877 



PLATO. 



PLATO. 



878 



reason their being and reality. Accordingly, as the sun, to borrow a 

 phrase from Milton, looks from his sole dominion like the god of this 

 lower world of sense, so the idea of the good, the sovereign good, even 

 God himself, reigns supreme in the higher world of ideas which is 

 cognisable only to the reason. Plato concludes this discussion with a 

 classification which may be considered as a supplement to the negative 

 argument of the ' Thesetetus," in the same way as the first part of this 

 disquisition completes the negative argument of the 'Philebus.' As 

 there are two provinces or worlds, the ideal and the visible the 

 world of reason and the world of sense, so there are in each two sorts 

 of essences or substances, namely, the pure and the mixed. First, 

 then, the essences or objects of the pure reason are of two sorts : 1, 

 pure, as the ideas of good, beauty, justice, &c.; 2, mixed, or into the 

 conception of which an image necessarily enters : as the idea or 

 essence of a triangle or circle, &c. Secondly, the material substances 

 or objects of sense are also of two sorts : 1, bodies ; 2, images, or 

 shadows of bodies. To these four species of objects, four species of 

 knowledge correspond, the two first of which, or those pertaining to 

 the objects of the ideal world, are alone worthy to be called by the 

 name of that ivurrhiiri, or science, which Thesetetus sought for in vain. 



I. Science (^JTIO-T^IJ)). 



1. NiJijms, the knowledge of pure ideas. 



2. Atdvoia, that of mixed ideas. 



II. Opinion (5<!fa). 



3. nfiTTis, knowledge of bodies and of what pertains thereto. 



4. EiKturio, knowledge of the images or shadows of bodies. 



To return however to Plato's ethical system : in this the end is the 

 same as that of his dialectics ; from first to last there is a. resolute 

 struggle with the domineering pretensions of the senses and a striving 

 after a something higher and holier than this world can furnish. 

 Everything is ascribed to reason and faith : to reason, as the highest 

 faculty of man, to which every other faculty should be subject; to 

 faith, as the evidence of those unseen objects which the reason wor- 

 shipped and set up in opposition to the idola of the senses. From this 

 general explanation it will be seen what is the tendency of such ques- 

 tions as " whether virtue is capable of being taught ? " (Plato, ' Meno.,' 

 with the criticism in Aristotle, 'Ethic. Nicom.,' vi. 13) ; and it may 

 alao be inferred from this that Aristotle has completely misunderstood 

 and misrepresented his master in his criticism of Plato's " idea of the 

 good." ('Ethic. Nicom.,' i. 6; ' Metaphys.,' xii. 1, seqq.) 



It will not be expected that we should here enter upon a minute 

 examination of the political theories which Plato has based upon his 

 ethical system. It will be sufficient to say briefly that Plato's views 

 decidedly tended towards oligarchy, or, as he would have called it, 

 aristocracy. lie had a great admiration for Dorian institutions, and a 

 great aversion to democracies, especially to that of Athens. His con- 

 nection with the chief agents in the oligarchical revolution at Athena 

 may have had some share in this, and it ia c< rtainly some proof of the 

 intimate connection between his political opinions and those of the 

 party to which we refer, that the interlocutors ia the great trilogy of 

 dialogues, which contains the ' Republic,' the ' Titnmus, 1 and the 

 'CritiuR,' are (besides Socrates, whose political character is not alto- 

 gether without suspicion) the Syracusan Ilermocrates, the deadliest 

 foe of Athens, Critias, the head of the thirty tyrants, and Timsons the 

 speculative Locrian legislator. From a set of dialogues managed by 

 such persons as these we should hardly expect anything different in 

 politics from what we find in them, an attempt, namely, to recommend 

 by argument and fiction, a system of government based upon Dorian 

 and immediately upon Lacedfcmonian institutions. There is something 

 eminently unfeeling in the manner in which Plato, after the example 

 of the Lacedemonians, considers marriage in a gross and physical 

 light, and subordinates all the better sentiments of human nature to 

 the harsh jurisdiction of an uncompromising aristocracy. It has been 

 supposed by Morgenstern (' Commentat. de Republ. Platonis,' p. 73, 

 seqq.) that one of the later comedies of Aristophanes, the ' Ecclesia- 

 zuiw,' is directed against this KoKuvofuivia. of the great philosopher. 

 Stallbaum (' Prolegorn. ad Platon. llempub.,' p. 68, seqq.), has opposed 

 this conjecture with some chronological arguments, which Meini-kc 

 ('Histor. Grit. Com. Grace.,' p. 289) does not consider satisfactory, 

 Meineke thinks that Plato's scheme for a community of property aud 

 wives is undoubtedly ridiculed in the ' Ecclesiazusac,' and adduces as 

 an additional argument for this the satirical remarks of Aristophanes 

 upon one Aristvllus ('Eccles.,' 646 ; Plat, 313), whose name Meim-kf, 

 following some old grammarians (Euatath., p. 989 ; ' Etym. Jl.,' p, 

 142, F), regards as a diminutive form of Aristocles Plato's original 

 name. We know that in general the Greek comedians were not 

 unwilling to seize upon an opportunity of ridiculing the lender of any 

 philosophical school, and Plato certainly did not escape literary satire 

 of this kind. (Meineke, 'Hist. Crit. Com. Once.,' pp. 238, 240.) Of 

 the ' Laws ' as related to the ' Republic ' we have already said as much 

 as seems to be necessary. 



III. Plato's physical speculations have leas interest for the modern 

 reader than either his dialectics or their application to moral philo- 

 sophy. In this, as in the other departments, Plato starts with a 

 critical review of the systems which preceded him. The earliesl 

 philosophical systems among the Greeks, those namely which wo assign 



o the Ionian school, were solely physical ; and they started always 

 rom some theory with regard to the origin of things. According to 

 Thales, this primitive element was water ; according to Anaximenes, 

 t was air ; according to Heracleitus, it was fire ; Anaxitnauder con- 

 sidered the world, in its primitive state, as a vast and infinite chaos ; 

 Diogenes regarded it as originating in a rational and intelligent prin- 

 ciple; and Anaxagoras, uniting ia one the views of the two last-named 

 philosophers, recognised a supreme mind (vovs) as the principle of life, 

 which imparted motion and form to the material elements, and 

 reduced to order the chaotic mass of primitive atoms. The Eleatic 

 school of philosophy began with the position which thus formed the 

 culminating point of the Ionian school the admission of a supreme 

 intelligence. According to the lonians, and in the very language of 

 Thales and Heracleitus, "All the universe was full of gods." (Aristot., 

 'DeAuima,' i. 5; 'De Part. Animal.,' i. 5.) According to the pan- 

 theism of the Eleatics, on the contrary, the universe itself was the 

 Deity ; in the words of Xenophanes, the one being (rJ> ex), the universe, 

 was God. (Aristot., ' Metaphys.,' i. 5, sec. 12.) " As Thales saw gods 

 in all things, so it may be said that Xeuophanes saw all things in 

 God." (Thirl wall, ' Hist. Gr.,' ii. p. 136.) Parrnenides endeavoured 

 to demonstrate this pantheistic view of Xeuophanes by arguments 

 deduced from the idea of existence, which denied the possibility of 

 creation and total destruction. In this view he was followed by 

 Ernpedocles, who also held the doctrine of uncreated and indestructible 

 existence. At an earlier period, Pythagoras had maintained that 

 numbers are the principles and essence of all things, and that the world 

 subsists by a numerical harmony, a view which his contemporary aud 

 rival, Heracleitus, adopted under a modified form (Plato, ' Sympos.,' 

 p. 187, A) ; and Empedocles, who seems to have combined many views 

 peculiar to the Eleatics with some of the doctrines of Anaxagoras, 

 also, as ha^ been mentioned above, forms the link of connection between 

 the Eleatics aud Pythagoreans. As this was the general state of 

 physical science when Plato wrote, and as he seems to have been 

 always striving to reconcile the contradictory systems of Heracleitus 

 and the Eleatics, and to extract from them their common element of 

 truth, we may see both how Plato would proceed in constructing a 

 theory of the universe, and how this theory would be connected with 

 his dialectical system and his theory of ideas. It is obvious that ho 

 would maintain a creation, ia opposition to Parmenides and Empedo- 

 cles, and would oppose himself iu this, as in his dialectics, to the 

 perpetual flux of Heracleitus : and this we shall find to have been his 

 method, if we compare the 'Philebus' and the 'Pavmenides ' with the 

 'Tiinceus,' which contains the fullest development of Plato's physical 

 and cosmogonical system. We also observe in the ' Timrous,' and in a 

 celebrated pass.ige of the ' Republic' (viii. ad init.), that Plato attached 

 a great weight to the numerical theory of Pythagoras, though we do 

 not know enough of the latter to be able to determine the exact 

 amount of Plate? s obligation to him in the musical harmony on which 

 he makes his universe depend, and the complicated numerical relations 

 by which he estimates the durability of his state. In the ' Timseus," 

 as in everything else, he starts with the opposition of immutable 

 essences to mutable substances, and begins by statin;; the contrast 

 between the unity of the idea, as real existence, and the multiplicity 

 of things, as only a seeming existence. The latter, according to 

 Plato's system, are treated after the semblance of the former, which is 

 their iSe'o, or irapiSei^juo. In this way of viewing the subject, Plato's 

 physical theory at once assumes' the form of a history of the creation, 

 a Koanmoua., and is therefore in itself, to a certain extent, necessarily 

 mythical. 



The first great principle (the ri 'iv of the later lonians, which is 

 the ri> uv of the Eleatics) is described as engaged in reducing to order 

 the chaos of material substances. That this must have been done 

 at some time, that there must have b"en a beginning to the world 

 (<S ouporos, o K&aiJLos, rj> irac), that the world which we see must have 

 been created, for this position Plato argues most distinctly, iu oppo- 

 sition to the Eleatics. As the world which we see is within the 

 domain of the senses, it is, for this very reason, one of those things 

 which are liable to generation and decay. It must therefore have had 

 its maker, or Sit^lovpyos. Now this maker can be no other than the 

 formative principle the one, the existent. From the beauty, order, 

 and constancy discernible even in this lower world, it is clear, Plato 

 says, that the creator must have constructed it after the model or 

 pattern of a perfect and eternal world (' Timzcus,' p. 29, A) ; aud in 

 order that this might be done iu the most perfect manner possible, he 

 made it a <?ov t^vxov ivvovv rt , ' a living animal, gifted with intelli- 

 gence ' (' Tim.,' p. 30, B), by enduing it with a living soul. The body 

 of this animal was composed of the four elements (and here Plato 

 modifies and combines the theories of Empedocles and Anaxagoras), 

 and the soul of the world was not, as the Eleatic pantheism would have 

 maintained, God himself, but an emanation and product of that intel- 

 ligence which is the cause of all things. For Plnto> both in the 

 ' Timseus ' and in the ' Philebus,' speaks distinctly of. the mind as of 

 the nature of the cause. In the ' Philebus ' (p. 27 B. seqq.), after 

 enumerating four kinds of being the infinite, the limit, the mixture 

 of these two, and the cause and alluding to the universally received 

 dogma that the mind (vovs) is the sovereign of heaven and earth (p. 

 28, C), ho proceeds aa follows (p. 29, A) : " We find that fire, water, 

 air, and earth must naturally be in the composition of all bodies. 



