THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
Mf<\
II
LECTURES AND REMAINS
RICHARD LEWIS NETTLESHIP
VOL. I.
©■
18 8 9.
PHILOSOPHICAL
LECTURES AND REMAINS
OF
RICHARD LEWIS NETTLESHIP
FELLOW AND TUTOR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD
EDITED, WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
BY
A. C. BRADLEY
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
FORMERLY FELLOW AND LECTURER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD
AND
G. R. BENSON
OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD
IN TWO VOLUMES: VOL. I
Pontoon
MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
1897
\_All rights reserved]
b^gf
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
PREFACE
The persons jointly responsible for the publi-
cation of these volumes are the editors named
on the title-page, and Professor C. E. Vaughan,
of the University College of South Wales, one of
the executors of Nettleship's will.
For the preparation of the first volume, the
form in which everything in it finally appears,
and the notes contained in square brackets,
Mr. Bradley is solely answerable. Mr. Benson
is in like manner solely answerable in the case
of the second volume.
In addition to the matter here published,
a considerable mass of material was prepared by
Mr. Vaughan from reports of Nettleship's lectures
on the history of Logic and of Moral Philosophy.
But it was decided not to make use of this
material, as the more original parts of the lectures
could not well be separated from other parts
vi PREFACE
which, however well adapted to their purpose,
seemed less characteristic of the author.
Explanations regarding the different portions of
which these volumes are composed will be found
prefixed to them. The only portion which was
written for publication is the essay on ' Plato's
Conception of Goodness and the Good.' The
' Miscellaneous Papers and Extracts from Letters'
are, almost without exception, of the nature of
private and probably hurried correspondence.
The remainder of the first volume, and the whole
of the second, consist of redactions of lecture-
notes. In regard to these, a few words are
required here in addition to the remarks of the
editors. Nettleship's own notes were, as a rule,
very scanty, and have been of use only in
occasional passages. The editors have therefore
attempted to reproduce the lectures chiefly by
comparison, selection, and combination of reports
by pupils who heard them in various years to-
wards the end of Nettleship's life. They have
endeavoured, as far as possible, to preserve the
original phraseology and the forms of the sen-
tences; but, especially in difficult passages, they
have sometimes been compelled to choose between
various possible interpretations, and even occa-
sionally to represent what they believed to be the
author's meaning without professing to reproduce
his words. They have also modified or removed,
PREFACE vii
where they detected them, such unguarded or
ambiguous statements as naturally occur in ex-
tempore lecturing. They are, of course, answer-
able for the correctness of the references inserted.
No one can feel more keenly than those respon-
sible for the publication of these volumes how
difficult was the task of determining what should
be printed, and how likely they are to have erred
in their choice. They will only say that they
have been guided by anxious consideration of
three questions, — what was most characteristic
of the author, what promised to be of most use
to readers, and which of the proposed selections
Nettleship himself would, to the best of their
judgment, have accepted or rejected.
Their thanks are due to many old pupils of
Nettleship, who lent their reports of the lectures ;
to several friends, especially the Master of Balliol,
Mr. Bernard Bosanquet, Mr. R. G. Tatton, Pro-
fessor J. Cook Wilson, and Professor John Burnet,
who gave advice as to the selection of lectures
for publication ; to Mr. Vaughan, to Mr. George
Macdonald, Lecturer in Glasgow University, to
Mr. J. A. Smith, Fellow and Tutor of Balliol, and
to one another, for assistance given in various
ways in the preparation of these volumes.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I
PACK
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xi
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS AND EXTRACTS FROM
LETTERS i
I. Immortality (Preliminary Thoughts) ... 3
II. Pleasure (Preliminary Thoughts) . . . . n
III. Spirit 20
IV. Individuality ......... 33
V. The Atonement ........ 39
VI. Florence and Athens 43
VII. Extracts from Letters 50
LECTURES ON LOGIC 109
Sect. I. Thought, Sense, and Imagination . . . .113
II. The Value of Theory ...... 122
III. Language and its Function in Knowledge . . 127
IV. Concepts as the Principles of Knowledge . 142
V. Formal Logic as the Science of the Principles
of Knowledge ....... 148
VI. The Concept as Universal, Particular, Indi-
vidual 153
VII. Conception and Perception. Mediate and Imme-
diate Apprehension ...... 165
VIII. Conceivability and Sensation as Tests of Truth 174
IX. Concept and Thing. Subjective and Objective.
Self and Not-Self . . . . . .191
X. Classification and Definition of Concepts. . 212
XI. Extension and Intension. The Generality of
Concepts 2I 7
x CONTENTS
PAGE
Note A. Experience 225
Note B. Certitude. Law. Necessity. Uniformity . . 228
Note C. Subjective and Objective 231
PLATO'S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS AND THE GOOD 235
Introduction, chiefly on Plato's Criticism of Current
Ideas 238
The Protagoras ......... 250
The Meno 258
The Laches and the Charmides ..... 264
The Euthydemus ......... 268
The Gorgias 276
The Philebus ......... 307
The Republic ......... 336
Plato's Ideas on Philosophy and Life .... 383
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
A DETAILED biography of one whose main work was
that of a College tutor will not be expected or required
by the reader of the following Remains. I shall merely
recount the chief events of Nettleship's outer life, and
shall then attempt such a description of his mind and
character as may explain in some degree the great in-
fluence he exerted on his pupils and friends, and the
impression of ' uncommonness ' which he almost in-
variably left even on acquaintances.
Lewis Nettleship (for he was called by his second
name) was born on December 17, 1846. His father was
Henry John Nettleship, a solicitor of Kettering in
Northamptonshire ; his mother, Isabella Ann, daughter
of the Rev. James Hogg, of the same town. Among his
elder brothers were Henry, who became Professor of
Latin at Oxford, and who died in the summer of 1893 ;
John, well known as a painter ; and Edward, well known
as an oculist. Lewis was educated at Uppingham
School, and was deeply influenced by his head-master,
Edward Thring, for whom he retained a very strong ad-
miration and affection ] . He early showed unusual ability,
and for some years before he left Uppingham was head
1 Some of the correspondence which passed between master and
pupil during Nettleship's undergraduate years is likely to be published
in Mr. G. R. Parkin's forthcoming memoir of Thring.
xii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
of the school. At this time, we are told, he appeared
' old for his age,' sober and sedate ; but he entered
readily into ' all the fun,' and practised the school
games, not with marked ability, but with a characteristic
desire to do everything as well as he could. Those who
met him as a man have often unconsciously echoed the
remark made by an acquaintance in the year 1864 —
' though he was very quiet and reserved, one felt the
better for being in the room with him.' Curiously
characteristic, again, in turn of phrase as well as in sub-
stance, are the words which he is remembered to have
used in addressing the school on an occasion when
Thring, according to his custom, had left it to the senior
boys to bring an unknown offender to justice. Nettleship
' asked the lads to remember they were trusted, and
called on them to be worthy of the trust. He ended his
appeal to the sense of honour by saying, " Uppingham
is a little place, and I dare say you fellows think it
doesn't very much matter how we treat either our
masters or one another ; but at least it shall never be
said, if I can help it, that Uppingham boys are either
liars or cowards. Those who agree, show their hands."
And the whole school rose, and cheered their head boy
to the echo. One remembers how, ever after, one
seemed to look to Nettleship as a kind of impersonation
of truth and bravery' 1 .
Nettleship entered for the Balliol Scholarships in
November, 1864, and came out head of the list. He
went up to Oxford in October, 1865, and began a career
of brilliant University successes. In addition to minor
honours, he won the Hertford Scholarship in 1866 and
the Ireland in 1867, and was generally recognized as the
1 H. D. Rawnsley, in Good Words for January, 1893.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xiii
' best man ' of his year. He was not, however, merely
a ' reading man.' He rowed in the Balliol ' Torpid ' and
then in the ' Eight,' and entered fully into the life of the
College. His quiet manner, and the thoughtfulness,
delicacy, and refinement, which were as evident in his
face as in his speech, did not prevent him from being
eminently companionable. He was perfectly free from
conceit and priggishness, keenly enjoyed the humour and
'chaff' of undergraduate society, and was not one of those
unhappy beings who never acquire nicknames. At the
same time, throughout these years his nature and mind,
which were not precociously developed, and which (as
he afterwards thought) grew very slowly, were continu-
ously deepening. His undergraduate life was at times
full of intellectual and emotional struggle ; but to outward
appearance he advanced steadily and calmly, and he was
too thoughtful and modest to leave a record of phases
and crises among his contemporaries. Doubtless the
intellectual influence which he felt most strongly was
that of Green, who was just then becoming famous in
Oxford and bringing a ferment into the philosophical
studies of the abler men. This influence Nettleship
quietly absorbed, and it did much to mould both his
thoughts and his character, although he was hardly so
ardently excited about philosophy as were some others
among Green's pupils, and it was never natural to him to
regard Green's teaching as a kind of gospel which it was
his mission to spread. Even at this early time, too, the
individuality of his mind was as marked, if not so
obvious, as its receptiveness ; and the essays which he
wrote as an undergraduate bear scarcely a trace of that
imitativeness in which enthusiasm for a teacher is apt to
show itself at first. He owed much, also, to the kindness
xiv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
and the wise advice of Jowett, who was his tutor ; and
the influence of his brother John was probably at least
as powerfully felt as that of any of his elders in Oxford.
His most intimate College friend was H. S. Holland,
now Canon of St. Paul's.
In the summer of 1869 Nettleship went in for his
final examination, and astonished his teachers and
fellow-students by failing to obtain a first class. This
mishap, like some other startling reverses of that time,
was attributed in part to the effects of Green's teaching,
or, in other words, to the incapacity of certain of the
examiners. Nettleship himself thought that his failure
had, at any rate, additional causes, ' even including
rowing.' He regretted, however, neither the teaching
nor the rowing ; and therefore, though, on account of
the College and Green and his old school, he was
'vexed not to have managed better' 1 , the mishap did
not further trouble him, and he declined to follow the
advice of a friend that he should enter for a fellowship
that happened to be vacant at another College, and try
to prove that he was still invincible.
In the autumn of 1869 he competed for a fellowship
at Balliol, and was elected. The question of his future
profession had naturally been already considered. He
had thought of going to the Bar, and also of becoming
a schoolmaster, but had put aside both these ideas in
favour of another. His love of painting, and his in-
timacy with his brother John, had attracted him to the
plan of preparing himself to write upon art ; and his
interest in philosophy only stimulated this desire. What
he meditated was a study of all the main branches of
1 These words, like most of the quotations in the present sketch, are
Nettleship's own.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xv
art, in their connection with religion and the history
of ideas. He had thought of pursuing his design in
London, where he could combine it with work among
the poor, and where he hoped to find an intellectual air
less irritating and more vitalizing than that of Oxford.
The idea was not abandoned when, on gaining his
fellowship, Nettleship began to take work for the
College ; and for some little time he remained in doubt
whether he should stay more than a year or two at
Balliol. What chiefly decided the question was the
marked success of his first lectures (on the Republic
of Plato), and the value set upon his presence in the
College by Jowett and Green on the one side, and by
the undergraduates on the other. But he was also influ-
enced by characteristic feelings. He was acutely con-
scious of the immaturity of his mind and character ; the
thing he most needed, he felt, was training ; and for
training the Oxford work would stand him in as good
stead as any other. Besides, then and always, he put
a good deal of faith in the precept which bids a man do
what lies nearest to his hand.
Nettleship remained a tutor of the College until his
death. His energies were given therefore to work which,
however valuable, cannot be eventful, and could hardly
be briefly described. He had gained his reputation
mainly in the field of classical scholarship, and he
continued for a long time to take part in the teaching
of Latin and Greek composition. Even after he gave
this up, he was kept in touch with the junior under-
graduates through the Balliol custom of weekly essays.
But from the first his chief work lay in philosophy ; and
after Green's appointment to a professorship he became
the principal teacher of this subject, which is studied by
xvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
men reading for the final classical examination. In
addition to his duties in the way of lecturing and dis-
cussing essays with pupils, he held the post of Junior
Dean, and sometimes, during a part of the year, that of
Senior Dean. He continued, also, to take a lively
interest in the Boat Club, was always a welcome guest
at bump-suppers and College concerts, and made full
use of the gift which he possessed of establishing an
unconstrained and equal relationship with men younger
than himself. Thus an unusually large proportion of
the undergraduates felt the effect of his presence, though
it was in those who studied philosophy that his influence
struck deepest. Something will be said of the nature of
this influence in a later part of the present sketch ; but
I believe it would be agreed by most of those able to
judge that, from the time of Green's retirement from
tutorial work, the strongest intellectual and spiritual
force felt within the College issued from Nettleship.
The subjects on which he most frequently lectured
were Logic and Plato's Republic, and his courses on
these subjects had a high reputation in the University,
and were largely attended by out-College men. He
occasionally lectured also on Aristotle's Ethics, and on
the history of Moral Philosophy. The greater part of
the lectures on Logic was historical, dealing chiefly with
Aristotle and Bacon. It will be seen, therefore, that,
except in the introductory portion of that course, Nettle-
ship confined himself to the interpretation of authors,
if not of particular works. His practice in this matter
was due quite as much to his own choice as to the
character of the University examinations ; and the
prominence given in those examinations to Greek philo-
sophy, as compared with modern, was not distasteful
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xvii
to him. Though his position in regard to the main
philosophical issues was well defined, he had very little
desire to propagate his own opinions ; he wished chiefly
to help others to think, and to bring their minds into
contact with those of great men. And for the beginner,
at any rate, he thought Plato and Aristotle better than
modern writers of any school, because the Greeks put
their questions more simply than the moderns, and be-
cause they were less apt to lead the student prematurely
into controversy on burning questions. In the practice
based upon these views Nettleship's teaching differed
somewhat markedly from Green's. It does not follow
that he estimated the achievements of modern philo-
sophers less highly than Green, but he regarded the
teaching of philosophy more strictly from an educational
point of view, while he no more subordinated it than
Green did to the exigencies of examinations 1 .
When Nettleship began to teach, he wrote his lectures
out at length ; but before long he abandoned this
practice, and spoke from very scanty notes and without
verbal preparation. This plan necessarily involved much
labour ; for, instead of repeating or re-casting in any one
year the material used in some preceding year, he had
always to construct his lectures anew. But he thought
the labour well spent ; indeed, if he borrowed from an old
pupil a report of his lectures, it was principally in order
to guard against saying what he had said before. And
the result justified him ; for his mind continually ad-
vanced instead of being hampered by its past, while his
1 He had, on the other hand, no sympatlw whatever with the idea
that a teacher who pays some regard to the fact that his pupils are going
to be examined must needs 'cram' them for their examination. On the
question whether his own lectures were, as a matter of fact, ' good for
the schools,' there seems to be a difference of opinion among his pupils.
VOL. I. b
xviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
hearers felt that every subject he discussed was fresh
and living to him. The distinguished success which he
achieved on this method implied a considerable gift of
speech ; and that he possessed such a gift was, I believe,
very evident on the few occasions when he addressed an
audience outside the lecture-room. In his lectures he
was able without loss of freedom to speak slowly enough
to suit those who wished to take full notes. He spoke
with interest but equably, seldom emphatically, and
never with any attempt at impressiveness. He rarely
hesitated, and was little troubled by the tendency, com-
monly observed in lecturers who use but few notes,
to expand unduly or to be seduced into parenthetical
remarks ; indeed it seems probable that for the majority
of his hearers he often expanded his ideas too little. On
the other hand, his habit of returning in one lecture upon
an idea introduced in another was evidently intentional.
The two heaviest of the literary undertakings on
which Nettleship entered were interfered with by un-
foreseen interruptions, and were only accomplished in
part. The first of these was historical. In the spring of
1873 he gained the Arnold Prize for an essay on the
History of the Normans in Italy and Sicily. He was
led to write for the Prize partly by the characteristic idea
that his success might compensate the College for his
failure in his final examination. His essay was very
highly estimated by Professor Stubbs and the other
Examiners, and they urged him to pursue the subject
and to publish his results. The enterprise cost him much
labour. His memory was accurate, but not particularly
strong; his historical reading had been comparatively
slight ; he found himself constantly driven from his
immediate subject, which was large and difficult enough,
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xix
into wider fields ; and the instinct of the scholar and
artist made it impossible for him to work hastily or at
second-hand. His vacations from 1873 to 1 879 were
mainly devoted to his projected history ; and to it he gave
also most of a year's holiday which the College granted
him in 1875. In this year he travelled a good deal in
South Italy, visiting the scenes of the events he was to
narrate. He stayed for some time working at Naples,
and there he made one of the most valued friendships of
his life, that with B. Zumbini, now Professor of Litera-
ture at Naples, and an eminent writer l . By the year
1879 he had made considerable progress with his work.
Large materials had been amassed, and a part of the book-
was written, when his advance was arrested by the news
of Freeman's intention to write a history of Sicily, and
by a proposal that he should therefore confine himself
to the history of the Normans in Italy. Though the
arrangement involved the surrender of the most fasci-
nating part of his subject, Nettleship readily adopted it ;
but naturally it checked him in his course, and for
a time, as will be seen presently, he turned to philoso-
phical writing. This being finished, in March, 1882, he
was hoping to be able to return before long to his
history ; but in that month Green died, and the work
of writing a memoir and preparing for publication the
lectures of his friend occupied most of Nettleship's
leisure for some years. He gradually came to recog-
nize that it was beyond his power to combine both
philosophical and historical writing with his College
1 In Macmillan's Magazine for November, 1878, there is a paper by
Nettleship entitled, 'An Italian Study of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 7
The 'Study' referred to, together with one not less admirable on
Paradise Lost, will be found re-published in Prof. Zumbini's Studi di
Lctterature Straniere, 1893.
b 2
xx BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
work, and he therefore abandoned the enterprise on
which he had spent so much time and thought, hoping
that his friend and colleague, A. L. Smith, would some
day be able to use his materials and carry out the design
of the book.
That Nettleship should give so much of his leisure to
a historical work was surprising to many of his friends,
who thought that his natural bent was in another
direction. He himself was accustomed, more than half
seriously, to deny that he had any decided natural bent ;
or rather, it seemed to him that ' there were several
things that he could do pretty well, and nothing at all
that he could do well.' Within certain limits he was
curiously indifferent as to the mode in which he should
put forth his energy ; and, if the College had been mis-
taken enough to wish it, I believe he would readily
have consented to teach history or ' classics ' instead of
philosophy. In any case, he became thoroughly in-
terested in his essay-subject. The adventurous and
stormy characters whom he had to describe appealed
powerfully to one element in his own nature ; he loved
Italy, too ; and though he had no tendency to sub-
stitute reflection for narrative, or to compel the facts
into the frame of a theory, many passages in his
manuscript prove that his researches in history gave
plenty of scope to his philosophical imagination. This
manuscript shows the conciseness and the verbal felicity
which marked his writing, and in addition a power of
producing rapid and vivid effects for which philosophical
composition offers little room ; but an unrevised historical
fragment is ill fitted for separate publication, and Nettle-
ship's executors, after taking the opinion of experts,
decided to leave his manuscript unprinted.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xxi
In the summer of 1879, when his historical work was
suspended, Nettleship had written, for a volume called
Hellenica and edited by his friend and colleague Evelyn
Abbott, his essay on the Theory of Education in the
Republic of Plato. With the purpose of the volume,
which was to illustrate the undying significance of Greek
thought and literature, Nettleship was in entire sympathy.
Although he recognized the importance of the more
purely historical and critical questions involved in the
study of Greek philosophy, he was never keenly interested
in them, and cared deeply only for what is permanent in
that philosophy. He could not regard Plato as a fasci-
nating relic of antiquity, nor could he use Plato's theories
as a mere cover for the discharge of his own. In his
eyes Plato was a man of extraordinary genius, to whom
the world around him presented problems — among others,
an educational problem — which, in spite of many differ-
ences, were fundamentally identical with those that
confront an Englishman in the nineteenth century; and
at the same time it seemed to him that the Greek writer
drove straight to the heart of those problems with a
force and directness less easily attained in the rich con-
fusion of modern life. Hence his first object was, by
a sympathetic and almost affectionate intercourse with
the mind of his author, to re-create in imagination the
occasion and the mental processes which had led to
the formation of Plato's theories, to ascertain, as nearly
as might be, what made him feel this and that, and why
this and that seemed to him so important. And then he
asked himself in what manner and with what modifica-
tions Plato's ideas could be applied to the changed con-
ditions of our own time. In attempting to answer this
question, Nettleship did not abstain from criticism ; but
xxii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
in his criticism he still held to the method of sympathetic
interpretation : he did not oppose to Plato's opinion an
opinion of his own, but rather tried to show how a true
development of Plato's own ideas would sometimes lead
to conclusions other than those which appear in his
dialogues. Doubtless such a mode of treatment was not
the best way of conveying to the casual reader an im-
pression of brilliant originality, but it gave to Nettleship's
work a truthfulness and a sureness of touch which are
nothing less than invaluable to serious students.
The method adopted in the essay in Hellenica was
followed by Nettleship in his memoir of Green and in
all his teaching. The notes of his lectures on Aristotle.
on later Greek philosophy, on Bacon and other modern
writers, show that he applied it indifferently to all, without
regard to the degree of his own sympathy with the ideas
which he was endeavouring to expound. There is no
more of negative criticism in his treatment of Hobbes
or Hume than in his treatment of Plato or Spinoza. He
approached the works of a philosopher just as he would
have approached any man of acknowledged genius whom
he might have met face to face. Such a man's ideas,
he thought, may be one-sided or imperfectly connected,
but they are likely to represent some real and im-
portant aspect of truth ; and the first thing to do, if not
the last, is to get, by sympathetic study, at those parts
of human experience which he realized with peculiar
force, however unsatisfying the theory which he wove
round them.
After the completion of the essay in Hellenica, Nettle-
ship took part, with Green and some of Green's old
pupils, in the translation of Lotze's Logik and Metaphysik.
published under the editorship of B. Bosanquet in 1884.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xxiii
His share of the work was the translation of the first
book of the Logik. Meanwhile, he had undertaken the
second of his main literary projects. He was invited to
write, for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,
a small book on Platonism, as a companion to Prof. Wal-
lace's volume on Epicureanism and Prof. Capes's on
Stoicism. A large book on Plato would have suited his
way of working much better ; but he was attracted by
the very modesty of the plan, and not less by its diffi-
culty ; he felt that it would be more of an achievement to
express himself in 250 small pages than in two or three
large volumes. Although he was to write for the general
public, he did not intend to avoid Plato's metaphysics ;
his aim was ' to give some idea of what was in the man's
mind in its original, unmitigated, form, without apology
or attempt to soften it down for modern culture.' He-
began his task by analyzing for his own use all the
dialogues of Plato ; and by the summer of 1883 he had
finished at least one of the five sections of which the
book was to consist. This was a chapter on Plato's
Ethics, somewhat similar in character to the Hellenica
essay, though naturally less elaborate in its treatment of
the various dialogues. But even before the chapter was
complete, it had become evident that the proposed limits
of the book were likely to be greatly exceeded ; and the
publishers, who had allowed the title to be changed from
L Platonism ' to ' Plato,' were unable to sanction such an
extension of the plan as Nettleship now thought de-
sirable. He therefore made some changes in the whole
design, and began to reduce without mercy the matter
already composed. But during the next five years his
leisure was mainly given to a more pressing duty (to be
referred to presently), and. although he continued during
xxiv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
these years to work at intervals on his ' Plato,' he
made but little progress in the composition of the book.
In the Long Vacation of 1889 he was able again to give
it his whole attention, and he was occupied with it till
the end of his life. But, as he penetrated more deeply
into Plato's mind, and as his own mind grew, he was
compelled once more to modify his plan ; and. although
some of the notes he made for the ' Plato' after 1889
probably show his philosophical power as adequately as
anything in his lectures or essays, they were merely notes
for his own use, and at the time of his death but few
passages of finished composition had been added to the
chapter which is printed in the present volumes.
The duty just alluded to arose out of the death of Green,
in March, 1882. After the publication of the Prole-
gomena to Ethics, which Green had left nearly finished,
it was decided that a part of his remaining MSS. should
be edited and published, together with a memoir. No
one else could be so competent in all ways to undertake
this task as Nettleship, who (so far as it was possible for
any man to do so) had filled Green's place at Balliol, and
for whom Green had felt an admiration as great as his
affection. In his editorial duties Nettleship received help
from various friends — very great help from Mrs. Green ;
but there remained much laborious work, which he exe-
cuted with characteristic thoroughness. The Memoir of
Green was published in the third and last volume of the
edition of his works in 1 888. Nettleship was better
content with it than with anything else that he wrote ;
he even admitted that some of it was ' rather well done.'
The memoir is markedly impersonal both in tone and
in substance, and it was intended to be so. Nettleship
felt that the thoughts and actions in which Green had
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH XXV
openly and deliberately expressed himself were the truest
exhibition of his personality; and by dwelling on them
he was able to give a very distinct impression of that
personality without lingering on the details, or breaking-
through the reserves, of private life. The remark some-
times heard, that he did not succeed in making Green's
philosophical ideas more easily intelligible to the general
reader than their author had left them, is probably true
as a statement, but it is surely unreasonable as a com-
plaint. To ( popularize ' these ideas would really have
been to substitute for them something which would have
been nearer to the reader's everyday thoughts and, for
that very reason, less valuable. So, at any rate, it
seemed to Nettleship. He made no attempt, therefore,
to popularize Green's teaching ; but he succeeded in
simplifying it by bringing into relief the unity which
pervades it, and which connects with Green's central
ideas the outlying questions on which he so persistently
dwelt.
The Memoir of Green was Nettleship's last publication.
In Oxford, where his reputation was so great, there is
probably an impression that in the way of literary work-
he accomplished less than might have been expected ;
and he himself felt that he had ' done very little.'
Whatever he had done, he would have felt this ; and if
he wrote comparatively little, there were many causes
besides those for which he might take himself to account.
Among these, it is quite a mistake to reckon a failing
which is supposed to be characteristic of gifted Oxford
dons. Nettleship was by no means irresolute or over-
fastidious in composition. Certainly he was not fond of
second-rate work ; but his dislike of producing it was free
from morbidity, and he was untroubled by the dread of
xxvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
committing himself 1 . On the other hand, he had no strong
impulse to literary composition, and took little pleasure
in it ; his temperament, also, was not that of the mere
student or author ; and, except when there was an obvious
need for prompt action, he was perhaps somewhat deficient
in the power of 'putting a thing through.' He was also
impeded by a marked peculiarity of his mind. He could
produce good work rapidly under pressure (for instance,
his article on Green's philosophy, in the Contemporary
Review for May, 1882, was written very quickly); but
when he was making his greatest intellectual advances
he appeared to himself to work very slowly, and at such
times he certainly composed very slowly. His con-
versation on philosophical subjects was then extremely
interesting, but one could see that his whole mind was in
ferment, and that, as he said, he was not ' fit to write.'
Naturally, these times of restless progress were apt to
come towards the end of the Long Vacation, when he
had recovered from the effects of his College work ; and
they were cut short by the return of Term. In fact, the
main reason why he did not write more was that he
regarded his College work as his first business, and gave
himself to it so ungrudgingly that, although he was on
the whole a healthy man, little troubled by pain or
ailments, the bulk of his energy was exhausted in it.
And, considering what he made of this work, it is not
clear that we have any right to wish that he had diverted
more of his force to composition. His life was ended
in its prime by an accident ; but I see no reason to
1 I have often heard it said that Langham in Robeti Elsmere is a por-
trait of Nettlcship. To any one who knew Nettleship the idea is merely
ludicrous ; but it seems a pity that one or two tricks of speech and
manner, which could hardly fail to remind Oxford men of him, should
have been associated with a character so contemptibly unlike his.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xxvil
doubt that, had this not been the case, his five and
twenty years of teaching would have been followed by
a period of philosophical authorship as concentrated and
as successful.
Of the events of Nettleship's life little remains to be
told, and the most important can only be touched on.
After the year 1880 his greatest happiness and unhappi-
ness arose from a passionate attachment which was not
returned, and which lasted till his death. He met the
suffering it brought to him bravely and unselfishly ;
and, although he was saddened, he did not allow his
sympathies to be narrowed or deadened. Several in-
ducements, of which the strongest was his desire to
make a home for his mother, led him, in 1882, to give
up his College rooms and take a house. He lived
for the last ten years of his life at 7 Banbury Road,
next door to his friend Mrs. Green. He saw per-
haps less than he had previously done of his colleagues
and of acquaintances in Oxford, and he spoke with regret
of this loss ; but I do not gather x that the change
diminished his influence within the College, and he found
a fuller satisfaction of the need for affection in his daily
life with his mother, his devotion to whom was none the
less beautiful because it brought with it its own reward.
The change put within his reach, too, pleasures granted
only in part to the inmate of a College. Relatives, old
pupils, and other friends 2 visited the house in Banbury
Road. He worked in the garden regularly, and with
a characteristic mixture of enjoyment and conscientious-
1 I should mention that I left Oxford at the end of 1881.
2 Among the friendships formed or strengthened during the last ten
years of his life, I cannot help naming that with Mrs. G. W. Prothero,
to whom every one who loved him must be grateful.
xxviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
ncss. A Dandie Dinmont, ' Jenny,' became his constant
companion. He saw more of children, of whom he was
fond, and with whom he had a very taking way. And,
lastly, I must mention his love of music. He had eagerly
welcomed the Sunday evening recitals in Balliol Hall,
which his friend, C. B. Heberden, had organized about
the year 1877; and he took an equal interest in the
concerts which succeeded these recitals, when Mr. Farmer
came from Harrow to Balliol in 1885. He occasionally
sang at the College concerts ; and at home, where his
mother, while her health allowed her, used to accompany
him, the singing of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and
Brahms became a constant practice with him, which he
more than once referred to as almost his 'greatest
comfort.' I do not know that he cared less for painting
in his later years than in his earlier, but he certainly
cared more for music. For the sake of hearing great
compositions he would go out of his way as he never
would to see a play or any kind of spectacle, and the
hearing of some music came to be for him, as he said,
• almost the only reasonable form of worship ' \
When, as a young man, Nettleship thought of living
in London, and of writing on art, he thought also of
working among the poor ; and no doubt he would have
carried out this intention after he had given up his
College work. But during his Oxford life he abstained
entirely and deliberately from attempting anything of
the kind ; nor did he ever take any part in the civic or
1 The words were used after he had been hearing Cherubini's
Requiem. I may add here that the sum subscribed by Nettleship's
colleagues, pupils, and other friends for the purpose of a memorial, was
used to found a scholarship by which a student of music is enabled to
spend some years at Balliol College before completing his musical
training or pursuing his profession.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xxix
political affairs of the city. Work among the poor would
probably have been congenial to him ; he had a natural
feeling of equality, and was perhaps more at his ease
with people below him in station than with the average
person of culture, who frequently irritated him. He
was also full of kindness without being at all senti-
mental. On the other hand, he had no liking for
' affairs,' and not much turn for them ; and he had less
than the usual interest in politics. This does not mean
that he was indifferent to political or social movements,
as artists and men of letters not seldom are. He sym-
pathized warmly with democratic ideas, had some strong
admirations (e. g. for Mazzini and for Bright), made up
his mind on important questions of the day, and used his
vote 1 . But the interest he took in current politics was
a matter more of duty than of inclination. He had
little of the spirit which makes many Englishmen open
the day's paper anxiously or eagerly, and none of the
spirit which makes many others rejoice in party conflicts
as they do in football-matches.
Nettleship never (except perhaps in boyhood) had
a passion for books, and in the last fifteen years of his
life he read neither very much nor very widely. As
a boy and as a young man he was fond of history ; later,
his favourite reading was biography and poetry, with an
occasional novel. He was rather a slow reader and had
a difficulty in skimming ; partly perhaps for this reason,
he was less interested than most intellectual men by
second-rate books, and he was intolerant of second-rate
1 So far as I know, his vote, in University and in national politics,
was invariably given on what may be vaguely called the liberal side.
He hesitated a good deal in 1886 about Home Rule, but ultimately
decided for it. He was always inclined to what seemed to him the
courageous policy.
x\x BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
work in philosophy. Indeed, in the last few years of his
life he read little philosophy except Plato and Spinoza,
and he more than once spoke of the best poetry as the
only literature that he found very much worth reading
except as pastime. By this he doubtless meant that the
best poetry seemed to him to contain most of the kind of
new experience that he chiefly valued. His appreciation
of poetry was catholic, but his favourites were few.
He was fond of George Herbert, of Browning, and of
Whitman, though he would not have ranked any one of
them very high. Dante and Shakespeare were probably
the poets most congenial to him ; but, as he had never
studied Dante much, he could not turn to him with ease
in odd hours, while he read Shakespeare more and more.
The books he took with him on his last Swiss tour were
a volume of Spinoza containing the Ethics, and the
shilling selection from Browning.
From early days Nettleship had been fond of travelling;
and in the last ten years of his life he went once to Italy
(where in earlier days he had often been), twice to
Norway, several times to Switzerland or the Tyrol, and
twice to Greece, on one occasion making an extremely
trying and somewhat hazardous journey on foot through
Albania and Thessaly. Though he seldom spoke of
them, famous places and works of art were much to
him, and some extracts printed in this volume record
his impressions of Athens and Florence ; but he liked
best of all to travel under conditions which made it
natural for him to live roughly, to exert himself
strenuously, and to depend upon himself; and partly
from necessity, but probably quite as much from choice,
he often travelled alone. He could not live without
doing something ' violent,' as he called it ; he felt also
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xxxi
a recurring need to get away from society, and to dis-
pense with the ' swimming-belts ' of regular habits and
duties, public opinion, the aid of books and friends.
Contact with nature seemed almost always to revive
him. He had something of an artist's enjoyment of
form and colour, and when he was watching a sunlit
landscape his face wore a peculiarly happy expression ;
but perhaps his strongest impulse was to feel in nature
' an elemental force in whose presence man finds peace
by escaping from himself' 1 ; and this impulse led him
most often to moorland or mountain districts. For
mountains especially he had always felt (and these were
strong words for him to use) ' an intense love tinged
perhaps by fear ' ; and the very fact that he was doubt-
fully conscious of a mingling of fear with his love
attracted him the more to mountain-climbing. In all
things that which called for courage, as well as effort and
skill, appealed to him most. One may even say that
in Nettleship's experience all the virtues tended to appear
in the shape of courage, just as to another they may all
appear as forms of unselfishness ; and it was natural to
him to think of most moral weaknesses as kinds of fear.
To prevent misunderstanding, I may add that I never
saw any sign that he was more inclined to timidity than
most men.
At various times he had done some climbing in the
high Alps. In 1890 he went to Switzerland with two
friends who were first-rate mountaineers, and he much
enjoyed the necessity of attempting the utmost of which
he was capable. The next year he went alone, first to
Grindelwald, and afterwards to Saas Fee ; did all the
work and attacked all the difficulties that lay within his
1 Memoir of Green, p. xviii.
xxxii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
powers ; and came home looking alarmingly thin, but
feeling full of vigour and also of ideas. In August, 1892,
he again went to Switzerland, expecting a friend to
join him in a short time. Settling at the Montanvert
Hotel, he engaged two Chamouny guides and made
various ascents, in which, for the sake of practice, he
took the place on the rope usually assigned to the first
guide, and to a large extent declined the aid commonly
offered in abundance to the amateur. On those who
met him at the hotel he left, as he always did, the
impression of helpfulness and gentleness, and of being
' uncommon.' His guides became much attached to
him; he was 'si gentil, si aimable'; he treated them
' as brothers.' On an expedition, they noticed, he was
generally silent in the valley, but ' as soon as they got
up into the high air he seemed to be another person, so
joyous and full of song and talk.'
The sum he had laid aside for climbing being almost
exhausted, he determined, by way of a last ascent, to
go up Mont Blanc by the Aiguille and Dome du Gouter.
In this expedition he lost his life. On Wednesday,
August 24, his guides and he went up the Aiguille, and
at midday left the top and made for the Dome. On
their way they were met by a storm of wind and snow,
violent and intensely cold. Their tracks were quickly
effaced ; they lost their bearings ; and, as the light began to
fail, they cut out with their axes a hole in the ice of the
mountain-side. Here they spent the night. Nettleship
acted in his last hours as his friends would have expected
of him. During the night he was cheerful ; the guides
were too depressed to sing, and he sang to them. In
the morning he ate, and pressed them in vain to eat.
After a while, as the storm showed no sign of abating,
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xxxiii
he proposed to start ; some such words as, ' II faut faire
quelque chose ; mourir ici ce serait mourir en laches,'
were almost his last. The guides objected ; but he
answered only, ' Allons,' and stepped into the storm, and
they followed him. They had thought him the strongest
of the three ; but it was not long before he fell and,
when they ran to him, grasped them each by a hand,
and died. The storm lessened an hour or two later,
and the guides escaped, though one of them was in poor
health for some months afterwards. Nettleship's body
was buried at Chamouny. The inscription on the tomb-
stone ends with the quotation, chosen by his mother, ' He
maketh the storm a calm ' l .
Those who saw something of Nettleship without
becoming intimate with him were often at once im-
pressed and puzzled ; and it was possible to know him
pretty well without losing much of this feeling of
bewilderment. That he was a remarkable man was
quite evident ; but he belonged to no obvious type, and,
while his character was transparently sincere, it united
qualities so unlike that a first conception of it was liable
to be greatly modified on further acquaintance. He
was plainly very serious and thoughtful; quiet, self-
possessed, and somewhat retiring ; courteous, frank,
and simple in manner ; grave, occasionally melancholy,
in expression. But to some he seemed repressed, in-
1 Fuller details regarding the expedition may be found in the English
newspapers of the days following August 25, 1892, and in Mr. Rawnsley's
paper in Good Words. There is no reason for dwelling on them in this
slight sketch, when one has to pass without mention many incidents of
Nettleship's life which would illustrate his character at least as well.
The} 7 have some importance of another kind for those who are interested
in mountaineering.
VOL. I. C
xxxiv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
different, or even austere, while others found that he
talked with interest and ease, and, if he did not often
say humorous things himself, showed a quick and hearty
enjoyment of humour in others. One person would say
that he was a philosopher; that he regarded things —
even the most ordinary things— in a strikingly original
way, as though he saw them from some hidden central
position of his own ; and that, taking life so seriously as
he obviously did, he was probably somewhat stern and
stoical in moral judgment. Another might notice that
he did not use philosophical formulas, would even put
them aside with a certain impatience, and would discuss
anything that concerned human nature with the interest
of a novelist, with almost startling frankness, and with
a ready sympathy for wellnigh any kind of passion or
difficulty. He would have winced to know it, but it is
the fact, that he gave the impression of living on a height,
and of carrying something of an ideal atmosphere into
the most every-day occupations ; yet, if there was little
exuberance, there was no reservation in his enjoyment
of sunshine and laziness ; of eating and drinking ; of
walking, rowing, bathing, games ; of singing, talking, and
mirth. Few can have met him without being struck
by his modesty, and even by a certain diffidence and
indecision in expressing an opinion ; yet he was often
decided, quick, and plain-spoken, and he could be
irritable, combative, and brusque. In the years of his
early manhood there was a look of quiet placidity in
his face, in his latest years an expression often of hard-
earned but settled peace ; but, at almost any period of
his life, the marks of the strain of work, and of incessant
inward struggle, would sometimes be evident even to
a stranger.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH XXXV
The various impressions just described answered to
various aspects of Nettleship's character, and I shall
do best if, at the cost of repetition, I dwell on some
of these more at length. The gentler and happier side of
his nature was more quickly apparent in his earlier years
than afterwards ; and probably most of those who knew
him only as an undergraduate or a young tutor would be
surprised to hear that he ever struck any one as austere
or even melancholy. Nor did contemporaries who, after
a long interval, saw him again in later life, find him
changed in this way, though he seemed to them to look
' lean and intense,' and less peaceful than in youth. The
change that passed over him was possibly not greater
than that which middle-age often brings, and a very
simple circumstance made it appear greater than it
really was. In the later time his dark eyes, deeply set
under a projecting brow and thick eye-brows, were the
most noticeable feature of his face, while his mouth was
almost hidden. In earlier days, when he wore no beard
and moustache, the delicate and mobile lines of his mouth,
betraying every transitory touch of sympathy, pleasure
or amusement, gave to his face a look of sensitiveness
and a peculiar sweetness. This look was in entire
harmony with the gentleness and modesty of his address,
while the upper part of his face, which was rather
immobile, left the impression of intellectual power and
of a patient but somewhat stern sadness.
His modesty was one of the most essential and beauti-
ful traits of his character. It was native, and was only
increased by the consciousness of intellectual power. To
compare his own gifts with those of others was unnatural
to him ; he was not competitive, and had hardly any
temptation to be vain. He went out into the world, as
c 2
xxxvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Thring had bidden him, ' not as a lord and judge, but as
an humble child seeking wisdom.' ' Wisdom,' philosophy,
deepened in him the sense of mystery, the need of
worship, and the feeling of his own littleness; and
habitual intercourse with the greatest minds kept him
constantly aware of the difference between their powers
and his. I have heard him say many ' irreverent ' things,
but I never once saw him in an irreverent state of mind.
This humility towards all that was above him was
the source of much of his influence over younger men,
who felt it the more because it was linked to abilities and
achievements far above their own. It put conceit or
assumption to shame, encouraged the timid, and led
Nettleship's pupils to regard him as a fellow-worker.
To this modesty, which was a spring of strength alone,
were joined a diffidence of nature and a disinclination to
self-assertion, in which strength was mingled with weak-
ness. These traits were often obvious at a glance.
Nettleship's hesitation in beginning to give an opinion,
his preliminary disavowals of knowledge, and his qualifi-
cations of statement, amused his pupils and formed the
grain of truth round which a body of College legends
gathered. To a large extent they were mere unconscious
tricks of manner. So far as they were more, they arose
from his constant sense that his knowledge was frag-
mentary and his insight limited ; from the perception that
different minds, however unequal in power of vision, still
catch glimpses of different sides of truth ; and from the
fact that, until he began to think, he was often unaware
that he had an answer to the question put to him, while
it never occurred to him to suppose that it was his duty
as an educator to pretend to have an opinion when he
had none. His diffidence led some people to imagine
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xxxvii
that he was not only in the best sense humble, but had
a lower estimate of himself than of them ; and in this
they were generally mistaken. If 'humility' means this
kind of self- depreciation, he neither was nor, on the
whole, appeared to be humble ; indeed, his readiness to
treat seriously the opinion of a beginner was frequently
touched with irony, and there was sometimes traceable
in his manner to intellectual men of his own age his
feeling that they were as far as himself from being great
or wise. Still it is true, for good and for ill, that it cost
him an effort to assert himself. He had little of the
temperament, the gifts, and the defects, of a leader and
ruler. Though he influenced men greatly, he scarcely
set himself to influence them, and was not inclined to
direct their lives for them. He could take and hold his
own way, but he was not eager — perhaps was too little
eager — to induce others to join it. He hated conflict,
and was ready to sacrifice a good deal to avoid the
waste caused by friction. Yet I do not know that he
ever sacrificed what he thought essential ; and though
the effort which it cost him to oppose or pain those
whom he admired or cared for was sometimes visible in
a certain roughness of manner, neither in his private nor
in his more public life did he flinch from ungracious
tasks.
It would be misleading to describe Nettleship simply
as reserved or unsociable, and he was not exactly shy.
But it is true that in society he was often silent and
appeared uncomfortable. The surface of social inter-
course was not his element : after a short course of
'saying pleasant things to pleasant people' a feeling
of unreality and futility came over him and made him
dumb. This does not mean that he could only interest
xxxvm
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
himself in intellectual subjects. Indeed much of what
is called cultivated conversation was as unsatisfying to
him as the merest gossip, and he was quite at home with
people who had never heard of philosophy. If I may
so put it, an intelligent or affectionate savage would
have suited him, and a philosopher or poet would doubt-
less have suited him better still ; but in proportion as
people were further removed from one of these extremes
without approaching the other, their attraction for him
diminished. Thus he couH be happy with any child
of nature, of whatever nationality, rank, or degree of
culture ; and he would talk readily with any one keenly
interested in his own experience or occupation, or in
human beings, or ideas, or works of art. But in the
middle region of political or literary discussion he moved
with an air of forced interest or suppressed discomfort ;
and, when he felt a barrier between his own mind and
that of another, the feeling that conversation was useless
tempted him to withdraw into himself or (more rarely)
to become combative. Such dumbness or combative-
ness arose almost wholly, I think, from irritation at his
own inability to enjoy the good of the moment ; and
he made many efforts, if not many successful ones, to
master what he himself regarded as a weakness.
When his society suited him, his conversation was
remarkable in more ways than one. It was not brilliant,
and he never attempted to make it so ; but it was
original. His mind was eminently unconventional, and,
unlike some unconventional minds, it had no ruts of its
own. He approached a subject as if he were ignorant
of the received views, and wished, by observing it
steadily, to learn something of its nature ; and his ideas
about it, while as far as possible from being eccentric or
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH XXXIX
wrong-headed, were often surprisingly fresh and pregnant.
They presupposed, however, in his fellow-talker a willing-
ness to press into the matter, and also to supply con-
siderations which Nettleship himself thought too obvious
to be mentioned. His omission of these was sometimes a
cause of bewilderment, as he appeared to be maintaining,
as the whole truth, what was merely a partial view.
Another marked quality of his conversation was its
intellectual sympathy. He seemed not to compare an
opinion of his own with the opinion of another, but o
adopt the idea offered to him and to win from it new
suggestions which often transformed it. His constant
study of Plato's dialogues no doubt strengthened this
tendency, but it was a part of his nature. He did not
care for argument. To ' talk philosophy ' meant to him
the attempt of two minds to arrive at new results in
company, these results being something which neither
of the explorers had foreseen, and in which neither could
have distinguished his separate contribution. In this
kind of joint search after truth I have known no one at
all equal to him.
It is evident from the reports of his pupils that these
characteristics of his conversation reappeared in his
tutorial teaching. In discussing philosophical questions
he appeared to ignore the recognized views and the
recognized terminology with which his pupil had
probably some acquaintance ; he attacked the matter
as if it were something perfectly new, into which he was
making his way for the first time. At the end of two
years a pupil might have heard not a sentence from
him about some of the most famous controversies, yet
he found himself familiar with the points really at issue.
When he read his essay to Nettleship. he found his tutor
xl BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
assuming that he had something of value to say, and
that he meant what he said ; and this was equally taken
for granted, whether he had advanced some hopelessly
confused view, or some wilful paradox, or an idea which
he imagined likely to be welcome, or one which he
expected to hear condemned. In any case he was led
into a joint attempt to examine the position stated, and
to get from it nearer to the truth which he was believed
to be anxious to find. He recognized, at once or after-
wards, the intellectual sympathy which had enabled his
tutor to conduct this process ; and indeed it may be said
that Nettleship's intercourse with his pupils differed from
his conversation with older men only in being deliberately
adapted to an educational purpose, and, of course, in
being less unrestrained. It is no exaggeration to call
him a master in the art of educating able men in philo-
sophical thinking. If his art ever failed him, it must
have been in dealing with the less able among his pupils.
He probably left some of them doubtful of his own
position, possibly doubtful whether he did not regard all
philosophies as equally true.
The same doubts were occasionally felt by strangers of
his own age, who surmised from his conversation that, with
regard to theories, he was an eclectic, and that in moral
judgment he was over tolerant. Neither of these im-
pressions was correct ; he had not even the tendency to
think all ideas equally true, or all modes of life and
action equally good or bad. But no doubt his instinct
was to look for the truth or goodness of everything, and
to thrust nothing aside as insignificant or worthless.
His mind was naturally synthetic. He had a strong
feeling of the unity or continuity of human experience,
and was more inclined to dwell on the presence of one
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xli
principle in many manifestations than upon the defects
which make any one manifestation of it imperfect. In
regard to morality he did not, as a rule, use the language
most familiar to Englishmen. It was natural to him to
think of better and worse rather than of right and
wrong ; of the attainment of an end, the fulfilment of
one's possibilities, the increase of one's being, rather
than of obedience to law, or conscience, or duty.
Antitheses like those of duty and pleasure, or self and
others, were not to his mind ; like all antitheses, they
were apt to provoke him, so that he would startle
a neighbour with whom he might be in substantial
agreement, by declaring that every one does in the end
what pleases him best, or that there is no action on
earth which may not be good or may not be bad, or
that for a man's self there is no difference between
things called great and things called little, though there
is plenty of difference between what is hard and what
is easy. Thus he sometimes seemed, especially to a
listener unused to philosophy, to be denying the most
obvious distinctions, or perhaps to be maintaining the
heresy that good and evil differ only in degree. In
reality no one could have held more strongly that the
difference between them is absolute ; what was alien
to Nettleship's mind was the pretension to be able to
separate the world into two parts called evil and good,
or the attempt to restrict the manifestation of goodness
to its generally recognized forms. Doubtless, he would
have said, it is chiefly in these forms that human nature
is able to realize its possibilities ; but that is no reason
for attempting to bind it down to them.
Nettleship's sympathy with almost any passion, or
with any action which, however unusual, seemed to
xlii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
spring from a real conviction, was connected with this
mode of thought, and also with his own inward experi-
ence. There was nothing really strange in its being
combined with an exceptional seriousness, patience,
gentleness, and dutifulness. These traits were obvious ;
the passionate aspiration and effort of his life were
less evident, but not less characteristic. He struggled
vehemently to attain singleness of purpose, his ' one pearl
of great price,' and to make a harmony of the different
elements of his nature. But these elements were very
diverse. Among them were strong animal impulses,
and something wild and untameable, which found no
satisfaction in the limits of his habitual life, and made
him feel, when he escaped from that life, that some day
he should leave it for ever, although it, too, answered to
a no less urgent need within him. Nor could he, like
some men, flatly deny the justice of these demands of
his nature, or feel that they were wholly alien to the
spirit which drove him to seek for truth, and to love
and serve his fellows. Hence, while he was as far as
possible from undervaluing the great typical virtues
which form the basis or substance of morality, he sym-
pathized keenly with any strenuous effort to reach the
good of life, however unlike the direction taken by it
might be to the recognized order ; and when an action
seemed to him to embody this effort, he could not
acquiesce in hearing it condemned merely because it
was not easy to apply to it one of the common terms of
approval, or because it was easy to affix to it one of the
common terms of blame.
Let a man contend to the uttermost
For his life's set prize, be it what it will !
— the spirit of these lines appealed to him. The readiness
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xliii
to find good wherever there is a full pulse of the soul
drew him to Browning and to Whitman, and was one of
the reasons why Plato and Spinoza attracted him most
among philosophers. ' He seems to me,' he wrote of
Plato, ' to have more of the eternal human nature in
him than any one else except Shakespeare.'
It was a natural result of Nettleship's way of think-
ing that the unity in his ideas and character was more
easy to feel than to understand. It was felt by those
who knew him that, in everything which he said or
did, he was emphatically himself, that he brought into
the little things of life the same spirit that appeared in
his best thoughts, and that he did what was common
in an uncommon way. But few of his friends would
have been able to say in what centre his thoughts
met, or what system they formed, or to predict with
entire confidence what his view of a given question
would be, or how he would feel about any particular
occurrence. Thus the unity and connection so obvious
in the lives and ideas of men like Mazzini or Green
(I name them because of Nettleship's admiration for
them) were in his case far less visible. He himself
would have been the first to laugh at the comparison,
and to say that the reason of the difference lay in the
fact that these were much greater men than he, and
knew their own minds much better. But the reason
did not lie solely here. To say nothing of his never
having set himself to express his ideas in writing, it
lay also in the complexity of his nature, his impatience
of limitations, and the continual effort, which was so
characteristic of him, to bring a larger and larger
experience into the focus of his inner life. Absurdly
exalted as the claim would have sounded to him, there
xliv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
was in him the impulse to appropriate, what Browning,
on his higher plane of genius and energy, had the impulse
to express, the various experiences of the philosopher,
the scholar, the artist, the man of action, the philan-
thropist, the lover, and even the saint. At the same
time what he longed for, and perhaps felt most hopeless
of attaining, was something of the simplicity of the child
or the great man. The lines most frequently on his lips
were Goethe's couplet : —
Nur wo du bist sei alles, immer kindlich ;
So bist du alles, bist uniiberwindlich.
Feeling intensely the unity of experience and the
presence of the whole in every part, he was compara-
tively little interested in dwelling on the connection of
the parts, or in demonstrating that the aims of artist,
philanthropist, and philosopher are ultimately one, while
he felt that the way for a man to realize his whole
self was to throw his whole heart into each thing that
touched him, and to make of each thing all that it was
capable of being l .
Some other traits in Nettleship's character seemed to
be connected with the philosophic strain in his nature ;
for instance, his disposition to bring himself into positive
relation with views of the most different kinds, and (if
Plato was right 2 ) the habitual gentleness with which his
1 The following words, from Nettleship's discussion of the Philebus,
are very characteristic of his own feeling : ' If the end of our being is to
be, to be the utmost we are capable of being, then the higher the
constant level at which we can live, the less the energy which we have
to spend in escaping the pain of depression, the more each moment
contains in itself, and the less it borrows from felt contrast with a lower
past or a higher future, the more nearly do we approach the full measure,
the full beauty, the full truth, in which, according to the Philebus, the
principle of good is manifested.'
2 Nettleship was fond of the passage referred to, Rep. ii. 376.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xlv
occasional irritability or brusqueness formed so odd
a contrast. He was also in a remarkable degree, and
in a peculiar way, ' impersonal ' in feeling and in expres-
sion. I do not mean merely that he was very dis-
interested and free from touchiness, personal resentment,
and the like ; but it was more than usually easy to him
to regard things from a general point of view, and, in
speaking of them, he was accustomed to ignore their
effect upon his own feelings. Even in matters where he
or his friends were most deeply concerned, he maintained
the attitude of a dispassionate and, one might almost say,
of an indifferent spectator with an ease and a naivete which
was sometimes comical as well as beautiful. He would
speak of the harm done by the teaching of philosophy,
of the possible decline of his College or his country, of the
troubles or the death of a friend, of his own sufferings or
his own shortcomings, always with seriousness, no doubt,
but still as though he were a ' spectator of all time and
all existence,' anxious only for the truth ; and it is easy
to fancy him discussing his own death as though it did
not affect him personally at all. Statements like these
may give to those who did not know him a strange
impression, perhaps even the ludicrously false impression
that he was affected or priggish ; but the peculiarity of
manner to which I refer was too characteristic to pass
unmentioned. Perhaps, also, it may have led strangers
to suppose that he was apathetic and likely to be too
quiescent. But in reality the personal feelings which he
ignored in speaking of things simply as they are, were
warm enough, and he would have been the first to fight
against the avoidable evils which he so quietly discussed.
Balliol. for example, had not in his eyes the glamour it
possesses for many of its sons, but he was as ready to
xlvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
work for his College and as devoted to it as any of them
could be. As a friend he was not only true but affec-
tionate, and untiring in helpfulness. Indeed, to be
helpful to those he loved, and, I may almost say, to any
human being who needed him, was one of the keenest of
his pleasures. Perhaps it was a pleasure all the keener
because his feelings were not easily expressed in look or
tone or spoken words. And if this is true of his affection
for others, it is quite as true of the pleasure he took in
their affection for him. He showed such pleasure less
than most men, but he certainly felt it more. To be dis-
liked by any one, however poor an opinion he had of
the person, was painful to him. He had a longing for
sympathy from those whom he liked which most of
them can never have guessed ; and perhaps even those
nearest to him never fully realized, while he lived, that
his delight in being loved was as simple and strong as
a dog's or a child's.
It remains that something should be said of Nettle-
ship as a student and teacher of philosophy. Readers
will prefer to gather for themselves from these volumes
a notion of his philosophical position, or at least of the
ideas on which he dwelt mos". Of the former, I need
only say that he was in substantial agreement with the
idealism represented first and most powerfully in Oxford
by Green. He was very sensible of the difficulties of
this point of view, and did not expect to see them alto-
gether removed ; but he was convinced that they were
not to be avoided by falling back upon easier theories,
and that their solution, so far as it lies within the power
of the mind at all, must be sought not in giving up
idealism but in pushing it farther. He thought also
that critics were apt to forget that the question is not
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xlvii
merely whether a certain theory is wholly satisfactory,
but whether it does not interpret and harmonize our
experience better than any other. With all his admira-
tion for Green, however, his own mind was framed on
another model. In his handling of questions he scarcely
ever reminds one of his old tutor ; and he took excep-
tion to some of Green's language, though rather because
he thought it likely to mislead than from disagree-
ment with what he believed it to mean. This applies
especially to some of the statements in Green's works
regarding nature and the difference between nature and
mind. Students of philosophy will notice in these
volumes 1 how frequently and emphatically Nettleship
recurs to the continuity of all existence ; and an ex-
tract from a letter written towards the end of his life
may indicate the constant direction of his thoughts.
' I think,' he writes, ' I shall end my days as something
like a Spinozist 2 . At least I get more and more to
feel that there is absolutely no difference in principle
between what is called physical and what is called
spiritual, and that if one can understand a triangle
one can understand oneself.' Many similar expressions
occur in his later letters. They do not mean that he
was inclined to reduce something higher to something
lower, but rather that he believed himself to find more
1 Particularly in some of the Miscellaneous Papers and Extracts from
Letters. However slight and hasty these may be, they seem to me to
represent him more adequately than his lectures or even his essays, in
which the subject, or again the predominance of an educational purpose,
often prevented him from emphasizing his own view or dealing fully
with the most difficult questions.
2 Some readers will perhaps object that in that case he would not
have ended his days as an ' idealist.' If so, it will be safe to say that
he was and remained in substantial agreement with the type of philo-
sophy represented, with differences, by Plato, Spinoza, and Hegel.
xlviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
and more of the higher in the lower. These terms,
however, he would probably not have used ; he was ac-
customed, rather, to distinguish between the more partial
and the more complete, the more abstract and the more
concrete, appearances of the whole. It may be added
that, in weighing Nettleship's words, the reader will do
well to remember what has been said of his tendency,
in dwelling on a particular aspect of truth, to ignore as
self-evident more obvious complementary aspects.
Nettleship's insistance on the continuity of things may
be seen in another characteristic of his philosophizing. He
was deeply impressed by the truth that the answer to
complicated questions lies in the understanding of simple
ones, or that the only way to approach the interpretation
of the highest facts of experience is to arrive at clearness
about the most elementary. He writes, for instance: 'If
I had to begin over again, I should like to try to master
the elements of a few big things. Till I have done this,
the rest is all confusion, and talking about it is beating
the air. And whenever I at all understand the elements,
I seldom find much difficulty in finding " applications "
everywhere. Anything presents every kind of problem '
(January 1890). Again: 'These old chaps [the Greek
philosophers] certainly do bring one face to face with
elemental things, and that is what I want. I sometimes
feel that if I could only be quite clear about such things
as one and many, same and other, rest and motion,
all life would be simple' (July 1891). And with this
characteristic, again, was connected another. ' One always
comes back to the feeling that the truth in these ultimate
problems is not got by thinking (in the ordinary sense),
but by living'' — so he wrote in 1880, and the words
have nothing unusual about them, except perhaps the
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xlix
implication that there may be a ' thinking ' which is
equivalent to ' living ' ; but in his last years Nettleship
felt equally strongly the necessity of this ' living,' or of
personal experience, for the real understanding not
merely of ultimate problems but of the simplest facts.
He writes in 1889: 'One cannot understand anything
unless one can in some remote way experience it.'
Again, in the same year : ' I am at work at Plato again.
The endless difficulty of these big men is that one can
only understand them at the rare times when one has
fragmentary glimpses of their actual experience. At
other times they are mere words.' And a year later :
' I have got on slowly, but, I think, fairly satisfactorily
with Plato : but I am continually being pulled up by
inability really to feel certain extremely elementary facts
which, I am sure, meant any amount to him.' The mis-
giving which most troubled Nettleship regarding his
capacity to write a valuable philosophical book was,
I think, the doubt whether he had sufficient ' experience.'
The feeling expressed in these quotations explains in
part some traits already touched on, and some others
worth mention. It supplies one reason why Nettleship's
interpretation of great philosophers was so exceptionally
close and sympathetic, and why it sometimes advanced
so slowly. It partly explains also his want of interest
in much philosophical writing. He often felt that though,
in a sense, he understood an author's meaning, he was
unable to ' realize ' it, and that, instead of repeating and
grasping an unusual experience, he was going through
a mere exercise in dialectics, though it did not follow
that he laid the blame on the author. He seldom
read the writings of a great man's disciples, because
he thought they generally made him easier by pulling
VOL. I. d
1 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
him down to their own level. He was averse to philo-
sophical controversy, largely from a feeling that often
the disputants were separated ultimately by inability to
reach one another's experience. He thought, for instance,
that to a competent ' hedonist ' the word ' pleasure '
could not denote the experience of which his opponent
wrote; and although Green's arguments against hedonism
seemed to him sound, the problem that really interested
him was to find the central flaw in the experience
which Green called pleasure, — the flaw which is the real
ground of the intellectual difficulties of hedonism 1 . Two
other characteristics may be mentioned in conclusion.
Nettleship's own language was studiously simple, and he
had a strong dislike to needlessly technical terminology ;
partly, no doubt, on grounds of taste 2 , but partly because
he knew how easy it is for students of philosophy to
suppose that they have appropriated an author's meaning
when they are really doing hardly more than repeating
his phrases. He also took comparatively little interest in
the working-out of ideas into detail, in their application to
a wide field of instances, or in the solution of subordinate
problems. His own method was to state his main idea
as simply and broadly as possible, to illustrate it by
one or two very familiar examples, and to leave the rest
to the hearer or reader. His taste in these respects was
1 He attempted to indicate this in a few lines in his Memoir of Green,
p. cxxxvii.
2 I have had no opportunity of referring to the accuracy and delicacy
of Nettleship's feeling for language. This was evident in his criticisms
and translations, and (I am told) in his compositions in Latin, Greek,
and Italian. It is obvious in his English prose, and also in the few
pieces of verse that he wrote. Green suggested to him in early days
that he might approach philosophy from the side of language ; and
various passages in his lectures and letters show an inclination to do so.
See, for example, pp. 53-4, 86, 99, 127-141, of this volume.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH li
repelled by the verbosity and repetitions of some philo-
sophers. For example, though I do not suppose he
underrated Kant's greatness, much of the Critiques
seemed to him mere surplusage, an ocean of unnecessary
words containing a few ideas, profound and far-reaching,
but capable of simple statement.
Some of the characteristics lately mentioned seem to
account both for the striking effectiveness of his teaching,
and for the few defects, real or imaginary, which I have
been able to conjecture from report. To begin with the
latter, a few of his hearers thought his lectures common-
place, and the less able men found some of them difficult
to understand. The simplicity both of his method of
treatment and of his language seems to be the main
source of dissatisfaction in both these cases. For those
who wanted striking or piquant remarks upon Plato,
instead of interpretation of Plato, Nettleship's lectures
can of course have had little attraction ; and his avoidance
of technicalities, of reference to controversies, and of
negative criticism, as well as his reduction of every
problem to its barest expression, might easily deceive
a clever man who, in his ignorance of the difficulties
around him, was led so simply to a result. And, though
it may seem strange, these same characteristics may
have been a cause of perplexity to the less able
of Nettleship's pupils ; for reference to controversies,
negative criticism, and even technical terms, though
they may bewilder and mislead the beginner in philo-
sophy, also arrest his attention, give a certain support
to his mind, and sometimes open a passage from his
ordinary experience to the world of thought, while
a very simple positive statement on a difficult matter
conveys very little to him, and therefore seems to him
d 3
Hi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
cither trivial or obscure. Nettleship himself felt that
his simplicity sometimes made him hard to understand,
and in one of the last of his letters alludes to the fact.
He says : ' I find my mind perpetually running on
certain elementary things, and at the same time I only
get at anything by realizing it in very homely instances ;
and I fancy the combination is embarrassing to many
people. The natural way to most men seems to be to
move in a sort of middle region of half-imagery, half-
abstractions, which always bothers me.' To this may
be added that, whatever a lecturer's powers of speech
may be, a treatment of difficult questions not preceded
by any verbal preparation must sometimes be hard to
follow, and even wanting in lucidity.
On the other side, only a few words need be added
to the remarks already made under various heads : for,
if the foregoing pages have conveyed to the reader any
definite idea of what wa.s most characteristic of Nettle-
ship as a man and a student of philosophy, he will be
as well able as I to imagine the effect of his teaching
and influence. His pupils felt that they were in contact
with a man remarkable for intellectual strength and
subtlety, but still more remarkable for the seriousness
and sincerity with which he endeavoured to find and to
convey to them the truth. They felt that he was careless
of novelty and brilliance, and uninfluenced by partiality
and antipathy ; that, sympathetic as he was to ideas
from every source, and full of reverence for great men,
he still valued ideas solely for their truth, and emphasized
only truths which he had himself experienced ; that,
greatly as he cared to help them, he did not seek to
win their adherence to any doctrine, or even to elevate
and inspire them, but simply told them what he saw to
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH liii
be true. At the same time, they felt that the search
for truth, the philosophy which it was his business to
teach, was no mere intellectual employment to him, but
his life ; and that the truths which he had learned and
wished them to learn with him made life, in his eyes,
significant and great. He founded no school, and
perhaps few of his pupils could have set out in form
the ideas he gave them ; but he taught them to think
and to believe in thinking, and some of them are
conscious that most of what they value in their own
minds derives from him. He could not preach to them ;
but they know from his silent witness that the only sure
way of doing good to others is to try to be good oneself.
How can they remember him without feeling, as he felt,
that conceit is ridiculous, cowardice more painful than
any pain, selfishness treason to oneself; that sloth and
hardness and all forms of evil are literally a dying of the
soul, and that no other death is worth a thought ? They
may have guessed that his interest in them sustained
him in weariness, and that to him there was ' no reward
so great as the feeling that one has won the gratitude
and affection of the undergraduates.' They will like to
know that when, just before he left home for the last
time, circumstances led to his making his will and writing
other directions in case of death, he remembered many
of them. ' I should like, 5 he wrote, ' to send greetings
to a huge number of men whom I have known at school
and college, but I could not make a complete list, and
I should not like to make an incomplete one.'
I have said that Nettleship could not preach to his
pupils (and the word is not used in any offensive sense).
Feeling so strongly that philosophy ought to be, and, at its
best, can be, only the utterance of personal experience,
liv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
he was keenly conscious of the distance between his
own life and the thoughts of great writers, so that he
would sometimes exclaim that the more he understood
what life really was, the less he lived it. Even as
a young man he was half afraid to speak of his higher
aims and aspirations, and when he did so would break
off with such words as, ' it is no good dreaming until one
has bridged over the gulfs in oneself.' It was therefore
quite impossible for him to adopt the tone of a preacher,
and he even shrank from lecturing on those subjects
which touch most directly on life and conduct. After
a single experiment in 1872, he never gave a general
lecture on Moral Philosophy *, and even in his lectures
on Greek Ethics or the history of Moral Philosophy he
was often ill at ease and felt himself ' a solemn humbug.'
It is not likely that the effect of his teaching was
diminished by this feeling, but it cost him many a
struggle.
Chiefly for this reason, too, he would never give any-
thing in the shape of a religious address. He did at one
time begin to write for his pupils a paper which touched
directly on the nature of religious ideas : it was studiously
matter of fact in tone, but he put it aside. A good deal
later, when he was invited to give an address of this
kind, he declined. ' I am quite clear,' he wrote in
reference to this proposal, ' that whatever religion there
is in me had better come out in the only form which is
natural to it. i. e. in my ordinary work. The specifically
religious form of expression — preaching — seems to me
1 Almost the whole of the course given in 1872 dealt really with
metaphysical and psychological foundations, not with moral philosophy
itself. The lectures were written in full, but no trace of them remained
among his papers.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH lv
only to be right when it is one element in a specifically
religious life.' His objection, it need hardly be said,
had nothing to do with the fact that he was a layman ;
and no one was more anxious than he that the men
should hear from Green as many lay-sermons as he was
able to give. But those ideas and modes of worship
which are considered 'specifically religious' occupied in
Green's life a place which they did not occupy in Nettle-
ship's, after he had definitely broken with traditional
beliefs. Though he would have accepted most of what
Green wrote and said of those ideas, they ceased to be
the natural channels of his religious experience, and he
seldom found in the customary forms of worship the
' best moments ' on which he relied for inspiration. Yet
the thoughts which ruled his life, though far too difficult
and too free from the alloy of sense to form the creed of
a Church, were fitted to be the medium of religious
experience in a mind like his ; and assuredly they were
so. If ' religion ' means the union of a man's whole
being with that which he conceives as at once the source
and the perfection of all that he knows, admires, and
loves ; and if a man may be called ' religious ' when his
deepest desire is to attain such union, and when his life
is full of the effort after it — then those who knew Nettle-
ship best will feel that they have scarcely known a more
religious man.
In his last years he had given up some of his Col-
lege work, and it is most likely that before very long
he would have retired and have devoted himself in
London to philosophical writing. Nor is it probable
that, even if his colleagues had wished him to become
Master, he could have been induced to accept a position
which in some respects would have been very uncongenial
lvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
to him, and for which he considered himself in those
respects unfitted. He was thought by the friends who
saw most of him in these last years to look decidedly
older, and at the same time to have grown more peaceful,
if not happier. He had, I think, mastered the restless-
ness of unsatisfied love ; and, while his sympathies were
only deepened and enlarged, he seemed to have attained
much of that indifference to the chances and changes of
life of which religious writers speak. Alike in intellect
and character, which in him seemed in a peculiar degree
inseparable, he was standing, when his death came,
higher than he had ever stood before. The last of his
letters to me was written the night before he started
for Switzerland, never to return ; it was meant to be
read only if he chanced to be the first to die ; and almost
its final words were these : ' Don't bother about death ;
it doesn't count.' Not for him, doubtless, or for that
which includes both him and all who loved him or felt
his influence ; but to them, and, as they believe, to others,
his death counts only too much. He lives indeed in
them so long as they are true to him ; but they must
feel how dim is the reflection that their memories, or
even these Remains, can render of a spirit so ardent,
deep, and pure l .
A. C. B.
1 I have been asked to print the inscription on the memorial tablet in
Balliol College Chapel. The words are as follows :■ — ' In memory of
Richard Lewis Nettleship, for twenty-three years a tutor in this College.
He was born at Kettering, December xvn, mdcccxlvi, and died on
Mont Blanc, August xxv, mdcccxcii. He loved great things, and
thought little of himself: desiring neither fame nor influence, he won
the devotion of men and was a power in their lives : and, seeking no
disciples, he taught to many the greatness of the world and of man's
mind.'
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
AND
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS
VOL I
IMMORTALITY
(PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS)
[This paper, and the two that follow it, entitled
' Pleasure ' and ' Spirit,' were written two or three years
before the author's death. They were composed, by way
of experiment, for a friend who wished to discover how
far the want of education in technical philosophy would
be a hindrance to the understanding of some of the ideas
which were occupying Nettleship's mind.]
PEOPLE talk of ' personal ' immortality, and often find
fault with what philosophers say on the ground that it
is merely ' impersonal.'
It is clear that the first thing to do is to come to some
understanding as to what we are to mean by personality.
It is probably the hardest of all subjects, and yet it is
one upon which we are all ready to pronounce in the
most easy-going way.
It is worth while to bring home to oneself how extra-
ordinarily vague, confused, or inadequate, many of the
things are which we suppose ourselves to mean by per-
sonality.
B 2
4 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
To begin with, we generally assume it to be a definite,
self-contained, unchanging thing, round and about which
all sorts of more or less separable and changing ap-
pendages confusedly float.
Or it is something ' inward,' the most inward of all
things, that to which we think we should come if we
stripped off all the coats of circumstances, custom,
education.
But we soon realize, on thinking, that there is no
circle to be drawn round any one, within which all is
' personal,' and without which all is ' impersonal.' We
realize what may be called the continuity of things. What,
for instance, is a triangle ? A space bounded by three
straight lines. Where does ' it ' stop ? At the lines, of
course. But these lines are merely its contact with
surrounding space, and the ' personality ' of the triangle
is one thing if the surrounding space be limited to the
page of a book, another thing if it be extended to the
room where the book is, another thing if it be carried on
to include the solar system, and so on. And though for
particular purposes it is necessary to define the triangle
in particular ways, it is, strictly speaking, quite true that
it is continuously one with the spatial universe.
What is a ' person ' ? A body occupying a certain
place, keeping out and otherwise acting on other bodies.
What and how many other bodies? It has weight, it
exerts pressure, it causes the sensations of colour, sound,
smell. Each of these again is continuous with other
sensations, and ultimately with universes, of weight,
colour, sound, scent, &c.
A man touches me with his hand, looks at me, speaks
to me. All this is called 'personal ' communication. He
writes a letter to me. This too would be called by some
IMMORTALITY: PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS 5
' personal/ He builds a house, makes a picture, founds
an institution, passes a law : I live in his house, enjoy his
picture, am maintained by his institution, am put in
prison or protected by his law. Is this personal or not ?
If not, why not ?
Well, it will be said, you may not know ox fed that it
is his house, his law, &c, whereas you must know or feel
that it is his hand or voice.
But what does ' his' mean? There lies the whole
question. In calling the touch the touch of his hand,
you mean that you know, or have reason to believe, that
under certain circumstances the touch would be accom-
panied by some other sensations, and those by others,
and so on : and this possible continuity you call ' him.'
Apply the same principle to the other things. It is only
want of power that prevents me from connecting the
feelings which I have when I look at the picture or am
protected by the law, as continuously and as indissolubly
with the ' him ' who made them.
Of course it will be said, ' This want of power is just
what makes the difference.' No doubt it does, but it is
good to realize that it is want of power that puts the
limits to our sense of personality, and that, as a matter
of fact, those limits are very varying in different people,
and in the same people at different times.
Everybody is 'continuous' with a good deal more than
(say) the space six feet round him and the time an hour
on each side of him. The simplest memories, hopes,
associations, imaginations, inferences, are extensions of
personality far greater than we can easily realize. Every
'here' and every 'now' is the centre of practically innu-
merable ' theres ' and ' thens,' and the centres are abso-
lutely inseparable from their circumferences.
6 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
Loss, separation, death, is failure of continuity. A being
which was (so to say) always closing up with everything
would change but would not die.
There is an irresistible tendency to associate, or even
to identify, immortality with duration. Yet when we
think of it, we see that duration, strictly speaking, plays
very little part in what we really mean by immortality,
so far as we mean anything by it.
Take any simple fact of duration, e. g. an hour of
time. What is an ' hour ' ? ' The time taken by a hand
on a clock to go round a certain space and get back
to the point it started from ' ; ' the time taken by
a shadow to move from a certain point to another
certain point,' &c.
But these simple-sounding phrases are not so simple.
The 'time taken by the clock-hand to move,' &c, is
supposed to be a definite, absolute, thing. But it is
only so by reference to. or comparison with, some other
' time taken,' e. g. a certain portion of the motion of the
earth in regard to the sun. Try as hard as you like to
attach a definite meaning to ' hour,' you will inevitably
find yourself thinking of at least two things, which you
will probably call at first ' the time ' and ' what happens
in it.' Thus an hour may mean that, if you could watch
the clock-hand and the sun together, a certain position
of the one would coincide over and over again with
a certain position of the other : i. e. they would take the
same time to do a certain thing (get from here to there).
Or again, ' it takes an hour to read twenty pages of
a book,' ' it takes an hour to feel at home with so and
so ' ; these mean that, if we could watch a clock-hand and
IMMORTALITY : PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS 7
certain parts of ourselves, we should find certain acts of
the clock-hand (reaching a certain point) coinciding with
certain acts of our intelligence or feelings : and ulti-
mately (as the position of the clock-hand means some-
thing which we sec, or infer from what we see) an hour
means two or more acts of consciousness compared and
identified (i.e. felt to be the same in a certain respect, viz.
in respect of points of beginning and ending).
Accordingly 'an hour' is a very different thing accord-
ingly as the experiences compared and identified are
different. There is no such thing as ' absolutely long ' or
'absolutely short.' As we all know, 'an hour' (in the
sense of two observed positions of a clock-hand) may be
long or short according to what we do or experience in
the interval. If we are simply ' waiting ' for something,
' it' will probably seem very • long.' What is the 'it' in
this case ? Probably it is the observation of the clock-
hand in a great many different positions, or of the
pendulum making a great many beats. These are the
things to which we attend, and, properly speaking, these
are what we are doing or experiencing during the
' hour ' : the ' hour ' is (say) 3,600 beats heard, plus the
perception that the first beat and the last coincide with
a certain position of the clock-hand. Now this is a very
large experience of its kind ; we go through a great deal
of auditory perceptk n and attention in it ; and we express
this by calling the hour very ' long,' because the per-
ception in question happens to be the perception which
has been chosen to measure 'length of time' (i.e. it is
the experience with which we compare and, in a certain
respect, identify other experiences).
Now suppose the hour is not passed in ' waiting,' but
in a very interesting talk. At the end we constantly say,
8 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
' How short the time seems ! I should not have thought
it was an hour.' First, then, what does an ' interesting '
talk mean ? To be ' interested ' is simply to be ' in it,'
and this means that we are attending a great deal. But
what does a ' great deal ' mean ? To attend to 3,6co
beats of a pendulum is to attend a ' great deal ' ; so is
to watch a clock-hand passing through sixty points ;
so is to take in a page of a hard book, or fifty pages of
an exciting novel, or a scene in a good play ; so is to
perform a delicate surgical operation, to draw a delicate
line, to sing an exciting or difficult song, to have a row
with any one when you are really angry, and so on.
These different operations may ' take very different
times'; i.e. the beginnings and endings of them may
coincide with very different positions of the earth with
regard to the sun. If at the end of them we are inclined
to say, ' How quickly the time has gone ! ' it means that
we should not have expected (if we had thought about
it) to find the clock-hand where it is. And this again
means that we carry about with us a sort of average
feeling of how long the hand takes to get through
a certain space, and this average feeling represents
roughly how much we should feel between certain
positions of the hand, if we were ' doing nothing in
particular ' (i. e. partly watching the clock, partly doing
a little of fifty other things). When, then, we feel that
' the time ' has been short, we really mean that we have
been going through so much in other ways that we have
gone through very little measurement of time, as ' time '
is usually understood (i. e. as the observation of certain
changes of position in certain bodies). On the other
hand, we are just as likely to say at the end of one
of the experiences mentioned above, ' What an age it
IMMORTALITY : PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS 9
seems ! I seem to have lived through year?.' This is
very interesting, because it makes us see the complete
relativity of time-measurement.
What happens in these cases (when the 'time' seems
' long ') is that we measure the motion of the clock-hand
in terms (so to say) of what we have been experiencing.
We have ' gone through a great deal,' ' lived a great
deal,' ' put out a great deal of energy ' ; and just as the
hour measured on the clock seems 'a great deal ' when
we are ' waiting,' because we attend very much to the
hands, so now we say it seems ' a great deal ' because we
have attended very much to the reading or looking or
singing. Properly speaking, it is not the ' it ' which
seems a great deal (not the clock-measured hour), but it
is the ' it' filled with all that we have experienced. We
are surprised that so much could be ' got into an hour,'
because we mean by an ' hour ' (as we said before)
a rough average of what we expect generally to experi-
ence when the clock-hand moves a certain distance.
All this may not seem to have much to do with
immortality. But it helps one to see that ' duration,'
' g om g on / & c -' have n ot the simple or definite meaning
that we are apt to suppose. The truth seems to be that
nobody ever wishes simply to ' go on ' ; what men really
want, when they want at all, is to be or do more of
what they are or are doing ; but what sort of ' more '
it is depends entirely on the particular circumstances.
What is ' more ' or ' longer ' from one point of view, or
on one principle of measurement, will be ' less ' or
'shorter' on another. We shall always find that, when
we use the terms 'long' and 'short' in an apparently
absolute way, we are applying a rough average sense,
which is got at by unconsciously taking bits out of
io MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
different experiences, and which does not really apply
precisely to any.
We may say, All that we call ' duration ' implies
a comparison of two or more different experiences, any
one of which may be chosen to measure the rest by.
' Absolute duration ' could only apply to a being which
was all in all its experiences (not less in one and more in
another). But then ' duration ' (in our sense) would not
really apply to such a being; and this is just what is
expressed by saying, ' With the Lord one day is as
a thousand years, and a thousand years are as one
day.'
PLEASURE
(PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS)
The discussions of Greek philosophers about pleasure,
the nature of it and the part which it plays for good and
evil in human life, are full of interest and suggestion.
Philosophy is only the concentrated and articulate-
expression of the experience of certain men. an ex-
perience which all people have to some degree. And
in the history of philosophy, accordingly, we may be
said to get a sort of quintessence of what human nature
has come to find in itself, so far as that admits of
expression in language.
The first, and also the last, question that can be asked
about anything is, 'What is it?' It is all-important to
be clear what exactly this question can and ought to
mean. The understanding of this is the foundation of all
clear thinking, as the misunderstanding of it is the source
of all confusion.
Observe, firstly, that the answer to the question,
'What is x?' is never simply ' x.' Such an answer
would universally be admitted to be no answer : the
person giving it would, properly speaking, have said
nothing. All answers that are really answers are of
the form, ' x is y, z, &c.'
12 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
Now this is a very important fact. It compels us to
realize that the ' being ' of anything, that which it ' is,'
its ' .r-hood,' is never adequately expressed by saying,
' It is just itself and nothing else.' Or, to put the same
thing another way, z/and so far as we insist that l x is
just x and nothing else,' we are merely insisting that it is
z';zexpressible.
The instinct which we all have at times to assert this
has, indeed, if rightly understood, a truth in it, which it
is important to consider. We stick to it, and rightly,
that ' x is x ' ; that ' whatever may be said about it by
way of explanation and interpretation, the fact to which
we ultimately come back is the fact from which we start,
the fact that x is not anything else in the world except
itself This conviction has found expression in various
forms; e.g. 'the essence of anything does not admit of
analysis ' ; ' no reason can be given why a thing is what
it is'; 'the individuality (which = indivisibility or un-
analyzableness) of anything is an ultimate fact, behind
which we cannot go.'
Consider in what sense these sayings are true ; and for
this purpose take some simple fact of consciousness, e.g.
the consciousness of the taste of a peach, or that of the
roundness of a circle. In what sense can we, and in
what sense can we not, say ' what these are,' or express
their ' being ' ?
First take the assertion that we cannot. What does it
mean? It means, e.g., that the taste of a peach is not
the taste of any other thing ; that it is unique ; that this
is what is meant by calling it ' of a peach ' ; that, if
a person had never had personal experience of it, we
could never convey its nature to him at all adequately
by any amount of description or analysis ; and that the
PLEASURE : PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS 13
taste remains precisely the same fact of consciousness
after our attempts to define it as it was before.
All this is very true and very important to realize, for
not realizing it leads to all sorts of delusions, and gives
rise to the common feeling that, when people do what
they call f explaining ' a thing, they are usually merely
' explaining it away.'
But now look at the question from another side.
When we rightly assert that the peach-taste is absolutely
unique and individual, what exactly is it that we are
asserting (for we do undoubtedly mean to assert some-
thing, not nothing) ? In other words, what is uniqueness
and individuality ? Or, what is it to be unique and
individual ?
In answering this, let us, as far as possible, put words
out of our mind, and attend to that which we are con-
scious of, that which we experience, in tasting the peach.
Let us start by supposing that the experience comes
without any premeditation (let us wake suddenly and find
a peach in our mouth), and let us further suppose that
we have never tasted or heard of a peach before. The
first and least thing that we can say of the experience is
that it is 'new' ; i.e. it stands out, so to say, from and
against a vague general background (our taste-experience).
If it did not at least do this, there would, strictly speak-
ing, be no ' 1 V at all. This will be found to be equally
true of every experience that we have ; however many
times we may have had it, it is still absolutely distinct
each time that we have it.
It is true that what we call ' habit ' tends to diminish
its distinctness. But what does this really mean?
' Habit ' is not some mysterious force (as we are too apt
to suppose) which ' acts upon us ' ; it is merely the word
i 4 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
expressing one particular kind of limitation in our power
of experiencing. There is no necessary connexion be-
tween the repetition and the loss of an experience. On
the contrary, the curious thing is that it is by repetition
that we gain (as well as lose) experience. Let us go
back to the peach, and illustrate this. We saw that,
whatever the taste is when experienced, however much
or however little there is in it, it is a distinct something,
and that this distinctness is (necessarily) a distinctness in,
or of, or against, a something else. This distinctness is
not something separate from the individuality of the
experience ; it is the individuality ; the ' self-hood ' of
the experience is at the same time a ' not-something-else.'
Now let us see how the experience may^ww, or become
an experience of more. Suppose us to wake a second
and third time with a peach in our mouth. We shall
be conscious of the taste, and we shall also be conscious
that it is the same taste as we had before. Now in this
simple statement there are three possibilities implied.
We may feel inclined to say, either (i) This is the same
taste, only to-day is Tuesday, and the day on which it
occurred before was Monday; or (2) This is the same
taste, but now I like it better or find more in it ; or
(3) This is merely the same taste over again, and it
doesn't interest me so much as it did the first time. In
case (1) we may say that the experience is (though not
precisely, yet for practical purposes) 'the same'; in
(2) it is ' more ' ; in (3) it is ' less.' Consider (2). We are
apt to think that the ' more-ness ' means that, while the
experience itself remains the same, something else has
been added to it. But this is only an imperfect way of
putting the fact. The experience in (2) is just as in-
dividual, just as much ' itself and nothing else,' as the
PLEASURE : PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS 15
original experience, and its individuality consists in an
unanalyzable consciousness. That is, though we describe
it by saying, ' it is the same as the original one but also
more/ we cannot by any device separate the two factors
in it without making it cease to be ' it! Suppose, e. g.,
the increase consists in what we call ' not only new but
pleasant,' ' not only sweet but piquant,' ' not only
peculiar but like some other taste,' ' not only nice to
me but what would be nice for a certain invalid whom
I am fond of; the various elements thus combined by
' not only but also ' make up in each case a sing/r
experience ; the consciousness of the combination is not
a combined consciousness; if we took it to pieces, i.e. if
we attended exclusively first to one, then to another of
its elements, we should be experiencing, not it, but quite
different its.
More obvious illustrations of this truth are, e.g., such
experiences as ' aesthetic impressions ' : the consciousness
of a musical phrase, or of a combination of lines or colours,
is one indivisible thing ; it is not made tip of the several
notes, lines, or colours, but it is these in combination.
In this sense all experience is unanalyzable ; it can
never be divided without becoming a different experience,
any more than an organism can be divided into its organs
without ceasing to be an organism.
On the other hand, no experience is, strictly speaking,
simple; i.e. an experience is never of one thing merely,
but always of a unity of two or more things. And in
this sense it always admits of analysis, or rather, it
always is an analysis ; i.e. it is always a consciousness of
something as distinct from, a variety of, following on,
connected with, but at the same time one with, something
else. It does not matter whether its internal structure
16 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
can be put into words or not ; what we have to consider
is the nature of the experience itself, and this will
always be found to involve some, however little, ' structure.'
Growth of experience, its becoming more, may thus be
represented as growth of structure, or a process in which
we come to be more ' constructive,' to put more together,
to find more in things, to get more out of them. (All
these are equivalent expressions, for our experience is
' we,' and it makes no difference whether we represent
ourselves as making it or as finding it ; sometimes one
and sometimes the other way of speaking comes more
naturally.)
Conversely, loss of experience, its becoming less, will
mean that certain elements in our construction drop out
and leave gaps. The less we ' get out of a thing,' or
' the less we put of ourselves into it,' the less we are, the
less there is of us. If we could see right into the ex-
periences of a number of persons who were all supposed
to be experiencing the same thing (looking at the same
picture, hearing the same tune, doing the same duty,
receiving the same pleasure or pain), we should find that
they all experienced different things, and that all had
gaps, bigger or smaller, in different places. And it
Avould be a mistake to single out the one place in them
all (if there happened to be one) where there was no
gap, where they all coincided, and call that the expe-
rience of the thing. The thing is really all that can
be possibly experienced under the given circumstances,
and no human being can say beforehand what or how
much this is. Different people differ in nothing more
than in the different amounts which they experience
under externally the same circumstances. To one, as
Wordsworth puts it,
PLEASURE : PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS 17
' A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more ' ;
to another,
' The meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.'
The experiences of both are perfectly real and indi-
vidual ; they differ in the amount which they hold
together or construct, or again in the amount of them-
selves that they put into the experience.
What is usually called ' taking interest ' illustrates the
same thing. To be ' interested ' literally means to be
'in it ' (curious that the slang 'in it ' and ' out of it '
should have retained something of this original mean-
ing). We experience a thing just in proportion as we
are ' in it,' or (to use another graphic phrase) make it our
own. In proportion as we ' lose interest ' we cease to
experience, and, so far as that thing is concerned, we
cease to be. (' Interest ' at its highest power is ' love,'
and if we could take interest in all things, we should be
on the way to love all things, and this means to 'be in '
all things or make all things our own, which is God.
If any one wants to have a healthy sense of his limita-
tions, let him ask himself, (1) how many things he is
interested in ; (2) how much he gets out of those in
which he would say he was interested.)
As a result of all this, we may say, the self, I, per-
sonality, or whatever we like to call that which ex-
periences things, is one in all that it experiences : one in
seeing, hearing, smelling, and in every modification of
these, one in every combination of these, and in all more
complex experiences as well ; it is this oneness which
makes the unanalyzable self-hood of any and every
VOL. I. C
18 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
experience. On the other hand, the self in all its experi-
ence is one of ox in many, an experience of distinctness
in innumerable senses. In a word, it is always and every-
where a whole of parts, a combining and dividing
activity, able to detach any part from any other part,
and yet to be in them all.
Another important point to clear up in any investiga-
tion of pleasure is the proper meaning of the phrase
' pleasure of doing a thing.' It may mean two totally
different things: (i) what would be described as, e.g.,
the pleasure of eating a peach apart from the act of eat-
ing it. What we really do when we make this distinction
is to separate mentally one part of the whole experience
from another part. The pleasant part of the eating,
e.g., can be separated from the consciousness of moving
the teeth (which may not be pleasant). But it is very
important to remember that, so far as this is done, the
experience ceases to be one, and the pleasure ought not
(quite strictly) to be called the pleasure of that ex-
perience, but a pleasant experience in or along with
a non-pleasant one. (2) Strictly speaking, the pleasure
of doing or being anything is the pleasant consciousness
of doing or being that thing ; not a consciousness along-
side the doing or being, but the conscious doing or being
itself. It is only after what we call 'reflexion,' i.e. when
we are more or less ' out of the experience and ' in ' some
other, that we come to analyze it into act and pleasure.
Yet what most people mean by ' pleasures ' are the results
of some such reflexion. They are, so to say, detached
pieces of experience, retained and dwelt upon.
The common maxim, ' If you want pleasure, do not
think about it,' is based upon this fact ; for to ' think
PLEASURE : PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS 19
about ' pleasure to most people means to detach a certain
element in some experience, and then perhaps to try to
get it without the rest of the experience- The dis-
appointment which so often follows arises from the fact
that, having thus detached the pleasure, we expect to
get it in some different experience, forgetting that there
are very likely new elements present which disturb or
prevent the pleasure.
C 2
SPIRIT
i.
THE history of the word ' spirit,' and of its equivalents
in Greek and German, would be the history of a great
bit of the human mind, and of that bit of it where
perhaps its most absorbing experiences are to be found.
Ilvtvixa, ' wind,' ' breath,' ' moving air ' — that is the
thing to which it all goes back ; and the text which
sums it all up the best is, ' The wind bloweth where it
listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not
tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth : so is every one
who is born of the wind.'
It seems as if the notion that lies at the root of all
notions of spirit is that of freedom in some sense,
whether in that cf power to dispense with means usually
necessary, or of power to produce something out of
material usually unproductive. Hence the mystery, the
unaccountableness, which always hangs about ' spirit ' in
all its senses, when it is looked at from a less ' spiritual '
point of view.
Take some absurdly different instances.
A ' ghost,' when it means anything, means something
which in some way transcends or does without certain
conditions which the person who calls it a ghost cannot
SPIRIT 21
do without. It comes through a door without having
to open it, speaks without having to breathe, appears
without having to occupy space. &c.
A ' spiritualist ' is a person who can communicate with
other persons in ways unknown or unfamiliar to most
people, and these ways imply the power of dispensing
with certain usual means or organs.
A person ' of spirit,' in English, is one who rises above
certain circumstances which would depress other people.
A person of Gcist, in German, is a person who gets
something out of things which to most people suggest
nothing. And a person of esprit, in French, is one who
does the same in the somewhat lighter things of life.
The ' spirit,' as opposed to the ' letter,' is the meaning
got out of a formula or principle by one who sees it in
many bearings, one who is very much alive, as opposed
to that which is got out of it by one who can see it in
only one or two bearings and is dead to the rest.
The ' spirit/ as opposed to the ' flesh,' is the activity
of mind which is independent of actual touch or bodily
presence, as opposed to that which is tied to these for
its experiences.
' God is a spirit ' ; he is not ' in this mountain ' or ' at
Jerusalem ' ; wherever there is anything, there is he.
He is absolutely free activity, able to ' make all things
new,' and ' where the spirit of God is, there is liberty.'
One great difficulty in the way of understanding
spirit is the inveterate habit of supposing that ' spiritual '
activity is a single definite kind of activity, opposed to
another definite kind called ' material ' or ' physical ' or
' natural.' The latter is supposed to be known and
understood, the former is supposed to be ' mysterious,'
' supernatural,' and the like.
22 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
The truth seems to be that all activity or agency may
truly be called spiritual, if by 'agency' is understood
that which gives rise to something which was not there
before.
All ' things ' whatever, and all the ' properties ' of
things, are ultimately forms of agency, force, energy.
Things are what they do, and what they do is themselves.
Motion, heat, light, magnetism, electricity, &c, are
different forms of agency, i.e. they are names for various
sorts of change which occur under various conditions.
They are better understood than many other forms of
agency only in the sense that they admit of being more
precisely described. They may be called ' physical,' if
this merely means that they have certain properties in
common, distinguishing them from, e.g., what are called
'personal' agencies ('moral influence,' &c). But the
' physical ' forms of agency can be no more ' explained '
than the ' moral,' nor can the ' moral ' be less 'explained '
than the ' physical.' {Explanation in the scientific sense
means the expression of something in terms of some-
thing else, with which we are more familiar or with
which we can deal more easily.)
Wherever there is agency, there something is being
produced different from what was there before, i. e.
certain conditions are being transcended, gone beyond,
in a way which could not be predicted (except by
a being which was the source of all agency, the universal
agent).
All agency is in this sense ' mysterious,' a continual
' miracle ' or ' wonder.' But it is generally called
' mysterious ' only when it is unfamiliar to the person in
question. Gunpowder is miraculous to a savage, but he
sees nothing miraculous in his bow and arrows. To
SPIRIT 23
a being which was all stomach, the experiences of
a being which had eyes or ears would be miraculous,
just as again a person of exceptional knowledge or in-
sight was regarded in the middle ages as having con-
nexion with the devil.
' Spiritual'' and 'physical."
Two of the most important and interesting illus-
trations of the various ways in which this distinction
has been understood are found in the facts of eating and
of love.
Hardly any subject has exercised and divided people
more than the Eucharist. It is worth considering how
and why there has been so much controversy about it.
Roughly speaking, there are two prevalent views :
one, that eating the bread and drinking the wine are
' signs ' or ' symbols ' of certain ' spiritual ' acts ; the
other, that the bread and wine ai'e in some way ' spiritual '
substances, the body and blood of Christ, in which the
communicant in the act of eating and drinking partici-
pates.
Neither view seems to represent the deepest truth.
In the first place, we must ask what is a sign or
symbol! To say that A is a symbol of B implies, of
course, that A is something different from B, but (and
this is often forgotten) it also implies that it is in some
respect the same as B. The most remote, far-fetched
symbol in the world must have something in common
with that which it symbolizes ; i. e. the person to whom
it has the symbolic meaning must have some (however
little it may be) of the same feeling or experience when
he experiences the symbol, as he has when he experiences
24 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
that which it symbolizes. In other words, there are such
things as symbols just because the most different things
in the world have something in common.
From this elementary fact spring all the controversies
and complications about symbols. One party says, ' It
is only a symbol, it is not the real thing ' ; and they are
partly right, for in order to be a symbol a thing must be
partly different from something else, and this something
else which is symbolized must be more than the symbol.
The other party says, ' It is the real thing, this which
you call a mere symbol ' ; and they too are partly right,
for in order to be a symbol at all, a thing must be partly
the same as that which it symbolizes.
Take the case of the Eucharist. What is the act (the
' physical ' act, as it is usually called) of eating? It is
an act in virtue of which a certain material comes into
contact with a certain other material, and thereupon
arises another material endowed with fresh properties.
It would be much better to speak of ' agencies ' through-
out. Bread, for instance, is a certain agent, capable of
acting and being acted on in various ways. The palate,
tongue, throat, stomach, blood, &c, are other similar
agents. Bread in the various processes of chewing,
swallowing, digesting, &c, becomes a new agent, does
new things, is an element in a new whole, contributes to
new results ; some of these results have got names ; e. g.
' taste,' ' satisfaction of hunger,' ' refreshment,' w strength,'
' health; If we chose, we could follow the bread through
a still wider circle of transformations ; e. g. we could see it
becoming an element in an ' artistic ' or a ' moral ' or
a 'spiritual ' result ; i.e. we could see the agency or force
which it has (or, rather, which it is) becoming an agency
or force in the production of a picture, the doing of
SPIRIT 25
a brave act, the overcoming a temptation or difficulty.
The great mistake which we usually make is that we
follow the bread as far, say, as the digestive process, and
then stop and draw a line ; on the one side of the line
we put what we call the f physical ' agency of bread, on
the other we put what we sometimes call the agency of
a • mysterious ' moral or intellectual or spiritual agent
(quite separate from bread). But the truth is (however
absurd it may sound at first) that there is no one thing,
' bread,' beginning to be ' bread ' at a certain point and
ceasing to be ' bread ' at a certain other point. The
properties (i.e. forces or agencies) which make 'bread'
as it is in the loaf, become quite different when ' bread '
is in a stomach, and quite different again when it is
blood and muscle and nerve, and quite different again
when it is feeling and thought and emotion of various
kinds. And there is absolute continuity in all these
changes, though the agency at any given moment is quite
different from what it is at any other given moment.
Now it is what we may call this continuity of agency
which makes symbolism possible. Bread, in all its
various phases of existence, is an agent which enters
into and contributes to the total agency which we may
call human life. If we like to call it ' a symbol of life-
producing agency,' we ought to mean that it has (really,
not only fancifully) something in common with all life-
giving agency. It (so to say) points beyond what it is
in any given phase, to the infinite other phases into which
it is capable of entering and into which it eventually
does enter, just as conversely the agencies of those other
phases point back to (because they are really continuous
with) the elementary agency of bread. It is they pro-
spectively, they are it retrospectively.
i6 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
It might be asked, why then should we not call
moral or artistic agency 'symbolic of digestive agency?
I suppose to an omniscient mind everything would be
equally symbolic of everything else ; or, more accu-
rately, such a mind would see everything in everything ;
whereas to us with our limited and unequally active
minds one thing only ' suggests ' or ' is like ' or ' recalls '
or ' contrasts with ' another. And the principle upon
which we go is, apparently, to call A a "symbol of B
when, from the point of view at which we are at the
moment, B means more of the same kind of thing that A
means. Digestive agency is much, but the agency of
growing is more, the agency of moving about is more
still, the agency of making clothes, houses, machines, is
more still, the agency of making schools, laws, govern-
ment, art, science, religion, is more still, and so on. But
in all there will be found certain identical features ; in
all there is what we may call ' assimilation ' of one
thing by another, the assimilation resulting in an agency
different from either of the agents assimilated.
In this way it is literally true to say that human
society is an ' organism ' ; only it should be remembered
that its organic life or agency is incomparably more
complicated than that of an animal or plant, and there-
fore incomparably more difficult to set out in detail.
To return to the Eucharist. We saw that in reality
' bread ' is an element or factor in a continuous agency.
But the name 'bread' (like all names) is intended to
mark off a more or less definite bit of this continuous
agency, and enable us to treat it as if it were a thing by
itself. What particular bit is marked off by this or any
other name, is impossible to say precisely, because
different people mark off different bits according to their
SPIRIT 27
different views and interests. Still there is a sort of
average meaning for 'bread,' which it is the business
of a dictionary-maker to ascertain and define. Starting
from this (which he would call its ' proper ' meaning)
the dictionary-maker goes on to notice various other
meanings which he calls ' derivative/ ' metaphorical,' and
the like (all of which arise from the same fact as that
which gives rise to symbols).
Taking ' bread,' then, in its average or dictionary
sense, as that which is ' physically ' assimilated and
transformed in the Eucharist, it is obvious that it is not
what is ordinarily understood as a spiritual agent, ' the
body of Christ.' It is ' only ' a symbol.
But now suppose a person to eat this bread, and in
the act of eating it to realize (not of course completely,
but very much more than is usually done) the immensity
of the act ; to realize as one thing (for it really is one
thing) the chewing and digesting, the increase of muscular
strength, the doing of acts or making of things, in fact
the whole of himself into which the bread is now enter-
ing. Or suppose more than this ; suppose that not only
once now and then, under special circumstances which
help the act of realization, in church on Sunday, &c,
but whenever he eats or drinks, he has this comparatively
full consciousness of what he is doing. To such a person
it would be true to say that ' every meal is a sacrament.'
To such a person ' grace before meat ' would be no
almost meaningless formula, but the true expression of
a feeling that God, the omnipotent and omnipresent
agent, was really present here and now, in this partial
agent of bread or water.
Such a person might properly be said to have a com-
paratively ' spiritual ' mind, or to realize more than most
c8 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
people the 'spiritual' significance of the act of eating.
But it is all-important to see that this 'spiritual' con-
sciousness of the nature of the act is not got at the
expense of, or by leaving beliind, the consciousness of the
' physical ' nature of the act. The person in question,
for instance, would not help himself to be spiritual in
eating if he were to practise being indifferent to what his
food tasted like, or to how it was cooked, or to whether
it was digestible. On the contrary, these properties or
agencies of food are part of its spiritual property or
agency. Food does not become an agent in the highest
life of man by giving up its niceness and digestibility, but
by means of these.
It is quite true that the niceness and digestibility of
food may, under certain circumstances, have to be
ignored in consideration of more important things. That
is to say, the thing we call ' food ' may (so to say) be
called upon to do a different thing, to contribute a
different factor, in the total agency of life. This illus-
trates from a new point of view what we said before
about the relativity of things or agents. No agent
stands alone or has its agency all to itself. It is always
an element in a continuous larger agency. And to beings
like ourselves, beings that are never the whole but that
may always realize that there is a whole, this larger or
largest agency must always present itself as an infinite
possibility, a something of which we can never predict
the demands it may make on us, a ' wind ' that may
change its direction at any moment, and of which all
that we can hope to feel or know is that its direction is
good, that we are better in proportion as we can surrender
ourselves to it, that it is a more of something which we
already are. Thus, for instance, ' food ' cannot say, ' I am
SPIRIT 29
food, with such and such powers and rights, which I will
exercise and keep, but in my own way and at my own
pleasure.' In proportion as it says this, it is lost. If it
consistently said this and acted on it, it would not be
food at all. It can only be food, even in the most
elementary sense of the word, by entering into some-
thing else, assimilating and being assimilated. The more
it ' loses itself (what it begins by being) the more it
' finds itself.' This is no fancy, but a plain fact.
The whole truth about ' selfishness ' hangs on this con-
sideration. There is no act which may not be selfish, or
which may not be unselfish. An agent or act is selfish
in proportion as it tries to make itself the whole, instead
of feeling that it is part of the whole. But it does not
really save itself by trying to make itself the whole, nor
does it really lose itself by realizing that it is only part
of the whole. The pleasantness of wine is not made
more by trying to concentrate all our powers upon the
experience of it (meaning by this, we will say, a certain
sensation in the palate) ; it would soon be made less,
and the other powers would be made less too. On the
other hand, it would not be less, but infinitely more, to
a being which could feel it along with, or as an element
in, all the delight to which it is capable of ministering.
(By way of a simple illustration take, e.g., the enjoy-
ment of wine by the solitary depressed drinker, its
enjoyment in delightful company, its enjoyment by a
person in whom it almost immediately became a poem,
and its enjoyment by a so-called ' mystical ' person in the
Eucharist. Some people would say it was 'blasphemous'
to put the last enjoyment along with the others ; but
it can only be so, if we allow ourselves to pull it down
to a lower level. No doubt most of us are pretty sure
3 o MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
to do this, because we are so limited in our 'spiritual '
capacity, and we are apt to help ourselves out of our
limitations by giving what we call a ' tangible ' interpreta-
tion to experiences which we cannot understand.)
Agency, then, is not ' spiritualized ' by becoming less,
but by becoming more. This gives us the right point of
view from which to look at ' asceticism ' and everything
of that kind. There is, e.g., no virtue in 'giving up'
wine, any more than there is any virtue in drinking wine
without enjoying it. All true ' asceticism ' means simply
the acquisition of some greater power by practice.
Everybody who has any ambition of any kind whatever
' asceticizes ' a little, i. e. gives itp something to get some-
thing more. But a person who says 'wine in itself is bad '
is as wrong as one who says ' wine in itself is good.'
The prejudice (sometimes right and sometimes wrong)
against ' asceticism.' ' spirituality,' and the like, seems to
arise mostly from the fact that men must recognize a sort
of average experience and express it in a sort of average
language and habits. The most really l spiritual' people
are, I suppose, the people who talk least about it. A
person to whom every meal was a sacrament would be
the last to say it to his neighbours at a dinner-party, for
he would know that his words would not convey what
he meant, and would convey something that he did not
mean. A person who really felt that he was ' training
for an immortal prize ' would not go about saying so, for
he would know that what is ordinarily understood by
' training ' and ' prize ' is only a fragment of what he
understands.
On the other hand, it must be insisted that the ' average '
meaning of words (and this is the average level of ex-
perience) has no right whatever to call itself the ' true '
SPIRIT 31
meaning. ' Philistinism ' in all its forms is the refusal to
admit that things can mean more than I, the Philistine,
choose that they shall mean. John the Baptist comes
neither eating nor drinking, and the Philistines settle him
by saying ' he has a devil.' Jesus comes eating and
drinking, and the same Philistines settle him as a free
liver, who keeps company with vulgar men and loose
women. But ' wisdom is justified of all her children ' ;
the world, if we would only open our eyes, wants them
all, is the better for them all ; and the publicans and
harlots often go into the kingdom of heaven before the
Pharisee.
As the Philistine tends to interpret ' spirituality ' by
pulling it down, calling it ' cant ' or ' madness' or ' eccen-
tricity ' or 'radicalism' or 'vapouring' (and he can
always produce lots of instances where so-called spiritu-
ality is not spirituality at all), so many well-meaning
people interpret it by calling it ' miraculous,' which is
really another way of pulling it down. Take the
Eucharist again. The feeling (true and justifiable in
itself) that every act has ' a spiritual meaning,' ' an eternal
significance/ ' infinite consequences,' and the like, unable
to maintain itself at its height, helps itself by saying, ' This
bit of bread is being transformed into divine flesh ' ; and
in saying this, it thinks, not of the real wonder (that
bread is really an agency in the whole agency of human
life, and so in the life of the world and God), but of a sort
of nondescript process by which ' bread ' (in the average
sense) is somehow converted into ' flesh ' (not indeed
' flesh ' in the average sense, but still in some similar
sense).
Then comes the angry ' man of science ' and proves
triumphantly that bread is bread and nothing else, while
32 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
the ' man of religion ' goes racking his brains to find a
way by which the ' physical ' laws of bread may be
superseded, and yet the bread may still be bread.
The cure for a wrong or spurious ' mysticism ' is to
realize ' the facts ' : but ' the facts ' must not be taken to
mean (as they generally are) either certain particular
facts (of chemistry, for instance, or physiology), or certain
particular aspects of facts to which I happen to be ac-
customed. The fact is the whole fact, neither more nor
less. True mysticism is the consciousness that everything
which we experience, every ' fact,' is an element and only
an element in ' the fact ' ; i. e. that, in being what it is, it
is significant or symbolic of more.
INDIVIDUALITY
[Remarks on a pupil's essay which there was no
opportunity of discussing orally. About 1889.]
A STONE ' does not distinguish itself from its environ-
ment.'
Doesn't it, just so far as 'stone' means anything?
Any of what are called its ' properties ' seem to be
exertions of force, actions and reactions. E. g. it occupies
a certain space (keeps other things out and is kept in
by them), has a certain weight (presses on other things
and is pressed on by them). Of course a plant does
and suffers a great many more things than a stone, but
both, so far as they are anything distinct from anything
else, are so because they act on and are acted on by an
environment.
The question is, What is environment ? Where does
it begin ? What is it that is environed ? It is the old
problem of ' circumstance ' (of which I suppose environ-
ment is only a modern translation).
If you say the environment of the stone is the adjacent
spaces, then the it of the stone is occupation of a certain
space. If you say its environment is the bodies upon
which it presses, then it is pressure. So with the plant :
where does ' it ' begin or end ? To what distance, for
VOL. I. D
34 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
instance, is the surrounding air or soil affected by its
absorbing surface ? At what point do they become part
of it, and when ought ' they ' to be said to act upon ' it '
and ' it ' upon ' them ' ? One is inclined to say that the
plant is what you could take away and put somewhere
else without its being changed, and that you could do
this without carrying the air and soil with it. But it
couldn't be taken away without some air, or transplanted
into no soil.
An 'individual ' is properly 'something that cannot be
divided.' This seems to give one some clue. The indi-
viduality of a thing is just the amount of things which
make one — from which none can be taken away without
the unity ceasing. A heap of stones, we say, has little
individuality, because we can take away a good many
stones and still call it a heap. But it isn't the same heap,
and does not really retain its individuality. Any two
things that can't do without each other seem to make an
individual, and the more things there arc in this condition
the greater the individuality. A complete individual
would therefore apparently have no ' environment ' ; or,
environment begins where individuality ends. To any
two contiguous stones in a heap the rest of the heap is
environment ; to any two notes in a tune the rest of the
tune is environment ; and when you add some more notes
and make a phrase, what was before 'environment and
individuality ' has become all individuality.
Thus too it seems difficult to distinguish between
'taking in ' and 'giving out.' The two notes of a tune
are exactly what they take in and what they give out :
they are affected by the notes on each side of them
exactly as much as they affect them : if you alter them
you alter the tune, and if you alter the tune you alter
INDIVIDUALITY 35
them. No doubt they have an individuality out of the
tune, and one is inclined to call this their own individuality.
But it is no more their own than what they had in the
tune ; or rather, ' their ' is now a different ' their ' and has
a different environment (the particular circumstances
under which they happen to be heard). If it be said
they can exist and have individuality without any en-
vironment, I suppose one would have to ask whether two
notes could be one thing (have an individuality) except
to a consciousness which was more than they. Anyhow,
they could only be without environment if they were
the universe (or fancied themselves such).
Thus, for everything except the absolute, individuality
implies limitation (i.e. environment), and the great differ-
ence in the associations which the word has seems to
come from the double fact that, while every individuality
is measured by the amount which it holds together (i. e.
by the amount of what would otherwise be environment
that it converts into itself), it is also measured against
what still remains environment, what it excludes, asserts
itself against. ' Individualism ' and all that goes with it,
isolation, selfishness, jealousy, fear, represent this side of
the thing. A ' great individuality,' such as you say
Shakespeare was, represents the other side.
You say that the attempt to take in without giving out
results in death. I suppose this is quite true, only it
seems that one must say the same of the attempt to give
out without taking in. The trouble is that each of these
phrases (' taking in,' &c.) only expresses one mode of
activity or being, and it is impossible not to be affected
by the metaphor which is necessarily present in any such
partial account of a thing. When a person makes a box,
or a tune, or a law, does he take in or give out the most ?
D 2
^6 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
It seems impossible to make any distinction. You say
indifferently, ' he puts himself into the wood,' or ' he takes
the wood into himself.' At any given point in the process
you can analyze it into ' wood ' and ' him,' but it is only
your analysis ; the fact is indivisible, and that fact is just
individuality. If he says indignantly, ' I am not box,'
that is only because he is aware that he is other things
as well.
Ultimately one seems to have to say, the greatest indi-
viduality is that which produces most, or out of which
the most is produced. It does not seem really to matter
which you say, though it sounds as if it did. One might
compare individuality to centre of gravity. Every
material body has a centre of gravity, i. e. is an individual
or indivisible system in respect of motion. On the other
hand, each centre of gravity is determined by those
about it, and ultimately by the centre of the earth (to go
no further). If one thinks of other properties besides
motion, it seems to be the same. E. g. any person has
one centre of gravity at each moment regarded as a body
merely, another regarded as an organic body, another
regarded as a healthy body, another regarded as a legal
' person,' another regarded as a character, and so on.
And as in the original sense the centre of gravity is
continually changing, and the body is continually becom-
ing a different individual and getting into different en-
vironments, so with the other senses. And one can
imagine a stone refusing to admit that it had any other
centre of gravity than that which it had in a particular
place and position, and being very much distressed or
offended when it found itself topsy-turvy, and putting
the blame upon its environment which would not conform
or which it could not assimilate, whereas all the time the
INDIVIDUALITY 37
environment was conforming beautifully, and in fact
there was no environment at all, for the world of bodies
was individual.
A person who, as you put it, ' knows a great deal '
without being a great individuality, does not, I suppose,
really know a great deal. What one means is that a
great many pieces of information make a kind of unity in
him (in what is called his memory), but that the unity
that they make is not as close or organic as we can
conceive it might be. We see, for instance, that there
are other bits of the ' he ' which seem to stand quite
apart from ' his knowledge.'
It seems very important to recognize, as you do to-
wards the end, that the problem of individuality is raised
in different ways to different people. As you say, it
may be ' people ' or it may be ' things ' that ' refuse to
come right.' What one is perpetually doing is to stereo-
type oneself — to fix one or two experiences as the centres
and try to keep these and make everything else into
circumference. There are two lines of Goethe which
always stick in my head about this :
Nur wo du bist sei alles, immer kindlich,
So bist du alles, bist unuberwindlich.
I suppose both self-depreciation and self-assertion arc
equally wrong kinds of this 'centralization.' In both
one allows oneself to be divided into a more or less
hostile self and not-self ; only in the one case one shrinks
from the not-self, in the other one threatens it. The
people who have, in various phraseology, represented love
as the reality of things, have I suppose felt this, for love
is the only thing that is perfectly fearless and yet per-
fectly kind.
The difficulty is to keep between the two extremes, as
28 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
Aristotle might say, that of being nothing because one
has only one centre, and that of being nothing because
one has no centre ; death by stagnation and death by
dissipation. The ideal would be to be the centre of every
circumference. Practically the important thing seems to
be that one should try to be the growing centre of a
growing circumference, so that while one is always ready
to change one's individuality without fear of losing it,
one should always carry the individuality that one has
so far made into each new environment, so that the old
should become young and the young old and thus death
be impossible.
THE ATONEMENT
[The following rough notes, evidently written merely
for himself, seem, from comparison with the ideas con-
tained in Nettleship's letters, to belong to 1886.]
The ' Christian ' doctrine says, God so loved the world
that he gave his only-begotten Son to save it, i. e. to
make it one with himself again.
This assumes that the ' world ' is estranged from God ;
that this estrangement is the fact of ' sin ' ; that the effect
of sin is death — perishableness ; that by ' atonement '
the world regains ' life.'
What is the relation of these conceptions to the patent
facts of life ?
We see that everything perishes : iravra pet.
Yet we equally see that nothing perishes ; everything
becomes something else : life is only possible through
consumption (death) : life is the process of transmutation.
On what ground do we distinguish life from death,
yeWo-is from <f)dopa (for it would seem that we might
indifferently call either the other) ?
We apparently call change ' life ' when it is change to
something which we consider higher, better, more de-
veloped, &c, &c, and vice versa with ' death ' (a thing
' grows ' when it becomes more that which we take it to
be ; it decays when it becomes less what we take it
to be).
4 o MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
From this point of view, then, to ' live ' is to ' die ' into
something more perfect. (In Aristotelian phraseology,
all ' becoming ' is transition of ' matter ' into ' form ' : the
form carries on the matter into itself, but transforms it in
so doing.)
The question is, Is the process of the universe (the
.sum of its processes) an infinitely various see-saw, up
and down, like a sea, the volume of which is never
increased or diminished, but the forms and magnitudes
of whose fluctuation vary infinitely ; or is it a process to
a constantly higher being ; or (since this last seems
logically impossible) is it really no process at all?
Certainly as far as human power of observation goes,
it seems idle to talk of permanent ' progress.' We have
absolutely no means of judging whether what we call the
history of the world is a progress or not Even if we
could certainly trace continuous progress for a century,
there is nothing to lead us to suppose that it might not
cease at any moment and become regress, &c.
It seems to be really the same with what we call
individual organisms; we talk of their 'growth' and
' decay,' but this is only true from a particular point of
view. So with nations— we see that progress in one
point is generally accompanied by regress in some
other.
And yet there is the invincible conviction of a dis-
tinction between absolute death and absolute life : the
conviction that ' becoming ' may be a real becoming —
a real transformation into something more.
The doctrine (or a doctrine) of the New Testament
goes so far as to say that God himself gave (and is
eternally giving) up what is dearest to him in order
to save the life of the world. (Death is self-surrender ;
THE ATONEMENT 41
all loss is a kind of death ; the ' only-begotten Son '
is the summing up of what is dearest, most ones own.)
I. e. God can only be at one with his work, can only
make it to be truly his work, by eternally dying — sacri-
ficing what is dearest to him.
God does not thereby cease to be : he does not
annihilate himself: he lives eternally in the very process
of sacrificing his dearest work.
Hence God is said to be 'love'; for 'love' is the
consciousness of survival in the act of self-surrender :
the consciousness of dying for another and thereby of
being one with that other.
How if this were the truth of the doctrine of the
' survival of the fittest ' ?
That doctrine has at present been interpreted in two
opposite ways — neither of them satisfying.
To some it means the ghastly fact that ' force ' governs
the world ; that all the feelings which we naturally prize
most are really of no avail against this sort of Jugger-
naut's car of ' evolution.'
To some, on the contrary, evolution is increasing
adaptation to environment, and they look forward to
a state of complete adaptation — a state in which there
would be no sacrifice, no struggle.
Neither interpretation satisfies the double conviction,
(1) that love is the strongest thing in the world — the
most living thing ; (2) that love means self-sacrifice,
is strong only in weakness, lives only by dying.
The ' whole creation groans and travails in pain ' :
wherever we look, in the organic and inorganic worlds
alike, we see change and decay and apparently infinite
waste.
On the other hand, we can see (though very fragmen-
42 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
tarily) that the waste is not waste. Suppose for
a moment that all human beings felt permanently and
universally to each other as they now do occasionally to
those whom they love best. It would follow that all the
pain in the world would be swallowed up in the joy of
doing good. Then go further, and suppose every particle
of energy in the world animated by the equivalent spirit
to ' love ' in the particular form of energy which we call
human consciousness.
So far as we can conceive such a state, it would be one
in which there would be no ' individuals ' at all, in the
sense in which 'individuality' means mutual exclusion:
there would be a universal being in and for another :
where being took the form of ' consciousness,' it would
be the consciousness of ' another ' which was also ' one-
self — a common consciousness.
Such would be the 'atonement' of the world — God
eternally living in his own death, eternally losing, and
eternally returning to, himself.
FLORENCE AND ATHENS
[From some ' Notes of Travel in Italy and Greece
(1888),' read to a Tutors' Club in Oxford.]
From Como I went to Florence, getting time enough
at Milan to lunch in the piazza opposite the cathedral.
Why should it be so impressive as, in spite of many
inward protests, I cannot help feeling it to be? It seems
to have no noble lines in it ; indeed in looking at it one
almost forgets that it is a building at all, and regards
it rather as a caprice in marble, planned to startle
mankind. ' It is magnificent, but it is not architecture,'
one is inclined to say. Whereas at Florence one feels,
more to my mind than in any other city, that artists have
been at work. You walk about and are satisfied. If you
want proportion naked and unadorned, you stroll in the
cathedral ; if you want it clothed in splendour, you sit
at a cafife and watch the campanile ; if you are in
a mood for exquisite detail, you can lean on the railings
round the gates of the baptistery ; if your imagination
wishes to try itself on a problem which always leaves
some height unsealed, some depth unfathomed, you can
meditate on the monuments to the Medici. It is here,
I think, that one feels most strongly what a terribly
44 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
aristocratic thing high art, especially sculpture, is ; that
the demands it makes on one's ordinary state of mind
are as severe as those of the most seemingly paradoxical
utterances of science or religion. I walk into the Medici
Chapel, my body and soul encased in their nineteenth-
century coat and trousers. I see four naked marble
figures, in attitudes which I probably could not put
myself into at all, and certainly could not remain in
for five minutes. One lady is fast asleep, one gentleman
wide awake ; so much is comfortingly obvious. The
other lady seems to have nearly finished undressing ;
the other gentleman has passed a restless night : both
look dubious and uncomfortable. Such are the brute
impressions which many, if they were honest, would
have to confess to. And yet the most prosaic person
in the world would admit that in those four little words,
Day, Night, Dawn, and Twilight, a good deal of the
poetry of life is wrapped up ; and if Shakespeare himself
had written four sonnets on them he would not have said
all that is to be said. These are Michael Angelo's
sonnets on them. Every curve, every line, was to him
all-important — the only possible one. We are sure that
it is so : but we have learnt the language of words
so much better than that of marble, and there is no
grammar or dictionary to the lines of the human form ;
and even if there were, think how far we should be from
understanding Shakespeare if our only resource, when
he seemed at all obscure, were to look out his words
in Johnson. And so one can only hope occasionally to
get glimpses of the great sculptor's mind, and to most
of the world in most of their moods he remains un-
meaning and grotesque.
One thing struck me more than ever in looking at
FLORENCE AND ATHENS 45
these statues, and that is how entirely mistaken it is to
describe Michael Angclo, as has sometimes been the
fashion, as a man who chiefly delighted to show his
knowledge of anatomy. It is only on reflexion, as it
seems to me, that one realizes the complexity of his
attitudes. The first and prevailing impression is one of
sheer beauty, which swallows up everything else ; and it
is just his extraordinary power that he can make his
figures do what would be difficult or impossible as if it
were perfectly easy and natural. It is as if the vehemence
and complexity and restlessness of the modern world
had for once found an expression as simple and masterly
as that which is supposed to be the exclusive property
of the Greeks.
If the antithesis between classical and modern dis-
appears before the beauty of the Medici monuments,
so does that between mediaeval and modern in looking
at the bronze gates of the baptistery. We talk of the
awakening of the love of natural life in the nineteenth
century, culminating in that spiritualization of nature by
such men as Wordsworth and Shelley, beside which Greek
mythology looks crude and infantine. But what can be
bolder and yet more beautiful than the juxtaposition
here of the natural and the spiritual ? In the main
spaces of the gates is concentrated the Bible history,
the great crises in the history of man ; and the margin
in which it is all set is made of plants and animals, corn
and vines and olives and pulse, birds and squirrels and
lizards and frogs. ' Yes,' we shall be told, ' that is all
decorative.' Doubtless it is decorative, and Ghibcrti
may, for aught I know, have had no views about the
meaning of baptism or any other religious rite. But
the question in art is not what other things a man is
46 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
thinking about when he makes his poem or his picture ;
all the matter is, What does he actually say in his poem,
what does he actually represent in his picture? Once
said, once represented, it is the property of the world :
every one may make out of it what he can. To one
' a primrose by a river's brim a yellow primrose is to
him, and it is nothing more'; to another it can give
' thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.' Here
on this gate you can get both. If you are wanting
a bronze frog just like a frog, here is a man who has
one to show you. If you are thinking that the way into
the kingdom of heaven lies through nature, and therefore
through frogs among other things, here is a man who
can show you that also. And the frog remains a frog
whichever view you take of him ; that is the beauty
of it.
I confess to not caring much about anything in Athens
but the Acropolis ; and that I should like to see regularly
once a year. One is almost ashamed to talk about it,
everything that one can say has been said so often.
And yet this is just what }s so delightful, to find all the
conventionalities and platitudes of artistic criticism sud-
denly become perfectly real and poignant facts. I find
that the Athenians could build and carve like no one else,
that the Propylaea is the grandest portal through which
a procession ever passed, and that the Parthenon is the
temple where, if one were a god, one would best like to be
worshipped. For I confess that all my prejudices in
favour of Gothic vanish in front of the Parthenon. It
may be that one's eye changes ; but, whatever the reason,
I find that its simplicity is as inexhaustible, its brightness
as stimulating, its regularity as inspiring, as the com-
FLORENCE AND ATHENS 47
plexity, the dimness, the labyrinthine lawlessness, of our
great cathedrals. I felt too this year, as I did four years
ago, that the most extraordinary thing about it and the
Propylaca is the impression of size and strength which
they make. One is prepared for proportion and grace,
but I certainly was not prepared for buildings which
make you wonder how the stones were ever put together,
and how, having been put together, they ever came
asunder. And it is in this point that most distant views
of the Acropolis seem to me so deceptive. There are
some great buildings which one has to get away from to
appreciate them ; but it is not till you are on the steps of
the Propylaea that you have any notion what you are
coming to.
I was unlucky enough at Athens to come in for
several d ys of unusual north wind, which did not seem
to diminish the heat, while it took away all pleasure
in walking about the dusty streets. But I had one good
day on Mount Pentelicus. It is as pleasant a small
expedition as you can have. You start along a level
road with the mountain always in front, and refresh your-
self with a three-halfpenny cup of black coffee in the
village where Aristides and Socrates are supposed to
have been born. You meet donkeys with panniers full
of grapes, and a man who asks you for a light for his
pipe gives you a bunch that it takes a quarter of an hour
to eat. As the ground rises, it is broken with the
dry beds of torrents, and covered with heather, dwarf
holly, thyme, and bright green firs, which scent the air
with resin. As you get nearer the marble-quarries, the
paths are deep in dust as white and soft as fine flour.
The quarrymen show both the curiosity and the
courtesy which seem to be common in Greek peasants.
48 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
Knowing that they have no access to the Oxford
University Calendar, you announce yourself as a pro-
fessor, a Kad\iyr)Tr}s, who is come to see Greece. This,
with a distribution of tobacco, evidently pleases them,
and they put their lunch at your disposal, cheese and
broad beans and delicious water. A little more walking
over shrub-covered rocks brings you to the top, and you
look down on a little bay, deep blue against the yellow
sunburnt plain. That is Marathon.
I sat down and tried to rise to the occasion, while two
ravens came circling round quite close to inspect me,
and, finding me alive, flew away. I do not know whether
others have the same kind of experience about historic
localities which have ceased to be anything except
localities. To me there is— at first, at any rate — something
baffling and bewildering about them. It is as if nature
was trying to help one, but could not. The sea says it
is the same sea which bore Darius's ships ; the shore
says it is the same shore on which Miltiades conquered ;
that is the way along which men carried the news to
Athens ; and very likely there were ravens on Pen-
telicus that day, and more than one interested spectator.
And yet the sea and the mountain know nothing about
it now, and one falls back with a sense of something like
relief on the human reproductions, on Herodotus, on
Creasy 's Fifteen Decisive Battles, on Byron. It is indeed
only a special form of the feeling with which any sudden
meeting of past and present affects one. As you walk
about Athens, the new town, with its intense whiteness
and its veneer of French civilization, the old town with
its semi-oriental dirt and squalor, the desert where once
was a Pnyx and an Areopagus, and the Acropolis stand-
ing aloof and defiant, these jostle and crowd one another
FLORENCE AND ATHENS 49
in the mind in a confusion that refuses to be adjusted,
and leave one blankly wondering whether the Parthenon
or the steam-tramway is the nobler work of man, or
whether perhaps his nobility is not after all equally
independent of both.
VOL. 1.
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS
[Most of these extracts are taken from letters written
during the last ten years of Nettleship's life. The reader
will see at once that they are not printed as examples of
the author's correspondence, which was naturally con-
cerned for the most part with more familiar subjects.
Indeed it was at first intended to publish nothing which
could be thought to have a merely biographical interest ;
but, in view of the fact that these Remains are preceded
by a biographical sketch, it seemed best to relax this
rule in one or two cases (Extracts 3 and 11). Some
philosophical remarks have also been taken from early
letters, though they would perhaps not have satisfied
Nettleship at a later time.
In the Extracts, as in the Miscellaneous Papers, some
trifling verbal changes have been made ; but certain
peculiarities in phraseology, the use of italics, capitals,
and the like, have been left untouched.
The letters from which extracts have been made were
addressed to T. H. Green (No. 1), Mrs. Green (Nos. 7
and 10), Professor Zumbini (No. 12), R. R. Whitehead
(Nos. 14, 19, 26, 28, 30, 31), the friend for whom the papers
on Immortality, Pleasure, and Spirit were composed
(No. 32), and myself (the remaining numbers).
The extracts are as nearly as possible in chronological
order.]
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 5 r
I.
Perhaps it is lecturing on the Ethics which has made
me realize more than I ever did before the appalling
force of habit, and what courage it wants to make but
one little step in a new path. And it has come home to
me very much lately that all failure seems to have its
root in the surrender of that initiative which is the
essence of the rational self (my thoughts about life tend
now to fall into Aristotelian formulae rather). When
one has come to feel strongly how impossible it is
o-vvex&s hepyelr, it is so easy to go to the opposite ex-
treme and give up the prerogative of activity altogether,
except in the chance moments when it is called out by
circumstances, and when it is really not activity of the
self at all. Out of these thoughts seems to spring
a whole philosophy of life — it is all old enough, I know
— which says that true life is simply the being what we
are bound to be, and that to be is to act, because we are
in time ; as on the other hand death and everlasting
destruction is the remaining in the ' cold obstruction ' of
non-entity. So that the man who is not what he ought
to be, fulfils his own condemnation and literally crucifies
the Son of God afresh. Such a sort of self-annihilation,
self-inflicted, and as little concerning the absolute spirit
as the ignoring physical laws concerns nature, comes to
me at times with much greater terror in it than any
amount of hell-fire. What I find so hard is to translate
such thoughts into a serviceable, working, everyday,
belief. To express them, or even to hint at them, in
ordinary life would be like talking gibberish ; and yet, if
they cannot find expression, they are so apt to degenerate
into mere holiday fancies, which serve well enough to
E 2
52 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
make an essay or even to lend inspiration to other men,
but which are not ' bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.'
And this is one of the things that seem to make modern
life so hard — that whilst the voice of all the ages dins
into one's ears that we are nearer to God than our
fathers, that the world is fuller of divinity than ever,
that the truth and goodness and beauty which is our
heritage can afford to smile at the heritages of past
times, yet this sense of fullness and divineness has to live
in an atmosphere from which God seems to have been
gradually eliminated, has to find its expression in forms
which falsify it. It is as if one said to a man who had
been living in the hole of Calcutta, ' Now we have got
a vacuum, and you may breathe freely.'
However, I for one have no right to complain till
I have done something to better the things complained
of; and I suppose the only hope lies in patience and
courage, patience to recognize fairly what has been lost
(by me, I mean, not by mankind), and courage not to be
afraid that all is lost. Where I feel most in darkness is
when I try to think of my own personality : it is not so
hard to realize the negative side — what I am not — , but
when the question comes, What is that other self, in
absorption in which what is ordinarily called 'oneself
finds its truest life ? then I get stuck. The truth is,
I suppose, that the troubling oneself about such a
question at all is only one proof that I am not fit to
know the answer : and so one must be satisfied with the
unsolved opposition between what one has to call two
selves, and with the certain knowledge that the times
when one feels that one is most truly oneself are just
those in which the consciousness of one's own indi-
viduality is most absolutely swallowed up, whether in
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 53
sympathy with nature, or In the bringing to birth of
truth, or in enthusiasm for other men. (July, 1H74.)
2.
I am not sure whether I understand what you mean
about thought and the whole self. The whole question
of the 'parts' of the self (intellect, imagination, &c.)
seems to me horribly difficult. In a certain sense of the
words I suppose no one would deny that it is a very
common experience to ' see ' a thing ' intellectually ' and
yet not to be able to ' realize ' or ' feel ' it ; but what on
earth one means, or ought to mean, by ' realizing ' or
' feeling,' I don't know.
The form in which the difficulty most comes home to
me just now is this: How can words be true, and yet not
be true, at the same time ? Or again, what is that of
which words are a sometimes more, a sometimes less,
adequate expression ? As far as I see, it is a matter of
temperament and education merely, what form of words
conveys the truth in the best way to one : that is, words
are emphatically made for man, not man for words. And
I suppose that to some men abstract formulae give as
full satisfaction, are as real to them, as poetry, music, or
again active self-sacrifice, to other men. It seems as if,
in any case, the realizing a thing meant the losing of
one's individual self for the time being. At least it is
true, isn't it, that the times when one is most fully
satisfied, most sure, most up-lifted, are just the times
when one is least conscious of any distinction between
that in which one is so satisfied and oneself ; whereas at
the times when one says : ' I see that, but I can't feel or
realize it,' one is, I think, conspicuously conscious of
some such distinction ; that is, the thing which one sees
54 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
is, so to say, in friction with the remainder of oneself,
which remainder is not absorbed in the act of seeing.
But then this feeling of friction, of ' outsideness,' does
not seem to me to take place only in cases of under-
standing, but in cases of imagining and acting as well.
I mean, it seems possible to see the beauty of a poem or
a picture, and yet not to be wholly taken up into the
beauty of it ; and it is certainly very possible to do
a thing which, considered apart from the self of the doer,
is good, but yet not to be oneself emptied into the act.
And it is common to all these cases that one cannot say
that one has made the thing,— whether truth, or beauty,
or goodness, — one's own ; or, which is the same thing,
that one has not identified one's self with the truth,
beauty, or goodness. So that it seems as if to ' realize '
(in this sense) ought to mean literally to ' be the thing,'
and that words, whether of poetry or logic, are one of
the material media through which this unification of
subject and object takes place. And so, supposing
a man whose organization requires that this unification
or self-obliteration should take place through the medium
of action, that man will never feel satisfied as long as he
looks for it merely in words ; while a logical man, or an
imaginative man, will be equally unsatisfied by mere
action, and so on. Of course the mass of men are not
so conspicuously one thing or the other that they do
not require satisfaction of a mixed kind ; but one seems to
see the difference in the case of very representative men.
However I don't know whether all this is more than
restating a very old fact in a different form. It certainly
does not touch the question how we can be (or be obliged
to speak of ourselves as) composite selves, consistently
with our being 'selves' at all. (November, 1874.)
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 55
Via dell' Oriuolo, 26. 2 1 ' piano.
Florence, Sunday, April 25, 1875.
I have just come in and found your letter. I had
been thinking of writing to-day, only I was afraid you
might be doing it too and we should cross : but now
I will do it before I get cold and put it off. If it's any
consolation to you to know, the winter and spring here
have been exceptionally bad : in fact I have given up
believing in Italian weather. Last week we had some
lovely days, but to-day is as cold and dreary as it can
be. When it is jolly, of course it is very jolly, though
in quite a different way from an English spring. There
are no green fields and brooks and dewiness ; every inch
of land is cultivated with vines and olives, but all the
spaces between them are sown with corn, and the green
of this is something wonderful. Then the cypresses and
holm-oaks make the dark, and the olives the grey, and
of course the brightness of the air when the sun shines is
unutterable.
And this is such a lovely place, the only place where
you feel anything like Plato's uiairep avpa and xpycT&v tottuv
cpepovaa vyUiav. Wherever you go you have buildings
which you have nothing to do but to look at and, behold,
they are very good. Criticism simply subsides, and
even observation in the ordinary sense : I know when
I come away I shan't be able to describe a single thing
accurately. And yet — it sounds almost blasphemy to
say it — the whole effect is to make me, if not sad, at
least dissatisfied. It isn't only the ordinary thought that
the Florentines now are not what they once were ; but
the feeling will come up, What is the use of it to
56 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
English people? What meaning has it to them? The
more I feel the beauty of the things, especially the
pictures, the more I feel how far off they are ; and it
makes me almost angry to think how many cultivated
English people there are who make a regular study of
these things and really know a lot about them, and talk
as if they were lords of Italian art in the same sort of
way as the Germans talk of possessing Shakespeare.
Of course all this comes of not being an artist myself,
but merely having a certain amount of receptive imagina-
tion. But the thoughts have been working in my head
till I feel as if I must write something about it : and yet
I don't know how. Do you know whether any one has
ever written anything about the English religious imagina-
tion ? I mean about Spenser and Bunyan and Milton.
Of course they have been written about, but I mean in
a philosophical way at all ? When I was at Naples,
Zumbini had got hold of an Italian translation of the
Pilgrim s Progress, and was enormously struck with the
resemblance to Dante in many ways. But of course
the contrasts are much greater than the resemblances.
What I should like to know is, whether Christianity has
ever taken hold of people's imagination in England at all
in the same way as it did in Italy and, through the
religious music, in Germany to some degree. And if
not, whether there has been any substitute for it in
England. And if not, again, whether the English mind
can do without anything of the kind, or whether there
are traceable causes which have prevented its natural
development on this side.
The sort of thing I mean is this : one sees that in
Italy from Dante to Raphael many of the greatest minds
of the country dwelt a great deal on the ideas of the
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 57
incarnation and passion. These ideas to them, as being
Italians, inevitably took a picturesque or plastic form ;
they did not think them, they saw them. And I suppose
every holy family, or adoration, or what not, represents
a different side of the idea, the side upon which it took
most hold on the individual artist To us, moderns and
English, these pictures are one of two things : if we are
artists, they are infinite mines for study and inspiration ;
if we are not, they are more or less symbols ; i. e. they
don't appeal straight to us, but we can more or less find
a meaning in them — a meaning which we, if we had to
express it, should probably express in words without
ever imagining (completely at least) a picture. But to
the ordinary English mind, as far as I see, such ideas as
those of the incarnation and the passion have not only
never taken shape in pictures or statues, but they have
scarcely reached the imaginative stage of poetry, except
in the case of a few hymns. I say nothing about the
comparative moral effects of Christianity in Italy and in
England : that is another question. The thing that I
want to get at is, what particular elements or sides of the
Christian idea have taken most possession of the English
mind, and in zvJiat form ? That it has not been taken
possession of imaginatively by them seems to be pretty
obvious : the most imaginative English poetry which is
at all spiritual has been more pantheistic than anything
else, hasn't it ? (I use pantheistic vaguely : and I don't
include Milton of course.) It is equally obvious that
English Christianity has not developed a philosophy, nor
fused itself with philosophy, as it has done in Germany.
Has it really any characteristic forms? Or has the
higher religious thinking in England gone on outside of
English dogmatic Christianity ?
5 8 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
Perhaps these are questions which are only interesting
to me at the present moment, when I see Britons and
Britonesses wandering about with their guide-books in
the galleries in various phases of Ruskinism, Paterism,
Ritualism or Spurgeonism.
And along of this comes another question. People
are raging about comparative mythology and comparative
religion : why doesn't some one take the Christian myth,
say the myth of the incarnation, and trace its develop-
ment in the European imagination ? You start with the
fact : the great man, who proclaims among other things
the divinity of humanity. Then you have the idea taking
form as a myth in its crudest shape — this man was born
of a virgin. This myth, not having been much attended
to at first, becomes later the material for an enormous
superstructure of dogma and an equally enormous super-
structure of art. The more the art develops, the more
does the fact — the myth proper — get fined away, and the
mere idea — the idea of pure humanity and divinity born
of it — is represented by the simple putting together of
a virgin woman and a child, with such various expres-
sions, attitudes, actions, &c, as express the various con-
ceivable relations of the divine to the human nature.
While the idea takes this development imaginatively,
and reaches its most perfect because most human and
natural imaginative expression, it has also a development
speculatively, and becomes ultimately the doctrine of
immanence in various systems of philosophy.
I don't know whether something of this sort would do
anything towards setting people's minds free from the
bondage to the supposed facts of Christianity and the
idea of their necessity to religious belief. I feel sure
that most English people who are at all religiously dis-
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 59
posed — women of course especially — look at religious
pictures as so many evidences of historic facts : their
imagination is not filled by the picture, for the subjects
of the pictures are not such as their imaginations have
ever occupied themselves with. Perhaps it would be
better if they did not look at the pictures at all : but this
is not possible with the present institutions of travelling
and picture galleries.
I wish I could express better what I have been think-
ing about : but I am not in a good writing mood. In
fact I can't say my head has been very brilliant ever
since I have been out here, though lots of ideas have
passed through it. But I hope when I get back to
England I shall feel the good of the change more than
I do now. As yet I have hardly ever got rid of a certain
oppression, except at intervals when it is driven away by
over-excitement of brain ; and I don't quite know how
to manage, for it is just with the over-excitement that
the best thoughts come.
My essay goes on : I can't help doing it elaborately,
so it's no use trying not. I have a sort of idolatrous
belief in doing a thing well if I do it at all : perhaps it
only means pride which is afraid of criticism. ... I wish
I didn't feel the desire to write on so many things. It
is one blessing of this essay that it gives me good
regular work, not over-exciting, though even here some-
times I get too much strained. But perhaps not having
any one much to talk to makes it worse. I feel pretty
sure that when the essay is done I shall feel inclined to
write something about Plato, which may be made com-
patible with Oxford perhaps.
60 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
Tuesday.
I put off sending this letter on Sunday, so I think
I may as well go over the one stamp and enclose a note
for Green. Yesterday the weather got splendid again,
and I went out for five hours in the afternoon and got
right away among the hills, where little country roads
wind in and out, letting you see down steep valleys with
tiny tumbling brooks, and here and there a sudden sight
of Florence like a glorified Oxford from a glorified
Stow-Wood, and every now and then a patch of poplars
breaks the greyness of the olives into golden spray, and
you hear now and then a nightingale in the blazing sun-
light which would burn you up if there weren't a great
wind which makes you almost drunk with its buoyancy,
and the clearness of the hill-lines against the sky makes
you jump every time you look up, and gradually the sun
goes down and the wind with it, and the hills get purple,
and the whole great valley of the Arno brims with a
level flood of light.
To-day has been the same, only less wind. The
Florence races are on — wretched things in themselves —
but the place where they are held is lovely : Epsom with
a background of Giotto's campanile : it's curious.
4-
What you say about philosophy goes home to me
a good deal. I had been thinking a good deal about
feeling (in the strict sense of Gefiihl), and I keep coming
back to it. What seems to me to be true (I don't mean
that it hasn't seemed true to lots of other people) is that
feeling is worthless or precious in proportion as it is not,
or is, translated into something which by an extension
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 61
might be called action. The ordinary form of trouble
about it (to me at least) is that either I feel, and nothing
comes of it, or I do, and there is no self, no life, in what
is done. If you take desire and fear as the two typical
emotions accompanied by feeling, I find incessantly that
what makes them damnable and hateful is that they
make action (meaning by that, articulate expression of
self in any way whatever) impossible, or vice versa that
as soon as action is possible they are, in the strict sense,
impossible. But it is true, isn't it, that action is good
just according to the amount of feeling which, speaking
chemically, is set free in it. The most perfect illustration
seems to me to be art. In any art, the more artistic [the
work] is, the more form is there, i. e. the more measur-
able, definable, calculable, is it — the more rational or
intellectual. Yet on the other hand, everybody since
the world began has associated with art strength of
feeling and unconsciousness of effort. A great piece of
music can be taken to bits like a clock ; a great poem,
compared with any other piece of language, is intensely
artificial ; yet the amount of feeling which they represent
is stupendous when compared with the song of a bird or
a simple story. And this relation of feeling and intellect
seems to hold good both of the artist and of his public.
Nobody doubts that artists are more emotional than
ordinary men ; nobody ought to doubt that they apply
more intellect than ordinary men. And as to the
audience, I think what you say is frightfully true, that if
you go to art to get your own feeling reproduced, you
find it useless and flat, just because mere feeling can't
find expression, and your feeling must be at any rate
potentially endowed with form before you can be emo-
tionally receptive of real form.
62 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
Doesn't the same apply to action in the ordinary
sense ? A strong man is always a man who feels strongly
and who can get his feeling out : and it may seem fanciful,
but, as far as I see, if you are asked to describe action
you have to do it in some such way as you would do in
the case of art : I mean, any act, like any work of art, is
measurable in time and space, and the more of an act it
is the more measurable is it, the more form there is in it.
Hegel talks, doesn't he, about the great Greek statesmen
doing their things like monumental works of art.
I don't know whether this has any bearing on what
you say, but it seems to me to have. When you come
to knowledge, you can distinguish the form of the object
(i. e. its ' intelligible relations ') from what one calls the
meaning of it. What is this meaning} If you abstract
it from the intelligible relations, or in so far as you do
so, it seems to me to represent what I ca.il/eeling: It is
this which makes the ordinary mind revolt against science
as ' cold ' or ' dry.' In a botany book you get the
skeleton of the thing ; in a man who wallowed in rose-
leaves you would get something approaching to the other
extreme (feeling) ; most people's enjoyment of flowers is
made up of some of both elements. There is the sense
of space, colour, smell, all taking this definite shape,
shade, gradation, which are delightful in proportion to
their definitenets : I don't mean in proportion to the
degree in which you can describe them in words (which
I believe is what most people mean by definiteness), but
in proportion as they are this and not that shape, colour
and smell.
Well, I suppose feeling represents the personal, indi-
vidual, side of us. In itself it is the least communicable,
and therefore the most trivial, of all things in us. Yet it
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 63
is that without which there is no communication and
nothing important.
To say that reason is the only real, if this means
reason in the sense in which it is opposed to feeling,
means to me nothing. But isn't the mischief in the
habit of opposing them ? They are never absolutely
without one another; all life is them both. And have
not the great philosophers (Plato and Aristotle and
Spinoza, certainly, I can't remember about Hegel), in
trying to describe the highest forms of the human
mind, always used phraseology taken from the emotional
side of it, and put into it what is usually supposed to be
absolutely unemotional ? In fact, isn't it much the same
with the philosophers as with the artists, only (and of
course on other grounds this means a great deal) that
the artist is a man in whom the formative force does not
appear as thought, i. e. as logical thought, whereas this is
the essence of the philosopher? And wouldn't it be
better to talk of ' life ' or something else instead of
'thought,' unless one can dissociate thought from the
abstract categories ? I mean, that what develops the
world [this world, our world), whether you call it
' thought ' or not, is always, as a fact, human conscious-
ness which is (1) my consciousness, and therefore feeling,
and (2) my consciousness for you and others, God
perhaps included, and therefore intelligible. (August,
1877.)
5-
I am trying rather feebly to get into something like
a fit state to lecture on the Ethics next Term, feeling as
usual as if I had never been in Balliol Common-room in
my life. I am reading Plotinus a bit by way of a change.
64 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
not because it has anything to do with the Ethics, but
because it is Greek and philosophy and new. Of course
it is full of Plato and Aristotle, but also full of more
modern ways of looking at things ; there is a good
deal too which reminds one extraordinarily of Paul.
The questions which seem to have interested him most
are those about the nature of the soul and God. His
notion of the absolute seems to be always that of some-
thing in which the distinction between subject and object
is done away, but which is therefore undefinable and (in
the strict sense) unknowable by us, though we can
and must have a sort of sense or vision of it.
I find him very hard sometimes, and have not at-
tempted really to understand the more logical parts
(about the categories, &c.) ; but he is certainly worth
working at, I think, and I should fancy had a good deal
of semi-Hegelianism in him. I suppose he may be taken
to be the religious outcome of Greek philosophy ; he is
never tired of going on about God, or, as he generally
calls it, ' The One,' and he exhausts all possible images
to explain how this One can co-exist with and be in the
many, and how, though strictly no word can be said of
it, it is yet the inevitable presupposition of everything
that exists or is thought of. He is also at great pains to
insist that all expressions (as e.g. in Plato) implying a
separation between the worlds of sense and intelligence
are to be taken logically, not locally, and that the ideal,
so far from being removed from us, is all about us if we
would only see it.
He seems to be conscious that the relation of the
individual soul to the absolute is the centre of all dif-
ficulties. Besides various images, he usually explains it
by saying that God does not divide himself into the
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 65
many individuals, but that they partake of him accord-
ing to their several capacities, each one being potentially
the whole of him in somewhat the same way as any one
bit of knowledge involves potentially the whole of know-
ledge. From this it follows that the way to get to God
is to let oneself go as much as possible into the unity
which one potentially is, while on the other hand all evil
and failure is a form of self-assertion, attempt to be
oneself, to feel oneself, and the like.
The reason why we can partake of God, or why God
communicates himself to us, is that it is the nature of all
being to communicate itself (here he almost reminds one
of Shelley's ' And the mountains touch high heaven '),
and the higher the being the more irresistible is the
impulse to do it.
But it's not interesting writing out things like frag-
ments of an article for an encyclopedia. I should like to
have translated some pieces if they weren't too long ;
here is a rum bit about nature which sounds almost like
Goethe (he is talking about dtoopia, saying that, if you
examine, you find that in all cases it is the real end of
achievement, and that even nature really works for the
same end) : —
' If one were to ask nature for what purpose she pro-
duces, and if she chose to understand the question and
speak, she would say : " You ought not to have asked,
you ought to have understood and held your peace, as
my wont is to hold my peace and say nothing. What
then is it that you ought to have understood ? That all
that is produced is a sight for me to look upon in silence,
a vision produced by nature ; and that I, who am myself
the child of such a vision, am by nature a lover of sights,
and that which sees in me produces the object which it
VOL. I. F
66 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
looks on. as the geometrician draws that upon which
his mind is active : I do not draw, but I look, and, as
I look, the forms of the bodily world fall, as it were,
from my gaze and take substance. [With me too it is
as with my mother ' and my begetters 2 : my begetters
are the product of a mental vision ; / owe my life, not
to any action, but simply to the being, of thoughts greater
than I, contemplating themselves.] ' What then does
this mean? It meansthat what we call nature, being
a soul, born of a soul prior to her and living a more
potent life, stands quietly at gaze within herself, looking
neither at what is above her nor at what is below, but
steadfast in her own place and self-consciousness, and that
with this intelligence and consciousness of herself she sees
her own effects as far as it is given her to see, and is con-
tent to do nothing more than perfect the vision, bright
and fair. But the intelligence and sense which, if we
like, we may attribute to her, are not like those of other
sensible and intelligent beings ; compared with them
they are as sleeping compared with waking ; for as she
gazes on the vision of herself, she rests, and her gaze is
unruffled but dim.' \Enn. iii. 8 (3).]
I should like to have gone on about what you wrote
about, but I ought to be getting to bed, as I start to-
morrow morning. I believe the old business about the
Mean in the Ethics becomes more significant if one
works it in connexion with this notion of feeling taking
form under the action of something which is not feeling.
One can see that in a work of art proportion is the con-
dition of beauty, i e. of the ap^rr, of the work of art :
destroy the proportion, make a leg too long and a thigh
too short, and you make the leg so far cease to be a leg
1 [The 'world-soul.'] 2 [The ' formal reasons.' Cf. Etttt. ii. 3 (17'.]
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 67
and the thigh a thigh. So in morals ; only it is harder
to see what gives the law of proportion here. In the
work of art it is the whole which determines the true
relation of the parts ; in an act I suppose it is the con-
ception of the end which gives unity to the act. Then
there comes the further question, how far can any act be
taken by itself? or, what is the whole (ultimately) to
which the constituent elements of any act arc relative ?
It seems at first as if in a work of art the standard were
completely contained in the work itself; but I am not at
all sure that this is so really. I'm afraid this raises that
awful question of the (absolute) whole being somehow or
other present in every partial whole. {September, 1877.)
It is rather grisly when one thinks of fifteen years
hence. In other professions, the longer one goes on the
deeper one gets into the thing, at least if one ever gets
into it at all ; but in our line one seems likely to work out
of instead of into it. Yet I don't fancy that I should
better matters much by looking deliberately forward, for
there is nothing to guide me that I can see, and the whole
thing tends to become castle-building. I do believe that
the ' eternal now ' is the thing to live for really, and then
the future settles itself; but somehow or other it seems
possible to live for the day without really living in it. —
I mean, to secure the disadvantages both of the star-
gazer and of the eaith- grubber.
The point in which all these qualms seem to con-
centrate themselves is death, which I have found myself
thinking about more than usual lately. It is a strange
thing, isn't it, that a thing which is one of the few quite
certain and obvious facts, like death, should be a sort of
F 2
68 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
centre for all the problems and uncertainties in the
world. And I always have a dim feeling that, if one
could once get a clear grip of a single fact of every-day
life, death would clear itself at once, and vice versa, just
as it seems that to understand one's own nature would be
to understand God, and vice versa.
Certainly one always comes back to the feeling that
the truth in these ultimate problems is not got by think-
ing in the ordinary sense, but by living, which is, I sup-
pose, what Carlyle and others mean by saying, 'Doubt of
any kind is not solved except by action.' But at first
there seems to be the same contradiction here as in
'living for the moment' ; you lose the fact as soon as
you begin to ' think about ' it, and yet the less you think
about it the less you are in it, and the less it is a fact.
I suppose the fault lies in isolating one's activities, which
is just what one never does do when one really lives. But
I'm afraid we have said all this a good many times
before.
Yes, I have been reading Bacon, the Nov. Org.
and parts of the De Aiigmentis. I do find a good deal
in him, I think, though it seems very hard to know how
to lecture on him. He is strangely medieval in many
ways, but there is a sort of breath of the Elizabethan
time all through him. Surely it would be much truer to
call him the father of the practical English spirit than
the father of empiricism. His empiricism is full of meta-
physics in the crudest and worst sense of the word ; but
in the idea that truth and power must ultimately coin-
cide, and that philosophy has got to make man at home
in the universe, he seems to have got the truest and most
valuable part of the British aspiration. It is queer to
find Plato and him so nearly coinciding in their notion of
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 69
the function of philosophy ; and queer too that the way
in which they both put the thing (that philosophy is to
rule life, or to make it happy, directly) is just the most
hopelessly impossible part of their theory. It is a pity
that Bacon is equally typical of the inferior English
characteristics, a sort of swagger and ignorant inde-
pendence. [January, 1880.)
7-
Everything to me seems to come back perpetually
to the idea of eternity in some form or other, and the
form in which I want to get hold of it is not that of an
infinite future but an ever-present ' now,' in which past
and future should vanish or be absorbed. At rare
moments the feeling seems to come, when distance in
time and space literally vanishes or goes for nothing ;
but it is so hard to work it into ordinary life. And
another difficulty is that, in trying to realize the nothing-
ness of ordinary limits and losses, one seems so easily to
fall into a sort of blank or void in which all that we
really care about evaporates. The truth must be (and
I am sure this is what he [Green] used to teach) that we
get to the higher life, not by thinking away the lower,
but by carrying it with us ; in fact, that the higher is
the lower, only transfigured or lived at a higher pressure.
So that if it were possible to realize fully what one is, or
what one is doing, at the most commonplace point of
one's life, one would realize eternity — in fact, I suppose,
one would be God. (July, 1882.)
8.
Does it ever occur to you that the 'horrors of
mortality,' rottenness, &c, are no different in kind from
70 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
the horrors (if they are horrors) of all physical life ?
I mean, that if one chose to fix one's attention on certain
parts of one's bodily processes one would be almost as
much revolted as by the actual decay of death. And
conversely, if it is the case that evil (in the form of what
we call ugliness, bad smell, &c.) is only evil to imperfect
organisms, then the process of death might seem to
a central mind simply a continuation of that of life.
Anyhow, does not the horror of death come from the
almost irresistible feeling that one's soul or self is some-
how present to the decaying body, whereas really the
decaying body is a phenomenon with a life of its own,
no more or less horrible than a yellow leaf? Or again,
is not one's dread of death the dread either of annihilation
or of loss of identity, both of which are impossible, for,
whatever one is, one must be something, and one's identity
is the identity of what one is conscious of, not a sort of
hybrid of that and something else ? A bit of earth has
its identity, and if I, i.e. a part of my body, become
that bit of earth, I am not conscious of a painful
transition, for I am at every moment exactly what I am,
not a hanger-on to what went before.
Or once more, why should it not be possible to some
mind to see all bodily existence as we are now some-
times able to see little bits of it ? Is not a body which
seems to us beautiful or good as much transfigured,
spiritual, compared with the same body if we look into
its skin, as ever a ' resurrection of the body ' expected it
to be ? Or rather, is not ' bodily existence ' a wrong
phrase, if it means unspiritual ?
But I can't get at what I want to say. Only I have
a kind of feeling that the supposed ultimate antithesis
between individual existence and existence in the absolute
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 71
is not a real antithesis — that all existence is and must be
individual, whether in the form of what we know as
feeling, or in the forms (to us inconceivable) which make
earth earth, and an atom an atom, the difference lying
not in the fact of being, but in the amount of being in-
volved in each moment of existence. As Emily Bronte
said, 'There is no room for death.'
I will stop. I daresay sometime the idea will come
back in some perfectly clear and commonplace form.
{January, 1883.)
9-
Why is it that so many seemingly petty things stand
between one's soul and the truth while a man is alive ?
For it does seem that in death one sees things more
truly as well as more intensely. It always makes me
think of Carlyle's notion of history and biography —
I mean, that the reality is the heroic and nothing else.
And I suppose all the old ideas about ' dying to the
body,' and ' philosophy being the practice of death,'
come to much the same thing. The difficulty is that
one does not realize the truth until it is too late to
realize it effectively. Instead of making the physical
life spiritual, one only spiritualizes it after it has ceased
to be physical. It is like ceasing to eat and drink in
order to be holy, instead of eating and drinking to the
glory of God. {March, 1883.)
10.
It is strange how differently trouble affects different
people. I sometimes think it only makes them better
if they are good already. Nothing at least has given
me such a feeling of my own moral weakness as the way
in which personal loss has demoralized me. Every now
72 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
and then, and with regard to a few persons, I have
better feelings than I ever had before ; but on the whole
it seems only to have drawn away the life-blood from
daily life, and left me dull and unsympathetic to the
ordinary world. And this makes me feel sometimes
that, even if I had what I want, I should not be able to
use it rightly ; otherwise should I not be able to use the
loss of it to more purpose? I suppose the personal
feelings in which most of the best things in one's life are
bound up ought to be perpetually expanding from their
centre and returning to it again, until at last not only is
one person worth the whole world to you, but the whole
world also becomes transfused with your personal feeling.
Because this is not so, or so far as it is not so, personal loss
leaves the world empty and colourless. And most forms
of consolation which talk about the love of God or of
mankind are so very liable to sound vapid and watery.
Or, even if they stir one up with momentary enthusiasm,
it is so hard to throw oneself trustingly into the great
sea without being paralyzed by that terrible longing
which drags one back to the brook-side which had been
all one's very own. But I am quite sure of one thing
— however far I may be at present from living up to it —
that the only strength for me is to be found in the sense
of a personal presence everywhere, it scarcely matters
whether it be called human or divine ; a presence which
only makes itself felt at first in this and that particular
form and feature, not because it is not itself personal
and individual, but because our capacity of personal and
individual feeling is so limited and weak. Into this
presence we come, not by leaving behind what are
usually called earthly things, or by loving them less, but
by living more intensely in them, and loving more what
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 73
is really lovable in them ; for it is literally true that
this world is everything to us, if only we choose to make
it so, if only we ' live in the present ' because it is
eternity.
I say this because I think you will understand me.
I very seldom say these things, and it is better they
should remain unsaid for the most part, for they only
become phrases. But now and then I think one ought
to express the things which at the time seem the best
and the truest, even though one is conscious (as I am)
that the next minute one will be behaving like a brute
to the people who are nearest to one and who ought to
be the easiest to treat well. {July, 1883.)
11.
Corfu, Aug. 17, 1884.
I wish you were here to talk to. I have been out for
a morning walk along olive-covered cliffs in an un-
mitigated sun, with lizards running about and grass-
hoppers talking incessantly (they always seem to me
the very voice of the heat), and the sea and mountains
one great blaze of blue : and now we have had the
twelve o'clock dejeuner, and I feel in a delicious state of
refined intoxication, in which the grosser particles seem
to be purged away, and one desires nothing but sweet
companionship.
I have been kept here a long time, first by five days'
quarantine, endured on board a tiny yacht in company
with three Greeks and a Greek Jew, two of them middle-
aged gross merchants, and two young commercial
travellers. I was naturally an object of intense wonder
and amusement to them. I always find the commercial
class the hardest of all to chum with. Their world-view
74 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
is so absolutely self-sufficing and unsympathetic, and,
though they are not really a bit more sensual than one-
self, their sensuality always makes me rather resent it.
However I must say one doesn't often hope to find
young commercials in England capable (as these Greeks
were) of singing part-songs in a way which, though
a little extravagant, moved one's inside (though I had
scarcely any idea of what the words were about) ; and
I was quite touched when one of them tried afterwards
in German to interpret one of the songs (a love-song)
with many apologies, because, as he kept repeating, it
was ' hoch, sehr hoch,' and singing it made him literally
pant with excitement.
We were let out of quarantine on Friday, and I had
hoped to go across to the mainland at once and get to
Janina, the capital of Albania, by to-day. But the
English consul here said it wasn't safe to go without
a guide, and the best guide is an old Albanian who goes
across every Tuesday on business, so I am waiting for
him. It is rather nice getting good food and beds after
quarantine, but otherwise I wish I hadn't to stay here.
A town, when one has nothing to do and knows nobody,
is always a nuisance. However, the country is lovely to
look at, and the people interesting to watch. What
strikes me most is their tremendous sociableness. At
night the whole population swarms out into the piazza
and talks. I suppose love of solitude and reverie are
almost confined to Teutonic people. I can't make out
whether one is higher or lower for having it. Sometimes
it seems as if it could only be a second-best thing to have
communion with nature : and I do believe that, if the
same sort of feelings which are now set going in me
sometimes by simple natural life could be continuously
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 75
set going by every human being I came across, I should
be a much higher animal than I am. Nature does not
stir desire, and the interest in nature seems perfectly dis-
interested. But if one could get right through the desire
and the fear which clog one's intercourse with one's
fellow-creatures it would be a diviner air still that one-
would emerge into. I suppose the truth is that what
one calls nature is enormously ' generalized ' to us.
I mean that one violet is practically the same as another
violet, one bird as another bird. This has its advantages
and its disadvantages, as compared with the infinite
differences of men. It enables one on the one hand to
see all violets in this one — to idealize: on the other hand,
it makes one's idealization vague and wanting in flesh
and blood, for one dees not really knozv this violet. The
sad part of the business is that the incarnation of the
divine in men and women more often serves to obscure
than to reveal the divine itself — except at rare moments.
Or, to put it the other way, that in oneself which
responds to the divine seems only capable of responding
to it when it is presented in either a very simple or
a very exalted form — in flowers and animals and waters
and mountains, or in heroic men and their works.
It seems to be part of the same difficulty when one
longs (as I did this morning) to live — not a mere animal
life — but a life combining a simple satisfaction of one's
simple animality with the highest spiritual energy of
which one is capable. Is it simply the longing for
happiness — for the sheer sense of freedom from pain and
discomfort — which makes one think like this? which
makes one almost hate the intermediate filling-up of
' domestic, social, and political ' activity, which to most
people seems the whole of life? Would one gradually
76 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
cease to dream at all, and become an uncomfortable
animal ? Is there no way to the kingdom of heaven but
that of the best English citizen, of which Green expressed
the highest theory ?
I can't make out. I only know that when I get away
from that life I feel as if I should some day never come
back to it ; and yet there is the dreadful thought that
nearly all of whatever good I may have done in the
world has been done in connexion — connexion often un-
willing, but still connexion — with it ; and that in my
heart of hearts I believe that whatever in me does not
somehow or other, however remotely or indirectly, serve
humanity, might just as well not exist at all, and in fact
does not exist at all. Perhaps by the time one comes to
die, one may see how one might have been a divine
animal without ceasing to be a man.
12.
Athens is all that I had ever dreamt of — I mean
of course the ancient part of the town. It is strange,
and almost revolting, to find tramways and steam-
engines within a stone's-throw of temples and theatres
of the age of Pericles. The contrast is more glaring
even than in Rome, because the town is so much
smaller. And yet what escape is there from such a state
of things? The nineteenth century must live — must
make money and seek improvement ; and, if it has not
the sense of beauty which can construct things beautiful
as well as useful, we cannot expect it to sacrifice its
comforts to what it would consider only an idea. We
seem here to stand before the insoluble problem which
troubled the soul of Leopardi ... I think I enjoy the
nights even more than the day. The moon is magnifi-
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 77
cent now, and it is not difficult to escape from the cafes
and find quiet under the shadow of the Acropolis or the
temple of Olympian Zeus. But the sight of these
things raises many questions. Suppose that they had
all perished ; suppose that the Turks had destroyed all,
as they have already destroyed so much. What idea
should we have ever had of Greek art and beauty ? And
may it not be that there have been many races who have
created things not less wonderful, and yet whose memory
has perished for us for ever? It seems that we are
driven to feel that human memory and human history
are after all only a fragment in some greater mind and
some vaster series of events ; and that we can only find
peace and confidence in the thought of something which
is eternal and cannot change. {September ; 1884.)
I sometimes feel inclined now to doubt whether what
one commonly calls ' feeling ' a thing is any guarantee of
being really in it or having a real hold on it. Or rather,
must not one extend ' feeling ' from those states which
seem (only 'seem,' I suppose) to connect directly with
physical affections, to include all consciousness in which
one is at one with an object? Has the feeling ' up the
back ' when one hears certain music, the feeling of ' hot
and cold ' when one sees certain faces, the feeling of
' ready to burst ' when one defies certain injustices, any
more claim to be called feeling, and valued as ' real,' than
the ' unfelt' energy with which one does a piece of daily
work ? There clearly is a difference, and one fancies
that saint-like and heroic people live a more ' feeling '
life — have more thrill about them — than ordinary mortals.
Perhaps the state in which one does much of what sacms
78 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
to others one's best work or acts is neither one thing nor
the other ; it has not the physical exaltation or the
spiritual intensity. But there does seem to be such
a thing as the spiritual intensity, quite different from any
localized feeling, and capable, I believe, of transfiguring
any such feeling into something from which the physical
element has entirely evaporated. Great artists must
experience something of this sort. In fact it often seems
as if life would be easy if one could make a poem or
a song or a picture out of one's sensations ; and I sup-
pose, if one could make a deed out of them, it would do
as well. {December, 1884.)
14.
... If I ever said ' work ' is the cure for weakness and
misery, I was not thinking of what is ordinarily called
' individual effort ' to the exclusion of an ' object,' which
(as you say) is clearly a necessity. But it has been
coming home to me a good deal of late that any work —
any putting out of energy — does ipso facto take one
out of oneself and bring one into contact with something
not oneself. Isn't there a French saying of some states-
man, ' On ne peut pas s'appuyer que sur ce qui resiste' ?
That is what I feel. As long as one is oneself merely,
alone, it is like being in a vacuum. There is a feeling
(which gets horrible at times) that one is groping out
for something to touch, something to lean on, and that
one can find nothing. This is the condition not of what
is ordinarily called loneliness, but of the state of simple
jelly-fish feeling; it is the state of pain when it does not
kill or rouse to action, the state of ennui, of ' nohow-in-
particular,' the state in which one is conscious of oneself,
and yet conscious of it as almost a nonentity. Then
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 79
■what happens ? You see something, or smell something,
or touch something; something comes against you ; you
have to do something; and, however simple or mechanical
it may be, you feel yourself against something else and
yet hi that something else. The same holds good in
higher things. It is the delight of doing and making,
the delight of tending a plant or an animal or a human
being, of making a box or a picture or a steam-engine,
of solving a problem, understanding a poem, of worship
and of love. The opposite state, the state of self-
conscious nonentity, when it gets beyond the mere
embryonic stage, takes two forms, fear or desire. In
both one is conscious of oneself against a not-self,
but not of oneself as in it. In fear the not-self dominates,
in desire the self. Love, in any true sense, from the
simplest up to the most subtle forms of it, is just this
going out of the self into something which is only not
the self because it is more than it.
What one ordinarily calls the 'self,' as far as I see, is
a particular sensibility or a group of them — what par-
ticular one depends on the circumstances. When one
speaks of 'self in the bad or uncomfortable sense, one
means some set of sensibilities which are feeling after
something to feel, while the surrounding medium really
requires certain other sensibilities to be in action. One
wants one's dinner, or to talk to a certain person, when
the particular point of the world of space and time in
which one happens to be requires one to want something
quite different. Then one is miserable, or talks of the
bad self which thwarts the good one, &c. What we
have got to do is to get out of our limitations ; and this
means to be in contact with the world wherever we
happen to be, or (which is the same thing) to be at the
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centre of things; and, if we could be and do this entirely,
we should be God. ' God is love ' because he is at one
with everything, and yet he is none of the things he is at
one with. Or, better, the divine life is the being this
apparently self-contradictory thing. It is only apparently
self-contradictory. I find even in the little things of life
that the condition of enjoyment, of possession, of sym-
pathy, is that I should in a sense be above or outside the
thing enjoyed, possessed, sympathized with. Self-anni-
hilation is damnation. You must be yourself, but to
be means the consciousness of self in not-self. The
bigger the self, the more things it stands outside, and
yet the more things it enters into. This is equally true
of what are called intellectual things, and of what are
called emotional or moral things. Pantheism is wrong
if it means that God is all things ; but it is right if it
means that there is nothing in which you cannot touch
God ; i. e. nothing which you cannot love, nothing which
you need fear, nothing out of which you cannot make
something, nothing in which you cannot be something.
Only in this sense is it true that ' doubt is solved by
action ' — by work. It is a lie, I think, to say that doubt,
for instance, about God or beauty is solved by digging
or being ' busy ' or ' doing good.' What is true is that
doubt means the (intellectual) state of non-contact, the
state in which I catch at something but keep falling
back on myself (i. e. on some out-of-place sensibility).
Action is not moving the limbs, but living and being.
To ' do something ' is the way out of doubt or misery,
because in doing we are ; we assert, not some abstract
proposition, but a bit of ourselves. We are the thing
which we understand ; we are not the thing which we
don't understand, and that is what makes real doubt
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 81
miserable. There are two lines of Goethe which say-
it all :—
Nur wo du bist sei alles, immer kindlich,
So bist du alles, bist uniiberwindlich.
I need not tell you that I feel all this so much the
more because it is so hard for me to realize it ; because
I am so frightfully liable not to be f all there,' to be
anywhere but there, to fear and to want instead of to
love. (A?igust, 1885.)
15.
I do really believe more and more that the only rule
of life for me is ' to be ttoitjtiko's, not -nadrjTiKoi.' I don't
mean always to be ' busy ' — far from it — but to be always
' creative ' (God forgive the phrase). And I do begin to
understand what Plato and others mean, when they say
there is a state which is not one of pleasure or of thought,
but higher than either — a state in which there is the
greatest amount of vitality, but the least amount both
of ' feeling ' and of ' reflexion.' After all it is only
applying to all life the principle of the artist, which
always seems to me so tremendously instructive. Of
mere pleasure you can make nothing — as little as of mere
pain. And both, pleasure and pain, when they reach
a certain degree of intensity (it would be truer to say,
when they become as nearly as possible nothing but
pleasure and pain), admit of no expression, and are next
door to nothing — we are not alive in them. It would
come to the same thing if you made the rule of life,
' feel as much as ever you can,' if it were properly under-
stood. The amount of feeling is its correlations, radia-
tions, suggestions, ' form,' whatever you like to call it.
It is not true that you have first a ' real ' feeling, and then
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82 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
express it away or act it away ; the expression or action
is the feeling at a higher power. And if a man could
honestly say that the consciousness of eating was to him
the concentration of the universe, you must tell him
logically to be a stomach.
And as to the business about the 'self (I suppose
it is Spinozism) it seems to me that what most people
mean by their 'self is simply a particular consciousness
localized in a particular part ; e.g. if they mean what they
call their ' bad ' self, it is a sexual feeling, &c. In
fact, what we call ' our ideas ' are ourselves. I don't
mean that we are a string of onions, but that we are
exactly what we are conscious of, what we live. There
is no other life or living thing. It is another question
what is the ultimate self. That (as far as I can see) can
be nothing but the being or force which is the life of the
world, of which motion and magnetism and life and
imagination and morality are all forms. The sense that
you are, as far as you are anything, the child of the
larger life, is religion. Wherever you can lean on it,
take hold of it, be in it, you are safe — free from desire
and fear, which are the two forms of the sense of isolation,
disconnectedness. {August, 1885.) 1
16.
I have been dipping into a book about Gordon in
Central Africa (1 874-1 879). It is just his diary and
letters. There are things in it which make one shiver
with admiration and delight. It is absolutely simple —
' We are the clay and thou art the potter ' — nothing but
[' A year later Nettleship writes : ' I get to feel that what we call the
" individual life" is a merely arbitrary space round which we draw lines
of our own : the only real individual seems to be the "absolute."']
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 83
this in various forms. But it docs make one realize
what I always theoretically believe, that only here is
peace and strength to be had. The wonderful thing
is the combination — not sense of repose only nor devour-
ing energy only — but the two naturally and inseparably
combined. It is a form of love — the highest form, I
suppose — the sense of absolute union with something not
oneself, along with the continual desire to serve it, to do
something for it. It is queer how what one mostly calls
love seems to combine the two contradictory extremes,
the mere blind intensity of feeling in which self swallows
up the world, and the absolute open-armed surrender in
which there is no feeling but only life. {October, 1885.)
17-
I didn't naturally get very deep into Natural Philo-
sophy [Deschaners],but any little is better than nothing,
and makes me want to know more. The difficulty is
to get the right sort of book. It ought not to be
elementary, and yet it ought to deal with the elements
of the subjects. I must say the general impression that
I always get from dipping into such things is, how very
much alive what is ordinarily called ' dead matter ' is.
What bothers me most is the place of feeling in the
whole concern. Sometimes it seems as if there would
be nothing without it (for everything seems only ex-
pressible in terms of actual or possible human experience,
and this apparently implies feeling) ; sometimes as if
everything would go on just the same, whether it were
there or not, for the energy of which feeling is a mode
or accompaniment does not seem to be feeling. {January,
1886.)
G 2
84 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
I sometimes think one might conceive of God as
a being who might experience what we call the intensest
pain and pleasure without being ' affected ' by it — who
made everything his own without becoming any of it.
I wonder whether this is at all what happens with
human beings ; whether, for example, violent ' physical '
pleasures and pains are ever, to the people who are
experiencing them, the actual material out of which
poems could be made on the spot. If this is conceiv-
able, then it would be conceivable conversely that what
is ordinarily called ' thinking ' or ' imagining ' could in-
clude and be the whole thing, without the help of what
is ordinarily called sensible experience. And certainly
there doesn't seem much sense in what one is told about
Jesus, or again in what people like Hegel say about
' thought,' unless something of this sort is true l . (jfzme,
1886.)
19.
... I am pretty sure that mere sorrow — the mere
sense of loss, — however it may hurt one at the time
with a sort of physical pain, has no power to do per-
manent harm, unless it is poisoned with regret in some
form or other. And for regret as such there is no cure,
just because it is the sense of something irrevocable.
It can only be done away with by the belief that really
nothing is irrevocable, that, while it is true that the past
cannot be undone, it is only true so long as you admit
that there is a ' past ' ; once get rid of time, and the past
is annihilated, except so far as it is an element in an
[* Cf. No. 13.]
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 85
eternal now. I suspect something of this kind is the real
meaning of the ' doctrine ' of absolution.
I do not believe in the least that growing physically-
older has any necessary connexion with loss of vitality.
Of all the doctrines of modern science I suppose about
the best established is that, in order that anything should
come into being, something else must cease to be ; that
is the true law of sacrifice. The only question is, what
ceases to be and what comes to be. All living means
dying ; that is obvious ; it is a merely arbitrary con-
vention which gives to certain processes the prerogative
of being called ' life ' and ' death.' I can honestly say for
my own part that I feel more alive now than I did twenty
years ago, although I am equally conscious of being
much nearer to death. {October, 1886.)
20.
I should think literature was maddening to lecture
on, but I sometimes long to have a say about something
of the sort. They are beginning to talk again about
a modern literature school here [at Oxford]. I hope it
won't be done in a hurry, but it does seem to me that, if
(as seems likely) fewer people are going to learn Greek
and Latin, we ought to begin making preparations to
supply their place. The discussions about it make one
feel how very little the classics owe their present position
in education to their being literature, for the first thing
the ordinary person says is, ' For heaven's sake don't let
us murder Shakespeare, &c, by treating them as we treat
Aeschylus and Sophocles.'
I suppose the truth is very few people have much idea
of what a ' literary ' education means or ought to mean.
86 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
If the essence of it is to hand on from generation to
generation the finest human thoughts said in the finest
way, with all the incidental training which the study of
the outworks of the subject brings (attention, exactness,
memory, reasoning, &c), then surely it must be humbug
to say that a literature in one's own language cannot be
made educational. Only one must acquiesce (as one
acquiesces in the case of the classics) in the results being
grotesquely small and disappointing in the majority of
people, as ludicrous in fact [mutatis mutandis) as a bad
Latin verse is, compared to Virgil.
The one important thing seems to be that people
should be clear as to whether they really believe that the
nurture of the soul does require the ideas of other souls ;
if they don't, the sooner they throw up literary education
the better : if they do, they must accept literature as the
staple, for better or for worse. [December, 1886.)
21.
Many of the things you say in comparing poetry with
other arts raise a great many questions, some of which
I have been thinking about lately. The difficulty which
seems to me to lie at the root of the whole subject of the
philosophy of art is as to the nature of symbolism (in its
widest sense). The ultimate fact seems to be that one
idea (taking ' idea ' to mean any piece of consciousness)
is related in various ways to another, or rather that the
meaning of any one idea is another idea ; so that all lan-
guage and all expression is a form of translation. And
it sometimes strikes one that the ordinary language about
metaphor, simile, analogy, &c, is only one half the truth ;
i.e. that instead of saying the metaphor is a transference
from the proper sense of a word or object, one might just
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 87
as truly say the ' proper ' sense is a transference from (or
more probably a limitation of) the metaphorical sense.
What is called the ' proper ' sense seems in most cases
to mean little more than the customary or else the
historically earlier.
I can't help also doubting whether there is really much
point in contrasting the medium of poetical expression
with that of other arts, as less ' sensuous,' or as ' ideas '
in contrast with sense. In the last resort all words are
sounds or sights, actual or suggested. No doubt the
sound or sight of them in itself is very insignificant ; but
'in itself merely means, 'if they are regarded not as
words ' ; and then the same applies to music, which is
unmeaning if you regard it merely as sound. All I mean
is that the concrete fact which one has in each case is,
not certain sensations on the one side and certain non-
sensible ideas on the other, but (alike in all the arts)
a whole of variously related or formed sensations, actual
or possible. It is not that sensations suggest ideas, but
that the ' ideas ' are the form of the sensations. Poetry
is sound of such a nature that, to an organization of
a certain kind, it means or is such and such an infinity
of other things. The sound suggests these other things
because it is an element in them. How far it is a ne-
cessary element in them depends on the organization in
contact with them, just as it apparently does in music,
for there are people who say they get more pleasure
(I believe) from reading a score than from hearing it
played, because possibly the sound would jar on them,
somewhat as a persons voice may jar and spoil the effect
of poetry.
And in the end it does not seem to matter much
whether one conceives of a perfect imagination as one to
88 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
which there was no ' sense,' or as one to which ' sense '
was everything ; for by calling an experience merely
' sensible,' we always appear to mean that it is (com-
paratively) isolated ; the more it passes into and is passed
into by other experiences, the more ' spiritual ' it gets.
But I suspect all this is too remote from the con-
sideration of poetry proper, in which one must start
from the undoubted fact that the sensuous element gets
its spiritualization in different ways (sometimes to its
advantage, sometimes to its disadvantage) from other
arts. And no doubt too, however much one may believe
that there is a point at which all ' expression ' meets,
and that in that sense one form of it cannot be more
spiritually capable than another, yet as a matter of
human experience there is a great difference in the
nature and capacities of the poetic, pictorial, musical
organizations, and in what their products can and
cannot do for average people. (January, 1887.)
22.
I think I am getting to think less of the difference
between educating and writing. I feel, more than I used
to do, that the fact that men like Socrates and Christ
wrote nothing does somehow go along with their unique
greatness ; and, without considering oneself one of them,
I do seem to see that, if one could literally live one's
theories and beliefs, it would be something greater
than any book one would be likely to write. No doubt
the great bulk of teachers are unable, from various cir-
cumstances, to put the best of themselves into their
teaching ; but if they could, there remains the old fact,
as Plato says in the Phaedrus, that it is the only way in
which one mind really comes into living contact with
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 89
another. I suppose any one, even a genius, would feel to
some extent hampered by an examination system, al-
though it is impossible to say how far the hampering
effects are due to one's own weakness. However, I do
not at all mean that the attraction of writing is less
strong to me than before ; but when I look round, and
see the crowds of men in a state of spiritual destitution,
conscious or unconscious, and the poverty of the average
educator, I do feel that no knowledge and no imagina-
tion and no force of character would be enough to meet
the demands. {February, 1887.)
23-
The doctor must have a strange experience of human
nature in these kinds of places ; so many of the people
must be invalids, mental or moral, and yet not mad.
Though indeed one gets to feel more and more what rot
these distinctions are, and that the highest health is the
highest spirituality, with the proviso that the highest
health must involve the suffering or depression of some
part of the organism.
I have been reading a queer book called Sympneumata,
edited by Laurence Oliphant, and apparently dictated by
his wife. It is vilely written, and most people would put
it down as humbug, but I believe it is a real experience
and contains truth. It goes on the hypothesis that the
deity is a bi-sexual being — the eternal union of masculine
and feminine — and that the physical division of what we
call man and woman is a degeneration, which humanity
will slowly retrieve itself from. Of course the ideas are
as old as the hills, and gain nothing by the sort of mock
scientific language in which they are put out. But it
90 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
fetches me because I can't help believing that somehow
or other there is a real point of contact between the
' love of mankind,' as represented by Jesus and as con-
centrated in the idea of ' God is love,' and the ' das ewig-
weibliche zieht uns hinan ' of Goethe : and that the
world won't be happy till it finds this out. If it were
not such a dreadfully difficult and dangerous subject to
treat, a real investigation of the history of love in all its
forms would probably throw more light on human nature
and life than any other. [August, 1887.)
It seems as if for the complete thing [making a man
not only forget his unpleasant self, but feel that he is
living over again in something or somebody else] there
must be both consciousness of acting and of being acted
upon, of (f>L\ei(r6ai as well as of $i\<dv. It may be that
as long as one is conscious of the two as separable, one
has never known what real love means, and I am quite
ready to believe that it is so. But somehow or other,
human weakness and self-deception and egotism apart, it
does seem as if self-realization must include something
like the ' ewig-weibliche.' [November, 1888.)
24.
I have come lately to understand dimly what Green
meant (or might have meant) by the resurrection, and
along with this what Plato and others have meant by
saying that life is a learning to die. The physiologists
tell one that all our senses are differentiations of touch,
and if one follows this out one gets to queer results :
e. g. our present visual experience may be, to that which
would be possible to a more perfect organization, what
our present tactual experience is compared with our
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 91
visual. Conceive what it would be if we got through
our stomach material for poetry and music, What is
usually called ' body ' really means a very elementary
and limited susceptibility; the more 'bodily' it is, the
more limited it is. This is the only ground of distinction
that I can see between ' higher ' and ' lower ' feelings and
perceptions. Fear of death, or clinging to life, is fear of.
or clinging to, certain fragments of ourselves. If we could
' energize ' a great deal more continuously than most of
us can, we might experience physical death literally
without being aware of it. Or again, the coarser sort of
pain would become what the sense of a slight discord is
in music, or a bad piece of reasoning, while the coarser
sorts of pleasure would become corresponding elements
in a whole into which at present they are absolutely
incapacitated from entering. I am getting more and
more convinced that what is usually called ' having an
idea of something,' or being ' conscious of something,' is
just not the idea or the consciousness of that which we
say it is, but of something else. It is the fringe, so to
say, of an alien matter, and means that we are not
conscious fully. At any rate nothing can be more
opposite than what is ordinarily called ' thinking ' of a
thing (which means the weakened reproduction of it in
memory, and is rightly despised by ' practical ' people),
and what most philosophers have meant by ' thinking '
(which is the productive energy of the discoverer and
the artist and the practical man alike). In the latter
sense, the more productive one is, the less (in the ordinary
sense) one is conscious of being productive ; for being-
conscious of being productive means being productive
partly in one way and partly in another ; in fact,
divided (and therefore limited) consciousness. I am sure
92 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
most people get into dreadful confusion about ' conscious '
and ' unconscious.' They have a right instinct that to
do a thing unconsciously is to do it and nothing else ;
and when a philosopher tells them that self-conscious
activity is the prerogative of man, they think it means
that, whenever they do a right thing or enjoy life, they
ought to divide themselves into two and be able to see
themselves as others see them.
If one applies this, it seems that what one calls ' bodily
sensations,' &c, are no more sensations of body than the
highest conceivable thoughts or aspirations. Of course
there is nothing new in this ; but I am sure I used to
think that the difference between, e. g., higher and lower
pleasure lay in the fact that one was a consciousness of
one's palate, while the other was not consciousness of, e. g.,
one's brain. If one really wants to compare them locally,
so to say, one ought to compare a little piece of flesh
surface, limited and comparatively monotonous, with
(say) miles of country with infinite variety of shape and
colour, or the solar system ; but in neither case is there
any sense in saying that the consciousness is ' anywhere.'
(February, 1888.)
25-
I sometimes get glimpses of a state in which one would
not be aware of what is ordinarily called one's 'body,'
but they are only glimpses. I say ' ordinarily called,'
for the more I think of it the harder I find it to say what
oiiglit to be called body. It seems quite a relative term,
and the sense in which any given person uses it depends
on where they happen to draw the circle round certain
experiences.
What you say of taking a more ' materialistic ' view of
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 93
people is quite intelligible to me. I confess that to me
it is almost a matter of indifference whether I talk of
' material ' or ' spiritual.' I mean that the continuity of
life and existence is borne in on me more and more.
A stomach-ache is a spiritual fact as much as an ecstatic
vision, only an intensely limited one. I suppose it
wouldn't do to say simply that the difference in all cases
is one of extent, but at present I find it hard to say any-
thing more definite. And I am prepared to find that
people of a very ' spiritual ' nature are not people whose
stomachs (e. g.) play less part in their life, but more.
What embarrasses one at every turn is, I find, that there
is a certain conventional average of experience which
sets the standard of what people call ' real,' &c. I believe
that even this standard is far more fluctuating than we
generally suppose, but it at least has fixed associations,
and we seem to classify and divide the world according
to it.
I wonder whether the world will ever come to value
people for what is really valuable in them. I suppose
' moral ' worth ought simply to mean whatever contributes
in any way to whatever the person who is talking thinks
the best thing, or thing most worth having in the world.
What I like in Greek philosophy is that it puts that
point of view so simply. It sickens one to hear the
ordinary enlightened man talk about morality, whether
he talks for or against it. He almost never seems to
realize that there can be only one standard of absolute
value for things, and that ultimately the morally ' good '
must either mean that (and then everything that is really
worth having or being has ' moral ' value), or else must
describe some special form of such absolute value (in
94 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
which case ' moral ' will be co-ordinate with, not supreme
over, artistic, political, economical, &c). {November,
1888.)
26.
I don't see any way out of the up-and-down existence
which you describe. I feel more and more the horrible
contrast between rare moments and my average level of
achievement. I know that it is only a man's self that
realizes this : to the outsider you look much of a piece
... I do believe that the moments are the things that
give one what is best, and that they don't really pass,
however much one may fall away from them. In the
greater part of life it seems as if one must consent to be
wrapped round with custom ; but the naked touch of
reality, when it does come, is like flame through the
veins, and each time it comes it leaves the blood running
a little quicker. {May, 1889.)
27.
I sometimes begin to wonder whether it is any good
trying to expound the relation of art to morality. And
yet one knows that is just the thing where people are
most apt to go wrong, and also just the thing about
which they are most bothered if they think at all.
I think what I should like to make people feel is that,
so far as they are really in an ' artistic ' state of mind,
they cannot be in an ' immoral ' state. That, for example,
mere killing, or stealing, or fornicating, or lying, cannot
be poetical or in any sense beautiful, or tragic, or
humorous ; and that conversely, as soon as there is any
beauty, or tragedy, or humour in the thing, it ceases to
be mere killing, and so on. But I see this could only
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 95
be shown if one could get people not to be afraid of
admitting that there is no such thing as ' killing ' in the
abstract, or as ' absolute ' good or evil. They do practi-
cally admit it when (with whatever misgivings) they
allow their ' better feelings ' to be exercised on things
which, except for those better feelings, they would
simply condemn or look away from.
If you take Antony and Cleopatra, for instance, I should
have thought you could safely say to any one, ' By all
means go and live like Antony, if you feel disposed to
do so by reading Shakespeare ; only remember that you
must be ready to die like him ; otherwise it is not
Shakespeare's Antony that you are imitating.' And
I should be inclined to point the moral, not by saying,
' You see what lust can bring a great man to,' but, ' You
see what you must be prepared to face if you are going
to make lust a grand thing, a thing to throw away an
empire for.'
What I feel very strongly is that most people, when
they take what they call the artistic point of view,
really do no such thing. They have no conception, as
a rule, of the distance of their ordinary life from that
which the artist represents. They are often just as bad,
though in a different way, as the Philistine who sees in
Cleopatra nothing but a common prostitute.
I couldn't help thinking of this last Sunday when
Bright preached in our chapel. It was about ' This is
a hard saying/ and put very well, I thought, what an
enormous way off the ordinary comfortable Christianity
of decent people is from what Christ meant. It seems
to me to apply to all great men. One is not, as a rule,
fit company for them at all. How many people could
really laugh with Aristophanes — laugh without any
96 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
drawback ? It sometimes seems as if any emotion, if
sufficiently thorough-going, would take one to heaven.
Rut of course the practical question is how to deal
with ourselves as we are for most of the week. Still,
even so, it seems to me that what one most wants is to
be made to admit, not in words only, but in feeling, that
in order to experience anything at all great we have got
to lift ourselves up to it, not to pull it down to our-
selves ; and that so far art is not a pastime any more
than politics or religion, though it is a real recreation if
we do succeed in lifting ourselves up to it.
Another way to approach the thing would be to start
by considering what are the conditions of fleoopia — what
it really means ' to look at ' anything. It seems to me
that the only tenable antithesis between 'action' and
'contemplation' is that between the alternate periods
of attaining and attainment, into which human life
necessarily falls. But if so, one ought to be at least as
careful of oneself in moments of attainment as in those
of attaining. (December, 1889.)
28.
I wish they had buried Browning at Florence as he
wished. I used to fancy that Bello Sguardo would do
for the scene of the Grammarian s Funeral. Have you
seen his last volume ? It is wonderfully the right thing
that he should have ended up with the utterance of
eternal youth. The life of such a man is immortality,
and one could say that he had realized as much as man
can the precept on paXta-To, aOavaTifciv. The more one
thinks of the way in which the great men have spoken
of life, the more one sees that by eternity they have
meant the present fact. It is frightfully hard to realize,
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 97
though I believe the hardness comes mainly from one's
inability to take things simply, like a child. One is
always 'striving and crying,' instead of letting the wind
of the world carry one * where it listeth' 1 . {December,
1889.)
29.
Would not it be worth while to try and set apart
a little bit of every day for absolute rest, and to stick to
it ? I believe it could be done by any one if they chose.
Half an hour would be better than nothing. I am
continually being struck by the truth that ' the children
of this world are in their generation wiser than the
children of light.' It sometimes seems as if the higher
you go in the scale of activity, the less method there is..
No doubt one reason is that it is so much easier to
methodize a simple trade like money-making than one
like writing books. And also that the more elementary
the demands which life makes, the easier in a sense it is
to respond to them : the ' worth-whilencss ' of it is so
obvious. Just as again a comparatively ordinary man
can be got to train for ' a corruptible crown,' but only
an extraordinary one for ' an incorruptible.' I am sure
the principles of all methods of acquiring mastery over
anything are substantially the same. One has got to
begin with the alphabet — to become a little child.
Instead of which it seems to me one is perpetually
beginning with the hardest things — solving the existence
of God before one has ever seen what it means to exist
1 [There is a reference to Browning in a letter written about fi\ e
before this. ' I do understand old Browning's unconquerable feeling
that there must be some more chances for him (or for something that
somehow includes him) somewhere. I expect that about the time one
comes to die one will be beginning to know how to live.']
VOL. I. H
98 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
at all. If I had to begin over again I should like to try-
to master the elements of a few big things. Till I have
done this the rest is all confusion, and talking about it is
beating the air. And whenever I at all understand the
elements, I seldom find much difficulty in finding 'appli-
cations' everywhere. Anything presents every kind of
problem, and I can't help thinking that it would be
much better for many metaphysically minded people if
they would think about the things which they happen
to feel and have real experience of, instead of taking
their subjects and lines of thought from other people's
systems. I had a curious illustration a little while ago
of what I suppose is the ' infinity ' of difference. I was
thinking about musical intervals, and suddenly realized
that under certain conditions (when there happens to be
no unit of measurement present in one's mind) the
difference which turned out to be a semitone was felt
to be as great as those which turned out to be much
larger. So too in working at the Parmenides I have
continually felt that if I could once get clear about these
elementary characteristics of 'being,' I should see my
way through my own being or that of anybody else.
And I sometimes try the experiment of extending the
name ' being ' (as the Greeks did) from things like God
and man to everything, and see what happens.
I am trying in connexion with an elementary logic
lecture to come to some notion of the elementary nature
of thinking, and to see how the traditional accounts of
the subject are half- understood or half-obliterated
attempts to formulate it.
Do you remember our talking about spiritualism in
London? After that I have found myself gravitating
more and more to the subject as one for a big book —
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 99
' Studies of the idea of spirit.' If one thinks, the three
antitheses of ' spirit and letter,' ' spirit and flesh,'
' spirit and matter,' cover most of the big problems
in art, morality, and science, as 'the holy spirit' and
' spiritualism ' cover most of those in religion. I believe
it would take one through many of the big people of the
world, and it would embrace most of the questions about
' personality,' which I used to think of as the most
promising subject for me. The worst of it no doubt
is that, as Milton said of the poet, a man who is to write
well of spirit must be himself spiritual. Still I suppose
one would find the same to be true in all subjects : you
can only write of what you have been.
Have you ever thought about the treatment of lan-
guage from the point of view of what it does compared
with other functions or activities? The common con-
trast of words and things, or words and acts — or rather
the division into words and things, &c, seems so to
disguise the fact that words are just a form of action
like any other, and a form which has its own specific
properties. I mean that one could define more or less
the various powers of words (rhetorical, poetic, logical),
and compare them with the powers of acting on men in
other ways (by example, by look, by gesture, by music,
pictures, &c). It seems to me so enlightening to extend
the physical notion of energy to everything (which is
simply Aristotelianism), and to feel that all that we call
things, properties, &c, are forms of action and reaction,
and that this is 'being.' Language is an inviting subject,
because nearly all people realize more or less both the
gigantic power and also the utter impotence of words :
and one wants to see where lies their power and where
their impotence. Men will die for a word, and yet
h a
ioo MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
' words, words, words/ is the expression of all futility.
(January, 1890.)
3°-
Your last letter interested me very much — especially
what you said about 'sentiment.' I suppose one must
acquiesce in the word's being used on the whole in a
depreciatory sense ; and in that case, though I can't
define it, it seems to occupy a tolerably definite place in
my mind. I think of it as one among those weakened
forms or travesties of something great, by which human
nature always seems to be haunted, or rather into- which
it seems to be always slipping. There are lots of them.
Religion becomes ' cant ' or (an intermediate stage) ' self-
righteousness,' or, again, ' sectarianism ' ; public spirit
becomes ' party- feeling ' ; originality becomes : eccentricity,'
sympathy ' weakness,' strength of character ' hardness,'
imagination 'dreaming,' metaphysic 'playing with words,'
eloquence ' rhetoric,' and passion becomes ' sentiment.
By passion I mean self-absorption or self-surrender — the
identification of one's whole self with any object. It
seems to become ' sentiment ' either when the object is
not big enough to absorb the self, but yet the self talks
about it as if it were big enough, or ag^in when only
a little bit of the self is really interested, but the talk is
as if the whole of it were. But it always seems in these
matters that one must leave infinite room for differences
of individuality. It is passion to be able to feel,
'To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears ' :
but to the huge majority of people the words would only
express sentiment. So too, I suppose, a great deal of
love poetry is to most people merely sentimental,
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 101
especially that kind which works much with ' conceits ' :
these to most people only engage a little bit of them-
selves and so leave them cold.
1 Morbid ' is always a dubious word, but to me the
best way to get at it is to think of disease in bodily
function. I suppose the only general thing one can say
is that function is diseased when it takes up too much or
too little of the whole function of the organism. So
with imagination, feeling, &c, one tends to call it
morbid in another person when one thinks that one
could not experience it oneself without ' forcing ' one's
soul — making it all go into one hot-house growth.
Personally, I am more and more convinced that the
cure for sentiment, as for all the weakened forms of
strong things, is not to refuse to feel it, but to get to feel
more in it. This seems to me to make the whole differ-
ence between a true and a false ' asceticism.' The false
goes for getting rid of what one is afraid of ; the true
goes for using it and making it serve. The one empties,
the other fills ; the one abstracts, the other concentrates.
Don't you think half the troubles of life come from being
wrongly afraid of things — especially afraid of oneself?
(February, 1890.)
3 1 -
Have you heard — I suppose so — of George Wilson's
death? Ned wrote to tell us two days ago. As he said,
one feels that a bit of sunshine is gone out of life. I
don't think I ever knew a man who was so utterly un-
pretentious and unadorned, and yet who was such a real
force wherever he found himself. It made one realize
what aperri properly is — a quality as definite as that of
a sweet air or a joyous face. I often wish all the
io2 . MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
'virtues' could be felt in this way, and 'morality' too.
One is obliged out of concession to one's own weakness
to express them in terms of their ' results ' ; but it is
good to feel occasionally that their results are not they —
that the quality of courage or generosity or chastity is
not exhausted, or even necessarily expressed, in the acts
of standing fire, or giving money, or sexual abstinence,
but is a vitalizing, health-giving force, for which men
ought to feel the better, or else ought to admit that
it is humbug to call it ' virtue ' at all.
I am so glad you are taking in the spring. How
everything may be summed up as ' health ' ! Did it ever
strike you that Christ was never ' ill,' and that he could
go to sleep in a storm, as Skobeleff could do in a battle ?
{April, 1890.)
3 2 -
... It isn't a matter which can be settled by argument
(in the ordinary sense of the word). I don't mean that
it is all blind feeling, far from it; but what most people
call argument starts by begging all the vital questions
and ends in mere sword-play. ... I hate controversy,
and I would never willingly shake anybody's beliefs, if
they are real beliefs — if they in any way, however crude
and however mixed up with wrong things, express their
real experiences at those times in their life when they
are face to face with themselves. But if one is to argue
about doctrines, the matter seems to me to be very
simple. Take the ' divinity of Christ.' What does any
one mean by it ? Does he mean that a being was born
of a woman without the help of a man ? Supposing such
a thing to have happened by some abnormal physio-
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 103
logical arrangement, has it anything whatever to do with
anything that can be called ' divine ' ? Is a person more
worthy of love, devotion, worship, because he was
abnormally born? Or, to put it the other way, is there
anything ////-divine in being produced by a man and
a woman ?
Take the ' resurrection.' Suppose for the sake of
argument that there was good reason to think that some-
body had appeared to die and then had come to life
again. Would this have anything to do with his being
divinely great and good? What has bodily death or
bodily birth to do with the nature, call it divine or what
you will, which we feel to be the highest ?
It seems to me that argument about miracles is idle
beating the bush. Let them all have happened, i. e. let
the physical facts have taken place, they remain physical
facts, and have no more or less to do with God than
eating and drinking and sleeping. Whatever else ' God '
means, it means the highest we can think of — something
in which all that we love and adore in human beings and
nature exists without any alloy. It is just blasphemy to
suppose that the divinity of a man who comes nearer to
God than other men consists in some abnormality of his
physical organization.
They tell one that St. Paul ' believed in the resurrec-
tion.' Perhaps he did. The question is, What did it
mean to him ? It meant ' dying and living with Christ,'
i. e. practically, living a life of perfect self-devotion to
what he thought best. If (as is likely) he mixed up this
with the supposed bodily coming to life of Christ, it only
shows that great men are liable to confusion or super-
stition, but it is no reason why we should do the same.
What has made Christianity an invincible power in the
'io4 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
world has been the conviction that somehow or other the
life of love is the best, the divinest, life we can conceive,
and that every one who even for moments knows what
it is to lose himself in others is doing what God does
eternally. It was because apparently Jesus made people
feel that he was living this life that he made such an
extraordinary impression. But, as always has happened
with great men, the world at large could only take him
in through all sorts of distorting media. The wonder-
fulness of him got coarsened into all kinds of ' miraculous '
attributes, with which it really had nothing whatever to
do. We all do the same in our various ways : we can
only take things in with all kinds of associations which
hang on to our own habits or natures ; we are all super-
stitious somewhere ; we cant just see what is beautiful
or good as it is ; we have to make a mystery of it — as if
it weren't quite ' mysterious ' enough already in its sheer
beauty or goodness.
Religious orthodoxy is one form of this general ten-
dency. It says, you cannot have the spiritual without
a lot of stuff which has nothing to do with spirituality.
I dont think it at all follows that one should not join in
so-called orthodox rites or forms, if it helps one. They
are not the private property of a particular lot of people.
If I choose to take the sacrament as a simple way of
expressing that I have got to try to be one, body and
soul, with Christ, i. e. with the best personality I can
conceive, no one has a right to stop me. But of course
the consciousness that other people may misunderstand
one is worrying, and I confess myself that I don't seem
to get at my best times in any of these ways as a rule.
If an ' orthodox ' attacks me, I am perfectly prepared
to admit that he lives better than I do, but what I can
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 105
never admit is that his life is the expression of his
orthodoxy. So far as it is good, unselfish, it is the sort of
life that Jesus lived; but it isn't really the supposed
miraculous birth or return to life of Jesus that gives the
man the strength to live it.
This sounds horribly preachy, and I hate writing it,
for you know well enough that I don't live it. Still 1
have a real conviction at times of something that is in
and about me, in the consciousness of which I am free
from fear and desire, — something which would make it
easy to do the most otherwise difficult thing without
any other motive except that it was the one thing worth
doing. I don't care what anybody calls it— ' God ' does
as well as any other word — it is just what one would
give all the world to be, the thing one can say least
about, and yet the thing that all one's best thoughts and
acts seem to be a feeble expression of. And what angers
me is the assumption of certain people that this ' God '
belongs to them and can only be bought at their shop.
Heaven knows it is hard enough to get at any price, and
if they have got it, or any of it, they ought to be thankful,
and not try to bottle it up and label it as their patent.
. . . Religion isn't worth talking about if it does not
mean the simplest, most elementary, if you like most
' primitive,' convictions that one finds in oneself when one
is stripped of all conventional trappings. Most ' religious
controversy ' seems to me to get nowhere near the real
thing. I think that book l does do something to make
one feel the human thing in religion, though I daresay it
might be done much better. It reduces everything to
certain ineradicable wants and experiences, and tries to
show how all the dogmas, &c, have grown up from
J [Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity.]
106 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
people's losing their hold on the real thing and then
trying to get it again by feats of intellectual ingenuity.
. . . But after all no books will do the thing for one. One
must ask oneself what it means, and cling to the rare
times when it does mean something. (Probably the
Spring of 1890.)
33-
I had never been before on the sort of places we went
up — mostly rocks — and found it as much as I could do 1 .
But I got better as I went on, and am certainly glad to
have had the experience. I don't think I can ever get
along without occasionally doing something physically
violent. It seems necessary to prevent (piXoaofyLa degene-
rating into naXaKLa. Or rather perhaps it helps me to
realize that the qualities wanted in what are called
' physical ' efforts are really just as much wanted in what
are called ' mental/ I am coming to believe more and
more that it is only a question of organization where
a man draws the line between ' moral ' and ' non-moral'
To every one there is a point somewhere where the sense
of a better and a worse comes home to him — where he
feels that it matters what he does. To one man it is in
a game, to another in behaviour to women, to another
in writing, to another in money-making, and so on. A
' moral man ' par excellence ought to mean a man who
has this sense in a comparatively great number of circum-
stances (instead of meaning, as it usually does, one who
has it in one or two special classes of circumstances).
The trouble is that so comparatively few things ' matter
much ' to one : to the distinctions of most things one is
morally blind.
1 [Nettleship was climbing in Switzerland with two friends more
experienced in mountaineering than himself.]
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 107
We had wonderful views from all the tops — views
mostly of the same kind, in which the Dent Blanche,
VVeisshorn, &c. were the prominent features. I always
find it is the chance and exceptional appearances that
impress me most: the effect of the mere panoramic view-
does not last very long. And I fancy the strongest
aggregate impression that I get is that of the mere fact
that these things exist at all, in absolute independence of
anything ordinarily called ' human,' and yet ready to
speak to one if one comes to them in the right way. Do
you find the distinction between organic and inorganic
things get less to you? I certainly do. I can fancy
a state of mind in which the pressure of a stone or the
slope of a wave would be as living and personal, so to
say, as a smile or a gesture. [August, 1890.)
34-
I have read nothing almost except the shilling selection
from Browning, which certainly gives one food enough.
I find a good deal in him of a feeling which has grown
on me lately — the feeling how grateful one is (or rather
perhaps, ought to be) for the existence of the world.
I suppose it is the preliminary to the love of the world,
which he is also of course very strong about. Why
should a mountain mean to one mostly a dangerous, or,
at best, awful thing ? Why can't one take that which it
offers itself to one as, as a being doing all it can if only
other beings would take it the right way? It seems to
me that most of what I call my ' ideas ' of things arc
' associations ' derived from certain few and limited ways
in which the things happen to have affected me. And
these associations are what get dignified by the name of
' imagination ' ; though so far from being a symptom of
108 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS
productiveness, they are just the symptom of inability to
look things in the face and take them by the hand. It
isn't that one ' personifies' things too much, but too little:
or, to put it another way, the personal element with
which one invests things is such a wretched shred of
one's self — the offspring of one's feeblest fears and desires.
I haven't expressed what I mean, but I can't do it
properly now. (Stalden, August, 1891.)
LECTURES ON LOGIC
LECTURES ON LOGIC
[The course on Logic was opened by an introductory
lecture in which it was pointed out that ' Logic,' in
Oxford practice, bears a very wide sense, so that the
subject, if fully treated, would involve a discussion of
(i) the methods of science, i.e. the forms of reasoning
and discovery ; (2) the psychology of knowledge, con-
sidered as something which differs from other kinds of
consciousness and which has a traceable development in
the individual and the race ; (3) certain metaphysical
questions inevitably suggested by the fact of knowledge.
It was shown that these subjects are connected by the
fact that they are concerned in various ways with know-
ledge ; and Logic, therefore, in the widest sense was
taken to be the Theory of Knowledge. It was suggested
that the subject ought to be studied, on the one hand, in
one or more of the best modern treatises, and on the other
hand historically ; and the design of the course was
explained to be, first, to give an explanation of some of
the terms current in logical treatises, and to discuss a few
of the chief problems of Logic ; secondly, to supplement
this by reference to some of the philosopheis of most
importance in the history of Logic.
H2 LECTURES ON LOGIC
It was Nettleship's usual practice to devote the lectures
of the October Term to the former of these objects. The
course here reproduced is that of the October Term of
1888, this being the last time that he lectured on Logic.
The matter of this course does not differ much from that
of the courses of the preceding years, but the order was
quite new, as Nettleship attempted to connect most of the
subjects he discussed with the idea of the ' Concept.'
This new arrangement led to a good deal of repetition,
which was probably useful for educational purposes, and
which I have not attempted altogether to remove. In
Notes A, B, C, some passages from earlier courses are
printed. The historical lectures are not reproduced.]
SECTION I
THOUGHT, SENSE, AND IMAGINATION
As all writers on logic would agree that it has some-
thing to do with ' thought ' or with right ' thinking,' we
may begin by asking what is meant by these words.
In English they are sometimes used as almost equi-
valent to consciousness in general. Sometimes, again, in
a rather narrower sense, to ' think ' means, like the Greek
6o£u£€iv, to have an idea or opinion about a thing ; and
so thought is contrasted with knowledge, as when we
say, ' I don't know, but I think so.' But these uses of
the words may be set aside as irrelevant to our present
purpose : it is not thought, in these senses of the term,
that we have to consider in dealing with logic. On the
other hand, we have such a phrase as ' a great thinker ' ;
and this at any rate means a man with more than ordinary
power of getting at truth, a man who does not live in
mere opinions but reaches knowledge. Again, if we
want a person to understand a thing more truly than he
already does, we say, ' Think about it and you will see
it.' So, too, German writers habitually use the equivalent
verb denken for that activity of mind of which truth is
the product ; and from the beginning of Greek philosophy
votiv is contrasted with 8o£a£eu' or alatidvecrtiai, to describe
a process issuing in truth, or a state of mind truer than
other states. It is with ' thought ' regarded as such
a process that logic is concerned.
VOL. I. I
ii 4 LECTURES ON LOGIC
To get a clearer idea of this activity or process, we
may best consider it in contrast with certain other
activities, especially sense and imagination. The anti-
thesis of thought and sense is immediately connected
with the further contrast between science or philosophy
and our habitual states of mind ; the antithesis of
thought and imagination with the further contrast between
science or philosophy on the one side, and poetry or art
on the other.
From the earliest times good thinking has been re-
garded as implying, among other attributes, clearness
and connectedness. In Plato, for example, there is a
constant insistence on the clearness of the thinking state
of mind, and the metaphor of light is frequently em-
ployed ; the thinker, again, to Plato is the man who can
trace out connexions rightly, can combine and divide
truly. In contrast with these attributes stand the con-
fusion and disconnectedness of our ordinary views of
things.
When we attempt to think about a thing in order
to get a truer view of it, the first result probably is that
we detach from it certain irrelevant concomitants, or
separate it from certain associations with which we have
wrongly mixed it up. This is technically called ' ab-
straction,' and all clear thinking is in this sense abstract.
As compared with this 'thought' our ordinary idea of
a thing is wanting in clearness. This does not mean
that the idea is wanting in vividness (which is quite
another matter), but that it is unanalyzed, that we are
unable to part its constituents clearly from one another,
and that some of them are really not relevant to the
thing. Thus our first idea of a triangle will be found on
reflexion to comprise elements which have nothing to do
THOUGHT, SENSE, AND IMAGINATION 115
with the triangle qua triangle, such as its colour, size,
material. When we think the triangle we have to leave
out, or abstract from, these irrelevant constituents of our
idea, and to concentrate our minds on what is relevant.
Abstraction is thus the other side of concentration, and
a concentrated state of mind is also a very abstract state.
But thinking has not only to abstract and distinguish ;
it has also to combine and construct. Our ordinary
notions are disconnected as well as confused ; or rather
they are mis-connected. We associate things which have
little to do with one another, and we are blind to con-
nexions which are really of great importance. Hence
when we learn anything new, i.e. when we think, we
have to disunite what seems to us naturally conjoined,
and to form new and apparently unnatural combinations.
The results of thinking, therefore, appear, to people
who have not thought about the matter in question, to be
empty and unreal, or far-fetched and paradoxical. The
former, because the conception leaves out what the
objector is most familiar with, and gives him ' nothing to
take hold of ' ; ' the latter, because it brings together
things which to the objector seem to have no connexion
at all. Conversely, when we praise a man for thinking
' deeply,' we imply that he pierces through superficial
associations ; and when we say that he has ' width ' or
' grasp ' of mind, we mean that, starting from ordinary
words or objects, he is able to connect many more things
with them than people commonly do.
The reason why the antithesis between thought and
sense has been one of the first to strike men is that in our
ordinary view of things their sensible properties have an
altogether disproportionate importance. If you take
your conception of anything to which you have not given
I 2
n6 LECTURES ON LOGIC
much attention, you will generally find that the most
prominent features in this conception are sensible pro-
perties. These — such properties as colour, shape, weight
— are the marks by which we generally know things,
although we do not exactly believe that these attributes
are the whole of the things. Hence thinking has from the
first been described as a way of setting oneself free from
the associations of sense. It is important to be clear
about the meaning of this phrase, which may seem to
suggest that the truest truth would be that which had
least to do with the ordinary sense-experience of man-
kind. But the phrase does not mean that thought
involves no element of sense. To think means to be
clearly and connectedly conscious, and we can ' think '
sensible things just as much as insensible. Nor have we,
in thinking, to ignore the sensible properties of things or
to think them away (except where, for a given purpose,
they are irrelevant). What we have to do is to think
them fully and clearly, to see what they are connected
with, and how much they make of the thing in question.
For example, in our idea of an acquaintance certain
sensible characteristics are generally the most prominent
feature. These serve, or ought to serve, as symbols for
the rest of the person ; but they may gradually come to
obscure the rest, so that we get a fixed idea of the person
which is utterly inadequate. To realize our conception,
then, to gain or recover the truth, is not, indeed, to omit
these characteristics, but it is to give them their due place
in our reconstructed idea.
In passing on to imagination (in the most general
sense, not poetic imagination) and the difference between
' imagining ' and ' conceiving,' we shall find that this same
truth will hold. Our ordinary idea of a thing consists of
THOUGHT, SENSE, AND IMAGINATION 117
' images,' i. e. of sensations reproduced ; and the adequacy
of the idea depends on how far these images express all
the properties, the whole being of the thing. That they
should actually express the whole is, of course, impossible;
for, as Leibnitz said, all thinking and conversing is
essentially symbolic, and every word or idea we use
stands for a great deal more than itself. But the danger
is that we may allow the symbol to substitute itself for
that which it symbolizes, so that a part of its meaning
takes the place of the whole. This is what occurs when,
as we say, words take the place of things, or language
reacts mischievously upon the mind ; and it is a danger
which can only be avoided by our perpetually rethinking
the meanings of our words. Following the same line of
thought, we may consider the difference between 'im-
agining ' and ' conceiving/ from one point of view, as the
difference between the consciousness of a part of the
thing (usually certain visual properties) and the con-
sciousness of something nearer to the whole of it. For
example, we can imagine a centaur, if this means simply
that we can call up a picture of something half-man and
half-horse ; but a physiologist might say that he could
not conceive or think a centaur. That is, he could not
go beyond this picture : when he attempted to think out
all that is involved in the idea of a creature half-man and
half-horse, his knowledge of the conditions of animal life
would forbid him to suppose that this creature actually
existed. So that the difference here 1 between imagination
1 ['The difference here' ; for another difference is implicitly referred
to in the preceding remarks on the confusion of sense and the clearness
of thought. The image of a triangle would differ from the thought of
a triangle (1) in containing elements irrelevant to triangularity, and
(a) in failing to contain elements that ought to be included in 'triangu-
larity.' For the rest, as Nettleship seems to have added, the words
ii8 LECTURES ON LOGIC
(thus understood) and thought, like the difference be-
tween sense and thought, is one between a partial and
a relatively complete consciousness of a thing.
So far we have not considered imagination in the more
special sense, as the activity which gives rise to poetry
and other artistic products. We may now go on to look
at the antithesis between thought and imagination as
so understood. This antithesis has played a large part
in the history of the human mind. Plato, who in his
own genius reconciled thought and imagination in a sin-
gular degree, gives expression to the antagonism of the
two ; and the quarrel of poetry and philosophy, which
he mentions in the Republic, still endures. Yet it is none
the less true that there are many affinities between thought
and imagination, the scientific and the artistic impulse,
alike in their beginnings and in their highest results.
They both begin in the indiscriminate desire to express
or describe, to show what things are or what they look
like. Plato's </uAo'(ror/)o? is the man who has by nature
an appetite for learning anything and everything ; and
the child who shows this tendency may equally well
turn out a philosopher or an artist. In their highest
results, again, the two impulses tend to meet ; and in
spite of all the contrasts between science and philo-
sophy on the one hand, and works of art on the other,
they have points in common.
Thus (a), in the first place, both imply a great effort of
abstraction and reconstruction. To appreciate a work
of high art we have to get rid of commonplace associa-
' image ' and ' imagination ' need not imply these defects, and there is no
reason why we should not call the thought of a triangle an image, so
long as we know what we mean by the word : for the complete con-
sciousness of a triangle would be a consciousness of visual properties,
though not of these alone.]
THOUGHT, SENSE, AND IMAGINATION 119
tions ; and if we fail to do this, vvc degrade or vulgarize
the work of art : a poem becomes to us almost nonsense,
and a fine piece of sculpture or music appears grotesque,
absurd, or even disgusting. In the same way a train of
difficult scientific reasoning requires us to rise above our-
selves ; and it is not itself but mere words to us if we
cannot follow it. The great thinker and the great artist
both abstract from experience, and they both reconstruct
experience, in a manner which most of us only partly
understand. And (b), in the second place, they both
reconstruct not arbitrarily but according to certain laws.
In the case of the thinker these are recognized as logical
principles, which his readers acknowledge no less than
himself. And in the case of the work of art, though it is
more difficult — is, indeed, impossible — to fix the point
where individual caprice begins, yet an open-minded
person admits that there is a right and a wrong, and
that, if he fails to understand the work of a great artist,
the reason generally lies in his own incapacity to see the
right. Alike in the work of thought and in the work of
imagination there is the sense of Tightness and necessary
connexion ; of a line, a note or a word we ask, as we do
of a step in reasoning, ' Is it exactly right ? ' And in the
work of thought there is the same danger of caprice as in
the work of art.
One reason why, in spite of these affinities, science and
art diverge so widely, may be seen if we consider the
ways in which they depart from ordinary experience and
ordinary language. The poet, like the man of science or
the philosopher, starts from common facts, and carries us
an enormous distance beyond them. We should admit, for
example, that there is a connexion between the skylark
or the cloud and the images which Shelley associates
120 LECTURES ON LOGIC
with each ; but these connexions are far removed from
our ordinary experience. In establishing them the poet,
like the philosopher, uses the medium of language. The
words he employs have, for the most part, a familiar
meaning, and in the first instance suggest familiar sense-
images ; but he requires us to follow him in all sorts of
unfamiliar remote applications of these words and images,
and to form new associations between them ; just as the
painter takes common colours or shapes but puts them
in a new setting. At the same time, while the poet or
artist enlarges and transforms our ordinary experience,
he does not desert it, but still employs it as the medium
of a new meaning. The difficulty and danger of art both
arise from these facts. Its difficulty is that it requires us
to make out of something sensible and familiar something
new and beautiful. Its danger is that, as it uses familiar
materials, the reader or spectator, instead of following it
in the transformation of these materials, may remain in
his own ordinary images and emotions ; so that the
painter, for example, instead of revealing to the spectator
what is beautiful may merely suggest to him what is
sensual. It is on this fact that much of Plato's antagonism
to art is based.
Philosophy and science, like poetry, have words for
their medium ; and like poetry they start from common
objects and range over the world. But while poetry
ranges over a world of sense-images, the scientific
man or the philosopher cannot show you his world ; you
must think it. And while the images suggested by the
words in poetry are, at least in some degree, familiar,
science and philosophy move away from the familiar at
once. They seem bent on eliminating from words all
their ordinary significance, and treating them, as far
THOUGHT, SENSE, AND IMAGINATION 121
as possible, as mere signs of a new meaning which may
have but little obvious connexion with the old. Thus
in studying any particular science we have almost to
learn a new language, and to a certain extent every
philosopher has a vocabulary of his own 1 . The result is
that to the world at large the language of science and
philosophy seems formal and pedantic, cold and unfeel-
ing. And when either science or philosophy is ' popular-
ized,' that is, when an attempt is made to bring its ideas
nearer to the fancy of ordinary people, there is always
a fear that these ideas may be made interesting at the
cost of being falsified.
Although there is a great difference between thought
and imagination, there seems to be no necessary ant-
agonism between logical and imaginative truth. Unless
we are prepared to say that imagination is essentially
irrational, there must be a common basis of logic or
reason in both. Still what we commonly call logic has
its own laws or principles, which are not to be confused
with those of any other art.
1 It is true, of course, that philosophers differ greatly in this matter.
Some, like Locke, use the ordinary language of the educated ; the
advantage of which is that they appeal to a large number of readers, tin-
disadvantage that they tend to share the inconsistency and looseness of
ordinary language. Plato, again, is distinguished by his use of the
language of imagination ; and therefore some readers complain that his
philosophy is ' mere poetry,' while to others he conveys more than any
other philosopher. It is true, also, that no philosopher can wholly free
himself from the ordinary associations of words. The line between
scientific and imaginative language is a vanishing line. In the wildest
poetry there is logic, and in the most abstract philosophy there is
metaphor.
SECTION II
THE VALUE OF THEORY
LOGIC may be called the theory of knowledge. Let
us ask, then, what we mean (i) when we contrast the
theory of a thing with the thing itself, and again (2) when
we oppose ' theory ' to ' fact.'
(1) The phrase 'theory of is generally understood to
imply that the theory, and that of which it is the theory,
are two separate and independent things. And in a certain
sense this is obviously true ; for, as we say, we can know
the theory of a thing without being able to do it, and we
can do a thing without knowing the theory of it. Yet, if
we consider, we shall find that really, in the first of these
cases, what we know is not the theory of the thing, but
only the theory of part of it ; or, in other words, that our
theory is imperfect. And, in the second case, we shall
find that what we do is not the thing but only a part of
it ; or, in other words, that our doing is imperfect doing.
Thus the real fact indicated by the phrases in question is
that we may know part of a thing without knowing it all,
and may do a thing partly without doing it all. Action,
in the fullest sense, would also be theory ; it would be
doing with full consciousness of what we were doing.
Theory, in the fullest sense, would also be action ; we
could only fully understand counting in the act of count-
ing. But in practice ' looking ' (0ea>/;tu) and ' doing ' fall
more or less apart, and more or less succeed one another,
THE VALUE OF THEORY 123
and to a certain extent each can go on independently ;
and it is to this imperfect understanding and this im-
perfect action that we commonly appropriate the names of
theory and action.
We may illustrate this by considering, first, cases of
manifestly imperfect action. For instance, a person who
is said to be able to do a thing without understanding it
generally does the thing, as we say, ' empirically ' or
'mechanically.' One sign that he does it 'empirically'"
is that, if the circumstances are changed, he is at sea.
He cannot do the thing, because his acquaintance with
it is bound up with certain circumstances, and, these
being changed, the ' thing ' is changed to him. But this
really means that his doing of the thing is imperfect, or
that what he does is not the thing but only a fragment
of it, — that this ' it ' in its truth involves the new circum-
stances. In the same way the ' mechanical ' doing of
a thing is not, in the full sense, the doing of that thing,
but a partial doing of it, or (if one pleases) not the doing
of it. For example, we should all admit that a man who
does his duty mechanically does not, in the full sense, do
his duty.
Now, in the second place, take the other phrase,
' I know it theoretically, but I can't do it.' Here the
' it ' in the first clause has not the same sense as the
' it ' in the second. It is true that the man cannot do
the whole thing, but no more does he know the whole
thing : he really has the theory of a mere fragment of it.
' Theory ' in common parlance always means such partial
knowledge, though in the case of certain subjects the
' theory ' spoken of is much more partial than in the
case of others, and therefore is spoken of with contempt.
It is curious that OtujjLa with Aristotle meant just the
124 LECTURES ON LOGIC
opposite of this partial knowledge ; it meant the full
consciousness of the object.
Again, what is really meant by the phrase, ' That is
true in theory, but it won't hold practically ' ? It seems
to imply two different standards of truth, but in reality
the 'theory' here again is a merely partial knowledge.
When it is said of a statement in Political Economy that
it is true in theory, this means that it is true if certain
conditions only are considered ; and when it is said that
the statement will not hold in practice, this means that
it would have to be modified if all the conditions were
considered.
(2) To come to the antithesis of theory and fact, let us
consider the saying, 'All theory is based upon, and
derived from, facts '.* This naturally suggests that there
is something, called ' the facts,' which we are supposed to
know at starting, and that by reflexion or thought we
reproduce these facts in a weaker form. If so, it is
natural to ask what the value of the theory can be, since
it was already contained in the known facts and is only
a feeble reproduction of them. The whole fabric of
developed knowledge, on this view, would be based on
facts more true than itself; and the more we thought,
the further we should get from reality. Whereas, in
truth, the thought or reflexion which is here mistaken
for a continually weaker reproduction, is a progressive
activity, advancing from the more limited and isolated
to the more connected and full.
It is, no doubt, the case that in English we often do
give the name of ' thought ' or ' reflexion ' to something
which does not deserve the name — to the otiose re-
production of parts of some previous experience ; just as
1 [See further, pp. 168-9.]
THE VALUE OF THEORY 125
we give the name of imagination to the retention or
recovery of some part of a sense-perception. And this
' thought ' or ' reflexion ' certainly has no value : it is the
' pale cast ' of this ' thought ' that ' sicklies o'er the native
hue of resolution ' ; and it is this kind of thought that we
have in mind when we say, ' Don't think about the thing,
but do it.' Yet we admit that imagination — the ima-
gination of a poet, for example — is not merely repro-
ductive, but productive ; and in the same way genuine
thought is productive, originative. It is the gradual
discovery of the truth about a fact, the coming to realize
the fact more and more. The fact at starting is hardly
a fact to us at all ; it becomes more and more a fact as
we think ; and it is this genuine ' thought ' that we have
in mind when we say, ' Think about the thing, and you
will do it.'
To study the theory of a thing, then, ought to mean to
rethink the thing, and in so doing to recreate it for our-
selves ; which is the only way in which the fact can
become really the fact for us. To study the theory of
knowledge should mean, accordingly, to realize gradually
what the fact called knowledge means. The use of lan-
guage ; discovery, observation, experimentation ; reason-
ing, judging, proof ; force, space, time ; causation, subject,
object — these are all facts, parts (to speak roughly) of
the great fact called knowledge. For a man to realize
something of what is implied in this fact assuredly has its
value or ' use.' It means that he is so far better off, has
more in him, is more in contact with reality. And as
reality is one, and all truths are ultimately connected,
a person who is in a truer state of mind about one part
of reality, is so far in a more favourable position for
understanding any other part.
126 LECTURES ON LOGIC
' Philosophiren,' says Novalis, ' ist clephlegmatisiren,
vivificiren ' ; to philosophize is to get rid of one's phlegm,
to acquire a vivid consciousness of some aspect of reality.
This is the value of theory or thinking ; but thinking
which is not also producing, thinking which leaves
experience what it was before, has no value 1 .
1 There is in our use of 'conscious' and 'consciously' an ambiguity
somewhat similar to the ambiguity of the words 'thought' or 'reflexion.'
It is said that the more unconsciously we do a thing, the better we do it.
What is really meant is not that we do the thing better, the more
unconscious we are of it; but that we do it better, the more unconscious
we are of certain other things which are not it, — e. g. of certain feelings
that accompany it, or of other persons looking at us. Or again : we do
not do the thing worse for being conscious of it, but because we are only
partially conscious of it, exclusively conscious of some limited step in it
or aspect of it.
SECTION III
LANGUAGE AND ITS FUNCTION IN KNOWLEDGE
In the widest sense of the term, language (of which
word-language is only one form) is anything by which
man expresses or ' means ' something. What then is im-
plied in ' meaning ' ? That which ' means ' ( r^atVei) is
always a sign (a-f/^euu') ; and a sign is something which
stands for something else. If there is to be ' meaning/ one
thing must suggest, signify, be related to another thing.
Man is a creature for whom things have meanings ; his
whole world is a world of meanings. No experience or
sensation of his, we hear it said, is devoid of meaning.
That is, no human experience is isolated, and all
human experience is ultimately a kind of language or
symbolism.
This fact may be put in opposite ways. Man, on the
one hand, is privileged to use symbols — a privilege from
which spring incalculable consequences, of which litera-
ture is only one. He is, on the other hand, compelled to
use symbols; and this compulsion is a limitation. All
that he is conscious of comes to him through certain
' media,' which are not what they mean. All his think-
ing is ' representative ' or ' discursive ' ; one point leads to
another ; he gets at everything through something else.
While, then, the world to man is a world of language in
which nothing is meaningless ; and while his experience
128 LECTURES ON LOGIC
is the reading of this world, or the interpretation of this
language ; he is yet obliged to approach the meaning by
interpreting symbols, he never gets to the end of it, and
(in a sense) he never sees things as they are.
Language in the narrower sense, then, — language pro-
per — being one kind of symbolism, we have to ask, what
are its peculiar properties ? A word, as such, is simply
a sound or a sight. It is a certain kind of sensation (of
sound, colour, shape). To say, therefore, that words
have a meaning is to say that certain sounds or sights
have come to suggest, firstly, certain other sounds,
sights, smells, and the like ; and, secondly, certain further
images and thoughts, with ever-growing complexity. So
far, a word is on the same level with a flag.
Speech has its origin in an instinctive action, but, as
soon as it can properly be called speech, it is a conscious
action. In varying degrees we exert intelligence and will
in using words. Language is thus always being made.
We are unfortunately apt to speak as if it were a fixed
set of symbols which we have simply to use ; but the use
of language is really a recreating of it, and every one
modifies his native language a little, or creates a little
new meaning ; great authors create a great deal.
The question sometimes asked, ' Is it possible to think
without language ? ' may mean two very different things.
It may mean, (i) 'Is it possible to think without symbols
of any kind? ' or (2) 'What should we lose if we had not
the particular form of symbolism called speech ? ' The
answer to the first question must apparently be, No.
To think without symbols would be to think directly,
' intuitively.' It would not be what we call thinking,
and would imply that we were always and immediately
one with things. All articulate human consciousness is
LANGUAGE AND ITS FUNCTION IN KNOWLEDGE 129
consciousness of something through something else. If
our experience were literally unsymbolic, if it were
what it means, it would not be what we call human
consciousness. The second question is a difficult one,
but admits of reasonable discussion. We should pro-
bably find that people differ more than is supposed
in the amount they do with different kinds of symbols.
An individual highly organized in a certain direction
may be habitually conscious through other symbols than
speech, e. g. through music ; and, though we may quarrel
as to the sense in which we can apply the word ' thought '
to music, man would be partially dumb without it.
There is also the language of gesture, and the expression
of thought in action. Speech is the most widely spread
form of symbolism, and has the most important practical
consequences ; but it does not follow that people who are
deficient in the use of it are inarticulate.
The Function of Language in Knoivledge.
Language may be conveniently considered as an in-
strument (1) of expression, (2) of distinction, (3) of
communication. For example, we may regard the
elementary function of naming from these three points
of view.
(1) The phenomenon of expression may be observed
in a very simple form in an interjection. Physiologically,
this, like any other mode of speech, is describable as
a reaction on a stimulus. A feeling affects certain
nerves, and through them certain muscles, and so issues
in a sound. This sound would generally be called the
' expression ' of the feeling. The phrase is however
misleading, because it separates the feeling from its
VOL. I. K
130 LECTURES ON LOGIC
expression in sound, and suggests that we first have
the feeling and then express it. It would be truer to
say that the expression is the completed feeling ; for the
feeling is not fully felt till it is expressed, and in being
expressed it is still felt, but in a different way. What
the act of expression does is to fix and distinguish it
finally ; it then, and then only, becomes a determinate
feeling. In the same way the consciousness which we
express when we have found the ' right word ' is not the
same as our consciousness before we found it ; so that it
is not strictly correct to call the word the expression of
what we meant before we found it. This remains true
of more developed forms of expression ; and, following it
out, we may say that what is absolutely unexpressed and
inexpressible is nothing. We can only describe it po-
tentially and by anticipation. It cannot enter into human
life until it has become articulate in some way, though
not necessarily in words.
What is meant, then, by the contrast between expres-
sion and the unexpressed, and by our complaint that
language is so imperfectly articulate, and that we mean
much moie than we can say? These phrases seem all
to indicate the fact that thought is progressive. As soon
as consciousness is expressed in a word, that word
becomes a fixed sign and enters into the web of human
experience. As it is used again and again, it acquires
new meaning by entering as an element into new con-
texts. Through this extension, by metaphor, simile, and
the like, the original consciousness goes on becoming a
consciousness of more : but still the word which expresses
this enlarged consciousness has, at any given time, a
meaning more or less fixed. When then we say that
we cannot find words for our meaning, unless this implies
LANGUAGE AND ITS FUNCTION IN KNOWLEDGE 131
that our consciousness is too undeveloped to be expressed,
it indicates the fact that the words at our command are
so fixed in meaning that they would have to be re-
created to express our present consciousness, or (to vary
the phrase) that this consciousness is potentially more
than will go into the known forms of expression. In
such a case a word may (very rarely) be invented, or
a word may be used in a new sense, or a new combination
of words may be found. Our inarticulateness, the in-
adequacy of words, thus means here simply the pro-
gressiveness of thought and of language, and it would be
just as right to blame one's thought for it as to blame
one's language 1 . (As there are persons who feel more
than they can say, so there are others who say more
than they feel, and use sham rhetoric and the like. That
is, they use words which, if taken in their full sense, mean
more than is present in the consciousness of the persons
using them. This phenomenon, like the other, arises
from the contrast between the fixity of language and
the fluctuation of human consciousness.)
We are sometimes told that language becomes less
expressive as it becomes more civilized. This is true if
it means that what primitive language expresses is very
simple, elementary, ?nd obvious, and that therefore
primitive language bears its meaning on its face. But
the language of a great writer is in reality infinitely more
expressive than primitive language ; the amount ex-
pressed by it is infinitely greater. Compare, for instance,
the ' original ' meaning of ' spirit ' with the meaning of
the word as it is used by a religious genius or a great
philosopher. The true reason why ' civilized ' words
1 [For, as the preceding sentence implies, the extension of conscious-
ness is expressible through a modification of language.]
K 3
132 LECTURES ON LOGIC
are inexpressive to us is, generally, that we are unable
to realize the fullness of their complex meanings.
It is often said, again, that the highest truths are in-
expressible, or perhaps that they are unknowable, and
inaccessible to reason, though not to ' faith.' Doubtless
to every thoughtful man the consciousness is always
present that his utmost reach of thought is limited ; and
we may say in this sense that there is always a truth
beyond us and inexpressible by us, at which we have to
try to get. But we are apt to treat this truth as if it were
expressible, and indeed actually expressed as a truth of
' faith,' and then to contrast it with some other expressed
truth. This has often happened in the history of thought.
It is dangerous to imply that there is some virtue in
being inexpressible ; the corollary would be that the less
we think definitely, the better. Inarticulateness often
comes from indolence : we will not take the trouble to
mean what we might.
In so far as words are really expressive, they are con-
sciousness in a certain form which we call articulate, and
do not need to be contrasted with anything of which
they are the expression. We are not definitely conscious
till we use the words. But language is always ceasing
to be expressive, in various degrees, ceasing, that is, to
mean all that it ought to mean. We should try to recover
its expressiveness. The most civilized language should
be as direct an expression of consciousness as the simplest
interjection ; but it is only to great writers and speakers
that it is so.
(2) A second main function of language is that of
distinction. To distinguish is to be distinctly conscious.
We are apt to suppose that first there is a certain con-
sciousness, and that then we distinguish it. But this
LANGUAGE AND ITS FUNCTION IN KNOWLEDGE 133
is not so: in the act of distinguishing something we
are for the first time distinctly conscious of it. The
act of distinguishing has also been represented as the act
of arresting the flux of consciousness, or as an act of
attention ; but, here again, we must not suppose that
first there is x, and then we attend to it : x exists for
the first time in the act of attention. If we say then that
naming is distinguishing or attending (though it is of
course possible to distinguish without naming), we must
beware of thinking that we first have the consciousness
and then name it. This is true, indeed, in the sense that
any particular act of naming is preceded by un-named or
differently named consciousnesses ; but the consciousness
which is now named is this consciousness, which reaches
its specific character in the act of being named.
The man who first names a thing may be said, there-
fore, to give that thing its first existence in the human
world. Such first naming is found now in comparatively
rare instances ; for example, in science, when the new
name implies that a new fact has been experienced. But
to a certain extent we all make names in learning them.
For, when we learn what a thing is called, what is it that
we really do ? We fix a certain consciousness in a certain
other consciousness (a sound) ; and with this the con-
sciousness has passed into a different stage.
How is this stage different? What has happened to
the consciousness, the thing, in being named? In the first
place we have given it a more permanent position in our
experience, and have made it more easily recognizable.
Secondly, each time it is recognized it takes a fresh
meaning, gets more ' distinct.' It stands out more dis-
tinctly from a certain background of consciousness, of
which it is a modification ; as, for instance, the distinct
134 LECTURES ON LOGIC
consciousness of straightness implies a more general
consciousness of direction, of which straightness is one
distinct form. It is thus, again, more and more com-
pared with and differentiated from other things. That is,
thirdly, it gets more ' classified.' All classification is
a development of the elementary act of distinction, and
every name is the germ of a classification. For all
classification is arranging experiences according as< they
exhibit a certain identity in various ways ; and to name
is to identify.
As in regard to expression, so in regard to the function
of distinction, reproaches are constantly brought against
language. On the one hand it is said, ' How poor lan-
guage is ! How very few distinctions it recognizes ! ' On
the other hand it is said, ' How superficial, needless, and
merely verbal, are many of the distinctions expressed in
language ! ' As to these complaints we may remark,
first, that the poverty of language is our fault, not the
fault of language. Words are symbols made by us, but
we come to look upon them as mysterious agencies,
under whose power we are. If a man says he is conscious
of a thousand distinctions unrecognized by language, let
him prove it by giving names to them. (Not that the
number of words in a language or in a book is more than
a very partial guide to the wealth or poverty of the
nation's or the individual's experience.) Secondly, as to
' verbal distinctions,' it may be observed that these are
not mere distinctions of words, for the only distinctions of
words as such are distinctions of sound or shape. By
' verbal ' or by ' mere words ' we mean really that the
words are being used in partial meanings instead of in
their full meanings. One should beware of the antithesis
of words and things ; it really is a distinction between
LANGUAGE AND ITS FUNCTION IN KNOWLEDGE 135
the less full and the more full meanings of words. If wc
all tend to become the 'victims of words,' the corollary is
that we should mean something by our words, and know
what we mean. Wc cannot get over the difficulty by
blaming language or declining to use it.
(3) Language, thirdly, is an instrument or medium of
communication. ' Communication ' implies two beings,
otherwise different, which meet or identify themselves in
a certain respect (the ' medium ' of communication). Ap-
plying this to language, we must observe that the two
beings need not be two different people. There is no
real difference between language, as a means of com-
munication with self, and language as a means of
communication with others. Plato's description of
thought as a 'dialogue of the soul with itself is not
fanciful. The act of naming, for example, may be re-
presented as a saying to oneself, ' This shall mean that,'
* I understand that by this,' ' When this recurs, I (being
then partly a different I) shall understand myself in
using this word, or again shall find myself in what is
different.' If there is a mystery in two people under-
standing one another, there is the same mystery in ' I '
being the same at two different times and understanding
itself. And, if language is ' conventional ' or dependent
on a mutual understanding (Kara <rvrdiJK)]i'), this applies
as much to the understanding between the self in one
condition and the self in another as to the understanding
between myself and another.
Communication or understanding is the consciousness
of self being at some point the same in difference, one in
two. When two minds understand each other they meet
in a certain medium ; they feel the same or mean the
same ; and this is to say, in other words, that they arc, so
136 LECTURES ON LOGIC
far, literally one and the same mind. For ' one mind '
means ' what has one undivided experience.'
Again, the old crux, ' How can I be sure that I mean
the same as the other person ? ' is in principle the same
as the difficulty, ' How can I know that anything cor-
responds to my sensations ? ' All our sensations are
of the nature of words, they are symbolic. I have
certain sensations of hardness, shape, and so on. By
a complex process of inference I interpret these and judge,
' This is a table.' The table then may be said to ' speak'
to me, and I have to interpret what it says. In like
manner, when a person speaks to me, I have certain
sensations of sound, and I infer from these what he
means : I have again to interpret. The two processes
are essentially the same ; and I can be no more sure that
my sensations really mean a table than that I have
interpreted rightly the words of the speaker. If I wish
to tell whether I have done the latter, I do something to
which I have reason to think that the speaker will
respond in a certain way if I have understood him
rightly. And I take a like course if I wish to tell
whether I have rightly interpreted my sensations to
mean a table. The only proof that language really is
communication, and that there is a mutual understanding
((tvv6i]ki]), is that we act on the belief that there is, and
that this belief is justified by the results 1 .
Language is, of course, only one medium of communi-
cation ; common interests and common action are other
media. Generally language enters into them too, but
it does not necessarily do so ; to some extent animals
and men ' understand ' one another and meet. Still,
language will always be the typical example of common
1 [There is much conjectural restoration in this paragraph.]
LANGUAGE AND ITS FUNCTION IN KNOWLEDGE 137
intelligence; just as the inability to understand a foreign
language makes one feel vividly that one is a separate
self.
People complain of the inefficiency of language
as an instrument of communication, no less than as
a means of expression and distinction. It is said that
the only use of language is to conceal our thoughts ;
that nobody was ever convinced by argument ; that
words separate people instead of uniting them ; that
the bitterest controversies are about words. But, if
words constantly fail to convince, the reason generally
is that we do not find the right words. If verbal contro-
versy separates people, the reason generally is that they
do not wish to be united. The more honest people are
in their desire to get at truth, the less difficulty they find
in communication ; truth is universal ; it is ignorance,
error, and prejudice that separate. A received termino-
logy, a common language, is a great help to a common
understanding : if the terminology of morals and politics
could be as precise as that of the sciences, there would be
less difference of opinion on these subjects. It is not the
use of language that separates, but its imperfect use.
Everything which reveals or expresses to us anything
else is indeed necessarily a sign of separation, but it incites
us to overcome the separation.
Language and Logic.
It follows from what has been said that language is
best described not as a mere expression of thought, but
as one mode of thought. We think in speaking and
writing ; that is, we do the things which all thinking
proper implies; we express ourselves, we classify things,
138 LECTURES ON LOGIC
we communicate with others. It is only in so far as
language fails to perform its functions that the antithesis
between thought and language arises. The three functions
of language are equally vital functions of thought. Thus
(1) all thinking proper is the consciousness of the coming
of the self to itself; the self expresses itself. Language
as expressive brings home to us this subjective aspect of
knowledge, the fact that, if there is to be knowledge it
must be realized by individual minds. We say what we
mean ; every individual has, in a sense, to make his own
language. But (2) all thinking is the consciousness of an
objective world, has an objective reference, relates to
something which is there when I have ceased to have
this particular feeling. This also comes out in language :
in naming I mean something ; I imply that my sensation
is a sign of something more than itself. And (3) in
communication these two functions come together : two
selves are conscious of themselves in community, and
conscious of something which is identical, common, and
permanent.
It is, then, idle to ask whether logic is concerned with
words, or conceptions, or things, if these alternatives are
taken strictly. It is concerned with words, for it is con-
cerned with expressed consciousness or experience ; with
conceptions, for it is concerned with expressed conscious-
ness ; with things, for it is concerned with expressed
consciousness of truth. But there is a sense in which
logic may be truly said to have to do with words par
excellence. It considers the expression of truth in its
simplest modes, not those complex expressions of it
which are furnished by the particular sciences. It has
to do with a very small part of things or reality ; and, if
we take ' words ' to signify this, logic has to do with
LANGUAGE AND ITS FUNCTION IN KNOWLEDGE l |
words. Only this docs not mean that it has to do with
words as rhetoric or grammar has to do with them.
And, again, we may say that logic is concerned with
conceptions, so long as we mean that it is concerned
with consciousness, or things, less fully realized, as con-
trasted with consciousness, or things, more fully realized ;
and so long as we do not oppose conceptions to sup-
posed things ' outside the mind.' But, again, it is not
concerned with conceptions as psychology is concerned
with them ; it deals only with such consciousness as
results in knowledge.
From this point of view we may glance at the ques-
tion, How far does logic, as compared with grammar,
take account of language? The logician considers lan-
guage as a mental activity contributing to knowledge :
and, if he classifies the forms of language, the ground
of his classification will be the ways in which language
fulfils this function. For example, we may ask, What
are the most elementary meanings which lie at the basis
of knowledge ? or, What are the most elementary ways
in which the world must be expressed if it is to be known?
Aristotle's Categories, for instance, are an attempt to
answer this question. But it will not matter to the
logician if he finds no consistent forms of words cor-
responding to his list of elementary meanings. Thus
(a) the substantival form in grammar corresponds to
the logical category of substance to some extent, but
only to some extent ; and to the logician it is indifferent
whether substance is expressed as a substantive or as an
adjective, while to the grammarian the formal distinc-
tions of words are of much greater importance. The
two sciences have different interests, and the logician must
guard against being too much affected by grammatical
140 LECTURES ON LOGIC
associati ns. Again, (b) if there is to be knowledge, there
must be the consciousness of generality and of indi-
viduality ; the consciousness that a thing is what it is and
nothing else, and the consciousness that it is related to,
and has something in common with, other things. But
these distinctions are expressed grammatically in dif-
ferent ways in different languages, and even in one and
the same language ; and to the logician such variations
are not a matter of consequence. Again, (c) all definite
consciousness is positive and negative ; every act of posit-
ing something implies an act of exclusion. And lan-
guage, as an instrument of thought, must express this.
But it matters little to the logician what particular names
in a language are to be called positive, or negative, or
privative. Again, (d) there is no thinking without ab-
straction ; to think anything we must hold it apart from
other things. On the other hand, the more fully we
think about anything, the more things do we hold together
in thought, the more concrete does our thought become.
Practically, all thought is both abstract and concrete ;
and, when we call it one or the other, we are looking at
one or the other of its aspects. It is necessary that lan-
guage should express this distinction, and it is abundantly
expressed ; but different languages and writers express it
differently, and these variations again have little interest
for logic. Once more, (e) all thinking is judgment, more
or less explicit ; that is, it implies two elements which are
partially identified and asserted to be one. Language
expresses this fact in various ways ; but the subject of
the sentence to the grammarian is not necessarily the
subject of the judgment to the logician. The logician
cannot ignore the linguistic expression of judgment ; but
the particular forms of expression which a given Ian-
LANGUAGE AND ITS FUNCTION IN KNOWLEDGE 14I
guage adopts arc indifferent to him, and he must guard
against the confusion which their influence may introduce
into logic. When he classifies forms of judgment, as
also when he classifies names, he has to remember that
he is concerned with the functions of tJiousilit.
SECTION IV
CONCEPTS AS THE PRINCIPLES OF KNOWLEDGE
LOGIC being a theoretical consideration of knowledge,
the question arises, What is the best order or method in
which to set forth the various functions of which know-
ledge is the result ? According to the common arrange-
ment of text-books the theory of conception is taken
first, then that of judgment, and thirdly that of reason-
ing. This arrangement is ultimately based on the idea
that the best and most natural method of scientific exposi-
tion is to begin with the simple and to advance to the
complex ; a method which shows how complex results
can be resolved into, and reconstructed out of, certain
ultimate unanalyzable elements.
With regard to this idea, it is essential that we should
understand how we are to regard the relation of the more
simple to the more complex. Is the complex formed by
the mere juxtaposition, addition, composition of the
simple ; or is it a development? The first of these views
is often adopted, but, if we consider concrete instances, we
shall see that no complex is produced by the mere
juxtaposition of simples, but that the simple always
assumes a new character or quality in the complex.
For example, the letters of the alphabet, which may be
considered the elements of language (frroix <='<*), enter into
the complexes called syllables, words, sentences, and so on.
CONCEPTS AS THE PRINCIPLES OF KNOWLEDGE 143
But as soon as A has entered into the syllable^/? it is no
longer the same A as before, for its function h?s changed;
and, if you resolve the syllable AB into mere A and
mere B, it is no longer the syllable. So, again, a word
is not the same thing out of a sentence and in a sentence ;
a tone is not the same thing by itself, and in a phrase,
and in a melody ; a straight line has one character by
itself, and another in a triangle, and another in a square ;
and, to take a more important example, the family is one
thing when it is the component of a tribe, and another
when it is the component of a modern European state.
If this were not so, if the simple element did not thus
assume a new character in the complex, there would be
no interest in tracing its development ; it would suffice
to know the simple and then to say, All complexes
are this simple repeated so many times. Conversely, as
the simple is not merely repeated, but gets qualified in
becoming complex, so the complex is not merely broken
up by analysis into the simple, but is found to be con-
tained in the simple in a less developed form. Only
if this is so, is there any possibility of explaining the
complex by analysis, or any interest in trying to do
so. The continuity thus implied in development may
be expressed by saying that the simpler is the more
complex potentially. No doubt this statement may be
made to appear ridiculous. It may be translated, for
example, into the statement that the letters of the
alphabet are potentially all that has ever been written ;
and to say even that man is potentially a state may
sound absurd. Yet it is the case that we cannot evolve
society out of man without implying that man contains
the possibility of society, and is, so to say, organized for
it ; and it is no less correct to define a letter as a possible
144 LECTURES ON LOGIC
element in a word than to define a word as a compound
of letters.
In this sense, then, the principia or ap^aC to which any
science goes back are also the aruL^la or elements of its
subject-matter, the raw material into which the fabric
can be resolved. Geometrical science, for example, may
be thus regarded as a construction built up out of certain
ultimate elements, such as points, lines, and the like. It
was in this way that Aristotle looked at science; and
hence also he called his account of the logic of science
' analytics.' He thought, that is, that the logic of science
consisted in showing the elements out of which it is con-
structed. In the same way now we may hear it said that
the ideal of scientific explanation is to find the fewest
laws from which some part of the universe may be
explained. Sometimes, again, it is said that all science
depends upon its definitions ; that is, upon statements re-
garding the elements of its subject-matter; and, although
it is, of course, quite untrue that anyone who understood
the definitions could forthwith reconstruct the whole
science, it is quite true in another sense that science, so
far as it is complete and systematic, depends upon its
definitions. Any discussion, for example, about its more
complex statements depends upon agreement as to its
elements, and a refusal to accept the definitions of these
elements, e. g. the definition of a line, is fatal to the dis-
cussion of the more complex constructions into which
these elements enter.
If this idea of analysis, then, is applied to knowledge,
does it lead us to the traditional arrangement of con-
ception, judgment, and reasoning ? Are concepts, that
is, the principia of the structure of knowledge?
This structure is a complex whole, ever growing and
CONCEPTS AS THE PRINCIPLES OF KNOWLEDGE 145
thus re-constituting itself. It may be described as a
mind holding together certain facts, or as a certain
coherent experience ; and analysis should show what are
the simplest elements of which this experience is the
development. So that the question of the ' principles '
of knowledge may be put indifferently in either of the
forms, (a) What are the most elementary facts which are
capable of growing into scientific facts ? or, (b) What are
the most elementary experiences which can become
scientific experiences ?
Now the whole body of knowledge, or the sum of
reasoned truth, is obviously divided into parts. If we take
any one of these parts, such as we call a special science,
this again may be resolved into component parts bearing
a necessary relation to one another. This process may
be continued until we come finally to some simplest piece
of reasoning or coherent fact. But we can go further ;
we can analyze this syllogism into judgments (though
these, we must remember, are not the same in the
syllogism as they are out of it). A judgment, again,
is a synthesis of two elements, partly distinct ; and these
elements are called, variously, concepts or ideas. Thus
the ' principles ' or elements of the given division of
knowledge would seem to be certain concepts ; and these,
as expressed in definitions, would be the apxai of that
science. These concepts, naturally, would be concepts
of a special subject-matter ; but, neglecting the particular
properties of that subject-matter, we can go on to ask
for something still more simple, the simplest elements
into which the knowable world can be analyzed, or the
most elementary concepts which enter into all knowledge,
and of which all knowledge is the development.
If we represent conception thus as the simplest act of
VOL. I. L
146 LECTURES ON LOGIC
thought, it is most important to remember (in accordance
with what we have seen already) that all thought is con-
tinuous, that the properties of the concept will be such
as fit it to be a factor, and that it must be regarded as
judgment and reasoning in germ. Because this has not
been remembered, many logicians protest against con-
cepts being taken as the elements of thought, and point
out that all concepts are implicit judgments. And this
is perfectly true. We talk of ideas or conceptions as if
they were isolated things, occasionally brought into action
and relation ; but if we attend to any conception in our
minds we are at once aware that it is no such quiescent
and self-contained thing. It is no more so than a word in
a book. On the contrary, every one of my ideas is in
a context which it colours and by which it is coloured.
It is also true that, if we go back to the most elementary
act of thought, we come to something which can be called
indifferently an act of conception or an act of judgment ;
and thus we must undoubtedly say that all thinking is
judging. But it is none the less true that we can treat
any given piece of thought as a self-contained whole, and
in this sense can speak of the concepts of identity, being,
number, figure, life, virtue, humanity. We assume, and
must assume, that in each of these cases there is a deter-
minate nature with certain definite characters of its own.
We know, indeed, that each of these natures has its reality
in interaction with others which infinitely modify it ; any
spatial fact is also numberless other things ; humanity,
as we experience it, is never simply what we define as
humanity. None of them is really determinate, com-
plete, and self-contained ; each is progressive and ex-
pansive, and is continually being modified ; and therefore
the statements we make about them are made with
CONCEPTS AS THE PRINCIPLES OF KNOWLEDGE 147
a reservation. Still the truth, as so far ascertained, can
be, and, for convenience, must be, tie? ted as though it
were complete a.nd isolated ; and in this sense vvc may
rightly speak of the concepts of space or of humanity, so
leng as we remember that each of them is not really dis-
connected or complete, and also that each of them is the
result of innume;able judgments that have preceded it.
L 2
SECTION V
FORMAL LOGIC AS THE SCIENCE OF THE PRINCIPLES
OF KNOWLEDGE
We have seen in what sense knowledge may be regarded
as a structure built up out of elements or ' principles ' ;
and also in what sense concepts may be regarded as the
elements of each special science, and again of knowledge
as such. Dismissing now the special concepts of special
sciences, and turning to inquire into the principles, or
simplest elements, of all knowledge, we may state the
question regarding these principles in various ways. Thus,
first, since all knowledge is knowledge of something,
of an object, we may ask, What is an object as such, in
the simplest possible sense of the word ? Or again : all
knowledge is of being ; particular sciences are knowledge
of particular forms of being ; knowledge as such has to do
with being as such ; what then is the simplest form of
being} Or, once more, from the subjective side, since all
knowledge is an act of thought, what is thinking as such ?
what are the most elementary laws of thought > as dis-
tinguished, for example, from the special laws of spatial
thought or economic thought ? The answers to these
questions should give us something that is involved in all
objects and all thought, that type of objectivity and
of thinking which will be the same everywhere. And
these questions will be equivalent to the question, What
is a concept as such? if we bear in mind that this is
FORMAL LOGIC 149
to mean for us, What is the simplest form of experience
regarded as a self-contained, independent unity ?
To our question many answers have been given.
(a) Greek philosophy answers, Everything is a one in
many ; this is the simplest and most abstract formulation
of being ; whatever else being may involve, it involves at
least this. (J?) It is much the same when a modern
philosopher answers, The most elementary consciousness
which can possibly become knowledge is a consciousness
of identity in difference or of differentiated identity. It
is difficult to realize a consciousness so abstract, but
a concrete example may help us. If we take an act of
attention, we shall agree that it involves a double con-
sciousness, a consciousness of having changed from some-
thing to something. The moment I am conscious of
A I am conscious of it as a change from B, my previous
consciousness (or unconsciousness, for it makes no dif-
ference to the point) ; B has become^, or rather BA ; or
I am conscious of A as the same as B with a difference.
Definite consciousness is always a consciousness of change ;
an absolutely uniform consciousness would be no con-
sciousness ; all consciousness is consciousness of dif-
ferentiated identity, or of a many in one. (e) Another
way of formulating the activity of thought is to say that
all thought implies synthesis. In the most elementary
consciousness there is a holding together of two things at
least — of myself as I was then, and myself as I am now.
It is evident that these three answers to our question are
merely different ways of stating the same fact. And it is
worth while to observe that a famous conclusion from the
fact thus variously stated is the principle that everything
is what it is in and through its difference from another ;
that not-being or ' otherness ' (Plato's Sophist) is the
150 LECTURES ON LOGIC
inseparable concomitant of being ; that ' omnis determi-
natio est negatio,' or everything is determined by the
exclusion of something else (Spinoza) ; that therefore
everything is and is not at the same moment.
These considerations will help us to see the true signifi-
cance of Formal Logic, and of those ' laws of thought' of
which it speaks. Formal logic, as a science, has for
its subject-matter being (or consciousness) where it is at
its minimum. It takes account of things simply in so far
as we can predicate of them ' being ' and ' not-being,'
' all ' and ' some.' Its question is : Suppose I know no
more than that a thing is what it is and not something
else, and that ' all ' is more than ' some,' what can I infer
from this knowledge ? Formal logic is therefore the
most abstract of all sciences ; it is more abstract even
than arithmetic, for arithmetic considers also the ' count-
ability ' of things, while geometry goes further still.
In the same way, the laws of thought considered in
formal logic are the most abstract laws possible : they
are the ways in which the mind must act if it is to think
at all. For instance, the law of Identity means that, if
I am to be definitely conscious of anything, I must at
least be able to identify, to say that A is A. The law of
Contradiction, which is only the other side of this law,
means that human experience would fall to the ground,
unless we could say, If A is A, A is not not-^L The law
of Excluded Middle, which says that, if I have thought of
the world simply as A and not- A, everything I am con-
scious of is one or the other, is not a third law, but
a corollary of these. By using the word ' laws ' we do
not imply that they are something externally imposed
on the mind ; but we imply that these are the ways in
which the mind acts, and must act, if it is to be a mind.
FORMAL LOGIC 151
These laws are usually called by formal logicians
laws of pure thought ; but the expression is objectionable,
for it suggests the false idea that there is some difference
of kind between ' pure ' thought and thought as it enters,
for example, into chemistry. In reality, ' pure ' thought
differs from other thinking in being the most elementary
thinking possible, and it differs in no other way ; all
thinking is some kind of identification of differences or
differentiation of identities. It is quite true that the results
of this elementary thinking have extreme certitude, and
the reason is that elementary thinking is extremely
simple, while every fresh condition brings a fresh pos-
sibility of error ; the reason is not that the elementary
thinking is ' pure,' while other thinking involves an
appeal to 'experience.' It is sometimes said that, as
soon as a proposition is set forth which involves nothing
but the laws of Identity and Contradiction, its truth is
self-evident and does not depend on ' experience,' by
which is meant something outside the particular pro-
position. But every truth, so far as it is seen to be true,
is so far self-evident ; and in another sense of 'experience,'
the simplest truths imply an appeal to experience just as
much as any others. A man who follows the reasoning
of Euclid reasons, in one sense, without appealing to
experience ; but he is, all the time, ' experiencing ' a
certain thing called space, and each new step in the
reasoning is a new experience of space. The experience
of space is so simple and universal, and we get it so
easily, that we are apt to speak as if it were different
from other kinds of experience, and as if the truths of
geometry had some different ground of belief from other
truths. But, while the truths of geometry are not derived
from any other experience than that of space, they
152 LECTURES ON LOGIC
express the experience of space ; and this differs from
certain other kinds of experience merely in its simplicity.
In the same way the laws of Identity and Contradic-
tion express an experience, though an experience of
a still more simple kind ; and they are truths of ex-
perience just as much as are the truths of chemistry.
Certainly they are not ' derived from experience ' in the
sense of being derived from some other experience ; for
to say that is to say something quite unmeaning, since
without experience of identity and difference there is no
experience at all. To say, as some formal logicians
do, that the results of formal logic involve no appeal to
experience is either false or tautologous \
The subject-matter of formal logic, then, is experience,
or the nature of things, at its minimum. Its thinking,
therefore, is in the highest degree abstract, and for this
reason formal logic is well fitted to be a mental
gymnastic, and to hold a place like that of algebra
in education. No doubt the text-books of formal logic
are apt to speak of it as though it were ' mere ' thinking
and not connected with things at all ; but it is really
a statement of what is most elementary in objects, and
therefore the laws of thought are, so far, also laws of
things.
1 [On experience, see Note A.]
SECTION VI
THE CONCEPT AS UNIVERSAL, PARTICULAR,
INDIVIDUAL
We have seen that the analysis of knowledge brings
us, if we consider the matter on the ' objective ' side,
to being as such, and that this involves identity and
difference ; and, again, that if we consider knowledge
on the ' subjective ' side we reach an activity of thought
which consists in identifying and distinguishing. In con-
nexion with this account of the simplest experience, or
of conception as such, we may enquire into the meaning
of the terms universal, particular, and individual.
The simplest conception we can possibly form may be
described by the word ' something.' We should identify
it by calling it 'this.' In identifying it thus we ipso facto
distinguish it from ' that ' ; it is ' this not that.' The con-
ception ' this not that ' further implies something in which
both ' this ' and ' that ' partake, the medium in which
they both are and of which they are different forms.
Here we have the germs of universal, particular, and
individual. The universal is the medium or common
nature in which both ' this ' and ' that ' partake, and of
which they are distinct forms. ' This ' is a particular ;
it is this medium in a partial form ; partial, because
it excludes ' that,' which is another partial form of the
common element. Thirdly, if we wish to know fully
what ' this ' is, we can only do so by discovering all
154 LECTURES ON LOGIC
its differences from, and resemblances to, ' that ' : here
we should have the individuality of 'this.'
Such seems to be the simplest and truest meaning of
the three words. Every concept, as a one of (or in)
many, is universal, particular, and individual. For ex-
ample, take the concept of triangle. It is universal *, for
it may assume a number of different forms (equilateral,
isosceles, &c), or is capable of further specification. It
is particular, for it is a specific form of something more
genera] (figure) and excludes other specific forms of it.
It is individual, for it is this unique form of figure re-
garded as complete and self-contained, its individuality
being its whole nature, or what would be described in a
true definition of it. Thus the same thing is at once uni-
versal, particular, and individual. Every concept admits
of further specification, and therefore is universal ; every
concept is the specification of something more general,
and therefore is particular ; every concept is exactly
what it is, and therefore is individual. These properties
do not exclude each other, but each implies the others.
Universal and Particular.
We may now consider certain important ways in which
the relations of the universal and particular have been
regarded.
i . The universal, or the concept as universal, has been
regarded as the capability or potentiality of assuming
certain particular forms. Thus Aristotle sometimes re-
presents the universal as the potentiality or v\^ of its
particulars, the yevos as the ' matter ' of the species. This
1 'The universal triangle,' or, better, 'the triangle regarded univer-
sally,' is not the same as ' the universal of triangle.' ' The universal of
triangle ' is figure, just as triangle is ' the universal of isosceles triangle.
CONCEPT UNIVERSAL, PARTICULAR, INDIVIDUAL 155
expresses the important truth that a universal is the
universal of some particular, and a particular the par-
ticular of some universal, i.e. that there must be a real
continuity between the two. Thus a red triangle may be
offered as an instance of a particular triangle, but in
strictness it is not a particular triangle ; for redness is not
a differentiation of triangularity, but of something else.
The truth expressed in this phrase of Aristotle's is of
special importance in regard to classification.
2. The universal has been called the kolvov of the
particulars, that which is common to them all and enters
into them all. This phrase suggests the idea that the
universal is arrived at by leaving out the particularity of
the particulars ; and with this idea is connected the
doctrine that universal conceptions are obtained by
abstraction. There is in this both truth and untruth.
In what sense is it true that we leave out the particu-
larities in order to arrive at the universal? If we take
our former instance, particular triangles will be equi-
lateral, isosceles, scalene triangles. Now, in order to
arrive at the concept of triangle as such, we cannot
absolutely leave otit the particular properties of equi-
lateral, isosceles, and scalene triangles ; for if we did we
should be left not with triangularity, but with nothing at
all ; the equilaterality of an equilateral triangle is in-
separable from its triangularity. But we can attend
exclusively to the fact of triangularity, the fact of space
contained in three straight lines ; a fact which may exist
under various conditions (equilateral, &c), and which
never exists except under certain conditions. To this we
can attend, and this we can retain as something ' com-
mon ' to all particular triangles. Every triangle is par-
ticular ; but triangularity, the ( common ' or universal,
156 LECTURES ON LOGIC
is not a mere abstraction, it is something which exists in
all particulars. Like ' our common humanity ' it is that
in which all its particulars meet ; they are absolutely
inseparable from it, and it from them.
3. The universal is said to express what is essential in
the particulars. This again may be taken in a true sense
or in a false. Mill protests against an ' exploded realism '
which insists on certain ' essences ' as the sole matter of
importance, and opposes to them as unessential all the
characteristic properties of things. And, if this doctrine
was ever really held, Mill's protest would certainly be
right. But, when the universal is said to be or to express
the essential, what is regarded as unessential is that which
is irrelevant, e.g. the redness of a triangle. So again
with ' our common humanity ' : to realize this, one must
disregard many things usually associated with humanity.
For example, in discussions about slavery, it is rightly
urged that it does not matter whether a man is black or
white, but that the essential thing is, perhaps, the pos-
session of reason, or the capacity of forming a society.
This essence is the universal, compared with which
certain differences are irrelevant ; and, although people
will always differ more or less as to what is essential and
what irrelevant, the distinction itself is a sound one. It is
a misunderstanding of it that leads to that idea of an
'essence 5 from which everything really characteristic is
omitted.
4. The universal is said to contain or include its par-
ticulars. This, of course, is a spatial metaphor, and we
always have to guard against the influence of spatial
associations. But the metaphor helps some minds to
realize the truth, and it is convenient as bringing out the
fact that particulars, while excluding one another, also
CONCEPT UNIVERSAL, PARTICULAR, INDIVIDUAL 157
make up, or arc included in, one whole. To say, for
example, that humanity includes all men may help one
to realize the truth that, though men exclude one another,
they still form a unity.
This formula is connected with that which represents
the universal as the whole, of which the particulars are
parts. ' Universal ' is /ca0' oKov, that which is true of
something as a whole. To nad' 6'Aou is ' universum,' a thing
taken in its totality. And so 'particular' is to Kara /me'pos
or kv ixipzi, a thing taken in a partial sense. The whole
is more than the part; and so the universal (e.g. tri-
angularity, or triangle as universal) is said to be more, or
to have more in it, than the particular (e.g. isosceles
triangle).
This is so, or is not so, according as you understand
'triangle' and 'isosceles triangle.' If you mean by 'triangle'
simply and solely the conception of a space included in
three straight lines, clearly there is less in ' triangle ' than
in ' isosceles triangle,' and every particularity assumed by
' triangle' adds something to its concreteness. But, if you
mean by ' triangle ' the conception, or holding together in
the mind, of all the possibilities implied in a space
included in three straight lines, there is more in 'tri-
angle' than in ' isosceles triangle,' for the latter is 'triangle '
under limitations, or in a partial sense. This is what
Aristotle meant by h> /ue'pei ; and if we guard against
quantitative associations this is an instructive point of
view.
To repeat, any whole may be regarded either in its
full meaning as containing all its parts, or as a sort of
outline waiting to be filled up. In the latter sense we
speak of ' triangle ' as a universal containing less than
any of its particulars (an ' abstract universal '). So, again,
158 LECTURES ON LOGIC
any part of a whole may be regarded either as implying
all the other parts, and therefore implying, ultimately,
the whole ; or, in an abstract way, as excluding the
other parts. In the latter sense a particular triangle is
only part of the whole 'triangle,' or is triangle under
limitations.
General Concepts and Generalization.
From the point of view we have taken, there would
seem to be no reason for talking of universal or general
concepts as if they were a separate class, and of particular
and individual concepts as if they were two other separate
classes. Every concept is general, particular, and in-
dividual. Every concept is general because it may apply
to other cases besides the one you happen to have in
mind.
Still, ' general concepts ' are constantly spoken of, in
implied contrast with concepts that are not general.
And, further, 'general' and 'generality' are often used in
a bad sense, as when it is said, ' That is a mere generality,'
or ' So and so deals in vague generalities.' This de-
preciatory remark cannot mean merely that the person
says what is true in a great variety of circumstances, and
that his concept is very general in this sense. It means
that he realizes the concept only to a small extent, that
he does not realize nearly all of the circumstances to
which it applies, but lumps together under it things
which are quite distinct ; that he has not thought out the
meaning of the concept.
A concept being the result of an act or acts of thought,
the generality of a concept will be simply that in it
which is due to the act of generalization. To generalize
means, in the simplest sense, to see that A is true in other
CONCEPT UNIVERSAL, PARTICULAR, INDIVIDUAL 159
cases than the present case, in B, C, and D. To put it
technically, all generalization is, ultimately, seeing a cer-
tain identity running through certain differences ; and
a concept is general in so far as it is the result of this
generalization. A good generalize r is one who sees
identities under differences which disguise them from
most people ; he is Plato's (tvvotttlkos. But we may
generalize badly. We may see, for instance, that A holds
good in B, C, D, but may overlook important differences
in B, C, D. In such a case our generalization will be
rash ; though true as far as it goes, it will be false
because, from the differences being overlooked, identities
will be inferred where they do not exist. But it is
impossible to think at all without generalizing; merely
to judge 'this is a case of that ' is to generalize ; and to
generalize is to use a general concept, which is capable
of particular varieties.
Individual and Individuality.
' Individuum ' is the translation of amixov, ' indivisible,'
a word habitually used in legic by Aristotle to express
a certain point of view. Any generic nature — anything
considered universally — may be regarded as admitting of
particularization. This process of differentiating a uni-
versal was represented by Plato and Aristotle as a
dividing or cutting up (iqiveiv), so that Plato in the
Pliaedrns compares the differentiation of a universal to
the organization of a physical body, and a bad reasoner
to an unskilful cook who divides the body across the
joints. Supposing the process to be carried as far as it
can be in a given direction, something will be reached
which may be called to 6.toijlov } that which admits of no
160 LECTURES ON LOGIC
further division ; that which is not the possibility of
several ; that of which there is only one.
Where this point is reached — where in the process
something is arrived at which, for the purpose in question,
is fully differentiated and therefore individual, depends
upon the purpose in question ; and therefore the word
individual is extremely ambiguous. Thus the universal
' figure ' may be differentiated into rectilinear and curvi-
linear, and the triangle, as the simplest form of recti-
linear figure, may be taken as individual. But this
individual again for another purpose may be divided into
equilateral, isosceles, and scalene. That is, you may ' in-
dividualize ' any concept in various degrees. All we can
say in the abstract is that a concept is individual when
it is, or is regarded as being, incapable of further dif-
ferentiation, or as the complete differentiation (for the
purpose in question) of a certain universal.
Thus, if we start with the idea of the universal as that
which contains its differences merely implicitly, any
individual of this abstract universal will contain more
than it, and that which is most individual in the series
will be the fully developed or realized universal. In
this sense we often use ' individuality.' The ' indivi-
duality ' of a thing is that which makes it what it is,
its complete nature, that which you would state if you
were able to define it. A ' great individuality ' is a
person in whom the universal humanity has reached a
very high degree of development or differentiation ; one
who concentrates in himself a great deal of human nature;
a person therefore of many sides, who is very ' represen-
tative ' and touches others at innumerable points.
On the other hand the word ' individual ' has also
associations of the very opposite kind. If we look at the
CONCEPT UNIVERSAL, PARTICULAR, INDIVIDUAL 161
universal as a whole formed by the composition of ele-
ments, and if we break it up into these elements, we
arrive at last at elements incapable of further division, or
arofia. These ultimate atoms are, in this sense, in-
dividuals ; but, instead of being- the universal as most
fully qualified, these individuals contain the minimum of
qualification or character. The individuality of an ' atom '
is the least individuality we can speak of. And so
we say of a person who has no individuality, 'he is a
mere atom ' ; and ' a mere individual ' is one whose
personality is supposed to be reduced to the fact that
he is just one in a crowd, only a unit, which is next to
being a cipher.
Thus the word ' individual ' is applied at opposite poles,
and signifies both the greatest and the least amount
of character or 'individuality.' The reason of this, and
of the confusion that arises from it, is that the process of
differentiating or individualizing may be conducted to
any point we like, and may be considered to stop at
any point we like. Different people individualize up to
different stages, and the associations we connect with the
word individual depend en the point at which the process
is generally understood to stop. It may stop at the first
differentiation of the simplest universal: 'something'
becomes ' this,' and attains a little individuality, the
individuality of ' this ' consisting in being ' not that.'
Advance a step and localize ' this ' in space, and it be-
comes 'this here'; it is somewhat more individualized,
for it is ' not that there.' To express this low degree
of individuality we might coin an Aristotelian formula
robe tI t.ov kclI vvv; and, again, the individuality implied
by our English phrase ' mere individual ' is the smallest
amount that will serve to distinguish one from another.
VOL. I. M
i62 LECTURES ON LOGIC
Still this may be considered an individuality ; that is, we
may stop the process of individualization at this point.
Just as the process may be stopped at various points,
so it may be conducted on various principles ; and thus
again the individuality of an object will be said by
different people to consist in different things. Human
nature, for example, is so complicated that perhaps no
two persons would exactly agree as to that in which the
individuality of man consists. Still more would two of
us differ about the individuality of some particular man
whom we both happened to know, because each of us
would consider a different thing in the man the most
important and interesting thing about him. And in the
same way ' the individual ' in logic books has various
senses, according as various properties are regarded as
constituting individuality.
We may bring out still further in the following way
the opposite senses which attach to the words ' individual '
and 'individuality.' If we insist on asking the question,
What is the true individuality of a thing? we must
answer, All that the generic nature in question has in it to
become in that particular form. The true individuality
of man is everything of which human nature is capable.
But no man, no ' individual,' is, in this sense of the word K
truly individual. ' Individual ' accordingly comes to be
used in the sense of ' particular.' In calling a man ' in-
dividual ' we imply his limitations, and think as much of
what he excludes as of what he includes. ' Individualism'
again has come to be the regular word to designate the
attitude of men in their mutual exclusiveness ; an ' in-
dividualistic ' theory is one which regards men as mutually
exclusive atoms, and endeavours to explain society by
showing it to result from a combination of such atoms.
CONCEPT UNIVERSAL, PARTICULAR, INDIVIDUAL 163
No antithesis is more common than that between the
community and the individual. Yet if it is true that the
community is nothing but a collection of individuals, and
that the individual is merely that which goes to make up
a community, it seems strange that the antithesis should
be able to arise, and that controversies should be waged
regarding the respective rights of the two. The main
reason is that, as we have seen, different people ' in-
dividualize ' up to such different stages and on such
different principles. A person who upholds the ' rights
of the individual ' probably does not mean the rights
which attach to the merest individuality possible to man,
but the rights of a considerably differentiated human
being ; and a person who speaks of the community does
not mean a collection or whole in the abstract, but a
certain body of persons representing definite interests.
There is no such thing as an abstract individual ; a
person with the minimum of qualification must mean a
person who has some standing-ground common to himself
and others. And a community, again, is not a com-
munity unless it is a one in many, something in which
there is a commune quid. So long as the controversy is
debated in the abstract, it is a mere beating of the air.
It ought always to be made concrete. That is, we ought
always to ask what is meant by the ' individual ' spoken
of, what amount of individuality he is taken to possess ;
and what is the particular commune quid we mean when
we talk of the community. It is possible then to com-
pare this commune quid with the rights in question, and
to ask whether it is of such value that it ought, or ought
not, to be paramount.
To sum up : individuality, as such, is any determinate
character which any generic nature has assumed, this
M 2
164 LECTURES ON LOGIC
character being the point at which you choose to stop in
the process of differentiation. Hence, in logic, indi-
viduality may be, and has been, used in two chief ways,
to express either (i) the minimum of differentiation, what
is just enough to distinguish one from another ; or (2) the
maximum of qualification, the most differentiated nature,
what is contained in the full definition of a thing, the to
tC i]v thai, which is also the ovala of a thing l .
1 [Compare the remarks entitled ' Individuality ' in the Miscellaneous
Papers.']
SECTION VII
CONCEPTION AND PERCEPTION, MEDIATE AND
IMMEDIATE APPREHENSION
So far we have used ' concept ' to mean any definite
matter of consciousness ; any consciousness of ' this ' as
a form of 'that,' and as, therefore, partly the same as
' that.' But the terms ' conception,' ' concept,' ' conceive,'
are also used in specific senses and in contrast with other
terms. Before we proceed with our discussion of con-
ception in its wider meaning, it will be well to glance at
some of these antitheses.
Concept and Percept.
What is the point of the distinction often made between
conception and perception ? Every act of perception is
really also an act of conception, in the sense we have
hitherto given to the latter word, for a perception is, a
holding together in the mind. But, if we wish to assign
the two words to different modes of 'holding together,'
the name perception may be given to any distinct con-
sciousness of objects which involves the action of one or
more of the senses, whereas conception would stand for
that distinct consciousness of objects which excludes, or
at least does not imply, any direct action of the senses.
Thus, in the case of any object, part of the nature of which
is to be sensible, we may talk of perception and con-
ception as distinct. The perception of a tree, for example,
166 LECTURES ON LOGIC
will be our consciousness of the tree when we are actually
in its presence and see it. The conception of it will be
our consciousness of the tree when we go away and think
of it.
This conception may be complete or incomplete in
various degrees. It is possible that a person, in thinking
of a tree, might realize its sensible qualities as vividly as
in actually looking at it ; and in that case there would be
no assignable or ' practical ' difference between the con-
ception and the perception of the tree. Doubtless in
most cases where we are said to think of a thing we
leave out elements which are present in perception.
(We are of course aware of this ; if we are not aware of it,
we are the victims of illusion.) Still a full conception of
a thing means realizing the whole thing ; and as, in the
case of the tree, reflexion shows that the experience of it
implies visibility, tangibility, and the like, a reflecting
person includes in his conception of the tree the fact that
under certain conditions he would see it and touch it.
In the same way a man with unusual powers of conception
is one who has a great power of realizing what he would
experience under certain circumstances, while most of us
have to refresh our conceptions constantly. Thus there
is no absolute line between perception and conception.
A full conception of a perceptible thing, in the sense of
a thoroughly definite consciousness of it, would imply its
perceptibility, as well as a great deal besides.
This truth is obscured by the meaning often given to
conception. Many people understand by the word a
partial and faded idea of a thing, and this is what they
contrast with perception. In the same way we find it
stated that thoughts or conceptions are reproduced sen-
sations ; sensations which have lost their original fresh-
CONCEPTION AND PERCEPTION 167
ness and force 1 i but have been retained by memory,
reproduced by imagination, recombined by thought.
There is obviously some truth in this account, but it is
not an adequate or instructive account ; for to call con-
ception a fainter or less clear reproduction of sensation
or perception is to omit its differentia. It would be more
instructive to say that an experience becomes more a con-
ception, and less a mere perception, the wider, the more
complex, and the more connected it becomes. In con-
ception perceptions are not eliminated, but are carried on
into ever-widening contexts. Conception, one may say,
is perception connected with other perceptions. If this
were not so, in passing from perception to conception we
should be like a man who, in order to understand a
1 [Some remarks were made at this point on the idea that a concep-
tion has less force or intensity than a sensation or sense-perception.
These remarks seem to be rather of the nature of a note made in
passing ; but their drift would appear to be somewhat as follows : — There
is no doubt of the fact that what I feel (my -naOos) when I see or hear
something is often much more intense than what I feel when I realize
an abstract truth. But we must not confuse intensity of sensitive
affection with degree of reality or truth. Our impressibility is no gauge
of truth (though doubtless it is important as far as possible to make
ourselves impressionable by the truest truth). The man who sees an
illuminated turnip and takes it for a ghost may die of fright ; and that
proves the intensity of his naOos, but it does not prove the truth of his
perception. We might, indeed, if we chose, speak of an intensity of
thought, conception, knowledge, just as we do of an intensity of feeling;
and there is this analogy between them, that the intensity in either case
can only be measured by that which, in the one case, it enables a man to
do, and in the other case moves him to do. But then the intensity of
feeling and the intensity of thought may be in inverse ratio. A person
may, and often does, realize a truth intensely without feeling at all
intensely ; and, though a relatively simple sensation may move intensely
at the moment, its intensity with respect to truth or knowledge is
trifling ; i. e. the knowledge got through it would enable a man to do
extremely little. Observe also that intensity of conviction is not
intensity of thought nor any test of truth; a madman's conviction may
be most intense.]
i68 LECTURES ON LOGIC
chapter, forgets all the particular ideas in it. And
no doubt what are often called our ' general conceptions '
are very much of the nature of that general meaning of
a book which we say we retain, though we remember
hardly any of the details. This general meaning is cnly
a fragment of the meaning of the book, and to complete
it we should have to retraverse the details. In like
manner our ' general conceptions,' so called, are but
fragmentary and sketchy pieces of experience, which
have to be revivified by recourse to sensation. If we
choose (as many writers do) to confine the word ' con-
ception ' to such faded fragments, there is no objection to
this use. In that case, however, we must remember that
the word is not equivalent to ' conception ' in the sense we
attach to it in these lectures, as the holding together of
many particulars of experience.
(The antithesis of conception and perception, as gene-
rally used, corresponds to some extent with the wider
antithesis of theory and fact, already touched on in an
earlier lecture. In one sense there can be no antithesis
of theory and fact. If a theory is the expression of any
truth, it corresponds to some fact ; and there is no fact
which does not imply a theory, simple or complicated.
In a certain sense, however, ' mere theory ' and ' mere
fact,' a ' mere theorist ' and a ' mere empiricist,' may be
contrasted.
A ' mere theory ' is never the expression of a non-
entity. The wildest theories express some facts, or they
would not do the mischief they do. When anyone speaks
of a mere theory he will always be found to mean a par-
tial statement of something which he knows more fully, or
thinks capable of being known and treated more fully.
It is a conception of a partial fact, awaiting further
THEORY AND FACT 169
experience, like a hypothesis, which also is never abso-
lutely baseless.
A ' mere empiricist,' again, is never a person without
any theory ; every one must connect his facts a little.
A mere empiricist is a man who, comparatively, sees
little connexion between the facts he knows. His facts,
one may say, are like isolated words, which have little
meaning ; and he is like a man who knows by heart
a great many words out of a dictionary, but who cannot
make a sentence. A ' mere fact ' then is one in which
you assume there is more meaning, more ' conception,'
than is seen in it by the person to whom it is a mere fact.
A common way of attempting to express the difference
between theory and fact is to say that a theory only
exists in somebody's mind. The meaning intended is
that facts are true independently of the whims and fancies
of this or that person ; but the expression is most un-
fortunate, since it suggests that a fact is a fact because it
exists in nobody's mind. In that case it would be a fact
for nobody. As a thing becomes more true, it does not
withdraw itself from people's minds ; rather, the more it
becomes an essential and inseparable part of people's
minds, the more true it is. Between theory and fact one
can make no distinction other than that of less and greater
connectedness and completeness.)
Intuition and Conception. Immediate and Mediate.
Presentative and Representative.
These are other forms of the antithesis which we have
been considering. ' Intuition ' means literally the act of
looking at something. The word is used in two important
ways in philosophy. It is used (a) as the equivalent of
170 LECTURES ON LOGIC
AnscJiauwig, as employed by Kant ; and in this sense
it ought to mean a consciousness of which the form is
either spatial or temporal or both, as contrasted with any
consciousness of which the form is neither spatial nor
temporal. Though ' intuition ' is the more literal trans-
lation of Anschauung, the meaning of the latter term is,
on the whole, better rendered by ' perception.' (b) More
generally, ' intuition ' is used to signify a direct or im-
mediate apprehension. To see intuitively that a thing is
true does not, indeed, mean — as it is sometimes supposed
to do — that I see it instantaneously or by a mere glance
of the mind ; but it means that I see its truth without
being able to give any reason for it, or that my per-
ception is ' immediate.' Let us consider more fully what
' immediate ' and ' mediate ' can signify.
An immediate consciousness would be one that is not
held through the medium of some other consciousness.
If I think A is A because it is B, B is a medium between
my mind and A : I get at A through B. Any reason for
a truth is a medium, a ixeaw, between something and
something else ; and, the more media are implied in a
consciousness, the more mediate is it.
Can any perception or other consciousness, then, be
immediate in the sense of absolutely simple? We must
answer, No. However simple a sensation is, of however
little it is the sensation, it is the sensation of something.
If we call it A, it is felt through, or as, something else,
B. Every sensation which is an element in experience
refers to something else, from which it is distinct, or of
which it is a particular form ; it is symbolic, it means
something besides itself; and therefore it is mediate.
There is, indeed, a sense in which we can speak of
a sensation as though it had no meaning, no reference
MEDIATE AND IMMEDIATE APPREHENSION 171
beyond itself. We can describe it as an occurrence
which comes and goes, and we can speak of the mind
as a series of such occurrences. But in speaking thus
we do not speak of the sensation as an element in in-
telligent experience. In experience, consciousnesses do
not simply come and go, they come and go for me ; and
it is impossible for them in such experience to be dis-
connected units. The moment a sensation is fixed, it has
some connexion, some meaning, and is therefore to some
extent mediate.
There is then no absolutely immediate apprehension.
The distinction of immediate and mediate is a relative
one. A very immediate sensation should mean a sensa-
tion very little mediate, one very little connected with
anything else. As the sensation enters as an element
into wider and wider wholes, it becomes more mediate. To
the ignorant person who stands before the fire and says
he feels hot, the consciousness of heat is very much more
' immediate ' than it is to the man of science, to whom
heat is an element in an immense body of connexions,
and whose mind in grasping the conception of heat goes
through a very large number of media. If we use the
word ' intuition,' then, in contrast with conception, ' in-
tuition' should only mean to us a relatively immediate
apprehension, a less mediate as compared with a more
mediate.
There is, however, one sense in which not simple sensa-
tions only, but every definite piece of consciousness, may
truly be called immediate or intuitive — in the sense that
it is what it is, and cannot be explained by, or analyzed
into, anything which does not contain it. If, for example,
a man is told that his perception or conception of ' right '
is derivable from and analyzable into certain quite
172 LECTURES ON LOGIC
different conceptions, which have preceded it in the
history of his mind or other people's minds, he may in
that sense truly answer that his consciousness of right is
intuitive. And this is true of any definite consciousness,
e.g. his consciousness of ' red.' His consciousness of right
or of red may be ' explained ' by tracing its history and
showing (truly) that it would not be what it is if certain
other consciousnesses had not preceded it ; but he will
justly maintain that it is what it is, that it cannot be
analyzed into those preceding consciousnesses, and that,
after the ' explanation,' both they and it remain what
they were before. In this sense his consciousness of
right is intuitive ; but then this does not mean anything
mysterious, or that everybody is born with this con-
sciousness, or that it can be got without effort, practice,
or experience.
The antithesis of presentative and representative con-
sciousness is only another way, and a metaphorical way,
of putting the contrast of immediate and mediate. By a
presentative consciousness is meant one in which the
object is actually present to me, by a representative
consciousness one in which an object once present is
reproduced. All reproduction implies a medium, and
therefore all representative consciousness is mediate.
This distinction, again, though convenient, is merely
relative. There is no experience in which what is pre-
sent is absolutely simple ; but, the further knowledge
advances, the more representative consciousness becomes.
These antitheses are parallel to those which were
formulated by Locke and Hume respectively between
sensation and reflexion, and between impression and
idea. It would seem to be the case that these dis-
tinctions cannot be absolute. It is incorrect to speak
SENSATION AND REFLEXION 173
as if there were first a number of disconnected and
simple feelings, and as if then thought or reflexion took
these and combined them in various ways. There is
really a continuous process going on, from the beginning
of experience, in which sensation becomes more and more
thought, and is more and more modified ; but at no point
do we experience a sensation which is absolutely un-
related, nor is there any thought of which the elements
do not eventually imply a sensitive organism. Hume's
language conveys the notion that the most simple ex-
periences are somehow more real than what is derived
from them ; and this idea, if pressed to its conclusion,
implies that, the more we think, the further we get from
truth. If, on the other hand, we get at truth more by
thinking more, we must say that what is given in sensa-
tion is less real, has less of reality in it, than the results
of developed thinking. No doubt the prevalent idea that
what are called conceptions are comparatively unreal
arises from the true observation that most of our ' con-
ceptions ' are not the results of developed thinking,
but are what Hume represented all thought as being,
weaker and more faded reminiscences of fuller ex-
periences. But the right corollary of this truth is not
that we should take refuge in the most meagre of our
experiences and hope to find reality there, but that we
should endeavour to realize, to think out, those empty
forms which we carry about in our minds under the
name of general conceptions.
SECTION VIII
CONCEIVABILITY AND SENSATION AS TESTS OF TRUTH
Conceivability.
The import of the word ' conceive ' is that in all
rational experience there is a holding together [concipere)
of certain elements, a synthesis of elements in a unity ;
and every object of experience implies such a synthesis.
If we begin with the most elementary conception possible,
' being ' implies at least the synthesis, the distinguishing
and holding together, of ' this ' and ' that.' Space implies
at least something outside something else, that is, a
synthesis of the two ; and time implies the synthesis of
' before ' and ' after.' Leaving such elementary con-
ceptions as these, and coming to more concrete things,
we find objects commonly analyzed into their properties.
A thing, we are told, is the sum of its properties ; at
any rate it is the unity of a certain manifold. Now
the condition of anything being a unity is that its
elements should be compatible or consistent with one
another ; and, following this out, we come to the much-
disputed principle that conceivability, i.e. the capacity
of being held together as a unity of elements, is a test of
truth, — that the true is the conceivable.
To take simple instances, it would be agreed that it is
inconceivable that ' before ' and ' after ' should be the
same, or that there should be a time in which there was
CONCEIVABILITY AS TEST OF TRUTH 175
no before and after ; or that two straight lines should
enclose a space. In these cases it is implied that the
thing conceived (time or space) has a definite nature,
which includes certain things and excludes other things.
Philosophers who have made conceivability a test of
truth mean that, the conception of a thing being the clear
apprehension of this definite nature, anything inconsistent
with this nature, and therefore inconceivable, is impossible,
just as anything that can be thought together with this
is possible. Thus the question, Is this spatially possible ?
must come back to the question, Can I think this con-
sistently with what I know of space ? The same test is
really applied in more concrete cases, e.g. in the question
of the credibility of an asserted fact in history. After
all our investigation of evidence we come to the question,
Can I think this fact consistently with all that I know of
the matter in hand ? The distrust of the idea that con-
ceivability is a test of truth is largely due to misunder-
standing, and to a failure to realize that the conceivability
of a thing is ultimately equivalent to its consistency with
the sum of experience.
In order to discuss more fully whether the conceivable
and the objective are to be identified, let us ask the
question, What is the minimum concipibile, the least
possible conceivable? and then let us enquire whether
this is the same as the least possible object. If so, con-
ceivability and objectivity will be found to coincide, at
least in the simplest instance.
Can we then conceive A to be both A and not-A ?
No, we cannot ; and therefore the least conceivable pos-
sible may be said to be something which is the same with
itself and different from something else. Try to conceive
something which does not submit to this condition, and
176 LECTURES ON LOGIC
you find that your mind is a blank, and that you are not
performing an act of thought at all. If then this is the
least conceivable, what is the least objectivity, the least
that would make a thing a thing ? Would anything be
anything if it were in no two consecutive moments the
same with itself, and if it were not different from every-
thing else ? No, it would be nothing. (This is the germ of
the conception of substance.) At this stage, then, it would
seem that the thinkable and the objective cannot be dis-
tinguished. They are subject to one and the same
condition or law, and must conform to it. The law of
Identity is the expression of this condition ; or rather it
is the condition of there being any thought at all, and of
there being any thing at all.
Again, we cannot conceive or have an experience unless
there is some continuity in our experiences ; we cannot
conceive A as absolutely independent of B, and yet con-
ceive A and B as both objects. And to say that an
object that stood in no relation to anything else would be
no object, would be nothing, is simply to say this in other
words. The principle of causality is the developed ex-
pression of this truth, and therefore there is no difference
between saying that it is a law or condition of experience
or conceivability, and saying that it is a law or con-
dition of objectivity.
Thus we must beware of supposing that first there are
things identical in difference, and that then we conceive
them ; to conceive or think is to identify in difference,
and a thing is a determinate matter of consciousness
or it is nothing. So with causality ; there are not first
causes and effects, and then our conceptions of them ; to
think causally is to connect things as somehow affecting
one another and forming one world. All experience —
CONCEIVABILITY AS TEST OF TRUTH 177
conceivability at its least, and objectivity at its least —
implies a certain synthesis of diverse elements.
Going further, taking thought or the world in more
developed stages, we have seen that space and time also
imply syntheses of parts. And it makes no difference
whether we say that each of these objects has a certain
nature of its own and therefore certain laws of its own,
or whether we say that we cannot conceive of space or of
time except in certain ways ; so that, instead of saying
that we think or conceive of space or time, we might just
as accurately talk of our thinking spatially or temporally.
The conditions of space and time are not one thing for
the world and another thing for our minds. To say that
it is a law of space that two straight lines cannot enclose
a space, is exactly the same as saying that we cannot think
of two straight lines as enclosing a space. To say that
the nature of space imposes this inability on our minds is
only to restate the fact more metaphorically. The laws
of space are equally laws of thought, though they are not
commonly called so.
The same thing is true when we advance to the objects
with which the physicist, or the chemist, or the biologist,
deals. These objects involve further syntheses beyond
that of space, or certain laws in addition to the laws of
space. These laws again are simply the expression of
the natures of the objects ; but we might just as well call
them the laws of thought as it is concerned with those
objects, the laws of thinking physically or chemically or
biologically.
Going still further, we may take the world as it is for
aesthetic or for moral science. Objects here are qualified
in still more complex ways, or involve many new
syntheses. Take a line as it enters first into a triangle,
VOL. I. N
178 LECTURES ON LOGIC
then into a crystal, and then into a picture, and you see
that at each stage it belongs to an object more complex
than the last. Each of these objects, however, has a
nature and laws of its own to which the line must con-
form. And here again the laws of the aesthetic object
are equally laws of our thinking aesthetically ; or there
is, as we say, a logic of art, as also of morality. For
instance, when we say that it is inconceivable that the
same act should be perfectly honourable and perfectly
dishonourable, i.e. that we cannot hold the two things
together in the mind, we imply that morality has prin-
ciples or laws which are alike laws of its nature and of
conceivability. It may be answered that the inconceiv-
ability would not be the same to a person who had not
our moral experience, but it is equally true that it is only
to a person who has our experience of space that our
spatial conceivabilities and inconceivabilities would be
conceivable and inconceivable. Or take the case of art :
an artist might say, 'These two colours, or these two
lines, cannot be thus combined, for they contradict one
another ' ; and this expresses a principle the same in kind
as that expressed in the statement that two straight lines
cannot enclose a space. No doubt the principles in the
two cases are extremely different ; and about the one
there may be much controversy, whereas there is little
about the other. But any one who assumes the existence
of laws in anything, or who speaks of a ' right ' and a
' wrong ' in regard to it, really commits himself to the
principle that the right in that sphere is equivalent to
the conceivable. To say that a combination of two tones
is musically wrong is to say, ' I cannot, consistently with
the laws or principles of musical thinking, conceive or
hold together those two tones.' To sum up, then, each
CONCEIVABILITY AS TEST OF TRUTH 179
sort of object has its own laws, and every such law is
a law of conception.
Every one admits some laws of conceivability and
applies them to objects. Every one, in other words,
admits in some cases that the conceivable is identical
with the empirically possible. But different people draw
the line differently. What is conceivable to one person
or age may be inconceivable to another, and what is con-
ceivable to a person at one time may be inconceivable
to him at another. What can be conceived by a person
is ultimately determined by his experience ; his con-
ception of an object is proportionate to his experience of
it (' experience ' being taken in the widest sense, as
equivalent to what he has been, or thinks he might be,
conscious of). And the same thing is true of any age.
Take the case of the antipodes, which were once incon-
ceivable. They were inconceivable at a time when certain
conceptions of motion, &c, were held ; and the people
of that time might justifiably deny that they existed.
The facts from which those people argued were facts of
observation, and they remain so ; but they were to those
people more limited facts than they are to us, and what
we call the same facts are the same with great additions.
If we take the phrase 'the sun rises,' it means very
different things at different times. It remains always
true that the sun occupies a higher position relative to
me at noon than at ten o'clock ; but some people have
interpreted this fact by the idea that a chariot and
horses were being driven up a steep road, and others by
the conception of the body called the sun actually moving
up the sky. The different conceptions which different
people have expressed by the word ' sun ' depend on the
other conceptions with which this conception ' sun ' is
N 1
180 LECTURES ON LOGIC
connected in their minds, and on the ways in which it is
connected. It remains at this day quite conceivable that
the sun goes round the earth, if that means that one yellow
body goes round another ; but an astronomer would say
that it is inconceivable that the sun goes round the earth,
i.e. that if you realized mentally all the conditions involved
in the conception you would find it self-contradictory.
In the same way, as we have seen, there is no difficulty
in conceiving a centaur, so long as your conception is
merely spatial ; but a biologist would say that if you saw
all that is involved in a centaur you would pronounce
it inconceivable.
When, then, is a man justified in saying that a thing is
inconceivable ? When, and in so far as, he has reason to
believe that he has exhausted the conditions of the
phenomenon in question. Otherwise his logical course
is to suspend his judgment. And towards most things
this is obviously our proper attitude ; they are neither
conceivable nor inconceivable ; in regard to them we are
aware of our limitations. There is no surer sign of
a really educated mind than the power of pronouncing
and of suspending judgment at the right times. The
more educated we arc, i.e. the wider our intelligent
experience is, the more things are inconceivable to us, and
(we must add) the more things are conceivable. It is
not ignorance which has the widest possibilities.
If by ' conceivable ' we mean ' able to be held together
so as to be coherent,' the true is also the conceivable.
But ' conceivable ' ought not to be understood in the
narrow and superficial sense commonly attached to
it ; it does not mean ' able to be pictured.' ' Can you
conceive a thing ? ' ought to mean, ' Can you think
it completely out?' Really to do this is, of course,
TEST OF TRUTH 181
impossible ; but when a man comes to the point where
he can conscientiously say, ' If this is true, or if that is
not true, then the whole of the rest of my experience
falls to the ground,' then he is justified in pronouncing
the one thing to be inconceivable, and the other to be
conceivable.
Test of Truth.
The point in speaking of conceivability as a test of
truth is that everything is experienced as an element in
or of something else, as something related in a more or
less determinate way to something else in one world.
The conceivable is that which admits of being thought
along with certain other things according to certain prin-
ciples of union or synthesis. To apply to anything the
test of conceivability is to try whether it fulfils this con-
dition. It will be worth while to look more closely at
the meaning of ' test.'
In the first place, ' testing ' clearly implies that the
test we employ is something different from the thing
tested ; we cannot in strictness speak of testing a thing by
itself. To ask whether a thing is really what I take it to
be, whether y4 is really A, is to ask whether A is related
to other possible experiences B, C, as I suppose it to be.
To test an experience A is to try to actualize some other
possible experience B which we expect to accompany
it, — which we have reason to believe ought to be present
if A is really A. For example, I go into a dark room,
and, touching something, I ask if it is really a table.
This question does not mean, Is the sensation of touch
really a sensation of touch? It means, If a candle w< re
lighted, should I see something of a certain colour and
shape ? If I lifted this something, should I have a certain
182 LECTURES ON LOGIC
impression of weight ? and so on. Every question I ask
about experience A, the sensation of touch, expects for
its answer other experiences, B, C, D, which I have
come to hold together with A in the conception of table.
In other words, ' table ' stands for a synthesis or principle,
according to which I expect certain experiences to be
connected in certain ways. Again, even supposing I ask
the question, Is A, the sensation of touch, really a sensa-
tion of touch ? this question, if it means anything,
requires for its answer a reference to something beyond
A. It may mean, for instance, Am I interpreting the
sensation rightly, or am I under an illusion such as
is possible, in a morbid condition of the organism,
regarding the simplest sensation ? And this means, in
other words, Am I right in assuming that, along with the
sensation, something else is present (a certain modification
of the nerves of my skin, for example) which would be
present if the sensation were a sensation of touch ?
About a literally simple feeling there can be no question
raised, for such a feeling is not a constituent of our
experience. Every feeling we are conscious of is felt
as a modification of another feeling, or in contrast
with another, or in some way which compels us to
regard it as a related feeling. By no possibility can we
raise the question whether a feeling is real without going
beyond the feeling itself, and, in effect, asking whether
something else is there.
Thus to ' test ' any experience is, literally, to ' try ' it, to
experiment with it. And all experimentation, the most
ignorant and the most scientific, means, ultimately, trying
to experience the same thing over again in a different
context. It means either trying whether something else
which we expect to accompany the thing does accompany
TEST OF TRUTH 183
it, or trying whether the thing remains the same when
the circumstances are altered. I test my incipient judg-
ment that this is a table by adding a fresh clement,
a visual sensation, or another sensation of touch. The
experiment is very simple and comes to an end very
soon ; but the most difficult and prolonged experimenta-
tion is, in principle, the same process. All progress in
knowledge is, in this wide sense, a gradual process of
experimentation. Every judgment is the expression of
a hypothesis which waits to be confirmed, or not, by
experiment. Or, to put it otherwise, in every significant
judgment we state that something of which we have
had experience is now being experienced under different
circumstances, that the thing in question is the same
thing with a difference. And to test the judgment is to
try whether the thing is the same.
Every concept, in the same way, may be said to be
a certain form of synthesis waiting to be filled up. The
ultimate postulate of all experience is that of a self
which is the centre and unity of all experiences, or (it is
the same thing) of a world which is one through all its
changes. This is the most elementary concept or form
of synthesis, that which I bring to all experience, and
which I expect every experience to fill up. Every specific
concept is a specific form of synthesis ; and the question
of what kind are the other elements B, C, D, which we
expect to coexist with A, depends on the question what
is the specific form of synthesis concerned. Space, for
instance, is such a specific form, which we bring to the
world, and under which the world shows itself to us in
a certain aspect. If we take the judgment, ' That is two
feet off,' a judgment of spatial distance, ' two feet ' is the
concept which awaits experience, and the other element
184 LECTURES ON LOGIC
in the synthesis by which I roughly test it may be a
certain amount of the stretch of my arm. The concept
of space is gradually filled up, the nature of space is
gradually discovered, by all sorts of more elaborate
experiments. A geometer in reasoning is perpetually
constructing new cases of something of which he has
already a general conception. Geometrical reasoning
may be said to consist in wondering whether a thing
is possible and then trying it by experiment ; and the
good experimenter in any science is the man who sees
how to make a good test of the possibility he has in his
mind.
Every experiment, then, is governed by the conception
we bring to it ; and every conception is a certain ex-
pectancy or form of synthesis, waiting to be tested and
filled up. The most elementary or general of these
expectancies has been described above, but it is also
often described as the conception or principle of the
uniformity of nature. This means simply that there
would be no experience, no world, for us unless we
expected things to retain their identity or to behave
in certain permanent ways. If this expectancy were
not fulfilled there would be no things at all. The prin-
ciple of the uniformity of nature is simply the principle
of identity in difference. If you never had two ex-
periences in some sense identical, you could have no
experience ; and any two experiences in any way iden-
tical are experiences of the uniformity of nature. The
phrase does not mean that nature continually repeats
herself; in one sense nature never repeats herself;
every identity we observe is accompanied by difference.
The phrase does not imply monotony or exclude variety.
It means, { A is always A, though it may occur with the
SENSATION AS TEST OF TRUTH 185
differences B, C, D . . .' All problems of testing or
verification resolve themselves into the question, Is this,
which I suppose to be A, really A ?
Sensation as Test of Truth.
We have seen that testing anything implies that some-
thing else is in some way related to the thing in question,
and related to it according to some determinate rule or
principle. In ordinary practice we test only to a limited
point ; and there are certain conventional tests agreed
on, which differ according to the field of knowledge
concerned. Such a conventional test, for example, is
tangibility, which seems as a rule to have the prerogative
even over visibility, probably because touch is the
earliest vehicle of experience and the most continuously
present. We may, however, raise the question, What is
the ultimate test, and what is the point at which we
should stop in the process of verification ? In the abstract
we can only answer, The ultimate test is that about which
there can be the least possible doubt ; that in which I
am most directly conscious of being what I judge myself
to be ; and verification should stop at the point at which
I am obliged to say that, if this is not what I judge it to
be, I am not at all.
The question, however, would still remain, In what
form then do I realize my own existence most fully ?
When, where, how, does the certainty of it most come
home to me? And to this question most people would
probably answer that some form of sense-perception is the
mode in which we most directly realize our own existence.
Hence it is sometimes said that the ultimate test of all
truth is the possibility of sensation ; a statement which
sounds like the opposite of the doctrine that the test
186 LECTURES ON LOGIC
of truth is conceivability. What then does this state-
ment mean?
It can hardly mean that the most real reality is
visibility or tangibility. No one would assert that these
properties of the world are more real than any others ;
no one would say, to take a very crude instance, that the
reality of God depends upon whether you can touch
him or not. The statement must ultimately mean that,
we being what we are, and getting all our experience,
as we do, through sensitive organs, nothing is real which
does not admit of affecting us at least in the way of
sensation. As simple sensible qualities are the beginnings,
the apxai, of all experience, the centre from which we
perpetually advance, so, however far afield we go in
discovery, they remain the limitations of human ex-
perience. This is obviously the case with the physical
world. It is, indeed, perfectly true that, in one sense,
the solar system and its laws are not sensible objects ;
that no one can touch the laws of motion ; that the
conception of motion is one obtained by very great
effort of thought, and that almost all statements made
about moving bodies are complicated inferences. Still
the truth of a theory of motion does include the pos-
sibility of experiencing certain sensations ; and a man of
science, like Newton, would admit that, unless under
certain circumstances he could experience certain sensa-
tions of sight, his theory of motion would fall to the
ground. In this sense the possibility of experiencing
such sensations is a test of theory ; or, to put it other-
wise, suppose the theory to be absolutely verified, then
among other elements in this verification one would be
certain sensations. Certainly there would be no ground
for saying that this element is more a test of truth than
SENSATION AS TEST OF TRUTH 187
others. Visual and other sensations get their prominence
merely from their simplicity, and because they are a test
which every one can apply. But it remains true that in
all human experience some relation to a sensitive or-
ganism is a necessary element, and that a conception
which ignores this is so far untrue. 'In all human
experience ' ; for the statement holds good beyond
physical experience. Duty, for example, is a human
experience, an experience of beings with a sensitive
organization. Duty is not sensible ; but we cannot ex-
perience it, cannot do an act of duty, without at the
same time having certain sensitive experiences. A con-
ception of duty, therefore, which did not ultimately include
the human body in it would be illusory ; there would be
no object answering to it in human experience.
If it is true in this sense that sensation is a necessary
element in every conception, and is thus a test of truth,
how is it that sensation is also spoken of as the most
illusory thing in the world ? How is it that we find such
opposite things said of it, and of its importance in
knowledge ?
When we say that any experience is illusory, we really
mean that it is wrongly interpreted, we never mean that
it has no existence. We often talk as though there were
something of which we can speak and think, and which
yet is unreal ; but an unreal thing is simply nothing, and
what we call illusory is not unreal. If a person sees
what he takes to be a ghost, while it is really a turnip
with a candle in it, he is under an illusion. But his
visual sensations are not unreal ; they are as real as his
alarm ; his illusion consists in going beyond them and
interpreting them into a supernatural phenomenon. All
falsehood is of the nature of misinterpretation. Just as
188 LECTURES ON LOGIC
a true experience means one that is rightly connected
with others, so a false or illusory experience is one that is
wrongly connected with others. And, as we have seen,
there is no way of testing the truth or falsehood of an
experience except by going beyond it, and seeing whether
it is connected with certain other experiences in certain
ways.
Accordingly, when we say that sensation is illusory,
what we mean is not that it is unreal, but that it enables
us to go with safety only a very little way beyond itself,
and that it gives very wide opportunities for misinter-
pretation. Visual sensation, for example, is extremely un-
trustworthy, in the sense that, if we confined ourselves to
what we can strictly be said to see, we should be confined
within a very narrow circle, and should make all kinds
of mistakes. The more nearly sensation approaches to
mere sensation, the more isolated is it, the less extensive
and connected is the experience of which it forms a part,
and therefore the more opportunity is there for illusion ;
it is likely to be taken to mean the wrong thing because
it may mean so many things. Conversely, as we have
already seen, the wider the context in which a thing
becomes an element, the more conceivable it becomes ;
and every fresh connexion makes it more conceivable or
true. The truest and most tested truths are, therefore,
those which express the widest uniformities, are the same
in the greatest number of differences, hold good in the
largest contexts ; and the truths least true, least tested,
and most liable to misinterpretation, are the most limited,
those that hold good in the narrowest contexts. Such
are the judgments based most directly on sensation ;
and this is the ground of the polemic against sensation.
The old comparison of the process of acquiring know-
SENSATION AS TEST OF TRUTH 189
ledge to the reading of a book may illustrate the truth
about sensation. If we take a single word at random out
of the book, how much truth or meaning has it ? Apart
from its sentence, paragraph, chapter, its meaning is
reduced to a minimum. So it is with a simple sensation.
Some meaning the word has (for it would not be itself
if it did not suppose some context), but its meaning is as
little as it can be ; and so it is again with a sensation,
which would be nothing if it did not tell us of something
else. Again, as long as you consider merely the isolated
word, you may interpret it in many ways, and all of
them may be wrong ; but with every extension of the
context of the word its meaning becomes more certain ;
and this also holds of a sensation. On the other hand,
the whole meaning of the sentence, and, in a sense, the
whole meaning of the book, may be said to depend on
the understanding of a single word x ; and so it may be
said that a given piece of truth is not true to me unless it
comes home to me through some simple sensation, and
unless I experience that element of it ; and its truth may
be said to depend on the possibility of its being thus
experienced.
Hence the progress of knowledge and truth consists in
the gradual widening of experience ; that is, in our con-
tinually experiencing the same things in fresh contexts.
And we must remember that every bit of truth, in being
tested, also tests. I find out what this word means by
comparing it with the same word in other passages ; and
in the process it not only receives meaning but gives it.
It is not merely the case that every new experience adds
1 Or rather, to interpret the book, you must know at least the
minimum of the meaning of the language, and, if the book does not at
least mean that, it will mean nothing to you.
190 LECTURES ON LOGIC
something to previous knowledge ; it affects and modifies
that knowledge. Knowledge is not a process of mere
accretion. This is seen in a startling way in the effect of
a great discovery or a new idea ; it may revolutionize
the whole mind of a generation ; it does not merely add
to the circumference of knowledge, it penetrates to the
centre and rearranges the whole body of ideas. Hence,
again, it follows from the nature of the progress of
experience that no concept, no ' meaning,' can be final.
If you ask at a given time what is the conception of
a certain thing, the answer may attempt to fix the
experience of mankind for the moment, and to define it
by drawing imaginary limits ; but this can be only for
the moment.
SECTION IX
CONCEPT AND THING. SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE.
SELF AND NOT-SELF l
We have considered certain antitheses in which con-
ception is contrasted with perception, or a mediate and
representative mode of apprehension with an intuitive or
presentative. We pass now to another set of antitheses,
which appear to place conception or thought, as some-
thing ' subjective,' in opposition to things, or reality, or
what is ' objective.'
I. What is meant by the antithesis of Concept and
Thing ?
A concept is sometimes contrasted with a thing
on the ground that it is merely something ' in my
mind.' But, if ' concept ' has the meaning we have
assigned to it, there can be no ultimate contrast of this
kind. The thing ' tree ' is my various experiences of it in
presence of it and in thinking of it ; and every word that
I use in describing this thing expresses, and must express,
my consciousness or experience. The tree ' outside ' my
consciousness of it is simply nothing to me. In the same
way a triangle, i.e. the space contained between three
straight lines, is an object of consciousness, and there can
be no ultimate contrast between this concept and the
thing triangle or the fact of triangularity.
What sense then can we give to the distinction ?
1 [Compare Note C]
192 LECTURES ON LOGIC
(a) I can distinguish between the fact of triangularity
and my concept of triangularity if I mean by the latter
my experience of triangularity as accompanied by other
experiences, feelings, &c. ; and if I mean by the former
my experience of triangularity, regarded as disconnected
from these other irrelevant experiences. Again (b), in
another way my concept may be distinguished from the
thing or fact. My concept of triangularity may well be
an inadequate concept : it is so, for instance, if a triangle
means to me nothing more than a space contained be-
tween three straight lines. A man who knew more
would say that my conception was a long way off the fact,
and he would be right. But that which he calls the
'fact' would not be different in kind from my conception ;
it would be my conception very much extended. The
contrast here, then, between concept and fact is really
the contrast between a less complete and a more com-
plete conception. In the same way a scientific conception
is said to be much nearer to the ' fact ' than a popular
conception, not because it is composed of elements dif-
ferent in kind from those which form the popular con-
ception, but because it contains more elements, and
because these elements are better arranged. And though
the most scientific conception falls short of the fact, and
is only ' nearer ' to it, this ' fact ' is still nothing but an
extension of the experience contained in the conception.
If a man could experience the whole fact, he would not
cease to conceive it, he would conceive it more.
Concepts, then, are not mysterious somethings which
intervene between us and things, the ' concepts ' to which
Mill objects as misleading superfluities added to names
and things. A concept is a certain experience held
together in the mind. My experience of a thing is what
SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE 193
I am conscious of about it, and this is my conception
of it.
II. Subjective and Objective.
With the antithesis of concept and thing is connected
that of subject and object, and that of subjective and
objective.
As to the usage of the words subjective and objective,
it is curious that the sense they commonly bear now
is just the opposite of their original meaning. ' Sub-
jectivum,' in the writings of the Schoolmen, where it
first appears, applies to the real subject of attributes, the
viroKeCfjiei'op of which they are predicated. ' Objectivum' is
used of anything regarded as an object to us (avTiKei\j.evov)
or ' idealiter,' i. e. from the point of view of our idea of it.
Gradually ' subjectum ' came to be appropriated to one
particular subject of attributes, namely, the human mind
or self. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the
modern usage was becoming tolerably fixed ; but Berkeley
still employs ' objective ' in the old sense ; for instance,
when he says that, as the esse of things is percipi, ' their
real and objective nature is the same.'
As used now, the words are strictly correlative terms,
the one being taken to imply a contrast with the other.
It is difficult to detach from the chaos of their meanings
a few round which the rest may be grouped ; but the
antithesis is used to convey the following principal
contrasts : —
1. Between the experience of this or that individual,
and the experience of mankind, or of some group of
individuals, or of scientific men.
2. Between human experience in general, and the
world as it may be supposed to appear to some other
being or beings.
VOL. I. O
i 9 | LECTURES ON LOGIC
3. Between that which is in consciousness or exists for
a mind, and that which is outside consciousness or un-
related to a mind.
There is, we must first observe, an implication com-
mon to all three antitheses. When people contrast any
experience, as ' subjective,' with something described as
' objective/ they mean to convey that the former is less
true or real than the latter. For example, in think-
ing of heat, we are told to put aside heat in the 'sub-
jective' sense, i.e. anybody's particular susceptibility to
heat, the implication being that this has little to do with
the real or objective nature of heat. And so in the
sphere of art or of morality what is called ' subjective '
is understood to be less true than what is called ' ob-
jective.' Now this distinction of degrees of truth or
reality is one that we want to make and must make ;
but it is unfortunate that the words ' subjective ' and
'objective' should be chosen to convey it. For a 'merely
subjective ' idea is just as much an ' object ' as anything
else in the world, and my particular feeling of heat just
as much an object as the ' objective ' heat of the physicist.
And conversely the ' objective,' however true or real it
may be, is just as much an object of mind as the merest
whim or fancy. Unfortunately, however, ' subjective'
and ' objective ' are apt to suggest the antithesis of ' in
the mind ' and ' outside the mind ' ; and therefore we
must be on our guard against the influence of that
antithesis if we choose to use 'subjective' and 'objective'
to convey the perfectly justifiable distinction of degrees
of truth or reality.
1. Bearing this in mind, we may say that, in the
first usage of the words which we have to consider,
' subjective ' generally means the experience of random
SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE 195
individuals, ' objective ' the experience of mankind (or
sometimes of educated mankind) ; the one is to ibiov, the
other to kolvoi: Now of course numbers, as such, can be
no criterion of truth ; and yet on certain subjects (for in
this matter there is a great difference between different
subjects) to naai bonovr, universal consent (which is never
really universal), is important to ascertain, and the agree-
ment of many minds in one view gives a certain prob-
ability in favour of its truth. But the reason lies not in
the number as such, but in the diversity of opinions,
feelings, circumstances, through which the view persists.
The Ihiov has, in comparison, the less probability of truth,
because it belongs only to a limited area of human
nature; the koivov has the greater probability, because it
holds through a larger area of differences. We may
observe that the truth is koivov, also, in the sense that it
unites : different people are united in so far as they all
see the same thing to be true ; it is ignorance and
prejudice that isolate.
The distinction of ' subjective ' and ' objective,' in this
sense, is a relative distinction. Probably there is no
truth which is merely true in one place, at one moment,
and for one person. Nor is there any truth in which all
the people in the world would agree. But the progress
of knowledge, or the increase of truth, means that the
irrelevant elements in each man, those which do not
affect the thing in question, are more and more put
aside, and the essential elements more and more recog-
nized and agreed upon; and we may, if we choose, call
this an increase of the ' objective ' at the expense of the
'subjective.'
2. Secondly, 'subjective' may be extended to mean
that which is true for man, and ' objective ' may be
O 2
196 LECTURES ON LOGIC
taken to mean some truer truth — the world as it may
be conceived to be to some higher and fuller intelligence.
If \vc use the words thus, we must remember that it is
we men who use them and for whom the antithesis
exists. To talk of anything outside human experience
is, ipso facto, to bring it into human experience. How,
then, can we men speak, with any sense, of the subjective
as that which is for man, and of the objective as that
which is for some higher intelligence? We must answer
that the contrast, whatever it means, cannot be one
between a reality which implies consciousness, and
a reality which implies none. If the 'objective' is to
signify a more real world than the world as it is for
us, we can only attach a meaning to the ' objective '
by thinking of the world as it is for us modified
in some way. If I contrast my ' subjective ' view
with the ' objective ' view of a man who knows better
than I, I do not suppose an absolute break between
my mind and his ; the difference is one of degree,
and the two views are connected. And in the same
way, if I contrast the knowledge of mankind with
a more perfect knowledge, this ' objective ' knowledge
must be a continuation and completion of the ' sub-
jective ' knowledge. Otherwise the ' objective ' is a mere
blank, and it is idle to speak of it. In this sense, again,
we may speak of an ' unknowable/ and may represent the
unknowable as the objective ; only we must remember
that in so speaking of the unknowable we are knowing-
it — knowing it as the ' beyond ' of the known. If it be
said that this is a contradiction in terms, we can only
answer that it is the fact : man is conscious at one and
the same time of knowing and not knowing 1 . If we
1 [Compare Note A.]
SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE 197
like, then, to use 'subjective' for the determinatcly
known, and the correlative 'objective ' for the ' beyond '
of that — the 'beyond' which is always present — well
and good ; only the distinction will not be one between
that which is matter of conscious experience and that
which is not.
1 It is well to insist on this because of the constant
association of the word ' objective ' with the idea of an
existence out of relation with consciousness. There is
a notion, for example, that we should come to such an
'objective reality' if we could analyze the world back
into its simplest constituents. Thus some popularized
views of science convey the impression that, if every-
thing could be shown to be some form of matter and
motion, matter and motion would be the objectively real,
compared with which everything else would have only
a subjective reality. And this corresponds with the
earliest formulation of the antithesis of subjective and
objective in the saying of Democritus, vop.co yXvKv /cat vop.w
VLKpov, I'OjKi) depfxov, vop.u> \j/vxp6v, vofxco xpon] ' (Tefj 5e arofxa
/cat k€v6v. Now it is quite true that it may rightly
be considered a great achievement of science to show
that all phenomena are forms of motion. But why
should this be an ideal of science? Why should it be
thought to explain the world ? In one sense it is true to
say that such a discovery would leave everything as it
was before ; all the differences of phenomena — of sound,
heat, electricity— are not done away with by it. But
it puts them in a new light. It gives us a language by
1 [This paragraph has been left in its place, although it does not deal
with the second of the three contrasts of 'subjective' and ' objective.'
It represents remarks made at the end of a lecture, when Nettleship
probably did not care to begin the discussion of the third contrast.]
198 LECTURES ON LOGIC
which they can all be expressed in terms of one thing,
and this a thing the nature of which is, comparatively,
accurately known. It enables us to measure them and
compare them. It not merely increases our practical
power, but heightens our sense of the intelligibility and
the unity of things. Accordingly we may, if we choose,
speak of motion as ' objective,' if we mean that we
understand it more exactly than we do most things ;
and, in this sense, the simpler the elements we have
to consider, the more objective they will be. But if we
mean that they — that time and space and motion, for
example — are objective in the sense of being outside
the mind, or of having a reality different in kind from
that of other objects of human experience, that is
a distinction which cannot be maintained.
3. We have now to consider this distinction further.
The objective, in the two senses hitherto discussed, has
been seen to be nothing ' outside ' consciousness. The
further question is whether we can give a sense to the
antithesis of the subjective, as ' a mere idea ' or that
which is ' in the mind,' and the objective, as that which
is ' outside the mind.'
1 Let us take the old instance. The idea of .£100 is
said to be a very different thing from the real or objec-
tive fact of .£100. What then is the idea of ;£ioo? As
soon as we reflect we find that the idea has no fixed
meaning, that its meaning varies more or less with the
1 [The following discussion repeats and develops the previous state-
ment of this Section, that the distinction of concept and thing is really
the distinction of less complete and more complete concept. It is not
denied, therefore, that an idea (concept) of jCioo differs from the fact of
£100 ; but it is insisted that both alike are objects to subjects, that both
are real, and that the superior reality of the second object lies in its
content, not in its supposed independence of a subject.]
SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE 199
various persons who use the words, and that the idea,
the matter of consciousness, has in each case its own
appropriate reality. A child's idea of £100, what £100
means to a child, may be a hundred round yellow things
of a certain size. This idea has its own reality ; a hun-
dred, yellowness, roundness, &c, are all facts. If you
call it a ' mere ' idea, you do not mean that they are
not facts, but that the real .£100 is more than the idea.
To the child the reality of ;£ioo, the objective fact, is
exactly the content of its idea ; and the objective fact
to you is not different in kind from this, but contains
something more, which, for reasons good or bad, is
considered more important and real.
What is the economist's idea of £100? Most of the
contents of the child's idea find no place in it, or have
taken a subordinate place. The economist's idea of ^100
is a certain value, or purchasing power ; and this is also
the objective fact to him. This value is the power to do
something which implies various persons maintaining
a certain understanding with one another. If anything
is ' inside ' the mind, such an understanding is ; and the
economist's ' objective reality ' would simply disappear if
there were not persons who were capable of that under-
standing, and to whom things had value.
Suppose sovereigns to go out of circulation and to
become very scarce ; what will be the coin-collector's idea
of^ico? It will differ from the two former conceptions,
though it will combine elements of each. ;£ico will
mean still an object of value, but of ' fancy' value. This
'fancy' value is perfectly 'real' or objective; but it,
and the real £100 of the collector, would disappear if
there were no one who cared about the age, historical
associations, and artistic interest of coins.
200 LECTURES ON LOGIC
Suppose, again, there were persons who could ap-
preciate neither the economic nor the fancy value, nor
even the engraving on a sovereign, what would remain of
the ;£ioo to them? We should say that a sovereign,
as such, did not exist for them. There would only exist
weight, shape, colour, hardness, and the like ; and all
these imply a feeling subject.
These considerations by no means show that ;£ioo is
a mere fancy, but they show that its reality, though we
talk as if it were perfectly fixed, is purely relative ; so
that if its reality is its objectivity, its objectivity depends
on the subject to which it is an object, and seems to
have no sense out of this relation. Thus, when it is said
that, the idea of ,£ico is different from the reality, we
have to remember (i) that the real ;£ioo, whatever it is,
is still ideas ; that all the words we use about it imply
conscious subjects, and their feelings, views, desires, and
the like ; and (2) conversely, that, though we talk of the
idea of ;£ioo being merely in the mind, it is no more so
than the objective fact ; it is itself a perfectly real fact,
the object of a subject, with its own reality, which we
can characterize.
The phrases ' inside the mind ' and ' outside the mind '
are responsible for a great deal of confusion. We forget
that 'inside' and 'outside' refer in strictness to nothing but
objects in space, and that the use of them in reference to
anything else is metaphorical. We conventionally fix
' reality' to mean some sort of ' outsideness,' and ' subjec-
tivity ' to mean some kind of insideness' ; and we forget
that there is no 'outside' without an 'inside.' Let us
take another instance of object and subject — the table
and me. (a) In what sense is the table outside me ?
In the same sense as it is outside a chair, and in no other
SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE 201
sense : that is, ' mc ' is here my body. Are the table and
I in this sense object and subject? Certainly not. The
table and I (my body) are two correlatives, and object
and subject are two correlatives, but object and subject
are correlatives of a totally different nature from two
things spatially external to one another. If the table
becomes an object to me, its spatial externality to ' me '
(my body), and its metaphorical externality (the fact that
it is an object) to me, have nothing in common but the
characteristic that each is a correlative to something else.
(/;) Suppose now that the table becomes an object to mc,
what is its correlative ' me,' the subject to which it is
object? Not my body, but something to which my
body and the table are both objects. In thinking of the
table as simply an external object, I think of it as out-
side my body (and other things) ; the table is not
outside my mind, but its externality to my body and
other things is an object to my mind. (c) Again,
suppose the table is an object to me in the sense of
being my property, then ' I,' the subject, am something
capable of owning property, and that is the only ' I ' to
which the table belongs, (d) Again, if I want the table,
if the table is an object of desire to me, then the subject
is only the desiring ' I.' There is no abstract ' I ' to
which the table is object ; the object and the subject
vary together ; if its objectivity is its externality, then
the subject is a consciousness capable of spatial expe-
rience ; and so on.
The question is constantly asked, What is the evidence
for the existence of an 'external world'? This question
means, in strictness, not what the questioner generally
intends, but, 'What is the evidence for there being
spatiality?' And as soon as we leave this sense of it
202 LECTURES ON LOGIC
we fall into ambiguities, for we do not know with what
metaphorical meaning the question is being asked. It
may, no doubt, be pleaded that any metaphorical use
of a word must have something in common with the
original meaning. But then the conclusion is that, when
a person talks of an 'external' world, he must have
in mind some ' internal ' to which the external is cor-
relative ; whereas the questioner, in using ' external,'
generally wishes to mean something which is not a corre-
lative. Spatial externality has become a symbol of dis-
connected ness, of one thing having nothing to do with
another ; and yet, if the questioner dwells upon this spatial
externality itself, he will find that to conceive one thing
as outside another is to conceive it as closely bound up
with another. A person who talks of an external world
has already, by this very word, internalized it.
As soon as anything of this kind is urged, it is
supposed to mean that the real world is a collection
of ' subjective feelings.' But this confusion again is due
to a certain conventional usage of the words which
describe our minds, consciousness, feelings, &c. As
' external ' misleads people into supposing the real to
be that which is out of relation to mind, so such a phrase
as ' in the mind ' misleads them into supposing that to
call something an idea or ideas is to deny or diminish its
reality. Hence the impression produced on most people
by Berkeley was that he held the ordinary things to which
we ascribe reality to be illusions. But all the things we
call most real are, when we reflect on them, recognized
to be ideas or states of mind or consciousness ; and there
is nothing whatever in these phrases to exclude reality.
To speak of a thing as ' my consciousness ' or ' a state of
my mind' is, it is true, to imply some want of reality. But
SELF AND NOT-SELF 203
the difference indicated by the phrase is an assignable
and describable one, for it is / who contrast ' my mind '
with ' mind,' or what is in my mind with what is objec-
tive ; and, instead of using the phrase vaguely to convey
the notion of unreality, one ought to reflect on the
difference that it indicates. So, again, ' consciousness ' is
commonly used in one or two narrow and restricted senses,
and conveys only these senses. ' Consciousness of tooth-
ache is the actual feeling, not the idea of it,' some will
say, as if ' consciousness ' meant only physical feeling.
So again, to say that a thing is a fact of consciousness
means, to many people, to do away with its reality.
Strictly, however, consciousness is co-extensive with
experience.
III. Self and Not-self .
It appears, then, that in everything called human
experience there is present self-consciousness, i.e.
consciousness analyzable into a self and a not-self 1 .
Whatever piece of experience we take, we see that,
whether we describe it as ideas or feelings, or again
as an object or a thing, we have at length to say that,
if it is a feeling, it is felt by something ; if it is an idea,
it is entertained by something ; if it is an object, it is
object to a subject. Ideas, states of mind, as experiences,
are not things which pass over a surface ; if they are
really states of consciousness, there is something which
is conscious of them. Consciousness, conversely, is not
consciousness unless it is consciousness of something.
We can, and we must, analyze any and every experi-
ence into two correlative factors ; we must say ' we
1 [Not necessarily consciousness of a self as against a not-self. For
this meaning of self-consciousness see what follows.]
204 LECTURES ON LOGIC
experience' and 'we experience something 1 ; and this is
what is meant by saying that the ultimate fact in ex-
perience is self-consciousness, the simultaneous con-
sciousness of a subject and an object.
These correlative factors never have any independent
existence ; the reality is the inseparable union of the two.
And in actual experience no one thinks of separating him-
self from that which he experiences. It is all one to say
' toothache exists ' and ' I experience toothache ' ; to say
' colour is a fact ' and ' I see colour' ; to say ' the equality
of the angles of a triangle to two right angles is a fact '
and ' I understand it ' ; to say ' duty is a reality ' and
' I am conscious of an obligation to act.' When these
things are really being experienced, the last thing we
think of doing is to separate ourselves from the fact or
the fact from ourselves. Again, the more we experience,
the more are we able to say, indifferently, that we are
more, there is more of us, or that the world is more,
there is more of the world. The growth of experience,
that is, is describable indifferently as the growth of our-
selves or as the growth of the world.
But, if this is so, how is it that we so habitually divide
experience into self, the subject, the inward, on the one
side, and the not-self, the object, the outward, on the
other ; so that experience seems to fall into two dis-
connected and independent halves?
It may help us if we consider, first, some cases where
the consciousness of self, as separate from not-self and
opposed to it, is most vividly present, (i) 'Self-con-
sciousness,' in the ordinary English sense of the word
(altogether different from the philosophical use), is an
instance. In the kind of shyness called self-conscious-
ness, what is it of which we are conscious ? It may be
SELF AND NOT-SELF 205
perhaps some peculiarity in our dress, or the fact that
someone is looking at us. That is, we really for the
time being consider that the self is contained in these
extremely trivial particulars. And that they really do
absorb the self may be demonstrated by the fact that
a person intensely ' self-conscious ' in that way may be
quite incapable of thinking of anything but them. (2)
Other instances would be egotism, in the sense of the
consciousness of self, as excluding, or limited by, or
competing with, other selves ; or, again, fear, in which
we are intensely conscious of ourselves, and desirous of
self-preservation, and in which the self of which we are
aware is exclusive of, and painfully contrasted with,
a not-self from which we wish to get away. Or (3) take
an intellectual instance, the consciousness of difficulty
or strangeness in something which we are trying to
learn. The thing may interest us, but it stands over
against us and shuts us out, and we are uncomfort-
ably conscious of ourselves as limited, and wish to be
different.
In all these cases we should generally be said to be
intensely conscious of ourselves, but what is really true
is that we are conscious of ourselves as limited and
exclusive, and it is this consciousness of self that is the
differentia of such experience. With such experience we
contrast conditions in which we are totally free from
' self-consciousness,' such as the state of being intensely
interested in anything ; and we say, perhaps, ' I was
entirely absorbed (or lost) in the thing.' And yet it is
at these very times that a man's self is most conscious ;
just as it is not less active, but much more active,
when, an intellectual difficulty being overcome, the man
understands, and is no longer conscious of ' himself as
206 LECTURES ON LOGIC
excluded. In all these cases, then, the use of self and
'self-conscious' is most misleading.
If we turn now to the other correlative, the not-self or
object, it would be easy to find corresponding misleading
uses of ' object ' or ' objective,' which again suggest that
the world falls into two disconnected halves, and that an
object is an object to nobody. A typical instance of
what we call objective reality would be matter, by which
most of us mean at any rate what occupies space. This
may be taken as a type of something into which we, as
self-conscious selves, do not enter at all, and we think it
absurd to call the spatial world a state of consciousness.
Yet when we try to characterize spatiality, to say what it
consists in, we at once use terms which imply conscious-
ness just as much as the terms by which we describe
pain or colour. We say, for example, that distance is
the space traversed between two points — the space, that
is, moved through by us or by some other body. But
this is to imply consciousness at once ; and, if we say that,
even if there were no conscious being, distance would still
exist, we shall find that what we then mean by distance
existing is that, under certain given circumstances, there
would be that conscious experience which we describe as
the experience of distance.
But, if every experience really implies the two cor-
relative factors, how is it that, as we have just seen, one
part of experience seems so very unlike another ? Why
does space seem to be different in kind from an ' inner '
experience? Why do an intense feeling of shyness,
and the clear apprehension of the distance between two
points, seem to be so far apart from one another ? The
fact is that, though self-consciousness in its true sense
means an experience in which self and object are one and
SELF AND NOT-SELF 207
the same thing, or two in one, yet this experience is con-
stantly, so to say, fading or falling away from itself; and,
as it does so, the mutually implicated elements or factors,
which have really no independent existence, seem to
fall asunder and to receive such an existence, and our
world is perpetually getting falsely broken up into
separate parts. It is only comparatively seldom that
we really and fully experience what we say we experience ;
and our ordinary language and thought represent but
a very partial and faded consciousness. This partiality
may be a partiality or defectiveness on the one side
or on the other. We may fail to realize either the
subjective or the objective element 1 , (a) If we take the
case of space or the material world, we are so used to
this from childhood that it is only by an effort we can
realize that we enter into it at all. We talk of it as if it
were outride us, half meaning that we experience it with-
out an effort of our own. Yet the most elementary facts
of space only exist in so far as they are facts of ex-
perience, or acts of our own ; and we understand this
perhaps when, as we pass beyond them, the subjectivity of
1 [The following, largely in the words of Nettleship's own notes
(which are here very much fuller than usual), gives his meaning briefly,
and may be useful : — In actual experience we never separate ourselves
from that which we experience. But, out of the given experience, we
still talk of ' I ' as the subject of it, and of it as an object. What is this
' I ' in general, which I distinguish from, say, colour or duty, and which
I yet distinguish as subject from them as objects ? It is a subject to which
they are still partly objects, or, rather, it is a subject which is conscious of
part of what 'colour' and 'duty' mean; and 'the object' (colour or duty)
with which I contrast it is really just as much another subject as another
object. The truth is, we have a vague (but fixed"; conventional general-
ized set of experiences which we call I. subject, oneself; and another
set which we call objects. Really, these objects are objects to its all the
time, but we do not call them such until their objectivity and our
subjectivity reach a certain height above the average.]
208 LECTURES ON LOGIC
space is brought home to us, and we realize that there is
no difference between the existence of triangularity and
that which we understand (or, if you prefer it, that which
is understood) by triangularity. It is just that part of our
experience of which, for various reasons, we partly lose
our hold that we speak of as the objective world. But
this world is not out of our consciousness, and its ob-
jectivity is exactly correlative to the amount of subjective
activity in the person who speaks of it. Ask a man what
space is, and, though he may think he is speaking of
something ' external,' he must talk of his own experience,
and will enable you to measure his subjectivity, (b) Con-
versely, a great part of the world is conventionally
described as ' our own experience,' ' ourselves/ the ' inner'
or 'subjective world.' But, if we reflect, we find nothing
to correspond with this language ; we do not find that
the consciousness thus described is the consciousness of
a self to the exclusion of a not-self. Take the most
' subjective ' experience, and it is still consciousness of
self and not-self. The more we keep within ' ourselves '
(as in the uncomfortable ' inward ' states described before),
the more we are conscious of something else shutting us
out. Self-consciousness, in the proper sense, is con-
sciousness of self in not-self, and of not-self as self. The
more it is self-consciousness, the greater the conscious-
ness of duplicity and of unity. The less it is self-
consciousness, the more one or the other element domi-
nates, and the world of experience falls into two halves,
oneself and the objective world. Then ' self-conscious-
ness' (as opposed to the objective world) comes to mean
certain fixed things in which we are most conscious of self
against not-self; i.e. in which we are most intensely
conscious of our exclusion and limitation.
SELF AND NOT-SELF 209
The current distinctions, then, of subjective and objec-
tive, subject and object, self and not-self, have no precise
meaning, nor in our conventional states of mind do they
express to us what they ought to express. It is only
occasionally that we rise from these states to anything
like a true perception of our experience. It is on these
moments, when we understand and are active, that we
ought to dwell if we wish to arrive at truth.
[At this point some remarks were made on the mis-
understanding by which the doctrine of the correlativity
of subject and object is supposed to imply that the
world ceases to exist when we cease to experience it.
These remarks were made at the end of a lecture and
were probably hurried, and it is not possible to re-
produce them satisfactorily from the reports. The same
misunderstanding was, however, touched upon in the
course on Logic begun in October, 1886 ; and the follow-
ing is an attempt to give, only partly in the original
words, the substance of what was said on these two
occasions : —
' It does not follow from the doctrine of the implica-
tion of subject and object in all experience that " colour
ceases to exist when it ceases to be seen," or that " if the
human race perished, the world would no longer exist."
Statements like these betray, and are partly due to, the
confusion which arises from our habit of taking words to
stand for a mere fraction of the facts or experiences they
signify when understood in their full sense. " Colour,"
for example, stands for a complex fact, having various
aspects and involving many conditions. One of these
aspects is its visibility, and one of these conditions is (to
speak roughly) a certain affection of the eye; and it is
VOL. I. P
210 LECTURES ON LOGIC
really this one aspect or part of the fact " colour " that we
have in mind when we say that, according to the doctrine
impugned, colour would cease to exist when it ceased to
be seen ; we mean that colour as seen would cease to
exist. And this is perfectly true ; for that part of the
fact "colour" called its visibility depends upon a certain
sensitive affection, and we have supposed this condition
of its existence to be removed. If then we assert that
colour, as seen, would continue to be real after all human
beings (putting the lower animals out of account) had
ceased to exist, what can we mean by the statement ?
We must mean either (a) that, if there were a subject
sensitive in a particular way, it would see colour [i.e. the
reality of colour as seen would be a conditional reality],
or (b) that in some way or other there is eternally
a sensitive subject which experiences colour as seen.
That is, in either case we should still be affirming the
correlativity of object and subject. On the other hand,
it is perfectly true that with the disappearance of the
human race colour would become a very different fact
from what it is now ; for everything in it which implies
a merely human experience, and everything which it
contributes to human life, would have ceased to exist.
' The same considerations, taken in reversed order, may
be applied to the case of the laws of motion. These
laws would still be true if all men died, but the meaning
of their " truth " would be seriously changed. For the
laws of motion are not something altogether apart from
the detailed facts of motion ; and the sum of motion, if
the human race disappeared, would be different from
what it is now. That is, motion would be exactly what
it is now, minus those modifications of it which are due
to human intelligence and the applications of human
SUBJECT AND OBJECT 211
intelligence ; the reality of motion, in other words, would
differ according to the intelligence of which it was the
object. If, again, we say that all the laws of motion and
their possible consequences are true, whether they are
discovered by man or not, this means nothing unless we
suppose a mind to which they are true.'
It seems evident that Nettleship's purpose was solely
to point out (i) that the idea of the world without man,
supposed to be denied by the doctrine of subject-object,
really implies it ; (2) that, on the other hand, the dis-
appearance of humanity (and indeed the birth and death
of any individual) must make a difference to the world.
What he said implies further a positive opinion that
human beings are not the only subjects in the universe.
But it seems clear that in his restricted treatment of the
matter he did not intend to express any view on the
questions it suggests as to an ' eternal subject,' or the
relation of that subject to finite intelligence, or the like.
Nor can the illustration from colour be safely taken to
imply that motion, or any other of the physical con-
ditions of colour, involves no reference to sensibility
(see pp. 186-7, I 9^> 200).]
P 2
SECTION X
CLASSIFICATION AND DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS
A CONCEPT, in the wide sense in which we have
understood the word, is any definite content of conscious-
ness (a percept being, if we please, distinguished from
a concept as a definite content of consciousness implying
present sensation). Now, as we also saw, every definite
content of consciousness is experienced as a modification
of something else. It is something attended to, and in
the act of attention distinguished, defined, particularized.
Every sensation is experienced as a modification of more
general sensibility, the particular sensations of sound as
modifications of the general sense of sound. Every
figure is experienced as a modification of general
spatiality, every virtue as a modification of general
excellence, and everything as a modification of conscious-
ness in general. That is, consciousness — or, as the
Greeks said, being — is the ultimate genus, of which all
experiences or things are specific forms. In accordance
with this terminology, the name genus may be applied,
in any given case, to that ' something else,' as a modifica-
tion of which any experience is experienced. And so
every concept is what it is (individual), as being a par-
ticular modification of something which admits of other
CLASSIFICATION AND DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS 213
modifications, and which is therefore called general or
universal.
Hence every concept is the germ of a classification.
In all thinking or conceiving we may be said to classify.
For to classify, in the simplest sense, is to assign to
a given thing its place in the world of our experience ;
to discover and point out what other experience it is
a modification of, and what particular modification of that
experience it is. For instance, to classify a triangle is to
discover of what kind of thing it is a particular case or
form. And this is the same as to conceive a triangle.
For, when you conceive a triangle as a three-sided figure,
this means that you realize that it is a modification of the
experience which is called ' figure,' and which admits of
other forms or modifications.
And the more definitely we conceive, the more we
classify; for each fresh characterization is a fresh modifi-
cation of something less characterized. If, for example,
you enumerate the properties of a table, and say that it
is wooden, square, heavy, a dining-table, each of these
properties classifies it, each of them at once identifies it
with, and distinguishes it from, something else. ' Wooden '
identifies it with other wooden things (from which it is
also distinguished), and again distinguishes its material
from other possible materials of a table : and so with
each of its qualifications (which are the ' marks ' of the
concept).
Everything which we conceive may be classified on
various principles, which will differ in value. There is,
indeed, no abstract ' best ' classification of anything ; the
best is that which best serves the purpose in view. A
dictionary is an instance of a very artificial classification,
but the classification is excellent for its purpose; it
214 LECTURES ON LOGIC
enables you to find words easily. The arrangement of
some etymological dictionaries, in which words are
classified according to their roots, is different because its
purpose is different. The latter classification would,
however, be called more ' natural.' And this means,
speaking roughly, that, as compared with the ' artificial '
classification, it includes more of the nature of the thing
classified ; just as a classification of plants according to
colours might be called an artificial classification, because
the colour of a plant, though essential to it, tells us so
little about it, or is so ' insignificant ' a mark of it. An
ideal classification would be one which, as soon as you
knew how a thing was classified, enabled you to know
all about the thing. Accordingly a classification may
be called better or worse (apart from special purposes)
in proportion as it enables you to know more or less
about the things classified. And the distinction of
' natural ' and ' artificial ' ought to have this meaning.
What is implied in saying that an ideal classification
would tell one all about the thing classified ? It is
implied that one would understand each thing in the
world to be a modification of some one universal or
substance, and that one would understand exactly what
modification it is. If this were so, we should know pre-
cisely how one thing was related to all other things.
The aim of scientific classification is to accomplish some-
thing like this for one section of the world ; it aims at
finding a property or quality, of which the various forms
of the subject-matter in question can be shown to be
modifications. But so far as, in conceiving a thing more
and more definitely, we see more and more what it is
a modification of, and what modification it is, all advance
in conception is an advance in classification.
CLASSIFICATION AND DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS 215
Definition seems at first sight very different from
classification. A modern reader of Greek philosophy is
struck by the prominent part played in it by opLo-fxas :
for with us ' definition ' has come to signify generally
the more or less arbitrary fixing of the meaning of a
word, so that 6 pianos reminds us, for example, of the
definitions of a dictionary-maker. We must banish this
notion if we wish to understand what is meant by
definition in the theory of science. To define is really
to conceive or experience definitely ; the expression in
speech or writing is an after-thing. When we are told
that Socrates spent his whole life in trying to define
certain things, this seems to us absurd, because we take
the word in an external and limited sense, whereas the
effort of Socrates was to make himself and others realize
fully and definitely the meaning of the experiences de-
noted by moral terms.
How do we define, in this sense? How do" we realize
the meaning of an idea or experience? The more we
think of the experience, the more we find that it is a
modification of some other experience, and what modifi-
cation it is. This is an untechnical way of saying that
definition is 'per genus et differentiam ' ; to be definitely
conscious of anything you must see what modification it
is of what more generic thing. Hence we see how near
together classification and definition really are. We
are often told that the ideal of ancient science was
definition, while that of modern science is classification ;
but the essence of the two things is the same. Definition
'per genus et differentiam' assigns to a thing its position
in a genus relatively to other things which are also
modifications of the generic nature ; and to do this is to
classify the thing. It is quite true that a great deal of
216 LECTURES ON LOGIC
what we call definition is not definition ; it consists in
substituting one word for another, moving about (so to
say) the pieces on the board of cultivated people's minds.
Hence the prejudice against ' definition.' But, in the
proper sense of the word, our whole business in thinking
may be said to be definition ; for it consists in conceiving
more and more definitely what we experience.
SECTION XI
EXTENSION AND INTENSION. THE GENERALITY OF
CONCEPTS
I. Extension and Intension of Concepts.
The content of a concept may be described equally
well as the ' marks ' or ' notes ' by which it is known, or
as the elements which are united in it. The sum of
these elements or marks is sometimes called the intension
or comprehension or connotation of the concept, and
with this is contrasted its extension or denotation.
Triangularity, for example, that which makes a triangle
a triangle, that which would be verbally expressed in
a perfect definition, is the meaning or intension of the
concept triangle. Triangles, i. e. instances in which this
is found, are said to be the extension of the concept.
It is common to say that the intension of a concept is
the attributes connoted by the name, and the extension
is the ' things ' in which these attributes are found. But
what is the sense of this antithesis ? On what ground
do I contrast triangularity with this, that, and the other
triangle, calling the latter emphatically ' things ' in con-
trast with the former ? What constitutes the ' thing-hood '
of the particular triangles? It is that in them which has
nothing to do with triangularity, the mere circumstances
of triangularity ; for instance, the 'here-ncss' of the parti-
cular triangle, or its woodenness, or brazenncss. What
we mean, then, by the ' things ' in which triangularity is
218 LECTURES ON LOGIC
found is a number of attributes x which are unessential to
triangularity, though they are found united with it.
l A triangle ' is constituted by the fact of triangularity plus
the facts of ' here-ness,' woodenness, and the like ; and
the extension of the concept triangle is its intension plus
the consideration that this co-exists with a number of
other intensions. But we must observe that, in this
sense, the extension is just not the extension of the in-
tension, for the intension is exactly the same, however
many the instances of it ; we call these ' things ' particular
triangles, but they are not particular triangles.
On the other hand, if we really mean by extension the
extension of the concept, then intension and extension
coincide. The fact of triangularity is not, and cannot
be, separated from the various forms of isosceles, scalene,
&c. ; it is in them, just as life cannot be apart from, but
is in, the various forms of life. We may, however, give
a meaning to the distinction in the following way. We
may, for convenience' sake, mentally hold apart a certain
fraction of the fact ; for instance, the minimum of meaning
which justifies us in using the word 'triangularity.' We
may call this the generic triangle, and distinguish it from
particular forms of triangle. We may go on to say that
the content of triangularity is less than that which is
contained in all possible triangles ; and we may call
this content the intension of the concept triangle, and
distinguish it from the extension. But in reality trian-
gularity cannot be separated from its particular forms ;
and the intension of the concept, i.e. its full meaning, is
therefore the same as its extension.
1 That is, every such ' thing,' or element of the ' thing,' has in its turn
intension, of whose extension triangularity is a part. Woodenness is
the intension ; the wooden thing is woodenness + triangularity + . . . .
THE GENERALITY OF CONCEPTS 219
II. TJic Generality of Concepts.
The discussion of extension and intension recalls the
statement that general conceptions are got by abstraction
from things — a statement in which ' things ' is used in
the same unsatisfactory way as in the extension and
intension formula. That conceptions are got by abstrac-
tion merely means, in its simplest sense, that, as conscious
experience is one and continuous, any particular bit of it,
in order to be clearly realized, must be attended to ex-
clusively ; the act of attention, that is, implies an act of
abstraction. Hence we are rightly told that the power
to abstract is essential to thinking, that to ' think ' a thing
we must free ourselves from certain contexts in which it
appears. But it is misleading to say, on the strength of
this, that conceptions are abstracted from things ; for
this is apt to suggest that the ' things ' from which the
conceptions are abstracted have some other kind of
reality than that which belongs to the conceptions ab-
stracted from them ; whereas in truth that from which
we abstract in order to think clearly a given conception
(say, that of triangle) consists of other actual or possible
experiences or elements of consciousness. No doubt, if
we like to give the name of ' thing ' to any group of
properties supposed to be coherent, there is no objection
to saying that every property which is clearly conceived
is abstracted from a thing ; only we must be on our
guard against the notion that the conception (the pro-
perty clearly conceived) has one kind of reality, and the
thing (the group of properties) another.
Again, we are told that a concept is general, but
a thing (or existence) particular ; and that general con-
cepts are got by abstraction from particular things.
220 LECTURES ON LOGIC
What, then, is the generality of a concept ? A concept
is general in so far as we are conscious of it as common
to, shared in by, diverse elements — as entering into, and
entered into by, other concepts. To conceive colour in
general is to be conscious of a certain experience, and,
in that act, to be conscious of it as capable of being
experienced in a variety of forms, such as red, blue,
green. When I conceive virtue in general, I am con-
scious of an excellence of a certain kind, which may
assume and be present in various shapes. Taking the
generality of a concept in this sense, we cannot properly
say that the general concept is 'got by abstraction,'
for the concept is not made general by being abstracted,
its generality means its capability of being abstracted-
Nor can we properly say that it is abstracted from
particulars ; for its generality does not exclude, but
implies, particularity.
Consider, again, the meaning of the verb 'to generalize.'
To generalize is to conceive something as general (in the
sense explained) ; to conceive it as actually or possibly
an identity in differences. It is to see mentally that
' this ' is also true of ' that ' and ' that ' and ' that ' ; that
this thing or experience would also be true under other
circumstances. We talk of generalizing an experience,
and this means seeing that we should have it under
various conditions. In this sense of ' generalization ' we
could have no experience at all without generalizing.
The simple judgment, ' this here and now is that there
and then,' is an act of generalization. It implies that
I am conscious of a certain identity which I carry on
through the difference of time and place. I have in
' now ' and ' then ' two particulars of a general, and their
identity ; and this implies power to see through the
THE GENERALITY OF CONCEPTS 221
differences to the identity (power of ' abstraction ').
Take, again, at the other end of the scale, a great act
of scientific generalization. Newton, according to the
story, generalized from a falling apple to a truth about
motion. Supposing this to be so, it would mean that
he mentally saw in the falling apple an clement of
identity with all moving bodies on the earth, and with
all the bodies of the solar system. That is, he saw this
identity through a mass of differences which to any
ordinary mind would have been insuperable. But this
act of generalization was in principle the same that
a child performs in identifying any two things. The
result of this act is a generality or general concept, and
in this sense all concepts are general.
The concept of motion is general, not in the sense
of being vague, but because it is conceived as realized
in, or admitting of, many forms, applications, modes.
Its generality (to repeat) does not exclude, but implies
its particularity. The more we know about anything
the more we generalize and particularize, and the widest
generalization ' explains ' the greatest number of par-
ticulars. The power to generalize implies fur titer, and
incidentally, the power to distinguish the fact from irrele-
vant conditions of experience, from things with which it is
found, but which it is not ; and the more we generalize,
the greater is the number of these irrelevant things from
which we abstract. It is these irrelevant conditions which
are sometimes described as the ' particular things ' from
which a ' general concept is got by abstraction.' But it
is essential to recognize clearly that these particulars are
not the particulars of the general. You may call the
falling apple a particular case of motion, but it is not the
whole apple that is so ; as falling it is so, but as rosy it
222 LECTURES ON LOGIC
is a particular case of colour. It is perfectly true, how-
ever, that the power of thinking or generalizing implies
not only the power of particularizing in the strict sense,
but also the power of ' abstraction,' or of seeing the
fact through the mass of circumstances, the so-called
' particulars,' with which it co-exists. The generality of
truth, in this sense, means its independence of irrelevant
conditions.
We may take as an illustration of what has been said
the experience of heat, (i) Let us begin with an
elementary form of this experience, the state in which
we are conscious of ' feeling hot,' and are conscious of
almost nothing besides. We should here know the mini-
mum about heat. We should hardly have generalized
heat at all ; it would be nearly an isolated fact. And
the proof of this is that an alteration of the circum-
stances would seriously modify our consciousness of heat.
(2) Next let us take a stage at which we feel hot and
refer the feeling to an object outside. Here we have
a great advance. I am conscious of a certain identity
(expressed by 'hot' or ' heat') in a context which includes
my body and an external body. I have generalized heat
more ; and advance in the same direction might lead to
the ' generalizations ' that there is heat wherever there is
fire, or alike where there is sunlight and where there is
fire. And then (3) we may suppose that we have some-
how found that heat goes with expansion. This would
enable us to carry on heat into new and wider contexts,
to connect the phenomenon with a great number of other
phenomena, to pursue an identity through many more
differences, to increase greatly the generality of heat.
From this point of view it is doubtless true that
a concept, in advancing, gets further and further from
THE GENERALITY OF CONCEPTS 223
c sense.' In the case of heat, for example, at each step
the particular circumstances of time and place become
less and less important. The experience is more and
more disengaged from the local and temporary circum-
stances in which it is embedded. The merest act of
memory, in which an element is simply retained, is an
act of disengagement from sense ; and this disengage-
ment from sense (in this meaning of the words 1 ) goes on
increasing in recollection and imagination and the further
processes of thought. In this sense, again, but only in
this sense, it is true that conceptions, as they become more
true, become more abstract ; that is, more independent of
bodily, local, temporal conditions. And so, the better we
understand anything, the less we need instances ; and, the
less we understand anything, the more we need them.
What are usually called ' general ' ideas (often in a dis-
paraging way) are just not true generalities. They are
conceptions which are supposed to represent a certain
definite identity in certain definite differences, but which
really represent neither the one nor the other. They
will not hold or apply in particular instances, just
because they are not the generals of the particulars.
If a man acts upon his ' general idea ' of motion, in this
sense, he may find that it is not true ; but the reason is
that it is not the true general idea of motion, for that
carries with it the consciousness of its possible modifi-
cations. A mere 'general idea' of motion is usually
a generalized image ; that is, a congeries of certain
pieces, often incongruous, of different moving objects with
which the person is familiar, some of these pieces being
irrelevant to the fact of motion. In like manner a
1 [The parenthesis is doubtless meant to guard against the notion that
the full conception would contain no reference to sensation. See pp. 186-7.]
£24 LECTURES ON LOGIC
' general idea ' of human nature is often a mere congeries
of elements abstracted from a few human beings. It is
inevitable that such general ideas should fail when they
are applied. So, again, what is commonly called
generalizing means carrying a certain quality, perhaps
quite superficial, into all kinds of new circumstances,
where perhaps it does not apply at all, and then basing
upon it all kinds of unjustifiable inferences. Thus the
most ignorant are the rashest generalizers ; and this is
also true of classification and definition. It may almost
be said that, the less we know of a thing, the readier we
are to classify and define it. We all carry about with
us a number of ready-made concepts, each of which gives
the basis for generalization, classification, definition ; and
according to the greatness of our ignorance we need to
restrain ourselves the more.
The polemic, then, against what are called 'general
ideas ' is valuable and true. But it is not the generality
of a general idea that makes it vicious, but its imperfect
generality, which is also imperfect particularity. Every-
body, who thinks at all, generalizes ; and all concepts are
general. If ' general ' means ' vague ' and ' confused,'
that is because the true generality of the concept is not
realized.
Finally, when we say that all concepts are general,
we must add that no concept is ' general ' if this means
that it is not individual. The most general concept in
the world has its own unique individuality. Truth does
not become less individual as it becomes more general.
The individuality of a truth is proportionate to the clear-
ness and fullness with which it is conceived ; and every
new application of it increases both its generality and
its individuality.
NOTE A.
Experience l .
Some light may be thrown upon discussions about an ' a
priori element in experience,' the ' derivation of knowledge
from experience,' and the like, by considering one or two senses
in which we use the word ' experience.'
i. We sometimes qualify the term by the adjective ' per-
sonal.' We say that we have a personal experience of a pain,
or of a feeling of heat ; we hear of a personal experience of
' salvation.' In such phrases ' experience ' seems to mean what-
ever we refer to ourselves, whatever we are conscious of as
happening to us or being done by us. . . . With this ' experi-
ence ' in particular cases we contrast what we know about
only through hearsay, or in theory, or the like. We say, for
example, that we have some knowledge, through descriptions,
of what is meant by an earthquake, though we have no experi-
ence of earthquakes. But it is evident that this distinction is
not really one between experience and something of a different
kind, but merely a distinction between different grades or strata
of experience, between a fuller experience and a less full.
What we experience through hearsay and the like, we still
experience ; it is something we are conscious of as happening
to us.
For our present purpose we may evidently dismiss this use
of the word. Knowledge is experience — the fullest experience
of anything. There would be no meaning, therefore, in asking
whether knowledge is derived from experience.
2. In the second place we contrast experience, in the sense
of that which we actually know, with that which is merely
1 [From the course given in October, 1887.]
VOL. T. Q
2 :6 LECTURES ON LOGIC
possible ; and we speak of the latter as being beyond, or out-
side, experience. We say, for instance, ' So far as experience
goes, A or B is certain.' Experience, in this sense, means
the sum of what is known, the best-established knowledge
so far.
There can be no objection to this use of the term. Only we
must observe that, wherever we take this ' experience,' we
find that it points beyond itself, and suggests something which
it is not as yet. Nor is it separate from the unknown which it
suggests, or which we interpret it to mean. Thus it may be
said with perfect truth that we are always in advance of our
' experience ' ; and that the progress of experience means that
fresh interpretation, or analysis, or application, of experience
by which suggested possibilities are confirmed or refuted 1 .
From this point of view we may best understand what has
been meant by references to an element in experience which
is not itself matter of experience.
For example, the essence of Plato's doctrine of avafiv^cns (as
found in the Phaedo) is that the soul is aware of something which
it has never ' experienced.' We have the notion of equality,
for example ; we know what we mean by the word ; and yet
we have never seen perfectly equal things. The two things
which we call equal are never really equal ; they do but imper-
fectly realize, or partly exhibit, the idea of equality. So that
our ' experience ' of so-called equal things is at the same time
a knowledge of an equality which is not in the things. We
cannot therefore learn the idea of equality from our experience
of things ; we only ' recover ' it, as Plato says ; or, in other
phraseology, the idea would seem to be an element in our
experience which is not matter of ' experience,' in that sense of
the word which we are considering at present.
From the same fundamental characteristic of our knowledge
arises the difficulty discussed in the Meno. We advance in
knowledge : we learn. Learning means coming to something
which we do not yet know. But, if we do not know it, how can
we look for it ? Learning must be a coming of the soul to
itself— a. process never complete under human conditions.
In the same way, to Aristotle learning is the actualizing of
something potential, a coming of the soul to itself which is at
1 [Cf. ix. 2, Test of Truth, and Note C, p. 234.]
NOTE A 227
the same time a coming of it to things (17 ^v\q fa ivra 7ra>? tart
ttcivto), for what is gradually actualized bj' us must be eternally
actualized somewhere.
The doctrine of innate ideas, originated by Descartes and
developed by his followers, was really an attempt to bring out
the same fact. It did not imply that people are born in pos-
session of fully developed ideas and ultimate truths. It meant
that the very fact of our getting these ideas implies an activity
which is not derivable from anything else, and which is always
in advance of its experience.
Kant's doctrine of a priori forms of perception and under-
standing is substantially the same idea. The real point of the
phrase a priori is that the modes of our experience, the ways in
which we experience what we do experience, are always in
advance of what at any given moment we hav^ experienced.
The truth pointed to by such theories as these, and by the
misleading phrase about an element in experience which is not
given by experience, is that all experience is a double fact. In
experiencing anything, we are aware that we do not experience
the whole of what we say we experience. In other words,
experience itself, the concrete fact, is the union of two dis-
tinguishable but inseparable elements, actual and possible. It
is a yiyvofievov, a coming to be. One ought not, in strictness,
to say that experience suggests something beyond itself, for
experience is the suggestion of something by something which
is not yet it ; just as any growing thing does not merely suggest
something beyond itself, but is at any moment beyond itself.
For example, we say that we have experience of causal con-
nexion ; but we never experience all that we mean by causal
connexion. We never find a case where it is quite true that
two things are absolutely and necessarily implied in each other,
for we can never exclude the possibility of some unknown
element. Causation remains an idea not fully realized in ex-
perience, though it is of the essence of experience ; and it is
just this that makes science advance.
3. If we still ask whether knowledge is derived from ex-
perience, we are probably meaning by 'experience' what is
really simply a very elementary experience. We are taking
a certain layer of experience and giving it the privilege of being
called experience par excellence. But there is no reason for
such a use of the term.
Q 2
228 LECTURES ON LOGIC
NOTE B.
Certitude, Law, Necessity, Uniformity l .
The progress of knowledge consists in the widening of
elementary experiences of substance and cause. Suppose,
for example, a simple sensation of colour, red. The least I
could say about it would be a judgment expressing the fact
that when I saw it I recognized it. The amount of certitude
here, the amount that I am certain of, is very small : how does it
grow ? Suppose I say, ' Red is a sensation,' meaning by ' sen-
sation ; at least something that I experience through my ears,
eyes, &c. I have now established a connexion between red
and certain other experiences, which modifies my knowledge
both of it and of them. If I then say, ' Red is a colour,' I have
connected it with other colours. If I say, ' Red is a modification
of light,' or ' Red enters into this or that artistic effect,' I have
connected it with an immense number of other things in my
experience. Something of this kind is what is continually
happening as knowledge grows. When we find an element in
different contexts, it acquires new meanings for itself, and it
gives new meanings to the elements in these contexts. The
element remains in a sense the same, for it is clearly essential
that I should be able to recognize it when I have it again ; but
it is also continually changing with every new connexion into
which it is brought. The progress of knowledge may therefore
be represented as the pursuing of identities through ever-
increasing differences. And just as the 'substance' red re-
mains the same, and yet changes and increases, so do also the
' cause ' and ' effect ' red. The more I know of the connexions
of red with other elements, the more I know of its causes and
effects ; and the progress of knowledge is therefore a pro-
gress in the perception of the coherence of things.
At each step in the expansion of experience we put a new
interpretation on old data. It is quite true that we constantly
1 [This passage, condensed from the lectures of October, 1886, follows
an account (similar to that on pp. 175 f.) of the minimum cognoscibile as
expressed in the judgment, 'This is this, not that,' or, 'This is that as
well as this.' The self-identity and relation to other implied here were
pointed to as the germs of the conceptions of substance and cause.]
NOTE B 229
'test' our inferences by going back to the original fact. But
what this means is that we ascertain whether we have really
got the original fact A — e.g. the sensation 'red' — in the new
context to which it gives, and from which it receives, a new
meaning. Our 'going back' does not mean that we simply
repeat the original experience, or that this contained in it our
later experience ; but at each step the ultimate ground of certi-
tude is the identity of the phenomenon with itself: i.e. we
argue, ' If this is really a case of A, then B is true of it.'
The expression of A's nature we call its laws. A universal
law about A means, what is true of A as A, neither more nor
less. It means that wherever A is found, and under whatever
circumstances, A will behave in such and such a way. The
universality of a law does not mean that the law ' holds ' in an
enormous number of cases, or wherever we have observed A ;
its universality depends not on the number of cases in which
we have observed A, but on the degree to which we are able
to be sure that we have observed A, and nothing but A, in
those cases. And the impossibility of ' absolute certitude ' is
due to the impossibility of absolutely isolating an}' element
from the rest of the world.
Hence arises the contrast between theoretical and actual certi-
tude, laws and facts. The law says, Wherever A is found, it
will behave in such and such a way. The difficulty is to be
sure that we have found A, neither more nor less. Hence any
actual phenomenon, however simple it appears, presents an
insoluble problem if we pursue it far enough ; for to isolate A
absolutely would mean that we knew fully, not only A, but the
whole context of which it is a part. Hence also all scientific
truth is ' abstract ' or fragmentary ; or, that of which we are
certain is always a very limited part of what we have ex-
perienced. It is a certain truth that the angles of a triangle
are equal to two right angles, but any ' actual ' triangle is partly
triangle and partly something else. The practical application
of the law is therefore modified. We may say that, of the two
ultimate sceptical questions, one, ' Is a triangle really a triangle ? '
is no question, it is nonsense ; the other, ' Is this triangle really
a triangle ? ' is always a question.
The great difference between the sciences with regard to
certitude depends on the comparative simplicity or complexity
of their subject-matter. The simpler the conditions in any
230 LECTURES ON LOGIC
matter, the surer we can be that we know what we have got,
and nothing more nor less. The mathematical sciences are
peculiarly exact, because the experiences called numerical and
spatial are very simple (so that, if we had no others, we should
know very little of the world). Sociology is as yet no science,
because the simplest object here involves so many conditions.
The exactness of a science depends on its abstractness, i. e. on
the number of conditions it is able to ignore.
The degrees of necessity correspond to the degrees of certi-
tude. To say that logical necessity is higher than mathematical,
and mathematical than physical, does not mean that one kind
of existence is more 'subject to law' than another. Mathe-
matics has a high degree of necessity because, its subject-matter
being very simple, it is comparatively easy to see how one
thing involves another. Logical necessity is higher because,
for example, the experience expressed by the law of contradic-
tion is still more simple and elementary. A contingent truth,
again, does not mean a truth about something not subject to
law, but a truth about something comparatively little known.
' Contingency ' means dependence on conditions over and above
the known conditions. ' Chance ' is a high degree of contin-
gency. ' Necessity ' means that there is no such dependence,
— that the conditions are exhausted. The statement that 'all
certitude is hypothetical ' is true if it means that all certitude
is dependent upon our knowing the conditions of the problem
in question ; i. e., if we are justified in saying that we have
exhausted the conditions, the thing is certain.
The principle of the uniformity of nature (which does not
mean that the future will resemble the past) is a particular
application of the logical principle of identity. It is implied
as soon as anything is experienced as the same under different
conditions, and it means that the same thing under the same
conditions will always behave in the same way. The question
' How far does this uniformity reach ? ' does not mean, ' How
many things are capricious ? ' but, ' How much of the world is
not merely theoretically (in anticipation) but actually (in ex-
perience) uniform ? ' or, ' Over how much of the world are we
able to realize uniformity ? ' The Greeks recognized the prin-
ciple, but were able to realize it only over a comparatively
narrow field ; and there are still enormous tracts over which we
cannot realize it. But the imperfection of our knowledge does
NOTE C 231
not, as people say, leave a loophole for ' chance '■ or the ' miracu-
lous.' These words ought merely to mean, ' what we cannot yet
explain.'
NOTE C.
Subjective and Objective 1 .
The antithesis of subjective and objective elements in ex-
perience or knowledge has various senses.
1. ' Subjective ' denotes all the elements in ' me ' and ' you '
except the knowledge itself; e.g. our feelings about it, and our
ways of reaching it, are ' subjective.' ' It ' is independent of
these elements ; and it is for this reason that they are ' sub-
jective,' and not because they are present in subjects. ' It,' the
fact, is for us, for subjects ; to know it is to ' make it our own ';
and when we are in the most perfect state of intelligence the
distinction between 'us' and 'it' disappears, just as in a per-
fect sympathy or ' understanding ' two persons become one.
' Subjective,' then, in this sense means everything up to the
point of intelligence.
2. ' Subjective ' denotes part of the fact as contrasted with the
whole : e. g. a subjective visual experience is one in which the
whole fact of sight is not present ; certain conditions are absent.
If these conditions are judged to be present, there is ' illusion';
i. e. misinterpretation. In such a case the absent conditions
alone are sometimes called ' objective.' What these particular
conditions are, depends on the person who is speaking : one
means solidity, another physiological concomitants, another
conformity to some law or principle, and so on. That is, there
is in each case a certain form of existence which has a ' pre-
rogative ' of objectivity or reality; and the question to be
asked always is, What are the characteristics, or tests, of that
particular form of being ? It is in this connexion that so many
people identify ' objective ' with what they call ' external '
reality ; but of course the objective is no more outside the
1 [The following is an abstract of the lectures on this subject given in
October, 1886. It covers nearly the same ground as Section IX. printed
above. Much is omitted as needless to the reader of that section, but
what is given is almost entirely in the words of Nettleship's notes, or of
the reports of the lectures.]
232 LECTURES ON LOGIC
mind than the subjective ; we understand the objective con-
ditions of sensation as well as the sensation itself.
So far, 'subjective' and 'objective' denote different sets of
elements in experience, of which the second are understood
to be the more important or universal. They are not corre-
lative ; they co-exist, but they may exist separately.
3. We now come, however, to a third distinction, and in this
the two terms subjective and objective, or subject and object,
are strictly correlative. And this distinction, which amounts
to saying that all experience is presented (objectum), is one
inherent in consciousness.
This distinction is one particular form of a universal law or
principle, which may be called the principle of relativity. That
principle holds good for all being whatever : in self-conscious-
ness 1 it assumes a special form, that in which the related
elements are self or subject, and not-self or object.
The fact of relativity means that everything is what it is
through its relation to other things ; or that, as Plato says, being
implies not-being or ' otherness.' For example, every number
is one of a series, and its nature or meaning is determined by
its place in the series, i. e. ultimately by all the other numbers
(and so with any series). Any figure, or piece of space, is
determined by the surrounding spaces. So with force ; there
is no action without re-action ; the fact may be analyzed into
these two, but they are not separable. Again, the attributes
of a thing are its modes of acting on, and being acted on by,
other things ; and you cannot separate the thing from them ;
if you try to, you leave nothing. Then we come to the mode
of existence called consciousness (in the widest sense 2 ) ; we
find that, as we say, certain bodies feel. Here again every
feeling is determined, either by other definite feelings, or by
the general surrounding medium of feeling. Lastly, in self-
consciousness, the related elements are self and not-self, or
subject and object.
Here then the object in general is the 'other' of self, but its
special meaning will depend on the special kind of self, and
will differ according as the self is, for example, sensitive, per-
ceptive, intelligent, appetitive, willing. And the distinction of
1 [Apparently = ' consciousness ' in the preceding paragraph.]
2 [A wider sense than that of ' consciousness ' in the last paragraph
but one.]
NOTE C 233
self and other is perpetually being done away with, and per-
petually reappearing. Thus (a) in desire we have to distin-
guish between the desiring subject and the desired object. But
each is only in relation to the other ; the object is an object
only so far as desired, the subject a subject only so far as it
conceives of itself as possibly obtaining the object. And in the
attainment of desire, when the distinction disappears or becomes
implicit, the object, which is s^-satisfaction, ceases to be an
' other,' and the subject, which goes out of itself in desiring,
identifies itself with the object. So again (b) in sympathy a
person is said to feel himself one with another, or the sense of
separation is said to disappear ; and what is implied in these
phrases is that the concrete fact, analyzable into two selves, is
really the unity of the two. And so (c) with knowledge. In
all perceptive consciousness there is one fact analyzable into
two aspects. We can only separate subject and object in this
sense if we mean b}' subject the possible percipient, and by
object the possible perceivable ; and we must do so, because we
are aware that our knowledge is imperfect. In truth the dis-
tinction disappears (so that truth may be described indifferently
as an object or a subject), but it disappears only to re-appear.
Finally, pursuing the enquiry, we come to the proposition that
' in the absolute all distinction between subject and object
vanishes.' That is, if we start with the idea that everything
is in relation to another, and follow this out to the whole of
being, we see that, if the ' thing ' were fully determined, its
relativity would cease. The sum of relativities would be that
which has no 'other' beyond it, or is self-related. Hence
Aristotle's description of the divine mind, the ideal of know-
ledge, as thought which is its own object (vorjais vor}<jea>s).
[Then follows the illustration of the ' table ' and ' I,' to show
how the meanings of ' object ' and ' subject 'vary together. See
p. 200 f.]
The 'relativity' of which the correlation of subject and object
is one form is not to be confused with the ' relativity of know-
ledge,' as expressed in such a phrase as, ' we only know
phenomena.' Such a phrase may point to a truth, but it is most
misleading. Taken strictly, it must mean either (a) that all we
call truth is mere appearance or illusion ; but in that case it is
we who draw the distinction of apparent and real, and we are
using our knowledge of the real in asserting that we have no
234 LECTURES ON LOGIC
knowledge of the real. Or (b) it means that all knowledge is
analyzable into a presented (to (^cuvo^vuv) and something to
which it is presented (w fyaivcrai) ; i. e. all knowledge is a form of
self-consciousness. But generally the phrase in question con-
veys in a confused way two notions, (a) that all our knowledge
is limited, has a ' beyond ' ; (b) that this ' beyond,' the ideal of
truth, though unknowable, is more real than anything which
we know. ' Unknowable ' here must mean, not ' unintelligible,'
but that ' beyond ' of our present knowledge which implies
a subject beyond our present subject. All knowledge involves
the consciousness of an unknown in this sense ; this conscious-
ness is the other side of knowledge, and the two are inseparable.
It is often said that in Greek philosophy the problem of
knowledge is regarded objectively, and in modern philosophy
subjectively. There is only a partial truth in this statement.
In the analysis of perception or thought the Greeks started
from the side of the object, the uIo-Stjtov or votjtov : but they
regarded the object as strictly correlative to a subject. The
distinction of subject and object, which is said to be absent
from Greek philosophy, appears without a name in the De
Anima, where the process of knowledge is described as a
gradual appropriation of the world by the human soul, or as
the gradual development of the human soul, from a possible to
an actual state of knowledge, under the influence of the world.
That is, the distinction appears here as that of the potentially
intelligent and the actually intelligible ; and the subject is said to
be in a sense the object (17 ^vx^ ra 6Wa nws eVxt iravru) : i. e. in the
act of knowledge the distinction ceases to exist, or becomes that
of the concave and convex sides of a curve. Conversely, while
it is true that conspicuous modern philosophers have started
from the side of the subject, and have regarded the conditions
of experience as expressions of the self or Ego, it must be re-
membered that this subject, self, or Ego has been to them that to
which the world is an object, or that which some call the universal
subject. It is not true that in modern philosophy the sense of
the objectivity of the world has decreased ; it has grown enor-
mously, so that we even tend to say that the Greeks had no
sense of the uniformity of nature. In modern philosophy,
again, as in Greek, we have the idea of something in which the
distinction disappears ; and in each it is expressed by a personal
term, vovs, or the subject which has itself for object.
PLATO'S CONCEPTION OF
GOODNESS AND THE GOOD
PLATO'S CONCEPTION OF
GOODNESS AND THE GOOD
[In the Biographical Sketch some account is given
of the book on Plato which Nettleship engaged to write
for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
The following Essay is one of the five chapters into
which, according to his original plan, the book was to be
divided. It was composed about the year 1H81 or 1882.
When it became evident that the chapter was much too
long for the proposed scale of the volume he began to
cut it down, and in the end it would probably have been
reduced to less than a half of its original length. Con-
sidering the reason of these excisions, it has seemed best
to restore almost all the excised passages. A few cor-
rections have also been made, some references have been
added, and some of the paragraphs have been divided.
Otherwise the Essay is printed as the author left it.
In the opening paragraph, as originally written, the
more specifically ethical of Plato's writings were divided
into two groups, according as they deal mainly with the
nature of goodness, or with the nature of the good or the
end of life ; although, it was remarked, these two subjects
touch at many points and ultimately unite. To the first
group were assigned the Protagoras, Metio, Laches,
238 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
Charmidcs, and Euthydemus ; to the second the Gorgias,
Philebus, and Republic; and these are the dialogues dis-
cussed in the Ess?y. In revising it the author determined
to prefix a ' general account of Plato's ideas about
morality.' The first paragraph, as it now stands, is
evidently a mere list of headings for this ' general
account,' which does not appear to have been written.]
Some of the characteristic ideas of Plato's moral
philosophy may be stated in the following proposi-
tions : —
(1) Goodness is a state of soul, or of the inner man;
it means good life.
(2) To live well is to live for the right end : the soul
is its own end : the end of life is to live well :
the best life is that in which the soul is at its
best.
(3) The condition of living well is clear insight into
what the good of the soul means and requires.
It is best to have this insight oneself; next best,
to follow or be ruled by some one else who has it.
(4) The soul of man is so constituted that he can only
live well in community with other souls. The
perfect life would be a life of perfect communion
with other souls and with the soul which animates
the universe.
These ideas are seldom entirely absent from any of
the ethical dialogues, but they are present in very dif-
ferent proportions, and are developed with different
degrees of emphasis. They are moreover usually de-
veloped in contrast with other prevalent ideas which to
Plato seemed mistaken ; the idea, for instance, that virtue
plato's criticism of current ideas 239
is an external accomplishment, the idea that the end of
life is an external possession, the idea that living well is
a matter of chance or inspiration or custom, or the idea
that individual self-assertion is th^ glory of life.
Thus Plato's enquiries are coi^jrned with two main
objects. The first is to show what the best life is; that
is to say, what is its true essence and definition, irre-
spectively of the tendencies in actual human nature which
prevent or impede its attainment. This is a question for
logical analysis. The second is to show how, human
nature being what it is, that life is to be attained. This
is a question of social and political construction.
Any critical enquiry into the nature of moral quali-
ties or principles must be primarily an enquiry into the
meaning of certain words and phrases. Every civilized
society has a current phraseology, in which its feelings
about right and wrong, about what it admires and what
it dislikes, are embodied. Under the apparent fixity of
this current language is concealed an indefinite variety
and inconsistency of meaning, according to the character,
education, and circumstances of those who employ it.
Such a fluid mass of opinion, solidified at the surface
into words, was the material with which Plato started
in his ethical enquiries ; and the questions with which at
various points he probed the mind of Greek society
were practically two : What do you really mean by this
or that expression ? and, What do you think you ought
to mean by it ?
The Greek word dper?/, the most comprehensive term
for admirable qualities of character, is usually rendered
by ' virtue.' It is unfortunate that the English word has
undergone the process of attenuation and decay, so
240 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
familiar in the history of language, by which any special
meaning which it had has shrunk into equivalence with
chastity, while the general approbation which it expresses
has evaporated into a praise so faint that it almost
damns. Under these circumstances, ' goodness ' is often
a better translation of apeTij : for we too can speak of
a good dog or a good ship, a good painter or a good
citizen, a good friend or a good man, with many various
shades of meaning, but with the common implication
that the object which we call 'good' has an intrinsic
worth, and that we admire it. The Greek word apery
has at least as wide a range, and as welcome associa-
tions ; the English word ' virtue ' has neither the one nor
the other.
The difficulty felt, in rendering the Greek term for
excellence of character in general, is increased when
we come to specific forms of excellence. We still sum
up our admiration of a man in the word ' good,' but we
do not so naturally speak of the 'justice,' the 'tem-
perance,' the ' wisdom,' the ' piety,' or even the ' courage/
of our friends, when we wish to note the qualities which
most strike or attract us. We use the words, indeed,
but in senses sometimes more narrow or more shallow,
sometimes more emphatic or more remote, than the
Greeks of Plato's time, seldom with the same associa-
tions or under the same circumstances. Their place has
been taken by a new list, of mixed extraction, Jewish,
Greek, Latin, and Teutonic. Humility and purity, duty
and honour, Christian and gentleman, honesty and con-
sistency — such are some of the words which a modern
Plato would have to examine if he wished to sift the
moral consciousness of English society.
The above reflexion upon the greater comprehensive-
PLATO S CRITICISM OF CURRENT IDEAS 241
ness, and, if we may say so, ' solidarity,' of the Greek
conception of virtue suggests another which is of equal
importance for the understanding of Plato. It has
become a commonplace of modern criticism that the
Greeks ' confounded ethics and politics.' The remark
expresses about as much of the truth as would be ex-
pressed by saying that to the modern world the ideas
of legal, moral, and religious obligation are absolutely
separate. It is doubtless true that, so far as there has
been progress in the theory of human conduct, it has
been marked by growing ' differentiation ' of ideas ; but
the progress has not been progress unless it has also
brought with it a corresponding ' integration.' The
synthesis which the rudimentary organization of Greek
life made comparatively easy now requires a grasp and
a penetration of mind as much greater as a modern
nation is greater than a Greek town. But it has equally
to be made, and we have only to look below the sur-
face to see that modern thought is in labour with its
execution.
Plato's method of examining the moral ideas which he
found in vogue may be described as that of making the
ideas criticize themselves. This he does by pressing them
to their logical consequences, by assuming given words
to have at least some definite moral meaning, and by
asking what follows if that meaning be strictly adhered
to. The ultimate appeal is to the conscience of ordinary
people ; if you grant that one thing is better than
another, if you recognize a distinction between some-
thing right and something wrong, if you feel this conduct
to be admirable and that repulsive, then you must also
grant that such and such is an inadequate or false or
confused account of what is good, right, or admirable.
VOL. I. R
242 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
This is the critical side of the enquiry. But the enquiry
is not only critical ; it is conducted, as all such enquiries
must be, in tacit accordance with certain positive and
constructive ideas in the mind of the writer, which,
though often indicated rather than expressed, grow in-
creasingly clear and prominent with the growth of his
own moral experience and purpose.
In asking, What is virtue? or, What is this or that
virtue ? Plato was asking for a definition ; and the
significance of the question depends first upon the formal
requirements which he expected the definition to satisfy
— in a word, on the import which he attached to ' is.'
This import will best be brought out by considering
what kind of answers he thought formally or logically
unsatisfactory, and on what grounds. The tolerably
well-defined group of such answers which we meet with in
the dialogues called Protagoras, Meno, Laches, Charmides,
and Eutkydemus, represents a comparatively rudimentary
stage of experience and reflexion. They are put in the
mouths of a brave but uncultivated soldier, an honest but
ignorant and pretentious prophet, an indolently curious
young nobleman, a modest and ingenuous schoolboy.
That which naturally occurs first to an unreflecting
mind, when asked to give an account of its morality, is
to mention some obvious instance of what it considers to
be moral. The soldier, asked what courage is, replies,
1 Not to run away in battle ' ; but it is easily shown that
it may be an act of courage to run away as one fights
(like the Scythians), or to run away in order to fight at
an advantage (as the Lacedaemonians at Plataea) ; so
that running away and not running away are not, in
themselves, of the essence of courage. A similar criticism
applies if, substituting for a single act or circumstance
PLATO S CRITICISM OF CURRENT IDEAS 2^3
a single general quality, we define courage as 'endurance,'
or temperance as 'quietness in behaviour' ; for by courage
and temperance we mean something admirable, and there
are many cases in which to yield is more admirable than
to endure, and where quickness and energy are more
admirable than quietness.
A second and equally common form in which we
hold and express our moral conceptions is illustrated by
Meno, when to the question, What is virtue ? he answers,
' Virtue in a man is to be able in the conduct of public
affairs, virtue in a woman is to manage her house well
and obey her husband ; and so on with the various
actions and times of life — there is a virtue proper to
each.' This, as Socrates objects, is to tell us, not what
virtue is, but how it differs in different circumstances.
If we want to know what a bee is, it is of no use to be
told that there are all sorts of bees ; one bee may be
bigger or handsomer than another, but, in so far as they
are all bees, they are all the same. A strong or a healthy
man is different from a strong or a healthy woman, but
strength is strength, and health is health, wherever they
are found. What we want to know is, what makes
virtue to be virtue and nothing else.
A third error to which in our ordinary state of mind
we are liable is that of confusing a principle with its
results or accidents, as when, for instance, we define
holiness as ' that which the gods love ' ; for, though this
may be true of holiness, it appears that it is not the
being loved by the gods which makes holiness holy, but
the fact of its being holiness which makes them love it.
This is part of the general principle that, whenever
a thing takes place or is affected in a certain way, the
cause is found, not in the fact of its so taking place or
R 2
244 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
being affected, but in its own quality or nature. Such
a definition of holiness, then, does not give us what
holiness is, but what happens to it.
These instances will be enough to show what Plato
was looking for when he asked the question, What is
goodness ? He was looking for something which should
be, not good at one time or place and bad at another,
but good under all circumstances ; for something which
should be realized by the mind, not as a disconnected
series of different instances, but as something one and
the same, pervading them all ; for something which
should be the centre and source of its attributes, not
one possible attribute amongst many. He has various
ways of describing this something: it is the 'being' or
' essence ' or ' what is,' as contrasted with the ' affection '
or ' what happens to it l ': it is ' that in which all cases of
it are the same,' or ' that which remains the same with
itself in all,' as contrasted with that in which they differ 2 :
it is that which ' makes them all to be what they are,'
and it is the ' pattern ' or type to which we must refer in
judging of them ourselves or in explaining their nature
to others 3 . The one term which he chose to express
these various conceptions, the term which more than any
other has become associated with his name, was ' idea,'
a Greek word which has been naturalized in English,
and of which the literal meaning is ' form.' The fuller
consideration of Plato's use of this word is best combined
with that of his theory of knowledge 4 ; it is enough here
to note that from an apparently early period he appro-
1 Euthyphro, 1 1 A.
2 Meno, 72 C ; Euthyphro, 5 D ; Laches, 191 E.
3 Meno, 72 C ; Euthyphro, 6 E.
4 [On which a chapter was to have been written. On the meaning of
idea' in Plato see Hellenica, pp. 146-7, and vol. ii.]
PLATO S CRITICISM OF CURRENT IDEAS 245
priated it to express the substance of morality, under-
standing by the ' form ' of virtue that which is essential,
identical, and typical in our moral principles, that which
we really mean, believe in, and have in our minds' eye,
when we express those principles in words.
From the above instances we also see what Plato
regarded as the defect or weakness in the moral con-
ceptions which they illustrate. The defect is twofold ;
either they confound the moral attributes in question
with other attributes, which, though they accompany
them in experience, have nothing to do with their
morality ; or they mistake the moral principle itself for
the transitory conditions under which it is manifested.
The corrective to the former is found in the habit of
clear thinking, in the power to see and pursue a single
thread of meaning through the tangled maze of circum-
stances, to keep in the mind the thing, the whole thing,
and nothing but the thing, which we are considering.
The latter defect implies a failure to realize what is in-
volved in a moral principle, namely, that, though it can
only be exemplified in a series of particular cases, it
cannot be identified with any or all of its cases, except
by surrendering its claim to be a principle at all.
From these imperfect and rudimentary conceptions of
goodness we now pass to a more advanced and ambitious
level of thought, of which the exponents are men like the
cultivated general Nicias or the literary statesman Critias,
Protagoras the great sophist, or even Socrates himself.
The theories of morality put into the mouths of these
speakers, differing as they do in details and in the
criticism to which they are subjected, agree in this, that
they make virtue, in some sense and to some degree,
a matter of knowledge. It is in connexion with this
246 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
view that thre3 cognate questions come into promin-
ence: (i) How is virtue produced? for if it is knowledge
it seems to follow that it must admit of being explained,
understood, communicated — in a word, taught ; (2) How
are the different specific virtues related to each other and
to virtue as a whole ? for, if there is no goodness without
knowledge, the different kinds of goodness must be in
some sense one; (3) What is the object of the know-
ledge which is the condition of goodness? for, whatever
analogy it may have to various branches of knowledge
ordinarily so called, it is clearly not identical with any
one or with all of them.
The insistence upon knowledge as the condition of
morality was not peculiar to Plato, or even to Socrates,
with whom it is generally associated. Education, under-
stood in its widest sense, so as to include all that we
mean by the diffusing of ideas, was an object of the
keenest interest in Greek society at this time. It meant
indeed very different things to different minds. With
representatives of culture and enlightenment the question
was, how the new ideas of advancing civilization could
be best communicated to the rising generation ; the
politicians and men of business cared mainly to know
how their sons could be fitted for public life or private
enterprise ; while the friends of the good old times, or
the critics of modern degeneracy, were asking anxiously
how the youth might be made upright and gentlemanly,
or how the decay of native genius and virtue might be
met by better methods and greater application. The
supply of instruction was as various as the demand, and
ranged from manual accomplishments to the whole duty
of a householder and a citizen. ' Love of wisdom ' or
' philosophy ' was the term in vogue for almost any sort
PLATO S CRITICISM OF CURRENT IDEAS 247
of higher intellectual interest, any desire for information
or attainments above the ordinary traditional level. The
' masters of wisdom ' or ' sophists ' were the persons who
made it their business to provide for the satisfaction of
the general want. To ' be wise ' and to ' make wise,'
wise in literature, science, and art, wise in domestic and
social life, wise in war, in law, in politics, these were the
dominant ambitions of the rising generation and their
teachers in Athens at the end of the fifth century B. c. 1
And, when to this special demand for culture and accom-
plishments, whether as an ornament or as a practical
engine of success, we add the general intellectual endow-
ment of the Greek race, it is easy to understand how
a theory which made morality a kind of knowledge
should find a soil to spring from and an atmosphere to
grow in. To a people which brought artistic and scien-
tific faculties to bear so conspicuously, not only upon art
and science proper, but upon every branch of life, it was
natural that the cunning of the craftsman should furnish
the typical illustration of the practical importance of
knowledge. Nobody could help seeing that a musician,
a surgeon, or a shoemaker must understand his profession
if he would succeed in it : why should a man expect to
succeed any more as a general, a statesman, a master of
a house, unless he has acquired the theory of his business?
And, if the former crafts can be taught and learnt, why
not the latter ?
Socrates, then, was on common ground with the
ordinary intelligence of his age when he asserted that
the general management of ourselves and our lives, in
which morality consists, implies knowledge, study, skill,
1 For illustrations in Plato see Laches, 179 B-D ; Euthydemus, 306 D, fl". ;
Protagoras, 310 A, ff.
248 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
in other words a theory and a principle, just as much as
the management of any particular branch of life. Where
he went beyond and offended public opinion, enlightened
as well as unenlightened, was in putting a more ideal
construction upon a requirement which, up to a certain
point and in a certain sense, every one admitted. The
conception of knowledge which he tried to awaken was
not only that of a practical mastery in one's business,
nor did it merely mean seeing the nature and bearing of
a principle of conduct as clearly and certainly as those
of a technical or scientific principle ; it required, besides
and before these, that self-knowledge which is the know-
ledge of our own ignorance, and which is at once the spur
to moral progress and the evidence of the inexhaustibility
of moral truth. This conception Plato embraced and
assimilated in all, and more than all, its original signifi-
cance ; and the synthetic tendency of his mind naturally
led him to seek a systematic expression for what Socrates
had put forth as occasion served or required. But, in his
first attempts to define the knowledge upon which he,
with his master, believed human goodness and well-
being to depend, he was as much concerned to see what
it was not, and how it differed from other kinds of know-
ledge, as to see what it was and how it resembled them.
And thus in the dialogues with which we are now
dealing, while the idea of a life according to knowledge
is perpetually recurring, and is indeed the idea which
dominates them all, we find ourselves being reminded
scarcely less often of the difficulties which the idea in-
volves, and are sometimes almost encouraged to question
its tenability.
The points which Plato urges in his criticism fall
mainly under two heads. Firstly, if morality has prin-
PLATO S CRITICISM OF CURRENT IDEAS 249
ciples and can be taught, it must be morality of a dif-
ferent kind from anything now to be found either in
society at large or in its professed leaders and teachers,
for that certainly is not based upon principles. Secondly,
if the good of man depends upon knowledge, it must be
knowledge of a different kind from any of the existing
arts and sciences, for no amount cf knowledge such as
they convey will necessarily make human life better.
As regards the first point l , we are forcibly reminded
how much of Plato's philosophy was developed by
antagonism. A true disciple of Socrates in his thirst
for truth and his impatience of half-truths, he must have
welcomed eagerly the new lights which had risen or
were rising upon his intellectual horizon. ' If happiness
means the dealing rightly with circumstances, and if it
is knowledge which enables us to do this, surely every
man ought to set to work in every possible way to make
himself as wise as he can.' - And yet almost in the
same breath we find him doubting whether it is possible
to be ' made wise/ whether wisdom can be ' learnt ' at
all ; and, when the professors of wisdom or their disciples
come forward with offers to teach it, he receives them
with doubt, criticism, or contemptuous irony. It would
seem, indeed, that the word ' wisdom ' was as much a
bone of contention in Plato's time as 'culture' is in our
own. Genuine scientific attainments, and pretentious
sciolism ; speculative interest in language and thought,
and mercenary juggling with words ; honest search for
deeper moral principles, and rules of thumb for getting
on in life, such were some of the diverse elements covered
1 [The reader will sec that the Protagoras and the Me no are considered
under the first head, the Laches and the Channides under the second.]
2 Euthydemus, 282 A.
250 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
by the common title '• love of wisdom' or ' philosophy.'
Plato's conception of what philosophy ought to mean
developed gradually, and in its earlier stages we can
gather it mainly from his criticism of rival claimants to
the title. He found men professing to be in advance
of ordinary views of life, professing to have a real
theory of conduct and to teach men how to live ; and
yet, when he interrogated their theories, he found in them
little more depth, little more unity, little more consistency,
than in the popular opinion which they claimed to en-
lighten. But it was not only with the professed repre-
sentatives of enlightenment that Plato felt himself in
antagonism. He, like them, demanded more light ; he,
like them, started with criticism of commonly received
ideas ; the difference was that his light was more intense
and searching than theirs, his criticism more subtle and
more uncompromising. And so, like some other philo-
sophers, he found himself the enemy, not only of the
men of ideas, of culture, and of science, but also of the
professional men and practical politicians. The latter
class probably regarded him as a variety of the former,
that specially dangerous variety to which philosophical
radicals and conservative free-thinkers are supposed to
belong. The former probably interpreted his unsecta-
rianism as trimming, while they hated his hauteur and
winced under his sarcasm. In the two dialogues called
Protagoras and Meno, which in whole or in part we
have now to consider, this double-faced antagonism, the
antagonism to society at large and the antagonism to its
accredited leaders, begins to show itself.
Prota- The Protagoras is a humorous apotheosis of the
sophists. In Athens, ' the hearth and home of wisdom,'
goras.
THE PROTAGORAS 251
in the house of the Athenian who has spent more money
upon wisdom than any other living man, the wisest of
the Greeks are met together, Hippias, Prodicus, and,
greatest of all, Protagoras. Each of the distinguished
strangers has brought his circle of admirers ; the elite of
Athenian society also is there ; the whole house is pos-
sessed with culture, and the porter has lost his temper at
the number of callers. Round a bed extemporized in
the counting-house Prodicus is holding a literary seance ;
in one of the vestibules Hippias is lecturing on physics
and astronomy ; in another, Protagoras walks up and
down discoursing to a chorus of disciples, who follow the
movements of their master with a reverential dexterity
which Socrates cannot sufficiently admire 1 . He has
called to introduce his young friend Hippocrates to the
great sophist ; the youth had come to wake him before
it was light with the news that Protagoras was in Athens ;
so eager is he to be made wise 2 . Protagoras receives
them with the air of a man who is conscious of having
been a leader of thought for forty years. Unlike some
members of his profession, he is not ashamed of being
a sophist, though fully aware of the invidiousness of the
title. He knows that many other men distinguished in
letters, art, and science, who are practically sophists,
have tried to veil the fact for fear of what the political
world might think of them ; but they arc always found
out sooner or later, and the best policy is to be quite
outspoken : as to the opinion of the general public, he
makes no account of that ; the general public takes its cue
from its leaders 3 . Such is the tone of the great teacher.
1 Protag. 314C-316A, 337 D; cp. Apol. 20 A.
2 Protag. 309A-314C.
3 lb. 316B-317C; cp. 353A-B.
252 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
In the manner in which Socrates is made to behave to
him there is the deference of a younger to an older and
more distinguished man, touched with the irony of one
who has seen through and beyond him. The discussion
is conducted without bitterness, and the two disputants
part with expressions of mutual respect.
Protagoras undertakes to teach a young man, who
wishes to become distinguished, ' how best to manage his
own affairs, and how to speak and act with the greatest
effect in public life '—in a word, to teach ' the art of
politics' and to 'make a man a good citizen.' But can
these things be taught ? Socrates is inclined to doubt
it, and public opinion seems to go with him ; for in the
popular assembly at Athens, when any technical question
arises, about building, for instance, or ships, nobody is
listened to but the architects and shipwrights ; but on
a political question any one who likes may get up and
speak, and no one asks where he got his knowledge. The
Athenian people, then, at any rate, do not consider that
politics can be taught or learnt. And apparently the
great statesmen themselves feel the same ; for, though
they get their children taught everything for which they
can find a master, they do not teach them their own
virtue of statesmanship 1 .
Protagoras does not agree that these facts prove, either
that political virtue cannot be taught, or that it is not
taught. For, firstly, the art of good citizenship is not,
like other arts, the property of a few professional men ;
it is present, and is assumed to be present, in a greater
or less degree in everybody who is capable of living in
a civilized community. This explains and justifies the
conduct of the public assembly. Secondly, the fact that
1 Protag. 317E-320B.
THE PROTAGORAS 253
society punishes us for doing wrong shows that it re-
gards morality, not as a gift of chance or nature, but as
a thing which can be acquired and learnt ; for the true
purpose of punishment is not to avenge what is past, but
to deter for the future. Thirdly, so far from morality
not being taught as a matter of fact, we are learning it
all our lives. The lesson begins with our nurses and
parents ; it goes on at school, where even more attention
is given to discipline than to accomplishments, and
where the poetry and music taught are specially selected
with the view of inculcating virtue ; and, when we leave
school, the state takes us in hand, and makes us learn
the laws and live by them, and if we transgress them it
punishes us. What is all this but teaching virtue?
Lastly, we need not wonder if the sons of great and good
men are not always great and good. Every civilized
man has some morality (a great deal, indeed, if you
compare him with a savage) ; it is like speaking our own
language ; we think that nobody learns or teaches it,
just because to a certain extent everybody does so ; but
some people are born with better natural capacities than
others, and some people (Protagoras himself, for instance)
are better teachers than others \
Such is the position of the professed instructor of
public opinion, as regards the nature of his instruction.
It is really the position of public opinion itself, put at
its best. Society assumes a certain amount of moral
knowledge in all its members, and it is right to do so.
Society makes every one responsible for his morality up
to a certain point, thus implying that it can be acquired
and taught. And society itself teaches it in a variety of
ways, but of course nature goes for a good deal. All,
1 Protag. 320 C-328 D.
254 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
then, that the professed teacher can be expected to do is
to teach a little better than the rest of the world.
But Plato expects more from him than this, and in
the person of Socrates continues to examine him, not as
to the fact of his teaching, but as to what it is that he
teaches. If virtue can be taught, what is it ? Protagoras
had spoken of justice, temperance, piety, courage, wisdom,
indiscriminately as virtue : are they five different names
for one thing, or five different parts of the same thing ?
Suppose we say with Protagoras that they are parts,
and heterogeneous parts, as the mouth, eyes, and nose
are parts of the face ; yet is it not hard to maintain that
piety, for instance, has not something of the quality of
justice ? And how can wisdom and temperance be both
opposites of foolishness, without being in some sense
one? Or, once more, if temperance may be combined
with injustice, will not this imply that injustice is some-
thing good ? l
If it be still maintained that, however much the other
virtues may have in common, courage at any rate is
quite distinct (for we find men who are very unjust,
licentious, irreligious, and unwise, who yet are very
brave), we must ask, Can a man who is a fool be really
brave ? Is not confidence an element in all courage, and
is it not just the addition of intelligence that makes
confidence into something better than mere confidence,
which may be the result of rage or madness? This, it
may be said, only shows that wisdom makes confidence
into courage, but not that wisdom makes courage what
it is. We must then again ask, What is it which con-
stitutes the excellence, the virtuousness, of courage ? In
1 Protag. 329 B-334 C. Then follows a long interlude (334 C-348 C),
after which the question is taken up again where it had been left.
THE PROTAGORAS 255
a word, what is the meaning of the distinction between
good and evil in human life ? Are they identical with
pleasure and pain? If, with Protagoras, we decline to
admit this, and equally decline to identify good with
knowledge, how are we to conceive the relation between
pleasure and knowledge? Is knowledge the strongest
and ruling principle in man, so that, when we know what
is good, it is impossible to do what is bad ? Or is the
common opinion true, that knowledge is the mere slave
of pleasure and pain, passion and fear ; so that we may
know what is good, and yet do what is bad ? x
Now, though Socrates and Protagoras may disagree
with and despise common opinion, it is worth while to
examine it. When then people say that a thing is bad
but pleasant, or good but painful, what do they mean by
bad and good? They do not mean that the thing is
bad because it is pleasant, or good because it is painful,
but that it is bad or good because, though pleasant or
painful now, it deprives them of greater pleasure or pain
in the future. Pleasure and pain, then, are the real
objects of pursuit and avoidance, the things which people-
have in view when they call one thing good and another
bad. But, if this is so, the common saying that we do
what is bad, knowing it to be bad, under the influence of
pleasure, is absurd ; it is like saying, we do what is bad,
knowing it to be so, under the influence of what is good ;
or again, we do what is less pleasant, knowing it to be
so, under the influence of what is more pleasant. It may
be said, indeed, that there is a great difference between
pleasure or pain in the present and in the future ; but it
still remains that the difference is only one of pleasure or
pain, for we have agreed that these arc the only standard
1 Proiag. 349A-352D.
256 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
of comparison ; it is a question of weighing one amount
against the other. Now we know that the same objects
appear larger or more numerous when seen near than
when seen far off. Suppose then that human welfare
had depended upon our choosing the larger magnitudes
or numbers, and avoiding the smaller ; in that case we
should not have allowed ourselves to be governed by-
appearances, but by the sciences of measure and number.
Similarly with pleasures and pains : human welfare lies
in the right choice of them, and this can mean nothing
but right measurement, and this means art and science.
What the science is, is a further question ; all that we
now assert is that it is a science, and that it is the want
of it, that is, ignorance, which produces the evil supposed
to come from the victory of pleasure over knowledge.
And from this it follows that it is not in human nature
to do what is bad, that is, what is really less pleasant,
knowingly or voluntarily ; every one goes into evil
through not knowing what is good \
Let us now return to our former subject, the re-
lation of courage to the rest of virtue. Fear may
be defined as expectation of evil, and danger as coming
evil. The brave man, then, when he faces danger, does
so because he knows that it is not really evil, but good,
noble, pleasant ; and the coward does not face it, because
he does not know this. And again, when the brave man
is afraid of a thing, he is so because he knows that it is
really evil, while the fool and the madman are not afraid
of it because they do not know this. Courage, therefore,
so far from being compatible with the greatest ignorance,
would seem to be a kind of knowledge, — knowledge of
what is, and what is not, to be feared 2 .
1 Protag. 352 E-358 D. 2 lb. 358 D-360 E.
THE PROTAGORAS 257
Such is the conclusion of our argument ; and, as
Socrates remarks, it may well ' laugh at us.' For here
is Socrates, who denied that virtue could be taught, now
trying all he can to prove that it is knowledge ; and, if
knowledge cannot be taught, what can be ? And here
is Protagoras, who assumed that it was teachable, now
anxious to show that it is anything rather than know-
ledge. One thing is plain to Socrates, that they must
try to clear up this confusion, and enquire what virtue is
before they ask whether it can be taught 1 .
None of Plato's dialogues has more of the character of
a philosophical drama than the Protagoras. This applies
not only to the form and setting, but also in a great
measure to the substance, of the work. The treatment
of the main question is inlaid with more than the usual
wealth of subordinate incident and illustration ; and the
centre of unity lies, not in any single moral problem or
principle, but in the development of the far-reaching
opposition between two modes of thought, between
the spirits of speculative and popular philosophy, the
critical and the professional, the uncompromising and
the accommodating, the self-examining and the self-
satisfied.
We are made to feel throughout the dialogue that the
professor of social and political enlightenment has not
reckoned with his subject. Much that he says is true,
and its truth is not questioned by Socrates ; but he has
not thought out what is involved in the phrase ' to teach
morality.' With all his contempt for popular opinion,
and profession that he has something better to offer, he
has really accepted the popular moral distinctions with-
out enquiring into their meaning and justification. He
1 Protag. 360 E-362 A.
VOL. I. S
258 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
sees that the various virtues must have something in
common, but he cannot say what it is. He feels that all
pleasant things are not good, but he has not asked himself
why. He believes that knowledge is moral power, but
he has not tried to explain the wide-spread belief in its
impotence, or considered what sort of knowledge he is
thinking of. Plato's criticism does more to clear the
ground for advance than to make the advance itself. It
shows that, if morality is to be put upon an enlightened
basis, we must begin with an analysis of what morality
really is, for as ordinarily practised and understood it is
certainly not enlightened. It further suggests the direc-
tion that analysis must take, that, namely, of discovering
the central and essential point from which the confused
distinctions of the popular code can be explained, justi-
fied, or rejected. And, lastly, it indicates that this point
will be found in a true conception or knowledge of man's
real good or interest, by which the illusory appearances
of feeling and emotion may be measured and reduced to
their true proportions.
Meno. The Protagoras, starting with the assumption that
morality can be taught, shows that neither its professed
teachers nor society at large are in a position to teach it,
and yet that it is in its very essence knowledge. The
contribution of the Meno to the question of the nature
of morality is in many respects the same as that of the
Protagoras, but the conception of knowledge is made
more definite by contrast, and the various aspects of the
antagonism latent in the latter dialogue have assumed
a more emphatic expression. On the one hand Anytus,
the representative of the successful politicians and men
of the world, gives utterance with unmitigated violence
to the prejudice against the sophists which Protagoras
THE MENO 259
had thought to meet by out-spokenness ! ; and Socrates,
though he suspects the quarter from which the prejudice
comes, hardly conceals his sympathy with it ~. On the
other hand, the hostility felt by Anytus to the sophists is
extended by him, though less openly, to Socrates him-
self 3 , and we already see the beginning of that breach
between philosophy and the world which Plato, when
he wrote the Gorgzas, felt to be impassable. The pri-
mary object of criticism in the Protagoras was the
pretension of the professed teacher ; only through him,
and secondarily, was reference made to the actual
morality of public life, which he undertetok to instruct.
But in the Meno the professed teachers arc dismissed
summarily, and the main interest centres in the great
citizens and statesmen who arc appealed to as the
practical illustrations of virtue.
Meno is a young Thessalian nobleman, a disciple of
Gorgias, with enough intellectual curiosity to make him
raise questions, but with too little mind to appreciate
their real difficulties and too little seriousness to face
them. The question which he has asked Socrates con-
cerns the acquisition of virtue ; is it got by teaching, or
by practice, or does it come by nature 4 ? And, though,
as Socrates is so fond of pointing out 5 , it is impossible
really to discuss the attributes of a thing until we know
what the thing is, he yields to Meno's indolence so far as
to put the question in this hypothetical form : What sort
of thing must virtue be, supposing that it is got by
teaching? It is clear that in that case it must be
knowledge ; for knowledge is the only thing that is
1 Meno, 91 C-92 C. 2 lb. 92 D, koX taws ri \tyus : cp. 96 A.
3 lb. 94E-95A, 99 E, 100 B. * lb. 70 A.
5 lb. 71 B, 86D-E, 100 B.
S %
260 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
taught. Is it, then, knowledge ? Virtue, we shall admit,
is something good ; is there, then, any good thing
which is not embraced by knowledge? All good things
are useful ; and the utility of a thing depends on
whether it is used rightly, and rightly means wisely.
This is true of things of the body, such as health,
strength, beauty, and wealth. And the same is the case
w r ith things of the soul ; moral and intellectual gifts, if
guided by intelligence, are useful ; if not, they do harm.
Such things, then, are in themselves neither good nor
bad ; they are made good or bad by the way in which
they are used ; the things of the body depend for their
goodness on the soul, and the things of the soul upon
wisdom. If then virtue is something good and useful,
it must be, in whole or in part, wisdom. And from this
it follows that it cannot come by nature : indeed, if it
did, we should certainly have taken steps to find out the
naturally good amongst us, and shut them up out of
reach of corruption until they were of age to serve the
state. It would seem, then, that virtue is got by teaching 1 .
But here a difficulty presents itself. When we say
that a thing is got by teaching, we imply that there are
persons who teach and persons who learn it. Now
Socrates, with all his efforts, has never yet been able to
find any one who could teach virtue. Let us consult
Anytus : he ought to be able to help us, for his father
was both rich and wise, and gave him a good education ;
so at least the Athenians seem to think, for they elect
him to the most important offices of state. Supposing
then that we wanted to make Meno a shoemaker or
a doctor or a flute-player, we should of course send him
to the persons who professed to teach those crafts and
1 Meno, 86E-89C.
THE MENO 261
were paid for so doing. Meno wants to learn the duties
of a citizen, the best way of administering public and
domestic affairs, of behaving to parents, of entertaining
fellow-citizens and strangers ; to whom is he to go to
learn this virtue? The persons who profess to teach it,
and are paid for doing so, are the sophists. But Anytus
declares that the sophists are the ruin of all who go
near them ; and, though it is hard to understand, if this
be so, how men like Protagoras should have made
such fortunes, perhaps Anytus is right. But to whom
then are we to go ? ' Go to any Athenian gentle-
man,' says Anytus. And who, we ask, taught the
Athenian gentlemen? 'The gentlemen before them.
Surely there have been plenty of them.' Yes, there
have been plenty, and there are still ; but the question is
this, Have these excellent men been able to impart their
excellences to others? What are the facts about The-
mistocles, Aristides, Pericles, or Thucydides ? Is it not
notorious that, while they had their sons taught all sorts
of accomplishments, such as riding, shooting, wrestling,
playing, they never taught them their own virtues?
And yet surely they would have done so, if they had
been able. So much, in any case, is clear, that if the
professed teachers of virtue are admitted to know nothing
about it, while those who possess it cannot agree whether
it can be taught or not, there cannot be said to be any
teachers of it in the proper sense of the word, nor there-
fore any learners. Virtue, therefore, cannot be taught 1 .
Are there, then, no good men? And, if there are,
how do they become good ? The truth is that we made
an absurd mistake before. We said before that nothing
is good without right guidance, and this is true. But we
1 Meno, 89 C-96 C.
262 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
also said that right guidance implies knowledge, and
this is not true ; for in particular cases right opinion will
serve as well as knowledge ; a man whose opinion about
a road is right is as good a guide as a man who knows
the road. This is the case with our good statesmen ;
their virtue is that of opinion, not of knowledge. Is
there, then, no difference between the two ? Certainly ;
a difference in point of permanence. Right opinions
are excellent things as long as they remain in the soul,
but they soon run away unless they are made fast ; and
the way to make them fast is to see the reason of them :
this converts them into knowledge. It is in this per-
manence that the superior value of knowledge lies ; but,
for this or that particular act, true opinion serves the
purpose just as well \
Now neither knowledge nor right opinion comes by
nature : goodness, therefore, is not natural. But neither
does it come by teaching, for, as we have seen, there are
no teachers of it. Yet we allow that it is something
good and useful, and that the condition of goodness and
usefulness is right guidance, and that the only right
guides for man are knowledge and right opinion ; and, as
virtue is not taught, it cannot be knowledge ; it remains,
then, that it is right opinion. This is why our good
statesmen are not able to make others like themselves;
their goodness comes from opinion, not from know-
ledge. Their intelligence is thus on the same level with
that of prophets and poets, who say many true and great
things, but do not understand what they say. Their
success is due to a sort of inspiration ; as women and
Lacedaemonians say of people whom they admire, they
are 'divine' men. If we have been right in our reason-
1 Meno, 96D-98C.
THE MENO 263
ing, then, the conclusion is this : virtue would seem to
come neither by nature nor by teaching, but by the
grace of heaven, and reason has nothing to do with it.
Unless indeed there were found a statesman who could
make others statesmen ; the virtue of such a man would
be to that of the rest of the world as the substance
to a shadow 1 .
The Protagoras had shown the want of depth and
consistency in the moral theory of society and its pro-
fessed instructors, and had indicated that the remedy
was to be found in a knowledge which should give unity
to the virtues and supply a standard of moral measure-
ment. The knowledge similarly required in the Meno
is conceived as a principle, not of measurement but of
guidance, and it is further characterized by a formal
contrast with opinion. The guiding or ruling function
here assigned to reason connects closely with the idea
(afterwards more fully developed by Plato) of an ultimate
end, to which alone it ' profits ' to attain, and the refer-
ence to which alone makes all means and instruments
'good.' The distinction between knowledge and opinion
plays a vital part in Plato's general theory of knowledge.
But what is of importance here to observe is Plato's
growing feeling of the imperative necessity of principle
or a reasoned morality in private, and still more in
public, life. He has not yet reached the point of accusing
the great statesmen of actual failure, as he does in the
Gorgias. He admits their success, such as it is ; but it is
a success of guess-work, unable to give an account of
itself, incommunicable to others, forming no permanent
element in the intelligence of mankind. There is some-
thing ' divine ' in it, just because it is unaccountable ; but
1 Meno, 98C-100 A.
264 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
it would be better if a man could possess it instead of
being possessed by it, and share it with humanity instead
of letting it die with him.
The definition of goodness as knowledge, as examined
in the Protagoras and the Me/io, had the result of draw-
ing attention to defects in existing moral theory and
practice, which must be remedied if the definition is to
answer to facts. The same definition in the Laches and
the Charmides is made to lead to the conclusion that
the knowledge in question must be further specified as to
its nature and object if it is to hold as an account of
goodness. Each of these dialogues deals, not with virtue,
but with a particular virtue, courage in the one case,
temperance in the other.
Laches. The point of departure in the Laches is a definition of
courage almost identical with that arrived at in the
Protagoras \ as knowledge of what is to be feared, and
what is not to be feared. This is interpreted to mean,
not what is to be feared under certain special circum-
stances (in disease, for instance, or in agriculture, where
the knowledge in question would be that of the doctor
or the farmer), but what is to be feared or not to be feared
altogether and as such ; in fact, ' what it is better or not
better for a man to experience.' This clearly makes
courage a rare and difficult thing ; it must be quite
different from mere confidence, rashness, daring, and the
like, and must be denied, not only to brutes, but to a great
many human beings to whom it is usually ascribed 2 .
But here a difficulty arises. Fear may be defined as
expectation of coming evil. Now a man who has
knowledge of coming evil must also have knowledge of
1 See above, p. 256. 2 Ladies, 194 D-197 B.
mules
THE LACHES AND THE CHARMIDES 265
evil present and past ; in fact, of evil as such or ' under
all circumstances ' ; for the time in which the object of
knowledge exists makes no difference to knowledge ;
a thing once known is known whenever it may happen
to occur. Courage, then, on this view would be co-
extensive with all virtue, for what more can be wanting
to a perfectly good man than that he should have
knowledge of all good and evil ? And yet it has been
assumed from the first that courage is one among many
parts of virtue \
The subject of the Charmides is ' temperance.' ' Tern- Cha
perance ' is the accepted, and perhaps the least mis-
leading, translation of <run\>po<Tvvr), of which the primary
meaning is sanity of mind. Perhaps 'sobriety,' though
no longer much used, would be as good an equivalent as
any. The central idea conveyed by the word seems to
be that of the law-abiding spirit, whether the law be
that of the state, of conscience, or of God. Self-control,
modesty, humility, are all aspects of it; its opposites arc
licentiousness, insolence, pride, and, most comprehensively
perhaps, the ' folly' of the English version of some books
of the Old Testament.
In the CJiarmidcs temperance is defined by Critias
as self-knowledge, which he explains to mean, not
a specific knowledge with a specific object, but a know-
ledge of that which we or others know and do not know,
a consciousness of knowledge and ignorance in general 2 .
This definition, however, raises many questions. In the
first place, in what sense is self-knowledge possible?
Other mental operations, such as perception, desire,
opinion, always relate to objects other than themselves,
and we should expect the same to be true of knowledge.
1 Laches, 198 A- 199 E. 2 Chamiidcs, 165 C- 167 A.
266 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
In any case we must allow that knowledge implies
a relation, and it is a difficult and unsolved question
whether a relative thing can be self-related 1 . But
secondly, admitting the possibility of such a thing
as self-knowledge, in the sense in which Critias under-
stands it, it would not involve knowledge of that
which we know and that which we do not know ; it
would only mean knowledge of the fact, not of the
matter, of knowledge. The knowledge of the matter
is always a particular knowledge with a particular
object ; the doctor and the musician owe what they know
to their respective sciences ; all that the virtue of self-
knowledge would add to this would be the consciousness
that they know it. Such a consciousness could not
prevent us from attempting things which we did not
understand, or enable us to prevent others from doing
the same. Its value seems to be reduced to that of
giving us a better idea of what knowledge in general
means, and this may make it easier for us to acquire
a new branch of knowledge, and to criticize other people's
pretensions to a knowledge which we already possess ;
that is all 2 . And again, even supposing the existence
of a knowledge of knowledge and ignorance in the wider
sense, and that our lives were regulated by it, what
would be the result ? Certainly we should never try to
do anything which we did not know how to do ; char-
latanry would disappear ; we should never be taken in by
an incompetent doctor or pilot or general ; our clothes
and furniture would all be made by honest workmen.
But would the human race fare better and be happier?
It may be true that to live according to knowledge is to
live well, but we must ask, according to what know-
1 Charmides, 167 B-169 B. 2 lb. 169D-172C.
THE LACHES AND THE CHARMIDES ^67
ledge? Clearly the knowledge of all the trades, arts,
and even all the events, in the world would not make us
happy ; the only knowledge that can do this is that
which tells us whether all the other kinds of knowledge
are for our real interest or not ; in a word, the know-
ledge of good and evil. So that temperance, if it
be self-knowledge in the sense in which we have under-
stood it, would seem to be but an unprofitable thing
after all 1 .
Thus both the Laches and the CJiarmides result in
a dilemma, a dilemma which suggests that, if morality is
to be a matter of knowledge, it can only be know-
ledge of the true end of life, of human good and evil.
The former dialogue shows that a particular virtue,
if fully understood, leads to its identification with such
a knowledge ; the latter shows that another particular
virtue is only of any real value in human life if it be so
identified. The argument of the CJiarmides reminds us
of one somewhat similar, though conducted in a lighter
vein and with a less explicit result, in the first book
of the Republic 11 . Justice having been there defined
as the power or art of rendering to every one his due,
it is shown by a gradual process of elimination that,
in that case, it will serve no purpose, because the per-
ception when a particular thing is due under particular
circumstances will always be found to belong to some
particular branch of knowledge; so that all dues could
apparently be rendered equally well without the help of
justice. The link which is left out in the Republic is sup-
plied in the CJiarmides 3 , when it is said that, though the
various arts and sciences can go on performing their
1 Charmides, 172C-175D. a Rep. 1, 331C-334B.
3 Charmides, 1 74 C.
268 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
several functions without the knowledge of good and evil,
it depends upon this latter knowledge whether they
perform them well and in the real interest of mankind.
Euthy- A result which partially combines those of the
Charmides and the Meno is arrived at by a different
method from that of either in the Euthydemus. This
dialogue is, like the Protagoras, primarily concerned with
education, but more from its intellectual than its moral
and political side. In the Protagoras we are asked, How
are our young men to get right principles of conduct ?
in the Euthydemus, How are their minds to be turned to
true culture? The former dialogue, starting with the
sporadic ideas of popular morality, ends by pointing to
their unification in some form of knowledge ; the latter,
beginning with the commendation of knowledge in
general, concludes with the dilemma that knowledge
is useless without a conception of the moral end of man.
As regards tone and form, the Eiitliydemus might be
described as the satirical farce which accompanies the
stately drama of the Protagoras. In the latter the
weak points in the popular teacher are unmistakably
though delicately touched, but the balance between
philosopher and sophist is evenly held, and we leave
them with the feeling that they may both be fellow-
workers in the cause of truth. In the former, the
mercenary filibusters of culture are gibbeted with
a satire which never relents, and the wretched rags
of a philosophy which has sunk into verbal sword-play
are set side by side in unrelieved contrast with the
pure outlines of the science of human welfare. It
is only a part of the dialogue which directly bears
upon the question before us ; the rest of it is occupied
with the humorous exposure of a number of logical
THE EUTHYDEMUS 269
sophisms ; but as the latter part is inseparably connected
with the former, and its motive is to bring out in strong
relief the bearing of knowledge and philosophy upon life,
rather than to illustrate particular fallacies of reasoning,
it seems well not to attempt to separate the two.
The brother sophists, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus,
are described by Socrates as two veritable pancratiasts ;
they teach and practise the art of fighting in all its
branches — with arms, with rhetoric, and with logic ;
this last and greatest accomplishment they have only
learnt w r ithin the last year or two. They undertake to
turn out a ' good man ' better and quicker than anybody
else in Greece, and it is a matter of perfect indifference
to them whether or no the pupil believes in the possi-
bility of 'teaching' goodness. Socrates had introduced
to them the boy Cleinias, whose education is a matter of
concern to all his friends, and requested them to awaken
his interest in knowledge and virtue 1 . The brothers
set to work at once. First Euthydemus asked Cleinias
a question, and proved to him that his answer was
wrong ; and then Dionysodorus 'took the ball from his
brother,' and proved that the answer was right. The
way in which they did it was by using the same word
in a double sense, of which Cleinias was not aware.
They had tripped up the poor boy twice in this way,
and were going to give him a third fall, when Socrates
came to the rescue 2 . He explained the trick to Cleinias,
and assured him that these logical antics were only the
preliminary play of the brothers ; the real mysteries of
their wisdom were yet to come. Philosophy must,
indeed, begin with the right understanding of the use
of words, but it is not philosophy to go about pulling
1 Euih. 271A-275B. 2 lb. 275C-277C.
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tench Anything uiul Impossible to refute Anything, And
the professions ol il\.- brothers come to nothing ll>
howevci was persuaded that thej wen still playing with
theii audience, And, like L*rotcus, concealing theit n il
shapes Phc only thine was to hold tight to thi m until
they revealed what thej I'callj mcanti Mcautimi hi
would Again giv< thi in .1 sample "i what he would wish
1 licit revelation to be ' Wi got so fat 1 11 ton n • ti 1
idmlt the necessity ol knowledge i" happiw What
K in iw |i 1 !■•.■ is ii i»> be? It w ould be no gooi I, foi
example, to know whi n to find And how to maki ol 1
01 i\i 11 to know how to mak< oui n lv< • immortal unli 11
we alio knew how to usi gold anil Immortality What
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1 ii. \ often cannot delivei 1 1" speeches which thej com
Indeed thcii urt is a somewhat Infi rioi branch ol
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spiders and scorpions, and thi rhetorician charms coui'1
<»i law •iii<i populin Assemblies And mobs is It general
1 1 1 1 ■ • n.. . 1,. 1 the gi iv mi. in 1 othi 1 1 "i th< hunti 1
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hands them ovei to thi 1 utesman, just as i hi fislv rm 111
li.i 11. 1 ovei in', iili to thi cook, and thi ruathcmatlelan
in . discoveries 1 1> thi dlulectleiaii 1'crhaps stuti man
ship ' 11 I ui" [ship is the ai I foi w hii h wi An Ii 11 il Ing 11
ii 1 in . w in. ii Mi-, .ii iiir helm oi Mi. tate, incl a1! thi
othci .ui. hand ovi 1 thcii producti to It to be utlli ed
But 1 1" H thi quest ii mi .11 Isi , wii.ii r. 1 In good w hii i>
thii sov< n Ign art 11 11 11 produi ca? It produces, wi maj
1 / m/A U61J UU U
272 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
say, wealth, peace, freedom ; but we agreed before that
such things are not good in themselves apart from
wisdom. If then the sovereign art is to do any real
good, it must make men wise. But wise in what? Wise,
we are compelled to say, in making others wise. And
then the same question recurs again, and we are brought
round once more to the point with which we started,
What is the knowledge which will make men happy? 1
In this sea of difficulty Socrates called upon the
Dioscuri to come to the rescue. Euthydcmus heard
the prayer and came. He offered either to teach
Socrates the knowledge for which he was looking, or
to prove to him that he had already got it. Socrates
chose the latter, and the proof was as follows. ' You
know something : therefore you know : therefore you
know everything ; for, if there were anything that you did
not know, you would not know.' Socrates humbly asked
the brothers whether they too knew everything, and
they said that they did. 'What! Everything?' asked
Ctesippus. 'Yes,' they said, 'everything.' The harder
they were pressed, and the more outrageous the ques-
tions, the more daringly they answered, like wild boars
at bay, and when they could not find answers they
retorted with questions of their own. By insisting on
having unqualified answers to qualified questions, they
proved the most miraculous things ; that, for instance, as
once a father is always a father, everybody's father is
everybody else's father ; that, as gold is good and you
cannot have too much of a good thing, perfect happiness
would be to have gold in your stomach, your brain, and
your eyes ; and that, as the presence of beauty makes
things beautiful, the presence of Dionysodorus makes
1 Euth. 288 D-292 E.
THE EUTHYDEMUS 273
Socrates into Dionysodorus. The climax was reached
when Ctesippus, who was getting more and more excited
in the game, exclaimed at one of their proofs, ' Bravo !
Hercules ! That is a beauty ! ' When Dionysodorus
asked whether bravo was Hercules, or Hercules bravo,
it was too much, and Ctesippus acknowledged that the
brothers were invincible. A storm of applause followed
from the audience, and the very pillars of the building
shook with delight *.
Before parting, Socrates said a few complimentary
words to the brothers. He envied them, he said, the
genius which could make such an acquisition in so short
a time. Three points in it particularly excited his
admiration. One was the magnificent disregard which
they showed for the opinion of every one except the few
who were like themselves ; setting these aside, the rest
of the world would be more ashamed of victory than of
defeat with such weapons. Then again he was charmed
with the thoroughly liberal spirit of their method ; when
they had proved that black was white, and sewed up
everybody's mouth, they were kind enough to do the
same for themselves, so that nobody could complain.
But the greatest proof of the scientific character of their
discovery was the rapidity with which it could be learnt,
as Ctesippus had shown. This was a great advantage to
them as teachers, but on the other hand it should make
them careful how they displayed their knowledge, or
they might lose the monopoly. 'Water,' as Pindar
says, ' is the best thing in the world ' ; but it is very
cheap 2 .
Socrates told the story to his old friend Crito, who
had already heard an account of the meeting, and who
1 Eulh. 293 A-303 B. 2 lb. 303 B-304 B.
VOL. I. T
274 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF GOODNESS
wondered that Socrates was not ashamed to take part
in such an exhibition. No doubt education is the one
thing needful, but, if these are the professors of it and
this is ' philosophy,' how can we urge our sons to apply
themselves to it? Socrates would say to Crito : 'Do
not throw over philosophy because many or most of
those who pursue it are good for nothing ; this is the
case with many walks of life. The only way is, not to
think about the persons, but to examine the thing itself:
if it is bad, have nothing to do with it ; if it is what
I believe it to be, follow it and practise it, yourself and
your children.' 1
The conception of the knowledge necessary to human
welfare in the EittJiydemus resembles that of the Meno
in the using and guiding function which it implies ; and
the attempt to identify it with the science of kingship or
statesmanship anticipates the leading idea of the Republic.
On the other hand the difficulty of assigning a precise
product to this knowledge recalls the final dilemma of
the Charmides. There it is asked, What would the
fullest consciousness of the nature and limits of all
knowledge profit us, unless it involved the consciousness
of ' the good ' of knowledge ? Here it is asked, What
would a science to which all other sciences were sub-
ordinate profit us, unless it added to them the knowledge
how to use them ?
We have thus far been dealing with dialogues, the
subjects of which are formulated in the question, What
is goodness, and how is it got ? The investigation of the
question has led to two principal results. It has shown,
firstly, that the meaning or essence of a moral principle
1 Enth. 304 B-307 C.
THE GORGIAS, PHILEBUS, AND REPUBLIC 275
is not realized or known so long as it is confused, either
with the various extraneous elements with which it is
combined in experience, or with the accidental circum-
stances in which it is manifested or to which it gives
rise : it must be understood as what it is and nothing
else, if it is to be really understood. Secondly, it has
shown that the conception of goodness as knowledge,
that is, as rational insight and conviction, while it is one
to which w r e are led by converging lines of thought,
points beyond itself to the further conception of an
ultimate good, which is the one thing worth living for ;
a conception which would supply a standard of measure-
ment for pleasure and pain, would give unity to the
diversity of moral qualities and a principle to moral
practice, and would assign to the sciences and arts their
several places in the economy of human life.
We have now to pass to dialogues in which this
further conception is itself the central object of enquiry.
' What we really want to know,' says Socrates in the
Gorgias 1 , 'is, who is happy and who is not,' or, ' what
sort of men we ought to be and how we ought to live.'
' What we want to find,' we are told in the PJiilcbus 2 ,
' is a condition of soul which can make the life of all
mankind happy,' or ' what is the best thing that a man
can possess.' And, in the Republic, the first formulation
of the question, ' What is justice ? ' is soon exchanged
for the second, ' How is a man to live his life so as to
live it most profitably 3 ?' Besides this similarity in
the questions which these dialogues propound, they
also resemble one another in developing their answers
1 Gorg. 472 C and 500 B-C ; cp. ib. 487 E, 492 D.
* Phil. 11 D and 19 C.
3 Rep. i. 344 E.
T 2
276 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
polemically, though the objects of the polemic, and the
method and tone in which it is conducted, differ widely.
In the Gorgias the antithesis is between the claims of
power and pleasure, on the one side, and those of truth
and goodness on the other, to be the true end of life ;
and the method employed is to show that the consistent
denial of all moral distinctions makes any such end in-
conceivable. In the Pliilebus the rival claims are those
of pleasure and reason to be respectively the whole or
chief constituents of human well-being, and a meta-
physical and psychological analysis leads to the con-
clusion that feeling as such is the mere negation of what
is real, and only gets substance and meaning through the
formative energy of mind. The Republic, starting from
the opposition between the worth of morality as an
inward principle and its external results or concomitants,
shows that virtue, so far from being another name for
material advantages, is the very principle of the soul's
life and health ; that the right external organization of
society is the expression of that life and health ; and
that such organization is only possible so far as society
is ruled by knowledge of the laws of the world and of
man's position in it. Indications of this idea, by which
human life is brought into connexion with a universal
order, are found in the Gorgias and still more in the
Philebus ; it receives a further development in the Phaedo,
where the good is identified with the sustaining cause of
nature, and again in the Timaeus, where it is personified
in the creative God.
Gorgias. We come now to the several dialogues in detail. The
Gorgias opens with the question, What is rhetoric ? and
closes with a picture of the last judgment. What is
the order of ideas which connects points apparently so
THE GORGIAS
277
remote ? Plato has made rhetoric the special subject of
two dialogues, the Gorgias and the Phacdrus-, in the
latter he treats it from its literary and logical, in the
former from its ethical and political, side. In the former
dialogue it is brought before us as the typical instrument
of human power, the art of swaying men and so doing
what we please. On this ground it is maintained by the
rhetorician to be the greatest of all arts. Thus the issue
is raised, Is the mere power to satisfy desire, and the mere
pleasure accompanying such satisfaction, the greatest
good ? Socrates denies it, and denies it on the ground
that neither power in itself nor pleasure in itself con-
stitutes a good or end at all, and that we only make
them such by introducing into them a quite different
principle, which is already the germ of morality ; in
other words, that a consistently non-moral theory of life
is logically self-destructive. We here come upon the
most fundamental and characteristic idea in Plato's
philosophy of life, and the one also which, to the modern
mind, it is most difficult to seize, the idea which may be
most shortly expressed by saying that the moral is the
rational. The constant appeal to the arts and sciences
which we are struck with in the Gorgias and other
ethical dialogues is not merely illustrative ; it expresses
Plato's conviction that all life exhibits reason, and that
morality is simply the recognition of this reason in
a particular sphere. It is the more important to insist
upon this feature in the Gorgias, because of all Plato's
dialogues it is that in which he most combines the tone
of the prophet and the preacher with that of the philo-
sopher. Nowhere else are we so vividly reminded of
the Biblical antithesis between sin and righteousness, the
flesh and the spirit ; nowhere else does the ' love of
278 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
wisdom' seem to come so near to the 'love of God.'
Yet nowhere else is Plato more himself. The opposition
of his enemy is not drowned in denunciatory thunders,
or absorbed in a personal assurance of salvation ; the
concentrated eloquence and relentless logic with which
he upholds the cause of right and truth are met by
the champion of pleasure and power with language as
forcible and conviction as unbending ; and under their
expressions of irony or contempt there are not wanting
gleams of mutual admiration and pity. And while the
philosopher defiantly proclaims his isolation from the
world, while he refuses to count heads or to admit
witnesses, and relies only upon consistency with himself
and the evidence of his own soul, it is still the unquench-
able desire for the good of men which sustains him ; the
same Socrates who will not allow that any Athenian
politician has realized his own ideal is proud to claim
for himself the almost solitary glory of truly serving the
state.
The problem of the Gorgias is developed in three
stages, in which the antithesis, implicit from the first,
becomes gradually more explicit, and the rival solutions
more radical. Gorgias, the famous master of rhetoric,
with whom in the first part of the dialogue Socrates is
confronted, is represented as a man of honesty and prin-
ciple, but quite unaware of the inconsistency which is
latent in the theory of his art. He is treated by Socrates
with elaborate but unyielding courtesy, and retires from
his untenable position to make room for Polus 1 i the wild
' colt ' of his school, who prances into the field to the
defence of his master. Polus sees that the inconsistency
proved against Gorgias arose from his making a certain
1 UmXos (Polus) is the Greek for ' colt.'
THE GORGIAS 279
concession to public opinion, and boldly proclaims his
own emancipation from moral prejudices ; but, as he still
retains the feeling that there is something ' disgraceful '
in doing injustice, he is gradually reduced to a dilemma
from which the only escape is by denying any but a
' conventional ' validity to all moral distinctions, and
asserting as the ' law of nature ' the right of every one to
do what he pleases as far as he has the power. This
final step is taken by Callicles, the brilliant and cultivated
politician and man of the world, who sticks at nothing,
believes in nothing, and fears nothing. The tone of
Socrates, who has managed the sprawling impetuosity of
Polus with high-handed but playful contempt, changes,
as the struggle deepens in the third part, into that of set
resolve and incisive earnestness, as of a man certain of
death but certain also of victory.
The argument opens as follows. Gorgias, the great
rhetorician, asked by Socrates what is the nature of his
art, defines it as the art of producing persuasion by the
use of words, asserting at the same time that it confers
upon its possessor the greatest of goods, freedom for
himself and power over others. When further asked to
distinguish it from arts like arithmetic, which also pro-
duce persuasion, he explains that the subject-matter of
rhetorical persuasion is justice and injustice, and its sphere
the courts of law and other large assemblies, while the
conviction which it produces is not that of knowledge
(which is necessarily true), but that of belief (which may
or may not be true) : in fact, rhetoric only ' persuades,' it
does not also ' teach.' — It would appear, then, to Socrates
that when the popular assembly has to be advised upon
any technical matter, such as health, ship-building, war,
the persons to advise will be those who have the technical
280 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
knowledge in question, not the rhetorician. — But Gorgias
points out that it was Themistocles and Pericles, not
the architects, by whose advice the ports and walls of
Athens were built ; that it is the orators who carry the
elections of generals ; that he himself has often induced
a patient to submit to treatment when the doctors had
failed ; in fact, that there is no subject on which a good
rhetorician could not carry a mass of people with him
against a man of technical knowledge ; so that the
rhetorical faculty may be said to have all other faculties
under its single control. On the other hand, though it
is so powerful, this is no reason why the rhetorician
should depreciate the men of technical knowledge, or
why the public should hate or banish the teachers of
rhetoric. The power may be unjustly used, of course,
like the power of boxing; but this is not the fault of the
power itself, or of those who impart it. — It seems to
Socrates that there is an inconsistency in this position.
Gorgias undertakes to make a man a good rhetorician,
that is, to enable a man who has no technical knowledge
of a subject to speak to a crowd, that is, to persons who
also have no technical knowledge, more persuasively than
a man who knows the subject. The speaker, then, may
be ignorant of what he is speaking about, but he must
be able to produce the appearance to other ignorant
people of knowing more than those who know. Now
what Socrates wishes to be told is, whether the relation
of rhetoric to moral matters is the same as to technical
matters ; whether it is enough for the good speaker to
appear to ignorant people to know about justice and
injustice, or whether he must have really learnt them
before he can be a good speaker. — Gorgias thinks that
he must have really learnt them. — But this implies that
THE GORGIAS 281
the good speaker must be a just man ; for a man who
has learnt justice is just, as a man who has learnt music
is a musician. And yet Gorgias spoke before of a pos-
sible unjust use of rhetoric ! .
The position of Gorgias is that of an honourable but
unphilosophical man, who regards his art as an instrument
or faculty, but has an instinctive feeling that its pos-
session ought to go along with its right use. What
Socrates does is to press into relief the two inconsistent
ideas which coexist comfortably in his mind. If rhetoric
is a mere faculty which admits of being used well or ill,
then the teacher of it must not assume an operative
knowledge of moral principles as part of his stock-in-
trade. He must consent to divorce his art from morality,
and regard it as the method of making anything look
plausible. This is just what a great master of the art
recoils from. He knows that his power is most con-
spicuously exercised in connexion with questions of right
and wrong, not with technical questions ; he knows that
he can dispense to a great extent with technical know-
ledge, and yet be successful ; and he shrinks from admit-
ting that his hold upon morality may be as superficial
as his hold upon medicine or navigation. Thus, while
he professes to regard the power which his art confers as
in itself the greatest of goods, he silently imports into his
conception of mere power an additional element of moral
principle, and saves his conscience at the expense of his
consistency.
Polus sees this clearly, and attributes it to a concession
to custom. Everybody, he explains, would of course say
that a rhetorician must have learnt justice, but it is mere
philistinism to base arguments upon such admissions.
1 Gorgias, 449C-461 A.
282 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
And now he would like to know what sort of art Socrates
himself considers rhetoric to be. Socrates replies that
he does not consider it an ' art ' at all. Rhetoric, as he
understands it, is an ' empirical,' not a ' technical ' ac-
complishment : it requires ' a good eye, and courage, and
natural ability in dealing with men,' but it cannot give
an account of its processes or assign their causes, and
therefore is not an art, for no ' unaccountable ' thing
deserves the name of art. The object of this empirical
accomplishment is to produce pleasure ; in other words,
to flatter. If we start with the distinction between soul
and body, we may divide flattery into four parts, as
follows. The body and the soul may be in a really good,
or in an apparently good, condition, and there are certain
arts which cultivate the real good of each ; those which
cultivate that of the soul are the legislative and judicial
arts (two branches of the political art), and those which
cultivate that of the body are gymnastic and medicine.
Answering to these four genuine arts there are four
counterfeits, which do not know but guess, and which
aim, not at the good, but at the pleasure, of their subjects.
The counterfeit of medicine is the art of confectionary,
that of gymnastic the tiring art 1 , that of the legislative
art is sophistic, and that of the judicial art rhetoric ; and,
as the judicial and legislative arts have much in common
from their common subject-matter, so rhetoric and so-
phistic get mixed up with one another and are often
very hard to distinguish. Each of these species of flattery
professes to know what is best for its subject, but really
aims at nothing but what happens to be pleasantest at
1 KofJifxajriKT) is the whole art of 'getting oneself up': the art of
' encasing oneself in a spurious beauty by shaping and colouring and
smoothing and dressing.' — Gorg. 465 B.
THE GORGIAS 283
the moment. Rhetoric, then, does for the soul what
confectionery docs for the body l .
Polus is surprised that Socrates should think so little
of rhetoric ; surely the rhetoricians have great power in
the state ; ' do they not put to death whom they wish,
and plunder and banish just as they fancy, like tyrants? '
But Socrates distinguishes : it is one thing to do ' what
one wishes,' another to do ' what one fancies 2 ' ; the
tyrant and the rhetorician do the second, but not the
first. For let us consider. When we do a thing, which
is in itself neither good nor bad, for the sake of something
good, it is the latter thing, not the former, that we
really wish. Now the tyrant or the rhetorician in ques-
tion kills or plunders or banishes for the sake of some-
thing good, that is, because he thinks it is better for him.
But suppose that it happens not to be better for him ;
then he may be said to do what he fancies, but he cannot
be said to do what he wishes. If, then, ' having great
power ' means something good, the fact that the rheto-
rician can kill, plunder, and banish whom he fancies
does not imply that he has great power, or that he does
what he wishes 3 .
Nay, further, Socrates is ready to prove that, except
under certain conditions, both he and Polus would decline
such a power as the rhetorician possesses. Polus would
decline it, for instance, unless he could exercise it with im-
punity ; Socrates, unless he could exercise it justly. Both,
therefore, mean by ' having great power,' not the mere
power to do certain things, but the power to do them in
a way which is good for themselves ; otherwise we should
1 Go rgias, 461 B-466 A.
2 Tlouiv a @ov\ovtcu, noitiv a doicti avrots. lb. 466 E.
3 lb. 466 A-468 E.
284 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
all think power, not a great and good, but a little and
bad, thing to have. The only question is, When are
things good for us, when bad ? Socrates maintains they
are good when done justly, bad when done unjustly. —
Polus thinks that any child could confute Socrates.
Look at Archelaus, the new ruler of Macedonia ; he cut
the throats of his uncle and cousin, drowned his brother,
and usurped the throne. Is he the most miserable man
in Macedonia ? Who would not like to be Archelaus ? —
This is not what Socrates understands by being confuted.
It is the way of the rhetoricians in the law-courts : they
produce a number of distinguished men to witness to the
truth of what they say, and, if their opponent produces
few or none, they think their case is proved. No doubt
Polus could find plenty of witnesses among the great
men of Athens ; but no amount of false evidence will
' drive a man out of the reality and the truth.' One
witness, and one only, Socrates engages to have on his
side before he has done, and that is Polus himself; and
he cares to have no more.
What, then, are the points at issue between them ?
They involve no less a question than that of the nature
of human happiness. Polus maintains that it is possible
for an unjust man to be happy, Socrates maintains that
it is impossible. Polus holds that an unjust man is
happy if he goes unpunished ; Socrates holds that he is
miserable in any case, but less miserable if he is punished,
more miserable if he is unpunished. Polus would like to
know, then, whether an unjust aspirant to tyranny is
happier if he is caught, racked, mutilated, blinded,
crucified, or impaled, than if he succeeds and has a
glorious reign. Ask any of the audience. To Socrates
this seems mere ' bogey ' talk ; and, as to putting it to
THE GORGIAS 285
the vote of the audience, he does not know enough of
politics to do that ; there is only one person whose vote
he knows how to ask for, and that is the person with
whom he is arguing 1 .
Let us take, then, the first question first. While main-
taining that to suffer injustice is more ' evil ' than to do
it, Polus admits that to do injustice is the more ' ugly ' :
he distinguishes between ' evil ' and ' ugly,' ' good ' and
' beautiful.' He further admits that things are beautiful
in virtue either of some use which they serve, or of some
pleasure which they give, or of both. The beautiful,
then, is definable as either the good or the pleasant, or
both ; the ugly is either the evil or the painful, or both ;
and this applies equally to such things as the human
form and works of art, and to such things as laws and
institutions. If then to do injustice is more ugly than to
suffer it, it must exceed the latter either in pain or in
evil, or in both ; clearly it does not exceed it in pain,
and therefore not in both ; it must therefore exceed it
in evil, and be worse. And, as no one can prefer the
worse to the better, no one can prefer doing injustice to
suffering it 2 .
And now for the second point at issue. Which is the
greater evil, to do injustice and be justly punished for it,
or to do it with impunity? Punishment implies an agent
and a patient, and wherever this relation exists we find
that, in whatever way the agent acts, in that way the
patient is acted upon. If, then, punishment be justly in-
flicted, the recipient receives what is just ; and what is
just is allowed by Polus to be also beautiful ; the person
who is justly punished, then, must receive benefit from
the punishment (for he clearly does not receive pleasure,
1 Gorgias, 468 E-474 A. 2 lb. 474 B-475 E.
286 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
and we agreed that the beautiful might be defined as
either the beneficial or the pleasant). The particular
benefit which he receives is riddance of evil in his soul,
that is, vice, which of all kinds of evil Polus admits to be
the ugliest, and therefore the worst (for it is clearly not
the most painful). Justice then does for the soul what
medicine does for the body, and economy for wealth ;
and, as the ugliness of vice is greater than that of disease
or poverty, so the beauty of justice is greater than that
of medicine or economy. The happiest man, then, is he
who has no evil in his soul ; the next happiest he who
gets rid of it, that is, who is justly punished ; and those
who fly from the pain of justice are like children who are
afraid of the doctor. The most miserable of all are those
who do injustice and are not punished, and the second
in misery are those who do injustice under any circum-
stances and with whatever result. What, then, can be
the use of rhetoric ? None at all for defending ourselves
or our friends when we have done wrong ; it might
possibly be of some use in bringing ourselves to justice ;
on the other hand, if we wished to do anybody all the
harm in our power, we might use rhetoric to save him
from a punishment which he deserved \
In this second part of the dialogue the real nature of
the argument begins to emerge. Gorgias had admitted,
firstly, that rhetoric did not imply knowledge, though
he inconsistently maintained that it did imply moral
knowledge ; and, secondly, he had claimed for it the
production of the greatest good, freedom and power,
though he assumed that the power might be wrongly,
and ought to be rightly, used. Polus holds that the
admission of a moral principle by Gorgias was a mere
1 Gorgias, 476 A-481 B.
THE GORGIAS 287
concession ; that the power which rhetoric confers is
simply the power to do what one likes, right or wrong ;
and that this is the true object of human desire.
Socrates correspondingly denies that rhetoric, so under-
stood, is an art at all ; that the power so conferred is
what men mean by power ; and that it is a real object of
desire. Thus the abandonment of moral principle is
treated by Plato as the abandonment of all principle ;
life becomes irrational in proportion as it becomes
immoral. f The good,' wherever it is found, means
principle ; it is that which gives aim, order, coherence.
Pleasure is opposed to it just because it has no principle,
but is the chance feeling of the moment. In the highest
things and in the lowest there is a right and a wrong ;
the right always means that the thing in question is
recognized to have a reason, the wrong that it is re-
cognized to have none. The test, alike of the truth and
the goodness of a principle, is, how much it will explain,
how far it radiates, what amount of diverse elements it
correlates. The confectioner's art as compared with
that of the doctor is ' empirical,' because it has no object
but to please the palate, and the mere pleasure of the
palate compared with the health of the whole body
carries us very little way in the economy of physical
life. So far as it does carry us, it will be found to be
not pleasure as such, but some particular kinds of plea-
sure, which give the principle on which the confectioner
works ; and what these particular kinds are will be
determined by something else than pleasure, which
something will be the real ground of the principle.
The same point is illustrated by the distinction which
Plato here draws between ' doing what we wish ' and
' doing what we fancy.' Just as it is not any mere
288 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
pleasure of any mere moment which is the real object of
desire, so it is not the power to do whatever seems good
at any moment which we really mean when we think of
power as a thing worth having. We unconsciously
import into it some condition, and make it the power to
do something with a certain motive ; not the fancy of
the moment because it is the fancy of the moment, but
the fancy of the moment because it is felt to be good for
us, is the real substance of our wish. And, as soon as we
have said this, we have put ourselves upon something
like a principle, something which can be tested, com-
pared, argued upon, an element in an order of things from
which we cannot escape, and to which we may refuse to
conform, but only at the cost of bringing discord into our
lives. Some such principle is still recognized by Polus,
though he professes to make no concessions to what he
regards as moral prejudices. He still has a feeling that,
though to do wrong is not ' worse ' than to suffer it, it is
yet somehow or other more foul, more disgraceful, more
' ugly.' The last term and its opposite ' beautiful ' are the
most literal equivalents for the untranslatable Greek
words, alaxpov and Kakop. The analysis of beauty into
utility and pleasure, goodness and charm, and the indis-
criminate application of it to natural, artistic, and ethical
objects, will be better considered in another place. The
important point here is the effect assigned to the vague
feeling of disapprobation which Polus still retains for
wrong-doing. That effect is to give another blow to the
claim of pleasure to be the principle of goodness. It
draws attention to the fact that, as long as any sort
of distinction is felt between right and wrong, the feel-
ing of the distinction cannot be resolved into one of
mere pleasure or pain, for there is no necessary pain in
THE GORGIAS 289
doing wrong ; any sense of its undesirablcness which we
may have must be a sense that it is in some way worse
for us, and this again commits us to the conception of
a life determined by some end, a life of which the ulti-
mate postulate is that it must be reasonable.
We have already partially anticipated the develop-
ment of the third and last section of the dialogue.
Callicles begins by asking whether Socrates is really
in earnest ; for, if what he has been saying is true, the
whole of life is turned upside down, and we are all doing
the very opposite of what we ought to do. Socrates can
explain to Callicles how it is that he says these strange
things. He is in love with philosophy, as Callicles is in
love with the Athenian populace ; and lovers tend to say
the same as their beloved. When Callicles speaks in the
popular assembly, Socrates observes that, if the people
disagree with him, he has to come round to what they
wish. And so it is with Socrates ; it is philosophy, his
beloved, who is always saying these things to him, and
always the same things ; and, if Callicles does not like
them, he must stop the mouth of philosophy, and prove
that what she says is false. If he cannot do that, his
whole life will be a discord ; and that is the worst of all
discords ; for it is better to have your lyre or your chorus
out of tune than to be out of tune with your own self 1 .
What Socrates says seems to Callicles nothing but
vulgar rant. The reason why he was able to silence
Gorgias and Polus was only that they were ashamed to
say what they thought. First, Gorgias admitted that he
should teach his pupils morality if they had not learnt
it when they came to him ; and then Polus admitted
that to do wrong was more ugly than to suffer it ; and so
1 Gorgias, 481 B-482 C.
VOL. I. U
290 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
they were both made to contradict themselves. But
these are mere vulgar commonplaces to which Socrates
appealed, based upon law, not upon nature, which is
generally the opposite of law. Socrates took advantage
of their hesitating to violate certain conventional ideas,
and then silently substituted the natural for the con-
ventional meaning of the ideas. Thus when Polus
admitted that it was more foul or base to do than to
suffer injustice, meaning ' conventionally more base/
Socrates pressed the admission in the sense of ' naturally
more base ' ; whereas ' naturally ' it is baser to suffer
injustice, and no one but a helpless slave would endure
it. The truth is that the laws are made by the weaker
majority of mankind, who, in order to protect themselves
and to frighten the stronger, proclaim that it is unjust
and disgraceful for one man to have more than another.
But what nature herself declares to be just is that the
better should have more than the worse, the stronger than
the weaker ; this is ' the real law of nature,' and it comes
out clearly enough in the doings both of men and the
other animals. The law which we make, indeed, and
with which we confine our noblest youth, like lions, in
a charmed slavery, says that justice means equality ; but,
when a man is born great enough, he breaks the spell
and tramples on all our parchment laws, and stands up
our master instead of our slave, and the justice of nature
shines out in its strength. This is what Pindar meant
when he sang of ' Law, the universal king.' And this
is what Socrates would see to be the truth, if he would
leave philosophy and take to higher things. Philosophy
is all very well up to a ceitain point. As a part of the
education of the young it is a graceful accomplishment,
and no gentleman can dispense with it. But if pursued
THE GORGIAS 291
into later life it is the ruin of a man, even though he
have great natural gifts ; it makes him ignorant of the
laws of his country, of the language of public life and
society, of the pleasures and desires of the world, and of
human nature in general ; and, when he has to do any-
thing practical, he is ridiculous, as ridiculous as politicians
probably are when they try to talk philosophy. The
right way is to have some of both : philosophy when one
is a boy, real life when one is grown up. A grown man
who goes on with philosophy is as contemptible as one
who goes on lisping like a child, and he deserves to be
beaten. He will never be able to show his face in public,
in ' the arena of fame ' as the poet calls it, but will pass
his life in a corner whispering his wisdom to three or four
schoolboys. Callicles has a regard for Socrates, and
would put it to him, as a friend, whether so noble a soul
ought to show itself in so childish a figure ; whether it is
not disgraceful that he and others who go deep into
philosophy should be, as they are, at the mercy of any
scoundrel who might choose to bring them before a
court of justice ; whether there can be much wisdom in
an art which so incapacitates its most gifted devotees
from protecting themselves or others that a man may
slap them in the face with impunity. Surely it would
be better to give up this ingenious nonsense, and take
to the culture of life and action 1 .
Socrates congratulates himself on having found in
Callicles a real ' touchstone ' by which to test his theory.
Callicles has all the three requisites, wisdom, frankness,
and goodwill. If he can be got to agree with Socrates,
it will not be from deficiency in ability ; it certainly will
not be from excess of modesty ; nor will it be with the
1 Gorgias, 482 C-486 D.
U 2
292 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
intention of deceiving. If the theory will stand such
a test, it needs no other proof of its truth. What, then,
is the question at issue between them ? It is the great
question, what a man ought to be and what he ought to
pursue all his life long. Callicles, in answering the ques-
tions of Socrates, maintains natural justice to be that
the better, superior, and stronger should rule over, and
have more than, the worse, inferior, and weaker. And
by this he does not mean the numerically or physically
' stronger,' or those who are ' superior ' in certain par-
ticular kinds of knowledge, but he means (for he will
speak out) that the right and natural principle of life is
for a man to let his appetites be as great as possible, and
to have the wisdom and the courage to satisfy them.
Most people cannot do this, and so they abuse those
who can ; but, for a man who had the power, nothing
could be baser than continence. The truth is (and
Socrates professes to seek truth) that luxury, licence,
and freedom are virtue and happiness ; all this other
finery, this unnatural conventionality, is worthless non-
sense of man's invention 1 .
Socrates is glad that Callicles has spoken out. The
ideal man, then, is he who has the greatest appetites and
can satisfy them ; to call a man happy who had no wants
would seem to Callicles as reasonable as to call a stone
or a corpse happy. But suppose the truth were, as
Euripides says, that death is life, and that it is we who
are really the dead ? There is an old philosophical
allegory which says that the body is a tomb in which
the soul is buried out of sight ; the soul of the unwise
(the ' uninitiated,' this allegory calls them) is like a sieve,
because it retains nothing ; and the appetitive part of
1 Gorgias, 486 D-492 C.
THE GORGIAS 293
the soul is like a pitcher with a hole in it, because it is
never filled, and its opinions are always going up and
down ; and in the unseen world the life of the uninitiated
is of all the most miserable, for they are always carrying
water in a leaking sieve to fill their leaking pitcher. If
this quaint conceit does not convince Callicles that the
life of order and contentment is better than that of
insatiate licence, here is another image from the same
school. Suppose two men with a number of pitchers for
wine, honey, milk, and other liquors, and that the
liquors are very scarce and hard to get ; suppose that
the one man's pitchers are sound and full, and he has no
more to think about, while those of the other are rotten
and leaky, and he has to keep filling them night and
day, or suffer torments of thirst : which is the happier
life ? Callicles still holds that the first of the two is the
life of a stone ; the more there is to flow in, the greater
the pleasure. Yes, is the answer, but the more there
flows in, the more there must flow out ; such a life is the
life of a cormorant 1 .
But what appetites does Callicles refer to ? To be
consistent, he is ready to include all, even the foulest ;
he will say that the good and the pleasant are absolutely
identical. But can this be? For, firstly, Callicles will
admit courage and knowledge to be not identical either
with each other or with pleasure ; how then can he main-
tain good to be identical with pleasure ? Secondly, he
will admit that well-faring and ill-faring, good and evil,
happiness and unhappiness, are as opposite to each other
as health and disease, strength and weakness, quickness
and slowness ; and that it is as impossible for any one to
fare well and ill simultaneously, or to cease faring well
1 Gorgias, 492 D-494 B.
294 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
and ill simultaneously, as it is to be healthy and diseased,
or to cease being healthy and diseased, simultaneously ;
yet a person who is thirsty and drinks feels pain and
pleasure simultaneously, and ceases to feel them simul-
taneously. Thirdly, he will admit that what he calls
' good ' men are made good by the presence of good
things, as it is the presence of beauty which makes
beautiful things beautiful ; and he does not call cowards
and fools good men ; yet cowards and fools, as he allows,
experience at least as much pleasure and pain as the
brave and wise ; if, then, pleasure and pain are good and
evil, and the presence of them makes those who feel
them good or bad, we shall have to say that bad men are
as good and as bad as good men 1 .
Callicles, who has only been answering such petti-
fogging questions to please Gorgias and to satisfy
Socrates' childish love of argument, now announces that
of course he, like everybody else, thinks some pleasures
better than others. There are, then, Socrates pursues,
good and bad pleasures, that is, pleasures which do good
and pleasures which do harm ; and so with pains. And
this good which they do is what makes us choose and do
pleasant and painful things ; that is, we choose pleasure
for the sake of good, not good for the sake of pleasure.
Now this choosing is clearly not a thing in the power of
every one ; it requires a man who has the art. And this
brings us back to the distinction made before between
the empiricism of the confectioner, for instance, and the
art of the physician. To this distinction Socrates begs
Callicles to attend seriously, for, unless they agree about
it, they cannot settle the question at issue — the question,
which life they ought to try to live, the political life of
1 Gorgias, 494 B-499 B.
THE GORGIAS 295
Callicles or the philosophic life of Socrates. The ground
of the distinction, then, is this. There are two methods
of treating the soul ; the one, which aims at what is best
for the soul, investigates the nature of its subject-matter,
and can give an account of its own processes ; the other,
which aims only at giving pleasure, that is, at flattery,
has never investigated the nature and cause of pleasure,
or attempted to classify it into better and worse ; it is a
mere rule of thumb, based upon memory of what usually
occurs. Instances of the second kind of method are,
in Socrates' opinion, all such arts as those of public
players and singers, of dithyrambic and even of tragic
poets ; since tragedy, for all its grand air, never declines
to say what pleases the populace on the ground that
it is bad for them, and, if divested of melody, rhythm,
and metre, is only a sort of mob-oratory and rhetoric.
And what are we to say of rhetoric proper ? To which
method does it belong ? l
Callicles would make a distinction ; some rhetoricians,
he thinks, have no care for the good of the citizens in
what they say, but there are some who do care. He can-
not indeed mention any such now living, but from what
he hears he believes that Themistocles, Cimon, Miltiades,
and Pericles were good men, and made the Athenians
better. Socrates cannot think so, unless goodness means
indiscriminate satisfaction of appetite ; otherwise, which
of these men answers to the requirements of a good
rhetorician? A man who in speaking aims at what is
best will not speak at random, but with something in
view. This is true of all artists — painters, architects,
shipbuilders, and the rest ; they do not put their materials
together at random, but in a certain order, compelling
1 Gorgias, 499 B-502 E.
296 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
one piece to fit with another so that their work may
have a definite form. And in the same way trainers
and physicians, in treating the body, try to organize it
and put it in order. It is this presence of order which
distinguishes a good ship or house from a bad one,
and if we are consistent we must say the same of the
soul. Health is the name given to order in the body ;
law, resulting in justice and temperance, to that in the
soul. To produce this order, then, will be the aim of
the ' good and artistic ' speaker in all that he says and
does ; and, if the soul which he addresses be in a bad
state, he will only indulge those appetites which are
good for it, and will restrain the others, just as the
physician does with the diseased body. Restraint, there-
fore, must be better for the soul than the absolute licence
which Callicles considered happiness 1 .
First, then (since Callicles here declines to answer any
more, and advises Socrates to finish his argument by
himself), let us recapitulate our results. The good and the
pleasant are not the same, and the pleasant must be
done for the sake of the good. Everything, natural and
artificial, soul and body, is made good by the presence of
its own virtue, and is given by this virtue its proper
order, Tightness, art. The good soul is that which has
this order, that is, which is temperate. Such a soul will
behave in the right way to men, gods, and circumstances,
and will therefore be just, religious, and brave. This is
perfect goodness, and goodness is well-being, and well-
being is happiness. Temperance, therefore, is the mark
at which a man must aim if he would be happy, and
licence is what he must fly from. The robber's life of
unrestrained appetite makes communion, and therefore
1 Gorgias, 503 A-505 B.
• THE GORGIAS 297
friendship, impossible, either with gods or men 1 . It is
friendship, orderliness, temperance, and justice which,
as wise men tell us, hold together heaven and earth and
men and gods, and this is why they call the universe
'order' (cosmos); Callicles has not sufficiently realized
the ' power of geometrical equality.' And, if these things
are true, it follows that the paradoxes of Socrates, and
the concessions forced from Gorgias and Polus, are true
also, and the helplessness to resist injustice, which
Callicles called so shameful, is not so shameful as the
doing of the injustice. These consequences seem to
Socrates to be ' riveted with reasons of iron and
adamant'; he only knows that he has never yet found
anybody who could ' undo ' them. And, if this is so,
of all kinds of helplessness the most shameful is to be
unable to help ourselves or our friends not to do
injustice 2 .
There are, then, two evils, doing injustice and suffering
it ; and the first is the greater. By what means can we
protect ourselves against them ? It clearly is not enough
merely to ' wish ' not to suffer injustice ; and, as we saw
in the argument with Polus, nobody ' wishes ' to do it ;
the avoidance of both evils, therefore, implies some
power or art. The way to avoid suffering injustice is
either to rule in the state ourselves, or to be the friends
of those who rule. And to be their friends we must be
as like them as possible : if we are much better than
they, they will fear us ; if much worse, they will despise
us. But the way to escape doing injustice will be the
opposite of this : imitation of those in power would be
the very way to do the most of it, and to ruin one's
soul. Socrates does not want telling that the man who
1 Cp. Republic, i. 351 B-352 B. 2 Gorgias, 505C-509C.
298 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
takes the second way will be at the mercy of the man
who takes the first ; but what of that ? Is it our sole
business to keep ourselves alive as long as possible ?
If Callicles thinks so much of rhetoric, why does he
think so little of such arts as swimming, navigation, or
military engineering? Do they not save life, and in
some cases a great deal more than life? The pilot
brings us all the way from Egypt to Athens for two
drachmae, and does not give himself airs in consequence.
How, indeed, can he be sure that it would not have been
better for us if he had left us in the sea ? The engineer
does not preach to us all to become engineers, and yet
he saves the lives of a whole city. Why does Callicles
despise him, and refuse to marry his daughter ? ' Because
Callicles is a better man, and better born.' But, if good-
ness consists in keeping life alive at all costs, how is
Callicles better? The truth is, no one who is really
a man thinks about how long he is to live ; he leaves
that to God, knowing, as women say, that ' we must all
die some time' ; what he thinks about is, how he can best
spend the time that is given him. Shall we then get
power at the peril of our souls, and make ourselves as
like the Athenian people as we can? For assuredly
there is no other art or device by which a man can
succeed as a politician and rhetorician, as Callicles
understands success x .
Let us recall what we said before about the two
methods of treating souls, the one aiming at giving them
pleasure, the other at making them better. Clearly the
latter must be the method of the true politician ; for
what is the good of giving people wealth or power before
their minds are in a good condition? Now, supposing
1 Gorgias, 509 C-513 C.
THE GORGIAS 299
we were trying for the place of architect or physician to
the state, we should ask ourselves, firstly, Have wc learnt
architecture or medicine ? and secondly, What buildings
have wc produced, or what patients have we treated, and
are the buildings good or bad, the patients better or
worse ? So with politics, which Callicles is just taking
up himself, and exhorts Socrates to take up ; must wc
not ask, Is there any one in Athens who was bad before
— unjust, licentious, foolish, — and whom Callicles has
made good ? Let us apply this test to the men whom he
mentioned as instances of good citizens, Pericles, Cimon,
Miltiades, Themistocles. Were the Athenians better at
the end of Pericles' career than at the beginning ?
Socrates has been told that they were worse ; that
Pericles, by his system of public payments, made them
idlers, cowards, babblers, money-lovers. And, if this is
a conservative calumny, it is at any rate a fact that,
while Pericles began by being popular, towards the end
of his life he was condemned for embezzlement and
nearly put to death. Surely, if he had been a good
statesman, he ought to have made the creatures under
his management more tame and just instead of more
wild and unjust ; at least, that is what we should expect
from a man who had to manage asses or horses or oxen.
The same thing is shown by the ostracism of Cimon,
the banishment of Themistocles, the condemnation of
Miltiades ; it is not the good driver who waits to be
upset until he has had a long time for improving himself
and his horses 1 .
We may repeat, therefore, that 'we know of no one
in this state who has been a good statesman,' and of
the men whom Callicles instanced we must say that,
1 Gorgias, 513C-516E.
300 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
if they were rhetoricians, they understood neither true
rhetoric nor the rhetoric of flattery. No doubt, as
Callicles urges, they achieved greater things than any
living statesman ; but this only means that they were
better ' ministers ' to the state — that is, to the pas-
sions and appetites of its members ; in controlling and
directing such appetites they were no better. They
were men who seem to Socrates to have done for the
state much what our great cooks and bakers and wine-
dealers do for our bodies ; they add flesh to them, but
at the expense of the flesh we had before ; and when
we get ill long afterwards, instead of blaming them,
we blame those who happen to be advising us at the
moment. So with the state. The men who fed it up and
made it great with trash like harbours, docks, walls,
and revenues, with no virtue in them, are glorified by the
present generation, who do not see that it is swollen and
festering ; and, when the crisis of the disease comes, they
will continue to praise Themistocles, and Cimon, and
Pericles, who are the causes of the evil, and they will lay
hands on men like Callicles and Alcibiades, who are
partly perhaps, but not wholly, responsible for it \
Nor have public men any right to complain so bitterly
as they do of the injustice with which they are treated
by their country, to which they claim to have done so
much good. They are as unreasonable as the sophists,
who profess to teach virtue, and then accuse their pupils
of wronging them by their ingratitude. If they have
put justice into them, how can it issue in injustice?
And, though Callicles objects to putting statesmen and
rhetoricians on the same level with sophists, Socrates
can see scarcely any difference between them ; indeed, he
1 Go?-gias, 517 A-519 B.
THE GORGIAS 301
puts sophistic above rhetoric, as he puts the legislative
art above the judicial, and gymnastic above medicine.
Surely public speakers and sophists are just the persons
who cannot blame those whom they educate, without at
the same time condemning their own incompetence.
They are also the only persons who ought to be able to
dispense with a fixed charge for their services ; for, if they
succeed in removing injustice, there is no fear of their
not being justly requited. This seems to be the reason
why the only advice for which it is thought dishonour-
able to demand money is advice how to be a good man
and citizen : it is the only form of benefit which must
make the recipient wish to return it ; and, if he does not,
it is a sign that the benefit has not been conferred l .
And now which method of treatment does Callicles
advise Socrates to adopt — that of fighting with the
Athenians to make them as good as possible, or that
of ministering to their pleasures ? Callicles still advises
the second ; he wonders that Socrates is so confident and
does not see that he is at the mercy of any scoundrel who
likes to accuse him. Socrates, comes the answer, is wise
enough to know that in Athens anything may happen to
anybody ; nevertheless, he knows that he is innocent, and
that no good man would accuse him. But, indeed, he
would not be surprised if he were put to death, for ' he
believes himself to be almost, if not quite, the only man
in Athens who attempts the true art of politics' ; and so,
if he is brought before a court of justice, he will be like
a physician put on his trial by a confectioner before
a court of children ; he will not be able to say that he
has provided them with pleasures, and if he says the
truth, that all his questionings and harsh criticisms were
1 Gorgias, 519 B-520 E.
302 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
for their good, who will listen to him? Still, whatever
Callicles may think, this is not the helplessness of which
a man need be ashamed ; the only help worth having is
that which comes from having lived righteously ; to die
for want of that help would indeed be grievous, but to
die for want of flattering rhetoric is nothing. No one
can fear death itself, unless he be utterly unthinking and
unmanly ; but to go to the other world with his soul
loaded with injustice, that is what every one must fear 1 .
Listen to a story of these things (Callicles will think
it only a story, but it is true nevertheless). In the reign
of Cronos it was the law of the gods, as it still is, that
those men who have lived righteously should go to the
islands of the blessed and live in happiness, and those,
who have lived unrighteously, to Tartarus, the prison-
house of punishment. Formerly men used to be judged
alive, and on the day on which they were to die ; and
the judges also were alive. The consequence was that
the wrong persons often went to the wrong place ; for
those who came for judgment came clothed in their
bodies and riches and rank, and there were witnesses
with them to witness to their good lives ; the judges too
had to judge through the veil of their eyes and ears and
bodies. Hearing this, Zeus first made Prometheus take
away from men the power of foreseeing their deaths ;
and then he ordained that, when they came to be judged,
they should be dead, naked, and alone, and that the
judges also should be dead and naked, so that soul
might see into soul. From this story we may draw the
following conclusions. Death is nothing but the separa-
tion of soul and body ; and when they are separated each
retains the characteristics which it had during life ; if
1 Gorgias, 520 E-522 E.
THE GORGIAS 303
the body was large or stout or scarred or maimed in
life, it remains so for a time after death; and in the
same way the soul, when stripped of the body, shows all
the marks of its nature and habits. The judge, then,
when it comes before him, does not know whose soul it
is ; it may be that of the Great King himself; but, when
he looks at it. he sees perhaps that it is full of scars and
crookedness and disproportion, where perjury and in-
justice, falsehood and conceit, wantonness and licence,
have left their marks ; and he sends it away in dis-
honour to be punished. Punishment has two ends, to
improve and to warn. Those who are punished for
their good are those whose sins are curable, though
only by suffering both in this world and the next ; for
suffering is the only way of getting rid of injustice.
Incurable sinners are punished, not for their own good,
but for that of others, to whom they are ' hung up in
Hades as warnings,' suffering torments for ever. Most
of them have been tyrants, kings or rulers, for they,
having the greatest power, commit the greatest sins.
Not but that there have been and will be good rulers
and kings, and these deserve all our admiration, for
it is hard for a man to live uprightly when he has great
power to do wrong ; Aristides is one famous instance of
a man who was able to deal justly with whatever was
put into his hands. When, then, the judge sees a wicked
soul, all that he knows is that it is wicked, and he marks
it as curable or incurable and sends it to Tartarus ; and
when he finds a soul that has lived a righteous life, the
life perhaps of a single-minded philosopher, he sends it
with admiration to the islands of the blessed 1 .
Socrates is persuaded of the truth of these sayings,
1 Gorgias, 522 E-526 D.
304 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
and is seeking how he may present his soul to the judge
as healthy as possible. With this end he puts aside the
honours of the world, and strives, by looking for the
truth, to live and die as good a man as he can. This is
the prize which he would call Callicles and the rest of
mankind to live for ; it is worth all other prizes ; and it
will be shame to Callicles if he is helpless when he comes
before the judge, and stands as dizzy and gaping there
as Socrates would do here. This may all seem to him
an old wives' tale, but have we found anything better?
Three of the wisest living men in Greece — Gorgias, Polus,
and Callicles — have been unable to prove that any life is
worth living but that which profits hereafter. And, of all
the theories which we have heard, the only one which
has not been shaken is this : that to do injustice is worse
than to suffer it ; that the best thing is to be just, and the
next best thing to be made just by punishment ; that we
must fly from all flattery of ourselves and of others, and
that we must use rhetoric, and everything else that we
touch, in the service of justice. This, if Callicles will
believe it, is the only road to happiness, both in life and
after death. If he will follow this with Socrates, he
need not fear being despised and insulted, for nothing
will be able to hurt him. And, when they have com-
pleted their training in virtue, then it will be time to
think of taking to politics and offering advice ; at present
they have so neglected their education that on the
greatest subjects they never think the same thing twice.
The best life is to live and die in the practice of virtue:
let this principle be our light and guide, not the principle
in which Callicles put his trust, for that is worth nothing 1 .
As a masterpiece of writing, the Gorgias must speak
1 Gorgias, 526 D-527 E.
THE GORGIAS 305
for itself; its effect can only be weakened by comment.
All that is necessary here is to draw attention to the
logic of its conclusion, which is liable to be obscured by
the very force with which it is expressed. The issue in
which the dialogue culminates is that between the life of
'philosophy' and the life of 'politics.' The antithesis
thus stated suggests to modern ears that between specu-
lation and action, or (still more misleadingly) that
between theory and practice. But consideration shows
that Plato is not here opposing the scientific investiga-
tor of politics to the working statesman, still less the
academic to the parliamentary politician. The true
modern equivalent to the opposition which he has in his
mind is that between principle and no principle. The
question which he puts to the various advocates of power
and pleasure is this : ' When you say that power and
pleasure are the best things, the things most worth
having, do you really mean power and pleasure as such,
the mere capacity to do anything and everything, the
mere sensibility to any and every pleasant feeling ; or
do you mean power to do and feel something which (for
whatever reason) you consider good ? If the latter (and
the latter is what you must mean), then you have
admitted some other principle of life than the mere
capacity of feeling or doing what pleases you.' The
fact that there is some other principle than this, or
rather that the only possible principle is something other
than this, is to Plato the central fact, which alone makes
life and the world intelligible. Wherever he looks, to
the work of the artist, the doctor, the mechanic, to the
constitution of human society, to the operations of
nature, he finds that success, excellence, well-being,
depend upon, or rather are identical with, the observance
VOL. I. X
306 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
of a certain order or law. What the particular order is,
and what the particular excellence of which it is the
condition, depends on the nature of the thing in ques-
tion ; bodily health and moral goodness, beauty and
utility, are different excellences expressing different
orders ; the all-important point to Plato is that they do
express an order, and that only so far as they express it
are they good.
If this is the ultimate truth of things, and if 'philosophy '
is simply the operative love of truth, the ' philosophic '
life will be the life lived in the continual and growing
consciousness of this truth ; in the consciousness that,
whatever we have to deal with, be it a house or a living
body, the physical universe or human society, we shall
deal with it successfully just in proportion as we recognize
that it has a principle of its own, and deal with it upon
that principle. The ' philosophic ' statesman, then, is
not the man who spends his time in dreaming of Utopias,
but the man who takes for his aim, not to please, but to
make men better, and who realizes that, while the former
aim consistently carried out must dissipate itself in an
aimless empiricism, the latter, starting with the re-
cognition of reason as the primary factor in things,
leads to greater and greater concentration of all effort
in a more and more comprehensive end. In such a con-
ception there is not necessarily involved any antagonism
to active political life ; the antagonism is to a political
rule of thumb, which regards, not the permanent interests
of the people at large, but a transitory fragment of their
nervous susceptibilities. It is true that Plato, when he
wrote the Gorgias, was convinced that nearly all the
great Athenian statesmen had failed of his ideal ; and he
no doubt regarded the execution of Socrates as a crown-
THE PH1LEBUS 307
ing proof of the triumph of that evil spirit in politics
vhich seemed to him to have been silently gathering
strength since the days of Miltiadcs and Themistocles.
Tr> philosophers, as to other men, theories are the inter-
pretation of their experience ; and, however true a prin-
ciple of interpretation may be, the interpretation itself
will always have a strong personal colouring. We are
here concerned, not to judge Plato's judgment of Pericles
in the Gorgias, but to understand the conception of
statesmanship, and of human life generally, upon which
his judgment was formed.
That conception receives new light and development Phikbus.
from the Philebus, a dialogue in most ways so unlike the
Gorgias that the agreement of the two in certain im-
portant points is the more striking. The Philebus is
almost as remarkable for the absence, as the Gorgias is
for the presence, of moral inspiration and dramatic
power. The style seldom escapes from a cumbrous
obscurity, and only here and there are the claims of
pleasure to be the end of life combated with vehemence.
The practical consequences of the doctrine are kept in
the background, and the argument moves in a region of
metaphysical and psychological analysis, the bearing of
which upon the original question is often dubious or
remote. Yet, under these differences of tone and treat-
ment, the ground upon which the issue is decided is
substantially the same as in the Gorgias. If the latter
dialogue insists that life implies principle, and that
power and pleasure as such cannot be made to yield
a principle, the Philebus shows that the good cannot be
found in mere feeling, because mere feeling is, strictly
speaking, nothing, and gets whatever form or quality it
X %
308 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
has from something other than feeling. And again, as
in the Gorgias the evidence of reason in the world and
human life is found in a certain order or law which
determines otherwise random elements, so in the Philebus
reality in general, and human consciousness in particular,
are represented as an unquantified and unqualified matter
which is continually taking definite character under the
formative action of mind. Lastly, the conclusion sug-
gested by the Gorgias, that the goodness of a thing
is identical with its realized end or full reality, is
explicitly developed in the Philebus, where it is finally
affirmed that the divine good in the world is manifested
under the triple form of measure, beauty, and truth.
The question asked in the Philebus is one with which
we are already familiar, What is the ' condition of soul
which can make human life happy'? or, What is the
' best thing that a man can have,' in other words,
1 the good ' ? But the particular manner in which this
question is treated will seem strange, and perhaps un-
instructive, to a modern reader. The whole dialogue is
dominated by an idea peculiarly Greek, and foreign, at
least in this form, to the mind of Northern Europe. It
has become almost a commonplace of modern culture
to contrast the Greek view of life with its love of perfect
attainment, and our own with its unsatisfied aspiration.
' To-day's brief passion limits their range ;
It seethes with the morrow for us, and more.
They are perfect — how else ? they shall never change :
We are faulty — why not ? we have time in store.'
There is truth in this contrast ; but it would be very
misleading to suppose that, because the Greeks chose
words like ' measure,' ' limit,' ' mean,' to express per-
fection, they were devoid of what we call a 'sense of
THE PHILEBUS 309
the infinite.' Assuredly the philosopher who wrote the
Phaedrtis and the Symposium, who could speak of the
longing of the soul to fly away and be at rest in its lost
' heaven ' of truth, or to abandon itself to the ' great sea '
of beauty, cannot have been the victim of a self-satisfied
formalism. Much confusion would be avoided if it were
remembered that ' limit ' may mean either that to which
we are always getting, or that beyond which we never
get ; in the first sense it is the condition of progress,
in the second its negation. To the Greeks it meant
primarily the first, to us it means primarily the second.
The leading idea of the Philebus, divested of its peculiar
phraseology, is as follows. All existence, human life and
the life of nature alike, is a continual process or move-
ment ; but it is a process which is being continually
arrested. The formless and timeless stream of being,
which we can only conceive as the negation of all
that we know, is for ever taking shape, and becoming
a describable and comprehensible world of things and
events. The blank monotony differentiates itself, the
chaotic multiplicity falls asunder into groups ; sound
becomes rhythmical, speech articulate, time is measured,
temperance is graduated ; human life, physical, intel-
lectual, and moral, rises and falls according to laws of
its own, which the doctor calls health, the philosopher
truth, the moralist virtue. From such a point of view
existence may be described as a perpetual resultant of
two factors, a negative and a positive, that which is never
anything in particular, and that which is ever making
it something. Take any object or event, and try to
characterize it ; each new quality which it exhibits gives
it a fresh hold in the surrounding void ; on this side and
on that, before and behind, welters a dim space which
310 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
becomes ever dimmer with distance; but here, at this
point, there is fixity and limit, here the potential emerges
into actuality, here the nothing has come to be some-
thing. The productive, formative force, which is the
source of the positive and characteristic element in
things, Plato calls reason or mind. The rationality of
the world seems to him to lie in its being measurable,
rhythmical, articulate ; to understand any part of it is to
find its unit of measurement or to trace the lines of its
structure, and each new discovery is the reduction of
a new piece of chaos to order. The idea of measure has
to him something of the power and charm which invest
the modern idea of law. The measure of a thing is its
reality, its true self ; that which has no measure is
neither anything itself, nor can it be brought into any
relation with other things ; to fulfil its own measure, to
be entirely what it is meant to be, and neither to exceed
nor fall short of its place in the great whole of which
' God is the measure * ' — this is to obey the law of its
existence both for itself and for others.
In the particular sphere of human life the indeterminate
and negative element of existence is the stream of feeling,
so far as we can conceive it as absolutely devoid of order,
direction, or result. So conceived it is, indeed, a mere
abstraction, for no named or nameable feeling is of this
utterly characterless nature ; it is always feeling of or
about something, and this something is what qualifies it.
The two feelings called pleasure and pain are, according
to Plato's view, feelings which accompany the restoration
and the disintegration of the normal harmony or balance
of the animal organism ; pleasure is the sense of rising
to a higher grade of vitality, pain the sense of falling
1 Laws, iv. 716 C.
THE PHILEBUS 31 r
from a grade to which we had risen. The character of
both is given to them by the points between which they
move. If they were consciousness of mere process, from
nothing and to nothing, they would not, strictly speaking,
be states of consciousness at all ; if, on the other hand,
life were not a process, if we were not always coming to
be or ceasing to be, wc should not have the specific
feelings of pleasure and pain, we should have the sense
of continual being, which now we can only have at
moments. The contrast between Plato and the modern
mind may be expressed by saying that the former loves
to dwell upon the sense of attainment in life, the latter
upon the sense of movement. The one says, ' Be your
true self ; the other, ' Be better than you are.' The latter
abhors a dead level, the former a motiveless change.
We, like Callicles in the Gorgias 1 , are inclined to ask
whether a life without either pleasure or pain is life at
all, because we instinctively think of it as a compromise
between the two, not as something above both. To enjoy
the sense of rising is doubtless better than never to wish
to rise, but to live permanently at the height is better
than either, and only does not seem so because we are so
incapable of experiencing it. And if it be asked, What
is the thing most worth having in the world ? we can
only answer in terms which give the priority, not to
mere pleasurable feeling of process, but to that which
we come to be in the process. If the end of our being
is to be, to be the utmost we are capable of being, then
the higher the constant level at which we can live, the
less the energy which we have to spend in escaping
the pain of depression, the more each moment contains
in itself, and the less it borrows from felt contrast with
1 Above, pp. 292-3.
312 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
a lower past or a higher future, the more nearly do we
approach the full measure, the full beauty, the full truth,
in which, according to the Philebus, the principle of good
is manifested.
The dialogue opens by asking what is 'the best
thing that a man can have.' Three alternatives are first
suggested. Is it the sense of pleasure, or is it intellectual
truth, or is it something better than either of these x ?
We must begin by investigating the nature of pleasure.
For, though it sounds such a simple thing, it is really
most complex ; the licentious and the temperate, the fool
and the wise, severally feel pleasure, but no reasonable
person would hold that their pleasures are similar. It
maybe said, indeed, that though they arise from opposite
things they all resemble each other in being pleasure.
But it is only very young or very incompetent reasoners
who press such resemblances to the denial of all differ-
ence ; and, if we would not drive logic into illogicality, we
must admit that both in knowledge and pleasure there
are differences, and that each, though one, is also many.
Indeed, the truth is that this coexistence of unity and
multiplicity, though a standing crux of logic, is an
inherent attribute of all reality. Everything of which
we say 'it is ' will be found to be both one and many,
and to have in it a determining and an indeterminate
element. To understand a thing is to see, not merely
that it is one or that it is indefinitely manifold, but
that its unity falls into two or more other unities,
and each of these again into others, and so on until no
further articulations can be detected ; or, again, to see
that its indefinite multiplicity falls into definite groups,
and each group into other groups, until we arrive at
1 Philebus ) n A-12 B, and 19C-20C.
THE PHILEBUS 313
units forming the groups. And so, before we can answer
the question whether pleasure or knowledge is the good,
we should be able to classify their kinds, and say into
how many forms the indeterminate unity of each is
determined 1 .
On reflexion, however, it appears that ' the good '
cannot be either pleasure or knowledge, but must be
something other and better than either. For by ' the
good ' we all understand something complete and sufficing,
something which all desire to have, and without which
they care to have nothing. Now neither a life of pleasure
alone nor a life of intelligence alone satisfies these re-
quirements. A life of pleasure entirely without intelli-
gence would be the life of an oyster, not of a man ; we
should neither know, conceive, remember, nor anticipate
our pleasure. On the other hand, no one would choose
the possession of all intelligence without any feelings of
pleasure and pain. Every one would prefer to either life
a life which combined both. The good, therefore, cannot
be identical either with pleasure or with reason (not at
least with human reason, for with the divine reason it
may be otherwise) ; and the only question can be, which
of the two contributes more to the good which is realized
in their combination ? Neither can have the first prize ;
which is to have the second ? 2
Now, human life is a form of being : what is being ?
Everything of which we say ' it is ' will be found to be
a resultant of ' the indeterminate ' or ' limitless ' and
'determination' or 'limit.' The 'indeterminate' may
be described as that which has no quantitative limit, but
is in continual process of increase and decrease, always
a ' more ' or a ' less,' never a ' so much.' Examples of
1 Philebus, 12B-19B. - lb. 20 B-22 D.
3 i4 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
' determination ' are number and measure, and everything
which puts a stop to the difference of opposites, such as
more and less, and makes them measurable and com-
parable. Wherever these two elements combine, the
result is a third form of being different from either ; and
the indeterminate process now comes to be a determinate
something. Thus it is the introduction of determination
into indeterminate tone and time which produces music ;
and from similar combinations result the temperature of
the seasons, the health, beauty, and strength of the body,
law and order in the soul, and innumerable other good
things. Lastly, whatever comes into being must have
a cause — in other words, must be produced by something ;
and it is in the nature of things that that which produces
is prior to that which is produced ; the former leads, the
latter obeys. We must therefore distinguish cause as
a fourth element from the other three 1 .
Let us now apply this analysis to the question at issue.
The life of combined pleasure and reason in which we
have placed the good must, like all other complex forms
of existence, involve determination of an indeterminate
element. Of its two constituent factors pleasure clearly
belongs to the indeterminate, for it is something which,
in itself and as such, has neither beginning, middle, nor
end. If it be said that its indeterminateness is just what
makes it good, it must be answered that it is the same
indeterminateness which makes pain evil ; therefore what-
ever good there may be in pleasure must come from some
other source 2 . Reason, on the other hand, would seem
to be of the nature of cause. It is an old theory of some
philosophers that mind is the king of heaven and earth,
and it seems impossible to suppose that the universe is
1 Philebus, 23 B-27 C. 2 Cp. ib. 31 A and 32 B.
THE PHILEDUS 315
regulated by irrational chance. Moreover, when we
compare the elements of body (fire, water, air, and earth),
as they exist in us, with these same elements as they
exist in the universe, we see that the former are very
much poorer in amount and force than the latter, by
which they are produced, sustained, and controlled. The
same is true of body as a whole ; our body depends on
the body of the universe, not that of the universe on
ours. Our body, again, is endowed with soul ; and must
not the same considerations apply to that? Whence
could we get it, unless the body of the universe were
endowed with soul, as good as ours and better ? Surely
we cannot suppose that the cause which works in us
under the name of wisdom, keeping our body alive and
in health and harmony, is not also working on a corre-
spondingly grander scale in the grander field of the
universe. We may say, then, that the determining and
indeterminate elements are present all through the
world, and we may call the mighty cause which orders
them the sovereign mind, residing in the sovereign soul
of Zeus. Reason in man, then, would seem to be es-
sentially causative, and akin to the divine reason which
creates and sustains the world l .
Having thus determined the generic character of reason
and pleasure in themselves, let us go on to examine the
sphere and occasions of their occurrence in human life.
Pleasure and pain (to take them first) occur in connexion
with the third form of being of which we spoke, that in
which determination combines with an indeterminate.
In all living things there is a natural harmony, implying,
like all harmony, a certain determination of an inde-
terminate ; when this harmony is being broken up, pain
1 Philebus, 27 C-31 A.
316 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
takes place ; when it is being restored, pleasure. If there
were neither restoration nor disintegration going on, the
animal would feel neither pleasure nor pain, and that is
just the condition which we described above as the life of
pure reason : we may find eventually that this is the
most divine life of all ; anyhow, we cannot without im-
propriety think of the gods as feeling pleasure or the
reverse 1 . One form of pleasure and pain, then, is that
which accompanies the processes of bodily restoration
and disintegration ; a second form is that which ac-
companies the anticipation of such processes by the soul
itself without the body. This takes place through
memory: the soul retains the sensation of something
which it experienced with the body, and recovers it with-
out the body. This is the explanation of appetite, which
is really a thing of the soul, not of the body ; for appetite
is an impulse towards a state the opposite of that in
which the body is at the moment, and this is only possible
through memory 2 . A third form is that in which pain
of body is accompanied by pleasure of soul, that is, by
a memory of pleasant things which would relieve the
pain 3 .
So much for the circumstances under which pleasure
and pain occur : let us now apply these observations to
determine the relative truth or falsity of the pleasures
and pains which we have been describing. And, first, we
must ask in what senses we can speak of things like pain
and pleasure, fear and hope, being false. We conceive,
indeed, that in dreams or madness a person may think
that he feels pleasure and yet not do so ; but are we
right in this ? Let us compare pleasure with thought.
1 Philebus, 31 B-33 C. 2 lb. 33 C-35 D.
■ lb. 35D-36B.
THE PHILEBUS 317
There is that which thinks and that which is thought,
and there is that which feels pleasure and that at which
the pleasure is felt; and as the thinking subject really
thinks, whether it thinks rightly or not, so the pleased
subject is really pleased, whether the pleasure be rightly
felt or not. If, then, truth and falsity are attributes of
thought, why should they not be equally attributes of
pleasure, in spite of the fact that all pleasure is in a sense
real? Or is it the case that pleasure and pain do not
admit of qualification at all, but are simply what they
are ? Clearly not, for we speak of them as great, small,
or intense; we admit that the addition of badness makes
them bad ; and we cannot deny that a mistaken opinion
as to their object makes them mistaken. If it still be
maintained that in the last case it is the opinion which is
false, not the pleasure, it must at least be allowed that
there is a great difference between pleasure accompanied
by right opinion or knowledge, and pleasure accompanied
by false opinion or ignorance ; the difference is that,
while in both cases the pleasure is really felt, in the
former it is felt at a real, in the latter at an unreal, object.
We may exemplify opinion thus. We see something,
ask ourselves what it is, and say to ourselves, ' It is so
and so.' The soul may here be compared to a book, on
which a present sensation, coalescing with a remembered
sensation, writes certain words. This act of writing is
followed (to use another metaphor) by an act of picturing,
whereby the objects of the opinion are detached from
the original sensations, and their images transferred to the
soul. If what is thus written in the soul represents the
truth, the opinion is true, and, if the opinion is true,
the corresponding images are true. Now these psychical
affections relate to future things as well as to present and
318 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
past, and there are corresponding pleasures and pains of
anticipation ; a man, for instance, may enjoy the picture
of himself enjoying a future pleasure. Human life is
thronged with such pictures of hope ; if a man is good
and beloved by the gods, his pictures are probably true ;
if not, false. This, then, is one sense in which pleasure
and pain (and similarly fear, anger, and other feelings),
though really felt, may be untrue ; we may express it by
saying that the truth or falsity of opinion infects feeling.
Whether falsity in pleasure is equivalent to badness, as
it is in opinion, is a question which we need not discuss
at present 1 .
A second form in which we may experience false
pleasures is that in which feeling infects opinion. We
saw above that when we feel appetite we may feel pain
and pleasure simultaneously, pain from the present bodily
affection, pleasure from the remembered and expected
relief. We also saw that pleasure and pain are essentially
indeterminate. Suppose then that we wish, as we often
do in such cases, to judge which is the greater, a pleasure
or a pain, how are we to do it ? We find that their
magnitude, like that of objects of sight, appears to vary
with their position ; they seem greater when looked at
nearer, less when further off, and greater again when
looked at side by side with each other. If then, we cut
off from each the apparent excess or defect, we must say
that both the appearance and the corresponding amount
of feeling are wrong and untrue 2 .
Following out this idea of the relativity of pleasure
and pain to one another, we find that they admit of still
greater degrees of falsity, so much so, indeed, that some
1 Philebits, 36C-41 A.
2 lb. 41 A-42A. Cp. Protagoras, 352D-357A.
THE PHILEBUS 319
philosophers have been led to deny the reality of pleasure
altogether. They maintain that what is called pleasure
is a mere illusion, being really nothing but the sense of
relief from pain. The antipathy of these philosophers to
pleasure is based, not upon knowledge, but upon a sort
of instinct, a noble instinct, which makes them distrust
pleasure in every form. Without agreeing with them,
we may use their theory to illustrate the possible falsity
of pleasure. What they say is this. If we wanted to
know the real nature of anything, of hardness for instance,
we should examine the hardest things that we could
find ; and we must do the same with pleasure. Now the
greatest (i. e. the intensest) pleasures are those of the
body ; and these are greater in proportion as the appetites
which precede them are greater ; that is, they are greater
in diseased than in healthy bodies, and in intemperate
than temperate souls. Now what makes us call them
the ' greatest ' pleasures is the fact that they are mixed
with pain. Such mixtures of feeling may be in the body
itself, or in the soul itself, or in both together. An
instance of the first kind is itching ; of the second, the
feelings which we have in seeing tragedy or comedy
acted ; and of the third, the cases in which a sense of
want coexists with a prospect of satisfaction. In such
combinations as come under the first head, the pain may
be greater than the pleasure, as when an itch is deep-
seated and can only be partially removed by rubbing ;
or it may be less, in which case the pleasure gives rise to
the most ungovernable effects in colour, gesture, and
voice, and makes us say that we are ' almost dying ' of
delight. The more witless and licentious a man is, the
more he pursues such pleasures l .
1 Philebus, 42 C-47 C.
320 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
So much for mixed pleasures of the body : we have
already spoken l of the cases in which body and soul are
oppositely affected : it remains to consider the mixture
within the soul itself. Anger, fear, regret, grief, love, envy,
jealousy and the like, are pains of the soul ; yet we find
them often accompanied by great pleasure. ' Wrath,' says
Achilles, ' is sweeter than honey,' and in seeing a tragedy
acted we feel pleasure at the same moment that we weep.
The pleasure of comedy, too, is similarly, though less
obviously, mixed ; what we laugh at as comic is the harm-
less conceit of our neighbours arising from their self-
ignorance, which makes them think themselves richer,
handsomer, or cleverer, than they really are ; in the jealous
irritation which we feel at this conceit we are pained, but
in laughing at it we are pleased. The same applies
to 'the whole tragedy and comedy of real life'; and
a similar mixture might be shown in the other emotions
which we mentioned 2 .
We have seen that many so-called pleasures are not
really pleasures at all, while others appear greater than
they are through being mixed with pains. We do not
however agree with the theory that all pleasure is cessa-
tion from pain ; there are also true or unmixed pleasures,
and to these we now pass. Pure pleasures, then, are
such as accompany the satisfaction of wants of which we
are not conscious, or not painfully conscious. Such are
the pleasures associated with beautiful colours and forms,
sounds and scents. By beauty of form we are not to
understand beauty of living things or their copies, but
that of straight lines and curves, and the planes and
solids formed from them ; these are beautiful, not rela-
tively, but in themselves, and the corresponding pleasures
1 Philebus, 35 D-36 C. 2 lb. 47 D-50 E.
THE PHIL E BUS 321
are pleasant in themselves. The same is true of smooth
clear sounds of one pure tone, and of the analogous
colours. The pleasures of smell are ' less divine ' than
these, but resemble them in not necessarily implying
pain. To these we must add the pleasures of knowledge,
for neither the getting nor the losing of knowledge is
accompanied by a painful sense of want, except as a
result of reflexion 1 .
We have thus got a division of pleasures into pure and
impure. The latter or intense kind is obviously of the
nature of the indeterminate and unmeasured, the former
of the measured ; while, as regards their comparative
truth, we see that, as a little pure white is whiter, truer,
and more beautiful of its kind than a great deal which is
impure, so a little unmixed pleasure will be pleasanter,
truer, and more beautiful than much mixed 2 . As to the
identification of pleasure with the good, we may thank-
fully apply the theory of those ingenious persons who
hold that pleasure has no ' being ' but is always ' coming
to be.' Things may be divided into those which are self-
related and self-contained, and those which relate to, and
are in need of, other things ; the former are those for
which something else exists, the latter those which exist
for something else. Being comes under the former, be-
coming under the latter, head. All things of the nature
of remedies, instruments, and material, exist for, and
have their end in, something which is coming to be; and
all things which are coming to be exist for, and have
their end in, something which is. Now that in which
things have their end lies in the sphere of the good ; that
which has its end in something else lies elsewhere.
Pleasure, therefore, if it is a process of becoming, has its
1 Philebus, 50 E-52 B. a lb. 52 C-53 C.
VOL. I. V
322 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
end in something else and cannot be of the nature of the
good ; and those who hold that life is not worth having
without hunger, thirst, and similar appetites, the relief of
which is such a process, prefer an existence of continual
coming and ceasing to be, to one in which there is neither
pleasure nor pain, but the purest possible exercise of
reason. The absurdity of identifying the good with
pleasure appears still further when we consider that it
compels us to deny goodness of everything except the
soul, and of everything in the soul except pleasure, and
moreover to hold a person good and bad in proportion
as, and at the times when, he feels and does not feel
pleased 1 .
Having thus sifted pleasure, we must not spare reason
and knowledge, but must free them also from alloy as
far as possible, so that when we come to judge between
the claimants we may have before us the truest elements
of each. What kinds of knowledge, then, are the purest?
Knowledge may be divided into professional and educa-
tional. Of the professional arts we see that those are
the more exact in which there is more numbering,
measuring, weighing ; the less of these there is, the more
does the art sink into guesswork and empiricism. Thus
such arts as carpentry, shipbuilding, and architecture,
owing to the numerous instruments which they can use,
are more exact than those of music, medicine, agriculture,
navigation, and war. Again, there is a difference in
clearness and exactness according as the arts of number,
measure, and weight are pursued by ordinary people or
by philosophers ; the former, for example, count with
unequal units (two armies, two oxen), while the latter
insist that every unit must be equal to every other.
1 Philebus, 53 C-55 C.
THE PHILEBUS 323
These arts, however, even when philosophically pursued,
are not the most exact and clear forms of knowledge ;
the first place must be given to philosophy, the universal
science, which is concerned with being as such, in its real
and unchangeable nature. Other arts (rhetoric, for in-
stance) may be greater, more popular, more profitable ;
but, having regard to the love of truth for its own sake,
we must consider philosophy to be the purest exercise
of reason. Most of the other arts are concerned with
the mere opinions of men ; even those which investigate
nature confine themselves to the processes of the sensible
universe, and these, being in perpetual change, do not
admit of the truest knowledge. Consistency, truth, and
purity, then, must be assigned in the first degree to the
thought which is exercised upon things unchangeable or
things most akin to these, and can be assigned only in
lower degrees to other forms of thought l .
And now reason and pleasure may be said to lie before
us, like material ready for the craftsman to work with.
Neither of them alone, as we have seen, satisfies the
requirements of the good ; the good must be looked for
in the mixed life, and presumably in the well-mixed.
How then shall we mix them, the honey of pleasure, and
the austere water of reason ? We shall begin most
safely by mixing the truest parts of each ; but will these
suffice to make a perfect life? No; clearly it is not
enough to have the ' divine ' knowledge of things as they
really are ; we must have the every-day ' human ' know-
ledge as well, otherwise we shall not be able to find the
way to our own houses. Nor can we dispense with
music, unscientific though it is ; life would not be life
without it. In fact we need not be afraid to admit all
1 Philebus, 55 C-59 D.
Y 1
324 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
forms of knowledge, pure and impure alike. But it will
be otherwise with pleasures ; when we have taken the
true kinds, and have added, as in the case of knowledge,
those which are necessary to life, we must stop. For,
while pleasure must be the better for having any know-
ledge for a companion, especially knowledge of itself, it is
only true and pure, healthy and temperate, pleasures
which are consistent with the exercise of reason ; the
pleasures of folly and vice only impede and corrupt it.
Moreover, truth is indispensable to the combination ;
nothing would be real without it x .
And now, assuming our materials to be combined into
one organic whole, we may suppose ourselves to be
standing before the house where the Good dwells ; and
we have to ask, Which is the highest element in the
combination, and the chief cause of its being universally
desirable ; and is this element more akin to reason or to
pleasure ? It is clear that what makes any mixture
good is measure and proportion ; without these indeed
there could be no mixture at all, but only an unmixed
conglomerate. Proportion always gives rise to beauty ;
and truth, we remember, is already an essential element
in the combination. Thus the good, which escapes us
when we try to grasp it in a single form, is apprehensible
under the triple form of measure, beauty, and truth ; and
these three in one are what make the combination good.
There is now no difficulty in answering the second
part of our question. Pleasure is the most lying thing
in the world, while reason, if not identical with truth, is
of all things the most like it. Pleasure, again, is the
most unmeasured, mind and knowledge the most
measured; of things. And lastly, while no one ever saw
1 Phikbus, 59 D-64 B.
THE PHILEBUS 325
or conceived any ugliness in reason, the sight of some of
the greatest pleasures is cither ridiculous or disgusting l .
We may now, therefore, proclaim to the world that
pleasure is not the first of possessions, or the second
either. First come measure and all things of the same
eternal nature as measure ; second, proportion, beauty,
perfection, and the like ; third, mind and understanding ;
fourth (to come to the goods of the soul itself), sciences,
arts, right opinions ; fifth, pure or painless pleasures ;
and there the list stops. It remains to sum up our
judgment once more. Neither pleasure nor reason has
the self-sufficingness and perfection which we require in
the good ; the good is something higher than either of
them. But reason is infinitely more akin to it than
pleasure. Pleasure is fifth in the list, and we will not
put it first for all the horses and oxen in the world ; it is
to these that men go for their oracles when they judge
pleasure to be the chief thing in life; 'they believe in
the loves of the brutes instead of in the inspired words
of the muse of philosophy' 2
Some attempt has been already made to interpret the
general idea which underlies the argument of the PJiile-
bus ; but the practical bearing of the dialogue still
requires some notice. It proposes to answer the ques-
tion, What is the true end of human life ? and at the
conclusion we are tempted to ask impatiently, What does
the answer mean? Does it mean that we are to aim in
our lives at mathematical precision, or at statuesque
repose, or at logical consistency ? And what is the
connexion of these elaborate analyses of existence and
consciousness with the somewhat obvious precept, to get
as much knowledge as we can and to cultivate only the
1 Philebus, 64 B-66 A. ' lb. 66 A-end.
326 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
higher pleasures ? Part of our embarrassment, in the case
of this as of some other dialogues of Plato, arises no
doubt from the length and rapidity of his mental stride,
and the comparatively unoccupied state of the ground
which he had to traverse. It would take a modern
philosopher much more time and trouble to pass from
an analysis of heat or of itching to the conception of
a divine mind or an absolute good. But the chief
stumbling-block lies in the fusion (to some it will seem
the confusion), already noticed in the Gorgias, of the
scientific and moral aspects of life. We are accustomed
to regard science as having to do with an objective
world which goes its own way and has its own laws,
unaffected by, and indifferent to, human good and evil.
Morality on the other hand seems to us peculiarly a
personal matter, a something which we make and un-
make for ourselves, and in which, rightly or wrongly,
we emphatically distinguish ourselves from what we call
nature. There have not indeed been wanting modern
attempts to bridge over this distinction, but they have
mostly taken the direction, not of relating the moral
and the natural through the medium of some third and
higher element, but of making the first disappear in the
second. Thus, when we find Plato, in an ethical dialogue,
treating pleasure and pain under the same head, and on
the same principles, as cold and heat, we are inclined to
say : ' Let us distinguish ; pleasure and pain may be
dealt with as physical processes, but, so dealt with, they
are not matter for the moralist ; or again, cold and heat,
as personal feelings, may acquire an ethical interest, but
in that case they have passed out of the sphere of physical
science. Ultimately, no doubt, we only know " pheno-
mena," that is, our own feelings, and so far pleasure and
THE PHILEBUS 327
heat may be ranged together ; but the standards which
we apply to these feelings are quite disparate. Both
standards are, if you will, conventional; scientific man-
kind fixes that of heat, moral mankind that of pleasure,
each for certain purposes of its own ; but there is no
connexion between the two standards, nor any reason to
suppose that they can be reduced to one. Rightness in
physics is one thing, another thing in ethics.'
Perhaps we shall not be misinterpreting the Philebus
if we elicit from it an answer somewhat as follows:
' The rightness both of natural processes and of human
conduct, so far as there is a rightness in cither, is due to
the working of a single principle. You say that there is
no objectively right feeling of heat ; that heat is either
what it is to this or that individual — that is, entirely
indeterminate, — or else what it is to science, entirely
conventional. But really there is no such thing as an en-
tirely indeterminate feeling; the vaguest and most capri-
cious feeling in the world must be measurable to some
extent, or it would be nothing. What are called the ar-
bitrary measures of science are only a purer and more
exact form of the measure inherent in different degrees in
all feeling and all existence. The minimum of feeling and
existence is the minimum of measurableness. As feeling
acquires more content, and existence becomes fuller, they
become more determinate. New limits emerge in the
limitless ; gradations, elements, parts, kinds, arc felt,
where before there was monotony ; and each new limit
supplies a new standard of measurement. The increase
of measure is not an arbitrary external addition, but
the recognition of an inherent development. And it is
in morality as in science. The moral standard is not
a rule mechanically applied to circumstances ; it is the
328 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
measure inherent in the circumstances, and giving them
their character. The moral organization responds to the
moral fact, as the physical to the physical fact ; the finer
the organization, the more delicate its measurement, and
the fuller therefore its experience. Laws and institutions
fix certain units of measurement ; they are rough moral
thermometers. The more feeling has been morally
measured by an individual or a society, the higher their
moral condition. Each new step in moral consciousness
is consciousness of a new limit, not a new limit to ex-
perience, but a limit which is itself a new experience.
Here, too, reality grows with the growth of measure.'
' But,' it will be said, ' if reality is measure, each dif-
ferent kind of reality has its own measure : the essences of
motion and heat, temperance and pity, may exhibit them-
selves as various measures, but what is the common mea-
sure of them all ? It may be possible to express them all
in terms of some common factor, but the expression so
obtained will only express what is common to all, not
what is specific in each ; heat will remain heat, and pity,
pity.' But there is no reason to suppose that when
Plato puts together, as he does in the Philebus, the various
phenomena of temperature, rhythm, health, and virtue,
as expressions of the principle of measure, he is think-
ing of a possible reduction of them all to forms of one
element, such as motion. His conception of the ultimate
measure, the measure which he places first of the three
forms of the good, is made clear to us when we consider
his conception of the second of these forms, ' symmetry '
or proportion. Symmetry or commensurableness is in-
deed, as he himself indicates 1 , only another aspect of
1 Philebus, 26 A epipeTpov /cat ap.a ovpp.tTpov : and 64 D. In 65 A,
cvuptTpia occurs where we should expect {AfTptoTijTt, for in the final list,
THE PHIL E BUS 3-9
measurableness. In becoming measurable itself, a thing
becomes commensurable with all other things of the
same kind. The difference is that, while in measun w<
think primarily of the thing itself, in symmetry we think
of its relation to other things, and ultimately to a whole
of which it is a part. It is in this whole that we must
look for the law or principle or measure which deter-
mines that relation. Thus the same measure becomes
differently symmetrical as it enters into different wholes.
A second of time obeys different laws of proportion
according as it is an element in an hour, in a musical
phrase, or in an act of forbearance, respectively. In
Plato's language, it gets more ' determined ' at each ste] 1 ;
it remains the same itself, but it acquires new significance,
and is linked to larger issues. And, if we follow out this
line of thought, we are led with Plato to the idea of
a perfect whole, or ' cosmos,' in which each form of
existence finds its measure assigned to it, and in fulfilling
that measure fulfils itself. This brings us to the third
aspect of the good in the Philebus, truth. If the truth
of a thing is the thing realized, neither more nor less, it
easily passes into measure on the one side (for its measure-
is its full self), and into symmetry on the other (for its
true nature is determined by its position in a whole). In
substituting, as he afterwards does 1 , 'mind and in-
telligence' for 'truth,' Plato must be supposed to be
speaking of what he has before* called the 'divine
mind,' a mind which is all that it is conscious of, and is
66A-B, av/xixiTpov, not fxirpiov, is identified with koXvv. The passage
from the Politicus (283C-285A), referred to below, p. 343, bears directly
upon this point.
1 Cp. Philebus, 65 A and 66 B ; also 65 D.
2 lb. 22 C, where it is implied that the divine mind is the good.
3SO PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
conscious of all that is, a mind in which the distinction of
subject and object disappears. It is this mind to which
he had ascribed a life of pure being x , above the flow
and ebb of human consciousness, and which he had
identified with the causative force which creates a deter-
minate universe out of indeterminate nothing. It is, in
fact, the good, conceived, not as a principle or a con-
dition, but as an activity.
Thus, starting from the idea that the minimum of
being implies determinateness, and that in reaching its
proper limit each thing attains both its being and its
well-being, its truth and its good, we have been led, as
a logical consequence, to the idea of an absolutely deter-
mined being or cosmos, by relation to which each
particle of being is what it is, and in which is realized,
by the sustaining energy of mind, the perfect measure,
beauty, and truth of things. Plato has expressed the
same idea in religious language, and with a directly
moral bearing, in a passage in the Laws' 2 , which may
be quoted as a complement to the abstractions of the
PJiilebus. ' God, as the old saying is, holding in his
hand the beginning and end and middle of all things,
goes straight to his purpose by the long ways of nature,
and justice ever follows him, to punish all shortcomings
of the divine law. He who would fare well follows close
behind her, in lowliness and moderation ; but if any man
is lifted up in his heart by riches or honour or beauty,
and in the fire of youthful insolence and folly thinks
that he needs no ruler or guide, but can himself be a
guide to others, he is deserted by God ; and so deserted
he takes to himself others like him, and prances through
the world spreading confusion as he goes ; and to many
1 Phikbus, 33 B. 2 Laws, iv. 715E-716C.
THE PIULEDUS 331
he seems to be somebody, but in no long time he pays
a righteous penalty to justice, and makes ruin of himself,
his house, and his state. In the face of this order of
things, how must the wise man bear himself? Surely
he must make up his mind to follow after God. And
how must he act so as to be the friend and follower of
God? There is only one way of acting, and one principle,
the old principle that the measured is the friend of the
measured, but the unmeasured is the friend neither of
the measured nor of the unmeasured. Now God, and
not, as some say, man, is the real measure of all things,
and he who would be the friend of God must be such as
God is.'
It would seem, then, that the first three in the list of
goods with which the Philebus concludes represent
different aspects under which the divine perfection may
be apprehended. The last two, (1) truth of science, art,
and opinion, and (2) unmixed pleasures, are distinguished
as ' of the soul itself,' and constitute in their combination
the highest good realizable in human life. - Man, Plato
implies, can never transcend the conditions of time and
process ; only the divine being is, all else only comes to
be or ceases to be. But the divine good is the cause or
condition of the human ; the latter is only good as it
approximates to the former, as it rises out of becoming
into being. In the measure, beauty, and truth, realizable
by us in intellect and emotion, we catch something of
the reality. The universe lies about us, composed of the
same elements, endowed with the same life, ordered by
the same reason, as ourselves. We have to learn to
know it in order to take our part in it. From the crude
counting of the unlettered man or child up to the pure; 1
abstractions of mathematics and physics, and on again
332 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
to the philosophical analysis of the very nature of being.
the mind is gradually coming to find the measure, the
proportion, the truth, of things. And in learning their
limits it is also learning its own, learning to correct the
phantasmagoria of its senses and to distinguish their
confusion, to direct the currents of its prejudices and the
momentum of its logical impulses, to feel the clear
outlines of reality and to delight in responding to their
pressure, to see things as they are, and to be itself at one
with them. This is why truth, alike in its lowest and its
highest forms, is to be welcomed as an unmixed good.
But man not only knows, he also feels ; and, if he is to
be truly himself, his emotions as well as his intellect
must be true. And this brings us to the last point to be
noticed in the PJiilcbtis, the distinction between true and
false pleasures. The question in what sense we can
speak of feelings being true or untrue must, as Plato
himself was aware, always be a difficult one. We are
inclined to say with Protarchus 1 , there may be untrue
opinion, but how can there be untrue pleasure? We
feel what we feel, and what other canon of truth is there ?
To appreciate Plato's answer we must first appreciate
his mode of representing the mental activities in general.
In his view the various acts of thinking, reasoning,
desiring, are not temporary exercises of faculty by a soul
which still remains in the background with a separable
life of its own ; they are its very life and being, and as
such they are the modes in which it takes its part in the
life and being of the world. The truth which is appre-
hended in knowledge is thus the ' sustenance 2 ' of the
1 Philcbus, 36 C, 38 A.
a Rep. vi. 490 B. Cp., in this connexion, Rep. vi. 500 C ; Phaedo,
79 C-D ; Timaeus, 42 E-44 D, 47 B-C ; Phaedrus, 248 B.
THE PHILEBUS
333
soul, that upon which it lives, that which it assimilates,
and in assimilating which it is itself assimilated. And
analogously ignorance, fbrgetfulncss, illusion, arc not
mere states passing over the surface of the soul ; they
mean that it is dropping out of the life of the world.
dying of inanition, or growing diseased and maimed ; it
not only sees things as they are not, it is itself failing to
be its true self.
Now pain and pleasure, as we have seen, are de-
scribed by Plato as the feelings of the disintegration
and restoration of harmony in the organism, of the fall
and rise of the vital energies, of the emptying and re-
filling of capacity. They are not external additions to
the life of the soul with a character of their own ; they
are part and parcel of the life itself, and get their
character from it ; they are the soul in certain phases
of its being. The question is, What are these phases ?
What is the soul in pleasure and pain ? Plato answers,
In pleasure, strictly speaking, the soul does not attain
being at all, but is only coming to be ; for pleasure is
just the sense of transition from a lower to a higher state
of being. A perfect being, in which there was no want
and no dissolution, would have no pleasure ; its con-
sciousness would be of some higher kind, but it would
not be what we mean by pleasure 1 . All pleasure, then,
is so far a form of unrealized, imperfect, being ; and it
cannot therefore be consistently conceived as the good of
life, as that in which life finds its fullest expression. Only
as determined and realized in various forms of thought,
as conceived, remembered, anticipated, and the like, can
it be a constituent in the end or true being of man.
1 Cp. Sympos. 203 E, OecDi' oiiSets <£iAo<7o</>e? ov8' imOv^u croc/><k ftvioOai,
tori "yap.
334 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
There are however various degrees of this imperfection
in the being of pleasure. Man is a creature of change ;
this is his limitation ; but, short of perfection, there is no
limit to the degree of being which he may attain l . The
question is, in what kinds of pleasure does he attain most
being ; in other words, what kinds of pleasure are the
most real? Plato answers, pleasures are real in pro-
portion as the satisfaction which the soul has, or the
height to which it rises, in them, is permanent. Suppose
a man, so far as it is possible, to live solely for the
pleasure of eating. Eating sums up his life ; his being
is the consciousness of eating. How much being does
he realize ? From Plato's point of view, very little : he
is perpetually coming to be, and ceasing to be. the same
thing ; he sinks and rises, wants and is satisfied, but he
gets no further ; each rise is the beginning of the old fall,
each satisfaction passes into the old want. He never
remains at his highest point ; he is never a really
satisfied being. He is emotionally what a man would
be intellectually who was always learning and always
forgetting the same thing ; and so, when Plato in the
Gorgias 2 compares the soul of the unwise to a 'sieve,'
he explains it as the sieve not only of unassimilated
knowledge but also of unsatisfied desire. ' Those who
have no experience of wisdom and excellence,' as he
says in the Republic 21 , 'but live continually in feasting
and the like, are always going down and halfway back
again ; and in this interval they spend their lives, wander-
ing to and fro ; but they never see or reach the true
summit, nor do they ever fill themselves with real being,
or taste of lasting and pure pleasure.'
1 Cp. what is said, Sympos. 207 E-208 B, about immortality.
2 493 B-C. 3 ix. 586 A.
THE PHILEBUS 335
The last words recall the second way in which the
Philcbus characterizes the inferior pleasures ; their ' un-
truth ' goes along with their 'impurity.' The}- start
from a sense of want, varying in degree from half-
pleasant irritation to positive pain ; in the very act of
satisfaction they die away, and at each moment in it
they are felt by contrast with the sense of want, and, as
Plato expresses it, are ' coloured by it ' l . Compare with
them the aesthetic and intellectual pleasures. Here too
there must be, to begin with, some unfulfilled capacity,
but the sense of it is one of receptivity and expansive-
ness, not of a want to be got rid of. Nor does the
pleasure cease with the satisfaction. It is not indeed
permanent, for continuous being is impossible to man ;
in Aristotle's words, ' he gets tired ' ; but the satisfaction
does not at once begin lapsing into dissatisfaction ; it
becomes a part of himself; he is more than he was, and
permanently more ; he does not have to go backwards
again, but starts next time from a higher level. As
Plato naively says 2 , ' Things like true opinion and know-
ledge and intelligence have much more of pure being
and immortality in them than things like meat and
drink.' Truth, beauty, and goodness, as we may put
it, are inexhaustible ; they do not perish in the attain-
ment ; the soul that has the capacity can live on them
and in them, without the pangs of want or the sadness
of satiety.
The third characteristic of the truer and purer plea-
sures is their greater ' determinateness.' The ' inde-
terminateness of the inferior pleasures does not mean,
as it might at first suggest, that the soul has a sense of
infinite capacity in them ; on the contrary, it indicates
1 Rep. ix. 586 B. 2 lb. ix. 585 B.
336 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
that the feeling, just in proportion to its intensity, is
inarticulate and smothered. It is an indeterminate
feeling in the same way that intense pain is x ; in both
our whole being is absorbed ; sense, imagination, reason,
are concentrated in a single point of consciousness ; yet
the absorption is not in fullness of existence but in
a blank intensity. On the other hand, in listening to a
beautiful tone or looking at a fine curve or appreciating
a striking truth, still more in moving through the
measured mazes of a symphony, a picture, a book, the
soul puts itself out, diffuses itself into its limits, and is
buoyed upon a resistant element. And as the man who
is to be an artist must be able not merely to feel, but to
express what he feels, not only to melt but also to mould
his materials, so in all life the determining reason, which
distinguishes and connects, which formulates and calcu-
lates and infers, must dominate and transfuse the in-
determinate emotion, if the latter is not to be a mere
seething mass, dangerous in proportion to its heat. To
sum up the theory of the Philebus as regards the sensual
pleasures in the simplest and at the same time the most
Platonic way, we may say they are bad because there is
so little in them. The most fatal consequence of in-
dulging them, as Plato tells us elsewhere 2 , is not that it
causes loss of health or loss of money, but that ' it makes
us believe that the objects of our appetites are the
clearest and truest of things, when they are not.' The
soul that lives for them seeks its own annihilation ; its
life leaks away in the sand, instead of rising from level
to level of an all-embracing reality.
Republic. The identity of morality with order and measure,
1 See Philebus, 27 E-28 A. 2 Phaedo, 83 B-D.
THE REPUBLIC
337
logically implied and polemically maintained in the
Gorgias and Philebits, is exhibited in the calmer air
and ampler outlines of the Republic as a constructive
principle which explains and justifies the facts of poli-
tical and personal life. The Republic, just because it is
the greatest monument of Plato's genius, must suffer the
most in any succinct account of his writings. Its name
does little to indicate its scope and character: it is in
reality a dramatized philosophy of human life. It shows
us in a series of logically connected pictures the nature,
nurture, and development of the soul ; the life which it
makes for itself in religion, art, morality, politics, science,
philosophy ; its rise to the height at which it is almost
one with the divine, its fall to the depth at which it
almost ceases to be human ; what it is and what it is
capable of being upon earth, what it may hope and what
it may fear to be after death. At the expense of de-
stroying the effect of the work by dismemberment, we
must here disengage those parts of it which illustrate
most directly Plato's conception of goodness and the
good, putting aside those parts which would illustrate
his view of knowledge, art, psychology, and politics.
The Republic starts with the question, What is justice?
and, as the Greek word which we translate 'justice'
practically covered the whole duty of a good citizen,
this question easily passes into another, How is a man
to live so as to live best? A series of representative
solutions, none of which is found to be satisfactory,
forms a sort of critical introduction to the main body of
the work. The series begins with the old man Cephalus,
who represents the generation which is passing away,
and sums up the experience of a long and good life.
Socrates has come to have a chat with him, for he
VOL. I. z
338 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
' delights in talking to old men ' ; they have gone before
him on the road by which he may have to go, and he
likes to hear whether they have found it rough or
smooth. Whether old age proves agreeable or the
reverse, depends, it seems to Cephalus, mostly upon a
man's character ; no doubt it is a consolation in old age
to have plenty of money, but on the whole the chief
good of money is that it makes it easier to be just, so
that when a man comes to die he can feel that he has
deceived no one, voluntarily or involuntarily, and has
paid his debts to God and man K Socrates is going
on to ask him more particularly what he means by
justice, when his son Polemarchus breaks in with a
definition of it borrowed from Simonides, and Cephalus
retires. According to Polemarchus, justice is ' to render
to every one his due.' When questioned by Socrates,
however, he finds that he is not master enough of his
formula to save it from ludicrous misinterpretation 2 , and
falls back in his perplexity upon the familiar principle of
the popular morality, ' do good to your friends, and harm
to your enemies': this is what he really means by justice.
But, as he has to admit to Socrates, to ' do harm ' to
a thing is to ' make it worse,' that is, to diminish its
intrinsic virtue or goodness ; and to do harm to a man,
therefore, is to make him less good, and therefore less
just (for justice is human goodness). To say, then, that
it is the function of justice to do harm is like saying
that it is the function of music to make a man unmusical,
or of heat to produce cold 3 .
1 Rep. i. 327 A-331 B.
2 This first section of the argument between Socrates and Polemarchus
331 C-334 B) has already been briefly characterized above, p. 267.
3 Rep. i. 331 C -336 A.
THE REPUBLIC 339
This ' feeble nonsense,' as he considers it, rouses the
indignation of the sophist and rhetorician Thrasymachus,
in whom Plato has drawn (with what justice we cannot
tell) a blustering bully, who discharges, with mock pro-
fundity, cynical effrontery, and coarse wit, the sounding
theories of political selfishness which might sway an
Athenian law-court or drown opposition in the popular
assembly. Thrasymachus proclaims that justice is ' the
interest of the stronger.' Justice, he explains to Socrates,
is what is enacted by law, and law is made by the
government ; each government legislates in its own
interest, a democracy in the democratic interest, an
aristocracy in the aristocratic ; and the government is
the stronger. By ' government,' as he further explains,
he understands government ' in the strict sense,' that is,
the government so far as it really knows its business and
does not make mistakes ; in fact, the government which
understands the art of governing. The question then
arises, in what sense an art can be said to have an
interest. The interest of a doctor, as such— it is urged
by Socrates — is to cure disease ; that of a steersman, as
such, is to steer his ship : the fact that the one makes
money and the other gets the benefit of a voyage must
not be allowed to count if we are speaking strictly. The
interest of an art, then, is no other than its own per-
fection ; it attains its end in its exercise ; it wants
nothing more than this to make it perfect. It is the
material on which the art works that is imperfect, and
it is just to remedy this imperfection that the art exists.
Thus any interest which the art has, other than its
own perfection, is the interest of its material ; medicine
seeks to remedy the deficiencies of the body, and in so
doing secures the interest of the body. To the art of
z 2
34Q PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
government the governed are the material ; and the
government, so far as it is really a government, will seek
the interest, not of itself, but of the governed *.
Thrasymachus pities the simplicity of Socrates in
supposing that any governments worth the name regard
any but their own interests ; they look at the governed
as the shepherd looks at his sheep. Justice, which is the
interest of the stronger, is the interest of no one else ;
it is the bane of the weaker. The really best thing for
every one is injustice, provided it be successful. When
practised on a small scale it gets called bad names,
theft, burglary, sacrilege; but in its most perfect form,
that of a tyranny, it is greeted with universal applause 2 .
Socrates observes that Thrasymachus has abandoned
the strictness upon which he had insisted in definition ;
for the shepherd, so far as he is a shepherd, regards only
the good of the sheep. Each art does a specific good,
and the good which is done is independent of the pay
which the artist receives for doing it. The pay is the
subject of another art, the art of wages, which secures
the interest of all wage-receiving arts. It is just because
the artist derives no advantage from his art, as such, that
he has to be otherwise remunerated 3 . It seems however
to Socrates that, in asserting injustice to be altogether
better than justice, Thrasymachus has raised a new and
much more important issue, and one from which we
must not shrink. By injustice Thrasymachus means
self-aggrandisement, getting the most of everything for
oneself: this he holds to be wiser, stronger, and happier
than justice — to be, in fact, the true ' virtue ' of life 4 .
Firstly, then, as regards the wisdom of injustice. If
1 Rep. i. 338 C-342 E. 2 lb. i. 343 A-344 C.
3 lb. i. 344 D-347 E. 4 lb. i. 347 E-349 A.
THE REPUBLIC 341
we observe other men who are ' wise ' and ' good ' in
their crafts, we see that they do not try to get the better
of other wise and good men, but only of the unwise and
bad. The good doctor, in prescribing a diet, does not
try to outdo another doctor, nor the good musician, in
tuning an instrument, to outdo another musician ; it is
only men who are not doctors or not musicians whom
they try to outdo ; no one but the ignorant artist thinks
of outdoing all other people, competent and incompetent
alike. Now injustice makes a man wish to go beyond
everybody, just and unjust alike; while justice makes
him wish to go beyond the unjust, not the just. Justice,
therefore, seems to resemble wisdom and goodness, in-
justice to resemble unwisdom and badness 1 . Next, as
to strength : if any body of men, a state, an army, or
a band of robbers, want to act together unjustly, they
cannot do so unless they are just to one another ;
injustice produces disunion, justice union. And, if they
have these effects in large bodies, they will have them
also in small ones, and in individuals ; and injustice will
make a man incapable of action, and set him at enmity
with himself and with all just beings, men and gods.
When unjust men are said to act together effectively,
the truth must be that they are only half demoralized ;
if they were utterly unjust, they could not act at all ~.
Lastly, as to happiness or well-being. The function
of a thing is what that thing alone can do, or can
do better than anything else can ; and to everything
which has a function there is a corresponding virtue,
without which it cannot perform its function well. Life
is one of the functions of the soul, and the soul cannot
live well if it be deprived of its proper virtue, and such
1 Rep. i. 349 B-350 C. 2 lb. i. 35° D-352 D.
342 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
a virtue is justice : the unjust soul, therefore, lives ill,
and to live ill is to be miserable 1 .
Two points are specially noticeable in these early
sections of the Republic. One is the insistence on the
idea, continually implied or expressed, that, if morality
is to be discussed at all, its terms must be understood
to have some minimum of definite meaning, and this
meaning must be adhered to. If justice is in any real
sense ' good,' it cannot be the cause of evil ; if it is in any
real sense a ' virtue,' it cannot help bettering the state of
its possessor; if it is a real 'art' or principle of government
at all, it cannot be explained away as injustice looked at
from the side of the stronger. The conclusions drawn
from these and similar premisses are often stigmatized
by a modern reader as ' verbal ' or ' sophistical,' partly
because exact thinking about partially familiar ideas
is always irksome and irritating, but partly also because
the ideas which Plato is trying to fix are often expressed
in terms that have become insignificant or commonplace,
and no longer arrest either our moral sympathies or our
moral antipathies. The other point to be noticed is the
recurrence, though in a cruder form than in the Gorgias
or the PhilebuS) of the argument based upon the analogy
between the art of conduct and other arts. The language
in which the bad artist is described in the Republic, as
the man who is ready to go beyond all other men, artists
or not artists, is peculiarly liable to mislead, suggesting
as it does at first that the bad artist is just the one who
tries to reach perfection, while the good artist rests
satisfied at a lower level. Reflexion shows that Plato
has here embodied in a concrete form what he describes
in the Philebus under the abstract name of 'the in-
1 Rep. i. 352D-354A.
THE REPUBLIC 343
determinate,' that which is ' always a more or a less '
and ' never a so much ' l . The artist whom no other
good artist tries to go beyond represents the standard
of goodness or perfection in his art at the time being ;
and the distinction is between a man who recognizes
the existence of such a standard, and knows when it has
been reached, and a man who does neither the one nor
the other.
Light is thrown upon Plato's phraseology here by
a passage in the Politiats 2 where he is investigating the
nature of ' excess ' and ' defect ' in general, and dis-
tinguishes between two kinds of measurement, that which
measures the greater against the less, and that which
measures them both against the nature and requirements
of a given thing which has to be made or done. From
the first point of view the greater is what is in excess of
the less ; from the second, it is that which is in excess
of the proportionate, the fitting, the opportune, the right,
whatever in fact occupies the place of a mean between
extremes. It is measure in the second sense which is of
the essence of all the arts ; their existence stands and
falls with that of the proportionate. It is clear that the
' outdoing ' or ' going beyond ' of the Republic has refer-
ence to measure in the second of these senses : it is not
the doing of a ' more than less,' but of a ' more than the
proportionate, that is, the right, amount.'
The position of Thrasymachus led to the following
results. The one right thing is self-interest, that is, what
is traditionally called injustice, the denial of all prin-
ciple. If successful (that is, if it be the self-interest of
the stronger), it is called justice ; if not, it is punished
as injustice. What is traditionally called justice, the
1 Above, p. 313. 2 283 C 285 A.
344 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
recognition of a principle applying to others as well
as to oneself, is a mistake, though one may be driven to
it by fear of worse consequences. This position has
been shown to be logically untenable: on all analogy,
the recognition of some such principle, in life as in other
things, would seem to be the condition of excellence,
strength, happiness. But, though logically Thrasymachus
is silenced by Socrates, a feeling of dissatisfaction re-
mains, of which the two brothers, Glaucon and Adei-
mantus, are now made the exponents. Young men of
talent and promise, with high moral enthusiasm and
minds open to all the speculative influences of the time,
they are eager to hear the question discussed upon a
deeper basis. The difficulties which they feel, concern
the relation of the real and the apparent, the inward and
the outward, the essential nature of morality and its ex-
ternal results or accompaniments. If justice is really good
and the highest good, it must be good not merely like
pleasure, which is good independently of its results ; nor
merely like medicine, which is good only for its results;
but good in the fullest sense, like sight, knowledge,
health, both for its own sake and for its results. Now
this is just what has never been properly shown. Morality
has been preached to us from time immemorial, but
only because in various ways, in money, honour, reputa-
tion, it pays to be moral. What we want to be shown is,
' what are the effects for good and evil of justice and
injustice themselves in the soul of man, whether they are
seen or whether they are not ' : no one would be unjust
if he knew that in being so he was ' harbouring his own
greatest enemy.' Glaucon and Ao\eimantus accordingly
propose to restate the case between justice and injustice,
in the form of certain current theories, which, though
THE REPUBLIC 345
differing in motive, agree in emphasizing the external
side of morality, and so practically destroying its
essence. They do this, not because they believe in the
theories (for they do not), but because they wish to get
from Socrates a solution of their difficulties ; and with
this view they state them as forcibly as they possibly can K
The theory which Glaucon begins by expounding
asserts, firstly, that justice is a conventional compromise ;
secondly, that those who practise it do so unwillingly
from inability to do the opposite; thirdly, that their
unwillingness is only natural, for injustice is really much
better than justice. Firstly, then: in the nature of things
it is good to do injustice, evil to suffer it ; experience
showed men that the evil of the latter exceeded the
good of the former ; and so, as they could not have
the good without the evil, they made a compact with one
another to give up both. This was the origin of law and
contract, and the enactment of law was named justice,
which is thus a mean between the best thing, doing
injustice with impunity, and the worst, suffering it with-
out power of retaliation. If a man had the power to
be unjust, he would never dream of entering into the
compact ; it would be madness to do so. Again, if we
would see that those who do justice do it under the
constraint of law and against the impulses of nature,
let us imagine two rings like that of Gyges in the
fable, which enabled its wearer to make himself invisible
at will, and let us give one to the just man and the other
to the unjust. Who would be so 'adamantine' as to
abide in his justice, when he could go about satisfying
all his desires freely, like a god among men? The truth
is that every one privately thinks injustice the best, and
1 Rep. ii. 357 A-358 B.
346 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
rightly ; a man who had such a power, and did not use
it, would be thought a miserable fool by all who saw him,
though they would praise him in public for fear of suffer-
ing injustice themselves. Lastly, let us put the two lives
side by side in naked and unrelieved contrast. The
unjust man must be supposed to be a perfect master of
his craft ; he must give the appearance of the greatest
justice, and, if he ever makes a false step, he must be able
to recover himself. Then set beside him the 'simple,
genuine' man, one who 'wishes to be good, not to seem' ;
strip him of everything except his justice, and let him
give the appearance of the greatest injustice. What sort
of life may each expect? The one will be scourged,
racked, imprisoned, blinded, impaled, and will be taught
that the right thing is to seem just, not to be so. The other
■will reap the fruits of being, for he seems just, but he
is unjust : he will have a place in the government, and
marry whom he pleases, and make all the profits of
unscrupulousness ; he will win in the struggle of life,
become rich, help his friends and harm his foes, make
splendid offerings to the gods, and have a better chance
than the just man of winning their favour. Such is one
theory of the superiority of injustice to justice 1 .
Adeimantus has heard an opposite view to this, which
he thinks still more worth stating: it will make Glaucon's
point clearer. It is the view which prefers justice to
injustice, not however for its own sake, but for the
worldly advantages which it secures. These advantages
are extended to include the blessings of the gods ; ' for
the god-fearing man/ as Homer says, ' the earth bears
wheat and barley, the trees are heavy with fruit, his
flocks bring forth without fail, and the sea supplies him
1 Rep. ii. 359 C-362 C.
THE REPUBLIC 347
with fish.' Even more splendid is the picture which
Musaeus and Eumolpus draw of the banquet of the saints
in Hades, where they lie on couches with crowns on their
heads and drink to all eternity. Other poets prolong the
wages of the righteous man to his children's children
and the generations after them. But the unrighteous man
in the other world they bury in mud, or make him carry
water in a sieve, while in this world he suffers all the
penalties which Glaucon assigned to the just 1 .
Another view of justice and injustice is this. Many
people are never tired of saying what a beautiful thing
justice is; but, they add, it is difficult and laborious, while
injustice is easy and pleasant, and is only conventionally
disgraceful. And they are not afraid to honour bad men
who are successful, and to treat the good and weak with
contempt, though they confess that these are better men
than the others. And what is most astonishing of all,
they say that the gods often send misfortune to the good
and prosperity to the wicked ; and begging priests and
soothsayers come to the rich man and persuade him that,
if he or his ancestors have committed any crime, they
have power from the gods to atone for it ; or, if he wants
to injure an enemy, they have spells by which they will do
it for him at a trifling cost. They support themselves by
quotations from the poets, and produce books of ritual
by Orpheus and Musaeus, the children, as they say, of
the Moon and the Muses. Their rites, which combine
entertainment with worship, they call mysteries, and they
persuade not individuals only, but whole cities, that these
can absolve sinners from punishment both in this world
and the next, while an awful fate awaits those who reject
them. When a young man hears all this, a man who
1 Rep. ii. 362 E-363 E.
348 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
has the ability to put together what he hears and to draw
practical inferences from it, what is he likely to say to
himself? Will he not conclude that the ' fortress ' of
life must be scaled by guile, not by justice ; that 'seeming
is stronger than truth, and master of happiness,' and that
the arts of seeming are what he has to cultivate ; that, as
for the gods (if indeed there are any), we only know
of them what we are told by the poets, who tell us
that they can be bribed by sacrifice ? Why not, then,
do injustice, and sacrifice from the proceeds of it ? If
anybody talks of punishment in a future life, we are
assured that there is great efficacy in the mysteries. On
what conceivable grounds, then, should any one who has
any advantages of mind or body, property or family,
continue to prefer justice ? Even if a man has convinced
himself that all that we have been saying is untrue, and
that justice is really the best, he will be very ready to ex-
cuse those who do wrong ; for he knows that nothing but
a divine instinct or exceptional knowledge makes a man
abstain from injustice voluntarily. We have seen what
are the consequences of praising not justice itself, but the
appearance and results of it. Socrates has spent all his
life in asking what the real nature of things is ; surely he
will tell us what is the power of justice for good, and of
injustice for evil, in the soul, whether they be seen by
gods and men or whether they be not l .
The grim nakedness of the contrast drawn here between
the two lives reminds us of the Gorgias. There the
contrast was defiantly accepted by Socrates, and the bare
principle of right upheld, in the confidence of invincible
logic and in scorn of consequences, against the combined
splendours and terrors of the world. The way in which
1 Rep. ii. 363 E-367 E.
THE REPUBLIC 349
it is dealt with in the Republic is very different. Instead
of exhibiting justice as an abstract principle, or investi-
gating the soul in which he had been challenged to show
its working, Socrates proceeds to analyze human society.
But it is only in appearance that the ground is shifted.
The state, as Socrates explains, is larger than the indi-
vidual, and we shall find justice ' written in it in larger
letters ' and more easy to read 1 . And as we follow him
in his delineation of an ideal society we see that he has
only begun on the outside and is working inwards, tracing
the external organization of the community back to its
hidden source in human nature, and showing ultimately
how the principles which regulate industry, war, and
government are only the more superficial expression of
those which regulate the moral life of man. Thus the
question, How does justice work for good in the soul
independently of visible results ? is answered by showing
that the whole visible structure of civic life depends upon
invisible forces and principles, and that what is called
justice, so far from being an arbitrary convention, is that
condition of the soul itself without which society would
dissolve.
Plato's method is first to sketch a society such as it
would be if human nature were allowed and compelled
to follow what he believed to be its ' natural,' that is, its
highest, bent. The details of his conception of such a
society, and of the human nature from which it springs,
belong to other parts of his philosophy. It is enough
here to notice that he finds the state to have three main
functions, that of producing the material commodities of
life, that of protecting itself against external aggression
and internal faction, and that of government ; these
1 Rep. ii. 368E-369A; cp. viii. 545 B.
350 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
functions having their ground in the triple nature of the
human soul, which makes their exercise both necessary
and possible. Men are made by nature, and ought to
be trained by education and law, to take a place in the
industrial, military, or governing class. The perfect state
would be that in which every born artisan was an artisan,
every born soldier a soldier, every born ruler a ruler ;
and existing states are imperfect in proportion as this is
not the case. We have now to see how Plato fits into
this conception of society the current ideas of morality,
and thus gives them a new meaning and foundation.
Every nation and age embodies its ideas of human
excellence and the reverse in certain leading words. The
Greek words which we translate ' justice,' 'wisdom,'
1 courage,' and ' temperance/ had obtained such prevalence
in Plato's time that it is usual now to call them the
names of the Greek ' cardinal virtues,' and in the Republic
they are assumed to be an exhaustive account of good-
ness. If, then, as Plato held, the goodness of a state is
in principle the same as that of an individual, only
exercised on a larger scale and on different occasions,
these terms will apply to men in their public and political,
as well as in their private and moral, characters. The
state, of course, does not act except through its citizens ;
and, in speaking (as he habitually does) of ' the virtues of
the state,' Plato is not thinking of qualities inhering in
some abstract entity, but simply (as his illustrations show)
of qualities exhibited by the citizens in various public
capacities, as representatives of the community. What
he is at pains to point out is that these qualities, though
differently exhibited, are in essence the same, and depend
upon the same psychological conditions, as those exhibited
in the private life of individuals ; so that, when we say
THE REPUBLIC 351
a state acts justly, wisely, bravely or temperately, we
ought to mean that the minds of the men who represent
the state in these several actions are in a condition, and
swayed by principles, which would make them just, wise,
brave, or temperate, in their own personal affairs.
beginning, then, with the community, as that in which
virtue is exhibited in larger outlines, we have to ask,
What is it which makes a state just ? or, What is political
justice? Justice, Plato answers, is the fundamental virtue
which sustains society, which makes all other virtues
possible, and which we only find it hard to see because
it meets us at every step that we take 2 . Society exists
for two reasons — because no individual can do everything
for himself, and because every individual can do some-
thing for others. Society exists well in proportion as
this double fact is recognized and acted upon ; when each
member of it fills the position which by nature and edu-
cation he is best fitted to fill ; when, in Plato's formula,
' every man does what belongs to him.' This is political
justice. It is a principle which holds good in every
stratum of society, from the lowest to the highest. In
industry, under the form of proper division of labour, it
secures the greatest quantity and the best quality of pro-
duction ; and in higher spheres it determines that the
soldier, the administrator, the senator, shall be the right
men in the right places. The more important the func-
tion, the more important becomes the principle. ' That a
carpenter should try to be a shoemaker, or a shoemaker
to be a carpenter, or the same man to be both, does no
1 It is not possible in so limited a space to follow so long a work as
the Republic in its actual method. I have therefore, while still using
much of the language of the work, combined its results in the way
which seemed best to secure brevity and clearness.
2 Rep. iv. 432 D.
352 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
serious harm to a state. But that a man who is a me-
chanic or anything of that sort by nature, should be
excited by wealth or numbers or strength to try to get
into the military class, or a military man to get into the
governing class when he is not capable of it, or that
the same man should try to do all these things at once,
this is ruin to a state 1 .'
Plato's principle must not be understood as merely, or
primarily, one of limitation. It does not say in the first
instance, ' Do not try to do what you are not fitted for,'
but, ' Do what you are fitted for, and in so doing you
will do the best both for yourself and the community.'
To put an agricultural labourer into fine clothes and tell
him to work the land at his leisure is only to make him
into something which is neither an agricultural labourer
nor any other useful member of society 2 . And con-
versely, a man who ought to find his highest happiness
in governing, but allows himself to find it in farming or
commerce, will lose what was his own without really
gaining what is another's, and will learn the truth of the
old saying, ' the half is more than the whole.' 3 The
pauper who cannot or will not work is admitted to be
no true part of the community ; but the member of the
government who is spending his fortune in a way which
will end by making him a pauper is really performing
no truer function in the community, and has no more
right to stay there 4 . Plato does not ignore the possibility
of men born in a lower position being qualified for a
higher, and vice versa ; he expressly provides for such
contingencies 5 ; but it is characteristic of him to dwell
1 Rep. iv. 434 A-B; cp. 421 A. 2 lb. iv. 420E-421 A.
3 lb. v. 466 B-C. 4 lb. viii. 552 A-B.
5 lb. hi. 415 B-C.
THE REPUBLIC 353
more upon the principle which he would wish to see
realized than upon the ways of working it, upon the
ideal limit than upon the approaches to it. The just
state, then, is that in which each man in his public
character, as member of a class or institution, fulfils his
capacity and acts up to his position. Justice is the
diffused ' power ' or ' virtue ' in men which makes them
able and willing to do this. It is also the principle upon
which the social balance is restored when it has been
upset, when one member of society has encroached upon
the position of another : ' in the administration of the law
the thing to be aimed at is that no one should either
have what is another's, or be deprived of what is his
own/ 1 Thus it is in a sense the cardinal of the cardinal
virtues, for it expresses a general and essential condition,
of which the other virtues admit of being represented
as special aspects : ' it makes it possible for them to
exist, and it maintains them in existence.' 2
Next, what is political ' wisdom,' the wisdom of the
state ? Wisdom is obviously a kind of knowledge, but
what kind ? Good farmers or good wood-workers do
not make a state wise ; they make it good at wood-
working and farming, and this is not to be wise as a state.
The only knowledge which answers the requirement is
knowledge of the state as a whole, which can regulate its
relations with itself and with other states. Few men in
any community are capable of such knowledge, but when
we call a state wise we mean that those few men are
in it 3 .
What, again, is courage in a state ? Clearly, when
we call a particular state brave, we are thinking of its
1 Rep. iv. 433 E. 2 lb. iv. 433 B.
3 lb. iv. 428 B-429 A.
VOL. I. A a
354 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
soldiers ; they are the persons who ' have its character
for courage or cowardice in their hands.' And what is
it which makes a citizen serve his country bravely ? Not
the mere blind instinct of the brute or the slave, but the
intelligent conviction, implanted by the state through
education, as to what he ought to fear and what he
ought not. The man whose soul is ' dyed ' so fast with
such a conviction that he can hold to it through all trials
—trials of pain, pleasure, and appetite, as well as those of
fear — is the brave citizen, and the state which is repre-
sented on the battle-field by such men is the brave state ] .
It remains to characterize political temperance, and we
may take a hint from the common phrase ' self-control,'
which is often substituted for ' temperance.' ' Self-control '
in the literal sense is absurd, for how can a man be both
stronger and weaker than himself? But what the phrase
points to is the existence in the soul of two elements,
a higher and a lower, of which the former ought naturally
to control the latter. The lower element in a state is
represented by the motley desires of the inferior classes,
who are the numerical majority, while the higher is found
in the simple and rationalized desires of the superior
minority. Where the superior control the inferior, and
where the control is felt to be right through all classes,
there we have political temperance. Thus the temperance
of a state is not exhibited in a particular part of the
community, as was the case with wisdom and courage ;
rather it is a sort of harmony which pervades the whole
social scale, producing unanimity as to who ought to
rule ; and the temperate state is that in which the various
claims of intelligence, wealth, strength, and numbers, are
felt by all to be duly recognized 2 .
1 Rep. iv. 429A-430C. a lb. iv. 430E-432B.
THE REPUBLIC 355
The conception of the state which determines Plato's
account of its goodness is that of a whole of parts, an
organic unity ; its virtues are simply the right modes of
action of those parts, severally and in relation to each
other. But the particular form in which he conceives
the social organism depends upon his conception of the
psychical organism. It is because the individual soul is
a complex of elements, of which the functions are not
interchangeable, and which exist in different proportions
in different men, that society is necessary and possible.
According as the individual is dominated by one or
other of the primary impulses of human nature, the im-
pulse to physical satisfaction, the impulse to self-assertion
and personal distinction, and the impulse to communion
with man, nature, and truth, he can supply to others
something which they want, and take from them in re-
turn something which he wants himself. And, as the
external organization of society is thus the result and
expression of the internal organization of its members, so
the virtues and vices of the state, as displayed by its
citizens in the outer sphere of public life, result from and
express the virtues and vices of their inner life. If the
governing class governs in the true sense of the word, it
is because the governing faculties of its members are
neither being exercised upon alien objects nor having
their functions usurped by alien faculties ; and so on
with the other classes. The principle of virtue, or, in
Platonic phraseology, its ' form,' is the same in the state
and in the individual ; the various virtues are explained
in both cases by being shown to be conditions of that
harmonious specialization of functions without which
successful vital activity, whether in public or private life,
is impossible.
A a 3
356 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
The just soul, accordingly, is that in which reason, the
natural ruler, rules, and ' spirit ' obeys and serves it, while
both together combine to regulate the unquiet and in-
satiate appetites which form the largest part of every
man, and to resist by counsel and action external aggres-
sions upon personal independence. The brave soul is
that in which spirit retains and carries out unflinchingly
through all temptations the dictates of reason. To be
wise is to understand the true interest of the whole self
and its several parts ; and temperance is the unanimity
between the higher and lower natures as to which should
rule and which obey 1 . Thus the principle of political
ustice, that the man who is by nature a shoemaker should
make shoes, and so on with the members of the other
classes of the community, turns out to be only the visible
1 image ' of justice. What gives its value to the image is
the fact that it expresses the inward condition of soul
which is 'the truth of justice/ the condition in which there
is no usurpation of functions by the various elements, but
each does its own work, and the man feels himself at one
with himself, ' tempered and tuned,' through the whole
scale of his nature 2 . Virtue, then, may best be described
as 'the health and beauty and good condition of the
soul,' vice as its ' disease, ugliness, and weakness ' ; and,
if all the meats and drinks and money and powder in the
world cannot make life worth living to a corrupt body,
much less can it be worth living at the price of dis-
organizing and corrupting the very principle of vitality,
the soul itself 3 .
In the foregoing account of virtue, or the moral con-
dition of life, the other half of the problem of Greek
1 Rep. iv. 441 C-442 D. 2 lb. iv. 443 B-E.
3 lb. iv. 444 D-445 D.
THE REPUBLIC 357
ethics, the moral end, is already practically determined.
If goodness means the highest state of the soul's being,
the end of life must be to be good ; nothing else can
really profit a man, for anything else means the surrender
of something which he might have been. But it still
remains to ask, In what concrete forms is the good ap-
prehended ? How is a man to present it to himself as
a thing to be done or attained ? In what relation does it
stand to the ' good things ' of life as ordinarily under-
stood ? The general character of Plato's answer to these
questions follows naturally from his conception of virtue.
If man can only exist normally as a member of a com-
munity, and if his virtue consists in recognizing and
acting up to his position as such a member, his aim in
life must be relative to the aim of the community. And
we find accordingly that Plato makes the proof of virtue
and the qualification for high position depend upon the
degree in which a man is able to identify his own with
the public weal. The ' dogma ' or conviction which he
is to learn to oppose to the illusions of pleasure and fear,
to the violence of pain, to the persuasiveness of argument,
is the simple one, that what is best for the state is best
for him 1 . And, when it is urged against Socrates that
in asking the best men in the community to give them-
selves up, body and soul, to its service, and to renounce
the luxuries and privileges of property, and most of what
is commonly esteemed necessary to the enjoyment of
life, he is asking them to be miserable, he replies that he
should not be surprised if these very men turned out to
be the happiest of all, but that the first question is,
how the whole state is to be made happy. To begin
by trying to make a part happy is as illogical as it
1 Rep. iii. 412 C-414 A.
358 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
would be to paint the eyes of a portrait purple, because
purple is the most beautiful of colours, and the eye the
most beautiful part of the face. The first thing to keep
in view is the welfare of the whole community : let every
one in it do his own work as well as he can, and trust to
nature to determine what share of the general happiness
shall fall to his lot K The point of this passage is not to
deny the right of classes and individuals to happiness,
nor to assert the existence of some abstract happiness of
the whole which is not that of the parts. The point is
that happiness is not a determinate thing, so much money,
so much enjoyment, which we can attach at pleasure to
this person or that. Happiness is in what a man is and
does, and this must be determined by his position, as the
beauty of a colour is determined by its relation to other
colours. When Plato returns to the objection which he
here only half answers, he boldly declares that the men
who are able to devote themselves to the highest service
of the state, so far from sacrificing themselves thereby,
attain a happiness higher than that of the Olympic
victors ; ' their victory is more glorious, and their nurture
at the public cost more complete ; the salvation of the
whole state is the victory which they win, and the supply
of all that is necessary to nurture and life is the crown
with which they are crowned.' 2
It is doubtless an inconsistency in Plato (due to the
conflict of reforming zeal with a philosophical idea) that,
while asserting in the strongest way the priority of the
soul in the determination of human well-being, and
the entirely secondary and instrumental character of
material circumstances, he still attributes to the latter
an originative efficacy for evil, and thinks to make
1 Rep. iv. 419-421 C, 2 lb. v. 465 D-466 C.
THE REPUBLIC 359
spiritual energy more spiritual by denuding it of con-
ditions like property and the family, which it, and it
alone, makes either good or bad. But if we look, not
at the machinery by which he proposes to carry out his
ideas, but at the ideas themselves, they lead to the
following conclusions. A man must keep constantly
before himself the fact that his own life is an element in
a larger life, from which he can only escape by a sort of
moral suicide. The more intensely he can realize this
fact, the more he can draw all that he is and does into
the circle of this idea, the more he can identify his own
aims with those in which he participates, the higher is
the life which he leads, and the fuller the being which
he attains. Every one capable of belonging to a com-
munity can feel to some extent the ties by which he is
connected with others ; a perfect community would be
one in which every one felt them in their full extent and
significance. ' That state is in the highest condition in
which the greatest number of people apply the words
'"' mine " and " not mine " to the same things in the same
sense ; that state, in fact, which most nearly resembles
a single man. For instance, when one's finger receives
a blow, the whole community which reaches through
the body up to the soul, forming a single order under
the ruling principle in it, feels pain simultaneously with
the pain of the part, and so we say, " the man has a pain
in his finger." . . . The more a state is of this character,
the more will it call the experiences of each individual
citizen its own, and will rejoice and sorrow with him.' l
In such a community the good of the whole would be
felt by every member to be identical with his own good ;
and, though no human society is conceivable in which
1 Rep. v. 462 C-E.
360 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
this would be absolutely the case, and in which there
would not be aims of varying elevation and scope, Plato
conceived that one society is better than another just
in proportion as each individual, however limited his
position, rises above his limitations to the consciousness
of contributing to, and sharing in, a common and un-
limited good.
And this brings us to the culminating point of the
Republic. We have already seen that it is a fundamental
principle with Plato that the lower nature secures its
own truest interests by trying to follow the higher, not
by trying to take its place ; in other words, that the
good of all the parts, and therefore the ideal of human
life, can only be realized through the rule of the highest.
' When the whole soul follows the philosophic element
and there is no faction in it, the result is that each part
not only does its own work and is just, but also reaps
its own pleasures in the best and truest form which they
admit of; but, when any other element rules, the result
to that element is that it loses its own pleasures, besides
compelling the other elements to pursue a pleasure alien
and untrue.' J This is the psychological expression of
the idea which is better known in the form of the
famous paradox that ' evil will not cease in the world,
nor the ideal of society be realized, until philosophers
are kings or kings philosophers.' 2 The idea, like most
others in the Republic, has a double aspect. It may be
regarded either as a practical suggestion for reforming
human life by a sort of tour de force, or as a theoretical
principle, never literally realizable, but containing an in-
exhaustible truth and capable of infinite application. In
1 Rep. ix. 586 E-587 A. 3 lb. v. 473 D-E.
THE REPUBLIC 361
the former aspect it belongs more to the Platonic politics ;
it is in the latter that we have to consider it here.
What then does Plato mean by demanding the
sovereignty of philosophy as the condition of human
perfection? We have seen already, and shall see again,
that he conceives of ' being ' in its ultimate nature as an
order or system, of which ' the good ' is the pervading
and sustaining principle. W 7 hat is true of being as a
whole is true of that part of it which is human society.
Human nature is such that the individual can only attain
well-being by participating in a common life, that is, by
recognizing and utilizing his individual limitations. The
more a man can realize this fact, the higher and the truer
is his life. To realize it completely would be to com-
prehend fully his position in the world, his relations to
man, nature, and the universe ; and this again would be
to see the supreme Good, or principle, upon which those
relations depend ; to see, in fact, into the ultimate reason
of things. Now the element in man in virtue of which
he is capable of common life is what Plato calls 'the
philosophic' The kinds and degrees of communion into
which it enables him to enter are very various, and will
seem at first to have little connexion. It is this element
which counterbalances the centrifugal element of self-
assertion and aggression, giving rise to different forms of
sympathy, from the merest attraction to what is familiar,
up to the fellow-feeling of family, country, and humanity.
It is this, again, which makes man susceptible to the
influences of literature and art, drawing his soul out
of itself to meet its better self in the uttered thoughts of
other souls. It is this, lastly, which issues in the desire
for truth and gives birth to knowledge ; for here too, as
Plato conceives, the operative impulse is to be at one
362 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
with something other than, and yet akin to, ourselves, to
feel ourselves in our surroundings, to live with the life
of the world. Supposing, then, that the ' philosophic '
element in all its forms were allowed full sway, that the
capacity for communion were fully tended and developed,
that every man up to his measure realized his place in
the whole of which he is a part, human life would reach
its highest point, and those who had most of the ' philo-
sophic ' nature, that is, who realized the truth most
profoundly, would be the utmost which it is given to
man to be.
Thus it is that the requirement of the sovereignty of
philosophy, and the requirement of the knowledge of the
Good, go hand in hand in the Republic. ' Philosophy '
to Plato means love of truth ; and its sovereignty would
mean that the discovery of truth was recognized as the
highest object of mankind, and obedience to it as their
highest duty. To discover the truth of things is to
discover their reason, that is, to see them in their true
order and relations. And that which determines their
order and relations is always some form of ' good.'
Thus the sovereignty of 'philosophy' and the know-
ledge of the ultimate ' good ' are only different aspects
of the ideal of human life, conceived as perfect con-
formity to its true laws. This double requirement is
enforced by Plato from two points of view, as giving
satisfaction to a certain impulse in human nature, and as
giving logical completion to the theory of human life.
On the one hand, there is in man an irrepressible desire
to get at the truth of things, through the appearance to
the reality, through the fact to the principle ; and this
desire, while it is the divinest thing in him and may be
the most potent for good, is also the most dangerous
THE REPUBLIC 363
and may be the most potent for harm. The highest
function of education is to train it aright, to concentrate
its restlessness, to discipline its versatility, to supply it
with an object adequate to it. Such an object is the
ultimate Good or reason of the world, in the growing
realization of which the utmost powers of the soul find
their exercise, and its deepest longings their satisfaction l .
On the other hand, the dictates of law and morality, if
pressed for their final justification, lead to the conception
of the same ultimate Good. It is this conception which
fills up the broken outlines of the moral life, sheds the
light of a fuller day upon the twilight of ordinary duties,
and lifts a man for moments out of the limitations of
time and country into a world of eternal law. of which in
spirit he may already be a citizen -. The central section
of the Republic is thus almost equally occupied with an
account of the ' philosophic nature,' and a description of
the steps by which the soul may rise to an understanding
of 'the Good.' In his theory of knowledge Plato con-
ceives philosophy as the ideal science ; we have here to
consider his conception of it as the ideal life.
To resume our analysis : the popular associations of
the word ' philosophy ' in Plato's time were not more
favourable than they are in our own. The proposal that
philosophers shall be kings will, he is well aware, be
'drowned in a wave of laughter and dishonour'; 'all
kinds of distinguished persons will throw off their coats,
seize the first weapon that comes to hand, and rush to do
frightful execution ' upon the man who has dared to
utter such words. The only way to meet the onslaught
1 Cp. Rep. vi. 490 B, 495 B, 497 D, 503 B-504 D ; vii. 532.
2 Cp. Rep. vi. 504 B-505 A ; vii. 520 B-E ; vi. 500 B-C, 501 B :
cno A-R
364 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
is to explain what a ' philosopher ' really means. ' Philo-
sopher ' means ' lover of wisdom,' and, when a person is
really fond of, really loves, a thing, he loves all of it.
A man therefore cannot be a philosopher unless he has,
to begin with, an indiscriminate appetite for knowledge
wherever it is to be found. In this respect he is like
a person in love ; there is no feature in the face of truth
which he cannot, on some pretext or other, find beautiful.
This characteristic, however, though essential to the
philosophic nature, is shared by it with other natures,
and does not of itself make a man a philosopher. To
be that, he must desire, not merely to know things in
general, but to know the truth of things ; he must be
always trying to get through appearances to the reality,
through the many to the one, through what changes to
what is permanent 1 . It is just this which makes him
objectionable to ordinary people. Things which they
treat as fixed and palpable certainties, he is always
showing to be only relatively true, while in his search
for what he calls a higher reality he seems only to lose
his eye for facts, or to upset accepted beliefs 2 . And
indeed it is a similar speculative impulse which leads
both to philosophy and to scepticism. Both begin with
asking the ' reason why ' about received beliefs ; the
difference is that the latter stops short when it has
shown that what was believed to be absolutely true is
only conditionally true, while the former goes on to ask,
What are the conditions of its conditional truth? The
genuine philosopher speculates, not in order to over-
throw or confuse, not in order to frame neat-looking
theories, but because he cannot help it. He cannot rest
1 Rep. v. 473 E-480 A.
2 lb. v. 476 C-E, 479 A-B; vii. 516 E-517 E.
THE REPUBLIC 365
in the limits of ordinary opinion and appearance ; he
longs like a lover to get at reality, to embrace it, to be
one with it 1 . And this passion for truth, when unalloyed
by indolence or vanity, besides implying the intellectual
gifts of quickness, retentiveness, and versatility, brings in
its train all the qualities which make a noble character.
It is incompatible with sensuality and avarice, for it
diverts all the forces of desire into another channel.
It banishes little-mindedness and cowardice, for it carries
a man out of himself into contact with mankind and God,
and gives him a vision of all time and all being, in which
human life looks but a little thing. It makes him just
and easy to deal with, for it is not touched by motives of
desire or greed, vanity or fear 2 . 'He whose mind is
truly set upon reality has no time to look down at the
concerns of men, and fight, and fill himself with jealousy
and rancour : his eyes are turned to a world that is set
fast and ever the same, a world where nothing does or
suffers wrong, but all is reasonable and in order; and,
looking on this, he imitates and becomes like it.' 3
If all this is true, if philosophy is more than the
impulse and power to get at the real principles of things,
if it carries with it all the great moral qualities as well,
the philosophic life, harmonizing word and deed, theory
and practice, must be the embodiment of human per-
fection, and those who live it are marked out to be the
natural leaders of mankind. But is all this true ? ' Is
not the fact rather that, of those who study philosophy
further than as a branch of education, the greater number
are very eccentric, not to say utterly disreputable, while
for the best all that it does is to make them useless
1 Cp. Rep. vii. 537 D-539 D ; vi. 498 D-499 A ; 490 A-B.
* lb. vi. 485 A-487 A. 3 lb. vi. 500 B-C.
366 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
members of society?' This is the truth; it cannot be
denied ; but what are the reasons of it ? Philosophers,
the few good ones who exist, are useless : but why ?
Only because the world will not use them. The ship of
the state is sailed by ignorant and dissolute sailors, who
not only have never learnt navigation, but who deny that
it can be learnt. The owner and master of the ship is
big and strong and well-meaning, but his eyes and ears
and brain are not of the best, and he is easily drugged
into indifference ; while the one man who really knows
how to steer is set aside as a star-gazing theorist. This
is why the philosopher is useless. We cannot expect
him to go and ask men to let him rule them : they must
come to him, not he to them 1 .
The prejudice against philosophy, however, is due
much less to the uselessness of the few who pursue it
worthily than to the demoralization of most of its pro-
fessed votaries. And here again it is not philosophy,
but society, that is really to blame. We have seen what
the philosophic nature is, the most gifted, the most
powerful, the most aspiring, of all natures. Now it is
a law of living beings, whether plants or animals, that
the stronger they are the more they need the right
nourishment, and the more they suffer from the wrong.
Weak natures do nothing great, either good or evil ; it is
genius spoilt which makes the great criminals of the
world. What then is the nourishment which awaits the
philosophic soul in the present state of things ? Society
talks a great deal about 'sophists,' who demoralize our
youth ; but the fact is that society itself is the greatest
sophist, and fashions young and old, men and women,
according to its will. It is the voice of society, in the
1 Rep. vi. 487 C-489 C.
THE REPUBLIC 367
assembly, the law-courts, the theatres, the arm)-, loud,
exaggerated, and irresistible, and backed by the penalties
of law and public opinion, which is our real educator.
No individual teacher can possibly compete with it : the
grace of God alone can save a soul against such odds.
As for these poor paid amateurs, whom society stigma-
tizes as ' sophists ' and regards as its rivals, they do
nothing but retail what they have been taught. Society
is a great beast of which they are the keepers ; they
study its tempers and appetites, how to come near it and
where to touch it, what irritates and what soothes it, how
it speaks and likes to be spoken to ; and when they have
learnt all this by long experience they put it together
into an art, and call it wisdom, and teach it. They know
nothing about what is right or wrong, good or bad, in it ;
what the beast likes is ' good,' what it dislikes is ' bad ' ;
that is all the account they can give of them. And
what does society like and dislike? It likes what it calls
facts, and it dislikes principles ; it believes in what is
necessary, and disbelieves in anything ideal ; it is not
philosophical itself, and it is intolerant of those who are ;
and, as it is, so must those be who wish to please it.
What fate, then, is likely to await the philosophical
genius who is born in such surroundings ? His very gifts
are his ruin, especially if they be combined with the
external advantages of birth, beauty, wealth, and posi-
tion. Always first in everything, always surrounded by
flatterers who want to use him for their own interests,
he will be filled with gigantic hopes, and think that he
can rule the world. And if some friend tells him gently
that he is a fool, and that to get wisdom he must become
her slave, is he likely to listen? Or if he does listen,
and feels drawn by his better nature to philosophy, what
368 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
will not his flatterers do to keep him in their power and
to stop the mouth of his adviser? So it is that the
noblest natures, rare in any case, are lost to philosophy,
and lost in a sense through their own gifts and ad-
vantages 1 .
But this is not all. Philosophy is deserted by those
who ought to be her true followers, but even in her
humiliation the splendour of her name and place remains,
and is too good to lose. Little men of little arts, their
mechanic souls stunted and crippled and awry, seeing
this goodly land unoccupied, come running out of their
prisons, and jump into the sacred precincts. To what
shall we compare them ? To a little bald-headed tinker
lately let out of gaol, who has had a bath and got a new
coat, and is going to marry his master's daughter, so
poor is she and forlorn. And what sort of children are
they likely to produce ? What but the bastard sophisms
which circulate under the name of philosophy, and fasten
shame upon their mother ? 2 For these reasons it is that
but a poor remnant is left of the true followers of philo-
sophy. And these few, having tasted of her blessedness,
and seen the madness of the world, finding public life
corrupt to the core, and no one to help in the cause of
justice, like men fallen among wild beasts, unwilling to
join the evil-doers, and unable to do any good by resisting
them, can only stand aside out of the driving storm,
content, if they may, to live their life purely, and, when
death comes, to die in hope 3 . We cannot, indeed, say
that such men achieve nothing ; but they would achieve
much more, for themselves as well as for mankind, if
they could find a proper state to live in. As it is, the
1 Rep. vi. 489 D-495 B. 2 lb. vi. 495 B-496 A.
3 lb. vi. 496 A-E.
THE REPUBLIC 369
philosophic nature is like a seed sown in an alien soil,
under the influence of which it degenerates. If it had
a society as good as itself in which to grow, it would
show the world that it is the really divine nature, and
that all else is human in comparison l .
The question then is, How is this force, so potent for
good or for evil, to be dealt with ? How is it to be
made an agent of salvation instead of destruction ? We
found before that a man's virtue is summed up in love of
the community of which he is a member, and in the
power to recognize his position and act up to it : what
then must be added to this virtue if it is to employ and
absorb all the eager promptings and all the high aspira-
tions which we have seen to be characteristic of the
greatest minds — if it is to be, in a word, the virtue of
a philosopher 2 ? There can be only one answer to these
questions. It is ' the Good ' which a man must learn and
know, if he is to have a really complete theory of life.
It is this which gives to everything else its value ; for
what are all the possessions and all the knowledge in the
world, if they are not good ? It is this which every one
really aims at and is dimly feeling after, this which every
one demands to have and for which he will take no
substitute. And yet it is just this about which every one
is most in the dark. Some people say knowledge is the
Good, others pleasure ; but the former, when pressed as
to what knowledge they mean, have to say ' knowledge
of the good/ thus implying the very thing which they
profess to explain ; while the latter are obliged to admit
the existence of bad pleasures, and thus to identify good
and evil. And this want of clearness and consistency in
their ultimate aims reacts upon their subordinate aims,
1 Rep. vi. 497 A-C. 2 lb. vi. 497 D, 502 D-504 A.
VOL. I. Bb
370 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
and makes them lose what they would otherwise gain
there. A man cannot have a very firm hold upon justice
and honour if he does not know what makes them good.
Until he knows that, his knowledge of them is dim,
sketchy, incomplete. He is like a blind man walking
straight along a road. He has no pattern, no ideal truth,
in his soul, to which to look and refer all that he does :
his grasp of morality is that of opinion, not of knowledge,
and he goes through life like a man in a dream l .
What, then, is the Good? To realize what it is in
itself would be a ' flight above us ' at present, but we
may help ourselves by looking at the visible universe
which the Good creates, and in which we may see its
image and analogue. As the sun in the visible world,
so is the Good in the spiritual. The sun is the source of
light, without which the eye cannot see nor objects be
seen : the Good is the source of reason, the presence of
which makes the soul intelligent and objects intelligible.
Where the light of truth and being shines, there the soul
sees and understands ; where the twilight of change pre-
vails, its vision is clouded and inconstant. Thus we may
speak of knowledge and truth as like the Good, but we
must not identify them with it ; it is their condition, and
higher than they. Nor is it the condition of knowledge
only, but of being also ; it not only makes things in-
telligible, it makes them what they are ; it is not being,
but higher than being 2 . True education is the method
of turning the eye of the soul gradually from the darkness
in which it was born, to this creative sun with which it
has an inherent affinity. At each fresh step in knowledge
a new light is shed upon the world ; the last and crown-
1 Rep. vi. 504 A-506 C. Cp. vi. 484 C-D ; vii. 540 A, 534 C.
2 lb. vi. 506 B-509 B.
THE REPUBLIC 371
ing step is taken when the soul becomes able to look upon
the Good itself, not only as it is reflected in the order of
nature and the forms of human life, but in its own place
and essence, and to see that whatever is right and
beautiful in the whole world, visible and invisible, is in
some sense due to it. That those who have once had
a glimpse of it should not care to return to the darkness
of everyday life is but natural ; they desire to dwell in
the fruition of the heavenly vision. And when they are
forced to come down to earth, and to discuss the dim
and shadowy conceptions of right and wrong held by
men who have never seen the reality, it is not strange if
at first, while their eyes are yet unaccustomed to the
dark, they cut a sorry figure. But only fools will laugh
at them ; the wise man must pity them. It is the duty
of society to give them education, and make them feel
that they owe it their services as the price of their
nurture ; then they may fairly be called upon to come
down from their paradise, and take their part in the
business of life. When they get accustomed to the dark-
ness, they will see the things in it a thousand times better
than do the people who have never been out of it ; for,
having known the realities, they will understand their
reflexions and shadows l .
Philosophy, then, is the ascent of the soul from the
day of darkness to the true day, from Hades to the gods
in heaven 2 . It is the liberation of the soul, gifted with
che indestructible spark of divine intelligence, from ' the
leaden weights which the pleasures of gluttony and the
like attach to it.' 3 It is the impulse which, if it had full
sway, would carry the soul out of the sea which encrusts
1 Rep. vii. 517 A-520 C. 3 lb. vii. 521 C.
:; lb. vii. 518 E-519 B.
1$ b 2
372 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
it with the ' shells and stones and tangle ' of earthly
appetites, into communion with 'the divine, immortal,
and eternal ' to which it is akin 1 . It is the awakening
from the dream-life in which men fight about shadows of
power and grasp at phantoms of good, to the reality
which lies around them if they would only open their
eyes to see 2 . And, if the philosophic nature is justly
called the divinest thing in us, it is also in a sense the
most truly human. To the outward view man is one,
but inwardly he is a complex creature, in which the
many-headed monster of appetite and the lion of spirit
far exceed in bulk the human element of reason. Yet it
is this last, the impulse to seek and be at one with truth,
which makes him what he is, and in living for this he
lives for his true self. ' Whatever is best for a thing, that
is most its own ' ; the lower nature does not lose by sub-
mitting to the higher ; on the contrary, it is only by
following the lead of the highest, by living, as far as they
are able, the life of the whole and making its good their
good, that the inferior impulses and desires find their
most real satisfaction. The rule of any but the true
ruler disorganizes the whole, and in so doing unmakes
and falsifies both it and its parts. All vice, then, is a
crime against what is nearest and dearest to us, against
that human nature within us which is also the divine.
To say that injustice is profitable is to say that it is
profitable to let loose the animal elements to fight and
tear and devour one another, instead of enlisting their
nobler instincts, taming their serviceable appetites, and
crushing out their bestiality. Is it 'profitable' to sell
one's own son or daughter into slavery to savages ; and
shall we have no pity on the most godlike thing within
1 Rep. x. 611 C-612 A. 3 lb. vii. 520 C, 534 C ; v. 476 C-D.
THE REPUBLIC
373
us, but enslave it to the most godless for the price of
unrighteous gold ? What is licentiousness but a hydra let
loose in the soul, or what are self-will and effeminacy but
the sinews of spirit too tightly or too loosely strung?
What is the meanness which fawns for money but the lion
cowed into a monkey, and why does trade vulgarize but
because it teaches the sovereign reason to be the toady of
avarice ? To be ruled by divine wisdom is the best thing
that can happen to a man, best of all if he have it in
himself, next best if it be set over him from without. It
is thus, under the guidance of one and the same principle,
that we may all be made friends. The law of the state
is the recognition of such a principle, and the end of
education is to enable men to be a law to themselves.
The wise man, then, will make it the aim of his life to
tend the divine nature within him, and to let it rule in
the commonwealth of his soul. He will honour all
knowledge which helps to this end, and he will manage
his body with the same view, making not pleasure only
but even health subordinate to it. In the acquisition of
wealth he will observe the same principle, trying not to
get so much or so little as will disturb the balance of his
soul. And so with honours, he will accept some and
decline others, according as they will or will not make
him a better man. As to politics, in the ideal state, of
which he is really a citizen, he will take part in them,
but not perhaps in the actual state in which he lives,
unless by some divine favour of fortune. Whether the
ideal is realized on earth, or not, makes no difference ; it
is laid up in heaven as a pattern for him to look at and
to dwell in, and the life which he lives will be the life of
it and no other 1 .
1 Rep. ix. 586 A-592 B.
374 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
Plato has supplemented and illustrated his conception
of human good and perfection in the Republic by an
account of human imperfection and evil. The results
thus far arrived at may be recapitulated as follows.
The perfect life would be the life of complete com-
munity, the life in which a man fully realized the truth
that he is what he is by participation in a larger being.
The element in man in virtue of which he can approach
the realization of this truth is the philosophic element,
and the perfect life would therefore be the life which is
ruled by philosophy. And as the ground of this truth
is the further and ultimate truth that the universe is an
ordered whole, created and sustained by the absolute
Good, the perfect life would be the life lived in the ever-
present vision of the Good. But man is by no means
wholly 'philosophical,' and the actual life of man is
therefore by no means perfect. Even those few who
deserve the name of ' philosophers ' only deserve it
because the philosophic nature in them is dominant ;
but the spirited and appetitive elements over which it
dominates are still present in them, and form quantita-
tively the largest part of them. In most men some
other element is dominant : their power of living in
communion and realizing the good is perhaps only
enough to enable them to serve a cause which they
believe, without fully understanding it, to represent their
better self; perhaps it does not enable them to do so
much as this, but only to obey a power which they feel
has a right to rule. Hence the need of society. The
utmost that can be expected of a society is that there
should be a felt reciprocity of interests between all its
members. The forms in which this reciprocity comes
home to different natures will be very different. To
THE REPUBLIC 375
some it will appear in the results of industry which has
been both patriotic and successful ; to others in personal
distinction won in the service of the government ; to
others in the simple consciousness of living for the true
good of the whole community. And these three forms
represent roughly the great divisions into which mankind
seemed to Plato naturally to fall, those to whom wealth,
those to whom honour, and those to whom truth, embody
respectively the chief good or end of life. A society or
an individual is perfect in proportion as the lower ends
are pursued in subordination to the higher ; imperfect,
in proportion as they are substituted for the higher. As
virtue does not mean the elimination of the inferior
nature, but its elevation, so vice does not mean the
elimination of the higher nature, but its debasement.
From Plato's point of view this debasement may be
indifferently represented as disorganization and loss of
the sense of community, or as the substitution of a partial
and therefore false end for an adequate and true one.
In the eighth and ninth books of the Republic he has
illustrated its double character in a series of pictures,
each exhibiting a typical form of decline from the ideal
life. The order of the series is logical, not historical :
it represents the progress of the evil principle in human
nature, not as it has taken place in any particular time
or country, but as it might be supposed to take place if
there were no counteracting influences. In delineating
it Plato has ransacked the whole field of political history
and social life over which his experience or his informa-
tion extended, gathering from every quarter whatever
seemed to him characteristic of the particular form of
evil which he was describing, and combining it so as to
illustrate that form most effectively. He has placed the
376 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
pictures of individuals and states, of personal and political
life, side by side, in accordance with the theory which
underlies the whole Republic, the theory that political
and social phenomena must be interpreted as the ex-
pression of psychological and moral forces. What he
calls the ' oligarchic ' or the ' democratic ' man is not
merely a fanciful miniature of the state of the same
name ; he is the man who embodies those principles and
tendencies which, if developed in sufficient strength,
produce oligarchic or democratic constitutions or move-
ments. Nowhere else has Plato shown so much know-
ledge of human nature, combined with so much pictorial
power, as in this section of the Republic. It is only
possible here, omitting most of the details which give
colour to his pictures, and reserving the more special
political aspects for later consideration 1 , to notice how
the leading features of the description illustrate his con-
ception of moral imperfection and evil.
Next in worth to the philosophic impulse Plato sets
the impulse to personal distinction — the impulse to which
honour, the recognition of distinction by others, is the
dominant object of desire. The first step in decline
from the ideal life, therefore, is the substitution of honour
for truth as the end of life. Honour depends for its
worth upon the worth of those who bestow it; and we
have seen that Plato finds the highest life of ' spirit '
or the honour-loving element, not in mere successful
achievement, but in achievement in the service of a cause
or principle which it feels to be higher than itself. This
'service' is just what it loses when it becomes itself the
ruling principle of life, and the want of such a higher
guide and stimulus narrows its aspirations and coarsens
1 [In another chapter of the unfinished book.]
THE REPUBLIC
377
its temper. The typical character which results from
its dominion is that of the ' timocratic l ' man. He is
'self-willed, and something of a Philistine, yet fond of
art and literature, though no speaker ; rough to slaves
(whom he is not educated enough to despise), but
courteous to equals ; full of respect for authority, and
fond of exercising it himself; ambitious of nothing but
military distinction, and much given to athletics and
hunting. When he is young he despises money ; but the
older he gets, the more he cares about it : there is
a touch of alloy in his character, for he has neglected
the education of reason and beauty, and nothing else can
guard a man's virtue through life.' 2 The timocratic
character issues in a generalized form in the constitu-
tion which Plato calls ' timocracy,' of which he regards
Sparta as a type, with its depreciation of culture, suspicion
of intellect, contempt for trade and agriculture, sharp
division of governing and governed, passion for military
glory, and repressed avarice 3 .
It is this repressed avarice which breaks out in the
next stage, when the reign of spirit is succeeded by that
of appetite, and the motive of honour by that of wealth.
Wealth, as being the great instrument of enjoyment, is
often represented by Plato as the typical object of ap-
petite in general, but in describing the progress of
evil he is careful to distinguish between the ' necessary,'
or 'productive,' and the 'unnecessary,' 'spendthrift,' or
' drone-like ' appetites. The former are those which are
indispensable to life and beneficial, the latter those which
can be got rid of by effort and contribute nothing to the
good of the organism. It is of the former that wealth is
1 ' Timocratic ' means ' in whom honour rules.'
2 Rep. viii. 548 E-549 B. s lb. viii. 547 B-548 C.
378 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
the object, and the character or the constitution which
seeks the end of life in wealth, as such, is called by Plato
the 'oligarchic' The vice of the oligarchic principle lies
in the fact that, whereas the desire for wealth only
justifies its place in human nature by submitting to be
limited by the desire for the good of the whole man *, it
is here 'set upon a throne, while reason and spirit sit
like slaves on either side.' 2 This new elevation of a
secondary into a primary end goes along with an increase
of disorganization and consequently of weakness. The
oligarchic man is ' sparing and industrious ; he satisfies
only the necessary appetites ; on the others, which he
considers frivolous, he will spend nothing, but represses
them. He is a dry sort of person, who saves on every-
thing and is always making a purse, and the world
speaks well of him. If you want to see his bad side,
watch him when he is made a guardian of orphans, and
can do wrong with impunity ; then you will see that the
self-control which he shows in ordinary business, where
credit is to be got by honesty, is not the result of reason
and principle, but of the forcible repression of his bad by
his respectable desires ; it is his property that he trembles
for. . . . Thus he is not really one man but two ; and,
though his life is more orderly than that of many, he is
far from having the true virtue of a soul at unity with
itself. In the honourable competition of public life he is
not a formidable antagonist ; he does not want to spend
money on such things, and he is afraid to wake his
expensive appetites and enlist them on his side ; and so
he goes into battle with a fraction of his forces, and gets
beaten and rich.' 3
1 Rep. ix. 591 D-E ; cp. iv. 421 D-E. 2 lb. viii. 553 C.
3 lb. viii. 554 A-555 A.
THE REPUBLIC 379
The dominion of appetite having now begun, the
further phases of decline will be the lower phases of
the appetitive nature itself. The first is that in which
the desire for wealth has given way to the desire for
freedom, the ' oligarchic ' to the ' democratic ' spirit.
The essence of the latter, as understood by Plato, is
that it asserts the principle of absolute liberty and
equality : of liberty, in the sense that every one is free-
to do what he pleases; of equality, in the sense that
every one is equal to every one else in every thing.
Negatively, it is the spirit which repudiates all law,
order, and rule as a restraint upon free human nature,
and all distinctions of better and worse as an infringement
of the abstract equality of rights. The phase which it
represents in the progress of evil is that of an equilibrium
of conflicting appetites. The decent but uninteresting
order due to the concentrated pursuit of wealth has
broken up, but no new dominion has as yet asserted
itself, and there intervenes a stage of brilliant anarchy.
Its principle is to have no principle, to deny all dis-
tinctions of good and bad, necessary and unnecessary, to
abandon oneself to the pleasure which the ' lot ' of circum-
stance brings. The ' democratic ' man ' passes his life in
satisfying the appetite of the moment ; one day he
drenches himself in wine and music, the next he pines
on cold water ; sometimes he is athletic, sometimes he
is lazy and will do nothing, sometimes he takes a spell
of philosophy ; often he turns politician, and jumps up
with the first idea that comes to his hand ; if soldiering
happen to strike his fancy, he takes to that ; if commerce,
to that. His life is under no order or necessity, but he
calls it pleasant, free, and delightful, and he lives no other.' 1
1 Rep. viii. 561 C-D.
380 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
The development of evil is completed when, from the
rule of the few respectable appetites and the anarchy of
the many indiscriminate, we pass to the autocracy of one.
As Plato found in the love of wealth the core of the
oligarchic spirit, and in the love of abstract freedom that
of the democratic, so in sheer selfishness, the simple
craving for the pleasures of satisfied desire, he finds the
moral embryo of the tyrant. And as the ' oligarchic '
and ' democratic ' men tend, under favourable circum-
stances, to produce oligarchies and democracies, because
the theory of those constitutions is already the theory of
their own lives, so the 'tyrannical' man has in him the
making of a political tyrant, because he is already
' tyrannized over ' by one of his own passions. Plato
had before divided appetites into ' necessary ' and ' un-
necessary ' ; he now further distinguishes in the latter
a class of ' lawless ' appetites, which are born in every
one, but may be got rid of or repressed. These are the
' wild-beast ' element in human nature, which cannot be
'tamed' or made serviceable for life, but is essentially
inorganic and destructive. They make themselves felt
in dreams, when the higher nature is asleep, and shame
and reason have lost their sway over the imagination.
Plato represents the possession by them as a sort of
madness, akin to other forms of morbid self-conscious-
ness 1 . It is one of these appetites, lust, whose sole
dominion makes the ' tyrannical ' man. As the dominant
passion grows, it breeds new wants, which clamour for
food ; they have to be satisfied at any cost ; first the
family property is attacked, and when that source is
drained crime begins. If there are only a few such men
1 Rep. ix. 571 A-572 B ; cp. ix. 587 C, 589 B-D, and 573 B-C, 577 D,
578 A.
THE REPUBLIC 381
in a state, they take service with some foreign despot or
become common criminals ; if they are numerous, the
most 'tyrannical' of them becomes a tyrant, and realizes
the ideal of evil by converting into a waking truth the
bestiality of dreams. Instead of being one with his
fellow-men, he is now their natural enemy ; instead of
being his own best friend, he has enslaved what is highest
in him to what is lowest ; he seems to be an autocrat,
but, if you think of his whole soul, no one does less what
he wishes ; he lives for the satisfaction of desire, and yet
he is always in the pangs of longing and remorse. Thus
does Plato conceive that, as the noblest powers in the
soul do not find their fullest exercise except in a com-
munity which they can serve by ruling, and as a man
attains the summit of his being when he can feel that
' nothing but his body is his own ' and yet that he is the
happiest of men, so, conversely, the lowest depth is not
reached until he who is tyrannized over by his own
vilest passions is placed in a position where he can
ruin thousands to satisfy them, and can feel that he is
absolutely friendless and alone in the moment when he
is saying, ' I am the state.'
The combinations of circumstances under which Plato
represents these various characters as developing are all
typical and full of interest, but it is only possible here to
notice one or two of their characteristic features. The
first thing which strikes us is the prominence given to
the law of reaction : ' it is the tendency of any excess to
produce a change in the opposite direction ; this is true
of seasons, of plants, of animal bodies, and not least of
political constitutions 1 .' Thus the father who abstains
from politics because of their bad tone has a son who
1 Rep. viii. 563 E.
382 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
throws himself headlong into the competition for power 1 .
The self-contained and timid money-maker is the heir of
a man who has wrecked his all upon a political rock*.
The ' democratic ' man, who is ' everything by turns
and nothing long,' is the sobered result of a reaction
against the niggard monotony in which he has been
brought up 3 ; and the same reaction, not sobered down,
but intensified, produces the ' tyrannical ' man, the slave
of a single passion 4 .
Another noticeable point is the way in which, as the
soul loses its inner unity, it becomes more the prey of
external circumstances. The oligarchy falls by faction
aided by another state 5 ; the soul of the democratic man
is fought over by rival claimants 6 ; and the passion
which seals the fate of the tyrannical man is manufactured
for him by a society which is afraid that he is slipping
out of its hands 7 . As the intrinsic goodness of a thing,
body or soul, plant, animal, or work of art, is tested by its
power of resisting external influences 8 , so 'the unhealthy
body or state wants but a slight impulse from without to
make it ill, and sometimes even falls ill of itself.' 9
Lastly, it is characteristic of Plato to represent evil as
beginning at the top and working downwards. As long
as the highest elements in a man or a community are
at their best, there is no fear of faction or weakness
below them 10 ; but as soon as they begin to lose their
singleness of purpose, and to let their work pass to other
and inferior agents, the disturbance of function is felt
through the whole organism, and not only do the higher
1 Rep. viii. 549 C-550 B. 2 lb. viii. 553 A-C. 3 lb. viii. 559 D, 561 A.
* lb. ix. 572 C ff. 5 lb. viii. 556 E. 6 lb. viii. 559 E-560 B, 561 B.
7 lb. ix. 572 E-573 A. 8 lb. ii. 380 E ff. 9 lb. viii. 556 E.
10 lb. viii. 545 D ; cp. iv. 442 A ; v. 465 B.
THE REPUBLIC 383
elements themselves sink to a lower level, but the lower
ones which take their place, deprived of their natural
guidance and support, lose force and unity at the very
time that they seem, to be gaining them. Thus it
is that, at almost every fresh step in decline, Plato
notices as one of the prime causes of this decline ' want
of education,' meaning by ' education ' all those spiritual
influences by which the higher nature is nourished and
quickened, and without which it grows ' weak and deaf
and blind.' 1 It is this want which allows the spirited
element to usurp the rule of reason, and personal dis-
tinction to take the place of truth and good as the object
of life 2 ; it is owing to this that a man falls under the ex-
ternal law of force instead of being a law to himself 3 ; it
is this which tends to brutalize chivalry, and lets the taint
of avarice fasten on it and grow with age 4 . At a lower
stage the same neglect of true culture, blinding the soul
to higher things, leaves it to be led by the ' blind god' of
wealth, while it allows the 'drone-like' passions to grow in
secret under the cover of rich respectability, and then, in
the absence of any higher motive to appeal to, necessitates
their repression by force and fear 5 . Then, when the man
who has never learnt to look at anything but the ground
is introduced to the flashy brilliancy of fast society, the
dull vacancy of his swept and garnished soul, where no
true or noble idea has ever dwelt, becomes a home for
the cynicism of the ' initiated ' man of the world, and
a breeding-place for ' lotus-eating ' desire 6 .
Having now followed to its conclusion Plato's con-
ception of moral good and evil in the Republic, we have
1 Rep. iii. 411 C-E. 2 lb. viii. 546 D. 3 lb. viii. 548 B.
4 lb. viii. 549 A-B. 5 lb. viii. 554 B-D. 6 lb. viii. 559 D-560 E.
384 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
shortly to notice its most characteristic features, and to
supplement it here and there from other dialogues. The
account of ideal goodness and the ideal good is the
expansion and culmination of that view of life which, as
we have already seen, unites what are often distinguished
as its moral and scientific aspects. The ' philosophic '
life is represented as the highest because it is the most
reasonable, because it is inspired by the desire to be
at one with truth and fact, because it is lived in the ever-
present sense of man's place in the eternal order of the
world. And the 'idea of good/ the apprehension of
which is the summit of human attainment and well-
being, is the principle of that eternal order, the condition
of truth and fact, the ultimate postulate to which a
rational interpretation of the world leads. It might
seem accordingly that Plato's conception of moral per-
fection is fairly summed up in such words as ' enlighten-
ment ' or 'culture.' But when we turn to his own
statements we find them transfused with an element
which recalls Isaiah or St. Paul, rather than the cool
light of the eighteenth century or the tempered en-
thusiasm of the nineteenth. The 'dialectical' impulse is
described by him in the language of religious rapture ;
the ' unconditioned first principle ' of knowledge is clothed
in the attributes of a divine personality ; and the practice
and aims of the votary of science are distinguished from
those of ordinary men by that indefinable quality which
we can only call spiritual. In a word, philosophy is here
religion. Four centuries later the windy subtleties of
a bastard Greek ' wisdom ' could be held up in contrast
with the ' foolishness ' which is the ' power of God ' x ; but
here, in the heart and on the lips of Plato, the ' love of
1 1 Cor. i. 22-25.
PHILOSOPHY AND LIFE 385
wisdom ' is itself that divine foolishness, that strength in
weakness, before which the cunning of the world and the
pageantry of power fade and are discomfited.
It is necessary to dwell a little upon this fact, and
to see how Plato conceived the ' philosophy ' which could
thus transfigure life and raise morality to its highest
power. When we speak now of ' love of truth,' we
usually think of it as one among the other qualities
proper to the scientific or historical investigator, but
hardly as the pregnant source of all virtue. Only now
and then, when some one lives and dies for a theory
or a discovery, and in the simple absorption in one
object seems to be lifted above the reach of ordinary
weaknesses and temptations, do we catch something
of Plato's meaning. To him it seemed as if the desire
for truth was the only basis of a perfectly disinterested
morality. The philosopher is untroubled by sensuality
or avarice, not because he represses them for fear of
consequences, but because he desires something bcttcr
than they can give, and the other channels of his
appetites run dry 1 . He alone can afford to despise
the profits of political power, because he alone is rich
in the real wealth, the ' divine gold.' 2 The idea thus
suggested in the Republic is more fully expressed in
the Phaedo z . The life of the true philosopher, we are
there told, is a dying to the body that he may live
to the soul ; a concentration of himself upon truth and
reality ; a disengagement, as far as is practicable, from
the hindrances, the illusions, the distractions, which
physical wants bring with them ; it is, in fact, a foretaste
of that freedom to which he looks forward after death,
1 Rep. vi. 485 D. 2 lb. vii. 521 A-B; iii. 416 E.
a 64 A-69 E.
VOL. I. C C
386 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
when he hopes to see with purified eyes the truth in its
purity. Death, therefore, which is terrible to others, is
to him the release from bondage, and the entrance to
communion with the truth which he had loved on earth.
It is this love alone which can make virtue quite genuine.
Ordinary people face certain dangers to avoid some
worse evil, or abstain from certain pleasures to gain
other pleasures ; their courage is a kind of fear, their
continence a kind of incontinence. But it is a ' shallow
and slavish ' morality which thus barters pleasure for
pleasure, pain for pain ; wisdom is the only true ' coin '
of virtue, and, unless we get that, we get nothing for what
we give. Passages like this naturally suggest the word
' asceticism,' and, if asceticism means the disciplined effort
to attain an end which cannot be attained without giving
up many things often considered desirable, the philo-
sophic life is ascetic ; but, if it means giving up for
the sake of giving up, there is no asceticism in Plato.
It is natural that in the PJiaedo the negative result of
the desire for truth, indifference to much which goes
to make up ordinary life, should be prominent ; but
the ground of the indifference, both there and in the
Republic, is represented as devotion to an object which
fills and absorbs the soul.
But it may be asked, how does this object differ from
other objects of absorbing interest ? Do not the miser
and the athlete also forgo much of what is usually
esteemed enjoyment ? What is ' truth ' that it should
be placed in this unique position, as the one thing in-
trinsically worth living for ; or ' wisdom,' that it should
claim to be the only genuine 'coin' of virtue? It is
clear that when Plato spoke of wisdom and truth in
this way he was not thinking of the mere acquisition
PHILOSOPHY AND LIFE 387
of knowledge, in the ordinary sense of scientific or
historical information. He explicitly dismisses the theory
that knowledge can be the end of life, unless it be know-
ledge of the Good. Yet it is insisted on as characteristic
of the philosophic nature to welcome every fragment of
knowledge, great or small, high or low, 'which reveals
in any way the eternal being of things 1 .' Knowledge,
as we have seen, is to Plato the apprehension of things in
their true relations ; each fact is what it is from its place
in the whole ; truth is one and coherent, though man has
to learn it as a manifold which he can never fully piece
together. In this unity he and his life are an element,
and to know the truth is to see himself as he really is ;
to see, in modern phraseology, the ultimate conditions
and bearings of his life and actions. All knowledge has
an intrinsic value which contributes to this end ; and,
as no part of truth is absolutely isolated, there is no
real knowledge which cannot be made to contribute to
it, which may not help to fill in the outline of life, and
which is not therefore, if rightly looked at, a knowledge
of the Good. And this brings us to the second way in
which Plato represents the influence of philosophy upon
character and conduct. It not only concentrates desire,
it also widens the view of the issues of life. Because each
point of reality is a centre with an infinite circumference,
the philosopher is perpetually being carried beyond the
apparent fact, and ignoring the conventional proportions
of things. In the 'vision of all time and all being' he
sees human life shrink into nothingness, and cannot be
afraid to die. His soul 'reaches out after all that is
divine and human,' and he is lifted above the pettinesses
of everyday life. He dwells in spirit in a world of eternal
1 Rep. vi. 485 B.
C C 2
388 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
order, where nothing does or suffers wrong, and human
litigation seems to him a righting about shadows \
It is just this sense of the infinite conditions which
make up any fact, of the infinite issues involved in
any action, which gives the philosopher that appearance
of unpracticalness which was as notable in Plato's time
as in our own. The very penetration of vision which
makes ordinary minds seem to him only half awake
makes him seem to them a dreamer. In the Republic
Plato has emphasized the evils of this mutual misunder-
standing, and has pointed the way to a reconciliation 2 .
In the Gorgias' 6 we saw philosophy described by the
man of the world as a useful part of every gentleman's
education, but the ruin of practical capacity and success
if seriously pursued; while to the philosopher himself it
is the living spirit of truth and principle, in the strength
of which he defies the ' political ' spirit which can only
gloze and flatter, and appeals from the judge who can
kill the body to the divine judge before whom politician
and philosopher alike must give account of their lives.
In the Theaetetus* an analogous antithesis is drawn in
a somewhat lighter vein. The practical incapacity of
the philosopher is triumphantly admitted, and his life is
contrasted with that of the Jiabitue of the law-courts as
the life of freedom with that of slavery. The former
desires only to get at the truth ; if he can do this, he does
not care whether he has to use few words or many. The
latter always speaks under pressure ; he is cramped by
time, by the terms of the indictment, by the absolutism
of the judge, perhaps by fear for his own life. And so
he becomes eager and sharp, and in self-defence he
1 Rep. vi. 486 A-B, 500 B-C ; vii. 517 D-E. 2 lb. vi. 498 C-500 E.
3 Above, p. 291 ff. 4 172C-177C.
PHILOSOPHY AND LIFE 389
learns the arts of flattery, deception, and revenge, ;uul
this stops the free growth of his soul, which becomes
dwarfed and crooked and crumpled.
As for the philosopher, ' from boyhood he has never
known the way to the market-place, or where the court
or council-room or other public buildings are. Laws and
decrees he neither hears nor reads. Political meetings
and cabals, dinner-parties and revels with flute-girl:,
never occur to him even in a dream. He is as un-
conscious of the family affairs of people in his town as
of the number of gallons in the sea. He does not even
know that he does not know these things, for it is not to
gain credit that he keeps out of them ; but the truth is
that only his body stays at home in the city, while his
mind, despising such trifles, is "all over the world," as
Pindar says, "measuring the depths and surface of the
earth and the stars in heaven above,' 1 searching into
the whole nature of everything everywhere, and not con-
descending to what is near. It is like the story of
Thales, how he was looking at the stars and fell into
a well, and a charming and witty Thracian maid-servant
jeered at him and said he wanted to know what was up
in the sky, and could not see what was on the ground in
front of him. This joke will serve for all who spend
their lives in philosophy. They really not only do not
know what their neighbours are doing, they hardly know
whether they are human creatures or not; all tlvii
attention is taken up with such questions as what man
is, and what are the specific properties of his nature.
And so when one of them goes into society or public
life, and has to speak about things which are " at his feet
and before his eyes," he is the laughing-stock, not only of
Thracian maid-servants, but of anybody and everybody ;
VOL. 1. C c 3
39o PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
he tumbles into wells and all sorts of dilemmas in his
inexperience ; his awkwardness is frightful, and gives
the impression that he is an idiot. But the tables are
turned when he has dragged you up into his own world,
and got you to leave such questions as, What wrong
have I done you, or you me? or, Does much money
make a king happy ? and to turn to the investigation of
justice and injustice in themselves, and their difference
from other things and each other, or of kingship and of
human happiness and misery in general, what they
are and how human nature must get the one and escape
the other. Then the man of the little, keen, legal soul
gives the philosopher his revenge ; as he hangs aloft
and looks down through mid-air from the unaccustomed
height, he grows dizzy and distressed, he falters and
stammers, and is a laughing-stock, not to Thracian maids
or any other uneducated persons, for they have not the
eyes to see, but to every one who has not been brought
up like a slave.'
The moral effects of the philosophic spirit, thus far
considered, may be summed up as a disinterested con-
centration of purpose, and a vivid realization of the
ultimate bearings of action. A third effect, equally
characteristic of Plato's conception, is the unconscious
imitation of the object which the philosopher pursues,
and in the presence of which he lives. True knowledge
to Plato is, as has been seen, one, and the highest one,
of the activities in which the soul goes out into com-
munion with its own higher self, with the divine soul
which animates the world. ' It is in the nature of the
true lover of learning,' we are told 1 , ' to be ever
1 Rep. vi. 490 A-B.
PHILOSOPHY AND LIFE .91
struggling up to being, and not to abide amongst the
manifold and particular objects of opinion. He will
go on his way, and the edge of his love will not grow
dull or its force abate, until he has got hold of the
essential nature of the thing with that part of his soul
to which it belongs so to do; and that is the part which
is akin to being. With this he will draw near, and
mingle being with being, and beget intelligence and
truth, and find knowledge and true life and nourishment,
and then and not till then he will cease from his travail.'
In this communion with the reality or divine order the
soul grows into likeness with it, and becomes itself, 'as
far as man can, orderly and divine ' ; for • he who lives
in fellowship with that which he admires cannot help
imitating it * .'
A similar idea is applied in the Timaeus 2 , in connexion
with some crude physiology, to give a spiritual motive
to the study of the laws of nature. 'The highest element
in the soul is given to each man by God to be his
guardian spirit. It dwells at the top of the body, lifting
us up from the earth to our kindred in heaven ; for
we are heavenly, not earthly, plants ; and the divine
element within us attaches our head and root to the
place from which the soul originally sprang, and keeps
the whole body upright. When therefore a man devotes
himself to his appetites or his ambitions, all his beliefs
must be mortal, and he himself will succeed in making
himself as mortal as possible by thus developing his
mortality. But if a man care most about his love of
knowledge and his true thoughts, and practise these the
most, he cannot fail of having immortal and divine ideas
1 Rep. vi. 500 C. - 90 A-D.
392 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
so far as he gets hold of the truth, and he will attain
that measure of immortality of which human nature is
capable, while his constant tending of the divine element,
and the order and harmony of his indwelling spirit, will
give him exceeding happiness. There is only one way
of tending a thing, to give it its proper nurture and
motions ; and motions akin to the divine in us are the
thoughts and revolutions of the universe. Every man
therefore should follow these, correcting the perverted
motions in his head by studying the harmonies and
revolutions of the universe, and so bring his mind,
according to its original nature, into likeness with its
object. To attain that likeness is to attain in its fulness,
both now and hereafter, the best life which the gods have
set before men.'
The divine perfection, assimilation to which is the
height of human happiness, is conceived by Plato in
the passages just referred to as the being or order of the
world, which is also its life or soul. It is this living
order or constitution of things which he speaks of in the
Republic 1 as the 'pattern' or ideal 'polity,' 'laid up in
heaven,' to which a man may look for guidance, and of
which he may make himself a citizen. And, as Plato
conceives the universal order or ' cosmos ' to be the
creation and expression of the divine nature, we shall not
be surprised to find him in the Theactetiis' 1 describing
the ideal human life as the imitation of God. ' Evil can
never perish ; there must always be something opposed
to good ; nor can it have its seat amongst the gods, but
it must needs haunt human nature and this world of
ours. Therefore we must endeavour to fly away to
1 ix. 592B. - 176A-177A.
PHILOSOPHY AND LIFE 393
the other world as quickly as we can; and to fly away
is to become like God as far as this is possible ; and
to become like him is to become wise in justice and
righteousness. It is very hard to make people believe
that the motive for flying from vice and pursuing virtue
is not, as is generally said, that we may be thought good
and not be thought bad; that is all an "old wives' talc" ;
the truth is this. God is not unjust in any way, but
absolutely just, and there is nothing more like him than
one of us who is perfectly just. It is here that a man
shows whether he is really able, or whether he is an
imbecile. To know this is wisdom and true virtue ; not
to know it is ignorance and palpable vice. All other so-
called ability and wisdom is common and base ; common
in politics, base in art. If then a man is unjust and
unrighteous in word or deed he had much better not
admit that his knavery makes him an able man ; for, as
it is, men glory in their shame, and fancy that people arc
saying of them that they are no fools " cumbering the
earth," but the sort of men whom the state ought not to
let die. They must therefore be told the truth, that
they are the very opposite of what they suppose, just
because they suppose it. They are ignorant of the real
punishment of injustice — the last thing a man should be
ignorant of. That punishment is not, as they fancy,
stripes and death, which may be inflicted on the inno-
cent ; it is one which they cannot possibly escape.
They do not see that there are two patterns set in the
world, the godlike ideal of bliss, and the godless ideal
of misery ; and in their folly and madness they become,
without knowing it, like the one and unlike the other by
doing injustice. Thus their condemnation is to live
a life like that which they resemble. And yet, if we tell
394 PLATO S CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD
them that, unless they give up being so clever, the other
world, which is unpolluted by evil, will not receive them,
while in this world they will walk for ever with their
own likeness, evil with evil, we shall seem to them to be
simpletons talking to experienced men of the world.'
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