iii. 9, 8; which Stallbaum himself cites, as if the definition of

[Greek: phtho/nos] were the same in both.]

[Side-note: The intense pleasures belong to a state of sickness; but there is more pleasure, on the whole, enjoyed in a state of health.]

Recollect (observes Sokrates) that the question here is not whether _more pleasure_ is enjoyed, _on the whole_, in a state of health than in a state of sickness--by violent rather than by sober men. The question is, about the intense modes of pleasure. Respecting these, I have endeavoured to show that they belong to a distempered, rather than to a healthy, state both of state of body and mind:--and that they cannot be enjoyed pure, without a countervailing or preponderant accompaniment of pain.[57] This is equally true, whether they be pleasures of body alone, of mind alone, or of body and mind together. They are false and delusive pleasures: in fact, they are pleasures only in seeming, but not in truth and reality. To-morrow I will give you fuller proofs on the subject.[58]

[Footnote 57: Plato, Philêbus, p. 45 C-E. [Greek: mê/ me ê(gê=| dianoou/menon e)rôta=|n se, ei) _plei/ô chai/rousin_ oi( spho/dra nosou=ntes tô=n u(giaino/ntôn, a)ll' oi)/ou _me/getho/s_ me zêtei=n ê(donê=s, kai\ _to\ spho/dra_ peri\ tou= toiou/tou pou= pote\ gi/gnetai e(ka/stote], &c.]

[Footnote 58: Plato, Philêbus, p. 50 E. [Greek: tou/tôn ga\r a(pa/ntôn au(/rion e)thelê/sô soi lo/gon dou=nai], &c.]

[Side-note: Sokrates acknowledges some pleasures to be true. Pleasures of beautiful colours, odours, sounds, smells, &c. Pleasures of acquiring knowledge.]

Thus far (continues Sokrates) I have set forth the case on behalf of the pleasure-haters. Though I deny their full doctrine,--that there is no pleasure except cessation from pain--I nevertheless agree with them and cite them as witnesses on my behalf, to the extent of affirming that a large proportion of our so-called pleasures, and those precisely the most intense, are false and unreal: being poisoned and drenched in accompaniments of pain.[59] But there are some pleasures, true, genuine, and untainted. Such are those produced by beautiful colours and figures--by many odours--by various sounds: none of which are preceded by any painful want requiring to be satisfied. The sensation when it comes is therefore one of pure and unmixed pleasure. The figures here meant are the perfect triangle, cube, circle, &c.: the colours and sounds are such as are clear and simple. All these are beautiful and pleasurable absolutely and in themselves--not simply in relation to (or relatively to) some special antecedent condition. Smells too, though less divine than the others, are in common with them unalloyed by accompanying pain.[60] To these must be added the pleasure of acquiring knowledge, which supposes neither any painful want before it, nor any subsequent pain even if the knowledge acquired be lost. This too is one of the unmixed or pure pleasures; though it is not attainable by most men, but only by a select few.[61]

[Footnote 59: Plato, Philêbus, p. 51 A.]

[Footnote 60: Plato, Philêbus, p. 51 E. [Greek: to\ de\ peri\ ta\s o)sma\s ê(=tton me\n tou/tôn thei=on ge/nos ê(donô=n; to\ de\ mê\ summemi/chthai e)n au)tai=s a)nagkai/ous lu/pas], &c.]

[Footnote 61: Plato, Philêbus, p. 52 B. [Greek: tau/tas toi/nun ta\s tô=n mathêma/tôn ê(dona\s a)mi/ktous te ei)=nai lu/pais r(ête/on, kai\ ou)damô=s tô=n spho/dra o)li/gôn.]]

[Side-note: Pure and moderate pleasures admit of measure and proportion.]

Having thus distinguished the pure and moderate class of pleasures, from the mixed and vehement--we may remark that the former class admit of measure and proportion, while the latter belong to the immeasurable and the infinite. Moreover, look where we will, we shall find truth on the side of the select, small, unmixed specimens--rather than among the large and mixed masses. A small patch of white colour, free from all trace of any other colour, is truer, purer, and more beautiful, than a large mass of clouded and troubled white. In like manner, gentle pleasure, free from all pain, is more pleasurable, truer, and more beautiful, than intense pleasure coupled with pain.[62]

[Footnote 62: Plato, Philêbus, p. 53 B-C.]

[Side-note: Pleasure is generation, not substance or essence: it cannot therefore be an End, because all generation is only a means towards substance--Pleasure therefore cannot be the Good.]

There are yet other arguments remaining (continues Sokrates) which show that pleasure cannot be the Summum Bonum. If it be so, it must be an End, not a Means: it must be something for the sake of which other things exist or are done--not something which itself exists or is done for the sake of something else. But pleasure is not an End: it is essentially a means, as we may infer from the reasonings of its own advocates. They themselves tell us that it is generation, not substance:--essentially a process of transition or change, never attaining essence or permanence.[63] But generation or transition is always for the sake of the thing to be generated, or for Substance--not substance for the sake of generation: the transitory serves as a road to the permanent, not _vice versà_. Pleasure is thus a means, not an End. It cannot therefore partake of the essential nature and dignity of Good: it belongs to a subordinate and imperfect category.[64]

[Footnote 63: Plato, Philêbus, p. 53 C. [Greek: a)=ra peri\ ê(donê=s ou)k a)kêko/amen ô(s a)ei\ ge/nesi/s e)stin, ou)si/a de\ ou)k e)/sti to\ para/pan ê(dona=s; kompsoi\ ga\r dê/ tines au)= tou=ton to\n lo/gon e)picheirou=si mênu/ein ê(mi=n, oi(=s dei= cha/rin e)/chein. . . .]

53 D: [Greek: e)sto\n dê/ tine du/o, to\ me\n au)to\ kath' au(to/, to\ de\ a)ei\ e)phie/menon a)/llou . . . to\ me\n semno/taton a)ei\ pephuko/s, to\ de\ e)llipe\s e)kei/nou.]]

[Footnote 64: Plato, Philêbus, p. 54 D. [Greek: ê(donê\ ei)/per ge/nesi/s e)stin, ei)s a)/llên ê)\ tê\n tou= a)gathou= moi=ran au)tê\n tithe/ntes o)rthô=s thê/somen.]]

[Side-note: Other reasons why pleasure is not the Good.]

Indeed we cannot reasonably admit that there is no Good in bodies and in the universe generally, nor anywhere except in the mind:--nor that, within the mind, pleasure alone is good, while courage, temperance, &c., are not good:--nor that a man is good only while he is enjoying pleasure, and bad while suffering pain, whatever may be his character and merits.[65]

[Footnote 65: Plato, Philêbus, p. 55 B.]

[Side-note: Distinction and classification of the varieties of Knowledge or Intelligence. Some are more true and exact than others, according as they admit more or less of measuring and computation.]

Having thus (continues Sokrates) gone through the analysis of pleasures, distinguishing such as are true and pure, from such as are false and troubled--we must apply the like distinctive analysis to the various modes of knowledge and intelligence. Which varieties of knowledge, science, or art, are the purest from heterogeneous elements, and bear most closely upon truth? Some sciences and arts (we know) are intended for special professional practice: others are taught as subjects for improving the intellect of youth. As specimens of the former variety, we may notice music, medicine, husbandry, navigation, generalship, joinery, ship-building, &c. Now in all these, the guiding and directing elements are computation, mensuration, and statics--the sciences or arts of computing, measuring, weighing. Take away these three--and little would be left worth having, in any of the sciences or arts before named. There would be no exact assignable rules, no definite proportions: everything would be left to vague conjecture, depending upon each artisan's knack and practice which some erroneously call Art. In proportion as each of these professional occupations has in it more or less of computation and mensuration, in the same proportion is it exact and true. There is little of computation or mensuration in music, medicine, husbandry, &c.: there is more of them in joinery and ship-building, which employ the line, plummet, and other instruments: accordingly these latter are more true and exact, less dependent upon knack and conjecture, than the three former.[66] They approach nearer to the purity of science, and include less of the non-scientific, variable, conjectural, elements.

[Footnote 66: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 55-56.]

[Side-note: Arithmetic and Geometry are twofold: As studied by the philosopher and teacher: As applied by the artisan.]

But a farther distinction must here be taken (Sokrates goes on). Even in such practical arts as ship-building, which include most of computation and mensuration--these two latter do not appear pure, but diversified and embodied in a multitude of variable particulars. Arithmetic and geometry, as applied by the ship-builder and other practical men, are very different from arithmetic and geometry as studied and taught by the philosopher.[67] Though called by the same name, they are very different; and the latter alone are pure and true. The philosopher assumes in his arithmetic the exact equality of all units, and in his geometry the exact ratios of lines and spaces: the practical man adds together units very unlike each other--two armies, two bulls, things little or great as the case may be: his measurement too, always falls short of accuracy.[68] There are in short two arithmetics and two geometries[69]--very different from each other, though bearing a common name.

[Footnote 67: Plato, Philêbus, p. 56 D-E. [Greek: A)rithmêtikê\n prô=ton a)=r' ou)k a)/llên me/n tina tê\n tô=n pollô=n phate/on, a)/llên d' au)= tê\n tô=n philosophou/ntôn? . . .

logistikê\ kai\ metrêtikê\ ê( kata\ tektonikê\n kai\ kat' e)mporikê\n tê=s kata\ philosophi/an geômetri/as te kai\ logismô=n katameletôme/nôn--po/teron ô(s mi/a e(kate/ra lekte/on, ê)\ du/o tithô=men?]

Compare Aristotel. Ethic. Nikom. i. 7, p. 1098, a. 30.]

[Footnote 68: Plato, Philêbus, p. 56 D-E. [Greek: oi( me\n ga/r pou mona/das a)ni/sous katarithmou=ntai tô=n peri\ a)rithmo/n, oi(=on strato/peda du/o kai\ bou=s du/o kai\ du/o ta\ smikro/tata ê)\ kai\ ta\ pa/ntôn me/gista; oi( d' ou)k a)/n pote au)toi=s sunakolouthê/seian, ei) mê\ mona/da mona/dos e(ka/stês tô=n muri/ôn mêdemi/an a)/llên a)/llês diaphe/rousa/n tis thê/sei.]]

[Footnote 69: Plato, Philêbus, p. 57 D.]

[Side-note: Dialectic is the truest and purest of all Cognitions. Analogy between Cognition and Pleasure: in each, there are gradations of truth and purity.]

We thus make out (continues Sokrates) that there is a difference between one variety and another variety of science or knowledge, analogous to that which we have traced between the varieties of pleasure. One pleasure is true and pure; another is not so, or is inseparably connected with pain and non-pleasurable elements--there being in each case a difference in degree. So too one variety of science, cognition, or art, is more true and pure than another: that is, it is less intermingled with fluctuating particulars and indefinite accompaniments. A science, bearing one and the same name, is different according as it is handled by the practical man or by the philosopher. Only as handled by the philosopher, does science attain purity: dealing with eternal and invariable essences. Among all sciences, Dialectic is the truest and purest, because it takes comprehensive cognizance of the eternal and invariable--_Ens semper Idem_--presiding over those subordinate sciences which bear upon the like matter in partial and separate departments.[70]

[Footnote 70: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 57-58.]

[Side-note: Difference with Gorgias, who claims superiority for Rhetoric. Sokrates admits that Rhetoric is superior in usefulness and celebrity: but he claims superiority for Dialectic, as satisfying the lover of truth.]

Your opinion (remarks Protarchus) does not agree with that of Gorgias. He affirms, that the power of persuasion (Rhetoric) is the greatest and best of all arts: inasmuch as it enables us to carry all our points, not by force, but with the free will and consent of others. I should be glad to avoid contradicting either him or you.

There is no real contradiction between us (replies Sokrates). You may concede to Gorgias that his art or cognition is the greatest and best of all--the most in repute, as well as the most useful to mankind. I do not claim any superiority of _that_ kind, on behalf of my cognition.[71] I claim for it superiority in truth and purity. I remarked before, that a small patch of unmixed white colour was superior in truth and purity to a large mass of white tarnished with other colours--a gentle and unmixed pleasure, in like manner, to one that is more intense but alloyed with pains. It is this superiority that I assert for Dialectic and the other sister cognitions. They are of little positive advantage to mankind: yet they, and only they, will satisfy both the demands of intelligence, and the impulse within us, in so far as we have an impulse to love and strain after truth.[72]

[Footnote 71: Plato, Philêbus, p. 58 B. [Greek: Ou) tou=t' e)/gôge e)zê/toun pô, ti/s te/chnê ê)\ ti/s e)pistê/mê pasô=n diaphe/rei tô=| megi/stê kai\ a)ri/stê kai\ plei=sta ô)phelou=sa ê(ma=s. a)lla\ ti/s pote to\ saphe\s kai\ ta)kribe\s kai\ to\ a)lêthe/staton e)piskopei=, ka)\n ê)=| smikra\ kai\ smikra\ o)ni/nasa. Tou=t' e)sti\n o(\ nu=n dê\ zêtou=men.]]

[Footnote 72: Plato, Philêbus, p. 58 D. [Greek: a)ll' ei)/ tis pe/phuke tê=s psuchê=s ê(mô=n du/namis e)ra=|n te tou= a)lêthou=s kai\ pa/nta e(/neka tou/tou pra/ttein, tau/tên ei)/pômen], &c.]

As far as straining after truth is concerned (says Protarchus), Dialectic and the kindred sciences have an incontestable superiority.

[Side-note: Most men look to opinions only, or study the phenomenal manifestations of the Kosmos. They neglect the unchangeable essences, respecting which alone pure truth can be obtained.]

You must see (rejoins Sokrates) that Rhetoric, and most other arts or sciences, employ all their study, and seek all their standard, in opinions alone: while of those who study Nature, the greater number confine their investigations to this Kosmos, to its generation and its phenomenal operations--its manifestations past, present, and future.[73] Now all these manifestations are in perpetual flux, admitting of no true or certain cognition. Pure truth, corresponding to those highest mental endowments, Reason and Intelligence--can be found only in essences, eternal and unchangeable, or in matters most akin to them.[74]

[Footnote 73: Plato, Philêbus, p. 59. [Greek: ei) de\ kai\ peri\ phu/seôs ê(gei=tai/ tis zêtei=n, oi)=sth' o(/ti ta\ peri\ to\n ko/smon to/nde, o(/pê| te ge/gone kai\ o(/pê| pa/schei ti kai\ o(/pê| poiei=, tau=ta zêtei= dia\ bi/ou?]]

[Footnote 74: Plato, Philêbus, p. 59.]

[Side-note: Application. Neither Intelligence nor Pleasure separately, is the Good, but a mixture of the two--Intelligence being the most important. How are they to be mixed?]

We have now (continues Sokrates) examined pleasure separately and intelligence separately. We have agreed that neither of them, apart and by itself, comes up to the conception of Good; the attribute of which is, to be all sufficient, and to give plenary satisfaction, so that any animal possessing it desires nothing besides.[75] We must therefore seek Good in a certain mixture or combination of the two--Pleasure and Intelligence: and we must determine, what sort of combination of these two contains the Good we seek. Now, to mix all pleasures, with all cognitions, at once and indiscriminately, will hardly be safe. We will first mix the truest and purest pleasures (those which include pleasure in its purest form), with the truest or purest cognitions (those which deal altogether with eternal and unchangeable essence, not with fluctuating particulars). Will such a combination suffice to constitute Good, or an all-sufficient and all-satisfactory existence? Or do we want anything more besides?[76] Suppose a man cognizant of the Form or Idea of Justice, and of all other essential Ideas: and able to render account of his cognition, in proper words: Will this be sufficient?[77] Suppose him to be cognizant of the divine Ideas of Circle, Sphere, and other figures; and to employ them in architecture, not knowing anything of human circles and figures as they exist in practical life?[78]

[Footnote 75: Plato, Philêbus, p. 60 C. [Greek: tê\n ta)gathou= diaphe/rein phu/sin tô=|de tô=n a)/llôn . . . ô(=| parei/ê tou=t' a)ei\ tô=n zô/ôn dia\ te/lous pa/ntôs kai\ pa/ntê|, mêdeno\s e(te/rou pote\ e)/ti prosdei=sthai, to\ de\ i(kano\n teleô/taton e)/chein.]]

[Footnote 76: Plato, Philêbus, p. 61 E.]

[Footnote 77: Plato, Philêbus, p. 62 A. [Greek: E)/stô dê/ tis ê(mi=n phronô=n a)/nthrôpos au)tê=s peri\ dikaiosu/nês, o(/, ti e)/sti, kai\ lo/gon e)/chôn e(po/menon tô=| noei=n, kai\ dê\ kai\ peri\ tô=n a)/llôn a(pa/ntôn tô=n o)/ntôn ô(sau/tôs dianoou/menos?]]

[Footnote 78: Plato, Philêbus, p. 62 A. [Greek: A)=r' ou)=n ou(=tos i(kanô=s e)pistê/mês e(/xei ku/klou me\n kai\ sphai/ras au)tê=s tê=s thei/as to\n lo/gon e)/chôn, tê\n de\ a)nthrôpi/nên tau/tên sphai=ran kai\ tou\s ku/klous tou/tous a)gnoô=n], &c.]

[Side-note: We must include all Cognitions, not merely the truest, but the others also. Life cannot be carried on without both.]

That would be a ludicrous position indeed (remarks Protarchus), to have his mind full of the divine Ideas or cognitions only.

What! (replies Sokrates) must he have cognition not only of the true line and circle, but also of the false, the variable, the uncertain?

Certainly (says Protarchus), we all must have this farther cognition, if we are to find our way from hence to our own homes.[79]

[Footnote 79: Plato, Philêbus, p. 62 B. [Greek: A)nagkai=on ga/r, ei) me/llei tis ê(mô=n kai\ tê\n o(do\n e(ka/stote e)xeurê/sein oi)/kade.]]

Must we then admit (says Sokrates) those cognitions also in music, which we declared to be full of conjecture and imitation, without any pure truth or certainty?

We must admit them (says Protarchus), if life is to be worth anything at all. No harm can come from admitting all the other cognitions, provided a man possesses the first and most perfect.

[Side-note: But we must include no pleasures except the true, pure, and necessary. The others are not compatible with Cognition or Intelligence--especially the intense sexual pleasures.]

Well then (continues Sokrates), we will admit them all. We have now to consider whether we can in like manner admit all pleasures without distinction. The true and pure must first be let in: next, such as are necessary and indispensable: and all the rest also, if any one can show that there is advantage without mischief in our enjoying every variety of pleasure.[80] We must put the question first to pleasures, next to cognitions--whether they can consent respectively to live in company with each other. Now pleasures will readily consent to the companionship of cognitions: but cognitions (or Reason, upon whom they depend) will not tolerate the companionship of all pleasures indiscriminately. Reason will welcome the true and pure pleasures: she will also accept such as are indispensable, and such as consist with health, and with a sober and virtuous disposition. But Reason will not tolerate those most intense, violent, insane, pleasures, which extinguish correct memory, disturb sound reflection, and consist only with folly and bad conduct. Excluding these violent pleasures, but retaining the others in company with Reason and Truth--we shall secure that perfect and harmonious mixture which makes the nearest approximation to Good.[81]

[Footnote 80: Plato, Philêbus, p. 63 A. [Greek: ei)/per pa/sas ê(dona\s ê(/desthai dia\ bi/ou sumphe/ron te ê(mi=n e)sti\ kai\ a)blabe\s a(/pasi, pa/sas xugkrate/on.]]

[Footnote 81: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 63-64.]

[Side-note: What causes the excellence of this mixture? It is Measure, Proportion, Symmetry. To these Reason is more akin than Pleasure.]

This mixture as Good (continues Sokrates) will be acceptable to all.[82] But what is the cause that it is so? and is that cause more akin to Reason or to Pleasure? The answer is, that this mixture and combination, like every other that is excellent, derives its excellence from Measure and Proportion. Thus the Good becomes merged in the Beautiful: for measure and proportion (Moderation and Symmetry) constitute in every case beauty and excellence.[83] In this case, Truth has been recognised as a third element of the mixture: the three together coalesce into Good, forming a Quasi-Unum, which serves instead of a Real Unum or Idea of Good.[84] We must examine these three elements separately--Truth--Moderation--Symmetry (Measure--Proportion) to find whether each of them is most akin to Reason or to Pleasure. There can be no doubt that to all the three, Reason is more akin than Pleasure: and that the intense pleasures are in strong repugnance and antipathy to all the three.[85]

[Footnote 82: Plato, Philêbus, p. 64 C. [Greek: Ti/ dê=ta e)n tê=| xummi/xei timiô/taton a(/ma kai\ ma/list' ai)/tion ei)=nai do/xeien a)\n ê(mi=n, _tou= pa=si gegone/nai prosphilê=_ tê\n toiau/tên dia/thesin?]]

[Footnote 83: Plato, Philêbus, p. 64 E. [Greek: nu=n dê\ katape/pheugen ê(mi=n ê( ta)gathou= du/namis ei)s tê\n tou= kalou= phu/sin; metrio/tês ga\r kai\ xummetri/a ka/llos dê/pou kai\ a)retê\ pantachou= xumbai/nei gi/gnesthai.]]

[Footnote 84: Plato, Philêbus, p. 64 E-65 A. [Greek: Ou)kou=n ei) mê\ mia=| duna/metha i)de/a| to\ a)gatho\n thêreu=sai, su\n trisi\ labo/ntes, ka/llei kai\ xummetri/a| kai\ a)lêthei/a|, le/gômen ô(s tou=to oi(=on e(\n o)rtho/tat' a)\n ai)tiasai/meth' a)\n tô=n e)n tê=| xummi/xei, kai\ dia\ tou=to ô(s a)gatho\n o)\n toiau/tên au)tê\n gegone/nai.]]

[Footnote 85: Plato, Philêbus, p. 65 C.]

[Side-note: Quintuple gradation in the Constituents of the Good. 1. Measure. 2. Symmetry. 3. Intelligence. 4. Practical Arts and Right Opinions. 5. True and Pure Pleasures.]

We thus see (says Sokrates in conclusion), in reference to the debate with Philêbus, that Pleasure stands neither first nor second in the scale of approximation to Good. First comes Measure--the Moderate--the Seasonable--and all those eternal Forms and Ideas which are analogous to these.[86] Secondly, come the Symmetrical--the Beautiful--the Perfect--the Sufficient--and other such like Forms and Ideas.[87] Thirdly, come Reason and Intelligence. Fourthly, the various sciences, cognitions, arts, and right opinions--acquirements embodied in the mind itself. Fifthly, those pleasures which we have discriminated as pure pleasures without admixture of pain; belonging to the mind itself but consequent on the sensations of sight, hearing, smell.[88]

[Footnote 86: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66 A. [Greek: ô(s ê(donê\ ktê=ma ou)k e)/sti prô=ton ou)d' au)= deu/teron, a)lla\ prô=ton me/n pê| peri\ me/tron kai\ to\ me/trion kai\ kai/rion kai\ pa/nta o(po/sa chrê\ toiau=ta nomi/zein tê\n a)i+/dion ê(|rê=sthai phu/sin.]]

[Footnote 87: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66 B. [Greek: deu/teron mê\n peri\ to\ su/mmetron kai\ kalo\n kai\ to\ te/leon kai\ i(kano\n, kai\ pa/nth' o(po/sa tê=s genea=s au)= tau/tês e)sti/n.]]

[Footnote 88: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66 C.]

It is not necessary to trace the descending scale farther. It has been shown, against Philêbus--That though neither Intelligence separately, nor Pleasure separately, is an adequate embodiment of Good, which requires both of them conjointly--yet Intelligence is more akin to Good, and stands nearer to it in nature, than Pleasure.

* * * * *

Dionysius of Halikarnassus, while blaming the highflown metaphor and poetry of the Phædrus and other Platonic dialogues, speaks with great admiration of Plato in his appropriate walk of the Sokratic dialogues; and selects specially the Philêbus, as his example of these latter. I confess that this selection surprises me: for the Philêbus, while it explicitly renounces the peculiar Sokratic vein, and becomes didactic--cannot be said to possess high merit as a didactic composition. It is neither clear, nor orderly, nor comparable in animation to the expository books of the Republic.[89] Every commentator of Plato, from Galen downwards, has complained of the obscurity of the Philêbus.

[Footnote 89: Dionys. Hal. De Adm. Vi Dic. ap. Demosth. p. 1025.

Schleiermacher (Einleit. p. 136) admits the comparatively tiresome character and negligent execution of the Philêbus.

Galen had composed a special treatise, [Greek: Peri\ tô=n e)n Philê/bô| metaba/seôn], now lost (Galen, De Libris Propriis, 13, vol. xix. 46, ed. Kühn).

We have the advantage of two recent editions of the Philêbus by excellent English scholars, Dr. Badham and Mr. Poste; both are valuable, and that of Dr. Badham is distinguished by sagacious critical remarks and conjectures, but the obscurity of the original remains incorrigible.]

[Side-note: Remarks. Sokrates does not claim for Good the unity of an Idea, but a quasi-unity of analogy.]

Sokrates concludes his task, in the debate with Protarchus, by describing Bonum or the Supreme Good as a complex aggregate of five distinct elements, in a graduated scale of affinity to it and contributing to its composition in a greater or less degree according to the order in which they are placed. Plato does not intimate that these five complete the catalogue; but that after the fifth degree, the affinity becomes too feeble to deserve notice.[90] According to this view, no Idea of Good, in the strict Platonic sense, is affirmed. Good has not the complete unity of an Idea, but only the quasi-unity of analogy between its diverse elements; which are attached by different threads to the same root, with an order of priority and posteriority.[91]

[Footnote 90: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66 C.]

[Footnote 91: Plato, Philêbus, p. 65 A. The passage is cited in note 5, p. 363.

About the difference, recognised partly by Plato but still more insisted on by Aristotle, between [Greek: ta\ lego/mena kath' e(\n (kata\ mi/an i)de/an)] and [Greek: ta\ lego/mena pro\s e(\n (pro\s mi/an tina\ phu/sin)], see my note towards the close of the Lysis, vol. ii. ch. xx.

Aristotle says about Plato (Eth. Nikom. i. 6): [Greek: Oi( de\ komi/santes tê\n do/xan tau/tên, ou)k e)poi/oun i)de/as e)n oi(=s to\ pro/teron kai\ to\ u(/steron e)/legon], &c.]

[Side-note: Discussions of the time about Bonum. Extreme absolute view, maintained by Eukleides: extreme relative by the Xenophontic Sokrates. Plato here blends the two in part; an Eclectic doctrine.]

In the discussions about Bonum, there existed among the contemporaries of Plato a great divergence of opinions. Eukleides of Megara represents the extreme absolute, ontological, or objective view: Sokrates (I mean the historical Sokrates, as reported by Xenophon) enunciated very distinctly the relative or subjective view. "Good (said Eukleides) is the One: the only real, eternal, omnipresent Ens--always the same or like itself--called sometimes Good, sometimes Intelligence, and by various other names: the opposite of Good has no real existence, but only a temporary, phenomenal, relative, existence." On the other hand, the Xenophontic Sokrates affirmed--"The Good and The Beautiful have no objective unity at all; they include a variety of items altogether dissimilar to each other, yet each having reference to some human want or desire: sometimes relieving or preventing pain, sometimes conferring pleasure. That which neither contributes to relieve any pain or want, nor to confer pleasure, is not Good at all."[92] In the Philêbus, Plato borrows in part from both of these points of view, though inclining much more to the first than to the last. He produces a new eclectic doctrine, comprising something from both, and intended to harmonise both; announced as applying at once to Man, to Animals, to Plants, and to the Universe.[93]

[Footnote 92: Diogen. Laert. ii. 106; Cicero, Academic. ii. 42; Xenophon, Memorab. iii. 8, 3-5.]

[Footnote 93: Plato, Philêbus, p. 64 A. [Greek: e)n tau/tê| mathei=n peira=sthai, ti/ _pote e(\n te a)nthrô/pô| kai\ tô=| panti\ pe/phuken a)gatho/n_, kai\ ti/na i)de/an au)tê\n ei)=nai/ pote manteute/on.]

Schleiermacher observes about the Philêbus:--"Dieses also lag ihm (Plato) am Herzen, das Gute zu bestimmen nicht nur für das Leben des Menschen, sondern auch zumal für das ganze Gebiet des gewordenen Seins," &c.

The partial affinity between the Kosmos and the human soul is set forth in the Timæus, pp. 37-43-44.]

[Side-note: Inconvenience of his method, blending Ontology with Ethics.]

Unfortunately, the result has not corresponded to his intentions. If we turn to the close of the dialogue, we find that the principal elements which he assigns as explanatory of Good, and the relation in which they stand to each other, stand as much in need of explanation as Good itself. If we follow the course of the dialogue, we are frequently embarrassed by the language, because he is seeking for phrases applicable at once to the Kosmos and to Man: or because he passes from one to the other, under the assumption of real analogy between them. The extreme generalities of Logic or Ontology, upon which Sokrates here dwells--the Determinant and Indeterminate, the Cause, &c.--do not conduct us to the attainment of Good as he himself defines it--That which is desired by, and will give full satisfaction to, all men, animals, and plants. The fault appears to me to lie in the very scheme of the dialogue. Attempts to discuss Ontology and Ethics in one and the same piece of reasoning, instead of elucidating both, only serve to darken both. Aristotle has already made a similar remark: and it is after reading the Philêbus that we feel most distinctly the value of his comments on Plato in the first book of the Nikomachean Ethics. Aristotle has discussed Ontology in the Metaphysica and in other treatises: but he proclaims explicitly the necessity of discussing Ethics upon their own principles: looking at what is good for man, and what is attainable by man.[94] We find in the Philêbus many just reflections upon pleasure and its varieties: but these might have been better and more clearly established, without any appeal to the cosmical dogmas. The parallelism between Man and the Kosmos is overstrained and inconclusive, like the parallelism in the Republic between the collective commonwealth and the individual citizen.

[Footnote 94: See especially Ethic. Nikom. i. 4, 1096-1097. Aristotle reasons there directly against the Platonic [Greek: i)de/a a)gathou=], but his arguments have full application to the exposition in the Philêbus. He distinguishes pointedly the ethical from the physical point of view. In his discussion of friendship, after touching upon various comparisons of the physiological poets, and of Plato himself repeating them, he says:--[Greek: ta\ me\n ou)=n phusika\ tô=n a)porêma/tôn paraphei/sthô; ou) ga\r oi)kei=a tê=s parou/sês ske/pseôs; o(/sa d' e)sti\n a)nthrôpika/ kai\ a)nê/kei ei)s ta\ ê)/thê kai\ ta\ pa/thê, tau=t' e)piskepsô/metha], Ethic. Nikom. viii. 1, 1155, b. 10.

The like contrast is brought out (though less clearly) in the Eudemian Ethics, viii. 1. 1235, a. 30.

He animadverts upon Plato on the same ground in the Ethica Magna, i. 1, 1182, a. 23-30. [Greek: u(pe\r ga\r tô=n o)/ntôn kai\ a)lêthei/as le/gonta, ou)k e)/dei u(pe\r a)retê=s phra/zein; ou)de\n ga\r tou/tô| ka)kei/nô| koino/n.]]

[Side-note: Comparison of Man to the Kosmos, which has reason, but no emotion, is unnecessary and confusing.]

Moreover, when Plato, to prove the conclusion that Intelligence and Reason are the governing attributes of man's mind, enunciates as his premiss that Intelligence and Reason are the governing attributes in the Kosmos[95]--the premiss introduced is more debateable than the conclusion; and would (as he himself intimates) be contested by those against whose opposition he was arguing. In fact, the same proposition (That Reason and Intelligence are the dominant and controlling attributes of man, Passion and Appetite the subordinate) is assumed without any proof by Sokrates, both in the Protagoras and in the Republic. The Kosmos (in Plato's view) has reason and intelligence, but experiences no emotion either painful or pleasurable: the rational nature of man is thus common to him with the Kosmos, his emotional nature is not so. That the mind of each individual man was an emanation from the all-pervading mind of the Kosmos or universe, and his body a fragmentary portion of the four elements composing the cosmical body--these are propositions which had been laid down by Sokrates, as well as by Philolaus and other Pythagoreans (perhaps by Pythagoras himself) before the time of Plato.[96] Not only that doctrine, but also the analysis of the Kosmos into certain abstract constituent _principia_--(the Finient or Determinant--and the Infinite or Indeterminate)--this too seems to have been borrowed by Plato from Philolaus.[97]

[Footnote 95: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 20-30.]

[Footnote 96: Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i. 11, 27: De Senectute, 21, 78; Xenophon, Memor. i. 4, 7-8; Cicero, Nat. Deor. ii. 6, 18; Plato, Timæus, pp. 37-38, &c.

In the Xenophontic dialogue here referred to, Sokrates inverts the premiss and the conclusion: he infers that Mind and Reason govern the Kosmos, because the mind and reason of man govern the body of man.]

[Footnote 97: See Stallbaum, Prolegg. in Philêb. pp. 41-42.]

[Side-note: Plato borrows from the Pythagoreans, but enlarges their doctrine. Importance of his views in dwelling upon systematic classification.]

But here in the Philêbus, that analysis appears expanded into a larger scheme going beyond Philolaus or the Pythagoreans: _viz._ the recognition of a graduated scale of limits, or a definite number of species and sub-species--intermediate between the One or Highest Genus, and the Infinite Many or Individuals--and descending by successive stages of limitation from the Highest to the Lowest. What is thus described, is the general framework of systematic logical classification, deliberately contrived, and founded upon known attributes, common as well as differential. It is prescribed as essential to all real cognition; if we conceive only the highest Genus or generic name as comprehending an infinity of diverse particulars, we have no real cognition, until we can assign the intermediate stages of specification by which we descend from one to the other.[98] The step here made by Plato, under the stimulus of the Sokratic dialectic, from the Pythagorean doctrine of Finient and Infinite to the idea of gradual, systematic, logical division and subdivision, is one very important in the history of science. He lays as much stress upon the searching out of the intermediate species, as Bacon does upon the Axiomata Media of scientific enquiry.[99]

[Footnote 98: Ueberweg (Æchtheit und Zeitf. Platon. Schriften, pp. 204-207) considers the Philêbus, as well as the Sophistês and Timæus, to be compositions of Plato's very late age--partly on the ground of their didactic and expository style, the dialogue serving only as form to the exponent Sokrates--partly because he thinks that the nearest approach is made in them to that manner of conceiving the doctrine of Ideas which Aristotle ascribes to Plato in his old age--that is, the two [Greek: stoichei=a] or factors of the Ideas. 1. [Greek: To\ e(\n]. 2. [Greek: To\ me/ga kai\ mikro/n]. This last argument seems to me far-fetched. I see no real and sensible approach in the Philêbus to this Platonic doctrine of the [Greek: stoichei=a] of the Ideas: at least, the approach is so vague, that one can hardly make it a basis of reasoning. But the didactic tone is undoubtedly a characteristic of the Philêbus, and seems to indicate that the dialogue was composed after Plato had been so long established in his school, as to have acquired a pedagogic ostentation.]

[Footnote 99: Bacon, Augment. Scient. v. 2. Nov. Organ. Aph. 105. "At Plato non semel innuit particularia infinita esse maximé: rursus generalia minus certa documenta exhibere. Medullam igitur scientiarum, quâ artifex ab imperito distinguitur, in mediis propositionibus consistere, quas per singulas scientias tradidit et docuit experientia."]

[Side-note: Classification broadly enunciated, and strongly recommended--yet feebly applied--in this dialogue.]

Though there are several other passages of the Platonic dialogues in which the method of logical division is inculcated, there is none (I think) in which it is prescribed so formally, or enunciated with such comprehensive generality, as this before us in the Philêbus. Yet the method, after being emphatically announced, is but feebly and partially applied, in the distinction of different species, both of pleasure and of cognition.[100] The announcement would come more suitably, as a preface to the Sophistês and Politikus: wherein the process is applied to given subjects in great detail, and at a length which some critics consider excessive: and wherein moreover the particular enquiry is expressly proclaimed as intended to teach as well as to exemplify the general method.[101]

[Footnote 100: The purpose of discriminating the different sorts of pleasure is intimated, yet seemingly not considered as indispensable, by Sokrates; and it is executed certainly in a very unsystematic and perfunctory manner, compared with what we read in the Sophistês and Politikus. (Philêbus, pp. 19 B, 20 C, 32 B-C.)

Mr. Poste, in his note on p. 55 A, expresses surprise at this point; and notices it as one among other grounds for suspecting that the Philêbus is a composition of two distinct fragments, rather carelessly soldered together:--"Again after Division and Generalization have been propounded as the only satisfactory method, it is somewhat strange that both the original problems are solved by ordinary Dialectic without any recourse to classification. All this becomes intelligible if we assume the Philêbus to have arisen from a boldly executed junction of two originally separate dialogues."

Acknowledging the want of coherence in the dialogue, I have difficulty in conceiving what the two fragments could have been, out of which it was compounded. Schleiermacher (Einleit. pp. 136-137) also points out the negligent execution and heavy march of the dialogue.]

[Footnote 101: See Politikus, pp. 285-286; Phædrus, p. 265; Xenoph. Memor. iv. 5, 12.

I have already observed that Socher (Ueber Platon. pp. 260-270) and Stallbaum (Proleg. ad Politik. pp. 52-54-65-67, &c.) agree in condemning the extreme minuteness, the tiresome monotony, the useless and petty comparisons, which Plato brings together in the multiplied bifurcate divisions of the Sophistês and Politikus. Socher adduces this as one among his reasons for rejecting the dialogue as spurious.]

[Side-note: What is the Good? Discussed both in Philêbus and in Republic. Comparison.]

The same question as that which is here discussed in the Philêbus, is also started in the sixth book of the Republic. It is worth while to compare the different handling, here and there. "Whatever else we possess (says Sokrates in the Republic), and whatever else we may know is of no value, unless we also possess and know Good. In the opinion of most persons, Pleasure is The Good: in the opinion of accomplished and philosophical men, intelligence ([Greek: phro/nêsis]) is the Good. But when we ask Intelligence, _of what_? these philosophers cannot inform us: they end by telling us, ridiculously enough, Intelligence of _The Good_. Thus, while blaming us for not knowing what The Good is, they make an answer which implies that we do already know it: in saying, Intelligence of the Good, they of course presume that we know what they mean by the word. Then again, those who pronounce Pleasure to be the Good, are not less involved in error; since they are forced to admit that some Pleasures are Evil; thus making Good and Evil to be the same. It is plain therefore that there are many and grave disputes what The Good is."[102]

[Footnote 102: Plato, Republic, vi. p. 505 B-C. [Greek: oi( tou=to ê(gu/menoi ou)k e)/chousi dei=xai ê(/ _tis phro/nêsis, a)ll'_ a)nagka/zontai teleutô=ntes tê\n tou= a)gathou= pha/nai . . . o)neidi/zonte/s ge o(/ti ou)k i)/smen to\ a)gatho/n, le/gousi pa/lin ô(s ei)do/si; phro/nêsin ga\r au)to/ phasin ei)=nai a)gathou=, ô(s au)= sunie/ntôn ê(mô=n o(/, ti le/gousin, e)peida\n to\ tou= a)gathou= phthe/gxôntai o)/noma.]

In the Symposion, there is a like tenor of questions about Eros or Love. Love must be Love of something: the term is relative. You confound Love with the object loved. See Plato, Symposion, pp. 199 C, 204 C.

When we read the objection here advanced by Plato (in the above passage of the Republic) as conclusive against the appeal to [Greek: phro/nêsis] absolutely (without specifying [Greek: phro/nêsis] _of what_), we are surprised to see that it is not even mentioned in the Philêbus.]

[Side-note: Mistake of talking about Bonum confidently, as if it were known, while it is subject of constant dispute. Plato himself wavers about it; gives different explanations, and sometimes professes ignorance, sometimes talks about it confidently.]

In this passage of the Republic Plato points out that Intelligence cannot be understood, except as determined by or referring to some Object or End: and that those who tendered Intelligence _per se_ for an explanation of The Good (as Sokrates does in the Philêbus), assumed as known the very point in dispute which they professed to explain. This is an important remark in regard to ethical discussions: and it were to be wished that Plato had himself avoided the mistake which he here blames in others. The Platonic Sokrates frequently tells us that he does not know what Good is. In the sixth Book of the Republic, having come to a point where his argument required him to furnish a positive explanation of it, he expressly declines the obligation and makes his escape amidst the clouds of metaphor.[103] In the Protagoras, he pronounces Good to be identical with pleasure and avoidance of pain, in the largest sense and under the supervision of calculating Intelligence.[104] In the second Book of the Republic, we find what is substantially the same explanation as that of the Protagoras, given (though in a more enlarged and analytical manner) by Glaukon and assented to by Sokrates; to the effect that Good is tripartite,[105] _viz._: 1. That which we desire for itself, without any reference to consequences--_e. g._, enjoyment and the innocuous pleasures. 2. That which we desire on a double account, both for itself and by reason of its consequences--_e. g._, good health, eyesight, intelligence, &c. 3. That which we do not desire, perhaps even shun, for itself: but which we desire, or at least accept, by reason of its consequences--such as gymnastics, medical treatment, discipline, &c. Again, in the Gorgias and elsewhere, Plato seems to confine the definition of Good to the two last of these three heads, rejecting the first: for he distinguishes pointedly the Good from the Pleasurable. Yet while thus wavering in his conception of the term, Plato often admits it into the discussions as if it were not merely familiar, but clear and well-understood by every one.

[Footnote 103: Plato, Republic, vi. p. 506 E.

Compare also Republic, vii. p. 533 C. [Greek: ô)=| ga\r a)rchê\ me\n o(\ mê\ oi)=de, teleutê\ de\ kai\ ta\ metaxu\ e)x ou)= mê\ oi)=de sumpe/plektai, ti/s mêchanê\ tê\n toiau=tên o(mologi/an pote\ e)pistê/mên gi/gnesthai?]]

[Footnote 104: Plato, Protagoras, pp. 356-7.]

[Footnote 105: Plato, Republic, ii. p. 357 B.]

[Side-note: Plato lays down tests by which Bonum may be determined: but the answer in the Philêbus does not satisfy those tests.]

In the present dialogue, Plato lays down certain characteristic marks whereby The Supreme Good may be known. These marks are subjective--relative to the feelings and appreciation of sentient beings--to all mankind, and even to animals and plants. Good is explicitly defined by the property of conferring happiness. The Good is declared to be "that habit and disposition of mind which has power to confer on all men a happy life":[106] it is perfect and all sufficient: every creature that knows Good, desires and hunts after it, demanding nothing farther when it is attained, and caring for nothing else except what is attained along with it:[107] it is the object of choice for all plants and animals, and if any one prefers any thing else, he only does so through ignorance or from some untoward necessity:[108] it is most delightful and agreeable to all.[109] This is what Plato tells us as to the characteristic attributes of Good. And the test which Sokrates applies, to determine whether Pleasure does or does not correspond with these attributes, is an appeal to individual choice or judgment. "Would you choose? Would _any one_ be satisfied?" Though this appeal ought by the conditions of the problem to be made to mankind generally, and is actually made to Protarchus as one specimen of them--yet Sokrates says at the end of the dialogue that all except philosophers choose wrong, being too ignorant or misguided to choose aright. Now it is certain that what these philosophers choose, will not satisfy the aspirations of all other persons besides. It may be Good, in reference to the philosophers themselves: but it will fail to answer those larger conditions which Plato has just laid down.

[Footnote 106: Plato, Philêbus, p. 11 E.]

[Footnote 107: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 20 D-E, 61 C, 67 A. [Greek: au)tarkei/a], &c.

Sydenham, Translation of Philêbus, note, p. 48, observes--"Whether Happiness be to be found in Speculative Wisdom or in Pleasure, or in some other possession or enjoyment, it can be seated nowhere but in the soul. For Happiness has no existence anywhere but where it is felt and known. Now, it is no less certain, that only the soul is sensible of pain and pleasure, than it is, that only the soul is capable of knowledge, and of thinking either foolishly or wisely."]

[Footnote 108: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 22 B, 61 A.]

[Footnote 109: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 61 E, 64 C. [Greek: to\n a)gapêto/taton bi/on pa=si prosphilê=].

Aristotle, Ethic. Nikomach. i. init. [Greek: ta)gatho/n, ou)= pa/nta e)phi/etai].

Seneca, Epistol. 118. "Bonum est quod ad se impetum animi secundum naturam movet."]

[Side-note: Inconsistency of Plato in his way of putting the question--The alternative which he tenders has no fair application.]

In submitting the question to individual choice, Plato does not keep clear either of confusion or of contradiction. If this Summum Bonum be understood as the End comprising the full satisfaction of human wishes and imaginations, without limitation by certain given actualities--and if the option be tendered to a man already furnished with his share of the various desires generated in actual life--such a man will naturally demand entire absence of all pains, with pleasures such as to satisfy all his various desires: not merely the most intense pleasures (which Plato intends to prove, not to be pleasures at all), but other pleasures also. He will wish (if you thus suppose him master of Fortunatus's wishing-cap) to include in his enjoyments pleasures which do not usually go together, and which may even, in the real conditions of life, exclude one another: no boundary being prescribed to his wishing power. He will wish for the pleasures of knowledge or intelligence, of self-esteem, esteem from others, sympathy, &c., as well as for those of sense. He will put in his claim for pleasures, without any of those antecedent means and conditions which, in real life, are necessary to procure them. Such being the state of the question, the alternative tendered by Plato--Pleasure, versus Intelligence or Knowledge--has no fair application. Plato himself expressly states that pleasure, though generically One, is specifically multiform, and has many varieties different from, even opposite to, each other: among which varieties one is, the pleasure of knowledge or intelligence itself.[110] The person to whom the question is submitted, has a right to claim these pleasures of knowledge among the rest, as portions of his Summum Bonum. And when Plato proceeds to ask--Will you be satisfied to possess pleasure only, without the least spark of intelligence, without memory, without eyesight?--he departs from the import of his previous question, and withdraws from the sum total of pleasure many of its most important items: since we must of course understand that the pleasures of intelligence will disappear along with intelligence itself,[111] and that the pains of conscious want of intelligence will be felt instead of them.

[Footnote 110: Plato, Philêbus, p. 12 D.]

[Footnote 111: Plato, Philêbus, p. 21 C.]

[Side-note: Intelligence and Pleasure cannot be fairly compared--Pleasure is an End, Intelligence a Means. Nothing can be compared with Pleasure, except some other End.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next, we may observe that these [Greek: duscherei=s], whoever they were, are spoken of with much respect by Plato, even while he combats their doctrine (p. 44 C). I think it not likely that he would have spoken thus of Antisthenes. We are told that there prevailed between the two a great and reciprocal acrimony. And this sentiment is manifested in the Sophistês (p. 251 B), where the opponents whom Plato is refuting are described with the most contemptuous bitterness--and where Schleiermacher, and the critics generally, declare that he alludes to Antisthenes. The passage in the Sophistês represents, in my judgment, the probable sentiment of Plato towards Antisthenes: the passage in the Philêbus is at variance with it.

I imagine that the [Greek: duscherei=s] to whom Plato makes allusion in the Philêbus, are the persons from whom his nephew and successor Speusippus derived the doctrine declared in the first portion of this note. The "vetus omnia Academia" of Aulus Gellius is an exaggerated phrase; but many of the old Academy, or companions of Plato, probably held the theory that pleasure was only one form of evil,--especially the pythagorising _Platonici_, adopting the tendencies of Plato himself in his old age. That Speusippus was among the borrowers from the Pythagoreans, we know from Aristotle (Eth. Nikom. i. 4, 1096, b. 8).

Now the Pythagorean canon of life, like the Orphic (both of them supposed by Herodotus to be derived in great part from Egypt--ii. 81), was distinguished by a multiplicity of abstinences, disgusts, antipathies, in respect to alimentation and other physical circumstances of life--which were held to be of the most imperative force and necessity; so that offences against them were of all others the most intolerable. A remarkable fragment of the [Greek: Krê=tes] of Euripides (ed. Dind., vol. ii. p. 912) describes a variety of this _purism_ analogous to the Orphic and Pythagorean:--[Greek: Pa/lleuka d' e)/chôn ei)/mata, pheu/gô ge/nesi/n te bro/tôn, kai\ nekrothê/kês ou) chrimpto/menos; tê\n t' e)mpsu/chôn brô=sin e)destô=n pephu/lagmai.] Compare Eurip. Hippol. 957; Alexis Comicus, ap. Athenæ, iv. p. 161. See the work of M. Alfred Maury, Histoire des Religions de la Grèce Antique, vol. iii. pp. 368-384.

It appears to me that the [Greek: duscherei=s], to whom Plato alludes in the Philêbus, were most probably pythagorising friends of his own; who, adopting a ritual of extreme rigour, distinguished themselves by the violence of their antipathies towards [Greek: ta\s ê(dona\s ta\s tô=n a)schêmo/nôn]. Plato speaks of them with respect; partly because ethical theorists, who denounce _pleasure_, are usually characterised in reverential terms, as persons of exalted principle, even by those who think their reasonings inconclusive; partly because these men only pushed the consequences of Plato's own reasonings, rather farther than Plato himself did. In fact they were more consistent than Plato was: for the principles laid down in the Philêbus, if carried out strictly, would go to the exclusion of all pleasures--not less of the few which he tolerates, than of the many which he banishes.

These pythagorising _Platonici_ might well be termed [Greek: deinoi\ peri\ phu/sin]. They paid much attention to the interpretation of nature, though they did so according to a numerical and geometrical symbolism.]

[Footnote 141: Plato, Republic, x. p. 607.]

[Side-note: Forced conjunction of Kosmology and Ethics--defect of the Philêbus.]

In my judgment, this is one main defect pervading the Platonic Philêbus--the forced conjunction between Kosmology and Ethics--the violent pressure employed to force Pleasures and Pains into the same classifying framework as cognitive Beliefs--the true and the false. In respect to the various pleasures, the dialogue contains many excellent remarks, the value of which is diminished by the purpose to which they are turned.[142] One of Plato's main batteries is directed against the intense, extatic, momentary enjoyments, which he sets in contrast against the gentle, serene, often renewable.[143] That the former are often purchasable only at the cost of a distempered condition of body and mind, which ought to render them objects shunned rather than desired by a reasonable man--this is a doctrine important to inculcate: but nothing is gained by applying the metaphorical predicate _false_, either to them, or to the other classes of mixed pleasures, &c., which Plato discountenances under the same epithet. By thus condemning pleasures in wholesale and in large groups, we not only set aside the innocuous as well as others, but we also leave unapplied, or only half applied, that principle of Measure or Calculation which Plato so often extols as the main item in Summum Bonum.

[Footnote 142: We read in Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric (Book i. ch. 7, pp. 168-170) some very good remarks on the erroneous and equivocal assertions which identify Truth and Good--a thesis on which various Platonists have expended much eloquence. Dr. Campbell maintains the just distinction between the Emotions and Will on one side, and the Understanding on the other.

"Passion" (he says) "is the mover to action, Reason is the guide. Good is the object of the Will; Truth the object of the Understanding."]

[Footnote 143: Plato, Philêbus, p. 45 D. [Greek: e)n u(/brei mei/zous ê(dona/s, ou) plei/ous le/gô], &c.

So in the Republic, also, [Greek: ê(donê\ u(perba/llousa] is declared to be inconsistent with [Greek: sôphrosu/nê] (iii. 402 E).]

[Side-note: Directive sovereignty of Measure--how explained and applied in the Protagoras.]

In this dialogue as well as others, Measure is thus exalted, and exalted with emphasis, at the final conclusion: but it is far less clearly and systematically applied, as far as human beings are concerned, than in the Protagoras. The Sokrates of the Protagoras does not recognise any pleasures as false--nor any class of pleasures as absolutely unmixed with pain: he does not set pleasure in pointed opposition to the avoidance of pain, nor the intense momentary pleasures to the gentle and more durable. He considers that the whole course of life is a perpetual intermixture of pleasures and pains, in proportions variable and to a certain extent modifiable: that each item in both lists has its proper value, commensurable with the others; that the purpose of a well-ordered life consists, in rendering the total sum of pleasure as great, and the total sum of pain as small, as each man's case admits: that avoidance of pain and attainment of pleasure are co-ordinate branches of this one comprehensive End. He farther declares that men are constantly liable to err by false remembrances, estimates, and comparisons, of pleasures and pains past--by false expectations of pleasures and pains to come: that the whole security of life lies in keeping clear of such error--in right comparison of these items and right choice between them: that therefore the full sovereign controul of each man's life must be vested in the Measuring Science or Calculating Intelligence.[144] Not only all comprehensive sovereignty, but also ever-active guidance, is postulated for this Measuring Science: while at the same time its special function, and the items to which it applies, are more clearly defined than in any other Platonic dialogue. If a man be so absorbed by the idea of an intense momentary pleasure or pain, as to forget or disregard accompaniments or consequences of an opposite nature, greatly overbalancing it--this is an error committed from default of the Measuring Science: but it is only one among many errors arising from the like deficiency. Nothing is required but the Measuring Science or Intelligence, to enable a man to make the best of those circumstances in which he may be placed: this is true of all men, under every variety of place and circumstances. Measure is not the Good, but the one condition which is constant as well as indispensable to any tolerable approach towards Good.

[Footnote 144: This argument is carried on by Sokrates from p. 351 until the close of the Protagoras, p. 357 A. [Greek: e)peidê\ de\ ê(donê=s te kai\ lu/pês e)n o)rthê=| _tê=| ai(re/sei e)pha/nê ê(mi=n ê( sôtêri/a tou= bi/ou ou)=sa_, tou= te ple/onos kai\ e)la/ttonos kai\ mei/zonos kai\ smikroterou= kai\ por)r(ôte/rô kai\ e)ggute/rô, a)=ra prô=ton me\n _ou) metrêtikê\ phai/netai_, u(perbolê=s te kai\ e)ndei/as ou)=sa kai\ i)so/têtos pro\s a)llê/las ske/psis? . . . E)pei\ de\ metrêtikê/, a)na/gkê| dê/pou te/chnê kai\ e)pistê/mê.]

Yet Plato in the Philêbus, imputing to the Hedonistic theory that it sets aside all idea of measure, regulation, limit, advances as an argument in the case, that Pleasure and Pain in their own nature have no limit (Philêbus, pp. 25-26 B, 27 E. Compare Dr. Badham's note, p. 30 of his edition).

The imputation is unfounded, and the argument without application, in regard to the same theory as expounded by Sokrates in the Protagoras.

At the end of the Philêbus (p. 67 B) Plato makes Sokrates exclaim, "We cannot put Pleasure first among the items of Good, even though all oxen, horses, and other beasts affirm it". This rhetorical flourish is altogether misplaced in the Philêbus: for Plato had already specified it as one of the conditions of the Good, That it must be acceptable and must give satisfaction to all animals, and even to all plants (pp. 22 B, 60 C), as well as to men.]

[Side-note: How explained in Philêbus--no statement to what items it is applied.]

In the Philêbus, too, Measure--The Exact Quantum--The Exact Moment--are proclaimed as the chief item in the complex called--The Good.[145] But to what Items does Sokrates intend the measure to be applied? Not certainly to pleasures: the comparison of quantity between one pleasure and another is discarded as useless or misleading, and the comparison of quality alone is admitted--_i. e._, true and false: the large majority of human pleasures being repudiated in the lump as false, and a small remnant only being tolerated, on the allegation that they are true. Nor, again, is the measure applied to pains: for though Plato affirms that a life altogether without pains (as without pleasures) would be the truly divine Ideal, yet he never tells us that the Measuring Intelligence is to be made available in the comparison and choice of pains, and in avoidance of the greater by submitting to the less. Lastly, when we look at the concession made in this dialogue to Gorgias and his art, we find that Plato no longer claims for his Good or Measure any directive function, or any paramount influence, as to utility, profit, reputation, or the greater ends which men usually pursue in life:[146] he claims for it only the privilege of satisfying the aspiration for truth, in minds wherein such aspiration is preponderant over all others.

[Footnote 145: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66 A. [Greek: me/tron--to\ me/trion--to\ kai/rion].]

[Footnote 146: Plato, Philêbus, p. 58 B-D.]

Comparing the Philêbus with the Protagoras, therefore, we see that though, in both, Measuring Science or Intelligence is proclaimed as supreme, the province assigned to it in the Philêbus is comparatively narrow. Moreover the practical side or activities of life (which are prominent in the Protagoras) appear in the Philêbus thrust into a corner; where scanty room is found for them on ground nearly covered by the speculative, or theorising, truth-seeking, pursuits. Practical reason is forced into the same categories as theoretical.

The classification of _true_ and _false_ is (as I have already remarked) unsuitable for pleasures and pains. We have now to see how Plato applies it to cognitions, to which it really belongs.

[Side-note: Classification of true and false--how Plato applies it to Cognitions.]

The highest of these Cognitions is set apart as Dialectic or Ontology: the Object of which is, Ens or Entia, eternal, ever the same and unchangeable, ever unmixed with each other: while the corresponding Subject is, Reason, Intelligence, Wisdom, by which it is apprehended and felt. In this Science alone reside perfect Truth and Purity. Where the Objects are shifting, variable, mixed or confounded together, there Reason cannot apply herself; no pure or exact truth can be attained.[147] These unchangeable Entities are what in other dialogues Plato terms Ideas or Forms--a term scarcely used in the Philêbus.

[Footnote 147: Plato, Philêbus, p. 59 C. [Greek: ô(s ê)\ peri\ e)kei=na e)/sth' ê(mi=n to/ te be/baion kai\ to\ katharo\n kai\ to\ a)lêthe\s kai\ o(\ dê\ le/gomen ei)likrine/s, peri\ ta\ a)ei\ kata\ ta\ au)ta\ ô(sau/tôs a)mikto/tata e)/chonta--ê)\ deute/rôs e)kei/nôn o(/ ti ma/lista/ e)sti xuggene/s; ta\ d' a)/lla pa/nta deu/tera/ te kai\ u(/stera lekte/on.] 62 A: [Greek: phronô=n a)/nthrôpos _au(tê=s peri\ dikaiosu/nês_, o(/, ti e)/sti, kai\ lo/gon e)/chôn e(po/menon tô=| noei=n . . . ku/klou me\n kai\ sphai/ras au)tê=s tê=s thei/as to\n lo/gon e)/chôn.]]

Though pure truth belongs exclusively to Dialectic and to the Objects thereof, there are other Sciences which, having more or less of affinity to Dialectic, may thus be classified according to the degree of such affinity. Mathematics approach most nearly to Dialectic. Under Mathematics are included the Sciences or Arts of numbering, measuring, weighing--Arithmetic, Metrêtic, Static--which are applied to various subordinate arts, and impart to these latter all the scientific guidance and certainty which is found in them. Without Arithmetic, the subordinate arts would be little better than vague guesswork or knack. But Plato distinguishes two varieties of Arithmetic and Metrêtic: one purely theoretical, prosecuted by philosophers, and adapted to satisfy the love of abstract truth--the other applied to some department of practice, and employed by the artist as a guide to the execution of his work. Theoretical Arithmetic is characterised by this feature, that it assumes each unit to be equal, like, and interchangeable with every other unit: while practical Arithmetic adds together concrete realities, whether like and equal to each other or not.[148]

[Footnote 148: Plato, Philêbus, p. 56 E.]

It is thus that the theoretical geometer and arithmetician, though not coming up to the full and pure truth of Dialectic, is nevertheless nearer to it than the carpenter or the ship-builder, who apply the measure to material objects. But the carpenter, ship-builder, architect, &c., do really apply measure, line, rule, &c.: they are therefore nearer to truth than other artists, who apply no measure at all. To this last category belong the musical composer, the physician, the husbandman, the pilot, the military commander, neither of whom can apply to their processes either numeration or measurement: all of them are forced to be contented with vague estimate, conjecture, a practised eye and ear.[149]

[Footnote 149: Plato, Philêbus, p. 56 A-B.]

[Side-note: Valuable principles of this classification--difference with other dialogues.]

The foregoing classification of Sciences and Arts is among the most interesting points in the Philêbus. It coincides to a great degree with that which we read in the sixth and seventh books of the Republic, though it is also partially different: it differs too in some respects from doctrines advanced in other dialogues. Thus we find here (in the Philêbus) that the science or art of the physician, the pilot, the general, &c., is treated as destitute of measure and as an aggregate of unscientific guesses: whereas in the Gorgias[150] and elsewhere, these are extolled as genuine arts, and are employed to discredit Rhetoric by contrast. Again, all these arts are here placed lower in the scientific scale than the occupations of the carpenter or the ship-builder, who possess and use some material measures. But these latter, in the Republic,[151] are dismissed with the disparaging epithet of snobbish ([Greek: ba/nausoi]) and deemed unworthy of consideration.

[Footnote 150: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 501 A, 518 A. Compare Republic, i. pp. 341-342.]

[Footnote 151: Plato, Republic, vii. p. 522 B.]

Dialectic appears here exalted to the same pre-eminence which is assigned to it in the Republic--as the energy of the pure Intellect, dealing with those permanent real Essences which are the objects of Intellect alone, intelligible only and not visible. The distinction here drawn by Plato between the theoretical and practical arithmetic and geometry, compared with numeration or mensuration of actual objects of sense--is also remarkable in two ways: first, as it marks his departure from the historical Sokrates, who recognised the difference between the two, but discountenanced the theoretical as worthless:[152] next as it brings clearly to view, the fundamental assumption or hypothesis upon which abstract arithmetic proceeds--the concept of units all perfectly like and equal. That this _is_ an assumption (always departing more or less from the facts of sense)--and that upon its being conceded depends the peculiar certainty and accuracy of arithmetical calculation--was an observation probably then made for the first time; and not unnecessary to be made even now, since it is apt to escape attention. It is enunciated clearly both here and in the Republic.[153]

[Footnote 152: Xenophon, Memorab. iv. 7, 2-8. The contrast drawn in this chapter of the Memorabilia appears to me to coincide pretty exactly with that which is taken in the Philêbus, though the preference is reversed. Dr. Badham (p. 78) and Mr. Poste (pp. 106-113) consider Plato as pointing to a contrast between pure and applied Mathematics: which I do not understand to be his meaning. The distinction taken by Aristotle in the passage cited by Mr. Poste is different, and does really designate Pure and Applied Mathematics. Mr. Poste would have found a better comparison in Ethic. Nikom. i. 7, 1098, a. 29.]

[Footnote 153: Plato, Philêbus, p. 56 E. [Greek: oi( d' ou)k a)/n pote au)toi=s sunakolouthê/seian, ei) mê\ mona/da mona/dos e(ka/stês tô=n muri/ôn mêdemi/an a)/llên a)/llês diaphe/rousa/n tis thê/sei]--where it is formally proclaimed as an assumption or postulate. See Republic, vii. pp. 525-526, vi. p. 510 C.

Mr. John Stuart Mill thus calls attention to the same remark in his instructive chapters on Demonstration and Necessary Truth (System of Logic, Book ii. ch. vi. sect. 3).

"The inductions of Arithmetic are of two sorts: first, those that we have just expounded, such as One and One are Two, Two and One are Three, &c., which may be called the definitions of the various numbers, in the improper or geometrical sense of the word Definition; and, secondly, the two following Axioms. The sums of Equals are equal, the differences of Equals are equal.

"These axioms, and likewise the so-called Definitions, are (as already shown) results of induction: true of all objects whatsoever, and as it may seem, exactly true, without the hypothetical assumption of unqualified truth where an approximation to it is all that exists. On more accurate investigation, however, it will be found that even in this case, there is one hypothetical element in the ratiocination. In all propositions concerning numbers a condition is implied without which none of them would be true, and that condition is an assumption which may be false. The condition is that 1 = 1: that all the numbers are numbers of the same or of equal units. Let this be doubtful, and not one of the propositions in arithmetic will hold true. How can we know that one pound and one pound make two pounds, if one of the pounds may be troy and the other avoirdupois? They may not make two pounds of either or of any weight. How can we know that a forty-horse power is always equal to itself, unless we assume that all horses are of equal strength? One actual pound weight is not exactly equal to another, nor one mile's length to another; a nicer balance or more exact measuring instruments would always detect some difference."]

The long preliminary discussion of the Philêbus thus brings us to the conclusion--That a descending scale of value, relatively to truth and falsehood, must be recognised in cognitions as well as in pleasures: many cognitions are not entirely true, but tainted in different degrees by error and falsehood: most pleasures also, instead of being true and pure, are alloyed by concomitant pains or delusions or both: moreover, all the intense pleasures are incompatible with Measure, or a fixed standard,[154] and must therefore be excluded from the category of Good.

[Footnote 154: Plato, Philêbus, pp. 52 D--57 B.]

[Side-note: Close of the Philêbus--Graduated elements of Good.]

In arranging the quintuple scale of elements or conditions of the Good, Plato adopts the following descending order: I report them as well as I can, for I confess that I understand them very imperfectly.

1. Measure; that which conforms to Measure and to proper season: with everything else analogous, which we can believe to be of eternal nature.--These seem to be unchangeable Forms or Ideas, which are here considered objectively, apart from any percipient Subject affected by them.[155]

2. The Symmetrical, Beautiful, Perfect, Sufficient, &c.--These words seem to denote the successive manifestations of the same afore-mentioned attributes; but considered both objectively and subjectively, as affecting and appreciated by some percipient.

3. Intelligent or Rational Mind--Here the Subject is brought in by itself.

4. Sciences, Cognitions, Arts, Right Opinions, &c.--Here we have the intellectual manifestations of the Subject, but of a character inferior to No. 3, descending in the scale of value relatively to truth.

5. Lastly come the small list of true and painless pleasures.--These, being not intellectual at all, but merely emotional (some as accompaniments of intellectual, others of sensible, processes), are farther removed from Good and Measure than even No. 4--the opining or uncertain phases of the intellect.[156]

The four first elements belong to the Kosmos as well as to man: for the Kosmos has an intelligent soul. The fifth marks the emotional nature of man.

[Footnote 155: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66 A.

The Appendix B, subjoined by Mr. Poste to his edition of the Philêbus (pp. 149-165), is a very valuable Dissertation, comparing and explaining the abstract theories of Plato and Aristotle. He remarks, justly contrasting the Philêbus with the Timæus, as to the doctrine of Limit: "In the Philêbus the limit is always quantitative. Quality, including all the elementary forces, is the substratum that has to receive the quantitative determination. Just, however, as Quality underlies quantity, we can conceive a substratum underlying quality. This Plato in the Timæus calls the Vehicle or Receptacle ([Greek: to\ dektiko/n]), and Aristotle in his writings the primary Matter ([Greek: prô/tê u(/lê]). The Philêbus, however, does not carry the analysis so far. It regards quality as the ultimate matter, the substratum to be moulded and measured out in due quantity by the quantitative limit" (p. 160).

I doubt whether the Platonic idea of [Greek: to\ me/trion] is rightly expressed by Mr. Poste's translation--a _mean_ (p. 158). It rather implies, even in Politikus, p. 306, to which he refers, something adjusted according to a positive standard or conformable to an assumed measure or perfection: there being undoubtedly error in excess above it and error in defect below it--but the standard being not necessarily mid-way between the two. The Pythagoreans used [Greek: kairo\s] in a very large sense, describing it as the First Cause of Good. Proklus ad Plat. Alkib. i. p. 270-272, Cousin.]

[Footnote 156: Neither the Introduction of Schleiermacher (p. 134 seq.), nor the elucidation of Trendelenburg (De Philebi Consilio, pp. 16-23), nor the Prolegomena of Stallbaum (pp. 76-77 seq.), succeed in making this obscure close of the Philêbus clearly intelligible. Stallbaum, after indicating many commentators who have preceded him, observes respecting the explanations which they have given: "Ea sunt adeo varia atque inter se diversa, ut tanquam adversâ fronte inter ipsa pugnare dicenda sint" (p. 72).]

I see no sufficient ground for the hypothesis of Stallbaum and some other critics, who, considering the last result abrupt and unsatisfactory, suspect that Plato either intended to add more, or did add more which has not come down to us.[157] Certainly the result (as in many other Platonic dialogues) is inconsiderable, and the instruction derivable from the dialogue must be picked out by the reader himself from the long train of antecedent reasoning. The special point emphatically brought out at the end is the discredit thrown upon the intense pleasures, and the exclusion of them from the list of constituents of Good. If among Plato's contemporaries who advocated the Hedonistic doctrine, there were any who laid their main stress upon these intense pleasures, he may be considered to have replied to them under the name of Philêbus. But certainly this result might have been attained with a smaller array of preliminaries.

[Footnote 157: Stallbaum, Proleg. p. 10.]

[Side-note: Contrast between the Philêbus and the Phædrus, and Symposion, in respect to Pulchrum, and intense Emotions generally.]

Moreover, in regard to these same intense emotions we have to remark that Plato in other dialogues holds a very different opinion respecting them--or at least respecting some of them. We have seen that at the close of the Philêbus he connects Bonum and Pulchrum principally, and almost exclusively, with the Reason; but we find him, in the Phædrus and Symposion, taking a different, indeed an opposite, view of the matter; and presenting Bonum and Pulchrum as objects, not of the unimpassioned and calculating Reason, but of ardent aspiration and even of extatic love. Reason is pronounced to be insufficient for attaining them, and a peculiar vein of inspiration a species of madness, _eo nomine_--is postulated in its place. The life of the philosophical aspirant is compared to that of the passionate lover, beginning at first with attachment to some beautiful youth, and rising by a gradual process of association, so as to transfer the same fervent attachment to his mental companionship, as a stimulus for generating intellectual sympathies and recollections of the world of Ideas. He is represented as experiencing in the fullest measure those intense excitements and disturbances which Eros alone can provoke.[158] It is true that Plato here repudiates sensual excitements. In this respect the Phædrus and Symposion agree with the Philêbus. But as between Reason and Emotion, they disagree with it altogether: for they dwell upon ideal excitements of the most vehement character. They describe the highest perfection of human nature as growing out of the better variety of madness--out of the glowing inspirations of Eros: a state replete with the most intense alternating emotions of pain and pleasure. How opposite is the tone of Sokrates in the Philêbus, where he denounces all the intense pleasures as belonging to a distempered condition--as adulterated with pain, and as impeding the tranquil process of Reason--and where he tolerates only such gentle pleasures as are at once unmixed with pain and easily controuled by Reason! In the Phædrus and Symposion, we are told that Bonum and Pulchrum are attainable only under the stimulus of Eros, through a process of emotion, feverish and extatic, with mingled pleasure and pain: and that they crown such aspirations, if successfully prosecuted, with an emotional recompense, or with pleasure so intense as to surpass all other pleasures. In the Philêbus, Bonum and Pulchrum come before us as measure, proportion, seasonableness: as approachable only through tranquil Reason--addressing their ultimate recompense to Reason alone--excluding both vehement agitations and intense pleasures--and leaving only a corner of the mind for gentle and unmixed pleasures.[159]

[Footnote 158: See in the Symposion the doctrines of the prophetess Diotima, as recited by Sokrates, pp. 204-212: also the Phædrus, the second [Greek: e)gkô/mion] delivered by Sokrates upon Eros, pp. 36-60, repeated briefly and confirmed by Sokrates, pp. 77-78.

Compare these with the latter portion of the Philêbus; the difference of spirit and doctrine will appear very manifest.

To illustrate the contrast between the Phædrus and the Philêbus, we may observe that the former compares the excitement and irritation of the inspired soul when its wings are growing to ascend to Bonum and Pulchrum, with the [Greek: knê=sis] or irritation of the gums when a child is cutting teeth--[Greek: zei= ou)=n e)n tou/tô| o(/lê kai\ a)nakêki/ei, kai\ o(/per to\ tô=n o)dontophuou/ntôn pa/thos peri\ tou\s o)do/ntas gi/gnetai o(/tan a)/rti phuô=si knê=si/s te kai\ a)gana/ktêsis peri\ ta\ ou)=la, tau)to\n dê\ pe/ponthen ê( tou= pterophuei=n a)rchome/nou psuchê/; zei= te kai\ a)ganaktei= kai\ gargali/zetai phu/ousa ta\ ptera/] (Phædrus, p. 251). These are specimens of the strong metaphors used by Plato to describe the emotional condition of the mind during its fervour of aspiration towards Bonum and Pulchrum. On the other hand, in the Philêbus, [Greek: knê=sis] and [Greek: gargalismo\s] are noted as manifestations of that distempered condition which produces indeed moments of intense pleasure, but is quite inconsistent with Reason and the attainment of Good. See Philêbus, pp. 46 E, 51 D, and Gorgias, p. 494.]

[Footnote 159: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66.]

The comparison, here made, of the Philêbus with the Phædrus and Symposion, is one among many proofs of the different points of view with which Plato, in his different dialogues,[160] handled the same topics of ethical and psychological discussion. And upon this point of dissent, Eudoxus and Epikurus, would have agreed with the Sokrates of the Philêbus, in deprecating that extatic vein of emotion which is so greatly extolled in the Phædrus and Symposion.

[Footnote 160: Maximus Tyrius remarks this difference (between the erotic dialogues of Plato and many of the others) in one of his discourses about the [Greek: e)rôtikê\] of Sokrates. [Greek: Ou)de\n ga\r au)to\s au(tô=| o(/moios o( Sôkra/tês e)rô=n tô=| sôphronou=nti, kai\ o( e)kplêtto/menos tou\s kalou\s tô=| e)le/gchonti tou\s a)/phronas], &c. (Diss. xxiv. 5, p. 466 ed. Reiske).]