Remarks. Sokrates does not claim for Good the unity of an Idea, but a quasi-unity of analogy.

Sokrates concludes his task, in the debate with Protarchus, by describing Bonum or the Supreme Good as a complex aggregate of five distinct elements, in a graduated scale of affinity to it and contributing to its composition in a greater or less degree according to the order in which they are placed. Plato does not intimate that these five complete the catalogue; but that after the fifth degree, the affinity becomes too feeble to deserve notice.90 According to this view, no Idea of Good, in the strict Platonic sense, is affirmed. Good has not the complete unity of an Idea, but only the quasi-unity of analogy between its diverse elements; which are attached by different threads to the same root, with an order of priority and posteriority.91

Discussions of the time about Bonum. Extreme absolute view, maintained by Eukleides: extreme relative by the Xenophontic Sokrates. Plato here blends the two in part; an Eclectic doctrine.

In the discussions about Bonum, there existed among the contemporaries of Plato a great divergence of opinions. Eukleides of Megara represents the extreme absolute, ontological, or objective view: Sokrates (I mean the historical Sokrates, as reported by Xenophon) enunciated very distinctly the relative or subjective view. “Good (said Eukleides) is the One: the only real, eternal, omnipresent Ens — always the same or like itself — called sometimes Good, sometimes Intelligence, and by various other names: the opposite of Good has no real existence, but only a temporary, phenomenal, relative, existence.” On the other hand, the Xenophontic Sokrates affirmed — “The Good and The Beautiful have no objective unity at all; they include a variety of items altogether dissimilar to each other, yet each having reference to some human want or desire: sometimes relieving or preventing pain, sometimes conferring pleasure. That which neither contributes to relieve any pain or want, nor to confer pleasure, is not Good at all.”92 In the Philêbus, Plato borrows in part from both of these points of view, though inclining much more to the first than to the last. He produces a new eclectic doctrine, comprising something from both, and intended to harmonise both; announced as applying at once to Man, to Animals, to Plants, and to the Universe.93

Inconvenience of his method, blending Ontology with Ethics.

Unfortunately, the result has not corresponded to his intentions. If we turn to the close of the dialogue, we find that the principal elements which he assigns as explanatory of Good, and the relation in which they stand to each other, stand as much in need of explanation as Good itself. If we follow the course of the dialogue, we are frequently embarrassed by the language, because he is seeking for phrases applicable at once to the Kosmos and to Man: or because he passes from one to the other, under the assumption of real analogy between them. The extreme generalities of Logic or Ontology, upon which Sokrates here dwells — the Determinant and Indeterminate, the Cause, &c. — do not conduct us to the attainment of Good as he himself defines it — That which is desired by, and will give full satisfaction to, all men, animals, and plants. The fault appears to me to lie in the very scheme of the dialogue. Attempts to discuss Ontology and Ethics in one and the same piece of reasoning, instead of elucidating both, only serve to darken both. Aristotle has already made a similar remark: and it is after reading the Philêbus that we feel most distinctly the value of his comments on Plato in the first book of the Nikomachean Ethics. Aristotle has discussed Ontology in the Metaphysica and in other treatises: but he proclaims explicitly the necessity of discussing Ethics upon their own principles: looking at what is good for man, and what is attainable by man.94 We find in the Philêbus many just reflections upon pleasure and its varieties: but these might have been better and more clearly established, without any appeal to the cosmical dogmas. The parallelism between Man and the Kosmos is overstrained and inconclusive, like the parallelism in the Republic between the collective commonwealth and the individual citizen.

Comparison of Man to the Kosmos, which has reason, but no emotion, is unnecessary and confusing.

Moreover, when Plato, to prove the conclusion that Intelligence and Reason are the governing attributes of man’s mind, enunciates as his premiss that Intelligence and Reason are the governing attributes in the Kosmos95 — the premiss introduced is more debateable than the conclusion; and would (as he himself intimates) be contested by those against whose opposition he was arguing. In fact, the same proposition (That Reason and Intelligence are the dominant and controlling attributes of man, Passion and Appetite the subordinate) is assumed without any proof by Sokrates, both in the Protagoras and in the Republic. The Kosmos (in Plato’s view) has reason and intelligence, but experiences no emotion either painful or pleasurable: the rational nature of man is thus common to him with the Kosmos, his emotional nature is not so. That the mind of each individual man was an emanation from the all-pervading mind of the Kosmos or universe, and his body a fragmentary portion of the four elements composing the cosmical body — these are propositions which had been laid down by Sokrates, as well as by Philolaus and other Pythagoreans (perhaps by Pythagoras himself) before the time of Plato.96 Not only that doctrine, but also the analysis of the Kosmos into certain abstract constituent principia — (the Finient or Determinant — and the Infinite or Indeterminate) — this too seems to have been borrowed by Plato from Philolaus.97

Plato borrows from the Pythagoreans, but enlarges their doctrine. Importance of his views in dwelling upon systematic classification.

But here in the Philêbus, that analysis appears expanded into a larger scheme going beyond Philolaus or the Pythagoreans: viz. the recognition of a graduated scale of limits, or a definite number of species and sub-species — intermediate between the One or Highest Genus, and the Infinite Many or Individuals — and descending by successive stages of limitation from the Highest to the Lowest. What is thus described, is the general framework of systematic logical classification, deliberately contrived, and founded upon known attributes, common as well as differential. It is prescribed as essential to all real cognition; if we conceive only the highest Genus or generic name as comprehending an infinity of diverse particulars, we have no real cognition, until we can assign the intermediate stages of specification by which we descend from one to the other.98 The step here made by Plato, under the stimulus of the Sokratic dialectic, from the Pythagorean doctrine of Finient and Infinite to the idea of gradual, systematic, logical division and subdivision, is one very important in the history of science. He lays as much stress upon the searching out of the intermediate species, as Bacon does upon the Axiomata Media of scientific enquiry.99

Classification broadly enunciated, and strongly recommended — yet feebly applied — in this dialogue.

Though there are several other passages of the Platonic dialogues in which the method of logical division is inculcated, there is none (I think) in which it is prescribed so formally, or enunciated with such comprehensive generality, as this before us in the Philêbus. Yet the method, after being emphatically announced, is but feebly and partially applied, in the distinction of different species, both of pleasure and of cognition.100 The announcement would come more suitably, as a preface to the Sophistês and Politikus: wherein the process is applied to given subjects in great detail, and at a length which some critics consider excessive: and wherein moreover the particular enquiry is expressly proclaimed as intended to teach as well as to exemplify the general method.101

What is the Good? Discussed both in Philêbus and in Republic. Comparison.

The same question as that which is here discussed in the Philêbus, is also started in the sixth book of the Republic. It is worth while to compare the different handling, here and there. “Whatever else we possess (says Sokrates in the Republic), and whatever else we may know is of no value, unless we also possess and know Good. In the opinion of most persons, Pleasure is The Good: in the opinion of accomplished and philosophical men, intelligence (φρόνησις) is the Good. But when we ask Intelligence, of what? these philosophers cannot inform us: they end by telling us, ridiculously enough, Intelligence of The Good. Thus, while blaming us for not knowing what The Good is, they make an answer which implies that we do already know it: in saying, Intelligence of the Good, they of course presume that we know what they mean by the word. Then again, those who pronounce Pleasure to be the Good, are not less involved in error; since they are forced to admit that some Pleasures are Evil; thus making Good and Evil to be the same. It is plain therefore that there are many and grave disputes what The Good is.”102

Mistake of talking about Bonum confidently, as if it were known, while it is subject of constant dispute. Plato himself wavers about it; gives different explanations, and sometimes professes ignorance, sometimes talks about it confidently.

In this passage of the Republic Plato points out that Intelligence cannot be understood, except as determined by or referring to some Object or End: and that those who tendered Intelligence per se for an explanation of The Good (as Sokrates does in the Philêbus), assumed as known the very point in dispute which they professed to explain. This is an important remark in regard to ethical discussions: and it were to be wished that Plato had himself avoided the mistake which he here blames in others. The Platonic Sokrates frequently tells us that he does not know what Good is. In the sixth Book of the Republic, having come to a point where his argument required him to furnish a positive explanation of it, he expressly declines the obligation and makes his escape amidst the clouds of metaphor.103 In the Protagoras, he pronounces Good to be identical with pleasure and avoidance of pain, in the largest sense and under the supervision of calculating Intelligence.104 In the second Book of the Republic, we find what is substantially the same explanation as that of the Protagoras, given (though in a more enlarged and analytical manner) by Glaukon and assented to by Sokrates; to the effect that Good is tripartite,105 viz.: 1. That which we desire for itself, without any reference to consequences — e. g., enjoyment and the innocuous pleasures. 2. That which we desire on a double account, both for itself and by reason of its consequences — e. g., good health, eyesight, intelligence, &c. 3. That which we do not desire, perhaps even shun, for itself: but which we desire, or at least accept, by reason of its consequences — such as gymnastics, medical treatment, discipline, &c. Again, in the Gorgias and elsewhere, Plato seems to confine the definition of Good to the two last of these three heads, rejecting the first: for he distinguishes pointedly the Good from the Pleasurable. Yet while thus wavering in his conception of the term, Plato often admits it into the discussions as if it were not merely familiar, but clear and well-understood by every one.

Plato lays down tests by which Bonum may be determined: but the answer in the Philêbus does not satisfy those tests.

In the present dialogue, Plato lays down certain characteristic marks whereby The Supreme Good may be known. These marks are subjective — relative to the feelings and appreciation of sentient beings — to all mankind, and even to animals and plants. Good is explicitly defined by the property of conferring happiness. The Good is declared to be “that habit and disposition of mind which has power to confer on all men a happy life”:106 it is perfect and all sufficient: every creature that knows Good, desires and hunts after it, demanding nothing farther when it is attained, and caring for nothing else except what is attained along with it:107 it is the object of choice for all plants and animals, and if any one prefers any thing else, he only does so through ignorance or from some untoward necessity:108 it is most delightful and agreeable to all.109 This is what Plato tells us as to the characteristic attributes of Good. And the test which Sokrates applies, to determine whether Pleasure does or does not correspond with these attributes, is an appeal to individual choice or judgment. “Would you choose? Would any one be satisfied?” Though this appeal ought by the conditions of the problem to be made to mankind generally, and is actually made to Protarchus as one specimen of them — yet Sokrates says at the end of the dialogue that all except philosophers choose wrong, being too ignorant or misguided to choose aright. Now it is certain that what these philosophers choose, will not satisfy the aspirations of all other persons besides. It may be Good, in reference to the philosophers themselves: but it will fail to answer those larger conditions which Plato has just laid down.

Inconsistency of Plato in his way of putting the question — The alternative which he tenders has no fair application.

In submitting the question to individual choice, Plato does not keep clear either of confusion or of contradiction. If this Summum Bonum be understood as the End comprising the full satisfaction of human wishes and imaginations, without limitation by certain given actualities — and if the option be tendered to a man already furnished with his share of the various desires generated in actual life — such a man will naturally demand entire absence of all pains, with pleasures such as to satisfy all his various desires: not merely the most intense pleasures (which Plato intends to prove, not to be pleasures at all), but other pleasures also. He will wish (if you thus suppose him master of Fortunatus’s wishing-cap) to include in his enjoyments pleasures which do not usually go together, and which may even, in the real conditions of life, exclude one another: no boundary being prescribed to his wishing power. He will wish for the pleasures of knowledge or intelligence, of self-esteem, esteem from others, sympathy, &c., as well as for those of sense. He will put in his claim for pleasures, without any of those antecedent means and conditions which, in real life, are necessary to procure them. Such being the state of the question, the alternative tendered by Plato — Pleasure, versus Intelligence or Knowledge — has no fair application. Plato himself expressly states that pleasure, though generically One, is specifically multiform, and has many varieties different from, even opposite to, each other: among which varieties one is, the pleasure of knowledge or intelligence itself.110 The person to whom the question is submitted, has a right to claim these pleasures of knowledge among the rest, as portions of his Summum Bonum. And when Plato proceeds to ask — Will you be satisfied to possess pleasure only, without the least spark of intelligence, without memory, without eyesight? — he departs from the import of his previous question, and withdraws from the sum total of pleasure many of its most important items: since we must of course understand that the pleasures of intelligence will disappear along with intelligence itself,111 and that the pains of conscious want of intelligence will be felt instead of them.

Intelligence and Pleasure cannot be fairly compared — Pleasure is an End, Intelligence a Means. Nothing can be compared with Pleasure, except some other End.

That the antithesis here enunciated by Plato is not legitimate or logical, we may see on other grounds also. Pleasure and Intelligence cannot be placed in competition with each other for recognition as Summum Bonum: which, as described by Plato himself, is of the nature of an End, while Intelligence is of the nature of a means or agency — indispensable indeed, yet of no value unless it be exercised, and rightly exercised towards its appropriate end, which end must be separately declared.112 Intelligence is a durable acquisition stored up, like the good health, moral character, or established habits, of each individual person: it is a capital engaged in the production of interest, and its value is measured by the interest produced. You cannot with propriety put the means — the Capital — in one scale, and the End — the Interest — in the other, so as to ascertain which of the two weighs most. A prudent man will refrain from any present enjoyment which trenches on his capital: but this is because the maintenance of the capital is essential to all future acquisitions and even future maintenance. So too, Intelligence is essential as a means or condition to the attainment of pleasure in its largest sense — that is, including avoidance or alleviation of pain or suffering: if therefore you choose to understand pleasure in a narrower sense, not including therein avoidance of pain (as Plato understands it in this portion of the Philêbus), the comprehensive end to which Intelligence corresponds may be compared with Pleasure and declared more valuable — but Intelligence itself cannot with propriety be so compared. Such a comparison can only be properly instituted when you consider the exercise of Intelligence as involving (which it undoubtedly does113) pleasures of its own; which pleasures form part of the End, and may fairly be measured against other pleasures and pains. But nothing can be properly compared with Pleasure, except some other supposed End: and those theorists who reject Pleasure must specify some other Terminus ad quem — otherwise intelligence has no clear meaning.

The Hedonists, while they laid down attainment of pleasure and diminution of pain, postulated Intelligence as the governing agency.

Now the Hedonists in Plato’s age, when they declared Pleasure to be the supreme Good, understood Pleasure in its widest sense, as including not merely all varieties of pleasure, mental and bodily alike, but also avoidance of pain (in fact Epikurus dwelt especially upon this last point). Moreover, they did not intend to depreciate Intelligence, but on the contrary postulated it as a governing agency, indispensable to right choice and comparative estimation between different pleasures and pains. That Eudoxus,114 the geometer and astronomer, did this, we may be sure: but besides, this is the way in which the Hedonistic doctrine is expounded by Plato himself. In his Protagoras, Sokrates advocates that doctrine, against the Sophist who is unwilling to admit it. In the exposition there given by Sokrates, Pleasure is announced as The Good to be sought, Pain as The Evil to be avoided or reduced to a minimum. But precisely because the End, to be pursued through constant diversity of complicated situations, is thus defined — for that very reason he declares that the dominant or sovereign element in man must be, the measuring and calculating Intelligence; since such is the sole condition under which the End can be attained or approached. In the theory of the Hedonists, there was no antithesis, but indispensable conjunction and implication, between Pleasure and Intelligence.115 And if it be said, that by declaring Pleasure (and avoidance of Pain) to be the End, Intelligence the means, — they lowered the dignity of the latter as compared with the former:— we may reply that the dignity of Intelligence is exalted to the maximum when it is enthroned as the ruling and controuling agent over the human mind.

Pleasures of Intelligence may be compared, and are compared by Plato, with other pleasures, and declared to be of more value. This is arguing upon the Hedonistic basis.

In a scheme of mental philosophy, Emotion and Intellect are properly treated as distinct phenomena requiring to be explained separately, though perpetually co-existent and interfering with each other. But in an ethical discourse about Summum Bonum, the antithesis between Pleasure and Intelligence, on which the Philêbus turns, is from the outset illogical. What gives to it an apparent plausibility, is, That the exercise of Intelligence has pleasures and pains of its own, and includes therefore in itself a part of the End, besides being the constant and indispensable directing force or Means. Now, though pleasure in genere cannot be weighed in the scale against Intelligence, yet the pleasures and pains of Intelligence may be fairly and instructively compared with other pleasures and pains. You may contend that the pleasures of Intelligence are superior in quality, as well as less alloyed by accompanying pains. This comparison is really instituted by Plato in other dialogues;116 and we find the two questions apparently running together in his mind as if they were one and the same. Yet the fact is, that those who affirm the pleasures attending the exercise of Intelligence to be better and greater, and the pains less, than those which attend other occupations, are really arguing upon the Hedonistic basis.117 Far from establishing any antithesis between Pleasure and Intelligence, they bring the two into closer conjunction than was done by Epikurus himself.