[850]: The maxim is applied to the antithesis of rest and motion, so prominent in the dialectics of the day. Cf. Sophist 249 C-D, Parmenides 156 D and passim.
[851]: Cf. Theaetetus 181 E.
[852]: The argumentative γε is controversial. For the illustration of the top cf. Spencer, First Principle, 170, who analyzes certain oscillations described by the expressive though inelegant word wobbling and their final dissipation when the top appears stationary in the equilibrium mobile.
[853]: The meaning is plain, the alleged rest and motion do not relate to the same parts of the objects. But the syntax of τὰ τοιαῦτα is difficult. Obvious remedies are to expunge the words or to read τῶν τοιούτων, the cacophony of which in the context Plato perhaps rejected at the cost of leaving his syntax to our conjectures.
[854]: Cf. Aristotle Met. 1022 a 23 ἔτι δὲ τὸ καθὸ τὸ κατὰ θέσιν λέγεται, καθὸ ἕστηκεν, etc,
[855]: εἴη, the reading of most Mss., should stand. It covers the case of contradictory predicates, especially of relation, that do not readily fall under the dichotomy ποιεῖν πάσχειν. So Phaedo 97 C ἢ εἶναι ἢ ἄλλο ὁτιοῦν πάσχειν ἢ ποιεῖν.
[856]: ἀμφισβητήσεις is slightly contemptuous. Cf. Aristotle , ἐνοχλήσεις, and Theaetetus 158 C τό γε ἀμφισβητῆσαι οὐ χαλεπόν.
[857]: It is almost a Platonic method thus to emphasize the dependence of one conclusion on another already accepted. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 471, Politicus 284 D, Phaedo 77 A, 92 D, Timaeus 51 D, Parmenides 149 A. It may be used to cut short discussion (Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 471) or divert it into another channel. Here, however, he is aware, as Aristotle is, that the maximum of contradiction can be proved only controversially against an adversary who says something. (cf. my De Platonis Idearum Doctrina, pp. 7-9, Aristotle Met. 1012 b 1-10); and so, having sufficiently guarded his meaning, he dismisses the subject with the ironical observation that, if the maxim is ever proved false, he will give up all that he bases on the hypothesis of its truth. Cf. Sophist 247 E.
[858]: Cf. Gorgias 496 E, and on 435 D.
[859]: ἐθέλειν in Plato normally means to be willing, and βούλεσθαι to wish or desire. But unlike Prodicus, Plato emphasizes distinctions of synonyms only when relevant to his purpose. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 47 and n. 339, Philebus 60 D. προσάγεσθαι below relates to ἐπιθυμία and ἐπινεύειν to ἐθέλειν . . . βούλεσθαι.
[860]: Cf. Aristotle De anima 434 a 9. The Platonic doctrine that opinion,δόξα, is discussion of the soul with herself, or the judgement in which such discussion terminates (Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 47) is here applied to the specific case of the practical reason issuing in an affirmation of the will.
[861]: ἀβουλεῖν recalls the French coinage nolonté, and the southern mule’s won’t-power. Cf. Epistle vii. 347 A, Demosthenes Epistle ii. 17.
[862]: Cf. Aristotle’s ἀνθέλκειν, De anima 433 b 8. All willing is either pushing or pulling, Jastrow, Fact and Fable in Psychology, p. 336. Cf. the argument in Spencer’s First Principles 80, that the phrase impelled by desires is not a metaphor but a physical fact. Plato’s generalization of the concepts attraction and repulsion brings about a curious coincidence with the language of a materialistic, physiological psychology (cf. Lange, History of Materialism, passim), just as his rejection in the Timaeus of attraction and actio in distans allies his physics with that of the most consistent materialists.
[863]: Cf. on 349 E.
[864]: Cf. 412 B and Class. Phil. vii. (1912) pp. 485-486.
[865]: The argument might proceed with 439 A τοῦ διψῶντος ἄρα ἡ ψυχή. All that intervenes is a digression on logic, a caveat against possible misunderstandings of the proposition that thirst qua thirst is a desire for drink only and unqualifiedly. We are especially warned (438 A) against the misconception that since all men desire the good, thirst must be a desire not for mere drink but for good drink. Cf. the dramatic correction of a misconception, Phaedo 79 B, 529 A-B.
[866]: In the terminology of the doctrine of ideas the presence of cold is the cause of cool, and that of heat, of hot. Cf. The Origin of the Syllogism, Class. Phil. vol. xix. p. 10. But in the concrete instance heat causes the desire of cool and vice versa. Cf. Philebus 35 A ἐπιθυμεῖ τῶν ἐναντίων ἢ πάσχει. If we assume that Plato is here speaking from the point of view of common sense (Cf. Lysis 215 E τὸ δὲ ψυχρὸν θερμοῦ), there is no need of Hermann’s transposition of ψυχροῦ and θερμοῦ, even though we do thereby get a more exact symmetry with πλήθους παρουσίαν . . . τοῦ πολλοῦ below.
[867]: προσῇ denotes that the presence is an addition. Cf. προσείη in Parmenides 149 E.
[868]: Philebus 35 A adds a refinement not needed here, that thirst is, strictly speaking, a desire for repletion by drink.
[869]: Cf. 429 B. But (the desires) of such or such a (specific) drink are (due to) that added qualification (of the thirst).
[870]: μήτοι τις=look you to it that no one, etc.
[871]: ἄρα marks the rejection of this reasoning. Cf 358 C, 364 E, 381 E, 499 C. Plato of course is not repudiating his doctrine that all men really will the good, but the logic of this passage requires us to treat the desire of good as a distinct qualification of the mere drink.
[872]: ὅσα γ’ ἐστὶ τοιαῦτα etc.: a palmary example of the concrete simplicity of Greek idiom in the expression of abstract ideas. ὅσα etc. (that is, relative terms) divide by partitive apposition into two classes, τὰ μὲν . . . τὰ δέ. The meaning is that if one term of the relation is qualified, the other must be, but if one term is without qualification, the other is also taken absolutely. Plato, as usual (Cf. on 347 B), represents the interlocutor as not understandiong the first general abstract statement, which he therefore interprets and repeats. I have varied the translation in the repetition in order to bring out the full meaning, and some of the differences between Greek and English idiom.
[873]: The notion of relative terms is familiar. Cf. Charmides 167 E, Theaetetus 160 A, Symposium 199 D-E, Parmenides 133 C ff., Sophist 255 D, Aristotle Topics vi. 4, and Cat. v. It is expounded here only to insure the apprehension of the further point that the qualifications of either term of the relation are relative to each other. In the Politicus 283 f. Plato adds that the great and small are measured not only in relation to each other, but by absolute standards. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 61, 62, and 531 A.
[874]: καὶ . . . καὶ αὖ . . . καὶ ἔτι γε etc. mark different classes of relations, magnitudes, precise quantites, the mechanical properties of matter and the physical properties.
[875]: Plato does not wish to complicate his logic with metaphysics. The objective correlate of ἐπιστήμη is a difficult problem. In the highest sense it is the ideas. Cf. Parmenides 134 A.But the relativity of ἐπιστήμη (Aristotle Topics iv. 1. 5) leads to psychological difficulties in Charmides 168 and to theological in Parmenides 134 C-E, which are waived by this phrase. Sceince in the abstract is of knowledge in the abstract, architectural science is of the specific knowledge called architecture. Cf. Sophist 257 C.
[876]: Cf. Philebus 37 C.
[877]: Cf. Cratylus 393 B, Phaedo 81 D, and for the thought Aristotle Met. 1030 b 2 ff. The added determinants need not be the same. The study of useful things is not necessarily a useful study, as opponents of the Classics argue. In Gorgias 476 B this principle is violated by the wilful fallacy that if to do justice is fine, so must it be to suffer justice, but the motive for this is explained in Laws 859-860.
[878]: αὐτοῦ οὗπερ ἐπιστήμη ἐστίν is here a mere periphrasis for μαθήματος, αὐτοῦ expressing the idea abstract, mere, absolute, or per se, but ὅπερ or ἥπερ ἐστίν is often a synonym of αὐτός or αὐτή in the sense of abstract, absolute, or ideal. Cf. Thompson on Meno 71 B, Sophist 255 D τοῦτο ὅπερ ἐστὶν εἶναι.
[879]: δή marks the application of this digression on relativity, for δῖψος is itself a relative term and is what it is in relation to something else, namely drink.
[880]: τῶν τινὸς εἶναι: if the text is sound, εἶναι seems to be taken twice, (1) with τοῦτο etc., (2)τῶν τινός as predicates. This is perhaps no harsher than τὸ δοκεῖν εἶναι in Aeschylus Agamemnon 788. Cf. Tennyson’s How sweet are the looks that ladies bendOn whom their favors fall, and Pope’s And virgins smiled at what they blushed before. Possibly θήσεις τῶν τινός is incomplete in itself (cf. 437 B) and εἶναι τοῦτο etc. is a loose epexegesis. The only emendation worth notice is Adam’s insertion of καὶ τινὸς between τινὸς and εἶναι, which yields a smooth, but painfully explicit, construction.
[881]: Cf. further Sophist 255 D, Aristotle Met. 1021 a 27. Aristotle Cat. v., Top. vi. 4. So Plotinus vi. 1. 7 says that relative terms are those whose very being is the relation καὶ τὸ εἶναι οὐκ ἄλλο τι ἢ τὸ ἀλλήλοις εἶναι.
[882]: Cf. on 437 C, Aristotle, De anima 433 b 8, Laws 644 E, 604 B, Phaedrus 238 C. The practical moral truth of this is independent of our metaphysical psychology. Plato means that the something which made King David refuse the draught purchased by the blood of his soldiers and Sir Philip Sidney pass the cup to a wounded comrade is somehow different than the animal instinct which it overpowers. Cf. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1102 b 24, Laws 863 E.
[883]: Cf. 589, Epistle 335 B. Cf. Descartes, Les Passions de l’âme, article xlvii: En quoi consistent les combats qu’on a coutume d’imaginer entre la partie inférieure et la supérieure de l’âme. He says in effect that the soul is a unit and the lower soul is the body. Cf. ibid. lxviii, where he rejects the concupiscible and the irascible.
[884]: Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 68: Plato . . . delights to prick the bubbles of imagery, rhetoric, and antithesis blown by his predecessors. Heraclitus means well when he says that the one is united by disunion (Symposium 187 A) or that the hands at once draw and repel the bow. But the epigram vanishes under logical analysis. For the conceit cf. Samuel Butler’s lines: He that will win his dame must do As love does when he bends his bow, With one hand thrust his lady from And with the other pull her home.
[885]: ἐνεῖναι μὲν . . . ἐνεῖναι δέ: the slight artificiality of the anaphora matches well with the Gorgian jingle κελεῦον . . . κωλῦον. Cf. Iambl. Protrept. p. 41 Postelli ἔστι γὰρ τοιοῦτον ὃ κελεύει καὶ κωλύει.
[886]: The pulls are distinguished verbally from the passions that are their instruments. νοσημάτων suggests the Stoic doctrine that passions are diseases. Cf. Cicero Tusc. iii. 4 perturbationes, and passim, and Philebus 45 C.
[887]: λογιστικόν is one of Plato’s many synonyms for the intellectual principle. Cf. 441 C, 571 C, 587 D, 605 B. It emphasizes the moral calculation of consequences, as opposed to blind passion. Cf. Crito 46 B (one of the passages which the Christian apologists used to prove that Socrates knew the λόγος), Theaetetus 186 C ἀναλογίσματα πρός τε οὐσίαν καὶ ὠφέλειαν, and Laws 644 D. Aristotle Eth. 1139 a 12 somewhat differently.
[888]: ἐπτόηται: almost technical, as in Sappho’s ode, for the flutter of desire. ἀλόγιστον, though applied here to the ἐπιθυμητικόν only, suggests the bipartite division of Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1102 a 28.
[889]: So the bad steed which symbolizes the ἐπιθυμητικόν in Phaedrus 253 E is ἀλαζονείας ἑταῖρος.
[890]: We now approach the distinctively Platonic sense of θυμός as the power of noble wrath, which, unless perverted by a bad education, is naturally the ally of the reason, though as mere angry passion it might seem to belong to the irrational part of the soul, and so, as Glaucon suggets, be akin to appetite, with which it is associated in the mortal soul of the Timaeus 69 D. In Laws 731 B-C Plato tells us again that the soul cannot combat injustice without the capacity for righteous indignation. The Stoics affected to deprecate anger always, and the difference remained a theme of controversy between them and the Platonists. Cf. Schmidt, Ethik der Griechen, ii. pp. 321 ff., Seneca, De ira, i. 9, and passim. Moralists are still divided on the point. Cf. Bagehot, Lord Brougham: Another faculty of Brougham . . . is the faculty of easy anger. The supine placidity of civilization is not favorable to animosity [Bacon’s word for θυμός]. Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, pp. 60 ff. and p. 62, seems to contradict Plato: The supposed conflict between reason and passion is, as I hold, meaningless if it is taken to imply that the reason is a faculty separate from the emotions, etc. But this is only his metaphysics. On the practical ethical issue he is with Plato.
[891]: Socrates has heard and trusts a, to us, obscure anecdote which shows how emotion may act as a distinct principle rebuking the lower appetites or curiosities. Leontius is unknown, except for Bergk’s guess identifying him with the Leotrophides of a corrupt fragment of Theopompus Comicus, fr. 1 Kock, p. 739.
[892]: He was following the outer side of the north wall up the city. Cf. Lysis 203 A, Frazer, Paus. ii. 40, Wachsmuth, Stadt Athen, i. p. 190.
[893]: The corpses were by, near, or with the executioner (ὁ ἐπὶ τῷ ὀρύγματι) whether he had thrown them into the pit (βάραθρον) or not.
[894]: Cf. Antiphon fr. 18 Kock πληγείς, τέως μὲν ἐπεκράτει τῆς συμφορᾶς, etc., and Maids who shrieked to see the heads Yet shrieking pressed more nigh.
[895]: He apostrophizes his eyes, in a different style from Romeo’s, Eyes, look your last.
[896]: αὐτόν: we shift from the θυμός to the man and back again.
[897]: ἀντιπράττειν: that is, opposite the reason. It may be construed with δεῖν or as the verb of αὐτόν. There are no real difficulties in the passage, though many have been found. The order of the words and the anacoluthon are intentional and effective. Cf. on 434 C. οὐκ ἂν . . . ποτέ is to literal understanding an exaggeration. But Plato is speaking of the normal action of uncorrupted θυμός. Plato would not accept the psychology of Euripides’ Medea (1079-1080): καὶ μανθάνω μὲν οἷα δρᾶν μέλλω κακά, θυμὸς δὲ κρείσσω τῶν ἐμῶν βουλευμάτων. Cf. Dr. Loeb’s translation of Décharme, p. 340.
[898]: αἱροῦντος: cf. 604 C, and L. and S. s. v. A. II. 5.
[899]: So Aristotle Rhet. 1380 b 17 οὐ γίγνεται γὰρ ἡ ὀργὴ πρὸς τὸ δίκαιον, and Eth. Nic. 1135 b 28 ἐπὶ φαινομένῃ γὰρ ἀδικίᾳ ἡ ὀργή ἐστιν. This is true only with Plato’s reservation γενναιότερος. The baser type is angry when in the wrong.
[900]: Cf. Demosthenes xv. 10 for the same general idea.
[901]: ὃ λέγω: idiomatic, as I was saying.
[902]: ἐν τούτῳ: possibly in such an one, preferably in such a case.θυμός is plainly the subject of ζεῖ. (Cf. the physiological definition in Aristotle De anima 403 a 31 ζέσιν τοῦ περὶ τὴν καρδίαν αἵματος), and so, strictly speaking, of all the other verbs down to λήγει. καὶ διὰ τὸ πεινῆν . . . πάσχειν is best taken as a parenthesis giving an additional reason for the anger, besides the sense of injustice.
[903]: τῶν γενναίων: i.e. the θυμός of the noble, repeating ὅσῳ ἂν γενναιότερος ᾖ above. The interpretation does not desist from his noble (acts) destroys this symmetry and has no warrant in Plato’s use of γενναῖος. Cf. 375 E, 459 A. The only argument against the view here taken is that θυμός is not the subject of λήγει, which it plainly is. The shift from θυμός to the man in what follows is no difficulty and is required only by τελευτήσῃ, which may well be a gloss. Cf. A.J.P. xvi. p. 237.
[904]: καίτοι γε calls attention to the confirmation supplied by the image. Cf on 376 B, and my article in Class. Journ. vol. iii. p. 29.
[905]: Cf. 440 B and Phaedrus 237 E.
[906]: It still remains to distinguish the λογιστικόν from θυμός, which is done first by pointing out that young children and animals possess θυμός (Cf. Laws 963 E, Aristotle Politics 1334 b 22 ff.), and by quoting a line of Homer already cited in 390 D, and used in Phaedo 94 E, to prove that the soul, regarded there as a unit, is distinct from the passions, there treated as belonging to the body, like the mortal soul of the Timaeus. See Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 42-43.
[907]: Hom. Od. 20.17
[908]: Cf. Parmenides 137 A, Pindar, Ol. xiii. 114 ἐκνεῦσαι.
[909]: Cf. 435 B.
[910]: Cf. Meno 73 C, Hippias Major 295 D. A virtual synonym for τῷ αὐτῷ εἶδει, Meno 72 E.
[911]: ὅτου: cf. 431 B οὗ, and 573 D ὧν.
[912]: Cf. 411 E, 412 A.
[913]: Cf. on 433 B-E, 443 D, and Charmides 161 B.
[914]: Cf. on 431 A-B, Laws 689 A-B.
[915]: Strictly speaking, pleasure is in the mind, not in the body. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 330. καλουμένων implies the doctrine of the Gorgias 493 E, 494 C, Philebus 42 C, Phaedrus 258 E, and 583 B-584 A, that the pleasures of appetite are not pure or real. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 152. Cf. on λεγομένων431 C.
[916]: Cf. on 426 E, 606 B.
[917]: προσῆκον: sc. ἐστὶν ἄρχειν. γένει, by affinity, birth or nature. Cf. 444 B. q reads γενῶν.
[918]: Cf. 389 D.
[919]: Cf. 415 E.
[920]: Cf. Isocrates xii. 138 αὕτη γάρ ἐστιν ἡ βουλευομένη περὶ ἁπάντων.
[921]: Cf. 429 C-D
[922]: Cf. Goodwin’s Greek Grammar, 1027.
[923]: ἔχον: anacoluthic epexegesis, corresponding to ὅταν . . . διασώζῃ. αὖ probably marks the correspondence.
[924]: ᾧ πολλάκις: that is, by the principle of τὸ ἑαυτοῦ πράττειν.
[925]: ἀπαμβλύνεται: is the edge or outline of the definition blunted or dimmed when we transfer it to the individual?
[926]: The transcendental or philosophical definition is confirmed by vulgar tests. The man who is just in Plato’s sense will not steal or betray or fail in ordinary duties. Cf. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1178 b 16 ἢ φορτικὸς ὁ ἔπαινος. . . to say that the gods are σώφρονες. Similarly Plato feels that there is a certain vulgarity in applying the cheap tests of prudential morality (Cf. Phaedo 68 C-D) to intrinsic virtue. Be this, is the highest expression of the moral law. Do this, eventually follows. Cf. Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, pp. 376 and 385, and Emerson, Self-Reliance: But I may also neglect the reflex standard, and absolve me to myself . . . If anyone imagines that this law is lax, let him keep its commandment one day. The Xenophontic Socrates (Xenophon Memorabilia iv. 4. 10-11 and iv. 4. 17) relies on these vulgar tests.
[927]: Cf. on 332 A and Aristotle Rhet. 1383 b 21.
[928]: ὅ: Cf. on 434 D.
[929]: The contemplation of the εἴδωλον, image or symbol, leads us to the reality. The reality is always the Platonic Idea. The εἴδωλον, in the case of ordinary things, is the material copy which men mistake for the reality (516 A). In the case of spiritual things and moral ideas, there is no visible image or symbol (Politicus 286 A), but imperfect analogies, popular definitions, suggestive phrases, as τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πράττειν, well-meant laws and institutions serve as the εἴδωλα in which the philosophic dialectician may find a reflection of the true idea. Cf. on 520 C, Sophist 234 C, Theaetetus 150 B.
[930]: Cf. Timaeus 86 D, Laws 731 E, Apology 23 A. The reality of justice as distinguished from the εἴδωλον, which in this case is merely the economic division of labor. Adam errs in thinking that the real justice is justice in the soul, and the εἴδωλον is justice in the state. In the state too the division of labor may be taken in the lower or in the higher sense. Cf. on 370 A, Introduction p. xv.
[931]: μὴ ἐάσαντα . . . δόχαν 444 A: Cf. Gorgias 459 C, 462 C. A series of participles in implied indirect discourse expand the meaning of τὴν ἐντός (πρᾶξιν), and enumerate the conditions precedent (resumed in οὕτω δή443 E; Cf. Protagoras 325 A) of all action which is to be called just if it tends to preserve this inner harmony of the soul, and the reverse if it tends to dissolve it. The subject of πράττειν is anybody or Everyman. For the general type of sentence and the Stoic principle that nothing imports but virtue cf. 591 E and 618 C.
[932]: Cf. on 433 E.
[933]: Cf. Gorgias 491 D where Callicles does not understand.
[934]: Cf. Gorgias 504.
[935]: Cf. 621 C and on 352 A.
[936]: The harmony of the three parts of the soul is compared to that of the three fundamental notes or strings in the octave, including any intervening tones, and so by implication any faculties of the soul overlooked in the preceding classification. Cf. Plutarch, Plat. Quest. 9. Proclus, p. 230 Kroll. ὥσπερ introduces the images, the exact application of which is pointed by ἀτεχνῶς. Cf. on 343 C. The scholiast tries to make two octaves (δὶς διὰ πασῶν) of it. The technical musical details have at the most an antiquarian interest, and in no way affect the thought, which is that of Shakespeare’s For government, though high and low and lower, Put into parts, doth keep one in concent, Congreeing in a full and natural close Like music. (Henry V. I. ii. 179) Cf. Cicero, De rep. ii. 42, and Milton (Reason of Church Government), Discipline . . . which with her musical chords preserves and holds all the parts thereof together.
[937]: Cf. Epin. 992 B. The idea was claimed for the Pythagoreans; cf. Zeller I. i. p. 463, Guyau, Esquisse d’une Morale, p. 109 La moralité n’est autre chose que l’unité de l’être. The key to effective life is unity of life, says another modern rationalist.
[938]: ὀνομάζοντα betrays a consciousness that the ordinary meaning of words is somewhat forced for edification. Cf. Laws 864 A-B and Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 9, n. 21. Aristotle (Eth. Nic. 1138 b 6) would regard all this as mere metaphor.
[939]: ἐπιστήμην . . . δόχαν: a hint of a fundamental distinction, not explicitly mentioned before in the Republic. Cf. Meno 97 B ff. and Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 47-49. It is used here rhetorically to exalt justice and disparage injustice. ἀμαθία is a very strong word, possibly used here already in the special Platonic sense: the ignorance that mistakes itself for knowledge. Cf. Sophist.
[940]: ἐπιστατοῦσαν: Isocrates would have used a synonym instead of repeating the word.
[941]: Cf. 337 B.
[942]: στάσιν: cf. 440 E. It is defined in Sophist 228 B. Aristotle would again regard this as mere metaphor.
[943]: πολυπραγμοσύνην:434 B and Isocrates viii. 59.
[944]: συλλήβδην: summing up, as in Phaedo 69 B.
[945]: ὡς ἐκεῖνα: a proportion is thus usually stated in an ancoluthic apposition.
[946]: The common-sense point of view, fit fabricando faber. Cf. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1103 a 32. In Gorgias 460 B, Socrates argues the paradox that he who knows justice does it. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 11, n. 42.
[947]: Cf. the generalization of ἔρως to include medicine and music in Symposium 186-187, and Timaeus 82 A, Laws 906 C, Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 500.
[948]: The identification of virtue with spiritual health really, as Plato says (445 A), answers the main question of the Republic. It is not explicitly used as one of the three final arguments in the ninth book, but is implied in 591 B. It is found already in Crito 47 D-E. Cf. Gorgias 479 B
[949]: κακία . . . αἶσχος: Sophist 228 E distinguishes two forms of κακία· νόσος or moral evil, and ignorance or αἰσχος. Cf. Gorgias 477 B.
[950]: ἐάν τε . . . ἐάν τε: Cf. 337 C, 367 E, 427 D, 429 E.
[951]: Cf. Gorgias 512 A-B, and on 380 B.
[952]: Cf. on 456 D. On the following argumentum ex contrario Cf. on 336 E.
[953]: Cf. on 353 D and Aristotle De anima 414 a 12 ff. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 41.
[954]: Cf. 577 D, Gorgias 466 E. If all men desire the good, he who does evil does not do what he really wishes.
[955]: ὅσον . . . κατιδεῖν is generally taken as epexegetic of ἐνταῦθα. It is rather well felt with οὐ χρὴ ἀποκάμνειν.
[956]: Cf. Apology 25 C.
[957]: ἅ γε δὴ καὶ ἄξια θέας: for καί Cf. Sophist 223 A, 229 D, Timaeus 83 C, Politicus 285 B, and 544 A, C-D. By the strict theory of ideas any distinction may mark a class, and so constitute an idea. (Cf. De Platonis Idearum Doctrina, pp. 22-25.) But Plato’s logical practice recognizes that only typical or relevant Ideas are worth naming or considering. The Republic does not raise the metaphysical question how a true idea is to be distinguished from a part or from a partial or casual concept. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 52-53, n. 381, Politicus 263 A-B.
[958]: Cf. 588 B, Emerson, Nominalist and Realist, ii. p. 256: We like to come to a height of land and see the landscape, just as we value a general remark in a conversation. Cf. Lowell, Democracy, Prose Works, vi. 8: He who has mounted the tower of Plato to look abroad from it will never hope to climb another with so lofty a vantage of speculation. From this and 517 A-B, the ἀνάβασις became a technical or cant term in Neoplatonism.
[959]: ἓν μέν, etc.: perhaps a faint remembrance of the line ἐσθλοὶ μὲν γὰρ ἁπλῶς, παντοδαπῶς δὲ κακοί, quoted by Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1106 b 35. It suggests Plato’s principle of the unity of virtue, as ἄπειρα below suggests the logical doctrine of the Philebus 16 and Parmenides 145 A, 158 B-C that the other of the definite idea is the indefinite and infinite.
[960]: The true state is that in which knowledge governs. It may be named indifferently monarchy, or aristocracy, according as such knowledge happens to be found in one or more than one. It can never be the possession of many. Cf. 494 A. The inconsistencies which some critics have found between this statement and other parts of the Republic, are imaginary. Hitherto the Republic has contemplated a plurality of rulers, and such is its scheme to the end. But we are explicitly warned in 540 D and 587 D that this is a matter of indefference. It is idle then to argue with Immisch, Krohn, and others that the passage marks a sudden, violent alteration of the original design.
[961]: Cf. on 427 E, and Newman, Introduction to Aristotle Politics p. 14; for ὀρθή, normal, see p. 423.
[962]: κατασκευήν: a highly general word not to be pressed in this periphrasis. Cf. Gorgias 455 E, 477 B.
[963]: Cf. 562 C, Theaetetus 180 C, Stein on Herodotus i. 5. For the transition here to the digression of books V., VI., and VII. cf. Introduction p. xvii, Phaedo 84 C. Digression need not imply that these books were not a part of the original design.
[964]: μεταβαίνειν: the word is half technical. Cf. 547 C, 550 D, Laws 676 A, 736 D-E, 894 A.
[965]: ἀπωτέρω absolutely. Cf. Cratinus 229 Kock ὄνοι κάθηνται τῆς λύρας ἀπωτέρω.
[966]: Cf. 327 B.
[967]: Cf. 359 E.
[968]: Cf. on 327 C.
[969]: Cf. 337 D, 343 B, 421 C, 612 C, Laches 188 E, Meno 80 B. There is a play on the double meaning, What, pray? and Why, pray?
[970]: Cf. Sophocles Trach. 437.
[971]: So Isocrates xv. 74 ὅλοις εἴδεσι.
[972]: Cf. 424 A, Laws 739 C. Aristotle says that the possessions of friends should be separate in ownership but common in use, as at Sparta. Cf. Newman, Introduction to Aristotle Politics p. 201, Epicurus in Diogenes Laertius x. 11, Aristotle Politics 1263 a 30 ff., Euripides Andromache 270.
[973]: Cf. 459 D, Laws 668 D, Aristotle Politics 1269 b 13, Shakespeare Tro. and Cre. I. i. 23 But here’s yet in the word hereafter the kneading, the making of the cake, etc.
[974]: Cf. Laws 665 B 7.
[975]: Cf. Aristotle Politics 1264 a 12.
[976]: Emphatic. Cf. 427 E.
[977]: γενομένους: a noun is supplied from the preceding verb. Cf. on 598 C, and on 341 D.
[978]: μέγα . . . καὶ ὅλον: cf. 469 C, 527 C, Phaedo 79 E, Laws 779 B, 944 C, Symposium 188 D, Demosthenes ii. 22, Aeschylus Prom. 961.
[979]: Cf. Protagoras 330 C.
[980]: Cf. Theaetetus 184 C, Gorgias 469 C.
[981]: For the metaphor cf. Euripides Bacchae 710 and σμῆνος, Republic 574 D, Cratylus 401 C, Meno 72 A.
[982]: Cf. Philebus 36 D, Theaetetus 184 A, Cratylus 411 A.
[983]: Thrasymachus speaks here for the last time. He is mentioned in 357 A, 358 B-C, 498 C, 545 B, 590 D.
[984]: Lit. to smelt ore. The expression was proverbial and was explained by an obscure anecdote. Cf. Leutsch, Paroemiographi, ii. pp. 91, 727, and i. p. 464, and commentators on Herodotus iii. 102.
[985]: Plato often anticipates and repels the charge of tedious length (see Politicus 286 C, Philebus 28 D, 36 D). Here the thought takes a different turn (as 504 C). The δέ γε implies a slight rebuke (Cf. Class. Phil. xiv. pp. 165-174).
[986]: So 498 A. Cf. on Aristophanes Acharnians 434, and Laws 792 A.
[987]: Cf. 456 C, Thucydides vi. 98, Introduction xvii.
[988]: εἰ ὅ τι μάλιστα: a common formula for what a disputant can afford to concede. Cf. Lysias xiii. 52, xxii. 1, xxii. 10. It occurs six times in the Charmides.
[989]: Cf. Introduction xxxi-xxxii, 456 C, 499 C, 540 D, Laws 736 D, Aristotle Politics 1260 b 29, 1265 a 17 δεῖ μὲν οὖν ὑποτίθεσθαι κατ’ εὐχην, μηδὲν μέντοι ἀδύνατον.
[990]: ἀγνώμονες = inconsiderate, unreasonable, as Andocides ii. 6 shows.
[991]: Cf. on 452 C-D, Euthydemus 3 C To be laughed at is no matter, Laws 830 B τὸν τῶν ἀνοήτων γέλωτα, Euripides fr. 495.
[992]: Ἀδράστειαν: practically equivalent to Nemesis. Cf. our knock on wood. Cf. Posnansky in Breslauer Phil. Abhandl. v. 2, Nemesis und Adrasteia: Herodotus i. 35, Aeschylus Prom. 936, Euripides Rhesus 342, Demosthenes xxv. 37 καὶ Ἀδράστειαν μὲν ἄνθρωπος ὢν ἐγὼ προσκυνῶ. For the moral earnestness of what follows cf. 336 E, Gorgias 458 A, and Joubert apud Arnold, Essays in Crit. p. 29 Ignorance . . . is in itself in intellectual matters a crime of the first order.
[993]: γὰρ οὖν, for in fact, but often with the suggestion that the fact has to be faced, as e.g. in Timaeus 47 E, where the point is often missed.
[994]: Almost proverbial. Cf. my note on Horace, Odes iii. 27. 21. Plato is speaking here from the point of view of the ordinary man, and not from that of his Sermon on the Mount ethics. Cf. Philebus 49 D and Gorgias 480 E, where Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, ii. pp. 332 and 350, goes astray. Cf. Class. Phil. vol. i. p. 297.
[995]: ὥσπερ marks the legal metaphor to which ἐκεῖ below refers. Cf. Laws 869 E, and Euripides Hippolytus 1433 and 1448-1450, with Hirzel, Δίκη etc. p. 191, n. 1, Demosthenes xxxvii. 58-59. Plato transfers the idea to the other world in Phaedo 114 A-B, where the pardon of their victims is required for the release of sinners. The passage is used by the older critics in the comparison of Plato with Christianity.
[996]: Sophron’s Mimes are said to have been so classified. For δρᾶμα cf. also Theaetetus 150 A.
[997]: For the use of analogies drawn from animals cf. 375-376, 422 D, 466 D, 467 B, 491 D-E, 537 A, 546 A-B, 564 A. Plato is only pretending to deduce his conclusions from his imagery. Aristotle’s literal-minded criticism objects that animals have no economy, Politics 1264 b 4-6.
[998]: Reformers always denounce this source of wit while conservative satirists maintain that ridicule is a test of truth. Cf. e.g. >Renan, Avenir de la Science, p. 439 Le premier pas dans la carrière philosophique est de se cuirasser contre le ridicule, and Lucian, Piscator 14 No harm can be done by a joke; that on the contrary, whatever is beautiful shines brighter . . . like gold cleansed, Harmon in Loeb translation, iii. 22. There was a literature for and against custom (sometimes called συνήθεια) of which there are echoes in Cicero’s use of consuetudo, Acad. ii. 75, De off. i. 148, De nat. deor. i. 83.
[999]: ᾖ λέγεται: cf. on 389 D.
[1000]: Cf. Theaetetus 162 B, and the ὀψιμαθής or late learner in Theophrastus’ Characters xxvii. 14 Loeb. Euripides Andromache 596 ff. denounces the light attire of Spartan women when exercising.
[1001]: Cf. Propert. iv. 13 Muller.
[1002]: For a variation of this image cf. 568 D.
[1003]: Plato plays on his own favorite phrase. The proper business of the wit is to raise a laugh. Cf. Symposium 189 B.
[1004]: Cf. Thucydides i. 6, Herodotus i. 10. Sikes in Anthropolgy and the Classics says this was borrowed from Thucydides, whom Wilamowitz says Plato never read. Cf. Dio Chrys. xiii. 226 M. For ἐξ οὗ cf. Demosthenes iv. 3, Isocrates v. 47.
[1005]: Lit. what (seemed) laughable to (in) the eyes.
[1006]: Cf. 607 D δοῖμεν . . . λόγον.
[1007]: Plato as elsewhere asks whether it is true of all, some, or none. So of the commingling of ideas in Sophist 251 D. Aristotle (Politics 1260 b 38) employs the same would-be exhaustive method.
[1008]: ἀρχόμενος . . . τελευτήσειν: an overlooked reference to a proverb also overlooked by commentators on Pindar, Pyth. i. 35. Cf. Pindar, fr. 108 A Loeb, Laws 775 E, Sophocles, fr. 831 (Pearson), Antiphon the Sophist, fr. 60 (Diels).
[1009]: This pleading the opponent’s case for him is common in Plato. Cf. especially the plea for Protagoras in Theaetetus 166-167.
[1010]: Apparently a mixture of military and legal phraseology. Cf. ἐκπέρσῃ in Protagoras 340 A, Iliad v. 140 τὰ δ’ ἐρῆμα φοβεῖται, and the legal phrase ἐρήμην καταδιαιτᾶν or οφλεῖν.
[1011]: ὡμολογεῖτε: cf. 369 E f. For κατὰ φύσιν cf. 370 C and 456 C. The apparent emphasis of φύσις in this book is of little significance. Cf. Laws, passim.
[1012]: Cf. the πέλαγος τῶν λόγων Protagoras 338 A. Similarly Sidney Smith: cut his cable, and spread his enormous canvas, and launch into the wide sea of reasoning eloquence.
[1013]: An allusion to the story of Arion and the dolphin in Herodotus i. 24, as ὑπολαβεῖν perhaps proves. For ἄπορον cf. 378 A.
[1014]: γενναία: often as here ironical in Plato. Cf. Sophist 231 B, where interpreters misunderstand it. But the new L. and S. is correct.
[1015]: ἀντιλογικῆς: one of several designations for the eristic which Isocrates maliciously confounds with dialectic while Plato is careful to distinguish them. Cf. E. S. Thompson, The Meno of Plato, Excursus V., pp. 272 ff. and the introduction to E.H. Gifford’s Euthydemus, p. 42. Among the marks of eristic are the pusuit of merely verbal oppositions as here and Euthydemus 278 A, 301 B, Theaetetus 164 C; the neglect to distinguish and divide, Philebus 17 A, Phaedrus 265 E, 266 A, B; the failure to distinguish the hypothesis from its consequences, Phaedo 101 E, Parmenides 135-136.
[1016]: ἄκοντες is almost unconscious. Cf. Philebus 14 C.
[1017]: Greek style often couples thus two adverbs, the second defining more specifically the first, and, as here and often in Plato and Aristophanes, with humorous or paradoxical effect. Cf. Aristophanes Knights 800 εὖ καὶ μιαρῶς. So Shakespeare well and chirurgeonly.
[1018]: Cf. Sophist 256 A-B for the relativity of same and other.Politicus 292 C describes in different language the correct method.
[1019]: For this humorously trivial illustration cf. Mill, Rep. Gov. chap. viii. p. 190: I have taken no account of difference of sex. I consider it to be as entirely irrelevant to political rights as difference in height, or in the color of the hair; and Mill’s disciple Leslie Stephen, The English Utilitarians, i. 291: We may at least grant that the burden of proof should be upon those who would disfranchise all red-haired men.
[1020]: Cf. Laches 190 D εἰς ὃ τείνειν δοκεῖ, Protagoras 345 B.
[1021]: Adam makes difficulties, but Cf. Laws 963 A νοῦν . . . κυβερνητικὸν μὲν καὶ ἰατρικὸν καὶ στρατηγικόν. The translation follows Hermann despite the objection that this reading forestalls the next sentence. Cf. Campbell ad loc. and Apelt, Woch. für klass. Phil., 1903, p. 344.
[1022]: Plato anticipates the objection that the Socratic dialectic surprises assent. Cf. more fully 487 B, and for a comic version Hippias Major 295 A if I could go off for a little by myself in solitude I would tell you the answer more precisely than precision itself.
[1023]: Cf. Politicus 286 E, where this is said to be the object of teaching.
[1024]: Cf. Protagoras 326 B, Republic 498 B, 410 C, Isocrates xv. 180, Xenophon Memorabilia ii. 1. 28.
[1025]: On the alleged superiority of men even in women’s occupations cf. the amusing diatribe of the old bachelor in George Eliot’s Adam Bede, chap. xxi.: I tell you there isn’t a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all but what a man can do better than women, unless it’s bearing children, and they do that in a poor makeshift way, and the remarks on women as cooks of the bachelor Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 234. But Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 9. 11 takes the ordinary view. On the character of women generally Cf. Laws 781 and Aristotle in Zeller trans. ii. 215.
[1026]: Cf. Cratylus 392 C ὡς τὸ ὅλον εἰπεῖν γένος.
[1027]: Cf. Gorgias 517 C.
[1028]: Cf. on 450 D.
[1029]: Cf. Introduction p. xvii.
[1030]: This is only a more complicated case of the point of style noted on 349 D. Cf. Cratylus 386 A, Sophist 247 A.
[1031]: Cf. on 421 A. We should not press this incidental phrase to prove that Plato would not educate all the citizens, as he in fact does in the Laws and by implication in the Politicus.
[1032]: Cf. Morley, Voltaire, p. 103: It has been rather the fashion to laugh at the Marquise de Châtelet, for no better reason than that she, being a woman, studied Newton. . . . There is probably nothing which would lead to so rapid and marked an improvement in the world as a large increase of the number of women in it with the will and the capacity to master Newton as thoroughly as she did.
[1033]: Cf. Rousseau, Lettre à d’Alembert, Couvertes de l’honnêteté publique.
[1034]: Cf. Pindar, fr. 209 Schroeder, ἀτελῆ σοφίας καρπὸν δρέπειν. Plato varies the quotation to suit his purpose.
[1035]: This is one of the chief texts for the alleged utilitarianism of Plato, a question too complicated to be settled by anything less than a comparative study of the Protagoras, Gorgias, Phaedo, Philebus, Republic (IX) and Laws. ὠφέλιμον suggests benefit rather than utility. Cf. Introduction to second volume of this translation, and on 339 A-B.
[1036]: Cf. Aeschylus Septem, in fine.
[1037]: For this form of exaggeration Cf. on 414 C, 339 B.
[1038]: On the whole topic cf. Introduction p. xxxiv, Lucian, Fugitivi 18 οὐκ εἰδότες ὅπως ὁ ἱερὸς ἐκεῖνος ἠξίου κοινὰς ἡγεῖσθαι τὰς γυναῖκας, Epictetus fr. 53, p. 21, Rousseau, Emile, v: je ne parle point de cette prétendue communauté de femmes dont le reproche tant répété prouve que ceux qui le lui font ne l’ont jamais lu. But Rousseau dissents violently from what he calls cette promiscuité civile qui confond partout les deux sexes dans les mêmes emplois. Cf. further the denunciations of the Christian fathers passim, who are outdone by De Quincey’s Otaheitian carnival of licentious appetite, connected with a contempt of human life which is excessive even for paganism. Most of the obvious parallels between Plato and Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazusae follow as a matter of course from the very notion of communal marriage and supply no evidence for the dating of a supposed earlier edition of the whole or a part of the Republic. In any case the ideas of the Republic might have come to Aristophanes in conversation before publication; and the Greeks knew enough of the facts collected in such books as Westermarck’s Marriage, not to be taken altogether by surprise by Plato’s speculations. Cf. Herodotus iv. 104, and Aristotle Politics 1262 a 20. Cf. further Adam’s exhaustive discussion in the appendix to this book, Grube, The Marriage Laws in Plato’s Republic, Classical Quarterly, 1927, pp. 95 ff., Teichmüller, Literarische Fehden, i. p. 19 n., and the more recent literature collected in Praechter-Ueberweg, 12th ed. i. p. 207, Pöhlmann, Geschichte der Sozialenfrage und des Sozialsmus in der antiken Welt, ii. p. 578, Pohlenz, Aus Platon’s Werdezeit, pp. 225-228, C. Robert, Hermes lvii. pp. 351 ff.
[1039]: A distinct suggestion of the topics of the useful and the possible in Aristotle’s Rhetoric.
[1040]: Cf. Isocrates ii. 47, on those who in solitude do not deliberate but imagine what they wish, and Chesterton’s saying, All feeble spirits live in the future, because it is a soft job; cf. further on day-dreams, Schmidt, Ethik der Griechen, ii. p. 71, and Lucian’s Πλοῖον ἢ εὐχαί. Plato’s description anticipates the most recent psychology in everything except the term autistic thinking.
[1041]: ἄλλως: Cf. 495 B.
[1042]: Cf. Blaydes on Aristophanes Clouds 727.
[1043]: Cf. Herodotus ix. 8. He returns to the postponed topic in 466 D, but again digresses and does not take it up definitely till 471 C or rather 473 C-D. The reason is that the third wave of paradox is also the condition of the possibility of realization. Cf. Introduction p. xvii.
[1044]: Cf. on 340 A-B.
[1045]: That is to say, they are to imitate or conform to our principles in the details which we leave to them. So in the Laws, 770 B, 846 C, 876 E, and the secondary divinities in the Timaeus, 69 C. Cf. Politicus 301 A, and Aristotle Politics 1261 b 2 μιμεῖται.
[1046]: Cf. 456 B. Plato has already explained that he means of like nature in respect to capacity for government. There is no contradiction of the doctrine of the Politicus, 310 A (Cf. Laws 773 A-B) that the mating should blend opposite temperaments. Those elements are already mixed in the selection of the guardians. Cf. 375 B-C, 410 D-E and Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 62, n. 481.
[1047]: The phrase is imitated by Plutarch, Adv. Col. 1122 D φυσικαῖς, οὐ γεωμετρικαῖς ἑλκόμενος ἀνάγκαις.
[1048]: Cf. Laws 789 B-C.
[1049]: The riddling question to which the response is what? is a mannerism derived from tragedy, which becomes very frequent in the later style of the Sophist, Politicus and Philebus.
[1050]: This commonplace of stirpiculture or eugenics, as it is now called, begins with Theognis 184, and has thus far got no further.
[1051]: A recurrence to the metaphor of 389 B, as we are reminded below in D.
[1052]: Cf. 389 B, 414 C, and Laws 663 D ἐπ’ ἀγαθῷ ψεύδεσθαι
[1053]: Cf. on 343 A-B and Politicus 267 B-C, 268 B. αὖ below merely marks the second consideration, harmony, the first being eugenics.
[1054]: Plato apparently forgets that this legislation applies only to the guardians. The statement that ancient civilization was free from the shadow of Malthusianism requires qualification by this and many other passages. Cf. 372 C and Laws 740 D-E. The ancients in fact took it for granted.
[1055]: Opinions differ whether this is euphemism for exposure. On the frequency or infrequency of this practice cf. Professor La Rue Van Hook’s article in T.A.P.A. vol. li, and that of H. Bolkestein, Class. Phil. vol. xvii. (1922) pp. 222-239.
[1056]: Cf. on 414 B and Aristotle Politics 1262 a 14 ff.
[1057]: Another favorite idea and expression. Cf. Gorgias 459 C, Laws 648 C, 713 D, 720 C, 779 A, 903 E, Isocrates iv. 36, Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 13. 5.
[1058]: Cf. on 458 C.
[1059]: Half humorous legal language. Cf. Aristotle Politics 1335 b 28 λειτουργεῖν . . . πρὸς τεκνοποιίαν, and Lucan’s urbi pater est, urbique maritus (Phars. ii. 388). The dates for marriage are given a little differently in the Laws, 785 B, 833 C-D, men 30-35, women 16-20. On the whole question and Aristotle’s opinion cf. Newman, Introduction to Aristotle Politics p. 183; cf. also Grube, Class. Quarterly 1927, pp. 95 ff., The Marriage Laws in Plato’s Republic.
[1060]: Cf. Horace, Odes iv. 4. 29.
[1061]: Cf. Laws 838 A and 924 E.
[1062]: Cf. Newman, op. cit. p. 187.
[1063]: Cf. Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology, p. 89: A native of Hawaii, for example, calls by the name of father . . . every man of an age such that he could be his father. Cf. Aristophanes Eccles. 636-637.
[1064]: Cf. 363 D and Laws 899 E, 927 B.
[1065]: We may perhaps infer from the more explicit reference in Theaetetus 193 C that Plato is thinking of the recognition by footprints in Aeschylus Choeph.205-210.
[1066]: Cf. 423 B, Aristotle Politics 1261 b 16 ff., Plato’s Laws and the Unity of Plato’s Thought, Class. Phil. ix. (1914) p. 358, Laws 664 A, 739 C-E, Julian (Teubner) ii. 459, Teichmüller, Lit. Fehden, vol. i. p. 19, Mill, Utilitarianism, iii. 345: In an improving state of the human mind the influences are constantly on the increase which tend to generate in each individual a feeling of unity with all the rest, which, if perfect, would make him never think of or desire any beneficial condition for himself in the benefits of which they are not included; Spinoza, paraphrased by Hoffding, Hist. of Mod. Phil. i. p. 325: It would be best, since they seek a common good, if all could be like one mind and one body. Rabelais I. lvii. parodies Plato: Si quelqu’un ou quelqu’une disoit beuvons, tous beuvoient etc. Aristotle’s criticism, though using some of Plato’s phrases, does not mention his name at this point but speaks of τίνες, Politics 1261 b 7.
[1067]: Cf. Laws 829 A.
[1068]: I so translate to bring out the analogy between Plato and e.g. Sherrington. For to the soul Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 328, Laws 673 A, Timaeus 45 D, 584 C, Philebus 33, 34, 43 B-C. Poschenrieder, Die Platonischen Dialoge in ihrem Verhältnisse zu den Hippocratischen Schriften, p. 67, compares the De locis in homine, vi. p. 278 Littré.
[1069]: For these further confirmations of an established thesis cf. on 442-443.
[1070]: τὰ ὀνόματα μόνον may be thought to anticipate Aristotle’s objections.
[1071]: Cf. 554 D ὅτι οὐκ ἄμεινον.
[1072]: Cf. the reliance on a unanimous public opinion in the Laws, 838 C-D.
[1073]: περὶ . . . περί: for the preposition repeated in a different sense cf. Isocrates iv. 34, ix, 3, and Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, III. i. As here by Caesar and by you cut off.
[1074]: δόγματός τε καὶ ῥήματος: Cf. Sophist 265 C, Laws 797 C.
[1075]: Cf. 416-417.
[1076]: For a similar list Cf. Laws 842 D. Aristotle, Politics 1263 b 20 f., objects that it is not lack of unity but wickedness that causes these evils.
[1077]: Softens the strong word οἰχήσεται.
[1078]: Cf. A.J.P. vol. xiii. p. 364, Aeschines iii. 255, Xenophon Rep. Lac. 4. 5, Laws 880 A.
[1079]: One of the profoundest of Plato’s political aphorisms. Cf. on 545 D, Laws 683 E, and Aristotle Politics 1305 a 39.
[1080]: Alma sdegnosa. Cf. 371 E, 396 B, 397 D, 525 D.
[1081]: Cf. Aristotle Politics 1263 b 22.
[1082]: Cf. 416 D, 548 A, 550 D.
[1083]: Proverbial. Cf. Sophist 241 D.
[1084]: Cf. 540B-C, 621D, Laws 715C, 807C, 840A, 946-947, 964C, Cicero Pro Flacco 31 Olympionicen esse apud Graecos prope maius et gloriosius est quam Romae trimphasse. The motive is anticipated or parodied by Dracontion, Athenaeus 237 D, where the parasite boasts—γέρα γὰρ αὐτοῖς ταῦτα τοῖς τἀλύμπιανικῶσι δέδοται χρηστότητος οὕνεκα.
[1085]: Cf. 419 E-20.
[1086]: Cf. 420 C. Omitting τό, translate that we were not fixing our eyes on any one class, and portraying that as happy.
[1087]: ἐπικούρων: the word here includes the rulers.
[1088]: κατά, comparable to, on a level with. Cf. Apology 17 B, Gorgias 512 B.
[1089]: μηδέ: cf. 420 D.
[1090]: Hes. WD 40. So Plat. Laws 690 E.
[1091]: Hes. WD 40
[1092]: τήν: this order is frequent and sometimes significant in the Laws. Cf. 690 C, 720 E, 814 E, 853 A, 857 D, 923 B.
[1093]: Cf. on 451 D. The community in this case, of course, refers only to occupations.
[1094]: μὲν γάρ: forced transition to a delaying digression.
[1095]: So with modifications Laws 785 B, 794 C-D, 804 D-E, 806 A-B, 813-814, 829 E.
[1096]: For this practice of Greek artists see Klein, Praxiteles, Newman, Introduction to Aristotle Politics p. 352, Pater, The Renaissance 104, Protagoras 328 A, Laws 643 B-C, Protagoras frag. 3 (Diels), Aristotle Politics 1336 b 36, Iambl. Protrept. xx., Polyb. vi. 2. 16, iii. 71. 6 καὶ παιδομαθῆ περὶ τὰ πολεμικά, Aristides x. 72 who quoted Plato; Antidotus, Athenaeus, 240 B, where the parasite boasts that he was a παιδομαθής in his art, and Sosipater, Athenaeus 377 F, where the cook makes the same boast, Phocyl. frag. 13, (Edmonds, Elegy and IambusI., L.C.L.), Henry Arthur Jones, Patriotism and popular Education, Kipling, From Sea to Sea, p. 361. Greek language and satire contrasted such παιδομαθεῖς with the ὀψιμαθεῖς or late learners.
[1097]: προσμηχανᾶσθαι: Cf. on 414 B.
[1098]: παρὰ δόξαν: cf. Thucydides i. 122 ἥκιστα ὁ πόλεμος ἐπὶ ῥητοῖς χωρεῖ, ii. 11, iii. 30, iv. 102, vii. 61.
[1099]: πτεροῦν: metaphorical. In Aristophanes Birds 1436-1438 literal.
[1100]: The terms are technical. Cf. Laws 943 D ff., Lipsius, Das attische Recht (1908), ii. pp. 452 ff.
[1101]: εἰς τοὺς πολεμίους: technical. Cf. inscription in Bulletin de corr. hellénique, xii. p. 224, n. 1 τῶν ἁλόντων εἰς τοὺς πολεμίους.
[1102]: ἄγρᾳ: the word is chosen to give a touch of Spartan, or, as we should say, Roman severity. Cf. Sophist 235 C, Aeschylus Eumenides 148, Horace, Odes, iii. 5. 33 ff. Plutarch, De aud. poet. 30, says that in Homer no Greeks are taken prisoners, only Trojans.
[1103]: The deplorable facetiousness of the following recalls the vulgarity of Xenophon’s guard-house conversations. It is almost the only passage in Plato that one would wish to blot. Helvetius, otherwise anything but a Platonist, characteristically adopts it, Lange, History of Materialism, ii. p. 86.
[1104]: Hom. Il. 7.321-322. Cf. also viii. 162, xii. 311.
[1105]: I.e, the back. Hom. Il. 7.321-322.
[1106]: Hom. Il. 8.162
[1107]: Cf. 415 A.
[1108]: Cf. Stewart, Myths of Plato, p. 437.
[1109]: Hes. WD 121
[1110]: Cf. 427 B-C.
[1111]: ἐξηγῆται: cf. 427 C.
[1112]: τὸν λοιπὸν δὴ χρόνον: cf. Pindar in Meno 81 C, Phaedo 81 A.
[1113]: For this Pan-Hellenic feeling cf. Xenophon Ages. 7. 6, Hellen. i. 6. 14, Aeschines ii. 115, Isocrates Panegyricus.
[1114]: For the following Cf. Laws 693 A, and Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, iii. p. 275.
[1115]: κυπτάζωσι: cf. Blaydes on Aristophanes Nubes 509.
[1116]: Cf. Juvenal, Satire xiii. 189-191.
[1117]: ἀποπταμένου: both Homer and Sappho so speak of the soul as flitting away.
[1118]: The body is only the instrument of the soul. Cf. Socrates’ answer to the question, How shall we bury you? Phaedo 115 C ff. and the elaboration of the idea in Alc. I. 129 E, whence it passed in to European literature.
[1119]: Quoted by Aristotle, Rhet. 1406 b. Epictetus iii. 19. 4 complains that nurses encourage children to strike the stone on which they stumble. Cf. also Lucan vi. 220-223. Otto, Sprichwörter der Römer, p. 70, cites Pliny, N.H. xxix. 102, and Pacuv. v. 38, Ribb. Trag. Cf. Montaigne i. 4, Ainsin emporte les bestes leur rage à s’attaquer à la pierre et au fer qui les a blecées.
[1120]: Plato as a boy may have heard of the Thebans’ refusal to allow the Athenians to bury their dead after Delium. Cf. Thucydides iv. 97-101, and Euripides Supplices.
[1121]: For the practice cf. Aeschylus Septem 275-279 and Agamemnon 577-579. Italian cities and American states have restored to one another the flags so dedicated from old wars. Cf. Cicero De inventione ii. 70 at tamen aeternum inimicitiarum monumentum Graios de Graiis statuere non oportet.
[1122]: For similar caution cf. on 427 B-C.
[1123]: I have so translated in order to imply that the Plato of the Republic is already acquainted with the terminology of the Sophist. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, notes 375 and 377, followed by Wilamowitz, Platon, i. p. 504. But most editors take διαφορά here as dissension, and construe applied to the disagreements of two things, which may be right. Cf. Sophist 228 A στάσιν . . . τὴν τοῦ φύσει συγγενοῦς ἔκ τινος διαφθορᾶς διαφοράν.
[1124]: Plato shared the natural feeling of Isocrates, Demosthenes, and all patriotic Greeks. Cf. Isocrates Panegyricus 157, 184, Panath. 163; Menexenus 237 ff., Laws 692 C and 693 A. It is uncritical then with Newman (op. cit. p. 430) and many others to take as a recantation of this passage the purely logical observation in Politicus 262 D that Greek and barbarinan is an unscientific dichotomy of mankind. Cf. on the whole question the dissertation of Friedrich Weber, Platons Stellung zu den Barbaren.
[1125]: Cf. 414 E, Menexenus 237 E, Timaeus 40 B, Laws 740 A, Aeschylus Septem 16.
[1126]: Cf. Epistles 354 A, Herodotus ii. 178, Isocrates Phil. 122, Panegyricus 96, Evagoras 40, Panath. 241. The word is still significant for international politics, and must be retained in the translation.
[1127]: Cf. Newman, op. cit. p. 143.
[1128]: The same language was frequently used in the recent World War, but the practice was sometimes less civilized than that which Plato recommends. Hobhouse (Mind in Evolution, p. 384), writing earlier, said, Plato’s conclusions (Republic 469-471) show how narrow was the conception of humanitarian duties in the fourth century. It is, I think, only modern fancy that sees irony in the conclusion: treating barbarians as Greeks now treat Greeks.
[1129]: It is a mistaken ingenuity that finds a juncture between two distinct versions here.
[1130]: πάντ’ . . . ἀγαθά: idiomatically colloquial. Cf. Politicus 284 B, Laws 711 D, 757 D, 780 D, Aristophanes Acharnians 978, 982, Frogs 302.
[1131]: Cf. Laws 806 B.
[1132]: ὥσπερ marks the figurative use as τινα in Aeschines, Tim. 135 τινα καταδρομήν.
[1133]: Cf. Introduction p. xvii. The third wave, sometimes the ninth, was proverbially the greatest. Cf. Euthydemus 293 A, Lucan v. 672 decimus dictu mirabile fluctus, and Swineburne: Who swims in sight of the third wave That never a swimmer shall cross or climb.
[1134]: συγγνώμην: L. and S. wrongly with ὅτι, to acknowledge that . . .
[1135]: Cf. Introduction p. xii. and note d. Plato seems to overlook the fact that the search was virtually completed in the fourth book.
[1136]: οὐδέν: idiomatic, like the English of the translation. Cf. Charmides 164 A, Gorgias 498 A, 515 E. The emphatic statement that follows of the value of ideals as ideals is Plato’s warning hint that he does not expect the literal realization of his Utopia, though it would be disillusionizing to say so too explicitly. Cf. introduction p. xxxi-xxxii, and my paper on Plato’s Laws, Class. Phil. ix. (1914) pp. 351 and 353. This is one of the chief ideas that Cicero derived from Plato. He applies it to his picture of the ideal orator, and the mistaken ingenuity of modern scholarship has deduced from this and attributed to the maleficent influence of Plato the post-Renaissancee and eighteenth-century doctrine of fixed literary kinds. Cf. my note in the New York Nation, vol. ciii. p. 238, Sept. 7, 1916.
[1137]: An ideal in the plastic arts is used to illustrate the thought. Cf. Aristotle Poetics 1461 b 14, Politics 1281 b 10, Cicero, Orator ii. 3, Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 10, Finsler, Platon u. d. aristotelische Poetik, p. 56. Polyb. vi. 47. 7 gives a different turn to the comaprison of the Republic to a statue. Plato is speaking from the point of view of ordinary opinion, and it is uncritical to find here and in 501 an admission that the artist copies the idea, which is denied in Book X. 597 E ff. Apelt, Platonische Aufsätze, p. 67.
[1138]: Cf. 372 E.
[1139]: The point is so important that Plato repeats it more specifically.
[1140]: Plato is contradicting the Greek commonplace which contrasts the word with the deed. Cf. Apology 32 A, Sophist 234 E, Euripides frag. Alcmene λόγος γὰρ τοὔργον οὐ νικᾷ ποτε, and perhaps Democritus’s λόγος ἔργου σκιή. Cf. A.J.P. xiii. p. 64. The word is the expression of the thought. It is more plastic (588 D, Laws 736 B) and, as Goethe says, von einem Wort lässt sich kein Iota rauben.
[1141]: εἰρήσεται: so used by the orators to introduce a bold statement. Cf. Aeschines ii. 22, Demosthenes xix. 224, xi. 17, xiv. 24, xxi. 198, etc.
[1142]: More literally deluge or overwhelm with ridicule.
[1143]: This is perhaps the most famous sentence in Plato. Cf. for the idea 499 B, 540 D, Laws 711 D, 712 A, 713 E ff. It is paraphrased by the author of the seventh Epistle (324 B, 326 A-B, 328 A-B) who perhaps quotes Plato too frequently to be Plato himself. Epistle ii. 310 E, though sometimes quoted in this connection, is not quite the same thought. It is implied in the Phaedrus 252 E φιλόσοφος καὶ ἡγεμονικός, and Politicus 293 C, and only seems to be contradicted in Euthydemus 306 B. Aristotle is said to have contradicted it in a lost work (fr. 79, 1489 b 8 ff.). It is paraphrased or parodied by a score of writers from Polybius xii. 28 to Bacon, Hobbes, More, Erasmus, and Bernard Shaw. Boethius transmitted it to the Middle Ages (Cons. Phil. i. 4. 11). It was always on the lips of Marcus Aurelius. Cf. Capitol, Aurelius i. 1 and iv. 27. It was a standardized topic of compliment to princes in Themistius, Julian, the Panegyrici Latini, and many modern imitators. Among the rulers who have been thus compared with Plato’s philosophic king are Marcus Aurelius, Constantine, Arcadius, James I., Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. There is a partial history of the commonplace in T. Sinko’s Program, Sententiae Platonicae de philophis regnantibus fata quae fuerint, Krakow, 1904, in the supplementary article of Karl Praechter, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, xiv. (1905) pp. 4579-491, and in the dissertation of Emil Wolff, Francis Bacons Verhaltnis zu Platon, Berlin, 1908, pp. 60 ff.
[1144]: Plato’s condescension to the ordinary mind that cannot be expected to understand often finds expression in this form. Cf. 366 C, 489 C, Theaetetus 176 C, and Republic 495 E ἀνάγκη.
[1145]: Lit. many and not slight men.
[1146]: Cf. Hipponax, fr. 74 (58), Theophrast. Char. 27, Aristophanes Wasps 408.
[1147]: Cf. Apology 35 A, Theaetetus 151 A.
[1148]: τῷ ὄντι verifies the strong word τωθαζόμενος.
[1149]: Cf. Theaetetus 162 A 7. The dialectician prefers a docile respondent. Cf. Sophist 217 C, Parmenides 137 B.
[1150]: τὸ δὲ μή: for the idiom Cf. Philebus 22 A, Laws 797 E, 923 C, Demodocus’s epigram on the Chians, Aeschylus Persae 802, Sophocles O. C. 1671.
[1151]: Another of the famous sentences that would be worth a monograph. Cf. Lucretius iv. 1160, Molière, Misanthrope, ii. 5, Horace, Satire i. 338. F. Brunetière, Les Epoques du théâtre francÿais, p. 76, thinks that Molière took it from Scarron, not from Lucretius. Shakespeare Much Ado, III. i. reverses the conceit, Santayana, Reason in Society, p. 25, writes prettily about it.
[1152]: Cf. Aristotle Eth. i. 8. 10 ἑκάστῳ δ’ ἐστὶν ἡδὺ πρὸς ὃ λέγεται φιλοτοιοῦτος. Cf. the old Latin hexameters—si bene quid memini causae suant quinque bibendi: Hospitis adventus, praesens sitis atque futura, Aut vini bonitas, aut quaelibet altera causa.
[1153]: Cf. Theophrastus, Char. 21 (Loeb) μικροφιλοτιμίας, petty pride.
[1154]: τριττυαρχοῦσι, command the soldiers of a trittys or third of one of the ten tribes.
[1155]: δυσχεραίνοντα, squeamish, particular, choicy. Cf. 391 E, 426 D, and Pope, Essay on Criticism, 288—Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best, Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.
[1156]: Plato as usual anticipates objections and misunderstandings. Cf. e.g. on 487 B.
[1157]: Cf. the argument in the first sentence of Aristotle’s Metaphysics that men’s pleasure in sense-perception is a form of their love of knowledge.
[1158]: φιλήκοοι: the word, like curiosity in Ruskin’s interpretation, may have a higher and lower meaning. It is used half technically of intellectual interests generally. Cf. Euthydemus 304 B.The abstract φιληκοΐα became a virtual synonym of culture and reading.
[1159]: Cf. on 498 A, and in Parmenides 126 E, Antiphon, who studied Eleatic dialectic in his youth, but now gives his time to horses. The word διατριβή has a long history in philosophy and literature, starting from such passages as Charmides 153 A and Lysis 204 A.
[1160]: In addition to the presentation of new plays at the city Dionysia, there were performances at the Peiraeus and in the demes.
[1161]: Cf. Theaetetus 201 B 3, Sophist 240 B οὐδαμῶς ἀληθινόν γε, ἀλλ’ ἐοικὸς μέν.
[1162]: Cf. Aristotle Eth. 1098 a 32 θεατὴς γὰρ τἀληθοῦς.
[1163]: Cf. 449 C.
[1164]: Plato is merely restating the theory of Ideas to prepare for his practical distinction between minds that can and minds that cannot apprehend abstractions. He does not here enter into the metaphysics of the subject. But he does distinctly show that he is already aware of the difficulties raised in the Parmenides, 131 B ff., and of the misapprehension disposed of in the Sophist 252 ff. that the metaphysical isolation of the Ideas precludes their combination and intermingling in human thought and speech. For the many attempts to evade ἀλλήλων κοινωνία Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 244, and add now Wilamowitz, Platon, i. p. 567, who, completely missing the point, refers to 505 A, which is also misunderstood. He adds mit den Problemen des Sophistes hat das gar nichts zu tun; sie waren ihm noch nicht aufgestossen, which begs the question.
[1165]: Le petit nombre des élus is a common topic in Plato. Cf. on 494 A.
[1166]: The dream state is a very different thing for Plato from what it is for some modern sentimental Platonists. Cf. 520 C-D, Phaedrus 277 D, Timaeus 52 B, and 71 E, if rightly interpreted.
[1167]: ἠρέμα: Cf. Symposium 221 B. Plato’s humorous use of this word is the source of Emerson’s humorous use of gently.
[1168]: For the humor of the sudden shift to the second person cf. Juvenal, Satire i. profer, Galla, caput.
[1169]: To understand what follows it is necessary (1) to assume that Plato is not talking nonsense; (2) to make allowance for the necessity that he is under of combating contemporary fallacies and sophisms which may seem trivial to us (Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 50 ff.); (3) to remember the greater richness of the Greek language in forms of the verb to be; and the misunderstandings introduced by the indiscriminate use of the abstract verbal noun being in English—a difficulty which I have tried to meet by varying the terms of the translation; (4) to recognize that apart from metaphysics Plato’s main purpose is to insist on the ability to think abstractly as a prerequisite of the higher education; (5) to observe the qualifications and turns of phrase which indicate that Plato himself was not confused by the double meaning of is not, but was already aware of the distinctions explicitly explained in the Sophist. (Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 53 ff. nn. 389 ff.)
[1170]: παντελῶς: cf. μηδαμῇ and 478 D πάντως. Not foreseeing modern philology Plato did not think it necessary to repeat these qualifying adverbs in 478 B ἢ ἀδύνατον καὶ δοξάσαι τὸ μὴ ὄν, which is still sometimes quoted to prove that Plato was yet naively unaware of the distinction between is-not-at-all (does not exist) and is-not-this-or-that.
[1171]: Apart from the metaphysical question of the relativity of all knowledge, the word ἐπιστήμη in Greek usage connotes certainty, and so Plato and Aristotle always take it. But more specifically that which (always) is, for Plato, is the idea which is not subject to change and therefore always is what it is, while a particular material thing subject to change and relativity both is and is not any and every predicate that can be applied to it. And since knowledge in the highest sense is for Plato knowledge of abstract and general ideas, both in his and in our sense of the word idea, knowledge is said to be of that which is. It is uncritical to ignore Plato’s terminology and purpose and to talk condescendingly of his confusing subjective with objective certainty in what follows.
[1172]: The history of the word δύναμις has been studied in recent monographs and its various meanings, from potentiality to active power, discriminated. Cf. J. Souilhé, Etude sur le terme δύναμις dans les Dialogues de Platon, Paris, 1919, pp. 96, 163 ff. But Plato makes his simple meaning here quite plain, and it would be irrelevant to bring in modern denunciations of the old faculty psychology.
[1173]: Cf. my note on Simplic. De An. 146. 21, Class. Phil. xvii. p. 143.
[1174]: Cf. Ion 537 D οὕτω καλῶ τὴν μὲν ἄλλην, τὴν δὲ ἄλλην τέχνην.
[1175]: ἐπί: Cf. Parmenides 147 D-E ἕκαστον τῶν ὀνομάτων οὐκ ἐπί τινι καλεῖς;
[1176]: Cf. Protagoras 352 B, Aristotle Eth. 1145 b 24.
[1177]: For the various meanings of δόξα Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 47 the word δόξα may be used in this neutral, psychological sense; it may be taken unfavorably to denote mere opinion as opposed to knowledge, or favorably when true opinions and beliefs are set in antithesis to the appetites and instincts.
[1178]: Plato reaffirms this strongly Timaeus 51 E, where, however, νοῦς is used, not ἐπιστήμη. Of course where distinctions are irrelevant Plato may use many of the terms that denote mental processes as virtual synonyms. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought pp. 47-49.
[1179]: Cf. Symposium 200 B, 201 D.
[1180]: Cf. on 447 C.
[1181]: Plato is, of course, aware that this is true only if μὴ ὄν be taken in the absolute sense. We cannot suppose that he himself is puzzled by a fallacy which he ironically attributes to the Sophists and to Protagoras (Theaetetus 167 A), and ridicules in the Cratylus 188 D and Euthydemus 286 C. Cf. Unity of Platos’ Thought, pp. 53, 54. As Aristotle explicitly puts it, De interpr. 11. 11 τὸ δὲ μὴ ὂν ὅτι δοξαστὸν οὐκ ἀληθὲς εἰπεῖν ὄν τι· δόξα γὰρ αὐτοῦ ἐστιν, οὐχ ὅτι ἔστιν ἀλλ’ ὅτι οὐκ ἔστι.
[1182]: Cf. 477 A.
[1183]: Cf. 477 A-B. This is almost a standardized method with Plato. Cf. 609 B, Charmides 168 B, Gorgias 496 C, 346 B, Philebus 11 D, 66 E, Laws 896 C.
[1184]: Ironical. Cf. Phaedrus 266 E.
[1185]: τινὰ does not mean that the theory of Ideas is a novelty here or that the terminology is new and strange. It merely says that the type of mind that is absorbed in the concrete cannot apprehend any general aspect of things. αὐτό and κατὰ ταὐτά are the technical designation of the Idea here. Cf. my note on Philebus 64 A, Class. Phil. xx. (1925) p. 347.
[1186]: Plato consciously uses mere logic to lend the emphasis and dignity of absolute metaphysics to his distinction between the two types of mind, which is for all practical purposes his main point here. If you cannot correctly define the beautiful, all your imperfect definitions will be refuted by showing that they sometimes describe what is ugly. Cf. Hippias Major 289 C and note on Republic i. 333 E. The many concrete objects are this and are not that, and so with conscious use of the ambiguity of the copula may be said to tumble about between being and not-being. That this is the consciously intended meaning may be inferred from the fact that in Timaeus 37 E, where Plato must have had in mind the conclusions of the Sophist, he still avails himself of this ambiguity to suggest an absolute being behind phenomena. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 55, 56, 60, De Platonis Idearum Doctrina pp. 48, 49.
[1187]: Cf. on 524 A, B.
[1188]: The scholiast (Hermann vi. 34) quotes the riddle in two forms. It might run in English—A tale there is, a man not yet a man, Seeing, saw not, a bird and not a bird, Perching upon a bough and not a bough, And hit it—not, with a stone and not a stone. The key words of the answer are eunuch, bat, reed, pumice-stone. Cf. also Athenaeus 448 E, 452 E, Gifford on Euthydemus 300 D. It was used in the Stoic schools of logic, and Epicurus is said to have used it to disprove Plato’s statement that either the negative or the affirmative of a proposition must be true or false. Cf. Usener, Epicurea, p. 348.
[1189]: Cf. Theaetetus 157 A.
[1190]: Cf. Sophist 254 A εἰς τὴν τοῦ μὴ ὄντος σκοτεινότητα.
[1191]: A further thought is developed here, suggested in 479 A, B. Just as the many particular horses, trees, or tables shift and change, and are and are not in comparision with the unchanging multitude of each, so the many opinions of the multitude about justice and the good and the beautiful and other moral conceptions change, and both are and are not in comparison with the unalterable ideas of justice and beauty, which the philosopher more nearly apprehends. Thus, for the purposes of this contrast, notions, opinions, and what English usage would call ideas, fall into the same class as material objects. Cf. Euthyphro 6 D, Phaedo 78 D, Parmenides 131 D, Gorgias 488 D τὰ τῶν πολλῶν ἄρα νόμιμα, Laws 715 B τὰ τούτων δίκαια, 860 C τοῖς μὲν τοίνυν πολλοῖς etc., 962 D τὰ τῶν πόλεων (of states) νόμιμα. The practical truth of this distinction is unaffected by our metaphysics. Plato is speaking of what he elsewhere calls the εἴδωλα of justice, beauty and the like. Cf. 517 D, 532 D, Theaetetus 150 B, and The Idea of Good in Plato’s Republic, University of Chicago Studies in Classical Philology, i. p. 238.
[1192]: Cf. Phaedrus 275 E, Phaedo 81 C, 82 E. Isocrates uses καλινδέομαι in similar contemptuous connotation, v. 82, xiii. 20, xv. 30.
[1193]: Cf. Aristotle Metaphysics 989 a 33 τοῖς ἐπάγουσιν αὐτόν.
[1194]: Plato coins a word which means lovers of opinion.
[1195]: Isocrates xv. 271 is conceivably an answer to this.
[1196]: The argument is slightly personified. Cf. on 503 A.
[1197]: It is captious to object that the actual discussion of the philosopher occupies only a few pages.
[1198]: This is the main theme of the Republic, of which Plato never loses sight.
[1199]: For κατὰ ταὐτὰ ὡσαύτως ἔχοντος Cf. Phaedo 78 C, Soph. 248 A, Tim. 41 D, 82 B, Epin. 982 B and E.
[1200]: Cf. p. 89, note h, on 505 C.
[1201]: Cf. Luke vi. 39, Matt. xv. 14, John xix. 39-41.
[1202]: Cf. Polit. 277 B, 277 D f., etc., Soph. 226 C, Parmen. 132 D.
[1203]: ἀποβλέποντες belongs to the terminology of the ideas. Cf. 472 C, Cratyl. 389 A, Gorg. 503 E, Tim. 28 A, Prot. 354 C, and my What Plato Said, p. 458 on Euthyph. 6 E.
[1204]: Cf. 539 E, 521 B, Phileb. 62. Cf. Introd. p. xl; Apelt, Republic, p. 490.
[1205]: Lit. is not made to wander by generation and decay. Cf. Crat. 411 C, Phaedo 95 E, whence Aristotle took his title. See Class. Phil. xvii. (1922) pp. 334-352.
[1206]: Supra 474 C-D.
[1207]: For similar expressions cf. 519 B, Laws 656 B, 965 C, Symp. 200 A.
[1208]: This and many other passages prove Plato’s high regard for the truth. Cf Laws 730 C, 861 D, Crat. 428 D, 382 A. In 389 B he only permits falsehood to the rulers as a drastic remedy to be used with care for edification. Cf. Vol. I. on 382 C and D.
[1209]: For this figure Cf. Laws 844 A and 736 B, Eurip. Suppl. 1111 παρεκτρέποντες ὀχετόν, Empedocles, Diels1 195 λόγου λόγον ἐξοχετεύων Lucretius ii. 365 derivare queunt animum; and for the idea cf. also Laws 643 C-D.
[1210]: Cf. my Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 45-46, esp. n. 330, followed by Apelt, Republic, pp. 490-491. Cf. also Friedlander, Platon, ii. pp. 579-580, 584.
[1211]: For πεπλασμένως Cf. Soph. 216 C μὴ πλαστῶς ἀλλ’ ὄντως φιλόσοφοι.
[1212]: Cf. Theaet. 144 D χρημάτων ἐλευθεριότητα.
[1213]: Cf. Goethe’s Im Ganzen, Guten, Schönen resolut zu leben.
[1214]: Cf. Theaet. 174 E, of the philosopher, εἰς ἅπασαν εἰωθὼς τὴν γῆν βλέπειν, and 173 E, 500 B-C. Cf. Marc. Aurel. vii. 35, Livy xxiv. 34 Archimedes is erat unicus spectator caeli siderumque, Mayor, Cic. De nat. deor. ii. p. 128. For πᾶς χρόνος cf. infra 498 D, 608 C, Phaedo 107 C, Gorg. 525 C, Apol. 40 E, Tim. 36 E, 47 B, 90 D. Cf. Isoc. i. 11, Pindar, Pyth. i. 46.
[1215]: Cf. Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1123 b 32, the great-souled man, ᾦ γ’ οὐδὲν μέγα, Diog. Laert. vii. 128 πάντων ὑπεράνω, Cic. De fin. iii. 8 infra se omnia humana ducens. Cf. on 500 B-C. For similar pessimistic utterances about human life and mankind Cf. 604 B-C, 496 D-E, 500 B-C, 516 D, Laws 803 B. Cf. also Laws 708 E-709 B.
[1216]: Cf. Vol. I. pp. 200 f. on 386 B-C; Laws 727 D, 828 D, 881 A, Gorg. 522 E, Phaedo 77 E, Crito 43 B, Apol. 35 A, 40 C. Cf. Spinoza’s There is nothing of which the free man thinks so little as death.
[1217]: Cf. ibid, Vol. I. on 442 E.
[1218]: Cf. 375 B.
[1219]: Cf. Laches 189 A-B ἀηδῶς μανθάνων
[1220]: Cf. Theaet. 144 B.
[1221]: Cf. Theaet. 144 B λήθης γέμοντες. Cf. Cleopatra’s Oh, my oblivion is a very Antony (Ant. and Cleo. I. iii. 90).
[1222]: ἰδέαν is not exactly idea. Cf. Cratyl. 389 B, What Plato Said, p. 358 on Euthyph. 6 D, ibid. p. 560 on Rep. 369 A and p. 585 on Parmen. 130 C-D. Cf. Class. Phil. xx. (1925) p. 347.
[1223]: Lit. following on upon the other. Cf. Tim. 27 C ἑπομένως, Laws 844 E.
[1224]: μεγαλοπρεπής is frequently ironical in Plato, but not here. For the list of qualities of the ideal student cf. also 503 C, Theaet. 144 A-B, and Friedländer, Platon, ii. p. 418. Cf. Laws 709 E on the qualifications of the young tyrant, and Cic. Tusc. v. 24, with Renaissance literature on education.
[1225]: The god of censure, who finds fault with the gods in Lucian’s dialogues. Cf. Overbeck, Schriftquellen, p. 208, n. 1091, Otto, p. 227, s. v. Momus. Cf. Callimachus, fr. 70; and Anth. Pal. xvi. 262. 3-4: αὐτὸς ὁ Μῶμος φθέγξεται, Ἄκρητος, Ζεῦ πάτερ, ἡ σοφίη, Momus himself will cry out Father Zeus, this was perfect skill. (L.C.L. translation.) Stallbaum refers to Erasmus, Chiliad, i. 5. 75 and interpreters on Aristaenet. Epist. i. I, p. 239, ed. Boissonade.
[1226]: Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 35 n. 236, and What Plato Said, p. 488 on Crito 48 B. A speaker in Plato may thus refer to any fundamental Platonic doctrine. Wilamowitz’ suggested emendation (Platon, ii. p. 205) ἃ ἂν λέγῃς is due to a misunderstanding of this.
[1227]: A locus classicus for Plato’s anticipation of objections. Cf. 475 B, Theaet. 166 A-B, Rep. 609 C, 438-439, and Apelt, Republic, p. 492. Plato does it more tactfully than Isocrates, e.g. Demon. 44.
[1228]: Cf. Apelt, Aufsätze, p. 73, Minto, Logic, Induction and Deduction, pp. 4 ff.; also Gorg. 461 D, 462 A, Soph. 230 B.
[1229]: Cf. Phaedrus 262 B.
[1230]: Cf. 451 A, and Theaet. 166 A, 168 A, 534 C ἀπτῶτι.
[1231]: Cf. Phaedr. 262 B, Cleitophon 410 A, Gorg. 495 A, schol.,τοὺς πρώτους λόγους τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ δηλονότι, Gorg. 457 E οἷς τὸ πρῶτον ἔλεγες, and also Agathon in Symp. 201 B.
[1232]: For this figure cf. Laws 739 A, 820 C-D, 903 D, Eryxias 395 A-B, Hipparchus 220 E, Eurip. Suppl. 409. Aristotle, Soph. El. 165 a 10 ff., borrows the metaphor, but his ψῆφοι are those of book-keeping or reckoning. Cf. also Dem. De cor. 227 f.
[1233]: Cf. Hipp. Minor 369 B-C and Grote ii. p. 64 Though Hippias admits each successive step he still mistrusts the conclusion also Apelt, p. 492, 357 A-B and Laws 903 A βιάζεσθαι τοῖς λόγοις, and also Hipparchus 232 B for the idea that dialectic constrains rather than persuades. In the Ion, 533 C, Ion says he cannot ἀντιλέγειν, but the fact remains that he knows Homer but not other poets. Cf. also 536 D. The passage virtually anticipates Bacon’s Novum Organum,App. XIII. (syllogismus) . . . assensum itaque constringit, non res. Cf. Cic. De fin. iv. 3, Tusc. i. 8. 16, and the proverbial οὐ γὰρ πείσεις, οὐδ’ ἢν πείσῃς,, Aristoph. Plutus 600.
[1234]: See Soph. 234 E for a different application of the same idea. There is no change of opinion. The commonplace Greek contrast of word and deed, theory and fact, is valid against eristic but not against dialectic. See What Plato Said, p. 534 on Phaedo 99 E, and on 473 A; also What Plato Said, p. 625 on Laws 636 A. A favorite formula of Aristotle runs, This is true in theory and is confirmed by facts. Cf. Eth. Nic. 1099 b 25, 1123 b 22, 1131 a 13, Pol. 1323 a 39-b 6, 1326 a 25 and 29, 1334 a 5-6.
[1235]: Scholars in politics cut a sorry figure. For this popular view of philosophers Cf. Theaet. 173 C ff., 174 C-D, Gorg. 484-486 C, Phaedo 64 B. Cf. also Isoc. passim, e. g. Antid. 250, 312.
[1236]: The perfect tense is ironical in Crat. 384 B, serious in Laws 670 A-B. In Gorg. 485 A it is replaced by ὅσον παιδείας χάριν.
[1237]: Cf. What Plato Said, p. 506 on Gorg. 484 C.
[1238]: Cf. Euthydem. 306 E, Protag. 346 A, and for the idea without the word, Soph. 216 C.
[1239]: Cf. Eurip. Medea 299, and on 489 B.
[1240]: Cf. 497 A. In Euthydem. 307 B Plato uses both ἐπιτήδευμα and πρᾶγμα
[1241]: Cf. Gory. 517 D, Laws 644 C, Symp. 215 A with Bury’s note. Cf. the parable of the great beast 493, and of the many-headed beast, 588-589.
[1242]: The word γλίσχρως is untranslatable, and often misunderstood. In 553 C it means stingily; in Cratyl. 414 C it is used of a strained etymology, and so in 435 C, usually misunderstood; in Crito 53 E of clinging to life; Cf. Phaedo 117 A; in Plutarch, De Is. et Osir. 28 of a strained allegory and ibid. 75 of a strained resemblance; in Aristoph. Peace 482 of a dog.
[1243]: Cf. Laws 747 B.
[1244]: Cf. Horace, Ars Poetica, init.; What Plato Said, p. 550 on Phaedr. 229 D-E, and 588 c f. The expression is still used, or revived, in Modern Greek newspapers.
[1245]: The syntax of this famous allegory is anacoluthic and perhaps uncertain: but there need be no doubt about the meaning. Cf. my article in the Classical Review, xx. (1906) p. 247. Huxley commends the Allegory, Methods and Results, p. 313. Cf. also Carlyle’s famous metaphor of the ship doubling Cape Horn by ballot. Cf. Class. Phil. ix. (1914) p. 362.