Note 56 — Chapter XXIII · PROTAGORAS.

This is what the Platonic Sokrates alludes to in the Phædon and elsewhere. οἱ τὴν δημοτικὴν τε καὶ πολιτικὴν ἀρετὴν ἐπιτετηδευκότες, ἣν δὴ καλοῦσι σωφροσύνην τε καὶ δικαιοσύνηv, ἐξ ἔθους τε καὶ μελέτης γεγονυῖαν, ἄνευ φιλοσοφίας τε καὶ νοῦ. Phædon, p. 82 B; compare the same dialogue, p. 68 C; also Republic, x. p. 619 C — ἔθει ἄνευ φιλοσοφίας ἀρετῆς μετειληφότα.

The account given by Mr. James Mill (Fragment on Mackintosh, p. 259-260) of the manner in which the established morality of a society is transmitted and perpetuated, coincides completely with the discourse of the Platonic Protagoras. The passage is too long to be cited: I give here only the concluding words, which describe the δημοτικὴ ἀρετὴ ἄνευ φιλοσοφίας —

“In this manner it is that men, in the social state, acquire the habits of moral acting, and certain affections connected with it, before they are capable of reflecting upon the grounds which recommend the acts either to praise or blame. Nearly at this point the greater part of them remain: continuing to perform moral acts and to abstain from the contrary, chiefly from the habits which they have acquired, and the authority upon which they originally acted: though it is not possible that any man should come to the years and blessing of reason, without perceiving at least in an indistinct and general way, the advantage which mankind derive from their acting towards one another in one way rather than another.”