Chapter XXIX · SOPHISTES — POLITIKUS.

Persons and circumstances of the two dialogues.

These two dialogues are both of them announced by Plato as forming sequel to the Theætêtus. The beginning of the Sophistês fits on to the end of the Theætêtus: and the Politikus is even presented as a second part or continuation of the Sophistês.1 In all the three, the same interlocutors are partially maintained. Thus Sokrates, Theodôrus, and Theætêtus are present in all three: and Theætêtus makes the responses, not only in the dialogue which bears his name, but also in the Sophistês. Both in the Sophistês and Politikus, however, Sokrates himself descends from the part of principal speaker to that of listener: it is he, indeed, who by his question elicits the exposition, but he makes no comment either during the progress of it or at the close. In both the dialogues, the leading and expository function is confided to a new personage introduced by Theodôrus:— a stranger not named, but announced as coming from Elea — the friend and companion of Parmenides and Zeno. Perhaps (remarks Sokrates) your friend may, without your knowledge, be a God under human shape; as Homer tells us that the Gods often go about, in the company of virtuous men, to inspect the good and bad behaviour of mankind. Perhaps your friend may be a sort of cross-examining God, coming to test and expose our feebleness in argument. No (replies Theodôrus) that is not his character. He is less given to dispute than his companions. He is far from being a God, but he is a divine man: for I call all true philosophers divine.2

This Eleate performs the whole task of exposition, by putting questions to Theætêtus, in the Sophistês — to the younger Sokrates in the Politikus. Since the true Sokrates is merely listener in both dialogues, Plato provides for him an additional thread of connection with both; by remarking that the youthful Sokrates is his namesake, and that Theætêtus resembles him in flat nose and physiognomy.3

Relation of the two dialogues to the Theætêtus.

Though Plato himself plainly designates the Sophistês as an intended sequel to the Theætêtus, yet the method of the two is altogether different, and in a certain sense even opposite. In the Theætêtus, Sokrates extracts answers from the full and pregnant mind of that youthful respondent: he himself professes to teach nothing, but only to canvass every successive hypothesis elicited from his companion. But the Eleate is presented to us in the most imposing terms, as a thoroughly accomplished philosopher: coming with doctrines established in his mind,4 and already practised in the task of exposition which Sokrates entreats him to undertake. He is, from beginning to end, affirmative and dogmatical: and if he declines to proceed by continuous lecture, this is only because he is somewhat ashamed to appropriate all the talk to himself.5 He therefore prefers to accept Theætêtus as respondent. But Theætêtus is no longer pregnant, as in the preceding dialogue. He can do no more than give answers signifying assent and dissent, which merely serve to break and diversify the exposition. In fact, the dialogue in the Sophistês and Politikus is assimilated by Plato himself,6 not to that in the Theætêtus, but to that in the last half of the Parmenides; wherein Aristotelês the respondent answers little more than Ay or No, to leading questions from the interrogator.

Plato declares that his first purpose is to administer a lesson in logical method: the special question chosen, being subordinate to that purpose.

In noticing the circumlocutory character, and multiplied negative criticism, of the Theætêtus, without any ultimate profit realised in the form of positive result — I remarked, that Plato appreciated dialogues, not merely as the road to a conclusion, but for the mental discipline and suggestive influence of the tentative and verifying process. It was his purpose to create in his hearers a disposition to prosecute philosophical research of their own, and at the same time to strengthen their ability of doing so with effect. This remark is confirmed by the two dialogues now before us, wherein Plato defends himself against reproaches seemingly made to him at the time.7 “To what does all this tend? Why do you stray so widely from your professed topic? Could you not have reached this point by a shorter road?” He replies by distinctly proclaiming — That the process, with its improving influence on the mind, stands first in his thoughts — the direct conclusion of the enquiry, only second: That the special topic which he discusses, though in itself important, is nevertheless chosen principally with a view to its effect in communicating general method and dialectic aptitude: just as a schoolmaster, when he gives out to his pupils a word to be spelt, looks mainly, not to their exactness in spelling that particular word, but to their command of good spelling generally.8 To form inquisitive, testing minds, fond of philosophical debate as a pursuit, and looking at opinions on the negative as well as on the positive side, is the first object in most of Plato’s dialogues: to teach positive truth, is only a secondary object.

Method of logical Definition and Division.

Both the Sophistes and the Politikus are lessons and specimens of that process which the logical manuals recognise under the names — Definition and Division. What is a Sophist? What is a politician or statesman? What is a philosopher? In the first place — Are the three really distinct characters? for this may seem doubtful: since the true philosopher, in his visits of inspection from city to city, is constantly misconceived by an ignorant public, and confounded with the other two.9 The Eleate replies that the three are distinct. Then what is the characteristic function of each? How is he distinguished from other persons or other things? To what class or classes does each belong: and what is the specific character belonging to the class, so as to mark its place in the scheme descending by successive logical subdivision from the highest genus down to particulars? What other professions or occupations are there analogous to those of Sophist and Statesman, so as to afford an illustrative comparison? What is there in like manner capable of serving as illustrative contrast?

Sokrates tries the application of this method, first, upon a vulgar subject. To find the logical place and deduction of the Angler. Superior classes above him. Bisecting division.

Such are the problems which it is the direct purpose of the two dialogues before us to solve. But a large proportion of both is occupied by matters bearing only indirectly upon the solution. The process of logical subdivision, or the formation of classes in subordination to each other, can be exhibited just as plainly in application to an ordinary craft or profession, as to one of grave importance. The Eleate Stranger even affirms that the former case will be simpler, and will serve as explanatory introduction to the latter.10 He therefore selects the craft of an angler, for which to find a place in logical classification. Does not an angler belong to the general class — men of art or craft? He is not a mere artless, non-professional, private man. This being so, we must distribute the class Arts — Artists, into two subordinate classes: Artists who construct or put together some new substance or compound — Artists who construct nothing new, but are employed in getting, or keeping, or employing, substances already made. Thus the class Artists is bisected into Constructive — Acquisitive. The angler constructs nothing: he belongs to the acquisitive branch. We now bisect this latter branch. Acquirers either obtain by consent, or appropriate without consent. Now the angler is one of the last-mentioned class: which is again bisected into two sub-classes, according as the appropriation is by force or stratagem — Fighters and Hunters. The angler is a hunter: but many other persons are hunters also, from whom he must be distinguished. Hunters are therefore divided into, Those who hunt inanimate things (such as divers for sponges, &c.), and Those who hunt living things or animals, including of course the angler among them. The hunters of animals are distinguished into hunters of walking animals, and hunters of swimming animals. Of the swimming animals some are in air, others in water:11 hence we get two classes, Bird-Hunters and Fish-Hunters; to the last of whom the angler belongs. The fish-hunters (or fishermen) again are bisected into two classes, according as they employ nets, or striking instruments of one kind or another, such as tridents, &c. Of the striking fishermen there are two sorts: those who do their work at night by torch-light, and those who work by day. All these day-fishermen, including among them the angler, use instruments with hooks at the end. But we must still make one bisection more. Some of them employ tridents, with which they strike from above downwards at the fishes, upon any part of the body which may present itself: others use hooks, rods, and lines, which they contrive to attach to the jaws of the fish, and thereby draw him from below upward.12 This is the special characteristic of the angler. We have now a class comprehending the anglers alone, so that no farther sub-division is required. We have obtained not merely the name of the angler, but also the rational explanation of the function to which the name is attached.13

Such a lesson in logical classification was at that time both novel and instructive. No logical manuals then existed.

This is the first specimen which Plato gives of a systematic classification descending, by successive steps of bifurcation, through many subordinations of genera and species, each founded on a real and proclaimed distinction — and ending at last in an infima species. He repeats the like process in regard to the Sophist, the Statesman, and other professions to which he compares the one or the other: but it will suffice to have given one specimen of his method. If we transport ourselves back to his time, I think that such a view of the principles of classification implies a new and valuable turn of thought. There existed then no treatises on logic; no idea of logic as a scheme of mental procedure; no sciences out of which it was possible to abstract the conception of a regular method more or less diversified. On no subject was there any mass of facts or details collected, large enough to demand some regular system for the purpose of arranging and rendering them intelligible. Classification to a certain extent is of necessity involved, consciously or unconsciously, in the use of general terms. But the process itself had never been made a subject of distinct consciousness or reflection to any one (as far as our knowledge reaches), in the time of Plato. No one had yet looked at it as a process natural indeed to the human intellect, up to a certain point and in a loose manner, — but capable both of great extension and great improvement, and requiring especial study, with an end deliberately set before the mind, in order that it might be employed with advantage to regularise and render intelligible even common and well-known facts. To determine a series of descending classes, with class-names, each connoting some assignable characteristic — to distribute the whole of each class between two correlative sub-classes, to compare the different ways in which this could be done, and to select such membra condividentia as were most suitable for the purpose — this was in the time of Plato an important novelty. We know from Xenophon14 that Sokrates considered Dialectic to be founded, both etymologically and really, upon the distribution of particular things into genera or classes. But we find little or no intentional illustration of this process in any of the conversations of the Xenophontic Sokrates: and we are farther struck by the fact that Plato, in the two dialogues which we are here considering, assigns all the remarks on the process of classification, not to Sokrates himself, but to the nameless Eleatic Stranger.

Plato describes the Sophist as analogous to an angler. He traces the Sophist by descending subdivision from the acquisitive genus of art.

After giving the generic deduction of the angler from the comprehensive idea of Art, distributed into two sections, constructive and acquisitive, Plato proceeds to notice the analogy between the Sophist and an angler: after which he deduces the Sophist also from the acquisitive section of Art. The Sophist is an angler for rich young men.15 To find his place in the preceding descending series, we must take our departure from the bisection — hunters of walking animals, hunters of swimming animals. The Sophist is a hunter of walking animals: which may be divided into two classes, wild and tame. The Sophist hunts a species of tame animals — men. Hunters of tame animals are bisected into such as hunt by violent means (robbers, enslavers, despots, &c.),16 and such as hunt by persuasive means. Of the hunters by means of persuasion there are two kinds: those who hunt the public, and those who hunt individuals. The latter again may be divided into two classes: those who hunt to their own loss, by means of presents, such as lovers, &c., and those who hunt with a view to their own profit. To this latter class belongs the Sophist: pretending to associate with others for the sake of virtue, but really looking to his own profit.17

The Sophist traced down from the same, by a second and different descending subdivision.

Again, we may find the Sophist by descending through a different string of subordinate classes from the genus — Acquisitive Art. The professors of this latter may be bisected into two sorts — hunters and exchangers. Exchangers are of two sorts — givers and sellers. Sellers again sell either their own productions, or the productions of others. Those who sell the productions of others are either fixed residents in one city, or hawkers travelling about from city to city. Hawkers again carry about for sale either merchandise for the body, or merchandise for the mind, such as music, poetry, painting, exhibitions of jugglery, learning, and intellectual accomplishments, and so forth. These latter (hawkers for the mind) may be divided into two sorts: those who go about teaching; for money, arts and literary accomplishments — and those who go about teaching virtue for money. They who go about teaching virtue for money are the Sophists.18 Or indeed if they sell virtue and knowledge for money, they are not the less Sophists — whether they buy what they sell from others, or prepare it for themselves — whether they remain in one city or become itinerant.

Also, by a third.

A third series of subordinate classes will also bring us down from the genus — Acquisitive Art — down to the infima species — Sophist. In determining the class-place of the angler, we recognised a bisection of acquisitive art into acquirers by exchange, or mutual consent — and acquirers by appropriation, or without consent.19 These latter we divided according as they employed either force or stratagem: contenders and hunters. We then proceeded to bisect the class hunters, leaving the contenders without farther notice. Now let us take up the class contenders. It may be divided into two: competitors for a set prize (pecuniary or honorary), and fighters. The fighters go to work either body against body, violently — or tongue against tongue, as arguers. These arguers again fall into two classes: the pleaders, who make long speeches, about just or unjust, before the public assembly and dikastery: and the dialogists, who meet each other in short question and answer. The dialogists again are divided into two: the private, untrained antagonists, quarrelling with each other about the particular affairs of life (who form a species by themselves, since characteristic attributes may be assigned to them; though these attributes are too petty and too indefinite to have ever received a name in common language, or to deserve a name from us20) — and the trained practitioners or wranglers, who dispute not about particular incidents, but about just and unjust in general, and other general matters.21 Of wranglers again there are two sorts: the prosers, who follow the pursuit from spontaneous taste and attachment, not only without hope of gain, but to the detriment of their private affairs, incurring loss themselves, and wearying or bothering their hearers: and those who make money by such private dialogues. This last sort of wrangler is the Sophist.22

The Sophist is traced down, from the genus of separating or discriminating art.

There is yet another road of class-distribution which will bring us down to the Sophist. A great number of common arts (carding wool, straining through a sieve, &c.) have, in common, the general attribute of separating matters confounded in a heap. Of separation there are two sorts: you may separate like from like (this has no established name) — or better from worse, which is called purification. Purification is of two sorts: either of body or of mind. In regard to body, the purifying agents are very multifarious, comprising not only men and animals, but also inanimate things: and thus including many varieties which in common estimation are mean, trivial, repulsive, or ludicrous. But all these various sentiments (observes Plato) we must disregard. We must follow out a real analogy wherever it leads us, and recognise a logical affinity wherever we find one; whether the circumstances brought together be vile or venerable, or some of them vile and some venerable, in the eyes of mankind. Our sole purpose is to improve our intelligence. With that view, all particulars are of equal value in our eyes, provided only they exhibit that real likeness which legitimates them as members of the same class — purifiers of body: the correlate of that other class which we now proceed to study — purifiers of mind.23

In a logical classification, low and vulgar items deserve as much attention as grand ones. Conflict between emotional and scientific classification.

This precept (repeated by Plato also in the Politikus) respecting the principles of classification, deserves notice. It protests against, and seeks to modify, one of the ordinary turns in the associating principles of the human mind. With unreflecting men, classification is often emotional rather than intellectual. The groups of objects thrown together in such minds, and conceived in immediate association, are such as suggest the same or kindred emotions: pleasure or pain, love or hatred, hope or fear, admiration, contempt, disgust, jealousy, ridicule. Community of emotion is a stronger bond of association between different objects, than community in any attribute not immediately interesting to the emotions, and appreciable only intellectually. Thus objects which have nothing else in common, except appeal to the same earnest emotion, will often be called by the same general name, and will be constituted members of the same class. To attend to attributes in any other point of view than in reference to the amount and kind of emotion which they excite, is a process uncongenial to ordinary taste: moreover, if any one brings together, in the same wording, objects really similar, but exciting opposite and contradictory emotions, he usually provokes either disgust or ridicule. All generalizations, and all general terms connoting them, are results brought together by association and comparison of particulars somehow resembling. But if we look at the process of association in an unreflecting person, the resemblances which it fastens upon will be often emotional, not intellectual: and the generalizations founded upon such resemblances will be emotional also.

It is against this natural propensity that Plato here enters his protest, in the name of intellect and science. For the purpose of obtaining a classification founded on real, intrinsic affinities, we must exclude all reference to the emotions: we must take no account whether a thing be pleasing or hateful, sublime or mean:24 we must bring ourselves to rank objects useful or grand in the same logical compartment with objects hurtful or ludicrous. We must examine only whether the resemblance is true and real, justifying itself to the comparing intellect: and whether the class-term chosen be such as to comprise all these resemblances, holding them apart (μόνον ἐχέτω χωρὶς) from the correlative and opposing class.25

The purifier — a species under the genus discriminator — separates good from evil. Evil is of two sorts; the worst sort is, Ignorance, mistaking itself for knowledge.

After these just remarks on classification generally, the Eleate pursues the subdivision of his own theme. To purify the mind is to get rid of the evil, and retain or improve the good. Now evil is of two sorts — disease (injustice, intemperance, cowardice, &c.) and ignorance. Disease, which in the body is dealt with by the physician, is in the mind dealt with by the judicial tribunal: ignorance (corresponding to ugliness, awkwardness, disability, in the body, which it is the business of the gymnastic trainer to correct) falls under the treatment of the teacher or instructor.26 Ignorance again may be distributed into two heads: one, though special, being so grave as to counterbalance all the rest, and requiring to be set apart by itself — that is — ignorance accompanied with the false persuasion of knowledge.27

Exhortation is useless against this worst mode of evil. Cross-examination, the shock of the Elenchus, must be brought to bear upon it. This is the sovereign purifier.

To meet this special and gravest case of ignorance, we must recognise a special division of the art of instruction or education. Exhortation, which is the common mode of instruction, and which was employed by our forefathers universally, is of no avail against this false persuasion of knowledge: which can only be approached and cured by the Elenchus, or philosophical cross-examination. So long as a man believes himself to be wise, you may lecture for ever without making impression upon him: you do no good by supplying food when the stomach is sick. But the examiner, questioning him upon those subjects which he professes to know, soon entangles him in contradictions with himself, making him feel with shame and humiliation his own real ignorance. After having been thus disabused — a painful but indispensable process, not to be accomplished except by the Elenchus — his mind becomes open and teachable, so that positive instruction may be communicated to him with profit. The Elenchus is the grand and sovereign purification: whoever has not been subjected to it, were he even the Great King, is impure, unschooled, and incompetent for genuine happiness.28

The application of this Elenchus is the work of the Sophist, looked at on its best side. But looked at as he really is, he is a juggler who teaches pupils to dispute about every thing — who palms off falsehood for truth.

This cross-examining and disabusing process, brought to bear upon the false persuasion of knowledge and forming the only antidote to it, is the business of the Sophist looked at on its best side.29 But Plato will not allow the Elenchus, the great Sokratic accomplishment and mission, to be shared by the Sophists: and he finds or makes a subtle distinction to keep them off. The Sophist (so the Eleate proceeds) is a disputant, and teaches all his youthful pupils to dispute about everything as if they knew it — about religion, astronomy, philosophy, arts, laws, politics, and everything else. He teaches them to argue in each department against the men of special science: he creates a belief in the minds of others that he really knows all those different subjects, respecting which he is able to argue and cross-examine successfully: he thus both possesses, and imparts to his pupils, a seeming knowledge, an imitation and pretence of reality.30 He is a sort of juggler: an imitator who palms off upon persons what appears like reality when seen from a distance, but what is seen to be not like reality when contemplated closely.31

Doubt started by the Eleate. How can it be possible either to think or to speak falsely?

Here however (continues Plato) we are involved in a difficulty. How can a thing appear to be what it is not? How can a man who opines or affirms, opine or affirm falsely — that is, opine or affirm the thing that is not? To admit this, we must assume the thing that is not (or Non-Ens, Nothing) to have a real existence. Such an assumption involves great and often debated difficulties. It has been pronounced by Parmenides altogether inadmissible.32

We have already seen that Plato discussed this same question in the Theætêtus, and that after trying and rejecting many successive hypotheses to show how false supposition, or false affirmation, might be explained as possible, by a theory involving no contradiction, he left the question unsolved. He now resumes it at great length. It occupies more than half33 the dialogue. Near the close, but only then, he reverts to the definition of the Sophist.

He pursues the investigation of this problem by a series of questions.

First, the Eleate states the opinion which perplexes him, and which he is anxious either to refute or to explain away. (Unfortunately, we have no statement of the opinion, nor of the grounds on which it was held, from those who actually held it.) Non-Ens, or Nothing, is not the name of any existing thing, or of any Something. But every one who speaks must speak something: therefore if you try to speak of Non-Ens, you are trying to speak nothing — which is equivalent to not speaking at all.34 Moreover, to every Something, you can add something farther: but to Non-Ens, or Nothing, you cannot add any thing. (Non-Entis nulla sunt prædicata.) Now Number is something, or included among the Entia: you cannot therefore apply number, either singular or plural, to Non-Ens: and inasmuch as every thing conceived or described must be either one or many, it is impossible either to conceive or describe Non-Ens. You cannot speak of it without falling into a contradiction.35

The Sophist will reject our definition and escape, by affirming that to speak falsely is impossible. He will require us to make out a rational theory, explaining Non-Ens.

When therefore we characterise the Sophist as one who builds up phantasms for realities — who presents to us what is not, as being like to what is, and as a false substitute for what is — he will ask us what we mean? If, to illustrate our meaning, we point to images of things in mirrors or clear water, he will pretend to be blind, and will refuse the evidence of sense: he will require us to make out a rational theory explaining Non-Ens or Nothing.36 But when we try to do this, we contradict ourselves. A phantasm is that which, not being a true counterpart of reality, is yet so like it as to be mistaken for reality. Quatenus phantasm, it is Ens: quatenus reality, it is Non-Ens: thus the same thing is both Ens, and Non-Ens: which we declared before to be impossible.37 When therefore we accuse the Sophist of passing off phantasms for realities, we suppose falsely: we suppose matters not existing, or contrary to those which exist: we suppose the existent not to exist, or the non-existent to exist But this assumes as done what cannot be done: since we have admitted more than once that Non-Ens can neither be described in language by itself, nor joined on in any manner to Ens.38

Stating the case in this manner, we find that to suppose falsely, or affirm falsely, is a contradiction. But there is yet another possible way out of the difficulty (the Eleate continues).

The Eleate turns from Non-Ens to Ens. Theories of various philosophers about Ens.

Let us turn for a moment (he says) from Non-Ens to Ens. The various physical philosophers tell us a good deal about Ens. They differ greatly among themselves. Some philosophers represent Ens as triple, comprising three distinct elements, sometimes in harmony, sometimes at variance with each other. Others tell us that it is double — wet and dry — or hot and cold. A third sect, especially Xenophanes and Parmenides, pronounce it to be essentially One. Herakleitus blends together the different theories, affirming that Ens is both many and one, always in process of disjunction and conjunction: Empedokles adopts a similar view, only dropping the always, and declaring the process of disjunction to alternate with that of conjunction, so that Ens is sometimes Many, sometimes One.39

Difficulties about Ens are as great as those about Non-Ens.

Now when I look at these various theories (continues the Eleate), I find that I do not follow or understand them; and that I know nothing more or better about Ens than about Non-Ens. I thought, as a young man, that I understood both: but I now find that I understand neither.40 The difficulties about Ens are just as great as those about Non-Ens. What do these philosophers mean by saying that Ens is double or triple? that there are two distinct existing elements — Hot and Cold — or three? What do you mean by saying that Hot and Cold exist? Is existence any thing distinct from Hot and Cold? If so, then there are three elements in all, not two. Do you mean that existence is something belonging to both and affirmed of both? Then you pronounce both to be One: and Ens, instead of being double, will be at the bottom only One.

Whether Ens is Many or One? If Many, how Many? Difficulties about One and the Whole. Theorists about Ens cannot solve them.

Such are the questions which the Eleatic spokesman of Plato puts to those philosophers who affirm Ens to be plural: He turns next to those who affirm Ens to be singular, or Unum. Do you mean that Unum is identical with Ens — and are they only two names for the same One and only thing? There cannot be two distinct names belonging to one and the same thing: and yet, if this be not so, one of the names must be the name of nothing. At any rate, if there be only one name and one thing, still the name itself is different from the thing — so that duality must still be recognised. Or if you take the name as identical with the One thing, it will either be the name of nothing, or the name of a name.41

Again, as to the Whole:— is the Whole the same with the Ens Unum, or different from it. We shall be told that it is the same: but according to the description given by Parmenides, the whole is spherical, thus having a centre and circumference, and of course having parts. Now a whole divisible into parts may have unity predicable of it, as an affection or accident in respect to the sum of its parts: but it cannot be the genuine, essential, self-existent, One, which does not admit of parts or division. If Ens be One by accident, it is not identical with One, and we thus have two existent things: and if Ens be not really and essentially the Whole, while nevertheless the Whole exists — Ens must fall short of or be less than itself, and must to this extent be Non-Ens: besides that Ens, and Totum, being by nature distinct, we have more things than One existing. On the other hand, if we assume Totum not to be Ens, the same result will ensue. Ens will still be something less than itself; — Ens can never have any quantity, for each quantum is necessarily a whole in itself — and Ens can never be generated, since everything generated is also necessarily a whole.42

Theories of those who do not recognise a definite number of Entia or elements. Two classes thereof.

Such is the examination which the Eleate bestows on the theories of theories of those philosophers who held one, two, or a definite number of self-existent Entia or elements. His purpose is to show, that even on their schemes, Ens is just as unintelligible, and involves as many contradictions, as Non-Ens. And to complete the same demonstration, he proceeds to dissect the theories of those who do not recognise any definite or specific number of elements or Entia.43 Of these he distinguishes two classes; in direct and strenuous opposition to each other, respecting what constituted Essentia.44

1. The Materialist Philosophers. 2. The Friends of Forms or Idealists, who recognise such Forms as the only real Entia.

First, the Materialist Philosophers, who recognise nothing as existing except what is tangible; defining Essence as identical with Body, and denying all incorporeal essence. Plato mentions no names: but he means (according to some commentators) Leukippus and Demokritus — perhaps Aristippus also. Secondly, other philosophers who, diametrically opposed to the Materialists, affirmed that there were no real Entia except certain Forms, Ideas, genera or species, incorporeal and conceivable only by intellect: that true and real essence was not to be found in those bodies wherein the Materialists sought it: that bodies were in constant generation and disappearance, affording nothing more than a transitory semblance of reality, not tenable45 when sifted by reason. By these last are understood (so Schleiermacher and others think, though in my judgment erroneously) Eukleides and the Megaric school of philosophers.

Argument against the Materialists — Justice must be something, since it may be either present or absent, making sensible difference — But Justice is not a body.

The Eleate proceeds to comment upon the doctrines held by these opposing schools of thinkers respecting Essence or Reality. It is easier (he says) to deal with the last-mentioned, for they are more gentle. With the Materialists it is difficult, and all but impossible, to deal at all. Indeed, before we can deal with them, we must assume them to be for this occasion better than they show themselves in reality, and ready to answer in a more becoming manner than they actually do.46 These Materialists will admit (Plato continues) that man exists — an animated body, or a compound of mind and body: they will farther allow that the mind of one man differs from that of another:— one is just, prudent, &c., another is unjust and imprudent. One man is just, through the habit and presence of justice: another is unjust, through the habit and presence of injustice. But justice must surely be something — injustice also must be something — if each may be present to, or absent from, any thing; and if their presence or absence makes so sensible a difference.47 And justice or injustice, prudence or imprudence, as well as the mind in which the one or the other inheres, are neither visible or tangible, nor have they any body: they are all invisible.

At least many of them will concede this point, though not all Ens is common to the corporeal and the incorporeal. Ens is equivalent to potentiality.

Probably (replies Theætêtus) these philosophers would contend that the soul or mind had a body; but they would be ashamed either to deny that justice, prudence, &c., existed as realities — or to affirm that justice, prudence, &c. were all bodies.48 These philosophers must then have become better (rejoins the Eleate): for the primitive and genuine leaders of them will not concede even so much as that. But let us accept the concession. If they will admit any incorporeal reality at all, however small, our case is made out. For we shall next call upon them to say, what there is in common between these latter, and those other realities which have bodies connate with and essential to them — to justify the names real — essence — bestowed upon both.49 Perhaps they would accept the following definition of Ens or the Real — of Essence or Reality. Every thing which possesses any sort of power, either to act upon any thing else or to be acted upon by any thing else, be it only for once or to the smallest degree — every such thing is true and real Ens. The characteristic mark or definition of Ens or the Real is, power or potentiality.50

Argument against the Idealists — who distinguish Ens from the generated, and say that we hold communion with the former through our minds, with the latter through our bodies and senses.

The Eleate now turns to the philosophers of the opposite school — the Mentalists or Idealists, — whom he terms the friends of Forms, Ideas, or species.51 These men (he says) distinguish the generated, transitory and changeable — from Ens or the Real, which is eternal, unchanged, always the same: they distinguish generation from essence. With the generated (according to their doctrine) we hold communion through our bodies and our bodily perceptions: with Ens, we hold communion through our mind and our intellectual apprehension. But what do they mean (continues the Eleate) by this “holding of communion”? Is it not an action or a passion produced by a certain power of agent and patient coming into co-operation with each other? and is not this the definition which we just now laid down, of Ens or the Real.

Holding communion — What? Implies Relativity. Ens is known by the mind. It therefore suffers or undergoes change. Ens includes both the unchangeable and the changeable.

No — these philosophers will reply — we do not admit your definition as a definition of Ens: it applies only to the generated. Generation does involve, or emanate from, a reciprocity of agent and patient: but neither power nor action, nor suffering, have any application to Ens or the Real. But you admit (says the Eleate) that the mind knows Ens:— and that Ens is known by the mind. Now this knowing, is it not an action — and is not the being known, a passion? If to know is an action, then Ens, being known, is acted upon, suffers something, or undergoes some change, — which would be impossible if we assume Ens to be eternally unchanged. These philosophers might reply, that they do not admit to know as an action, nor to be known as a passion. They affirm Ens to be eternally unchanged, and they hold to their other affirmation that Ens is known by the mind. But (urges the Eleate) can they really believe that Ens is eternally the same and unchanged, — that it has neither life, nor mind, nor intelligence, nor change, nor movement? This is incredible. They must concede that Change, and the Changeable, are to be reckoned as Entia or Realities: for if these be not so reckoned, and if all Entia are unchangeable, no Ens can be an object of knowledge to any mind. But though the changeable belongs to Ens, we must not affirm that all Ens is changeable. There cannot be either intellect or knowledge, without something constant and unchangeable. It is equally necessary to recognise something as constant and unchangeable — something else as moving and changeable: Ens or reality includes alike one and the other. The true philosopher therefore cannot agree with those “Friends of Forms” who affirm all Ens or Reality to be at rest and unchangeable, either under one form or under many:— still less can he agree with those opposite reasoners, who maintain all reality to be in perpetual change and movement. He will acknowledge both and each — rest and motion — the constant and the changeable — as making up together total reality or Ens Totum.

Motion and rest are both of them Entia or realities. Both agree in Ens. Ens is a tertium quid — distinct from both. But how can anything be distinct from both?

Still, however, we have not got over our difficulties. Motion and Rest are contraries; yet we say that each and both are Realities or Entia. In what is it that they both agree? Not in moving, nor in being at rest, but simply in existence or reality. Existence or reality therefore must be a tertium quid, apart from motion and rest, not the sum total of those two items. Ens or the Real is not, in its own proper nature, either in motion or at rest, but is distinct from both. Yet how can this be? Surely, whatever is not in motion, must be at rest — whatever is not at rest, must be in motion. How can any thing be neither in motion nor at rest; standing apart from both?52

Here the Eleate breaks off without solution. He declares his purpose to show, That Ens is as full of puzzle as Non-Ens,

Here the Eleate breaks off his enquiry, without solving the problems which he has accumulated. My purpose was (he says53) to show that Ens was just as full of difficulties and embarrassments as Non-Ens. Enough has been said to prove this clearly. When we can once get clear of obscurity about Ens, we may hope to be equally successful with Non-Ens.

Argument against those who admit no predication to be legitimate, except identical. How far Forms admit of intercommunion with each other.

Let us try (he proceeds) another path. We know that it is a common practice in our daily speech to apply many different predicates to one and the same subject. We say of the same man, that he is fair, tall, just, brave, &c., and several other epithets. Some persons deny our right to do this. They say that the predicate ought always to be identical with the subject: that we can only employ with propriety such propositions as the following — man is man — good is good, &c.: that to apply many predicates to one and the same subject is to make one thing into many things.54 But in reply to these opponents, as well as to those whom we have before combated, we shall put before them three alternatives, of which they must choose one. 1. Either all Forms admit of intercommunion one with the other. 2. Or no Forms admit of such intercommunion. 3. Or some Forms do admit of it, and others not. Between these three an option must be made.55

No intercommunion between any distinct forms. Refuted. Common speech is inconsistent with this hypothesis.

If we take the first alternative — that there is no intercommunion of Forms — then the Forms motion and rest can have no intercommunion with the Forms, essence or reality. In other words, neither motion nor rest exist: and thus the theory both of those who say that all things are in perpetual movement, and of those who say that all things are in perpetual rest, becomes unfounded and impossible. Besides, these very men, who deny all intercommunion of Forms, are obliged to admit it implicitly and involuntarily in their common forms of speech. They cannot carry on a conversation without it, and they thus serve as a perpetual refutation of their own doctrine.56

Reciprocal intercommunion of all Forms — inadmissible.

The second alternative — that all Forms may enter into communion with each other — is also easily refuted. If this were true, motion and rest might be put together: motion would be at rest, and rest would be in motion — which is absurd. These and other forms are contrary to each other. They reciprocally exclude and repudiate all intercommunion.57

Some Forms admit of intercommunion, others not. This is the only admissible doctrine. Analogy of letters and syllables.

Remains only the third alternative — that some forms admit of intercommunion — others not. This is the real truth (says the Eleate). So it stands in regard to letters and words in language: some letters come together in words frequently and conveniently — others rarely and awkwardly — others never do nor ever can come together. The same with the combination of sounds to obtain music. It requires skill and art to determine which of these combinations are admissible.

Art and skill are required to distinguish what Forms admit of intercommunion, and what Forms do not. This is the special intelligence of the Philosopher, who lives in the bright region of Ens: the Sophist lives in the darkness of Non-Ens.

So also, in regard to the intercommunion of Forms, skill and art are required to decide which of them will come together, and which will not. In every special art and profession the case is similar: the ignorant man will fail in deciding this question — the man of special skill alone will succeed. — So in regard to the intercommunion of Forms or Genera universally with each other, the comprehensive science of the true philosopher is required to decide.58 To note and study these Forms, is the purpose of the philosopher in his dialectics or ratiocinative debate. He can trace the one Form or Idea, stretching through a great many separate particulars; he can distinguish it from all different Forms: he knows which Forms are not merely distinct from each other, but incapable of alliance and reciprocally repulsive — which of them are capable of complete conjunction, the one circumscribing and comprehending the other — and which of them admit conjunction partial and occasional with each other.59 The philosopher thus keeps close to the Form of eternal and unchangeable Ens or Reality — a region of such bright light that the eyes of the vulgar cannot clearly see him: while the Sophist on the other hand is also difficult to be seen, but for an opposite reason — from the darkness of that region of Non-Ens or Non-Reality wherein he carries on his routine-work.60

He comes to enquire what Non-Ens is. He takes for examination five principal Forms — Motion — Rest — Ens — Same — Different.

We have still to determine, however (continues Plato), what this Non-Ens or Non-Reality is. For this purpose we will take a survey, not of all Forms or Genera, but of some few the most important. We will begin with the two before noticed — Motion and Rest ( = Change and Permanence), which are confessedly irreconcileable and reciprocally exclusive. Ens however enters into partnership with both: for both of them are, or exist.61 This makes up three Forms or Genera — Motion, Rest, Ens: each of the three being the same with itself, and different from the other two. Here we have pronounced two new words — Same — Different.62 Do these words designate two other Forms, over and above the three before-named, yet necessarily always intermingling in partnership with those three, so as to make five Forms in all? Or are these two — Same and Different — essential appendages of the three before-named? This last question must be answered in the negative. Same and Different are not essential appendages, or attached as parts, to Motion, Rest, Ens. Same and Different may be predicated both of Motion and of Rest: and whatever can be predicated alike of two contraries, cannot be an essential portion or appendage of either. Neither Motion nor Rest therefore are essentially either Same or Different: though both of them partake of Same or Different — i.e., come into accidental co-partnership with one as well as the other.63 Neither can we say that Ens is identical with either Idem or Diversum. Not with Idem — for we speak of both Motion and Rest as Entia or Existences: but we cannot speak of them as the same. Not with Diversum — for different is a name relative to something else from which it is different, but Ens is not thus relative. Motion and Rest are or exist, each in itself: but each is different, relatively to the other, and to other things generally. Accordingly we have here five Forms or Genera — Ens, Motion, Rest, Idem, Diversum: each distinct from and independent of all the rest.64

Form of Diversum pervades all the others.

This Form of Diversum or Different pervades all the others: for each one of them is different from the others, not through any thing in its own nature, but because it partakes of the Form of Difference.65 Each of the five is different from others: or, to express the same fact in other words, each of them is not any one of the others. Thus motion is different from rest, or is not rest: but nevertheless motion is or exists, because it partakes of the Form — Ens. Again, Motion is different from Idem: it is not the Same: yet nevertheless it is the same, because it partakes of the nature of Idem, or is the same with itself. Thus then both predications are true respecting motion: it is the same: it is not the same, because it partakes of or enters into partnership with both Idem and Diversum.66 If motion in any way partook of Rest, we should be able to talk of stationary motion: but this is impossible: for we have already said that some Forms cannot come into intercommunion — that they absolutely exclude each other.

Motion is different from Diversum, or is not Diversum. Motion is different from Ens — in other words, it is Non-Ens. Each of these Forms is both Ens and Non-Ens.

Again, Motion is different not only from Rest, and from Idem, but also from Diversum itself. In other words, it is both Diversum in a certain way, and also not Diversum: different and not different.67 As it is different from Rest, from Idem, from Diversum — so also it is different from Ens, the remaining one of the five forms or genera. In other words Motion is not Ens, — or is Non-Ens. It is both Ens, and Non-Ens: Ens, so far as it partakes of Entity or Reality — Non-Ens, so far as it partakes of Difference, and is thus different from Ens as well as from the other Forms.68 The same may be said of the other Forms, — Rest, Idem, Diversum: each of them is Ens, because it partakes of entity or reality: each of them is also Non-Ens, or different from Ens, because it partakes of Difference. Moreover, Ens itself is different from the other four, and so far as these others go, it is Non-Ens.69

By Non-Ens, we do not mean anything contrary to Ens — we mean only something different from Ens. Non-Ens is a real Form, as well as Ens.

Now note the consequence (continues the Eleate). When we speak of Non-Ens, we do not mean any thing contrary to Ens, but only something different from Ens. When we call any thing not great, we do not affirm it to be the contrary of great, or to be little: for it may perhaps be simply equal: we only mean that it is different from great.70 A negative proposition, generally, does not signify anything contrary to the predicate, but merely something else distinct or different from the predicate.71 The Form of Different, though of one and the same general nature throughout, is distributed into many separate parts or specialties, according as it is attached to different things. Thus not beautiful is a special mode of the general Form or Genus Different, placed in antithesis with another Form or Genus, the beautiful. The antithesis is that of one Ens or Real thing against another Ens or Real thing: not beautiful, not great, not just, exist just as much and are quite as real, as beautiful, great, just. If the Different be a real Form or Genus, all its varieties must be real also. Accordingly Different from Ens is just as much a real Form as Ens itself:72 and this is what we mean by Non-Ens:— not any thing contrary to Ens.

The Eleate claims to have refuted Parmenides, and to have shown both that Non-Ens is a real Form, and also what it is.

Here then the Eleate professes to have found what Non-Ens is: that it is a real substantive Form, numerable among the other Forms, and having a separate constant nature of its own, like not beautiful, not great:73 that it is real and existent, just as much as Ens, beautiful, great, &c. Disregarding the prohibition of Parmenides, we have shown (says he) not only that Non-Ens exists, but also what it is. Many Forms or Genera enter into partnership or communion with each other; and Non-Ens is the partnership between Ens and Diversum. Diversum, in partnership with Ens, is (exists), in consequence of such partnership:— yet it is not that with which it is in partnership, but different therefrom — and being thus different from Ens, it is clearly and necessarily Non-Ens: while Ens also, by virtue of its partnership with Diversum, is different from all the other Forms, or is not any one of them, and to this extent therefore Ens is Non-Ens. We drop altogether the idea of contrariety, without enquiring whether it be reasonably justifiable or not: we attach ourselves entirely to the Form — Different.74

The theory now stated is the only one, yet given, which justifies predication as a legitimate process, with a predicate different from the subject.

Let those refute this explanation, who can do so (continues the Eleate), or let them propose a better of their own, if they can: if not, let them allow the foregoing as possible.75 Let them not content themselves with multiplying apparent contradictions, by saying that the same may be in some particular respect different, and that the different may be in some particular respect the same, through this or the other accidental attribute.76 All these sophisms lead but to make us believe — That no one thing can be predicated of any other — That there is no intercommunion of the distinct Forms one with another, no right to predicate of any subject a second name and the possession of a new attribute — That therefore there can be no dialectic debate or philosophy, which is all founded upon such intercommunion of Forms.77 We have shown that Forms do really come into conjunction, so as to enable us to conjoin, truly and properly, predicate with subject, and to constitute proposition and judgment as taking place among the true Forms or Genera. Among these true Forms or Genera, Non-Ens is included as one.78

Enquiry, whether the Form of Non-Ens can come into intercommunion with the Forms of Proposition, Opinion, Judgment.

The Eleate next proceeds to consider, whether these two Genera or Forms — Proposition, Judgment, Opinion, on the one hand, and Non-Ens on the other — are among those which may or do enter into partnership and conjunction with each other. For we have admitted that there are some Forms which cannot come into partnership; and the Sophist against whom we are reasoning, though we have driven him to concede that Non-Ens is a real Form, may still contend that it is one of those which cannot come into partnership with Proposition, Judgment, Opinion — and he may allege that we can neither embody in language, nor in mental judgment, that which is not.79

Analysis of a Proposition. Every Proposition must have a noun and a verb — it must be proposition of Something. False propositions, involve the Form of Non-Ens, in relation to the particular subject.

Let us look attentively what Proposition, Judgment, Opinion, are. As we said about Forms and letters, so about words: it is not every combination of words which is possible, so as to make up a significant proposition. A string of nouns alone will not make one, nor a string of verbs alone. To compose the simplest proposition, you must put together at least one noun and one verb, in order to signify something respecting things existing, or events past, present, and future.80 Now every proposition must be a proposition about something, or belonging to a certain subject: every proposition must also be of a certain quality.81 Theætêtus is sitting down — Theætêtus is flying. Here are two propositions, both belonging to the same subject, but with opposite qualities: the former true, the latter false. The true proposition affirms respecting Theætêtus real things as they are; the false proposition affirms respecting him things different from real, or non-real, as being real. The attribute of flying is just as real in itself as the attribute of sitting: but as respects Theætêtus, or as predicated concerning him, it is different from the reality, or non-real.82 But still Theætêtus is the subject of the proposition, though the predicate flying does not really belong to him: for there is no other subject than he, and without a subject the proposition would be no proposition at all. When therefore different things are affirmed as the same, or non-realities as realities, respecting you or any given subject, the proposition so affirming is false.83

Opinion, Judgment, Fancy, &c., are akin to Proposition, and may be also false, by coming into partnership with the Form Non-Ens.

As propositions may be true or false, so also opinion or judgment or conception, may be true or false: for opinion or judgment is only the concluding result of deliberation or reflection — and reflection is the silent dialogue of the mind with itself: while conception or phantasy is the coalescence or conjunction of opinion with present perception.84 Both opinion and conception are akin to proposition. It has thus been shown that false propositions, and false opinions or judgments, are perfectly real, and involve no contradiction: and that the Form or Genus — Proposition, Judgment, Opinion — comes properly and naturally into partnership with the Form Non-Ens.

This was the point which Plato’s Eleate undertook to prove against Parmenides, and against the plea of the Sophist founded on the Parmenidean doctrine.

It thus appears that Falsehood, imitating Truth, is theoretically possible, and that there may be a profession, like that of the Sophist, engaged in producing it.

Here Plato closes his general philosophical discussion, and reverts to the process of logical division from which he had deviated. In descending the predicamental steps, to find the logical place of the Sophist, Plato had reached a point where he assumed Non-Ens, together with false propositions and judgments affirming Non-Ens. To which the Sophist is conceived as replying, that Non-Ens was contradictory and impossible, and that no proposition could be false. On these points Plato has produced an elaborate argument intended to refute him, and to show that there was such a thing as falsehood imitating truth, or passing itself off as truth: accordingly, that there might be an art or profession engaged in producing such falsehood.

Logical distribution of Imitators — those who imitate what they know, or what they do not know — of these last, some sincerely believe themselves to know, others are conscious that they do not know, and designedly impose upon others.

Now the imitative profession may be distributed into those who know what they imitate — and those who imitate without knowing.85 The man who mimics your figure or voice, knows what he imitates: those who imitate the figure of justice and virtue often pass themselves off as knowing it, yet do not really know it, having nothing better than fancy or opinion concerning it. Of these latter again — (i.e. the imitators with mere opinion, but no knowledge, respecting that which sincerely they imitate) — there are two classes: one, those who sincerely mistake their own mere opinions for knowledge, and are falsely persuaded that they really know: the other class, those who by their perpetual occupation in talking, lead us to suspect and apprehend that they are conscious of not knowing things, which nevertheless they discuss before others as if they did know.86

Last class divided — Those who impose on numerous auditors by long discourse, the Rhetor — Those who impose on select auditors, by short question and answer, making the respondent contradict himself — the Sophist.

Of this latter class, again, we may recognise two sections: those who impose upon a numerous audience by long discourses on public matters: and those who in private, by short question and answer, compel the person conversing with them to contradict himself.87 The man of long discourse is not the true statesman, but the popular orator: the man of short discourse, but without any real knowledge, is not the truly wise man, since he has no real knowledge — but the imitator of the wise man, or Sophist.

Dialogue closed. Remarks upon it. Characteristics ascribed to a Sophist.

We have here the conclusion of this abstruse and complicated dialogue, called Sophistês. It ends by setting forth, as the leading characteristics of the Sophist — that he deals in short question and answer so as to make the respondent contradict himself: That he talks with small circles of listeners, upon a large variety of subjects, on which he possesses no real knowledge: That he mystifies or imposes upon his auditors; not giving his own sincere convictions, but talking for the production of a special effect. He is ἐναντιοποιολογικὸς and εἴρων, to employ the two original Platonic words, neither of which is easy to translate.

These characteristics may have belonged to other persons, but they belonged in an especial manner to Sokrates himself.

I dare say that there were some acute and subtle disputants in Athens to whom these characteristics belonged, though we do not know them by name. But we know one to whom they certainly belonged: and that was, Sokrates himself. They stand manifest and prominent both in the Platonic and in the Xenophontic dialogues. The attribute which Xenophon directly predicates about him, that “in conversation he dealt with his interlocutors just as he pleased,”88 is amply exemplified by Plato in the Protagoras, Gorgias, Euthyphron, Lachês, Charmides, Lysias, Alkibiadês I. and II., Hippias I. and II., &c. That he cross-examined and puzzled every one else without knowing the subjects on which he talked, better than they did — is his own declaration in the Apology. That the Athenians regarded him as a clever man mystifying them — talking without sincere persuasion, or in a manner so strange that you could not tell whether he was in jest or in earnest — overthrowing men’s established convictions by subtleties which led to no positive truth — is also attested both by what he himself says in the Apology, and by other passages of Plato and Xenophon.89

The conditions enumerated in the dialogue (except the taking of a fee) fit Sokrates better than any other known person.

Moreover, if we examine not merely the special features assigned to the Sophist in the conclusion of the dialogue, but also those indicated in the earlier part of it, we shall find that many of them fit Sokrates as well as they could have fitted any one else. If the Sophists hunted after rich young men,90 Sokrates did the same; seeking opportunities for conversation with them by assiduous frequentation of the palæstræ, as well as in other ways. We see this amply attested by Plato and Xenophon:91 we see farther that Sokrates announces it as a propensity natural to him, and meritorious rather than otherwise. Again, the argumentative dialogue — disputation or eristic reduced to an art, and debating on the general theses of just and unjust, which Plato notes as characterising the Sophists92 — belonged in still higher perfection to Sokrates. It not only formed the business of his life, but is extolled by Plato elsewhere,93 as the true walk of virtuous philosophy. But there was undoubtedly this difference between Sokrates and the Sophists, that he conversed and argued gratuitously, delighting in the process itself: while they both asked and received money for it. Upon this point, brought forward by Plato both directly and with his remarkable fertility in multiplying indirect allusions, the peculiarity of the Sophist is made mainly to turn. To ask or receive a fee for communicating knowledge, virtue, aptitude in debate, was in the view of Sokrates and Plato a grave enormity: a kind of simoniacal practice.94

The art which Plato calls “the thoroughbred and noble Sophistical Art” belongs to Sokrates and to no one else. The Elenchus was peculiar to him. Protagoras and Prodikus were not Sophists in this sense.

We have seen also that Plato assigns to what he terms “the thoroughbred and noble Sophistic Art” (ἡ γένει γενναία σοφιστικὴ), the employment of the Elenchus, for the purpose of destroying, in the minds of others, that false persuasion of existing knowledge which was the radical impediment to their imbibing acquisitions of real knowledge from the teacher.95 Here Plato draws a portrait not only strikingly resembling Sokrates, but resembling no one else. As far as we can make out, Sokrates stood alone in this original conception of the purpose of the Elenchus, and in his no less original manner of working it out. To prove to others that they knew nothing, is what he himself represents to be his mission from the Delphian oracle. Sokrates is a Sophist of the most genuine and noble stamp: others are Sophists, but of a more degenerate variety. Plato admits the analogy with reluctance, and seeks to attenuate it.96 We may remark, however, that according to the characteristic of the true Sophist here given by Plato, Protagoras and Prodikus were less of Sophists than Sokrates. For though we know little of the two former, yet there is good reason to believe, That the method which they generally employed was, that of continuous and eloquent discourse, lecture, exhortation: that disputation by short question and answer was less usual with them, and was not their strong point: and that the Elenchus, in the Sokratic meaning, can hardly be said to have been used by them at all. Now Plato, in this dialogue, tells us that the true and genuine Sophist renounces the method of exhortation as unprofitable; or at least employs it only subject to the condition of having previously administered the Elenchus with success, as his own patent medicine.97 Upon this definition, Sokrates is more truly a Sophist than either Protagoras or Prodikus: neither of whom, so far as we know, made it their business to drive the respondent to contradictions.

Universal knowledge — was professed at that time by all Philosophers — Plato, Aristotle, &c.

Again, Plato tells us that the Sophist is a person who disputes about all matters, and pretends to know all matters: respecting the invisible Gods, respecting the visible Gods, Sun, Moon, Stars, Earth, &c., respecting transcendental philosophy, generation and essence — and respecting all civil, social, and political questions — and respecting special arts. On all these miscellaneous topics, according to Plato, the Sophists pretended to be themselves instructed, and to qualify their disciples for arguing on all of them.

Now it is possible that the Sophists of that day may have pretended to this species of universal knowledge; but most certainly Plato and Aristotle did the same. The dialogues of Plato embrace all that wide range of topics which he tells us that the Sophists argued about, and pretended to teach. In an age when the amount of positive knowledge was so slender, it was natural for a clever talker or writer to fancy that he knew every thing. In reference to every subject then discussed, an ingenious mind could readily supply deductions from both hypotheses — generalities ratiocinative or imaginative — strung together into an apparent order sufficient for the exigencies of hearers. There was no large range of books to be studied; no stock of facts or experience to be mastered. Every philosopher wove his own tissue of theory for himself, without any restraint upon his intellectual impulse, in regard to all the problems then afloat. What the theories of the Sophists were, we do not know: but Plato, author of the Timæus, Republic, Leges, Kratylus, Menon — who affirmed the pre-existence as well as post-existence of the mind, and the eternal self-existence of Ideas — has no fair ground for reproaching them with blamable rashness in the extent and diversity of topics which they presumed to discuss. They obtained indeed (he says justly) no truth or knowledge, but merely a fanciful semblance of knowledge — an equivocal show or imitation of reality.98 But Plato himself obtains nothing more in the Timæus: and we shall find Aristotle pronouncing the like condemnation on the Platonic self-existent Ideas. If the Sophists professed to be encyclopedists, this was an error natural to the age; and was the character of Grecian philosophy generally, even in its most illustrious manifestations.

Inconsistency of Plato’s argument in the Sophistês. He says that the Sophist is a disputatious man who challenges every one for speaking falsehood. He says also that the Sophist is one who maintains false propositions to be impossible.

Having traced the Sophist down to the character of a man of delusion and imposture, passing off appearance as if it were reality, and falsehood as if it were truth — Plato (as we have seen) suddenly turns round upon himself, and asks how such a character is possible. He represents the Sophist as maintaining that no man could speak falsely99 — that a false proposition was self-contradictory, inasmuch as Non-Ens was inconceivable and unutterable. I do not see how the argument which Plato here ascribes to the Sophist, can be reconciled with the character which he had before given of the Sophist — as a man who passed his life in disputation and controversy; which involves the perpetual arraigning of other men’s opinions as false. A professed disputant may perhaps be accused of admitting nothing to be true: but he cannot well be charged with maintaining that nothing is false.

Reasoning of Plato about Non-Ens — No predications except identical.

To pass over this inconsistency, however — the reasoning of Plato himself on the subject of Non-Ens is an interesting relic of ancient speculation. He has made for himself an opportunity of canvassing, not only the doctrine of Parmenides, who emphatically denied Non-Ens — but also the opposite doctrine of other schools. He farther comments upon a different opinion, advanced by other philosophers — That no proposition can be admitted, in which the predicate is different from the subject: That no proposition is true or valid, except an identical proposition. You cannot say, Man is good: you can only say, Man is Man, or Good is good. You cannot say — Sokrates is good, brave, old, stout, flat-nosed, &c., because you thereby multiply the one Sokrates into many. One thing cannot be many, nor many things one.100

Misconception of the function of the copula in predication.

This last opinion is said to have been held by Antisthenes, one of the disciples of Sokrates. We do not know how he explained or defended it, nor what reserves he may have admitted to qualify it. Plato takes no pains to inform us on this point. He treats the opinion with derision, as an absurdity. We may conceive it as one of the many errors arising from a misconception of the purpose and function of the copula in predication. Antisthenes probably considered that the copula implied identity between the predicate and the subject. Now the explanation or definition of man is different from the explanation or definition of good: accordingly, if you say, Man is good, you predicate identity between two different things: as if you were to say Two is Three, or Three is Four. And if the predicates were multiplied, the contradiction became aggravated, because then you predicated identity not merely between one thing and another different thing, but between one thing and many different things. The opinion of Antisthenes depends upon two assumptions — That each separate word, whether used as subject or as predicate, denotes a Something separate and existent by itself: That the copula implies identity. Now the first of these two assumptions is not unfrequently admitted, even in the reasonings of Plato, Aristotle, and many others: while the latter is not more remarkable than various other erroneous conceptions which have been entertained, as to the function of the copula.

No formal Grammar or Logic existed at that time. No analysis or classification of propositions before the works of Aristotle.

What is most important to observe is — That at the time which we are here discussing, there existed no such sciences either grammar or formal logic. There was a copious and flexible language — a large body of literature, chiefly poetical — and great facility as well as felicity in the use of speech for the purposes of communication and persuasion. But no attempt had yet been made to analyse or theorise on speech: to distinguish between the different functions of words, and to throw them into suitable classes: to generalise the conditions of good or bad use of speech for proving a conclusion: or to draw up rules for grammar, syntax, and logic. Both Protagoras and Prodikus appear to have contributed something towards this object, and Plato gives various scattered remarks going still farther. But there was no regular body either of grammar or of formal logic: no established rules or principles to appeal to, no recognised teaching, on either topic. It was Aristotle who rendered the important service of filling up this gap. I shall touch hereafter upon the manner in which he proceeded: but the necessity of laying down a good theory of predication, and precepts respecting the employment of propositions in reasoning, is best shown by such misconceptions as this of Antisthenes; which naturally arise among argumentative men yet untrained in the generalities of grammar and logic.

Plato’s declared purpose in the Sophistês — To confute the various schools of thinkers — Antisthenes, Parmenides, the Materialists, &c.

Plato announces his intention, in this portion of the Sophistês, to confute all these different schools of thinkers, to whom he has made allusion.101 His first purpose, in reasoning against those who maintained Non-Ens to be an incogitable absurdity, is, to show that there are equal difficulties respecting Ens: that the Existent is just as equivocal and unintelligible as the Non-Existent. Those who recognise two co-ordinate and elementary principles (such as Hot and Cold) maintain that both are really existent, and call them both, Entia. Here (argues Plato) they contradict themselves: they call their two elementary principles one. What do they mean by existence, if this be not so?

Then again, Parmenides — and those who affirm that Ens Totum was essentially Unum, denying all plurality — had difficulties on their side to surmount. Ens could not be identical with Unum, nor was the name Ens, identical with the thing named Ens. Moreover, though Ens Unum was Totum, yet Totum was not identical with Ens or with Unum. Totum necessarily implied partes: but the Unum per se was indivisible or implied absence of parts. Though it was true therefore that Ens was both Unum and Totum, these two were both of them essentially different from Ens, and belonged to it only by way of adjunct accident. Parmenides was therefore wrong in saying that Unum alone existed.

Plato’s refutation throws light upon the doctrine of Antisthenes.

The reasoning here given from Plato throws some light upon the doctrine just now cited from Antisthenes. You cannot say (argues Plato against the advocates of duality) that two elements (Hot and Cold) are both of them Entia or Existent, because by so doing you call them one. You cannot say (argues Antisthenes) that Sokrates is good, brave, old, &c., because by such speech you call one thing three. Again, in controverting the doctrine of Parmenides, Plato urges, That Ens cannot be Unum, because it is Totum (Unum having no parts, while Totum has parts): but it may carry with it the accident Unum, or may have Unum applied to it as a predicate by accident. Here again, we have difficulties similar to those which perplexed Antisthenes. For the same reason that Plato will not admit, That Ens is Unum — Antisthenes will not admit, That Man is good. It appeared to him to imply essential identity between the predicate and the subject.

All these difficulties and others to which we shall come presently, noway peculiar to Antisthenes — attest the incomplete formal logic of the time: the want of a good theory respecting predication and the function of the copula.

Plato’s argument against the Materialists.

Pursuing the purpose of establishing his conclusion (viz. That Ens involved as many perplexities as Non-Ens), Plato comes to the two opposite sects:— 1. Those (the Materialists) who recognised bodies and nothing else, as the real Entia or Existences. 2. Those (the Friends of Forms, the Idealists) who maintained that incorporeal and intelligible Forms or Species were the only real existences; and that bodies had no existence, but were in perpetual generation and destruction.102

Respecting the first, Plato says that they must after all be ashamed not to admit, that justice, intelligence, &c., are something real, which may be present or absent in different individual men, and therefore must exist apart from all individuals. Yet justice and intelligence are not bodies. Existence therefore is something common to body and not-body. The characteristic mark of existence is, power or potentiality. Whatever has power to act upon any thing else, or to be acted on by any thing else, is a real Ens or existent something.103

Reply open to the Materialists.

Unfortunately we never know any thing about the opponents of Plato, nor how they would have answered his objection — except so much as he chooses to tell us. But it appears to me that the opponents whom he is here confuting would have accepted his definition, and employed it for the support of their own opinion. “We recognise (they would say) just men, or hard bodies, as existent, because they conform to your definition: they have power to act and be acted upon. But justice, apart from just men — hardness, apart from hard bodies — has no such power: they neither act upon any thing, nor are acted on by any thing: therefore we do not recognise them as existent.” According to their view, objects of perception acted on the mind, and therefore were to be recognised as existent: objects of mere conception did not act on the mind, and therefore had not the same claim to be ranked as existent: or at any rate they acted on the mind in a different way, which constitutes the difference between the real and unreal. Of this difference Plato’s definition takes no account.104

Plato’s argument against the Idealists or Friends of Forms. Their point of view against him.

Plato now presents this same definition to the opposite class of philosophers: to the Idealists, or partisans of the incorporeal — or of self-existent and separate Forms. These thinkers drew a marked distinction between the Existent and the Generated — between Ens and Fiens — τὸ ὂν and τὸ γιγνόμενον. Ens or the Existent was eternal and unchangeable: Fiens or the Generated was always in change or transit, coming or going. We hold communion (they said) with the generated or transitory, through our bodies and sensible perceptions: we hold communion with unchangeable Ens through our mind and by intellection. They did not admit the definition of existence just given by Plato. They contended that that definition applied only to Fiens or to the sensible world — not to Ens or the intelligible world.105 Fiens had power to act and be acted upon, and existed only under the condition of being so: that is, its existence was only temporary, conditional, relative: it had no permanent or absolute existence at all. Ens was the real existent, absolute and independent — neither acting upon any thing nor being acted upon. They considered that Plato’s definition was not a definition of Existence, or the Absolute: but rather of Non-Existence, or the Relative.

Plato argues — That to know, and be known, is action and passion, a mode of relativity.

But (asks Plato in reply) what do you mean by “the mind holding communion” with the intelligible world? You mean that the mind knows, comprehends, conceives, the intelligible world: or in other words, that the intelligible world (Ens) is known, is comprehended, is conceived, by the mind. To be known or conceived, is to be acted on by the mind.106 Ens, or the intelligible world, is thus acted upon by the mind, and has a power to be so acted upon: which power is, in Plato’s definition here given, the characteristic mark of existence. Plato thus makes good his definition as applying to Ens, the world of intelligible Forms — not less than to Fiens, the world of sensible phenomena.

The definition of existence, here given by Plato, and the way in which he employs it against the two different sects of philosophers — Materialists and Idealists — deserves some remark.

Plato’s reasoning — compared with the points of view of both.

According to the Idealists or Immaterialists, Plato’s definition of existence would be supposed to establish the case of their opponents the Materialists, who recognised nothing as existing except the sensible world: for Plato’s definition (as the Idealists thought) fitted the sensible world, but fitted nothing else. Now these Idealists did not recognise the sensible world as existent at all. They considered it merely as Fiens, ever appearing and vanishing. The only Existent, in their view, was the intelligible world — Form or Forms, absolute, eternal, unchangeable, but neither visible nor perceivable by any of the other senses. This is the opinion against which Plato here reasons, though in various other dialogues he gives it as his own opinion, or at least, as the opinion of his representative spokesman.

In this portion of the present dialogue (Sophistês) the point which he makes is, to show to the Idealists, or Absolutists, that their Forms are not really absolute, or independent of the mind: that the existence of these forms is relative, just as much as that of the sensible world. The sensible world exists relatively to our senses, really or potentially exercised: the intelligible world exists relatively to our intelligence, really or potentially exercised. In both cases alike, we hold communion with the two worlds: the communion cannot be left out of sight, either in the one case or in the other. The communion is the entire and fundamental fact, of which the Subject conceiving and the Object conceived, form the two opposite but inseparable faces — the concave and convex, to employ a favourite illustration of Aristotle. Subject conceiving, in communion with Object conceived, are one and the same indivisible fact, looked at on different sides. This is, in substance, what Plato urges against those philosophers who asserted the absolute and independent existence of intelligible Forms. Such forms (he says) exist only in communion with, or relatively to, an intelligent mind: they are not absolute, not independent: they are Objects of intelligence to an intelligent Subject, but they are nothing without the Subject, just as the Subject is nothing without them or some other Object. Object of intelligence implies an intelligent Subject: Object of sense implies a sentient Subject. Thus Objects of intelligence, and Objects of sense, exist alike relatively to a Subject — not absolutely or independently.

The argument of Plato goes to an entire denial of the Absolute, and a full establishment of the Relative.

This argument, then, of Plato against the Idealists is an argument against the Absolute — showing that there can be no Object of intelligence or conception without its obverse side, the intelligent or concipient Subject. The Idealists held, that by soaring above the sensible world into the intelligible world, they got out of the region of the Relative into that of the Absolute. But Plato reminds them that this is not the fact. Their intelligible world is relative, not less than the sensible; that is, it exists only in communion with a mind or Subject, but with a Cogitant or intelligent Subject, not a percipient Subject.

Coincidence of his argument with the doctrine of Protagoras in the Theætêtus.

The argument here urged by Plato coincides in its drift and result with the dictum of Protagoras — Man is the measure of all things. In my remarks on the Theætêtus,107 I endeavoured to make it appear that the Protagorean dictum was really a negation of the Absolute, of the Thing in itself, of the Object without a Subject:— and an affirmation of the Relative, of the Thing in communion with a percipient or concipient mind, of Object implicated with Subject — as two aspects or sides of one and the same conception or cognition. Though Plato in the Theætêtus argued at length against Protagoras, yet his reasoning here in the Sophistês establishes by implication the conclusion of Protagoras. Here Plato impugns the doctrine of those who (like Sokrates in his own Theætêtus) held that the sensible world alone was relative, but that the intelligible world or Forms were absolute. He shows that the latter were no less relative to a mind than the former; and that mind, either percipient or cogitant, could never be eliminated from “communion” with them.

The Idealists maintained that Ideas or Forms were entirely unchangeable and eternal. Plato here denies this, and maintains that ideas were partly changeable, partly unchangeable.

These same Idealist philosophers also maintained — That Forms, or the intelligible world, were eternally the same and unchangeable. Plato here affirms that this ideas or opinion is not true: he contends that the intelligible world includes both change and unchangeableness, motion and rest, difference and sameness, life, mind, intelligence, &c. He argues that the intelligible world, whether assumed as consisting of one Form or of many Forms, could not be regarded either as wholly changeable or wholly unchangeable: it must comprise both constituents alike. If all were changeable, or if all were unchangeable, there could be no Object of knowledge; and, by consequence, no knowledge.108 But the fact that there is knowledge (cognition, conception), is the fundamental fact from which we must reason; and any conclusion which contradicts this must be untrue. Therefore the intelligible world is not all homogeneous, but contains different and even opposite Forms — change and unchangeableness — motion and rest — different and same.109

Plato’s reasoning against the Materialists.

Let us now look at Plato’s argument, and his definition of existence, as they bear upon the doctrine of the opposing Materialist philosophers, whom he states to have held that bodies alone existed, and that the Incorporeal did not exist:— in other words that all real existence was concrete and particular: that the abstract (universals, forms, attributes) had no real existence, certainly no separate existence. As I before remarked, it is not quite clear what or how much these philosophers denied. But as far as we can gather from Plato’s language, what they denied was, the existence of attributes apart from a substance. They did not deny the existence of just and wise men, but the existence of justice and wisdom, apart from men real or supposable.

Difference between Concrete and Abstract, not then made conspicuous. Large meaning here given by Plato to Ens — comprehending not only objects of Perception, but objects of Conception besides.

In the time of Plato, distinction between the two classes of words, Concrete and Abstract, had not become so clearly matter of reflection as to be noted by two appropriate terms: in fact, logical terminology was yet in its first rudiments. It is therefore the less matter of wonder that Plato should not here advert to the relation between the two, or to the different sense in which existence might properly be predicable of both. He agrees with the materialists or friends of the Concrete, in affirming that sensible objects, Man, Horse, Tree, exist (which the Idealists or friends of the Abstract denied): but he differs from them by saying that other Objects, super-sensible and merely intelligible, exist also — namely, Justice, Virtue, Whiteness, Hardness, and other Forms or Attributes. He admits that these last-mentioned objects do not make themselves manifest to the senses; but they do make themselves manifest to the intelligence or the conception: and that is sufficient, in his opinion, to authenticate them as existent. The word existent, according to his definition (as given in this dialogue), includes not only all that is or may be perceived, but also all that is or may be known by the mind; i.e., understood, conceived, imagined, talked or reasoned about. Existent, or Ens, is thus made purely relative: having its root in a Subject, but ramifying by its branches in every direction. It bears the widest possible sense, co-extensive with Object universally, either of perception or conception. It includes all fictions, as well as all (commonly called) realities. The conceivable and the existent become equivalent.

Narrower meaning given by Materialists to Ens — they included only Objects of Perception. Their reasoning as opposed to Plato.

Now the friends of the Concrete, against whom Plato reasons, used the word existent in a narrower sense, as comprising only the concretes of the sensible world. They probably admitted the existence of the abstract, along with and particularised in the concrete: but they certainly denied the separate existence of the Abstract — i.e., of Forms, Attributes, or classes, apart from particulars. They would not deny that many things were conceivable, more or less dissimilar from the realities of the sensible world: but they did not admit that all those conceivable things ought to be termed existent or realities, and put upon the same footing as the sensible world. They used the word existent to distinguish between Men, Horses, Trees, on the one hand — and Cyclopes, Centaurs, Τραγέλαφοι, &c., on the other. A Centaur is just as intelligible and conceivable as either a man or a horse; and according to this definition of Plato, would be as much entitled to be called really existent. The attributes of man and horse are real, because the objects themselves are real and perceivable: the class man and the class horse is real, for the same reason: but the attributes of a Centaur, and the class Centaurs, are not real, because no individuals possessing the attributes, or belonging to the class, have ever been perceived, or authenticated by induction. Plato’s Materialist opponents would here have urged, that if he used the word existent or Ens in so wide a sense, comprehending all that is conceivable or nameable, fiction as well as reality — they would require some other words to distinguish fiction from reality — Centaur from Man: which is what most men mean when they speak of one thing as non-existent, another thing as existent. At any rate, here is an equivocal sense of the word Ens — a wider and a narrower sense — which, we shall find frequently perplexing us in the ancient metaphysics; and which, when sifted, will often prove, that what appears to be a difference of doctrine, is in reality little more than a difference of phraseology.110

Different definitions of Ens — by Plato — the Materialists, the Idealists.

This enquiry respecting Ens is left by Plato professedly unsettled; according to his very frequent practice. He pretends only to have brought it to this point: that Ens or the Existent is shown to present as many difficulties and perplexities as Non-Ens or the non-existent.111 I do not think that he has shown thus much; for, according to his definition, Non-Ens is an impossibility: the term is absolutely unmeaning: it is equivalent to the Unknowable or Inconceivable — as Parmenides affirmed it to be. But he has undoubtedly shown that Ens is in itself perplexing: which, instead of lightening the difficulties about Non-Ens, aggravates them: for all the difficulties about Ens must be solved, before you can pretend to understand Non-Ens. Plato has shown that Ens is used in three different meanings:—

1. According to the Materialists, it means only the concrete and particular, including all the attributes thereof, essential and accidental.

2. According to the Idealists or friends of Forms, it means only Universals, Forms, and Attributes.

3. According to Plato’s own definition here given, it means both the one and the other: whatever the mind can either perceive or conceive: whatever can act upon the mind in any way, or for any time however short. It is therefore wholly relative to the mind: yet not exclusively to the perceiving mind (as the Materialists said), nor exclusively to the conceiving mind (as the friends of Forms said): but to both alike.

Plato’s views about Non-Ens examined.

Here is much confusion, partly real but principally verbal, about Ens. Plato proceeds to affirm, that the difficulty about Non-Ens is no greater, and that it admits of being elucidated. The higher Genera or Forms (he says) are such that some of them will combine or enter into communion with each other, wholly or partially, others will not, but are reciprocally exclusive. Motion and Rest will not enter into communion, but mutually exclude each other: neither of them can be predicated of the other. But each or both of them will enter into communion with Existence, which latter may be predicated of both. Here are three Genera or Forms: motion, rest, and existence. Each of them is the same with itself, and different from the other two. Thus we have two new distinct Forms or Genera — Same and Different — which enter into communion with the preceding three, but are in themselves distinct from them.112 Accordingly you may say, motion partakes of (or enters into communion with) Diversum, because motion differs from rest: also you may say, motion partakes of Idem, as being identical with itself: but you cannot say, motion is different, motion is the same; because the subject and the predicate are essentially distinct and not identical.113

Some things are always named or spoken of per se, others with reference to something else. Thus, Diversum is always different from something else: it is relative, implying a correlate.114 In this, as well as in other points, Diversum (or Different) is a distinct Form, Genus, or Idea, which runs through all other things whatever. Each thing is different from every other thing: but it differs from them, not through any thing in its own nature, but because it partakes of the Form or Idea of Diversum or the Different.115 So, in like manner, the Form or Idea of Idem (or Same) runs through all other things: since each thing is both different from all others, and is also the same with itself.

His review of the select Five Forms.

Now motion is altogether different from rest Motion therefore is not rest. Yet still motion is, because it partakes of existence or Ens. Accordingly, motion both is and is not.

Again, motion is different from Idem or the Same. It is therefore not the same. Yet still motion is the same; because every thing partakes of identity, or is the same with itself. Motion therefore both is the same and is not the same. We must not scruple to advance both these propositions. Each of them stands on its own separate ground.116 So also motion is different from Diversum or The Different; in other words, it is not different, yet still it is different. And, lastly, motion is different from Ens, in other words, it is not Ens, or is non-Ens: yet still it is Ens, because it partakes of existence. Hence motion is both Ens, and Non-Ens.

Here we arrive at Plato’s explanation of Non-Ens, τὸ μὴ ὂν: the main problem which he is now setting to himself. Non-Ens is equivalent to, different from Ens. It is the Form or Idea of Diversum, considered in reference to Ens. Every thing is Ens, or partakes of entity, or existence. Every thing also is different from Ens, or partakes of difference in relation to Ens: it is thus Non-Ens. Every thing therefore is at the same time both Ens, and Non-Ens. Nay, Ens itself, inasmuch as it is different from all other things, is Non-Ens in reference to them. It is Ens only as one, in reference to itself: but it is Non-Ens an infinite number of times, in reference to all other things.117