Chapter XXVIII: Theætetus (3)

"Du reste, quand même cette ressemblance serait aussi réelle qu'elle est fausse, en quoi prouverait-il l'identité nécessaire des intelligences? Qu'y aurait-il d'étonnant qu'au milieu de ce communisme intellectual qui régit l'éducation de chaque classe, et détermine nos habitudes intellectuelles et morales, les distinctions natives disparussent ou s'atténuassent? Ne faut-il pas plutôt admirer l'opiniâtre vitalité des différences originelles qui résistent à tant de causes de nivellement? L'identité primitive des intelligences n'est qu'une fiction logique sans réalité--une simple abstraction de langage, _qui ne repose que sur l'identité du mot avec lui-même_. Tout se reduit à la possibilité abstraite des mêmes développemens, dans les mêmes conditions d'hérédité et d'éducation--mais aussi de développemens différens dans des circonstances différentes: c'est à dire, que l'intelligence de chacun n'est identique à celle de tous, qu'au moment où elle n'est pas encore proprement une intelligence."]

[Side-note: Plato's argument as to the distinction between present sensation and anticipation of the future.]

A similar remark may be made as to Plato's distinction between the different matters to which belief may apply: present sensation or sentiment in one case--anticipation of future sensations or sentiments, in another. Upon matters of present sensation and sentiment (he argues), such as hot or cold, sweet or bitter, just or unjust, honourable or base, &c., one man is as good a judge as another: but upon matters involving future contingency, such as what is healthy or unhealthy,--profitable and good, or hurtful and bad,--most men judge badly: only a few persons, possessed of special skill and knowledge, judge well, each in his respective province.

[Side-note: The formula of Relativity does not imply that every man believes himself to be infallible.]

I for my part admit this distinction to be real and important. Most other persons admit the same.[69] In acting upon it, I follow out my belief,--and so do they. This is a general fact, respecting the circumstances which determine individual belief. Like all other causes of belief, it operates relatively to the individual mind, and thus falls under that general canon of relativity, which it is the express purpose of the Protagorean formula to affirm. Sokrates impugns the formula of relativity, as if it proclaimed every one to believe himself more competent to predict the future than any other person. But no such assumption is implied in it. To say that a man is a measure to himself, is not to say that he is, or, that he believes himself to be, omniscient or infallible. A sick man may mistake the road towards future health, in many different directions. One patient may over-estimate his own knowledge,--that is one way, but only one among several: another may be diffident, and may undervalue his own knowledge: a third may over-estimate the knowledge of his professional adviser, and thus follow an ignorant physician, believing him to be instructed and competent: a fourth, instead of consulting a physician, may consult a prophet, whom Plato[70] here reckons among the authoritative infallible measures in respect to future events: a fifth may (like the rhetor Ælius Aristeides[71]) disregard the advice of physicians, and follow prescriptions enjoined to him in his own dreams, believing them to be sent by Æsculapius the Preserving God. Each of these persons judges differently about the road to future health: but each is alike a measure to himself: the belief of each is relative to his own mental condition and predispositions. You, or I, may believe that one or other of them is mistaken: but here another measure is introduced--_your_ mind or _mine_.

[Footnote 69: Plato, Theætêt. p. 179 A. [Greek: pa=s a)\n o(mologoi=].]

[Footnote 70: Plato, Theætêt. p. 179 A, where Mr. Campbell observes in his note--"The [Greek: ma/ntis] is introduced as being [Greek: e)pistê/môn] of the future generally; just as the physician is of future health and disease, the musician of future harmony," &c.]

[Footnote 71: See the five discourses of the rhetor Aristeides--[Greek: I(erô=n Lo/goi], Oratt. xxiii.-xxvii.--containing curious details about his habits and condition, and illustrating his belief; especially Or. xxiii. p. 462 seqq. The perfect faith which he reposed in his dreams, and the confidence with which he speaks of the benefits derived from acting upon them, are remarkable.]

[Side-note: Plato's argument is untenable--That if the Protagorean formula be admitted, dialectic discussion would be annulled--The reverse is true--Dialectic recognises the autonomy of the Individual mind.]

But the most unfounded among all Plato's objections to the Protagorean formula, is that in which Sokrates is made to allege, that if it be accepted, the work of dialectical discussion is at an end: that the Sokratic Elenchus, the reciprocal scrutiny of opinions between two dialogists, becomes nugatory--since every man's opinions are _right_.[72] Instead of _right_, we must add the requisite qualification, here as elsewhere, by reading, _right to the man himself_. Now, dealing with Plato's affirmation thus corrected, we must pronounce not only that it is not true, but that the direct reverse of it is true. Dialectical discussion and the Sokratic procedure, far from implying the negation of the Protagorean formula, involve the unqualified recognition of it. Without such recognition the procedure cannot even begin, much less advance onward to any result. Dialectic operates altogether by question and answer: the questioner takes all his premisses from the answers of the respondent, and cannot proceed in any direction except that in which the respondent leads him. Appeal is always directly made to the affirmative or negative of the individual mind, which is thus installed as measure of truth or falsehood _for itself_. The peculiar and characteristic excellence of the Sokratic Elenchus consists in thus stimulating the interior mental activity of the individual hearer, in eliciting from him all the positive elements of the debate, and in making him feel a shock when one of his answers contradicts the others. Sokrates not only does not profess to make himself a measure for the respondent, but expressly disclaims doing so: he protests against being considered as a teacher, and avows his own entire ignorance. He undertakes only the obstetric process of evolving from the respondent mind what already exists in it without the means of escape--and of applying interrogatory tests to the answer when produced: if there be nothing in the respondent's mind, his art is inapplicable. He repudiates all appeal to authority, except that of the respondent himself.[73] Accordingly there is neither sense nor fitness in the Sokratic cross-examination, unless you assume that each person, to whom it is addressed, is a measure of truth and falsehood to himself. Implicitly indeed, this is assumed in rhetoric as well as in dialectic: wherever the speaker aims at persuading, he adapts his mode of speech to the predispositions of the hearer's own mind; and he thus recognises that mind as a measure for itself. But the Sokratic Dialectic embodies the same recognition, and the same essential relativity to the hearer's mind, more forcibly than any rhetoric. And the Platonic Sokrates (in the Phædrus) makes it one of his objections against orators who addressed multitudes, that they did not discriminate either the specialties of different minds, or the specialties of discourse applicable to each.[74]

[Footnote 72: Plato, Theætêt. p. 161 E.]

[Footnote 73: Read the animated passage in the conversation with Pôlus: Plato, Gorg. 472, and Theætêt. 161 A, pp. 375, 376.

In this very argument of Sokrates (in the Theætêtus) against the Protagorean theory, we find him unconsciously adopting (as I have already remarked) the very language of that theory, as a description of his own procedure, p. 171 D. Compare with this a remarkable passage in the colloquy of Sokrates with Thrasymachus, in Republic, i. 337 C.

Moreover, the long and striking contrast between the philosopher and the man of the world, which Plato embodies in this dialogue (the Theætêtus, from p. 172 to p. 177), is so far from assisting his argument against Protagoras, that it rather illustrates the Protagorean point of view. The beliefs and judgments of the man of the world are presented as flowing from _his_ mental condition and predispositions: those of the philosopher, from _his_. The two are radically dissentient: each appears to the other mistaken and misguided. Here is nothing to refute Protagoras. Each of the two is a measure for himself.

Yes, it will be said; but Plato's measure is right, and that of the man of the world is wrong. Perhaps _I_ may think so. As a measure for myself, I speak and act accordingly. But the opponents have not agreed to accept _me_ any more than Plato as their judge. The case remains unsettled as before.]

[Footnote 74: Plato, Phædrus, p. 271 D-E; compare 258 A.]

[Side-note: Contrast with the Treatise De Legibus--Plato assumes infallible authority--sets aside Dialectic.]

Though Sokrates, and Plato so far forth as follower of Sokrates, employed a colloquial method based on the fundamental assumption of the Protagorean formula--autonomy of each individual mind--whether they accepted the formula in terms, or not; yet we shall find Plato at the end of his career, in his treatise De Legibus, constructing an imaginary city upon the attempted deliberate exclusion of this formula. We shall find him there monopolising all teaching and culture of his citizens from infancy upwards, barring out all freedom of speech or writing by a strict censorship, and severely punishing dissent from the prescribed orthodoxy. But then we shall also find that Plato in that last stage of his life--when he constitutes himself as lawgiver, the measure of truth or falsehood for all his citizens--has at the same time discontinued his early commerce with the Sokratic Dialectics.

[Side-note: Plato in denying the Protagorean formula, constitutes himself the measure for all. Counter-proposition to the formula.]

On the whole then, looking at what Plato says about the Protagorean doctrine of Relativity--_Homo Mensura_--first, his statement what the doctrine really is, next his strictures upon it--we may see that he ascribes to it consequences which it will not fairly carry. He impugns it as if it excluded philosophy and argumentative scrutiny: whereas, on the contrary, it is the only basis upon which philosophy or "reasoned truth" can stand. Whoever denies the Protagorean autonomy of the individual judgment, must propound as his counter theory some heteronomy, such as he (the denier) approves. If I am not allowed to judge of truth and falsehood for myself, who is to judge for me? Plato, in the Treatise De Legibus, answers very unequivocally:--assuming to himself that infallibility which I have already characterised as the prerogative of King Nomos: "I, the lawgiver, am the judge for all my citizens: you must take my word for what is true or false: you shall hear nothing except what my censors approve--and if, nevertheless, any dissenters arise, there are stringent penalties in store for them". Here is an explicit enunciation of the Counter-Proposition,[75] necessary to be maintained by those who deny the Protagorean doctrine. If you pronounce a man unfit to be the measure of truth for himself, you constitute yourself the measure, in his place: either directly as lawgiver--or by nominating censors according to your own judgment. As soon as he is declared a lunatic, some other person must be appointed to manage his property for him. You can only exchange one individual judgment for another. You cannot get out of the region of individual judgments, more or fewer in number: the King, the Pope, the Priest, the Judges or Censors, the author of some book, or the promulgator of such and such doctrine. The infallible measure which you undertake to provide, must be found in some person or persons--if it can be found at all: in some person selected by yourself--that is, in the last result, _yourself_.[76]

[Footnote 75: Professor Ferrier's Institutes of Metaphysic exhibit an excellent example of the advantages of setting forth explicitly the Counter-Proposition--that which an author intends to deny, as well as the Proposition which he intends to affirm and prove.]

[Footnote 76: Aristotle says (Ethic. Nikomach. x. 1176, a. 15) [Greek: dokei= d' e)n a(/pasi toi=s toiou/tois _ei)=nai to\ phaino/menon tô=| spoudai/ô|_.] "That _is_, which _appears to be_ in the judgment of the wise or virtuous man." The ultimate appeal is thus acknowledged to be, not to an abstraction, but to some one or more individual persons whom Aristotle recognises as wise. _That_ is truth which this wise man declares to be truth. You cannot escape from the Relative by any twist of reasoning.

What Platonic critics call "Der Gegensatz des Seins und des Scheins" (see Steinhart, Einleit. zum Theætêt. p. 37) is unattainable. All that is attainable is the antithesis between that which appears to one person, and that which appears to one or more others, choose them as you will: between that which appears at a first glance, or at a distance, or on careless inspection--and that which appears after close and multiplied observations and comparisons, after full discussion, &c. _Das Sein_ is that which appears to the person or persons whom we judge to be wise, under these latter favourable circumstances.

Epiktetus, i. 28, 1. [Greek: Ti/ e)/stin ai)/tion tou= sugkatati/thesthai/ tini? To\ phai/nesthai o(/ti u(pa/rchei. Tô=| ou)=n phainome/nô| o(/ti ou)ch u(pa/rchei, sugkatati/thesthai ou)ch oi(=o/n te.]]

[Side-note: Import of the Protagorean formula is best seen when we state explicitly the counter-proposition.]

It is only when the Counter-Proposition to the Protagorean formula is explicitly brought out, that the full meaning of that formula can be discerned. If you deny it, the basis of all free discussion and scrutiny is withdrawn: philosophy, or what is properly called reasoned truth, disappears. In itself it says little.

[Side-note: Unpopularity of the Protagorean formula--Most believers insist upon making themselves a measure for others, as well as for themselves. Appeal to Abstractions.]

Yet little as its positive import may seem to be, it clashes with various illusions, omissions, and exigencies, incident to the ordinary dogmatising process. It substitutes the concrete in place of the abstract--the complete in place of the elliptical. Instead of Truth and Falsehood, which present to us the Abstract and impersonal as if it stood alone--the Objective divested of its Subject--we are translated into the real world of beliefs and disbeliefs, individual believers and disbelievers: matters affirmed or denied by some Subject actual or supposable--by you, by me, by him or them, perhaps by all persons within our knowledge. All men agree in the subjective fact, or in the mental states called belief and disbelief; but all men do not agree in the matters believed and disbelieved, or in what they speak of as Truth and Falsehood. No infallible objective mark, no common measure, no canon of evidence, recognised by all, has yet been found. What is Truth to one man, is not truth, and is often Falsehood, to another: that which governs the mind as infallible authority in one part of the globe, is treated with indifference or contempt elsewhere.[77] Each man's belief, though in part determined by the same causes as the belief of others, is in part also determined by causes peculiar to himself. When a man speaks of Truth, he means what he himself (along with others, or singly, as the case may be) believes to be Truth; unless he expressly superadds the indication of some other persons believing in it. This is the reality of the case, which the Protagorean formula brings into full view; but which most men dislike to recognise, and disguise from themselves as well as from others in the common elliptical forms of speech. In most instances a believer entirely forgets that his own mind is the product of a given time and place, and of a conjunction of circumstances always peculiar, amidst the aggregate of mankind--for the most part narrow. He cannot be content (like Protagoras) to be a measure for himself and for those whom his arguments may satisfy. This would be to proclaim what some German critics denounce as Subjectivism.[78] He insists upon constituting himself--or some authority worshipped by himself--or some abstraction interpreted by himself--a measure for all others besides, whether assentient or dissentient. That which _he_ believes, all ought to believe.

[Footnote 77: Respecting the grounds and conditions of belief among the Hindoos, Sir William Sleeman (Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, ch. xxvi. vol. i. pp. 226-228) observes as follows:--

"Every word of this poem (the Ramaen, Ramayana) the people assured me was written, if not by the hand of the Deity himself, at least by his inspiration, which was the same thing, and it must consequently be true. Ninety-nine out of a hundred, among the Hindoos, implicitly believe, not only every word of this poem, but every word of every poem that has ever been written in Sanscrit. If you ask a man whether he really believes any very egregious absurdity quoted from these books, he replies with the greatest _naïveté_ in the world, 'Is it not written in the book; and how should it be there written if not true?' . . . The greater the improbability, the more monstrous and preposterous the fiction, the greater is the charm that it has over their minds; and the greater their learning in the Sanscrit, the more are they under the influence of this charm. Believing all to be written by the Deity, or by his inspirations, and the men and things of former days to have been very different from the men and things of the present day, and the heroes of these fables to have been demigods, or people endowed with powers far superior to those of the ordinary men of their own day, the analogies of nature are never for a moment considered; nor do questions of probability, or possibility, according to those analogies, ever obtrude to dispel the charm with which they are so pleasingly bound. They go on through life reading and talking of these monstrous fictions, which shock the taste and understanding of other nations, without once questioning the truth of one single incident, or hearing it questioned. There was a time, and that not very distant, when it was the same in England and in every other European nation; and there are, I am afraid, some parts of Europe where it is so still. But the Hindoo faith, so far as religious questions are concerned, is not more capacious or absurd than that of the Greeks and Romans in the days of Sokrates and Cicero; the only difference is, that among the Hindoos a greater number of the questions which interest mankind are brought under the head of religion."]

[Footnote 78: This is the objection taken by Schwegler, Prantl, and other German thinkers, against the Protagorean doctrine (Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, vol. i. p. 12 seq.; Schwegler, Gesch. der Philos. im Umriss. s. 11, b. p. 26, ed. 5th). I had transcribed from each of these works a passage of some length, but I cannot find room for them in this note.

These authors both say, that the Protagorean canon, properly understood, is right, but that Protagoras laid it down wrongly. They admit the principle of Subjectivity, as an essential aspect of the case, in regard to truth; but they say that Protagoras was wrong in appealing to individual, empirical, accidental, subjectivity of each man at every varying moment, whereas he ought to have appealed to an ideal or universal subjectivity. "What ought to be held true, right, good, &c.," (says Schwegler) "must be decided doubtless by _me_, but by _me_ so far forth as a rational, and thinking being. Now _my_ thinking, _my_ reason, is not something specially belonging to me, but something common to all rational beings, something universal; so far therefore as I proceed as a rational and thinking person, my subjectivity is an universal subjectivity. Every thinking person has the consciousness that what he regards as right, duty, good, evil, &c., presents itself not merely to him as such, but also to every rational person, and that, consequently, his judgment possesses the character of universality, universal validity: in one word, Objectivity."

Here it is explicitly asserted, that wherever a number of individual men employ their reason, the specialities of each disappear, and they arrive at the same conclusions--Reason being a guide impersonal as well as infallible. And this same view is expressed by Prantl in other language, when he reforms the Protagorean doctrine by saying, "Das Denken ist der Mass der Dinge".

To me this assertion appears so distinctly at variance with notorious facts, that I am surprised when I find it advanced by learned historians of philosophy, who recount the very facts which contradict it. Can it really be necessary to repeat that the reason of one man differs most materially from that of another--and the reason of the same person from itself, at different times--in respect of the arguments accepted, the authorities obeyed, the conclusions embraced? The impersonal Reason is a mere fiction; the universal Reason is an abstraction, belonging alike to all particular reasoners, consentient or dissentient, sound or unsound, &c. Schwegler admits the Protagorean canon only under a reserve which nullifies its meaning. To say that the Universal Reason is the measure of truth is to assign no measure at all. The Universal Reason can only make itself known through an interpreter. The interpreters are dissentient; and which of them is to hold the privilege of infallibility? Neither Schwegler nor Prantl are forward to specify who the interpreter is, who is entitled to put dissentients to silence; both of them keep in the safe obscurity of an abstraction--"Das Denken"--the Universal Reason. Protagoras recognises in each dissentient an equal right to exercise his own reason, and to judge for himself.

In order to show how thoroughly incorrect the language of Schwegler and Prantl is, when they talk about the Universal Reason as unanimous and unerring, I transcribe from another eminent historian of philosophy a description of what philosophy has been from ancient times down to the present.

Degérando, Histoire Comparée des Systèmes de Philosophie, vol. i. p. 48:--"Une multitude d'hypothèses, élevées en quelque sorte au hasard, et rapidement détruites; une diversité d'opinions, d'autant plus sensible que la philosophie a été plus developpée; des sectes, des partis même, des disputes interminables, des spéculations stériles, des erreurs maintenues et transmises par une imitation aveugle; quelques découvertes obtenues avec lenteur, et mélangées d'idees fausses; des réformes annoncées à chaque siècle et jamais accomplies; une succession de doctrines qui se renversent les unes les autres sans pouvoir obtenir plus de solidité: la raison humaine ainsi promenée dans un triste cercle de vicissitudes, et ne s'élevant à quelques époques fortunées que pour retomber bientôt dans de nouveaux écarts, &c. . . . les mêmes questions, enfin, qui partagèrent il y a plus de vingt siècles les premiers génies de la Grèce, agitées encore aujourd'hui** après tant de volumineux écrits consacrés à les discuter".]

This state of mind in reference to belief is usual with most men, not less at the present day than in the time of Plato and Protagoras. It constitutes the natural intolerance prevalent among mankind; which each man (speaking generally), in the case of his own beliefs, commends and exults in, as a virtue. It flows as a natural corollary from the sentiment of belief, though it may be corrected by reflection and social sympathy. Hence the doctrine of Protagoras--equal right of private judgment to each man for himself--becomes inevitably unwelcome.

[Side-note: Aristotle failed in his attempts to refute the Protagorean formula--Every reader of Aristotle will claim the right of examining for himself Aristotle's canons of truth.]

We are told that Demokritus, as well as Plato and Aristotle, wrote against Protagoras. The treatise of Demokritus is lost: but we possess what the two latter said against the Protagorean formula. In my judgment both failed in refuting it. Each of them professed to lay down objective, infallible, criteria of truth and falsehood: Democritus on his side, and the other dogmatical philosophers, professed to do the same, each in his own way--and each in a different way.[79] Now the Protagorean formula neither allows nor disallows any one of these proposed objective criteria: but it enunciates the appeal to which all of them must be submitted--the subjective condition of satisfying the judgment of each hearer. Its protest is entered only when that condition is overleaped, and when the dogmatist enacts his canon of belief as imperative, peremptory, binding upon all (allgemeingültig) both assentient and dissentient. I am grateful to Aristotle for his efforts to lay down objective canons in the research of truth; but I claim the right of examining those canons for myself, and of judging whether that, which satisfied Aristotle, satisfies me also. The same right which I claim for myself, I am bound to allow to all others. The general expression of this compromise is, the Protagorean formula. No one demands more emphatically to be a measure for himself, even when all authority is opposed to him, than Sokrates in the Platonic Gorgias.[80]

[Footnote 79: Plutarch, adv. Kolot. p. 1108.

According to Demokritus all sensible perceptions were conventional, or varied according to circumstances, or according to the diversity of the percipient Subject; but there was an objective reality--minute, solid, invisible atoms, differing in figure, position, and movement, and vacuum along with them. Such reality was intelligible only by Reason. [Greek: No/mô| gluku/, no/mô| pikro/n, no/mô| thermo/n, no/mô| psuchro/n, no/mô| chroiê/; e)te/ê| de\ a)/toma kai\ keno/n. A(/per nomi/zetai me\n ei)=nai kai\ doxa/zetai ta\ ai)sthêta/, ou)k e)/sti de\ kata\ a)lêthei/an tau=ta; a)lla\ ta\ a)/toma mo/non kai\ ke/non.]

Sextus Empiric. adv. Mathemat. vii. 135-139; Diog. Laert. ix. 72. See Mullach, Democriti Fragm. pp. 204-208.

The discourse of Protagoras [Greek: Peri\ tou= o)/ntos], was read by Porphyry, who apparently cited from it a passage verbatim, which citation Eusebius unfortunately has not preserved (Eusebius, Præpar. Evang. x. 3, 17). One of the speakers in Porphyry's dialogue (describing a repast at the house of Longinus at Athens to celebrate Plato's birthday) accused Plato of having copied largely from the arguments of Protagoras--[Greek: pro\s tou\s e(\n to\ o)\n ei)sa/gontas]. Allusion is probably made to the Platonic dialogues Parmenides and Sophistes.]

[Footnote 80: Plato, Gorgias, p. 472.]

[Side-note: Plato's examination of the other doctrine--That knowledge is Sensible Perception. He adverts to sensible facts which are different with different Percipients.]

After thus criticising the formula--Homo Mensura--Plato proceeds to canvass the other doctrine, which he ascribes to Protagoras along with others, and which he puts into the mouth of Theætêtus--"That knowledge is sensible perception". He connects that doctrine with the above-mentioned formula, by illustrations which exhibit great divergence between one percipient Subject and another. He gives us, as examples of sensible perception, the case of the wind, cold to one man, not cold to another: that of the wine, sweet to a man in health, bitter if he be sickly.[81] Perhaps Protagoras may have dwelt upon cases like these, as best calculated to illustrate the relativity of all affirmations: for though the judgments are in reality both equally relative, whether two judges pronounce alike, or whether they pronounce differently, under the same conditions--yet where they judge differently, each stands forth in his own individuality, and the relativity of the judgment is less likely to be disputed.

[Footnote 81: Plato, Theætêt. pp. 152 A, 159 C.]

[Side-note: Such is not the case with all the facts of sense. The conditions of unanimity are best found among select facts of sense--weighing, measuring, &c.]

But though some facts of sense are thus equivocal, generating dissension rather than unanimity among different individuals--such is by no means true of the facts of sense taken generally.[82] On the contrary, it is only these facts--the world of reality, experience, and particulars--which afford a groundwork and assurance of unanimity in human belief, under all varieties of teaching or locality. Counting, measuring, weighing, are facts of sense simple and fundamental, and comparisons of those facts: capable of being so exhibited that no two persons shall either see them differently or mistrust them. Of two persons exposed to the same wind, one may feel cold, and the other not: but both of them will see the barometer or thermometer alike.[83] [Greek: Pa/nta me/trô| kai\ a)rithmô=| kai\ stathmô=|]--would be the perfection of science, if it could be obtained. Plato himself recognises, in more than one place, the irresistible efficacy of weight and measure in producing unanimity; and in forestalling those disputes which are sure to arise where weight and measure cannot be applied.[84] It is therefore among select facts of sense, carefully observed and properly compared, that the groundwork of unanimity is to be sought, so far as any rational and universal groundwork for it is attainable. In other words, it is here that we must seek for the basis of knowledge or cognition.

[Footnote 82: Aristotle (Metaphysic. [Greek: G]. p. 1010, a. 25 seq.) in arguing against Herakleitus and his followers, who dwelt upon [Greek: ta\ ai)sthêta\] as ever fluctuating and undefinable, urges against them that this is not true of _all_ [Greek: ai)sthêta/], but only of those in the sublunary region of the Kosmos. But this region is (he says) only an imperceptibly small part of the entire Kosmos; the objects in the vast superlunary or celestial region of the Kosmos were far more numerous, and were also eternal and unchangeable, in constant and uniform circular rotation. Accordingly, if you predicate one or other about [Greek: ai)sthêta\] generally, you ought to predicate constancy and unchangeability, not flux and variation, since the former predicates are true of much the larger proportion of [Greek: ai)sthêta/]. See the Scholia on the above passage of Aristotle's Metaphysica, and also upon Book A. 991, a. 9.]

[Footnote 83: Mr. Campbell, in his Preface to the Theætêtus (p. lxxxiii.), while comparing the points in the dialogue with modern metaphysical views, observes. "Modern Experimental Science is equally distrustful of individual impressions of sense, but has found means of measuring the motions by which they are caused, through _the effect of the same motions upon other things besides our senses_. When the same wind is blowing one of us feels warm and another cold (Theætêt. p. 152), but the mercury of the thermometer tells the same tale to all. And though the individual consciousness remains the sole judge of the exact impression momentarily received by each person, yet we are certain that the sensation of heat and cold, like the expansion and contraction of the mercury, is in every case dependent on a universal law."

It might seem from Mr. Campbell's language (I do not imagine that he means it so) as if Modern Experimental Science had arrived at something more trustworthy than "individual impressions of sense". But the expansion or contraction of the mercury are just as much facts of sense as the feeling of heat or cold; only they are facts of sense determinate and uniform to all, whereas the feeling of heat or cold is indeterminate and liable to differ with different persons. The certainty about "universal law governing the sensations of heat and cold," was not at all felt in the days of Plato.]

[Footnote 84: Thus in the Philêbus (pp. 55-56) Plato declares that numbering, measuring, and weighing, are the characteristic marks of all the various processes which deserve the name of Arts; and that among the different Arts those of the carpenter, builder, &c., are superior to those of the physician, pilot, husbandman, military commander, musical composer, &c., because the two first-named employ more measurement and a greater number of measuring instruments, the rule, line, plummet, compass, &c.

"When we talk about iron or silver" (says Sokrates in the Platonic Phædrus, p. 263 A-B) "we are all of one mind, but when we talk about the Just and the Good we are all at variance with each other, and each man is at variance with himself". Compare an analogous passage, Alkibiad. I. p. 109.

Here Plato himself recognises the verifications of sense as the main guarantee for accuracy: and the compared facts of sense, when select and simplified, as ensuring the nearest approach to unanimity among believers.]

[Side-note: Arguments of Sokrates in examining this question. Divergence between one man and another arises, not merely from different sensual impressibility, but from mental and associative difference.]

A loose adumbration of this doctrine is here given by Plato as the doctrine of Protagoras, in the words--Knowledge is sensible perception. To sift this doctrine is announced as his main purpose;[85] and we shall see how he performs the task. _Sokr._--Shall we admit, that when we perceive things by sight or hearing, we at the same time _know_ them all? When foreigners talk to us in a strange language, are we to say that we do not hear what they say, or that we both hear and know it? When unlettered men look at an inscription, shall we contend that they do not see the writing, or that they both see and know it? _Theætêt._--We shall say, under these supposed circumstances, that what we see and hear, we also know. We hear and we know the pitch and intonation of the foreigner's voice. The unlettered man sees, and also knows, the colour, size, forms, of the letters. But that which the schoolmaster and the interpreter could tell us respecting their meaning, _that_ we neither see, nor hear, nor know. _Sokr._--Excellent, Theætêtus. I have nothing to say against your answer.[86]

[Footnote 85: Plato, Theætêt. p. 163 A. [Greek: ei)s ga\r tou=to/ pou pa=s o( lo/gos ê(mi=n e)/teine, kai\ tou/tou cha/rin ta\ polla\ kai\ a)/topa tau=ta e)kinê/samen.]]

[Footnote 86: Plato, Theætêt. p. 163 C.]

This is an important question and answer, which Plato unfortunately does not follow up. It brings to view, though without fully unfolding, the distinction between what is really perceived by sense, and what is inferred from such perception: either through resemblance or through conjunctions of past experience treasured up in memory--or both together. Without having regard to such distinction, no one can discuss satisfactorily the question under debate.[87] Plato here abandons, moreover, the subjective variety of impression which he had before noticed as the characteristic of sense:--(the wind which blows cold, and the wine which tastes sweet, to one man, but not to another). Here it is assumed that all men hear the sounds, and see the written letters alike: the divergence between one man and another arises from the different prior condition of percipient minds, differing from each other in associative and reminiscent power.

[Footnote 87: I borrow here a striking passage from Dugald Stewart, which illustrates both the passage in Plato's text, and the general question as to the relativity of Cognition. Here, the fact of relative Cognition is brought out most conspicuously on its intellectual side, not on its perceptive side. The fact of sense is the same to all, and therefore, though really relative, has more the look of an absolute; but the mental associations with that fact are different with different persons, and therefore are more obviously and palpably relative.--Dugald Stewart, First Preliminary Dissertation to Encyclopæd. Britannica, pp. 66, 8th ed.

"To this reference of the sensation of colour to the external object, I can think of nothing so analogous as the feelings we experience in surveying a library of books. We speak of the volumes piled up on its shelves as _treasures_ or _magazines_ of the knowledge of past ages; and contemplate them with gratitude and reverence as inexhaustible _sources_ of instruction and delight to the mind. Even in looking at a page of print or manuscript, we are apt to say that the ideas we acquire are received by the sense of sight; and we are scarcely conscious of a metaphor when we apply this language. On such occasions we seldom recollect that nothing is perceived by the eye but a multitude of _black strokes drawn upon white paper_, and that it is our own acquired habits which communicate to these _strokes_ the whole of that significancy whereby they are distinguished from the unmeaning scrawling of an infant. The knowledge which we conceive to be preserved in books, like the fragrance of a rose, or the gilding of the clouds, depends, for its existence, on the _relation_ between the object and the percipient mind: and the only difference between the two cases is, that, in the one, this relation is the local and temporary effect of conventional habits: in the other, it is the universal and the unchangeable work of nature. . . What has now been remarked with respect to _written characters_, may be extended very nearly to _oral language_. When we listen to the discourse of a public speaker, eloquence and persuasion seem to issue from his lips; and we are little aware that we ourselves infuse the soul into every word that he utters. The case is exactly the same when we enjoy the conversation of a friend. We ascribe the charm entirely to his voice and accents; but without our co-operation, its potency would vanish. How very small the comparative proportion is, which in such cases the words spoken contribute to the intellectual and moral effect, I have elsewhere endeavoured to show."]

[Side-note: Argument--That sensible Perception does not include memory--Probability that those who held the doctrine meant to include memory.]

Sokrates turns to another argument. If knowledge be the same thing as sensible perception, then it follows, that so soon as a man ceases to see and hear, he also ceases to know. The memory of what he has seen or heard, upon that supposition, is not knowledge. But Theætêtus admits that a man who remembers what he has seen or heard does know it. Accordingly, the answer that knowledge is sensible perception, cannot be maintained.[88]

[Footnote 88: Plato, Theætêt. pp. 163, 164.]

Here Sokrates makes out a good case against the answer in its present wording. But we may fairly doubt whether those who affirmed the matter of knowledge to consist in the facts of sense, ever meant to exclude memory. They meant probably the facts of sense both as perceived and as remembered; though the wording cited by Plato does not strictly include so much. Besides, we must recollect, that Plato includes in the meaning of the word Knowledge or Cognition an idea of perfect infallibility: distinguishing it generically from the highest form of opinion. But memory is a fallible process: sometimes quite trustworthy--under other circumstances, not so. Accordingly, memory, in a general sense, cannot be put on a level with present perception, nor said to generate what Plato calls knowledge.

[Side-note: Argument from the analogy of seeing and not seeing at the same time .]

The next argument of Plato is as follows. You can see, and not see, the same thing at the same time: for you may close one of your eyes, and look only with the other. But it is impossible to know a thing, and not to know it at the same time. Therefore _to know_ is not the same as _to see_.[89]

[Footnote 89: Plato, Theætêt. p. 165 B.]

This argument is proclaimed by Plato as a terrible puzzle, leaving no escape.[90] Perhaps he meant to speak ironically. In reality, this puzzle is nothing but a false inference deduced from a false premiss. The inference is false, because if we grant the premiss, that it is possible both to _see_ a thing, and _not to see_ it, at the same time--there is no reason why it should not also be possible to _know_ a thing, and _not to know_ it, at the same time. Moreover, the premiss is also false in the ordinary sense which the words bear: and not merely false, but logically impossible, as a sin against the maxim of contradiction. Plato procures it from a true premiss, by omitting an essential qualification. I see an object with my open eye: I do not see it with my closed eye. From this double proposition, alike intelligible and true, Plato thinks himself authorised to discard the qualification, and to tell me that I see a thing and do not see it--passing _à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter_. This is the same liberty which he took with the Protagorean doctrine. Protagoras having said--"Every thing which any man believes is true _to that man_"--Plato reasons against him as if he had said--"Every thing which any man believes is _true_".

[Footnote 90: Plato, Theætêt. p. 165 B. [Greek: to\ deino/taton e)rô/têma--a)phu/ktô| e)rôtê/mati], &c.

Mr. Campbell observes upon this passage:--"Perhaps there is here a trace of the spirit which was afterwards developed in the sophisms of Eubulidês". Stallbaum, while acknowledging the many subtleties of Sokrates in this dialogue, complains that other commentators make the ridiculous mistake ("errore perquam ridiculo") of accepting all the reasoning of Sokrates as seriously meant, whereas much of it (he says) is mere mockery and sarcasm, intended to retort upon the Sophists their own argumentative tricks and quibbles.--"Itaquè sæpe per petulantiam quandam argutiis indulget (Socrates), quibus isti haudquaquam abstinebant: sæpè ex adversariorum mente disputat, sed ita tamen disputat, ut eos suis ipsorum capiat laqueis; sæpè denique in disputando iisdem artificiis utitur, quibus illi uti consueverant, sicuti etiam in Menone, Cratylo, Euthydemo, fieri meminimus". (Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Theæt. pp. 12-13, 22-29).

Stallbaum pushes this general principle so far as to contend that the simile of the waxen tablet (p. 191 C), and that of the pigeon-house (p. 200 C), are doctrines of opponents, which Sokrates pretends to adopt with a view to hold them up to ridicule.

I do not concur in this opinion of Stallbaum, which he reproduces in commenting on many other dialogues, and especially on the Kratylus, for the purpose of exonerating Plato from the reproach of bad reasoning and bad etymology, at the cost of opponents "inauditi et indefensi". I see no ground for believing that Plato meant to bring forward these arguments as paralogisms obviously and ridiculously silly. He produced them, in my judgment, as suitable items in a dialogue of search: plausible to a certain extent, admitting both of being supported and opposed, and necessary to be presented to those who wish to know a question in all its bearings.]

Again, argues Plato,[91] you cannot say--I _know_ sharply, dimly, near, far, &c.--but you may properly say, I _see_ sharply, dimly, near, far, &c.: another reason to show that knowledge and sensible perception are not the same. After a digression of some length directed against the disciples of Herakleitus--(partly to expose their fundamental doctrine that every thing was in flux and movement, partly to satirise their irrational procedure in evading argumentative debate, and in giving nothing but a tissue of mystical riddles one after another),[92] Sokrates returns back to the same debate, and produces more serious arguments, as follows:--

[Footnote 91: Plato, Theætêt. p. 165 D. The reasonings here given by Plato from the mouth of Sokrates, are compared by Steinhart to the Trug-schlüsse, which in the Euthydêmus he ascribes to that Sophist and Dionysodorus. But Steinhart says that Plato is here reasoning in the style of Protagoras: an assertion thoroughly gratuitous, for which there is no evidence at all (Steinhart, Einleitung zum Theætêt. p. 53).]

[Footnote 92: Plato, Theætêt. pp. 179-183. The description which we read here (put into the mouth of the geometer Theodôrus) of the persons in Ephesus and other parts of Ionia, who speculated in the vein of Herakleitus--is full of vivid fancy and smartness, but is for that reason the less to be trusted as accurate.

The characteristic features ascribed to these Herakleiteans are quite unlike to the features of Protagoras, so far as we know them; though Protagoras, nevertheless, throughout this dialogue, is spoken of as if he were an Herakleitean. These men are here depicted as half mad--incapable of continuous attention--hating all systematic speech and debate--answering, when addressed, only in brief, symbolical, enigmatic phrases, of which they had a quiver-full, but which they never condescended to explain ([Greek: ô(/sper e)k phare/tras r(êmati/skia ai)nigmatô/dê a)naspô=ntes a)potoxeu/ousin], see Lassalle, vol. i. pp. 32-39--springing up by spontaneous inspiration, despising instruction, p. 180 A), and each looking down upon the others as ignorant. If** we compare the picture thus given by Plato of the Herakleiteans, with the picture which he gives of Protagoras in the dialogue so called, we shall see that the two are as unlike as possible.

Lassalle, in his elaborate work on the philosophy of Herakleitus, attempts to establish the philosophical affinity between Herakleitus and Protagoras: but in my judgment unsuccessfully. According to Lassalle's own representation of the doctrine of Herakleitus, it is altogether opposed to the most eminent Protagorean doctrine, [Greek: A)/nthrôpos e(autô=| me/tron]--and equally opposed to that which Plato seems to imply as Protagorean--[Greek: Ai)/sthêsis = E)pistê/mê]. The elucidation given by Lassalle of Herakleitus, through the analogy of Hegel, is certainly curious and instructive. The Absolute Process of Herakleitus is at variance with Protagoras, not less than the Absolute Object or Substratum of the Eleates, or the Absolute Ideas of Plato. Lassalle admits that Herakleitus is the entire antithesis to Protagoras, yet still contends that he is the prior stage of transition towards Protagoras (vol. i. p. 64).]

[Side-note: Sokrates maintains that we do not see _with_ our eyes, but that the mind sees _through_ the eyes: that the mind often conceives and judges by itself without the aid of any bodily organ.]

_Sokr._--If you are asked, With what does a man perceive white and black? you will answer, with his eyes: shrill or grave sounds? with his ears. Does it not seem to you more correct to say, that we see _through_ our eyes rather than _with_ our eyes:--that we hear _through_ our ears, not _with_ our ears. _Theætêt._--I think it is more correct. _Sokr._--It would be strange if there were in each man many separate reservoirs, each for a distinct class of perceptions.[93] All perceptions must surely converge towards one common form or centre, call it soul or by any other name, which perceives _through_ them, as organs or instruments, all perceptible objects.--

[Footnote 93: Plato, Theætêt. p. 184 D. [Greek: deino\n ga/r pou, ei) pollai/ tines e)n ê(mi=n, ô(/sper e)n dourei/ois i(/ppois, ai)sthê/sis e)gkathêntai, a)lla\ mê\ ei)s mi/an tina\ i)de/an, ei)/te psuchê\n ei)/te o(/, ti dei= kalei=n, pa/nta tau=ta xuntei/nei, ê(=| dia\ tou/tôn oi(=on o)rga/nôn ai)sthano/metha o(/sa ai)sthêta/.]]

We thus perceive objects of sense, according to Plato's language, _with_ the central form or soul, and _through_ various organs of the body. The various Percepta or Percipienda of tact, vision, hearing--sweet, hot, hard, light--have each its special bodily organ. But no one of these can be perceived through the organ affected to any other. Whatever therefore we conceive or judge respecting any two of them, is not performed through the organ special to either. If we conceive any thing common both to sound and colour, we cannot conceive it either through the auditory or through the visual organ.[94]

[Footnote 94: Plato, Theætêt. p. 184-185.]

Now there are certain judgments (Sokrates argues) which we make common to both, and not exclusively belonging to either. First, we judge that they are two: that each is one, different from the other, and the same with itself: that each _is_ something, or has existence, and that one _is not_ the other. Here are predicates--existence, non-existence, likeness, unlikeness, unity, plurality, sameness, difference, &c., which we affirm, or deny, not respecting either of these sensations exclusively, but respecting all of them. Through what bodily organ do we derive these judgments respecting what is common to all? There is no special organ: the mind perceives, through itself these common properties.[95]

[Footnote 95: Plato, Theætêt. p. 185 D. [Greek: dokei= tê\n a)rchê\n ou)d' ei)=nai toiou=ton ou)de\n tou/tois o)/rganon i)/dion, ô(/sper e)kei/nois, a)ll' au)tê\ di' au(tê=s ê( psuchê\ ta\ koina/ moi phai/netai peri\ pa/ntôn e)piskopei=n.]]

[Side-note: Indication of several judgments which the mind makes by itself--It perceives Existence, Difference, &c.]

Some matters therefore there are, which the soul or mind apprehends through itself--others, which it perceives through the bodily organs. To the latter class belong the sensible qualities, hardness, softness, heat, sweetness, &c., which it perceives through the bodily organs; and which animals, as well as men, are by nature competent to perceive immediately at birth. To the former class belong existence (substance, essence), sameness, difference, likeness, unlikeness, honourable, base, good, evil, &c., which the mind apprehends through itself alone. But the mind is not competent to apprehend this latter class, as it perceives the former, immediately at birth. Nor does such competence belong to all men and animals; but only to a select fraction of men, who acquire it with difficulty and after a long time through laborious education. The mind arrives at these purely mental apprehensions, only by going over, and comparing with each other, the simple impressions of sense; by looking at their relations with each other; and by computing the future from the present and past.[96] Such comparisons and computations are a difficult and gradual attainment; accomplished only by a few, and out of the reach of most men. But without them, no one can apprehend real existence (essence, or substance), or arrive at truth: and without truth, there can be no knowledge.

[Footnote 96: Plato, Theætêt. p. 186 B. [Greek: Tê\n de/ ge ou)si/an kai\ o(/ ti e)/ston kai\ tê\n e)nantio/têta pro\s a)llê/lô] (of hardness and softness) [Greek: kai\ tê\n ou)si/an au)= tê=s e)nantio/têtos, au)tê\ ê( psuchê\ _e)paniou=sa kai\ xumba/llousa pro\s a)/llêla kri/nein peira=tai ê(mi=n_ . . . Ou)kou=n ta\ me\n eu)thu\s genome/nois pa/resti phu/sei ai)stha/nesthai a)nthrô/pois te kai\ thêri/ois, o(/sa dia\ tou= sô/matos pathê/mata e)pi\ tê\n psuchê\n tei/nei; _ ta\ de\ peri\ tou/tôn a)nalogi/smata_, pro/s te ou)si/an kai\ ô)phelei/an _mo/gis_ kai\ e)n pollô=| chro/nô| dia\ pollô=n _pragma/tôn kai\ paidei/as paragi/gnetai, oi(=s a)\n kai\ paragi/gnêtai.]]

[Side-note: Sokrates maintains that knowledge is to be found, not in the Sensible Perceptions themselves, but in the comparisons add computations of the mind respecting them.]

The result therefore is (concludes Sokrates), _That knowledge is not sensible perception_: that it is not to be found in the perceptions of sense themselves, which do not apprehend real essence, and therefore not truth--but in the comparisons and computations respecting them, and in the relations between them, made and apprehended by the mind itself.[97] Plato declares good and evil, honourable and base, &c., to be among matters most especially relative, perceived by the mind computing past and present in reference to future.[98]

[Footnote 97: Plato, Theætêt. p. 186 D.** [Greek: e)n me\n a)/ra toi=s pathê/masin ou)k e)/ni e)pistê/mê, _e)n de\ tô=| peri\ e)kei/nôn sullogismô=|_; ou)si/as ga\r kai\ a)lêthei/as e)ntau=tha me/n, ô(s e)/oike, dunato\n a(/psasthai, e)kei= de\ a)du/naton.] The term [Greek: sullogismo\s] is here interesting, before it had received that technical sense which it has borne from Aristotle downwards. Mr. Campbell explains it properly as "nearly equivalent to abstraction and generalisation" (Preface to Theætêtus, p. lxxiv., also note, p. 144).]

[Footnote 98: Plato, Theætêt. p. 186 A. [Greek: kalo\n kai\ ai)schro/n, kai\ a)gatho\n kai\ kako/n. Kai\ tou/tôn moi dokei= _e)n toi=s ma/lista pro\s a)/llêla skopei=sthai tê\n ou)si/an, a)nalogizome/nê_ (ê( psuchê\) _e)n e(autê=| ta\ gegono/ta kai\ ta\ paro/nta pro\s ta\ me/llonta_.]

Base and honourable, evil and good, are here pointed out by Sokrates as most evidently and emphatically _relative_. In the train of reasoning here terminated, Plato had been combating the doctrine [Greek: Ai)/sthêsis = E)pistê/mê]. In his sense of the word [Greek: ai)/sthêsis] he has refuted the doctrine. But what about the other doctrine, which he declares to be a part of the same programme--_Homo Mensura_--the Protagorean formula? That formula, so far from being refuted, is actually sustained and established by this train of reasoning. Plato has declared [Greek: ou)si/a, a)lêthei/a, e)nantio/tês, a)gatho/n, kako/n], &c., to be a distinct class of Objects not perceived by Sense. But he also tells us that they are apprehended by the Mind through its own working, and that they are apprehended always in relation to each other. We thus see that they are just as much relative to the concipient mind, as the Objects of sense are to the percipient and sentient mind. The Subject is the correlative limit or measure (to use Protagorean phrases) of one as well as of the other. This confirms what I observed above, that the two doctrines, 1. Homo Mensura, 2. [Greek: Ai)/sthêsis = E)pistê/mê],--are completely distinct and independent, though Plato has chosen to implicate or identify them.]

[Side-note: Examination of this view--Distinction from the views of modern philosophers.]