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Title: Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 2

Author: George Grote

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Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLATO AND
THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES, 3RD ED. VOLUME 2 ***

PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

PLATO,
and the

OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

by

GEORGE GROTE,
author of the ‘history of greece’.

A NEW EDITION.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

Vol. II.

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1888.

The right of Translation is reserved.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XII.

ALKIBIADES I. AND II.

Situation supposed in the dialogue. Persons — Sokrates and
1
Alkibiades
Exorbitant hopes and political ambition of Alkibiades 2
Questions put by Sokrates, in reference to Alkibiades in his intended
function as adviser of the Athenians. What does he intend to advise ib.
them upon? What has he learnt, and what does he know?
Alkibiades intends to advise the Athenians on questions of war and
peace. Questions of Sokrates thereupon. We must fight those whom it
3
is better to fight — to what standard does better refer? To just and
unjust
How, or from whom, has Alkibiades learnt to discern or distinguish
Just and Unjust? He never learnt it from any one ; he always knew it, 4
even as a boy
Answer amended. Alkibiades learnt it from the multitude, as he learnt
to speak Greek. — The multitude cannot teach just and unjust, for they
5
are at variance among themselves about it. Alkibiades is going to
advise the Athenians about what he does not know himself
Answer farther amended. The Athenians do not generally debate about 6
just or unjust — which they consider plain to every one — but about
expedient and inexpedient, which are not coincident with just and

unjust. But neither does Alkibiades know the expedient. He asks
Sokrates to explain. Sokrates declines: he can do nothing but question
Comment on the preceding — Sokratic method — the respondent
ib.
makes the discoveries for himself
Alkibiades is brought to admit that whatever is just, is good,
honourable, expedient: and that whoever acts honourably, both does
7
well, and procures for himself happiness thereby. Equivocal reasoning
of Sokrates
Humiliation of Alkibiades. Other Athenian statesmen are equally
ignorant. But the real opponents, against whom Alkibiades is to
measure himself, are, the kings of Sparta and Persia. Eulogistic 8
description of those kings. To match them, Alkibiades must make
himself as good as possible
But good — for what end, and under what circumstances? Abundant
9
illustrative examples
Alkibiades, puzzled and humiliated, confesses his ignorance.
Encouragement given by Sokrates. It is an advantage to make such 10
discovery in youth
Platonic Dialectic — its actual effect — its anticipated effect —
11
applicable to the season of youth
Know Thyself — Delphian maxim — its urgent importance — What is
ib.
myself? My mind is myself
I cannot know myself, except by looking into another mind. Self-
knowledge is temperance. Temperance and Justice are the conditions 11
both of happiness and of freedom
Alkibiades feels himself unworthy to be free, and declares that he will
12
never quit Sokrates
Second Alkibiades — situation supposed ib.

Danger of mistake in praying to the Gods for gifts which may prove
mischievous. Most men are unwise. Unwise is the generic word: ib.
madmen, a particular variety under it
Relation between a generic term, and the specific terms comprehended
13
under it, was not then familiar
Frequent cases, in which men pray for supposed benefits, and find that
when obtained, they are misfortunes. Every one fancies that he knows 14
what is beneficial: mischiefs of ignorance
Mistake in predications about ignorance generally. We must
discriminate. Ignorance of what? Ignorance of good, is always ib.
mischievous: ignorance of other things, not always
Wise public counsellors are few. Upon what ground do we call these
few wise? Not because they possess merely special arts or
accomplishments, but because they know besides, upon what 15
occasions and under what limits each of these accomplishments ought
to be used
Special accomplishments, without the knowledge of the good or
16
profitable, are oftener hurtful than beneficial
It is unsafe for Alkibiades to proceed with his sacrifice, until he has
learnt what is the proper language to address to the Gods. He
ib.
renounces his sacrifice, and throws himself upon the counsel of
Sokrates
Different critical opinions respecting these two dialogues 17
Grounds for disallowing them — less strong against the Second than
18
against the First
The supposed grounds for disallowance are in reality only marks of
ib.
inferiority
The two dialogues may probably be among Plato’s earlier
20
compositions

Analogy with various dialogues in the Xenophontic Memorabilia —
21
Purpose of Sokrates to humble presumptuous young men
Fitness of the name and character of Alkibiades for idealising this
ib.
feature in Sokrates
Plato’s manner of replying to the accusers of Sokrates. Magical
22
influence ascribed to the conversation of Sokrates
The purpose proclaimed by Sokrates in the Apology is followed out in
24
Alkibiades I. Warfare against the false persuasion of knowledge
Difficulties multiplied for the purpose of bringing Alkibiades to a
25
conviction of his own ignorance
Sokrates furnishes no means of solving these difficulties. He exhorts to
26
Justice and Virtue — but these are acknowledged Incognita
Prolixity of Alkibiadês I. — Extreme multiplication of illustrative
ib.
examples — How explained
Alkibiadês II. leaves its problem avowedly undetermined 27
Sokrates commends the practice of praying to the Gods for favours
undefined — his views about the semi-regular, semi-irregular agency 28
of the Gods — he prays to them for premonitory warnings
Comparison of Alkibiadês II. with the Xenophontic Memorabilia,
especially the conversation of Sokrates with Euthydemus. Sokrates not 29
always consistent with himself
Remarkable doctrine of Alkibiadês II. — that knowledge is not always
Good. The knowledge of Good itself is indispensable: without that, the ib.
knowledge of other things is more hurtful than beneficial
Knowledge of Good — appears postulated and divined, in many of the
31
Platonic dialogues, under different titles
The Good — the Profitable — what is it? — How are we to know it ?
ib.
Plato leaves this undetermined

CHAPTER XIII.

HIPPIAS MAJOR — HIPPIAS MINOR.

Hippias Major — situation supposed — character of the dialogue.
33
Sarcasm and mockery against Hippias
Real debate between the historical Sokrates and Hippias in the
34
Xenophontic Memorabilia — subject of that debate
Opening of the Hippias Major — Hippias describes the successful
circuit which he had made through Greece, and the renown as well as 35
the gain acquired by his lectures
Hippias had met with no success at Sparta. Why the Spartans did not
ib.
admit his instructions — their law forbids
Question, What is law? The law-makers always aim at the Profitable,
but sometimes fail to attain it. When they fail, they fail to attain law. 36
The lawful is the Profitable: the Unprofitable is also unlawful
Comparison of the argument of the Platonic Sokrates with that of the
37
Xenophontic Sokrates
The Just or Good is the beneficial or profitable. This is the only
explanation which Plato ever gives and to this he does not always 38
adhere
Lectures of Hippias at Sparta not upon geometry, or astronomy, &c.,
but upon the question — What pursuits are beautiful, fine, and 39
honourable for youth?

Question put by Sokrates, in the name of a friend in the background,
ib.
who has just been puzzling him with it — What is the Beautiful?
Hippias thinks the question easy to answer 40
Justice, Wisdom, Beauty must each be something. What is Beauty, or
ib.
the Beautiful?
Hippias does not understand the question. He answers by indicating
ib.
one particularly beautiful object
Cross-questioning by Sokrates — Other things also are beautiful ; but
each thing is beautiful only by comparison, or under some particular 41
circumstances — it is sometimes beautiful, sometimes not beautiful
Second answer of Hippias — Gold, is that by the presence of which all
things become beautiful — scrutiny applied to the answer. Complaint ib.
by Hippias about vulgar analogies
Third answer of Hippias — questions upon it — proof given that it
42
fails of universal application
Farther answers, suggested by Sokrates himself — 1. The Suitable or
43
Becoming — objections thereunto — it is rejected
2. The useful or profitable — objections — it will not hold 44
3. The Beautiful is a variety of the Pleasurable — that which is
45
received through the eye and the ear
Objections to this last — What property is there common to both sight
and hearing, which confers upon the pleasures of these two senses the ib.
exclusive privilege of being beautiful?
Answer — There is, belonging to each and to both in common, the
property of being innocuous and profitable pleasures — upon this 46
ground they are called beautiful
This will not hold — the Profitable is the cause of Good, and is ib.
therefore different from Good — to say that the beautiful is the

Profitable, is to say that it is different from Good but this has been
already declared inadmissible
Remarks upon the Dialogue — the explanations ascribed to Hippias
are special conspicuous examples: those ascribed to Sokrates are 47
attempts to assign some general concept
Analogy between the explanations here ascribed to Sokrates, and those
49
given by the Xenophontic Sokrates in the Memorabilia
Concluding thrust exchanged between Hippias and Sokrates 51
Rhetoric against Dialectic 52
Men who dealt with real life, contrasted with the speculative and
ib.
analytical philosophers
Concrete Aggregates — abstract or logical Aggregates. Distinct
53
aptitudes required by Aristotle for the Dialectician
Antithesis of Absolute and Relative, here brought into debate by Plato,
54
in regard to the Idea of Beauty
Hippias Minor — characters and situation supposed 55
Hippias has just delivered a lecture, in which he extols Achilles as
better than Odysseus — the veracious and straightforward hero better 56
than the mendacious and crafty
This is contested by Sokrates. The veracious man and the mendacious
man are one and the same — the only man who can answer truly if he
chooses, is he who can also answer falsely if he chooses, i. e. the 57
knowing man — the ignorant man cannot make sure of doing either
the one or the other
Analogy of special arts — it is only the arithmetician who can speak
ib.
falsely on a question of arithmetic when he chooses
View of Sokrates respecting Achilles in the Iliad. He thinks that 58
Achilles speaks falsehood cleverly. Hippias maintains that if Achilles

ever speaks falsehood, it is with an innocent purpose, whereas
Odysseus does the like with fraudulent purpose
Issue here taken — Sokrates contends that those who hurt, or cheat, or
lie wilfully, are better than those who do the like unwillingly — he ib.
entreats Hippias to enlighten him and answer his questions
Questions of Sokrates — multiplied analogies of the special arts. The
unskilful artist, who runs, wrestles, or sings badly, whether he will or
59
not, is worse than the skilful, who can sing well when he chooses, but
can also sing badly when he chooses
It is better to have the mind of a bowman who misses his mark only by
60
design, than that of one who misses even when he intends to hit
Dissent and repugnance of Hippias ib.
Conclusion — That none but the good man can do evil wilfully: the
bad man does evil unwillingly. Hippias cannot resist the reasoning, but 61
will not accept the conclusion — Sokrates confesses his perplexity
Remarks on the dialogue. If the parts had been inverted, the dialogue
would have been cited by critics as a specimen of the sophistry and 62
corruption of the Sophists
Polemical purpose of the dialogue — Hippias humiliated by Sokrates 63
Philosophical purpose of the dialogue — theory of the Dialogues of
ib.
Search generally, and of Knowledge as understood by Plato
The Hippias is an exemplification of this theory — Sokrates sets forth
a case of confusion, and avows his inability to clear it up. Confusion 64
shown up in the Lesser Hippias — Error in the Greater
The thesis maintained here by Sokrates, is also affirmed by the
66
historical Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia
Aristotle combats the thesis. Arguments against it 67
Mistake of Sokrates and Plato in dwelling too exclusively on the
ib.
intellectual conditions of human conduct

They rely too much on the analogy of the special arts — they take no
note of the tacit assumptions underlying the epithets of praise and 68
blame
Value of a Dialogue of Search, that it shall be suggestive, and that it
69
shall bring before us different aspects of the question under review
Antithesis between Rhetoric and Dialectic 70

CHAPTER XIV.

HIPPARCHUS — MINOS.

Hipparchus — Question — What is the definition of Lover of Gain?
He is one who thinks it right to gain from things worth nothing.
Sokrates cross-examines upon this explanation. No man expects to 71
gain from things which he knows to be worth nothing: in this sense, no
man is a lover of gain
Gain is good. Every man loves good: therefore all men are lovers of
72
gain
Apparent contradiction. Sokrates accuses the companion of trying to
73
deceive him — accusation is retorted upon Sokrates
Precept inscribed formerly by Hipparchus the Peisistratid — never
ib.
deceive a friend. Eulogy of Hipparchus by Sokrates
Sokrates allows the companion to retract some of his answers. The
74
companion affirms that some gain is good, other gain is evil
Questions by Sokrates — bad gain is gain, as much as good gain. ib.
What is the common property, in virtue of which both are called Gain?

Every acquisition, made with no outlay, or with a smaller outlay, is
gain. Objections — the acquisition may be evil — embarrassment
confessed
It is essential to gain, that the acquisition made shall be greater not
merely in quantity, but also in value, than the outlay. The valuable is
75
the profitable — the profitable is the good. Conclusion comes back.
That Gain is Good
Recapitulation. The debate has shown that all gain is good, and that
there is no evil gain — all men are lovers of gain — no man ought to
ib.
be reproached for being so the companion is compelled to admit this,
though he declares that he is not persuaded
Minos. Question put by Sokrates to the companion. What is Law, or
The Law? All law is the same, quatenus law: what is the common 76
constituent attribute?
Answer — Law is, 1. The consecrated and binding customs. 2. The
ib.
decree of the city. 3. Social or civic opinion
Cross-examination by Sokrates — just and lawfully-behaving men are
so through law; unjust and lawless men are so through the absence of
law. Law is highly honourable and useful: lawlessness is ruinous. 77
Accordingly, bad decrees of the city — or bad social opinion — cannot
be law
Suggestion by Sokrates — Law is the good opinion of the city — but
good opinion is true opinion, or the finding out of reality. Law
77
therefore wishes (tends) to be the finding out of reality, though it does
not always succeed in doing so
Objection taken by the Companion — That there is great discordance
of laws in different places — he specifies several cases of such
78
discordance at some length. Sokrates reproves his prolixity, and
requests him to confine himself to question or answer

Farther questions by Sokrates — Things heavy and light, just and
unjust, honourable and dishonourable, &c., are so, and are accounted
ib.
so everywhere. Real things are always accounted real. Whoever fails in
attaining the real, fails in attaining the lawful
There are laws of health and of cure, composed by the few physicians
wise upon those subjects, and unanimously declared by them. So also
there are laws of farming, gardening, cookery, declared by the few 79
wise in those respective pursuits. In like manner, the laws of a city are
the judgments declared by the few wise men who know how to rule
That which is right is the regal law, the only true and real law — that
which is not right, is not law, but only seems to be law in the eyes of 80
the ignorant
Minos, King of Krete — his laws were divine and excellent, and have
ib.
remained unchanged from time immemorial
Question about the character of Minos — Homer and Hesiod declare
him to have been admirable, the Attic tragedians defame him as a 81
tyrant, because he was an enemy of Athens
That Minos was really admirable — and that he has found out truth
and reality respecting the administration of the city — we may be sure ib.
from the fact that his laws have remained so long unaltered
The question is made more determinate — What is it that the good
lawgiver prescribes and measures out for the health of the mind, as the
81
physician measures out food and exercise for the body? Sokrates
cannot tell. Close
The Hipparchus and Minos are analogous to each other, and both of
82
them inferior works of Plato, perhaps unfinished
Hipparchus — double meaning of φιλοκερδὴς and κέρδος ib.
State or mind of the agent, as to knowledge, frequent inquiry in Plato.
83
No tenable definition found

Admitting that there is bad gain, as well as good gain, what is the
ib.
meaning of the word gain? None is found
Purpose of Plato in the dialogue — to lay bare the confusion, and to
84
force the mind of the respondent into efforts for clearing it up
Historical narrative and comments given in the dialogue respecting
Hipparchus — afford no ground for declaring the dialogue to be ib.
spurious
Minos. Question — What is the characteristic property connoted by
86
the word Νόμος or law?
This question was discussed by the historical Sokrates, Memorabilia of
ib.
Xenophon
Definitions of law — suggested and refuted. Law includes, as a portion
of its meaning, justice, goodness, usefulness, &c. Bad decrees are not 86
laws
Sokrates affirms that law is everywhere the same — it is the declared
judgment and command of the Wise man upon the subject to which it 87
refers — it is truth and reality, found out and certified by him
Reasoning of Sokrates in the Minos is unsound, but Platonic. The
Good, True, and Real, coalesce in the mind of Plato — he
88
acknowledges nothing to be Law, except what he thinks ought to be
Law
Plato worships the Ideal of his own mind — the work of systematic
89
constructive theory by the Wise Man
Different applications of this general Platonic view, in the Minos,
Politikus, Kratylus, &c. Natural Rectitude of Law, Government, ib.
Names, &c
Eulogy on Minos, as having established laws on this divine type or
90
natural rectitude

The Minos was arranged by Aristophanes at first in a Trilogy along
91
with the Leges
Explanations of the word Law — confusion in its meaning ib.

CHAPTER XV.

THEAGES.

Theagês — has been declared spurious by some modern critics —
98
grounds for such opinion not sufficient
Persons of the dialogue — Sokrates, with Demodokus and Theagês,
father and son. Theagês (the son), eager to acquire knowledge, desires 99
to be placed under the teaching of a Sophist
Sokrates questions Theagês, inviting him to specify what he wants ib.
Theagês desires to acquire that wisdom by which he can govern
100
freemen with their own consent
Incompetence of the best practical statesmen to teach any one else.
ib.
Theagês requests that Sokrates will himself teach him
Sokrates declares that he is not competent to teach — that he knows
nothing except about matters of love. Theagês maintains that many of 101
his young friends have profited largely by the conversation of Sokrates
Sokrates explains how this has sometimes happened — he recites his
ib.
experience of the divine sign or Dæmon
The Dæmon is favourable to some persons, adverse to others. Upon 102
this circumstance it depends how far any companion profits by the

society of Sokrates. Aristeides has not learnt anything from Sokrates,
yet has improved much by being near to him
Theagês expresses his anxiety to be received as the companion of
103
Sokrates
Remarks on the Theagês — analogy with the Lachês 104
Chief peculiarity of the Theagês — stress laid upon the divine sign or
ib.
Dæmon
Plato employs this divine sign here to render some explanation of the
singularity and eccentricity of Sokrates, and of his unequal influence ib.
upon different companions
Sokrates, while continually finding fault with other teachers, refused to
teach himself — difficulty of finding an excuse for his refusal. The 106
Theagês furnishes an excuse
Plato does not always, nor in other dialogues, allude to the divine sign
in the same way. Its character and working essentially impenetrable. ib.
Sokrates a privileged person

CHAPTER XVI.

ERASTÆ OR ANTERASTÆ — RIVALES.

Erastæ — subject and persons of the dialogue — dramatic introduction
111
— interesting youths in the palæstra
Two rival Erastæ — one of them literary, devoted to philosophy — the
ib.
other gymnastic, hating philosophy

Question put by Sokrates — What is philosophy? It is the perpetual
112
accumulation of knowledge, so as to make the largest sum total
In the case of the body, it is not the maximum of exercise which does
good, but the proper, measured quantity. For the mind also, it is not the
ib.
maximum of knowledge, but the measured quantity which is good.
Who is the judge to determine this measure?
No answer given. What is the best conjecture? Answer of the literary
Erastes. A man must learn that which will yield to him the greatest
113
reputation as a philosopher — as much as will enable him to talk like
an intelligent critic, though not to practise
The philosopher is one who is second-best in several different arts — a
ib.
Pentathlus — who talks well upon each
On what occasions can such second-best men be useful? There are
always regular practitioners at hand, and no one will call in the second- 114
best man when he can have the regular practitioner
Philosophy cannot consist in multiplication of learned acquirements ib.
Sokrates changes his course of examination — questions put to show
that there is one special art, regal and political, of administering and 115
discriminating the bad from the good
In this art the philosopher must not only be second-best, competent to
ib.
talk — but he must be a fully qualified practitioner, competent to act
Close of the dialogue — humiliation of the literary Erastes 116
Remarks — animated manner of the dialogue ib.
Definition of philosophy — here sought for the first time — Platonic
117
conception of measure — referee not discovered
View taken of the second-best critical talking man, as compared with
118
the special proficient and practitioner
Plato’s view — that the philosopher has a province special to himself, 119
distinct from other specialties — dimly indicated — regal or political

art
Philosopher — the supreme artist controlling other artists 120

CHAPTER XVII.

ION.

Ion. Persons of the dialogue. Difference of opinion among modern
124
critics as to its genuineness
Rhapsodes as a class in Greece. They competed for prizes at the
124
festivals. Ion has been triumphant
Functions of the Rhapsodes. Recitation — exposition of the poets —
125
arbitrary exposition of the poets was then frequent
The popularity of the Rhapsodes was chiefly derived from their
ib.
recitation — powerful effect which they produced
Ion both reciter and expositor — Homer was considered more as an
126
instructor than as a poet
Plato disregards and disapproves the poetic or emotional working ib.
Ion devoted himself to Homer exclusively. Questions of Sokrates to
him — How happens it that you cannot talk equally upon other poets? 127
The poetic art is one
Explanation given by Sokrates — both the Rhapsode and the Poet
work, not by art and system, but by divine inspiration — fine poets are ib.
bereft of their reason, and possessed by inspiration from some God
Analogy of the Magnet, which holds up by attraction successive stages 128
of iron rings. The Gods first inspire Homer, then act through him and

through Ion upon the auditors
This comparison forms the central point of the dialogue. It is an
129
expansion of a judgment delivered by Sokrates in the Apology
Platonic Antithesis: systematic procedure distinguished from
unsystematic: which latter was either blind routine, or madness 129
inspired by the Gods. Varieties of madness, good and bad
Special inspiration from the Gods was a familiar fact in Grecian life —
privileged communications from the Gods to Sokrates — his firm 130
belief in them
Condition of the inspired person — his reason is for the time
131
withdrawn
Ion does not admit himself to be inspired and out of his mind 132
Homer talks upon all subjects — Is Ion competent to explain what
ib.
Homer says upon all of them? Rhapsodic art. What is its province?
The Rhapsode does not know special matters, such as the craft of the
pilot, physician, farmer, &c., but he knows the business of the general, 133
and is competent to command soldiers, having learnt it from Homer
Conclusion. Ion expounds Homer, not with any knowledge of what he
134
says, but by divine inspiration
The generals in Greece usually possessed no professional experience
— Homer and the poets were talked of as the great teachers — Plato’s
ib.
view of the poet, as pretending to know everything, but really knowing
nothing
Knowledge, opposed to divine inspiration without knowledge 136
Illustration of Plato’s opinion respecting the uselessness of written
ib.
geometrical treatises

CHAPTER XVIII.

LACHES.

Lachês. Subject and persons of the dialogue — whether it is useful that
two young men should receive lessons from a master of arms. Nikias 138
and Lachês differ in opinion
Sokrates is invited to declare his opinion — he replies that the point
139
cannot be decided without a competent professional judge
Those who deliver an opinion must begin by proving their competence
140
to judge — Sokrates avows his own incompetence
Nikias and Lachês submit to be cross-examined by Sokrates 141
Both of them give opinions offhand, according to their feelings on the
special case — Sokrates requires that the question shall be generalised, 141
and examined as a branch of education
Appeal of Sokrates to the judgment of the One Wise Man — this man
142
is never seen or identified
We must know what virtue is, before we give an opinion on education
— virtue, as a whole, is too large a question — we will enquire about ib.
one branch of virtue — courage
Question — what is courage? Laches answers by citing one
particularly manifest case of courage — mistake of not giving a 143
general explanation
Second answer. Courage is a sort of endurance of the mind — Sokrates
points out that the answer is vague and incorrect — endurance is not ib.
always courage: even intelligent endurance is not always courage
Confusion. New answer given by Nikias. Courage is a sort of 144
Intelligence — the intelligence of things terrible and not terrible.

Objections of Lachês
Questions of Sokrates to Nikias. It is only future events, not past or
present, which are terrible; but intelligence of future events cannot be 145
had without intelligence of past or present
Courage therefore must be intelligence of good and evil generally. But
this definition would include the whole of virtue, and we declared that
146
courage was only a part thereof — it will not hold therefore as a
definition of courage
Remarks. Warfare of Sokrates against the false persuasion of
knowledge. Brave generals deliver opinions confidently about courage ib.
without knowing what it is
No solution given by Plato — apparent tendency of his mind, in
looking for a solution. Intelligence — cannot be understood without 147
reference to some object or end
Object — is supplied in the answer of Nikias. Intelligence — of things
terrible and not terrible. Such intelligence is not possessed by 148
professional artists
Postulate of a Science of Ends, or Teleology, dimly indicated by Plato.
The Unknown Wise Man — correlates with the undiscovered Science ib.
of Ends
Perfect condition of the intelligence — is the one sufficient condition
149
of virtue
Dramatic contrast between Lachês and Sokrates, as cross-examiners 150

CHAPTER XIX.

CHARMIDES.

Scene and personages of the dialogue. Crowded palæstra. Emotions of
153
Sokrates
Question, What is Temperance? addressed by Sokrates to the
154
temperate Charmides. Answer, It is a kind of sedateness or slowness
But Temperance is a fine or honourable thing, and slowness is, in
many or most cases, not fine or honourable, but the contrary. ib.
Temperance cannot be slowness
Second answer. Temperance is a variety of the feeling of shame.
ib.
Refuted by Sokrates
Third answer. Temperance consists in doing one’s own business.
Defended by Kritias. Sokrates pronounces it a riddle, and refutes it. 155
Distinction between making and doing
Fourth answer, by Kritias. Temperance consists in self-knowledge ib.
Questions of Sokrates thereupon. What good does self-knowledge
procure for us? What is the object known, in this case ? Answer: There 156
is no object of knowledge, distinct from the knowledge itself
Sokrates doubts the possibility of any knowledge, without a given
cognitum as its object. Analogies to prove that knowledge of 156
knowledge is impossible
All knowledge must be relative to some object 157
All properties are relative — every thing in nature has its characteristic
ib.
property with reference to something else
Even if cognition of cognition were possible, cognition of non-
cognition would be impossible. A man may know what he knows, but
he cannot know what he is ignorant of. He knows the fact that he 158
knows: but he does not know how much he knows, and how much he
does not know

Temperance, therefore, as thus defined, would be of little or no value 159
But even granting the possibility of that which has just been denied,
still Temperance would be of little value. Suppose that all separate
ib.
work were well performed, by special practitioners, we should not
attain our end — Happiness
Which of the varieties of knowledge contributes most to well-doing or
160
happiness? That by which we know good and evil
Without the science of good and evil, the other special science will be
of little or of no service. Temperance is not the science of good and 161
evil, and is of little service
Sokrates confesses to entire failure in his research. He cannot find out
what temperance is: although several concessions have been made ib.
which cannot be justified
Temperance is and must be a good thing: but Charmides cannot tell
whether he is temperate or not ; since what temperance is remains 162
unknown
Expressions both from Charmides and Kritias of praise and devotion to
ib.
Sokrates, at the close of the dialogue. Dramatic ornament throughout
The Charmides is an excellent specimen of Dialogues of Search.
163
Abundance of guesses and tentatives, all ultimately disallowed
Trial and Error, the natural process of the human mind. Plato stands
alone in bringing to view and dramatising this part of the mental
164
process. Sokrates accepts for himself the condition of conscious
ignorance
Familiar words — constantly used, with much earnest feeling, but
never understood nor defined — ordinary phenomenon in human 165
society
Different ethical points of view in different Platonic dialogues 167
Self-knowledge is here declared to be impossible ib.

In other dialogues, Sokrates declares self-knowledge to be essential
and inestimable. Necessity for the student to have presented to him ib.
dissentient points of view
Courage and Temperance are shown to have no distinct meaning,
168
except as founded on the general cognizance of good and evil
Distinction made between the special sciences and the science of Good
ib.
and Evil. Without this last, the special sciences are of no use
Knowledge, always relative to some object known. Postulate or
169
divination of a Science of Teleology
Courage and Temperance, handled both by Plato and by Aristotle.
170
Comparison between the two

CHAPTER XX.

LYSIS.

Analogy between Lysis and Charmides. Richness of dramatic incident
172
in both. Youthful beauty
Scenery and personages of the Lysis ib.
Origin of the conversation. Sokrates promises to give an example of
173
the proper way of talking to a youth, for his benefit
Conversation of Sokrates with Lysis ib.
Lysis is humiliated. Distress of Hippothalês 177
Lysis entreats Sokrates to talk in the like strain to Menexenus ib.
Value of the first conversation between Sokrates and Lysis, as an
177
illustration of the Platonico-Sokratic manner

Sokrates begins to examine Menexenus respecting friendship. Who is
178
to be called a friend? Halt in the dialogue
Questions addressed to Lysis. Appeal to the maxims of the poets. Like
ib.
is the friend of like. Canvassed and rejected
Other poets declare that likeness is a cause of aversion; unlikeness, of
179
friendship. Reasons pro and con. Rejected
Confusion of Sokrates. He suggests, That the Indifferent (neither good
180
nor evil) is friend to the Good
Suggestion canvassed. If the Indifferent is friend to the Good, it is
determined to become so by the contact of felt evil, from which it is 180
anxious to escape
Principle illustrated by the philosopher. His intermediate condition —
181
not wise, yet painfully feeling his own ignorance
Sokrates dissatisfied. He originates a new suggestion. The Primum
Amabile, or object originally dear to us, per se: by relation or ib.
resemblance to which other objects become dear
The cause of love is desire. We desire that which is akin to us or our
182
own
Good is of a nature akin to every one, evil is alien to every one.
183
Inconsistency with what has been previously laid down
Failure of the enquiry. Close of the dialogue 184
Remarks. No positive result. Sokratic purpose in analysing the familiar
ib.
words — to expose the false persuasion of knowledge
Subject of Lysis. Suited for a Dialogue of Search. Manner of Sokrates,
multiplying defective explanations, and showing reasons why each is 185
defective
The process of trial and error is better illustrated by a search without
result than with result. Usefulness of the dialogue for self-working 186
minds

Subject of friendship, handled both by the Xenophontic Sokrates, and
ib.
by Aristotle
Debate in the Lysis partly verbal, partly real. Assumptions made by the
Platonic Sokrates, questionable, such as the real Sokrates would have 188
found reason for challenging
Peculiar theory about friendship broached by Sokrates. Persons neither
good nor evil by nature, yet having a superficial tinge of evil, and 189
desiring good to escape from it
This general theory illustrated by the case of the philosopher or lover
of wisdom. Painful consciousness of ignorance the attribute of the 190
philosopher. Value set by Sokrates and Plato upon this attribute
Another theory of Sokrates. The Primum Amabile, or original and
primary object of Love. Particular objects are loved through 191
association with this. The object is Good
Statement by Plato of the general law of mental association ib.
Theory of the Primum Amabile, here introduced by Sokrates, with
numerous derivative objects of love. Platonic Idea. Generic
192
communion of Aristotle, distinguished by him from the feebler
analogical communion
Primum Amabile of Plato, compared with the Prima Amicitia of
Aristotle. Each of them is head of an analogical aggregate, not member 194
of a generic family
The Good and Beautiful, considered as objects of attachment ib.

CHAPTER XXI.

EUTHYDEMUS.

Dramatic and comic exuberance of the Euthydêmus. Judgments of
195
various critics
Scenery and personages ib.
The two Sophists, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus: manner in which
196
they are here presented
Conversation carried on with Kleinias, first by Sokrates, next by the
ib.
two Sophists
Contrast between the two different modes of interrogation 197
Wherein this contrast does not consist 198
Wherein it does consist 199
Abuse of fallacies by the Sophists — their bidding for the applause of
ib.
the by-standers
Comparison of the Euthydêmus with the Parmenidês 200
Necessity of settling accounts with the negative, before we venture
upon the affirmative, is common to both: in the one the process is 201
solitary and serious; in the other, it is vulgarised and ludicrous
Opinion of Stallbaum and other critics about the Euthydêmus, that
Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus represent the way in which Protagoras 202
and Gorgias talked to their auditors
That opinion is unfounded. Sokrates was much more Eristic than
Protagoras, who generally manifested himself by continuous speech or ib.
lecture
Sokrates in the Euthydêmus is drawn suitably to the purpose of that
203
dialogue
The two Sophists in the Euthydêmus are not to be taken as real
204
persons, or representatives of real persons

Colloquy of Sokrates with Kleinias — possession of good things is
ib.
useless, unless we also have intelligence how to use them
But intelligence — of what? It must be such intelligence, or such an
art, as will include both the making of what we want, and the right use 205
of it when made
Where is such an art to be found? The regal or political art looks like
it; but what does this art do for us? No answer can be found. Ends in 206
puzzle
Review of the cross-examination just pursued by Sokrates. It is very
207
suggestive — puts the mind upon what to look for
Comparison with other dialogues — Republic, Philêbus, Protagoras.
208
The only distinct answer is found in the Protagoras
The talk of the two Sophists, though ironically admired while it is
going on, is shown at the end to produce no real admiration, but the ib.
contrary
Mistaken representations about the Sophists — Aristotle’s definition
— no distinguishable line can be drawn between the Sophist and the 210
Dialectician
Philosophical purpose of the Euthydêmus — exposure of fallacies, in
211
Plato’s dramatic manner, by multiplication of particular examples
Aristotle (Soph. Elench.) attempts a classification of fallacies: Plato
212
enumerates them without classification
Fallacies of equivocation propounded by the two Sophists in the
ib.
Euthydêmus
Fallacies — à dicto secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter — in the
213
Euthydêmus
Obstinacy shown by the two Sophists in their replies — determination
214
not to contradict themselves
Farther verbal equivocations ib.

Fallacies involving deeper logical principles — contradiction is
215
impossible. — To speak falsely is impossible
Plato’s Euthydêmus is the earliest known attempt to set out and expose
fallacies — the only way of exposing fallacies is to exemplify the
216
fallacy by particular cases, in which the conclusion proved is known
aliunde to be false and absurd
Mistake of supposing fallacies to have been invented and propagated
by Athenian Sophists — they are inherent inadvertencies and liabilities
217
to error, in the ordinary process of thinking. Formal debate affords the
best means of correcting them
Wide-spread prevalence of erroneous belief, misguided by one or other
of these fallacies, attested by Sokrates, Plato, Bacon, &c., — complete 218
enumeration of heads of fallacies by Mill
Value of formal debate as a means for testing and confuting fallacies 221
Without the habit of formal debate, Plato could not have composed his
ib.
Euthydêmus, nor Aristotle the treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis
Probable popularity of the Euthydêmus at Athens — welcomed by all
222
the enemies of Dialectic
Epilogue of Plato to the Dialogue, trying to obviate this inference by
223
opponents — Conversation between Sokrates and Kriton
Altered tone in speaking of Euthydêmus — Disparagement of persons
224
half-philosophers, half-politicians
Kriton asks Sokrates for advice about the education of his sons —
Sokrates cannot recommend a teacher — tells him to search for 225
himself
Euthydêmus is here cited as representative of Dialectic and philosophy 226
Who is the person here intended by Plato, half-philosopher, half-
227
politician? Is it Isokrates?
Variable feeling at different times, between Plato and Isokrates 228

CHAPTER XXII.

MENON.

Persons of the Dialogue 232
Question put by Menon — Is virtue teachable? Sokrates confesses that
ib.
he does not know what virtue is. Surprise of Menon
Sokrates stands alone in this confession. Unpopularity entailed by it 233
Answer of Menon — plurality of virtues, one belonging to each
different class and condition. Sokrates enquires for the property ib.
common to all of them
Analogous cases cited — definitions of figure and colour 235
Importance at that time of bringing into conscious view, logical
subordination and distinctions — Neither logic nor grammar had then ib.
been cast into system
Definition of virtue given by Menon: Sokrates pulls it to pieces 236
Menon complains that the conversation of Sokrates confounds him like
an electric shock — Sokrates replies that he is himself in the same
237
state of confusion and ignorance. He urges continuance of search by
both
But how is the process of search available to any purpose? No man
searches for what he already knows: and for what he does not know, it ib.
is useless to search, for he cannot tell when he has found it
Theory of reminiscence propounded by Sokrates — anterior ib.
immortality of the soul — what is called teaching is the revival and

recognition of knowledge acquired in a former life, but forgotten
Illustration of this theory — knowledge may be revived by skilful
questions in the mind of a man thoroughly untaught. Sokrates 238
questions the slave of Menon
Enquiry taken up — Whether virtue is teachable? without determining
239
what virtue is
Virtue is knowledge — no possessions, no attributes, either of mind or
ib.
body, are good or profitable, except under the guidance of knowledge
Virtue, as being knowledge, must be teachable. Yet there are opposing
reasons, showing that it cannot be teachable. No teachers of it can be 239
found
Conversation of Sokrates with Anytus, who detests the Sophists, and
240
affirms that any one of the leading politicians can teach virtue
Confused state of the discussion. No way of acquiring virtue is shown ib.
Sokrates modifies his premisses — knowledge is not the only thing
ib.
which guides to good results — right opinion will do the same
Right opinion cannot be relied on for staying in the mind, and can
never give rational explanations, nor teach others — good practical 241
statesmen receive right opinion by inspiration from the Gods
All the real virtue that there is, is communicated by special inspiration
242
from the Gods
But what virtue itself is, remains unknown ib.
Remarks on the dialogue. Proper order for examining the different
ib.
topics, is pointed out by Sokrates
Mischief of debating ulterior and secondary questions when the
ib.
fundamental notions and word are unsettled
Doctrine of Sokrates in the Menon — desire of good alleged to be
243
universally felt — in what sense this is true

Sokrates requires knowledge as the principal condition of virtue, but
244
does not determine knowledge, of what ?
Subject of Menon; same as that of the Protagoras — diversity of
245
handling — Plato is not anxious to settle a question and get rid of it
Anxiety of Plato to keep up and enforce the spirit of research 246
Great question discussed among the Grecian philosophers — criterion
ib.
of truth — Wherein consists the process of verification?
None of the philosophers were satisfied with the answer here made by
247
Plato — that verification consists in appeal to pre-natal experience
Plato’s view of the immortality of the soul — difference between the
249
Menon, Phædrus, and Phædon
Doctrine of Plato, that new truth may be elicited by skilful
ib.
examination out of the unlettered mind — how far correct ?
Plato’s doctrine about à priori reasonings — different from the modern
251
doctrine
Plato’s theory about pre-natal experience. He took no pains to ascertain
252
and measure the extent of post-natal experience
Little or nothing is said in the Menon about the Platonic Ideas or
253
Forms
What Plato meant by Causal Reasoning — his distinction between
ib.
knowledge and right opinion
This distinction compared with modern philosophical views 254
Manifestation of Anytus — intense antipathy to the Sophists and to
255
philosophy generally
The enemy of Sokrates is also the enemy of the sophists — practical
256
statesmen
The Menon brings forward the point of analogy between Sokrates and
257
the Sophists, in which both were disliked by the practical statesmen

CHAPTER XXIII.

PROTAGORAS.

Scenic arrangement and personages of the dialogue 259
Introduction. Eagerness of the youthful Hippokrates to become
260
acquainted with Protagoras
Sokrates questions Hippokrates as to his purpose and expectations
ib.
from Protagoras
Danger of going to imbibe the instruction of a Sophist without
262
knowing beforehand what he is about to teach
Remarks on the Introduction. False persuasion of knowledge brought
263
to light
Sokrates and Hippokrates go to the house of Kallias. Company therein.
264
Respect shown to Protagoras
Questions of Sokrates to Protagoras. Answer of the latter, declaring the
antiquity of the sophistical profession, and his own openness in ib.
avowing himself a sophist
Protagoras prefers to converse in presence of the assembled company 266
Answers of Protagoras. He intends to train young men as virtuous
ib.
citizens
Sokrates doubts whether virtue is teachable. Reasons for such doubt.
ib.
Protagoras is asked to explain whether it is or not.
Explanation of Protagoras. He begins with a mythe 267

Mythe. First fabrication of men by the Gods. Prometheus and
Epimetheus. Bad distribution of endowments to man by the latter. It is 267
partly amended by Prometheus
Prometheus gave to mankind skill for the supply of individual wants,
but could not give them the social art — Mankind are on the point of
268
perishing, when Zeus sends to them the dispositions essential for
society
Protagoras follows up his mythe by a discourse. Justice and the sense
of shame are not professional attributes, but are possessed by all 269
citizens and taught by all to all
Constant teaching of virtue. Theory of punishment 270
Why eminent men cannot make their sons eminent 271
Teaching by parents, schoolmaster, harpist, laws, dikastery, &c. ib.
All learn virtue from the same teaching by all. Whether a learner shall
272
acquire more or less of it, depends upon his own individual aptitude
Analogy of learning vernacular Greek. No special teacher thereof.
273
Protagoras teaches virtue somewhat better than others
The sons of great artists do not themselves become great artists 274
Remarks upon the mythe and discourse. They explain the manner in
which the established sentiment of a community propagates and 274
perpetuates itself
Antithesis of Protagoras and Sokrates. Whether virtue is to be
275
assimilated to a special art
Procedure of Sokrates in regard to the discourse of Protagoras — he
compliments it as an exposition, and analyses some of the fundamental 276
assumptions
One purpose of the dialogue. To contrast continuous discourse with
277
short cross-examining question and answer

Questions by Sokrates — Whether virtue is one and indivisible, or
composed of different parts? Whether the parts are homogeneous or ib.
heterogeneous ?
Whether justice is just, and holiness holy? How far justice is like to
278
holiness? Sokrates protests against an answer, “If you please”
Intelligence and moderation are identical, because they have the same
279
contrary
Insufficient reasons given by Sokrates. He seldom cares to distinguish
ib.
different meanings of the same term
Protagoras is puzzled, and becomes irritated 280
Sokrates presses Protagoras farther. His purpose is, to test opinions and
ib.
not persons. Protagoras answers with angry prolixity
Remonstrance of Sokrates against long answers as inconsistent with
281
the laws of dialogue. Protagoras persists. Sokrates rises to depart
Interference of Kallias to get the debate continued. Promiscuous
conversation. Alkibiades declares that Protagoras ought to 282
acknowledge superiority of Sokrates in dialogue
Claim of a special locus standi and professorship for Dialectic, apart
ib.
from Rhetoric
Sokrates is prevailed upon to continue, and invites Protagoras to
ib.
question him
Protagoras extols the importance of knowing the works of the poets,
and questions about parts of a song of Simonides. Dissenting opinions 283
about the interpretation of the song
Long speech of Sokrates, expounding the purpose of the song, and
laying down an ironical theory about the numerous concealed sophists 283
at Krete and Sparta, masters of short speech
Character of this speech — its connection with the dialogue, and its
284
general purpose. Sokrates inferior to Protagoras in continuous speech

Sokrates depreciates the value of debates on the poets. Their meaning
is always disputed, and you can never ask from themselves what it is. 285
Protagoras consents reluctantly to resume the task of answering
Purpose of Sokrates to sift difficulties which he really feels in his own
287
mind. Importance of a colloquial companion for this purpose
The interrupted debate is resumed. Protagoras says that courage differs
288
materially from the other branches of virtue
Sokrates argues to prove that courage consists in knowledge or
intelligence. Protagoras does not admit this. Sokrates changes his ib.
attack
Identity of the pleasurable with the good — of the painful with the
289
evil. Sokrates maintains it. Protagoras denies. Debate
Enquiry about knowledge. Is it the dominant agency in the mind? Or is
it overcome frequently by other agencies, pleasure or pain ? Both 290
agree that knowledge is dominant
Mistake of supposing that men act contrary to knowledge. We never
call pleasures evils, except when they entail a preponderance of pain, 291
or a disappointment of greater pleasures
Pleasure is the only good — pain the only evil. No man does evil
voluntarily, knowing it to be evil. Difference between pleasures 292
present and future — resolves itself into pleasure and pain
Necessary resort to the measuring art for choosing pleasures rightly —
293
all the security of our lives depend upon it
To do wrong, overcome by pleasure, is only a bad phrase for
294
describing what is really a case of grave ignorance
Reasoning of Sokrates assented to by all. Actions which conduct to
295
pleasures or freedom from pain, are honourable
Explanation of courage. It consists in a wise estimate of things terrible
ib.
and not terrible

Reluctance of Protagoras to continue answering. Close of the
discussion. Sokrates declares that the subject is still in confusion, and
297
that he wishes to debate it again with Protagoras. Amicable reply of
Protagoras
Remarks on the dialogue. It closes without the least allusion to
298
Hippokrates
Two distinct aspects of ethics and politics exhibited: one under the
299
name of Protagoras; the other, under that of Sokrates
Order of ethical problems, as conceived by Sokrates ib.
Difference of method between him and Protagoras flows from this
300
difference of order. Protagoras assumes what virtue is, without enquiry
Method of Protagoras. Continuous lectures addressed to established
301
public sentiments with which he is in harmony
Method of Sokrates. Dwells upon that part of the problem which
ib.
Protagoras had left out
Antithesis between the eloquent lecturer and the analytical cross-
303
examiner
Protagoras not intended to be always in the wrong, though he is
ib.
described as brought to a contradiction
Affirmation of Protagoras about courage is affirmed by Plato himself
ib.
elsewhere
The harsh epithets applied by critics to Protagoras are not borne out by
the dialogue. He stands on the same ground as the common 304
consciousness
Aversion of Protagoras for dialectic. Interlude about the song of
305
Simonides
Ethical view given by Sokrates worked out at length clearly. Good and
evil consist in right or wrong calculation of pleasures and pains of the ib.
agent

Protagoras is at first opposed to this theory 306
Reasoning of Sokrates 307
Application of that reasoning to the case of courage ib.
The theory which Plato here lays down is more distinct and specific
308
than any theory laid down in other dialogues
Remarks on the theory here laid down by Sokrates. It is too narrow,
309
and exclusively prudential
Comparison with the Republic 310
The discourse of Protagoras brings out an important part of the whole
311
case, which is omitted in the analysis by Sokrates
The Ethical End, as implied in the discourse of Protagoras, involves a
direct regard to the pleasures and pains of other persons besides the 312
agent himself
Plato’s reasoning in the dialogue is not clear or satisfactory, especially
313
about courage
Doctrine of Stallbaum and other critics is not correct. That the analysis
here ascribed to Sokrates is not intended by Plato as serious, but as a 314
mockery of the sophists
Grounds of that doctrine. Their insufficiency 315
Subject is professedly still left unsettled at the close of the dialogue 316

CHAPTER XXIV.

GORGIAS.

Persons who debate in the Gorgias. Celebrity of the historical Gorgias 317

Introductory circumstances of the dialogue. Polus and Kalliklês 318
Purpose of Sokrates in questioning. Conditions of a good definition ib.
Questions about the definition of Rhetoric. It is the artisan of
319
persuasion
The Rhetor produces belief without knowledge. Upon what matters is
319
he competent to advise?
The Rhetor can persuade the people upon any matter, even against the
320
opinion of the special expert. He appears to know, among the ignorant
Gorgias is now made to contradict himself. Polus takes up the debate
321
with Sokrates
Polemical tone of Sokrates. At the instance of Polus he gives his own
definition of rhetoric. It is no art, but an empirical knack of catering for
ib.
the immediate pleasure of hearers, analogous to cookery. It is a branch
under the general head flattery
Distinction between the true arts which aim at the good of the body
and mind — and the counterfeit arts, which pretend to the same, but in 322
reality aim at immediate pleasure
Questions of Polus. Sokrates denies that the Rhetors have any real
323
power, because they do nothing which they really wish
All men wish for what is good for them. Despots and Rhetors, when
they kill any one, do so because they think it good for them. If it be
324
really not good, they do not do what they will, and therefore have no
real power
Comparison of Archelaus, usurping despot of Macedonia — Polus
affirms that Archelaus is happy, and that every one thinks so — 325
Sokrates admits that every one thinks so, but nevertheless denies it
Sokrates maintains — 1. That it is a greater evil to do wrong, than to
suffer wrong. 2. That if a man has done wrong, it is better for him to be 326
punished than to remain unpunished

Sokrates offers proof — Definition of Pulchrum and Turpe — Proof of
327
the first point
Proof of the second point ib.
The criminal labours under a mental distemper, which though not
painful, is a capital evil. Punishment is the only cure for him. To be 328
punished is best for him
Misery of the Despot who is never punished. If our friend has done
wrong, we ought to get him punished: if our enemy, we ought to keep 329
him unpunished
Argument of Sokrates paradoxical — Doubt expressed by Kalliklês
330
whether he means it seriously
Principle laid down by Sokrates — That every one acts with a view to
ib.
the attainment of happiness and avoidance of misery
Peculiar view taken by Plato of Good — Evil — Happiness 331
Contrast of the usual meaning of these words, with the Platonic
ib.
meaning
Examination of the proof given by Sokrates — Inconsistency between
the general answer of Polus and his previous declarations — Law and 332
Nature
The definition of Pulchrum and Turpe, given by Sokrates, will not hold 334
Worse or better — for whom? The argument of Sokrates does not
specify. If understood in the sense necessary for his inference, the ib.
definition would be inadmissible
Plato applies to every one a standard of happiness and misery peculiar
to himself. His view about the conduct of Archelaus is just, but he does 335
not give the true reasons for it
If the reasoning of Plato were true, the point of view in which
336
punishment is considered would be reversed

Plato pushes too far the analogy between mental distemper and bodily
distemper — Material difference between the two — Distemper must 337
be felt by the distempered persons
Kalliklês begins to argue against Sokrates — he takes a distinction
between Just by Law and Just by nature — Reply of Sokrates, that 338
there is no variance between the two, properly understood
What Kalliklês says is not to be taken as a sample of the teachings of
339
Athenian sophists. Kalliklês — rhetor and politician
Uncertainty of referring to Nature as an authority. It may be pleaded in
favour of opposite theories. The theory of Kalliklês is made to appear 340
repulsive by the language in which he expresses it
Sokrates maintains that self-command and moderation is requisite for
343
the strong man as well as for others. Kalliklês defends the negative
Whether the largest measure of desires is good for a man, provided he
has the means of satisfying them? Whether all varieties of desire are 344
good? Whether the pleasurable and the good are identical?
Kalliklês maintains that pleasurable and good are identical. Sokrates
refutes him. Some pleasures are good, others bad. A scientific adviser 345
is required to discriminate them
Contradiction between Sokrates in the Gorgias, and Sokrates in the
ib.
Protagoras
Views of critics about this contradiction 346
Comparison and appreciation of the reasoning of Sokrates in both
ib.
dialogues
Distinct statement in the Protagoras. What are good and evil, and upon
what principles the scientific adviser is to proceed in discriminating 347
them. No such distinct statement in the Gorgias
Modern ethical theories. Intuition. Moral sense — not recognised by
348
Plato in either of the dialogues

In both dialogues the doctrine of Sokrates is self-regarding as respects
the agent: not considering the pleasures and pains of other persons, so 349
far as affected by the agent
Points wherein the doctrine of the two dialogues is in substance the
ib.
same, but differing in classification
Kalliklês, whom Sokrates refutes in the Gorgias, maintains a different
350
argument from that which Sokrates combats in the Protagoras
The refutation of Kalliklês by Sokrates in the Gorgias, is unsuccessful
— it is only so far successful as he adopts unintentionally the doctrine 351
of Sokrates in the Protagoras
Permanent elements — and transient elements — of human agency —
353
how each of them is appreciated in the two dialogues
In the Protagoras ib.
In the Gorgias 354
Character of the Gorgias generally — discrediting all the actualities of
355
life
Argument of Sokrates resumed — multifarious arts of flattery, aiming
357
at immediate pleasure
The Rhetors aim at only flattering the public — even the best past
Rhetors have done nothing else — citation of the four great Rhetors by 357
Kallikles
Necessity for temperance, regulation, order. This is the condition of
358
virtue and happiness
Impossible to succeed in public life, unless a man be thoroughly akin
359
to and in harmony with the ruling force
Danger of one who dissents from the public, either for better or for
ib.
worse

Sokrates resolves upon a scheme of life for himself — to study
360
permanent good, and not immediate satisfaction
Sokrates announces himself as almost the only man at Athens, who
361
follows out the true political art. Danger of doing this
Mythe respecting Hades, and the treatment of deceased persons
therein, according to their merits during life — the philosopher who ib.
stood aloof from public affairs, will then be rewarded
Peculiar ethical views of Sokrates — Rhetorical or dogmatical
362
character of the Gorgias
He merges politics in Ethics — he conceives the rulers as spiritual
ib.
teachers and trainers of the community
Idéal of Plato — a despotic lawgiver or man-trainer, on scientific
principles, fashioning all characters pursuant to certain types of his 363
own
Platonic analogy between mental goodness and bodily health —
ib.
incomplete analogy — circumstances of difference
Sokrates in the Gorgias speaks like a dissenter among a community of
fixed opinions and habits. Impossible that a dissenter, on important 364
points, should acquire any public influence
Sokrates feels his own isolation from his countrymen. He is thrown
365
upon individual speculation and dialectic
Antithesis between philosophy and rhetoric ib.
Position of one who dissents, upon material points, from the fixed
366
opinions and creed of his countrymen
Probable feelings of Plato on this subject — Claim put forward in the
Gorgias of an independent locus standi for philosophy, but without the 367
indiscriminate cross-examination pursued by Sokrates
Importance of maintaining the utmost liberty of discussion. Tendency
368
of all ruling orthodoxy towards intolerance

Issue between philosophy and rhetoric — not satisfactorily handled by
Plato. Injustice done to rhetoric. Ignoble manner in which it is 369
presented by Polus and Kalliklês
Perikles would have accepted the defence of rhetoric, as Plato has put
370
it into the mouth of Gorgias
The Athenian people recognise a distinction between the pleasurable
371
and the good: but not the same as that which Plato conceived
Rhetoric was employed at Athens in appealing to all the various
established sentiments and opinions. Erroneous inferences raised by 373
the Kalliklês of Plato
The Platonic Idéal exacts, as good, some order, system, discipline. But
order may be directed to bad ends as well as to good. Divergent ideas 374
about virtue
How to discriminate the right order from the wrong. Plato does not
375
advise us
The Gorgias upholds the independence and dignity of the dissenting
ib.
philosopher

CHAPTER XXV.

PHÆDON.

The Phædon is affirmative and expository 377
Situation and circumstances assumed in the Phædon. Pathetic interest
ib.
which they inspire

Simmias and Kebês, the two collocutors with Sokrates. Their feelings
378
and those of Sokrates
Emphasis of Sokrates in insisting on freedom of debate, active exercise
379
of reason, and independent judgment for each reasoner
Anxiety of Sokrates that his friends shall be on their guard against
being influenced by his authority — that they shall follow only the 380
convictions of their own reason
Remarkable manifestation of earnest interest for reasoned truth and the
381
liberty of individual dissent
Phædon and Symposion — points of analogy and contrast 382
Phædon — compared with Republic and Timæus. No recognition of
383
the triple or lower souls. Antithesis between soul and body
Different doctrines of Plato about the soul. Whether all the three souls
385
are immortal, or the rational soul alone
The life and character of a philosopher is a constant struggle to
emancipate his soul from his body. Death alone enables him to do this 386
completely
Souls of the ordinary or unphilosophical men pass after death into the
bodies of different animals. The philosopher alone is relieved from all 387
communion with body
Special privilege claimed for philosophers in the Phædon apart from
388
the virtuous men who are not philosophers
Simmias and Kebês do not admit readily the immortality of the soul,
but are unwilling to trouble Sokrates by asking for proof. Unabated 390
interest of Sokrates in rational debate
Simmias and Kebês believe fully in the pre-existence of the soul, but
not in its post-existence. Doctrine — That the soul is a sort of harmony ib.
— refuted by Sokrates

Sokrates unfolds the intellectual changes or wanderings through which
391
his mind had passed
First doctrine of Sokrates as to cause. Reasons why he rejected it ib.
Second doctrine. Hopes raised by the treatise of Anaxagoras 393
Disappointment because Anaxagoras did not follow out the optimistic
principle into detail. Distinction between causes efficient and causes 394
co-efficient
Sokrates could neither trace out the optimistic principle for himself,
nor find any teacher thereof. He renounced it, and embraced a third 395
doctrine about cause
He now assumes the separate existence of ideas. These ideas are the
396
causes why particular objects manifest certain attributes
Procedure of Sokrates if his hypothesis were impugned. He insists
upon keeping apart the discussion of the hypothesis and the discussion 397
of its consequences
Exposition of Sokrates welcomed by the hearers. Remarks upon it 398
The philosophical changes in Sokrates all turned upon different views
ib.
as to a true cause
Problems and difficulties of which Sokrates first sought solution 399
Expectations entertained by Sokrates from the treatise of Anaxagoras.
400
His disappointment. His distinction between causes and co-efficients
Sokrates imputes to Anaxagoras the mistake of substituting physical
agencies in place of mental. This is the same which Aristophanes and 401
others imputed to Sokrates
The supposed theory of Anaxagoras cannot be carried out, either by
Sokrates himself or any one else. Sokrates turns to general words, and 403
adopts the theory of ideas

Vague and dissentient meanings attached to the word Cause. That is a
404
cause, to each man, which gives satisfaction to his inquisitive feelings
Dissension and perplexity on the question. — What is a cause?
407
revealed by the picture of Sokrates — no intuition to guide him
Different notions of Plato and Aristotle about causation, causes regular
and irregular. Inductive theory of causation, elaborated in modern ib.
times
Last transition of the mind of Sokrates from things to words — to the
adoption of the theory of ideas. Great multitude of ideas assumed, each 410
fitting a certain number of particulars
Ultimate appeal to hypothesis of extreme generality 411
Plato’s demonstration of the immortality of the soul rests upon the
412
assumption of the Platonic ideas. Reasoning to prove this
The soul always brings life, and is essentially living. It cannot receive
413
death: in other words, it is immortal
The proof of immortality includes pre-existence as well as post-
existence — animals as well as man — also the metempsychosis or 414
translation of the soul from one body to another
After finishing his proof that the soul is immortal, Sokrates enters into
a description, what will become of it after the death of the body. He 415
describes a Νεκυία
Sokrates expects that his soul is going to the islands of the blest. Reply
416
to Kriton about burying his body
Preparations for administering the hemlock. Sympathy of the gaoler.
ib.
Equanimity of Sokrates
Sokrates swallows the poison. Conversation with the gaoler 417
Ungovernable sorrow of the friends present. Self-command of
ib.
Sokrates. Last words to Kriton, and death

Extreme pathos, and probable trustworthiness of these personal details 419
Contrast between the Platonic Apology and the Phædon ib.
Abundant dogmatic and poetical invention of the Phædon compared
421
with the profession of ignorance which we read in the Apology
Total renunciation and discredit of the body in the Phædon. Different
422
feeling about the body in other Platonic dialogues
Plato’s argument does not prove the immortality of the soul. Even if it
did prove that, yet the mode of pre-existence and the mode of post- 423
existence, of the soul, would be quite undetermined
The philosopher will enjoy an existence of pure soul unattached to any
425
body
Plato’s demonstration of the immortality of the soul did not appear
satisfactory to subsequent philosophers. The question remained 426
debated and problematical

CHAPTER XII.

ALKIBIADES I. AND II.
ALKIBIADES I. — ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

Situation supposed in the
This dialogue is carried on between
dialogue. Persons — Sokrates
Sokrates and Alkibiades. It introduces
and Alkibiades.
Alkibiades as about twenty years of age,
having just passed through the period of youth,
and about to enter on the privileges and duties of a citizen. The real
dispositions and circumstances of the historical Alkibiades (magnificent
personal beauty, stature, and strength, high family and connections, great
wealth already possessed, since his father had died when he was a child, —
a full measure of education and accomplishments — together with
exorbitant ambition and insolence, derived from such accumulated
advantages) are brought to view in the opening address of Sokrates.
Alkibiades, during the years of youth which he had just passed, had been
surrounded by admirers who tried to render themselves acceptable to him,
but whom he repelled with indifference, and even with scorn. Sokrates had
been among them, constantly present and near to Alkibiades, but without
ever addressing a word to him. The youthful beauty being now exchanged
for manhood, all these admirers had retired, and Sokrates alone remains.
His attachment is to Alkibiades himself: to promise of mind rather than to
attractions of person. Sokrates has been always hitherto restrained, by his
divine sign or Dæmon, from speaking to Alkibiades. But this prohibition
has now been removed; and he accosts him for the first time, in the full
belief that he shall be able to give improving counsel, essential to the
success of that political career upon which the youth is about to enter.1

1 Plato, Alkib. i. 103, 104, 105. Perikles is supposed to be still alive and
political leader of Athens — 104 B.

I have briefly sketched the imaginary situation to which this dialogue is
made to apply. The circumstances of it belong to Athenian manners of the
Platonic age.

Some of the critics, considering that the relation supposed between
Sokrates and Alkibiades is absurd and unnatural, allege this among their
reasons for denying the authenticity of the dialogue. But if any one reads
the concluding part of the Symposion — the authenticity of which has
never yet been denied by any critic — he will find something a great deal
more abnormal in what is there recounted about Sokrates and Alkibiades.

In a dialogue composed by Æschines Socraticus (cited by the rhetor
Aristeides — Περὶ Ῥητορικῆς, Or. xlv. p. 23-24), expressions of intense
love for Alkibiades are put into the mouth of Sokrates. Æschines was
γνήσιος ἑταῖρος Σωκράτους, not less than Plato. The different companions
of Sokrates thus agreed in their picture of the relation between him and
Alkibiades.

Exorbitant hopes and political
You are about to enter on public life (says
ambition of Alkibiades.
Sokrates to Alkibiades) with the most
inordinate aspirations for glory and
aggrandisement. You not only thirst for the acquisition of ascendancy such
as Perikles possesses at Athens, but your ambition will not be satisfied
unless you fill Asia with your renown, and put yourself upon a level with
Cyrus and Xerxes. Now such aspirations cannot be gratified except through
my assistance. I do not deal in long discourses such as you have been
accustomed to hear from others: I shall put to you only some short
interrogatories, requiring nothing more than answers to my questions.2

2 Plato, Alkib. i. 106 B. Ἆρα ἐρωττᾷς εἴ τινα ἔχω εἰπεῖν λόγον μακρόν,
οἵους δὴ ἀκούειν εἴθισαι; οὐ γάρ ἐστι τοιοῦτον τὸ ἐμόν. I give here, as
elsewhere, not an exact translation, but an abstract.

Questions put by Sokrates, in
Sokr. — You are about to step forward as
reference to Alkibiades in his
adviser of the public assembly. Upon what
intended function as adviser of
points do you intend to advise them? Upon
the Athenians. What does he
points which you know better than they? Alk.
intend to advise them upon?
— Of course. Sokr. — All that you know, has
What has he learnt, and what
been either learnt from others or found out by
does he know?
yourself. Alk. — Certainly. Sokr. — But you
would neither have learnt any thing, nor found
out any thing, without the desire to learn or find out: and you would have
felt no such desire, in respect to that which you believed yourself to know
already. That which you now know, therefore, there was a time when you
believed yourself not to know? Alk. — Necessarily so. Sokr. — Now all that
you have learnt, as I am well aware, consists of three things — letters, the
harp, gymnastics. Do you intend to advise the Athenians when they are
debating about letters, or about harp-playing, or about gymnastics? Alk. —
Neither of the three. Sokr. — Upon what occasions, then, do you propose to
give advice? Surely, not when the Athenians are debating about
architecture, or prophetic warnings, or the public health: for to deliver
opinions on each of these matters, belongs not to you but to professional
men — architects, prophets, physicians; whether they be poor or rich, high-
born or low-born? If not then, upon what other occasions will you tender
your counsel? Alk. — When they are debating about affairs of their own.

Alkibiades intends to advise the
Sokr. — But about what affairs of their
Athenians on questions of war
own? Not about affairs of shipbuilding: for of
and peace. Questions of
that you know nothing. Alk. — When they are
Sokrates thereupon. We must
discussing war and peace, or any other

fight those whom it is better to business concerning the city. Sokr. — You
fight — to what standard does mean when they are discussing the question
better refer? To just and unjust. with whom they shall make war or peace, and
in what manner? But it is certain that we must
fight those whom it is best to fight — also when it is best — and as long as
it is best. Alk. — Certainly. Sokr. — Now, if the Athenians wished to know
whom it was best to wrestle with, and when or how long it was best which
of the two would be most competent to advise them, you or the professional
trainer? Alk. — The trainer, undoubtedly. Sokr. — So, too, about playing the
harp or singing. But when you talk about better, in wrestling or singing,
what standard do you refer to? Is it not to the gymnastic or musical art? Alk.
— Yes. Sokr. — Answer me in like manner about war or peace, the subjects
on which you are going to advise your countrymen, whom, and at what
periods, it is better to fight, and better not to fight? What in this last case do
you mean by better? To what standard, or to what end, do you refer?3 Alk.
— I cannot say. Sokr. — But is it not a disgrace, since you profess to advise
your countrymen when and against whom it is better for them to war, — not
to be able to say to what end your better refers? Do not you know what are
the usual grounds and complaints urged when war is undertaken? Alk. —
Yes: complaints of having been cheated, or robbed, or injured. Sokr. —
Under what circumstances? Alk. — You mean, whether justly or unjustly?
That makes all the difference. Sokr. — Do you mean to advise the
Athenians to fight those who behave justly, or those who behave unjustly?
Alk. — The question is monstrous. Certainly not those who behave justly. It
would be neither lawful nor honourable. Sokr. — Then when you spoke
about better, in reference to war or peace, what you meant was juster —
you had in view justice and injustice? Alk. — It seems so.

3 Plato, Alkib. i. 108 E – 109 A.

ἴθι δή, καὶ τὸ ἐν τῷ πολεμεῖν βέλτιον καὶ τὸ ἐν τῷ εἰρήνην ἄγειν, τοῦτο
τὸ βέλτιον τί ὀνομάζεις; ὥσπερ ἐκεῖ ἐφ’ ἐκάστῳ ἔλεγες τὸ ἄμεινον, ὅτι
μουσικώτερον, καὶ ἐπὶ τῷ ἑτερῳ, ὅτι γυμναστικώτερον· πειρῶ δὴ καὶ
ἐνταῦθα λέγειν τὸ βέλτιον.… πρὸς τί τεινει τὸ ἐν τῷ εἰρήνην τε ἄγειν
ἄμεινον καὶ τὸ ἐν τῷ πολεμεῖν οἷς δεῖ; Alkib. Ἀλλὰ σκοπῶν οὐ δύναμαι
ἐννοῆσαι.

How, or from whom, has
Sokr. — How is this? How do you know, or
Alkibiades learnt to discern or
where have you learnt, to distinguish just from
distinguish Just and Unjust? He
unjust? Have you frequented some master,
never learnt it from any one; he
without my knowledge, to teach you this? If
always knew it, even as a boy.
you have, pray introduce me to him, that I also
may learn it from him. Alk. — You are jesting.
Sokr. — Not at all: I love you too well to jest. Alk. — But what if I had no
master? Cannot I know about justice and injustice, without a master? Sokr.
— Certainly: you might find out for yourself, if you made search and
investigated. But this you would not do, unless you were under the
persuasion that you did not already know. Alk. — Was there not a time
when I really believed myself not to know it? Sokr. — Perhaps there may
have been: tell me when that time was. Was it last year? Alk. — No: last
year I thought that I knew. Sokr. — Well, then two years, three years, &c.,
ago? Alk. — No: the case was the same then, also, I thought that I knew.
Sokr. — But before that, you were a mere boy; and during your boyhood
you certainly believed yourself to know what was just and unjust; for I well
recollect hearing you then complain confidently of other boys, for acting
unjustly towards you. Alk. — Certainly: I was not then ignorant on the
point: I knew distinctly that they were acting unjustly towards me. Sokr. —
You knew, then, even in your boyhood, what was just and what was unjust?
Alk. — Certainly: I knew even then. Sokr. — At what moment did you first
find it out? Not when you already believed yourself to know: and what time

was there when you did not believe yourself to know? Alk. — Upon my
word, I cannot say.

Answer amended. Alkibiades
Sokr. — Since, accordingly, you neither
learnt it from the multitude, as
found it out for yourself, nor learnt it from
he learnt to speak Greek. — The
others, how come you to know justice or
multitude cannot teach just and
injustice at all, or from what quarter? Alk. — I
unjust, for they are at variance
was mistaken in saying that I had not learnt it.
among themselves about it.
I learnt it, as others do, from the multitude.4
Sokr. — Your teachers are none of the best: no
Alkibiades is going to advise the
Athenians about what he does one can learn from them even such small
not know himself. matters as playing at draughts: much less,
what is just and unjust. Alk. — I learnt it from
them as I learnt to speak Greek, in which, too, I never had any special
teacher. Sokr. — Of that the multitude are competent teachers, for they are
all of one mind. Ask which is a tree or a stone, — a horse or a man, — you
get the same answer from every one. But when you ask not simply which
are horses, but also which horses are fit to run well in a race — when you
ask not merely about which are men, but which men are healthy or
unhealthy — are the multitude all of one mind, or all competent to answer?
Alk. — Assuredly not. Sokr. — When you see the multitude differing among
themselves, that is a clear proof that they are not competent to teach others.
Alk. — It is so. Sokr. — Now, about the question, What is just and unjust —
are the multitude all of one mind, or do they differ among themselves? Alk.
— They differ prodigiously: they not only dispute, but quarrel and destroy
each other, respecting justice and injustice, far more than about health and
sickness.5 Sokr. How, then, can we say that the multitude know what is just
and unjust, when they thus fiercely dispute about it among themselves? Alk.
— I now perceive that we cannot say so. Sokr. — How can we say,
therefore, that they are fit to teach others: and how can you pretend to know,

who have learnt from no other teachers? Alk. — From what you say, it is
impossible.

4 Plato, Alkib. i. 110 D-E. ἔμαθον, οἶμαι, καὶ ἐγὼ ὥσπερ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι …
παρὰ τῶν πολλῶν.

5 Plato, Alkib. i. 112 A. Sokr. Τί δὲ δὴ; νῦν περὶ τῶν δικαίων καὶ ἀδίκων
ἀνθρώπων καὶ πραγμάτων, οἱ πολλοὶ δοκοῦσί σοι ὁμολογεῖν αὐτοὶ ἑαυτοῖς
ἢ ἀλλήλοις; Alkib. Ἥκιστα, νὴ Δί’, ὦ Σώκρατες. Sokr. Τί δέ; μάλιστα περὶ
αὐτῶν διαφέρεσθαι; Alkib. πολύ γε.

Sokr. — No: not from what I say, but from what you say yourself. I
merely ask questions: it is you who give all the answers.6 And what you
have said amounts to this — that Alkibiades knows nothing about what is
just and unjust, but believes himself to know, and is going to advise the
Athenians about what he does not know himself?

6 Plato, Alkib. i. 112-113.

Answer farther amended. The
Alk. — But, Sokrates, the Athenians do not
Athenians do not generally
often debate about what is just and unjust.
debate about just or unjust —
They think that question self-evident; they
which they consider plain to
debate generally about what is expedient or
every one — but about
not expedient. Justice and expediency do not
expedient and inexpedient,
do not always coincide. Many persons commit
which are not coincident with
great crimes, and are great gainers by doing
just and unjust. But neither does
so: others again behave justly, and suffer from
Alkibiades know the expedient.
it.7 Sokr — Do you then profess to know what
He asks Sokrates to explain. is expedient or inexpedient? From whom have
Sokrates declines: he can do you learnt — or when did you find out for
nothing but question. yourself? I might ask you the same round of
questions, and you would be compelled to
answer in the same manner. But we will pass to a different point. You say

that justice and expediency are not coincident. Persuade me of this, by
interrogating me as I interrogated you. Alk. — That is beyond my power.
Sokr. — But when you rise to address the assembly, you will have to
persuade them. If you can persuade them, you can persuade me. Assume me
to be the assembly, and practise upon me.8 Alk. — You are too hard upon
me, Sokrates. It is for you to speak and prove the point. Sokr — No: I can
only question: you must answer. You will be most surely persuaded when
the point is determined by your own answers.9

7 Plato, Alkib. i. 113 D. Οἶμαι μὲν ὀλιγάκις Ἀθηναίους βουλεύεσθαι
πότερα δικαιότερα ἢ ἀδικωτερα· τὰ μὲν γὰρ τοιαῦτα ἡγοῦνται δῆλα εἶναι,
&c.

8 Plato, Alkib. i. 114 B-C. This same argument is addressed by Sokrates to
Glaukon, in Xenoph. Memor. iii. 6, 14-15.

9 Plato, Alkib. i. 114 E.

Οὐκοῦν εἰ λέγεις ὅτι ταῦθ’ οὕτως ἔχει, μάλιστ’ ἂν εἴης πεπεισμένος;

Comment on the preceding —
Such is the commencing portion
Sokratic method — the
(abbreviated or abstracted) of Plato’s First
respondent makes the
Alkibiadês. It exhibits a very characteristic
discoveries for himself.
specimen of the Sokratico-Platonic method:
both in its negative and positive aspect. By the
negative, false persuasion of knowledge is exposed. Alkibiades believes
himself competent to advise about just and unjust, which he has neither
learnt from any teacher nor investigated for himself — which he has picked
up from the multitude, and supposes to be clear to every one, but about
which nevertheless there is so much difference of appreciation among the
multitude, that fierce and perpetual quarrels are going on. On the positive

side, Sokrates restricts himself to the function of questioning: he neither
affirms nor denies any thing. It is Alkibiades who affirms or denies every
thing, and who makes all the discoveries for himself out of his own mind,
instigated indeed, but not taught, by the questions of his companion.

Alkibiades is brought to admit
By a farther series of questions, Sokrates
that whatever is just, is good,
next brings Alkibiades to the admission that
honourable, expedient: and that
what is just, is also honourable, good,
whoever acts honourably, both
expedient — what is unjust, is dishonourable,
does well, and procures for
evil, inexpedient: and that whoever acts justly,
himself happiness thereby.
and honourably, thereby acquires happiness.
Equivocal reasoning of Sokrates.
Admitting, first, that an act which is good,
honourable, just, expedient, &c., considered in
one aspect or in reference to some of its conditions — may be at the same
time bad, dishonourable, unjust, considered in another aspect or in reference
to other conditions; Sokrates nevertheless brings his respondent to admit,
that every act, in so far as it is just and honourable, is also good and
expedient.10 And he contends farther, that whoever acts honourably, does
well: now every man who does well, becomes happy, or secures good
things thereby: therefore the just, the honourable, and the good or
expedient, coincide.11 The argument, whereby this conclusion is here
established, is pointed out by Heindorf, Stallbaum, and Steinhart, as not
merely inconclusive, but as mere verbal equivocation and sophistry — the
like of which, however, we find elsewhere in Plato.12

10 Plato, Alkib. i. 115 B — 116 A.

Οὐκοῦν τὴν τοιαύτην βοηθείαν καλὴν μὲν λέγεις κατὰ τὴν ἐπιχείρησιν
τοῦ σῶσαι οὗς ἔδει· τοῦτο δ’ ἐστὶν ἀνδρία· … κακὴν δέ γε κατὰ τοὺς
θανάτους τε καὶ τὰ ἕλκη.…

Οὐκοῦν ὧδε δίκαιον προσαγορεύειν ἑκάστην τῶν πράξεων· εἴπερ ᾖ
κακὸν ἀπεργάζεται κακὴν καλεῖς, καὶ ᾖ ἀγαθὸν ἀγαθὴν κλητέον.

Ἀρ’ οὖν καὶ ᾖ ἀγαθὸν καλόν, — ᾖ δὲ κακὸν αἰσχρόν; Ναί.

Compare Plato, Republic, v. p. 479, where he maintains that in every
particular case, what is just, honourable, virtuous, &c., is also unjust,
dishonourable, vicious, &c. Nothing remains unchanged, nor excludes the
contrary, except the pure, self-existent, Idea or general Concept. — αὐτὸ-
δικαιοσύνη, &c.

11 Plato, Alkib. i. 116 E.

12 The words εὖ πράττειν — εὐπραγία have a double sense, like our
“doing well”. Stallbaum, Proleg. p. 175; Steinhart, Einl. p. 149.

We have, p. 116 B, the equivocation between καλῶς πράττειν and εὖ
πράττειν, also with κακῶς πράττειν, p. 134 A, 135 A; compare Heindorf ad
Platon. Charmid. p. 172 A, p. 174 B; also Platon. Gorgias, p. 507 C, where
similar equivocal meanings occur.

Humiliation of Alkibiades.
Alkibiades is thus reduced to a state of
Other Athenian statesmen are
humiliating embarrassment, and stands
equally ignorant. But the real
convicted, by his own contradictions and
opponents, against whom
confession, of ignorance in its worst form: that
Alkibiades is to measure
is, of being ignorant, and yet believing himself
himself, are, the kings of Sparta
to know.13 But other Athenian statesmen are
and Persia. Eulogistic no wiser. Even Perikles is proved to be equally
description of those kings. To deficient — by the fact that he has never been
match them, Alkibiades must able to teach or improve any one else, not even
make himself as good as his own sons and those whom he loved best.14
possible. “At any rate” (contends Alkibiades) “I am as
good as my competitors, and can hold my

ground against them.” But Sokrates reminds him that the real competitors
with whom he ought to compare himself, are foreigners, liable to become
the enemies of Athens, and against whom he, if he pretends to lead Athens,
must be able to contend. In an harangue of unusual length, Sokrates shows
that the kings of Sparta and Persia are of nobler breed, as well as more
highly and carefully trained, than the Athenian statesmen.15 Alkibiades
must be rescued from his present ignorance, and exalted, so as to be capable
of competing with these kings: which object cannot be attained except
through the auxiliary interposition of Sokrates. Not that Sokrates professes
to be himself already on this elevation, and to stand in need of no farther
improvement. But he can, nevertheless, help others to attain it for
themselves, through the discipline and stimulus of his interrogatories.16

13 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 118.

14 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 118-119.

15 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 120-124.

16 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 124.

But good — for what end, and
The dialogue then continues. Sokr. — We
under what circumstances?
wish to become as good as possible. But in
Abundant illustrative examples.
what sort of virtue? Alk. — In that virtue
which belongs to good men. Sokr. — Yes, but
good, in what matters? Alk. — Evidently, to men who are good in
transacting business. Sokr. — Ay, but what kind of business? business
relating to horses, or to navigation? If that be meant, we must go and
consult horse-trainers or mariners? Alk. — No, I mean such business as is
transacted by the most esteemed leaders in Athens. Sokr. — You mean the
intelligent men. Every man is good, in reference to that which he
understands: every man is bad, in reference to that which he does not
understand. Alk. — Of course. Sokr. — The cobbler understands

shoemaking, and is therefore good at that: he does not understand weaving,
and is therefore bad at that. The same man thus, in your view, will be both
good and bad?17 Alk. — No: that cannot be. Sokr. — Whom then do you
mean, when you talk of the good? Alk. — I mean those who are competent
to command in the city. Sokr. — But to command whom or what — horses
or men? Alk. — To command men. Sokr. — But what men, and under what
circumstances? sick men, or men on shipboard, or labourers engaged in
harvesting, or in what occupations? Alk. — I mean, men living in social and
commercial relation with each other, as we live here; men who live in
common possession of the same laws and government. Sokr. — When men
are in communion of a sea voyage and of the same ship, how do we name
the art of commanding them, and to what purpose does it tend? Alk. — It is
the art of the pilot; and the purpose towards which it tends, is, bringing
them safely through the dangers of the sea. Sokr. — When men are in social
and political communion, to what purpose does the art of commanding
them tend? Alk. — Towards the better preservation and administration of
the city.18 Sokr. — But what do you mean by better? What is that, the
presence or absence of which makes better or worse? If in regard to the
management of the body, you put to me the same question, I should reply,
that it is the presence of health, and the absence of disease. What reply will
you make, in the case of the city? Alk. — I should say, when friendship and
unanimity among the citizens are present, and when discord and antipathy
are absent. Sokr. — This unanimity, of what nature is it? Respecting what
subject? What is the art or science for realising it? If I ask you what brings
about unanimity respecting numbers and measures, you will say the
arithmetical and the metrêtic art. Alk. — I mean that friendship and
unanimity which prevails between near relatives, father and son, husband
and wife. Sokr. — But how can there be unanimity between any two
persons, respecting subjects which one of them knows, and the other does
not know? For example, about spinning and weaving, which the husband

does not know, or about military duties, which the wife does not know, how
can there be unanimity between the two? Alk. — No: there cannot be. Sokr.
— Nor friendship, if unanimity and friendship go together? Alk. —
Apparently there cannot. Sokr. — Then when men and women each perform
their own special duties, there can be no friendship between them. Nor can
a city be well administered, when each citizen performs his own special
duties? or (which is the same thing) when each citizen acts justly? Alk. —
Not so: I think there may be friendship, when each person performs his or
her own business. Sokr. — Just now you said the reverse. What is this
friendship or unanimity which we must understand and realise, in order to
become good men?

17 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 125 B.

Ὁ αὐτὸς ἄρα τούτῳ γε τῷ λόγῳ κακός τε καὶ ἀγαθός.

Plato slides unconsciously here, as in other parts of his reasonings, à
dicto secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter.

18 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 126 A. τί δέ; ἢν σὺ καλεῖς εὐβουλίαν, εἰς τί ἐστιν; Alk.
Εἰς τὸ ἄμεινον τὴν πόλιν διοικεῖν καὶ σώζεσθαι. Sokr. Ἀμεινον δὲ διοικεῖται
καὶ σώζεται τίνος παραγιγνομένου ἢ ἀπογιγνομένου;

Alkibiades, puzzled and
Alk. — In truth, I am puzzled myself to say.
humiliated, confesses his
I find myself in a state of disgraceful
ignorance. Encouragement
ignorance, of which I had no previous
given by Sokrates. It is an
suspicion. Sokr. — Do not be discouraged. If
advantage to make such
you had made this discovery when you were
discovery in youth.
fifty years old, it would have been too late for
taking care of yourself and applying a remedy:
but at your age, it is the right time for making the discovery. Alk. — What
am I to do, now that I have made it? Sokr. — You must answer my

questions. If my auguries are just, we shall soon be both of us better for the
process.19

19 Plato, Alkib. i. 127 D-E. Alk. Ἀλλὰ μὰ τοὺς θεούς, οὐδ’ αὐτὸς οἶδα ὅ τι
λέγω, κινδυνεύω δὲ καὶ πάλαι λεληθέναι ἐμαυτὸν αἴσχιστ’ ἔχων.

Sokr. Ἀλλὰ χρὴ θαῤῥεῖν· εἰ μὲν γὰρ αὐτὸ ᾖσθου πεπονθὼς
πεντηκονταέτης, χαλεπὸν ἂν ἦν σοι ἐπιμεληθῆναι σαυτοῦ· νῦν δὲ ἢν ἔχεις
ἡλικίαν, αὔτη ἐστίν, ἐν ᾗ δεῖ αὐτὸ αἰσθέσθαι.

Alk. Τί οὖν τὸν αἱσθόμενον χρὴ ποιεῖν;

Sokr. Ἀ π ο κ ρ ί ν ε σ θ α ι τ ὰ ἐ ρ ω τ ώ μ ε ν α , καὶ ἐὰν τοῦτο ποιῇς, ἂν
θεὸς ἐθέλῃ, εἴ τι δεῖ καὶ τῇ ἐμῇ μαντείᾳ πιστεύειν, σύ τε κἀγὼ βελτιόνως
σχήσομεν.

Platonic Dialectic — its actual
Here we have again, brought into prominent
effect — its anticipated effect —
relief, the dialectic method of Plato, under two
applicable to the season of
distinct aspects: 1. Its actual effects, in
youth.
exposing the false supposition of knowledge,
in forcing upon the respondent the humiliating
conviction, that he does not know familiar topics which he supposed to be
clear both to himself and to others. 2. Its anticipated effects, if continued, in
remedying such defect: and in generating out of the mind of the respondent,
real and living knowledge. Lastly, it is plainly intimated that this shock of
humiliation and mistrust, painful but inevitable, must be undergone in
youth.

Know Thyself — Delphian
The dialogue continues, in short questions
maxim — its urgent importance
and answers, of which the following is an

— What is myself? My mind isabstract. Sokr. — What is meant by a man
myself. taking care of himself? Before I can take care
of myself, I must know what myself is: I must
know myself, according to the Delphian motto. I cannot make myself better,
without knowing what myself is.20 That which belongs to me is not myself:
my body is not myself, but an instrument governed by myself.21 My mind
or soul only, is myself. To take care of myself is, to take care of my mind.
At any rate, if this be not strictly true,22 my mind is the most important and
dominant element within me. The physician who knows his own body, does
not for that reason know himself: much less do the husbandman or the
tradesman, who know their own properties or crafts, know themselves, or
perform what is truly their own business.

20 Plato, Alkib. i. 129 B. τίν’ ἂν τρόπον εὑρεθείη α ὐ τ ὸ τ ὸ α ὐ τ ό ;

21 Plato, Alkib. i. 128-130. All this is greatly expanded in the dialogue —
p. 128 D: Οὐκ ἄρα ὄταν τῶν σαυτοῦ ἐπιμελῇ, σαυτοῦ ἐπιμέλει; This same
antithesis is employed by Isokrates, De Permutatione, sect. 309, p. 492,
Bekker. He recommends αὐτοῦ πρότερον ἢ τῶν αὐτοῦ ποιεῖσθαι τὴν
ἐπιμέλειαν.

22 Plato considers this point to be not clearly made out. Alkib. i. 130.

I cannot know myself, except by
Since temperance consists in self-
looking into another mind. Self-
knowledge, neither of these professional men,
knowledge is temperance.
as such, is temperate: their professions are of a
Temperance and Justice are the
vulgar cast, and do not belong to the virtuous
conditions both of happiness
life.23 How are we to know our own minds?
and of freedom. We know it by looking into another mind, and
into the most rational and divine portion
thereof: just as the eye can only know itself by looking into another eye,
and seeing itself therein reflected.24 It is only in this way that we can come

to know ourselves, or become temperate: and if we do not know ourselves,
we cannot even know what belongs to ourselves, or what belongs to others:
all these are branches of one and the same cognition. We can have no
knowledge of affairs, either public or private: we shall go wrong, and shall
be unable to secure happiness either for ourselves or for others. It is not
wealth or power which are the conditions of happiness, but justice and
temperance. Both for ourselves individually, and for the public collectively,
we ought to aim at justice and temperance, not at wealth and power. The
evil and unjust man ought to have no power, but to be the slave of those
who are better than himself.25 He is fit for nothing but to be a slave: none
deserve freedom except the virtuous.

23 Plato, Alkib. i. 131 B.

24 Plato, Alkib. i. 133.

25 Plato, Alkib. i. 134-135 B-C.

Πρὶν δέ γε ἀρετὴν ἔχειν, τὸ ἄρχεσθαι ἄμεινον ὑπὸ τοῦ βελτίονος ἢ τὸ
ἄρχειν ἀνδρὶ, οὐ μόνον παιδί.… Πρέπει ἄρα τῷ κακῷ δουλεύειν· ἄμεινον
γάρ.

Alkibiades feels himself
Sokr. — How do you feel your own
unworthy to be free, and
condition now, Alkibiades. Are you worthy of
declares that he will never quit
freedom? Alk. — I feel but too keenly that I
Sokrates.
am not. I cannot emerge from this degradation
except by your society and help. From this
time forward I shall never leave you.26

26 Plato, Alkib. i. 135.

ALKIBIADES II.

Second Alkibiades — situation
The other Platonic dialogue, termed the
supposed.
Second Alkibiades, introduces Alkibiades as
about to offer prayer and sacrifice to the Gods.

Danger of mistake in praying to
Sokr. — You seem absorbed in thought,
the Gods for gifts which may
Alkibiades, and not unreasonably. In
prove mischievous. Most men
supplicating the Gods, caution is required not
are unwise. Unwise is the
to pray for gifts which are really mischievous.
generic word: madmen, a
The Gods sometimes grant men’s prayers,
particular variety under it.
even when ruinously destructive; as they
granted the prayers of Œdipus, to the
destruction of his own sons. Alk. — Œdipus was mad: what man in his
senses would put up such a prayer? Sokr. — You think that madness is the
opposite of good sense or wisdom. You recognise men wise and unwise:
and you farther admit that every man must be one or other of the two, —
just as every man must be either healthy or sick: there is no third alternative
possible? Alk. — I think so. Sokr. — But each thing can have but one
opposite:27 to be unwise, and to be mad, are therefore identical? Alk. —
They are. Sokr. — Wise men are only few, the majority of our citizens are
unwise: but do you really think them mad? How could any of us live safely
in the society of so many mad-men? Alk. — No: it cannot be so: I was
mistaken. Sokr. — Here is the illustration of your mistake. All men who
have gout, or fever, or ophthalmia are sick; but all sick men have not gout,
or fever, or ophthalmia. So, too, all carpenters, or shoemakers, or sculptors,
are craftsmen; but all craftsmen are not carpenters, or shoemakers, or
sculptors. In like manner, all mad men are unwise; but all unwise men are

not mad. Unwise comprises many varieties and gradations of which the
extreme is, being mad: but these varieties are different among themselves,
as one disease differs from another, though all agree in being disease and
one art differs from another, though all agree in being art.28

27 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 139 B.

Καὶ μὴν δύο γε ὑπεναντία ἑνὶ πράγματι πῶς ἂν εἴη;

That each thing has one opposite, and no more, is asserted in the
Protagoras also, p. 192-193.

28 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 139-140 A-B.

Καὶ γὰρ οἱ πυρέττοντες πάντες νοσοῦσιν, οὐ μένντοιοἱ νοσοῦντες πάντες
πυρέττουσιν οὐδὲ ποδαγρῶσιν οὐδέ γε ὀφθαλμιῶσιν· ἀλλὰ νόσος μὲν πᾶν
τὸ τοιοῦτόν ἐστι, διαφέρειν δέ φασιν οὓς δὴ καλοῦμεν ἰατρος τὴν
ἀπεργασίαν αὐτῶν· οὐ γὰρ πᾶσαι οὔτε ὅμοιαι οὔτε ὁμοίως διαπράττονται,
ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὴν αὐτῆς δύναμιν ἑκάστη.

Relation between a generic
(We may remark that Plato here, as in the
term, and the specific terms
Euthyphron, brings under especial notice one
comprehended under it, was not
of the most important distinctions in formal
then familiar.
logic — that between a generic between a term
and the various specific terms comprehended
under it. Possessing as yet no technical language for characterising this
distinction, he makes it understood by an induction of several separate but
analogous cases. Because the distinction is familiar now to instructed men,
we must not suppose that it was familiar then.)

Frequent cases, in which men
Sokr. — Whom do you call wise and
pray for supposed benefits, and
unwise? Is not the wise man, he who knows
find that when obtained, they
what it is proper to say and do — and the
unwise man, he who does not know? Alk. —

are misfortunes. Every one Yes. Sokr. — The unwise man will thus often
fancies that he knows what is unconsciously say or do what ought not to be
beneficial: mischiefs of said or done? Though not mad like Œdipus, he
ignorance. will nevertheless pray to the Gods for gifts,
which will be hurtful to him if obtained. You,
for example, would be overjoyed if the Gods were to promise that you
should become despot not only over Athens, but also over Greece. Alk. —
Doubtless I should: and every one else would feel as I do. Sokr. — But what
if you were to purchase it with your life, or to damage yourself by the
employment of it? Alk. — Not on those conditions.29 Sokr. — But you are
aware that many ambitious aspirants, both at Athens and elsewhere (among
them, the man who just now killed the Macedonian King Archelaus, and
usurped his throne), have acquired power and aggrandisement, so as to be
envied by every one: yet have presently found themselves brought to ruin
and death by the acquisition. So, also, many persons pray that they may
become fathers; but discover presently that their children are the source of
so much grief to them, that they wish themselves again childless.
Nevertheless, though such reverses are perpetually happening, every one is
still not only eager to obtain these supposed benefits, but importunate with
the Gods in asking for them. You see that it is not safe even to accept
without reflection boons offered to you, much less to pray for boons to be
conferred.30 Alk. — I see now how much mischief ignorance produces.
Every one thinks himself competent to pray for what is beneficial to
himself; but ignorance makes him unconsciously imprecate mischief on his
own head.

29 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 141.

30 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 141-142.

Sokr. — You ought not to denounce ignorance in this unqualified manner.
You must distinguish and specify. Ignorance of what? and under what

Mistake in predications about
modifications of persons and circumstances?
ignorance generally. We must
Alk. — How? Are there any matters or
discriminate. Ignorance of what?
circumstances in which it is better for a man to
Ignorance of good, is always
be ignorant, than to know? Sokr. — You will
mischievous: ignorance of other
see that there are such. Ignorance of good, or
things, not always.
ignorance of what is best, is always
mischievous: moreover, assuming that a man
knows what is best, then all other knowledge will be profitable to him. In
his special case, ignorance on any subject cannot be otherwise than hurtful.
But if a man be ignorant things of good, or of what is best, in his case
knowledge on other subjects will be more often hurtful than profitable. To a
man like Orestes, so misguided on the question, “What is good?” as to
resolve to kill his mother, it would be a real benefit, if for the time he did
not know his mother. Ignorance on that point, in his state of mind, would be
better for him than knowledge.31 Alk. — It appears so.

31 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 144.

Wise public counsellors are few.
Sokr. — Follow the argument farther. When
Upon what ground do we call
we come forward to say or do any thing, we
these few wise? Not because they
either know what we are about to say and do,
possess merely special arts or
or at least believe ourselves to know it. Every
accomplishments, but because
statesman who gives counsel to the public,
they know besides, upon what
does so in the faith of such knowledge. Most
occasions and under what limits
citizens are unwise, and ignorant of good as
each of these accomplishments
well as of other things. The wise are but few,
ought to be used.
and by their advice the city is conducted. Now
upon what ground do we call these few, wise
and useful public counsellors? If a statesman knows war, but does not know
whether it is best to go to war, or at what juncture it is best — should we
call him wise? If he knows how to kill men, or dispossess them, or drive

them into exile, — but does not know upon whom, or on what occasions, it
is good to inflict this treatment — is he a useful counsellor? If he can ride,
or shoot, or wrestle, well, — we give him an epithet derived from this
special accomplishment: we do not call him wise. What would be the
condition of a community composed of bowmen, horsemen, wrestlers,
rhetors, &c., accomplished and excellent each in his own particular craft,
yet none of them knowing what is good, nor when, nor on what occasions,
it is good to employ their craft? When each man pushes forward his own art
and speciality, without any knowledge whether it is good on the whole
either for himself or for the city, will not affairs thus conducted be reckless
and disastrous?32 Alk. — They will be very bad indeed.

32 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 145.

Special accomplishments,
Sokr. — If, then, a man has no knowledge of
without the knowledge of the
good or of the better — if upon this cardinal
good or profitable, are oftener
point he obeys fancy without reason — the
hurtful than beneficial.
possession of knowledge upon special subjects
will be oftener hurtful than profitable to him;
because it will make him more forward in action, without any good result.
Possessing many arts and accomplishments, and prosecuting one after
another, but without the knowledge of good, — he will only fall into greater
trouble, like a ship sailing without a pilot. Knowledge of good is, in other
words, knowledge of what is useful and profitable. In conjunction with this,
all other knowledge is valuable, and goes to increase a man’s competence as
a counsellor: apart from this, all other knowledge will not render a man
competent as a counsellor, but will be more frequently hurtful than
beneficial.33 Towards right living, what we need is, the knowledge of good:
just as the sick stand in need of a physician, and the ship’s crew of a pilot.
Alk. — I admit your reasoning. My opinion is changed. I no longer believe
myself competent to determine what I ought to accept from the Gods, or

what I ought to pray for. I incur serious danger of erring, and of asking for
mischiefs, under the belief that they are benefits.

33 Plato, Alkib. ii. 145 C:

Ὅστις ἄρα τι τῶν τοιούτων οἶδεν, ἐὰν μὲν παρέπηται αὐτῷ ἡ τ ο ῦ
βελτίστου ἐπιστήμη — αὕτη δ’ ἦν ἡ αὐτὴ δήπου
ἥ π ε ρ κ α ὶ ἡ τ ο ῦ ὠ φ ε λ ί μ ο υ — φρόνιμόν γε αὐτὸν φήσομεν καὶ
ἀποχρῶντα ξύμβουλου καὶ τῇ πόλει καὶ αὐτὸν αὑτῷ· τὸν δὲ μὴ τοιοῦτον,
τἀναντία τούτων. (Τουοῦτον is Schneider’s emendation for ποιοῦντα.) Ibid.
146 C: Οὐκοῦν φαμὲν πάλιν τοὺς πολλοὺς διημαρτηκέναι τοῦ βελτίστου,
ὡς τὰ πολλά γε, οἶμαι, ἄνευ νοῦ δόξῃ πεπιστευκότας; Ibid. 146 E: Ὁρᾷς
οὖν, ὅτε γ’ ἔφην κινδυνεύειν τό γε τῶν ἄλλων ἐπιστημῶν κτῆμα, ἐάν τις
ἄνευ τῆς τοῦ βελτίστου ἐπιστήμης κεκτημένος ᾖ, ὀλιγάκις μὲν ὠφελεῖν
βλάπτειν δὲ τὰ πλείω τον ἔχοντ’ αὐτό. Ibid. 147 A: Ὁ δὲ δὴ τὴν καλουμένην
πολυμάθειάν τε καὶ πολυτεχνίαν κεκτημένος, ὀρφανὸς δὲ ὢν ταύτης τῆς
ἐπιστήμης, ἀγόμενος δὲ ὑπὸ μιᾶς ἑκάστης τῶν ἄλλων, ἆρ’ οὐχὶ τῷ ὄντι
δικαίως πολλῷ χειμῶνι χρήσεται, ἅτ’, οἶμαι, ἄνευ κυβερνήτου διατελῶν ἐν
πελάγει, &c.

It is unsafe for Alkibiades to
Sokr. — The Lacedæmonians, when they
proceed with his sacrifice, until
offer sacrifice, pray simply that they may
he has learnt what is the proper
obtain what is honourable and good, without
language to address to the Gods.
farther specification. This language is
He renounces his sacrifice, and
acceptable to the Gods, more acceptable than
throws himself upon the counsel
the costly festivals of Athens. It has procured
of Sokrates.
for the Spartans more continued prosperity
than the Athenians have enjoyed.34 The Gods
honour wise and just men, that is, men who know what they ought to say
and do both towards Gods and towards men — more than numerous and
splendid offerings.35 You see, therefore, that it is not safe for you to proceed
with your sacrifice, until you have learnt what is the proper language to be

used, and what are the really good gifts to be prayed for. Otherwise your
sacrifice will not prove acceptable, and you may even bring upon yourself
positive mischief.36 Alk. — When shall I be able to learn this, and who is
there to teach me? I shall be delighted to meet him. Sokr. — There is a
person at hand most anxious for your improvement. What he must do is,
first to disperse the darkness from your mind, next, to impart that which
will teach you to discriminate evil from good, which at present you are
unable to do. Alk. — I shall shrink from no labour to accomplish this object.
Until then, I postpone my intended sacrifice: and I tender my sacrificial
wreath to you, in gratitude for your counsel.37 Sokr. — I accept the wreath
as a welcome augury of future friendship and conversation between us, to
help us out of the present embarrassment.

34 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 148.

35 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 150.

36 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 150.

37 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 151.

Different critical opinions
The two dialogues, called First and Second
respecting these two dialogues.
Alkibiadês, of which I have just given some
account, resemble each other more than most
of the Platonic dialogues, not merely in the personages introduced, but in
general spirit, in subject, and even in illustrations. The First Alkibiadês was
recognised as authentic by all critics without exception, until the days of
Schleiermacher. Nay, it was not only recognised, but extolled as one of the
most valuable and important of all the Platonic compositions; proper to be

studied first, as a key to all the rest. Such was the view of Jamblichus and
Proklus, transmitted to modern times; until it received a harsh contradiction
from Schleiermacher, who declared the dialogue to be both worthless and
spurious. The Second Alkibiadês was also admitted both by Thrasyllus, and
by the general body of critics in ancient times: but there were some persons
(as we learn from Athenæus)38 who considered it to be a work of
Xenophon; perceiving probably (what is the fact) that it bears much analogy
to several conversations which Xenophon has set down. But those who held
this opinion are not to be considered as of one mind with critics who reject
the dialogue as a forgery or imitation of Plato. Compositions emanating
from Xenophon are just as much Sokratic, probably even more Sokratic,
than the most unquestioned Platonic dialogues, besides that they must of
necessity be contemporary also. Schleiermacher has gone much farther:
declaring the Second as well as the First to be an unworthy imitation of
Plato.39

38 Athenæus, xi. p. 506.

39 See the Einleitung of Schleiermacher to Alkib. i. part ii. vol. iii. p. 293
seq. Einleitung to Alkib. ii. part i. vol. ii. p. 365 seq. His notes on the two
dialogues contain various additional reasons, besides what is urged in his
Introduction.

Grounds for disallowing them
Here Ast agrees with Schleiermacher fully,
— less strong against the Second
including both the First and Second Alkibiades
than against the First.
in his large list of the spurious. Most of the
subsequent critics go with Schleiermacher
only half-way: Socher, Hermann, Stallbaum, Steinhart, Susemihl, recognise
the First Alkibiadês, but disallow the Second.40 In my judgment,
Schleiermacher and Ast are more consistently right, or more consistently
wrong, in rejecting both, than the other critics who find or make so capital a
distinction between the two. The similarity of tone and topics between the

two is obvious, and is indeed admitted by all. Moreover, if I were
compelled to make a choice, I should say that the grounds for suspicion are
rather less strong against the Second than against the First; and that
Schleiermacher, reasoning upon the objections admitted by his opponents as
conclusive against the Second, would have no difficulty in showing that his
own objections against the First were still more forcible. The long speech
assigned in the First Alkibiadês to Sokrates, about the privileges of the
Spartan and Persian kings,41 including the mention of Zoroaster, son of
Oromazes, and the Magian religion, appears to me more unusual with Plato
than anything which I find in the Second Alkibiadês. It is more
Xenophontic42 than Platonic.

40 Socher, Ueber Platon’s Schriften, p. 112. Stallbaum, Prolegg. to Alkib.
i. and ii. vol. v. pp. 171-304. K. F. Hermann, Gesch. und Syst. der Platon.
Philos. p. 420-439. Steinhart, Einleitungen to Alkib. i. and ii. in
Hieronymus Müller’s Uebersetzung des Platon’s Werke, vol. i. pp. 135-509.

41 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 121-124.

Whoever reads the objections in Steinhart’s Einleitung (p. 148-150)
against the First Alkibiadês, will see that they are quite as forcible as what
he urges against the Second; only, that in the case of the First, he gives
these objections their legitimate bearing, allowing them to tell against the
merit of the dialogue, but not against its authenticity.

42 See Xenoph. Œkonom. c. 4; Cyropæd. vii. 5, 58-64, viii. 1, 5-8-45;
Laced. Repub. c. 15.

The supposed grounds for
But I must here repeat, that because I find,
disallowance are in reality only
in this or any other dialogue, some
marks of inferiority.
peculiarities not usual with Plato, I do not feel
warranted thereby in declaring the dialogue
spurious. In my judgment, we must look for a large measure of diversity in

the various dialogues; and I think it an injudicious novelty, introduced by
Schleiermacher, to set up a canonical type of Platonism, all deviations from
which are to be rejected as forgeries. Both the First and the Second
Alkibiadês appear to me genuine, even upon the showing of those very
critics who disallow them. Schleiermacher, Stallbaum, and Steinhart, all
admit that there is in both the dialogues a considerable proportion of
Sokratic and Platonic ideas: but they maintain that there are also other ideas
which are not Sokratic or Platonic, and that the texture, style, and prolixity
of the Second Alkibiadês (Schleiermacher maintains this about the First
also) are unworthy of Plato. But if we grant these premisses, the reasonable
inference would be, not to disallow it altogether, but to admit it as a work
by Plato, of inferior merit; perhaps of earlier days, before his powers of
composition had attained their maturity. To presume that because Plato
composed many excellent dialogues, therefore all that he composed must
have been excellent, is a pretension formally disclaimed by many critics,
and asserted by none.43 Steinhart himself allows that the Second Alkibiadês,
though not composed by Plato, is the work of some other author
contemporary, an untrained Sokratic disciple attempting to imitate Plato.44
But we do not know that there were any contemporaries who tried to imitate
Plato: though Theopompus accused him of imitating others, and called most
of his dialogues useless as well as false: while Plato himself, in his inferior
works, will naturally appear like an imitator of his better self.

43 Stallbaum (Prolegg. ad Alcib. i. p. 186) makes this general statement
very justly, but he as well as other critics are apt to forget it in particular
cases.

44 Steinhart, Einleitung, p. 516-519. Stallbaum and Boeckh indeed assign
the dialogue to a later period. Heindorf (ad Lysin, p. 211) thinks it the work
“antiqui auctoris, sed non Platonis”.

Steinhart and others who disallow the authenticity of the Second
Alkibiadês insist much (p. 518) upon the enormity of the chronological
blunder, whereby Sokrates and Alkibiadês are introduced as talking about
the death of Archelaus king of Macedonia, who was killed in 399 B.C., in the
same year as Sokrates, and four years after Alkibiades. Such an
anachronism (Steinhart urges) Plato could never allow himself to commit.
But when we read the Symposion, we find Aristophanes in a company of
which Sokrates, Alkibiades, and Agathon form a part, alluding to the
διοίκισις of Mantineia, which took place in 386 B.C. No one has ever made
this glaring anachronism a ground for disallowing the Symposion. Steinhart
says that the style of the Second Alkibiadês copies Plato too closely (die
ängstlich platonisirende Sprache des Dialogs, p. 515), yet he agrees with
Stallbaum that in several places it departs too widely from Plato.

The two dialogues may probably
I agree with Schleiermacher and the other
be among Plato’s earlier
recent critics in considering the First and
compositions.
Second Alkibiadês to be inferior in merit to
Plato’s best dialogues; and I contend that their
own premisses justify no more. They may probably be among his earlier
productions, though I do not believe that the First Alkibiadês was composed
during the lifetime of Sokrates, as Socher, Steinhart, and Stallbaum
endeavour to show.45 I have already given my reasons, in a previous
chapter, for believing that Plato composed no dialogues at all during the
lifetime of Sokrates; still less in that of Alkibiadês, who died four years
earlier. There is certainly nothing in either Alkibiadês I. or II. to shake this
belief.

45 Stallbaum refers the composition of Alkib. i. to a time not long before
the accusation of Sokrates, when the enemies of Sokrates were
calumniating him in consequence of his past intimacy with Alkibiades (who
had before that time been killed in 404 B.C.) and when Plato was anxious to

defend his master (Prolegg. p. 186). Socher and Steinhart (p. 210) remark
that such writings would do little good to Sokrates under his accusation.
They place the composition of the dialogue earlier, in 406 B.C. (Steinhart, p.
151-152), and they consider it the first exercise of Plato in the strict
dialectic method. Both Steinhart and Hermann (Gesch. Plat. Phil. p. 440)
think that the dialogue has not only a speculative but a political purpose; to
warn and amend Alkibiades, and to prevent him from surrendering himself
blindly to the democracy.

I cannot admit the hypothesis that the dialogue was written in 406 B.C.
(when Plato was twenty-one years of age, at most twenty-two), nor that it
had any intended bearing upon the real historical Alkibiades, who left
Athens in 415 B.C. at the head of the armament against Syracuse, was
banished three months afterwards, and never came back to Athens until
May 407 B.C. (Xenoph. Hellen. i. 4, 13; i. 5, 17). He then enjoyed four
months of great ascendancy at Athens, left it at the head of the fleet to Asia
in Oct. 407 B.C., remained in command of the fleet for about three months or
so, then fell into disgrace and retired to Chersonese, never revisiting
Athens. In 406 B.C. Alkibiades was again in banishment, out of the reach of
all such warnings as Hermann and Steinhart suppose that Plato intended to
address to him in Alkib. i.

Steinhart says (p. 152), “In dieser Zeit also, wenige Jahre nach seiner
triumphirenden Rückkehr, wo Alkibiades,” &c. Now Alkibiades left the
Athenian service, irrevocably, within less than one year after his triumphant
return.

Steinhart has not realised in his mind the historical and chronological
conditions of the period.

If we compare various colloquies of Sokrates in the Xenophontic
Memorabilia, we shall find Alkibiadês I. and II. very analogous to them

Analogy with various dialogues
both in purpose and spirit. In Alkibiadês I. the
in the Xenophontic Memorabilia
situation conceived is the same as that of
— Purpose of Sokrates to
Sokrates and Glaukon, in the third book of the
humble presumptuous young
Memorabilia. Xenophon recounts how the
men.
presumptuous Glaukon, hardly twenty years of
age, fancied himself already fit to play a
conspicuous part in public affairs, and tried to force himself, in spite of
rebuffs and humiliations, upon the notice of the assembly.46 No
remonstrances of friends could deter him, nor could anything, except the
ingenious dialectic of Sokrates, convince him of his own impertinent
forwardness and exaggerated self-estimation. Probably Plato (Glaukon’s
elder brother) had heard of this conversation, but whether the fact be so or
not, we see the same situation idealised by him in Alkibiadês I., and worked
out in a way of his own. Again, we find in the Xenophontic Memorabilia
another colloquy, wherein Sokrates cross-questions, perplexes, and
humiliates, the studious youth Euthydemus,47 whom he regards as over-
confident in his persuasions and too well satisfied with himself. It was
among the specialties of Sokrates to humiliate confident young men, with a
view to their future improvement. He made his conversation “an instrument
of chastisement,” in the language of Xenophon: or (to use a phrase of Plato
himself in the Lysis) he conceived. “that the proper way of talking to youth
whom you love, was, not to exalt and puff them up, but to subdue and
humiliate them”.48

46 Xenoph. Memor. iii. 6.

47 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2.

48 Xenoph. Mem. i. 4, 1. σκεψάμενοι μὴ μόνον ἃ ἐκεῖνος (Sokrates)
κ ο λ α σ τ η ρ ί ο υ ἕ ν ε κ α τούς πάντ’ οἰομένους εἰδέναι ἐρωτῶν ἤλεγχεν,
ἀλλὰ καὶ ἃ λέγων συνημέρευε τοῖς συνδιατρίβουσιν, &c. So in the Platonic
Lysis, the youthful Lysis says to Sokrates “Talk to Menexenus, ἵν’ αὐτὸν

κολάσῃς” (Plat. Lysis, 211 B). And Sokrates himself says, a few lines
before (210 E), Οὕτω χρὴ τοῖς παιδικοῖς διαλέγεσθαι, ταπεινοῦντα καὶ
συστέλλοντα, καὶ μὴ ὥσπερ σὺ χαυνοῦντα καὶ διαθρύπτοντα.

Fitness of the name and
If Plato wished to idealise this feature in the
character of Alkibiades for
character of Sokrates, no name could be more
idealising this feature in
suitable to his purpose than that of Alkibiades:
Sokrates.
who, having possessed as a youth the greatest
personal beauty (to which Sokrates was
exquisitely sensible) had become in his mature life distinguished not less
for unprincipled ambition and insolence, than for energy and ability. We
know the real Alkibiadês both from Thucydides and Xenophon, and we also
know that Alkibiades had in his youth so far frequented the society of
Sokrates as to catch some of that dialectic ingenuity, which the latter was
expected and believed to impart.49 The contrast, as well as the
companionship, between Sokrates and Alkibiades was eminently suggestive
to the writers of Sokratic dialogues, and nearly all of them made use of it,
composing dialogues in which Alkibiades was the principal name and
figure.50 It would be surprising indeed if Plato had never done the same:
which is what we must suppose, if we adopt Schleiermacher’s view, that
both Alkibiadês I. and II. are spurious. In the Protagoras as well as in the
Symposion, Alkibiades figures; but in neither of them is he the principal
person, or titular hero, of the piece. In Alkibiadês I. and II., he is introduced
as the solitary respondent to the questions of Sokrates — κολαστηρίου
ἕνεκα: to receive from Sokrates a lesson of humiliation such as the
Xenophontic Sokrates administers to Glaukon and Euthydemus, taking care
to address the latter when alone.51

49 The sensibility of Sokrates to youthful beauty is as strongly declared in
the Xenophontic Memorabilia (i. 3, 8-14), as in the Platonic Lysis,
Charmidês, or Symposion.

The conversation reported by Xenophon between Alkibiades, when not
yet twenty years of age, and his guardian Perikles, the first man in Athens
— wherein Alkibiades puzzles Perikles by a Sokratic cross-examination —
is likely enough to be real, and was probably the fruit of his sustained
society with Sokrates (Xen. Memor. i. 2, 40).

50 Stallbaum observes (Prolegg. ad Alcib. i. p. 215, 2nd ed.), “Ceterum
etiam Æschines, Euclides, Phædon, et Antisthenes, dialogos Alcibiadis
nomine inscriptos composuisse narrantur”.

Respecting the dialogues composed by Æschines, see the first note to this
chapter.

51 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2, 8.

Plato’s manner of replying to
I conceive Alkibiadês I. and II. as composed
the accusers of Sokrates.
by Plato among his earlier writings (perhaps
Magical influence ascribed to
between 399-390 B.C.)52 giving an imaginary
picture of the way in which “Sokrates handled
the conversation of Sokrates.
every respondent just as he chose” (to use the
literal phrase of Xenophon53): taming even that most overbearing youth,
whom Aristophanes characterises as the lion’s whelp.54 In selecting
Alkibiades as the sufferer under such a chastising process, Plato rebuts in
his own ideal style that charge which Xenophon answers with prosaic
directness — the charge made against Sokrates by his enemies, that he
taught political craft without teaching ethical sobriety; and that he had
encouraged by his training the lawless propensities of Alkibiades.55 When
Schleiermacher, and others who disallow the dialogue, argue that the
inordinate insolence ascribed to Alkibiades, and the submissive deference
towards Sokrates also ascribed to him, are incongruous and incompatible
attributes, — I reply that such a conjunction is very improbable in any real
character. But this does not hinder Plato from combining them in one and

the same ideal character, as we shall farther see when we come to the
manifestation of Alkibiades in the Symposion: in which dialogue we find a
combination of the same elements, still more extravagant and high-
coloured. Both here and there we are made to see that Sokrates, far from
encouraging Alkibiades, is the only person who ever succeeded in humbling
him. Plato attributes to the personality and conversation of Sokrates an
influence magical and almost superhuman: which Cicero and Plutarch,
proceeding probably upon the evidence of the Platonic dialogues, describe
as if it were historical fact. They represent Alkibiades as shedding tears of
sorrow and shame, and entreating Sokrates to rescue him from a sense of
degradation insupportably painful.56 Now Xenophon mentions Euthydemus
and other young men as having really experienced these profound and
distressing emotions.57 But he does not at all certify the same about
Alkibiades, whose historical career is altogether adverse to the hypothesis.
The Platonic picture is an idéal, drawn from what may have been actually
true about other interlocutors of Sokrates, and calculated to reply to Melêtus
and his allies.

52 The date which I here suppose for the composition of Alkib. i. (i.e. after
the death of Sokrates, but early in the literary career of Plato), is farther
sustained (against those critics who place it in 406 B.C. or 402 B.C. before the
death of Sokrates) by the long discourse (p. 121-124) of Sokrates about the
Persian and Spartan kings. In reference to the Persian monarchy Sokrates
says (p. 123 B), ἐπεί ποτ’ ἐγὼ ἥκουσα ἀνδρὸς ἀξιοπίστου τῶν
ἀναβεβηκότων παρὰ βασιλέα, ὃς ἔφη παρελθεῖν χώραν πάνυ πολλὴν καὶ
ἀγαθήν — ἣν καλεῖν τοὺς ἐπιχωρίους ζώνην τῆς βασιλέως γυναικός, &c.
Olympiodorus and the Scholiast both suppose that Plato here refers to
Xenophon and the Anabasis, in which a statement very like this is found (i.
4, 9). It is plain, therefore, that they did not consider the dialogue to have
been composed before the death of Sokrates. I think it very probable that
Plato had in his mind Xenophon (either his Anabasis, or personal

communications with him); but at any rate visits of Greeks to the Persian
court became very numerous between 399-390 B.C., whereas Plato can
hardly have seen any such visitors at Athens in 406 B.C. (before the close of
the war), nor probably in 402 B.C., when Athens, though relieved from the
oligarchy, was still in a state of great public prostration. Between 399 B.C.
and the peace of Antalkidas (387 B.C.), visitors from Greece to the interior
of Persia became more and more frequent, the Persian kings interfering
very actively in Grecian politics. Plato may easily have seen during these
years intelligent Greeks who had been up to the Persian court on military or
political business. Both the Persian kings and the Spartan kings were then in
the maximum of power and ascendancy — it is no wonder therefore that
Sokrates should here be made to dwell upon their prodigious dignity in his
discourse with Alkibiades. Steinhart (Einl. p. 150) feels the difficulty of
reconciling this part of the dialogue with his hypothesis that it was
composed in 406 B.C.: yet he and Stallbaum both insist that it must have
been composed before the death of Sokrates, for which they really produce
no grounds at all.

53 Xen. Mem. i. 2, 14. τοῖς δὲ διαλεγομένοις αὐτῷ πᾶσι χρώμενον ἐν τοῖς
λόγοις ὅπως βούλοιτο.

54 Aristoph. Ran. 1431. οὐ χρὴ λέοντος σκύμνον ἐν πόλει τρέφειν.
Thucyd. vi. 15. φοβηθέντες γὰρ αὐτοῦ (Alkib.) οἱ πολλοὶ τὸ μέγεθος τῆς τε
κατὰ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σῶμα παρανομίας ἐς τὴν δίαιταν, καὶ τῆς διανοίας ὧν καθ’
ἓν ἕκαστον, ἐν ὅτῳ γίγνοιτο, ἔπρασσεν, ὡς τυραννίδος ἐπιθυμοῦντι
πολέμιοι καθέστασαν, &c.

55 Xenoph. Memorab. i. 2, 17.

56 Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iii. 32, 77; Plutarch, Alkib. c. 4-6. Compare Plato,
Alkib. i. p. 127 D, 135 C; Symposion, p. 215-216.

57 Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2, 39-40.

The purpose proclaimed by
Looking at Alkibiadês I. and II. in this point
Sokrates in the Apology is
of view, we shall find them perfectly Sokratic
followed out in Alkib. I. Warfare
both in topics proclaimed and in manner —
against the false persuasion of
whatever may be said about unnecessary
knowledge.
prolixity and common-place here and there.
The leading ideas of Alkibiadês I. may be
found, nearly all, in the Platonic Apology. That warfare, which Sokrates
proclaims in the Apology as having been the mission of his life, against the
false persuasion of knowledge, or against beliefs ethical and æsthetical,
firmly entertained without having been preceded by conscious study or
subjected to serious examination — is exemplified in Alkibiadês I. and II.
as emphatically as in any Platonic composition. In both these dialogues,
indeed (especially in the first), we find an excessive repetition of
specialising illustrations, often needless and sometimes tiresome: a defect
easily intelligible if we assume them to have been written when Plato was
still a novice in the art of dialogic composition. But both dialogues are fully
impregnated with the spirit of the Sokratic process, exposing, though with
exuberant prolixity, the firm and universal belief, held and affirmed by
every one even at the age of boyhood, without any assignable grounds or
modes of acquisition, and amidst angry discordance between the affirmation
of one man and another. The emphasis too with which Sokrates insists upon
his own single function of merely questioning, and upon the fact that
Alkibiades gives all the answers and pronounces all the self-condemnation
with his own mouth58 — is remarkable in this dialogue: as well as the
confidence with which he proclaims the dialogue as affording the only, but
effective, cure.59 The ignorance of which Alkibiades stands unexpectedly
convicted, is expressly declared to be common to him with the other
Athenian politicians: an exception being half allowed to pass in favour of
the semi-philosophical Perikles, whom Plato judges here with less severity

than elsewhere60 — and a decided superiority being claimed for the Spartan
and Persian kings, who are extolled as systematically trained from
childhood.

58 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 112-113.

59 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 127 E.

60 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 118-120.

Difficulties multiplied for the
The main purpose of Sokrates is to drive
purpose of bringing Alkibiades
Alkibiades into self-contradictions, and to
to a conviction of his own
force upon him a painful consciousness of
ignorance.
ignorance and mental defect, upon grave and
important subjects, while he is yet young
enough to amend it. Towards this purpose he is made to lay claim to a
divine mission similar to that which the real Sokrates announces in the
Apology61 A number of perplexing questions and difficulties are
accumulated: it is not meant that these difficulties are insoluble, but that
they cannot be solved by one who has never seriously reflected on them —
by one who (as the Xenophontic Sokrates says to Euthydemus),62 is so
confident of knowing the subject that he has never meditated upon it at all.
The disheartened Alkibiades feels the necessity of improving himself and
supplicates the assistance of Sokrates:63 who reminds him that he must first
determine what “Himself” is. Here again we find ourselves upon the track
of Sokrates in the Platonic Apology, and under the influence of the
memorable inscription at Delphi — Nosce teipsum. Your mind is yourself;
your body is a mere instrument of your mind: your wealth and power are
simple appurtenances or adjuncts. To know yourself, which is genuine
Sophrosynê or temperance, is to know your mind: but this can only be done
by looking into another mind, and into its most intelligent compartment:

just as the eye can only see itself by looking into the centre of vision of
another eye.64

61 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 124 C-127 E.

62 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2, 36. Ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μέν, ἔφη ὁ Σωκράτης, ἴσως, διὰ τὸ
σφόδρα ποστεύειν εἰδέναι, οὐδ’ ἔσκεψαι.

63 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 128-132 A.

64 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 133.

A Platonic metaphor, illustrating the necessity for two separate minds co-
operating in dialectic colloquy.

Sokrates furnishes no means of
At the same time, when, after having
solving these difficulties. He
convicted Alkibiades of deplorable ignorance,
exhorts to Justice and Virtue —
Sokrates is called upon to prescribe remedies
but these are acknowledged
— all distinctness of indication disappears. It
Incognita.
is exacted only when the purpose is to bring
difficulties and contradictions to view: it is
dispensed with, when the purpose is to solve them. The conclusion is, that
assuming happiness as the acknowledged ultimate end,65 Alkibiades cannot
secure this either for himself or for his city, by striving for wealth and
power, private or public: he can only secure it by acquiring for himself, and
implanting in his country-men, justice, temperance, and virtue. This is
perfectly Sokratic, and conformable to what is said by the real Sokrates in
the Platonic Apology. But coming at the close of Alkibiadês I., it presents
no meaning and imparts no instruction: because Sokrates had shown in the
earlier part of the dialogue, that neither he himself, nor Alkibiades, nor the
general public, knew what justice and virtue were. The positive solution
which Sokrates professes to give, is therefore illusory. He throws us back
upon those old, familiar, emotional, associations, unconscious products and

unexamined transmissions from mind to mind — which he had already
shown to represent the fancy of knowledge without the reality — deep-
seated belief without any assignable intellectual basis, or outward standard
of rectitude.

65 Plat. Alkibiad. i. p. 134.

Prolixity of Alkibiadês I. —
Throughout the various Platonic dialogues,
Extreme multiplication of
we find alternately two distinct and opposite
illustrative examples — How
methods of handling — the generalising of the
explained.
special, and the specialising of the general. In
Alkibiadês I, the specialising of the general
preponderates — as it does in most of the conversations of the Xenophontic
Memorabilia: the number of exemplifying particulars is unusually great.
Sokrates does not accept as an answer a general term, without illustrating it
by several of the specific terms comprehended under it: and this several
times on occasions when an instructed reader thinks it superfluous and
tiresome: hence, partly, the inclination of some modern critics to disallow
the dialogue. But we must recollect that though a modern reader practised
in the use of general terms may seize the meaning at once, an Athenian
youth of the Platonic age would not be sure of doing the same. No
conscious analysis had yet been applied to general terms: no grammar or
logic then entered into education. Confident affirmation, without fully
knowing the meaning of what is affirmed, is the besetting sin against which
Plato here makes war: and his precautions for exposing it are pushed to
extreme minuteness. So, too, in the Sophistês and Politikus, when he wishes
to illustrate the process of logical division and subdivision, he applies it to
cases so trifling and so multiplied, that Socher is revolted and rejects the
dialogues altogether. But Plato himself foresees and replies to the objection;
declaring expressly that his main purpose is, not to expound the particular
subject chosen, but to make manifest and familiar the steps and conditions

of the general classifying process — and that prolixity cannot be avoided.66
We must reckon upon a similar purpose in Alkibiadês I. The dialogue is a
specimen of that which Aristotle calls Inductive Dialectic, as distinguished
from Syllogistic: the Inductive he considers to be plainer and easier,
suitable when you have an ordinary collocutor — the Syllogistic is the more
cogent, when you are dealing with a practised disputant.67

66 Plato, Politikus, 285-286.

67 Aristotel. Topic. i. 104, a. 16. Πόσα τῶν λόγων εἴδη τῶν διαλεκτικῶν
— ἔστι δὲ τὸ μὲν ἐπαγωγή, τὸ δὲ συλλογισμός… ἔστι δ’ ἡ μὲν ἐπαγωγὴ
πιθανώτερον καὶ σαφέστερον καὶ κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν γνωριμώτερον καὶ τοῖς
πολλοῖς κοινόν· ὁ δὲ συλλογισμὸς βιαστικώτερον καὶ πρὸς τοὺς
ἀντιλογικοὺς ἐνεργέστερον.

It has been seen that Alkibiadês I, though
Alkibiadês II. leaves its problem
avowedly undetermined.
professing to give something like a solution,
gives what is really no solution at all.
Alkibiadês II., similar in many respects, is here different, inasmuch as it
does not even profess to solve the difficulty which had been raised. The
general mental defect — false persuasion of knowledge without the reality
— is presented in its application to a particular case. Alkibiades is obliged
to admit that he does not know what he ought to pray to the Gods for:
neither what is good, to be granted, nor what is evil, to be averted. He relies
upon Sokrates for dispelling this mist from his mind: which Sokrates
promises to do, but adjourns for another occasion.

Sokrates commends the practice
Sokrates here ascribes to the Spartans, and
of praying to the Gods for
to various philosophers, the practice of putting
favours undefined — his views
up prayers in undefined language, for good
about the semi-regular, semi-
and honourable things generally. He
irregular agency of the Gods —
commends that practice. Xenophon tells us

he prays to them for that the historical Sokrates observed it:68 but
premonitory warnings. he tells us also that the historical Sokrates,
though not praying for any special presents
from the Gods, yet prayed for and believed himself to receive special
irregular revelations and advice as to what was good to be done or avoided
in particular cases. He held that these special revelations were essential to
any tolerable life: that the dispensations of the Gods, though administered
upon regular principles on certain subjects and up to a certain point, were
kept by them designedly inscrutable beyond that point: but that the Gods
would, if properly solicited, afford premonitory warnings to any favoured
person, such as would enable him to keep out of the way of evil, and put
himself in the way of good. He declared that to consult and obey oracles
and prophets was not less a maxim of prudence than a duty of piety: for
himself, he was farther privileged through his divine sign or monitor, which
he implicitly followed.69 Such premonitory warnings were the only special
favour which he thought it suitable to pray for — besides good things
generally. For special presents he did not pray, because he professed not to
know whether any of the ordinary objects of desire were good or bad. He
proves in his conversation with Euthydêmus, that all those acquisitions
which are usually accounted means of happiness — beauty, strength,
wealth, reputation, nay, even good health and wisdom — are sometimes
good or causes of happiness, sometimes evil or causes of misery; and
therefore cannot be considered either as absolutely the one or absolutely the
other.70

68 Xenoph. Mem. i. 3, 2; Plat. Alk. ii. p. 143-148.

69 These opinions of Sokrates are announced in various passages of the
Xenophontic Memorabilia, i. 1, 1-10 — ἔφη δὲ δεῖν, ἃ μὲν μαθόντας ποιεῖν
ἔδωκαν οἱ θεοί, μανθάνειν· ἃ δὲ μὴ δῆλα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐστί, πειρᾶσθαι

διὰ μαντικῆς παρὰ τῶν θεῶν πυνθάνεσθαι· τοὺς θεοὺς γάρ, οἷς ἂν ὦσιν
ἵλεῳ, σημαίνειν — i. 3, 4; i. 4, 2-15; iv. 3, 12; iv. 7, 10; iv. 8, 5-11.

70 Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2, 31-32-36. Ταῦτα οὖν ποτὲ μὲν ὠφελοῦντα ποτὲ
δὲ βλάπτοντα, τί μᾶλλον ἀγαθὰ ἢ κακά ἐστιν;

Comparison of Alkibiadês II.
This impossibility of determining what is
with the Xenophontic
good and what is evil, in consequence of the
Memorabilia, especially the
uncertainty in the dispensations of the Gods
conversation of Sokrates with
and in human affairs — is a doctrine forcibly
Euthydemus. Sokrates not
insisted on by the Xenophontic Sokrates in his
always consistent with himself.
discourse with Euthydêmus, and much akin to
the Platonic Alkibiadês II., being applied to
the special case of prayer. But we must not suppose that Sokrates adheres to
this doctrine throughout all the colloquies of the Xenophontic Memorabilia:
on the contrary, we find him, in other places, reasoning upon such matters,
as health, strength, and wisdom, as if they were decidedly good.71 The fact
is, that the arguments of Sokrates, in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, vary
materially according to the occasion and the person with whom he is
discoursing: and the case is similar with the Platonic dialogues: illustrating
farther the questionable evidence on which Schleiermacher and other critics
proceed, when they declare one dialogue to be spurious, because it contains
reasoning inconsistent with another.

71 For example, Xen. Mem. iv. 5, 6 — σοφίαν τὸ μέγιστον ἀγαθόν, &c.

We find in Alkibiadês II. another doctrine which is also proclaimed by
Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia: that the Gods are not moved by
costly sacrifice more than by humble sacrifice, according to the
circumstances of the offerer:72 they attend only to the mind of the offerer,
whether he be just and wise: that is, “whether he knows what ought to be
done both towards Gods and towards men”.73

72 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 149-150; Xen. Mem. i. 3. Compare Plato, Legg. x. p.
885; Isokrat. ad Nikok.

73 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 149 E, 150 B.

Remarkable doctrine of
But we find also in Alkibiadês II. another
Alkibiadês II. — that knowledge
doctrine, more remarkable. Sokrates will not
is not always Good. The
proclaim absolutely that knowledge is good,
knowledge of Good itself is
and that ignorance is evil. In some cases, he
indispensable: without that, the
contends, ignorance is good; and he
knowledge of other things is
discriminates which the cases are. That which
more hurtful than beneficial.
we are principally interested in knowing, is
Good, or The Best — The Profitable:74
phrases used as equivalent. The knowledge of this is good, and the
ignorance of it mischievous, under all supposable circumstances. And if a
man knows good, the more he knows of everything else, the better; since he
will sure to make a good use of his knowledge. But if he does not know
good, the knowledge of other things will be hurtful rather than beneficial to
him. To be skilful in particular arts and accomplishments, under the capital
mental deficiency supposed, will render him an instrument of evil and not
of good. The more he knows — and the more he believes himself to know
— the more forward will he be in acting, and therefore the greater amount
of harm will he do. It is better that he should act as little as possible. Such a
man is not fit to direct his own conduct, like a freeman: he must be directed
and controlled by others, like a slave. The greater number of mankind are
fools of this description — ignorant of good: the wise men who know good,
and are fit to direct, are very few. The wise man alone, knowing good,
follows reason: the rest trust to opinion, without reason.75 He alone is
competent to direct both his own conduct and that of the society.

74 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 145 C. Ὅστις ἄρα τι τῶν τοιούτων οἶδεν, ἐὰν μὲν
παρέπηται αὐτῷ ἡ τοῦ βελτίστου ἐπιστήμη — αὐτὴ δ’ ἦν ἡ αὐτὴ δήπου

ἡπερ καὶ ἡ τοῦ ὠφελίμου — also 146 B.

75 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 146 A-D. ἄνευ νοῦ δόξῃ πεπιστευκότας.

The stress which is laid here upon the knowledge of good, as
distinguished from all other varieties of knowledge — the identification of
the good with the profitable, and of the knowledge of good with reason
(νοῦς), while other varieties of knowledge are ranked with opinion (δόξα)
— these are points which, under one phraseology or another, pervade many
of the Platonic dialogues. The old phrase of Herakleitus — Πολυμαθίη νόον
οὐ διδάσκει — “much learning does not teach reason” — seems to have
been present to the mind of Plato in composing this dialogue. The man of
much learning and art, without the knowledge of good, and surrendering
himself to the guidance of one or other among his accomplishments, is like
a vessel tossed about at sea without a pilot.76

76 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 147 A. ὁ δὲ δὴ τὴν καλουμένην πολυμάθειάν τε καὶ
πολυτεχνίαν κεκτημένος, ὀρφανὸς δὲ ὢν ταύτης τῆς ἐπιστήμης, ἀγόμενος
δὲ ὑπὸ μιᾶς ἑκάστης τῶν ἄλλων, &c.

Knowledge of Good — appears
What Plato here calls the knowledge of
postulated and divined, in many
Good, or Reason — the just discrimination
of the Platonic dialogues, under
and comparative appreciation of Ends and
different titles.
Means — appears in the Politikus and
Euthydêmus, under the title of the Regal or
Political Art, of employing or directing77 the results of all other arts, which
are considered as subordinate: in the Protagoras, under the title of art of
calculation or mensuration: in the Philêbus, as measure and proportion: in
the Phædrus (in regard to rhetoric) as the art of turning to account, for the
main purpose of persuasion, all the special processes, stratagems,
decorations, &c., imparted by professional masters. In the Republic, it is
personified in the few venerable Elders who constitute the Reason of the

society, and whose directions all the rest (Guardians and Producers) are
bound implicitly to follow: the virtue of the subordinates consisting in this
implicit obedience. In the Leges, it is defined as the complete subjection in
the mind, of pleasures and pains to right Reason,78 without which, no
special aptitudes are worth having. In the Xenophontic Memorabilia, it
stands as a Sokratic authority under the title of Sophrosynê or
Temperance:79 and the Profitable is declared identical with the Good, as the
directing and limiting principle for all human pursuits and proceedings.80

77 Plato, Politikus, 292 B, 304 B, 305 A; Euthydêmus, 291 B, 292 B.
Compare Xenophon, Œkonomicus, i. 8, 13.

78 Leges, iii. 689 A-D, 691 A.

79 Xenoph. Memor. i. 2. 17; iv. 3. 1.

80 Xenoph. Memor. iv. 6, 8; iv. 7, 7.

The Good — the Profitable —
But what are we to understand by the Good,
what is it? — How are we to
about which there are so many disputes,
know it? Plato leaves this
according to the acknowledgment of Plato as
undetermined.
well as of Sokrates? And what are we to
understand by the Profitable? In what relation
does it stand to the Pleasurable and the Painful?

These are points which Plato here leaves undetermined. We shall find
him again touching them, and trying different ways of determining them, in
the Protagoras, the Gorgias, the Republic, and elsewhere. We have here the
title and the postulate, but nothing more, of a comprehensive Teleology, or
right comparative estimate of ends and means one against another, so as to

decide when, how far, under what circumstances, &c., each ought to be
pursued. We shall see what Plato does in other dialogues to connect this title
and postulate with a more definite meaning.

CHAPTER XIII.

HIPPIAS MAJOR — HIPPIAS MINOR.

Hippias Major — situation
Both these two dialogues are carried on
supposed — character of the
between Sokrates and the Eleian Sophist
dialogue. Sarcasm and mockery
Hippias. The general conception of Hippias —
against Hippias.
described as accomplished, eloquent, and
successful, yet made to say vain and silly
things — is the same in both dialogues: in both also the polemics of
Sokrates against him are conducted in a like spirit, of affected deference
mingled with insulting sarcasm. Indeed the figure assigned to Hippias is so
contemptible, that even an admiring critic like Stallbaum cannot avoid
noticing the “petulans pene et proterva in Hippiam oratio,” and intimating
that Plato has handled Hippias more coarsely than any one else. Such
petulance Stallbaum attempts to excuse by saying that the dialogue is a
youthful composition of Plato:1 while Schleiermacher numbers it among the
reasons for suspecting the dialogue, and Ast, among the reasons for
declaring positively that Plato is not the author.2 This last conclusion I do
not at all accept: nor even the hypothesis of Stallbaum, if it be tendered as
an excuse for improprieties of tone: for I believe that the earliest of Plato’s
dialogues was composed after he was twenty-eight years of age — that is,
after the death of Sokrates. It is however noway improbable, that both the
Greater and Lesser Hippias may have been among Plato’s earlier
compositions. We see by the Memorabilia of Xenophon that there was
repeated and acrimonious controversy between Sokrates and Hippias: so
that we may probably suppose feelings of special dislike, determining Plato
to compose two distinct dialogues, in which an imaginary Hippias is
mocked and scourged by an imaginary Sokrates.

1 Stallbaum, Prolegg. in Hipp. Maj. p. 149-150; also Steinhart (Einleitung,
p. 42-43), who says, after an outpouring of his usual invective against the
Sophist: “Nevertheless the coarse jesting of the dialogue seems almost to
exceed the admissible limit of comic effect,” &c. Again, p. 50, Steinhart
talks of the banter which Sokrates carries on with Hippias, in a way not less
cruel (grausam) than purposeless, tormenting him with a string of
successive new propositions about the definition of the Beautiful, which
propositions, as fast as Hippias catches at them, he again withdraws of his
own accord, and thus at last dismisses him (as he had dismissed Ion)
uninstructed and unimproved, without even leaving behind in him the sting
of anger, &c.

It requires a powerful hatred against the persons called Sophists, to make
a critic take pleasure in a comedy wherein silly and ridiculous speeches are
fastened upon the name of one of them, in his own day not merely honoured
but acknowledged as deserving honour by remarkable and varied
accomplishments — and to make the critic describe the historical Hippias
(whom we only know from Plato and Xenophon — see Steinhart, note 7, p.
89; Socher, p. 221) as if he had really delivered these speeches, or
something equally absurd.

How this comedy may be appreciated is doubtless a matter of individual
taste. For my part, I agree with Ast in thinking it misplaced and
unbecoming: and I am not surprised that he wishes to remove the dialogue
from the Platonic canon, though I do not concur either in this inference, or
in the general principle on which it proceeds, viz., that all objections against
the composition of a dialogue are to be held as being also objections against
its genuineness as a work of Plato. The Nubes of Aristophanes, greatly
superior as a comedy to the Hippias of Plato, is turned to an abusive
purpose when critics put it into court as evidence about the character of the
real Sokrates.

K. F. Hermann, in my judgment, takes a more rational view of the
Hippias Major (Gesch. und Syst. der Plat. Phil. p. 487-647). Instead of
expatiating on the glory of Plato in deriding an accomplished contemporary,
he dwells upon the logical mistakes and confusion which the dialogue
brings to view; and he reminds us justly of the intellectual condition of the
age, when even elementary distinctions in logic and grammar had been
scarcely attended to.

Both K. F. Hermann and Socher consider the Hippias to be not a juvenile
production of Plato, but to belong to his middle age.

2 Schleierm. Einleitung. p. 401; Ast, Platon’s Leben und Schriften, p. 457-
459.

Real debate between the
One considerable point in the Hippias Major
historical Sokrates and Hippias
appears to have a bearing on the debate
in the Xenophontic Memorabilia
between Sokrates and Hippias in the
— subject of that debate.
Xenophontic Memorabilia: in which debate,
Hippias taunts Sokrates with always
combating and deriding the opinions of others, while evading to give
opinions of his own. It appears that some antecedent debates between the
two had turned upon the definition of the Just, and that on these occasions
Hippias had been the respondent, Sokrates the objector. Hippias professes
to have reflected upon these debates, and to be now prepared with a
definition which neither Sokrates nor any one else can successfully assail,
but he will not say what the definition is, until Sokrates has laid down one
of his own. In reply to this challenge, Sokrates declares the Just to be
equivalent to the Lawful or Customary: he defends this against various
objections of Hippias, who concludes by admitting it.3 Probably this debate,
as reported by Xenophon, or something very like it, really took place. If so,
we remark with surprise the feebleness of the objections of Hippias, in a
case where Sokrates, if he had been the objector, would have found such

strong ones — and the feeble replies given by Sokrates, whose talent lay in
starting and enforcing difficulties, not in solving them.4 Among the remarks
which Sokrates makes in illustration to Hippias, one is — that Lykurgus had
ensured superiority to Sparta by creating in the Spartans a habit of implicit
obedience to the laws.5 Such is the character of the Xenophontic debate.

3 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 4, 12-25.

4 Compare the puzzling questions which Alkibiades when a youth is
reported to have addressed to Perikles, and which he must unquestionably
have heard from Sokrates himself, respecting the meaning of the word
Νόμος (Xen. Mem. i. 2, 42). All the difficulties in determining the
definition of Νόμος, occur also in determining that of Νόμιμον, which
includes both Jus Scriptum and Jus Moribus Receptum.

5 Xen. Mem. iv. 4, 15.

Opening of the Hippias Major
Here, in the beginning of the Hippias Major,
— Hippias describes the
the Platonic Sokrates remarks that Hippias has
successful circuit which he had
been long absent from Athens: which absence,
made through Greece, and the
the latter explains, by saying that he has
renown as well as the gain
visited many cities in Greece, giving lectures
acquired by his lectures.
with great success, and receiving high pay:
and that especially he has often visited Sparta,
partly to give lectures, but partly also to transact diplomatic business for his
countrymen the Eleians, who trusted him more than any one else for such
duties. His lectures (he says) were eminently instructive and valuable for
the training of youth: moreover they were so generally approved, that even
from a small Sicilian town called Inykus, he obtained a considerable sum in
fees.

Upon this Sokrates asks — In which of the cities were your gains the
largest: probably at Sparta? Hip. — No; I received nothing at all at Sparta.

Hippias had met with no success
Sokr. — How? You amaze me! Were not your
at Sparta. Why the Spartans did
lectures calculated to improve the Spartan
not admit his instructions —
youth? or did not the Spartans desire to have
their law forbids.
their youth improved? or had they no money?
Hip. — Neither one nor the other. The
Spartans, like others, desire the improvement of their youth: they also have
plenty of money: moreover my lectures were very beneficial to them as
well as to the rest.6 Sokr. — How could it happen then, that at Sparta, a city
great and eminent for its good laws, your valuable instructions were left
unrewarded; while you received so much at the inconsiderable town of
Inykus? Hip. — It is not the custom of the country, Sokrates, for the
Spartans to change their laws, or to educate their sons in a way different
from their ordinary routine. Sokr. — How say you? It is not the custom of
the country for the Spartans to do right, but to do wrong? Hip. — I shall not
say that, Sokrates. Sokr. — But surely they would do right, in educating
their children better and not worse? Hip. — Yes, they would do right: but it
is not lawful for them to admit a foreign mode of education. If any one
could have obtained payment there for education, I should have obtained a
great deal; for they listen to me with delight and applaud me: but, as I told
you, their law forbids.

6 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 283-284.

Question, What is law? The law-
Sokr. — Do you call law a hurt or benefit to
makers always aim at the
the city? Hip. — Law is enacted with a view
Profitable, but sometimes fail to
to benefit: but it sometimes hurts if it be badly
attain it. When they fail, they
enacted.7 Sokr. — But what? Do not the
fail to attain law. The lawful is enactors enact it as the maximum of good,
the Profitable: the Unprofitable without which the citizens cannot live a
is also unlawful. regulated life? Hip. — Certainly: they do so.
Sokr. — Therefore, when those who try to

enact laws miss the attainment of good, they also miss the lawful and law
itself. How say you? Hip. — They do so, if you speak with strict propriety:
but such is not the language which men commonly use. Sokr. — What men?
the knowing? or the ignorant? Hip. — The Many. Sokr. — The Many; is it
they who know what truth is? Hip. — Assuredly not. Sokr. — But surely
those who do know, account the profitable to be in truth more lawful than
the unprofitable, to all men. Don’t you admit this? Hip. — Yes, I admit they
account it so in truth. Sokr. — Well, and it is so, too: the truth is as the
knowing men account it. Hip. — Most certainly. Sokr. — Now you affirm,
that it is more profitable to the Spartans to be educated according to your
scheme, foreign as it is, than according to their own native scheme. Hip. —
I affirm it, and with truth too. Sokr. — You affirm besides, that things more
profitable are at the same time more lawful? Hip. — I said so. Sokr. —
According to your reasoning, then, it is more lawful for the Spartan children
to be educated by Hippias, and more unlawful for them to be educated by
their fathers — if in reality they will be more benefited by you? Hip. — But
they will be more benefited by me. Sokr. — The Spartans therefore act
unlawfully, when they refuse to give you money and to confide to you their
sons? Hip. — I admit that they do: indeed your reasoning seems to make in
my favour, so that I am noway called upon to resist it. Sokr. — We find
then, after all, that the Spartans are enemies of law, and that too in the most
important matters — though they are esteemed the most exemplary
followers of law.8

7 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 284 C-B.

8 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 285.

Comparison of the argument of
Perhaps Plato intended the above argument
the Platonic Sokrates with that
as a derisory taunt against the Sophist Hippias,
of the Xenophontic Sokrates.
for being vain enough to think his own tuition
better than that of the Spartan community. If
such was his intention, the argument might have been retorted against Plato
himself, for his propositions in the Republic and Leges: and we know that
the enemies of Plato did taunt him with his inability to get these schemes
adopted in any actual community. But the argument becomes interesting
when we compare it with the debate before referred to in the Xenophontic
Memorabilia, where Sokrates maintains against Hippias that the Just is
equivalent to the Lawful. In that Xenophontic dialogue, all the difficulties
which embarrass this explanation are kept out of sight, and Sokrates is
represented as gaining an easy victory over Hippias. In this Platonic
dialogue, the equivocal use of the word νόμιμον is expressly adverted to,
and Sokrates reduces Hippias to a supposed absurdity, by making him
pronounce the Spartans to be enemies of law: παρανομούς bearing a double
sense, and the proposition being true in one sense, false in the other. In the
argument of the Platonic Sokrates, a law which does not attain its intended
purpose of benefiting the community, is no law at all, — not lawful:9 so that
we are driven back again upon the objections of Alkibiades against Perikles
(in the Xenophontic Memorabilia) in regard to what constitutes a law. In the
argument of the Xenophontic Sokrates, law means a law actually
established, by official authority or custom — and the Spartans are

produced as eminent examples of a lawfully minded community. As far as
we can assign positive opinion to the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias
Major, he declares that the profitable or useful (being that which men
always aim at in making law) is The Lawful, whether actually established
or not: and that the unprofitable or hurtful (being that which men always
intend to escape) is The Unlawful, whether prescribed by any living
authority or not. This (he says) is the opinion of the wise men who know:
though the ignorant vulgar hold the contrary opinion. The explanation of τὸ
δίκαιον given by the Xenophontic Sokrates (τὸ δίκαιον = τὸ νόμιμον),
would be equivalent, if we construe τὸ νόμιμον in the sense of the Platonic
Sokrates (in Hippias Major) as an affirmation that The Just was the
generally useful — Τὸ δίκαιον = τὸ κοινῇ σύμφορον.

9 Compare a similar argument of Sokrates against Thrasymachus —
Republic, i. 339.

The Just or Good is the
There exists however in all this, a prevalent
beneficial or profitable. This is
confusion between Law (or the Lawful) as
the only explanation which Plato
actually established, and Law (or the Lawful)
ever gives and to this he does not
as it ought to be established, in the judgment
always adhere.
of the critic, or of those whom he follows: that
is (to use the phrase of Mr. Austin in his
‘Province of Jurisprudence’) Law as it would be, if it conformed to its
assumed measure or test. In the first of these senses, τὸ νόμιμον is not one
and the same, but variable according to place and time — one thing at
Sparta, another thing elsewhere: accordingly it would not satisfy the
demand of Plato’s mind, when he asks for an explanation of τὸ δίκαιον. It is
an explanation in the second of the two senses which Plato seeks — a
common measure or test applicable universally, at all times and places. In
so far as he ever finds one, it is that which I have mentioned above as
delivered by the Platonic Sokrates in this dialogue: viz., the Just or Good,

that which ought to be the measure or test of Law and Positive Morality, is,
the beneficial or profitable. This (I repeat) is the only approach to a solution
which we ever find in Plato. But this is seldom clearly enunciated, never
systematically followed out, and sometimes, in appearance, even denied.

Lectures of Hippias at Sparta
I resume the thread of the Hippias Major.
not upon geometry, or
Sokrates asks Hippias what sort of lectures
astronomy, &c., but upon the
they were that he delivered with so much
question — What pursuits are
success at Sparta? The Spartans (Hippias
beautiful, fine, and honourable
replies) knew nothing and cared nothing about
for youth.
letters, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy: but
they took delight in hearing tales about heroes,
early ancestors, foundation-legends of cities, &c., which his mnemonic
artifice enabled him to deliver.10 The Spartans delight in you (observes
Sokrates) as children delight in old women’s tales. Yes (replies Hippias),
but that is not all: I discoursed to them also, recently, about fine and
honourable pursuits, much to their admiration: I supposed a conversation
between Nestor and Neoptolemus, after the capture of Troy, in which the
veteran, answering a question put by his youthful companion, enlarged
upon those pursuits which it was fine, honourable, beautiful for a young
man to engage in. My discourse is excellent, and obtained from the
Spartans great applause. I am going to deliver it again here at Athens, in the
school-room of Pheidostratus, and I invite you, Sokrates, to come and hear
it, with as many friends as you can bring.11

10 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 285 E.

11 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 286 A-B.

Question put by Sokrates, in the
I shall come willingly (replied Sokrates).
name of a friend in the
But first answer me one small question, which
background, who has just been
will rescue me from a present embarrassment.
puzzling him with it — What is
Just now, I was shamefully puzzled in
the Beautiful?
conversation with a friend, to whom I had
been praising some things as honourable and
beautiful, — blaming other things as mean and ugly. He surprised me by the
interrogation — How do you know, Sokrates, what things are beautiful, and
what are ugly? Come now, can you tell me, What is the Beautiful? I, in my
stupidity, was altogether puzzled, and could not answer the question. But
after I had parted from him, I became mortified and angry with myself; and
I vowed that the next time I met any wise man, like you, I would put the
question to him, and learn how to answer it; so that I might be able to renew
the conversation with my friend. Your coming here is most opportune. I
entreat you to answer and explain to me clearly what the Beautiful is; in
order that I may not again incur the like mortification. You can easily
answer: it is a small matter for you, with your numerous attainments.

Hippias thinks the question easy
Oh — yes — a small matter (replies
to answer.
Hippias); the question is easy to answer. I
could teach you to answer many questions
harder than that: so that no man shall be able to convict you in dialogue.12

12 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 286 C-D.

Sokrates then proceeds to interrogate Hippias, in the name of the
absentee, starting one difficulty after another as if suggested by this
unknown prompter, and pretending to be himself under awe of so
impracticable a disputant.

Justice, Wisdom, Beauty must
All persons are just, through Justice —
each be something. What is
wise, through Wisdom — good, through
Beauty, or the Beautiful?
Goodness or the Good — beautiful, through
Beauty or the Beautiful. Now Justice,
Wisdom, Goodness, Beauty or the Beautiful, must each be something. Tell
me what the Beautiful is?

Hippias does not understand the
Hippias does not conceive the question.
question. He answers by
Does the man want to know what is a beautiful
indicating one particularly
thing? Sokr. — No; he wants to know what is
beautiful object.
The Beautiful. Hip. — I do not see the
difference. I answer that a beautiful maiden is
a beautiful thing. No one can deny that.13

13 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 287 A.

Sokr. — My disputatious friend will not accept your answer. He wants
you to tell him, What is the Self-Beautiful? — that Something through
which all beautiful things become beautiful. Am I to tell him, it is because a
beautiful maiden is a beautiful thing? He will say — Is not a beautiful mare
a beautiful thing also? and a beautiful lyre as well? Hip. — Yes; — both of
them are so. Sokr. — Ay, and a beautiful pot, my friend will add, well
moulded and rounded by a skilful potter, is a beautiful thing too. Hip. —
How, Sokrates? Who can your disputatious friend be? Some ill-taught man,
surely; since he introduces such trivial names into a dignified debate. Sokr.
— Yes; that is his character: not polite, but vulgar, anxious for nothing else
but the truth. Hip. — A pot, if it be beautifully made, must certainly be
called beautiful; yet still, all such objects are unworthy to be counted as
beautiful, if compared with a maiden, a mare, or a lyre.

Cross-questioning by Sokrates
Sokr. — I understand. You follow the
— Other things also are
analogy suggested by Herakleitus in his
beautiful; but each thing is
dictum — That the most beautiful ape is ugly,
beautiful only by comparison, or
if compared with the human race. So you say,
under some particular
the most beautiful pot is ugly, when compared
circumstances — it is sometimes
with the race of maidens. Hip — Yes. That is
beautiful, sometimes not
my meaning. Sokr. — Then my friend will ask
beautiful.
you in return, whether the race of maidens is
not as much inferior to the race of Gods, as the
pot to the maiden? whether the most beautiful maiden will not appear ugly,
when compared to a Goddess? whether the wisest of men will not appear an
ape, when compared to the Gods, either in beauty or in wisdom.14 Hip. —
No one can dispute it. Sokr. — My friend will smile and say — You forget
what was the question put. I asked you, What is the Beautiful? — the Self-
Beautiful: and your answer gives me, as the Self-Beautiful, something
which you yourself acknowledge to be no more beautiful than ugly? If I had
asked you, from the first, what it was that was both beautiful and ugly, your
answer would have been pertinent to the question. Can you still think that
the Self-Beautiful, — that Something, by the presence of which all other
things become beautiful, — is a maiden, or a mare, or a lyre?

14 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 289.

Second answer of Hippias —
Hip. — I have another answer to which
Gold, is that by the presence of
your friend can take no exception. That, by the
which all things become
presence of which all things become beautiful,
beautiful — scrutiny applied to
is Gold. What was before ugly, will (we all
the answer. Complaint by
know), when ornamented with gold, appear
Hippias about vulgar analogies.
beautiful. Sokr. — You little know what sort of
man my friend is. He will laugh at your
answer, and ask you — Do you think, then, that Pheidias did not know his

profession as a sculptor? How came he not to make the statue of Athênê all
gold, instead of making (as he has done) the face, hands, and feet of ivory,
and the pupils of the eyes of a particular stone? Is not ivory also beautiful,
and particular kinds of stone? Hip. — Yes, each is beautiful, where it is
becoming. Sokr. — And ugly, where it is not becoming.15 Hip. —
Doubtless. I admit that what is becoming or suitable, makes that to which it
is applied appear beautiful: that which is not becoming or suitable, makes it
appear ugly. Sokr. — My friend will next ask you, when you are boiling the
beautiful pot of which we spoke just now, full of beautiful soup, what sort
of ladle will be suitable and becoming — one made of gold, or of fig-tree
wood? Will not the golden ladle spoil the soup, and the wooden ladle turn it
out good? Is not the wooden ladle, therefore, better than the golden? Hip.
— By Hêraklês, Sokrates! what a coarse and stupid fellow your friend is! I
cannot continue to converse with a man who talks of such matters. Sokr. —
I am not surprised that you, with your fine attire and lofty reputation, are
offended with these low allusions. But I have nothing to spoil by
intercourse with this man; and I entreat you to persevere, as a favour to me.
He will ask you whether a wooden soup-ladle is not more beautiful than a
ladle of gold, — since it is more suitable and becoming? So that though you
said — The Self-Beautiful is Gold — you are now obliged to acknowledge
that gold is not more beautiful than fig-tree wood?

15 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 290.

Third answer of Hippias —
Hip. — I acknowledge that it is so. But I
questions upon it — proof given
have another answer ready which will silence
that it fails of universal
your friend. I presume you wish me to indicate
application.
as The Beautiful, something which will never
appear ugly to any one, at any time, or at any
place.16 Sokr. — That is exactly what I desire. Hip. — Well, I affirm, then,
that to every man, always, and everywhere, the following is most beautiful.

A man being healthy, rich, honoured by the Greeks, having come to old age
and buried his own parents well, to be himself buried by his own sons well
and magnificently. Sokr. — Your answer sounds imposing; but my friend
will laugh it to scorn, and will remind me again, that his question pointed to
the Beautiful itself17 — something which, being present as attribute in any
subject, will make that subject (whether stone, wood, man, God, action,
study, &c.) beautiful. Now that which you have asserted to be beautiful to
every one everywhere, was not beautiful to Achilles, who accepted by
preference the lot of dying before his father — nor is it so to the heroes, or
to the sons of Gods, who do not survive or bury their fathers. To some,
therefore, what you specify is beautiful — to others it is not beautiful but
ugly: that is, it is both beautiful and ugly, like the maiden, the lyre, the pot,
on which we have already remarked. Hip. — I did not speak about the Gods
or Heroes. Your friend is intolerable, for touching on such profanities.18
Sokr. — However, you cannot deny that what you have indicated is
beautiful only for the sons of men, and not for the sons of Gods. My friend
will thus make good his reproach against your answer. He will tell me, that
all the answers, which we have as yet given, are too absurd. And he may
perhaps at the same time himself suggest another, as he sometimes does in
pity for my embarrassment.

16 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 291 C-D.

17 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 292 D.

18 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 293 B.

Farther answers, suggested by
Sokrates then mentions, as coming from
Sokrates himself — 1. The
hints of the absent friend, three or four
Suitable or Becoming —
different explanations of the Self-Beautiful:
each of which, when first introduced, he
approves, and Hippias approves also: but each

objections thereunto — it is of which he proceeds successively to test and
rejected. condemn. It is to be remarked that all of them
are general explanations: not consisting in
conspicuous particular instances, like those which had come from Hippias.
His explanations are the following: —

1. The suitable or becoming (which had before been glanced at). It is the
suitable or becoming which constitutes the Beautiful.19

19 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 293 E.

To this Sokrates objects: The suitable, or becoming, is what causes
objects to appear beautiful — not what causes them to be really beautiful.
Now the latter is that which we are seeking. The two conditions do not
always go together. Those objects, institutions, and pursuits which are
really beautiful (fine, honourable) very often do not appear so, either to
individuals or to cities collectively; so that there is perpetual dispute and
fighting on the subject. The suitable or becoming, therefore, as it is
certainly what makes objects appear beautiful, so it cannot be what makes
them really beautiful.20

20 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 294 B-E.

2. The useful or profitable —
2. The useful or profitable. — We call
objections — it will not hold.
objects beautiful, looking to the purpose which
they are calculated or intended to serve: the
human body, with a view to running, wrestling, and other exercises — a
horse, an ox, a cock, looking to the service required from them —
implements, vehicles on land and ships at sea, instruments for music and
other arts all upon the same principle, looking to the end which they
accomplish or help to accomplish. Laws and pursuits are characterised in
the same way. In each of these, we give the name Beautiful to the useful, in
so far as it is useful, when it is useful, and for the purpose to which it is

useful. To that which is useless or hurtful, in the same manner, we give the
name Ugly.21

21 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 295 C-D.

Now that which is capable of accomplishing each end, is useful for such
end: that which is incapable, is useless. It is therefore capacity, or power,
which is beautiful: incapacity, or impotence, is ugly.22

22 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 295 E. Οὐκοῦν τὸ δυνατὸν ἕκαστον ἀπεργάζεσθαι, εἰς
ὅπερ δυνατόν, εἰς τοῦτο καὶ χρήσιμον· τὸ δὲ ἀδύνατον ἄχρηστον; …
Δύναμις μὲν ἄρα καλόν — ἀδυναμία δὲ αἰσχρόν;

Most certainly (replies Hippias): this is especially true in our cities and
communities, wherein political power is the finest thing possible, political
impotence, the meanest.

Yet, on closer inspection (continues Sokrates), such a theory will not
hold. Power is employed by all men, though unwillingly, for bad purposes:
and each man, through such employment of his power, does much more
harm than good, beginning with his childhood. Now power, which is useful
for the doing of evil, can never be called beautiful.23

23 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 296 C-D.

You cannot therefore say that Power, taken absolutely, is beautiful. You
must add the qualification — Power used for the production of some good,
is beautiful. This, then, would be the profitable — the cause or generator of
good.24 But the cause is different from its effect: the generator or father is
different from the generated or son. The beautiful would, upon this view, be
the cause of the good. But then the beautiful would be different from the
good, and the good different from the beautiful? Who can admit this? It is

obviously wrong: it is the most ridiculous theory which we have yet hit
upon.25

24 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 297 B.

25 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 297 D-E. εἰ οἷόν τ’ ἐστίν, ἑκείνων εἶναι (κινδυνεύει)
γελοιότερος τῶν πρώτων.

3. The Beautiful is a variety of
3. The Beautiful is a particular variety of the
the Pleasurable — that which is
agreeable or pleasurable: that which
received through the eye and the
characterises those things which cause
ear.
pleasure to us through sight and hearing. Thus
the men, the ornaments, the works of painting
or sculpture, upon which we look with admiration,26 are called beautiful:
also songs, music, poetry, fable, discourse, in like manner; nay even laws,
customs, pursuits, which we consider beautiful, might be brought under the
same head.27

26 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 298 A-B.

27 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 298 D.

Professor Bain observes: — “The eye and the ear are the great avenues to
the mind for the æsthetic class of influences; the other senses are more or
less in the monopolist interest. The blue sky, the green woods, and all the
beauties of the landscape, can fill the vision of a countless throng of
admirers. So with the pleasing sounds, &c.” ‘The Emotions and the Will.’
ch. xiv. (The Æsthetic Emotions), sect. 2, p. 226, 3rd ed.

Objections to this last — What
The objector, however, must now be dealt
property is there common to
with. He will ask us — Upon what ground do
both sight and hearing, which
you make so marked a distinction between the
confers upon the pleasures of
pleasures of sight and hearing, and other

these two senses the exclusive pleasures? Do you deny that these others
privilege of being beautiful? (those of taste, smell, eating, drinking, sex) are
really pleasures? No, surely (we shall reply);
we admit them to be pleasures, — but no one will tolerate us in calling
them beautiful: especially the pleasures of sex, which as pleasures are the
greatest of all, but which are ugly and disgraceful to behold. He will answer
— I understand you: you are ashamed to call these pleasures beautiful,
because they do not seem so to the multitude: but I did not ask you, what
seems beautiful to the multitude — I asked you, what is beautiful.28 You
mean to affirm, that all pleasures which do not belong to sight and hearing,
are not beautiful: Do you mean, all which do not belong to both? or all
which do not belong to one or the other? We shall reply — To either one of
the two — or to both the two. Well! but, why (he will ask) do you single out
these pleasures of sight and hearing, as beautiful exclusively? What is there
peculiar in them, which gives them a title to such distinction? All pleasures
are alike, so far forth as pleasures, differing only in the more or less. Next,
the pleasures of sight cannot be considered as beautiful by reason of their
coming through sight — for that reason would not apply to the pleasures of
hearing: nor again can the pleasures of hearing be considered as beautiful
by reason of their coming through hearing.29 We must find something
possessed as well by sight as by hearing, common to both, and peculiar to
them, — which confers beauty upon the pleasures of both and of each. Any
attribute of one, which does not also belong to the other, will not be
sufficient for our purpose.30 Beauty must depend upon some essential
characteristic which both have in common.31 We must therefore look out for
some such characteristic, which belongs to both as well as to each
separately.

28 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 298 E, 299 A.

Μανθάνω, ἂν ἴσως φαίη, καὶ ἐγώ, ὅτι πάλαι αἰσχύνεσθε ταύτας τὰς
ἡδονὰς φάναι καλὰς εἶναι, ὅτι οὐ δοκεῖ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις· ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ οὐ τοῦτο
ἠρώτων, ὃ δ ο κ ε ῖ τ ο ῖ ς π ο λ λ ο ῖ ς κ α λ ὸ ν ε ἶ ν α ι , ἀλλ’ ὃ, τ ι
ἔστιν.

29 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 299 D-E.

30 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 300 B. A separate argument between Sokrates and
Hippias is here as it were interpolated; Hippias affirms that he does not see
how any predicate can be true of both which is not true of either separately.
Sokrates points out that two men are Both, even in number, while each is
One, an odd number. You cannot say of the two that they are one, nor can
you say of either that he is Both. There are two classes of predicates; some
which are true of either but not true of the two together, or vice versâ; some
again which are true of the two and true also of each one — such as just,
wise, handsome, &c. p. 301-303 B.

31 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 302 C. τῇ οὐσίᾳ τῇ ἐπ’ ἀμφότερα ἑπομένῃ ᾦμην, εἴπερ
ἀμφότερά ἐστι καλά, ταύτῃ δεῖν αὐτὰ καλὰ εἶναι, τῇ δὲ κατὰ τὰ ἕτερα
ἀπολειπομένῃ μή. καὶ ἕτι νῦν οἶομαι.

Answer — There is, belonging to
Now there is one characteristic which may
each and to both in common, the
perhaps serve. The pleasures of sight and
property of being innocuous and
hearing, both and each, are distinguished from
profitable pleasures — upon this
other pleasures by being the most innocuous
ground they are called beautiful.
and the best.32 It is for this reason that we call
them beautiful. The Beautiful, then, is
profitable pleasure — or pleasure producing good — for the profitable is,
that which produces good.33

32 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 303 E. ὅτι ἀσινέσταται αὗται τῶν ἡδονῶν εἰσι καὶ
βέλτισται, καὶ ἀμφότεραι καὶ ἑκατέρα.

33 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 303 E. λέγετε δὴ τὸ καλὸν εἶναι, ἡ δ ο ν ὴ ν
ὠφέλιμον.

This will not hold — the
Nevertheless the objector will not be
Profitable is the cause of Good,
satisfied even with this. He will tell us — You
and is therefore different from
declare the Beautiful to be Pleasure producing
Good — to say that the beautiful
good. But we before agreed, that the
is the Profitable, is to say that it
producing agent or cause is different from
is different from Good but this
what is produced or the effect. Accordingly,
has been already declared
the Beautiful is different from the good: or, in
inadmissible.
other words, the Beautiful is not good, nor is
the Good beautiful — if each of them is a
different thing.34 Now these propositions we have already pronounced to be
inadmissible, so that your present explanation will not stand better than the
preceding.

34 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 303 E — 304 A. Οὔκουν ὠφέλιμον, φήσει, τὸ ποιοῦν
τἀγαθόν, τὸ δὲ ποιοῦν καὶ τὸ ποιούμενον, ἕτερον νῦν δὴ ἐφάνη, καὶ εἰς τὸν
πρότερον λόγον ἥκει ὑμῖν ὁ λόγος; ο ὔ τ ε γ ὰ ρ τ ὸ ἀ γ α θ ὸ ν ἂ ν ε ἴ η
καλὸν οὔτε τὸ καλὸν ἀγαθόν, εἴπερ ἄλλο αὐτῶν
ἑκάτερόν ἐστιν.

These last words deserve attention, because they coincide with the
doctrine ascribed to Antisthenes, which has caused so many hard words to
be applied to him (as well as to Stilpon) by critics, from Kolôtes
downwards. The general principle here laid down by Plato is — A is

something different from B, therefore A is not B and B is not A. In other
words, A cannot be predicated of B nor B of A. Antisthenes said in like
manner — Ἄνθρωπος and Ἀγαθὸς are different from each other, therefore
you cannot say Ἄνθρωπος ἐστιν ἀγαθός. You can only say Ἄνθρωπος ἐστιν
Ἄνθρωπος — Ἀγαθός ἐστιν ἀγαθός.

I have touched farther upon this point in my chapter upon Antisthenes
and the other Viri Sokratici.

Remarks upon the Dialogue —
Thus finish the three distinct explanations of
the explanations ascribed to
Τὸ καλὸν, which Plato in this dialogue causes
Hippias are special conspicuous
to be first suggested by Sokrates, successively
examples: those ascribed to
accepted by Hippias, and successively refuted
Sokrates are attempts to assign
by Sokrates. In comparing them with the three
some general concept.
explanations which he puts into the mouth of
Hippias, we note this distinction: That the
explanations proposed by Hippias are conspicuous particular
exemplifications of the Beautiful, substituted in place of the general
concept: as we remarked, in the Dialogue Euthyphron, that the explanations
of the Holy given by Euthyphron in reply to Sokrates, were of the same
exemplifying character. On the contrary, those suggested by Sokrates keep
in the region of abstractions, and seek to discover some more general
concept, of which the Beautiful is only a derivative or a modification, so as
to render a definition of it practicable. To illustrate this difference by the
language of Dr. Whewell respecting many of the classifications in Natural
History, we may say — That according to the views here represented by
Hippias, the group of objects called beautiful is given by Type, not by

Definition:35 while Sokrates proceeds like one convinced that some
common characteristic attribute may be found, on which to rest a
Definition. To search for Definitions of general words, was (as Aristotle
remarks) a novelty, and a valuable novelty, introduced by Sokrates. His
contemporaries, the Sophists among them, were not accustomed to it: and
here the Sophist Hippias (according to Plato’s frequent manner) is derided
as talking nonsense,36 because, when asked for an explanation of The Self-
Beautiful, he answers by citing special instances of beautiful objects. But
we must remember, first, that Sokrates, who is introduced as trying several
general explanations of the Self-Beautiful, does not find one which will
stand: next, that even if one such could be found, particular instances can
never be dispensed with, in the way of illustration; lastly, that there are
many general terms (the Beautiful being one of them) of which no
definitions can be provided, and which can only be imperfectly explained,
by enumerating a variety of objects to which the term in question is
applied.37 Plato thought himself entitled to objectivise every general term,
or to assume a substantive Ens, called a Form or Idea, corresponding to it.
This was a logical mistake quite as serious as any which we know to have
been committed by Hippias or any other Sophist. The assumption that
wherever there is a general term, there must also be a generic attribute
corresponding to it — is one which Aristotle takes much pains to negative:
he recognises terms of transitional analogy, as well as terms equivocal:
while he also especially numbers the Beautiful among equivocal terms.38

35 See Dr. Whewell’s ‘History of the Inductive Sciences,’ ii. 120 seq.; and
Mr. John Stuart Mill’s ‘System of Logic,’ iv. 8, 3.

I shall illustrate this subject farther when I come to the dialogue called
Lysis.

36 Stallbaum, in his notes, bursts into exclamations of wonder at the
incredible stupidity of Hippias — “En hominis stuporem prorsus
admirabilem,” p. 289 E.

37 Mr. John Stuart Mill observes in his System of Logic, i. 1, 5: “One of
the chief sources of lax habits of thought is the custom of using connotative
terms without a distinctly ascertained connotation, and with no more precise
notion of their meaning than can be loosely collected from observing what
objects they are used to denote. It is in this manner that we all acquire, and
inevitably so, our first knowledge of our vernacular language. A child learns
the meaning of Man, White, &c., by hearing them applied to a number of
individual objects, and finding out, by a process of generalisation of which
he is but imperfectly conscious, what those different objects have in
common. In many cases objects bear a general resemblance to each other,
which leads to their being familiarly classed together under a common
name, while it is not immediately apparent what are the particular attributes
upon the possession of which in common by them all their general
resemblance depends. In this manner names creep on from subject to
subject until all traces of a common meaning sometimes disappear, and the
word comes to denote a number of things not only independently of any
common attribute, but which have actually no attribute in common, or none
but what is shared by other things to which the name is capriciously
refused. It would be well if this degeneracy of language took place only in
the hands of the untaught vulgar; but some of the most remarkable instances
are to be found in terms of art, and among technically educated persons,
such as English lawyers. Felony, e.g., is a law-term with the sound of which
all are familiar: but there is no lawyer who would undertake to tell what a
felony is, otherwise than by enumerating the various offences so called.
Originally the word felony had a meaning; it denoted all offences, the
penalty of which included forfeiture of lands or goods, but subsequent Acts
of Parliament have declared various offences to be felonies without

enjoining that penalty, and have taken away that penalty from others which
continue nevertheless to be called felonies, insomuch that the acts so called
have now no property whatever in common save that of being unlawful and
punishable.”

38 Aristot. Topic, i. 106, a. 21. Τὰ πολλαχῶς λεγόμενα — τὰ πλεοναχῶς
λεγόμενα — are perpetually noted and distinguished by Aristotle.

Analogy between the
We read in the Xenophontic Memorabilia a
explanations here ascribed to
dialogue between Sokrates and Aristippus, on
Sokrates, and those given by the
this same subject — What is the Beautiful,
Xenophontic Sokrates in the
which affords a sort of contrast between the
Memorabilia.
Dialogues of Search and those of Exposition.
In the Hippias Major, we have the problem
approached on several different sides, various suggestions being proposed,
and each successively disallowed, on reasons shown, as failures: while in
the Xenophontic dialogue, Sokrates declares an affirmative doctrine, and
stands to it — but no pains are taken to bring out the objections against it
and rebut them. The doctrine is, that the Beautiful is coincident with the
Good, and that both of them are resolvable into the Useful: thus all
beautiful objects, unlike as they may be to the eye or touch, bear that name
because they have in common the attribute of conducing to one and the
same purpose — the security, advantage, or gratification, of man, in some
form or other. This is one of the three explanations broached by the Platonic
Sokrates, and afterwards refuted by him, in the Hippias: while his
declaration (which Hippias puts aside as unseemly) — that a pot and a
wooden soup-ladle conveniently made are beautiful is perfectly in harmony
with that of the Xenophontic Sokrates, that a basket for carrying dung is
beautiful, if it performs its work well.39 We must moreover remark, that the
objections whereby the Platonic Sokrates, after proposing the doctrine and
saying much in its favour, finds himself compelled at last to disallow it —

these objections are not produced and refuted, but passed over without
notice, in the Xenophontic dialogue, wherein Sokrates affirms it
decidedly.40 The affirming Sokrates, and the objecting Sokrates, are not on
the stage at once.

39 Xen. Mem. iii. 6, 2, 7; iv. 6, 8.

Plato, Hipp. Maj. 288 D, 290 D.

I am obliged to translate the words τὸ Καλόν by the Beautiful or beauty,
to avoid a tiresome periphrasis. But in reality the Greek words include more
besides: they mean also the fine, the honourable or that which is worthy of
honour, the exalted, &c. If we have difficulty in finding any common
property connoted by the English word, the difficulty in the case of the
Greek word is still greater.

40 In regard to the question, Wherein consists Τὸ Καλόν? and objections
against the theory of the Xenophontic Sokrates, it is worth while to compare
the views of modern philosophers. Dugald Stewart says (on the Beautiful,
‘Philosophical Essays,’ p. 214 seq.), “It has long been a favourite problem
with philosophers to ascertain the common quality or qualities which entitle
a thing to the denomination of Beautiful. But the success of their
speculations has been so inconsiderable, that little can be inferred from
them except the impossibility of the problem to which they have been
directed. The speculations which have given occasion to these remarks have
evidently originated in a prejudice which has descended to modern times
from the scholastic ages. That when a word admits of a variety of
significations, these different significations must all be species of the same
genus, and must consequently include some essential idea common to every
individual to which the generic term can be applied. Of this principle,
which has been an abundant source of obscurity and mystery in the different
sciences, it would be easy to expose the unsoundness and futility. Socrates,

whose plain good sense appears, on this as on other occasions, to have
fortified his understanding to a wonderful degree against the metaphysical
subtleties which misled his successors, was evidently apprised fully of the
justice of the foregoing remarks, if any reliance can be placed on the
account given by Xenophon of his conversation with Aristippus about the
Good and the Beautiful,” &c.

Stewart then proceeds to translate a portion of the Xenophontic dialogue
(Memorab. iii. 8). But unfortunately he does not translate the whole of it. If
he had he would have seen that he has misconceived the opinion of
Sokrates, who maintains the very doctrine here disallowed by Stewart, viz.,
That there is an essential idea common to all beautiful objects, the fact of
being conducive to human security, comfort, or enjoyment. This is
unquestionably an important common property, though the multifarious
objects which possess it may be unlike in all other respects.

As to the general theory I think that Stewart is right: it is his compliment
to Sokrates, on this occasion, which I consider misplaced. He certainly
would not have agreed with Sokrates (nor should I agree with him) in
calling by the epithet beautiful a basket for carrying dung when well made
for its own purpose, or a convenient boiling-pot, or a soup-ladle made of
fig-tree wood, as the Platonic Sokrates affirms in the Hippias (288 D, 290
D). The Beautiful and the Useful sometimes coincide; more often or at least
very often, they do not. Hippias is made to protest, in this dialogue, against
the mention of such vulgar objects as the pot and the ladle; and this is
apparently intended by Plato as a defective point in his character, denoting
silly affectation and conceit, like his fine apparel. But Dugald Stewart
would have agreed in the sentiment ascribed to Hippias — that vulgar and
mean objects have no place in an inquiry into the Beautiful; and that they
belong, when well-formed for their respective purposes, to the category of
the Useful.

The Xenophontic Sokrates in the Memorabilia is mistaken in
confounding the Beautiful with the Good and the Useful. But his remarks
are valuable in another point of view, as they insist most forcibly on the
essential relativity both of the Beautiful and the Good.

The doctrine of Dugald Stewart is supported by Mr. John Stuart Mill
(‘System of Logic,’ iv. 4, 5, p. 220 seq.); and Professor Bain has expounded
the whole subject still more fully in a chapter (xiv. p. 225 seq., on the
Æsthetic Emotions) of his work on the Emotions and the Will.

The concluding observations of this dialogue, interchanged between
Hippias and Sokrates, are interesting as bringing out the antithesis between
rhetoric and dialectic — between the concrete and exemplifying, as
contrasted with the abstract and analytical. Immediately after Sokrates has
brought his own third suggestion to an inextricable embarrassment, Hippias
remarks —

Concluding thrust exchanged
“Well, Sokrates, what do you think now of
between Hippias and Sokrates.
all these reasonings of yours? They are what I
declared them to be just now, — scrapings and
parings of discourse, divided into minute fragments. But the really beautiful
and precious acquirement is, to be able to set out well and finely a regular
discourse before the Dikastery or the public assembly, to persuade your
auditors, and to depart carrying with you not the least but the greatest of all
prizes — safety for yourself, your property, and your friends. These are the
real objects to strive for. Leave off your petty cavils, that you may not look
like an extreme simpleton, handling silly trifles as you do at present.”41

“My dear Hippias,” (replies Sokrates) “you are a happy man, since you
know what pursuits a man ought to follow, and have yourself followed
them, as you say, with good success. But I, as it seems, am under the grasp
of an unaccountable fortune: for I am always fluctuating and puzzling

myself, and when I lay my puzzle before you wise men, I am requited by
you with hard words. I am told just what you have now been telling me, that
I busy myself about matters silly, petty, and worthless. When on the
contrary, overborne by your authority, I declare as you do, that it is the
finest thing possible to be able to set out well and beautifully a regular
discourse before the public assembly, and bring it to successful conclusion
— then there are other men at hand who heap upon me bitter reproaches:
especially that one man, my nearest kinsman and inmate, who never omits
to convict me. When on my return home he hears me repeat what you have
told me, he asks, if I am not ashamed of my impudence in talking about
beautiful (honourable) pursuits, when I am so manifestly convicted upon
this subject, of not even knowing what the Beautiful (Honourable) is. How
can you (he says), being ignorant what the Beautiful is, know who has set
out a discourse beautifully and who has not — who has performed a
beautiful exploit and who has not? Since you are in a condition so
disgraceful, can you think life better for you than death? Such then is my
fate — to hear disparagement and reproaches from you on the one side, and
from him on the other. Necessity however perhaps requires that I should
endure all these discomforts: for it will be nothing strange if I profit by
them. Indeed I think that I have already profited both by your society,
Hippias, and by his: for I now think that I know what the proverb means —
Beautiful (Honourable) things are difficult.”42

41 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 304 A.

42 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 304 D-E.

Rhetoric against Dialectic.
Here is a suitable termination for one of the
Dialogues of Search: “My mind has been
embarrassed by contradictions as yet unreconciled, but this is a stage
indispensable to future improvement”. We have moreover an interesting
passage of arms between Rhetoric and Dialectic: two contemporaneous and

contending agencies, among the stirring minds of Athens, in the time of
Plato and Isokrates. The Rhetor accuses the Dialectician of departing from
the conditions of reality — of breaking up the integrity of those concretes,
which occur in nature each as continuous and indivisible wholes. Each of
the analogous particular cases forms a continuum or concrete by itself,
which may be compared with the others, but cannot be taken to pieces, and
studied in separate fragments.43 The Dialectician on his side treats the
Abstract (τὸ καλὸν) as the real Integer, and the highest abstraction as the
first of all integers, containing in itself and capable of evolving all the
subordinate integers: the various accompaniments, which go along with
each Abstract to make up a concrete, he disregards as shadowy and transient
disguises.

43 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 301 B. Ἀλλὰ γὰρ δὴ σύ, ὦ Σώκρατες, τὰ μὲν ὅλα τῶν
πραγμάτων οὐ σκοπεῖς, οὐδ’ ἐκεῖνοι, οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι, κρούετε δὲ
ἀπολαμβάνοντες τὸ καλὸν καὶ ἕκαστον τῶν ὄντων ἐν τοῖς λόγοις
κατατέμνοντες· διὰ ταῦτα οὕτω μεγάλα ὑμᾶς λανθάνει καὶ δ ι α ν ε κ ῆ
σ ώ μ α τ α τ ῆ ς ο ὐ σ ί α ς π ε φ υ κ ό τ α . Compare 301 E.

The words διανεκῆ σώματα τῆς οὐσίας πεφυκότα correspond as nearly as
can be to the logical term Concrete, opposed to Abstract. Nature furnishes
only Concreta, not Abstracta.

Men who dealt with real life,
Hippias accuses Sokrates of never taking
contrasted with the speculative
into his view Wholes, and of confining his
and analytical philosophers.
attention to separate parts and fragments,
obtained by logical analysis and subdivision.
Aristophanes, when he attacks the Dialectic of Sokrates, takes the same
ground, employing numerous comic metaphors to illustrate the small and
impalpable fragments handled, and the subtle transpositions which they
underwent in the reasoning. Isokrates again deprecates the over-subtlety of
dialectic debate, contrasting it with discussions (in his opinion) more useful;

wherein entire situations, each with its full clothing and assemblage of
circumstances, were reviewed and estimated.44 All these are protests, by
persons accustomed to deal with real life, and to talk to auditors both
numerous and commonplace, against that conscious analysis and close
attention to general and abstract terms, which Sokrates first insisted on and
transmitted to his disciples. On the other side, we have the emphatic
declaration made by the Platonic Sokrates (and made still earlier by the
Xenophontic45 or historical Sokrates) — That a man was not fit to talk
about beautiful things in the concrete — that he had no right to affirm or
deny that attribute, with respect to any given subject — that he was not
even fit to live unless he could explain what was meant by The Beautiful, or
Beauty in the abstract. Here are two distinct and conflicting intellectual
habits, the antithesis between which, indicated in this dialogue, is described
at large and forcibly in the Theætêtus.46

44 Aristophan. Nubes, 130. λόγων ἀκριβῶν σχινδαλάμους — παιπάλη.
Nub. 261, Aves, 430. λεπτοτάτων λήρων ἱερεῦ, Nub. 359. γνώμαις λεπταις,
Nub. 1404. σκαριφισμοῖσι λήρων, Ran. 1497. σμιλεύματα — id. 819.
Isokrates, Πρὸς Νικοκλέα, s. 69, antithesis of the λόγοι πολιτικοὶ and λόγοι
ἐριστικοί — μάλιστα μὲν καὶ ἀπὸ των καιρῶν θεωρεῖν συμβουλεύοντας, εἰ
δὲ μὴ, κ α θ ’ ὅ λ ω ν τ ῶ ν π ρ α γ μ ά τ ω ν λέγοντας — which is almost
exactly the phrase ascribed to Hippias by Plato in this Hippias Major. Also
Isokrates, Contra Sophistas, s. 24-25, where he contrasts the useless
λογίδια, debated by the contentious dialecticians (Sokrates and Plato being
probably included in this designation), with his own λόγοι πολιτικοί.
Compare also Isokrates, Or. xv. De Permutatione, s. 211-213-285-287.

45 Xen. Mem. i. 1, 16.

46 Plato, Theætêt. pp. 173-174-175.

Concrete Aggregates — abstract
When Hippias accuses Sokrates of
or logical Aggregates. Distinct
neglecting to notice Wholes or Aggregates,
aptitudes required by Aristotle
this is true in the sense of Concrete Wholes —
for the Dialectician.
the phenomenal sequences and co-existences,
perceived by sense or imagined. But the
Universal (as Aristotle says)47 is one kind of Whole: a Logical Whole,
having logical parts. In the minds of Sokrates and Plato, the Logical Whole
separable into its logical parts and into them only, were preponderant.

47 Aristot. Physic. i. 1. τὸ γὰρ ὅλον κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν γνωριμώτερον, τ ὸ
δὲ καθόλου ὅλον τι ἐστι· πολλὰ γὰρ περιλαμβάνει
ὡ ς μ έ ρ η τ ὸ κ α θ ό λ ο υ . Compare Simplikius, Schol. Brandis ad loc.
p. 324, a. 10-26.

Antithesis of Absolute and
One other point deserves peculiar notice, in
Relative, here brought into
the dialogue under our review. The problem
debate by Plato, in regard to the
started is, What is the Beautiful — the Self-
Idea of Beauty.
Beautiful, or Beauty per se: and it is assumed
that this must be Something,48 that from the
accession of which, each particular beautiful thing becomes beautiful. But
Sokrates presently comes to make a distinction between that which is really
beautiful and that which appears to be beautiful. Some things (he says)
appear beautiful, but are not so in reality: some are beautiful, but do not
appear so. The problem, as he states it, is, to find, not what that is which
makes objects appear beautiful, but what it is that makes them really
beautiful. This distinction, as we find it in the language of Hippias, is one of
degree only:49 that is beautiful which appears so to every one and at all
times. But in the language of Sokrates, the distinction is radical: to be
beautiful is one thing, to appear beautiful is another; whatever makes a
thing appear beautiful without being so in reality, is a mere engine of deceit,

and not what Sokrates is enquiring for.50 The Self-Beautiful or real Beauty
is so, whether any one perceives it to be beautiful or not: it is an Absolute,
which exists per se, having no relation to any sentient or percipient
subject.51 At any rate, such is the manner in which Plato conceives it, when
he starts here as a problem to enquire, What it is.

48 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 286 K. αὐτὸ τὸ καλὸν ὅ, τι ἔστιν. Also 287 D, 289 D.

49 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 291 D, 292 E.

50 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 294 A-B, 299 A.

51 Dr. Hutcheson, in his inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty
and Virtue, observes (sect. i. and ii. p. 14-16): —

“Beauty is either original or comparative, or, if any like the terms better,
absolute or relative; only let it be observed, that by absolute or original, is
not understood any quality supposed to be in the object, which should of
itself be beautiful, without relation to any mind which perceives it. For
Beauty, like other names of sensible ideas, properly denotes the perception
of some mind.… Our inquiry is only about the qualities which are beautiful
to men, or about the foundation of their sense of beauty, for (as above
hinted) Beauty has always relation to the sense of some mind; and when we
afterwards show how generally the objects that occur to us are beautiful, we
mean that such objects are agreeable to the sense of men, &c.”

The same is repeated, sect. iv. p. 40; sect. vi. p. 72.

Herein we note one of the material points of disagreement between Plato
and his master: for Sokrates (in the Xenophontic Memorabilia) affirms
distinctly that Beauty is altogether relative to human wants and
appreciations. The Real and Absolute, on the one hand, wherein alone
resides truth and beauty — as against the phenomenal and relative, on the

other hand, the world of illusion and meanness — this is an antithesis which
we shall find often reproduced in Plato. I shall take it up more at large,
when I come to discuss his argument against Protagoras in the Theætêtus.

Hippias Minor — characters
I now come to the Lesser Hippias: in which
and situation supposed.
(as we have already seen in the Greater) that
Sophist is described by epithets, affirming
varied and extensive accomplishments, as master of arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy, poetry (especially that of Homer), legendary lore, music,
metrical and rhythmical diversities, &c. His memory was prodigious, and
he had even invented for himself a technical scheme for assisting memory.
He had composed poems, epic, lyric, and tragic, as well as many works in
prose: he was, besides, a splendid lecturer on ethical and political subjects,
and professed to answer any question which might be asked. Furthermore,
he was skilful in many kinds of manual dexterity: having woven his own
garments, plaited his own girdle, made his own shoes, engraved his own
seal-ring, and fabricated for himself a curry-comb and oil-flask.52 Lastly, he
is described as wearing fine and showy apparel. What he is made to say is
rather in harmony with this last point of character, than with the preceding.
He talks with silliness and presumption, so as to invite and excuse the
derisory sting of Sokrates, There is a third interlocutor, Eudikus: but he says
very little, and other auditors are alluded to generally, who say nothing.53

52 Plato, Hipp. Minor, 368.

53 Plato, Hipp. Minor, 369 D, 373 B.

Ast rejects both the dialogues called by the name of Hippias, as not
composed by Plato. Schleiermacher doubts about both, and rejects the
Hippias Minor (which he considers as perhaps worked up by a Platonic
scholar from a genuine sketch by Plato himself) but will not pass the same
sentence upon the Hippias Major (Schleierm. Einleit. vol. ii. pp. 293-296;
vol. v. 399-403. Ast, Platon’s Leben und Schriften, pp. 457-464).

Stallbaum defends both the dialogues as genuine works of Plato, and in
my judgment with good reason (Prolegg. ad Hipp. Maj. vol. iv. pp. 145-
150; ad Hipp. Minor, pp. 227-235). Steinhart (Einleit. p. 99) and Socher
(Ueber Platon, p. 144 seq., 215 seq.) maintain the same opinion on these
dialogues as Stallbaum. It is to be remarked that Schleiermacher states the
reasons both for and against the genuineness of the dialogues; and I think
that even in his own statement the reasons for preponderate. The reasons
which both Schleiermacher and Ast produce as proving the spuriousness,
are in my view quite insufficient to sustain their conclusion. There is bad
taste, sophistry, an overdose of banter and derision (they say very truly), in
the part assigned to Sokrates: there are also differences of view, as
compared with Sokrates in other dialogues; various other affirmations (they
tell us) are not Platonic. I admit much of this, but I still do not accept their
conclusion. These critics cannot bear to admit any Platonic work as genuine
unless it affords to them ground for superlative admiration and glorification
of the author. This postulate I altogether contest; and I think that differences
of view, as between Sokrates in one dialogue and Sokrates in another, are
both naturally to be expected and actually manifested (witness the
Protagoras and Gorgias). Moreover Ast designates (p. 404) a doctrine as
“durchaus unsokratisch” which Stallbaum justly remarks (p. 233) to have
been actually affirmed by Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia.
Stallbaum thinks that both the two dialogues (Socher, that the Hippias
Minor only) were composed by Plato among his earlier works, and this may
probably be true. The citation and refutation of the Hippias Minor by

Aristotle (Metaphys. Δ. 1025, a. 6) counts with me as a strong corroborative
proof that the dialogue is Plato’s work. Schleiermacher and Ast set this
evidence aside because Aristotle does not name Plato as the author. But if
the dialogue had been composed by any one less celebrated than Plato,
Aristotle would have named the author. Mention by Aristotle, though
without Plato’s name, is of greater value to support the genuineness than the
purely internal grounds stated by Ast and Schleiermacher against it.

Hippias has just delivered a
In the Hippias Minor, that Sophist appears
lecture, in which he extols
as having just concluded a lecture upon
Achilles as better than Odysseus
Homer, in which he had extolled Achilles as
— the veracious and
better than Odysseus: Achilles being depicted
straightforward hero better than
as veracious and straightforward, Odysseus as
the mendacious and crafty.
mendacious and full of tricks. Sokrates, who
had been among the auditors, cross-examines
Hippias upon the subject of this affirmation.

Homer (says Hippias) considers veracious men, and mendacious men, to
be not merely different, but opposite: and I agree with him. Permit me
(Sokrates remarks) to ask some questions about the meaning of this from
you, since I cannot ask any from Homer himself. You will answer both for
yourself and him.54

54 Plat. Hipp. Minor, 365 C-D.

The remark here made by Sokrates — “The poet is not here to answer for
himself, so that you cannot put any questions to him” is a point of view
familiar to Plato: insisted upon forcibly in the Protagoras (347 E), and
farther generalised in the Phædrus, so as to apply to all written matter
compared with personal converse (Phædrus, p. 275 D).

This ought to count, so far as it goes, as a fragment of proof that the
Hippias Minor is a genuine work of Plato, instead of which Schleiermacher

treats it (p. 295) as evincing a poor copy, made by some imitator of Plato,
from the Protagoras.

Mendacious men (answers Hippias, to a string of questions, somewhat
prolix) are capable, intelligent, wise: they are not incapable or ignorant. If a
man be incapable of speaking falsely, or ignorant, he is not mendacious.
Now the capable man is one who can make sure of doing what he wishes to
do, at the time and occasion when he does wish it, without let or
hindrance.55

55 Plat. Hipp. Minor, 366 B-C.

This is contested by Sokrates.
You, Hippias (says Sokrates), are expert on
The veracious man and the
matters of arithmetic: you can make sure of
mendacious man are one and
answering truly any question put to you on the
the same — the only man who
subject. You are better on the subject than the
can answer truly if he chooses, is
ignorant man, who cannot make sure of doing
he who can also answer falsely if
the same. But as you can make sure of
he chooses, i.e. the knowing man
answering truly, so likewise you can make
— the ignorant man cannot
sure of answering falsely, whenever you
make sure of doing either the
choose to do so. Now the ignorant man cannot
one or the other.
make sure of answering falsely. He may, by
reason of his ignorance, when he wishes to
answer falsely, answer truly without intending it. You, therefore, the
intelligent man and the good in arithmetic, are better than the ignorant and
the bad for both purposes — for speaking falsely, and for speaking truly.56

56 Plato, Hippias Minor, 366 E. Πότερον σὺ ἂν μάλιστα ψεύδοιο καὶ ἀεὶ
κατὰ ταὐτὰ ψευδῆ λέγοις περὶ τούτων, βουλόμενος ψεύδεσθαι καὶ
μηδέποτε ἀληθῆ ἀποκρίνεσθαι; ἤ ὁ ἀμαθὴς εἰς λογισμοὺς δύναιτ’ ἂν σοῦ
μᾶλλον ψεύδεσθαι βουλομένου; ἢ ὁ μὲν ἀμαθὴς πολλάκις ἂν βουλόμενος
ψευδῆ λέγειν τἀληθῆ ἂν εἴποι ἄκων, εἰ τύχοι, διὰ τὸ μὴ εἰδέναι — σὺ δὲ ὁ
σοφός, εἴπερ βούλοιο ψεύδεσθαι, ἀεὶ ἂν κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ ψεύδοιο;

Analogy of special arts — it is
What is true about arithmetic, is true in
only the arithmetician who can
other departments also. The only man who can
speak falsely on a question of
speak falsely whenever he chooses is the man
arithmetic when he chooses.
who can speak truly whenever he chooses.
Now, the mendacious man, as we agreed, is
the man who can speak falsely whenever he chooses. Accordingly, the
mendacious man, and the veracious man, are the same. They are not
different, still less opposite: nay, the two epithets belong only to one and the
same person. The veracious man is not better than the mendacious —
seeing that he is one and the same.57

57 Plato, Hipp. Minor, 367 C, 368 E, 369 A-B.

You see, therefore, Hippias, that the distinction, which you drew and
which you said that Homer drew, between Achilles and Odysseus, will not
hold. You called Achilles veracious, and Odysseus, mendacious: but if one
of the two epithets belongs to either of them, the other must belong to him
also.58

58 Plat. Hipp. Minor, 360 B.

View of Sokrates respecting
Sokrates then tries to make out that Achilles
Achilles in the Iliad. He thinks
speaks falsehood in the Iliad, and speaks it
that Achilles speaks falsehood
very cleverly, because he does so in a way to
cleverly. Hippias maintains that
escape detection from Odysseus himself. To
this Hippias replies, that if Achilles ever

if Achilles ever speaks falsehood, speaks falsehood, he does it innocently,
it is with an innocent purpose, without any purpose of cheating or injuring
whereas Odysseus does the like any one; whereas the falsehoods of Odysseus
with fraudulent purpose. are delivered with fraudulent and wicked
intent.59 It is impossible (he contends) that
men who deceive and do wrong wilfully and intentionally, should be better
than those who do so unwillingly and without design. The laws deal much
more severely with the former than with the latter.60

59 Plat. Hipp. Minor, 370 E.

60 Plat. Hipp. Minor, 372 A.

Issue here taken — Sokrates
Upon this point, Hippias (says Sokrates), I
contends that those who hurt, or
dissent from you entirely. I am, unhappily, a
cheat, or lie wilfully, are better
stupid person, who cannot find out the reality
than those who do the like
of things: and this appears plainly enough
unwillingly — he entreats
when I come to talk with wise men like you,
Hippias to enlighten him and
for I always find myself differing from you.
answer his questions.
My only salvation consists in my earnest
anxiety to put questions and learn from you,
and in my gratitude for your answers and teaching. I think that those who
hurt mankind, or cheat, or lie, or do wrong, wilfully — are better than those
who do the same unwillingly. Sometimes, indeed, from my stupidity, the
opposite view presents itself to me, and I become confused: but now, after
talking with you, the fit of confidence has come round upon me again, to
pronounce and characterise the persons who do wrong unwillingly, as worse

than those who do wrong wilfully. I entreat you to heal this disorder of my
mind. You will do me much more good than if you cured my body of a
distemper. But it will be useless for you to give me one of your long
discourses: for I warn you that I cannot follow it. The only way to confer
upon me real service, will be to answer my questions again, as you have
hitherto done. Assist me, Eudikus, in persuading Hippias to do so.

Assistance from me (says Eudikus) will hardly be needed, for Hippias
professed himself ready to answer any man’s questions.

Yes — I did so (replies Hippias) — but Sokrates always brings trouble
into the debate, and proceeds like one disposed to do mischief.

Eudikus repeats his request, and Hippias, in deference to him, consents to
resume the task of answering.61

61 Plat. Hipp. Min. 373 B.

Questions of Sokrates —
Sokrates then produces a string of
multiplied analogies of the
questions, with a view to show that those who
special arts. The unskilful artist,
do wrong wilfully, are better than those who
who runs, wrestles, or sings
do wrong unwillingly. He appeals to various
badly, whether he will or not, is
analogies. In running, the good runner is he
worse than the skilful, who can
who runs quickly, the bad runner is he who
sing well when he chooses, but
runs slowly. What is evil and base in running
can also sing badly when he
is, to run slowly. It is the good runner who
chooses.
does this evil wilfully: it is the bad runner who
does it unwillingly.62 The like is true about
wrestling and other bodily exercises. He that is good in the body, can work
either strongly or feebly, — can do either what is honourable or what is
base; so that when he does what is base, he does it wilfully. But he that is
bad in the body does what is base unwillingly, not being able to help it.63

62 Plat. Hipp. Min. 373 D-E.

63 Plat. Hipp. Min. 374 B.

What is true about the bodily movements depending upon strength, is not
less true about those depending on grace and elegance. To be wilfully
ungraceful, belongs only to the well-constituted body: none but the badly-
constituted body is ungraceful without wishing it. The same, also, about the
feet, voice, eyes, ears, nose: of these organs, those which act badly through
will and intention, are preferable to those which act badly without will or
intention. Lameness of feet is a misfortune and disgrace: feet which go lame
only by intention are much to be preferred.64

64 Plat. Hipp. Min. 374 C-D.

Again, in the instruments which we use, a rudder or a bow, — or the
animals about us, horses or dogs, — those are better with which we work
badly when we choose; those are worse, with which we work badly without
design, and contrary to our own wishes.

It is better to have the mind of a
It is better to have the mind of a bowman
bowman who misses his mark
who misses his mark by design, than that of
only by design, than that of one
one who misses when he tries to hit. The like
who misses even when he
about all other arts — the physician, the
intends to hit.
harper, the flute-player. In each of these artists,
that mind is better, which goes wrong only
wilfully — that mind is worse, which goes wrong unwillingly, while
wishing to go right. In regard to the minds of our slaves, we should all

prefer those which go wrong only when they choose, to those which go
wrong without their own choice.65

65 Plat. Hipp. Min. 376 B-D.

Having carried his examination through this string of analogous
particulars, and having obtained from Hippias successive answers — “Yes
— true in that particular case,” Sokrates proceeds to sum up the result:—

Sokr. — Well! should we not wish to have our own minds as good as
possible? Hip. — Yes. Sokr. — We have seen that they will be better if they
do mischief and go wrong wilfully, than if they do so unwillingly? Hip. —
But it will be dreadful, Sokrates, if the willing wrong-doers are to pass for
better men than the unwilling.

Dissent and repugnance of
Sokr. — Nevertheless — it seems so: from
Hippias.
what we have said. Hip. — It does not seem so
to me. Sokr. — I thought that it would have
seemed so to you, as it does to me. However, answer me once more — Is
not justice either a certain mental capacity? or else knowledge? or both
together?66 Hip. — Yes! it is. Sokr. — If justice be a capacity of the mind,
the more capable mind will also be the juster: and we have already seen that
the more capable soul is the better. Hip. — We have. Sokr. — If it be
knowledge, the more knowing or wiser mind will of course be the juster: if
it be a combination of both capacity and knowledge, that mind which is
more capable as well as more knowing, — will be the juster that which is
less capable and less knowing, will be the more unjust. Hip. — So it
appears. Sokr. — Now we have shown that the more capable and knowing
mind is at once the better mind, and more competent to exert itself both
ways — to do what is honourable as well as what is base — in every
employment. Hip. — Yes. Sokr. — When, therefore, such a mind does what
is base, it does so wilfully, through its capacity or intelligence, which we

have seen to be of the nature of justice? Hip. — It seems so. Sokr. — Doing
base things, is acting unjustly: doing honourable things, is acting justly.
Accordingly, when this more capable and better mind acts unjustly, it will
do so wilfully; while the less capable and worse mind will do so without
willing it? Hip. — Apparently.

66 Plat. Hipp. Min. 375 D. ἡ δικαιοσύνη οὐχι ἢ δύναμίς τίς ἐστιν, ἢ
ἐπιστήμη, ἢ ἀμφότερα;

Conclusion — That none but the
Sokr. — Now the good man is he that has
good man can do evil wilfully:
the good mind: the bad man is he that has the
the bad man does evil
bad mind. It belongs therefore to the good man
unwillingly. Hippias cannot
to do wrong wilfully, to the bad man, to do
resist the reasoning, but will not
wrong without wishing it — that is, if the good
accept the conclusion —
man be he that has the good mind? Hip. —
Sokrates confesses his
But that is unquestionable — that he has it.
perplexity.
Sokr. — Accordingly, he that goes wrong and
does base and unjust things wilfully, if there
be any such character — can be no other than the good man. Hip. — I do
not know how to concede that to you, Sokrates.67 Sokr. — Nor I, how to
concede it to myself, Hippias: yet so it must appear to us, now at least, from
the past debate. As I told you long ago, I waver hither and thither upon this
matter; my conclusions never remain the same. No wonder indeed that I and
other vulgar men waver; but if you wise men waver also, that becomes a
fearful mischief even to us, since we cannot even by coming to you escape
from our embarrassment.68

67 Plat. Hipp. Min. 375 E, 376 B.

68 Plato, Hipp. Min. 376 C.

I will here again remind the reader, that in this, as in the other dialogues,
the real speaker is Plato throughout: and that it is he alone who prefixes the
different names to words determined by himself.

Remarks on the dialogue. If the
Now, if the dialogue just concluded had
parts had been inverted, the
come down to us with the parts inverted, and
dialogue would have been cited
with the reasoning of Sokrates assigned to
by critics as a specimen of the
Hippias, most critics would probably have
sophistry and corruption of the
produced it as a tissue of sophistry justifying
Sophists.
the harsh epithets which they bestow upon the
Athenian Sophists — as persons who
considered truth and falsehood to be on a par — subverters of morality —
and corruptors of the youth of Athens.69 But as we read it, all that, which in
the mouth of Hippias would have passed for sophistry, is here put forward
by Sokrates; while Hippias not only resists his conclusions, and adheres to
the received ethical sentiment tenaciously, even when he is unable to defend
it, but hates the propositions forced upon him, protests against the perverse
captiousness of Sokrates, and requires much pressing to induce him to
continue the debate. Upon the views adopted by the critics, Hippias ought
to receive credit for this conduct, as a friend of virtue and morality. To me,
such reluctance to debate appears a defect rather than a merit; but I cite the
dialogue as illustrating what I have already said in another place — that
Sokrates and Plato threw out more startling novelties in ethical doctrine,
than either Hippias or Protagoras, or any of the other persons denounced as
Sophists.

69 Accordingly one of the Platonic critics, Schwalbe (Œuvres de Platon, p.
116), explains Plato’s purpose in the Hippias Minor by saying, that Sokrates
here serves out to the Sophists a specimen of their own procedure, and
gives them an example of sophistical dialectic, by defending a sophistical

thesis in a sophistical manner: That he chooses and demonstrates at length
the thesis — the liar is not different from the truth-teller — as an exposure
of the sophistical art of proving the contrary of any given proposition, and
for the purpose of deriding and unmasking the false morality of Hippias,
who in this dialogue talks reasonably enough.

Schwalbe, while he affirms that this is the purpose of Plato, admits that
the part here assigned to Sokrates is unworthy of him; and Steinhart
maintains that Plato never could have had any such purpose, “however
frequently” (Steinhart says), “sophistical artifices may occur in this
conversation of Sokrates, which artifices Sokrates no more disdained to
employ than any other philosopher or rhetorician of that day” (“so häufig
auch in seinen Erörterungen sophistische Kunstgriffe vorkommen mögen,
die Sokrates eben so wenig verschmaht hat, als irgend ein Philosoph oder
Redekünstler dieser Zeit”). Steinhart, Einleitung zum Hipp. Minor, p. 109.

I do not admit the purpose here ascribed to Plato by Schwalbe, but I refer
to the passage as illustrating what Platonic critics think of the reasoning
assigned to Sokrates in the Hippias Minor, and the hypotheses which they
introduce to colour it.

The passage cited from Steinhart also — that Sokrates no more disdained
to employ sophistical artifices than any other philosopher or rhetorician of
the age — is worthy of note, as coming from one who is so very bitter in his
invectives against the sophistry of the persons called Sophists, of which we
have no specimens left.

Polemical purpose of the
That Plato intended to represent this
dialogue — Hippias humiliated
accomplished Sophist as humiliated by
by Sokrates.
Sokrates, is evident enough: and the words put
into his mouth are suited to this purpose. The
eloquent lecturer, so soon as his admiring crowd of auditors has retired,

proves unable to parry the questions of a single expert dialectician who
remains behind, upon a matter which appears to him almost self-evident,
and upon which every one (from Homer downward) agrees with him.
Besides this, however, Plato is not satisfied without making him say very
simple and absurd things. All this is the personal, polemical, comic scope of
the dialogue. It lends (whether well-placed or not) a certain animation and
variety, which the author naturally looked out for, in an aggregate of
dialogues all handling analogous matters about man and society.

But though the polemical purpose of the dialogue is thus plain, its
philosophical purpose perplexes the critics considerably. They do not like to
see Sokrates employing sophistry against the Sophists: that is, as they think,
casting out devils by the help of Beelzebub. And certainly, upon the theory
which they adopt, respecting the relation between Plato and Sokrates on one
side, and the Sophists on the other, I think this dialogue is very difficult to
explain. But I do not think it is difficult, upon a true theory of the Platonic
writings.

Philosophical purpose of the
In a former chapter, I tried to elucidate the
dialogue — theory of the
general character and purpose of those
Dialogues of Search generally,
Dialogues of Search, which occupy more than
and of Knowledge as understood
half the Thrasyllean Canon, and of which we
by Plato.
have already reviewed two or three specimens
— Euthyphron, Alkibiadês, &c. We have seen
that they are distinguished by the absence of any affirmative conclusion:
that they prove nothing, but only, at the most, disprove one or more
supposable solutions: that they are not processes in which one man who
knows communicates his knowledge to ignorant hearers, but in which all
are alike ignorant, and all are employed, either in groping, or guessing, or
testing the guesses of the rest. We have farther seen that the value of these
Dialogues depends upon the Platonic theory about knowledge; that Plato

did not consider any one to know, who could not explain to others all that
he knew, reply to the cross-examination of a Sokratic Elenchus, and cross-
examine others to test their knowledge: that knowledge in this sense could
not be attained by hearing, or reading, or committing to memory a theorem,
together with the steps of reasoning which directly conducted to it: — but
that there was required, besides, an acquaintance with many counter-
theorems, each having more or less appearance of truth; as well as with
various embarrassing aspects and plausible delusions on the subject, which
an expert cross-examiner would not fail to urge. Unless you are practised in
meeting all the difficulties which he can devise, you cannot be said to know.
Moreover, it is in this last portion of the conditions of knowledge, that most
aspirants are found wanting.

The Hippias is an
Now the Greater and Lesser Hippias are
exemplification of this theory —
peculiar specimens of these Dialogues of
Sokrates sets forth a case of
Search, and each serves the purpose above
confusion, and avows his
indicated. The Greater Hippias enumerates a
inability to clear it up.
string of tentatives, each one of which ends in
Confusion shown up in the
acknowledged failure: the Lesser Hippias
Lesser Hippias — Error in the
enunciates a thesis, which Sokrates proceeds
Greater.
to demonstrate, by plausible arguments such
as Hippias is forced to admit. But though
Hippias admits each successive step, he still mistrusts the conclusion, and
suspects that he has been misled — a feeling which Plato70 describes
elsewhere as being frequent among the respondents of Sokrates. Nay,
Sokrates himself shares in the mistrust — presents himself as an unwilling
propounder of arguments which force themselves upon him,71 and
complains of his own mental embarrassment. Now you may call this
sophistry, if you please; and you may silence its propounders by calling
them hard names. But such ethical prudery — hiding all the uncomfortable
logical puzzles which start up when you begin to analyse an established

sentiment, and treating them as non-existent because you refuse to look at
them — is not the way, to attain what Plato calls knowledge. If there be any
argument, the process of which seems indisputable, while yet its conclusion
contradicts, or seems to contradict, what is known, upon other evidence —
the full and patient analysis of that argument is indispensable, before you
can become master of the truth and able to defend it. Until you have gone
through such analysis, your mind must remain in that state of confusion
which is indicated by Sokrates at the end of the Lesser Hippias. As it is a
part of the process of Search, to travel in the path of the Greater Hippias —
that is, to go through a string of erroneous solutions, each of which can be
proved, by reasons shown, to be erroneous: so it is an equally important part
of the same process, to travel in the path of the Lesser Hippias — that is, to
acquaint ourselves with all those arguments, bearing on the case, in which
two contrary conclusions appear to be both of them plausibly demonstrated,
and in which therefore we cannot as yet determine which of them is
erroneous — or whether both are not erroneous. The Greater Hippias
exhibits errors, — the Lesser Hippias puts before us confusion. With both
these enemies the Searcher for truth must contend: and Bacon tells us, that
confusion is the worst enemy of the two — “Citius emergit veritas ex
errore, quam ex confusione”. Plato, in the Lesser Hippias, having in hand a
genuine Sokratic thesis, does not disdain to invest Sokrates with the task
(sophistical, as some call it, yet not the less useful and instructive) of setting
forth at large this case of confusion, and avowing his inability to clear it up.
It is enough for Sokrates that he brings home the painful sense of confusion
to the feelings of his hearer as well as to his own. In that painful sentiment
lies the stimulus provocative of farther intellectual effort.72 The dialogue
ends but the process of search, far from ending along with it, is
emphatically declared to be unfinished, and, to be in a condition not merely
unsatisfactory but intolerable, not to be relieved except by farther
investigation, which thus becomes a necessary sequel.

70 Plato, Republ. vi. 487 B.

Καὶ ὁ Ἀδείμαντος, Ὦ Σώκρατες, ἔφη, πρὸς μὲν ταῦτά σοι οὐδεὶς ἂν οἷος
τ’ εἴη ἀντειπεῖν· ἀλλὰ γὰρ τοιόνδε τι πάσχουσιν οἱ ἀκούοντες ἐκάστοτε ἂ
νῦν λέγεις· ἡγοῦνται δι’ ἀπειρίαν τοῦ ἐρωτᾷν καὶ ἀποκρίνεσθαι ὑπὸ τοῦ
λόγου παρ’ ἕκαστον τὸ ἐρώτημα σμικρὸν παραγόμενοι, ἀθροισθέντων τῶν
σμικρῶν ἐπὶ τελευτῆς τῶν λόγων, μέγα τὸ σφάλμα καὶ ἐναντίον τοῖς
πρώτοις ἀναφαίνεσθαι … ἐπει τό γε ἀληθὲς οὐδέν τι μᾶλλον ταύτῃ ἔχειν.

This passage, attesting the effect of the Sokratic examination upon the
minds of auditors, ought to be laid to heart by those Platonic critics who
denounce the Sophists for generating scepticism and uncertainty.

71 Plato, Hipp. Minor, 373 B; also the last sentence of the dialogue.

72 See the passage in Republic, vii. 523-524, where the τὸ παρακλητικὸν
καὶ ἐγερτικὸν τῆς νοήσεως is declared to arise from the pain of a felt
contradiction.

There are two circumstances which lend particular interest to this
dialogue — Hippias Minor. 1. That the thesis out of which the confusion
arises, is one which we know to have been laid down by the historical
Sokrates himself. 2. That Aristotle expressly notices this thesis, as well as
the dialogue in which it is contained, and combats it.

The thesis maintained here by
Sokrates in his conversation with the
Sokrates, is also affirmed by the
youthful Euthydemus (in the Xenophontic
historical Sokrates in the
Memorabilia) maintains, that of two persons,
Xenophontic Memorabilia.
each of whom deceives his friends in a manner
to produce mischief, the one who does so
wilfully is not so unjust as the one who does so unwillingly.73 Euthydemus
(like Hippias in this dialogue) maintains the opposite, but is refuted by
Sokrates; who argues that justice is a matter to be learnt and known like

letters; that the lettered man, who has learnt and knows letters, can write
wrongly when he chooses, but never writes wrongly unless he chooses —
while it is only the unlettered man who writes wrongly unwillingly and
without intending it: that in like manner the just man, he that has learnt and
knows justice, never commits injustice unless when he intends it — while
the unjust man, who has not learnt and does not know justice, commits
injustice whether he will or not. It is the just man therefore, and none but
the just man (Sokrates maintains), who commits injustice knowingly and
wilfully: it is the unjust man who commits injustice without wishing or
intending it.74

73 Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 19. τῶν δὲ δὴ τοὺς φίλους ἐξαπατώντων ἐπὶ βλαβῇ
(ἵνα μηδὲ τοῦτο παραλείπωμεν ἄσκεπτον) πότερος ἀδικώτερός ἐστιν, ὁ
ἑκὼν ἢ ὁ ἄκων;

The natural meaning of ἐπὶ βλαβῇ would be, “for the purpose of
mischief”; and Schneider, in his Index, gives “nocendi causâ”. But in that
meaning the question would involve an impossibility, for the words ὁ ἄκων
exclude any such purpose.

74 Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 19-22.

This is the same view which is worked out by the Platonic Sokrates in the
Hippias Minor: beginning with the antithesis between the veracious and
mendacious man (as Sokrates begins in Xenophon); and concluding with
the general result — that it belongs to the good man to do wrong wilfully, to
the bad man to do wrong unwillingly.

Aristotle combats the thesis.
Aristotle,75 in commenting upon this
Arguments against it. doctrine of the Hippias Minor, remarks justly,
that Plato understands the epithets veracious
and mendacious in a sense different from that which they usually bear. Plato
understands the words as designating one who can tell the truth if he

chooses — one who can speak falsely if he chooses: and in this sense he
argues plausibly that the two epithets go together, and that no man can be
mendacious unless he be also veracious. Aristotle points out that the
epithets in their received meaning are applied, not to the power itself, but to
the habitual and intentional use of that power. The power itself is doubtless
presupposed or implied as one condition to the applicability of the epithets,
and is one common condition to the applicability of both epithets: but the
distinction, which they are intended to draw, regards the intentions and
dispositions with which the power is employed. So also Aristotle observes
that Plato’s conclusion — “He that does wrong wilfully is a better man than
he that does wrong unwillingly,” is falsely collected from induction or
analogy. The analogy of the special arts and accomplishments, upon which
the argument is built, is not applicable. Better has reference, not to the
amount of intelligence but to the dispositions and habitual intentions;
though it presupposes a certain state and amount of intelligence as
indispensable.

75 Aristotel. Metaphys. Δ. p. 1025, a. 8; compare Ethic. Nikomach. iv. p.
1127, b. 16.

Mistake of Sokrates and Plato in
Both Sokrates and Plato (in many of his
dwelling too exclusively on the
dialogues) commit the error of which the
intellectual conditions of human
above is one particular manifestation — that
conduct.
of dwelling exclusively on the intellectual
conditions of human conduct,76 and omitting
to give proper attention to the emotional and volitional, as essentially co-
operating or preponderating in the complex meaning of ethical attributes.
The reasoning ascribed to the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias Minor
exemplifies this one-sided view. What he says is true, but it is only a part of
the truth. When he speaks of a person “who does wrong unwillingly,” he
seems to have in view one who does wrong without knowing that he does

so: one whose intelligence is so defective that he does not know when he
speaks truth and when he speaks falsehood. Now a person thus unhappily
circumstanced must be regarded as half-witted or imbecile, coming under
the head which the Xenophontic Sokrates called madness:77 unfit to
perform any part in society, and requiring to be placed under tutelage.
Compared with such a person, the opinion of the Platonic Sokrates may be
defended — that the mendacious person, who can tell truth when he
chooses, is the better of the two in the sense of less mischievous or
dangerous. But he is the object of a very different sentiment; moreover, this
is not the comparison present to our minds when we call one man
veracious, another man mendacious. We always assume, in every one, a
measure of intelligence equal or superior to the admissible minimum; under
such assumption, we compare two persons, one of whom speaks to the best
of his knowledge and belief, the other, contrary to his knowledge and belief.
We approve the former and disapprove the latter, according to the different
intention and purpose of each (as Aristotle observes); that is, looking at
them under the point of view of emotion and volition — which is logically
distinguishable from the intelligence, though always acting in conjunction
with it.

76 Aristotle has very just observations on these views of Sokrates, and on
the incompleteness of his views when he resolved all virtue into knowledge,
all vice into ignorance. See, among other passages, Aristot. Ethica Magna, i.
1182, a. 16; 1183, b. 9; 1190, b. 28; Ethic. Eudem. i. 1216, b, 4. The
remarks of Aristotle upon Sokrates and Plato evince a real progress in
ethical theory.

77 Xen. Mem. iii. 9, 7. τοὺς διημαρτηκότας, ὧν οἱ πολλοὶ γιγνώσκουσι,
μαινομένους καλεῖν, &c.

Again, the analogy of the special arts, upon which the Platonic Sokrates
dwells in the Hippias Minor, fails in sustaining his inference. By a good

They rely too much on the
runner, wrestler, harper, singer, speaker, &c.,
analogy of the special arts —
we undoubtedly mean one who can, if he
They take no note of the tacit
pleases, perform some one of these operations
assumptions underlying the
well; although he can also, if he pleases,
epithets of praise and blame.
perform them badly. But the epithets good or
bad, in this case, consider exclusively that
element which was left out, and leave out that element which was
exclusively considered, in the former case. The good singer is declared to
stand distinguished from the bad singer, or from the ἰδιώτης, who, if he
sings at all, will certainly sing badly, by an attribute belonging to his
intelligence and vocal organs. To sing well is a special accomplishment,
which is possessed only by a few, and which no man is blamed for not
possessing. The distinction between such special accomplishments, and
justice or rectitude of behaviour, is well brought out in the speech which
Plato puts into the mouth of the Sophist Protagoras.78 “The special artists
(he says) are few in number: one of them is sufficient for many private
citizens. But every citizen, without exception, must possess justice and a
sense of shame: if he does not, he must be put away as a nuisance —
otherwise, society could not be maintained.” The special artist is a citizen
also; and as such, must be subject to the obligations binding on all citizens
universally. In predicating of him that he is good or bad as a citizen, we
merely assume him to possess the average intelligence, of the community;
and the epithet declares whether his emotional and volitional attributes
exceed, or fall short of, the minimum required in the application of that
intelligence to his social obligations. It is thus that the words good or bad
when applied to him as a citizen, have a totally different bearing from that
which the same words have when applied to him in his character of special
artist.

78 Plato, Protagoras, 322.

Value of a Dialogue of Search,
The value of these debates in the Platonic
that it shall be suggestive, and
dialogues consists in their raising questions
that it shall bring before us
like the preceding, for the reflection of the
different aspects of the question
reader — whether the Platonic Sokrates may
under review.
or may not be represented as taking what we
think the right view of the question. For a
Dialogue of Search, the great merit is, that it should be suggestive; that it
should bring before our attention the conditions requisite for a right and
proper use of these common ethical epithets, and the state of circumstances
which is tacitly implied whenever any one uses them. No man ever learns to
reflect upon the meaning of such familiar epithets, which he has been using
all his life — unless the process be forced upon his attention by some
special conversation which brings home to him an uncomfortable sentiment
of perplexity and contradiction. If a man intends to acquire any grasp of
ethical or political theory, he must render himself master, not only of the
sound arguments and the guiding analogies but also of the unsound
arguments and the misleading analogies, which bear upon each portion of it.

Antithesis between Rhetoric and
There is one other point of similitude
Dialectic.
deserving notice, between the Greater and
Lesser Hippias. In both of them, Hippias
makes special complaint of Sokrates, for breaking the question in pieces
and picking out the minute puzzling fragments — instead of keeping it
together as a whole, and applying to it the predicates which it merits when
so considered.79 Here is the standing antithesis between Rhetoric and
Dialectic: between those unconsciously acquired mental combinations
which are poured out in eloquent, impressive, unconditional, and
undistinguishing generalities — and the logical analysis which resolves the
generality into its specialities, bringing to view inconsistencies,
contradictions, limits, qualifications, &c. I have already touched upon this
at the close of the Greater Hippias.

79 Plato, Hipp. Min. 369 B-C. Ὦ Σώκρατες, ἀεὶ σύ τινας τοιούτους
πλέκεις λόγους, καὶ ἀπολαμβάνων ὅ ἂν ᾖ δυσχερέστατον τοῦ λόγου, τούτου
ἔχει κατὰ σμικρὸν ἐφαπτόμενος, καὶ οὐχ ὅλω ἀγωνίζει τῷ πράγματι, περὶ
ὅτου ἂν ὁ λόγος ᾖ, &c.

A remark of Aristotle (Topica, viii. 164, b. 2) illustrates this dissecting
function of the Dialectician.

ἔστι γάρ, ὡς ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν, διαλεκτικὸς ὁ προτατικὸς καὶ ἐνστατικός· ἔστι
δὲ τὸ μὲν προτείνεσθαι, ἓν ποιεῖν τὰ πλείω (δεῖ γὰρ ἓν ὅλῳ ληφθῆναι πρὸς ὃ
ὁ λόγος), τὸ δ’ ἐνίστασθαι, τὸ ἑν πολλά· ἢ γὰρ διαιρεῖ, ἢ ἀναιρεῖ, τὸ μὲν
διδούς, τὸ δὲ οὔ, τῶν προτεινομένων.

CHAPTER XIV.

HIPPARCHUS — MINOS.
In these two dialogues, Plato sets before us two farther specimens of that
error and confusion which beset the enquirer during his search after
“reasoned truth”. Sokrates forces upon the attention of a companion two of
the most familiar words of the market-place, to see whether a clear
explanation of their meaning can be obtained.

Hipparchus — Question —
In the dialogue called Hipparchus, the
What is the definition of Lover
debate turns on the definition of τὸ φιλοκερδὲς
of Gain? He is one who thinks it
or ὁ φιλοκερδής — the love of gain or the
right to gain from things worth
lover of gain. Sokrates asks his Companion to
nothing. Sokrates cross-
define the word. The Companion replies — He
examines upon this explanation.
is one who thinks it right to gain from things
No man expects to gain from
worth nothing.1 Does he do this (asks
things which he knows to be Sokrates) knowing that the things are worth
worth nothing: in this sense, no nothing? or not knowing? If the latter, he is
man is a lover of gain. simply ignorant. He knows it perfectly well (is
the reply). He is cunning and wicked; and it is
because he cannot resist the temptation of gain, that he has the impudence
to make profit by such things, though well aware that they are worth
nothing. Sokr. — Suppose a husbandman, knowing that the plant which he
is tending is worthless — and yet thinking that he ought to gain by it: does
not that correspond to your description of the lover of gain? Comp. — The
lover of gain, Sokrates, thinks that he ought to gain from every thing. Sokr.
— Do not answer in that reckless manner,2 as if you had been wronged by
any one; but answer with attention. You agree that the lover of gain knows
the value of that from which he intends to derive profit; and that the
husbandman is the person cognizant of the value of plants. Comp. — Yes: I

agree. Sokr. — Do not therefore attempt, you are so young, to deceive an
old man like me, by giving answers not in conformity with your own
admissions; but tell me plainly, Do you believe that the experienced
husbandman, when he knows that he is planting a tree worth nothing, thinks
that he shall gain by it? Comp. — No, certainly: I do not believe it.

1 Plato, Hipparch. 225 A. οἳ ἂν κερδαίνειν ἀξιῶσιν ἀπὸ τῶν μηδενὸς
ἀξίων.

2 Plato, Hipparch. 225 C.

Sokrates then proceeds to multiply illustrations to the same general point.
The good horseman does not expect to gain by worthless food given to his
horse: the good pilot, by worthless tackle put into his ship: the good
commander, by worthless arms delivered to his soldiers: the good fifer,
harper, bowman, by employing worthless instruments of their respective
arts, if they know them to be worthless.

Gain is good. Every man loves
None of these persons (concludes Sokrates)
good: therefore all men are
correspond to your description of the lover of
lovers of gain.
gain. Where then can you find a lover of gain?
On your explanation, no man is so.3 Comp. —
I mean, Sokrates, that the lovers of gain are those, who, through greediness,
long eagerly for things altogether petty and worthless; and thus display a
love of gain.4 Sokr. — Not surely knowing them to be worthless — for this
we have shown to be impossible — but ignorant that they are worthless,
and believing them to be valuable. Comp. — It appears so. Sokr. — Now
gain is the opposite of loss: and loss is evil and hurt to every one: therefore
gain (as the opposite of loss) is good. Comp. — Yes. Sokr. — It appears
then that the lovers of good are those whom you call lovers of gain? Comp.
— Yes: it appears so. Sokr. — Do not you yourself love good — all good
things? Comp. — Certainly. Sokr. — And I too, and every one else. All men

love good things, and hate evil. Now we agreed that gain was a good: so
that by this reasoning, it appears that all men are lovers of gain while by the
former reasoning, we made out that none were so.5 Which of the two shall
we adopt, to avoid error. Comp. — We shall commit no error, Sokrates, if
we rightly conceive the lover of gain. He is one who busies himself upon,
and seeks to gain from, things from which good men do not venture to gain.

3 Plat. Hipparch. 226 D.

4 Plat. Hipparch. 226 D. Ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ, ὦ Σώκρατες, βούλομαι λέγειν τούτους
φιλοκερδεῖς εἶναι, οἳ ἑκάστοτε ὑπὸ ἀπληστίας καὶ πανὺ σμικρὰ καὶ ὀλίγου
ἄξια καὶ οὐδενὸς γλίχονται ὑπερφυῶς καὶ φιλοκερδοῦσιν.

5 Plat. Hipparch. 227 C.

Apparent contradiction.
Sokr. — But, my friend, we agreed just now,
Sokrates accuses the companion
that gain was a good, and that all men always
of trying to deceive him.
love good. It follows therefore, that good men
Accusation is retorted upon
as well as others love all gains, if gains are
Sokrates.
good things. Comp. — Not, certainly, those
gains by which they will afterwards be hurt.
Sokr. — Be hurt: you mean, by which they will become losers. Comp. — I
mean that and nothing else. Sokr. — Do they become losers by gain, or by
loss? Comp. — By both: by loss, and by evil gain. Sokr. — Does it appear
to you that any useful and good thing is evil? Comp. — No. Sokr. — Well!
we agreed just now that gain was the opposite of loss, which was evil; and
that, being the opposite of evil, gain was good. Comp. — That was what we
agreed. Sokr. — You see how it is: you are trying to deceive me: you
purposely contradict what we just now agreed upon. Comp. — Not at all, by
Zeus: on the contrary, it is you, Sokrates, who deceive me, wriggling up and
down in your talk, I cannot tell how.6 Sokr. — Be careful what you say: I
should be very culpable, if I disobeyed a good and wise monitor. Comp. —

Whom do you mean: and what do you mean? Sokr. — Hipparchus, son of
Peisistratus.

6 Plat. Hipparch. 228 A. Sokr. — Ὁρᾷς οὖν; ἐπιχειρεῖς με ἐξαπατᾷν,
ἐπίτηδες ἐναντία λέγων οἷς ἄρτι ὡμολογήσαμεν. Comp. Οὐ μὰ Δί’, ὦ
Σώκρατες· ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον σὺ ἐμὲ ἐξαπατᾷς, καὶ οὐκ οἶδα ὁπῇ ἐν τοῖς
λόγοις ἄνω καὶ κάτω στρέφεις.

Precept inscribed formerly by
Sokrates then describes at some length the
Hipparchus the Peisistratid —
excellent character of Hipparchus: his
”Never deceive a friend”.
beneficent rule, his wisdom, his anxiety for the
Eulogy of Hipparchus by
moral improvement of the Athenians: the
Sokrates.
causes, different from what was commonly
believed, which led to his death; and the
wholesome precepts which he during his life had caused to be inscribed on
various busts of Hermes throughout Attica. One of these busts or Hermæ
bore the words — Do not deceive a friend.7

7 Plat. Hipparch. 228 B-229 D.

The picture here given of Hipparchus deserves notice. We are informed
that he was older than his brother Hippias, which was the general belief at
Athens, as Thucydides (i. 20, vi. 58) affirms, though himself contradicting
it, and affirming that Hippias was the elder brother. Plato however agrees
with Thucydides in this point, that the three years after the assassination of
Hipparchus, during which Hippias ruled alone, were years of oppression
and tyranny; and that the hateful recollection of the Peisistratidæ, which
always survived in the minds of the Athenians, was derived from these three
last years.

The picture which Plato here gives of Hipparchus is such as we might
expect from a philosopher. He dwells upon the pains which Hipparchus
took to have the recitation of the Homeric poems made frequent and

complete: also upon his intimacy with the poets Anakreon and Simonides.
The colouring which Plato gives to the intimacy between Aristogeiton and
Harmodius is also peculiar. The ἐραστὴς is represented by Plato as eager for
the education and improvement of the ἐρώμενος; and the jealousy felt
towards Hipparchus is described as arising from the distinguished
knowledge and abilities of Hipparchus, which rendered him so much
superior and more effective as an educator.

The Companion resumes: Apparently, Sokrates, either you do not account
me your friend, or you do not obey Hipparchus: for you are certainly
deceiving me in some unaccountable way in your talk. You cannot persuade
me to the contrary.

Sokrates allows the companion
Sokr. — Well then! in order that you may
to retract some of his answers.
not think yourself deceived, you may take
The companion affirms that
back any move that you choose, as if we were
some gain is good, other gain is
playing at draughts. Which of your admissions
evil.
do you wish to retract — That all men desire
good things? That loss (to be a loser) is evil?
That gain is the opposite of loss: that to gain is the opposite of to lose? That
to gain, as being the opposite of evil is a good thing? Comp. — No. I do not
retract any one of these. Sokr. — You think then, it appears, that some gain
is good, other gain evil? Comp. — Yes, that is what I do think.8 Sokr. —
Well, I give you back that move: let it stand as you say. Some gain is good:
other gain is bad. But surely the good gain is no more gain, than the bad
gain: both are gain, alike and equally. Comp. — How do you mean?

8 Plat. Hipparch. 229 E, 230 A.

Questions by Sokrates — bad
Sokrates then illustrates his question by two
gain is gain, as much as good
or three analogies. Bad food is just as much
gain. What is the common
food, as good food: bad drink, as much drink

property, in virtue of which both as good drink: a good man is no more man
are called Gain? Every than a bad man.9
acquisition, made with no
Sokr. — In like manner, bad gain, and good
outlay, or with a smaller outlay,
is gain. Objections — the
gain, are (both of them) gain alike — neither
acquisition may be evil —
of them more or less than the other. Such
embarrassment confessed.
being the case, what is that common quality
possessed by both, which induces you to call
them by the same name Gain?10 Would you call Gain any acquisition which
one makes either with a smaller outlay or with no outlay at all?11 Comp. —
Yes. I should call that gain. Sokr. — For example, if after being at a
banquet, not only without any outlay, but receiving an excellent dinner, you
acquire an illness? Comp. — Not at all: that is no gain. Sokr. — But if from
the banquet you acquire health, would that be gain or loss? Comp. — It
would be gain. Sokr. — Not every acquisition therefore is gain, but only
such acquisitions as are good and not evil: if the acquisition be evil, it is
loss. Comp. — Exactly so. Sokr. — Well, now, you see, you are come round
again to the very same point: Gain is good. Loss is evil. Comp. — I am
puzzled what to say.12 Sokr. — You have good reason to be puzzled.

9 Plat. Hipparch. 230 C.

10 Plat. Hipparch. 230 E. διὰ τί ποτε ἀμφότερα αὐτὰ κέρδος καλεῖς; τί
ταὐτὸν ἐν ἀμφοτέροις ὁρῶν;

11 Plat. Hipparch. 231 A.

12 Plat. Hipparch. 231 C. Sokr. Ὁρᾷς οὖν, ὡς πάλιν αὖ περιτρέχεις εἰς τὸ
αὐτὸ — τὸ μὲν κέρδος ἀγαθὸν φαίνεται, ἡ δὲ ζημία κακόν; Comp. Ἀπορῶ
ἔγωγε ὃ, τι εἴπω. Sokr. Οὐκ ἀδίκως γε σὺ ἀπορῶν.

But tell me: you say that if a man lays out little and acquires much, that is
gain? Comp. — Yes: but not if it be evil: it is gain, if it be good, like gold or

It is essential to gain, that the
silver. Sokr. — I will ask you about gold and
acquisition made shall be
silver. Suppose a man by laying out one pound
greater not merely in quantity,
of gold acquires two pounds of silver, is it gain
but also in value, than the
or loss? Comp. — It is loss, decidedly,
outlay. The valuable is the
Sokrates: gold is twelve times the value of
profitable — the profitable is the
silver. Sokr. — Nevertheless he has acquired
good. Conclusion comes back.
more: double is more than half. Comp. — Not
That Gain is Good.
in value: double silver is not more than half
gold. Sokr. — It appears then that we must
include value as essential to gain, not merely quantity. The valuable is gain:
the valueless is no gain. The valuable is that which is valuable to possess: is
that the profitable, or the unprofitable? Comp. — It is the profitable. Sokr.
— But the profitable is good? Comp. — Yes: it is. Sokr. — Why then, here,
the same conclusion comes back to us as agreed, for the third or fourth
time. The gainful is good. Comp. — It appears so.13

13 Plato, Hipparch. 231 D-E, 232 A.

Recapitulation. The debate has
Sokr. — Let me remind you of what has
shown that all gain is good, and
passed. You contended that good men did not
that there is no evil gain — all
wish to acquire all sorts of gain, but only such
men are lovers of gain — no
as were good, and not such as were evil. But
man ought to be reproached for
now, the debate has compelled us to
being so. The companion is
acknowledge that all gains are good, whether
compelled to admit this, though
small or great. Comp. — As for me, Sokrates,
he declares that he is not
the debate has compelled me rather than
persuaded.
persuaded me.14 Sokr. — Presently, perhaps, it
may even persuade you. But now, whether you
have been persuaded or not, you at least concur with me in affirming that all
gains, whether small or great, are good. That all good men wish for all good
things. Comp. — I do concur. Sokr. — But you yourself stated that evil men

love all gains, small and great? Comp. — I said so. Sokr. — According to
your doctrine then, all men are lovers of gain, the good men as well as the
evil? Comp. — Apparently so. Sokr. — It is therefore wrong to reproach
any man as a lover of gain: for the person who reproaches is himself a lover
of gain, just as much.

14 Plat. Hipparch. 232 A-B. Sokr. Οὐκοῦν νῦν πάντα τὰ κέρδη ὁ λόγος
ἡμᾶς ἠνάγκακε καὶ σμικρὰ καὶ μεγάλα ὁμολογεῖν ἀγαθὰ εἶναι; Comp.
Ἠνάγκακε γάρ, ὦ Σώκρατες, μᾶλλον ἐμέ γε ἢ πέπεικεν. Sokr. Ἀλλ’ ἴσως
μετὰ τοῦτο καὶ πείσειεν ἂν.

Minos. Question put by Sokrates
The Minos, like the Hipparchus, is a
to the companion. What is Law,
dialogue carried on between Sokrates and a
or The Law? All law is the same,
companion not named. It relates to Law, or
quatenus law: what is the
The Law —
common constituent attribute? Sokr. — What is Law (asks Sokrates)?
Comp. — Respecting what sort of Law do you
enquire (replies the Companion)? Sokr. — What! is there any difference
between one law and another law, as to that identical circumstance, of being
Law? Gold does not differ from gold, so far as the being gold is concerned
— nor stone from stone, so far as being stone is concerned. In like manner,
one law does not differ from another, all are the same, in so far as each is
Law alike:— not, one of them more, and another less. It is about this as a
whole that I ask you — What is Law?

Answer — Law is, 1. The
Comp. — What should Law be, Sokrates,
consecrated and binding
other than the various assemblage of
customs. 2. The decree of the
consecrated and binding customs and beliefs?
15 Sokr. — Do you think, then, that discourse
city. 3. Social or civic opinion.
is, the things spoken: that sight is, the things
seen? that hearing is, the things heard? Or are they not distinct, in each of

the three cases — and is not Law also one thing, the various customs and
beliefs another? Comp. — Yes! I now think that they are distinct.16 Sokr. —
Law is that whereby these binding customs become binding. What is it?
Comp. — Law can be nothing else than the public resolutions and decrees
promulgated among us. Law is the decree of the city.17 Sokr. — You mean,
that Law is social opinion. Comp. — Yes I do.

15 Plato, Minos, 313 B. Τί οὖν ἄλλο νόμος εἴη ἂν ἀλλ’ ἢ τὰ νομιζόμενα;

16 Plato, Minos, 313 B-C.

I pass over here an analogy started by Sokrates in his next question; as
ὄψις to τὰ ὁρώμενα, so νόμος to τὰ νομιζόμενα, &c.

17 Plato, Minos, 814 A. ἐπειδὴ νόμῳ τὰ νομιζόμενα νομίζεται, τίνι ὄντι τῷ
νόμῳ νομίζεται;

Cross-examination by Sokrates
Sokr. — Perhaps you are right: but let us
— just and lawfully-behaving
examine. You call some persons wise:— they
men are so through law; unjust
are wise through wisdom. You call some just:
and lawless men are so through
— they are just through justice. In like
the absence of law. Law is highly
manner, the lawfully-behaving men are so
honourable and useful:
through law: the lawless men are so through
lawlessness is ruinous.
lawlessness. Now the lawfully-behaving men
Accordingly, bad decrees of the
are just: the lawless men are unjust. Comp. —
city — or bad social opinion —
It is so. Sokr. — Justice and Law, are highly
cannot be law.
honourable: injustice and lawlessness, highly
dishonourable: the former preserves cities, the
latter ruins them. Comp. — Yes — it does. Sokr. — Well, then! we must
consider law as something honourable; and seek after it, under the
assumption that it is a good thing. You defined law to be the decree of the
city: Are not some decrees good, others evil? Comp. — Unquestionably.
Sokr. — But we have already said that law is not evil. Comp. — I admit it.

Sokr. — It is incorrect therefore to answer, as you did broadly, that law is
the decree of the city. An evil decree cannot be law. Comp. — I see that it is
incorrect.18

18 Plato, Minos, 314 B-C-D.

Suggestion by Sokrates — Law
Sokr. — Still — I think, myself, that law is
is the good opinion of the city —
opinion of some sort; and since it is not evil
but good opinion is true opinion,
opinion, it must be good opinion. Now good
or the finding out of reality. Law
opinion is true opinion: and true opinion is, the
therefore wishes (tends) to be
finding out of reality. Comp. — I admit it.
the finding out of reality, though
Sokr. — Law therefore wishes or tends to be,
it does not always succeed in
the finding out of reality.19 Comp. — But,
doing so. Sokrates, if law is the finding out of reality —
if we have therein already found out realities
— how comes it that all communities of men do not use the same laws
respecting the same matters? Sokr. — The law does not the less wish or tend
to find out realities; but it is unable to do so. That is, if the fact be true as
you state — that we change our laws, and do not all of us use the same.
Comp. — Surely, the fact as a fact is obvious enough.20

19 Plato, Minos, 315 A. Οὐκοῦν ἡ ἀληθὴς δόξα τοῦ ὄντος ἐστιν ἐξεύρεσις;
… ὁ νόμος ἄρα βούλεται τοῦ ὄντος εἶναι ἐξεύρεσις;

20 Plato, Minos, 315 A-B.

(The Companion here enumerates some remarkable local rites, venerable
in one place, abhorrent in another, such as the human sacrifices at Carthage,

Objection taken by the
&c., thus lengthening his answer much beyond
Companion — That there is
what it had been before. Sokrates then
great discordance of laws in
continues):
different places — he specifies Sokr. — Perhaps you are right, and these
several cases of such matters have escaped me. But if you and I go
discordance at some length. on making long speeches each for ourselves,
Sokrates reproves his prolixity, we shall never come to an agreement. If we
and requests him to confine are to carry on our research together, we must
himself to question or answer. do so by question and answer. Question me, if
you prefer:— if not, answer me. Comp. — I
am quite ready, Sokrates, to answer whatever you ask.

Farther questions by Sokrates
Sokr. — Well, then! do you think that just
— Things heavy and light, just
things are just and unjust things are unjust?
and unjust, honourable and
Comp. — I think they are. Sokr. — Do not all
dishonourable, &c., are so, and
men in all communities, among the Persians as
are accounted so everywhere.
well as here, now as well as formerly, think so
Real things are always
too? Comp. — Unquestionably they do. Sokr.
accounted real. Whoever fails in
— Are not things which weigh more,
attaining the real, fails in
accounted heavier; and things which weigh
attaining the lawful.
less, accounted lighter, here, at Carthage, and
everywhere else?21 Comp. — Certainly. Sokr.
— It seems, then, that honourable things are accounted honourable
everywhere, and dishonourable things dishonourable? not the reverse.
Comp. — Yes, it is so. Sokr. — Then, speaking universally, existent things
or realities (not non-existents) are accounted existent and real, among us as
well as among all other men? Comp. — I think they are. Sokr. — Whoever
therefore fails in attaining the real fails in attaining the lawful.22 Comp. —
As you now put it, Sokrates, it would seem that the same things are
accounted lawful both by us at all times, and by all the rest of mankind

besides. But when I reflect that we are perpetually changing our laws, I
cannot persuade myself of what you affirm.

21 Plato, Minos, 316 A. Πότερον δὲ τὰ πλεῖον ἔλκοντα βαρύτερα
νομίζεται ἐνθάδε, τὰ δὲ ἔλαττον, κουφότερα, ἢ τοὐναντίον;

The verb νομίζεται deserves attention here, being the same word as has
been employed in regard to law, and derived from νόμος.

22 Plato, Minos, 316 B. οὐκοῦν, ὡς κατὰ πάντων εἰπεῖν, τὰ ὄντα νομίζεται
εἶναι, οὐ τὰ μὴ ὄντα, καὶ παρ’ ἡμῖν καὶ παρὰ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἅπασιν. Comp.
Ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ. Sokr. Ὃς ἂν ἄρα τοῦ ὄντος ἁμαρτάνῃ, τοῦ νομίμου
ἁμαρτάνει.

There are laws of health and of
Sokr. — Perhaps you do not reflect that
cure, composed by the few
pieces on the draught-board, when their
physicians wise upon those
position is changed, still remain the same. You
subjects, and unanimously
know medical treatises: you know that
declared by them. So also there
physicians are the really knowing about
are laws of farming, gardening,
matters of health: and that they agree with
cookery, declared by the few
each other in writing about them. Comp. —
wise in those respective pursuits.
Yes — I know that. Sokr. — The case is the
In like manner, the laws of a city
same whether they be Greeks or not Greeks:
are the judgments declared by
Those who know, must of necessity hold the
the few wise men who know how
same opinion with each other, on matters
to rule.
which they know: always and everywhere.
Comp. — Yes — always and everywhere.
Sokr. — Physicians write respecting matters of health what they account to
be true, and these writings of theirs are the medical laws? Comp. —
Certainly they are. Sokr. — The like is true respecting the laws of farming
— the laws of gardening — the laws of cookery. All these are the writings

of persons, knowing in each of the respective pursuits? Comp. — Yes.23
Sokr. — In like manner, what are the laws respecting the government of a
city? Are they not the writings of those who know how to govern — kings,
statesmen, and men of superior excellence? Comp. — Truly so. Sokr. —
Knowing men like these will not write differently from each other about the
same things, nor change what they have once written. If, then, we see some
doing this, are we to declare them knowing or ignorant? Comp. — Ignorant
— undoubtedly.

23 Plato, Minos, 316 D-E.

That which is right is the regal
Sokr. — Whatever is right, therefore, we
law, the only true and real law
may pronounce to be lawful; in medicine,
— that which is not right, is not
gardening, or cookery: whatever is not right,
law, but only seems to be law in
not to be lawful but lawless. And the like in
the eyes of the ignorant.
treatises respecting just and unjust, prescribing
how the city is to be administered: That which
is right, is the regal law — that which is not right, is not so, but only seems
to be law in the eyes of the ignorant — being in truth lawless. Comp. —
Yes. Sokr. — We were correct therefore in declaring Law to be the finding
out of reality. Comp. — It appears so.24 Sokr. — It is the skilful
husbandman who gives right laws on the sowing of land: the skilful
musician on the touching of instruments: the skilful trainer, respecting
exercise of the body: the skilful king or governor, respecting the minds of
the citizens. Comp. — Yes — it is.25

24 Plato, Minos, 317 C. τὸ μὲν ὀρθὸν νόμος ἐστὶ βασιλικός· τὸ δὲ μὴ
ὀρθόν οὔ, ὃ δοκεῖ νόμος εἶναι τοῖς εἰδόσιν· ἔστι γὰρ ἄνομον.

25 Plato, Minos, 318 A.

Minos, King of Krete — his laws
Sokr. — Can you tell me which of the
were divine and excellent, and
ancient kings has the glory of having been a
have remained unchanged from
good lawgiver, so that his laws still remain in
time immemorial.
force as divine institutions? Comp. — I cannot
tell. Sokr. — But can you not say which
among the Greeks have the most ancient laws? Comp. — Perhaps you mean
the Lacedæmonians and Lykurgus? Sokr. — Why, the Lacedæmonian laws
are hardly more than three hundred years old: besides, whence is it that the
best of them come? Comp. — From Krete, they say. Sokr. — Then it is the
Kretans who have the most ancient laws in Greece? Comp. — Yes. Sokr. —
Do you know those good kings of Krete, from whom these laws are derived
— Minos and Rhadamanthus, sons of Zeus and Europa? Comp. —
Rhadamanthus certainly is said to have been a just man, Sokrates; but
Minos quite the reverse — savage, ill-tempered, unjust. Sokr. — What you
affirm, my friend, is a fiction of the Attic tragedians. It is not stated either
by Homer or Hesiod, who are far more worthy of credit than all the
tragedians put together. Comp. — What is it that Homer and Hesiod say
about Minos?26

26 Plato, Minos, 318 E.

Question about the character of
Sokrates replies by citing, and commenting
Minos — Homer and Hesiod
upon, the statements of Homer and Hesiod
declare him to have been
respecting Minos, as the cherished son,
admirable, the Attic tragedians
companion, and pupil, of Zeus; who bestowed
defame him as a tyrant, because
upon him an admirable training, teaching him
he was an enemy of Athens.
wisdom and justice, and thus rendering him
consummate as a lawgiver and ruler of men. It
was through these laws, divine as emanating from the teaching of Zeus, that
Krete (and Sparta as the imitator of Krete) had been for so long a period
happy and virtuous. As ruler of Krete, Minos had made war upon Athens,

and compelled the Athenians to pay tribute. Hence he had become odious to
the Athenians, and especially odious to the tragic poets who were the great
teachers and charmers of the crowd. These poets, whom every one ought to
be cautious of offending, had calumniated Minos as the old enemy of
Athens.27

27 Plato, Minos, 319-320.

That Minos was really
But that these tales are mere calumny
admirable — and that he has
(continues Sokrates), and that Minos was truly
found out truth and reality
a good lawgiver, and a good shepherd (νομεὺς
respecting the administration of
ἀγαθός) of his people — we have proof
the city — we may be sure from
through the fact, that his laws still remain
the fact that his laws have
unchanged: which shows that he has really
remained so long unaltered.
found out truth and reality respecting the
administration of a city.28 Comp. — Your view
seems plausible, Sokrates. Sokr. — If I am right, then, you think that the
Kretans have more ancient laws than any other Greeks? and that Minos and
Rhadamanthus are the best of all ancient lawgivers, rulers, and shepherds of
mankind? Comp. — I think they are.

28 Plato, Minos, 321 B. τοῦτο μέγιστον σημεῖον, ὅτι ἀκίνητοι αὐτοῦ οἱ
νόμοι εἰσίν, ἄτε τοῦ ὄντος περὶ πόλεως οἰκήσεως ἐξευρόντος εὖ τὴν
ἀλήθειαν.

The question is made more
Sokr. — Now take the case of the good
determinate — What is it that
lawgiver and good shepherd for the body — If
the good lawgiver prescribes
we were asked, what it is that he prescribes for
and measures out for the health
the body, so as to render it better? we should

of the mind, as the physician answer, at once, briefly, and well, by saying —
measures out food and exercise food and labour: the former to sustain the
for the body? Sokrates cannot body, the latter to exercise and consolidate it.
tell. Close. Comp. — Quite correct. Sokr. — And if after
that we were asked, What are those things
which the good lawgiver prescribes for the mind to make it better, what
should we say, so as to avoid discrediting ourselves? Comp. — I really
cannot tell. Sokr. — But surely it is discreditable enough both for your mind
and mine — to confess, that we do not know upon what it is that good and
evil for our minds depends, while we can define upon what it is that the
good or evil of our bodies depends?29

29 Plato, Minos, 321 C-B.

The Hipparchus and Minos are
I have put together the two dialogues
analogous to each other, and
Hipparchus and Minos, partly because of the
both of them inferior works of
analogy which really exists between them,
Plato, perhaps unfinished.
partly because that analogy is much insisted
on by Boeckh, Schleiermacher, Stallbaum, and
other recent critics; who not only strike them both out of the list of Platonic
works, but speak of them with contempt as compositions. On the first point,
I dissent from them altogether: on the second, I agree with them thus far —
that I consider the two dialogues inferior works of Plato:— much inferior to
his greatest and best compositions, — certainly displaying both less genius
and less careful elaboration — probably among his early performances —
perhaps even unfinished projects, destined for a farther elaboration, which

they never received, and not published until after his decease. Yet in
Hipparchus as well as in Minos, the subjects debated are important as
regards ethical theory. Several questions are raised and partially canvassed:
no conclusion is finally attained. These characteristics they have in common
with several of the best Platonic dialogues.

Hipparchus — Double meaning
In Hipparchus, the question put by Sokrates
of φιλοκερδὴς and κέρδος.
is, about the definition of ὁ φιλοκερδὴς (the
lover of gain), and of κέρδος itself — gain.
The first of these two words (like many in Greek as well as in English) is
used in two senses. In its plain, etymological sense, it means an attribute
belonging to all men: all men love gain, hate loss. But since this is
predicable of all, there is seldom any necessity for predicating it of any one
man or knot of men in particular. Accordingly, when you employ the epithet
as a predicate of A or B, what you generally mean is, to assert something
more than its strict etymological meaning: to declare that he has the
attribute in unusual measure; or that he has shown himself, on various
occasions, wanting in other attributes, which on those occasions ought, in
your judgment, to have countervailed it. The epithet thus comes to connote
a sentiment of blame or reproach, in the mind of the speaker.30

30 Aristotle adverts to this class of ethical epithets, connoting both an
attribute in the person designated and an unfavourable sentiment in the
speaker (Ethic. Nikom. ii. 6, p. 1107, a. 9). Οὐ πᾶσα δ’ ἐπιδέχεται πρᾶξις,
οὐδὲ πᾶν πάθος, τὴν μεσότητα· ἔνια γὰρ εὐθὺς ὠνόμασται συνειλημμένα
μετὰ τῆς φαυλότητος, οἶον, &c.

State or mind of the agent, as to
The Companion or Collocutor, being called
knowledge, frequent inquiry in
upon by Sokrates to explain τὸ φιλοκερδὲς,
Plato. No tenable definition
defines it in this last sense, as conveying or
found.
connoting a reproach. He gives three different
explanations of it (always in this sense), each

of which Sokrates shows to be untenable. A variety of parallel cases are
compared, and the question is put (so constantly recurring in Plato’s
writings), what is the state of the agent’s mind as to knowledge? The cross-
examination makes out, that if the agent be supposed to know, — then there
is no man corresponding to the definition of a φιλοκερδής: if the agent be
supposed not to know — then, on the contrary, every man will come under
the definition. The Companion is persuaded that there is such a thing as
“love of gain” in the blamable sense. Yet he cannot find any tenable
definition, to discriminate it from “love of gain” in the ordinary or innocent
sense.

Admitting that there is bad gain,
The same question comes back in another
as well as good gain, what is the
form, after Sokrates has given the liberty of
meaning of the word gain? None
retractation. The Collocutor maintains that
is found.
there is bad gain, as well as good gain. But
what is that common, generic, quality,
designated well as good by the word gain, apart from these two distinctive
epithets? He cannot find it out or describe it. He gives two definitions, each
of which is torn up by Sokrates. To deserve the name of gain, that which a
man acquires must be good; and it must surpass, in value as well as in
quantity, the loss or outlay which he incurs in order to acquire it. But when
thus understood, all gains are good. There is no meaning in the distinction
between good and bad gains: all men are lovers of gain.

Purpose of Plato in the dialogue
With this confusion, the dialogue closes.
— to lay bare the confusion, and
The Sokratic notion of good, as what every
to force the mind of the
one loves — evil as what every one hates —
respondent into efforts for
also of evil-doing, as performed by every evil-
clearing it up.
doer only through ignorance or mistake is
brought out and applied to test the ethical
phraseology of a common-place respondent. But it only serves to lay bare a

state of confusion and perplexity, without clearing up any thing. Herein, so
far as I can see, lies Plato’s purpose in the dialogue. The respondent is made
aware of the confusion, which he did not know before; and this, in Plato’s
view, is a progress. The respondent cannot avoid giving contradictory
answers, under an acute cross-examination: but he does not adopt any new
belief. He says to Sokrates at the close — “The debate has constrained
rather than persuaded me”.31 This is a simple but instructive declaration of
the force put by Sokrates upon his collocutors; and of the reactionary effort
likely to be provoked in their minds, with a view to extricate themselves
from a painful sense of contradiction. If such effort be provoked, Plato’s
purpose is attained.

31 Plato, Hipparch. 232 B. ἠνάγκακε γὰρ (ὁ λόγος) μᾶλλον ἐμέ γε ἢ
πέπεικεν.

One peculiarity there is, analogous to what we have already seen in the
Hippias Major. It is not merely the Collocutor who charges Sokrates, but
also Sokrates who accuses the Collocutor — each charging the other with
attempts to deceive a friend.32 This seems intended by Plato to create an
occasion for introducing what he had to say about Hipparchus — apropos
of the motto on the Hipparchean Hermes — μὴ φίλον ἐξαπάτα.

32 Plato, Hipparch. 225 E, 228 A.

Historical narrative and
The modern critics, who proclaim the
comments given in the dialogue
Hipparchus not to be the work of Plato, allege
respecting Hipparchus — afford
as one of the proofs of spuriousness, the
no ground for declaring the
occurrence of this long narrative and comment
dialogue to be spurious.
upon the historical Hipparchus and his
behaviour; which narrative (the critics
maintain) Plato would never have introduced, seeing that it contributes
nothing to the settlement of the question debated. But to this we may reply,

first, That there are other dialogues33 (not to mention the Minos) in which
Plato introduces recitals of considerable length, historical or quasi-historical
recitals; bearing remotely, or hardly bearing at all, upon the precise question
under discussion; next, — That even if no such analogies could be cited,
and if the case stood single, no modern critic could fairly pretend to be so
thoroughly acquainted with Plato’s views and the surrounding
circumstances, as to put a limit on the means which Plato might choose to
take, for rendering his dialogues acceptable and interesting. Plato’s political
views made him disinclined to popular government generally, and to the
democracy of Athens in particular. Conformably with such sentiment, he is
disposed to surround the rule of the Peisistratidæ with an ethical and
philosophical colouring: to depict Hipparchus as a wise man busied in
instructing and elevating the citizens; and to discredit the renown of
Harmodius and Aristogeiton, by affirming them to have been envious of
Hipparchus, as a philosopher who surpassed themselves by his own mental
worth. All this lay perfectly in the vein of Plato’s sentiment; and we may
say the same about the narrative in the Minos, respecting the divine
parentage and teaching of Minos, giving rise to his superhuman efficacy as
a lawgiver and ruler. It is surely very conceivable, that Plato, as a composer
of ethical dialogues or dramas, might think that such recitals lent a charm or
interest to some of them. Moreover, something like variety, or distinctive
features as between one dialogue and another, was a point of no
inconsiderable moment. I am of opinion that Plato did so conceive these
narratives. But at any rate, what I here contend is, that no modern critics
have a right to assume as certain that he did not.

33 See Alkibiad. ii. pp. 142-149-150; Alkibiad. i. pp. 121-122: Protagoras,
342-344; Politikus, 268 D., σχεδὸν παιδιὰν ἐγκερασαμένους and the two or
three pages which follow.

F. A. Wolf, and various critics after him, contend that the genuineness of
the Hipparchus was doubted in antiquity, on the authority of Ælian, V. H.
viii. 2. But I maintain that this is not the meaning of the passage, unless
upon the supposition that the word μαθητὴς is struck out of the text
conjecturally. The passage may be perfectly well construed, leaving
μαθητὴς in the text: we must undoubtedly suppose the author to have made
an assertion historically erroneous: but this is nowise impossible in the case
of Ælian. If you construe the passage as it stands, without such conjectural
alteration, it does not justify Wolf’s inference.

Minos. Question — What is the
I now come to the Minos. The subject of
characteristic property connoted
this dialogue is, the explanation or definition
by the word νόμος or law?
of Law. Sokrates says to his Companion or
Collocutor, — Tell me what is the generic
constituent of Law: All Laws are alike quatenus Law. Take no note of the
difference between one law and another, but explain to me what
characteristic property it is, which is common to all Law, and is implied in
or connoted by the name Law.

This question is logically the same as that which Sokrates asks in the
Hipparchus with reference to κέρδος or gain.

This question was discussed by
That the definition of νόμος or Law was
the historical Sokrates,
discussed by Sokrates, we know, not only
Memorabilia of Xenophon.
from the general description of his debates
given in Xenophon, but also from the
interesting description (in that author) of the conversation between the
youthful Alkibiades and Perikles.34 The interrogations employed by
Alkibiades on that occasion are Sokratic, and must have been derived,
directly or indirectly, from Sokrates. They are partially analogous to the
questions of Sokrates in the dialogue Minos, and they end by driving
Perikles into a confusion, left unexplained, between Law and Lawlessness.

34 Xen. Mem. i. 1, 16; i. 2, 42-46.

Definitions of law — suggested
Definitions of νόμος are here given by the
and refuted. Law includes, as a
Companion, who undergoes a cross-
portion of its meaning, justice,
examination upon them. First, he says, that
goodness, usefulness, &c. Bad
Νόμος = τὰ νομιζόμενα. But this is rejected by
decrees are not laws.
Sokrates, who intimates that Law is not the
aggregate of laws enacted or of customs held
binding: but that which lies behind these laws and customs, imparting to
them their binding force.35 We are to enquire what this is. The Companion
declares that it is the public decree of the city: political or social opinion.
But this again Sokrates contests: putting questions to show that Law
includes, as a portion of its meaning, justice, goodness, beauty, and
preservation of the city with its possessions; while lawlessness includes
injustice, evil, ugliness, and destruction. There can be no such thing as bad
or wicked law.36 But among decrees of the city, some are bad, some are
good. Therefore to define Law as a decree of the city, thus generally, is
incorrect. It is only the good decree, not the bad decree, which is Law. Now
the good decree or opinion, is the true opinion: that is, it is the finding out
of reality. Law therefore wishes or aims to be the finding out of reality: and
if there are differences between different nations, this is because the power
to find out does not always accompany the wish to find out.

35 Plato, Minos, 314 A. ἐπειδὴ νόμῳ τὰ νομιζόμενα νομίζεται, τίνι ὄντι τῷ
νόμῳ νομίζεται;

36 Plato, Minos, 314 E. καὶ μὴν νόμος γε οὐκ ἦν πονηρός.

Sokrates affirms that law is
As to the assertion — that Law is one thing
everywhere the same — it is the
here, another thing there, one thing at one
declared judgment and
time, another thing at another — Sokrates
command of the Wise man upon
contests it. Just things are just (he says)

the subject to which it refers — everywhere and at all times; unjust things are
it is truth and reality, found out unjust also. Heavy things are heavy, light
and certified by him. things light, at one time, as well as at another.
So also honourable things are everywhere
honourable, base things everywhere base. In general phrase, existent things
are everywhere existent,37 non-existent things are not existent. Whoever
therefore fails to attain the existent and real, fails to attain the lawful and
just. It is only the man of art and knowledge, in this or that department, who
attains the existent, the real, the right, true, lawful, just. Thus the
authoritative rescripts or laws in matters of medicine, are those laid down
by practitioners who know that subject, all of whom agree in what they lay
down: the laws of cookery, the laws of agriculture and of gardening — are
rescripts delivered by artists who know respectively each of those subjects.
So also about Just and Unjust, about the political and social arrangements of
the city — the authoritative rescripts or laws are, those laid down by the
artists or men of knowledge in that department, all of whom agree in laying
down the same: that is, all the men of art called kings or lawgivers. It is
only the right, the true, the real — that which these artists attain — which is
properly a law and is entitled to be so called. That which is not right is not a
law, — ought not to be so called — and is only supposed to be a law by the
error of ignorant men.38

37 M. Boeckh remarks justly in his note on this passage — “neque enim
illud demonstratum est, eadem omnibus legitima esse — sed tantum,
notionem” (rather the sentiment or emotion) “legitimi omnibus eandem
esse. Sed omnia scriptor hic confundit.”

38 Plato, Minos, 317 C.

Reasoning of Sokrates in the
That the reasoning of Sokrates in this
Minos is unsound, but Platonic.
dialogue is confused and unsound (as M.
Boeckh and other critics have remarked), I

The Good, True, and Real, perfectly agree. But it is not the less
coalesce in the mind of Plato — completely Platonic; resting upon views and
he acknowledges nothing to be doctrines much cherished and often
Law, except what he thinks reproduced by Plato. The dialogue Minos
ought to be Law. presents, in a rude and awkward manner,
without explanation or amplification, that
worship of the Abstract and the Ideal, which Plato, in other and longer
dialogues, seeks to diversify as well as to elaborate. The definitions of Law
here combated and given by Sokrates, illustrate this. The good, the true, the
right, the beautiful, the real — all coalesce in the mind of Plato. There is
nothing (in his view) real, except The Good, The Just, &c. (τὸ αὐτο-ἀγαθὸν;
αὐτο-δίκαιον — Absolute Goodness and Justice): particular good and just
things have no reality, they are no more good and just than bad and unjust
— they are one or the other, according to circumstances — they are ever
variable, floating midway between the real and unreal.39 The real alone is
knowable, correlating with knowledge or with the knowing Intelligence
Νοῦς. As Sokrates distinguishes elsewhere τὸ δίκαιον or αὐτο-δίκαιον from
τὰ δίκαια — so here he distinguishes (νόμος from τὰ νομιζόμενα) Law,
from the assemblage of actual commands or customs received as laws
among mankind. These latter are variable according to time and place; but
Law is always one and the same. Plato will acknowledge nothing to be Law,
except that which (he thinks) ought to be Law: that which emanates from a
lawgiver of consummate knowledge, who aims at the accomplishment of
the good and the real, and knows how to discover and realise that end. So
far as “the decree of the city” coincides with what would have been enacted
by this lawgiver (i. e. so far as it is good and right), Sokrates admits it as a
valid explanation of Law; but no farther. He considers the phrase bad law to
express a logical impossibility, involving a contradiction in adjecto.40 What
others call a bad law, he regards as being no real law, but only a fallacious
image, mistaken for such by the ignorant. He does not consider such

ignorant persons as qualified to judge: he recognises only the judgment of
the knowing one or few, among whom he affirms that there can be no
difference of opinion. Every one admits just things to be just, — unjust
things to be unjust, — heavy things to be heavy, — the existent and the real,
to be the existent and the real. If then the lawgiver in any of his laws fails to
attain this reality, he fails in the very purpose essential to the conception of
law:41 i. e. his pretended law is no law at all.

39 See the remarkable passage in the fifth book of the Republic, pp. 479-
480; compare vii. 538 E.

40 Plato, Minos, 314 D.

The same argument is brought to bear by the Platonic Sokrates against
Hippias in the Hippias Major, 284-285. If the laws are not really profitable,
which is the only real purpose for which they were established, they are no
laws at all. The Spartans are παράνομοι. Some of the answers assigned to
Hippias (284 D) are pertinent enough; but he is overborne.

41 Plato, Minos, 316 B. Ὃς ἂν ἄρα τοῦ ὄντος ἁμαρτάνη, τοῦ νομίμου
ἁμαρτάνει.

Plato worships the Ideal of his
By Law then, Plato means — not the
own mind — the work of
assemblage of actual positive rules, nor any
systematic constructive theory
general property common to and characteristic
by the Wise Man.
of them, nor the free determination of an
assembled Demos as distinguished from the
mandates of a despot — but the Type of Law as it ought to be, and as it
would be, if prescribed by a perfectly wise ruler, aiming at good and
knowing how to realise it. This, which is the ideal of his own mind, Plato
worships and reasons upon as if it were the only reality; as Law by nature,
or natural Law, distinguished from actual positive laws: which last have
either been set by some ill-qualified historical ruler, or have grown up

insensibly. Knowledge, art, philosophy, systematic and constructive, applied
by some one or few exalted individuals, is (in his view) the only cause
capable of producing that typical result which is true, good, real, permanent,
and worthy of the generic name.

Different applications of this
In the Minos, this general Platonic view is
general Platonic view, in the
applied to Law: in the Politikus, to
Minos, Politikus, Kratylus, &c.
government and social administration: in the
Natural Rectitude of Law,
Kratylus, to naming or language. In the
Government, Names, &c.
Politikus, we find the received classification of
governments (monarchy, aristocracy, and
democracy) discarded as improper; and the assertion advanced, That there
is only one government right, true, genuine, really existing — government
by the uncontrolled authority and superintendence of the man of exalted
intelligence: he who is master in the art of governing, whether such man do
in fact hold power anywhere or not. All other governments are degenerate
substitutes for this type, some receding from it less, some more.42 Again, in
the Kratylus, where names and name-giving are discussed, Sokrates43
maintains that things can only be named according to their true and real
nature — that there is, belonging to each thing, one special and appropriate
Name-Form, discernible only by the sagacity of the intelligent Lawgiver:
who alone is competent to bestow upon each thing its right, true, genuine,
real name, possessing rectitude by nature (ὀρθότης φύσει).44 This Name-
Form (according to Sokrates) is the same in all languages in so far as they
are constructed by different intelligent Lawgivers, although the letters and
syllables in which they may clothe the Form are very different.45 If names
be not thus apportioned by the systematic purpose of an intelligent
Lawgiver, but raised up by insensible and unsystematic growth — they will
be unworthy substitutes for the genuine type, though they are the best which

actual societies possess; according to the opinion announced by Kratylus in
that same dialogue, they will not be names at all.46

42 Plato, Politikus, 293 C-E. ταύτην ὀρθὴν διαφερόντως εἶναι καὶ μόνην
πολιτείαν, ἐν ᾗ τις ἂν εὕρισκοι τοὺς ἄρχοντας ἀληθῶς ἐπιστήμονας καὶ οὐ
δοκοῦντας μόνον … τότε καὶ κατὰ τοὺς τοιούτους ὅρους ἡμῖν μόνην ὀρθὴν
πολιτείαν εἶναι ῥητέον. ὅσας δὲ ἄλλας λέγομεν, ο ὐ γ ν η σ ί α ς ο ὐ δ ’
ὄ ν τ ω ς ο ὔ σ α ς λ ε κ τ έ ο ν , ἀλλὰ μεμιμημένας ταύτην, ἅς μὲν εὐνόμους
λέγομεν, ἐπὶ τὰ καλλίω, τὰς δὲ ἄλλας ἐπὶ τὰ αἰσχίονα μεμιμῆσθαι.

The historical (Xenophontic) Sokrates asserts this same position in
Xenophon’s Memorabilia (iii. 9, 10). “Sokrates said that Kings and Rulers
were those who knew how to command, not those who held the sceptre or
were chosen by election or lot, or had acquired power by force or fraud,”
&c.

The Kings of Sparta and Macedonia, the Βουλὴ and Δῆμος of Athens, the
Despot of Syracuse or Pheræ are here declared to be not real rulers at all.

43 Plato, Kratylus, 387 D.

44 Plato, Kratyl. 388 A-E.

45 Plato, Kratyl. 389 E, 390 A, 432 E. Οὐκοῦν οὔτως ἀξιώσεις καὶ τὸν
νομοθέτην τόν τε ἐνθάδε καὶ τὸν ἐν τοῖς βαρβάροις, ἕως ἂν τὸ τοῦ
ὀνόματος εἶδος ἀποδιδῷ τὸ προσῆκον ἑκάστῳ ἐν ὁποιαισοῦν συλλαβαῖς,
οὐδὲν χείρω νομοθέτην εἶναι τὸν ἐνθάδε ἢ τὸν ὁπουοῦν ἄλλοθι; Compare
this with the Minos, 315 E, 316 D, where Sokrates evades, by an hypothesis
very similar, the objection made by the collocutor, that the laws in one
country are very different from those in another — ἴσως γὰρ οὐκ ἐννοεῖς
ταῦτα μεταπεττευόμενα ὅτι ταὐτά ἐστιν.

46 Plato, Kratyl. 430 A, 432 A, 433 D, 435 C.

Kratylus says that a name badly given is no name at all; just as Sokrates
says in the Minos that a bad law is no law at all.

Eulogy on Minos, as having
The Kretan Minos (we here find it
established laws on this divine
affirmed), son, companion, and pupil of Zeus,
type or natural rectitude.
has learnt to establish laws of this divine type
or natural rectitude: the proof of which is, that
the ancient Kretan laws have for immemorial ages remained, and still do
remain,47 unchanged. But when Sokrates tries to determine, Wherein
consists this Law-Type? What is it that the wise Lawgiver prescribes for the
minds of the citizens — as the wise gymnastic trainer prescribes proper
measure of nourishment and exercise for their bodies? — the question is
left unanswered. Sokrates confesses with shame that he cannot answer it:
and the dialogue ends in a blank. The reader — according to Plato’s manner
— is to be piqued and shamed into the effort of meditating the question for
himself.

47 Plato, Minos, 319 B, 321 A.

The Minos was arranged by
An attempt to answer this question will be
Aristophanes at first in a Trilogy
found in Plato’s Treatise De Legibus — in the
along with the Leges.
projected Kretan colony, of which he there
sketches the fundamental laws. Aristophanes
of Byzantium very naturally placed this treatise as sequel to the Minos;
second in the Trilogy of which the Minos was first.48

48 I reserve for an Appendix some further remarks upon the genuineness
of Hipparchus and Minos.

Explanations of the word Law
Whoever has followed the abstract of the
— confusion in its meaning.
Minos, which I have just given, will remark
the different explanations of the word Law —
both those which are disallowed, and that which is preferred, though left
incomplete, by Sokrates. On this same subject, there are in many writers,
modern as well an ancient, two distinct modes of confusion traceable —
pointed out by eminent recent jurists, such as Mr. Bentham, Mr. Austin, and
Mr. Maine. 1. Between Law as it is, and Law as it ought to be. 2. Between
Laws Imperative, set by intelligent rulers, and enforced by penal sanction
— and Laws signifying uniformities of fact expressed in general terms,
such as the Law of Gravitation, Crystallisation, &c. — We can hardly say
that in the dialogue Minos, Plato falls into the first of these two modes of
confusion: for he expressly says that he only recognises the Ideal of Law, or
Law as it ought to be (actual Laws everywhere being disallowed, except in
so far as they conform thereunto). But he does fall into the second, when he
identifies the Lawful with the Real or Existent. His Ideal stands in place of
generalisations of fact.

There is also much confusion, if we compare the Minos with other
dialogues; wherein Plato frequently talks of Laws as the laws and customs
actually existing or imperative in any given state — Athens, Sparta, or
elsewhere (Νόμος = τὰ νομιζόμενα, according to the first words in the
Minos). For example, in the harangue which he supposes to be addressed to
Sokrates in the Kriton, and which he invests with so impressive a character
— the Laws of Athens are introduced as speakers: but according to the
principles laid down in the Minos, three-fourths of the Laws of Athens
could not be regarded as laws at all. If therefore we take Plato’s writings
throughout, we shall not find that he is constant to one uniform sense of the
word Law, or that he escapes the frequent confusion between Law as it
actually exists and Law as it ought to be.49

49 The first explanation of νόμος advanced by the Companion in reply to
Sokrates (viz. Νόμος = τὰ νομιζόμενα, coincides substantially with the
meaning of Νόμος βασιλεὺς in Pindar and Herodotus (see above, chap.
viii.), who is an imaginary ruler, occupying a given region, and enforcing τὰ
νομιζόμενα. It coincides also with the precept Νόμῳ πόλεως, as prescribed
by the Pythian priestess to applicants who asked advice about the proper
forms of religious worship (Xen. Mem. i. 3, 1); though this precept, when
Cicero comes to report it (Legg. ii. 16, 40), appears divested of its
simplicity, and over-clouded with the very confusion touched upon in my
text. Aristotle does not keep clear of the confusion (compare Ethic. Nikom.
i. 1, 1094, b. 16, and v. 5, 1130, b. 24). I shall revert again to the distinction
between νόμος and φύσις, in touching on other Platonic dialogues. Cicero
expressly declares (Legg. ii. 5, 11), conformably to what is said by the
Platonic Sokrates in the Minos, that a bad law, however passed in regular
form, is no law at all; and this might be well if he adhered consistently to
the same phraseology, but he perpetually uses, in other places, the words
Lex and Leges to signify laws actually in force at Rome, good or bad.

Mr. Bentham gives an explanation of Law or The Law, which coincides
with Νόμος = τὰ νομιζόμενα. He says (Principles of Morals and
Legislation, vol. ii. ch. 17, p. 257, ed. 1823), “Now Law, or The Law, taken
indefinitely, is an abstract and collective term, which, when it means
anything, can mean neither more nor less than the sum total of a number of
individual laws taken together”.

Mr. Austin in his Lectures, ‘The Province of Jurisprudence Determined’,
has explained more clearly and copiously than any antecedent author, the
confused meanings of the word Law adverted to in my text. See especially
his first lecture and his fifth, pp. 88 seq. and 171 seq., 4th ed.

APPENDIX.
In continuing to recognise Hipparchus and Minos as Platonic works,
contrary to the opinion of many modern critics, I have to remind the reader,
not only that both are included in the Canon of Thrasyllus, but that the
Minos was expressly acknowledged by Aristophanes of Byzantium, and
included by him among the Trilogies: showing that it existed then (220 B.C.)
in the Alexandrine Museum as a Platonic work. The similarity between the
Hipparchus and Minos is recognised by all the Platonic critics, most of
whom declare that both of them are spurious. Schleiermacher affirms and
vindicates this opinion in his Einleitung and notes: but it will be convenient
to take the arguments advanced to prove the spuriousness, as they are set
forth by M. Boeckh, in his “Comment. in Platonis qui vulgo fertur
Minoem”: in which treatise, though among his early works, the case is
argued with all that copious learning and critical ability, which usually
adorn his many admirable contributions to the improvement of philology.

M. Boeckh not only rejects the pretensions of Hipparchus and Minos to
be considered as works of Plato, but advances an affirmative hypothesis to
show what they are. He considers these two dialogues, together with those
De Justo, and De Virtute (two short dialogues in the pseudo-Platonic list,
not recognised by Thrasyllus) as among the dialogues published by Simon;
an Athenian citizen and a shoemaker by trade, in whose shop Sokrates is
said to have held many of his conversations. Simon is reported to have
made many notes of these conversations, and to have composed and
published, from them, a volume of thirty-three dialogues (Diog. L. ii. 122),
among the titles of which there are two — Περὶ Φιλκερδοῦς and Περὶ
Νόμου. Simon was, of course, contemporary with Plato; but somewhat
older in years. With this part of M. Boeckh’s treatise, respecting the

supposed authorship of Simon, I have nothing to do. I only notice the
arguments by which he proposes to show that Hipparchus and Minos are
not works of Plato.

In the first place, I notice that M. Boeckh explicitly recognises them as
works of an author contemporary with Plato, not later than 380 B.C. (p. 46).
Hereby many of the tests, whereby we usually detect spurious works,
become inapplicable.

In the second place, he admits that the dialogues are composed in good
Attic Greek, suitable to the Platonic age both in character and manners —
“At veteris esse et Attici scriptoris, probus sermo, antiqui mores, totus
denique character, spondeat,” p. 32.

The reasons urged by M. Boeckh to prove the spuriousness of the Minos,
are first, that it is unlike Plato — next, that it is too much like Plato.
“Dupliciter dialogus a Platonis ingenio discrepat: partim quod parum,
partim quod nimium, similis ceteris ejusdem scriptis sit. Parum similis est
in rebus permultis. Nam cum Plato adhuc vivos ac videntes aut nuper
defunctos notosque homines, ut scenicus poeta actores, moribus ingeniisque
accurate descriptis, nominatim producat in medium — in isto opusculo cum
Socrate colloquens persona plané incerta est ac nomine carens: quippe cum
imperitus scriptor esset artis illius colloquiis suis dulcissimas veneres illas
inferendi, quæ ex peculiaribus personarum moribus pingendis redundant,
atque à Platone ut flores per amplos dialogorum hortos sunt disseminatæ”
(pp. 7-8): again, p. 9, it is complained that there is an “infinitus secundarius
collocutor” in the Hipparchus.

Now the sentence, just transcribed from M. Boeckh, shows that he had in
his mind as standard of comparison, a certain number of the Platonic works,
but that he did not take account of all of them. The Platonic Protagoras
begins with a dialogue between Sokrates and an unknown, nameless person;

to whom Sokrates, after a page of conversation with him, recounts what has
just passed between himself, Protagoras, and others. Next, if we turn to the
Sophistês and Politikus, we find that in both of them, not simply the
secundarius collocutor, but even the principal speaker, is an unknown and
nameless person, described only as a Stranger from Elea, and never before
seen by Sokrates. Again, in the Leges, the principal speaker is only an
Ἀθηναῖος ξένος, without a name. In the face of such analogies, it is unsafe
to lay down a peremptory rule, that no dialogue can be the work of Plato,
which acknowledges as collocutor an unnamed person.

Then again — when M. Boeckh complains that the Hipparchus and
Minos are destitute of those “flores et dulcissimæ Veneres” which Plato is
accustomed to spread through his dialogues — I ask, Where are the
“dulcissimæ Veneres” in the Parmenidês, Sophistês, Politikus, Leges,
Timæus, Kritias? I find none. The presence of “dulcissimæ Veneres” is not a
condition sine quâ non, in every composition which pretends to Plato as its
author: nor can the absence of them be admitted as a reason for disallowing
Hipparchus and Minos.

The analogy of the Sophistês and Politikus (besides Symposium,
Republic, and Leges) farther shows, that there is nothing wonderful in
finding the titles of Hipparchus and Minos derived from the subjects (Περὶ
Φιλκερδοῦς and Περὶ Νόμου), not from the name of one of the collocutors:
— whether we suppose the titles to have been bestowed by Plato himself, or
by some subsequent editor (Boeckh, p. 10).

To illustrate his first ground of objection — Dissimilarity between the
Minos and the true Platonic writings — M. Boeckh enumerates (pp. 12-23)
several passages of the dialogue which he considers unplatonic. Moreover,
he includes among them (p. 12) examples of confused and illogical
reasoning. I confess that to me this evidence is noway sufficient to prove
that Plato is not the author. That certain passages may be picked out which

are obscure, confused, inelegant — is certainly no sufficient evidence. If I
thought so, I should go along with Ast in rejecting the Euthydêmus, Menon,
Lachês, Charmidês, Lysis, &c., against all which Ast argues as spurious,
upon evidence of the same kind. It is not too much to say, that against
almost every one of the dialogues, taken severally, a case of the same kind,
more or less plausible, might be made out. You might in each of them find
passages peculiar, careless, awkwardly expressed. The expression τὴν
ἀνθρωπείαν ἀγέλην τοῦ σώματος, which M. Boeckh insists upon so much
as improper, would probably have been considered as a mere case of faulty
text, if it had occurred in any other dialogue: and so it may fairly be
considered in the Minos.

Moreover as to faults of logic and consistency in the reasoning, most
certainly these cannot be held as proving the Minos not to be Plato’s work. I
would engage to produce, from most of his dialogues, defects of reasoning
quite as grave as any which the Minos exhibits. On the principle assumed
by M. Boeckh, every one who agreed with Panætius in considering the
elaborate proof given in the Phædon, of the immortality of the soul, as
illogical and delusive — would also agree with Panætius in declaring that
the Phædon was not the work of Plato. It is one question, whether the
reasoning in any dialogue be good or bad: it is another question, whether
the dialogue be written by Plato or not. Unfortunately, the Platonic critics
often treat the first question as if it determined the second.

M. Boeckh himself considers that the evidence arising from dissimilarity
(upon which I have just dwelt) is not the strongest part of his case. He relies
more upon the evidence arising from too much similarity, as proving still
more clearly the spuriousness of the Minos. “Jam pergamus ad alteram
partem nostræ argumentationis, eamque etiam firmiorem, de nimia
similitudine Platonicorum aliquot locorum, quæ imitationem doceat
subesse. Nam de hoc quidem conveniet inter omnes doctos et indoctos,

Platonem se ipsum haud posse imitari: nisi si quis dubitet de sanâ ejus
mente” (p. 23). Again, p. 26, “Jam vero in nostro colloquio Symposium,
Politicum, Euthyphronem, Protagoram, Gorgiam, Cratylum, Philêbum,
dialogos expressos ac tantum non compilatos reperies”. And M. Boeckh
goes on to specify various passages of the Minos, which he considers to
have been imitated, and badly imitated, from one or other of these
dialogues.

I cannot agree with M. Boeckh in regarding this nimia similitudo as the
strongest part of his case. On the contrary, I consider it as the weakest:
because his own premisses (in my judgment) not only do not prove his
conclusion, but go far to prove the opposite. When we find him insisting, in
such strong language, upon the great analogy which subsists between the
Minos and seven of the incontestable Platonic dialogues, this is surely a fair
proof that its author is the same as their author. To me it appears as
conclusive as internal evidence ever can be; unless there be some disproof
aliunde to overthrow it. But M. Boeckh produces no such disproof. He
converts these analogies into testimony in his own favour, simply by
bestowing upon them the name imitatio, — stulta imitatio (p. 27). This
word involves an hypothesis, whereby the point to be proved is assumed —
viz.: difference of authorship. “Plato cannot have imitated himself” (M.
Boeckh observes). I cannot admit such impossibility, even if you describe
the fact in that phrase: but if you say “Plato in one dialogue thought and
wrote like Plato in another” — you describe the same fact in a different
phrase, and it then appears not merely possible but natural and probable.
Those very real analogies, to which M. Boeckh points in the word imitatio,
are in my judgment cases of the Platonic thought in one dialogue being like
the Platonic thought in another. The similitudo, between Minos and these
other dialogues, can hardly be called nimia, for M. Boeckh himself points
out that it is accompanied with much difference. It is a similitude, such as
we should expect between one Platonic dialogue and another: with this

difference, that whereas, in the Minos, Plato gives the same general views
in a manner more brief, crude, abrupt — in the other dialogues he works
them out with greater fulness of explanation and illustration, and some
degree of change not unimportant. That there should be this amount of
difference between one dialogue of Plato and another appears to me
perfectly natural. On the other hand — that there should have been a
contemporary falsarius (scriptor miser, insulsus, vilissimus, to use phrases
of M. Boeckh), who studied and pillaged the best dialogues of Plato, for the
purpose of putting together a short and perverted abbreviation of them —
and who contrived to get his miserable abbreviation recognised by the
Byzantine Aristophanes among the genuine dialogues notwithstanding the
existence of the Platonic school — this, I think highly improbable.

I cannot therefore agree with M. Boeckh in thinking, that “ubique se
prodens Platonis imitatio” (p. 31) is an irresistible proof of spuriousness:
nor can I think that his hypothesis shows itself to advantage, when he says,
p. 10 — “Ipse autem dialogus (Minos) quum post Politicum compositus sit,
quod quædam in eo dicta rebus ibi expositis manifesté nitantur, ut paullo
post ostendemus — quis est qui artificiosissimum philosophum, postquam
ibi (in Politico) accuratius de naturâ legis egisset, de eâ iterum putet
negligenter egisse?” — I do not think it so impossible as it appears to M.
Boeckh, that a philosopher, after having written upon a given subject
accuratius, should subsequently write upon it negligenter. But if I granted
this ever so fully, I should still contend that there remains another
alternative. The negligent workmanship may have preceded the accurate: an
alternative which I think is probably the truth, and which has nothing to
exclude it except M. Boeckh’s pure hypothesis, that the Minos must have
been copied from the Politikus.

While I admit then that the Hipparchus and Minos are among the inferior
and earlier compositions of Plato, I still contend that there is no ground for

excluding them from the list of his works. Though the Platonic critics of
this century are for the most part of an adverse opinion, I have with me the
general authority of the critics anterior to this century — from Aristophanes
of Byzantium down to Bentley and Ruhnken — see Boeckh, pp. 7-32.

Yxem defends the genuineness of the Hipparchus — (Ueber Platon’s
Kleitophon, p. 8. Berlin, 1846).

CHAPTER XV.

THEAGES.

Theagês — has been declared
This is among the dialogues declared by
spurious by some modern critics
Schleiermacher, Ast, Stallbaum, and various
— grounds for such opinion not
other modern critics, to be spurious and
sufficient.
unworthy of Plato: the production of one who
was not merely an imitator, but a bad and silly
imitator.1 Socher on the other hand defends the dialogue against them,
reckoning it as a juvenile production of Plato.2 The arguments which are
adduced to prove its spuriousness appear to me altogether insufficient. It
has some features of dissimilarity with that which we read in other
dialogues — these the above-mentioned critics call un-Platonic: it has other
features of similarity — these they call bad imitation by a falsarius: lastly, it
is inferior, as a performance, to the best of the Platonic dialogues. But I am
prepared to expect (and have even the authority of Schleiermacher for
expecting) that some dialogues will be inferior to others. I also reckon with
certainty, that between two dialogues, both genuine, there will be points of
similarity as well as points of dissimilarity. Lastly, the critics find marks of
a bad, recent, un-Platonic style: but Dionysius of Halikarnassus — a judge
at least equally competent upon such a matter — found no such marks. He
expressly cites the dialogue as the work of Plato,3 and explains the peculiar
phraseology assigned to Demodokus by remarking, that the latter is
presented as a person of rural habits and occupations.

1 Stallbaum, Proleg. pp. 220-225, “ineptus tenebrio,” &c. Schleiermacher,
Einleitung, part ii. v. iii. pp. 247-252. Ast, Platon’s Leben und Schriften, pp.
495-497.

Ast speaks with respect (differing in this respect from the other two) of
the Theagês as a composition, though he does not believe it to be the work
of Plato. Schleiermacher also admits (see the end of his Einleitung) that the
style in general has a good Platonic colouring, though he considers some
particular phrases as un-Platonic.

2 Socher, Ueber Platon, pp. 92-102. M. Cobet also speaks of it as a work
of Plato (Novæ Lectiones, &c., p. 624. Lugd. Bat. 1858).

3 Dionys. Hal. Ars Rhetor. p. 405, Reiske. Compare Theagês, 121 D. εἰς τὸ
ἄστυ καταβαίνοντες.

In general, in discussions on the genuineness of any of the Platonic
dialogues, I can do nothing but reply to the arguments of those critics who
consider them spurious. But in the case of the Theagês there is one
argument which tends to mark Plato positively as the author.

In the Theagês, p. 125, the senarius σοφοὶ τύραννοι τῶν σοφῶν συνουσίᾳ
is cited as a verse of Euripides. Now it appears that this is an error of
memory, and that the verse really belongs to Sophokles, ἐν Αἴαντι Λοκρῷ. If
the error had only appeared in this dialogue, Stallbaum would probably
have cited it as one more instance of stupidity on the part of the ineptus
tenebrio whom he supposes to have written the dialogue. But unfortunately
the error does not belong to the Theagês alone. It is found also in the
Republic (viii. 568 B), the most unquestionable of all the Platonic
compositions. Accordingly, Schleiermacher tells us in his note that the
falsarius of the Theagês has copied this error out of the above-named
passage of the Republic of Plato (notes, p. 500).

This last supposition of Schleiermacher appears to me highly improbable.
Since we know that the mistake is one made by Plato himself, surely we
ought rather to believe that he made it in two distinct compositions. In other
words, the occurrence of the same exact mistake in the Republic and the

Theagês affords strong presumption that both are by the same author —
Plato.

Persons of the dialogue —
Demodokus, an elderly man (of rank and
Sokrates, with Demodokus and
landed property), and his youthful son
Theagês, father and son.
Theagês, have come from their Deme to
Theagês (the son), eager to
Athens, and enter into conversation with
acquire knowledge, desires to be
Sokrates: to whom the father explains, that
placed under the teaching of a
Theagês has contracted, from the conversation
Sophist.
of youthful companions, an extraordinary
ardour for the acquisition of wisdom. The son
has importuned his father to put him under the tuition of one of the
Sophists, who profess to teach wisdom. The father, though not unwilling to
comply with the request, is deterred by the difficulty of finding a good
teacher and avoiding a bad one. He entreats the advice of Sokrates, who
invites the young man to explain what it is that he wants, over and above
the usual education of an Athenian youth of good family (letters, the harp,
wrestling, &c.), which he has already gone through.4

4 Plato, Theagês, 122.

Sokrates questions Theagês,
Sokr. — You desire wisdom: but what kind
inviting him to specify what he
of wisdom? That by which men manage
wants.
chariots? or govern horses? or pilot ships?
Theag. — No: that by which men are
governed. Sokr. — But what men? those in a state of sickness — or those
who are singing in a chorus — or those who are under gymnastic training?
Each of these classes has its own governor, who bears a special title, and
belongs to a special art by itself — the medical, musical, gymnastic, &c.
Theag. — No: I mean that wisdom by which we govern, not these classes
alone, but all the other residents in the city along with them — professional
as well as private — men as well as women.5

5 Plato, Theagês, 124 A-B. Schleiermacher (Einleit. p. 250) censures the
prolixity of the inductive process in this dialogue, and the multitude of
examples here accumulated to prove a general proposition obvious enough
without proof. Let us grant this to be true; we cannot infer from it that the
dialogue is not the work of Plato. By very similar arguments Socher
endeavours to show that the Sophistês and the Politikus are not works of
Plato, because in both these dialogues logical division and differentiation is
accumulated with tiresome prolixity, and applied to most trivial subjects.
But Plato himself (in Politikus, pp. 285-286) explains why he does so, and
tells us that he wishes to familiarise his readers with logical subdivision and
classification as a process. In like manner I maintain that prolixity in the
λόγοι ἐπακτικοί is not to be held as proof of spurious authorship, any more
than prolixity in the process of logical subdivision and classification.

I noticed the same objection in the case of the First Alkibiadês.

Theagês desires to acquire that
Sokrates now proves to Theagês, that this
wisdom by which he can govern
function and power which he is desirous of
freemen with their own consent.
obtaining, is, the function and power of a
despot: and that no one can aid him in so
culpable a project. I might yearn (says Theagês) for such despotic power
over all: so probably would you and every other man. But it is not that to
which I now aspire. I aspire to govern freemen, with their own consent; as
was done by Themistokles, Perikles, Kimon, and other illustrious
statesmen,6 who have been accomplished in the political art.

6 Plato, Theagês, 126 A.

Sokr. — Well, if you wished to become accomplished in the art of
horsemanship, you would put yourself under able horsemen: if in the art of
darting the javelin, under able darters. By parity of reasoning, since you
seek to learn the art of statesmanship, you must frequent able statesmen.7

7 Plato, Theagês, 126 C.

Incompetence of the best
Theag. — No, Sokrates. I have heard of the
practical statesmen to teach any
language which you are in the habit of using to
one else. Theagês requests that
others. You pointed out to them that these
Sokrates will himself teach him.
eminent statesmen cannot train their own sons
to be at all better than curriers: of course
therefore they cannot do me any good.8 Sokr. — But what can your father
do for you better than this, Theagês? What ground have you for
complaining of him? He is prepared to place you under any one of the best
and most excellent men of Athens, whichever of them you prefer. Theag. —
Why will not you take me yourself, Sokrates? I look upon you as one of
these men, and I desire nothing better.9

8 Plato, Theagês, 126 D. Here again Stallbaum (p. 222) urges, among his
reasons for believing the dialogue to be spurious — How absurd to
represent the youthful Theagês as knowing what arguments Sokrates had
addressed to others! But the youthful Theætêtus is also represented as
having heard from others the cross-examinations made by Sokrates
(Theætêt. 148 E). So likewise the youthful sons of Lysimachus — (Lachês,
181 A); compare also Lysis, 211 A.

9 Plato, Theagês, 127 A.

Demodokus joins his entreaties with those of Theagês to prevail upon
Sokrates to undertake this function. But Sokrates in reply says that he is less
fit for it than Demodokus himself, who has exercised high political duties,
with the esteem of every one; and that if practical statesmen are considered
unfit, there are the professional Sophists, Prodikus, Gorgias, Polus, who
teach many pupils, and earn not merely good pay, but also the admiration
and gratitude of every one — of the pupils as well as their senior
relatives.10

10 Plato, Theagês, 127 D-E, 128 A.

Sokrates declares that he is not
Sokr. — I know nothing of the fine things
competent to teach — that he
which these Sophists teach: I wish I did know.
knows nothing except about
I declare everywhere, that I know nothing
matters of love. Theagês
whatever except one small matter — what
maintains that many of his
belongs to love. In that, I surpass every one
young friends have profited
else, past as well as present.11 Theag. —
Sokrates is only mocking us. I know youths
largely by the conversation of
Sokrates. (of my own age and somewhat older), who
were altogether worthless and inferior to every
one, before they went to him; but who, after they had frequented his society,
became in a short time superior to all their former rivals. The like will
happen with me, if he will only consent to receive me.12

11 Plato, Theagês, 128 B. ἀλλὰ καὶ λέγω δήπου ἀεί, ὅτι ἐγὼ τυγχάνω, ὡς
ἔπος εἰπεῖν, οὐδὲν ἐπιστάμενος πλήν γε σμικροῦ τινὸς μαθήματος, τῶν
ἐρωτικῶν, τοῦτο μέντοι τὸ μάθημα παρ’ ὁντινοῦν ποιοῦμαι δεινὸς εἶναι, καὶ
τῶν προγεγονότων ἀνθρώπων καὶ τῶν νῦν.

12 Plato, Theagês, 128 C.

Sokrates explains how this has
Sokr. — You do not know how this happens;
sometimes happened — he
I will explain it to you. From my childhood, I
recites his experience of the
have had a peculiar superhuman something
divine sign or Dæmon.
attached to me by divine appointment: a voice,
which, whenever it occurs, warns me to
abstain from that which I am about to do, but never impels me.13 Moreover,
when any one of my friends mentions to me what he is about to do, if the

voice shall then occur to me it is a warning for him to abstain. The
examples of Charmides and Timarchus (here detailed by Sokrates) prove
what I say: and many persons will tell you how truly I forewarned them of
the ruin of the Athenian armament at Syracuse.14 My young friend Sannion
is now absent, serving on the expedition under Thrasyllus to Ionia: on his
departure, the divine sign manifested itself to me, and I am persuaded that
some grave calamity will befall him.

13 Plato, Theagês, 128 D. ἐστι γάρ τι θείᾳ μοίρᾳ παρεπόμενον ἐμοὶ ἐκ
παιδὸς ἀρξάμενον δαιμόνιον· ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο φωνή, ἢ ὅταν γένηται, ἀεί μοι
σημαίνει, ὃ ἂν μέλλω πράττειν, τούτου ἀποτροπήν, προτρέπει δὲ οὐδέποτε.

14 Plato, Theag. 129.

The Dæmon is favourable to
These facts I mention to you (Sokrates
some persons, adverse to others.
continues) because it is that same divine
Upon this circumstance it
power which exercises paramount influence
depends how far any companion
over my intercourse with companions.15
profits by the society of Towards many, it is positively adverse; so that
Sokrates. Aristeides has not I cannot even enter into companionship with
learnt anything from Sokrates, them. Towards others, it does not forbid, yet
yet has improved much by being neither does it co-operate: so that they derive
near to him. no benefit from me. There are others again in
whose case it co-operates; these are the
persons to whom you allude, who make rapid progress.16 With some, such
improvement is lasting: others, though they improve wonderfully while in
my society, yet relapse into commonplace men when they leave me.
Aristeides, for example (grandson of Aristeides the Just), was one of those
who made rapid progress while he was with me. But he was forced to
absent himself on military service; and on returning, he found as my
companion Thucydides (son of Melesias), who however had quarrelled with
me for some debate of the day before. I understand (said Aristeides to me)

that Thucydides has taken offence and gives himself airs; he forgets what a
poor creature he was, before he came to you.17 I myself, too, have fallen
into a despicable condition. When I left you, I was competent to discuss
with any one and make a good figure, so that I courted debate with the most
accomplished men. Now, on the contrary, I avoid them altogether — so
thoroughly am I ashamed of my own incapacity. Did the capacity (I,
Sokrates, asked Aristeides) forsake you all at once, or little by little? Little
by little, he replied. And when you possessed it (I asked), did you get it by
learning from me? or in what other way? I will tell you, Sokrates (he
answered), what seems incredible, yet is nevertheless true.18 I never learnt
from you any thing at all. You yourself well know this. But I always made
progress, whenever I was along with you, even if I were only in the same
house without being in the same room; but I made greater progress, if I was
in the same room — greater still, if I looked in your face, instead of turning
my eyes elsewhere — and the greatest of all, by far, if I sat close and
touching you. But now (continued Aristeides) all that I then acquired has
dribbled out of me.19

15 Plato, Theagês, 129 E. ταῦτα δὴ πάντα εἴρηκά σοι, ὅτι ἡ δύναμις αὕτη
τοῦ δαιμονίου τούτου καὶ εἰς τὰς συνουσίας τῶν μετ’ ἐμοῦ
συνδιατριβόντων τὸ ἅπαν δύναται. πολλοῖς μὲν γὰρ ἐναντιοῦται, καὶ οὐκ
ἔστι τούτοις ὠφεληθηναι μετ’ ἐμοῦ διατρίβουσιν.

16 Plato, Theag. 129 E. οἷς δ’ ἂν συλλάβηται τῆς συνουσίας ἡ τοῦ
δαιμόνιου δύναμις, οὗτοι εἰσιν ὧν καὶ σὺ ᾔσθησαι· ταχὺ γὰρ παραχρῆμα
ἐπιδιδόασιν.

17 Plato, Theag. 130 A-B. Τί δαί; οὐκ οἶδεν, ἔφη, πρὶν σοὶ συγγενέσθαι,
οἷον ἦν τὸ ἀνδράποδον;

18 Plato, Theag. 130 D. Ἡνίκα δέ σοι παρεγένετο (ἡ δύναμις), πότερον
μαθόντι παρ’ ἐμοῦ τι παρεγένετο, ἤ τινι ἄλλῳ τρόπῳ; Ἐγώ σοι, ἔφη, ἐρῶ, ὦ

Σώκρατες, ἄπιστον μὲν νὴ τοὺς θεούς, ἀληθὲς δέ. ἐγὼ γὰρ ἔμαθον μὲν παρὰ
σοῦ οὐδὲν πώποτε, ὡς αὐτὸς οἶσθα· ἐπεδίδουν δὲ ὁποτε σοι συνείην, κἂν εἰ
ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ μόνον οἰκίᾳ εἴην, μὴ ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ δὲ οἰκήματι, &c.

19 Plato, Theag. 130 E. πολὺ δὲ μάλιστα καὶ πλεῖστον ἐπεδίδουν, ὁπότε
παρ’ αὐτόν σε καθοίμην ἐχόμενός σου καὶ ἁπτόμενος. νῦν δέ, ἦ δ’ ὅς, πᾶσα
ἐκείνη ἣ ἕξις ἐξεῤῥύηκεν.

Theagês expresses his anxiety to
Sokr. — I have now explained to you,
be received as the companion of
Theagês, what it is to become my companion.
Sokrates.
If it be the pleasure of the God, you will make
great and rapid progress: if not, not. Consider,
therefore, whether it is not safer for you to seek instruction from some of
those who are themselves masters of the benefits which they impart, rather
than to take your chance of the result with me.20 Theag. — I shall be glad,
Sokrates, to become your companion, and to make trial of this divine
coadjutor. If he shows himself propitious, that will be the best of all: if not,
we can then take counsel, whether I shall try to propitiate him by prayer,
sacrifice, or any other means which the prophets may recommend or
whether I shall go to some other teacher.21

20 Plato, Theag. 130 E. ὅρα οὖν μή σοι ἀσφαλέστερον ᾖ παρ’ ἐκείνων τινὶ
παιδεύεσθαι, οἳ ἐγκρατεῖς αὐτοί εἰσι τῆς ὠφελείας, ἢν ὠφελοῦσι τοὺς
ἀνθρώπους, μᾶλλον ἢ παρ’ ἐμοῦ ὅ, τι ἂν τύχῃ, τοῦτο πρᾶξαι.

21 Plato, Theag. 131 A.

Remarks on the Theagês —
The Theagês figured in the list of Thrasyllus
analogy with the Lachês.
as first in the fifth Tetralogy: the other three

members of the same Tetralogy being Charmidês, Lachês, Lysis. Some
persons considered it suitable to read as first dialogue of all.22 There are
several points of analogy between the Theagês and the Lachês, though with
a different turn given to them. Aristeides and Thucydides are mentioned in
both of them: Sokrates also is solicited to undertake the duty of teacher. The
ardour of the young Theagês to acquire wisdom reminds us of Hippokrates
at the beginning of the Protagoras. The string of questions put by Sokrates
to Theagês, requiring that what is called wisdom shall be clearly defined
and specialised, has its parallel in many of the Platonic dialogues. Moreover
the declaration of Sokrates, that he knows nothing except about matters of
love, but that in them he is a consummate master — is the same as what he
explicitly declares both in the Symposion and other dialogues.23

22 Diog. L. iii. 59-61.

23 Symposion, 177 E. οὔτε γὰρ ἄν που ἐγὼ ἀποφήσαιμι, ὃς οὐδέν φημι
ἄλλο ἐπίστασθαι ἢ τὰ ἐρωτικά. Compare the same dialogue, p. 212 B, 216
C. Phædrus, 227 E, 257 A; Lysis, 204 B. Compare also Xenoph. Memor. ii.
6, 28; Xenoph. Sympos. iv. 27.

It is not reasonable to treat this declaration of Sokrates, in the Theagês, as
an evidence that the dialogue is the work of a falsarius, when a declaration
quite similar is ascribed to Sokrates in other Platonic dialogues.

Chief peculiarity of the Theagês
But the chief peculiarity of the Theagês
— stress laid upon the divine
consists in the stress which is laid upon the
sign or Dæmon.
Dæmon, the divine voice, the inspiration of
Sokrates. This divine auxiliary is here
described, not only as giving a timely check or warning to Sokrates, when
either he or his friends contemplated any inauspicious project — but also as
intervening, in the case of those youthful companions with whom he
conversed, to promote the improvement of one, to obstruct that of others; so

that whether Sokrates will produce any effect or not in improving any one,
depends neither upon his own efforts nor upon those of the recipient, but
upon the unpredictable concurrence of a divine agency.24

24 See some remarks on this point in Appendix.

Plato employs this divine sign
Plato employs the Sokratic Dæmon, in the
here to render some explanation
Theagês, for a philosophical purpose, which, I
of the singularity and
think, admits of reasonable explanation.
eccentricity of Sokrates, and of
During the eight (perhaps ten) years of his
his unequal influence upon
personal communion with Sokrates, he had
different companions.
had large experience of the variable and
unaccountable effect produced by the Sokratic
conversation upon different hearers: a fact which is also attested by the
Xenophontic Memorabilia. This difference of effect was in no way
commensurate to the unequal intelligence of the hearers. Chærephon,
Apollodôrus, Kriton, seem to have been ordinary men:—25 while Kritias
and Alkibiades, who brought so much discredit both upon Sokrates and his
teaching, profited little by him, though they were among the ablest pupils
that he ever addressed: moreover Antisthenes, and Aristippus, probably did
not appear to Plato (since he greatly dissented from their philosophical
views) to have profited much by the common companionship with Sokrates.
Other companions there must have been also personally known to Plato,
though not to us: for we must remember that Sokrates passed his whole day
in talking with all listeners. Now when Plato in after life came to cast the
ministry of Sokrates into dramatic scenes, and to make each scene
subservient to the illustration of some philosophical point of view, at least a
negative — he was naturally led to advert to the Dæmon or divine
inspiration, which formed so marked a feature in the character of his master.
The concurrence or prohibition of this divine auxiliary served to explain
why it was that the seed, sown broadcast by Sokrates, sometimes fructified,

and sometimes did not fructify, or speedily perished afterwards — when no
sufficient explanatory peculiarity could be pointed out in the ground on
which it fell. It gave an apparent reason for the perfect singularity of the
course pursued by Sokrates: for his preternatural acuteness in one direction,
and his avowed incapacity in another: for his mastery of the Elenchus,
convicting men of ignorance, and his inability to supply them with
knowledge: for his refusal to undertake the duties of a teacher. All these are
mysterious features of the Sokratic character. The intervention of the
Dæmon appears to afford an explanation, by converting them into religious
mysteries: which, though it be no explanation at all, yet is equally
efficacious by stopping the mouth of the questioner, and by making him
believe that it is guilt and impiety to ask for explanation — as Sokrates
himself declared in regard to astronomical phenomena, and as Herodotus
feels, when his narrative is crossed by strange religious legends.26

25 Xenophon, Apol. Sokr. 28. Ἀπολλόδωρος — ἐπιθυμήτης μὲν ἰσχυρῶς
αὐτοῦ, ἄλλως δ’ εὐήθης. — Plat. Phædon, 117 D.

26 Xen. Mem. iv. 7, 5-6; Herodot. ii. 3, 45-46.

Sokrates, while continually
In this manner, the Theagês is made by
finding fault with other
Plato to exhibit one way of parrying the
teachers, refused to teach
difficulty frequently addressed to Sokrates by
himself — difficulty of finding
various hearers: “You tell us that the leading
an excuse for his refusal. The
citizens cannot even teach their own sons, and
Theagês furnishes an excuse.
that the Sophists teach nothing worth having:
you perpetually call upon us to seek for better
teachers, without telling us where such are to be found. We entreat you to
teach us yourself, conformably to your own views.”

If a leader of political opposition, after years employed in denouncing
successive administrators as ignorant and iniquitous, refuses, when invited,

to take upon himself the business of administration — an intelligent admirer
must find some decent pretence to colour the refusal. Such a pretence is
found for Sokrates in the Theagês: “I am not my own master on this point. I
am the instrument of a divine ally, without whose active working I can
accomplish nothing: who forbids altogether my teaching of one man —
tolerates, without assisting, my unavailing lessons to another — assists
efficaciously in my teaching of a third, in which case alone the pupil
receives any real benefit. The assistance of this divine ally is given or
withheld according to motives of his own, which I cannot even foretell,
much less influence. I should deceive you therefore if I undertook to teach,
when I cannot tell whether I shall do good or harm.”

The reply of Theagês meets this scruple. He asks permission to make the
experiment, and promises to propitiate the divine auxiliary by prayer and
sacrifice; under which reserve Sokrates gives consent.

Plato does not always, nor in
It is in this way that the Dæmon or divine
other dialogues, allude to the
auxiliary serves the purpose of reconciling
divine sign in the same way. Its
what would otherwise be an inconsistency in
character and working
the proceedings of Sokrates. I mean, that such
essentially impenetrable.
is the purpose served in this dialogue: I know
Sokrates a privileged person.
perfectly that Plato deals with the case
differently elsewhere: but I am not bound (as I
have said more than once) to force upon all the dialogues one and the same
point of view. That the agency of the Gods was often and in the most
important cases, essentially undiscoverable and unpredictable, and that in
such cases they might sometimes be prevailed on to give special warnings
to favoured persons — were doctrines which the historical Sokrates in
Xenophon asserts with emphasis.27 The Dæmon of Sokrates was believed,
both by himself and his friends, to be a special privilege and an extreme
case of divine favour and communication to him.28 It was perfectly

applicable to the scope of the Theagês, though Plato might not choose
always to make the same employment of it. It is used in the same general
way in the Theætêtus;29 doubtless with less expansion, and blended with
another analogy (that of the mid-wife) which introduces a considerable
difference.30

27 Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 8-9-19.

Euripid. Hecub. 944.

φύρουσι δ’ αὐτὰ θεοὶ πάλιν τε καὶ πρόσω,
ταραγμὸν ἐντιθέντες, ὡς ἀγνωσίᾳ
σέβωμεν αὐτούς.

28 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 3, 12.

29 Plato, Theætêt. 150 D-E.

30 Plato, Apolog. Sokr. 33 C. ἐμοὶ δὲ τοῦτο, ὡς ἐγώ φημι, προστέτακται
ὑπὸ τοοῦ θεοῦ πράττειν καὶ ἐκ μαντειῶν καὶ ἐξ ἐνυπνίων καὶ παντὶ τρόπῳ,
ᾧπέρ τίς ποτε καὶ ἄλλη θεία μοιόρα ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ ὁτιοῦν προσέταξε
πράττειν. 40 A. ἡ γὰρ εἰωθυῖά μοι μαντικὴ ἡ τοῦ δαιμονίου ἐν μὲν τῷ
πρόσθεν χ ρ ό ν ῳ π α ν τ ὶ π ά ν υ π υ κ ν ὴ ἀ ε ὶ ἦ ν κ α ὶ π ά ν υ ἐ π ὶ
σ μ ι κ ρ ο ῖ ς ἐ ν α ν τ ι ο υ μ έ ν η , εἴ τι μέλλοιμι μὴ ὀρθῶς πράξειν.
Compare Xenophon, Memor. iv. 8, 5; Apol. Sokr. c. 13.

APPENDIX.
Τὸ δαιμόνιον σημεῖον.

Here is one of the points most insisted on by Schleiermacher and
Stallbaum, as proving that the Theagês is not the work of Plato. These
critics affirm (to use the language of Stallbaum, Proleg. p. 220) “Quam
Plato alias de Socratis dæmonio prodidit sententiam, ea longissimè recedit
ab illâ ratione, quæ in hoc sermone exposita est”. He says that the
representation of the Dæmon of Sokrates, given in the Theagês, has been
copied from a passage in the Theætêtus, by an imitator who has not
understood the passage, p. 150, D, E. But Socher (p. 97) appears to me to
have shown satisfactorily, that there is no such material difference as these
critics affirm between this passage of the Theætêtus and the Theagês. In the
Theætêtus, Sokrates declares, that none of his companions learnt any thing
from him, but that all of them οἷσπερ ἂν ὁ θεὸς παρείκῃ (the very same
term is used at the close of the Theagês — 131 A, ἐὰν μὲν παρείκῃ ἡμῖν —
τὸ δαιμόνιον) made astonishing progress and improvement in his company.
Stallbaum says, “Itaque ὁ θεὸς, qui ibi memoratur, non est Socratis
dæmonium, sed potius deus i.e. sors divina. Quod non perspiciens noster
tenebrio protenus illud dæmonium, quod Socrates sibi semper adesse
dictitabat, ad eum dignitatis et potentiæ gradum evexit, ut, &c.” I agree with
Socher in thinking that the phrase ὁ θεὸς in the Theætêtus has substantially
the same meaning as τὸ δαιμόνιον in the Theagês. Both Schleiermacher
(Notes on the Apology, p. 432) and Ast (p. 482), have notes on the phrase τὸ
δαιμόνιον — and I think the note of Ast is the more instructive of the two.
In Plato and Xenophon, the words τὸ δαιμόνιον, τὸ θεῖον, are in many cases
undistinguishable in meaning from ὁ δαίμων, ὁ θεός. Compare the Phædrus,
242 E, about θεὸς and θεῖόν τι. Sokrates, in his argument against Meletus in

the Apology (p. 27) emphatically argues that no man could believe in any
thing δαιμόνιον, without also believing in δαιμόνες. The special θεῖόν τι καὶ
δαιμόνιον (Apol. p. 31 C), which presented itself in regard to him and his
proceedings, was only one of the many modes in which (as he believed) ὁ
θεός commanded and stimulated him to work upon the minds of the
Athenians:— ἐμοὶ δὲ τοῦτο, ὡς ἐγώ φημι, προστέτακται ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ
πράττειν καὶ ἐκ μαντειῶν καὶ ἐξ ἐνυπνίων καὶ παντὶ τρόπῳ, ᾧπέρ τίς ποτε
καὶ ἄλλη θεία μοῖρα ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ ὁτιοῦν προσέταξε πράττειν (Apol. p. 33
C). So again in Apol. p. 40 A, B, ἡ εἰωθυῖά μοι μαντικὴ ἡ τοῦ δαιμονίου —
and four lines afterwards we read the very same fact intimated in the words,
τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ σημεῖον, where Sokratis dæmonium — and Deus — are
identified: thus refuting the argument above cited from Stallbaum. There is
therefore no such discrepancy, in reference to τὸ δαιμόνιον, as Stallbaum
and Schleiermacher contend for. We perceive indeed this difference
between them — that in the Theætêtus, the simile of the obstetric art is
largely employed, while it is not noticed in the Theagês. But we should
impose an unwarrantable restriction upon Plato’s fancy, if we hindered him
from working out his variety and exuberance of metaphors, and from
accommodating each dialogue to the metaphor predominant with him at the
time.

Moreover, in respect to what is called the Dæmon of Sokrates, we ought
hardly to expect that either Plato or Xenophon would always be consistent
even with themselves. It is unsafe for a modern critic to determine
beforehand, by reason or feelings of his own, in what manner either of them
would speak upon this mysterious subject. The belief and feeling of a divine
intervention was very real on the part of both, but their manner of
conceiving it might naturally fluctuate: and there was, throughout all the
proceedings of Sokrates, a mixture of the serious and the playful, of the
sublime and the eccentric, of ratiocinative acuteness with impulsive
superstition — which it is difficult to bring into harmonious interpretation.

Such heterogeneous mixture is forcibly described in the Platonic
Symposium, pp. 215-222. When we consider how undefined, and
undefinable, the idea of this δαιμόνιον was, we cannot wonder if Plato
ascribes to it different workings and manifestations at different times.
Stallbaum affirms that it is made ridiculous in the Theagês: and Kühner
declares that Plutarch makes it ridiculous, in his treatise De Genio Sokratia
(Comm. ad. Xenoph. Memor. p. 23). But this is because its agency is
described more in detail. You can easily present it in a ridiculous aspect, by
introducing it as intervening on petty and insignificant matters. Now it is
remarkable, that in the Apology, we are expressly told that it actually did
intervene on the most trifling occasions — πάνυ ἐπὶ σμικροῖς ἐναντιουμένη.
The business of an historian of philosophy is, to describe it as it was really
felt and believed by Sokrates and Plato — whether a modern critic may
consider the description ridiculous or not.

When Schleiermacher says (Einleitung, p. 248), respecting the falsarius
whom he supposes to have written the Theagês — “Damit ist ihm begegnet,
auf eine höchst verkehrte Art wunderbar zusammenzurühren diese göttliche
Schickung, und jenes persönliche Vorgefühl welches dem Sokrates zur
göttlichen Stimme ward”. — I contend that the mistake is chargeable to
Schleiermacher himself, for bisecting into two phenomena that which
appears in the Apology as the same phenomenon under two different names
— τὸ δαιμόνιον — τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ σημεῖον. Besides, to treat the Dæmon as a
mere “personal presentiment” of Sokrates, may be a true view:— but it is
the view of one who does not inhale the same religious atmosphere as
Sokrates, Plato, and Xenophon. It cannot therefore be properly applied in
explaining their sayings or doings. Kühner, who treats the Theagês as not
composed by Plato, grounds this belief partly on the assertion, that the
δαιμόνιον of Sokrates is described therein as something peculiar to
Sokrates; which, according to Kühner, was the fiction of a subsequent time.
By Sokrates and his contemporaries (Kühner says) it was considered “non

sibi soli tanquam proprium quoddam beneficium a Diis tributum, sed
commune sibi esse cum cæteris hominibus” (pp. 20-21). I dissent entirely
from this view, which is contradicted by most of the passages noticed even
by Kühner himself. It is at variance with the Platonic Apology, as well as
with the Theætêtus (150 D), and Republic (vi. 496 C). Xenophon does
indeed try, in the first Chapter of the Memorabilia, as the defender of
Sokrates, to soften the invidia against Sokrates, by intimating that other
persons had communications from the Gods as well as he. But we see
plainly, even from other passages of the Memorabilia, that this was not the
persuasion of Sokrates himself, nor of his friends, nor of his enemies. They
all considered it (as it is depicted in the Theagês also) to be a special
privilege and revelation.

CHAPTER XVI.

ERASTÆ OR ANTERASTÆ — RIVALES.
The main subject of this short dialogue is — What is philosophy? ἡ
φιλοσοφία — τὸ φιλοσοφεῖν. How are we to explain or define it? What is its
province and purport?

Erastæ — subject and persons
Instead of the simple, naked, self-
of the dialogue — dramatic
introducing, conversation, which we read in the
introduction — interesting
Menon, Hipparchus, Minos, &c. Sokrates
youths in the palæstra.
recounts a scene and colloquy, which occurred
when he went into the house of Dionysius the
grammatist or school-master,1 frequented by many elegant and high-born
youths as pupils. Two of these youths were engaged in animated debate upon
some geometrical or astronomical problem, in the presence of various
spectators; and especially of two young men, rivals for the affection of one
of them. Of these rivals, the one is a person devoted to music, letters,
discourse, philosophy:— the other hates and despises these pursuits,
devoting himself to gymnastic exercise, and bent on acquiring the maximum
of athletic force.2 It is much the same contrast as that between the brothers
Amphion and Zethus in the Antiopê of Euripides — which is beautifully
employed as an illustration by Plato in the Gorgias.3

1 Plato, Erastæ, 132. εἰς Διονυσίου τοῦ γραμματιστοῦ εἰσῆλθον, καὶ εἶδον
αὐτόθι τῶν τε νέων τοὺς ἐπιεικεστάτους δοκοῦντας εἶναι τὴν ἰδέαν καὶ
πατέρων εὐδοκίμων καὶ τούτων ἐραστάς.

2 Plato, Erast. 132 E.

3 Plato, Gorgias, 485-486. Compare Cicero De Oratore, ii. 37, 156.

Two rival Erastæ — one of them
As soon as Sokrates begins his
literary, devoted to philosophy
interrogatories, the two youths relinquish4 their
— the other gymnastic, hatinggeometrical talk, and turn to him as attentive
philosophy. listeners. Their approach affects his emotions
hardly less than those of the Erastes. He first
enquires from the athletic Erastes, What is it that these two youths are so
intently engaged upon? It must surely be something very fine, to judge by
the eagerness which they display? How do you mean fine (replies the
athlete)? They are only prosing about astronomical matters — talking
nonsense — philosophising! The literary rival, on the contrary, treats this
athlete as unworthy of attention, speaks with enthusiastic admiration of
philosophy, and declares that all those to whom it is repugnant are degraded
specimens of humanity.

4 The powerful sentiment of admiration ascribed to Sokrates in the
presence of these beautiful youths deserves notice as a point in his character.
Compare the beginning of the Charmidês and the Lysis.

Question put by Sokrates —
Sokr. — You think philosophy a fine thing?
What is philosophy? It is the
But you cannot tell whether it is fine or not,
perpetual accumulation of
unless you know what it is.5 Pray explain to me
knowledge, so as to make the what philosophy is. Erast. — I will do so
largest sum total. readily. Philosophy consists in the perpetual
growth of a man’s knowledge — in his going
on perpetually acquiring something new, both in youth and in old age, so
that he may learn as much as possible during life. Philosophy is polymathy.6
Sokr. — You think philosophy not only a fine thing, but good? Erast. — Yes
— very good. Sokr. — But is the case similar in regard to gymnastic? Is a
man’s bodily condition benefited by taking as much exercise, or as much
nourishment, as possible? Is such very great quantity good for the body?7

5 Plat. Erast. 133 A-B.

6 Plato, Erast. 133 D. τὴν φιλοσοφίαν — πολυμάθειαν.

7 Plato, Erast. 133 E.

In the case of the body, it is not
It appears after some debate (in which the
the maximum of exercise which
other or athletic Erastes sides with Sokrates8)
does good, but the proper, that in regard to exercise and food it is not the
measured quantity. For the great quantity or the small quantity, which is
mind also, it is not the maximum good for the body — but the moderate or
of knowledge, but the measured measured quantity.9 For the mind, the case is
quantity which is good. Who is admitted to be similar. Not the much, nor the
the judge to determine this little, of learning is good for it but the right or
measure? measured amount. Sokr. — And who is the
competent judge, how much of either is right
measure for the body? Erast. — The physician and the gymnastic trainer.
Sokr. — Who is the competent judge, how much seed is right measure for
sowing a field? Erast. — The farmer. Sokr. — Who is the competent judge,
in reference to the sowing and planting of knowledge in the mind, which
varieties are good, and how much of each is right measure?

8 Plat. Erast. 134 B-C. The literary Erastes says to Sokrates, “To you, I have
no objection to concede this point, and to admit that my previous answer
must be modified. But if I were to debate the point only with him (the
athletic rival), I could perfectly well have defended my answer, and even
worse answer still, for he is quite worthless (οὐδὲν γάρ ἐστι).”

This is a curious passage, illustrating the dialectic habits of the day, and
the pride felt in maintaining an answer once given.

9 Plato, Erastæ, 134 B-D. τὰ μέτρια μάλιστα ὠφελεῖν, ἀλλὰ μὴ τὰ πολλὰ
μηδὲ τὰ ὀλίγα.

No answer given. What is the
The question is one which none of the
best conjecture? Answer of the
persons present can answer.10 None of them
literary Erastes. A man must can tell who is the special referee, about
learn that which will yield to training of mind; corresponding to the
him the greatest reputation as a physician or the farmer in the analogous cases.
philosopher — as much as will Sokrates then puts a question somewhat
enable him to talk like an different: Sokr. — Since we have agreed, that
intelligent critic, though not to the man who prosecutes philosophy ought not
practise. to learn many things, still less all things —
what is the best conjecture that we can make,
respecting the matters which he ought to learn? Erast. — The finest and
most suitable acquirements for him to aim at, are those which will yield to
him the greatest reputation as a philosopher. He ought to appear
accomplished in every variety of science, or at least in all the more
important; and with that view, to learn as much of each as becomes a
freeman to know:— that is, what belongs to the intelligent critic, as
distinguished from the manual operative: to the planning and superintending
architect, as distinguished from the working carpenter.11 Sokr. — But you
cannot learn even two different arts to this extent — much less several
considerable arts. Erast. — I do not of course mean that the philosopher can
be supposed to know each of them accurately, like the artist himself — but
only as much as may be expected from the free and cultivated citizen. That
is, he shall be able to appreciate, better than other hearers, the observations
made by the artist: and farther to deliver a reasonable opinion of his own, so
as to be accounted, by all the hearers, more accomplished in the affairs of
the art than themselves.12

10 Plato, Erast. 134 E, 135 A.

11 Plat. Erast. 135 B. ὅσα ξυνέσεως ἔχεται, μὴ ὅσα χειρουργίας.

12 Plat. Erast. 135 D.

The philosopher is one who is
Sokr. — You mean that the philosopher is to
second-best in several different
be second-best in several distinct pursuits: like
arts — a Pentathlus — who
the Pentathlus, who is not expected to equal
talks well upon each.
either the runner or the wrestler in their own
separate departments, but only to surpass
competitors in the five matches taken together.13 Erast. — Yes — I mean
what you say. He is one who does not enslave himself to any one matter, nor
works out any one with such strictness as to neglect all others: he attends to
all of them in reasonable measure.14

13 Plat. Erast. 135 E, 136 A. καὶ οὕτως γίγνεσθαι περὶ πάντα ὕπακρόν τινα
ἄνδρα τὸν πεφιλοσοφηκότα. The five matches were leaping, running,
throwing the quoit and the javelin, wrestling.

14 Plat. Erast. 136 B. ἀλλὰ πάντων μετρίως ἐφῆφθαι.

On what occasions can such
Upon this answer Sokrates proceeds to
second-best men be useful?
cross-examine: Sokr. — Do you think that good
There are always regular
men are useful, bad men useless? Erast. — Yes
practitioners at hand, and no
I do. Sokr. — You think that philosophers, as
one will call in the second-best
you describe them, are useful? Erast. —
man when he can have the
Certainly: extremely useful. Sokr. — But tell
regular practitioner.
me on what occasions such second-best men
are useful: for obviously they are inferior to
each separate artist. If you fall sick will you send for one of them, or for a
professional physician? Erast. — I should send for both. Sokr. — That is no
answer: I wish to know, which of the two you will send for first and by
preference? Erast. — No doubt I shall send for the professional physician.
Sokr. — The like also, if you are in danger on shipboard, you will entrust
your life to the pilot rather than to the philosopher: and so as to all other
matters, as long as a professional man is to be found, the philosopher is of
no use? Erast. — So it appears. Sokr. — Our philosopher then is one of the

useless persons: for we assuredly have professional men at hand. Now we
agreed before, that good men were useful, bad men useless.15 Erast. — Yes;
that was agreed.

15 Plat. Erast. 136 C-D.

Philosophy cannot consist in
Sokr. — If then you have correctly defined a
multiplication of learned
philosopher to be one who has a second-rate
acquirements.
knowledge on many subjects, he is useless so
long as there exist professional artists on each
subject. Your definition cannot therefore be correct. Philosophy must be
something quite apart from this multifarious and busy meddling with
different professional subjects, or this multiplication of learned
acquirements. Indeed I fancied, that to be absorbed in professional subjects
and in variety of studies, was vulgar and discreditable rather than
otherwise.16

16 Plato, Erast. 137 B.

Let us now, however (continues Sokrates), take up the matter in another
way. In regard to horses and dogs, those who punish rightly are also those
who know how to make them better, and to discriminate with most exactness
the good from the bad? Erast. — Yes: such is the fact.

Sokrates changes his course of
Sokr. — Is not the case similar with men? Is
examination — questions put to
it not the same art, which punishes men rightly,
show that there is one special
makes them better, and best distinguishes the
art, regal and political, of
good from the bad? whether applied to one,
administering and
few, or many? Erast. — It is so.17 Sokr. — The
art or science, whereby men punish evil-doers
discriminating the bad from the
good. rightly, is the judicial or justice: and it is by the
same that they know the good apart from the
bad, either one or many. If any man be a stranger to this art, so as not to

know good men apart from bad, is he not also ignorant of himself, whether
he be a good or a bad man? Erast. — Yes: he is. Sokr. — To be ignorant of
yourself, is to be wanting in sobriety or temperance; to know yourself is to
be sober or temperate. But this is the same art as that by which we punish
rightly — or justice. Therefore justice and temperance are the same: and the
Delphian rescript, Know thyself, does in fact enjoin the practice both of
justice and of sobriety.18 Erast. — So it appears. Sokr. — Now it is by this
same art, when practised by a king, rightly punishing evil-doers, that cities
are well governed; it is by the same art practised by a private citizen or
house-master, that the house is well-governed: so that this art, justice or
sobriety, is at the same time political, regal, economical; and the just and
sober man is at once the true king, statesman, house-master.19 Erast. — I
admit it.

17 Plato, Erast. 137 C-D.

18 Plato, Erast. 138 A.

19 Plato, Erast. 138 C.

In this art the philosopher must
Sokr. — Now let me ask you. You said that it
not only be second-best,
was discreditable for the philosopher, when in
competent to talk — but he must
company with a physician or any other
be a fully qualified practitioner,
craftsman talking about matters of his own
competent to act.
craft, not to be able to follow what he said and
comment upon it. Would it not also be
discreditable to the philosopher, when listening to any king, judge, or house-
master, about professional affairs, not to be able to understand and
comment? Erast. — Assuredly it would be most discreditable upon matters
of such grave moment. Sokr. — Shall we say then, that upon these matters
also, as well as all others, the philosopher ought to be a Pentathlus or
second-rate performer, useless so long as the special craftsman is at hand? or

shall we not rather affirm, that he must not confide his own house to any one
else, nor be the second-best within it, but must himself judge and punish
rightly, if his house is to be well administered? Erast. — That too I admit.20
Sokr. — Farther, if his friends shall entrust to him the arbitration of their
disputes, — if the city shall command him to act as Dikast or to settle any
difficulty, — in those cases also it will be disgraceful for him to stand
second or third, and not to be first-rate? Erast. — I think it will be. Sokr. —
You see then, my friend, philosophy is something very different from much
learning and acquaintance with multifarious arts or sciences.21

20 Plato, Erast. 138 E. Πότερον οὖν καὶ περὶ ταῦτα λέγωμεν, πένταθλον
αὐτὸν δεῖν εἶναι καὶ ὕπακρον, τὰ δευτερεῖα ἔχοντα πάντων, τὸν φιλόσοφον,
καὶ ἀχρεῖον εἶναι, ἕως ἂν τούτων τις ᾖ; ἢ πρῶτον μὲν τὴν αὑτοῦ οἰκίαν οὐκ
ἀλλῳ ἐπιτρεπτέον οὐδε τὰ δευτερεῖα ἐν τούτῳ ἑκτέον, ἀλλ’ αὐτὸν
κολαστέον δικάζοντα ὀρθῶς, εἰ μέλλει εὖ οἰκεῖσθαι αὐτοῦ ἡ οἰκία;

21 Plato, Erast. 139 A. Πολλοῦ ἄρα δεῖ ἡμῖν, ὦ βέλτιστε, τὸ φιλοσοφεῖν
πολυμάθειά τε εἶναι καὶ ἡ περὶ τὰς τέχνας πραγματεία.

Close of the dialogue —
Upon my saying this (so Sokrates concludes
humiliation of the literary
his recital of the conversation) the literary one
Erastes.
of the two rivals was ashamed and held his
peace; while the gymnastic rival declared that I
was in the right, and the other hearers also commended what I had said.

Remarks — animated manner
The antithesis between the philo-gymnast,
of the dialogue.
hater of philosophy, — and the enthusiastic
admirer of philosophy, who nevertheless
cannot explain what it is — gives much point and vivacity to this short

dialogue. This last person is exhibited as somewhat presumptuous and
confident; thus affording a sort of excuse for the humiliating cross-
examination put upon him by Sokrates to the satisfaction of his stupid rival.
Moreover, the dramatic introduction is full of animation, like that of the
Charmidês and Lysis.

Besides the animated style of the dialogue, the points raised for discussion
in it are of much interest. The word philosophy has at all times been vague
and ambiguous. Certainly no one before Sokrates — probably no one before
Plato — ever sought a definition of it. In no other Platonic dialogue than
this, is the definition of it made a special topic of research.

Definition of philosophy — here
It is here handled in Plato’s negative,
sought for the first time —
elenchtic, tentative, manner. By some of his
Platonic conception of measure
contemporaries, philosophy was really
— referee not discovered.
considered as equivalent to polymathy, or to
much and varied knowledge: so at least Plato
represents it as being considered by Hippias the Sophist, contrary to the
opinion of Protagoras.22 The exception taken by Sokrates to a definition
founded on simple quantity, without any standard point of sufficiency by
which much or little is to be measured, introduces that governing idea of τὸ
μέτριον (the moderate, that which conforms to a standard measure) upon
which Plato insists so much in other more elaborate dialogues. The
conception of a measure, of a standard of measurement — and of conformity
thereunto, as the main constituent of what is good and desirable — stands
prominent in his mind,23 though it is not always handled in the same way.
We have seen it, in the Second Alkibiadês, indicated under another name as
knowledge of Good or of the Best: without which, knowledge on special
matters was declared to be hurtful rather than useful.24 Plato considers that
this Measure is neither discernible nor applicable except by a specially
trained intelligence. In the Erastæ as elsewhere, such an intelligence is called

for in general terms: but when it is asked, Where is the person possessing
such intelligence, available in the case of mental training — neither Sokrates
nor any one else can point him out. To suggest a question, and direct
attention to it, yet still to leave it unanswered — is a practice familiar with
Plato. In this respect the Erastæ is like other dialogues. The answer, if any,
intended to be understood or divined, is, that such an intelligence is the
philosopher himself.

22 Plato, Protag. 318 E. Compare too, the Platonic dialogues, Hippias
Major and Minor.

23 See about ἡ τοῦ μετρίου φύσις as οὐσία — as ὄντως γιγνόμενον. —
Plato, Politikus, 283-284. Compare also the Philêbus, p. 64 D, and the
Protagoras, pp. 356-357, where ἡ μετρητικὴ τέχνη is declared to be the
principal saviour of life and happiness.

24 Plato, Alkib. ii. 145-146; supra, ch. xii. p. 16.

View taken of the second-best
The second explanation of philosophy here
critical talking man, as
given — that the philosopher is one who is
compared with the special
second-best in many departments, and a good
proficient and practitioner.
talker upon all, but inferior to the special
master in each — was supposed by Thrasyllus
in ancient times to be pointed at Demokritus. By many Platonic critics, it is
referred to those persons whom they single out to be called Sophists. I
conceive it to be applicable (whether intended or not) to the literary men
generally of that age, the persons called Sophists included. That which
Perikles expressed by the word, when he claimed the love of wisdom and the
love of beauty as characteristic features of the Athenian citizen — referred
chiefly to the free and abundant discussion, the necessity felt by every one
for talking over every thing before it was done, yet accompanied with full
energy in action as soon as the resolution was taken to act.25 Speech, ready

and pertinent, free conflict of opinion on many different topics — was the
manifestation and the measure of knowledge acquired. Sokrates passed his
life in talking, with every one indiscriminately, and upon each man’s
particular subject; often perplexing the artist himself. Xenophon recounts
conversations with various professional men — a painter, a sculptor, an
armourer — and informs us that it was instructive to all of them, though
Sokrates was no practitioner in any craft.26 It was not merely Demokritus,
but Plato and Aristotle also, who talked or wrote upon almost every subject
included in contemporary observation. The voluminous works of Aristotle,
— the Timæus, Republic, and Leges, of Plato, — embrace a large variety of
subjects, on each of which, severally taken, these two great men were
second-best or inferior to some special proficient. Yet both of them had
judgments to give, which it was important to hear, upon all subjects:27 and
both of them could probably talk better upon each than the special proficient
himself. Aristotle, for example, would write better upon rhetoric than
Demosthenes — upon tragedy, than Sophokles. Undoubtedly, if an oration
or a tragedy were to be composed — if resolution or action were required on
any real state of particular circumstances — the special proficient would be
called upon to act: but it would be a mistake to infer from hence, as the
Platonic Sokrates intimates in the Erastæ, that the second-best, or theorizing
reasoner, was a useless man. The theoretical and critical point of view, with
the command of language apt for explaining and defending it, has a value of
its own; distinct from, yet ultimately modifying and improving, the practical.
And such comprehensive survey and comparison of numerous objects,
without having the attention exclusively fastened or enslaved to any one of
them, deserves to rank high as a variety of intelligence whether it be adopted
as the definition of a philosopher, or not.

25 Thucyd. ii. 39 fin. — 40. καὶ ἔν τε τούτοις τὴν πόλιν ἀξίαν εἶναι
θαυμάζεσθαι, καὶ ἔτι ἐν ἄλλοις. φιλοκαλοῦμεν γὰρ μετ’ εὐτελείας καὶ
φιλοσοφοῦμεν ἄνευ μαλακίας, &c., and the remarkable sequel of the same

chapter about the intimate conjunction of abundant speech with energetic
action in the Athenian character.

26 Xen. Mem. iii. 10; iii. 11; iii. 12.

27 The πένταθλος or ὕπακρος whom Plato criticises in this dialogue,
coincides with what Aristotle calls “the man of universal education or
culture”. — Ethic. Nikom. I. i. 1095, a. 1. ἕκαστος δὲ κρίνει καλῶς ἃ
γιγνώσκει, καὶ τούτων ἐστὶν ἀγαθὸς κριτής· καθ’ ἕκαστον ἄρα, ὁ
πεπαιδευμένος· ἁπλῶς δέ, ὁ περὶ πᾶν πεπαιδευμένος.

Plato’s view — that the
Plato undoubtedly did not conceive the
philosopher has a province
definition of the philosopher in the same way
special to himself, distinct from
as Sokrates. The close of the Erastæ is
other specialties — dimly
employed in opening a distant and dim view of
indicated — regal or political
the Platonic conception. We are given to
art.
understand, that the philosopher has a province
of his own, wherein he is not second-best, but a
first-rate actor and adviser. To indicate, in many different ways, that there is
or must be such a peculiar, appertaining to philosophy — distinct from,
though analogous to, the peculiar of each several art — is one leading
purpose in many Platonic dialogues. But what is the peculiar of the
philosopher? Here, as elsewhere, it is marked out in a sort of misty outline,
not as by one who already knows and is familiar with it, but as one who is
trying to find it without being sure that he has succeeded. Here, we have it
described as the art of discriminating good from evil, governing, and
applying penal sanctions rightly. This is the supreme art or science, of which
the philosopher is the professor; and in which, far from requiring advice
from others, he is the only person competent both to advise and to act: the
art which exercises control over all other special arts, directing how far, and
on what occasions, each of them comes into appliance. It is philosophy,
looked at in one of its two aspects: not as a body of speculative truth, to be

debated, proved, and discriminated from what cannot be proved or can be
disproved — but as a critical judgment bearing on actual life, prescribing
rules or giving directions in particular cases, with a view to the attainment of
foreknown ends, recognised as expetenda.28 This is what Plato understands
by the measuring or calculating art, the regal or political art, according as we
use the language of the Protagoras, Politikus, Euthydêmus, Republic. Both
justice and sobriety are branches of this art; and the distinction between the
two loses its importance when the art is considered as a whole — as we find
both in the Erastæ and in the Republic.29

28 The difference between the second explanation of philosophy and the
third explanation, suggested in the Erastæ, will be found to coincide pretty
nearly with the distinction which Aristotle takes much pains to draw
between σοφία and φρόνησις. — Ethic. Nikomach. vi. 5, pp. 1140-1141;
also Ethic. Magn. i. pp. 1197-1198.

29 See Republic, iv. 433 A; Gorgias, 526 C; Charmidês 164 B; and
Heindorf’s note on the passage in the Charmidês.

Philosopher — the supreme
Here, in the Erastæ, this conception of the
artist controlling other artists.
philosopher as the supreme artist controlling all
other artists, is darkly indicated and crudely
sketched. We shall find the same conception more elaborately illustrated in
other dialogues; yet never passing out of that state.

APPENDIX.
This is one of the dialogues declared to be spurious by Schleiermacher,
Ast, Socher, and Stallbaum, all of them critics of the present century. In my
judgment, their grounds for such declaration are altogether inconclusive.
They think the dialogue an inferior composition, unworthy of Plato; and they
accordingly find reasons, more or less ingenious, for relieving Plato from the
discredit of it. I do not think so meanly of the dialogue as they do; but even
if I did, I should not pronounce it to be spurious, without some evidence
bearing upon that special question. No such evidence, of any value, is
produced.

It is indeed contended, on the authority of a passage in Diogenes (ix. 37),
that Thrasyllus himself doubted of the authenticity of the Erastæ. The
passage is as follows, in his life of Demokritus — εἴπερ οἱ Ἀντερασταὶ
Πλάτωνός εἰσι, φησὶ Θράσυλλος, οὗτος ἂν εἴη ὁ παραγενόμενος ἀνώνυμος,
τῶν περὶ Οἰνοπίδην καὶ Ἀναξαγόραν ἕτερος, ἐν τῇ πρὸς Σωκράτην ὁμιλίᾳ
διαλεγόμενος περὶ φιλοσοφίας· ᾧ, φησίν, ὡς πεντάθλῳ ἔοικεν ὁ φιλόσοφος·
καὶ ἦν ὡς ἀληθῶς ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ πένταθλος (Demokritus).

Now in the first place, Schleiermacher and Stallbaum both declare that
Thrasyllus can never have said that which Diogenes here makes him say
(Schleierm. p. 510; Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad. Erast. p. 266, and not. p. 273).

Next, it is certain that Thrasyllus did consider it the undoubted work of
Plato, for he enrolled it in his classification, as the third dialogue in the
fourth tetralogy (Diog. L. iii. 59).

Yxem, who defends the genuineness of the Erastæ (Ueber Platon’s
Kleitophon, pp. 6-7, Berlin, 1846), insists very properly on this point; not
merely as an important fact in itself, but as determining the sense of the

words εἴπερ οἱ Ἀντερασταὶ Πλάτωνός εἰσι, and as showing that the words
rather affirm, than deny, the authenticity of the dialogue. “If the Anterastæ
are the work of Plato, as they are universally admitted to be.” You must
supply the parenthesis in this way, in order to make Thrasyllus consistent
with himself. Yxem cites a passage from Galen, in which εἴπερ is used, and
in which the parenthesis must be supplied in the way indicated: no doubt at
all being meant to be hinted. And I will produce another passage out of
Diogenes himself, where εἴπερ is used in the same way; not as intended to
convey the smallest doubt, but merely introducing the premiss for a
conclusion immediately following. Diogenes says, respecting the Platonic
Ideas, εἴπερ ἐστὶ μνήμη, τὰς ἰδέας ἐν τοῖς οὖσιν ὑπάρχειν (iii. 15). He does
not intend to suggest any doubt whether there be such a fact as memory.
Εἴπερ is sometimes the equivalent of ἐπειδήπερ: as we learn from Hermann
ad Viger. VIII. 6, p. 512.

There is therefore no fair ground for supposing that Thrasyllus doubted
the genuineness of the Erastæ. And when I read what modern critics say in
support of their verdict of condemnation, I feel the more authorised in
dissenting from it. I will cite a passage or two from Stallbaum.

Stallbaum begins his Prolegomena as follows, pp. 205-206: “Quanquam
hic libellus genus dicendi habet purum, castum, elegans, nihil ut inveniri
queat quod à Platonis aut Xenophontis elegantiâ, abhorreat — tamen quin à
Boeckhio, Schleiermachero, Astio, Sochero, Knebelio, aliis jure meritoque
pro suppositicio habitus sit, haudquaquam dubitamus. Est enim materia
operis adeo non ad Platonis mentem rationemque elaborata, ut potius cuivis
alii Socraticorum quam huic rectè adscribi posse videatur.”

After stating that the Erastæ may be divided into two principal sections,
Stallbaum proceeds:— “Neutra harum partium ita tractata est, ut nihil
desideretur, quod ad justam argumenti explicationem merito requiras —

nihil inculcatum reperiatur, quod vel alio modo illustratum vel omnino
omissum esse cupias”.

I call attention to this sentence as a fair specimen of the grounds upon
which the Platonic critics proceed when they strike dialogues out of the
Platonic Canon. If there be anything wanting in it which is required for what
they consider a proper setting forth of the argument — if there be anything
which they would desire to see omitted or otherwise illustrated — this is
with them a reason for deciding that it is not Plato’s work. That is, if there be
any defects in it of any kind, it cannot be admitted as Plato’s work; — his
genuine works have no defects. I protest altogether against this ratio
decidendi. If I acknowledged it and applied it consistently I should strike out
every dialogue in the Canon. Certainly, the presumption in favour of the
Catalogue of Thrasyllus must be counted as nil, if it will not outweigh such
feeble counter-arguments as these.

One reason given by Stallbaum for considering the Erastæ as spurious is,
that the Sophists are not derided in it. “Quis est igitur, qui Platonem sibi
persuadeat illos non fuisse castigaturum, et omnino non significaturum,
quinam illi essent, adversus quos hanc disputationem instituisset?” It is
strange to be called on by learned men to strike out all dialogues from the
Canon in which there is no derision of the Sophists. Such derision exists
already in excess: we hear until we are tired how mean it is to receive money
for lecturing. Again, Stallbaum says that the persons whose opinions are
here attacked are not specified by name. But who are the εἰδῶν φίλοι,
attacked in the Sophistês? They are not specified by name, and critics differ
as to the persons intended.

CHAPTER XVII.

ION.

Ion. Persons of the dialogue.
The dialogue called Ion is carried on
Difference of opinion among
between Sokrates and the Ephesian rhapsode
modern critics as to its
Ion. It is among those disallowed by Ast, first
genuineness.
faintly defended, afterwards disallowed, by
Schleiermacher,1 and treated contemptuously
by both. Subsequent critics, Hermann,2 Stallbaum, Steinhart, consider it as
genuine, yet as an inferior production, of little worth, and belonging to
Plato’s earliest years.

1 Schleiermacher, Einleit. zum Ion, p. 261-266; Ast, Leben und Schriften
des Platon, p. 406.

2 K. F. Hermann, Gesch. und Syst. der Plat. Phil. pp. 437-438; Steinhart,
Einleitung, p. 15.

Rhapsodes as a class in Greece.
I hold it to be genuine, and it may be
They competed for prizes at the
comparatively early; but I see no ground for the
festivals. Ion has been
disparaging criticism which has often been
triumphant.
applied to it. The personage whom it introduces
to us as subjected to the cross-examination of
Sokrates is a rhapsode of celebrity; one among a class of artists at that time
both useful and esteemed. They recited or sang,3 with appropriate accent and
gesture, the compositions of Homer and of other epic poets: thus serving to
the Grecian epic, the same purpose as the actors served to the dramatic, and
the harp-singers (κιθαρῳδοὶ) to the lyric. There were various solemn
festivals such as that of Æsculapius at Epidaurus, and (most especially) the

Panathenæa at Athens, where prizes were awarded for the competition of the
rhapsodes. Ion is described as having competed triumphantly in the festival
at Epidaurus, and carried off the first prize. He appeared there in a splendid
costume, crowned with a golden wreath, amidst a crowd which is described
as containing more than 20,000 persons.4

3 The word ᾄδειν is in this very dialogue (532 D, 535 A) applied to the
rhapsoding of Ion.

4 Plato, Ion, 535 D.

Functions of the Rhapsodes.
Much of the acquaintance of cultivated
Recitation — Exposition of the
Greeks with Homer and the other epic poets
poets. Arbitrary exposition of
was both acquired and maintained through such
the poets was then frequent.
rhapsodes; the best of whom contended at the
festivals, while others, less highly gifted as to
vocal power and gesticulation, gave separate declamations and lectures of
their own, and even private lessons to individuals.5 Euthydêmus, in one of
the Xenophontic conversations with Sokrates, and Antisthenes in the
Xenophontic Symposion, are made to declare that the rhapsodes as a class
were extremely silly. This, if true at all, can apply only to the expositions
and comments with which they accompanied their recital of Homer and
other poets. Moreover we cannot reasonably set it down (though some
modern critics do so) as so much incontestable truth: we must consider it as
an opinion delivered by one of the speakers in the conversation, but not
necessarily well founded.6 Unquestionably, the comments made upon
Homer (both in that age and afterwards) were often fanciful and misleading.
Metrodorus, Anaxagoras, and others, resolved the Homeric narrative into
various allegories, physical, ethical, and theological: and most men who had
an opinion to defend, rejoiced to be able to support or enforce it by some
passages of Homer, well or ill-explained — just as texts of the Bible are
quoted in modern times. In this manner, Homer was pressed into the service

of every disputant; and the Homeric poems were presented as containing, or
at least as implying, doctrines quite foreign to the age in which they were
composed.7

5 Xen. Sympos. iii. 6. Nikêratus says that he heard the rhapsodes nearly
every day. He professes to be able to repeat both the Iliad and the Odyssey
from memory.

6 Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 10; Sympos. iii. 6; Plato, Ion, 530 E.

Steinhart cites this judgment about the rhapsodes as if it had been
pronounced by the Xenophontic Sokrates himself, which is not the fact
(Steinhart, Einleitung p. 3).

7 Diogenes Laert. ii. 11; Nitzsch, Die Heldensage des Griechen, pp. 74-78;
Lobeck, Agloaphamus, p. 157.

Seneca, Epistol. 88: “modo Stoicum Homerum faciunt — modo
Epicureum … modo Peripateticum, tria genera bonorum inducentem: modo
Academicum, incerta omnia dicentem. Apparet nihil horum esse in illo, cui
omnia insunt: ista enim inter se dissident.”

The popularity of the Rhapsodes
The Rhapsodes, in so far as they interpreted
was chiefly derived from their
Homer, were probably not less disposed than
recitation. Powerful effect which
others to discover in him their own fancies. But
they produced.
the character in which they acquired most
popularity, was, not as expositors, but as
reciters, of the poems. The powerful emotion which, in the process of
reciting, they both felt themselves and communicated to their auditors, is
declared in this dialogue: “When that which I recite is pathetic (says Ion),
my eyes are filled with tears: when it is awful or terrible, my hair stands on
end, and my heart leaps. Moreover I see the spectators also weeping,
sympathising with my emotions, and looking aghast at what they hear.”8

This assertion of the vehement emotional effect produced by the words of
the poet as declaimed or sung by the rhapsode, deserves all the more credit
— because Plato himself, far from looking upon it favourably, either derides
or disapproves it. Accepting it as a matter of fact, we see that the influence
of rhapsodes, among auditors generally, must have been derived more from
their efficacy as actors than from their ability as expositors.

8 Plato, Ion, 535 C-E.

The description here given is the more interesting because it is the only
intimation remaining of the strong effect produced by these rhapsodic
representations.

Ion both reciter and expositor —
Ion however is described in this dialogue as
Homer was considered more as
combining the two functions of reciter and
an instructor than as a poet.
expositor: a partnership like that of Garrick and
Johnson, in regard to Shakspeare. It is in the
last of the two functions, that Sokrates here examines him: considering
Homer, not as a poet appealing to the emotions of hearers, but as a teacher
administering lessons and imparting instruction. Such was the view of
Homer entertained by a large proportion of the Hellenic world. In that
capacity, his poems served as a theme for rhapsodes, as well as for various
philosophers and Sophists who were not rhapsodes, nor accomplished
reciters.

Plato disregards and
The reader must keep in mind, in following
disapproves the poetic or
the questions put by Sokrates, that this
emotional working.
pædagogic and edifying view of Homer is the
only one present to the men of the Sokratic
school — and especially to Plato. Of the genuine functions of the gifted
poet, who touches the chords of strong and diversified emotion — “qui
pectus inaniter angit, Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet” (Horat. Epist.
II. 1, 212) — Plato takes no account: or rather, he declares open war against