THE SOPHISTA OF PLATO, &c. 



157 



contemporary or nearly contemporary with the philosopher himself, many have been embalmed 

 in the writings of Eusebius and Sextus Empiricus, the Aristotelian Commentators, Cicero, 

 and others : not to mention the vast store of undigested learning amassed by Diogenes 

 Laertius. 



Now of the two sects who here come under revision, and who enact the part of Gods and of 

 Giants in the famed Gigantomachy*, which is familiar to most readers of Plato, the occupants 

 of the celestial regions are rightly, as I think, judged to mean the contemporary sect of the 

 Megarics. They are idealists in a sense, but their idealism is not that of Plato. They so 

 far relax the rigid Eleatic formula " unum omnia" as to admit a plurality of forms (e'l^rj or 

 ovra or ovaia). They are complimented in the dialogue as ^/xepwTepoi, "more civilized" or 

 " more humane," than their rude materialistic antagonists : but they are at the same time 

 taken sliarply to task by the Eleatic Stranger : and for what ? For the absence, from their 

 scheme of Idealism, of tiiat very element which constitutes the differentia of the Platonic 

 Idealism. " They refuse to admit," says the Stranger, " what we have asserted concerning sub- 

 stance, in our late controversy with their opponents :" ov avy^^wpovaiv rif^^v to vvv S>} prjOev 

 •n-pos Toy's yrjyeve^s ovala% irepi, 248 B ; the thing they refuse to admit being neither more 

 nor less than that Koivwvia or fxeOe^K tw;' ei^wn'', which Aristotle cannot or will not under- 

 stand in his critique of the Platonic Doctrine of Ideas. Like Plato, they distinguish the two 

 worlds of sense and pure ideas, the ytveat^ from the ovaia {yevecriv ttjv oe ova'iav ^(o^is nov 

 ^leXo/uevoi Xeyere, 248 a), but, unlike him, they deny that the one acts or is acted upon by 

 the other : they even deny that Being (e'iS^ or ovaiit) can be said to act or suffer at all ; nay, 

 when pressed, they seem to admit that it is impossible to predicate of it either knowledge or 

 the capacity of being known^. The arguments by which the "Friends of Forms" {el^wv 

 <pl\oi, 248 a) are pushed to this admission may not ring sound to a modern ear; but my 

 business is not with the soundness of Plato's opinions, but with their history: and it would 

 be easy to produce overwhelming evidence both from his own writings and those of Aristotle 

 to the truth of the statement, that however the phrase is to be interpreted, there is, according 

 to Plato, a fellowship, Koti'wvia, between the world of sensibles and the world of intelligibles, 

 and that the conception of this fellowship or intercommunion distinguishes his Ideal Scheme 

 from that of the Eleatics*, and, as appears from this passage, from that of the semi-Platonic school 



' Soph. 246 A, I 65 Bekk. 



" Aristotle objects to the term fiede^i^'on the ground that it 

 is metaphorical. Now as a logical term, the Platonic /nf6cgi5 

 is but the counterpart of ii-n-apjis, the Aristotelian word denot- 

 ing the relation of subject to predicate. The one term is 

 as metaphorical as the other, and not more so. " A belongs 

 {iirdpxfi) to B" and " B partakes of A " (/nexe'xf) ^'^ '""^ 

 in a sense metaphorical phrases, and the metaphor employed is 

 the same in both cases. The Platonic term marks the relation 

 between subject and predicate as not one of identity, and thus 

 serves to distinguish the Dialectic of Plato from that of the 

 Eristics, who denied that the "One" includes a "Many." 

 The same purpose is equally well, but not better answered by 

 the iirdpx,ei of Aristotle. 



' Ti)V otiaiav iij Ka-ra roll \6yov toutoii yiyviaaKOiiein)u 

 VTTO Tijs yi/too-eois, KaO* otrov ytyvwtTKfTat Kara to(tovtov 

 KivfTaSai itd to ■7ra'<rX"»', " ^'1 <t><'h^i' <>>"< «" 7"'^''^^'" '^^p'^ 

 t6 I'lpe/iou '. p. 248 E. 



* Compare 249 D, § 76 : tw Stj (piXotrotpui xal -rad-ra fidXi- 

 trra tiixSivti iraaa mi eoiKCv dvdyKn Sid Tavra ^lire tmi; er 

 li Kal Ta troWd eUv XeyovTmu to irav 60-ti|K(Js diroSexet'^at, 

 Tuii/ t' ail TravTaxV ''■" ^■' KiuoivTmv fiitle t6 irapdirav dKoieiir, 

 dXXd Kara t^v twv vaiSuii/ eliX'i'', o<ra (lus?) aM'i/ijTa icol 

 Ke».-ii/i)n«'vo, tA ov Te Kal to ttuv, ^vvafKpoTepa Xe'^eii'. This 

 passage, as 1 understand it, expresses Plato's dissent alike from 

 the Eleatics and Megarics, and from those Ephesian followers 

 of Heraclitus whom he had discussed in the Theatetus. This 

 is not the only echo of that dialogue heard in the Sophiita. 



