Chapter 14

28Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 2, 16, viii. 1, 42, viii. 8, 8. He insists repeatedly upon this point. Compare a curious passage in the Meditations of Marcus Antoninus, vi. 30.

29Plato, Legg. i. p. 626. Plutarch, Lykurg. 25. Compare Lykurg. and Num. c. 4.

30Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 2, 6-8.The boys are appointed to adjudicate, under the supervision of the teacher, in disputes which occur among their fellows. As an instance of this practice, we find the well-known adjudication by young Cyrus, between the great boy and the little boy, in regard to the two coats; and a very instructive illustration it is, of the principle of property (Cyrop. i. 3, 17).

30Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 2, 6-8.

The boys are appointed to adjudicate, under the supervision of the teacher, in disputes which occur among their fellows. As an instance of this practice, we find the well-known adjudication by young Cyrus, between the great boy and the little boy, in regard to the two coats; and a very instructive illustration it is, of the principle of property (Cyrop. i. 3, 17).

31Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 3, 16, iii. 3, 35. Cyrus is indeed represented as having taken lessons from a paid teacher in the art τοῦ στρατηγεῖν: but these lessons were meagre, comprising nothing beyond τὰ τακτικά, i. 6, 12-15.

32Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 1, 6. ποίᾳ τινὶ παιδείᾳ παιδευθεὶς τοσοῦτον διήνεγκεν εἰς τὸ ἄρχειν ἀνθρώπων.

33Xenoph. Cyrop. v. 1, 24. The queen-bee is masculine in Xenophon’s conception.

34Xenoph. Cyrop. viii. 7, 3, iv. 2, 15, iv. 1, 24. Compare Xenoph. Economic. v. 19-20.

35Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 6, 46. Οὕτως ἥ γε ἀνθρωπίνη σοφία οὐδὲν μᾶλλον οἶδε τὸ ἄριστον αἰρεῖσθαι, ἢ εἰ κληρούμενος ὅ, τι λάχοι τοῦτό τις πράττοι. Θεοὶ δὲ ἀεὶ ὄντες πάντα ἴσασι τά τε γεγενημένα καὶ τὰ ὄντα, καὶ ὅ, τι ἐξ ἑκάστου αὐτῶν ἀποβήσεται· καὶτῶν συμβουλευομένωνἀνθρώπωνοἷς ἂν ἰλέῳ ὦσι, προσημαίνουσιν ἅ τε χρὴ ποιεῖν καὶ ἅ οὐ χρή. Εἰ δὲ μὴ πᾶσιν ἐθέλουσι συμβουλεύειν, οὐδὲν θαυμαστόν· οὐ γὰρ ἀνάγκη αὐτοῖς ἐστιν, ὧν ἂν μὴ θέλωσιν, ἐπιμελεῖσθαι.Compare i. 6, 6-23, also the Memorab. i. 1, 8, where the same doctrine is ascribed to Sokrates.

Compare i. 6, 6-23, also the Memorab. i. 1, 8, where the same doctrine is ascribed to Sokrates.

36Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 6, 46 ad fin.

37Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 6, 3-5.

When it is desired to realise an ideal improvement of society (says Plato),38the easiest postulate is to assume a despot, young, clever, brave, thoughtful, temperate, and aspiring, belonging to that superhuman breed which reigned under the presidency of Kronus. Such a postulate is assumed by Xenophon in his hero Cyrus. The Xenophontic scheme, though presupposing a collective training, resolves itself ultimately into the will of an individual, enforcing good regulations, and full of tact in dealing with subordinates. What Cyrus is in campaign and empire, Ischomachus (see the Economica of Xenophon) is in the household: but everything depends on the life of this distinguished individual. Xenophon leads us at once into practice, laying only a scanty basis of theory.

38Plato, Legg. iv. pp. 709 E, 710-713.

Plato does not build upon an individual hero. Platonic training compared with Xenophontic.

In Plato’s Republic, on the contrary, the theory predominates. He does not build upon any individual hero: he constructs a social and educational system, capable of self-perpetuation at least for a considerable time.39He describes the generating and sustaining principles of his system, but he does not exhibit it in action, by any pseudo-historical narrative: we learn indeed, that he had intended to subjoin such a narrative, in the dialogue called Kritias, of which only the commencement was ever written.40He aims at forming a certain type of character, common to all the Guardians: superadding new featuresso as to form a still more exalted type, peculiar to those few Elders selected from among them to exercise the directorial function. He not only lays down the process of training in greater detail than Xenophon, but he also gives explanatory reasons for most of his recommendations.

39Plato pronounces Cyrus to have been a good general and a patriot, but not to have received any right education, and especially to have provided no good education for his children, who in consequence became corrupt and degenerate (Legg. iii. 694). Upon this remark some commentators of antiquity founded the supposition of grudge or quarrel between Plato and Xenophon. We have no evidence to prove such a state of unfriendly feeling between the two, yet it is no way unlikely: and I think it highly probable that the remark just cited from Plato may have had direct reference to the Xenophontic Cyropædia. When we read the elaborate intellectual training which Plato prescribes for the rulers in his Republic, we may easily understand that, in his view, the Xenophontic Cyrus had received no right education at all. His remark moreover brings to view the defect of all schemes built upon a perfect despot — that they depend upon an individual life.

40Plato, Timæus, pp. 20-26. Plato, Kritias, p. 108.

One prominent difference between the two deserves to be noticed. In the Xenophontic training, the ethical, gymnastic, and military, exigencies are carefully provided for: but the musical and intellectual exigencies are left out. The Xenophontic Persians are not affirmed either to learn letters, or to hear and repeat poetry, or to acquire the knowledge of any musical instrument. Nor does it appear, even in the case of the historical Spartans, that letters made any part of their public training. But the Platonic training includes music and gymnastics as co-ordinate and equally indispensable. Words or intellectual exercises, come in under the head of music.41Indeed, in Plato’s view, even gymnastics, though bearing immediately on the health and force of the body, have for their ultimate purpose a certain action upon the mind; being essential to the due development of courage, energy, endurance, and self-assertion.42Gymnastics without music produce a hard and savage character, insensible to persuasive agencies, hating discourse or discussion,43ungraceful as well as stupid. Music without gymnastics generates a susceptible temperament, soft, tender, and yielding to difficulties, with quick but transient impulses. Each of the two, music and gymnastic, is indispensable as a supplement and corrective to the other.

41Plato, Republic, ii. p. 376 E.

42Plato, Republic, iii. p. 410 B. πρὸς τὸ θυμοειδὲς τῆς φύσεως βλέπων κἀκεῖνο ἐγείρων πονήσει μᾶλλον ἢ πρὸς ἰσχύν, οὐχ ὥσπερ οἱ ἄλλοι ἀθληταὶ ῥώμης ἕνεκα.

43Plato, Republ. iii. pp. 410-411. 411 D-E: Μισόλογος δή, οἶμαι, ὁ τοιοῦτος γίγνεται καὶ ἄμουσος, καὶ πειθοῖ μὲν διὰ λόγων οὐδὲν ἔτι χρῆται, βίᾳ δὲ καὶ ἀγριότητι ὥσπερ θηρίον πρὸς πάντα διαπράττεται, καὶ ἐν ἀμαθίᾳ καὶ σκαιότητι μετὰ ἀῤῥυθμίας τε καὶ ἀχαριστίας ζῇ.

Platonic type of character compared with Xenophontic, is like the Athenian compared with the Spartan.

The type of character here contemplated by Plato deserves particular notice, as contrasted with that of Xenophon. It is the Athenian type against the Spartan. Periklês in his funeral oration, delivered at Athens in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, boasts that the Athenians had already reached a type similar tothis — and that too, without any special individual discipline, legally enforced: that they combined courage, ready energy, and combined action — with developed intelligence, the love of discourse, accessibility to persuasion, and taste for the Beautiful. That which Plato aims at accomplishing in his Guardians, by means of a state-education at once musical and gymnastical — Periklês declares to have been already realised at Athens without any state-education, through the spontaneous tendencies of individuals called forth and seconded by the general working of the political system.44He compliments his countrymen as having accomplished this object without the unnecessary rigour of a positive state-discipline, and without any other restraints than the special injunctions and prohibitions of a known law. It is this absence of state-discipline to which both Xenophon and Plato are opposed. Both of them follow Lykurgus in proclaiming the insufficiency of mere prohibitions; and in demanding a positive routine of duty to be prescribed by authority, and enforced upon individuals through life. In regard to end, Plato is more in harmony with Periklês: in regard to means, with Xenophon.

44Thucyd. ii. 38-39-40.The comparison between this speech and the third book of Plato’s Republic (pp. 401-402-410-411), is very interesting. The words of Perikles, φιλοκαλοῦμεν γὰρ μετ’ εὐτελείας καὶ φιλοσοφοῦμεν ἄνευ μαλακίας, taken along with the chapter preceding, mark that concurrent development of τὸ φιλόσοφον and τὸ θυμοειδὲς which Plato provides, and the avoidance of those defects which spring from the separate and exclusive cultivation of either.

44Thucyd. ii. 38-39-40.

The comparison between this speech and the third book of Plato’s Republic (pp. 401-402-410-411), is very interesting. The words of Perikles, φιλοκαλοῦμεν γὰρ μετ’ εὐτελείας καὶ φιλοσοφοῦμεν ἄνευ μαλακίας, taken along with the chapter preceding, mark that concurrent development of τὸ φιλόσοφον and τὸ θυμοειδὲς which Plato provides, and the avoidance of those defects which spring from the separate and exclusive cultivation of either.

Plato’s views respecting special laws and criminal procedure generally are remarkable. He not only manifests that repugnance towards the Dikastery — which is common to Sokrates, Xenophon, Isokrates, and Aristophanes — but he excludes it almost entirely from his system, as being superseded by the constant public discipline of the Guardians.

Professional soldiers are the proper modern standard of comparison with the regulations of Plato and Xenophon.

It is to be remembered that these propositions of Plato have reference, not to an entire and miscellaneous community, but to a select body called the Guardians, required to possess the bodily and mental attributes of soldiers, policemen, and superintendents. The standard of comparison in modern times, for the Lykurgean, Xenophontic or Platonic, training, is tobe sought in the stringent discipline of professional soldiers; not in the general liberty, subject only to definite restrictions, enjoyed by non-military persons. In regard to soldiers, the Platonic principle is now usually admitted — that it is not sufficient to enact articles of war, defining what a soldier ought to do, and threatening him with punishment in case of infraction — but that, besides this, it is indispensable to exact from him a continued routine of positive performances, under constant professional supervision. Without this preparation, few now expect that soldiers should behave effectively when the moment of action arrives. This is the doctrine applied by Plato and Xenophon to the whole life of the citizen.

Music and Gymnastic — multifarious and varied effects of music.

Music and Gymnastic are regarded by Plato mainly as they bear upon and influence the emotional character of his citizens. Each of them is the antithesis, and at the same time the supplement, to the other. Gymnastic tends to develop exclusively the courageous and energetic emotions:— anger and the feeling of power — but no others. Whereas music (understood in the Platonic sense) has a far more multifarious and varied agency: it may develop either those, or the gentle and tender emotions, according to circumstances.45In the hands of Tyrtæus and Æschylus, it generates vehement and fearless combatants: in the hands of Euripides and other pathetic poets, it produces tender, amatory, effeminate natures, ingenious in talk but impotent for action.46

45Plato, Republic, ii. p. 376 B-C. If we examine Plato’s tripartite classification of the varieties of soul or mind, as it is given both in the Republic and in the Timæus (1. Reason, in the cranium. 2. Energy, θυμός, in the thoracic region. 3. Appetite, in the abdominal region) — we shall see that it assigns no place to the gentle, the tender, or the æsthetical emotions. These cannot be properly ranked either with energy (θυμὸς) or with appetite (ἐπιθυμία). Plato can find no root for them except in reason or knowledge, from which he presents them as being collateral derivatives — a singular origin. He illustrates his opinion by the equally singular analogy of the dog, who is gentle towards persons whom heknows, fierce towards those whom he does notknow; so thatgentlenessis the product ofknowledge.

46See the argument between Æschylus and Euripides in the Ranæ of Aristophanes, 1043-1061-1068.

Great influence of the poets and their works on education.

In the age of Plato, Homer and other poets were extolled as the teachers of mankind, and as themselves possessing universal knowledge. They enjoyed a religious respect, being supposed to speak under divine inspiration,and to be the privileged reporters or diviners of a forgotten past.47They furnished the most interesting portion of that floating mass of traditional narrative respecting Gods, Heroes, and ancestors, which found easy credence both as matter of religion and as matter of history: being in full harmony with the emotional preconceptions, and uncritical curiosity, of the hearers. They furnished likewise exhortation and reproof, rules and maxims, so expressed as to live in the memory — impressive utterance for all the strong feelings of the human bosom. Poetry was for a long time the only form of literature. It was not until the fifth centuryB.C.that prose compositions either began to be multiplied, or were carried to such perfection as to possess a charm of their own calculated to rival the poets, who had long enjoyed a monopoly as purveyors for æsthetical sentiment and fancy. Rhetors, Sophists, Philosophers, then became their competitors; opening new veins of intellectual activity,48and sharing, to a certain extent, the pædagogic influence of the poets — yet never displacing them from their traditional function of teachers, narrators, and guides to the intelligence, as well as improving ministers to the sentiments, emotions, and imagination, of youth. Indeed, many Sophists and Rhetors presented themselves not as superseding,49but as expounding and illustrating, the poets. Sokrates also did this occasionally, though not upon system.50

47Aristoph. Ranæ, 1053. Æschylus is made to say:—Ἀλλ’ ἀποκρύπτειν χρὴ τὸ πονηρὸν τόν γε ποιητήν,καὶ μὴ παράγειν μηδὲ διδάσκειν· τοῖς μὲν γὰρ παιδαρίοισινἐστὶ διδάσκαλος ὅστις φράζει, τοῖσιν δ’ ἡβῶσι ποιηταί.πάνυ δὴ δεῖ χρηστὰ λέγειν ἡμᾶς.Compare the words of Pluto which conclude the Ranæ, 1497.Plato, Repub. x. p. 598 D-E. ἐπειδή τινων ἀκούομεν ὅτι οὗτοι (Homer and the poets) πάσας μὲν τέχνας ἐπίσανται, πάντα δὲ τἀνθρώπεια τὰ πρὸς ἀρετὴν καὶ κακίαν, καὶ τά γε θεῖα, &c. Also Plato, Legg. vii. pp. 810-811; Ion, pp. 536 A, 541 B: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2, 10; and Sympos. iii. 6, where we learn that Nikeratus could repeat by heart the whole Iliad and Odyssey.

47Aristoph. Ranæ, 1053. Æschylus is made to say:—

Ἀλλ’ ἀποκρύπτειν χρὴ τὸ πονηρὸν τόν γε ποιητήν,καὶ μὴ παράγειν μηδὲ διδάσκειν· τοῖς μὲν γὰρ παιδαρίοισινἐστὶ διδάσκαλος ὅστις φράζει, τοῖσιν δ’ ἡβῶσι ποιηταί.πάνυ δὴ δεῖ χρηστὰ λέγειν ἡμᾶς.

Compare the words of Pluto which conclude the Ranæ, 1497.

Plato, Repub. x. p. 598 D-E. ἐπειδή τινων ἀκούομεν ὅτι οὗτοι (Homer and the poets) πάσας μὲν τέχνας ἐπίσανται, πάντα δὲ τἀνθρώπεια τὰ πρὸς ἀρετὴν καὶ κακίαν, καὶ τά γε θεῖα, &c. Also Plato, Legg. vii. pp. 810-811; Ion, pp. 536 A, 541 B: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2, 10; and Sympos. iii. 6, where we learn that Nikeratus could repeat by heart the whole Iliad and Odyssey.

48Plato, Legg. vii. p. 810. ὅλους ποιητὰς ἐκμανθάνοντας, &c.

49It was to gain this facility that Kritias and Alkibiades, as Xenophon tells us, frequented the society of Sokrates, who (as Xenophon also tells us) “handled persons conversing with him just as he pleased” (Memor. i. 2, 14-18.)A speaker in one of the Orations of Lysias (Orat. viii. Κακολογιῶν, s. 12) considers this power of arguing a disputed case as one of the manifestations τοῦ φιλοσοφεῖν — Καὶ ἐγὼ μὲν ᾤμηνφιλοσοφοῦνταςαὐτοὺς περὶ τοῦ πράγματοςἀντιλέγειν τὸν ἐναντίον λόγον· οἱ δ’ ἄρα οὐκ ἀντέλεγον ἀλλ’ ἀντέπραττον.Compare the curious oration of Demosthenes against Lakritus, where the speaker imputes to Lakritus this abuse of argumentative power, as having been purchased by him at a large price from the teaching of Isokrates the Sophist, pp. 928-937-938.

A speaker in one of the Orations of Lysias (Orat. viii. Κακολογιῶν, s. 12) considers this power of arguing a disputed case as one of the manifestations τοῦ φιλοσοφεῖν — Καὶ ἐγὼ μὲν ᾤμηνφιλοσοφοῦνταςαὐτοὺς περὶ τοῦ πράγματοςἀντιλέγειν τὸν ἐναντίον λόγον· οἱ δ’ ἄρα οὐκ ἀντέλεγον ἀλλ’ ἀντέπραττον.

Compare the curious oration of Demosthenes against Lakritus, where the speaker imputes to Lakritus this abuse of argumentative power, as having been purchased by him at a large price from the teaching of Isokrates the Sophist, pp. 928-937-938.

50Xenoph. Memorab. i. 2, 57-60.

Plato’s idea of the purpose which poetry and musicoughtto serve in education.

It is this educational practice — common to a certain extent among Greeks, but more developed at Athens than elsewhere51— which Plato has in his mind, when he draws up the outline of a musical education for his youthful Guardians. He does not intend it as a scheme for fostering the highest intellectual powers, or for exalting men into philosophers — which he reserves as an ulterior improvement, to be communicated at a later period of life, and only to a chosen few — the large majority being supposed incapable of appropriating it. His musical training (co-operating with the gymnastical) is intended to form the character of the general body of Guardians: to implant in them from early childhood a peculiar vein of sentiments, habits, emotions and emotional beliefs, ethical esteem and disesteem, love and hatred, &c., to inspire them (in his own phrase) with love of the beautiful or honourable.

51The language of Plato is remarkable on this point. Republic, ii. p. 376 E. Τίς οὖν ἡ παιδεία;ἣ χαλεπὸν εὑρεῖν βελτίω τῆς ὑπὸ τοῦ πολλοῦ χρόνου εὑρημένης; ἐστὶ δέ που ἡ μὲν ἐπὶ σώμασι γυμναστική, ἡ δ’ ἐπὶ ψυχῇ μουσική — and a striking passage in the Kriton (p. 50 D), where education in μουσικὴ and γυμναστικὴ is represented as a positive duty on the part of fathers towards their sons.About the multifarious and indefinite province of the Muses, comprehending all παιδεία and λόγος, see Plutarch, Sympos. Problem. ix. 14, 2-3, p. 908-909. Also Plutarch, De Audiendis Poetis, p. 31 F, about the many diverse interpretations of Homer; especially those by Chrysippus and Kleanthes.The last half of the eighth Book of Aristotle’s Politica contains remarkable reflections on the educational effects of music, showing the refined distinctions which philosophical men of that day drew respecting the varieties of melody and rhythm. Aristotle adverts to music as an agency not merely for παιδεία but also for κάθαρσις (viii. 7, 1341, b. 38); to which last Plato does not advert. Aristotle also notices various animadversions by musical critics upon some of the dicta on musical subjects in the Platonic Republic (καλῶς ἐπιτιμῶσι καὶ τοῦτο Σωκράτει τῶν περὶ τὴν μουσικήν τινες, 1342, b. 23) — perhaps Aristoxenus: also 1342, a. 32. That the established character and habits of music could not be changed without leading to a revolution, ethical and political, in the minds of the citizens — is a principle affirmed by Plato, not as his own, but as having been laid down previously by Damon the celebrated musical instructor (Repub. iii. p. 424 C).The following passage about Luther is remarkable:—“Après avoir essayé de la théologie, Luther fut décidé par les conseils de ses amis, à embrasser l’étude du droit; qui conduisait alors aux postes les plus lucratifs de l’État et de l’Église. Mais il ne semble pas s’y être jamais livré avecgoût. Il aimait bien mieux la belle littérature, et surtout la musique. C’était son art de prédilection. Il la cultiva toute sa vie et l’enseigna à ses enfans. Il n’hésite pas à déclarer que la musique lui semble le premier des arts, après la théologie. La musique (dit il) est l’art des prophètes: c’est le seul qui, comme la théologie, puisse calmer les troubles de l’ame et mettre le diable en fuite. Il touchait du luth, jouait de la flûte.” (Michelet, Mémoires de Luther, écrits par lui-même, pp. 4-5, Paris, 1835.)

About the multifarious and indefinite province of the Muses, comprehending all παιδεία and λόγος, see Plutarch, Sympos. Problem. ix. 14, 2-3, p. 908-909. Also Plutarch, De Audiendis Poetis, p. 31 F, about the many diverse interpretations of Homer; especially those by Chrysippus and Kleanthes.

The last half of the eighth Book of Aristotle’s Politica contains remarkable reflections on the educational effects of music, showing the refined distinctions which philosophical men of that day drew respecting the varieties of melody and rhythm. Aristotle adverts to music as an agency not merely for παιδεία but also for κάθαρσις (viii. 7, 1341, b. 38); to which last Plato does not advert. Aristotle also notices various animadversions by musical critics upon some of the dicta on musical subjects in the Platonic Republic (καλῶς ἐπιτιμῶσι καὶ τοῦτο Σωκράτει τῶν περὶ τὴν μουσικήν τινες, 1342, b. 23) — perhaps Aristoxenus: also 1342, a. 32. That the established character and habits of music could not be changed without leading to a revolution, ethical and political, in the minds of the citizens — is a principle affirmed by Plato, not as his own, but as having been laid down previously by Damon the celebrated musical instructor (Repub. iii. p. 424 C).

The following passage about Luther is remarkable:—

“Après avoir essayé de la théologie, Luther fut décidé par les conseils de ses amis, à embrasser l’étude du droit; qui conduisait alors aux postes les plus lucratifs de l’État et de l’Église. Mais il ne semble pas s’y être jamais livré avecgoût. Il aimait bien mieux la belle littérature, et surtout la musique. C’était son art de prédilection. Il la cultiva toute sa vie et l’enseigna à ses enfans. Il n’hésite pas à déclarer que la musique lui semble le premier des arts, après la théologie. La musique (dit il) est l’art des prophètes: c’est le seul qui, comme la théologie, puisse calmer les troubles de l’ame et mettre le diable en fuite. Il touchait du luth, jouait de la flûte.” (Michelet, Mémoires de Luther, écrits par lui-même, pp. 4-5, Paris, 1835.)

He declares war against most of the traditional and consecrated poetry, as mischievous.

It is in this spirit that he deals with the traditional, popular,almost consecrated, poetical literature which prevailed around him. He undertakes to revise and recast the whole of it. Repudiating avowedly the purpose of the authors, he sets up a different point of view by which they are to be judged. The contest of principle, into which he now enters, subsisted (he tells us) long before his time: a standing discord between the philosophers and the poets.52The poet is an artist53whose aim is to give immediate pleasure and satisfaction: appealing to æsthetical sentiment, feeding imagination and belief, and finding embodiment for emotions, religious or patriotic, which he shares with his hearers: the philosopher is a critic, who lays down authoritatively deeper and more distant ends which he considers that poetryought toserve, judging the poets according as they promote, neglect, or frustrate those ends. Plato declares the end which he requires poetry to serve in the training of his Guardians. It must contribute to form the ethical character which he approves: in so far as it thus contributes, he will tolerate it, but no farther. The charm and interest especially, belonging to beautiful poems, is not only no reason for admitting them, but is rather a reason (in his view) for excluding them.54The morebeautiful a poem is, the more effectively does it awaken, stimulate, and amplify, the emotional forces of the mind: the stronger is its efficacy in giving empire to pleasure and pain, and in resisting or overpowering the rightful authority of Reason. It thus directly contravenes the purpose of the Platonic education — the formation of characters wherein Reason shall effectively controul all the emotions and desires.55Hence he excludes all the varieties of imitative poetry:— that is, narrative, descriptive, or dramatic poetry. He admits only hymns to the Gods and panegyrics upon good citizens:— probably also didactic, gnomic, or hortative, poetry of approved tone. Imitative poetry is declared objectionable farther, not only as it exaggerates the emotions, but on another ground — that it fills the mind with false and unreal representations; being composed by men who have no real knowledge of their subject, though they pretend to a sort of fallacious omniscience, and talk boldly about every thing.56

52Plato, Republ. x. p. 607 B. παλαιὰ μέν τις διαφορὰ φιλοσοφίᾳ τε καὶ ποιητικῇ, &c.

53Plato, Republ. x. p. 607 A-C. τὴν ἡδυσμένην Μοῦσαν … ἡ πρὸς ἡδονὴν ποιητικὴ καὶ ἡ μίμησις, &c.Compare also Leges ii. p. 655 D seq., about the μουσικῆς ὀρθότης.

53Plato, Republ. x. p. 607 A-C. τὴν ἡδυσμένην Μοῦσαν … ἡ πρὸς ἡδονὴν ποιητικὴ καὶ ἡ μίμησις, &c.

Compare also Leges ii. p. 655 D seq., about the μουσικῆς ὀρθότης.

54It is interesting to read in the first book of Strabo (pp. 15-19-25-27, &c.) the controversy which he carries on with Eratosthenes, as to the function of poets generally, and as to the purpose of Homer in particular. Eratosthenes considered Homer, and the other poets also, as having composed verses to please and interest, not to teach — ψυχαγωγίας χάριν, οὐ διδασκαλίας. Strabo (following the astronomer Hipparchus) controverts this opinion; affirming that poets had been the earliest philosophers and teachers of mankind, and that they must always continue to be the teachers of the multitude, who were unable to profit by history and philosophy. Strabo has the strongest admiration for Homer, not merely as a poet but as a moralising teacher. While Plato banishes Homer from his commonwealth, on the ground of pernicious ethical influence, Strabo claims for Homer the very opposite merit, and extols him as the best of all popular teachers — ἡ δὲ ποιητικὴ δημωφελεστέρα καὶ θέατρα πληροῦν δυναμένη· ἡ δὲ δὴ τοῦ Ὁμηροῦ ὑπερβαλλόντως … Ἄτε δὴ πρὸς τὸ παιδευτικὸν εἶδος τοὺς μύθους ἀναφέρων ὁ ποιητὴς ἐφρόντισε πολὺ μέρος τἀληθοῦς (Strabo, i. p. 20). The contradiction between Plato and Strabo is remarkable. Compare the beginning of Horace’s Epistle, i. 2. In the time of Strabo (more than three centuries after Plato’s death) there existed an abundant prose literature on matters of erudition, history, science, philosophy. The work of instruction was thus taken out of the poet’s hands; yet Strabo cannot bear to admit this. In the age of Plato the prose literature was comparatively small. Alexandria and its school did not exist: the poets covered a far larger portion of the entire ground of instruction.As a striking illustration of the continued and unquestioning faith in the ancient legends, we may cite Galen: who, in a medical argument against Erasistratus, cites the cure of the daughters of Prœtus by Melampus as an incontestable authentic fact in medical evidence; putting to shame Erasistratus, who had not attended to it in his reasoning (Galen, De Atrâ Bile, T. v. p. 132, Kühn).

As a striking illustration of the continued and unquestioning faith in the ancient legends, we may cite Galen: who, in a medical argument against Erasistratus, cites the cure of the daughters of Prœtus by Melampus as an incontestable authentic fact in medical evidence; putting to shame Erasistratus, who had not attended to it in his reasoning (Galen, De Atrâ Bile, T. v. p. 132, Kühn).

55Plato, Republic, x. pp. 606-607, iii. p. 387 B.

56Plato, Republic, x. pp. 598-599. When Plato attacks the poets so severely on the ground of their departure from truth and reality, and their false representations of human life — the poets might have retorted, that Plato departed no less from truth and reality in many parts of his Republic, and especially in his panegyric upon Justice; not to mention the various mythes which we read in Republic, Phædon, Phædrus, Politikus, &c.Plato’s fictions are indeed ethical, intended to serve a pedagogic purpose; Homer's fictions are æsthetical, addressed to the fancy and emotions.But it is not fair in Plato, the avowed champion of useful fiction, to censure the poets on the ground of their departing from truth.

Plato’s fictions are indeed ethical, intended to serve a pedagogic purpose; Homer's fictions are æsthetical, addressed to the fancy and emotions.

But it is not fair in Plato, the avowed champion of useful fiction, to censure the poets on the ground of their departing from truth.

Strict limits imposed by Plato on poets.

Even hymns to the Gods, however, may be composed in many different strains, according to the conception which the poet entertains of their character and attributes. The Homeric Hymns which we now possess could not be acceptable to Plato. While denouncing much of the current theological poetry, he assumes a censorial authority, in his joint character of Lykurgus and Sokrates,57to dictate what sort of poetical compositions shall be tolerated among his Guardians. He pronounces many of the tales in Homer and Hesiod to benot merely fictions, but mischievous fictions: not fit to be circulated, even if they had been true.

57Plutarch, Sympos. Quæst. viii. 2, 2, p. 719.Ὁ Πλάτων, ἅτε δὴ τῷ Σωκράτει τὸν Λυκοῦργον ἀναμιγνύς, &c.

57Plutarch, Sympos. Quæst. viii. 2, 2, p. 719.

Ὁ Πλάτων, ἅτε δὴ τῷ Σωκράτει τὸν Λυκοῦργον ἀναμιγνύς, &c.

His view of the purposes of fiction — little distinction between fiction and truth. His censures upon Homer and the tragedians.

Plato admits fiction, indeed, along with truth as an instrument for forming the character. Nay, he draws little distinction between the two, as regards particular narratives. But the point upon which he specially insists, is, that all the narratives in circulation, true or false, respecting Gods and Heroes, shall ascribe to them none but qualities ethically estimable and venerable. He condemns Homer and Hesiod as having misrepresented the Gods and Heroes, and as having attributed to them acts inconsistent with their true character, like a painter painting a portrait unlike to the original.58He rejects in this manner various tales told in these poems respecting Zeus, Hêrê, Hephæstus — the fraudulent rupture of the treaty between the Greeks and Trojans by Pandarus, at the instigation of Zeus and Athênê — the final battle of the Gods, in the Iliad59— the transformations of Proteus and Thetis, and the general declaration in the Odyssey that the Gods under the likeness of various strangers visit human cities as inspectors of good and bad behaviour60— the dream sent by Zeus to deceive Agamemnon (in the second book of the Iliad), and the charge made by Thetis in Æschylus against Apollo, of having deceived her and killed her son Achilles61— the violent amorous impulse of Zeus, in the fourteenth book of the Iliad — the immoderate laughter among the Gods, when they saw the lame Hephæstus busying himself in the service of the banquet. Plato will not permit the realm of Hades to be described as odious and full of terrors, because the Guardians will thereby learn to fear death.62Nor will he tolerate the Homeric pictures of heroes or semi-divine persons, like Priam or Achilles, plunged in violent sorrowfor the death of friends and relatives:— since a thoroughly right-minded man, while he regards death as no serious evil to the deceased, is at the same time most self-sufficing in character, and least in need of extraneous sympathy.63

58Plato, Republic, ii. p. 377 E.

59Plato, Repub. ii. pp. 378-379. Plutarch observes about Chrysippus — ὅτι τῷ θεῷ καλὰς μὲν ἐπικλήσεις καὶ φιλανθρώπους ἀεί, ἄγρια δ’ ἔργα καὶ βάρβαρα καὶ Γαλακτικὰ προστίθησιν (De Stoic. Repugnant. c. 32, p. 1049 B).

60Plato, Republ. ii. p. 380 B. Plato in the beginning of his Sophistês treats this doctrine of the appearances of the Gods with greater respect. Lucretius argues that the Gods, being in a state of perfect happiness and exempt from all want, cannot change; Lucret. v. 170, compared with Plato, Rep. ii. p. 381 B.

61Plato, Republ. ii. pp. 380-381-383.

62Plato, Republ. iii. p. 386 C. Maximus Tyrius (Diss. xxiv. c. 5) remarks, that upon the principles here laid down by Plato, much of what occurs in the Platonic dialogues respecting the erotic vehemence and enthusiasm of Sokrates ought to be excluded from education.

63Plato, Republic, iii. p. 387 D-E. ὁ ἐπιεικὴς ἀνὴρ τῷ ἐπιεικεῖ, οὗπερ καὶ ἑταῖρός ἐστι, τὸ τεθνάναι οὐ δεινὸν ἡγήσεται … Οὐκ ἄρα ὑπέρ γε ἐκείνου ὡς δεινόν τι πεπονθότος ὀδύροιτ’ ἄν … Ἀλλὰ μὴν … ὁ τοιοῦτος μάλιστα αὐτὸς αὑτῷ αὐτάρχης πρὸς τὸ εὖ ζῇν καὶ διαφερόντως τῶν ἄλλων ἥκιστα ἑτέρου προσδεῖται … Ἥκιστ’ ἄρα αὐτῷ δεινὸν στερηθῆναι υἱέος, ἢ ἀδέλφου, ἢ χρημάτων, ἢ ἄλλου του τῶν τοιούτων &c.The doctrine of Epikurus, as laid down by Lucretius (iii. 844-920), coincides here with that of Plato:—Tu quidem ut es leto sopitus, sic eris æviQuod superest, cunctis privatu’ doloribus ægris;At nos horrifico cinefactum te propé bustoInsatiabiliter deflebimus, æternumqueNulla dies nobis mœrorem e pectore demet.Illud ab hoc igitur quærendum est, quid sit amariTantopere, ad somnum si res redit atque quietemCur quisquam æterno possit tabescere luctu?Plato insists, not less strenuously than Lucretius, upon preserving the minds of his Guardians from the frightful pictures of Hades, which terrify all hearers — φρίττειν δὴ ποιεῖ ὡς οἷόν τε πάντας τοὺς ἀκούοντας (Repub. iii. p. 387 C). Lucret. iii. 37:“metus ille foras præceps Acheruntis agendusFunditus, humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo”.

The doctrine of Epikurus, as laid down by Lucretius (iii. 844-920), coincides here with that of Plato:—

Tu quidem ut es leto sopitus, sic eris æviQuod superest, cunctis privatu’ doloribus ægris;At nos horrifico cinefactum te propé bustoInsatiabiliter deflebimus, æternumqueNulla dies nobis mœrorem e pectore demet.Illud ab hoc igitur quærendum est, quid sit amariTantopere, ad somnum si res redit atque quietemCur quisquam æterno possit tabescere luctu?

Plato insists, not less strenuously than Lucretius, upon preserving the minds of his Guardians from the frightful pictures of Hades, which terrify all hearers — φρίττειν δὴ ποιεῖ ὡς οἷόν τε πάντας τοὺς ἀκούοντας (Repub. iii. p. 387 C). Lucret. iii. 37:

“metus ille foras præceps Acheruntis agendusFunditus, humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo”.

Type of character prescribed by Plato, to which all poets must conform, in tales about Gods and Heroes.

These and other condemnations are passed by Plato upon the current histories respecting Gods, and respecting heroes the sons or immediate descendants of Gods. He entirely forbids such histories, as suggesting bad examples to his Guardians. He prohibits all poetical composition, except under his own censorial supervision. He lays down, as a general doctrine, that the Gods are good; and he will tolerate no narrative which is not in full harmony with this predetermined type. Without giving any specimens of approved narratives — which he declares to be the business not of the lawgiver, but of the poet — he insists only that all poets shall conform in their compositions to his general standard of orthodoxy.64

64Compare also Plato de Legg. x. p. 886 C, xii. p. 941 B.

Applying such a principle of criticism, Plato had little difficulty in finding portions of the current mythology offensive to his ideal type of goodness. Indeed he might have found many others, yet more offensive to it than some of those which he has selected.65But the extent of his variance with the current viewsreveals itself still more emphatically, when he says that the Gods are not to be represented as the cause of evil things to us, but only of good things. Most persons (he says) consider the Gods as causes of all things, evil as well as good: but this is untrue:66the Gods dispense only the good things, not the evil; and the good things are few in number compared with the evil. Plato therefore requires the poet to ascribe all good things to the Gods and to no one else; but to find other causes, apart from the Gods, for sufferings and evils. But if the poet chooses to describe sufferings as inflicted by the Gods, he must at the same time represent these sufferings as a healing penalty or real benefit to the sufferers.67

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