Part 11 of 18
56. I need hardly say that this sentence is an attempt to sum up my interpretation of the historical role of Plato's theory of justice (for the moral failure of the Thirty, cp. Xenophon's Hellenica, II, 4, 40-42); and particularly of the main political doctrines of the Republic; an interpretation which tries to explain the contradictions among the early dialogues, especially the Gorgias, and the Republic, as arising from the fundamental difference between the views of Socrates and those of the later Plato. The cardinal importance of the question which is usually called the Socratic Problem may justify my entering here into a lengthy and partly methodological debate.
(1) The older solution of the Socratic Problem assumed that a group of the Platonic dialogues, especially the Apology and the Crito, is Socratic (i.e., in the main historically correct, and intended as such) while the majority of the dialogues are Platonic, including many of those in which Socrates is the main speaker, as for instance the Phaedo and the Republic. The older authorities justified this opinion often by referring to an 'independent witness', Xenophon, and by pointing out the similarity between the Xenophontic Socrates and the Socrates of the 'Socratic' group of dialogues, and the dissimilarities between the Xenophontic 'Socrates' and the 'Socrates' of the Platonic group of dialogues. The metaphysical theory of Forms or Ideas, more especially, was usually considered Platonic.
(2) Against this view, an attack was launched by J. Burnet, who was supported by A. E. Taylor. Burnet denounced the argument on which the 'older solution' (as I call it) is based as circular and unconvincing. It is not sound, he held, to select a group of dialogues solely because the theory of Forms is less prominent in them, to call them Socratic, and then to say that the theory of Forms was not Socrates' but Plato's invention. And it is not sound to claim Xenophon as an independent witness since we have no reason whatever to believe in his independence, and good reason to believe that he must have known a number of Plato's dialogues when he commenced writing the Memorabilia. Burnet demanded that we should proceed from the assumption that Plato really meant what he said, and that, when he made Socrates pronounce a certain doctrine, he believed, and wished his readers to believe, that this doctrine was characteristic of Socrates' teaching.
(3) Although Burnet's views on the Socratic Problem appear to me untenable, they have been most valuable and stimulating. A bold theory of this kind, even if it is false, always means progress; and Burnet's books are full of bold and most unconventional views on his subject. This is the more to be appreciated as a historical subject always shows a tendency to become stale. But much as I admire Burnet for his brilliant and bold theories, and much as I appreciate their salutary effect, I am, considering the evidence available to me, unable to convince myself that these theories are tenable. In his invaluable enthusiasm, Burnet was, I believe, not always critical enough towards his own ideas. This is why others have found it necessary to criticize these ideas instead.
Regarding the Socratic Problem, I believe with many others that the view which I have described as the 'older solution' is fundamentally correct. This view has lately been well defended, against Burnet and Taylor, especially by G. C. Field (Plato and His Contemporaries, 1930) and A. K. Rogers (The Socratic Problem, 1933); and many other scholars seem to adhere to it. In spite of the fact that the arguments so far offered appear to me convincing, I may be permitted to add to them, using some results of the present book. But before proceeding to criticize Burnet, I may state that it is to Burnet that we owe our insight into the following principle of method. Plato 's evidence is the only first-rate evidence available to us; all other evidence is secondary. (Burnet has applied this principle to Xenophon; but we must apply it also to Aristophanes, whose evidence was rejected by Socrates himself, in the Apology; see under (5), below.)
(4) Burnet explains that it is his method to assume 'that Plato really meant what he said'. According to this methodological principle, Plato's 'Socrates' must be intended as a portrait of the historical Socrates. (Cp. Greek Philosophy, I, 128, 212 f., and note on p. 349/50; cp. Taylor's Socrates, 14 f , 32 f , 153.) I admit that Burnet's methodological principle is a sound starting point. But I shall try to show, under (5), that the facts are such that they soon force everybody to give it up, including Burnet and Taylor. They are forced, like all others, to interpret what Plato says. But while others become conscious of this fact, and therefore careful and critical in their interpretations, it is inevitable that those who cling to the belief that they do not interpret Plato but simply accept what he said make it impossible for themselves to examine their interpretations critically.
(5) The facts that make Burnet's methodology inapplicable and force him and all others to interpret what Plato said, are, of course, the contradictions in Plato's alleged portrait of Socrates. Even if we accept the principle that we have no better evidence than Plato's, we are forced by the internal contradictions in his writing not to take him at his word, and to give up the assumption that he 'really meant what he said'. If a witness involves himself in contradictions, then we cannot accept his testimony without interpreting it, even if he is the best witness available. I give first only three examples of such internal contradictions.
(a) The Socrates of the Apology very impressively repeats three times (18b-c; 19c-d; 23d) that he is not interested in natural philosophy (and therefore not a Pythagorean): 'I know nothing, neither much nor little, about such things', he said (19c); 'I, men of Athens, have nothing whatever to do with such things' (i.e. with speculations about nature). Socrates asserts that many who are present at the trial could testify to the truth of this statement; they have heard him speak, but neither in few nor in many words has anybody ever heard him speak about matters of natural philosophy. (Cp., 19, c-d.) On the other hand, we have (a') the Phaedo (cp. especially 108d, f, with the passages of the Apology referred to) and the Republic. In these dialogues, Socrates appears as a Pythagorean philosopher of 'nature'; so much so that both Burnet and Taylor could say that he was in fact a leading member of the Pythagorean school of thought. (Cp. Aristotle, who says of the Pythagoreans 'their discussions... are all about nature'; see Metaphysics, end of 989b.)
Now I hold that (a) and (a') flatly contradict each other; and this situation is made worse by the fact that the dramatic date of the Republic is earlier and that of the Phaedo later than that of the Apology. This makes it impossible to reconcile (a) with (a') by assuming that Socrates either gave up Pythagoreanism in the last years of his life, between the Republic and the Apology, or that he was converted to Pythagoreanism in the last month of his life.
I do not pretend that there is no way of removing this contradiction by some assumption or interpretation. Burnet and Taylor may have reasons, perhaps even good reasons, for trusting the Phaedo and the Republic rather than the Apology. (But they ought to realize that, assuming the correctness of Plato's portrait, any doubt of Socrates' veracity in the Apology makes of him one who lies for the sake of saving his skin.) Such questions, however, do not concern me at the moment. My point is rather that in accepting evidence (a') as against (a), Burnet and Taylor are forced to abandon their fundamental methodological assumption 'that Plato really meant what he said'; they must interpret.
But interpretations made unawares must be uncritical; this can be illustrated by the use made by Burnet and Taylor of Aristophanes' evidence. They hold that Aristophanes' jests would be pointless if Socrates had not been a natural philosopher. But it so happens that Socrates (I always assume, with Burnet and Taylor, that the Apology is historical) foresaw this very argument. In his apology, he warned his judges against precisely this very interpretation of Aristophanes, insisting most earnestly (Ap., 19c, ff.; see also 20c-e) that he had neither little nor much to do with natural philosophy, but simply nothing at all. Socrates felt as if he were fighting against shadows in this matter, against the shadows of the past (Ap., 18d-e); but we can now say that he was also fighting the shadows of the future. For when he challenged his fellow-citizens to come forward — those who believed Aristophanes and dared to call Socrates a liar — not one came. It was 2,300 years before some Platonists made up their minds to answer his challenge.
It may be mentioned, in this connection, that Aristophanes, a moderate anti-democrat, attacked Socrates as a 'sophist', and that most of the sophists were democrats.
(b) In the Apology (40c, ff.) Socrates takes up an agnostic attitude towards the problem of survival; (b') the Phaedo consists mainly of elaborate proofs of the immortality of the soul. This difficulty is discussed by Burnet (in his edition of the Phaedo, 1911, pp. xlviii ff.), in a way which does not convince me at all. (Cp. notes 9 to chapter 7, and 44 to the present chapter.) But whether he is right or not, his own discussion proves that he is forced to give up his methodological principle and to interpret what Plato says.
(c) The Socrates of the Apology holds that the wisdom even of the wisest consists in the realization of how little he knows, and that, accordingly, the Delphian saying 'know thyself must be interpreted as 'know thy limitations'; and he implies that the rulers, more than anybody else, ought to know their limitations. Similar views can be found in other early dialogues. But the main speakers of the Statesman and the Laws propound the doctrine that the powerful ought to be wise; and by wisdom they no longer mean a knowledge of one's limitations, but rather the initiation into the deeper mysteries of dialectic philosophy — the intuition of the world of Forms or Ideas, or the training in the Royal Science of politics. The same doctrine is expounded, in the Philebus, even as part of a discussion of the Delphian saying. (Cp. note 26 to chapter 7.)
(d) Apart from these three flagrant contradictions, I may mention two further contradictions which could easily be neglected by those who do not believe that the Seventh Letter is genuine, but which seem to me fatal to Burnet who maintains that the Seventh Letter is authentic. Burnet's view (untenable even if we neglect this letter; cp. for the whole question note 26 (5) to chapter 3) that Socrates but not Plato held the theory of Forms, is contradicted in 342a, ff, of this letter; and his view that the Republic, more especially, is Socratic, in 326a (cp. note 14 to chapter 7). Of course, all these difficulties could be removed, but only by interpretation.
(e) There are a number of similar although at the same time more subtle and more important contradictions which have been discussed at some length in previous chapters, especially in chapters 6, 7 and 8. 1 may sum up the most important of these.
(e1) The attitude towards men, especially towards the young, changes in Plato's portrait in a way which cannot be Socrates' development. Socrates died for the right to talk freely to the young, whom he loved. But in the Republic, we find him taking up an attitude of condescension and distrust which resembles the disgruntled attitude of the Athenian Stranger (admittedly Plato himself) in the Laws and the general distrust of mankind expressed so often in this work. (Cp. text to notes 17-18 to chapter 4; 18-21 to chapter 7; and 57-58 to chapter 8.)
(e2) The same sort of thing can be said about Socrates' attitude towards truth and free speech. He died for it. But in the Republic, 'Socrates' advocates lying; in the admittedly Platonic Statesman, a lie is offered as truth, and in the Laws, free thought is suppressed by the establishment of an Inquisition. (Cp. the same places as before, and furthermore notes 1- 23 and 40-41 to chapter 8; and note 55 to the present chapter.)
(e3) The Socrates of the Apology and some other dialogues is intellectually modest; in the Phaedo, he changes into a man who is assured of the truth of his metaphysical speculations. In the Republic, he is a dogmatist, adopting an attitude not far removed from the petrified authoritarianism of the Statesman and of the Laws. (Cp. text to notes 8-14 and 26 to chapter 7; 15 and 33 to chapter 8; and (c) in the present note.)
(e4) The Socrates of the Apology is an individualist; he believes in the self-sufficiency of the human individual. In the Gorgias, he is still an individualist. In the Republic, he is a radical collectivist, very similar to Plato's position in the Laws. (Cp. notes 25 and 35 to chapter 5; text to notes 26, 32, 36 and 48-54 to chapter 6 and note 45 to the present chapter.)
(e5) Again we can say similar things about Socrates' equalitarianism. In the Meno, he recognizes that a slave participates in the general intelligence of all human beings, and that he can be taught even pure mathematics; in the Gorgias, he defends the equalitarian theory of justice. But in the Republic, he despises workers and slaves and is as much opposed to equalitarianism as is Plato in the Timaeus and in the Laws. (Cp. the passages mentioned under (e 4); furthermore, notes 18 and 29 to chapter 4; note 10 to chapter 7, and note 50 (3) to chapter 8, where Timaeus, 51e, is quoted.)
(e6) The Socrates of the Apology and Crito is loyal to Athenian democracy. In the Meno and in the Gorgias (cp. note 45 to this chapter) there are suggestions of a hostile criticism; in the Republic (and, I believe, in the Menexenus), he is an open enemy of democracy; and although Plato expresses himself more cautiously in the Statesman and in the beginning of the Laws, his political tendencies in the later part of the Laws are admittedly (cp. text to note 32 to chapter 6) identical with those of the 'Socrates' of the Republic. (Cp. notes 53 and 55 to the present chapter and notes 7 and 14-18 to chapter 4.)
The last point may be further supported by the following. It seems that Socrates, in the Apology, is not merely loyal to Athenian democracy, but that he appeals directly to the democratic party by pointing out that Chaerephon, one of the most ardent of his disciples, belonged to their ranks. Chaerephon plays a decisive part in the Apology, since by approaching the Oracle, he is instrumental in Socrates' recognition of his mission in life, and thereby ultimately in Socrates' refusal to compromise with the Demos. Socrates introduces this important person by emphasizing the fact (Apol., 20e/21a) that Chaerephon was not only his friend, but also a friend of the people, whose exile he shared, and with whom he returned (presumably, he participated in the fight against the Thirty); that is to say, Socrates chooses as the main witness for his defence an ardent democrat. (There is some independent evidence for Chaerephon's sympathies, such as in Aristophanes' Clouds, 104, 501 ff. Chaerephon's appearance in the Charmides may be intended to create a kind of balance; the prominence of Critias and Charmides would otherwise create the impression of a pro-Thirty manifesto.) Why does Socrates emphasize his intimacy with a militant member of the democratic party? We cannot assume that this was merely special pleading, intended to move his judges to be more merciful: the whole spirit of his apology is against this assumption. The most likely hypothesis is that Socrates, by pointing out that he had disciples in the democratic camp, intended to deny, by implication, the charge (which also was only implied) that he was a follower of the aristocratic party and a teacher of tyrants. The spirit of the Apology excludes the assumption that Socrates was pleading friendship with a democratic leader without being truly sympathetic with the democratic cause. And the same conclusion must be drawn from the passage (Apol, 32b-d) in which he emphasizes his faith in democratic legality, and denounces the Thirty in no uncertain terms.
(6) It is simply the internal evidence of the Platonic dialogues which forces us to assume that they are not entirely historical. We must therefore attempt to interpret this evidence, by proffering theories which can be critically compared with the evidence, using the method of trial and error. Now we have very strong reason to believe that the Apology is in the main historical, for it is the only dialogue which describes a public occurrence of considerable importance and well known to a great number of people. On the other hand, we know that the Laws are Plato's latest work (apart from the doubtful Epinomis), and that they are frankly 'Platonic'. It is, therefore, the simplest assumption that the dialogues will be historical or Socratic so far as they agree with the tendencies of the Apology, and Platonic where they contradict these tendencies. (This assumption brings us practically back to the position which I have described above as the 'older solution' of the Socratic Problem.) If we consider the tendencies mentioned above under (e l) to (e 6), we find that we can easily order the most important of the dialogues in such a way that for any single one of these tendencies the similarity with the Socratic Apology decreases and that with the Platonic Laws increases. This is the series. Apology and Crito — Meno — Gorgias — Phaedo — Republic — Statesman — Timaeus — Laws.
Now the fact that this series orders the dialogues according to all the tendencies (e1) to (e6) is in itself a corroboration of the theory that we are here faced with a development in Plato's thought. But we can get quite independent evidence. 'Stylometric' investigations show that our series agrees with the chronological order in which Plato wrote the dialogues. Lastly, the series, at least up to the Timaeus, exhibits also a continually increasing interest in Pythagoreanism (and Eleaticism). This must therefore be another tendency in the development of Plato's thought.
A very different argument is this. We know, from Plato's own testimony in the Phaedo, that Antisthenes was one of Socrates' most intimate friends; and we also know that Antisthenes claimed to preserve the true Socratic creed. It is hard to believe that Antisthenes would have been a friend of the Socrates of the Republic. Thus we must find a common point of departure for the teaching of Antisthenes and Plato; and this common point we find in the Socrates of the Apology and Crito, and in some of the doctrines put into the mouth of the 'Socrates' of the Meno, Gorgias, and Phaedo.
These arguments are entirely independent of any work of Plato's which has ever been seriously doubted (as the Alcibiades I or the Theages or the Letters). They are also independent of the testimony of Xenophon. They are based solely upon the internal evidence of some of the most famous Platonic dialogues. But they agree with this secondary evidence, especially with the Seventh Letter, where in a sketch of his own mental development (325 f.), Plato even refers, unmistakably, to the key passage of the Republic as his own central discovery: 'I had to state... that... never will the race of men be saved from its plight before either the race of the genuine and true philosophers gains political power, or the ruling men in the cities become genuine philosophers, by the grace of God.' (326a; cp. note 14 to chapter 7, and (d) in this note, above.) I cannot see how it is possible to accept, with Burnet, this letter as genuine without admitting that the central doctrine of the Republic is Plato's, not Socrates'; that is to say, without giving up the fiction that Plato's portrait of Socrates in the Republic is historical. (For further evidence, cp. for instance Aristotle, Sophist. El, 183b7: 'Socrates raised questions, but gave no answers; for he confessed that he did not know.' This agrees with the Apology, but hardly with the Gorgias, and certainly not with the Phaedo or the Republic. See furthermore Aristotle's famous report on the history of the theory of Ideas, admirably discussed by Field, 0/7. cit; cp. also note 26 to chapter 3.)
(7) Against evidence of this character, the type of evidence used by Burnet and Taylor can have little weight. The following is an example. As evidence for his opinion that Plato was politically more moderate than Socrates, and that Plato's family was rather 'Whiggish', Burnet uses the argument that a member of Plato's family was named 'Demos'. (Cp. Gorg., 48 Id, 513b. — It is not, however, certain, although probable, that Demos' father Pyrilampes here mentioned is really identical with Plato's uncle and stepfather mentioned in Charm., 158a, and Parm., 126b, i.e. that Demos was a relation of Plato's.) What weight can this have, I ask, compared with the historical record of Plato's two tyrant uncles; with the extant political fragments of Critias (which remain in the family even if Burnet is right, which he hardly is, in attributing them to his grandfather; cp. Greek Phil, I, 338, note 1, with Charmides, 157e and 162d, where the poetical gifts of Critias the tyrant are alluded to); with the fact that Critias' father had belonged to the Oligarchy of the Four Hundred (Lys., 12, 66); and with Plato's own writings which combine family pride with not only anti-democratic but even anti-Athenian tendencies? (Cp. the eulogy, in Timaeus, 20a, of an enemy of Athens like Hermocrates of Sicily, father-in-law of the older Dionysius.) The purpose behind Burnet's argument is, of course, to strengthen the theory that the Republic is Socratic. Another example of bad method may be taken from Taylor, who argues (Socrates, note 2 on p. 148 f.; cp. also p. 162) in favour of the view that the Phaedo is Socratic (cp. my note 9 to chapter 7):
'In the Phaedo [72e]... the doctrine that "learning is just recognition" is expressly said by Simmias' (this is a slip of Taylor's pen; the speaker is Cebes) 'speaking to Socrates, to be "the doctrine you are so constantly repeating". Unless we are willing to regard the Phaedo as a gigantic and unpardonable mystification, this seems to me proof that the theory really belongs to Socrates.' (For a similar argument, see Burnet's edition of the Phaedo, p. xii, end of chapter ii.) On this I wish to make the following comments: (a) It is here assumed that Plato considered himself a historian when writing this passage, for otherwise his statement would not be 'a gigantic and unpardonable mystification'; in other words, the most questionable and the most central point of the theory is assumed, (b) But even if Plato had considered himself a historian (I do not think that he did), the expression 'a gigantic... etc' seems to be too strong. Taylor, not Plato, puts 'you' in italics. Plato might only have wished to indicate that he is going to assume that the readers of the dialogue are acquainted with this theory. Or he might have intended to refer to the Meno, and thus to himself (This last explanation is I think almost certainly true, in view Phaedo, 73a, f, with the allusion to diagrams.) Or his pen might have slipped, for some reason or other. Such things are bound to occur, even to historians. Burnet, for example, has to explain Socrates' Pythagoreanism; to do this he makes Parmenides a Pythagorean rather than a pupil of Xenophanes, of whom he writes (Greek Philosophy, I, 64): 'the story that he founded the Eleatic school seems to be derived from a playful remark of Plato's which would also prove Homer to have been a Heraclitean.' To this, Burnet adds the footnote: 'Plato, Soph., 242d. See E. Gr. Ph. , p. 140'. Now I believe that this statement of a historian clearly implies four things, (1) that the passage of Plato which refers to Xenophanes is playful, i.e. not meant seriously, (2) that this playfulness manifests itself in the reference to Homer, that is, (3) by remarking that he was a Heraclitean, which would, of course, be a very playful remark since Homer lived long before Heraclitus, and (4) that there is no other serious evidence connecting Xenophanes with the Eleatic School. But none of these four implications can be upheld. For we find, (1) that the passage in the Sophist (242d) which refers to Xenophanes is not playful, but that it is recommended by Burnet himself, in the methodological appendix to his Early Greek Philosophy , as important and as full of valuable historical information; (2) that it contains no reference at all to Homer; and (3) that another passage which contains this reference (Theaet., 179d/e; cp. 152d/e, 160d) with which Burnet mistakenly identified Sophist, 242d, in Greek Philosophy , I (the mistake is not made in his Early Greek Philosophy2), does not refer to Xenophanes; nor does it call Homer a Heraclitean, but it says the opposite, namely, that some of Heraclitus' ideas are as old as Homer (which is, of course, much less playful); and (4), there is a clear and important passage in Theophrastus (Phys. op., fragm. 8 = Simplicius, Phys., 28, 4) ascribing to Xenophanes a number of opinions which we know Parmenides shared with him and linking him with Parmenides — to say nothing of D.L. ix, 21-3, or of Timaeus ap. Clement Strom 1, 64, 2. This heap of misunderstandings, misinterpretations, misquotations, and misleading omissions (for the created myth, see Kirk and Raven, p. 265) can be found in one single historical remark of a truly great historian such as Burnet. From this we must learn that such things do happen, even to the best of historians: all men are fallible. (A more serious example of this kind of fallibility is the one discussed in note 26 (5) to chapter 3.)
(8) The chronological order of those Platonic dialogues which play a role in these arguments is here assumed to be nearly the same as that of the stylometric list of Lutoslawski (The Origin and Growth of Plato 's Logic, 1897). A list of those dialogues which play a role in the text of this book will be found in note 5 to chapter 3. It is drawn up in such a way that there is more uncertainty of date within each group than between the groups. A minor deviation from the stylometric list is the position of the Euthyphro which for reasons of its content (discussed in text to note 60 to this chapter) appears to me to be probably later than the Crito; but this point is of little importance. (Cp. also note 47 to this chapter.)
57. There is a famous and rather puzzling passage in the Second Letter (314c): 'There is no writing of Plato nor will there ever be. What goes by his name really belongs to Socrates turned young and handsome.' The most likely solution of this puzzle is that the passage, if not the whole letter, is spurious. (Cp. Field, Plato and His Contemporaries, 200 f , where he gives an admirable summary of the reasons for suspecting the letter, and especially the passages '312d-313c and possibly down to 314c'; concerning 314c, an additional reason is, perhaps, that the forger might have intended to allude to, or to give his interpretation of, a somewhat similar remark in the Seventh Letter, 341b/c, quoted in note 32 to chapter 8.) But if for a moment we assume with Burnet (Greek Philosophy , I, 212) that the passage is genuine, then the remark 'turned young and handsome' certainly raises a problem, especially as it cannot be taken literally since Socrates is presented in all the Platonic dialogues as old and ugly (the only exception is the Parmenides, where he is hardly handsome, although still young). If genuine, the puzzling remark would mean that Plato quite intentionally gave an idealized and not an historical account of Socrates; and it would fit our interpretation quite well to see that Plato was indeed conscious of re-interpreting Socrates as a young and handsome aristocrat who is, of course, Plato himself (Cp. also note 11 (2) to chapter 4, note 20 (1) to chapter 6, and note 50 (3) to chapter 8.)
58. I am quoting from the first paragraph of Davies' and Vaughan's introduction to their translation of the Republic. Cp. Crossman, Plato To-Day, 96.
59. (1) The 'division' or 'split' in Plato's soul is one of the most outstanding impressions of his work, and especially of the Republic. Only a man who had to struggle hard to uphold his self-control or the rule of his reason over his animal instincts could emphasize this point as much as Plato did; cp. the passages referred to in note 34 to chapter 5, especially the story of the beast in man (Rep., 588c), which is probably of Orphic origin, and in notes 15 (1)-(4), 17, and 19 to chapter 3, which not only show an astonishing similarity with psycho- analytical doctrines, but might also be claimed to exhibit strong symptoms of repression. (See also the beginning of Book IX, 571d and 575a, which sound like an exposition of the doctrine of the Oedipus Complex. On Plato's attitude to his mother, some light is perhaps thrown by Republic, 548e-549d, especially in view of the fact that in 548e his brother Glaucon is identified with the son in question.) *An excellent statement of the conflicts in Plato, and an attempt at a psychological analysis of his will to power, are made by H. Kelsen in The American Imago, vol. 3, 1942, pp. 1-110, and Werner File, The Platonic Legend, 1939.*
Those Platonists who are not prepared to admit that from Plato's longing and clamouring for unity and harmony and unisonity, we may conclude that he was himself disunited and disharmonious, may be reminded that this way of arguing was invented by Plato. (Cp. Symposium, 200a, f, where Socrates argues that it is a necessary and not a probable inference that he who loves or desires does not possess what he loves and desires.)
What I have called Plato's political theory of the soul (see also text to note 32 to chapter 5), i.e. the division of the soul according to the class-divided society, has long remained the basis of most psychologies. It is the basis of psycho-analysis too. According to Freud's theory, what Plato had called the ruling part of the soul tries to uphold its tyranny by a 'censorship', while the rebellious proletarian animal-instincts, which correspond to the social underworld, really exercise a hidden dictatorship; for they determine the policy of the apparent ruler. — Since Heraclitus' 'flux' and 'war', the realm of social experience has strongly influenced the theories, metaphors, and symbols by which we interpret the physical world around us (and ourselves) to ourselves. I mention only Darwin's adoption, under the influence of Malthus, of the theory of social competition.
(2) A remark may be added here on mysticism, in its relation to the closed and open society, and to the strain of civilization.
As McTaggart has shown, in his excellent study Mysticism (see his Philosophical Studies, edited by S. V. Keeling, 1934, esp. pp. 47 ff. ), the fundamental ideas of mysticism are two: (a) the doctrine of the mystic union, i.e. the assertion that there is a greater unity in the world of realities than that which we recognize in the world of ordinary experience, and (b) the doctrine of the mystic intuition, i.e. the assertion that there is a way of knowing which 'brings the known into closer and more direct relation with what is known' than is the relation between the knowing subject and the known object in ordinary experience. McTaggart rightly asserts (p. 48) that 'of these two characteristics the mystic unity is the more fundamental', since the mystic intuition is 'an example of the mystic unity'. We may add that a third characteristic, less fundamental still, is (c) the mystic love, which is an example of mystic unity and mystic intuition.
Now it is interesting (and this has not been seen by McTaggart) that in the history of Greek Philosophy, the doctrine of the mystic unity was first clearly asserted by Parmenides in his hohstic doctrine of the one (cp. note 41 to the present chapter); next by Plato, who added an elaborate doctrine of mystic intuition and communion with the divine (cp. chapter 8), of which doctrine there are just the very first beginnings in Parmenides; next by Aristotle, e.g. m De Anima, 425b30 f: 'The actual hearing and the actual sound are merged into one'; cp. Rep. 507c, ff., 430a20, and 431al: 'Actual knowledge is identical with its object' (see also De Anima, 404b16, and Metaphysics, 1072b20 and 1075a2, and cp. Plato's Timaeus, 45b-c, 47a-d; Meno, 81a, ff.; Phaedo, 79d); and next by the Neo-Platonists, who elaborated the doctrine of the mystic love, of which only the beginning can be found in Plato (for example, in his doctrine, 475 ff., that the philosopher loves truth, which is closely connected with the doctrines of hohsm and the philosopher's communion with the divine truth).
In view of these facts and of our historical analysis, we are led to interpret mysticism as one of the typical reactions to the breakdown of the closed society; a reaction which, in its origin, was directed against the open society, and which may be described as an escape into the dream of a paradise in which the tribal unity reveals itself as the unchanging reality. This interpretation is in direct conflict with that of Bergson in his Two Sources of Morality and Religion; for Bergson asserts that it is mysticism which makes the leap from the closed to the open society.
* But it must of course be admitted (as Jacob Viner very kindly pointed out to me in a letter) that mysticism is versatile enough to work in any political direction; and even among the apostles of the open society, mystics and mysticism have their representatives. It is the mystic inspiration of a better, a less divided, world which undoubtedly inspired not only Plato, but also Socrates.*
It may be remarked that in the nineteenth century, especially in Hegel and Bergson, we find an evolutionary mysticism, which, by extolling change, seems to stand in direct opposition to Parmenides' and Plato's hatred of change. And yet, the underlying experience of these two forms of mysticism seems to be the same, as shown by the fact that an over-emphasis on change is common to both. Both are reactions to the frightening experience of social change: the one combined with the hope that change may be arrested; the other with a somewhat hysterical (and undoubtedly ambivalent) acceptance of change as real, essential and welcome. — Cp. also notes 32-33 to chapter 11, 36 to chapter 12, and 4, 6, 29, 32 and 58 to chapter 24.
60. The Euthyphro, an early dialogue, is usually interpreted as an unsuccessful attempt of Socrates to define piety. Euthyphro himself is the caricature of a popular 'pietist' who knows exactly what the gods wish. To Socrates' question 'What is piety and what is impiety?' he is made to answer: 'Piety is acting as I do! That is to say, prosecuting any one guilty of murder, sacrilege, or of any similar crime, whether he be your father or your mother while not to prosecute them is impiety' (5, d/e). Euthyphro is presented as prosecuting his father for having murdered a serf (According to the evidence quoted by Grote, Plato, I, note to p. 312, every citizen was bound by Attic law to prosecute in such cases.)
61. Menexenus, 235b. Cp. note 35 to this chapter, and the end of note 19 to chapter 6.
62. The claim that if you want security you must give up liberty has become a mainstay of the revolt against freedom. But nothing is less true. There is, of course, no absolute security in life. But what security can be attained depends on our own watchfulness, enforced by institutions to help us watch — i.e. by democratic institutions which are devised (using Platonic language) to enable the herd to watch, and to judge, their watch-dogs.
63. With the 'variations' and 'irregularities', cp. Republic, 547a, quoted in the text to notes 39 and 40 to chapter 5. Plato's obsession with the problems of propagation and birth control may perhaps be explained in part by the fact that he understood the implications of population growth. Indeed (cp. text to note 7 to this chapter) the 'Fall', the loss of the tribal paradise, is caused by a 'natural' or 'original' fault of man, as it were: by a maladjustment in his natural rate of breeding. Cp. also notes 39 (3) to ch. 5, and 34 to ch. 4. With the next quotation further below in this paragraph, cp. Republic, 566e, and text to note 20 to chapter 4. — Grossman, whose treatment of the period of tyranny in Greek history is excellent (cp. Plato To-Day, 27-30), writes: 'Thus it was the tyrants who really created the Greek State. They broke down the old tribal organization of primitive aristocracy...' (op. cit., 29). This explains why Plato hated tyranny, perhaps even more than freedom: cp. Republic, 577c. — (See, however, note 69 to this chapter.) His passages on tyranny, especially 565-568, are a brilliant sociological analysis of a consistent power-politics. I should like to call it the first attempt towards a logic of power. (I chose this term in analogy to F. A. von Hayek's use of the term logic of choice for the pure economic theory.) — The logic of power is fairly simple, and has often been applied in a masterly way. The opposite kind of politics is much more difficult; partly because the logic of anti-power politics, i.e. the logic of freedom, is hardly understood yet.
64. It is well known that most of Plato's political proposals, including the proposed communism of women and children, were 'in the air' in the Periclean period. Cp. the excellent summary in Adam's edition of the Republic, vol. I, p. 354 f , *and A. D. Winspear, The Genesis of Plato's Thought, 1940.*
65. Cp. V. Pareto, Treatise on General Sociology, §1843 (English translation: The Mind and Society, 1935, vol. Ill, pp. 1281); cp. note 1 to chapter 13, where the passage is quoted more fully.
66. Cp. the effect which Glaucon's presentation of Lycophron's theory had on Carneades (cp. note 54 to chapter 6), and later, on Hobbes. The professed 'a-morality' of so many Marxists is also a case in point. Leftists frequently believe in their own immorality. (This, although not much to the point, is sometimes more modest and more pleasant than the dogmatic self- righteousness of many reactionary moralists.)
67. Money is one of the symbols as well as one of the difficulties of the open society. There is no doubt that we have not yet mastered the rational control of its use; its greatest misuse is that it can buy political power. (The most direct form of this misuse is the institution of the slave-market; but just this institution is defended in Republic, 563b; cp. note 17 to chapter 4; and in the Laws, Plato is not opposed to the political influence of wealth; cp. note 20 (1) to chapter 6.) From the point of view of an individualistic society, money is fairly important. It is part of the institution of the (partially) free market, which gives the consumer some measure of control over production. Without some such institution, the producer may control the market to such a degree that he ceases to produce for the sake of consumption, while the consumer consumes largely for the sake of production. — The sometimes glaring misuse of money has made us rather sensitive, and Plato's opposition between money and friendship is only the first of many conscious or unconscious attempts to utilize these sentiments for the purpose of political propaganda.
68. The group-spirit of tribalism is, of course, not entirely lost. It manifests itself, for instance, in the most valuable experiences of friendship and comradeship; also, in youthful tribalistic movements like the boy-scouts (or the German Youth Movement), and in certain clubs and adult societies, as described, for instance, by Sinclair Lewis in Babbitt. The importance of this perhaps most universal of all emotional and aesthetic experiences must not be underrated. Nearly all social movements, totalitarian as well as humanitarian, are influenced by it. It plays an important role in war, and is one of the most powerful weapons of the revolt against freedom; admittedly also in peace, and in revolts against tyranny, but in these cases its humanitarianism is often endangered by its romantic tendencies. — conscious and not unsuccessful attempt to revive it for the purpose of arresting society and of perpetuating a class rule seems to have been the English Public School System. ('No one can grow up to be a good man unless his earliest years were given to noble games' is its motto, taken from Republic, 558b.)
Another product and symptom of the loss of the tribalistic group-spirit is, of course, Plato's emphasis upon the analogy between politics and medicine (cp. chapter 8, especially note 4), an emphasis which expresses the feeling that the body of society is sick, i.e. the feeling of strain, of drift. 'From the time of Plato on, the minds of political philosophers seem to have recurred to this comparison between medicine and politics,' says G. E. G. Catlin (A Study of the Principles of Politics, 1930, note to 458, where Thomas Aquinas, G. Santayana, and Dean Inge are quoted to support his statement; cp. also the quotations in op. cit, note to 37, from Mill's Logic). Catlin also speaks most characteristically (op. cit., 459) of 'harmony' and of the 'desire for protection, whether assured by the mother or by society'. (Cp. also note 18 to chapter 5.)
69. Cp. chapter 7 (note 24 and text; see Athen., XI, 508) for the names of nine such disciples of Plato (including the younger Dionysius and Dio). I suppose that Plato's repeated insistence upon the use, not only of force, but of 'persuasion and force' (cp. Laws, 722b, and notes 5, 10, and 18 to chapter 8), was meant as a criticism of the tactics of the Thirty, whose propaganda was indeed primitive. But this would imply that Plato was well aware of Pareto's recipe for utilizing sentiments instead of fighting them. That Plato's friend Dio (cp. note 25 to chapter 7) ruled Syracuse as a tyrant is admitted even by Meyer in his defence of Dio whose fate he explains, in spite of his admiration for Plato as a politician, by pointing out the 'gulf between' (the Platonic) 'theory and practice' (op. cit, V, 999). Meyer says of Dio ( he. cit.), 'The ideal king had become, externally, indistinguishable from the contemptible tyrant.' But he believes that, internally as it were, Dio remained an idealist, and that he suffered deeply when political necessity forced murder (especially that of his ally Heraclides) and similar measures upon him. I think, however, that Dio acted according to Plato's theory; a theory which, by the logic of power, drove Plato in the Laws to admit even the goodness of tyranny (709e, ff.; at the same place, there may also be a suggestion that the debacle of the Thirty was due to their great number: Critias alone would have been all right).
70. The tribal paradise is, of course, a myth (although some primitive people, most of all the Eskimos, seem to be happy enough). There may have been no sense of drift in the closed society, but there is ample evidence of other forms of fear — fear of demoniac powers behind nature. The attempt to revive this fear, and to use it against the intellectuals, the scientists, etc., characterizes many late manifestations of the revolt against freedom. It is to the credit of Plato, the disciple of Socrates, that it never occurred to him to present his enemies as the offspring of the sinister demons of darkness. In this point, he remained enlightened. He had little inclination to idealize the evil which was to him simply debased, or degenerate, or impoverished goodness. (Only in one passage in the Laws, 896e and 898c, there is what may be a suggestion of an abstract idealization of the evil.)
71. A final note may be added here in connection with my remark on the return to the beasts. Since the intrusion of Darwinism into the field of human problems (an intrusion for which Darwin should not be blamed) there have been many 'social zoologists' who have proved that the human race is bound to degenerate physically, because insufficient physical competition, and the possibility of protecting the body by the efforts of the mind, prevent natural selection from acting upon our bodies. The first to formulate this idea (not that he believed in it) was Samuel Butler, who wrote: 'The one serious danger which this writer' (an Erewhonian writer) 'apprehended was that the machines' (and, we may add, civilization in general) 'would so... lessen the severity of competition, that many persons of inferior physique would escape detection and transmit their inferiority to their descendants.' (Erewhon, 1872; cp. Everyman's edition, p. 161.) The first as far as I know to write a bulky volume on this theme was W. Schallmayer (cp. note 65 to chapter 12), one of the founders of modem racialism. In fact, Butler's theory has been continually rediscovered (especially by 'biological naturalists' in the sense of chapter 5, above). According to some modem writers (see, for example, G. H. Estabrooks, Man: The Mechanical Misfit, 1941), man made the decisive mistake when he became civilized, and especially when he began to help the weak; before this, he was an almost perfect man-beast; but civilization, with its artificial methods of protecting the weak, leads to degeneration, and therefore must ultimately destroy itself In reply to such arguments, we should, I think, first admit that man is likely to disappear one day from this world; but we should add that this is also true of even the most perfect beasts, to say nothing of those which are only 'almost perfect'. The theory that the human race might live a little longer if it had not made the fatal mistake of helping the weak is most questionable; but even if it were true — is mere length of survival of the race really all we want? Or is the almost perfect man-beast so eminently valuable that we should prefer a prolongation of his existence (he did exist for quite a long time, anyway) to our experiment of helping the weak?
Mankind, I believe, has not done so badly. In spite of the treason of some of its intellectual leaders, in spite of the stupefying effects of Platonic methods in education and the devastating results of propaganda, there have been some surprising successes. Many weak men have been helped, and for nearly a hundred years slavery has been practically abolished. Some say it will soon be re-introduced. I feel more optimistic; and, after all, it will depend on ourselves. But even if all this should be lost again, and even if we had to return to the almost perfect man-beast, this would not alter the fact that once upon a time (even if the time was short), slavery did disappear from the face of the earth. This achievement and its memory may, I believe, compensate some of us for all our misfits, mechanical or otherwise; and it may even compensate some of us for the fatal mistake made by our forefathers when they missed the golden opportunity of arresting all change — of returning to the cage of the closed society and establishing, for ever and ever, a perfect zoo of almost perfect monkeys.