Chapter XXVI: Phædrus--Symposion (3)

The Rhetor is one who does not teach (according to the logical process previously described), but persuades; guiding the mind by discourse to or from various opinions or sentiments.[102] Now if this is to be done _by art_ and methodically--that is, upon principle or system explicable and defensible--it pre-supposes (according to Plato) a knowledge of truth, and can only be performed by the logical expositor. For when men are deceived, it is only because they mistake what is like truth for truth itself: when they are undeceived, it is because they are made to perceive that what they believe to be truth is only an apparent likeness thereof. Such resemblances are strong or faint, differing by many gradations. Now no one can detect, or bring into account, or compare, these shades of resemblance, except he who knows the truth to which they all ultimately refer. It is through the slight differences that deception is operated. To deceive a man, you must carry him gradually away from the truth by transitional stages, each resembling that which immediately precedes, though the last in the series will hardly at all resemble the first: to undeceive him (or to avoid being deceived yourself), you must conduct him back by the counter-process from error to truth, by a series of transitional resemblances tending in that direction. You cannot do this like an artist (on system and by pre-determination), unless you know what the truth is.[103] By anyone who does not know, the process will be performed without art, or at haphazard.

[Footnote 102: Plato, Phædrus, p. 261 A. [Greek: ê( r(êtorikê\ te/chnê psuchagôgi/a tis dia\ lo/gôn], &c.]

[Footnote 103: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 262 A-D, 273 D.]

[Side-note: He must then classify the minds to be persuaded, and the means of persuasion or varieties of discourse. He must know how to fit on the one to the other in each particular case.]

The Rhetor--being assumed as already knowing the truth--if he wishes to make persuasion an art, must proceed in the following manner:--He must distribute the multiplicity of individual minds into distinct classes, each marked by its characteristic features of differences, emotional and intellectual. He must also distribute the manifold modes of discourse into distinct classes, each marked in like manner. Each of these modes of discourse is well adapted to persuade some classes of mind--badly adapted to persuade other classes: for such adaptation or non-adaptation there exists a rational necessity,[104] which the Rhetor must examine and ascertain, informing himself which modes of discourse are adapted to each different class of mind. Having mastered this general question, he must, whenever he is about to speak, be able to distinguish, by rapid perception,[105] to which class of minds the hearer or hearers whom he is addressing belong: and accordingly, which mode of discourse is adapted to their particular case. Moreover, he must also seize, in the case before him, the seasonable moment and the appropriate limit, for the use of each mode of discourse. Unless the Rhetor is capable of fulfilling all these exigencies, without failing in any one point, his Rhetoric is not entitled to be called an Art. He requires, in order to be an artist in persuading the mind, as great an assemblage of varied capacities as Hippokrates declares to be necessary for a physician, the artist for curing or preserving the body.[106]

[Footnote 104: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 270 E, 271 A-D. [Greek: Tri/ton de\ dê\ diataxa/menos ta\ lo/gôn te kai\ psuchê=s ge/nê, kai\ ta\ tou/tôn pathê/mata, di/eisi ta\s ai)ti/as, prosarmo/ttôn e(/kaston e(ka/stô|, kai\ dida/skôn oi(/a ou)=sa u(ph' oi(/ôn lo/gôn di' ê(\n ai)ti/an e)x a)na/gkês ê( me\n pei/thetai, ê( de\ a)peithei=.]]

[Footnote 105: Plato, Phædrus, p. 271 D-E. [Greek: dei= dê\ tau=ta i(kanô=s noê/santa, meta\ tau=ta theô/menon au)ta\ e)n tai=s pra/xesin o)/nta te kai\ pratto/mena, _o)xe/ôs tê=| ai)sthê/sei du/nasthai e)pakolouthei=n_, ê)\ mêde\ ei)de/nai pô ple/on au)tô=n ô(=n to/te ê)/koue lo/gôn xunô/n.]]

[Footnote 106: Plato, Phædrus, p. 270 C.]

[Side-note: Plato's _Idéal_ of the Rhetorical Art--involves in part incompatible conditions--the Wise man or philosopher will never be listened to by the public.]

The total, thus summed up by Plato, of what is necessary to constitute an Art of Rhetoric, is striking and comprehensive. It is indeed an _idéal_, not merely unattainable by reason of its magnitude, but also including impracticable conditions. He begins by postulating a perfectly wise man, who knows all truth on the most important social subjects; on which his country-men hold erroneous beliefs, just as sincerely as _he_ holds his true beliefs. But Plato has already told us, in the Gorgias, that such a person will not be listened to: that in order to address auditors with effect, the rhetor must be in genuine harmony of belief and character with them, not dissenting from them either for the better or the worse: nay, that the true philosopher (so we read in one of the most impressive portions of the Republic) not only has no chance of guiding the public mind, but incurs public obloquy, and may think himself fortunate if he escapes persecution.[107] The dissenter will never be allowed to be the guide of a body of orthodox believers; and is even likely enough, unless he be prudent, to become their victim. He may be permitted to lecture or discuss, in the gardens of the Academy, with a few chosen friends, and to write eloquent dialogues: but if he embodies his views in motions before the public assembly, he will find only strenuous opposition, or something worse. This view, which is powerfully set forth by Sokrates both in the Gorgias and Republic, is founded on a just appreciation of human societies: and it is moreover the basis of the Sokratic procedure--That the first step to be taken is to disabuse men's minds of their false persuasion of knowledge--to make them conscious of ignorance--and thus to open their minds for the reception of truth. But if this be the fact, we must set aside as impracticable the postulate advanced by Sokrates here in the Phædrus--of a perfectly wise man as the employer of rhetorical artifices. Moreover I do not agree with what Sokrates is here made to lay down as the philosophy of Error:--that it derives its power of misleading from resemblance to truth. This is the case to a certain extent: but it is very incomplete as an account of the generating causes of error.

[Footnote 107: Plato, Gorg. p. 513 B, see supra, ch. xxiv.; Republic, vi. pp. 495-496.]

[Side-note: The other part of the Platonic _Idéal_ is grand but unattainable--breadth of psychological data and classified modes of discourse.]

But the other portion of Plato's sum total of what is necessary to an Art of Rhetoric, is not open to the same objection. It involves no incompatible conditions: and we can say nothing against it, except that it requires a breadth and logical command of scientific data, far greater than there is the smallest chance of attaining. That Art is an assemblage of processes, directed to a definite end, and prescribed by rules which themselves rest upon scientific data--we find first announced in the works of Plato.[108] A vast amount of scientific research, both inductive and deductive, is here assumed as an indispensable foundation--and even as a portion--of what he calls the Art of Rhetoric: first, a science of psychology, complete both in its principles and details: next, an exhaustive catalogue and classification of the various modes of operative speech, with their respective impression upon each different class of minds. So prodigious a measure of scientific requirement has never yet been filled up: of course, therefore, no one has ever put together a body of precepts commensurate with it. Aristotle, following partially the large conceptions of his master, has given a comprehensive view of many among the theoretical postulates of Rhetoric; and has partially enumerated the varieties both of persuadable auditors, and of persuasive means available to the speaker for guiding them. Cicero, Dionysius of Halikarnassus, Quintilian, have furnished valuable contributions towards this last category of data, but not much towards the first: being all of them defective in breadth of psychological theory. Nor has Plato himself done anything to work out his conception in detail or to provide suitable rules for it. We read it only as an impressive sketch--a grand but unattainable _idéal_--"qualem nequeo monstrare et sentio tantum".

[Footnote 108: I repeat the citation from the Phædrus, one of the most striking passages in Plato, p. 271 D.

[Greek: e)/peidê\ lo/gou du/namis tugcha/nei psuchagôgi/a ou)=sa, to\n me/llonta r(êtoriko\n e)/sesthai a)na/gkê ei)de/nai psuchê\ o(/sa ei)/dê e)/chei. e)/stin ou)=n to/sa kai\ to/sa, kai\ toi=a kai\ toi=a; o(/then oi( me\n toioi/de, oi( de\ toioi/de gi/gnontai. tou/tôn de\ dê\ diê|rême/nôn, lo/gôn au)= to/sa kai\ to/sa e)/stin ei)/dê, toio/nde e(/kaston. oi( me\n ou)=n toioi/de u(po\ tô=n toiô=nde logôn dia\ tê/nde tê\n aiti/an e)s ta\ toia/de eu)peithei=s, oi( de\ toioi/de dia\ ta/de duspeithei=s], &c. Comp. p. 261 A.

The relation of Art to Science is thus perspicuously stated by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in the concluding chapter of his System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (Book vi. ch. xii. § 2):

"The relation in which rules of Art stand to doctrines of Science may be thus characterised. The Art proposes to itself an end to be attained, defines the end, and hands it over to the Science. The Science receives it, considers it as a phenomenon or effect to be studied, and having investigated its causes and conditions, sends it back to Art with a theorem of the combinations of circumstances by which it could be produced. Art then examines these combinations of circumstances, and according as any of them are or are not in human power, pronounces the end attainable or not. The only one of the premisses, therefore, which Art supplies, is the original major premiss, which asserts that the attainment of the given end is desirable. Science then lends to Art the proposition (obtained by a series of inductions or of deductions) that the performance of certain actions will attain the end. From these premisses Art concludes that the performance of these actions is desirable; and finding it also practicable, converts the theorem into a rule or precept."]

[Side-note: Plato's ideal grandeur compared with the rhetorical teachers--Usefulness of these teachers for the wants of an accomplished man.]

Indeed it seems that Plato himself regarded it as unattainable--and as only worth aiming at for the purpose of pleasing the Gods, not with any view to practical benefit, arising from either speech or action among mankind.[109] This is a point to be considered, when we compare his views on Rhetoric with those of Lysias and the other rhetors, whom he here judges unfavourably and even contemptuously. The work of speech and action among mankind, which Plato sets aside as unworthy of attention, was the express object of solicitude to Lysias, Isokrates, and rhetors generally: that which they practised efficaciously themselves, and which they desired to assist, cultivate, and improve in others: that which Perikles, in his funeral oration preserved by Thucydides, represents as the pride of the Athenian people collectively[110]--combination of full freedom of preliminary contentious debate, with energy in executing the resolution which might be ultimately adopted. These rhetors, by the example of their composed speeches as well as by their teaching, did much to impart to young men the power of expressing themselves with fluency and effect before auditors, either in the assembly or in the dikastery: as Sokrates here fully admits.[111] Towards this purpose it was useful to analyse the constituent parts of a discourse, and to give an appropriate name to each part. Accordingly, all the rhetorical teachers (Quintilian included) continued such analysis, though differing more or less in their way of performing it, until the extinction of Pagan civilisation. Young men were taught to learn by heart regular discourses,[112]--to compose the like for themselves--to understand the difference between such as were well or ill composed--and to acquire a command of oratorical means for moving or convincing the hearer. All this instruction had a practical value: though Plato, both here and elsewhere, treats it as worthless. A citizen who stood mute and embarrassed, unable to argue a case with some propriety before an audience, felt himself helpless and defective in one of the characteristic privileges of a Greek and a freeman: while one who could perform the process well, acquired much esteem and influence.[113] The Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias consoles the speechless men by saying--What does this signify, provided you are just and virtuous? Such consolation failed to satisfy: as it would fail to satisfy the sick, the lame, or the blind.

[Footnote 109: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 273-274. [Greek: ê(\n ou)ch e(/neka tou= le/gein kai\ pra/ttein pro\s a)nthrô/pous dei= diaponei=sthai to\n sô/phrona, a)lla\ tou= theoi=s kecharisme/na me\n le/gein du/nasthai], &c. (273 E).]

[Footnote 110: Thucyd. ii. 39-40-41.]

[Footnote 111: Plato, Phædrus, p. 288 A.]

[Footnote 112: See what is said by Aristotle about [Greek: ê( Gorgi/ou pragmatei/a] in the last chapter of De Sophisticis Elenchis.]

[Footnote 113: I have illustrated this point in my History of Greece, by the example of Xenophon in his command of the Cyreian army during its retreat.

His democratical education, and his powers of public speaking, were of the greatest service not only in procuring influence to himself, but also in conducting the army through its many perils and difficulties.

See Aristot. Rhet. i. 1, 3, p. 1355, b. 1.]

[Side-note: The Rhetorical teachers conceived the Art too narrowly: Plato conceived it too widely. The principles of an Art are not required to be explained to all learners.]

The teaching of these rhetors thus contributed to the security, dignity, and usefulness of the citizens, by arming them for public speech and action. But it was essentially practical, or empirical: it had little system, and was founded upon a narrow theory. Upon these points Plato in the Phædrus attacks them. He sets little value upon the accomplishments arming men for speech and action ([Greek: lektikou\s kai\ praktikou\s ei)=nai])--and he will not allow such teaching to be called an Art. He explains, in opposition to them, what he himself conceived the Art of Rhetoric to be, in the comprehensive way which I have above described.

But if the conception of the Art, as entertained by the Rhetors, is too narrow--that of Plato, on the other hand, is too wide.

First, it includes the whole basis of science or theory on which the Art rests: it is a Philosophy of Rhetoric, expounded by a theorist--rather than an Art of Rhetoric, taught to learners by a master. To teach the observance of certain rules or precepts is one thing: to set forth the reasons upon which those rules are founded, is another--highly important indeed, and proper to be known by the teacher; yet not necessarily communicated, or even communicable, to all learners. Quintilian, in his Institutio Rhetorica, gives both:--an ample theory, as well as an ample development of rules, of his professional teaching. But he would not have thought himself obliged to give this ample theory to all learners. With many, he would have been satisfied to make them understand the rules, and to exercise them in the ready observance thereof.

[Side-note: Plato includes in his conception of Art, the application thereof to new particular cases.--This can never be taught by rule.]

Secondly, Plato, in defining the Art of Rhetoric, includes not only its foundation of science (which, though intimately connected with it, ought not to be considered as a constituent part), but also the application of it to particular cases; which application lies beyond the province both of science and of art, and cannot be reduced to any rule. "The Rhetor" (says Plato) "must teach his pupils, not merely to observe the rules whereby persuasion is operated, but also to know the particular persons to whom those rules are to be applied--on what occasions--within what limits--at what peculiar moments, &c.[114] Unless the Rhetor can teach thus much, his pretended art is no art at all: all his other teaching is of no value." Now this is an amount of exigence which can never be realised. Neither art nor science can communicate that which Plato here requires. The rules of art, together with many different hypothetical applications thereof, may be learnt: when the scientific explanation of the rules is superadded, the learner will be assisted farther towards fresh applications: but after both these have been learnt, the new cases which will arise can never be specially foreseen. The proper way of applying the general precepts to each case must be suggested by conjecture adapted to the circumstances, under the corrections of past experience.[115] It is inconsistent in Plato, after affirming that nothing deserves the name of art[116] except what is general--capable of being rationally anticipated and prescribed beforehand--then to include in art the special treatment required for the multiplicity of particular cases; the analogy of the medical art, which he here instructively invokes, would be against him on this point.

[Footnote 114: Plato, Phædr. pp. 268 B, 272 A.]

[Footnote 115: What Longinus says about critical skill is applicable here also--[Greek: pollê=s e)/sti pei/ras teleutai=on e)pige/nnêma.] Isokrates (De Permut. Or. xv. sect. 290-312-316) has some good remarks about the impossibility of [Greek: e)pistê/mê] respecting particulars. Plato, in the Gorgias, puts [Greek: te/chnê], which he states to depend upon reason and foreknowledge, in opposition to [Greek: e)mpeiri/a] and [Greek: tribê/], which he considers as dependant on the [Greek: phu/sis stochastikê/]. But in applying the knowledge or skill called Art to particular cases, the [Greek: phu/sis stochastikê\] is the best that can be had (p. 463 A-B). The conception of [Greek: te/chnê] given in the Gorgias is open to the same remark as that which we find in the Phædrus. Plato, in another passage of the Phædrus, speaks of the necessity that [Greek: phu/sis, e)pistê/mê], and [Greek: mele/tê], shall concur to make an accomplished orator. This is very true; and Lysias, Isokrates, and all the other rhetors whom Plato satirises, would have concurred in it. In his description of [Greek: te/chnê] and [Greek: e)pistê/mê], and in the estimate which he gives of all that it comprises, he leaves no outlying ground for [Greek: mele/tê]. Compare Xenophon, Memor. iii. 1, 11; also Isokrates contra Sophistas, a. 16; and a good passage of Dionysius Halik. De Compos. Verborum, in which that rhetor remarks that [Greek: kairo\s] or opportunity neither has been nor can be reduced to art and rule.]

[Footnote 116: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 464-465.]

[Side-note: Plato's charge against the Rhetorical teachers is not made out.]

While therefore Plato's view of the science or theory of Rhetoric is far more comprehensive and philosophical than any thing given by the rhetorical teachers--he has not made good his charge against them, that what they taught as an art of Rhetoric was useless and illusory. The charge can only be sustained if we grant--what appears to have been Plato's own feeling--that the social and political life of the Athenians was a dirty and corrupt business, unworthy of a virtuous man to meddle with. This is the argument of Sokrates (in the Gorgias,[117] the other great anti-rhetorical dialogue), proclaiming himself to stand alone and aloof, an isolated, free-thinking dissenter. As representing his sincere conviction, and interpreting Plato's plan of life, this argument deserves honourable recognition. But we must remember that Lysias and the rhetorical teachers repudiated such a point of view. They aimed at assisting and strengthening others to perform their parts, not in speculative debate on philosophy, but in active citizenship; and they succeeded in this object to a great degree. The rhetorical ability of Lysias personally is attested not merely by the superlative encomium on him assigned to Phædrus,[118] but also by his great celebrity--by the frequent demand for his services as a logographer or composer of discourses for others--by the number of his discourses preserved and studied after his death. He, and a fair proportion of the other rhetors named in the Phædrus, performed well the useful work which they undertook.

[Footnote 117: Plato, Gorg. 521 D.]

[Footnote 118: Plato, Phædr. p. 228 A.]

[Side-note: Plato has not treated Lysias fairly, in neglecting his greater works, and selecting for criticism an erotic exercise for a private circle.]

When Plato selects, out of the very numerous discourses before him composed by Lysias, one hardly intended for any real auditors--neither deliberative, nor judicial, nor panegyrical, but an ingenious erotic paradox for a private circle of friends--this is no fair specimen of the author. Moreover Plato criticises it as if it were a philosophic exposition instead of an oratorical pleading. He complains that Lysias does not begin his discourse by defining--but neither do Demosthenes and other great orators proceed in that manner. He affirms that there is no organic structure, or necessary sequence, in the discourse, and that the sentences of it might be read in an inverted order:[119]--and this remark is to a certain extent well-founded. In respect to the skilful marshalling of the different parts of a discourse, so as to give best effect to the whole, Dionysius of Halikarnassus[120] declares Lysias to be inferior to some other orators--while ascribing to him marked oratorical superiority on various other points. Yet Plato, in specifying his objections against the erotic discourses of Lysias, does not show that it offends against the sound general principle which he himself lays down respecting the art of persuasion--That the topics insisted on by the persuader shall be adapted to the feelings and dispositions of the persuadend. Far from violating this principle, Lysias kept it in view, and employed it to the best of his power--as we may see, not merely by his remaining orations, but also by the testimonies of the critics:[121] though he did not go through the large preliminary work of scientific classification, both of different minds and different persuasive apparatus, which Plato considers essential to a thorough comprehension and mastery of the principle.

[Footnote 119: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 263-264.]

[Footnote 120: Dionysius (Judicium De Lysiâ, pp. 487-493) gives an elaborate criticism on the [Greek: pragmatiko\s charaktê\r] of Lysias. The special excellence of Lysias (according to this critic) lay in his judicial orations, which were highly persuasive and plausible: the manner of presenting thoughts was ingenious and adapted to the auditors: the narration of facts and details, especially, was performed with unrivalled skill. But as to the marshalling of the different parts of a discourse, Dionysius considers Lysias as inferior to some other orators--and still more inferior in respect to [Greek: deinotê\s] and to strong emotional effects.]

[Footnote 121: Dionys. Hal. (Ars Rhetorica, p. 381) notices the severe exigencies which Plato here imposes upon the Rhetor, remarking that scarcely any rhetorical discourse could be produced which came up to them. The defect did not belong to Lysias alone, but to all other rhetors also--[Greek: o(po/te ga\r _kai\ Lusi/an_ e)le/gchei, pa=san tê\n ê(mete/ran r(êtorikê\n e)/oiken e)le/gchein.] Demosthenes almost alone (in the opinion of Dionysius) contrived to avoid the fault, because he imitated Plato.]

[Side-note: No fair comparison can be taken between this exercise of Lysias and the discourses delivered by Sokrates in the Phædrus.]

The first discourse assigned by Plato to Sokrates professes to be placed in competition with the discourse of Lysias, and to aim at the same object. But in reality it aims at a different object: it gives the dissuasive arguments, but omits the persuasive--as Phædrus is made to point out: so that it cannot be fairly compared with the discourse of Lysias. Still more may this be said respecting the second discourse of Sokrates: which is of a character and purpose so totally disparate, that no fair comparison can be taken between it and the ostensible competitor. The mixture of philosophy, mysticism, and dithyrambic poetry, which the second discourse of Sokrates presents, was considered by a rhetorical judge like Dionysius as altogether inconsistent with the scope and purpose of reasonable discourse.[122] In the Menexenus, Plato has brought himself again into competition with Lysias, and there the competition is fairer:[123] for Plato has there entirely neglected the exigencies enforced in the Phædrus, and has composed a funeral discourse upon the received type; which Lysias and other orators before him had followed, from Perikles downward. But in the Phædrus, Plato criticises Lysias upon principles which are a medley between philosophy and rhetoric. Lysias, in defending himself, might have taken the same ground as we find Sokrates himself taking in the Euthydêmus. "Philosophy and politics are two distinct walks, requiring different aptitudes, and having each its own practitioners. A man may take whichever he pleases; but he must not arrogate to himself superiority by an untoward attempt to join the two together."[124]

[Footnote 122: See the Epistol. of Dion. Halikarn. to Cneius Pompey--De Platone--pp. 755-765.]

[Footnote 123: Plato, Menexen. p. 237 seq. Stallbaum, Comm. in Menexenum, pp. 10-11.]

[Footnote 124: Plato, Euthydêm. p. 306 A-C.]

[Side-note: Continuous discourse, either written or spoken, inefficacious as a means of instruction to the ignorant.]

Another important subject is also treated in the Phædrus. Sokrates delivers views both original and characteristic, respecting the efficacy of continuous discourse--either written to be read, or spoken to be heard without cross-examination--as a means of instruction. They are re-stated--in a manner substantially the same, though with some variety and fulness of illustration--in Plato's seventh Epistle[125] to the surviving friends of Dion. I have already touched upon these views in my eighth** Chapter, on the Platonic Dialogues generally, and have pointed out how much Plato understood to be involved in what he termed _knowledge_. No man (in his view) could be said to know, who was not competent to sustain successfully, and to apply successfully, a Sokratic cross-examination. Now knowledge, involving such a competency, certainly cannot be communicated by any writing, or by any fixed and unchangeable array of words, whether written or spoken. You must familiarise learners with the subject on many different sides, and in relation to many different points of view, each presenting more or less chance of error or confusion. Moreover, you must apply a different treatment to each mind, and to the same mind at different stages: no two are exactly alike, and the treatment adapted for one will be unsuitable for the other. While it is impossible, for these reasons, to employ any set forms of words, it will be found that the process of reading or listening leaves the reader or listener comparatively passive: there is nothing to stir the depths of the mind, or to evolve the inherent forces and dormant capacities. Dialectic conversation is the only process which can adapt itself with infinite variety to each particular case and moment--and which stimulates fresh mental efforts ever renewed on the part of each respondent and each questioner. Knowledge--being a slow result generated by this stimulating operation, when skilfully conducted, long continued, and much diversified--is not infused into, but evolved out of, the mind. It consists in a revival of those unchangeable Ideas or Forms, with which the mind during its state of eternal pre-existence had had communion. There are only a few privileged minds, however, that have had sufficient communion therewith to render such revival possible: accordingly, none but these few can ever rise to knowledge.[126]

[Footnote 125: Plato, Epistol. vii. pp. 341-344.]

[Footnote 126: Schleiermacher, in his Introduction to the Phædrus, justly characterises this doctrine as genuine Sokratism--"die ächt Sokratische erhabene Verachtung alles Schreibens and alles rednerischen Redens," p. 70.]

[Side-note: Written matter is useful as a memorandum for persons who know--or as an elegant pastime.]

Though knowledge cannot be first communicated by written matters, yet if it has been once communicated and subsequently forgotten, it may be revived by written matters. Writing has thus a real, though secondary, usefulness, as a memorandum. And Plato doubtless accounted written dialogues the most useful of all written compositions, because they imitated portions of that long oral process whereby alone knowledge had been originally generated. His dialogues were reports of the conversations purporting to have been held by Sokrates with others.

[Side-note: Plato's didactic theories are pitched too high to be realised.]

It is an excellent feature in the didactic theories of Plato, that they distinguish so pointedly between the passive and active conditions of the intellect; and that they postulate as indispensable, an habitual and cultivated mental activity, worked up by slow, long-continued, colloquy. To read or hear, and then to commit to memory, are in his view elegant recreations, but nothing more. But while, on this point, Plato's didactic theories deserve admiration, we must remark on the other hand that they are pitched so high as to exceed human force, and to overpass all possibility of being realised.[127] They mark out an _idéal_, which no person ever attained, either then or since--like the Platonic theory of rhetoric. To be master of any subject, in the extent and perfection required for sustaining and administering a Sokratic cross-examination--is a condition which scarce any one can ever fulfil: certainly no one, except upon a small range of subjects. Assuredly, Plato himself never fulfilled it.

[Footnote 127: A remark made by Sextus Empiricus (upon another doctrine which he is discussing) may be applied to this view of Plato--[Greek: to\ de\ le/gein o(/ti tê=| diomalismô=| tô=n pra/xeôn katalamba/nomen to\n e)/chonta tê\n peri\ to\n bi/on te/chnên, _u(perphtheggome/nôn e)/sti tê\n a)nthrô/pôn phu/sin_, kai\ eu)chome/nôn ma=llon ê)\ a)lêthê= lego/ntôn] (Pyrrh. Hyp. iii. 244).]

[Side-note: No one has ever been found competent to solve the difficulties raised by Sokrates, Arkesilaus, Karneades, and the negative vein of philosophy.]

Such a cross-examination involved the mastery of all the openings for doubt, difficulty, deception, or refutation, bearing on the subject: openings which a man is to profit by, if assailant--to keep guarded, if defendant. Now when we survey the Greek negative philosophy, as it appears in Plato, Aristotle, and Sextus Empiricus--and when we recollect that between the second and the third of these names, there appeared three other philosophers equally or more formidable in the same vein, all whose arguments have perished (Arkesilaus, Karneades, Ænesidêmus)--we shall see that no man has ever been known competent both to strike and parry with these weapons, in a manner so skilful and ready as to amount to knowledge in the Platonic sense. But in so far as such knowledge is attainable or approachable, Plato is right in saying that it cannot be attained except by long dialectic practice. Reading books, and hearing lectures, are undoubtedly valuable aids, but insufficient by themselves. Modern times recede from it even more than ancient. Regulated oral dialectic has become unknown; the logical and metaphysical difficulties--which negative philosophy required to be solved before it would allow any farther progress--are now little heeded, amidst the multiplicity of observed facts, and theories adapted to and commensurate with those facts. This change in the character of philosophy is doubtless a great improvement. It is found that by acquiescing provisionally in the _axiomata media_, and by applying at every step the control of verification, now rendered possible by the multitude of ascertained facts--the sciences may march safely onward: notwithstanding that the logical and metaphysical difficulties, the puzzles ([Greek: a)pori/ai]) involved in _philosophia prima_ and its very high abstractions, are left behind unsolved and indeterminate. But though the modern course of philosophy is preferable to the ancient, it is not for that reason to be considered as satisfactory. These metaphysical difficulties are not diminished either in force or relevancy, because modern writers choose to leave them unnoticed. Plato and Aristotle were quite right in propounding them as problems, the solution of which was indispensable to the exigencies and consistent schematism of the theorising intelligence, as well as to any complete discrimination between sufficient and insufficient evidence. Such they still remain, overlooked yet not defunct.

[Side-note: Plato's _idéal_ philosopher can only be realised under the hypothesis of a pre-existent and omniscient soul, stimulated into full reminiscence here.]

Now all these questions would be solved by the _idéal_ philosopher whom Plato in the Phædrus conceives as possessing knowledge: a person who shall be at once a negative Sokrates in excogitating and enforcing all the difficulties--and an affirmative match for Sokrates, as respondent in solving them: a person competent to apply this process to all the indefinite variety of individual minds, under the inspirations of the moment. This is a magnificent _idéal_. Plato affirms truly, that those teachers who taught rhetoric and philosophy by writing, could never produce such a pupil: and that even the Sokratic dialectic training, though indispensable and far more efficacious, would fail in doing so, unless in those few cases where it was favoured by very superior capacity--understood by him as superhuman, and as a remnant from the pre-existing commerce of the soul with the world of Forms or Ideas. The foundation therefore of the whole scheme rests upon Plato's hypothesis of an antecedent life of the soul, proclaimed by Sokrates here in his second or panegyrical discourse on Eros. The rhetorical teachers, with whom he here compares himself and whom he despises as aiming at low practical ends--might at any rate reply that they avoided losing themselves in such unmeasured and unwarranted hypotheses.

[Side-note: Different proceeding of Plato in the Timæus.]

One remark yet remains to be made upon the doctrine here set forth by Plato: that no teaching is possible by means of continuous discourse spoken or written--none, except through prolonged and varied oral dialectic.[128] To this doctrine Plato does not constantly conform in his practice: he departs from it on various important occasions. In the Timæus, Sokrates calls upon the philosopher so named for an exposition on the deepest and most mysterious cosmical subjects. Timæus delivers the exposition in a continuous harangue, without a word of remark or question addressed by any of the auditors: while at the beginning of the Kritias (the next succeeding dialogue) Sokrates greatly commends what Timæus had spoken. The Kritias itself too (though unfinished) is given in the form of continuous exposition. Now, as the Timæus is more abstruse than any other Platonic writing, we cannot imagine that Plato, at the time when he composed it, thought so meanly about continuous exposition, as a vehicle of instruction, as we find him declaring in the Phædrus. I point this out, because it illustrates my opinion that the different dialogues of Plato represent very different, sometimes even opposite, points of view: and that it is a mistake to treat them as parts of one preconceived and methodical system.

[Footnote 128: The historical Sokrates would not allow his oral dialectic process to be called teaching. He expressly says "I have never been the teacher of any one" (Plat. Apol. Sokr. pp. 33 A, 19 E): and he disclaimed the possession of knowledge. Aristotle too considers teaching as a presentation of truths, ready made and supposed to be known, by the teacher to learners, who are bound to believe them, [Greek: dei= ga\r pisteu/ein to\n mantha/nonta]. The Platonic Sokrates, in the Phædrus and Symposion, differs from both; he recognises no teaching except the perpetual generation of new thoughts and feelings, by means of stimulating dialectic colloquy, and the revival in the mind thereby of the experience of an antecedent life, during which some communion has been enjoyed with the world of Ideas or Forms.]

[Side-note: Opposite tendencies co-existent in Plato's mind--Extreme of the Transcendental or Absolute--Extreme of specialising adaptation to individuals and occasions.]

Plato is usually extolled by his admirers, as the champion of the Absolute--of unchangeable forms, immutable truth, objective necessity cogent and binding on every one. He is praised for having refuted Protagoras; who can find no standard beyond the individual recognition and belief, of his own mind or that of some one else. There is no doubt that Plato often talks in that strain: but the method followed in his dialogues, and the general principles of method which he lays down, here as well as elsewhere, point to a directly opposite conclusion. Of this the Phædrus is a signal instance. Instead of the extreme of generality, it proclaims the extreme of specialty. The objection which the Sokrates of the Phædrus advances against the didactic efficacy of written discourse, is founded on the fact, that it is the same to all readers--that it takes no cognizance of the differences of individual minds nor of the same mind at different times. Sokrates claims for dialectic debate the valuable privilege, that it is constant action and re-action between two individual minds--an appeal by the inherent force and actual condition of each, to the like elements in the other--an ever shifting presentation of the same topics, accommodated to the measure of intelligence and cast of emotion in the talkers and at the moment. The individuality of each mind--both questioner and respondent--is here kept in view as the governing condition of the process. No two minds can be approached by the same road or by the same interrogation. The questioner cannot advance a step except by the admission of the respondent. Every respondent is the measure to himself. He answers suitably to his own belief; he defends by his own suggestions; he yields to the pressure of contradiction and inconsistency, _when he feels them_, and not before. Each dialogist is (to use the Protagorean phrase) the measure to himself of truth and falsehood, according as he himself believes it. Assent or dissent, whichever it may be, springs only from the free working of the individual mind, in its actual condition then and there. It is to the individual mind alone, that appeal is made, and this is what Protagoras asks for.

We thus find, in Plato's philosophical character, two extreme opposite tendencies and opposite poles co-existent. We must recognise them both: but they can never be reconciled: sometimes he obeys and follows the one, sometimes the other.

If it had been Plato's purpose to proclaim and impose upon every one something which he called "Absolute Truth," one and the same alike imperative upon all--he would best proclaim it by preaching or writing. To modify this "Absolute," according to the varieties of the persons addressed, would divest it of its intrinsic attribute and excellence. If you pretend to deal with an Absolute, you must turn away your eyes from all diversity of apprehending intellects and believing subjects.