* As stated in the prefatory note to this edition, the present and the following chapter have been, for convenience, transferred from the place given to them by the author, to their present position.
Having dwelt at some length on the life and compositions of Plato, I now proceed to place in comparison with him some other members of the Sokratic philosophical family: less eminent, indeed, than the illustrious author of the Republic, yet still men of marked character, ability, and influence.1 Respecting one of the brethren, Xenophon, who stands next to Plato in celebrity, I shall say a few words separately in my next and concluding chapter.
1 Dionysius of Halikarnassus contrasts Plato with τὸ Σωκράτους διδασκαλεῖον πᾶν (De Adm. Vi Dic. Demosthen. p. 956.) Compare also Epistol. ad Cn. Pomp. p. 762, where he contrasts the style and phraseology of Plato with that of the Σωκρατικοὶ διάλογοι generally.
Influence exercised by Sokrates over his companions.
The ascendancy of Sokrates over his contemporaries was powerfully exercised in more than one way. He brought into vogue new subjects both of indefinite amplitude, and familiar as well as interesting to every one. On these subjects, moreover, he introduced, or at least popularised, a new method of communication, whereby the relation of teacher and learner, implying a direct transfer of ready-made knowledge from the one to the other, was put aside. He substituted an interrogatory process, at once destructive and suggestive, in which the teacher began by unteaching and the learner by unlearning what was supposed to be already known, for the purpose of provoking in the learner’s mind a self-operative energy of thought, and an internal generation of new notions. Lastly, Sokrates worked forcibly upon the minds of several friends, who were in the habit of attending him when he talked in the market-place or the palæstra. Some tried to copy his wonderful knack of colloquial cross-examination: how far they did so with success or reputation we do not know: but Xenophon says that several of them would only discourse with those who paid them a fee, and that they thus sold for considerable sums what were only small fragments obtained gratuitously from the rich table of their master.2 There were moreover several who copied the general style of his colloquies by composing written dialogues. And thus it happened that the great master, — he who passed his life in the oral application of his Elenchus, without writing anything, — though he left no worthy representative in his own special career, became the father of numerous written dialogues and of a rich philosophical literature.3
2 Xenophon, Memor. i. 2, 60. ὧν τινὲς μικρὰ μέρη παρ’ ἐκείνου προῖκα λαβόντες πολλοῦ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἐπώλουν, καὶ οὐκ ἦσαν ὥσπερ ἐκεῖνος δημοτικοί· τοῖς γὰρ μὴ ἔχουσι χρήματα διδόναι οὐκ ἤθελον διαλέγεσθαι.
3 We find a remarkable proof how long the name and conception of Sokrates lasted in the memory of the Athenian public, as having been the great progenitor of the philosophy and philosophers of the fourth century B.C. in Athens. It was about 306 B.C., almost a century after the death of Sokrates, that Democharês (the nephew of the orator Demosthenes) delivered an oration before the Athenian judicature for the purpose of upholding the law proposed by Sophokles, forbidding philosophers or Sophists to lecture without a license obtained from the government; which law, passed a year before, had determined the secession of all the philosophers from Athens until the law was repealed. In this oration Democharês expatiated on the demerits of many philosophers, their servility, profligate ambition, rapacity, want of patriotism, &c., from which Athenæus makes several extracts. Τοιοῦτοι εἰσιν οἱ ἀπὸ φιλοσοφίας στρατηγοί· περὶ ὧν Δημοχάρης ἔλεγεν, — Ὥσπερ ἐκ θύμβρας οὐδεὶς ἂν δύναιτο κατασκευάσαι λόγχην, οὔδ’ ἐκ Σωκράτους στρατιώτην ἄμεμπτον.
Demetrius Phalereus also, in or near that same time, composed a Σωκράτους ἀπολογίαν (Diog. La. ix. 37-57). This shows how long the interest in the personal fate and character of Sokrates endured at Athens.
Besides Plato and Xenophon, whose works are known to us, we hear of Alexamenus, Antisthenes, Æschines, Aristippus, Bryson, Eukleides, Phædon, Kriton, Simmias, Kebês, &c., as having composed dialogues of this sort. All of them were companions of Sokrates; several among them either set down what they could partially recollect of his conversations, or employed his name as a dramatic speaker of their own thoughts. Seven of these dialogues were ascribed to Æschines, twenty-five to Aristippus, seventeen to Kriton, twenty-three to Simmias, three to Kebês, six to Eukleides, four to Phædon. The compositions of Antisthenes were far more numerous: ten volumes of them, under a variety of distinct titles (some of them probably not in the form of dialogues) being recorded by Diogenes.4 Aristippus was the first of the line of philosophers called Kyrenaic or Hedonic, afterwards (with various modifications) Epikurean: Antisthenes, of the Cynics and Stoics: Eukleides, of the Megaric school. It seems that Aristippus, Antisthenes, Eukleides, and Bryson, all enjoyed considerable reputation, as contemporaries and rival authors of Plato: Æschines, Antisthenes (who was very poor), and Aristippus, are said to have received money for their lectures; Aristippus being named as the first who thus departed from the Sokratic canon.5
4 Diogenes Laert. 1. 47-61-83, vi. 15; Athenæ. xi. p. 505 C.
Bryson is mentioned by Theopompus ap. Athenæum, xi. p. 508 D. Theopompus, the contemporary of Aristotle and pupil of Isokrates, had composed an express treatise or discourse against Plato’s dialogues, in which discourse he affirmed that most of them were not Plato’s own, but borrowed in large proportion from the dialogues of Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Bryson. Ephippus also, the comic writer (of the fourth century B.C., contemporary with Theopompus, perhaps even earlier), spoke of Bryson as contemporary with Plato (Athenæ. xi. 509 C). This is good proof to authenticate Bryson as a composer of “Sokratic dialogues” belonging to the Platonic age, along with Antisthenes and Aristippus: whether Theopompus is correct when he asserts that Plato borrowed much, from the three, is very doubtful.
Many dialogues were published by various writers, and ascribed falsely to one or other of the viri Sokratici: Diogenes (ii. 64) reports the judgment delivered by Panætius, which among them were genuine and which not so. Panætius considered that the dialogues ascribed to Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Æschines, were genuine; that those assigned to Phædon and Eukleides were doubtful; and that the rest were all spurious. He thus regarded as spurious those of Alexamenus, Kriton, Simmias, Kebês, Simon, Bryson, &c., or he did not know them all. It is possible that Panætius may not have known the dialogues of Bryson; if he did know them and believed them to be spurious, I should not accept his assertion, because I think that it is outweighed by the contrary testimony of Theopompus. Moreover, though Panætius was a very able man, confidence in his critical estimate is much shaken when we learn that he declared the Platonic Phædon to be spurious.
5 Diogen. Laert. i. 62-65; Athenæus, xi. p. 507 C.
Dion Chrysostom (Orat. lv. De Homero et Socrate, vol. ii. p. 289, Reiske) must have had in his view some of these other Sokratic dialogues, not those composed by Plato or Xenophon, when he alludes to conversations of Sokrates with Lysikles, Glykon, and Anytus; what he says about Anytus can hardly refer to the Platonic Menon.
Æschines- — oration of Lysias against him.
Æschines the companion of Sokrates did not become (like Eukleides, Antisthenes, Aristippus) the founder of a succession or sect of philosophers. The few fragments remaining of his dialogues do not enable us to appreciate their merit. He seems to have employed the name of Aspasia largely as a conversing personage, and to have esteemed her highly. He also spoke with great admiration of Themistokles. But in regard to present or recent characters, he stands charged with much bitterness and ill-nature: especially we learn that he denounced the Sophists Prodikus and Anaxaras, the first on the ground of having taught Theramenes, the second as the teacher of two worthless persons — Ariphrades and Arignôtus. This accusation deserves greater notice, because it illustrates the odium raised by Melêtus against Sokrates as having instructed Kritias and Alkibiades.6 Moreover, we have Æschines presented to us in another character, very unexpected in a vir Socraticus. An action for recovery of money alleged to be owing was brought in the Athenian Dikastery against Æschines, by a plaintiff, who set forth his case in a speech composed by the rhetor Lysias. In this speech it is alleged that Æschines, having engaged in trade as a preparer and seller of unguents, borrowed a sum of money at interest from the plaintiff; who affirms that he counted with assurance upon honest dealing from a disciple of Sokrates, continually engaged in talking about justice and virtue.7 But so far was this expectation from being realized, that Æschines had behaved most dishonestly. He repaid neither principal nor interest; though a judgment of the Dikastery had been obtained against him, and a branded slave belonging to him had been seized under it. Moreover, Æschines had been guilty of dishonesty equally scandalous in his dealings with many other creditors also. Furthermore, he had made love to a rich woman seventy years old, and had got possession of her property; cheating and impoverishing her family. His character as a profligate and cheat was well known and could be proved by many witnesses. Such are the allegations against Æschines, contained in the fragment of a lost speech of Lysias, and made in open court by a real plaintiff. How much of them could be fairly proved, we cannot say: but it seems plain at least that Æschines must have been a trader as well as a philosopher. All these writers on philosophy must have had their root and dealings in real life, of which we know scarce anything.
6 Plutarch, Perikles, c. 24-32; Cicero, De Invent. i. 31; Athenæus, v. 220. Some other citations will be found in Fischer’s collection of the few fragments of Æschines Sokraticus (Leipsic, 1788, p. 68 seq.), though some of the allusions which he produces seem rather to belong to the orator Æschines. The statements of Athenæus, from the dialogue of Æschines called Telaugês, are the most curious. The dialogue contained, among other things, τὴν Προδίκου καὶ Ἀναξαγόρους τῶν σοφιστῶν διαμώκησιν, where we see Anaxagoras denominated a Sophist (see also Diodor. xii. 39) as well as Prodikus. Fischer considers the three Pseudo-Platonic dialogues — Περὶ Ἀρετῆς, Περὶ Πλούτου, Περὶ Θανάτου — as the works of Æschines. But this is noway established.
7 Athenæus, xiii. pp. 611-612. Πεισθεὶς δ’ ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ τοιαῦτα λέγοντος, καὶ ἅμα οἰόμενος τοῦτον Αἰσχίνην Σωκράτους γεγονέναι μαθητήν, καὶ περὶ δικαιοσύνης καὶ ἀρετῆς πολλοὺς καὶ σεμνοὺς λέγοντα λόγους, οὐκ ἄν ποτε ἐπιχειρῆσαι οὐδὲ τολμῆσαι ἅπερ οἱ πονηρότατοι καὶ ἀδικώτατοι ἄνθρωποι ἐπιχειροῦσι πράττειν.
We read also about another oration of Lysias against Æschines — περὶ συκοφαντίας (Diogen. Laert. ii. 63), unless indeed it be the same oration differently described.
Written Sokratic Dialogues — their general character.
The dialogues known by the title of Sokratic dialogues,8 were composed by all the principal companions of Sokrates, and by many who were not companions. Yet though thus composed by many different authors, they formed a recognised class of literature, noticed by the rhetorical critics as distinguished for plain, colloquial, unstudied, dramatic execution, suiting the parts to the various speakers: from which general character Plato alone departed — and he too not in all of his dialogues. By the Sokratic authors generally Sokrates appears to have been presented under the same main features: his proclaimed confession of ignorance was seldom wanting: and the humiliation which his cross-questioning inflicted even upon insolent men like Alkibiades, was as keenly set forth by Æschines as by Plato: moreover the Sokratic disciples generally were fond of extolling the Dæmon or divining prophecy of their master.9 Some dialogues circulating under the name of some one among the companions of Sokrates, were spurious, and the authorship was a point not easy to determine. Simon, a currier at Athens, in whose shop Sokrates often conversed, is said to have kept memoranda of the conversations which he heard, and to have afterwards published them: Æschines also, and some other of the Sokratic companions, were suspected of having preserved or procured reports of the conversations of the master himself, and of having made much money after his death by delivering them before select audiences.10 Aristotle speaks of the followers of Antisthenes as unschooled, vulgar men: but Cicero appears to have read with satisfaction the dialogues of Antisthenes, whom he designates as acute though not well-instructed.11 Other accounts describe his dialogues as composed in a rhetorical style, which is ascribed to the fact of his having received lessons from Gorgias:12 and Theopompus must have held in considerable estimation the dialogues of that same author, as well as those of Aristippus and Bryson, when he accused Plato of having borrowed from them largely.13
8 Aristotel. ap. Athenæum, xi. p. 505 C; Rhetoric. iii. 16.
Dionys. Halikarnass. ad Cn. Pomp. de Platone, p. 762, Reiske. Τραφεὶς (Plato) ἐν τοῖς Σωκρατικοῖς διαλόγοις ἰσχνοτάτοις οὖσι καὶ ἀκριβεστάτοις, οὐ μείνας δ’ ἐν αὐτοῖς, ἀλλὰ τῆς Γοργίου καὶ Θουκυδίδου κατασκευῆς ἐρασθείς: also, De Admir. Vi Dicend. in Demosthene, p. 968. Again in the same treatise De Adm. V. D. Demosth. p. 956. ἡ δὲ ἑτέρα λέξις, ἡ λιτὴ καὶ ἀφελὴς καὶ δοκοῦσα κατασκευήν τε καὶ ἰσχὺν τὴν πρὸς ἰδιώτην ἔχειν λόγον καὶ ὁμοιότητα, πολλοὺς μὲν ἔσχε καὶ ἀγαθοὺς ἄνδρας προστάτας — καὶ οἱ τῶν ἠθικῶν διαλόγων ποιηταί, ὧν ἦν τὸ Σωκρατικὸν διδασκαλεῖον πᾶν, ἔξω Πλάτωνος, &c.
Dionysius calls this style ὁ Σωκρατικὸς χαρακτὴρ p. 1025. I presume it is the same to which the satirist Timon applies the words:—
|
Ἀσθενική τε λόγων δυας ἢ τριὰς ἢ ἔτι
πόρσω,
Οἶος Ξεινοφόων, ἤτ’ Αἰσχίνου οὐκ ἐπιπειθὴς γράψαι — |
Lucian, Hermogenes, Phrynichus, Longinus, and some later rhetorical critics of Greece judged more favourably than Timon about the style of Æschines as well as of Xenophon. See Zeller, Phil. d. Griech. ii. p. 171, sec. ed. And Demetrius Phalereus (or the author of the treatise which bears his name), as well as the rhetor Aristeides, considered Æschines and Plato as the best representatives of the Σωκρατικὸς χαρακτήρ, Demetr. Phaler. De Interpretat. 310; Aristeides, Orat. Platon. i. p. 35; Photius, Cods. 61 and 158; Longinus, ap. Walz. ix. p. 559, c. 2. Lucian says (De Parasito, 33) that Æschines passed some time with the elder Dionysius at Syracuse, to whom he read aloud his dialogue, entitled Miltiades, with great success.
An inedited discourse of Michæl Psellus, printed by Mr. Cox in his very careful and valuable catalogue of the MSS. in the Bodleian Library, recites the same high estimate as having been formed of Æschines by the chief ancient rhetorical critics: they reckoned him among and alongside of the foremost Hellenic classical writers, as having his own peculiar merits of style — παρὰ μὲν Πλάτωνι, τὴν διαλογικὴν φράσιν, παρὰ δὲ τοῦ Σωκρατικοῦ Αἰσχίνου, τὴν ἐμμελῆ συνθήκην τῶν λέξεων, παρὰ δὲ Θουκυδίδου, &c. See Mr. Cox’s Catalogue, pp. 743-745. Cicero speaks of the Sokratic philosophers generally, as writing with an elegant playfulness of style (De Officiis, i. 29, 104): which is in harmony with Lucian’s phrase — Αἰσχίνης ὁ τοὺς διαλόγους μακροὺς καὶ ἀστείους γράψας, &c.
9 Cicero, Brutus, 85, s. 292; De Divinatione, i. 54-122; Aristeides, Orat. xlv. περὶ Ῥητορικῆς Orat. xlvi. Ὑπὲρ τῶν Τεττάρων, vol. ii. pp. 295-369, ed. Dindorf. It appears by this that some of the dialogues composed by Æschines were mistaken by various persons for actual conversations held by Sokrates. It was argued, that because Æschines was inferior to Plato in ability, he was more likely to have repeated accurately what he had heard Sokrates say.
10 Diog. L. ii. 122. He mentions a collection of thirty-three dialogues in one volume, purporting to be reports of real colloquies of Sokrates, published by Simon. But they can hardly be regarded as genuine.
The charge here mentioned is advanced by Xenophon (see a preceding note, Memorab. i. 2, 60), against some persons (τινὲς), but without specifying names. About Æschines, see Athenæus, xiii. p. 611 C; Diogen. Laert. ii. 62.
11 Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, xii. 38:—“viri acuti magis quam eruditi,” is the judgment of Cicero upon Antisthenes. I presume that these words indicate the same defect as that which is intended by Aristotle when he says — οἱ Ἀνθισθένειοι καὶ οἱ οὕτως ἀπαίδευτοι, Metaphysic. Η. 3, p. 1043, b. 24. It is plain, too, that Lucian considered the compositions of Antisthenes as not unworthy companions to those of Plato (Lucian, adv. Indoctum, c. 27).
12 Diogen. Laert. vi. 1. If it be true that Antisthenes received lessons from Gorgias, this proves that Gorgias must sometimes have given lessons gratis; for the poverty of Antisthenes is well known. See the Symposion of Xenophon.
13 Theopomp. ap. Athenæ. xi. p. 508. See K. F. Hermann, Ueber Plato’s Schriftsteller. Motive, p. 300. An extract of some length, of a dialogue composed by Æschines between Sokrates and Alkibiades, is given by Aristeides, Or. xlvi. Ὑπὲρ τῶν Τεττάρων, vol. ii. pp. 292-294, ed. Dindorf.
Relations between the companions of Sokrates — Their proceedings after the death of Sokrates.
Eukleides, Antisthenes, and Aristippus, were all companions and admirers of Sokrates, as was Plato. But none of them were his disciples, in the strict sense of the word: none of them continued or enforced his doctrines, though each used his name as a spokesman. During his lifetime the common attachment to his person formed a bond of union, which ceased at his death. There is indeed some ground for believing that Plato then put himself forward in the character of leader, with a view to keep the body united.14 We must recollect that Plato though then no more than twenty-eight years of age, was the only one among them who combined the advantages of a noble Athenian descent, opulent circumstances, an excellent education, and great native genius. Eukleides and Aristippus were neither of them Athenians: Antisthenes was very poor: Xenophon was absent on service in the Cyreian army. Plato’s proposition, however, found no favour with the others and was even indignantly repudiated by Apollodorus: a man ardently attached to Sokrates, but violent and overboiling in all his feelings.15 The companions of Sokrates, finding themselves unfavourably looked upon at Athens after his death, left the city for a season and followed Eukleides to Megara. How long they stayed there we do not know. Plato is said, though I think on no sufficient authority, to have remained absent from Athens for several years continuously. It seems certain (from an anecdote recounted by Aristotle)16 that he talked with something like arrogance among the companions of Sokrates: and that Aristippus gently rebuked him by reminding him how very different had been the language of Sokrates himself. Complaints too were made by contemporaries, about Plato’s jealous, censorious, spiteful, temper. The critical and disparaging tone of his dialogues, notwithstanding the admiration which they inspire, accounts for the existence of these complaints: and anecdotes are recounted, though not verified by any sufficient evidence, of ill-natured dealing on his part towards other philosophers who were poorer than himself.17 Dissension or controversy on philosophical topics is rarely carried on without some invidious or hostile feeling. Athens, and the viri Sokratici, Plato included, form no exception to this ordinary malady of human nature.
14 Athenæus, xi. p. 507 A-B. from the ὑπομνήματα of the Delphian Hegesander. Who Hegesander was, I do not know: but there is nothing improbable in the anecdote which he recounts.
15 Plato, Phædon. pp. 59 A. 117 D. Eukleides, however, though his school was probably at Megara, seems to have possessed property in Attica: for there existed, among the orations of Isæus, a pleading composed by that rhetor for some client — Πρὸς Εὐκλείδην τὸν Σωκρατικὸν ἀμφισβήτησις ὑπὲρ τῆς τοῦ χωρίου λύσεως (Dion. Hal., Isæ., c. 14, p. 612 Reiske) Harpokr. — Ὅτι τὰ ἐπικηρυττόμενα: also under some other words by Harpokration and by Pollux, viii. 48.
16 Aristot. Rhet. ii. 23, p. 1398, b. 30. ἢ ὡς Ἀρίστιππος, πρὸς Πλάτωνα ἐπαγγελτικώτερόν τι εἰπόντα, ὡς ᾥετο — ἀλλὰ μὴν ὁ γ’ ἑταῖρος ἡμῶν, ἔφη, οὐθὲν τοιοῦτον — λέγων τὸν Σωκράτην.
This anecdote, mentioned by Aristotle, who had good means of knowing, appears quite worthy of belief. The jealousy and love of supremacy inherent in Plato’s temper (τὸ φιλότιμον), were noticed by Dionysius Hal. (Epist. ad Cn. Pompeium, p. 756).
17 Athenæus, xi. pp. 505-508. Diog. Laert. ii. 60-65, iii. 36.
The statement made by Plato in the Phædon — That Aristippus and Kleombrotus were not present at the death of Sokrates, but were said to be in Ægina — is cited as an example of Plato’s ill-will and censorious temper (Demetr. Phaler. s. 306). But this is unfair. The statement ought not to be so considered, if it were true: and if not true, it deserves a more severe epithet. We read in Athenæus various other criticisms, citing or alluding to passages of Plato, which are alleged to indicate ill-nature; but many of the passages cited do not deserve the remark.
No Sokratic school — each of the companions took a line of his own.
It is common for historians of philosophy to speak of a Sokratic school: but this phrase, if admissible at all, is only admissible in the largest and vaguest sense. The effect produced by Sokrates upon his companions was, not to teach doctrine, but to stimulate self-working enquiry, upon ethical and social subjects. Eukleides, Antisthenes, Aristippus, each took a line of his own, not less decidedly than Plato. But unfortunately we have no compositions remaining from either of the three. We possess only brief reports respecting some leading points of their doctrine, emanating altogether from those who disagreed with it: we have besides aphorisms, dicta, repartees, bons-mots, &c., which they are said to have uttered. Of these many are evident inventions; some proceeding from opponents and probably coloured or exaggerated, others hardly authenticated at all. But if they were ever so well authenticated, they would form very insufficient evidence on which to judge a philosopher — much less to condemn him with asperity.18 Philosophy (as I have already observed) aspires to deliver not merely truth, but reasoned truth. We ought to know not only what doctrines a philosopher maintained, but how he maintained them:—what objections others made against him, and how he replied:—what objections he made against dissentient doctrines, and what replies were made to him. Respecting Plato and Aristotle, we possess such information to a considerable extent:—respecting Eukleides, Antisthenes, and Aristippus, we are without it. All their compositions (very numerous, in the case of Antisthenes) have perished.
18 Respecting these ancient philosophers, whose works are lost, I transcribe a striking passage from Descartes, who complains, in his own case, of the injustice of being judged from the statements of others, and not from his own writings:—“Quod adeo in hâc materiâ verum est, ut quamvis sæpe aliquas ex meis opinionibus explicaverim viris acutissimis, et qui me loquente videbantur eas valdé distincté intelligere: attamen cum eas retulerunt, observavi ipsos fere semper illas ita mutavisse, ut pro meis agnoscere amplius non possem. Quâ occasione posteros hic oratos volo, ut nunquam credant, quidquam à me esse profectum, quod ipse in lucem non edidero. Et nullo modo miror absurda illa dogmata, quæ veteribus illis philosophis tribuuntur, quorum scripta non habemus: nec propterea judico ipsorum cogitationes valdé à ratione fuisse alienas, cum habuerint præstantissima suorum sæculorum ingenia; sed tantum nobis perperam esse relatas.” (Descartes, Diss. De Methodo, p. 43.)
EUKLEIDES.
Eukleides of Megara — he blended Parmenides with Sokrates.
Eukleides was a Parmenidean, who blended the ethical point of view of Sokrates with the ontology of Parmenides, and followed out that negative Dialectic which was common to Sokrates with Zeno. Parmenides (I have with already said)19 and Zeno after him, recognised no absolute reality except Ens Unum, continuous, indivisible: they denied all real plurality: they said that the plural was Non-Ens or Nothing, i.e. nothing real or absolute, but only apparent, perpetually transient and changing, relative, different as appreciated by one man and by another. Now Sokrates laid it down that wisdom or knowledge of Good, was the sum total of ethical perfection, including within it all the different virtues: he spoke also about the divine wisdom inherent in, or pervading the entire Kosmos or universe.20 Eukleides blended together the Ens of Parmenides with the Good of Sokrates, saying that the two names designated one and the same thing: sometimes called Good, Wisdom, Intelligence, God, &c., and by other names also, but always one and the same object named and meant. He farther maintained that the opposite of Ens, and the opposite of Bonum (Non-Ens, Non-Bonum, or Malum) were things non-existent, unmeaning names, Nothing,21 &c.: i.e. that they were nothing really, absolutely, permanently, but ever varying and dependent upon our ever varying conceptions. The One — the All — the Good — was absolute, immoveable, invariable, indivisible. But the opposite thereof was a non-entity or nothing: there was no one constant meaning corresponding to Non-Ens — but a variable meaning, different with every man who used it.
19 See ch. i. pp. 19-22.
20 Xenophon. Memor. i. 4, 17. τὴν ἐν τῷ παντὶ φρόνησιν. Compare Plato, Philêbus, pp. 29-30; Cicero, Nat. Deor. ii. 6, 6, iii. 11.
21 Diog. L. ii. 106. Οὖτος ἒν τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἀπεφῄνατο πολλοῖς ὀνόμασι καλούμενον· ὅτε μὲν γὰρ φρόνησιν, ὅτε δὲ θεόν, καὶ ἄλλοτε νοῦν καὶ τὰ λοιπά. Τὰ δὲ ἀντικείμενα τῷ ἀγαθῷ ἀνῄρει, μὴ εἶναι φάσκων. Compare also vii. 2, 161, where the Megarici are represented as recognising only μίαν ἀρετὴν πολλοῖς ὀνόμασι καλουμένην. Cicero, Academ. ii. 42.
Doctrine of Eukleides about Bonum.
It was in this manner that Eukleides solved the problem which Sokrates had brought into vogue — What is the Bonum — or (as afterwards phrased) the Summum Bonum? Eukleides pronounced the Bonum to be coincident with the Ens Unum of Parmenides. The Parmenidean thesis, originally belonging to Transcendental Physics or Ontology, became thus implicated with Transcendental Ethics.22
22 However, in the verse of Xenophanes, the predecessor of Parmenides — Οὗλος ὁρᾷ, οὗλος δὲ νοεῖ, οὗλος δέ τ’ ἀκούει — the Universe is described as a thinking, seeing, hearing God — Ἓν καὶ Πᾶν. Sextus Empir. adv. Mathemat. ix. 144; Xenophan. Fragm. p. 36, ed. Karsten.
The doctrine compared to that of Plato — changes in Plato.
Plato departs from Sokrates on the same point. He agrees with Eukleides in recognising a Transcendental Bonum. But it appears that his doctrines on this head underwent some change. He held for some time what is called the doctrine of Ideas: transcendental Forms, Entia, Essences: he considered the Transcendental to be essentially multiple, or to be an aggregate — whereas Eukleides had regarded it as essentially One. This is the doctrine which we find in some of the Platonic dialogues. In the Republic, the Idea of Good appears as one of these, though it is declared to be the foremost in rank and the most ascendant in efficacy.23 But in the later part of his life, and in his lectures (as we learn from Aristotle), Plato came to adopt a different view. He resolved the Ideas into numbers. He regarded them as made up by the combination of two distinct factors:—1. The One — the Essentially One. 2. The Essentially Plural: The Indeterminate Dyad: the Great and Little. — Of these two elements he considered the Ideas to be compounded. And he identified the Idea of Good with the essentially One — τὸ ἀγαθὸν with τὸ ἕν: the principle of Good with the principle of Unity: also the principle of Evil with the Indeterminate. But though Unity and Good were thus identical, he considered Unity as logically antecedent, or the subject — Good as logically consequent, or the predicate.24
23 Plato, Republic, vi. p. 508 E, vii. p. 517 A.
24 The account given by Aristotle of Plato’s doctrine of Ideas, as held by Plato in his later years, appears in various passages of the Metaphysica, and in the curious account repeated by Aristoxenus (who had often heard it from Aristotle — Ἀριστοτέλης ἀεὶ διηγεῖτο) of the ἀκρόασις or lecture delivered by Plato, De Bono. See Aristoxen. Harmon. ii. p. 30, Meibom. Compare the eighth chapter in this work, — Platonic Compositions Generally. Metaphys. N. 1091, b. 13.τῶν δὲ τὰς ἀκινήτους οὐσίας εἶναι λεγόντων (sc. Platonici) οἱ μέν φασιν αὐτὸ τὸ ἓν τὸ ἀγαθὸν αὐτὸ εἶναι· οὐσίαν μέντοι τὸ ἓν αὐτοῦ ᾤοντο εἶναι μάλιστα, which words are very clearly explained by Bonitz in the note to his Commentary, p. 586: also Metaphys. 987, b. 20, and Scholia, p. 551, b. 20, p. 567, b. 34, where the work of Aristotle, Περὶ Τὰγαθοῦ, is referred to: probably the memoranda taken down by Aristotle from Plato’s lecture on that subject, accompanied by notes of his own.
In Schol. p. 573, a. 18, it is stated that the astronomer Eudoxus was a hearer both of Plato and of Eukleides.
The account given by Zeller (Phil. der Griech. ii. p. 453, 2nd ed.) of this latter phase of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, applies exactly to that which we hear about the main doctrine of Eukleides. Zeller describes the Platonic doctrine as being “Eine Vermischung des ethischen Begriffes vom höchsten Gut, mit dem Metaphysischen des Absoluten: Der Begriff des Guten ist zunächst aus dem menschlichen Leben abstrahirt; er bezeichnet das, was dem Menschen zuträglich ist. So noch bei Sokrates. Plato verallgemeinert ihn nun zum Begriff des Absoluten; dabei spielt aber seine ursprüngliche Bedeutung noch fortwährend herein, und so entsteht die Unklarheit, dass weder der ethische noch der metaphysische Begriff des Guten rein gefasst wird.”
This remark is not less applicable to Eukleides than to Plato, both of them agreeing in the doctrine here criticised. Zeller says truly, that the attempt to identify Unum and Bonum produces perpetual confusion. The two notions are thoroughly distinct and independent. It ought not to be called (as he phrases it) “a generalization of Bonum”. There is no common property on which to found a generalization. It is a forced conjunction between two disparates.
Last doctrine of Plato nearly the same as that of Eukleides.
This last doctrine of Plato in his later years (which does not appear in the dialogues, but seems, as far as we can make out, to have been delivered substantially in his oral lectures, and is ascribed to him by Aristotle) was nearly coincident with that of Eukleides. Both held the identity of τὸ ἕν with τὸ ἀγαθόν. This one doctrine is all that we know about Eukleides: what consequences he derived from it, or whether any, we do not know. But Plato combined, with this transcendental Unum = Bonum, a transcendental indeterminate plurality: from which combination he considered his Ideas or Ideal Numbers to be derivatives.
Megaric succession of philosophers. Eleian or Eritrean succession.
Eukleides is said to have composed six dialogues, the titles of which alone remain. The scanty information which we possess respecting him relates altogether to his negative logical procedure. Whether he deduced any consequences from his positive doctrine of the Transcendental Ens, Unum, Bonum, we do not know: but he, as Zeno had been before him,25 was acute in exposing contradictions and difficulties in the positive doctrines of opponents. He was a citizen of Megara, where he is said to have harboured Plato and the other companions of Sokrates, when they retired for a time from Athens after the death of Sokrates. Living there as a teacher or debater on philosophy, he founded a school or succession of philosophers who were denominated Megarici. The title is as old as Aristotle, who both names them and criticises their doctrines.26 None of their compositions are preserved. The earliest who becomes known to us is Eubulides, the contemporary and opponent of Aristotle; next Ichthyas, Apollonius, Diodôrus Kronus, Stilpon, Alexinus, between 340-260 B.C.