I
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN
 
 PLATO 
 
 AND 
 
 THE TIMES HE LIVED IN 
 
 BY 
 
 J. W. G. VAN OORDT 
 
 LIT. HUM. DR. 
 MEMBER OP THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE UNIVERSITY-COUNCIL 
 
 THE HAGUE 
 MARTINUS NIJHOFF 
 
 OXFOKD 
 JAMES PABKER & Co. 
 
 1895
 
 Printed by H. C. A. THIEME, 
 NYMEGEN, HOLLAND.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 FOR the present state of civilisation of the European race 
 we are mainly indebted to two nations, the Israelites and 
 the Greeks. To call Christianity the dominant religion among 
 the European race the outcome of Israelitic, or Jewish 
 thought would be utterly at variance with the convictions 
 of those professing the Christian faith ; but its first apostles 
 were Jews, and whatever divine revelation was believed by 
 the Israelites to have been bestowed upon themselves, is incor- 
 porated with the sacred books of Christianity. Men of high 
 standing who, in our days, do not believe in Christian revela- 
 tion, still admit that the maintenance of Christian morality 
 and of the practical effects of the spirit of Christianity 
 is essential to the welfare of human society. Rarely has 
 a higher praise been given to that spirit than by the 
 late M. Taine in a volume published after his death.* As 
 to the Jews, not only are those forming part of European 
 society possessed of an influence on it unrivalled by that of 
 any other section of the community, but it is a remarkable 
 fact that, when in the 18th century a tendency began to 
 prevail to break with the belief in Christian revelation, the 
 best and worthiest representatives of this tendency took a Jew 
 who had lived a century before them, Spinoza, as their guide. 
 It is hardly necessary to dwell on the fact that the Greeks 
 have not less proved our educators in secular wisdom than 
 
 * Le Regime Moderne, vol. II p. 79 &c. and especially pp. 118 119. 
 
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 2059926
 
 2 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 their Semitic brethren in matters religious. But while we 
 have the Jews, like the poor, always with us, hardly any- 
 thing is seen of the Greeks, except in the immortal works of 
 ancient Greece which have reached our times. From these 
 works we know Greece as the great civilising power of the 
 world for many a century, and the Greeks as a nation 
 altogether unrivalled in mental capacity by any other of 
 earlier or later ages. They had, however, to share the fate 
 of all ruling races, and at a time when their influence was 
 about to spread over a larger part of the world than they 
 had ever dreamt of, two facts showed that the day of their 
 decline had come. The one was that of their having to 
 submit to a ruler who, although priding himself on being a 
 genuine son of Greece, was in reality a foreigner. The other 
 was that, with the great philosopher who had been compelled 
 by fate to take charge of the education of the man called 
 to rule the Greeks, the time began when learning and 
 science were to take the place, in Greece, of that spontaneous 
 productivity of the Grecian mind, which was characteristic of 
 it when it was at its best. 
 
 The countries conquered by Alexander were mainly destined 
 to become provinces of an Empire founded by a nation which 
 was scarcely known to him and his contemporaries ; and while 
 Greek civilisation went hand in hand with Roman institutions in 
 spreading over the Empire, it had lost its vitality and its 
 productive force, the fruits of which, together with the 
 maxims of administration and jurisprudence which were the 
 main productions of the Roman mind, were to become the 
 inheritance of the barbarous nations whose descendants are 
 now ruling the world, until they have to make room for the 
 inferior races whose days, unless the course of things be 
 altered, are coming. 
 
 Plato, the subject of this study, has exercised by his 
 philosophy an influence on Christian thought hardly inferior 
 to that of Aristotle, and is not less a genuine Greek of the 
 noblest type than the greatest of his contemporaries and
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 3 
 
 predecessors. Still even in his works the signs of the times 
 that were coming are not wanting, and it is chiefly with a 
 view to delineate his position as one of the last representa- 
 tives of a great race bordering on its decline, that I have 
 ventured upon this sketch. 
 
 II. THE AGE OF THE POETS. 
 
 "To children," says Aristophanes, "the schoolmaster makes 
 things clear ; to those who have reached manhood the poet. " 
 So it was in the days of his youth, and if any country owed 
 its greatness to its poets, it certainly was Greece. When 
 Herodotus tells his readers that they are indebted to Homer 
 and Hesiod for their knowledge of the gods, there is a great 
 deal of truth in what he says, although, for all that, the study 
 of the mythology and the primitive religious ideas of the 
 Greeks is a most important one, and absolutely necessary for 
 a proper understanding of their history. The Greeks of the 
 oldest days worshipped rivers and nymphs, trees, and perhaps 
 snakes, as is usual with primitive nations; they worshipped 
 Zeus and Hera, Athene and Apollo, whether or not in con- 
 sequence of their acquaintance with Semitic ideas and usages; 
 they looked up to the summit of Mount Olympus as to the 
 abode of the heavenly gods, hidden from them by clouds 
 except during the days when its divine inhabitants had gone 
 to feast with the men of the glowing faces, living in the 
 distant countries where the sun sets and rises. But how 
 could they, without the Homeric poems, have had before 
 their eyes that splendid picture of divine life on Olympus 
 which even in our days enraptures the minds of those who 
 get a glance at it? How could they, without the theogony 
 and the genealogical poems standing in Hesiod's name, have 
 seen the connection between the many existing myths and reli- 
 gious traditions, or that between the gods and their own hered- 
 itary rulers?
 
 4 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 What the men of our days learn from Homer and Hesiod 
 is the state of society in Greece at a time when it was much 
 akin to that of primitive races, notwithstanding the fact that 
 the existence of a comparatively high state of pre-Homeric 
 civilisation can be, and is being, studied from ancient monu- 
 ments; and likewise the moral and religious thoughts 
 prevailing in the poets' days. The traditions of tribal life 
 are still paramount in the Iliad and Odyssey, although, in 
 the latter, the state of matters wears a slightly more modern 
 aspect. There are subordinate chiefs and heads of tribes; 
 all are called kings, although the king of the tribe or nation is 
 superior to the other chiefs; and even he, when an expedition 
 like that against Troy is undertaken, has to submit to a king 
 paramount. The king of the tribe is in possession of a 
 domain cut out of the tribal lands. On the shield of Achilles 
 the king is seen holding his sceptre and standing in his domain, 
 where the young men of his tribe, performing their duties 
 towards their chief, assist in cutting corn, and where an ox 
 is killed and prepared for their dinner by the official servants 
 of royalty. * 
 
 Now among nations where tribal traditions prevail, there 
 is a strong aristocratic tendency, and there is likewise ancestor- 
 worship. Of this worship, however, although there is ample 
 evidence of its existence in Greece and of its effects on the 
 public mind, very little is found in the Homeric poems. This 
 may be partly accounted for from the effects of historical 
 events which, however, as all our knowledge of them is 
 based on poetical and popular traditions, it would be difficult 
 to follow and partly from the national spirit of the Greeks, 
 who, looking up to Olympus as the residence of their Gods, 
 saw in their kings not so much the descendants of the founders 
 
 That ZQI&OL are the young men of the tribe bound to assist the king 
 in the cultivation of his domain, is evident both from the passage referred 
 to and from an expression in the narrative of Nausicaa's dream in the 
 Odyssey. fjrsg are free men compelled by poverty to work, as overseers 
 or otherwise, on the estates of landed proprietors.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 5 
 
 and primitive lawgivers of their tribes, as those on whom 
 Zeus had bestowed the sceptre. The life, too, of kings 
 surrounded by the great men of their tribes is like that of 
 the Olympian gods ; the main difference is that the gods were 
 immortal, whereas men were doomed to die. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no passage in Homer which both shows 
 more intuitive knowledge, on the part of the poet, of the 
 motives by which man's conduct is governed, and at the same 
 time gives a clearer insight into the relative position of 
 Grecian kings in the Homeric times, than that about the 
 quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon. Achilles, of course, 
 does his duty in calling, inspired as he was by Hera, the 
 Grecian army together for the purpose of devising measures 
 to avert Apollo's anger, and in asking a soothsayer to assist 
 them ; but by pledging himself to protect Calchas, should 
 even Agamemnon be pointed out by him as the cause of the 
 evil, he naturally gives offence to the king paramount, who 
 now insists on his rights as such, and ultimately goes so far 
 as to signify his intention to make Achilles pay for the loss 
 inflicted on him by the soothsayer's announcement. Had not 
 Athene intervened, bloodshed would have followed at once ; 
 but even without this the evils caused to the army by the 
 conflict between the bravest of the Grecian chiefs and the 
 king paramount were such as fully to justify Horace's words : 
 "quidquid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi." 
 
 What, however, in Horace's eyes, was a moral lesson con- 
 veyed by Homer, was for the men in whose days the wrath 
 of Achilles was the subject of the most recent song, the 
 narrative of an event which no one thought strange. It 
 might be an unfortunate accident that the quarrel had arisen, 
 but the fault lay with both parties, and the fact that the 
 army mainly relied, for its defence, on Achilles, counter- 
 balanced Agamemnon's claim to be respected as holder of the 
 sceptre bestowed on him by Zeus. But when Thersites, 
 coming forward as the champion of the rights of the army 
 at large, wants to have his say about the doings of its leader,
 
 6 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 and gets for his pains a smart blow from Odysseus, all the 
 Greeks are perfectly satisfied that the latter is right. 
 
 In fact, with Homer the masses are nowhere. They are 
 only heard of when a few remarks are exchanged between 
 those filling the ranks, or when, being killed by the leaders 
 of the enemy, they perish as nameless as Hesiod's men of 
 the brazen age. When in the latter part of the Iliad mention 
 is made of steersmen and stewards of vessels being present 
 in the assembly where the reconciliation between Achilles and 
 Agamemnon is to take place, a comparison between this passage 
 and one further on,* where we find the ridiculous story of 
 a divine assembly on Olympus, attended by every river and 
 every nymph, is sufficient to show that a later poet is trying 
 to outdo a former and superior one, and spoils his own 
 work by undue exaggeration. In the Odyssey even the 
 wholesale slaughter of the noblest youths of Ithaca and the 
 neighbouring islands by the king in his palace is represented 
 as an event by no means unnatural. Homeric society is 
 not only essentially aristocratic, but the real heroes of the 
 Homeric poems know as little of restraint when asserting 
 themselves, as the men who, in history, have secured for 
 their individualities the largest and most prominent places ; 
 and although the Homeric gods are supporters of the legiti- 
 mate order of things and protectors of strangers and supplicants, 
 the connection between them and men is not till then seen 
 in the clearest and most gratifying light when, as in Athene's 
 relations with Diomedes and Odysseus, mortals are befriended 
 by gods on account of a similarity of qualities which is only 
 met with in the very highest of the former. 
 
 Genealogical poetry like that by Hesiod or other poets of 
 his time, was chiefly intended for those who in the Works 
 and Days are called kings : the men who, at the time when 
 the town or state had been substituted for the tribe as 
 political unit, were sufficiently wealthy to allow their lands to 
 be cultivated by others, and to reside themselves in the towns,. 
 
 * Compare II. XIX vs. 42 sqq. with II. XX vs. 7 sqq.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 7 
 
 where they managed all political and judicial matters. But 
 Hesiod himself, as known from his most important poem, did 
 not belong to them, and he bitterly complains of a state 
 of society where venality has taken the place of justice ; 
 where instead of the heroes who had fought and perished in 
 the Theban and Trojan wars, an iron race is ruling, to be 
 followed by a still worse one in days of evil unmixed with 
 any good ; and where various devices, partly recommended as 
 novelties in our own enlightened 19th century, are resorted to 
 by those least favoured by fortune, in order to eke out an 
 existence and keep clear of the worst evils of life. But 
 Works and Days stands alone, in the days following the 
 Homeric times, in taking this view of life, unless the poem 
 on the various origin of womankind, by Simonides of Amorgos, 
 be considered an echo of it. Better days were in store for 
 the Greeks when, under the auspices of the Delphian god, 
 colonisation was to open up fertile countries all along the 
 coasts of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, hitherto inhabited 
 by barbarous nations, but soon to be teeming with a population 
 better fitted for ruling inferior races than any other in the 
 world. 
 
 It would be rash, with the data we have or are likely to 
 obtain, to enter upon chronological calculations about the 
 length of time which separates Archilochus, the oldest poet 
 of the colonising age, from the poet of Works and Days; 
 but it will not be denied that a considerably longer period 
 must have elapsed between the former and Aristophanes the 
 comic poet. Still there is a much greater difference between 
 Hesiod's poetry and that of Archilochus, than between the 
 latter and the comedies acted during the Peloponnesian war. 
 Hesiod lives in, and breathes the air of, a world where might 
 has got the better of right, and where not even a prospect 
 of improvement is within view. Archilochus, though railing 
 at those who, with himself, get the worse share of the new 
 things to be had, and not less railing at those implicated in his 
 own personal disappointments, is fully prepared to enjoy life in
 
 8 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 spite of grievous losses ; and instead of bewailing the departure 
 of justice and reverence from the earth, he on one side relies 
 on the beneficent rule of the gods, and on the other on his 
 own power of stating the evils he has suffered from those 
 who have caused them. On the whole, this brighter view 
 of life is common, though not to all in the same degree, to 
 the great luminaries of the lyric period of Greek poetry, * 
 whether, like Alcman, they apply their art to the require- 
 ments of Spartan life ; like Sappho they impart to erotic poetry, 
 then in its infancy, at once the very highest character it was 
 to attain in Greece ; like Alcaeus they mix up poetry in the 
 political struggles of the day ; like Mimnermus and Anacreon 
 they celebrate the joys of life, not without reference to the 
 shortness of the time they are limited to ; like Theognis they 
 comment on the political, social and moral phenomena of the 
 time; or like Simonides and Pindar they combine, with a 
 lofty flight of imagination and a wonderful command of the 
 resources of their art, a deep study of the spirit of the times 
 they live in, and of the means of both reproducing the sen- 
 timents and interesting the minds of the public they address. 
 Colonisation of foreign countries tends, in most cases, to 
 develop democratic propensities, and it is impossible to read 
 the fragments of Archilochus' poetry which have reached us, 
 especially after a perusal of Hesiod's Works and Days, with- 
 out seeing in him the harbinger of democracy. In a newly 
 
 *When speaking of the lyric poets of Greece I include Archilochus, 
 for although he is not one in the sense of Pindar or even of Alcman and 
 Alcaeus, his iambic and elegiac poems are marked by a subjectivity and 
 a loftiness of views and language which are characteristic of lyric poetry 
 The latter quality is not met with in Hipponax, the cynical iambic poet 
 of Ephesus and its neighbourhood, nor will it do to include, among the 
 lyric poets, Tyrtaeus, Solon, Xenophanes and, on the whole all such ele- 
 gists as mainly use their poetical powers for didactic purposes. This, 
 however, is not the case with Mimnermus, whose elegies bear a lyric 
 character, nor even with Theognis, who is too subjective to be classed 
 with Solon and other poets of the same description, although not a few 
 verses included in the poem or poems standing in his name are probably 
 theirs rather than his.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 9 
 
 founded colony the traditions brought from the old country 
 are apt to lose their influence ; and not the man of the best 
 family or of the highest rank but the one who knows best 
 how to act for himself and for the community is preferred 
 to others. What is noticed in our own days that the influ- 
 ence of colonial ideas soon makes itself felt in the mother- 
 country must have been likewise observed in ancient Greece. 
 But on the whole the times were not ripe for democracy, 
 and the oldest democratic movements recorded in Grecian 
 history such for instance as that in Sicyon in the 7th century 
 end in the establishment of tyrannic power by their leaders. 
 In not a few cases the rise of tyranny must have proved a 
 boon for communities either oppressed, for many years, by 
 an unprogressive oligarchy, or exhausted by political strife. 
 At Mytilene, much against the wish of Alcaeus, a power 
 akin to that of a tyrant was voluntarily bestowed by the 
 people on Pittacus. Notwithstanding the harshness and cruelty 
 which marked Periander's long reign at Corinth, the fact of 
 his having made his native town the centre of an extensive 
 trade, supported by numerous settlements on the coasts of the 
 Ionic and Aegaean Seas, joined to that of his being counted 
 as one of the seven wise men of Greece, is sufficient evidence 
 that his rule must have been productive of good as well as 
 evil. And does not the flourishing state of lyric poetry during 
 the time when tyranny was rife, plead in favour of a form 
 of government which, though feared and condemned by public 
 opinion, was revived in Grecian states as often as there was 
 no central power to prevent its rise ? 
 
 Of course, during the struggles which ended in the rise of 
 tyrants, often the worst instincts of humanity came to the 
 surface. Not that there is much in the complaints that nothing 
 was thought worth anything except gold, for these are heard 
 in all ages, and are on a level with those by Hesiod about 
 venality in matters of justice. But when we find, in the poetry 
 of the day, constant references to the power and action of 
 the gods, it is somewhat surprising to meet with utterances
 
 10 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 such as in our own days are heard from anarchists and the 
 like, men lost to all sense of the higher aims of life, and to 
 see that Solon, according to his own statement, was blamed 
 by some of his fellow-citizens for not having availed him- 
 self of the opportunity offered him by divine power to set up 
 as a tyrant, since even one day of tyranny in so wealthy a 
 town as Athens would be a sufficient compensation for the 
 sufferings which might be the consequence of it. The bright 
 side of the age of lyrics in Greece will always remain in 
 view, though veiled by the melancholy thought that soon old 
 age and the descent to the kingdom of Hades would follow ; 
 to deny that there was a dark one is impossible in the face 
 of Solon's evidence. 
 
 III. LAWGIVERS AND PHILOSOPHERS. 
 
 WHEN the Homeric poets celebrated the heroes of the Trojan 
 war, the power of the house of Pelops had made room, in 
 continental Greece, for that of Doric invaders, whose migration 
 has long been considered the land-mark separating the mythical 
 from the historical age of Greece. That rule brought inno- 
 vations ignored by the oldest poets, but of great importance 
 for the political and social state of Greece. Most important 
 of all was the legislation which enabled that part of the 
 conquerors to whose lot Laconica had fallen, not only to 
 maintain their power for many a century, but also to reduce 
 to virtual slavery the mixed population of Messenia, and to 
 make their influence paramount over a number of confederate 
 states. The laws of Sparta could not have prevailed among 
 a nation deficient in those qualities which enable man to submit, 
 for the good of the community or for any other definite 
 purpose, to very severe restrictions; but the circumstances 
 of the country were such as to render legislation of this 
 character a matter of necessity, and the Spartan law was 
 certainly calculated to give compensation for its extreme
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 11 
 
 strictness by fostering, especially among the younger members 
 of the ruling community, an ambition by no means limited 
 to matters directly referring to the interests of the state. 
 Without the youthful citizens who did duty as a secret 
 police, it would have been impossible for the Spartan 
 government to keep down the Helots ; without an intercourse 
 between the sexes which made approval and praise by the 
 fair sex the reward of the stronger one, it would have been 
 difficult to keep the latter to their duty. Even in those parts of 
 Greece where there was little of the Doric spirit, the Spartan 
 institutions, whether or not they were known and understood 
 in their entirety, did not fail to attract the notice, and com- 
 mand the admiration, of thinking members of the community. 
 Though not recorded in writing, the Spartan laws, being 
 learned by heart by the Spartan youth, were not on a level 
 with the rules which constituted, in days of old, the unwritten 
 laws of Grecian states. Those rules, which in the most 
 glorious period of Grecian history were thought more binding 
 and more worthy of reverence than any human legislation, 
 were not sufficient, however, to maintain, in times of social 
 and political difficulties, the order and welfare of the state; 
 and Athens, the metropolis of the Ionic race, had recourse 
 to written legislation in the times of Draco and of Solon. 
 When the latter was intrusted with the settlement of disputes 
 of the worst description between rich and poor, oppressors 
 and oppressed, he acted as a true patriot, not abstaining, 
 where circumstances required it, from taking measures which 
 he himself, on account of their revolutionary nature, prohibited 
 for the future, * but taking a middle course between parties, 
 
 * The oath taken by the members of the court of law called heliaea 
 cannot, in the form in which it has reached us, date from Solon's time ; 
 but that part of it by which the heliasts bound themselves not to vote 
 either for such interference with landed property as. in our days, is 
 often called agrarian law, or for a general cancelling of debts, must be 
 as old as Solon, since in his days, and not afterwards, the matters 
 referred to in it were burning questions.
 
 12 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 with a view to relieve the people from the worst evils they 
 suffered from, and at the same time make them follow the 
 higher classes as their natural leaders. Of course he met 
 with only a very partial success, and after a series of party 
 struggles which extended over nearly one third of a century, 
 he saw, in his old age, a tyranny established which lasted, 
 with some interruptions, about half a century, and which, 
 although his laws nominally and in many respects really 
 remained in force, put a period to a self-government which 
 the Athenians of those days were by no means fit for. 
 
 Legislation, in Solon's time, was not the only subject 
 which drew the attention of the Grecian mind after the 
 widening of its horizon by a long period of territorial 
 expansion. Colonisation made the Greeks better acquainted 
 with the old civilisation of Egypt and Asia than they were 
 when, as in Homer's days, commerce was mostly in the 
 hands of Phoenician traders; and had the effect of this not 
 been generally felt, the tradition could not have arisen that, 
 at the time when Solon lived, Greece could boast of seven 
 wise men, who marked the walls of the temple at Delphi 
 with the results of their collective wisdom. Among the 
 seven was Thales of Miletus, the father of Greek philosophy. 
 In the religious ideas of the ancient Greeks a creator of the 
 world had no place ; when in Hesiod's Theogony the genealogy 
 of the gods is sketched, the empty space which first came 
 into existence is filled by the earth and by love as the 
 generating power, and after them, as descendants either of the 
 empty space or of the earth, come those generations of divine 
 beings of whom the occupants of Olympus are the last. 
 Thales, starting from the idea that the visible world had obtained 
 its present form by a general development from one original 
 element, and thus arriving at a quasi-scientific system of 
 cosmogony, was followed by not a few others who, though 
 there was much difference between the results brought by 
 their inquiries and speculations, were afterwards considered 
 to form together a first philosophical school.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 13 
 
 Thales undoubtedly availed himself of discoveries made by 
 the foreign nations the Greeks had come into contact with; 
 but he cannot be considered as having reproduced foreign 
 ideas and speculations, nor had his philosophy anything in 
 common with such legislative work as Solon and perhaps 
 others of the seven had to deal with. The next generation, 
 however, to that of the seven saw also direct attempts at 
 propagating foreign doctrines in Greece by means of societies, 
 more or less secret and partly of a religious, partly of a 
 philosophical character. A religious society was that which 
 derived its name from Orpheus, alleged to have been a poet 
 in the mythical age, although his name is not mentioned by 
 any one before the 6th century. It was considered by Hero- 
 dotus to be of Egyptian origin, and this is sufficient evidence 
 that there must have been some peculiarities in the ways 
 and habits of the sect which reminded him of Egypt ; but 
 the information we have about its religious creed that 
 Dionysus, destined by his father Zeus to be the future ruler 
 of the world, had been devoured by the Titans, who were 
 killed by Zeus in punishment for their crime, and that from 
 their ashes man had sprung does not point to an Egyptian 
 origin, containing as it does an attempt to explain the origin 
 of sin in a manner bearing neither an Egyptian nor a Grecian 
 character. Such attempts, however, are generally caused by 
 a longing for purity which is the mother of asceticism, and 
 closely connected with a desire for, and belief in, continued 
 existence after death. That such a desire did exist in Greece 
 is evident from the mysteries of Eleusis, which were thought 
 to secure happiness in the kingdom of Hades, and which 
 were older than the Orphic sect and probably of Egyptian 
 origin. * 
 
 * The main argument for the comparative antiquity of the Eleusinian 
 mysteries is the fact that the Homeric hymn in honour of Demeter, 
 where they are mentioned, evidently dates from a time when Eleusis 
 did not yet resort under Athens, and that it will not do to assume that 
 this was not the case in Solon's days, Grote's argument in favour of
 
 14 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 Of greater importance is the philosophical sect founded by 
 Pythagoras. Having obtained such knowledge of mathematics 
 as was to be got in Egypt and, perhaps, in other foreign 
 countries, Pythagoras made an attempt to find an explanation 
 of the cosmic system in the doctrine of numbers and geometrical 
 forms, passing from geometrical to tangible bodies ; nor did he, 
 taking the harmony which he found in music as well as in 
 numbers as prevailing, or bound to be realised, in the whole 
 of the world, fail to apply the same principle to matters 
 moral and social. A strict rule of life, in some respects akin 
 to asceticism and also pointing to Egyptian reminiscences, was 
 to be observed by those who joined his sect. His belief in 
 metempsychosis and immortality of souls, in regard to the 
 former of which he is said to have laid claim to special 
 powers of remembrance granted to him in a former period 
 of existence, was so well known to the public at large that 
 in the days of Herodotus the popular belief of a nation near 
 the Danube in life after death was ascribed, in Greece, to the 
 influence of an alleged former slave of Pythagoras; but on 
 the whole strict secrecy was enjoined to his followers, who 
 for many years held together in the Greek towns of southern 
 Italy as a community possessed, at times, of considerable 
 political influence. 
 
 Pythagoras, among Greek philosophers, was the first to 
 assume the character of a moralist in the usual sense of the 
 word, nor is it strange that this distinction should have fallen 
 to the lot of one more influenced by ideas borrowed from 
 
 the latter view having proved fallacious. Arguments for the Egyptian 
 origin of the mysteries are the scenes enacted, by those attending the 
 ceremonies, at the bridge over the Cephisus which are akin to what 
 Herodotus tells about an Egyptian festival, although, of course, the 
 women of Attica will probably have shown more modesty than their 
 Egyptian sisters and, in connection with them, the well-known story 
 of Baubo, which, however, may have been an Orphic invention to explain 
 these scenes, Onomacritus, the reputed author of the oldest Orphic poems, 
 having spent part of his life at Athens in the latter half of the 6th 
 century.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 15 
 
 foreign nations than by those of Grecian origin. Neither he, 
 however, nor Thales and his successors thought fit to attack 
 the religious traditions of the Greeks. The first to venture 
 upon this was Xenophanes of Colophon, the reputed founder 
 of the Eleatic school, who strongly condemned the anthropo- 
 morphism prevailing in Homer's theology, as both irrational 
 and immoral. Nor was this strange in a philosopher influenced 
 both by the moral doctrines of Pythagoras and by the cosmi- 
 cal speculations common to all the oldest philosophers of Greece. 
 Still the feeling of the Greeks that the divine beings worshipped 
 by man must be akin to him and differ from him solely by their 
 being superior to him in power, beauty and happiness and 
 above all, by their being immortal, whereas he is not, shows 
 a much keener and higher appreciation of the religious wants 
 of the human race, than the philosophical pantheism which 
 induced Xenophanes to represent the deity as having a 
 spherical shape. 
 
 With the rise of philosophy and of religious sects in Greece 
 is connected that of certain religious ideas which would appear 
 to have originated and spread in the century which saw the 
 seven wise men. One is that of the expiation of crimes 
 through penalties either suffered by the perpetrator's descendants, 
 or by himself in a new appearance of his soul on earth. 
 This belief, of which hardly any traces or rather forerunners 
 are met with in Greek poetry before Pindar and Aeschylus, * 
 would appear to have partly originated with stories connected 
 with oracles, of which some have been preserved by Hero- 
 dotus, and partly with the Orphic sect and other such bodies, 
 which professed to supply remedies for the evils referred 
 
 * The hearing of curses by the Erinyes in the case of Phoenix, who 
 remained childless in consequence of them (II. IX 451 sqq.), a reference in 
 Hesiod's Works and Days (282 sqq.) to the fate of perjurors, and, perhaps, 
 the penalty inflicted, according to Stesichorus, by Aphrodite on Tyndareos, 
 who had neglected to sacrifice to her, and whose daughters, for this reason, 
 were made to lead disreputable lives after marriage, are the only in- 
 stances I remember.
 
 16 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 to. The other is the belief in a supposed disposition of 
 the divine rulers of the world (TO Ssfov) not to allow any 
 human being to enjoy too large a share of happiness ; a belief 
 intensely Greek, since it was simply a new development of 
 the old contrast between happy gods and wretched mortals, 
 and likely to spread and become more accentuated in an age 
 of tyranny, when the ups and downs of life were more 
 frequently exemplified than at any other period. In Plato's 
 works and in what is left in records about Socrates the latter 
 belief, known from Herodotus, has made room for other 
 ideas. The former, well known from tragedy and showing a 
 more serious view of life and morality than the longing for 
 tyrannical power common at Athens in Solon's days, had not 
 lost his influence on the minds when Plato wrote his dialogues. 
 
 IV. THE TRAGEDY OF GRECIAN HISTORY. 
 
 MORE than eighty years after Solon had finished his work as 
 lawgiver for Athens, the tyranny of which he had witnessed 
 the beginning was put a period to with the assistance of 
 Sparta, which had then already uprooted tyrannical power in 
 many a state, substituting for it oligarchical governments 
 bound by laws and dependent, for the maintenance of their 
 powers, on Spartan aid. Athens would also have become a 
 Spartan dependency, had not Clisthenes, one of the leading 
 adversaries of tyrannic rule, raised the banner of democracy, 
 and not only compelled the Lacedaemonians to abstain from 
 further interference with the affairs of Athens, but also intro- 
 duced such changes in the Solonian constitution and the old 
 traditions it had left unaltered, as would prevent a renewal 
 of tyranny and set aside whatever gave to the few an undue 
 preponderance over the many. The reforms of Clisthenes, 
 who himself belonged to one of the oldest and noblest families 
 of Athens, were accepted, it would appear, in a conciliatory 
 and patriotic spirit by the higher as well as the lower classes ;
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 17 
 
 and not only is the success gained shortly afterwards by the 
 Athenians over neighbouring states quoted by Herodotus as 
 evidence of the beneficial effects of liberty and equality before 
 the law, but also the victory at Marathon, where the Athe- 
 nians fought under the command of a man who himself had 
 held the position of a tyrant in a wealthy country, clearly 
 shows the wonderful success of the policy inaugurated by 
 Clisthenes. 
 
 After Marathon came the expedition of Xerxes, came 
 Salamis and Plataeae, came the offensive operations carried 
 on by the Greeks, first under Sparta's leadership and after- 
 wards under that of Athens, against the Persian Empire. 
 Nothing, in the whole of history, equals the brilliancy of 
 that period of Athenian supremacy which begins at the 
 formation of the Delian league by Aristides, and ends with 
 the defeat of the Athenians in Sicily, and no other period is 
 so intensely tragical. Tragical because the fall of Athens 
 was not caused by that decline which sets in whenever a 
 pinnacle of success and glory is reached, but by the sudden 
 effect of a tendency inseparable from the course which had 
 led Athens to occupy the high position she held for many 
 years. 
 
 To understand the character of Athenian democracy it 
 should be remembered that notwithstanding the existence of 
 manufacturing industry in Attica, its pottery being exported 
 far and wide, and of a considerable amount of commerce 
 with foreign countries, Attica was, in the days of Clisthenes, 
 essentially an agricultural country, even the division of the 
 people into classes for taxing purposes being based on the 
 quantity of agricultural produce which a citizen could grow 
 on his landed property. Closely connected with this fact is 
 that the first advantage obtained, in consequence of a successful 
 war, by the Athenians after the establishment of democracy 
 by Clisthenes, was the occupation of a splendid tract of 
 country, on a neighbouring island, by Athenian settlers. 
 Slavery existed at Athens as elsewhere in Greece, and strangers, 
 
 2
 
 18 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 settled in the country for trading and other purposes, had 
 no political and only limited civil rights, so that even 
 democracy did not do away to the same extent as in our 
 days, with the difference between man and man. At Marathon 
 the conquerors of the Persian army must have been mainly 
 men accustomed to handling the plough and ordering about 
 their farm-labourers, and everywhere in Greece there was 
 a feeling that those who fought their country's battles were 
 entitled to a share in its government. 
 
 Now at Salamis the victory over the Persian fleet was 
 gained by the rowers employed in the galleys as well as by 
 the men who fought on deck, and the more evident it became 
 that in a country like Greece real power was mainly to be 
 had by means of naval supremacy, the more it was felt that 
 the men who served as rowers, whether free or slaves, were 
 the real support of Athens as a ruling state.* During the 
 first years after Salamis the council of the Areopagus, the 
 most conservative and least democratic public body of the 
 state, had according to Aristotle the principal share in the 
 general conduct of affairs, owing to their having taken, as 
 in Eome the senate after the battle of Cannae, the right 
 steps at the moment of the greatest danger for the state to 
 defend it against a powerful enemy. Men of remarkable 
 ability, both as generals and as statesmen, were not wanting. 
 The scanty information we have about them renders it very 
 difficult in our days to form a definite idea of what they 
 were and did for their country; but when a historian like 
 Thucydides goes out of his way to present his reader with a 
 sketch of Themistocles as the most gifted man of Athens, 
 modern writers on Grecian history are fully justified in 
 putting together the various scraps they find about him and 
 his rivals Aristides and Cimon, so as to give an idea of what 
 the points at issue between them may or must have been. 
 For the purpose of this essay it is unnecessary to follow 
 
 * See the passage in Aristophanes' Knights, where old Demos is offered 
 a rug to sit on ivu pi] rqi^g rrjv iv
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 19 
 
 them, and the main facts of the history of the first twenty 
 years after Plataeae that Sparta had to leave the conduct 
 of the Persian war to Athens, which in consequence of this 
 became the head of a league of island- and coast-states, 
 and that, after Themistocles had been removed from active 
 politics, the rivalry between Athens and Sparta led to open 
 warfare are generally known. 
 
 It is also known that when hostilities had actually com- 
 menced, but when Sparta was not yet openly engaged in war 
 with Athens, Ephialtes and Pericles, who continued the 
 policy of Themistocles as Cimon that of Aristides, succeeded 
 in depriving the Areopagus of its political power, and that, 
 at a time when a Lacedaemonian army was encamped in 
 Boeotia on the Attic frontier, ready for an invasion of Attica 
 if it could be attempted with a prospect of success, such a 
 prospect offered itself by an invitation of the Athenian 
 malcontents to assist them in bringing about a change of 
 policy. Pericles saw the necessity of marching at once 
 against the hostile army, so as to nip in the bud any attempt 
 at making use of its presence on the border for revolutionary 
 purposes ; and although the Athenians were defeated at Tanagra, 
 its leader fully attained his object. 
 
 What was the reason why the opponents of the ruling 
 party did not scruple to make common cause with the 
 enemy? They wanted, says Thucydides, to get rid of 
 democracy and of the building of the long walls, which were 
 to connect Athens with the sea, and so to render the town 
 impregnable as long as the Athenians retained their naval 
 supremacy, a blockade being, in those days, the only effectual 
 means of besieging and reducing a town. The full meaning 
 of this statement by Thucydides, which Grote has understood 
 to some extent, has been lost sight of by later historians. * 
 
 * This misconception, for such it is, is partly owing to a statement 
 by Plutarch that Cimon, who in the day of Tanagra was an exile in 
 consequence of the ostracism inflicted on him by his political opponents, 
 had before that time taken preparatory measures for building the long
 
 20 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 The struggle between the conservative and democratic parties, 
 which in itself cannot have been very fierce, since even 
 conservatives had to admit, as in our own days, that the 
 demands of the democratic party could not be disregarded, 
 had assumed a much more dangerous character than before 
 by becoming one between the country party and the towns- 
 people. A large influx of population into the town had 
 taken place since Athens had become a naval power, and 
 although certain features of democracy, unpleasant to the 
 better classes, must have become more pronounced on account 
 of this, it does not appear that this was objected to. But 
 how could the " landed gentry " of Attica view otherwise 
 than with dismay a policy which was sure to lead to what 
 was actually witnessed less than thirty years afterwards: 
 a defence of Athens against a foreign invader which would 
 
 walls. But Cimon, renowned though he was for his military talent, his 
 magnanimity and his sincere patriotism, was not considered to be a far- 
 sighted statesman, and the danger connected with the plan may not have 
 been felt by him and his partisans before the work was actually taken 
 in hand. Besides it has not been noticed by the writers who make 
 light of what Thucydides says about the long walls, that the Eume- 
 nides of Aeschylus, where allusions are made to the Areopagus clearly 
 showing the poet's disapproval of the policy followed in regard to it, 
 leave hardly any doubt that the point at issue between the parties mainly 
 referred to the question of defence. Athena, in opening the first sitting 
 of the new tribunal established by her, is made to tell the people of 
 Athens that, by duly honouring it, they will have " a defence of the 
 country and a safety for the town such as no man has", and that the 
 council is to be "an ever watchful defensive force". The recently dis- 
 covered work of Aristotle or one of his followers on the Athenian 
 Republic gives better evidence than we had before of the probability that 
 the measure taken, on the advice of Ephialtes and Pericles, against the 
 Areopagus is anterior to the Eumenides, but this does not disprove that 
 one of the principal reasons why the democratic leaders wanted to cur- 
 tail the power of the council, must have been that they knew that the 
 building of the long walls would be opposed by it; and it appears from 
 a passage in Aeschines that in his days, when the Areopagus had recovered 
 part of its old authority, it was intrusted with special power in regard 
 to the sacred soil of Athens.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 21 
 
 allow the soil of Attica, with its splendid plantations and 
 its valuable buildings, to be devastated without a hand being 
 raised in its defence? Better come to terms with Sparta 
 and abandon all attempts at being the leading power of Greece, 
 than submit to so dire an evil! 
 
 Pericles could not fail to see the danger of disunion which 
 threatened Athens. There were reasons for not allowing 
 Spartan influence to prevail in Boeotia and other parts of 
 middle Greece, as it was sure to prevail since the expedition 
 which ended in the battle of Tanagra; but to combine, with 
 the naval supremacy of Athens, a power over inland states 
 was a most dangerous policy, since it would saddle the 
 country with too extensive and heavy responsibilities. By 
 taking such a course, however, Pericles would avert, for a 
 number of years, all danger of an invasion of Attica, and 
 thus momentarily pacify the opponents of the long walls' 
 policy; and this must have been his reason for resorting to 
 it. Boeotia and the adjoining countries became temporarily 
 as dependent on Athens as many a state in Peloponnesus 
 was on Sparta, and Pericles did not fail to take advantage 
 of the naval resources of Athens for the purpose of strength- 
 ening her position in Greece by occupying several points on 
 the Peloponnesian coasts. But after a few years, during a 
 truce made with Sparta in order to allow Athens to recover 
 her position in the Eastern seas, Athenian power in Boeotia 
 came to grief, and it was a great boon for Athens that in 
 446 an invasion of Attica by a Spartan army, combined 
 with other dangers, was prevented, and that the next year 
 a thirty years' truce was arrived at by means of concessions 
 which deprived Athens of material advantages she had gained 
 during the war. 
 
 Still the position of Athens was, at that time, really better 
 than it had been in days when her arms and her foreign 
 policy appeared to meet with most brilliant success. She 
 had consolidated her naval supremacy by obtaining a more 
 effectual control over the financial resources of the league
 
 22 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 she presided over, and had reduced most of her allies to the 
 condition of subjects. She was formally recognized, by Sparta 
 and her allies, as the head of a league, as Sparta herself 
 was. She had settled her position on the coasts of the 
 Persian Empire in a satisfactory manner. But the greatest 
 advantage gained for Athens by Pericles was that, when in 
 431 the Peloponnesian war broke out, it was found that there 
 was no longer any serious opposition to the plan of defence 
 which formerly had caused the country party to resort to 
 treasonable negotiations. And how had Pericles for he was, 
 says Thucydides, virtually a monarch in what was called a 
 democracy attained this end ? By a policy tending to make 
 it felt by every citizen of Athens that it was his own per- 
 sonal interest to do everything in his power for the maintenance 
 of the naval supremacy of his native country. To that 
 supremacy he was indebted, not only for the outward splen- 
 dour of Athens, which inspired him with just pride, and for 
 the many advantages of town life as it then existed at 
 Athens, but also for the facility he enjoyed of obtaining 
 either a livelihood by serving the state, or actual wealth by 
 means of commerce or manufacturing industry, by dealing 
 with the dependent states or their citizens, or by getting 
 his share of that large amount of landed property which had 
 been allotted, or might be allotted, in dependent territories to 
 men of Athens. Democracy brought its evils, which are 
 described in forcible language in a short essay on the Athe- 
 nian Republic, standing in Xenophon's name but probably 
 dating from an earlier time than his, all historical allusions 
 in it being anterior to the Peloponnesian war of 431. * 
 But democracy, even when coupled with the compulsory 
 
 1 The removal of the Athenian country people to the town is mentioned, 
 but in such terms that it need not be taken for granted that it had 
 actually taken place; and if it had, it is difficult to understand why the 
 pestilence which followed it should not have been touched upon. Cannot 
 the essay be an early production of Antiphon's pen? It tallies very 
 much with what we know about him from Thucydides and other sources.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 23 
 
 town life the Athenians had to put up with after the out- 
 break of the war, was not unbearable for Athenians who did 
 not believe in giving political and legislative powers to 
 shoemakers and fullers, carpenters and hucksters, but who 
 were fully aware of the opportunities they had of improving 
 their own positions as citizens of a state ruling over a host 
 of dependent ones, and owing its power over them to a 
 policy which could not help being democratic. 
 
 Whatever Themistocles and Aristides, Cimon and Ephial- 
 tes may have done for Athens, there is no doubt that Pericles 
 ranks first among Athenian statesmen, not as regards large 
 political views and conceptions for in this respect Themis- 
 tocles may have been superior to him but as far as a clear 
 understanding of what he aimed at, and a persistency which 
 enabled him to gain his object, are concerned. Democracy 
 was, in his day, a necessity for Athens, and he succeeded 
 in imparting to democratic Athens an amount of strength 
 which rendered it equal to the task of withstanding the 
 attacks of the united forces of the most renowned states of 
 Greece, even at a time when his death had left the manage- 
 ment of affairs to men in every respect his inferiors, and 
 often led by the people instead of leading them. 
 
 A state wielding a power like that of Athens is sure to 
 decline when it is not progressing, and there is no lack of 
 evidence that Pericles was aware of this and knew that 
 Athens was bound to extend her rule. But to lead Athens 
 onward a man equal to Pericles was required, and neither 
 Nicias whose great object was to be considered a safe general 
 and statesman, Demosthenes who aimed at renewing the 
 policy followed after Tanagra, nor Cleon who was no general 
 at all, and who owed his power to his ability as a dema- 
 gogue, his success on one particular occasion, and his 
 measures to provide for the wants of the people, * were up 
 
 * Aristophanes, in his Clouds (spring of 423), mentions Cleon's first 
 election as a general, which, judging by a reference to an eclipse of the 
 sun mentioned by Thucydides, must have taken place in the spring or the
 
 24 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 to the mark. Not inferior, perhaps superior in energy and 
 talent to Pericles was his youthful relative Alcibiades, who 
 began to make his influence felt at a time when prospects 
 opened for a new agreement with Sparta. Though thwarted in 
 his first attempts at striking out a policy of his own, and only 
 partially successful in renewing one which in former days 
 had led to good results, he soon became the leading statesman 
 of Athens. But Pericles had owed part of his influence to 
 the well-known fact that he carefully abstained from making 
 personal profit by his position in the state, whereas Alcibiades 
 displayed a luxury in his private and public life which clearly 
 showed that he took another course, and did not even lay 
 claim to an unselfishness which, it must be admitted, was 
 certainly not characteristic of the age he lived in. 
 
 The naval supremacy of Athens in the eastern waters of 
 the Mediterranean was so well known and inspired such respect 
 that the great naval power of the West, Carthage, thought 
 it the safest plan to keep aloof from the Grecian settlements 
 in Sicily. It was known, however, that the more powerful 
 of those settlements were more in sympathy with Sparta than 
 with Athens, and Pericles, for this reason, had never lost 
 
 beginning of summer of 424. Nothing is known of his doings in 424, but 
 shortly after the Clouds was acted, the war between Athens and Sparta was 
 interrupted by a one year's truce. In his Wasps (spring of 422) the 
 poet mentions Cleon as having made, through his good luck, a splendid 
 stroke of business for the state, and in the same play reference is made 
 to measures taken in regard to Euboea for the benefit of the Athenian 
 people. In a scholion on this passage an expedition to Euboea is men- 
 tioned on the authority of Philochorus, who places it in the Attic year 
 (midsummer 424 to midsummer 423) when the truce was made; and as 
 Euboea was under Athenian rule, the truce did not prevent its being 
 occupied by an Athenian force. This expedition, not mentioned by 
 Thucydides who also on other occasions makes no reference to events 
 not directly connected with the war must have aimed at, and ended in, 
 giving further allotments of land on the island to Athenian citizens; and 
 if Cleon, which is very probable, was in command of the Athenian forces, 
 he must have been considered, in 422, as having bestowed a substantial 
 benefit on the people. Measures of this description are those I refer to.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 25 
 
 sight of the possibility that it would become necessary to 
 bring them under Athenian rule. Alcibiades, at a time when 
 a truce between Athens and Sparta was in existence but 
 did not prevent both powers from injuring each other as much 
 as they could without openly infringing the treaty, was induced 
 by what he knew of the condition of affairs in Sicily, to 
 believe that the time had arrived for extending Athenian 
 power over all the Grecian states of the West; and it would 
 appear that he intended to make such use of the new 
 resources which would, in this manner, accrue to Athens, as 
 to secure for her an undoubted preponderance over Sparta. 
 When Alcibiades laid his plan before the people of Athens, 
 it was not only approved of, but a very large force was 
 placed at the disposal of the commanders of the expedition, 
 and of these commanders Alcibiades was the one whose 
 military and political ability was most relied upon by those 
 who, as soldiers or sailors, had to embark on the fleet. 
 
 It was then that a sacrilege, committed at the very time 
 when the fleet was to lift its anchors, caused consternation 
 all over Athens; and Alcibiades was implicated in a charge 
 connected with it. He insisted on being brought up at once 
 for trial, but his enemies, being aware that moral pressure 
 exercised in his behalf by the men of the expedition might lead 
 to a verdict in his favour, came to the front with reasons why 
 he had better go, and go he did, though fully aware of the 
 object they had in view. He was recalled, from Sicily, at 
 a moment when he had met already with no small success; 
 and knowing as he did that his recall meant certain death 
 for him, he left the vessel which was to take him to Athens, 
 and went to Sparta, where he assisted with all his might in 
 bringing about measures which resulted in an unparalleled 
 disaster for Athens. 
 
 Here we have reached the catastrophe of the tragedy. To 
 judge Alcibiades fairly it must be remembered that he had 
 not, like Pericles and the men who came before him, brought 
 about or strengthened Athenian democracy. He found it
 
 26 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 existing, he had to deal with it like other statesmen of his 
 time, and he succeeded in gaining the confidence of the people 
 in his ability. The people, as such, did not forsake or betray 
 him, but his political enemies, men who evidently did not hold 
 views different, in principle, from his for his policy was 
 not abandoned after his recall simply wanted to get rid of 
 him because they were aware of his superiority to themselves. 
 Rumours were spread that tyrannical power was his object, 
 and that this was behind the sacrilege imputed to him; 
 and by this means the people who had remained at home 
 were induced to recall him. That his position, had he met 
 with the success in Sicily he counted upon, might have become 
 similar to that of a tyrant is quite possible, since Thucydides 
 represents him as speaking, at Sparta, of warlike barbarians 
 from the West whom he would have enlisted in the service 
 of Athens for the conquest of Peloponnesus, and the command 
 of an army of barbarous mercenaries might have served him 
 as a stepping-stone for ascending to a position which would 
 have made him both the ruler and the enemy of his fellow- 
 citizens. But there is no evidence whatever that he had 
 such an object in view ; on the contrary, the course he took 
 as soon as he was informed of his recall shows that he must 
 have acted from a strong sense of the grievous injustice in- 
 flicted on him. There is evidence that his enemies, unknown 
 demagogues, betrayed their country when its highest interests 
 were at stake, by depriving it of the only man who was able to 
 safeguard those interests. * Athens owed her greatness to those 
 men of real superiority who had been her leaders, and had felt 
 that democracy was an absolute necessity for her development. 
 Her fall was caused, not by a democracy which had shown, 
 in the days of Pericles and his predecessors, that it could 
 appreciate real greatness, but by her hangers-on: by Ther- 
 sites the demagogue who, otherwise than in the Iliad, got 
 
 * See especially Thuc. VI 28 and 29, compared with the same book 
 C. 15.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 27 
 
 the better of Achilles and of that real superiority which 
 men of his stamp and they are many always detest. 
 
 It is unnecessary, for the purpose of this essay, to enter 
 upon a review of what happened after the defeat of the 
 Athenians in Sicily; of the success the Carthaginians met 
 with in conquering part of Sicily, and the consequent 
 establishment of tyranny in those Grecian states on the 
 island which were not conquered by a foreign foe; of the 
 various tribulations which Sparta and Athens had to pass 
 through during the last years of the war; or of the events 
 which made the Persian king a most important factor in 
 Grecian politics, until the tide turned and both Persia and 
 Greece had to submit to a new power. To understand Plato 
 some insight is required into that period of history which he 
 chiefly refers to in his dialogues, and of which, in the days 
 of his youth, he saw the end. Of events contemporaneous 
 with the days when he wrote, those who study his works 
 are hardly ever reminded. 
 
 Y. SOCRATES. 
 
 ATHENS, in the days of Pericles, had become both demo- 
 cratic and wealthy, and both wealth and democracy made it 
 a favourite resort with those who made money by their brains. 
 It was not, perhaps, the proper place for philosophers. Anax- 
 agoras, last among the successors of Thales, made mind, 
 not matter or anything connected with it, the ruling principle 
 of the universe, and was therefore, to use the language of 
 the present day, more of a spiritualist than of a materialist, 
 although, in giving his views on the action of nature, he 
 mostly dwelt on the physical forces which fell under his 
 observation. But the fact of his holding views not at all 
 akin to atheism did not prevent his statement that the sun 
 was a glowing mass of matter being so resented by the 
 Athenians, as utterly at variance with their religious senti-
 
 28 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 ments, that his friendship with Pericles was barely sufficient 
 to save his life. Nor are instances wanting that even in 
 much later times, such as that of Stilpo, the Megarean phi- 
 losopher of the early days of Macedonian rule, philosophers 
 were easily suspected at Athens of holding irreligious views, 
 and that, this being the case, they were at once made to 
 leave. The sophists, however, men who made a practical 
 use of the studies which philosophy had given rise to, met 
 on the whole with a better reception. 
 
 The idea of study, in the usual sense of the word, is 
 foreign to nations which have not either reached a compara- 
 tively high stage of development, or taken it over from those 
 that have. Nestor and Menestheus were, in Homer's time, 
 famous for their tactics; the sons of Aesculapius for their 
 medical skill; Menelaus had in his service the cleverest 
 navigator of Greece. But centuries had to elapse before 
 either tactics, medicine or navigation was studied and taught 
 in the sense now attached to these words. There were medi- 
 cal guilds as there were those of Homeric rhapsodists and of 
 soothsayers ; guilds whose origin was probably due to family 
 traditions. It is not unlikely that the medical guilds were 
 the first to substitute something like rational study of medicine 
 for a mere communication of empirical knowledge by older 
 generations to younger ones, especially after the age of phi- 
 losophy had commenced. But when, in the days of the 
 Peloponnesian war, a sophist, in other words a teacher of the 
 higher branches of knowledge, set up as a professor of mili- 
 tary art, and was found to teach simply tactics, or the art 
 of directing military manoeuvres as they were then practised, 
 this was, it would appear, a novelty, since nobody, till then, 
 had thought of giving lessons in tactics. So it was with 
 arithmetic and geometry, with astronomy and geography. 
 The study of philosophy had thrown light over these subjects 
 and made their study popular, and the sophists made a living 
 by giving instruction in them. But then it was customary, 
 for lads who had first learnt reading and writing, and after-
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 29 
 
 wards been trained to sing and play the cithern, and to 
 strengthen their bodies by gymnastics, also to be made ac- 
 quainted with poetry, old and new; and closely related to 
 the latter study was that of reasoning and speaking to the 
 point. Such a study could not be otherwise than popular 
 with the rising generation in a town where it was naturally 
 felt that success in politics and, in many cases, success in 
 life were greatly dependent on acquaintance with the art of 
 properly addressing the people ; and although the first written 
 treatises on this art came from Sicily, those who professed 
 to teach it were sure to find an excellent market for their 
 mental merchandise at Athens. So there is nothing strange 
 in the fact that Aristophanes the comic poet, when shortly 
 after the death of Pericles he first tried his hand at writing 
 a piece for the stage, took as his subject the difference in 
 language and manners between a youth trained in the modest 
 fashion of the good days of old, and one at home in the novel 
 ways of speaking and behaving which had gained ground in 
 the circles young Alcibiades belonged to. 
 
 Now the sophists taught for money, and why not do so in 
 a country where, as Pericles is made to say by Thucydides, 
 it was no disgrace to be poor, but it was held to be dis- 
 graceful not to get rid of poverty by exertion? This view, 
 however, was both new and democratic. At Athens it was 
 considered genteel to belong to the landed gentry, and not 
 genteel to be a man of business. An Athenian who invested 
 his money in a tannery or a lamp-manufactory, worked by 
 his slaves under their foreman, was sneered at as the leather- 
 seller or the lampman ; but such investments were never- 
 theless very common, and evidently paid well. To be a 
 sophist was not genteel either, though not a few sophists 
 were highly considered ; but even they Protagoras and Pro- 
 dicus, Hippias and Gorgias, made no secret of their imparting 
 their wisdom to no one who did not pay the customary price 
 for it. 
 
 There was, however, one man at Athens, not a foreigner
 
 30 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 but a citizen born, not a man of rank or of wealth but not 
 compelled either by poverty to gain a livelihood by continuous 
 manual labour, who was seen the whole day and everywhere 
 discussing serious subjects with men of all classes and all 
 ages, without claiming any payment for the benefit derived 
 from his conversation,* and who was evidently made much 
 of even by young men of the highest distinction and the 
 best prospects, such as Alcibiades and Critias. This man was 
 Socrates, Plato's teacher and the father of that philosophy 
 which has produced the highest results. With features 
 reminding his fellow-citizens of a Satyr or a Silenus, walking 
 barefooted with a goose's gait and rolling eyes, wrapped up 
 in an old and threadbare cloak, Socrates was certainly not 
 the man to make, by his outward appearance, a pleasing 
 impression on a public known for its high appreciation of 
 physical beauty and elegance of bearing ; and still his personal 
 influence on young Athens was seen to eclipse that of the 
 most renowned sophists. 
 
 Sources of information about Socrates are not wanting. 
 Aristophanes made him the subject of one of his best comedies, 
 the Clouds. Xenophon, one of his most faithful followers, 
 has written lengthy accounts of his sayings and doings. 
 Plato has made him, in nearly all his dialogues, the mouth- 
 piece of the ideas which he himself thought to contain the 
 highest truths, and has thus professed to be his humble 
 scholar, instead of coming to the front as an original thinker. 
 But there is a great difference between Xenophon' s Socrates 
 and that of Plato, and that of Aristophanes is not even a 
 caricature but, in every sense of the word, a misrepresentation. 
 
 There were friends of Socrates, such as Crito, who intrusted him 
 with a kind of supervision over their sons when nearly grown up (Xen. 
 Symp. c. 4, Plato Euthyd. 306 D. Lach. 200 D), and, of course, their 
 presents must have enabled him to provide for the very few wants he 
 had, and to enjoy a leisure which would not have fallen to his lot, had 
 he been obliged regularly to work at his original trade, that of a 
 sculptor.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 31 
 
 Still for the study of Socrates and his time the Clouds gives 
 information of the highest importance. 
 
 Aristophanes shows himself, from the very beginning, to 
 be a staunch conservative, longing for the happy rural life 
 enjoyed before the war and, as it has been pointed out 
 already, contrasting in his earliest comedy the results of such 
 a life with those of the education given to the young men 
 in town. A similar tendency is met with in the first of 
 those plays of his which have been preserved in their entirety ; 
 but here another peculiarity of his has to be noticed. Hating 
 war he takes a most deserving general of those days and 
 it must be admitted that even the name he bore, Lamachus, 
 was a temptation for the poet to do so as a model of a 
 perfect swashbuckler, thinking of nothing but war except 
 when his fellow-generals order him out just as he is about 
 to enjoy a festival; and even in his later plays Lamachus 
 has to act the same part, until after his death on the battle- 
 field the poet makes amends by mentioning him as a real 
 hero. In his next play, the Knights, Aristophanes goes against 
 Cleon the demagogue. Him he attacks, not as the repre- 
 sentation of a class or* a political tendency, but as the leading 
 statesman of the day ; and the favour in which Cleon was 
 held by the people did not prevent the full success of the 
 comedy. But the Cleon of the Knights, the leather-seller who 
 would have held his own in consequence of his impudence, 
 his mean flattery of the people and his intense vulgarity, 
 had it not been for the sausage-vendor who surpassed even him 
 in all this, is nothing but a caricature, most excellently 
 drawn but proved to be one by a later play, where Cleon is 
 represented as moving in good society. 
 
 The Knights was followed in 423 by the Clouds, which 
 met with a most unfavourable reception on the part of the 
 public. The poet, who put a very high value on this 
 particular comedy, and was quite right in doing so, brought 
 it afterwards again on the stage, probably in 420, but with 
 no better success. In the form it has survived in it is a
 
 32 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 mixture of the first and second editions, part of it belonging 
 undoubtedly to the latter, whereas another part cannot have 
 been reproduced in it. * Still, on the whole, it can hardly 
 be pointed out, with any degree of certainty, which parts of 
 the play we have must have belonged to the first and which 
 to the second edition; and on the whole the Clouds makes 
 the impression of having been written after one definite 
 plan, both well-devised and consistently carried out. 
 
 When Aristophanes attacked Cleon, it was on account of 
 his being the leader of the war-party at a moment when 
 peace might be made, and of his favouring war not on 
 grounds similar to those on which Brasidas shortly afterwards 
 did so at Sparta, whose forces, under his command, gained 
 one advantage after another, but on less justifiable ones. 
 Cleon would not consent to peace unless on conditions which 
 Sparta could not possibly agree to, although no less a man 
 than Alcibiades thought it quite feasible, in those days, to 
 come to terms ; and whether or not his motives were as selfish 
 and base as Aristophanes represents them to be, he certainly, 
 as is shown by the military events of 424, had not prepared 
 a plan of action which would have compelled Sparta to submit 
 to any terms. 
 
 Now even the war, especially at a time when the discom- 
 fiture of the Lacedaemonians at Pylos had put a period to 
 the annual devastation of Attica by the enemy, was not, 
 in the eyes of Aristophanes, so unmitigated an evil for his 
 
 * The passage from the first edition is that which represents Cleon as 
 alive and holding the office of general. The other passage is that where 
 not only is mention made of a play by Eupolis, which is stated to have 
 been brought on the stage in 421, but also Cleon referred to in terms 
 showing that he was no longer among the living ; for how could the poet 
 have boasted that, having hit so great a man as Cleon under the belt, 
 he had not thought it proper to kick him when he was down, had Cleon 
 been alive and, as he remained until his death, the most powerful man 
 of Athens? The reference to Eupolis makes it probable that not more 
 than a year after his comedy was acted, the Clouds was brought up for 
 the second time.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 33 
 
 country as the new-fangled ideas which gained ground 
 among the rising generation. Instead of keeping to the faith, 
 the habits and modes of thought and the unwritten laws of 
 their fathers, the men who were soon to hold the reins of 
 government indulged, under the influence of sophists and 
 others, in fanciful speculations which destroyed their belief 
 in divine power; they substituted gross materialism for the 
 moral sentiments which formerly prevailed; and they made 
 light of law and justice as mere figments. So matters 
 represented themselves to the poet, and is there anything 
 strange in this? In our days enormous progress has been 
 made in the investigation of the laws of nature, and even 
 religiously minded people need not see in a plague of drought 
 or locusts a chastisement from heaven they have in all 
 humility to submit to, instead of doing everything in their 
 power to cope with the evil; but would a state of society 
 in which no one saw the hand of God in anything happening, 
 be a desirable one ? To this question a negative answer will 
 be given from many sides even in our own days; and still, 
 is not the present religious belief of mankind based on much 
 firmer grounds than that of Greece in the days of Aristophanes, 
 when there was neither an infallible church nor an infallible 
 collection of sacred books to be referred to, and when nothing 
 was known about the gods except from poetry or from local 
 tradition? From a conservative point of view and what 
 would become of human society without the conservative 
 element? Aristophanes was fully justified in attacking the 
 tendencies which he thought subversive of moral and social 
 order. 
 
 In doing so and this is the great merit of the Clouds, 
 he did not go against either the particular tenets of one 
 school of thought, or various mutually unconnected errors 
 he found fault with, but he studied all the moral phenomena 
 of his days, put all of them together, and represented them 
 in such a manner as to render it evident that they really 
 were parts of one system and had one common origin. First 
 
 3
 
 34 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 come the scientific studies of the day, comprising the ques- 
 tions which in our times, too, would be studied if they had 
 not been answered long ago how great is the distance, 
 taking its own feet as measure, which a flea can jump, and 
 what is the cause of the humming of mosquitoes, as well as 
 geometry and astronomy. Then we meet with abstract thought, 
 assisted by its mixture with the air whose substance is one 
 with the human mind; nor are grammatical and metrical 
 questions forgotten. But then, the knowledge of nature 
 gathered by the wise men of the day so clearly explained all 
 its phenomena, that the gods could be put aside, and Zeus 
 had to make room for "ethereal circumvolution". The expla- 
 nations of rain, thunder and lightning, given in the play, are 
 by no means beside the mark, and even the most comical 
 of them are quite in keeping with what may or must have 
 been taught by contemporaneous professors of science. * Then 
 comes the art required by the Athenian rustic in the play, 
 that of making, in courts of law and elsewhere, the worse 
 argument appear the better one ; an art put into practice by 
 our barristers too, and, if the exercises of forensic oratory 
 standing in Antiphon's name are really his, studied at Athens 
 to some purpose. Aristophanes, however, very cleverly puts 
 it in such a light that at the same time the tendency is 
 brought to notice to make the traditions about the gods serve 
 the ends of sensuality instead of those of morality ; nor does 
 Euripides, whom Aristophanes dislikes on account of his 
 bringing subjects of every day life and the low talk of the 
 market on the tragical stage, get off without a severe 
 reprimand for the fearful moral aberrations of human nature 
 which he did not scruple to lay before the public. Ulti- 
 mately a father gets a thrashing from his own son, whom he 
 had foolishly, and for evil purposes of his own, sent to learn 
 the newly invented wisdom, and who, taking his stand on 
 
 * See, for instance, the interesting linguistical observation about the 
 connection between the words ovrr and TtoSi.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 35 
 
 the often mentioned difference between natural and human 
 law, clearly proves his right to act as he had done. 
 
 When thus combining all the new tendencies he condemned, 
 and representing them as the effects of one principle, Aristo- 
 phanes had to find one personage in whom they could be 
 embodied, as the fighting propensities of the age were in 
 Lamachus. His choice fell on Socrates, of whom he probably 
 knew little else than his outward appearance and his meddling 
 with, and in some cases supervising, young people. Socra- 
 tes is, to him, the head of a thinking establishment like the 
 secret society founded by Pythagoras, imparting to his scholars 
 a training which shows its effects in their wretched appear- 
 ance, and paid, it would seem, in bags of meal and the like. 
 It would not do, for Aristophanes, to go against Prodicus or 
 any other well-known sophist, not responsible for any teaching 
 except his own, and highly considered in the circles which 
 the poet himself moved in. But ill-looking and ill-clad 
 Socrates, with his friend Chaerephon of the bat's face and 
 his meddling with everybody and everything, was he not the 
 proper man to be made responsible for the sins of all corrupters 
 of the youthful mind? 
 
 Aristophanes must have thought so, and was mistaken. 
 Socrates did not make money by anything he taught or was 
 supposed to teach; he kept aloof from quasi-science and 
 generally even from such science as was worthy of the 
 name; he was too good a citizen and too sensible a man to 
 go against the religious belief of his countrymen. This must 
 have been well known, not only to the philosopher's nearest 
 friends but also to many others; and neither Alcibiades and 
 the jeunesse doree of Athens, nor the rather numerous herd 
 of those who affected to prefer Spartan simplicity to Attic 
 refinement, could be pleased on seeing Socrates misrepresented 
 on the stage. This must have been a reason why Aristophanes 
 could not succeed, having taken Socrates as the principal 
 character of his play. Whether it would have been a success 
 in any shape is questionable. What Aristophanes deeply and
 
 36 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 justly felt that there was great danger in allowing ideas 
 to creep in, which must, in the long run, ruin both public 
 and private morality was naturally ignored by those who 
 either dabbled in the new wisdom or took little notice of it. 
 So on the Athenian stage the Clouds was doomed to be a 
 failure ; but had it not reached our time, little would be known 
 of the currents of thought prevailing in the days when Socrates 
 had to accomplish the task he had devoted his life to. 
 
 Xenophon, who must have written his Reminiscences of 
 Socrates several years after the latter's death, commences 
 his work by a defence of his friend against the charges brought 
 by his accusers at the time of his trial, and then gives 
 instances of the manner in which he dealt with those he came 
 into contact with, assisting them with advice when they were 
 in want of it, and reprimanding them when he disapproved 
 of their doings and sentiments. The scientific researches 
 and speculations of his contemporaries he partly thinks useless- 
 and even foolish, as they cannot possibly lead to definite and 
 practical results, partly too abstruse to engage the attention 
 of those who cannot devote all their time to them. The 
 subjects he himself is anxious to discuss are connected with 
 practical morality and such social questions as in his days 
 came to the fore ; and far from disbelieving, as stated by his 
 accusers, in the deities worshipped at Athens, he both believes- 
 in special revelations bestowed on himself by divine power, 
 and advises his friends to make use of such revelations as 
 are to be obtained by the public, viz. the replies of the 
 Pythian oracle. The advice he renders, whether to friends who 
 have to cope with the difficulties of life, to those who require 
 warnings, or to those who are in a position to effect something 
 good provided they take the trouble to do so, is generally 
 characterised by sound homely wisdom, sometimes by consi- 
 derable tact and wit, rarely by a tinge of cynicism or 
 meddlesomeness. In a single case that of his conversation 
 with Ischomachus in a sequel to the Reminiscences he is 
 found to inquire into matters he has to learn, rather than to-
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 37 
 
 teach; in his well-known discussion with Aristippus on the 
 proper course to be followed in life, he does not think it 
 below his dignity to substitute a moral story by Prodicus for 
 such arguments as he himself may find. There are indications 
 in Xenophon that Aristippus was the one of his scholars 
 whose questions he sometimes evaded, although Xenophon 
 himself thinks fit to deny it; and in fact, the views which 
 Aristippus and Socrates took of life were so widely different 
 from one another, and Socrates, it must be added, seems to 
 have been so little able to understand his scholar from Cyrene, 
 that there could not be the sympathy between them which 
 bound both Xenophon and Plato to their teacher. On the 
 whole, from a religious point of view Xenophon's Socrates is 
 remarkable for the keen feeling he displays of what revelation 
 means for religion. Otherwise he is a moralist, and an excellent 
 one at a time when old-fashioned morality was somewhat at a 
 discount; but he is nothing beyond this, and his moral teachings 
 are mostly based on old and time-honoured principles. 
 
 There is little, if anything, to support the views of those 
 who, taking their stand on rumours recorded by later authors, 
 try to prove, from passages in both Plato's and Xenophon's 
 works, that the two were at enmity with one another ; for 
 if Xenophon wrote his Banquet in reply to Plato's, his reason 
 for doing so must simply have been his desire to have his 
 say on a subject which interested him. Much older than Plato 
 Xenophon cannot have been, since at the time of the retreat 
 of the ten thousand he was one of the youngest among the 
 generals, and he cannot have been much beyond thirty when 
 taking service under Cyrus. So the difference between Socrates 
 as seen by Plato and Socrates as seen by Xenophon cannot 
 have been either that their acquaintance with him dated from 
 different times, or that Xenophon was anxious to show Socrates 
 in another light than Plato did in his dialogues ; and the reason 
 for it cannot be easily explained. 
 
 In attempting to give an explanation I shall first point 
 out that Xenophon, if not in his Banquet, at all events in
 
 38 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 his Reminiscences of Socrates, evidently records either what 
 he has witnessed himself or what he has been informed of 
 by men of his own time. A story is told by him of a con- 
 versation between Pericles and Alcibiades, but nothing 
 definite or explicit is stated about the connection between 
 Alcibiades and Socrates. A reason is given why the friendship 
 between Socrates and Critias came to an end, but this is all 
 we hear about the latter, except that, when one of the Thirty, 
 he treated Socrates with a harshness which Xenophon finds 
 fault with. Of several conversations between Socrates and 
 others, recorded by Xenophon those with Lamprocles, Aris- 
 tarchus, Eutherus, Crito, Pericles the younger and Glauco 
 it is evident that they must have taken place within the 
 last ten years of the philosopher's life, nor are there any 
 which are likely to date from an earlier time. Now is there 
 anything in Xenophon's Reminiscences which tends by any 
 means to explain that wonderful fascination which Alcibiades, 
 according to his speech in Plato's Banquet, experienced when 
 coming into contact with Socrates ? 
 
 It will be said in reply that Alcibiades himself need not 
 have said what Plato makes him say. But Plato entered 
 social life under the auspices of friends of the great states- 
 man, such as Critias, and must have had information about 
 many things which happened between Socrates and his friends 
 before the time when he himself counted among the latter. 
 Nor would, when at a later time Euthydemus had, according 
 to Xenophon's own report, to be coaxed by Socrates into 
 seeking for his friendship, Alcibiades and Critias, whose paths 
 lay in the highest walks of life, have been so partial to 
 Socrates as they evidently were, had it not been for some 
 gifts of his of which Xenophon gives us hardly any idea. * 
 
 * Xenophon, in the opening chapter of the fourth book of his Remi- 
 niscences, observes that Socrates did not fail to approach young men of 
 different gifts, characters and positions in different manners, and the 
 whole book makes an impression as if it must have been added to the 
 first three after the writer had, by studying Plato's dialogues, discovered
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 39 
 
 Is it an unwarranted supposition that Socrates, when conver- 
 sing in his old age with the men whose intercourse with him is 
 recorded by Xenophon, spoke to them in such a manner as 
 was most likely to benefit second-rate men, after having, in 
 the days when he himself was young and when he had young 
 friends to deal with whose prospects in life were most bril- 
 liant, shown much higher powers of thought and a much 
 deeper knowledge of the real questions and highest interests 
 of life? Both Xenophon and Plato, having passed from 
 childhood into the happiest time of life, found their country 
 involved in .such miseries and difficulties that the rising 
 generation could not on any account indulge in the dreams 
 of greatness which must have charmed Alcibiades in the days 
 of his friendship with Socrates. Xenophon took matters as 
 they were, and was glad to exchange the life he could lead at 
 Athens for the service of a Persian prince. Of Plato's life 
 before Socrates fell a victim to the prejudices of his country- 
 men, little is known, except that, as seen from the only 
 reference made to him by Xenophon, he was held in high 
 estimation by his teacher and friend. But cannot Socrates 
 have seen in him a true chip of the old block, on whom he 
 could, without any danger of misspending his gifts, bestow 
 those highest treasures of his mind which, in days of old, Alci- 
 biades and the best of his contemporaries had been blessed 
 with? This is, if not a solution of the difficulty which the 
 contrast between Xenophon's Socrates and that of Plato offers, 
 at all events an attempt at solving it. 
 
 Plato's Socrates is known from Plato's works, and a sketch 
 of him, in an essay on Plato, may be dispensed with. As, 
 however, the treatment which Socrates experienced at the 
 hands of his countrymen after the expulsion of the Thirty 
 and the restoration of democracy has evidently had no small 
 influence on Plato's career, it is necessary to dwell for a 
 moment on the circumstances connected with his death. 
 
 that he had not done full justice to Socrates. The fourth book, however, 
 can hardly be considered an improvement on the former three.
 
 40 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 Socrates was known to be a man of undaunted courage. 
 On the battle-field at Potidaea he saved the life of Alcibiades, 
 and would have obtained the prize for bravery, had he not 
 resigned it in his young friend's favour. At the retreat from 
 the disastrous battle of Delium, he distinguished himself by a 
 coolness and determination offering a favourable contrast with 
 the conduct of an otherwise highly esteemed general. * Nor 
 was his moral courage in political life less conspicuous than 
 his conduct in war. He did not meddle with politics, and 
 never filled any office, until, in 406, he became a member 
 of the senate of Five-hundred. It then fell to his lot to 
 preside over the assembly of the people where it had to be 
 decided whether or not the fate of the generals who had 
 fought at the Arginusae was to be made dependent on one 
 vote of the assembly ; and notwithstanding the threats of the 
 people he declined to put the question to the vote, since it was, 
 in his opinion, contrary to law to do so. f When the Thirty 
 held the reins of government Socrates not only freely indulged 
 in a criticism of their conduct which drew on him the ire of 
 their leaders, but also disregarded the order given him to 
 join others in seizing the person of a much respected citizen 
 whom the Thirty wanted to get rid of, although he was 
 fully aware that his own death might be the consequence. 
 Still he then remained unhurt, and it was not until the triumph 
 of the moderate democrats under Thrasybulus that he was 
 charged with disbelief in the gods worshipped by the state, 
 and with corrupting the morals of the rising generation. 
 
 * The story of his saving Xenophon's life at Delium cannot be correct, 
 since it is evident from the Anabasis, as stated a few pages before this, 
 that at the time of the battle Xenophon must have been too young to 
 join a military expedition. 
 
 t The presiding member, whether called nQvruvi? as by Thucydides or 
 titiGTKTris as by Xenophon and Aristotle, held his power for one day 
 only (Ar. de Rep. Ath. C. 44), and so it would appear that the version 
 of the matter given in the dialogue called Axiochus that the assembly 
 adjourned to the following day is the most probable one, although it 
 is quite possible that the author is at sea when mentioning the
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 41 
 
 Both Xenophon and Plato have written in defence of So- 
 crates against these charges. The former not only in his 
 Reminiscences but also in a short essay which partly goes 
 over different ground, and certainly does not present more 
 similarity to the Reminiscences than his Agesilaus does to 
 his Hellenica. He writes, of course, from what others had 
 told him. Plato was at Athens' when Socrates had to appear 
 in court, and his defence of Socrates has the form of a 
 speech, or rather a series of speeches, delivered by the 
 defendent in person. It would be rash, however, to infer 
 from this that the " Apology " standing in Plato's name is not 
 Plato's own work, written after his friend's death for the pur- 
 pose of putting the injustice he had been treated with in its 
 proper light. That Socrates, in addressing the court, took a posi- 
 tion calculated to prejudice its members against himself ; that 
 he referred to a reply of the Pythian oracle to a question put 
 by a friend of his, stating that he, Socrates, was the wisest 
 of men; can be taken for granted from what is said by both 
 authors. That he may have mentioned the effects which the 
 attacks on him in the Clouds had produced on the minds of 
 his countrymen, is not unlikely. Plato refers to them ; Xeno- 
 phon, in his defence, does not, but in his Banquet one of his 
 personages is a stranger who provides entertainments at 
 dinners, and who, taking offence at something done by So- 
 crates, asks him whether he is not the man of the specu- 
 lations on heavenly matters and of the measurement of the 
 jumping of fleas he has been told about. Though nearly a 
 quarter of a century had elapsed between the time when the 
 Clouds was acted and that of the trial of Socrates, it is quite 
 natural that those old stories had retained their hold on the 
 people's minds, although, when they were first made public, 
 they did not meet with approval. 
 
 It is, however, difficult to believe that Socrates, as he is 
 made to do by Plato, should have come to the front with 
 the story of a conspiracy between politicians and mechanics, 
 poets and orators to take revenge on him for having proved,
 
 42 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 during his intercourse with them, that they hardly knew 
 their own business and were ignorant of everything else. 
 Anytus and Meletus, his principal accusers, may have had 
 private reasons for hating him, the latter having obeyed the 
 wicked behests of the Thirty in the very case in which 
 Socrates declined to do so, whereas Anytus, a man of wealth 
 and influence, had brought his own son to grief by employing 
 him in a business his money was invested in, instead of 
 giving him a liberal education, and would appear to have 
 resented the philosopher's allusions to this conduct of his. 
 This, however, is something altogether different from a general 
 conspiracy to ruin a man on account of the argumentative 
 power displayed by him in private conversation; and while 
 Socrates himself cannot have thought of having recourse to 
 such arguments, Plato's use of them may be taken as evidence 
 that at the time when he wrote the Apology he was not in 
 possession of that power of discrimination which makes it 
 felt what is likely and what is not. 
 
 The reason why Socrates was condemned by a large 
 majority of the court, although the charges brought against 
 him were utterly groundless, may partly have been his 
 independent and even defiant behaviour in court, but there 
 must have been another and by no means unnatural one. 
 Athens had attained a high degree of power and prosperity 
 in the days of Pericles, but at that very time the tendencies 
 began to prevail which were attacked by the poet of the 
 Clouds. Since then the disaster in Sicily had been the signal 
 of the decline of Athenian power, and ultimately the Thirty 
 had ruled the state with a cruelty and rapacity unheard of, 
 as it was then considered, in the history of tyranny. Liberty 
 was restored, but the evils from which Athens had suffered 
 still made themselves felt; and what was, under such cir- 
 cumstances, more natural than to look for the primary causes 
 of them in the abandonment of those sentiments and habits 
 of older generations which, viewed from a distance, so often 
 assume the appearance of being infinitely superior to those
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 43 
 
 which have taken their place? Socrates surely was neither 
 a disbeliever in divine power, nor a corrupter of youth; but 
 he certainly was one of those who, with the Euripides of 
 the Frogs, could glory in having taught the Athenians to 
 talk. " That I grant", is the reply of Dionysus to the tragic 
 poet; "would that you had burst asunder before this 
 teaching of yours ! " Development of reasoning and argument- 
 ative faculties can be a danger in a state of affairs when 
 religion and morality rest on very weak foundations ; and to 
 this danger the minds are open in times of such public 
 calamities as Athens had suffered from. This must have 
 been one of the main reasons why, like Palamedes by the 
 Greeks of the Trojan war, Socrates was put to death by the 
 Athenians, though in reality he was the best of them. 
 
 VI. PLATO'S LIFE. 
 
 NOT much is known of Plato's life, and very little indeed 
 of the days of his youth. Even the questions connected 
 with the few scraps of information we have about his earliest 
 years are often hardly worth attending to. According to 
 one report he was born at Aegina, to another in the ward 
 of Collytus, forming part of the town of Athens ; and a cer- 
 tain amount of ink has been spilt on the question which of 
 the two stories is the more likely one. The fact is that, 
 if he was born at Aegina, his birth must have taken place 
 at a time when his parents were on a visit to certain landed 
 property allotted to his father on the island after its in- 
 habitants, in the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, had 
 been compelled to leave it ; but this is not inconsistent with 
 his belonging, by birth, to the community of Collytus, and 
 with his having been educated at Athens; for Athenians 
 possessed of property in conquered countries were not bound 
 to live there, and spent, as a rule, most of their time in 
 their native town. Then there is the question about his
 
 44 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 name, that of Plato which was shared by other Athenians, 
 having taken, according to tradition, the place of that of his 
 grandfather Aristocles, which had been originally bestowed 
 on him; but although questions connected with Greek names 
 are in themselves by no means uninteresting, the study of 
 Plato and his time has little to do with them. The year of 
 his birth is differently given, but it is likely that he was 
 born shortly after the death of Pericles, and that he was 
 about twenty-eight years of age at the time when Socrates 
 had to drink the fatal hemlock. 
 
 Of much importance is the fact that Plato belonged by 
 birth to the old nobility of Athens. Little is known of his 
 father Aristo, but the contemporary poet who celebrated in 
 verse the valour shown by his sons in a battle near Megara 
 it may have been Critias, who about that very time must 
 also have written his poem addressed to Alcibiades, would 
 hardly have called them " sons of Aristo, divine offspring 
 of a famous father", had not Aristo, who is never mentioned 
 in the history of his time, belonged to a family of high 
 rank. More is known of Plato's mother. She was a sister 
 to Charmides son of Glauco, a man of highly aristocratic 
 instincts, and a niece to Callaeschrus, father of Critias and 
 descended from Dropides, Solon's relative and intimate friend. * 
 
 * It is well-known, and a good many instances might be added to 
 those given by Athenaeus, that Plato, in his dialogues, is always at sea 
 in his chronology. This was a common fault with the Greeks of his 
 time ; even Herodotus was not wholly exempt from it, and a remarkable 
 instance of it is seen in that wonderful sketch of the relations between 
 Athens and Sparta before the war of 431, met with in a speech by 
 Andocides, which must be genuine since Aeschines took the sketch over 
 with such variations as clearly show that he borrowed it from his 
 predecessor. It does not, however, appear to have been noticed that the 
 pedigree given in Plato's Timaeus of the family to which Critias belonged 
 must be quite wrong. Critias the younger cannot have been much 
 older than fifty when, in 403, he was killed in battle. When he and 
 Alcibiades are mentioned together, they are represented as men of the 
 same age; his father Callaeschrus was, in 411, a man of influence among 
 the Four-hundred (Lys. in Er. 66). Still he is stated to have heard, being
 
 LATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 45 
 
 Plato must have reached the age when he could think of 
 preparing for public life at a time when, according to Thu- 
 cydides, things were, for the first time during the author's 
 life, managed at Athens in a proper spirit. The rule of the 
 Four-hundred was put a period to; the sentence passed on 
 Alcibiades was revoked on a motion by Critias; democracy 
 was tempered by the registration of five thousand citizens 
 capable of serving in the army as sole members of the assembly 
 of the people, and by the repeal of the laws or regulations 
 allowing payment for taking part in the administration of 
 public affairs. It is not stated anywhere how long this state 
 of matters continued; but as Alcibiades, who had been 
 intrusted with the management of all military affairs, was 
 deprived of his command in 407 ; as about the same time 
 Critias had to go into exile; as in 406 demagogues like 
 Archedemus of the sore eyes and Cleophon the lyremaker 
 were in power and not only introduced or re-introduced * 
 
 ten years of age, from his grandfather Critias son of Dropides, who was 
 then ninety, a story told to him by Solon in his youth. Now Solon, hav- 
 ing been archon in 594, must have been very old when, in 560, Pisis- 
 tratus established tyranny at Athens, and Critias the son of Dropides 
 must have been a grown-up man when Solon addressed him in verse, 
 telling him to listen to his father's advice. So if the pedigree in the 
 Timaeus was right, he would have reached, when telling Solon's story to 
 his grandson, the ripe age, not of ninety but of something like a hundred 
 and forty years, which does not appear very probable. But even in our 
 days educated people of decent birth are met with who, when referring 
 to their ancestors, are found to take their great-grandfathers for their 
 grandfathers. 
 
 * The allowance paid, from the treasury, to those who wanted to attend 
 the public representations in the theatre, but had to pay for their seats, is 
 stated by Plutarch to have been introduced by Pericles ; but of the 
 diGo/Sf/U'a, as this allowance was called, no mention is made by contem- 
 porary authors before Xenophon in his narrative of the events of 406, 
 and Aristophanes when alluding to it in his Frogs (405). The administra- 
 tion of the money was, it would appear from Xenophon, connected at 
 that time with the leadership of the people, and in Aristotle's treatise 
 on the Athenian Republic Cleophon is stated to have been the first to 
 introduce the allowance.
 
 46 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 certain payments to the people which, under existing circum- 
 stances were infinitely more onerous and dangerous to the 
 state, than in the happy days before the expedition to Sicily, 
 but also opposed any attempt at making peace; and as at 
 the same time the number of debtors to the treasury, who 
 as such had lost their political privileges, was so large that 
 their restoration to them had become the turning question of 
 the day ; * it is evident that the democracy of former days 
 must have been fully restored, and that the happy time 
 referred to by Thucydides had been followed by one during 
 which no moderate man would meddle with politics, unless 
 compelled by his position to do so. In one of the letters 
 standing in Plato's name it is stated that, when the Thirty 
 took office, he had an excellent opportunity of entering 
 public life, the men in power being his friends and anxious 
 to avail themselves of such services as he could render them, 
 but that he declined, seeing how they mismanaged public 
 affairs, and especially how badly they behaved towards 
 Socrates; and that, when the old form of government was 
 restored, he might again have thought of a political career, 
 had it not been for his friend's trial and death. Whether or 
 not this information is derived from a genuine work of Plato's, 
 it certainly has the merit of giving a very plausible expla- 
 nation of Plato's keeping aloof from public affairs at Athens. 
 
 * The restoration of the aripoi is strongly recommended in the 
 parabasis of the Frogs, and the poet's true patriotism is nowhere seen 
 in a more brilliant light. The measure was not resorted to till after the 
 defeat of the Athenian fleet at Aegos Potami, when it was too late. As 
 to the reason why the restoration of citizens deprived of their rights 
 had become, on this occasion, of greater importance than on any other, 
 it may have been that, when Alcibiades was deprived of his command, 
 a change of policy took place not only restoring full democracy at Athens, 
 but also excluding, from anything connected with the management of 
 public affairs, all those who had had a share in the government from 411 
 to 407, and were unable to give a full account of their management. 
 There is no direct evidence of this, but it is difficult to read the advice 
 given in the Frogs to the people, without feeling that some such change 
 of policy must have taken place.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 47 
 
 Not only Plato's older relatives and their friends take 
 parts in his dialogues, but also a goodly number of his fel- 
 low-scholars and others of his own age, and among them 
 are his own brothers Adimantus and Glauco. A passage in 
 the Apology, from which it might be inferred that Adimantus 
 had been instrumental in committing Plato to the care of 
 Socrates, renders it not unlikely that he was Plato's elder 
 brother. Glauco was the youngest of the three. Of those 
 friends and scholars of Socrates who are named in one of 
 the Platonic dialogues as having been present at his death, 
 some are known as having continued their studies and founded 
 philosophical schools of their own; others, like Ctesippus, 
 are made to take such parts in Plato's dialogues as to render 
 it evident that they were favourites of his. Of the former 
 class, Phaedo of Elis and Euclides of Megara are mentioned 
 in the introductory parts of Platonic dialogues, but do not 
 join the main discussion. Cebes and Simias the Thebans, who 
 did not found schools but simply wrote some dialogues, of 
 which one has survived, are the principal interlocutors of 
 Socrates at his last interview with his friends. Antisthenes, 
 the founder of the Cynical school, is not named in the whole 
 of Plato's works, except that he is stated to have been present 
 on that occasion; no mention at all, by name, is made of 
 Aristippus, except that at that time he was absent. Plato is 
 reported to have spent some time, after his teacher's death, at 
 Megara in company with Euclides; but on the whole he 
 evidently went his own way in his studies, without caring 
 for his former fellow-students. Aristotle informs his readers 
 that on one occasion, when Plato spoke in such a manner 
 as if he could point to definite results which his teachings 
 would bring, Aristippus observed that their old friend would 
 not have said any such thing. The report is too vague to 
 give a clear idea of what was meant by this remark, unless 
 it be that Socrates, always starting from a conviction that 
 he had everything to learn, would have expressed himself 
 less dogmatically than Plato.
 
 48 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 There is no evidence whatever that the reports met with 
 in Greek and Latin authors of later times about Plato's 
 visits to Egypt and the Western colonies of Greece during 
 the period between his teacher's death and his setting up a 
 philosophical school in the Academy at Athens, cannot be 
 substantially correct. The ancient wisdom of Egypt, with 
 her sacerdotal caste, her monuments and her traditions and 
 records, must have, in Greece, inspired men not wholly devoid 
 of means and anxious to acquire more learning than the com- 
 mon herd of mankind, with a desire to visit so remarkable 
 a country, especially as it was in constant commercial inter- 
 course with Greece, and as a passage to it was to be had 
 at a very low price indeed. That Plato did visit Egypt 
 might, had no statements to this effect been preserved, be 
 inferred from the notice he takes, in his dialogues, of a good 
 many peculiarities of the country: of its civilisation which, 
 while of a much earlier date than anything recorded in 
 Grecian history or tradition, showed no evidence of progress; 
 of its old traditions about learning, which in our days remind 
 Plato's readers of learned Brahmins, who, although well-read, 
 are very anxious for a knowledge of their most sacred literature 
 enabling them to recite the longest poems by heart; and of 
 the unwillingness of its people to admit strangers to their 
 meals. Attic authors contemporaneous with, or little older 
 than, Plato, say Sophocles when he wrote his last tragedy, 
 and Aristophanes, generally, when referring to Egypt, express 
 themselves in such terms as to make it felt that they must have 
 derived their knowledge of it from Herodotus ; Plato never does. 
 Italy and Sicily were old seats of philosophical schools, remnants 
 of Pythagorean societies being still found in some of their 
 towns in Plato's time ; and although he does not often mention 
 any other by name than the old Eleatic school, the very fact 
 of his taking Timaeus of Locri as the mouth-piece of his own 
 cosmical and physical theory shows that he was aware of 
 being under some obligation to them. So a visit to those coun- 
 tries must not have been less interesting to him than one to Egypt.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 49 
 
 Plato, having visited Italy and there, it would appear, 
 become acquainted with Archytas of Tarent, the well-known 
 Pythagorean philosopher, also went to Sicily, where Syracuse 
 was then governed by Dionysius the elder. The monarchical 
 power which Dionysius had obtained, had fallen to his lot 
 in consequence of the great difficulties which the Greeks of 
 Sicily had to contend with during the last years of the 
 Peloponnesian war, when some of their most nourishing towns 
 had been conquered by the Carthaginians, and when civil 
 dissensions greatly interfered with the defence of the other 
 Greek settlements. At the tyrant's court young Dion, his 
 brother-in-law, was one of the rising men. Instead of plunging 
 into a life of luxury and pleasure, such as Sicily was then 
 noted for, Dion was anxious to improve his mind and for 
 this reason highly pleased with Plato's visit. Plutarch, who 
 in his "Life of Dion" gives this information, adds that Plato 
 was introduced to Dionysius, but gave offence by his out- 
 spokenness, so that it was thought the safest plan for him 
 to leave. The tyrant, however, bore such rancour towards 
 his guest, that when the latter left in a vessel in which also 
 the Spartan Poll is had taken his passage, he requested Pollis 
 to make away with his fellow-passenger. Plato was not killed, 
 but landed at Aegina, which was then at war with Athens, 
 and sold as a slave. By one of Plutarch's contemporaries 
 mention was made of imminent danger of life which the 
 philosopher was exposed to at Aegina, and of his being soon 
 redeemed from captivity and sent back to Athens. As to 
 Pollis who is well known from Xenophon's Hellenica, and 
 who afterwards, as admiral of the Spartan fleet, lost the battle 
 of Naxos against the Athenians under Chabrias the same 
 authority states that the gods punished him for his conduct 
 towards Plato by causing him to become a victim of the fearful 
 earthquake which, not long after the battle of Naxos, destroyed 
 the Achaean town of Helice. * 
 
 * It would appear that the expression iv 'Elmy v.ct.ta.-itQvr<aftr\va.i, 
 used by Favorinus (Diog. Lae'rt. Ill 14), has not been understood; it 
 
 4
 
 50 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 Now there is this to be said in favour of this report that 
 it agrees with chronology. Plato, according to a statement 
 in one of the letters standing in his name, was not far from 
 forty years of age when he visited Syracuse for the first 
 time. That the war between Athens and Aegina broke out 
 about 389 B. c. cannot only be inferred from the rather loose 
 chronology of the Hellenica, but also from the fact that the 
 Athenian general Pamphilus, who commanded the troops sent 
 to Aegina in the beginning of the war, and who, having been 
 anything but successful, would appear to have been punished 
 for his doings by confiscation of his property (Demosth. p. 
 1014), was threatened already with this fate by Aristophanes 
 in his Plutus, which was acted early in 388. But, according 
 to Plutarch, Plato's visit to Syracuse had this effect that, 
 when upwards of twenty years after it Dionysius the elder 
 had been succeeded by his son and namesake, Dion induced 
 the young ruler to send for Plato as a most admirable adviser ; 
 and of the philosopher's second visit, as also of a third, 
 ample information is given in Dion's biography. Plutarch, 
 however, in giving it relies .mostly, though not wholly, on 
 Plato's letters ; and although it is true that, even if the 
 opinion that these letters are not genuine is correct, there is 
 sufficient reason not to doubt, on this account, that Plato really 
 visited Dionysius the younger, the question of their authen- 
 ticity is, for various reasons, worthy of being considered in 
 this essay. 
 
 The letters standing in Plato's name are thirteen in number, 
 seven of which, including all the longer ones, refer to his 
 relations with Syracuse. The first, written to Dionysius the 
 younger, cannot be Plato's, since what it says about the 
 writer is in accordance with history when referring to Dion, 
 and simply nonsense when applied to Plato; and on this 
 
 must refer to the earthquake, which happened not very long after the 
 battle of Naxos, and which caused the sea to rise and destroy the town. 
 (Pausan. VII 24.)
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 51 
 
 point there is not much difference of opinion. Of the other 
 letters three (2, 3 and 13) are addressed to Dionysius, one (4) 
 to Dion, two (7 and 8) to the friends left by Dion at Syra- 
 cuse when he was murdered there. Of these letters, of which 
 Cicero, Plutarch and others make ample use, and whose 
 authenticity was not doubted in antiquity, the seventh is by 
 far the longest and most important one, giving as it does 
 an apologetic report of Plato's relations with Dion and 
 Dionysius the younger, preceded by a brief notice of his 
 early career, and containing besides some political advice 
 and some philosophical information. The letter purports to 
 have been written at a time when Dionysius, having been 
 expelled from Syracuse, was in Italy, and when, at Syracuse, 
 his half-brother Hipparinus, nephew to Dion, had obtained 
 or was obtaining the reins of power in his native town, in 
 or about the year 352. The main events recorded are that 
 Dionysius, shortly after his accession to power in 367, had 
 invited Plato to his court ; that the latter, who fancied him- 
 self able to bestow, in conjunction with Dion, great benefits 
 on Syracuse and the whole of Sicily by his influence on 
 Dionysius, met with a splendid reception but was, within a 
 few months after his arrival, grievously disappointed when 
 Dion was banished from Sicily; and that for this reason he 
 was glad to be able, after some time, to return to Athens, 
 where he was already at the head of a philosophical school. 
 Having resumed his duties he was once more invited to visit 
 Syracuse by Dionysius, who appears to have been really 
 partial to philosophical research and anxious to be known 
 to the outer world as Plato's friend; and although the phi- 
 losopher was at that time, about 362, several years on the 
 wrong side of sixty, and unwilling to set sail again for 
 Sicily, he was induced to do so by pressure, not only on the 
 part of Dionysius but also on that of Dion and his fellow 
 exiles, who wanted his assistance in effecting their return to 
 their country. As, however, Dionysius, though receiving Plato 
 with great distinction, would not listen to his remonstrances
 
 52 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 in favour of Dion, and even treated the latter with more 
 harshness than before, his guest soon longed for permission 
 to leave him, which he did not get until his Pythagorean 
 friends at Tarent, between whom and Dionysius he had,. 
 on his way home from his former visit, brought about a 
 friendly understanding, sent a vessel in which he went back to 
 Athens. His return must have taken place before the middle 
 of 360. 
 
 If the letters are genuine, the thirteenth must have been 
 written very soon after Plato's first return to Athens, since 
 it displays most friendly feelings on his part towards Diony- 
 sius, mention being made of presents destined for him and 
 his wife, orders executed, friends recommended, etc. After 
 it comes the second, in which Plato contradicts a rumour as 
 if at the Olympic games they must have been those of 364 r 
 and there is no reason why they should not he had spoken 
 of Dionysius in not very complimentary terms, and in which 
 the question of the relations between rulers and literary men 
 is discussed, to be followed by an observation on a sphere,. 
 in the astronomical sense of the word, which Dionysius had 
 sent to Plato to report upon, and by a reply, in guarded 
 terms, to a philosophical question put to him. The third 
 letter, which clearly shows that the friendship between the 
 two was altogether on the wane, and which begins with 
 rather a strange and seemingly uncalled-for remark about 
 headings of messages, belongs to the time after Plato's second 
 return to Athens. It is seen, from the seventh letter, that 
 Plato had met Dion at the Olympic games of 360, and had 
 been invited by him to join, or favour, an expedition which 
 he had planned for the expulsion of Dionysius from Syracuse ; 
 but he had declined to do so, both on account of his age 
 and because, after all, Dionysius had not treated him so very 
 badly, and he was loth to be thought ungrateful. Dionysius, 
 however, had been informed that Plato made common cause 
 with Dion, and Plato reviews his own dealings with the whole 
 affair, arguing that it would not do for him to forsake his
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 53 
 
 older friend for his correspondent, with the prospect of being 
 -charged with allowing himself to be bribed. Besides Plato 
 mentions another rumour, spread from his correspondent's 
 quarters, to the effect that it was owing to him that Syracuse 
 had obtained no alleviation of the burthens she had to bear 
 under tyrannical rule, and that the other towns of Sicily 
 had not been recolonised and provided w;th proper govern- 
 ments. This rumour was. says he, incorrect, since he had 
 been in favour of both measures, provided Dionysius was 
 first educated towards bringing them about. That there was 
 something ludicrous in this proviso would seem to have 
 -escaped him. 
 
 Dion entered upon his expedition in 357, and met with 
 success. To the period of his rule at Syracuse belongs the 
 forief and not very important letter (4) in which Plato warns 
 him against being too self-willed. Then follows the seventh 
 letter, the eighth being evidently of a slightly later date. In 
 this letter a suggestion is made to Dion's friends to restore 
 the ruling dynasty that of Dionysius the elder and his 
 supporter Hipparinus, Dion's father, by bestowing a limited 
 .authority on Dion's son, on Hipparinus son of Dionysius the 
 older, and on Dionysius the younger, then still in Italy, so as 
 to have a government with hereditary rulers but under strict 
 laws, somewhat like that of Sparta. The other letters can, 
 for the present, be left untouched. 
 
 Now what are the reasons for denying the authenticity of 
 the Platonic letters? They are mainly three in number. 
 'Their language, style and arguments, although giving evi- 
 dence of so intimate an acquaintance of the writer with the 
 dialogues that even first-rate critics consider them genuine, 
 .are still not worthy of Plato, but redolent of the influence 
 of those schools of rhetoric to which other such productions 
 owe their existence. Then they contain historical misrepresen- 
 tations which Plato cannot have made. The third reason is 
 that the scraps of philosophy found in them are of such a 
 nature that, being totally at variance with what is known
 
 54 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 of Plato's doctrine, they cannot possibly have come from 
 his pen. * 
 
 In regard to the first point it has been observed that it is 
 one thing to write a philosophical dialogue and another to 
 write a letter, and that neither the negligence and confused- 
 ness occasionally marking the style of the letters, nor the 
 frequent repetition of certain words and expressions which 
 occur in them is a sufficient reason for denying that they 
 are Plato's work. There is something in this, but it has 
 been rightly observed that all literary criticism is at an end 
 if such differences of style are lost sight of. There is, 
 however, another point to be attended to. The earliest of 
 the letters referred to till now is of a time when Plato was 
 some years past sixty; the latest of one when he was about 
 twelve years older. Old age does not tell upon a Goethe or 
 a Gladstone, but it does tell on other men of mark, and 
 surely, Plato's older contemporary Aristophanes, when he 
 wrote his Ecclesiazusae and his Plutus, had much declined 
 since the day that his Birds was acted. That Plato was 
 more like Aristophanes than like England's late prime minister 
 is seen from his Laws, in which some of the very peculia- 
 rities are met with which are found fault with in the letters; 
 and both repetition of particular expressions and looseness. 
 of structure are almost natural features of the style of those 
 old men whose minds are not endowed with eternal youth. 
 But more of this anon. 
 
 Then there are the historical inaccuracies. The writer 
 of the letters is blamed for giving, in his seventh letter,, 
 wrong information about the rule of the Thirty, since he speaks 
 of fifty-one men ruling Athens, the Thirty and, under their 
 supervision, the Eleven and the Ten of the Piraeus. Were 
 
 Great benefit has been derived by the writer of this essay, in 
 treating this question of the authenticity of Plato's letters, from a Latin 
 dissertation by Professor H. T. Karsten, of Amsterdam, on the subject, 
 although the conclusions arrived at by the latter are directly at variance 
 with his own.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 55 
 
 not the Eleven a well-known body, with definite functions, 
 in the days of democracy? Of course they were, but the 
 fact that Satyrus, who was at their head during the rule of 
 the Thirty, had been in the year before a leading politician 
 at Athens (Lys. c. Nic. 12 and 14), renders it evident that 
 under the Thirty they held virtually a much higher position 
 than before, as will always be the case with the police 
 department under such rule. Then it is thought strange that 
 there is no reference in the letter to Plato's earlier travels, 
 but that his visit to Italy and Sicily is represented as the 
 consequence of his meditations about the difficulty of finding 
 anywhere good government. * But why should Plato mention 
 his visit to Egypt in a letter to his friends at Syracuse? 
 Again, Dion is stated to have pointed out to Plato, about 
 366, that his own nephews, half-brothers to Dionysius the 
 younger, might be of assistance to him when visiting Syra- 
 cuse, being well-disposed towards his ideas; but how could 
 they be, seeing that the elder of the two, Hipparinus, is 
 stated by Plato in 352 to have the same age (about twenty) 
 as Dion had at the time of his first visit to Sicily? Quite 
 right: but in Plato, writing when upwards of seventy years 
 of age, a mistake about the age of one whom he remembers 
 having seen as a youth but who has since grown into 
 manhood, is both natural and excusable. Then, in the eighth 
 letter, a reference to Dion's son is condemned because this 
 son had perished more than a year before, and so is one to 
 a murder of Syracusian generals, shortly before Dionysius 
 
 * There are those who infer, from the silence of the letters about 
 Plato's visit to Egypt, that he quietly remained at Athens, and in 
 whose opinion Plato's Eepublic must have been written in these early 
 clays, the comedy of the Ecclesiazusae having been got up with a view 
 to ridicule it. But the Republic was written many years after the Eccle- 
 siazusae, which need not have had any such definite object in view as 
 the Clouds and the Frogs; and still less defensible, if possible, is the 
 contention of some that Plato, whom Xenophon knew by no other name 
 can have been Aristyllus, the dirtiest specimen of humanity met with in 
 Aristophanes.
 
 56 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 the elder's accession to power. But Grote's conjecture that, 
 as regards this murder, Plato may have taken an event which 
 happened elsewhere in Sicily as forming part of Syracusian 
 history, is very plausible; and by Dion's son may have been 
 meant the child his widow gave birth to shortly after his death. 
 The philosophical information contained in the letters, 
 which is of rather an important nature and not such as to 
 give prima facie evidence of its not being genuine, will be 
 dealt with when the works of Plato's old age are under con- 
 sideration. But it may be asked and here a question 
 presents itself, the real bearings of which would appear to 
 have been lost sight of how the letters have come to be 
 written, if not by Plato himself. They must be, is the reply, 
 the work of some admirer of Plato, well acquainted with 
 his writings, and anxious to defend his conduct and character 
 against misrepresentations made by his enemies. Plato had 
 enemies, and friends too, eager to take his part, but what 
 is the impression made by his letters, especially by the 
 seventh? Not that they were written by an admirer, trying 
 to justify his conduct and glorify his character, but that they 
 are from the pen of a man by no means free of the vanity, 
 the diffuse style of writing, the weakening of discriminating 
 power and the pettishness so often met with in old persons, 
 and withal sufficiently fair-minded not to be carried away 
 either by personal spite or by the allurements which vanity 
 is open to. If they are taken as such, their shortcomings 
 are explained at once, except perhaps to those rendered blind 
 by Plato worship; if they are held to have been written, 
 with an apologetic object, by anybody else, how is it that, 
 instead of placing the great man whose defence the writer 
 takes in a most favourable light, he exactly reproduces what 
 a highly estimable but pettish, vainglorious and not always 
 judicious old man would have stated under the circumstances ? 
 This is sufficient reason not to take it for granted, on the evi- 
 dence brought forward against the authenticity of the letters, 
 that they are not genuine productions of Plato's old age.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 57 
 
 The eighth letter, indeed, if it were the only one preserved, 
 might be considered the work of a sincere and not untalented 
 admirer of the great philosopher, but there is no reason to 
 take another view of it than of the seventh. * 
 
 From the letters as well as from Dion's life by Plutarch 
 an idea may be formed of Plato's doings when visiting the 
 court of the Sicilian tyrant. When he came to Syracuse, 
 he was a man of mature age and of high standing among 
 philosophers. His Republic must have been written and known 
 to the public long before he left Athens, and there are even 
 indications in the letters (s. g. p. 316 A) that he had been 
 working already at his Laws. He knew, from his former 
 visit, the luxury and loose morals prevailing in Sicily, but 
 he disliked the idea of being, when an opportunity offered to 
 effect in real life what he had sketched in his dialogues, 
 found wanting in courage and activity, and as he was well 
 aware that it is no easy matter so to change the con- 
 stitution of a state and the habits of its people as to give 
 all the power to philosophers, he thought it the better plan 
 to convert an actual ruler to philosophical ideas about the 
 government of the country under his rule. But it is question- 
 able whether, even under most favourable circumstances, he 
 might have succeeded in putting things right at Syracuse, 
 and the circumstances were not at all favourable. Dionysius, 
 however well-disposed and naturally gifted, was not in a 
 position to render himself independent either of his surround- 
 ings or of the influences he had been under in his early 
 youth. Dion may or may not have been worthy, in every 
 respect, of his brother-in-law's full confidence, f but he was not 
 a man of a conciliating character, and was sure of being 
 
 * Certain doubtful points in the letters, such as the strange refer- 
 ences to Socrates in the second and eleventh, will be touched upon in 
 another part of this essay. 
 
 fDion was brother-in-law both to the elder and to the younger Diony- 
 sius, the former having married his sister and given him his daughter 
 in marriage.
 
 58 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 represented by his enemies at court as aiming at objects di- 
 rectly at variance with those of the ruler of the state. As to 
 Plato himself, he may have been quite right in not advising Diony- 
 sius to proceed at once to the reforms required for Syracuse 
 and for the Grecian interests in Sicily ; but it was to be ex- 
 pected that, being foreign to actual political life, and holding 
 ideas on matters political which in our days are considered utterly 
 unpractical and fantastic, he would not, at his age, prove the 
 proper adviser for a young ruler and intending reformer ; 
 and the fact that he admits, and even, to some extent, glories 
 in, having given advice which was afterwards justly ridiculed 
 by Dionysius that about the latter' s having to be educated 
 before proceeding to reforms is in itself sufficient evidence 
 of his not being, at Syracuse, the right man in the right place. 
 That nevertheless, after his return to Athens, he allowed 
 himself to be induced to pay another visit to Syracuse, is 
 fully excusable on the ground that he was pressed to do so 
 by Dion as well as by Dionysius; nor is it right to charge 
 him with excessive devotion to Dion's interests, since by 
 seemingly neglecting them to even the smallest extent, he 
 would have incurred the blame of pandering to a tyrant for 
 pecuniary or other advantages. On the other hand he acted 
 also wisely by not making common cause with those intend- 
 ing to dispossess Dionysius of his power, since this would 
 have shown a petty vindictiveness unworthy of a philoso- 
 pher of his stamp and standing. His advice to Dion's friends 
 in 352 to settle the affairs of Sicily with the aid of volunteers 
 from the best governed states of Greece, and, having settled 
 them, not to place the vanquished party in a worse position 
 than the victors was sound enough as far as it went, and 
 was shortly afterwards carried into effect by Timoleon ; but 
 without a first-rate statesman and general like him it was 
 not easy to do so, and Plato's suggestion to bestow as much 
 power as possible on old men, savours of a narrowness of 
 views also met with in the Laws. The idea, too, of associating 
 Dion's little son with Hipparinus and Dionysius as joint kings
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 59 
 
 of Syracuse looks as impracticable as it must have been 
 well meant. 
 
 On his return from his first journey to Italy and Sicily, at the 
 very time when Antalcidas the Spartan restored peace in 
 Greece through the intervention of the Persian king, Plato 
 would appear to have opened at once his philosophical school 
 in the gardens and gymnasium of the Academy, where he 
 had bought a small property. Many young men studied 
 under him, among them Aristotle, the founder of the school 
 which was to eclipse Plato's for many a century, and to 
 exercise a still greater influence than his on the history of 
 human thought. He had enemies too, even among those who 
 had been, together with him, followers of Socrates. One of 
 them was Antisthenes the Cynic, who is said to have writ- 
 ten a most virulent libel against him. Aristippus too dis- 
 agreed to such an extent with his views as rather to show 
 his joy at his discomfiture at the court of Syracuse, than to 
 sympathise with an old fellow-student. Of the fragments of 
 comic poetry referring to him, the most interesting is that 
 in which he and his scholars are introduced studying nature, 
 and more especially meditating on that of a pumpkin. Was 
 it a round vegetable, a tree or a fodder-plant? This inter- 
 esting question so captivated their minds as to render them 
 altogether indifferent about the insulting conduct of a bystander, 
 the young men remaining quiet, and Plato exhorting them to 
 continue their research. This passage is of some importance, 
 inasmuch as it shows, what would not be inferred from 
 the greater part of Plato's dialogues, that the study of 
 nature, in a fashion, formed part of the programme of the 
 Academy. 
 
 The study of nature was to have its day, and that too very soon. 
 For the present, however, other matters engaged the attention of 
 the public at large. The retreat of the Ten Thousand, the cam- 
 paign under Agesilaus in Asia, the ambitious plan of lason of 
 Pherae, who was ready for an expedition against Persia very 
 much on the same lines as that afterwards undertaken by
 
 60 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 Alexander the Great, the lengthy and by no means success- 
 ful war which the Persian forces had to carry on against 
 a petty prince like Euagoras of Cyprus, the actual or 
 prospective revolts of local rulers within the Persian Empire 
 and, last but not least, the fact that Sparta was using, for 
 the oppression of Greece, the power of the Persian king, 
 her old enemy, inspired Isocrates with the idea of a con- 
 quest of the king's dominions by a Grecian league under the 
 joint leadership of Sparta and Athens ; and his Panegyricus must 
 have contributed not a little to the growth of a feeling that Greece 
 was called to extend her power over the continent of Asia. 
 On the other hand monarchical rule, as it existed among the 
 Persians, became better known and less unpopular in Greece 
 by Xenophon's works, and Plato was not in principle opposed 
 to it. There is a report that, shortly before Plato's depar- 
 ture from Athens to follow Dion's call, he was requested to 
 draw up a plan for the government of the " great city " 
 founded with a view to the unification of Arcadia, but that 
 he declined to do so, as his idea about equalising property 
 was not approved of by the Arcadians and their advisers. So 
 there was no want of political life and political thought in 
 Greece, and Plato, like Isocrates, was one of the leaders 
 of public opinion, and was, in fact, held as such in so high 
 an estimation that his appearance at the Olympic games was 
 considered quite an event. He was not to succeed in the 
 political work he undertook in Sicily, and if Timoleon was, 
 to some extent, inspired in performing his noble task by 
 Platonic traditions he found at Syracuse, Plato himself was 
 not to witness this triumph of his ideas, since he died at 
 Athens, about eighty years of age, in 347. But he left not 
 only his mark on the age he lived in, the influence of his 
 ideas being destined to revive at many a memorable epoch 
 of the history of the world. Of this essay, however, not 
 these revivals are the subject, but the work he did in and 
 for his own time.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 61 
 
 VII. PLATO AND SOCRATES. 
 
 VERY few of Plato's dialogues contain historical data from 
 which it is possible to arrive at any conclusion as to the 
 time when they were written. One of them is his Laws, 
 which on various grounds is to be considered one of Plato's 
 latest works, and where one passage that of book VII p. 806 
 about the danger of allowing women to be so trained as to 
 become a danger rather than a defence when a hostile army 
 has entered the country might, but need not, be taken as a 
 reference to what happened at Sparta when, in 370 69, 
 Laconica was invaded by Epaminondas at the head of a 
 Theban force. Of much greater importance is the reference, 
 in the conversation by which his Theaetetus is prefaced, to 
 the Corinthian war, which began in 394 and continued for 
 several years. This reference does not prove that the dialogue 
 was written during, or shortly after, the war, but simply 
 that it is posterior to it; and although the Theaetetus is the 
 first of a series of three dialogues, it is by no means certain 
 that they were written one after another within a short 
 time. The Sophist however, the second of the series, must have 
 closely followed the first, since, as will be shown afterwards, 
 there is an intimate connection between them. In the Sophist 
 two other dialogues are announced, the Politicus and the 
 Philosopher. The latter, however, is not found among 
 Plato's works, and was never written by him, since he gives 
 the substance of what it would have had to contain in 
 another dialogue. As to the Politicus, its connection with 
 the Sophist is not such as to render it evident, or even 
 probable, that it was written immediately after it. 
 
 One other date, similar to that in the Theaetetus, is 
 found in several dialogues, whereas it is wanting in others. 
 The Phaedo and Crito, the Euthyphron and Gorgias contain 
 direct evidence that they were written after the trial and 
 death of Socrates; in many dialogues other than indirect 
 evidence of this is wanting. But now the question arises
 
 62 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 whether a single one of Plato's dialogues can have been 
 written when Socrates was alive. Can it be taken for 
 granted that Plato, during his teacher's life, wrote dialogues 
 in which the latter was introduced as taking part in the 
 discussion ? 
 
 The only passage in ancient classics where Plato is re- 
 presented as having done so is one in the lives of philo- 
 sophers by Diogenes Laertius, who, without quoting his 
 authority, refers to a statement by Socrates, after having read 
 Plato's Lysis, that he was made to say things he never 
 did say. This story is on a par with what is stated by 
 Athenaeus (XI p. 505) about both Grorgias' and Phaedo's 
 denying the accuracy of the Platonic dialogues named after 
 them; and such stories, even if they are as well attested 
 as the remark by Aristippus quoted, in a former chapter, 
 from Aristotle, are by no means reliable, the fact that Plato 
 was reputed to have made Socrates the mouth-piece of his 
 own opinions being the origin of them. In his Lysis Plato 
 displays all the truly poetical talent which renders the mise- 
 en-scene of his dialogues, so very charming. Nowhere a 
 more vivid description of Athenian school-life is given. 
 The petulance shown by Ctesippus in his remarks on poor 
 Hippothales, who being quite enraptured with young Lysis 
 takes a most inappropriate course in trying to ingratiate 
 himself with the object of his love; the awkward position 
 in which Hippothales himself is placed ; the friendship between 
 Lysis and Menexenus, which does not prevent the former 
 from slyly inducing Socrates to administer to his friend a 
 gentle correction for his argumentative propensities; are 
 sketched in a most lively and amusing manner. Now it is 
 a fact that poetical gifts are developed much sooner than 
 philosophical powers, so that the descriptive power displayed 
 by Plato in this dialogue need not be taken as evidence of 
 its being the production of a matured mind; and it is like- 
 wise a fact that Socrates, in the first part of his conversation 
 with Lysis, indulges much more in irony than is usual with
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 63 
 
 him in other Platonic dialogues, that in referring to a Greek 
 word with a double meaning he makes use of gross sophistry, 
 and that the dialogue does not lead to any definite result. 
 All of this might be given as containing reasons for singling 
 out the dialogue as bearing, more than any other, the cha- 
 racter of a juvenile composition, written during the period 
 of Plato's philosophical training under his teacher's care. 
 But the irony is not out of place; the sophistry is equalled 
 by that met with in the Protagoras; and not only dialogues 
 like the Charmides and Laches, both of them of the same 
 description as Lysis, not only the Protagoras, but even the 
 Theaetetus end in utter doubt about the real nature of the 
 subject discussed. Again, Ctesippus is also one of the chief 
 personages of Plato's Euthydemus ; and as there he is repre- 
 sented as catching hold, by instinct, of the sorry method of 
 quasi-argumentation used by Euthydemus and his brother, 
 whereas in the Lysis he is mentioned as being up to the 
 mark in it, it is safer to assume that the Euthydemus is a 
 slightly earlier production of Plato's pen than the Lysis, 
 than to believe that the latter dialogue was written at a 
 time when Socrates might have read it. In fact, the Lysis 
 is one of those dialogues where that peculiar method of 
 dealing with young men is exemplified which is described in 
 the Theaetetus, and named " mental obstetrics " . Before 
 referring to this method, which is characteristic of Plato's 
 Socrates, a few observations are necessary about certain 
 dialogues which, like the Apology, must have been written 
 shortly after, and in connection with, the death of Socrates. 
 In one of them Crito, an old friend of Socrates, belonging 
 to the same ward and assisted by him both in his son's training 
 and by advice in other matters, is introduced calling, before 
 daybreak, at the gaol where the philosopher awaits his fate, 
 beseeching him to take advantage of the means offered him 
 for his escape to a neighbouring state. In the beginning of 
 the dialogue Socrates, who had just awoke from a sound 
 sleep, tells his friend about a dream he had had, from which
 
 64 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 he inferred that he would not die until the third day after, 
 and which is remarkable as evidence that, for the Greeks of 
 those days, Homer's words partake of something like the same 
 sacred character which Scripture language has for a Christian 
 public. Crito points out to Socrates how he can, having made 
 his escape in the manner provided for, fulfil in another country 
 his duties towards his family and his friends, the latter of 
 whom would be disgraced in the eyes of the public if, by 
 their negligence, they allowed him to die in prison. Socrates, 
 in reply, argues that, according to a principle adopted long 
 ago by himself and his friends, public opinion, if wrong, is 
 to be disregarded; that, as a citizen of Athens, he is bound 
 to obey the laws under whose protection he has been born 
 and educated ; that in no foreign state he will meet with the 
 approval and respect of the public when, by escaping from 
 gaol, he disobeys his country's law, which he has always 
 professed to be deeply attached to; and that even in the 
 nether regions he would not find peace, when declining to 
 undergo the penalty imposed on him by law. The arguments 
 used r in the dialogue are as sound as those of Xenophon's 
 Socrates, and free from a sophistry which, in a dialogue like 
 this, would be altogether out of place; but if nothing else of 
 Plato's works had reached us than his Crito and other dialogues 
 of that description, Plato would not rank above Xenophon, 
 except, perhaps, for his impressive quotation from the 
 Iliad. 
 
 That a dialogue of this description must have been written 
 at a time when the circumstances connected with the fate of 
 Socrates were still fresh in the memory of the Athenian 
 public, is hardly a matter of doubt, and the same can be said 
 of the dialogue called after Euthyphron. The charge brought 
 against Socrates was chiefly one of impiety. Euthyphron was 
 known, at Athens, for having made a special study of man's 
 duty towards the gods, and in a dialogue of much higher 
 importance than the one called after him, the Cratylus, he 
 is ironically represented as having, during a conversation with
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 65 
 
 Socrates, inspired the latter with an intuitive knowledge, both 
 sudden and astounding, of matters divine. In the dialogue 
 now referred to he asks Socrates a question which leads to 
 a conversation about the charge of corrupting youth by intro- 
 ducing novel deities which had been brought against Socrates ; 
 and in the course of it he is found to have brought himself 
 a criminal charge, of homicide, against his own father, by whose 
 negligence a man in his service, himself put in irons for 
 having killed a slave, had perished. His father, he added, 
 considered the charge brought against him by his own son 
 to be an offence against the laws by which human society was 
 governed ; but he, Euthyphron, having studied divine law, knew 
 better. In the discussion which ensues it is first found that 
 Euthyphron believes in those traditions about the gods which 
 represent them as indulging in hostilities among themselves, 
 whereas Socrates is as unwilling to share this belief as to 
 approve of Euthyphron's conduct towards his father ; but soon 
 the meaning of the Greek word cV/oi/, which according to 
 Euthyphron was the correct expression for the nature of this 
 conduct, becomes the main subject for discussion.* Socrates 
 wants a definition of the word. Euthyphron first tries " dear 
 to," or rather "according to the will of, the gods"; then, 
 when Socrates by a well-directed argument has shown that, 
 although whatever is b'triov must be at the same time in 
 accordance with the will of the gods, the latter expression 
 does not give the real idea which the word is to convey, but 
 implies a concomitant quality, Euthyphron admits that the term 
 O7iov is to be applied to that part of justice which more 
 particularly refers to men's duty towards the gods. Being 
 
 * The adjective osiog can hardly be said to have an English equi- 
 valent. When, as often happened, isgd and oaia are mentioned together, 
 the former word refers to things belonging or consecrated to the gods, 
 whereas by OGIK those are meant in regard to which men have duties 
 to perform towards the gods, although, in themselves, they are human 
 rather than divine. " Allowed or enjoined by the law which regulates 
 the relations between gods and men" is, perhaps the fittest expression, 
 not to translate, but to give the sense of the Greek word. 
 
 5
 
 66 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 questioned, however, about the nature of this duty, Euthyphron 
 is ultimately found to revert to his first definition, and thus 
 to argue in a circle. The outcome, hinted at rather than 
 fully stated, is that Euthyphron, the man boasting of his reli- 
 gious knowledge and never for one moment made to doubt his 
 own superiority in this matter to his interlocutor, is unable 
 either to give a proper explanation of his ideas on the subject, 
 or to justify a proceeding in regard to his father which is 
 at variance with the sentiments of thinking and well-disposed 
 men like Socrates. 
 
 Plato's object in writing his Euthyphron cannot have been 
 any other than to give additional evidence of his teacher's 
 piety by contrasting his views on religious matters with those 
 of a man well-known, and sometimes ridiculed, for his study 
 of the relations between gods and men; and it will not do 
 to assume that he can have attempted to gain this object at 
 a time when the charge against Socrates and its effects must 
 have been well-nigh forgotten by the public at large. The 
 dialogue is, in more than one respect, superior to his Crito, 
 and it throws some light on the teachings of the man in 
 whose defence it was written. Although heartily joining in 
 the worship of the gods of his country, and thankful for 
 their revealing their will by replies of the oracle or in other 
 ways, the poetical figments about the gods which, in the 
 Clouds, are used by corrupters of youth for excusing immo- 
 rality, but which, it must be added, had more to do with 
 the real character of popular religion in Greece than was 
 seen by the philosophers of the day, were in his opinion 
 utterly inconsistent with that goodness in the highest sense 
 of the word which was, to him, a necessary quality of divine 
 beings. That such was his view might be, if nothing of Plato's 
 works had survived, inferred from Xenophon's ; but from the 
 latter the distinction he appears, from this early production 
 of Plato's mind, to have made between qualities in the abstract 
 and those observed in matters concrete, would be hardly 
 known or even guessed, and still less does Xenophon's
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 67 
 
 Socrates, however nicely he may cure young Glaucon of his 
 dabbling in politics, display that expertness in logical argu- 
 ment which is characteristic of Euthyphron's interlocutor. 
 But the subject of the dialogue is a special and restricted 
 one, and the sound and close reasoning of Plato's Socrates 
 in it does not prevent sophistry from making its appearance 
 in such works of Plato's as refer to greater things. 
 
 Such reasoning, in fact, was not quite in keeping with 
 those processes of mental obstetrics which formed the leading 
 feature of Socrates' dealings with young men. Having been 
 introduced by his friend Theodoras, a well-known geometrical 
 scholar from Gyrene, to young Theaetetus, he informs the 
 latter that, being a midwife's son, he has inherited a liking, 
 and some of the qualifi cations required, for the practice of 
 obstetrics. As midwives, when engaged in their professional 
 work, had already passed the age when they could hope to 
 become mothers once more, so he was well aware that, at 
 his time of life, no new ideas would spring from his head; 
 but he soon noticed when a youth had conceived such an 
 idea, and was an expert both in discovering whether or not 
 it was worthy of being brought to light, and in assisting the 
 one who had conceived it to give birth to it. Plato's So- 
 crates is constantly represented, and representing himself, as 
 being in love with the finest specimens of the rising genera- 
 tion, and in Plato's Banquet he speaks of love as striving 
 after "giving birth in what is beautiful." This subject will 
 be reverted to in a later part of this essay ; but the passage 
 from the Theaetetus contains nothing else than a milder 
 expression of the same sentiment, and in more than one 
 dialogue of Plato's, when Socrates speaks of his falling or 
 being in love with a youth, he is seen at once to apply the 
 method he has borrowed from his mother. In doing so he 
 proceeds, of course, by means of questions and answers, in- 
 stead of indulging in lengthy arguments of his own. 
 
 Now the sophists of those days generally professed to be 
 skilled both in the dialectic method followed by Socrates and
 
 68 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 in holding forth about a given subject, whereas Socrates 
 admitted his incompetence to avail himself of the latter pro- 
 ceeding. This difference is specially referred to in Plato's 
 Protagoras, one of the finest and most entertaining and, at 
 the same time, earliest dialogues of his. Earliest because in 
 one respect it is similar to his Apology, his Crito and his 
 Euthyphron, in another to his Lysis and other such dia- 
 logues. To the latter because no definite conclusion is arrived 
 at about the subject discussed; to the former because its 
 object is to paint Socrates in his true colours. Protagoras 
 taught a philosophy of his own, repeatedly referred to by 
 Plato ; in the dialogue named after him this philosophy is 
 not even touched upon. But as with Euthyphron the pious 
 so Socrates is contrasted with Protagoras the sophist, and 
 that too in such a manner as to make it clearly appear that 
 even in matters which he does not profess to be master of, 
 he is superior to a man who was admired all over Greece 
 for his wisdom. 
 
 Protagoras of Abdera was one of those sophists who visited 
 the various towns of Greece, offering to teach, for money, 
 those branches of knowledge which in his days were consi- 
 dered to form, part of higher education. He had written a 
 much-read book, called " Truth " ; his philosophical tenets will 
 be referred to together with those of other schools. How 
 high a reputation he enjoyed is seen from the introduction 
 to the dialogue named after him. Before dawn Socrates is 
 awoke by his young friend Hippocrates, whose excuse for 
 calling so early is that Protagoras has arrived in town. He 
 is staying with Callias, the wealthy son of Hipponicus, whose 
 house is always open to sophists. Would not Socrates pro- 
 vide an introduction ? Socrates points out that it is too early, 
 but entertains his visitor, who is anxious to become the 
 sophist's scholar, by a conversation about the object he has 
 in view. If he wanted to become a medical man, he would 
 apprentice himself to some famous physician. Does he want 
 Protagoras to train him for the profession of a sophist ?
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 69 
 
 Hippocrates does not like the question, and Socrates admits 
 at once that his purpose may be different. But would it be 
 safe to commit the training of his mind to a stranger, of 
 whose profession he hardly has a proper idea? Ultimately 
 they go, having agreed that they would first ask for infor- 
 mation about the training which Protagoras would impart to 
 his new scholar. 
 
 In the hall of the house of Callias they find Protagoras 
 walking about with his host and a number of admirers, who 
 try to catch the wise words falling from his lips. Then there 
 are Prodicus of Ceos, well known from the story borrowed 
 by Xenophon's Socrates and for his distinctions between the 
 meanings of apparently synonymous words, and Hippias of 
 Elis, who professed to be at home in every art and every 
 branch of science, and who certainly, from what he is made 
 to say in another of Plato's dialogues, must have been an 
 adept in the art of making money. Socrates introduces Hip- 
 pocrates as an intending scholar of Protagoras, who is ready 
 to give the information required in the presence of his fel- 
 low-sophists. What he teaches is how to manage one's own 
 affairs and those of the state. To a doubt uttered by Socrates 
 whether this can be taught, seeing that the greatest states- 
 men of the age, whose children have been properly trained 
 in various arts of life, have failed to impart to them that 
 real virtue of man to which they themselves owe their 
 greatness, he replied by means of a quasi-mythical story like 
 that by Prodicus, followed by a demonstration that virtue 
 for this is, though by no means an equivalent, still the most 
 natural translation of the Greek word apsry, is really taught 
 to all children, and that, if sons of men of note do not equal 
 their fathers, this is not because they have had a defective 
 training, but because, as a training in every art will make 
 one something of an artist but need not make him a good 
 artist, they are behind others in natural ability. If those 
 who, after having enjoyed a good Greek education, turn out 
 scoundrels were placed among savages, the contrast between
 
 70 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 them and their surroundings would be such as to make them 
 appear superior beings. 
 
 Protagoras had, in his speech, not only referred to virtue 
 but also to justice and modesty, and Socrates asks whether 
 these qualities form parts of what is called virtue, and, if 
 so, whether they are different from one another, and whether 
 it is possible to be possessed of one of them and not of the 
 other. The reply is in the affirmative, but now Socrates 
 points out the weak points of it, not without making use of 
 a certain amount of sophistry, especially when, from the use 
 of the word aQpowvy as the opposite of both a-aQpotrvvy both 
 modesty and continence may be used as English equivalents r 
 but the real meaning will have to be given on a later occa- 
 sion, and ffoQla, wisdom, he infers that these, although gene- 
 rally given as two distinct cardinal virtues out of four, must 
 be the same. Ultimately Protagoras, instead of replying 
 briefly to the questions of his adversary, comes to the front 
 with a somewhat longer statement, evidently with a view to 
 put a stop to the discussion. Socrates, however, is not 
 satisfied with this, since Protagoras, though professing to be 
 well- versed in dialectic, declines to go on replying ; and the 
 issue would have been an abrupt and rather unpleasant part- 
 ing between the two, had not some of those present inter- 
 posed, among them Prodicus and Hippias, both of whom are 
 made to deliver speeches in their own peculiar styles. 
 
 By mutual agreement another subject is now entered upon. 
 A knowledge of the poetical works of Grecian genius was 
 considered, in those days, a most valuable result of a first-rate 
 education, and Protagoras, who is now to question Socrates,, 
 reminds him of a poem by Simonides, which he is found to 
 be acquainted with. How is it, asks Protagoras, that, after 
 the poem has opened with a statement that it is difficult to- 
 be a really good man, both sound of body and mind and 
 blameless, in the next stanza Pittacus is taken to task for 
 stating that it is difficult to be good in the full sense of
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 71 
 
 the word ? * Socrates is somewhat taken aback by this 
 question, being by no means sure that Protagoras is wrong, 
 and so he calls Prodicus, as the poet's countryman, to his 
 assistance; but what Prodicus puts in is of such a nature 
 that Socrates has to screen him by calling it a joke. His 
 own explanation of the poem is very ingenious, too ingenious, 
 indeed, to be correct. When he points out, from expressions 
 used by Simonides and Pittacus, that the former speaks of 
 a momentary rising of man to real goodness, whereas the latter 
 must have referred to its continued existence in man ; when 
 he denies that the poet can have spoken of a man who 
 willingly does wrong, since no one does so ; he touches upon 
 philosophical questions of the day which Simonides cannot 
 possibly have known or thought of. He meets, however, 
 with approval on the part of those present, and thus is found 
 
 * There are some questionable points about the text of the poem, 
 but there can be hardly any doubt that it has been preserved by Plato 
 in its entirety, and that it is a scolion or convivial song divided into 
 three stanzas. As to its meaning, Protagoras is, of course, correct in 
 adverting to the mutually contradictory statements in the first and 
 second stanzas; but this difficulty is easily solved when it is observed 
 that in the first one, after the opening statement, the poet points out 
 what he has to be contented with in the absence of really good men, 
 and then adds, in the second, that he cannot even agree with what Pit- 
 tacus says, "'tis difficult to be good," since real goodness is reserved 
 to the gods, whereas man's conduct is so dependent on circumstances as 
 to render it impossible for him to be blameless and fully up to the 
 mark, only the favour of the gods enabling him to follow the right 
 path with some degree of consistency, so that anyone not wilfully 
 committing a disgraceful act must be welcome to those who know that 
 even the gods do not fight against what must happen. The whole poem is 
 characteristic of the age in which the poet lived, when the gods of Xe- 
 nophanes and other philosophers were hardly known to the public, and 
 when the belief in the popular deities went hand in hand with a deep 
 feeling of man's dependence on their power, but when no such moral 
 ideas, inculcated either by religious or philosophical agencies, were pre- 
 vailing among the people as to enable them to make light of that weakness 
 and misery of man which not only limited his existence to a very brief 
 period, but even, during life, rendered him dependent on influences over 
 which he had no control.
 
 72 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 to beat Protagoras on a field where he himself has admitted 
 not to be his equal. This is evidently one of Plato's main 
 objects in writing his dialogue. 
 
 Another victory, however, is in store for Socrates. Callias 
 and his friends are anxious to have the discussion re-opened 
 which, a few moments before, was interrupted by the reluc- 
 tance shown by Protagoras to go on with it ; and the latter, 
 who then stated that between the various virtues referred 
 to there was a radical difference, now admits that some of 
 them wisdom, justice, etc. are closely connected with one 
 another; but, says he, with valour the case is different, for 
 many men of undoubted bravery are found to be unjust and 
 unwise. Socrates then questions him in such a manner as 
 gradually, and without giving any offence, to circumvent him ; 
 and ultimately he is compelled, much against his wish but 
 to the visible joy of Prodicus and Hippias, to admit that 
 valour is knowledge and therefore akin to wisdom, and 
 cowardice ignorance. Socrates, at the end of the discussion, 
 points out that Protagoras and he himself have unwittingly 
 changed sides, his contention being at first that virtue could 
 not be taught, whereas it could be taught when founded on 
 knowledge ; but at the same time he admits that the subject 
 requires a fuller investigation. 
 
 Now this latter part of the Protagoras is not only marked 
 by a sophistry on the part of the winning party which, 
 though slightly less apparent than that of the former passage 
 of arms between the two antagonists, cannot fail to strike 
 any reader of the present day, but also by two peculiarities 
 worth referring to. The one is that one of the main points 
 argued by Socrates is that pleasure, or enjoyment, is good in 
 itself, only its consequences making it expedient, at times, 
 to forego it. This contention is totally at variance with 
 the whole tenor of Plato's philosophy as known from such 
 later dialogues of his as the Gorgias and the Philebus. Again, 
 not only does the question what knowledge really is remain 
 unsolved in the dialogue on it, the Theaetetus, to be reserved
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 73 
 
 probably for that dialogue which was to follow the Politicus 
 but never appeared; but in the Laches, which cannot be 
 much younger than the Protagoras, the theory that bravery 
 is knowledge is brought forward by Nicias, but treated by 
 Socrates as an exploded one. The most likely explanation 
 of this difference between the Protagoras and other dialogues 
 of a slightly later time is that the former is a production 
 of Plato's genius at a time when, to his mind, the great 
 questions of life were still unsolved, but when, thankful to 
 Socrates for what he owed him, he thought more of repre- 
 senting him as being head and shoulders above his contem- 
 poraries, than of attempting to find the correct answer to 
 the then much-discussed question whether or not virtue can 
 be taught. 
 
 Those who are averse to sophistry, even when indulged 
 in by Socrates and Plato, will feel less offended by it when 
 taking the fact into account that, among the Athenians of 
 their days, higher education was in its infancy. From the 
 sophist who set up as a professor of the military art, and 
 who simply because he was the first to do so, found pupils 
 at Athens, a knowledge of logic could hardly by expected, 
 especially at a time when even such elementary principles 
 of grammar as are now taught in schools, and are of no 
 small assistance for regulating one's power of thought, had 
 for the most part not been laid down by anybody. The 
 effect of this is seen from a dialogue in which the professor 
 of tactics is one of the chief personages, but which is named 
 after his brother Euthydemus. Its object is not altogether 
 unlike that of the Protagoras, but Protagoras himself is re- 
 presented by Plato as a man who, although not proof against 
 sophistry, at all events gives utterance to sensible thought, 
 not unworthy of one professing to give instruction in matters 
 of the highest importance, whereas Euthydemus and his 
 brother, as we find them in Plato's dialogue, are stared at 
 by men of our days as priding themselves on uttering 
 the most stupid trash imaginable. Still the Eristical school
 
 74 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 of which they were precursors the school which delighted 
 in logical puzzles, remained in existence till long after 
 Plato's death. 
 
 Euthydemus is introduced to readers of the dialogue by 
 Socrates, who has seen him and his brother Dionysodorus 
 at a gymnasium, accompanied by a few pupils but evidently 
 anxious to get some more. It happens that Clinias, the 
 youthful son of a near relative of Alcibiades, enters the 
 gymnasium, followed by a number of admirers, one of whom 
 is Plato's friend Ctesippus. Like Protagoras the brothers 
 profess to teach virtue in the Athenian sense of the word, 
 in other words whatever is required to hold one's own and 
 duly to take part in public affairs. When Socrates intro- 
 duces Clinias to them as a young man with many friends, 
 who would like nothing better than to see him induced by 
 them to cultivate his mind, they are ready at once to show 
 what they can do. From the very first, however, they are 
 found to make it their object to put such questions to him 
 as he cannot answer in one way or another without their 
 proving that he is wrong; and so they go on, alternately 
 taking him in hand and bewildering him, until Socrates 
 interferes by telling Clinias that the two only play with 
 him, as an introductory ceremony for their initiating him in 
 their wisdom, and by himself questioning him in such a 
 manner that he may see the use of learning, and that the 
 brothers may become aware of what is expected from them. 
 
 On resuming their task, they begin by asking the friends 
 of Clinias whether they really want him to become a wise 
 man ; and when they reply that they do, their second question 
 is whether they want him to perish, since they want him 
 no longer to be what he is. This question, which was in 
 accordance with the views held by the Ionic school at 
 Athens, * greatly irritates Ctesippus, who charges the bro- 
 thers with telling a falsehood when they insinuate that he 
 
 * Plat. Theaet. 166 B.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 75 
 
 wants Clinias to die. "Is it," asks Euthydemus in reply, 
 " possible to tell a falsehood ? Can anything be said which 
 is not?" Now this question was not a puzzle to embarrass 
 youngsters, but it was connected with those attempts at 
 formulating ideas about ontology which were in those days 
 made in quarters influenced by Protagoras and other sophists. 
 Their tenets, as shortly afterwards appeared from a new 
 encounter between Ctesippus and the brothers, led them to 
 deny the possibility of contradicting a statement, on the 
 ground that only one account of each thing could be given. 
 Ctesippus is puzzled ; Socrates asks whether, if it is im- 
 possible to utter a falsehood, it is likewise impossible to hold 
 a false opinion and to take a false step ; and being answered 
 in the affirmative, his next question, which he puts with 
 some reluctance, is what business the brothers have to teach 
 young men how to keep the right path, when there is no 
 wrong one to take. The end is that Socrates, being loth 
 to see a quarrel arise, resumes his conversation with Clinias 
 on the necessity of obtaining knowledge so as to ensure 
 happiness. 
 
 The question between them is what branch of knowledge 
 they have to select in order to attain their object; and 
 after discussing a good many of them, Socrates is at his 
 wits' end, and Euthydemus is asked to come to the rescue. 
 And now comes the most portentous part of the debate. 
 Euthydemus begins by stating that both he and Socrates 
 are in possession of the knowledge required ; for, asks he, 
 are there not things you know, are you not therefore a man 
 of knowledge, and is there anything a man of know- 
 ledge does not know ? Socrates attempts to qualify 
 his replies by reservations, but the brothers do not allow 
 him to do so ; and by constantly putting new questions as 
 results from replies given, they arrive at wonderful conclu- 
 sions. They come off second best when Ctesippus, who, sharp- 
 witted as he is, has soon learnt to repay them in their 
 own coin, asks them questions both ridiculous and insulting,
 
 76 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 without, however, succeeding in silencing them. Ultimately 
 Socrates is first asked, by the brothers, what kind of artisans 
 it behoves to paint, and then whether he wants the painter 
 to be painted; and again, having replied to a question that 
 the owner of livestock is entitled to sell or kill them, he is 
 asked whether he has a tutelar god, and whether, as gods 
 are live beings, he has a right to treat him too in this 
 manner. * This last question is loudly cheered, and Socrates 
 has to admit his defeat, adding, however, that men of his 
 stamp would prefer a defeat to a victory in such an argu- 
 ment. 
 
 As in the Protagoras so in the Euthydemus Socrates is 
 contrasted with sophists, and however inferior Euthydemus 
 may appear to be, he is, in the Cratylus, named with Pro- 
 tagoras as the holder of definite and well-known philosophical 
 views. But the dialogue ends with a conversation between 
 Socrates and Crito which would appear to indicate that it 
 was written with an ulterior object. Crito had been told, 
 by a man in good repute for wisdom at Athens, that among 
 the philosophers of the day, Euthydemus and his brother 
 were the cleverest, but their talk was not worth listening 
 to, and neither should philosophy be studied, nor should 
 Socrates allow himself to be questioned by such people. 
 This man was not a public speaker, but his occupation was 
 to write speeches for others. On this class of men, who 
 had already been contemptuously referred to in the conver- 
 sation between Socrates and Clinias, the former now passes 
 a most disparaging judgment, stating that they held a middle 
 place between politicians and philosophers, but were inferior 
 to both, and hated philosophers, especially such as Euthy- 
 demus, as they considered them to stand in their light. 
 This can, of course, have no other meaning than that their 
 
 * Of course this reads better in Greek than in English, the word 
 <aa, here translated by livestock, being used for all animated beings. 
 The painter too is not found in the Greek text, but a literal translation 
 of the words used will not do.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 77 
 
 arguments, whether political or forensic, were no better 
 than those used by Euthydemus and appropriated at once 
 by Ctesippus. It is just possible that Plato, in this passage, 
 refers to enemies of Socrates, but it is more likely that his 
 remarks originate with an ill-feeling existing between him- 
 self and the followers of the profession of which, at that 
 time, Lysias was the leader, a tendency to disparage them 
 being also met with in his Phaedrus. This point, however, 
 is not connected with the subject dealt with in this chapter, 
 and will be reserved for a subsequent one. 
 
 A third sophist contrasted with Socrates by Plato is 
 Hippias, the one present at the debate between Socrates and 
 Protagoras in the house of Callias. He is, however, a less 
 interesting personage than either Protagoras or Euthydemus. 
 Than Protagoras because, as represented by Plato, he is 
 simply a wind-bag; than Euthydemus because he does not 
 represent, like the two brothers, a type existing in ancient 
 Greece and hardly, if at all, known in our days, but one 
 which even now is often met with, although it is rather a 
 rare occurrence at the present time that such individuals 
 find, as in Plato's days, a public ready to admire them. 
 One might be tempted to think Plato's Hippias a caricature, 
 but seeing that he was a contemporary of Euthydemus and 
 Dionysodorus, it would be rash to assume this. He is a 
 great man in his way, frequently charged by the state he 
 belongs to with what is now called diplomatic business, and, 
 whether engaged in this or not, always ready to make 
 money by his wonderful talents; but when, in the longer 
 dialogue of the two called after him, he is asked by Socrates 
 what is beauty, in other words that which causes things to 
 be beautiful, * his reply is to the effect that a handsome 
 girl is a beauty ; and when Socrates tries to reason with 
 
 * In Greek "beauty" has the substantive xaUo? as its equivalent. 
 What is here translated by "beauty" is the expression TO iicd6v, which 
 in French would be more accurately rendered by " le beau" and in con- 
 sequence of this the reply of Hippias as given here in English is not
 
 78 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 him, he either readily agrees with any statement he is 
 asked to endorse, without feeling in the least that his 
 interlocutor is twisting him round his finger, or indignantly 
 denies the truth of a proposition in which one of the lower 
 things of life is mentioned. All the time his attitude shows 
 a stolid confidence in his own ability and broad views, while 
 Socrates, after many an attempt or quasi-attempt at finding 
 a proper definition of beauty, ultimately arrives at one 
 which does not look very satisfactory, and which Plato may 
 or may not have thought the correct one, but for which 
 nowhere in his works a better one is substituted, and which, 
 judging by a passage in his Phaedrus, he may have 
 acquiesced in. According to it, that which is called beautiful 
 is the pleasure enjoyed through the organs of sight and 
 hearing; and the reason why this pleasure, though the 
 organs through which it is conveyed are not the same, is 
 one and at the same time different from all other pleasures, 
 is that it is not fraught with evil consequences. As to the 
 smaller dialogue likewise called Hippias, it simply contains 
 an argument between Socrates and Hippias, consequent on 
 an address by the latter about a subject connected with 
 Homer. The argument is, at the end, stated by Socrates to 
 be at variance with his real sentiments, and hardly any 
 light is thrown by it on Plato's philosophy. 
 
 Of the dialogues in which Socrates is represented as 
 exercising his own peculiar art of mental obstetrics, the Lysis 
 and Charmides would appear to belong to an earlier period 
 of Plato's career than the Theaetetus. They have much in 
 common, so much that it will not do to assign them to 
 different times of Plato's life. So have the Charmides and 
 the Laches, in the latter of which, however, the chief per- 
 sonages are not youths but men holding high positions in 
 life. In the Charmides one of the four cardinal virtues is 
 the subject for discussion, in the Laches another. In neither, 
 
 quite as it should be, though sufficiently so as to show the mistake he 
 makes.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 79 
 
 as has been stated already, is a satisfactory conclusion 
 arrived at; nor is this the case in the Theaetetus itself, 
 where knowledge * is the subject, whereas with the Sophist 
 the period begins when Plato has got the better of his 
 doubts. So there is good reason to put down the Lysis, 
 Charmides and Laches among the earlier productions of 
 Plato's mind. 
 
 In the Lysis the poor fellow who is in love with the hero 
 of the dialogue has been bothering his friends with poems 
 celebrating the greatness of the noble family to which the object 
 of his love belongs; and Socrates asks him whether he 
 does not see that, by taking this course, he simply promotes 
 in the youth he is anxious to befriend, the growth of a pride 
 and fastidiousness which are sure to defeat the object he 
 has in view. The dialogue then ensuing between Socrates 
 and Lysis is intended for a lesson to the disconsolate lover. 
 Your parents are fond of you, says Socrates, but does your 
 father allow you to use his race horses or even his span of 
 mules ? Is your mother prepared to have the wool she works 
 with ransacked by you? Of course Lysis replies that he is not 
 allowed to do anything of the kind, but when his parents 
 want somebody to read to them, he is at liberty to do so, 
 and why? Because this is a matter of which he knows 
 
 * Ztocpiu or g>(>dj>?j<Tts, wisdom or intelligence, for the terms are used 
 somewhat promiscuously by Plato, is to the Greek mind one of the four 
 virtues; iTtiattjiiri, knowledge, is hardly so, though in the opening part of 
 the Theaetetus it is identified with wisdom, but in Plato's mind the 
 difference between virtues and branches of knowledge, or arts, was much 
 less clearly defined than one would think. To men of our time it will 
 seem strange when, in the Gorgias, Plato opposes the art of cookery, 
 that of adorning the body, and that of sophistry, as counterfeit arts, to 
 medicine, gymnastics and the art of legislation respectively, but a fourth 
 counterfeit art, rhetoric, to justice. So there is a closer relation between 
 Theaetetus on knowledge and the two dialogues on acacpQoavvr) and bravery 
 than would appear at first sight, and it is, of course, natural that the 
 two virtues which ranked lower than wisdom, should be taken in hand 
 before knowledge.
 
 80 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 everything. Then follows a rather strange string of questions 
 about the Persian king, who would trust Lysis, in matters 
 of cookery, medicine, &c., better than his own son if the 
 former was possessed of more knowledge about them, and 
 ultimately Lysis is told that only those who know how to 
 make themselves useful can count upon gaining the friendship 
 of others. "That's the way to talk to youngsters," would 
 Socrates have added, had it not been for the sight of the 
 despondent lover, who was hiding himself behind others 
 so as to catch a glimpse of Lysis without being seen 
 by him. 
 
 Lysis having been joined by his young friend Menexenus, 
 Socrates tells them that his great object in life is to get 
 friends; but to whom is the term applicable? Is it to those 
 who are fond of others, or to those who are dear to them? 
 Here it is that the Greek adjective equivalent to the substan- 
 tive " friend," being used both in an active and a passive 
 sense, leads Socrates to indulge in a bit of sophistry not 
 quite as bad as the worst specimens given by Euthydemus, 
 but still showing the temptation to make use of sophistry 
 which existed in Plato's days. As the argument does not 
 lead to satisfactory results, it is abandoned, and an attempt 
 follows to make " birds of one feather flock together " the 
 foundation of friendship. But can there be friendship among 
 the wicked, and are the good in want of one another? Rather 
 than those who are of similar dispositions those of contrary 
 ones might be apt to become friends, since what the one is 
 wanting in is met with in the other. It will be said, however, 
 that hostile and friendly are opposites, and can there be 
 friendship between them? Would it not be better to start 
 from the supposition that the causes which lead to friendship 
 are neither found in the wicked nor in the good, but that 
 those who are neither good nor bad strive after the friend- 
 ship of what is good, for the purpose of getting rid of evil? 
 Still, neither is there always to be a purpose, nor is the 
 desire for friendship dependent on the existence of evil. The
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 81 
 
 desire is evidence of a want, and as this want can only be 
 supplied by what is in close relation with the one who feels 
 it, the friendship resulting from it must be mutual. Lysis 
 does not like this conclusion ; his lover is beside himself with 
 joy. But is not, asks Socrates, this relation very much akin 
 to the similarity which, as it has been agreed upon, cannot 
 be the cause of friendship, and does not, for this reason, the 
 whole argument fall to the ground ? This question has been 
 barely put when the slaves employed as pedagogues order 
 their youthful charges to go home, and so the discussion comes 
 to an untimely end. 
 
 Charmides, in the dialogue called by his name, is introduced 
 to Socrates, who has just come home from a campaign, by 
 his cousin Critias. A mere lad when Socrates left for the 
 front, he had grown up to be a youth of splendid appearance, 
 and as he had complained the day before of a headache for 
 which Socrates, according to Critias, has brought a remedy 
 from a Thracian doctor, the two enter at once into conver- 
 sation. The remedy was not to be used without an incanta- 
 tion, and the object of the incantation was to purify the 
 patient's mind. But Charmides, said Critias, was as distin- 
 guished by his pure and well-directed mind as by his corporal 
 beauty. If so, says Socrates, the incantation is unnecessary ; 
 but would Charmides himself, though well known as sprung 
 from a race where the best possible traditions had always 
 prevailed, venture upon affirming that he really was possessed 
 of the virtue he was credited with by his cousin? And so 
 it happens that the nature of the virtue itgelf <ru<ppo<riuw 
 is first investigated. 
 
 To give the proper meaning of the word is, in our days, 
 by no means difficult. Its derivation shows it to denote that 
 disposition of mind which saves those possessed of it from 
 going wrong, and this is why it allows of various trans- 
 lationsself-control, continence, modesty, not one of which 
 expresses its full sense. But the Greeks in Plato's times 
 were no etymologists, and so the question put to Charmides 
 
 6
 
 82 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 about the meaning of the word was not easily answered by 
 him. His first reply that the virtue referred to consisted in 
 behaving quietly and properly, in gait and conversation was 
 promptly met by instances given by Socrates that quietness and 
 slowness were by no means desirable qualities, whether dis- 
 played in corporal or in mental operations. Again, that 
 modesty which is akin to bashfulness and whose name was 
 in good repute in Greece on account of its being used to 
 denote the reverence due to gods and men, was given by 
 Charmides as a likely definition, but with no better success. 
 Does not Homer say, asks Socrates, that bashfulness will not 
 do for those who have wants to be provided for? 
 
 Now Charmides comes to the front with a third definition, 
 which, says he, he had heard from somebody else. The 
 virtue under discussion consisted in minding one's own business. 
 Socrates at once guesses that the " somebody else " is Critias, 
 who denies, however, the soft impeachment. But the question 
 now put by Socrates to Charmides, whether the effect of his 
 definition was that nobody is to do anything for anybody 
 else, causes Critias to come to the rescue and undertake the 
 defence of the definition. His argument is, at first, rather 
 confused, and the only remarkable feature of it is that, having 
 quoted a line of Hesiod equivalent to "labour is no disgrace", 
 he, the thorough aristocrat, is made by Plato to name in one 
 breath the shoemaker, the fishmonger and the prostitute as 
 engaged in work to which the poet's remark could on no 
 account apply. What the discussion further brings to light 
 is that Critias considers the well-known inscription on the 
 gate of the temple of Delphi know yourself, to be nothing 
 else than an injunction to cultivate the virtue which Char- 
 mides has a right to lay claim to. If so, says Socrates, it 
 is evident that we have here to do with a branch of know- 
 ledge; and what is either the effect or the subject of this 
 knowledge ? And now Critias enters upon an argument about 
 a branch of knowledge which has no other subject than 
 knowledge itself.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 83 
 
 Socrates then first contends that, judging by the analogy 
 of other functions of body and mind, there cannot be a branch 
 of knowledge which has no other subject to deal with than 
 other branches of knowledge and itself; then, when Critias 
 himself appears to be altogether at sea, he vouchsafes to 
 admit the possibility, but questions the reality, of the new 
 branch of knowledge, on account of its leading to no result ; 
 again, he admits a possible result, viz. that, by its influence 
 on the minds of those in possession of it, it may lead to the 
 establishment of a condition of affairs in which every function 
 known in human society would be assigned to those having 
 a knowledge of it. But would, even if this came to pass, 
 a real advantage be gained? Would happiness be secured 
 if all things were done with the aid of knowledge? Say a 
 man was in possession of all knowledge imaginable ; what 
 would be the knowledge required to make him happy? That 
 of good and evil, replies Critias. If that is the case, resumes 
 Socrates, it is not the virtue praised as being the knowledge 
 of knowledge but simply the knowledge of good and evil 
 which is required, a knowledge which does not embrace 
 other branches, and which is essentially different from the 
 one recommended. So, after all, the investigation into the 
 nature of the virtue for which Charmides has been praised, 
 has led to no other result than that Charmides himself is 
 left in doubt what that virtue is. 
 
 The meaning of the inscription on the temple gate is in 
 itself sufficiently clear. " Know yourself is simply an advice 
 given to the visitors of the temple not to strive after that 
 which is beyond their individual powers; and this lesson is 
 of exactly the same nature as those given by the other two 
 inscriptions recorded : " do not go too far in anything, " and 
 " when you stand security, you will rue it. " This, however, 
 is denied by Critias, who while rightly stating that the idea 
 expressed by " know yourself" might as well be given by an 
 injunction to practise the virtue under discussion, considers 
 the other inscriptions to have been added by men who did
 
 84 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 not understand the real meaning of the principal one. But 
 what is meant by this knowledge of knowledge which, according 
 to Critias, is alluded to in the inscription? Is it a mere 
 man of straw, set up by Plato simply to demolish it, or is 
 there a doctrine behind it actually preached at Athens ? The 
 former supposition is hardly tenable, the idea advocated by 
 Critias being too novel and not sufficiently plausible to 
 be a mere figment of Plato's imagination. The latter is to 
 some extent favoured by the closing part of the dialogue, 
 where 'Critias, by strongly advising Charmides to take Socra- 
 tes as his guide, seems to admit that he himself had been 
 induced to take the wrong path. 
 
 Who then was the man whose ideas were opposed by Plato 
 in his Charmides? Who else than the only one, besides Plato 
 himself, who after having benefited by what he learnt from 
 Socrates, founded a philosophical school which was for ever 
 to make its mark on the history of the world. Epicurus, 
 who under the influence of the tendencies of his days drifted 
 into the shallows of natural science, may have given his 
 name to it, still it is Aristippus whom Horace rightly de- 
 scribes as having, by his doctrine, enabled him to say : " mihi 
 res, non me rebus, subjungere conor. " As the father of strict 
 individualism an individualism which would have rested on 
 its true foundations had he lived under the influence of ideas 
 which the Greeks wondered at on being informed of the belief 
 of a whole nation in them, but which Christianity has spread 
 all over the world, he made it a point, as stated in Xenophon's 
 Reminiscences, not to belong to any state whatever, so as 
 neither to be bound by the duties incumbent on those med- 
 dling with public affairs, nor dependent on ruling classes; 
 and is this not the very thing recommended by Critias as 
 the essence of the first and highest virtue of youth? But 
 to be able to mind one's own business, knowledge of self was 
 required in a higher sense than that of the Delphic inscrip- 
 tion. It was to be the knowledge of whatever is required 
 for holding one's own ; and this, as it implies acquaintance
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 85 
 
 with the motives by which the world is ruled, may have been 
 defined by him in terms somewhat similar to those which 
 Critias uses in describing that peculiar kind of knowledge 
 which, in his opinion, constituted one of the highest virtues 
 of man. 
 
 Bravery, valour, courage, all three are proper renderings 
 of the Greek word used for another of the four virtues, is 
 the subject of Plato's Laches. Two old men, sons of famous 
 statesmen but themselves little known, since their education 
 has been neglected, are anxious to give their sons a better 
 training, and for this reason they invite two of the best 
 generals of the time, Nicias and Laches, to accompany them 
 to a performance by a man who has made a study of the 
 handling of arms, and is prepared to give lessons in it. When 
 he has done they ask the generals whether it is advisable to 
 have their sons trained by him. Socrates happens to be present 
 on the occasion, and the generals ask why he is not consulted 
 about the education of the youngsters. It is then found that 
 not only is Socrates often mentioned by the latter when 
 taking their meals with their parents, but that his father 
 was a friend to the old men, who now willingly associate 
 him with their other advisers. But then Nicias is found to 
 consider a training by the drill-master very useful, whereas 
 Laches, who has seen the man cut a very sorry figure in 
 battle, shows the utmost contempt for him and his art. 
 Socrates is unwilling to decide between these two opinions, 
 but advises the old men to go on consulting the generals, 
 for they are in a position to hold sound views on education, 
 and what is of greater importance than to have one's sons 
 properly educated ? The fathers are at once ready to follow 
 this advice, but Nicias says that he is too well acquainted 
 with Socrates not to know what he means by it. Both he 
 and Laches will have to undergo a regular examination by 
 Socrates; but, adds he, I do not care, for I am accustomed 
 to it. Laches is not, but he has no objection to be taken 
 in hand by Socrates, whose sterling qualities he has learnt
 
 86 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 to appreciate on the battle-field. So the training of the lads 
 towards virtue, in the Greek sense of the word, is to be 
 discussed ; but first of all comes the question what virtue is, 
 and Socrates is of opinion that, instead of taking the whole, 
 they had better begin with valour as a part of it. 
 
 Laches, being questioned by Socrates, gives a definition of 
 valour akin to that of beauty by Hippias, but sounding a 
 good deal better in the mouth of a military man than in that 
 of a sophist. Valour, he says, is to remain in the ranks and 
 fight. Socrates points out that heavy armed infantry may 
 show their valour by remaining in the ranks, but that with 
 Scythian cavalry and others it is a different case ; and when 
 Laches comes to the front with a definition in better form 
 that valour is persistence he is asked whether persistence 
 in error is a virtue. Not even, argues Socrates, is persistence 
 coupled with wisdom always held to be bravery; men who 
 venture into danger without being acquainted with means to 
 encounter it, are often praised for their courage. Laches 
 having failed to solve the problem, Nicias is appealed to, and 
 he tells his companion in arms that he knows nothing about 
 the matter, since valour is nothing else than wisdom and 
 knowledge : the knowledge of what is dangerous and what is 
 not. Are wild boars and lions not brave, asks Socrates, and 
 where have they studied valour? On the whole, Nicias gets 
 off worse than Laches, though by no means in his own opinion ; 
 and the end is that no conclusion is arrived at about the 
 nature of valour, but that Socrates is recommended by both 
 of the generals as best able to take charge of the young men. 
 
 There are other dialogues of Plato's which are of even 
 greater importance for those anxious to study his relations 
 with, and opinion of, Socrates than most of those mentioned 
 in the present chapter. In this statement, however, is not 
 included his Theages, where Socrates is introduced giving to 
 the father of a young man who wants to be his scholar, an 
 idea of that mysterious voice which warned him often against 
 what he and others were about to do, and which is mentioned
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 87 
 
 in other dialogues too as making itself heard, whereas it was 
 silent when he had to suffer death, showing that, for him, 
 death was no evil. In the Theages such repetitions and 
 reminiscences of passages from other dialogues are met with, 
 that it is difficult to believe in its being genuine. Nor are 
 the Rivals referred to, a short and well-written dialogue in 
 which a young Athenian is cured of wrong ideas about philosophy 
 as having as its object to know something of everything ; for 
 it is of little importance for the knowledge of Plato's views, 
 and like the Theages contains a goodly amount of matter 
 found elsewhere in Platonic dialogues. But then there are 
 the Banquet and the Phaedo, both evidently written as much 
 with a view to give an idea of Socrates, as for the purpose 
 of solving philosophical problems. Still, as both of them are 
 intimately connected with important points of Plato's doctrine, 
 it is preferable to discuss them at a later stage. 
 
 VIII. PLATO AND THE OLDER SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 BOTH the Ionic school of philosophy and that of Elea were 
 known and not devoid of influence at Athens in days either 
 remembered by Plato or shortly before his time. Of the 
 Ionic school the branch of which Heraclitus of Ephesus was 
 the head, would appear to have been most popular, although 
 Anaxagoras too was not unknown to the Athenian public. 
 Parmenides, the head of the Eleatic school, was said to have 
 visited Athens when Socrates was quite a young man, and 
 two Athenian generals of note, both mentioned by Thucydides, 
 are named in one of Plato's dialogues as having studied 
 under Zeno, successor to Parmenides. Plato himself is reported 
 to have been initiated in the doctrine of Heraclitus by Cratylus, 
 and in the dialogue named after the latter the tenets of the 
 school he belonged to are frequently alluded to. 
 
 The followers of Heraclitus are called by Plato the psovres 
 one might translate "the men of the currents," since
 
 88 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 in their opinion nature was subject to currents of never ceasing 
 change. Nobody, said Heraclitus, can enter the same river 
 twice, the water he first waded through having been carried 
 to the sea. The Eleatic school held contrary views, since 
 to them the immutability of what is, as far as the fact of 
 its being is concerned, was unquestionable. Of the sophists 
 whom Socrates had to deal with, Protagoras is named by 
 Plato among those holding views similar to those of Heraclitus : 
 His peculiar doctrine, laid down in his book on "Truth," 
 was that man was the measure of everything, and he made 
 it subservient to a subjectivism, if the word be allowed, 
 pushed to its utmost limits; but although in the Theaetetus, 
 where it is refuted, a mathematician of note is introduced as 
 being rather partial to it, it is alluded to already, in the Cratylus 
 as hardly such as to meet with approval. In the same 
 dialogue the doctrine of Euthydemus is given in the words 
 that " for everybody everything existed (or everybody had 
 everything) equally together and always," from which it is 
 inferred that virtue and vice were always common to all. 
 This is all that is known about it, but from the dialogue 
 called after him, it is seen that he too made use of scraps 
 borrowed from the Ionic school. 
 
 In Plato's Cratylus the doctrines of Heraclitus, in his 
 Parmenides those of the Eleatic school, are mentioned in 
 terms clearly showing that he had studied them. Both dia- 
 logues are older than the Theaetetus. The Cratylus because 
 it contains references to the tenets of the Ionic school which 
 would be altogether out of place after the wholesale condem- 
 nation of those tenets in the dialogue on knowledge. The 
 Parmenides because it cannot have been written after the 
 Sophist, in which Plato gives his own ontology taking a 
 nameless Eleatic philosopher as his mouthpiece, and because 
 both in the Theaetetus (p. 183 E) and in the Sophist (p. 217 C) 
 there are allusions to the meeting between Socrates and 
 Parmenides of which the dialogue called after the latter is 
 represented as containing the record.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 89 
 
 The Cratylus, though its ulterior object is to demonstrate 
 the fallacy of the doctrine of Heraclitus, has language as its 
 ostensible subject. This subject is introduced by Hermogenes, 
 who wants Socrates to decide between his view of it and 
 that of Cratylus. In his opinion names have been given to 
 things simply in consequence of an agreement, there being 
 no reason why, another agreement being substituted for it, 
 a man should not be called a horse and a horse a man. 
 Cratylus, on the other hand, contends that things get their 
 names in accordance with their natures, and that, for this 
 reason, Hermogenes cannot be his friend's name. This was 
 simply a joke. Hermes was the god of luck, and Hermogenes, 
 though his name would show him to have been generated by 
 Hermes, was as regards his financial affairs about the un- 
 luckiest man of Athens. Socrates is found to agree with 
 Cratylus. He believes, and so does Hermogenes, that it is 
 possible to give a wrong account of a thing, and as verbal 
 accounts have nouns as their constituent parts, there is no 
 reason to believe that the latter cannot also be wrong. 
 Those holding the views of Protagoras and Euthydemus 
 might think differently, but whoever disagreed with them 
 had to admit that everything was to be done according to 
 its own nature, and to speak was to do a thing. As in 
 weaving, a shuttle is an instrument made of wood by a 
 carpenter, who can make it of different kinds of wood, but 
 whose work is only then as it should be when it has the 
 qualities required in it by the weaver, so, in speaking, a 
 name or noun the Greeks had but one word to express both 
 notions, is an instrument of which letters and syllables are 
 the materials, made by the lawgiver but judged, as to its 
 fitness for the purpose it has to serve, by those versed in 
 dialectic. Now the question is how to judge whether a name 
 is, or is not, as it should be. When Socrates is informed 
 by Homer that to a river or a bird one name is given by 
 the gods and another by men, he takes it for granted that 
 the name given by the gods is the more suitable one, but
 
 90 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 how is he to find the reason of the difference? When, 
 however, Hector's son was, according to Homer, called by 
 one name by his parents and by another by the Trojan 
 public, there might be reasons to prefer the latter, and 
 indeed, what better name than Astyanax, the ruler of the 
 town, could be given to the son of the man by whose valour 
 the town was saved from destruction? And so, led on by 
 questions put by Hermogenes, Socrates enters upon a series 
 of etymological attempts, explaining the names of gods, 
 objects of nature and moral ideas, which takes up about 
 half of the dialogue, and which makes him display a readiness 
 and ingenuity which he himself ascribes to the influence of 
 
 conversation he had lately had with Euthyphron, the great 
 authority on matters divine. 
 
 These etymological fancies should, of course, not be judged 
 by any other standard than that of Plato's own days, and 
 when they are wrong or even ridiculous, this cannot, in it- 
 self, be taken as a reason why Plato himself should have 
 viewed them in this light. But there are some which it is 
 hardly possible for any one to take seriously. 'EOT/# means 
 in Greek, the hearth ; that the goddess Hestia is nothing else 
 than an impersonation of the family hearth is so clearly seen 
 from whatever is recorded about her worship, that every 
 Greek must have felt it. Still her name is stated by Socrates 
 to be a distorted form of sV/#, which, says he, was an old 
 word equivalent to ofoia, the verbal noun derived from elvatt, 
 to be. * And on the whole, remarks are constantly made 
 both by Socrates himself and by Hermogenes which can be 
 taken as evidence that the whole of this part of the dialogue 
 is nothing else than a continuous irony, so that it is the height 
 of folly to take certain statements met with in it, such as 
 that about star-worship being the oldest form of religion in 
 
 *The passage in p. 401 v.al on ys KV fjiisis TO rfjg ovaias (iTE%ov 
 Ectiav rpKtiiv, is unintelligible, but it is easily corrected when for 
 EGTIUV is substituted 5 ian, which words are also used for " that which 
 is" in p. 423 E. See also Farm. p. 134 A.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 91 
 
 Greece, as seriously meant. But while engaged in explaining 
 names, Socrates is suddenly made to discover that he has hit 
 upon " a swarm of wisdom ", viz. that the true key to them 
 is the doctrine of Heraclitus and his school, the groundwork of 
 them being evidently the eternal motion produced by the currents. 
 
 But, says Hermogenes when Socrates has reached the end 
 of his discourse, why not explain those very words denoting 
 currents and motion from which all the others are derived? 
 There must be, is the reply, certain primary words, which 
 are not capable of any such explanation as can be applied 
 to those derived from them. This statement, however, is followed 
 by an attempt at explaining them which is, for linguistical 
 scholars, the great and conspicuous merit of the dialogue, as 
 a first and most ingenious attempt at investigating the origin 
 of language. We must begin, says Socrates, with the letters 
 of the alphabet as the component parts of words, and it would 
 appear that these letters were, in forming words, used accord- 
 ing to a regular system by those who have made language 
 that which it is. The letter p was taken by them to express 
 motion; the / to denote that thinness which enables one 
 element of matter quickly to penetrate into, and make its 
 way through, another. Sibilants are naturally fit to express 
 flatulence and fermentation ; 5 and r, as to pronounce them 
 the tongue is pressed against the front edge of the palate, 
 are to be used in words expressing binding and halting. To 
 give the idea of smoothness A is the proper letter ; combined 
 with y it joins that of stickiness to it. A couple of vowels 
 follow, and so the ground is laid for a theory of language. 
 
 Cratylus, who till then had been a patient listener, now 
 expresses his unqualified approval of whatever Socrates has 
 said ; and well he might, all the derivations suggested being 
 in accordance with the tenets of the school of which he was 
 an adherent. But when Socrates starts the question whether 
 or not a lawgiver can bestow unsuitable names on things, 
 Cratylus, holding as he does the ontological view of his school 
 that things that are cannot be false, as this would imply
 
 92 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 that they are not, no longer agrees with his friend. Being 
 reminded that he himself had denied the propriety of the 
 name given to Hermogenes, he replies that he had denied 
 its being his name ; and although, by comparing names to 
 pictures, Socrates tries to get an admission from him that, as 
 an image in paint can be incorrect, so a name can be, and 
 points out that, if he takes a different standard for pictures 
 to that for names, he must necessarily drift into the opinion 
 given by Hermogenes that names are given to things by 
 agreement, he sticks to his point. 
 
 It is then that Socrates asks him whether he admits the 
 correctness of the derivations given and of the remarks about 
 the nature of various letters of the alphabet, and whether 
 there are not actually words, instances of which are given, 
 in which those letters are not used in accordance with the 
 principles they represent. There would, replies Cratylus, not 
 be that uniformity observed in the derivation of words, if 
 they owed their origin to anything else than true knowledge. 
 How, says Socrates, if this uniformity is doubtful? How if 
 other derivations, quite as good as those given in favour of 
 the doctrine of motion and currents, can be put forward by 
 the partisans of immovability and immutability? He had, in 
 his etymological attempts, represented knowledge, STTKTT^^., as 
 the faithful following, by the mind, of things moved on by 
 currents, but had admitted that, this being the case, the 
 should be taken off, probably because TT/OTJ^ reminded him 
 of TTKTTO?, faithful. Why not, says he now, keep the f, and 
 explain the word as expressing the act of making the mind 
 take its stand on things as they are ? Having added several 
 other derivations of a similar kind, he asks whether, even if 
 they should be fewer in number than those given in the 
 course of his conversation with Hermogenes, the evidence 
 supplied by them should be less depended upon. But then, 
 when all things are on the move, is the mental perception 
 (yvayi?) of them to be immovable, or is it subject to the 
 same motion and change? Is, if the latter proposition is
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 93 
 
 agreed to, the contention tenable that all names must be and 
 remain the right ones ? There are those, adds Socrates, who 
 believe in immutable ideas of beauty and the like, and while 
 they are consistent in putting their faith in mental percep- 
 tion, the followers of a school which, by considering all things 
 to be subject to continued motion and change, does not even 
 allow them to be mentally perceived and known, are not. 
 There the dialogue ends, Cratylus admitting that the view 
 of matters referred to by Socrates is worthy of consideration, 
 but for the present not abandoning the tenets which, till 
 then, he has professed to hold. 
 
 The Platonic ideas, in that sense of the word in which it 
 is used as denoting a leading feature of Platonic philosophy, 
 are mentioned in the concluding part of the Cratylus as they 
 are in the Euthyphron, where that which is in itself oviov 
 and imparts this quality to things and acts, is opposed to 
 things and acts in which this quality is manifested. So 
 they are in the earlier part of the dialogue, but not as refer- 
 ring to abstract qualities expressed by adjectives used sub- 
 stantively in the neuter gender, but as to things existing and 
 in common use, the carpenter who makes a new shuttle being 
 stated not to make it after the model of one which has just 
 been broken, but after the idea of a shuttle which is before 
 his mind, and which he is to reproduce in wood. They are 
 referred to much more pointedly and fully in Plato's Parme- 
 nides, which may be, but need not be, slightly older than 
 the Cratylus, but certainly, like the latter, belongs to the 
 period when Plato was still seeking for truth in existing 
 systems of philosophy. 
 
 Parmenides, whose name is always mentioned in Plato's 
 dialogues in terms of the highest respect, was the chief, and 
 can be called the founder, of the Eleatic school of philosophy, 
 although Xenophanes and it would appear even earlier thinkers 
 were named as his predecessors. The principles of his 
 doctrine were given in a poem, of which remnants are in 
 existence equalled, in grandeur of thought and language, only
 
 94 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 by Rome's great didactic poet. Instead of, like the men of 
 the Ionic school, attempting to find the principle in which 
 things have their origin either in primary elements, in natural 
 or mental forces, or in both, he took the abstract idea of 
 being, ov<ri, as the true subject for philosophy, and the one 
 principle of the existence of things; and while denying that 
 there could be anything which was not, he insisted on the 
 oneness of that which was. 
 
 The dialogue called after Parmenides begins with a reference 
 to the philosopher's visit to Athens, when he was on the 
 wrong side of sixty, and was accompanied by his much 
 younger friend Zeno. Socrates was then a youth, and a 
 record of a conversation between him and the philosophers 
 had been, according to Plato, preserved by an Athenian who 
 had studied under Zeno. This record is stated to be reproduced 
 in the dialogue. A treatise by Zeno had been read, and had 
 been attentively listened to by Socrates, who observed how- 
 ever that it made on him the impression as if in reality it 
 contained nothing else than what Parmenides had already 
 stated in a different form. Parmenides had urged the oneness 
 of things existing; Zeno attempted to prove, which came to 
 the same, that their plurality was impossible, since it would 
 imply that things were, at the same time, similar and dis- 
 similar to one another. Zeno, to some extent, admits the 
 truth of this observation. He had written his treatise to 
 show that, if the doctrine of Parmenides might lead to very 
 strange results, that of his opponents brought still worse 
 ones; but it was a work of his youth, and had been published 
 without his consent. But, says Socrates, is there not an 
 abstract idea of similarity and one of dissimilarity, and cannot 
 existing things partake of both at the same time? Unity 
 and plurality exist together in things which are seen, such 
 as man, but the great question is whether between the ideas 
 themselves there can be a communication enabling them to 
 mix and again to separate, and it would be a splendid thing 
 if this question were solved.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 95 
 
 This was rather bold language for a youngster, but instead 
 of resenting it the philosophers exchanged nods and smiles of 
 approval. Parmenides compliments Socrates on his early 
 predilection for philosophical research, especially after hearing 
 that he owes his thoughts about similarity and dissimilarity 
 to himself; and then he refers to the ideas of justice and of 
 beauty, of man and the elements of nature, even of things 
 like hair and mud. Socrates has his doubts about the great 
 objects met with in nature, and would be afraid of falling 
 into absurdities if he thought of ideas of vile things; but 
 this utterance of his is ascribed by Parmenides to his youth 
 and his want of philosophical study. Other questions by 
 Parmenides follow, first of all whether, when things share in 
 the quality involved in an idea, they take to themselves the 
 whole or part of it; and Socrates becomes aware that by 
 answering this question in either way he gets into difficulty, 
 which becomes even worse when it is pointed out to him 
 that the method by which the human mind is made to perceive 
 the existence of the ideas he has referred to, presents this 
 danger that they do not get a definite shape but have a 
 tendency to be multiplied ad infinitum. Cannot, asks Socrates 
 the ideas simply exist in the minds of men ? The ideas, 
 replies Parmenides, must refer to something, and that some- 
 thing cannot be a thought. Then Socrates tries to represent 
 the ideas as self-existent models, after which things are formed 
 and to which they are similar. A thing cannot be similar 
 to an idea, says Parmenides, adding, as another reason why 
 this conception of definite ideas gives trouble, that it is 
 very difficult to refute those who deny the possibility of their 
 being known by the human mind. They cannot, says he, 
 have their seats in the mind when existing by themselves. 
 Again, the mutual relations between ideas are not the same 
 as those between things. Slave and master are both men ; 
 slavery and authority are ideas. Would Socrates admit that 
 the latter cannot be understood by men? If so, if they 
 belonged to an order of things only knowable by the gods,
 
 96 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 would it not follow that the gods did not know the order 
 of things existing among men ? This could not be thought 
 of, and it would be most unfortunate if, the possibility for 
 the human mind to obtain a knowledge of the ideas being 
 denied, a period were put to all philosophical research. 
 
 What could be done to get the better of these difficulties? 
 Parmenides recommends certain gymnastics of the mind, which 
 were vulgarly designated by a term of contempt (otiotevxioi), 
 as if they were mere talk; but this very term is used, on. 
 more than one occasion, by Plato in a more favourable sense, 
 just as in our days debating clubs are at one time praised 
 as excellent schools for future legislators, at another referred 
 to as tending to develop talking powers which render those 
 provided with them altogether unbearable. But not every 
 man was fit to give an idea of those gymnastics, and Par- 
 menides himself had to take charge of the task, one of the 
 company then quite a young man, in his old age one of 
 the Thirty undertaking to reply to his questions. 
 
 Then follows a long series of arguments on the question 
 what would be the effect of either the existence or the non- 
 existence of one the number one taken in the abstract. If 
 one exists it will not be many; not being many it will not 
 have parts; not having parts it will not have a form and 
 will not be anywhere, since if it were in anything, it would 
 have to be in contact with that in which it would be, and 
 this would be impossible unless it had parts, &c. &c. Ulti- 
 mately, by going on with the argument, it is found that one 
 can have no existence (oy<r/), and this, of course, will not 
 do, the whole argument having started from the supposition 
 that one did exist. So the question is asked again, with this 
 difference that a stress is laid, this time, not on one but on 
 is. Now, of course, one has an existence, but then it must 
 have parts too, its existence being one and itself another, 
 and each of these parts having again an existence of its own, 
 the number of parts becomes unlimited. So there is no doubt 
 that one is many, and that oneness is the attribute of every
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 97 
 
 part of one, the whole containing these parts being limited 
 through the fact of its containing them, whereas the number 
 of parts is infinite. Whatever, in fact, has been stated in 
 the first argument is reversed in the second, but in the 
 second something is found which does not occur in the first, 
 viz. that one conclusion arrived at is immediately followed 
 by its opposite for instance that one must be something 
 else than not one, and again that it cannot be something 
 else, and that such mutually contrary conclusions are then 
 given together as results of the argument. Another instance 
 is the simultaneous existence of similarity and dissimilarity 
 between what is one and what is not, of course not with 
 reference to such qualities as they may have, but to their 
 being; and when their equality and inequality are taken in 
 hand, the question of ideas is touched upon, the argument 
 being that bigness and smallness, taken by themselves, exist 
 in regard to one another but cannot be in any other being, 
 since, if this were the case, they would lose the characteristics 
 by which they are what they are. This argument has to 
 prove the equality between one and other things, their inequa- 
 lity being proved by another. So this second argument, a 
 very long one, goes on, leaving nothing uncontroverted of 
 what had been stated in the first, but giving no results 
 which are not at once followed by contrary ones; and now 
 a third takes the question in hand what is to become of one 
 when all these different conclusions have been arrived at, 
 and when it is found on one hand to partake, on the other 
 not to partake, of existence. Here we find mentioned both 
 that process of mixing and separating which Socrates had 
 touched upon in his remarks on Zeno, and a necessity, when 
 changes take place in regard to one, of those changes being 
 sudden and taking no time whatever, since their taking even 
 the smallest amount of time would necessitate a state of 
 aifairs intermediate between the mutually opposite ones of 
 which the one makes room for the other, and altogether 
 impossible. 
 
 7
 
 98 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 The things that are not one are then considered, it being 
 admitted that they partake in some way of oneness, and 
 argued that they are also like one in combining such opposite 
 qualities as limit and infinity, similarity and dissimilarity, &c. 
 This having been made evident, a counter-argument is entered 
 upon, somewhat similar to the second argument on the exis- 
 tence of one, the contention being that the other things 
 cannot partake of oneness, and that, on the whole, nothing 
 of the former argument can be correct. 
 
 A new argument has as its subject the question what 
 would happen if one did not exist. As it would be impos- 
 sible to mention the non-existence of one unless one were 
 something known and distinct from other things, it is argued 
 that one not being is much in the same position as one being, 
 since it must necessarily, to some extent, partake of 
 existence, inasmuch as one not being must be in the posi- 
 tion of not being, just as one being is not in that position. 
 But there must be a change from being to not being and 
 vice versa ; and while on one hand a change involves motion, 
 there is, on the other hand, no possibility of one not being 
 moving in anything that is. So one not being would seem 
 to share with one being the happy faculty of at the same 
 time moving and standing still, were it not for another 
 counter-argument. When one is not, says this argument, it 
 is subject to an absence of existence, and so it cannot 
 partake either of existence or of anything connected with it. 
 
 One other argument is gone through, on the question how 
 it will be with other things if one is not. What would be 
 things other than one if one were not? They might be other 
 than something by being different among themselves, but 
 none of them would be one, consisting as they would of 
 multitudes, each of them innumerable in this sense of the 
 word that, the existence of one being necessary for that of 
 number, it would be impossible to count them. It would 
 even be difficult to get a conception of any of them, unless 
 they offered an appearance of oneness. Then comes the
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 99 
 
 counter-argument, by which it is denied that, one not being, 
 other things can even appear to be one; and the dialogue 
 ends in a brief recapitulation of the arguments, to the effect 
 that if one is not, there can in reality be nothing, and that, 
 whether one is or is not, itself and other things, with regard 
 to themselves and one another, all of them in every respect 
 are and are not, and appear and do not appear. 
 
 More than two thirds of the dialogue is taken up by these 
 arguments, of which only a meagre outline has been given 
 here, and which forcibly remind their readers of those " arid 
 paths of thought " which are said to be the philosophers' 
 favourite walks. Now the question arises why they consti- 
 tute the main part of a dialogue which begins with one of the 
 most interesting discussions met with in any part of Plato's 
 works. Surely Plato's intention cannot have been to give an 
 idea of the doctrines and proceedings of the Eleatic school, 
 the ScA<r%/# referred to by Parmenides not being at all 
 limited to it, and a definite statement being made in the 
 Theaetetus that it is unsafe to meddle with thoughts of such 
 depth. Parmenides, as has been stated, recommends arguments 
 like those he sets forth as mental gymnastics; but can Plato 
 have given them simply as a specimen of what could be 
 done in this line ? This is anything but likely, and at all 
 events, the object of these gymnastics cannot have been the 
 one for which Mephistopheles recommends * collegium logi- 
 cum" that of so fettering the mind as to prevent its wander- 
 ing about along new paths, for they favour scepticism 
 rather than dogmatism ; and although the main conclusion 
 arrived at, that about the necessity of the existence of one, 
 is contrary to those views of the school of Heraclitus which 
 .are refuted in the Theaetetus, it is anything but likely that 
 Plato, had he intended to take his stand on it against his 
 opponents, would have argued the point in such a manner. 
 What appears to be the most rational explanation will be 
 reserved for the end of this chapter, when the Theaetetus 
 and Sophist will have been considered.
 
 100 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 The Theaetetus has not, as its subject, the views of He- 
 raclitus and Protagoras, but it touches upon them and does 
 away with them in the course of a discussion on the matter. 
 After an introductory conversation between a Megarian phi- 
 losopher and his friend, from which it appears that at the 
 time of the Corinthian war Theaetetus was a man of note, 
 and that an interesting dialogue between him and Socrates 
 had been held, a slave is made to read the dialogue, in 
 which Theaetetus is mentioned by Theodorus the mathema- 
 tician to Socrates as a most promising youth. Socrates, of 
 course, is both happy to make his acquaintance and ready 
 to put his rising talent to the test, asking him questions 
 about the knowledge he is bent on acquiring, and at the 
 same time stating that he himself should like nothing better 
 than to get an idea what knowledge really was. Theaetetus 
 replies in the usual way, naming various branches of know- 
 ledge, but he is the more easily made to understand the 
 real meaning of the question as he is no stranger to 
 mathematical definitions. Still he is afraid to give an 
 answer, and now it is that those " mental obstetrics" are 
 mentioned by Socrates which have been referred to in the 
 preceding chapter, and are most excellently exemplified in 
 the dialogue now under consideration. 
 
 By these means Theaetetus is induced to reply to the 
 question, and his reply is that, as far as he can see, know- 
 ledge is the same as perception. This comes, says Socrates, 
 to the same as what is taught by Protagoras when in his 
 book he speaks of man as the measure of all things. He 
 then points out that this doctrine is closely related to that 
 of Heraclitus and others about the eternal motion of things 
 and their uninterrupted course of generation and change. 
 Still, although there is much to be said in favour of this 
 doctrine, there are difficulties in it, and especially because 
 it does not take such relations between things into account 
 as are solely dependent on mathematical calculations. In 
 fact, there are those among the followers of Heraclitus wha
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 101 
 
 deny the existence of whatever cannot be seen or felt, 
 whereas others take perception and that which is perceived 
 as intermediate between the organs of perception and the 
 things by which perception is provoked. When the whiteness 
 of a thing strikes the eye, the latter is made, by its power 
 of sight, to see, and it sees not whiteness but the white 
 colour generated by whiteness in the thing which acts on 
 the eye. So the sensations connected with perception and 
 the forces causing them are always momentarily generated, 
 and this is the gist both of the doctrine of motion and 
 change and of the subjectivism advocated by Protagoras. 
 Socrates suffering from illness is dissimilar to Socrates in 
 good health, and when the wine which tastes sweet to him 
 when he is well has a bitter taste for him when he is ill, 
 both he himself and the wine are identical to what they 
 were before, but the intermediates his perception of wine 
 .and the taste which wine has for him, have changed. 
 But when to this doctrine that of Theaetetus, about the 
 identity of perception and knowledge, is added, Socrates 
 &sks why man should be the measure of things, and not 
 just as well a baboon or a tadpole. Why does Protagoras 
 boast of his wisdom, when everything is to everybody that 
 which it is made to be by momentary sensation? 
 
 Theodorus, who had been on most friendly terms with 
 Protagoras, and who had taken part in the conversation, 
 considers this remark to be too bad, and as he prefers not 
 to have anything to do with the discussion, Socrates resumes 
 the subject by further questioning Theaetetus, and making 
 him agree that, knowledge being the same as perception, it 
 must cease together with it; that a thing is known to the 
 one who remembers it ; and that, accordingly, any one 
 knowing a thing by memory but no longer perceiving it, 
 would be, if knowledge and perception were the same, in 
 the impossible position of at the same time knowing and 
 not knowing it. But then Socrates himself remarks that it 
 is easy to triumph over an adversary who is absent and
 
 102 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 defenceless; and as Theodorus again declines to take charge^ 
 of his friend's defence, Socrates does so in a spirited speech, 
 in which Protagoras is introduced as telling him that he 
 fancies having gained a victory by putting misleading ques- 
 tions to a mere lad, but that he has simply misrepresented 
 him. Man is the measure of things, but this does not 
 prevent one man from being wiser than another. Wine has 
 a bitter taste, and is bitter, for a man who is ill, but when 
 the patient has been cured by a medical man, he recovers 
 his taste for wine ; and so the sophist cures the minds of 
 men whose opinions, although true, are on account of mental 
 deficiencies of their holders bad and pernicious for them. 
 So the sophist is a benefactor to mankind, and discussions 
 tending to lower philosophy in the eyes of man cannot do 
 anything but harm. Theodorus compliments Socrates on his 
 defence of his friend, but being reminded by him that Pro- 
 tagoras, as he had caused him to come to the front, had 
 complained about his discussing great questions with a lad, 
 he is compelled to take himself the further defence of 
 Protagoras in hand. 
 
 Now follows a debate carried on leisurely and touching 
 on various topics, one of which a most interesting one,, 
 since it refers to the relative position of philosophers and 
 men of forensic business at Athens will have to be reserved 
 for the next chapter. As to the views held by Protagoras,, 
 the question is put whether men are not generally of opinion 
 that they are acquainted with certain matters and unacquainted 
 with other ones, and whether, for this reason, they do not 
 in many cases prefer the opinions of others to their own. 
 Is this not evidence of their disagreeing with a doctrine 
 which denies that there are false as well as true opinions, 
 and is the view of the one man holding this doctrine to be- 
 maintained against the opinions of the large number of those- 
 who, "being admitted by him to see the truth, differ from 
 him? Even if there were something in the contention that, 
 when a state has laid down, by law, certain principles of
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 103 
 
 justice, they are to be considered, by the citizens, to be 
 true, would any one maintain that the measures taken by 
 states to promote their own advantage, must be truly 
 advantageous to them? Does not such legislation provide 
 for the future, and does Protagoras mean to say that even 
 in regard to the future man is the measure of all things? 
 Theodorus admits the soundness of the arguments levelled at 
 his friend's view, and so the only question still remaining 
 is that of the doctrine of Heraclitus, which, after a most 
 unfavourable judgment passed by Theodorus on contemporaneous 
 followers of the Ephesian philosopher, is contrasted by Socrates 
 with that of Parmenides, men of lower standing being placed 
 in rather a difficult position between the two. His own 
 reason for not siding with Heraclitus is that the theory of 
 the eternal motion of all things renders even perception im- 
 possible, when nothing for one moment remains as it is, 
 and is incompatible with the idea of knowledge. So it is 
 discarded, not without a slight reference to that necessity of 
 the existence of one which is insisted on in the concluding 
 sentence of the Parmenides ; but though asked by Theaetetus 
 also to go through the doctrine of the Eleatic school, Socrates 
 prefers to resume at once the debate on the question what 
 knowledge is. 
 
 Theaetetus, when asked whether, perception and knowledge 
 being held by him to be the same, he considers the per- 
 ceptions obtained by seeing and hearing to be those of the 
 eyes and ears, or only got through their instrumentality, 
 admits that eyes and ears must be simply organs through 
 which the mind perceives, and that there are things which 
 the mind perceives without these organs, such as similarity 
 and dissimilarity, and also existence (ov<rl#) and non-exis- 
 tence. As the latter class cannot be perceived without study 
 and reasoning, it must be taken for granted that knowledge 
 is not a mere matter of such perception as comes by itself 
 to everybody, but is connected with the action of the mind ; 
 and that action is seen in opinion. There are, however,
 
 104 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 thinks Theaetetus, false as well as true opinions, and opinion 
 in accordance with truth is now given by him as a new 
 definition of knowledge. But now the old question of the 
 Euthydemus whether or not there can be false opinions, 
 is raised once more, and that too by Socrates himself, whose 
 argument on the subject comes to this that everybody has 
 things which he knows and things which he does not know, 
 that false opinions can only be formed by taking these 
 things for one another, and that this is not possible in any 
 imaginable manner. After some discussion the idea is also 
 discarded that a false opinion might be formed simply by 
 imagining, for to imagine a thing which is not would be to 
 imagine nothing. 
 
 After various attempts at solving the difficulty, Socrates 
 comes to the front with the idea that there might be in the 
 mind something like a wax tablet, where whatever is per- 
 ceived by its possessor is impressed more or less clearly 
 and deeply, according to the quality of the wax. Would it 
 not be natural for these impressions gradually to vanish, 
 and to become so obliterated that one could be easily taken 
 for another ? Socrates then points out which mistakes cannot 
 be made when his idea is correct, and which can; but after 
 a lengthy explanation of the whole matter, much admired 
 by Theaetetus, he himself upsets everything by observing 
 that the impressions made in the wax must be the effects of 
 perception of one kind or the other, and that mistakes are 
 frequently made in matters solely pertaining to mental 
 action, such as numbers. 
 
 For the wax tablet an aviary is substituted. To be pos- 
 sessed of knowledge is one thing, to have it at hand an- 
 other. Say that the various things known by anyone are 
 quartered in a mental aviary, where they have to be caught 
 by the owner before he can make use of them. Could not 
 then the wrong one be caught, a ringdove instead of a 
 turtle dove? But would any knowledge caught be, to the 
 owner, a cause of mistakes ? Why not, asks Theaetetus,
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 105 
 
 put ignorance of things in the same cage with knowledge? 
 How can, retorts Socrates, judging by what we have al- 
 ready agreed upon, any one mistake what he does not 
 know for what he knows ? So the aviary shares the tablet's 
 fate. 
 
 The best plan, then says Socrates, is to leave alone, for 
 the present, the question of false opinions, and to try once 
 more our hands at a definition of knowledge. That given 
 by Theaetetus cannot be the correct one, for it often happens 
 that a body of men, say an Athenian court-of-law, is 
 brought to hold a correct opinion on a matter without really 
 knowing it. Admitting this, Theaetetus is of opinion that 
 his definition can stand, provided it be added that, for a 
 true opinion to be the same as knowledge, it is required 
 that its holder should be able to give an account (koyos) of 
 it. The remaining part of the dialogue is devoted to the 
 question what is meant by such an account, and of what 
 and how it can be given. The first elements of things are 
 held to be such that no account can be given of them. If 
 so, can it be called an account of compound things when 
 their elements are properly stated ? The letters of the 
 alphabet are the elements of syllables and words. Surely 
 a, man who correctly spells the name Theaetetus has a true 
 opinion about it, but if the same man were found to write 
 Theodoras with a r instead of a 0, would any one consider him 
 ^,s being possessed of real knowledge of the former name? 
 This not being the case, it is surmised that the account to 
 be given of a thing might consist in pointing out that by 
 which it is distinguished from all other things, and that know- 
 ledge of the thing might be possessed by those able to give 
 such an account. Unfortunately the distinguishing point 
 cannot be given without a knowledge of it, and a definition 
 of knowledge referring to it would suffer from the grave 
 -defect of containing, as one of its component parts, the thing 
 which is to be defined. 
 
 So the first pregnancy of Theaetetus ends in a miscarriage,
 
 106 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 but he should, says Socrates, find a consolation in the fact 
 that, if a second one should take place, he would have an 
 experience of the obstetrical treatment he will have to undergo 
 which must prove of the highest value to him. 
 
 According to an arrangement mentioned at the end of the 
 dialogue, Socrates, Theodorus and their young friends meet 
 again the next day, Theodorus being accompanied by a philo- 
 sopher from Elea, introduced by him to Socrates as a man 
 of moderate views and free from the pugnacity often met 
 with in philosophical partisans. Having received the stranger 
 most cordially, Socrates asks him whether or not, at Elea, 
 a difference is made between a sophist, a politician and a 
 philosopher, and having been answered in the affirmative,, 
 he requests him to give an idea of what each of the three 
 is. Although this is, in the stranger's opinion, rather a 
 difficult task, he agrees to undertake it, with Theaetetus a& 
 his interlocutor, the argument being carried on somewhat in 
 the same manner as that of the Parmenides, but Theaetetus 
 replying more freely and with more independence of thought 
 than the young man taking the same part in the older dialogue. 
 They begin with the personage the new dialogue is named 
 after : the Sophist. 
 
 The sophist is admitted to practise an art of his own, 
 and as an instance of the method how to arrive at a proper 
 idea of this art, the stranger takes that of an angler. All 
 arts are divided into two classes, those whose object it is to- 
 make something and those serving for the purpose of obtaining 
 a thing existing. To the latter belongs, on one hand, any 
 art connected with buying, exchanging or hiring, on the other 
 that of obtaining a thing by force or other such means. 
 Hunting, in the widest sense of the word, forms part of this 
 one, a branch of it being the chase of living beings, which 
 may again be divided according as these beings are found 
 on land or in the liquid elements, air and water. Fishing, 
 which is hunting in water, can be carried on either by nets 
 or by such instruments as either harpoons or hooks and
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 107 
 
 angling-rods, and to do it in the latter manner is the art practised 
 by the angler. 
 
 How can, by the same method, the sophist's art be traced ?' 
 Like the angler's, it forms part of that of hunting, the game 
 being the animal called man, which can be caught by force,, 
 as the slave-dealer does, but also by promising and persuading, 
 either in public or in private life, and in the latter either 
 by bestowing or by receiving gifts, the lover giving, the 
 parasite, who by flattering vain and wealthy men gets his 
 dinner, receiving. But besides the parasite there is the man- 
 hunter who gains his object by being paid for teaching virtue, 
 and what is his name? The sophist. 
 
 But is the sophist nothing else? Ts his art not one of 
 those connected with selling? Does he not, either like the 
 travelling merchant or like the keeper of a stall at the market in 
 our days Plato would say the shopkeeper, sell his ware, 
 which he calls learning, and does not, accordingly, his art 
 form part of both trades? Again, with the art of hunting 
 was associated, when the angler's art was traced, that of 
 obtaining something by force in another manner, such as that 
 of winning either a race or a fighting match of any kind,, 
 and fighting could be either corporal or mental. Mental 
 fighting took place either in courts-of-law or in private 
 life ; when in the latter, it was found in various transactions 
 which are not named, and in fact, brokerage, as a trade,, 
 would appear to have no name in Greek. But in private 
 life also various subjects of general import gave rise to- 
 discussions, such as justice and injustice, and sophist was the 
 name of the man who took part in them for money. 
 
 Still another class of arts is mentioned, that to which both 
 sifting and shuttling belong. Part of this art refers to 
 separating what is good from what is bad, and to this part 
 belong cleaning and cleansing in any form, however unseemly ; 
 for it matters little, says the man from Elea, whether great 
 or small, high or low arts are taken as examples, it being 
 questionable whether, as such, the art of a general is not, on
 
 108 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 account of the fuss made about it, less useful than that of catching 
 fleas. * As the body so the mind can be cleaned, by curing 
 it either of illness or of such defects as take away its beauty. 
 'To the mind's illness the name of vice, to its defects that of 
 ignorance is given; and as bodily disease is cured by the 
 medical art, absence of symmetry and agility by gymnastics, 
 so there is a cure for mental disease in chastisement, for 
 mental defects in teaching. The worst mental defect is that 
 ignorance which is not aware of its own existence, and while 
 there is an old fashioned way of curing it by reproof, cure 
 by reasoning is generally and rightly preferred. Is now the 
 sophist entitled to the honour of being considered to possess 
 the art of curing the mind of its worst defect ? The stranger 
 -doubts it, but gives him the benefit of the doubt. 
 
 However manifold the sophist's acts may be, one name 
 is given to the man practising them ; and is this not a 
 reason to doubt whether he and his work have been properly 
 and fully brought to light? The Eleatic philosopher thinks 
 it is, and reminds Theaetetus of one of the attributes of the 
 sophist: his readily discussing subjects of great importance. 
 How can he discuss subjects without knowing them, and is 
 it possible for man to know everything? How if a man 
 pretended to be able to make anything found in the universe, 
 natural objects and even gods included? He would do so 
 in play, replies Theaetetus, in order to deceive and amuse 
 little children; and the two agree to put down the sophist, 
 for his pretending to know all things, as a kind of juggler. 
 As such he is one of those who practise imitation, and the 
 act of imitation is twofold, according as the artist attempts 
 to reproduce things as they are or as they must appear to 
 be, it being impossible for a sculptor, who has to execute a 
 colossal group, to keep its true proportions, since only by 
 the use of false ones can his work make the proper impres- 
 sion. But in trying to make out to which class of imitative 
 artists the sophist belongs, a formidable question has to be 
 
 * Here, again, the translation had to be slightly incorrect.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 touched upon. It is that which Socrates in the Theaetetus 
 had to leave unanswered: that of the false opinions, or 
 whether there is, or can be, anything which is not. 
 
 Here one of the most remarkable demonstrations follows 
 that are met with in Plato's works: that of his ontology as 
 far as he can be said to have one. Parmenides, says hi& 
 scholar, warns us against stating that things are which are 
 not, and can there be anything which is not? Can such a 
 thing even be mentioned, or can anything which is be attri- 
 buted to it? Still this is constantly done. Number is 
 bestowed upon it when mention is made either of what is 
 not or of things that are not, and no one can mention it 
 without, by his very words, contradicting himself. The 
 sophist, when inquiry is made into his indulging in fancies 
 contrary to truth, will protect himself by ignoring that which 
 is not, and denying its existence. Can there be a false 
 image? will he ask. Can he not, when charged with deceit,, 
 deny his guilt on the ground that false opinions and the like 
 are not and cannot be? The man from Elea, however,, 
 does not give in, and simply requests his hearers not to 
 charge him either with ill-using his father when investigating 
 the truth of the doctrine of Parmenides, or with contradicting 
 what, till then, he had himself said about the matter. 
 
 He then refers to the various doctrines about what is. 
 Some philosophers spoke of three things as being, others of 
 two, the Eleatic of one. All of these, however, lost sight 
 of the fact that the public did not understand them, and they 
 actually caused the question of what is to become as difficult 
 as that of which is not. Two opposites, like heat and cold,, 
 might be stated to be what is, but as heat and cold could 
 never be made the same, the being containing both had to 
 be something different from what they were. Those who 
 stated one to be what is, would find it a difficult thing to 
 account for two names being given to the same thing,, 
 and when Parmenides described one as a sphere whose 
 circumference was everywhere equally far from the centre,.
 
 110 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 they might be asked how one could have a centre and 
 circumference without having parts, each of which would 
 be again one. Similar difficulties were met with in the views 
 of those who did not believe in the oneness of what was. 
 Some of them did not consider anything to be in existence 
 which they could not bodily lay hold of; others spoke of 
 ideas perceived by the mind, but showing their existence in 
 the various things in course of generation. But did the 
 former deny the existence of a soul, as principle of life, in 
 each living body, and the presence of justice, understanding, 
 etc., in the mind? Not at all, and it was evident that they 
 would have to admit that by being was meant any power 
 of acting or being acted upon. The men of the ideas were 
 of opinion that this power was met with in beings in process 
 of generation, whereas it was not in the ideas ; but they ad- 
 mitted that ideas could be known, and what was known 
 was in a passive state. Besides, did they believe that in 
 the ideas there was neither life nor power of thought ? This 
 could not be, and the result of the discussion was that the 
 existing theories about being could not be maintained. 
 
 There remained, however, a greater difficulty. According 
 to the definition of being which had been arrived at, motion and 
 rest (CTT#SV) were included in it; and were they not in the 
 same way opposite to one another as heat and cold ? Accordingly 
 being was something different, neither moving nor standing still, 
 and how could this be ? But, says the man of Elea, now we 
 have reached a stage where being and not being offer the 
 same difficulties, and perhaps we shall be able to get rid of 
 all of them. When anything, say a man, was spoken of, 
 numberless qualities were named in connection with him; and 
 although, when a good man was mentioned, poorly gifted 
 fellows, both young and old, might think themselves very wise 
 when disapproving of the expression, for good was good and 
 man was man, the question might surely be asked whether 
 there could not be a similar junction, not between moving 
 and standing still, which were opposites, but between either
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. Ill 
 
 of them and being. What could be said against this, when 
 
 it was found that those who either considered all things to 
 
 move or the one thing existing to stand still, all spoke of 
 
 their being ? So did every one who spoke at all about these 
 
 matters, and it was evident that, while some things could not 
 
 go together, other things could. It was the same with the 
 
 letters of the alphabet, some of which could be joined together 
 
 and others not, while the vowels caused all of them to be 
 
 used in continuous sentences. How to effect this was the 
 
 work of the man skilled in letters; in regard to things 
 
 generally it was, perhaps, the philosopher who had the 
 
 knowledge required for it, but for the present not he but the 
 
 sophist had to be looked for. And now, as all three motion, 
 
 rest and being, are the same as themselves and other than 
 
 the other two, the question is whether " the same" and 
 
 " other" are not two new factors which have to be taken 
 
 into consideration. They are certainly not the same with 
 
 motion and rest, for motion and rest cannot be the same, and 
 
 if motion were the other it would be rest; nor can they be 
 
 the same with being, which is joined to both rest and motion. 
 
 But motion is the same with itself, and so it is, at the same 
 
 time, the same and not the same. It is also, with being, 
 
 in a relation of another to another, although it certainly is. 
 
 And so motion is found in one sense to be and in another 
 
 not to be, and not to be is not the opposite of, but simply 
 
 other than, to be, just as what is not big need not be small. 
 
 Besides, what is called not beautiful is something which is 
 
 not beautiful ; but it is, for all that, in existence, and being 
 
 not beautiful it is not at the same time. All this is effected 
 
 by the proper use of that which is called "the other", and 
 
 so the great point about being and not being is gained, the 
 
 man who has done so not claiming, however, to have made 
 
 a new and grand discovery, which was sure to hold its ground, 
 
 but simply to have solved a difficulty in a manner which he 
 
 and others might be contented with. 
 
 The only point still to be argued is whether the sophist,
 
 112 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 while not objecting to the result arrived at, might not contend 
 that what is not has no place in opinions and statements. 
 This, however, according to the man from Elea, is no matter 
 of importance. A statement is made by means of nouns and 
 verbs, neither of which can form one solely with the aid of 
 other words of their own kind, whereas a noun and verb 
 joined together do so. When to the noun " Theaetetus " is joined 
 the verb " is sitting, " the two words contain a true statement ; 
 but how when one says, " Theaetetus is flying ? " Evidently 
 the statement is false, and since as had already been observed 
 in the Theaetetus, an opinion is nothing else than a statement 
 not spoken but made by the mind in conversation with itself r 
 there must be false opinions too. 
 
 Now the imitative art is once more taken in hand, to the 
 effect that there is a twofold division of it, one by which 
 the work of the gods is distinguished from that of man, and 
 the other separating images from mere conceits of fancy. To 
 the latter class belong visions in dreams, the gods causing 
 both them and such images as are seen in water and mirrors. 
 Images made by men aim at being correct; in the products- 
 of their fancy untruth must be found, and there it is where 
 the sophist is caught, who, whether knowing justice or anything 
 of the kind or not knowing it, still tries to give an idea of it- 
 Some do so imagining, foolish as they are, that they are right ;. 
 the one who knows what he is about, and shows his talents 
 not to the public as an orator but to those studying under his- 
 direction, is the real live sophist. 
 
 The Sophist, especially when its close relation to the Theae- 
 tetus is duly attended to, will be found to mark an important 
 epoch in Plato's philosophical career. In none of his older 
 dialogues is a conclusion of any great importance arrived at.. 
 In the Theaetetus the doctrines of Protagoras and Heraclitus are 
 refuted in such a manner as to render it unnecessary for 
 Plato to revert to them; but the Eleatic doctrine is left 
 alone, and Socrates is not prepared, after all, to face the 
 question of being and not being. This is reserved for the
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 113 
 
 stranger from Elea, who begins by declaring that he will 
 not be bound by the doctrines of his own school, and who 
 ends by admitting that his solution of the difficulty may not 
 be such as to carry conviction to all minds, but that he is 
 prepared to take his stand on it. Among the doctrines he 
 opposes is that of a school which limits being in the strictest 
 sense of the word to the ideas, whereas the condition of things 
 seen is that of a continued process of generation. The belief 
 in ideas, however, which is met with, as has been stated 
 before, in several of Plato's older dialogues, is also held by 
 the poor-minded men who deny that " good " and " man " 
 can be combined. By the latter, as would appear from 
 passages in Aristotle and other writers, Antisthenes the 
 Cynic and his followers must be meant ; the school limiting 
 " being " to the ideas is held, by modern scholars of high 
 authority, to be that of Megara. Both Euclid es, the founder 
 of this school, and Antisthenes were friends to, and learnt 
 much from, Socrates, and the beginning of the Parmenides 
 leaves no doubt that Socrates, although in Xenophon's Remi- 
 niscences not a word is said about ideas in the Platonic 
 sense of the word, must have discussed the ideas with those 
 of his friends whose brains fitted them for philosophical 
 speculations. But ideas can be discussed without direct 
 reference to ontology, until questions connected with the 
 latter come so conspicuously to the front that they cannot 
 be ignored ; and the Theaetetus may be taken as evidence in 
 favour of the opinion that Socrates did not see his way clear 
 to enter into such questions. 
 
 In the Sophist Plato substitutes for Socrates, as his own 
 mouthpiece, the stranger from Elea, thus giving to understand 
 that he enters the field armed with thoughts novel and his 
 own. When we find the stranger, towards the end of the 
 dialogue, going rather out of his way to refer to the direct 
 action of the gods in regard to the phenomena of nature, 
 and to praise Theaetetus for rather believing in such action 
 than in a power exercised, independent of thought, by nature
 
 114 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 itself, there is reason to think that Plato, taking a new path 
 struck out by himself, considered it safe to give utterance to 
 something calculated to remove from himself all such suspicions 
 of disbelief in divine power as had led to his teacher's trial 
 and death. It was not as a follower of the Eleatic school 
 that Plato thus made a new start, but in doing so he may 
 have been influenced, to some extent, by recent study of its 
 tenets; and if now the question is raised again what must 
 have been the meaning of the arguments met with in the 
 Parmenides, it can with good reason be surmised that Plato, 
 having resolved to go into so abstruse a subject as ontology, 
 may have been anxious to give beforehand an idea of the 
 difficulties surrounding it, of the method followed by his 
 predecessors in treating it, and at the same time of the strange 
 and hardly avoidable vagaries in store for those who did 
 not, like himself, enter into it with a firm determination not 
 to be carried away by their own argumentative powers, but 
 to allow plain and practical common sense to get the mastery 
 over abstract thought. 
 
 IX. PLATO AND THE ATHENIANS. 
 
 ATHENIAN democracy did not agree with Plato, whose nature 
 was thoroughly aristocratic. When, however, he describes it 
 in his Republic, he does not, like the writer of the treatise 
 on the Athenian Republic standing in Xenophon's name, point 
 out that much may be said against the policy followed under 
 democratic government, but that it certainly attained its 
 object by benefiting the lower classes; but he rather finds 
 fault with the unlimited liberty prevailing under democracy: 
 a liberty which does away with all consistency of legislation, 
 so that in a democratic state all political systems may be 
 found side by side ; and which tends to an utter neglect to 
 obey the laws or to submit to judicial decisions, to a total 
 subversion of all political and social relations, so that the
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 115 
 
 magistrate is afraid of those he has to govern, the father of 
 his son, and the teacher of his pupils, and to a want of 
 subordination extending not only to females and slaves but, 
 says Socrates, whose remark is assented to by his interlocutor, 
 even to domestic animals. Some of these remarks savour of 
 gross exaggeration, and Plato himself admits, in his Politicus, 
 that democracy, although worth little when seen at its best, 
 is when seen at its worst an evil of less magnitude than 
 either oligarchy or monarchy in a similar condition. Some 
 will be thought to be rather to the point, especially when 
 certain particulars of life in the United States of America 
 are remembered; but this is a matter which need not be 
 dwelt upon. 
 
 When Athenian democracy as painted by Plato is com- 
 pared with the sketch of it in that funeral oration by Pe- 
 ricles in which the genius of Thucydides is revealed in full, 
 it will at once be noticed that Pericles speaks in praise of 
 democracy because under it the people of Athens are hold- 
 ing their own without submitting to such hardships as the 
 citizens of Sparta; because they enjoy the beauties of life 
 without going to much expense, and the advantages of study 
 without losing their fitness for active life ; and especially 
 because, while attending to the interests of the state, they 
 do not neglect their own business, but display their energies 
 in their attempts to escape the evils of poverty. Now this 
 picture might be true and that by Plato, to some extent, 
 also ; but in reality the disagreement between Pericles and 
 Plato is much more deeply rooted than would appear from 
 a comparison between their two sketches of Athenian demo- 
 cracy. Plato and in this respect the Socrates of Xeno- 
 phon's Oeconomicus is somewhat like him, has a con- 
 tempt for the lower arts of life, and would like to leave 
 them in his ideal republic to foreigners ; nor does he like 
 those pursuits in public life which were habitual at Athens. 
 Look at the contrast he draws, in his Theaetetus, between 
 the life of a philosopher and that of a man devoting himself
 
 116 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 to public business ! The philosopher spends his days in 
 leisurely discussing one important question after another ;. 
 the man at work in courts-of-law and in political affairs 
 is so little master of his time that he can never be fully 
 acquainted with what he is about. Still the contrast between 
 him, as the practical man acquainted with the way to success, 
 and the philosopher when compelled to take part in any- 
 thing connected with public life, is entirely in favour of the 
 former ; but where is the practical man when he has to give 
 his opinion about anything above the common things of life ? 
 Could the public then judge between him and the philo- 
 sopher, which is generally not the case, it would be 
 seen that the latter is much more his superior in such 
 matters, than he is inferior to him in dealing with things 
 of everyday life. 
 
 There is a certain amount of truth in this, and at all events 
 it must be admitted that Plato's point of view is one which 
 a philosopher of his days might be easily induced to take. 
 But Plato also shows a particular dislike to the men who 
 make a study of rhetoric, so as to be successful in public 
 life, and still more to those devoting their talents to writing 
 speeches for others, an art practised by not a few men of 
 considerable renown. To understand how it was that this 
 art nourished to an extent at Athens which must be sur- 
 prising to the public of our own times, it should be remem- 
 bered that, while there were no doubt both born orators 
 and men who by studying and practising rhetoric had acquired 
 a talent for arguing in public *, and although the Athenians 
 were generally up to the mark in speaking their own language, 
 education had not reached that stage in which men of or- 
 
 * A born orator, though perhaps not of the highest order, must have- 
 been Cleon, who boasts, in Aristophanes' Knights, of his handling any 
 subject which comes fresh before him, and of his bullying the Athenian 
 generals just after a hearty meal and a bottle of strong wine. In the 
 same comedy Phaeax, who by another poet was called a master in talk- 
 ing and no speaker at all, is praised by young Athens for his cleverness- 
 in using all the fineries of the rhetorical art.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 117 
 
 dinary ability are, as a rule, in a position to go through an 
 argument of some length, and that, for this reason, they 
 preferred speeches written by men accustomed to handle the 
 pen, to arguments brought forward by themselves. Those 
 speeches written by Lysias which have reached our time 
 are remarkable for the ease with which he identifies him- 
 self with the parties for whom he writes. Still this very 
 Lysias is sharply attacked in Plato's Phaedrus for doing 
 work of no value whatever, and it has been pointed out 
 already that also in the Euthydemus a bitter feeling towards 
 men of his profession is shown by Plato. 
 
 The Phaedrus was evidently written at a time when Plato 
 had overcome the uncertainty which prevailed in his mind 
 until his Sophist showed his triumph over it; but it must 
 be older than either his Gorgias * or his Banquet, for he 
 could not have written, as he did in it, about rhetoric and 
 its professors after the onslaught he made on them in the 
 former dialogue, nor could he have made Socrates, after the 
 debate on love in which he takes part in the Banquet, 
 deliver that splendid speech on the subject which excels 
 both in poetical grandeur and in intuitive perception of 
 truth whatever else has secured to Plato his place among 
 truly great men. The poetical side of Plato's genius is, on 
 the whole, nowhere more clearly brought to light than in 
 the Phaedrus, and germs are found in it which were in 
 course of time to shoot up and produce fruits ; whether good 
 or not quite desirable ones will be seen in what is to follow. 
 In going over it here only those parts of it will be touched 
 upon which refer to the relations between Plato and men like 
 Lysias, and these form, in fact, the main subject of the dialogue. 
 
 * The remark attributed by Athenaeus (XI p. 505) to Gorgias on 
 reading the dialogue called after him, is no reason for assigning an ear- 
 lier date to the latter, than the one given here; for not only might 
 Gorgias, who reached extreme old age, have read it even if it had been 
 written, say in 380 B.C., but he may have charged Plato with writing 
 in a satirical style for other reasons ; and such stories, on the whole, as 
 stated in chapter VII of this essay, do not generally deserve credence.
 
 118 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 Phaedrus, a great admirer of eloquence of any kind, is 
 taking a walk just outside the walls of Athens when he is 
 met by Socrates, who finds him full of a rhetorical exercise 
 by his friend Lysias, and evidently anxious to get a compa- 
 nion for a walk along, or rather in the bed of, the Ilissus r 
 in order to give an account of the speech 'and, in fact, to- 
 practise its reproduction. Socrates, however, knows his man 
 too well to be caught by him, and having discovered that 
 he has a copy of the speech with him, he induces him to 
 read it while sitting under a lofty plane tree, evidently a 
 place, or object, of worship. The speech contains an argu- 
 ment, addressed to a handsome youth, that he had better 
 gratify the desires of one who is not in love with him than 
 those of one who is. Socrates does not like the speech. 
 Its words may be well chosen, its sentences properly rounded, 
 but it lacks unity and method, and is full of repetitions. 
 Having hinted that the subject might be treated in a better 
 way, he is compelled, in a friendly manner, by Phaedrus to 
 try and do so himself, and he certainly handles the subject 
 better than Lysias, who had only given one reason after 
 another in favour of his contention, whereas Socrates, who 
 ascribes his unexpected fluency to inspiration by the nymphs 
 frequenting the place, begins by stating what love is, and 
 from this statement derives his argument why a lover should 
 be shunned by the object of his love. While, however,. 
 Phaedrus, who considers his speech to be incomplete, is 
 discussing this point with him, he suddenly becomes aware 
 that it was wrong, on his part, to speak against love, and 
 the warning voice he has in his bosom tells him not to 
 leave the place until after a recantation of what he has 
 said. Then follows his great speech about love which has 
 been referred to above. 
 
 The superiority of this speech to that of Lysias is admitted 
 by Phaedrus, who at the same time adverts to the fact that 
 Lysias was called a speech-writer by way of reproach, and 
 that the great men at Athens were, on this account, unwil-
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 119 
 
 ling to write speeches. Does not, replies Socrates, every man 
 who moves a resolution in the senate or the popular assembly 
 head it by his name, and what are such resolutions, what 
 are laws like Solon's otherwise than written speeches ? The 
 whole question comes to this : whether or not Lysias and those 
 following his profession write as they ought to do. This 
 question then becomes the subject for discussion between the 
 two, Socrates being of opinion that even the tree-crickets 
 above their heads, who had got their present shape because, 
 being men, they had so admired the Muses and their pursuits 
 as to perish from neglecting to take food, would have a low 
 opinion of them if at noon they preferred a doze to a debate. 
 The statement by Socrates, that an orator should know the 
 truth concerning the subject he is to speak about, is answered 
 by a reference to the opinion of those who consider this to 
 be unnecessary, since all that is required is to convince the 
 public. Socrates first ridicules this opinion by giving instances 
 of what it might lead to, but afterwards, taking his stand on 
 the opinion mentioned by Phaedrus, he points out that even 
 those who are anxious to deceive the public, ought to have 
 such knowledge of the subject they have in hand as to enable 
 them to see how they can best substitute what is incorrect 
 for what is correct. It certainly was not sound rhetoric 
 when Lysias, taking for his subject a matter like love, on 
 which there existed a great variety of opinion, did not give 
 his own opinion about its nature; and the same might be 
 said about his beginning his speech with a reference to words 
 not given, and about an arrangement of his arguments which 
 might be compared to an old epitaph of four lines, each of 
 which might take any place among the four without altering 
 the meaning of the whole. The main requisite in rhetoric 
 was the power of both getting such a grasp of the subject 
 as to bring all its parts under one head, and giving the 
 natural division of the whole into parts; and of this power 
 evidence had been given in the two speeches about love 
 which he, Socrates, had delivered; but what was done by
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 the professors of rhetoric, many of whom are now enumer- 
 ated? They simply gave rules for the arrangement of 
 speeches, under which an introduction had to come first, then 
 a narrative based on evidence and followed by a demonstration 
 of its probability, and so on ; and these rules gradually be- 
 came more complex when new professors tried their hands 
 at them. But were those who knew all about these rules 
 worthy of the name of orators ? As little as a man acquainted 
 with the effects of various remedies, but unacquainted with 
 the organism of the human body, would be a medical man, 
 or as one able to write long and short arguments in verse, 
 could claim to be called a tragic poet. 
 
 Socrates now reminds Phaedrus of the friendship between 
 Pericles and Anaxagoras, adding that no man can become a 
 first-rate orator without having been trained in philosophical 
 argument and studied the nature of the universe as well as 
 that of the human mind. And would the knowledge of the 
 rules of rhetoric be of any avail, without that of the minds 
 of those who have to be influenced by oratory? Not before 
 knowing the various dispositions of men as well as the argu- 
 ments fit for each of them, not before joining to this knowledge 
 the gift of hitting at once upon the peculiarities of the public 
 which is to be addressed, does any man deserve the name of 
 orator, and can he succeed even in giving such misrepresen- 
 tations of facts as are deemed necessary, in certain cases, by 
 those practising forensic oratory. 
 
 The question of the nature of rhetoric having been settled 
 between Socrates and his friend, that of writing speeches 
 still remains; and here an Egyptian story is quoted by So- 
 crates about the invention of writing as calculated to interfere 
 with exercising the memory and to substitute reference to 
 external authorities for genuine knowledge. What information 
 is supplied by these authorities and by any written works 
 when consulted? Can they answer any question or remove 
 any doubt? No, they are mute, but the living word is not. 
 Men of real worth act like agriculturists, who on certain
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 121 
 
 occasions may encourage the sudden growth of plants by 
 artificial means, but who, for real success, count on the 
 power of nature. They may indulge in writing books, so as 
 to be reminded in their old age of the results of former 
 studies, but their teaching will be by means of dialectic. 
 Even poetry is now made light of by Socrates, and not only 
 are, in some measure, the attacks in Plato's Republic on the 
 noblest poetry of Greece announced beforehand in the con- 
 cluding part of the Phaedrus, but light is spread by it on 
 the position taken up by Plato, under the influence of the 
 evils of old age, in regard to his own writings. 
 
 It is difficult, after a careful review of what is stated in 
 the Phaedrus, not to come to the conclusion that Plato, when 
 writing it, was actuated as much by private feelings against 
 men influencing his fellow-citizens in a direction different to 
 the one he had taken, as by the results of his philosophical 
 speculations. He goes against Lysias on account of a speech 
 which, if really written by him, and this is, after all, the 
 safest and most probable supposition, is so different from 
 his other speeches that it can hardly be considered otherwise 
 than as a production of his pen at a time when he had not 
 reached by far the full development of his oratorical power. 
 Plato goes also against the rules of rhetoric framed by va- 
 rious men of note, and while rightly pointing out that they 
 are by no means sufficient to make any one an orator in 
 the true sense of the word, he forgets that, at all events, 
 they tend to prevent the mistakes he charges Lysias with; 
 and he contrasts their teachings with those of an ideal school 
 of rhetoric which it would be hardly possible to start in 
 reality. He is quite right in stating that much more can be 
 learnt from the living word of a man up to the mark than 
 from anything written; but when, towards the close of the 
 dialogue, he wants not only Lysias but also Solon and even 
 Homer to be informed that their works as preserved in 
 writing are worth little compared to what a live philosopher 
 may do, and only excepts Isocrates from the general con-
 
 122 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 demnation befalling those who do not follow exactly the same 
 groove as he himself, his self-conceit would appear to have 
 got the better of that wise lesson inculcated at Delphi- 
 know yourself, which is quoted by Socrates in the beginning 
 of the dialogue. Isocrates, whom Socrates praises as a young 
 man of great promise, but who, when the Phaedrus was 
 written, had already a long career behind him, held views 
 more congenial to Plato's than most of his contemporaries, 
 but he saw the interests of Athens and Greece in quite a 
 different light. This will be seen from the Gorgias, a dialogue 
 in which Plato does not give way to such sentiments as 
 would appear to have animated him when writing his Phae- 
 drus, but comes to the front with ideas which, while originating 
 in the deepest convictions of his own mind, were altogether 
 at variance with those of the Athenian people and its leaders. 
 Gorgias, the famous professor of rhetoric from Sicily, 
 together with his favourite scholar Pol us, is staying at the 
 house of Callicles, an Athenian unknown to history but 
 evidently belonging to the highest classes of society and 
 deeply engaged in politics, when Socrates and his friend 
 Chaerephon call on him. Professing, like Protagoras, to 
 answer questions as well as to hold forth on any subject, he 
 is asked by Socrates for information about the nature of the 
 art he professes. Having named rhetoric, he further states 
 that speaking (hoyoi) is its subject. But, asks Socrates, speak- 
 ing about what matters? Certainly not about the means r 
 for sick people, to be restored to health, for such things 
 belong to the medical art. About such, is the reply, as do 
 not require anything else than speaking. So it is with 
 arithmetic, says Socrates, but surely this is not what you 
 teach. My art, replies Gorgias, refers to the highest interests 
 of mankind. All right, says Socrates, but in the old song 
 health is called the best thing for man; then comes beauty 
 and then wealth acquired without fraud. Will not the 
 medical man, the teacher of gymnastics and the financier all 
 claim for their own arts the privilege you claim for yours?
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 My art, says Gorgias, is that of teaching persuasion, and the 
 man possessed of the means to influence, by persuasion, public 
 assemblies is master over medical men, professors of gym- 
 nastics and financiers. 
 
 Socrates now admits that, to some extent, he understands 
 what Gorgias means by rhetoric, but in the interest of the 
 debate he puts a further question. When arithmetic is taught,, 
 is not the teacher bent on persuading his pupils of the truth 
 of what he tells them? His persuasive powers are applied 
 to the teaching of numbers ; to what matters does the persua- 
 sion pertain referred to by Gorgias? To what happens, is 
 the reply, in courts-of-law and similar assemblies, and to 
 matters of justice and injustice. I thought so, says Socrates,, 
 but is there not a difference between knowing and believing ? 
 One can believe what is false, but knowledge refers to truth 
 alone. Has the persuasive power imparted by rhetoric 
 knowledge or belief as its object? Gorgias admits that the 
 latter is the case, and now Socrates observes that when a 
 popular assembly has to come to a decision on technical 
 matters, on the appointment of surgeons, on shipbuilding or 
 on military questions, experts are its natural advisers. 
 Will students of rhetoric only act as experts in matters of 
 justice and injustice, or are they also to advise on the 
 other matters mentioned ? You are aware, says Gorgias, that 
 Athens owes her docks and her walls to the advice of men 
 like Themistocles and Pericles, and that on such men also- 
 appointments mainly depend. The man at home in the art 
 of persuasion is superior to any professional expert ; my own 
 brother the physician has often to call for my assistance 
 when a sick man is to be induced to submit to a treatment 
 of his disease which will cause him pain. But, of course, as 
 little as a trained boxer is justified when striking down his 
 own father, is a public orator right when using his persuasive 
 power otherwise than in the interest of justice ; and when 
 any orator makes a wrong use of this power, not the art of 
 rhetoric but the man who uses it wrongly is to be blamed.
 
 124 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 Having detected an inconsistency in what Gorgias has said 
 about rhetoric, Socrates expresses a fear lest the debate 
 might take a disagreeable turn if he went on putting ques- 
 tions ; but all those present are in favour of continuing the 
 debate, and now Socrates asks whether the skilled rhetori- 
 cian will give better advice on matters technical than those 
 versed in the arts these matters belong to. Again, will an 
 -orator giving advice on matters pertaining to justice and 
 injustice be able to do so in the proper manner, unless he is 
 at home in these matters ? Gorgias is brought to admit that 
 it is an orator's business to know justice and practise it; 
 and why then, asks Socrates, should it be hinted that rhetoric, 
 requiring justice in its students, might be used for doing 
 injustice? This was the inconsistency he had complained of. 
 
 It is now that Polus, who had already shown both his 
 anxiousness to join in the debate and his incompetence to do 
 so, comes to the point. It is just like Socrates, says he, 
 first to get from Gorgias an admission about justice which 
 he could not well forego to make, and then to make use of 
 it against him. Why, says Socrates, it is a fortunate thing 
 for old men to have younger ones to correct them, and I 
 shall gladly reply to Polus, provided he is not too prolix. 
 At Athens there is full liberty of speech, but there is also 
 liberty not to listen but to leave, and of that liberty I shall 
 avail myself unless the debate is carried on by means of 
 short questions and answers. A question by Polus, what 
 his idea is of the rhetorical art, he answers by stating that, 
 in his opinion, it is no art at all but a practice followed for 
 the purpose of procuring enjoyment, like refined cookery 
 (tyomibt.) Such cookery and rhetoric formed part of a whole 
 "which, in the old professor's presence, he did not like to 
 name. I do not object, says Gorgias, and now Socrates 
 explains his view by stating that, as there were two arts 
 having the preservation of the body as their object, medicine 
 and gymnastics, and one, politics, performing a similar func- 
 tion about the mind, one of its parts, the art of legislation,
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 12S 
 
 corresponding with gymnastics, the other, justice, with medicine,, 
 so there was a spurious practice flattery one might call it, 
 whose four parts corresponded with the arts just mentioned : 
 refined cookery with medicine, adornment of the body with 
 gymnastics, sophistry with legislation, and rhetoric with justice. 
 
 A debate ensues in which Polus extols the power of men 
 skilled in rhetoric since, like tyrants, they can kill and 
 plunder and banish any one they like, whereas Socrates 
 contends that they may kill and plunder people but that, 
 for all that, they cannot do what they wish. What every 
 one wishes for is what is good for him, and when one 
 takes medicine or embarks for a distant port, it is not for 
 the purpose of swallowing nasty drugs or having the trouble 
 of a sea voyage, but in the one case for health's sake, in 
 the other for making money. When tyrants or orators 
 caused people to be killed or plundered, it was for the sake 
 of the good results they expected from it, and how if these 
 results were bad ? Polus cannot deny that there is much 
 in this, but asks Socrates whether he himself would not like 
 the power he speaks so lightly of. By no means, replies 
 Socrates. To kill a man justly is not an enviable thing; to 
 kill him unjustly is worse than to be killed, and to be killed 
 justly is worse than to be killed unjustly. Any one can commit 
 murder or arson, but he will be punished for it, and killing 
 and the like can only then bring good results to the man 
 who does it when he does it with justice ; for those practising 
 justice are happy, those indulging in injustice unhappy. 
 
 This is to Polus a novel doctrine. Why, there is Arche- 
 laus, the illegitimate son of king Perdiccas of Macedonia 
 by a slave of his brother Alcetas. After his father's death 
 he first entraps his uncle, whose slave he would have been 
 had he preferred justice to injustice, by feigning friendship 
 and subserviency, and then murders him and his son. 
 Having assumed the regency for the time of his little 
 step-brother's minority, he has the poor child drowned in a 
 well, and now he is the ruler of all the Macedonians.
 
 126 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 Surely however unhappy the man may be in the eyes of 
 Socrates, not one Athenian would not like to be Archelaus 
 rather than any other Macedonian. All this makes a fine 
 speech, replies Socrates, and there are not a few Athenians 
 who are sure to agree with you; but I do not, and you 
 have not refuted my arguments. You think Archelaus 
 happy though unjust; I consider an unjust man to be un- 
 happy, and more unhappy when he remains unpunished 
 than when he suffers punishment. About this point a lengthy 
 discussion is carried on, and Polus, who first tries to ridicule 
 his opponent's contention, is soon made to agree that to do 
 injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer it ; then that the 
 reverse of disgraceful (TO xahov] is so because it is either 
 useful or agreeable, so that what is disgraceful must be 
 either harmful or disagreeable; again that what is harmful 
 is worse than what is disagreeable, and that, if to commit 
 injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer it, this cannot 
 be on account of its being more disagreeable; and so he 
 has admitted that to do injustice is worse as well as more 
 disgraceful than to suffer it. Having gained this advantage, 
 Socrates follows it up by making Polus agree that to be 
 punished for injustice is wholesome, that wickedness of the 
 mind is a worse evil than either ill-health or poverty, that 
 it can be cured only by chastisement, and that he has been 
 wrong in calling Archelaus happy. The result of the debate 
 is that rhetoric is not worth anything, unless used al- 
 together for serving the ends of justice. 
 
 Polus was evidently no match for Socrates, but now 
 Callicles asks Chaerephon whether Socrates really means 
 what he says, or whether he has been joking. If serious, 
 does not his doctrine upset the whole existing views and 
 arrangements of life? Socrates replies that he would not be 
 able to explain his views to Callicles, were it not for the 
 fact of their being both in the same position ; for he himself 
 was in love with philosophy and young Alcibiades, Callicles 
 with the Athenian people $>jpc<;) and with Demus the hand-
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 127 
 
 some son of Pyrilampes, and both of them knew the diffi- 
 culty of going against the wishes of the objects of their 
 love. What he stated was the view of things taken by 
 philosophy ; Callicles had heard what he had said, and would 
 either have to prove that philosophy was wrong, or to be, 
 during the whole of his life, in disharmony with himself. 
 
 Callicles proves equal to the occasion. Polus, says he, has 
 suffered the same fate as Gorgias, having been compelled 
 by Socrates to make an admission which in reality he had 
 reason to object to as it was not in accordance with nature, 
 but which he was prompted to make by fear of going against 
 the dominant opinion (voftos). To commit injustice might be 
 thought worse than to suffer it, but naturally it was not, 
 for what could be more degrading than to be trampled upon 
 like a slave? But the masses, being weak, had laid down 
 the law for the strong, calling it a disgrace to be possessed 
 of privilege and power above the rest, as if such power 
 were injustice. Did not nature clearly show, in the animal 
 kingdom and in man too, that the better and stronger ones 
 should be better off than those weak and worth little ? The 
 tendency was to enslave the men of real worth from their 
 early youth, like lions' whelps, by incantations about equal 
 rights and the like; but it came to naught when some one 
 made of better stuff put his foot down and, making away 
 with all these fine laws at once, from the slave he was to 
 them came to be a master. Then prevailed what was nature's 
 law, the law of the strongest celebrated by Pindar ; and 
 Socrates would see this, would he but leave philosophy for 
 something greater. Philosophy was a nice thing for youngsters, 
 but by sticking to it men lost all chance of getting practical 
 knowledge of things as they were. Having once gone too 
 far in studying it, they obeyed, of course, human nature by 
 remaining faithful to the pursuit in which they excelled ; 
 but it was with philosophy as with language. There was 
 something slavish in a young child speaking quite correctly, 
 but a grown-up person using expressions fit for children
 
 128 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 was laughed at; and so a young man was thought pro- 
 mising when showing a predilection for philosophy, whereas, 
 having grown older, and being, through continuous application 
 to it, out of touch with the world, he would, however highly 
 gifted, be considered worthless. Was it worthy of a man 
 like Socrates to be so utterly defenceless in a town like 
 Athens, as to become an easy prey for anyone who wanted 
 to ruin him? He, Callicles, would strongly advise him to 
 act like other men of his worth, instead of weakening him- 
 self by useless studies. 
 
 It is a great boon for me, says now Socrates, to meet a 
 man like Callicles, up to the mark and not afraid to speak 
 his mind, especially as I know, from a conversation he held 
 in my presence with some of his intimate friends, that he 
 says nothing but what he really means. Can I induce such 
 a man to admit that I take the right view of life, I am sure 
 of having found the truth. And now he puts questions to 
 him, savouring, it must be admitted, of cavil. Are the better 
 men the same as the stronger ones, and are not the masses 
 strongest ? If so, the rule laid down by them that to commit 
 injustice is worse than to suffer it, is not only the law prevail- 
 ing by common opinion but also that of nature. Callicles 
 replies that he has not meant to say that bodies of men, 
 being, on account of their number, physically strongest, are 
 the best; but who, asks Socrates, are, the best? Are they 
 the most intelligent ones? Is a medical man, on account of 
 his understanding the nature of food, entitled to a larger 
 share of it than others? Callicles is annoyed at this, and 
 says that he means the most intelligent in matters political, 
 when likewise provided with the courage they require. Born 
 rulers should be better off than those ruled by them. But 
 are not rulers first to rule themselves ? asks Socrates. Those 
 worshippers of self-control, replies Callicles, are simply fools. 
 The law of nature is that those enabled by their wits and 
 courage to rule the roost should not control their desires but 
 allow them to grow and then satisfy them.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 129 
 
 For this utterance Callicles is praised by Socrates as giving 
 expression to a sentiment which others share but are afraid 
 to utter; and well might he praise him for thus shifting his 
 ground and smoothing the path for his opponent. Is, asks 
 Socrates, a well regulated life or one of unbounded desires 
 and joys to be preferred ? If the latter, if, as Callicles says, 
 a happy life is one of desires constantly satisfied and con- 
 stantly renewed, what kind of desires are meant? Also the 
 desire to scratch your head when suffering from itch, or 
 even a more disreputable one ? * Callicles, although dis- 
 gusted with such questions, replies in the affirmative, and 
 now Socrates enters upon a somewhat more serious argument, 
 to the effect that what is good and makes life happy and 
 what is pleasurable (j$y) cannot be the same. Between good 
 and evil there is constant opposition, and the appearance of 
 the one makes the other disappear. But to be thirsty is 
 disagreeable, to drink when thirsty pleasurable ; and yet, 
 when one has drunk both thirst and the pleasure of drinking 
 vanish together. Again, Callicles had admitted that know- 
 ledge and courage are good, as well as pleasure ; but is there 
 no enjoyment of pleasure for fools and cowards ? Callicles, 
 in replying to Socrates, agrees with whatever he says, but 
 suddenly asks whether he himself or anybody is thought to 
 make no difference between more and less reputable enjoy- 
 ments. So the ground on which the debate is carried on, 
 is changed once more. 
 
 When enjoyments are good, says Socrates, they are useful ; 
 when bad harmful. So it is with sufferings (tiJTrai). Are not 
 those useful to be sought for in preference to those which 
 are not? This having been agreed to, Socrates reverts to 
 what he had said about the arts for curing body and soul, 
 and the practices having no other object than enjoyment, 
 which correspond with them, as well as to the question which 
 
 * This point is also touched upon in a later dialogue on enjoyment, 
 the Philebus, where the whole question is treated more rationally and 
 philosophically than in the Gorgias. See chapt. XII of this essay. 
 
 9
 
 130 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 of the two modes of life, that of the philosopher and that 
 recommended by Callicles, is to be preferred. For judging 
 the nature of enjoyments an art is required, and there are 
 many means of procuring enjoyment without considering 
 whether or not it is useful, including even those theatrical 
 exhibitions which are the pride of the tragic poets. When 
 the tragic muse addresses the public merely for enjoyment's 
 sake, is this not the case with rhetoric too ? There are, says 
 Callicles, public speakers who care for the good of the people, 
 and others who do not; but he cannot name any man living 
 who belongs to the former class. But then, in times not 
 long gone, there were Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles. 
 What have they done, asks Socrates, except gratifying the 
 desires of the people? No builder will build a house in a 
 disorderly manner ; has any of those men done anything 
 towards substituting order for disorder in the minds of the 
 citizens ? Does not order in the mind consist of self-control 
 and justice, and is it not required, in those called upon to 
 promote the welfare of the people, to inculcate those virtues 
 even by chastisement? The debate having reached this stage 
 Callicles declines to go on with it, and Socrates carries it 
 further by himself, demonstrating the excellence of self-control 
 as bringing justice and courage in its train, and securing a 
 happy life. Callicles might taunt him with being unarmed 
 against injury, but he preferred suffering injury to inflicting 
 it, and his ideas on this subject had never been refuted. 
 
 A new element is introduced when Socrates asks whether 
 there is not a certain power or art required, both for not 
 suffering and not committing an injustice, especially as nobody 
 is held to do the latter willingly. Callicles agrees to this, 
 and also to the proposition that not to be injured one should 
 either be the ruler of a state or an associate to the ruling 
 power. So in a state ruled by a tyrant, says Socrates, the 
 safest course is to make common cause with him, for this 
 will be a protection against injustice; but how about com- 
 mitting injustice? Will a tyrant's associate not be induced
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 131 
 
 to imitate him, and will this not lead to grave results? It's 
 always better to do so than to be killed by one not afraid 
 of imitating the tyrant, says Callicles ; but, says Socrates in 
 reply, is life of such worth? Many a life is saved on board 
 ship by its master or, when a town is besieged, by the 
 engineer; but masters of vessels and engineers are not much 
 made of. For some people it is better to die than to live ; 
 and what is preferable, to undergo the fate of all men or to 
 be compelled, as often happens with those taking part in 
 politics at Athens, to conform to the doings and wishes of 
 the people? You are entering upon a political career. When 
 a builder or a medical man wants employment in the service 
 of the state, he gives evidence that he is skilled in his art 
 and has done good work. Can you, when taking political 
 affairs in hand, show one single Athenian who has become 
 a better man through you ? You cannot, nor could your so- 
 called great men, Themistocles and Pericles. The latter is 
 charged with having spoiled the people, by his payments for 
 services rendered to the state ; and even if this is denied, is not 
 the fact that, towards the end of his career, he narrowly 
 escaped being put to death for alleged peculation, sufficient 
 to show that he had not made the people better ? Have not 
 Cimon, Themistocles, Miltiades met with a similar treatment 
 on the -part of the Athenian people? 
 
 What those men have done for Athens, replies Callicles, 
 will not be equalled by any man of the present time. I ad- 
 mit, says Socrates, that they were able servants to the peo- 
 ple, helping them to what they desired, as a good cook does; 
 but when a man's health is spoiled by over-feeding, and when 
 lie is told to be more abstemious, he is apt to feel annoyed. 
 Will not the people, having become ill-conditioned by the manage- 
 ment of former servants, avenge this on the heads of later ones ? 
 When these complain of injustice and ingratitude, they have 
 no better reason for it than sophists, who, pretending to teach 
 virtue, are laughed at for their complaints of being cheated by 
 those they have taught. Very few men attempt to improve
 
 132 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 the morals of the people; do you, Callicles, invite me to be 
 one of them or to act the part of a servant? Callicles once 
 more points out the danger involved in declining to take the 
 latter part, and Socrates does not deny its existence; for, 
 says he, if a medical man were charged, before a court of 
 children, by a confectioner with having cut and burnt them 
 and given them nasty stuff to drink, whereas his accuser had 
 always provided them with nice things, what could he say to 
 escape punishment ? But one suffering death for doing his duty 
 would know that he descended with clean hands to the nether 
 world. And now Socrates winds up with a description of the 
 judges of that world, and of the fate both of those punished 
 for their crimes and those departing for the isles of the happy. 
 There is a surpassing grandeur in the moral sentiments 
 given utterance to, in the Gorgias, by Socrates which is 
 unequalled in Greek literature of the best ages; and fully to 
 understand its character it should be remembered that the 
 position Plato takes up is directly at variance with the ideas 
 prevailing at Athens in those days. But while fully appre- 
 ciating it, while venerating Socrates and Plato as the apostles 
 of a new morality, akin to that of an era when Greek 
 sentiments would have to yield to those of quite a different 
 origin, no one will subscribe to the judgment passed, in the 
 Gorgias, on men who, like Themistocles and Pericles, had made 
 Athens what she was in the brightest days of her existence. 
 The injustice shown to them by taunting them with the 
 treatment they received from the Athenian people is so 
 flagrant and betrays such an utter lack of insight into the 
 history of mankind, that it need not be dwelt upon. But 
 there is another point which should not be lost sight of. 
 Socrates, when mentioning self-control as the first requisite 
 in a ruler, is met not only by a sneering remark on those 
 practising it, but also by such a statement on the part of his 
 opponent about enjoyment being the object of life as enables 
 him to enter upon an argument which is sure to end in victory.. 
 Callicles, however, had in his first speech referred to something.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 133 
 
 altogether different; in fact, to a characteristic feature of 
 ^Grecian thought which Plato himself displays very markedly : 
 hatred and contempt for whatever is low and degrading, and 
 that keen sentiment of the superiority of one man to another 
 which is so easily lost at times when levelling tendencies 
 prevail. Such tendencies, in spite of the existence of slavery 
 at Athens, could not be foreign to her democracy. "Don't 
 rear a lion in the state," says a personage of comedy about 
 Alcibiades, and there we find the democratic tendency. But 
 what follows ? " When one has been reared, * be subservient 
 to his propensities." Plato may have thought of these lines 
 when introducing Callicles as comparing, with certain incan- 
 tations used for taming lions, the means employed to deaden 
 the aspirations of high-souled youths ; and with the feeling 
 that superiority of mind is required in men called to rule 
 the state, corresponds, not the doctrine enounced by Callicles 
 of desires ever renewed and satisfied, but that which he 
 gives by his reference, in his first speech, to the Greek verb 
 KteovsKTslv to have, or grasp at, more : that of the natural 
 right of superior men to have a better share in the goods of 
 this world than the common herd. This is lost sight of in 
 the dialogue. Socrates prophecies, not only to Callicles of 
 whom no one knows anything, but also to Alcibiades that he 
 may at some future time be made to suffer, by the Athenian 
 people, for continuing the traditional policy of Pericles and 
 his predecessors, and when the dialogue was written the 
 fulfilment of this prophecy was a matter of ancient history. 
 But Alcibiades, though indulging in a luxury which he made, 
 to some extent, subservient to his political aspirations, was 
 certainly not the man to spend his life, and see the object 
 of it, in enjoyments like those extolled by Callicles as con- 
 stituting happiness. To excel all others in power, by means 
 
 * The translation given here of Aristophanes' Frogs vs. 1432 is not 
 quite that of the old reading, ly.rQ^cpr], for i-ATQKtp^ gives a better 
 sense. In the main, however, there is no great difference between the 
 meaning of the two readings.
 
 134 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 of the forward policy he fought for at Athens, was his life's 
 dream, and in him the man is seen whom Plato must have 
 had before his mind's eye when writing that splendid descrip- 
 tion of the young hero who, having burst, by the natural 
 superiority of his genius, the fetters in which he was en- 
 chained, is found to trample upon the instruments used by 
 those enslaving him. 
 
 Alcibiades gives his own name to two Platonic dialogues. 
 The second Alcibiades is a brief one, containing rather an 
 interesting amplification of what Socrates is made to say and 
 practise in Xenophon's Reminiscences: that men, when praying 
 to the gods, ought simply to ask for what is good, since, 
 when asking for gold or anything like it, they do not know 
 whether they will profit or suffer injury by it. This, however,, 
 is all, and although Plato is known for committing historical 
 mistakes, the one met with in this dialogue, where Archelaus 
 king of Macedonia, who ascended the throne after Alcibiades 
 was banished from Athens, is represented as having been 
 murdered at the time when Alcibiades was still under the 
 guardianship of Pericles, is rather too bad even for him. 
 Accordingly it is not strange that the authenticity of the 
 dialogue is doubted, and so is that of the first Alcibiades. 
 Nor is this matter for surprise. Not that the dialogue lacks 
 a Platonic character. It is written in Plato's usual style ; it 
 contains arguments generally used by him; it is not a mere 
 repetition of what is found elsewhere, since it contains infor- 
 mation, false or true, which is decidedly new. But it makes 
 the impression of being an inferior production, readable and 
 not altogether uninteresting but, compared to other Platonic 
 dialogues, altogether below the mark. 
 
 To find an explanation of this does not appear to be impos- 
 sible. It does not allow of doubt that an inferiority of poems- 
 or other writings of really first rate men is often the conse- 
 quence of their having been written under compulsion. When 
 there is a poet laureate in whose days a movement is set on 
 foot which leaves him perfectly cold but which must be cele-
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 135 
 
 "brated in verse, what will he do with it? When in 421 the 
 peace of Nicias was made between Athens and Sparta, it was 
 quite necessary for Aristophanes, who in his former plays 
 had strongly condemned the war, to celebrate the blessings of 
 peace ; but the Peace he brought on the stage is a very poor 
 production indeed. Now it is quite possible that Plato, at 
 some time or other, may have been compelled, by pressure on 
 the part of his friends, to write something against his will. 
 Take his Menexenus. The man it is named after was a 
 follower of Socrates, at whose death he was present, a relative of 
 Plato's friend Ctesippus, slightly younger than he, and evidently 
 a member of the same family which Demosthenes the orator 
 belonged to. The contents of the dialogue, however, are 
 altogether different from those of any other. Socrates is repre- 
 sented as holding a conversation with Menexenus about a 
 public funeral which took place several years after his death, 
 and he recites, as a specimen of a funeral oration as it ought 
 to be, one he has heard from Aspasia, known for her friendship 
 with Pericles, but hardly mentioned after the latter's death, 
 upwards of thirty years before. This funeral oration, which 
 is greatly inferior to that by Pericles as reported by Thucydides, 
 was annually read, in Cicero's time, to the Athenian public 
 on the day when the public funeral of citizens killed in war 
 had to take place; and both this fact and the mention of 
 Menexenus and his father Demophon in the dialogue may be 
 taken as evidence of its being genuine, in spite of the strange 
 fact that Socrates is made to discuss, with a woman belonging 
 to a former generation, an event posterior to his own death. 
 But how if some such criticism on Lysias as found in the 
 Phaedrus prompted Plato's friends to demand from him a 
 public speech? There would be nothing strange in this, and 
 it would be quite natural on his part wilfully to introduce 
 impossibilities in the preface of a speech he had to write 
 under pressure. * 
 
 *For the purpose of this essay only two points in this rhetorical 
 exercise of Plato's deserve special notice. The one is that the author,
 
 136 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 If this view is correct, and although there is no actual 
 evidence of its correctness, it certainly offers a solution of 
 the question how the Menexenus can have come into existence, 
 there is no reason whatever not to consider the first Alcibiades 
 as likewise a dialogue which Plato must have written under 
 something like compulsion. Alcibiades and Socrates are often 
 mentioned in Plato's works as joined together by a kind of 
 friendship better known in ancient Greece than in our days, 
 and as in the Banquet Alcibiades is represented as anxious 
 for the closest intimacy with his friend on account of the 
 wonderful charm of his conversation, so at any time the 
 relations between the two may have become a subject of 
 particular interest to Plato's associates. Now if this has 
 prompted them to insist on his giving an idea how it was 
 that the brilliant young man, hunted after, as Xenophon says, 
 by the most distinguished ladies of Athens, came to be on 
 such intimate terms with a personage outwardly so unseemly 
 as Socrates, there is nothing more natural than his failure to 
 perform the task imposed on him in a really effective manner, 
 and so the inferiority of his Alcibiades to his other dialogues 
 is explained at once. That inferiority, however, does not 
 prevent its being of some importance for the discussion of 
 the relations between Plato and his fellow-citizens. 
 
 The dialogue begins with a remark by Socrates that Alci- 
 biades will perhaps wonder how it is that, having attracted 
 many men of high standing as his admirers, and afterwards 
 repulsed them by haughtiness, he saw him, Socrates, though 
 till then silently admiring rather than courting him, remain 
 the only one still trying to get into his good graces. Alci- 
 
 who has of course to speak in favourable terms of the Athenian govern- 
 ment, actually represents it as virtually aristocratic, the feeling that 
 all the Athenian citizens belong to the same race being the reason for 
 not excluding any one from having a share in it. The other is the sharp 
 distinction he makes, like Isocrates in his Panegyricus, between Greeks 
 and barbarians as natural enemies, going so far in this respect as to 
 taunt the other Greeks with being a mixed race since the days of Cad- 
 mus, Danaus and Pelopis. After all, Plato was a chip of the old block.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 137 
 
 blades replies that he himself had thought of questioning 
 him about the matter. Socrates explains his conduct by 
 .stating that he was aware that Alcibiades was striving after 
 something higher than the position he occupied. In fact, 
 being about to enter political life, he thought himself able 
 to prove at once equal or even superior to Pericles, his 
 guardian, and would not be satisfied until he became master 
 of Greece, and then passed into Asia to establish his power 
 there too. Now he, Socrates, knew that this could not be 
 effected without his aid; and whereas till then the inward 
 voice which warned him against doing what he was about 
 to do, had prevented his addressing him on the subject, he 
 now felt at liberty to do so. Alcibiades thinks this strange, 
 but does not object to a conversation in the usual Socratic 
 style, and is then questioned about the political career he 
 intends to enter upon. 
 
 It cannot be denied that this first part of the dialogue is 
 promising, but how is the promise kept? Alcibiades is shown, 
 like Glauco in Xenophon's Reminiscences, that he does not 
 know what is required for the object he aims at, with this 
 difference however that Glauco is to be dissuaded from going 
 into politics before he is fit for them, whereas Alcibiades is 
 assumed to be the right man for the career he has chosen, 
 provided he is made fully to understand what he has to do. 
 In matters of peace and war the question of justice and in- 
 justice is principally to be attended to, and how has Alci- 
 biades obtained the knowledge required for deciding it? It 
 may be from the people, says Alcibiades, just as I have 
 learnt to speak Greek from them. The people of Athens 
 replies Socrates, know their own language, but the fact that 
 wars are constantly carried on to decide questions of justice 
 or injustice, shows in itself how little the question of justice 
 is understood by the public at large. The Athenians, says 
 Alcibiades, generally make war not thinking of justice but of 
 their own advantage; but Socrates questions him in such a 
 manner as to make him agree that only what is just can
 
 138 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 be advantageous. It was evident, says Socrates, that Alcibiades 
 laboured under a defect which was too common among his 
 countrymen, ignorance ; and how could he hope ever to get 
 the better either of the Spartan kings or of the king of 
 Persia, being inferior to them in birth, in careful training 
 of body and mind, in wealth, in fact in nearly everything? 
 His only chance lay in a superiority in knowledge and other 
 high qualities which he might obtain over them. 
 
 Alcibiades admits that Socrates is right, but how is he to 
 make up for his deficiencies ? Socrates now enters, by means 
 of questioning his friend, upon an argument to the effect 
 that to be a ruler of men it is necessary to bring about a 
 friendly understanding among them, founded on self-control, 
 in describing which he goes on somewhat the same lines as 
 those which, in the Charmides, are condemned when taken 
 by Critias; but with him to do one's own business and to 
 know oneself consist in cultivation of the mind, as being in 
 reality the essential part of man. Being the only one in 
 love with his young friend's mind, Socrates will assist him 
 in this, but he is afraid lest the charms of the Athenian 
 people will lead him astray, whereas his real duty as leader 
 of the people is first to become himself as excellent as he 
 can be, and then to secure the happiness of his fellow- citizens 
 by imparting to them the justice and continence he himself 
 is possessed of. For this purpose the state is as little to 
 be provided for with tyrannical power as any individual, 
 as such power is degrading, virtue alone being worthy of 
 those really free. 
 
 These last words contain the gist of the advice given by 
 Plato's Socrates to Alcibiades, an advice which, of course, 
 had it been given by the real Socrates, could not have been 
 followed. Pericles, charged in the Gorgias with having cor-^ 
 rupted the morals of the Athenian people by his payments- 
 for services rendered to the state, had introduced those 
 payments for no other reason than that, without them, it 
 was impossible to maintain that democratic rule and to render
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 acceptable that plan of defence in case of a general war,, 
 which were the only means to secure the power of Athens 
 over her subject states. But in the Alcibiades that power 
 itself is condemned, although it was the natural result of the 
 policy which Athens, after Salamis and Plataeae, had to- 
 follow in behalf of the general interest of Greece, jeopardised 
 as it was by those very barbarians in whom Plato himself 
 saw the natural enemies of the nation he belonged to, and 
 safeguarded by Aristides, the only Athenian statesman whom 
 Plato, in his Gorgias, sees fit to praise, by means of a policy on 
 which that of Pericles was virtually based. Pericles succeeded 
 in making it felt at Athens that the common interest of the 
 state was the same as the interest of every Athenian citizen. 
 For this very reason he maintained his authority for a long 
 period of years, not always free either from envy or unfounded 
 suspicion, but still triumphing over both by the good sense 
 of the people he governed. How could he have brought 
 about such a condition of affairs without that very tyranny 
 of Athens over her subject states which Plato, in his Alci- 
 biades, finds fault with? Was Alcibiades to ignore the fact 
 that a policy like that inaugurated by his great predecessors 
 could not be altered without danger to the state ? Was he, for 
 the sake of principles of justice and continence of which 
 Plato himself had hardly a clear idea when he wrote his 
 Charmides, to break with the noble tradition handed over to- 
 him by Pericles, and to exchange the post of a statesman 
 for that of a moralist? Was he, instead of the bread so 
 plentifully supplied to the Athenian people by Pericles, to 
 give them what might be called a philosopher's stone, were 
 it not for the peculiar meaning of this expression ? The weak 
 points of so magnificent a monument of Plato's genius as his 
 Gorgias, an entire misunderstanding of the position and 
 duties of Athenian statesmen in the days of Athenian great- 
 ness, and a preference for abstract principle as opposed to 
 the practical realities of life, are not fully understood unless 
 the lessons conveyed by Socrates to Alcibiades in the dialogue
 
 140 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 named after the latter are taken into account, and this is 
 why its inferiority to other dialogues does not prevent its 
 being of the highest interest for the study of Plato's views 
 and Plato's shortcomings. 
 
 X. PLATONIC LOVE. 
 
 NOTHING has been said, in the sketch of Plato's life forming 
 part of this essay, about such features of his private life as, 
 in the cases of some historical personages, must be touched 
 upon, for who could write about Henry IV of France or 
 Charles II of England without referring to love matters? 
 but which, in the case of many historical characters, are 
 for this reason rather to be passed over in silence, that no 
 information of real value for judging the person concerned 
 -can be given about them. Plato, according to a report men- 
 tioned by a lexicographer of the Byzantine period, was known 
 to be a model of chastity, and this causes modern writers, 
 naturally partial to the virtues honoured in Christendom, to 
 fly at once to the conclusion that this information must have 
 been derived from trustworthy sources, although the ten- 
 dency of the last days of Hellenism to make something like 
 -a heathen saint of Plato is not denied by them. It would 
 be equally uncritical to take it for granted, on the strength 
 of the evidence given by the title of a lost pamphlet by 
 Antisthenes, that Plato was the reverse of a saint ; but why 
 should he not have been like other Athenians of his time or, 
 in fact, like philosophers of all times, whose personal habits 
 and foibles nobody thinks of inquiring into, unless there is 
 some particular reason for doing so ? * But love in the abstract 
 
 *What is stated in Plato's seventh letter (p. 326 C) about the im- 
 pression made on him by the mode of life he witnessed, and had to 
 conform to, when visiting Sicily for the first time, is exactly that which, 
 in our days, would be expected from anybody not strictly keeping to the 
 morals of Christian faith, but averse to licentiousness. As to the idea that
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 141 
 
 cannot be left unnoticed in a sketch of Plato's works, and 
 this must have been seen already from many an observation 
 in the preceding chapters of this essay. 
 
 It is generally known that life in ancient Greece was cha- 
 racterised by aberrations in sexual love which it is unpleasant 
 to refer to, but which cannot be ignored in this sketch. No- 
 thing is heard of them in Homer * and Hesiod ; very little 
 in mythological tradition. Not until the time of the seven 
 wise men and the contemporaneous lyric poets do they mak& 
 their appearance in Greek literature, and it is a strange fact 
 that the most sublime erotic poems existing the only two 
 complete ones by Sappho which have reached us, are con- 
 nected with them. A fragment by Solon has been preserved, 
 evidently not written at all in a licentious spirit, but openly 
 referring to desires which in our times no one would even 
 covertly allude to. Something similar, occurring in a fragment 
 of a lost tragedy by Aeschylus, offers this peculiarity that 
 connections like those referred to are spoken of in terms 
 which Admetus might have used in regard to a love pure 
 and chaste, like that of his wife who was to die for him. 
 Pindar, in an ode sung on a public occasion, gives expression 
 to a sentiment of horror at the thought that one of the gods 
 should have tasted of the body of Pelops; but what does he 
 substitute for the popular tradition on the subject? A story 
 of his own invention that Pelops was abducted by Poseidon 
 for a purpose clearly indicated, whose very mention will 
 shock any reader not fully acquainted with Greek sentiments. 
 
 Plato's poem about Archeanassa of Colophon cannot be genuine for how 
 could a man like him be in love with a rather elderly lady of the demi- 
 monde? all that can be said about those suggesting it is that they 
 should read Ovid's Ars Amatoria, where they will find the opinion of an 
 expert in such matters. 
 
 * Ganymedes is mentioned in the Iliad (XX, 232 sqq.) as having been: 
 carried off by the gods to serve Zeus as cup-bearer, and to live, on ac- 
 count of his beauty, with the immortals; but from the very words used 
 it is evident that the poet cannot have had before his mind a tradition, 
 like that referred to by Pindar, 01. I 44.
 
 142 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 These references could not be avoided because, without 
 them, it is hardly possible to understand what, by Plato, is 
 said about love. 
 
 It has been stated already that in Plato's Phaedrus, when 
 Socrates, in order to show the deficiencies of a speech by 
 Lysias on love, has delivered another speech on the same 
 -subject, demonstrating that for a young man with many 
 admirers of his beauty it is better to gratify the wishes of 
 one who does not love him than of one who does, he is 
 prevented by the divine voice within him from leaving the 
 place without a recantation like that by Stesichorus when 
 anxious to recover the favour of Helen, who on account of 
 his referring to her in disparaging terms in one of his poems, 
 had deprived him of his eye-sight. In his former speech 
 Socrates had, in addressing an imaginary youth, contrasted 
 a man in love with one who was not, as one driven by 
 madness with one fully able to control his actions and feel- 
 ings. Now he denies that the madness of love must be an 
 evil. Is it not the madness sent by Apollo which enables 
 the Pythia to prophecy and thus to bestow the greatest 
 benefits on mankind? Is there not the madness which, by 
 the agency of Dionysus, lays hold of those who, by purify- 
 ing and mystic rites, cure the evils resulting from pollution 
 by crime, and making themselves felt during many a gener- 
 ation of men ? Then there is that which, under the influence 
 of the Muses, inspires the poets. In fact, the latter madness, 
 or enthusiasm as it would now rather be called, is also 
 mentioned in Plato's brief dialogue called Ion, after a famous 
 Homeric rhapsodist who, in conversation with Socrates, 
 admits that he does his work under an influence acting 
 strongly on his body and mind, and explained, by his inter- 
 locutor, from Homer's divine inspiration which is communicated 
 to him; and although he is unwilling, at first, that this 
 should be called madness in any way, he is afterwards reconciled 
 to the idea. 
 
 Now what, says Socrates, is the nature of erotic madness ?
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 143 
 
 It cannot be understood without knowing the nature of the 
 human soul. Every soul is immortal, for moving itself by 
 its own action it cannot have become, but must always have 
 been, what it is, nor can it perish. Its form for to go 
 beyond this would require too long a digression, is like a 
 horse-chariot with charioteer, feathered all over ; but in 
 divine souls everything is perfect, whereas in human souls 
 the one horse is manageable and willing to obey the driver, 
 the other restive and difficult to manage. When feathered, 
 the soul is always on the move in the wide world, joining 
 what is soulless; having lost its feathers it falls down on 
 earth and enters a body. This Platonic psychology, more 
 of which is found in the Republic and the Timaeus, simply 
 comes to this: that the intellect, here represented by the 
 charioteer, has to rule the soul, whereas by the manageable 
 horse that spirit (3^/cwV) is meant which shows itself in 
 courage, indignation and the like, the unmanageable one 
 acting the part of those desires whose gratification is stated 
 in the Gorgias to be essential to what Callicles calls 
 happiness. 
 
 By its feathers the soul is lifted to higher regions, where 
 the gods are dwelling, and where the sight of what is good, 
 beautiful and wise contributes to the growth of the feathers. 
 But then there is the sight enjoyed by the gods when they 
 ascend to the outer surface of the world, being followed, each 
 of them, by the human souls under their guidance. Blissful 
 sights are seen there of that which really is, without change 
 or form; but while the gods take the places they are entitled 
 to, the human souls remain behind in utter confusion, especi- 
 ally as in each of them the restive horse will not obey the 
 charioteer, who for this reason at most sees part, frequently 
 nothing, of what he longs for. Whatever soul has seen 
 something is allowed to remain in the higher regions until, 
 after a thousand years, the happy vision again takes place; 
 those who have been less fortunate have to undergo the 
 fate of being enclosed in a human body, since bodies of
 
 144 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED. IN. 
 
 dumb animals are not entered until the end of the human 
 life allotted to each soul. It takes ten thousand years before 
 the souls enter again the place from which they have fallen r 
 only those who have led lives of true philosophers or genuine 
 lovers three times in succession having the privilege of 
 returning to it after the third period of a thousand years 
 each. For at the end of its life on earth the soul is con- 
 signed either to punishment or to an abode of comparative 
 happiness, in order to choose a new life at the end of each 
 period. 
 
 Souls enclosed in human bodies must, at a former period 
 of their existence, have had a glance at those ideas for 
 here we have the true Platonic ideas, which they have seen 
 in the regions above heaven, and the remembrance of them 
 enables them to aspire to a happier fate. Here it is that 
 the erotic madness makes itself felt. To remember what is 
 justice, self-control and the like as seen in the regions above 
 heaven is for various reasons no easy matter, and they are 
 not clearly perceived in human beings ; but with beauty it 
 is different, as it is not the mind but the noblest organ of 
 perception in the body, sight, that discovers it, whereas 
 wisdom is not seen. The beauty seen is not, of course,, 
 viewed by all in its true light, as an efflux of that ideal 
 beauty which few remember, and there are those who, when 
 seeing it, think only of sensual enjoyment. Those, however, 
 whose minds do remember the heavenly sights are first 
 struck with fear, then full of a veneration which, if they 
 were not afraid of doing so, would make them offer sacrifices 
 to the impersonation of beauty they see as to a god; and 
 by seeing the object of their love they feel the forebodings 
 of the growth of their feathers, and long to enjoy his sight 
 as alleviating the sensations caused by growth. When, again, 
 the lover does not see his love, the growth of his soul's 
 feathers is stopped, causing pain and longings under whose 
 influence he is acting as if maddened, until he is restored 
 to happiness by a renewal of the sight he longs for, forgetting
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 145 
 
 everything for the bliss which then falls to his lot. Not 
 all are similarly affected or attracted by such beauty as they 
 see. It depends on what god they are followers of. Those 
 of Ares show wild passions, which may lead to violence and 
 crime; those of Zeus are captured by the beauty of those 
 in whom they see future philosophers and rulers of men; 
 those of Hera by a kingly bearing. All of them, however, 
 are equally anxious to attain their object, that of winning the 
 one they love. 
 
 When trying for this, they experience the effects of the 
 various elements which constitute their souls. The one horse 
 belonging to it is a splendid high-spirited animal, prone to 
 whatever is right; the other wild and only to be restrained 
 by force. When the perception of beauty has entered the 
 charioteer's eye, the good horse readily obeys him; the 
 other wildly rushes forward so as to reach the beloved object 
 and to prepare the way for sensual enjoyment, until a new 
 influx of beauty into the charioteer's eye gives him sufficient 
 strength, with the aid of the tame horse, to get the better 
 of the wild one. As soon, however, as the ennobling sight 
 has vanished the wild horse clamours for its rights, and 
 ultimately forces the driver to comply with its wish ; but 
 having approached his love the true instinct of the charioteer 
 once more gains the victory, and by harsh treatment the 
 wild horse submits and thenceforth keeps quiet. Still, when 
 the love has become mutual and closer intimacy ensues, the 
 wild horse gets another chance, and then it is possible for 
 it to attain its object under the influence of drink or other 
 excitement. In that case the two remain friends and lead 
 together a life deemed happy, nor does, when they keep 
 within bounds, misery await them after death ; but only those 
 who do not yield to their senses and lead till the end a 
 life untainted by the sensual element of love, are destined 
 to return, after three consecutive lives of the same descrip- 
 tion, to the abodes of the gods. 
 
 This short speech by Plato's Socrates it is barely half 
 
 10
 
 146 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 as long as the series of arguments to be waded through in 
 the Parmenides, contains such a wealth of ideas as is 
 not found in any other Platonic dialogue. In fact, not 
 writing, as he must have done in the Alcibiades, under com- 
 pulsion from without, but driven on by that very enthusiasm 
 which poets are inspired with by the Muses, Plato pours 
 out all at once the highest thoughts growing and developing 
 in his mind, which had to be worked out, not always to 
 their advantage, in his later works. His psychology cannot 
 be discussed until a later part of this essay; the vision of 
 the ideas in the regions above heaven must also, for the 
 present, be left alone. Nor will it do to enter, in connection 
 with so splendid a monument of Grecian thought, upon an 
 argument on the strictly moral questions which it opens to 
 those partial to the discussion of such matters; for they too 
 can be more appropriately touched upon when the works of 
 Plato's old age are being considered. But love and beauty 
 are nowhere spoken of in a spirit so thoroughly Grecian 
 and, at the same time, so closely grasping that image of 
 truth which it is given to man to behold during his life on 
 earth, as in the speech by which Platonic love has become 
 a term generally used, and as generally misunderstood, all 
 over the world. 
 
 The conclusion arrived at by Plato in his Hippias that 
 beauty is the cause of enjoyment through the organs of 
 sight and hearing, since the pleasure given by them is least 
 harmful and may be even called useful, is rather a poor 
 one; but it must have originated in a sentiment correct in 
 itself, though neither properly expressed nor sufficiently clear to 
 Plato's own mind. It certainly had not been altogether 
 discarded by Plato when he wrote his Phaedrus, and it takes 
 quite a different shape when what was not done by 
 Plato since he did not again take up the subject, instead 
 of the harmlessness and usefulness which, according to the 
 Hippias, pleasurable sensations through the eyes and ears 
 have in common, the fact is attended to that the enjoy-
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 147 
 
 ment afforded by those two organs is less directly connected 
 than that by other senses with those functions which keep 
 in existence both individual man as living on earth and 
 human society, and, therefore, with that change and inter- 
 change of matter which in German is called Stoffwechsel, 
 but, on the other hand, very nearly with the pleasures 
 derived from the independent action of the mind. That 
 Plato, though not acquainted with the investigations which 
 have led to the idea underlying the word just mentioned, 
 must have felt this superiority of hearing and seeing to 
 other senses, is seen from the story, quoted already from 
 the Phaedrus, about the men who, when the Muses had been 
 generated, were so charmed by what they heard from them 
 that they neglected to take food, and were changed into 
 tree-crickets. And now, in the speech by Socrates, enjoy- 
 ment through sight takes the place of that through hearing. 
 What he calls wisdom and intellect * can only be seen by 
 the mind's eye acting independently from the body, and this 
 has, on earth, nothing but remembrance to look at; beauty 
 is discerned by the visual organs of the body, and most 
 clearly and intensely when seen in man. But to see beauty 
 in man wakened, as matters stood in Greece, desires of a 
 lower as well as of a higher order, the former tending to 
 the satisfaction of physical wants, and having naturally, 
 when found in man, woman as their object; in which case 
 they are altogether necessary, if not for the individual at 
 all events for the preservation of the human race, whereas 
 they appear in quite another light when the ideas on love, 
 current in ancient Greece, are prevailing. 
 
 What Plato has seen, either by intuition or through per- 
 sonal experience, is that love, while exciting the desires 
 referred to in those touched by it, at the same time, in 
 those blest with a sense of real beauty, represses those 
 
 * The Greek word (fQOvr\cig admits of, and sometimes requires together, 
 both translations.
 
 148 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 desires and so secures the triumph of the higher over the 
 lower element in man. The sight of beauty is, in Plato's 
 eyes, ennobling, and so it is, in spite of the fashion of our 
 days to look for both heroism and true culture of mind in 
 those ready and accustomed to plunge into the lowest 
 depths, and frequent the vilest haunts, of humanity. But 
 the worship of beauty as seen in love, though considered 
 by Plato not less ennobling than philosophy itself, does not, 
 in his eyes, attain its glorious end the restoration of the 
 human soul to the highest regions of existence unless un- 
 tainted by intermixture with the effects of those lower desires 
 which make themselves felt in love, and whose gratification 
 as it was met with in ancient Greece, although not viewed 
 there with the same abhorrence as everywhere in our own 
 days, still to minds of a higher order lowered those indulg- 
 ing in them. 
 
 The aberrations in love which cannot be ignored by stu- 
 dents of Plato's works may be met with even in our days, 
 but they can no longer, as they were in Greece and also by 
 Virgil in his Alexis, in any way be idealised ; and so Platonic 
 love, in the true sense of the word, has become impossible. 
 But for all that the Phaedrus is by no means an antiquated 
 production. In love, as it is now understood, the action of 
 the higher instincts of man in repressing the lower ones is 
 not less seen than in the picture drawn by Plato ; only as a 
 lover worshipping his idol of beauty as if it were a god 
 would have been ridiculed in Greece, so would, and justly 
 too, in our days the realisation of Plato's idea of love. And 
 still, does not Schiller, after idealising the beautiful days of 
 first love, sorrowfully exclaim : mit dem Giirtel, mit dem 
 Schleier, reisst der schone WaJm entzivei? Not only is illusion 
 lost, a loss which is really not worth sorrowing for, but that 
 idealism of love also vanishes which causes the same poet's- 
 " Ritter Toggenburg " to pass his life in watching, from his 
 poor hut, the window of the nunnery where the object of 
 his love had her cell, and which, in Dante's Paradise, is seen
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 149 
 
 to be closely connected with the idea of the " blessed vision " 
 glorified by the poet. Those alone who feel that man's 
 idealism cannot be done full justice to when confined to 
 earthly life will, in our days, understand the full bearings 
 of Plato's ideas on love as given in his Phaedrus. 
 
 The real subject of the Phaedrus is not love, which has 
 got in by way of episode, but, as has been stated in a 
 former chapter, rhetoric. The case is different with the 
 Banquet, a dialogue of a peculiar character, since neither 
 Socrates nor any other philosopher acts the leading part in 
 it, the other personages being merely accessories, but a 
 number of speakers follow one another in succession, each 
 holding forth in the praise of love in his own way, until, 
 Socrates having spoken, an opportunity offers to have him 
 eulogised by Alcibiades in such glowing terms and with 
 reference to such virtues, known to the public or recondite, 
 that it would seem as if the praise of Socrates were the main 
 object of the dialogue. A Banquet was also written by 
 Xenophon, and there are those in whose opinion Plato, when 
 writing his, was anxious to have a fling at Xenophon's. 
 This opinion, however, rests on very slender grounds, nothing 
 being found in Plato's Banquet which is not perfectly clear 
 without any such supposition. It is much more likely that 
 Xenophon wrote his Banquet, not indeed with a view to go 
 against Plato, but because Plato's production reminded him 
 that, having written so much about Socrates, he should also 
 give a sketch of his convivial habits and talents ; and in that 
 sketch there are certainly allusions made to statements by 
 Plato's personages which clearly show that he must have 
 <been acquainted with, and not altogether have approved of, 
 the arguments used by them. * 
 
 * In Xenophon's Banquet (VIII 32 sqq.) Pausanias, one of Plato's per- 
 sonages, is taken to task for arguments which, in Plato's Banquet, are 
 partly used by him and partly by Phaedrus. Such mistakes are hardly 
 excusable when committed by writers in our days, but Xenophon may 
 have derived all his knowledge of Plato's Banquet from hearing it read 
 once or twice, and in that case nothing is more natural than that he
 
 150 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 Having elucidated the question of love in so masterly a 
 manner as by the grand speech of the Phaedrus, it may 
 well be asked how Plato came to revert to the subject and 
 write his Banquet. The most likely explanation of this is 
 that he must have been found fault with, by his friends and 
 by public opinion at Athens, for giving expression, in his 
 Phaedrus, to ideas about love which were not only at variance 
 with those current among the public, but even hardly under- 
 stood except, perhaps, by a very few. It must be admitted 
 that by his Banquet he both humoured the public by having 
 various opinions on love ventilated, made Socrates deliver a 
 speech, not as his own but as rendering the thoughts of a pro- 
 phetess, which contained views both novel and in keeping with 
 the tenor of his philosophy, and, through the final address by 
 Alcibiades, brought practical evidence of the correctness of the 
 views advanced by Socrates in the Phaedrus. Without the 
 Phaedrus the raison d'etre of the Banquet would not be fully 
 understood ; without the Banquet Plato might be charged with 
 holding a one-sided opinion on so important a subject as 
 love. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that a com- 
 parison of the speech held by Socrates in the Banquet with 
 that of the Phaedrus, too clearly shows that Plato, as in 
 some other respects, so especially in regard to love was rather 
 halting between two opinions than sure of his own mind. 
 
 Plato's Banquet begins with a narrative by Apollodorus r 
 a scholar and fervent admirer of Socrates, but more dis- 
 tinguished for the deep affection he bore to his teacher, than 
 
 should not remember everything rightly. The chronological question 
 connected with the matter, and made much of by Athenaeus (V c. 56), 
 will be hardly thought worthy of attention by those who are aware of the 
 rather shaky notions of chronology prevailing in Plato's days. Reasons 
 for considering Xenophon's Banquet as having been written in con- 
 sequence of the publication of Plato's are that its character is different 
 from that of his other works on Socrates, which peculiarity might be 
 accounted for by its having been written for a particular purpose, and that 
 it certainly tends to give another, and in its way not less correct, idea 
 of the opinion held by the real Socrates about love than Plato's Banquet.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 151 
 
 for brightness of intellect. He had been acquainted with one 
 Aristodemus probably the same who, according to Xenophon, 
 was taken to task by Socrates for not believing in the 
 existence, and neglecting the worship, of the gods, and from 
 him he had obtained information about what happened at a 
 banquet given by Agathon, the famous tragic poet, on the 
 occasion of his gaining his first victory in one of the usual 
 contests in the theatre. Being asked by a friend to give an 
 account of it, he tells him that his informant, having met 
 Socrates on his way to the dinner given by the poet, was 
 induced to accompany him, but had to enter the dining hall 
 alone, Socrates having, as was usual with him, remained 
 behind to meditate on some subject or other which had just 
 entered his mind. Not until the middle of the dinner did 
 Socrates make his appearance, and Agathon invited him to 
 take his seat, or, as the Greeks would say, lie down 
 beside him. 
 
 When dinner was over, and the hymn in honour of Apollo 
 had been sung, without which no pious Greek would indulge 
 in potations, it appeared that, as at a similar party on the 
 day before there had been a great deal of drinking, even the 
 steadiest worshippers of Bacchus were not anxious for a 
 renewal of their feats in that line ; and so a plan was agreed 
 upon to prefer a quiet gathering to another drinking bout. 
 Eryximachus, a well-known physician, who shared the un- 
 favourable opinion of certain colleagues of his in our days 
 about getting tipsy, then came to the front with a new idea. 
 His friend Phaedrus the one of the dialogue, had often 
 complained to him that, while gods and heroes were praised 
 by poets and sophists, yea, even a eulogy of salt existed, 
 love had never as yet been duly honoured in the same way. 
 "Why should not all those present, in succession according as 
 they were seated, hold forth in praise of love? This plan 
 was heartily approved of, and Phaedrus, who was asked to 
 speak first, made a speech in honour of love as a deity, 
 which slightly reminds those who now read it of that delivered
 
 152 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 by Socrates on the banks of the Ilissus, referring as it does 
 to the divine inspiration of lovers, but in which he also 
 dwells on the veneration in which love is to be held as 
 being, according to poetical tradition, one of the oldest gods, 
 as well as on the salutary effects of love on the minds, seen 
 in Alcestis who was ready to die for her husband whereas 
 his aged parents declined to do so, and in Achilles who 
 preferred hastening his own death to leaving his friend's 
 death unavenged. Was there not, between a lover and his 
 beloved one, a mutual respect which prevented their committing 
 anything disgraceful in each other's presence, and would not, 
 for this reason, an army made up of loving couples be 
 invincible? 
 
 Not all the speeches, of course, are reported, and so 
 Phaedrus is followed by Pausanias, Agathon's reputed lover, 
 who, in a lengthy speech, first makes a distinction between 
 love of a higher and love of a lower class, the one sprung 
 from the heavenly Aphrodite, born without either father or 
 mother, the other from the daughter of Zeus and Dione, 
 worshipped as the people's goddess. To love is in itself 
 neither good nor bad; all depends on the manner in which 
 it is done; and now it will strike readers of our own time 
 to hear from Pausanias that love under the guidance of the 
 heavenly Aphrodite has nothing to do with females, but 
 tends to educate those who practise it in the proper manner. 
 The love which Pausanias is in favour of, is held to be 
 perfectly correct in those parts of Greece where intellectual 
 power and education are hardly met with ; it is condemned 
 in those where tyrannical power prevails, for tyrants are 
 afraid of the spirit of liberty engendered by love. At Athens 
 a more sensible opinion is prevalent, for while it is thought 
 quite right to be in love, and even to indulge in all the 
 extravagant practices common to lovers, the beloved one is 
 blamed when reciprocating the love he is the object of, 
 unless it is evident that the lover's influence on him tends 
 to educate and improve him, since in this case the connection
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 153 
 
 between the two is clearly effected by the son of the heavenly 
 goddess. 
 
 Aristophanes, the comic poet, was to follow, but it would 
 seem that the length of his predecessor's speech had procured 
 him a violent hiccough, and Eryximachus, after prescribing 
 a remedy for it, consents to speak before him, taking quite 
 another view of the matter than the other speakers. With 
 him love is that principle in nature which reconciles con- 
 tending elements, and which medical as well as other pro- 
 fessional men have to take into account when trying to 
 bring about the harmony which cannot be dispensed with, 
 either in matters of health or in music and similar arts. 
 Here, too, the difference between the heavenly and the people's 
 Aphrodite is attended to, the latter's son being the cause, 
 both in nature and in human society, of all kinds of evils. 
 
 With this learned speech, as well as with the pedantic 
 and at the same time intensely cynical arguments of Pau- 
 sanias, the remarks on love made by Aristophanes form an 
 agreeable contrast; and here it is to be observed that Plato 
 very cleverly makes him use arguments reminding the reader 
 of what is met with in his comedies. Men are not aware, 
 he says, what a true benefactor they find in love, and this 
 is simply because they are unacquainted with the history of 
 their own race. In olden times men had one head with 
 two faces, four arms and four legs, which enabled them, by 
 tumbling about, to move with great swiftness. Instead of 
 two sexes there were then three males, females and those 
 half males and half females. Their strength and daring were 
 such that the gods became afraid of them, but it would not 
 do to exterminate them like the giants, for who would then 
 offer sacrifices? So Zeus cut them asunder, instructing 
 Apollo to heal the wounds caused by the operation, and to 
 take other measures for the preservation of the race. Man, 
 as now existing on earth, is always in search of his other 
 half, and while the male halves of the androgyne sex are 
 anxious for the love of women, the men sprung from males
 
 154 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 prefer their own sex, nor should they be blamed for this r 
 seeing that they are the men who afterwards act conspicuous 
 parts in political affairs.* Their mutual love is simply 
 caused by their feeling that together they are one being, 
 nor will they be parted in the nether world. But there is 
 always a danger lest, when the worship of the gods i& 
 neglected, a further division of the human individual will 
 ensue, and men will be obliged to jump about on one leg 
 and be like images in basso relievo; and for this reason 
 piety towards the gods is never to be lost sight of. 
 
 Two speeches were still to follow, one by Agathon and 
 one by his neighbour Socrates, who gives expression to his 
 fear lest, so wise and eloquent a man as his host having 
 spoken, nothing will be left for himself to say. Agathon 
 then gives a eulogy of Love as the most beautiful and 
 youthful of gods, highly applauded by those present for the 
 choice words he has used, but containing nothing else than 
 sophistical and rhetorical trash of such a nature that Socrates, 
 before entering upon his own speech, expresses his surprise 
 at his own mistake; for he had thought that love was to 
 be praised according to truth, and of the truth about love 
 he fancied he knew something, but now he saw that it did 
 not matter whether truth or falsehood was resorted to, pro- 
 vided any amount of praise was heaped upon the fancied god. 
 He then, in a brief exchange of questions and answers with 
 Agathon, soon compels the latter to admit that he is- 
 now found to understand nothing of what he has been 
 
 * Here we are reminded of such passages in Aristophanes as that in- 
 the Knights, where Cleon boasts of having put a stop to disreputable 
 practices by bringing to grief a citizen indulging in them, evidently a 
 person of the same description as Timarchus, who was brought into 
 court by ^Eschines, and when the sausage-vendor replies that this was- 
 simply done out of fear of having such people become competitors in 
 the political arena. The reference to the fear of the gods lest they 
 should lose the enjoyment given them by sacrifices, reminds one of th& 
 Birds; the advice not to indulge in shortcomings in regard to the gods, 
 of the final part of the Clouds.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 155 
 
 talking about, especially as he had praised Love for his 
 beauty, whereas his very nature showed him to be hunting 
 after, and therefore in want of, beauty. 
 
 Socrates now comes to the front, not with a speech which 
 he gives as his own, but with what he remembers having 
 heard from Diotima, a prophetess from Mantinea, who had 
 visited Athens at the request of the authorities to assist in 
 devising means to avert a pestilence then threatening but r 
 through her agency, prevented from breaking out till ten years 
 after. Socrates, being anxious to profit by her wisdom, had 
 frequent intercourse with her, and on one occasion he had re- 
 ferred, as all the speakers at the banquet had done, to love 
 as one of the greatest gods, endowed with surpassing beauty. 
 Love, replied Diotima, is neither a god nor beautiful, and you 
 know this yourself. He cannot be beautiful because he is 
 desirous and in want of beauty, and a god can never be in 
 want either of beauty or anything else. But as a man who 
 does not deserve the name of wise need not for this reason 
 be ignorant or foolish, since he may hold correct views without 
 being able to give proper reasons for holding them, so there 
 are beings who are neither gods nor mortals but between 
 the two: the demons.* They are those who, between gods 
 and men, mediate and administer everything, and one of the- 
 greatest of them is Love. 
 
 In answer to the question who Love's parents were, Dio- 
 tima gave a story about Wealth, or rather Means, f and 
 
 is used by Homer in many a passage as equivalent to gods 
 (deoi), and never in the sense given to the word in later times; but 
 when the gods are mentioned by their usual name, they are thought of 
 by the poet as known and worshipped, whereas Sui^icav is often used of 
 the invisible powers ruling the world. Hesiod speaks of Sai^ioves as the 
 men of the golden age, still watching the doings of mankind, and this. 
 agrees pretty well with what is stated by Diotima. To use the word 
 u demon " in English as it is used here, is somewhat awkward, on account of 
 its being generally applied to evil spirits, but it is not easy to find another. 
 t noQOg, the god's name, does not mean actual wealth (nlovros), but 
 the means or faculty of providing it.
 
 156 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 Poverty, the former, a son of the goddess Metis (wisdom or, 
 rather, inventive genius), having at a feast in honour of the birth 
 of Aphrodite too freely imbibed nectar, so as to lie down in the 
 garden of Zeus, where Poverty, anxious to become a mother 
 by him, joined him, afterwards to give birth to Love. So 
 Love was by no means the beautiful and delicate being of 
 Agathon's speech, but hardy and careworn, bold and inventive, 
 immortal through his father, mortal through his mother, never 
 in absolute want but allowing whatever he has got to run 
 at once though his hands, perishing by loss and reviving by 
 success. Gods are no philosophers, for they are possessed of 
 what philosophers strive after; Love is one and is like one, 
 since he is always in pursuit of what is wanting to him. 
 The error committed by Socrates was natural and common to 
 many, who, taking that which is loved for Love himself, endow 
 him with the highest beauty. But what is sought for by Love ? 
 Happiness, in other words the possession of what is good ; and 
 when love is understood to mean the pursuit of a more definite 
 object, the reason is that, like the word " poet" originally 
 whoever makes something, now used in a limited sense, it has 
 <;ome to designate a pursuit quite different from that after 
 wealth, strength of body, wisdom and other things worth having. 
 What is this pursuit? Not that, said Diotima, of one's 
 other half, as some people say, for in search of happiness 
 and what is good men would willingly cut off their hands 
 3,nd feet if required, but that of giving birth in (or joined to) 
 what is beautiful. All human beings are pregnant, in body 
 or in mind, and at a certain time of life anxious to give 
 birth to what they are pregnant with, but only in what is 
 beautiful, for it cannot be done in what is the reverse and 
 wanting in harmony. So beauty is the presiding genius of 
 birth, and those pregnant we should rather say "anxious to 
 generate," but Plato makes no distinction between the two, 
 are for this reason always fascinated by beauty. But it is 
 not beauty itself that is striven after ; the object aimed at is 
 giving birth in it and so ensuring immortality.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 157 
 
 This last point was elucidated by Diotima in a further 
 conversation, when she pointed out how anxious animals as- 
 well as men are to perpetuate their own existence in and 
 through their offspring. This was the effect of a longing 
 for immortality to which satisfaction is sought for in gene- 
 ration, not only in the usual sense of the word, but also in 
 regard to that which the mind gives birth to, and to that 
 which men can do to preserve the memory of their names. 
 Would Alcestis, says she to Socrates, would Achilles, would 
 that Codrus of yours have willingly encountered death, had it 
 not been for their ardent desire for immortalising themselves ? 
 And then she refers to the lasting benefits bestowed by poets 
 and lawgivers on humanity in their eagerness for immortality : * 
 an immortality exactly tallying with that now extolled by 
 those who have parted with the belief in life eternal which 
 forms part of the Christian faith, and whose right to call 
 themselves, if they choose to do so, Diotimists after the 
 prophetess of Mantinea, no one can, with justice, deny. 
 
 But Diotima had something else to say about love, in 
 which Socrates might not be quite able to follow her. It is- 
 natural, and right too, said she, to fall in love with one in 
 whom beauty is seen, and with him to give birth to thoughts j. 
 but why keep to one only, and why not try to descry the 
 beauty of the mind as well as that of the body, the former 
 being much more valuable ? Why not educate youth to what 
 is good in practice and to the knowledge imparted by phi- 
 losophical studies, and by doing so be brought to see beauty 
 as it is? For whoever takes this as his object in life will 
 end by reaching the true goal which love tends to, and will 
 see beauty, not as it is revealed in nature or in man or 
 
 * It may be that the praise bestowed here on poets and lawgivers 
 Homer and Solon are specially named, has also as its object to take 
 away unfavourable impressions which the Phaedrus had made on the 
 Athenian public; but nobody would think of this, were there no reason* 
 to consider the Banquet as written for a similar purpose in regard to- 
 what the Phaedrus contains about love.
 
 158 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 anywhere else, but as it really is, pure of anything human 
 and shining in its divine unity. This is what the path ot 
 true love leads to. 
 
 So Plato once more, but by a different road, arrives at 
 that " blessed vision " which, in the Phaedrus, true lovers, 
 undefiled by desires of the flesh, get access to as well as 
 true philosophers; and that too, this time, by a combination 
 of love and philosophy which was found in, and formed the 
 distinctive character of, Socrates as he, and perhaps he alone, 
 knew him. The latter's speech at the banquet met with 
 approval, only Aristophanes wanting to have his say in reply 
 to Diotima's remark about his own theory of love, when at 
 once a great noise of nightly revellers was heard at the 
 door, and Alcibiades was seen to enter rather elevated and 
 his hair adorned with fillets, with one of which he wants to 
 encircle Agathon's brow in honour of his victory. Having 
 lain down on Agathon's couch he discovers that Socrates, 
 his old lover, is next to him ; and him, too, he honours in 
 the same way, asking at the same time for an enormous cup 
 which he empties at once, Socrates, who could stand any 
 amount of wine, following his example. Are we to drink, 
 now asks Eryximachus the physician, without saying a word ? 
 Will not Alcibiades join us in celebrating love? That will 
 not do, says Alcibiades ; Socrates is too jealous to allow me 
 to praise, in his presence, anybody else; but I am quite 
 ready to make a speech in praise of Socrates. And so he 
 does. 
 
 Alcibiades begins his speech by comparing Socrates to one 
 of those images of Silenus which were for sale at sculptors' 
 shops, being in reality boxes in which, when opened, the 
 image of a god was found. In fact, he not only looked like 
 Marsyas the satyr, but as the latter fascinated people with 
 the sounds of his flute, so he did with his words. Pericles 
 was a first-rate orator, but the feeling experienced when 
 listening to Socrates, a feeling as under the influence of 
 witchcraft, his speeches could not rouse. Often, when taken
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 159 
 
 to task by Socrates about his dealings with the people of 
 Athens, he, Alcibiades, had to run away closing his ears, lest 
 he should have to sit spell-bound instead of taking his part 
 in active life. This, however, others, too, had occasion to 
 experience, but not every one saw the god enclosed within 
 the satyr. He had seen the divine image, he had felt what 
 it was worth to be loved by, and on terms of the closest 
 intimacy with, such a man. What lovers tried to obtain 
 from those they were in love with, he wanted to bestow on 
 Socrates, but without being anything else for him than what 
 a son was to his father and a younger brother to an elder 
 one. So he had reason to complain of Socrates as having 
 repulsed his advances; but could he forget the steadfastness 
 and courage displayed by him at the siege of Potidaea, when 
 he saved his life but declined, in his favour, the prize for 
 valour? Again, at the retreat from the battle of Delium, 
 Socrates not only showed the coolest head and gave the best 
 advice, but he walked off with that gait of his ridiculed by 
 Aristophanes but showing that he was not afraid in the least, 
 and therefore being a sufficient reason even for a victorious 
 nemy to leave him alone. Achilles had a rival in Brasidas 
 the Spartan ; to Pericles Nestor of old could be compared ; 
 but Socrates was a man of quite a novel type, laughed at 
 for his strange and satyr-like arguments taken from things 
 of daily life, but in reality containing treasures of wisdom 
 and virtue altogether divine. 
 
 The guests were highly amused with the candid confession 
 made by Alcibiades of his discomfiture in regard to Socrates, 
 but soon the arrival of other revellers caused the most ab- 
 stemious of them to leave, and when during the night Aris- 
 todemus, who had been asleep for a while, got awake, he 
 found Socrates discussing with Agathon and Aristophanes, 
 under the influence of the cup that cheers and sometimes 
 inebriates, the question whether writing comedies and trage- 
 dies was not, after all, work for one and the same indi- 
 vidual. Towards daybreak the two went to bed, whereas
 
 160 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 Socrates, having gone to a gymnasium and washed himself^ 
 spent the day as if nothing had happened. 
 
 If it has been rightly surmised that the Banquet was 
 written with a view to meet objections raised against the 
 speech in the Phaedrus, Plato must be admitted to have 
 fully attained his object. Phaedrus himself introduces the 
 subject of love, making one observation of some importance 
 which might have fitted Pausanias as well, that about an 
 army of loving couples ; and it is well known that about the 
 time when the Banquet must have been written, a body of 
 warriors, selected on this principle, was actually formed at 
 Thebes.* The speech by Pausanias must have made on the 
 Athenian public the same impression as on Xenophon that 
 in reality it was nothing else than a defence of sheer im- 
 morality. In fact, immorality in some shape or other cannot 
 be got rid of in this world, but even those indulging in it 
 will dislike arguments in its favour, and so Pausanias must 
 have done good work by preparing readers of the Banquet 
 for what was coming. Eryximachus allows them to have a 
 glance at the speculations about love as a principle of nature 
 which Aristophanes, in the parabasis of his Birds, did not. 
 fail to ridicule ; Aristophanes himself would seem to have 
 embodied, in his amusing story, a belief, or rather a common 
 expression founded on something not unlike belief; Agathon 
 represents, by his speech, the hollow rhetoric which, at that 
 time, had many admirers, but which Socrates easily demo- 
 lishes. So the minds were opened for the speech given by 
 Socrates himself, which is the most important part of the 
 dialogue. 
 
 That this speech is altogether different from that in the 
 
 * This cannot have happened before 378, the year when the Lacedae- 
 monians were expelled from the citadel of Thebes. The allusion in the 
 speech made by Aristophanes to the Spartan policy of weakening the 
 Arcadians by keeping them asunder may, but need not, refer to what 
 happened, shortly after the peace of Antalcidas (387), with Mantinea, for 
 this was only one instance of the manner in which the Arcadians were 
 dealt with, for centuries, by their southern neighbours.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 161 
 
 Phaedrus is seen at a glance, but what does the difference 
 come to ? In the Phaedrus Socrates sketches individual men, 
 touched by love, having to deal with tendencies mutually 
 contrary in their own bosoms, and made by love, kept pure 
 from vile admixture, to rise to the serene abodes of the gods. 
 The fact that Socrates, when thus insisting on purity, was 
 not belied by his own life, is attested by the speech of 
 Alcibiades. But in the Banquet individualism is set aside. 
 Immortality is nothing else than perpetuation of race and 
 memory ; love is not confined to one object but identified with an 
 activity extending over the whole community. The love shown 
 by Socrates to those endowed with beauty undoubtedly partook 
 more of the latter kind than of that pictured in the Phaedrus. 
 To him the taming of the wild horse can hardly have been the 
 difficult task so graphically described by Plato, but it was his 
 object to educate whoever was fit to profit by his conversation ; 
 and the idealism not less splendidly given expression to by 
 Diotima than in the speech under the plane-tree is sure to 
 have filled his mind. But it is Plato, not Socrates, this essay 
 has to deal with, and Plato's idealism is now to be considered. 
 
 XL PLATO'S IDEALISM. 
 
 BY idealism, in this essay, is meant that tendency of the 
 human mind which is not satisfied with what is met with in 
 its surroundings, but strives after something higher, to be 
 looked for in those very ideas of beauty and the like which, 
 according to Diotima, Socrates would come to see by following 
 the path of true love. Without such idealism, without striving 
 after something beyond the elements of happiness named in 
 the epitaph of Sardanapalus eat, drink and enjoy yourself, 
 without feeling that, whatever spirit may prevail among 
 the masses, no one is really worthy of the name of man 
 unless he aims at a higher object than keeping himself alive 
 and securing his worldly interests, there is an end, if not to 
 
 11
 
 162 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 human society, at all events to that which causes mankind 
 to have a history. But idealism is of two kinds. It either 
 aims at individual self-development, or at improving and 
 benefiting the community, small or large, a petty village 
 or the human race, which the individual belongs to. The 
 former kind of idealism requires, to have full scope, a belief 
 in the individual's continued existence after life on earth ; the 
 latter does not, and even has a levelling tendency which is 
 directly at variance with individual development of the higher 
 kind. Christianity, with its universal charity and its life 
 eternal, embraces both; but Christianity, as a religion based 
 on revelation, is altogether different from any philosophy. 
 
 To understand Plato's idealism, his idea of future life, 
 immortality of the soul, or however one may call it, is on 
 one hand to be considered, and this, of course, necessitates 
 an inquiry into his psychology ; on the other hand his theories 
 about the state and the organisation of society are to be 
 studied. Till now, nothing has been said in this essay on 
 either point, since the dialogues of which an account has 
 been given only throw a side-light on the one subject, and 
 give negative views of the other. With the question of 
 Platonic love discussed in the preceding chapter, Plato's 
 psychology is closely connected. 
 
 Before entering upon it, the ideas of Socrates on the sub- 
 ject, as far as they are known, are worth attending to. 
 Xenophon, in his works on Socrates, has nothing about the 
 great question of human existence. In his book on the 
 education of Cyrus his hero, on his death-bed, gives reasons 
 why his sons should not think that, with his death, his 
 existence would come to an end his soul during his life was 
 not seen but showed its existence by its action; the wicked 
 were threatened with punishment after death ; the spirits of 
 the deceased were objects of active veneration ; the soul was 
 active during sleep, and why should it be thought to be 
 nowhere after death, etc. ; but for all that it might be that 
 death put a period to the soul's life as to that of the body.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 163 
 
 From this it is evident that Socrates in his dealings with 
 men like Xenophon did not care to suggest definite ideas on 
 psychological questions ; but Plato knew more about his inmost 
 thoughts, and from his dialogues it is evident that Socrates 
 had something of a psychological theory of his own. 
 
 When, however, Plato in his Apology represents Socrates 
 .as addressing his judges after they had passed sentence of 
 death on him, his words agree, in the main, with those of 
 Xenophon's Cyrus. If life is extinct after death, if death is 
 sleep without dreams and without awakening, what is the evil 
 of it ? If, on the other hand, the soul descends to the kingdom 
 of Hades, he, Socrates, will meet with judges of quite a dif- 
 ferent kind to those at Athens, and with the souls of men 
 who either were in life far superior to those now living on 
 earth, or suffered injustice like himself. So a picture of life 
 in the nether regions is given akin to that in the Frogs, and 
 such as may have been present to the mind of many a pious 
 worshipper of the goddesses of Eleusis. Also in Plato's Crito 
 Socrates expresses himself in terms showing that he adheres 
 to the popular traditions about existence after death, and 
 oven that death is for him a passage to his true home. But 
 both in the Apology and in the Crito philosophical argument 
 was out of the question, and popular ideas had to be repro- 
 duced; and so they were. 
 
 The Socratic ideas, together with the first ones of Plato, 
 on the soul are mainly found in two dialogues, the Phaedo 
 and the Meno. The two are closely connected with one 
 another, not only by their referring, in some measure, to the 
 same subject, but also by the fact that the Phaedo is not of 
 less importance than the Banquet for knowing and rightly 
 understanding Plato's Socrates, and that the Meno contains 
 a direct allusion by the reasons why the charges were 
 brought against Socrates which led to his condemnation 
 and death. The Phaedo, like the Theaetetus, is prefaced by 
 a conversation between the founder of a philosophical school 
 owing its existence to the teachings of Socrates and a friend,
 
 164 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 and this might be taken as an argument, though a very 
 slender one, that it must have been written about the same 
 time. There are, however, much more cogent reasons for 
 assuming that both dialogues were written almost immediately 
 after the Theaetetus. 
 
 First of all, there is every reason for believing that the 
 Meno was written before the Phaedo, the latter referring, as 
 to a matter frequently discussed between Socrates and his 
 friends, to a doctrine laid down and argued and, in Plato's 
 opinion, proved to be correct in the Meno. Again the psy- 
 chological theory laid down in the Phaedo is not only also met 
 with in the Phaedrus, but what is stated in the Phaedo about 
 the fate of the soul after death is much more tentative and less 
 definite than the statement in the Phaedrus, which is adhered 
 to and, at the same time, amplified in a dialogue posterior 
 not only to the Phaedrus itself but also to the Gorgias and 
 the Banquet: the Republic. Now the reason for assigning 
 to the Phaedrus a later date than to the Theaetetus and to 
 the Sophist is not that there is such a connection between 
 the latter two and the former as there is between the Phae- 
 drus and the Banquet, but simply that the Phaedrus cannot 
 have been written before the time when Plato had got the 
 better of the doubts besetting him by hitting upon an ontology 
 of his own ; and it will be remembered that whereas, in the 
 Theaetetus, Socrates sets aside the doctrines of Heraclitus 
 and Protagoras, but does not meet with success in his at- 
 tempts at arriving at a definite result as to the nature of 
 knowledge, a more important victory was soon to be gained 
 in the Sophist, but in a debate in which Socrates, as leading 
 character, had to make room for the stranger from Elea. The 
 meaning of this, as far as Plato's own position was concerned, 
 has been explained at the end of the eighth chapter of this 
 essay ; but must not Plato's friends on becoming acquainted 
 with the Sophist, must not even before them Plato himself, 
 while his new dialogue was being prepared for, have felt deep 
 regret at the position given to Socrates, dismissed as he was-
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 165 
 
 for the present from his leadership, after having suffered, 
 in the Theaetetus, an unquestionable defeat? Could anything 
 be more gratifying to either Plato or his friends from his 
 younger days than a full and brilliant rehabilitation of their 
 great teacher ? That rehabilitation might be twofold ; by 
 making him give, before the question of knowledge would 
 be solved by the man from Elea in that third dialogue the 
 Philosopher, which was to follow the Sophist and the Politi- 
 cus but was never written, a solution of it not by means of 
 an elaborate argument, for which Plato was not at that time 
 prepared, but by a simple hint ; and by showing him once 
 more to his admirers in all the splendour of his moral great- 
 ness. The former object was attained by the Meno, the latter 
 by the Phaedo. 
 
 Meno was a young Thessalian of high birth, who, like 
 Xenophon, joined the expedition of Cyrus against the Persian 
 king, but at the head of a body of men recruited in Thessaly, 
 not as a simple volunteer, and who evidently, on the occa- 
 .sion of a visit to Athens, must have made friends with Plato, 
 but was hated by Xenophon with a deadly hatred, which 
 even the cruel fate he met with as a prisoner at the Persian 
 court did not abate. In the dialogue named after him he 
 raises the old question, discussed but not answered in the 
 Protagoras : whether virtue (apery) can be taught. Socrates 
 pays him a compliment for a predilection for philosophy 
 which he thinks must have been fostered in him by Gorgias, 
 then a welcome guest with the Thessalian nobility ; but before 
 replying he wants to know what virtue is. How is it possi- 
 ble, says Meno, to pretend ignorance of this ; but when asked 
 for an answer to the question, he commits the mistake which, 
 in the Hippias and the Theaetetus, secures to Socrates an 
 easy victory over his interlocutors; that of not giving a 
 definition of the matter under discussion, but naming instances 
 or parts of it. A definition worthy of a disciple of Gorgias 
 that virtue is the power of ruling over men, is then 
 given by Meno, but soon demolished by Socrates, who goes
 
 166 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 out of his way to make Meno understand the nature of a 
 definition; but a second attempt that virtue is to rejoice in 
 things beautiful, and to have the power to obtain them, does 
 not meet with better success. Socrates makes Meno admit 
 that the pursuit of what is beautiful implies that of what is 
 good and useful and that, although wealth may be useful, it 
 can be no virtue to obtain it otherwise than in a just and 
 proper manner; and then poor Meno is caught as Theaetetus 
 is in his last attempt to define knowledge: justice, forming 
 part of virtue, cannot be mentioned in a definition of virtue. 
 Why, says Meno to Socrates, people are truly right in 
 comparing you to a cramp fish (torpedo), by whose touch 
 they are benumbed. I thought I knew what I was about, 
 and now I feel as if I know nothing at all. If I have that 
 power, replies Socrates, there is this peculiarity added 'to it 
 that, when others are benumbed by coming into contact with 
 me, I am likewise. What you do not know I do not know 
 either, but I am ready to assist you in seeking for it. 
 
 It is now that Socrates, after a remark made by Meno 
 in the style of the eristic school on the impossibility of 
 seeking for anything one does not know, comes to the front 
 with a doctrine which, says he, is preached by priests and 
 reproduced in one of Pindar's poems: that the human soul 
 is immortal, and after death and a sojourn in the kingdom 
 of Hades returns to the abode of living men clad in a new 
 body. This doctrine, which may have originated with Pytha- 
 goras, was evidently as much one taught by Socrates to, 
 and discussed with, such scholars of his as he thought fit 
 for philosophical research, as that of the ideas mentioned in 
 the Parmenides and so many other Platonic dialogues ; and 
 Socrates convinces Meno of its truth by questioning a slave 
 of his, who had never heard of geometry, in such a manner 
 as to make him arrive, by his replies, at the result known 
 by the name of Pythagoric theorem. The slave had first 
 confidently given a wrong answer ; then he had been brought, 
 by a new question, under the benumbing influence of the
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 167 
 
 philosophical cramp fish ; and ultimately he had come to see 
 the truth, evidently without being taught anything but simply 
 by being made to remember. Here, too, the answer is given 
 to the question which puzzled Theaetetus. Knowledge is 
 stated by Socrates to be a true opinion, confirmed by that 
 remembrance of things seen in former life which is awakened 
 by questioning. 
 
 Meno is now willing to engage with Socrates in search 
 for truth, but he prefers taking the original question whether 
 virtue can be taught, as the subject of their common in- 
 quiry, to hunting after a definition of virtue, and Socrates 
 gives in, since the want of a definition may be supplied by 
 a supposition. The result of all teaching is knowledge; can 
 virtue be called knowledge? It can, is the conclusion arrived 
 at; there can be no virtue without that intelligent action 
 of the mind (Qpovwig) which, to the Grecian mind, was 
 not clearly distinct from knowledge. Besides, if virtue 
 cannot be taught, it must be owing to a direct action of 
 nature, and if this were the case those born virtuous would 
 be laid hold of at once, to preserve them from whatever 
 might prevent their benefiting the state. But there is one 
 thing not tallying with the supposition made use of. How 
 is it that, when virtue can be taught, it is not usually either 
 taught or learnt? Teachers of all arts are to be had, but 
 where are teachers of virtue found? 
 
 When the two have got so far, Anytus comes near, and 
 Socrates having introduced him to Meno as one of the leading 
 men at Athens, at once makes him take part in the inquiry. 
 Anytus is found not to believe in the teaching of virtue by 
 sophists, for whom he feels nothing but contempt. Cannot 
 any decent citizen, asks he, teach youth what is required? 
 Socrates replies by quoting, to a much larger extent than in 
 the Protagoras, instances of leading men Themistocles and 
 Aristides, Thucydides and Pericles who had failed to impart 
 virtue even to their own sons. Anytus it will be remembered 
 that he was charged with bringing his son to grief by neg-
 
 168 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 lecting his education breaks off the conversation by an 
 angry warning to Socrates that, in a town like Athens, it 
 is dangerous to speak ill of men of worth; and now it is 
 seen why he, the most powerful of the men who brought 
 Socrates into court, is made to take part in the dialogue. 
 
 The end of the Meno is that virtue is neither taught nor 
 the gift of nature, and that it is not knowledge either; but 
 is knowledge required for the guidance of men on the path 
 of life? Is not opinion in accordance with truth sufficient 
 for it? If there is one thing, says Socrates, I am sure of, 
 it is that a difference exists between knowledge and correct 
 opinion; but the effects of such opinion are the same, only 
 it does not last without that divine inspiration which is also 
 at work in prophecy. And so the conclusion arrived at is 
 that virtue, being identified with opinion in accordance 
 with truth, is bestowed on, and maintained in, man by 
 divine agency. 
 
 The Phaedo is often called, by Greek authors, and rightly 
 so, the dialogue about the soul, but the impression it makes 
 on the reader is rather that of a eulogy of Socrates. Having 
 been for many days in gaol, and daily received his friends' 
 visits, he learns that the arrival of the sacred galley from 
 Delos, during whose absence no execution was allowed to 
 take place, has rendered it necessary for him to die; and 
 when on the fatal day his friends are anxious to have a last 
 interview with him, they are told that they cannot enter at 
 once, since the committee of police (ol IvSexa) are engaged 
 in unlocking the chains in which his legs are bound. When 
 they are allowed to enter, they find Socrates on his couch, 
 trying to accustom his limbs to the freedom they have 
 recovered. His wife is indulging in passionate grief; he 
 quietly tells his old friend Crito to remove her, and then 
 enters into conversation with his friends about the relief 
 from pain he experiences, and about certain poems he had 
 felt called upon to make while in prison, until a remark of 
 his that death is not to be deprecated but not to be hastened
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 169 
 
 either, causes Simias the Theban, who is present with his 
 friend Cebes, to question him on this last point. Why should 
 a philosopher be not afraid of death, but still averse to put 
 an end to his own life? The gods, replies Socrates, are 
 watching over us, and we should not leave their service 
 before it is time. 
 
 But then, asks Cebes, why should wise men leave cheerfully 
 such good masters, whereas those devoid of wisdom bewail 
 their fate when doomed to die ? Should not rather the con- 
 trary take place? Socrates now proceeds to give his reasons 
 for willingly submitting to his doom. He hopes to meet, 
 -after death, gods and men as good as those he is leaving; 
 but besides, what else is philosophy than a continuous 
 preparation for death ? Is not death a separation of the soul 
 from the body, and is not this the philosopher's wish ? Surely 
 .a philosopher does not care for such joys of life as eating 
 and drinking; and will he not, when released from what 
 impeded his mind's sight, and enabled to discern that which 
 really is, instead of being dependent on the fallacious affec- 
 tions of his senses, enjoy a happiness not to be had in this 
 life ? The real philosopher for this reason is anxious to get 
 rid of his body and its desires, and his training for death 
 consists in keeping pure from them, so as to be able to come 
 into contact with what is pure and untainted by the evils 
 of the body. But even of those who seemingly practise vir- 
 tue, very few are really partaking of that intellect and 
 wisdom which render man fit for a life in which the body 
 has been laid aside, and these few are those really worthy 
 of the name of philosophers. 
 
 Cebes, though agreeing with most of this, still observes 
 that according to popular opinion the soul, when leaving the 
 body, is dispersed by winds and thus perishes. What could 
 Socrates say against this? His reply is that it is an old 
 belief that the souls, after having left the bodies they have 
 been joined to, revert to other bodies; and is not this belief 
 justified by the nature of things? Do not always opposites
 
 170 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 arise from opposites; what is smaller from what is larger r 
 what is hot from what is cold, what is awake from what 
 is asleep? Between waking and sleeping there is falling 
 asleep and getting awake, and must there not, between life 
 and death, be a reviving as well as a dying ? How if there 
 were no awaking; would not the whole world be faster asleep 
 than Endymion? And where would life be if, after dying, 
 there was no reviving? Cebes admits the soundness of this 
 argument, and also reminds Socrates of his well-known doctrine 
 of learning being remembering ; and at the request of Simias 
 Socrates goes once more through the argument about this 
 subject, pointing out that what we are reminded of by seeing 
 it, need not be what we actually have seen, but may be 
 something else. When seeing two things which are equal, 
 we are reminded of what is equal in itself, or the idea of 
 equality, and where can we have seen this except in former 
 life? Taken together, the doctrine of the mutual generation 
 of life and death and that of learning being remembering 
 are, in the opinion of Socrates, which both Thebans admit 
 to be correct, sufficient to prove that the soul does not 
 perish with the body ; and as to the popular belief about 
 the soul's dispersion, the admitted fact that, whereas the 
 body belongs to things seen, the soul is invisible, renders 
 it evident that the decomposition which the former, like all 
 visible matter, is subject to, cannot affect the latter, as 
 partaking of the oneness of things invisible. But the soul f 
 when contaminated by its indulging in the pleasures of the 
 body, does not fully retain its character of invisibility, and 
 hence it is that ghosts are seen wandering about the graves,, 
 whereas the pure souls, preserved from contamination by an 
 undefiled life, reside after death in the kingdom of Hades the 
 invisible. This, too, is the true reason why those following 
 a philosopher's life abstain from pleasures of the body. 
 
 Silence ensued, but the two Thebans are seen whispering 
 to one another, and when Socrates asks them whether they 
 still feel doubts on certain points, it appears that they do,
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 171 
 
 and that they think it the better plan to give utterance to 
 them. Simias thought that it was possible for the soul to 
 be, in regard to the body, nothing else than what the har- 
 mony of a lyre was in regard to the lyre itself. Cebes, 
 while agreeing with this, harboured also another doubt. 
 Should it be assumed that a soul might have gone through 
 many lives, then even this was no reason for being sure 
 that it would not perish ; for a man who had worn out 
 many a cloak was, for all that, not immortal. The effect of 
 these remarks on those present was most depressing. Their 
 doubts had been set at rest, and now they were renewed, for 
 the arguments they had heard just now seemed irresistible. 
 
 Never, says Phaedo, who tells the story to his friend, did 
 I admire Socrates more than on this occassion. I sat next 
 to him on a low chair, and laying hold of the long hair I 
 wore, he said: to-morrow, perhaps, this hair will be cut off, 
 which, at Athens, was the usual sign of mourning, but 
 to-day I shall have your hair and mine cut, unless I get the 
 better of Simias and Cebes. And the better he got of Simias. 
 After a warning against becoming averse to argument in 
 consequence of the impression some arguments might make,. 
 for this would be the very means of being always in doubt, 
 he first points out that the doctrine of harmony did not 
 agree with that of learning being the same as remembering,, 
 and then that harmony and the soul were subject to affections- 
 altogether different from one another. There could be, in 
 harmony, a difference of degree ; a soul could not be more 
 or less a soul. In a soul there could be good and evil, and 
 want of harmony was the evil ; but could there be, in 
 harmony, either another harmony or disharmony? The soul 
 was admitted to rule the body ; was not the harmony of a 
 lyre dependent on the condition of the lyre? 
 
 In reply to Cebes Socrates enters upon a lengthy discussion 
 of the whole question of coming into existence and perishing. 
 In his youth, said he, he had gone through those studies of nature 
 which were then the fashion, and had fancied he knew a good
 
 172 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 many things, for instance that the body grew by eating and 
 drinking, and that ten was more than eight by two ; but he 
 had soon to encounter doubts of his own. How could one 
 joined to one become two, and one cut into two likewise? 
 Was, in this case, not the same result brought about by means 
 contrary to one another ? Much had he been pleased on 
 finding that Anaxagoras had written a book about intellect 
 (vovq) as the ruling power of the world; but in reading it 
 he found nothing about intellect, air and water, bones and 
 sinews being represented as causes of what happened in the 
 world and in the human body. Being afraid of going alto- 
 gether wrong he had betaken himself to dialectic, and had 
 -arrived at the conclusion that if one became two the cause 
 was to be sought for in the accession of duality, and that 
 when things became greater or smaller, it was through 
 receiving greatness or smallness. Now greatness could never 
 become smallness, nor smallness greatness, but smallness gave 
 way to greatness when greatness joined that which contained 
 smallness. Not only, however, had opposites to give way 
 to one another, but also that which contained them. Fire 
 contained heat but was not heat; but when cold came to 
 fire, it did not become cold but made room for cold. What 
 else gave life to the body than the soul? The opposite of 
 life was death, but when death came over a body, life left 
 it and so did the soul, without itself partaking of death. 
 So it was that the soul, not admitting death, was immortal 
 and imperishable, and the only question remaining was where 
 the soul went to on leaving the body. 
 
 This question is answered by Socrates with the aid of a 
 story somewhat similar to that in the Phaedrus, except that, 
 as in the Grorgias and also in the Republic, the fate of those 
 is mentioned who have to suffer punishment after death, and 
 that too in conformity, to some extent, with traditions current 
 among the people. But there is another difference worth 
 attending to. Both in the Phaedrus and in the Republic the 
 souls are after death located partly in heavenly, partly in
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 subterranean, regions ; in the Phaedo the earth is represented 
 as being much larger than it is thought to be, with higher 
 and lower regions on its surface, the country bordering on the 
 Mediterranean being one of the lower ones, and the higher 
 ones, full of light and beauty, where air takes the place 
 of what is water in the lower ones, and ether that of air r 
 being the abodes of those to whom, after death, happiness 
 has been allotted. The difference clearly shows that the 
 Phaedo contains a first attempt at giving a description of 
 future life, for which, in the Phaedrus and the Republic,, 
 another is substituted. 
 
 Now the time had arrived when Socrates had to take a 
 bath before emptying the fatal cup, the others remaining in 
 the room while he retired to an inner one. Then a last 
 farewell took place between him and his children and female 
 relations; and when he had joined again his friends, the 
 messenger of police, a kind-hearted man, who felt deep 
 sympathy with Socrates, came to announce that the hemlock 
 draught was being prepared. On receiving the cup and the- 
 instructions how to use* it, Socrates asked whether he was 
 allowed to make a libation to the gods. There is just suf- 
 ficient for the purpose it is to serve, was the reply. Then 
 at all events we can pray to the gods for my safe passage,, 
 said Socrates, and cheerfully emptied the cup. Then it was 
 that all burst out crying, and the violent grief shown by 
 Apollodorus was such that it seemed to break the hearts of 
 all; but Socrates warned them not to utter words unsuited 
 to the occasion, and having thus calmed them, lay down on 
 his couch, feeling as he did that the poison was having its 
 effect. " Forget not to sacrifice to Aesculapius the cock we 
 owe him " were his last words to Crito, who closed his eyes 
 and lips when life had departed. 
 
 Aristippus, who was not present at the death of Socrates, 
 and whose views would appear not to have been in favour 
 of continued individual existence after death, is said, when 
 asked how Socrates had died, to have replied: "As I should
 
 174 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 wish to die." "With these words of his the impression made 
 by the Phaedo is at one ; and as a monument of Plato's piety 
 towards his great teacher and benefactor, of his full understand- 
 ing of the man who thus calmly and cheerfully and hopefully 
 quitted this life, and of those descriptive powers of his which 
 could not be used in a more pious cause, the Phaedo ranks 
 very high among his works. But as his dialogue about the 
 soul, it is greatly inferior to the best productions of his pen. 
 It was no difficult matter to write a dialogue like the Meno 
 for the purpose of gratifying a sense of duty; with one like 
 the Phaedo it was a different case. Socrates, in the Meno, 
 is of opinion, and rightly too, that it will not do to try and 
 answer the question whether virtue can be taught, without 
 knowing what virtue is. But is not, in the Phaedo, an attempt 
 made at proving the immortality of the soul, without having 
 a definite idea how the soul must be constituted? In the 
 Phaedrus a sketch of the soul is given which must have 
 satisfied Plato, since he afterwards worked it out in his 
 Republic ; there is nothing of the kind in his Phaedo, and what 
 is said in it of souls contaminated by the coarser elements which 
 form the body, and seen hovering about the graves, is evidence 
 that he had not yet formed the ideas he afterwards held about 
 the subject. There are certainly parts of the Phaedo which 
 are of great importance, and will have to be reverted to at 
 a later stage. Such are that where Socrates tells his friends 
 about his studies and experiences in the days of his youth, 
 and that of the philosopher's training his soul for death; the 
 one as illustrating the development of Socratic and Platonic 
 philosophy, the other as an indication of a philosophical as- 
 ceticism which has little in common with the doctrine of 
 love given in the Phaedrus, and nothing at all with the tenets 
 of Cynicism. But is there not more in the few words of the 
 Phaedrus about the soul being immortal as containing in itself 
 the cause of its motion, than in the rather lengthy arguments 
 of the Phaedo? 
 
 Of those arguments the most important ones, that of oppo-
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 175 
 
 sites, as existing in things, being generated by opposites, and 
 that of opposites as ideas making room for one another, would 
 seem to have been got up by Plato mainly because his sub- 
 ject demanded it, and especially the former one is strangely 
 put. Not even Plato's sketch, in the Phaedo, of the future 
 condition of souls, with its novel ideas about the earth's 
 surface and its attempt at finding a place for the old poeti- 
 cal figments about the rivers of the nether world, is such that 
 he could make use of it in his later dialogues. For all these 
 reasons it will not do to discuss Plato's psychology in connec- 
 tion with the Phaedo, much more being given about it in the 
 Phaedrus and the Republic, whereas the Timaeus, which is a 
 work of Plato's old age, contains views about it which evi- 
 dently were not held by Plato during the best period of his 
 life. As, however, the Republic contains also matters of quite 
 a, different nature, it will be better to leave both Plato's 
 psychology and that idealism of his which is closely connected 
 with it in abeyance, until those of his dialogues have been 
 examined which give his views on human society. 
 
 Of these dialogues the Politicus is first to be considered. 
 It is the continuation of the Sophist, but this is no reason 
 why it should not have been written at a considerably later 
 time. In fact, it would appear to be of a later date than 
 the Phaedrus, whose disparaging remarks on written laws it 
 reproduces in a more definite form; but it is certainly older 
 than the Republic, of which it is a forerunner, and perhaps 
 also than the Gorgias, whose condemnation of men like The- 
 mistocles and Pericles will, when passed shortly after the 
 publication of a dialogue on the true leaders of men, appear 
 more natural and less offensive than it would be otherwise. 
 For it is the object of the Politicus to give as definite an 
 idea of a man fit to rule the state and of the art he practises, 
 as had been given of the sophist in the dialogue of which it 
 was to be the sequel. 
 
 In the Politicus the stranger from Elea acts again the 
 principal part, that formerly taken by Theaetetus being
 
 176 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 now given to a young namesake of Socrates. The beginning 
 is like that of the Sophist, the only difference being that 
 the stranger is somewhat more anxious to point out par- 
 ticulars of the method he follows. Arts, or branches of 
 knowledge, are this time divided into those which, like 
 arithmetic, simply tend to know things, and those which, 
 like carpentry, also make them. That of the statesman and 
 king both are identified in the dialogue, its work being 
 one of the mind, belongs to a branch of the former class, 
 which combines command over workers with knowledge ; 
 and it freely exercises its command, whereas heralds and 
 soothsayers command on behalf of higher powers. Those 
 over whom the king holds command are living beings, and 
 that too beings living in herds or communities. Socrates- 
 junior, being asked for a further division, rather sensibly 
 suggests that between men and beasts; but this, says the 
 stranger, is going too fast. Would not cranes they were 
 thought, in those days, to rank high among animals for 
 their intellectual gifts, have an equal right to put down 
 their own kind as equivalent to all the rest? So other 
 divisions are proceeded with, until man is left alone with 
 what Plato calls the noblest and at the same time most 
 easily kept of animals, the pig,* and king and swineherd 
 are brought into close contact. 
 
 Now a difficulty arises. King and statesman had been 
 all along taken together with herdsmen, who have to pro- 
 vide food for their herds and flocks, and whose command 
 over them is disputed by no one. Will not husbandmen 
 and merchants, bakers and physicians claim equal rights with 
 the king as mainly contributing to the maintenance of the 
 community? To get the better of this rivalry the stranger 
 
 * This sounds strange, but is easily explained by the fact that the 
 Greeks knew all about the courage of wild-boars, if not by experience 
 at all events from their mythological traditions. See Plato's Laches, 
 p. 196 E, where the wild-boar killed by Theseus at Crommyon is named 
 as an instance of animal courage.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 177 
 
 has recourse to a story like that told by Protagoras in the 
 dialogue named after him, and that by Aristophanes in the 
 Banquet, but one which is less closely connected with the 
 question at issue, and is evidently put in with an ulterior 
 object. In the story of the enmity between' Atreus and 
 Thyestes mention was made of a total change in the course 
 of heavenly bodies ; there were also traditions about the 
 reign of Cronus, the Golden Age, and the time when men 
 were generated by the earth. These stories, according to 
 the stranger, were reminiscences of things which had actually 
 happened. The universe, although an animated being, does 
 not always move in the same direction, since such constancy 
 is reserved to the gods, but it is at one time ruled by a 
 god, at another by its own power. There was a period 
 when, ruled by the god, it moved in a contrary direction 
 to the present one, and when not only men but all things 
 they wanted were produced from the earth by divine agency. 
 Whether man led then a happier life than now was question- 
 able, for who could know whether, having nothing to do for 
 their maintenance, they did or did not philosophise? But 
 the time having come when fate willed a change, the god 
 who till then had forced the universe to move in a direction 
 contrary to its natural one, left the helm, and a violent 
 revolution took place, heaven moving again from east to 
 west, and the human race being partly destroyed by the 
 earthquakes and hurricanes accompanying the change, partly 
 made subject to a new course of life, in which old age 
 and manhood were followed by youth and childhood. As 
 the universe was left to its own guidance, so were those 
 inhabiting it, sexual generation taking the place of that 
 from the earth; and had not Prometheus and other deities 
 taught man the arts which enable him to keep his own, the 
 human race would have been lost. And what were now the 
 mistakes committed in the debate? The main one was that 
 the attributes of the divine ruler, providing for all the wants 
 of those ruled by him, had been bestowed on the human 
 
 12
 
 178 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 one; a lesser one that the functions of the latter had not 
 been properly defined, since it was not his duty to provide 
 food for those ruled by him, but simply to keep them in 
 order. So both the story and its moral come to an end ; 
 but the former was evidently also intended to make it felt 
 that, while life in the Golden Age was not such as to set in 
 motion the powers of the human mind, it would be idle for 
 the latter in the present age to aim, in the management of 
 human society, at a perfection reserved to the gods, and that 
 it was better to attend to the lower arts of life in order to 
 arrive at conclusions about the character of the higher ones, 
 than to an imaginary state of matters. 
 
 An example offered by these lower arts is now resorted 
 to, with a view to define the true functions of king and 
 statesman. After a rather lengthy sketch of the position 
 held by a weaver among the numerous tribe of those provi- 
 ding for the protection of the body, it is observed that although 
 a mantle is woven by him, he does not do his work unaided 
 for the wool is to be carded, the threads for warp and 
 woof are to be spun, the fuller has to do with the matter, 
 and there are those who make the various tools used in 
 these operations, but still the main work, that of handling 
 the shuttle and connecting woof and warp, is his own. 
 Weavers as well as debaters have to attend to the art of 
 measurement, not only as far as the difference between larger 
 and smaller is concerned, but also in regard to the proper 
 measure of the things they have to make. Reverting from 
 the weaver to the king, to whom, of course, this last 
 remark also applies, those accessories to the work he has 
 to do, as the carder, spinner and carpenter are to that of 
 the weaver, are enumerated in separate groups, several of 
 them comprising artisans who cannot be said to have, as 
 such, anything to do with politics, although without them a 
 community could not remain in existence. There are, however, 
 classes of men who might claim to have tasks to perform 
 more closely related to politics, such as priests, who in Egypt
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 179 
 
 are the ruling caste, and whose functions at Athens are 
 partly committed to a king, annually chosen by lot. 
 
 A much more numerous group is then adverted to by the 
 man from Elea, some like lions and centaurs, others like 
 satyrs, but on the whole constituting the most artful portion of 
 the sophistical tribe. There were three forms of government, 
 by one, by few or by many, and they became five when 
 divided according to their owing their existence either to 
 sheer force or to willing submission, tyranny being distin- 
 guished by this norm from kingship, and oligarchy from 
 aristocracy. Now it had been admitted that in a king and 
 statesman a peculiar kind of knowledge was required, not 
 dependent on either number, wealth or finding willing subjects ; 
 and was this knowledge met with in many? First-rate 
 players at draughts were very scarce ; was it likely that 
 knowledge of politics was more generally spread? When in 
 any state those ruling it were in possession of such know- 
 ledge, it would be properly governed, whether there were 
 laws or not. But how can a state be governed without 
 laws ? asks Socrates junior. The reply reminds one of the 
 Phaedrus. A law cannot provide for all cases, and would it 
 be pardonable in a physician if, in order to keep to certain 
 rules of the medical art, he allowed his patients to come 
 to grief? Say he had to leave them for a time and gave 
 them prescriptions what to do during his absence. Would 
 he not, coming home earlier than he expected, and finding 
 their condition altered, change his treatment too ? Would 
 he not act rightly in compelling them to submit to his 
 treatment when it would save them ? So it was with the king, 
 but the scarcity of those able to do kings' work caused forms 
 of government of an inferior character to be introduced. A 
 physician might, for purposes of his own, give prescriptions 
 to his patients which would kill them ; and how if, suspicions 
 of this kind prevailing against the craft, the public drew up 
 rules to which medical men had to conform? How if men 
 were annually elected, by show of hands or by lot, to practise
 
 180 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 as physicians and, having served as such, had to submit to 
 the judgment of a court, inflicting punishment on them when 
 they had not conformed to the rules? Arts so treated were 
 sure to perish, but would not matters be still worse if the 
 men who had to act as physicians did not care for the rules, 
 but did everything to make profit out of their work and get 
 off unharmed? 
 
 Any one acquainted with Athenian democracy in Plato's 
 days will at once see the meaning of all this, and it is 
 quite natural that the man from Elea, in spite of what he 
 had said about the weak points of laws, admits that to 
 make such laws and have them observed is an evil of less 
 magnitude than the lawlessness referred to in the last part 
 of his argument. But governments like those which he had 
 described were not genuine, and the spurious politicians who 
 took part in them formed the group of centaurs and the like 
 who claimed a share in the work of the statesman without 
 being entitled to it. There were men indeed who had, on 
 account of their positions in regard to the king, better 
 claims. They were those possessed of knowledge useful to 
 the state, but there was another and higher knowledge : that 
 which enabled the holders to judge in what cases their talents 
 had to be made use of. There were orators and generals, 
 but it was the king's duty to decide when oratory was to be 
 employed and when war was to be made, and so both of them 
 served under him. So did also judges, deciding cases under 
 rules the king had laid down. And so at last the functions 
 of king and statesman are defined as far as his position in 
 regard to his assistants is concerned. 
 
 What remained was the consideration of the work the king 
 had in common with the weaver. For there was a similarity 
 between their tasks, the weaver having to connect the soft 
 threads of the woof with the stronger ones of the warp, 
 whereas the king, to make the state what it should be, had 
 to deal with two tendencies of the human mind, each deservedly 
 characterised as a virtue, but opposed to one another, and
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 181 
 
 each of them offering dangers of its own. They were valour 
 and continence. Continence was an excellent quality, but 
 when in a state it prevailed to the detriment of valour, such 
 a state would soon be despised by its neighbours, and reduced 
 to subjection ; and so would one where a predominance of 
 valour, not tempered with continence, would provoke quarrels 
 with neighbouring states and lead to a combination of hostile 
 forces against it. By making the two tendencies act together 
 in harmony a result partly to be obtained by the king's 
 action on the minds, and partly by his putting a period to the 
 perverse habit of fostering, by intermarriage, the prevalence 
 of valour and warlike propensities in some and that of con- 
 tinence and indolence in other families, instead of using it as 
 a means of tempering the one spirit with the other the king 
 would accomplish a work most salutary for the state he ruled. 
 In one respect the Politicus is decidedly inferior to most 
 of the other Platonic dialogues, its form having been less 
 carefully attended to. This will appear from a comparison 
 with other dialogues slightly older or younger. The Theae- 
 tetus, after having given most interesting information about 
 the Socratic method, proceeds to demolish a doctrine well 
 known and at one time widely spread at Athens; and 
 although, in its latter part, no conclusion is arrived at, 
 Plato knew, when writing it, that the difficulty which 
 Socrates and Theaetetus had to cope with would soon be 
 overcome. For although it is not unlikely that the Meno and 
 Phaedo were published before the Sophist, Plato undoubtedly 
 had the latter before his mind's eye when writing his Theae- 
 tetus. The Sophist itself, while lacking the mise en scene 
 which is one of the greatest charms of Plato's dialogues, 
 is a splendid piece of writing, since after the first attempts 
 at finding the personage hunted after, a question of the 
 highest interest is gone into, not only its own solution but 
 also the discovery of the sophist being the result. So, 
 in spite of its rather abstruse subject, the Sophist is easy 
 and pleasant reading even for those who are not exactly
 
 182 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 partial to philosophy. Again, the Phaedo, whatever may be 
 its deficiencies, is from an artistic point of view most excel- 
 lently written, the attention of the reader being suddenly 
 awakened by the doubts given expression to by Simias and 
 Cebes, and the highest triumph gained by Socrates coming 
 immediately before the catastrophe. In the Phaedrus the 
 sharp and not altogether fair criticism of rhetoricians of 
 every description, which evidently was the main object of the 
 dialogue, finds its justification in that magnificent speech by 
 Socrates on love which shows the critic to be head and 
 shoulders above all orators and writers of his time. The 
 merits of the Banquet, as exactly calculated to attain the 
 writer's object, have been dwelt upon already; in the Grorgias 
 not only the bold and clear expose of the views of Plato's 
 opponents by Callicles, after the rather easy victory obtained 
 by Socrates over Polus, but also the clever device of mak- 
 ing Callicles shift his ground, are evidence of the masterly 
 way in which Plato handles his subjects. It is otherwise 
 with the Politicus. The Eleatic stranger's repeated refer- 
 ences to, and applications of, his own peculiar method; his 
 story of the change in the revolution of the universe, which, 
 however much to the purpose when fully understood, appears 
 at first sight to have only a very slight connection with the 
 subject under discussion; the introduction of the question of 
 measurement stated by the stranger to be a matter of the ut- 
 most importance, and found to be so for the purpose of the 
 dialogue when clearly understood in connection, not with the 
 main subject but with the method followed in the debate; 
 are unquestionably deficiencies in form which are rarely met 
 with in Plato's works ; and the consequence is that beginners, 
 who have not yet learnt to read Plato " with their feet on 
 the fender," will think the study of his Politicus an exceed- 
 ingly tough piece of work. 
 
 On the other hand, however, how brimful of thought, and 
 sound thought too, is the dialogue! In this respect it is 
 hardly surpassed by any other work of Plato's, and one of
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 183 
 
 its special merits is the light it throws on Plato's idealism. 
 In the Phaedo that idealism shows itself, as has been ob- 
 served already, in something akin to asceticism, the philosopher, 
 to keep his mind pure and prepare for death as a most 
 desirable release of the soul from the fetters of the body, 
 having to keep clear of the pleasures of life. In the Phae- 
 drus this view is not contradicted, since those philosophising 
 in the right manner will share the privilege of those leading a 
 life of true and pure love; but the idealism seen there the 
 mind's triumph over the body, not by mortifying its desires 
 but by subduing them by means of the highest instincts of 
 human nature is essentially different and truly human. In 
 the Banquet the individualism which characterises the aspira- 
 tions met with in both the Phaedo and the Phaedrus, makes 
 room for an idealism of a different kind, without, however, 
 vanishing altogether, since the final triumph of the man who 
 devotes his life to a love first awakened by, but not centred 
 in, one individual, and having real progress of humanity as 
 its object, is found in his ultimately enjoying a blissful vision 
 like that which, though in a different form, has been celebrated 
 in the Christian world too as supreme happiness. In the 
 Politicus no other idealism could, in consequence of the 
 nature of its subject, be expected than that having the well- 
 being of the community as its object; but here two points 
 are to be noticed. The one and this has been never lost 
 sight of by Plato is that between gods and men there will 
 be always an essential difference, and that this is to be taken 
 into consideration in promoting the common good. The other, 
 that an ideal community is impossible without the action of 
 those few highly gifted individuals who really partake of the 
 highest knowledge of matters purely human attainable by 
 man; and so, after all, individualism remains in possession of 
 its rights, the modern democratic and social idealism, which 
 strives after bringing all human beings to the same level, and 
 raising the masses without caring for, or even with a view 
 to crush, those made of better metal and endowed with higher
 
 184 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 aspirations, being reserved for a generation of men posterior, 
 and thinking itself much superior, to that of the great philo- 
 sopher of Athens. By so completing his political web as to 
 create harmony between the mutually opposite tendencies of 
 valour and continence, Plato's king and statesman is to render 
 it proof against decay ; but between weaver and web there is 
 the distance which separates the maker from what he makes, 
 and active genius from the sentiment of masses who should 
 remain passive, except where their help in lower matters is 
 required, till the end of days, and whose aspirations are after 
 life like that in the Golden Age, which is so justly made 
 light of by Plato. 
 
 The ideal king and statesman, however, was not easily 
 met with in real life; and although Plato's Republic, as far 
 as it refers to the subject its name implies, is essentially a 
 production of idealism, still it aims at things which, in the 
 author's opinion, might be realised. The main, or at all 
 events the original object of the dialogue is, not to give a 
 sketch of an ideal state, but to answer the question what 
 justice is. This object is attained at the end of the fourth 
 book of the ten into which this lengthy dialogue is divided, 
 and it is quite possible that Plato was made to write the 
 other six by an afterthought, the original plan being limited 
 to the virtue he was anxious to define. It is in connection 
 with this question of justice, which at first sight is purely 
 ethical, that Plato's psychology is more clearly brought to 
 light. The Republic is undoubtedly younger than the dia- 
 logues already discussed in this essay, for in matters psycho- 
 logical it amplifies the statements met with in the Phaedrus, 
 in matters political those in the Politicus, and already its 
 first book renders it evident that it must have been written 
 after the Gorgias. If there is any truth in the statement that, 
 when the Arcadians with the assistance of Thebes were about 
 to found their "great city," Plato was asked to give advice 
 about its constitution, the Republic cannot have been written 
 after 370 B.C., since the expedition which led to the founda-
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 185 
 
 tion of Megalopolis took place in the winter of 370 69, and 
 only his Republic can have suggested to the Arcadians as 
 well as, a few years later, to Dion that Plato was an autho- 
 rity to be consulted on political reform.* 
 
 A festival in honour of a goddess identified with Artemis, 
 then celebrated for the first time in the Piraeeus, had brought 
 there Socrates and his young friend Glauco, Plato's brother; 
 and when they were about to go home Polemarchus, brother 
 to Lysias the orator, with whom was Glauco's brother 
 Adimantus, induced them to stay and spend the evening at 
 his house. There they found old Cephalus, father of Pole- 
 marchus and highly respected at Athens, in whose neighbour- 
 hood, though not an Athenian by birth, he had lived for 
 many years. Socrates has a talk with the old man about his 
 age, and Cephalus is found not to complain of the evils 
 attending it, but to think it an advantage to be released from 
 the desires which trouble youth. It might be said that his 
 wealth made old age less onerous to him, but this was correct 
 only to a limited extent. Being asked what he considered to 
 be the main advantage of wealth in old age, his reply was 
 that, when coming near the end of life, the old stories about 
 penalties inflicted, in the kingdom of Hades, on those guilty 
 of fraud and the like, stories thought light of in youth, were 
 apt to disturb one's rest, and what a blessing was it then 
 not to be conscious of any such acts of injustice as those in 
 narrow circumstances were often tempted to commit! Socrates 
 availed himself of the occasion to commence a debate on 
 justice, in which Cephalus, however, took no part, having 
 
 * The report about the Arcadians, taken over by Diogenes Laertius 
 (III 1 c. 17) from Pamphila, a careful authoress, is less strange than 
 it looks at first sight, Plato being stated to have declined to interfere 
 as the Arcadians would not allow equality. The fact is that, by raising 
 a separate body of defenders of the new capital, the inaQiroi men- 
 tioned in Xenophon's Hellenica, the Arcadians followed the advice given 
 by Plato in his Republic; but from Pamphila it would appear that 
 they objected to the very essential feature of Plato's plan that those 
 defenders should have no private property of their own.
 
 186 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 to look after a sacrifice he had prepared before his guests 
 came. 
 
 Polemarchus, who had to take his father's place in the 
 debate, had referred already to a passage in Simonides, in 
 which justice was stated to consist in speaking the truth and 
 giving back what one owed to another, and afterwards he 
 explained the latter part as meaning that it was justice to 
 benefit one's friends and harm one's enemies. By questioning 
 him in the true Socratic manner, his opponent made him 
 admit that a just man will not harm anybody, and that a 
 definition like that given on the authority of Simonides, was 
 rather worthy of a tyrant like Periander. But the question 
 what justice was had not been answered, and now Thrasy- 
 machus of Chalcedon, a well-known professor of rhetoric 
 repeatedly mentioned as such in the Phaedrus, who did not 
 like the debate as it was carried on but had, till then, been 
 prevented by those present from interfering, broke loose, 
 taking Socrates to task for always questioning people, instead 
 of giving an opinion of his own. A debate, rather angry on 
 his part, ensued, in the course of which he said that he knew 
 a good definition of justice, and would give it when paid for 
 it ; and those present pledging themselves to pay for Socrates 
 if the definition proved correct, he stated that justice was that 
 which benefited the better, or stronger, party. When ques- 
 tioned on this definition, the meaning of it was found to be 
 that rulers of states made laws for their own advantage, and 
 that justice consisted in obeying those laws. 
 
 Thrasymachus who is evidently caricatured by Plato proves 
 in dialectic to be as little up to the mark as Polus in the Gorgias. 
 When asked whether it is just to obey laws which are to 
 the disadvantage of the rulers, who of course are liable to 
 commit mistakes, his reply is that a ruler making mistakes 
 temporarily loses his right to the name, as a physician does 
 when prescribing a wrong treatment; but then Socrates com- 
 pels him to admit that if such a strict view of the position 
 of a ruler is taken, his only business is to rule for the best
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 187 
 
 of those ruled. But, asks Thrasymachus, have cattle-herds the 
 well-being of their cattle in view? Rulers who know their 
 business and have the power work only for their own advan- 
 tage, leaving justice to stupid fellows, since they are well 
 aware that injustice pays better. Here it is that Thrasyma- 
 chus goes beyond anything stated in the Gorgias, and when 
 wanting to leave after this effusion, he is detained by Socrates, 
 who remarks that it would not do for him to go after 
 thus upsetting the principles on which society is based. 
 The cattle-herd, says Socrates, when killing or selling his 
 cattle does so, not as working his trade but as owner of his 
 stock; like him those assisting in governing the state can, as 
 such, have no other object than to promote the interest of 
 those ruled. The main question, however, had now become 
 whether a life of injustice was more to the advantage of those 
 leading it than a just one; and on this point, taking his 
 stand on the idea that justice is equivalent to an art, he 
 questions Thrasymachus in such a manner that the debate 
 ends in a complete victory in behalf of justice. 
 
 Glauco now takes up the cudgels for injustice. Not that 
 he is not in favour of justice, but in his opinion the argu- 
 ment had not fully shown the superiority of a just to an 
 unjust life. To discover the difference between them a man 
 thoroughly just and another thoroughly unjust should be 
 taken, both of them entirely misjudged by the public, so that 
 the just one should suffer every possible evil for alleged 
 crimes, and the unjust one be highly respected. There was 
 the story of Gyges the Lydian herdsman, who, having found 
 a ring which rendered its wearer invisible when the stone was 
 turned inside, with its aid became king by seducing the 
 queen and murdering her husband. Would any one in posses- 
 sion of such a ring stick to justice, instead of using its power 
 to benefit himself at the expense of others ? Adimantus, while 
 agreeing with his brother, also points out that fathers, when 
 recommending justice to their sons, refer to the consideration 
 which a just man enjoys on the part of gods and men, and
 
 188 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 to the penalties awaiting an unjust one in this life and in 
 the kingdom of Hades ; but how if an unjust man was equally 
 considered by contriving to appear just? That the gods, in 
 this life, did not always favour the just was generally admitted, 
 and the unjust had many a remedy against penalties after 
 death, there being no want of those professing to do away, 
 by means of ceremonies propitiating the gods, with the evil 
 effects of crimes committed either by any one himself or by 
 his ancestors. What is there in justice which, in spite of all 
 this, makes a just life preferable to an unjust one ? Socrates 
 admits that it is a difficult matter to point out what justice 
 really is ; but how when an inscription written in letters too 
 small to make out at a distance, is to be read, and it is 
 found that the same inscription is to be seen elsewhere in 
 much larger letters? A man can be just and so can a state, 
 but in a state it may be easier to find justice than in an in- 
 dividual. And so an imaginary state has to serve as a means 
 for getting an idea of justice. 
 
 In any state there are to be those tilling the earth, build- 
 ing houses and making clothes, and it is a better plan to 
 have a division of labour strictly adhered to than that the 
 husbandman should be his own builder and his own weaver. 
 Other trades gradually become necessary, and as the neces- 
 saries of life are not all produced in the same place, neither 
 importers and exporters nor retail-dealers can be dispensed 
 with. Then, in case a war breaks out, the town should not 
 lack defenders; and are husbandmen, builders and weavers 
 better able to make use of arms in defence of their country 
 than to practise one another's trades ? Surely not, and so 
 there should be a body of defenders of the state, endowed 
 with qualities like those of a faithful watchdog, hostile to 
 strangers but friendly to those he knows, and showing, by 
 thus taking knowledge as a criterion how to act, how highly 
 he values it. 
 
 The training of these defenders is a matter of the highest 
 importance, and of course both music which in Greece com-
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 189 
 
 prised reading and other elements of learning and gymnastics 
 would form part of their education. And now comes that 
 well-known onslaught Plato makes on the ancient poetry of 
 Greece whose preliminaries are met with in the Phaedrus. It 
 will not do to allow poetical stories to be told about gods 
 injuring and fighting each other. It will not do to have the 
 minds of the future defenders of the state poisoned by state- 
 ments that evil as well as good is caused by the gods, or that 
 gods take other forms so as to lead people into error ; nor 
 is it advisable to have death and the kingdom of Hades 
 represented to them as something frightful, to introduce heroes 
 and gods as bewailing the fate of their friends, gods as laugh- 
 ing and as being induced by offerings to change their minds, 
 and heroes quarrelling with the gods and being partial to 
 filthy lucre. All this is illustrated by quotations from Greek 
 poets ; and not less than the substance of what poets say is 
 their manner of expressing it a matter to be closely attended 
 to in connection with the education of the state's defenders ; 
 for whatever is unseemly should be studiously avoided. Similar 
 precautions are to be taken in regard to music in the stricter 
 sense in which the word is now used : to harmony and rhythm. 
 Instead of variety there should be the greatest simplicity, and 
 other artists too should be careful not to make any images which 
 might have a bad effect on the youthful minds, instead of en- 
 couraging the growth of the virtues required in them. Love 
 will come of itself, as the result of school-life, but to commit 
 anything unseemly in connection with it should be branded as 
 disgraceful. 
 
 Gymnastics follow, with rules for diet and the observation 
 that they should not be taught as an object, as if athletes 
 were to be trained, but as a means to render the defenders 
 fit for their duties ; and here a strong condemnation is passed 
 on a new-fangled system combining bodily exercise with 
 medical treatment, and tending to prolong lives of sickly 
 persons, instead of following the healthy practice of Homer's 
 days, when wounded heroes, after having their wounds washed,
 
 190 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 at once refreshed themselves with a strong beverage of wine 
 and meal. In fact, Plato considers it a much wiser plan to 
 die at once when troubled with an incurable disease, than to 
 lead a wretched and useless life. Combined with music gym- 
 nastics train the mind not less than the body, their joint 
 action bringing about that mixture of valour and continence 
 which, in the Politicus, is one of the great objects to be attained 
 by the king and statesman. 
 
 But who are to be the rulers of the state ? The very best 
 men, old rather than young, to be met with among the 
 defenders. They indeed are the real defenders of the state, 
 the others being their auxiliaries. Their object is to be a 
 constant improvement of the state, by means of a continued 
 training of the auxiliaries ; but then they are to be assisted 
 by a figment calculated to have a salutary effect on the minds. 
 It is that the people have really sprung from the earth, which 
 they have to cherish and defend as their mother, and that 
 they have in themselves a mixture of either gold, silver or a 
 baser metal, the men of gold having to be the rulers and 
 those of silver the auxiliaries. This, however, should not lead 
 to a division of the people into hereditary castes, since sons 
 of men of the golden or silver race should rank with those 
 of brass and iron when not equalling their parents, and the 
 really gifted among the sons of the other people might be 
 raised to the higher ranks. The defenders are to have lodgings 
 of their own and common meals, their wants being supplied 
 by the other people, but no private property in land or other- 
 wise being given to them, since they should abstain from every 
 kind of gain. This might not be approved of by those in 
 whose opinion such a life was not what a defender of the 
 state was entitled to, but without this arrangement the state 
 would not be as it should be, and surely, existing states were 
 not such as to serve as models. The description of the ideal 
 state ends with a reference to its religious rites, which no 
 human lawgiver but Apollo of Delphi would have to regulate. 
 
 Could now, in the state sketched during the debate, justice
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 191 
 
 be discovered? If not at once, the four cardinal virtues 
 might be taken together, so as to find out whether any of 
 them could be traced in part of the state, for when three of 
 them had been found, the fourth would take the place left 
 vacant. The rulers could not be otherwise than very few in 
 number ; was there any peculiar knowledge they were to be 
 possessed of so as to be qualified for their task ? The reply 
 is that they would have to know how to watch over the 
 interest of the state, and that this knowledge was wisdom, so 
 that the state would be in possession of wisdom by the 
 fact that the very few men ruling it were wise. Valour, of 
 course, is the virtue characteristic of the auxiliaries, and how 
 could there be, between rulers, auxiliaries and the rest of the 
 population, that harmony which was urgently required for the 
 welfare and maintenance of the state, except by means of a 
 continence and self-control (ffeaQpOffvmj) common to all? The 
 place left for justice was to be found in the arrangement 
 mentioned in the beginning in the sketch: that every mem- 
 ber of the state should keep to his own business. If this 
 rule were observed, there would be no injustice whatever. 
 
 The only question still remaining was whether the result 
 arrived at in considering the ideal state, would also be appli- 
 cable to the case of individual man. Was there, within the 
 soul, a division into parts corresponding with the rulers, 
 defenders and husbandmen or tradesmen in the state ? There 
 was the indomitable spirit for which the Thracians and Scythians 
 were renowned; there were the intellectual powers the Greeks 
 were gifted with, and the love and aptitude for gain common 
 to the Egyptians and Phoenicians. But did the soul act as a 
 whole, or were there special functions of its parts? It cer- 
 tainly would not act as a whole when contending forces were 
 seen to move, within it, in contrary directions ; and did not 
 often a struggle take place between man's desires and his 
 understanding ? Surely it did, and it would be incorrect not 
 to distinguish between the element from which desires and 
 that from which passion sprung. Was there not a story of
 
 192 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 an Athenian citizen who, driven by a desire to have a look 
 at corpses lying about at the place where the executioner did 
 his work, could not resist it but vented his wrath on his 
 eyes for their wanting to feast on such a spectacle? This 
 passionate element was an ally to the understanding, and it 
 will be seen at once that it is represented, in the Phaedrus, 
 by the manageable but spirited horse, the restive one, how- 
 ever, being not subdued in the Republic by the joint action 
 of the charioteer and the better horse, but by the self-control 
 common to the whole of the soul and preserving its harmony. 
 Here the end of the fourth book and the solution of the 
 question of justice are reached, and it is evident that not a few 
 matters are touched upon in this first part of the Republic 
 which are of great importance for getting a clear idea of 
 Plato's idealism. These, however, will be reserved for the 
 time when the other books of the dialogue have been gone 
 through, and for the present it is only necessary to observe 
 that Plato utterly failed in coming to a clear understanding 
 of the nature of justice. Considering that even in our days 
 those most loudly clamouring for, and most eagerly taking 
 their stand on, justice have at most very hazy notions of it, 
 there is nothing very strange in this failure; and as regards 
 justice as met with in a state, Plato's definition of it is 
 capable, to some extent, of being defended. There is, of 
 course, no real difference between his continence or self- 
 control and his justice, inasmuch as the harmony effected 
 by, and constituting the character of, the former shows itself 
 in, and is impossible without, that keeping to one's own 
 business which is stated to be the essence of justice ; but in 
 a state self-control is manifested in the sentiments of the 
 individual citizens, whereas justice may be seen in their not 
 interfering with each other's business, and so there is a dif- 
 ference, not in the existing harmony but in its visible effects. 
 But can any such distinction be made in the mind of the 
 individual? To such justice as championed by Socrates in 
 the Gorgias, is opposed by Callicles a denial that the better
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 193 
 
 one by nature should be prevented from being in a more 
 favourable position than those inferior to him; but Plato soon 
 turns Callicles into a champion of animal desires, and this 
 makes him spoil his case. Is not, however, the philosopher 
 training for death in the Phaedo, instead of keeping the 
 balance between that part of the mind in which the intellect 
 and that in which animal desire has its seat, interfering with 
 the latter's right and for good reasons too in favour of the 
 former ? Do not the soul's charioteer and spirited horse in 
 the Phaedrus subdue the troublesome one by sheer force? 
 Where, then, is that justice between the parts of the soul 
 which gives each its due ? In fact, the superiority which 
 Callicles claims in the state for the man of real worth, too 
 highly gifted to conform to human laws, is given, both in the 
 Phaedo, the Phaedrus and the Republic itself, to the higher 
 elements of the individual mind, and Plato's so-called justice 
 within it is nowhere to be found. Nor should it, since in reality 
 it is nothing at all. * 
 
 At the end of the fourth book Socrates is made to observe 
 
 * The inadequacy of Plato's statements about justice would appear 
 to have been felt within the circle of his friends. In the first book of 
 the Republic Clitophon son of Aristonymus is introduced as saying a 
 few words in behalf of Thrasymachus, and a dialogue is in existence, 
 greatly superior to the Axiochus and other dialogues called pseudo- 
 Platonic, in which the same Clitophon answers a question, put to him 
 by Socrates, in rather a lengthy speech, without being interrupted. He 
 had been spoken of as condemning the teachings of Socrates, but this 
 statement was not correct, since he approved of them in several respects. 
 Socrates, however, did not definitely point out the means of improving 
 the mind. This improvement, it was said, was the work of justice, and 
 justice was identified with an art; but medicine was also one and had a 
 twofold effect: that of restoring people to health and that of training 
 medical men. Now justice was stated to render people just, but what other 
 object had it in view? The answers to this question given by those 
 taught by Socrates were vague and unsatisfactory; Socrates himself at 
 one time spoke of justice as benefiting friends and injuring enemies, at 
 another of its not being such as to cause harm to anybody. This 
 induced him, Clitophon, to consider the question whether it would not 
 be more profitable for him to have recourse to Thrasymachus. 
 
 13
 
 194 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 that it would be well to take a view of injustice in states 
 and men, it being not simple, like justice, but multifarious, 
 though there were four principal forms in it, corresponding 
 to as many forms of government. He had, however, in the 
 course of his argument about the life to be led by the 
 defenders, dropped a remark about community of wives and 
 children, and both Polemarchus and Adimantus insist on his 
 giving an explanation of this plan. It is found to come to 
 this that, as those keeping watchdogs use the females for 
 the same purposes as the males, though always taking into 
 consideration that the former are less strong, there was no 
 reason why, among the defenders, women should not join as 
 well as men in training and work. They would have to 
 practise gymnastics without covering, but why should they 
 not? There had been a time when men too scrupled to do 
 so, but at the present time nobody saw anything strange in 
 it. It would be said that woman's nature was different from 
 man's, and so it was, but this was no reason for their not 
 joining in the same work. Bald-headed people differed from 
 those with luxuriant hair; but if a bald-headed man were 
 found to be a good shoemaker, would it be inferred from 
 this that a long-haired man could not be one? Except in 
 one respect that men had to be fathers and women mothers, 
 both sexes were competent to do the same work; and to 
 maintain the efficiency of the body of defenders, their wives too 
 should be qualified for performing the same duties. Whether 
 or not it was possible to introduce the plan was a matter 
 for future consideration, but when the defenders had lodgings 
 and meals in common, why not wives too, expecially as the 
 two sexes were constantly brought together in gymnastic 
 exercises and otherwise? But, of course, there should be 
 no promiscuous intercourse, since it was necessary to provide 
 the best men with the best wives, and so there would be 
 marriage festivals, so managed by the rulers that the less 
 eligible men were always placed together with females of their 
 own description, without being aware that they owed this to
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 195 
 
 anything else than drawing less desirable lots ; for it would 
 seem that Plato did not see how this cheating by the rulers 
 would be the very thing to destroy the harmony required in 
 his model state. The bravest would enjoy privileges in regard 
 to their connections with the fair sex, for this would improve 
 the race; and the children born from the marriages were to 
 be committed to nurses, who would do away with those unfit 
 for rearing, and at whose place the mothers would have to 
 nurse the little ones, without knowing whether they were 
 theirs. Then there were to be rules about the ages of men 
 and women allowed to marry, and among them one prevent- 
 ing marriages between parents and children but allowing 
 those between brothers and sisters, all children being con- 
 sidered to have all those men and women as parents who, at 
 the time of their births, had reached the age of marriage. 
 
 The excellent results of the arrangements made for the ideal 
 state are then discussed at some length, and here Plato takes 
 occasion to advert to the hostilities between Greeks and Greeks, 
 which should be viewed in the light of civil party struggles, 
 and never lead to such extreme measures as devastating the 
 country and enslaving prisoners, the barbarians being the 
 natural enemies of the Greeks, and fit to serve them as slaves. 
 But how about the possibility of carrying the plan into effect ? 
 If it could noi be done in every respect, it might be partially 
 attempted, and one of the means, in fact an indispensable one, 
 to do so was to make philosophers the rulers of the state. 
 This idea would rouse a storm of disapproval, but what was 
 the difference between a philosopher and a man who was not ? 
 That the philosopher and here we come to the nearest ap- 
 proach in Plato's works to answer the question of knowledge 
 raised in the Theaetetus was possessed of real knowledge, 
 since he knew such things as beauty and the like not as they 
 were seen in various objects, but as they really were by them- 
 selves. In fact, what is meant is nothing else than that which 
 Diotima, in the Banquet, promised Socrates as the reward of 
 his leading the life recommended by her.
 
 196 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 Socrates then demonstrates that there is nothing strange in 
 his contention about philosophers governing the state, but 
 Adimantus, while admitting that his argument could not easily 
 be refuted, still points out that it does not find favour with 
 the public, and not without good reason ; for students of 
 philosophy as a rule either turn out dangerous characters or 
 utterly useless in matters of social and political life. Socrates 
 fully admits the truth of this statement, but what are the 
 causes of the condition of affairs referred to ? Say a ship- 
 owner of course the Athenian people is meant, is travelling 
 in his own vessel, a man powerful enough to get the better 
 of the crew, but rather hard of hearing, and not having on 
 board any one qualified to act as captain. Of course the crew, 
 though without any knowledge of the matter, will steer the 
 vessel in a fashion, each of them trying to get the owner on 
 his side, and being praised as a clever steersman when suc- 
 ceeding in doing so. Now if there were on board a man 
 really understanding the art of navigating, would he be either 
 able or willing to take, when having to do with such a crew, 
 the management of the vessel in hand ? Such a man is, in the 
 state, that philosopher who is considered useless ; but now the 
 dangerous ones ! Not every one is possessed of the necessary 
 qualifications for studying philosophy, and only those who are 
 highly gifted are the proper men for it. A ' highly gifted 
 individual, when badly educated, is apt to become a danger 
 to the state, and how are young men of talent and position 
 educated ? By the worst possible educator : the public. Taught 
 by it to strive after its leadership and to have recourse to the 
 arts required for remaining in power, they soon drop philo- 
 sophy without losing their reputation of being well up in it ; 
 and as philosophy is always considered to be worth something 
 more than other pursuits, lots of other men, following their 
 example but altogether incompetent to do so, affect to deal 
 with it. In giving this description Plato once more clearly 
 alludes to Alcibiades and even to his own dialogue of that 
 name, when speaking of men who fancy that they can become
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 197 
 
 masters of all barbarians as well as Greeks ; and the result 
 of his argument is that by such men philosophy is discredited. 
 Very few who might be real philosophers survive the temp- 
 tations they are exposed to ; most of those applying to 
 philosophy take it in hand as a matter of little consequence. 
 But however strong might be the existing prejudice against 
 philosophers interfering with politics, that prejudice would 
 vanish as soon as a true philosopher were found to take the 
 affairs of a state in hand, and to make a picture of such a 
 state as it should be, borrowing his colours from what he 
 saw in his mind. Even the rulers in the ideal state sketched 
 shortly before would not be up to the mark, unless they were 
 philosophers and able to understand the highest subjects of 
 knowledge. 
 
 What are these subjects ? Not justice and other virtues but 
 that which is really, and in itself, good. Some, says Socrates, 
 sought for it in enjoyment, others in intellectual power (tppJvtjffis), 
 but both were wrong, and it was difficult to say what is was. 
 Still it was evident that it could only be viewed by the mind, 
 whereas other things were visible to the eyes; and to give a 
 faint idea of it Socrates points out that, whereas for hearing 
 nothing else is required than the organ of hearing and that 
 which is heard, sight requires light to be able to exercise its 
 power. Now as the sun enables the eye to see visible 
 objects, so the mind is enabled to see truth by something 
 higher, in fact, so high that even existence (owrlet) ranks lower 
 than it: by what is good. As in the visible world both 
 objects and their images were seen, so in the world of thought 
 suppositions were used as means to arrive at conclusions, as 
 was done in geometry, but it was also possible, by means of 
 dialectic, to start from a supposition so as to arrive at a 
 principle; and this method stood in the same relation to the 
 former one, as that of looking at objects in the visible world 
 to that of glancing at images. 
 
 Then follows an ingenious comparison of men as on earth 
 they generally are, to prisoners in a subterranean cave, seeing
 
 198 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 light only through a distant opening, and so chained that 
 they cannot move their heads and can only look straight before 
 them. Behind them is a large fire; between them and the 
 fire images of various things are so carried that they can 
 only see the shadows of them, cast by the light of the fire 
 on the side of the cave facing them. Of course, seeing 
 nothing but shadows they fancy them to be real things, 
 and form opinions on them as such. Now if any such pri- 
 soner were released and brought out of the cave, his eyes 
 would not stand daylight and would have to be gradually 
 accustomed to it; and so would be his mind when his eyes 
 saw so many things of whose images, till then, he had only 
 seen the shadows, taking them for the real things. If such 
 a man had to return to the cave, he would at first not be 
 able to see the shadows as well as those who had never 
 left it, and so the others might laugh at him as unacquainted 
 with what they saw and knew ; but he would know, and 
 inform them of, things which they had never seen. His posi- 
 tion would be exactly like that of a philosopher among those 
 who were strangers in the world of thought and only knew 
 the visible world; but in the ideal state such men would be 
 compelled to take part in active life, though they might not 
 like it ; for the interest of the community came before that of 
 individuals, and the men acquainted with the world of 
 thought would be indebted for this privilege to the state as 
 having provided for their education towards it, and not, as 
 elsewhere, to their own unaided efforts. 
 
 What education, however, could be imparted even in the 
 ideal state to those defenders of it who would afterwards 
 have to perform the duties of rulers ? Music, as simply serving 
 for the regulation of the minds, and gymnastics would not 
 be sufficient. In inquiring what branches of knowledge would 
 have to be studied for the purpose, attention would have to 
 be paid to the fact that this further education pertained also 
 to those who had to be, and remain, auxiliaries, and for 
 both them and the future rulers it would be a matter of
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 199 
 
 importance to be first trained in arithmetic and calculations, 
 then in geometry, both of them being required not only for 
 such military arts as those of manoeuvring, pitching camps and 
 the like, but also for preparing the minds for philosophical 
 inquiry. Astronomy would come next, but less as a study of 
 the heavenly bodies, which belonged to the visible world, 
 than as a complement of geometry; and the doctrine of the 
 laws of harmony would have to go hand in hand with 
 it. These subjects should be taught to some extent to boys 
 and girls still engaged with music, but when the regular 
 training in gymnastics had come to an end, they would have 
 to be taken up again, so that their mutual connection might 
 be understood, and so the minds of the young defenders of the 
 state would be prepared for dialectic, which, however, to avoid 
 the effects of a propensity of juvenile minds to indulge in 
 controversies mainly limited to words and not going to the 
 roots of things, was to be reserved to those entering manhood 
 and, of course, to the few of them who had been found fit 
 for it. These should be allowed five years for their residence 
 in the world of thought, abstaining from active life; but 
 after this period had elapsed they should have to fill minor 
 offices, so as to get practical training in things of the visible 
 world and have, at the same time, their qualifications further 
 tried, until, having reached the age of fifty and not been 
 found wanting, they should be allowed to spend their lives 
 in the world of thought, except during the periods when their 
 services were required for the government of the state. 
 
 Passing now to those forms of government which he con- 
 siders to be connected with injustice, and to the individual 
 characters corresponding with them, Socrates does not keep 
 to divisions met with in former dialogues, but names four 
 of them, that of the Lacedaemonians and Cretans, where 
 personal ambition predominated, oligarchy, democracy and 
 tyranny. Strangely enough and it would seem that this was 
 noticed by his friends, he represents his ideal state, to whose 
 government he gives the name of aristocracy, as being the
 
 200 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 original one, whose gradual degeneracy has given rise to the 
 other four. Still stranger is his description how a state like 
 Sparta grows out of his ideal state. By a neglect of certain 
 natural laws the purity of the race of defenders is interfered 
 with, brass and iron taking the place of gold and silver ; and 
 as in this manner the love of gain makes its power felt, 
 struggles ensue which end in a division of the soil between 
 the defenders, the people who till then provided for their 
 wants being reduced to subjection or even slavery. Of the old 
 institutions gymnastics, common meals and contempt for trades 
 remain, but mental education is neglected and love of money 
 is paramount. Surely, a more glaring instance of distortion 
 of history can hardly be imagined. 
 
 A state like the one just mentioned is converted into an 
 oligarchy, where the rich have the power and the poor are 
 excluded, by the natural tendency of wealth, in states where 
 it is highly prized, to become the ruling power. Under 
 oligarchy there are those who hoard up their wealth, and 
 habits of economy are common, and even characteristic of 
 the individual represented by Plato as corresponding to an olig- 
 archical state; but there are no laws to prevent luxury and 
 prodigality, and those indulging in the latter, when ruined, 
 are deprived of their political privileges and become a danger 
 to the state. On the whole, under oligarchy there are in 
 every state in reality two communities, a ruling one of rich 
 and a subject one of poor people; and when the poor become 
 aware of the growing weakness of the rich, they easily get 
 the better of them and establish democracy. The view taken 
 by Plato of the form of government existing at Athens has been 
 stated already, and the man whose nature corresponds to 
 that of a democratical state is described by him as utterly 
 inconsistent and unreliable. Nor does Plato forget to point 
 out how, under any form of government, oligarchical and 
 democratical tendencies can grow and develop in men through 
 their education and domestic circumstances. 
 
 In oligarchical states the poor recruit themselves from the
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 201 
 
 ranks of those formerly in better circumstances, who, not 
 being accustomed to work at trades, become drones in the 
 human hive. Such drones are also found under democracy, 
 where they are chiefly engaged in making life troublesome to 
 those who, by dint of economy and activity, have prospered. 
 The struggle between them is the reverse of profitable to the 
 real people, sticking to their work instead of meddling with 
 politics, and for this reason distrusted by the democratical 
 drones as in favour of oligarchy. When once the case of the 
 people is taken up by a man of some worth, it is no difficult 
 matter for him to obtain monarchical power, especially when 
 given a body-guard for his defence, and so tyranny is estab- 
 lished. 
 
 To tyranny and the man of tyrannical habits Plato devotes 
 a goodly part of the dialogue, not only because, as in Solon's 
 days, to be a tyrant was considered by many a most happy 
 fate, but also since, by showing that the reverse was the 
 case, he would prove the truth of his contention that the 
 man following the path of injustice and obtaining the highest 
 prize he can gain by doing so, leads in reality a most unhappy 
 life. Evil desires are alive in every man; even when so 
 subdued by frugal habits and righteous sentiments, as never 
 to make themselves felt in daily life, they show their existence 
 in dreams. The tyrannical man has allowed desires of every 
 kind to rule over his mind; to gratify them he violates his 
 most sacred duties towards his parents and his country: and 
 when he has lost the wealth enabling him to persist in the 
 vicious life he leads, he descends to committing the most 
 vulgar crimes. Hated and despised by every one, his fate is 
 truly deplorable, but worse is that of the actual tyrant, 
 surrounded and supported as he is by men of the worst 
 description, whom he cannot trust but is obliged to flatter, 
 and virtually imprisoned as he is for safety's sake, in his 
 stronghold. 
 
 Two other arguments to the effect that the life of the righ- 
 teous is happier than that of others follow. The philosopher,
 
 202 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 the man in whose mind ambition prevails and the one, who 
 wants to make money in order to gratify his desires have, 
 all of them, joys of their own, on which they put high value; 
 but which are the best? Is not the philosopher both better 
 acquainted with all of them than the others, and, as possessed 
 of wisdom, the best judge of them? Again, the pleasures 
 enjoyed through the senses are doubtful, even cessation of 
 pain being often considered as one, although it belongs in 
 reality to those sensations which are between pain and plea- 
 sure ; but those derived from acquaintance with what really 
 is must also be real. As to the unjust man who appears to 
 be just, how can he be happy when, being thought one in 
 whom the better element of the mind has triumphed over the 
 inferior ones, he carries in reality aspirations and desires 
 within his bosom which are altogether at variance with those 
 of the highest kind? 
 
 After thus disposing of the questions moved in the course 
 of the dialogue, Plato, apparently without any reasonable 
 motive, goes out of his way to have another fling at the tragic 
 poets, with Homer he was sorry to say anything against a 
 man whom, from his early youth, he deeply respected, but 
 higher respect was due to truth as their teacher and leader 
 at their head. It was quite right to banish them from the 
 ideal state, for did they know and represent things as they 
 were ? When a couch was made by an artisan, his model was 
 the ideal couch made by the maker of all things, but a couch 
 in a picture, having had as its model the couch made by the 
 artisan, was much farther removed from the ideal and original 
 couch ; and as with painters it was with poets, who were mere 
 imitators and, although credited with something like creative 
 power, in reality knew little and effected little. Had Homer 
 and Hesiod made any man better, as lawgivers like Lycurgus 
 and Solon and philosophers like Thales and Pythagoras had 
 done ? There existed, says Socrates, an old feud between poets 
 and philosophers, and certain passages of lyric poetry, other- 
 wise unknown, are quoted as showing in how disparaging
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 203 
 
 terms philosophy was referred to by poets. However much 
 poetry might be admired, it would not do to admit it hymns 
 in honour of the gods and poems to celebrate the merits of 
 virtuous men being, of course, excepted into a state where 
 its charms could do nothing but harm. In poetry heroes were 
 seen weeping over losses which might be painful, but which 
 in actual life respectable men would not like to be seen crying 
 over. Was it right thus to fill the ears of the public with 
 matters contrary to approved principles and habits ? It is just 
 possible that, the first parts of the dialogue being already 
 public property and being unfavourably commented upon on 
 account of the attacks on poetry they contained, Plato may 
 have thought it necessary to give further reasons for his 
 enmity towards poets and poetry ; but if this was his object, 
 he can certainly not be said to have bettered his position by 
 thus reverting to the matter. 
 
 To complete his argument in behalf of justice, Socrates 
 winds up with a description of the rewards bestowed, here 
 and hereafter, on those who take it as their guide through 
 life. Glauco is somewhat surprised on finding that, in his 
 friend's opinion, souls are immortal ; but a novel argument in 
 favour of this, not met with either in the Phaedo or the 
 Phaedrus, is now brought : that the soul does not, like the 
 body, perish by the diseases infecting it, injustice being too 
 active to have anything to do with killing those whom it has 
 laid hold of. On earth the soul was infected with evils, mainly 
 through its contact with the body ; in its pure and undefiled 
 state it could only be seen by the minds of those who had 
 been taught, by philosophy, to see things as they really were. 
 The gods, however, saw the condition of human souls even in life 
 on earth and watched over them, and so it was that there too, as a 
 rule, injustice was seen to lose the race against justice. What 
 happened to the souls after death is then given as told by Er, a 
 Pamphylian who had perished in battle, and whose corpse, having 
 been conveyed home, was placed on the funeral pile, when he 
 awoke to tell what he had seen since the time of his death.
 
 204 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 His soul, said Er, and those of others had come to a place 
 where wide double gaps were seen both in heaven and in 
 earth, from which many souls came together to appear before 
 judges who, after judging them, gave to each a pass, to the 
 righteous for heaven, to others for lower regions. His own 
 soul was ordered to return to its body after seeing what would 
 happen. Many souls were seen to pass the gaps, both from 
 heaven and from earth, evidently tired by a long voyage and 
 glad to enjoy rest in a large meadow, where old friends 
 recognised each other, the one bewailing his trials on and 
 beneath the earth, the other praising the wonders of beauty 
 seen in heaven. One of them asked where great Ardiaeus 
 was, a man who, as a tyrant in a town of Pamphylia, had, 
 some centuries before, become infamous through his crimes. 
 He will not be here, was the reply, and in fact, it was found 
 that when the souls of impious men were about to issue from 
 the gaps, a sound was heard at which devils * came and seized 
 them to take them to a place of punishment. Those who 
 reached the meadow remained there for seven days, after which 
 they had to leave for a place where a wonderful light was 
 shining, and where the spindle of Destiny or Necessity 
 ('Ai/tf 7#>7) was seen, handled by her three daughters, the god- 
 desses of fate, and so described as to show its having cosmic 
 power as well as regulating the fate of men. A prophet then 
 announced to the souls that they would have to choose their 
 own destinies or, as Plato's expression is, demons, f no deity 
 being responsible for the results of the choices made ; and 
 numbered marks having been thrown down, the souls picked 
 them up and could make their choices according to the num- 
 
 * Plato, not being acquainted with "the old gentleman," calls them 
 " fierce men glowing like fire." 
 
 t The SKL^LCOV, mentioned here, who accompanies each man during 
 life, and whose counterpart is found in the "genius" of the Romans, 
 is much the same as that fate ([IOIQK or KIGK] which, in Homer, man 
 cannot escape when he has once come into existence. The only differ- 
 ence is that SKL^ICOV suggests a personal being, but even in Homer 
 comes much to the same as " against fate."
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 205 
 
 bers they had got. Those who came from heaven were often, 
 being unused to the evils of life on earth, seen to make 
 imprudent and wrong choices, the very first one being seen 
 desperately to cry over his choice of a tyrant's life which 
 had attracted him by its outward splendour, but was found, 
 when it was too late, to teem with fearful crimes and evils. 
 Of the heroes of old, Ajax chose a lion's life, Agamemnon 
 that of an eagle, Orpheus that of a swan, whereas Odysseus, 
 who was the last to make his choice, was happy to find the 
 life of a man quiet and of no consequence whatever, which 
 had attracted nobody, but which he, after the trials of his 
 former life, preferred to any other. Having then left for the 
 field of Oblivion, the souls drank from the river flowing through 
 it, the wiser ones sparingly, the unwise so as to forget what- 
 ever they had seen and known in former lives, after which 
 a thunderstorm and earthquake caused all of them to disperse. 
 Let us, says Socrates after telling the story, act in confor- 
 mity with the lessons given, and neither commit mistakes in 
 passing the river of Oblivion nor forget to keep always to the 
 right path. 
 
 This brief and, in one respect, incomplete outline of the 
 contents of the dialogue is sufficient to show that, as the 
 Republic fails to give an adequate answer to the question what 
 justice is, it also in other respects is by no means free from 
 deficiencies; but it certainly has great merits too, and throws 
 much light on the question of Plato's idealism. Before attend- 
 ing to this point, however, a matter of great importance is 
 to be touched upon. 
 
 In the general reference to idealism in the beginning of the 
 present chapter, mention was made, in regard to it, of Chris- 
 tianity; but when Christian idealism is spoken of by those 
 holding the Christian faith, the meaning of this expression 
 cannot be anything else than an idealism favoured by, or 
 having its foundation in, the Christian religion ; for idealism 
 being essentially a human tendency, a religion revealed from 
 above, as the source from which mankind can learn its rela-
 
 206 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 tions with the higher world, its duty and its destiny, cannot 
 have an idealism of its own. Socrates had an intuitive notion 
 of what revelation means for man; Plato too does not fail 
 to show his respect for such revelation as the oracle of Delphi 
 was thought to be the organ of. Now in the Sophist the 
 stranger from Elea promises to sketch successively the sophist, 
 the statesman and the philosopher as three distinct personages, 
 and submits that he may have found the philosopher in the 
 man able to see one idea running through a great many 
 things, and to combine many things under one idea; but of 
 his philosopher he gives no separate sketch. In the Phaedo 
 the philosopher is mainly engaged in training for death by 
 purifying his soul; in the Phaedrus the souls forming part 
 of the following of Zeus are, when love lays hold of them, 
 partial to future philosophers, whereas the followers of Hera 
 are captivated by youths of a kingly nature; in the Politicus 
 the ideal king and statesman is possessed of a special kind 
 of knowledge, but he is a distinct personage from the philo- 
 sopher. The Republic actually gives an image of the philo- 
 sopher such as the man from Elea had promised. Having 
 been trained for life in the world of thought, he applies what 
 he has seen there to matters human, so that, in the ideal 
 state, he occupies the place assigned in the Politicus to the 
 king and statesman; but how has he been enabled to use 
 his mental sight in the world of thought? As men in the 
 visible world, provided with sight and surrounded by things 
 visible, cannot see without light, so the medium through 
 which mental sight is enabled to exercise its power in the 
 world of thought, is "that which is good." So this is not 
 only, like beauty and justice, to be seen by the mental eye, 
 but it is also that which renders it possible, for the mind, 
 to see anything; and since the source of light in the visible 
 world, the sun, is held by Plato to be endowed with life as 
 the gods are, very little is wanted to bestow personal attri- 
 butes on the source of light in the world of thought also. 
 Plato does not do so in the Republic, and the statement given
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 207 
 
 there about what is good is not met with in any former dia- 
 logue of his ; but if he had done so, his philosopher would 
 have become a prophet of revealed truth, and there are 
 expressions in works of his old age which may be, and have 
 been, explained as if he had the idea of revelation before his 
 mind. 
 
 This point, however, which might have been somewhat more 
 fully explained in this chapter, will have to be reserved till 
 the next. As to Plato's idealism, it is, in the Republic, chiefly 
 seen in his sketch of an ideal state ruled by philosophers, 
 widely different from the possible outcome of the both ideal- 
 istic and moderate counsels given in the Politicus, but not so 
 altogether out of touch with the actual condition of affairs in 
 his days as would appear at first sight. In the Corinthian 
 war it had been most clearly brought to light that, as military 
 matters stood, bodies of trained soldiers, making military ser- 
 vice their trade, were of more use than the armies of citizens 
 who had triumphed at Marathon and Plataeae, even a Lace- 
 demonian regiment having been well-nigh destroyed by the 
 troops recruited by Iphicrates from Thracia and elsewhere. 
 There was, of course, a danger lest commanders of such forces, 
 like at a somewhat later period Timophanes of Corinth, might 
 find occasion to obtain, with their aid, tyrannical power in 
 their states ; and although monarchical ideas were gaining 
 ground and preparing the minds for times like Alexander's, 
 this danger could not be ignored. By recommending the 
 formation of a military body like his defenders, Plato started 
 an idea which, under such circumstances, had its raison d'etre 
 and was, it would seem, something better than what one 
 would call the dream of a utopist. Family life was, as far 
 as the defenders were concerned, destroyed by the plan, but 
 neither in Sparta, where men had to take their meals in com- 
 mon and almost stealthily to visit their wives, and where the 
 marriage ties were, in some respects, rather loose, nor at 
 Athens, where the education of females was utterly neglected, 
 and where they and the males had separate apartments and
 
 208 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 little in common, was family life what it is in our days. But 
 making allowance for all this, the idea of a state where the 
 subject classes are at full liberty to follow their own pursuits 
 for measures to prevent excessive wealth and excessive poverty, 
 though mentioned in a few words, are left undescribed, and 
 where the ruling classes are made to lead a life unheard of 
 in history and, in spite of its defence by Socrates, altogether 
 unbearable, is simply preposterous. So Plato's social idealism, 
 as given in the Republic, stands self-condemned, but how was 
 Plato driven to come before the public with it ? The answer 
 to this question is that, being deeply convinced of the utter 
 unsoundness of the moral basis on which Athenian democracy 
 was resting for it should not be forgotten that both by 
 nature and by the results of circumstances he was a thorough 
 aristocrat, he first, as part of the task allotted to him, 
 attempted to give, in the Politicus, the outlines both of the 
 personal qualifications of the reformer and of the main features 
 of his work, but must then, having condemned in the Grorgias 
 whatever Athens admired in the glorious policy which had 
 caused her greatness, have been compelled, by the impression 
 he had made by doing so on the public and on his friends, 
 to put his whole mind into a work which would give an idea 
 of what should, and perhaps might, be done to find sound 
 foundations for a state in which all the four cardinal virtues 
 would find room for making their salutary influence felt. His 
 somewhat exaggerated picture of the evils which tyranny 
 causes and tyrants have to suffer from, may partly have had 
 its origin in his reluctance to give too much offence to his 
 fellow-citizens by his anti-democratic and monarchical ideas, 
 which might be balanced by his demonstrations of hatred 
 against tyrannical power ; but it may also be the result of his 
 determination to make it clearly felt what was in store for 
 democratic states like Athens when persisting in the course 
 they were following. 
 
 This subject might be dropped here, were it not for its 
 connection with Plato's attacks on Greek poetry. Adimantus
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 209 
 
 had rightly pointed out that there was no want of ideas and 
 practices connected with the then prevailing religion which 
 did not tend to improve public morality ; but it is one thing 
 to lessen the evils thus brought about, and another to break, 
 on their account, with the best and brightest national tradi- 
 tions. Homer and Hesiod, the lyric and the tragic poets of 
 Greece are even in our days studied by the true leaders of 
 human thought, both as models of form and as sources from 
 which ideas of the highest importance for humanity may be 
 derived. How could Plato think of banishing them from his 
 ideal state, as not agreeing with his ideas on matters divine 
 and human ? Puritanism, when based on religion, may not be 
 generally and in all respects approved of, but it is not less 
 natural and capable of defence than other tendencies of the 
 human mind. A philosophical puritanism like Plato's is hardly 
 worthy of respect, and even somewhat laughable when viewed 
 in connection with his ideas about gymnastics without distinc- 
 tion of sexes. But this is not all. Had it not been for the 
 same want of perception in matters historical which prompted 
 Plato to pass sentence on men like Themistocles and Pericles, 
 he would not have found fault with poetical works and religious 
 traditions which had grown up together with the Greek nation, 
 and which testified to the soundness of its views and senti- 
 ments. Was it not a true sentiment by which they endowed 
 the gods who ruled the world with feelings shared and under- 
 stood by men, and were those gods not worthier objects of 
 public worship than the meaningless impersonations of what 
 is good he made of them ? Had the practices condemned by 
 Adimantus and they were mostly of foreign origin but, as 
 providing for an existing moral want, productive of good as 
 well as evil, such baneful effects that on their account a 
 sweeping change should be brought about in whatever was 
 sacred to the Grecian mind ? Here, as in the Gorgias, 
 Plato no longer takes his stand on purely Grecian sentiment, 
 but is led, by his philosophy, to occupy a neutral ground 
 where, in course of time, Hellenism would be utterly defeated ; 
 
 14
 
 210 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 and he is seen at his worst when thus breaking with the 
 traditions of a nation of whose genius his own works are 
 among the noblest monuments. 
 
 Plato's idealism as regards the development of individual man 
 is closely connected with his psychology. Here the disadvan- 
 tage he laboured under is owing to the doctrine started in 
 Greece by Pythagoras, under influence of foreign ideas, of the 
 transmigration of souls, and to its natural result, that of 
 learning being remembering, which was so dear to Socrates. 
 In the Phaedo, although the latter doctrine is largely made 
 use of, its effects are not quite clearly seen, since Socrates, 
 to some extent, loses sight of it in referring to the future 
 state he hopefully looked forward to. In the Phaedrus its 
 result is that the evil propensities which might have been 
 imputed to the connection between soul and body, are made 
 to arise from one of the component parts of the soul itself; 
 and in the Republic this idea is made use of as a foundation 
 for an ethical theory. The Phaedo with its asceticism, 
 the Phaedrus with its undefiled love, the Republic with its 
 triumph of the philosopher all represent the human soul as 
 susceptible of high development and supreme bliss when free 
 from the thraldom in which it is held by the body; but in 
 the Phaedrus another idea, indicated also in the Politicus 
 that, after all, the human soul is inferior to the divine one, 
 and always liable to a relapse, is strongly insisted upon. 
 In the Phaedo, the Gorgias and the Republic the doc- 
 trine of immortality is used as a means to repress evil ten- 
 dencies of the human race on earth ; and in the concluding 
 part of the Republic this idea is, on the lines indicated in the 
 Phaedrus, consistently worked out, especially as regards the 
 loss of memory of what happened in former lives, the weakest, 
 most disheartening and therefore least practical point, as seen 
 already by Athenaeus, of the Platonic doctrine of the soul's 
 immortality, but the unavoidable result of the teaching of 
 Socrates, and rendered somewhat less offensive by what is 
 said about the sojourn of souls in celestial regions. But then
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 211 
 
 the choice of earthly lives allowed to souls which are doomed 
 again to be connected with mortal bodies, condemning man to 
 a life of crime in consequence of a wrong choice inadvertently 
 made, is so entirely at variance with whatever else is found 
 in Plato's works, that it can hardly be otherwise explained 
 than by a novel idea of his like that about the light spread 
 in the world of thought, and hardly capable of explanation 
 except in connection with tendencies not met with, to any 
 great extent, in Plato before his old age. 
 
 XII. PLATO'S OLD AGE. 
 
 PLATO must have been between fifty and sixty years of age when 
 he wrote the Republic, the work which, notwithstanding its 
 defects, would seem to have contributed most to his fame. 
 Of his later works the Timaeus and Critias, which are even 
 more closely related to one another than the Theaetetus and 
 Sophist, begin with a reference to the Republic which makes 
 it felt . that Plato and for good reasons too, as will after- 
 wards be shown was anxious to make them appear a sequel 
 to it. The subject of the Laws is intimately connected with 
 that of the Republic; in fact, this lengthy dialogue must 
 have been written for the purpose of substituting something 
 more practical for the ideal state which gave its name to 
 the older work. Of the dialogues written after the Republic 
 the Philebus would seem to have been the oldest. It con- 
 tains a debate on the question whether or not enjoyment is 
 the highest good, evidently in connection, on one hand with 
 the argument between Socrates and Callicles in the Gorgias, 
 on the other with what, in the Republic, is said about neither 
 enjoyment nor wisdom being that which is good. As it was 
 almost a matter of necessity for Plato to given a further 
 explanation of his views on a question so often discussed in his 
 days and considered to be of paramount importance, it may 
 be assumed that the Philebus was written shortly after the 
 Republic, and before Plato's departure for Syracuse.
 
 212 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 Plato was not one of those whose vigour of mind remains 
 unimpaired long after reaching the age when according to 
 Solon it begins to weaken; but although he may have passed 
 that age and have been something like sixty when writing- 
 the Philebus, no decline of his is seen in it. It lacks an 
 introduction like that of the Republic, but its argument is r 
 perhaps, the most perfect specimen of the Socratic method 
 met with in Plato. Socrates had been invited to a meeting 
 of young men, one of whom, Philebus, held the opinion that 
 enjoyment (yjSovy) was the highest good, or rather equivalent 
 to that which is good (TO &yo&6v). Socrates gives the palm 
 to the intellectual faculties of man, and Protarchus, * a friend 
 of Philebus, takes the latter's part in the debate. The ques- 
 tion as put by Socrates for discussion is whether enjoyment 
 or intellectual power is that which makes life happy, and if 
 neither of them, which of them most contributes to it. Phi- 
 lebus does not like the latter part of the question ; Protar- 
 chus agrees to take the whole of it as put by Socrates. That 
 "what is good " is understood here in a sense rather different 
 to that given to it in the Republic, need hardly be observed. 
 
 Socrates opens the debate by observing that there are 
 various kinds of enjoyments, some valued by wise and sober 
 men, and some sought after by men of a different character, 
 and that it would be difficult to take them together in an 
 argument like that between himself and Protarchus. They 
 are the same as far as their being enjoyments is concerned, 
 replies Protarchus; and although this had been previously 
 admitted by Socrates himself, the debate might have come to 
 grief on a misunderstanding in regard to this point, had not 
 Socrates pointed out that it was the same with what he 
 
 * Protarchus is called the son of Callias, and the latter is mentioned 
 in terms showing that he must have been a man of note. Perhapa 
 Callias son of Calliades is meant, who at the head of an Athenian force 
 perished in battle shortly before the Peloponnesian war broke out (Thuc. I 
 63), and who is stated, in Plato's first Alcibiades, to have studied 
 philosophy under Zeno.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 213 
 
 maintained to be the highest good, there being many branches 
 of knowledge different from one another, so that he was 
 not in a better position than his opponent. There was the 
 well-known question about things being one and many, which 
 gave rise to childish debates, but which assumed a different 
 shape when the doctrine of ideas that which in the Republic 
 makes the one ideal couch the origin and model of all couches 
 made by artisans was mixed up with it. In connection 
 with this doctrine it should be kept in view that between the 
 one idea and the infinite number of its reproductions there 
 lay something in the middle, wHich Socrates explains by ob- 
 serving that between the idea of voice and the numberless 
 sounds designated in Greek by the same word (Quvvj) there 
 was the limited number of sounds expressed by the letters 
 of the alphabet, which again belonged to different classes. 
 This had also to be attended to in regard to enjoyment and 
 intellectual power. Philebus agrees with this; Protarchus is 
 afraid of entering upon an interminable discussion, and charges 
 Socrates with resorting to his old trick of putting such issues 
 before his opponents as they cannot try. As, however, Socrates 
 now says that, seeing as he does that neither enjoyment nor 
 intellectual power can be the highest good, but that some- 
 thing else, superior to either, is to be sought for, and that 
 for this reason an arrangement of enjoyments under different 
 heads can be dispensed with, this difficulty is got rid of. 
 
 That neither enjoyment nor intellectual power can be that 
 which, by itself, can make man happy is demonstrated by 
 Socrates by supposing both a life full of enjoyment and with- 
 out any intellect, and one in which the highest intellect is 
 unaccompanied by any pleasure. Could there be a truly happy 
 life for one who could not even think of his happiness? It 
 would be like the life of a jellyfish. Protarchus at once admits 
 this and, of course, also that good sense and knowledge are 
 worth little when enjoyment is altogether wanting, an excep- 
 tion being made by Socrates, as to the latter point, for that 
 true intellect which is characteristic of the gods. But was
 
 214 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 there not a life combining both? If so, the question would 
 arise to which of the two its happiness was chiefly owing. 
 To answer it, Socrates first makes a distinction between what 
 is infinite and what is .finite, a third class being a combina- 
 tion of both, and the cause of this combination being a fourth 
 factor. By what is infinitefor both words are used in dif- 
 ferent senses from those they have in our days is meant 
 whatever involves, or is susceptible of, a difference in degree, 
 such as more and less, hotter and colder, very and hardly; 
 finite is that in which there is no such difference, such as 
 equal, double and whatever is defined by number or measure. 
 But now the third. It comes into existence when the finite 
 is mixed with the infinite so as to generate something definite: 
 health in the human body, harmony in the world of sounds, 
 even beauty and strength. The cause, which was fourth, was 
 required since there must be a difference between that which 
 is made and that which makes it. And now comes the life 
 combining enjoyment and intellectual power. Philebus admits 
 at once that enjoyment as well as pain belongs to what 
 Socrates calls infinite ; but which class is intellect {youc} to 
 rank with? The world was ruled by it, and as in the human 
 body fire was found and water, air and earth, but all of them 
 as parts or productions of those elements as found in the 
 universe, so the soul was derived from the universal intellect, 
 so that intellect could not be viewed otherwise than as belonging 
 to the fourth factor, the cause. 
 
 Now pain and pleasure, though infinite, took their origin 
 in the third class, to which harmony belonged, for pain was 
 caused by the destruction of harmony, pleasure by its restora- 
 tion. Heat and cold, when increased to such a degree as 
 not to agree with the nature of those subject to them, caused 
 pain ; pleasure was the result of their acting in accordance 
 with that nature. Both pleasure and pain could be seated in 
 the soul, either as hope and fear or as memory; and this being 
 granted, the question whether pleasure was in all cases to be 
 welcomed, would find its answer.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 215 
 
 Here it is first pointed out that, when pain and pleasure 
 are connected with destruction and restoration, there must be 
 a condition of life in which neither is felt ; and in connection 
 with this Socrates observes that a life without either, though 
 not considered happy, is both possible and probably that of 
 the gods, both joy and grief being hardly compatible with 
 their nature. Man's happiness, when limited to the mind, 
 would be seen in memory, but what was memory? The 
 remembrance of changes affecting both body and soul. This 
 remembrance by the mind, when taking the form of a desire, 
 is always directly opposite to the condition of the body ; when 
 in the latter there is emptiness, the former desires replenish- 
 ing. So desires belong to the mind, not to the body, and it 
 is possible to feel at the same time pain through thirst and 
 pleasure through the hope of its being taken away. Hope is 
 an opinion, and as an opinion can be false, so there can also 
 be false enjoyments, a conclusion which Protarchus does not 
 agree to until after a long argument, in the course of which 
 it is also pointed out that, as besides a life of pain and one 
 of pleasure there is a third one without either of them, the 
 opinion of those cannot be maintained who, from a sense of 
 the evil nature of some pleasures, identify pleasure with the 
 cessation of pain, and so, in some measure, deny its existence 
 as something by itself. 
 
 This aversion to recognise the existence of pleasure is 
 explained by Socrates from the fact that pleasures enjoyed to 
 an exceedingly high degree are rather experienced by diseased 
 bodies and minds than by sound ones; and here he refers to 
 the itch and the scratching it occasions mentioned in the 
 Gorgias. In many such cases pain is mixed with intense 
 pleasure, and this is seen in the mind as well as the body, 
 since wrath, sorrow and envy, though certainly partaking of 
 the nature of pain, also bring pleasures of their own, such 
 as are felt when in tragedy and comedy, both those on the 
 stage and in actual life, either tears are shed over misfortunes 
 with a feeling of gratification, or laughter is raised by the
 
 216 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 sight of friends ridiculed. But there are certainly also plea- 
 sures unaccompanied by pain, such as those caused by the 
 sight of what is beautiful and by hearing what is harmonious ; 
 and especially those connected with that action of the mind 
 by which knowledge is enlarged. They may be less intense 
 than other pleasures, but they are pure and genuine. Still, 
 as pleasure is felt in connection with what is being made and 
 growing into existence (yevstrii;), and as existence itself (outriix,'), 
 as the object aimed at in bringing it about, is to be classed 
 with what is good, pleasure cannot belong to the same class; 
 nor can pleasure be identified with what is good, when it is 
 found that what is good in the mind wisdom, self-control, 
 valour has nothing in common with it. 
 
 Passing from pleasure to intellect and knowledge, Socrates 
 insists on the distinction to be made, both between those arts 
 and branches of knowledge which proceed methodically and 
 those experimental, and between arts nominally the same, such 
 as arithmetic and geometry, when applied to daily life and 
 when used in connection with philosophy, since in the latter 
 case they actually belong to another and superior order. 
 Knowledge and arts which have to do with what really is, 
 take higher places than any other, and although the art of 
 persuasion, praised by Gorgias as the highest and most power- 
 ful of all, may be very useful in actual life, it certainly does 
 not hold equal rank with them. 
 
 Having thus gone through the whole of the subject under 
 discussion, Socrates recapitulates what has been accomplished 
 during the debate, and then passes on to the mixing of enjoy- 
 ment and intellect, like honey and water, so as to obtain a 
 life combined of both. Whatever might be the difference in 
 rank and value between the various branches of knowledge, 
 all of them can be admitted into the mixture, since arts founded 
 on experiments are by no means useless. So also genuine 
 enjoyments, but there are certainly such enjoyments as intellect 
 cannot consent to live with, and so they are not allowed to 
 enter. So a life of real symmetry would come into existence,
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 217 
 
 more closely related, on account of this character, with beauty 
 than with that which is good, but where beauty and symme- 
 try go hand in hand with truth; and neither with these three 
 nor with knowledge and the like has enjoyment anything in 
 common. Its contribution towards the happiness contained in 
 the life thus brought about, is therefore only one fifth of the 
 whole, and so the contention of Socrates against Philebus, 
 although not having gained the prize it had laid claim to, is 
 on the whole victorious. 
 
 Whoever compares the Philebus and the results arrived at 
 in it with the Protagoras, the Laches and even the Theaetetus 
 and their want of definite conclusions, will see at once the 
 difference between Plato in the earlier time of his philosophical 
 career, and Plato after producing those splendid works of his 
 of which the Sophist comes first. Nor will any one while 
 studying the Philebus fail to see that, although it apparently 
 contains a refutation of the views of those who, in the Republic, 
 are condemned for holding enjoyment to be the highest good, 
 Plato carefully avoids anything from which it might be inferred 
 that his argument is about that idea of what is good which 
 is the shining light in the world of thought. But in two 
 respects what is met with in the Philebus is at variance with 
 the results of former dialogues. The Platonic, or rather Socratic, 
 ideas are mentioned in terms hardly different from those used 
 in the Republic ; but when not only health and harmony but 
 also beauty and strength are represented as brought about 
 by a combination of the finite with the infinite, where do the 
 ideas of beauty and strength come in, by partaking of which 
 things in the visible world are endowed with them, and where 
 is that vision of beauty which causes, in the Phaedrus, the 
 lover's enthusiasm ? Beauty, in the Philebus, is seen in sym- 
 metry and in forms like the circle and the sphere, in the 
 Phaedrus in human beings endowed with the charms of youth ; 
 and who but a man cured of all youthful idealism, whose indi- 
 viduality is well-nigh absorbed in abstract study, will see 
 progress and development in this? Of greater importance still,
 
 218 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 as containing a much more decided deviation from paths 
 formerly followed, is the change of the individual soul, immortal 
 as such since it has its principle of motion in itself, into an 
 efflux of the intellect ruling the world, just as the material 
 elements found in the human body are particles of those 
 existing in the universe. About this question of the soul 
 more will have to be said when going over the contents of 
 the Timaeus. 
 
 In the Timaeus Socrates is introduced as meeting Critias, 
 Timaeus of Locri in Italy, well-known as a philosopher, and 
 Hermocrates of Syracuse. Of the latter of these two new 
 personages nothing is said tending to identify him with the 
 famous general and statesman known from Thucydides and 
 Xenophon, who after having been the leader of what might 
 be called the patriotic party in his native town, and been 
 mainly instrumental in securing to Syracuse her victory over 
 the Athenian forces, was soon afterwards banished, and perished 
 in an attempt at effecting his return. It is much more likely 
 that Plato thought of another Hermocrates, father of Dionysius 
 the elder, and that the dialogue was written at a time when 
 he was in hopes of bestowing, with the aid of Dionysius the 
 younger, actual existence on his ideal state. As there are also 
 reasons in the dialogue itself to consider it probable that, 
 when it was written, Plato was under the influence of philo- 
 sophical ideas commonly held in Italy but altogether different 
 from those of Socrates as given in the Phaedo, the time to 
 which the Timaeus and its sequel, the Critias, are to be 
 assigned would seem to be that between Plato's first and second 
 visit to the court of the younger Dionysius. 
 
 The Timaeus begins with a reference to a conversation held 
 the day before, when Socrates had given particulars about 
 his plan for an ideal republic. Having recapitulated, in con- 
 versation with Timaeus, the principal points, he adds that, 
 as one seeing noble animals quietly together, would like to 
 see them also move about, he himself would like nothing 
 better than to see the state he had sketched in action; but
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 219 
 
 even a sketch in writing of such action could not be expected 
 either from poets, who did not go beyond what they were 
 themselves accustomed to, or from sophists, always travelling 
 about and lacking experience in dealing with the management 
 of states. How if those present would help him to what he 
 desired? Critias, then says Hermocrates, had told a won- 
 derful story about ancient times which might be the very 
 thing his friend was anxious for. This story is found to have 
 been told to Critias by his grandfather, who had it from 
 Solon. The latter, while in Egypt, had visited the town of 
 Sai's, sacred to Athena, where he made many friends and, 
 when referring to the oldest traditions of the Greeks, was 
 informed by a priest that the Greeks knew hardly anything 
 about times of old, their memory not reaching beyond the last 
 great change brought about by floods. When such changes 
 took place, few people were saved, and those too the most 
 ignorant and illiterate, herdsmen living high up the moun- 
 tains and the like ; but Egypt had, by the action of the Nile, 
 suffered little, and had thus been able to preserve records of 
 what had happened, not only in the country itself but also 
 with neighbouring states, for several thousands of years. 
 Athens was founded a thousand years before Sai's, and was in 
 ancient times a most powerful state, with institutions not unlike 
 those of Egypt, the defence of the country being committed to 
 a military caste; and her great claim to the gratitude of the 
 human race lay in her defence of Europe and Asia against 
 an invasion by the people of Atlantis, an island equal in extent 
 to Africa and Asia together, and situated to the west of the 
 columns of Hercules, but since destroyed by floods and earth- 
 quakes. Of these exploits Critias remembered everything as 
 he had heard it from his grandfather, and willingly would 
 he give the information required; but he and his friend thought 
 it a better plan first to allow Timaeus, who was fully at home 
 in astronomy and natural science, to give an account of how 
 the world and the human race had sprung into existence, 
 this being the best present they could bestow on Socrates in
 
 220 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 return for what he had told them about his ideal state. 
 
 On advice given by Socrates, and in conformity with his 
 own habit, Timaeus first invokes the gods, and then begins 
 his argument, in which he is not interrupted by any question, 
 by a reference to the distinction to be made between that 
 which always is and that which is in constant course of 
 generation and extinction. To the latter class belongs the 
 universe, as being visible and tangible, and as such it must 
 have had a cause or a maker, whom it is difficult to find, 
 and impossible to tell the public about. That maker he 
 cannot be called the creator, since he finds the matter ready 
 of which to make the universe was by his very nature com- 
 pelled to take as his model that which is for ever, as being 
 the best, in other words the world of thought. Still, what 
 belongs to the class of things generated is but an image of 
 what really is; it does not admit of true knowledge but only 
 of correct opinion; and so what is said about it cannot be 
 otherwise than imperfect. 
 
 In the universe its maker included whatever is visible, and 
 a soul was given to it as well as a body, so that it actually 
 is a god. The body had fire and earth as its elements, bound 
 together by air and water, a twofold binding element being 
 required in solids. Its form was a sphere, not only as the 
 most perfect one but also because there was nothing outside 
 it and, having no other motion than that of turning round 
 its axis, it required no limbs. Before the body of the universe 
 its soul was made, by mixing into one undivided and divided 
 existence (ovtria) that which always remains one and that 
 of the various beings, and joining to this mixture the two 
 elements known from the Sophist, the same and the other, 
 which, however, were not easily mixed together. So on 
 the whole the ontology given in the Sophist is not abandoned, 
 and there is no reason, when the passage is taken by itself, 
 for supposing that the soul of the universe, on account of 
 its partaking of " the other " and of divided existence, should 
 be thought to contain a material element, existence being with
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 221 
 
 Plato always an abstraction, and different from the visible 
 thing that is. 
 
 Then a division of this mixed existence takes place, and 
 here is brought in that arrangement of the visible universe 
 which causes the apparent course of such heavenly bodies as 
 the sun and the planets to move in a different direction to 
 that of the sky with its fixed stars. In the outer circle, that 
 of the fixed stars, " the same " predominates, and as destined 
 to be the ruling one it is not further subdivided, whereas 
 the inner one, that of " the other, " is divided into seven the 
 number of those heavenly bodies after which our days of the 
 week are named, this whole division being on an arithmetical 
 basis which cannot be explained here. Within the soul of the 
 universe its body is put together, and the soul itself is the 
 cause either of opinion or of knowledge, according as in its 
 motion its comes into contact with what belongs to either 
 " the other " or " the same, " the visible world or that of 
 thought. 
 
 Eternity was reserved for the model which the universe was 
 formed after; as a substitute for it in the visible world time 
 was made, divided into past, present and future, and destined 
 to last as long as the universe. To mark time, sun, moon 
 and planets were made, as live beings and therefore gods, the 
 former two marking divisions of time in general usage, 
 whereas few people troubled themselves about the great year, the 
 period required for all those heavenly bodies to reach once 
 more the points they had started from together. Now it was 
 also resolved to people the visible world with those live beings 
 whose ideal forms existed in the world of thought. First 
 came the gods, whose bodies were mostly made of fire, and 
 by whom the fixed stars are meant; then beings not very 
 respectfully called demons, since they were in reality the gods 
 of public worship. Though not eternal they would not be 
 mortal either, since they would remain in existence as long 
 as the universe lasted, and its maker had provided for its 
 duration and did not intend dissolving it ; but it would be their
 
 222 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 duty to make live beings subject to mortality. For the souls 
 of these a mixture was made by the great maker, consisting 
 of the remnant of what had been formerly employed, mixed with 
 less pure elements, and when formed the souls were located 
 on stars, so as to get a proper view of the universe, and 
 afterwards to pass into the bodies of the most godfearing kind 
 of animals, the better half of whom would be called men. In 
 men's souls perception and love, fear and passion would find 
 their places, and the proper management of all these would 
 constitute a righteous life and be followed by a return to the 
 stars they had inhabited. Otherwise they would be made to 
 enter the bodies of women and afterwards those of inferior 
 animals. 
 
 The gods at once proceed to fulfil the task allotted to them, 
 taking their maker's work as model; but the souls, when 
 enclosed in bodies requiring, to remain in existence, a constant 
 change of matter, are in a sad plight by the violent motions 
 consequent upon it, and this is why in the beginning of life 
 intellect appears to be wanting, the time for its manifestation 
 being that when a diminution of growth, especially when 
 assisted by education, renders its action possible. The imitation 
 of the great maker's work by the gods is seen in the spherical 
 form of the head, in which the outer and ruling part of the 
 soul is quartered, and which, having the body as support and its 
 limbs as means of motion, contains in front for of the various 
 motions the forward one, also met with in those heavenly 
 bodies whose motion is not identical with that of the universe, 
 is the most natural the organs of the principal senses, the 
 eye being mentioned as having rendered philosophy possible, 
 and hearing being praised as hardly less valuable than sight. 
 In all this the action of the intellect was seen, to whose 
 persuasion even necessity (xvtx, i yxy) was found to yield ; but still 
 the latter too had to be taken into account, and so Timaeus 
 passes from his observations about the human body, to those 
 on matters in general, as found in the universe. 
 
 It had been assumed that four elements were at hand when
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 223 
 
 the body of the universe was to be made, but was this a 
 correct supposition ? Nothing had been said about the process 
 by which they came into existence, and to take this subject 
 in hand it was not sufficient solely to attend to the two factors 
 mentioned when the question of the formation of the universe 
 was being considered the model and the generated and visible 
 world modelled on it, but also a third one had to be noticed, 
 that in which generation takes place, which may be either called 
 place or matter ; a matter shapeless since if it had a form of its 
 own it could not well reproduce the forms generated in it. AV as 
 it not more correct to consider fire and the other elements as 
 mere forms taken by this shapeless matter, constantly changing 
 from one into another, since water became earth when con- 
 densed, and air when evaporating? This was a difficult question, 
 it being not even clear whether this shapeless matter had to 
 be dealt with by intellect and reason or by opinion; but it 
 could be taken for granted that as the world of thought could be 
 called the father of the visible world, so matter was its mother, 
 and that, as in the latter there was constant motion for want 
 of balancing power, there was also a tendency for particles 
 similar to one another to congregate and for those dissimilar 
 to separate. In fact, the four elements did exist in it, the 
 supposition that they were merely forms of it being incorrect. 
 And now a theory is proposed somewhat like that of the 
 atomistic school although Deniocritus, its founder, is named 
 nowhere in Plato's works, and based on such knowledge of 
 geometry as Plato was possessed of. The elements were 
 solid bodies; to understand the latter one had to begin with 
 planes. The simplest plane was the triangle, and that too 
 the rectangular one. Of rectangular triangles the principal 
 two were the isosceles and that of which the shorter side is 
 -equal to half the length of the hypotenuse, so that two of 
 them joined together at the longer side would form an equi- 
 lateral triangle. Of the regular solids only four of the six 
 are mentioned in the dialogue three are formed by equilateral 
 triangles, one, the cube, by squares which are equal to two
 
 224 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 isoscelic ones. The cube, as most stable, is the constituting 
 element of earth; fire, air and water have respectively the 
 pyramid, the hexahedron and the octahedron as their component 
 parts, fire being most and water least movable of the three. 
 
 To explain the phenomena resulting from this, it is assumed 
 that the size of the bodies constituting the elements is not 
 always the same, and that for this reason the action of the 
 one on the other is also variable. This action consists in 
 their constant motion, caused on one hand by the tendency 
 of similar elements to come together and of dissimilar ones to 
 separate, on the other by their always trying to fill any vacant 
 space. When earth is thus decomposed by the action of other 
 elements, its component parts remain as they are, and so 
 earth is not really changed into anything else; but as both 
 the octahedron and hexahedron are composed of pyramids, and 
 a double hexahedron is found in the octahedron, they can, by 
 decomposition and by condensation, be converted into one 
 another. The results are described by Timaeus in such a 
 manner as to explain the formation and qualities of metals 
 which as they can be smelted, are represented as forms of 
 water and various other substances; and other particulars 
 referring to the changes brought about in nature are likewise 
 touched upon, until, flesh having been reached as the sub- 
 stance these changes act upon, man again becomes the subject 
 of investigation. 
 
 In connection with it, sensations and their causes, such as 
 heat and cold, heaviness and lightness, are also considered, 
 and explanations are given of the functions of the organs of 
 sense. Among the sensations are also pain and pleasure. 
 The fact is that with the flesh those parts of the soul are 
 taken together which Timaeus calls mortal, and which accord- 
 ingly must have partaken of the nature of matter. More about 
 this is said when, having gone through the various sensations 
 and senses, Timaeus declares the consideration of the effects 
 of necessity to have reached its end, so that he will resume 
 that of the action of the gods in so constructing, in conformity
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 225 
 
 with their maker's plan, the human body that the evils it is 
 subject to evils described when the sensations were discussed, 
 and caused by necessity so that their exclusion was impossible, 
 would be tempered. Not only made they the body so that 
 its head, in which they had located the divine part of the 
 soul, was separated by a narrow neck from the rest of the 
 body, but they also divided the latter into two parts by the 
 diaphragm, placing in the higher one that part of the mind 
 which was the seat of passion and courage the same, there- 
 fore, as that which in the Phaedrus was the spirited and 
 manageable horse, and where the heart, as quarters for the 
 force at the disposal of the intellect, was caused to beat by 
 passion and fear, but recovered coolness by the action of the 
 lungs. The lower part formed the residence of that part of 
 the soul where desires were master, and it would be difficult 
 to make them listen to the voice of reason, had not the liver 
 been made to serve as a mirror, reflecting the warnings 
 given, and to act, in regard to the lowest element of the 
 mind, as a soothsayer and his art did in behalf of the least 
 intelligent part of the public. The liver of an animal offered 
 in sacrifice to the gods was the main source of information 
 for those who, from the entrails, inferred and predicted what 
 was going to happen; alive, its action was even stronger. 
 What the lungs were for the heart, the spleen was for the 
 liver. 
 
 A further description of the body, with explanations of the 
 origin, use and action of its various parts, follows, in which 
 marrow is represented as its principal and most effective 
 element, made as it is of the various triangles which are also 
 component parts of the four elements found in the universe; 
 and here the gods are stated to have made the human skull, 
 as the receptacle of the principal mass of marrow, thin and 
 covered with skin instead of flesh because, although they were 
 aware that by making it thick and amply covering it, they 
 might double the length of human life, they preferred for man 
 a short life in which the mind would have freedom of action, 
 
 15
 
 226 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 to a long one in which it would have to vegetate. Then the 
 food of man and the manner in which it attains its object 
 in connection with which plants are stated to have been made 
 for the use of men and to count, as endowed with life, as 
 animals, respiration and its causes and effects, and the 
 diseases of the body are commented upon, until Timaeus passes 
 from the body to the soul and the evils it suffers from. 
 
 Of these evils want of reason and understanding, either from 
 ignorance or from madness, is the worst, and one kind of 
 madness arises from passions and desires, indulgence in which 
 should not call forth condemnatory language for, as Plato 
 often states, and as especially in the Timaeus the view of 
 human nature he gives compels him to do, no one is wilfully 
 bad, but what is condemned as vice is in reality the conse- 
 quence of a peculiar constitution of the body coupled with 
 want of mental culture, but for which a cure can be found 
 in establishing harmony between mind and body, disproportion 
 between them being a fruitful source of evil. To cure both 
 body and mind various remedies are indicated, such as 
 gymnastics when a strong mind is enclosed in a weak body, 
 and musical and philosophical study when the contrary is the 
 case ; whereas medicine properly so called should only be 
 resorted to when other remedies are found to be ineffective. 
 What should never be lost sight of is the care due to that 
 part of the mind which has its seat in the head and is most 
 nearly related to the soul of the universe, since its culture 
 contributes most of all to real happiness. A brief reference 
 to the migrating of souls into the bodies of lower animals 
 is the end of the dialogue, women being first named, and 
 birds being best fitted to harbour the souls of flighty and 
 shallow-minded people, who fancy that they can altogether 
 rely on their senses, whereas quadrupeds, reptiles and, last of 
 all, fishes receive those of men labouring under deficiencies 
 of brain-power. 
 
 The Timaeus contains much that is interesting for students 
 of the history of the philosophy of nature; much more than
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 227 
 
 is seen from the brief sketch here given of it. The interest, 
 however, lies more in what is found in it about the attempts 
 made in ancient Greece to create a natural science in which, 
 in our own days, undreamt of progress has been and is 
 being made, than in anything else; and for the purposes of 
 this essay it is sufficient to point out what light it throws 
 on Plato himself. In regard to this it is first of all to be 
 noticed that Plato, who at the time when in his Sophist he 
 showed that he left the path trodden by his late teacher, 
 Avrote his Phaedo as a monument of the merits of the man 
 to whom he owed his first views on philosophy, now, being 
 upwards of sixty years of age, deviated to a much greater 
 extent from the course he had kept till then. Socrates, in 
 the Phaedo, tells those present on the day of his death that 
 he was disgusted, in his youth, on finding that a philosopher 
 whose doctrine was that intellect ruled the universe, explained, in 
 spite of this, everything from material agencies, and adds that 
 since that time he had stuck to dialectic. As late as the 
 time when he wrote his Republic, Plato, though in favour of 
 such studies as geometry and astronomy, likewise considered 
 dialectic to be the true method to come to the highest truth, 
 and now he is found at once to strike into a new path, and 
 abandon his former studies for those of a subject new to him 
 and foreign to the spirit in which, till then, he had worked 
 and written. 
 
 There is, however, one peculiarity of the Timaeus which 
 will remind its reader of the Republic. There Plato makes 
 an observation to the effect that in the study of the world 
 of thought there is a difference of method similar to one in 
 that of the visible world, where either images of things or 
 things themselves can be seen and studied. The one method, 
 making use of something between opinion and the understand- 
 ing which leads to true knowledge, takes its stand on a sup- 
 position from which it proceeds to conclusions ; the other, 
 guided by true understanding (vovq as opposed to ^lavata), 
 proceeds from a supposition not to conclusions but to a prin-
 
 228 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 ciple. The former method corresponds, in some measure, to 
 what is now called the inductive, the latter to the deductive 
 method ; and what do we see in the Timaeus ? That Plato does 
 arrive, not at a conclusion but at a principle hatched in his 
 own imagination : that of the four regular bodies being each 
 of them the component parts of one of the four elements \ 
 and that, starting from this production of his fancy, he enters 
 upon an elaborate explanation of the universe and the human 
 body, which may be very ingenious, but is not founded on 
 anything connected, in the remotest way, with either verified 
 facts or even the smallest amount of probability. Que diable 
 allait il faire dans cette gal&re ! What business had Plato 
 thus, in his old age, to come to the front with a crude theory 
 on a subject from which he had altogether kept aloof for so 
 many years ? 
 
 Other matters connected with the Timaeus will be discussed 
 at the end of this chapter, but there are points, referring to 
 Plato's theology and his psychology, which are to be touched 
 upon at once. Plato's theology, as found in his former dia- 
 logues, presents very little of real interest, since he was not 
 in a position fully to enter into the matter. He found 
 pandaemonism and the Olympus as they are met with in 
 Homer and as they were believed in by such of his countrymen 
 as stuck to the popular ideas on religious matters, and he 
 could not go against them on account of a necessity similar 
 to that which the gods in the Timaeus had to count with in 
 making man. As, however, he did not believe in them, his 
 gods became nondescript beings, supremely good and supremely 
 happy, dealing with mortals only through the agency of 
 demons, not even indulging in anything so human as joy, and 
 strengthening themselves by the sight of ideal goodness and 
 ideal beauty instead of feasting on nectar and ambrosia, except 
 when, as in Diotima's story, a family event was to be cele- 
 brated. No one, considering the times in which Plato lived, 
 can find fault with this, but in the Timaeus, where, as in the 
 Sophist and the Politicus, he does not take Socrates as his
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 229 
 
 mouthpiece, he ventures to place before the public a god whom 
 he hardly knows and whom they should not know at all, the 
 maker of the universe out of a mass of matter having its 
 origin in triangles, but who, at all events, does not think it 
 beneath his dignity to admire his work and be glad, as 
 mortals would. Of course this passing from polytheism to 
 virtual monotheism is quite natural, and agrees with what is 
 seen in the later history of the races now ruling the world ; 
 but under this god there are those made by him, first the 
 one whose body is the universe, then the visible world's first 
 inhabitants, and ultimately those worshipped in Greece, as 
 mere underlings of his, not distinguished from demons, and 
 to whom tasks are assigned, their immortality lasting only 
 during pleasure. This is hardly an improvement on the faint- 
 hearted theology of his younger days, and certainly not on 
 that of Homer, with its truly human gods. 
 
 Then his psychology. The souls, to begin with that of the 
 universe and those of the other gods, are not as in the 
 Phaedrus immortal as having the principle of motion in them- 
 selves, but are made and can be unmade; and while it will 
 hardly do, as stated before, to consider what is said about 
 the first mixture made for them as evidence that they contain 
 a mortal element, the human soul is stated to be partly 
 mortal, and the doctrine of transmigration assumes such a 
 shape that it is extremely difficult to see what is meant by 
 the soul. Is it a principle of life met with even in plants, 
 so that it may be thought as implied, in fact, by what is 
 said in the Philebus about intellect to follow after death 
 the law to which matter is subject, or has it, as argued in 
 the Phaedo and elsewhere, an individual existence which can- 
 not be destroyed? How can this question be answered when, 
 on one hand, souls of men are seen to enter fishes, and on 
 the other there are plants containing souls like the mortal 
 pact of the human soul? Surely, Plato's ideas about the 
 soul, vitiated as they were from the beginning by the doctrine 
 of " learning is remembering " which he took over from Socra-
 
 230 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 tes, cannot be said to have profited by his attempts to deal 
 with questions which his great teacher had prudently laid 
 aside. 
 
 Of the sequel to the Timaeus, the Critias, hardly anything 
 need be said. Judging by the introductory part of the 
 Timaeus, its object must have been to give a description of 
 an ancient state more or less like the ideal state of the 
 Republic: a description which was certainly required after 
 Plato's representing his state as being actually ruled according 
 to the original form of government from which that of Sparta 
 had degenerated. Athens as she was some eight thousand 
 years before Plato, was to be the state governed according to 
 his ideas, but first the powerful kingdom had to be described 
 which had its seat in the isle of Atlantis, and whose rulers, 
 already obeyed in Western Europe and Africa, attempted to 
 extend their power eastward, but were utterly defeated by 
 the Athenians. Plato, however, does not tell the story of this 
 victory of his countrymen, the dialogue stopping before the 
 description of Atlantis is completed. He may, after his dis- 
 comfiture at the court of Dionysius on the occasion of his 
 last visit to it, have thought it useless to complete a work 
 whose beginning is by no means promising, and have preferred 
 to write a political dialogue which his military caste formed 
 no part of, and further to stick to the pumpkins which formed 
 the subject discussed between him and his scholars after he 
 had come to study nature as well as man. 
 
 Plato's last and longest dialogue is the Laws, divided into 
 twelve books. It will be remembered that in the Phaedrus 
 written laws are treated somewhat disrespectfully, and so 
 they are in the Politicus, although it is there admitted that, 
 as matters are, it is not easy to do without them. There is 
 a short dialogue among Plato's works, the Minos, where 
 Socrates discusses with a friend the question what law is, and 
 where it is represented as the outcome of a search after what, 
 in matters pertaining to the government of states, really is, 
 the true royal law being paramount, whatever may be called
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 231 
 
 law by those unacquainted with truth. The laws of Greta 
 are praised as the work of an ancient king admitted to per- 
 sonal intercourse with Zeus, and Minos is defended against 
 the prejudice prevailing against him at Athens, and owing to 
 misrepresentations by tragic poets, much older than Thespis 
 and Phrynichus ; for Athens had been infested by them in 
 very ancient times. Reminiscences of the Politicus statesman 
 and king joined together, judges only servants of kings, &c. 
 are very striking throughout the dialogue ; the questions and 
 answers are in a style frequently met with in Plato, but so 
 easily imitated that it may occasionally be taken as betraying 
 imitation rather than as evidence of Plato's own hand; and 
 to take the defence of historical or semi-historical personages, 
 as done in the dialogue, not only in regard to Minos but also 
 to the evidently mythical Talos, is hardly Platonic, so that 
 the existing doubts about the Minos being Plato's own work 
 are by no means groundless. * 
 
 In the Laws, as in the Timaeus and Critias, the connection 
 with the Republic is clearly seen, an attempt being made in the 
 dialogue to give a somewhat less unpractical idea of a state 
 as is should be than that met with in the Republic. In Plato's 
 third letter a reference is made to certain prefaces of laws 
 discussed with Dionysius, which shows that one of the main 
 ideas given in the Laws that all laws should have prefaces, 
 must have been before his mind at the time of his visits to 
 Sicily. On the other hand there is a report, recorded by 
 Suidas, that Plato did not himself publish the Laws, but that 
 this was done by one of his scholars, Philippus of Opus, who 
 completed it by writing its continuation, the Epinomis. This 
 report is confirmed, to some extent, by the fact that, in certain 
 
 * The dialogue called Hipparchus, having love of gain as its subject, 
 contains a rehabilitation of the son of Pisistratus similar to the one of 
 Minos, and the forms of the two dialogues are so much alike that they 
 may be taken as the work of one writer, contemporaneous with, 
 and perhaps a scholar of, Plato. For the latter's philosophical and 
 other views it is, even if genuine, of as little importance as the Theages, 
 the Rivals, the second Alcibiades and the smaller Hippias.
 
 232 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 parts of the dialogue, there are changes of construction such 
 as one might expect in a work written by an old man but 
 neither revised nor corrected as Plato would appear to have 
 regularly done, as well as by other evidence of defective 
 revision. * 
 
 The personages of the Laws are Clinias of Cnosus, in Greta, 
 Megillus the Lacedaemonian, and an unnamed stranger from 
 Athens, who takes the principal part in the dialogue. They 
 are making together a journey on foot from Cnosus to a cave 
 consecrated to Zeus, and the Athenian, anxious for a conver- 
 sation on an interesting subject, questions his companions on 
 the laws of their countries, those of Greta being said to have 
 been given by Zeus, and those of Sparta by Apollo. Why 
 were in both countries common meals usual with the citizens ? 
 It is found that the other two consider this to be a measure 
 necessitated ' by the fact that enemies are to be constantly 
 encountered, so that the citizens should be prepared for the 
 community of life required during campaigns ; but the Athenian 
 mentions internal struggles, both in states and in individuals, 
 as being worse than wars with neighbouring states, and asks 
 whether it is not a better plan to establish harmony than, 
 by constant readiness for fighting, to give a preponderance to 
 fighting qualities which is by no means conducive to the 
 welfare of a state. The legislation of a state was not as it 
 should be, unless it aimed at promoting both moral and 
 material well-being, the former having to be preferred; and 
 
 * That what is called anacoluthia is both common and, as a rule, 
 easily explained in Plato's dialogues, is well known ; but what is meant 
 here is of a somewhat different nature, as will be seen from the very 
 striking instances met with in Laws VI p. 769 E, from gvvvoel to 
 ytd^inoiv, and p. 770 I) and E, from TSJ.SVTWV to Trt'qpvxe Ttoizlv. In 
 the same book (p. 754 E, p. 761 E) also instances are found of state- 
 ments not agreeing with, or not such as to be explained from, what 
 has been said before, which would have been corrected had the dialogue 
 been revised by its author ; and not till book VIII it appears that the 
 new state was to take the place of an ancient settlement by Magnetes, 
 of whom remnants were still in existence.
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 233 
 
 could his companions show that, through education or other- 
 wise, this was provided for in their laws? 
 
 Megillus then mentions the gymnastic exercises Spartan youths 
 had to go through so as to strengthen their bodies, and 
 other institutions which made them ready to encounter pain 
 and hardships. Was there, asks the Athenian, anything either 
 in Spartan or in Cretan legislation tending to render youth 
 as much proof against the allurements of pleasure, as against 
 hardships and pain? Did not an evil well-known in Greta 
 that aberration in matters of sexual love which has been 
 touched upon in the tenth chapter of this essay too often 
 go hand in hand with excessive use of gymnastics? Neither 
 of the others knew how to reply to these questions, until 
 both hit on the tendency of the laws they lived under to 
 prevent drunkenness, whereas both at Athens and in the 
 Lacedaemonian colony of Tarent the festivals in honour of 
 Dionysus always caused a great deal of it. The Athenian, 
 however, is of opinion that, if the potations indulged in on 
 such occasions are condemned as tending to lead to crimes and 
 misdemeanours, one might just as well blame goats for destroying 
 plantations when no herdsman is looking after them. The 
 proper thing was to have no other compotations allowed than 
 those under strict supervision. As the other travellers are 
 fully prepared to listen to an explanation of this rather strange 
 idea, their new friend enters upon an argument in favour of 
 training the younger generation for the duties they will have to 
 perform during manhood, by accustoming them to the practice 
 condemned in Greta and in Sparta. 
 
 Education, he says, is a matter of the highest importance, 
 and one of its main objects is to bestow on man the self- 
 control which makes him get the better of weaknesses and 
 desires. Pleasure and pain, hope and fear are advisers who 
 cannot be controlled except by reason, which should pull 
 the wires causing the human individual to move and act. 
 Desires acting on man were strengthened when he was under 
 the influence of liquor; of the twofold fear existing that of
 
 234 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 suffering evil and that of making by one's conduct an evil 
 impression the latter might effect a great deal of good. 
 Was it not better to yield to shame than to be swayed by 
 fear of danger, and if there were a beverage causing such 
 fear in the minds of men, would not a legislator ordain its 
 use as a means of putting those he made laws for to the 
 test whether or not they were proof against fear ? There was 
 no such beverage in existence, but wine had the effect of 
 elevating man and raising his spirits and hopes, until he lost 
 that fear which was equivalent to shame. So wine was a 
 most powerful means of putting those drinking it on their 
 trial as far as their moral sense was concerned, without 
 bringing them to grief, and of making them practise self- 
 control when properly accustomed to its action. 
 
 This, however, was not the only matter connected with this 
 wine question. What was required for the state was that 
 from childhood, when reasoning power was quite undeveloped, to 
 old age there should be a proper and lasting sentiment of 
 what was to be sought for and enjoyed, and what should be 
 shunned and hated. In youth there were strong perceptions 
 of this, manifesting themselves in quick motions of the body 
 and loud utterances, which in man alone, of all animals, could 
 be regulated by rhythm and harmony. When the effects of 
 age made themselves felt, the buoyancy of youth disappeared; 
 but the gods, having compassion on man, made the Muses 
 and Apollo, and Dionysus too, take part in his festivals and 
 joys. The great question was how to impart to these joys 
 the character they should have. In Egypt the music used 
 at festivals was still the same as it had been for thousands 
 of years; in fact, it was thought to be of divine origin. In 
 Greece it was quite different, novelties in music and the like 
 constantly making their appearance ; and who was to judge 
 whether they were to be approved or disapproved of? Surely 
 not the public at large, as in the Grecian towns of Italy and 
 Sicily, nor could the enjoyment they gave be in itself a proper 
 criterion; but on the other hand it would not do to make a
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 235 
 
 feeling gain ground as if there were a radical difference between 
 what was enjoyable and what was right. In fact, what was 
 done at festivals would not answer its purpose, which was 
 mainly educational, unless it served to make youth feel that 
 there was no contrast between enjoyment and virtue, but that 
 the righteous and unrighteous had each of them joys of their 
 own, those of the former being far superior. The truth of 
 this might be doubted at first sight; but was not this the 
 view which youth should be taught by the lawgiver to hold, 
 and was it impossible to do so? Not if, at festivals, this 
 view was inculcated by the songs of the children's choir under 
 guidance of the Muses, and confirmed by that of youths 
 approaching manhood and led by Apollo. But how with 
 the older people, whose leader was Dionysus? Unwilling and 
 ashamed to make their voices heard, they required the gift 
 bestowed on mankind by the deity guiding them, to be inspired 
 with truly festive sentiments; but they should partake of it 
 under the supervision of still older men, whom as the appointed 
 guardians of the law they should obey as their commanders, 
 and who, instead of celebrating the gods by joining in solemn 
 chant, might do so by their words. For lads under eighteen, 
 full of life as they were, wine was not the proper beverage; 
 from eighteen to thirty it should neither be forbidden nor 
 used to any great extent; but for those upwards of thirty it 
 was required to keep them up to the mark. In those states, 
 however, where such legislation was not adopted, the best plan 
 was to follow the example of Carthage, where the law confined 
 the use of wine within very narrow limits. 
 
 The Athenian now passes on to a subject seemingly different 
 from the one discussed till then : that of the origin of states. 
 Taking the view set forth in the beginning of the Timaeus 
 and indicated already in the Politicus, he points out that there 
 must have been, in olden times, many states flourishing and 
 decaying of which no memory was preserved, and that this 
 ignorance of their existence must be owing to physical changes, 
 destroying the human race with the exception of the few
 
 236 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 uneducated mountaineers who were spared. These men, while 
 destitute of metals and of the implements made of them, so 
 that many useful arts of life would have to be invented anew, 
 still had retained such primitive arts as, coupled with the 
 plentiful means of existence the earth supplied them with, 
 enabled them to live on in the manner of Homer's Cyclopes, 
 under patriarchal governments and unwritten laws and tra- 
 ditions, without knowing either wealth or poverty. Lawgivers 
 were also unknown to them, until the various small knots 
 of men had to combine into larger communities, and their 
 family laws had to be equalised. A further step was taken 
 when, as in Homer the founders of Troy, communities formerly 
 settled on slopes of mountains descended to the plains, and 
 here the observation is made that at that time the tradition 
 about the last flood must have been lost through length of 
 time, for how could otherwise the Dardanians have removed 
 to a country so exposed to inundations as the plain of Troy ? 
 At that time there were already many towns, and communication 
 by sea had long been re-opened; and the Trojan war the 
 consequence of the fear of an Assyrian invasion of Greece, 
 Troy being an Assyrian outpost soon put an end to the 
 existence of Troy, but at the same time led, as the result of 
 the long absence of the Grecian army, to disturbances in 
 Greece which ended in the return of the Heraclides as rightful 
 owners of the country. 
 
 The Doric invasion resulted in a settlement of the country 
 which promised both safety and greatness to Greece, through 
 the establishment of three kingdoms, ruled by brothers or 
 near relations, and united by a close alliance. This arrangement 
 however, the result, to some extent, of the still existing 
 necessity to guard against a possible Asiatic invasion, did not 
 last, only one of the kingdoms retaining its original power, 
 but never being at peace with its neighbours. How did this 
 happen? Wilfulness took the place of reason; already in the 
 beginning that preference of valour to other virtues manifested 
 itself which had been the first topic of conversation among
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 237 
 
 the travellers ; and the true feeling which keeps states together, 
 that there is a necessary connection between what is good and 
 what is enjoyable, soon vanished through the ignorance of 
 rulers who. instead of using that moderation which Hesiod 
 recommended, assumed powers altogether at variance with the 
 natural laws settling the relations between those governing 
 and those governed. That Sparta had not suffered from the 
 same evils as Argos and Messene was owing, in the first place, 
 to that divine intervention which caused her to be ruled by 
 two kings instead of one, and besides to the law which limited 
 royal power by that of the senate and that of the ephors. 
 Had similar limitations prevailed in the other kingdoms, an 
 expedition like that of Xerxes would never have been thought 
 of, and Greece would have been spared the disgrace that, while 
 Sparta and Athens combined against the invader, Argos kept 
 aloof. Had the conviction that a state cannot exist without 
 liberty, mutual good feeling and wisdom prevailed from the 
 beginning, matters would have taken a different shape. 
 
 So that which seemed to be a digression proves another 
 way to arrive at a result similar to that of the original dis- 
 cussion, and the Athenian now proceeds to point out how, 
 through want of moderation, forms of government so utterly 
 different from one another as the monarchy found in Persia 
 and the democracy prevailing at Athens had both brought 
 evils. Cyrus was an excellent general, and while making the 
 Persians the ruling race in Asia, he neither deprived them of 
 their liberty nor oppressed the conquered nations ; but he was 
 not himself sufficiently educated to see the danger of allowing 
 his sons to be educated by women who taught them to indulge 
 in wilfulness ; and Darius, who reconstructed the Persian 
 Empire, and by associating his principal supporters to his 
 power tempered the absolutism of monarchy, fell into the same 
 error. The consequence was that the Persian king was only 
 nominally great, his subjects being both unwilling and unable 
 to fight for him. Athens, again, was governed shortly before 
 the Persian war by laws giving to each part of the community
 
 238 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 the influence due to it, and her citizens were rendered, by 
 their fear of the Persian invader, doubly obedient to law ; but 
 afterwards they allowed the old rules prevailing in regard to 
 education and festivals to fall into desuetude, and so the 
 masses were made to rule both the theatre and the state. 
 Was it possible to found a state in which a happy medium 
 was hit upon between immoderate despotism and immoderate 
 liberty ? 
 
 This question becomes at once a very practical one by the 
 statement made by Clinias that he is a commissioner for the 
 foundations of a new state in his island, and that he would 
 like nothing better than a discussion about the laws by which 
 it would have to be governed. It appears that the new town 
 will be situated some eight miles from the sea and at a 
 goodly distance from other towns, in a country producing 
 almost anything, but scantily provided with timber for ship- 
 building, and too broken and rocky to yield very abundant 
 harvests. All this is welcome news to the Athenian, since a 
 town inhabited by sea-faring, exporting and commercial people 
 is infested with various evils, and attempts at becoming a 
 naval power spoil the citizens for military service. The new 
 population will be rather mixed, many colonists from various 
 parts of Greece joining those from Cnosus. This, says the 
 Athenian, is in one respect a disadvantage, since the inhabi- 
 tants will lack, in the beginning, that union which is met 
 with in a homogeneous community ; but then it will be easier 
 to make them submit to new laws. To make such laws, 
 however, is a difficult task, not to be accomplished by mere 
 ability but requiring the aid of the gods and of good luck; 
 and the most favourable circumstances under which it can be 
 done is when a tyrant, young and of good parts, endowed 
 with that virtue which does not shine but should be common 
 to all self-control, and assisted by an able adviser, is anxious 
 for good legislation. But what government is the new town 
 to have ? asks Clinias. Surely not one under a tyrant ? The 
 Athenian asks in his turn what is the form of government
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 239 
 
 prevailing in the states which have to found the town, and 
 the reply is that neither in Sparta nor in Cnosus a form of 
 government exists to which a definite name can be given. 
 In Sparta, replies the Athenian, there is a constitution; in 
 other states the laws are too often made with no other view 
 than to secure the privileges of the rulers, whereas they should 
 be made in the interest of the whole community. In the 
 good old times under Cronus every town had a demon as its 
 ruler, and the nearest imitation of this would be to give the 
 ruling power to those most willing to obey the laws, and to 
 make the people understand that law is a divine institu- 
 tion, and that to transgress it is sure to bring its own 
 punishment. 
 
 The first law proposed is one stating the duties enjoined 
 by piety to be performed towards gods of the upper and of 
 the nether world, demons and heroes, and likewise towards 
 parents. In fact, the scope of the law is to cause men will- 
 ingly to perform their duties. But how is this to be effected? 
 It had been observed that poets should not be allowed to have 
 their own way, since they might say things not in accordance 
 with the laws ; but poets raised their voices under inspiration, 
 and legislators, instead of simply laying down rules, should 
 explain them. And now, after giving an instance of a law 
 containing such an explanation, and stating reasons for its 
 commands, the Athenian starts the idea of those prefaces to 
 laws which are also mentioned in Plato's third letter. 
 
 Such a preface, not to any single law but generally to those 
 following that about piety towards the gods and towards 
 parents, is then given in the form of a long moral sermon, 
 beginning with the soul as the most valuable possession of 
 man, which should be duly honoured as such, not by flatter- 
 ing and humouring it, nor by trying to avoid a death of 
 whose real nature nothing is known, but by doing what the 
 lawgiver puts down as good and abstaining from what he 
 condemns as evil, since by acting otherwise one would have 
 to rank and be in contact with the wicked. Then comes the
 
 240 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 body, which should be so managed by means of self-control 
 as not to exercise undue influence on the soul; and here it 
 is pointed out that the older generation should teach, by their 
 conduct, the younger one to be ashamed of doing wrong, 
 and that a victory gained in the Olympic games is far less 
 valuable than one obtained by faithfully assisting in the execu- 
 tion of the behests of the law. Truth is to be the guide of 
 mankind, and not to do wrong, though praiseworthy, is much 
 less so than to prevent others from doing wrong by reporting 
 them to the authorities, and to assist them in becoming good 
 citizens and getting rid of the evils they labour under. It is 
 called a wrong doctrine that man is, and should be, most 
 friendly to himself, many evils arising from a selfishness which 
 causes man to excuse his own shortcomings and to lose his 
 perception of truth. It is human to prefer pleasure to pain, 
 but every one should ask which description of life is prefer- 
 able in regard to this point, and then he would find that in 
 a virtuous life the balance of pleasure and pain is best regu- 
 lated. All this agrees pretty well with what is heard in our 
 days ; in fact, hardly anywhere in Plato is a more glaring 
 instance found of that doctrine of subordination of the indi- 
 vidual to the common weal and of that tendency to .extol 
 moral principles laid down by man above the sense of the 
 individual of what he is to be, which are certainly not cha- 
 racteristic of the old and genuine sentiments of the Greek 
 nation. 
 
 Proceeding to legislation, the Athenian observes that when- 
 ever this work is taken in hand in existing states, they should 
 be purified by ordaining the emigration of those who, for want 
 of subsistence, have become a nuisance, and that there are 
 cases in which it might be necessary to resort to cancellation of 
 debts and interference with proprietary rights; but as a rule 
 this should be avoided and, of course, in founding a new town 
 there was no necessity to do anything else than exclude 
 uneligible intending colonists. To prevent, for the future, 
 the necessity of measures like those referred to, the number
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 241 
 
 of citizens should be fixed beforehand, and that of five thousand 
 and forty is recommended, on account of the subdivisions this 
 number is capable of. Before settling the land-question 
 between them, parts should be set aside both for old local 
 deities and for the tutelary gods and heroes of the various 
 sections of the state. 
 
 Of all forms of government, the best is that in which 
 everything is held in common, and when this cannot be thought 
 of, the next best plan is to keep to it as closely as possible. 
 To till the land in common is subject to great difficulties, and 
 so it should be equally divided among the citizens, each holder 
 being allowed, at his death, to leave his land by will to one 
 of his sons or, when he has none, of his daughters. When 
 there are more sons than one, they may either get the allot- 
 ments of citizens dying childless, or marry heiresses of lands ; 
 and all questions referring to this matter should be dealt 
 with by one of the chief magistrates, who in case of over- 
 population may resort to emigration, when the reverse takes 
 place to immigration; but here the greatest caution will 
 be required. No citizen should be allowed either to practise 
 the lower arts of life or to invest money on interest. The 
 currency should be such as to be valueless in other states; 
 coin current in Greece should be only kept for embassies and 
 the like. On the whole, accumulation of wealth should be 
 prevented, since it was sure to be the result of improper 
 dealings; and while it would not do to have complete equality 
 of property for inequality, would answer better when public 
 duties were to be allotted, and there should be opportunities 
 to see the difference between citizens who knew how to deal 
 with property and those who did not, no one should have 
 more than four times the value of the land allotted to him. 
 The difference in wealth was to form the basis of a division 
 of the citizens into four classes, and another division, of a 
 territorial character, would be that into twelve tribes, each with 
 its own sanctuaries, quarter in town and share of the land. 
 The town would have to be built in as central a place as 
 
 16
 
 242 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 possible and after selecting spots required for temples, a 
 building lot in town should be given to each citizen, together 
 with two allotments in the country, one near the town and 
 the other near the boundary. Of course there might be diffi- 
 culties in the way of this plan, but its tendency that to 
 prevent the citizens from being tainted with the vulgarity and 
 love of gain common to Egyptians and Phoenicians was to 
 be closely adhered to. 
 
 Then follows the appointment of magistrates, civil and mili- 
 tary, the best legislation being sure to prove a failure when 
 magistrates are not competent for their duties. For the 
 citizens of a new state, unknown to one another, it would be 
 difficult to make a proper selection from among themselves, 
 and so the advice is given to have the highest magistracy, 
 that of the guardians of the law, appointed in the first instance 
 by the state of Cnosus, eighteen of the thirty-seven from her 
 own citizens and the rest from the colonists. About the other 
 magistracies and public services it will suffice to say that the 
 senate is formed on the model of that of Athens, with its 
 TrpvrJivs^ always on duty, and the police somewhat on that 
 of the Spartan secret police, its members being young men 
 who have to serve for two years and to take their meals in 
 common; that the wealthier classes have a larger share in 
 the service of the state, while the citizens, the guardians of 
 the law and other magistrates, and chance are made to take 
 part in the elections ; and that the tendency of the arrangement 
 is to keep a middle course between monarchy and democracy. 
 
 After a few words about the spirit in which alterations of 
 the laws should be made when required, the real work of 
 lawgiving is commenced. First come festivals, both those of 
 the state and of the tribes, where lads and girls have to 
 perform dances somewhat in the style of the gymnastics 
 recommended in the Republic; then follows a preface to the 
 law of marriage, where the necessity is insisted upon of not 
 consulting one's own taste but the interest of the state, the 
 doctrine of the Politicus, about sprightliness having to be
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 243 
 
 matched with continence, being once more set forth, and 
 those remaining unmarried after thirty-five being threatened 
 with rather stiff penalties. The question of the management 
 of property, and especially of slaves, is also taken up. The 
 slaves have to be treated justly and kindly, but to be punished 
 instead of reasoned with, and conspiracies among them are to be 
 prevented by not taking men of the same race into one's service. 
 A wall for the defence of the town is unnecessary, the police 
 having to provide a defence of the frontier which renders it almost 
 impassable; but the houses at the outskirts of the town may 
 be so built as to form a wall by themselves. Strict rules are 
 given about home life, legislation for the state being of no 
 avail when this is neglected; and here the care bestowed on 
 the rearing of fighting cocks is taken as a model the state 
 has to imitate in providing for children both before and shortly 
 after birth. What is said, however, on this point is of greater 
 importance for students of early physical and moral training, 
 than for the purpose of this essay. Worthy of notice is the 
 remark that, were it not for wrong training in childhood, the 
 left hand would be as useful to man as the right one. 
 
 Passing on from infants to children big enough to play, 
 the Athenian reverts to Plato's old and familiar topic. 
 Constantly new playthings and amusements for children were 
 invented, but was this the proper thing? Would it not tend 
 to inspire them with novel ideas, and would it not be a much 
 better plan to stick, as in Egypt, to what is old and time- 
 honoured? As this remark finds favour with the others, he 
 asks whether it is right, when sacrifices are offered to the gods, 
 to allow poets, instead of avoiding unseemly language and 
 remembering that on such occasions only prayers should be 
 heard, so to train the choirs under their direction as to make 
 the public shed tears over imaginary misfortunes. In fact, they 
 should not even have the right to show their poems to 
 anybody, before they have been approved of by the guardians 
 of the law. So those who, in our days, object to a free press 
 have Plato's authority to back them.
 
 244 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 Censors, of the ripe age of past fifty, are also to be appointed 
 for approval or otherwise of hymns in honour of the departed, 
 since here too their effects on the living have to be considered. 
 As to training in gymnastics, the idea advocated in the 
 Republic that girls should partake of it, is adhered to ; but 
 what the Athenian does not approve of is that in Sparta, 
 where such training is usual, women are allowed to stay at 
 home, without doing anything. For his part he would prefer 
 a life in which women and children as well as men would 
 have common meals, agriculture being mainly practised by slaves, 
 and the lower arts of life by foreigners; but instead of laziness 
 being indulged in, any one sharing in such a life should use 
 all his energies in improving his mind and body and in 
 watching over the interest of the state. Even at night they 
 should be awake for this purpose, and in daytime they should 
 have an eye on the children they meet, and chastise them 
 when they do anything unseemly; for this was the right 
 method to teach them obedience to the law. For the same 
 reason, there should be strict rules in regard to education, no 
 child being allowed to spend more or less than the usual 
 number of years at school. Here Plato's mouthpiece returns 
 to the charge by condemning the old method of burthening 
 the children's heads with all kinds of poetry ; and what should 
 be substituted for it ? The lessons learnt that day, by himself 
 and his friends, from their conversation. As to music and 
 gymnastics, the men of sixty charged with their supervision 
 should take care that the proper methods were followed by 
 the paid foreigners teaching them, and in connection with 
 this an interesting digression gives Plato's views about the 
 various dances then in usage, ending with a new denunciation 
 of tragedy as being altogether inadmissible. 
 
 As in the Republic for the defenders, so in the Laws the 
 study of arithmetic, geometry and astronomy is recommended 
 as part of the general education of youth, not to go deeply 
 into them, except in few cases, but in the Egyptian fashion, 
 by teaching them as in play. In these matters the ignorance
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 245 
 
 prevailing in Greece was amazing, hardly any one being 
 acquainted with such a thing as surds, or aware that the sun 
 and moon moved regularly, instead of wandering about. A 
 reference to the chase closes the chapter on education. 
 
 Reverting to a subject already touched upon but requiring 
 further legislation the festivals in honour of the gods the 
 Athenian recommends to connect with them military exercises 
 on a grand scale, in which both men and women have to 
 join, and games tending to make both sexes better prepared 
 for such exercises. Why this is not done elsewhere is explained 
 by references, first to the love of gain, which in most states 
 absorbs all energies of men, and secondly to the fact that 
 whenever in states, whether under democratical, oligarchical 
 or tyrannical government, there is a ruling element, its sub- 
 jects cannot be allowed to become a danger to it. In the 
 state to be founded in Greta there will be, as far as the 
 citizens are concerned, neither rulers nor subjects, nor will 
 it be possible to strive after immoderate wealth; but another 
 danger is to be signalled. Young people of both sexes, in 
 good condition, not exhausted by degrading labour, and asso- 
 ciating with one another on friendly terms, cannot but expe- 
 rience those sexual desires which are the cause of so many 
 evils, and how are the consequences of this to be avoided ? 
 Here the aberrations leniently treated in the Phaedrus, but 
 held to be disgraceful in the Republic, are most strongly 
 condemned; but it is admitted that, however unnatural, they 
 have their raison d'Stre, since between purely physical desire 
 and the fellow-feeling which leads to friendship, there is 
 something intermediate readers of the Phaedrus know it 
 which has to be taken into account. The remedy against the 
 evil infesting even Sparta and the Cretan states is sought for 
 in the fact that even those given to unwholesome desires will 
 abstain from incest, as held by all in abhorrence as an 
 offence against both divine and human laws. Could not the 
 aberrations so strongly condemned be put on the same foot- 
 ing? Again, men engaged in training for athletic exercises
 
 246 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 keep aloof, in many cases during the whole of their lives, 
 from sexual intercourse. Could not the citizens of the new 
 state be brought to do the same, until their time for marry- 
 ing, twenty-five for males, had arrived? If not, the aberra- 
 tions referred to should be condemned by law, and intercourse 
 with women bought as slaves or not being born citizens 
 might be secretly resorted to by those not equal to total 
 abstinence, its discovery bringing a certain amount of dis- 
 grace. 
 
 Plato, who when writing this had evidently reached the age 
 at which, as stated by Cephalus in the Republic, Sophocles 
 rejoiced at having escaped the tyranny of erotic desire, gives 
 here pretty well the sentiment and condition of affairs now 
 prevailing in a world ruled by Christian civilisation, and for 
 this reason cannot, as in some other respects, be charged 
 with recommending something utterly impracticable. But it 
 should not be forgotten that the moral sentiments now pre- 
 vailing are the results neither of philosophical research nor of 
 human legislation, but of a religion which has obtained a 
 firm hold on the human mind ; and then there is one other 
 point which tells against Plato as seen in his old age. The 
 love painted in glowing colours in the Phaedrus does exist 
 in the Christian world, the difference being that there it is 
 the natural love between the sexes. This love is altogether 
 ignored by Plato when he puts the age of marrying at twenty- 
 five or later, and then enjoins those about to marry not to 
 make their choices in accordance with their own inclinations, 
 but with an eye to the interests of the state. Here it is that, 
 being not only cured by old age of impure desires but also 
 deprived of his sense of love as an ennobling sentiment, he 
 goes wrong, and clearly shows that his years may have 
 rendered his moral feelings similar to those which now happily 
 prevail, but did certainly not enlarge his mental horizon. 
 
 Simply referring, in regard to his common meals, to the 
 examples given by Sparta and the Cretan states, the Athenian 
 proceeds to legislate on matters connected with supply of food
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 247 
 
 and the means of procuring a livelihood, observing at the 
 same time that in a state where commerce and its evils are 
 unknown, and everything may be obtained from the country 
 itself, much fewer laws on this subject are required than else- 
 where. Very sharp laws are to prevent or punish all encroach- 
 ments on fields, water rights and the like, and likewise all 
 interference with the produce grown, before the lawful time 
 for harvesting has arrived, those who take ripe fruit for 
 immediate consumption being more leniently treated, but a 
 difference being made, of course, in this respect between free- 
 men and slaves. Citizens are strictly forbidden to engage in 
 any trade or keep slaves working as tradesmen, their trade 
 being to perform the duties of citizenship ; and no foreigner 
 is to be allowed to practise more than one trade. Importation 
 of foreign goods is limited to what is required either for public 
 worship or for war. Of the produce of the country, as 
 customary in Creta, one third is to be sold for the use of 
 artisans and other strangers, the rest being kept for citizens 
 and slaves as far as required, and that which is not required 
 for them being divided among the citizens according to the 
 number of cattle and other domestic animals kept by them, 
 so that, although there is to some extent community of pro- 
 perty as far as produce is concerned, those best providing for 
 husbandry are made to reap the fruit of their care. This part 
 of the Laws is completed by rules about habitations and market 
 management. 
 
 The administration of justice, which had been touched upon 
 already when the magistrates of the new state were under 
 discussion, is now reverted to in connection with crimes punish- 
 able by law, such as sacrilege, treason, theft, murder or 
 homicide there being, in Greek, only one name for both 
 assault with intent, &c. Especially as regards murder and 
 homicide elaborate statements are given, but a close considera- 
 tion of them would be out of place here, and rather pertains 
 to an inquiry into the ideas on criminal law prevailing in 
 Greece. Of more importance is the explanation given of Plato's
 
 248 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 well-known doctrine that no one commits an injustice of his 
 own free will ; a doctrine which had to be discussed in connection 
 with the criminal law, since between wilful and involuntary 
 homicide a great difference was made. It is now seen that, 
 in Plato's opinion, passion, desire and ignorance are the causes 
 of crime, and that those under their influence are considered 
 by him to be driven unwillingly to crime. So crimes are seen 
 to arise either from what in the Timaeus are the lower and 
 mortal parts of the soul, or from deficiencies in the higher 
 one. Punishment by death is, for all that, allowed in the 
 case of those who, by remaining on earth, would injure others 
 without benefiting themselves. Crimes arising from passion 
 (Svpos) are, though there should be premeditation, much more 
 leniently treated than those from desire. 
 
 When insulting conduct (j?/3jpif) is reached, a most interesting 
 discussion takes place. The insult might be offered to the 
 gods, and would, in this case, be worst of all, and how if 
 those guilty of it did not believe in the existence of gods, 
 or believed them not to care for human affairs, or to be, 
 when sinned against, easily propitiated? How if they ask 
 for proofs that there are gods, and that they are not such 
 as they fancy them to be? Clinias can hardly believe that 
 there are such people. Do they not see such living gods as 
 sun and moon? There are, replies the Athenian, wise men 
 who tell the public that sun and moon are nothing else than 
 stony masses. At the request of the others he enters upon a 
 demonstration to the effect that gods had always been believed 
 in, and that young men who refused to do so, invariably 
 changed their views when they grew older; but suddenly he 
 remembers a doctrine he cannot ignore. Things, it was said, 
 owe their existence either to nature, to accident (TV%IJ) or to 
 art, but the share of art in it is the smallest. By nature the 
 four elements exist; out of them accident has made the 
 world; art is human and has made small things, but it has 
 made laws and gods have been made by law, as is seen from 
 the fact that nations worship different gods. Was, asks the
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 249 
 
 Athenian, a legislator simply to forbid and punish the propa- 
 gation of such a doctrine, or was it to be refuted? 
 
 The latter plan is approved of, and now the Athenian 
 points out that those considering the four elements to be the 
 oldest things existing forgot the soul, which was the cause 
 of whatever changes took place in nature, and which must 
 have existed before anything else. This is demonstrated by 
 the old argument of the Phaedrus, that the soul is the only 
 being which has its principle of motion in itself. Things 
 existing had each of them a name and a definition, and what 
 was the definition of what is called soul? The motion which 
 can move itself. So the soul was, in the universe, the ruling 
 element, or rather there were two souls, the one bestowing 
 benefits and the other producing contrary results. It was the 
 former, partaking as it did of intellect, which guided the 
 regular motions of the world, and when the sun was seen to 
 move, could this be through anything else than its soul, which 
 caused it to be a god? Those denying the existence of the 
 gods should either admit that they were in error, or prove 
 that the soul was not the origin of all process of generation. 
 
 Then follows a lengthy demonstration that the gods cannot 
 be held to leave either the world or even the lowest being 
 in the world to itself; that human individuals have each of 
 them a part to act which is the object of their existence, 
 since it would not do for them to fancy that they were, by 
 themselves, of any account; and that the idea of making the 
 gods change their minds and do what no man who had a 
 duty to perform could commit without dishonour, was pre- 
 posterous. The law against irreligious language and conduct; 
 which in case of a second offence makes death the penalty, 
 closes this part of the legislation for the new state. 
 
 Between what is stated in the Laws and in the Timaeus 
 about the gods there is no real difference, but in the Laws 
 it is more clearly seen that by soul is meant a general prin- 
 ciple of life, the insignificance of individual man is more 
 strongly insisted upon, the distance separating gods from men
 
 250 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 becomes greater, and, last but not least, a novel distinction 
 is made between a soul benefiting the world and endowed 
 with reason, and another of a contrary nature. This need 
 not be taken as a reference to a struggle between a good and 
 an evil principle, but it is of some importance for a proper 
 understanding of Plato's views in his old age. 
 
 The last books of the Laws chiefly contain regulations 
 about a number of matters of legislation, mostly civil, such 
 as sales, inheritances, guardianship of orphans and a good 
 many more, intermixed with a few regulations about courts 
 of law and the like, which one would have expected to meet 
 with in earlier parts of the dialogue. For those anxious to 
 become acquainted with such ideas of law as were current 
 among thinkers in Greece, all this is of considerable interest; 
 here it will not do to give particulars about it except a few, 
 such as the prohibition of foreigners settled in town and 
 freedmen to extend their residence in it beyond a fixed num- 
 ber of years, especially after having obtained a certain amount 
 of property; a regulation against influencing courts of law 
 by speeches, which shows that there was, besides tragic poets, 
 another class of men viewed with disfavour by Plato even in 
 his old age ; and another against administering oaths to parties 
 pleading in court, such oaths simply serving to fill the state 
 with perjurers. Towards the end, however, of the dialogue 
 an institution is mentioned which is of great importance for 
 Plato's views at the time he wrote the Laws, and which he 
 evidently had in view long before describing it. 
 
 This institution is an assembly meeting every morning before 
 dawn, and consisting of the ten most eminent guardians of 
 the law, of those citizens who, having been at a mature age, 
 over fifty, intrusted by the guardians of the law with missions 
 to visit various parts of the world and report about useful 
 institutions met with in them, are found on their return to 
 have both improved their own minds and obtained valuable 
 information for the state, and of an equal number of younger 
 men, of thirty or older, selected by the older members as
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 251 
 
 the ablest and most promising. They assemble at a time 
 when nothing else is doing in town, and they are to serve 
 as the anchor on which the vessel of state can safely lie. 
 The human head is both the seat of intellect and that of the 
 principal organs of the senses, and without a head to observe 
 and watch any state would come to grief. In one state the 
 scope of policy was to keep the ruling part of the population 
 in power, in another to obtain wealth and power over other 
 states; but safety was to be found in virtue, and virtue was 
 to be the object for the new state to strive after. There 
 were four cardinal virtues, two of which, valour and wisdom 
 (<psJw}(rie), differed inasmuch' as the former was common to 
 men and beasts, and was met with at a very early age, 
 whereas the latter had to be sought for in those whose minds 
 had been matured by their years of life. This was the reason 
 why the task of watching over the safety and interest of the 
 state was to be imposed on a body of young as well as old 
 men ; men who could take a view not only of the many 
 things seen in life, but also of the one thing containing them 
 all. For this it was necessary for them both to understand 
 what was meant by the soul as the moving principle of all 
 things, and to have an idea of that actual motion of the 
 universe in which the action of the gods was seen, and whose 
 regularity should be the model of human legislation. The 
 nightly assembly would maintain the institutions essential 
 for the welfare of the state, but it would not do to legislate 
 for it, implicit faith having to be put in its own action. 
 
 There is nothing in the Laws, as there is both in the 
 Theaetetus and the Timaeus, to show that a sequel is to 
 come ; but the Epinomis nevertheless begins with a statement 
 that the three friends had promised to meet again for an 
 inquiry how man can obtain wisdom. Not the wisdom, 
 however, shown in the lower arts of life, nor even that of 
 the general or orator; and although there is one art 
 arithmetic, without which no learning was possible, it did 
 not give the wisdom which makes men good. After an
 
 252 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 argument about the formation of animate beings, mentioning 
 ether as a fifth element made of a fifth regular body, but 
 otherwise containing reminiscences from the Timaeus, a knowledge 
 of the gods as they are seen in the heavenly bodies, and 
 therefore of astronomy, is stated to be that which can make 
 the few men capable of obtaining it both wise and happy. 
 There is no reason for doubting the truth of the tradition 
 which denies the dialogue to be Plato's own work. 
 
 As to the Laws it cannot be denied that the state to be 
 founded in Greta has a somewhat more practical appearance 
 than the ideal state sketched in the Republic; and although 
 giving enough and more than enough of legislative wisdom 
 in his last and longest dialogue, Plato remains true to his 
 old idea about the insufficiency of written law by what he says 
 about the powers and position of his nightly council. But 
 after all, what is the state he wants to found? One, he says, 
 in which there will be no ruling as against a subject class ; 
 but not only are there slaves to till the earth, but trades 
 altogether indispensable for the existence of any community 
 are not to be worked at by citizens but by strangers settled 
 in the country. This contempt for the lower arts of life is 
 in accordance with ideas commonly held in Greece in Plato's 
 time, but it is certainly at variance with the equality he is 
 in favour of, the foreign tradesmen being practically a subject 
 race as long as they remain in the country. Again, all the 
 work the citizens have to do is to assist in watching over the 
 safety of the state and the "execution of the laws, but why 
 form a community and make laws simply with a view to 
 preserve them intact? A virtually aimless life like that of 
 citizens who have nothing else to do than to see that their lands 
 are worked, to act as informers in regard to one another, to 
 indulge in potations under supervision of old wiseacres for 
 the purpose of learning self-control, to marry for the sole 
 purpose of maintaining the population at the number fixed by 
 law, and now and then to have grand military manoeuvres, is 
 the dreariest imaginable, and as much at variance with the
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 253 
 
 Attic life so graphically described by Plato in his older works, 
 as with the splendid picture of love met with in the Phaedrus. 
 But it cannot be denied that not only in the matter of sexual 
 intercourse but also in regard to the maintenance of the law 
 by the citizens as a body and to the levelling tendencies which 
 in our days are not even tempered with Plato's dislike for 
 trades and those engaged in them, a similarity is found in 
 Plato's views in old age to those of our own times which 
 clearly shows that the genuine Greek view of life had been 
 making room in his mind for that of later ages. 
 
 Plato's old age is not fully known without his letters, as 
 far as they refer to the views he held. First of all certain 
 passages are to be mentioned from which it would appear 
 that Plato did not like to commit his views to writing, and 
 was anxious that what he wrote to his friends should be kept 
 secret. In fact, in his second letter he denies having written 
 anything; what was stated to be his work was in reality that 
 of a young Socrates. This reminds the readers of Plato's 
 fulminations, in his Phaedrus, against written records; but it 
 was quite a different thing whether, like Protagoras, he wrote 
 anything under his own name, or only recorded discussions, 
 real or imaginary, between Socrates and his friends. What 
 is meant by this " handsome and young Socrates " of his is 
 doubtful. To think of an idealised Socrates is to substitute 
 modern for ancient thought. A Socrates junior is introduced 
 in the very dialogues in which Plato began to follow a course 
 of his own; but as he is mentioned nowhere else, it is quite 
 possible that he is an imaginary character. It is only in the 
 eleventh letter, written to a certain Laodamas who wanted 
 advice about a new town which was to be built, that Plato 
 mentions a Socrates as a companion prevented by illness to 
 pay a visit to his correspondent. But why should not 
 Laodamas, a person altogether unknown, have fancied, on 
 reading Plato's dialogues, that the Socrates mentioned in them 
 was alive, and have received a reply humouring him and at 
 the same time excusing Plato for not complying with his request ?
 
 254 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 Why was, is a further question, Plato anxious not to be 
 held responsible for dialogues well-known to be his work ? It 
 may have been from fear of suffering his late teacher's fate. 
 In fact, in a letter to king Perdiccas the younger of Mace- 
 donia, Plato clearly states that his refraining from advising 
 the Athenian people in matters political was on account of 
 its being as dangerous as it was useless. Another reason, 
 however, is given in the seventh letter (p. 342 sqq.), which 
 has been misunderstood although its meaning is easily made 
 out. Plato's argument comes to this, that to know a thing, 
 its name, its definition (hoyoq) and its image are to be taken 
 into account, the image, which is not mentioned in the 
 dialogues, being probably added since Plato, in his old age, 
 meddled more with mathematics than he did before, and had 
 therefore to use circles and other geometrical figures and forms, 
 drawn or manufactured. Then came knowledge itself, and 
 ultimately the real thing that had to be known. Now when 
 discussing the first four one might get off without much 
 trouble, but on account of their want of clearness and the 
 necessity of lhaving mastered them before giving an answer 
 about the fifth, it was difficult to give that answer in a satis- 
 factory manner. In fact, such things might be learnt but 
 only by those who had a special aptitude for them and at the 
 same a goodly amount of quick- wittedness by means of dialectic, 
 and then they would at once become clear to the mind; but 
 to commit to writing one's serious thoughts on such matters 
 was a grievous mistake. 
 
 What Dionysius, at the time when the second letter was 
 written, wanted to know from Plato, referred to the same 
 question of the origin of things which Thales had put to 
 himself when entering upon philosophical research ; and Plato, 
 in his reply, couples with it "the king of the universe and 
 the cause of all that is beautiful." In a letter to Hermias 
 perhaps the ruler of Atarneus, opposite Lesbos and two of 
 his neighbours, mention is made of " the god who is leader 
 of existing and future things, and the father [and] master of
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 255 
 
 the leader and cause." What else do'es this refer to than to 
 the maker of the universe and to the universe itself as men- 
 tioned in the Timaeus ; to the soul as the origin of all motion 
 and the actual course of heaven in the Laws? Plato nowhere, 
 in his dialogues, gives a complete idea of that dialectic which 
 led to the highest knowledge, and his theory about the gods 
 in his latest dialogues was not such that he could safely com- 
 municate it to the public at large in his own name. The 
 Timaeus was, perhaps, to give to some extent the reply 
 asked for by Dionysius ; about the almost unconscious manner 
 in which truth flashed upon the mind, sooner or later, by means 
 of well-applied dialectic, hints are given both in the second 
 and in the seventh letter. No esoteric doctrine is to be 
 thought of in all this, but while Plato wrote dialogues to 
 explain his views to the public, the real means of seeing the 
 truth, nowhere more clearly indicated by Plato than in the 
 passage of the Republic about the light which, in the world 
 of thought, took the same place as the sun in the visible world, 
 was to be given by the living word. 
 
 XIII. CONCLUSION. 
 
 To Socrates the true Platonic Socrates, whom Xenophon 
 never knew, but who, in his old age, kept Plato spell-bound 
 by dialectic and personal influence, as he had, in the vigour of 
 his manhood, kept Alcibiades Plato owes two leading doc- 
 trines of his philosophy, that of the ideas and that of learning 
 being remembering, in other words that of an immortality of 
 the individual soul on the basis laid by Pythagoras. Whether 
 or not Socrates arrived at the conception of ideas by himself 
 is not quite clear from the passage in the Parmenides (p. 
 130 B) where he is asked this question, his reply referring to 
 another part of it; and when in the Phaedo (p. 100 B) he 
 states that, after having found no satisfaction in the doctrine 
 of Anaxagoras, he had reverted to those things generally talked
 
 256 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 about fahuSputyTtx,), that there is something like beauty, 
 goodness, &c., by themselves, it is evident that Plato does not 
 consider the doctrine to have originated with him. In fact, 
 had he done so he would not have made him say in the Theae- 
 tetus that he was master of the art of mental obstetrics, but 
 deprived of productive power of his own. 
 
 In the Parmenides Socrates believes in ideas both of relative 
 qualities like similarity, and of moral and physical ones like 
 goodness and beauty, but doubts about ideal men, ideal ele- 
 ments, &c., and is afraid of going wrong when descending to 
 small and contemptible things. In Plato's earlier dialogues 
 not only the former class is frequently mentioned, but the 
 ideal couch of the Republic finds its counterpart in the ideal 
 shuttle of the Cratylus. Of an ideal man or ox nothing is 
 heard between the Parmenides and the Philebus. 
 
 Ideal beauty, goodness, &c., are partaken of by what is 
 beautiful and good in the visible world. The ideal shuttle and 
 couch are reproduced in it by human art, without any philo- 
 sophy being required, since every carpenter does so. But the 
 ideas of justice and the like are not seen by mortal eyes, an 
 exception being made, in the Phaedrus, for beauty alone. They 
 can be seen by the soul when separated from the body, but 
 only in some measure, the full view of them being reserved 
 for the gods, and they can likewise be seen by a mental 
 eye trained by philosophy. The process by which the goal is 
 reached is not clearly indicated anywhere. Diotima in the 
 Banquet, Plato himself in his letters represent the vision of 
 them during life on earth as being caused by a sudden flash 
 of light, either as the reward of a life spent like that of Socra- 
 tes in associating with youth for the highest purpose, or as 
 the result of a dialectic which nowhere in Plato is so described 
 that any reader can see at once what is meant ; but that there 
 is an unconscious process of the human mind, altogether 
 different from reasoning, by which a view of subjective truth 
 truth whose character as such cannot be doubted by the one 
 seeing it is obtained, must be evident to all who have ever
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 257 
 
 tried, from records studied, to catch, and reproduce a human 
 character or something like it, and for them Plato's words 
 are intelligible. Then there is the light spread, in the world 
 of thought, by that which is good: a light closely connected 
 with that which, in Christian life, is thought to effect conver- 
 sion of mind and fceart. 
 
 But now this world of thought ! What is seen in it is 
 nothing but those very ideas, and it is the soul, released from 
 influences which impede its free action, which can, under 
 certain circumstances, see them. This is intelligible enough; 
 and when the ideal shuttle is seen by the carpenter when 
 he has to make a new non-ideal one, there is nothing strange 
 in the thought that for seeing ideal beauty, &c., something 
 more is required than the mental faculties met with in car- 
 penters. But in the Sophist the ideas of beauty and the like 
 are represented as living beings, with souls of their own, 
 and how is it with the ideal man and ox of the Philebus ? 
 Have they souls, as the ideal shuttle and couch cannot be 
 supposed to have, or are they, like the shuttle, reproduced in 
 the visible world as mere bodies, to be inhabited by souls 
 existing independently of them ? It may be said that the main 
 object of the Sophist is to give an ontology, not as a fruit 
 of that indefatigable search after truth which is characteristic 
 of philosophers, but as a result wished for by Plato so as to 
 have a ground to take his stand on without having to fear 
 the attacks of any one coming forward with old and worn- 
 out arguments, and that therefore this statement about ideas 
 having souls may have been somewhat inconsiderate. But 
 when the idea of what is good is, in the Republic, not only 
 seen by the mental eye but also spreading light so as to 
 enable that eye to see other ideas, it is evident that the 
 view met with in the Sophist is also found elsewhere in 
 Plato. 
 
 In the Timaeus the maker of the universe begins by making 
 its soul, and afterwards peoples it with living beings, repro- 
 ducing those found in the world of thought. Here again 
 
 17
 
 258 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 something quite novel is met with. Socrates lived at a time 
 when the idea of a creator of the world, as expressed in the 
 first verse of Genesis, was unknown in Greece ; and already 
 in his youth he dropped the studies of nature then generally 
 indulged in, for the purpose of keeping to dialectic. So for 
 him the visible world and the world of thought must have 
 been two worlds co-existing, with whose origin he had not 
 to trouble himself, his sole object being to ascend, and teach . 
 others fit for it to ascend, from the visible world to that of 
 thought. This was a perfectly sound stand-point for the man 
 who, as Cicero says, brought philosophy down from specula- 
 tions about nature to take its place in the common life of 
 mankind, and Plato is generally seen to take it likewise. As 
 long as he does there are, for him, things in the visible world, 
 and ideas in the world of thought partaken of, or reproduced 
 by, those things. But when he attempts to explain the origin 
 of the visible world, he is seen to represent the world of 
 thought as having existed before it; and what does this exis- 
 tence come to ? Souls are made, by the maker of the universe, 
 of a compound substance if the word a substance " may be 
 used for a mixture of abstractions for the gods who are to 
 rule the universe, and these gods again use a less pure 
 substance to make those of men and other animals, whose 
 ideas, like those of themselves, exist already in the world of 
 thought. What are they doing there? In the visible world 
 anything endowed with life exists for some purpose or other; 
 what their ideas were meant for before having to be repro- 
 duced in- the visible world seems to be something beyond 
 human understanding, and a philosopher going beyond human 
 understanding is evidently on the wrong track. 
 
 It is possible, however, that Plato's world of thought, peopled 
 by ideas before the visible world came into existence, may have 
 had for him a definite meaning. Who is, in the Timaeus, 
 that maker of the universe, whose name is not easily found 
 and cannot be communicated to the public at large? In Plato's 
 letter to Hermias he is evidently that supreme power and
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 259 
 
 father of the leader of the world who is named together with 
 the latter, and who is therefore superior to that soul of the 
 universe on which, in the Laws, its motion depends ? How if 
 lie were that idea of what is good which in the Republic 
 gives the light by which the mental eye can see the world 
 of thought ? If so, the purpose for which the universe has 
 been made of existing matter, and endowed with life and with 
 t gods and other living beings to people it, must have been to 
 Plato's mind that of reproducing that which is good in a 
 visible world, and the ideas may be taken to have existed in 
 the mind of the highest deity as models for that world. It 
 would be rash, however, to see anything else in this than a 
 possible explanation of what is not quite clear in tbe conclu- 
 sions Plato had arrived at in his later years, and the indication, 
 in the Laws, of the existence of a soul opposed to intellect 
 must remain unexplained for want of other references to the 
 subject. The only thing which, in connection with all this, 
 is quite evident, is that the virtual monotheism contained in 
 the idea of supreme goodness, as such, being the maker of the 
 universe could not have been openly avowed by him. 
 
 Plato makes use of the doctrine of learning being remem- 
 bering for various purposes, but neither the conversation 
 "between Socrates and Meno's slave about the Pythagoric 
 theorem, nor the passage of the Phaedo in which Socrates 
 attempts to prove pre-existence of the soul by representing 
 the power of abstraction met with in human thought as nothing 
 else than an effect of memory, is such as to make any very 
 deep impression on the minds of men in the present century, 
 although Meno was fully convinced by the former, and the, 
 men who visited Socrates in gaol by the latter. Socrates 
 would seem to have been a thorough believer in it, and so 
 may have been Pythagoras, whose idea of the transmigration 
 of souls was closely connected with it. For Plato the dogma 
 must have been very attractive, since it could serve as a 
 weapon against those who might be tempted to consider his 
 teachings as mainly founded on speculation, and he could not
 
 260 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 have written the speech made by Socrates in the Phaedrus,. 
 had he not likewise believed in it. But by thus making the 
 philosopher's mind visit the world of thought as being no- 
 stranger to it, he was compelled to represent the soul as not 
 born together with the body it animates, and as being only 
 mechanically joined to it, by a process nowhere described 
 except in the strange story told, in the Republic, of Er's 
 vision. In the Phaedrus the existence and fate of the souls . 
 are dealt with in a manner most agreeably affecting the 
 reader's mind, the souls, when leaving the bodies in a com- 
 paratively pure state, being represented as enjoying a happy 
 existence in the celestial regions, without being altogether . 
 sure that they may not have to return to the earth, and 
 therefore although this is not expressly stated not merely 
 blessed with a beatific vision requiring on their part no exer- 
 tion whatever. But then there is the idea of punishment after 
 death, by no means uncommon in Greece, which is taken 
 advantage of in the Gorgias for in the Phaedo the popular 
 ideas would appear to be given without any particular object,, 
 and afterwards in the Republic, to impress disbelievers in 
 justice and other virtues with a salutary fear of what is to come 
 when they persist in the errors of their ways. In the Laws 
 too, this idea is by no means abandoned, whereas already in 
 the Banquet the idea of future life for the good is becoming 
 somewhat hazy. 
 
 In the Titnaeus another doctrine is taught. There the 
 human soul is divided, as in the Phaedrus the souls of gods 
 and men are, into three parts ; but the two represented in the 
 older dialogue by the horses are in the Timaeus mortal, 
 intellect alone being possessed of such immortality as is met 
 with in the visible world. This immortality might have been 
 such as is indicated in the Philebus, and as is compatible 
 with Diotima's doctrine, the soul's intellect being absorbed in 
 the intellect ruling the world; but in the Timaeus the trans- 
 migration of souls is adhered to, even fishes becoming recep- 
 tacles of them. It has been observed already how Plato,
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 261 
 
 in Er's vision, mixes up a doctrine of destiny, otherwise hardly 
 mentioned by him, with an altogether novel story about souls 
 selecting their own lives; but in the Timaeus, where parts 
 of the souls are mortal, it would appear as if souls are 
 doomed to inhabit the bodies of lower animals, in consequence 
 of the weakness of their intellectual and immortal factors. All 
 this inconsistency might have been avoided had Plato, like 
 Socrates, kept to mankind instead of attempting to set up a 
 theory about the universe. But by doing so he simply yielded 
 to the influence exercised on him by the times he lived in; 
 times which soon after his death would see science get the 
 better of idealistic thought. 
 
 For all that both Plato's approach to monotheism and 
 perhaps to the doctrine of the world being ruled by supreme 
 goodness, and his ideas about the souls' immortality as 
 they were when he wrote the Phaedrus, had a grand future 
 before them ; but how was that future to come ? Not through 
 philosophy but through religion. Philosophy cannot create a 
 new spirit and faith in new ideas among the human race; 
 but religion and in times like Plato's one may say only 
 revealed religion can. In stating this, no opinion is given 
 about the character of any religion as seen at its first appear- 
 ance on earth. All religion is based either on popular belief 
 having its origin in times unknown to the historian, or on pro- 
 fessed revelation. The religion of the ancient Greeks was of 
 the former kind, for although Homer must have given to the 
 Olympic gods the character they retained, and Hesiod got up 
 a theogony generally believed in and followed, they were 
 never considered to be anything else than poets. When the 
 Christian religion is called a revealed one, it need not be 
 taken for granted that one calling it so is either guided by 
 historical research after the origin of Christianity, or by that 
 personal experience known to many holding the Christian 
 faith. But when ideas started by what professes to be a 
 revelation become rooted in the people's minds and, having 
 become so by satisfying existing mental cravings, conquer the
 
 262 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 world, then the religion which thus becomes a ruling power, 
 must from a historical point of view be held to have a full 
 claim to be called revealed. 
 
 Still philosophy, however unequal to the task of accomplish- 
 ing that which lies within the province of religion, can effect 
 a great deal by its influence on minds open, through circum- 
 stances or through natural gifts, to ideas which can never 
 lay hold of the masses. Plato's thoroughly aristocratic mind 
 was fully alive to this. The access to the world of thought 
 was reserved, in his opinion, to the happy few both endowed 
 with a disposition to enter it and generally talented; taking 
 their work seriously and not prevented from doing so by the 
 allurements of what is found in other spheres of action. They 
 are the real brain-power and the natural rulers of any state, 
 though public opinion may refuse to admit this. This view 
 was never abandoned by Plato even while sketching, in the 
 Laws, a state where all citizens have to take part in political 
 affairs, and where tradesmen are to belong to a subject race. 
 And here, to some extent, his views agree with those of Cal- 
 licles in the Gorgias, inasmuch as in the latter's first speech 
 too the palm is given to the few who are too highly gifted 
 to rank with the common herd. But there is, of course, a 
 difference too, and a very great one, and this is the point at 
 which Plato breaks with the traditions of Grecian sentiment. 
 
 The gods, in ancient Greece, are happy; mortals are con- 
 demned to misery; but where is the happiness of the gods 
 seen, and where the nearest approach by mortals to that 
 happiness? At the convivial table, where on Mount Olympus. 
 Hephaestus causes " inextinguishable mirth " when acting as 
 cup-bearer to the gods, and where, in his palace, Alcinous is- 
 "drinking wine like a god." What, after health, beauty and 
 wealth obtained without fraud, was the greatest boon man could 
 wish for to be young with his friends, was enjoyed for 
 ever by the gods, whereas man was possessed of it only during 
 a few years. A life of joy was the Greek's wish ; no longing 
 for unseen and unknown happiness existed in his mind, but
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 263 
 
 only regret that such a life could not last for more than a 
 few years. This view of life had its dark as well as its bright 
 side ; but the sensuality and recklessness it might beget were 
 outweighed by its splendid results, seen both in the history 
 of Greece and in her literature and art. And now, how was. 
 such a life to be had? By what Callicles calls vteQve%l&* 
 a larger share in the good things of this life than could be 
 had by all, and one which even those worthy of it by their 
 pre-eminence to the common herd of mankind could not obtain, 
 unless the rules preventing their being better off than others 
 were dispensed with. This was the object aimed at by men 
 like Alcibiades, but the policy he followed, as Pericles had done 
 before him, was to secure similar privileges to Athens above 
 other states, and thus to carry into effect in her favour the 
 ideas advocated by Callicles. Plato is found to disapprove of 
 such privileges, although maintaining slavery, and to substitute 
 for them, not indeed the socialism which was reserved for our 
 days, but a rule of life fixed by law, calculated to crush all 
 independent spirit in individuals, and although this certainly 
 was not his object sure to banish all joy from human life. 
 Many a reader of the Phaedrus, the Republic and the Laws 
 will feel shocked at the manner in which Greek poetry is dealt 
 with by Plato, though himself endowed with a truly poetical 
 mind ; but Plato certainly cannot be blamed for keeping Homer 
 and the lyrics, tragic as well as comic poetry out of his ideal 
 states, for they would, when admitted, soon have revolution- 
 ised them. 
 
 Alcibiades had left the scene of his earthly labours before 
 Plato entered upon his philosophical career, and for a man 
 like him there was no longer room at Athens. The grand 
 scheme ascribed to him in the dialogue bearing his name 
 the conquest of Asia by the Greek nation was resumed by 
 others; but the result of its execution was such that it may 
 be doubted whether its main promoter in the literary world, 
 Isocrates, showed himself, when recommending it to Philippus, 
 a better friend to Greece than Plato, who never says a word
 
 264 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 in favour of it, though insisting on the difference between 
 Greeks and barbarians in a manner which, in our days, would 
 horrify Exeter Hall. But there were men who, without having 
 objects in view like 4Jhose aimed at by Alcibiades, and likewise 
 without being in the position of the men extolled by Callicles 
 as tearing asunder the fetters of law, knew the meaning of indi- 
 vidualism and stood up for it. Among them were Cynics like 
 Antisthenes and Diogenes, but however high an opinion Alex- 
 ander the Great may have held about the latter, they certainly, 
 when looking for personal independence in a quasi-asceticism 
 which did not prevent their gratifying the vilest desires in the 
 vilest manner, did not represent the true feelings of the noble 
 nation they belonged, or pretended to belong, to. But how 
 different a character was Aristippus of Gyrene! He was not 
 placed in a position similar to that of Alcibiades ; he could not 
 hope to be master of Greece and of Asia; his writings are 
 no longer extant ; in fact, we know nothing about him except 
 what is found in a few scraps of information met with in 
 Xenophon and other writers. But the well-known verse of 
 Horace which states him to have taught man to be master of, 
 not ruled by, circumstances is sufficient to show what he was 
 worth, and that his longing for independence, seen in his 
 unwillingness to be a citizen of any Grecian state, marks him 
 as the true apostle of an individualism which, however much 
 it may have been disfigured by Epicurus and those professing 
 to be , his followers in ancient and modern times, will never 
 lose its hold on mankind. 
 
 There is nothing strange in the fact that Aristippus, as far 
 as his views are known, did not indulge in theories about 
 continued existence of the human individual after death, as 
 Socrates and Plato did; for although the views held by the 
 latter two were not altogether at variance with current belief, 
 this belief was, among men of culture, anything but general. 
 Epicurus, the man who gave his name to the school of which 
 Aristippus is stated, by Horace, to have been the real founder, 
 is even praised by Rome's great didactic poet for his relieving
 
 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 265 
 
 mankind of an abject fear of evils to be suffered after death ; 
 and his denial of an immortality which Socrates looked forward 
 to when cheerfully meeting death, whereas Plato values it as 
 a means to assist in enforcing law, is easily explained by his 
 making the study of nature one of the main objects of his 
 school. But the individualism advocated by Aristippus does 
 not in itself imply disbelief in continued existence. When 
 we find him partaking of the joys of life when they came in 
 his way, and showing his contempt of them when they were 
 not to be had, it would almost seem as if his view of life 
 was incomplete without a hope of future happiness, such as 
 Virgil would seem to have indulged in, in spite of his taking 
 Lucretius as his model and guide, and as was found in Sulla, 
 who though by no means an Epicurean is in the world's his- 
 tory the great hero of individualism. But Aristippus was too 
 much impressed with the truth of the advice on the gate of 
 the temple at Delphi, and therefore too well aware of the 
 necessity of minding his own business, to look forward for 
 himself to a career as before him Alcibiades and after him 
 Sulla followed ; and had* he lived at a time when a statesman 
 of real genius had brought about, under his own rule, a lasting 
 peace like that in Horace's time, he would have been, to the 
 ruler, a friend and perhaps a useful ally. 
 
 In our days the men who have been led to abandon the 
 faith in continued existence which their fathers held, are 
 generally found to favour an idealism altogether at variance 
 with individualistic tendencies. But say that Plato's Callicles 
 had shared the views given, on future existence, in Plato's 
 Phaedrus. Would he not, in his debate with Socrates, have 
 been on vantage ground? Not all pleasures and this is 
 fully admitted in the Philebus are those longed for by the 
 soul's wild and restive horse; the spirited but manageable 
 horse and the charioteer have theirs, and will any one believe 
 that a man like Alcibiades was a mere sensualist, and did not 
 aim at an individual development raising him above the rest 
 of mankind? Callicles, when asked by Socrates the difference
 
 266 PLATO AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. 
 
 between enjoyments better and worse, might, when being at 
 one with his interlocutor about future existence, have replied 
 that the better ones are those on which man's higher instincts 
 feast, and which are conducive to a development of the human 
 individual tending, in the case of men born to rule, to entitle 
 them to disregard the notions about justice current among the 
 public. But what becomes of this individual, after having been 
 allowed in Plato's Phaedrus the full rights he can lay claim to, 
 in Plato's Laws? A mere pawn, moved by an invisible hand 
 for an unknown purpose. Plato, by what he says in his last 
 work about man's subordination to the aims of a higher 
 power, may touch chords in the human heart rendering a 
 grateful sound, but certainly does not express the true senti- 
 ments of the nation which counted Homer and Pindar, Achilles 
 the mythical and Alcibiades the historical hero among her 
 sons. 
 
 The end of this essay has been reached, its object not being 
 to give an idea of Plato's philosophy as part of the history 
 of human thought, but simply a sketch of him and the substance 
 of his works, in connection with ihe times he lived in. 
 Neither in writing such an essay nor, perhaps, in reading it 
 can the fact be ignored that even in our days, when on the 
 one hand such unheard-of progress is made in the knowledge 
 of nature and the art of making it subservient to the material 
 well-being of man as to cause almost everything else to be 
 lost sight of, and on the other hand the masses are allowed 
 to rule the world in a fashion, it may be of some use to study 
 ancient Greece and her heroes in the field of politics and litera- 
 ture, especially in those parts of the world where another 
 and better condition of affairs can still be brought about than 
 that now witnessed in the old seats of European civilisation. 
 
 THE END.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 1 
 
 II. THE AGE OF THE POETS 3 
 
 III. LAWGIVERS AND PHILOSOPHERS 10 
 
 IV. THE TRAGEDY OF GRECIAN HISTORY 16 
 
 V. SOCRATES ....'. 27 
 
 VI. PLATO'S LIFE 43 
 
 VII. PLATO AND SOCRATES 61 
 
 VIII. PLATO AND THE OLDER SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY .... 87 
 
 IX. PLATO AND THE ATHENIANS 114 
 
 X. PLATONIAN LOVE 140 
 
 XI. PLATO'S IDEALISM 161 
 
 XII. PLATO'S OLD AGE 211 
 
 XIII. CONCLUSION 255