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
 
 80 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS 
 
 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 
 
 VOL. 1. G
 
 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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 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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