Chapter XXV: Phædon (2)

"I now assumed the separate and real existence of Ideas by themselves--The Good in itself or the Self-Good, Self-Beautiful, Great, and all such others. Look what follows next upon this assumption. If any thing else be beautiful, besides the Self-Beautiful, that other thing can only be beautiful because it partakes of the Self-Beautiful: and the same with regard to other similar Ideas. This is the only cause that I can accept: I do not understand those other ingenious causes which I hear mentioned.[55] When any one tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a showy colour or figure, I pay no attention to him, but adhere simply to my own affirmation, that nothing else causes it to be beautiful, except the presence or participation of the Self-Beautiful. In what way such participation may take place, I cannot positively determine. But I feel confident in affirming that it does take place: that things which are beautiful, become so by partaking in the Self-Beautiful; things which are great or little, by partaking in Greatness or Littleness. If I am told that one man is taller than another by the head, and that this other is shorter than the first by the very same (by the head), I should not admit the proposition, but should repeat emphatically my own creed,--That whatever is greater than another is greater by nothing else except by Greatness and through Greatness--whatever is less than another is less only by Littleness and through Littleness. For I should fear to be entangled in a contradiction, if I affirmed that the greater man was greater and the lesser man less by the head--First, in saying that the greater was greater and that the lesser was less, by the very same--Next, in saying that the greater man was greater by the head, which is itself small: it being absurd to maintain that a man is great by something small.[56] Again, I should not say that ten is more than eight by two, and that this was the cause of its excess;[57] my doctrine is, that ten is more than eight by Multitude and through Multitude: so the rod of two cubits is greater than that of one, not by half, but by Greatness. Again, when One is placed alongside of One,--or when one is bisected--I should take care not to affirm, that in the first case the juxtaposition, in the last case the bisection, was the cause why it became two.[58] I proclaim loudly that I know no other cause for its becoming two except participation in the essence of the Dyad. What is to become two, must partake of the Dyad: what is to become one, of the Monad. I leave to wiser men than me these juxtapositions and bisections and other such refinements: I remain entrenched within the safe ground of my own assumption or hypothesis (the reality of these intelligible** and eternal Ideas).

[Footnote 55: Plato, Phædon, p. 100 C. [Greek: ou) toi/nun e)/ti mantha/nô, ou)de\ du/namai ta\s a)/llas ai)ti/as ta\s sopha\s tau/tas gignô/skein.]]

[Footnote 56: Plato, Phædon, p. 101 A. [Greek: phobou/menos mê/ ti/s soi e)nanti/os lo/gos a)pantê/sê|, e)a\n tê=| kephalê=| mei/zona/ tina phê=|s ei)=nai kai\ e)la/ttô, prô=ton me\n tô=| au)tô=| to\ mei=zon mei=zon ei)=nai kai\ to\ e)/latton e)/latton, e)/peita tê=| kephalê=| smikra=| ou)/sê| to\n mei/zô mei/zô ei)=nai, kai\ tou=to dê\ te/ras ei)=nai, to\ smikrô=| tini\ me/gan tina\ ei)=nai.]]

[Footnote 57: Plato, Phædon, p. 101 B. [Greek: Ou)/koun ta\ de/ka tô=n o)ktô\ duoi=n plei/ô ei)=nai, kai\ dia\ tau/tên tê\n ai)ti/an u(perba/llein, phoboi=o a)\n le/gein, a)lla\ mê\ plê/thei kai\ dia\ to\ plê=thos? kai\ to\ di/pêchu tou= pêchuai/ou ê(mi/sei mei=zon ei)=nai, a)ll' ou) mege/thei?]]

[Footnote 58: Plato, Phædon, p. 101 B-C. [Greek: ti/ de/? e(ni\ e(no\s prostethe/ntos, tê\n pro/sthesin ai)ti/an ei)=nai tou= du/o gene/sthai, ê)\ diaschisthe/ntos tê\n schi/sin, ou)k eu)laboi=o a)\n le/gein, kai\ me/ga a)\n boô/|ês o(/ti ou)k oi)=stha a)/llôs pôs e(/kaston gigno/menon ê)\ metascho\n tê=s i)di/as ou)si/as e(kastou ou)= a)\n meta/schê|; kai\ e)n tou/tois ou)k e)/cheis a)/llên tina\ ai)ti/an tou= du/o gene/sthai a)ll' ê)\ tê\n tê=s dua/dos meta/schesin], &c.]

[Side-note: Procedure of Sokrates if his hypothesis were impugned. He insists upon keeping apart the discussion of the hypothesis and the discussion of its consequences.]

"Suppose however that any one impugned this hypothesis itself? I should make no reply to him until I had followed out fully the consequences of it: in order to ascertain whether they were consistent with, or contradictory to, each other. I should, when the proper time came, defend the hypothesis by itself, assuming some other hypothesis yet more universal, such as appeared to me best, until I came to some thing fully sufficient. But I would not permit myself to confound together the discussion of the hypothesis itself, and the discussion of its consequences.[59] This is a method which cannot lead to truth: though it is much practised by litigious disputants, who care little about truth, and pride themselves upon their ingenuity when they throw all things into confusion."--

[Footnote 59: Plato, Phædon, p. 101 E. [Greek: e)peidê\ de\ e)kei/nês au)tê=s (tê=s u(pothe/seôs) de/oi se dido/nai lo/gon, ô(sau/tôs a)\n didoi/ês, a)/llên au)= u(po/thesin u(pothe/menos, ê(/tis tô=n a)/nôthen belti/stê phai/noito . . . . a)/ma de\ ou)k a)\n phu/roio, ô(/sper oi( a)ntilogikoi/, peri/ te tê=s a)rchê=s dialego/menos kai\ tô=n e)x e)kei/nês ô(rmême/nôn, ei)/per bou/loio/ ti tô=n o)/ntôn eu(rei=n.]]

[Side-note: Exposition of Sokrates welcomed by the hearers. Remarks upon it.]

The exposition here given by Sokrates of successive intellectual tentatives (whether of Sokrates or Plato, or partly one, partly the other), and the reasoning embodied therein, is represented as welcomed with emphatic assent and approbation by all his fellow-dialogists.[60] It deserves attention on many grounds. It illustrates instructively some of the speculative points of view, and speculative transitions, suggesting themselves to an inquisitive intellect of that day.

[Footnote 60: Plato, Phædon, p. 102 A. Such approbation is peculiarly signified by the intervention of Echekrates.]

[Side-note: The philosophical changes in Sokrates all turned upon different views as to a true cause.]

If we are to take that which precedes as a description of the philosophical changes of Plato himself, it differs materially from Aristotle: for no allusion is here made to the intercourse of Plato with Kratylus and other advocates of the doctrines of Herakleitus: which intercourse is mentioned by Aristotle[61] as having greatly influenced the early speculations of Plato. Sokrates describes three different phases of his (or Plato's) speculative point of view: all turning upon different conceptions of what constituted a true Cause. His first belief on the subject was, that which he entertained before he entered on physical and physiological investigations. It seemed natural to him that eating and drinking should be the cause why a young man grew taller: new bone and new flesh was added out of the food. So again, when a tall man appeared standing near to a short man, the former was tall by the head, or because of the head: ten were more than eight, because two were added on: the measure of two cubits was greater than that of one cubit, because it stretched beyond by one half. When one object was added on to another, the addition was the cause why they became two: when one object was bisected, this bisection was the cause why the one became two.

[Footnote 61: Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 987, a. 32.]

This was his first conception of a true Cause, which for the time thoroughly satisfied him. But when he came to investigate physiology, he could not follow out the same conception of Cause, so as to apply it to more novel and complicated problems; and he became dissatisfied with it altogether, even in regard to questions on which he had before been convinced. New difficulties suggested themselves to him. How can the two objects, which when separate were each one, be made _two_, by the fact that they are brought together? What alteration has happened in their nature? Then again, how can the very same fact, the change from one to two, be produced by two causes perfectly contrary to each other--in the first case, by juxtaposition--in the last case, by bisection?[62]

[Footnote 62: Sextus Empiricus embodies this argument of Plato among the difficulties which he starts against the Dogmatists, adv. Mathematicos, x. s. 302-308.]

[Side-note: Problems and difficulties of which Sokrates first sought solution.]

That which is interesting here to note, is the sort of Cause which first gave satisfaction to the speculative mind of Sokrates. In the instance of the growing youth, he notes two distinct facts, the earliest of which is (assuming certain other facts as accompanying conditions) the cause of the latest. But in most of the other instances, the fact is one which does not admit of explanation. Comparisons of eight men with ten men, of a yard with half a yard, of a tall man with a short man, are mental appreciations, beliefs, affirmations, not capable of being farther explained or accounted for: if any one disputes your affirmation, you prove it to him, by placing him in a situation to make the comparison for himself, or to go through the computation which establishes the truth of what you affirm. It is not the juxtaposition of eight men which makes them to be eight (they were so just as much when separated by ever so wide an interval): though it may dispose or enable the spectator to count them as eight. We may count the yard measure (whether actually bisected or not), either as one yard, or as two half yards, or as three feet, or thirty-six inches. Whether it be one, or two, or three, depends upon the substantive which we choose to attach to the numeral, or upon the comparison which we make (the unit which we select) on the particular occasion.

[Side-note: Expectations entertained by Sokrates from the treatise of Anaxagoras. His disappointment. His distinction between causes and co-efficients.]

With this description of Cause Sokrates grew dissatisfied when he extended his enquiries into physical and physiological problems. Is it the blood, or air, or fire, whereby we think? and such like questions. Such enquiries--into the physical conditions of mental phenomena--did really admit of some answer, affirmative, or negative. But Sokrates does not tell us how he proceeded in seeking for an answer: he only says that he failed so completely, as even to be disabused of his supposed antecedent knowledge. He was in this perplexity when he first heard of the doctrine of Anaxagoras. "_Nous_ or Reason is the regulator and the cause of all things." Sokrates interpreted this to mean (what it does not appear that Anaxagoras intended to assert)[63] that the Kosmos was an animal or person[64] having mind or Reason analogous to his own: that this Reason was an agent invested with full power and perpetually operative, so as to regulate in the best manner all the phenomena of the Kosmos; and that the general cause to be assigned for every thing was one and the same--"It is best thus"; requiring that in each particular case you should show _how_ it was for the best. Sokrates took the type of Reason from his own volition and movements; supposing that all the agencies in the Kosmos were stimulated or checked by cosmical Reason for her purposes, as he himself put in motion his own bodily members. This conception of Cause, borrowed from the analogy of his own rational volition, appeared to Sokrates very captivating, though it had not been his own first conception. But he found that Anaxagoras, though proclaiming the doctrine as a principium or initiatory influence, did not make applications of it in detail; but assigned as causes, in most of the particular cases, those agencies which Sokrates considered to be subordinate and instrumental, as his own muscles were to his own volition. Sokrates will not allow such agencies to be called Causes: he says that they are only co-efficients indispensable to the efficacy of the single and exclusive Cause--Reason. But he tells us himself that most enquirers considered them as Causes; and that Anaxagoras himself produced them as such. Moreover we shall see Plato himself in the Timæus, while he repeats this same distinction between Causes Efficient and Causes Co-efficient--yet treats these latter as Causes also, though inferior in regularity and precision to the Demiurgic Nous.[65]

[Footnote 63: I have given (in chap. i. p. 48 seq.) an abridgment and explanation of what seems to have been the doctrine of Anaxagoras.]

[Footnote 64: Plato, Timæus, p. 30 D. [Greek: to/nde to\n ko/smon, zô=on e)/mpsuchon e)/nnoun te], &c.]

[Footnote 65: Plato, Timæus, p. 46 C-D. [Greek: ai)/tia--xunai/tia--xummetai/tia]. He says that most persons considered the [Greek: xunai/tia] as [Greek: ai)/tia]. And he himself registers them as such (Timæus, p. 68 E). He there distinguishes the [Greek: ai)/tia] and [Greek: xunai/tia] as two different sorts of [Greek: ai)/tia], the _divine_ and the _necessary_, in a remarkable passage: where he tells us that we ought to study the divine causes, with a view to the happiness of life, as far as our nature permits--and the necessary causes for the sake of the divine: for that we cannot in any way apprehend, or understand, or get sight of the divine causes alone, without the necessary causes along with them (69 A).

In Timæus, pp. 47-48, we find again [Greek: nou=s] and [Greek: a)na/gkê] noted as two distinct sorts of causes co-operating to produce the four elements. It is farther remarkable that Necessity is described as "the wandering or irregular description of Cause"--[Greek: to\ tê=s planôme/nês ei)=dos ai)ti/as]. Eros and [Greek: A)na/gkê] are joined as co-operating--in Symposion, pp. 195 C, 197 B.]

[Side-note: Sokrates imputes to Anaxagoras the mistake of substituting physical agencies in place of mental. This is the same which Aristophanes and others imputed to Sokrates.]

In truth, the complaint which Sokrates here raises against Anaxagoras--that he assigned celestial Rotation as the cause of phenomena, in place of a quasi-human Reason--is just the same as that which Aristophanes in the Clouds advances against Sokrates himself.[66] The comic poet accuses Sokrates of displacing Zeus to make room for Dinos or Rotation. According to the popular religious belief, all or most of the agencies in Nature were personified, or supposed to be carried on by persons--Gods, Goddesses, Dæmons, Nymphs, &c., which army of independent agents were conceived, by some thinkers, as more or less systematised and consolidated under the central authority of the Kosmos itself. The causes of natural phenomena, especially of the grand and terrible phenomena, were supposed agents, conceived after the model of man, and assumed to be endowed with volition, force, affections, antipathies, &c.: some of them visible, such as Helios, Selênê, the Stars; others generally invisible, though showing themselves whenever it specially pleased them.[67] Sokrates, as we see by the Platonic Apology, was believed by his countrymen to deny these animated agencies, and to substitute instead of them inanimate forces, not put in motion by the quasi-human attributes of reason, feeling and volition. The Sokrates in the Platonic Phædon, taken at this second stage of his speculative wanderings, not only disclaims such a doctrine, but protests against it. He recognises no cause except a Nous or Reason borrowed by analogy from that of which he was conscious within himself, choosing what was best for himself in every special situation.[68] He tells us however that most of the contemporary philosophers dissented from this point of view. To them, such inanimate agencies were the sole and real causes, in one or other of which they found what they thought a satisfactory explanation.

[Footnote 66: Aristophan. Nubes, 379-815. [Greek: Di=nos basileu/ei, to\n Di/' e)xelêlakô/s]. We find Proklus making this same complaint against Aristotle, "that he deserted theological _principia_, and indulged too much in physical reasonings"--[Greek: tô=n me\n theologikô=n a)rchô=n a)phista/menos, toi=s de\ phusikoi=s lo/gois pe/ra tou= de/ontos e)ndiatri/bôn] (Proklus ad Timæum, ii. 90 E, p. 212, Schneider). Pascal also expresses the like displeasure against the Cartesian theory of the vortices. Descartes recognised God as having originally established rotatory motion among the atoms, together with an equal, unvarying quantity of motion: these two points being granted, Descartes considered that all cosmical facts and phenomena might be deduced from them.

"Sur la philosophie de Descartes, Pascal était de son sentiment sur l'automate; et n'en était point sur la matière subtile, dont il se moquait fort. Mais il ne pouvait souffrir sa manière d'expliquer la formation de toutes choses; et il disait très souvent,--Je ne puis pardonner à Descartes: il voudrait bien, dans toute sa philosophie, pouvoir se passer de Dieu: mais il n'a pu s'empêcher de lui accorder une chiquenaude pour mettre le monde en mouvement: après cela, il n'a que faire de Dieu." (Pascal, Pensées, ch. xi. p. 237, edition de Louandre, citation from Mademoiselle Périer, Paris, 1854.)

Again, Lord Monboddo, in his Ancient Metaphysics (bk. ii. ch. 19, p. 276), cites these remarks of Plato and Aristotle on the deficiencies of Anaxagoras, and expresses the like censure himself against the cosmical theories of Newton:--"Sir Isaac puts me in mind of an ancient philosopher Anaxagoras, who maintained, as Sir Isaac does, that mind was the cause of all things; but when he came to explain the particular phænomena of nature, instead of having recourse to mind, employed airs and æthers, subtle spirits and fluids, and I know not what--in short, any thing rather than mind: a cause which he admitted to exist in the universe; but rather than employ it, had recourse to imaginary causes, of the existence of which he could give no proof. The Tragic poets of old, when they could not otherwise untie the knot of their fable, brought down a god in a machine, who solved all difficulties: but such philosophers as Anaxagoras will not, even when they cannot do better, employ _mind_ or divinity. Our philosophers, since Sir Isaac's time, have gone on in the same track, and still, I think, farther."

Lord Monboddo speaks with still greater asperity about the Cartesian theory, making a remark on it similar to what has been above cited from Pascal. (See his Dissertation on the Newtonian Philosophy, Appendix to Ancient Metaphysics, pp. 498-499.)]

[Footnote 67: Plato, Timæus, p. 41 A. [Greek: pa/ntes o(/soi te peripolou=si phanerô=s kai\ o(/soi phai/nontai kath' o(/son a)\n e)the/lôsi theoi\], &c.]

[Footnote 68: What Sokrates understands by the theory of Anaxagoras, is evident from his language--Phædon, pp. 98-99. He understands an indwelling cosmical Reason or Intelligence, deliberating and choosing, in each particular conjuncture, what was best for the Kosmos; just as his own (Sokrates) Reason deliberated and chose what was best for him ([Greek: tê=| tou= belti/stou ai(re/sei]), in consequence of the previous determination of the Athenians to condemn and punish him.

This point deserves attention, because it is altogether different from Aristotle's conception of Nous or Reason in the Kosmos: in which he recognises no consciousness, no deliberation, no choice, no reference to any special situation: but a constant, instinctive, undeliberating, movement towards Good as a determining End--_i.e._ towards the reproduction and perpetuation of regular Forms.

Hegel, in his Geschichte der Philosophie (Part i. pp. 355, 368-369, 2nd edit.), has given very instructive remarks, in the spirit of the Aristotelian Realism, both upon the principle announced by Anaxagoras, and upon the manner in which Anaxagoras is criticised by Sokrates in the Platonic Phædon. Hegel observes:--

"Along with this principle (that of Anaxagoras) there comes in the recognition of an Intelligence, or of a self-determining agency which was wanting before. Herein we are not to imagine thought, subjectively considered: when thought is spoken of, we are apt to revert to thought as it passes in our consciousness: but here, on the contrary, what is meant is, the Idea, considered altogether objectively, or Intelligence as an effective agent: (N.B. _Intellectum_, or _Cogitatum_--not _Intellectio_, or _Cogitatio_, which would mean the conscious process--see this distinction illustrated by Trendelenburg ad Aristot. De Animâ, i. 2, 5, p. 219: also Marbach, Gesch. der Phil. s. 54, 99 not. 2): as we say, that there is reason in the world, or as we speak of Genera in nature, which are the Universal. The Genus Animal is the Essential of the Dog--it is the Dog himself: the laws of nature are her immanent Essence. Nature is not formed from without, as men construct a table: the table is indeed constructed intelligently, but by an Intelligence extraneous to this wooden material. It is this extraneous form which we are apt to think of as representing Intelligence, when we hear it talked of: but what is really meant is, the Universal--the immanent nature of the object itself. The [Greek: Nou=s] is not a thinking Being without, which has arranged the world: by such an interpretation the Idea of Anaxagoras would be quite perverted and deprived of all philosophical value. For to suppose an individual, particular, Something without, is to descend into the region of phantasms and its dualism: what is called, a thinking Being, is not an Idea, but a Subject. Nevertheless, what is really and truly Universal is not for that reason Abstract: its characteristic property, quâ Universal, is to determine in itself, by itself, and for itself, the particular accompaniments. While it carries on this process of change, it maintains itself at the same time as the Universal, always the same; this is a portion of its self-determining efficiency."--What Hegel here adverts to seems identical with that which Dr. Henry More calls an Emanative Cause (Immortality of the Soul, ch. vi. p. 18), "the notion of a thing possible. An Emanative Effect is co-existent with the very substance of that which is said to be the Cause thereof. That which _emanes_, if I may so speak, is the same in reality with its Emanative Cause."

Respecting the criticism of Sokrates upon Anaxagoras, Hegel has further acute remarks which are too long to cite (p. 368 seq.)]

[Side-note: The supposed theory of Anaxagoras cannot be carried out, either by Sokrates himself or any one else. Sokrates turns to general words, and adopts the theory of ideas.]

It is however singular, that Sokrates, after he has extolled Anaxagoras for enunciating a grand general cause, and has blamed him only for not making application of it in detail, proceeds to state that neither he himself, nor any one else within his knowledge, could find the way of applying it, any more than Anaxagoras had done. If Anaxagoras had failed, no one else could do better. The facts before Sokrates could not be reconciled, by any way that he could devise, with his assumed principle of rational directing force, or constant optimistic purpose, inherent in the Kosmos. Accordingly he abandoned this track, and entered upon another: seeking a different sort of cause ([Greek: tê=s ai)ti/as to\ ei)=dos]), not by contemplation of things, but by propositions and ratiocinative discourse. He now assumed as a principle an universal axiom or proposition, from which he proceeds to deduce consequences. The principle thus laid down is, That there exist substantial Ideas--universal Entia. Each of these Ideas communicates or imparts its own nature to the particulars which bear the same name: and such communion or participation is the cause why they are what they are. The cause why various objects are beautiful or great, is, because they partake of the Self-Beautiful or the Self-Great: the cause why they are two or three is, because they partake of the Dyad or the Triad.

[Side-note: Vague and dissentient meanings attached to the word Cause. That is a cause, to each man, which gives satisfaction to his inquisitive feelings.]

Here then we have a third stage or variety of belief, in the speculative mind of Sokrates, respecting Causes. The self-existent Ideas ("propria Platonis supellex," to use the words of Seneca[69]) are postulated as Causes: and in this belief Sokrates at last finds satisfaction. But these Causative Ideas, or Ideal Causes, though satisfactory to Plato, were accepted by scarcely any one else. They were transformed--seemingly even by Plato himself before his death, into Ideal Numbers, products of the One implicated with Great and Little or the undefined Dyad--and still farther transformed by his successors Speusippus and Xenokrates: they were impugned in every way, and emphatically rejected, by Aristotle.

[Footnote 69: Seneca, Epistol.

About this disposition, manifested by many philosophers, and in a particular manner by Plato, to "embrace logical phantoms as real causes," I transcribe a good passage from Malebranche.

"Je me sens encore extrêmement porté à dire que cette colonne est dure _par sa nature_; ou bien que les petits liens dont sont composés les corps durs, sont des atômes, dont les parties ne se peuvent diviser, comme étant les parties _essentieles_ et dernières des corps--et qui sont _essentiellement_ crochues ou branchues.

Mais je reconnois franchement, que ce n'est point expliquer la difficulté; et que, quittant les préoccupations et les illusions de mes sens, j'aurais tort de recourir à une forme abstraite, et d'_embrasser un fantôme de logique_ pour la cause que je cherche. Je veux dire, que j'aurois tort de conçevoir, comme quelque chose de réel et de distinct, l'idée vague de _nature_ et d'_essence_, qui n'exprime que ce que l'on sait: et de prendre ainsi une forme abstraite et universelle, comme une cause physique d'un effet très réel. Car il y a deux choses dont je ne saurais trop défier. La première est, l'impression de mes sens: et l'autre est, la facilité que j'ai de prendre les natures abstraites et les idées générales de logique, pour celles qui sont réelles et particulières: et je me souviens d'avoir été plusieurs fois séduit par ces deux principes d'erreur." (Malebranche--Recherche de la Vérité, vol. iii., liv. vi., ch. 8, p. 245, ed. 1772.)]

The foregoing picture given by Sokrates of the wanderings of his mind ([Greek: ta\s e)ma\s pla/nas]) in search of Causes, is interesting, not only in reference to the Platonic age, but also to the process of speculation generally. Almost every one talks of a Cause as a word of the clearest meaning, familiar and understood by all hearers. There are many who represent the Idea of Cause as simple, intuitive, self-originated, universal; one and the same in all minds. These philosophers consider the maxim that every phenomenon must have a Cause--as self-evident, known _à priori_ apart from experience: as something which no one can help believing as soon as it is stated to him.[70] The gropings of Sokrates are among the numerous facts which go to refute such a theory: or at least to show in what sense alone it can be partially admitted. There is no fixed, positive, universal Idea, corresponding to the word Cause. There is a wide divergence, as to the question what a Cause really is, between different ages of the same man (exemplified in the case of Sokrates): much more between different philosophers at one time and another. Plato complains of Anaxagoras and other philosophers for assigning as Causes that which did not truly deserve the name: Aristotle also blames the defective conceptions of his predecessors (Plato included) on the same subject. If there be an intuitive idea corresponding to the word Cause, it must be a different intuition in Plato and Aristotle--in Plato himself at one age and at another age: in other philosophers, different from both and from each other. The word is equivocal--[Greek: pollachô=s lego/menon], in Aristotelian phrase--men use it familiarly, but vary much in the thing signified. _That_ is a Cause, to each man, which gives satisfaction to the inquisitive feelings--curiosity, anxious perplexity, speculative embarrassment of his own mind. Now doubtless these inquisitive feelings are natural and widespread: they are emotions of our nature, which men seek (in some cases) to appease by some satisfactory hypothesis. That answer which affords satisfaction, looked at in one of its aspects, is called Cause; Beginning or Principle--Element--represent other aspects of the same Quæsitum:--

"Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, Atque metus omnes et inexorabile Fatum Subjecit pedibus strepitumque Acherontis avari," is the exclamation of that sentiment of wonder and uneasiness out of which, according to Plato and Aristotle, philosophy springs.[71] But though the appetite or craving is common, in greater or less degree, to most persons--the nourishment calculated to allay it is by no means the same to all. Good (says Aristotle) is that which all men desire:[72] but all men do not agree in their judgment, what Good is. The point of communion between mankind is here emotional rather than intellectual: in the painful feeling of difficulty to be solved, not in the manner of conceiving what the difficulty is, nor in the direction where solution is to be sought, nor in the solution itself when suggested.[73]

[Footnote 70: Dugald Stewart, Elem. Philos. Hum. Mind, vol. i. ch. 1, sect. 2, pp. 98-99, ed. Hamilton, also note c same volume.

"Several modern philosophers (especially Dr. Reid, On the Intell. Powers) have been at pains to illustrate that law of our nature which leads us to refer every change we perceive in the universe to the operation of an efficient cause. This reference is not the result of reasoning, but necessarily accompanies the perception, so as to render it impossible for us to see the change, without feeling a conviction of the operation of some cause by which it is produced; much in the same manner in which we find it impossible to conceive a sensation, without being impressed with a belief of the existence of a sentient being. Hence I conceive it is that when we see two events constantly conjoined, we are led to associate the idea of causation or efficiency with the former, and to refer to it that power or energy by which the change is produced; in consequence of which association we come to consider philosophy as the knowledge of efficient causes, and lose sight of the operation of mind in producing the phenomena of nature. It is by an association somewhat similar that we connect our sensations of colour with the primary qualities of body. A moment's reflection must satisfy any one that the sensation of colour can only reside in a mind. . . . In the same way we are led to associate with inanimate matter the ideas of power, force, energy, causation, which are all attributes of mind, and can exist in a mind only."]

[Footnote 71: Virgil, Georg. ii. 490-92. Compare Lucretius, vi. 50-65, and the letter of Epikurus to Herodotus, p. 25, ed. Orelli. Plato, Theætêt. p. 155 D. [Greek: ma/la ga\r philoso/phou tou=to to\ pa/thos, to\ thauma/zein; ou) ga\r a)rchê\ a)/llê philosophi/as, ê)\ au(/tê]:--Aristotel. Metaphys. A. p. 982, b. 10-20. [Greek: dia\ ga\r to\ thauma/zein oi( a)/nthrôpoi kai\ nu=n kai\ to\ prô=ton ê)rxanto philosophei=n, o( de\ a)porô=n kai\ thauma/zôn oi)/etai a)gnoei=n.]]

[Footnote 72: Aristotel. Ethic. Nikom. i. 1. [Greek: dio\ kalô=s a)pephê/|nanto ta)gatho/n, ou)= pa/ntes e)phi/entai.] Plato, Republ. vi. p. 505 E. [Greek: O(/ dê\ diô/kei me\n a(pa=sa psuchê\ kai\ tou/tou e(/neka pa/nta pra/ttei, a)pomanteuome/nê ti ei)=nai, a)porou=sa de\ kai\ ou)k e)/chousa labei=n i(kanô=s ti/ pot' e)sti/n], &c.

Seneca, Epistol. 118. "Bonum est, quod ad se impetum animi secundum naturam movet."]

[Footnote 73: Aristotle recognises the different nature of the difficulties and problems which present themselves to the speculative mind: he looks back upon the embarrassments of his predecessors as antiquated and even silly, Metaphysic. N. 1089, a. 2. [Greek: Polla\ me\n ou)=n ta\ ai)/tia tê=s e)pi\ tau/tas ta\s ai)ti/as e)ktropê=s, ma/lista de\ to\ a)porê=sai a)rchai+kô=s], which Alexander of Aphrodisias paraphrases by [Greek: a)rchai+kô=s kai\ eu)êthô=s]. Compare A 993, a. 15.

In another passage of the same book, Aristotle notes and characterises the emotion experienced by the mind in possessing what is regarded as truth--the mental satisfaction obtained when a difficulty is solved, 1090, a. 38. [Greek: Oi( de\ chôristo\n poiou=ntes (to\n a)rithmo/n), o(/ti e)pi\ tô=n ai)sthêtô=n ou)k e)/stai ta\ a)xiô/mata, a)lêthê= de\ ta\ lego/mena _kai\ sai/nei tê\n psuchê/n_, ei)=nai/ te u(polamba/nousi kai\ chôrista\ ei)=nai; o(moi/ôs de\ ta\ mege/thê ta\ mathêmatika/.]

The subjective origin of philosophy--the feelings which prompt to the theorising process, striking out different hypotheses and analogies--are well stated by Adam Smith, 'History of Astronomy,' sect. ii. and iii.]

[Side-note: Dissension and perplexity on the question.--What is a cause? revealed by the picture of Sokrates--no intuition to guide him.]

When Sokrates here tells us that as a young man he felt anxious curiosity to know what the cause of every phenomenon was, it is plain that at this time he did not know what he was looking for: that he proceeded only by successive steps of trial, doubt, discovered error, rejection: and that each trial was adapted to the then existing state of his own mind. The views of Anaxagoras he affirms to have presented themselves to him as a new revelation: he then came to believe that the only true Cause was, a cosmical reason and volition like to that of which he was conscious in himself. Yet he farther tells us, that others did not admit this Cause, but found other causes to satisfy them: that even Anaxagoras did not follow out his own general conception, but recognised Causes quite unconnected with it: lastly, that neither could he (Sokrates) trace out the conception for himself.[74] He was driven to renounce it, and to turn to another sort of Cause--the hypothesis of self-existent Ideas, in which he then acquiesced. And this last hypothesis, again, was ultimately much modified in the mind of Plato himself, as we know from Aristotle. All this shows that the Idea of Cause--far from being one and the same to all, like the feeling of uneasiness which prompts the search for it--is complicated, diverse, relative, and modifiable.

[Footnote 74: The view of Cause, which Sokrates here declares himself to renounce from inability to pursue it, is substantially the same as what he lays down in the Philêbus, pp. 23 D, 27 A, 30 E.

In the Timæus Plato assigns to Timæus the task (to which Sokrates in the Phædon had confessed himself incompetent) of following into detail the schemes and proceedings of the Demiurgic or optimising [Greek: Nou=s]. But he also assumes the [Greek: ei)/dê] or Ideas as co-ordinate and essential conditions.]

[Side-note: Different notions of Plato and Aristotle about causation, causes regular and irregular. Inductive theory of causation, elaborated in modern times.]

The last among the various revolutions which Sokrates represents himself to have undergone--the transition from designing and volitional agency of the Kosmos conceived as an animated system, to the sovereignty of universal Ideas--is analogous to that transition which Auguste Comte considers to be the natural progress of the human mind: to explain phenomena at first by reference to some personal agency, and to pass from this mode of explanation to that by metaphysical abstractions. It is true that these are two distinct modes of conceiving Causation; and that in each of them the human mind, under different states of social and individual instruction, finds satisfaction. But each of the two theories admits of much diversity in the mode of conception. Plato seems to have first given prominence to these metaphysical causes; and Aristotle in this respect follows his example: though he greatly censures the incomplete and erroneous theories of Plato. It is remarkable that both these two philosophers recognised Causes irregular and unpredictable, as well as Causes regular and predictable. Neither of them included even the idea of regularity, as an essential part of the meaning of Cause.[75] Lastly, there has been elaborated in modern times, owing to the great extension of inductive science, another theory of Causation, in which unconditional regularity is the essential constituent: recognising no true Causes except the phenomenal causes certified by experience, as interpreted inductively and deductively--the assemblage of phenomenal antecedents, uniform and unconditional, so far as they can be discovered and verified. Certain it is that these are the only causes obtainable by induction and experience: though many persons are not satisfied without looking elsewhere for transcendental or ontological causes of a totally different nature. All these theories imply--what Sokrates announces in the passage just cited--the deep-seated influence of speculative curiosity, or the thirst for finding the Why of things and events, as a feeling of the human mind: but all of them indicate the discrepant answers with which, in different enquirers, this feeling is satisfied, though under the same equivocal name _Cause_. And it would have been a proceeding worthy of Plato's dialectic, if he had applied to the word Cause the same cross-examining analysis which we have seen him applying to the equally familiar words--Virtue--Courage--Temperance--Friendship, &c. "First, let us settle what a Cause really is: then, and not till then, can we succeed in ulterior enquiries respecting it."[76]

[Footnote 75: Monboddo, Ancient Metaphysics, B. 1. ch. iv. p. 32. "Plato appears to have been the first of the Ionic School that introduced _formal causes_ into natural philosophy. These he called _Ideas_, and made the principles of all things. And the reason why he insists so much upon this kind of cause, and so little upon the other three, is given us by Aristotle in the end of his first book of Metaphysics, _viz._, that he studied mathematics too much, and instead of using them as the handmaid of philosophy, made them philosophy itself. . . . Plato, however, in the Phædon says a good deal about final causes; but in the system of natural philosophy which is in the Timæus, he says very little of it."

I have already observed that Plato in the Timæus (48 A) recognises erratic or irregular Causation--[Greek: ê( planôme/nê ai)ti/a]. Aristotle recognises [Greek: Ai)ti/a] among the equivocal words [Greek: pollachô=s lego/mena]; and he enumerates [Greek: Tu/chê] and [Greek: Au)to/maton]--irregular causes or causes by accident--among them (Physic. ii. 195-198; Metaphys. K. 1065, a.) Schwegler, ad Aristot. Metaphys. vi. 4, 3, "Das Zufällige ist ein nothwendiges Element alles Geschehens". Alexander of Aphrodisias, the best of the Aristotelian commentators, is at pains to defend this view of [Greek: Tu/chê]--Causation by accident, or irregular.

Proklus, in his Commentary on the Timæus (ii. 80-81, p. 188, Schneider), notices the labour and prolixity with which the commentators before him set out the different varieties of Cause; distinguishing sixty-four according to Plato, and forty-eight according to Aristotle. Proklus adverts also (ad Timæum, iii. p. 176) to an animated controversy raised by Theophrastus against Plato, about Causes and the speculations thereupon.

An enumeration, though very incomplete, of the different meanings assigned to the word Cause, may be seen in Professor Fleming's Vocabulary of Philosophy.]

[Footnote 76: See Sir William Hamilton, Discussions on Philosophy, Appendix, p. 585. The debates about what was meant in philosophy by the word Cause are certainly older than Plato. We read that it was discussed among the philosophers who frequented the house of Perikles; and that that eminent statesman was ridiculed by his dissolute son Xanthippus for taking part in such useless refinements (Plutarch, Perikles, c. 36). But the Platonic dialogues are the oldest compositions in which any attempts to analyse the meaning of the word are preserved to us.

[Greek: Ai)/tiai, A)rchai/, Stoichei=a] (Aristot. Metaph. [Greek: D].), were the main objects of search with the ancient speculative philosophers. While all of them set to themselves the same problem, each of them hit upon a different solution. That which gave mental satisfaction to one, appeared unsatisfactory and even inadmissible to the rest. The first book of Aristotle's Metaphysica gives an instructive view of this discrepancy. His own analysis of Cause will come before us hereafter. Compare the long discussions on the subject in Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhon. Hypo. iii. 13-30; and adv. Mathemat. ix. 195-250. The discrepancy was so great among the dogmatical philosophers, that he pronounces the reality of the causal sequence to be indeterminable--[Greek: o(/son me\n ou)=n e)pi\ toi=s legome/nois u(po\ tô=n dogmatikô=n, ou)d' a)\n e)nnoê=sai/ tis to\ ai)/tion du/naito, ei)/ ge pro\s tô=| diaphô/nous kai\ a)lloko/tous (a)podido/nai) e)nnoi/as tou= ai)ti/ou e)/ti kai\ tê\n u(po/stasin au)tou= pepoiê/kasin a)neu/reton dia\ tê\n peri\ au)to\ diaphôni/an.] Seneca (Epist. 65) blends together the Platonic and the Aristotelian views, when he ascribes to Plato a quintuple variety of Causa.

The quadruple variety of Causation established by Aristotle governed the speculations of philosophers during the middle ages. But since the decline of the Aristotelian philosophy, there are few subjects which have been more keenly debated among metaphysicians than the Idea of Cause. It is one of the principal points of divergence among the different schools of philosophy now existing. A volume, and a very instructive volume, might be filled with the enumeration and contrast of the different theories on the subject. Upon the view which a man takes on this point will depend mainly the scope or purpose which he sets before him in philosophy. Many seek the solution of their problem in transcendental, ontological, extra-phenomenal causes, lying apart from and above the world of fact and experience; Reid and Stewart, while acknowledging the existence of such causes as the true efficient causes, consider them as being out of the reach of human knowledge; others recognise no true cause except personal, quasi-human, voluntary, agency, grounded on the type of human volition. Others, again, with whom my own opinion coincides, following out the analysis of Hume and Brown, understand by causes nothing more than phenomenal antecedents constant and unconditional, ascertainable by experience and induction. See the copious and elaborate chapter on this subject in Mr. John Stuart Mill's 'System of Logic,' Book iii. ch. 5, especially as enlarged in the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of that work, including the criticism on the opposite or volitional theory of Causation; also the work of Professor Bain, 'The Emotions and the Will,' pp. 472-584. The opposite view, in which Causes are treated as something essentially distinct from Laws, and as ultra-phenomenal, is set forth by Dr. Whewell, 'Novum Organon Renovatum,' ch. vii. p. 118 seq.]

[Side-note: Last transition of the mind of Sokrates from things to words--to the adoption of the theory of ideas. Great multitude of ideas assumed, each fitting a certain number of particulars.]

There is yet another point which deserves attention in this history given by Sokrates of the transitions of his own mind. His last transition is represented as one from things to words, that is, to general propositions:[77] to the assumption in each case of an universal proposition or hypothesis calculated to fit that case. He does not seem to consider the optimistic doctrine, which he had before vainly endeavoured to follow out, as having been an hypothesis, or universal proposition assumed as true and as a principle from which to deduce consequences. Even if it were so, however, it was one and the same assumption intended to suit all cases: whereas the new doctrine to which he passed included many distinct assumptions, each adapted to a certain number of cases and not to the rest.[78] He assumed an untold multitude of self-existent Ideas--The Self-Beautiful, Self-Just, Self-Great, Self-Equal, Self-Unequal, &c.--each of them adapted to a certain number of particular cases: the Self-Beautiful was assumed as the cause why all particular things were beautiful--as that, of which all and each of them partakes--and so of the rest.[79] Plato then explains his procedure. He first deduced various consequences from this assumed hypothesis, and examined whether all of them were consistent or inconsistent with each other. If he detected inconsistencies (as _e.g._ in the last half of the Parmenidês), we must suppose (though Plato does not expressly say so) that he would reject or modify his fundamental assumption: if he found none, he would retain it. The point would have to be tried by dialectic debate with an opponent: the logical process of inference and counter-inference is here assumed to be trustworthy. But during this debate Plato would require his opponent to admit the truth of the fundamental hypothesis provisionally. If the opponent chose to impugn the latter, he must open a distinct debate on that express subject. Plato insists that the discussion of the consequences flowing from the hypothesis, shall be kept quite apart from the discussion on the credibility of the hypothesis itself. From the language employed, he seems to have had in view certain disputants known to him, by whom the two were so blended together as to produce much confusion in the reasoning.

[Footnote 77: Aristotle (Metaphysic. A. 987, b. 31, [Greek: Th]. 1050, b. 35) calls the Platonici [Greek: oi( e)n toi=s lo/gois]: see the note of Bonitz.]

[Footnote 78: Plato, Phædon, p. 100 A. [Greek: a)ll' ou)=n dê\ tau/tê| ge ô(/rmêsa, kai\ u(pothe/menos e(ka/stote lo/gon o(\n a)\n kri/nô e)r)r(ômene/staton ei)=nai, a(\ me\n a)\n moi dokê=| tou/tô| xumphônei=n, ti/thêmi ô(s a)lêthê= o)/nta, kai\ peri\ ai)ti/as kai\ peri\ tô=n a)/llôn a(pa/ntôn; a(\ d' a)\n mê/, ô(s ou)k a)lêthê=.]]

[Footnote 79: Aristotle controverts this doctrine of Plato in a pointed manner, De Gen. et Corrupt. ii. 9, p. 335, b. 10, also Metaphys. A. 991, b. 3. The former passage is the most animated in point of expression, where Aristotle says--[Greek: ô(/sper o( e)n tô=| Phai/dôni Sôkra/tês; kai\ ga\r e)kei=nos, e)pitimê/sas toi=s a)/llois ô(s ou)de\n ei)rêko/sin, u(poti/thetai]--which is very true about the Platonic dialogue _Phædon_, &c. But in both the two passages, Aristotle distinctly maintains that the Ideas cannot be _Causes_ of any thing.

This is another illustration of what I have observed above, that the meaning of the word _Cause_ has been always fluctuating and undetermined.

We see that, while Aristotle affirmed that the Ideas could not be Causes of anything, Plato here maintains that they are the only true Causes.]

[Side-note: Ultimate appeal to hypothesis of extreme generality.]

But if your opponent impugns the hypothesis itself, how are you to defend it? Plato here tells us: by means of some other hypothesis or assumption, yet more universal than itself. You must ascend upwards in the scale of generality, until you find an assumption suitable and sufficient.[80]

[Footnote 80: Plato, Phædon, p. 101 E.]

We here see where it was that Plato looked for full, indisputable, self-recommending and self-assuring, certainty and truth. Among the most universal propositions. He states the matter here as if we were to provide defence for an hypothesis less universal by ascending to another hypothesis more universal. This is illustrated by what he says in the Timæus--Propositions are cognate with the matter which they affirm: those whose affirmation is purely intellectual, comprising only matter of the intelligible world, or of genuine Essence, are solid and inexpugnable: those which take in more or less of the sensible world, which is a mere copy of the intelligible exemplar, become less and less trustworthy--mere probabilities. Here we have the Platonic worship of the most universal propositions, as the only primary and evident truths.[81] But in the sixth and seventh books of the Republic, he delivers a precept somewhat different, requiring the philosopher not to rest in any hypothesis as an ultimatum, but to consider them all as stepping-stones for enabling him to ascend into a higher region, above all hypothesis--to the first principle of every thing: and he considers geometrical reasoning as defective because it takes its departure from hypothesis or assumptions of which no account is rendered.[82] In the Republic he thus contemplates an intuition by the mind of some primary, clear, self-evident truth, above all hypotheses or assumptions even the most universal, and transmitting its own certainty to every thing which could be logically deduced from it: while in the Phædon, he does not recognise any thing higher or more certain than the most universal hypothesis--and he even presents the theory of self-existent Ideas as nothing more than an hypothesis, though a very satisfactory one. In the Republic, Plato has come to imagine the Idea of Good as distinguished from and illuminating all the other Ideas: in the Timæus, it seems personified in the Demiurgus; in the Phædon, that Idea of Good appears to be represented by the Nous or Reason of Anaxagoras. But Sokrates is unable to follow it out, so that it becomes included, without any pre-eminence, among the Ideas generally: all of them transcendental, co-ordinate, and primary sources of truth to the intelligent mind--yet each of them exercising a causative influence in its own department, and bestowing its own special character on various particulars.

[Footnote 81: Plato, Timæus, p. 29 B. [Greek: ô(=de ou)=n peri/ te ei)ko/nos kai\ tou= paradei/gmatos dioriste/on, ô(s a)/ra tou\s lo/gous, ô(=npe/r ei)sin e)xêgêtai/, tou/tôn au)tô=n kai\ xuggenei=s o)/ntas. tou= me\n ou)=n moni/mou kai\ bebai/ou kai\ meta\ nou= kataphanou=s, moni/mous kai\ a)metaptô/tous . . . tou\s de\ tou= pro\s me\n e)kei=no a)peikasthe/ntos, o)/ntos de\ ei)ko/nos, ei)ko/tas a)na\ lo/gon te e)kei/nôn o)/ntas; o(/, tiper pro\s ge/nesin ou)si/a, tou=to pro\s pi/stin a)lêthei/a.]]

[Footnote 82: Plato, Republic, vi. p. 511. [Greek: _tô=n u(pothe/seôn a)nôte/rô e)kbai/nein_ . . . . to\ e(/teron tmê=ma tou= noêtou=, ou)= au)to\s o( lo/gos a)/ptetai tê=| tou= diale/gesthai duna/mei, ta\s u(pothe/seis poiou/menos ou)k a)rcha\s a)lla\ tô=| o)/nti u(pothe/seis, oi(=on e)piba/seis te kai\ o(rma/s, i(/na _me/chri tou= a)nupothe/tou e)pi\ tê\n tou= panto\s a)rchê\n i)ô/n_, a(psa/menos au)tê=s, pa/lin au)= e)cho/menos tô=n e)kei/nês e)chome/nôn, ou(/tôs e)pi\ teleutê\n katabai/nê|, ai)sthêtô=| panta/pasin ou)deni\ proschrô/menos, a)ll' ei)/desin au)toi=s di' au)tô=n ei)s au)ta/, kai\ teleuta=| ei)s ei)/dê.] Compare vii. p. 533.]

[Side-note: Plato's demonstration of the immortality of the soul rests upon the assumption of the Platonic ideas. Reasoning to prove this.]

It is from the assumption of these Ideas as eternal Essences, that Plato undertakes to demonstrate the immortality of the soul. One Idea or Form will not admit, but peremptorily excludes, the approach of that other Form which is opposite to it. Greatness will not receive the form of littleness: nor will the greatness which is in any particular subject receive the form of littleness. If the form of littleness be brought to bear, greatness will not stay to receive it, but will either retire or be destroyed. The same is true likewise respecting that which essentially has the form: thus fire has essentially the form of heat, and snow has essentially the form of cold. Accordingly fire, as it will not receive the form of cold, so neither will it receive snow: and snow, as it will not receive the form of heat, so neither will it receive fire. If fire comes, snow will either retire or will be destroyed. The Triad has always the Form of Oddness, and will never receive that of Evenness: the Dyad has always the Form of Evenness, and will never receive that of Oddness--upon the approach of this latter it will either disappear or will be destroyed: moreover the Dyad, while refusing to receive the Form of Oddness, will refuse also to receive that of the Triad, which always embodies that Form--although three is not in direct contrariety with two. If then we are asked, What is that, the presence of which makes a body hot? we need not confine ourselves to the answer--It is the Form of Heat--which, though correct, gives no new information: but we may farther say--It is Fire, which involves the Form of Heat. If we are asked, What is that, the presence of which makes a number odd, we shall not say--It is Oddness: but we shall say--It is the Triad or the Pentad--both of which involve Oddness.

[Side-note: The soul always brings life, and is essentially living. It cannot receive death: in other words, it is immortal.]

In like manner, the question being asked, What is that, which, being in the body, will give it life? we must answer--It is the soul. The soul, when it lays hold of any body, always arrives bringing with it life. Now death is the contrary of life. Accordingly the soul, which always brings with it life, will never receive the contrary of life. In other words, it is deathless or immortal.[83]

[Footnote 83: Plato, Phædon, p. 105 C-E. [Greek: A)pokri/nou dê/, ô(=| a)\n ti/ e)gge/nêtai sô/mati, zô=n e)/stai? Ô(=i a)\n psuchê/, e)/phê. Ou)kou=n a)ei\ tou=to ou(/tôs e)/chei? Pô=s ga\r ou)chi/? ê)= d' o(/s. Ê( psuchê\ a)/ra o(/, ti a)\n au)tê\ kata/schê|, a)ei\ ê(/kei e)p' e)kei=no phe/rousa zôê/n? Ê(/kei me/ntoi, e)/phê. Po/teron d' e)/sti ti zôê=| e)nanti/on, ê)\ ou)de/n? E)/stin, e)/phê. Ti/? Tha/natos. ou)kou=n ê( psuchê\ to\ e)nanti/on ô(=| au)tê\ e)piphe/rei a)ei\ ou) mê/ pote de/xêtai, ô(s e)k tô=n pro/sthen ô(molo/gêtai? Kai\ ma/la spho/dra, e)/phê o( Ke/bês. . . . O(\ d' a)\n tha/naton mê\ de/chêtai, ti/ kalou=men? A)tha/naton, e)/phê. A)tha/naton a)/ra ê( psuchê/? A)tha/naton.]

Nemesius, the Christian bishop of Emesa, declares that the proofs given by Plato of the immortality of the soul are knotty and difficult to understand, such as even adepts in philosophical study can hardly follow. His own belief in it he rests upon the inspiration of the Christian Scriptures (Nemesius de Nat. Homin. c. 2. p. 55, ed. 1565).]

[Side-note: The proof of immortality includes pre-existence as well as post-existence--animals as well as man--also the metempsychosis or translation of the soul from one body to another.]