CHAPTER XXVII.

PARMENIDES.

[Side-note: Character of dialogues immediately preceding--much transcendental assertion. Opposite character of the Parmenides.]

In the dialogues immediately preceding--Phædon, Phædrus, Symposion--we have seen Sokrates manifesting his usual dialectic, which never fails him: but we have also seen him indulging in a very unusual vein of positive affirmation and declaration. He has unfolded many novelties about the states of pre-existence and post-existence: he has familiarised us with Ideas, Forms, Essences, eternal and unchangeable, as the causes of all the facts and particularities of nature: he has recognised the inspired variety of madness, as being more worthy of trust than sober, uninspired, intelligence: he has recounted, with the faith of a communicant fresh from the mysteries, revelations made to him by the prophetess Diotima,--respecting the successive stages of exaltation whereby gifted intelligences, under the stimulus of Eros Philosophus, ascend into communion with the great sea of Beauty. All this is set forth with as much charm as Plato's eloquence can bestow. But after all, it is not the true character of Sokrates:--I mean, the Sokrates of the Apology, whose mission it is to make war against the chronic malady of the human mind--false persuasion of knowledge, without the reality. It is, on the contrary, Sokrates himself infected with the same chronic malady which he combats in others, and requiring medicine against it as much as others. Such is the exact character in which Sokrates appears in the Parmenides: which dialogue I shall now proceed to review.

[Side-note: Sokrates is the juvenile defendant--Parmenides the veteran censor and cross-examiner. Parmenides gives a specimen of exercises to be performed by the philosophical aspirant.]

The Parmenides announces its own purpose as intended to repress premature forwardness of affirmation, in a young philosophical aspirant: who, with meritorious eagerness in the search for truth, and with his eyes turned in the right direction to look for it--has nevertheless not fully estimated the obstructions besetting his path, nor exercised himself in the efforts necessary to overcome them. By a curious transposition, or perhaps from deference on Plato's part to the Hellenic sentiment of Nemesis,--Sokrates, who in most Platonic dialogues stands forward as the privileged censor and victorious opponent, is here the juvenile defendant under censorship by a superior. It is the veteran Parmenides of Elea who, while commending the speculative impulse and promise of Sokrates, impresses upon him at the same time that the theory which he had advanced--the self-existence, the separate and substantive nature, of Ideas--stands exposed to many grave objections, which he (Sokrates) has not considered and cannot meet. So far, Parmenides performs towards Sokrates the same process of cross-examining refutation as Sokrates himself applies to Theætêtus and other young men elsewhere. But we find in this dialogue something ulterior and even peculiar. Having warned Sokrates that his intellectual training has not yet been carried to a point commensurate with the earnestness of his aspirations--Parmenides proceeds to describe to him what exercises he ought to go through, in order to guard himself against premature assertion or hasty partiality. Moreover, Parmenides not only indicates in general terms what ought to be done, but illustrates it by giving a specimen of such exercise, on a topic chosen by himself.

[Side-note: Circumstances and persons of the Parmenides.]

Passing over the dramatic introduction[1] whereby the personages discoursing are brought together, we find Sokrates, Parmenides, and the Eleatic Zeno (the disciple of Parmenides), engaged in the main dialogue. When Parmenides begins his illustrative exercise, a person named Aristotle (afterwards one of the Thirty oligarchs at Athens), still younger than Sokrates, is made to serve as respondent.

[Footnote 1: This dramatic introduction is extremely complicated. The whole dialogue, from beginning to end, is recounted by Kephalus of Klazomenæ; who heard it from the Athenian Antiphon--who himself had heard it from Pythodôrus, a friend of Zeno, present when the conversation was held. A string of circumstances are narrated by Kephalus, to explain how he came to wish to hear it, and to find out Antiphon. Plato appears anxious to throw the event back as far as possible into the past, in order to justify the bringing Sokrates into personal communication with Parmenides: for some unfriendly critics tried to make out that the two could not possibly have conversed on philosophy (Athenæus, xi. 505). Plato declares the ages of the persons with remarkable exactness: Parmenides was 65, completely grey-headed, but of noble mien: Zeno about 40, tall and graceful: Sokrates very young. (Plat. Parmen. p. 127 B-C.)

It required some invention in Plato to provide a narrator, suitable for recounting events so long antecedent as the young period of Sokrates.]

Sokrates is one among various auditors, who are assembled to hear Zeno reading aloud a treatise of his own composition, intended to answer and retort upon the opponents of his preceptor Parmenides.

[Side-note: Manner in which the doctrine of Parmenides was impugned. Manner in which his partisan Zeno defended him.]

The main doctrine of the real Parmenides was, "That Ens, the absolute, real, self-existent, was One and not many": which doctrine was impugned and derided by various opponents, deducing from it absurd conclusions. Zeno defended his master by showing that the opposite doctrine (--"That Ens, the absolute, self-existent universe, is Many--") led to conclusions absurd in an equal or greater degree. If the Absolute were Many, the many would be both like and unlike: but they cannot have incompatible and contradictory attributes: therefore Absolute Ens is not Many. Ens, as Parmenides conceived it, was essentially homogeneous and unchangeable: even assuming it to be Many, all its parts must be homogeneous, so that what was predicable of one must be predicable of all; it might be all alike, or all unlike: but it could not be both. Those who maintained the plurality of Ens, did so on the ground of apparent severalty, likeness, and unlikeness, in the sensible world. But Zeno, while admitting these phenomena in the sensible world, as _relative to us_, apparent, and subject to the varieties of individual estimation--denied their applicability to absolute and self-existent Ens.[2] Since absolute Ens or Entia are Many (said the opponents of Parmenides), they will be both like and unlike: and thus we can explain the phenomena of the sensible world. The absolute (replied Zeno) cannot be both like and unlike; therefore it cannot be many. We must recollect that both Parmenides and Zeno renounced all attempt to explain the sensible world by the absolute and purely intelligible Ens. They treated the two as radically distinct and unconnected. The one was absolute, eternal, unchangeable, homogeneous, apprehended only by reason. The other was relative, temporary, variable, heterogeneous; a world of individual and subjective opinion, upon which no absolute truth, no pure objectivity, could be reached.

[Footnote 2: I have already given a short account of the Zenonian Dialectic, ch. ii. p. 93 seq.]

[Side-note: Sokrates here impugns the doctrine of Zeno. He affirms the Platonic theory of ideas separate from sensible objects, yet participable by them.]

Sokrates, depicted here as a young man, impugns this doctrine of Zeno: and maintains that the two worlds, though naturally disjoined, were not incommunicable. He advances the Platonic theory of Ideas: that is, an intelligible world of many separate self-existent Forms or Ideas, apprehended by reason only--and a sensible world of particular objects, each participating in one or more of these Forms or Ideas. "What you say (he remarks to Zeno), is true of the world of Forms or Ideas: the Form of Likeness _per se_ can never be unlike, nor can the Form of Unlikeness be ever like. But in regard to the sensible world, there is nothing to hinder you and me, and other objects which rank and are numbered as separate individuals, from participating both in the Form of likeness and in the Form of unlikeness.[3] In so far as I, an individual object, participate in the Form of Likeness, I am properly called like; in so far as I participate in the Form of Unlikeness, I am called unlike. So about One and Many, Great and Little, and so forth: I, the same individual, may participate in many different and opposite Forms, and may derive from them different and opposite denominations. I am one and many--like and unlike--great and little--all at the same time. But no such combination is possible between the Forms themselves, self-existent and opposite: the Form of Likeness cannot become unlike, nor _vice versâ_. The Forms themselves stand permanently apart, incapable of fusion or coalescence with each other: but different and even opposite Forms may lend themselves to participation and partnership in the same sensible individual object."[4]

[Footnote 3: Plato, Parmenid. p. 129 A. [Greek: ou) nomi/zeis ei)=nai au)to\ kath' au)to\ ei)=do/s ti o(moio/têtos, kai\ tô=| toiou/tô| ai)= a)/llo ti e)nanti/on, o(\ e)/stin a)no/moion? tou/toin de\ duoi=n o)/ntoin kai\ e)me\ kai\ se\ kai\ ta\ a)/lla a(\ dê\ polla\ kalou=men, metalamba/nein?]]

[Footnote 4: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 129-130.]

[Side-note: Parmenides and Zeno admire the philosophical ardour of Sokrates. Parmenides advances objections against the Platonic theory of Ideas.]

Parmenides and Zeno are represented as listening with surprise and interest to this language of Sokrates, recognising two distinct worlds: one, of invisible but intelligible Forms,--the other that of sensible objects, participating in these Forms. "Your ardour for philosophy" (observes Parmenides to Sokrates), "is admirable. Is this distinction your own?"[5]

[Footnote 5: Plato, Parmenid. p. 130 A. [Greek: Ô)= Sô/krates, ô(s a)/xios ei)= a)/gasthai tê=s o(rmê=s tê=s e)pi\ tou\s lo/gous; kai/ moi ei)pe/, _au)to\s su\ ou(/tô diê/|rêsai_ ô(s le/geis, chôri\s me\n ei)/dê au)ta\ a)/tta, chôri\s de\ ta\ tou/tôn au)= mete/chonta?]]

Plato now puts into the mouth of Parmenides--the advocate of One absolute and unchangeable Ens, separated by an impassable gulf from the sensible world of transitory and variable appearances or phenomena--objections against what is called the Platonic theory of Ideas: that is, the theory of an intelligible world, comprising an indefinite number of distinct intelligible and unchangeable Forms--in partial relation and communication with another world of sensible objects, each of which participates in one or more of these Forms. We thus have the Absolute One pitted against the Absolute Many.

[Side-note: What Ideas does Sokrates recognise? Of the Just and Good? Yes. Of Man, Horse, &c.? Doubtful. Of Hair, Mud, &c.? No.]

What number and variety of these intelligible Forms do you recognise--(asks Parmenides)? Likeness and Unlikeness--One and Many--Just, Beautiful, Good, &c.--are all these Forms absolute and existent _per se_? _Sokr._--Certainly they are. _Parm._--Do you farther recognise an absolute and self-existent Form of Man, apart from us and all other individuals?--or a Form of fire, water, and the like? _Sokr._--I do not well know how to answer:--I have often been embarrassed with the question. _Parm._--Farther, do there exist distinct intelligible Forms of hair, mud, dirt, and all the other mean and contemptible objects of sense which we see around? _Sokr._--No--certainly--no such Forms as these exist. Such objects are as we see them, and nothing beyond: it would be too absurd to suppose Forms of such like things.[6] Nevertheless there are times when I have misgivings on the point; and when I suspect that there must be Forms of them as well as of the others. When such reflections cross my mind, I shrink from the absurdity of the doctrine, and try to confine my attention to Forms like those which you mentioned first.

[Footnote 6: Plato, Parmenid. p. 130 D. [Greek: Ou)damô=s, pha/nai to\n Sôkra/tên, a)lla\ tau=ta me/n ge, a(/per o(rô=men, tau=ta kai\ ei)=nai; ei)=dos de/ ti au)tô=n oi)êthê=nai ei)=nai mê\ li/an ê)=| a)/topon.]

Alexander, who opposes the doctrine of the Platonists about Ideas, treats it as understood that they did not recognise Ideas of worms, gnats, and such like animals. Schol. ad Aristot. Metaphys. A. 991 a. p. 575, a. 30 Brandis.]

[Side-note: Parmenides declares that no object in nature is mean to the philosopher.]

_Parm._--You are still young, Sokrates:--you still defer to the common sentiments of mankind. But the time will come when philosophy will take stronger hold of you, and will teach you that no object in nature is mean or contemptible in her view.[7]

[Footnote 7: Plato, Parmenid. p. 130 E. [Greek: Ne/os ga\r ei)= e)/ti, kai\ ou(/pô sou a)ntei/lêptai philosophi/a ô(s e(/ti a)ntilê/psetai, kat' e)mê\n do/xan, o(/te _ou)de\n au)tô=n_ a)tima/seis; nu=n de\ e)/ti _pro\s a)nthrô/pôn a)poble/peis do/xas_ dia\ tê\n ê(liki/an.]]

* * * * *

[Side-note: Remarks upon this--Contrast between emotional and scientific classification.]

This remark deserves attention. Plato points out the radical distinction, and frequent antipathy between classifications constructed by science, and those which grow up spontaneously under the associating influence of a common emotion. What he calls "the opinions of men,"--in other words, the associations naturally working in an untaught and unlettered mind--bring together the ideas of objects according as they suggest a like emotion--veneration, love, fear, antipathy, contempt, laughter, &c.[8] As things which inspire like emotions are thrown into the same category and receive the same denomination, so the opposite proceeding inspires great repugnance, when things creating antipathetic emotions are forced into the same category. A large proportion of objects in nature come to be regarded as unworthy of any serious attention, and fit only to serve for discharging on them our laughter, contempt, or antipathy. The investigation of the structure and manifestations of insects is one of the marked features which Aristophanes ridicules in Sokrates: moreover the same poet also brings odium on the philosopher for alleged study of astronomy and meteorology--the heavenly bodies being as it were at the opposite emotional pole, objects of such reverential admiration and worship, that it was impious to watch or investigate them, or calculate their proceedings beforehand.[9] The extent to which anatomy and physiology were shut out from study in antiquity, and have continued to be partially so even in modern times, is well known. And the proportion of phenomena is both great and important, connected with the social relations, which are excluded both from formal registration and from scientific review; kept away from all rational analysis either of causes or remedies, because of the strong repugnances connected with them. This emotional view of nature is here noted by Plato as conflicting with the scientific. No object (he says) is mean in the eyes of philosophy. He remarks to the same effect in the Sophistês and Politikus, and the remark is illustrated by the classifying processes there exhibited:[10] mean objects and esteemed objects being placed side by side.

[Footnote 8: Plato, himself, however, occasionally appeals [Greek: pro\s a)nthrô/pôn do/xas], and becomes [Greek: a)technô=s dêmê/goros], when it suits his argument; see Gorgias, 494 C.]

[Footnote 9: Aristophan. Nubes, 145-170-1490.

[Greek: ti/ ga\r matho/nt' e)s tou\s theou\s u(bri/zeton, kai\ tê=s selê/nês e)skopei=sthe tê\n e)/dran?]

Compare Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 11-13, iv. 7, 6-7; Plutarch, Perikles, 23; also the second chapter of the first Book of Macrobius, about the discredit which is supposed to be thrown upon grand and solemn subjects by a plain and naked exposition. "Inimicam esse naturæ nudam expositionem sui."]

[Footnote 10: Plato, Sophist. p. 227 B; Politik. p. 266 D; also Theætêt. p. 174 D.

Both the Platonic Sokrates, and the Xenophontic Sokrates, frequently illustrate the education of men by comparison with the bringing up of young animals as well as with the training of horses: they also compare the educator of young men with the trainer of young horses. Indeed this comparison occurs so frequently, that it excites much displeasure among various modern critics (Forchhammer, Köchly, Socher, &c.), who seem to consider it as unseemly and inconsistent with "the dignity of human nature". The frequent allusions made by Plato to the homely arts and professions are noted by his interlocutors as tiresome.

See Plato, Apolog. Sokr. p. 20 A. [Greek: ô)= Kalli/a, ei) me/n sou tô\ ui(e/e pô/lô ê)\ mo/schô e)gene/sthên], &c.

The Zoological works of Aristotle exhibit a memorable example of scientific intelligence, overcoming all the contempt and disgust usually associated with minute and repulsive organisms. To Plato, it would be repugnant to arrange in the same class the wolf and the dog. See Sophist. p. 231 A.]

* * * * *

Parmenides now produces various objections against the Platonic variety of dualism: the two distinct but partially inter-communicating worlds--one, of separate, permanent, unchangeable, Forms or Ideas--the other, of individual objects, transient and variable; participating in, and receiving denomination from, these Forms.

[Side-note: Objections of Parmenides--How can objects participate in the Ideas. Each cannot have the whole Idea, nor a part thereof.]

1. How (asks Parmenides) can such participation take place? Is the entire Form in each individual object? No: for one and the same Form cannot be at the same time in many distant objects. A part of it therefore must be in one object; another part in another. But this assumes that the Form is divisible--or is not essentially One. Equality is in all equal objects: but how can a part of the Form equality, less than the whole, make objects equal? Again, littleness is in all little objects: that is, a part of the Form littleness is in each. But the Form littleness cannot have parts; because, if it had, the entire Form would be greater than any of its parts,--and the Form littleness cannot be greater than any thing. Moreover, if one part of littleness were added to other parts, the sum of the two would be less, and not greater, than either of the factors. It is plain that none of these Forms can be divisible, or can have parts. Objects therefore cannot participate in the Form by parts or piecemeal. But neither can each object possess the entire Form. Accordingly, since there remains no third possibility, objects cannot participate in the Forms at all.[11]

[Footnote 11: Plato, Parmenid. p. 131. A similar argument, showing the impossibility of such [Greek: me/thexis], appears in Sextus Empiric. adv. Arithmeticos, sect. 11-20, p. 334 Fab., p. 724 Bek.]

[Side-note: Comparing the Idea with the sensible objects partaking in the Idea, there is a likeness between them which must be represented by a higher Idea--and so on _ad infinitum_.]

2. Parmenides now passes to a second argument. The reason why you assume that each one of these Forms exists, is--That when you contemplate many similar objects, one and the same ideal phantom or Concept is suggested by all.[12] Thus, when you see many _great_ objects, one common impression of _greatness_ arises from all. Hence you conclude that The Great, or the Form of Greatness, exists as One. But if you take this Form of Greatness, and consider it in comparison with each or all the great individual objects, it will have in common with them something that makes it great. You must therefore search for some higher Form, which represents what belongs in common both to the Form of Greatness and to individual great objects. And this higher Form again, when compared with the rest, will have something in common which must be represented by a Form yet higher: so that there will be an infinite series of Forms, ascending higher and higher, of which you will never reach the topmost.[13]

[Footnote 12: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132. [Greek: Oi)=mai se e)k tou= toiou=de e(\n e(/kaston ei)=dos oi)/esthai ei)=nai. O(/tan _po/ll' a)/tta mega/la soi do/xê|_ ei)=nai, _mi/a tis i)/sôs dokei= i)de/a_ ê( au)tê\ ei)=nai _e)pi\ pa/nta i)do/nti_, o(/then _e(\n to\ me/ga ê(gei= ei)=nai_.]]

[Footnote 13: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132 A. See this process, of comparing the Form with particular objects denominated after the Form, described in a different metaphysical language by Mr. John Stuart Mill, System of Logic, book iv. ch. 2, sect. 3. "As the general conception is itself obtained by a comparison of particular phenomena, so, when obtained, the mode in which we apply it to other phenomena is again by comparison. We compare phenomena with each other to get the conception; and we then compare those and other phenomena _with_ the conception. We get the conception of an animal by comparing different animals, and when we afterwards see a creature resembling an animal, we compare it with our general conception of an animal: and if it agrees with our general conception, we include it in the class. The conception becomes the type of comparison. We may perhaps find that no considerable number of other objects agree with this first general conception: and that we must drop the conception, and beginning again with a different individual case, proceed by fresh comparisons to a different general conception."

The comparison, which the argument of the Platonic Parmenides assumes to be instituted, between [Greek: to\ ei)=dos] and [Greek: ta\ mete/chonta au)tou=], is denied by Proklus; who says that there can be no comparison, nor any [Greek: koino/tês], except between [Greek: ta\ o(motagê=]: and that the Form is not [Greek: o(motage\s] with its participant particulars. (Proklus ad Parmenidem, p. 125, p. 684 ed. Stallbaum.)

This argument of Parmenides is the memorable argument known under the name of [Greek: o( tri/tos a)/nthrôpos]. Against the Platonic [Greek: ei)/dê] considered as [Greek: chôrista/], it is a forcible argument. See Aristot. Metaphys. A. 990, b. 15 seq., where it is numbered among [Greek: oi( a)kribe/steroi tô=n lo/gôn]. We find from the Scholion of Alexander (p. 566 Brandis), that it was advanced in several different ways by Aristotle, in his work [Greek: Peri\ I)deô=n]: by his scholar Eudemus [Greek: e)n toi=s peri\ Le/xeôs]: and by a contemporary [Greek: sophistê\s] named Polyxenus, as well as by other Sophists.]

[Side-note: Are the Ideas conceptions of the mind, and nothing more? Impossible.]

3. Perhaps (suggests Sokrates) each of these Forms is a Conception of the mind and nothing beyond: the Form is not competent to exist out of the mind.[14] How? (replies Parmenides.) There cannot be in the mind any Conception, which is a Conception of nothing. Every Conception must be of something really existing: in this case, it is a Conception of some one thing, which you conceive as belonging in common to each and all the objects considered. The Something thus conceived as perpetually One and the same in all, is, the Form. Besides, if you think that individual objects participate in the Forms, and that these Forms are Conceptions of the mind,--you must suppose, either that all objects are made up of Conceptions, and are therefore themselves Concipients: or else that these Forms, though Conceptions, are incapable of conceiving. Neither one nor the other is admissible.[15]

[Footnote 14: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132 B. [Greek: mê\ _tô=n ei)dô=n_ e(/kaston ê)=| _tou/tôn noê/ma_, kai\ _ou)damou= au)tô=| prosê/kê e)ggi/gnesthai a)/llothi ê)\ e)n psuchai=s_. . . . Ti/ ou)=n? pha/nai, e(\n e(/kasto/n e)sti tô=n noêma/tôn, no/êma de\ ou)deno/s? A)ll' a)du/naton, ei)pei=n. A)lla\ tino/s? Nai/. O)/ntos ê)\ ou)k o)/ntos? O)/ntos. Ou)ch e(no/s tinos, o(\ e)pi\ pa=sin e)kei=no to\ no/êma e)po\n noei=, mi/an tina\ ou)=san i)de/an? Nai/.]

Aristotle (Topic. ii. 113, a. 25) indicates one way of meeting this argument, if advanced by an adversary in dialectic debate--[Greek: ei) ta\s i)de/as _e)n ê(mi=n_ e)/phêsen ei)=nai].]

[Footnote 15: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132 D. [Greek: ou)k a)na/gkê, ei) ta)/lla phê\| tô=n ei)dô=n mete/chein, ê)\ dokei=n soi e)k noê/mata o)/nta a)no/êta ei)=nai? A)ll' ou)de\ tou=to, pha/nai, e)/chei lo/gon.]

The word [Greek: a)no/êta] here is used in its ordinary sense, in which it is the negation, not of [Greek: noêto/s] but of [Greek: noêtiko/s]. There is a similar confusion, Plato, Phædon, p. 80 B. Proklus (pp. 699-701, Stall.) is prolix but very obscure.]

[Side-note: The Ideas are types or exemplars, and objects partake of them by being likened to them. Impossible.]

4. Probably the case stands thus (says Sokrates). These Forms are constants and fixtures in nature, as models or patterns. Particular objects are copies or likenesses of them: and the participation of such objects in the Form consists in being made like to it.[16] In that case (replies Parmenides), the Form must itself be like to the objects which have been made like to it. Comparing the Form with the objects, that in which they resemble must itself be a Form: and thus you will have a higher Form above the first Form--and so upwards in the ascending line. This follows necessarily from the hypothesis that the Form is like the objects. The participation of objects in the Form, therefore, cannot consist in being likened to it.[17]

[Footnote 16: Aristotle (Metaphys. A. 991, a. 20) characterises this way of presenting the Platonic Ideas as mere [Greek: kenologi/a] and poetical metaphor. See also the remarkable Scholion of Alexander, pp. 574-575, Brandis.]

[Footnote 17: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 132-133.

This is again a repetition, though differently presented, of the same argument--[Greek: o( tri/tos a)/nthrôpos]--enunciated p. 132 A.]

[Side-note: If Ideas exist, they cannot be knowable by us. We can know only what is relative to ourselves. Individuals are relative to individuals: Ideas relative to Ideas.]

5. Here are grave difficulties (continues Parmenides) opposed to this doctrine of yours, affirming the existence of self-existent, substantive, unchangeable, yet participated, Forms. But difficulties still graver remain behind. Such Forms as you describe cannot be cognizable by us: at least it is hard to show how they can be cognizable. Being self-existent and substantive, they are not _in us_: such of them as are relative, have their relation with each other, not with those particular objects among us, which are called _great_, _little_, and so forth, from being supposed to be similar to or participant in the forms, and bearing names the same as those of the Forms. Thus, for example, if I, an individual man, am in the relation of master, I bear that relation to another individual man who is my servant, not to servantship in general (_i.e._ the Form of servantship, the _Servus per se_). My servant, again, bears the relation of servant to me, an individual man as master,--not to mastership in general (_i.e._ to the Form of mastership, the _Dominus per se_). Both terms of the relation are individual objects. On the other hand, the Forms also bear relation to each other. The Form of servantship (_Servus per se_) stands in relation to the Form of mastership (_Dominus per se_). Neither of them correlates with an individual object. The two terms of the relation must be homogeneous, each of them a Form.[18]

[Footnote 18: Plato, Parmenid. p. 133 E.]

[Side-note: Forms can be known only through the Form of Cognition, which we do not possess.]

Now apply this to the case of cognition. The Form of Cognition correlates exclusively with the Form of Truth: the Form of each special Cognition, geometrical or medical, or other, correlates with the Form of Geometry or Medicine. But Cognition as we possess it, correlates only with Truth relatively to us: also, each special Cognition of ours has its special correlating Truth, relatively to us.[19] Now the Forms are not in or with us, but apart from us: the Form of Cognition is not our Cognition, the Form of Truth is not our Truth. Forms can be known only through the Form of Cognition, which _we_ do not possess: we cannot therefore know Forms. We have our own cognition, whereby we know what is relative to us; but we know nothing more. Forms, which are not relative to us, lie out of our knowledge. _Bonum per se, Pulchrum per se_, and the other self-existent Forms or Ideas, are to us altogether unknowable.[20]

[Footnote 19: Plato, Parmenid. p. 134 A. [Greek: Ou)kou=n kai\ e)pistê/mê, au)tê\ me\n o(\ e)/stin e)pistê/mê, tê=s o(\ e)/stin a)lê/theia, au)tê=s a)\n e)kei/nês ei)/ê e)pistê/mê? . . . Ê( de\ par' ê(mi=n e)pistê/mê ou) tê=s par' ê(mi=n a)\n a)lêthei/as ei)/ê? kai\ au)= e(ka/stê ê( par' ê(mi=n e)pistê/mê tô=n par' ê(mi=n o)/ntôn e(ka/stou a)\n e)pistê/mê su/mbainoi ei)=nai?]

Aristotle (Topica, vi. p. 147, a. 6) adverts to this as an argument against the theory of Ideas, but without alluding to the Parmenides; indeed he puts the argument in a different way--[Greek: to\ d' ei)=dos pro\s to\ ei)=dos dokei= le/gesthai, oi(=on au)tê\ e)pithumi/a au)tou= ê(de/os, kai\ au)tê\ bou/lêsis au)tou= a)gathou=.] Aristotle argues that there is no place in this doctrine for the [Greek: phaino/menon a)gatho/n], which nevertheless men often wish for, and he remarks, in the Nikom. Ethica, i. 4, 1096 b. 33--that the [Greek: au)to\-a)gatho\n] is neither [Greek: prakto\n] nor [Greek: ktêto\n a)nthrô/pô|].]

[Footnote 20: Plato, Parmenid. p. 134 C. [Greek: A)/gnôston a)/ra ê(mi=n kai\ au)to\ to\ kalo\n o(\ e)/sti, kai\ to\ a)gatho/n, kai\ pa/nta a(\ dê\ ô(s i)de/as au)ta\s ou)/sas u(polamba/nomen.]]

[Side-note: Form of cognition, superior to our Cognition, belongs to the Gods. We cannot know them, nor can they know us.]

6. Again, if there be a real self-existent Form of Cognition, apart from that which we or others possess--it must doubtless be far superior in accuracy and perfection to that which we possess.[21] The Form of Beauty and the other Forms, must be in like manner superior to that which is found under the same name in individual objects. This perfect Form of Cognition must therefore belong to the Gods, if it belong to any one. But if so, the Gods must have a Form of Truth, the proper object of their Form of Cognition. They cannot know the truth relatively to us, which belongs to _our_ cognition--any more than we can know the more perfect truth belonging to them. So too about other Forms. The perfect Form of mastership belongs to the Gods, correlating with its proper Form of servantship. _Their_ mastership does not correlate with individual objects like us: in other words, they are not our masters, nor are we their servants. _Their_ cognition, again, does not correlate with individual objects like us: in other words, they do not know us, nor do we know them. In like manner, we in our capacity of masters are not masters of them--we as cognizant beings know nothing of them or of that which they know. They can in no way correlate with us, nor can we correlate with them.[22]

[Footnote 21: An argument very similar is urged by Aristotle (Metaph. [Greek: Th]. 1050, b. 34) [Greek: ei) a)/ra tine/s ei)si phu/seis toiau=tai ê)\ ou)si/ai oi(/as le/gousin oi( e)n toi=s lo/gois ta\s i)de/as, polu\ ma=llon e)pistê=mon a)/n ti ei)/ê ê( au)toepistê/mê kai\ kinou/menon ê( ki/nêsis.]]

[Footnote 22: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 A. [Greek: Tau=ta me\ntoi, ô)= Sô/krates, e)/phê o( Parmeni/dês, _kai\ e)/ti a)/lla pro\s tou/tois pa/nu polla\ a)nagkai=on e)/chein ta\ ei)/dê_, ei) ei)si\n au)tai ai( i)de/ai tô=n o)/ntôn], &c.]

[Side-note: Sum total of objections against the Ideas is grave. But if we do not admit that Ideas exist, and that they are knowable, there can be no dialectic discussion.]

Here are some of the objections, Sokrates (concludes Parmenides), which beset your doctrine, that there exist substantive, self-standing, Forms of Ideas, each respectively definable. Many farther objections might also be urged.[23] So that a man may reasonably maintain, either that none such exist--or that, granting their existence, they are essentially unknowable by us. He must put forth great ingenuity to satisfy himself of the affirmative; and still more wonderful ingenuity to find arguments for the satisfaction of others, respecting this question.

[Footnote 23: Plato, Parmenid. p. 134 D-E. [Greek: Ou)/koun ei) para\ tô=| theô=| au(/tê e)/stin ê( a)kribesta/tê despotei/a kai\ au(/tê ê( a)kribesta/tê e)pistê/mê, ou)/t' a)\n ê( despotei/a ê( e)kei/nôn] (i.e. [Greek: tô=n theô=n]) [Greek: ê(mô=n pote\ a)\n despo/seien, _ou)/t' a)\n ê( e)pistê/mê ê(ma=s gnoi/ê ou)de/ ti a)/llo tô=n par' ê(mi=n_; a)lla\ o(moi/ôs ê(mei=s t' e)kei/nôn ou)k a)/rchomen tê=| par' ê(mi=n a)rchê=|, ou)de gignô/skomen tou= thei/ou ou)de\n tê=| ê(mete/ra| e)pistê/mê, _e)kei=noi/ te au)=_] (sc. [Greek: oi( theoi/]) [Greek: kata\ to\n au)to\n lo/gon ou)/te despo/tai ê(mô=n ei)si\n _ou)/te gignô/skousi ta\ a)nthrô/peia pra/gmata theoi\ o)/ntes_. A)lla\ mê\ li/an, e)/phê] (Sokrates), [Greek: ê)=| thaumasto\s o( lo/gos, ei)/ tis theo\n a)posterê/seis tou= ei)de/nai.]

The inference here drawn by Parmenides supplies the first mention of a doctrine revived by (if not transmitted to) Averroes and various scholastic doctors of the middle ages, so as to be formally condemned by theological councils. M. Renan tells us--"En 1269, Étienne Tempier, évêque de Paris, ayant rassemblé le conseil des maîtres en théologie . . . condamna, de concert avec eux, treize propositions qui ne sont presque toutes que les axiomes familiers de l'averroïsme: Quod intellectus hominum est unus et idem numero. Quod mundus est æternus. Quod nunquam fuit primus homo. _Quod Deus non cognoscit singularia_," &c. (Renan, Averroès, p. 213, 2nd ed., p. 268.)]

Nevertheless, on the other side (continues Parmenides), unless we admit the existence of such Forms or Ideas--substantive, eternal, unchangeable, definable--philosophy and dialectic discussion are impossible.[24]

[Footnote 24: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 B.]

* * * * *

[Side-note: Dilemma put by Parmenides--Acuteness of his objections.]

Here then, Parmenides entangles himself and his auditors in the perplexing dilemma, that philosophical and dialectic speculation is impossible, unless these Forms or Ideas, together with the participation of sensible objects in them, be granted; while at the same time this cannot be granted, until objections, which appear at first sight unanswerable, have been disposed of.

The acuteness with which these objections are enforced, is remarkable. I know nothing superior to it in all the Platonic writings. Moreover the objections point directly against that doctrine which Plato in other dialogues most emphatically insists upon, and which Aristotle both announces and combats as characteristic of Plato--the doctrine of separate, self-existent, absolute, Forms or Ideas. They are addressed moreover to Sokrates, the chief exponent of that doctrine here as well as in other dialogues. And he is depicted as unable to meet them.

[Side-note: The doctrine which Parmenides attacks is the genuine Platonic theory of Ideas. His objections are never answered in any part of the Platonic dialogues.]

It is true that Sokrates is here introduced as juvenile and untrained; or at least as imperfectly trained. And accordingly, Stallbaum with others think, that this is the reason of his inability to meet the objections: which (they tell us), though ingenious and plausible, yet having no application to the genuine Platonic doctrine about Ideas, might easily have been answered if Plato had thought fit, and are answered in other dialogues.[25] But to me it appears, that the doctrine which is challenged in the Parmenidês is the genuine Platonic doctrine about Ideas, as enunciated by Plato in the Republic, Phædon, Philêbus, Timæus, and elsewhere--though a very different doctrine is announced in the Sophistês. Objections are here made against it in the Parmenidês. In what other dialogue has Plato answered them? and what proof can be furnished that he was able to answer them? There are indeed many other dialogues in which a real world of Ideas absolute and unchangeable, is affirmed strenuously and eloquently, with various consequences and accompaniments traced to it: but there are none in which the Parmenidean objections are elucidated, or even recited. In the Phædon, Phædrus, Timæus, Symposion, &c., and elsewhere, Sokrates is made to talk confidently about the existence and even about the cognoscibility of these Ideas; just as if no such objections as those which we read in the Parmenidês could be produced.[26] In these other dialogues, Plato accepts implicitly one horn of the Parmenidean dilemma; but without explaining to us upon what grounds he allows himself to neglect the other.

[Footnote 25: Stallbaum, Prolegom. pp. 52-286-332.]

[Footnote 26: According to Stallbaum (Prolegg. pp. 277-337) the Parmenidês is the only dialogue in which Plato has discussed, with philosophical exactness, the theory of Ideas; in all the other dialogues he handles it in a popular and superficial manner. There is truth in this--indeed more truth (I think) than Stallbaum himself supposed: otherwise he would hardly have said that the objections in the Parmenides could easily have been answered, if Plato had chosen.

Stallbaum tells us, not only respecting Socher but respecting Schleiermacher (pp. 324-332), "Parmenidem omnino non intellexit". In my judgment, Socher understands the dialogue better than Stallbaum, when he (Socher) says, that the objections in the first half bear against the genuine Platonic Ideas; though I do not agree with his inference about the spuriousness of the dialogue.]

[Side-note: Views of Stallbaum and Socher. The latter maintains that Plato would never make such objections against his own theory, and denies the authenticity of the Parmenidês.]

Socher has so much difficulty in conceiving that Plato can have advanced such forcible objections against a doctrine, which nevertheless in other Platonic dialogues is proclaimed as true and important,--that he declares the Parmenidês (together with the Sophistês and Politikus) not to be genuine, but to have been composed by some unknown Megaric contemporary. To pass over the improbability that any unknown author should have been capable of composing works of so much ability as these--Socher's decision about spuriousness is founded upon an estimate of Plato's philosophical character, which I think incorrect. Socher expects (or at least reasons as if he expected) to find in Plato a preconceived system and a scheme of conclusions to which every thing is made subservient.

[Side-note: Philosophers are usually advocates, each of a positive system of his own.]

In most philosophers, doubtless, this is what we do find. Each starts with some favourite conclusions, which he believes to be true, and which he supports by all the arguments in their favour, as far as his power goes. If he mentions the arguments against them, he usually answers the weak, slurs over or sneers at the strong: at any rate, he takes every precaution that these counter arguments shall appear unimportant in the eyes of his readers. His purpose is, like that of a speaker in the public assembly, to obtain assent and belief: whether the hearers understand the question or not, is a matter of comparative indifference: at any rate, they must be induced to embrace his conclusion. Unless he thus foregoes the character of an impartial judge, to take up that of an earnest advocate; unless he bends the whole force of his mind to the establishment of the given conclusion--he becomes suspected as deficient in faith or sincerity, and loses much in persuasive power. For an earnest belief, expressed with eloquence and feeling, is commonly more persuasive than any logic.

[Side-note: Different spirit of Plato in his Dialogues of Search.]

Now whether this exclusive devotion to the affirmative side of certain questions be the true spirit of philosophy or not, it is certainly not the spirit of Plato in his Dialogues of Search; wherein he conceives the work of philosophy in a totally different manner. He does not begin by stating, even to himself a certain conclusion at which he has arrived, and then proceed to prove that conclusion to others. The search or debate (as I have observed in a preceding chapter) has greater importance in his eyes than the conclusion: nay, in a large proportion of his dialogues, there is no conclusion at all: we see something disproved, but nothing proved. The negative element has with him a value and importance of its own, apart from the affirmative. He is anxious to set forth what can be said against a given conclusion; even though not prepared to establish any thing in its place.

[Side-note: The Parmenidês is the extreme manifestation of the negative element. That Plato should employ one dialogue in setting forth the negative case against the Theory of Ideas is not unnatural.]

Such negative element, manifested as it is in so many of the Platonic dialogues, has its extreme manifestation in the Parmenidês. When we see it here applied to a doctrine which Plato in other dialogues insists upon as truth, we must call to mind (what sincere believers are apt to forget) that a case may always be made out against truth as well as in its favour: and that its privilege as a certified portion of "reasoned truth," rests upon no better title than the superiority of the latter case over the former. It is for testing the two cases--for determining where the superiority lies--and for graduating its amount--that the process of philosophising is called for, and that improvements in the method thereof become desirable. That Plato should, in one of his many diversified dialogues, apply this test to a doctrine which, in other dialogues, he holds out as true--is noway inconsistent with the general spirit of these compositions. Each of his dialogues has its own point of view, worked out on that particular occasion; what is common to them all, is the process of philosophising applied in various ways to the same general topics.

Those who, like Socher, deny Plato's authorship of the Parmenidês, on the ground of what is urged therein against the theory of Ideas, must suppose, either that he did not know that a negative case could be made out against that theory; or that knowing it, he refrained from undertaking the duty.[27] Neither supposition is consistent with what we know both of his negative ingenuity, and of his multifarious manner of handling.

[Footnote 27: Plato, Philêbus, p. 14, where the distinction taken coincides accurately enough with that which we read in Plato, Parmenid. p. 129 A-D.

Strümpell thinks that the Parmenidês was composed at a time of Plato's life when he had become sensible of the difficulties and contradictions attaching to his doctrine of self-existent Forms or Ideas, and when he was looking about for some way of extrication from them: which way he afterwards thought that he found in that approximation to Pythagorism--that exchange of Ideas for Ideal numbers, &c.--which we find imputed to him by Aristotle (Gesch. der Griech. Phil. sect. 96, 3). This is not impossible; but I find no sufficient ground for affirming it. Nor can I see how the doctrine which Aristotle ascribes to Plato about the Ideas (that they are generated by two [Greek: stoichei=a] or elements, [Greek: to\ e(/n] along with [Greek: to\ me/ga kai\ to\ mikro/n]) affords any escape from the difficulties started in the Parmenidês.

Strümpell considers the dialogue Parmenidês to have been composed "ganz ausdrücklich zur dialektischen Uebung," ib. s. 96, 2, p. 128.]

[Side-note: Force of the negative case in the Parmenidês. Difficulties about participation of sensible objects in the world of Ideas.]

The negative case, made out in the Parmenidês against the theory of Ideas, is indeed most powerful. The hypothesis of the Ideal World is unequivocally affirmed by Sokrates, with its four principal characteristics. 1. Complete essential separation from the world of sense. 2. Absolute self-existence. 3. Plurality of constituent items, several contrary to each other. 4. Unchangeable sameness and unity of each and all of them.--Here we have full satisfaction given to the Platonic sentiment, which often delights in soaring above the world of sense, and sometimes (see Phædon) in heaping contemptuous metaphors upon it. But unfortunately Sokrates cannot disengage himself from this world of sense: he is obliged to maintain that it partakes of, or is determined by, these extra-sensible Forms or Ideas. Here commence the series of difficulties and contradictions brought out by the Elenchus of Parmenides. Are all sensible objects, even such as are vulgar, repulsive, and contemptible, represented in this higher world? The Platonic sentiment shrinks from the admission: the Platonic sense of analogy hesitates to deny it. Then again, how can both assertions be true--first that the two worlds are essentially separate, next, that the one participates in, and derives its essence from, the other? How (to use Aristotelian language[28]) can the essence be separated from that of which it is the essence? How can the Form, essentially One, belong at once to a multitude of particulars?

[Footnote 28: Arist. Met. A. 991, b. 1. [Greek: a)du/naton, chôri\s ei)=nai tê\n ou)si/an kai\ ou)= ê( ou)si/a.]]

Two points deserve notice in this debate respecting the doctrine of Ideas:--

[Side-note: Difficulties about the Cognizability of Ideas. If Ideas are absolute, they cannot be cognizable: if they are cognizable, they must be relative. Doctrine of Homo Mensura.]

1. Parmenides shows, and Sokrates does not deny, that these Forms or Ideas described as absolute, self-existent, unchangeable, must of necessity be unknown and unknowable to us.[29] Whatever we do know, or can know, is relative to us;--to our actual cognition, or to our cognitive power. If you declare an object to be absolute, you declare it to be neither known nor knowable by us: if it be announced as known or knowable by us, it is thereby implied at the same time not to be absolute. If these Forms or Objects called absolute are known, they can be known only by an absolute Subject, or the Form of a cognizant Subject: that is, by God or the Gods. Even thus, to call them _absolute_ is a misnomer: they are relative to the Subject, and the Subject is relative to them.

[Footnote 29: Plato, Parmenid. 133 B. [Greek: ei)/ tis phai/ê mêde\ prosê/kein au)ta\ gignô/skesthai o)/nta toiau=ta oi(=a/ phamen dei=n ei)=nai ta\ ei)/dê. . . . a)pi/thanos a)\n ei)/ê o( a)/gnôsta au)ta\ a)nagka/zôn ei)=nai.] 134 A. [Greek: ê( de\ par' ê(mi=n e)pistê/mê ou) tê=s par' ê(mi=n a)\n a)lêthei/as ei)/ê? kai\ au)= e(ka/stê ê( par' ê(mi=n e(pistê/mê tô=n par' ê(mi=n o)/ntôn e(ka/stou a)\n e)pistê/mê xu/mbainoi ei)=nai?] 134 C. [Greek: a)/gnôston a)/ra ê(mi=n e)/sti kai\ au)to\ to\ kalo\n o(\ e)/sti, kai\ to\ a)gatho/n, kai\ pa/nta a(\ dê\ ô(s i)de/as au)ta\s ou)/sas u(polamba/nomen.]]

The opinion here advanced by the Platonic Parmenides asserts, in other words, what is equivalent to the memorable dictum of Protagoras--"Man is the measure of all things--of things existent, that they do exist--and of things non-existent, that they do not exist". This dictum affirms universal relativity, and nothing else: though Plato, as we shall see in the elaborate argument against it delivered by Sokrates in the Theætêtus, mixed it up with another doctrine altogether distinct and independent--the doctrine that knowledge is sensible perception.[30] Parmenides here argues that if these Forms or Ideas are known by us, they can be known only as relative to us: and that if they be not relative to us, they cannot be known by us at all. Such relativity belongs as much to the world of Conception, as to the world of Perception. And it is remarkable that Plato admits this essential relativity not merely here, but also in the Sophistês: in which latter dialogue he denies the Forms or Ideas to be absolute existences, on the special ground that they are known:--and on the farther ground that what is known must act upon the knowing mind, and must be acted upon thereby, _i.e._, must be relative. He there defines the existent to be, that which has power to act upon something else, or to be acted upon by something else. Such relativeness he declares to constitute _existence_:[31] defining existence to mean potentiality.

[Footnote 30: I shall discuss this in the coming chapter upon the Theætêtus.]

[Footnote 31: Plato, Sophistês, pp. 248-249. This reasoning is put into the mouth of the Eleatic Stranger, the principal person in that dialogue.]

[Side-note: Answer of Sokrates--That Ideas are mere conceptions of the mind. Objection of Parmenides correct, though undeveloped.]

2. The second point which deserves notice in this portion of the Parmenidês, is the answer of Sokrates (when embarrassed by some of the questions of the Eleatic veteran)--"That these Forms or Ideas are conceptions of the mind, and have no existence out of the mind". This answer gives us the purely Subjective, or negation of Object: instead of the purely Objective (Absolute), or negation of Subject.[32] Here we have what Porphyry calls the deepest question of philosophy[33] explicitly raised: and, as far as we know, for the first time. Are the Forms or Ideas mere conceptions of the mind and nothing more? Or are they external, separate, self-existent realities? The opinion which Sokrates had first given declared the latter: that which he now gives declares the former. He passes from the pure Objective (_i.e._, without Subject) to the pure Subjective (_i.e._, without Object). Parmenides, in his reply, points out that there cannot be a conception of nothing: that if there be Conceptio, there must be _Conceptum aliquid_:[34] and that this Conceptum or Concept is what is common to a great many distinct similar Percepta.

[Footnote 32: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132 A-B.

The doctrine, that [Greek: poio/têtes] were [Greek: philai\ e)/nnoiai], having no existence without the mind, was held by Antisthenes as well as by the Eretrian sect of philosophers, contemporary with Plato and shortly after him. Simplikius, Schol. ad Aristot. Categ. p. 68, a. 30, Brandis. See, respecting Antisthenes, the first volume of the present work, p. 165.]

[Footnote 33: See the beginning of Porphyry's Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle. [Greek: bathuta/tê ou)/sês tê=s toiau/tês pragmatei/as], &c. Simplikius (in Schol. ad Aristot. Categ. p. 68, a. 28, ed. Brandis) alludes to the Eretrian philosophers and Theopompus, who considered [Greek: ta\s poio/têtas] as [Greek: phila\s mo/nas e)nnoi/as diakenô=s legome/nas kat' ou)demi/as u(posta/seôs, oi(=on a)nthrôpo/têta ê)\ i(ppo/têta], &c.]

[Footnote 34: Compare Republic, v. p. 476 B. [Greek: o( gignô/skôn gignô/skei ti\ ê)\ ou)de\n? Gignô/skei ti/], &c.

The following passage in the learned work of Cudworth bears on the portion of the Parmenidês which we are now considering. Cudworth, Treatise of Immutable Morality, pp. 243-245.

"But if any one demand here, where this [Greek: a)ki/nêtos ou)si/a], these immutable Entities do exist? I answer, first, that as they are considered formally, they do not properly exist in the Individuals without us, as if they were from them imprinted upon the Understanding, which some have taken to be Aristotle's opinion; because no Individual Material thing is either Universal or Immutable. . . . Because they perish not together with them, it is a certain argument that they exist independently upon them. Neither, in the next place, do they exist somewhere else apart from the Individual Sensibles, and without the Mind, which is that opinion that Aristotle justly condemns, but either unjustly or unskilfully attributes to Plato. . . . Wherefore these Intelligible Ideas or Essences of Things, those Forms by which we understand all Things, exist nowhere but in the mind itself; for it was very well determined long ago by Socrates, in Plato's Parmenidês, that these things are nothing else but Noemata: 'These Species or Ideas are all of them nothing but Noemata or Notions that exist nowhere but in the Soul itself'. . . .

"And yet notwithstanding, though these Things exist only in the Mind, they are not therefore mere Figments of the Understanding. . . .

"It is evident that though the Mind thinks of these Things at pleasure, yet they are not arbitrarily framed by the Mind, but have certain, determinate, and immutable Natures of their own, which are independent upon the Mind, and which are blown (quære _not blown_) away into Nothing at the pleasure of the same Being that arbitrarily made them."

It is an inadvertence on the part of Cudworth to cite this passage of the Parmenidês as authenticating Plato's opinion that Forms or Ideas existed only in the mind. Certainly Sokrates is here made to express that opinion, among others; but the opinion is refuted by Parmenidês and dropped by Sokrates. But the very different opinion, which Cudworth accuses Aristotle of _wrongly_ attributing to Plato, is repeated by Sokrates in the Phædon, Republic, and elsewhere, and never refuted.]

This reply, though scanty and undeveloped, is in my judgment both valid, as it negatives the Subject pure and simple, and affirms that to every conception in the mind, there must correspond a Concept out of (or rather along with) the mind (the one correlating with or implying the other)--and correct as far as it goes, in declaring what that Concept is. Such Concept is, or may be, the Form. Parmenides does not show that it is not so. He proceeds to impugn, by a second argument, the assertion of Sokrates--that the form is a Conception _wholly within_ the mind: he goes on to argue that individual things (which are _out_ of the mind) cannot participate in these Forms (which are asserted to be altogether _in_ the mind): because, if that were admitted, either every such thing must be a Concipient, or must run into the contradiction of being a _Conceptio non concipiens_.[35] Now this argument may refute the affirmation of Sokrates literally taken, that the Form is a Conception entirely belonging to the mind, and having nothing Objective corresponding to it--but does not refute the doctrine that the Form is a Concept correlating with the mind--or out of the mind as well as in it. In this as in other Concepts, the subjective point of view preponderates over the objective, though Object is not altogether eliminated: just as, in the particular external things, the objective point of view predominates, though Subject cannot be altogether dismissed. Neither Subject nor Object can ever entirely disappear: the one is the inseparable correlative and complement of the other: but sometimes the subjective point of view may preponderate, sometimes the objective. Such preponderance (or logical priority), either of the one or the other, may be implied or connoted by the denomination given. Though the special connotation of the name creates an illusion which makes the preponderant point of view seem to be all, and magnifies the Relatum so as to eclipse and extinguish the Correlatum--yet such preponderance, or logical priority, is all that is really meant when the Concepts are said to be "_in the mind_"--and the Percepts (Percepta, things perceived) to be "_out of the mind_": for both Concepts and Percepts are "_of the mind_, or _relative to the mind_".[36]

[Footnote 35: On this point the argument in the dialogue itself, as stated by Parmenides, is not clear to follow. Strümpell remarks on the terms employed by Plato. "Der Umstand, dass die Ausdrücke [Greek: ei)=dos] und [Greek: i)de/a] nicht sowie [Greek: lo/gos] den Unterschied, zwischen Begriff und dem durch diesen begriffenen Realen, hervortreten lassen--sondern, weil dieselben bald im subjektiven Sinne den Begriff, bald im objektiven Sinne das Reale bezeichnen--bald in der einen bald in der andern Bedeutung zu nehmen sind--kann leicht eine Verwechselung und Unklarheit in der Auffassung veranlassen," &c. (Gesch. der Gr. Philos. s. 90, p. 115).]

[Footnote 36: This preponderance of the Objective point of view, though without altogether eliminating the Subjective, includes all that is true in the assertion of Aristotle, that the _Perceptum_ is prior to the _Percipient_--the _Percipiendum_ prior to the _Perceptionis Capax_. He assimilates the former to a _Movens_, the latter to a _Motum_. But he declares that he means not a priority in time or real existence, but simply a _priority in nature_ or _logical priority_; and he also declares the two to be relatives or reciproca. The Prius is relative to the Posterius, as the Posterius is relative to the Prius.--Metaphys. [Greek: G]. 1010, b. 36 seq. [Greek: a)ll' e)/sti ti kai\ e(/teron para\ tê\n ai)/sthêsin, o(\ a)nagkê pro/teron ei)=nai tê=s ai)sthê/seô=s; to\ ga\r kinou=n tou= kinoume/nou _phu/sei pro/tero/n_ e)sti; ka)\n ei) le/getai pro\s a)/llêla tau=ta, ou)de\n ê(=tton.]

See respecting the [Greek: pro/teron phu/sei], Aristot. Categor. p. 12, b. 5-15, and Metaphys. [Greek: D]. 1018, b. 12--[Greek: a(plô=s kai\ tê=| phu/sei pro/teron].]

[Side-note: Meaning of Abstract and General Terms, debated from ancient times to the present day--Different views of Plato and Aristotle upon it.]

The question--What is the real and precise meaning attached to abstract and general words?--has been debated down to this day, and is still under debate. It seems to have first derived its importance, if not its origin, from Sokrates, who began the practice of inviting persons to define the familiar generalities of ethics and politics, and then tested by cross-examination the definitions given by men who thought that common sense would enable any one to define.[37] But I see no ground for believing that Sokrates ever put to himself the question--Whether that which an abstract term denotes is a mental conception, or a separate and self-existent reality. That question was raised by Plato, and first stands clearly brought to view here in the Parmenidês.

[Footnote 37: Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 987, b. 3. M. 1078, b. 18-32.]

If we follow up the opinion here delivered by the Platonic Sokrates, together with the first correction added to it by Parmenides, amounting to this--That the Form is a Conception of the mind with its corresponding Concept: if, besides, we dismiss the doctrine held by Plato, that the Form is a separate self-existent unchangeable Ens ([Greek: e(\n para\ ta\ polla\]): there will then be no greater difficulty in understanding how it can be partaken by, or be at once in, many distinct particulars, than in understanding (what is at bottom the same question) how one and the same attribute can belong at once to many different objects: how hardness or smoothness can be at once in an indefinite number of hard and smooth bodies dispersed everywhere.[38] The object and the attribute are both of them relative to the same percipient and concipient mind: we may perceive or conceive many objects as distinct individuals--we may also conceive them all as resembling in a particular manner, making abstraction of the individuality of each: both these are psychological facts, and the latter of the two is what we mean when we say, that all of them possess or participate in one and the same attribute. The concrete term, and its corresponding abstract, stand for the same facts of sense differently conceived. Now the word _one_, when applied to the attribute, has a different meaning from _one_ when applied to an individual object. Plato speaks sometimes elsewhere as if he felt this diversity of meaning: not however in the Parmenidês, though there is great demand for it. But Aristotle (in this respect far superior) takes much pains to point out that _Unum Ens_--and the preposition _In_ (to be _in_ any thing)--are among the [Greek: pollachô=s lego/mena], having several different meanings derived from one primary or radical by diverse and distant ramifications.[39] The important logical distinction between _Unum numero_ and _Unum specie_ (or _genere_, &c.) belongs first to Aristotle.[40]

[Footnote 38: That "the attribute is in its subject," is explained by Aristotle only by saying That it is _in_ its subject, not as a part in the whole, yet as that which cannot exist apart from its subject (Categor. 1, a. 30-3, a. 30). Compare Hobbes, Comput. or Logic. iii. 3, viii. 3. Respecting the number of different modes [Greek: tou= e)/n tini ei)=nai], see Aristot. Physic. iii. p. 210, a. 18 seq., with the Scholia, p. 373 Brandis, and p. 446, 10 Brand. The commentators made out, variously, nine, eleven, sixteen distinct [Greek: tro/pous tou= e)/n tini ei)=nai]. In the language of Aristotle, _genus_, _species_, [Greek: ei)=dos], and even _differentia_ are not [Greek: e)n u(pokeime/nô|], but are predicated [Greek: kath' u(pokeime/nou] (see Cat. p. 3, a. 20). The _proprium_ and _accidens_ alone are [Greek: e)n u(pokeime/nô|]. Here is a difference between his language and that of Plato, according to whom [Greek: to\ ei)=dos] is [Greek: e)n e(ka/stô| tô=n pollô=n] (Parmenid. 131 A). But we remark in that same dialogue, that when Parmenides questions Sokrates whether he recognises [Greek: ei)/dê au)ta\ kath' au)ta/] he first asks whether Sokrates admits [Greek: dikai/ou ti ei)=dos au)to\ kath' au(to/, kai\ kalou=, kai\ a)gathou=, kai\ pa/ntôn tô=n toiou/tôn]. Sokrates answers without hesitation, _Yes_. Then Parmenides proceeds to ask, Do you recognise an [Greek: ei)=dos] of man, separate and apart from all of us individual men?--or an [Greek: ei)=dos] of fire, water, and such like? Here Sokrates hesitates: he will neither admit nor deny it (130 D). The first list, which Sokrates at once accepts, is of what Aristotle would call _accidents_: the second, which Sokrates doubts about, is of what Aristotle would call _second substances_. We thus see that the conception of a self-existent [Greek: ei)=dos] realised itself most easily and distinctly to the mind of Plato in the case of _accidents_. He would, therefore, naturally conceive [Greek: ta\ ei)/dê] as being [Greek: e)n u(pokeime/nô|], agreeing substantially, though not in terms, with Aristotle. It is in the case of accidents or attributes that abstract names are most usually invented; and it is the abstract name, or the neuter adjective used as its equivalent, which suggests the belief in an [Greek: ei)=dos].]

[Footnote 39: Aristotel. Metaphys. [Greek: D]. 1015-1016, I. 1052, a. 29 seq. [Greek: ta\ me\n dê\ ou(/tôs e(\n ê)\ suneche\s ê)\ o(/lon; ta\ de\ ô(=n a)\n o( lo/gos ei(=s ê)=|; toiau=ta de\ ô(=n ê( no/êsis mi/a], &c.

About abstract names, or the names of attributes, see Mr. John Stuart Mill's 'System of Logic,' i. 2, 4, p. 30, edit. 5th. "When only one attribute, neither variable in degree nor in kind, is designated by the name--as visibleness, tangibleness, equality, &c.--though it denotes an attribute of many different objects, the attribute itself is always considered as _one_, not as _many_." Compare, also, on this point, p. 153, and a note added by Mr. Mill to the fifth edition, p. 203, in reply to Mr. Herbert Spencer. The _oneness_ of the attribute, in different subjects, is not conceded by every one. Mr. Spencer thinks that the same abstract word denotes one attribute in Subject A, and another attribute, though exactly like it, in Subject B (Principles of Psychology, p. 126 seq.) Mr. Mill's view appears the correct one; but the distinction (pointed out by Archbishop Whately) between _undistinguishable likeness_ and _positive identity_, becomes in these cases imperceptible or forgotten.

Aristotle, however, in the beginning of the Categories ranks [Greek: ê( ti/s grammatikê\] as [Greek: a)/tomon kai\ _e(\n a)rithmô=|_] (pp. 1, 6, 8), which I do not understand; and it seems opposed to another passage, pp. 3, 6, 15.

The argument between two such able thinkers as Mr. Mill and Mr. Spencer, illustrates forcibly the extreme nicety of this question respecting the One and the Many, under certain supposable circumstances. We cannot be surprised that it puzzled the dialecticians of the Platonic Aristotelian age, who fastened by preference on points of metaphysical difficulty.]

[Footnote 40: See interesting remarks on the application of this logical distinction in Galen, De Methodo Medendi, Book iii. vol. x. p. 130 seq. Aristotle and Theophrastus both dwelt upon it.]

[Side-note: Plato never expected to make his Ideas fit on to the facts of sense: Aristotle tried to do it and partly succeeded.]

Plato has not followed out the hint which he has here put into the mouth of Sokrates in the Parmenidês--That the Ideas or Forms are conceptions existing only in the mind. Though the opinion thus stated is not strictly correct (and is so pointed out by himself), as falling back too exclusively on the subjective--yet if followed out, it might have served to modify the too objective and absolute character which in most dialogues (though not in the Sophistês) he ascribes to his Forms or Ideas: laying stress upon them as objects--and as objects not of sensible perception--but overlooking or disallowing the fact of their being relative to the concipient mind. The bent of Plato's philosophy was to dwell upon these Forms, and to bring them into harmonious conjunction with each other: he neither took pains, nor expected, to make them fit on to the world of sense. With Aristotle, on the contrary, this last-mentioned purpose is kept very generally in view. Amidst all the extreme abstractions which he handles, he reverts often to the comparison of them with sensible particulars: indeed Substantia Prima was by him, for the first time in the history of philosophy, brought down to designate the concrete particular object of sense: in Plato's Phædon, Republic, &c, the only Substances are the Forms or Ideas.

[Side-note: Continuation of the Dialogue--Parmenides admonishes Sokrates that be has been premature in delivering a doctrine, without sufficient preliminary exercise.]

Parmenides now continues the debate. He has already fastened upon Sokrates several difficult problems: he now proposes a new one, different and worse. Which way are we to turn then, if these Forms be beyond our knowledge? I do not see my way (says Sokrates) out of the perplexity. The fact is, Sokrates (replies Parmenides), you have been too forward in producing your doctrine of Ideas, without a sufficient preliminary exercise and enquiry. Your love of philosophical research is highly praiseworthy: but you must employ your youth in exercising and improving yourself, through that continued philosophical discourse which the vulgar call _useless prosing_: otherwise you will never attain truth.[41] You are however right in bestowing your attention, not on the objects of sense, but on those objects which we can best grasp in discussion, and which we presume to exist as Forms.[42]

[Footnote 41: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 C. [Greek: Prô\| ga/r, pri\n gumnasthê=nai, ô)= Sô/krates, o(ri/zesthai e)picheirei=s kalo/n te/ ti kai\ di/kaion kai\ a)gatho\n kai\ e(\n e(/kaston tô=n ei)dô=n . . . kalê\ me\n ou)=n kai\ thei/a, ei)= i)/sthi, ê( o(rmê\ ê(\n o(rma=|s e)pi\ tou\s lo/gous; e(/lkuson de\ sauto\n kai\ gumna/sai, ma=llon dia\ tê=s dokou/sês a)chrê/stou ei)=nai kai\ kaloume/nês u(po\ tô=n pollô=n a)doleschi/as, e(/ôs e)/ti ne/os ei)=; ei) de\ mê\, se\ diapheu/xetai ê( a)lê/theia.]]

[Footnote 42: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 E.]

[Side-note: What sort of exercise? Parmenides describes: To assume provisionally both the affirmative and the negative of many hypotheses about the most general terms, and to trace the consequences of each.]

What sort of exercise must I go through? asks Sokrates. Zeno (replies Parmenides) has already given you a good specimen of it in his treatise, when he followed out the consequences flowing from the assumption--"That the self-existent and absolute Ens is plural". When you are trying to find out the truth on any question, you must assume provisionally, first the affirmative and then the negative, and you must then follow out patiently the consequences deducible from one hypothesis as well as from the other. If you are enquiring about the Form of Likeness, whether it exists or does not exist, you must assume successively both one and the other;[43] marking the deductions which follow, both with reference to the thing directly assumed, and with reference to other things also. You must do the like if you are investigating other Forms--Unlikeness, Motion, and Rest, or even Existence and Non-Existence. But you must not be content with following out only one side of the hypothesis: you must examine both sides with equal care and impartiality. This is the only sort of preparatory exercise which will qualify you for completely seeing through the truth.[44]

[Footnote 43: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 A. [Greek: kai\ au)=this au)= e)a\n u(pothê=|, ei) e)/stin o(moio/tês ê)\ ei) mê/ e)sti, ti/ e)ph' e(kate/ras tê=s u(pothe/seôs sumbê/setai, kai\ au)toi=s toi=s u(potethei=si kai\ toi=s a)/llois kai\ pro\s au(ta\ kai\ pro\s a)/llêla.]]

[Footnote 44: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 B.]

[Side-note: Impossible to do this before a numerous audience--Parmenides is entreated to give a specimen--After much solicitation he agrees.]

You propose to me, Parmenides (remarks Sokrates), a work of awful magnitude. At any rate, show me an example of it yourself, that I may know better how to begin.--Parmenides at first declines, on the ground of his old age: but Zeno and the others urge him, so that he at length consents.--The process will be tedious (observes Zeno); and I would not ask it from Parmenides unless among an audience small and select as we are here. Before any numerous audience, it would be an unseemly performance for a veteran like him. For most people are not aware that, without such discursive survey and travelling over the whole field, we cannot possibly attain truth or acquire intelligence.[45]

[Footnote 45: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 D. [Greek: ei) me\n ou)=n plei/ous ê)=men, ou)k a)\n a)/xion ê)=n dei=sthai; _a)prepê= ga\r ta\ toiau=ta pollô=n e)nanti/on le/gein_, a)/llôs te kai\ têlikou/tô|; a)gnoou=si ga\r oi( polloi\ o(/ti a)/neu tau/tês tê=s dia\ pa/ntôn diexo/dou kai\ pla/nês, a)du/naton e)ntucho/nta tô=| a)lêthei= nou=n schei=n.] Hobbes remarks (Computatio sive Logica,