Chapter VIII: Platonic Compositions Generally (1)

[Side-note: Variety and abundance visible in Plato's writings.]

On looking through the collection of works enumerated in the Thrasyllean Canon, the first impression made upon us respecting the author is, that which is expressed in the epithets applied to him by Cicero--"varius et multiplex et copiosus". Such epithets bring before us the variety in Plato's points of view and methods of handling--the multiplicity of the topics discussed--the abundance of the premisses and illustrations suggested:[1] comparison being taken with other literary productions of the same age. It is scarcely possible to find any one predicate truly applicable to all of Plato's works. Every predicate is probably true in regard to some:--none in regard to all.

[Footnote 1: The rhetor Aristeides, comparing Plato with Æschines (_i.e._ Æschines Socraticus, disciple of Sokrates also), remarks that Æschines was more likely to report what Sokrates really said, from being inferior in productive imagination. Plato (as he truly says Orat. xlvi. [Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn], p. 295, Dindorf) [Greek: tê=s phu/seôs chrê=tai periousi/a|], &c.]

[Side-note: Plato both sceptical and dogmatical.]

Several critics of antiquity considered Plato as essentially a sceptic--that is, a Searcher or Enquirer, not reaching any assured or proved result. They denied to him the character of a dogmatist: they maintained that he neither established nor enforced any affirmative doctrines.[2] This latter statement is carried too far. Plato is sceptical in some dialogues, dogmatical in others. And the catalogue of Thrasyllus shows that the sceptical dialogues (Dialogues of Search or Investigation) are more numerous than the dogmatical (Dialogues of Exposition)--as they are also, speaking generally, more animated and interesting.

[Footnote 2: Diogen. Laert. iii. 52. Prolegom. Platon. Philosoph. c. 10, vol. vi. 205, of K. F. Hermann's edition of Plato.]

[Side-note: Poetical vein predominant in some compositions, but not in all.]

Again, Aristotle declared the writing of Plato to be something between poetry and prose, and even the philosophical doctrine of Plato respecting Ideas, to derive all its apparent plausibility from poetic metaphors. The affirmation is true, up to a certain point. Many of the dialogues display an exuberant vein of poetry, which was declared--not by Aristotle alone, but by many other critics contemporary with Plato--to be often misplaced and excessive--and which appeared the more striking because the dialogues composed by the other Sokratic companions were all of them plain and unadorned.[3] The various mythes, in the Phædrus and elsewhere, are announced expressly as soaring above the conditions of truth and logical appreciation. Moreover, we find occasionally an amount of dramatic vivacity, and of artistic antithesis between the speakers introduced, which might have enabled Plato, had he composed for the drama as a profession, to contend with success for the prizes at the Dionysiac festivals. But here again, though this is true of several dialogues, it is not true of others. In the Parmenidês, Timæus, and the Leges, such elements will be looked for in vain. In the Timæus, they are exchanged for a professed cosmical system, including much mystic and oracular affirmation, without proof to support it, and without opponents to test it: in the Leges, for ethical sermons, and religious fulminations, proclaimed by a dictatorial authority.

[Footnote 3: See Dionys. Hal. Epist. ad Cn. Pomp. 756, De Adm. Vi Dic. Dem. 956, where he recognises the contrast between Plato and [Greek: to\ Sôkratiko\n didaskalei=on pa=n]. His expression is remarkable: [Greek: Tau=ta ga\r oi(/ te kat' au)to\n geno/menoi pa/ntes e)pitimô=sin ô(=n ta\ o)no/mata ou)de\n dei= me le/gein]. Epistol. ad Cn. Pomp. p. 761; also 757. See also Diog. L. iii. 37; Aristotel. Metaph. A. 991, a. 22.

Cicero and Quintilian say the same about Plato's style: "Multum supra prosam orationem, et quam pedestrem Græci vocant, surgit: ut mihi non hominis ingenio, sed quodam Delphico videatur oraculo instinctus". Quintil. x. 1, 81. Cicero, Orator, c. 20. Lucian, Piscator, c. 22.

Sextus Empiricus designates the same tendency under the words [Greek: tê\n Pla/tônos a)neidôlopoi/êsin]. Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. iii. 189.

The Greek rhetors of the Augustan age--Dionysius of Halikarnassus and Kækilius of Kalaktê--not only blamed the style of Plato for excessive, overstrained, and misplaced metaphor, but Kækilius goes so far as to declare a decided preference for Lysias over Plato. (Dionys. Hal. De Vi Demosth. pp. 1025-1037, De Comp. Verb. p. 196 R; Longinus, De Sublimitat. c. 32.) The number of critics who censured the manner and doctrine of Plato (critics both contemporary with him and subsequent) was considerable (Dionys. H. Ep. ad Pomp. p. 757). Dionysius and the critics of his age had before their eyes the contrast of the Asiatic style of rhetoric, prevalent in their time, with the Attic style represented by Demosthenes and Lysias. They wished to uphold the force and simplicity of the Attic, against the tumid, wordy, pretensive Asiatic: and they considered the Phædrus, with other compositions of Plato, as falling under the same censure with the Asiatic. See Theoph. Burckhardt, Cæcili Rhet. Frag., Berlin, 1863, p. 15.]

[Side-note: Form of dialogue--universal to this extent, that Plato never speaks in his own name.]

One feature there is, which is declared by Schleiermacher and others to be essential to all the works of Plato--the form of dialogue. Here Schleiermacher's assertion, literally taken, is incontestable. Plato always puts his thoughts into the mouth of some spokesman: he never speaks in his own name. All the works of Plato which we possess (excepting the Epistles, and the Apology, which last I consider to be a report of what Sokrates himself said) are dialogues. But under this same name, many different realities are found to be contained. In the Timæus and Kritias the dialogue is simply introductory to a continuous exposition--in the Menexenus, to a rhetorical discourse: while in the Leges, and even in Sophistês, Politikus, and others, it includes no antithesis nor interchange between two independent minds, but is simply a didactic lecture, put into interrogatory form, and broken into fragments small enough for the listener to swallow at once: he by his answer acknowledging the receipt. If therefore the affirmation of Schleiermacher is intended to apply to all the Platonic compositions, we must confine it to the form, without including the spirit, of dialogue.

[Side-note: No one common characteristic pervading all Plato's works.]

It is in truth scarcely possible to resolve all the diverse manifestations of the Platonic mind into one higher unity; or to predicate, about Plato as an intellectual person, anything which shall be applicable at once to the Protagoras, Gorgias, Parmenidês, Phædrus, Symposion, Philêbus, Phædon, Republic, Timæus, and Leges. Plato was sceptic, dogmatist, religious mystic and inquisitor, mathematician, philosopher, poet (erotic as well as satirical), rhetor, artist--all in one:[4] or at least, all in succession, throughout the fifty years of his philosophical life. At one time his exuberant dialectical impulse claims satisfaction, manifesting itself in a string of ingenious doubts and unsolved contradictions: at another time, he is full of theological antipathy against those who libel Helios and Selênê, or who deny the universal providence of the Gods: here, we have unqualified confessions of ignorance, and protestations against the false persuasion of knowledge, as alike widespread and deplorable--there, we find a description of the process of building up the Kosmos from the beginning, as if the author had been privy to the inmost purposes of the Demiurgus. In one dialogue the erotic fever is in the ascendant, distributed between beautiful youths and philosophical concepts, and confounded with a religious inspiration and _furor_ which supersedes and transcends human sobriety (Phædrus): in another, all vehement impulses of the soul are stigmatised and repudiated, no honourable scope being left for anything but the calm and passionless Nous (Philêbus, Phædon). Satire is exchanged for dithyramb, and mythe, and one ethical point of view for another (Protagoras, Gorgias). The all-sufficient dramatising power of the master gives full effect to each of these multifarious tendencies. On the whole--to use a comparison of Plato himself[5]--the Platonic sum total somewhat resembles those fanciful combinations of animals imagined in the Hellenic mythology--an aggregate of distinct and disparate individualities, which look like one because they are packed in the same external wrapper.

[Footnote 4: Dikæarchus affirmed that Plato was a compound of Sokrates with Pythagoras. Plutarch calls him also a compound of Sokrates with Lykurgus. (Plutarch, Symposiac. viii. 2, p. 718 B.)

Nemesius the Platonist (Eusebius, Præp. Evang. xiv. 5-7-8) repeats the saying of Dikæarchus, and describes Plato as midway between Pythagoras and Sokrates; [Greek: meseu/ôn Puthago/rou kai\ Sôkra/tous]. No three persons could be more disparate than Lykurgus, Pythagoras, and Sokrates. But there are besides various other attributes of Plato, which are not included under either of the heads of this tripartite character.

The Stoic philosopher Sphærus composed a work in three books--[Greek: Peri\ Lukou/rgou kai\ Sôkra/tous]--(Diog. La. vii. 178). He probably compared therein the Platonic Republic with the Spartan constitution and discipline.]

[Footnote 5: Plato, Republ. ix. 588 C. [Greek: Oi(=ai muthologou=ntai palaiai\ gene/sthai phu/seis, ê(/ te Chimai/ras kai\ ê( Sku/llês kai\ Kerbe/rou, kai\ a)/llai tine\s suchnai\ le/gontai xumpephukui=ai i)de/ai pollai\ ei)s e(\n gene/sthai . . . . Peri/plason dê\ au)toi=s e)/xôthen e(no\s ei)ko/na, tê\n tou= a)nthrô/pou, ô(/ste tô=| mê\ duname/nô| ta\ e)nto\s o(ra=|n, a)lla\ to\ e)/xô mo/non e)/lutron o(rô=nti, e(\n zô=on phai/nesthai--a)/nthrôpon.]]

[Side-note: The real Plato was not merely a writer of dialogues, but also lecturer and president of a school. In this last important function he is scarcely at all known to us. Notes of his lectures taken by Aristotle.]

Furthermore, if we intend to affirm anything about Plato as a whole, there is another fact which ought to be taken into account.[6] We know him only from his dialogues, and from a few scraps of information. But Plato was not merely a composer of dialogues. He was lecturer, and chief of a school, besides. The presidency of that school, commencing about 386 B.C., and continued by him with great celebrity for the last half (nearly forty years) of his life, was his most important function. Among his contemporaries he must have exercised greater influence through his school than through his writings.[7] Yet in this character of school-teacher and lecturer, he is almost unknown to us: for the few incidental allusions which have descended to us, through the Aristotelian commentators, only raise curiosity without satisfying it. The little information which we possess respecting Plato's lectures, relates altogether to those which he delivered upon the Ipsum Bonum or Summum Bonum at some time after Aristotle became his pupil--that is, during the last eighteen years of Plato's life. Aristotle and other hearers took notes of these lectures: Aristotle even composed an express work now lost (De Bono or De Philosophiâ), reporting with comments of his own these oral doctrines of Plato, together with the analogous doctrines of the Pythagoreans. We learn that Plato gave continuous lectures, dealing with the highest and most transcendental concepts (with the constituent elements or factors of the Platonic Ideas or Ideal Numbers: the first of these factors being The One the second, The Indeterminate Dyad, or The Great and Little, the essentially indefinite), and that they were mystic and enigmatical, difficult to understand.[8]

[Footnote 6: Trendelenburg not only adopts Schleiermacher's theory of a preconceived and systematic purpose connecting together all Plato's dialogues, but even extends this purpose to Plato's oral lectures: "Id pro certo habendum est. sicut prioribus dialogis quasi præeparat (Plato) posteriores, posterioribus evolvit priores--ita et in scholis continuasse dialogos; quæ reliquerit, absolvisse; atque omnibus ad summa principia perductis, intima quasi semina aperuisse". (Trendelenburg, De Ideis et Numeris Platonis, p. 6.)

This opinion is surely not borne out--it seems even contradicted--by all the information which we possess (very scanty indeed) about the Platonic lectures. Plato delivered therein his Pythagorean doctrines, merging his Ideas in the Pythagorean numerical symbols: and Aristotle, far from considering this as a systematic and intended evolution of doctrine at first imperfectly unfolded, treats it as an additional perversion and confusion, introduced into a doctrine originally erroneous. In regard to the transition of Plato from the doctrine of Ideas to that of Ideal Numbers, see Aristotel. Metaphys. M. 1078, b. 9, 1080, a. 12 (with the commentary of Bonitz, pp. 539-541), A. 987, b. 20.

M. Boeckh, too, accounts for the obscure and enigmatical speaking of Plato in various dialogues, by supposing that he cleared up all the difficulties in his oral lectures. "Platon deutet nur an--spricht meinethalben räthselhaft (in den Gesetzen); aber gerade so räthselhaft spricht er von diesen Sachen im Timaeus: er pflegt mathematische Theoreme nur anzudeuten, nicht zu entwickeln: ich glaube, weil er sie in den Vorträgen ausführte," &c. (Untersuchungen über das Kosmische System des Platon, p. 50.)

This may be true about the mathematical theorems; but I confess that I see no proof of it. Though Plato admits that his doctrine in the Timæus is [Greek: a)ê/thês lo/gos], yet he expressly intimates that the hearers are instructed persons, able to follow him (Timæus, p. 53 C.).]

[Footnote 7: M. Renan, in his work, 'Averroès et l'Averroïsme,' pp. 257-325, remarks that several of the Italian professors of philosophy, at Padua and other universities, exercised far greater influence through their lectures than through their published works. He says (p. 325-6) respecting Cremonini (Professor at Padua, 1590-1620):--"Il a été jusqu'ici apprécié d'une manière fort incomplète par les historiens de la philosophie. On ne l'a jugé que par ses écrits imprimés, qui ne sont que des dissertations de peu d'importance, et ne peuvent en aucune manière faire comprendre la renommée colossale à laquelle il parvint. Cremonini n'est qu'un professeur: ses _cours_ sont sa véritable philosophie. Aussi, tandis que ses écrits imprimés se vendaient fort mal, les rédactions de ses leçons se répandaient dans toute l'Italie et même au delà des monts. On sait que les élèves préfèrent souvent aux textes imprimés, les cahiers qu'ils ont ainsi recueillis de la bouche de leurs professeurs. . . En général, c'est dans les cahiers, beaucoup plus que dans les sources imprimées, qu'il faut étudier l'école de Padoue. Pour Cremonini, cette tâche est facile; car les copies de ses cours sont innombrables dans le nord de l'Italie."]

[Footnote 8: Aristotle (Physic. iv. p. 209, b. 34) alludes to [Greek: ta\ lego/mena a)/grapha do/gmata] of Plato, and their discordance on one point with the Timæus.

Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. f. 104 b. p. 362, a. 11, Brandis. [Greek: A)rcha\s ga\r kai\ tô=n ai)sthêtô=n to\ e(\n kai\ tê\n a)o/risto/n phasi dua/da le/gein to\n Pla/tôna. Tê\n de\ a)o/riston dua/da kai\ e)n toi=s noêtoi=s tithei\s a)/peiron ei)=nai e)/legen, kai\ to\ me/ga de\ kai\ to\ mikro\n a)rcha\s tithei\s a)/peira ei)=nai e)/legen e)n toi=s peri\ Ta)gathou= lo/gois, oi(=s o( A)ristote/lês kai\ Ê(raklei/dês kai\ E)stiai=os kai\ a)/lloi tou= Pla/tônos e(tai=roi _parageno/menoi a)negra/psanto ta\ r(êthe/nta, ai)nigmatôdô=s ô(s e)r)r(ê/thê_; Porphu/rios de\ diarthrou=n au)ta\ e)paggello/menos ta/de peri\ au)tô=n ge/graphen e)n tô| Philê/bô|]. Compare another passage of the same Scholia, p. 334, b. 28, p. 371, b. 26. [Greek: Ta\s a)gra/phous sunousi/as tou= Pla/tônos au)to\s o( A)ristote/lês a)pegra/psato]. 372, a. [Greek: To\ methektiko\n e)n me\n tai=s peri\ Ta)gathou sunousi/ais me/ga kai\ mikro\n e)ka/lei, e)n de\ tô=| Timai/ô| u(/lên, ê)\n kai\ chô/ran kai\ to/pon ô)no/maze]. Comp 371, a. 5, and the two extracts from Simplikius, cited by Zeller, De Hermodoro, pp. 20, 21. By [Greek: a)/grapha do/gmata], or [Greek: a)/graphoi sunou/siai], we are to understand opinions or colloquies not written down (or not communicated to others as writings) _by Plato himself_: thus distinguished from his written dialogues. Aristotle, in the treatise, De Animâ, i. 2, p. 404, b. 18, refers to [Greek: e)n toi=s peri\ Philosophi/as]: which Simplikius thus explains [Greek: peri\ philosophi/as nu=n le/gei ta\ peri\ tou= A)gathou= au)tô=| e)k tê=s Pla/tônos a)nagegramme/na sunousi/as, e)n oi(=s i(storei= ta/s te Puthagorei/ous kai\ Platônika\s peri\ tô=n o)/ntôn do/xas]. Philoponus reports the same thing: see Trendelenburg's Comm. on De Animâ, p. 226. Compare Alexand. ad Aristot. Met. A. 992, p. 581, a. 2, Schol. Brandis.]

[Side-note: Plato's lectures De Bono obscure and transcendental. Effect which they produced on the auditors.]

One remarkable observation, made upon them by Aristotle, has been transmitted to us.[9] There were lectures announced to be, On the Supreme Good. Most of those who came to hear, expected that Plato would enumerate and compare the various matters usually considered _good_--_i.e._ health, strength, beauty, genius, wealth, power, &c. But these hearers were altogether astonished at what they really heard: for Plato omitting the topics expected, descanted only upon arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy; and told them that The Good was identical with The One (as contrasted with the Infinite or Indeterminate which was Evil).

[Footnote 9: Aristoxenus, Harmon. ii. p. 30. [Greek: Katha/per A)ristote/lês a)ei\ diêgei=to tou\s plei/stous tô=n a)kousa/ntôn para\ Pla/tônos tê\n peri\ tou= a)gathou= a)kro/asin pathei=n; prosei=nai ga\r e(/kaston u(polamba/nonta lê/psesthai/ ti tô=n nomizome/nôn a)nthrôpi/nôn a)gathô=n;--o(/te de\ phanei/êsan oi( lo/goi peri\ mathêma/tôn kai\ a)rithmô=n kai\ geômetri/as kai\ a)strologi/as, kai\ to\ pe/ras o(/ti a)gatho/n e)stin e(/n, pantelô=s oi)=mai para/doxon e)phai/neto au)toi=s].

Compare Themistius, Orat. xxi. p. 245 D. Proklus also alludes to this story, and to the fact that most of the [Greek: polu\s kai\ pantoi=os o)/chlos], who were attracted to Plato's [Greek: a)kro/asis peri\ Ta)gathou=], were disappointed or unable to understand him, and went away. (Proklus ad Platon. Parmen. p. 92, Cousin. 528, Stallb.)]

[Side-note: They were delivered to miscellaneous auditors. They coincide mainly with what Aristotle states about the Platonic Ideas.]

We see farther from this remark:--First, that Plato's lectures were often above what his auditors could appreciate--a fact which we learn from other allusions also: Next, that they were not confined to a select body of advanced pupils, who had been worked up by special training into a state fit for comprehending them.[10] Had such been the case, the surprise which Aristotle mentions could never have been felt. And we see farther, that the transcendental doctrine delivered in the lectures De Bono (though we find partial analogies to it in Philêbus, Epinomis, and parts of Republic) coincides more with what Aristotle states and comments upon as Platonic doctrine, than with any reasonings which we find in the Platonic dialogues. It represents the latest phase of Platonism: when the Ideas originally conceived by him as Entities in themselves, had become merged or identified in his mind with the Pythagorean numbers or symbols.

[Footnote 10: Respecting Plato's lectures, see Brandis (Gesch. der Griech.-Röm. Phil. vol. ii. p. 180 seq., 306-319); also Trendelenburg, Platonis De Ideis et Numeris Doctrina, pp. 3, 4, seq.

Brandis, though he admits that Plato's lectures were continuous discourses, thinks that they were intermingled with discussion and debate: which may have been the case, though there is no proof of it. But Schleiermacher goes further, and says (Einleitung. p. 18), "Any one who can think that Plato in these oral _Vorträgen_ employed the Sophistical method of long speeches, shows such an ignorance as to forfeit all right of speaking about Plato". Now the passage from Aristoxenus, given in the preceding note, is our only testimony; and it distinctly indicates a continuous lecture to an unprepared auditory, just as Protagoras or Prodikus might have given. K. F. Hermann protests, with good reason, against Schleiermacher's opinion. (Ueber Plato's schriftstellerische Motive, p. 289.)

The confident declaration just produced from Schleiermacher illustrates the unsound basis on which he and various other Platonic critics proceed. They find, in some dialogues of Plato, a strong opinion proclaimed, that continuous discourse is useless for the purpose of instruction. This was a point of view which, at the time when he composed these dialogues, he considered to be of importance, and desired to enforce. But we are not warranted in concluding that he must always have held the same conviction throughout his long philosophical life, and in rejecting as un-platonic all statements and all compositions which imply an opposite belief. We cannot with reason bind down Plato to a persistence in one and the same type of compositions.]

[Side-note: The lectures De Bono may perhaps have been more transcendental than Plato's other lectures.]

This statement of Aristotle, alike interesting and unquestionable, attests the mysticism and obscurity which pervaded Plato's doctrine in his later years. But whether this lecture on _The Good_ is to be taken as a fair specimen of Plato's lecturing generally, and from the time when he first began to lecture, we may perhaps doubt:[11] since we know that as a lecturer and converser he acquired extraordinary ascendency over ardent youth. We see this by the remarkable instance of Dion.[12]

[Footnote 11: Themistius says (Orat. xxi. p. 245 D) that Plato sometimes lectured in the Peiræus, and that a crowd then collected to hear him, not merely from the city, but also from the country around: if he lectured De Bono, however, the ordinary hearers became tired and dispersed, leaving only [Greek: tou\s sunê/theis o(milêta/s].

It appears that Plato in his lectures delivered theories on the principles of geometry. He denied the reality of geometrical points--or at least admitted them only as hypotheses for geometrical reasoning. He maintained that what others called _a point_ ought to be called "_an indivisible line_". Xenokrates maintained the same doctrine after him. Aristotle controverts it (see Metaphys. A., 992, b. 20). Aristotle's words citing Plato's opinion ([Greek: tou/tô| me\n ou)=n tô=| ge/nei kai\ diema/cheto Pla/tôn ô(s o)/nti geômetrikô=| do/gmati, a)ll' e)ka/lei a)rchê\n grammê=s; tou=to de\ polla/kis e)ti/thei ta\s a)to/mous gramma/s]) must be referred to Plato's oral lectures; no such opinion occurs in the dialogues. This is the opinion both of Bonitz and Schwegler in their comments on the passage: also of Trendelenburg, De Ideis et Numeris Platonis, p. 66. That geometry and arithmetic were matters of study and reflection both to Plato himself and to many of his pupils in the Academy, appears certain; and perhaps Plato may have had an interior circle of pupils, to which he applied the well-known exclusion--[Greek: mêdei\s a)geôme/trêtos ei)si/tô]. But we cannot make out clearly what was Plato's own proficiency, or what improvements he may have introduced, in geometry, nor what there is to justify the comparison made by Montucla between Plato and Descartes. In the narrative respecting the Delian problem--the duplication of the cube--Archytas, Menæchmus, and Eudoxus, appear as the inventors of solutions, Plato as the superior who prescribes and criticises (see the letter and epigram of Eratosthenes: Bernhardy, Eratosthenica, pp. 176-184). The three are said to have been blamed by Plato for substituting instrumental measurement in place of geometrical proof (Plutarch, Problem. Sympos. viii. 2, pp. 718, 719; Plutarch, Vit. Marcelli, c. 14). The geometrical construction of the [Greek: Ko/smos], which Plato gives us in the Timæus, seems borrowed from the Pythagoreans, though applied probably in a way peculiar to himself (see Finger, De Primordiis Geometriæ ap. Græcos, p. 38, Heidelb. 1831).]

[Footnote 12: See Epist. vii. pp. 327, 328.]

[Side-note: Plato's Epistles--in them only he speaks in his own person.]

The only occasions on which we have experience of Plato as speaking in his own person, and addressing himself to definite individuals, are presented by his few Epistles; all of them (as I have before remarked) written after he he was considerably above sixty years of age, and nearly all addressed to Sicilians or Italians--Dionysius II., Dion, the friends of Dion after the death of the latter, and Archytas.[13] In so far as these letters bear upon Plato's manner of lecturing or teaching, they go to attest, first, his opinion that direct written exposition was useless for conveying real instruction to the reader--next, his reluctance to publish any such exposition under his own name, and carrying with it his responsibility. When asked for exposition, he writes intentionally with mystery, so that ordinary persons cannot understand.

[Footnote 13: Of the thirteen Platonic Epistles, Ep. 2, 3, 13, are addressed to the second or younger Dionysius; Ep. 4 to Dion; Ep. 7, 8, to the friends and relatives of Dion after Dion's death. The 13th Epistle appears to be the earliest of all, being seemingly written after the first voyage of Plato to visit Dionysius II. at Syracuse, in 367-366 B.C., and before his second visit to the same place and person, about 363-362 B.C. Epistles 2 and 3 were written after his return from that second visit, in 360 B.C., and prior to the expedition of Dion against Dionysius in 357 B.C. Epistle 4 was written to Dion shortly after Dion's victorious career at Syracuse, about 355 B.C. Epistles 7 and 8 were written not long after the murder of Dion in 354 B.C. The first in order, among the Platonic Epistles, is not written by Plato, but by Dion, addressed to Dionysius, shortly after the latter had sent Dion away from Syracuse. The fifth is addressed by Plato to the Macedonian prince Perdikkas. The sixth, to Hermeias of Atarneus, Erastus, and Koriskus. The ninth and twelfth, to Archytas of Tarentum. The tenth, to Aristodôrus. The eleventh, to Laodamas. I confess that I see nothing in these letters which compels me to depart from the judgment of the ancient critics, who unanimously acknowledged them as genuine. I do not think myself competent to determine _à priori_ what the style of Plato's letters _must_ have been; what topics he _must_ have touched upon, and what topics he _could not_ have touched upon. I have no difficulty in believing that Plato, writing a letter on philosophy, may have expressed himself with as much mysticism and obscurity as we now read in Epist. 2 and 7. Nor does it surprise me to find Plato (in Epist. 13) alluding to details which critics, who look upon him altogether as a spiritual person, disallow as mean and unworthy. His recommendation of the geometer, Helikon of Kyzikus, to Dionysius and Archytas, is to me interesting: to make known the theorems of Eudoxus, through the medium of Helikon, to Archytas, was no small service to geometry in those days. I have an interest in learning how Plato employed the money given to him by Dionysius and other friends: that he sent to Dionysius a statue of Apollo by a good Athenian sculptor named Leochares (this sculptor executed a bust of Isokrates also, Plut. Vit. x. Orat. p. 838); and another statue by the same sculptor for the wife of Dionysius, in gratitude for the care which she had taken of him (Plato) when sick at Syracuse; that he spent the money of Dionysius partly in discharging his own public taxes and liturgies at Athens, partly in providing dowries for poor maidens among his friends; that he was so beset by applications, which he could not refuse, for letters of recommendation to Dionysius, as to compel him to signify, by a private mark, to Dionysius, which among the letters he wished to be most attended to. "These latter" (he says) "I shall begin with [Greek: theo\s] (sing. number), the others I shall begin with [Greek: theoi\] (plural)." (Epist. xiii. 361, 362, 363.)]

[Side-note: Intentional obscurity of his Epistles in reference to philosophical doctrine.]

Knowing as we do that he had largely imbued himself with the tenets of the Pythagoreans (who designedly adopted a symbolical manner of speaking--published no writings--for Philolaus is cited as an exception to their rule--and did not care to be understood, except by their own adepts after a long apprenticeship) we cannot be surprised to find Plato holding a language very similar. He declares that the highest principles of his philosophy could not be set forth in writing so as to be intelligible to ordinary persons: that they could only be apprehended by a few privileged recipients, through an illumination kindled in the mind by multiplied debates and much mental effort: that such illumination was always preceded by a painful feeling of want, usually long-continued, sometimes lasting for nearly thirty years, and exchanged at length for relief at some unexpected moment.[14]

[Footnote 14: Plato, Epist. ii. pp. 313, 314.]

Plato during his second visit had had one conversation, and only one, with Dionysius respecting the higher mysteries of philosophy. He had impressed upon Dionysius the prodigious labour and difficulty of attaining truth upon these matters. The despot professed to thirst ardently for philosophy, and the conversation turned upon the Natura Primi--upon the first and highest principles of Nature.[15] Dionysius, after this conversation with Plato, intimated that he had already conceived in his own mind the solution of these difficulties, and the truth upon philosophy in its greatest mysteries. Upon which Plato expressed his satisfaction that such was the case,[16] so as to relieve him from the necessity of farther explanations, though the like had never happened to him with any previous hearer.

[Footnote 15: Plat. Epist. ii. 312: [Greek: peri\ tê=s tou= prô/ton phu/seôs]. Epist. vii. 344: [Greek: tô=n peri\ phu/seôs a)/krôn kai\ prô/tôn].--One conversation only--Epist. vii. 345.]

[Footnote 16: Plato, Epist. ii. 313 B. Plato asserts the same about Dionysius in Epist. vii. 341 B.]

[Side-note: Letters of Plato to Dionysius II. about philosophy. His anxiety to confine philosophy to discussion among select and prepared minds.]

But Dionysius soon found that he could not preserve the explanation in his mind, after Plato's departure--that difficulties again crowded upon him--and that it was necessary to send a confidential messenger to Athens to entreat farther elucidations. In reply, Plato sends back by the messenger what is now numbered as the second of his Epistles. He writes avowedly in enigmatical language, so that, if the letter be lost, the finder will not be able to understand it; and he enjoins Dionysius to burn it after frequent perusal.[17] He expresses his hope that when Dionysius has debated the matter often with the best minds near him, the clouds will clear away of themselves, and the moment of illumination will supervene.[18] He especially warns Dionysius against talking about these matters to unschooled men, who will be sure to laugh at them; though by minds properly prepared, they will be received with the most fervent welcome.[19] He affirms that Dionysius is much superior in philosophical debate to his companions; who were overcome in debate with him, not because they suffered themselves designedly to be overcome (out of flattery towards the despot, as some ill-natured persons alleged), but because they could not defend themselves against the Elenchus as applied by Dionysius.[20] Lastly, Plato advises Dionysius to write down nothing, since what has once been written will be sure to disappear from the memory; but to trust altogether to learning by heart, meditation, and repeated debate, as a guarantee for retention in his mind. "It is for that reason" (Plato says)[21] "that I have never myself written anything upon these subjects. There neither is, nor shall there ever be, any treatise of Plato. The opinions called by the name of Plato are those of Sokrates, in his days of youthful vigour and glory."

[Footnote 17: Plat. Epist. ii. 312 E: [Greek: phraste/on dê/ soi di' ai)nigmô=n i(/n a)/n ti ê( de/ltos ê)\ po/ntos ê)\ gê=s e)n ptuchai=s pa/thê|, o( a)nagnou\s mê\ gnô=|]. 314 C: [Greek: e)/r)r(hôso kai\ pei/thou, kai\ tê\n e)pistolê\n tau/tên nu=n prô=ton polla/kis a)nagnou\s kata/kauson].

Proklus, in his Commentary on the Timæus (pp. 40, 41), remarks the fondness of Plato for [Greek: to\ ai)nigmatôde/s].]

[Footnote 18: Plat. Epist. ii. 313 D.]

[Footnote 19: Plat. Epist. ii. 314 A. [Greek: eu)labou= me/ntoi mê/ pote e)kpe/sê| tau=ta ei)s a)nthrô/pous a)paideu/tous.]]

[Footnote 20: Plat. Epist. ii. 314 D.]

[Footnote 21: Plat. Epist. ii. 314 C. [Greek: megi/stê de\ phulakê\ to\ mê\ gra/phein a)ll' e)kmantha/nein; ou) ga\r e)sti ta\ graphe/nta mê\ ou)k e)kpesei=n. dia\ tau=ta ou)de\n pô/pot' e)gô\ peri\ tou/tôn ge/grapha, ou)/d' e)/sti su/ggramma Pla/tônos ou)de\n ou)/d' e)/stai; ta\ de\ nu=n lego/mena, Sôkra/tous e)sti\ kalou= kai\ ne/ou gegono/tos].

"Addamus ad superiora" (says Wesseling, Epist. ad Venemam, p. 41, Utrecht, 1748), "Platonem videri semper voluisse, dialogos, in quibus de Philosophiâ, deque Republicâ, atque ejus Legibus, inter confabulantes actum fuit, non sui ingenii sed Socratici, foetus esse".]

[Side-note: He refuses to furnish any written, authoritative exposition of his own philosophical doctrine.]

Such is the language addressed by Plato to the younger Dionysius, in a letter written seemingly between 362-357 B.C. In another letter, written about ten years afterwards (353-352 B.C.) to the friends of Dion (after Dion's death), he expresses the like repugnance to the idea of furnishing any written authoritative exposition of his principal doctrines. "There never shall be any expository treatise of mine upon them" (he declares). "Others have tried, Dionysius among the number, to write them down; but they do not know what they attempt. I could myself do this better than any one, and I should consider it the proudest deed in my life, as well as a signal benefit to mankind, to bring forward an exposition of Nature luminous to all.[22] But I think the attempt would be nowise beneficial, except to a few, who require only slight direction to enable them to find it for themselves: to most persons it would do no good, but would only fill them with empty conceit of knowledge, and with contempt for others.[23] These matters cannot be communicated in words as other sciences are. Out of repeated debates on them, and much social intercourse, there is kindled suddenly a light in the mind, as from fire bursting forth, which, when once generated, keeps itself alive."[24]

[Footnote 22: Plato, Epist. vii. 341, B, C. [Greek: ti/ tou/tou ka/llion e)pe/prakt' a)\n ê(mi=n e)n tô=| bi/ô| ê)\ toi=s te a)nthrô/poisi me/ga o)/phelos gra/psai _kai\ tê\n phu/sin ei)s phô=s pa=si proagagei=n_?]]

[Footnote 23: Plat. Epist. vii. 341 E.]

[Footnote 24: Plato, Epist. vii. 341 C. [Greek: ou)/koun e)mo/n ge peri\ au)tô=n e)/sti su/ggramma ou)de mê/ pote ge/nêtai; r(êto\n ga\r ou)damô=s e)stin ô(s a)/lla mathê/mata, a)ll' e)k pollê=s sunousi/as gignome/nês peri\ to\ pra=gma au)to\ kai\ tou= suzê=|n, e)xai/phnês, oi(=on a)po\ puro\s pêdê/santos e)xaphthe\n phô=s, e)n tê=| psuchê=| geno/menon au)to\ e(auto\ ê)/dê tre/phei].

This sentence, as a remarkable one, I have translated literally in the text: that which precedes is given only in substance.

We see in the Republic that Sokrates, when questioned by Glaukon, and urged emphatically to give some solution respecting [Greek: ê( tou= a)gathou= i)de/a] and [Greek: ê( tou= diale/gesthai du/namis], answers only by an evasion or a metaphor (Republic, vi. 506 E, vii. 533 A). Now these are much the same points as what are signified in the letter to Dionysius, under the terms [Greek: ta\ prô=ta kai\ a)/kra tê=s phu/seôs--ê( tou= prô/tou phu/sis] (312 E): as to which Plato, when questioned, replies in a mystic and unintelligible way.]

[Side-note: He illustrates his doctrine by the successive stages of geometrical teaching. Difficulty to avoid the creeping in of error at each of these stages.]

Plato then proceeds to give an example from geometry, illustrating the uselessness both of writing and of direct exposition. In acquiring a knowledge of the circle, he distinguishes five successive stages. 1. The Name. 2. The Definition, a proposition composed of nouns and verbs. 3. The Diagram. 4. Knowledge, Intelligence, True Opinion, [Greek: Nou=s]. 5. The Noumenon--[Greek: Au)to\-Ku/klos]--ideal or intelligible circle, the only true object of knowledge.[25] The fourth stage is a purely mental result, not capable of being exposed either in words or figure: it presupposes the three first, but is something distinct from them; and it is the only mental condition immediately cognate and similar to the fifth stage, or the self-existent idea.[26]

[Footnote 25: Plato, Epist. vii. 342 A, B. The geometrical illustration which follows is intended merely as an illustration, of general principles which Plato asserts to be true about all other enquiries, physical or ethical.]

[Footnote 26: Plat. Epist. vii. 342 C. [Greek: ô(s de\ e(\n tou=to au)= pa=n thete/on, ou)k e)n phônai=s ou)d' e)n sôma/tôn schê/masin a)ll' e)n psuchai=s e)no/n, ô(=| dê=lon e(/teron te o)\n au)tou= tou= ku/klou tê=s phu/seôs, tô=n te e)/mprosthen lechthe/ntôn triô=n. tou/tôn de\ e)ggu/tata me\n xuggenei/a| kai\ o(moio/têti, tou= pe/mptou] (_i. e._ [Greek: tou= Au)to\-ku/klou]) [Greek: nou=s] (the fourth stage) [Greek: peplêsi/ake, ta)/lla de\ ple/on a)pe/chei].

In Plato's reckoning, [Greek: o( nou=s] is counted as the fourth, in the ascending scale, from which we ascend to the fifth, [Greek: to\ noou/menon], or [Greek: noêto/n]. [Greek: O( nou=s] and [Greek: to\ noêto\n] are cognate or homogeneous--according to a principle often insisted on in ancient metaphysics--like must be known by like. (Aristot. De Animâ, i. 2, 404, b. 15.)]

Now in all three first stages (Plato says) there is great liability to error and confusion. The name is unavoidably equivocal, uncertain, fluctuating: the definition is open to the same reproach, and often gives special and accidental properties along with the universal and essential, or instead of them: the diagram cannot exhibit the essential without some variety of the accidental, nor without some properties even contrary to reality, since any circle which you draw, instead of touching a straight line in one point alone, will be sure to touch it in several points.[27] Accordingly no intelligent man will embody the pure concepts of his mind in fixed representation, either by words or by figures.[28] If we do this, we have the _quid_ or essence, which we are searching for, inextricably perplexed by accompaniments of the _quale_ or accidents, which we are not searching for.[29] We acquire only a confused cognition, exposing us to be puzzled, confuted, and humiliated, by an acute cross-examiner, when he questions us on the four stages which we have gone through to attain it.[30] Such confusion does not arise from any fault in the mind, but from the defects inherent in each of the four stages of progress. It is only by painful effort, when each of these is naturally good--when the mind itself also is naturally good, and when it has gone through all the stages up and down, dwelling upon each--that true knowledge can be acquired.[31] Persons whose minds are naturally bad, or have become corrupt, morally or intellectually, cannot be taught to see even by Lynkeus himself. In a word, if the mind itself be not cognate to the matter studied, no quickness in learning nor force of memory will suffice. He who is a quick learner and retentive, but not cognate or congenial with just or honourable things--he who, though cognate and congenial, is stupid in learning or forgetful--will never effectually learn the truth about virtue or wickedness.[32] These can only be learnt along with truth and falsehood as it concerns entity generally, by long practice and much time.[33] It is only with difficulty,--after continued friction, one against another, of all the four intellectual helps, names and definitions, acts of sight and sense,--after application of the Elenchus by repeated question and answer, in a friendly temper and without spite--it is only after all these preliminaries, that cognition and intelligence shine out with as much intensity as human power admits.[34]

[Footnote 27: Plat. Epist. vii. 343 B. This illustrates what is said in the Republic about the geometrical [Greek: u(pothe/seis] (vi. 510 E, 511 A; vii. 533 B.)]

[Footnote 28: Plat. Epist. vii. 343 A. [Greek: ô(=n e(/neka nou=n e)/chôn ou)dei\s tolmê/sei pote\ ei)s au)to\ tithe/nai ta\ nenoême/na, kai\ tau=ta ei)s a)metaki/nêton, o(\ dê\ pa/schei ta\ gegramme/na tu/pois.]]

[Footnote 29: Plat. Epist. vii. 343 C.]

[Footnote 30: Plat. Epist. vii. 343 D.]

[Footnote 31: Plat. Epistol. vii. 343 E. [Greek: ê( de\ dia\ pa/ntôn au)tô=n diagôgê/, a)/nô kai\ ka/tô metabai/nousa e)ph' e(/kaston, mo/gis e)pistê/mên e)ne/teken eu)= pephuko/tos eu)= pephuko/ti.]]

[Footnote 32: Plato, Epistol. vii. 344 A.]

[Footnote 33: Plato, Epist. vii. 344 B. [Greek: a(/ma ga\r au)ta\ a)na/gkê mantha/nein, kai\ to\ pseu=dos a(/ma kai\ a)lêthe\s tê=s o(/lês ou)si/as.]]

[Footnote 34: Plat. Epist. vii. 344 B. [Greek: mo/gis de\ tribo/mena pro\s a)/llêla au)tô=n e(/kasta, o)no/mata kai\ lo/goi, o)/pseis te kai\ ai)sthê/seis, e)n eu)mene/sin e)le/gchos e)legcho/mena kai\ a)/neu phtho/nôn e)rôtê/sesi kai\ a)pokri/sesi chrôme/nôn, e)xe/lampse phro/nêsis peri\ e(/kaston kai\ nou=s, suntei/nôn o(/ti ma/list' ei)s du/namin a)nthrôpi/nên.]]

[Side-note: No written exposition can keep clear of these chances of error.]

For this reason, no man of real excellence will ever write and publish his views, upon the gravest matters, into a world of spite and puzzling contention. In one word, when you see any published writings, either laws proclaimed by the law-giver or other compositions by others, you may be sure that, if he be himself a man of worth, these were not matters of first-rate importance in his estimation. If they really were so, and if he has published his views in writing, some evil influence must have destroyed his good sense.[35]

[Footnote 35: Plat. Epist. vii. 344 C-D.]

[Side-note: Relations of Plato with Dionysius II. and the friends of the deceased Dion. Pretensions of Dionysius to understand and expound Plato's doctrines.]

We see by these letters that Plato disliked and disapproved the idea of publishing, for the benefit of readers generally, any written exposition of _philosophia prima_, carrying his own name, and making him responsible for it. His writings are altogether dramatic. All opinions on philosophy are enunciated through one or other of his spokesmen: that portion of the Athenian drama called the Parabasis, in which the Chorus addressed the audience directly and avowedly in the name of the poet, found no favour with Plato. We read indeed in several of his dialogues (Phædon, Republic, Timæus, and others) dogmas advanced about the highest and most recondite topics of philosophy: but then they are all advanced under the name of Sokrates, Timæus, &c.--[Greek: Ou)k e)mo\s o( mu=thos], &c. There never was any written programme issued by Plato himself, declaring the Symbolum Fidei to which he attached his own name.[36] Even in the Leges, the most dogmatical of all his works, the dramatic character and the borrowed voice are kept up. Probably at the time when Plato wrote his letter to the friends of the deceased Dion, from which I have just quoted--his aversion to written expositions was aggravated by the fact, that Dionysius II., or some friend in his name, had written and published a philosophical treatise of this sort, passing himself off as editor of a Platonic philosophy, or of improved doctrines of his own built thereupon, from oral communication with Plato.[37] We must remember that Plato himself (whether with full sincerity or not) had complimented Dionysius for his natural ability and aptitude in philosophical debate:[38] so that the pretension of the latter to come forward as an expositor of Plato appears the less preposterous. On the other hand, such pretension was calculated to raise a belief that Dionysius had been among the most favoured and confidential companions of Plato: which belief Plato, writing as he was to the surviving friends of Dion the enemy of Dionysius, is most anxious to remove, while on the other hand he extols the dispositions and extenuates the faults of his friend Dion. It is to vindicate himself from misconception of his own past proceedings, as well as to exhort with regard to the future, that Plato transmits to Sicily his long seventh and eighth Epistles, wherein are embodied his objections against the usefulness of written exposition intended for readers generally.

[Footnote 36: The Platonic dialogue was in this respect different from the Aristotelian dialogue. Aristotle, in his composed dialogues, introduced other speakers, but delivered the principal arguments in his own name. Cicero followed his example, in the De Finibus and elsewhere: "Quæ his temporibus scripsi, [Greek: A)ristote/leion] morem habent: in quo sermo ita inducitur cæterorum, ut penes ipsum sit principatus". (Cic. ad Att. xiii. 19.)

Herakleides of Pontus (Cicero, ibid.), in his composed dialogues, introduced himself as a [Greek: kôpho\n pro/sôpon]. Plato does not even do thus much.]

[Footnote 37: We see this from Epist. vii. 341 B, 344 D, 345 A. Plato speaks of the impression as then prevalent (when he wrote) in the mind of Dionysius:--[Greek: po/teron Dionu/sios a)kou/sas mo/non a(/pax ou(/tôs _ei)de/nai te oi)/etai_ kai\ i(kanôs oi)=den], &c.]]

[Footnote 38: Plat. Epist. ii. 314 D.]

[Side-note: Impossibility of teaching by written exposition assumed by Plato; the assumption intelligible in his day.]

These objections (which Plato had often insisted on,[39] and which are also, in part, urged by Sokrates in the Phædrus) have considerable force, if we look to the way in which Plato conceives them. In the first place, Plato conceives the exposition as not merely written but published: as being, therefore, presented to all minds, the large majority being ignorant, unprepared, and beset with that false persuasion of knowledge which Sokrates regarded as universal. In so far as it comes before these latter, nothing is gained, and something is lost; for derision is brought upon the attempt to teach.[40] In the next place, there probably existed, at that time, no elementary work whatever for beginners in any science: the Elements of Geometry by Euclid were published more than a century after Plato's death, at Alexandria. Now, when Plato says that written expositions, then scarcely known, would be useless to the student--he compares them with the continued presence and conversation of a competent teacher; whom he supposes not to rely upon direct exposition, but to talk much "about and about" the subject, addressing the pupil with a large variety of illustrative interrogations, adapting all that was said to his peculiar difficulties and rate of progress, and thus evoking the inherent cognitive force of the pupil's own mind. That any Elements of Geometry (to say nothing of more complicated inquiries) could be written and published, such that an [Greek: a)geôme/trêtos] might take up the work and learn geometry by means of it, without being misled by equivocal names, bad definitions, and diagrams exhibiting the definition as clothed with special accessories--this is a possibility which Plato contests, and which we cannot wonder at his contesting.[41] The combination of a written treatise, with the oral exposition of a tutor, would have appeared to Plato not only useless but inconvenient, as restraining the full liberty of adaptive interrogation necessary to be exercised, different in the case of each different pupil.

[Footnote 39: Plato, Epist. vii. 342. [Greek: lo/gos a)lêthê/s, polla/kis me\n u(p' e)mou= kai\ pro/sthen r(êthei/s], &c.]

[Footnote 40: Plato (Epist. ii. 314 A) remarks this expressly: also in the Phædrus, 275 E, 276 A.

[Greek: A)/threi dê\ periskopô=n, mê/ tis tô=n a)muê/tôn e)pakou/sê|] is the language of the Platonic Sokrates as a speaker in the Theætêtus (155 E).]

[Footnote 41: Some just and pertinent remarks, bearing on this subject, are made by Condorcet, in one of his Academic Éloges: "Les livres ne peuvent remplacer les leçons des maîtres habiles, lorsque les sciences n'ont pas encore fait assez de progrès, pour que les vérités, qui en forment l'ensemble, puissent êtres distribuées et rapprochées entre elles suivant un ordre systématique: lorsque la méthode d'en chercher de nouvelles n'a pas été réduite à des procédés exacts et simples, à des règles sûres et précises. Avant cette époque, il faut être déjà consommé dans une science pour lire avec utilité les ouvrages qui en traitent: et comme cette espèce d'enfance de l'art est le temps où les préjugés y regnent avec le plus d'empire, où les savants sont les plus exposés à donner leurs hypothèses pour de véritables principes, on risquerait encore de s'égarer si l'on se bornait aux leçons d'un seul maître, quand même on aurait choisi celui que la renommée place au premier rang; car ce temps est aussi celui des reputations usurpées. Les voyages sont donc alors le seul moyen de s'instruire, comme ils l'étaient dans l'antiquité et avant la découverte de l'imprimerie." (Condorcet, Éloge de M. Margraaf, p. 349, Oeuvres Complets, Paris, 1804. Éloges, vol. ii. Or Ed. Firmin Didot Frères, Paris, 1847, vol. ii. pp. 598-9.)]

[Side-note: Standard by which Plato tested the efficacy of the expository process.--Power of sustaining a Sokratic cross-examination.]

Lastly, when we see by what standard Plato tests the efficacy of any expository process, we shall see yet more clearly how he came to consider written exposition unavailing. The standard which he applies is, that the learner shall be rendered able both to apply to others, and himself to endure from others, a Sokratic Elenchus or cross-examination as to the logical difficulties involved in all the steps and helps to learning. Unless he can put to others and follow up the detective questions--unless he can also answer them, when put to himself, pertinently and consistently, so as to avoid being brought to confusion or contradiction--Plato will not allow that he has attained true knowledge.[42] Now, if we try knowledge by a test so severe as this, we must admit that no reading of written expositions will enable the student to acquire it. The impression made is too superficial, and the mind is too passive during such a process, to be equal to the task of meeting new points of view, and combating difficulties not expressly noticed in the treatise which has been studied. The only way of permanently arming and strengthening the mind, is (according to Plato) by long-continued oral interchange and stimulus, multiplied comment and discussion from different points of view, and active exercise in dialectic debate: not aiming at victory over an opponent, but reasoning out each question in all its aspects, affirmative and negative. It is only after a long course of such training--the living word of the competent teacher, applied to the mind of the pupil, and stimulating its productive and self-defensive force--that any such knowledge can be realised as will suffice for the exigencies of the Sokratic Elenchus.[43]

[Footnote 42: Plato, Epist. vii. 343 D. The difficulties which Plato had here in his eye, and which he required to be solved as conditions indispensable to real knowledge--are jumped over in geometrical and other scientific expositions, as belonging not to geometry, &c., but to logic. M. Jouffroy remarks, in the Preface to his translation of Reid's works (p. clxxiv.):--"Toute science particulière qui, au lieu de prendre pour accordées les données _à priori_ qu'elle implique, discute l'autorité de ces données--ajoute à son objet propre celui de la logique, confond une autre mission avec la sienne, et par cela même compromet la sienne: car nous verrons tout à-l'heure, et l'histoire de la philosophic montre, quelles difficultés présentent ces problèmes qui sont l'objet propre de la logique; et nous demeurerons convaincus que, si les _différentes sciences avaient eu la prétention de les éclaircir avant de passer outre, toutes peut-être en seraient encore à cette préface_, et aucune n'aurait entamé sa véritable tâche."

Remarks of a similar bearing will be found in the second paragraph of Mr. John Stuart Mill's Essay on Utilitarianism. It has been found convenient to distinguish the logic of a science from the expository march of the same science. But Plato would not have acknowledged [Greek: e)pistê/mê], except as including both. Hence his view about the uselessness of written expository treatises.

Aristotle, in a remarkable passage of the Metaphysica ([Greek: G]. p. 1005, a. 20 seqq.) takes pains to distinguish the Logic of Mathematics from Mathematics themselves--as a separate province and matter of study. He claims the former as belonging to Philosophia Prima or Ontology. Those principles which mathematicians called Axioms were not peculiar to Mathematics (he says), but were affirmations respecting Ens quatenus Ens: the mathematician was entitled to assume them so far as concerned his own department, and his students must take them for granted: but if he attempted to explain or appreciate them in their full bearing, he overstepped his proper limits, through want of proper schooling in Analytica ([Greek: o(/sa d' e)gcheirou=si tô=n lego/ntôn tine\s peri\ tê=s a)lêthei/as, o(\n tro/pon dei= a)pode/chesthai, di' a)paideusi/an tô=n a)nalutikô=n tou=to drô=sin; dei= ga\r peri\ tou/tôn ê(/kein proepistame/nous, a)lla\ mê\ a)kou/ontas zêtei=n]--p. 1005, b. 2.) We see from the words of Aristotle that many mathematical enquirers of his time did not recognise (any more than Plato recognised) the distinction upon which he here insists: we see also that the term _Axioms_ had become a technical one for the _principia_ of mathematical demonstration ([Greek: peri\ tô=n e)n toi=s mathê/masi kaloume/nôn a)xiôma/tôn]--p. 1005, a. 20); I do not concur in Sir William Hamilton's doubts on this point. (Dissertations on Reid's Works, note A. p. 764.)

The distinction which Aristotle thus brings to notice, seemingly for the first time, is one of considerable importance.]

[Footnote 43: This is forcibly put by Plato, Epistol. vii. 344 B. Compare Plato, Republic, vi. 499 A. Phædrus, 276 A-E. [Greek: to\n tou= ei)do/tos lo/gon zô=nta kai\ e)/mpsuchon], &c.

Though Plato, in the Phædrus, declares oral teaching to be the only effectual way of producing a permanent and deep-seated effect--as contrasted with the more superficial effect produced by reading a written exposition: yet even oral teaching, when addressed in the form of continuous lecture or sermon ([Greek: a)/neu a)nakri/seôs kai\ didachê=s], Phædrus, 277 E; [Greek: to\ nouthetêtiko\n ei)=dos], Sophistês, p. 230), is represented elsewhere as of little effect. To produce any permanent result, you must diversify the point of view--you must test by circumlocutory interrogation--you must begin by dispelling established errors, &c. See the careful explanation of the passage in the Phædrus (277 E), given by Ueberweg, Aechtheit der Platon. Schrift. pp. 16-22. Direct teaching, in many of the Platonic dialogues, is not counted as capable of producing serious improvement.

When we come to the Menon and the Phædon, we shall hear more of the Platonic doctrine--that knowledge was to be evolved out of the mind, not poured into it from without.]

[Side-note: Plato never published any of the lectures which he delivered at the Academy.]

Since we thus find that Plato was unconquerably averse to publication in his own name and with his own responsibility attached to the writing, on grave matters of philosophy--we cannot be surprised that, among the numerous lectures which he must have delivered to his pupils and auditors in the Academy, none were ever published. Probably he may himself have destroyed them, as he exhorts Dionysius to destroy the Epistle which we now read as second, after reading it over frequently. And we may doubt whether he was not displeased with Aristotle and Hestiæus[44] for taking extracts from his lectures De Bono, and making them known to the public: just as he was displeased with Dionysius for having published a work purporting to be derived from conversations with Plato.