Chapter XXXII: Philebus (3)

That the antithesis here enunciated by Plato is not legitimate or logical, we may see on other grounds also. Pleasure and Intelligence cannot be placed in competition with each other for recognition as Summum Bonum: which, as described by Plato himself, is of the nature of an End, while Intelligence is of the nature of a means or agency--indispensable indeed, yet of no value unless it be exercised, and rightly exercised towards its appropriate end, which end must be separately declared.[112] Intelligence is a durable acquisition stored up, like the good health, moral character, or established habits, of each individual person: it is a capital engaged in the production of interest, and its value is measured by the interest produced. You cannot with propriety put the means--the Capital--in one scale, and the End--the Interest--in the other, so as to ascertain which of the two weighs most. A prudent man will refrain from any present enjoyment which trenches on his capital: but this is because the maintenance of the capital is essential to all future acquisitions and even future maintenance. So too, Intelligence is essential as a means or condition to the attainment of pleasure in its largest sense--that is, including avoidance or alleviation of pain or suffering: if therefore you choose to understand pleasure in a narrower sense, not including therein avoidance of pain (as Plato understands it in this portion of the Philêbus), the comprehensive end to which Intelligence corresponds may be compared with Pleasure and declared more valuable--but Intelligence itself cannot with propriety be so compared. Such a comparison can only be properly instituted when you consider the exercise of Intelligence as involving (which it undoubtedly does[113]) pleasures of its own; which pleasures form part of the End, and may fairly be measured against other pleasures and pains. But nothing can be properly compared with Pleasure, except some other supposed End: and those theorists who reject Pleasure must specify some other _Terminus ad quem_--otherwise intelligence has no clear meaning.

[Footnote 112: Compare Plato, Republic, vi. p. 505 D (referred to in a previous note); also Aristotel. Ethic. Nikom. i. 3, 1095, b. 30; i. 8, 1099, a. 1.

Respecting the value of Intelligence or Cognition, when the end towards which it is to be exercised is undetermined, see the dialogue between Sokrates and Kleinias--Plato, Euthydêm. pp. 289-292 B-E.

Aristotle, in the Nikomach. Ethic. (i. 4, 1096, b. 10), makes a distinction between--1. [Greek: ta\ kath' au(ta\ diôko/mena kai\ a)gapô/mena]--2. [Greek: ta\ poiêtika\ tou/tôn ê)\ phulaktika\ ê)\ tô=n e)nanti/ôn kôlutika/]: and Plato himself makes the same distinction at the beginning of the second book of the Republic. But though it is convenient to draw attention to this distinction, for the clear understanding of the subject, you cannot ask with propriety which of the two lots is most valuable. The value of the two is equal: the one cannot be had without the other.]

[Footnote 113: Plato, Philêb. p. 12 D.]

[Side-note: The Hedonists, while they laid down attainment of pleasure and diminution of pain, postulated Intelligence as the governing agency.]

Now the Hedonists in Plato's age, when they declared Pleasure to be the supreme Good, understood Pleasure in its widest sense, as including not merely all varieties of pleasure, mental and bodily alike, but also avoidance of pain (in fact Epikurus dwelt especially upon this last point). Moreover, they did not intend to depreciate Intelligence, but on the contrary postulated it as a governing agency, indispensable to right choice and comparative estimation between different pleasures and pains. That Eudoxus,[114] the geometer and astronomer, did this, we may be sure: but besides, this is the way in which the Hedonistic doctrine is expounded by Plato himself. In his Protagoras, Sokrates advocates that doctrine, against the Sophist who is unwilling to admit it. In the exposition there given by Sokrates, Pleasure is announced as The Good to be sought, Pain as The Evil to be avoided or reduced to a minimum. But precisely because the End, to be pursued through constant diversity of complicated situations, is thus defined--for that very reason he declares that the dominant or sovereign element in man must be, the measuring and calculating Intelligence; since such is the sole condition under which the End can be attained or approached. In the theory of the Hedonists, there was no antithesis, but indispensable conjunction and implication, between Pleasure and Intelligence.[115] And if it be said, that by declaring Pleasure (and avoidance of Pain) to be the End, Intelligence the means,--they lowered the dignity of the latter as compared with the former:--we may reply that the dignity of Intelligence is exalted to the maximum when it is enthroned as the ruling and controuling agent over the human mind.

[Footnote 114: Eudoxus is cited by Aristotle (Ethic. Nikom. x. 2) as the great champion of the Hedonistic theory. He is characterised by Aristotle as [Greek: diaphero/ntôs sô/phrôn].]

[Footnote 115: The implication of the intelligent and emotional is well stated by Aristotle (Eth. Nikom. x. 8, 1178, a. 16). [Greek: sune/zeuktai de\ kai\ ê( phro/nêsis tê=| tou= ê)/thous a)retê=|, kai\ au)/tê tê=| phronê/sei, ei)/per ai( me\n tê=s phronê/seôs a)rchai\ kata\ ta\s ê)thika/s ei)sin a)reta/s, to\ d' o)rtho\n tô=n ê=thikô=n kata\ tê\n phro/nêsin. sunêrtême/nai d' au)=tai kai\ toi=s pa/thesi peri\ to\ su/ntheton a)\n ei)=en; ai( de\ tou= sunthe/tou a)retai\ a)nthrôpikai/. kai\ o( bi/os dê\ o( kat' au)ta\s kai\ ê( eu)daimoni/a. ê( de\ tou= nou= kechôrisme/nê], &c. Compare also the first two or three sentences of the tenth Book of Eth. Nik.]

[Side-note: Pleasures of Intelligence may be compared, and are compared by Plato, with other pleasures, and declared to be of more value. This is arguing upon the Hedonistic basis.]

In a scheme of mental philosophy, Emotion and Intellect are properly treated as distinct phenomena requiring to be explained separately, though perpetually co-existent and interfering with each other. But in an ethical discourse about Summum Bonum, the antithesis between Pleasure and Intelligence, on which the Philêbus turns, is from the outset illogical. What gives to it an apparent plausibility, is, That the exercise of Intelligence has pleasures and pains of its own, and includes therefore in itself a part of the End, besides being the constant and indispensable directing force or Means. Now, though pleasure _in genere_ cannot be weighed in the scale against Intelligence, yet the pleasures and pains of Intelligence may be fairly and instructively compared with other pleasures and pains. You may contend that the pleasures of Intelligence are superior in quality, as well as less alloyed by accompanying pains. This comparison is really instituted by Plato in other dialogues;[116] and we find the two questions apparently running together in his mind as if they were one and the same. Yet the fact is, that those who affirm the pleasures attending the exercise of Intelligence to be better and greater, and the pains less, than those which attend other occupations, are really arguing upon the Hedonistic basis.[117] Far from establishing any antithesis between Pleasure and Intelligence, they bring the two into closer conjunction than was done by Epikurus himself.

[Footnote 116: See Republic, ix. pp. 581-582, where he compares the pleasures of the three different lives. 1. [Greek: O( philo/sophos] or [Greek: philomathê/s]. 2. [Greek: O( philu/timos]. 3. [Greek: O( philokerdê/s].

Again in the Phædon, he tells us that we are not to weigh pleasures against pleasures, or pains against pains, but all of them against [Greek: phro/nêsis] or Intelligence (p. 69 A-B). This appears distinctly to contradict what Sokrates affirms in the Protagoras. But when we turn to another passage of the Phædon (p. 114 E), we find Sokrates recognising a class of pleasures attached to the exercise of Intelligence, and declaring them to be more valuable than the pleasures of sense, or any others. This is a very different proposition: but in both passages Plato had probably the same comparison in his mind.

Sydenham, in a note to his translation of the Philêbus (pp. 42-43), observes--"if Protarchus, when he took on himself to be an advocate for pleasure, had included, in his meaning of the word, all such pleasures as are purely mental, his opinion, fairly and rightly understood, could not have been different in the main, from what Sokrates here professes--That in every particular case, to discern what is best in action, and to perceive what is true in speculation, is the chief good of man; unless, indeed, it should afterwards come into question which of the two kinds of pleasure, the sensual or the mental, was to be preferred. For if it should appear that in this point they were both of the same mind, the controversy between them would be found a mere logomachy, or contention about words (as between Epicureans and Stoics), of the same kind as that would be between two persons, one of whom asserted that to a musical ear the proper and true good was Harmony, while the other contended that the good lay not in the Harmony itself, but in the pleasure which the musical ear felt from hearing it: or like a controversy among three persons, one of whom having asserted that to all animals living under the northern frigid zone, the Sun in Cancer was the greatest blessing; and another having asserted that not the Sun was that chief blessing to those northern animals, but the warmth which he afforded them; the third should imagine that he corrected or amended the two former by saying--That those animals were thus highly blest neither by the Sun, nor by the warmth which his rays afforded them, but by the joy or pleasure which they felt from the return of the Sun and warmth."]

[Footnote 117: Plato, in Philêbus, p. 63 C-D, denounces and discards the vehement pleasures because they disturb the right exercise of Reason and Intelligence. Aristotle, after alluding to this doctrine, presents the same fact under a different point of view, as one case of a general law. Each variety of pleasure belongs to, and is consequent on, a certain [Greek: e)ne/rgeia] of the system. Each variety of pleasure promotes and consummates its own [Greek: e)ne/rgeia], but impedes or arrests other different [Greek: e)nergei/as]. Thus the pleasures of hunting, of gymnastic contest, of hearing or playing music--cause each of these [Greek: e)nergei=ai], upon which each pleasure respectively depends, to be more completely developed; but are unfavourable to different [Greek: e)nergei=ai], such as learning by heart, or solving a geometrical problem. The pleasure belonging to these latter, again, is unfavourable to the performance of the former [Greek: e)nergei=ai]. Study often hurts health or good management of property; but if a man has pleasure in study, he will perform that work with better fruit and result.

This is a juster view of [Greek: ê(donê\] than what we read in the Philêbus. The illogical antithesis of Pleasure _in genere_, against Intelligence, finds no countenance from Aristotle.

See Ethic. Nikom. vii. 13, 1153, a. 20; x. 5, p. 1175; also Ethic. Magna, ii. p. 1206, a. 3.]

[Side-note: Marked antithesis in the Philêbus between pleasure and avoidance of pain.]

Another remark may be made on the way in which Plato argues the question in the Philêbus against the Hedonists. He draws a marked line of separation between Pleasure--and avoidance, relief, or mitigation, of Pain. He does not merely distinguish the two, but sets them in opposing antithesis. Wherever there is pain to be relieved, he will not allow the title of _pleasurable_ to be bestowed on the situation. That is not _true_ pleasure: in other words, it is no pleasure at all. He does not go quite so far as some contemporary theorists, the Fastidious Pleasure-Haters, who repudiated all pleasures without exception.[118] He allows a few rare exceptions; the sensual pleasures of sight, hearing, and smell--and the pleasures of exercising Intelligence, which (these latter most erroneously) he affirms to be not disentitled by any accompanying pains. His catalogue of pleasures is thus reduced to a chosen few, and these too enjoyable only by a chosen few among mankind.

[Footnote 118: Plato, Philêbus, p. 44 B.]

[Side-note: The Hedonists did not recognise this distinction--They included both in their acknowledged End.]

Now this very restricted sense of the word Pleasure is peculiar to Plato, and peculiar even to some of the Platonic dialogues. Those who affirmed Pleasure to be the Good, did not understand the word in the same restricted sense. When Sokrates in the Protagoras affirms, and when Sokrates in the Philêbus denies, that Pleasure is identical with Good,--the affirmation and the denial do not bear upon the same substantial meaning.[119]

[Footnote 119: Among the arguments employed by Sokrates in the Philêbus to disprove the identity between [Greek: ê(donê\] and [Greek: a)gatho/n], one is, that [Greek: ê(donê\] is a [Greek: ge/nesis], and is therefore essentially a process of imperfection or transition into some ulterior [Greek: ou)si/a], for the sake of which alone it existed (Philêbus, pp. 53-55); whereas Good is essentially an [Greek: ou)si/a]--perfect, complete, all-sufficient--and must not be confounded with the process whereby it is brought about. He illustrates this by telling us that the species of [Greek: ge/nesis] called ship-building exists only for the sake of the ship--the [Greek: ou)si/a] in which it terminates; but that the fabricating process, and the result in which it ends, are not to be confounded together.

The doctrine that pleasure is a [Greek: ge/nesis], Plato cites as laid down by others: certain [Greek: kompsoi/], whom he does not name, but whom the critics suppose to be Aristippus and the Kyrenaici. Aristotle (in the seventh and tenth books of Ethic. Nik.) also criticises and impugns the doctrine that pleasure is a [Greek: ge/nesis]: but he too omits to name the persons by whom it was propounded.

Possibly Aristippus may have been the author of it: but we can hardly tell what he meant, or how he defended it. Plato derides him for his inconsistency in calling pleasure a [Greek: ge/nesis], while he at the same time maintained it to be the Good: but the derision is founded upon an assumption which Aristippus would have denied. Aristippus would not have admitted that all [Greek: ge/nesis] existed only for the sake of [Greek: ou)si/a]: and he would have replied to Plato's argument, illustrated by the example of ship-building, by saying that the [Greek: ou)si/a] called a _ship_ existed only for the sake of the services which it was destined to render in transporting persons and goods: that if [Greek: ge/nesis] existed for the sake of [Greek: ou)si/a], it was no less true that [Greek: ou)si/a] existed for the sake of [Greek: ge/nesis]. Plato therefore had no good foundation for the sarcasm which he throws out against Aristippus.

The reasoning of Aristotle (E. N. x. 3-4; compare Eth. Magn. ii. 1204-1205) against the doctrine, that pleasure is [Greek: ge/nesis] or [Greek: ki/nêsis], is drawn from a different point of view, and is quite as unfavourable to the opinions of Plato as to those of Aristippus. His language however in the Rhetoric is somewhat different (i. p. 1370, b. 33).

Aristippus is said to have defined pleasure as [Greek: lei/a ki/nêsis], and pain as [Greek: trachei=a ki/nêsis] (Diog. L. ii. 86-89). The word [Greek: ki/nêsis] is so vague, that one can hardly say what it means, without some words of context: but I doubt whether he meant anything more than "_a marked change of consciousness_". The word [Greek: ge/nesis] is also very obscure: and we are not sure that Aristippus employed it.]

[Side-note: Arguments of Plato against the intense pleasures--The Hedonists enforced the same reasonable view.]

Again, in the arguments of Sokrates against pleasure _in genere_, we find him also singling out as examples the intense pleasures, which he takes much pains to discredit. The remarks which he makes here upon the intense pleasures, considered as elements of happiness, have much truth taken generally. Though he exaggerates the matter when he says that many persons would rejoice to have itch and irritation, in order that they might have the pleasure of scratching[120]--and that persons in a fever have greater pleasure as well as greater pain than persons in health--yet he is correct to this extent, that the disposition to hanker after intense pleasures, to forget their painful sequel in many cases, and to pay for them a greater price than they are worth, is widely disseminated among mankind. But this is no valid objection against the Hedonistic theory, as it was enunciated and defended by its principal advocates--by the Platonic Sokrates (in the Protagoras), by Aristippus, Eudoxus,[121] Epikurus. All of them took account of this frequent wrong tendency, and arranged their warnings accordingly. All of them discouraged, not less than Plato, such intense enjoyments as produced greater mischief in the way of future pain and disappointment, or as obstructed the exercise of calm reason.[122] All of them, when they talked of pleasure as the Supreme Good, understood thereby a rational estimate and comparison of pleasures and pains, present and future, so as to ensure the maximum of the former and the minimum of the latter. All of them postulated a calculating and governing Reason. Epikurus undoubtedly, and I believe the other two also, recommended a life of moderation, tranquillity, and meditative reason: they deprecated the violent emotions, whether sensual, ambitious, or money-getting.[123] The objections therefore here stated by Sokrates, in so far as they are derived from the mischievous consequences of indulgence in the intense pleasures, do not avail against the Hedonistic theory, as explained either by Plato himself (Protagoras) or by any theorists of the Platonic century.

[Footnote 120: Plato, Philêbus, p. 47 B.]

[Footnote 121: I have already remarked that Eudoxus is characterised by Aristotle as being [Greek: diaphero/ntôs sô/phrôn] (Ethic. Nikom. x. 2). The strong interest which he felt in scientific pursuits is marked by a story in Plutarch (Non Posse Suaviter Vivi; see Epicur. p. 1094 A).]

[Footnote 122: The equivocal sense of the word Pleasure is the same as that which Plato notes in the Symposion to attach to Eros or Love (p. 205). When employed in philosophical discussion, it sometimes _is_ used (and always _ought_ to be used) in its full extent of generic comprehension: sometimes in a narrower sense, so as to include only a few of the more intense pleasures, chiefly the physical, and especially the sexual; sometimes in a sense still more peculiar, partly as opposed to _duty_, partly as opposed to _business_, _work_, _utility_, &c. Opponents of the Hedonists took advantage of the unfavourable associations attached to the word in these narrower and special senses, to make objections tell against the theory which employed the word in its widest generic sense.]

[Footnote 123: See the beautiful lines of Lucretius, Book ii. init. When we read the three acrimonious treatises in which Plutarch attacks the Epikureans (Non Posse Suaviter Vivi, adv. Koloten, De Latenter Vivendo), we find him complaining, not that Epikurus thought too much about pleasures, or that he thought too much about the intense pleasures, but quite the reverse. Epikurus (he says) made out too poor a catalogue of pleasures: he was too easily satisfied with a small amount and variety of pleasures: he dwelt too much upon the absence of pain, as being, when combined with a very little pleasure, as much as man ought to look for: he renounced all the most vehement and delicious pleasures, those of political activity and contemplative study, which constitute the great charms of life (1097 F-1098 E-1092 E-1093-1094). Plutarch attacks Epikurus upon grounds really Hedonistic.]

[Side-note: Different points of view worked out by Plato in different dialogues--Gorgias, Protagoras, Philêbus--True and False Pleasures.]

We find Plato in his various dialogues working out different points of view, partly harmonious, partly conflicting, upon ethical theory. Thus in the Gorgias, Sokrates insists eloquently upon the antithesis between the Immediate and Transient on the one hand, which he calls Pleasure or Pain--and the Distant and Permanent on the other, which he calls Good or Profit, Hurt or Evil. In the Protagoras, Sokrates acknowledges the same antithesis: but he points out that the Good or Profit, Hurt or Evil, resolve themselves into elements generically the same as those of the Immediate and Transient--Pleasure and Pain: so that all which we require is, a calculating Intelligence to assess and balance correctly the pleasures and pains in every given case. In the Philêbus, Sokrates takes a third line, distinct from both the other two dialogues: he insists upon a new antithesis, between True Pleasures--and False Pleasures. If a Pleasure be associated with any proportion, however small, of Pain or Uneasiness--or with any false belief or impression--he denounces it as false and impostrous, and strikes it out of the list of pleasures. The small residue which is left after such deduction, consists of pleasures recommended altogether by what Plato calls their truth, and addressing themselves to the love of truth in a few chosen minds. The attainment of Good--the object of the practical aspirations--is presented as a secondary appendage of the attainment of Truth--the object of the speculative or intellectual energies.

[Side-note: Opposition between the Gorgias and Philêbus, about Gorgias and Rhetoric.]

How much the Philêbus differs in its point of view from the Gorgias,[124] is indicated by Plato himself in a remarkable passage. "I have often heard Gorgias affirm" (says Protarchus) "that among all arts, the art of persuasion stands greatly pre-eminent: since, it ensures subservience from all, not by force, but with their own free consent." To which Sokrates replies--"I was not then enquiring what art or science stands pre-eminent as the greatest, or as the best, or as conferring most benefit upon us--but what art or science investigates clear, exact, and full truth, though it be in itself small, and may afford small benefit. You need not quarrel with Gorgias, for you may admit to him the superiority of his art in respect of usefulness to mankind, while my art (dialectic philosophy) is superior in respect of accuracy. I observed just now, that a small piece of white colour which is pure, surpasses in truth a large area which is not pure. We must not look to the comparative profitable consequences or good repute of the various sciences or arts, but to any natural aspiration which may exist in our minds to love truth, and to do every thing for the sake of truth. It will then appear that no other science or art strives after truth so earnestly as Dialectic."[125]

[Footnote 124: Sokrates in the Gorgias insists upon the constant intermixture of pleasure with pain, as an argument to prove that pleasure cannot be identical with good: pleasure and pain (he says) go together but good and evil cannot go together: therefore pleasure cannot be good, pain cannot be evil (Gorgias, pp. 496-497). But he distinguishes pleasures into the good and the bad; not into the true and the false, as they are distinguished in the Philêbus and the Republic (ix. pp. 583-585).]

[Footnote 125: Plato, Philêbus, p. 58 B-D-E. [Greek: Ou) tou=to e(/gôge e)zê/toun pô, ti/s te/chnê ê)\ ti/s e)pistê/mê pasô=n diaphe/rei tô=| megi/stê kai\ a)ri/stê kai\ plei=sta ô)phelou=sa ê(ma=s, a)lla\ ti/s pote to\ saphe\s kai\ ta)kribe\s kai\ to\ a)lêthe/staton e)piskopei=, ka)\n ei) smikra\ kai\ smikra\ o)ni/nasa . . . A)ll' o(/ra; ou)de\ ga\r a)pechthê/sei Gorgi/a|, tê=| me\n e)kei/nou u(pere/chein te/chnê| didou\s pro\s chrei/an toi=s a)nthrô/pois, pro\s a)kribei/an de\ ê)=| ei)=pon e)gô\ nu=n pragmatei/a| . . . mê/t' ei)/s tinas ô)phelei/as e)pistêmô=n ble/psantes mê/te tina\s eu)dokimi/as, a)ll' ei)/ tis pe/phuke tê=s psuchê=s ê(mô=n du/namis e)ra=|n te tou= a)lêthou=s kai\ pa/nta e(/neka tou/tou pra/ttein.]

Here, as elsewhere, I translate the substance of the passage, adopting the amendments of Dr. Badham and Mr. Poste (see Mr. Poste's note), which appear to me valuable improvements of a confused text.

It seems probable enough that what is here said, conceding so large a measure of credit to Gorgias and his art, may be intended expressly as a mitigation of the bitter polemic assigned to Sokrates in the Gorgias. This is, however, altogether conjecture.]

If we turn to the Gorgias, we find the very same claim advanced by Gorgias on behalf of his own art, as that which Protarchus here advances: but while Sokrates here admits it, in the Gorgias he repudiates it with emphasis, and even with contumely: ranking rhetoric among those employments which minister only to present pleasure, but which are neither intended to yield, nor ever do yield, any profitable result. Here in the Philêbus, the antithesis between immediate pleasure and distant profit is scarcely noticed. Sokrates resigns to Gorgias and to others of the like stamp, a superiority not merely in the art of flattering and tricking the immediate sensibilities of mankind, but in that of contributing to their permanent profit and advantage. It is in a spirit contrary to the Gorgias, and contrary also to the Republic (in which latter we read the memorable declaration--That the miseries of society will have no respite until government is in the hands of philosophers[126]), that Sokrates here abnegates on behalf of philosophy all efficacious pretension of conferring profit or happiness on mankind generally, and claims for it only the pure delight of satisfying the truth-seeking aspirations. Now these aspirations have little force except in a few chosen minds; in the bulk of mankind the love of truth is feeble, and the active search for truth almost unknown. We thus see that in the Philêbus it is the speculative few who are present to the imagination of Plato, more than the ordinary working, suffering, enjoying Many.

[Footnote 126: Plato, Republ. v. 473 D.]

[Side-note: Peculiarity of the Philêbus--Plato applies the same principle of classification--true and false--to Cognitions and Pleasures.]

Aristotle, in the commencement of his Metaphysica, recommends Metaphysics or First Philosophy to the reader, by affirming that, though other studies are more useful or more necessary to man, none is equal to it in respect of truth and exactness,[127] because it teaches us to understand First Causes and Principles. The like pretension is put forward by Plato in the Philêbus[128] on behalf of dialectic; which he designates as the science of all real, permanent, unchangeable, Entia. Taking Dialectic as the maximum or Verissimum, Plato classifies other sciences or cognitions according as they approach closer to it in truth or exactness--according as they contain more of precise measurement and less of conjecture. Sciences or cognitions are thus classified according as they are more or less true and pure. But because this principle of classification is fairly applicable to cognitions, Plato conceives that it may be made applicable to Pleasures also. One characteristic feature of the Philêbus is the attempt to apply the predicates, _true_ or _false_, to pleasures and pains, as they are applicable to cognitions or opinions: an attempt against which Protarchus is made to protest, and which Sokrates altogether fails in justifying,[129] though he employs a train of argument both long and diversified.

[Footnote 127: Aristotel. Metaphys. A. p. 983, a. 25, b. 10.]

[Footnote 128: Plato, Philêb. pp. 57-58. Compare Republic, vii. pp. 531-532.]

[Footnote 129: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 36 C. 38 A.

The various arguments, intended to prove this conclusion, are continued from p. 36 to p. 51. The same doctrine is advocated by Sokrates in the Republic, ix. pp. 583-584.

The doctrine is briefly stated by the Platonist Nemesius, De Natur. Hominis, p. 223. [Greek: kai\ ga\r kata\ Pla/tôna tô=n ê(donô=n ai( me/n ei)si pseudei=s, ai( de\ a)lêthei=s. Pseudei=s me/n, o(/sai met' ai)sthê/seôs gi/gnontai kai\ do/xês ou)k a)lêthou=s, kai\ lu/pas e)/chousi sumpeplegme/nas; a)lêthei=s de/, o(/sai tê=s psuchê=s ei)si mo/nês au)tê=s kath' e(autê\n met' e)pistê/mês kai\ nou= kai\ phronê/seôs, katharai\ kai\ a)nepi/miktoi lu/pês, ai)=s ou)demi/a meta/noia parakolouthei= pote/.]

A brief but clear abstract of the argument will be found in Dr. Badham's Preface to the Philêbus (pp. viii.-xi.). Compare also Stallbaum's Prolegg. ch. v. p. 50, seq.]

[Side-note: Distinction of true and false--not applicable to pleasures.]

In this train of argument we find a good deal of just and instructive psychological remark: but nothing at all which proves the conclusion that there are or can be _false pleasures_ or _false pains_. We have (as Sokrates shows) false remembrances of past pleasures and pains--false expectations, hopes, and fears of future: we have pleasures alloyed by accompanying pains, and pains qualified by accompanying pleasures: we have pleasures and pains dependent upon false beliefs: but false pleasures we neither have nor can have. The predicate is altogether inapplicable to the subject. It is applicable to the intellectual side of our nature, not to the emotional. A pleasure (or a pain) is what it seems, neither more nor less; its essence consists in being felt.[130] There are false beliefs, disbeliefs, judgments, opinions--but not false pleasures or pains. The pleasure of the dreamer or madman is not false, though it may be founded on illusory belief: the joy of a man informed that he has just been appointed to a lucrative and honourable post, the grief of a father on hearing that his son has been killed in battle, are neither of them false, though the news which both persons are made to believe may be totally false, and though the feelings will thus be of short duration. Plato observes that the state which he calls neutrality or indifference appears pleasurable when it follows pain, and painful when it results from an interruption of pleasure: here is a state which appears alternately to be both, though it is in reality neither: the pleasure or pain, therefore, whichever it be, he infers to be _false_[131] But there is no falsehood in the case: the state described is what it appears to be--pleasurable or painful: Plato describes it erroneously when he calls it the same state, or one of neutrality. Pleasure and Pain are both of them phenomena of present consciousness. They are what they seem: none of them can be properly called (as Plato calls them) "apparent pleasures which have no reality".[132]

[Footnote 130: This is what Aristotle means when he says:--[Greek: tê=s ê(donê=s d' e)n o(tô|ou=n chro/nô| te/leion to\ ei)=dos . . . tô=n o(/lôn ti kai\ telei/ôn ê( ê(donê/] (Eth. Nik. x. 3, 1174, b. 4).]

[Footnote 131: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 43-44; Republic, ix. p. 583.

I copy the following passage from Professor Bain's work on "The Emotions and the Will," the fullest and most philosophical account of the emotions that I know (pp. 615-616; 3rd ed., pp. 550 seq.):--

"It is a general law of the mental constitution, more or less recognised by inquirers into the human mind, that change of impression is essential to consciousness in every form. . . There are notable examples to show, that one unvarying action upon the senses fails to give any perception whatever. Take the motion of the earth about its axis and through space, whereby we are whirled with immense velocity, but at a uniform pace, being utterly insensible of the circumstance. . . It is the change from rest to motion that wakens our sensibility, and, conversely, from motion to rest. A uniform condition, as respects either state, is devoid of any quickening influence on the mind. . . . We have repeatedly seen pleasures depending for their existence on previous pains, and pains on pleasures experienced or conceived. Such are the contrasting states of Liberty and Restraint, Power and Impotence. Many pleasures owe their effect as such to mere cessation. For example, the pleasures of exercise do not need to be preceded by pain: it is enough that there has been a certain intermission, coupled with the nourishment of the exhausted parts. These are of course our best pleasures. By means of this class, we might have a life of enjoyment without pain: although, in fact, the other is more or less mixed up in every one's experience. Exercise, Repose, the pleasures of the different Senses and Emotions, might be made to alternate, so as to give a constant succession of pleasure: each being sufficiently dormant during the exercise of the others, to reanimate the consciousness when its turn comes. It also happens that some of those modes of delight are increased, by being preceded by a certain amount of a painful opposite. Thus, confinement adds to the pleasure of exercise, and protracted exertion to that of repose. Fasting increases the enjoyment of meals; and being much chilled prepares us for a higher zest in the accession of warmth. It is not necessary, however, in those cases, that the privation should amount to positive pain, in order to the existence of the pleasure. The enjoyment of food may be experienced, although the previous hunger may not be in any way painful: at all events, with no more pain than the certainty of the coming meal can effectually appease. There is still another class of our delights depending entirely upon previous suffering, as in the sudden cessation of acute pains, or the sudden relief from great depression. Here the rebound from one nervous condition to another is a stimulant of positive pleasure: constituting a small, but altogether inadequate, compensation for the prior misery. The pleasurable sensation of good health presupposes the opposite experience in a still larger measure. Uninterrupted health, though an instrumentality for working out many enjoyments, of itself gives no sensation."

It appears to me that this passage of Mr. Bain's work discriminates and sets out what there is of truth in Plato's doctrine about the pure and painless pleasures. In his first volume (The Senses and the Intellect) Mr. Bain has laid down and explained the great fundamental fact of the system, that it includes spontaneous sources of activity; which, after repose and nourishment, require to be exerted, and afford a certain pleasure in the course of being exerted. There is no antecedent pain to be relieved: but privation (which is only a grade and variety of pain, and sometimes considerable pain) is felt if the exertion be hindered. This doctrine of spontaneous activity, employed by Mr. Bain successfully to explain a large variety of mental phenomena, is an important and valuable extension of that which Aristotle lays down in the Ethics, that pleasure is an accessory or adjunct of [Greek: e)ne/rgeia a)nempo/distos (e)ne/rgeia tê=s kata\ phu/sin e(/xeôs] Eth. N. vii. 13, 1153, a. 15), without any view to obtain any separate extraneous pleasure or to relieve any separate extraneous pain ([Greek: kath' au(ta\s d' ei)si\n ai(retai/, a)ph' ô)=n mêde\n e)pizêtei=tai para\ tê\n e)ne/rgeian], E. N. x. 6, 1176, b. 6).]

[Footnote 132: Plato, Philêbus, p. 51 A. [Greek: pro\s to\ tina\s ê(dona\s ei)=nai dokou/sas, ou)/sas d' ou)damô=s], &c. [Greek: to\ phaino/menon a)ll' ou)k o)/n], p. 42 C, which last sentence is better explained (I think) in the note of Dr. Badham than in that of Mr. Poste.

Mr. Poste observes justly, in his note on p. 40 C:--"The falsely anticipated pleasure in mistaken Hope may be called, as it is here called, False Pleasure. This is, however, an inaccurate expression. It is not the Pleasure, but the Imagination of it (_i.e._ the Imagination or Opinion) that is false. Sokrates therefore does not dwell upon this point, though Protarchus allows the expression to pass." The last phrase of the passage which I have thus transcribed ("Sokrates _therefore_ does not dwell upon this point") is less accurate than that which precedes: for it seems to imply that the Sokrates of Philêbus _admits_ the inaccuracy of the expression, which seems to me not borne out by the text of the dialogue. Both here and elsewhere in the dialogue, the doctrine, that many pleasures are false, is maintained by Sokrates distinctly--[Greek: to\ ê(/desthai] is put upon the same footing as [Greek: to\ doxa/zein], which may be either [Greek: a)lêthô=s] or [Greek: pseudô=s].

When Sokrates (p. 37 B) puts the question, "You admit that [Greek: do/xa] may be either [Greek: a)lêthê\s] or [Greek: pseudê/s]: how then can you argue that [Greek: ê(donê/] must be always [Greek: a)lêthê/s]?" the answer is, that pleasure is not, if we speak correctly, either true or false: neither one predicate nor the other is properly applicable to it: we can only so apply them by a metaphor, altogether misleading in philosophical reasoning. When Sokrates further argues (37 D), "You admit that some qualifying predicates may be applied to pleasures and pain, great or small, durable or transient, &c. You admit that an opinion may be correct or mistaken in its object, and when it is the latter you call it _false_: why is not the pleasure which accompanies a false opinion to be called false also?" Protarchus refuses distinctly to admit this, saying, "I have already affirmed that on that supposition the _opinion_ is false: but no man will call the _pleasure_ false" (p. 38 A).]

[Side-note: Plato acknowledges no truth and reality except in the Absolute--Pleasures which he admits to be true--and why.]

What seems present to the mind of Plato in this doctrine is the antithesis between the absolute and the relative. He will allow reality only to the absolute: the relative he considers (herein agreeing with the Eleates) to be all seeming and illusion. Thus when he comes to describe the character of those few pleasures which he admits to be true, we find him dwelling upon their absolute nature. 1. The pleasures derived from perfect geometrical figures: the exact straight line, square, cube, circle, &c.: which figures are always beautiful _per se_, not by comparison or in relation with any thing else:[133] and "which have pleasures of their own, noway analogous to those of scratching" (_i. e._, not requiring to be preceded by the discomfort of an itching surface). 2. The pleasures derived from certain colours beautiful in themselves: which are beautiful always, not merely when seen in contrast with some other colours. 3. The pleasures of hearing simple sounds, beautiful in and by themselves, with whatever other sounds they may be connected. 4. The pleasures of sweet smells, which are pleasurable though not preceded by uneasiness. 5. The pleasures of mathematical studies: these studies do not derive their pleasurable character from satisfying any previous uneasy appetite, nor do they leave behind them any pain if they happen to be forgotten.[134]

[Footnote 133: Plato, Philêbus, p. 51 C. [Greek: tau=ta ga\r ou)k ei)=nai pro/s ti kala\ le/gô, katha/per a)/lla, a)ll' a)ei\ kala\ kath' au(ta\ pephuke/nai, kai/ tinas ê(dona\s oi)kei/as e)/chein, ou)de\n tai=s tô=n knê/seôn prospherei=s.]

51 D: [Greek: ta\s tô=n phônô=n ta\s lei/as kai\ lampra/s, ta\s e(/n ti katharo\n i(ei/sas me/los, ou) pro\s e(/teron kala\s a)ll' au)ta\s kath' au(ta\s ei)=nai, kai\ tou/tôn xumphu/tous ê(dona\s e(pome/nas.]]

[Footnote 134: Plato, Philêbus, p. 62 B.

We may illustrate the doctrine of the Philêbus about pleasures and pains, by reference to a dictum of Sokrates quoted in the Xenophontic Memorabilia (iii. 13).

Some person complained to Sokrates that he had lost his appetite--that he no longer ate with any pleasure ([Greek: o(/ti a)êdô=s e)/sthioi])--"The physician Akumenus (so replied Sokrates) teaches us a good remedy in such a case. Leave off eating: after you have left off, you will come back into a more pleasurable, easy, and healthful condition."

Now let us suppose the like complaint to be addressed to the Platonic Sokrates. What would have been _his_ answer?

The Sokrates of the Protagoras would have regarded the complainant as suffering under a misfortune, and would have tried to suggest some remedy: either the prescription of Akumenus, or any other more promising that he could think of. The Sokrates of the Phædon, on the contrary, would have congratulated him on the improvement in his condition, inasmuch as the misguiding and degrading ascendancy, exercised by his body over his mind, was suppressed in one of its most influential channels: just as Kephalus, in the Republic (i. 329), is made to announce it as one of the blessings of old age, that the sexual appetite has left him. The Sokrates of the Philêbus, also, would have treated the case as one for congratulation, but he would have assigned a different reason. He would have replied: "The pleasures of eating are altogether false. You never really had any pleasure in eating. If you believed yourself to have any, you were under an illusion. You have reason to rejoice that this illusion has now passed away: and to rejoice the more, because you have come a step nearer to the most divine scheme of life."

Speusippus (the nephew and successor of Plato), if he had been present, would have re-assured the complainant in a manner equally decided. He would have said nothing, however, about the difference between true and false pleasures: he would have acknowledged them all as true, and denounced them all as mischievous. He would have said (see Aul. Gell. ix. 5): "The condition which you describe is one which I greatly envy. Pleasure and Pain are both, alike and equally, forms of Evil. I eat, to relieve the pain of hunger: but unfortunately, I cannot do so without experiencing some pleasure; and I thus incur evil in the other and opposite form. I am ashamed of this, because I am still kept far off from Good, or the point of neutrality: but I cannot help myself. _You_ are more fortunate: you avert one evil, _pain_, without the least alloy of the other evil, _pleasure_: what you attain is thus pure Good. I hope your condition may long continue, and I should be glad to come into it myself."

Not only the sincere pleasure-haters, but also other theorists indicated by Aristotle, would have warmly applauded this pure ethical doctrine of Speusippus; not from real agreement with it, but in order to edify the audience. They would say to one another aside: "This is not true; but we must do all we can to make people believe it. Since every one is too fond of pleasures, and suffers himself to be enslaved by them, we must pull in the contrary direction, in order that we may thereby bring people into the middle line." (Aristot. Eth. Nikom. x. 1, 1172, a. 30.)

It deserves to be remarked that Aristotle, in alluding to these last theorists, disapproves their scheme of Ethical Fictions, or of falsifying theory in order to work upon men's minds by edifying imposture; while Plato approves and employs this scheme in the Republic. Aristotle even recognises it as a fault in various persons, that they take too little delight in bodily pleasures--that a man is [Greek: toiou=tos oi(=os ê(=tton ê)\ dei= toi=s sômatikoi=s chai/rôn] (Ethic. Nikom. vii. 11, 1151, b. 24).]

These few are all the varieties of pleasure which Plato admits as true: they are alleged as cases of the absolutely pleasurable ([Greek: Au)to-ê(du/])--that which is pleasurable _per se_, and always, without relation to any thing else, without dependence on occasion or circumstance, and without any antecedent or concomitant pain. All other pleasures are pleasurable relatively to some antecedent pain, or to some contrasting condition, with which they are compared: accordingly Plato considers them as false, unreal, illusory: pleasures and not pleasures at once, and not more one than the other.[135] Herein he conforms to the Eleatic or Parmenidean view, according to which the relative is altogether falsehood and illusion: an intermediate stage between Ens and Non-Ens, belonging as much to the first as to the last.

[Footnote 135: Compare, respecting this Platonic view, Republic, v. pp. 478-479, and pp. 583-585, where Plato contrasts the [Greek: panalêthê\s] or [Greek: gnêsi/a ê(donê/], which arises from the acquisition of knowledge (when the mind nourishes itself with real essence), with the [Greek: no/thê] (p. 587 B) or [Greek: e)skiagraphême/nê ê(donê/, ei)/dôlon tê=s a)lêthou=s ê(donê=s], arising from the pursuits of wealth, power, and other objects of desire.

The comic poet Alexis adverts to this Platonic doctrine of the absolutely pleasurable, here, there, and everywhere,--[Greek: to\ d' ê(du\ pa/ntôs ê(du/, ka)kei= ka)ntha/de], Athenæ. viii. 354; Meineke, Com. Frag. p. 453.

In the Phædrus (258 E), we find this same class of pleasures, those which cannot be enjoyed unless preceded by some pain, asserted to be called _for that reason slavish_ ([Greek: a)ndrapodô/deis]), and depreciated as worthless. Nearly all the pleasures connected with the body are said to belong to this class; but those of rhetoric and dialectic are exempted from it, and declared to be of superior order.

The pleasure of gaining a victory in the stadium at Olympia was ranked by Greeks generally as the maximum of pleasure: and we find the Platonic Sokrates (Republ. v. 465 D) speaks in concurrence with this opinion. But this pleasure ought in Plato's view to pass for a false pleasure; since it was invariably preceded by the most painful, long-continued training.

The reasoning of Sokrates in the Philêbus (see especially pp. 46-47) against the intense and extatic pleasures, as being never pure, but always adulterated by accompanying pain, misfortune, disappointment, &c., is much the same as that of Epikurus and his followers afterwards. The case is nowhere more forcibly put than in the fourth book of Lucretius (1074 seq.): where that poet deprecates passionate love, and points out that pure or unmixed pleasure belongs only to the man of sound and healthy reason.]

[Side-note: Plato could not have defended this small list of Pleasures, upon his own admission, against his opponents--the Pleasure-haters, who disallowed pleasures altogether.]

The catalogue of pleasures recognised by Plato being so narrow (and much of them attainable only by a few persons), the amount of difference is really very small between him and his pleasure-hating opponents, who disallowed pleasure altogether. But small as the catalogue is, he could not consistently have defended it against them, upon his own principles. His opponents could have shown him that a considerable portion of it must be discarded, if we are to disallow all pleasures which are preceded by or intermingled with pain--or which are sometimes stronger, sometimes feebler, according to the relations of contrast or similarity with other concomitant sensations. Mathematical study certainly, far from being all pleasure and no pain, demands an irksome preparatory training (which is numbered among the miseries of life in the Axiochus[136]), succeeded by long laborious application, together with a fair share of vexatious puzzle and disappointment. The love of knowledge grows up by association (like the thirst for money or power), and includes an uncomfortable consciousness of ignorance: nay, it is precisely this painful consciousness which the Sokratic method was expressly intended to plant forcibly in the student's mind, as an indispensable antecedent condition. Requital doubtless comes in time; but the outlay is not the less real, and is quite sufficient to disentitle the study from being counted as a true pleasure, in the Platonic sense. Nor could Plato, upon his own principles, defend the pleasures of sight, sound, and smell. For though he might justly contend that there were some objects originally agreeable to these senses, yet all these objects will appear more or less agreeable, according to the accompanying contrasts under which they are presented, while, in particular states of the organ, they will not appear agreeable at all. Now such variability of estimate is among the grounds alleged by Plato for declaring pleasures to be false.[137]

[Footnote 136: See the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Axiochus, pp. 366-367. Compare Republic, vii. 526 C, vi. 504 C.

The Sokratic method, in creating consciousness of ignorance, is exhibited not less in the Xenophontic Memorabilia (iv. 2, 40) than in various Platonic dialogues, Alkibiades I., Theætêtus, &c. We read it formally proclaimed by Sokrates in the Platonic Apology.

Aristotle repeats the assertion contained in the Philêbus about the list of painless pleasures--[Greek: a)/lupoi ga/r ei)sin ai(/ te mathêmatikai\], &c. (Ethic. Nikom. x. 2, 1173, b. 16; 7, 1177, a. 25.) He himself says in another place (vii. 13, 1153, a. 20) that [Greek: to\ theôrei=n] sometimes hurts the health, and if he had examined the lives of mathematicians, especially that of Kepler, he would hardly have imagined that mathematical investigations have no pains attached to them. He probably means that they are not preceded by painful appetites such as hunger and thirst. But they are preceded by acquired impulses or desires, which in reference to the present question are upon same footing as the natural appetites. A healthy and temperate man, leading a regular life and in easy circumstances, knows little of hunger and thirst as pains: he knows them only as appetites which give relish to his periodical meals. It is only when this periodical satisfaction is withheld that his appetite grows to a painful and distressing height. So too the [Greek: philomathê/s]; his appetite for study, when regularly gratified to an extent consistent with health and other considerations, is not painful; but it will rise to the height of a most distressing privation if he be debarred from gratifying it, excluded from books and papers, disturbed by noises and intrusions. Kepler, if interdicted from pursuing his calculations, would have been miserable. Jason of Pheræ was heard to say that he felt hungry so long as he was not in possession of supreme power--[Greek: peinê=|n, o(/te mê\ turannoi=], Aristot. Politic. iii. 4, 1277, a. 24; thus intimating that the acquired appetite of ambition had in his mind reached the same intensity as the natural appetite of hunger.]

[Footnote 137: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 41-42. In the Phædon (p. 60 B) Sokrates makes a striking remark on the inseparable conjunction of pleasure with pain generally.]

[Side-note: Sokrates in this dialogue differs little from these Pleasure-haters.]

How little the Sokrates of this dialogue differs, at the bottom, from the fastidious pleasure-haters, may be seen by the passage in which he proclaims that the life of intelligence alone, without the smallest intermixture of pleasure or pain, is the really perfect life: that the Gods and the divine Kosmos have no enjoyment and no suffering.[138] The emotional department of human nature is here regarded as a degenerate and obstructive appendage: so that it was an inauspicious act of the sons of the Demiurgus (in the Timæus[139]) when they attached the spherical head (the miniature parallel of the Kosmos, with the rotatory movements of the immortal soul in the brain within) at the summit of a bodily trunk and limbs, containing the thoracic and abdominal cavities: the thoracic cavity embodying a second and inferior soul with the energetic emotions and passions--the abdominal region serving as lodgment to a third yet baser soul with the appetites. From this conjunction sprang the corrupting influence of emotional impulse, depriving man of his close parallelism with the Kosmos, and poisoning the life of pure exclusive Intelligence--regular, unfeeling, undisturbed. The Pleasure-haters, together with Speusippus and others, declared that pleasure and pain were both alike enemies to be repelled, and that neutrality was the condition to be aimed at.[140] And such appears to me to be the drift of Plato's reasonings in the Philêbus: though he relaxes somewhat the severity of his requirements in favour of a few pleasures, towards which he feels the same indulgence as towards Homer in the Republic.[141] When Ethics are discussed, not upon principles of their own ([Greek: oi)kei=ai a)rchai\]), but upon principles of Kosmology or Ontology, no emotion of any kind can find consistent place.

[Footnote 138: Plato, Philêbus, p. 33 B.]

[Footnote 139: Plato, Timæus, pp. 43 A, 44 D, 69 D, 70-71. The same fundamental idea though embodied in a different illustration, appears also in the Phædon; where Sokrates depicts life as a period of imprisonment, to which the immortal rational soul is condemned, in a corrupt and defective body, with perpetual stream of disturbing sensations and emotions (Phædon, pp. 64-65).

Aristotle observes, De Animâ, i. p. 407, b. 2:--[Greek: e)pi/ponon de\ kai\ to\ memi/chthai tô=| sô/mati mê\ duna/menon a)poluthê=nai, kai\ prose/ti pheukto/n, ei)/per be/ltion tô=| nô=| mê\ meta\ sô/matos ei)=nai, katha/per ei)/ôthe/ te le/gesthai kai\ polloi=s sundokei=.]

We find in one of the Fragments of Cicero, quoted by Augustin from the lost work Hortensius (p. 485, ed. Orelli):--"An vero, inquit, voluptates corporis expetendæ, quæ veré et graviter dictæ sunt à Platone illecebræ et escæ malorum? Quis autem bonâ mente præditus, non mallet nullas omnino nobis à naturâ voluptates esse datas?" This is the same doctrine as what is ascribed to Speusippus.]

[Footnote 140: Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. vii. 14, p. 1153, b. 5; x. 2, p. 1173, a. 8; Aulus Gellius, ix. 5. "Speusippus vetusque omnis Academia voluptatem et dolorem duo mala esse dicunt opposita inter se: bonum autem esse quod utriusque medium foret."

Compare Plato, Philêbus, pp. 43 D-E, 33 B.

To whom does Plato here make allusion, under the general title of the Fastidious ([Greek: oi( duscherei=s]) Pleasure-haters? Schleiermacher (note to his translation, p. 487), Stallbaum, and most critics down to Dr. Badham inclusive, are of opinion, that he alludes to Antisthenes--among whose _dicta_ we certainly read declarations expressing positive aversion to pleasure--[Greek: manei/ên ma=llon ê)\ ê(sthei/ên] Diog. L. vi. 3; compare ix. 101, and Winckelmann, Frag. Antisthen. xii. Mr. Poste, on the contrary, thinks it improbable that Antisthenes is alluded to (see p. 80 of his Philêbus). I confess that I think so too. Mr. Poste points out that these [Greek: duscherei=s] are characterised by Plato (p. 44 B), as [Greek: ma/la deinou\s legome/nous peri\ phu/sin]:--whereas we are informed that speculations on [Greek: phu/sis] were neglected by Antisthenes, who confined his attention to [Greek: ta\ ê)thika/]. This is a strong reason for believing that Antisthenes cannot be here meant; and there are some other reasons also.

First, in describing the [Greek: duscherei=s], Plato notes it as one among their attributes, that they _hold in thorough detestation the indecorous pleasures_ ([Greek: ta\s tô=n a)schêmo/nôn ê(dona/s, a(\s ou(\s ei)/pomen duscherei=s misou=si pantelô=s], p. 46 A). Now this is surely not likely to have been affirmed about Antisthenes. It was the conspicuous characteristic of the Cynic sect, begun by Antisthenes, and carried still farther by his pupil Diogenes, that they reduced to its minimum the distinction between the decorous and the indecorous.