5 Plato, Republ. ix. 588 C. Οἷαι μυθολογοῦνται παλαιαὶ γενέσθαι φύσεις, ἥ τε Χιμαίρας καὶ ἡ Σκύλλης καὶ Κερβέρου, καὶ ἄλλαι τινὲς συχναὶ λέγονται ξυμπεφυκυῖαι ἰδέαι πολλαὶ εἰς ἓν γενέσθαι … Περίπλασον δὴ αὐτοῖς ἔξωθεν ἑνὸς εἰκόνα, τὴν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ὥστε τῷ μὴ δυναμένῳ τὰ ἐντὸς ὁρᾷν, ἀλλὰ τὸ ἔξω μόνον ἔλυτρον ὁρῶντι, ἓν ζῶον φαίνεσθαι — ἄνθρωπον.
The real Plato was not merely a writer of dialogues, but also lecturer and president of a school. In this last important function he is scarcely at all known to us. Notes of his lectures taken by Aristotle.
Furthermore, if we intend to affirm anything about Plato as a whole, there is another fact which ought to be taken into account.6 We know him only from his dialogues, and from a few scraps of information. But Plato was not merely a composer of dialogues. He was lecturer, and chief of a school, besides. The presidency of that school, commencing about 386 B.C., and continued by him with great celebrity for the last half (nearly forty years) of his life, was his most important function. Among his contemporaries he must have exercised greater influence through his school than through his writings.7 Yet in this character of school-teacher and lecturer, he is almost unknown to us: for the few incidental allusions which have descended to us, through the Aristotelian commentators, only raise curiosity without satisfying it. The little information which we possess respecting Plato’s lectures, relates altogether to those which he delivered upon the Ipsum Bonum or Summum Bonum at some time after Aristotle became his pupil — that is, during the last eighteen years of Plato’s life. Aristotle and other hearers took notes of these lectures: Aristotle even composed an express work now lost (De Bono or De Philosophiâ), reporting with comments of his own these oral doctrines of Plato, together with the analogous doctrines of the Pythagoreans. We learn that Plato gave continuous lectures, dealing with the highest and most transcendental concepts (with the constituent elements or factors of the Platonic Ideas or Ideal Numbers: the first of these factors being The One — the second, The Indeterminate Dyad, or The Great and Little, the essentially indefinite), and that they were mystic and enigmatical, difficult to understand.8
6 Trendelenburg not only adopts Schleiermacher’s theory of a preconceived and systematic purpose connecting together all Plato’s dialogues, but even extends this purpose to Plato’s oral lectures: “Id pro certo habendum est. sicut prioribus dialogis quasi præeparat (Plato) posteriores, posterioribus evolvit priores — ita et in scholis continuasse dialogos; quæ reliquerit, absolvisse; atque omnibus ad summa principia perductis, intima quasi semina aperuisse”. (Trendelenburg, De Ideis et Numeris Platonis, p. 6.)
This opinion is surely not borne out — it seems even contradicted — by all the information which we possess (very scanty indeed) about the Platonic lectures. Plato delivered therein his Pythagorean doctrines, merging his Ideas in the Pythagorean numerical symbols: and Aristotle, far from considering this as a systematic and intended evolution of doctrine at first imperfectly unfolded, treats it as an additional perversion and confusion, introduced into a doctrine originally erroneous. In regard to the transition of Plato from the doctrine of Ideas to that of Ideal Numbers, see Aristotel. Metaphys. M. 1078, b. 9, 1080, a. 12 (with the commentary of Bonitz, pp. 539-541), A. 987, b. 20.
M. Boeckh, too, accounts for the obscure and enigmatical speaking of Plato in various dialogues, by supposing that he cleared up all the difficulties in his oral lectures. “Platon deutet nur an — spricht meinethalben räthselhaft (in den Gesetzen); aber gerade so räthselhaft spricht er von diesen Sachen im Timaeus: er pflegt mathematische Theoreme nur anzudeuten, nicht zu entwickeln: ich glaube, weil er sie in den Vorträgen ausführte,” &c. (Untersuchungen über das Kosmische System des Platon, p. 50.)
This may be true about the mathematical theorems; but I confess that I see no proof of it. Though Plato admits that his doctrine in the Timæus is ἀήθης λόγος, yet he expressly intimates that the hearers are instructed persons, able to follow him (Timæus, p. 53 C.).
7 M. Renan, in his work, ‘Averroès et l’Averroïsme,’ pp. 257-325, remarks that several of the Italian professors of philosophy, at Padua and other universities, exercised far greater influence through their lectures than through their published works. He says (p. 325-6) respecting Cremonini (Professor at Padua, 1590-1620):—“Il a été jusqu’ici apprécié d’une manière fort incomplète par les historiens de la philosophie. On ne l’a jugé que par ses écrits imprimés, qui ne sont que des dissertations de peu d’importance, et ne peuvent en aucune manière faire comprendre la renommée colossale à laquelle il parvint. Cremonini n’est qu’un professeur: ses cours sont sa véritable philosophie. Aussi, tandis que ses écrits imprimés se vendaient fort mal, les rédactions de ses leçons se répandaient dans toute l’Italie et même au delà des monts. On sait que les élèves préfèrent souvent aux textes imprimés, les cahiers qu’ils ont ainsi recueillis de la bouche de leurs professeurs.… En général, c’est dans les cahiers, beaucoup plus que dans les sources imprimées, qu’il faut étudier l’école de Padoue. Pour Cremonini, cette tâche est facile; car les copies de ses cours sont innombrables dans le nord de l’Italie.”
8 Aristotle (Physic. iv. p. 209, b. 34) alludes to τὰ λεγόμενα ἄγραφα δόγματα of Plato, and their discordance on one point with the Timæus.
Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. f. 104 b. p. 362, a. 11, Brandis. Ἀρχὰς γὰρ καὶ τῶν αἰσθητῶν τὸ ἓν καὶ τὴν ἀόριστόν φασι δυάδα λέγειν τὸν Πλάτωνα. Τὴν δὲ ἀόριστον δυάδα καὶ ἐν τοῖς νοητοῖς τιθεὶς ἄπειρον εἶναι ἔλεγεν, καὶ τὸ μέγα δὲ καὶ τὸ μικρὸν ἀρχὰς τιθεὶς ἄπειρα εἶναι ἔλεγεν ἐν τοῖς περὶ Τἀγαθοῦ λόγοις, οἷς ὁ Ἀριστοτέλης καὶ Ἡρακλείδης καὶ Ἐστιαῖος καὶ ἄλλοι τοῦ Πλάτωνος ἑταῖροι παραγενόμενοι ἀνεγράψαντο τὰ ῥηθέντα, αἰνιγματωδῶς ὡς ἐῤῥήθη· Πορφύριος δὲ διαρθροῦν αὐτὰ ἐπαγγελλόμενος τάδε περὶ αὐτῶν γέγραφεν ἐν τῳ Φιλήβῳ. Compare another passage of the same Scholia, p. 334, b. 28, p. 371, b. 26. Τὰς ἀγράφους συνουσίας τοῦ Πλάτωνος αὐτὸς ὁ Ἀριστοτέλης ἀπεγράψατο. 372, a. Τὸ μεθεκτικὸν ἐν μὲν ταῖς περὶ Τἀγαθου συνουσίαις μέγα καὶ μικρὸν ἐκάλει, ἐν δὲ τῷ Τιμαίῳ ὕλην, ἢν καὶ χώραν καὶ τόπον ὠνόμαζε. Comp 371, a. 5, and the two extracts from Simplikius, cited by Zeller, De Hermodoro, pp. 20, 21. By ἄγραφα δόγματα, or ἄγραφοι συνούσιαι, we are to understand opinions or colloquies not written down (or not communicated to others as writings) by Plato himself: thus distinguished from his written dialogues. Aristotle, in the treatise, De Animâ, i. 2, p. 404, b. 18, refers to ἐν τοῖς περὶ Φιλοσοφίας: which Simplikius thus explains περὶ φιλοσοφίας νῦν λέγει τὰ περὶ τοῦ Ἀγαθοῦ αὐτῷ ἐκ τῆς Πλάτωνος ἀναγεγραμμένα συνουσίας, ἐν οἷς ἱστορεῖ τάς τε Πυθαγορείους καὶ Πλατωνικὰς περὶ τῶν ὄντων δόξας. Philoponus reports the same thing: see Trendelenburg’s Comm. on De Animâ, p. 226. Compare Alexand. ad Aristot. Met. A. 992, p. 581, a. 2, Schol. Brandis.
Plato’s lectures De Bono obscure and transcendental. Effect which they produced on the auditors.
One remarkable observation, made upon them by Aristotle, has been transmitted to us.9 There were lectures announced to be, On the Supreme Good. Most of those who came to hear, expected that Plato would enumerate and compare the various matters usually considered good — i.e. health, strength, beauty, genius, wealth, power, &c. But these hearers were altogether astonished at what they really heard: for Plato omitting the topics expected, descanted only upon arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy; and told them that The Good was identical with The One (as contrasted with the Infinite or Indeterminate which was Evil).
9 Aristoxenus, Harmon. ii. p. 30. Καθάπερ Ἀριστοτέλης ἀεὶ διηγεῖτο τοὺς πλείστους τῶν ἀκουσάντων παρὰ Πλάτωνος τὴν περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἀκρόασιν παθεῖν· προσεῖναι γὰρ ἕκαστον ὑπολαμβάνοντα λήψεσθαί τι τῶν νομιζομένων ἀνθρωπίνων ἀγαθῶν· — ὅτε δὲ φανείησαν οἱ λόγοι περὶ μαθημάτων καὶ ἀριθμῶν καὶ γεωμετρίας καὶ ἀστρολογίας, καὶ τὸ πέρας ὅτι ἀγαθόν ἐστιν ἕν, παντελῶς οἶμαι παράδοξον ἐφαίνετο αὐτοῖς.
Compare Themistius, Orat. xxi. p. 245 D. Proklus also alludes to this story, and to the fact that most of the πολὺς καὶ παντοῖος ὄχλος, who were attracted to Plato’s ἀκρόασις περὶ Τἀγαθοῦ, were disappointed or unable to understand him, and went away. (Proklus ad Platon. Parmen. p. 92, Cousin. 528, Stallb.)
They were delivered to miscellaneous auditors. They coincide mainly with what Aristotle states about the Platonic Ideas.
We see farther from this remark:—First, that Plato’s lectures were often above what his auditors could appreciate — a fact which we learn from other allusions also: Next, that they were not confined to a select body of advanced pupils, who had been worked up by special training into a state fit for comprehending them.10 Had such been the case, the surprise which Aristotle mentions could never have been felt. And we see farther, that the transcendental doctrine delivered in the lectures De Bono (though we find partial analogies to it in Philêbus, Epinomis, and parts of Republic) coincides more with what Aristotle states and comments upon as Platonic doctrine, than with any reasonings which we find in the Platonic dialogues. It represents the latest phase of Platonism: when the Ideas originally conceived by him as Entities in themselves, had become merged or identified in his mind with the Pythagorean numbers or symbols.
10 Respecting Plato’s lectures, see Brandis (Gesch. der Griech.-Röm. Phil. vol. ii. p. 180 seq., 306-319); also Trendelenburg, Platonis De Ideis et Numeris Doctrina, pp. 3, 4, seq.
Brandis, though he admits that Plato’s lectures were continuous discourses, thinks that they were intermingled with discussion and debate: which may have been the case, though there is no proof of it. But Schleiermacher goes further, and says (Einleitung. p. 18), “Any one who can think that Plato in these oral Vorträgen employed the Sophistical method of long speeches, shows such an ignorance as to forfeit all right of speaking about Plato”. Now the passage from Aristoxenus, given in the preceding note, is our only testimony; and it distinctly indicates a continuous lecture to an unprepared auditory, just as Protagoras or Prodikus might have given. K. F. Hermann protests, with good reason, against Schleiermacher’s opinion. (Ueber Plato’s schriftstellerische Motive, p. 289.)
The confident declaration just produced from Schleiermacher illustrates the unsound basis on which he and various other Platonic critics proceed. They find, in some dialogues of Plato, a strong opinion proclaimed, that continuous discourse is useless for the purpose of instruction. This was a point of view which, at the time when he composed these dialogues, he considered to be of importance, and desired to enforce. But we are not warranted in concluding that he must always have held the same conviction throughout his long philosophical life, and in rejecting as un-platonic all statements and all compositions which imply an opposite belief. We cannot with reason bind down Plato to a persistence in one and the same type of compositions.
The lectures De Bono may perhaps have been more transcendental than Plato’s other lectures.
This statement of Aristotle, alike interesting and unquestionable, attests the mysticism and obscurity which pervaded Plato’s doctrine in his later years. But whether this lecture on The Good is to be taken as a fair specimen of Plato’s lecturing generally, and from the time when he first began to lecture, we may perhaps doubt:11 since we know that as a lecturer and converser he acquired extraordinary ascendency over ardent youth. We see this by the remarkable instance of Dion.12
11 Themistius says (Orat. xxi. p. 245 D) that Plato sometimes lectured in the Peiræus, and that a crowd then collected to hear him, not merely from the city, but also from the country around: if he lectured De Bono, however, the ordinary hearers became tired and dispersed, leaving only τοὺς συνήθεις ὁμιλητάς.
It appears that Plato in his lectures delivered theories on the principles of geometry. He denied the reality of geometrical points — or at least admitted them only as hypotheses for geometrical reasoning. He maintained that what others called a point ought to be called “an indivisible line”. Xenokrates maintained the same doctrine after him. Aristotle controverts it (see Metaphys. A., 992, b. 20). Aristotle’s words citing Plato’s opinion (τούτῳ μὲν οὖν τῷ γένει καὶ διεμάχετο Πλάτων ὡς ὄντι γεωμετρικῷ δόγματι, ἀλλ’ ἐκάλει ἀρχὴν γραμμῆς· τοῦτο δὲ πολλάκις ἐτίθει τὰς ἀτόμους γραμμάς) must be referred to Plato’s oral lectures; no such opinion occurs in the dialogues. This is the opinion both of Bonitz and Schwegler in their comments on the passage: also of Trendelenburg, De Ideis et Numeris Platonis, p. 66. That geometry and arithmetic were matters of study and reflection both to Plato himself and to many of his pupils in the Academy, appears certain; and perhaps Plato may have had an interior circle of pupils, to which he applied the well-known exclusion — μηδεὶς ἀγεωμέτρητος εἰσίτω. But we cannot make out clearly what was Plato’s own proficiency, or what improvements he may have introduced, in geometry, nor what there is to justify the comparison made by Montucla between Plato and Descartes. In the narrative respecting the Delian problem — the duplication of the cube — Archytas, Menæchmus, and Eudoxus, appear as the inventors of solutions, Plato as the superior who prescribes and criticises (see the letter and epigram of Eratosthenes: Bernhardy, Eratosthenica, pp. 176-184). The three are said to have been blamed by Plato for substituting instrumental measurement in place of geometrical proof (Plutarch, Problem. Sympos. viii. 2, pp. 718, 719; Plutarch, Vit. Marcelli, c. 14). The geometrical construction of the Κόσμος, which Plato gives us in the Timæus, seems borrowed from the Pythagoreans, though applied probably in a way peculiar to himself (see Finger, De Primordiis Geometriæ ap. Græcos, p. 38, Heidelb. 1831).
12 See Epist. vii. pp. 327, 328.
Plato’s Epistles — in them only he speaks in his own person.
The only occasions on which we have experience of Plato as speaking in his own person, and addressing himself to definite individuals, are presented by his few Epistles; all of them (as I have before remarked) written after he he was considerably above sixty years of age, and nearly all addressed to Sicilians or Italians — Dionysius II., Dion, the friends of Dion after the death of the latter, and Archytas.13 In so far as these letters bear upon Plato’s manner of lecturing or teaching, they go to attest, first, his opinion that direct written exposition was useless for conveying real instruction to the reader — next, his reluctance to publish any such exposition under his own name, and carrying with it his responsibility. When asked for exposition, he writes intentionally with mystery, so that ordinary persons cannot understand.
13 Of the thirteen Platonic Epistles, Ep. 2, 3, 13, are addressed to the second or younger Dionysius; Ep. 4 to Dion; Ep. 7, 8, to the friends and relatives of Dion after Dion’s death. The 13th Epistle appears to be the earliest of all, being seemingly written after the first voyage of Plato to visit Dionysius II. at Syracuse, in 367-366 B.C., and before his second visit to the same place and person, about 363-362 B.C. Epistles 2 and 3 were written after his return from that second visit, in 360 B.C., and prior to the expedition of Dion against Dionysius in 357 B.C. Epistle 4 was written to Dion shortly after Dion’s victorious career at Syracuse, about 355 B.C. Epistles 7 and 8 were written not long after the murder of Dion in 354 B.C. The first in order, among the Platonic Epistles, is not written by Plato, but by Dion, addressed to Dionysius, shortly after the latter had sent Dion away from Syracuse. The fifth is addressed by Plato to the Macedonian prince Perdikkas. The sixth, to Hermeias of Atarneus, Erastus, and Koriskus. The ninth and twelfth, to Archytas of Tarentum. The tenth, to Aristodôrus. The eleventh, to Laodamas. I confess that I see nothing in these letters which compels me to depart from the judgment of the ancient critics, who unanimously acknowledged them as genuine. I do not think myself competent to determine à priori what the style of Plato’s letters must have been; what topics he must have touched upon, and what topics he could not have touched upon. I have no difficulty in believing that Plato, writing a letter on philosophy, may have expressed himself with as much mysticism and obscurity as we now read in Epist. 2 and 7. Nor does it surprise me to find Plato (in Epist. 13) alluding to details which critics, who look upon him altogether as a spiritual person, disallow as mean and unworthy. His recommendation of the geometer, Helikon of Kyzikus, to Dionysius and Archytas, is to me interesting: to make known the theorems of Eudoxus, through the medium of Helikon, to Archytas, was no small service to geometry in those days. I have an interest in learning how Plato employed the money given to him by Dionysius and other friends: that he sent to Dionysius a statue of Apollo by a good Athenian sculptor named Leochares (this sculptor executed a bust of Isokrates also, Plut. Vit. x. Orat. p. 838); and another statue by the same sculptor for the wife of Dionysius, in gratitude for the care which she had taken of him (Plato) when sick at Syracuse; that he spent the money of Dionysius partly in discharging his own public taxes and liturgies at Athens, partly in providing dowries for poor maidens among his friends; that he was so beset by applications, which he could not refuse, for letters of recommendation to Dionysius, as to compel him to signify, by a private mark, to Dionysius, which among the letters he wished to be most attended to. “These latter” (he says) “I shall begin with θεὸς (sing. number), the others I shall begin with θεοὶ (plural).” (Epist. xiii. 361, 362, 363.)
Intentional obscurity of his Epistles in reference to philosophical doctrine.
Knowing as we do that he had largely imbued himself with the tenets of the Pythagoreans (who designedly adopted a symbolical manner of speaking — published no writings — for Philolaus is cited as an exception to their rule — and did not care to be understood, except by their own adepts after a long apprenticeship) we cannot be surprised to find Plato holding a language very similar. He declares that the highest principles of his philosophy could not be set forth in writing so as to be intelligible to ordinary persons: that they could only be apprehended by a few privileged recipients, through an illumination kindled in the mind by multiplied debates and much mental effort: that such illumination was always preceded by a painful feeling of want, usually long-continued, sometimes lasting for nearly thirty years, and exchanged at length for relief at some unexpected moment.14
14 Plato, Epist. ii. pp. 313, 314.
Plato during his second visit had had one conversation, and only one, with Dionysius respecting the higher mysteries of philosophy. He had impressed upon Dionysius the prodigious labour and difficulty of attaining truth upon these matters. The despot professed to thirst ardently for philosophy, and the conversation turned upon the Natura Primi — upon the first and highest principles of Nature.15 Dionysius, after this conversation with Plato, intimated that he had already conceived in his own mind the solution of these difficulties, and the truth upon philosophy in its greatest mysteries. Upon which Plato expressed his satisfaction that such was the case,16 so as to relieve him from the necessity of farther explanations, though the like had never happened to him with any previous hearer.
15 Plat. Epist. ii. 312: περὶ τῆς τοῦ πρώτον φύσεως. Epist. vii. 344: τῶν περὶ φύσεως ἄκρων καὶ πρώτων. — One conversation only — Epist. vii. 345.
16 Plato, Epist. ii. 313 B. Plato asserts the same about Dionysius in Epist. vii. 341 B.
Letters of Plato to Dionysius II. about philosophy. His anxiety to confine philosophy to discussion among select and prepared minds.
But Dionysius soon found that he could not preserve the explanation in his mind, after Plato’s departure — that difficulties again crowded upon him — and that it was necessary to send a confidential messenger to Athens to entreat farther elucidations. In reply, Plato sends back by the messenger what is now numbered as the second of his Epistles. He writes avowedly in enigmatical language, so that, if the letter be lost, the finder will not be able to understand it; and he enjoins Dionysius to burn it after frequent perusal.17 He expresses his hope that when Dionysius has debated the matter often with the best minds near him, the clouds will clear away of themselves, and the moment of illumination will supervene.18 He especially warns Dionysius against talking about these matters to unschooled men, who will be sure to laugh at them; though by minds properly prepared, they will be received with the most fervent welcome.19 He affirms that Dionysius is much superior in philosophical debate to his companions; who were overcome in debate with him, not because they suffered themselves designedly to be overcome (out of flattery towards the despot, as some ill-natured persons alleged), but because they could not defend themselves against the Elenchus as applied by Dionysius.20 Lastly, Plato advises Dionysius to write down nothing, since what has once been written will be sure to disappear from the memory; but to trust altogether to learning by heart, meditation, and repeated debate, as a guarantee for retention in his mind. “It is for that reason” (Plato says)21 “that I have never myself written anything upon these subjects. There neither is, nor shall there ever be, any treatise of Plato. The opinions called by the name of Plato are those of Sokrates, in his days of youthful vigour and glory.”
17 Plat. Epist. ii. 312 E: φραστέον δή σοι δι’ αἰνιγμῶν ἵν ἄν τι ἡ δέλτος ἢ πόντος ἢ γῆς ἐν πτυχαῖς πάθῃ, ὁ ἀναγνοὺς μὴ γνῷ. 314 C: ἔῤῥωσο καὶ πείθου, καὶ τὴν ἐπιστολὴν ταύτην νῦν πρῶτον πολλάκις ἀναγνοὺς κατάκαυσον.
Proklus, in his Commentary on the Timæus (pp. 40, 41), remarks the fondness of Plato for τὸ αἰνιγματωδές.
18 Plat. Epist. ii. 313 D.
19 Plat. Epist. ii. 314 A. εὐλαβοῦ μέντοι μή ποτε ἐκπέσῃ ταῦτα εἰς ἀνθρώπους ἀπαιδεύτους.
20 Plat. Epist. ii. 314 D.
21 Plat. Epist. ii. 314 C. μεγίστη δὲ φυλακὴ τὸ μὴ γράφειν ἀλλ’ ἐκμανθάνειν· οὐ γὰρ ἐστι τὰ γραφέντα μὴ οὐκ ἐκπεσεῖν. διὰ ταῦτα οὐδὲν πώποτ’ ἐγὼ περὶ τούτων γέγραφα, οὔδ’ ἔστι σύγγραμμα Πλάτωνος οὐδὲν οὔδ’ ἔσται· τὰ δὲ νῦν λεγόμενα, Σωκράτους ἐστὶ καλοῦ καὶ νέου γεγονότος.
“Addamus ad superiora” (says Wesseling, Epist. ad Venemam, p. 41, Utrecht, 1748), “Platonem videri semper voluisse, dialogos, in quibus de Philosophiâ, deque Republicâ, atque ejus Legibus, inter confabulantes actum fuit, non sui ingenii sed Socratici, fœtus esse”.
He refuses to furnish any written, authoritative exposition of his own philosophical doctrine.
Such is the language addressed by Plato to the younger Dionysius, in a letter written seemingly between 362-357 B.C. In another letter, written about ten years afterwards (353-352 B.C.) to the friends of Dion (after Dion’s death), he expresses the like repugnance to the idea of furnishing any written authoritative exposition of his principal doctrines. “There never shall be any expository treatise of mine upon them” (he declares). “Others have tried, Dionysius among the number, to write them down; but they do not know what they attempt. I could myself do this better than any one, and I should consider it the proudest deed in my life, as well as a signal benefit to mankind, to bring forward an exposition of Nature luminous to all.22 But I think the attempt would be nowise beneficial, except to a few, who require only slight direction to enable them to find it for themselves: to most persons it would do no good, but would only fill them with empty conceit of knowledge, and with contempt for others.23 These matters cannot be communicated in words as other sciences are. Out of repeated debates on them, and much social intercourse, there is kindled suddenly a light in the mind, as from fire bursting forth, which, when once generated, keeps itself alive.”24
22 Plato, Epist. vii. 341, B, C. τί τούτου κάλλιον ἐπέπρακτ’ ἂν ἡμῖν ἐν τῷ βίῳ ἢ τοῖς τε ἀνθρώποισι μέγα ὄφελος γράψαι καὶ τὴν φύσιν εἰς φῶς πᾶσι προαγαγεῖν;
23 Plat. Epist. vii. 341 E.
24 Plato, Epist. vii. 341 C. οὔκουν ἐμόν γε περὶ αὐτῶν ἔστι σύγγραμμα οὐδε μή ποτε γένηται· ῥητὸν γὰρ οὐδαμῶς ἐστιν ὡς ἄλλα μαθήματα, ἀλλ’ ἐκ πολλῆς συνουσίας γιγνομένης περὶ τὸ πρᾶγμα αὐτὸ καὶ τοῦ συζῇν, ἐξαίφνης, οἷον ἀπὸ πυρὸς πηδήσαντος ἐξαφθὲν φῶς, ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ γενόμενον αὐτὸ ἑαυτὸ ἤδη τρέφει.
This sentence, as a remarkable one, I have translated literally in the text: that which precedes is given only in substance.
We see in the Republic that Sokrates, when questioned by Glaukon, and urged emphatically to give some solution respecting ἡ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἰδέα and ἡ τοῦ διαλέγεσθαι δύναμις, answers only by an evasion or a metaphor (Republic, vi. 506 E, vii. 533 A). Now these are much the same points as what are signified in the letter to Dionysius, under the terms τὰ πρῶτα καὶ ἄκρα τῆς φύσεως — ἡ τοῦ πρώτου φύσις (312 E): as to which Plato, when questioned, replies in a mystic and unintelligible way.
He illustrates his doctrine by the successive stages of geometrical teaching. Difficulty to avoid the creeping in of error at each of these stages.
Plato then proceeds to give an example from geometry, illustrating the uselessness both of writing and of direct exposition. In acquiring a knowledge of the circle, he distinguishes five successive stages. 1. The Name. 2. The Definition, a proposition composed of nouns and verbs. 3. The Diagram. 4. Knowledge, Intelligence, True Opinion, Νοῦς. 5. The Noumenon — Αὐτὸ-Κύκλος — ideal or intelligible circle, the only true object of knowledge.25 The fourth stage is a purely mental result, not capable of being exposed either in words or figure: it presupposes the three first, but is something distinct from them; and it is the only mental condition immediately cognate and similar to the fifth stage, or the self-existent idea.26
25 Plato, Epist. vii. 342 A, B. The geometrical illustration which follows is intended merely as an illustration, of general principles which Plato asserts to be true about all other enquiries, physical or ethical.
26 Plat. Epist. vii. 342 C. ὡς δὲ ἓν τοῦτο αὖ πᾶν θετέον, οὐκ ἐν φωναῖς οὐδ’ ἐν σωμάτων σχήμασιν ἀλλ’ ἐν ψυχαῖς ἐνόν, ᾧ δῆλον ἕτερον τε ὂν αὐτοῦ τοῦ κύκλου τῆς φύσεως, τῶν τε ἔμπροσθεν λεχθέντων τριῶν. τούτων δὲ ἐγγύτατα μὲν ξυγγενείᾳ καὶ ὁμοιότητι, τοῦ πέμπτου (i. e. τοῦ Αὐτὸ-κύκλου) νοῦς (the fourth stage) πεπλησίακε, τἄλλα δὲ πλέον ἀπέχει.
In Plato’s reckoning, ὁ νοῦς is counted as the fourth, in the ascending scale, from which we ascend to the fifth, τὸ νοούμενον, or νοητόν. Ὁ νοῦς and τὸ νοητὸν are cognate or homogeneous — according to a principle often insisted on in ancient metaphysics — like must be known by like. (Aristot. De Animâ, i. 2, 404, b. 15.)
Now in all three first stages (Plato says) there is great liability to error and confusion. The name is unavoidably equivocal, uncertain, fluctuating: the definition is open to the same reproach, and often gives special and accidental properties along with the universal and essential, or instead of them: the diagram cannot exhibit the essential without some variety of the accidental, nor without some properties even contrary to reality, since any circle which you draw, instead of touching a straight line in one point alone, will be sure to touch it in several points.27 Accordingly no intelligent man will embody the pure concepts of his mind in fixed representation, either by words or by figures.28 If we do this, we have the quid or essence, which we are searching for, inextricably perplexed by accompaniments of the quale or accidents, which we are not searching for.29 We acquire only a confused cognition, exposing us to be puzzled, confuted, and humiliated, by an acute cross-examiner, when he questions us on the four stages which we have gone through to attain it.30 Such confusion does not arise from any fault in the mind, but from the defects inherent in each of the four stages of progress. It is only by painful effort, when each of these is naturally good — when the mind itself also is naturally good, and when it has gone through all the stages up and down, dwelling upon each — that true knowledge can be acquired.31 Persons whose minds are naturally bad, or have become corrupt, morally or intellectually, cannot be taught to see even by Lynkeus himself. In a word, if the mind itself be not cognate to the matter studied, no quickness in learning nor force of memory will suffice. He who is a quick learner and retentive, but not cognate or congenial with just or honourable things — he who, though cognate and congenial, is stupid in learning or forgetful — will never effectually learn the truth about virtue or wickedness.32 These can only be learnt along with truth and falsehood as it concerns entity generally, by long practice and much time.33 It is only with difficulty, — after continued friction, one against another, of all the four intellectual helps, names and definitions, acts of sight and sense, — after application of the Elenchus by repeated question and answer, in a friendly temper and without spite — it is only after all these preliminaries, that cognition and intelligence shine out with as much intensity as human power admits.34
27 Plat. Epist. vii. 343 B. This illustrates what is said in the Republic about the geometrical ὑποθέσεις (vi. 510 E, 511 A; vii. 533 B.)
28 Plat. Epist. vii. 343 A. ὧν ἕνεκα νοῦν ἔχων οὐδεὶς τολμήσει ποτὲ εἰς αὐτὸ τιθέναι τὰ νενοημένα, καὶ ταῦτα εἰς ἀμετακίνητον, ὃ δὴ πάσχει τὰ γεγραμμένα τύποις.