EPINOMIS.

481Plato, Legg. xii. p. 967 E.

When this Nocturnal Council, with its members properly trained and qualified, shall be established in the akropolis — symbolising the conjunction of Reason with the head or with the two knowledge-giving senses — the Magnêtic City may securely be entrusted to it, with certainty of an admirable result.482

482Plato, Legg. xii. p. 969 B.

Leges close, without describing the education proper for the Nocturnal Counsellors.Epinomis— supplying this defect.

Here closes the dialogue called Leges: somewhat prematurely, since the peculiar training indispensable for these Nocturnal Counsellors has not yet been declared. The short dialogue called Epinomis supplies this defect. It purports to be a second day’s conversation between the same trio.

The Athenian declares his plan of education — Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy.

The Athenian — adverting to the circumstances of human life generally, as full of toil and suffering, with few and transient moments of happiness — remarks that none except the wise have any chance of happiness; and that few can understand what real wisdom is, though every one presumes that there must be something of the kind discoverable.483He first enumerates whatit is not. It is not any of the useful arts — husbandry, house-building, metallurgy, weaving, pottery, hunting, &c.: nor is it prophecy, or the understanding of omens: nor any of the elegant arts — music, poetry, painting: nor the art of war, or navigation, or medicine, or forensic eloquence: nor does it consist in the natural endowments of quick wit and good memory.484True wisdom is something different from all these. It consists in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, leading to a full comprehension of the regular movements of the Kosmos — combined with a correct religious creed as to the divine attributes of the Kosmos and its planetary bodies which are all pervaded and kept in harmonious rotationby divine, in-dwelling, soul or mind.485It is the God Uranus (or Olympus, or Kosmos), with the visible Gods included therein, who furnishes to us not only the gifts of the seasons and the growth of food, but also varied intelligence, especially the knowledge of number, without which no other knowledge would be attainable.486Number and proportion are essential conditions of every variety of art. The regular succession of night and day, and the regularly changing phases of the moon — the comparison of months with the year — first taught us to count, and to observe the proportions of numbers to each other.487

483Plato, Epinom. pp. 973-974.

484Plato, Epinom. pp. 975-976.

485Plato, Epinom. pp. 976-977.

486Plato, Epinom. pp. 977-978.

487Plato, Epinom. pp. 978-979.

Theological view of Astronomy — Divine Kosmos — Soul more ancient and more sovereign than Body.

The Athenian now enters upon the directly theological point of view, and re-asserts the three articles of orthodoxy which he had laid down in the tenth book of Leges: together with the other point of faith also — That Soul or Mind is older than body: soul is active and ruling — body, passive and subject. An animal is a compound of both. There are five elementary bodies — fire, air, æther, water, earth488— which the kosmical soul moulded, in varying proportions, so as to form different animals and plants. Man, animals, and plants were moulded chiefly of earth, yet with some intermixture of the other elements: the stars were moulded chiefly from fire, having the most beautiful bodies, endowed with divine and happy souls, and immortal, or very long-lived.489Next to the stars were moulded the Dæmons, out of æther, and inhabitants of that element: after them, the animals inhabiting air, and Nymphs inhabiting water. These three occupy intermediate place between the stars above and man below.490They serve as media of communication between man and the Gods: and also for the diffusion of thought and intelligence among all parts of the Kosmos.491The Gods ofthe ordinary faith — Zeus, Hêrê, and others — must be left to each person’s disposition, if he be inclined to worship them: but the great visible Kosmos, and the sidereal Gods, must be solemnly exalted and sanctified, with prayer and the holiest rites.492Those astronomers who ignore this divine nature, and profess to explain their movements by physical or mechanical forces, are guilty of grave impiety. The regularity of their movements is a proof of their divine nature, not a proof of the contrary, as some misguided persons affirm.493

488Plato, Epinom. pp. 980-981. We know, from a curious statement of Xenokrates (see Fragm. of his work Περὶ τοῦ Πλάτωνος βίου, cited by Simplikius, ad Aristot. Physic. p. 427, a. 17, Schol. Brandis), that this quintuple elementary scale was a doctrine of Plato. But it is not the doctrine of the Timæus. The assertion of Xenokrates (good evidence) warrants us in believing that Plato altered his views after the composition of Timæus, and that his latest opinions are represented in the Epinomis. Zeller indeed thinks that the dodekahedron in the Timæus might be construed as a fifth element, but this is scarcely tenable. Zeller, Philos. der Griechen, vol. ii. p. 513, ed. 2nd.

489Plat. Epinom. pp. 981-982.

490Plat. Epinom. pp. 983-984.

491Plat. Epinom. p. 984.

492Plat. Epinom. pp. 984 D-985 D.

493Plat. Epinom. pp. 982 D, 983 C.

Improving effects of the study of Astronomy in this spirit.

Next, the Athenian intimates that the Greeks have obtained their astronomical knowledge, in the first instance, from Egypt and Assyria, but have much improved upon what they learnt (p. 987): that the Greeks at first were acquainted only with the three φοραὶ — the outer or sidereal sphere (Ἀπλανὴς), the Sun, and the Moon — but unacquainted with the other five or planetary φοραὶ, which they first learned from these foreigners, though not the names of the planets (p. 986): that all these eight were alike divine, fraternal agents, partakers in the same rational nature, and making up altogether the divine Κόσμος: that those who did not recognise all the eight as divine, consummately rational, and revolving with perfectly uniform movement, were guilty of impiety (p. 985 E): that these kosmical, divine, rational agents taught to mankind arithmetic and the art of numeration (p. 988 B): that soul, or plastic, demiurgic, cognitive force (p. 981 C), was an older and more powerful agent in the universe than body — but that there were two varieties of soul, a good and bad, of which the good variety was the stronger: the good variety of soul produced all the good movements, the bad variety produced all the bad movements (p. 988 D, E): that in studying astronomy, a man submitted himself to the teaching of this good soul and these divine agents, from whom alone he could learn true wisdom and piety (pp. 989 B-990 A): that this study, however, must be conducted not with a view to know the times of rising and setting of different stars (like Hesiod) but to be able to understand and follow the eight περιφοράς (p. 990 B).

Study of arithmetic and geometry: varieties of proportion.

To understand these — especially the five planetary and difficult περιφορὰς — arithmetic must also be taught, not in the concrete, but in the abstract (p. 990 C, D), to understand how much the real nature of things is determined by the generative powers and combination of Odd and Even Number. Next, geometry also must be studied, so as to compare numbers with plane and solid figures, and thus to determine proportions between two numbers which are not directly commensurable. The varieties of proportion, which are marvellously combined, must be understood — first arithmetical and geometrical proportions, the arithmetical proportion increasing by equal addition (1 + 1 = 2), or the point into a line — then the geometrical proportion by way of multiplication (2 × 2 = 4; 4 × 2 = 8), or the line raised into a surface, and the surface raised into a cube. Moreover there are two other varieties of proportion (τὸ ἡμιόλιον or sesquialterum, and τὸ ἐπίτριτον or sesquitertium) both of which occur in the numbers between the ratio of 6 to 12 (i.e.9 is τὸ ἡμιόλιον of 6, or 9 = 6 + 6/2; again 8 is, τὸ ἐπίτριτον of 6, or 8 = 6 + 6/3). This last isharmonic proportion, when there are three terms, of which the third is as much greater than the middle, as the middle is greater than the first (3 : 4 : 6) — six is greater than four by one-third of six, while four is greater than three by one-third of three (p. 991 A).

When the general forms of things have thus been learnt, particular individuals in nature must be brought under them.

Lastly, having thus come to comprehend the general forms of things, we must bring under them properly the visible individuals in nature; and in this process interrogation and cross-examination must be applied (p. 991 C). We must learn to note the accurate regularity with which time brings all things to maturity, and we shall find reason to believe that all things are full of Gods (p. 991 D). We shall come to perceive that there is one law of proportion pervading every geometrical figure, every numerical series, every harmonic combination, and all the celestial rotations: one and the same bond of union among all (p. 991 E). These sciences, whether difficult or easy, must be learnt: for without them no happy nature will be ever planted in our cities (p. 992 A). The man who learns all this will be the truly wise and happy man, both in this life and after it; only a few men can possibly arrive at such happiness(p. 992 C). But it is these chosen few who, when they become Elders, will compose our Nocturnal Council, and maintain unimpaired the perpetual purity of the Platonic City.

Question as to education of the Nocturnal Council is answered in the Epinomis.

Such then is the answer given by the Epinomis, to the question left unanswered in the Leges. However unsatisfactory it may appear, to those who look for nothing but what is admirable in Plato — I believe it to represent the latest views of his old age, when dialectic had given place in his mind to the joint ascendancy of theological sentiment and Pythagorean arithmetic.494

494In connection with the treatise called Epinomis, the question arises, What were the modifications which Plato’s astronomical doctrines underwent during the latter years of his life? In what respect did they come to differ from what we read in the Platonic Timæus, where a geocentric system is proclaimed: whether we suppose (as Boeckh and others do) that the Earth is represented as stationary at the centre — or (as I suppose) that the Earth is represented as fastened to the centre of the kosmical axis, and revolving with it. The Epinomis delivers a geocentric system also.Now it is upon this very point that Plato’s opinions are said to have changed towards the close of his life. He came to repent that he had assigned to the Earth the central place in the system; and to conceive that place as belonging properly to something else, some other better (or more powerful) body. This is a curious statement, made in two separate passages by Plutarch, and in one of the two passages with reference to Theophrastus as his witness (Plutarch, Vit. Numæ, c. 11; Platonic. Quæst. 8, p. 1006 C).Boeckh (Untersuchungen über das Kosmische System des Platon, pp. 144-149) and Martin (Études sur le Timée, ii. 91) discredit the statement ascribed by Plutarch to Theophrastus. But I see no sufficient ground for such discredit. Sir George Lewis remarks very truly (Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 143):— “The testimony of Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle, and nearly his contemporary, has great weight on this point. The ground of the opinion alludes to the Pythagorean doctrine mentioned by Aristotle, that the centre is the most dignified place, and that the earth is not the first in dignity among the heavenly bodies. It has no reference to observed phenomena, and is not founded on inductive scientific arguments. … The doctrine as to the superior dignity of the central place, and of the impropriety of assigning the most dignified station to the earth, was of Pythagorean origin and was probably combined with the Philolaic cosmology.”This remark of Sir George Lewis deserves attention, not merely from the proper value which he assigns to the testimony of Theophrastus, but because he confines himself to the exact matter which Theophrastus affirmed;viz., that Plato in his old age came to repent of his own cosmical views on one particular point and on one special ground. Theophrastus does not tell us what it was that Plato supposed to be in the centre, after he had become convinced that it was too dignified a place for the earth. Platomayhave come to adopt the positive opinion of Philolaus (that of a central fire) as well as the negative opinion (that the Earth was not the central body). But we cannot affirm that hedidadopt either this positive opinion or any other positive opinion upon that point. I take Theophrastus to have affirmed exactly what Plutarch makes him affirm, and no more: that Plato came to repent of having assigned to the earth the central place which did not befit it, and to account the centre the fit place “for some other body better than the Earth,” yet without defining what that other body was. If Theophrastus had named what the other body was, surely Plutarch would never have suppressed the specific designation to make room for the vague ἑτέρῳ τινὶ κρείττονι.There is thus, in my judgment, ground for believing that Plato in his old age (after the publication of the Treatise De Legibus) came to distrust the geocentric dogma which he had previously supported; but we do not know whether he adopted any other dogma in place of it. The geocentric doctrine passed to the Epinomis as a continuation of the Treatise De Legibus. The phrase which Plutarch cites from Theophrastus deserves notice — Θεόφραστος δὲ καὶ προσιστορεῖ τῷ Πλάτωνι πρεσβυτέρῳ γενομένῳμεταμελεῖν, ὡς οὐ προσήκουσαν ἀποδόντι τῇ γῇ τὴν μέσην χώραν τοῦ παντός. Platorepented. Whoever reads the Treatise De Legibus (especially Books vii. and x.) will see that Plato at that period of his life considered astronomical errors as not merely errors, but heresies offensive to the Gods; and that he denounced those who supported such errors as impious. If Plato came afterwards to alter his astronomical views, he wouldrepentof his own previous views as of a heresy. He came to believe that he had rated the dignity of the Earth too high; and we can see how this change of view may have been occasioned. Earth was looked upon by him, as well as by many others, in two distinct points of view. 1. As a cosmical body, divine, and including τοὺς χθονίους θεούς. 2. As one of the four elements, along with water, air, and fire; in which sense it was strung together with λίθοι, and had degrading ideas associated with it (Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 26 D). These two meanings, not merely distinct but even opposed to each other, occur in the very same sentence of De Legibus, x. p. 886 D. The elemental sense of Earth was brought prominently forward by those reasoners whom Plato refutes in Book x.: and the effect of such reasonings upon him was, that though he still regarded Earth as a Deity, he no longer continued to regard Earth as worthy of the cosmical post of honour. At that age, however, he might well consider himself excused from broaching any new positive theory.

Now it is upon this very point that Plato’s opinions are said to have changed towards the close of his life. He came to repent that he had assigned to the Earth the central place in the system; and to conceive that place as belonging properly to something else, some other better (or more powerful) body. This is a curious statement, made in two separate passages by Plutarch, and in one of the two passages with reference to Theophrastus as his witness (Plutarch, Vit. Numæ, c. 11; Platonic. Quæst. 8, p. 1006 C).

Boeckh (Untersuchungen über das Kosmische System des Platon, pp. 144-149) and Martin (Études sur le Timée, ii. 91) discredit the statement ascribed by Plutarch to Theophrastus. But I see no sufficient ground for such discredit. Sir George Lewis remarks very truly (Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 143):— “The testimony of Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle, and nearly his contemporary, has great weight on this point. The ground of the opinion alludes to the Pythagorean doctrine mentioned by Aristotle, that the centre is the most dignified place, and that the earth is not the first in dignity among the heavenly bodies. It has no reference to observed phenomena, and is not founded on inductive scientific arguments. … The doctrine as to the superior dignity of the central place, and of the impropriety of assigning the most dignified station to the earth, was of Pythagorean origin and was probably combined with the Philolaic cosmology.”

This remark of Sir George Lewis deserves attention, not merely from the proper value which he assigns to the testimony of Theophrastus, but because he confines himself to the exact matter which Theophrastus affirmed;viz., that Plato in his old age came to repent of his own cosmical views on one particular point and on one special ground. Theophrastus does not tell us what it was that Plato supposed to be in the centre, after he had become convinced that it was too dignified a place for the earth. Platomayhave come to adopt the positive opinion of Philolaus (that of a central fire) as well as the negative opinion (that the Earth was not the central body). But we cannot affirm that hedidadopt either this positive opinion or any other positive opinion upon that point. I take Theophrastus to have affirmed exactly what Plutarch makes him affirm, and no more: that Plato came to repent of having assigned to the earth the central place which did not befit it, and to account the centre the fit place “for some other body better than the Earth,” yet without defining what that other body was. If Theophrastus had named what the other body was, surely Plutarch would never have suppressed the specific designation to make room for the vague ἑτέρῳ τινὶ κρείττονι.

There is thus, in my judgment, ground for believing that Plato in his old age (after the publication of the Treatise De Legibus) came to distrust the geocentric dogma which he had previously supported; but we do not know whether he adopted any other dogma in place of it. The geocentric doctrine passed to the Epinomis as a continuation of the Treatise De Legibus. The phrase which Plutarch cites from Theophrastus deserves notice — Θεόφραστος δὲ καὶ προσιστορεῖ τῷ Πλάτωνι πρεσβυτέρῳ γενομένῳμεταμελεῖν, ὡς οὐ προσήκουσαν ἀποδόντι τῇ γῇ τὴν μέσην χώραν τοῦ παντός. Platorepented. Whoever reads the Treatise De Legibus (especially Books vii. and x.) will see that Plato at that period of his life considered astronomical errors as not merely errors, but heresies offensive to the Gods; and that he denounced those who supported such errors as impious. If Plato came afterwards to alter his astronomical views, he wouldrepentof his own previous views as of a heresy. He came to believe that he had rated the dignity of the Earth too high; and we can see how this change of view may have been occasioned. Earth was looked upon by him, as well as by many others, in two distinct points of view. 1. As a cosmical body, divine, and including τοὺς χθονίους θεούς. 2. As one of the four elements, along with water, air, and fire; in which sense it was strung together with λίθοι, and had degrading ideas associated with it (Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 26 D). These two meanings, not merely distinct but even opposed to each other, occur in the very same sentence of De Legibus, x. p. 886 D. The elemental sense of Earth was brought prominently forward by those reasoners whom Plato refutes in Book x.: and the effect of such reasonings upon him was, that though he still regarded Earth as a Deity, he no longer continued to regard Earth as worthy of the cosmical post of honour. At that age, however, he might well consider himself excused from broaching any new positive theory.

Problem which the Nocturnal Council are required to solve, What is the common property of Prudence, Courage, Temperance, Justice, by reason of which each is called Virtue?

Assuming that the magistrates of the Nocturnal Council have gone through the course of education prescribed in the Epinomis, and have proved themselves unimpeachable on the score of orthodoxy — will they be able to solve the main problem which he has imposed upon them at the close of the Leges? There, as elsewhere, he proclaims a problem as indispensable to be solved, but does not himself furnish any solution. What is the common property, or point of similarity between Prudence, Courage, Temperance, Justice — by reason of which each is termed Virtue? What are the characteristic points of difference, by reason of which Virtue sometimes receives one of these names, sometimes another?

The only common property is that all of them are essential to the maintenance of society, and tend to promote human security and happiness.

The proper way of answering this question has been much debated, from Plato’s day down to the present. It is one of the fundamental problems of Ethical Philosophy.

The subjective matter of fact, implied by every one who designates an act or a person as virtuous, is an approving or admiring sentiment which each man knows in his own bosom. But Plato assumes thatthere is, besides this, an objective connotation: a common object or property to which such sentiment refers. What is that common object? I see no other except that which is indicated by the principle of Utility: I mean that principle which points out Happiness and Unhappiness, not merely of the agent himself, but also of others affected or liable to be affected by his behaviour, as the standard to which these denominations refer. Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, all tend to prevention and mitigation of unhappiness, and to increase of happiness, as well for the agent himself as for the society surrounding him. The opposite qualities — Timidity, Imprudence, Intemperance, Injustice — tend with equal certainty either to increase positively the unhappiness of the agent and of society, or to remove the means for warding it off or abating it. Indeed there is a certain minimum of all the four — Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice — without which or below which neither society could hold together, nor the life of the individual agent himself could be continued.

Tendency of the four opposite qualities to lessen human happiness.

Here then is one answer at least to the question of Plato. Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice — all of them mental attributes of rational voluntary agents — have also the common property of being, in a certain minimum degree, absolutely essential to the life of the agent and the maintenance of society — and of being, above that degree, tutelary against the suffering, and beneficial to the happiness, of both. This tutelary or beneficent tendency is the common objective property signified by the general term Virtue; and is implicated with the subjective property before mentioned — the sentiment of approbation. The four opposite qualities are designated by the general term Vice or Defect, connoting both maleficent tendency and the sentiment of disapprobation.

A certain measure of all the four virtues is required. In judging of particular acts instigated by each, there is always a tacit reference to the hurt or benefit in the special case.

This proposition will be farther confirmed, if we look at all the four qualities — Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice — in another point of view. Taking them in their reference to Virtue, each of them belongs to Virtue as a part to the whole,495not as one speciescontradistinguished from and excluding other species. The same person may have, and ought to have, a certain measure of all: he will not be called virtuous unless he has a measure of all. Excellence in any one will not compensate for the entire absence of the others.

495Compare Plato, Legg. i. p. 629 B, where he describes τὴν ξύμπασαν ἀρετὴν — δικαιοσύνη καὶ σωφροσύνη καὶ φρόνησις εἰς ταὐτὸν ἐλθοῦσα μετ’ ἀνδρείας: also pp. 630 C-E, 631 A, where he considers all these as μόρια ἀρετῆς, but φρόνησις as the first of the four and ἀνδρεία as the last.See also iii. pp. 688 B, 696 C-D, iv. p. 705 D.

See also iii. pp. 688 B, 696 C-D, iv. p. 705 D.

A just and temperate man will not be accounted virtuous, if (to use an Aristotelian simile) he be so extravagantly timid as to fear every insect that flits by, or the noise of a mouse.496All probability of beneficent results from his agency is effaced by this capital defect: and it is the probability of such results which constitute his title to be called virtuous.

496Aristot. Ethic. Nikomach. vii. 6, p. 1148, a. 8; Politic. vii. 1, p. 1323, a. 29. κἂν ψοφήσῃ μῦς … δεδιὼς τὰς παραπετομένας μυίας.

When we speak of the four as qualities or attributes of men (as Plato does in this treatise, while considering the proper type of character which the lawgiver should aim at forming) we speak of them in the abstract — that is, making abstraction of particular circumstances, and regarding only what is common to most men in most situations. But in the realities of life these particulars are always present: there is a series of individual agents and patients, acts and sufferings, each surrounded by its own distinct circumstances and situation. Now in each of these situations an agent is held responsible for the consequences of his acts, when they are such as he knows and foresees, or might by reasonable care know and foresee. An officer who (like Charles XII. at Bender) marches up without necessity at the head of a corporal’s guard to attack a powerful hostile army of good soldiers, exhibits the maximum of courage: but his act, far from being commended as virtue, must be blamed as rashness, or pitied as folly. If a friend has deposited in my care a sword or other deadly weapon (to repeat the very case put by Sokrates497), justice requires me to give it back to him when he asks for it. Yet if, at the time when he asks, he be insane, and exhibits plain indications of being about to employ it for murderous purposes, my just restoration of it will not be commended as an act of virtue. When we look atthese four qualities — Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice — not in the abstract, but in reference to particular acts, agents, and situations — we find that before a just or courageous act can be considered to deserve the name of Virtue, there is always a tacit supposition, that no considerable hurt to innocent persons is likely or predictable from it in the particular case. The sentiment of approbation, implied in the name Virtue, will not go along with the act, if in the particular case it produce a certain amount of predictable mischief. This is another property common to all the four attributes of mind — Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice:— and forming one of the conditions under which they become entitled to the denomination of Virtue.

497Plato, Republic, i. p. 331 C; Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2, 17; Cicero, De Officiis, iii. 25.

Plato places these four virtues in the highest scale of Expetenda or Bona, on the ground that all the other Bona are sure to flow from them.

In the first books of the Leges, Plato498puts forward Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, as the parts or sorts of Virtue: telling us that the natural rectitude of laws consists in promoting, not any one of the four separately, but all the four together in their due subordination. He classifies good things (Bona or Expetenda) in a triple scale of value.499First, and best of all, come the mental attributes — which he calls divine — Prudence or Intelligence, Temperance, Justice, and Courage: Second, or second best, come the attributes of body — health, strength, beauty, activity, manual dexterity: Third, or last, come the extraneous advantages, Wealth, Power, Family-Position, &c. It is the duty of the lawgiver to employ his utmost care to ensure to his citizens the first description of Bona (the mental attributes) — upon which (Plato says) the second and third description depend, so that if the first are ensured, the second and third will be certain to follow: while if the lawgiver, neglecting the first, aims at the second and third exclusively or principally, he will miss all three.500Here we see, that while Plato assigns thehighest scale of value to the mental attributes, he justifies such preference by assuring us that they are the essential producing causes of the other sorts of Bona. His assurance is even given in terms more unqualified than the realities of life will bear out.

498Plato, Legg. i. pp. 627 D, 631 A-C.

499Plato, Legg. i. p. 631 B-D, iii. p. 697 B. This tripartite classification of Bona differs altogether from the tripartite classification of Bona given at the commencement of the second book of the Republic. But it agrees with that, the “tria genera Bonorum,” distinguished by Aristotle in the first Book of the Nikomachean Ethics (p. 1098, b. 12), among which τὰ περὶ ψυχήν were κυριώτατα καὶ μάλιστα ἀγαθά. This recognition of “tria genera Bonorum” is sometimes quoted as an opinion characteristic of the Peripatetics; but Aristotle himself declares it to be ancient and acknowledged, and we certainly have it here in Plato.

500Plato, Legg. i. p. 631 C. ἤρτηται δ’ ἐκ τῶν θείων θάτερα, καὶ ἐὰν μὲν δέχηταί τις τὰ μείζονα πόλις, κτᾶται καὶ τὰ ἐλάττονα· εἰ δὲ μή, στέρεται ἀμφοῖν.The same doctrine is declared by Sokrates in the Platonic Apology, pp. 29-30. λέγων, ὅτι οὐκ ἐκ χρημάτων ἀρετὴ γίγνεται, ἀλλ’ ἐξ ἀρετῆς χρήματα καὶ τἄλλα ἀγαθὰ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἅπαντα καὶ ἰδίᾳ καὶ δημοσίᾳ (30 B).

500Plato, Legg. i. p. 631 C. ἤρτηται δ’ ἐκ τῶν θείων θάτερα, καὶ ἐὰν μὲν δέχηταί τις τὰ μείζονα πόλις, κτᾶται καὶ τὰ ἐλάττονα· εἰ δὲ μή, στέρεται ἀμφοῖν.

The same doctrine is declared by Sokrates in the Platonic Apology, pp. 29-30. λέγων, ὅτι οὐκ ἐκ χρημάτων ἀρετὴ γίγνεται, ἀλλ’ ἐξ ἀρετῆς χρήματα καὶ τἄλλα ἀγαθὰ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἅπαντα καὶ ἰδίᾳ καὶ δημοσίᾳ (30 B).

In thus directing the attention of the Council to the common property of the four virtues, Plato enforces upon them the necessity of looking to the security and happiness of their community as the paramount end.

When Plato therefore proclaims it as the great desideratum for his Supreme Council, that they shall understand the common relation of the four great mental attributes (Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice) to each other as well as to the comprehensive whole, Virtue — he fastens their attention on the only common property which the four can be found to possess:i.e.that they are mental attributes required in every one for the security and comfort of himself and of society. To ward off or mitigate the suffering, and to improve the comfort of society, is thus inculcated as the main and constant end for them to keep in view. It is their prescribed task, to preserve and carry forward that which he as lawgiver had announced as his purpose in the beginning of the Leges.

But he enjoins also other objectionable ends.

In thus taking leave of Plato, at the close of his longest, latest, and most affirmative composition, it is satisfactory to be able to express unqualified sympathy with this main purpose which, as departing lawgiver, he directs his successors to promote. But to these salutary directions, unfortunately, he has attached others noway connected with them except by common feelings of reverence in his own mind and far less deserving of sympathy. He requires that his own religious belief shall be erected into a peremptory orthodoxy, and that heretics shall be put down by the severest penalties. Now a citizen might be perfectly just, temperate, brave, and prudent — and yet dissent altogether from the Platonic creed. For such a citizen — the counterpart of Sokrates at Athens — no existence would be possible in the Platonic community.

Intolerance of Plato — Comparison of the Platonic community with Athens.

We must farther remark that, even when Plato’s ends areunexceptionable, the amount of interference which he employs to accomplish them is often extravagant. As a Constructor, he carries the sentiment of his own infallibility — which in a certain measure every lawgiver must assume — to an extreme worthy only of the kings of the Saturnian age:501manifesting the very minimum of tolerance for that enquiring individual reason of which his own negative dialogues remain as immortal masterpieces. We trace this intolerance through all the dialogue Leges. Even when he condescends to advise and persuade, he speaks rather in the tone of an encyclical censor, than of one who has before him a reasonable opponent to be convinced. The separate laws proposed by Plato are interesting to read, as illustrating antiquity: but most of them are founded on existing Athenian law. Where they depart from it, they depart as often for the worse as for the better — so far as I can pretend to judge. And in spite of all the indisputable defects, political and judicial, of that glorious city, where Plato was born and passed most of his days — it was, in my judgment, preferable to his Magnêtic city, as to all the great objects of security, comfort, recreation, and enjoyment. Athens was preferable, even for the ordinary citizen: but for the men of free, inquisitive, self-thinking, minds — the dissentient minority, who lived upon that open speech of which Athenian orators and poets boasted — it was a condition of existence: since the Platonic censorship would have tolerated neither their doctrines nor their persons.

501Plato, Politikus, pp. 271 E, 275 A-C.

Since the commencement of the present century, with its increased critical study of Plato, different and opposite opinions have been maintained by various authors respecting the genuineness or spuriousness of the Treatise De Legibus. Schleiermacher (Platons Werke, I. i. p. 51) admitted it as a genuine work of Plato, but ranked it among the Nebenwerke, or outlying dialogues:i.e., as a work that did not form an item or stepping-stone in the main Platonic philosophical series (which Schleiermacher attempts to lay out according to a system of internal sequence and gradual development), but was composed separately, in general analogy with the later or more constructive portion of that series. On the other hand, Ast (Platons Leben und Schriften, pp. 376-392) distinctly maintains that the Treatise De Legibus is not the composition of Plato, but of one of his scholars and contemporaries, perhaps Xenokrates or the Opuntian Philippus. Ast supports this opinion by many internal grounds, derived from a comparison of the treatise with other Platonic dialogues.

Zeller (in his Platonische Studien, Tübingen, 1839, pp. 1-144) discussed the same question in a more copious and elaborate manner, and declared himself decidedly in favour of Ast’s opinion — that the Treatise De Legibus was not the work of Plato, but of one among his immediate scholars. But in his History of Grecian Philosophy (vol. ii. pp. 348-615-641, second edition), Zeller departs from this judgment, and pronounces the Treatise to be a genuine work of Plato — the last form of his philosophy, modified in various ways.

Again Suckow (in his work, Die wissenschaftliche und künstlerische Form der Platonischen Schriften, Berlin, 1855, I. pp. 111-118 seq.) advocates Zeller’s first opinion — that the Treatise De Legibus is not the work of Plato.

Lastly Stallbaum, in the Prolegomena prefixed to his edition of the Treatise, strenuously vindicates its Platonic authorship. This is also the opinion of Boeckh and K. F. Hermann; and was, moreover, the opinion of all critics (I believe) anterior to Ast.

To me, I confess, it appears that the Treatise De Legibus is among the best authenticated works of the Platonic collection. I do not know what better positive proof can be tendered than the affirmation of Aristotle in his Politics — distinct and unqualified, mentioning both the name of the author and the title of the work, noting also the relation in which it stood to the Republic, both as a later composition of the same author, and as discrepant on some points of doctrine, analogous on others. This in itself is the strongestprimâ facieevidence, not to be rebutted, except by some counter-testimony, or by some internal mark of chronological impossibility: moreover, it coincides with the consentient belief of all the known ancient authors later than Aristotle — such as Zeno the Stoic, who composed a treatise in seven books — Πρὸς τοὺς Πλάτωνος Νόμους (Diog. Laert. vii. 36), Persæus, the Alexandrine critics, Cicero, Plutarch, &c. (Stallbaum, Prolegg. p. xliv.) Aristophanes Grammaticus classified both Leges and Epinomis as Plato’s works. The arguments produced in Zeller’s Platonische Studien, to show that Aristotle may have been mistaken in his assertion, are of little or no force. Nor will it be material to the present question, even if we concede to Zeller and Suckow another point which they contend for — that the remarks of Aristotle upon Plato’s opinions are often inaccurate at least, if not unfair. For here Aristotle is produced in court only as a witness to authenticity.

Among the points raised by Suckow, there is indeed one, which if it were made out, would greatly invalidate, if not counterbalance, the testimony of Aristotle. Suckow construes the passage in the Oration of Isokrates ad Philippum (p. 84, § 14) — ὁμοίως οἱ τοιοῦτοι τῶν λόγων ἄκυροι τυγχάνουσιν ὄντες τοῖς νόμοις καὶ ταῖς πολιτείαις ταῖς ὑπὸ τῶν σοφιστῶν γεγραμμέναις — as if it alluded to the Platonic Republic, and to the Treatise De Legibus; but as if it implied, at the same time, that the two treatises were not composed by the same author, but by different authors, indicated by the plural σοφιστῶν. If this were the true meaning of Isokrates, we should then have Aristotle distinctly contradicted by another respectable contemporary witness, which would of course much impair the value of his testimony.

But Stallbaum (p. lii.) disputes altogether the meaning ascribed by Suckow to the words of Isokrates, and contends that the plural σοφιστῶν noway justifies the hypothesis of a double authorship. So far, I think, he is decidedly right: and this clears away the only one item of counter-testimony which has yet been alleged against Aristotle as a witness. Stallbaum, indeed, goes a step farther. He contends that the passage above cited from Isokrates is an evidence on his side,and against Suckow: that Isokrates alludes to Plato as author of both Republic and Leges, and thus becomes available as a second contemporary witness, confirming the testimony of Aristotle. This is less certain; yet perhaps supposable. We may imagine that Isokrates, when he composed the passage, had in his mind Plato pre-eminently — then recently dead at a great age, and the most illustrious of all the Sophists who had written upon political theory. The vague and undefined language in which Isokrates speaks, however, sets forth, by contrast, the great evidentiary value of Aristotle’s affirmation, which is distinct and specific in the highest degree, declaring Plato to be the author of Leges.

To contradict this affirmation — an external guarantee of unusual force — Zeller produces a case of internal incredibility. The Legg. cannot be the work of Plato (he argues) because of the numerous disparities and marked inferiority of style, handling, and doctrine, which are very frequently un-Platonic, and not seldom anti-Platonic. Whoever will read the Platonische Studien, will see that Zeller has made out a strong case of this sort, set forth with remarkable ability and ingenuity. Indeed, the strength of the case, as to internal discrepancy, is fully admitted by his opponent Stallbaum, who says in general terms (Prolegg. vol. ii. p. v.) — “Argumentatio quidem ac disserendi ratio, quæ in Legibus regnat, ubi considerata fuerit paullo accuratius, dubitare nemo sanè poterit, quin multa propria ac peculiaria habere judicanda sit, quæ ab aliorum librorum Platonicorum usu et consuetudine longissimé recedant”. He then proceeds to enumerate in detail many serious points of discrepancy. See the second part (ch. xv.) of his Prolegomena, prefixed to Book v. Legg., and in Prolegg. to his edition of 1859, pp. lv.-lix. But in spite of such undeniable force of internal improbability, Stallbaum still maintains that the Treatise is really the work of Plato. Of course, he does not admit that the whole of the internal evidence is nothing but discrepancy. He points out also much that is homogeneous and Platonic.

I agree with his conclusion (which is also the subsequent conclusion of Zeller) respecting the authorship of Legg. To me the testimony of Aristotle appears conclusive. But when I perceive how strong are the grounds for doubt, so long as we discuss the question on grounds of internal evidence simply (that is, by comparison with other Platonic dialogues) while yet such doubts are over-ruled, by our fortunately possessing incontestable authenticating evidenceab extra— an inference suggests itself to me, of which Platonic critics seem for the most part unconscious. I mean the great fallibility of reasonings founded simply on internal evidence, for the purpose of disproving authenticity, wherewe have no external evidence, contemporary or nearly contemporary, to controul them. In this condition are the large majority of the dialogues. I do not affirm that such reasonings are never to be trusted; but I consider them eminently fallible. To compare together the various dialogues, indeed, and to number as well as to weigh the various instances of analogy and discrepancy between them, is a process always instructive. It is among the direct tasks and obligations of the critic. But when, after detecting discrepancies, more or less grave and numerous, he proceeds to conclude, that the dialogue in which they occur cannot have been composed by Plato, he steps upon ground full of hypothesis and uncertainty. Who is to fix the limit of admissible divergence between the various compositions of a man like Plato? Who can determine what changes may have taken place in Plato’s opinions, or point of view, or intellectual powers — during a long literary life of more than fifty years, which we know only in mere outline? Considering that Plato systematically lays aside his own personal identity, and speaks only under the assumed names of different expositors, opponents, and respondents — which of us can claim to possess a full and exhaustive catalogue of all the diverse phases of Platonism, so as to make sure that some unexpected variety has no legitimate title to be ranked among them?

For my part, I confess that these questions appear to me full of doubt and difficulty. I am often surprised at the confidence with which critics, upon the faith of internal evidence purely and simply, pronounce various dialogues of the Platonic collection to be spurious. A lesson of diffidence may be learnt from the Leges: which, if internal evidence alone were accessible, would stand among the questionable items of the Platonic catalogue — while it now takes rank among the most unquestionable, from the complete external certificate which has been fortunately preserved to us.

Stallbaum, who maintains the authenticity of the Platonic Leges, disallows altogether that of the Epinomis. In his long and learned Prolegg. (vol. iii. p. 441-470), he has gone over the whole case, and stated at length his reasons for this opinion. I confess that his reasons do not satisfy me. If, on the faith of those reasons, I rejected the Epinomis, I should also on the grounds stated by Ast and Zeller reject the Leges. The reasons against the Leges are of the same character and tenor as those against the Epinomis, and scarce at all less weighty. Respecting both of them, it may be shown that they are greatly inferior in excellence to the Republic and the other masterpieces of the Platonic genius, and that they contain points of doctrine and reasoning different from what we read in other Platonic works.But when, from these premisses, I am called upon to admit that they are not the works of Plato, I cannot assent either about the one or the other. I have already observed that I expect to find among his genuine compositions, some inferior in merit, others dissentient in doctrine — especially in compositions admitted to belong to his oldest age. All critics from Aristophanes down to Tennemann, have admitted the Epinomis as genuine: and when Stallbaum contends that Diogenes mentions doubts on the point entertained even in antiquity — I think he is not warranted by the words of that author, iii. 37: ἔνιοί τε φασὶν ὅτι Φίλιππος ὁ Ὀπούντιος τοὺς Νόμους αὐτοῦ (Πλάτωνος) μετέγραψεν ὄντας ἐν κηρῷ· τούτου δὲ καὶ τὴν Ἐπινομίδα φασὶν εἶναι. I do not think we can infer from these words anything more than this — that “Philippus transcribed the Epinomis also out of the waxen tablet as he had transcribed the Leges”. The persons (whosoever they were — ἔνιοι) to whom Diogenes refers, considered Philippus as in part the author of the Νόμοι; because he had first transcribed them in a legible form from the rough original, and might possibly have introduced changes of his own in the transcription. If they had meant to distinguish what he did in respect to the Leges, from what he did in respect to the Epinomis: if they had meant to assert that he transcribed the Leges, but that he composed the Epinomis as an original addition of his own; I think they would have employed, not the conjunction καὶ, but some word indicating contrast and antithesis.

But even if we concede that the persons here alluded to by Diogenes did really believe, that the Epinomis was the original composition of Philippus and not of Plato — we must remember that all the critics of antiquity known to us believed the contrary — that it was the genuine work of Plato. In particular, Aristophanes Grammaticus acknowledges it as such; enrolling it in one trilogy with the Minos and the Leges. The testimony of Aristophanes, and the records of the Alexandrine Library in his time, greatly outweigh the suspicions of the unknown critics alluded to by Diogenes; even if we admit that those critics did really conceive the Epinomis as an actual composition of Philippus.

THE END.

Absoluteand relative, radically distinct points of view, i.23n.;of Xenophanes,18;of Parmenides,20-24,66;agrees with Kant’s,21;of Herakleitus,29;and Parmenides opposed,37;of Anaxagoras, homœomeries,59n.;of Demokritus,71,80;of Zeno,93,101;Gorgias the Leontine reasoned against, as ens or entia,103;and relative, antithetised by Plato in regard to the beautiful, ii.54;Plato’s argument against, iii.204,227;to Plato the only real,385;an objective, impossible,294n.,298n.;seeRelative.

Abstract, dialectic deals with, rhetoric with concrete, ii.52,53;and concrete aggregates,ib.;terms, debates about meaning, iii.76-78;different views of Aristotle and Plato,76;and concrete, difference not conspicuous in Plato’s time,229.

Academy, the, i.254;decorations,269n.;Platonic school removed, 87B.C.,265n.;library founded for use of inmates and special visitors,278n.;Cicero on negative vein of,131n.

Achilleus, and the tortoise, i.97;preferred by Hippias to Odysseus, ii.56.

Acoustics, to be studied by applying arithmetical relations and theories, iv.74.

Actualand potential, Aristotle’s distinction, iii.135n.,i.139.

Ἀδικήματα, iv.367,368.

Ælian, ii.85n.

Æschines, Sokraticus, dialogues of, i.112,114n.,115,211n.;Lysias’ oration against,112.

Æsculapius, belief in, ii.418n.

Æthiops, i.195.

Affirmative, seeNegative.

Aggregate, seeWhole.

Αἰδώς, meaning, ii.269n.

Αἴσθησις, relation to ἐπιστήμη, iii.164n.;conceptions of Aristotle and Plato compared,ib.;connected by Plato with ἀΐσσω, iv.235n.;seeSense.

Ἀκολασία, derivation, iii.302n.

Ἀλήθεια, derivation, iii.302n.

Alexanderof Aphrodisias, on Chance, i.143n.

Alexandrian Museumfounded as a copy of the Platonic and Aristotelic μουσεῖα at Athens, i.277;date of foundation,280;Demetrius Phalereus chief agent in its establishment,ib.;its contents,275;rapid accumulation of books,ib.;under charge of Aristophanes,273;contained Plato’s works before time of Aristophanes,274;editions of Plato issued,295;its authority followed by ancient critics,297,299.

Alexis, iii.387n.

Alkibiadês, when young, frequented Sokrates’ society, ii.21;attachment of Sokrates to, iii.8;fitness as ideal inAlkibiadês I.andII., ii.22;seeAlkibiadês I.andII.andSymposion.

AlkibiadêsI. and II., different critical opinions, ii.17;date, i.306,308-11, ii.22;authenticity, i.306-7,309-10, ii.2n.,17;prolixity,26;circumstances and interlocutors,1;fitness of historical Alkibiadês for ideal,22;no bearing on the historical Alkibiadês,20n.;the Platonic picture an ideal,22;illustrates Sokratico-Platonic method in negative and positive aspect,7;actual and anticipated effects of dialectic,11;analogy with Xenophontic dialogues,21,29;Alkibiadês as Athenian adviser,2;advises on war and peace, his standard the just and unjust,3;whence knowledge of it,4;from the multitude, their judgment worthless,5;the expedient and inexpedient substituted,6;the just identified with the good, honourable, expedient,7;ignorance of Athenian statesmen, eulogy of Spartan and Persian kings,8;Alkibiadês must become good — for what end and how,8-10;confesses his ignorance,10;will never leave Sokrates,12;Delphian maxim — the mind the self,11;self-knowledge, from looking into other minds is temperance,11;situation inSecond,12;danger of prayer for mischievous gifts — most men unwise,ib.;instances of injurious gifts — mischiefs of ignorance,14;depend on the subject-matter,ib.;few wise public counsellors, why called wise,15;special accomplishments often hurtful, if no knowledge of the good,16;Sokrates on prayer and sacrifice,ib.;Sokrates’ purpose, to humble presumptuous youths,21;his mission against false persuasion of knowledge,24;his positive solutions illusory,26-7;opinion embraces all varieties of knowledge save of the good,30;the good, how known — unsolved,31.

Allegoricalinterpretation of poets, ii.285;seeMythe.

Ἀλυπία, the Good, iii.338n.;not identical with pleasure,353,377;and pleasure included in Hedonists’ end,ib.;is a negative condition intermediate between pleasure and pain, iv.86.

Amabile primum, ii.181,191;approximates to Idea of Good,192;the Good,194;compared with Aristotle’sprima amicitia,ib.

Ἁμαρτήματα, iv.367,368.

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