CHAPTER X.

THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).

THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).

PLATO.

We have seen that the advent of Socrates marks a new era in the history of speculative thought. Greek philosophy, which at first was a philosophy of nature, now changes its direction, its character, and its method, and becomes a philosophy of mind. This, of course, does not mean that now it had mind alone for its object; on the contrary, it tended, as indeed philosophy must always tend, to the conception of a rational ideal or _intellectual system of the universe_. It started from the phenomena of mind, began with the study of human thought, and it made the knowledge of mind, of its ideas and laws, the basis of a higher philosophy, which should interpret all nature. In other words, it proceeded from psychology, through dialectics, to ontology.[487]

[Footnote 487: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 413.]

This new movement we have designated in general terms as the _Socratic School_. Not that we are to suppose that, in any technical sense, Socrates founded _a_ school. The Academy, the Lyceum, the Stoa, and the Garden, were each the chosen resort of distinct philosophic sects, the locality of separate schools; but Athens itself, the whole city, was the scene of the studies, the conversations, and the labors of Socrates. He wandered through the streets absorbed in thought. Sometimes he stood still for hours lost in profoundest meditation; at other times he might be seen in the market-place, surrounded by a crowd of Athenians, eagerly discussing the great questions of the day.

Socrates, then, was not, in the usual sense of the word, a teacher. He is not to be found in the Stoa or the Grove, with official aspect, expounding a system of doctrine. He is "the garrulous oddity" of the streets, putting the most searching and perplexing questions to every bystander, and making every man conscious of his ignorance. He delivered no lectures; he simply talked. He wrote no books; he only argued: and what is usually styled his school must be understood as embracing those who attended him in public as listeners and admirers, and who caught his spirit, adopted his philosophic _method_, and, in after life, elaborated and systematized the ideas they had gathered from him.

Among the regular or the occasional hearers of Socrates were many who were little addicted to philosophic speculation. Some were warriors, as Nicias and Laches; some statesmen, as Critias and Critobulus; some were politicians, in the worst sense of that word, as Glaucon; and some were young men of fashion, as Euthydemus and Alcibiades. These were all alike delighted with his inimitable irony, his versatility of genius, his charming modes of conversation, his adroitness of reply; and they were compelled to confess the wisdom and justness of his opinions, and to admire the purity and goodness of his life. The magic power which he wielded, even over men of dissolute character, is strikingly depicted by Alcibiades in his speech at "the Banquet."[488] Of these listeners, however, we can not now speak. Our business is with those only who imbibed his philosophic spirit, and became the future teachers of philosophy. And even of those who, as Euclid of Megara, and Antisthenes the Cynic, and Aristippus of Cyrenaica, borrowed somewhat from the dialectic of Socrates, we shall say nothing. They left no lasting impression upon the current of philosophic thought, because their systems were too partial, and narrow, and fragmentary. It is in Plato and Aristotle that the true development of the Socratic philosophy is to be sought, and in Plato chiefly, as the disciple and friend of Socrates.

[Footnote 488: "Banquet," §§ 39, 40.]

Plato (B.C. 430-347) was pre-eminently the pupil of Socrates. He came to Socrates when he was but twenty years of age, and remained with him to the day of his death.

Diogenes Laertius reports the story of Socrates having dreamed he found an unfledged cygnet on his knee. In a few moments it became winged and flew away, uttering a sweet sound. The next day a young man came to him who was said to reckon Solon among his near ancestors, and who looked, through him, to Codrus and the god Poseidon. That young man was Plato, and Socrates pronounced him to be the bird he had seen in his dream.[489]

[Footnote 489: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. iii. ch. vii.]

Some have supposed that this old tradition intimates that Plato departed from the method of his master--he became fledged and flew away into the air. But we know that Plato did not desert his master whilst he was living, and there is no evidence that he abandoned his method after he was dead. He was the best expounder and the most rigid observer of the Socratic "organon." The influence of Socrates upon the philosophy of Plato is everywhere discernible. Plato had been taught by Socrates, that beyond the world of sense there is a world of eternal truth, seen by the eye of reason alone. He had also learned from him that the eye of reason is purified and strengthened by _reflection_, and that to reflect is to observe, and analyze, and define, and classify the facts of consciousness. Self-reflection, then, he had been taught to regard as the key of real knowledge. By a completer induction, a more careful and exact analysis, and a more accurate definition, he carried this philosophic method forward towards maturity. He sought to solve the problem of _being_ by the principles revealed in his own consciousness, and in the _ultimate ideas of the reason_ to find the foundation of all real knowledge, of all truth, and of all certitude.

Plato was admirably fitted for these sublime investigations by the possession of those moral qualities which were so prominent in the character of his master. He had that same deep seriousness of spirit, that earnestness and rectitude of purpose, that longing after truth, that inward sympathy with, and reverence for justice, and purity, and goodness, which dwelt in the heart of Socrates, and which constrained him to believe in their reality and permanence. He could not endure the thought that all ideas of right were arbitrary and factitious, that all knowledge was unreal, that truth was a delusion, and certainty a dream. The world of sense might be fleeting and delusive, but the voice of reason and conscience would not mislead the upright man. The opinions of individual men might vary, but the universal consciousness of the race could not prevaricate. However conflicting the opinions of men concerning beautiful things, right actions, and good sentiments, Plato was persuaded there are ideas of Order, and Right, and Good, which are universal, unchangeable, and eternal. Untruth, injustice, and wrong may endure for a day or two, perhaps for a century or two, but they can not always last; they must perish. The _just_ thing and the _true_ thing are the only enduring things; these are eternal. Plato had a sublime conviction that his mission was to draw the Athenian mind away from the fleeting, the transitory, and the uncertain, and lead them to the contemplation of an Eternal Truth, an Eternal Justice, an Eternal Beauty, all proceeding from and united in an Eternal Being--the ultimate agathon--_the Supremely Good_. The knowledge of this "Supreme Good" he regarded as the highest science.[490]

[Footnote 490: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xvi. p. 193.]

Added to these moral qualifications, Plato had the further qualification of a comprehensive knowledge of all that had been achieved by his predecessors. In this regard he had enjoyed advantages superior to those of Socrates. Socrates was deficient in erudition, properly so called. He had studied men rather than books. His wisdom consisted in an extensive _observation_, the results of which he had generalized with more or less accuracy. A complete philosophic method demands not only a knowledge of contemporaneous opinions and modes of thought, but also a knowledge of the succession and development of thought in past ages. Its instrument is not simply psychological analysis, but also historical analysis as a counterproof.[491] And this erudition Plato supplied. He studied carefully the doctrines of the Ionian, Italian, and Eleatic schools. Cratylus gave him special instruction in the theories of Heraclitus.[492] He secured an intimate acquaintance with the lofty speculations of Pythagoras, under Archytas of Tarentum, and in the writings of Philolaus, whose books he is said to have purchased. He studied the principles of Parmenides under Hermogenes,[493] and he more than once speaks of Parmenides in terms of admiration, as one whom he had early learned to reverence.[494] He studied mathematics under Theodoras, the most eminent geometrician of his day. He travelled in Southern Italy, in Sicily, and, in search of a deeper wisdom, he pursued his course to Egypt.[495] Enriched by the fruits of all previous speculations, he returned to Athens, and devoted the remainder of his life to the development of a comprehensive system "which was to combine, to conciliate, and to supersede them all."[496] The knowledge he had derived from travel, from books, from oral instruction, he fused and blended with his own speculations, whilst the Socratic spirit mellowed the whole, and gave to it a unity and scientific completeness which has excited the admiration and wonder of succeeding ages.[497]

[Footnote 491: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 31.]

[Footnote 492: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.]

[Footnote 493: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. iii. ch. viii. p. 115.]

[Footnote 494: See especially "Theætetus," § 101.]

[Footnote 495: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 147.]

[Footnote 496: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 22.]

[Footnote 497: Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Plato."]

The question as to _the nature, the sources, and the validity of human knowledge_ had attracted general attention previous to the time of Socrates and Plato. As the results of this protracted controversy, the opinions of philosophers had finally crystallized in two well-defined and opposite theories of knowledge.

1. That which reduced all knowledge to the accidental and passively receptive quality of the organs of sense and which asserted, as its fundamental maxim, that "_Science consists in_ aisthêsis--_sensation_."[498]

This doctrine had its foundation in the physical philosophy of Heraclitus. He had taught that all things are in a perpetual flux and change. "Motion gives the appearance of existence and of generation." "Nothing _is_, but is always a _becoming"_[499] Material substances are perpetually losing their identity, and there is no permanent essence or being to be found. Hence Protagoras inferred that truth must vary with the ever-varying sensations of the individual. "Man (the individual) is the measure of all things." Knowledge is a purely relative thing, and every man's opinion is truth for him.[500] The law of right, as exemplified in the dominion of a party, is the law of the strongest; fluctuating with the accidents of power, and never attaining a permanent being. "Whatever a city enacts as appearing just to itself, this also is just to the city that enacts it, so long as it continues in force."[501] "The just, then, is nothing else but that which is expedient for the strongest."[502]

[Footnote 498: "Theætetus," § 23.]

[Footnote 499: Ibid., §§ 25, 26.]

[Footnote 500: Ibid., §§ 39, 87.]

[Footnote 501: Ibid., § 87.]

[Footnote 502: "Republic," bk. i. ch. xii.]

2. The second theory is that which denies the existence (except as phantasms, images, or mere illusions of the mind) of the whole of sensible phenomena, and refers all knowledge to the _rational apperception of unity_ (to en) _or the One_.

This was the doctrine of the later Eleatics. The world of sense was, to Parmenides and Zeno, a blank negation, the _non ens_. The identity of thought and existence was the fundamental principle of their philosophy.

"Thought is the same thing as the cause of thought; For without the thing in which it is announced, You can not find the thought; for there is nothing, nor shall be, Except the existing."[503]

[Footnote 503: Parmenides, quoted in Lewes's "Biog. History of Philosophy," p. 54.]

This theory, therefore, denied to man any valid knowledge of the external world.

It will at once be apparent to the intelligent reader that the direct and natural result of both these theories[504] of knowledge was a tendency to universal skepticism. A spirit of utter indifference to truth and righteousness was the prevailing spirit of Athenian society. That spirit is strikingly exhibited in the speech of Callicles, "the shrewd man of the world," in "Gorgias" (§85, 86). Is this new to our ears?" My dear Socrates, you talk of _law_. Now the laws, in my judgment, are just the work of the weakest and most numerous; in framing them they never thought but of themselves and their own interests; they never approve or censure except in reference to _this._ Hence it is that the cant arises that tyranny is improper and unjust, and to struggle for eminence, guilt. Unable to rise themselves, of course they would wish to preach liberty and equality. But nature proclaims the law of the stronger.... We surround our children from their infancy with preposterous prejudices about liberty and justice. The man of sense tramples on such impositions, and shows what Nature's justice is.... I confess, Socrates, philosophy is a highly amusing study--in moderation, and for boys. But protracted too long, it becomes a perfect plague. Your philosopher is a complete novice in the life _comme il faut_.... I like very well to see a child babble and stammer; there is even a grace about it when it becomes his age. But to see a man continue the prattle of the child, is absurd. Just so with your philosophy." The consequence of this prevalent spirit of universal skepticism was a general laxity of morals. The Aleibiades, of the "_Symposium_," is the ideal representative of the young aristocracy of Athens. Such was the condition of society generally, and such the degeneracy of even the Government itself, that Plato impressively declares "that God alone could save the young men of his age from ruin."[505]

[Footnote 504: Between these two extreme theories there were offered two, apparently less extravagant, accounts of the nature and limits of human knowledge--one declaring that "_Science_(real knowledge) _consists in right opinion_" (doxa alêthês), but having no further basis in the reason of man ("Theæstetus," § 108); and the other affirming that "_Science is right opinion with logical explication or definition_" (meta loxou, "Theætetus," § 139). A close examination will, however, convince us that these are but modifications of the sensational theory. The latter forcibly remind us of the system of Locke, who adds "reflection" to "sensation," but still maintains that all on "simple ideas" are obtained from without, and that these are the only material upon which reflection can be exercised. Thus the human mind has no criterion of truth within itself, no elements of knowledge which are connatural and inborn.]

[Footnote 505: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vii.]

Therefore the grand, the vital, the most urgent question for his times, as indeed for all times, was, _What is Truth? What is Right_? In the midst of all this variableness and uncertainty of human opinion, is there no ground of certainty? Amid all the fluctuations and changes around us and within us, is there nothing that is immutable and permanent? Have we no ultimate standard of Right? Is there no criterion of Truth? Plato believed most confidently there was such a criterion and standard. He had learned from Socrates, his master, to cherish an unwavering faith in the existence of an Eternal Truth, an Eternal Order, an Eternal Good, the knowledge of which is essential to the perfection and happiness of man, and which knowledge must therefore be presumed to be attainable by man. Henceforth, therefore, the ceaseless effort of Plato's life is to attain a standard (kritêrion)[506]--a CRITERION OF TRUTH.

[Footnote 506: "Theætetus," § 89.]

At the outset of his philosophic studies, Plato had derived from Socrates an important principle, which became the guide of all his subsequent inquiries. He had learned from him that the criterion of truth must be no longer sought amid the ever-changing phenomena of the "sensible world." This had been attempted by the philosophers of the Ionian school, and ended in failure and defeat. It must therefore be sought in the metaphenomenal--the "intelligible world;" that is, it must be sought in the apperceptions of the reason, and not in opinions founded on sensation. In other words, he must look _within_. Here, by reflection, he could recognize, dimly and imperfectly at first, but increasing gradually in clearness and distinctness, two classes of cognitions, having essentially distinct and opposite characteristics. He found one class that was complex (synkegumenon), changeable (thateron), contingent and relative (ta pros ti schesin echonta); the other, simple (kexôrismenon), unchangeable (akinêton), constant (tauton), permanent (to on aei), and absolute (anypotheton = aploun). One class that may be questioned, the other admitting of no question, because self-evident and necessary, and therefore compelling belief. One class grounded on sense-perception, the other conceived by reason alone. But whilst the reason recognizes, it does not create them. They are not particular and individual, but universal. They belong not to the man, but to the race.

He found, then, that there are in all minds certain "principles" which are fundamental--principles which lie at the basis of all our cognitions of the objective world, and which, as "mental laws," determine all our forms of thought; and principles, too, which have this marvellous and undeniable character, that they are encountered in the most common experiences, and, at the same time, instead of being circumscribed within the limits of experience, transcend and govern it--principles which are _universal_ in the midst of particular phenomena--_necessary,_ though mingled with things contingent--to our eyes _infinite_ and _absolute_, even when appearing in us the relative and finite beings that we are.[507] These first or fundamental principles Plato called IDEAS (ideai).

[Footnote 507: Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 40.]

In attempting to present to the reader an adequate representation of the Platonic Ideas, we shall be under the necessity of anticipating some of the results of his Dialectical method before we have expounded that method. And, further, in order that it may be properly appreciated by the modern student, we shall avail ourselves of the lights which modern psychology, faithful to the method of Plato, has thrown upon the subject. Whilst, however, we admit that modern psychology has succeeded in giving more definiteness and precision to the "doctrine of Ideas," we shall find that all that is fundamentally valuable and true was present to the mind of Plato. Whatever superiority the "Spiritual" philosophy of to-day may have over the philosophy of past ages, it has attained that superiority by its adherence to the principles and method of Plato.

In order to the completeness of our preliminary exposition of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, we shall conditionally assume, as a natural and legitimate hypothesis, the doctrine so earnestly asserted by Plato, that the visible universe, at least in its present form, is an _effect_ which must have had a _cause_,[508] and that the Order, and Beauty, and Excellence of the universe are the result of the presence and operation of a "regulating Intelligence"--a _Supreme Mind_.[509] Now that, anterior to the creation of the universe, there must have existed in the Eternal Mind certain fundamental principles of Order, Right, and Good, will not be denied. Every conceivable _form_, every possible _relation_, every principle of _right_, must have been eternally present to the Divine thought. As pure intelligence, the Deity must have always been self-conscious--must have known himself as substance and cause, as the Infinite and Perfect. If then the Divine Energy is put forth in creative acts, that energy must obey those eternal principles of Order, Right, and Good. If the Deity operate at all, he must operate rightly, wisely, and well. The created universe must be an _image_, in the sphere of sense, of the ideas which inhere in the reason of the great First Cause.

[Footnote 508: "Timæus," ch. ix.]

[Footnote 509: "Phædo," § 105.]

"Let us declare," says Plato, "with what _motive_ the Creator hath formed nature and the universe. He was _good_, and in the good no manner of envy can, on any subject, possibly subsist. Exempt from envy, he had wished that all things should, as far as possible, _resemble himself_.... It was not, and is not to be allowed for the Supremely Good to do any thing except what is most _excellent_ (kalliston)--most _fair_, most _beautiful_."[510] Therefore, argues Plato, "inasmuch as the world is the most beautiful of things, and its artificer the best of causes, it is evident that the Creator and Father of the universe looked to the _Eternal Model_(paradeigma), pattern, or plan,"[511] which lay in his own mind. And thus this one, only-generated universe, is the _image_ (eikôn) of that God who is the object of the intellect, the greatest, the best, and the most perfect Being.[512]

[Footnote 510: "Timæus," ch. x.]

[Footnote 511: Ibid., ch. ix.]

[Footnote 512: "Timæus," ch. lxxiii.]

And then, furthermore, if this Supreme Intelligence, this Eternal Mind, shall create another _mind_, it must, in a still higher degree, resemble him. Inasmuch as it is a rational nature, it must, in a peculiar sense, partake of the Divine characteristics. "The soul," says Plato, "is that which most partakes of the _Divine_"[513] The soul must, therefore, have native _ideas_ and sentiments which correlate it with the Divine original. The ideas of substance and cause, of unity and identity, of the infinite and perfect, must be mirrored there. As it is the "offspring of God,"[514] it must bear some traces and lineaments of its Divine parentage. That soul must be configured and correlated to those principles of Order, Right, and Good which dwell in the Eternal Mind. And because it has within itself the same ideas and laws, according to which the great Architect built the universe, therefore it is capable of knowing, and, in some degree, of comprehending, the intellectual system of the universe. It apprehends the external world by a light which the reason supplies. It interprets nature according to principles and laws which God has inwrought within the very essence of the soul. "That which imparts truth to knowable things, and gives the knower his power of knowing truth, is the _idea of the good_, and you are to conceive of this as the source of knowledge and of truth."[515]

[Footnote 513: "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.]

[Footnote 514: Ibid., bk. x.]

[Footnote 515: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xviii.]

And now we are prepared to form a clear conception of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas. Viewed in their relation to the Eternal Reason, as giving the primordial thought and law of all being, these principles are simply eidê auta kath auta--_ideas in themselves_--the essential qualities or attributes of Him who is the supreme and ultimate Cause of all existence. When regarded as before the Divine imagination, giving definite forms and relations, they are the tupoi, the paradeigmata--_the types_, _models, patterns, ideals_ according to which the universe was fashioned. Contemplated in their actual embodiment in the laws, and typical forms of the material world, they are eikones--_images_ of the eternal perfections of God. The world of sense pictures the world of reason by a participation (methexis) of the ideas. And viewed as interwoven in the very texture and framework of the soul, they are omoiômata--copies of the Divine Ideas which are the primordial laws of knowing, thinking, and reasoning. Ideas are thus the nexus of relation between God and the visible universe, and between the human and the Divine reason.[516] There is something divine in the world, and in the human soul, namely, _the eternal laws and reasons of things_, mingled with the endless diversity and change of sensible phenomena. These ideas are "the light of the intelligible world;" they render the invisible world of real Being perceptible to the reason of man. "Light is the offspring of the Good, which the Good has produced in his own likeness. Light in the visible world is what the _idea of the Good_ is in the intelligible world. And this offspring of the Good--light--has the same relation to vision and visible things which the Good has to intellect and intelligible things."[517]

[Footnote 516: "Now, Idea is, as regards God, a mental operation by him (the notions of God, eternal and perfect in themselves); as regards us, the first things perceptible by mind; as regards Matter, a standard; but as regards the world, perceptible by sense, a pattern; but as considered with reference to itself, an existence."--Alcinous, "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato," p. 261.

"What general notions are to our minds, he (Plato) held, ideas are to the Supreme Reason (nous basileus); they are the eternal thoughts of the Divine Intellect, and we attain truth when our thoughts conform with His--when our general notions are in conformity with the ideas."--Thompson, "Laws of Thought," p. 119.]

[Footnote 517: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xix.]

_Science_ is, then, according to Plato, _the knowledge of universal, necessary, unchangeable, and eternal ideas_. The simple cognition of the concrete phenomena of the universe is not regarded by him as _real_ knowledge. "Science, or real knowledge, belongs to _Being_, and ignorance to _non_-Being." Whilst that which is conversant only "with that which partakes of both--of being and non-being--and which can not be said either to be or not to be"--that which is perpetually "becoming," but never "really is," is "simply _opinion_, and not real knowledge."[518] And those only are "philosophers" who have a knowledge of the _really-existing_, in opposition to the mere seeming; of the _always-existing_, in opposition to the transitory; and of that which exists _permanently_, in opposition to that which waxes and wanes--is developed and destroyed alternately. "Those who recognize many beautiful things, but who can not see the Beautiful itself, and can not even follow those who would lead them to it, they _opine_, but do not _know_. And the same may be said of those who recognize right actions, but do not recognize an absolute righteousness. And so of other ideas. But they who look at these ideas--permanent and unchangeable ideas--these men _really know_."[519] Those are the true philosophers alone who love the sight of truth, and who have attained to the vision of the eternal order, and righteousness, and beauty, and goodness in the Eternal Being. And the means by which the soul is raised to this vision of real Being (to ontôs on) is THE SCIENCE OF REAL KNOWLEDGE.

Plato, in the "Theætetus," puts this question by the interlocutor Socrates, "What is Science (Epistêmê) or positive knowledge?"[520] Theætetus essays a variety of answers, such as, "Science is sensation," "Science is right judgment or opinion," "Science is right opinion with logical definition." These, in the estimation of the Platonic Socrates, are all unsatisfactory and inadequate. But after you have toiled to the end of this remarkable discussion, in which Socrates demolishes all the then received theories of knowledge, he gives you no answer of his own. He abruptly closes the discussion by naïvely remarking that, at any rate, Theætetus will learn that he does not understand the subject; and the ground is now cleared for an original investigation.

[Footnote 518: "Republic," bk. v. ch. xx.]

[Footnote 519: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.]

[Footnote 520: "Theætetus," § 10.]

This investigation is resumed in the "Republic." This greatest work of Plato's was designed not only to exhibit a scheme of Polity, and present a system of Ethics, but also, at least in its digressions, to propound a system of Metaphysics more complete and solid than had yet appeared. The discussion as to the _powers_ or _faculties_ by which we obtain knowledge, the _method_ or _process_ by which real knowledge is attained, and the ultimate _objects_ or _ontological grounds_ of all real knowledge, commences at § 18, book v., and extends to the end of