With great respect for the learning and ability of Dr. Jackson, I find myself unable to agree in this newly fashioned doctrine of the Ideas, which he ascribes to Plato. I have not the space to go into the question fully; but I will briefly state some objections which are, I think, fatal to it.

(1). First, the foundation of his argument is laid in the “Metaphysics” of Aristotle. But we cannot argue, either from the “Metaphysics,” or from any other of the philosophical treatises of Aristotle, to the dialogues of Plato until we have ascertained the relation in which his so-called works stand to the philosopher himself. There is of course no doubt of the great influence exercised upon Greece and upon the world by Aristotle and his philosophy. But on the other hand almost everyone who is capable of understanding the subject acknowledges that his writings have not come down to us in an authentic form like most of the dialogues of Plato. How much of them is to be ascribed to Aristotle’s own hand, how much is due to his successors in the Peripatetic School, is a question which has never been determined, and probably never can be, because the solution of it depends upon internal evidence only. To “the height of this great argument” I do not propose to ascend. But one little fact, not irrelevant to the present discussion, will show how hopeless is the attempt to explain Plato out of the writings of Aristotle. In the chapter of the Metaphysics quoted by Dr. Jackson (I 6), about two octavo pages in length, there occur no less than seven or eight references to Plato, although nothing really corresponding to them can be found in his extant writings:—a small matter truly; but what a light does it throw on the character of the entire book in which they occur! We can hardly escape from the conclusion that they are not statements of Aristotle respecting Plato, but of a later generation of Aristotelians respecting a later generation of Platonists.4

(2). There is no hint in Plato’s own writings that he was conscious of having made any change in the Doctrine of Ideas such as Dr. Jackson attributes to him, although in the Republic the platonic Socrates speaks of “a longer and a shorter way” (IV 435; VI 504), and of a way in which his disciple Glaucon “will be unable to follow him” (VII 533); also of a way of Ideas, to which he still holds fast, although it has often deserted him (“Philebus” 16 C, “Phaedo” 97–108), and although in the later dialogues and in the Laws the reference to Ideas disappears, and Mind claims her own (“Philebus” 31, 65; Laws XII 965 B). No hint is given of what Plato meant by the “longer way” (Republic IV 435 D), or “the way in which Glaucon was unable to follow” (ibid. VII 533 A); or of the relation of Mind to the Ideas. It might be said with truth that the conception of the Idea predominates in the first half of the Dialogues, which, according to the order adopted in this work, ends with the Republic, the “conception of Mind” and a way of speaking more in agreement with modern terminology, in the latter half. But there is no reason to suppose that Plato’s theory, or, rather, his various theories, of the Ideas underwent any definite change during his period of authorship. They are substantially the same in the twelfth Book of the Laws (962, 963 following) as in the “Meno” and “Phaedo”; and since the Laws were written in the last decade of his life, there is no time to which this change of opinions can be ascribed. It is true that the theory of Ideas takes several different forms, not merely an earlier and a later one, in the various Dialogues. They are personal and impersonal, ideals and ideas, existing by participation or by imitation, one and many, in different parts of his writings or even in the same passage (compare On the Ideas of Plato). They are the universal definitions of Socrates, and at the same time “of more than mortal knowledge” (Republic VI 485). But they are always the negations of sense, of matter, of generation, of the particular: they are always the subjects of knowledge and not of opinion; and they tend, not to diversity, but to unity. Other entities or intelligences are akin to them, but not the same with them, such as mind, measure, limit, eternity, essence (compare “Philebus” sub fin.; “Timaeus” passim): these and similar terms appear to express the same truths from a different point of view, and to belong to the same sphere with them. But we are not justified, therefore, in attempting to identify them, any more than in wholly opposing them. The great oppositions of the sensible and intellectual, the unchangeable and the transient, in whatever form of words expressed, are always maintained in Plato. But the lesser logical distinctions, as we should call them, whether of ontology or predication, which troubled the pre-Socratic philosophy and came to the front in Aristotle, are variously discussed and explained. Thus far we admit inconsistency in Plato, but no further. He lived in an age before logic and system had wholly permeated language, and therefore we must not always expect to find in him systematic arrangement or logical precision:—poema magis putandum. But he is always true to his own context, the careful study of which is of more value to the interpreter than all the commentators and scholiasts put together.

(3). The conclusions at which Dr. Jackson has arrived are such as might be expected to follow from his method of procedure. For he takes words without regard to their connection, and pieces together different parts of dialogues in a purely arbitrary manner, although there is no indication that the author intended the two passages to be so combined, or that when he appears to be experimenting on the different points of view from which a subject of philosophy may be regarded, he is secretly elaborating a system. By such a use of language any premises may be made to lead to any conclusion. I am not one of those who believe Plato to have been a mystic or to have had hidden meanings; nor do I agree with Dr. Jackson in thinking that “when he is precise and dogmatic, he generally contrives to introduce an element of obscurity into the expostion” (Journal of Philology X 150). The great master of language wrote as clearly as he could in an age when the minds of men were clouded by controversy, and philosophical terms had not yet acquired a fixed meaning. I have just said that Plato is to be interpreted by his context; and I do not deny that in some passages, especially in the Republic and Laws, the context is at a greater distance than would be allowable in a modern writer. But we are not therefore justified in connecting passages from different parts of his writings, or even from the same work, which he has not himself joined. We cannot argue from the “Parmenides” to the “Philebus,” or from either to the “Sophist,” or assume that the “Parmenides,” the “Philebus,” and the “Timaeus” were “written simultaneously,” or “were intended to be studied in the order in which they are here named” (Journal of Philology XIII 38)) We have no right to connect statements which are only accidentally similar. Nor is it safe for the author of a theory about ancient philosophy to argue from what will happen if his statements are rejected. For those consequences may never have entered into the mind of the ancient writer himself; and they are very likely to be modern consequences which would not have been understood by him. “I cannot think,” says Dr. Jackson, “that Plato would have changed his opinions, but have nowhere explained the nature of the change.” But is it not much more improbable that he should have changed his opinions, and not stated in an unmistakable manner that the most essential principle of his philosophy had been reversed? It is true that a few of the dialogues, such as the Republic and the “Timaeus,” or the “Theaetetus” and the “Sophist,” or the “Meno” and the “Apology,” contain allusions to one another. But these allusions are superficial and, except in the case of the Republic and the Laws, have no philosophical importance. They do not affect the substance of the work. It may be remarked further that several of the dialogues, such as the “Phaedrus,” the “Sophist,” and the “Parmenides,” have more than one subject. But it does not therefore follow that Plato intended one dialogue to succeed another, or that he begins anew in one dialogue a subject which he has left unfinished in another, or that even in the same dialogue he always intended the two parts to be connected with each other. We cannot argue from a casual statement found in the “Parmenides” to other statements which occur in the “Philebus.” Much more truly is his own manner described by himself when he says that “words are more plastic than wax” (Republic IX 588 C), and “whither the wind blows, the argument follows” (ibid. III 394 D). The dialogues of Plato are like poems, isolated and separate works, except where they are indicated by the author himself to have an intentional sequence.

It is this method of taking passages out of their context and placing them in a new connection when they seem to confirm a preconceived theory, which is the defect of Dr. Jackson’s procedure. It may be compared, though not wholly the same with it, to that method which the Fathers practised, sometimes called “the mystical interpretation of Scripture,” in which isolated words are separated from their context, and receive any sense which the fancy of the interpreter may suggest. It is akin to the method employed by Schleiermacher of arranging the dialogues of Plato in chronological order according to what he deems the true arrangement of the ideas contained in them. (Dr. Jackson is also inclined, having constructed a theory, to make the chronology of Plato’s writings dependent upon it.5) It may likewise be illustrated by the ingenuity of those who employ symbols to find in Shakespeare a hidden meaning. In the three cases the error is nearly the same:—words are taken out of their natural context, and thus become destitute of any real meaning.

(4). According to Dr. Jackson’s “Later Theory,” Plato’s Ideas, which were once regarded as the summa genera of all things, are now to be explained as Forms or Types of some things only—;that is to say, of natural objects: these we conceive imperfectly, but are always seeking in vain to have a more perfect notion of them. He says (Journal of Philology XI 319) that “Plato hoped by the study of a series of hypothetical or provisional classifications to arrive at one in which nature’s distribution of kinds is approximately represented, and so to attain approximately to the knowledge of the ideas. But whereas in the Republic, and even in the ‘Phaedo,’ though less hopefully, he had sought to convert his provisional definitions into final ones by tracing their connection with the summum genus, the ἀγαθόν, in the ‘Parmenides’ his aspirations are less ambitious,” and so on. But where does Dr. Jackson find any such notion as this in Plato or anywhere in ancient philosophy? Is it not an anachronism, gracious to the modern physical philosopher, and the more acceptable because it seems to form a link between ancient and modern philosophy, and between physical and metaphysical science; but really unmeaning?

(5). To this “Later Theory” of Plato’s Ideas I oppose the authority of Professor Zeller, who affirms that none of the passages to which Dr. Jackson appeals (“Theaetetus” 185 C following; “Philebus” 25 B following; “Timaeus” 57 C; “Parmenides” 130 B following, 142 B–155 E, 157 B–159 E) “in the smallest degree prove his point”; and that in the second class of dialogues, in which the “Later Theory of Ideas” is supposed to be found, quite as clearly as in the first, are admitted Ideas, not only of natural objects, but of properties, relations, works of art, negative notions (“Theaetetus” 176 E; “Parmenides” 130 B following; “Sophist” 254 B following, 258 B); and that what Dr. Jackson distinguishes as the first class of dialogues from the second equally assert or imply that the relation of things to the Ideas, is one of participation in them as well as of imitation of them (Prof. Zeller’s summary of his own review of Dr. Jackson, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, Vol. I, Berlin, 1888, pp. 617, 618.)

In conclusion I may remark that in Plato’s writings there is both unity, and also growth and development; but that we must not intrude upon him either a system or a technical language.

Balliol College, October, 1891.

Note

The chief additions to the Introductions in the Third Edition consist of Essays on the following subjects:—

Dialogues

Charmides

Introduction

The subject of the “Charmides” is Temperance or σωφροσύνη, a peculiarly Greek notion, which may also be rendered Moderation,6 Modesty, Discretion, Wisdom, without completely exhausting by all these terms the various associations of the word. It may be described as mens sana in corpore sano, the harmony or due proportion of the higher and lower elements of human nature which “makes a man his own master,” according to the definition of the Republic. In the accompanying translation the word has been rendered in different places either Temperance or Wisdom, as the connection seemed to require: for in the philosophy of Plato σωφροσύνη still retains an intellectual element (as Socrates is also said to have identified σωφροσύνη with σοφία: Xenophon Memorabilia) and is not yet relegated to the sphere of moral virtue, as in the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle (III 10).

The beautiful youth, Charmides, who is also the most temperate of human beings, is asked by Socrates, “What is Temperance?” He answers characteristically, (1) “Quietness.” “But Temperance is a fine and noble thing; and quietness in many or most cases is not so fine a thing as quickness.” He tries again and says (2) that temperance is modesty. But this again is set aside by a sophistical application of Homer: for temperance is good as well as noble, and Homer has declared that “modesty is not good for a needy man.” (3) Once more Charmides makes the attempt. This time he gives a definition which he has heard, and of which Socrates conjectures that Critias must be the author: “Temperance is doing one’s own business.” But the artisan who makes another man’s shoes may be temperate, and yet he is not doing his own business; and temperance defined thus would be opposed to the division of labour which exists in every temperate or well-ordered state. How is this riddle to be explained?

Critias, who takes the place of Charmides, distinguishes in his answer between “making” and “doing,” and with the help of a misapplied quotation from Hesiod assigns to the words “doing” and “work” an exclusively good sense: Temperance is doing one’s own business;—(4) is doing good.

Still an element of knowledge is wanting which Critias is readily induced to admit at the suggestion of Socrates; and, in the spirit of Socrates and of Greek life generally, proposes as a fifth definition, (5) Temperance is self-knowledge. But all sciences have a subject: number is the subject of arithmetic, health of medicine—what is the subject of temperance or wisdom? The answer is that (6) Temperance is the knowledge of what a man knows and of what he does not know. But this is contrary to analogy; there is no vision of vision, but only of visible things; no love of loves, but only of beautiful things; how then can there be a knowledge of knowledge? That which is older, heavier, lighter, is older, heavier, and lighter than something else, not than itself, and this seems to be true of all relative notions—the object of relation is outside of them; at any rate they can only have relation to themselves in the form of that object. Whether there are any such cases of reflex relation or not, and whether that sort of knowledge which we term Temperance is of this reflex nature, has yet to be determined by the great metaphysician. But even if knowledge can know itself, how does the knowledge of what we know imply the knowledge of what we do not know? Besides, knowledge is an abstraction only, and will not inform us of any particular subject, such as medicine, building, and the like. It may tell us that we or other men know something, but can never tell us what we know.

Admitting that there is a knowledge of what we know and of what we do not know, which would supply a rule and measure of all things, still there would be no good in this; and the knowledge which temperance gives must be of a kind which will do us good; for temperance is a good. But this universal knowledge does not tend to our happiness and good: the only kind of knowledge which brings happiness is the knowledge of good and evil. To this Critias replies that the science or knowledge of good and evil, and all the other sciences, are regulated by the higher science or knowledge of knowledge. Socrates replies by again dividing the abstract from the concrete, and asks how this knowledge conduces to happiness in the same definite way in which medicine conduces to health.

And now, after making all these concessions, which are really inadmissible, we are still as far as ever from ascertaining the nature of temperance, which Charmides has already discovered, and had therefore better rest in the knowledge that the more temperate he is the happier he will be, and not trouble himself with the speculations of Socrates.

In this Dialogue may be noted (1) The Greek ideal of beauty and goodness, the vision of the fair soul in the fair body, realised in the beautiful Charmides; (2) The true conception of medicine as a science of the whole as well as the parts, and of the mind as well as the body, which is playfully intimated in the story of the Thracian; (3) The tendency of the age to verbal distinctions, which here, as in the “Protagoras” and “Cratylus,” are ascribed to the ingenuity of Prodicus; and to interpretations or rather parodies of Homer or Hesiod, which are eminently characteristic of Plato and his contemporaries; (4) The germ of an ethical principle contained in the notion that temperance is “doing one’s own business,” which in the Republic (such is the shifting character of the Platonic philosophy) is given as the definition, not of temperance, but of justice; (5) The impatience which is exhibited by Socrates of any definition of temperance in which an element of science or knowledge is not included; (6) The beginning of metaphysics and logic implied in the two questions: whether there can be a science of science, and whether the knowledge of what you know is the same as the knowledge of what you do not know; and also in the distinction between “what you know” and “that you know,” ἃ οὶδεν and ὅτι οἶδεν; here too is the first conception of an absolute self-determined science (the claims of which, however, are disputed by Socrates, who asks cui bono?) as well as the first suggestion of the difficulty of the abstract and concrete, and one of the earliest anticipations of the relation of subject and object, and of the subjective element in knowledge—;a “rich banquet” of metaphysical questions in which we “taste of many things.” (7) And still the mind of Plato, having snatched for a moment at these shadows of the future, quickly rejects them: thus early has he reached the conclusion that there can be no science which is a “science of nothing” (“Parmenides” 132 B). (8) The conception of a science of good and evil also first occurs here, an anticipation of the “Philebus” and Republic as well as of moral philosophy in later ages.

The dramatic interest of the Dialogue chiefly centres in the youth Charmides, with whom Socrates talks in the kindly spirit of an elder. His childlike simplicity and ingenuousness are contrasted with the dialectical and rhetorical arts of Critias, who is the grown-up man of the world, having a tincture of philosophy. No hint is given, either here or in the “Timaeus,” of the infamy which attaches to the name of the latter in Athenian history. He is simply a cultivated person who, like his kinsman Plato, is ennobled by the connection of his family with Solon (compare “Timaeus” 20, 21), and had been the follower, if not the disciple, both of Socrates and of the Sophists. In the argument he is not unfair, if allowance is made for a slight rhetorical tendency, and for a natural desire to save his reputation with the company; he is sometimes nearer the truth than Socrates. Nothing in his language or behaviour is unbecoming the guardian of the beautiful Charmides. His love of reputation is characteristically Greek, and contrasts with the humility of Socrates. Nor in Charmides himself do we find any resemblance to the Charmides of history, except, perhaps, the modest and retiring nature which, according to Xenophon, at one time of his life prevented him from speaking in the Assembly (Memorabilia 3, 7); and we are surprised to hear that, like Critias, he afterwards became one of the thirty tyrants. In the Dialogue he is a pattern of virtue, and is therefore in no need of the charm which Socrates is unable to apply. With youthful naivete, keeping his secret and entering into the spirit of Socrates, he enjoys the detection of his elder and guardian Critias, who is easily seen to be the author of the definition which he has so great an interest in maintaining (162 B). The preceding definition, “Temperance is doing one’s own business,” is assumed to have been borrowed by Charmides from another; and when the enquiry becomes more abstract he is superseded by Critias (compare “Theaetetus” 168 E; “Euthydemus” 290 E). Socrates preserves his accustomed irony to the end; he is in the neighbourhood of several great truths, which he views in various lights, but always either by bringing them to the test of common sense, or by demanding too great exactness in the use of words, turns aside from them and comes at last to no conclusion.

The definitions of temperance proceed in regular order from the popular to the philosophical. The first two are simple enough and partially true, like the first thoughts of an intelligent youth; the third, which is a real contribution to ethical philosophy, is perverted by the ingenuity of Socrates, and hardly rescued by an equal perversion on the part of Critias. The remaining definitions have a higher aim, which is to introduce the element of knowledge, and at last to unite good and truth in a single science. But the time has not yet arrived for the realization of this vision of metaphysical philosophy; and such a science when brought nearer to us in the “Philebus” and the Republic will not be called by the name of σωφροσύνη. Hence we see with surprise that Plato, who in his other writings identifies good and knowledge, here opposes them, and asks, almost in the spirit of Aristotle, how can there be a knowledge of knowledge, and even if attainable, how can such a knowledge be of any use?

The difficulty of the “Charmides” arises chiefly from the two senses of the word σωφροσύνη, or temperance. From the ethical notion of temperance, which is variously defined to be quietness, modesty, doing our own business, the doing of good actions, the dialogue passes onto the intellectual conception of σωφροσύνη, which is declared also to be the science of self-knowledge, or of the knowledge of what we know and do not know, or of the knowledge of good and evil. The dialogue represents a stage in the history of philosophy in which knowledge and action were not yet distinguished. Hence the confusion between them, and the easy transition from one to the other. The definitions which are offered are all rejected, but it is to be observed that they all tend to throw a light on the nature of temperance, and that, unlike the distinction of Critias between ποιεῖν, πράττειν, ἐργάζεσθαι, none of them are merely verbal quibbles, it is implied that this question, although it has not yet received a solution in theory, has been already answered by Charmides himself, who has learned to practise the virtue of self-knowledge which philosophers are vainly trying to define in words. In a similar spirit we might say to a young man who is disturbed by theological difficulties, “Do not trouble yourself about such matters, but only lead a good life”; and yet in either case it is not to be denied that right ideas of truth may contribute greatly to the improvement of character.

The reasons why the “Charmides,” “Lysis,” “Laches” have been placed together and first in the series of Platonic dialogues, are: (I) Their shortness and simplicity. The “Charmides” and the “Lysis,” if not the “Laches,” are of the same “quality” as the “Phaedrus” and “Symposium”: and it is probable, though far from certain, that the slighter effort preceded the greater one. (II) Their eristic, or rather Socratic character; they belong to the class called dialogues of search (πειραστικαί), which have no conclusion. (III) The absence in them of certain favourite notions of Plato, such as the doctrine of recollection and of the Platonic ideas; the questions, whether virtue can be taught; whether the virtues are one or many. (IV) They have a want of depth, when compared with the dialogues of the middle and later period; and a youthful beauty and grace which is wanting in the later ones. (V) Their resemblance to one another; in all the three boyhood has a great part. These reasons have various degrees of weight in determining their place in the catalogue of the Platonic writings, though they are not conclusive. No arrangement of the Platonic dialogues can be strictly chronological. The order which has been adopted is intended mainly for the convenience of the reader; at the same time, indications of the date supplied either by Plato himself or allusions found in the dialogues have not been lost sight of. Much may be said about this subject, but the results can only be probable; there are no materials which would enable us to attain to anything like certainty.

The relations of knowledge and virtue are again brought forward in the companion dialogues of the “Lysis” and “Laches”; and also in the “Protagoras” and “Euthydemus.” The opposition of abstract and particular knowledge in this dialogue may be compared with a similar opposition of ideas and phenomena which occurs in the Prologues to the “Parmenides,” but seems rather to belong to a later stage of the philosophy of Plato.

Charmides

Or, Temperance

Persons of the dialogue: