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 SELECTIONS FROM PLATO 
 
 JOWETT AND KNIGHT 
 
Bonbon 
 
 HENRY FROWDE 
 
 Oxford University Press Warehouse 
 Amen Corner. E.G. 
 
 (^ew ©orft 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE 
 
A SELECTION ' I'tVl l'l-i"^V 
 
 ' I I l;A!;V 
 
 OF 
 
 PASSAGES FROM PLATO 
 
 FOR ENGLISH READERS 
 
 FHOAf THE TRANSLATION BY 
 
 B. JOWETT, M.A. 
 
 LATE MASTER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE 
 AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 EDITED WITH INTRODUCTIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 M. J. KNIGHT 
 
 VOL. I , 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 1895 
 
 <3f) 
 
.'1 
 
 
 
 0?;for6 
 
 PRINTED AT THE CI-ARENDON PRESS 
 
 BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The following collection of ' Extracts from the 
 English translation of the Dialogues of Plato' 
 was undertaken by the editor in accordance with 
 the wish of the late Master of BalHol. The Master 
 himself helped to choose the passages for insertion, 
 and the larger portion of the MS. was submitted 
 to him before his death. He was of opinion that 
 the selection would be of value to readers who 
 might be deterred by the size and cost of the 
 complete work, as well as to young students; 
 while the University Extension movement, and the 
 increasing number of Colleges for Women, both 
 in England and America, also seemed to offer a 
 field for a compilation of this nature. 
 
 The editor, with such readers in view, has in 
 the brief introductions prefixed to the Extracts 
 endeavoured to assist them to gain a general under- 
 standing of the character of the Platonic writings, 
 which may, if occasion serve, provide a useful basis 
 for further study. So, too, the metaphysical part 
 of Plato's philosophy has been kept in the back- 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 ground, attention being drawn especially to the 
 political and ethical ideals which form a great part 
 of his teaching, and which, like the simple truths 
 of religion^ have a peculiar and undying attraction 
 for ourselves. 
 
 The Preface which Professor Jowett contributed 
 to Mr. Purves' ' Selections from the Dialogues 
 of Plato' has at his own desire been added to 
 these volumes. 
 
 Brading, Isle of Wight. 
 March 1895. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. I 
 
 Preface to Mr. Purves' Selections . . . . xi 
 
 The Life of Plato. . ... . . xxxiii 
 
 Events of Greek History, a. t. 433-348 .... xxxvi 
 
 Charmides : 
 
 Socrates prescribes for Charmides' headache (156 
 
 D-157C) . I 
 
 Lysis : 
 
 We only trust those who appear to know more than 
 
 ourselves (206 E — 210 C) . . . . 3 
 
 Laches : 
 
 (i) The art of fighting in armour is useless to the soldier 
 
 (i8a E— 184 C) 9 
 
 (2) The harmony of words and deeds (188 C — 189 B) . 12 
 
 Protagoras : 
 
 (i) TheSophistsatthehouseofCallias(3i4B— 316A) . 13 
 
 (2) Protagoras tells the story of Prometheus and Epi- 
 
 metheus (330 D — 322 D) . . . . 16 
 
 (3) The education of a Greek child (335 C — 326 E) . 19 
 
 Euthydemus : 
 
 The doctrinaire Politician and the true Philosopher (304 
 
 B —to end) .... ... 21 
 
 Cratylus : 
 
 The significations of the various letters (426 B — 427 C) . 27 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 Phaedrus : 
 
 FACE 
 
 (i) The philosopher must study the nature of man (229 
 
 A — 230 A) 29 
 
 (2) The banks of the Ilissus (230 B — E) .... 32 
 
 (3) The Soul described under the figure of two winged horses 
 
 and a charioteer : her ■wanderings and transmigrations 
 (245 C— 256 E) .... ■ ■ • 33 
 
 (4) The Art of Rhetoric ...... 51 
 
 (a) The True Orator (269 E — 272 C) . . 52 
 
 (b) The tale of Thamus and Theuth (274 C — 275 C) 55 
 
 (c) Speech better than writing (275 D — 277 A) . -57 
 
 (d) The true art of composition (277 B — 278 D) 59 
 
 Ion: 
 
 The Inspiration of the Poet (S33 C — 536 C) . . 62 
 
 Symposium : 
 
 The character of Socrates . ..... 67 
 
 (i) Socrates' fit of abstraction in the Porch (174 A — 175 C) 68 
 
 (2) His strange appearance and marvellous power of in- 
 
 fluencing others (215 A — 216 C) .... 70 
 
 (3) Hisendurance, eccentricity, and bravery (219 E — 222 A) 72 
 
 Meno: 
 
 The Immortality of the Soul proved from the Doctrine of 
 
 Recollection {uvaixurjais:) (81 A — E) . . 76 
 
 Apology, or the defence of Socrates : 
 The whole . 
 
 77 
 
 Crito, or Socrates in Prison : 
 
 The whole ... .... 113 
 
 t 
 Phaedo, or the last day of Socrates' life : 
 
 (i) Socrates in Prison (57—60 C) 131 
 
 (2) Why the Philosopher is willing to die, although he will 
 
 not take his own life ^6o C — 69 E) . . . . 135 
 
 (3) The Description of the Other Life (107 C — 115 A) 150 
 
 (4) The Death of Socrates (115 A — to end) . . . 161 
 
CONTENTS ix 
 
 GORGIAS : 
 
 PAGE 
 
 (i) The good man desires, not a long, but a virtuous life 
 
 (511 A— 513 A) . . . . . . 167 
 
 (2) The Judgment of the Dead : the Moral of the Tale 
 
 (523 A — to end) . 171 
 
 Alcibiades I : 
 
 Socrates humiliates Alcibiades by showing him his inferiority 
 to the Kings of Lacedaemon and of Persia (120 A — 
 124 B) . . . . . . 178 
 
 Alcibiades II : 
 
 The Gods approve of simple worship (148 B — 150 Bl . 185 
 
 Eryxias: 
 
 The nature of money (400 A — E) ..... 189 
 
 Parmenides : 
 
 The meeting of Socrates and Parmenides at Athens. 
 
 Criticism of the Ideas (126 A — 136 C) . . 192 
 
 Theaetetus : 
 
 (i) Socrates, a midwife and the son of a midwife (150 A — 
 
 151 D) ... 208 
 
 (2) The Lawyer and the Philosopher (172 B — 177 C) 211 
 
 Sophist: 
 
 The pre-Socratic Philosophers and their puzzles (241 D — 
 
 246 D) . . . . ■ . . . 219 
 
 Statesman : 
 
 The Reign of Cronos (268 D — 274 E) ... 229 
 
 Philebus : 
 
 The first Taste of Logic. The Art of Dialectic C15 D— 1 7 A) 239 
 
PREFACE TO MR. PURVES" 
 SELECTIONS 
 
 .... This little work is not designed, like Ritter 
 and Preller's book of extracts, to be an ' Historia 
 Philosophiae e fontium locis contexta.' The object of 
 the editor has been literary rather than philosophical. 
 He has not attempted to set forth the philosophy of 
 Plato in regular order, though in any selection from 
 Plato something of his idealism may be expected to 
 appear. He would be far from wishing to encourage 
 any premature study of philosophy. But before the 
 time has arrived for abstract thought, the young scholai' 
 may with advantage make himself acquainted with the 
 style of Plato in its most perfect form ; he may gather 
 choice flowers of poetry and fancy; he may grow 
 familiar with the wonderful portrait of the Silenus 
 Socrates (Symp. 215 A), who is the central figure of 
 the Platonic dialogues. Some part of the meaning 
 may slumber in his ear : but he will fill his mind with 
 beautiful passages while the imagination is strongest 
 and the memory most retentive. And when hereafl:er 
 
xii PREFACE TO MR. PURVES' SELECTIONS 
 
 he reads them in their context, and a new light is 
 thrown upon the page, he will 'rejoice in recognizing' 
 his old friends : he will return to them with increased 
 interest, perceiving that there was more in them than 
 he thought (Rep. iii. 402 A). 
 
 It is the misfortune of all books of extracts that they 
 take the gems out of their setting, and therefore do 
 a kind of injustice to a great writer. The higher beauty 
 and excellence of any writing is necessarily impaired 
 in detached passages. When the fruit is plucked from 
 the tree and put into our hands, there is a loss of 
 freshness or fragrance. But the objection is more than 
 counterbalanced by the advantage of introducing youth 
 at an early age to the writings of a master. The very 
 fragments of Plato have a finish and perfection to which 
 no modern writings can compare. They are fruits 
 which even the youthful scholar perceives to be of 
 a different flavour from Xenophon or Lucian. Living 
 as he did at the convergence of two literary periods, 
 Plato may be truly called at once ' the last of the poets 
 and the first of prose writers.' As Cicero says of his 
 Dialogues," though not himself an imitator of them, 
 ' Poema magis putandum quam comicorum poetarum.' 
 Plato alone of all writers, ancient or modern, has im- 
 parted to philosophy the glory of style. 
 
 Everything is best learned at the right time and in 
 the natural order. As Aristotle tells us, in a well- 
 known passage of the Nicomachean Ethics (I. iii. §§ 5-8), 
 'the young man is not a good hearer of Ethics.' He 
 may think too much as well as too little. The Socratic 
 'pang of philosophy,' that is to say, the fascination of 
 abstract ideas, may easily interfere with the growth 
 
THE BASIS OF EDUCATION xiii 
 
 of the mind in youth or in early manhood. Poetry, 
 language, physical science, mathematics, the works of 
 great writers — Greek, Latin, or English — are a much 
 better basis of education than metaphysical philosophy. 
 They are ' the land of health ' in which Plato would 
 have the youth of his city reared : where beauty, ' the 
 effluence of fair works, will visit the eye and ear, and 
 insensibly, like a fresh breeze from a purer region, will 
 draw the soul, even in childhood, into harmony with 
 the beauty of reason.' (Rep. iii. 401 C.) '. . . He 
 who has received this true education of the inner being 
 will most shrewdly ^perceive omissions or faults in art 
 and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and 
 rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, he 
 will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days 
 of his youth, even before he knows the reason of them.' 
 Whereas the tendency in young men to abstract thought 
 is apt to wither the imagination and to dry up the 
 interest in facts. There is a danger, as Plato also 
 foresaw (Rep. vii. 539 B), 'lest they should taste the 
 dear delight too early . . . and get into a way, violently 
 and speedily, of not believing anything which they 
 believed before, . . . like puppy dogs, eager to tear 
 and pull at all who come near them. But when a man 
 begins to be older he will no longer be guilty of such 
 insanity.' 
 
 We reject then any notion of making this book an 
 introduction to the system of Plato. Yet there are a few 
 points to which the reader's attention may be called, with 
 the view of removing misconceptions, and of making 
 intelligible and interesting what would otherwise appear 
 fanciful and unmeaning. These points are : — 
 
xiv PREFACE TO MR. PURVES' SELECTIONS 
 
 (i.) The dramatic character of the Platonic dia- 
 logue, 
 (ii.) The popular and half poetical conception of 
 
 the Platonic ideas, 
 (iii.) The true origin and meaning of them, 
 (i.) The Dialogues of Plato exhibit philosophy in the 
 form of a drama. Socrates is the protagonist or chief 
 actor; around him are ranged the inferior persons upon 
 whom he exercises his magic art of dialectic. There 
 is the statesman, the general, the rhetorician, the poet, 
 the man of the world, the geometrician, the ingenuous 
 youth, .the philosopher of a former generation, who are 
 detained by the spell which Socrates exerts over them, 
 and made to give an account of themselves and their 
 callings. There are Sophists, great and small, who, 
 unlike Socrates, are ready to sell the gift of knowledge 
 for money. There is the contrast of different ages 
 and of different pursuits or professions ; above all, of 
 sophistry or pretended knowledge with truth or real 
 knowledge. The true knowledge never is, but is 
 always oji the point of being, discovered; as if Socrates 
 thought that the search after truth was a greater good 
 than the possession of it. Yet the enquirer never loses 
 hope, but is ready to renew the argument on another 
 day with untiring energy. The different states of 
 Hellas — Athens, Crete, Lacedaemon, Elis, Leontini, 
 Cyrene, Elea — furnish interlocutors, and give some- 
 thing of a local colouring to several of the dialogues. 
 Elaborate studies are made of the two great Sophists, 
 Gorgias and Protagoras, who, although secretly ridiculed, 
 are treated with an outward respect befitting their name 
 and fame. A greater and more genuine admiration is 
 
THE DIALOGUES OF PLATO xv 
 
 shown towards Parmenides, ' venerable and awful ' 
 (Theaet. 183 E). Anaxagoras is spoken of with mixed 
 feelings; he was the former master of Socrates, who 
 had been wonderfully delighted at his first utterance 
 of the word ' mind,' and not less disappointed by the 
 inconsistent use which he made of it (Phaedo 97 ; cp. 
 Arist. Met. i. 4. § 5 ; also Cratyl. 409). For some 
 reason or other Heracleitus and his disciples, and also 
 probably Democritus, whose name is not mentioned, 
 are represented in ludicrous and repulsive colours 
 (Soph. 242). One of the most amusing passages in 
 Plato is the description of the Heracleiteans, or 'patrons 
 of the flux,' who, 'in accordance with their text-books, 
 are always in motion, . . . who grow up anyhow and 
 get their inspiration anywhere, each one of them saying 
 of his neighbour that he knows nothing,' &c. (Theaet. 
 180 ; cp. Cratyl. 402). 
 
 The dialogues open with chance remarks, as of 
 friends meeting and renewing acquaintance, not with 
 any formal statement of a philosophical thesis. The 
 scene and the occasion are generally described in the 
 beginning of the dialogue, and sometimes alluded to in 
 the course of it. The plane-tree on the little stream 
 of the Ilissus in the Phaedrus (229) : the family circle 
 of Cephalus at the Piraeus (Rep. i. 328), whither 
 Socrates and his disciples had gone by invitation to 
 witness the torch race : the banquet at the house of 
 Agathon, to which the Master came perfumed and 
 sandalled (Symp. 174 A) : the reunion of philosophers 
 and their followers which Callias had assembled round 
 him (Prot. init.) : the opening of the Parmenides, in 
 which that rather perplexing discourse is said to be 
 
xvi PREFACE TO MR. PURVES' SELECTIONS 
 
 recited by the youth Antiphon, who had given up 
 philosophy for horses — these and many similar prefaces 
 carry the art of description to the highest point. They 
 are as graphic as any modern narrative of Fielding or 
 Defoe. 'O Socrates, you can easily invent tales of 
 Egypt or of any other country,' is the natural exclamation 
 of one of his auditors (Phaedr. 275 B). Several of the 
 greatest dialogues, such as the Theaetetus, Phaedo, 
 Republic, Parmenides, are narrated dramas; a form 
 which has been adopted, apparently, with the view 
 of enabling the writer to introduce descriptive remarks. 
 Thus in the Phaedo many beautiful traits are thrown 
 in by the narrator, such as the calmness of Socrates 
 amid the cries of the women (60) and the tears of his 
 own disciples : the manner in which he ' used ' to play 
 with the locks of Phaedo (89 B) : the dejection of the 
 company at the temporary failure of the argument 
 (88 C): the regard for others and regardlessness of 
 self which is displayed by Socrates in his last hours 
 {116, 117). These little circumstances could not have 
 been communicated to us had there been no eyewitness 
 of the scene. 
 
 All the characters are only playthings in the hands 
 of Socrates, who by his superior power elicits from 
 them any conclusion which he pleases. He has talked 
 all his life, and never was overcome by any man in an 
 argument (Symp. 213 E). It may be remarked that in 
 the later dialogues, especially in the Sophist, Statesman, 
 and Laws, the dramatic character becomes feebler, and 
 Socrates either disappears, as in the Laws, or is subor- 
 dinated to other unknown persons, as in the Sophist 
 and Statesman, apparently because Plato felt that he was 
 
SOCRA TES xvii 
 
 passing out of the sphere of Socratic teaching into 
 another region of thought. But in the dialogues which 
 are most perfect in form, such as the Protagoras, 
 Euthydemus, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Symposium, Theaete- 
 tus. Republic, Socrates is the centre of the argument. 
 The rest of the company are either delighted auditors 
 (Symp. 315 C), or the victims around whom he slowly 
 and surely winds his toils (cp. Rep. i. 345, 349 ; Gorgias 
 461-481). 
 J i The character of Socrates himself is exhibited by 
 
 ^ Plato in a great variety of lights ; no other man ever 
 
 equalled or approached this wonderful mortal : First, 
 in his outward appearance and behaviour, as he 
 describes himself in the Theaetetus and is described 
 by Alcibiades in the Symposium^the man-midwife 
 who brought to the birth the thoughts of men (Theaet. 
 149) ; the Silenus mask, which, when opened, revealed 
 the images of gods within (Symp. 215 A) ; the flute- 
 player and Satyr Marsyas, who drew men after him by 
 the power of his voice ; the gad-fly given by God to 
 the Athenian people, which, like a noble steed tardy in 
 its motions owing to its very size, was stung by him 
 into life (Apol. 30 E). He is not one 'who has seen 
 many cities,' which was the fond fancy of later ages 
 respecting the old philosophers, v^o were deemed to 
 be 'learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.' His 
 desires are all bounded by Athens and the Piraeus. 
 As he tells us in the Phaedrus (230 C), ' he searched 
 into his own strange nature,' wanting to know 'whether 
 he was a wonder more complicated and swollen with 
 passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a 
 gentler and simpler sort, to whom nature has given 
 
 VOL. I. b 
 
xviii PREFACE TO MR. PURVES' SELECTIONS 
 
 a diviner and lowlier destiny.' To such a mind the 
 fairest scenes of outward nature had no beauty or 
 interest. ' The men who dwell in the city were his 
 teachers, not the trees nor the country.' During his 
 whole life he had quitted Athens three times only, once 
 when he was present at the battle of Delium, again 
 when he went on a military expedition to Potidaea, 
 and once again to Amphipolis (Apol. 28 E ; Symp. 219- 
 221). Of his early years nothing is known to us : 
 though for a time he was a hearer of Anaxagoras, no 
 previous thinker left any mark upon him. Obeying 
 the inspiration of his own mind, 'whither the word 
 within him led he followed ' (Rep. iii. 394 D). From 
 early manhood to old age he passed his time in argu- 
 ment and conversation with his fellow-citizens. 
 
 To the Athenians his teaching and behaviour ap- 
 peared strange : nor to ourselves does he seem always 
 perfectly rational. He would stand for a day and a 
 night lost in ecstasy : this strange condition had over- 
 taken him in the camp at Potidaea; and some ' lonians 
 out of curiosity brought out their mats and slept in the 
 open air, that they might watch him and see whether 
 he would remain all night. There he stood until the 
 following morning, and with the return of light he 
 offered up a prayej to the sun and went his way' 
 (Symp. 220). At a banquet he was the best of company, 
 and able to drink more wine than any other guest 
 without becoming intoxicated, though generally the 
 most abstemious of men (Symp. 214 A). At the battle 
 of Delium after the defeat he seemed to 'keep his 
 head' better than the generals, and went about the 
 field of battle 'stalking like a pelican and rolling his 
 
THE 'DIVINE SIGN- xix 
 
 eyes,' as was his manner, according to Aristophanes 
 (Symp. 221 B ; Arist. Clouds 361^), when walking in the 
 streets of Athens ; at the same time he made it clear 
 to everybody that they had better not meddle with him 
 (Symp. 221). The singularity of his character seemed 
 also to go beyond the ordinary limits of human nature. 
 Though he was always talking to his fellow-men, there 
 was a mystery about him which they were unable to 
 penetrate. He might appear to be the most rational 
 of men ; but there was likewise in him a supernatural 
 or irrational or divine element. He said that he had 
 a sign from heaven, which never commanded him (see 
 Apology 31 C, 40 A) to do or say anything, but often 
 forbade him to go out of the house, it might be, or to 
 make a speech in his own defence, and where there 
 was no interference he went on with what he was about 
 (Apol. 40 B). He especially notes that on the occasion 
 of his trial, when there 'had come upon him what is 
 generally thought to be the last and worst evil, the 
 oracle made no sign of opposition, either when he was 
 leaving his home or when he was ascending the tribune, 
 or while he was speaking, at anything which he was 
 intending to say.' This internal monitor which for- 
 bade, but never commanded, was called in after ages 
 the ' Demon of Socrates,' but by Plato, and therefore 
 probably by Socrates himself, was always spoken of in 
 the neuter as the ' Divine Sign ' (to Sain6i/iov trrme'iov), 
 which, as he says, had rarely, if ever, been granted to 
 any other (Rep. vi. 496 C). He speaks of it always in 
 the most familiar manner as an undoubted fact, but 
 without pretending that it revealed to him any mysteries 
 
 ' Sti PpivOvfi T iv raiBiV oSofs Koi TunpSa^ittti vapafidWet. 
 
 b 2 
 
XX PREFACE TO MR. PURVES' SELECTIONS 
 
 or commumcated to him any general truths or prin- 
 ciples, or even gave reasons foi the prohibitions which 
 it imposed upon him. 
 
 The strange being who went about in the streets of 
 Athens talking to his fellow-citizens was a puzzle to other 
 men as well as to himself. He was the most humble and 
 also the most self-asserting of human beings : the wisest, 
 always professing to be the most ignorant : the most 
 sceptical and also the most religious : the ugliest and 
 the most fascinating. Around him were gathered his 
 disciples and friends ; all who were curious in the 
 pursuit of knowledge were attracted by an irresistible 
 impulse. In a city numbering twenty or thirty thousand 
 families, there was probably no one to whom he was 
 not known, and in his long life he must have become 
 acquainted with nearly every Athenian citizen. Any 
 day he might be seen barefoot (Phaedrus 229 A) and 
 meanly clad ; yet also on some rare occasion he would 
 be met by an admiring disciple, gay and sandalled and 
 fresh from the bath, on his way to a banquet (Symp. 
 174 A). The snub-nose and projecting eyes (Theaet. 
 143 E, 144 D) would have been at once recognized 
 even by a stranger passing him in the street. In the 
 group which surrounded him would be found the 
 greatest men of Athens — the magnificent Callias, who 
 had spent more money on the Sophists than all other 
 Athenians (Apol. 20 A) ; Alcibiades the favourite, and 
 yet the terror, of the Athenian people, the ' young lion 
 whom they should either never have reared or never 
 have banished from his native city' (Arist. Ran. 1431); 
 Critias and Charmides, traitors of a deeper dye and 
 still more dishonoured in history; Xenophon, the 
 
SOCRATES IN PLATO xxi 
 
 leader of the Ten Thousand ; Plato, the great genius in 
 whose writings his own words were to live ; probably 
 Aristophanes, who may have gone to parody and cari- 
 cature, yet, according to Plato, remained into the morn- 
 ing hours whilst Socrates was discoursing of the unity 
 of tragedy and comedy (Symp. sub fin.) ; Agathon the 
 tragic writer, and others, such as Meno the Thessalian 
 nobleman, Callicles the Athenian 'man of the world,' 
 Evenus, poet and sophist, Aristodemus the shadow or 
 inseparable attendant, Apollodorus the 'madman,' whose 
 ways were known to them all, and who is present both 
 at the banquet and in the prison scene— these all might 
 be drawn by the bait of his discourse, to use his 
 own image, ' like hungry cattle following the bough,' 
 all round Athens and into the neighbouring country 
 (Phaedrus 230 E). And wherever he was, the con- 
 versation came round sooner or later from the trifling 
 talk of the market-place to the concerns of a man's soul 
 (Laches 187 E). 
 
 The Dialogues of Plato represent a few fragments 
 of the infinite discourses which Socrates, out of his 
 abundance, poured forth daily to the crowd of Athenian 
 citizens who followed him in his walks. He assumes 
 in them the character of a learner rather than of a 
 teacher, partly out of irony, but he also seems to have 
 believed that knowledge could only be attained by the 
 united efforts of his own mind with that of others. 
 Theaetetus, as he says, is 'the bag' out of which he 
 produces arguments. Though at times over-mastered 
 by his own wild humour (Cratylus 396), he has a very 
 serious purpose, which is to convert the world, not by 
 preaching, but by talking to them. He is at the same 
 
xxii PREFACE TO MR. PURVES' SELECTIONS 
 
 time a delightful companion ; the play of fancy mingles 
 with the deep things of philosophy. He is also the 
 politest of men, and knows how to make cutting and 
 disagreeable remarks in the most courteous and well- 
 bred manner. Towards the Sophists and towards all 
 his opponents he is full of deference ; he cannot be too 
 civil to Thrasymachus in the Republic. Even in the 
 Euthydemus, which of all the Platonic dialogues is the 
 most humorous, Socrates, amid a perfect storm of cries 
 and laughter, keeps his countenance to the end of the 
 dialogue. The mask at length clings to the face ; the 
 irony becomes reality when he professes in the Apology 
 (30 A) to have a divine mission, which is that of proving 
 to his contemporaries that they know nothing. As 
 Christian teachers have- sought to convince the world of 
 sin, so he sought to convince men of ignorance and error. 
 His assumed deference for others may be described as 
 a sort of parody of the Christian virtue, humility. He 
 seems to have supposed that this duty of teaching, 
 or rather of refuting error, was imposed upon him by 
 the Oracle of Delphi, which declared him to be the 
 wisest of men (Apol. 21). For what could the oracle 
 mean by such a declaration ? He was conscious that 
 he knew nothing; and he must refute the God by 
 finding some one who knew more than himself. But 
 there was no one : and so he concluded at last that he 
 was wiser than other men, because he alone knew that 
 he knew nothing ; they were ignorant of their very 
 ignorance. If we translate his meaning into the phrase- 
 ology of a later age (for the intellect and the will were 
 not yet distinguished in the time of Plato), we might 
 say that it was an intellectual rather than a moral 
 
THE TEACHING OF SOCRATES xxiii 
 
 change which he wanted to effect. To him virtue was 
 knowledge ; if a man knew what was right he would 
 certainly do it. His mission was analogous to that 
 of a Christian Apostle, not the same with it. Like 
 St. Paul, he would have said, 'Woe is me, if I speak 
 not the truth which has been committed to me.' But 
 the subject of his preaching would have been, not the 
 conversion of the heart, but the enlightenment of 
 the intellect. 
 
 He tells us that the detection of pretended knowledge 
 was to the listeners extremely amusing, though to those 
 upon whom he exercised his art, in the highest degree 
 irritating. For forty or fifty years he was a teacher 
 and also a satirist of men, going from one class to 
 another in the hope of obtaining true knowledge, but 
 only finding the greatest professors to be the most 
 shallow (Apol. 22). He made enemies of them all : at 
 length the odium which accumulated against him be- 
 came too great, and he was put to death. The wonder 
 is not that the Athenians should have at last grown 
 impatient of him, but that they should have endured 
 him so long. 
 
 (ii, iii.) The true character of the teaching of Socrates 
 is best illustrated by his own oft-repeated profession, 
 to which allusion has just been made, ' That he knew 
 nothing of himself, but only brought to the birth the 
 thoughts of others ' (Theaet. 150). In modern language 
 he may be said to have taught men to think for them- 
 selves. He did not merely bring knowledge to them 
 from without, — that might be the employment of sophists 
 or schoolmasters : he sought to create in them a new 
 
xxiv PREFACE TO MR. PURVES' SELECTIONS 
 
 sense, to implant an eye of the soul ' more precious far 
 than ten thousand bodily eyes' (Rep. vii. 527 E), which 
 might guide them through the maze of phenomena. 
 He turned outwards into the light of consciousness the 
 truths which were implicit or latent in them ; he drew 
 conclusions from premises which were already acknow- 
 ledged by them. They were in the habit of calling one 
 another good and bad, just and unjust; but what was 
 just in one place or at one time or to some one person was 
 deemed unjust at another time or place or to some other 
 person. Socrates would have them pass out of this half- 
 lighted world of contradiction and appearance into the 
 sphere of absolute knowledge : they were to ask, not what 
 is just at Athens or Lacedaemon, but what is right and 
 just everywhere and at all times. Thus men began to 
 acquire moral ideas as distinct from legal and political 
 — universal principles liberated from particulars of sense. 
 The clouds of mythology passed away ; and firm land 
 appeared. 
 
 In a well-known passage of Aristotle (Metaph. xii. 4) 
 there are said to be two things of which the discovery 
 may be truly attributed to Socrates : (i) Induction ; and 
 (ii) General Definitions. He means by the first the 
 process of eliciting from one or more instances the 
 general notion which is common to them all. From 
 things known, things unknown were inferred, what 
 was implied became explicit, what was latent and 
 unconscious was brought out into the light of con- 
 sciousness — this was the process of dialectic. When 
 by methods of comparison and rejection a general notion 
 had been obtained, another question arose, 'how this 
 general notion was to be defined ; ' or rather the 
 
THE NA TURE OF ' IDEAS ' xxv 
 
 two processes went on together until a definition or 
 description was obtained, which was no longer open to 
 objection. The making of such definitions, e. g. of 
 courage, temperance, friendship, knowledge, &c., is the 
 aim of several of the earlier Platonic Dialogues. The 
 question 'What is justice ?' is the thesis proposed, and 
 partly answered, in the first four books, of the Republic. 
 The General Definitions of Socrates reappear as the 
 Ideas of Plato. In the pre-Socratic age mankind were 
 struggling towards new modes of conception. The 
 persons of mythology, the abstractions of number, 
 the four elements, began to acquire a new significance 
 to them. These seemed to supply the universal form 
 of which they were in so much need ; they were opposed 
 to the ' seemings ' of opinion, to the ' fleeting particulars' 
 of sense. One generation or school of philosophy was 
 engaged in realizing the meaning of the words ' being 
 and not being,' first and most indispensable of ab- 
 stractions : another in eliciting out of opposites the 
 simple ideas of relation and motion. The conception 
 of numbers, no longer, as in the childhood of the world, 
 identified with outward objects, but separated from 
 them, now became the great Organon of nature and 
 a symbol of things higher still. He who first uttered 
 the word ' mind ' (Anaxagoras) appeared to be ' a sober 
 man among drunkards ' (Arist. Met. i. 3). By a great 
 mental effort of some philosopher, each of these notions 
 was for the first time conceived: they were repeated 
 with endless iteration by his disciples (Theaet. 179 D) : 
 at length the word of the Master diffused by his school 
 passed into language, never afterwards to lose its place 
 in human thought. A whole philosophy was contained 
 
xxvi PREFACE TO MR. PURVES' SELECTIONS 
 
 in a few enigmatic sentences ; as Plato says in the 
 Sophist (243 A), ' the ancients went on their way rather 
 regardless of whether people like ourselves understood 
 them or not.' (There are modern as well as ancient 
 philosophers to whom this remark may be applied.) 
 
 Nor was it to be expected that when first discovered 
 the true nature of ideas or universals would be perfectly 
 understood even by Socrates himself. To Plato they 
 seemed to exist apart from the things which we see in 
 a heaven of their own, and to partake of the Divine. 
 They were unchangeable, but the world was full of 
 shadows always coming and going, — dull and imperfect 
 reflections or expressions of something beyond them- 
 selves ; and in each individual there was contained an 
 element or seed of the ideal. As Plato represented the 
 matter : A bed or any other work of art could only be 
 made after the pattern of a bed existing previously in 
 the artist's mind : this pattern could not have been 
 derived from beds which are seen, for it was more 
 perfect than they, and must therefore have been re- 
 covered by recollection from a former world (Rep. x. 
 596 ; Meno 82-86 ; Phaedo 73-77). According to one 
 view numbers were interposed between ideas and visible 
 things (Arist. Metaph. i. 6) ; they were the intermediate 
 links by which the two were connected. And as the 
 visible itself was only a shadow in this lower world it 
 had also a shadow of its own. Thus arose four kinds 
 or degrees of knowledge to which four classes of objects 
 corresponded, (i) things in themselves, gathered up 
 into the Idea of Good, which is the Divine essence and 
 first and final cause of them : (2) numbers and relations 
 of number : (3) objects of sense which are the outward 
 
CRITICISM OF THE 'IDEAS' xxvii 
 
 aspects or shadows or reflections of the ideas ordered 
 and distinguished by number : (4) the shadows of such 
 objects which are the fancies and creations of man, the 
 world of poets and mythologers twice removed from 
 the true, said also in a figure to ' be seen by a light 
 from behind on the wall of a cave or den,' as the ideas 
 are by the light of the sun or the idea of good. (Rep. 
 vi. 509 ff. ; vii. 514 ff. ; x. 597, 602.) 
 
 This is what may be called the popular theory of the 
 Platonic ideas, gathered chiefly from the Republic, the 
 Phaedo, and the Meno. And it is against this form 
 of them that the assaults of Aristotle are mainly directed, 
 first in the Ethics, and then with greater minuteness 
 of detail in the Metaphysics. All his objections, which 
 are innumerable, may be summed up under two or three 
 heads. First, how can there be any difference between 
 the idea and the object of sense? e.g. between the idea 
 of a house or bed and the actual house or bed ? For 
 the idea is nothing when separated from individual 
 objects : a mere word, to which no meaning can be 
 attached. Secondly, who can show any relation between 
 them? The ideas are in their world, and we in ours: 
 they are always either absolutely the same or absolutely 
 different. Thirdly, is there any use in such trans- 
 cendental speculations ? 
 
 This refutation of Plato might be regarded as con- 
 clusive, if the theory itself is taken in a literal sence. 
 But the ideas of Plato are really poetry or imagery, and 
 cannot be stereotyped in any single form, as the Platonists 
 and Peripatetics of a later generation appear to have 
 supposed. They are sometimes ideals, sometimes reali- 
 ties : they take the form of numbers : they become 
 
xxviii PREFACE TO MR. PURVES' SELECTIONS 
 
 logical abstractions : they are one or many, personal or 
 impersonal, accordingly as they are viewed in different 
 aspects. Sometimes, as in the Symposium, they vanish 
 in poetry and fancy; or, as in the Phaedo, Meno, 
 Phaedrus, they are supposed to be recovered from a 
 former state of existence, still enveloped in poetical 
 fancy ; or, as in the Timaeus, they are personified ; or, 
 as in the Republic, they become a single idea or 
 principle, which is termed the Idea of Good, or they 
 are exhibited under the celebrated image of the sun- 
 light and the den in which the human spirits are 
 confined : while in the Theaetetus and Parmenides 
 they are subjected to a criticism more searching than 
 that of Aristotle, until nothing any longer remains of 
 them. These various modes of representing the 'idea' 
 are not parts of a system, but are the ever-changing 
 aspects of the same philosophical tendency. Under 
 all these forms Plato is seeking to realize the opposition 
 of mind and sense, of voifitva and phenomena. One 
 thought underlies them all— the truth of universals. 
 
 In the later dialogues of Plato, especially in the 
 Sophist and Statesman, a further advance is made. 
 The fanciful and inconsistent language disappears ; and 
 he is seriously occupied with the attempt to connect 
 ideas, not with phenomena, but with one another. 
 Among his contemporaries there were some who said 
 that 'no subject was true of any predicate,' a thesis 
 which renders knowledge of any kind impossible : they 
 were met by another school who maintained the equally 
 untenable proposition that 'all might be asserted of 
 all.' To us these conflicting theories are equally absurd, 
 and yet they were both deeply rooted in the previous 
 
PLATO NO MERE VISIONARY xxix 
 
 philosophy of Hellas. Plato endeavours to find a 
 middle way between them. Not without difficulty he 
 arrives at the conclusion which to us appears self- 
 evident, 'that some things can be asserted of others, 
 but not all of all.' This is probably the furthest point 
 to which he carried his speculation respecting the 
 Ideas. He nowhere clearly explains how they were 
 related to phenomena ; but he is at least satisfied that 
 they are connected with each other. The ideas which 
 he had once conceived to exist in isolation he is now 
 able to regard as the links or moments of a system 
 of knowledge. 
 
 It is a mistake to regard Plato as the poet-philosopher 
 who produced ' out of the depths of his consciousness ' 
 any fancies which occurred to him. In all his writings 
 he is struggling with the problems of his age, striving 
 to give expression to ideas 'which were in the air,' 
 seeking to harmonize conflicting philosophies, or to 
 attain a purer ether which was beyond and above 
 them. Those who think of him as a 'dreamer' only, 
 or as wanting in common sense, or as 'the author of 
 nearly every erroneous notion which has since crept 
 into philosophy,' may be invited to reflect on a few 
 passages of his writings : — ' If you think more about 
 things and less about words you will be richer as 
 you grow older in wisdom ' (Statesman 261 E). (Com- 
 pare such expressions as ' the long and difficult language 
 of facts ' (ib. 278 C), or 'learning of every nature which 
 was gifted with any special power, and was able to 
 contribute some special experience to the store of 
 wisdom ' (ib. 272 B).) Or let him consider the mean- 
 ing of the following words in the sphere of politics : — 
 
XXX PREFACE TO MR. PURVES' SELECTIONS 
 
 ' Man should be well advised that he is only one of the 
 animals, and the Hellene in particular should be aware 
 that he himself was the author of the distinction between 
 Hellene and Barbarian, and that the Phrygian would 
 equally divide mankind into Phrygians and Barbarians, 
 and that some intelligent animal, like a crane, might go 
 a step further, and divide the animal world into cranes and 
 all other animals '(Plato, Introduction to Engl. Transl. 
 of Statesman, vol. iv. p. 447). Or once more: — 'This 
 is and ever will be the best of sayings, Thai the useful 
 is the noble, and the hurtful is the base ' (Rep. v. 457 B). 
 Are these the words of a dreamer ? Has modern philo- 
 sophy ever got much beyond them ? 
 
 If, stripping off the many-coloured garment in which 
 Plato has enveloped his ideas, we seek, after the manner 
 of Aristotle, to reduce them to their logical skeleton, 
 the meaning and import of them may be conveniently 
 summed up under two heads : — 
 
 (i) The first great effort of Plato was to realize 
 abstractions or universale. He wanted to define and 
 explain them, and also to divide and distinguish them 
 from one another. At this point the philosophy of Plato 
 touches that of Aristotle and Socrates. All three alike 
 sought to divide the whole into its parts. But whereas 
 Aristotle and Socrates, like ourselves, regard the idea 
 as existing in outward objects, or in the mind itself, to 
 Plato the ideas acquired such an intensity and reality, 
 that they, for a time at least, became separated both 
 from the mind and from external objects. They 
 might be compared in a figure to lights or stars shining 
 in some far-off heaven. They are not ideas, but im- 
 
CORRELATION OF THE 'IDEAS' xxxi 
 
 personal Gods, ordered by a Supreme Being, or Idea 
 of Good. They could hardly be seen in the atmosphere 
 of light and beauty which surrounded them. To this 
 poetical enthusiasm there was nothing really corre- 
 sponding but the deep consciousness of the truth of 
 universal ideas and their importance in the world of 
 philosophy. 
 
 (2) When ideas were separated from the mind and 
 from objects of sense, another difficulty began to appear. 
 How were they related to each other? Existing in 
 a world of their own, how can they be either ' dis- 
 tinguished or connected ? The mere assertion that the 
 ' One , is Many ' and the ' Many are One ' did not 
 answer the great question of analysis and synthesis, 
 which also pressed upon Plato in his later years : not 
 only, ' how could the whole be resolved into its parts ? ' 
 but, 'how could the parts be reunited into a whole?' 
 questions which had to be answered both in the con- 
 crete and in the abstract (Philebus 15, 16). In the 
 Philebus he approaches this difficulty : in the Sophist 
 he proceeds to the solution of it. From the heaven of 
 ideas in which he had been wandering he now returns 
 to the ground of experience. He shows that there is 
 a natural connexion and correlation of ideas: — 'Many 
 cannot be one, nor being become not being, but unity 
 may also be the same, and being can exist in relation.' 
 The difficulty, which to Plato was real and great, is 
 hardly perceptible to ourselves, and the solution would 
 be regarded by every one as a matter of common sense. 
 Thus the idea of Plato may be said to end in a 
 truism. 
 
 These are some of the steps by which the human 
 
xxxii PREFACE TO MR. PURVES' SELECTIONS 
 
 intellect has attained its reasoning and reflecting powers. 
 Socrates and Plato and Aristotle may be deemed to have 
 invented for mankind new implements in the world of 
 mind as powerful as the wedge, the pulley, the lever, in 
 the material world. The progress of mathematics has 
 always been recognized as the great source of improve- 
 ments in mechanics, and as the greatest instrument of 
 physical knowledge. Yet the beginnings of mathematics 
 had even a greater power in giving form to the mind 
 itself: they taught men how the many might also be 
 one ; and they furnished the type of unchanging know- 
 ledge. He who first invented the conception of a cause 
 may be said to have created a power in the world 
 analogous to that of the greatest physical discoveries 
 of any age. To enlarge on this wonderful chapter of 
 the human mind which the early Greek philosophy 
 presents to us, would be beyond the scope of this 
 preface. But we cannot too soon recognize the truth 
 (i) that the wisest of men are limited by the conditions 
 of the age in which they live ; and (2) that the highest 
 effort of philosophy in one generation may become the 
 common sense of the next. 
 
 B.J. 
 
THE LIFE OF PLATO 
 
 The personal history of Plato during his long life of 
 more than eighty years is very imperfectly known to us. 
 We possess, indeed, a number of ' Epistles' which bear 
 his name ; but these, we have every reason to believe, 
 are the forgery of some Sophist in a later generation. 
 There is also a Life of Plato in the ' Lives of the Philo- 
 sophers ' written by Diogenes Laertius (c. a. d. 210), 
 which, however, like the rest of the work, is a mere 
 farrago of anecdotes and gossip, and, although in some 
 ways curious and interesting, has no real claim to be 
 considered as an authority. Besides the ' Epistles ' and 
 the work of Diogenes, an infinite multitude of allusions 
 and references to the circumstances of Plato's life are 
 found scattered up and down among the various classical 
 writers, which do not add much of material importance. 
 The reader who wishes to pursue the subject further, 
 may be referred to 'Zeller's Greek Philosophy' ('Plato 
 and the Older Academy,' Engl. Transl. ch. i), where 
 he will discover all the evidence brought together in 
 a convenient and compendious form. 
 
 Briefly related, the legend of Plato's life — (for it 
 , VOL. I. c 
 
xxxiv LIFE OF PLATO 
 
 scarcely deserves a better title) — may be told as follows : 
 — He was born either at -£gina or Athens, at a date 
 given in the different accounts as 430, 429, or 428 b. c. 
 The names of his parents were Ariston arid Perictione 
 (or Potone), and both were of noble birth. His father 
 traced his descent from Codrus, the last king of Attica : 
 his mother, a relation of Critias, reckoned Solon among 
 her ancestors. He was originally called by his grand- 
 father's name, Aristocles. ' Plato ' was a name given him 
 by his gymnastic master, on account of his strong 
 physique. He received the usual education of an 
 Athenian youth of the higher classes, and at first turned 
 his attention chiefly to poetry. Becoming acquainted 
 with Socrates about his twentieth year, he burnt his 
 poems, and devoted himself to the study of philosophy. 
 He remained the ardent friend and disciple of Socrates 
 until the latter was put to death (b. c. 399) by the 
 Athenian democracy. 
 
 After this event he retired to Megara, and at a later 
 time proceeded on a variety of travels to Egypt, Magna 
 Graecia, and Sicily. The order and extent of his jour- 
 neys are told in a great number of forms. About 398 
 B. c. he was at the court of Dionysius the Elder, Tyrant of 
 Syracuse ; but soon fell into the disfavour of the tyrant, 
 who sold him as a slave to Pollis, a Spartan. He was 
 brought (it is said) to the slave market of .iEgina, where 
 he was redeemed by Anniceris of Cyrene. He then 
 returned to Athens, and commenced teaching publicly 
 in the Academy, a gymnasium with a large garden 
 attached. Here he collected crowds of hearers from 
 all parts of Greece, and among them came Aristotle, 
 who was hereafter to be his rival in the world of 
 thought. He twice left the seclusion of the Academy, 
 first at the solicitation of his Sicilian friend, Dion, to 
 assist in the attempt to make a 'philosopher-king' of 
 
LIFE OF PLATO xxxv 
 
 the younger Dionysius ', who had succeeded his father 
 in the tyranny; and, the second time, in order to 
 reconcile the quarrel between Dionysius and Dion. 
 He met with no success in either endeavour, and on the 
 second occasion he only owed his life to the intercession 
 of Archytas, the Pythagorean philosopher of Tarentum. 
 Returning again to Athens he resumed his literary and 
 educational labours, and died some twelve years later, 
 at the age of 8i or 82, as Cicero tells us, 'pen in hand ' 
 (' scribens est mortuus,' De Senect. 5. 13). 
 
 The sole authentic record of Plato's life is the series 
 of his writings, which hand down to posterity in im- 
 perishable characters the memory of many years of 
 patient study and reflection. But since no man, how- 
 ever original his genius, can fail to be influenced by 
 his surroundings, it may be helpful to the reader to 
 collect here a few of the most important events which 
 occurred in Greece during the period of Plato's ' life- 
 time. This will assist the student of his writings to 
 realize in some degree the troubled and unhappy state 
 of the world in which Plato's lot was cast, and to under- 
 stand why he came to despair of effecting any great 
 improvement in the political society, and why he sought 
 and found a refuge from the incurable depravity of 
 mankind in the ' Heaven of Ideas ' and the contempla- 
 tion of ' true Being and Essence.' 
 
 ' Aristotle gives us a very unfavourable character of the despot ; — 
 ' Dion attacked the younger Dionysius because he despised him, and 
 saw that he was equally despised by his own subjects, and that he 
 was always drunk' (Arist. Pol. v. 10. § 23). 
 
 C 2 
 
xxxvi 
 
 EVENTS OF GREEK HISTORY, B.C. 432-348. 
 
 B.C. 
 
 432-430. Siege of Potidaea (Charm. 153 A; Symp. 219 E, 221 A; 
 
 Apol. 28 E). 
 431. Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. The Thebans attack 
 
 Plataea. 
 430. The Plague of Athens (Symp. 201 D). 
 427. PJataea taken and the city destroyed. 
 425. Capture of the Lacedaemonians in Sphacteria(Menex. 242 C). 
 
 Slaughter of the Oligarchs at Corcyra. 
 424. The Rout of Delium (Laches 181 B, 188 E ; Symp. 221 A; 
 
 Apol. 28 E). 
 422. Battle of Amphipolis. [Death of Brasidas and Cleon.] 
 
 (Apol. 28 E). 
 418. Battle of Mantinea. 
 416. The Athenians capture Melos ; the males of military age 
 
 put to death ; the women and children enslaved. 
 415. The Mutilation of the Hermae. The Great Expedition to 
 
 Sicily (Menex. 242 E). 
 413. Defeat of the Athenians in Sicily and surrender of the army, 
 
 (about 7000 men). Nicias and Demosthenes executed 
 
 by the Syracusans. 
 411. Overthrow of the Athenian Democracy. Government of 
 
 the 400. 
 409. Himera and Selinus taken by the Carthaginians, and the 
 
 inhabitants massacred. 
 406. Battle of Arginusae. Trialof the Athenian Generals (Apol. 
 
 32 B ; Menex. 243 C). 
 405. Destruction of the Athenian navy at .lEgospotami. 
 
 Lysander invests Athens by land and sea. 
 404. End of the Peloponnesian War. The Athenians conclude 
 
 a humiliating peace with Sparta, agreeing to pull down 
 
 their walls, surrender their ships, and acknowledge the 
 
 supremacy of the Lacedaemonians. 
 Rule of the Thirty Tyrants (Apol. 32 C). 
 403. Restoration of the Democracy (Apol. 21 A ; Menex. 243 E). 
 401. Retreat of the Ten Thousand (Xenophon's Anabasis). 
 399. Death of Socrates (Phaedo 115 B foil.). 
 
GREEK HISTORY, B. C. 432-348 xxxvii 
 
 B.C. 
 
 394-387. The Corinthian War (Theaet: 142 ; Menex. 245 E). 
 
 387. Peace of Antalcidas. The Hellenic cities of Asia given over 
 to the King. 
 
 385. The Lacedaemonians compel the Mantineans to break up 
 their city into four villages (Symp. 193 A). 
 
 384. Birth of Aristotle. 
 383-379. War between Sparta and Olynthus. 
 
 371. Battle of Leuctra. 
 
 362. Second Battle of Mantinea, and Death of Epaminondas. 
 358-356. War between Athens and her revolted allies. 
 
 356. Birth of Alexander the Great. 
 
 355. The Phocians seize the temple of Delphi. 
 
 353. Assassination of Dion at Syracuse. 
 
 348. Olynthus captured by Philip of Macedon. 
 Death of Plato. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Vol. I. 
 P. i6. Six lines from bottom, after ' swiftness,' insert ' while he 
 
 equipped the weaker with swiftness.' 
 P. 72. For ' Steph. 219 A.' read '.Steph. 219 E.' 
 P. 218. Three lines from bottom, yb;- ' their own selves ' read'tiieir 
 
 own evil selves.' 
 
 Vol. II. 
 P. 2. Middle of page, yb;- ' evil and unrighteousness ' read'e.\i\ or 
 
 unrighteousness.' 
 P. 49 For ' Steph. 471 B.' read ' Steph. 471 C 
 
SELFXTIONS 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 DIALOGUES OF PLATO 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Vol. I. 
 P. i6. Six lines from bottom, after ' swiftness,' insert ' while he 
 
 equipped the weaker with swiftness.' 
 P. 72. For ' Steph. 219 A.' read '.Steph. 219 E.' 
 P. 218. Three lines from bottom, /or ' their own selves ' read' their 
 
 own evil selves.' 
 
 Vol. II. 
 P. 2. Middle of page, /or ' evil and unrighteousness ' read ' evil or 
 
 unrighteousness ' 
 P. 49 For ' Steph. 471 B.' read ' Steph. 471 C 
 
SELECTIONS 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 DIALOGUES OF PLATO 
 
SELECTIONS FROM PLATO 
 
 CHARMIDES 
 
 Socrates prescribes for Charmides' headache. 
 
 The Charmides, which is probably among the earliest of the 
 Platonic dialogues, is a conversation on the virtue of Temperance 
 betv^reen Socrates and the beautiful youth Charmides. Critias, the 
 uncle and guardian of Charmides, and afterwards one of the Thirty 
 Tyrants, also takes part in the discussion. 
 
 . . . Socrates makes the acquaintance of Charmides under the 
 pretext that he knows a cure for the headache to which the youth . 
 has been subject, and proceeds to explain the nature of the remedy, 
 which includes a charm for the soul as well as medical treatment 
 for the body. 
 
 In the extract which follows Plato shows a true conception of 
 the art of Medicine ; nor is his satire without point in our own days. 
 We, too, like the physicians of Hellas, are apt to be satisfied with 
 applying a local remedy to the disease, and to forget that the care 
 of the whole body must precede and guide the treatment of the 
 part. The reader may compare a passage from the Timacus t,88), to 
 be given later on, in which Plato dwells with emphasis upon the 
 intimate connexion of soul and body, and traces some diseases to 
 a mental origin. 
 
 Such, Charmides, I said, is the nature of the charm, Steph. 
 which I learned when serving with the army from one ^^ 
 of the physicians of the Thracian liing Zamolxis, who 
 are said to be so skilful that they can even give 
 immortality. This Thracian told me that in these 
 notions of theirs, which I was just now mentioning, 
 the Greek physicians are quite right as far as they go ; 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 CHARMIDES 
 
 but Zamolxis, he added, our king, who is also a god, 
 says further, ' that as you ought not to attempt to cure 
 the eyes without the head, or the head without the body, 
 so neither ought you to attempt to cure the body without 
 the soul; and this,' he said, 'is the reason why the cure 
 of many diseases is unknown to the physicians of Hellas, 
 because they are ignorant of the whole, which ought to 
 be studied also ; for the part can never be well unless 
 the whole is well.' For all good and evil, whether in 
 the body or in human nature, originates, as he declared, 
 in the soul, and overflows from thence, as if from the 
 157 head into the eyes. And therefore if the head and body 
 are to be well, you must begin by curing the soul ; that 
 is the first thing. 
 
 And the cure, my dear youth, has to be effected 
 by the use of certain charms, and these charms are 
 fair words; and by them temperance is implanted 
 in the soul, and where temperance is, there health 
 is speedily imparted, not only to the head, but to 
 the whole body. And he who taught me the cure and 
 the charm at the same time added a special direction : 
 'Let no one,' he said, 'persuade you to cure the head, 
 until he has first given you his soul to be cured by the 
 charm. For this,' he said, 'is the great error of our 
 day in the treatment of the human body, that physicians 
 separate the soul from the body.' And he added with 
 emphasis, at the same time making me swear to his 
 words, ' Let no one, however rich, or noble, or fair, 
 persuade you to give him the cure, without the charm.* 
 Now I have sworn, and I must keep my oath, and 
 therefore if you will allow me to apply the Thracian 
 charm first to your soul, as the stranger directed, I 
 will afterwards proceed to apply the cure to your head. 
 But if not, I do not know what I am to do with you, 
 my dear Charmides. 
 
GREEK BOYS AT PLAY 
 
 LYSIS 
 
 We only trust those who appear to know more 
 than ourselves. 
 
 The subject of the Lysis is Friendship. Socrates, in order to 
 reprove and instruct Hippothales, the foolish admirer of the beautiful 
 youth after whom the Dialogue is named, enters into conversation 
 with Lysis and his friend Menexenus. The boys and youths are 
 celebrating the festival of the Hermaea, and we have a charming 
 picture of them at their play during an interval in the ceremonies. 
 
 . . . Lysis, who is represented as of a gentle and modest nature, 
 joins with some diffidence the circle around Socrates, and is gradually 
 drawn into an argument by him. Socrates is desirous to teach the 
 boy the lesson which it is his mission to impart to all mankind, that 
 self-humiliation is the first step in the road to knowledge. Lysis is 
 dearly loved by his father and mother; but they chastise and rebuke 
 him if he meddles in matters of which he is ignorant. And when he 
 grows up he will not be allowed to manage other people's affairs, 
 unless he can convince them that he has n wisdom which they do 
 not possess. 
 
 Upon entering we found that the boys had just been steph. 
 sacrificing; and this part of the festival was nearly at ^ 
 an end. They were all in their white array, and games 
 at dice were going on among them. Most of them 
 were in the outer court amusing themselves; but 
 some were in a corner of the Apodyterium playing at 
 odd and even with a number of dice, which they took 
 out of little wicker baskets. There was also a circle 
 of lookers-on ; among them was Lysis. He was 
 standing with the other boys and youths, having 207 
 a crown upon his head, like a fair vision, and not 
 less worthy of praise for his goodness than for his 
 beauty. We left them, and went over to the opposite 
 side of the room, where, finding a quiet place, we sat 
 down ; and then we began to talk. This attracted 
 
 B 2 
 
4 LYSIS 
 
 Lysis, who was constantly turning round to look at 
 us — he was evidently wanting to come to us. For 
 a time he hesitated and had not the courage to come 
 alone ; but first of all, his friend Menexenus, leaving 
 his play, entered the Palaestra from the court, and 
 when he saw Ctesippus and myself, was going to take 
 a seat by us ; and then Lysis, seeing him, followed, 
 and sat down by his side ; and the other boys joined. 
 I should observe that Hippothales, when he saw the 
 crowd, got behind them, where he thought that he 
 would be out of sight of Lysis, lest he should anger 
 him ; and there he stood and listened 
 
 I turned to Menexenus, and said : Son of Demophon, 
 which of you two youths is the elder ? 
 
 That is a matter of-dispute between us, he said. 
 
 And which is the nobler? Is that also a matter of 
 dispute ? 
 
 Yes, certainly. 
 
 And another disputed point is, which is the fairer ? 
 
 The two boys laughed. 
 
 I shall not ask which is the richer of the two, I said ; 
 for you are friends, are you not ? 
 
 Certainly, they replied. 
 
 And friends have all things in common, so that one 
 of you can be no richer than the other, if you say truly 
 that you are friends. 
 
 They assented. I was about to ask which was the 
 juster of the two, and which was the wiser of the two ; 
 but at this . moment Menexenus was called away by 
 some one who came and said that the gymnastic-master 
 wanted him. I supposed that he had to offer sacrifice. 
 So he went away, and I asked Lysis some more ques- 
 tions. I dare say. Lysis, I said, that your father and 
 mother love you very much. 
 
 Certainly, he said. 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF THE CHILD 5 
 
 And they would wish you to be perfectly happy. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 But do you think that any one is happy who is in 
 the condition of a slave, and who cannot do what he 
 likes ? 
 
 I should think not indeed, he said. 
 
 And if your father and mother love you, and desire 
 that you should be happy, no one can doubt that they 
 are very ready to promote your happiness. 
 
 Certainly, he replied. 
 
 And do they then permit you to do what you like, 
 and never rebuke you or hinder you from doing what 
 you desire ? 
 
 Yes, indeed, Socrates ; there are a great many things 
 which they hinder me from doing. 
 
 What do you mean ? I said. Do they want you to ao8 
 be happy, and yet hinder you from doing what you 
 like ? for example, if you want to mount one of your 
 father's chariots, and take the reins at a race, they will 
 not allow you to do so — they will prevent you ? 
 
 Certainly, he said, they will not allow me to do so. 
 
 Whom then will they allow ? 
 
 There is a charioteer, whom my father pays for 
 driving. 
 
 And do they trust a hireling more than you? and 
 may he do what he likes with the horses ? and do they 
 pay him for this ? 
 
 They do. 
 
 But I dare say that you may take the whip and guide 
 the mule-cart if you like; — they will permit that? 
 
 Permit me ! indeed they will not. 
 
 Then, I said, may no one use the whip to the 
 mules? 
 
 Yes, he said, the muleteer. 
 
 And is he a slave or a free man ? 
 
6 LYSIS 
 
 A slave, he said. 
 
 And do they esteem a slave of more value than you 
 who are their son ? And do they entrust their property 
 to him rather than to you ? and allow him to do what he 
 likes, when they prohibit you ? Answer me now : Are 
 you your own master, or do they not even allow that ? 
 
 Nay, he said ; of course they do not allow it. 
 
 Then you have a master ? 
 
 Yes, my tutor ; there he is. 
 
 And is he a slave ? 
 
 To be sure ; he is our slave, he replied. 
 
 Surely, I said, this is a strange thing, that a free man 
 should be governed by a slave. And what does he do 
 with you ? 
 
 He takes me to my teachers. 
 
 You do not mean to say that your teachers also rule 
 over you ? 
 
 Of course they do. 
 
 Then I must say that your father is pleased to inflict 
 many lords and masters on you. But at any rate when 
 you go home to your mother, she will let you haye your 
 own way, and will not interfere with your happiness; 
 her wool, or the piece of cloth which she is weaving, 
 are at your disposal : I am sure that there is nothing to 
 hinder you from touching her wooden spathe, or her 
 gomb, or any other of her spinning implements. 
 
 Nay, Socrates, he replied, laughing ; not only does 
 she hinder me, but I should be beaten, if I were to 
 touch one of them. 
 
 Well, I said, this is amazing. And did you ever 
 behave ill to your father or your mother ? 
 
 No, indeed, he replied. 
 
 But why then are they so terribly anxious to prevent 
 you from being happy, and doing as you like ?^keeping 
 you all day long in subjection to another, and, in 
 
KNOWLEDGE MORE IMPORTANT THAN AGE 7 
 
 a word, doing nothing which you desire ; so that you 
 have no good, as would appear, out of their great 
 possessions, which are under the control of anybody 
 rather than of you, and have no use of your own fair 209 
 person, which is tended and talcen care of by another ; 
 while you, Lysis, are master of nobody, and can do 
 nothing ? 
 
 Why, he said, Socrates, the reason is that I am not 
 of age. 
 
 I doubt whether that is the real reason, I said ; for 
 I should imagine that your father Democrates, and 
 your mother, do permit you to do many things already, 
 and do not wait until you are of age : for example, if 
 they want anything read or written, you, I presume, 
 would be the first person in the house who is summoned 
 by them. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And you would be allowed to write or read the letters 
 in any order which you please, or to take up the lyre 
 and tune the notes, and play with the fingers, or strike 
 with the plectrum, exactly as you please, and neither 
 father nor mother would interfere with you. 
 
 That is true, he said. 
 
 Then what can be the reason. Lysis, I said, why they 
 allow you to do the one and not the other ? 
 
 I suppose, he said, because I understand the one, 
 and not the other. 
 
 Yes, my dear youth, I said, the reason is not any 
 deficiency of years, but a deficiency of knowledge ; and 
 whenever your father thinks that you are wiser than he 
 is, he will instantly comm.it himself and his possessions 
 to you. 
 
 I think so. 
 
 Ay, I said ; and about your neighbour, too, does not 
 the same rule hold as about your father? If he is 
 
8 LYSIS 
 
 satisfied that you know more of housekeeping than 
 he does, will he continue to administer his affairs 
 himself, or will he commit them to you ? 
 
 I think that he will commit them to me. 
 
 Will not the Athenian people, too, entrust their 
 affairs to you when they see that you have wisdom 
 enough to manage them ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And oh ! let me put another case, I said : There is 
 the great king, and he has an eldest son, who is the 
 Prince of Asia ; — suppose that you and I go to him and 
 establish to his satisfaction that we are better cooks 
 than his son, will he not entrust to us the prerogative of 
 making soup, and putting in anything that we like while 
 the pot is boiling, rather than to the Prince of Asia, 
 who is his son ? 
 
 To us, clearly. 
 
 And we shall be allowed to throw in salt by handfuls, 
 whereas the son will not be allowed to put in as much 
 as he can take up between his fingers ? 
 
 Of course. 
 
 Or suppose again that the son has bad eyes, will 
 he allow him, or will he not allow him, to touch his 
 2IO own eyes if he thinks that he has no knowledge of 
 medicine ? 
 
 He will not allow him. 
 
 Whereas, if he supposes us to have a knowledge 
 of medicine, he will allow us to do what we like with 
 him — even to open the eyes wide and sprinkle ashes 
 upon them, because he supposes that we know what 
 is best ? 
 
 That is true. 
 
 And everything in which we appear to him to be 
 wiser than himself or his son he will commit to us ? 
 
 That is very true, Socrates, he replied. 
 
KNOWLEDGE GIVES POWER g 
 
 Then now, my dear Lysis, I said, you perceive that 
 in things which we know every one will trust us, — 
 Hellenes and barbarians, men and women, — and we 
 may do as we please about them, and no one will like 
 to interfere with us ; we shall be free, and masters of 
 others; and these things will be really ours, for we 
 shall be benefited by them. But in things of which we 
 have no understanding, no one will trust us to do as 
 seems good to us — they will hinder us as far as they 
 can ; and not only strangers, but father and mother, 
 and the friend, if there be one, who is dearer still, will 
 also hinder us; and we shall be subject to others; and 
 these things will not be ours, for we shall not be 
 benefited by them. Do you agree ? 
 
 He assented. 
 
 LACHES 
 
 I. The art of fighting in armour is useless to the soldier. 
 
 In the Laches the nature of Courage is discussed between Socrates 
 and the Athenian generals, Laches and Nicias. Two old men are in- 
 troduced, — Lysimachus, son of Aristeides the Just, and Melesias, son 
 of Thucydides the elder. They have now themselves sons growing 
 up, and they are anxious about their education. Their own fathers 
 had been too busy with the affairs of the state to attend to the 
 education of their children, and they are determined not to repeat 
 this error. They have been witnessing an exhibition by a fencing 
 master, and they inquire of Laches and Nicias whether, in their 
 opinion, the art is one which should be learnt by young men. 
 
 Nicias thinks that it is a useful training for the military life, and 
 also valuable in actual warfare. But Laches is of another mind, and 
 he sets forth his objections in the following terms ; — 
 
 I SHOULD not like to maintain, Nicias, that any kind of Steph. 
 knowledge is not to be learned ; for all knowledge ^^ 
 appears to be a good : and if, as Nicias and as the 
 
lO LACHES 
 
 teachers of the art afBrm, this use of arms is really 
 a species of knowledge, then it ought to be learned ; but 
 if not, and if those who profess to teach it are deceivers 
 only ; or if it be knowledge, but not of a valuable sort, 
 then what is the use of learning it ? I say this, because 
 183 I think that if it had been really valuable, the Lacedae- 
 monians, whose whole life is passed in finding out and 
 practising the arts which give them an advantage over 
 other nations in war, would have discovered this one. 
 And even if they had not, still these professors of the 
 art would certainly not have failed to discover that of 
 all the Hellenes the Lacedaemonians have the greatest 
 interest in such matters, and that a master of the art 
 who was honoured among them would be sure to make 
 his fortune among other nations, just as a tragic poet 
 would who is honoured among ourselves ; which is the 
 reason why he who fancies that he can write a tragedy 
 does not go about itinerating in the neighbouring states, 
 but rushes hither straight, and exhibits at Athens ; and 
 this is natural. Whereas I perceive that these fighters 
 in armour regard Lacedaemon as a sacred inviolable 
 territory, which they do not touch with the point of 
 their foot ; but they make a circuit of the neighbouring 
 states, and would rather exhibit to any others than to 
 the Spartans ; and particularly to those who would 
 themselves acknowledge that they are by no means 
 first-rate in the arts of war. 
 
 Further, Lysimachus, I have encountered a good 
 many of these gentlemen in actual service, and have 
 taken their measure, which I can give you at once ; 
 for none of these masters of fence have ever been 
 distinguished in war, — there has been a sort of fatality 
 about them; while in all other arts the men of note 
 have been always those who have practised the art, 
 they appear to be a most unfortunate exception. For 
 
THE FENCING MASTER IN WAR II 
 
 example, this very Stesilaus, whom you and I have 
 just witnessed exhibiting in all that crowd and making 
 such great professions of his powers, I have seen at 
 another time making, in sober truth, an involuntary 
 exhibition of himself, which was a far better spectacle. 
 He was a marine on board a ship which struck 
 a transport vessel, and was armed with a weapon, 
 half spear, half scythe ; the singularity of this weapon 
 was worthy of the singularity of the- man. To make 
 a long story short, I will only tell you what happened 
 to this notable invention of the scythe-spear. He was 
 fighting, and the scythe was caught in the rigging of the 
 other ship, and stuck fast ; and he tugged, but was 
 unable to get his weapon free. The two ships were 
 passing one another. He first ran along his own ship 
 holding on to the spear ; but as the other ship passed 
 by and drew him after as he was holding on, he let the 
 spear slip through his hand until he retained only the 
 end of the handle. The people in the transport clapped 184 
 their hands, and laughed at his ridiculous figure ; and 
 when some one threw a stone, which fell on the deck at 
 his feet, and he quitted his hold of the scythe-spear, 
 the crew of his own trireme also burst out laughing ; 
 they could not refrain when they beheld the weapon 
 waving in the air, suspended from the transport. 
 
 Now I do not deny that there may be something in 
 such an art, as Nicias asserts, but I tell you my 
 experience ; and, as I said at first, whether this be an 
 art of which the advantage is so slight, or not an art 
 at all, but only an imposition, in either case such an 
 acquirement is not worth having. For my opinion is, 
 that if the professor of this art be a coward, he will be 
 likely to become rash, and his character will be only 
 more notorious ; or if he be brave, and fail ever so little, 
 other men will be on the watch, and he will be greatly 
 
12 LACHES 
 
 traduced ; for there is a jealousy of such pretenders ; 
 and unless a man be pre-eminent in valour, he cannot 
 help being ridiculous, if he says that he has this sort 
 of skill. Such is my judgment, Lysimachus, of the 
 desirableness of this art ; but, as I said at first, ask 
 Socrates, and do not let him go until he has given you 
 his opinion of the matter. 
 
 2. The harmony of words and deeds. 
 
 Nicias now suggests that Socrates shall be taken into the discussion. 
 Laches gladly assents : — 
 
 j88 I HAVE but one feeling, Nicias, or (shall I say ?) two 
 *-" feelings, about discussions. Some would think that 
 I am a lover, and to others I may seem to be a hater 
 of discourse ; for when I hear a man discoursing of 
 virtue, or of any sort of wisdom, who is a true man and 
 worthy of his theme, I am delighted beyond measure : 
 and I compare the man and his words, and note the 
 harmony and correspondence of them. And such an 
 one I deem to be the true musician, attuned to a fairer 
 harmony than that of the lyre, or any pleasant instru- 
 ment of music ; for truly he has in his own life a 
 harmony of words and deeds arranged, not in the 
 Ionian, or in the Phrygian mode, nor yet in the Lydian; 
 but in the true Hellenic mode, which is the Dorian, and 
 no other. Such an one makes me merry with the sound 
 of his voice ; and when I hear him I am thought to be 
 a lover of discourse ; so eager am I in drinking in his 
 words. But a man whose actions do not agree with his 
 words is an annoyance to me ; and the better he speaks 
 the more I hate him, and then I seem to be a hater of 
 discourse. 
 
 As to Socrates, I have no knowledge of his words, 
 but of old, as would seem, I have had experience of 
 
LACHES WILL LEARN OF SOCRATES 13 
 
 his deeds ; and his deeds show that free and noble 189 
 sentiments are natural to him. And if his words accord, 
 then I am of one mind with him, and shall be delighted 
 to be interrogated by a man such as he is, and shall not 
 be annoyed at having to learn of him : for I too agree 
 with Solon, ' that I would fain grow old, learning many 
 things.' But I must be allowed to add 'of the good 
 only.' Socrates must be willing to allow that he is 
 a good teacher, or I shall be a dull and uncongenial 
 pupil : but that the teacher is younger, or not as yet in 
 repute — anything of that sort is of no account with me. 
 And therefore, Socrates, I give you notice that you may 
 teach and confute me as much as ever you like, and 
 also learn of me anything which I know. So high is 
 the opinion which I have entertained of you. ever since 
 the day on which you were my companion in danger, 
 and gave a proof of your valour such as only the man 
 of merit can give. Therefore, say whatever you like, 
 and do not mind about the difference of our ages. 
 
 PROTAGORAS 
 
 I. The Sophists at the house of Callias. 
 
 The Protagoras commences with a lively scene, in which Hippo- 
 crates, a young Athenian, rouses Socrates before dawn with the 
 announcement that the great Sophist has come to Athens. He is all 
 excitement and ^vants to go forthwith to Protagoras and become his 
 disciple. Socrates induces him to wait until daylight, and then takes 
 the youth to the house of Callias, where Protagoras is staying with 
 a number of other Sophists. 
 
 Soc. And now let us go, as we were intending, and hear Steph. 
 Protagoras ; and when we have heard what he has to 3^4 
 say, we may take counsel of others ; for not only is 
 
14 PROTAGORAS 
 
 Protagoras at the house of Callias, but there is Hippias 
 of Elis, and, if I am not mistaken, Prodicus of Ceos, 
 and several other wise men. 
 
 To this we agreed, and proceeded on our way until 
 we reached the vestibule of the house ; and there we 
 stopped in order to conclude a discussion which had 
 arisen between us as we were going along; and we 
 stood talking in the vestibule until we had finished and 
 come to an understanding., And I think that the door- 
 keeper, who was a eunuch, and who was probably 
 annoyed at the great inroad of the Sophists, must have 
 heard us talking. At any rate, when we knocked at 
 the door, and he opened and saw us, he grumbled : 
 They are Sophists — he is not at home ; and instantly 
 gave the door a hearty bang with both his hands. 
 Again we knocked, and he answered without opening : 
 Did you not hear me say that he is not at home, fellows ? 
 But, my friend, I said, you need not be alarmed; for 
 we are not Sophists, and we are not come to see Callias, 
 but we want to see Protagoras ; and I must request 
 you to announce us. At last, after a good deal of 
 difficulty, the man was persuaded to open the door. 
 
 When we entered, we found Protagoras taking a walk 
 in the cloister; and next to him, on one side, were 
 walking Callias, the son of Hipponicus, and Paralus, the 
 315 son of Pericles, who, by the mother's side, is his half- 
 brother, and Charmides, the son of Glaucon. On the 
 other side of him were Xanthippus, the other son of 
 Pericles ; Philippides, the son of Philomelus ; also 
 Antimoerus of Mende, who of all the disciples of 
 Protagoras is the most famous, and intends to make 
 sophistry his profession. A train of listeners followed 
 him ; the greater part of them appeared to be foreigners, 
 whom Protagoras had brought with him out of the 
 various cities visited by him in his journeys, he, like 
 
THE THREE GREAT SOPHISTS 15 
 
 Orpheus, attracting them by his voice, and they follow- 
 ing ^ I should mention also that there were some 
 Athenians in the company. Nothing delighted me 
 more than the precision of their movements : they 
 never got into his way at all ; but when he and those 
 who were with him turned back, then the band of 
 listeners parted regularly on either side ; he was 
 always in front, and they wheeled round and took 
 their places behind him in perfect order. 
 
 After him, as Homer says^, 'I lifted up my eyes and 
 saw' Hippias the Elean sitting in the opposite cloister 
 on a chair of state, and around him were seated on 
 benches Eryximachus, the son of Acumenus, and Phae- 
 drus the Myrrhinusian, and Andron the son of Androtion, 
 and there were strangers whom he had brought with 
 him from his native city of Elis, and some others : they 
 were putting to Hippias certain physical and astro- 
 nomical questions, and he, ex cathedra, was deter- 
 mining their several questions to them, and discoursing 
 of them. 
 
 Also, ' my eyes beheld Tantalus ^ ; ' for Prodicus the 
 Cean was at Athens : he had been lodged in a room 
 which, in the days of Hipponicus, was a storehouse ; 
 but, as the house was full, Callias had cleared this out 
 and made the room into a guest-chamber. Now Pro- 
 dicus was still in bed, wrapped up in sheepskins and 
 bedclothes, of which there seemed to be a great heap ; 
 and there was sitting by him on the couches near, 
 Pausanias of the deme of Cerameis, and with Pausanias 
 was a youth quite young, who is certainly remarkable 
 for his good looks, and, if I am not mistaken, is also of 
 a fair and gentle nature. I thought that I heard him 
 called Agathon, and my suspicion is that he is the 
 
 1 Cp. Rep. X. 600 D. " Od. xi. 601 foil. 
 
 = Od. xi. 58a. 
 
l6 PROTAGORAS 
 
 beloved of Pausanias. There was this youth, and also 
 there were the two Adeimantuses, one the son of Cepis, 
 and the other of Leucolophides, and some others. 
 I was very anxious to hear what Prodicus was saying, 
 for he seems to me to be an all-wise and inspired man ; 
 316 but I was not able to get into the inner circle, and his 
 fine deep voice made an echo in the room which rendered 
 his words inaudible. 
 
 2. Protagoras tells the story of Prometheus and 
 £pinietheus. 
 
 Socrates now introduces Hippocrates to the Sophist and explains 
 their errand ; but he would like to know what happens to young 
 men who associate with Protagoras. ' They will become better,' is 
 the reply. ' Can virtue, however, really be taught 1 ' asks Socrates. 
 Protagoras gives his answer in the form of a myth or apologue, which 
 will, he thinks, be the most entertaining way to the audience : — 
 
 Steph. Once upon a time there were gods only, and no 
 3f° mortal creatures. But when the time came that these 
 also should be created, the gods fashioned them out of 
 earth and fire and various mixtures of both elements 
 in the interior of the earth ; and when they were about 
 to bring them into the light of day, they ordered Pro- 
 metheus and Epimetheus to equip them, and to distribute 
 to them severally their proper qualities. Epimetheus 
 said to Prometheus : ' Let me distribute, and do you 
 inspect.' This was agreed, and Epimetheus made the 
 distribution. 
 
 There were some to whom he gave strength without 
 swiftness ; some he armed, and others he left unarmed ; 
 and devised for the latter some other means of preser- 
 vation, making some large, and having their size as 
 a protection, and others small, whose nature was to 
 321 fly in the air or burrow in the ground ; this was to 
 be their way of escape. Thus did he compensate 
 
THE THEFT OF PROMETHEUS 17 
 
 them with the view of preventing any race from be- 
 coming extinct. And when he had provided against 
 their destruction by one another, he contrived also 
 a means of protecting them against the seasons of 
 heaven ; clothing them with close hair and thick skins 
 sufficient to defend them against the winter cold and 
 able to resist the summer heat, so that they might have 
 a natural bed of their own when they wanted to rest ; 
 also he furnished them with hoofs and hair and hard 
 and callous skins under tlieir feet. Then he gave them 
 varieties of food, — herb of the soil to some, to others 
 fruits of trees, and to others roots, and to some again 
 he gave other animals as food. And some he made to 
 have few young ones, while those who were their prey 
 were very prolific ; and in this manner the race was 
 preserved. Thus did Epimetheus, who, not being very 
 wise, forgot that he had distributed among the brute 
 animals all the qualities which he had to give, — and 
 when he came to man, who was still unprovided, he 
 was terribly perplexed. 
 
 Now while he was in this perplexity, Prometheus 
 came to inspect the distribution, and he found that 
 the other animals were suitably furnished, but that 
 man alone was naked and shoeless, and had neither 
 bed nor arms of defence. The appointed hour was 
 approaching when man in his turn was to go forth 
 into the light of day; and Prometheus, not knowing 
 liow he could devise his salvation, stole the mechanical 
 arts of Hephaestus and Athene, and fire with them 
 (they could neither have been acquired nor used with- 
 out fire), and gave them to man. Thus man had the 
 wisdom necessary to the support of life, but political 
 wisdom he had not ; for that was in the keeping of 
 Zeus, and the power of Prometheus did not extend 
 to entering into the citadel of heaven, where Zeus 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
l8 PROTAGORAS 
 
 dwelt, who moreover had terrible sentinels ; but he did 
 enter by stealth into the common workshop of Athene 
 and Hephaestus, in which they used to practise their 
 favourite arts, and carried off Hephaestus' art of work- 
 ing by fire, and also the art of Athene, and gave them 
 to man. And in this way man was supplied with the 
 means of life. But Prometheus is said to have been 
 afterwards prosecuted for theft, owing to the blunder 
 of Epimetheus. 
 322 Now man, having a share of the divine attributes, 
 was at first the only one of the animals who had any 
 gods, because he alone was of their kindred ; and he 
 would raise altars and images of them. He was not 
 long in inventing articulate speech and names ; and he 
 also constructed houses and clothes and shoes and 
 beds, and drew sustenance from the earth. Thus pro- 
 vided, mankind at first lived dispersed, and there were 
 no cities. But the consequence was that they were 
 destroyed by the wild beasts, for they were utterly 
 weak in comparison of them, and their art was only 
 sufficient to provide them with the means of life, and 
 did not enable them to carry on war against the animals : 
 food they had, but not as yet the art of government, of 
 which the art of war is a part. After a while the desire 
 of self-preservation gathered them into cities ; but when 
 they were gathered together, having no art of govern- 
 ment, they evil intreated one another, and were again 
 in process of dispersion and destruction. 
 
 Zeus feared that the entire race would be exter- 
 minated, and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing 
 reverence and justice to be the ordering principles 
 of cities and the bonds of friendship and conciliation. 
 Hermes asked Zeus how he should impart justice 
 and reverence among men :^Should he distribute 
 them as the arts are distributed ; that is to say, to 
 
VIRTUE GIVEN BY GOD TO ALL MEN ig 
 
 a favoured few only, one skilled individual having 
 enough of medicine or of any other art for many 
 unskilled ones ? ' Shall this be the manner in which 
 I am to distribute justice and reverence among men, 
 or shall I give them to all?' 'To all,' said Zeus; 
 'I should like them all to have a share; for cities 
 cannot exist, if a few only share in the virtues, as in the 
 arts. And further, make a law by my order, that he 
 who has no part in reverence and justice shall be put 
 to death, for he is a plague of the state.' 
 
 3. The education of a Greek child. 
 
 Continuing his argument Protagoras shows that mankind certainly 
 believe that virtue can be taught, or else they would not train and 
 educate their children or consent to punish those who offend against 
 the laws. He then gives a brief sketch of Hellenic education, such 
 as was in vogue in his day. There were two main divisions, iiovaiid) 
 and fviivaaTiicii, the former including, besides ' music ' in our sense 
 of the term, every kind of mental training. The chief subjects taught 
 in the schools were, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic (though this is 
 omitted here by Plato), the learning of poetry, and, as we gather from 
 Aristotle (Pol. viii. 3, § i). Drawing. Nothing is said in the present 
 passage about the age at which children were sent to school ; but 
 Plato himself in the Laws (vii. 8io) tells us that they are to commence 
 their education at ten, and to spend three years in learning to read 
 and write, and three more in studying music. 
 
 We at first observe with some surprise the large part which is 
 occupied by poetry in elementary education (cp. Plato, Laws vii. 
 811 A) : yet this finds a modern parallel in countries like Italy and 
 Persia, where the great national poets are familiarly known to every 
 class of the people. 
 
 Another feature in which there is a greater divergence from modern 
 ideas is the special training in gymnastics after the completion of 
 other studies. It must be remembered that gymnastics were valued 
 in Hellas, not merely for their own sake, but as a training for war 
 (cp. Plato, Laws vii. 813 D). The youth passed from the gymnasia 
 into the ranks of the army, and the ties of friendship which grew up 
 between them and were carried into the field were thought to supply 
 an element of cohesion and also an incentive to valour. 
 
 C 2 
 
20 PROTAGORAS 
 
 Steph. Education and admonition commence in the first 
 3^5 years of childhood, and last to the very end of life. 
 Mother and nurse and father and tutor are vying with 
 one another about the improvement of the child as soon 
 as ever he is able to understand what is being said to 
 him : he cannot say or do anything without their setting 
 forth to him that this is just and that is unjust ; this is 
 honourable, that is dishonourable ; this is holy, that is 
 unholy ; do this and abstain from that. And if he 
 obeys, well and good ; if not, he is straightened by 
 threats and blows, like a piece of bent or warped wood. 
 At a later stage they send him to teachers, and enjoin 
 them to see to his manners even more than to his 
 reading and music ; and the teachers do as they are 
 desired. 
 
 And when the boy has learned his letters and is 
 beginning to understand what is written, as before 
 326 he understood only what was spoken, they put into 
 his hands the works of great poets, which he reads 
 sitting on a bench at school ; in these are contained 
 many admonitions, and many tales, and praises, and 
 encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required 
 to learn by heart, in order that he may imitate 
 or emulate them and desire to become like them. 
 Then, again, the teachers of the lyre take similar care 
 that their young disciple is temperate and gets into no 
 mischief; and when they have taught him the use of 
 the lyre, they introduce him to the poems of other 
 excellent poets, who are the lyric poets ; and these they 
 set to music, and make their harmonies and rhythms 
 quite familiar to the children's souls, in order that they 
 may learn to be more gentle, and harmonious, and 
 rhythmical, and so more fitted for speech and action ; 
 for the life of man in every part has need of harmony 
 and rhythm. Then they send them to the master of 
 
THE LAWS A GUIDE TO YOUTH 21 
 
 gymnastic, in order that their bodies may better minister 
 to the virtuous mind, and that they may not be com- 
 pelled through bodily weakness to play the coward in 
 war or on any other occasion. This is what is done 
 by those who have the means, and those who have the 
 means are the rich ; their children begin to go to school 
 soonest and leave off latest. 
 
 When they have done with masters, the state again 
 compels them to learn the laws, and live after the 
 pattern which they furnish, and not after their own 
 fancies ; and just as in learning to write, the writing- 
 master first draws lines with a style for the use of 
 the young beginner, and gives him the tablet and 
 makes him follow the lines, so the city draws the laws, 
 which were the invention of good lawgivers living in 
 the olden time ; these are given to the young man, in 
 order to guide him in his conduct whether he is com- 
 manding or obeying ; and he who transgresses them is 
 to be corrected, or, in other words, called to account, 
 which is a term used not only in your country, but 
 also in many others, seeing that justice calls men 
 to account. Now when there is all this care about 
 virtue private and public, why, Socrates, do you still 
 wonder and doubt whether virtue can be taught ? 
 Cease to wonder, for the opposite would be far more 
 surprising. 
 
 EUTHYDEMUS 
 
 The doctrinaire Politician and the true Philosopher. 
 
 The Euthydemus, which is one of the most humorous, or, rather, 
 satirical of the Platonic Dialogues, is a conversation between Socrates 
 and two Sophists, the brothers Dionysodorus and Euthydemus, who 
 have arrived at Athens from Thurii. They represent the lower type 
 
22 EUTHYDEMUS 
 
 of their class, akin to Thrasymachus, whose acquaintance we shall make 
 in the Republic, and far inferior to Protagoras or Prodicus. Like 
 Hippias (Hipp. Min. 363), they profess to be all-accomplished ; and 
 when they came to Athens on a previous occasion, they had made 
 a great parade of their skill in fencing. Now they have carried the 
 art of fighting into another field, and teach men how to contend in the 
 law courts and in the schools of the philosophers. They are vain, 
 boastful, and rude in the last degree, and Socrates fools them to the 
 top of their bent, while at the same time he shows that their famous 
 wisdom is a mere playing with words, which has no ethical or 
 intellectual significance. Towards the close of the discussion he 
 professes to be enraptured with the omniscient brothers, and begs to 
 be admitted among their disciples. 
 
 So far he has been narrating the conversation to his aged friend 
 Crito, whom he now requests to accompany him to the Sophists. 
 Crito rather demurs to the proposal, and tells Socrates of an 
 unfavourable criticism which had been passed upon yesterday's 
 scene and upon philosophy in general by a man of repute. Socrates 
 enquires who he is, and is informed that he is a lawyer, who 
 does not practise himself, but writes speeches for others. Socrates 
 defends philosophy and attacks in turn the class to which his critic 
 belongs. They are that species, half politician, half philosopher, 
 whom we commonly speak of as doctrinaires or dilettantes. 
 
 These have never in any country enjoyed much popularity. 
 They are regarded by politicians and the world in general as 
 unpractical, because of their idealism, while the attempt which they 
 make to reconcile politics and philosophy is no less distasteful to 
 the metaphysician. The works of Plato show many traces of this 
 opposition, and it was probably the origin of the dislike which he 
 manifests to the orators and rhetoricians whom he satirizes so keenly 
 in the Phaedrus and Gorgias. We may also compare the fact that in 
 the Apology one of Socrates' accusers, Lycon, appears on behalf of 
 the rhetoricians (Apol. 23 E). 
 
 Steph. Soc. Such was the discussion, Crito ; and after a 
 3°4 few more words had passed between us we went away. 
 I hope that you will come to them with me, since they 
 say that they are able to teach any one who will give 
 them money ; no age or want of capacity is an impedi- 
 ment. And I must repeat one thing which they said, for 
 your especial benefit, — that the learning of their art did 
 not at all interfere with the business of money-making. 
 
THE FOOLISHNESS OF PHILOSOPHY 23 
 
 Cri. Truly, Socrates, though I am curious and ready 
 to learn, yet I fear that I am not like-minded with 
 Euthydemus, but one of the other sort, who, as you 
 were saying, would rather be refuted by such arguments 
 than use them in refutation of others. And though 
 I may appear ridiculous in venturing to advise you, 
 I think that you may as well hear what was said to me 
 by a man of very considerable pretensions — he was 
 a professor of legal oratory — who came away from you 
 while I was walking up and down. 
 
 'Crito,' said he to me, 'are you giving no atten- 
 tion to these wise men ? ' ' No, indeed,' I said to 
 him ; ' I could not get within hearing of them — there 
 was such a crowd.' ' You would have heard some- 
 thing worth hearing if you had.' ' What was that ? ' 
 I said. 'You would have heard the greatest masters 
 of the art of rhetoric discoursing.' 'And what did 
 you think of them ? ' I said. ' What did I think of 
 them?' he said: — 'theirs was the sort of discourse 
 which anybody might hear from men who were playing 
 the fool, and making much ado about nothing.' That 
 was the expression which he used. ' Surely,' I said, 
 ' philosophy is a charming thing.' ' Charming ! ' he 305 
 said ; ' what simplicity ! philosophy is nought ; and 
 I think that if you had been present you would have 
 been ashamed of your friend — his conduct was so very 
 strange in placing himself at the mercy of men who 
 care not what they say, and fasten upon every word. 
 And these, as I was telling you, are supposed to be the 
 most eminent professors of their time. But the truth 
 is, Crito, that the study itself and the men themselves 
 are utterly mean and ridiculous.' 
 
 Now censure of the pursuit, Socrates, whether 
 coming from him or from others, appears to me to 
 be undeserved; but as to the impropriety of holding 
 
24 EUTHYDEMUS 
 
 a public discussion with such men, there, I confess 
 that, in my opinion, he was in the right. 
 
 Soc. O Crito, they are marvellous men ; but what 
 was I going to say ? First of all let me know ; — What 
 manner of man was he who came up to you and 
 censured philosophy ; was he an orator who himself 
 practises in the courts, or an instructor of orators, who 
 makes the speeches- with which they do battle ? 
 
 Cri. He was certainly jiot an orator, and I doubt 
 whether he had ever been into court ; but they say that 
 he knows the business, and is a clever man, and com- 
 poses wonderful speeches. 
 
 Soc. Now I understand, Crito ; he is one of an am- 
 phibious class, whom I was on the point of mentioning 
 — one of those whom Prodicus describes as on the 
 border-ground between philosophers and statesmen — 
 they think that they are the wisest of all men, and that 
 they are generally esteemed the wisest ; nothing but the 
 rivalry of the philosophers stands in their way ; and 
 they are of the opinion that if they can prove the philo- 
 sophers to be good for nothing, no one will dispute their 
 title to the palm of wisdom, for that they are themselves 
 really the wisest, although they are apt to be mauled by 
 Euthydemus and his friends, when they get hold of 
 them in conversation. This opinion which they enter- 
 tain of their own wisdom is very natural ; for they have 
 a certain amount of philosophy, and a certain amount of 
 political wisdom ; there is reason in what they say, for 
 they argue that they have just enough of both, and so 
 they keep out of the way of all risks and conflicts and 
 reap the fruits of their wisdom. 
 
 Cri. What do you say of them, Socrates ? There 
 is certainly something specious in that notion of 
 theirs. 
 
 Soc. Yes. Crito there is more speciousness than 
 
THE PHILOSOPHER-POLITICIAN 25 
 
 truth ; they cannot be made to understand the nature 306 
 of intermediates. For all persons or things, which are 
 intermediate between two other things, and participate 
 in both of them — if one of these two things is good and 
 the other evil, are better than the one and worse than 
 the other ; but if they are in a mean between two good 
 things which do not tend to the same end, they fall 
 short of either of their component elements in the 
 attainment of their ends. Only in the case when the 
 two component elements which do not tend to the same 
 end are evil is the participant better than either. 
 
 Now, if philosophy and political action are both good, 
 but tend to diiferent ends, and they participate in both, 
 and are in a mean between them, then they are talking 
 nonsense, for they are worse than either ; or, if the one 
 be good and the other evil, they are better than the one 
 and worse than the other ; only on the supposition that 
 they are both evil could there be any truth in what they 
 say. I do not think that they will admit that their two 
 pursuits are either wholly or partly evil ; but the truth 
 is, that these philosopher-politicians who aim at both 
 fall short of both in the attainment of their respective 
 ends, and are really third, although they would like to, 
 stand first. There is no need, however, to be angry at 
 this ambition of theirs — which may be forgiven ; for 
 every man ought to be loved who says and manfully 
 pursues and works out anything which is at all like 
 wisdom : at the same time we shall do well to see them 
 as they really are. 
 
 Cri. I have often told you, Socrates, that I am in 
 a constant difficulty about my two sons. What am I to 
 do with them ? There is no hurry about the younger 
 one, who is only a child ; but the other, Critobulus, is 
 getting on, and needs some one who will improve him. 
 I cannot help thinking, when I hear you talk, that there 
 
36 EUTHYDEMUS 
 
 is a sort of madness in many of our anxieties about our 
 children : — in the first place, about marrying a wife of 
 good family to be the mother of them, and then about 
 heaping up money for them— and yet taking no care 
 about their education. But then again, when I con- 
 template any of those who pretend to educate others, 
 307 I am amazed. To me, if I am to confess the truth, 
 they all seem to be such outrageous beings : so that 
 I do not know how I can advise the youth to study 
 philosophy. 
 
 Soc. Dear Crito, do you not know that in every 
 profession the inferior sort are numerous and good 
 for nothing, and the good are few and beyond all 
 price : for example, are not gymnastic and rhetoric 
 and money-making and the art of the general, noble 
 arts? 
 
 Cri. Certainly they are, in my judgment. 
 
 Soc. Well, and do you not see that in each of these 
 arts the many are ridiculous performers ? 
 
 Cri. Yes, indeed, that is very true. 
 
 Soc. And will you on this account shun all these 
 pursuits yourself and refuse to allow them to your 
 son ? 
 
 Cri. That would not be reasonable, Socrates. 
 
 Soc. Do you then be reasonable, Crito, and do not 
 mind whether the teachers of philosophy are good or 
 bad, but think only of philosophy herself. Try and 
 examine her well and truly, and if she be evil seek to 
 turn away all men from her, and not your sons only ; 
 but if she be what I believe that she is, then follow her 
 and serve her, you and your house, as the saying is, 
 and be of good cheer. 
 
SOUND AND SENSE IN LANGUAGE 27 
 
 CRATYLUS 
 
 The significations of the various letters. 
 
 The Cratylus belongs to the longer and more important class of 
 Plato's writings. The subject is the nature and origin of language, 
 a question which has lost none of its interest for ourselves. 
 
 Cratylus, a philosopher of the Heraclitean school, and Hermogenes, 
 the poor and unlucky brother of the wealthy CalliaSj have been dis- 
 cussing the meaning of names, and they call upon Socrates to help 
 them in the argument. Cratylus affirms that names have a natural 
 truth or correctness : Hermogenes thinks that they are a matter of 
 convention, 
 
 Socrates r:'grets that his poverty has not allowed him to attend the 
 ' fifty drachma course ' of the all-wise Prodicus ; still he is willing to 
 give what assistance he can. The theory which he advances, when 
 stripped of the ironical and fantastic garb in which it is presented by 
 him, may be most easily explained as a middle view between the 
 natural and the conventional. All names are not true ; neither are 
 all names given by convention. There is truth in many names, 
 perhaps in most ; but the giver of names may sometimes have given 
 a false appellation because he did not know the nature of the thing 
 to be named ; and the degree of truth or inaccuracy can only be 
 determined by analysis and enquiry. 
 
 Plato was necessarily ill equipped for the task which he has under- 
 taken in the Cratylus. Yet the ' divine gift ' of reflection supplied in 
 great measure the want of exact knowledge, and many anticipations 
 of the latest discoveries of modern times may be found in this 
 Dialogue. In the following passage he speaks with remarkable 
 accuracy and truth of the manner in which sounds are imitated by 
 means of particular letters. 
 
 Soc. My first notions of original names are truly Steph. 
 wild and ridiculous, though I have no objection to '^'^ 
 impart them to you if you desire, and I hope that you 
 will communicate to me in return anything better 
 which you may have. 
 
 Her. Fear not ; I will do my best. 
 
 Soc. In the first place, the letter p appears to me to 
 be the general instrument expressing all motion {idvria-is). 
 
28 CRATYLUS 
 
 But I have not yet explained the meaning of this latter 
 word, which is just ie(Tis (going) ; for the letter r] was not 
 in use among the ancients, who only employed e ; and 
 the root is kUw, which is a foreign form, the same as 
 Uvai. And the old word kiVj^o-w will be correctly given as 
 lEo-is in corresponding modern letters. Assuming this 
 foreign root kUiv, and allowing for the change of the 
 ri and the insertion of the v, we have Kii/rjms, which should 
 have been Kulvrjo-is or Eio-is ; and crraats is the negative of 
 livai (or fla-is), and has been improved into o-rao-is. Now 
 the letter p, as I was saying, appeared to the imposer 
 of names an excellent instrument for the expression of 
 motion ; and he frequently uses the letter for this 
 purpose : for example, in the actual words peti/ and 
 pofi he represents motion by p ; also in the words rpofios 
 (trembling), Tpaxvs (rugged) ; and again, in words such 
 
 as Kpmiiv (strike), Bpaieiv (crush), epsUeiv (bruise\ BpvnTew 
 
 (break^, Keppari^fiv (crumble), pv/ifieiv (whirl) : of all these 
 sorts of movements he generally finds an expression in 
 the letter R, because, as I imagine, he had observed 
 that the tongue was most agitated and least at rest in 
 the pronunciation of this letter, which he therefore used 
 427 in order to express motion, just as by the letter t he 
 expresses the subtle elements which pass through all 
 things. This is why he uses the letter i as imitative of 
 
 motion, Uvm, iea-dm. 
 
 And there is another class of letters, <^, ^, n- and 
 f, of which the pronunciation is accompanied by 
 great expenditure of breath ; these are used in the 
 imitation of such notions as -^vxpov (shivering), (eov 
 (seething), a-eUa-Sm (to be shaken), a-eia-p^s (shock), and 
 are always introduced by the giver of names when he 
 wants to imitate what is cfiva-wdes (windy). He seems 
 to have thought that the closing and pressure of the 
 tongue in the utterance of S and t was expressive 
 
THE USE OF THE DIFFERENT LETTERS 29 
 
 of binding and rest in a place : he further observed 
 the liquid movement of \ in the pronunciation of 
 which the tongue sHps, and in this he found the ex- 
 pression of smoothness, as in Xflos (level), and in the 
 word oKurOaveiv (to slip) itself, Xnrapox (sleek), in the word 
 KoXXaSfs (gluey), and the like : the heavier sound of 
 y detained the slipping tongue, and the union of the 
 two gave the notion of a glutinous clammy nature, as in 
 
 •yKL(r\poSj yXvKvs^ yXoicodes, 
 
 The V he observed to be sounded from within, and 
 therefore to have a notion of inwardness ; hence he 
 introduced the sound in evSov and eWo's : u. he assigned 
 to the expression of size, and i; of length, because 
 they are great letters : o was the sign of roundness, 
 and therefore there is plenty of o mixed up in the 
 word yoyyvKov (round). Thus did the legislator, reducing 
 all things into letters and syllables, and impressing on 
 them names and signs, and out of them by imitation 
 compounding other signs. 
 
 PHAEDRUS 
 
 i. The philosopher must study the nature of man. 
 
 No dialogue of Plato is more characteristic of his style and genius 
 than the Phaedrus. Two persons only are introduced, Socrates and 
 Phaedrus, the same who is mentioned in the Protagoras and who 
 also takes a prominent part in the Symposium, He here appears as 
 the admiring disciple of Lysias, the orator, with whom he has been 
 spending the morning in discourse. He is now starting for a country 
 walk, when he is met by Socrates, whom he induces to accompany 
 him by the promise that he will repeat the speech which he has just 
 heard from Lysias. 
 
 Socrates, however, discovers that Phaedrus has got the roll con- 
 taining the speech under his cloak, and is really engaged in learning 
 it by heart. He insists on hearing the actual words of the orator ; 
 and Phaedrus, after some banter has passed between them, agrees 
 
30 PHAEDRUS 
 
 to guide him to a pleasant resting-place, and to read out the speech 
 to him. The spot selected is beneath a tall plane-tree on the banks 
 of the Ilissus. 
 
 On the way Phaedrus recalls the tradition that Orithyia was 
 carried away by Boreas while playing beside the stream ', and 
 he asks Socrates whether he believes in these ancient legends. 
 Socrates in reply professes his ignorance about them ; but he 
 plainly intimates their puerile and trivial nature. It is enough 
 for him if he can learn something about the nature of man^ 
 who is a far more wonderful being than any creation of the old 
 mythologers. 
 
 Here Plato is probably expressing his own opinion rather than 
 that of the historical Socrates. He deals with the myths of 
 antiquity in a similar spirit in many of his writings (cp. Euthyph. 
 6 A, 8 Bl ; and in the Republic (Books H and IH) he condemns the 
 greater part of the legends of the Gods and heroes as untrue and unfit 
 to be heard or repeated by the citizens of his ideal state. 
 
 Steph. Soc. Let'us turn aside and go by the Ilissus; we will 
 ^J^ sit down at some quiet spot. 
 
 Phaedr. I am fortunate in not having my sandals, 
 and as you never have any, I think that we may go 
 along the brook and cool our feet in the water ; this 
 will be the ea.siest way, and at midday and in the 
 summer is far from being unpleasant. 
 
 Soc. Lead on, and look out for a place in which we 
 can sit down. 
 
 Phaedr. Do you see that tallest plane-tree in the 
 distance ? 
 
 Soc. Yes. 
 
 Phaedr. There are shade and gentle breezes, and 
 grass on which we may either sit or lie down. 
 
 Soc. Move forward. 
 
 Phaedr. I should like to know, Socrates, whether the 
 place is not somewhere here at which Boreas is said 
 
 1 According to the story, Orithyia ('the Mountain Maid') was 
 a daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens, and was carried away by 
 Boreas (• the Northwind ') to Thrace. This was one of many legends 
 in which there is a connexion shown between Thrace and Attica. 
 
MYTHOLOGY NOT TO BE REASONED ABOUT 31 
 
 to have carried off Orithyia from the banks of the 
 IHssus? 
 
 Soc. Such is the tradition. 
 
 Phaedr. And is this the exact spot ? The Httle 
 stream is delightfully clear and bright ; I can fancy 
 that there might be maidens playing near. 
 
 Soc. I believe that the spot is not exactly here, but 
 about a quarter of a mile lower down, where you cross 
 to the temple of Artemis, and there is, I think, some 
 sort of an altar of Boreas at the place. 
 
 Phaedr. I have never noticed it ; but I beseech you 
 to tell me, Socrates, do you believe this tale ? 
 
 Soc. The wise are doubtful, and I should not be 
 singular if, like them, I too doubted. I might have 
 a rational explanation that Orithyia was playing with 
 Pharmacia, when a northern gust carried her over 
 the neighbouring rocks ; and this being the manner of 
 her death, she was said to have been carried away by 
 Boreas. There is a discrepancy, however, about the - 
 locality; according to another version of the story she 
 was taken from the Areopagus, and not from this place. 
 Now I quite acknowledge that these allegories are very 
 nice, but he is not to be envied who has to invent them ; 
 much labour and ingenuity will be required of him ; and 
 when he has once begun, he must go on and rehabilitate 
 Hippocentaurs and chimeras dire. Gorgons and 
 winged steeds flow in apace, and numberless other 
 inconceivable and portentous natures. And if he is 
 sceptical about them, and would fain reduce them one 
 after another to the rules of probability, this sort of 
 crude philosophy will take up a great deal of time. 
 
 Now I have no leisure for such enquiries ; shall I tell 
 you why ? I must first know myself, as the Delphian 
 inscription says ; to be curious about that which is not 230 
 my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own 
 
32 PHAEDRUS 
 
 self, would be ridiculous. And therefore I bid farewell 
 to all this; the common opinion is enough for me. 
 For, as I was saying, I want to know not about this, 
 but about myself: am I a monster more complicated 
 and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a 
 creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom Nature 
 has given a diviner and lowlier destiny ? 
 
 2. The banks of the Ilissus. 
 
 Socrates is a confirmed lover of the town, and, as he has just told 
 us, a student of mankind. In the Crito the personified Athenian 
 Laws who are bidding him not attempt to escape after his condemna- 
 tion, address him thus : — ' There is clear proof, Socrates, that we and 
 the city were not displeasing to you. Of all Athenians you have 
 been the most constant resident in the city, which, as you never leave, 
 you may be supposed to love. For you never went out of the city, 
 either to see the games, except once when you went to the Isthmus, 
 or to any other place, unless when you were on military service ; nor 
 did you travel, as other men do' (52 B). And now that he has been 
 drawn by the ' bait of discourse ' outside the circle of the walls of 
 Athens he is surprised by the beauty of nature, and is ready to 
 surrender himself awhile to her spells. 
 
 The description of the scene breathes a truly Greek spirit : a few 
 simple outlines suffice to present a clear and perfect picture to the 
 imagination. Moderation, the ' Nothing too much ' of the famous 
 Delphian inscription, was the great canon of art in the best days 
 of Hellas, and is no less observed in the Dialogues of Plato than 
 in the sculptures of Pheidias. 
 
 Steph. Soc. But let me ask you, friend : have we not reached 
 ^g° the plane-tree to which you were conducting us ? 
 Phaedr. Yes, this is the tree. 
 
 Soc. By Here, a fair resting-place, full of summer 
 sounds and scents. Here is this lofty and spreading 
 plane-tree, and the agnus castus high and clustering, in 
 the fullest blossom and the greatest fragrance ; and the 
 stream which flows beneath the plane-tree is deliciously 
 cold to the feet. Judging from the ornaments and 
 
SOCRATES PREFERS MEN TO TREES 33 
 
 images, this must be a spot sacred to Achelous and the 
 Nymphs. How delightful is the breeze : — so very 
 sweet ; and there is a sound in the air shrill and 
 summerlike which makes answer to the chorus of the 
 cicadae. But the greatest charm of all is the grass, like 
 a pillow gently sloping to the head. My dear Phaedrus, 
 you have been an admirable guide. 
 
 Phaedr. What an incomprehensible being you are, 
 Socrates : when you are in the country, as you say, 
 you really are like some stranger who is led about 
 by a guide. Do you ever cross the border ? I rather 
 think that you never venture even outside the gates. 
 
 Soc. Very true, my good friend ; and I hope that 
 you will excuse me when you hear the reason, which is, 
 that I am a lover of knowledge, and the men who dwell 
 in the city are my teachers, and not the trees or the 
 country. Though I do indeed believe that you have 
 found a spell with which to draw me out of the city into 
 the country, like a hungry cow before whom a bough or 
 a bunch of fruit is waved. For only hold up before me 
 in like manner a book, and you may lead me all round 
 Attica, and over the wide world. And now having 
 arrived, I intend to lie down, and do you choose any 
 posture in which you can read best. 
 
 3. The Soul described under the figure of two winged 
 horses and a charioteer : her -wanderings and 
 transmigrations. 
 
 Phaedrus now produces the roll and reads the speech of Lysias, 
 which proves to be a frigid composition, designed to demonstrate the 
 superiority of the non-lover over the lover. Socrates does not think 
 much of the speech, and declares that he can himself make a better. 
 Phaedrus takes him at his word, and forces him to deliver his oration. 
 But he has no sooner done so than he is seized with a fit of remorse : 
 he has sinned against Love, and will not wait, like Stesichorus, to 
 lose his eyesight before he utters his recantation. Accordingly he 
 
 vni T n 
 
34 PHAEDRUS 
 
 yields to the inspiration of the local deities, and makes a speech in 
 which he declares the nature and attributes of Love in glowing 
 terms. 
 
 This second speech of Socrates is in many respects one of the most 
 remarkable passages in the writings of Plato. The modern reader, 
 unless, indeed, he be himself of a mystical temperament, can scarcely 
 follow the wild flow of language and the mixture of images in which 
 the philosopher has wrapped and disguised his thoughts. 
 
 In order to better understand Plato's meaning, we must remember 
 that in the Phaedrus and the Symposium, Love in the higher sense is 
 but another name for the aspiration of the soul after truth and goodness. 
 The love of earthly beauty is described as arousing in the soul the 
 recollection of the glorious visions which she beheld in a previous 
 existence, and as stimulating her to rise to a higher sphere of thought 
 and being. This is quaintly termed by Plato ' the growing of the 
 wings ' by which the soul is upborne and sustained in her flight to 
 the Heaven of Ideas. 
 
 The comparison of the soul to a pair of winged steeds and 
 a charioteer, is perhaps best explained by the Platonic division 
 of the soul into three elements, Reason, Passion (or Spirit), and 
 the Appetites. Here Reason is the charioteer, while Passion 
 and the Appetites are the two horses. The union of Reason 
 and Passion to bind the Appetites is a favourite thought with 
 Plato, which we shall find often recurring in the Republic. Thus 
 in Book IV he tells us that in the individual. Passion should be 
 the ally of Reason against the lower principle, and in the state the 
 Guardians (who correspond to Reason), and the warrior class (the 
 spirited element"!, should combine to keep the mass of people under 
 subjection. In the Timaeus, again, we have the same idea expressed 
 by a different metaphor: — the Appetites are like a wild beast chained 
 in a manger, which Reason, dwelling in the head, controls by the 
 aid of Passion, whose seat is in the breast (Tim. 6g, 70). 
 
 The Transmigration of Soulsis also a doctrine which appears in many 
 forms in the various writings of Plato, and is perhaps most clearly 
 stated in the Myth at the end of the Republic (x. 614 foil.). The belief 
 did not belong to the primitive circle of Hellenic thought, but is an 
 Eastern or Egyptian idea which was probably introduced by the 
 lonians of Asia Minor, and passed into popular acceptance through 
 the compositions attributed to Orpheus and the other mythic poets, 
 and through the teaching of philosophers, such as Pherecydes, 
 Pythagoras, and Empedocles (cp. Herod, n. 123). 
 
 It seems to have been adopted by Plato chiefly for two reasons : — 
 
 (i) It enabled him in some measure to resolve the eternal problem 
 of Fate and Free Will, which are not so much opposed as combined 
 
THE SOUL IMMORTAL AND UNBEGOTTEN 35 
 
 by him. There is in man an original element of evil derived from 
 matter, and so far we may truly say that ' injustice is involuntary.' 
 Yet this propensity may be overcome by the cultivation of good 
 habits, and the practice of philosophy ; and when the soul comes to 
 choose a new life at the end of each cycle, she may, if she make 
 a wise choice, commence existence under more favourable circum- 
 stances. Thus, according to Plato, we enjoy a real, though limited, 
 freedom of the will. 
 
 (2) The doctrine of Metempsychosis also allows room for the 
 principle that punishment is corrective, not vindictive, in its nature. 
 Men have a twofold opportunity of improvement ; the chastisements 
 which we undergo in the present life are designed to make us better, 
 and the penalties which we suffer in another world are not of endless 
 duration, but are intended to educate the soul and prepare her to 
 choose wisely at the appointed time. In this introduction of the moral 
 element the Hellenic view of the wanderings of the soul after death 
 marks an advance on the ordinary Oriental conception, which rather 
 contemplates the soul as destined by a natural law to undergo a 
 
 series of changes in respect of which she has no power of choice. 
 
 ) 
 
 Soc. ' The soul through all her being is immortal, for Steph. 
 that which is ever in motion is immortal ; but that which ^i^ 
 moves another and is moved by another, in ceasing to 
 move ceases also to live. Only the self-moving, never 
 leaving self, never ceases to move, and is the fountain 
 r.nd beginning of motion to all that moves besides. 
 Now, the beginning is unbegotten, for that which is 
 begotten has a beginning; but the beginning is be- 
 gotten of nothing, for if it were begotten of something, 
 then the begotten would not come from a beginning. 
 But if unbegotten, it must also be indestructible ; for if 
 beginning were destroyed, there could be no beginning 
 out of anything, nor anything out of a beginning ; and 
 all things must have a beginning. And therefore the 
 self-moving is the beginning of motion ; and this can 
 neither be destroyed nor begotten, else the whole 
 heavens and all creation would collapse and stand 
 still, and never again have motion or birth. But if the 
 
 ' Translated by Cic. Tusc, Quaest. s. 24. 
 
36 PHAEDRUS 
 
 self-moving is proved to be immortal, he who affirms 
 that self-motion is the very idea and essence of the soul 
 will not be put to confusion. For the body which is 
 moved from without is soulless ; but that which is 
 moved from within has a soul, for such is the nature 
 246 of the soul. But if this be true, must not the soul be 
 the self-moving, and therefore of necessity unbegotten 
 and immortal ? Enough of the soul's immortality. 
 
 Of the nature of the soul, though her true form be 
 ever a theme of large and more than mortal discourse, 
 let me speak briefly, and in a figure. And let the 
 figure be composite — a pair of winged horses and 
 a charioteer. Now the winged horses and the 
 charioteers of the gods are all of them noble and 
 of noble descent, but those of other races are mixed ; 
 the human charioteer drives his in a pair; and one 
 of them is noble and of noble breed, and the other 
 is ignoble and of ignoble breed ; and the driving of 
 them of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to 
 him. I will endeavour to explain to you in what 
 way the mortal differs from the immortal creature. 
 
 The soul in her totality has the care of inanimate 
 being everywhere, and traverses the whoie heaven 
 in divers forms appearing; — when perfect and fully 
 winged she soars upward, and orders the whole 
 world; whereas the imperfect soul, losing her wings 
 and drooping in her flight, at last settles on the solid 
 ground — there, finding a home, she receives an earthly 
 frame which appears to be selfmoved, but is really 
 moved by her power ; and this composition of soul and 
 body is called a living and mortal creature. For 
 immortal no such union can be reasonably believed 
 to be ; although fancy, not having seen nor surely 
 known the nature of God, may imagine an immortal 
 creature having both a body and also a soul which 
 
THE PROCESSION OF THE GODS 37 
 
 are united throughout all time. Let that, however, 
 be as God wills, and be spoken of acceptably to him. 
 And now let us ask the reason why the soul loses her 
 wings ! 
 
 The wing is the corporeal element which is most 
 akin to the divine, and which by nature tends to soar 
 aloft and carry that which gravitates downwards into 
 the upper region, which is the habitation of the gods. 
 The divine is beauty, wisdom, goodness, and the like; 
 and by these the wing of the soul is nourished, and 
 grows apace ; but when fed upon evil and foulness 
 and the opposite of good, wastes and falls away. Zeus, 
 the mighty lord, holding the reins of a winged chariot, 
 leads the way in heaven, ordering all and taking care of 
 all ; and there follows him the array of gods and demi- 
 gods, marshalled in eleven bands ; Hestia alone abides 247 
 at home in the house of heaven ; of the rest they who 
 are reckoned among the princely twelve march in their 
 appointed order. They see many blessed sights in the 
 inner heaven, and there are many ways to and fro, 
 along which the blessed gods are passing, every one 
 doing his own work ; he may follow who will and can, 
 for jealousy has no place in the celestial choir. But 
 when they go to banquet and festival, then they move 
 up the steep to the top of the vault of heaven. The 
 chariots of the gods in even poise, obeying the rein, 
 glide rapidly; but the others labour, for the vicious 
 steed goes heavily, weighing down the charioteer to the 
 earth when his steed has not been thoroughly trained : — 
 and this is the hour of agony and extremest conflict for 
 the soul. For the immortals, when they are at the end 
 of their course, go forth and stand upon the outside of 
 heaven, and the revolution of the spheres carries them 
 round, and they behold the things beyond. 
 
 But of the heaven which is above the heavens, what 
 
38 PHAEDRUS 
 
 earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily? It is 
 such as I will describe ; for I must dare to speak the 
 truth, when truth is my theme. There abides the very 
 being with which true knowledge is concerned ; the 
 colourless, formless, intangible essence, visible only to 
 mind, the pilot of the soul. The divine intelligence, 
 being nurtured upon mind and pure knowledge, and the 
 intelligence of every soul which is capable of receiving 
 the food proper to it, rejoices at beholding reality, and 
 once more gazing upon truth, is replenished and made 
 glad, until the revolution of the worlds brings her round 
 again to the same place. In the revolution she beholds 
 justice, and temperance, and knowledge absolute, not 
 in the form of generation or of relation, which men call 
 existence, but knowledge absolute in existence abso- 
 lute; and beholding the other true existences in like 
 manner, and feasting upon them, she passes down into 
 the interior of the heavens and returns home ; and 
 there the charioteer putting up his horses at the stall, 
 gives them ambrosia to eat and nectar to drink. 
 248 Such is the life of the gods ; but of other souls, that 
 which follows God best and is likest to him lifts the 
 head of the charioteer into the outer world, and is 
 carried round in the revolution, troubled indeed by the 
 steeds, and with diflSculty beholding true being; while 
 another only rises and falls, and sees, and again fails to 
 see by reason of the unruliness of the steeds. The 
 rest of the souls are also longing after the upper world, 
 and they all follow, but not being strong enough they 
 are carried round below the surface, plunging, treading 
 on one another, each striving to be first ; and there is 
 confusion and perspiration and the extremity of effort ; 
 and many of them are lamed or have their wings broken 
 through the ill-driving of the charioteers ; and all of 
 them after a fruitless toil, not having attained to the 
 
THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF SOULS 39 
 
 mysteries of true being, go away, and feed upon opinion. 
 The reason why the souls exhibit this exceeding eager- 
 ness to behold the plain of truth is that pasturage 
 is found there, which is suited to the highest part of 
 the soul ; and the wing on which the soul soars is 
 nourished with this. 
 
 And there is a law of Destiny, that the soul which 
 attains any vision of truth in company with a god is 
 preserved from harm until the next period, and if 
 attaining always is always unharmed. But when she 
 is unable to follow, and fails to behold the truth, and 
 through some ill-hap sinks beneath the double load of 
 forgetfulness and vice, and her wings fall from her and 
 she drops to the ground, then the law ordains that 
 this soul shall at her first birth pass, not into any other 
 animal, but only into man ; and the soul which has 
 seen most of truth shall come to the birth as a philo- 
 sopher, or artist, or some musical and loving nature ; 
 that which has seen truth in the second degree shall be 
 some righteous king or warrior .chief; the soul which 
 is of the third class shall be a politician, or economist, 
 or trader; the fourth shall be a lover of gymnastic 
 toils, or a physician ; the fifth shall lead the life of 
 a prophet or hierophant ; to the sixth the character of 
 a poet or some other imitative artist will be assigned ; 
 to the seventh the life of an artisan or husbandman ; to 
 the eighth that of a sophist or demagogue ; to the 
 ninth that of a tyrant ; — all these are states of proba- 
 tion, in which he who does righteously improves, and 
 he who does unrighteously, deteriorates his lot. 
 
 Ten thousand years must elapse before the soul of 
 each one can return to the place from whence she 
 came, for she cannot grow her wings in less ; only 249 
 the soul of a philosopher, guileless and true, or the 
 soul of a lover, who is not devoid of philosophy, may 
 
40 PHAEDRUS 
 
 acquire wings in the third of the recurring periods of a 
 thousand years ; he is distinguished from the ordinary 
 good man who gains wings in three thousand years : — 
 and they who choose this life three times in succession 
 have wings given them, and go away at the end of 
 three thousand years. But the others ' receive judg- 
 ment when they have completed their first hfe, and 
 after the judgment they go, some of them to the 
 houses of correction which are under the earth, and 
 are punished ; others to some place in heaven whither 
 they are lightly borne by justice, and there they live 
 in a manner worthy of the life which they led here 
 when in the form of men. 
 
 And at the end of the first thousand years the good 
 souls and also the evil souls both come to draw lots and 
 choose their second life, and they may take any which 
 they please. The soul of a man may pass into the life 
 of a beast, or from the beast return again into the man. 
 But the soul which has never seen the truth will not 
 pass into the human form. For a man must have intelli- 
 gence of universals, and be able to proceed from the 
 many particulars of sense to one conception of reason ; 
 — this is the recollection of those things which our soul 
 once saw while following God — when regardless of 
 that which we now call being she raised her head up 
 towards the true being. And therefore the mind of 
 the philosopher alone has wings ; and this is just, for 
 he is always, according to the measure of his abilities, 
 dinging in recollection to those things in which God 
 abides, and in beholding which He is what He is. 
 And he who employs aright these memories is ever 
 being initiated into perfect mysteries and alone becomes 
 truly perfect. But, as he forgets earthly interests and 
 
 ' The philosopher alone is not subject to judgment (/cpi'ffis), for lie 
 has never lost the vision of truth. 
 
THE VISION OF HEAVENLY BEAUTY 41 
 
 is rapt in the divine, the vulgar deem him mad, and 
 rebuke him ; they do not see that he is inspired. 
 
 Thus far I have been speaking of the fourth and 
 last kind of madness, which is imputed to him who, 
 when he sees the beauty of earth, is transported with 
 the recollection of the true beauty ; he would like to 
 fly away, but he cannot ; he is like a bird fluttering 
 and looking upward and careless of the world below ; 
 and he is therefore thought to be mad. And I have 
 shown this of all inspirations to be the noblest and 
 highest and the offspring of the highest to him who has 
 or shares in it, and that he who loves the beautiful is 
 called a lover because he partakes of it. For, as has 
 been already said, every soul of man has in the way of 
 nature beheld true being ; this was the condition of her 
 passing into the form of man. 
 
 But all souls do not easily recall the things of the 250 
 other world ; they may have seen them for a short time 
 only, or they may have been unfortunate in their earthly 
 lot, and, having had their hearts turned to unrighteous- 
 ness through some corrupting influence, they may have 
 lost the memory of the holy things which once they 
 saw. Few only retain an adequate remembrance of 
 them ; and they, when they behold here any image 
 of that other world, are rapt in amazement ; but they 
 are ignorant of what this rapture means, because they 
 do not clearly perceive. For there is no light of justice 
 or temperance or any of the higher ideas which are 
 precious to souls in the' earthly copies of them: they 
 are seen through a glass dimly ; and there are few who, 
 going to the images, behold in them the realities, and 
 these only with difficulty. There was a time when 
 with the rest of the happy band they saw beauty 
 shining in brightness, — we philosophers following in 
 the train of Zeus, others in company with other 
 
42 PHAEDRUS 
 
 gods; and then we beheld the beatific vision and 
 were initiated into a mystery which may be truly 
 called most blessed, celebrated by us in our state of 
 innocence, before we had any experience of evils to 
 come, when we were admitted to the sight of appari- 
 tions innocent and simple and calm and happy, which 
 we beheld shining in pure light, pure ourselves and 
 not yet enshrined in that living tomb which we carry 
 about, now that we are imprisoned in the body, like 
 an oyster in his shell. Let me linger over the memory 
 of scenes which have passed away. 
 
 But of beauty, I repeat again that we saw her there 
 shining in company with the celestial forms ; and coming 
 to earth we find her here too, shining in clearness 
 through the clearest aperture of sense. For sight is 
 the most piercing of our bodily senses ; though not by 
 that is wisdom seen ; her loveliness would have been 
 transporting if there had been a visible image of her, 
 and the other ideas, if they had visible counterparts, 
 would be equally lovely. But this is the privilege of 
 beauty, that being the loveliest she is also the most 
 palpable to sight. 
 
 Now he who is not newly initiated or who has become 
 corrupted, does not easily rise out of this world to the 
 sight of true beauty in the other ; he looks only at her 
 earthly namesake, and instead of being awed at the 
 sight of her, he is given over to pleasure, and like 
 251 a brutish beast he rushes on to enjoy and beget ; he 
 consorts with wantonness, and is not afraid or ashamed 
 of pursuing pleasure in violation of nature. But he 
 whose initiation is recent, and who has been the spec- 
 tator of many glories in the other world, is amazed 
 when he sees any one having a godlike face or form, 
 which is the expression of divine beauty ; and at first 
 a shudder runs through him, and again the old awe 
 
THE WINGS OF THE SOUL 43 
 
 Steals over him ; then looking upon the face of his 
 beloved as of a god he reverences him, and if he were 
 not afraid of being thought a downright madman, he 
 would sacrifice to his beloved as to the image of a god ; 
 then while he gazes on him there is a sort of reaction, 
 and the shudder passes into an unusual heat and 
 perspiration ; for, as he receives the effluence of beauty 
 through the eyes, the wing moistens and he warms. 
 And as he warms, the parts out of which the wing grew, 
 and which had been hitherto closed and rigid, and had 
 prevented the wing from shooting forth, are melted, 
 and as nourishment streams upon him, the lower 
 end of the wing begins to swell and grow from the root 
 upwards ; and the growth extends under the whole 
 soul — for once the whole was winged. 
 
 During this process the whole soul is all in a state of 
 ebullition and effervescence, — which may be compared 
 to the irritation and uneasiness in the gums at the time 
 of cutting teeth, — bubbles up, and has a feeling of 
 uneasiness and tickling ; but when in like manner the 
 soul is beginning to grow wings, the beauty of the 
 beloved meets her eye and she receives the sensible 
 warm motion of particles which flow towards her, 
 therefore called emotion (J/i-cpos), and is refreshed and 
 warmed by them, and then she ceases from her pain 
 with joy. But when she is parted from, her beloved and 
 her moisture fails, then the orifices of the passage out 
 of which the wing shoots dry up and close, and inter- 
 cept the germ of the wing ; which, being shut up with 
 the emotion, throbbing as with the pulsations of an 
 artery, pricks the aperture which is nearest, until at 
 length the entire soul is pierced and maddened and 
 pained, and at the recollection of beauty is again 
 delighted. 
 
 And from both of them together the soul is oppressed 
 
44 PHAEDRUS 
 
 at the strangeness of her condition, and is in a great 
 strait and excitement, and in her madness can neither 
 sleep by night nor abide in her place by day. And 
 wherever she thinks that she will behold the beautiful 
 one, thither in her desire she runs. And when she has 
 seen him, and bathed herself in the waters of beauty, 
 her constraint is loosened, and she is refreshed, and 
 252 has no more pangs and pains ; and this is the sweetest 
 of all pleasures at the time, and is the reason why the 
 soul of the lover will never forsake his beautiful one, 
 whom he esteems above all ; he has forgotten mother 
 and brethren and companions, and he thinks nothing of 
 the neglect and loss of his property; the rules and 
 proprieties of life, on which he formerly prided himself, 
 he now despises, and is ready to sleep like a servant, 
 wherever he is allowed, as near as he can to his desired 
 one, who is the object of his worship, and the physician 
 who can alone assuage the greatness of his pain. And 
 this state, my dear imaginary youth to whom I am 
 talking, is by men called love, and among the gods 
 has a name at which you, in your simplicity, may be 
 inclined to mock ; there are two lines in the apocr3^haI 
 writings of Homer in which the name occurs. One of 
 them is rather outrageous, and not altogether metrical. 
 They are as follows : — 
 
 ' Mortals call him fluttering love, 
 But the immortals call him winged one, 
 Because the growing of wings' is a necessity to him. 
 
 You may believe this, but not unless you like. At any 
 rate the loves of lovers and their causes are such as 
 I have described. 
 
 Now the lover who is taken to be the attendant of 
 Zeus is better able to bear the winged god, and can 
 
 ' Or, reading iiTfputpoiTov, ' the movement of wings.' 
 
EVERY SOUL SEEKS ITS KINDRED 45 
 
 endure a heavier burden ; but the attendants and com- 
 panions of Ares, when under the influence of love, if they 
 fancy that they have been at all wronged, are ready to 
 kill and put an end to themselves and their beloved. 
 And he who follows in the train of any other god, while 
 he is unspoiled and the impression lasts, honours and 
 imitates him, as far as he is able ; and after the manner 
 of his God he behaves in his intercourse with his be- 
 loved and with the rest of the world during the first 
 period of his earthly existence. Every one chooses 
 his love from the ranks of beauty according to his 
 character, and this he makes his god, and fashions and 
 adorns as a sort of image which he is to fall down and 
 worship. 
 
 The followers of Zeus desire that their beloved 
 should have a soul like him ; and therefore they seek 
 out some one of a philosophical and imperial nature, and 
 when they have found him and loved him, they do all 
 they can to confirm such a nature in him, and if they 
 have no experience of such a disposition hitherto, 
 they learn of any one who can teach them, and them- 
 selves follow in the same way. And they have the 
 less difficulty in finding the nature of their own god in 253 
 themselves, because they have been compelled to gaze 
 intensely on him ; their recollection clings to him, and 
 they becorne possessed of him, and receive from him 
 their character and disposition, so far as man can 
 participate in God. The qualities of their god they 
 attribute to the beloved, wherefore they love him all 
 the more, and if, like the Bacchic Nymphs, they draw 
 inspiration from Zeus, they pour out their own fountain 
 upon him, wanting to make him as like as possible to 
 their own god. But those who are the followers of 
 Here seek a royal love, and when they have found him 
 they do just the same with him ; and in like manner the 
 
46 PHAEDRUS 
 
 followers of Apollo, and of every other god, walking in 
 the ways of their god, seek a love who is to be made 
 like him whom they serve, and when they have found 
 him, they themselves imitate their god, and persuade 
 their love to do the same, and educate him into the 
 manner and nature of the god as far as they each can ; 
 for no feelings of envy or jealousy are entertained 
 by them towards their beloved, but they do their 
 utmost to create in him the greatest likeness of them- 
 selves and of the god whom they honour. Thus fair 
 and blissful to the beloved is the desire of the inspired 
 lover, and the initiation of which I speak into the 
 mysteries of true love, if he be captured by the lover 
 and their purpose is effected. Now the beloved is taken 
 captive in the following manner : — 
 
 As I said at the beginning of this tale, I divided each 
 soul into three— two horses and a charioteer ; and one 
 of the horses was good and the other bad : the division 
 may remain, but I have not yet explained in what the 
 goodness or badness of either consists, and to that 
 I will now proceed. The right-hand horse is upright 
 and cleanly made ; he has a lofty neck and an aquiline 
 nose ; his colour is white, and his eyes dark ; he is a 
 lover of honour and modesty and temperance, and the 
 follower of true glory ; he needs no touch of the whip, 
 but is guided by word and admonition only. The other 
 is a crooked lumbering animal, put together anyhow; 
 he has a short thick neck ; he is flat-faced and of a dark 
 colour, with grey eyes and blood-red complexion^; 
 the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, 
 hardly yielding to whip and spur. 
 
 Now when the charioteer beholds the vision of 
 love, and has his whole soul warmed through sense, 
 254 and is full of the prickings and ticklings of desire, 
 ' Or with grey and blood-shot eyes. 
 
THE TWO STEEDS AND THE CHARIOTEER 47 
 
 the obedient steed, then as always under the govern- 
 ment of shame, refrains from leaping on the beloved ; 
 but the other, heedless of the pricks and of the 
 blows of the whip, plunges and runs away, giving all 
 manner of trouble to his companion and the charioteer, 
 whom he forces to approach the beloved and to 
 remember the joys of love. They at first indignantly 
 oppose him and will not be urged on to do terrible 
 and unlawful deeds ; but at last, when he persists in 
 plaguing them, they yield and agree to do as he bids 
 them. 
 
 And now they are at the spot and behold the 
 flashing beauty of the beloved ; which when the 
 charioteer sees, his memory is carried to the true 
 beauty, whom he beholds in company with Modesty 
 like an image placed upon a holy pedestal. He sees 
 her, but he is afraid and falls backwards in adoration, 
 and by his fall is compelled to pull back the reins with 
 such violence as to bring both the steeds on their 
 haunches, the one willing and unresisting, the unruly 
 one very unwilling; and when they have gone back 
 a little, the one is overcome with shame and wonder, 
 and his whole soul is bathed in perspiration ; the other, 
 when the pain is over which the bridle and the fall had 
 given him, having with difficulty taken breath, is full 
 of wrath and reproaches, which he heaps upon the 
 charioteer and his fellow-steed, for want of courage and 
 manhood, declaring that they have been false to their 
 agreement and guilty of desertion. Again they refuse, 
 and again he urges them on, and will scarce yield to 
 their prayer that he would wait until another time. 
 
 When the appointed hour comes, they make as if 
 they had forgotten, and he reminds them, fighting and 
 neighing and dragging them on, until at length he, on 
 the same thoughts intent, forces them to draw near 
 
48 PHAEDRUS 
 
 again. And when they are near he stoops his head 
 and puts up his tail, and takes the bit in his teeth and 
 pulls shamelessly. Then the charioteer is worse off 
 than ever ; he falls back like a racer at the barrier, and 
 With a still more violent wrench drags the bit out of the 
 teeth of the wild steed and covers his abusive tongue 
 and jaws with blood, and forces his legs and haunches 
 to the ground and punishes him sorely. And when 
 this has happened several times and the villain has 
 ceased from his wanton way, he is tamed and humbled, 
 and follows the will of the charioteer, and when he sees 
 the beautiful one he is ready to die of fear. And from 
 that time forward the soul of the lover follows the 
 beloved in modesty and holy fear. 
 255 And so the beloved who, like a god, has received 
 every true and loyal service from his lover, not in 
 pretence but in reality, being also himself of a nature 
 friendly to his admirer ', if in former days he has blushed 
 to own his passion and turned away his lover, because 
 his youthful companions or others slanderously told 
 him that he would be disgraced, now as years advance, 
 at the appointed age and time, is led to receive him into 
 communion. For fate which has ordained that there 
 shall be no friendship among the evil has also ordained 
 that there shall ever be friendship among the good. 
 And the beloved when he has received him into com- 
 munion and intimacy, is quite amazed at the good-will 
 of the lover ; he recognises that the inspired friend is 
 worth all other friends or kinsmen ; they have nothing 
 of friendship in them worthy to be compared with his. 
 And when this feeling continues and he is nearer to 
 him and embraces him, in gymnastic exercises and at 
 other times of meeting, then the fountain of that stream, 
 which Zeus when he was in love with Ganymede named 
 
 ' Omitting eis rairiv dfii rijv (f iX^ay. 
 
THE LOVER AND THE BELOVED 49 
 
 Desire, overflows upon the lover, and some enters into 
 his soul, and some when he is filled flows out again ; 
 and as a breeze or an echo rebounds from the smooth 
 rocks and returns whence it came, so does the stream 
 of beauty, passing through the eyes which are the 
 windows of the soul, come back to the beautiful one ; 
 there arriving and quickening the passages of the wings, 
 watering them and inclining them to grow, and filling 
 the soul of the beloved also with love. 
 
 And thus he loves, but he knows not what; he 
 does not understand and cannot explain his own 
 state; he appears to have caught the infection of 
 blindness from another ; the lover is his mirror in 
 whom he is beholding himself, but he is not aware 
 of this. When he is with the lover, both cease from 
 their pain, but when he is away then he longs as 
 he is longed for, and has love's image, love for love 
 (Anteros) lodging in his breast, which he calls and 
 believes to be not love but friendship only, and his 
 desire is as the desire of the other, but weaker; he 
 wants to see him, touch him, kiss, embrace him, and 
 probably not long afterwards his desire is accomplished. 
 When they meet, the wanton steed of the lover has 
 a word to say to the charioteer ; he would like to have 256 
 a little pleasure in return for many pains, but the 
 wanton steed of the beloved says not a word, for he is 
 bursting with passion which he understands not ; — he 
 throws his arms round the lover and embraces him as 
 his dearest friend ; and, when they are side by side, he 
 is not in a state in which he can refuse the lover any- 
 thing, if he ask him ; although his fellow-steed and the 
 charioteer oppose him with the arguments of shame and 
 reason. 
 
 After this their happiness depends upon their self- 
 control ; if the better elements of the mind which 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 PHAEDRUS 
 
 lead to order and philosophy prevail, then they pass 
 their life here in happiness and harmony — masters of 
 themselves and orderly — enslaving the vicious and 
 emancipating the virtuous elements of the soul ; and 
 when the end comes, they are light and winged for 
 flight, having conquered in one of the three heavenly 
 or truly Olympian victories ; nor can human discipline 
 or divine inspiration confer any greater blessing on man 
 than this. If, on the other hand, they leave philosophy 
 and lead the lower life of ambition, then probably, after 
 wine or in some other careless hour, the two wanton 
 animals take the two souls when off their guard and 
 bring them together, and they accomplish that desire 
 of their hearts which to the many is bliss ; and this 
 having once enjoyed they continue to enjoy, yet rarely, 
 because they have not the approval of the whole soul. 
 They too are dear, but not so dear to one another as 
 the others, either at the time of their love or afterwards. 
 They consider that they have given and taken from each 
 other the most sacred pledges, and they may not break 
 them and fall into enmity. At last they pass out of the 
 body, unwinged, but eager to soar, and thus obtain no 
 mean reward of love and madness. For those who 
 have once begun the heavenward pilgrimage may not 
 go down again to darkness and the journey beneath 
 the earth, but they live in light always ; happy com- 
 panions in their pilgrimage, and when the time comes 
 at which they receive their wings they have the same 
 plumage because of their love. 
 
 Thus great are the heavenly blessings which the 
 friendship of a lover will confer upon you, my youth. 
 Whereas the attachment of the non-lover, which is 
 alloyed with a worldly prudence and has worldly and 
 niggardly ways of doling out benefits, will breed in your 
 soul those vulgar qualities which the populace applaud, 
 
PROGRESS OF RHETORIC IN GREECE 51 
 
 will send you bowling round the earth during a period 
 of nine thousand years, and leave you a fool in the 
 world below. 
 
 4. The Art of Rhetoric, 
 
 When Socrates has finished his speech, the subject of the Dialogue 
 changes . . . Upon reflection, he is rather proud of his second oration. 
 There was method in his madness ; whereas Lysias had dragged in 
 liis topics by the head and shoulders, and arranged them in no sort 
 of order. Why should not he and Phaedrus spend the rest of the 
 day in considering the principles of style and composition, taking as 
 their text the speeches which have just been delivered ? Phaedrus 
 agrees with delight to the proposal ; he is an insatiable lover of 
 discourse, and nothing could be more to his mind. 
 
 Accordingly, the Art of Rhetoric becomes the theme of the 
 remainder of the Dialogue. Plato does not treat the subject in 
 a formal manner, as his pupil Aristotle afterwards did, and he 
 makes merry over the ' brachyologies and eikonologies and other 
 Ijard names' in which Polus and Evenus revelled. Beneath this 
 veil of humour and irony, however, there lies a genuine and 
 earnest purpose. He felt that Greek literature had nearly reached 
 its highest point of perfection, and was already beginning to 
 lose its creative power and originality. The Sophists had taught 
 their scholars new graces and ornaments of style (cp. Symp. 
 185 C), and had really contributed to the development of prose 
 by their studies in grammar and syntax. But they put form in 
 the place of substance : the matter was naught to them, so long 
 as the theme was well treated ; ' they descanted on the virtues of 
 the heroes, or even made things like salt the subject of eloquent 
 discourses' (Symp. 177 B). 
 
 Plato desires to create a nobler art of rhetoric which may be 
 applied to a nobler end. The composition should have a regular 
 arrangement of the parts according to the natural order of the 
 topics ; it should be clear and simple, and exactly adapted to the 
 understanding of those who are addressed. Even more important 
 is the character of the author, who must be high-minded and 
 virtuous himself, and also able to implant his thoughts and aspira- 
 tions in the souls of other men. The same spirit may be observed 
 to reappear in the Laws, where, after the poets have been placed 
 under a censorship, it is added that the poet whose Works have 
 been accepted must be fifty years old at least, and a citizen of good 
 repute in the state (viii. 829 D). 
 
 £2 
 
52 PHAEDRUS 
 
 It is not necessary to suppose that Plato is equally in earnest when 
 he declares that speech is to be preferred to writing. This was 
 probably only a passing fancy, suggested by the love of discourse 
 which was so natural to a Greek, and by the fact that instruction 
 was imparted in Greece viva voce rather than by means of writing. 
 
 {a) The True Orator. 
 
 Steph. Soc. I CONCEIVE Pericles to have been the most 
 '^^ accomplished of rhetoricians. 
 
 Phaedr. What of that? 
 
 Soc. All the great arts require discussion and high 
 270 speculation about the truths of nature ; hence come 
 loftiness of thought and completeness of execution. 
 And this, as I conceive, was the quality which, in 
 addition to his natural gifts, Pericles acquired from his 
 intercourse with Anaxagoras whom he happened to 
 know. He was thus imbued with the higher philosophy, 
 and attained the knowledge of Mind and the negative 
 of Mind, which were favourite themes of Anaxagoras, 
 and applied what suited his purpose to the art of 
 speaking. 
 
 Phaedr. Explain. 
 
 Soc. Rhetoric is like medicine. 
 
 Phaedr. How so ? 
 
 Soc. Why, because medicine has to define the nature 
 of the body and rhetoric of the soul — if we would 
 proceed, not empirically but scientifically, in the one 
 case to impart health and strength by giving medicine 
 and food, in the other to implant the conviction or 
 virtue which you desire, by the right application of words 
 and training. 
 
 Phaedr. There, Socrates, I suspect that you are 
 right. 
 
 Soc. And do you think that you can know the nature 
 of the soul intelligently without knowing the nature of 
 the whole ? 
 
THE VALUE OF ANALYSIS 53 
 
 Phaedr. Hippocrates the Asclepiad says that the 
 nature even of the body can only be understood as 
 a whole '. 
 
 Soc. Yes, friend, and he was right: — still, we ought 
 not to be content with the name of Hippocrates, but to 
 examine and see whether his argument agrees with his 
 conception of nature. 
 
 Phaedr. I agree. 
 
 Soc. Then consider what truth as well as Hippocrates 
 says about this or about any other nature. Ought we 
 not to consider first whether that which we wish to learn 
 and to teach is a simple or multiform thing, and if 
 simple, then to enquire what power it has of acting or 
 being acted upon in relation to other things, and if 
 multiform, then to number the forms ; and see first in 
 the case of one of them, and then in the case of all of 
 them, what is that power of acting or being acted 
 upon which makes each and all of them to be what 
 they are ? 
 
 Phaedr. You may very likely be right, Socrates. 
 
 Soc. The method which proceeds without analysis is 
 like the groping of a blind man. Yet, surely, he who 
 is an artist ought not to admit of a comparison with the 
 blind or deaf The rhetorician, who teaches his pupil 
 to speak scientifically, will particularly set forth the 
 nature of that being to which he addresses his speeches ; 
 and this I conceive to be the soul. 
 
 Phaedr. Certainly. 
 
 Soc. His whole effort is directed to the soul ; for in 271 
 that he seeks to produce conviction. 
 
 Phaedr. Yes. 
 
 Soc. Then clearly, Thrasymachus or any one else 
 who teaches rhetoric in earnest will give an exact 
 description of the nature of the soul ; which will enable 
 
 ' Cp. Charmides, 156 C. 
 
54 PHAEDRUS 
 
 us to see whether she be single and same, or, like the 
 body, multiform. That is what we should call showing 
 the nature of the soul. 
 
 Phaedr. Exactly. 
 
 Soc. He will explain, secondly, the mode in which 
 she acts or is acted upon. 
 
 Phaedr. True. 
 
 Soc. Thirdly, having classified men and speeches, 
 and their kinds and affections, and adapted them to one 
 another, he will tell the reasons of his arrangement, and 
 show why one soul is persuaded by a particular form of 
 argument, and another not. 
 
 Phaedr. You have hit upon a very good way. 
 
 Soc. Yes, that is the true and only way in which any 
 subject can be set forth or treated by rules of art, 
 whether in speaking or writing. But the writers of the 
 present day, at whose feet you have sat, craftily conceal 
 the nature of the soul which they know quite well. Nor, 
 until they adopt our method of reading and writing, can 
 we admit that they write by rules of art ? 
 
 Phaedr. What is our method ? 
 
 Soc. I cannot give you the exact details ; but I should 
 like to tell you generally, as far as is in my power, 
 how a man ought to proceed according to rules of 
 art. 
 
 Phaedr. Let me hear. 
 
 Soc. Oratory is the art of enchanting the soul, and 
 therefore he who would be an orator has to learn the 
 differences of human souls — they are so many and of 
 such a nature, and from them come the differences 
 between man and man. Having proceeded thus far in 
 his analysis, he will next divide speeches into their 
 different classes : — ' Such and such persons,' he will 
 say, 'are affected by this or that kind of speech in this 
 or that way,' and he will tell you why. The pupil must 
 
THE MAN AND THE ARGUMENT 55 
 
 have a good theoretical notion of them first, and then 
 he must have experience of them in actual life, and be 
 able to follow them with all his senses about him, or he 
 will never get beyond the precepts of his masters. 
 
 But when he understands what persons are persuaded 
 by what arguments, and sees the person about whom he 272 
 was speaking in the abstract actually before him, and 
 knows that it is he, and can say to himself, ' This is the 
 man or this is the character who ought to have a certain 
 argument applied to him in order to convince him of 
 a certain opinion ; ' — he who knows all this, and knows 
 also when he should speak and when he should refrain, 
 and when he should use pithy sayings, pathetic appeals, 
 sensational effects, and all the other modes of speech 
 which he has learned; — when, I say, he knows the 
 times and seasons of all these things, then, and not till 
 then, he is a perfect master of his art ; but if he fail in 
 any of these points, whether in speaking or teaching or 
 writing them, and yet declares that he speaks by rules 
 of art, he who says ' I don't believe you ' has the better 
 of him. 
 
 Well, the teacher will say, is this, Phaedrus and 
 Socrates, your account of the so-called art of rhetoric, 
 or am I to look for another ? 
 
 Phaedr. He must take this, Socrates, for there is no 
 possibility of another, and yet the creation of such an 
 art is not easy. 
 
 {b) The tale of Thamus and Theuth. 
 
 Soc. I have heard a tradition of the ancients, whether steph. 
 true or not they only know ; although if we had found ^^* 
 the truth ourselves, do you think that we should care 
 much about the opinions of men ? 
 
 Phaedr. Your question needs no answer ; but I wish 
 
56 PHAEDRUS 
 
 that you would tell me what you say that you have 
 heard. 
 
 Soc. At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was 
 a famous old god, whose name was Theuth ; the bird 
 which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was 
 the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calcu- 
 lation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and 
 dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. 
 Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of 
 the whole country of Egypt ; and he dwelt in that great 
 city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian 
 Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. 
 To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desir- 
 ing that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have 
 the benefit of them ; he enumerated them, and Thamus 
 enquired about their several uses, and praised some of 
 them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved 
 of them. 
 
 It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus 
 said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. 
 But when they came to letters. This, said Theuth, 
 will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better 
 memories ; it is a specific both for the memory and 
 for the wit. Thamus replied : O most ingenious 
 Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always 
 the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own 
 275 inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, 
 you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love 
 of your own children have been led to attribute to them 
 a quality which they cannot have ; for this discovery of 
 yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, 
 because they will not use their memories; they will 
 trust to the external written characters and not re- 
 member of themselves. The specific which you have 
 discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminis- 
 
INFERIORITY OF THE WRITTEN WORD 57 
 
 cence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only 
 the semblance of truth ; they will be hearers of many 
 things and will have learned nothing ; they will appear 
 to be omniscient and will generally know nothing ; they 
 will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom 
 without the reality. 
 
 Phaedr. Yes, Socrates, you can easily invent tales of 
 Egypt, or of any other country. 
 
 Soc. There was a tradition in the temple of Dodona 
 that oaks first gave prophetic utterances. The men of 
 old, unlike in their simplicity to young philosophy, 
 deemed that if they heard the truth even from ' oak or 
 rock,' it was enough for them ; whereas you seem to 
 consider not whether a thing is or is not true, but who 
 the speaker is and from what country the tale comes. 
 
 Phaedr. I acknowledge the justice of your rebuke ; 
 and I think that the Theban is right in his view about 
 letters. 
 
 (c) Speech better than writing. 
 
 Soc. I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is Steph. 
 unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the ^'^ 
 painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them 
 a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the 
 same may be said of speeches. You would imagine 
 that they had intelligence, but if you want to know any- 
 thing and put a question to one of them, the speaker 
 always gives one unvarying answer. And when they 
 have been once written down they are tumbled about 
 anywhere among those who may or may not understand 
 them, and know not to whom they should replj', to 
 whom not : and., if they are maltreated or abused, they 
 have no parent to protect them ; and they cannot 
 protect or defend themselves. 
 
 Phaedr. That again is most true. 
 
58 PHAEDRUS 
 
 Soc. Is there not another kind of word or speech far 
 better than this, and having far greater power— a son 
 276 of the same family, but lawfully begotten ? 
 
 Phaedr. Whom do you mean, and what is his origin ? 
 
 Soc. I mean an intelligent word graven in the soul of 
 the learner, which can defend itself, and knows when to 
 speak and when to be silent. 
 
 Phaedr. You mean the living word of knowledge 
 which has a soul, and of which the written word is 
 properly no more than an image ? 
 
 Soc. Yes, of course that is what I mean. And now 
 may I be allowed to ask you a question : Would a 
 husbandman, who is a man of sense, take the seeds, 
 which he values and which he wishes to bear fruit, and 
 in sober seriousness, plant them during the heat of 
 summer, in some garden of Adonis, that he may rejoice 
 when he sees them in eight days appearing in beauty ? 
 at least he would do so, if at all, only for the sake of 
 amusement and pastime. But when he is in earnest he 
 sows in fitting soil, and practises husbandry, and is 
 satisfied if in eight months the seeds which he has sown 
 arrive at perfection ? 
 
 Phaedr. Yes, Socrates, that will be his way when he 
 is in earnest ; he will do the other, as you say, only in 
 play. 
 
 Soc. And can we suppose that he who knows the just 
 and good and honourable has less understanding than 
 the husbandman about his own seeds ? 
 
 Phaedr. Certainly not. 
 
 Soc. Then he will not seriously incline to ' write ' his 
 thoughts 'in water' with pen and ink, sowing words 
 which can neither speak for themselves nor teach the 
 truth adequately to others ? 
 
 Phaedr. No, that is not likely. 
 
 Soc. No, that is not likely — in the garden of letters 
 
THE GARDEN OF THE SOUL 59 
 
 he will SOW and plant, but only for the sake of recrea- 
 tion and amusement ; he will write them down as 
 memorials to be treasured against the forgetfulness of 
 old age, by himself, or by any other old man who is 
 treading the same path. He will rejoice in beholding 
 their tender growth; and while others are refreshing 
 their souls with banqueting and the like, this will be the 
 pastime in which his days are spent. 
 
 Phaedr. A pastime, Socrates, as noble as the other is 
 ignoble, the pastime of a man who can be amused by 
 serious talk, and can discourse merrily about justice 
 and the like. 
 
 Soc. True, Phaedrus. But nobler far is the serious 
 pursuit of the dialectician, who, finding a congenial soul, 
 by the help of science sows and plants therein words 
 which are able to help themselves and him who planted 277 
 them, and are not unfruitful, but have in them a seed 
 which others brought up in different soils render 
 immortal, making the possessors of it happy to the 
 utmost extent of human happiness. 
 
 (rf) The true art of composition. 
 
 Soc. Until a man knows the truth of the several Steph. 
 particulars of which he is writing or speaking, and is '^V 
 able to define them as they are, and having defined 
 them again to divide them until they can be no longer 
 divided, and until in like manner he is able to discern 
 the nature of the soul, and discover the different modes 
 of discourse which are adapted to different natures, and 
 to arrange and dispose them in such a way that the 
 simple form of speech may be addressed to the simpler 
 nature, and the complex and composite to the more 
 complex nature — until he has accomplished all this, he 
 will be unable to handle arguments according to rules 
 
6o PHAEDRUS 
 
 of art, as far as their nature allows them to be subjected 
 to art, either for the purpose of teaching or persuading ; 
 — such is the view which is implied in the whole 
 preceding argument. 
 
 Phaedr. Yes, that was our view, certainly. 
 
 Soc. Secondly, as to the censure which was passed on 
 the speaking or writing of discourses, and how they 
 might be rightly or wrongly censured — did not our 
 previous argument show — ? 
 
 Phaedr. Show what ? 
 
 Soc. That whether Lysias or any other writer that 
 ever was or will be, whether private man or statesman, 
 proposes laws and so becomes the author of a political 
 treatise, fancying that there is any great certainty and 
 clearness in his performance, the fact of his so writing 
 is only a disgrace to him, whatever men may say. For 
 not to know the nature of justice and injustice, and good 
 and evil, and not to be able to distinguish the dream 
 from the reality, cannot in truth be otherwise than 
 disgraceful to him, even though he have the applause of 
 the whole world. 
 
 Phaedr. Certainly. 
 
 Soc. But he who thinks that in the written word there 
 is necessarily much which is not serious, and that 
 neither poetry nor prose, spoken or written, is of any 
 great value, if, like the compositions of the rhapsodes, 
 278 they are only recited in order to be believed, and not 
 with any view to criticism or instruction ; and who thinks 
 that even the best of writings are but a reminiscence of 
 what we know, and that only in principles of justice and 
 goodness and nobility taught and communicated orally 
 for the sake of instruction and graven in the soul, which 
 is the true way of writing, is there clearness and per- 
 fection and seriousness, and that such principles are 
 a man's own and his legitimate offspring ; — being, in the 
 
THE MESSAGE OF THE NYMPHS 6 1 
 
 first place, the word which he finds in his own bosom ; 
 secondly, the brethren and descendants and relations 
 of his idea which have been duly implanted by him 
 in the souls of others ; — and who cares for them and no 
 others — this is the right sort of man; and you and 
 I, Phaedrus, would pray that we may become like him. 
 
 Phaedr. That is most assuredly my desire and 
 prayer. 
 
 Soc. And now the play is played out ; and of rhetoric 
 enough. Go and tell Lysias that to the fountain and 
 school of the Nymphs we went down, and were bidden 
 by them to convey a message to him and to other com- 
 posers of speeches — to Homer and other writers of 
 poems, whether set to music or not ; and to Solon and 
 others who have composed writings in the form of 
 political discourses which they would term laws — to all 
 of them we are to say that if their compositions are 
 based on knowledge of the truth, and they can defend 
 or prove them, when they are put to the test, by spoken 
 arguments, which leave their writings poor in com- 
 parison of them, then they are to be called, not only 
 poets, orators, legislators, but are worthy of a higher 
 name, befitting the serious pursuit of their life. 
 
 Phaedr. What name would you assign to them ? 
 
 Soc. Wise, I may not call them ; for that is a great 
 name which belongs to God alone, — lovers of wisdom 
 or philosophers is their modest and befitting title. 
 
 Phaedr. Very suitable. 
 
 Soc. And he who cannot rise above his own com- 
 pilations and compositions, which he has been long 
 patching and piecing, adding some and taking away 
 some, may be justly called poet or speech-maker or 
 law-maker. 
 
62 
 
 ION 
 
 The Inspiration of the Poet. 
 
 The Ion, which is one of the shortest works of Plato, relates 
 a conversation between Socrates and the rhapsode. Ion of Ephesus. 
 The latter was a member of a class of professional reciters of the 
 Epic poets, and more especially of Homer. They were not scholars 
 or commentators, such as Hippias and other Sophists had already 
 begun to be, but went about the country and repeated to the crowds 
 who assembled at the festivals, long passages of poetry with appro- 
 priate accompaniments of voice and gesture. In more ancient times 
 they had been the precursors of the drama, and are therefore rightly 
 classed by Plato with the actors in the chain of descent from the 
 Muses. 
 
 The brief dialogue is designed to show that the poet, like every 
 other artist, is a creature of inspiration (cp. a passage in the 
 Phaedrus, 245 A : — ' He who, having no touch of the Muses' 
 madness in his soul, comes to the door, and thinks that he will get 
 into the temple by the help of art, — he, I say, and his poetry are 
 not admitted '). Ion, who is depicted as a vain and simple character, 
 is proud of his skill in his profession, and imagines that he knows 
 all the arts because he knows the lines in which Homer refers to 
 them. He is easily driven by Socrates into a dilemma: — Either 
 he does not really know them and only pretends that he does ; 
 in which case he is dishonest: or his knowledge is merely an 
 inspiration which he derives from the poet whose words he 
 repeats. Ion reluctantly accepts the ' nobler alternative ' : he 
 would rather be thought inspired than dishonest. 
 
 Steph. Ion. I CANNOT deny what you say, Socrates. Never- 
 ^2? theless I am conscious in my own self, and the world 
 agrees with me in thinking, that I do speak better and 
 have more to say about Homer than any other man. 
 But I do not speak equally well about others— tell me 
 the reason of this. , 
 
 Soc. I perceive, Ion ; and I will proceed to explain to 
 you what I imagine to be the reason of this. The gift 
 
THE POWER OF THE MUSE 63 
 
 which you possess of speaking excellently about Homer 
 is not an art, but, as I was just saying, an inspiration; 
 there is a divinity moving you, like that contained in 
 the stone which Euripides calls a magnet, but which is 
 commonly known as the stone of Heraclea. This stone 
 not only attracts iron rings, but also imparts to them 
 a similar power of attracting other rings ; and some- 
 times you may see a number of pieces of iron and rings 
 suspended from one another so as to form quite a long 
 chain : and all of them derive their power of suspen- 
 sion from the original stone. In like manner the Muse 
 first of all inspires men herself; and from these inspired 
 persons a chain of other persons is suspended, who 
 take the inspiration. For all good poets, epic as well 
 as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not by art, but 
 because they are inspired and possessed. And as the 534 
 Corybantian revellers when they dance are not in their 
 right mind, so the lyric poets are not in their right mind 
 when they are composing their beautiful strains : but 
 when falling under the power of music and metre they 
 are inspired and possessed ; like Bacchic maidens who 
 draw milk and honey from the rivers when they are 
 under the influence of Dionysus but not when they are 
 in their right mind. And the soul of the lyric poet 
 does the same, as they themselves say; for they tell 
 us that they bring songs from honeyed fountains, 
 culling them out of the gardens and dells of the 
 Muses; they, like the bees, winging their way from 
 flower to flower. 
 
 And this is true. For the poet is a light and winged 
 and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until 
 he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the 
 mind is no longer in him : when he has not attained to 
 this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his 
 oracles. Many are the noble words in which poets 
 
64 ION 
 
 speak concerning the actions of men ; but like your- 
 self when speaking about Homer, they do not speak of 
 them by any rules of art : they are simply inspired to 
 utter that to which the Muse impels them, and that only ; 
 and when inspired, one of them will make dithyrambs, 
 another hymns of praise, another choral strains, another 
 epic or iambic verses — and he who is good at one is 
 not good at any other kind of verse : for not by art does 
 the poet sing, but by power divine. Had he learned by 
 rules of art, he would have known how to speak not of 
 one theme only, but of all ; and therefore God takes 
 away the minds of poets, and uses them as his ministers, 
 as. he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in order 
 that we who hear them may know them to be speaking 
 not of themselves who utter these priceless words in 
 a state of unconsciousness, but that God himself is the 
 speaker, and that through them he is conversing with 
 us. And Tynnichus the Chalcidian affords a striking 
 instance of what I am saying : he wrote nothing that 
 any one would care to remember but the famous paean 
 which is in every one's mouth, one of the finest poems 
 ever written, simply an invention of the Muses, as he 
 himself says. For in this way the God would seem to 
 indicate to us and not allow us to doubt that these 
 beautiful poems are not human, or the work of man, 
 but divine and the work of God ; and that the poets are 
 only the interpreters of the Gods by whom they are 
 severally possessed. Was not this the lesson which 
 the God intended to teaCh when by the mouth of the 
 535 worst of poets he sang the best of songs ? Am I not 
 right, Ion ? 
 
 Ion. Yes, indeed, Socrates, I feel that you are; for 
 your words touch my soul, and I am persuaded that 
 good poets by a divine inspiration interpret the things 
 of the Gods to us. 
 
POETRY AND THE FEELINGS 65 
 
 Soc. And you rhap^dists are the interpreters of the 
 poets ? 
 
 Ion. There again you are right. 
 
 Soc. Then you are the interpreters of interpreters ? 
 
 Ion. Precisely. 
 
 Soc. I wish you would frankly tell me, Ion, what I am 
 going to ask of you : When you produce the greatest 
 effect upon the audience in the recitation of some 
 striking passage, such as the apparition of Odysseus 
 leaping forth on the floor, recognized by the suitors 
 and casting his arrows at his feet, or the description of 
 Achilles rushing at Hector, or the sorrows of Andro- 
 mache, Hecuba, or Priam, — are you in your right mind ? 
 Are you not carried out of yourself, and does not your 
 soul in an ecstasy seem to be among the persons or 
 places of which you are speaking, whether they are in 
 Ithaca or in Troy or whatever may be the scene of the 
 poem? 
 
 Ion. That proof strikes home to me, Socrates. For 
 I must frankly confess that at the tale of pity my eyes 
 are filled with tears, and when I speak of horrors, my 
 hair stands on end and my heart throbs. 
 
 Soc. Well, Ion, and what are we to say of a man who 
 at a sacrifice or festival, when he is dressed in holiday 
 attire, and has golden crowns upon his head, of which 
 nobody has robbed him, appears weeping or panic- 
 stricken in the presence of more than twenty thousand 
 friendly faces, when there is no one despoiling or 
 wronging him ; — is he in his right mind or is he 
 not? 
 
 Ion. No indeed, Socrates, I must say that, strictly 
 speaking, he is not in his right mind. 
 
 Soc. And are you aware that you produce similar 
 effects on most of the spectators ? 
 
 Ion. Only too well ; for I look down upon them from 
 
66 ION 
 
 the stage, and behold the various emotions of pity,, 
 wonder, sternness, stamped upon their countenances 
 when I am speaking : and I am obliged to give my very 
 best attention to them ; for if I make them cry I my- 
 self shall laugh, and if I make them laugh I myself shall 
 cry when the time of payment arrives. 
 
 Soc. Do you know that the spectator is the last of 
 the rings which, as I am saying, receive the power of the 
 536 original magnet from one another ? The rhapsode like 
 yourself and the actor are intermediate links, and the 
 poet himself is the first of them. Through all these the 
 God sways the souls of men in any direction which he 
 pleases, and makes one man hang down from another. 
 Thus there is a vast chain of dancers and masters and 
 under-masters of choruses, who are suspended, as if 
 from the stone, at the side of the rings which hang 
 down from the Muse. And every poet has some Muse 
 from whom he is suspended, and by whom he is said 
 to be possessed, which is nearly the same thing ; for he 
 is taken hold of. 
 
 And from these first rings, which are the poets, 
 depend others, some deriving their inspiration from 
 Orpheus, others from Musaeus ; but the greater number 
 are possessed and held by Homer. Of whom. Ion, you 
 are one, and are possessed by Homer; and when any 
 one repeats the words of another poet you go to sleep, 
 and know not what to say ; but when any one recites a 
 strain of Homer you wake up in a moment, and your soul 
 leaps within you, and you have plenty to say ; for not 
 by art or knowledge about Homer do you say what you 
 say, but by divine inspiration and by possession ; just 
 as the Corybantian revellers too have a quick percep- 
 tion of that strain only which is appropriated to the 
 God by whom they are possessed, and have plenty of 
 dances and words for that, but take no heed of any 
 
SOCRATES THE ONE BEST MAN 67 
 
 Other. And you, Ion, when the name of Homer is 
 mentioned have plenty to say, and have nothing to say 
 of others. You ask, ' Why is this ? ' The answer is 
 that you praise Homer not by art but by divine 
 inspiration. 
 
 SYMPOSIUM 
 The character of Socrates. 
 
 The Symposium is in many ways closely allied to the Phaedrus, 
 and probably belongs to the same period of Plato's life'. Of both, 
 as we have already seen, Love is the theme : and by Love is meant, 
 not the earthly passion, but the aspiration or longing of the soul after 
 the divine. 
 
 In the Symposium this spirit is revealed to us embodied in the 
 wonderful personality of Socrates, whom Alcibiades compares to 
 ' the figure of a Satyr which conceals within the fair image of some 
 God.' Moreover, he is the true rhetorician of whom we have heard 
 in the Phaedrus, whose life agrees witli his own moral precepts, and 
 who exercises a magical charm over the souls of men. He is not 
 a mystic, and still less an ascetic : he is equally in place at the banquet 
 of Agathon and among the frequenters of the Agora or the Lyceum ; he 
 sits as presiding senator at the trial of the Generals after the battle of 
 Arginusae (cp. Apol. 32) ; he serves willingly in the army, and plays 
 an heroic part at Potidaea and in the rout of Delium. There are some 
 features in such a character which appear strange or even revolting to 
 us at first sight ; but we must remember that the Greek ideal of the 
 ' one best man ' was not so much that of a saint or religious teacher in 
 our sense, as of one who shared in all respects the life of his fellow- 
 citizens, and in all was superior to them. 
 
 . . . The ' Banquet ' to which the title alludes is supposed to be 
 given by Agathon, the tragic poet, to a party of friends, in honour of 
 the prize which he has just won by his first tragedy. It is agreed by 
 the guests that each in turn shall deliver a speech in honour of Love, 
 and accordingly a number of them pay their encomia to the God. 
 
 ' There is an allusion in the speech of Aristophanes to the de- 
 struction of Mantinea by the Lacedaemonians, an event which occurred 
 B. c. 385. At this date Plato was about forty-five years of age. 
 
68 SYMPOSIUM- 
 
 When Socrates has finished his oration, Alcibiades forces his way into 
 the banquet-hall, drunken, crowned with garlands, and supported by 
 a flute-girl. On learning what is going forward, he also is willing to 
 speak, although he refuses to treat of Love as an abstraction ; he 
 prefers rather to utter the praises of Socrates, of whom he has many 
 strange stories to tell. 
 
 After his speech is ended fresh revellers appear, and the feast ends 
 in disorder. The ' cooler heads ' depart ; Socrates remains drinking 
 with Agathon and Aristophanes until dawn ; and when he has put 
 them to sleep, one after the other, goes off to his wonted resort at the 
 Lyceum, victorious at the banquet as in every other scene of life. 
 
 I. Socrates' fit of abstraction in the Porch. 
 
 Steph. Apollodorus. Aristodemus said that he met Socrates 
 ^]^ fresh from the bath and sandalled ; and as the sight of 
 the sandals was unusual, he asked him whither he was 
 going that he had been converted into such a beau : — 
 
 To a banquet at Agathon's, he replied, whose in- 
 vitation to his sacrifice of victory I refused yesterday, 
 fearing a crowd, but promising that I would come 
 to-day instead ; and so I have put on my finery, 
 because he is such a fine man. What say you to going 
 with me unasked ? 
 
 I will do as you bid me, I replied. 
 
 Follow then, he said, and let us demolish the 
 proverb : — 
 
 'To the feasts of inferior men the good unbidden go;' 
 
 instead of which our proverb will run : — 
 
 'To the feasts of the good the good unbidden go;' 
 
 and this alteration may be supported by the authority 
 of Homer himself, who not only demolishes but literally 
 outrages the proverb. For, after picturing Agamemnon 
 as the most valiant of men, he makes Menelaus, who 
 is but a faint-hearted warrior, come unbidden' to the 
 
 ' Iliad ii. 408, and xvii. 588. 
 
SOCRATES LOST IN THOUGHT 6g 
 
 banquet of Agamemnon, who is leasting and offering 
 sacrifices, not the better to the worse, but the worse 
 to the better. 
 
 I rather fear, Socrates, said Aristodemus, lest this 
 may still be my case ; and that, like Menelaus in 
 Homer, 'I shall be the inferior person, who 
 
 'To the feasts of the wise unbidden goes.' 
 
 But I shall say that I was bidden of you, and then you 
 will have to make an excuse. 
 
 'Two going together,' 
 
 he replied, in Homeric fashion, one or other of them 
 may invent an excuse by the way ^. 
 
 This was the style of their conversation as they went 
 along. Socrates dropped behind in a fit of abstraction, 
 and desired Aristodemus, who was w^aiting, to go on 
 before him. When he reached the house of Agathon 
 he found the doors wide open, and a comical thing 
 happened. A servant coming out met him, and led him 
 at once into the banqueting-hall in which the guests 
 were reclining, for the banquet was about to begin. 
 Welcome, Aristodemus, said Agathon, as soon as he 
 appeared — you are just in time to sup with us ; if you 
 come on any other matter put it off, and make one 
 of us, as I was looking for you yesterday and meant 
 to have asked you, if I could have found you. But 
 what have you done with Socrates ? 
 
 I turned round, but Socrates was nowhere to be 
 seen ; and I had to explain that he had been with me 
 a moment before, and that I came by his invitation to 
 the supper. 
 
 You were quite right in coming, said Agathon ; but 
 where is he himself? 
 
 ' Iliad X. 224. 
 
70 SYMPOSIUM 
 
 175 He was behind me just how, as I entered, he said, 
 and I cannot think what has become of him. 
 
 Go and look for him, boy, said Agathon, and bring 
 him in ; and do you, Aristodemus, meanwhile take 
 the place by Eryximachus. 
 
 The servant then assisted him to wash, and he lay 
 down, and presently another servant came in and 
 reported that our friend Socrates had retired into the 
 portico of the neighbouring house. ' There he is 
 fixed,' said he, ' and when I call to him he will not stir.' 
 
 How strange, said Agathon ; then you must call him 
 again, and keep calling him. 
 
 Let him alone, said my informant ; he has a way 
 of stopping anywhere and losing himself without any 
 reason. I believe that he will soon appear ; do not 
 therefore disturb him. 
 
 Well, if you think so, I will leave him, said Agathon. 
 And then, turning to the servants, he added, ' Let us 
 have supper without waiting for him. Serve up what- 
 ever you please, for there is no one to give you orders ; 
 hitherto I have never left you to yourselves. But on 
 this occasion imagine that you are our hosts, and that 
 I and the company are your guests ; treat us well, and 
 then we shall commend you.' After this, supper was 
 served, but still no Socrates; and during the meal 
 Agathon several times expressed a wish to send for 
 him, but Aristodemus objected ; and at last when the 
 feast was about half over — for the fit, as usual, was 
 not of long duration — Socrates entered. 
 
 2. His strange appearance and marvellous power 
 of influencing others. 
 
 Steph. Alcibiades. And now, my boys, I shall praise Socrates 
 '^^^ in a figure which will appear to him to be a caricature, 
 
THE MAGIC OF SOCRATES' WORDS 71 
 
 and yet I speak, not to make fun of him, but only for 
 the truth's sake. I say, that he is exactly like the 
 busts of Silenus, which are set up ija the statuaries' 
 shops, holding pipes and flutes in their mouths ; and 
 they are made to open in the middle, and have image's 
 of gods inside them. I say also that he is like Marsyas 
 the satyr. You yourself will not deny, Socrates, that 
 your face is like that of a satyr. Aye, and there is 
 a resemblance in other points too. For example, you 
 are a bully, as I can prove by witnesses, if you will not 
 confess. And are you not a flute-player ? That you 
 are, and a performer far more wonderful than Marsyas. 
 He indeed with instruments used to charm the souls 
 of men by the power of his breath, and the players of 
 his music do so still : for the melodies of Olympus ' 
 are derived from Marsyas who taught them, and these, 
 whether they are played by a great master or by 
 a miserable flute-girl, have a power which no others 
 have ; they alone possess the soul and reveal the wants 
 of those who have need of gods and mysteries, because 
 they are divine. But you produce the same effect with 
 your words only, and do not require the flute : that is 
 the difference between you and him. 
 
 When we hear any other speaker, even a very 
 good one, he produces absolutely no effect upon us, 
 or not much, whereas the mere fragments of you and 
 your words, even at second-hand, and however im- 
 perfectly repeated, amaze and possess the souls of 
 every man, woman, and child who comes within 
 hearing of them. And if I were not afraid that you 
 would think me hopelessly drunk, I would have sworn 
 as well as spoken to the influence which they have 
 always had. and still have over me. For my heart 
 leaps within me more than that of any Corybantian 
 
 ' Cp. Arist. Pol. viii. 5. 16. 
 
72 SYMPOSIUM 
 
 reveller, and my eyes rain tears when I hear them. 
 And I observe that many others are affected in the' 
 same manner. 
 
 I have heard Pericles and other great orators, and 
 I thought that they spoke well, but I never had any 
 similar feeling ; my soul was not stirred by them, nor 
 was I angry at the thought of my own slavish state. 
 But this Marsyas has often brought me to such a pass, 
 216 that I have felt as if I could hardly endure the life 
 which I am leading (this, Socrates, you will admit) ; 
 and I am conscious that if I did not shut my ears 
 against him, and fly as from the voice of the siren, my 
 fate would be like that of others, — he would transfix 
 me, and I should grow old sitting at his feet. For he 
 makes me confess that I ought not to live as I do, 
 neglecting the wants of my own soul, and busying 
 myself with the concerns of the Athenians ; therefore 
 I hold my ears and tear myself away from him. And 
 he is the only person who ever made me ashamed, 
 which you might think not to be in my nature, and 
 there is no one else who does the same. For I know 
 that I cannot answer him or say that I ought not to do 
 as he bids, but when I leave his presence the love of 
 popularity gets the better of me. And therefore I run 
 away and fly from him, and when I see him I am 
 ashamed of what I have confessed to him. Many a 
 time have I wished that he were dead, and yet I know 
 that I should be much more sorry than glad, if he were 
 to die : so that I am at my wits' end. 
 
 3. His endurance, eccentricity, and bravery. 
 
 Steph. Alcibiades. All this happened before he artd I went on 
 A the expedition to Potidaea ; there we messed together. 
 
SOCRATES AT POTIDAEA 73 
 
 and I had the opportunity of observing his extraordinary 
 power of sustaining fatigue. His endurance was simply 220 
 marvellous when, being cut off from our supplies, we 
 were compelled to go without food — on such occasions, 
 which often happen in time of war, he was superior not 
 only to me but to everybody ; there was no one to be 
 compared to him. Yet at a festival he was the only 
 person who had any real powers of enjoj'ment ; though 
 not willing to drink, he could if compelled beat us all 
 at that, — wonderful to relate ! no human being had 
 ever seen Socrates drunk; and his powers, if I am 
 not mistaken, will be tested before long. 
 
 His fortitude in enduring cold was also surprising. 
 There was a severe frost, for the winter in that region 
 is really tremendous, and everybody else either remained 
 indoors, or if they went out had on an amazing quantity 
 of clothes, and were well shod, and had their feet 
 swathed in felt and fleeces: in the midst of this, 
 Socrates with his bare feet on the ice and in his 
 ordinary dress marched better than the other soldiers 
 who had shoes, and they looked daggers at him because 
 he seemed to despise them. 
 
 I have told you one tale, and now I must tell you 
 another, which is worth hearing, 
 
 ' Of the doings and sufferings of tlie enduring man ' 
 
 while he was on the expedition. One morning he was 
 thinking about something which he could not resolve ; 
 he would not give it up, but continued thinking from 
 early dawn until noon — there he stood fixed in thought ; 
 and at noon attention was drawn to him, and the 
 rumour ran through the wondering crowd that Socrates 
 had been standing and thinking about something ever 
 since the break of day. At last, in the evening after 
 supper, some lonians out of curiosity (I should explain 
 
74 SYMPOSIUM 
 
 that this was not in winter but in summer), brought out 
 their mats and slept in the open air that they might 
 watch him and see whether he would stand all night. 
 There he stood until the following morning ; and with 
 the return of light he offered up a prayer to the sun, 
 and went his way \ 
 
 I will also tell, if you please— and indeed I am bound 
 to tell — of his courage in battle ; for who but he saved 
 my life? Now this was the engagement in which 
 I received the prize of valour : for I was wounded and 
 he would not leave me, but he rescued me and my 
 arms ; sCtid he ought to have received the prize of valour 
 which the generals wanted to confer on me partly on 
 account of my rank, and I told them so (this, again, 
 Socrates will not impeach or deny), but he was more 
 eager than the generals that I and not he should have 
 the prize. 
 
 There was another occasion on which his behaviour 
 221 was very remarkable — in the flight of the army after 
 the battle of Delium, where he served among the heavy- 
 armed, — I had a better opportunity of seeing him than 
 at Potidaea, for I was myself on horseback, and there- 
 fore comparatively out of danger. He and Laches were 
 retreating, for the troops were in flight, and I met them 
 and told them not to be discouraged, and promised 
 to remain with them ; and there you might see him, 
 Aristophanes, as you describe '\ just as he is in the 
 streets of Athens, stalking like a pelican, and rolling 
 his eyes, calmly contemplating enemies as well as 
 friends, and making very intelligible to anybody, even 
 from a distance, that whoever attacked him would be 
 likely to meet with a stout resistance ; and in this way 
 he and his companion escaped — for this is the sort of 
 man who is never touched in war; those only are 
 
 ' Cp. supra, 175 B. ' Aristoph. Clouds, 362. 
 
SOCRATES UNLIKE ALL OTHER MEN 75 
 
 pursued who are running away headlong. I particularly 
 observed how superior he was to Laches in presence 
 of mind. 
 
 Many are the marvels which I might narrate in 
 praise of Socrates ; most of his ways might perhaps b^ 
 paralleled in another man, but his absolute unlikeness 
 to any human being that is or ever has been is perfectly 
 astonishing. You may imagine Brasidas and others to 
 have been like Achilles; or you may imagine Nestor 
 and Antenor to have been like Pericles ; and the same 
 may be said of other famous men, but of this strange 
 being you will never be able to find any likeness, how- 
 ever remote, either among men who now are or who 
 ever have been — other than that which I have already 
 suggested of Silenus and the satyrs ; and they represent 
 in a figure not only himself, but his words. For, 
 although I forgot to mention this to you before, his 
 words are like the images of Silenus which open ; they 
 are ridiculous when you first hear them ; he clothes 
 himself in language that is like the skin of the wanton 
 satyr — for his talk is of pack-asses and smiths and 
 cobblers and curriers, and he is always repeating the 
 same things in the same words ^, so that any ignorant 
 or inexperienced person might feel disposed to laugh 
 at him ; but he who opens the bust and sees what is 222 
 within will find that they are the only words which 
 have a meaning in them, and also the most divine, 
 abounding in fair images of virtue, and of the widest 
 comprehension, or rather extending to the whole duty 
 of a good and honourable man. 
 
 ' Cp. Gorg 490, 491, 517. 
 
76 
 
 MENO 
 
 The Immortality of the Soul proved from the Doctrine 
 of Recollection (dvdiivriaK). 
 
 The Meno purports to be a conversation between Socrates and 
 a young Thessalian, Meno, who has been a disciple of the famous 
 Sophist Gorgias. The interest of the dialogue turns mainly on the 
 question, Whether virtue can be taught? This question is soon found 
 to involve another, What is the origin of knowledge? And the 
 answer is that our knowledge is in some degree at least the 
 reminiscence or recollection (avd/ivrjais) of what we have learned 
 in a previous state of existence. Such a recollection is at first partial 
 and imperfect, but through the association of ideas the mind is enabled 
 to gain more definite conceptions, and to rise by a laborious effort to 
 a true knowledge and intelligence of things. 
 
 The Doctrine of Reminiscence is also made a proof of immor- 
 tality: — if the soul has had existence prior to birth, she may 
 reasonably be supposed to continue in existence after she has left 
 her ' tomb ' or ' prison ' in the body. It appears to belong to a 
 passing phase of Plato's philosophy ; and, except for a slight allusion 
 in the Republic (x. 621 A), is only mentioned in the Phaedrus, Meno, 
 and Phaedo. 
 
 Steph. Soc. I WILL tell you why : I have heard from certain 
 ^ wise men and women who spoke of things divine 
 that— 
 
 Men. What did they say ? 
 
 Soc. They spoke of a glorious truth, as I conceive. 
 
 Men. What was it ? and who were they ? 
 
 Soc. Some of them were priests and priestesses, who 
 had studied how they might be able to give a reason 
 of their profession : there have been poets also, who 
 spoke of these things by inspiration, like Pindar, and 
 many others who were inspired. And they say — mark, 
 now, and see whether their words are true — they say 
 that the soul of man is immortal, and at one time has 
 an end, which is termed dying, and at another time 
 
ALL KNOWLEDGE A REMEMBRANCE 77 
 
 is born again, but is never destroyed. And the moral 
 is, that a man ought to live always in perfect holiness. 
 ' For in the ninth year Persephone sends the souls of those 
 from whom she has received the penalty of ancient crime 
 back again from beneath into the light of the sun above, 
 and these are they who become noble kings and mighty 
 men and great in wisdom and are called saintly heroes 
 in after ages'^.' 
 
 The soul, then, as being immortal, and having been 
 born again many times, and having seen all things that 
 exist, whether in this world or in the world below, has 
 knowledge of them all ; and it is no wonder that she 
 should be able to call to remembrance all that she 
 ever knew about virtue, and about everything ; for as 
 all nature is akin, and the soul has learned all things, 
 there is no difficulty in her eliciting or as men say 
 learning, out of a single recollection all the rest, if a 
 man is strenuous and does not faint; for all enquiry 
 and all learning is but recollection. And therefore we 
 ought not to listen to this sophistical argument about 
 the impossibility of enquiry : for it will make us idle, 
 and is sweet only to the sluggard ; but the other saying 
 will make us active and inquisitive. 
 
 APOLOGY, 
 Or the defence of Socrates 
 
 The three Dialogues which treat of the trial and death of Socrates, 
 — the Apology, the Crito, the Phaedo, — are probably to be regarded, 
 not so much as having a claim to historical truth, but rather as con- 
 taining and developing the view of Socrates' life and character which 
 Plato wishes to impress upon us. They are all marked with the same 
 stamp of genius, and have the same distinction of style which is 
 conspicuous in the other writings of Plato. The figure of Socrates is 
 
 ' Pindar (Fr. 98 Boeckh). 
 
73 APOLOGY 
 
 presented to us in them with the rugged outlines somewhat softened 
 and toned down by the haze of Platonic idealism. Yet they also 
 possess a considerable amount of general truth and correctness; and 
 the Apology more especially seems to contain much which is due to 
 Socrates himself. 
 
 He may well have thought that the time had come for him to leave 
 the mortal scene. He was already seventy years of age, and the 
 future could have offered little to tempt him. The world had changed 
 around him, and he was too old to change with it. The greatness 
 and glory of Athens were passing away, and a new generation had 
 grown up with whom he was no longer in sympathy, as he had 
 been with their predecessors. 
 
 Many of those who had been his hearers, ' even if they could 
 not be called his disciples,' (33 A), had died in infamy and disgrace. 
 Critias and Charmides had been prominent among the Thirty 
 Tyrants : Meno had cruelly betrayed his fellow countrymen in Asia : 
 Alcibiades, once ' the darling of the city, ' had brought her to the 
 brink of ruin, and had perished by the hands of hired assassins. 
 Socrates, as Plato indirectly warns us in the Apology, was not to 
 blame for their wickedness ; yet a certain shadow was inevitably 
 reflected from their misdeeds upon his character. 
 
 And under feelings such as these, we may be allowed to imagine 
 him pleading his cause before his fellow citizens, defending ' in the 
 scorn of consequence ' his divine mission, demanding, not mercy, but 
 justice, refusing to degrade himself by bringing his wife and children 
 into court, and when the fatal vote has been given , rising to a still 
 higher pitch of defiance, calmly discussing whether death is an 
 eternal sleep or only the passage to another and better world, and 
 bidding his judges farewell in the firm conviction that no evil can 
 happen to a just man, either in this life or any other. 
 
 Socrates will speak in his accustomed manner. 
 
 Iteph. How you, O Athenians, have been affected by my 
 '^ accusers, I cannot tell; but I know that they almost 
 made me forget who I was — so persuasively did they 
 speak ; and yet they have hardly uttered a word of 
 truth. But of the many falsehoods told by them, there 
 was one which quite amazed me; — I mean when they 
 said that you should be upon your guard and not allow 
 yourselves to be deceived by the force of my eloquence. 
 
SOCRATES NO ORATOR 79 
 
 To say this, when they were certain to be detected as 
 soon as I opened my lips and proved myself to be any- 
 thing but a great speaker, did indeed appear to me 
 most shameless — unless by the force of eloquence they 
 mean the force of truth ; for if such is their meaning, 
 I admit that I am eloquent. But in how different a way 
 from theirs ! Well, as I was saying, they have scarcely 
 spoken the truth at all ; but from me you shall hear 
 the whole truth : not, however, delivered after their 
 manner in a set oration duly ornamented with words 
 and phrases. No, by heaven ! but I shall use the words 
 and arguments which occur to me at the moment ; for 
 I am confident in the justice of my cause' : at my time 
 of life I ought not to be appearing before you, O men 
 of Athens, in the character of a juvenile orator — let 
 no one expect it of me. 
 
 And I must beg of you to grant me a favour : — If I 
 defend myself in my accustomed manner, and you hear 
 me using the words which I have been in the habit 
 of using in the agora, at the tables of the money- 
 changers, or anywhere else, I would ask you not to 
 be surprised, and not to interrupt me on this account. 
 For I am more than seventy years of age, and 
 appearing now for the first time in a court of law, 
 I am quite a stranger to the language of the place ; 
 and therefore I would have you regard me as if I were 18 
 really a stranger, whom you would excuse if he spoke 
 in his native tongue, and after the fashion of his 
 country:— Am I making an unfair request of you? 
 Never mind the manner, which may or may not be 
 good ; but think only of the truth of my words, and 
 give heed to that : let the speaker speak truly and the 
 judge decide justly. 
 
 ' Or, I am certain that I am right in taking this course. 
 
8o APOLOGY 
 
 The old accusations against him of the Comic Poets 
 and others. 
 
 And first, I have to reply to the older charges and to 
 my first accusers, and then I will go on to the later 
 ones. For of old I have had many accusers, who have 
 accused me falsely to you during many years ; and 
 I am more afraid of them than of Anytus and his 
 associates, who are dangerbus, too, in their own way. 
 But far more dangerous are the others, who began 
 when you were children, and took possession of your 
 minds with their falsehoods, telling of one Socrates, 
 a wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, 
 and searched into the earth beneath, and made the 
 worse appear the better cause. The disseminators 
 of this tale are the accusers whom I dread ; for their 
 hearers are apt to fancy that such enquirers do not 
 believe in the existence of the gods. And they are 
 many, and their charges against me are of ancient date, 
 and they were made by them in the days when you 
 were more impressible than you are now — in childhood, 
 or it may have been in youth — and the cause when 
 heard went by default, for there was none to answer. 
 And hardest of all, I do not know and cannot tell the 
 names of my accusers ; unless in the chance case of 
 a Comic poet. All who from envy and malice have 
 persuaded you— some of them having first convinced 
 themselves — all this class of men are most difficult to 
 deal with ; for I cannot have them up here, and cross- 
 examine them, and therefore I must simply fight with 
 shadows in my own defence, and argue when there is 
 no one who answers. I will ask you then to assume 
 with me, as I was saying, that my opponents are of two 
 kinds ; one recent, the other ancient : and I hope that 
 you will see the propriety of my answering the latter 
 
THE SLANDERS OF THE COMIC POETS 8l 
 
 first, for these accusations you heard long before the 
 others, and much oftener. 
 
 Well, then, I must make my defence, and endeavour 19 
 to clear away in a short time, a slander which has 
 lasted a long time. May I succeed, if to succeed be 
 for my good and yours, or likely to avail me in my 
 cause ! The task is not an easy one ; I quite under- 
 stand the nature of it. And so, leaving the event with 
 God, in obedience to the law I will now make my 
 defence. 
 
 I will begin at the beginning, and ask what is the 
 accusation which has given rise to the slander of me, 
 and in fact has encouraged Meletus to prefer this 
 charge against me. Well, what do the slanderers say ? 
 They shall be my prosecutors, and I will sum up their 
 words in an affidavit: 'Socrates is an evil-doer, and 
 a curious person, who searches into things under the j 
 earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear 
 the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doc- / 
 trines to others.' Such is the nature of the accusation : ' 
 it is just what you have yourselves seen in the comedy of 
 Aristophanes \ who has introduced a man whom he calls 
 Socrates, going about and saying that he walks in air, 
 and talking a deal of nonsense concerning matters of 
 which I do not pretend to know either much or little — 
 not that I mean to speak disparagingly of any one who 
 is a student of natural philosophy. I should be very 
 sorry if Meletus could bring so grave a charge against 
 me. But the simple truth is, O Athenians, that I have 
 nothing to do with physical speculations. Very many 
 of those here present are witnesses to the truth of this, 
 and to them I appeal. Speak then, you who have 
 heard me, and tell your neighbours whether any of you 
 
 ' Aristoph., Clouds, 225 ff. 
 VOL I. G 
 
82 APOLOGY 
 
 have ever known me hold forth in few words or in 
 many upon such matters. 
 
 . . . You hear their answer. And from what they 
 say of this part of the charge you will be able to judge 
 of the truth of the rest. 
 
 , As little foundation is there for the report that I am 
 a teacher, and take money; this accusation has no 
 more truth in it than the other. Although, if a man 
 were really able to instruct mankind, to receive money 
 for giving instruction would, in my opinion, be an 
 honour to him. There is Gorgias of Leontium, and 
 Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis, who go the 
 round of the cities, and are able to persuade the young 
 men to leave their own citizens by whom they might be 
 20 taught for nothing, and come to them whom they not 
 only pay, but are thankful if they may be allowed to 
 pay them. There is at this time a Parian philosopher 
 residing in Athens, of whom I have heard ; and I came 
 to hear of him in this way : — I came across a man who 
 has spent a world of money on the Sophists, Callias, 
 the son of Hipponicus, and knowing that he had sons, 
 I asked him : ' Callias,' I said, ' if your two sons were 
 foals or calves, there would be no difficulty in finding 
 some one to put over them ; we should hire a trainer 
 of horses, or a farmer probably, who would improve 
 and perfect them in their own proper virtue and excel- 
 lence; but as they are human beings, whom are you 
 thinking of placing over them ? Is there any one who 
 understands human and political virtue? You must 
 have thought about the matter, for you have sons ; is 
 there any one ?' 'There is,' he said. "'Who is he?' 
 said I; 'and of' what country? and what does he 
 charge ? ' ' Evenus the Parian,' he replied ; ' h^ is the 
 man, and his charge is five minae.' Happy is Evenus, 
 I said to myself, if he really has this wisdom, and 
 
THE HATRED OF THE WORLD 83 
 
 teaches at such a moderate charge. Had I the same, 
 I should have been very proud and conceited ; but the 
 truth is that I have no knowledge of the kind. 
 
 Origin of his reputation for wisdom ; his mission to 
 convince mankind of ignorance. 
 
 I dare say, Athenians, that some one among you will 
 reply, ' Yes, Socrates, but what is the origin of these 
 accusations which are brought against you ; there must 
 have been something strange which you have been 
 doing? All these rumours and this talk about you 
 would never have arisen if you had been like other 
 men : tell us, then, what is the cause of them, for we 
 should be sorry to judge hastily of you.' 
 
 Now I regard this as a fair challenge, and I will 
 endeavour to explain to you the reason why I am called 
 wise and have such an evil fame. Please to attend 
 then. And although some of you may think that I am 
 joking, I declare that I will tell you the entire truth. 
 Men of Athens, this reputation of mine has come of 
 a certain sort of wisdom which I possess. If you ask 
 me what kind of wisdom, I reply, wisdom such as may 
 perhaps be attained by man, for to that extent I am 
 inclined to believe that I am wise; whereas the 
 persons of whom I was speaking have a superhuman 
 wisdom, which I may fail to describe, because I have 
 it not myself; and he who says that I have, speaks 
 falsely, and is taking away my character. And here, 
 O men of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, 
 even if I seem to say something extravagant. For the 
 word which I will speak is not mine. I will refer you 
 to a witness who is worthy of credit; that witness shall 
 be the God of Delphi — he will tell you about my 
 wisdom, if I have any, and of what sort it is. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 APOLOGY 
 
 You must have known Chaerephon; he was early 
 21 a friend of mine, and also a friend of yours, for he 
 shared in the recent exile of the people, and returned 
 with you. Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very 
 impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and 
 boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether — as I was 
 saying, I must beg you not to interrupt — he asked the 
 oracle to tell him whether any one was wiser than 
 I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered, that 
 there was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself; 
 but his brother, who is in court, will confirm the truth 
 of what I am saying. 
 
 Why do I mention this? Because I am going to 
 explain to you why I have such an evil name. When 
 I heard the answer, I said to myself, What can the god 
 mean ? and what is the interpretation of his riddle ? for 
 I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What 
 then can he mean when he says that I am the wisest 
 of men ? And yet he is a god, and cannot lie ; that 
 would be against his nature. After long consideration, 
 I thought of a method of trying the question. I re- 
 flected that if I could only find a man wiser than 
 myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in 
 my hand. I should say to him, ' Here is a man who is 
 wiser than I am ; but you said that I was the wisest.' 
 
 Accordingly I went to one who had the reputation of 
 wisdom, and observed him — his name I need not m^en- 
 tion ; he was a politician whom I selected for examina- 
 tion — and the result was as follows : — When I began to 
 talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not 
 really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and 
 still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to explain 
 to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really 
 wise ; and the consequence was that he hated me, and 
 his enmity was shared by several who were present and 
 
THE UNIVERSAL PRETENCE OF WISDOM 85 
 
 heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went 
 away : Well, although I do not suppose that either of 
 us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am 
 better off than he is, — for he knows nothing, and 
 thinks that he knows ; I neither know nor think that 
 I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to 
 have slightly the advantage of him. Then I went 
 to another who had still higher pretensions to wisdom, 
 and my conclusion was exactly the same. Whereupon 
 I made another enemy of him, and of many others 
 besides him. 
 
 Then I went to one man after another, being not 
 unconscious of the enmity which I provoked, and 
 I lamented and feared this : but necessity was laid 
 upon me, — the word of God, I thought, ought to be 
 considered first. And I ' said to myself, — Go I must 
 to all who appear to know, and find out the meaning of 
 the oracle. And I swear to you, Athenians, by the Dog 22 
 I swear! — for I must tell you the truth — the result of 
 my mission was just this : I found that the men most 
 in repute were all but the most foolish ; and that others 
 less esteemed were really wiser and better. 
 
 I will tell you the tale of my' wanderings and of 
 the ' Herculean ' labours, as I may call them, which 
 I endured only to find at last the oracle irrefutable. 
 After the politicians, I went to the poets ; tragic, dithy- 
 rambic, and all sorts. And there, I said to myself, you 
 will be instantly detected ; now you will find out that 
 you are more ignorant than they are. Accordingly, 
 I took them some of the most elaborate passages in 
 their own writings, and asked what was the meaning of 
 them — thinking that they would teach me something. 
 Will you believe me ? I am almost ashamed to confess 
 the truth, but I must say that there is hardly a person 
 present who would not have talked better about their 
 
86 APOLOGY 
 
 poetry than they did themselves. Then I knew that not 
 by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of 
 genius and inspiration ; they are hke diviners or sooth- 
 sayers who also say many fine things, but do not 
 understand the meaning of them. The poets appeared 
 to me to be much in the same case ; and I further 
 observed that upon the strength of their poetry they 
 believed themselves to be the wisest of men in other 
 things in which they were not wise. So I departed, 
 conceiving myself to be superior to them for the same 
 reason that I was superior to the politicians. 
 
 At last I went to the artisans, for I was conscious 
 that I knew nothing at all, as I may say, and I was 
 sure that they knew many fine things ; and here I was 
 not mistaken, for they did know many things of which 
 I was ignorant, and in this they certainly were wiser 
 than I was. But I observed that even the good artisans 
 fell into the same error as the poets ; — because they 
 were good workmen they thought that they also knew 
 all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them over- 
 shadowed their wisdom ; and therefore I asked myself 
 on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be 
 as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their 
 ignorance, or like them in both ; and I made answer 
 to myself and to the oracle that I was better off as 
 I was. 
 
 This inquisition has led to my having many enemies 
 23 of the worst and most dangerous kind, and has given 
 occasion also to many calumnies. And I am called 
 wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself 
 possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others : 
 but the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is 
 wise ; and by his answer he intends to show that the 
 wisdom of men is worth little or nothing; he is not 
 speakinj of Socrates, he is only using my name by way 
 
THE YOUTHFUL IMITATORS OF SOCRATES 87 
 
 of illustration, as if he said,^He, O men,- is-the wisest, 
 who, like Socrates, knows that hjs wisdom is in truth 
 worth nothings And so I go about the world, obedient 
 to the god, and search and make enquiry into the 
 wisdom of any one, whether citizen or stranger, who 
 appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in 
 vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not 
 wise ; and my occupation quite absorbs me, and I have 
 no time to give either to any public matter of interest 
 or to any concern of my own, but I am in otter poverty 
 by reason of my devotion to the god. 
 
 There is another thing: — young men of the richer 
 classes, who . have not much to do, come about me 
 of their own accord ; they like to hear the pretenders 
 examined, and they often imitate me, and proceed to 
 examine others ; there are plenty of persons, as they 
 quickly discover, who think that they know something, 
 but really know little or nothing ; and then those who 
 are examined by them instead of being angry with 
 themselves are angry with me : This confounded So- 
 crates, they say; this villainous misleader of youth !^ 
 and then if somebody asks them. Why, what evil does 
 he practise or teach ? they do not know, and cannot 
 tell; but in order that they may not appear to be at 
 a loss, they repeat the ready-made charges which are 
 used against all philosophers about teaching things up 
 in the clouds and under the earth, and having no gods, 
 and making the worse appear the better cause; for 
 they do not like to confess that their pretence of know- 
 ledge has been detected — which is the truth ; A.nd as 
 they are numerous and ambitious and energetic, and 
 are drawn up in battle array and have persuasive 
 tongues, they have filled your ears with their loud and 
 inveterate calumnies. 
 
 And this is the reason why my three accusers, Meletus 
 
88 APOLOGY 
 
 and Anytus and Lycon, have set upon me; Meletus, 
 who has a quarrel with me on behalf of the poets; 
 24 Anytus, on behalf of the craftsmen and politicians ; 
 Lycon, on behalf of the rhetoricians : and as I said 
 at the beginning, I cannot expect to get rid of such 
 a mass of calumny all in a moment. And this, O men 
 of Athens, is the truth and the whole truth ; I have 
 concealed nothing, I have dissembled nothing. And 
 yet, I know that my plainness of speech makes them 
 hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am 
 speaking the truth ?(— Hence has arisen the prejudice, 
 against me ; andThis is the reason of it, as you will find 
 out either in this or in any future enquiry. 
 
 Cross-examination of Meletus. 
 
 I have said enough in my defence against the first 
 class of my accusers ; I turn to the second class. They 
 are headed by Meletus, that good man and true lover 
 of his country, as he calls himself Against these, too, 
 I must try to make a defence: — Let their affidavit be 1 
 read : it contains something of this kind : It says that • 
 Socrates is a doer of evil, who corrupts the youth ; and 
 who does not believe in the gods of the state, but has \ 
 other new divinities of his own. Such is the charge ; 
 and now let us examine the particular counts. He sayg~>' 
 that I am a doer of evil, and corrupt the youth ; but 
 I say, O men of Athens, that Meletus is a doer of evil, 
 in that hP pretends to be in earnesr when he is only in 
 jest, and is so eager to bring men to trial from a pre- 
 tended zeal and interest about matters in which he 
 really never had the smallest interest. And the truth 
 of this I will endeavour to prove to you. 
 
 Come hither, Meletus, and let me ask a question 
 
MELETUS PUT TO THE QUESTION 89 
 
 of you. You think a great deal about the improvement 
 of youth ? 
 
 Yes, I do. 
 
 Tell the judges, then, who is their improver; for you 
 must know, as you have taken the pains to discover 
 their corrupter, and are citing and accusing me before 
 them. Speak, then, and tell the judges who their im- 
 prover is. — Observe, Meletus, that you are silent, and 
 have nothing to say. But is not this rather disgraceful, 
 and a very considerable proof of what I was saying, 
 that you have no interest in the matter? Speak up, 
 friend, and tell us who their improver is. 
 
 The laws. 
 
 But that, my good sir, is not my meaning. I want to 
 know who the person is, who, in the first place, knows 
 the laws. 
 
 The judges, Socrates, who are present in court. 
 
 What, do you mean to say, Meletus, that they are 
 able to instruct and improve youth ? 
 
 Certainly they are. 
 
 What, all of them, or some only and not others ? 
 
 All of them. 
 
 By the goddess Here, that is good news ! There are 
 plenty of improvers, then. And what do you say of the 25 
 audience, — do they improve them ? 
 
 Yes, they do. 
 
 And the senators ? 
 
 Yes, the senators improve them. 
 
 But perhaps the members of the assembly corrupt 
 them ? — or do they too improve them ? 
 
 They improve them. 
 
 Then every Athenian improves and elevates them ; 
 all with the exception of myself; and I alone am their 
 corrupter ? Is that what you affirm ? 
 
 That is what I stoutly affirm. 
 
90 APOLOGY 
 
 I am very unfortunate if you are right. But suppose 
 I ask you a question: How about horses? Does one 
 man do them harm and all the world good? Is not 
 the exact opposite the truth ? One man is able to do 
 them good, or at least not many ; — the trainer of horses, 
 that is to say, does them good, and others who have 
 to do with them rather injure them? Is not that true, 
 Meletus, of horses, or of any other animals? Most 
 assuredly it is ; whether you and Anytus say yes 
 or no. Happy indeed would be the condition of youth 
 ifjhey had one corrupter only, and all the rest of the 
 World were their improvers. But you, Meletus, have 
 sufficiently shown that you never had a thought 
 about the young : your carelessness is seen in your 
 not caring about the very things which you bring 
 against me. 
 
 And now, Meletus, I will ask you another question — 
 by Zeus I will : Which is better, to live among bad 
 citizens, or among good ones ? Answer, friend, I say ; 
 the question is one which may be easily answered. Do 
 not the good do their neighbours good, and the bad do 
 them evil ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And is there any one who would rather be injured 
 than benefited by those who live with him? Answer^ 
 my good friend, the law requires you to answer — does 
 any one like to be injured ? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 And when you accuse me of corrupting and deterio- 
 rating the youth, do you allege that I corrupt them 
 intentionally or unintentionally ? 
 
 Intentionally, I say. 
 
 But you have just admitted that the good do their 
 neighbours good, and the evil do them evil. Now, is 
 that a truth which your superior wisdom has recognized 
 
WHAT DOES MELETUS MEAN? 9I 
 
 thus early in life, and am I, at my age, in such darkness 
 and ignorance as not to know that if a man with whom 
 I have to live is corrupted by me, I am very likely 
 to be harmed by him; and yet I corrupt him, and 
 intentionally, too — so you say, although neither I nor 
 any other human being is ever likely to be convinced 
 by you. But either I do not corrupt them, or I corrupt 26 
 them unintentionally; and on either view of the case, 
 you lie. If my offence is unintentional, the law has 
 no cognizance of unintentional offences ; you ought to 
 have taken me privately, and warned and admonished 
 me; for if I had been better advised, I should have 
 left off doing what I only did unintentionally — no doubt 
 I should ; but you would have nothing to say to me 
 and refused to teach me. And now you bring me up 
 in this court, which is a place not of instruction, but 
 of punishment. 
 
 It will be very clear to you, Athenians, as I was 
 saying, that Meletus has no care at all, great or small, 
 about the matter. But still I should like to know, 
 Meletus, in what I am affirmed to corrupt the young. 
 I suppose you mean, as I infer from your indictment, 
 that I teach them not to acknowledge the gods which 
 the state acknowledges, but some other new divinities 
 or spiritual agencies in their stead. These are the 
 lessons by which I corrupt the youth, as you say. 
 
 Yes, that I say emphatically. 
 
 Then, by the gods, Meletus, of whom we are speaking, 
 tell me and the court, in somewhat plainer terms, what 
 you mean ! for I do not as yet understand whether you 
 affirm that I teach other men to acknowledge some 
 gods, and therefore that I do believe in gods, and am 
 not an entire atheist — this you do not lay to my charge, 
 — but only you say that they are not the same gods 
 which the city recognizes — the charge is that they are 
 
92 APOLOGY 
 
 diflferent gods. Or, do you mean that I am an atheist 
 simply, and a teacher of atheism ? 
 
 I mean the latter — that you are a complete atheist. 
 
 What an extraordinary statement! Why do you 
 think so, Meletus? Do you mean that I do not believe 
 in the godhead of the sun or moon, like other men ? 
 
 I assure you, judges, that he does not: for he says 
 that the sun is stone, and the moon earth. 
 
 Friend Meletus, you think that you are accusing 
 Anaxagoras : and you have but a bad opinion of the 
 judges, if you fancy them illiterate to such a degree 
 as not to know. that these doctrines are found in the 
 books of Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, which are full 
 of them. And so, forsooth, the youth are said to be 
 taught them by Socrates, when there are not un- 
 frequently exhibitions of them at the theatre ^ (price 
 of admission one drachma at the most) ; and they 
 might pay their money, and laugh at Socrates if he 
 pretends to father these extraordinary views. And 
 so, Meletus, you really think that I do not believe in 
 any god ? 
 
 I swear by Zeus that you believe absolutely in none 
 at all. 
 
 Nobody will believe you, Meletus, and I am pretty 
 sure that you do not believe yourself. I cannot help 
 thinking, men of Athens, that Meletus is reckless and 
 impudent, and that he has written this indictment in 
 a spirit of mere wantonness and youthful bravado. 
 27 Has he not compounded a riddle, thinking to try me ? 
 He said to himself: — I shall see whether the wise 
 Socrates will discover my facetious contradiction, or 
 whether I shall be able to deceive him and the rest 
 
 ' Probably in allusion to Aristophanes who caricatured, and to 
 Euripides who borrowed the notions of Anaxagoras, as well as to other 
 dramatic poets. 
 
SOCRATES CHECKMATES MELETUS 93 
 
 of them. For he certainly does appear to me to con- 
 tradict himself in the indictment as much as if he said 
 that Socrates is guilty of not believing in the gods, and 
 yet of believing in them — but this is not like a person 
 who is in earnest. 
 
 I should like you, O men of Athens, to join me in 
 examining what I conceive to be his inconsistency ; 
 and do you, Meletus, answer. And I must remind the 
 audience of my request that they would not make 
 a disturbance if I speak in my accustomed manner : 
 
 Did ever man, Meletus, believe in the existence of 
 human things, and not of human beings ? . . . I wish, 
 men of Athens, that he would answer, and not be 
 always trying to get up an interruption. Did ever 
 any man believe in horsemanship, and not in horses ? 
 or in flute-plaj'ing, and not in flute-players ? No, my 
 friend ; I will answer to you and to the court, as you 
 refuse to answer for j'ourself. There is no man who 
 ever did. But now please to answer the next question : 
 Can a man believe in spiritual and divine agencies, and 
 not in spirits or demigods ? 
 
 He cannot. 
 
 How lucky I am to have extracted that answer, by 
 the assistance of the court ! But then you swear in the 
 indictment that I teach and believe in divine or spiritual 
 agencies (new or old, no matter for that) ; at any rate, 
 I believe in spiritual agencies, — so you say and swear 
 in the affidavit ; and yet if I believe in divine beings, 
 how can I help believing in spirits or demigods ;— 
 must I not ? To be sure I must ; and therefore I may 
 assume that your silence gives consent. Now what 
 are spirits or demigods ? are they not either gods or 
 the sons of gods ? 
 
 Certainly they are. 
 
 But this is what I call the facetious riddle invented 
 
94 APOLOGY 
 
 by you : the demigods or spirits are gods, and you say 
 first that I do not believe in gods, and then again that 
 I do believe in gods ; that is, if I believe in demigods. 
 For if the demigods are the illegitimate sons of gods, 
 whether by the nymphs or by any other mothers, of 
 whom they are said to be the sons — what human being 
 will ever believe that there are no gods, if they are the 
 sons of gods ? You might as well affirm the existence 
 of mules, and deny that of horses and asses. Such 
 nonsense, Meletus, could only have been intended by 
 you to make trial of me. You have put this into the 
 indictment because you had nothing real of which to 
 accuse me. But no one who has a particle of under- 
 standing will ever be convinced by you that the same 
 men can believe in divine and superhuman things, 
 28 and yet not believe that there are gods and demigods 
 and heroes. 
 
 He will not alter his course from any fear of death. 
 
 I have said enough in answer to the charge of 
 Meletus : any elaborate defence is unnecessary ; but 
 I know only too well how many are the enmities 
 which I have incurred, and this is what will be my 
 destruction if I am destroyed; — not Meletus, nor yet 
 Anytus, but the envy and detraction of the world, 
 which has been the death of many good men, and will 
 probably be the death of many more ; there is no 
 danger of my being the last of them. 
 
 Some one will say: And are you not ashamed, 
 Socrates, of a course of life which is likely to bring 
 j^ou to an untimely end ? To him I may fairly answer : 
 There you are mistaken : a man who is good for any- 
 thing ought not to calculate the chance of living or 
 dying ; he ought only to consider whether in doing 
 
DEATH BETTER THAN DISHONOUR 95 
 
 anything he is doing right or wrong — acting the part 
 of a good man or of a bad. Whereas, upon your view, j 
 the heroes who fell at Troy were not good for much, 
 and the son of Thetis above all, who altogether 
 despised danger in comparison with disgrace; and 
 when he was so eager to slay Hector, his goddess 
 mother said to him, that if he avenged his companion 
 Patroclus, and slew Hector, he would die himself — 
 'Fate,' she said, in these or the like words, 'waits for 
 you next after Hector;* he, receiving this warning, 
 utterly despised danger and death, and instead of 
 fearing them, feared rather to live in dishonour, and 
 not to avenge his friend. ' Let me die forthwith,' he 
 replies, ' and be avenged of my enemy, rather than 
 abide here by the beaked ships, a laughing-stock and 
 a burden of the earth.' Had Achilles any thought 
 of death and danger ? For wherever a man's place 
 is, whether the place which he has chosen or that .in 
 which he has been placed by a commander, there he 
 ought to remain in the hour of danger ; he should not 
 think of death or of anything but of disgrace. And 
 this, O men of Athens, is a true saying. 
 
 Strange, indeed, would be my conduct, O men of 
 Athens, if I who, when I was ordered by the generals 
 whom you chose to command me at Potidaea and 
 Amphipolis and Delium, remained where they placed 
 me, like any other man, facing death — if now, when, 
 as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfil the 
 philosopher's mission of searching into myself and 
 other men, I were to desert my post through fear of 29. 
 death, or any other fear ; that would indeed be strange, 
 and I might justly be arraigned in court for denying 
 the existence of the gods, if I disobeyed the oracle be- 
 cause I was afraid of death, fancying that I was wise 
 when I was not wise. For the fear of death is indeed the 
 
96 APOLOGY 
 
 pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pre- 
 tence of knowing the unknown ; and no one knows 
 whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to 
 be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. 
 Is not this ignorance of a disgraceful sort, the ignorance 
 which is the conceit that a man knows what he does 
 not know? And in this respect only I believe myself 
 to differ from men in general, and may perhaps claim 
 
 _ to be wiser than they are : — that whereas I know but 
 little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know : 
 but I do know that injustice and disobedience to a 
 better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonourable, 
 and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather 
 than a certain evil. 
 
 , And therefore if you let me go now, and are not 
 convinced by Anytus, who said that since I had been 
 prosecuted I must be put to death; (or if not, that 
 I ought never to have been prosecuted at all) ; and that 
 if I escape now, your sons will all be utterly ruined 
 by listening to my words — if you say to me, Socrates, 
 this time we will not mind Anytus, and you shall be 
 let off, but upon one condition, that you are not to 
 enquire and speculate in this way any more, and that 
 if you are caught doing so again you shall die; — if 
 this was the condition on which you let me go, I should 
 reply : — Men of Athens, I honour and love you ; but 
 I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have 
 life and strength I shall never cease from the practice 
 and teaching of philosophy, exhorting any one whom 
 I meet and saying to him after my manner : — You, my 
 friend, — a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city 
 of Athens, — are you not ashamed of heaping up the 
 greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, 
 and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the 
 greatest improvement of the soul, which you never 
 
THE REAL TEACHING OF SOCRATES 97 
 
 regard or heed at all ? And if the person with whom 
 I am arguing, says : Yes, but I do care ; then I do not 
 leave him or let him go at once; but I proceed to 
 interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and 
 if I think that he has no virtue in him, but only says 
 that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the 
 greater, and overvaluing the less. 
 
 And I shall repeat the same words to every one 3° 
 whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but 
 especially to the citizens, inasmuch as they are my 
 brethren. For know that this is the command of God ; 
 and I believe that no greater good has ever happened 
 in the state than my service to the God. For I do 
 nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young 
 alike, not to take thought for your persons or your 
 ppperties, but first and chiefly ^o care about the 
 gt;eatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that 
 virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue 
 comes money and every other good of man, public as 
 well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the 
 doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous i 
 person. But if any one says that this is not my 
 teaching, he is speaking an untruth. Wherefore, 
 O men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anytus bids 
 or not as Anytus bids, and either acquit me or not; 
 but whichever you do, understand that I shall never 
 alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times. 
 
 His life has been disinterested and free from 
 reproach. 
 
 Men of Athens, do not interrupt, but hear me ; there 
 was an understanding between us that you should hear 
 me to the end : I have something more to say, at 
 which you may be inclined to cry out ; but I believe 
 that to hear me will be good for you, and therefore 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
98 APOLOGY 
 
 I beg that you will not cry out. I would have you 
 know, that if you kill such an one as I am, you will 
 injure yourselves more than you will injure me. 
 Nothing will injure me, not Meletus nor yet Anytus 
 — they cannot, for a bad man is not permitted to injure 
 a better than himself. I do not deny that Anytus may, 
 perhaps, kill him, or drive him into exile, or deprive 
 him of civil rights ; and he may imagine, and others 
 may imagine, that he is inflicting a great injury upon 
 him : but there I do not agree. For the evil of doing 
 as he is doing — the evil of unjustly taking away the life 
 of another — is greater far. 
 
 And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my 
 own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you 
 may not sin against the God by condemning me, who 
 am his gift to you. For if you kill me you will not 
 easily find a successor to me, who, if I may use such 
 a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, 
 given to the state by God ; and the state is a great and 
 noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his 
 very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am 
 31 that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and 
 all day long and in all places am always fastening 
 upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching 
 you. You will not easily find another like me, and 
 therefore I would advise you to spare me. I dare say 
 that you may feel out of temper (like a person who 
 is suddenly awakened from sleep), and you think that 
 you might easily strike me dead as Anytus advises, 
 and then you would sleep on for the remainder of your 
 lives, unless God in his care of you sent you another 
 gadfly. 
 
 When I say that I am given to you by God, the 
 proof of my mission is this : — if I had been like other 
 men, I should not have neglected all my own concerns 
 
WHY SOCRATES LED A PRIVATE LIFE 99 
 
 or patiently seen the neglect of them during all these 
 years, and have been doing yours, coming to you 
 individually like a father or elder brother, exhorting 
 you to regard virtue ; such conduct, I say, would be 
 unlike human nature. If I had gained anything, or if 
 my exhortations had been paid, there would have been 
 some sense in my doing so ; but now, as you will 
 perceive, not even the impudence of my accusers dares 
 to say that I have ever exacted or sought pay of 
 any one ; of that they have no witness. And I have 
 a sufficient witness to the truth of what I say — my 
 poverty. 
 
 Some one may wonder why I go about in private 
 giving advice and busying myself with the concerns of 
 others, but do not venture to come forward in public 
 and advise the state. I will tell you why. You have 
 heard me speak at sundry times and in divers places of 
 an oracle or sign which comes to me, and is the divinity 
 which Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This sign, 
 which is a kind of voice, first began to come to me when 
 I was a child ; it always forbid^ but never commands 
 me to do anything which I am going to do. This is 
 what deters me from being a politician. And rightly, 
 as I think. For I am certain, O men of Athens, that 
 if I had engaged in politics, I should have perished 
 long ago, and done no good either to you or to myself. 
 And do not be offended at my telling you the truth : for 
 the truth is, that no man who goes to war with you or 
 any other multitude, honestly striving against the many 
 lawless and unrighteous deeds which are done in 
 a state, will save his life ; he who will fight for the 33 
 right, if he would live even for a brief space, must 
 have a private station and not a public one. 
 
 I can give you convincing evidence of what I say, 
 not words only, but what you value far more — actions. 
 
 H 2 
 
lOO APOLOGY 
 
 Let me relate to you a passage of my own life which" will 
 prove to you that I should never have yielded to in- 
 justice from any fear of death, and that 'as I should 
 have refused to yield ' I must have died at once. I will 
 tell you a tale of the courts, not very interesting 
 perhaps, but nevertheless true. The only office of 
 state which I ever held, O men of Athens, was that of 
 senator : the tribe Antiochis, which is my tribe, had 
 the presidency at the trial of the generals who had not 
 taken up the bodies of the slain after the battle of 
 Arginusae ; and you proposed to try them in a body, 
 contrary to law, as you all thought afterwards ; but at 
 the time I was the only one of the Prytanes who was 
 opposed to the illegality, and I gave my vote against 
 you ; and when the orators threatened to impeach 
 and arrest me, and you called and shouted, I made 
 up my mind that I would run the risk, having law 
 and justice with me, rather than take part in your 
 injustice because I feared imprisonment and death. 
 This happened in the days of the democracy. But 
 when the oligarchy of the Thirty was in power, they 
 sent for me and four others into the rotunda, and bade 
 us bring Leon the Salaminian from Salamis, as they 
 wanted to put him to death. This was a specimen of 
 the sort of commands which they were always giving 
 with the view of implicating as many as possible in 
 their crimes ; and then I showed, not in word only 
 but in deed, that, if I may be allowed to use such an 
 expression, I cared not a straw for death, and that my 
 great and only care was lest I should do an unrighteous 
 or unholy thing. For the strong arm of that oppressive 
 power, did not frighten me into doing wrong ; and when 
 we came out of the rotunda the other four went to 
 Salamis and fetched Leon, but I went quietly home. 
 For which I might have lost my life, had not the power 
 
SOCRATES HAS NEVER HAD DTSCIPLES loi 
 
 of the Thirty shortly afterwards come to an end. And 
 many will witness to my words. 
 
 Now do you really imagine that I could have sur- 
 (vived all these years, if I had led a public life, 
 supposing that like a good man I had always main- 
 tained the right and had made justice, as I ought, the 
 first thing ? No indeed, men of Athens, neither I nor 
 any other man. But I have been always the same 33 
 in all my actions, public as well as private, and never 
 have I yielded any base compliance to those who are 
 slanderously termed my disciples, or to any other. Not 
 that I have any regular disciples. But if any one likes 
 to come and hear me while I am pursuing my mission, 
 whether he be young or old, he is not excluded. Nor 
 do I converse only with those who pay; but any one, 
 whether he be rich or poor, may ask and answer me 
 and listen to my words ; and whether he turns out to 
 be a bad man or a good one, neither result can be 
 justly imputed to me ; for I never taught or professed 
 to teach him anything. And if any one says that he 
 has ever learned or heard anything from me in private 
 which all the world has not heard, let me tell you that 
 he is lying. 
 
 But I shall be asked, Why do people delight in 
 continually conversing with you ? I have told you 
 already, Athenians, the whole truth about this matter : 
 they like to hear the cross-examination of the pre- 
 tenders to wisdom ; there is amusement in it. Now 
 this duty of cross-examining other men has been 
 imposed upon me by God ; and has been signified to 
 me by oracles, visions, and in every way in which the 
 will of divine power was ever intimated to any one. 
 This is true, O Athenians ; or, if not true, would be 
 soon refuted. If I am or have been corrupting the 
 youth, those of them who are now grown up and have 
 
 L 
 
I02 APOLOGY 
 
 become sensible that I gave them bad advice in the 
 days of their youth should come forward as accusers, and 
 take their revenge ; or if they do not like to come them- 
 selves, some of their relatives, fathers, brothers, or 
 other kinsmen, should say what evil their families have 
 suffered at my hands. Now is their time. Many of 
 them I see in the court. There is Crito, who is of the 
 same age and of the same deme with myself, and there 
 is Critobulus his son, whom I also see. Then again 
 there is Lysanias of Sphettus, who is the father of 
 Aeschines — he is present ; and also there is Antiphon 
 of Cephisus, who is the father of Epigenes ; and there 
 are the brothers of several who have associated with 
 me. There is Nicostratus the son of Theosdotides, 
 and the brother of Theodotus (now Theodotus himself 
 is dead, and therefore he, at any rate, will not seek to 
 stop him) ; and there is Paralus the son of Demodo-- 
 34 cus, who had a brother Theages ; and Adeimantus the 
 son of Ariston, whose brother Plato is present; and 
 Aeantodorus, who is the brother of ApoUodorus, whom 
 I also see. I might mention a great many others, 
 some of whom Meletus should have produced as wit- 
 nesses in the course of his speech ; and let him still 
 produce them, if he has forgotten — I will make way 
 for him. And let him say, if he has any testimony of 
 the sort which he can produce. Nay, Athenians, the 
 very opposite is the truth. For all these are ready to 
 witness on behalf of the corrupter, of the injurer of 
 their kindred, as Meletus and Anytus call me ; not the 
 corrupted youth only — there might have been a motive 
 for that — but their uncorrupted elder relatives. Why 
 should they too support me with their testimony? 
 Why, indeed, except for the sake of truth and justice, 
 and because they know that I am speaking the truth, 
 and that Meletus is a Har. 
 
THE NOBLE DISDAIN OF SOCRATES 103 
 
 He will not appeal to the pity of his judges. 
 
 Well, Athenians, this and the like of this is all the 
 defence which I have to offer. Yet a word more. 
 Perhaps there may be some one who is offended at 
 me, when he calls to mind how he himself on a similar, 
 or even a less serious occasion, prayed and entreated 
 the judges with many tears, and how he produced 
 his children in court, which was a moving spectacle, 
 together with a host of relations and friends ; whereas 
 I, who am probably in danger of my life, will do none 
 of these things. The contrast may occur to his mind, 
 and he may be set against me, and vote in anger 
 because he is displeased at me on this account. Now 
 if there be such a person among you, — ^mind, I do not 
 say that there is, — to him I may fairly reply: My 
 friend, I am a man, and like other men, a creature 
 of flesh and blood, and not 'of wood or stone,' as 
 Homer says; and I have a family, yes, and sons, O 
 Athenians, three in number, one almost a man, and two 
 others who are still young ; and yet I will not bring 
 any of them hither in order to petition you for an 
 acquittal. 
 
 And why not? Not from any self-assertion or want 
 of respect for you. Whether I am or am not afraid of 
 death is another question, of which I will not now 
 speak. But, having regard to public opinion, I feel 
 that such conduct would be discreditable to myself, and 
 to you, and to the whole state. One who has reached 
 my years, and who has a name for wisdom, ought not 
 to demean himself. Whether this opinion of me be 
 deserved or not, at any rate the world has decided that 
 Socrates is in some way superior to other men. And 35 
 if those among you who are said to be superior in 
 
I04 APOLOGY 
 
 wisdom and courage, and any other virtue, demean 
 themselves in this way, how shameful is their conduct ! 
 I have seen men of reputation, when they have been 
 condemned, behaving in the strangest manner: they 
 seemed to fancy that they were going to suffer some- 
 thing dreadful if they died, and that they could be 
 immortal if you only allowed them to live; and I think 
 that such are a dishonour to the state, and that any 
 stranger coming in would have said of them that the 
 most eminent men of Athens, to whom the Athenians 
 themselves give honour and command, are no better 
 than women. And I say that these things ought not 
 to be done by those of us who have a reputation ; and 
 if they are done, you ought not to permit them ; you 
 ought rather to show that you are far more disposed to 
 condemn the man who gets up a doleful scene and 
 makes the city ridiculous, than him who holds his 
 peace. 
 
 But, setting aside the question of public opinion, 
 there seems to be something wrong in asking a favour 
 of a judge, and thus procuring an acquittal, instead of 
 informing and convincing him. For his duty is, not to 
 make a present of justice, but to give judgment; and 
 he has sworn that he will judge according to the laws, 
 and not according to his own good pleasure ; and we 
 ought not to encourage you, nor should you allow your- 
 selves to be encouraged, in this habit of perjury — there 
 can be no piety in that. Do not then require me to do 
 what I consider dishonourable and impious and wrong, 
 especially now, when I am being tried for impiety on 
 the indictment of Meletus. For if, O men of Athens, 
 by force of persuasion and entreaty I could overpower 
 your oaths, then I should be teaching you to believe 
 that there are no gods, and in defending should simply 
 convict myself of the charge of not believing in them. 
 
WHAT SHALL BE DONE TO SOCRATES? 105 
 
 But that is not so— far otherwise. For I do believe 
 that there are gods, and in a sense higher than that in 
 which any of my accusers believe in them. And to you 
 and to God I commit my cause, to be determined by 
 you as is best for you and me. 
 
 [//e is convicted^ 
 
 He proposes as his penalty,— maintenance in the 
 Prytaneiim. 
 
 There are many reasons why I am not grieved, O 
 men of Athens, at the vote of condemnation. I expected 36 
 it, and am only surprised that the votes are so nearly 
 equal ; for I had thought that the majority against me 
 would have been far larger ; but now, had thirty votes 
 gone over to the other side, I should have been ac- 
 quitted. And I may say, I think, that I have escaped 
 Meletus. I may say more; for without the assistance 
 of Anytus and Lycon, any one may see that he would 
 not have had a fifth part of the votes, as the law 
 requires, in which case he would have incurred a fine 
 of a thousand drachmae. 
 
 And so he proposes death as the penalty. And what 
 shall I propose on my part, O men of Athens ? Clearly 
 that which- is my due. And what is my due ? What 
 return shall be made to the man who has never had 
 the wit to be idle during his whole life; but has 
 been careless of what the many care for — wealth, and 
 family interests, and military offices, and speaking in 
 the assembly, and magistracies, and plots, and parties. 
 Reflecting that I was really too honest a man to be 
 a politician and live, I did not go where I could do 
 no good to you or to myself; but where I could 
 do the greatest good privately to every one of you, 
 
I06 APOLOGY 
 
 thither I went, and sought to persuade every man 
 among you that he must look to himself) and seek 
 virtue and w^isdom before he looks to his private in- 
 terests, and look to the state before he looks to the 
 interests of the state; and that this should be the order 
 which he observes in all his actions. What shall be 
 done to such an one? Doubtless some good thing, 
 
 men of Athens, if he has his reward ; and the good 
 should be of a kind suitable to him. What would be 
 a reward suitable to a poor man who is your benefactor, 
 and who desires leisure that he may instruct you ? 
 There can be no reward so fitting as maintenance in 
 the Prytaneum, O men of Athens, a reward which he 
 deserves far more than the citizen who has won the 
 prize at Olympia in the horse or chariot race, whether 
 the chariots were drawn by two horses or by many. 
 For I am in want, and he has enough ; and he only 
 gives you the appearance of happiness, and I give you 
 the reality. And if I am to estimate the penalty fairly, 
 
 37 I should say that maintenance in the Prytaneum is the 
 just return. 
 
 Perhaps you think that I am braving you in what 
 
 1 am saying now, as in what I said before about the 
 tears and prayers. But this is not so., I speak rather be- 
 cause I am convinced that I never intentionally wronged 
 any one, although I cannot convince you — the time has 
 been too short; if there were a law at Athens, as there 
 is in other cities, that a capital cause should not be 
 decided in one day, then I believe that I should have 
 convinced you. But I cannot in a moment refute great 
 slanders ; and, as I am convinced that I never wronged 
 another, I will assuredly not wrong myself I will not 
 say of myself that I deserve any evil, or propose any 
 penalty. Why should I ? Because I am afraid of the 
 penalty of death which Meletus proposes ? When I do 
 
SOCRATES WILL NOT CHANGE HIS WAYS 107 
 
 not know whether death is a good or an evil, why 
 should I propose a penalty which would certainly be 
 an evil ? Shall I say imprisonment ? And why should 
 I live in prison, and be the slave of the magistrates 
 of the year— of the Eleven ? Or shall the penalty be 
 a fine, and imprisonment until the fine is paid ? There 
 is the same objection. I should have to lie in prison, 
 for money I have none, and cannot pay. And if I say 
 exile (and this may possibly be the penalty which you 
 will affix), I must indeed be blinded by the love of life, 
 if I am so irrational as to expect that when you, who 
 are my own citizens, cannot endure my discourses 
 and words, and have found them so grievous and 
 odious that you will have no more of them, others are 
 likely to endure me. No indeed, men of Athens, that 
 is not very likely. And what a life should I lead, at 
 my age, wandering from city to city, ever changing my 
 place of exile, and always being driven out ! For I am 
 quite sure that wherever I go, there, as here, the 
 young men will flock to me; and if I drive them 
 away, their elders will drive me out at their request ; 
 and if I let them come, their fathers and friends will 
 drive me out for their sakes. 
 
 Some one will say : Yes, Socrates, but cannot you 
 hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign 
 city, and no one will interfere with you ? Now I have 
 great difficulty in making you understand my answer 
 to this. For if I tell you that to do as you say would be 
 a disobedience to the God, and therefore that I cannot 
 hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious ; 
 and if I say again that daily to discourse about virtue, 38 
 and of those other things about which you hear me 
 examining myself and others, is the greatest good of 
 man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, 
 you are still less likely to believejne. Yet I say what 
 
I08 APOLOGY 
 
 is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to 
 persuade you. Also, I have never been accustomed to 
 think that I deserve to suffer any harm. Had I money 
 I might have estimated the offence at what I was able 
 to pay, and not have been much the worse. But I have 
 none, and therefore I must ask you to proportion the 
 fine to my means. Well, perhaps I could afford a mina, 
 and therefore I propose that penalty : Plato, Crito, 
 Critobulus, and ApoUodorus, my friends here, bid me 
 say thirty minae, and they will be the sureties. Let 
 thirty minae be the penalty ; for which sum they will 
 be ample security to you. 
 
 \He is condemned to deathl\ 
 
 His last words to his enemies. 
 
 Not much time will be gained, O Athenians, in 
 return for the evil name which you will get from the de- 
 tractors of the city, who will say that you killed Socrates, 
 a wise man ; for they will call me wise, even although 
 I am not wise, when they want to reproach you. If 
 you had waited a little while, your desire would have 
 been fulfilled in the course of nature. For I am far ad- 
 vanced in years, as you may perceive, and not far from 
 death. I am speaking now not to all of you, but only to 
 those who have condemned me to death. And I have 
 another thing to say to them : You think that I was 
 convicted because I had no words of the sort which 
 would have procured my acquittal — I mean, if I had 
 thought fit to leave nothing undone or unsaid. Not so ; 
 the deficiency which led to my conviction was not of 
 words — certainly not. But I had not the boldness or 
 impudence or inclination to address you as you would 
 have liked me to do, weeping and wailing and lament- 
 ing, and saying and doing many things which you have 
 
THE PROPHECY OF SOCRATES 109 
 
 been accustomed to hear from others, and which, as 
 I maintain, are unworthy of me. I thought at the time 
 that I ought not to do anything common or mean when 
 in dangerj_ nor do I now repent of the style of my 
 defence; \I would rather die having spoken after my 
 manner, than speak in your manner and liveAj For 
 neither in war nor yet at law ought I or any man to use 
 every way of escaping death. Often in battle there can 39 
 be no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, 
 and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may- 
 escape death; and in other dangers there are other 
 ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and 
 do anything. 
 
 The difficulty, my friends, is not to avoid death, but 
 to avoid unrighteousness; for that runs faster than 
 death. I am old and move slowly, and the slower 
 runner has overtaken me, and my accusers are keen 
 and quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteous- 
 ness, has overtaken them. And now I depart hence 
 condemned by you to suffer the penalty of death, — 
 they too go their ways condemned by the truth to suffer 
 the penalty of villainy and wrong ; and I must abide by 
 my award — let them abide by theirs. I suppose that 
 these things may, be regarded as fated, — and I think 
 that they are wellL 
 
 And now, O men who have condemned me, I would 
 fain prophesy to you ; for I am about to die, and in 
 the hour of death men are gifted with prophetic power. 
 And I prophesy to j'ou who are my murderers, that 
 immediately after my departure punishment far heavier 
 than you have inflicted on me will surely await you. 
 Me you have killed because you wanted to escape 
 the accuser, and not to give an account of your 
 lives. But that . will not be as you suppose : far 
 otherwise. For I say that there will be more accusers 
 
no APOLOGY 
 
 of you than there are now ; accusers whom hitherto 
 I have restrained : and as they are younger they 
 will be more inconsiderate with you, and you will be 
 more offended at them. If you think that by killing 
 men you can prevent some one from censuring 
 your evil lives, you are mistaken ; that is not a way 
 of escape which is either possible or honourable ; the 
 easiest and the noblest way is not to be disabling 
 others, but to be improving yourselves. This is the 
 prophecy which I utter before my departure to i the 
 judges who have condemned me. 
 
 He comforts his friends by the reflection that death 
 may be a gain to the good man. 
 
 Friends, who would have acquitted me, I would like 
 also to talk with you about the thing which has come to 
 pass, while the magistrates are busy, and before I go 
 to the place at which I must die. Stay then a little, 
 for we may as well talk with one another while there 
 40 is time. You are my friends, and I should like to show 
 you the meaning of this event which has happened to 
 me. O my judges — for you I may truly call judges — 
 I should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. 
 Hitherto the divine faculty of which the internal oracle 
 is the source has constantly been in the habit of 
 opposing me even about trifles, if I was going to make 
 a slip or error in any matter ; and now as you see 
 there has come upon me that which may be thought, 
 and is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. 
 But the oracle made no sign of opposition, either when 
 I was leaving my house in the morning, or when I was 
 on my way to the court, or while I was speaking, at 
 anything which I was going to say ; and yet I have 
 often been stopped in the middle of a speech, but now 
 
DEATH MAY BE A BOON III 
 
 in nothing I either said or did touching the matter in 
 hand has the oracle opposed me. What do I take to be 
 the explanation of this silence ? I will tell you. It is 
 an intimation that what has happened to me is a good, 
 and that those of us who think that death is an evil are 
 in error. For the customary sign would surely have 
 opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good. 
 
 Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that 
 there is great reason to hope that death is a good ; for 
 one of two things — either death is a state of nothing- 
 ness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there 
 is a change and migration of the soul from this w^orld 
 to another. Now if you suppose that there is no 
 consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is 
 undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeak- 
 able gain. For if a person were to select the night in 
 which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and 
 were to compare with this the other days and nights 
 of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and 
 nights he had passed in the course of his Hfe better 
 and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any 
 man, I will not say a private man, but even the great 
 king, will not find many such days or nights, when 
 compared with the others. 
 
 Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die 
 is gain ; for eternity is then only a single night. But 
 if death is the journey to another place, and there, as 
 men say, all the dead abide, what good, O my friends 
 and judges, can be greater than this ? If indeed when 
 the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered 41 
 from the professors of justice in this world, and finds 
 the true judges who are said to give judgment there, 
 Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus, 
 and other sons of God who were righteous in their own 
 life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What 
 
112 APOLOGY 
 
 would not a man give if he might converse with 
 Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, 
 if this be true, let me die again and again. 1 myself, 
 too, shall have a wonderful interest in there meeting 
 and conversing with Palamedes, and Ajax the son of 
 Telamon, and any other ancient hero who has suffered 
 death through an unjust judgment; and there will be 
 no small pleasure, as I think, in comparing my own 
 sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall then be able 
 to continue my search into true and false knowledge ; 
 as in this world, so also in the next ; and I shall find 
 out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and 
 is not. What would not a man give, O judges, to 
 be able to examine the leader of the great Trojan 
 expedition ; or Odysseus, or Sisyphus, or numberless 
 others, men and women too ! What infinite delight 
 would there be in conversing with them and asking 
 them questions ! In another world they do not put 
 a man to death for asking questions : assuredly not. 
 For besides being happier than we are, they will be 
 immortal, if what is said is true. 
 
 Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, 
 and know of a certainty, that no evil can happen to 
 a good man, either in life or after death. He and 
 his are not neglected by the gods ; nor has my own 
 approaching end happened by mere chance. But 
 I see clearly that the time had arrived when it was 
 better for me to die and be released from trouble ; 
 wherefore the oracle gave no sign. For which reason, 
 also, I am not angry with my condemners, or with 
 my accusers ; they have done me no harm, although 
 they did not mean to do me any good; and for this 
 I may gently blame them. 
 
 Still I have a favour to ask of them. When my sons 
 are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to 
 
THE LAST WORD TO THE JUDGES 113 
 
 punish them ; and I would have you trouble them, 
 as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about 
 riches, or anything, more than about virtue ; or if they 
 pretend to be something when they are really nothing, 
 — then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not 
 caring about that for which they ought to care, and 
 thinking that they are something when they are really 
 nothing. And if you do this, both I and my sons will 42 
 have received justice at your hands. 
 
 The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our 
 ways — I to die, and you to live. Which is better God 
 only knows. 
 
 CRITO, 
 Or Socrates in Prison 
 
 In the Crito Socrates appears in a gentler mood than he has shown 
 in the Apology. The end is approaching : the vision has warned 
 him that ' on the third day hence he must depart,' and he is now 
 calmly awaiting death. The arguments and entreaties of his aged 
 friend have no weight with him ; for he hears above them the voice of 
 duty bidding him remain at the post where God has stationed him. 
 And Crito himself is at last reluctantly and sorrowfully compelled 
 to acknowledge that Socrates is right, and that 'there is nothing 
 more to be said.* 
 
 The little dialogue is an excellent example of Plato's dramatic 
 power and literary skill. The characters of Socrates and Crito are 
 perfectly discriminated ; and even the Laws of Athens and their 
 brethren ' the Laws of the other world ' seem to pass out of the 
 realm of shadows and assume a living shape before our eyes. 
 The whole scene is conceived, not according to the spirit of modern 
 realism, but, as Greek art required, in a manner which softens and 
 keeps out of sight the less pleasing details. The horrors of the 
 prison are not dwelt upon, or the sufferings of Socrates ; these are 
 set in the background, or are only lightly suggested in order to 
 throw into brighter relief the cheerfulness and resignation with 
 which he bears his fate. 
 
 Socrates. Why have you come at this hour, Crito ? it Staph 
 must be quite early ? •♦3 
 
114 CRITO 
 
 Crito. Yes, certainly. 
 
 Soc. What is the exact time ? 
 
 Cr. The dawn is breaking. 
 
 Soc. I wonder that the keeper of the prison would let 
 you in. 
 
 Cr. He knows me, because I often come, Socrates ; 
 moreover, I have done him a kindness. 
 
 Soc. And are you only just arrived ? 
 
 Cr. No, I came some time ago. 
 
 Soc. Then why did you sit and say nothing, instead 
 of at once awakening me ? 
 
 Cr. I should not have liked myself, Socrates, to be 
 in such great trouble and unrest as you are — indeed 
 I should not : I have been watching with amazement 
 your peaceful slumbers ; and for that reason I did not 
 awake you, because I wished to minimize the pain. 
 I have always thought you to be of a happy disposition ; 
 but never did I see anything like the easy, tranquil 
 manner in which you bear this calamity. 
 
 Soc. Why, Crito, when a man has reached my age he 
 ought not to be repining at the approach of death. 
 
 Cr. And yet other old men find themselves in similar 
 misfortunes, and age does not prevent them from 
 repining. 
 
 Soc. That is true. But you have not told me why 
 you come at this early hour. 
 
 Cr. I come to bring you a message which is sad and 
 painful ; not, as I believe, to yourself, but to all of us 
 who are your friends, and saddest of all to me. 
 
 Soc. What? Has the ship come from Delos\ on the 
 arrival of which I am to die ? 
 
 Cr. No, the ship has not actually arrived, but she 
 will probably be here to-day, as persons who have 
 
 ^ Cp. Phaedo 58. 
 
THE VISION OF SOCRATES 115 
 
 come from Sunium tell me that they left her there; 
 and therefore to-morrow, Socrates, will be the last day 
 of your life. 
 
 Soc. Very well, Crito ; if such is the will of God, 
 I am willing ; but my belief is that there will be a delay 
 of a day. 
 
 Cr. Why do you think so ? 4+ 
 
 Soc. I will tell you. I am to die on the day after the 
 arrival of the ship ? 
 
 Cr. Yes ; that is what the authorities say. 
 
 Soc. But I do not think that the ship will be here 
 until to-morrow ; this I infer from a vision which I had 
 last night, or rather only just now, when you fortunately 
 allowed me to sleep. 
 
 Cr. And what was the nature of the vision ? 
 
 Soc. There appeared to me the likeness of a woman, 
 fair and comely, clothed in bright raiment, who called 
 to me and said : O Socrates, 
 
 'The third day hence to fertile Phthia shalt thou go'.' 
 
 Cr. What a singular dream, Socrateo 
 
 Soc. There can be no doubt about the meaning, Crito, 
 I think. 
 
 Cr. Yes ; the meaning is only too clear. But, oh ! 
 my beloved Socrates, let me entreat you once more to 
 take my advice and escape. For if you die I shall not 
 only lose a friend who can never be replaced, but there 
 is another evil : people who do not know you and me 
 will believe that I might have saved you if I had been 
 willing to give money, but that I did not care. Now, 
 can there be a worse disgrace than this — that I should 
 be thought to value money more than the life of a friend ? 
 For the many will not be persuaded that I wanted you 
 to escape, and that you refused. 
 
 ' Homer, 11. ix. 363. 
 
Tl6 CRITO 
 
 Sod. But why, my dear Crito, should we care about 
 the opinion of the many? Good men, and they are the 
 only persons who are worth considering, will think of 
 these things truly as they occurred. 
 
 Cr. But you see, Socrates, that the opinion of the 
 many must be regarded, for what is now happening 
 shows that they can do the greatest evil to any one who 
 has lost their good opinion. 
 
 Soc. I only wish it were so, Crito ; and that the many 
 could do the greatest evil ; for then they would also be 
 able to do the greatest good — and what a fine thing this 
 would be ! But in reality they can do neither ; for they 
 cannot make a man either wise or foolish ; and whatever 
 they do is the result of chance. 
 
 Cr. Well, I will not dispute with you ; but please to 
 tell me, Socrates, whether you are not acting out of 
 regard to me and your other friends : are you not 
 afraid that if you escape from prison we may get into 
 trouble with the informers for having stolen you away, 
 45 and lose either the whole or a great part of our property; 
 or that even a worse evil may happen to us? Now, 
 if you fear on our account, be at ease ; for in order to 
 save you, we ought surely to run this, or even a greater 
 risk ; be persuaded, then, and do as I say. 
 
 Soc. Yes, Crito, that is one fear which you mention, 
 but by no means the only one. 
 
 Cr. Fear not— there are persons who are willing to 
 get you out of prison at no great cost ; and as for the 
 informers, they are far from being exorbitant in their 
 demands — a little money will satisfy them. My means, 
 which are certainly ample, are at your service, and 
 if you have a scruple about spending all mine, here are 
 strangers who will give you the use of theirs ; and one 
 of them, Simmias the Theban, has brought a large sum 
 of money for this very purpose ; and Cebes and many 
 
CRITO URGES SOCRATES TO ESCAPE 117 
 
 Others are prepared to spend their money in helping- 
 you to escape. I say, therefore, do not hesitate on our 
 account, and do not say, as you did in the court*, that 
 you will have a difficulty in knowing what to do with 
 yourself anywhere else. For men will love you in 
 other places to which you may go, and not in Athens 
 only; there are friends of mine in Thessaly, if you like 
 to go to them, who will value and protect you, and no 
 Thessalian will give you any trouble. 
 
 Nor can I think that you are at all justified, Socrates, 
 in betraying your own life when you might be saved ; 
 in acting thus you are playing into the hands of your 
 enemies, who are hurrying on your destruction. And 
 further I should say that you are deserting your own 
 children ; for you might bring them up and educate 
 them ; instead of which you go away and leave them,' 
 and they will have to take their chance ; and if they 
 do not meet with the usual fate of orphans, there will 
 be small thanks to you. No man should bring children 
 into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end 
 in their nurture and education. But you appear to be 
 choosing the easier part, not the better and manlier, 
 which would have been more becoming in one who 
 professes to care for virtue in all his actions, like 
 yourself. 
 
 And indeed, I am ashamed not only of you, but of us 
 who are your friends, when I reflect that the whole 
 business will be attributed entirely to our want of 
 courage. The trial need never have come on, or might 
 have been managed differently; and this last act, or 
 crowning folly, will seem to have occurred through our 
 negligence and cowardice, who might have saved you, 46 
 if we had been good for anything ; and you might have 
 saved yourself, for there was no difficulty at all. See 
 1 Cp. Apol. 37 C, D. 
 
Il8 CRITO 
 
 now, Socrates, how sad and discreditable are the con- 
 sequences, both to us and you. Make up your mind 
 then, or rather have your mind already made up, for 
 the time of deliberation is over, and there is only one 
 thing to be done, which must be done this very night, 
 and if we delay at all will be no longer practicable or 
 possible; I beseech you therefore, Socrates, be per- 
 suaded by me, and do as I say. 
 
 Soc. Dear Crito, your zeal is invaluable, if a right 
 one ; but if wrong, the greater the zeal the greater the 
 danger; and therefore we ought to consider whether 
 I shall or shall not do as you say. For I am and 
 always have been one of those natures who must be 
 guided by reason, whatever the reason may be which 
 upon reflection appears to me to be the best ; and now 
 that this chance has befallen me, I cannot repudiate 
 my own words : the principles which I have hitherto 
 honoured and revered I still honour, and unless we can 
 at once find other and better principles, I am certain 
 not to agree with you ; no, not even if the power of 
 the multitude could inflict many more imprisonments, 
 confiscations, deaths, frightening us like children with 
 hobgoblin terrors '. 
 
 What will be the fairest way of considering the 
 question ? Shall I return to your old argument about 
 the opinions of men? — we were saying that some of 
 them are to be regarded, and others not. Now were 
 we right in maintaining this before I was condemned ? 
 And has the argument which was once good now 
 proved to be talk for the sake of talking — mere childish 
 nonsense? That is what I want to consider with 
 your help, Crito: — whether, under my present cir- 
 cumstances, the argument appears to be in any way 
 different or not ; and is to be allowed by me or dis- 
 ' Cp. Apol. 30 C. 
 
THE REPLY OF SOCRATES 119 
 
 allowed. That argument, which, as I believe, is 
 maintained by many persons of authority, was to the 
 effect, as I was saying, that the opinions of some men 
 are to be regarded, and of other men not to be 
 regarded. Now you, Crito, are not going to die to- 47 
 morrow — at least, there is no human probability of 
 this — and therefore you are disinterested and not liable 
 to be deceived by the circumstances in which you are 
 placed. Tell me then, whether I am right in saying 
 that some opinions, and the opinions of some men 
 only, are to be valued, and that other opinions, and 
 the opinions of other men, are not to be valued. 
 I ask you whether I was right in maintaining this? 
 
 Cr. Certainly. 
 
 Soc. The good are to be regarded, and not the bad ? 
 
 Cr. Yes. 
 
 Soc. And the opinions of the wise are good, and the 
 opinions of the unwise are evil ? 
 
 Cr. Certainly. 
 
 Soc. And what was said about another matter ? 
 Is the pupil who devotes himself to the practice of 
 g3nTinastics supposed to attend to the praise and blame 
 and opinion of every man, or of one man only— his 
 physician or trainer, whoever he may be ? 
 
 Cr. Of one man only. 
 
 Soc. And he ought to fear the censure and welcome 
 the praise of that one only, and not of the many? 
 
 Cr. Clearly so. 
 
 Soc. And he ought to act and train, and eat and 
 drink in the way which seems good to his single 
 master who has understanding, rather than according 
 to the opinion of all. other men put together? 
 
 Cr. True. 
 
 Soc. And if he disobeys and disregards the opinion 
 and approval of the one, and regards the opinion of 
 
I20 CRITO 
 
 the many who have no understanding, will he not 
 suffer evil ? 
 
 Cr. Certainly he will. 
 
 Soc. And what will the evil be, whither tending and 
 what affecting, in the disobedient person ? 
 
 Cr. Clearly, affecting the body ; that is what is 
 destroyed by the evil. 
 
 Soc. Very good ; and is not this true, Crito, of other 
 things which we need not separately enumerate ? In 
 questions of just and unjust, fair and foul, good and 
 evil, which are the subjects of our present consultation, 
 ought we to follow the opinion of the many and to 
 fear them ; or the opinion of the one man who has 
 understanding? ought we not to fear and reverence 
 him more than all the rest of the world : and if wi> 
 desert him shall we not destroy and injure that prin- 
 ciple in us which may be assumed to be improved 
 by justice and deteriorated by injustice; — there is such 
 a principle ? 
 
 Cr. Certainly there is, Socrates. 
 
 Soc. Take a parallel instance : — if, acting under the 
 advice of those who have no understanding, we destroy 
 that which is improved by health and is deteriorated 
 by disease, would life be worth having? And that 
 which has been destroyed is — the body ? 
 
 Cr. Yes. 
 
 Soc. Could we live, having an evil and corrupted 
 body? 
 
 Cr. Certainly not. 
 
 Soc. And will life be worth having, if that higher 
 part of man be destroyed, which is improved by justice 
 and depraved by injustice? Do we suppose that 
 48 principle, whatever it may be in man, which has to 
 do with justice and injustice, to be inferior to the 
 body? 
 
PVE MUST NOT FOLLOW THE MULTITUDE 121 
 
 Cr. Certainly not. 
 
 Soc. More honourable than the body? 
 
 Cr. Far more. 
 
 Soc. Then, my friend, we must not regard what the 
 many say of us : but what he, the- one man who has 
 understanding of just and unjust, will say, and what 
 the truth will say. And therefore you begin in error 
 when you advise that we should regard the opinion 
 of the many about just and unjust, good and evil, 
 honourable and dishonourable. — 'Well,' some one will 
 say, ' but the many can kill us.' 
 
 Cr. Yes, Socrates ; that will clearly be the answer. 
 
 Soc. And it is true : but still I find with surprise 
 that the old argument is unshaken as ever. And 
 I should like to know whether I may say the same 
 of another proposition— that not life, but a good life, 
 is to be chiefly valued ? 
 
 Cr. Yes, that also remains unshaken. 
 
 Soc. And a good life is equivalent to a just and 
 honourable one — that holds also ? 
 
 Cr. Yes, it does. 
 
 Soc. From these premisses I proceed to argue the 
 question whether I ought or ought not to try and 
 escape without the consent of the Athenians : and 
 if I am clearly right in escaping, then I will make 
 the attempt ; but if not, I will abstain. The other 
 considerations which you mention, of money and loss 
 of character and the duty of educating one's children, 
 are, I fear, only the doctrines of the multitude, who 
 would be as ready to restore people to life, if they were 
 able, as they are to put them to death — and with as 
 little reason. But now, since the argument has thus 
 far prevailed, the only question which remains to be 
 considered is, whether we shall do rightly either in 
 escaping or in suffering others to aid in our escape 
 
122 CRITO 
 
 and paying them in money and thanks, or whether 
 in reality we shall not do rightly ; and if the latter, 
 then death or any other calamity which may ensue 
 on my remaining here must not be allowed to enter 
 into the calculation. 
 
 Cr. I think that you are right, Socrates ; how then 
 shall we proceed ? 
 
 Soc. Let us consider the matter together, and do you 
 either refute me if you can, and I will be convinced ; 
 or else cease, my dear friend, from repeating to me 
 that I ought to escape against the wishes of the 
 Athenians : for I highly value your attempts to 
 persuade me to do so, but I may not be persuaded 
 against my own better judgment. And now please 
 49 to consider my first position, and try how you can best 
 answer me. 
 
 Cr. I will. 
 
 Soc. Are we to say that we are never intentionally 
 to do wrong, or that in one way we ought and in 
 another way we ought not to do wrong, or is doing 
 wrong always evil and dishonourable, as I was just 
 now saying, and as has been already acknowledged 
 by us? Are all our former admissions which were 
 made within a few days to be thrown away ? And have 
 we, at our age, been earnestly discoursing with one 
 another all our life long only to discover that we are 
 no better than children ? Or, in spite of the opinion 
 of the many, and in spite of consequences whether 
 better or worse, shall we insist on the truth of what 
 was then said, that injustice is always an evil and 
 dishonour to him who acts unjustly? Shall we say so 
 or not ? 
 
 Cr. Yes. 
 
 Soc. Then we must do no wrong ? 
 
 Cr. Certainly not. 
 
EVIL MUST NOT BE REPAID BY EVIL 123 
 
 I 
 Soc. Nor when injured injure in return, as the many 
 
 imagine ; for we must injure no one at all * ? 
 
 Cr. Clearly not. 
 
 Soc. Again, Crito, may we do evil ? 
 
 Cr. Surely not, Socrates. 
 
 Soc. And what of doing evil in return for evil, which 
 is the morality of the many — is that just or not ? 
 
 Cr. Not just. 
 
 Soc. For doing evil to another is the same as injuring 
 him ? 
 
 Cr. Very true. 
 
 Soc. Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil 
 for evil to any one, whatever evil we may have suffered 
 from him. But I would have you consider, Crito, 
 whether you really mean what you are saying. For 
 this opinion has never been held, and never will be 
 held, by any considerable number of persons; and 
 those who are agreed and those who are not agreed 
 upon this point have no common ground, and can only 
 despise one another when they see how widely they 
 differ. Tell me, then, whether you agree with and 
 assent to my first principle, that neither injury nor 
 retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right. 
 And shall that be the premiss of our argument ? Or 
 do you decline and dissent from this ? For do I have 
 ever thought, and continue to think ; but, if you are 
 of another opinion, let me hear what you have to say. 
 If, however, you remain of the same mind as formerly, 
 I will proceed to the next step. 
 
 Cr. You may proceed, for I have not changed my mind. 
 
 Soc. Then I will go on to the next point, which may 
 be put in the form of a question : — Ought a man to do 
 what he admits to be right, or ought he to betray the 
 right ? 
 
 ' e. g. cp. Rep. i. 335 E. 
 
124 CRITO 
 
 Cr. He ought to do what he thinks right. 
 
 Soc. But if this is true, what is the application ? In 
 50 leaving the prison against the will of the Athenians, do 
 I wrong any ? or rather do I not wrong those whom 
 I ought least to wrong ? Do I not desert the principles 
 which were acknowledged by us to be just — what do 
 you say ? 
 
 Cr. I cannot tell, Socrates ; for I do not know. 
 
 Soc. Then consider the matter in this way : — Imagine 
 that I am about to play truant (you may call the 
 proceeding by any name which you like), and the laws 
 and the government come and interrogate me : ' Tell 
 us, Socrates,' they say ; ' what are you about ? are you 
 not going by an act of yours to overturn us — the laws, 
 and the whole state, as far as in you lies? Do you 
 imagine that a state can subsist and not be overthrown, 
 in which the decisions of law have no power, but 
 are set aside and trampled upon by individuals?' 
 What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like 
 words? Any one, and especially a rhetorician, will 
 have a good deal to say on behalf of the law which 
 requires a sentence to be carried out. He will argue 
 that this law should not be set aside ; and shall we 
 reply, ' Yes ; but the state has injured us and given an 
 unjust sentence.' Suppose I say that ? 
 
 Cr. Very good, Socrates. 
 
 Soc. ' And was that our agreement with you ? ' the 
 law would answer ; ' or were you to abide by the 
 sentence of the state? ' And if I were to express my 
 astonishment at their words, the law would probably 
 add : ' Answer, Socrates, instead of opening your eyes 
 — you are in the habit of asking and answering questions. 
 Tell us, — What complaint have you to make against us 
 which justifies you in attempting to destroy us and the 
 state? In the first place did we not bring you into 
 
THE LAWS DEMAND TO BE HEARD 125 
 
 existence ? Your father married your mother by our 
 aid and begat you. Say whether you have any objection 
 to urge against those of us who regulate marriage ? ' 
 None, I should reply. ' Or against those of us who after 
 birth regulate the nurture and education of children, 
 in which you also were trained? Were not the laws, 
 which have the charge of education, right in command- 
 ing your father to train you in music and gymnastic ? ' 
 Right, I should reply. 
 
 'Well then, since you were brought into the world 
 and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the 
 first place that you are our child and slave, as your 
 fathers were before you ? And if this is true you are 
 not on equal terms with us ; nor can you think that you 
 have a right to do to us what we are doing to you. 
 Would you have any right to strike or revile or do any 
 other evil to your father or your master, if you had 
 one, because you have been struck or reviled by him'; 
 or received some other evil at his hands? — you would 
 not say this ? And because we think right to destroy 51 
 you, do you think that you have any right to destroy 
 us in return, and your country as far as in you lies? 
 Will you, O professor of true virtue, pretend that you 
 are justified in this? Has a philosopher like you failed 
 to discover that our country is more to be valued and 
 higher and holier far than mother or father or any 
 ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the 
 gods and of men of understanding ? also to be soothed, 
 and gently and reverently entreated when angry, even 
 more than a father, and either to be persuaded, or 
 if not persuaded, to be obeyed ? And when we are 
 punished by her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, 
 the punishment is to be endured in silence; and if she 
 lead us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as 
 is right ; neither may any one yield or retreat or leave 
 
126 CRITO 
 
 his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or 
 in any other place, he must do what his city and his 
 country order him ; or he must change their view 
 of what is just : and if he may do no violence to his 
 father or mother, much less may he do violence to his 
 country.' What answer shall we make to this, Crito ? 
 Do the laws speak truly, or do they not ? 
 
 Cr. I think that they do. 
 
 Soc. Then the laws will say : ' Consider, Socrates, 
 if we are speaking truly, that in your present attempt 
 you are going to do us an injury. For, having brought 
 you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, 
 and given you and every other citizen a share in every 
 good which we had to give, we further proclaim to 
 any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that 
 if he does not like us when he has become of age 
 and has seen the ways of the city, and made our 
 acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take 
 his goods with him. None of us laws will forbid him 
 or interfere with him. Any one who does not like 
 us and the city, and who wants to emigrate to a colony 
 or to any other city, may go where he likes, retaining 
 his property. But he who has experience of the manner 
 in which we order justice and administer the state, 
 and still remains, has entered into an implied contract 
 that he will do as we command him. And he who 
 disobeys us is, as we maintain, thrice wrong; first, 
 because in disobeying us he is disobeying his parents ; 
 secondly, because we are the authors of his education ; 
 thirdly, because he has made an agreement with us 
 52 that he will duly obey our commands ; and he neither 
 obeys them nor convinces us that our commands are 
 unjust; and we do not rudely impose them, but give 
 him the alternative of obeying or convincing us ; — that 
 is what we offer, and he does neither. 
 
THE LOVE OF SOCRATES FOR ATHENS I27 
 
 ' These are the sort of accusations to which, as we 
 were saying, you, Socrates, will be exposed if you 
 accomplish your intentions ; you, above all other 
 Athenians.' Suppose now I ask, why I rather than 
 anybody else? they will justly retort upon me that 
 I above all other men have acknowledged the agree- 
 ment. ' There is clear proof,' they will say, ' Socrates, 
 that we and the city were not displeasing to you. 
 Of all Athenians you have been the most constant 
 resident in the city, which, as you never leave, you 
 may be supposed to love'. For you never went out 
 of the city either to see the games, except once when 
 you went to the Isthmus, or to any other place unless 
 when you were on military service ; nor did you travel 
 as other men do. Nor had you any curiosity to know 
 other states or their laws : your affections did not 
 go beyond us and our state ; we were your special 
 favourites, and you acquiesced in our government of 
 you ; and here in this city you begat your children, 
 which is a proof of your satisfaction. Moreover, you 
 might in the course of the trial, if you had liked, have 
 fixed the penalty at banishment; the state which 
 refuses to let you go now would have let you go 
 then. But you pretended that you preferred death 
 to exile'', and that you were not unwilling to die. 
 And now you have forgotten these fine sentiments, 
 and pay no respect to us the laws, of whom you are 
 the destroyer ; and are doing what only a miserable 
 slave would do, running away and turning your back 
 upon the compacts and agreements which you rrjade 
 as a citizen. And first of all answer this very question : 
 Are we right in saying that you agreed to be governed 
 according to us in deed, and not in word only ? Is 
 
 ' Cp. Phaedr. 230 C. ' Cp. Apol. 37 D. 
 
128 CRITO 
 
 that true or not?' How shall we answer, Crito ? 
 Must we not assent ? 
 
 Cr, We cannot help it, Socrates. 
 Soc. Then will they not say : ' You, Socrates, are 
 breaking the covenants and agreements which you 
 made with us at your leisure, not in any haste or 
 under any compulsion or deception, but after you 
 have had seventy years to think of them, during 
 which time you were at liberty to leave the city, 
 if we were not to your mind, or if our covenants 
 appeared to you to be unfair. You had your choice, 
 and might have gone either to Lacedaemon or CretCy 
 both which states are often praised by you for their 
 good government, or to some other Hellenic or foreign 
 53 state. Whereas you, above all other Athenians, seemed 
 to be so fond of the state, or, in other words, of us 
 her laws (and who would care about a state which 
 has no laws ?), that you never stirred out of her ; the 
 halt, the blind, the maimed were not more stationary 
 in her than you were. And now you run away and 
 forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you 
 will take our advice ; do not make yourself ridiculous 
 by escaping out of the city. 
 
 ' For just consider, if you transgress and err in 
 this sort of way, what good will you do either to 
 yourself or to your friends? That your friends will 
 be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or 
 will lose their property, is tolerably certain; and you 
 yourself, if you fly to one of the neighbouring cities, 
 as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which 
 are well governed, will come to them as an enemy, 
 Socrates, and their government will be against you, 
 and all patriotic citizens will cast an evil eye upon 
 you as a subverter of the laws, and you will confirm 
 in the minds of the judges the justice of their own 
 
WHAT WILL SOCRATES GAIN BY FLIGHT ? 129 
 
 condemnation of you. For he who is a corrupter of 
 the laws is more than likely to be a corrupter of the 
 young and foolish portion of mankind. 
 
 'Will you then flee from well-ordered cities and 
 virtuous men ? and is existence worth having on these 
 terms? Or will you go to them without shame, and 
 talk to them, Socrates? And what will you say to 
 them ? What you say here about virtue and justice 
 and institutions and laws being the best things among 
 men? Would that be decent of you? Surely not. 
 But if you go away from well-governed states to Crito's 
 friends in Thessaly, where there is great disorder 
 and licence, they will be charmed to hear the tale 
 of your escape from prison, set off with ludicrous 
 particulars of the manner in which you were wrapped - 
 in a goatskin or some other disguise, and metamor- 
 phosed as the manner is of runaways; but will there 
 be no one to remind you that in your old age you 
 were not ashamed to violate the most sacred laws 
 from a miserable desire of a little more life ? Perhaps 
 not, if you keep them in a good temper ; but if they 
 are out of temper you will hear many degrading things ; 
 you will live, but how? — as the flatterer of all men, 
 and the servant of all men ; and doing what ? — eating 
 and drinking in Thessaly, having gone abroad in order 
 that you may get a dinner. And where will be your 
 fine sentiments about justice and virtue ? Say that 54 
 you wish to live for the sake of your children — you 
 want to bring them up and educate them — will you 
 take them into Thessaly and deprive them of Athenian 
 citizenship ? Is this the beneiit which you will confer 
 upon them ? Or are you under the impression that 
 they will be better cared for and educated here if 
 you are still alive, although absent from them ; for 
 your friends will take care of them? Do you fancy 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
130 CRITO 
 
 that if you are an inhabitant of Thessaly they will 
 take care of them, and if you are an inhabitant of the 
 other world that they will not take care of them ? Nay ; 
 but if they who call themselves friends are good for 
 anything, they will — to be sure they will. 
 
 ' Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought 
 you up. Think not of life and children first, and of 
 justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may 
 be justified before the princes of the world below. 
 For neither will you nor any that belong to you be 
 happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in 
 another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart 
 in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil ; a victim, 
 not of the laws but of men. But if you go forth, 
 returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking 
 the covenants and agreements which you have made 
 with us, and wronging . those whom you ought least 
 of all to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, 
 your country, and us, we shall be angry with you 
 while yoU' live, and our brethren, the laws in the 
 world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they 
 will know that you have done your best to destroy us. 
 Listen, then, to us and not to Crito.* 
 
 This, dear Crito, is the voice which I seem to hear 
 murmuring in my ears, like the sound of the flute in 
 the ears of the mystic ; that voice, I say, is humming 
 in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other. 
 And I know that anything more which you may say 
 will be vain. Yet speak, if you have anything to say. 
 
 Cr. I have nothing to say, Socrates. 
 
 Soc. Leave me then, Crito, to fulfil the will of God, 
 and to follow whither he leads. 
 
THE SOCRATIC CIRCLE 13 1 
 
 PHAEDO, 
 Or the last day of Socrates' life 
 
 1. Socrates in Prison. 
 
 We have already seen Socrates pleading in his own defence, and 
 after his condemnation refusing to attempt his escape from prison, 
 and now Plato introduces him, spending the last day of his life in 
 converse with a chosen circle of friends. Most of these appear in 
 other dialogues. Hermocrates is there, that 'unlucky brother' of 
 the rich Callias, who is conspicuous in the Cratylus ; Ctesippus and 
 Menexenus, the boy friends of the Lysis; ApoUodorus, 'the mad- 
 man,* with whom we have made acquaintance in the Symposium j 
 the aged Crito and his son Critobulus, whom we have met in the 
 Euthydemus and the Apology ; Aeschines, whose name also occurs 
 in the Apology, and who is reported to have composed several 
 dialogues ; Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynic school, who is not 
 mentioned elsewhere in the Platonic writings ; Epigenes, probably 
 the son of Antiphon of Cephisus (Apol. 33 E). Plato himself is said to 
 have been ill, and Cleombrotus and Aristippus to have been absent in 
 Aegina. 
 
 Phaedo, the narrator of the dialogue, although described as the 
 favourite disciple of Socrates, is one of the least known members of 
 the Socratic circle : — according to the very uncertain legend of his 
 life (Diog. Laert. 2. 31 \ he was a native of Elis. Five others are 
 also present, none of them natives of Athens : — Euclides and Terpsion, 
 from Megara, the former the founder of the Megarian school, the 
 latter only a name to us ; and three Thebans, Simmias and Cebes, 
 who bear the chief part in the ensuing discussion, and Phaedondes, 
 another unknown personality. 
 
 The story is supposed to be told by Phaedo to Echecrates of 
 Phlius, a small city in Northern Peloponnesus. This spot seems to 
 have been selected by Plato as the place of narration on account of 
 its insignificance and remoteness, which makes the ignorance of 
 Echecrates in regard to the circumstances of Socrates' death intelli- 
 gible and natural. 
 
 Echecrates. Were you yourself, Phaedo, in the prisons Steph. 
 with Socrates on the day when he drank the poison? 57 
 Phaedo. Yes, Echecrates, I was. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 PHAEDO 
 
 Ech. I should so like to hear about his death. 
 What did he say in his last hours? We were in- 
 formed that he died by taking poison, but no one 
 knew anything more; for no Phliasian ever goes to 
 Athens now, and it is a long time since any stranger 
 from Athens has found his way hither; so that we had 
 no clear account. 
 58 Phaed. Did you not hear of the proceedings at the 
 trial ? 
 
 Ech. Yes ; some one told us about the trial, and we 
 could not understand why, having been condemned, 
 he should have been put to death, not at the time, but 
 long afterwards. What was the reason of this ? 
 
 Phaed. An accident, Echecrates : the stern of the 
 ship which the Athenians send to Delos happened to 
 have been crowned on the day before he was tried. 
 
 Ech. What is this ship ? 
 
 Phaed. It is the ship in which, according to Athenian 
 tradition, Theseus went to Crete when he took with 
 him the fourteen youths, and was the saviour of them 
 and of himself. And they are said to have vowed to 
 Apollo at the time, that if they were saved they would 
 send a yearly mission to Delos. Now this custom 
 still continues, and the whole period of the voyage to 
 and from Delos, beginning when the priest of Apollo 
 crowns the stern of the ship, is a holy season, during 
 which the city is not allowed to be polluted by public 
 executions ; and when the vessel is detained by con- 
 trary winds, the time spent in going and returning is 
 very considerable. As I was saying, the ship was 
 crowned on the day before the trial, and this was 
 the reason why Socrates lay in prison and was not 
 put to death until long after he was condemned. 
 
 Ech. What was the manner of his death, Phaedo ? 
 What was said or done? And which of his friends 
 
THE COURAGE OF SOCRATES 133 
 
 were with him? Or did the authorities forbid them 
 to be present — so that he had no friends near him 
 when he died ? 
 
 Phaed. No ; there were several of them with him. 
 
 Ech. If you have nothing to do, I wish that you 
 would tell me what passed, as exactly as you can. 
 
 Phaed. I have nothing at all to do, and will try to 
 gratify your wish. To be reminded of Socrates is 
 always the greatest delight to me, whether I speak 
 myself or hear another speak of him. 
 
 Ech. You will have listeners who are of the same 
 mind with you, and I hope that you will be as exact 
 as you can. 
 
 Phaed. I had a singular feeling at being in his 
 company. For I could hardly believe that I was present 
 at the death of a friend, and therefore I did not pity 
 him, Echecrates ; he died so fearlessly, and his words 
 and bearing were so noble and gracious, that to me he 
 appeared blessed. I thought that in going to the other 
 world he could not be without a divine call, and that 59 
 he would be happy, if any man ever was, when he arrived 
 there ; and therefore I did not pity him as might have 
 seemed natural at such an hour. But I had not the 
 pleasure which I usually feel in philosophical discourse 
 (for philosophy was the theme of which we spoke). 
 I was pleased, but in the pleasure there was also 
 a strange admixture of pain ; for I reflected that he 
 was soon to die, and this double feeling was shared 
 by us all; we were laughing and weeping by turns, 
 especially the excitable Apollodorus— you know the 
 sort of man ? 
 
 Ech. Yes. 
 
 Phaed. He was quite beside himself; and I and all 
 of us were greatly moved. 
 
 Ech. Who were present ? 
 
134 PHAEDO 
 
 Phaed. Of native Athenians there were, besides 
 ApoUodorus, Critobulus and his father Crito, Her- 
 mogenes, Epigenes, Aeschines, Antisthenes ; likewise 
 Ctesippus of the denie of Paeania, Menexenus, and 
 some others ; Plato, if I am not mistaken, was ill. 
 
 Ech. Were there any strangers ? 
 
 Phaed. Yes, there were ; Simmias the Theban, and 
 Cebes, and Phaedondes ; Euclid and Terpsion, who 
 came from Megara. 
 
 Ech. And was Aristippus there, and Cleombrotus ? 
 
 Phaed. No, they were said to be in Aegina. 
 
 Ech. Any one else ? 
 
 Phaed. I think that these were nearly all. 
 
 Ech. Well, and what did you talk about ? 
 
 Phaed. I will begin at the beginnnig, and endeavour 
 to repeat the entire conversation. On the previous 
 days we had been in the habit of assembling early in 
 the morning at the court in which the trial took place, 
 and which is not far from the prison. There we used 
 to wait talking with one another until the opening 
 of the doors (for they were not opened very early); 
 then we went in and generally passed the day with 
 Socrates. On the last morning we assembled sooner 
 than usual, having heard on the day before when we 
 quitted the prison in the evening that the sacred ship 
 had come from Delos; and so we arranged to meet 
 very early at the accustomed place. On our arrival 
 the jailer who answered the door, instead of admitting 
 us, came out and told us to stay until he called us. ' For 
 the Eleven,' he said, 'are now with Socrates; they are 
 taking off his chains, and giving orders that he is to 
 die to-day.' He soon returned and said that we might 
 60 come in. On entering we found Socrates just released 
 from chains, and Xanthippe, whom you know, sitting 
 by him, and holding his child in her arms. When 
 
XANTHIPPE AND SOCRATES 135 
 
 she saw us she uttered a cry and said, as women will : 
 'O Socrates, -this is the last time that either you will 
 converse with your friends, or they with you.' Socrates 
 turned to Crito and said : ' Crito, let some one take 
 her home.' Some of Crito's people accordingly led 
 her away, crying out and beating herself 
 
 And when she was gone, Socrates, sitting up on the 
 couch, bent and rubbed his leg, saying, as he was 
 rubbing: How singular is the thing called pleasure, 
 and how curiously related to pain, which might be 
 thought to be the opposite of it; for they are never 
 present to a man at the same instant, and yet he who 
 pursues either is generally compelled to take the other ; 
 their bodies are two, but they are joined by a single 
 head. And I cannot help thinking that if Aesop had 
 remembered them, he would have made a fable about 
 God trying to reconcile their strife, and how, when he 
 could not, he fastened their heads together; and this 
 is the reason why when one comes the other follows : 
 as I know by my own experience now, when after 
 the pain in my leg which was caused by the chain 
 pleasure appears to succeed. 
 
 2. Why the Philosopher is willing to die, although 
 he will not take his own life. 
 
 In the passage which follows Plato clears the way for the main 
 subject of the dialogue, — theproof of the immortality of the soul, — by 
 the discussion of a previous question. Socrates affirms that suicide 
 is unlawful, but that the philosopher is anxious and willing to leave 
 the world ; and Cebes and Simmias wish to know whether there is 
 not some inconsistency in this. The answer is that a man may 
 not take his own life because he is the property of God, who is 
 the sole Disposer of events. On the other hand, the body is the 
 source of all evil, a mere clog and weight of the soul in her aspira- 
 tions after Truth and Divine Being, and therefore she is glad and 
 rejoices when the hour of release arrives. 
 
136 PHAEDO 
 
 We may remark both here and throughout the Phaedo, as also in 
 some other dialogues, the deep, if not permanent, impression which 
 was made at one period by the doctrines of the Pythagorean school 
 upon Plato's mind. For ive can hardly suppose that the historical 
 Socrates was much influenced by the thoughts of other philosophers : 
 he seems to have taught mainly a simple kind of ethics, and not to 
 have ventured into the ideal realms of metaphysical philosophy. How 
 this Pythagorean teaching reached Plato we are unable to say owing 
 to our dearth of authentic information about his life. He appears 
 himself to acknowledge his indebtedness by the reference to Philolaus, 
 the Theban philosopher ; while at the same time he betrays a certain 
 degree of dissatisfaction with the Pythagoreans by the significant 
 remark of Cebes and Simmias that ' though they had often heard 
 their master speak about the unlawfulness of suicide, they had never 
 understood him.' (Cp. the somewhat similar tone in which Plato 
 alludes to the Pythagoreans in the Republic, vii. 530 E, 531 B.) 
 
 The Pythagorean vein of thought is manifested especially in the 
 representation of the relation between body and soul. Plato not 
 merely speaks of the body as the corrupting element, * the vesture of 
 decay ' in which the soul is enveloped and kept in bondage (cp. 
 Crat 400 C, Phaedr. 250 C, Gorg. 493 A) ; but in the myth of the 
 world which he afterwards relates (114 C), he tells us that the 
 reward of the philosopher will be an absolute and eternal separation 
 of soul and body. This apparently goes somewhat beyond his 
 statements in other passages of a similar nature, in which he 
 generally describes the condition of the soul in the future life as 
 a preparation for a return to existence in bodily form (cp. Gorg. 525, 
 Rep. X. 620). 
 
 It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that Plato in his 
 myths intended to convey more than a poetical or general truth ; to 
 use his own language, ' we must be content to attain probability only, 
 and not be surprised if we cannot give notions which are in 
 every way exact and consistent with one another ' (Tim. 29). The 
 ascetic or mystic view which regarded matter as associated with 
 evil, and the enclosure of the soul within an earthly body as an 
 impediment to virtue, is here fitly placed in the mouth of the philo- 
 sopher whom men have rejected and condemned, and who looks 
 forward to rejoining his spiritual kindred in another and more 
 congenial world (84 B). 
 
 Steph. Upon this Cebes said : I am glad, Socrates, that you 
 
 P° have mentioned the name of Aesop. For it reminds 
 
 me of a question which has been asked by many, and 
 
THE MESSAGE TO EVENUS 137 
 
 was asked of me only the day before yesterday by 
 Evenus the poet — he will be sure to ask it again, 
 and therefore if you would like me to have an answer 
 ready for him, you may as well tell me what I should 
 say to him : — he wanted to know why you, who never 
 before wrote a line of poetry, now that you are in 
 prison are turning Aesop's fables into verse, and also 
 composing that hymn in honour of Apollo. 
 
 Tell him, Cebes, he replied, what is the truth — that 
 I had no idea of rivalling him or his poems ; to do 
 so, as I knew, would be no easy task. But I wanted 
 to see whether I could purge away a scruple which 
 I felt about the meaning of certain dreams. In the 
 course of my life I have often had intimations in 
 dreams 'that I should compose music' The same 
 dream came to me sometimes in one form, and some- 
 times in another, but always saying the same or nearly 
 the same words: 'Cultivate and make music,' said 
 the dream. And hitherto I had imagined that this 
 was only intended to exhort and encourage me in 
 the study of philosophy, which has been the pursuit 6r 
 of my life, and is the noblest and best of music. 
 The dream was bidding me do what I was already 
 doing, in the same way that the competitor in a race 
 is bidden by the spectators to run when he is already 
 running. But I was not certain of this ; for the dream 
 might have meant music in the popular sense of the 
 word, and being under sentence of death, and the 
 festival giving me a respite, I thought that it would be 
 safer for me to satisfy the scruple, and, in obedience to 
 the dream, to compose a few verses before I departed. 
 And first I made a hymn in honour of the god of the 
 festival, and then considering that a poet, if he is really 
 to be a poet, should not only put together words, but 
 should invent stories, and that I have no invention, 
 
138 PHAEDO 
 
 I took some fables of Aesop, which I had ready at 
 hand and which I knew — they were the first I came 
 upon — and turned them into verse. Tell this to Evenus, 
 Cebes, and bid him be of good cheer ; say that I would 
 have him come after me if he be a wise man, and not 
 tarry ; and that to-day I am likely to be going, for the 
 Athenians say that I must. 
 
 Simmias said : What a message for such a man ! 
 having been a frequent companion of his I should say 
 that, as far as I know him, he will never take your 
 advice unless he is obliged. 
 
 Why, said Socrates, — is not Evenus a philosopher? 
 
 I think that he is, said Simmias. 
 
 • Then he, or any man who has the spirit of philosophy, 
 will be willing to die ; but he will not take his own life, 
 for that is held to be unlawful. 
 
 Here he changed his position, and put his legs off 
 the couch on to the ground, and during the rest of the 
 conversation he remained sitting. 
 
 Why do you say, enquired Cebes, that a man ought 
 not to take his own life, but that the philosopher will 
 be ready to follow the dying ? 
 
 Socrates replied : And have you, Cebes and Simmias, 
 who are the disciples of Philolaus, never heard him 
 speak of this ? 
 
 Yes, but his language was obscure, Socrates. 
 
 My words, too, are only an echo; but there is no 
 reason why I should not repeat what I have heard : 
 and indeed, as I am going to another place, it is very 
 meet for me to be thinking and talking of the nature 
 of the pilgrimage which I am about to make. What 
 can I do better in the interval between this and the 
 setting of the sun ? 
 
 Then tell me, Socrates, why is suicide held to be 
 unlawful? as I have certainly heard Philolaus, about 
 
THE QUESTION OF SUICIDE 139 
 
 whom you were just now asking, affirm when he was 
 staying with us at Thebes ; and there are others who 
 say the same, although I have never understood what 
 was meant by any of them. 
 
 Do not lose heart, replied Socrates, and the day may 62 
 come when you will understand. I suppose that you 
 wonder why, when other things which are evil may be 
 good at certain times and to certain persons, death is to 
 be the only exception, and why, when a man is better 
 dead, he is not permitted to be his own benefactor, 
 but must wait for the hand of another. 
 
 Fery true, said Cebes, laughing gently and speiking 
 in his native Boeotian. 
 
 I admit the appearance of inconsistency in what I am 
 saying; but there may not be any real inconsistency 
 after all. There is a doctrine whispered in secret that 
 man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door 
 and run away; this is a great mystery which I do not 
 quite understand. Yet I too believe that the gods are 
 our guardians, and that we men are a possession of 
 theirs. Do you not agree ? 
 
 Yes, I quite agree, said Cebes. 
 
 And if one of your own possessions, an ox or an ass, 
 for example, took the liberty of putting himself out of 
 the way when you had given no intimation of your 
 wish that he should die, would you not be angry with 
 him, and would you not punish him if you could ? 
 
 Certainly, replied Cebes. 
 
 Then, if we look at the matter thus, there may be 
 reason in saying that a man should wait, and not take 
 his own life until God summons him, as he is now 
 summoning me. 
 
 Yes, Socrates, said Cebes, there seems to be truth 
 in what you say. And yet how can you reconcile this 
 seemingly true belief that God is our guardian and we 
 
his possessions, with the willingness to die which you 
 were just now attributing to the philosopher? That 
 the wisest of men should be willing to leave a service 
 in which they are ruled by the gods who are the best 
 of rulers, is not reasonable ; for surely no wise man 
 thinks that when set at liberty he can take better care 
 of himself than the gods take of him. A fool may 
 perhaps think so — he may argue that he had better 
 run away from his master, not considering that his 
 duty is to remain to the end, and not to run away 
 from the good, and that there would be no sense in 
 his running away. The wise man will want to be 
 ever with him who is better than himself Now this, 
 Socrates, is the reverse of what was just now said; for 
 upon this view the wise man should sorrow and the 
 fool rejoice at passing out of life. 
 63 The earnestness of Cebes seemed to please Socrates. 
 Here, said he, turning to us, is a man who is always 
 enquiring, and is not so easily convinced by the first 
 thing which he hears. 
 
 And certainly, added Simmias, the objection which 
 he is now making does appear to me to have some 
 force. For what can be the meaning of a truly wise 
 man wanting to fly away and lightly leave a master 
 who is better than himself? And I rather imagine 
 that Cebes is referring to you ; he thinks that you 
 are too ready to leave us, and too ready to leave 
 the gods whom you acknowledge to be our good 
 masters. f 
 
 Yes, replied Socrates ; there is reason in what you 
 say. And so you think that I ought to answer your 
 indictment as if I were in a court ? | 
 
 We should like you to do so, said Simmias. 
 
 Then I must try to make a more successful defence 
 before you than I did before the judges. For I am 
 
THE GOOD MAN IS READY TO DIE 141 
 
 quite ready to admit, Simmias and Cebes, that I ought 
 to be grieved at death, if I were not persuaded in 
 the first place that I am going to other gods who 
 are wise and good (of which I am as certain as I can 
 be of any such matters), and secondly (though I am 
 not so sure of this last) to men departed, better than 
 those whom I leave behind ; and therefore I do not 
 grieve as I might have done, for I have good hope 
 that there is yet something remaining for the dead, and 
 as has been said of old, some far better thing for the 
 good than for the evil. 
 
 But do you mean to take away your thoughts with 
 you, Socrates? said Simmias. Will you not impart 
 them to us ? — for they are a benefit in which we too 
 are entitled to share. Moreover, if you succeed in 
 convincing us, that will be an answer to the charge 
 against yourself 
 
 I will do my best, replied Socrates. But you must 
 first let me hear what Crito wants ; he has long been 
 wishing to say something to me. 
 
 Only this, Socrates, replied Crito : — the attendant 
 who is to give you the poison has been telling me, 
 and he wants me to tell you, that you are not to talk 
 much : talking, he says, increases heat, and this is apt 
 to interfere with the action of the poison ; persons 
 who excite themselves are sometimes obliged to take 
 a second or even a third dose. 
 
 Then, said Socrates, let him mind his business and 
 be prepared to give the poison twice or even thrice 
 if necessary ; that is all. 
 
 I knew quite well what you would say, replied Crito ; 
 but I was obliged to satisfy him. 
 
 Never mind him, he said. 
 
 And now, O my judges, I desire to prove to you that the 
 real philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when 
 
143 PHAEDO 
 
 he is about to die, and that after death he may hope to 
 64 obtain the greatest good in the other world. And how 
 this may be, Simmias and Cebes, I will endeavour to 
 explain. For I deem that the true votary of philosophy 
 is likely to be misunderstood by other men ; they , do 
 not perceive that he is always pursuing death and 
 dying ; and if this be so, and he has had the desire of 
 death all his life long, why wh^n his time comes should 
 he repine at that which he has been always pursuing 
 and desiring? 
 
 Simmias said laughingly : Though not in a laughing 
 humour, you have made me laugh, Socrates ; for I can- 
 riot help thinking that the many when they hear your 
 words will say how truly you have described philoso- 
 phers, and our people at home will likewise say that 
 the life which philosophers desire is in reality death, 
 and that they have found them out to be deserving of 
 the death which they desire. 
 
 And they are right, Simmias, in thinking so, with 
 the exception of the words ' they have found them 
 out ; ' for they have not found out either what is 
 the nature of that death which the true philosopher 
 deserves, or how he deserves or desires death. But 
 enough of them : — let us discuss the matter among 
 ourselves. Do we believe that there is such a thing 
 as death ? 
 
 To be sure, replied Simmias. 
 . Is it not the separation of soul and body ? And to be 
 dead is the completion of this ; when the soul exists in 
 herself, and is released from the body and the body is 
 released from the soul, what is this but death ? 
 
 Just so, he replied. 
 
 There is another question, which will probably throw 
 light on our present enquiry if you and I can agree 
 about it : — Ought the philosopher to care about the 
 
THE BODY A HINDRANCE TO KNOWLEDGE 143 
 
 pleasures-i-if they are to be called pleasures — of eating 
 and drinking ? 
 
 Certainly not, answered Simmias. 
 
 And what about the pleasures of love — should he 
 care for them ? 
 
 By no means. 
 
 And will he think much of the other ways of indulg- 
 ing the body, for example, the acquisition of costly 
 raiment, or sandals, or other adornments of the body ? 
 Instead of caring about them, does he not rather 
 despise anything more than nature needs? What do 
 you say? 
 
 I should say that the true philosopher would despise 
 them. 
 
 Would you not say that he is entirely concerned with 
 the soul and not with the body ? He would like, as far 
 as he can, to get away from the body and to turn to 
 the soul. 
 
 Quite true. 
 
 In matters of this sort philosophers, above all other 
 men, may be observed in every sort of way to dissever 65 
 the soul from the communion of the body. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Whereas, Simmias, the rest of the world are . of 
 opinion that to him who has no sense of pleasure and 
 no part in bodily pleasure, life is not worth having; 
 and that he who is indifferent about them is as good 
 as dead. 
 
 That is also true. 
 
 What again shall we say of the actual acquirement of 
 knowledge ? — is the body, if invited to share in the 
 enquiry, a hinderer or a helper ? I mean to say, have 
 sight and hearing any truth in them ? Are they not, 
 as the poets are always telling us, inaccurate witnesses ? 
 and yet, if even they are inaccurate and indistinct, what is 
 
144 PHAEDO 
 
 to be said of the other senses ? — for you will allow that 
 they are the best of them ? 
 
 Certainly, he replied. 
 
 Then when does the soul attain truth ? — for in 
 attempting to consider anything in company with the 
 body she is obviously deceived. 
 
 True. 
 
 Then must not true existence be revealed to her in 
 thought, if at all ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And thought is best when the mind is gathered into 
 herself and none of these things trouble her — neither 
 sounds nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure, — when she 
 takes leave of the body, and has as little as possible to 
 do with it, when she has no bodily sense or desire, but 
 is aspiring after true being ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And in this the philosopher dishonours the body ; his 
 soul runs away from his body and desires to be alone 
 and by herself? 
 
 That is true. 
 
 Well, but there is another thing, Simmias : Is there 
 or is there not an absolute justice ? 
 
 Assuredly there is. 
 
 And an absolute beauty and absolute good ? 
 
 Of course. 
 
 But did you ever behold any of them with your eyes? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Or did you ever reach them with any other bodily 
 sense ? — and I speak not of these alone, but of absolute 
 greatness, and health, and strength, and of the essence 
 or true nature of everything. Has the reality of them 
 ever been perceived by you through the bodily organs ? 
 or rather, is not the nearest approach to the knowledge 
 of their several natures made by him who so orders his 
 
THE PHILOSOPHER SEEKS FOR TRUTH 145 
 
 intellectual vision as to have the most exact conception 
 of the essence of each thing which he considers? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And he attains to the purest knowledge of them who 
 goes to each with the mind alone, not introducing or 
 intruding in the act of -thought sight or any other sense 
 together with reason, but with the very light of the 66 
 mind in her own clearness searches into the very 
 truth of each ; he who has got rid, as far as he can, of 
 eyes and ears and, so to speak, of the whole body, 
 these being in his opinion distracting elements which 
 when they infect the soul hinder her from acquiring 
 truth and knowledge — who, if not he, is likely to attain 
 to the knowledge of true being ? 
 
 What you say has a wonderful truth in it, Socrates, 
 replied Simmias. 
 
 And when real philosophers consider all these things, 
 will they not be led to make a reflection which they will 
 express in words something like the following ? ' Have 
 we not found,' they will say, ' a path of thought which 
 seems to bring us and our argument to the conclusion, 
 that while we are in the body, and while the soul is 
 infected with the evils of the body, our desire will not 
 be satisfied ? and our desire is of the truth. For the 
 body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of 
 the mere requirement of food ; and is liable also to 
 diseases which overtake and impede us in the search 
 after true being : it fills Us full of loves, and lusts, and 
 fears, and fancies of all kinds, and endless foolery, and 
 in fact, as men say, takes away from us the power of 
 thinking at all. 
 
 'Whence come wars, and fightings, and factions? 
 whence but from the body and the lusts of the body ? 
 Wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money 
 has to be acquired for the sake and in the service of 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 PHAEDO 
 
 the body ; and by reason of all these impediments we 
 have no time to give to philosophy; and, last and worst 
 of all, even if we are at leisure and betake ourselves to 
 some speculation, the body is always breaking in upon 
 us, causing turmoil and confusion in our enquiries, and 
 so amazing us that we are prevented from seeing the 
 truth. It has been proved to us by experience that if 
 we would have pure knowledge of anything we must 
 be quit of the body— the soul in herself must behold 
 things in themselves : and then we shall attain the 
 wisdom which we desire, and of which we say that we 
 are lovers ; not while we live, but after death ; for if 
 while in company with the body, the soul cannot have 
 pure knowledge, one of two things follows — either 
 knowledge is not to be attained at all, or, if at all, 
 67 after death. For then, and not till then, the soul 
 will be parted from the ' body and exist in herself 
 alone. In this present life, I reckon that we make 
 the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the 
 least possible intercourse or communion with the body, 
 and are not surfeited with the bodily nature, but keep 
 ourselves pure until the hour when God himself is 
 pleased to release us. And thus having got rid of 
 the foolishness of the body we shall be pure and 
 hold converse with the pure, and know of ourselves 
 the clear light everywhere, which is no other than the 
 light of truth. For the impure are not permitted to 
 approach the pure.' 
 
 These are the sort of words, Simmias, which the true 
 lovers of knowledge cannot help saying to one another, 
 and thinking. You would agree ; would you not ? 
 
 Undoubtedly, Socrates. 
 
 But, O my friend, if this be true, there is great reason 
 to hope that, going whither I go, when I have come to 
 the end of my journey, I shall attain that which has 
 
DEATH THE RELEASE OF THE SOUL 147 
 
 been the pursuit of my life. And therefore I go on my 
 way rejoicing, and not I only, but every other man who 
 believes that his mind has been made ready and that he 
 is in a manner purified. 
 
 Certainly, replied Simmias. 
 
 And what is purification but the separation of the 
 soul from the body, as I was saying before ; the habit 
 of the soul gathering and collecting herself into herself 
 from all sides out of the body ; the dwelling in her own 
 place alone, as in another life, so also in this, as far as 
 she can ; — the release of the soul from the chains of 
 the body? 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 And this separation and release of the soul from the 
 body is termed death ? 
 
 To be sure, he said. 
 
 And the true philosophers, and they only, are ever 
 seeking to release the soul. Is not the separation and 
 release of the soul from the body their especial study ? 
 
 That is true. 
 
 And, as I was saying at first, there would be a ridicu- 
 lous contradiction in men studying to live as nearly as 
 they can in a state of death, and yet repining when it 
 comes upon them. 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 And the true philosophers, Simmias, are always 
 occupied in the practice of dying, wherefore also to 
 them least of all men is death terrible. Look at the 
 matter thus : — if they have been in every way the enemies 
 of the body, and are wanting to be alone with the soul, 
 when this desire of theirs is granted, how inconsistent 
 would they be if they trembled and repined, instead of 
 rejoicing at their departure to that place where, when 
 they arrive, they hope to gain that which in life they 68 
 desired — and this was wisdom — and at the same time 
 
 L 2 
 
148 PHAEDO 
 
 to be rid of the company of their enemy. Many a man 
 has been wilHng to go to the world below animated by 
 the hope o-f seeing there an earthly love, or wife, or 
 son, and conversing with them. And will he who is 
 a true lover of wisdom, and is strongly persuaded in 
 like manner that only in the world below he can 
 worthily enjoy her, still repine at death? Will he not 
 depart with joy? Surely he will, O my friend, if he be 
 a true philosopher. For he will have a firm conviction 
 that there, and there only, he can find wisdom in her 
 purity. And if this be true, he would be very absurd, 
 as I was saying, if he were afraid of death. 
 
 He would indeed, replied Simmias. 
 
 And when you see a man who is repining at the 
 approach of death, is not his reluctance a sufficient 
 proof that he is not a lover of wisdom, but a lover of 
 the body, and probably at the same time a lover of either 
 money or power, or both ? 
 
 Quite so, he replied. 
 
 And is not courage, Simmias, a quality which is 
 specially characteristic of the philosopher ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 There is temperance again, which even by the vulgar 
 is supposed to consist in the control and regulation 
 of the passions, and in the sense of superiority to 
 them — is not temperance a virtue belonging to those 
 only who despise the body, and who pass their lives 
 in philosophy? 
 
 Most assuredly. 
 
 For the courage and temperance of other men, if you 
 will consider them, are really a contradiction. 
 
 How so ? 
 
 Well, he said, you are aware that death is regarded 
 by men in general as a great evil. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
WISDOM THE COMPANION OF VIRTUE 149 
 
 And do not courageous men face death because they 
 are afraid of yet greater evils ? 
 
 That is quite true. 
 
 Then all but the philosophers are courageous only 
 from fear, and because they are afraid; and yet that 
 a man should be courageous from fear, and because he 
 is a coward, is surely a strange thing. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And are not the temperate exactly in the same case ? 
 They are temperate because they are intemperate — 
 which might seem to be a contradiction, but is never- 
 theless the sort of thing which happens with this foolish 
 temperance. For there are pleasures which they are 
 afraid of losing; and in their desire to keep them, they 
 abstain from some pleasures, because they are overcome 
 by others ; and although to be conquered by pleasure 
 is called by men intemperance, to them the conquest of 69 
 pleasure consists in being conquered by pleasure. And 
 that is what I mean by saying that, in a sense, they are 
 made temperate through intemperance. 
 
 Such appears to be the case. 
 
 Yet the exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for 
 another fear or pleasure or pain, and of the greater for 
 the less, as if they were coins, is not the exchange of 
 virtue. O my blessed Simmias, is there not one true 
 coin for which all things ought to be exchanged ? — and 
 that is wisdom ; and only in exchange for this, and in 
 company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, 
 whether courage or temperance or justice. And is not 
 all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what 
 fears or pleasures or other similar goods or evils may 
 or may not attend her ? But the virtue which is made 
 up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom 
 and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue 
 only, nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her ; 
 
150 PHAEDO 
 
 but in the true exchange there is a purging away of all 
 these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, 
 and wisdom herself are the purgation of them. 
 
 The founders of the mysteries would appear to have 
 had a real meaning, and were not talking nonsense 
 when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who 
 passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below 
 will lie in a slough, but that he who arrives there after 
 initiation and purification will dwell with the gods. 
 For 'many,' as they say in the mysteries, 'are the 
 thyrsus-bearers, but few are the mystics,' — meaning, as 
 I interpret the words, ' the true philosophers.' In the 
 number of whom, during my whole life, I have been 
 seeking, according to my ability, to find a place ; — 
 whether I have sought in a right way or not, and 
 whether I have succeeded or not, I shall truly know in 
 a little while, if God will, when I myself arrive in the 
 other world — such is my belief. 
 
 And therefore I maintain that I am right, Simmias 
 and Cebes, in not grieving or repining at parting from 
 you and my masters in this world, for I believe that 
 I shall equally find good masters and friends in another 
 world. But most men do not believe this saying; if 
 then I succeed in convincing you by my defence better 
 than I did the Athenian judges, it will be well. 
 
 3. The Description of the Other Life. 
 
 The myth which Socrates relates in the Phaedo possesses many 
 curious and interesting features. Much of it is obscure to us, 
 partly because of the difficulty which such a description of things 
 unspeakable by man naturally presented to Plato, but partly also 
 from our imperfect acquaintance with the Pythagorean and Orphic 
 literature or teaching, to which, as we have seen, he was deeply 
 indebted. 
 
THE MYTH OF EARTH AND HADES 15 1 
 
 It includes a cosmography or delineation of the universe as well 
 as an account of the terrors and joys of the other world. The 
 former is elaborately worked out in considerable detail, but is 
 probably not intended by Plato to be taken in a serious spirit. He 
 does not wish to teach us new views of geography or to impress 
 upon our minds correct notions of the form of the world ; he is 
 seeking rather to give a degree of solidity and credibility to his theories 
 of the future life, and with this object in view he gladly seizes 
 upon the quaint imaginations of some ancient mystic in order to 
 set forth his thoughts upon the remedial nature of punishment and 
 the immortality of the soul. 
 
 According to the myth, the world is a parti-coloured sphere, 
 ' like a child's play -ball,' hanging in space. The inhabited portions 
 of the earth are hollows sunk in this sphere, although we imagine 
 that we live on the surface of the globe. The true earth, of which 
 our little patches are poor, decaying copies, is above, and is glorious 
 and beautiful beyond human conception. The different hollows 
 of the lower earth are connected by a. vast and complex system 
 of rivers of fire and mud and water, — the Oceanus, Pyriphlegethon, 
 Cocytus (or Styx), and Acheron of the poets, — which flow mostly 
 underground but come here and there to sight. They pour at 
 various points into and out of the central chasm of Tartarus, and 
 draw the air after them by their currents. 
 
 The physical phenomena of the world are thus explained by the 
 perpetual flux of these rivers ; and they are likewise an important 
 feature in Hades, or the place of punishment. For the souls of 
 those who have not sinned overmuch, and whose virtues too have 
 been of a common-place character, go to the shores of the Acherusian 
 lake, and there they spend a certain time in a kind of purgatory, 
 and then pass into various forms of men and animals, and so 
 are born again into the world. Of greater sinners a few who 
 
 are adjudged incurable are condemned to stay eternally in Tartarus 
 
 this is a favourite notion with Plato, which we shall find recurring 
 in the Gorgias (525 E) and the Republic (x. 615 C) : — the criminals 
 whose sins, though great, are not irremediable, remain a year in 
 Tartarus, and are afterwards carried by the rivers as far as the 
 Acherusian lake. Here they are allowed to entreat the forgiveness 
 of their former victims, and if these consent they are released 
 from their pain; if not, they must repeat the same round until 
 forgiveness has been extended to them. In this manner Plato 
 shows how mercy and justice may be combined, and foreshadows 
 the legislation which he would enact in the Laws, where also he 
 attaches the utmost importance to the forgiveness of the homicide 
 hy the victim of his violence (ix. 864 foil.). 
 
152 PHAEDO 
 
 Such is the state of the wicked after death. But the righteous, 
 'the true philosophers or mystics,' after judgement has been pro- 
 nounced, go at once to ' their pure home,' the upper earth, where 
 they dwell (as has been already said) in perfect bliss and return 
 no more to human life. 
 
 Steph. Soc. But then, O my friends, if the soul is really im- 
 ^c' mortal, what care should be taken of her, not only in 
 respect of the portion of time which is called life, but 
 of eternity ! And the danger of neglecting her from this 
 point of view does indeed appear to be awful. If death 
 had only been the end of all, the wicked would have 
 had a good bargain in dying, for they would have been 
 happily quit not only of their body, but of their own 
 evil together with their souls. But now, inasmuch as 
 the soul is manifestly immortal, there is no release or 
 salvatipn from evil except the attainment of the highest 
 virtue and wisdom. For the soul when on her progress 
 to the world below takes nothing with her but nurture 
 and education ; and these are said greatly to benefit or 
 greatly to injure the departed, at the very beginning of 
 his journey thither. 
 
 For after death, as they say, the genius of each in- 
 dividual, to whom he belonged in life, leads him to a 
 certain place in which the dead are gathered together, 
 whence after judgment has been given they pass into 
 the world below, following the guide, who is appointed 
 to conduct them from this world to the other : and when 
 they have there received their due and remained their 
 time, another guide brings them back again after many 
 revolutions of ages. Now this way to the other world 
 108 is not, as Aeschylus says in the Telephus, a single and 
 straight path^f that were so no guide would be needed, 
 for no one could miss it ; but there are many partings 
 of the road, and windings, as I infer from the rites 
 and sacrifices which are offered to the gods below in 
 
THE WANDERINGS OF THE EVIL SOUL 153 
 
 places where three ways meet on earth. The wise and 
 orderly soul follows in the straight path and is conscious 
 of her surroundings ; but the soul which desires the 
 body, and which, as I was relating before, has long 
 been fluttering about the lifeless frame and the world 
 of sight, is after many struggles and many sufferings 
 hardly and with violence carried away by her attendant 
 genius ; and when she arrives at the place where the 
 other souls are gathered, if she be impure and have 
 done impure deeds, whether foul murders or other 
 crimes which are the brothers of these, and the works 
 of brothers in crime — from that soul every one flees and 
 turns away ; no one will be her companion, no one her 
 guide, but alone she wanders in extremity of evil until 
 certain times are fulfilled, and when they are fulfilled, 
 she is borne irresistibly to her own fitting habitation ; 
 as every pure and just soul which has passed through 
 life in the company and under the guidance of the gods 
 has also her own proper home. 
 
 Now the earth has divers wonderful regions, and is 
 indeed in nature and extent very unlike the notions of 
 geographers, as I believe on the authority of one who 
 shall be nameless. 
 
 What do you mean, Socrates ? said Simmias. I have 
 myself heard many descriptions of the earth, but I do 
 not know, and I should very much like to know, in 
 which of these you put faith. 
 
 And I, Simmias, replied Socrates, if I had the art of 
 Glaucus, would tell you ; although I know not that the 
 art of Glaucus could prove the truth of my tale, which 
 I myself should never be able to prove, and even if 
 I could, I fear, Simmias, that my life would come to 
 an end before the argument was completed. I may 
 describe to you, however, the form and regions of the 
 earth according to my conception of them. 
 
154 PHAEDO 
 
 That, said Simmias, will be enough. 
 
 Well then, he said, my conviction is, that the earth is 
 a round body in the centre of the heavens, and there- 
 109 fore has no need of air or of any similar force to be 
 a support, but is kept there and hindered from falling 
 or inclining any way by the equability of the surrounding 
 heaven and by her own equipoise. For that which, 
 being in equipoise, is in the centre of that which is 
 equably diffused, will not incline any way in any degree, 
 but will always remain in the same state and not deviate. 
 And this is my first notion. 
 
 Which is surely a correct one, said Simmias. 
 
 Also I believe that the earth is very vast, and that 
 we who dwell in the region extending from the river 
 Phasis to the Pillars of Heracles inhabit a small portion 
 only about the sea, like ants or frogs about a marsh, 
 and that there are other inhabitants of many other like 
 places ; for everywhere on the face of the earth there 
 are hollows of various forms and sizes, into which the 
 water and the mist and the lower air collect. But the 
 true earth is pure and situated in the pure heaven — 
 there are the stars also ; and it is the heaven which is 
 commonly spoken of by us as the ether, and of which 
 our own earth is the sediment gathering in the hollows 
 beneath. 
 
 But we who live in these hollows are deceived into 
 the notion that we are dwelling above on the surface of 
 the earth ; which is just as if a creature who was at the 
 bottom of the sea were to fancy that he was on the 
 surface of the water, and that the sea was the heaven 
 through which he saw the sun and the other stars, he 
 having never come to the surface by reason of his 
 feebleness and sluggishness, and having never lifted up 
 his head and seen, nor ever heard from one who had 
 seen, how much purer and fairer the world above is 
 
OUR WORLD AND THE WORLD BEYOND 155 
 
 than his own. And such is exactly our case : for we 
 are dwelling in a hollow of the earth, and fancy that 
 we are on the surface ; and the air we call the heaven, 
 in which we imagine that the stars move. But the fact 
 is, that owing to our feebleness and sluggishness we 
 are prevented from reaching the surface of the air : for 
 if any man could arrive at the exterior limit, or take the 
 wings of a bird and come to the top, then like a fish 
 who puts his head out of the water and sees this world, 
 he would see a world beyond ; and, if the nature of 
 man could sustain the sight, he would acknowledge that 
 this other world was the place of the true heaven and 
 the true light and the true earth. For our earth, and 
 the stones, and the entire region which surrounds us, no 
 are spoilt and corroded, as in the sea all things are 
 corroded by the brine, neither is there any noble or 
 perfect growth, but caverns only, and sand, and an 
 endless slough of mud ; and even the shore is not to be 
 compared to the fairer sights of this world. And still 
 less is this our world to be compared with the other. 
 Of that upper earth which is under the heaven, I can 
 tell you a charming tale, Simmias, which is well worth 
 hearing. 
 
 And we, Socrates, replied Simmias, shall be charmed 
 to listen to you. 
 
 The tale, my friend, he said, is as follows : — In the 
 first place, the earth, when looked at from above, is in 
 appearance streaked like one of those balls which have 
 leather coverings in twelve pieces, and is decked with 
 various colours, of which the colours used by painters 
 on earth are in a manner samples. But there the 
 whole earth is made up of them, and they are brighter 
 far and clearer than ours ; there is a purple of wonder- 
 ful lustre, also the radiance of gold, and the white which 
 is in the earth is whiter than any chalk or snow. Of 
 
156 PHAEDO 
 
 these and other colours the earth is made up, and they 
 are more in number and fairer than the eye of man has 
 ever seen ; the very hollows (of which I was speaking) 
 filled with air and water have a colour of their own, and 
 are seen like light gleaming amid the diversity of the 
 other colours, so that the whole presents a single and 
 continuous appearance of variety in unity. 
 
 And in this fair region everything that grows — trees, 
 and flowers, and fruits — are in a like degree fairer than 
 any here ; and there are hills, having stones in them 
 in a like degree smoother, and more transparent, and 
 fairer "in colour than our highly-valued emeralds and 
 sardonyxes and jaspers, and other gems, which are but 
 minute fragments of them : for there all the stones are 
 like our precious stones, and fairer stiir. The reason 
 is, that they are pure, and not, like our precious stones, 
 infected or corroded by the corrupt briny elements 
 which coagulate among us, and which breed foulness 
 and disease both in earth and stones, as well as in 
 animals and plants. They are the jewels of the upper 
 III earth, which also shines with gold and silver and the 
 like, and they are set in the light of day and are large 
 and abundant and in all places, making the earth 
 a sight to gladden the beholder's eye. And there are 
 animals and men, some in a middle region, others 
 dwelling about the air as we dwell about the sea ; others 
 in islands which the air flows round, near the continent ; 
 and in a word, the air is used by them as the water and 
 the sea are by us, and the ether is to them what the air 
 is to us. 
 
 Moreover, the temperament of their seasons is such 
 that they have no disease, and live much longer than 
 we do, and have sight and hearing and smell, and all 
 the other senses, in far greater perfection, in the same 
 
 ' Cp. Rev., esp. u. xxi. v. 18 ff. 
 
THE CHASM OF TARTARUS 157 
 
 proportion that air is purer than water or the ether 
 than air. Also they have temples and sacred places in 
 which the gods really dwell, and they hear their voices 
 and receive their answers, and are conscious of them 
 and hold converse with them; and they see the sun, 
 moon, and stars as they truly are, and their other 
 blessedness is of a piece with this. 
 
 Such is the nature of the whole earth, and of the 
 things which are around the earth ; and there are divers 
 regions in the hollows on the face of the globe every- 
 where, some of them deeper and more extended than 
 that which we inhabit, others deeper but with a narrower 
 opening than ours, and some are shallower and also 
 wider. All have numerous perforations, and there are 
 passages broad and narrow in the interior of the earth, 
 connecting them with one another ; and there flows out 
 of and into them, as into basins, a vast tide of water, 
 and huge subterranean streams of perennial rivers, and 
 springs hot and cold, and a great fire, and great rivers 
 of fire, and streams of liquid mud, thin or thick (like 
 the rivers of mud in Sicily, and the lava streams which 
 follow them), and the regions about which they happen 
 to flow are filled up with them. And there is a swinging 
 or see-saw in the interior of the earth which moves 
 all this up and down, and is due to the following 
 cause:— There is a chasm which is the vastest of them' 
 all, and pierces right through the whole earth; this is 112 
 that chasm which Homer describes in the words, — 
 
 ' Far off, where is the inmost depth beneath the earth ' ; 
 
 and which he in other places, and many other poets, 
 have called Tartarus. And the see-saw is caused by 
 the streams flowing into and out of this chasm, and 
 they each have the nature of the soil through which 
 they flow. 
 
158 PHAEDO 
 
 And the reason why the streams are always flowing 
 in and out, is that the watery element has no bed or 
 bottom, but is swinging and surging up and down, and 
 the surrounding wind and air do the same ; they follow 
 the water up and down, hither and thither, over the 
 earth — just as in the act of respiration the air is always 
 in process of inhalation and exhalation ;— and the wind 
 swinging with the water in and out produces fearful 
 and irresistible blasts : when the waters retire with 
 a rush into the lower parts of the earth, as they are 
 called, they flow through the earth in those regions, 
 and fill them up like water raised by a pump, and then 
 when they leave those regions and rush back hither, 
 they again fill the hollows here, and when these are 
 filled, flow through subterranean channels and find 
 their way to their several places, forming seas, and 
 lakes, and rivers, and springs. Thence they again 
 enter the earth, some of them making a long circuit into 
 many lands, others going to a few places and not so 
 distant; and again fall into Tartarus, some at a point 
 a good deal lower than that at which they rose, and 
 others not much lower, but all in some degree lower 
 than the point from which they came. And some 
 burst forth again on the opposite side, and some on the 
 same side, and some wind round the earth with one 
 or many folds like the coils of a serpent, and descend as 
 far as they can, but always return and fall into the 
 chasm. The rivers flowing in either direction can 
 descend only to the centre and no further, for opposite 
 to the rivers is a precipice. 
 
 Now these rivers are many, and mighty, and diverse, 
 and there are four principal ones, of which the greatest 
 and outermost is that called Oceanus, which flows 
 round the earth in a circle ; and in the opposite 
 direction flows Acheron, which passes under the earth 
 
THE FOUR RIVERS OF HADES 159 
 
 through desert places into the Acherusian lake : this 113 
 is the lake to the shores of which the souls of the many 
 go when they are dead, and after waiting an appointed 
 time, which is to some a longer and to some a shorter 
 time, they are sent back to be born again as animals. 
 The third river passes out between the two, and near 
 the place of outlet pours into a vast region of fire, 
 and forms a lake larger than the Mediterranean Sea, 
 boiling with water and mud ; and proceeding muddy 
 and turbid, and winding about the earth, comes, among 
 other places, to the extremities of the Acherusian lake, 
 but mingles not with the waters of the lake, and after 
 making many coils about the earth plunges into Tartarus 
 at a deeper level. This is that Pyriphlegethon, as the 
 stream is called, which throws up jets of fire in different 
 parts of the earth. The fourth river goes' out on the 
 opposite side, and falls first of all into a wild and 
 savage region, which is all of a dark blue colour, like 
 lapis lazuli ; and this is that river which is called the 
 Stygian river, and falls into and forms the Lake Styx, 
 and after falling into the lake and receiving strange 
 powers in the waters, passes under the earth, winding 
 round in the opposite direction, and comes near the 
 Acherusian lake from the opposite side to Pyriphlegethon. 
 And the water of this river too mingles with no other, 
 but flows round in a circle and falls into Tartarus over 
 against Pyriphlegethon ; and the name of the river, as 
 the poets say, is Cocytus. 
 
 Such is the nature of the other world ; and when the 
 dead arrive at the place to which the genius of each 
 severally guides them, first of all, they have sentence 
 passed upon them, as they have lived well and piously 
 or not. And those who appear to have lived neither 
 well nor ill, go to the river Acheron, and embarking in 
 any vessels which they may find, are carried in them to 
 
l6o PHAEDO 
 
 ihe lake, and there they dwell and are purified of their 
 evil deeds, and having suffered the penalty of the 
 wrongs which they have done to others, they are ab- 
 solved, and receive the rewards of their good deeds, 
 each of them according to his deserts. But those who 
 appear to be incurable by reason of the greatness of 
 their crimes — who have committed many and terrible 
 deeds of sacrilege, murders foul and violent, or the like 
 — such are hurled into Tartarus which is their suitable 
 destiny, and they never come out. 
 
 Those again who have committed crimes, which, 
 although great, are not irremediable — who in a moment 
 of anger, for example, have done some violence to a 
 father or a mother, and have repented for the remainder 
 114 of their lives, or who have taken the life of another 
 under the like extenuating circumstances^these are 
 plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they are com- 
 pelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year 
 the wave casts them forth — mere homicides by way 
 of Cocytus, parricides and matricides by Pyriphle- 
 gethon — and they are borne to the Acherusian lake, 
 and there they lift up their voices and call upon the 
 victims whom they have slain or wronged, to have 
 pity on them, and to be kind to them, and let them 
 come out into the lake. And if they prevail, then they 
 come forth and cease from their troubles ; but if not, 
 they are carried back again into Tartarus and from 
 thence into the rivers unceasingly, until they obtain 
 mercy from those whom they have wronged : for that 
 is the sentence inflicted upon them by their judges. 
 
 Those too who have been pre-eminent for holiness 
 of life are released from this earthly prison, and go to 
 their pure home which is above, and dwell in the purer 
 earth ; and of these, such as have duly purified them- 
 selves with philosophy live henceforth altogether without 
 
THE GLORIOUS HOPE OF IMMORTALITY l6l 
 
 the body, in mansions fairer still, which may not be 
 described, and of which the time would fail me to tell. 
 
 Wherefore, Simmias, seeing all these things, what 
 ought not we to do that we may obtain virtue and 
 wisdom in this life? Fair is the prize, and the hope great ! 
 
 A man of sense ought not to say, nor will I be very 
 confident, that the description which I have given of 
 the soul and her mansions is exactly true. But I do 
 say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, 
 he may venture to think, not improperly or unworthily, 
 that something of the kind is true. The venture is a 
 glorious one, and he ought to comfort himself with 
 words like these, which is the reason why I lengthen 
 out the tale. 
 
 Wherefore, I say, let a man be of good cheer about 
 his soul, who having cast away the pleasures and 
 ornaments of the body as alien to him and working 
 harm rather than good, has sought after the pleasures 
 of knowledge ; and has arrayed the soul, not in some 
 foreign attire, but in her own proper jewels, temperance, 
 and justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth — in us 
 these adorned she is ready to go on her journey to the 
 world below, when her hour comes. You, Simmias 
 and Cebes, and all other men, will depart at some time 
 or other. Me already, as a tragic poet would say, the 
 voice of fate calls. Soon I must drink the poison ; and 
 I think that I had better repair to the bath first, in 
 order that the women may not have the trouble of 
 washing my body after I am dead. 
 
 4. The Death of Socrates. 
 
 We have now come to the last hour in the life of Socrates, 
 when he drinks the hemlock in the prison at the bidding of the 
 magistrates and people of the city of Athens. Nothing is wanting 
 which can add to the pathos and impressiveness of the scene. It 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
l62 PHAEDO 
 
 is stamped ineffaceably upon our minds, like the ideas of history 
 which we imbibe from the plays of Shakespeare : — so must the event 
 have happened, we say to ourselves ; and only by an effort can we 
 realize the possibility that much of what moves us so strongly may 
 be due solely to the imaginative power of a great writer. 
 
 Neither should it be forgotten that we have no means of knowing 
 precisely at what period of Plato's life the Phaedo was composed. 
 We naturally read it in connection with the Apology and Crito, 
 and regard the three writings as a continuous series. Yet, if 
 we may judge by internal evidence — and we have no other — the 
 Phaedo belongs to a later date than the other two works. It is 
 less simple and less purely Socratic ; for the Doctrine of Ideas, 
 which scarcely appears in the undoubtedly earlier works of Plato, 
 and v^as quite unknown to the historical Socrates, here forms 
 the principal support of the argument. But if we are therefore 
 warranted in thinking that a not inconsiderable interval elapsed 
 between the death of Socrates and the composition of the Phaedo, 
 we may also have reason to suppose that the dialogue has a lighter 
 claim to historical veracity than the Apology or the Crito. 
 
 Whether, howrever, all the incidents which are related in the Phaedo 
 really occurred or not, we may well believe that Plato throughout 
 the dialogue has chiefly in view the proof of the immortality of 
 the soul, which he desires to confirm and strengthen in every 
 possible way. He has already narrated the myth with this object, 
 and he now proceeds still more solemnly to emphasize the lesson 
 by the story of the death of Socrates. The arguments which have 
 been advanced are not very convincing, as Plato himself seems 
 to admit, and the myth is no more than a poetical fancy. But 
 the example of Socrates, who is animated and supported in his 
 last moments by the expectation of a life to come, appeals to us 
 with a power which no argument can possess. For the hope 
 of immortality is a deeply rooted instinct or an inward revelation 
 to which the better part of the world has ever clung, rather than 
 an article of belief which can be demonstrated by the processes 
 of logic or placed wholly beyond the reach of doubt. 
 
 Steph. When he had done speaking, Crito said : And have 
 ^^^ you any commands for us, Socrates— anything to say 
 about your children, or any other matter in which we 
 can serve you ? 
 
 Nothing particular, Crito, he replied : only, as I have 
 always told you take care of j'ourselves • that is a 
 
HOW SHALL SOCRATES BE BURIED? 163 
 
 service which you may be ever rendering to me and 
 mine and to all of us, whether you promise to do so or 
 not. But if you have no thought for yourselves, and 
 care not to walk according to the rule which I have 
 prescribed for you, not now for the first time, however 
 much you may profess or promise at the moment, it will 
 be of no avail. 
 
 We will do our best, said Crito : And in what way 
 shall we bury you ? 
 
 In any way that you like ; but you must get hold of me, 
 and take care that I do not run away from you. Then 
 he turned to us, and added with a smile : — I cannot 
 make Crito believe that I am the same Socrates who 
 have been talking and conducting the argument ; he 
 fancies that I am the other Socrates whom he will soon 
 see, a dead body — and he asks. How shall he bury me? 
 And though I have spoken many words in the endeavour 
 to show that when I have drunk the poison I shall leave 
 you and go to the joys of the blessed, — these words of 
 mine, with which I was comforting you and myself, have 
 had, as I perceive, no effect upon Crito. And there- 
 fore I want you to be surety for me to him now, as at 
 the trial he was surety to the judges for me : but let the 
 promise be of another sort ; for he was surety for me to 
 the judges that I would remain, and you must be my 
 surety to him that I shall not remain, but go away and 
 depart ; and then he will suffer less at my death, and 
 not be grieved when he sees my body being burned or 
 buried. I would not have him sorrow at my hard lot, 
 or say at the burial. Thus we lay out Socrates, or. Thus 
 we follow him to the grave or bury him ; for false words 
 are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul 
 with evil. Be of good cheer then, my dear Crito, and 
 say that you are burying my body only, and do with 116 
 that whatever is usual, and what you think best. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 PHAEDO 
 
 When he had spoken these words, he arose and went 
 into a chamber to bathe ; Crito followed him and told 
 us to wait. So we remained behind, talking and thinking 
 of the subject of discourse, and also of the greatness of 
 our sorrow; he was like a father of whom we were 
 being bereaved, and we were about to pass the rest 
 of our lives as orphans. When he had taken the bath 
 his children were brought to him — (he had two young 
 sons and an elder one) ; and the women of his family 
 also came, and he talked to them and gave them a few 
 directions in the presence of Crito ; then he dismissed 
 them and returned to us. 
 
 Now the hour of sunset was near, for a good deal 
 of time had passed while he was within. When he 
 came out, he sat down with us again after his bath, but 
 not much was said. Soon the jailer, who was the 
 servant of the Eleven, entered and stood by him, 
 saying : — To you, Socrates, whom I know to be the 
 noblest and gentlest and best of all who ever came to 
 this place, I will not impute the angry feelings of other 
 men, who rage and swear at me, when, in obedience to 
 the authorities, I bid them drink the poison — indeed, I 
 am sure that you will not be angry with me ; for others, 
 as you are aware, and not I, are to blame. And so fare 
 you well, and try to bear lightly what must needs be — 
 you know my errand. Then bursting into tears he 
 turned away and went out. 
 
 Socrates looked at him and said : I return your 
 good wishes, and will do as you bid. Then turning 
 to us, he said. How charming the man is : since I 
 have been in prison he has always been coming to 
 see me, and at times he would talk to me, and was 
 as good to me as could be, and now see how 
 generously he sorrows on my account. We must 
 do as he says, Crito; and therefore let the cup be 
 
SOCRATES DRINKS THE POISON 165 
 
 brought, if the poison is prepared : if not, let the 
 attendant prepare some. 
 
 Yet, said Crito, the sun is still upon the hill-tops, and 
 ! know that many a one has taken the draught late, and 
 after the announcement has been made to him, he has 
 eaten and drunk, and enjoyed the society of his beloved ; 
 do not hurry — there is time enough. 
 
 Socrates said : Yes, Crito, and they of whom you 
 speak are right in so acting, for they think that they 
 will be gainers by the delay ; but I am right in not follow- 
 ing their example, for I do not think that I should gain 
 anything by drinking the poison a little later; I should 117 
 only be ridiculous in my own eyes for sparing and 
 saving a life which is already forfeit. Please then to 
 do as I say, and not to refuse me. 
 
 Crito made a sign to the servant, who was standing 
 by ; and he went out, and having been absent for some 
 time, returned with the jailer carrying the cup of poison. 
 Socrates said : You, my good friend, who are ex- 
 perienced in these matters, shall give me directions how 
 I am to proceed. The man answered : You have only 
 to walk about until your legs are heavy, and then to lie 
 down, and the poison will act. At the same time he 
 handed the cup to Socrates, who in the easiest and 
 gentlest manner, without the least fear or change of 
 colour or feature, looking at the man with all his eyes, 
 Echecrates, as his manner was, took the cup and said : 
 What do you say about making a libation out of this 
 cup to any god ? May I, or not ? The man answered : 
 We only prepare, Socrates, just so much as we deem 
 enough. I understand, he said : but I may and must 
 ask the gods to prosper my journey from this to the 
 other world — even so — and so be it according to my 
 prayer. Then raising the cup to his lips, quite readily 
 and cheerfully he drank off the poison. 
 
l66 PHAEDO 
 
 And hitherto most of us had been able to control our 
 sorrow ; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw 
 too that he had finished the draught, we could no longer 
 forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears were 
 flowing fast ; so that I covered my face and wept, not 
 for him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having 
 to part from such a friend. Nor was I the first ; for 
 Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his 
 tears, had got up, and I followed ; and at that moment, 
 Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time, broke 
 out in a loud and passionate cry which made cowards 
 of us all. Socrates alone retained his calmness : What 
 is this strange outcry? he said. I sent away the 
 women mainly in order that they might not misbehave 
 in this way, for I have been told that a man should die 
 in peace. Be quiet then, and have patience. 
 
 When we heard his words we were ashamed, and 
 refrained our tears ; and he walked about until, as he 
 said, his legs began to fail, and then he lay on his back, 
 according to the directions, and the man who gave him 
 the poison now and then looked at his feet and legs ; 
 and after a while he pressed his foot hard, and asked him 
 ii8 if he could feel; and he said, No ; and then his leg, and 
 so upwards and upwards, and showed us that he was 
 cold and stiff. And he felt them himself, and said : 
 When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the 
 end. He was beginning to grow cold about the groin, 
 when he uncovered his face, for he had covered himself 
 up, and said — they were his last words — he said : 
 Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember 
 to pay the debt ? The debt shall be paid, said Crito ; 
 is there anything else ? There was no answer to this 
 question ; but in a minute or two a movement was 
 heard, and the attendants uncovered him ; his eyes 
 were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth. 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 167 
 
 Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend ; con- 
 cerning whom I may truly say, that of all the men of 
 his time whom I have known, he was the wisest and 
 justest and best. 
 
 GORGIAS 
 
 I. The good man desires, not a long, but a virtuous 
 life. 
 
 The Gorgias, like several other writings of Plato, is not easily 
 summarized under a single head, although numerous commentators 
 and editors have attempted the task. We shall, perhaps, not be far 
 wrong if we say that the dialogue is intended to set forth the 
 final victory of truth and righteousness over falsehood and injustice ; 
 but we have to travel by many winding roads in order to reach 
 our goal. There is a true rhetoric which convinces us of sin, and 
 a false rhetoric which places evil in a specious light, and ' makes 
 the worse appear the better cause.' Again, there is a true art 
 of politics which considers only the "welfare of the state, and a 
 bastard kind which flatters the multitude and brings ruin on -the 
 city. Lastly, there is the contrast between the just man who is 
 happy * even though he suffer undeservedly,' and the wicked, who, 
 if ihey escape punishment in this life, receive fitting chastisement 
 in another world. The lesson or 'moral' is pointed by a myth 
 which shows how futile are the falsehoods and conventions of 
 human life, when the soul comes to appear before the judgment- 
 seat of the sons of Zeus in Hades. 
 
 The dialogue probably belongs to a middle period of the Platonic 
 writings. It seems to be later than the Phaedrus, which also 
 treats of Rhetoric true and false, but is written in a lighter and 
 more playful vein ; it can scarcely come after the Republic, in 
 which the triumph of justice again furnishes a guiding principle 
 of the whole discourse. Thus it may be described as a resumption 
 of the one, and a preparation for the other. A further reason for 
 assigning the dialogue to a later rather than to an earlier date 
 is to be found in the appearance of that austerity or bitterness of 
 tone which marks several of Plato's most important works, c. g the 
 Statesman and the Laws, and which we may indulge our fancy 
 by attributing in a measure to the circumstances of his life. 
 
 The characters of the dialogue, besides the familiar figure of 
 
l68 GORGIAS 
 
 Socrates, are Gorgias, the famous Sophist ; Polus, his young disciple, 
 the same whose ' Licymnian diction ' is ridiculed in the Phaedrus 
 (267 C*, and Callicles, a wealthy Athenian and friend of Gorgias, 
 not otherwise known to us. Chaerophon, the ' excitable ' admirer 
 of Socrates (Charm. 153 B; Apol. 21 A), also appears in the pro- 
 logue, although he does not share in the subsequent discussion. 
 Gorgias himself plays a somewhat subordinate part; and neither 
 he nor his confident and forward pupil, Polus, can offer any sub- 
 stantial resistance to the dialectical prowess of Socrates, that ' hero 
 of argument' (Theaet. 169). Callicles, coming to the rescue of 
 Polus, maintains against Socrates ' the law of nature,' or the principle 
 that ' might is right ' ; lie, however, is in turn vanquished, and 
 grudgingly admits 'that he is almost convinced' of the truth of 
 his opponent's words. This is the most serious portion of the 
 dialogue ; but the earnestness is slightly veiled as usual by the irony 
 of Socrates, which really helps to heighten the effect. 
 
 . . . The connexion of the passage which is here quoted with 
 what immediately precedes is as follows : — Callicles has been 
 asserting that virtue is a mere sham or convention, and that the 
 unjust man is happy so long as he prospers in his career of crime. 
 Socrates protests against such an impious doctrine, and declares 
 that the unjust is only happy when he is punished for his wicked- 
 ness. Callicles says that this is absurd ; for will not the tyrant 
 be able to put the just man to death or treat him in any cruel 
 manner which he pleases? The answer according to Socrates is 
 that life in itself is of little value ; the just man simply desires 
 a good life, whether short or long, happy or miserable. He then 
 proceeds in his half-jesting manner to support his thesis by humorous 
 instances of life-saving, arts which are held in little esteem among 
 mankind. 
 
 Steph. Callicles. You always contrive somehow or other, 
 ^^ Socrates, to invert everything : do you not know that 
 he who imitates the tyrant will, if he has a mind, kill 
 him who does not imitate him and take away his goods ? 
 Soc. Excellent Callicles, I am not deaf, and I have 
 heard that a great many limes from you and from 
 Polus and from nearly every man in the city, but 
 I wish that you would hear me too. I dare say that 
 he will kill him if he has a mind — the bad man will 
 kill the good and true. 
 
^* THE ARTS WHICH PRESERVE LIFE 1 69 
 
 Cal. And is not that juSt the provoking thing ? 
 
 Soc. Nay, not to a man of sense, as the argument 
 shows : do you think that all our cares should be 
 directed to prolonging life to the uttermost, and to the 
 study of those arts which secure us from danger always ; 
 like that art of rhetoric which saves men in courts of 
 law, and which you advise me to cultivate ? 
 
 Cal. Yes, truly, and very good advice too. 
 
 Soc. Well, my friend, but what do you think of 
 swimming ; is that an art of any great pretensions ? 
 
 Cal. No, indeed. 
 
 Soc. And yet surely swimming saves a man from 
 death, and there are occasions on which he must know 
 how to swim. And if you despise the swimmers, I will 
 tell you of another and greater art, the art of the pilot, 
 who not only saves the souls of men, but also their 
 bodies and properties from the extremity of danger, 
 just like rhetoric. Yet his art is modest and unpre- 
 suming : it has no airs or pretences of doing anything 
 extraordinary, and, in return for the same salvation 
 which is given by the pleader, demands only two obols, 
 if he brings us from Aegina to Athens, or for the longer 
 voyage from Pontus or Egypt, at the utmost two 
 drachmae, when he has saved, as I was just now saying, 
 the passenger and his wife and children and goods, and 
 safely disembarked them at the Piraeus, — this is the pay- 
 ment which he asks in return for so great a boon ; and 
 he who is the master of the art, and has done all this, 
 gets out and walks about on the sea-shore by his ship 
 in an unassuming way. For he is able to reflect and 
 is aware that he cannot tell which of his fellow- 
 passengers he has benefited, and which of them he has 
 injured in not allowing them to be drowned. He knows 
 that they are just the same when he has disembarked 
 them as when they embarked, and not a whit better 512 
 
170 GORGIAS 
 
 either in their bodies or in their souls ; and he considers 
 that if a man who is afflicted by great and incurable 
 bodily diseases is only to be pitied for having escaped, 
 and is in no way benefited by him in having been saved 
 from drowning, much less he who has great and incur- 
 able diseases, not of the body, but of the soul, which is 
 the more valuable part of him ; neither is life worth 
 having nor of any profit to the bad man, whether he be 
 delivered from the sea, or the law-courts, or any other 
 devourer ; — and so he reflects that such a one had 
 better not live, for he cannot live well '. 
 
 And this is the reason why the pilot, although he is 
 our saviour, is not usually conceited, any more than the 
 engineer, who is not at all behind either the general, or 
 the pilot, or any one else, in his saving power, for he 
 sometimes saves whole cities. Is there any comparison 
 between him and the pleader ? And if he were to talk, 
 Callicles, in your grandiose style, he would bury you 
 under a mountain of words, declaring and insisting 
 that we ought all of us to be engine-makers, and that 
 no other profession is worth thinking about ; he would 
 have plenty to say. Nevertheless you despise him and 
 his art, and sneeringly call him an engine-maker, and 
 you will not allow your daughters to marry his son, or 
 marry your son to his daughters. And yet, on your 
 principle, what justice or reason is there in your 
 refusal? What right have you to despise the engine- 
 maker, and the others whom I was just now mentioning? 
 I know that you will say, 'I am better, and better born.' 
 But if the better is not what I say, and virtue consists 
 only in a man saving himself and his, whatever may be 
 his character, then your censure of the engine-maker, 
 and of the physician, and of the other arts of salvation, 
 is ridiculous. 
 
 ' Cp. Rep. iii. 407 E. 
 
HOIV MAY LIFE BEST BE SPENT? 17I 
 
 O my friend ! I want you to see that the noble and 
 the good may possibly be something different from 
 saving and being saved : — May not he who is truly a 
 man cease to care aboutliving a certain time?— heknows, 
 as women say, that no man can escape fate, and there- 
 fore he is not fond of life ; he leaves all that with God, 
 and considers in what way he can best spend his 
 appointed term ; — whether by assimilating himself to 
 the constitution under which he lives, as you at this 5i3 
 moment have to consider how you may become as like 
 as possible to the Athenian people, if you mean to be in 
 their good graces, and to have power in the state ; 
 whereas I want you to think and see whether this is 
 for the interest of either of us ; — I would not have us 
 risk that which is dearest on the acquisition of this 
 power, like the Thessalian enchantresses, who, as they 
 say, bring down the moon from heaven at the risk of 
 their own perdition. 
 
 2. The Judgment of the Dead : The Moral of 
 the Tale. 
 
 The myth which concludes the Gorgias bears, as may be gathered 
 from what has been already said (^pp. 136, 151), a general resemblance 
 to those which occur in the Phaedo and the Republic. Like them, 
 it is intended by Plato, partly to relieve and brighten the work, 
 partly to sum up the argument and at the same time set it in a new 
 and attractive light. The substance of the story is the belief in 
 a Judgment of the Dead, which was widely spread in Plato's time, 
 although it does not seem to occur in Greek literature before Pindar 
 (c. B.C. 490). For in the lines which Plato quotes from the Odyssey 
 (526 D) Minos is not presiding at a tribunal before which the souls 
 of the newly departed appear: he is merely continuing in Hades 
 the work of legislation in which he was engaged while on earth. 
 The names of the judges are variously given' in antiquity; the 
 Attic version of the legend added Triptolemus to their number, 
 and so Plato has represented him in the Apology (41 A). But 
 Plato allows himself the same freedom in dealing with ' the traditions 
 of the ancients ' as with the facts of history ; and the notion that 
 
172 GORGIAS 
 
 in the days of Cronos the judgment was given previously to the 
 passing of the soul and by living judges, is due entirely to his fertile 
 imagination. It certainly renders the tale more harmonious and 
 complete ; and the description of the wicked soul trembling in 
 nakedness and deformity before the judgment-seat makes a striking 
 and effective contrast to the pictures of the earthly happiness of the 
 tyrant which have been previously drawn by Polus and Callicles. 
 
 Steph. Soc. Listen, then, as story-tellers say, to a very 
 ^'^ pretty tale, which I dare say that you may be disposed 
 to regard as a fable only, but which, as I believe, is 
 a true tale, for I mean to speak the truth. Homer tells 
 us ', how Zeus and Poseidon and Pluto divided the 
 empire which they inherited from their father. Now in 
 the days of Cronos there existed a law respecting the 
 destiny of man, which has always been, and still con- 
 tinues to be in Heaven, — that he who has lived all his 
 life in justice and holiness shall go, when he is dead, 
 to the Islands of the Blessed, and dwell there in perfect 
 happiness out of the reach of evil ; but that he who has 
 lived unjustly and impiously shall go to the house of 
 vengeance and punishment, which is called Tartarus. 
 And in the time of Cronos, and even quite lately in the 
 reign of Zeus, the judgment was given on the very day 
 on which the men were to die ; the judges were alive, 
 and the men were alive ; and the consequence was that 
 the judgments were not well given. 
 
 Then Pluto and the authorities from the Islands of 
 the Blessed came to Zeus, and said that the souls found 
 their way to the wrong places. Zeus said : ' I shall put 
 a stop to this ; the judgments are not well given, 
 because the persons who are judged have their clothes 
 on, for they are alive ; and there are many who, having 
 evil souls, are apparelled in fair bodies, or encased in 
 wealth or rank, and, when the day of judgment arrives, 
 numerous witnesses come forward and testify on their 
 
 ' II. XV. 187 foil. 
 
THE SOULS OF THE DEPARTED 173 
 
 behalf that they have lived righteously. The judges 
 are awed by them, and they themselves too have their 
 clothes on when judging ; their eyes and ears and their 
 whole bodies are interposed as a veil before their own 
 souls. All this is a hindrance to them ; there are the 
 clothes of the judges and the clothes of the judged. — 
 What is to he done? I will tell you:— In the first 
 place, I will deprive men of the foreknowledge of death, 
 which they possess at present : this power which they 
 have Prometheus has already received my orders to 
 take from them : in the second place, they shall be 
 entirely stripped before they are judged, for they shall 
 be judged when they are dead ; and the judge too shall 
 be naked, that is to say, dead — he with his naked soul 
 shall pierce into the other naked souls ; and they shall 
 die suddenly and be deprived of all their kindred, and 
 leave their brave attire strewn upon the earth — con- 
 ducted in this manner, the judgment will be just. 
 
 ' I knew all about the matter before any of you, and 
 therefore I have made my sons judges; two from Asia, 
 Minos and Rhadamanthus, and one from Europe, 
 Aeacus. And these, when they are dead, shall give 524 
 judgment in the meadow at the parting of the ways, 
 whence the two roads lead, one to the Islands of the 
 Blessed, and the other to Tartarus. Rhadamanthus 
 shall judge those who come from Asia, and Aeacus 
 those who come from Europe. And to Minos I shall 
 give the primacy, and he shall hold a court of appeal, 
 in case either of the two others are in any doubt :— then 
 the judgment respecting the last journey of men will be 
 as just as possible.' 
 
 From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and 
 believe, I draw the following inferences : — Death, if 
 I am right, is in the first place the separation from one 
 another of two things, soul and body; nothing else. 
 
174 GORGIAS 
 
 And after they are separated they retain their several 
 natures, as in life ; the body keeps the same habit, and 
 the results of treatment or accident are distinctly 
 visible in it : for example, he who by nature or training 
 or both, was a tall man while he was alive, will remain 
 as he was, after he is dead ; and the fat man will 
 remain fat ; and so on ; and the dead man, who in life 
 had a fancy to have flowing hair, will have flowing hair. 
 And if he was marked with the whip and had the prints 
 of the scourge, or of wounds in him when he was alive, 
 you might see the same in the dead body ; and if his 
 limbs were broken or misshapen when he was alive, 
 the same appearance would be visible in the dead. 
 And in a word, whatever was the habit of the body 
 during life would be distinguishable after death, either 
 perfectly, or in a great measure and for a certain time. 
 And I should imagine that this is equally true of the 
 soul, Callicles ; when a man is stripped of the body, all 
 the natural or acquired affections of the soul are laid 
 open to view. 
 
 And when they come to the judge, as those from 
 Asia come to Rhadamanthus, he places them near him 
 and inspects them quite impartially, not knowing whose 
 the soul is : perhaps he may lay hands on the soul of 
 the great king, or of some other king or potentate, who 
 has no soundness in him, but his soul is marked with 
 the whip, and is full of the prints and scars of perjuries 
 and crimes with which each action has stained him, and 
 525 he is all crooked with falsehood and imposture, and has 
 no straightness, because he has lived without truth. 
 Him Rhadamanthus beholds, full of all deformity and 
 disproportion, which is caused by licence and luxury 
 and insolence and incontinence, and despatches him 
 ignominiously to his prison, and there he undergoes the 
 punishment which he deserves. 
 
THE PUNISHMENT OF WICKED PRINCES 175 
 
 Now the proper office of punishment is twofold : he 
 who is rightly punished ought either to become better 
 and profit by it, or he ought to be made an example to 
 his fellows, that they may see what he suffers, and fear 
 and become better. Those who are improved when 
 they are punished by gods and men, are those whose 
 sins are curable ; and they are improved, as in this 
 world so also in another, by pain and Suffering ; for 
 there is no other way in which they can be delivered 
 from their evil. But they who have been guilty of the 
 worst crimes, and are incurable by reason of their 
 crimes, are made examples ; for, as they are incurable, 
 the time has passed at which they can receive any 
 benefit. They get no good themselves, but others get 
 good when they behold them enduring for ever the 
 most terrible and painful and fearful sufferings as the 
 penalty of their sins — there they are, hanging up as 
 examples, in the prison-house of the world below, 
 a spectacle and a warning to all unrighteous men who 
 come thither. And among them, as I confidently 
 affirm, will be found Archelaus, if Polus truly reports 
 of him, and any other tyrant who is like him. 
 
 Of these fearful examples, most, as I believe, are 
 taken from the class of tyrants and kings and poten- 
 tates and public men, for they are the authors of the 
 greatest and most impious crimes, because they have 
 the power. And Homer witnesses to the truth of this ; 
 for they are always kings and potentates whom he has 
 described as suffering everlasting punishment in the 
 world below : such were Tantalus and Sisyphus and 
 Tityus. But no one ever described Thersites, or any 
 private person who was a villain, as suffering ever- 
 lasting punishment, or as incurable. For to commit the 
 worst crimes, as I am inclined to think, was not in his 
 power, and he was happier than those who had the 
 
176 GORGIAS 
 
 526 power. No, Callicles, the very bad men come from 
 the class of those who have power '. And yet in that 
 very class there may arise good men, and \yorthy of all 
 admiration they are, for where there is great power to 
 do wrong, to live and to die justly is a hard thing, and 
 greatly to be praised, and few there are who attain to 
 this. Such good and true men, however, there have 
 been, and will be again, at Athens and in other states, 
 who have fulfilled their trust righteously ; and there is 
 one who is quite famous all over Hellas, Aristeides, the 
 son of Lysimachus. But, in general, great men are 
 also bad, my friend. 
 
 As I was saying, Rhadamanthus, when he gets a soul 
 of the bad kind, knows nothing about him, neither who 
 he is, nor who his parents are ; he knows only that he 
 has got hold of a villain ; and seeing this, he stamps 
 him as curable or incurable, and sends him away to 
 Tartarus, whither he goes and receives his proper re- 
 compense. Or, again, he looks with admiration on the 
 soul of some just one who has lived in holiness and 
 truth ; he may have been a private man or not ; and 
 I should say, Callicles, that he is most likely to have 
 been a philosopher who has done his own work, and 
 not troubled himself with the doings of other men in 
 his lifetime; him Rhadamanthus sends to the Islands 
 of the Blessed. Aeacus does the same ; and they 
 both have sceptres, and judge ; but Minos alone has 
 a golden sceptre and is seated looking on, as Odysseus 
 in Homer '■' declares that he saw him : 
 
 ' Holding a sceptre of gold, and giving laws to the dead.' 
 
 Now I, Callicles, am persuaded of the truth of these 
 things, and I consider how I shall present my soul 
 whole and undefiled before the judge in that day, 
 
 ' Cp. Rep. jL. 615 E. ' Odyss. xi. 569. 
 
WE MUST HOLD FAST TO VIRTUE 177 
 
 Renouncing the honours at which the world aims, 
 I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as 
 I can, and, when I die, to die as well as I can. And, to 
 the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do 
 the same. And, in return for your exhortation of me, 
 I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, 
 which is the combat of life, and greater than every 
 other earthly conflict. And I retort your reproach of 
 me, and say, that you will not be able to help yourself 
 when the day of trial and judgment, of which I was 
 speaking, comes upon you ; you will go before the 
 judge, the son of Aegina, and, when he has got you in 
 his grip and is carrying you off, you will gape and your 527 
 head will swim round, just as mine would in the courts 
 of this world, and very likely some one will shamefully 
 box you on the ears, and put upon you any sort of 
 insult. 
 
 Perhaps this may appear to you to be only an old 
 wife's tale, which you will contemn. And there might 
 be reason in your contemning such tales, if by searching 
 we could find out anything better or truer : but now 
 you see that you and Polus and Gorgias, who are the 
 three wisest of the Greeks of our day, are not able to 
 show that we ought to live any life which does not 
 profit in another world as well as in this. And of all 
 that has been said, nothing remains unshaken but the 
 saying, that to do injustice is more to be avoided than to 
 suffer injustice, and that the reality and not the appear- 
 ance of virtue is to be followed above all things, as well 
 in public as in private life ; and that when any one has 
 been wrong in anything, he is to be chastised, and that 
 the next best thing to a man being just is that he should 
 become just, and be chastised and punished ; also that 
 he should avoid all flattery of himself as well as of 
 others, of the few or of the many : and rhetoric and any 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
178 ALCIBIADES I 
 
 otber art should be used by him, and all his actions 
 should be done always, with a view to justice. 
 
 Follow me then, and I will lead you where you will 
 be happy in life and after death, as the argument shows. 
 And never mind if some one despises you as a fool, and 
 insults you, if he has a mind ; let him strike you, by 
 Zeus, and do you be of good cheer, and do not mind 
 the insulting blow, for you will never come to any harm 
 in the practice of virtue, if you are a really good and 
 true man. When we have practised virtue together, 
 we will apply ourselves to politics, 'if that seems desir- 
 able, or we will advise about whatever else may seem 
 good to us, for we shall be better able to judge then. 
 In our present condition we ought not to give ourselves 
 airs, for even on the most important subjects we are 
 always changing our minds ; so utterly stupid are we ! 
 Let us, then, take the argument as our guide, which 
 has revealed to us that the best way of life is to practise 
 justice and every virtue in life and death. This way 
 let us go ; and in this exhort all men to follow, not in 
 the way to which you trust and in which you exhort 
 me to follow you; for that way, Callicles, is nothing 
 worth. 
 
 ALCIBIADES I 
 
 Socra.tes humiliates Alcibiades by showing him his 
 inferiority to the Kings of Lacedaemon and of Persia. 
 
 There is little substantial reason to doubt the genuineness of 
 the vast majority of the writings which have come down to us 
 under the name of Plato. A few works, however, have been 
 preserved, which are of a less certain character. Of these a small 
 proportion may actually be dialogues written by Plato at an early 
 period of his life, or in hours when the Muses were unpropitious, 
 
SOCRATES AND ALCIBIADES 179 
 
 or they may be the work of members of his school to which, by a natural 
 confusion, his own name has come to be affixed. The remainder 
 and larger number appear to belong to a later date, and are so 
 unmistakably inferior to the undoubted compositions of Plato, that 
 it is hardly possible seriously to maintain their authenticity. 
 
 The First Alcibiades is a good specimen of the former class. It 
 is by no means without merit, and is clearly and simply written. The 
 principal ground for suspicion is that it seems to be merely a re- 
 writing of the theme which occupies a considerable space in the 
 Symposium, — the relations of Socrates to Alcibiades. But the colour 
 and glow of the master are wanting : everything betrays the feeble 
 hand of the copyist who is striving to imitate some work of original 
 genius. 
 
 The characters of the Dialogue are only two, Socrates and 
 Alcibiades, and no attempt is made to describe the scene or the 
 surroundings. Alcibiades, who is on the point of entering public 
 life, is cross-examined by Socrates as to his fitness for the career 
 of a statesman. Alcibiades at first is confident that he is thoroughly 
 prepared; but Socrates by a series of questions entangles him in 
 self-contradictions, and finally reduces him to a humiliating confession 
 of ignorance. He does not even, as the Delphian inscription recom- 
 mends, 'know himself,' and much less is he capable of managing the 
 affairs of others. 
 
 The passage which follows is a humorous contrast between the 
 greatness and wealth of the Kings of Sparta and Persia and the 
 insignificance of Alcibiades, both in respect of birth and means. 
 The satire which it conveys on the statesmen of Athens is quite 
 in the spirit of Plato ; and we must suppose the writer, if not 
 really Plato himself, to have had in mind the depreciatory references 
 to Pericles and other public men in the Gorgias and the Statesman. 
 And it may have been one at least of the objects with which the 
 Dialogue was composed to exhibit the unfitness and incapacity of 
 the politicians of the time, as well as to show that Socrates was 
 not justly to be blamed for the wickedness and folly of some of 
 those who called themselves h!s disciples. (Cp. Socrates' defence 
 of himself against this charge in the Apology, 24 foil., 33, &c.) 
 
 Socrates. Why, you surely know that our city goes to Steph-. 
 war now and then with the Lacedaemonians and with ^4° 
 the great king ? 
 
 Alcibiades. True enough. 
 
 Soc. And if you meant to be the ruler of this city, 
 N 2 
 
l8o ALCIBIADES I 
 
 would you not be right in considering that the Lace- 
 daemonian and Persian king were your true rivals ? 
 , AI. I believe that you are right. 
 
 Soc, Oh no, my friend, I am quite wrong, and I 
 think that you ought rather to turn your attention to 
 Midias the quail-breeder and others like him, who 
 manage our politics ; in whom, as the women would 
 remark, you may still see the slaves' cut of hair, 
 cropping out in their minds as well as on their pates ; 
 and they come with their barbarous lingo to flatter us 
 and not to rule us. To these, I say, you should look, 
 and then you need not trouble yourself about your 
 own fitness to contend in such a noble arena : there is 
 no reason why you should either learn what has to be 
 learned, or practise what has to be practised, and only 
 when thoroughly prepared enter on a political career. 
 
 Al. There, I think, Socrates, that you are right ; I 
 do not suppose, however, that the Spartan generals or 
 the great king are really different from anybody else. 
 
 Soc. But, my dear friend, do consider what you are 
 saying. 
 
 Al. What am I to consider ? 
 
 Soc. In the first place, will you be more likely to take 
 care of yourself, if you are in a wholesome fear and 
 dread of them, or if you are not ? 
 
 Al. Clearly, if I have such a fear of them. 
 
 Soc. And do you think that you will sustain any 
 injury if you take care of yourself? 
 
 Al. No, I shall be greatly benefited. 
 
 Soc. And this is one very important respect in which 
 that notion of yours is bad. 
 
 Al. True. 
 
 Soc. In the next place, consider that what you say is' 
 probably false. 
 
 Al. How so ? 
 
THE GENEALOGIES OF KINGS lol 
 
 Soc. Let me ask you whether better natures are 
 likely to be found in noble races or not in noble races ? 
 
 Al. Clearly in noble races. 
 
 Soc. Are not those who are well born and well bred 
 most likely to be perfect in virtue ? 
 
 Al. Certainly. 
 
 Soc. Then let us compare our antecedents with those 
 of the Lacedaemonian and Persian kings ; are they 
 inferior to us in descent ? Have we not heard that the 
 former are sprung from Heracles, and the latter from 
 Achaemenes, and that the race of Heracles and the race 
 of Achaemenes go back to Perseus, son of Zeus ? 
 
 Al. Why, so does mine go back to Eurysaces, and 121 
 he to Zeus 1 
 
 Soc. And mine, noble Alcibiades, to Daedalus, and 
 he to Hephaestus, son of Zeus. But, for all that, we are 
 far inferior to them. For they are descended 'from 
 Zeus,' through a line of kings — either kings of Argos 
 and Lacedaemon, or kings of Persia, a country 
 which the descendants of Achaemenes have always 
 possessed, besides being at various times sovereigns 
 of Asia, as they now are ; whereas, we and our fathers 
 were but private persons. How ridiculous would you 
 be thought if you were to make a display of your 
 ancestors and of Salamis the island of Eurysaces, or 
 of Aegina, the habitation of the still more ancient 
 Aeacus, before Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes. You should 
 consider how inferior we are to them both in the 
 derivation of our birth and in other particulars. Did 
 you never observe how great is the property of the 
 Spartan kings ? And their wives are under the 
 guardianship of the Ephori, who are public officers and 
 watch over them, in order to preserve as far as possible 
 the purity of the Heracleid blood. 
 
 Still greater is the difference among the Persians ; 
 
l82 ALCIBIADES I 
 
 for no one entertains a suspicion that the father of a 
 prince of Persia can be any one but the king. Such is 
 the awe which invests the person of the queen, that any 
 other guard is needless. And when the heir of the 
 Idngdom is born, all the subjects of the king feast ; and 
 the day of his birth is fot ever afterwards kept as 
 a holiday and time of sacrifice by all Asia ; whereas, 
 when you and I were born, Alcibiades, as the comic 
 poet says, the neighbours hardly knew of the important 
 event. After the birth of the royal child, he is tended, 
 not by a good-for-nothing woman-nurse, but by the best 
 of the royal eunuchs, who are charged with the care 
 of him, and especially with the fa,shioning and right 
 formation of his limbs, in order that he may be as 
 shapely as possible ; which being their calling, they are 
 held in great honour. And when the young prince is 
 seven years old he is put upon a horse and taken to 
 the riding-masters, and begins to go out hunting. And 
 at fourteen years of age he is handed over to the 
 royal schoolmasters, as they are termed : these are four 
 chosen men, reputed to be the best among the Persians 
 of a certain age ; and one of them is the wisest, another 
 the justest, a third the most temperate, and a fourth the 
 most valiant. The first instructs him in the magianism 
 123 of Zoroaster, the son of Oromasus, which is the worship 
 of the Gods, and teaches him also the duties of his 
 royal office ; the second, who is the justest, teaches him 
 always to speak the truth ; the third, or most temperate, 
 forbids him to allow any pleasure to be lord over him, 
 that he may be accustomed to be a freeman and king 
 indeed, — lord of himself first, and not a slave ; the most 
 valiant trains him to be bold and fearless, telling him 
 that if he fears he is to deem himself a slave ; whereas 
 Pericles gave you, Alcibiades, for a tutor Zopyrus the 
 Thracian, a slave of his who was past all other work. 
 
THE WEALTH OF THE LACEDAEMONIANS 183 
 
 I might enlarge on the nurture and education of your 
 rivals, but that would be tedious; and what I have 
 said is a sufficient sample of what remains to be said. 
 I have only to remark, by way of contrast, that no 
 one cares about your birth or nurture or education, or, 
 I may say, about that of any other Athenian, unless he 
 has a lover who looks after him. And if you cast an 
 eye on the wealth, the luxury, the garments with their 
 flowing trains, the anointings with myrrh, the multitudes 
 of attendants, and all the other bravery of the Persians, 
 you will be ashamed when you discern your own 
 inferiority; or if you look at the temperance and order- 
 liness and ease and grace and magnanimity and courage 
 and endurance and love of toil and desire of glory and 
 ambition of the Lacedaemonians — in all these respects 
 you will see that you are but a child in comparison 
 of them. Even in the matter of wealth, if you value 
 yourself upon that, I must reveal to you how you 
 stand; for if you form an estimate of the wealth of the 
 Lacedaemonians, you will see that our possessions fall 
 far short of theirs. For no one here can compete with 
 them either in the extent and fertihty of their own and 
 the Messenian territory, or in the number of their 
 slaves, and especially of the Helots, or of their horses, 
 or of the animals which feed on the Messenian pastures. 
 But I have said enough of this ; and as to gold and 
 silver, there is more of them in Lacedaemon than in all 
 the rest of Hellas, for during many generations gold has 
 been always flowing in to them from the whole Hellenic 
 world, and often from the barbarian also, and never 
 going out, as in the fable of Aesop the fox said to the 123 
 lion, 'The prints of the feet of those going in are 
 distinct enough ; ' but who ever saw the trace of money 
 going out of Lacedaemon ? and therefore you may 
 safely infer that the inhabitants are the richest of the 
 
184 ALCIBIADES I 
 
 Hellenes in gold and silver, and that their kings are 
 the richest of them, for they have a larger share of these 
 things, and they have also a tribute paid to them which 
 is very considerable. Yet the Spartan wealth, though 
 great in comparison of the wealth of the other Hellenes, 
 is as nothing in comparison of that of the Persians and 
 their kings. Why, I have been informed by a credible 
 person who went up to the king [at Susa], that he 
 passed through a large tract of excellent land, extending 
 for nearly a day's journey, which the people of the 
 country called the queen's girdle, and another, which 
 they called her veil ; and several other fair and fertile 
 districts, which were reserved for the adornment of the 
 queen, and are named after her several habiliments. 
 
 Now, I cannot help thinking to myself. What if some 
 one were to go to Amestris, the wife of Xerxes and 
 mother of Artaxerxes, and say to her. There is a 
 certain Dinomache, whose whole wardrobe is not worth 
 fifty minae — and that will be more than the value — and 
 she has a son who is possessed of a three-hundred acre 
 patch at Erchiae, and he has a mind to go to war with 
 your son — would she not wonder to what this Alcibiades 
 trusts for success in the conflict? 'He must rely,' she 
 would say to herself, ' upon his training and wisdom — 
 these are the things which Hellenes value.' And if she 
 heard that this Alcibiades who is making the attempt is 
 not as yet twenty years old, and is wholly uneducated, 
 and when his lover tells him that he ought to get 
 education and training first, and then go and fight the 
 king, he refuses, and says that he is well enough as he 
 is, would she not be amazed, and ask, ' On what, then, 
 does the youth rely ? ' And if we replied : He relies on 
 his beauty, and stature, and birth, and mental endow- 
 ments, she would think that we were mad, Alcibiades, 
 when she compared the advantages which you possess 
 
THE NEED OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE 185 
 
 with those of her own people. And I believe that even 124 
 Lampido, the daughter of Leotychides, the wife of 
 Archidamus and mother of Agis, all of whom were 
 kings, would have the same feeling ; if, in your present 
 uneducated state, you were to turn your thoughts 
 against her son, she too would be equally astonished. 
 But how disgraceful, that we should not have as high 
 a notion of what is required in us as our enemies' wives 
 and mothers have of the qualities which are required in 
 their assailants ! O my friend, be persuaded by me, 
 and hear the Delphian inscription, ' Know thyself — 
 not the men whom you think, but these kings are our 
 rivals, and we can only overcome them by pains and 
 skill. And if you fail in the required qualities, you will 
 fail also in becoming renowned among Hellenes and 
 Barbarians, which you seem to desire more than any 
 other man ever desired anything. 
 
 ALCIBIADES II 
 
 The Gods approve of simple worship. 
 
 The Second Alcibiades belongs to that class of writings which 
 are acknowledged by general consent, not only to have no claim 
 to bear the name of Plato, but to have been written at a considerable 
 interval from his time. Its genuineness was doubted in antiquity, 
 and Athenaeus tells us (p. 506 E) that ' by some persons it was 
 ascribed to Xenophon,' an opinion which is entirely without rational 
 foundation. It is full of imitations of Plato, including passages 
 from the Laws, which we know to have been composed at the 
 very end of his life, and also betrays several traces of the Stoic 
 school, whose founder, Zeno of Citiijm, lived between B.C. 350 and 
 B.C. 260. There is no dramatic power in the work, and the char- 
 acters, both of Socrates and Alcibiades, are badly sustained and 
 have no resemblance to their historical prototypes. 
 
l86 ALCIBIADES 11 
 
 The Dialogue is a discourse on Prayer, and may be regarded as 
 an amplification of a thought which is attributed to Pythagoras : — 
 ' Men are to be blamed in regard to prayer, because they desire, 
 not true goods, but merely what seem to them to be goods.' (Diog. 
 Laert. 6. 42.) 
 
 Alcibiades on his way to offer prayer at some temple, meets 
 Socrates, who takes the opportunity to warn him of the importance 
 of the act in which he is about to engage. We often have false 
 ideas of what is good for ourselves ; — Alcibiades would certainly 
 be delighted if the Gods would give him the tyranny of the world, 
 and yet this would be an evil, both for himself and for others. 
 Alcibiades is gradually brought to acknowledge that ' the prayer 
 of a fool may be full of danger,' and Socrates advises him to defer 
 his prayers until he has found out how we should behave ourselves 
 towards the Gods and towards men. ' But who will be my teacher ? ' 
 asks Alcibiades. Socrates hints that he is willing, and Alcibiades gives 
 him the garland which he is wearing, and which is accepted hy 
 Socrates as a token of victory. 
 
 The following story is related to Alcibiades by Socrates in order 
 to show him what is the kind of worship which the Gods approve. 
 It is not known to us from other sources, and,— if this is not paying 
 too great a compliment to the author's powers, — may even have 
 been invented for the occasion. The time of the supposed event 
 appears to be some period of the Peloponnesian War, and we may 
 observe the grotesque anachronism, beyond all permissible limits, 
 of placing such a story in the mouth of Socrates, the hero of 
 Delium, Potidaea, and Amphipolis (Apology 28 E). The ' moral 
 of the tale,' that men should maintain an attitude of dignity and 
 reticence even before the Gods, is a commonplace of the Stoic 
 writers, and is therefore one of the marks which indicate the com- 
 paratively late date of the composition. A similar idea is well 
 expressed in the words of Marcus Aurellus, who, after citing the 
 ancient prayer of the Athenians, ' Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, down 
 on the ploughed fields of the Athenians and on the plains,' adds, 
 'in truth, we ought not to pray at all, or we ought to pray in this 
 simple and noble fashion.' (Marc. Aurel., tr. Long, v. § 7.) 
 
 Steph. Socrates. And was not the poet whose words I origi- 
 ^^ nally quoted wiser than we are, when he bade us [pray 
 God] to defend us from evil even though we asked 
 for it ? 
 
 Alcibiades. I believe that you are right. 
 
THE ATHENIANS AND THE GOD AMMON 187 
 
 Soc. The Lacedaemonians, too, whether from ad- 
 miration of the poet or because they have discovered 
 the idea for themselves, are wont to offer the prayer 
 ahke in public and private, that the Gods will give unto 
 them 'the beautiful as well as the good : — no one is 
 likely to hear them make any further petition. And yet 
 up to the present time they have not been less fortunate 
 than other men ; or if they have sometimes met with 
 misfortune, the fault has not been due to their prayer. 
 For surely, as I conceive, the Gods have power either 
 to grant our requests, or to send us the contrary of 
 what we ask. 
 
 And now I will relate to you a story which I have 
 heard from certain of our elders. It chanced that when 
 the Athenians and Lacedaemonians were at war, our 
 city lost every battle by land and sea and never gained 
 a victory. The Athenians being annoyed and perplexed 
 how to find a remedy for their troubles, decided to send 
 and enquire at the shrine of Ammon. Their envoys were 
 also to ask, ' Why the Gods always granted the victory 
 to the Lacedaemonians?' 'We,' (they were to say,) 'offer 
 them more and finer sacrifices than any other Hellenic 
 state, and adorn their temples with gifts, as nobody 
 else does ; moreover, we make the most solemn and 
 costly processions to them every j'ear, and spend more 
 money in their service than all the rest of the Hellenes 
 put together. But the Lacedaemonians take no thought 149 
 of such matters, and pay so little respect to the Gods 
 that they have a habit of sacrificing blemished animals 
 to them, and in various ways are less zealous than we 
 are, although their wealth is quite equal to ours.' When 
 they had thus spoken, and had made their request to 
 know what remedy they could find against the evils 
 which troubled them, the prophet made no direct 
 answer, — clearly because he was not allowed by the 
 
l88 ALCIBIADES II 
 
 God to do so ; — but he summoned them to him and 
 said : ' Thus saith Ammon to the Athenians : — " The 
 silent worship of the Lacedaemonians pleaseth me 
 better than all the offerings of the other Hellenes."' 
 
 Such were the words of the God, and nothing' more. 
 He seems to have meant by ' silent worship ' the prayer 
 of the Lacedaemonians, which is indeed widely different 
 from the usual requests of the Hellenes. For they 
 either bring to the altar bulls with gilded horns or 
 make offerings to the Gods, and beg at random for 
 what they need, good or bad. When, therefore, the 
 Gods hear them using words of ill omen they reject 
 these costly processions and sacrifices of theirs. And 
 we ought, I think, to be very careful and consider well 
 what we should say and what leave unsaid. Homer, 
 too, will furnish us with similar stories. For he tells 
 us how the Trojans in making their encampment, 
 
 ' Offered up whole hecatombs to the immortals,' 
 
 and how the ' sweet savour ' was borne ' to the heavens 
 by the winds ; 
 
 ' But the blessed Gods were averse and received it not. 
 For exceedingly did they hate the holy Ilium, 
 Both Priam and the people of the spear-skilled king.' ^ 
 
 So that it was in vain for them to sacrifice and offer 
 gifts, seeing that they were hateful to the Gods, who 
 are not, like vile usurers, to be gained over by bribes. 
 
 And it is foolish for us to boast that we are superior 
 to the Lacedaemonians by reason of our much worship. 
 150 The idea is inconceivable that the Gods have regard, 
 not to the justice and purity of our souls, but to costly 
 processions and sacrifices, which men may celebrate 
 year after year, although they have committed innumer- 
 
 ' Homer, II. viii. 548. 
 
THE GODS ARE NOT TO BE BRIBED 189 
 
 able crimes against the Gods or against their fellow- 
 men or the state. For the Gods, as Ammon and his 
 prophet declare, are no receivers of gifts, and they 
 scorn such unworthy service. Wherefore also it would 
 seem that wisdom and justice are especially honoured 
 both by the Gods and by men of sense ; and they are 
 the wisest and most just who know how to speak and 
 act towards Gods and men. But I should like to hear 
 what your opinion is about these matters. 
 
 Al. I agree, Socrates, with you and with the God, 
 whom, indeed, it would be unbecoming for me to oppose. 
 
 ERYXIAS 
 
 The nature of money. 
 
 The Eryx'ias, like the Second Alcibiades, is of an entirely un- 
 Platonic character. The grace and charm of style have vanished ; 
 the language is clumsy and obscure, and serves rather to conceal, 
 than to express, the thoughts of the writer. The persons of the 
 dialogue are ill-bred and rude ; the old Athenian courtesy has 
 gone, and Socrates has several times to interpose in order to 
 prevent the disputants from coming to blows. But beneath this 
 unprepossessing form we find much originality and mental power ; 
 and the little work may be fairly reckoned among the most interesting 
 treatises on subjects connected with Political Economy which have 
 come down to us from antiquity. 
 
 The following is a brief summary of the Dialogue :-^Socrates, 
 while walking with Eryxias, is joined by Erasistratus and Critias. 
 Erasistratus points out one of the Sicilian ambassadors to Athens, 
 who happens to be passing, as the wickedest and richest man in 
 Sicily. A conversation then springs up on the nature of wealth. 
 Erasistratus defines wealth as ' the possession of things valuable 
 in themselves.' But, if so, are not knowledge and wisdom wealth ? 
 ' No,' says Eryxias ; ' a wise man may starve, if he has no market 
 for his wisdom.' * This, however,' retorts Socrates, ' does not really 
 happen ; the artist will always make money by his craft.' 
 
 The argument is now renewed from another point of view; — 
 
igo ERYXIAS 
 
 Eryxias maintains that riches are a good ; Critias that they are 
 sometimes an evil, because they will enable a bad man to carry 
 out his wicked purposes. Socrates suggests that they must first 
 agree as to what is wealth — (i) it must be useful ; (2) it must be 
 wanted ; (3) we must know how to use it ; (4) its elements are 
 infinite ; (5) it may be attained by evil means and applied to good 
 ends. The last conclusion is not accepted by Critias, and the 
 dialogue closes by showing that wealth and happiness are not 
 necessarily connected. He is the best oif who has the least wants, 
 whereas it is the richest who is the most in want. 
 
 The nature of "wealth is far clearer to us than it could possibly 
 have been to the ancients. Their industrial system, compared to 
 ours, was extremely imperfect; they depended upon slave labour, 
 and the actual participation in commerce was thought to be beneath 
 the dignity of a gentleman. But it is true, also, that there is hardly 
 any subject which is more beset with fallacies and ambiguities. 
 The course of history shows that these errors are always reappearing 
 in every age and country. Men are so eager in the pursuit of 
 wealth, and the passion for gain is so universal, that we seem 
 unable to profit either by the lessons of the past, or by the 
 caution which our own experience should inspire. And we may 
 still learn much from the study of the ancient writers, of the real 
 nature of wealth and of the good or evil which attends the pos- 
 session of it. 
 
 Steph. Socrates. Then now we have to consider, What is 
 ^^° money? Or else later on we shall be found to differ 
 about the question. For instance, the Carthaginians 
 use money of this sort. Something which is about the 
 size of a stater is tied up in a small piece of leather : what 
 it is, no one knows but the makers. A seal is next set 
 upon the leather, which then passes into circulation, and 
 he who has the largest number of such pieces is esteemed 
 the richest and best off. And yet if any one among us 
 had a mass of such coins he would be no wealthier than 
 if he had so many pebbles from the mountain. At 
 Lacedaemon, again, they use iron by weight which has 
 been rendered useless : and he who has the greatest 
 mass of such iron is thought to be the richest, although 
 elsewhere it has no value. In Ethiopia engraved stones 
 
WEALTH DEPENDS UPON USEFULNESS 191 
 
 are employed, of which a Lacedaemonian could make 
 no use. Once more, among the Nomad Scythians a 
 man who owned the house of Polytion would not be 
 thought richer than one who possessed Mount Lyca- 
 bettus among ourselves. 
 
 And clearly those things cannot all be regarded as 
 possessions; for in some cases the possessors would 
 appear none the richer thereby : but, as I was saying, 
 some one of them is thought in one place to be money, 
 and the possessors of it are the wealthy, whereas in 
 some other place it is not money, and the ownership 
 of it does not confer wealth; just as the standard of 
 morals varies, and what is honourable to some men is 
 dishonourable to others. And if we wish to enquire 
 why a house is valuable to us but not to the Scythians, 
 or why the Carthaginians value leather which is worth- 
 less to us, or the Lacedaemonians find wealth in iron 
 and we do not, can we not get an answer in some such way 
 as this : Would an Athenian, who had a thousand 
 talents weight of the stones which lie about in the Agora 
 and which we do not employ for any purpose, be 
 thought to be any the richer ? 
 
 Erasistratus. He certainly would not appear so to me. 
 
 Soc. But if he possessed a thousand talents weight 
 of some precious stone, we should say that he was very 
 rich ? 
 
 Eras. Of course. 
 
 Soc. The reason is that the one is useless and the 
 other useful ? 
 
 Eras. Yes. 
 
 Soc. And in the same way among the Scythians 
 a house has no value because they have no use for 
 a house, nor would a Scythian set so much store on 
 the finest house in the world as on a leather coat 
 because he could use the one and not the other. Or 
 
192 PARMENIDES 
 
 again, the Carthaginian coinage is not wealth in our 
 eyes, for we could not employ it, as we can silver, to 
 procure what we need, and therefore it is of no use 
 to us. 
 
 Eras. True. 
 
 PARMENIDES 
 
 The meeting of Socrates and Parmenides at Athens. 
 Criticism of the Ideas. 
 
 The Parmenides is perhaps the most difficult of all the dialogues 
 of Plato, and one of a group which are not very attractive to the 
 reader who has not been initiated into the ' mysteries of dialectic' 
 The subject is the Doctrine of Ideas, those metaphysical abstractions 
 which occupied the mind of Plato more or less during the greater 
 part of his life. They have often been supposed to be the keystone 
 of his system, on which all his other thoughts and conceptions 
 depend for stability. 
 
 This view, however, goes beyond the truth. It is a mistake to 
 imagine that Plato had in view a complete scheme of philosophy, 
 which he endeavoured to draw out in a series of treatises. His 
 genius was unsystematic and irregular ; he was almost as much 
 a poet as ^ philosopher; and the testimony of his own writings 
 is sufficient to show that he fell at various periods under the influence 
 of different teachers. The Ideas ought rather to be treated by us as 
 an attempt to convey Plato's conviction that there was a truth 
 unrealized beyond sense, which could only be grasped by the 
 mind when freed from the thraldom of the body. But he was 
 greatly perplexed by the difEculty of finding an adequate expression 
 of his thoughts, and he was perfectly conscious of the many and 
 serious objections which could be urged against his own doctrines. 
 
 In the Parmenides, which we may reasonably consider a work 
 of Plato's later years, he has reached a stage at which he is able 
 by an extraordinary effort of intellectual power to produce a criticism 
 of the Ideas which he himself cannot refute. Yet he hints by the 
 mouth of Parmenides that he is still convinced of their reality and 
 existence ; for, without abstract ideas, thought and reasoning would 
 be impossible. And in the Sophist he resumes the topic with more 
 success, and clears away some of the obstacles to his theory which 
 in the Parmenides had appeared to him to be insuperable. 
 
PARMENIDES, ZENO, AND SOCRATES 193 
 
 We had come from our home at Clazomenae to Steph. 
 Athens, and met Adeimantus and Glaucon in the ^^ 
 Agora. Welcome, Cephalus, said Adeimantus, taking 
 me by the hand; is there anything which we can do 
 for you in Athens ? 
 
 Yes ; that is why I am here ; I wish to ask a favour 
 of you. ^ 
 
 What may that be ? he said. 
 
 I want you to tell me the name of your half-brother, 
 which I have forgotten ; he was a mere child when I 
 last came hither from Clazomenae, but that was a long 
 time ago ; his father's name, if I remember rightly, was 
 Pyrilampes ? 
 
 Yes, he said, and the name of our brother, Antiphon ; 
 but why do you ask ? 
 
 Let me introduce some countrymen of mine, I said ; 
 they are lovers of philosophy, and have heard that An- 
 tiphon was intimate with a certain Pythodorus, a friend 
 of Zeno, and remembers a conversation which took 
 place between Socrates, Zeno, and Parmenides many 
 years ago,' Pythodorus having often recited it to him. 
 
 Quite true. 
 
 And could we hear it ? I asked. 
 
 Nothing easier, he replied ; when he was a youth he 
 made a careful study of the piece ; at present his 
 thoughts run in another direction ; like his grandfather 
 Antiphon he is devoted to horses. But, if that is what 
 you want, let us go and look for him ; he dwells at 
 MeUta, which is quite near, and he has only just left us 
 to go home. 
 
 Accordingly we went to look for him ; he was at 127 
 home, and in the act of giving a bridle to a smith to be 
 fitted. When he had done with the smith, his brothers 
 told him the purpose of our visit ; and he saluted me 
 as an acquaintance whom he remembered from my 
 
 VOL. I. o 
 
194 PARMENIDES 
 
 former visit, and we asked him to repeat the dialogue. 
 At first he was not very willing, and complained of the 
 trouble, but at length he consented. 
 
 He told us that Pythodorus had described to him the 
 appearance of Parmenides and Zeno ; they came to 
 Athens, as he said, at the great Panathenaea; <;he 
 former was, at the time of his visit, about 65 years old, 
 very white with age, but well favoured. Zeno was 
 nearly 40 years of age, tall and fair to look upon ; in 
 the days of his youth he was reported to have been 
 beloved by Parmenides. He said that they lodged 
 with Pythodorus in the Ceramicus, outside the wall, 
 whither Socrates, then a very young man, came to see 
 them, and many others with him ; they wanted to hear 
 the writings of Zeno, which had been brought to Athens 
 for the first time on the occasion of their visit. These 
 Zeno himself read to them in the absence of Parmeni- 
 des, and had very nearly finished when Pythodorus 
 entered, and with him Parmenides and Aristoteles who 
 was afterwards one of the Thirty, and heard the little 
 that remained of the dialogue. Pythodorus had heard 
 Zeno repeat them before. 
 
 When the recitation was completed, Socrates re- 
 quested that the first thesis of the first argument might 
 be reiad over again, and this having been done, he said : 
 What is your meaning, Zeno ? Do you maintain that if 
 being is manj', it must be both like and unlike, and that 
 this is iinpossible, for neither can the like be unlike, 
 nor the unlike like — is that your position? 
 
 Just so, said Zeno. 
 
 And if the unlike cannot be like, or the like unlike, 
 then according to you, being could not be many; for 
 this would involve an impossibility. In all that you 
 say have you any other purpose except to disprove the 
 being of the many ? ana is not each division of your 
 
ZENO THE SECOND SELF OF PARMENIDES 195 
 
 treatise intended to furnish a separate proof of this, 
 there being in all as many proofs of the not-being of the 
 many as you have composed arguments ? Is that your 
 meaning, or have I misunderstood you ? 
 
 No, said Zeno ; you have correctly understood my 128 
 general purpose. 
 
 I see, Parmenides, said Socrates, that Zeno would 
 like to be not only one with you in friendship but your 
 second self in his writings too ; he puts what you say 
 in another way, and would fain make believe that he is 
 telling us something which is new. For you, in your 
 poems, say — The All is one, and of this you adduce 
 excellent proofs ; and he on the other hand says — 
 There is no many ; and on behalf of this he offers 
 overwhelming evidence. You affirm unity, he denies 
 plurality. And so you deceive the world into believing 
 that you are saying different things when really you 
 are saying much the same. This is a strain of art 
 beyond the reach of most of us. 
 
 Yes, Socrates, said Zeno. But although you are as 
 keen as a Spartan hound in pursuing the track, you do 
 not fully apprehend the true motive of the composition, 
 which • is not really such an artificial work as you 
 imagine ; for what you speak of was an accident ; there 
 was no pretence of a great purpose ; nor any serious 
 intention of deceiving the world. The truth is, that 
 these writings of mine were meant to protect the argu- 
 ments of Parmenides against those who make fun 
 of him and seek to show the many ridiculous and con- 
 tradictory results which they suppose to follow from the 
 affirmation of the one. My answer is addressed to the 
 partisans of the many, whose attack I return with in- 
 terest by retorting upon them that their hypothesis 
 of the being of many, if carried out, appears to be still 
 more ridiculous than the hypothesis of the being of one. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 PARMENIDES 
 
 Zeal for my master led me to write the book in the days 
 of my youth, but some one stole the copy ; and therefore 
 I had no choice whether it should be published or not ; 
 the motive, however, of writing, was not the ambition 
 of an elder man, but the pugnacity of a young one. 
 This you do not seem to see, Socrates ; though in 
 other respects, as I was saying, your notion is a very 
 just one. 
 
 I understand, said Socrates, and quite accept your 
 account. But tell me, Zeno, do you not further think 
 129 that there is an idea of likeness in itself, and another 
 idea of unlikeness, which is the opposite of likeness, 
 and that in these two, you and I and all other things to 
 which we apply the term many, participate — things 
 which participate in likeness become in that degree and 
 manner like ; and so far as they participate in unlike- 
 ness become in that degree unlike, or both like and 
 unlike in the degree in which they participate in both ? 
 And may not all things partake of both opposites, and be 
 both like and unlike, by reason of this participation ? — 
 Where is the wonder ? Now if a person could prove 
 the absolute like to become unlike, or the absolute unlike 
 to become like, that, in my opinion, would indeed be 
 a wonder; but there is nothing extraordinary, Zeno, 
 in showing that the things which only partake of like- 
 ness and unlikeness experience both. Nor, again, if 
 a person were to show that all is one by partaking 
 of one, and at the same time many by partaking 
 of- many, would that be very astonishing. But if he 
 were to show me that the absolute one was many, or 
 the absolute many one, I should be truly amazed. 
 
 And so of all the rest : I should be surprised to hear 
 that the natures or ideas themselves had these opposite 
 qualities ; but not if a person wanted to prove of me 
 that I was many and also one. When he wanted to 
 
IDEAS AND VISIBLE OBJECTS 197 
 
 show that I was many he would say that I have a right 
 and a left side, and a front and a back, and an upper 
 and a lower half, for I cannot deny that I partake 
 of multitude ; when, on the other hand, he wants to 
 prove that I am one, he will say, that we who are here 
 assembled are seven, and that I am one and partake 
 of the one. In both instances he proves his case. So 
 again, if a person shows that such things as wood, 
 stones, and the like, being many are also one, we admit 
 that he shows the coexistence of the one and many, but 
 he does not show that the many are one or the one 
 many; he is uttering not a paradox but a truism. If 
 however, as I just now suggested, some one were to 
 abstract simple notions of like, unlike, one, many, rest, 
 motion, and similar ideas, and then to show that these 
 admit of admixture and separation in themselves, I 
 should be very much astonished. This part of the 
 argument appears to be treated by you, Zeno, in a very 
 spirited manner ; but, as I was saying, I should be far 
 more amazed if any one found in the ideas themselves 130 
 which are apprehended by reason, the same puzzle and 
 entanglement which you have shown to exist in visible 
 objects. 
 
 While Socrates was speaking, Pythodorus thought 
 that Parmenides and Zeno were not altogether pleased 
 at the successive steps of the argument ; but still they 
 gave the closest attention, and often looked at one 
 another, and smiled as if in admiration of him. When 
 he had finished, Parmenides expressed their feelings in 
 the following words : — 
 
 Socrates, he said, I admire the bent of your mind 
 towards philosophy; tell me now, was this your own 
 distinction between ideas in themselves and the things 
 which partake of them ? and do you think that there is 
 an idea of likeness apart from the likeness which we 
 
198 PARMENIDES 
 
 possess, and of the one and many, and of the other 
 things which Zeno mentioned ? 
 
 I thinic that there are such ideas, said Socrates. 
 
 Parmenides proceeded : And would you also make 
 absolute ideas of the just and the beautiful and the 
 good, and of all that class ? 
 
 Yes, he said, I should. 
 
 And would you make an idea of man apart from us 
 and from all other human creatures, or of fire and 
 water ? 
 
 I am often undecided, Parmenides, as to whether I 
 ought to include them or not. 
 
 And would you feel equally undecided, Socrates, 
 about things of which the mention may provoke a 
 smile ? — I mean such things as hair, mud, dirt, or any- 
 thing else which is vile and paltry ; would you suppose 
 that each of these has an idea distinct from the actual 
 objects with which we come into contact, or not ? 
 
 Certainly not, said Socrates ; visible things like these 
 are such as they appear to us, and I am afraid that 
 there would be an absurdity in assuming any idea of 
 them, although I sometimes get disturbed, and begin to 
 think that there is nothing without an idea; but then 
 again, when I have taken up this position, I run away, 
 because I am afraid that I may fall into a bottomless 
 pit of nonsense, and perish; and so I return to the 
 ideas of which I was just now speaking, and occupy 
 myself with them. 
 
 Yes, Socrates, said Parmenides ; that is because you 
 are still young ; the time will come, if I am not mistaken, 
 when philosophy will have a firmer grasp of you, and 
 then you will not despise even the meanest things ; at 
 your age, you are too much disposed to regard the 
 opinions of men. But I should like to know whether 
 you mean that there are certain ideas of which all other 
 
THE WHOLE AND THE PARTS 199 
 
 things partake, and from which they derive their names ; 
 that similars, for example, become similar, because they 131 
 partake of similarity ; and great things become great, 
 because they partake of greatness ; and that just and 
 beautiful things become just and beautiful, because they 
 partake of justice and beauty? 
 
 Yes, certainly, said Socrates, that is my meaning. 
 
 Then each individual partakes either of the whole of 
 the idea or else of a part of the idea ? Can there be any 
 other mode of participation ? 
 
 There cannot be, he said. 
 
 Then do you think that the whole idea is one, and 
 yet, being one, is in each one of the many ? 
 
 Why not, Parmenides ? said Socrates. 
 
 Because one and the same thing will exist as a whole 
 at the same time in many separate individuals, and will 
 therefore be in a state of separation from itself. 
 
 Nay, but the idea may be like the day, which is one 
 and the same in many places at once, and yet con- 
 tinuous with itself; in this way each idea may be one 
 and the same in all at the same time. 
 
 I like your way, Socrates, of making one in many 
 places at once. You mean to say, that if I were to 
 spread out a sail and cover a number of men, there 
 would be one whole including many — is not that your 
 meaning ? 
 
 I think so. 
 
 And would you say that the whole sail includes each 
 man, or a part of it only, and different parts different 
 men? 
 
 The latter. 
 
 Then, Socrates, the ideas themselves will be divisible, 
 and things which participate in them will have a part 
 of them only and not the whole idea existing in each of 
 them ? 
 
20O PARMENIDES 
 
 That seems to follow. 
 
 Then would you like to say, Socrates, that the one 
 idea is really divisible and yet remains one ? 
 
 Certainly not, he said. 
 
 Suppose that you divide absolute greatness, and that 
 of the many great things, each one is great in virtue of 
 a portion of greatness less than absolute greatness — is 
 that conceivable ? 
 
 No. 
 
 Or will each equal thing, if possessing some small 
 portion of equality less than absolute equality, be equal 
 to some other thing by virtue of that portion only ? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 Or suppose one of us to haye a portion of smallness ; 
 this is but a part of the small, and therefore the absolutely 
 small is greater; if the absolutely small be greater, that 
 to which the part of the small is added will be smaller 
 and not greater than before. 
 
 How absurd ! 
 
 Then in what way, Socrates, will all things participate 
 in the ideas, if they are unable to participate in them 
 either as parts or wholes ? 
 
 Indeed, he said, you have asked a question which is 
 not easily answered. 
 
 Well, said Parmenides, and what do you say of 
 another question ? 
 
 What question ? 
 
 I imagine that the way in which you are led to assume 
 
 13:2 one idea of each kind is as follows : — You see a number 
 
 of great objects, and when you look at them there seems 
 
 to you to be one and the same idea (or nature) in them 
 
 all ; hence you conceive of greatness as one. 
 
 Very true, said Socrates. 
 
 And if you go on and allow your mind in like 
 manner to embrace in one view the idea of greatness 
 
HAVE THE IDEAS REAL EXISTENCE? 201 
 
 and of great things which are not the idea, and to 
 compare them, will not another greatness arise, which 
 will appear to be the source of all these ? 
 
 It would seem so. 
 
 Then another idea of greatness now comes into view 
 over and above absolute greatness, and the individuals 
 which partake of it ; and then another, over and above 
 all these, by virtue of which they will all be great, and 
 so each idea instead of being one will be infinitely 
 multiplied. 
 
 But may not the ideas, asked Socrates, be thoughts 
 only, and have no proper existence except in our 
 minds, Parmenides? For in that case each idea may 
 still be one, and not experience this infinite multipli- 
 cation. 
 
 And can there be individual thoughts which are 
 thoughts of nothing? 
 
 Impossible, he said. 
 
 The thought must be of something ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Of something which is or which is not? 
 
 Of something which is. 
 
 Must it not be of a single something, which the 
 thought recognizes as attaching to all, being a single 
 form or nature ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And will not the something which is apprehended as 
 one and the same in all, be an idea ? 
 
 From that, again, there is no escape. 
 
 Then, said Parmenides, if you say that everything else 
 participates in the ideas, must you not say either that 
 everything is made up of thoughts, and that all things 
 think; or that they are thoughts but have no thought? 
 
 The latter view, Parmenides, is no more rational than 
 the previous one. In my opinion, the ideas are, as it 
 
202 PARMENIDES 
 
 were, patterns fixed in nature, and other things are Hke 
 them, and resemblances of them — what is meant by the 
 participation of other things in the ideas, is really 
 assimilation to them. 
 
 But if, said he, the individual is like the idea, must 
 not the idea also be like the individual, in so far as the 
 individual is a resemblance of the idea? That which 
 is like, cannot be conceived of as other than the like 
 of like. 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 And when two things are alike, must they not partake 
 of the same idea ? 
 
 They must. 
 
 And will not that of which the two partake, and which 
 makes them alike, be the idea itself? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Then the idea cannot be like the individual, or the 
 individual like the idea ; for if they are alike, some 
 133 further idea of likeness will always be coming to light, 
 and if that be like anything else, another; and new 
 ideas will be always arising, if the idea resembles that 
 which partakes of it ? 
 
 Quite true. 
 
 The theory, then, that other things participate in the 
 ideas by resemblance, has to be given up, and some 
 other mode of participation devised ? 
 
 It would seem so. 
 
 Do you see then, Socrates, how great is the difficulty 
 of affirming the ideas to be absolute ? 
 
 Yes, indeed. 
 
 And, further, let me say that as yet you only under- 
 stand a small part of the difficulty which is involved 
 if you make of each thing a single idea, parting it off 
 from other things. 
 
 What difficulty ? he said. 
 
IDEAS IN RELATION TO ONE ANOTHER 203 
 
 There are many, but the greatest of all is this: — If 
 an opponent argues that these ideas, being such as we 
 say they ought to be, must remain unknown, no one can 
 prove to him that he is wrong, unless he who denies 
 their existence be a man of great ability and knowledge, 
 and is willing to follow a long and laborious demon- 
 stration; he will remain unconvinced, and still insist 
 that they cannot be known. 
 
 What do you mean, Parmenides ? said Socrates. 
 
 In the first place, I think, Socrates, that you, or any 
 one who maintains the existence of absolute essences, 
 will admit that they cannot exist in us. 
 
 No, said Socrates ; for then they would be no longer 
 absolute. 
 
 True, he said ; and therefore when ideas are what 
 they are in relation to one another, their essence is 
 determined by a relation among themselves, and has 
 nothing to do with the resemblances, or whatever they 
 are to be termed, which are in our sphere, and from 
 which we receive this or that name when we partake of 
 them. And the things which are within our sphere and 
 have the same names with them, are likewise only 
 relative to one another, and not to the ideas which have 
 the same names with them, but belong to themselves 
 and not to them. 
 
 What do you mean ? said Socrates. 
 
 I may illustrate my meaning in this way, said Par- 
 menides : — A master has a slave ; now there is nothing 
 absolute in the relation between them, which is simply 
 a relation of one man to another. But there is also an 
 idea of mastership in the abstract, which is relative to 
 the idea of slavery in the abstract. These natures have 134 
 nothing to do with us, nor we with them ; they are con- 
 cerned with themselves only, and we with ourselves. 
 Do you see my meaning ? 
 
204 PARMENIDES 
 
 Yes, said Socrates, I quite see your meaning. 
 
 And will not knowledge — I mean absolute know- 
 ledge — answer to absolute truth ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And each kind of absolute knowledge will answer to 
 each kind of absolute being ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 But the knowledge which we have, will answer to the 
 truth which we have ; and again, each kind of know- 
 ledge which we have, will be a knowledge of each kind 
 of being which we have ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 But the ideas themselves, as you admit, we have not, 
 and cannot have ? 
 
 No, we cannot. 
 
 And the absolute natures or kinds are known severally 
 by the absolute idea of knowledge ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And we have not got the idea of knowledge ? 
 
 No. 
 
 Then none of the ideas are known to us, because we 
 have no share in absolute knowledge ? 
 
 I suppose not. 
 
 Then the nature of the beautiful in itself, and of the 
 good in itself, and all other ideas which we suppose to 
 exist absolutely, are unknown to us ? 
 
 It would seem so. 
 
 I think that there is a stranger consequence still. 
 
 What is it ? 
 
 Would you, or would you not say, that absolute know- 
 ledge, if there is such a thing, must be a far more exact 
 knowledge than our knowledge ; and the same of beauty 
 and of the rest ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And if there be such a thing as participation in 
 
DIFFICULTIES INVOLVED IN THE IDEAS 205 
 
 absolute knowledge, no one is more likely than God to 
 have this most exact knowledge ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 But then, will God, having absolute knowledge, have 
 a knowledge of human things ? 
 
 Why not ? 
 
 Because, Socrates, said Parmenides, we have admitted 
 that the ideas are not valid in relation to human things ; 
 nor human things in relation to them ; the relations 
 of either are limited to their respective spheres. 
 
 Yes, that has been admitted. 
 
 And if God has this perfect authority, and perfect 
 knowledge, his authority cannot rule us, nor his know- 
 ledge know us, or any human thing; just as our 
 authority does not extend to the gods, nor our know- 
 ledge know anything which is divine, so by parity of 
 reason they, being gods, are not our masters, neither 
 do they know the things of men. 
 
 Yet, surely, said Socrates, to deprive God of know- 
 ledge is monstrous. 
 
 These, Socrates, said Parmenides, are a few, and 135 
 only a few of the difficulties in which we are involved 
 if ideas really are and we determine each one of them 
 to be an absolute unity. He who hears what may be 
 said against them will deny the very existence of them 
 — and even if they do exist, he will say that they must 
 of necessity be unknown to man ; and he will seem to 
 have reason on his side, and, as we were remarking just 
 now, will be very difficult to convince ; a man must be 
 gifted with very considerable ability before he can 
 learn that everything has a class and an absolute 
 essence ; and still more remarkable will he be who 
 discovers all these things for himself, and having 
 thoroughly investigated them is able to teach them 
 to others. 
 
2o6 PARMENWES 
 
 I agree with you, Parmenides, said Socrates; and 
 what you say is very much to my mind. 
 
 And yet, Socrates, said Parmenides, if a man, fixing 
 his attention on these and the like difficulties, does 
 away with ideas of things and will not admit that every 
 individual thing has its own determinate idea which 
 is always one and the same, he will have nothing on 
 which his mind can rest ; and so he will utterly destroy 
 the power of reasoning, as you seem to me to have 
 particularly noted. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 But, then, what is to become of philosophy ? Whither 
 shall we turn, if the ideas are unknown ? 
 
 I certainly do not see my way at present. 
 
 Yes, said Parmenides ; and I think that this arises, 
 Socrates, out of your attempting to define the beautiful, 
 the just, the good, and the ideas generally, without 
 sufficient previous training. I noticed your deficiency, 
 vvhen I heard you talking here with your friend Aris- 
 toteles, the day before yesterday. The impulse that 
 carries you towards philosophy is assuredly noble 
 and divine ; but there is an art which is called by 
 the vulgar idle talking, and which is often imagined 
 to be useless ; in that you must train and exercise 
 yourself, now that you are young, or truth will elude 
 your grasp. 
 
 And what is the nature of this exercise, Parmenides, 
 which you would recommend ? 
 
 That which you heard Zeno practising ; at the same 
 time, I give you credit for saying to him that you did 
 not care to examine the perplexity in reference to 
 visible things, or to consider the question in that way ; 
 but only in reference to objects of thought, and to what 
 may be called ideas. 
 
 Why, yes, he said, there appears to me to be no 
 
THE DIALECTIC OF PARMENIDES 207 
 
 difficulty in showing by this method that visible things 
 are like and unlike and may experience anything. 
 
 Quite true, said Parmenides ; but I think that you 
 should go a step further, and consider not only the 
 consequences which flow from a given hypothesis, but 136 
 also the consequences which flow from denying the 
 hypothesis ; and that will be still better training for you. 
 
 What do you mean ? he said. 
 
 I mean, for example, that in the case of this very 
 hypothesis of Zeno's about the many, you should in- 
 quire not only what will be the consequences to the 
 many in relation to themselves and to the one, and to 
 the one in relation to itself and the many, on the 
 hypothesis of the being of the many, but also what 
 will be the consequences to the one and the many in 
 their relation to themselves and to each other, on the 
 opposite hypothesis. Or, again, if likeness is or is not, 
 what will be the consequences in either of these cases 
 to the subjects of the hypothesis, and to other things, 
 in relation both to themselves and to one another, and 
 so of unlikeness ; and the same holds good of motion 
 and rest, of generation and destruction, and even of 
 being and not-being. In a word, when you suppose 
 anything to be or not to be, or to be in any way 
 affected, you must look at the consequences in relation 
 to the thing itself, and to any other things which you 
 choose, — to each of them singly, to more than one, and 
 to all ; and so of other things, you must look at them in 
 relation to themselves and to anything else which you 
 suppose either to be or not to be, if you would train 
 yourself perfectly and see the real truth. 
 
2o8 THEAETETUS 
 
 THEAETETUS 
 
 The Theaetetus is a dialogue for which it is peculiarly difficult 
 to assign a place in the series of the Platonic writings. In style 
 it belongs rather to the earlier class, having many affinities to such 
 works as the Protagoras or the Meno. But in the order of 
 thought it is nearest akin to the Sophist and the Statesman, with 
 which also it appears to be expressly connected by Plato. 
 
 The only indication of date which is furnished by the Dialogue 
 itself is the mention in the prologue of the fighting near Corinth. This, 
 however, contains an element of uncertainty. If the Corinthian 
 War (b. I,. 394-387') is intended (which is most probably the case), 
 Plato must at least have passed his fortieth year when he wrote the 
 Theaetetus. Or, if the reference is to the later operations in e.g. 369, 
 when Iphicrates was in command at the Isthmus, we must refer 
 the composition of the work to a correspondingly later time in 
 Plato's life. 
 
 The principal subject of the dialogue is a discussion of the nature 
 of knowledge and the manner in which it is received by us through, 
 perception and sensation. It takes the form chiefly of a criticism 
 of the doctrine of Protagoras that ' man is the measure of all things,' 
 which is identified with the Heracleitean theory that 'all is in 
 a flux,' and is explained by Socrates _ to mean that all knowledge is 
 relative, bothin the intellectual and the moral sphere. 
 
 Neither of the two passages which follow relate to the main 
 theme. They have the character of digressions, which' pleasantly 
 help to beguile the long and sometimes tedious course of the discus- 
 sion. And we are inclined perhaps to sympathize with Theodorus, 
 when he is dragged back by the indefatigable Socrates into the direct 
 path, and to say that we ' prefer the digressions to the argument 
 itself (177 C). 
 
 I. Socrates, a midwife and the son of a midwife. 
 
 Socrates is here humorously described by one of those figures 
 of speech in which Plato takes such delight, as the midwife who 
 delivers men of their thoughts and ideas, ' the fair and immo.rtal 
 children of the mind,' of whom he discourses in the Symposium 
 (Symp. 209). For Socrates is unlike any other of the great teachers 
 of mankind ; he does not convey ideas to his hearers, but elicits 
 their intellectual conceptions from them, more sometimes, as Theae- 
 tetus says, ' than was ever in them ' (210). 
 
CONCEPTIONS TRUE AND FALSE 209 
 
 This is part of his mission, or rather, perhaps, another way 
 of describing it; and when the thought comes to the light, he tries 
 and tests it in every way to see whether it is the genuine offspring 
 of wisdom, or the spurious progeny of self-conceit and vanity. 
 Nor can we wonder that the 'parents of the child,' when it was 
 condemned and pronounced wanting by the merciless judge, were 
 apt to ' fall into a. rage,' and fancied that they had been ' deprived 
 of some cherished possession.' 
 
 Socrates. Such are the midwives, whose task is a very steph. 
 important one, but not so important as mine ; for women ^^° 
 do not bring into the world at one time real children, 
 and at another time counterfeits which are with difficulty 
 distinguished from them ; if they did, then the discern- 
 ment of the true and false birth would be the crowning 
 achievement of the art of midwifery — you would think so? 
 
 Theaetetus. Indeed I should. 
 
 Soc. Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects 
 like theirs ; but differs, in that I attend men and not 
 women, and I look after their souls when they are in 
 labour, and not after their bodies : and the triumph 
 of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the 
 thought which the mind of the young man brings forth 
 is a false idol or a noble and true birth. And like the 
 midwives, 1 am barren, and the reproach which is often 
 made against me, that I ask questions of others and 
 have not the wit to answer them myself, is very just — 
 the reason is, that the god compels me to be a midwife, 
 but does not allow me to bring forth. And therefore 
 I am not myself at all wise, nor have I anything to 
 show which is the invention or birth of my own soul, 
 but those who converse with me profit. Some of them 
 appear dull enough at first, but afterwards, as our 
 acquaintance ripens, if the god is gracious to them., 
 they all make astonishing progress; and this in the 
 opinion of others as well as in their own. It is quite 
 clear that they never learned anything from me; the 
 
2IO THEAETETUS 
 
 many fine discoveries to which they cling are of their 
 own making. But to me and the god they owe their 
 delivery. 
 
 And the proof of my words is, that many of them in 
 their ignorance, either in their self-conceit despising me, 
 or falling under the influence of others ', have gone 
 away too soon ; and have not only lost the children 
 of whom I had previously delivered them by an ill 
 bringing up, but have stifled whatever else they had in 
 them by evil communications, being fonder of lies and 
 shams than of the truth ; and they have at last ended 
 by seeing themselves, as others see them, to be great 
 151 fools. Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus, is one of 
 them, and there are many others. The truants often 
 return to me, and beg that I would consort with them 
 again — they are ready to go to me on their knees— and 
 then, if my familiar allows, which is not always the 
 case, I receive them, and they begin to grow again. 
 Dire are the pangs which my art is able to arouse and 
 to allay in those who consort with me, just like the 
 pangs of women in childbirth ; night, and day they 
 are full of perplexity and travail which is eyen worse 
 than that of the women. So much for them. And 
 there are others, Theaetetus, who come to me ap- 
 parently having nothing in them ; and as I know that 
 they have no need of my art, I coax them into marrying 
 some one, and by the grace of God I can generally tell 
 who is likely to do them good. Many of them I have 
 given away to Prodicus, and many to other inspired 
 sages. 
 
 I tell you this long story, friend Theaetetus, because 
 I suspect, as indeed you seem to think yourself, that 
 you are in labour — great with some conception.. Come 
 then to me, who am a midwife's son and myself a mid- 
 
 • Reading with the Bodleian MS. ij avrol wtt' aWaiv ireiaBivm. 
 
FALSEHOOD MUST BE DESTROYED 2II 
 
 v/ife, and do your best to answer the questions which 
 I will ask you. And if I abstract and expose your 
 first-born, because I discover upon inspection that the 
 conception which you have formed is a vain shadow, do 
 not quarrel with me on that account, as the manner 
 of women is when their first children are taken from 
 them. For I have actually known some who were 
 ready to bite me when I deprived them of a darling 
 folly ; they did not perceive that I acted from goodwill, 
 not knowing that no god is the enemy of man — that 
 was not within the range of their ideas; neither am 
 I their enemy in all this, but it would be wrong for me 
 to admit falsehood, or to stifle the truth. Once more, 
 then, Theaetetus, I repeat my old question, 'What is 
 knowledge ? ' — and do not say that you cannot tell ; 
 but quit yourself like a man, and by the help of God 
 you will be able to tell. 
 
 (a) The Lawyer and the Philosopher. 
 
 The description of the lawyer and the philosopher in the Theae- 
 tetus is one of" the most striking delineations of character in all 
 the writings of Plato. The two types of men are opposed to one 
 another with perfect skill and completeness. The contrast intended 
 by Plato is the same as that which has always existed among 
 mankind under various names and disguises. Aristotle has it in 
 view when he speaks of the ' life of action ' and the ' life of specu- 
 lation ' (Pol. vii. 2, 3), and a similar difference also appears in 
 another age as the ' secular ' and the ' religious life.' 
 
 The philosopher is the man of thought and reflection, who dwells 
 apart from others in a world of his own imagination. His mind 
 is absorbed in the contemplation of the eternal and divine; he 
 cannot condescend to the things 'which lie at his feet.' He- sees 
 the faults and follies of human nature so clearly that he is inca- 
 pacitated for action. But if he has almost too little of the mundane 
 spirit, his rival and opponent is wholly taken up with the matters 
 of daily life. He is the man of affairs, who is unable to snatch 
 an hour from business for solitude and meditation, and whose 
 horizon is bounded by the narrow limits of self-interest. The 
 
 P 2 
 
212 THEAETETUS 
 
 higher impulses of his nature have withered and died in this arid 
 atmosphere. He is a match for the philosopher in the law courts 
 and the senate ; but when he is drawn into a philosophical argument, 
 what a laughing- stock does he become to the wise man ! 
 
 This is a picture which Plato is never weary of painting:— the 
 philosopher and the politician in the Euthydemus (Euthyd. 304) ; 
 the philosopher and the man of the world in the Gorgias (Gorg. 484) ; 
 the true and the false rhetorician in the Phaedrus (Phaedr. 266), 
 are all variations of the same' theme. The union of the two char- 
 acters in one person is the favourite dream of Plato"; the philosopher 
 is to be the king in the state, or, at least, the princes of this world 
 must be trained and educated in the school of philosophy (Rep. 
 V. 473)- 
 
 Steph. Socrates. Here arises a new question, Theodorus, 
 ^"^ which threatens to be more serious than the last. 
 
 Theodorus. Well, Socrates, we have plenty of leisure. 
 
 Soc. That is true, and • your remark recalls to my 
 mind an observation which I have often made, that 
 those who have passed their days in the pursuit of 
 philosophy are ridiculously at fault when they have to 
 appear and speak in court. How natural is this ! 
 
 Theod. What do you mean ? 
 
 Soc. I mean to say, that those who have been trained 
 in philosophy and liberal pursuits are as unlike those 
 who from their youth upwards have been knocking 
 about in the courts and such places, as a freeman is 
 in breeding unlike a slave. 
 
 Theod. In what is the difference seen ? 
 
 Soc. In the leisure spoken of by you, which a free- 
 man can always command : he has his talk out in peace, 
 and, like ourselves, he wanders at will from one subject 
 to another, and from a second to a third, — if the fancy 
 takes him, he begins again, as we are doing now, caring 
 not whether his words are many or few : his only aim 
 is to attain the truth. But the lawyer is always in 
 a hurry ; there is the water of the clepsydra driving 
 him on, and not allowing him to expatiate at will : and 
 
THE LAWYER AND HIS LIFE 213 
 
 there is his adversary standing over him, enforcing his 
 rights; the indictment, which in their phraseology is 
 termed the affidavit, is recited at the time : and from 
 this he must not deviate. He is a servant, and is 
 continually disputing about a fellow-servant before his 
 master, who is seated, and has the cause in his hands ; 
 the trial is never about some indifferent matter, but 
 always concerns himself; and often the race is for 
 his life. 
 
 The consequence has been, that he has become keen 173 
 and shrewd ; he has learned how to flatter his master 
 in word and indulge him in deed; but his soul is small 
 and unrighteous. His condition, which has been that 
 of a slave from his youth upwards, has deprived him 
 of growth and uprightness and independence ; dangers 
 and fears, which were too much for his truth and 
 honesty, came upon him in early years, when the 
 tenderness of youth was unequal to them, and he has 
 been driven into crooked ways ; from the first he has 
 practised deception and retaliation, and has become 
 stunted and warped. And so he has passed out of 
 youth into manhood, having no soundness in him ; and 
 is now, as he thinks, a master in wisdom. Such is 
 the lawyer, Theodorus. Will you have the companion 
 picture of the philosopher, who is of our brotherhood ; 
 or shall we return to the argument? Do not let us 
 abuse the freedom of digression which we claim. 
 
 Theod. Nay, Socrates, not until we have finished 
 what we are about ; for you truly said that we belong 
 to a brotherhood which is free, and are not the servants 
 of the argumient ; but the argument is our servant, and 
 must wait our leisure. Who is our judge? Or where 
 is the spectator having any right to censure or control 
 us, as he might the poets ? 
 
 Soc. Then, as this is your wish, I will describe the 
 
214 THEAETETUS 
 
 leaders ; for there is no use in talking about the 
 inferior sort. In the first place, the lords of philosophy 
 have never, from their youth upwards, known their way 
 to the Agora, or the dicastery, or the council, or any 
 other political assembly ; they neither see nor hear the 
 laws or decrees, as they are called, of the state written 
 or recited ; the eagerness of political societies in the 
 attainment of offices — clubs, and banquets, and revels, 
 and singing-maidens, — do not enter even into their 
 dreams. Whether any event has turned out well or ill 
 in the city, what disgrace may have descended to any 
 one from his ancestors, male or female, are matters 
 of which the philosopher no more knows than he can 
 tell, as they say, how many pints are contained in the 
 ocean. Neither is he conscious of his ignorance. For 
 he does not hold aloof in order that he may gain 
 a reputation; but the truth is, that the outer form 
 of him only is in the city : his mind, disdaining the 
 littlenesses and nothingnesses of human things, is 
 'flying all abroad' as Pindar says, measuring earth 
 and heaven and the things which are under and on the 
 earth and above the heaven, interrogating the whole 
 174 nature of each and all in their entirety, but not con- 
 descending to anything which is within reach. 
 Theod. What do you mean, Socrates ? 
 Soc. I will illustrate my meaning, Theodorus, by the 
 jest which the clever witty Thracian handmaid is said 
 to have made about Thales, when he fell into a well as 
 he was looking up at the stars. She said, that he was 
 so eager to know what was going on in heaven, that he 
 could not see what was before his feet. This is a jest 
 which is equally applicable to all philosophers. For 
 the philosopher is wholly unacquainted with his next- 
 door neighbour; he is ignorant, not only of what he is 
 doing, but he hardly knows whether he is a man or an 
 
THE PHILOSOPHER DESPISES THE WORLD 215 
 
 animal ; he is searching into the essence of man, and 
 busy in enquiring what belongs to such a nature to do 
 or suffer different from any other;— I think that you 
 understand me, Theodoras ? 
 
 Theod. I do, and what you say is true. 
 
 Soc. And thus, my friend, on every occasion, private 
 as well as public, as I said at first, when he appears in 
 a law-court, or in any place in which he has to speak 
 of things which are at his feet and before his eyes, he is 
 the jest, not only of Thracian handmaids but of the 
 general herd, tumbling into wells and every sort of 
 disaster through his inexperience. His awkwardness 
 is fearful, and gives the impression of imbecility. 
 When he is reviled, he has nothing personal to say in 
 answer to the civilities of his adversaries, for he knows 
 no scandals of any one, and they do not interest him ; 
 and therefore he is laughed at for his sheepishness ; 
 and when others are being praised and glorified, in the 
 simplicity of his heart he cannot help going into fits 
 of laughter, so that he seems to be a downright idiot. 
 
 When he hears a tyrant or king eulogized, he fancies 
 that he is listening to the praises of some keeper of 
 cattle— a swineherd, or shepherd, or perhaps a cow- 
 herd, who is congratulated on the quantity of milk 
 which he squeezes from them; and he remarks that 
 the creature whom they tend, and out of whom they 
 squeeze the wealth, is of a less tractable and more 
 insidious nature. Then, again, he observes that the 
 great man is of necessity as ill-mannered and un- 
 educated as any shepherd — for he has no leisure, and 
 he is surrounded by a wall, which is his mountain-pen. 
 
 Hearing of enormous landed proprietors of ten 
 thousand acres and more, our philosopher deems this 
 to be a trifle, because he has been accustomed to think 
 of the whole earth ; and when they sing the praises 
 
2l6 THEAETETUS 
 
 of family, and say that some one is a gentleman 
 because he can show seven generations of wealthy 
 175 ancestors, he thinks that their sentiments only betray 
 a dull and narrow vision in those who utter them, and 
 who are not educated enough to look at the whole, 
 nor to consider that every man has had thousands and 
 ten thousands of progenitors, and among them have 
 been rich and poor, kings and slaves, Hellenes and 
 barbarians, innumerable. And when people pride 
 themselves on having a pedigree of twenty-five an- 
 cestors, which goes back to Heracles, thq son of 
 Amphitryon, he cannot understand their poverty of 
 ideas. Why are they unable to calculate that Amphi- 
 tryon had a twenty-fifth ancestor, who might have been 
 anybody, and was such as fortune made him, and he 
 had a fiftieth, and so on? He amuses himself with the 
 notion that they cannot count, and thinks that a little 
 arithmetic would have got rid of their senseless vanity. 
 Now, in all these cases our philosopher is derided by 
 the vulgar, partly because he is thought to despise 
 them, and also because he is ignorant of what is before 
 him, and always at a loss. 
 
 Theod, That is very true, Socrates. 
 Soc, But, O my friend, when he draws the other into 
 upper air, and gets him out of his pleas and rejoinders 
 into the contemplation of justice and injustice in their 
 own nature and in, their difference from one another 
 and from all other things ; or from the commonplaces 
 about the happiness of a king or of a rich man to the 
 consideration of government, and of human happiness 
 and misery in general — what they are, and how a man 
 is to attain the one and avoid the other — when that 
 narrow, keen, little legal mind is called to account 
 about all this, he gives the philosopher his revenge; 
 for dizzied by the height at which he is hanging. 
 
THE DESIRE OF THE RIGHTEOUS 21 7 
 
 whence he looks down into space, which is a strange 
 experience to him, he being dismayed, and lost, and 
 stammering broken words, is laughed at, not by Thra- 
 cian handmaidens or any. other uneducated persons, 
 for they have no eye for the situation, but by every man 
 who has not been brought up a slave. 
 
 Such are the two characters, Theodorus : the one 
 of the freeman, who has been trained in liberty and 
 leisure, whom you call the philosopher, — him we cannot 
 blame because he appears simple and of no account 
 when he has to perform some menial task, such as 
 packing up bed-clothes, or flavouring a sauce or fawning 
 speech ; the other character is that of the man who is 
 able to do all this kind of service smartly and neatly, 176 
 but knows not how to wear his cloak like a gentleman ; 
 still less with the music of discourse can he hymn the 
 true life aright which is lived by immortals or men 
 blessed of heaven. 
 
 Theod. If you could only persuade everybody, So- 
 crates, as you do me, of the truth of your words, there 
 would be more peace and fewer evils among men. 
 
 Soc. Evils, Theodorus, can never pass away; for 
 there must always remain something which is antago- 
 nistic to good. Having no place among the gods in 
 heaven, of necessity they hover around the mortal 
 nature, and this earthly sphere. Wherefore we ought 
 to fly away from earth to heaven 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 holy, 
 just, and wise. But, O my friend, you cannot easily 
 convince mankind that they should pursue virtue or 
 avoid vice, not merely in order that a man may seem to 
 be good, which is the reason given by the world, and in 
 my judgment is only a repetition of an old wives' fable. 
 Whereas, the truth is that God is never in any way 
 
2l8 THEAETETUS 
 
 unrighteous — he is perfect righteousness ; and he of us 
 who is the most righteous is most like him. Herein is 
 seen the true cleverness of a man, and also his nothing- 
 ness and want of manhood. For to know this is true 
 wisdom and virtue, and ignorance of this is manifest 
 folly and vice. All other kinds of wisdom or clever- 
 ness, which seem only, such as the wisdom of politicians, 
 or the wisdom of the arts, are coarse and vulgar. 
 
 The unrighteous man, or the sayer and doer of 
 unholy things, had far better not be encouraged in the 
 illusion that his roguery is clever ; for men glory in 
 their shame — they fancy that they hear others saying 
 of them, ' These are not mere good-for-nothing persons, 
 mere burdens of the earth, but such as men should be 
 who mean to dwell safely in a state.' Let us tell them 
 that they are all the more truly what they do not think 
 they are because they do not know it ; for they do not 
 know the penalty of injustice, which above all things 
 they ought to know — not stripes and death, as they 
 suppose, which evil-doers often escape, but a penalty 
 which cannot be escaped. 
 Theod. What is that ? • 
 
 Soc. There are two patterns eternally set before 
 them ; the one blessed and divine, the other godless 
 and wretched : but they do not see them, or perceive 
 that in their utter folly and infatuation they are growing 
 like the one and unlike the other, by reason of their 
 77 evil deeds ; and the penalty is, that they lead a life 
 answering to the pattern which they are growing like. 
 And if we tell them, that unless they depart from their 
 cunning, the place of innocence will not receive them 
 after death ; and that here on earth, they will live ever 
 in the likeness of their own selves, and with evil friends 
 — when they hear this they in their superior cunning 
 will seem to be listening to the talk of idiots. 
 
THE OPPONENTS OF PHILOSOPHY 219 
 
 Theod. Very true, Socrates. 
 
 Soc. Too true, my friend, as I well know; there is, 
 however, one peculiarity in their case : when they 
 begin to. reason in private about their dislike of 
 philosophy, if they have the courage to hear the argu- 
 ment out, and do not run away, they grow at last 
 strangely discontented with themselves ; their rhetoric 
 fades away, and they become helpless as children. 
 These however are digressions from which we must 
 now desist, or they will overflow, and drown the 
 original argument ; to which, if you please, we will 
 now return. 
 
 Theod. For my part, Socrates, I would rather have 
 the digressions, for at my age I find them easier to 
 follow ; but if you wish, let us go back to the argument. 
 
 SOPHIST 
 
 The pre^Sooratic Philosophers and their puzzles. 
 
 The Sophist, like the Parmenides, deals with metaphysical prob- 
 lems and puzzles, and with the Doctrine of the Ideas. The form 
 which it takes is an enquiry into the nature and character of the 
 Sophist or pretender to wisdom, who is exhibited in an odious 
 light as the opposite to the true philosopher, ambitious, shallow, 
 mercenary, disputatious, a sorcerer who makes that which is not 
 appear to be. 
 
 But, the question is asked, how can 'not-being' exist? This, 
 which seems to us an almost meaningless fallacy, was to Plato and 
 his contemporaries a real philosophical difficulty. And accordingly 
 he proceeds to show that the separation of the spheres of the 
 absolute and the relative, of being and not-being, which had been 
 taught by Parmenides and his followers, could not be maintained. 
 All ideas are not incompatible, although some are. Being, for 
 instance, partakes both of rest and motion ; whereas rest and motion 
 are inconsistent. Not-being is only the negation of being, just as 
 not-motion or rest is the negation of motion. 
 
 In the course of the discussion Plato gives a sketch of the history 
 of Greek philosophy, which is interesting in itself, and is also the 
 
220 SOPHIST 
 
 iirst attempt of the kind which is known to us. It is, as we might 
 expect, only an outline of which we are left to fill up the details 
 to the best of our power. Plato divides the philosophers who pre- 
 ceded him into several schools or sects : — 
 
 (i) The early Ionian philosophers, like Pherecydes (b. c. 560), 
 who maintained the existence of two or three principles, such as 
 heat and cold, moist and dry, and declared that these were some- 
 times united and sometimes at strife : 
 
 (2) The Eleatics, who derived their origin from Xenophanes (b.c. 
 540), and Parfflenides (b. c. 504), and taught that ' the many was also 
 one,' and ' asserted the unity of the Universe ' ; 
 
 (3I ' The Ionian and Sicilian Muses ! (Heracleitus, b. c. 504), 
 and Empedocles (b. c. 443), who combined the tenets of Pherecydes 
 and the Eleatics; Heracleitus affirming that plurality and unity were 
 in perpetual process of union and division by love and hate, while 
 Empedocles supposed that they were in regular alternation to each 
 other. 
 
 These somewhat crude and primitive philosophers were succeeded 
 by more subtle teachers, whom Plato regards as his principal oppo- 
 nents. He has not clearly stated to whom he is referring ; but he 
 appears to have in view chiefly the Megarian School, or, possibly, 
 the early Cynics, who delighted in verbal questions and disputes 
 about being and not-being, and ' found no end, in wandering mazes 
 lost.' 
 
 Lastly, there were the Idealists, by whom is probably intended 
 a School who held in some form a Doctrine of Ideas ; and the 
 fierce and uncouth sect of the Materialists, who dragged Jieavei} to 
 earth, and believed in nothing except the evidence of their senses. 
 
 Into the midst of this warfare of words Plato has to descend. 
 His object is not so much to put forward opinions of his own, as 
 to gain from the different combatants the truest part of that for 
 which they were fighting. He was by temperament an Eclectic, 
 in the best sense of the term, and during the whole of his life, we 
 find him indefatigable in the search after truth, and ready to welcome 
 her from whatever side she appeared. 
 
 Steph. Stranger.^ Will you forgive me, and, as your words 
 °^ inipjy, not be altogether displeased if I flinch a little 
 from the grasp of such a sturdy argument ? 
 
 ' The principal character in this dialogue is taken by a Stranger 
 from Elea, ' a disciple of Parmcnides and Zeno, and a true philo- 
 sopher.' 
 
WE MUST PROVE THAT NOT-BEING IS 221 
 
 Theaetetus. To be sure I will. 
 
 Str. I have a yet more urgent request to make. 
 
 Theaet. Which is — ? 
 
 Str. That you will promise not to regard me as a 
 parricide. 
 
 Theaet, And why ? 
 
 Str. Because, in self-defence, I must test the philo- 
 sophy of my father Parmenides, and try to prove by 
 main force that in a certain sense not-being is, and 
 that being, on the other hand, is not. 
 
 Theaet. Some attempt of the kind is clearly needed. 
 
 Str. Yes, a blind man, as they say, might see that, 
 and, unless these questions are decided in one way 
 or another, no one when he speaks of false words, or 
 false opinion, or idols, or images, or imitations, or 
 appearances, or about the arts which are concerned 
 with them, can avoid falling into ridiculous contra- 
 dictions. 
 
 Theaet. Most true. 
 
 Str. And therefore I must venture to lay hands on 242 
 my father's argument ; for if I am to be over-scrfipulous, 
 I shall have to give the matter up. 
 
 Theaet. Nothing in the world should ever induce us 
 to do so. 
 
 Str. I have a third little request which I wish to 
 make. 
 
 Theaet. What is it ? 
 
 Str. You heard me say what I have always felt 
 and still feel — that I have no heart for this argument ? 
 
 Theaet. I did. 
 
 Str. I tremble at the thought of what I have said, 
 and expect that you will deem me mad, when you hear 
 of my sudden changes and shiftings; let me therefore 
 observe, that I am examining the question entirely out 
 of regard for you. 
 
222 SOPHIST 
 
 Theaet. There is no reason for you to fear that I 
 shall impute any impropriety to you, if you attempt 
 this refutation and proof; take heart, therefore, and 
 proceed. 
 
 Str. And where shall I begin the perilous enter- 
 prise? I think that the road which I must take is — 
 
 Theaet. Which? — Let me hear. 
 
 Str. I think that we had better, first of all, consider 
 the points which at present are regarded as self-evident, 
 lest we may have fallen into some confusion, and be 
 too ready to assent to one another, fancying that we 
 are quite clear about them. 
 
 Theaet. Say more distinctly what you mean. 
 
 Str. I think that Parmenides, and all who ever yet 
 undertook to determine the number and nature of 
 existences, talked to us in rather a light and easy 
 strain. 
 
 Theaet. How? 
 
 Str. As if we had been children, to whom they 
 repeated each his own mythus or story ; — one said that 
 there were three principles, and that at one time there 
 was war between certain of them ; and then again there 
 was peace, and they were married and begat children, 
 and brought them up; and another spoke of two 
 principles, — a moist and a dry, or a hot and a cold, 
 and made them marry and cohabit. The Eleatics, 
 however, in our part of the world, say that all things 
 are many in name, but in nature one ; this is their 
 mythus, which goes back to Xenophanes, and is even 
 older. Then there are Ionian, and in more recent 
 times Sicilian muses, who have arrived at the conclusion 
 that to unite the two principles is safer, and to say 
 that being is one and many, and that these are held 
 together by enmity and friendship, ever parting, ever 
 meeting, as the severer Muses assert, while the gentler 
 
WHAT ARE BEING AND NOT-BEING? 223 
 
 ones do not insist on the perpetual strife and peace, 
 but admit a relaxation and alternation of them ; peace 243 
 and unity sometimes prevailing under the sway of 
 Aphrodite, and then again plurality and war, by reason 
 of a principle of strife. Whether any of them spoke 
 the truth in all this is hard to determine; besides, 
 antiquity and famous men should have reverence, and 
 not be liable to accusations so serious. Yet one thing 
 may be said of them without offence — 
 
 Theaet. What thing? 
 
 Sir. That they went on their several ways disdaining 
 to notice people like ourselves ; they did not care 
 whether they took us with them, or left us behind 
 them. 
 
 Tkeaei. How do you mean ? 
 
 Sir. I mean to say, that when they talk of one, two, 
 or more elements, which are or have become or are 
 becoming, or again of heat mingling with cold, assum- 
 ing in some other part of their works separations and 
 mixtures, — tell me, Theaetetus, do you understand 
 what they mean by these expressions ? When I was 
 a younger man, I used to fancy that I understood quite 
 well what was meant by the term 'not-being,' which is 
 our present subject of dispute ; and now you see in 
 what a fix we are about it. 
 
 Theaet. I see. 
 
 Str. And very likely we have been getting into the 
 same perplexity about ' being,' and yet may fancy that 
 when anybody utters the word, we understand him 
 quite easily, although we do not know about not-being. 
 But we may be equally ignorant of both. 
 
 Theaet. I dare say. 
 
 Str. And the same may be said of all the terms just 
 mentioned. 
 
 Theaet. True. 
 
224 SOPHIST 
 
 Str. The consideration of most of them may be 
 deferred ; but we had better now discuss the chief 
 captain and leader of them. 
 
 Theael. Of what are you speaking? You clearly 
 think that we must first investigate what people mean 
 by the word 'being.' 
 
 Str. You follow close at my heels, Theaetetus. For 
 the right method, I conceive, will be to call into oui* 
 presence the dualistic philosophers and to interrogate 
 them. ' Come,' we will say, ' Ye, who affirm that hot 
 and cold or any other two principles are the universe, 
 what is this term which you apply to both of them, and 
 what do you mean when you say that both and each of 
 them " are " ? How are we to understand the word 
 " are " ? Upon your view, are we to suppose that there 
 is a third principle over and above the other two, — 
 three in all, and not two ? For clearly you cannot s4y 
 that one of the two principles is being, and yet attribute 
 being equally to both of them ; for, if you did, which- 
 ever of the two is identified with being, will comprehend 
 the other ; and so they will be one and not two.' 
 
 Theaet. Very true. 
 
 Str. But perhaps you mean to give the name of 
 ' being ' to both of them together ? 
 
 Theaet. Quite likely. 
 244 Str. 'Then, friends,' we shall reply to them, 'the 
 answer is plainly that the two will still be resolved into 
 one.' 
 
 Theaet. Most true. 
 
 Str. ' Since, then, we are in a difficulty, please to tell 
 us what you mean, when you speak of being ; for there 
 can be no doubt that you always from the first under- 
 stood your own meaning, whereas we once thought 
 that we understood you, but now we are in a great 
 strait. Please to begin by explaining this matter to 
 
UNITY AND BEING 225 
 
 US, and let us no longer fancy that we understand you, 
 when we entirely misunderstand you.' There will 
 be no impropriety in our demanding an answer to this 
 question, either of thfe dualists or of the pluralists ? 
 
 Theaet. Certainly not. 
 
 Sir. And what about the assertors of the oneness of 
 the all — must we not endeavour to ascertain from them 
 what they mean by ' being ' ? 
 
 Theaet. By all means. 
 
 Sir. Then let them answer this question : One, you 
 say, alone is? 'Yes,' they will reply. 
 
 Theaet. True. 
 
 Sir. And there is something which you call ' being ' ? 
 
 Theaet. 'Yes.' 
 
 Str. And is being the same as one, and do you apply 
 two names to the same thing ? 
 
 Theaet. What will be their answer, Stranger ? 
 
 Str. It is clear, Theaetetus, that he who asserts the 
 unity of being will find a difficulty in answering this or 
 any other question. 
 
 Theaet. Why so ? 
 
 Str. To admit of two names, and to affirm that there 
 is nothing but unity, is surely ridiculous ? 
 
 Theaet. Certainly. 
 
 Str. And equally irrational to admit that a name is 
 anything ? 
 
 Theaet. How so ? 
 
 Str. To distinguish the name from the thing, implies 
 duality. 
 
 Theaet. Yes. 
 
 Str. And yet he who identifies the name with the 
 thing will be compelled to say that it is the name of 
 nothing, or if he says that it is the name of something, 
 even then the name will only be the name of a name, 
 and of nothing else. 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
236 SOPHIST 
 
 Theaei. True. 
 
 Sir. And the one will turn out to be only one of 
 one, 'and being absolute unity, will represent a mere 
 name'. 
 
 Theaet. Certainly. 
 
 Str. And would they say that the whole is other than 
 the one that is, or the same with it ? 
 
 Theaei. To be sure they would, and they actually 
 say so. 
 
 Str. If being is a whole, as Parmenides sings, — ■ 
 
 ' Every way like unto the fulness of » well-rounded sphere, 
 Evenly balanced from the centre on every side. 
 And must needs be neither greater nor less in any way, 
 Neither on this side nor on that — ' 
 
 then being has a centre and extremes, and, having 
 these, must also have parts. 
 
 Theaet. True. 
 245 Str. Yet that which has parts may have the attribute 
 of unity in all the parts, and in this way being all and 
 a whole, may be one ? 
 
 Theaet. Certainly. 
 
 Str. But that of which this is the condition cannot 
 be absolute unity? 
 
 Theaet. Why not ? 
 
 Str. Because, according to right reason, that which 
 is truly one must be affirmed to be absolutely indivisible. 
 
 Theaet. Certainly. 
 
 Str. But this indivisible, if made up of many. parts, 
 will contradict reason. 
 
 Theaet. I understand. 
 
 Str. Shall we say that being''' is one and a whole, 
 because it has the attribute of unity? Or shall we say 
 that being is not a whole at all ? 
 
 ^ Reading with the MSS. Kai tov ovo/iaros avrh tp 6v. 
 ^ Reading Th ov. 
 
IS BEING ONE AND A WHOLE? 227 
 
 Theaet. That is a hard alternative to offer. 
 
 Str. Most true ; for being, having in a certain sense 
 the attribute of one, is yet proved not to be the same 
 as one, and the all is therefore more than one. 
 
 Theaet. Yes. 
 
 Str. And yet if being be not a whole, through having 
 the attribute of unity, and there be such a thing as an 
 absolute whole, being lacks something of its own nature? 
 
 Theaet. Certainly. 
 
 Str. Upon this view, again, being, having a defect 
 of being, will become not-being ? 
 
 Theaet. True. 
 
 Str. And, again, the all becomes more than one, 
 for being and the whole will each have their separate 
 nature. 
 
 Theaet. Yes. 
 
 Str. But if the whole does not exist at all, all the 
 previous difficulties remain the same, and there will be 
 the further difficulty, that besides having no being, 
 being can never have come into being. 
 
 Theaet. Why so ? 
 
 Str. Because that which comes into being always 
 comes into being as a whole, so that he who does not 
 give whole a place among beings, cannot speak either 
 of essence or generation as existing. 
 
 Theaet. Yes, that certainly appears to be true. 
 
 Str. Again ; how can that which is not a whole have 
 any quantity ? For that which is of a certain quantity 
 must necessarily be the whole of that quantity. 
 
 Theaet. Exactly. 
 
 Sir. And there will be innumerable other points, 
 each of them causing infinite trouble to him who says 
 that being is either one or two. 
 
 Theaet. The difficulties which are dawning upon us 
 prove this; for one objection connects with another, 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 SOPHIST 
 
 and they are always involving what has preceded in 
 a greater and worse perplexity. 
 
 Sir. We are far from having exhausted the more 
 exact thinkers who treat of being and not-being. But 
 let us be content to leave them, and proceed to view 
 246 those who speak less precisely ; and we shall find as 
 the result of all, that the nature of being is quite as 
 difficult to comprehend as that of not-being. 
 
 Theaet. Then now we will go to the others. 
 
 Sir. There appears to be a sort of war of Giants and 
 Gods going on amongst them ; they are fighting with 
 one another about the nature of essence. 
 
 Theaet. How is that? 
 
 Str. Some of them are dragging down all things 
 from heaven and from the unseen to earth, and they 
 literally grasp in their hands rocks and oaks ; of these 
 they lay hold, and obstinately maintain, that the things 
 only which can be touched or handled have being or 
 essence, because they define being and body as one, 
 and if any one else says that what is not a body exists 
 they altogether despise him, and will hear of nothing 
 but body. 
 
 Theaet. I have often met with such men, and terrible 
 fellows they are. 
 
 Sir. And that is the reason why their opponents 
 cautiously defend themselves from above, out of an 
 unseen world, mightily contending that true essence 
 consists of certain intelligible and incorporeal ideas ; the 
 bodies of the materialists, which by them are maintained 
 to be the very truth, they break up into little bits by 
 their arguments, and affirm them to be, not essence, 
 but generation and motion. Between the two armies, 
 Theaetetus, there is always an endless conflict raging 
 concerning these matters. 
 
 Theaet. True. 
 
IDEALISTS AND MATERIALISTS 229 
 
 Sir. Let us ask each party in turn, to give an account 
 of that which they call essence. 
 
 Theaet. How shall we get it out of them ? 
 
 Str. With those who make being to consist in ideas, 
 there will be less difficulty, for they are civil people 
 enough ; but there will be very great difficulty, or 
 rather an absolute impossibility, in getting an opinion out 
 of those who drag everything down to matter. Shall 
 I tell you what we must do ? 
 
 Theaet. What? 
 
 Str. Let us, if we can, really improve them; but 
 if this is not possible, let us imagine them to be better 
 than they are, and more willing to answer in accordance 
 with the rules of argument, and then their opinion will 
 be more worth having; for that which better men 
 acknowledge has more weight than that which is ac- 
 knowledged by inferior men. Moreover we are no 
 respecters of persons, but seekers after truth. 
 
 STATESMAN 
 
 The Reign of Cronos. 
 
 The Statesman is a companion piece to the Sophist, which it much 
 resembles in style and manner of treatment. It contains a picture 
 of the ideal statesman or ruler who is ' set over against ' his rival, 
 the mere politician. The true king or statesman is the superior 
 of his fellow citizens, and governs them by knowledge and not by 
 power. His rule is better than that of the law : for the law is iixed 
 and unbending, whereas the individual can allow himself to be 
 guided by circumstances. But since this ' king by nature ' is scarcely 
 or never to be found among men (Arist. Pol. v. 10, § 37), they prefer 
 to submit to one of the various ' imperfect forms of government.' 
 
 There was an age, however, when mankind was ruled in the 
 true sense of the word. This was in the time of Cronos, those 
 happy days during which the human race lived in Paradisiacal 
 innocence under the government of Divine Shepherds, who were 
 
230 STA TESMAN 
 
 appointed by Cronos himself. Our present and far inferior state is 
 due to the revolutions of the Universe. 
 
 In the beginning, the course of the world was guided by the 
 hand of God ; but when the appointed number of generations had 
 been born from the earth and had returned again to her, the Creator 
 ceased His directing care ; the Universe fell to chaos, and all living 
 creatures perished. A new race succeeded ; the evil which is 
 inherent in matter reasserted itself, and the world went from bad 
 to worse, until the Creator at last again interposed, and restored 
 order to creation. At the same time He introduced a new principle 
 of life ; the earth no longer brought forth men and animals, but they 
 reproduced their species, each after their kind. Men were at first 
 poor and helpless ; gradually, however, by the aid of the Gods, they 
 learned the arts of life and formed themselves into communities. 
 
 In this remarkable myth Plato, while adding confirmation by the 
 example of the rule of Cronos to the argument respecting the true 
 nature of government, is also enabled to set forth in a poetical form 
 his solution of two different problems which seem to have been 
 a frequent subject of his thoughts — (i) the existence of evil, and 
 (2) the growth of human society. 
 
 (i) He is sorely perplexed, as men have been in all ages, by the 
 existence of evil in the Universe. He saw everywhere the marks 
 of design ; yet the efforts of the Designer appeared liable to be 
 thwarted by some malignant influence. And this power or principle 
 of evil he supposed to be, not a ' Prince of Darkness,' who was 
 opposed on almost equal terms to the Deity, but an inherent quality 
 of matter, against which even the Creator was not wholly able to 
 contend. Hence also he was led to place between the Creator and 
 the Creation an intermediate order of divine beings — the Jai/jo^es 
 of the Platonic philosophy — who execute ' their Father's will in the 
 best and wisest manner which they can' (cp. Tim. 41 foil.). 
 
 (2) The growth of civilization was a subject of much curiosity 
 to the Greeks. Their lively and reflective minds were deeply stirred 
 by what they were able to learn of the ancient history of the East 
 and of Egypt. They felt how truly they might be called a 'race 
 of children ' ; for their national history was brief and hardly more 
 than a mass of inconsistent legends and traditions, while the 
 Egyptian priests could recite to Herodotus the names of ' 330 kings 
 who reigned in Egypt between the days of Menes and his own 
 time ' (ii. 100). Moreover, short and imperfect as was their know- 
 ledge of the events of the past, they were well aware that great 
 revolutions had happened, and that kingdoms which had once been 
 powerful had fallen into decay, while others had succeeded in their 
 place. 
 
TRUTH CONTAINED IN ANCIENT LEGENDS 231 
 
 They were easily led, therefore, to the conclusion that ' there had 
 been many destructions of mankind,' and that civilization had grown 
 up by slow and painful efforts among the survivors of some deluge 
 or other catastrophe, such as had become familiar to their minds 
 from the legends of the deluges of Ogyges and Deucalion or the 
 destruction of the earth by Phaethon (Tim. 22 C). Plato recurs 
 once more to this subject in the Third Book of the Laws, where 
 we shall find him treating of the manner in which the several forms 
 of government may be supposed to have developed among men. 
 
 Stranger^. Let us make a new beginning, and travel Steph. 
 by a different road. P 
 
 Young Socrates. What road ? 
 
 Str. I think that we may have a little amusement ; 
 there is a famous tale, of which a good portion may 
 with advantage be interwoven, and then we may resume 
 our series of divisions, and proceed in the old path 
 until we arrive at the desired summit. Shall we do as 
 I say? 
 
 Y. Soc. By all means. 
 
 Str. Listen, then, to a tale which a child would love 
 to hear ; and you are not too old for childish amusement. 
 
 Y. Soc. Let me hear 
 
 Str. There did really happen, and will again happen, 
 like many other events of which ancient tradition has 
 preserved the record, the portent which is traditionally 
 said to have occurred in the quarrel of Atreus and 
 Thyestes. You have heard, no doubt, and remember 
 what they say happened at that time ? 
 
 Y. Soc. I suppose you to mean the token of the birth 
 of the golden Iamb. 
 
 Str. No, not that ; but another part of the story, 269 
 which tells how the sun and the stars once rose in the 
 west, and set in the east, and that the god reversed 
 
 ' The conversation is between the Eleatic Stranger of the ' Sophist ' 
 and the younger Socrates, who is not a relation of his namesake. 
 
232 STATESMAN 
 
 their motion, and gave them that which they now have 
 as a testimony to the right of Atreus. 
 
 Y. Soc. Yes ; there is that legend also. 
 
 Sir. Again, we have been often told of the reign of 
 Cronos. 
 
 Y. Soc. Yes, very often. 
 
 Str. Did you ever hear that the men of former times 
 were earth-born, and not begotten of one another ? 
 
 Y. Soc. Yes, that is another old tradition. 
 
 Str. All these stories, and ten thousand others which 
 are still more wonderful, have a common origin ; many 
 of them have been lost in the lapse of ages, or are 
 repeated only in a disconnected form ; but the origin of 
 them is what no one has told, and may as well be told 
 now ; for the tale is suited to throw light on the nature 
 of the king. 
 
 Y. Soc. Very good ; and I hope that you will give 
 the whole story, and leave out nothing. 
 
 Str. Listen, then. There is a time when God himself 
 guides and helps to roll the world in its course ; and 
 there is a time, on the completion of a certain cycle, 
 when he lets go, and the world being a living creature, 
 and having originally received intelligence from its 
 author and creator, turns about and by an inherent 
 necessity revolves in the opposite direction. 
 
 Y. Soc. Why is that ? 
 
 Str. Why, because only the most divine things of all 
 remain ever unchanged and the same, and body is not 
 included in this class. Heaven and the universe, as we 
 have termed them, although they have been endowed 
 by the Creator with many glories, partake of a bodily 
 nature, and therefore cannot be entirely free from 
 perturbation. But their motion is, as far as possible, 
 single and in the same place, and of the same kind ; 
 and is therefore only subject to a reversal, which is the 
 
THE REVERSAL OF THE UNIVERSE 233 
 
 least alteration possible. For the lord of all moving 
 things is alone able to move of himself; and to think 
 that he moves them at one time in one direction and at 
 another time in another is blasphemy. Hence we must 
 not say that the world is either self-moved always, or 
 all made to go round by God in two opposite courses ; 
 or that two Gods, having opposite purposes, make it 270 
 move round. But, as I have already said, (and this is 
 the only remaining alternative) the world is guided at 
 one time by an external power which is divine and 
 receives fresh life and immortality from the renewing 
 hand of the Creator, and again, when let go, moves 
 spontaneously, being set free at such a time as to have, 
 during infinite cycles of years, a reverse movement : 
 this is due to its perfect balance, to its vast size, and to 
 the fact that it turns on the smallest pivot. 
 
 Y. Soc. Your account of the world seems to be very 
 reasonable indeed. 
 
 Sir. Let us now reflect and try to gather from what 
 has been said the nature of the phenomenon which we 
 affirmed to be the cause of all these wonders. It is this. 
 
 Y.Soc. What? 
 
 Str. The reversal which takes place from time to time 
 of the motion of the universe. 
 
 Y. Soc. How is that the cause ? 
 
 Str. Of all changes of the heavenly motions, we may 
 consider this to be the greatest and most complete. 
 
 Y. Soc. I should imagine so. 
 
 Str. And it may be supposed to result in the greatest 
 changes to the human beings who are the inhabitants 
 of the world at the time. 
 
 Y. Soc. Such changes would naturally occur. 
 
 Str. And animals, as we know, survive with difficulty 
 great and serious changes of many different kinds when 
 they come upon them at once. 
 
234 STATESMAN 
 
 Y. Soc. Very true. 
 
 Str. Hence there necessarily occurs a great destruc- 
 tion of them, which extends also to the life of man; few 
 survivors of the race are left, and those who remain 
 become the subjects of several novel and remarkable 
 phenomena, and of one in particular, which takes place 
 at the time when the transition is made to the cycle 
 opposite to that in which we are now living. 
 
 Y. Soc. What is it ? 
 
 Sir. The life of all animals first came to a standstill, 
 and the mortal nature ceased to be or look older, and 
 was then reversed and grew young and delicate ; the 
 white locks of the aged darkened again, and the cheeks 
 of the bearded man became smooth, and recovered their 
 former bloom ; the bodies of youths in their prime grew 
 softer and smaller, continually by day and night return- 
 ing and becoming assimilated to the nature of a newly- 
 born child in mind as well as body ; in the succeeding 
 stage they wasted away and wholly disappeared. And 
 the bodies of those who died by violence at that time 
 quickly passed through the like changes, and in a few 
 days were no more seen. 
 271 Y. Soc. Then how, Stranger, were the animals created 
 in those days ; and in what way were they begotten of 
 one another? 
 
 Str. It is evident, Socrates, that there was no such 
 thing in the then order of nature as the procreation 
 of animals from one another; the earth-born race, 
 of which we hear in story, was the one which existed in 
 those days — they rose again from the ground ; and of 
 this tradition, which is now-a-days often unduly dis- 
 credited, our ancestors, who were nearest in point of 
 time to the end of the last period and came into being 
 at the beginning of this, are to us the heralds. And 
 mark how consistent the sequel of the tale is ; after the 
 
THE HAPPY DAYS OF CRONOS' RULE 235 
 
 return of age to youth, follows the return of the dead, 
 who are lying in the earth, to life ; simultaneously with 
 the reversal of the world the wheel of their generation 
 has been turned back, and they are put together and 
 rise and live in the opposite order, unless God has 
 carried any of them-.away to some other lot. According 
 to this tradition they of necessity sprang from the earth 
 and have the name of earth-born, and so the above 
 legend clings to them. 
 
 Y. Soc. Certainly that is quite consistent with what 
 has preceded ; but tell me, was the life which you said 
 existed in the reign of Cronos in that cycle of the world, 
 or in this ? For the change in the course of the stars 
 and the sun must have occurred in both. 
 
 St7: I see that you enter into my meaning; — no, that 
 blessed and spontaneous life does not belong to the 
 present cycle of the world, but to the previous one, in 
 which God superintended the whole revolution of the 
 universe ; and the several parts of the universe were 
 distributed under the rule of certain inferior deities, as 
 is the way in some places still. There were demigods, 
 who were the shepherds of the various species and 
 herds of animals, and each one was in all respects 
 sufficient for those of whom he was the shepherd ; 
 neither was there any violence, or devouring of one 
 another, or war or quarrel among them ; and I might 
 tell of ten thousand other blessings, which belonged 
 to that dispensation. 
 
 The reason why the life of man was, as tradition 
 says, spontaneous, is as follows : In those days God 
 himself was their shepherd, and ruled over them, just 
 as man, who is by comparison a divine being, still 
 rules over the lower animals. Under him there were 
 no forms of government or separate possession of 
 women and children ; for all men rose again from the 272 
 
236 STATESMAN 
 
 earth, having no memory of the past. And although 
 they had nothing of this sort, the earth gave them fruits 
 in abundance, which grew on trees and shrubs un- 
 bidden, and were not planted by the hand of man. And 
 they dwelt naked, and mostly in the open air, for the 
 temperature of their seasons was mild ; and they had 
 no beds, but lay on soft couches of grass, which grew 
 plentifully out of the earth. Such was the life of man 
 in the days of Cronos, Socrates ; the character of our 
 present life, which is said to be under Zeus, you know 
 from your own experience. Can you, and will you, de- 
 termine which of them you deem the happier ? 
 
 y. Soc. Impossible. 
 
 Str. Then shall I determine for you as well as I can ? 
 
 Y. Soc. By all means. 
 
 Str. Suppose that the nurslings of Cronos, having 
 this boundless leisure, and the power of holding inter- 
 course, not only with men, but with the brute creation, 
 had used all these advantages with a view to philosophy, 
 conversing with the brutes as well as with one another, 
 and learning of every nature which was gifted with any 
 special power, and was able to contribute some special 
 experience to the store of wisdom, there would be no 
 difficulty in deciding that they would be a thousand 
 times happier than the men of our own day. Or, again, 
 if they had merely eaten and drunk until they were full, 
 and told stories to one another and to the animals — 
 such stories as are now attributed to them — in this case 
 also, as I should imagine, the answer would be easy. 
 But until some satisfactory witness can be found of the 
 love of that age for knowledge and discussion, we had 
 better let the matter drop, and give the reason why we 
 have unearthed this tale, and then we shall be able to 
 get on. 
 
 In the fulness of time, when the change was to take 
 
THE ORIGIN OF EVIL 237' 
 
 place, and the earth-born race had all perished, and 
 every soul had completed its proper cycle of births and 
 been sown in the earth her appointed number of times, 
 the pilot of the universe let the helm go, and retired to 
 his place of view; and then Fate and innate desire 
 reversed the motion of the world. Then also all the 
 inferior deities who share the rule of the supreme 
 power, being informed of what was happening, let go 
 the parts of the world which were under their control. 
 And the world turning round with a sudden shock, 273 
 being impelled in an opposite direction from beginning 
 to end, was shaken by a mighty earthquake, which 
 wrought a new destruction of all manner of animals. 
 Afterwards, when sufficient time had elapsed, the 
 tumult and confusion and earthquake ceased, and the 
 universal creature, once more at peace, attained to a 
 calm, and settled down into his own orderly and 
 accustomed course, having the charge and rule of 
 himself and of all the creatures which are contained in 
 him, and executing, as far as he remembered them, the 
 instructions of his Father and Creator, more precisely 
 at first, but afterwards with less exactness. 
 
 The reason of the falling oif was the admixture of 
 matter in him ; this was inherent in the primal nature, 
 which was full of disorder, until attaining to the present 
 order. From God, the constructor, the world received 
 all that is good in him, but from a previous state came 
 elements of evil and unrighteousness, which, thence 
 derived, first of all passed into the world, and were 
 then transmitted to the animals. While the world was 
 aided by the pilot in nurturing the animals, the evil 
 was small, and great the good which he produced, but 
 after the separation, when the world was let go, at first 
 all proceeded well enough; but, as time went on, there 
 was more and more forgetting, and the old discord 
 
238 STATESMAN 
 
 again held sway and burst forth in full glory; and at 
 last small was the good, and great was the admixture 
 of evil, and there was a danger of universal ruin to the 
 world, and to the things contained in him. Wherefore 
 God, the orderer of all, in his tender care, seeing that 
 the world was in great straits, and fearing that all 
 might be dissolved in the storm and disappear in 
 infinite chaos, again seated himself at the helm ; and 
 bringing back the elements which had fallen into 
 dissolution and disorder to the motion which had 
 prevailed under his dispensation, he set them in order 
 and restored them, and made the world imperishable 
 and immortal. 
 
 And this is the whole tale, of which the first part 
 will suffice to illustrate the nature of the king. For 
 when the world turned towards the present cycle of 
 generation, the age of man again stood still, and a 
 change opposite to the previous one was the result. 
 The small creatures which had almost disappeared 
 grew in stature, and the newly-born children of the 
 earth became grey and died and sank into the earth 
 274 again. All things changed, imitating and following 
 the condition of the universe, and of necessity agreeing 
 with that in their mode of conception and generation 
 and nurture ; for no animal was any longer allowed to 
 come into being in the earth through the agency of 
 other creative beings, but as the world was ordained to 
 be the lord of his own progress, in like manner the 
 parts were ordained to grow and generate and give 
 nourishment, as far as they could, of themselves, im- 
 pelled by a similar movement. 
 
 And so we have arrived at the real end of this 
 discourse ; for although there might be much to tell 
 of the lower animals, and of the condition out of which 
 they changed and of the causes of the change, about 
 
THE IMPROVEMENT OF HUMAN SOCIETY 239 
 
 men there is not much, and that little is more to the 
 purpose. Deprived of the care of God, who had pos- 
 sessed and tended them, they were left helpless and 
 defenceless, and were torn in pieces by the beasts, 
 who were naturally fierce and had now grown wild. 
 And in the first ages they were still without skill or 
 resource ; the food which once grew spontaneously had 
 failed, and as yet they knew not how to procure it, 
 because they had never felt the pressure of necessity. 
 For all these reasons they were in a great strait; 
 wherefore also the gifts spoken of in the old tradition 
 were imparted to man by the gods, together with so 
 much teaching and education as was indispensable ; 
 fire was given to them by Prometheus, the arts by 
 Hephaestus and his fellow-worker, Athene, seeds and 
 plants by others. From these is derived all that has 
 helped to frame human life ; since the care of the 
 Gods, as I was saying, had now failed men, and they 
 had to order their course of life for themselves, and 
 were their own masters, just like the universal creature 
 whom they imitate and follow, ever changing, as he 
 changes, and ever living and growing, at one time in 
 one manner, and at another time in another. 
 
 PHILEBUS 
 
 The first Taste of Logic. The Art of Dialectic. 
 
 The Philebus is one of the more purely metaphysical dialogues 
 of Plato, and was probably composed in his later years. The subject 
 of the work may be briefly said to be, — 'Pleasure in relation to 
 Knowledge and to the Good,' or, ' The place of Pleasure in the life 
 of man.' Pleasures are divided into two classes, the pure and the 
 impure kind ; the latter have no part in the virtuous life ;' the former 
 are allowed, but are placed last in the scale of goods. First comes 
 
240 PHILEBUS 
 
 measure ; second, symmetry ; third, reason ; fourth, knowledge ; 
 fifth, the pure pleasures. 
 
 The passage ■which follows does not relate to the principal thesis 
 of the dialogue, but is rather an account of the method in which 
 Plato thinks that such an enquiry shopld be pursued. This is the 
 ' Dialectic ' of which we so often hear in the Platonic writings. Yet 
 there is a difference in his language in the Philebus when compared 
 with that which he employs in other ■works, and especially in the 
 Republic and Symposium. In these dialogues Dialectic is spoken 
 of as the ' steps ' by which we mount from sensible objects to the 
 contemplation of true being or the eternal beauty. This vague 
 conception is not further explained by Plato in the Republic, and 
 in the Sophist, the Statesman, and the Philebus, he returns to the 
 more prosaic notion of Dialectic which he has already stated in 
 the Phaedrus, ■where it is said to be the art by which the philosopher 
 is enabled to divide things into their species, ' according to the 
 natural formation, where the joint is, not breaking any part as a bad 
 carver might ' (265 E). 
 
 It is, therefore, a logical process of division and subdivision, closely 
 analogous to ■what Aristotle calls his ' customary method by which 
 the compound is resolved into the elements or least parts of the 
 ■whole' (Pol. i. 1, § 3). This seems to have been merely a passing 
 phase of Plato's philosophy, when in his '■warfare on behalf of mind' 
 he felt the necessity, as he himself expresses it, 'of having weapons 
 of another make from those which he used before ' (Phil. 23 C). In 
 the Laws Dialectic occupies a far less important place, and is. only 
 the name given to the mode of carrying on the argument by question 
 and answer, which affords a ' suitable pastime ' for the days of old 
 age (vii. 820 C). 
 
 Steph. Socrates. Good ; and where shall we begin this great 
 15 and multifarious battle, in which such various points are 
 at issue ? Shall we begin thus ? 
 Protarchus. How? 
 
 Soc. We say that the one and many become identified 
 by thought, and that now, as in time past, they run 
 about together, in and out of every word which is 
 uttered, and that this union of them will never cease, 
 and is not now beginning, but is, as I believe, an ever- 
 lasting quality of thought itself, which never grows old. 
 Any young man, when he first tastes these subtleties, 
 
THE YOUTHFUL METAPHYSICIAN 24.Z 
 
 is delighted, and fancies that he has found a treasure 
 of wisdom; in the first enthusiasm of his joy he leaves 
 no stone, or rather no thought unturned, now rolling 
 up the many into the one, and kneading them together, 
 now unfolding and dividing them; he puzzles himself 
 first and above all, and then he proceeds to puzzle his 
 neighbours, whether they are older or younger, or of his 16 
 own age — that makes no difference ; neither father nor 
 mother does he spare ; no human being who has ears 
 is safe from him, hardly even his dog, and a barbarian 
 would have no chance of escaping him, if an interpreter 
 could only be found. 
 
 Pro. Considering, Socrates, how many we are, and 
 that all of us are young men, is there not a danger 
 that we and Philebus may all set upon you, if you 
 abuse us ? We understand what you mean ; but is 
 there no charm by which we may dispel all this con- 
 fusion, no more excellent way of arriving at the truth ? 
 If there is, we hope that you will guide us into that way, 
 and we will do our best to follow, for the enquiry in 
 which we are engaged, Socrates, is not unimportant. 
 
 Soc. The reverse of unimportant, my boys, as Philebus 
 calls you, and there neither is nor ever will be a better 
 than my own favourite way, which has nevertheless 
 already often deserted me and left me helpless in the 
 hour of need. 
 
 Pro. Tell us what that is. 
 
 Soc. One which may be easily pointed out, but is ^by 
 no means easy of application ; it is the parent of all the 
 discoveries in the arts. tt 
 
 Pro. Tell us what it is. 
 
 Soc. A gift of heaven, which, as I conceive, the gods 
 tossed among men by the hands of a new Prometheus, 
 and therewith a blaze of light ; and the ancients, who 
 were our betters and nearer the gods than we are, 
 
 VOL, I. R 
 
242 PHILEBUS 
 
 handed down the tradition, that whatever things are 
 said to be are composed of one and many, and have 
 the finite and infinite implanted in them : seeing, then, 
 that such is the order of the world, we too ought in every 
 enquiry to begin by laying down one idea of that which 
 is the subject of enquiry; this unity we shall find in 
 everything. Having found it, we may next proceed to 
 look for two, if there be two, or, if not, then for three 
 or some other number, subdividing each of these units, 
 until at last the unity with which we began is seen not 
 only to be one and many and infinite, but also a definite 
 number ; the infinite must not be suffered to approach 
 the many until the entire number of the species inter- 
 mediate between unity and infinity has been discovered, 
 — then, and not till then, we may rest from division, and 
 without further troubling ourselves about the endless 
 individuals may allow them to drop into infinity. 
 
 This, as I was saying, is the way of considering and 
 learning and teaching one another, which the gods have 
 17 handed down to us. But the wise men of our time are 
 either too quick or too slow in conceiving plurality in 
 unity. Having no method, they make their one and 
 many anyhow, and from unity pass at once to infinity; 
 the intermediate steps never occur to them. And this, 
 I repeat, is what makes the difference between the 
 mere art of disputation and true dialectic. 
 
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