 
 
 A great lesson, he continues, may be learned from 
 these ancient States for they all perished from inter- 
 nal discords that limited power among the rulers, and 
 harmony and obedience to the laws among the subjects, 
 are the safeguards of every community. Thus Provi- 
 dence wisely tempered the kingly power in Sparta 
 with Ephors and a Senate, and so produced a healthy 
 balance in the constitution; while Persia fell from her 
 high place among the nations from the excess of 
 despotic power, and the want of goodwill between 
 the despot and his people. The great Cyrus and 
 Darius both received a warrior's training, and won 
 their own way to the throne ; while Cambyses and 
 Xerxes, bom in the purple and bred in the harem, 
 proved weak and degenerate princes, and their ruin 
 was the result of their evil bringing up. Athens, again, 
 went wrong in the other extreme ; for with us, says the 
 Athenian, it is always excess of freedom that does the
 
 THE LAWS. 139 
 
 mischief. Of old, law was supreme in every part of the 
 State especially in music, with its four primitive and 
 simple divisions. Reverence, and the fear " which the 
 coward never feels," prevailed ; all classes were united, 
 and fought for their common hearths and sepulchres ; 
 and the grand result was Marathon and Salamis. 
 But gradually a change has come over our national 
 character. There has been a growing lawlessness, be- 
 ginning in the Music, and spreading thence through- 
 out the community. "We no longer any of us listen in 
 respectful silence to the judgment of superior interests, 
 but are one and all become accomplished critics, and 
 every one knows everything. Awe and reverence have 
 gone for ever ; and there is a shameless disregard for 
 authority, whether of parents, or elders, or rulers. 
 Even the majesty of the gods is slighted, and the 
 oaths sworn by them are made of no account. 
 
 Here, with the Third Book, ends " the prelude " to 
 the " Laws." By a happy coincidence (says the Cretan 
 in the Dialogue), his countrymen are just going to 
 found a colony, and he is one of the ten commis- 
 sioners appointed to give laws to the colonists. Will 
 the Athenian give him some hints on the subject ? 
 
 It is clear (replies the Athenian) that all legislation 
 should aim at carrying out three principles namely, 
 freedom, unity, and wisdom ; and that State will be 
 best where the law is best administered by the rulers 
 who are its servants, and where the happiness of the 
 community is the sole object of their legislation.
 
 140 PLATO 
 
 " The difficulty is to find the divine love of temperate 
 and just institutions existing in any powerful forms of 
 government, whether in a monarchy or oligarchy of wealth 
 or of birth. You might as well hope to reproduce the 
 character of Nestor, who is said to have excelled all men 
 in the power of speech, and yet more in his temperance. 
 This, however, according to the tradition, was in the times 
 of Troy : in our own days there is nothing of the sort. 
 But if such an one either has or ever shall come into being, 
 or is now among us, blessed is he, and blessed are they 
 who hear the wise words that flow from his lips. And 
 this may be said of power in general : when the supreme 
 power in man coincides with the greatest wisdom and 
 temperance, then the best laws are by nature framed, and 
 the best constitution ; but in no other way will they ever 
 come into being." J. 
 
 If you could find a despot, young, noble, and en- 
 thusiastic fortunate, moreover, in being advised by 
 some great legislator you will have your city founded 
 at once ; for the change from a despotism to a perfect 
 government is the easiest of all.* 
 
 In our legislation we will head each enactment with 
 a prelude or preamble, to show the nature of the case 
 and the spirit of the law, appealing thus to the reason 
 of our citizens, that they be rather persuaded than forced 
 to obey ; more especially as there are many cases which 
 the law can never reach, and where we can only declare 
 the solemn utterances of Heaven, speaking through the 
 law to all who are willing to hear and understand. 
 
 * Plato's opinion of the " Tyrant" is greatly modified, since 
 he declared in the "Republic" that "tyranny" was 729 degrees 
 removed from perfection ; but here he is probably thinking of 
 the younger Dionysius (see p. 8).
 
 THE LAWS. 141 
 
 Our city, then, shall be built nine miles from the 
 sea, in a country which has more hill than plain. 
 There will be little timber for shipbuilding ; but this 
 is of no importance, as we shall not aim at naval 
 power, nor will war be our normal state. The colon- 
 ists should, if possible, be all of the same country 
 like a swarm of bees as they will be then more 'united; 
 though perhaps a mixed multitude would be more 
 tractable. 
 
 The number of citizens shall be originally fixed, and 
 as far as possible kept, at 5040,* and to each citizen 
 shall be awarded land sufficient to maintain his family 
 (for community of property cannot be carried out) ; 
 but son shall succeed father, and none shall sell or 
 divide his lot, on pain of being cursed by the priests 
 as an offender against heaven and the law. There 
 shall be a State currency ; but no usury or accumula- 
 tion of private fortune shall be allowed, so that ex- 
 tremes of wealth and poverty may be equally avoided. 
 
 The State is to be governed in somewhat complicated 
 fashion. There are to be thirty-seven guardians of the 
 laws, and a council of 360 elected from the whole body 
 of citizens. Each department of public business is to 
 have its own officers. There are to be " country war- 
 dens," who would seem to combine the duties of modern 
 county court judges and rural police. For municipal 
 duties there are wardens of the city and market, all 
 
 * Plato gives as his reason for fixing on this number, that it 
 is easily divisible. He remarks also that it is not too large to 
 admit of their all knowing one another, though that would 
 involve a somewhat large circle of acquaintance.
 
 142 PLATO. 
 
 with magisterial powers. There are to be law-courts 
 and judges though arbitration is recommended where 
 it is possible and there is a high court of appeal. 
 
 Marriages are to be strictly regulated, since their ob- 
 ject is to produce a noble and healthy offspring. Slaves 
 should be treated with more perfect justice than we 
 show to equals, and all levity and cruelty towards 
 them should be avoided. 
 
 Then follow some desultory remarks on education, 
 which should (Plato thinks) be compulsory since chil- 
 dren belong more to the State than to their parents 
 and should be directed by a competent minister of pub- 
 lic instruction. Infants should be reared with great 
 care soothed with song, "for they roar continually 
 the first three years of their life " and carried about in 
 their nurses' arms, " as you see our young nobles carry 
 their fighting-cocks." At the age of six, boys are to 
 be separated from girls, and are to learn riding and 
 the use of weapons. Their amusements are to be 
 carefully watched, as any change in them may breed 
 revolution in the State. They are to learn dancing 
 to give them stately and graceful movement, and 
 wrestling to give them quickness and agility, and 
 music to humanise their souls. But both music and 
 song are to be strictly regulated ; there is to be a 
 censorship of the press, and all objectionable poetry 
 is to be expunged. (Plato hints that the " homilies " 
 with which his laws are prefaced would be admirable 
 exercises to be committed to memory.) Till the age 
 of thirteen they are to learn their grammar and 
 letters; afterwards the use of the lyre, and grave and
 
 THE LA WS. 143 
 
 simple melodies ; and their education is to conclude 
 with the rudiments of science, which should, if pos- 
 sible, be taught in an interesting manner. 
 
 There must be a religious festival (continues the 
 Athenian) on every day in the year, and a monthly 
 meeting of all the citizens to practise warlike exer- 
 cises, when there should be public races for the youths 
 and maidens. 
 
 In the Ninth Book, we have the somewhat weari- 
 some details of a criminal code, in which Plato justi- 
 fies the title given to him by Numenius of " the 
 Moses who wrote in Attic Greek." Certainly some 
 of the regulations are much in the spirit of the writer 
 of Leviticus such as, that no man shall remove his 
 neighbour's landmark, or cut off his supply of water ; 
 that the traveller may pluck the grapes at the time of 
 vintage ; and we have also, as in the law of Moses, 
 the " avenger of blood " and purification by the priest. 
 
 Plato here, as elsewhere, attributes crime in a great 
 measure to ignorance a sort of moral blindness. We 
 should (he says), if possible, heal the distemper of the 
 criminal soul, or, if he be incurable, he must be put 
 to death. There are certain unpardonable offenders 
 the profaner of temples, the would-be tyrant, the 
 traitor or conspirator, and the wilful shedder of inno- 
 cent blood, these must all suffer the extreme penalty. 
 He distinguishes between the various kinds of homi- 
 cide, in some cases a fine, in others exile, is sufficient 
 punishment ; but for the parricide he reserves a more 
 awful doom he shall be slain by the judges, and his 
 body exposed where three ways meet, and then cast
 
 144 PLATO. 
 
 beyond the borders ; while the criminal " who has 
 taken the life that ought to be dearer to him than all 
 others his own" shall be buried alone in a deso- 
 late place, without tomb or monument to show his 
 grave. 
 
 The deep-seated aversion and contempt with which 
 every Greek regarded trade and traders is shown in 
 Plato's regulations as to commerce and the market. 
 Among his 5040 citizens there was not to be found a 
 single retail trader. Such a degrading occupation was 
 to be left entirely to the resident foreigners, if any 
 chose to engage in it. If some great personage (" the 
 very idea is absurd," he says) were to open a shop, and 
 thus set a precedent, things might be different. As 
 it is, trade carries with it the stamp of dishonour. 
 And then follow other restrictions, the necessity for 
 which serves to show us that Greek shopkeepers prac- 
 tised much the. same imposition on their customers 
 as our own. There was to be no adulteration, no 
 tricks of sale, and all contracts were to be rigorously 
 adhered to. 
 
 The last two books are taken up with a number of 
 miscellaneous regulations respecting civil rights and 
 duties. The law is to take the power of will-making 
 into its own hands, and regulate the succession of 
 property " without listening to the outcry of dying 
 persons." Orphans "the most sacred of all deposits" 
 are to be protected by the State. A husband and 
 wife with " incompatible tempers " should be divorced. 
 Witchcraft is to be punished with death. No beggar 
 is to be allowed in the land. No man under forty
 
 THE LAWS. 145 
 
 years of age may travel abroad. Bodies are to be 
 exposed for three days before burial, to see if they are 
 really dead. Magistrates shall give a yearly account 
 of their office before certain public " Examiners," who 
 must be carefully selected, and, if found worthy, shall 
 have special honours paid to them during life, and at 
 their death a solemn public burial, not with sorrow 
 or lamentation; but the corpse shall be clad in 
 robes of white, and choruses of youths and men shall 
 chant their praises, and yearly contests iu music and 
 gymnastics be celebrated at their tomb. 
 
 Lastly, there is to be a supreme council of twenty 
 members ten of the oldest citizens, and ten younger 
 men afterwards added to their number who shall 
 hold their meetings before daybreak. This council, 
 like a " central Conservative organ," * is to be the 
 anchor of the constitution carrying out in every 
 detail the original intention of the founder, making 
 his laws irreversible as the threads of fate, and secur- 
 ing that uniformity of faith among the citizens, and 
 that belief in the unity of Virtue, which can be the 
 only safeguard of the "City of the Magnetes" the 
 new colony which they are about to found. 
 
 * Grote, iu. 447. 
 
 A. C. vol. xix.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MYTHS OF PLATO. 
 
 " The light that never was on sea or land, 
 The consecration, and the poet's dream." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 11 As Being is to Becoming," says Plato, " so Truth 
 is to Faith." Where a man cannot prove, he must be 
 content to believe; and the myths which the philos- 
 opher introduces here and there are guesses after this 
 Truth which he believes and feels, but cannot pre- 
 cisely define. He is conscious that there are more 
 things in heaven and earth than are " dreamed of in 
 his philosophy," and that there are some unseen reali- 
 ties transcending all mortal experience ; and so he 
 builds up his doctrine of ideas, embodies them in cir- 
 cumstances, gives them " a local habitation and a 
 name," and describes in detail the mysteries of the 
 unknown future and the unrecorded past. These 
 descriptions are not intended, he says, to be exactly 
 true. " No man of sense ought to affirm that." All 
 that he claims for them is verisimilitude. " We may 
 venture to think without impropriety that something 
 of the kind is true." Nor, again, is it desirable that
 
 THE CREATION OF MAX. 147 
 
 these myths should be strictly interpreted ; so to in- 
 terpret them would, he thinks, " be the task and not 
 a very enviable one of some person who had plenty 
 of time on his hands."* 
 
 "We have no means of telling how far these Myths 
 are the creation of Plato's own prolific fancy, or how 
 far they are compiled from the ancient Mysteries of 
 his own country, from Pythagorsean tradition, or from 
 oriental legends. But whatever their source may be, 
 his genius has given them a character and beauty of 
 their own ; nowhere is his style so grand and impres- 
 sive as in these fictions, on which he lavishes, as on 
 some " rich strand," all the treasures of his mind. 
 
 THE CREATION OF MAN. 
 
 (From the "Timseus.") 
 
 The world we live in, says the astronomer Timseus, 
 being visible, tangible, and perishable unlike the 
 world of eternal Ideas must have been created, and if 
 created, must have been the work of some great First 
 Cause or Architect, who fashioned it after an eternal 
 pattern ; " for the work is the fairest of creations, and 
 he is the best of causes." Of this indeed we can have 
 no certain knowledge, but only belief or conjecture, 
 since after all we are but mortal men. 
 
 The Creator, being goodness himself, wished that 
 his work should also be good like him ; and thus he 
 brought order out of Chaos, and " put intelligence in 
 soul and soul in body, and framed the universe to be 
 
 * Phaedrus, 229.
 
 148 PLATO. 
 
 the best and fairest work in nature. And therefore, 
 using the language of probability, we may say that the 
 world became a living soul, and truly rational, through 
 the providence of God." It was created of four entire 
 elements, blended together in geometrical proportion ; 
 and its form was a perfect and solid sphere, smooth 
 and complete, and moving in a circle. In the centre 
 was the soul (also compounded according to a scale of 
 harmony), and circulating all impressions from the 
 'ideal essence through every part of this vast and 
 visible animal, which included in itself all visible 
 creation. 
 
 " When the Father and Creator saw the image that he 
 had made of the eternal gods moving and living, he was 
 delighted, and in his joy determined to make his work still 
 more like the pattern ; and as the pattern was an eternal 
 creature, he sought to make the universe the same as far as 
 it might be. Now the nature of the intelligible being is 
 eternal, and to bestow eternity on the creature was wholly 
 impossible. But he resolved to make a moving image of 
 eternity, and as he set in order the heaven, he made this 
 eternal image having a motion according to number, while 
 eternity rested in unity; and this is what we call time. 
 For there were no days and nights, and months and years, 
 before the heaven was created, but when he created the 
 heaven he created them also. All these are the parts of 
 time, and the past and future are created species of time, 
 which we unconsciously but wrongly transfer to the eternal 
 essence : for we say indeed that he was, he is, he will be ; 
 but the truth is that ' he is' alone truly expresses him, and 
 that ' was' and ' will be' are only to be spoken in the gen- 
 eration in time, for they are motions ; but that which is 
 immovably the same cannot become older or younger by
 
 THE CREATION OF MAN. 149 
 
 time, nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, 
 older, nor is subject at all to any of those states of genera- 
 tion which attach to the movements of sensible things. 
 These are the forms of time when imitating eternity and 
 moving in a circle measured by number." J. 
 
 Time was u nus created with the heavens, in order that 
 if one was destroyed the other might likewise perish. 
 Then the Deity created the moon and stars to move 
 in their appointed orbits some fixed, some wandering, 
 but all were bodies with living souls imitating the 
 eternal nature ; and he " lighted a fire which we now 
 call the sun," that men might have light, and learn, 
 from the regular succession of day and night the use 
 of numbers. " And the month was created when the 
 moon had completed her orbit and overtaken the sun, 
 and the year when the sun had completed his own 
 orbit." Of all these stars, which are really gods, 
 the earth, our nurse, was the first and oldest, and was 
 made to revolve on her own axis in the centre of the 
 spheres.* 
 
 Then the Creator commanded the other gods, of 
 whose generation we know nothing except from tradi- 
 tion, to finish his good work by weaving together 
 mortal and immortal elements, and forming living 
 creatures. To these he distributed souls equal in num- 
 ber to the stars, assigning to each star a soul ; and he 
 showed to each the nature of the universe, and his own 
 decrees of destiny : declaring that whosoever lived a 
 
 * The various revolutions and eclipses of the heavenly bodies, 
 according to this Platonic myth, are much too perplexing to 
 be dealt with here.
 
 150 PLATO. 
 
 righteous life upon earth " should return again to the 
 habitation of his star, and there have a blessed exist- 
 ence ; " but if he lived unrighteously, he should de- 
 scend lower and lower in the scale of creation from a 
 man to a woman, and from a woman to some animal, 
 until at last the spirit should triumph over the flesh, 
 and his reason, which had never become extinct, should 
 restore him to his first and higher self. 
 
 And in the head of -man the gods put an immortal 
 soul, to be master of the body ; and they gave to the 
 body itself its proper limbs and powers of movement 
 and sensation, and in the eyes they placed a pure and 
 gentle fire, which .burns not, but streams forth and 
 mingles with the light of day. And they gave man 
 sight, that he might discern the unerring and intelli- 
 gent motion of the stars, and order his own mind with 
 like exactness ; and they gave him voice and hearing,' 
 that music might harmonise his soul. 
 
 Besides the invisible and imperishable forms of the 
 elements, and the visible images of these Forms 
 namely, the elements themselves there is a third 
 kind of being, a formless space or chaos, where these 
 images are stored up, and which is the source and 
 nurse of all generation. From this chaos the great 
 Architect brought forth the four elements, and shook 
 them together " in the vessel of space," and sifted and 
 divided them " as grain is sifted by the winnowing 
 fan," and fashioned them according to certain com- 
 binations of form and number. Thus the earth was 
 formed like a cube, the most perfect and solid of all 
 figures ; while fire took the shape of a pyramid, and
 
 THE CREATION OF MAN. 151 
 
 so with air and water. All these elements were 
 formed according to continuous geometrical propor- 
 tion. 
 
 [Then follows a curious but fanciful description of 
 the various phenomena of light, sound, and colour, 
 which, however, the reader may be spared.] 
 
 The gods (continues Timoeus) gave to man a triple 
 soul : firstly, a.njmmortal soul, dwelling in the head, 
 with the heart acting as its guard-house, and carrying 
 out its commands by means of a fiery network of 
 veins through every part of the body : secondly, a 
 mortal soul, which is again divided the nobler part 
 dwelling in the breast, and, though itself moved by fear 
 and anger, taking the side of reason against desire; 
 while the lower part, made up of unruly passions and 
 carnal appetites, is chained like a wild beast in the 
 "belly, far from the council-chamber of reason, which 
 it would otherwise disturb. Now the gods knew that 
 this lowest soul would never listen to reason, and they 
 therefore ruled it by means of images reflected on the 
 smooth and brilliant surface of the liver the seat of 
 prophetic inspiration sometimes fair and sweet, some- 
 times dark and discoloured by passion. 
 
 The marrow, which binds together soul and body, is 
 the seed-plot of mortal life, and, like the world, was 
 originally formed from triangles. These are sharpest 
 and freshest in our childhood, but they grow blunted 
 and gradually wear out in old age, till at last their 
 fastenings are loosened, and " they unfix also the 
 bonds of the soul, and she being released in the order 
 of nature joyfully flies away."
 
 152 PLATO. 
 
 Diseases spring from the disturbance of the original 
 elements of which our bodies are composed ; and the 
 soul also suffers from two mental distempers madness 
 and ignorance. As far as possible, nature should be 
 left to herself; but since there is a strong sympathy 
 between soul and body, the conditions of health in 
 both must be observed ; the limbs should be trained 
 by exercise, and the mind should be educated by 
 music and philosophy. For no man can prolong his 
 life beyond a certain time ; and medicines ignorantly 
 administered multiply diseases and destroy the con- 
 stitution. 
 
 Man should exercise in due proportion the three souls 
 implanted in him, more especially that highest and 
 divinest element in our heads, which makes us look 
 upward like plants, and draws our thoughts from earth 
 to heaven. If he seeks wisdom and truth, then he 
 " must of necessity, so far as human nature is capable 
 of attaining immortality, become all immortal, as he is 
 ever serving the divine power, and having the genius 
 that dwells in him in the most perfect order, his hap- 
 piness will be complete." But if he gratifies ambition 
 and desire, he will degenerate into a merely mortal 
 being, and after this life will lose his high place in 
 creation, first passjng into the form of a woman, and 
 then into the still lower form of an animal ; for ani- 
 mals are only deteriorated humanity the birds being 
 " innocent and light-minded men," who thought in 
 their simplicity that sight alone was needed to know 
 the truths of celestial regions; and the quadrupeds 
 and wild animals being all more or less brutal and
 
 THE ISLAND OF ATLANTIS. 153 
 
 stolid, till at last the lowest stage of all is reached in 
 the fishes. 
 
 "These were made out of the most entirely ignorant and 
 senseless beings, whom the transformers did not think any 
 longer worthy of pure respiration, because they possessed 
 a soul which was made impure by all sorts of transgression ; 
 and instead of allowing them to respire the subtle and pure 
 element of air, they thrust them into the water, and gave 
 them a deep and muddy medium of respiration ; and 
 hence arose the race of fishes and oysters, and other aqua- 
 tic animals, which have received the most remote habita- 
 tions as a punishment of their extreme ignorance. These 
 are the laws by which animals pass into one another, both 
 now and ever changing as they lose or gain wisdom and 
 folly." J. 
 
 Thus we may call the world " a visible animal com- 
 prehending the visible itself a visible and sensible 
 God, the image of Him who is intelligible, the greatest, 
 best, fairest, and one most perfect Universe." 
 
 THE ISLAND OF ATLANTIS.* 
 
 The day after the long discussion of the " Republic," 
 Socrates meets three of his friends who had been 
 present Hermocrates, a rising statesman, Timseus, 
 a distinguished astronomer of Locris (who gives his 
 name to the Dialogue just noticed), and Critias, a 
 young Athenian whose accomplishments made him 
 seem " all mankind's epitome " being politician, 
 
 * Only two fragments of this "Epic " have come down to 
 us the prologue and the catastrophe, found in two Dialogues 
 (the " Tinueus" and the " Critias"), the latter of which is broken 
 off abruptly.
 
 154 PLATO. 
 
 sophist, poet, musician, all in one. At their request 
 Socrates sums up his theories of the previous day, 
 but professes himself to be hardly satisfied with his 
 ideal sketch. Like one who has seen animals in a 
 painting or at rest, and who would like to see them 
 in active movement, so, he tells them, he would like to 
 see how his imaginary State would really act in some 
 great crisis, and how his citizens would bear them- 
 selves when they went forth to war ; and he appeals 
 to his friends to help him to exhibit his republic play- 
 ing a noble part in history. And then Critias tells 
 " an old-world story," handed down in his family from 
 his great-grandfather Dropidas, who had heard it from 
 Solon, and Solon had himself heard it in this wise. 
 
 Near the mouths of the Nile in Egypt stands the 
 ancient city called Sais, where Amasis the king was 
 born, founded by a goddess whom the Egyptians 
 call Keith and the Greeks Athene. Thither Solon 
 came in his travels, and was received with great 
 honour ; and he asked many questions of the priests 
 about the times of old, and told them many ancient 
 legends, as he thought them, of his own land. But 
 one of the priests, being himself of a great age, said : 
 " Solon, you Greeks are always children, and there 
 is not an old man among you all. You have no tradi- 
 tions that are really grey with time, and your stories 
 of Deucalion and Phaeton are only the partial history 
 of one out of many destructions by flood and fire which 
 have come at certain periods upon mankind, sweeping 
 away states, and with them letters and all knowledge. 
 The Nile has preserved our land from such calami-
 
 TIIE ISLAND OF ATLANTIS. 155 
 
 ties ; and therefore we have faithful records of past 
 ages preserved in our temples, while you are ever 
 beginning your history afresh, and know nothing of 
 what formerly came to pass in your own land or in any 
 other ; all your so-called genealogies are but children's 
 tales. You do not even know that your own city, 9000 
 years ago, before the great Deluge, was foremost of all 
 in war and peace, and is said to have done the greatest 
 deeds, and to have possessed the fairest constitution of 
 any city under heaven. And the same great goddess 
 who founded our city founded yours also ; for she and 
 her brother Hephaestus obtained the land of Athens as 
 their lot, and they planted there a race of brave men, 
 and gave them a fair and fertile soil, and rich pastures, 
 
 and a healthy climate. And these ancient Athenians 
 
 ~^ 
 
 (so Critias tells Socrates) realised in actuaTHfe the strict 
 
 division of classes laid down in your ' Republic ; ' and 
 their guardian soldiers both men and women were 
 trained and went out to battle together like yours ; and 
 none among them had house or family or gold that he 
 could call his own, but they had all things in common. 
 And the number of these guardians neither increased 
 nor decreased, but was always twenty thousand. And 
 their most famous victory was over the vast army sent 
 forth from the island of Atlantis. 
 
 " Now, this island was of a great size larger than all 
 Asia and Libya together and was situated over against 
 the straits now called the Pillars of Hercules. It was 
 founded by the god Neptune, who divided the land 
 among the ten sons that were born to him by a mortal 
 woman. And the eldest, who was called Atlas, he
 
 156 PLATO. 
 
 made king of all the island ; and he made his brethren 
 princes under him, and gave them rule over many men 
 and wide provinces. And the descendants of Atlas 
 multiplied, and he had wealth and power such as no 
 other king ever had before or since. And the soil 
 and climate of this island were so good, that the fruits 
 of the earth ripened twice a-year; and there was 
 abundance of both minerals and metals, and many 
 elephants and other tame and wild animals of various 
 kinds. And the city on the mountain in the centre 
 of the island was a wondrous sight to behold ; for 
 bridges were built across the ' zones of sea ' which 
 Neptune had made, and a canal was dug from the city 
 to the sea, and a fortress was built having stone walls 
 plated with tin and brass and the red 'mountain 
 bronze,' and in the midst was the king's palace and 
 the vast temple of Neptune, covered with silver, and 
 having pinnacles of gold and a roof of ivory. And 
 within was a golden statue of the god himself riding 
 in a chariot drawn by six winged horses so huge 
 that he touched the roof; and around were a hundred 
 Nereids riding upon dolphins, and outside the temple 
 were golden statues of the ten kings and their wives. 
 Besides all these things there were many baths and 
 fountains, and public gardens and exercise grounds, 
 and dockyards and harbours full of merchant vessels 
 and ships of war. 
 
 " And the plain around the city was sheltered by 
 mountains, and guarded by a vast ditch 100 feet deep, 
 and 600 feet broad, and more than 3000 miles long. 
 And the ten kings who ruled the island held council
 
 THE CHARIOT OF THE SOUL. 157 
 
 and offered sacrifice together, and were sworn to assist 
 one another in peace and war. And they had 10,000 
 chariots and a fleet of 1200 ships. 
 
 "And for many generations the people of the island 
 were obedient to the laws, and their kings ruled them 
 wisely and uprightly, setting no value on their riches, 
 nor caring for aught save for virtue only. But as 
 time went on, the divine part of their souls grew faint, 
 and they waxed insolent, and thus in the very pleni- 
 tude of their power they provoked the jealousy of the 
 gods, who determined to destroy them. 
 
 "It was then, or soon after, that the armies of 
 Atlantis were sent to conquer Athens, as they had 
 already conquered Libya and Tyrrhenia. But of the 
 war which followed we know nothing, save that 
 Athens stood alone in the struggle, and won a great 
 battle over these barbarians, and that in the space of 
 one day and night the victors and the vanquished dis- 
 appeared together for there was an earthquake and a 
 deluge, and the earth opened and swallowed up all the 
 warriors of Athens, while the great island of Atlantis 
 sank beneath the sea. And to this day the sea which 
 covers this island is shallow and impassable, and there 
 is nothing in the Atlantic Ocean save mud and sand- 
 banks." 
 
 THE CHARIOT OF THE SOUL. 
 
 (From the "Phsedrus.") 
 
 Our soul, which has a triple nature, is as a chariot- 
 eer riding in a chariot drawn by two winged steeds 
 one of a mortal and the other of an immortal nature. 
 Their wings are the divine element, which, if it
 
 158 PLATO. 
 
 be perfect and fully nourished on the pastures of truth 
 and beauty, lifts the soul heavenwards to the dwelling 
 of the gods. There, on a certain day, gods and demi- 
 gods ascend Jbhe . Jbeayen^ of heavens Zeus leading 
 the way in a winged chariot to hold high festival, 
 and all who can may follow. The gods and the im- 
 mortal souls, whose steeds have full-grown wings, are 
 carried by a revolution of the spheres into a celestial 
 world beyond, where all space is filled by a^ sea of 
 intangible essence which the mind " lord of the soul " 
 alone can contemplate : and here are the absolute 
 ideas of Truth and Beauty and Justice. And in these 
 divine pastures of pure knowledge the soul feeds during 
 the time that the spheres revolve, and rests in perfect 
 happiness, and then returns to the heavens whence it 
 came, where the steeds feast in their stalls on nectar 
 and ambrosia. 
 
 But only to a few souls out of many is it granted to 
 see these celestial visions. The rest are carried into 
 the gulfs of space by the plunging of the unruly 
 horses, or lamed by unskilful driving ; and often the 
 wings droop or are broken, and the soul fails to see 
 the light, and^sinks to earth " beneath the double load 
 of forgetfulness or vice." And then she takes the form 
 of a man, and becomes a mortal creature ; and, accord- 
 ing to the degree in which she has attained to celestial 
 truth, she is implanted in one of nine classes, the 
 highest being that of the philosophers, artists, poets, or 
 lovers and the lowest stage of all, the tyrant. Ten 
 thousand years must be passed by the soul in this 
 state of probation, before she can return to the place
 
 THE CHARIOT OF THE SOUL. 159 
 
 whence she came, and renew her wings of immortality. 
 And at the end of each life is a day of judgment, fol- 
 lowed by a period of retribution, either for good or for 
 evil, lasting a thousand years ; and after that each soul 
 is free to cast lots and choose another life. Then 
 the soul of the man may pass into the life of a beast, 
 or from a beast again into that of a man. But the 
 soul of him who has never seen the truth will not pass 
 again into the human form. 
 
 But from the souls of those who have once gazed on 
 celestial truth or beauty the remembrance cau never 
 be effaced. Like some divine inspiration, the glories 
 of this other Avorld possess and haunt them ; and it is 
 because their souls are ever struggling upwards, and 
 fluttering like a bird that longs to soar heavenwards, and 
 because they are rapt in contemplation and careless of 
 earthly matters, that the world calls the philosopher, 
 the lover, and the poet " mad." For the earthly 
 copies of justice or temperance, or any of the higher 
 qualities, are seen but through a glass dimly, and few 
 are they who can discern the reality by looking at the 
 shadow. , 
 
 And thus the sight of any earthly beauty in face or 
 form thrills the genuine lover with unutterable awe 
 and amazement, because it recalls the memory of the 
 celestial beauty seen by him once in the sphere of 
 eternal being. The divine wings of his soul are 
 warmed and glow with desire, and he lives in a sort of 
 ecstasy, and shudders " with the misgiving of a former 
 world." Often, indeed, a furious struggle takes place 
 between the charioteer and the dark and vicious horse
 
 160 PLATO. 
 
 that wishes to draw the chariot of the soul on to un- 
 lawful deeds, and can only "be curbed by bit and bridle. 
 Happy are they who, with the help of the white im- 
 mortal steed, can win the victory in this struggle, and 
 end their lives in a peaceful and genuine friendship. 
 
 THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 (From the "Gorgias" and "Phsedo,") 
 
 We mortals, says Socrates, know nothing of the real 
 world, for we live along the shores of the Mediter- 
 ranean like frogs around a swamp ; and we think we 
 are on the surface, when we are really only in one of 
 those hollow places of which our earth is full. But if 
 a man could take wings and fly upwards, he would see 
 the true world, which is a thousand leagues above our 
 own ; and there all things are brilliant with colour, 
 and sparkle with gold and purple, and a purer white 
 than any earthly snow. And there are trees and 
 flowers and fruits, and jewels on all the hills, more 
 precious than the sardonyx or emerald. And there are 
 living beings there, both men and animals, dwelling 
 around the air ; for our air is like their sea, and their 
 air is purest ether. And they know neither pain nor 
 disease ; and they live longer lives than we creatures 
 of a day ; and all their senses are keener and more 
 perfect ; and they have temples in which their gods 
 really dwell, and they see them face to face, and hear 
 their voices, and call them by their names. Moreover, 
 they know the sun and moon and stars in their proper 
 nature.
 
 THE OTHER WORLD. 161 
 
 Now the largest of all the chasms in our earth is 
 that which Homer calls Tartarus ; aiid through it 
 many and mighty streams of fire and water are ever 
 flowing to and fro, some driven upwards to our earth 
 by a rushing wind, and others winding in various 
 channels through the lower world. Of these streams 
 four are larger than the rest ; and the first of these 
 is called Oceanus, which flows in a circle round the 
 earth. The second is Acheron, which passes through 
 desert places to a lake in Tartarus, where the souls of 
 the dead wait until such time as they are born again. 
 And the third river is Pyriphlegethon, which boils 
 with flames and falls into a lake of fire. And the 
 fourth river is Cocytus, and it passes into the Stygian 
 lake, where it receives strange powers, and then, after 
 many windings, it also falls into Tartarus. 
 
 Even in the days of Saturn the same law prevailed 
 as now that men should be judged, and that those 
 who had done good should be sent to the Islands of 
 the Blest, and those who had done evil should be 
 thrown into Tartarus. But judgment was then given 
 on the day of a man's death, and both the judgesjmd 
 the judged were alive, and owing to men being still 
 arrayed liHoeauty o7"rahk or wealth, and the garment 
 of the body also acting as a veil to the perceptions of 
 the soul in the case of the judge, the judgment was 
 not always just. So Jupiter ordained that for the 
 future the^ naked soul of the judge, stripped of all its 
 gross mortality, should judge the souls that were 
 brought naked before him. 
 
 For when the soul separates from the body, each 
 A. c. vol.~xix.~~ L
 
 162 PLATO. 
 
 part still carries with it its mortal features; and he 
 who was tall in his lifetime will be tall after death, 
 and he who had flowing hair will have flowing hair 
 still, and the slave who was branded by the scourge 
 will carry the scars upon his body into the other world. 
 So also the soul of the tyrant will bear indelible marks 
 of crime, and will be " full of the prints and scars of 
 hisjagrjuries and misdeeds." For such a soul as his 
 there can be no cure ; nor will there be any pardon for 
 such as have been guilty of foul murder or sacrilege, but 
 they will be thrown into Tartarus, whence they can 
 never come forth, and their punishment will be ever- 
 lasting. 
 
 But those whose crimes are not unpardonable will be 
 condemned by the three judges to abide in Tartarus for 
 a year ; and after that they will be cast forth on the 
 shores of Acheron, where they must wander lament- 
 ing, and calling out on those whom they have slain 
 or wronged on earth to pardon and deliver them ; and 
 until their prayer is heard, they are forced to return 
 again to their place of torment 
 
 Now the Three look with awe and reverence on the 
 face of him who has lived a life of holiness and truth 
 in this world, and who is probably a private citizen 
 or philosopher, who has done his own work and not 
 troubled himself about the business of others, and they 
 send him to the Islands of the Blest, or to that purer 
 earth of which we spoke before ; " and there/' con- 
 tinues Socrates, " they live henceforth, freed from the 
 body, in mansions brighter far than these, which no 
 tongue may describe, and of which time would fail
 
 THE STORY OF ER. 163 
 
 me to tell. And he concludes, in language almost 
 apostolic :- 
 
 " Wherefore seeing these things are so, what ought 
 we not to do, to attain virtue and wisdom in this life, 
 when the prize is so glorious, and the hope so great ? " 
 
 THE STORY OF E P.. 
 ( "Republic," Book x.) 
 
 Er, the Paniphylian, a brave man, was slain in 
 battle, and ten days afterwards his body, which, un- 
 like all the other dead, was still uncorrupted, was 
 brought home to be buried ; but on the funeral pyre he 
 returned to life, and told all that he had seen in the 
 other world. When his soul left the body (he said) 
 he journeyed in company with many other spirits 
 until he came to a certain place where there were two 
 openings in the earth and two in the heaven, and be- 
 tween them judges were seated, 
 
 " who bade the just, after they had judged them, ascend 
 by the heavenly way on the right hand, having the signs 
 of the judgment bound on their foreheads ; and in like 
 manner the unjust were commanded by them to descend by 
 the lower way on the left hand ; these also had the symbols 
 of their deeds fastened on their backs. He drew near, and 
 they told him that he was to be the messenger of the other 
 world to rnen, and they bade him hear and see all that was 
 to be heard and seen in that place. Then he beheld and 
 saw on one side the souls departing at either chasm of 
 heaven and earth when sentence had been given on them ; 
 . and at the two other openings other souls, some ascending 
 out of the earth dusty and worn with travel, some descend- 
 ing out of heaven clean and bright, and always, on their
 
 164 PLATO. 
 
 arrival, they seemed as if they had come from -a long 
 journey, and they went out into the meadow with joy, and 
 there encamped as at a festival, and those who knew one 
 another embraced and conversed, the souls which came 
 from earth curiously inquiring about the things of heaven, 
 and the souls which came from heaven of the things of 
 earth. And they told one another of what had happened 
 by the way, some weeping and sorrowing at the remem- 
 brance of the things which they had endured and seen in 
 their journey beneath the earth (now the journey lasted a 
 thousand years), while others were describing heavenly 
 blessings and visions of inconceivable beauty." J. 
 
 And for all evil deeds each soul suffered a tenfold 
 punishment, and for its good deeds it received a ten- 
 fold reward. And Er heard one of the spirits ask 
 another, where Ardiaeus the Great was? (He had 
 been tyrant of some city in Pamphylia a thousand 
 years before Er lived, and had murdered his aged 
 father and brother, and committed many other crimes.) 
 
 " The answer was : ' He comes not hither, and will 
 never come.' And ' indeed,' he said, ' this was one of the 
 terrible sights which was witnessed by us. For we were 
 approaching the mouth of the cave, and, having seen all, 
 were about, to reascend, when of a sudden Ardiaeus ap- 
 peared and several others, most of whom were tyrants ; 
 and there were also besides the tyrants private individuals 
 who had been great criminals ; they were just at the 
 mouth, being, as they fancied, about to return to the upper 
 world, but the opening, instead of receiving them, gave a 
 roar, as was the case when any incurable or unpunished 
 sinner tried to ascend ; and then wild men of fiery aspect, 
 who knew the meaning of the sound, came up and seized 
 and carried off several of them, and Ardiseus and others 
 they bound head and foot and hand, and threw them down
 
 THE STORY OF ER. 165 
 
 and flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the 
 road at the side, carding them on thorns like wool, and 
 declaring to the pilgrims as they passed what were their 
 crimes, and that they were being taken away to be cast 
 into hell. And of all the terrors of the place, there was no 
 terror like this of hearing the voice ; and when there was 
 silence, they ascended with joy.' These were the penalties 
 and retributions, and there were blessings as great." J. 
 
 Er and his spirit-companions tarried seven days in 
 this meadow, and then set out again on their journey ; 
 and on the fourth day they came to a place where 
 a pillar of light like a rainbow, but far brighter, 
 stretched across heaven and earth, and in another 
 day's journey they reached it, and found that this 
 light bound together the circle of the heavens, as a 
 chain undergirds a ship ; and to either end of this 
 pillar was fastened the distaff of Necessity, having a 
 shaft of adamant and a wheel with eight vast circles 
 of divers colours, fitted into one another, and narrow- 
 ing towards the centre. And in these circles eight 
 stars were fixed ; and as the spindle moved round, 
 they moved with it each slowly or swiftly according 
 to its proper motion. And on each circle a siren stood, 
 singing in one note, and thus from the eight stars 
 arose one great harmony of sound. And round about 
 these circles at equal distances were three thrones, and 
 on these thrones were seated the three daughters of 
 Necessity, clothed in white robes, with garlands on 
 their heads. And they also sang as they turned the 
 circles of the spindle Lachesis singing of past time, 
 Clotho of the present, and Atropos of time that shall
 
 166 PLATO. 
 
 be. The spirits, as they arrived, were led to Lachesis 
 in order by a Prophet, who took from her knees lots 
 and samples of lives, and, mounting a rostrum, spoke 
 as follows : " Thus saith Lachesis, daughter of Ne- 
 cessity. Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of mortal 
 life ! Your genius will not choose you, but you will 
 choose your genius ; and let him who draws the first 
 lot have the first choice of life, which shall be his 
 destiny. Virtue is free, and according as a man 
 honours or dishonours her he will enjoy her more or 
 less; the chooser is responsible, heaven is justified." 
 When he had thus spoken he cast the lots among 
 them, and each took up the lot which fell near him, 
 all but Er himself, who was not allowed. 
 
 And these lives were of every kind, both of men 
 and animals, and were variously composed beauty, 
 and wealth, and poverty, and strength, and nobility 
 all mingled together. But no definite character was 
 yet attached to any ; for the future nature of each soul 
 depended on the life it might choose. And on the 
 choice (so said the Prophet who had arranged the lots) 
 each man's happiness depended : and to choose aright 
 he should know all that follows from the possession of 
 power and talent ; and should choose the mean, and 
 avoid both extremes so far as he may, not in this life 
 only but in that which is to come. " Even the last 
 comer, if he choose discreetly and will live carefully, 
 shall find there is reserved for him a life neither un- 
 happy nor undesirable. Let not the first be careless 
 in his choice, neither let the last despair." 
 
 It was a sad yet laughable sight (said Er) to see the
 
 THE STORY OF ER. 167 
 
 manner in which the souls made their choice. For the 
 first chose the greatest despotism he could find, not 
 observing that it was ordained in his lot that he 
 should devour his own children ; and when he found 
 this out, he lamented and beat his breast, accusing the 
 gods, and chance, and everything rather than himself. 
 And their former experience of life influenced many 
 in their choice : thus the soul of Orpheus chose the 
 life of a swan, because he hated to be born again of 
 woman" (for women had before torn him in pieces) ; 
 and Ajax chose the life of a lion, and Agamemnon 
 that of an eagle, because men had done them wrong ; 
 and Thersites, the buffoon of the Iliad, took the ap- 
 propriate form of an ape. Last of all came Ulysses, 
 weary of his former toils and wanderings ; and, after 
 searching about for a while, he chose a quiet and ob- 
 scure life, that was lying neglected in a corner, for all 
 tHeTbthers had passed it by. 
 
 " Now when all the souls had chosen their lives in the 
 order of the lots, they advanced in their turn to Lachesis, 
 who despatched with each of them the Destiny he had se- 
 lected, to guard his life and satisfy his choice. This Des- 
 tiny first led the soul to Clotho in such a way as to pass 
 beneath her hand and the whirling motion of the distaff, 
 and thus ratified the fate which each had chosen in the 
 order of precedence. After touching her, the same Destiny 
 led the soul next to the spinning of Atropos, and thus ren- 
 dered the doom of Clotho irreversible. From thence the 
 souls passed straight forward under the throne of Necessity. 
 When the rest had passed through it, Er himself also passed 
 through ; and they all travelled into the plain of Forgetful- 
 ness, through dreadful suffocating heat, the ground being 
 destitute of trees and of all vegetation. As the evening
 
 1G8 PLATO. 
 
 came on, they took up their quarters by the bank of the 
 river of Indifference, whose water cannot be held in any 
 vessel. All persons are compelled to drink a certain 
 quantity of the water ; but those who are not preserved by 
 prudence drink more than the quantity : and each, as he 
 drinks, forgets everything. When they had gone to rest, 
 and it was now midnight, there was a clap of thunder and 
 an earthquake ; and in a moment the souls were carried up 
 to their birth, this way and that like shooting-stars. Er 
 himself was prevented from drinking any of the water ; 
 but how, and by what road he reached his body, he knew 
 not : only he knew that he suddenly opened his eyes at 
 dawn, and found himself laid out upon the funeral pyre." 
 D.
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ART. 
 
 " Religions ideas die like the sun ; their last rays possessing little heat, 
 are spent in creating beauty." Lecky, Hist, of Morals. 
 
 IN his famous picture of the School of Athens, Raphael 
 has represented Plato as looking up towards heaven, 
 while Aristotle has his eyes intently fixed upon the 
 earth ; and Goethe has endorsed the idea expressed in 
 this painting. "Plato's relation to the world," he says, 
 " is that of a superior spirit, whose good pleasure it is 
 to dwell in it for a time. ... He penetrates into 
 its depths, more that he may replenish them from the 
 fulness of his own nature, than that he may fathom 
 their mysteries." * Certainly the most careless reader 
 cannot help being struck by the persistency with which 
 Plato dwells upon his favourite thought, that this life 
 is only the first stage of an endless existence, that death 
 is the release of soul from body, which the wise man 
 welcomes with joy, and that philosophy itself is but a 
 "meditation of death," or " the resembling, so far as is 
 possible, of man to God." t In fact, disce mori may be 
 
 * Quoted in Ueberweg's History of Philosophy, i. 103 
 English transl. 
 
 ( t Phsodo, 80; These!, 176.
 
 170 PLATO. 
 
 said to be the text of Platonism. Perhaps, he says in 
 the Gorgias, Euripides was right, and our life here is 
 after all a death, and our body is the tomb or prison 
 of the soul.* And in the same spirit in which Socrates 
 bids Crito not to be too careful about his burial, Plato 
 prohibits in his " Laws " expensive funerals " for tho 
 beloved one whom his relative thinks he is laying in the 
 earth has but gone away to complete his destiny." The 
 soul, he reiterates, really makes each of us to be what 
 he is, and the body is only its image and shadow, and 
 after death all that is divine in us goes on its way to 
 other gods.t Man himself is nothing more than a 
 puppet or plaything of the gods, acting his part on the 
 stage of life with more or less success, and " with some 
 little share of reality." + 
 
 His view of human nature, and of man's limited 
 powers of knowledge, is best illustrated in his own 
 famous allegory of the Cave, in the seventh book of 
 the " Eepublic." 
 
 " Imagine," says Socrates, "a number of men living in an 
 underground cavernous chamber, with an entrance open to 
 the light, extending along the entire length of the cavern 
 in which they have been confined from their childhood, 
 with their necks and legs so shackled that they are obliged 
 to sit still and look straight forward, because their chains 
 render it impossible for them to turn their heads round : 
 and imagine a bright fire burning some way off, above and 
 behind them, and an elevated road way passing between the 
 fire and the prisoners, with a low wall built along it, like 
 
 * Gorgias, 492. t Laws, xii. 959. 
 
 J Laws, vii. 803.
 
 RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ART. 171 
 
 the screens which conjurors put up in front of their au- 
 dience, and above which they exhibit their wonders. . . . 
 Also figure to yourself a number of persons walking be- 
 hind this wall, and carrying with them statues of men 
 and images of other animals wrought in wood and stone 
 and all kinds of materials, together with various other 
 articles, which overtop the wall ; and, as you *might ex- 
 pect, let some of the passers-by be talking, and others 
 silent." D. 
 
 " This cave," Socrates continues, " is the world, and 
 the fire that lights it is the sun, and these poor pri- 
 soners are ourselves 
 
 ' Placed with our backs to bright reality ; ' 
 
 and all sights or sounds in this twilight region are 
 but the shadows or echoes of real objects. And 
 as sometimes a prisoner in this cave may be released 
 from his chains, and turned round, and led up to the 
 light of day ; so may our souls pass upwards from the 
 darkness of mere opinion, and from the shadowy im- 
 pressions of sense into the pure sunlight of eternal truth, 
 lighted by the Idea of Good in itself the source of all 
 truth and beauty." 
 
 Eut " What is the Good 1 " Plato tells us, truly 
 enough, that it is what all men pursue under different 
 names, deriving its existence, seeking its reality, yet 
 totally unable to explain its nature ; and he compares 
 it in a parable, as we have seen, to the sun which 
 illuminates the eternal world of Ideas, but as to its 
 own essential nature he leaves us still in the dark. 
 The philosophers in his State will know it, he says, 
 for their souls will be enlightened, but he does not
 
 172 PLATO. 
 
 know it himself ; and although the knowledge of it is 
 bound up with the existence of his State, and is the 
 culmination of his system, all that he does is to " con- 
 duct us to the chamber where this precious and indis-- 
 pensable secret is locked up, but he has no key to open 
 the door." * 
 
 Sometimes, indeed, he personifies this supreme Idea, 
 and, as in the "Timaeus" and "Philebus," abstract good- 
 ness is merged in the concrete God. But even here, 
 his conception of Deity rises far above the jealous and 
 sensitive occupants of Homer's Olympus, who were 
 immortal beings with mortal passions and sympathies, 
 strongly attached to persons and places, and sharing in 
 all the hopes and fears of their worshippers. A Chris- 
 tian writer could hardly frame a more exalted idea of 
 divinity than that which Plato has expressed in many 
 of his Dialogues. With him the Deity is a being of 
 perfect wisdom and goodness, all-wise and all-powerful, 
 ruling the world which he has created by the supremacy 
 of His reason. He can be only known to us through 
 some type or form ; but let none suppose that He 
 would put on a human shape by night or by day, to 
 help a friend or deceive a foe : for, being perfect good- 
 ness in Himself, such a change could be only for the 
 worse ; and, being perfect truth, He hates a lie either 
 in word or in deed.t 
 
 In this conception of the Deity, Plato does but repre- 
 sent the tendency of Greek religion towards " Mono- 
 theism." Long before his time, all the deeper thinkers 
 
 * Crete's Plato, iii. 241. t Repnbl., ii.
 
 RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ART. 173 
 
 had ceased to believe in the old mythology. Even the 
 sober piety of Herodotus had questioned some miracles 
 and rejected others ; and the keen common-sense of 
 Thucydides had applied the historical test to the " Tale 
 of Troy," looking upon it as a political enterprise, and 
 accepting the catalogue of ships "as an authentic 
 muster-roll." * Then Euemerus had allegorised these 
 myths ; and Palsephatus had softened them down into 
 commonplace narratives of actual facts : thus the 
 wings of Daidalus became a swift sailing vessel, the 
 dragon which Cadmus slew was King Draco, and the 
 dragon's teeth were the ivory of commerce. And 
 philosophy had aided this progress of rationalism. More 
 than a century before Plato, Xenophanes had pointed 
 out the discrepancies involved in the popular mytho- 
 logy, and had declared emphatically that there was 
 " one God, not to be compared to mortals in form or 
 thought all eye and all ear who without effort rules 
 all things by the insight of his mind." So again 
 Empedocles had recognised, amidst the crash of war- 
 ring elements, one holy impalpable Spirit, whom none 
 could come near, or touch, or see ; and even Anaxagoras, 
 with all his materialism, had paid homage to a sove- 
 reign Mind which ruled the universe. 
 
 " But," says Professor Maurice, " there lay in the 
 very heart of the faith of the Greek a seed of unbelief 
 which was continually fructifying." t While many 
 clung with unwavering faith to the religion of their 
 fathers ; while a few (as we have seen) professed a 
 
 * Grote's Greece, 5. 333. t Hist, of Philos., i. 86.
 
 174 PLATO. 
 
 purer and higher belief than mere anthropomorphism ; 
 there were others who, though they rejected the an- 
 cient myths, accepted nothing in then" place : and 
 the Sophists seem to have encouraged this increasing 
 tendency to atheism among the younger and more 
 sceptical spirits of this age. Prodicus maintained that 
 men in olden times had deified whatever was of use 
 to them : thus wine was promoted into Bacchus, and 
 bread was dignified with the name of Ceres. Critias, 
 again, declared that the gods had been invented by 
 some crafty statesman to secure the obedience of his 
 subjects ; and one daring sceptic of this school, 
 Diagoras of Melos (subsequently banished from both 
 Sparta and Athens for his impious theories), had 
 thrown a wooden statue of Hercules into the fire, say- 
 ing that he might go through his thirteenth labour in 
 the flames. 
 
 In the tenth book of the " Laws " written, as has 
 been said, in his declining years Plato makes a bold 
 stand against this growing impiety of his day. It 
 springs, he says, from, one of three causes ; from utter 
 atheism ; or, second, from Epicurean apathy the 
 feeling that the gods exist, but never trouble them- 
 selves about mankind; or, thirdly, from superstition 
 the gods both exist and care, but you can pacify their 
 anger by sacrifice. Heretics, in his ideal city, are to be 
 punished by solitary confinement or by death, and the 
 heaviest vengeance of the law is to light on the wolf 
 in sheep's clothing the impious hypocrite who dares 
 to use his priestly garb to further his own ambitious or 
 criminal ends. And then he gravely takes the sceptic
 
 RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ART. 175 
 
 to task, and justifies the ways of Providence.* "Do 
 not" (lie says, almost in the very words of the Psalmist) 
 " the heavens declare the glory of God ? " Does not 
 the universal testimony of mankind teach us that a 
 God exists 1 And woe to the rash and presumptuous 
 youth Avho presumes to charge the Deity with indolence 
 or neglect, merely because he sees the wicked in pros- 
 perity, and handing down their power to their children 
 after them. God is no unskilful workman, but in His 
 wisdom has taken thought for all things, both small 
 and great. Each part of the creation has its appointed 
 work and purpose, and all the parts work together to 
 some common end. What is best for one portion is 
 therefore best for the whole. It is impious, indeed, 
 to think that this fair creation around us could have 
 been the work of nature or chance; or, again, that matter 
 could have existed before mind. Such doctrines will 
 sooner or later meet with their reward. 
 
 " God, as the old tradition declares, holding in His hand 
 the beginning, middle, and end of all that is, moves accord- 
 ing to His nature in a straight line towards the accomplish- 
 ment of His end. Justice always follows Him, and is the 
 punisher of those who fall short of the divine law. To 
 that law, he who would be happy holds fast, and follows it 
 in all humility and order ; but he who is lifted up witli 
 pride, or money, or honour, or beauty who has a soul hot 
 with folly, and youth, and insolence, and thinks that he has 
 no need of a guide or ruler, but is able himself to be the 
 guide of others, he, I say, is left deserted of God ; and 
 being thus deserted, he takes to him others who are like 
 himself, and dances about in wild confusion, and many 
 
 * Laws, x. 886.
 
 176 PLATO. 
 
 think that he is a great man, but in a short time he pays a 
 penalty which justice cannot but approve, and is utterly 
 destroyed, and his family and city with him. Wherefore, 
 seeing that human things are thus ordered, what should a 
 wise man do or think, or not do or think ? " J. 
 
 The perfection of man's existence, according to Plato, 
 is to bring his nature as far as is possible into harmony 
 with God ; and this can only be done by cultivating 
 the soul, which is the divinest part of us, and came to 
 us from heaven long before our earth-born body.* 
 " Honour the soul, then," he says, in one of his homilies 
 in the " Laws," " as being second only to the gods ; 
 and the best way of honouring it is to make it better. 
 A man should not prefer beauty to virtue, nor sell his 
 word for gold, nor heap up riches for his children ; 
 since the best inheritance he can leave them is the 
 spirit of reverence. Truth is the beginning of all 
 good; and the greatest of all evils is self-love; and 
 the worst penalty of evil-doing is to grow into likeness 
 with the bad : for each man's soul changes, according 
 to the nature of his deeds, for better or for worse, "t 
 
 In more than one passage Plato combats the objec- 
 tion always raised against every system of Optimism 
 the existence of evil, which implies, according to 
 the atheist, either a want of goodness in the Deity to 
 allow it, or a want of power to prevent it. Practically, 
 Plato refutes this argument in much the same language 
 
 * We may compare with this Kant's famous saying, "On 
 earth there is nothing great but Man; in Man there is nothing 
 great but Mind." 
 
 t Laws, x.
 
 RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ART. 177 
 
 as a modern 'thinker might use. Evil in the creation 
 does not imply evil in the Creator ; its existence is 
 part of a vast scheme of Providence : and because, with 
 our limited faculties, we cannot discern tlie final cause 
 or design of everything in nature (e.g., the poison of 
 the rattlesnake), we have no right to say, therefore, that 
 no such final cause exists. Listen again to Plato (speak- 
 ing in the person of Socrates) in the " Theastetus." 
 
 " Soc. Evils, Theodoras, can never perish ; for there 
 must always remain something which is antagonistic to 
 good. Of necessity, they hover around this mortal sphere 
 and the earthly nature, having no place among the gods 
 in heaven. Wherefore, also, we ought to fly away thither ; 
 and to fly thither is to become like God, as far as this is 
 possible ; and to become like Him is to become holy, just, 
 and wise. But, my friend, you cannot easily convince 
 mankind that they should pursue virtue or avoid vice, not 
 for the reasons which the many give in order, forsooth, 
 that a man may seem to be good ; this is what they are 
 always repeating, and this, in my judgment, is an old 
 wives' fable. Let them hear the truth : In God is no un- 
 righteousness at all He is altogether righteous ; and there 
 is nothing more like Him than he of us who is the most 
 righteous. And the true wisdom of men, and their no- 
 thingness and cowardice, are nearly concerned with this. 
 For to know this is true wisdom and manhood, and the igno- 
 rance of this is too plainly folly and vice. . . . There are 
 two patterns set before men in nature : the one blessed and 
 divine, the other godless and wretched ; and they do not 
 see, in their utter folly and infatuation, that they are grow- 
 ing like the one and unlike the other, by reason of their evil 
 deeds ; and the penalty is, that they lead a life answering 
 to the pattern which they resemble. And if we tell them, 
 that unless they depart from their cunning, the place of 
 A. c. vol. xix. M
 
 178 PLATO. 
 
 innocence will not receive them after death ; and that here 
 on earth they will live ever in the likeness of their own 
 evil selves, and with evil friends, when they hear this, 
 they in their superior cunning will seem to be listening to 
 fools." J. 
 
 And in the same spirit the first great "type" to 
 which all legends must conform, in his ideal State, is that 
 God is good, and is the author of good alone ; the evil 
 He suffers to exist for the just punishment of men. And 
 therefore Plato will expunge from his new mythology 
 all those false and debasing stories Avhich Homer tells 
 about the gods and heroes, with their violent passions, 
 ]oves, and hatreds; where even the great Achilles 
 is represented as insolent and cruel, as slaying his 
 captives, cursing the Sun-god himself, and dragging 
 Hector's body round the walls of Troy. He will have 
 no sensational pictures of the lower world, with all its 
 horrors of Styx and Tartarus, and with the souls of 
 the dead " fluttering like bats " in sunless caverns. 
 And the music shall be simple and ennobling : he 
 will banish the wailing Lydian and soft Ionian mea- 
 sures, and he will have only martial strains in the 
 Dorian mood, such as Tyrtseus sang when the Spartans 
 marched out to battle ; and he will dismiss with 
 honour from the State the charming and versatile poet 
 who can assume all shapes and speak in all voices, and 
 will take instead the rough but honest story-teller who 
 will recite simple and useful tales.* 
 
 He again attacks the poets in the last book of the 
 " Republic; " and here the ground of offence is their imi- 
 
 * Rep., iii. 398.
 
 RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ART. 179 
 
 tation, which is (says Plato) twpjlegrees removed from 
 reality ; for taking any object, such as a bed, there is 
 first I/he ideal bed, created by the Deity, which alone 
 has real existence ; and then there is the bed made by 
 the carpenter in the image of the first ; and thirdly, 
 there is the shadow of this image, which the painter 
 or poet delineates in his picture or his poem, as it may 
 be. " I have a great liking and reverence for Homer " 
 (Plato continues), " who is the great master of all tragic 
 poets-^indeed from childhood I have loved his name ; 
 but I love truth better. And what has Homer done 
 for us, after all 1 He has not given us laws, like Solon 
 or Lycurgus ; he has not given us inventions, like 
 Thales and Anacharsis ; nor has he founded a brother- 
 hood, like Pythagoras ; nor, again, has he taught us 
 any of the arts of war and peace. If he had done any 
 real good to men, is it likely that he would have been 
 allowed to wander about, blind and poor ? No ; all 
 that he does is to give us a second-hand imitation 
 of reality, to exalt the feelings which are an inferior 
 part of our soul, to thrill us with pity or terror, and 
 so render us unmanly and effeminate." " There are 
 enough sorrows in actual life " (he says, later on, in the 
 " Philebus "), without multiplying them on the stage or 
 in fiction." 
 
 Though Plato was more of a poet than a philosopher 
 himself, and in his writings was said to strike the 
 happy medium between poetry and prose, he is always 
 disposed to regard the poets, as a class, in the light of 
 harmless enthusiasts, often the cause of much mischief, 
 but hardly responsible for their actions. In an earlier
 
 180 PLATO. 
 
 Dialogue the " Ion " Socrates meets the rhapsodist 
 of that name, and congratulates him upon having just 
 won the prize for recitation at a public festival. " It 
 must be a fine thing " (he says, with a tinge of irony) 
 " to be always well dressed, and to study and recite 
 passages from the prince of poets ; but is Ion always 
 master of his subject, and is his talent really an art 
 at all 1 No " (Socrates goes on) ; " it must be inspi- 
 ration a magnetic influence, passing like an electric 
 current from the loadstone of divine essence into the 
 soul of the poet, and from thence into the souls of his 
 hearers." 
 
 The simple-minded Ion is delighted at the idea of 
 being inspired, and confesses that he does feel in a sort 
 of ecstasy when he recites some striking passage such 
 as the sorrows of Andromache or Hecuba, or the scene 
 where Ulysses throws off his rags, leaps on to the floor 
 among the assembled suitors, and bends that terrible 
 bow of his. "Then" (says Ion) "my eyes fill with tears, 
 my heart throbs, my hair stands on end, and I see the 
 spectators also weeping, and sympathising with my 
 grief." 
 
 And the conclusion of this short but graceful Dia- 
 logue is, that the Deity sways the souls of men through 
 the rhapsodist or poet, who is himself only the vehicle 
 of inspiration, and knows little or nothing of the 
 meaning of the glorious words which it is his privilege 
 to utter. 
 
 Plato's own view of poetry and art, then, is, that it 
 should be pure, simple, and ideal free from the sen-
 
 RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ART. 181 
 
 sational innovations of modern days; and lie points 
 with approval to Egypt, where certain forms had been 
 consecrated in the temples, from which neither painter 
 nor sculptor was allowed to deviate, and where for ten 
 thousand years they had preserved their chants and 
 the statues of their gods unchanged.* The poet should 
 not be left to his own devices ; for bad music, like a 
 bad companion, tends to corrupt the character : both 
 the music and the words should be supervised by the 
 magistrate, prizes for the best poems should be awarded 
 by competent judges, and the moral of every lay or 
 legend should be, that all earthly gifts whether 
 health, beauty, or wealth are as nothing in com- 
 parison with a just and holy life. And in the " City 
 of the Magnetes," where his own laws are to be pro- 
 mulgated, the following is to be the theme of the 
 music consecrated by the State, and appointed to be 
 sung by three choirs children, youths, and men : 
 
 " All our three choruses shall sing to the young and ten- 
 der souls of children, reciting in their strains all the noble 
 tli oughts of which we have already spoken, or are about to 
 speak ; and the sum of them shall be, that the life which 
 is by the gods deemed to be the happiest is the holiest ; 
 we shall affirm this to be a most certain truth, and the 
 minds of our young disciples will be more likely to receive 
 these words of ours, than any others which we might ad- 
 dress to them. . . . And those who are too old to 
 sing will tell stories, illustrating the same virtues as with 
 the voice of an oracle." J. 
 
 We can never exactly tell how far Plato's views on 
 * Laws, ii. 660.
 
 182 PLATO. 
 
 religion are an echo of his master's, or how far they are 
 his own original ideas. We have another description of 
 Socrates and his teaching in Xenophon's "Memorabilia," 
 and there, like Plato, he appeals to the excellence of 
 the creation round him to prove the wisdom of the 
 great " World-builder ; " he recognises the all-pervad- 
 ing and invisible presence of the Deity ; he exalts the 
 dignity of man, only " lower than the angels " in the 
 possession of an immortal soul; and he points to signs 
 and oracles to prove how closely we may be brought 
 into actual communion with God. But in other re- 
 spects, if Xenophon can be trusted, he preached a far 
 lower standard of morality upholding, in fact, the 
 utilitarian doctrines so strongly condemned by the 
 Platonic Socrates in the beginning of the " Republic." 
 " You should test an action/' he is made to say, " by 
 its advantages to yourself. Be just, because justice 
 brings its own reward with it ; be modest, because 
 immodesty never pays in society ; be brave, because 
 you gain glory thereby ; be true and faithful, because 
 truth will bring you friends, the most useful of all pos- 
 sessions."* If this was really the tendency of Socratic 
 teaching, it is clear that Plato took far higher ground 
 than his master. IsTothing, in fact, could be further 
 from his thoughts than to degrade Virtue into a mere 
 calculation of the chances of more or less possible 
 happiness. 
 
 And in the " Philebus " (one of his latest Dialogues), 
 where the relative nature of pleasure and knowledge 
 
 * See Zeller's Socrates and the Socratic Schools, chap. vii.
 
 RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ART. 183 
 
 is analysed, Plato distinctly maintains that pleasures 
 differ in kind as well as degree,* the lowest being the 
 mixed pleasures of the senses, and the highest and 
 purest the mental enjoyment of music or mathe- 
 matics. He also holds that wisdom is " ten thousand 
 times better " than pleasure, since it alone satisfies the * 
 three criteria of goodness beauty, symmetry, and 
 truth ; while, in the scale of perfection, pleasure is 
 degraded by him to the fifth and sixth places. 
 
 The only one of Bentham's four "S auctions "t which 
 he would allow to influence our conduct would be that 
 described in his Myths the rewards and punishments 
 in a future world. Virtue per se is most excellent 
 being, in fact, moral health and strength, just as Vice 
 is moral disease ; and worldly advantages are not to 
 balance our actions, or influence us in the choice be- 
 tween good and evil. Even in prayer, he maintains 
 that a man should not. pray for gold, or honour, or 
 children, but simply for what is good ; and the gods 
 will know best how to turn his prayer to his own pro- 
 fit. " The prayer of a fool," he says again, " is fraught 
 with danger, and likely to end in the opposite of what 
 he desires." % In the same spirit he quotes (in his 
 " Alcibiadesyji.") some lines from an old poet, which, 
 snouTd, hVthinks, be the model for all prayers: "King 
 Jove, give us what is good, whether we pray for it or 
 
 \ 
 
 * The utilitarian maxims are : " Pleasures differ in nothing 
 but in continuance and intensity " (Paley) ; "The quantity of 
 pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry" (Bentham). 
 
 t See his Introduction to Morals and Legislation, chap. iii. 
 
 Laws, iii. 688.
 
 184 PLATO. 
 
 not ; and ward off what is dangerous, even though we 
 pray for it." And the spirit of the prayer he declares 
 to be worth more than any offerings a man can bring 
 just as the oracle of Ammon had declared the simple 
 prayer of the Spartans to be worth more than all the 
 sacrifices of Athens. 
 
 In one sense, Plato does not deny the " utility " of 
 Virtue, any more than Cudworth or Butler would have 
 denied it; and it is in this sense that we must take the 
 famous sentence in the " Eepublic " which Mr Grote 
 has prefixed as the motto to his three volumes : "The 
 noblest thing that is said now, or shall be said here- 
 after, is, that what is profitable is honourable, and 
 what is hurtful is base." * 
 
 *Rep., v. 457.
 
 CHAPTER YIIL 
 
 LATER PLATONISM. 
 
 SPEUSIPPUS, Plato's nephew, succeeded his uncle at 
 the head of the Academy ; and both he and those who 
 succeeded him appear to have taken a few texts and 
 phrases from their great master's writings, and on them 
 to have built up ethical systems of their own ; while 
 others, like Hermodorus, traded on those "unwritten 
 doctrines," said to have been divulged only to a 
 favoured few. But all that time has brought down 
 to us of the later Academy is some brief and frag- 
 mentary writings, and some untrustworthy traditions ; 
 and, for the most part, the memorial of these philo- 
 sophers has perished with them. 
 
 Even in Plato's own day, divisions had sprung up 
 among his followers ; and one of his most promising 
 pupils, who for twenty years had attended lectures in 
 the Academy, founded that school which has ever 
 since divided with his own the world of thought. 
 " Every man is born an Aristotelian or a Platonist : " 
 their principles are mutually repugnant, and there is 
 no common ground between the two ; and if Aristotle 
 himself could not understand his master's point of 
 view, there is still less chance of a modern Aristotelian
 
 186 PLATO. 
 
 ever doing so. The very beauty of Plato's style, his 
 exuberant fancy, the myths and metaphors in which 
 he clothed his noblest thoughts, were all so many 
 offences to the shrewd common-sense of Aristotle, who 
 reasoned rigidly from fact to fact, who analysed the 
 constitutions of three hundred states before he wrote 
 a line of his " Politics," and whose cold and keen tem- 
 perament had little sympathy with a philosopher who 
 " poetised rather than thought." * As for the Platonic 
 " Ideas " the very foundation of Platonism he re- 
 garded them as inconceivable and impossible, or, if 
 possible, practically useless. 
 
 Plato's method of doubt and inquiry carried far 
 farther by his pupils than he ever intended it to be 
 resulted in the " New Academy," a school of Sceptics, 
 of whom Pyrrho, originally a soldier in Alexander's 
 army, was the leader. These Sceptics were a sign of 
 the times. A weariness and despair of truth was 
 creeping over society, and hence there grew up a feel- 
 ing of indifference as to all moral distinctions, which 
 the philosophers who professed it termed a " divine 
 repose." Plato had said that there was no reality 
 except in an ideal world, and Pyrrho and his followers 
 pushed this doctrine so far as to deny the existence of 
 any fixed standard of right and wrong, or of any cer- 
 tainty which sense or mind could perceive. 
 
 Socrates, it has been said, " sat for the portrait of 
 the Stoic sage ;" t and Stoicism perhaps owes as much 
 to Plato as to the Cynics, of which school it was the 
 
 * Arist., Met. xi. 5. t Noack, quoted by Ueberweg, 187.
 
 LATER PLATON1SM. 187 
 
 legitimate offshoot. The majesty of inind, the high 
 ideal of a life in accordance with reason and untram- 
 melled by self-interest, the strong sense of a personal 
 conscience, the doctrine that a man's soul was an ema- 
 nation from the Deity all these tenets might have 
 been held by Plato or his master. But the Stoic dis- 
 regarded, if he did not disbelieve in, the immortality 
 of the soul ; and suicide, which Plato held to be 
 cowardly and impious, was looked upon by Seneca 
 and Epictetus as an easy and justifiable refuge against 
 all the evils of life. 
 
 Zeno was the first who lectured at Athens in the 
 Painted Porch, which gave its name (Stoa) to the sect. 
 His pupil Cleanthes so slow and sure that his master 
 compared his memory to a leaden tablet, difficult to 
 write upon but retaining an indelible impression 
 carried out in actual practice the principles of his train- 
 ing, drawing water and kneading dough the whole night 
 long, that he might have leisure for philosophy in the 
 day-time. Chrysippus followed, the second founder 
 of the " Porch," who is said to have written upwards 
 of seven hundred volumes ; and lastly Posidonius, the 
 most learned of all, whose lectures at Rhodes were 
 heard both by Cicero and Pompey. 
 
 Rome was naturally the home of Stoicism. The 
 pride and " majestic egotism " which was their ideal 
 of virtue, suited stern and zealous characters like Cato 
 or Cornutus ; and this pride, when softened by religious 
 sentiment, produced the noblest examples of pagan 
 philosophy in the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and the 
 slave Epictetus. But though Stoicism could raise up
 
 188 PLATO. 
 
 a school of heroes, it suppressed all softer emotions, 
 and set up an ideal unattainable by any except the 
 most exalted minds. A change was coming over 
 society, and the want was felt of a more tender and 
 attractive philosophy, and a longing for some deeper 
 truth than the cold comfort given by a " creed out- 
 worn " like paganism. Hence a reaction set in against 
 the casuistry and scepticism of the later Stoics in favour 
 of the more spiritual side of humanity. Allegory, 
 Mysticism, Inspiration, and Ecstasy, were the charac- 
 teristics of this new philosophy ; a critical spirit and 
 the strict inductions of reason were discouraged; to 
 elicit divine ideas, and to subdue the senses, was held 
 to be the end of life. And, like other creeds, this 
 dawned in the East. 
 
 Alexandria was the meeting-point of Eastern and 
 Western civilisation. In its vast gardens and libraries 
 might be found a medley of all nations, creeds, and 
 languages ; for the policy of the first three Ptolemys 
 known as Soter, Philadelphus, and Euergetes 
 ("Saviour," "Loving-brother," and "Benefactor") 
 was a liberal and universal toleration. Accordingly, 
 a temple of Isis might be found side by side with a 
 Jewish synagogue, or a shrine dedicated to Venus; 
 and freethinkers like Stilpo or Theodorus (banished 
 from their own states in Greece for their impiety) 
 were received with the same welcome at court as 
 the translators of the Septuagint or the high priest 
 from Eleusis. Everything, indeed, combined to 
 make Alexandria the centre of attraction for philo- 
 sophers and men of letters. Besides the natural
 
 LATER PLATOXISM. 189 
 
 charms of the place the bright sunshine, the clear 
 atmosphere, and a soil so rich in flowers and fruits 
 that "a man," says Ammianus, "might almost believe 
 himself in another world " there was the certainty of 
 royal favour, of learned and congenial society, and 
 (better than all) of a comfortable pension and a luxu- 
 rious residence in or near the palace. For the further 
 encouragement of literature, Ptolemy I. had founded 
 and liberally endowed the "Museum" (or, as we 
 should call it, " university "), with its porticos and lec- 
 ture-rooms and dining-hall, and its library of 700,000 
 volumes burnt when Alexandria was besieged by 
 Caesar. In connection with the library there grew 
 up a school of grammarians and critics, whose lives 
 were passed in the usual routine of a royal literary 
 circle, writing, publishing, dining together, talking 
 scandal, and carrying on an incessant Avar of words.' 
 
 In the learned world at Alexandria, some Jews ' 
 founded a new system of philosophy by blending j 
 Judaism with Platonism. They sought for the ! 
 deeper truth which they believed was hidden under 
 every text of Scripture ; intensifying all that was 
 miraculous or supernatural, discarding the literal 
 interpretation, and neglecting the ceremonial law as 
 being merely the symbolism which veiled the truth. 
 Philo headed this "mystical rationalism," tracing 
 Plato's world of ideas back to Moses, but giving them 
 a place in the "Word of God as the plan of a building 
 has a place in the mind of the builder. And, in lan- 
 guage like that which Plato uses in the " Tima3us," he 
 describes how God, an invisible but ever-present
 
 190 PLATO. 
 
 Essence, created and ruled the world by means of 
 ministering spirits or potencies, of whom the "Word is 
 highest, and second only to Himself. 
 
 Philo lived just before the Christian era ; and from 
 his time a succession of Alexandrian Jews continued 
 to give to the world their" transcendental theories, 
 founded on one portion or another of Plato's writ- 
 ings ; some, like Apollonius of Tyana, going back to 
 Pythagoras for their inspiration, and others, like the 
 Therapeutse, seeking " illumination " in a lonely and 
 ascetic life, until, towards the end of the second cen- 
 tury, the school of Neo-Platonists was founded by 
 Ammonius Saccas. They united the Eastern doctrine 
 of " emanation " with the Platonic doctrine of ideas, 
 believing that the ideas emanated from the One, as the 
 soul emanates from the ideas, and that the last and lowest 
 stage of emanation was the sensible and material world 
 around us. They held it man's duty to purify his soul, 
 and make it pass through various stages of perfection, 
 until at last it should be freed from all contamination 
 of the senses, and, in a sublime moment of ecstasy, 
 enter into actual communion with God. Four times 
 (so Porphyry tells us) his master Plotinus was thus 
 " caught up " in a celestial trance. IhdeecT^ this phil- 
 osopher was so ashamed of having a body at all, that 
 he would tell no one who were his parents or what 
 was his country, and resolutely refused ever to have 
 his portrait taken; for it was bad enough (he said) 
 that his soul should be veiled at all by an earthly image, 
 and he would never hand down an image of that 
 image to posterity. How deeply he was imbued with
 
 LATER PLATONISM. 191 
 
 Platonism may be seen from the mere titles of the fifty- 
 four treatises which have come down to us. Provi- 
 dence, Time and Eternity, Reason, Being, Ideas, the 
 "Daemon" who has received each of us in charge, such 
 are the subjects of some of the chapters in his "Enneads." 
 He at one time even obtained leave of the reigning 
 emperor to found a city in Campania, to be called 
 Platonopolis, whither he and his friends were to 
 retire from the world ; but happily the idea was never 
 actually put into execution. 
 
 The next generation of Neo-Platonists carried their 
 Mysticism still further. They revived divination and 
 astrology ; they interpreted dreams and visions ; they 
 consulted oracles ; and practised those ancient rites of 
 expiation which Plato himself had so strongly con- 
 demned, lamblichus, one of their number, traced a 
 mysterious affinity between earth and heaven ; and on 
 one of Plato's texts " all things are full of gods " he 
 constructed a hierarchy of heroes, demons, angels, and 
 archangels. Proclus, again a fanatic who wished 
 that all books might be burnt except Plato's "Timaeus " 
 interpreted his " God - enlightened master" in his 
 own fashion, and perfected himself in every form of 
 ritual, fasting and keeping vigil, celebrating the festival 
 of every god in the pagan calendar, and honouring 
 with mysterious rites the souls of all the dead. 
 
 There was one Neo-Platonist in the reign of Trajan 
 whose genial and sympathetic character stands out in 
 strong contrast to the superstition and pedantry of his 
 age. This was Plutarch of Chteronea, better known 
 as a biographer than a philosopher. He discusses the
 
 192 PLATO. 
 
 Socratic morality with calm good sense, purges the old 
 mythology, and preaches a purer monotheism than 
 any of his contemporaries. 
 
 The last of the j^eo-Platonists of whom we have 
 any record was Bojjjhius, who lectured at Athens ; and 
 shortly after his time the Emperor Justinian gave the 
 death-blow to Greek philosophy by interdicting all 
 instruction in the Platonic school. 
 
 It has been said that " Mysticism finds in Plato all 
 its texts," and certainly most of Christian Mysticism 
 may be traced back to the Neo-Platonists. From their 
 time to our own we find this tendency towards a 
 theologia mystica appearing in one form or another, 
 whether it be in the secret traditions of the Jewish 
 Cabala in the preaching of Eckhart in the fourteenth 
 century in the revival of Keo-Platonism at Florence 
 in the days of Cosmo de Medici in the science of 
 sympathies taught by Agrippa and Paracelsus in 
 Jacob Behmen's celestial visions or in Saint Teresa's 
 " four degrees " of prayer necessary to reach a perfect 
 " quietism." 
 
 Plato was regarded by the early Fathers of the 
 Church in the light of another apostle to the Gentiles. 
 Justin Martyr, Jerome, and Lactantius, all speak of 
 him as the wisest and greatest of philosophers. Augus- 
 tine calls him his converter, and thanks God that lie 
 became acquainted with Plato first and with the Gospel 
 afterwards : and Eugejbius declared that " he alone of 
 all the Greeks had attained the Porch of Truth." It is 
 easy to understand the grounds of this feeling. Passages 
 from his Dialogues might be multiplied to prove the
 
 LATER PLATONISM. 193 
 
 close similarity which exists between them and the 
 Scriptures, especially the books of the Pentateuch. 
 The picture of the ideal Socrates preaching justice 
 and temperance, and opposing to the self-assertion of 
 the Pharisees of his age the humility of the earnest 
 inquirer and the soberness of truth his declaration 
 at his trial that he will obey God rather than man, 
 and fears not those who are only able to kill the body 
 the description of the just man persecuted, scourged, 
 tortured, and finally crucified,* such passages serve 
 to explain the prayer of Erasmus, who added to 
 the invocation of Christian saints in his litany, 
 " Sande Socrates, ora pro nobis ;" and the belief of so 
 many of the Fathers that Plato, like St John the Bap- 
 tist, was a forerunner of Christ. Again, the strong 
 faith in the immortality of the soul the no less strong 
 sense of the pollution of sin the belief that virtue is 
 likeness to God the idea in the " Phaedrus " of a word 
 sown in the heart, and bringing forth fruit in due sea- 
 son the parable of the " Cave " and the Light of the 
 upper world, are a few instances out of many which 
 might be quoted to show the foreshadowings of Chris- 
 tianity so often traced in Plato. Once, indeed in 
 the last conversation held by Socrates with his friends 
 a passage occurs which seems to point even more 
 directly than any we have quoted to a Eevelation 
 hereafter to be granted. Simmias, one of the speak- 
 ers in the Dialogue, thinks it impossible to hope for 
 exact knowledge in the great question they are dis- 
 
 * The literal Greek is " impaled. ' 
 A. c. vol. xix. x
 
 194 PLATO. 
 
 cussing the unknown future of the soul ; still, he argues, 
 they should persevere in the search for truth, taking 
 the best of human words to bear them up " as on a raft " 
 through the stormy waters of life ; but their voyage 
 on this frail bark would be perilous, unless they might 
 hope to meet with some securer stay some " word 
 from God," it might be. 
 
 Passages of this sort explain sufficiently the grounds 
 of the reverence with which Plato was regarded by 
 the Eastern Church, and especially in the school for 
 catechists at Alexandria, where Clement and Origen 
 taught. They even go far to justify the belief of 
 Augustine that Plato might perhaps have listened to 
 Jeremiah in Egypt, and that in his esoteric lectures 
 in the Academy he revealed the mystery of the Trinity 
 to a few chosen disciples. 
 
 Tertullian, on the other hand, declaimed bitterly 
 at Carthage against all Greek philosophy. He headed 
 the reaction which had set in against the Gnostics of 
 a former century, who had changed Plato's "Ideas" 
 into a world of ^ons, and held that the Word, 
 Wisdom, and Power, were so many emanations from 
 the divine mind. Platonism Tertullian held to be the 
 source of all heresies, and denied that there could be 
 any fellowship between the disciple of Greece and the 
 disciple of heaven, or between the Church and the 
 Academy. 
 
 Boethius, as we have said, was the last Neo-Platon- 
 ist ; and his " Consolations of Philosophy " is the link 
 between the old world and the new. Then came the 
 Dark Ages, when the classics were only read by monks
 
 LATER PLATON1SM. 195 
 
 and churchmen, till they were revived in the schools 
 of Alcuiii and Charlemagne. 
 
 Philosophy soon passed into scholasticism, and was 
 confined to the dogmas of the Church ; and through- 
 out the Middle Ages we find two great hostile camps 
 among the Schoolmen the Realists and Nominalists 
 each fighting under the shadow of a great name ; Plato 
 being the first (said Milton) "who brought the monster 
 of Realism into the schools," in his doctrine of Ideas, 
 so sharply criticised by Aristotle. The question at 
 issue between these two parties was whether Universals 
 had a real and substantial existence, subject to none 
 of the change and decay which affects particulars, or 
 whether (as the Nominalists argued) they were merely 
 general names expressive of general notions. 
 
 Early in the thirteenth century came a reaction from 
 the East in favour of Aristotle. His writings (which 
 had escaped destruction by the merest accident) had 
 been translated as early as the fifth century into Syriac 
 and Arabic ; the Jews had translated them into Latin; 
 and the conquests of the Arabs in Spain had brought 
 tb,em to the knowledge of the Schoolmen. Averroes, 
 the greatest of Arabian commentators, looked upon 
 Aristotle as the only man whom God had suffered to 
 attain perfection, and as the source of all true science. 
 He died in A.D. 1 1 98, just before the rule of the Moors 
 in Spain came to an end ; but " Averroism," with its 
 pantheistic tenets, long survived its founder. 
 
 Albert of Bollstadt, Provincial of the Dominican 
 order in Germany, " the universal doctor " (who bears a 
 kind of half-mylhical reputation as Albertus Magnus),
 
 196 PLATO. 
 
 reduced Aristotle's writings to a system. His pupil, 
 Thomas Aquinas, " the angelic doctor," soon followed in 
 his steps, rejecting all the texts of Platonism, denying 
 innate ideas, or a priori reasoning in theology ; but he 
 is so far a realist that he recognises the existence of 
 imiversals ante rem that is, in the divine mind; and 
 post rem that is, obtained by the effort of the indi- 
 vidual reason. His contemporary, Duns Scotus, " the 
 subtle doctor," went further, and assailed Platonism 
 with every weapon that the logic of his age supplied ; 
 while, later on, "William of Ockham, " the invincible 
 doctor," revived Nominalism, and regarded universals 
 as a mere conception of the mind. Eealism passed 
 out of date with Descartes in the sixteenth century, 
 and the tendency of all modern philosophy has been 
 distinctly towards Nominalism. Our own great philo- 
 sophical writers, Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, and Locke, 
 all maintain that it is possible to have general names 
 as the signs or images of general ideas. 
 
 Bacon, the contemporary of Descartes, denounced 
 the wisdom of the Greeks as being " showy and dis- 
 putatious ; " their logic he considers useless, their 
 induction haphazard, their dialectic " the mere chatter- 
 ing of children ; " and among one of the grand causes 
 of human error " the idols of the theatre," as he 
 terms them * he ranks the Platonic " Ideas." 
 
 Once again an attempt was made to revive Platon- 
 
 * "I look upon the various systems of the philosophers," 
 says Bacon, "as merely so many plays brought out upon the 
 stage theories of being which are merely scenic and ficti- 
 tious. " Nov. Org., i. 44.
 
 LATER PLATO N ISM. 197 
 
 ism, at the end of the seventeenth century, by Cud- 
 worth, a writer of profound classical learning, who 
 maintained that there were certain eternal and im- 
 mutable verities which can only be comprehended by 
 reason, can never be learned by experience, and cannot 
 be changed by the will or opinion of men. And in 
 this sense every intuitive moralist may be said to be 
 a Platonist ; for the doctrine of a moral sense, which 
 apprehends of itself the distinctions of right and 
 wrong, and is not merely the product of society or 
 association, has its origin in the Platonic theory of 
 " reminiscence." 
 
 END OF TLATO. 
 
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