Chapter VIII: Platonic Compositions Generally (2)

[Footnote 44: Themistius mentions it as a fact recorded (I wish he had told us where or by whom) that Aristotle stoutly opposed the Platonic doctrine of Objective Ideas, even during the lifetime of Plato, [Greek: i(storei=tai de\ o(/ti kai\ zô=ntos tou= Pla/tônos karterô/tata peri\ tou/tou tou= do/gmatos e)ne/stê o( A)ristote/lês tô=| Pla/tôni]. (Scholia ad Aristotel. Analyt. Poster. p. 228 b. 16 Brandis.)]

[Side-note: Plato would never publish his philosophical opinions in his own name; but he may have published them in the dialogues under the name of others.]

That Plato would never consent to write for the public in his own name, must be taken as a fact in his character; probably arising from early caution produced by the fate of Sokrates, combined with preference for the Sokratic mode of handling. But to what extent he really kept back his opinions from the public, or whether he kept them back at all, by design--I do not undertake to say. The borrowed names under which he wrote, and the veil of dramatic fiction, gave him greater freedom as to the thoughts enunciated, and were adopted for the express purpose of acquiring greater freedom. How far the lectures which he delivered to his own special auditory differed from the opinions made known in his dialogues to the general reader, or how far his conversation with a few advanced pupils differed from both--are questions which we have no sufficient means of answering. There probably was a considerable difference. Aristotle alludes to various doctrines of Plato which we cannot find in the Platonic writings: but these doctrines are not such as could have given peculiar offence, if published; they are, rather abstruse and hard to understand. It may also be true (as Tennemann says) that Plato had two distinct modes of handling philosophy--a popular and a scientific: but it cannot be true (as the same learned author[45] asserts) that his published dialogues contained the popular and not the scientific. No one surely can regard the Timæus, Parmenidês, Philêbus, Theætêtus, Sophistês, Politikus, &c., as works in which dark or difficult questions are kept out of sight for the purpose of attracting the ordinary reader. Among the dialogues themselves (as I have before remarked) there exist the widest differences; some highly popular and attractive, others altogether the reverse, and many gradations between the two. Though I do not doubt therefore that Plato produced powerful effect both as lecturer to a special audience, and as talker with chosen students--yet in what respect such lectures and conversation differed from what we read in his dialogues, I do not feel that we have any means of knowing.

[Footnote 45: See Tennemann, Gesch. d. Phil. vol. ii. p. 205, 215, 221 seq. This portion of Tennemann's History is valuable, as it takes due account of the seventh Platonic Epistle, compared with the remarkable passage in the Phædrus about the inefficacy of written exposition for the purpose of teaching.

But I cannot think that Tennemann rightly interprets the Epistol. vii. I see no proof that Plato had any secret or esoteric philosophy, reserved for a few chosen pupils, and not proclaimed to the public from apprehension of giving offence to established creeds: though I believe such apprehension to have operated as one motive, deterring him from publishing any philosophical exposition under his own name--any [Greek: Pla/tônos su/ggramma].]

[Side-note: Groups into which the dialogues admit of being thrown.]

In judging of Plato, we must confine ourselves to the evidence furnished by one or more of the existing Platonic compositions, adding the testimony of Aristotle and a few others respecting Platonic views not declared in the dialogues. Though little can be predicated respecting the dialogues collectively, I shall say something about the various groups into which they admit of being thrown, before I touch upon them separately and _seriatim_.

[Side-note: Distribution made by Thrasyllus defective, but still useful--Dialogues of Search, Dialogues of Exposition.]

The scheme proposed by Thrasyllus, so far as intended to furnish a symmetrical arrangement of all the Platonic works, is defective, partly because the apportionment of the separate works between the two leading classes is in several cases erroneous--partly because the discrimination of the two leading classes, as well as the sub-division of one of the two, is founded on diversity of Method, while the sub-division of the other class is founded on diversity of Subject. But the scheme is nevertheless useful, as directing our attention to real and important attributes belonging in common to considerable groups of dialogues. It is in this respect preferable to the fanciful dramatic partnership of trilogies and tetralogies, as well as to the mystical interpretation and arrangement suggested by the Neo-platonists. The Dialogues of Exposition--in which one who knows (or professes to know) some truth, announces and developes it to those who do not know it--are contrasted with those of Search or Investigation, in which the element of knowledge and affirmative communication is wanting. All the interlocutors are at once ignorant and eager to know; all of them are jointly engaged in searching for the unknown, though one among them stands prominent both in suggesting where to look and in testing all that is found, whether it be really the thing looked for. Among the expository dialogues, the most marked specimens are Timæus and Epinomis, in neither of which is there any searching or testing debate at all. Republic, Phædon, Philêbus, exhibit exposition preceded or accompanied by a search. Of the dialogues of pure investigation, the most elaborate specimen is the Theætêtus: Menon, Lachês, Charmidês, Lysis, Euthyphron, &c., are of the like description, yet less worked out. There are also several others. In the Menon, indeed,[46] Sokrates goes so far as to deny that there can be any real teaching, and to contend that what appears teaching is only resuscitation of buried or forgotten knowledge.

[Footnote 46: Plato, Menon, p. 81-82.]

[Side-note: Dialogues of Exposition--present affirmative result. Dialogues of Search are wanting in that attribute.]

Of these two classes of Dialogues, the Expository are those which exhibit the distinct attribute--an affirmative result or doctrine, announced and developed by a person professing to know, and proved in a manner more or less satisfactory. The other class--the Searching or Investigative--have little else in common except the absence of this property. We find in them debate, refutation, several points of view canvassed and some shown to be untenable; but there is no affirmative result established, or even announced as established, at the close. Often there is even a confession of disappointment. In other respects, the dialogues of this class are greatly diversified among one another: they have only the one common attribute--much debate, with absence of affirmative result.

[Side-note: The distribution coincides mainly with that of Aristotle--Dialectic, Demonstrative.]

Now the distribution made by Thrasyllus of the dialogues under two general heads (1. Dialogues of Search or Investigation, 2. Dialogues of Exposition) coincides, to a considerable extent, with the two distinct intellectual methods recognised by Aristotle as Dialectic and Demonstrative: Dialectic being handled by Aristotle in the Topica, and Demonstration in the Posterior Analytica. "Dialectic" (says Aristotle) "is tentative, respecting those matters of which philosophy aims at cognizance." Accordingly, Dialectic (as well as Rhetoric) embraces all matters without exception, but in a tentative and searching way, recognising arguments _pro_ as well as _con_, and bringing to view the antithesis between the two, without any preliminary assumption or predetermined direction, the questioner being bound to proceed only on the answers given by the respondent: while philosophy comes afterwards, dividing this large field into appropriate compartments, laying down authoritative _principia_ in regard to each, and deducing from them, by logical process, various positive results.[47] Plato does not use the term Dialectic exactly in the same sense as Aristotle. He implies by it two things: 1. That the process shall be colloquial, two or more minds engaged in a joint research, each of them animating and stimulating the others. 2. That the matter investigated shall be general--some general question or proposition: that the premisses shall all be general truths, and that the objects kept before the mind shall be Forms or Species, apart from particulars.[48] Here it stands in contrast with Rhetoric, which aims at the determination of some particular case or debated course of conduct, judicial or political, and which is intended to end in some immediate practical verdict or vote. Dialectic, in Plato's sense, comprises the whole process of philosophy. His Dialogues of Search correspond to Aristotle's Dialectic, being machinery for generating arguments and for ensuring that every argument shall be subjected to the interrogation of an opponent: his Dialogues of Exposition, wherein some definite result is enunciated and proved (sufficiently or not), correspond to what Aristotle calls Demonstration.

[Footnote 47: Aristot. Metaphys. [Greek: G]. 1004, b. 25. [Greek: e)/sti de\ ê( dialektikê\ peirastikê\, peri\ ô(=n ê( philosophi/a gnôristikê/]. Compare also Rhet. i. 2, p. 1356, a. 33, i. 4, p. 1359, b. 12, where he treats Dialectic (as well as Rhetoric) not as methods of acquiring instruction on any definite matter, but as inventive and argumentative aptitudes--powers of providing premisses and arguments--[Greek: duna/meis tine\s tou= pori/sai lo/gous]. If (he says) you try to convert Dialectic from a method of discussion into a method of cognition, you will insensibly eliminate its true nature and character:--[Greek: o(/sô| d' a)/n tis ê)\ tê\n dialektikê\n ê)\ tau/tên, mê\ katha/per a)\n duna/meis a)ll' e)pistê/mas peira=tai kataskeua/zein, lê/setai tê\n phu/sin au)tô=n a)phani/sas, tô=| metabai/nein e)piskeua/zôn ei)s e)pistê/mas u(pokeime/nôn tinô=n pragma/tôn, a)lla\ mê\ mo/non lo/gôn].

The Platonic Dialogues of Search are [Greek: duna/meis tou= pori/sai lo/gous]. Compare the Prooemium of Cicero to his Paradoxa.]

[Footnote 48: Plato, Republ. vi. 511, vii. 582. Respecting the difference between Plato and Aristotle about Dialectic, see Ravaisson--Essai sur la Métaphysique d'Aristote--iii. 1, 2, p. 248.]

[Side-note: Classification of Thrasyllus in its details. He applies his own principles erroneously.]

If now we take the main scheme of distributing the Platonic Dialogues, proposed by Thrasyllus--1. Dialogues of Exposition, with an affirmative result; 2. Dialogues of Investigation or Search, without an affirmative result--and if we compare the number of Dialogues (out of the thirty-six in all), which he specifies as belonging to each--we shall find twenty-two specified under the former head, and fourteen under the latter. Moreover, among the twenty-two are ranked Republic and Leges: each of them greatly exceeding in bulk any other composition of Plato. It would appear thus that there is a preponderance both in number and bulk on the side of the Expository. But when we analyse the lists of Thrasyllus, we see that he has unduly enlarged that side of the account, and unduly contracted the other. He has enrolled among the Expository--1. The Apology, the Epistolæ, and the Menexenus, which ought not properly to be ranked under either head. 2. The Theætêtus, Parmenidês, Hipparchus, Erastæ, Minos, Kleitophon--every one of which ought to be transferred to the other head. 3. The Phædrus, Symposion, and Kratylus, which are admissible by indulgence, since they do indeed present affirmative exposition, but in small proportion compared to the negative criticism, the rhetorical and poetical ornament: they belong in fact to both classes, but more preponderantly to one. 4. The Republic. This he includes with perfect justice, for the eight last books of it are expository. Yet the first book exhibits to us a specimen of negative and refutative dialectic which is not surpassed by anything in Plato.

On the other hand, Thrasyllus has placed among the Dialogues of Search one which might, with equal or greater propriety, be ranked among the Expository--the Protagoras. It is true that this dialogue involves much of negation, refutation, and dramatic ornament: and that the question propounded in the beginning (Whether virtue be teachable?) is not terminated. But there are two portions of the dialogue which are, both of them, decided specimens of affirmative exposition--the speech of Protagoras in the earlier part (wherein the growth of virtue, without special teaching or professional masters, is elucidated)--and the argument of Sokrates at the close, wherein the identity of the Good and the Pleasurable is established.[49]

[Footnote 49: We may remark that Thrasyllus, though he enrols the Protagoras under the class Investigative, and the sub-class Agonistic, places it alone in a still lower class which he calls [Greek: E)ndeiktiko/s]. Now, if we turn to the Platonic dialogue Euthydêmus, p. 278 D, we shall see that Plato uses the words [Greek: e)ndei/xomai] and [Greek: u(phêgê/somai] as exact equivalents: so that [Greek: e)ndeiktiko\s] would have the same meaning as [Greek: u(phêgêtiko/s].]

[Side-note: The classification, as it would stand, if his principles were applied correctly.]

If then we rectify the lists of Thrasyllus, they will stand as follows, with the Expository Dialogues much diminished in number:

_Dialogues of Investigation or Search._

[Greek: Zêtêtikoi/].

1. Theætêtus. 2. Parmenidês. 3. Alkibiadês I. 4. Alkibiadês II. 5. Theagês. 6. Lachês. 7. Lysis. 8. Charmidês. 9. Menon. 10. Ion. 11. Euthyphron. 12. Euthydêmus. 13. Gorgias. 14. Hippias I. 15. Hippias II. 16. Kleitophon. 17. Hipparchus. 18. Erastæ. 19. Minos.

_Dialogues of Exposition_

[Greek: U(phêgêtikoi/].

1. Timæus. 2. Leges. 3. Epinomis. 4. Kritias. 5. Republic. 6. Sophistês. 7. Politikus. 8. Phædon. 9. Philêbus. 10. Protagoras. 11. Phædrus. 12. Symposion. 13. Kratylus. 14. Kriton.

The Apology, Menexenus, Epistolæ, do not properly belong to either head.

[Side-note: Preponderance of the searching and testing dialogues over the expository and dogmatical.]

It will thus appear, from a fair estimate and comparison of lists, that the relation which Plato bears to philosophy is more that of a searcher, tester, and impugner, than that of an expositor and dogmatist--though he undertakes both the two functions: more negative than affirmative--more ingenious in pointing out difficulties, than successful in solving them. I must again repeat that though this classification is just, as far as it goes, and the best which can be applied to the dialogues, taken as a whole--yet the dialogues have much which will not enter into the classification, and each has its own peculiarities.

[Side-note: Dialogues of Search--sub-classes among them recognised by Thrasyllus--Gymnastic and Agonistic, &c.]

The Dialogues of Search, thus comprising more than half the Platonic compositions, are again distributed by Thrasyllus into two sub-classes--Gymnastic and Agonistic: the Gymnastic, again, into Obstetric and Peirastic; the Agonistic, into Probative and Refutative. Here, again, there is a pretence of symmetrical arrangement, which will not hold good if we examine it closely. Nevertheless, the epithets point to real attributes of various dialogues, and deserve the more attention, inasmuch as they imply a view of philosophy foreign to the prevalent way of looking at it. Obstetric and Tentative or Testing (Peirastic) are epithets which a reader may understand; but he will not easily see how they bear upon the process of philosophy.

[Side-note: Philosophy, as now understood, includes authoritative teaching, positive results, direct proofs.]

The term _philosopher_ is generally understood to mean something else. In appreciating a philosopher, it is usual to ask, What authoritative creed has he proclaimed, for disciples to swear allegiance to? What positive system, or positive truths previously unknown or unproved, has he established? Next, by what arguments has he enforced or made them good? This is the ordinary proceeding of an historian of philosophy, as he calls up the roll of successive names. The philosopher is assumed to speak as one having authority; to have already made up his mind; and to be prepared to explain what his mind is. Readers require positive results announced, and positive evidence set before them, in a clear and straightforward manner. They are intolerant of all that is prolix, circuitous, not essential to the proof of the thesis in hand. Above all, an affirmative result is indispensable.

When I come to the Timæus, and Republic, &c., I shall consider what reply Plato could make to these questions. In the meantime, I may observe that if philosophers are to be estimated by such a scale, he will not stand high on the list. Even in his expository dialogues, he cares little about clear proclamation of results, and still less about the shortest, straightest, and most certain road for attaining them.

[Side-note: The Platonic Dialogues of Search disclaim authority and teaching--assume truth to be unknown to all alike--follow a process devious as well as fruitless.]

But as to those numerous dialogues which are not expository, Plato could make no reply to the questions at all. There are no affirmative results:--and there is a process of enquiry, not only fruitless, but devious, circuitous, and intentionally protracted. The authoritative character of a philosopher is disclaimed. Not only Plato never delivers sentence in his own name, but his principal spokesman, far from speaking with authority, declares that he has not made up his own mind, and that he is only a searcher along with others, more eager in the chase than they are.[50] Philosophy is conceived as the search for truth still unknown; not as an explanation of truth by one who knows it, to others who do not know it. The process of search is considered as being in itself profitable and invigorating, even though what is sought be not found. The ingenuity of Sokrates is shown, not by what he himself produces, for he avows himself altogether barren--but by his obstetric aid: that is, by his being able to evolve, from a youthful mind, answers of which it is pregnant, and to test the soundness and trustworthiness of those answers when delivered: by his power, besides, of exposing or refuting unsound answers, and of convincing others of the fallacy of that which they confidently believed themselves to know.

[Footnote 50: In addition to the declarations of Sokrates to this effect in the Platonic Apology (pp. 21-23), we read the like in many Platonic dialogues. Gorgias, 506 A. [Greek: ou)de\ ga/r toi e)/gôge ei)dô\s le/gô a(\ le/gô, a)lla\ zêtô= koinê=| meth' u(mô=n] (see Routh's note): and even in the Republic, in many parts of which there is much dogmatism and affirmation: v. p. 450 E. [Greek: a)pistou=nta de\ kai\ zêtou=nta a(/ma tou\s lo/gous poiei=sthai, o(\ dê\ e)gô\ drô=], &c.]

[Side-note: The questioner has no predetermined course, but follows the lead given by the respondent in his answers.]

To eliminate affirmative, authoritative exposition, which proceeds upon the assumption that truth is already known--and to consider philosophy as a search for unknown truth, carried on by several interlocutors all of them ignorant--this is the main idea which Plato inherited from Sokrates, and worked out in more than one half of his dialogues. It is under this general head that the subdivisions of Thrasyllus fall--the Obstetric, the Testing or Verifying, the Refutative. The process is one in which both the two concurrent minds are active, but each with an inherent activity peculiar to itself. The questioner does not follow a predetermined course of his own, but proceeds altogether on the answer given to him. He himself furnishes only an indispensable stimulus to the parturition of something with which the respondent is already pregnant, and applies testing questions to that which he hears, until the respondent is himself satisfied that the answer will not hold. Throughout all this, there is a constant appeal to the free, self-determining judgment of the respondent's own mind, combined with a stimulus exciting the intellectual productiveness of that mind to the uttermost.

[Side-note: Relation of teacher and learner. Appeal to authority is suppressed.]

What chiefly deserves attention here, as a peculiar phase in the history of philosophy, is, that the relation of teacher and learner is altogether suppressed. Sokrates not only himself disclaims the province and title of a teacher, but treats with contemptuous banter those who assume it. Now "the learner" (to use a memorable phrase of Aristotle[51]) "is under obligation to believe": he must be a passive recipient of that which is communicated to him by the teacher. The relation between the two is that of authority on the one side, and of belief generated by authority on the other. But Sokrates requires from no man implicit trust: nay he deprecates it as dangerous.[52] It is one peculiarity in these Sokratic dialogues, that the sentiment of authority, instead of being invoked and worked up, as is generally done in philosophy, is formally disavowed and practically set aside. "I have not made up my mind: I am not prepared to swear allegiance to any creed: I give you the reasons for and against each: you must decide for yourself."[53]

[Footnote 51: Aristot. De Sophist. Elenchis, Top. ix. p. 165, b. 2. [Greek: dei= ga\r pisteu/ein to\n mantha/nonta.]]

[Footnote 52: Plato, Protagor. p. 314 B.]

[Footnote 53: The sentiment of the Academic sect--descending from Sokrates and Plato, not through Xenokrates and Polemon, but through Arkesilaus and Karneades--illustrates the same elimination of the idea of authority. "Why are you so curious to know what _I myself_ have determined on the point? Here are the reasons _pro_ and _con_: weigh the one against the other, and then judge for yourself."

See Sir William Hamilton's Discussions on Philosophy--Appendix, p. 681--about mediæval disputations: also Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iv. 4-7. "Sed defendat quod quisque sentit: sunt enim judicia libera: nos institutum tenebimus, nulliusque unius disciplinæ legibus adstricti, quibus in philosophiâ necessario pareamus, quid sit in quâque re maximé probabile, semper requiremus."

Again, Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i. 5, 10-13. "Qui autem requirunt, quid quâque de re ipsi sentiamus, curiosius id faciunt quam necesse est. _Non enim tam auctoritatis in disputando quam rationis momenta quærenda sunt._ Quin etiam obest plorumque iis, qui discere volunt, auctoritas eorum qui se docere profitentur; desinunt enim suum judicium adhibere; id habent ratum, quod ab eo quem probant judicatum vident. . . . Si singulas disciplinas percipere magnum est, quanto majus omnes? Quod facere iis necesse est, quibus propositum est, veri reperiendi causâ, et contra omnes philosophos et pro omnibus dicere. . . Nec tamen fieri potest, ut qui hâc ratione philosophentur, ii nihil habeant quod sequantur. . . Non enim sumus ii quibus nihil verum esse videatur, sed ii, qui omnibus veris falsa quædam adjuncta esse dicamus, tantâ similitudine ut in iis nulla insit certa judicandi et assentiendi nota. Ex quo exsistit illud, multa esse probabilia, quæ quanquam non perciperentur, tamen quia visum haberent quendam insignem et illustrem, his sapientis vita regeretur."

Compare Cicero, Tusc. Disp. ii. sect. 2-3-5-9. Quintilian, xii. 2-25.]

[Side-note: In the modern world the search for truth is put out of sight. Every writer or talker professes to have already found it, and to proclaim it to others.]

This process--the search for truth as an unknown--is in the modern world put out of sight. All discussion is conducted by persons who profess to have found it or learnt it, and to be in condition to proclaim it to others. Even the philosophical works of Cicero are usually pleadings by two antagonists, each of whom professes to know the truth, though Cicero does not decide between them: and in this respect they differ from the groping and fumbling of the Platonic dialogues. Of course the search for truth must go on in modern times, as it did in ancient: but it goes on silently and without notice. The most satisfactory theories have been preceded by many infructuous guesses and tentatives. The theorist may try many different hypotheses (we are told that Kepler tried nineteen) which he is forced successively to reject; and he may perhaps end without finding any better. But all these tentatives, verifying tests, doubts, and rejections, are confined to his own bosom or his own study. He looks back upon them without interest, sometimes even with disgust; least of all does he seek to describe them in detail as objects of interest to others. They are probably known to none but himself: for it does not occur to him to follow the Platonic scheme of taking another mind into partnership, and entering upon that distribution of active intellectual work which we read in the Theætêtus. There are cases in which two chemists have carried on joint researches, under many failures and disappointments, perhaps at last without success. If a record were preserved of their parley during the investigation, the grounds for testing and rejecting one conjecture, and for selecting what should be tried after it--this would be in many points a parallel to the Platonic process.

[Side-note: The search for truth by various interlocutors was a recognised process in the Sokratic age. Acute negative Dialectic of Sokrates.]

But at Athens in the fourth century, B.C., the search for truth by two or more minds in partnership was not so rare a phenomenon. The active intellects of Athens were distributed between Rhetoric, which addressed itself to multitudes, accepted all established sentiments, and handled for the most part particular issues--and Dialectic, in which a select few debated among themselves general questions.[54] Of this Dialectic, the real Sokrates was the greatest master that Athens ever saw: he could deal as he chose (says Xenophon[55]) with all disputants: he turned them round his finger. In this process, one person set up a thesis, and the other cross-examined him upon it: the most irresistible of all cross-examiners was the real Sokrates. The nine books of Aristotle's Topica (including the book De Sophisticis Elenchis) are composed with the object of furnishing suggestions, and indicating rules, both to the cross-examiner and to the respondent, in such Dialectic debates. Plato does not lay down any rules: but he has given us, in his dialogues of search, specimens of dialectic procedure shaped in his own fashion. Several of his contemporaries, companions of Sokrates, like him, did the same each in his own way: but their compositions have not survived.[56]

[Footnote 54: The habit of supposing a general question to be undecided, and of having it argued by competent advocates before auditors who have not made up their minds--is now so disused (everywhere except in a court of law), that one reads with surprise Galen's declaration that the different competing medical theories were so discussed in his day. His master Pelops maintained a disputation of two days with a rival;--[Greek: ê(ni/ka Pe/lops meta\ Phili/ppou tou= e)mpeirikou= diele/chthê duoi=n ê(merô=n; tou= me\n Pe/lopos, ô(s mê\ duname/nês tê=s i)atrikê=s di' e)mpeiri/as mo/nês sustê=nai, tou= Phili/ppou de\ e)pideiknu/ntos du/nasthai]. (Galen, De Propriis Libris, c. 2, p. 16, Kühn.)

Galen notes (ib. 2, p. 21) the habit of literary men at Rome to assemble in the temple of Pax, for the purpose of discussing logical questions, prior to the conflagration which destroyed that temple.]

[Footnote 55: Xenophon, Memorab. i. 2.]

[Footnote 56: The dialogues composed by Aristotle himself were in great measure dialogues of search, exercises of argumentation _pro_ and _con_ (Cicero, De Finib. v. 4). "Aristoteles, ut solet, quærendi gratiâ, quædam subtilitatis suæ argumenta excogitavit in Gryllo," &c. (Quintilian, Inst. Orat. ii. 17.)

Bernays indicates the probable titles of many among the lost Aristotelian Dialogues (Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, pp. 132, 133, Berlin, 1868), and gives in his book many general remarks upon them.

The observations of Aristotle in the Metaphys. (A. [Greek: e)la/ttôn] 993, b. 1-16) are conceived in a large and just spirit. He says that among all the searchers for truth, none completely succeed, and none completely fail: those, from whose conclusions we dissent, do us service by exercising our intelligence--[Greek: tê\n ga\r e(/xin proê/skêsan ê(mô=n]. The enumeration of [Greek: a)pori/ai] in the following book B of the Metaphysica is a continuation of the same views. Compare Scholia, p. 604, b. 29, Brandis.]

Such compositions give something like fair play to the negative arm of philosophy; in the employment of which the Eleate Zeno first became celebrated, and the real Sokrates yet more celebrated. This negative arm is no less essential than the affirmative, to the validity of a body of reasoned truth, such as philosophy aspires to be. To know how to disprove is quite as important as to know how to prove: the one is co-ordinate and complementary to the other. And the man who disproves what is false, or guards mankind against assenting to it,[57] renders a service to philosophy, even though he may not be able to render the ulterior service of proving any truth in its place.

[Footnote 57: The Stoics had full conviction of this. In Cicero's summary of the Stoic doctrine (De Finibus, iii. 21, 72) we read:--"Ad easque virtutes, de quibus disputatum est, Dialecticam etiam adjungunt (Stoici) et Physicam: easque ambas virtutum nomine appellant: alteram (_sc._ Dialecticam), quod habeat rationem, ne cui falso adsentiamur, neve unquam captiosâ probabilitate fallamur; eaque, quæ de bonis et malis didicerimus, ut tenere tuerique possimus."]

[Side-note: Negative procedure supposed to be represented by the Sophists and the Megarici; discouraged and censured by historians of philosophy.]

By historians of ancient philosophy, negative procedure is generally considered as represented by the Sophists and the Megarici, and is the main ground for those harsh epithets which are commonly applied to both of them. The negative (they think) can only be tolerated in small doses, and even then merely as ancillary to the affirmative. That is, if you have an affirmative theory to propose, you are allowed to urge such objections as you think applicable against rival theories, but only in order to make room for your own. It seems to be assumed as requiring no proof that the confession of ignorance is an intolerable condition; which every man ought to be ashamed of in himself, and which no man is justified in inflicting on any one else. If yon deprive the reader of one affirmative solution, you are required to furnish him with another which you are prepared to guarantee as the true one. "Le Roi est mort--Vive le Roi": the throne must never be vacant. It is plain that under such a restricted application, the full force of the negative case is never brought out. The pleadings are left in the hands of counsel, each of whom takes up only such fragments of the negative case as suit the interests of his client, and suppresses or slurs over all such other fragments of it as make against his client. But to every theory (especially on the topics discussed by Sokrates and Plato) there are more or less of objections applicable--even the best theory being true only on the balance. And if the purpose be to ensure a complete body of reasoned truth, all these objections ought to be faithfully exhibited, by one who stands forward as their express advocate, without being previously retained for any separate or inconsistent purpose.

[Side-note: Vocation of Sokrates and Plato for the negative procedure: absolute necessity of it as a condition of reasoned truth. Parmenidês of Plato.]

How much Plato himself, in his dialogues of search, felt his own vocation as champion of the negative procedure, we see marked conspicuously in the dialogue called Parmenidês. This dialogue is throughout a protest against forward affirmation, and an assertion of independent _locus standi_ for the negationist and objector. The claims of the latter must first be satisfied, before the affirmant can be considered as solvent. The advocacy of those claims is here confided to veteran Parmenides, who sums them up in a formidable total: Sokrates being opposed to him under the unusual disguise of a youthful and forward affirmant. Parmenides makes no pretence of advancing any rival doctrine. The theories which he selects for criticism are the Platonic theory of intelligible Concepts, and his own theory of the Unum: he indicates how many objections must be removed--how many contradictions must be solved--how many opposite hypotheses must be followed out to their results--before either of these theories can be affirmed with assurance. The exigencies enumerated may and do appear insurmountable:[58] but of that Plato takes no account. Such laborious exercises are inseparable from the process of searching for truth, and unless a man has strength to go through them, no truth, or at least no reasoned truth, can be found and maintained.[59]

[Footnote 58: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 B. [Greek: dei= skopei=n--ei) me/lleis tele/ôs gumnasa/menos kuri/ôs dio/psesthai to\ a)lêthe/s. A)mê/chanon, e)/phê, le/geis, ô)= Parmeni/dê, pragmatei/an], &c.

Aristotle declares that no man can be properly master of any affirmative truth without having examined and solved all the objections and difficulties--the negative portion of the enquiry. To go through all these [Greek: a)pori/as] is the indispensable first stage, and perhaps the enquirer may not be able to advance farther, see Metaphysic. B. 995, a. 26, 996, a. 16--one of the most striking passages in his works. Compare also what he says, De Coelo, ii. 294, b. 10, [Greek: dio\ dei= to\n me/llonta kalô=s zêtê/sein e)nstatiko\n ei)=nai dia\ tô=n oi)kei/ôn e)nsta/seôn tô=| ge/nei, tou=to de\ e)sti\n e)k tou= pa/sas tetheôrêke/nai ta\s diaphora/s.]]

[Footnote 59: That the only road to trustworthy affirmation lies through a string of negations, unfolded and appreciated by systematic procedure, is strongly insisted on by Bacon, Novum Organum, ii. 15, "Omnino Deo (formarum inditori et opifici), aut fortasse angelis et intelligentiis competit formas per affirmationem immediate nosse, atque ab initio contemplationis. Sed certe supra hominem est: cui tantum conceditur, procedere primo per negativas, et postremo loco desinere in affirmativas, post omnimodam exclusionem." Compare another Aphorism, i. 46.

The following passage, transcribed from the Lectures of a distinguished physical philosopher of the present day, is conceived in the spirit of the Platonic Dialogues of Search, though Plato would have been astonished at such patient multiplication of experiments:--

"I should hardly sustain your interest in stating the difficulties which at first beset the investigation conducted with this apparatus, or the numberless precautions which the exact balancing of the two powerful sources of heat, here resorted to, rendered necessary. I believe the experiments, made with atmospheric air alone, might be numbered by tens of thousands. Sometimes for a week, or even for a fortnight, coincident and satisfactory results would be obtained: the strict conditions of accurate experimenting would appear to be found, when an additional day's experience would destroy this hope and necessitate a recommencement, under changed conditions, of the whole inquiry. It is this which daunts the experimenter. It is this preliminary fight with the entanglements of a subject so dark, so doubtful, so uncheering, without any knowledge whether the conflict is to lead to anything worth possessing, that renders discovery difficult and rare. But the experimenter, and particularly the _young_ experimenter, ought to know that as regards his own moral manhood, he cannot but win, if he only contend aright. _Even, with a negative result, his consciousness that he has gone fairly to the bottom of his subject, as far as his means allowed_--the feeling that he has not shunned labour, _though that labour may have resulted in laying bare the nakedness of his case_--re-acts upon his own mind, and gives it firmness for future work." (Tyndall, Lectures on Heat, considered as a Mode of Motion, Lect x. p. 332.)]

[Side-note: Sokrates considered the negative procedure to be valuable by itself, and separately. His theory of the natural state of the human mind; not ignorance, but false persuasion of knowledge.]

It will thus appear that among the conditions requisite for philosophy, both Sokrates and Plato regarded the negative procedure as co-ordinate in value with the affirmative, and indispensable as a preliminary stage. But Sokrates went a step farther. He assigned to the negative an intrinsic importance by itself, apart from all implication with the affirmative; and he rested that opinion upon a psychological ground, formally avowed, and far larger than anything laid down by the Sophists. He thought that the natural state of the human mind, among established communities, was not simply ignorance, but ignorance mistaking itself for knowledge--false or uncertified belief--false persuasion of knowledge. The only way of dissipating such false persuasion was, the effective stimulus of the negative test, or cross-examining Elenchus; whereby a state of non-belief, or painful consciousness of ignorance, was substituted in its place. Such second state was indeed not the best attainable. It ought to be preliminary to a third, acquired by the struggles of the mind to escape from such painful consciousness; and to rise, under the continued stimulus of the tutelary Elenchus, to improved affirmative and defensible beliefs. But even if this third state were never reached, Sokrates declared the second state to be a material amendment on the first, which he deprecated as alike pernicious and disgraceful.

[Side-note: Declaration of Sokrates in the Apology; his constant mission to make war against the false persuasion of knowledge.]

The psychological conviction here described stands proclaimed by Sokrates himself, with remarkable earnestness and emphasis, in his Apology before the Dikasts, only a month before his death. So deeply did he take to heart the prevalent false persuasion of knowledge, alike universal among all classes, mischievous, and difficult to correct--that he declared himself to have made war against it throughout his life, under a mission imposed upon him by the Delphian God; and to have incurred thereby wide-spread hatred among his fellow-citizens. To convict men, by cross-examination, of ignorance in respect to those matters which each man believed himself to know well and familiarly--this was the constant employment and the mission of Sokrates: not to teach--for he disclaimed the capacity of teaching--but to make men feel their own ignorance instead of believing themselves to know. Such cross-examination, conducted usually before an audience, however it might be salutary and indispensable, was intended to humiliate the respondent, and could hardly fail to offend and exasperate him. No one felt satisfaction except some youthful auditors, who admired the acuteness with which it was conducted. "I (declared Sokrates) am distinguished from others, and superior to others, by this character only--that I am conscious of my own ignorance: the wisest of men would be he who had the like consciousness; but as yet I have looked for such a man in vain."[60]

[Footnote 60: Plat. Apol. S. pp. 23-29. It is not easy to select particular passages for reference; for the sentiments which I have indicated pervade nearly the whole discourse.]

[Side-note: Opposition of feeling between Sokrates and the Dikasts.]

In delivering this emphatic declaration, Sokrates himself intimates his apprehension that the Dikasts will treat his discourse as mockery; that they will not believe him to be in earnest: that they will scarcely have patience to hear him claim a divine mission for so strange a purpose.[61] The declaration is indeed singular, and probably many of the Dikasts did so regard it; while those who thought it serious, heard it with repugnance. The separate value of the negative procedure or Elenchus was never before so unequivocally asserted, or so highly estimated. To disabuse men of those false beliefs which they mistook for knowledge, and to force on them the painful consciousness that they knew nothing--was extolled as the greatest service which could be rendered to them, and as rescuing them from a degraded and slavish state of mind.[62]

[Footnote 61: Plato, Apol. S. pp. 20-38.]

[Footnote 62: Aristotle, in the first book of Metaphysica (982, b. 17), when repeating a statement made in the Theætêtus of Plato (155 D), that wonder is the beginning, or point of departure, of philosophy--explains the phrase by saying, that wonder is accompanied by a painful conviction of ignorance and sense of embarrassment. [Greek: o( de\ a)porô=n kai\ thauma/zôn oi)/etai a)gnoei=n . . . dia\ to\ pheu/gein tê\n a)/gnoian e)philoso/phêsan . . . ou) chrê/seô/s tinos e(/neken]. This painful conviction of ignorance is what Sokrates sought to bring about.]

[Side-note: The Dialogues of Search present an end in themselves. Mistake of supposing that Plato had in his mind an ulterior affirmative end, not declared.]

To understand the full purpose of Plato's dialogues of search--testing, exercising, refuting, but not finding or providing--we must keep in mind the Sokratic Apology. Whoever, after reading the Theætêtus, Lachês, Charmidês, Lysis, Parmenidês, &c., is tempted to exclaim "But, after all, Plato _must_ have had in his mind some ulterior doctrine of conviction which he wished to impress, but which he has not clearly intimated," will see, by the Sokratic Apology, that such a presumption is noway justifiable. Plato is a searcher, and has not yet made up his own mind: this is what he himself tells us, and what I literally believe, though few or none of his critics will admit it. His purpose in the dialogues of search, is plainly and sufficiently enunciated in the words addressed by Sokrates to Theætêtus--"Answer without being daunted: for if we prosecute our search, one of two alternatives is certain--either we shall find what we are looking for, or we shall get clear of the persuasion that we know what in reality we do not yet know. Now a recompense like this will leave no room for dissatisfaction."[63]

[Footnote 63: Plato, Theætet. 187 C. [Greek: e)a\n ga\r ou(/tô drô=men, duoi=n tha/teron--ê)\ eu(rê/somen e)ph' o(\ e)rcho/metha, ê)\ ê(=tton oi)êso/metha ei)de/nai o(\ mêdamê=| i)/smen; kai/toi ou)k a)\n ei)/ê mempto\s o( toiou=tos]. Bonitz (in his Platonische Studien, pp. 8, 9, 74, 76, &c.) is one of the few critics who deprecate the confidence and boldness with which recent scholars have ascribed to Plato affirmative opinions and systematic purpose which he does not directly announce. Bonitz vindicates the separate value and separate _locus standi_ of the negative process in Plato's estimation, particularly in the example of the Theætêtus. Susemihl, in the preface to his second part, has controverted these views of Bonitz--in my judgment without any success.

The following observations of recent French scholars are just, though they imply too much the assumption that there is always some affirmative jewel wrapped up in Plato's complicated folds. M. Egger observes (Histoire de la Critique chez les Grecs, Paris, 1849, p. 84, ch. ii. sect. 4):

"La philosophie de Platon n'offre pas, en général, un ensemble de parties très rigoureusement liées entre elles. D'abord, il ne l'expose que sous forme dialoguée: et dans ses dialogues, où il ne prend jamais de rôle personnel, on ne voit pas clairement auquel des interlocuteurs il a confié la défense de ses propres opinions. Parmi ces interlocuteurs, Socrate lui-même, le plus naturel et le plus ordinaire interprète de la pensée de son disciple, use fort souvent des libertés de cette forme toute dramatique, pour se jouer dans les distinctions subtiles, pour exagérer certains arguments, pour couper court à une discussion embarrassante, au moyen de quelque plaisanterie, et pour se retirer d'un débat sans conclure; en un mot, il a--ou, ce qui est plus vrai, Platon a, sous son nom--_des opinions de circonstance et des ruses de dialectique_, à travers lesquelles il est souvent difficile de retrouver le fond sérieux de sa doctrine. Heureusement ces difficultés ne touchent pas aux principes généraux du Platonisme. La critique Platonicienne en particulier dans ce qu'elle a de plus original, et de plus élevé, se rattache à la grande théorie des _idées_ et de la _réminiscence_. On la retrouve exposée dans plusieurs dialogues avec une clarté qui ne permet ni le doute ni l'incertitude."

I may also cite the following remarks made by M. Vacherot (Histoire Critique de l'École d'Alexandrie, vol. ii. p. 1, Pt. ii. Bk. ii. ch. i.) after his instructive analysis of the doctrines of Plotinus. I think the words are as much applicable to Plato as to Plotinus: the rather, as Plato never speaks in his own name, Plotinus always:--"Combien faut-il prendre garde d'ajouter à la pensée du philosophe, et de lui prêter un arrangement artificiel! Ce génie, plein d'enthousiasme et de fougue, n'a jamais connu ni mesure ni plan: jamais il ne s'est astreint à developper régulièrement une théorie, ni à exposer avec suite un ensemble de théories, de manière à en former un système. _Fort incertain dans sa marche, il prend, quitte, et reprend le même sujet, sans jamais paraître avoir dit son dernier mot_; toujours il répand de vives et abondantes clartés sur les questions qu'il traite, mais rarement il les conduit à leur dernière et définitive solution; sa rapide pensée n'effleure pas seulement le sujet sur lequel elle passe, elle le pénétre et le creuse toujours, sans toutefois l'épuiser. Fort inégal dans ses allures, tantôt ce génie s'échappe en inspirations rapides et tumultueuses, tantôt il semble se traîner péniblement, et se perdre dans un dédale de subtiles abstractions, &c."]

[Side-note: False persuasion of knowledge--had reference to topics social, political, ethical.]

What those topics were, in respect to which Sokrates found this universal belief of knowledge, without the reality of knowledge--we know, not merely from the dialogues of Plato, but also from the Memorabilia of Xenophon. Sokrates did not touch upon recondite matters--upon the Kosmos, astronomy, meteorology. Such studies he discountenanced as useless, and even as irreligious.[64] The subjects on which he interrogated were those of common, familiar, every-day talk: those which every one believed himself to know, and on which every one had a confident opinion to give: the respondent being surprised that any one could put the questions, or that there could be any doubt requiring solution. What is justice? what is injustice? what are temperance and courage? what is law, lawlessness, democracy, aristocracy? what is the government of mankind, and the attributes which qualify any one for exercising such government? Here were matters upon which every one talked familiarly, and would have been ashamed to be thought incapable of delivering an opinion. Yet it was upon these matters that Sokrates detected universal ignorance, coupled with a firm, but illusory, persuasion of knowledge. The conversation of Sokrates with Euthydêmus, in the Xenophontic Memorabilia[65]--the first Alkibiadês, Lachês, Charmidês, Euthyphron, &c., of Plato--are among the most marked specimens of such cross-examination or Elenchus--a string of questions, to which there are responses in indefinite number successively given, tested, and exposed as unsatisfactory.

[Footnote 64: Xenoph. Memor. i. 1.]

[Footnote 65: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2. A passage from Paley's preface to his "Principles of Moral Philosophy," illustrates well this Sokratic process: "Concerning the principle of morals, it would be premature to speak: but concerning the manner of unfolding and explaining that principle, I have somewhat which I wish to be remarked. An experience of nine years in the office of a public tutor in one of the Universities, and in that department of education to which these sections relate, afforded me frequent opportunity to observe, that in discoursing to young minds upon topics of morality, it _required much more pains to make them perceive the difficulty than to understand the solution_: that unless the subject was so drawn up to a point as to exhibit the full force of an objection, or the exact place of a doubt, before any explanation was entered upon--in other words, unless some curiosity was excited, before it was attempted to be satisfied--the teacher's labour was lost. When information was not desired, it was seldom, I found, retained. I have made this observation my guide in the following work: that is, I have endeavoured, before I suffered myself to proceed in the disquisition, to put the reader in complete possession of the question: _and to do it in a way that I thought most likely to stir up his own doubts and solicitude about it_."]

[Side-note: To those topics, on which each community possesses established dogmas, laws, customs, sentiments, consecrated and traditional, peculiar to itself. The local creed, which is never formally proclaimed or taught, but is enforced unconsciously by every one upon every one else. Omnipotence of King Nomos.]

The answers which Sokrates elicited and exposed were simple expressions of the ordinary prevalent belief upon matters on which each community possesses established dogmas, laws, customs, sentiments, fashions, points of view, &c., belonging to itself. When Herodotus passed over to Egypt, he was astonished to find the judgment, feelings, institutions, and practices of the Egyptians, contrasting most forcibly with those of all other countries. He remarks the same (though less in degree) respecting Babylonians, Indians, Scythians, and others; and he is not less impressed with the veneration of each community for its own creed and habits, coupled with indifference or antipathy towards other creeds, disparate or discordant, prevailing elsewhere.[66]

[Footnote 66: Herodot. ii. 35-36-64; iii. 38-94, seq. i. 196; iv. 76-77-80. The discordance between the various institutions established among the separate aggregations of mankind, often proceeding to the pitch of reciprocal antipathy--the imperative character of each in its own region, assuming the appearance of natural right and propriety--all this appears brought to view by the inquisitive and observant Herodotus, as well as by others (Xenophon, Cyropæd. i. 3-18): but many new facts, illustrating the same thesis, were noticed by Aristotle and the Peripatetics, when a larger extent of the globe became opened to Hellenic survey. Compare Aristotle, Ethic. Nik. i. 3, 1094, b. 15; Sextus Empiric. Pyrr. Hypotyp. i. sect 145-156, iii. sect 198-234; and the remarkable extract from Bardesanes Syrus, cited by Eusebius, Præp. Evang. vi., and published in Orelli's collection, pp. 202-219, Alexandri Aphrodis. et Aliorum De Fato, Zurich, 1824.

Many interesting passages in illustration of the same thesis might be borrowed from Montaigne, Pascal, and others. But the most forcible of all illustrations are those furnished by the Oriental world, when surveyed or studied by intelligent Europeans, as it has been more fully during the last century. See especially Sir William Sleeman's Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official: two volumes which unfold with equal penetration and fidelity the manifestations of established sentiment among the Hindoos and Mahomedans. Vol. i. ch. iv., describing a Suttee on the Nerbudda, is one of the most impressive chapters in the work: the rather as it describes the continuance of a hallowed custom, transmitted even from the days of Alexander. I transcribe also some valuable matter from an eminent living scholar, whose extensive erudition comprises Oriental as well as Hellenic philosophy.

M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire (Premier Mémoire sur le Sânkhya, Paris, 1852, pp. 392-396) observes as follows respecting the Sanscrit system of philosophy called _Sânkhya_, the doctrine expounded and enforced by the philosopher Kapila--and respecting Buddha and Buddhism which was built upon the Sânkhya, amending or modifying it. Buddha is believed to have lived about 547 B.C. Both the system of Buddha, and that of Kapila, are atheistic, as described by M. St. Hilaire.

"Le second point où Bouddha se sépare de Kapila concerne la doctrine. L'homme ne peut rester dans l'incertitude que Kapila lui laisse encore. L'âme délivrée, selon les doctrines de Kapila, peut toujours renaître. Il n'y a qu'un moyen, un seul moyen, de le sauver,--c'est de l'anéantir. Le néant seul est un sûr asile: on ne revient pas de celui là.--Bouddha lui promet le néant; et c'est avec cette promesse inouie qu'il a passionné les hommes et converti les peuples. Que cette monstrueuse croyance, partagée aujourd'hui par trois cents millions de sectateurs, révolte en nous les instincts les plus énergiques de notre nature--qu'elle soulève toutes les répugnances et toutes les horreurs de notre âme--qu'elle nous paraisse aussi incompréhensible que hideuse--peu importe. Une partie considérable de l'humanité l'a reçue,--prête même à la justifier par toutes les subtilités de la metaphysique la plus raffinée, et à la confesser dans les tortures des plus affreux supplices et les austérités homicides d'un fanatisme aveugle. Si c'est une gloire que de dominer souverainement, à travers les âges, la foi des hommes,--jamais fondateur de religion n'en eut une plus grande que le Bouddha: car aucun n'eut de prosélytes plus fidèles ni plus nombreux. Mais je me trompe: le Bouddha ne prétendait jamais fonder une réligion. Il n'était que philosophe: et instruit dans toutes les sciences des Brahmans, il ne voulut personnellement que fonder, à leur exemple, un nouveau système. Seulement, les moyens qu'il employait durent mener ses disciples plus loin qu'il ne comptait aller lui même. En s'adressant à la foule, il faut bientôt la discipliner et la régler. De là, cette ordination réligieuse que le Bouddha donnait à ses adeptes, la hiérarchie qu'il établissait entre eux, fondée uniquement, comme la science l'exigeait, sur le mérite divers des intelligences et des vertus--la douce et sainte morale qu'il prêchait,--le détachement de toutes choses en ce monde, si convenable à des ascètes qui ne pensent qu'au salut éternel--le voeu de pauvreté, qui est la première loi des Bouddhistes--et tout cet ensemble de dispositions qui constituent un gouvernement au lieu d'une école.

"Mais ce n'est là que l'extérieur du Bouddhisme: c'en est le développement matériel et nécessaire. Au fond, son principe est celui du Sânkhya: seulement, il l'applique en grand.--C'est la science qui délivre l'homme: et le Bouddha ajoute--Pour que l'homme soit délivré à jamais, il faut qu'il arrive au Nirvâna, c'est à dire, qu'il soit absolument anéanti. Le néant est donc le bout de la science: et le salut eternel, c'est l'anéantissement."

The same line of argument is insisted on by M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire in his other work--Bouddha et sa réligion, Paris, 1862, ed. 2nd: especially in his Chapter on the Nirvâna: wherein moreover he complains justly of the little notice which authors take of the established beliefs of those varieties of the human race which are found apart from Christian Europe.]