Introductions to the Dialogues of Plato (Volumes III–V) — Thomas Taylor
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Translation/edition: Thomas Taylor (1804)
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## Introductions to the Dialogues of Plato (Volumes III–V)


## Introduction to the Parmenides

It was the custom of Pythagoras and his followers, amongst whom Plato holds the most distinguished rank, to conceal divine mysteries under the veil of symbols and figures; to dissemble their wisdom against the arrogant boastings of the Sophists; to jest seriously, and sport in earnest. Hence; in the following most important dialogue, under the appearance of a certain dialectic sport, and, as it were, logical discussion, Plato has delivered a complete system of the profound and beautiful theology of the Greeks. For it is not to be supposed that he, who in all his other dialogues introduces discussions adapted to the character of the principal speaker, should in this dialogue deviate from his general plan, and exhibit Parmenides, a venerable and aged philosopher, engaged in the puerile exercise of a merely logical disputation. Besides, it was usual with the Pythagoreans and Plato to form an harmonious conjunction of many materials in one subject, partly in imitation of nature, and partly for the sake of elegance and grace. Thus, in the Phædrus, Plato mingles oratory with theology; in the Timæus, mathematics with physics; and in the present dialogue, dialectic with divine speculations.
But the reader must not suppose that the dialectic of Plato is the same with vulgar dialectic, which is conversant with opinion, and is accurately investigated in Aristotle’s Topics: for the business of this first of sciences, which at present is utterly unknown, is to employ definitions, divisions, analysations, and demonstrations, as primary sciences in the investigation of causes; imitating the progressions of beings from the first principle of things, and their continual conversion to it, as the ultimate object of desire. “But there are three energies,” says Proclus¹, “of this most scientific method: the first of which is adapted to youth, and is useful for the purpose of rousing their intellect, which is, as it were, in a dormant state; for it is a true exercise of the eye of the soul in the speculation of things, leading forth through opposite positions the essential impression of reasons which it contains, and considering not only the divine path, as it were, which conducts to truth, but exploring whether the deviations from it contain any thing worthy of belief; and, lastly, stimulating the all-various conceptions of the soul. But the second energy takes place when intellect rests from its former investigations, as becoming most familiar with the speculation of beings, and beholds truth itself firmly established upon a pure and holy foundation. And this energy, according to Socrates, by a progression through ideas, evolves the whole of an intelligible nature, till it arrives at that which is first; and this by analysing, defining, demonstrating, and dividing, proceeding upwards and downwards, till, having entirely investigated the nature of intelligibles, it raises itself to a nature superior to beings. But the soul being perfectly established in this nature, as in her paternal port, no longer tends to a more excellent object of desire, as she has now arrived at the end of her search: and you may say that what is delivered in the Phædrus and Sophista is the employment of this energy, giving a twofold division to some, and a fourfold to other operations of the dialectic art; and on this account it is assigned to such as philosophize purely, and no longer require preparatory exercise, but nourish the intellect of their soul in pure intellection. But the third energy, which is exhibitive according to truth, purifies from twofold ignorance when its reasons are employed upon men full of opinion; and this is spoken of in the Sophista.” So that the dialectic energy is triple, either subsisting through opposite arguments, or alone unfolding truth, or alone confuting falsehood.
Parmenides by means of this dialectic perfects the conceptions of Socrates about ideas. For, as Proclus well observes, the mode of discourse is every where obstetric, but does not confute; and is explorative, but not defensive. But it differs, considered as sometimes proceeding from on high to such things as are last, and sometimes ascending from sensible particulars to such reasons as are accommodated to divine causes; but, according to each of these, it elevates Socrates, calls forth his native conceptions concerning ideas, and causes them to possess an expanded distinction. And in this respect, says Proclus, Parmenides truly imitates the paternal cause of the universality of things, who from the supreme hypostasis of all beings, preserves and perfects all things, and draws them upwards by his unknown and ineffable powers.
With respect to the dramatic apparatus of this dialogue, it is necessary to observe, that the Athenians had two festivals in honour of Minerva; the former of which, on account of the greater preparation required in its celebration, was called the greater Panathenaia; and the latter, on account of its requiring a less apparatus, was denominated the lesser Panathenaia. The celebration of them, likewise, was distinguished by longer and shorter periods of time. In consequence, therefore, of the greater festival taking place, sacred to Minerva, Parmenides and Zeno came to Athens, Parmenides being the master, and Zeno his disciple; but both of them Eleateans—and not only this, says Proclus, but partakers of the Pythagoric doctrine, according to the relation of Callimachus the historian. Parmenides and Zeno, therefore, in a place called the Ceramicus, beyond the walls of the city, and which was sacred to the statues of the Gods, met with one Pythodorus, together with Socrates and many other Athenians, who came thither for the purpose of hearing the writings of Zeno. The ensuing dialogue, which was the consequence of Zeno’s discourse, was afterwards related by Pythodorus to one Antiphon, the brother on the mother’s side of Adimantus and Glaucus, who were the brothers of Plato, both from the same father and mother; and the dialogue is supposed to be again related by Antiphon to Cephalus and his companions, in consequence of their soliciting Adimantus and Glaucus to request Antiphon for the narration.
Zeno, therefore, having read to the audience a book, in which he endeavoured to exhibit the difficulties attending the doctrine which asserts the existence of the many, and this in order to defend the favourite dogma of Parmenides, who called being, the one; Socrates by no means opposes his arguments, but readily admits the errors which must ensue from supposing multitude to exist, without participating the one. However, Socrates does not rest here, but urges Zeno to a speculation of the one and the unities which subsist in intelligible natures, not enduring to dwell on the contemplation of the one which sensibles contain: and this leads him to the investigation of ideas in which the unities of things reside. After this Parmenides, not in the least contradicting Socrates, but completing the contemplation which he had begun, unfolds the entire doctrine of ideas, introducing for this purpose four questions concerning them: whether they have a subsistence; of what things there are ideas, and of what not; what kind of beings they are, and what power they possess: and how they are participated by subordinate natures. And this being discussed, Parmenides ascends from hence to the one which subsists above intelligibles and ideas, and adduces nine hypotheses concerning it; five, supposing the one to have a subsistence, and four, supposing it not to subsist; accurately investigating, at the same time, the consequences resulting from these hypotheses. But of this more hereafter.
With respect to ideas, though many invincible arguments may be adduced for their existence, the following appear to me remarkable for their perspicuity and strength. Diversity of powers always indicates diversity of objects. But it is obvious to every one, that the power of intellect is different from the power of sense; that which is sensible, therefore, is one thing, and that which is intelligible another. And as intellect is superior to sense, so is intelligible more excellent than that which is sensible. But that which is sensible has an existence; and by a much greater reason, therefore, that which is intelligible must have a real subsistence. But intelligible is a certain universal species; for universal reason is always the object of intelligence. And hence there are such things as intelligible and common species of things which we call ideas.
Again, all corporeal natures subsist in time; but whatever subsists in time is measured by time; and whatever is thus conditioned depends on time for the perfection of its being. But time is composed of the past, present, and future. And if we conceive that any one of these periods is taken away from the nature with which it is connected, that nature must immediately perish. Time, therefore, is so essentially and intimately united with the natures which it measures, that their being, such as it is, depends on the existence of time. But time, as is evident, is perpetually flowing, and this in the most rapid manner imagination can conceive. It is evident, therefore, that the natures to which it is so essential must subsist in a manner equally transitory and flowing. As we cannot, therefore, affirm with propriety, of any part of time that it is, since even before we can form the assertion the present time is no more, so with respect to all corporeal natures (from their subsistence in time), before we can say that they exist, they lose all identity of being. And hence no one of them is truly that which it is said to be. On the contrary, truth is eternal and immutable: for, if any one should assert that truth is not, he asserts this either truly or falsely; but if falsely, there is such a thing as truth; and if truly, then it is true that there is no such thing as truth. But if it is truly asserted, it can only be true through truth; and, consequently, there is such a thing as truth, which must also be eternal and immutable. Hence, truth cannot subsist in any thing mutable; for that which is situated in a mutable nature is also changed in conjunction with it. But all corporeal natures are continually changed, and hence they are neither true, nor have a true existence. If, therefore, the forms of bodies are imperfect, they are not the first forms; for whatever ranks as first is perfect and entire, since the whole reason of every nature is established in that which is first. There are, therefore, certain forms above these, perfect, primary, and entire, and which are not indigent of a subject.
But if the forms of bodies are not true, where do the true forms subsist? Shall we say nowhere? But in this case falsehood would be more powerful than truth, if the former possessed, and the latter had no, subsistence. But this is impossible. For that which is more powerful derives its power from truth; since, unless it was truly more powerful, it would not be that which it is said to be. But, indeed, without the presence of truth, the forms which are said to be false could not subsist; for they would no longer be what they are, unless it was true that they are false. True species, therefore, have a subsistence somewhere. But does not our soul possess truer species than those which are the objects of sensible inspection, by which it judges, condemns, and corrects them, and understands how far they depart from, and in what respect they agree with, such forms as are true? But he who does not behold true forms, can by no means make a comparison between them and others, and rectify the inaccuracy of the one by the accurate truth of the other. For the soul, indeed, corrects the visible circle, when it does not touch a plane in one point only; approves or condemns every artificial structure and musical modulation; and judges concerning the goodness or depravity, utility or detriment, beauty or deformity, of every object in nature. The soul, therefore, possesses truer forms, by which she judges of corporeal natures. But neither are these forms in the soul first forms, for they are movable; and though not subsisting in place, yet they have a discursive procession through the intervals of time. Nor do they always exist in energy; for the soul does not always energize through them. Nor do they subsist in a total but in a partial intellect. For as the soul is not total intellect, on account of its self-motive nature, so the intellect which is in soul is not a total and first intellect, but suffers a remission of intellectual union, from its connection with the discursive energies of soul. There is, therefore, above soul, and that intellect which is a part of soul, a certain first intellect, in itself entire and perfectly complete, in which the first and most true species of all things are contained, and which have a subsistence independent of time, place, and motion. And this first intellect is no other than that vital nature αυτοζωον, or animal itself, in which Plato in the Timæus represents the artificer of the universe contemplating the ideas of things, and fabricating the machine of the world according to this all-beautiful exemplar.
Again, the artificer of the universe must be a God. Every God operates essentially, or produces from his essence that which he produces, because this is the most perfect mode of production. Every thing which operates essentially produces an image of itself. He, therefore, who fabricated the universe, fabricated it an image of itself. But if this be the case, he contains in himself paradigmatically the causes of the universe: and these causes are ideas. To which we may add, that the perfect must necessarily antecede the imperfect; unity, multitude; the indivisible, the divisible; and that which abides perpetually the same, that which subsists in unceasing mutation. From all which it follows, that things do not originate from baser natures, but that they end in these; and that they commence from natures the most perfect, the most beautiful, and the best. For it is not possible that our intellect should be able to apprehend things properly equal, similar, and the like, and that the intellect of the artificer of the universe should not contain in itself the essentially equal, just, beautiful, and good, and, in short, every thing which has a universal and perfect subsistence, and which, from its residence in deity, forms a link of that luminous chain of substances to which we very properly give the appellation of ideas.
The following additional arguments in defence of the Platonic doc- trine of ideas are given for the sake of the liberal and Platonic reader. The whole is nearly extracted from the MS. Commentary of Proclus on the Parmenides.
This visible world is either self-subsistent, or it derives its subsistence from a superior cause. But if it is admitted to be self-subsistent, many absurd consequences will ensue: for it is necessary that every thing self-subsistent should be impartible; because every thing which makes and every thing which generates is entirely incorporeal. For bodies make through incorporeal powers; fire by heat, and snow by coldness. But if it is necessary that the maker should be incorporeal, and in things self-subsistent the same thing is the maker and the thing made, the generator and the thing generated, that which is self-subsistent will be perfectly impartible. But the world is not a thing of this kind: for every body is every way divisible, and consequently is not self-subsistent. Again: every thing self-subsistent is also self-energetic. For, as it generates itself, it is by a much greater priority naturally adapted to energize in itself, since to make and to generate are no other than to energize. But the world is not self-motive, because it is corporeal. No body, therefore, is naturally adapted to be moved, and at the same time to move according to the whole of itself. For neither can the whole at the same time heat itself, and be heated by itself: for, because it is heated, it will not yet be hot, in consequence of the heat being gradually propagated through all its parts; but, because it heats, it will possess heat, and thus the same thing will be, and yet not be, hot. As, therefore, it is impossible that any body can move itself according to internal change, neither can this be effected by any other motion. And, in short, every corporeal motion is more similar to passion than to energy; but a self-motive energy is immaterial and impartible: so that, if the world is corporeal, it will not be self-motive. But, if not self-motive, neither will it be self-subsistent. And if it is not self-subsistent, it is evident that it is produced by another cause.
For, again, that which is not self-subsistent is twofold, viz. it is either better than, or inferior to, cause. And that which is more excellent than cause², as is the ineffable principle of things, has something posterior to itself, such as is a self-subsistent nature. But that which is subordinate to cause is entirely suspended from a self-subsistent cause. It is necessary, therefore, that the world should subsist from another more excellent cause. But, with respect to this cause, whether does it make according to free will and the reasoning energy, or produce the universe by its very essence? for, if according to free will, its energy in making will be unstable and ambiguous, and will subsist differently at different times. The world, therefore, will be corruptible: for that which is generated from a cause moving differently at different times is mutable and corruptible. But, if the cause of the universe operated from reasoning and inquiry in producing the world, his energy could not be spontaneous and truly his own; but his essence would be similar to that of the artificer, who does not derive his productions from himself, but procures them as something adventitious by learning and inquiry. Hence we infer that the world is eternal, and that its maker produced it by his very essence; for, in short, every thing which makes according to free will has also the essential energy. Thus, our soul, which energizes in many things according to free will, imparts at the same time life to the body by its very essence, which life does not depend on our free will: for, otherwise, the animal from every adverse circumstance would be dissolved, the soul on such occasions condemning its association with the body. But not every thing which operates from its very essence has also another energy according to free will. Thus, fire heats by its very essence alone, but produces nothing from the energy of will; nor is this effected by snow, nor, in short, by any body, so far as body. If, therefore, the essential energy is more extended than that of free will, it is evident that it proceeds from a more venerable and elevated cause: and this very properly; for the creative energy of natures that operate from their very essence is unattended with anxiety. But it is especially necessary to conceive an energy of this kind in divine natures; since we also then live more free from anxiety, and with greater ease, when our life is divine, or according to virtue. If, therefore, there is a cause of the universe operating from his very essence, he is that primarily which his production is secondarily; and that which he is primarily he imparts in a secondary degree to his production. Thus, fire both imparts heat to something else, and is itself hot; and soul imparts life, and possesses life: and this reasoning will be found to be true in every thing which operates essentially. The cause of the universe, therefore, fabricating from his very essence, is that primarily which the world is secondarily. But, if the world is full of all-various forms, these will subsist primarily in the cause of the world: for it is the same cause which gave subsistence to the sun and moon, to man and horse. These, therefore, are primarily in the cause of the world; another sun besides the apparent, another man, and, in a similar manner, every other form. There are, therefore, forms prior to sensibles, and demiurgic causes of the phænomena pre-subsisting in the one cause of the universe.
But if any one should say that the world has indeed a cause, yet not producing, but final, and that thus all things are orderly disposed with relation to this cause, it is so far well indeed, that they admit the good to preside over the universe. But, it may be asked, whether does the world receive any thing from this cause, or nothing according to desire? for, if nothing, the desire by which it extends itself towards this cause is vain. But if it receives something from this cause, and this cause not only imparts good to the world, but imparts it essentially, by a much greater priority, it will be the cause of existence to the universe, that it may impart good to it essentially; and thus he will not only be the final, but the producing cause of the universe.
In the next place, let us direct our attention to the phænomena, to things equal and unequal, similar and dissimilar, and all such sensible particulars as are by no means truly denominated: for where is there equality in sensibles which are mingled with inequality? where similitude in things filled with dissimilitude? where the beautiful among things of which the subject is base? where the good in things in which there is capacity and the imperfect? Each of these sensible particulars, therefore, is not that truly which it is said to be: for, how can things, the nature of which consists in the impartible and in privation of interval, subsist perfectly in things partible, and endued with interval? But our soul is able, both to conceive and generate things far more accurate and pure than the phænomena. Hence, it corrects the apparent circle, and points out how far it falls short of the perfectly accurate. And it is evident that in so doing it beholds another form more beautiful and more perfect than this: for, unless it beheld something more pure, it could not say that this is not truly beautiful, and that is not in every respect equal. If, therefore, a partial soul such as ours is able to generate and contemplate in itself things more perfect than the phænomena, such as the accurate sphere and circle, the accurately beautiful and equal, and, in a similar manner, every other form, but the cause of the universe is neither able to generate, nor contemplate, things more beautiful than the phænomena, how is the one the fabricator of the universe, but the other of a part of the universe? For a greater power is effective of things more perfect, and a more immaterial intellect contemplates more excellent spectacles. The maker of the world, therefore, is able both to generate and understand forms much more accurate and perfect than the phænomena. Where, then, does he generate, and where does he behold them? Evidently, in himself: for he contemplates himself. So that, by beholding and generating himself, he at the same time generates in himself, and gives subsistence to forms more immaterial and more accurate than the phænomena.
In the third place, if there is no cause of the universe, but all things are from chance, how are all things coordinated to each other, and how do things perpetually subsist? And whence is it that all things are thus generated according to nature with a frequency of subsistence? for whatever originates from chance does not subsist frequently, but seldom. But if there is one cause, the source of coordination to all things, and this cause is ignorant of itself, must there not be some nature prior to this, which, by knowing itself, imparts being to this cause? for it is impossible that a nature which is ignorant should be more excellent than that which has a knowledge of itself. If, therefore, this cause knows itself, it is evident that, knowing itself to be a cause, it must also know the things of which it is the cause; so that it will also comprehend the things which it knows. If, therefore, intellect is the cause of the universe, it also coordinated all things to each other: for there is one artificer of all things. But the universe is various, and all its parts do not participate either of the same dignity or order. Who is it then that measures the dignity of these, except the power that gave them subsistence? Who distributed every thing in a convenient order, and fixed it in its proper seat—the sun here, and there the moon, the earth here, and there the mighty heaven—except the being by whom these were produced? Who gave coordination to all things, and produced one harmony from all, except the power who imparted to every thing its essence and nature? If, therefore, he orderly disposed all things, he cannot be ignorant of the order and rank which every thing maintains in the universe; for to operate in this manner would be the province of irrational nature, and not of a divine cause, and would be the characteristic of necessity, and not of intellectual providence. Since, if, intellectually perceiving himself, he knows himself, but knowing himself and the essence which he is allotted, he knows that he is an immovable cause, and the object of desire to all things, he will also know the natures to which he is desirable: for he is not desirable from accident, but essentially. He will therefore either be ignorant of what he is essentially, or, knowing this, he will also know that he is the object of desire; and, together with this, he will know that all things desire him, and what the natures are by which he is desired: for, of two relatives, to know one definitely, and the other indefinitely, is not the characteristic of science, and much less of intellectual perception. But, knowing definitely the things by which he is desired, he knows the causes of them, in consequence of beholding himself, and not things of a posterior nature. If, therefore, he does not in vain possess the causes of all things, he must necessarily, according to them, bound the order of all things, and thus be of all things the immovable cause, as bounding their order by his very essence.
But whether shall we say that, because he designed to make all things, he knew them, or, because he understands all things, on this account he gave subsistence to all things? But if, in consequence of designing to make all things, he knows all things, he will possess inward energy, and a conversion to himself subordinate to that which proceeds outwardly, and his knowledge of beings will subsist for the sake of things different from himself. But if this is absurd, by knowing himself he will be the maker of all things. And, if this be the case, he will make things external similar to those which he contains in himself; for such is the natural order of things, that externally proceeding should be suspended from inward energy, the whole world from the all-perfect monad of ideas, and the parts of the visible universe from monads which are separated from each other.
In the fourth place, we say that man is generated from man, and from every thing its like. After what manner, therefore, are they generated? for you will not say that the generation of these is from chance: for neither nature nor divinity makes any thing in vain. But, if the generation of men is not from chance, whence is it? You will say, It is evidently from seed. Let it then be admitted, that man is from seed; but seed possesses productive powers in capacity, and not in energy. For, since it is a body, it is not naturally adapted to possess productive powers impartibly and in energy: for every where a subsistence in energy precedes a subsistence in capacity: since, being imperfect, it requires the assistance of something else endued with a perfective power. This something else you will say is the nature of the mother; for this perfects and fashions the offspring by its productive powers. For the apparent form of the mother does not make the infant, but nature, which is an incorporeal power and the principle of motion. If, therefore, nature changes the productive powers of seed from capacity to a subsistence in energy, nature must herself possess these productive powers in energy. Hence, being irrational and without imagination, she is at the same time the cause of physical reasons. As the nature of man, therefore, contains human productive powers, does not also nature in a lion contain those of the lion; as, for instance, the reasons or productive powers of the head, the hair, the feet, and the other parts of the lion? Or, whence, on shedding a tooth, does another grow in its place, unless from an inherent power which is able to make the teeth? How, likewise, does it at the same time make bone and flesh, and each of the other parts? for the same thing energizing according to the same would not be able to fashion such a variety of organization. But does not nature in plants also possess productive powers as well as in animals? or shall we not say that, in these likewise, the order of generation and the lives of the plants evince that they are perfected from orderly causes? It is evident, therefore, from the same reasoning, that the natures of these also comprehend the apparent productive powers. Let us then ascend from these to the one nature of the earth, which generates whatever breathes and creeps on its surface, and which by a much greater priority contains the productive powers of plants and animals. Or whence the generation of things from putrefaction? (for the hypothesis of the experimentalists is weak and futile.) Whence is it that different kinds of plants grow in the same place, without human care and attention? Is it not evident that it is from the whole nature of the earth, containing the productive powers of all these in herself? And thus proceeding, we shall find that the nature in each of the elements and celestial spheres comprehends the productive powers of the animals which it contains. And if from the celestial spheres we ascend to the nature of the universe itself, we may also inquire respecting this, whether it contains forms or not, and we shall be compelled to confess, that in this also the productive and motive powers of all things are contained: for whatever is perfected from inferior subsists in a more excellent and perfect manner from more universal natures. The nature of the universe, therefore, being the mother of all things, comprehends the productive powers of all things; for, otherwise, it would be absurd that art, imitating natural reasons, should operate according to productive principles, but that nature herself should energize without reasons, and without inward measures. But, if nature contains productive principles, it is necessary that there should be another cause prior to nature, which is comprehensive of forms; for nature verging to bodies energizes in them, just as if we should conceive an artist verging to pieces of timber, and inwardly, by various operations, reducing them to a certain form: for thus nature, merged together with and dwelling in corporeal masses, inspires them with her productive powers and with motion; since things which are moved by others require a cause of this kind, a cause which is properly irrational indeed, that it may not depart from bodies, which cannot subsist without a cause continually residing with them, but containing the productive powers of bodies, that it may be able to preserve all things in their proper boundaries, and move every thing in a convenient manner. Nature, therefore, belongs to other things, being merged in, or coordinated with, bodies. But it is requisite that the most principal and proper cause should be exempt from its productions: for, by how much more the maker is exempt from the thing made, by so much the more perfectly and purely will he make. And, in short, if nature is irrational, it requires a leader. There is, therefore, something prior to nature, which contains productive powers, and from which it is requisite that every thing in the world should be suspended. Hence, a knowledge of generated natures will subsist in the cause of the world more excellent than the knowledge which we possess; so far as this cause not only knows, but gives subsistence to, all things; but we possess knowledge alone. But if the demiurgic cause of the universe knows all things, if he beholds them externally, he will again be ignorant of himself, and will be subordinate to a partial soul; but, if he beholds them in himself, he will contain in himself all forms, intellectual and gnostic.
In the fifth place, things produced from an immovable cause are immovable and without mutation; but things produced from a movable cause are again movable and mutable, and subsist differently at different times. If this be the case, all such things as are essentially eternal and immutable must be the progeny of an immovable cause; for, if from a movable cause, they will be mutable; which is impossible. Are not, therefore, the form of man and the form of horse from a cause, if the whole world subsists from a cause? From what cause, therefore? Is it from an immovable or from a movable cause? But if from a movable cause, the human species will some time or other fail; since every thing which subsists from a movable cause ranks among things which are naturally adapted to perish. We may also make the same inquiry respecting the sun and moon, and each of the stars: for, if these are produced from a movable cause, in these also there will be a mutation of essence. But if these, and all such forms as eternally subsist in the universe, are from an immovable cause, where does the immovable cause of these subsist? For it is evidently not in bodies, since every natural body is naturally adapted to be moved. It therefore subsists proximately in nature. But nature is irrational; and it is requisite that causes properly so called should be intellectual and divine. Hence, the immovable causes of these forms subsist primarily in intellect, secondarily in soul, in the third gradation in nature, and lastly in bodies. For all things either subsist apparently or unapparently, either separate or inseparable from bodies; and if separate, either immovably according to essence and energy, or immovably according to essence, but movably according to energy. Those things, therefore, are properly immovable, which are immutable both according to essence and energy, such as are intelligibles; but those possess the second rank which are immovable indeed according to essence, but movable according to energy, and such are souls: in the third place, things unapparent indeed, but inseparable from the phænomena, are such as belong to the empire of nature; and those rank in the last place which are apparent, subsist in sensibles, and are divisible: for the gradual subjection of forms proceeding as far as to sensibles ends in these.
In the sixth place, let us speculate after another manner concerning the subsistence of forms or ideas, beginning from demonstrations themselves. For Aristotle has proved in his Last Analytics, and all scientific men must confess, that demonstrations are entirely from things which have a priority of subsistence, and which are naturally more honourable. But if the things from which demonstrations consist are universals, (for every demonstration is from these),—hence, these must be causes to the things which are unfolded from them. When, therefore, the astronomer says, that the circles in the heavens bisect each other, since every greatest circle bisects its like, whether does he demonstrate or not? For he makes his conclusion from that which is universal. But where shall we find the causes of this section of circles in the heavens which are more universal than the circles? For they will not be in bodies, since every thing which is in body is divisible. They must, therefore, reside in an incorporeal essence; and hence there must be forms which have a subsistence prior to apparent forms, and which are the causes of subsistence to these, in consequence of being more universal and more powerful. Science, therefore, compels us to admit that there are universal forms, which have a subsistence prior to particulars, are more essential and more causal, and from which the very being of particulars is derived.
By ascending from motion we may also after the same manner prove the existence of ideas. Every body from its own proper nature is alter-motive, or moved by another, and is indigent of motion externally derived. But the first, most proper and principal motion is in the power which moves the mundane wholes: for he possesses the motion of a mover, and body the motion of that which is moved, and corporeal motion is the image of that which pre-subsists in this power. For that is perfect motion because it is energy; but the motion in body is imperfect energy: and the imperfect derives its subsistence from the perfect.
From knowledge also we may perceive the necessity of the same conclusion. For last knowledge is that of bodies, whether it be denominated sensible or imaginable: for all such knowledge is destitute of truth, and does not contemplate any thing universal and common, but beholds all things invested with figure, and all things partial. But more perfect knowledge is that which is without figure, which is immaterial, and which subsists by itself, and from itself; the image of which is sense, since this is imperfect knowledge, subsisting in another, and not originating from itself. If, therefore, as in motion, so also in knowledge and in life, that which participates, that which is participated, and that which is imparticipable, are different from each other, there is also the same reasoning with respect to other forms. For matter is one thing, the form which it contains another, and still different from either is the separate form. For God and Nature do not make things imperfect which subsist in something different from themselves, and which have an obscure and debile existence, but have not produced things perfect, and which subsist from themselves; but by a much greater priority they have given subsistence to these, and from these have produced things which are participated by, and merged in, the darkness of matter.
But if it be requisite summarily to relate the cause that induced the Pythagoreans and Plato to adopt the hypothesis of ideas, we must say, that all these visible natures, celestial and sublunary, are either from chance, or subsist from a cause. But that they should be from chance is impossible: for things more excellent will subsist in things subordinate, viz. intellect, reason, and cause, and that which proceeds from cause. To which we may add, as Aristotle observes, that prior to causes according to accident, it is requisite that there should be things which have an essential subsistence; for the accidental is that in which the progressions of these are terminated. So that a subsistence from cause will be more antient than a subsistence from chance, if the most divine of things apparent are the progeny of chance. But if there is a cause of all things, there will either be many unconjoined causes, or one cause; but if many, we shall not be able to assign to what it is owing that the world is one, since there will not be one cause according to which all things are coordinated. It will also be absurd to suppose that this cause is irrational. For, again, there will be something among things posterior better than the cause of all things, viz. that which, being within the universe, and a part of the whole, operates according to reason and knowledge, and yet derives this prerogative from an irrational cause. But if this cause is rational and knows itself, it will certainly know itself to be the cause of all; or, being ignorant of this, it will be ignorant of its own nature. But if it knows that it is essentially the cause of the universe, it will also definitely know that of which it is the cause; for, that which definitely knows the one will also definitely know the other. Hence, he will know every thing which the universe contains, and of which he is the cause: and if this be the case, beholding himself, and knowing himself, he knows things posterior to himself. By immaterial reasons, therefore, and forms, he knows the mundane reasons and forms from which the universe consists, and the universe is contained in him as in a cause separate from matter. This, Proclus adds, was the doctrine of the Eleatic Zeno, and the advocates for ideas: nor did these men alone, says he, form conceptions of this kind respecting ideas, but their doctrine was also conformable to that of the theologists. For Orpheus says, that after the absorption of Phanes in Jupiter all things were generated: since prior to this the causes of all mundane natures subsisted unitedly in Phanes, but secondarily and with separation in the demiurgus of the universe. For there the sun and the moon, heaven itself, and the elements, Love the source of union, and in short all things, were produced: for there was a natural conflux, says Orpheus, of all things in the belly of Jupiter. Nor did Orpheus stop here; but he also delivered the order of demiurgic forms through which sensible natures were allotted their present distribution. Proclus further adds: The Gods also have throught fit to unfold to mankind the truth respecting ideas; and have declared what the one fountain is whence they proceed; where ideas first subsist in full perfection; and how in their progression they assimilate all things, both wholes and parts, to the Father of the universe. What Proclus here alludes to is the following Chaldaic Oracle:
Νους πατρος ερῥοιζησε νοησας ακμαδι βουλῃ
Παμμορφους ιδεας· πηγης δε μιας αποπτασαι
Εξεθορον· πατροθεν γαρ εην βουλητε τελος τε.
Αλλ’ εμερισθησαν νοερω πυρι μοιρηθεισαι
Εις αλλας νοερας· κοσμῳ γαρ αναξ πολυμορφῳ
Προυθηκεν νοερον τυπον αφθιτον, οὑ κατα κοσμον
Ιχνος επειγομενος μορφης μετα κοσμος εφανθη,
Παντοιαις ιδεαις κεχαρισμενος, ὡν μια πηγη,
Εξ ἡς ῥοιζουνται μεμερισμεναι αλλαι απληται,
Ῥηγνυμεναι κοσμου περι σωμασιν, αἱ περι κολπους
Σμερδαλεους σμηνεσσιν εοικυιαι φορεονται,
Τραπουσι περι τ’ αμφι παρα σχεδον αλλυδις αλλη
Εννοιαι νοεραι πηγης πατρικης απο, πολυ
Δραττομεναι πυρος ανθος ακοιμητου χρονου, ακμῃ
Αρχεγονους ιδεας πρωτῃ πατρος εβλυσε τας δε
Αυτοτελης πηγη.
i. e. “The intellect of the Father made a crashing noise, understanding with unwearied counsel omniform ideas. But with winged speed they leaped forth from one fountain: for both the counsel and the end were from the Father. In consequence, too, of being allotted an intellectual fire, they are divided into other intellectual forms: for the king previously placed in the multiform world an intellectual incorruptible impression, the vestige of which hastening through the world, causes it to appear invested with form, and replete with all-various ideas of which there is one fountain. From this fountain other immense distributed ideas rush with a crashing noise, bursting forth about the bodies of the world, and are borne along its terrible bosoms like swarms of bees. They turn themselves, too, on all sides, and nearly in all directions. They are intellectual conceptions from the paternal fountain, plucking abundantly the flower of the fire of sleepless time. But a self-perfect fountain pours forth primogenial ideas from the primary vigour of the Father.”
Through these things, says Proclus, the Gods have clearly shown where ideas subsist, who the divinity is that comprehends the one fountain of these, and that from this fountain a multitude proceeds. Likewise, how the world is fabricated according to ideas; that they are motive of all mundane systems; that they are essentially intellectual; and that they are all-various according to their characteristics.
If, therefore, he adds, arguments persuade us to admit the hypothesis respecting ideas, and the wise unite in the same design, viz. Plato, Pythagoras, and Orpheus, and the Gods clearly bear witness to these, we should but little regard sophistical arguments, which are confuted by themselves, and assert nothing scientific, nothing sane. For the Gods have manifestly declared that they are conceptions of the Father: for they abide in his intelligence. They have likewise asserted that they proceed to the fabrication of the world; for the crashing noise signifies their progression;—that they are omniform, as comprehending the causes of all divisible natures; that from fontal ideas others proceed, which are allotted the fabrication of the world, according to its parts, and which are said to be similar to swarms of bees; and lastly, that they are generative of secondary natures.
Timæus, therefore, places in intelligibles the one primary cause of all ideas; for there animal itself subsists, as is evident from that dialogue. But the oracles say, that the fountain of ideas pre-subsists in the demiurgus; nor are these assertions discordant with each other, as they may appear to be to some. For it is not the same thing to investigate the one and total cause of mundane forms, and simply to contemplate the first unfolding into light of every series of ideas; but the comprehension of the former must be referred to the demiurgus, and of the latter to the intelligible order itself, of divine natures, from which the demiurgus is filled, and all the orders of an ideal essence. And, on this account, I think the oracles assert, that ideas proceed with a crashing noise from their intellectual fountain, and, being distributed in different places, burst about the bodies of the world, in consequence of the cause of mundane natures being comprehended in this fountain, according to which, all generated composite natures in the world are invested with form, conformably to the demiurgic will. But the forms subsisting in animal itself, according to an intelligible bound, are neither said by Plato to be moved, nor to leap into bodies, but to impart essence to all things by their very essence alone. If, therefore, to subsist through energy and motion is secondary to a making prior to energizing and being moved, it is evident that the ideas intelligibly and immovably established in animal itself are allotted an order more elevated than demiurgic ideas. And the demiurgus is fabricative of forms in a twofold respect; both according to the fountain in himself, and according to intelligible ideas: for there are the total causes of all things, and the four monads; but, thence originating, they proceed through the whole divine orders as far as to the last of things, so that the last and sensible images of these possess a certain similitude, more clearly of some, and more obscurely of others. He, likewise, who is capable of following the divine progressions will perceive that every sensible form expresses the idioms of all of them. For the immovable and the eternal in sensible forms are no otherwise present than from the first forms: for they are primarily eternal; and hence they communicate eternity to the consequent progressions in a secondary and third gradation. Again, that every form is a multitude, subsists according to a peculiar number, and is filled with its proper numbers, and that on this account a different form is referred to a different divine order to us unknown and ineffable,— this it receives from the summit of the intelligible and at the same time intellectual order, and from the forms which there subsist occultly, and ineffably: just as the power of uniting a dissipated essence, and bounding the infinity of generated natures in common limits, is derived from the connecting order, and from connective forms. But to be entirely perfective of an imperfect nature, and to produce into energy the aptitude of subjects, comprehending the unfigured in figures, and the imperfect in perfection, is solely derived from perfective deity, and the forms which there appear. Again, so far as every form hastens to verge to itself, and comprehends parts uniformly in itself, so far it bears an image of the summit of intellectuals, and the impartible subsistence of forms established according to that order. But so far as it proceeds with life, subsists through motion, and appears immovably in things moved, so far it participates of the vivific series, and expresses the powers of vivific forms. Again, so far as it possesses the power of giving form to matter, is filled with artificial fabrication pervading through nature herself, and evinces a wonder subtilty, and a production of forms according to reason, so far it receives the representations of demiurgic ideas. If, likewise, it assimilates sensibles to intelligibles, and separates the essences of them by mutations according to reasons, it is evident that it resembles the assimilative orders of forms, from which the divisible progressions of mundane natures appear, which invest sensibles with the representations from intelligibles. Further still, if every form pervades to many things, though it be material, and bounds the multitude of them according to its proper form, must it not, according to this power, be referred to that order of Gods which governs with a liberated characteristic the allotments in the world, and draws to itself many portions of divine allotments in the universe? We may behold, therefore, an uninterrupted continuity of the whole series supernally proceeding from intelligible ideas as far as to the last of things, and likewise perceive what peculiarities sensibles derive from each order. For it is requisite that all secondary things should participate of the natures prior to them, and thus enjoy each, according to the order which they are severally allotted.
With respect to what things there are ideas of, and what not, I shall summarily observe, that there are ideas only of universal and perfect substances, and of whatever contributes to the perfection of these, as for instance of man, and whatever is perfective of man, such as wisdom and virtue; and consequently matter, particulars, parts, things artificial, evil and sordid natures, are excluded from the region of ideas.
To the question what kind of beings ideas are, we may answer with Zenocrates, according to the relation of Proclus, that they are the exem- plary causes of things, which perpetually subsist according to nature. They are exemplars, indeed, because the final cause, or the good, is superior to these, and that which is properly the efficient cause, or the demiurgic intellect, is of an inferior ordination. But they are the exemplars of things according to nature, because there are no ideas of things unnatural or artificial: and of such natural things as are perpetual, because there are no ideas of mutable particulars.
Lastly, ideas are participated by material natures, similar to the impressions in wax of a seal, to images appearing in water or a mirror, and to pictures. For material species, on account of their union with matter, are analogous to the impressions of a seal; but on account of their apparently real, but at the same time delusive subsistence in its dark receptacle, they are similar to images in water, or in a mirror, or a dream; and they resemble pictures on account of their similitude, though very remote and obscure, to first ideas themselves. We may add too, as Proclus beautifully observes, that they derive their subsistence as impressions from the mundane Gods; their apparent existence from the liberated Gods; and their similitude to supernal forms from the supermundane or assimilative Gods. And thus much for the first part of the dialogue, or the doctrine of ideas³.
But in order to a summary view of the inimitably profound and sublime discussion which the second part contains concerning the one, it is necessary to observe, that by the one itself the Pythagoreans and Plato signified the first cause, which they very properly considered as perfectly superessential, ineffable and unknown. For it is necessary that multitude should be posterior to unity: but it is impossible to conceive being⁴ without multitude, and consequently the cause of all beings must be void of multitude and superessential. And that this was really the opinion of the most antient Pythagoreans, from whom Plato derived his philosophy, the following citations will abundantly evince.
And, in the first place, this is evident from a fragment of Archytas, a most antient Pythagorean, on the principles of things, preserved by Stobæus, Eclog. Phys. p. 82, and in which the following extraordinary passage occurs: Ὡστ’ αναγκα τρεις ειμεν τας αρχας, ταν τε εστω των πραγματων και ταν μορφω, και το εξ αυτου κινατικον και αορατον δυναμει· το δε τοιουτον ὄν ου μονον⁵ ειμεν δει, αλλα και νοῳ τι κρεσσον· νοῳ δε κρεσσον εστι ὁπερ ονομαζομεν θεον φανερον.—i. e. “So that it is necessary to assert that there are three principles; that which is the subject of things (or matter), form, and that which is of itself motive, and invisible in power. With respect to the last of which, it is not only necessary that it should have a subsistence, but that it should be something better than intellect. But that which is better than intellect is evidently the same with that which we denominate God.” It must here however be observed, that by the word God we are not only to understand the first cause, but every God: for, according to the Pythagoric theology, every Deity, considered according to the characteristic of his nature, is superior to intellectual essence. Agreeably to the above passage is that also of Brotinus, as cited by Syrianus in Arist. Meta. p. 102, b. who expressly asserts that the first cause νου παντος και ουσιας δυναμει και πρεσβειᾳ ὑπερεχει—“surpasses every intellect and essence both in power and antiquity.” Again, according to the same Syrianus, p. 103, b. we are informed, “that the Pythagoreans called God the one, as the cause of union to the universe, and on account of his superiority to every being, to all life, and to all-perfect intellect. But they denominated him the measure of all things, on account of his conferring on all things, through illumination, essence and bound; and containing and bounding all things by the ineffable supereminence of his nature, which is extended beyond every bound.” Των θειων ανδρων ἑν μεν λεγοντων τον θεον ὡς ἑνωσεως τοις ὁλοις αιτιον, και παντος του οντος, και πασης ζωης, και νου του παντελους επεκεινα. Μετρον δε των παντων ὡς πασι την ουσιαν, και το τελος επιλαμποντα, και ὡς παντα περιεχοντα, και οριζοντα ταις αφραστοις αυτου, και παντος ὑπερηπλωμεναις περατος ὑπεροχαις. And again, this is confirmed by Clinius the Pythagorean, as cited by Syrianus, p. 104, in which place præclari is erroneously substituted for Cliniï. “That which is the one, and the measure of all things (says he), is not only entirely exempt from bodies, and mundane concerns, but likewise from intelligibles themselves; since he is the venerable principle of beings, the measure of intelligibles, ingenerable, eternal, and alone (μονον), possessing absolute dominion (κυριωδες), and himself manifesting himself (αυτο το εαυτο δηλουν).” This fine passage I have translated agreeably to the manuscript corrections of the learned Gale, the original of which he has not inserted. To this we may likewise add the testimony of Philolaus; who, as Syrianus informs us, p. 102, knew that cause which is superior to the two first elements of things, bound and infinite. For (says he) “Philolaus asserts that the Deity established bound and infinite: by bound, indeed, exhibiting every coordination, which is more allied to the one; but by infinity a nature subjected (ὑφειμενην) to bound. And prior to these two principles he places one, and a singular cause, separated from the universality of things, which Archainetus (Αρχαινετος) denominates a cause prior to cause; but which, according to Philolaus, is the principle of all things.” To all these respectable authorities for the superessential nature of the first cause, we may add the testimony of Sextus Empiricus himself. For in his books against the Mathematicians (p. 425) he informs us, “that the Pythagoreans placed the one as transcending the genus of things which are essentially understood.” Και δη των μεν καθ’ αυτα νοουμενων γενος ὑπεστησαντο Πυθαγορικων παιδες, ὡς επαναβεβηκος το εν. In which passage, by things which are essentially understood, nothing more is meant than intelligible essences, as is obvious to every tyro in the Platonic and Pythagoric philosophy.
But in consequence of this doctrine of the antients concerning the one, or the first principle of things, we may discover the meaning and propriety of those appellations given by the Pythagoreans to unity, according to Photius and others: such as αλαμπια, σκοτωδια, αμιξια, βαραθρον ὑποχθονιον, Απολλων, &c. viz. obscurity, or without illumination, darkness, without mixture, a subterranean profundity, Apollo, &c. For, considered as ineffable, incomprehensible, and superessential, he may be very properly called obscurity, darkness, and a subterranean profundity: but considered as perfectly simple and one, he may with no less propriety be denominated without mixture, and Apollo; since Apollo signifies a privation of multitude. “For (says Plotinus) the Pythagoreans denominated the first God Apollo, according to a more secret signification, implying a negation of many.” Ennead. 5. lib. 5. To which we may add, that the epithets darkness and obscurity wonderfully agree with the appellation of a thrice unknown darkness, employed by the Egyptians, according to Damascius⁶, in their most mystical invocations of the first God; and at the same time afford a sufficient reason for the remarkable silence of the most antient philosophers and poets concerning this highest and ineffable cause.
This silence is, indeed, remarkably obvious in Hesiod, when in his Theogony he says:
Ητοι μεν πρωτιστα Χαος γενετ’,——
That is, “Chaos was the first thing which was generated”—and consequently there must be some cause prior to Chaos, through which it was produced; for there can be no effect without a cause. Such, however, is the ignorance of the moderns, that in all the editions of Hesiod γενετο is translated fuit, as if the poet had said that Chaos was the first of all things; and he is even accused by Cudworth on this account as leaning to the atheistical system. But the following testimonies clearly prove, that in the opinion of all antiquity, γενετο was considered as meaning was generated, and not was simply. And, in the first place, this is clearly asserted by Aristotle in lib. 3, de Cœlo. “There are certain persons (says he) who assert that there is nothing unbegotten, but that all things are generated. And this is especially the case with Hesiod.”—Εισι γαρ τινες ὁι φασιν ουθεν αγεννητον ειναι, αλλα παντα γιγνεσθαι—Μαλιστα μεν ὁι περι τον Ἡσιοδον. And again, by Sextus Empiricus in his Treatise Adversus Mathemat. p. 383, edit. Steph. who relates, that this very passage was the occasion of Epicurus applying himself to philosophy. “For (says he) when Epicurus was as yet but a young man, he asked a grammarian, who was reading to him this line of Hesiod,
Chaos of all things was the first produced,
from what Chaos was generated, if it was the first thing generated. And upon the grammarian replying that it was not his business to teach things of this kind, but was the province of those who are called philosophers— To those then, says Epicurus, must I betake myself, since they know the truth of things.” Κομιδη γαρ μειρακισκος ὤν, ηρετο τον επαναγινωσκοντα αυτῳ Γραμματιστην (η τοι μεν πρωτιστα Χαος γενετ’) εκ τινος το χαος εγενετο, ειπερ πρωτον εγενετο. Τουτου δε ειποντος μη αυτου εργον ειναι τα τοιαυτα διδασκειν, αλλα των καλουμενων φιλοσοφων· τοινυν εφησεν ὁ Επικουρος, επ’ εκεινους μοι βαδιστεον εστιν, ειπερ αυτοι την των οντων αληθειαν ισασιν.
Simplicius, too, in commenting on the passage above cited from Aristotle. beautifully observes as follows—“Aristotle (says he) ranks Hesiod among the first physiologists, because he sings Chaos was first generated. He says, therefore, that Hesiod in a particular manner makes all things to be generated, because that which is first is by him said to be generated. But it is probable that Aristotle calls Orpheus and Musæus the first physiologists, who assert that all things are generated, except the first. It is, however, evident that those theologists, singing in fabulous strains, meant nothing more by generation than the procession of things from their causes; on which account all of them consider the first cause as unbegotten. For Hesiod also, when he says that Chaos was first generated, insinuates that there was something prior to Chaos, from which Chaos was produced. For it is always necessary that every thing which is generated should be generated from something. But this likewise is insinuated by Hesiod, that the first cause is above all knowledge and every appellation.” (De Cœlo, p. 147.)
But these divine men not only called the first cause the one, on account of his transcendent simplicity, but likewise the good, on account of the superlative excellency of his nature; by the former of these appellations considering him as that principle from which all things flow, and by the latter as that supreme object of desire to which all things ultimately tend. And hence Plato, in his Republic, asserts that the good is superessential; and Aristotle, in lib. 14, Metaphys. cap. 4, alluding to Plato and the Pythagoreans, says, “that according to some, the one is the same with the good.” Ὁι μεν φασιν αυτο το ἑν, το αγαθον αυτο ειναι.
With great beauty, therefore, does Proclus⁷, with his usual magnificence of expression, assert of this incomprehensible cause, “that he is the God of all Gods, the unity of unities, and above the first adyta⁸; that he is more ineffable than all silence, and more unknown than all essence; that he is holy among the holies, and is concealed among the intelligible Gods.”
Plato, too, in the Republic, that we may be enabled to gain a glimpse from analogy of this transcendent nature, compares him to the sun. For as the sun by his light not only confers the power of being seen on visible objects, but is likewise the cause of their generation, nutriment, and increase; so the good, through superessential light, imparts being and the power of being known to every thing which is the object of knowledge. Hence, says Damascius⁹, “this highest God is seen afar off as it were obscurely; and if you approach nearer, he is beheld still more obscurely; and lastly, he takes away the ability of perceiving other objects. He is, therefore, truly an incomprehensible and inaccessible light, and is profoundly compared to the sun: upon which the more attentively you look, the more you will be darkened and blinded; and will only bring back with you eyes stupefied with excess of light.”
And such is the doctrine of Plato and the Pythagoreans concerning the highest principle of things. But, according to the same divine men, the immediate progeny of this ineffable cause must be Gods; and as such must have a superessential subsistence. For what else prior to unities is it lawful to conjoin with the one, or what is more conjoined with a God subsisting according to unity, than the multitude of Gods? Besides, progressions are every where perfected through similitude to their principles. For both nature herself, intellect, and every generative cause, leads and conjoins to itself similar natures, prior to such as are dissimilar. For as there can be no vacuum either in incorporeal or corporeal natures, it is necessary that every thing which has a natural progression should proceed through similitude. Hence, every cause must deliver its own form and characteristic to its progeny, and, before it generates that which is hypostatic of progressions far distant and separate from its nature, must constitute things proximate to itself according to essence, and conjoined with it through similitude. As nature, therefore, generates a natural number, soul one that is animal, and intellect an intellectual number, it is necessary that the first unity should produce from itself, prior to every thing else, a multitude of natures characterised by unity, and a number the most of all things allied to its cause. And hence the fountain of universal good must produce and establish in beings goodnesses naturally conjoined with himself; and these exalted natures can be no other than Gods.
But if these divine natures are alone superessential, they will in no respect differ from the highest God. They must, therefore, be participated by beings; that is, each must have some particular being consubsistent with its nature, but yet so as not to lose its superessential characteristic. And hence every unity may be considered as the lucid blossom or centre of the being by which it is participated; absorbing, as it were, in superessential light, and thus deifying the essence with which it is connected.
Nor let the reader imagine that this sublime theory is nothing more than the fanatic jargon of the latter Platonists, as is rashly and ignorantly asserted by Cudworth; for it is a doctrine as old at least as Timæus the Locrian. For, in his book On the Soul of the World, after asserting that there are two causes of all things, intellect of such as are produced according to reason, but necessity of such as are produced by force, according to the powers of bodies, he adds—“that the former of these, that is intellect, is a cause of the nature of the good, and is called God, and is the principle of such things as are best.” Τουτεων δε, τον μεν τας ταγαθω φυσιος ειμεν, θεον τε ονυμαινεσθαι, αρχαν τε των αριστων. But according to the Pythagoreans, as we have abundantly proved, the good or the one is above essence and intellect; and consequently by intellect here we must not understand the first cause, but a deity subordinate to the first. Intellect, however, is (says he) of the nature of the good; but the good is superessential, and consequently intellect participates of a superessential nature. And when he adds that intellect is called God, he plainly intimates that every God (the first being excepted) partakes of a superessential nature.
But to return to our inimitable dialogue: This second part consists of nine hypotheses; five of which consider the consequences which result from admitting the subsistence of the one, and the other four what must be the consequences if it were taken away from the nature of things. But as Plato in these hypotheses delivers the Eleatic method of reasoning, it is necessary to inform the reader that, according to Proclus¹⁰, it was as follows:—Two hypotheses being laid down, viz. if a thing is, and if it is not, each of these may be tripled by considering in each what happens, what does not happen, what happens and at the same time does not happen: so that six cases will be the result. But since, if a thing is, we may consider itself either with respect to itself, or itself with respect to others; or we may consider others themselves with respect to themselves, or others with respect to that thing itself, and so likewise if a thing is not: hence, the whole of this process will consist of eight triads, which are as follows:—1. If a thing is, what happens to itself with respect to itself, what does not happen, what happens and at the same time does not happen. 2. If a thing is, what happens to itself with respect to others, what does not happen, what happens and at the same time does not happen. 3. If a thing is, what happens to others with respect to themselves, what does not happen, what happens and at the same time does not happen. 4. If a thing is, what happens to others with respect to that thing, what does not happen, what happens and at the same time does not happen. And the other four, which are founded on the hypothesis that a thing is not, are to be distributed in exactly the same manner as those we have just enumerated. Such (says Proclus) is the whole form of the dialectic method, which is both intellectual and scientific; and under which those four powers, the definitive and divisive, the demonstrative and analytic, receive their consummate perfection.
In the first hypothesis, therefore, Plato considers what does not follow to the one, considered with respect to itself and to others. In the second, what does follow. In the third, what follows and at the same time does not follow. And this forms the first hexad. But in the fourth hypothesis he considers what follows to others with respect to themselves, and what does not follow, what follows and at the same time does not follow. In the fifth, what follows to others with respect to the subject of the hypothesis, what does not follow, what follows and at the same time does not follow. And so two hexads, or four triads, are by this means produced from the five hypotheses, if the one is. And the reader will easily perceive how each of the other four, which suppose the one is not, may form a triad: so that these four triads, in conjunction with the preceding four, will give the whole Eleatic or dialectic method complete.
It is likewise necessary to observe, that these hypotheses are derived from the triple division of the one, and the twofold division of non-being. For the one is either above being, or in being, or posterior to being. But non- being is either that which in no respect is, or that which is considered as partly having a subsistence, and partly not. This being premised, let the reader attend to the following beautiful account of these hypotheses from Proclus on Plato’s Theology, and from his admirable commentary on this dialogue.
The first hypothesis demonstrates by negations the ineffable supereminence of the first principle of things; and evinces that he is exempt from all essence and knowledge. But the second unfolds the whole order of the Gods. For Parmenides does not alone assume the intellectual and essential idiom of the Gods, but likewise the divine characteristic of their hyparxis, through the whole of this hypothesis. For what other one can that be which is participated by being, than that which is in every being divine, and through which all things are conjoined with the imparticipable one? For, as bodies through their life are conjoined with soul, and as souls through their intellective part tend to universal intellect and the first intelligence, in like manner true beings, through the one which they contain, are reduced to a separate union, and are conjoined with the first cause of all.
But because this hypothesis commences from that which is one being, and establishes the summit of intelligibles as the first after the one, but ends in an essence which participates of time, and deduces divine souls to the extremities of the divine orders, it is necessary that the third hypothesis should demonstrate by various conclusions the whole multitude of particular souls, and the diversities which they contain. And thus far the separate and incorporeal hypostasis extends.
But after this follows that nature which is divisible about bodies and in- separable from matter, which the fourth hypothesis delivers supernally depending from the Gods. And the last hypostasis is the procession of matter, whether considered as one or as various, which the fifth hypothesis demonstrates by negations, according to its dissimilar similitude to the first. But sometimes, indeed, the negations are privations, and sometimes the separate causes of all productions. And that which is most wonderful of all, the highest negations are only enunciative, but some in a supereminent man- ner, and others according to subjection. But each of the negations consequent to these is affirmative; the one paradigmatically, but the other iconically, or according to similitude. But the middle corresponds to the order of soul: for it is composed from affirmative and negative conclusions. But it possesses negations similar to affirmations. And since it is alone multiplied, as consisting from wholes, it possesses an adventitious one. And this one which it contains, though truly one, ye subsists in motion and multiplication, and in its progressions is, as it were, absorbed by essence. And such are the hypotheses which unfold all beings, both separable and inseparable, together with the causes of the universe, as well exempt as subsisting in things themselves, according to the hyparxis of the one.
But there are four hypotheses besides these, which by taking away the one entirely subvert all things, both such as truly are, and such as subsist in generation, and show that no being can any longer exist. The one, therefore, being admitted, all things subsist even to the last hypostasis; and this being taken away, essence itself is immediately destroyed.
The preceding mode of exposition (except in the second hypothesis) agrees with that of the great Plutarch, preserved by Proclus in his commentary on this dialogue, and which is as follows:
The first hypothesis discourses concerning the first God. The second, concerning the first intellect, and an order entirely intellectual. The third, of the soul. The fourth, of material species. And the fifth, of formless matter. For these are the five principles of things. Parmenides in the mean time, after the manner of his own Pythagoreans, calls every separate substance, on account of its simplicity, by the common appellation of one. But he denominates matter and corporeal form different, on account of their flowing nature and far distant diversity from divine essences: especially since these two do not so much subsist by themselves as through others, and are not so much causes as concauses, as it is asserted in the Timæus and Phædo. With great propriety, therefore, the three first hypotheses, which inquire how the one is related to itself and to others, are considered as treating of principal causes. But the other two, which investigate how other things are related to each other and to the one, are considered as representing form and matter. In these five hypotheses, therefore, these principles, together with what they contain or subsists about them, are confirmed from the position of one: of one, I say, above being, in being, and posterior to being. The remaining four hypotheses demonstrate how many absurdities follow from taking away that one which beings contain, that we may understand how much greater absurdities must ensue from denying the subsistence of that which is simply one. The sixth hypothesis, therefore, proves that, if there is not that which is one in beings, i. e. if intelligible has no real subsistence, but partly possesses and is partly destitute of being, that which is sensible would alone exist in the order of things. For, if intelligible is taken away, that which is sensible must alone remain; and there can be no knowledge beyond sense. And this the sixth hypothesis demonstrates to be absurd. But the seventh hypothesis proves that, if the one which be- ings contain has no kind of subsistence, there can be no knowledge, nor any thing which is the object of knowledge, which this seventh hypothesis shows is foolish to assert. And again, if this one partly subsists and is partly without subsistence, as the sixth hypothesis feigns, other things will be similar to shadows and dreams, which the eighth hypothesis confutes as absurd. But if this one has no kind of subsistence, other things will be less than shadows or a dream, that is, nothing; which the ninth hypothesis represents as a monstrous assertion. Hence the first hypothesis has the same relation to those which remain, as the principle of the universe to the universality of things. But the other four which immediately follow the first, treat concerning the principles posterior to the one. And the four consequent to these prove that, one being taken away, all that was exhibited in the four prior hypotheses must entirely perish. For since the second demonstrates that, if that one subsists which is conjoined with being, every order of soul must subsist; the seventh declares that, if this one is not, all knowledge, reason, imagination, and sense, must be destroyed. Again, since the fourth hypothesis declares that, if this one being subsists, material species also must subsist, which in a certain respect participate of one being,—the eighth hypothesis shows that, if this one being has no subsistence, what we now call sensible natures would be only shadows and dreams, without any formal distinction or substance whatever. And lastly, since the fifth hypothesis admonishes us that, if this one being subsists, matter will subsist, not indeed participating of one being so far as being, but considered as one; the ninth hypothesis at length shows that, if this one being is taken away, not even the shadow of any thing could possibly subsist.
Thus far Plutarch; who likewise observes that this dialogue was considered as divine by the antients; and declares that the preceding exposition is partly taken from the writings of the antients, and partly from his own private opinion.
Now from all this we may safely conclude, with Proclus, that all the axioms of theological science are perfectly exhibited in this part of the dialogue; that all the distributions of the divine natures are unfolded in connected continuity; and that this is nothing else than the celebrated genera- tion of the Gods, and every kind of existence, from the ineffable and unknown cause of the universe. For the antients by generation meant nothing more than the procession of things from their cause; and hence the first cause was symbolically called by Orpheus time,—because, says Proclus, where there is generation, there time has a subsistence.
That first and imparticipable one, then, who is declared to be the cause of all things after an ineffable manner, but who is without circumscription, and does not possess any power or characteristic of a kindred kind with the other Gods, is celebrated by the first hypothesis. And from this supereminent cause, as from an exalted place of survey, we may contemplate the divine unities, that is, the Gods, flowing in admirable and ineffable order, and at the same time abiding in profound union with each other, and with their cause. And here, says Proclus, an apt resemblance of their progression presents itself to our view. Because a line is the first continuous and divisible nature amongst magnitudes, hence it participates of an indivisible, that is, of a point. And this point, though it is allotted a superlinear condition and is indivisible, yet it subsists in the line, is something belonging to it, and is the summit of the line. To which we may add, that many lines in a circle touch by their several points the centre of the circle. In like manner an intelligible and intellectual essence, because it is the first multiplied nature, on this account partakes of an excellent unity. And this unity, though it is neither essence nor obnoxious to essential multitude, yet abides in essence, or rather subsists as its vertex, through which every intellectual essence is a God, enjoying divine unity as the very flower of its nature, and as that which conjoins it with the ineffable one. And as every thing is established in its own species through form, and as we derive the characteristic of our nature from soul, so every God becomes that which he is, or a Deity, through the unity of his nature.
Lastly, says he, the intention of the first hypothesis is to absolve that which is simply one from all the properties and conditions of the unities of the Gods; and by this absolving to signify the procession of all things from thence. But our intention in pursuing these mysteries is no other than by the logical energies of our reason to arrive at the simple intellection of beings, and by these to excite the divine one resident in the depths of our essence, or rather which presides over our essence, that we may perceive the simple and incomprehensible one. For after, through discursive energies and intellections, we have properly denied of the first principle all conditions peculiar to beings, there will be some danger, lest, deceived by imagination after numerous negations, we should think that we have arrived either at nothing, or at something slender and vain, indeterminate, formless, and confused; unless we are careful in proportion as we advance in negations to excite by a certain amatorial affection the divine vigour of our unity; trusting that by this means we may enjoy divine unity, when we have dismissed the motion of reason and the multiplicity of intelligence, and tend through unity alone to the one itself, and through love to the supreme and ineffable good.
It may likewise be clearly shown, and will be immediately obvious to those who understand the following dialogue, that the most antient poets, priests, and philosophers, have delivered one and the same theology, though in different modes. The first of these, through fabulous names and a more vehement diction; the second, through names adapted to sacred concerns, and a mode of interpretation grand and elevated; and the third, either through mathematical names, as the Pythagoreans, or through dialectic epithets, as Plato. Hence we shall find that the Æther, Chaos, Phanes, and Jupiter, of Orpheus; the father, power, intellect, and twice beyond of the Chaldæans; the monad, duad, tetrad, and decad, of Pythagoras; and the one being, the whole, infinite, multitude, and sameness and difference of Plato, respectively, signify the same divine processions from the ineffable principle of things.
I only add, that I have followed the opinion of Proclus in inscribing this Dialogue ON THE GODS: for as ideas, considered according to their summits or unities, are Gods, and the whole dialogue is entirely conversant with ideas and these unities, the propriety of such an inscription must, I think, be apparent to the most superficial observer.

## Introduction to the Sophista

The following is the preface of Proclus¹¹ to this dialogue, as preserved in the Greek Scholia on Plato, published by Ruhnkenius. “Plato not only calls a certain man a Sophist, but also Love¹², Pluto, and Jupiter, and says that the sophistical art is all-beautiful; whence we may conjecture that the dialogue has a more noble scope than it appears to possess. For, according to the great Jamblichus, its scope is concerning the sublunary demiurgus¹³; since this Divinity is the fabricator of images, and the purifier of souls, always separating them from contrary reasons, being a transmuter, and a mercenary hunter of rich young men. While he receives souls coming from on high replete with productive principles, he takes from them a reward, viz. the fabrication of animals, in such a way as is accommodated to the nature of mortals. This Deity gives himself to non-being, because he fabricates material beings, and embraces matter,—a thing which is truly false. At the same time, however, he looks to true being. He is also many-headed, hurling forth many essences and lives, through which he furnishes the variety of generation. The same power is likewise a magician, in consequence of alluring souls by natural reasons, so that they are with difficulty divulsed from generation. For Love, also, and Nature, are called by some magicians, on account of the sympathy and antipathy in things which have a natural subsistence. Now, therefore, Plato wishes to instruct us in an all-various sophist. For a philosopher is a sophist, as imitating the celestial and also the sublunary demiurgus: for the divisive art imitates the progression of things from the one, and the sublunary the celestial demiurgus; and on this account he is a sophist. A sophist also among men is so called, because he imitates great things: and hence Plato denominates the sophist many-headed. The Elean guest is analogous to the supercelestial and exempt father of the artificers of things, but his hearers to demiurgic intellections, one of these being analogous to the intellection of Jupiter, and the other to angelic intelligence, as being Mercurial and geometrical. And because fabrication proceeds from the imperfect to the perfect, on this account the Elean guest first converses with Theodorus, and afterwards converts himself to Socrates in particular¹⁴.” Thus far Proclus.
Plato in this dialogue presents us with six definitions of a sophist; but as definition cannot be obtained without division, for the latter is the principle of the former, hence he divides the genus of the sophist by its proper differences, from which, in conjunction with genus, species is composed and defined. He also shows, conformably to what is delivered in the Parmenides, that being is subordinate to the one; and enumerates five genera of being, viz. essence, same, and different, permanency and motion. He likewise teaches us that true essence belongs to incorporeal, and imaginable to corporeal natures; and is indignant with those who deny that there are forms superior to sensibles, and also with those who contend that all things are either alone permanent, or alone in motion. Besides all this, he disputes concerning science and opinion, true and false discourse, verb and noun, so far as they appear to pertain to the discussion of being. He likewise observes, that the sophist is concealed from our view, because he is involved in the darkness of non-entity, and that a philosopher also is not easily discerned on account of the splendor of being with which he is surrounded: “for the eyes of vulgar souls (says he) are unable to support the view of that which is divine.”
In order, however, to understand the most abstruse part of this dialogue, it is necessary to refer the reader to our copious Notes and Introduction to the Parmenides: for he whose mental eye has gained a glimpse of the ineffable light of superessential unity, will more easily perceive the splendors of being.
I only add, that Plato in this dialogue has given a most beautiful specimen of that part of his dialectic¹⁵ called division; a branch of the master science in which he and the most illustrious of his disciples were eminently skilled, and by which they were enabled to discover all the connecting media in the vast series of being, and to ascend from that which is last in the universe to the ineffable principle of all things.

## Introduction to the Phædrus

Some, says Hermeas¹⁶, have endeavoured to show that this dialogue is concerning rhetoric, looking only to its beginning and end; others, that it is about the soul, since here especially Socrates demonstrates its immortality; and others, that it is about love, since the beginning and occasion of the dialogue originate from this. For Lysias had written an oration in order to prove that it is not proper to gratify a lover, but one who is not a lover; he being vehemently in love with Phædrus, but pretending that he was not. Wishing, therefore, to withdraw him from other lovers, he viciously composed an oration, the design of which was to show that it is requisite rather to gratify one who is not a lover, than one who is; which gave occasion to Socrates to discourse concerning this intemperate love, together with temperate, divine, and enthusiastic love, because it is a love of this latter kind which should be embraced and followed. Others again assert that the dialogue is theological, on account of what is said in the middle of it. But, according to others, its subject is the good, because Socrates says that the supercelestial place has never been celebrated according to its desert, and that an uncoloured and unfigured essence there subsists. And, lastly, others assert that it is concerning the beautiful itself. All these, therefore, form their opinion of the whole scope of the dialogue from a certain part of it. For it is evident that the discourse concerning the soul is assumed for the sake of something else, and also that concerning the first beauty: for Socrates ascends from other beautiful things to this, and to the supercelestial place. It is also evident that the discourses about love are to be referred to the lover. It must not, therefore, be said that there are many scopes; for it is necessary that all of them should be extended to one thing, that the discourse may be as it were one animal. In short, Socrates speaks concerning all-various beauty. Hence he begins from the apparent beauty in the form of Phædrus, with which Lysias was enamoured, in consequence of falling off from the character of a true lover. But afterwards he proceeds to the beauty in discourses, of which Phædrus is represented as a lover. From this he ascends to the beauty in soul, viz. to the virtues and sciences; and thence, in his recantation, to the mundane Gods. After which he ascends to the intelligible fountain itself of beauty, to the God of love, and to the beautiful itself; whence he again descends through the divisive art to the beauty in soul, and in the virtues and sciences; and afterwards again to the beauty in discourses, thus conjoining the end with the beginning. In short, the whole intention of the dialogue may be divided into three parts, corresponding to three lives:—into the intemperate love, which is seen in the oration of Lysias; into the temperate, which is seen in the first discourse of Socrates; and, in the third place, into the divinely inspired, which is seen in the recantation, and in the last discourse of Socrates. It may also be said that the lovers, the loves, and the objects of love, are analogous to these lives. Hence they do not much deviate from the design of the dialogue who assert that it is concerning love, since love is seen in a relation to the object of love: and it is necessary indeed not to be ignorant of kindred differences, since Plato himself does not deliver casual distinctions of love, and the object of love. However, it is evident that the leading scope of the dialogue is not concerning love; for neither does it discuss its essence, nor its power, but discourses concerning its energies in the world, and in souls. But if Plato any where makes love the leading scope of a dialogue, he discourses concerning its essence, power, and energy. Hence in The Banquet, where love is the leading object, he delivers its middle nature, and its order, calling it a mighty dæmon, as binding secondary to primary natures. But here, a discourse concerning the beautiful takes the lead, to which all things are elevated by love.
And here it is necessary to observe, that the first subsistence of the beau- tiful, the primary object of this dialogue, is in intelligible intellect, the extremity of the intelligible triad, where it subsists as an intelligible idea. It is this beauty which, according to Orpheus, when it arose, astonished the intellectual Gods, and produced in them an admiration of their father Phanes: for thus the theologist sings concerning it;
Θαυμαζον καθορωντες εν αιθερι φεγγος αελπτον,
Τῳ μεν απεστιλβε χροος αθανατοιο Φανητος.
i. e. “they wondered on beholding in æther an unexpected light, with which the body of the immortal Phanes glittered.” This beauty too, as we have observed in a note on the Parmenides, is a vital intellectual form, the source of symmetry¹⁷ to all things,
With respect to the persons of the dialogue, they are Lysias, or rather the oration of Lysias, Phædrus, and Socrates; Lysias and Phædrus being, as we have said, lovers of each other, but Socrates being the curator of youth, and the providential inspector of Phædrus, elevating him from the apparent and external beauty in words, to the beauty in soul and intellect. As some however have accused¹⁸ the dialogue as inflated in its diction, on account of what is said in the recantation, it is necessary to observe, that Socrates employs words adapted to the things themselves. For, as he discourses about objects unapparent, and unknown to the many, he accordingly uses an elevated diction, and such as accords with an intelligible and divine essence.
Indeed, if human nature in this its degraded condition is capable of receiving the inspirations of divinity, and if a part of the present dialogue was composed under such an influence, an accusation of this kind is certainly its greatest commendation.
Hence it is justly observed by Proclus¹⁹, “that Plato in this dialogue being inspired by the Nymphs, and exchanging human intelligence for fury, which is a thing far more excellent, delivers many arcane dogmas concerning the intellectual Gods, and many concerning the liberated rulers of the universe, who elevate the multitude of mundane Gods to the intelligible monads, separate from the wholes which this universe contains. And still more does he deliver about the mundane Gods themselves, celebrating their intellections and fabrications about the world, their unpolluted providence, their government about souls, and other particulars which Socrates discloses in this dialogue according to a deific energy.”
I only add, that though there are frequent allusions in this dialogue to that unnatural vice which was so fashionable among the Greeks, yet the reader will find it severely censured in the course of the dialogue by our divine philosopher. There can be no reason to fear, therefore, that the ears of the modest will be shocked by such allusions, since they are inserted with no other view than that they may be exploded as they deserve. But if, notwithstanding this, any one shall persist in reprobating certain parts of the dialogue as indecent, it may be fairly concluded, that such a one possesses the affectation of modesty without the reality; and that he is probably a bigot to some despicable and whining sect of religion, in which cant and grimace are the substitutes for genuine piety and worth.

## Introduction to the Greater Hippias

The design of this dialogue, which has the addition of greater to its name Hippias, in contradistinction to another of the same name which is shorter, is gradually to unfold the nature of the beautiful as subsisting in soul. That this is the real design of it will be at once evident by considering that logical methods are adapted to whatever pertains to soul, in consequence of its energies being naturally discursive, but do not accord with intellect, because its vision is simple, at once collected, and immediate. Hence this dialogue is replete with trials²⁰ and confutations, definitions and demonstrations, divi- sions, compositions, and analysations; but that part of the Phædrus in which beauty according to its first subsistence is discussed, has none of these, because its character is enthusiastic.
It is necessary however to remark, that in saying the design of the dialogue is concerning the beautiful as subsisting in soul, we do not merely mean the human soul, but soul in general:—in other words, it is concerning that beauty which first subsists in the soul of the universe, which in Platonic language is the monad of all souls, and is thence imparted to all the subsequent orders of souls.
It is well observed by Mr. Sydenham²¹, that Plato conceals the importance of his meaning in this dialogue, by a vein of humour and drollery which runs throughout the whole. The introductory part of the dialogue is purely ironical, and seems intended by deriding to purify the sophists from their twofold ignorance; exposing with this view their love of gain, their polymathy, or various knowledge, of itself useless to the prime purposes of life, and their total want of that true wisdom whose tendency is to make men virtuous and happy. Mr. Sydenham also observes, that the character of the composition of this dialogue is so perfectly dramatic, that, but for the want of fable, it might be presented on the stage by good comedians with great advantage. He adds: Nay, so highly picturesque is it in the manners which it imitates, as to be a worthy subject for the pencil of any moral painter. Some of the antients, it seems, placed it among the dialogues which they called anatreptic, or the subverting; but it appears to me that it ought rather to be ranked among those of the pirastic and maieutic²² kind.
Should it be asked, since it is by no means positively asserted in this dialogue, what the beautiful in soul is, we reply, that it is a vital rational form, the cause of symmetry to every thing in and posterior to soul. The propriety of this definition will be obvious by considering that the highest beauty is a vital intellectual form, the source of symmetry to all things posterior to the ineffable principle of all, as we have shown in the Notes on the Parmenides; and that consequently soul, in participating this beauty, will preserve all its characteristic properties entire, except the intellectual peculiarity, which in the participation will become rational.

## Introduction to the Banquet

The composition, says Mr. Sydenham²³, of this dialogue is of a singular cast, and different from that of any other. For the principal part of it consists of oratorical speeches, spoken at a certain banquet or entertainment, by some of the company in their turns, upon a subject proposed by one of their number.
—The speakers are these six, Phædrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agatho, and Socrates. Their several speeches are finely distinguished by different styles of oratory, and with great propriety display the peculiar character of each speaker.
—The first of them, Phædrus, was a young gentleman of the most ingenuous disposition, modest, candid, and a lover of truth; refined, elevated, and heroic in his sentiments; the same person whose character Plato has thus drawn at large in a dialogue inscribed with his name. From thence also we learn that he was a great admirer of Lysias the orator: accordingly, the speech made by him in this Banquet savours much of the style of Lysias, such as it is characterized by Plato²⁴ himself; the diction being pure and elegant; the periods round and well turned; but expressing the same sentiments over and over again in variety of language; and where the sentiments are various, void of all method or order in the ranging them.
—The next speech, reported in the dialogue, is that of Pausanias; who appears to have been a statesman or politician, a great admirer of both the Spartan and the Athenian laws, and an enemy to all other systems of government and manners. The style of his oratory corresponds exactly with the character which Hermogenes gives us of the style used by Isocrates: for he is clear and distinct, and divides his subject properly; is profuse in ornaments, and rather too nice and accurate; diffuse and ample in his sentiments, though not in his expression; and taking a large compass of argument in the coming to his point. We find him however free from those faults for which that critic justly reprehends Isocrates: for in the speech of Pausanias there is no languor nor tediousness; nor is he guilty of preaching, or of being didactic; vices in oratory which are the usual concomitants of old age, and in Isocrates perhaps were principally owing to that cause: certain it is, that most of his orations now extant were composed in the decline of his life, and that in the latest of them those blemishes are the most conspicuous. But at the time when the speeches, reported in this dialogue, were supposed to have been spoken, Isocrates was in the flower both of his age and of his eloquence. Add to this, that Pausanias here immoderately affects some of those little graces of style for which Isocrates was remarkable in his younger years most²⁵; such as αντιθεσεις, or oppositions; παρισωσεις, or parities, where one member of a sentence answers either in sound or sentiment to another; and those merely verbal or literal similarities, of adnominations, adliterations, and the same beginnings or endings of two or more words near one another. One of these ornaments, improperly used, Plato ridicules in the way of mimicry, as soon as the speech of Pausanias is ended: which alone seems a sufficient evidence that Plato in framing that speech purposely imitated the style of Isocrates. His intention in so doing, as appears probable, we think, from the beginning of the speech itself, was to set in contrast those two celebrated orators, Lysias and Isocrates; and to exhibit the former as treating his subject in a general, indiscriminating, indeterminate way, copious in his language, but jejune in matter: the other, as distinguishing and methodical, full of matter, and ample in particulars, from having studied the nature of his subject more distinctly, philosophically, and minutely. It may be pertinent to observe, that Plato seems to have had the same view in introducing the mention of Isocrates near the conclusion of his dialogue named Phædrus.
—The next speaker to Pausanias is Eryximachus; whose profession was that of medicine: and his speech is suitable to his profession; for he considers the subject in a more extensive view; and, beginning from the human body, both in its sound and morbid state, goes on like a thorough naturalist, and pursues his instances through every part of nature, through earth, air and sky, up to that which is divine. His oratory, to the best of our little judgment in these matters, agrees with what Hermogenes²⁶ reports of Pericles, that of all the antient orators, meaning before the time of Demosthenes, he had in appearance, as well as in reality, the most of the δεινοτης, that is, weight with his hearers, and power over their passions. For, according to that critic, the real δεινοτης of an orator consists in a ready and apt use of his general knowledge, or an opportune and proper application of it, in managing his subject; and the δεινοτης is most apparent, he says, when the εννοιαι, the thoughts and sentiments, are profound, curious, and out of the common road, yet striking and forcible. Now the real and the apparent δεινοτης, as thus described, are both of them remarkable in the only oration of Pericles we have left, inserted by Thucydides in his history: and both seem affectedly used in the speech of Eryximachus; which we presume, therefore, Plato composed in imitation of Pericles.
—Next after him speaks Aristophanes, the celebrated comic poet; through whose comedies, such at least as are still remaining, runs the same rich vein of humour, the same lively and redundant wit, which characterize his speech in the Banquet.
—The next speech is made by Agatho, the donor of the feast. Agatho was at this time a young man of a large fortune, generous, magnificent, and polished in his manners; much admired by all for the comeliness of his person; and celebrated by Plato in the Protagoras for his fine parts and excellent natural disposition. His genius inclined him to poetry, and particularly to that of the tragic kind; in which he was so successful, as to win the prize from all his antagonists, in one of those competitions for excellence in writing tragedies annually held at the feast of Bacchus. Upon this occasion it was that he gave his friends that entertainment which Plato has immortalized by this fine dialogue. We have no piece of his writing extant; but it is highly probable that the speech here attributed to him gives a just representation of his style: for the language of it is extremely poetical, florid, and abounding with metaphors; and the sentiments are wonderfully elegant, ingenious, and full of fancy, but have not so much as an appearance of truth for their foundation.
—The last speaker on the subject is Socrates: and his speech is in every respect worthy of the man. For in his whole conduct he was modest, and careful to avoid the least degree of ostentation; in all his discourse he was solicitous above all things for the truth in every subject²⁷, and proposed to himself that as the principle end in all his disputes, inquiries, and researches; and whenever he took the lead in conversation, he began from things easy, common, and obvious, but gradually rose to speculations the most difficult, sublime, and excellent. Agreeably to this character, he delivers in his speech nothing as from himself; but introduces another person, assuming the magisterial airs of a teacher, yet condescending, gentle, and affable. This person is Diotima, a lady at that time in high reputation for her intercourse with the Gods, and her predictions of future events. The speech of Socrates contains the recital of a conversation between himself and this prophetic lady; into whose mouth he puts what he has a mind to teach, on purpose to insinuate that his speech was indisputably true, was worthy of being thought divinely inspired, and conveyed the knowledge of divine things. The eloquence of it exemplifies that doctrine taught by Plato in his Phædrus and his Gorgias, that the man who best knows the truth in every subject he treats of, and intends the good of those whom he endeavours to persuade, he who has the most knowledge of human nature, and of the various dispositions of men, and consequently can adapt his speech to the temper of his audience, he is likely to make the ablest and best speaker; the other qualifications requisite to form an orator being comparatively mean, and, so far as art is concerned in them, easily attainable. The truth of this doctrine was soon after abundantly confirmed in Demosthenes, who, forming himself upon the rules laid down by Plato, became at once the most perfect patriot, politician, and orator of his (I had almost said of any) age.
—After these six speeches are ended, a new character is brought upon the stage,—Alcibiades, a young nobleman of the first rank in Athens, of great natural and acquired abilities, chiefly those of the military kind, but of dissolute and thoroughly debauched manners. Being ambitious of power and government in the state too early, before he was qualified for them by knowledge and experience, he had for some time been a follower of Socrates, whose eloquence and reasoning he saw prevailing always over those of the Sophists: for he hoped to acquire, in his company and converse, the same superior power of persuasion; in order to employ that power with the people, and gratify the views of his ambition. He is introduced into the banquet-room, far from sober; and his behaviour and speech (for he is engaged by the company to make a speech) perfectly agree with the character of his manners. The subject on which he speaks is professedly, and in all appearance, foreign to the point spoken to by the rest, as the disorderly and unthinking condition which he is in requires it should be; but it is far from being so in reality. Plato has not only woven it into his design in this incomparable dialogue, but has made it one of the most essential parts, without which the work had been wholly defective in the end for which it was framed²⁸. These speeches, with the conversation and occurrences at the banquet, make the principal part of this dialogue; and are introduced, not in a dramatic, but a narrative way. The introduction is partly narrative, and partly dramatic; by which means it is somewhat intricate. For the dialogue opens with a conversation between two persons only, Apollodorus and some friend of his, though in the presence of others, such as dramatic writers call mute persons. At the very beginning Apollodorus relates a short conversation lately held between himself and Glauco; and tells his friend, that he then gave Glauco an account of what had passed at the banquet given by Agatho; which account, repeated by him here again, constitutes all the rest of the dialogue. He says, it was delivered to him by Aristodemus, one of the company; who had begun his narrative with the recital of a short conversation held between Socrates and himself, and of some other occurrences previous to the banquet. The same recital here made by Apollodorus to his friend, and to the company at that friend’s house, immediately introduces the narrative or history of that truly noble entertainment. Such is the manner, and such the method, in which this dialogue is composed. It is usually and very properly intitled, “Concerning Love,” because the speculation of love is its leading object.
With respect to the speeches, that of Phædrus takes the word love in a general sense, so as to comprehend love toward persons of the same sex, commonly called friendship, as well as that toward persons of a different sex, peculiarly and eminently styled love.
—Pausanias distinguishes between love of the mind, and love merely of the body, proving them to be affections of very different kinds, because productive of very different effects.
—Eryximachus considers love as that universal principle in nature which attracts, unites, or associates one thing to another in a regular way; the effect of whose operation is harmony or concord: that which heals also the breaches made by the opposite, the disuniting and dividing principle, the cause of irregular motions and of discord.
—Aristophanes treats of love as other writers of comedy do, taking it only in the grossest sense of the word, as it means the passion common to man with all brute animals.
—And Agatho talks about it in a vague manner, without any determinate or fixed meaning at all; taking it in various senses; commonly, indeed, for the refinement of that passion between the sexes, but sometimes for great liking or attachment of the mind to any object; and then, all at once, using the word, like Eryximachus, to signify concord and harmony, not only between rational beings, but even the unintelligent parts of nature. But when Socrates comes to speak upon the subject, he goes much deeper into it by degrees: in the first place, he premises certain universal truths relating to love; that the object of it is beauty; the essence of it desire; its aim or end the possession of beauty, or, if already possessed of it, the perpetuity of that possession. Next, he considers love as the desire of good; whatever is beautiful being also good, so far as it is beautiful; and love, peculiarly so called, being part of that universal love or desire of good; common to all beings, intelligent and sentient. He considers this universal love, or desire of good, as the link between the eternal nature and the mortal, between the plenitude of good and the total want of it. He considers, that the aim of this desire, agreeably to a certain property of it before observed, is not only to enjoy good, but to immortalize that enjoyment. The desire of immortality, therefore, is of necessity, he says, annexed to the desire of good, or love of beauty. But personal immortality being impossible to be attained by any being whose nature is mortal, every such being, prompted by nature, seeks to continue itself, and its enjoyment of good, in the only way possible, the propagation of its species, and the production of some being resembling itself, another self, to succeed, and to coutinue as it were the enjoyment of the same good. Hence, the love of that beauty, with which every animal is most smitten in the beautiful of its own kind, is accompanied with an instinct, or natural desire, to mix and unite with it, and thus to generate another animal of the same kind. From corporeal beauty, and that lower species of love regarding it, man, as his mind opens more and is improved, naturally proceeds further; attaining the sight of that beauty which is seen only by the eye of intellect, in the temper and disposition of some fellow-mind; and fired with that love which attends the sight of mental beauty. To this love also is annexed, says Socrates, the desire of generating, of stamping upon that other mind its own thoughts, and of raising up and nurturing between them an intellectual progeny, of generous sentiments and fair ideas. By means of this mixture and this enjoyment, that is, by converse, such as improves the understanding, the mind, he observes, rises higher, and attains to view beauty in those things themselves, the subjects of their conversation; first, in virtuous pursuits, studies, and employments; next, in the sciences, and every branch of knowledge. In the embraces of these beauties the mind generates an offspring of the fairest kind and the most durable; the poet, his immortal writings; the hero, through the force of his example, continual copies of his virtue; the founder of civil polities, through his institutions, a long succession of patriot actions; and the legislator, wise and beneficial laws, to bless the latest posterity. But if the soul be endowed with a genius of the highest kind, she rests not here, nor fixes her attachment on any one of these mental excellencies or beauties in particular: the genuine lover of truth rises from hence to the survey of that universal, original, and exemplar beauty from which every thing beautiful, both in the intelligible and sensible world, proceeds. The love and the pursuit of this supreme beauty Plato calls philosophy; and to the embraces or enjoyment of it, and to no other cause, does he here ascribe the generation and the growth of true virtue.
With respect to the speech of Alcibiades, it has been already observed, that it is one of the most essential parts of the dialogue. This will be at once evident, when it is considered that the intention of Plato in it was to exemplify in the character of Socrates, as one who had been initiated in the mysteries of love, that perfection of virtue which such an initiation is capable of effecting. Mr. Sydenham, therefore, was very unfortunately persuaded to abandon the design of publishing his translation of this speech; and much was he mistaekn in thinking that some part of it is so grossly indecent that it may offend the virtuousand encourage the vicious. For it will appear in our notes, that this apparent indecency is introduced conformably to the machinery of the mysteries, with no other view than to purify the reader from every thing indecent, and to liberate him, in short, from vulgar love, by exciting the amatory eye of intellect to the vision of objects ineffably beautiful and truly divine.
The antients, not without reason, generally rank this dialogue among those of the ethic class²⁹; but the character of it is of the mixed kind, that is, partly narrative and partly dramatic: and the genius of it takes its colour from the didactic part, the speech of Socrates; the reasoning of which is wholly analytical, resolving all love into its principles, and tracing all beauty upward to that source from whence it is derived to every order of being.

## Introduction to the Theætetus

The following very learned and admirable dialogue is on a subject which, to a rational being, is obviously of the utmost importance. For what can be more important to such a being than an accurate knowledge of things human and divine, practical and theoretic? And as such a knowledge cannot be obtained without science, the inquiry what science is, must consequently rank among those investigations that are the most useful and necessary to man.
As this dialogue is wholly of the maieutic kind, Socrates, with admirable skill, acts the part of a midwife towards Theætetus, one of the principal persons of the dialogue, in leading forth his conceptions concerning science into light. For this purpose, he, in the first place, asks him what science is? and Theætetus replies, that science is geometry and arithmetic, together with other disciplines of this kind, and the several arts. This answer is however rejected by Socrates, as by no means according with the question; because, when asked what science is, he replies by enumerating how many sciences there are, and on what subjects they are employed. In the next place, Socrates introduces the definition of Protagoras, that science is sense. For Protagoras asserted, that man is the measure of all things, and that every thing was to every man such as it appeared to him. This doctrine was, indeed, founded in the philosophy of Heraclitus, of which the principal dogma was this, that nothing is permanent, but that all things are in a continual flux. Socrates, however, confutes this opinion, because, if it were admitted, the perceptions of the intoxicated and insane, of those who dream, and of those whose senses are vitiated by disease, would be true, because they appear to be so, though at the same time they are evidently false. From this hypothesis also, all men would be similarly wise, the opinions of the most illiterate in geometry would be as true as any geometrical theorems; and in the actions of human life the means of accomplishing any end would be indifferent, and consequently all deliberation and consultation would be vain³⁰.
In order to demonstrate that science is not sense, Socrates, in the first place, obtains this from Theætetus, that sense arises from the soul perceiving corporeal things externally situated, through several organs of the body. And secondly, that one sense, or organical perception, cannot take cognizance of the object of another; as sight cannot see sounds, nor the hearing hear light and colours. Hence he infers, that when we compare the objects of several senses together, and consider certain things which are common to them all, this cannot be sense, or organical perception, because one sense cannot consider the object of another. And if there is any thing common to both, it cannot perceive it by either organ. Thus, for instance, when we consider sound and colour together, and attribute several things to them in common, as, in the first place, essence, and in the next place, sameness in each with itself, and difference from the other; when we also consider that both of them are two, and each of them one, by what sense or organ does the soul perceive all these things which are common both to sound and colour? It cannot be by the senses of sight or hearing, because these cannot consider each other’s objects; nor can any other corporeal organ be found by which the soul may passively perceive all these, and consider the objects of both those senses of sight and hearing. Hence, Theætetus is made to confess that the soul does not organically perceive these things by any sense, but by itself alone without any corporeal organ.
Theætetus, therefore, being convinced that science is not sense, in the next place defines it to be true opinion. This, however, is confuted by Socrates, because rhetoric also produces true opinion when its assertions are true, but yet cannot produce science. For there never can be any science of things which are perpetually in motion, and which subsist differently at different times. Such, however, are human affairs with which orators are conversant, especially when they induce their hearers to believe that of which they are themselves doubtful. After this, Theætetus adds the definition of Leucippus and Theodorus the Cyrenæan, that science is true opinion in conjunction with reason; and hence, that things which possess reason can be known, but by no means those which are deprived of it. This, however, is also confuted by Socrates, who shows, that whether reason (logos) signifies external speech, or a procession through the elements of a thing, or definition, science cannot be true opinion in conjunction with reason.
Though Socrates, therefore, confutes all these definitions of science, as being erroneous, yet he does not inform us what science is; for this would have been contrary to the character of the dialogue, which, as we have already observed, is entirely maieutic, and consequently can do no more than present us with the conceptions of Theætetus fairly unfolded into light. As all these conceptions, therefore, are found to be false, we must search elsewhere for an accurate definition of science.
What then shall we say science is, according to Plato? We reply, that considered according to its first subsistence, which is in intellect, it is the eternal and uniform intelligence of eternal entities; but in partial souls, such as ours, it is a dianoëtic perception of eternal beings; and is, consequently, a perception neither eternal nor uniform, because it is transitive, and accompanied with the intervention of oblivion.

## Introduction to the Politicus

As there is one end for which nature, or rather the author of nature, produced the parts of the human body, and another for which he formed the whole man, so likewise he directed an individual of the human species to one end, a family to another, and again a city and kingdom to another. And lastly, that is to be considered as the best end, for the sake of which he produced the whole human race. Let no one however think, that though there is a certain end of every partial association among mankind, yet there is none of the whole; and that though there is order in the parts of human life, yet there is confusion in the whole; or, in short, that though the parts possess union from being directed to one end, yet the whole is dispersed and unconnected: for, if this were admitted, parts would be more honourable than the whole; though the former subsist for the sake of the latter, and not the latter for the sake of the former. Hence it is necessary that there should be a certain end of the human race, and that it should consist in those energies through which it may imitate as much as possible things supernal; by science speculating things natural, human and divine; by prudence properly managing human affairs; and by piety cultivating and venerating divinity. An end, therefore, of this kind requires a twofold life, consisting both in action and contemplation, yet so constituted as that action may subsist for the sake of contemplation, as that which is more excellent and divine.
Plato in this dialogue demonstrates that this end can alone be obtained by the human race, under the government of a king who possesses consummate probity and science. Hence employing a most accurate division which is essentially necessary to definition and science, and in which Plato and his genuine disciples excelled in a transcendent degree, he Homerically denominates a king the shepherd and curator of the human race. This king, too, he compares to a physician; since such a one, by imposing laws both on the willing and the unwilling, procures salutary remedies for his subjects. But he more frequently calls a governor and curator of this kind, a politician than a king, signifying by this that he will be so humane and mild, that among the citizens he will appear to be a fellow-citizen, and will evince that he is rather superior to them in justice, prudence and science, than in any other endowments. He likewise asserts, that the man who far surpasses all others in justice and prudence is born a king, though he should live the life of a private individual: and it may be collected from his other dialogues as his opinion, that royal authority should be given to the older and more worthy, a senate of whom should be the colleagues of the king, forming, as it were, a certain aristocracy, or government of the most excellent men. As he proves too in this dialogue that a royal surpasses every other form of government, he likewise shows that a tyranny is the worst kind of dominion, since it governs neither by law nor intellect, but by unrestrained impulse and arbitrary will. As the next in excellence to a royal government, he praises an aristocracy, but reprobates an oligarchy, or the government of a few: and he considers a popular government as deserving praise in the third degree, if it governs according to law. After this he discusses the duty of a king, and shows that it consists in providing such things as are necessary for the human race, and especially such as contribute to its felicity, in prudently judging what arts are subservient to this end in peace and war, in public and private conduct; and in exercising sovereign authority in conjunction with the senate.
With respect to what he says of the motion of the spheres and the kingdoms of Saturn and Jupiter, the mystic meaning of this fabulous narration will be unfolded in the notes on this dialogue.

## Introduction to the Minos

Law, considered according to its first subsistence in Deity, is justly defined by Plato to be a distribution of intellect (νου διανομη). As it originates, therefore, from deity, and is thence participated by the human soul, it does not depend for its being among men on arbitrary will and mutual compact, but is truly an evolution of one of those eternal ideas or forms which the soul essentially contains. He, therefore, who diligently attends to what is said by Plato in this dialogue, in his Laws, and Republic, concerning law, will find that it is a true mode of governing, which directs the governed to the best end through proper media, establishing punishments for such as transgress, and rewards for those that are obedient to this mode. Hence the institutions of princes, when they are not true, and do not proceed to the best end in a right path, are by no means laws, but decrees and edicts: for a work is frequently denominated legitimate from law, just from being legitimate, and good, right and true from being just; and therefore law is necessarily good and true. It also follows that law properly so called is eternal and perfectly immutable: for that which is changed by times, places and opinions, is not a law, but an institute.
According to Plato, too, it appears that there are four species of laws. The first of these are Saturnian, or, in other words, subsist in that deity, who according to antient theologists is the summit of the intellectual order. These laws are mentioned by Plato in the Gorgias, where Socrates says, “This was the law in the times of Saturn, and now also subsists in the Gods.” The second are Jovian, and are indicated in the Laws, where the Athenian guest says “that Justice follows Jupiter, being the avenger of those who desert the divine law.” The third are fatal, as we learn from the Timæus, where it is said that the Demiurgus “disclosed to souls the laws of Fate.” And the fourth are human. Since law, therefore, has a divine origin, all the illustrious framers of laws with the greatest propriety referred the invention of them to Deity. Hence Zoroaster, when he delivered laws to the Bactrians and Persians, ascribed the invention of them to Oromasis; Hermes Trismegistus the Egyptian legislator referred the invention of his laws to Mercury; Minos the Cretan lawgiver to Jupiter; Charondas the Carthaginian to Saturn; Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian to Apollo; Draco and Solon the Athenian legislators to Minerva; Pompilius the Roman lawgiver to Ægeria; Zamolxis the Scythian to Vesta; and Plato, when he gave laws to the Magnesians and Sicilians, to Jupiter and Apollo.

## Introduction to the Apology of Socrates

TO THE APOLOGY OF SOCRATES.
The elevation and greatness of mind for which Socrates was so justly celebrated by antiquity, are perhaps no where so conspicuously displayed as in this his Apology. In a situation in which death itself was presented to his view, he neither deviates from the most rigid veracity, nor has recourse to any of those abject arts, by which in similar circumstances pity is generally solicited and punishment sometimes averted. His whole discourse, indeed, is full of simplicity and noble grandeur, and is the energetic language of conscious innocence and offended worth.
The causes that occasioned this Apology were as follow:
—Aristophanes, at the instigation of Melitus, undertook, in his comedy of The Clouds, to ridicule the venerable character of Socrates, on the stage; and the way being once open to calumny and defamation, the fickle and licentious populace paid no reverence to the philosopher, whom they had before regarded as a being of a superior order. When this had succeeded, Melitus stood forth to criminate him, together with Anytus and Lycon; and the philosopher was summoned before the tribunal of the Five Hundred. He was accused of making innovations in the religion of his country, and corrupting the youth. But as both these accusations must have been obviously false to an unprejudiced tribunal, the accusers relied for the success of their cause on perjured witnesses, and the envy of the judges, whose ignorance would readily yield to misrepresentation, and be influenced and guided by false eloquence and fraudulent arts. That the personal enemies indeed of Socrates, vile characters, to whom his wisdom and his virtue were equally offensive, should have accused him of making innovations in the religion of Greece, is by no means surprising; but that very many of modern times should have believed that this accusation was founded in truth, and that he endeavoured to subvert the doctrine of polytheism, is a circumstance which by the truly learned reader must be ranked among the greatest eccentricities of modern wit. For to such a one it will most clearly appear from this very Apology, that Socrates was accused of impiety for asserting that he was connected in a very transcendant degree with a presiding dæmon, to whose direction he confidently submitted the conduct of his life. For the accusation of Melitus, that he introduced other novel dæmoniacal natures, can admit of no other construction. Besides, in the course of this Apology he asserts, in the most unequivocal and solemn manner, his belief in polytheism; and this is indubitably confirmed in many places by Plato, the most genuine of his disciples, and the most faithful recorder of his doctrines. The testimony of Xenophon too on this point is no less weighty than decisive. “I have often wondered,” says that historian and philosopher³¹, “by what arguments the Athenians who condemned Socrates persuaded the city that he was worthy of death. For, in the first place, how could they prove that he did not believe in the Gods in which the city believed? since it was evident that he often sacrificed at home, and often on the common altars of the city. It was also not unapparent that he employed divination. For a report was circulated, that signals were given to Socrates, according to his own assertion, by a dæmoniacal power; whence they especially appear to me to have accused him of introducing new dæmoniacal natures. He however introduced nothing new, nor any thing different from the opinion of those who, believing in divination, make use of auguries and oracles, symbols and sacrifices. For these do not apprehend that either birds, or things which occur, know what is advantageous to the diviners; but they are of opinion that the Gods thus signify to them what is beneficial; and he also thought the same. Again, in another place, he observes as follows: “Socrates³² thought that the Gods take care of men not in such a way as the multitude conceive. For they think that the Gods know some things, but do not know others. But Socrates thought that the Gods know all things, as well things said and done, as those deliberated in silence. That they are also everywhere present, and signify to men concerning all human affairs. I wonder, therefore, how the Athenians could ever be persuaded that Socrates was not of a sound mind respecting the Gods, as he never said or did any thing impious concerning them. But all his sayings and all his actions pertaining to the Gods were such as any one by saying and doing would be thought to be most pious.” And lastly, in another place he observes, “That it was evident that Socrates worshipped the Gods the most of all men³³.”
After such unequivocal testimony, no other reason can be assigned for that strange position of the moderns, that Socrates ridiculed the religion of his country, than a profound ignorance of one of the most important tenets of the heathen religion, and which may also be considered as ranking among the first of the most magnificent, scientific, and divine conceptions of the human mind. The tenet I allude to is this, that the essential, which is the most perfect energy of deity, is deific; and that his first and immediate progeny must as necessarily be Gods, that is, beings transcendantly similar to himself, and possessing those characteristics secondarily which he possesses primarily, as heat is the immediate offspring of fire, and coldness of snow. From being unacquainted with this mighty truth, which is coeval with the universe itself, modern theologists and sophists have dared to defame the religion of Greece, and, by offering violence to the sacred pages of antiquity, have made the great Socrates himself become the patron of their own shallow and distorted conceptions. But to return to the Apology.
Lysias, one of the most celebrated orators of the age, composed an oration, in a laboured and pathetic style, which he offered to Socrates to be pronounced as his defence in the presence of his judges. Socrates however refused it, observing, that a philosopher ought to be conspicuous for magnanimity and firmness of soul. Hence, in his Apology, he paid no attention to the splendor of diction, but trusted wholly to the intrinsic dignity of his sentiments. He contented himself with speaking to his judges as he used to do in common discourse, and with proposing questions to his accusers. Hence his defence was entirely the spontaneous effusions of his genius; simple and plain, yet nervous and dignified.
Several persons who assisted in the court upon this occasion, besides Plato, drew up the Apology of Socrates. Among the rest Xenophon compiled one from the relation of Hermogenes the son of Hipponicus, for he himself was not then at Athens. None of them are extant, however, but those of Plato and Xenophon. And of these, the first is in every respect worthy the greatest disciple of Socrates; but the other presents us with an imperfect copy, because composed by a disciple that was absent. This imperfect copy, however, sufficiently proves that the substance of this Apology is accurate, how much soever it may have been amended by passing through such a hand as that of Plato.

## Introduction to the Phædo

The following dialogue is no less remarkable for the masterly manner of its composition, than for the different effects which the perusal of it is related to have formerly produced. For the arguments which it contains for the immortality of the soul, are said to have incited Cleombrotus to suicide, and to have dissuaded Olympiodorus, an eminent Platonic philosopher, from its perpetration. Indeed, it is by no means wonderful that a person like Cleombrotus, ignorant (as his conduct evinces) that the death so much inculcated in this dialogue is a philosophic, and not a natural death, should be led to an action which is in most cases highly criminal. This ignorance however is not peculiar to Cleombrotus, since I am afraid there are scarcely any of the present day who know that it is one thing for the soul to be separated from the body, and another for the body to be separated from the soul, and that the former is by no means a necessary consequence of the latter.
This philosophic death, or separation of the soul from the body, which forms one of the most leading particulars of the dialogue, is no other than the exercise of the cathartic virtues, of which the reader will find a copious explanation in the following notes. That these virtues are not figments of the latter Platonists, as some ignorant verbalists have rashly asserted, is not only evident from the first part of this dialogue, but from the Golden Pythagorean verses, which are certainly of greater antiquity than even the writings of Plato: for the following is one of the precepts in these verses—
Αλλ’ ειργου βρωτων, ὧν ειπομεν, εν τε καθαρμοις,
Εν τε γυσει ψυχης κρινων·
i. e. “Abstain from the foods of which we have spoken in the PURIFICA-TIONS and SOLUTION of the soul.” And the employment of cathartic virtue entirely consists in purifying the soul and liberating it from all attachment to the body, as far as the condition of its union with it will permit.
Of the arguments adduced by Socrates in this dialogue, some, as will be shown in the notes, only demonstrate that the soul subsisted prior to, and will survive the dissolution of, the body, but do not prove that it has a per- petual existence; but others demonstrate, and with an invincible force, that the soul is truly immortal. Should it seem strange, and to those who are not deeply skilled in the philosophy of Plato it doubtless will, that Socrates in no part of this dialogue introduces that argument for the immortality of the soul which he adopts in the Phædrus, an argument drawn from the rational soul being the origin of motion, and which may be said to possess adamantine strength,—it is necessary to observe, in answer to this doubt, that, in the Phædrus, Socrates demonstrates the immortality of every rational soul, viz. the human, dæmoniacal and divine; but in the Phædo he alone demonstrates the immortality of the human soul.
But though some of the arguments in this dialogue are perfectly demonstrative, yet certain modern writers, from not understanding, have not only attempted to invalidate them, but have been induced to imagine that Socrates himself, convinced of their insufficiency, insinuates in the course of the dialogue the necessity of a divine revelation in order to obtain a full conviction of this most important truth. As this is an opinion no less dangerous than erroneous, I shall present the reader with the passage that gave occasion to it, and then unfold to him from antient sources its genuine explanation.
About the middle of this dialogue, then, Simmias observes as follows:— “As to myself, Socrates, I am perhaps of the same opinion about these particulars as yourself; that to know them clearly in the present life is either impossible, or a thing very difficult to obtain. But not to argue about what has been said in every possible way, and to desist before, by an arduous investigation on all sides, weariness is produced, can only take place among indolent and effeminate men. For it is necessary in things of this kind either to learn or to discover the manner of their subsistence; or, if both these are impossible, then by receiving the best of human reasons, and that which is the most difficult of confutation, to venture upon this as on a raft, and sail in it through the ocean of life, unless some one should be able to be carried more safely and with less danger by means of a firmer vehicle, or a certain divine reason.” Here, in the first place, it must be observed, that it is Simmias who thus speaks, an imperfect disciple of his great master, as is evident from many parts of this dialogue, and not Socrates himself. And, in the next place, though it should be urged that Socrates himself is here said by Simmias to have admitted that “to know these particulars³⁴ clearly in the present life is either impossible or a thing very difficult to obtain,” it must be observed, that Socrates thus speaks from a deep conviction that this sublime truth, the immortality of the soul, could not be fully comprehended by his auditors, who were very far from being masters in philosophy, and that this must be the case with the multitude in general. Hence, he says, it is either impossible or very difficult to obtain this knowledge.—To the multitude it is impossible, and to the few very difficult, because it requires many preparatory disciplines, and a genius naturally adapted to sublime speculations.
In the third place, by a firmer vehicle, or a certain divine reason, Socrates does not allude to a divine tradition, since this affords no higher evidence than that of opinion. It is well observed, therefore, by Olympiodorus, in his MS. Scholia on this dialogue, that by this θειος λογος, or divine reason, we must understand self-beholding intellect, which, agreeably to Plato’s description of it in the Phædrus, associates with Deity itself. Τις ὁ ασφαλεστερος, και ακινδυνοτερος, και βεβαιοτερος, και θειος λογος; ου δηπου ὡς φασιν ὁ θεοθεν εκδοθεις, δοξαστικος γαρ ὁ γε τοιουτος· αλλ’ εστιν ὁ ειρημενος αυτοπτικος νους, ὁ θεῳ τῳ οντι συνων, ὡς εν Φαιδρῳ. In order however to understand what Olympiodorus means by self-beholding intellect, it is necessary to observe, that there are four modes of knowledge which we are able to acquire in the present life. The first of these results from opinion, by which we learn that a thing is, without knowing the why: and this constitutes that part of knowledge which was called by Aristotle and Plato παιδεια, or erudition; and which consists in moral instructions, for the purpose of purifying ourselves from immoderate passions. But the second is produced by the sciences; in which, from establishing certain principles as hypotheses, we educe necessary conclusions, and arrive at the knowledge of the why (as in the mathematical sciences); but at the same time we are ignorant with respect to the principles of these conclusions, because they are merely hypothetical. The third species of knowledge is that which results from Plato’s dialectic; in which, by a progression through all ideas, we arrive at the first principle of things, and at that which is no longer hypothetical; and this by dividing some things and analysing others, by producing many things from one thing, and one thing from many. But the fourth species is still more simple than this; because it no longer uses analysations or compositions, definitions or demonstrations, but by a simple and self-visive energy of intellect speculates things themselves, and by intuition and contact becomes one with the object of its perception; and this energy is the divine reason which Plato speaks of in the present passage, and which far transcends the evidence of the most divine revelation; since this last is at best but founded in opinion, while the former surpasses even the indubitable certainty of science.
In short, that Socrates, and consequently Plato, firmly believed in this most important truth, is evident from the Phædrus and the tenth book of the Republic; and in the seventh Epistle of Plato there is the following remarkable passage:—πειθεσθαι δε οὑτως αει χρη τοις παλαιοις τε και ἱεροις λογοις ἤ δη μηνυουσιν ἡμιν αθανατον ψυχην ειναι, δικαστας τε ισχειν, και τινειν τας μεγιστας τιμωριας, ὁταν τις απαλλαχθη του σωματος: i. e. “It is proper indeed always to believe in antient and sacred discourses, which announce to us that the soul is immortal, and that it has judges of its conduct, and suffers the greatest punishments when it is liberated from the body.” From which passage we also learn, that the immortality of the soul is a doctrine of the highest antiquity, and that it was delivered in the sacred writings of the heathens.
I shall only observe further, that the character of Socrates, as exhibited in this dialogue, in the Crito, and in the Apology, is so transcendently great, and displays such a perfection of justice, fortitude and piety, that it may be considered as a most splendid instance of the moral and intellectual excellence which human nature is capable of attaining, and an example of consummate wisdom and virtue, which will be imitated by the few in all future ages.

## Introduction to the Gorgias

It is necessary in the first place, says Olympiodorus³⁵, to investigate the dramatic apparatus of the dialogue; in the second place, its scope; in the third place, the division of it; in the fourth place, the persons in it, and the analogy of the persons; and in the fifth place, (that which is investigated by many, though it does not deserve to be discussed, and was not doubted by men of greater antiquity,) on what account Plato introduces Gorgias here, who was very far from being contemporary with Socrates.
The dramatic apparatus then is as follows: Gorgias, the Leontine, came from the Leontines in Sicily, as an ambassador to the Athenians, respecting a confederation, and the war against the Syracusians. He had also with him Polus, who delighted in rhetoric; and he dwelt in the house of Callicles, the public orator of the Athenians. This Callicles, too, was delighted with skilful rhetoricians, but made pleasure the end of life, and deceived the Athenians, always addressing them in the language of Demosthenes, “What do you wish? What shall I write? In what can I gratify you?” Gorgias, therefore, displayed his art, and so captivated the Athenian people, that they called the days in which he exhibited festivals, and his periods lamps. Whence Socrates, perceiving the people thus deceived, and being able to extend good to all the youth, formed the design of saving the souls both of the Athenians and of Gorgias himself. Taking, therefore, with him Chærepho the philosopher, who is mentioned by Aristophanes, they went to the house of Callicles, and there their conferences and investigations of theorems took place. But he went with Chærepho, and did not go alone, that he might show how scientific men conducted themselves and discoursed. And thus much for the apparatus of the dialogue.
With respect to its scope, it has appeared to be different to different persons. For some say that the design of Plato was to discourse concerning rhetoric; and they inscribe it “Gorgias, or concerning Rhetoric;” but improperly: for they characterize the whole from a part. Others again say, that the dialogue is concerning justice and injustice; showing that the just are happy, and the unjust unfortunate and miserable. Likewise, that by how much the more unjust a man is, by so much the more is he miserable; that in proportion as his injustice is extended by time, in such proportion is he more miserable; and that if it were immortal, he would be most miserable. These too receive the scope of the dialogue from a part, viz. from the arguments against Polus. Others say that its scope is to speak concerning the demiurgus. But these also collect the scope from a part; because in the fable in the latter part of this dialogue the demiurgus is mentioned. These, however, speak absurdly, and foreign from the purpose. We say, therefore, that its scope is to discourse concerning the principles which conduct us to po- litical felicity.
Since, then, we have mentioned principles and a polity, let us speak concerning principles universally, and concerning political felicity, and also what the principles are of the political science. The principles, therefore, of every thing are six. Matter, as with a carpenter wood. Form, the writing table, or something of this kind. That which makes, as the carpenter himself. The paradigm, that to which directing his phantasy, he made the table. The instrument, the saw perhaps, or the axe. And the end, that on account of which it was made. The multitude, therefore, and rhetoricians, not looking to truth, say that the matter of the political science is the body which is preserved; the form, luxury; the producing cause, rhetoric; the paradigm, a tyranny; the instrument, persuasion; and the end, pleasure. And such are their assertions. We however say that the matter is soul, and this not the rational, but that which consists of three³⁶ parts: for it imitates a polity. And as in cities there are governors, soldiers, and mercenaries; so, in us, reason is analogous to the governor; anger to the soldier, subsisting as a medium, and being obedient to reason, but commanding and ranking the mercenaries, that is desire. The matter, therefore, is the soul considered as divided into three parts. For the political character wishes to be angry and to desire, with respect to such things as are proper, and when it is proper. Just as the lowest string of a musical instrument accords with the highest, and emits the same sound with it, though more acute. For thus desire is conjoined with reason. But the form is justice and temperance. The producing cause is a philosophic life. But the paradigm is the world. For the political philosopher arranges all things in imitation of the universe, which is replete with excellent order. For this universe is order (κοσμος) according to Plato, and not disorder (ακοσμια). Manners and discipline are the instrument. And the end is good. It must, however, be observed, that good is twofold, one of which pertains to us in the present life, but the other we possess hereafter³⁷. Political good, therefore, belongs to us in the present, but theoretic good will be our portion in another life. To Gorgias, therefore, the discourse is about the producing cause; to Polus, about the formal; and to Callicles, about the final. Nor is it wonderful if all appear to be in all. For in the producing cause the rest are found, and in the others all: for there is a certain communion among them, and they pervade through each other. But they derive their order from that which abounds.
Hence, therefore, the division of the dialogue becomes apparent. For it is divided into three parts: into the discourse with Gorgias; into that with Polus; and into that with Callicles. It is necessary also to observe, that justice and temperance are peculiarly said to be the form of the political science. For it is necessary to know that all the virtues contribute to political felicity, but especially these two. Hence Plato always makes mention of these, as being neglected by men. For they wish to know the other two, though not perfectly, yet fictitiously, and under a false appellation. Hence they say, Such a one is a prudent man; he knows how to enrich himself. And in a similar manner with respect to fortitude; but they neglect the other two. There is, however, occasion for these, since they proceed through all the parts of the soul. For as he who in the city performs his proper work, and gives to every man that which is his due, is said to be just; in like manner justice rules in the soul, when reason, anger, and desire, respectively perform the office accommodated to each. If this be the case, temperance then subsists in the soul, when each part does not desire that which is foreign to its nature.
In the next place, it is worth while to inquire into the number and analogy of the persons. Five persons, therefore, are introduced, viz. Socrates, Chærepho, Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles. Of these, Socrates is analogous to that which is intellectual and scientific; Chærepho to right opinion; Gorgias to distorted opinion; for he was not entirely vanquished by injustice, but was dubious whether he should be persuaded or not. But Polus is analogous to injustice, and to one who is alone ambitious; and Callicles is analogous to a swinish nature, and which is a lover of pleasure. Some, however, doubt on what account the orators are three, but the philosophers two; and why the number of the orators is indivisible³⁸, but that of the philosophers divisible. We say, however, that this is not true. For Socrates imitates the monad³⁹ looking to the one. And divinity (or the one) is simple, produced from nothing. Hence the hymn to him says, “From whom all things emerge into light; but thy subsistence alone is not on account of any thing⁴⁰.” Chærepho also imitates the monad, but that which is material and inseparable from matter; but Socrates the separate monad. And as subordinate do not proceed to better, or better to subordinate natures, without a medium, on this account Chærepho has a middle order; and consequently it is incumbent on him to transmit that which the extremes possess.
It now remains to inquire how Plato makes mention of Gorgias. I say, therefore, in the first place, that there is nothing absurd in a writer recording unknown men, and introducing them as discoursing with each other. And, in the second place, we say that Socrates and Gorgias were contemporaries. For Socrates lived in the third year of the 77th Olympiad: and Empedocles the Pythagorean, the preceptor of Gorgias, associated with him. To which we may add, that Gorgias wrote a treatise concerning Nature, not inelegant, in the 84th Olympiad; so that this was twenty-eight or a few more years before Socrates. Besides, Plato, in the Theætetus, says that Socrates, when a very young man, met with Parmenides, when he was very much advanced in years, and found him to be a most profound man. But Parmenides was the preceptor of Empedocles, who was the preceptor of Gorgias. And Gorgias was very old: for, according to history, he died in the one-hundred-and-ninth year of his age. So that these two lived about the same time.
I shall only observe, in addition to what Olympiodorus has said, that Plato does not condemn all orators, but those only who study to persuade their hearers to embrace whatever they please, whether it be good or bad, false or true; such as were Lysias the Theban, Tisias, and Gorgias. But, in the Phædrus, he prefers Pericles and Isocrates to all the other orators, because they combined eloquence with philosophy. He also adds, that a legitimate orator ought to understand the reasons of things, the laws of manners, the powers of words, and the different dispositions of men; that he should know how to compose words adapted, as much as possible, to the genius of his hearers; and that he should not be so anxious that what he says may be pleasing to men, as that it may be acceptable to Divinity.

## Introduction to the Philebus

The design of this dialogue is to discover what is the chief good of man; and in order to effect this in the most perfect manner, it is divided into twelve parts. In the first part, therefore, Plato proposes the subject of discussion, viz. what the good of man is, and whether wisdom or pleasure is more conducive to the attainment of this good. In the second part, he explains the condition of a voluptuous life, and also of a life according to wisdom, that it may be seen which of the two most contributes to felicity, and also whether some third state of life will appear, which is better than either of these; and that, if this should be the case, it may be seen whether pleasure or wisdom is more allied to the perfection of this life. In the third part, he shows how this discussion should be conducted, and that division and definition should precede demonstration. In the fourth, he describes the conditions of the good, and shows that neither wisdom nor pleasure is the chief good of man. In the fifth part, he investigates the genus of pleasure, and also of wisdom, and unfolds those two great genera of things bound and the infinite, principles the next in dignity to the ineffable cause of all; from which two he exhibits that which is mixt, and presages the cause of the mixture. In the sixth part, because through those genera certain sparks of knowledge are enkindled, he enters on the comparison between pleasure and wisdom. In the seventh, he more largely explains the cause of the mixture, and continues the comparison more clearly. In the eighth part, the principles and genera being now unfolded, he investigates the differences; inquires, in what pleasure and pain consist, which among these are properly produced from passion, and how many parts they contain. In the ninth part, he investigates, in what science properly consists, and, having divided it, shows that a certain third life presides over wisdom, and wisdom over pleasure. In the tenth part, it appears how pleasure and wisdom are mingled together, and that our good consists in a composition of this kind. In the eleventh part, he inquires what it is in that composition from the dominion of which felicity is produced; in which part both our good and good itself become conspicuous. And, in the twelfth and last part, all the kinds of good which are pursuable as ends are enumerated in order, according to the relative value of each of them to man.
“The subject of this dialogue,” says Mr. Sydenham, “is introduced by stating the different opinions of Socrates and Philebus concerning the nature of that good wherein the happiness of man is to be found; opinions which, it seems, they had just before severally avowed. Philebus, a man strongly prepossessed with the doctrine of Aristippus, had asserted that this good was pleasure, meaning pleasurable sensation, or pleasure felt through the outward senses. On the other hand Socrates had supposed the sovereign good of man to be placed in mind, and in the energies of mind on mental subjects. Philebus, in support of his own assertion, had been haranguing for a long time together, after the manner of the sophists, until he found his spirits and imagination, or perhaps his stock of plausible arguments, quite exhausted. He had, therefore, desired his friend Protarchus, a young gentleman who appears to have been a follower of Gorgias, to take up the controversy, and carry it on in his stead and behalf. Protarchus had consented, and had engaged himself so to do. Immediately on this engagement, at this very point of time the present dialogue commences: accordingly it is carried on chiefly between Socrates and Protarchus. But as Philebus is the principal person whose opinion combats against that of Socrates, and as no higher character is given to Protarchus than that of accessary, or second to Philebus, in this argumentative combat, the dialogue now before us, very properly and consistently with the rule which Plato seems to have laid down to himself in naming his dialogues, has the name given to it of Philebus.”
This admirable dialogue is replete with some of the most important dogmas of the Platonic theology, as will appear from our notes upon it; and by those who are capable of knowing wholes from parts it may be collected from what is here said, that intellect has not the same order with the first cause of all. For, if our intellect is the image of the first intellect, and the good of the whole of our life is not to be defined according to this alone, it necessarily follows that the cause of good is established above intellectual perfection. The good, therefore, or the ineffable principle of things, has a super-intellectual subsistence, agreeably to what is asserted in the Sixth Book of the Republic.
I shall only add, as is well observed by Mr. Sydenham, that the apparent form of this dialogue is dramatic; the genius of it, didactic; and the reasoning, for the most part analytical.

## Introduction to the Second Alcibiades

The Second Alcibiades, which in the supposed time of it is subsequent to the first of the same name, is on a subject which ranks among the most important to a rational being; for with it is connected piety, which is the summit of virtue. Hence, as all nations in the infinity of time past have believed in the existence of certain divine powers superior to man, who beneficently provide for all inferior natures, and defend them from evil; so likewise they worshipped these powers by numerous religious rites, of which prayer formed no inconsiderable part. The exceptions, indeed, to this general belief of mankind are so few that they do not deserve to be noticed. For we may say, with the elegant Maximus Tyrius⁴¹, that, “if through the whole of time there have been two or three atheists, they were govelling and insensate men, whose eyes wandered, whose ears were deceived, whose souls were mutilated, a race irrational, barren, and useless, resembling a timid lion, an ox without horns, a bird without wings.” All others, as well those engaged in public affairs, as philosophers who explored the hidden causes of things, most constantly believed that there were Gods, viz. one first ineffable source of all things, and a multitude of divine powers proceeding from, and united with, him; and always endeavoured to render these divine natures propitious, by sacrifice and prayer. Hence, the Chaldæans among the Assyrians, the Brahmins among the Indians, the Druids among the Gauls, the Magi among the Persians, and the tribe of priests among the Egyptians, constantly applied themselves to the worship of Divinity, and venerated and adored the Gods by various sacred ceremonies, and ardent and assiduous prayers.
As the leading design, therefore, of the following dialogue is to show the great importance of prayer, I persuade myself, that I cannot do any thing more illustrative of this design, or more beneficial to the reader, than to present him with the divinely luminous conceptions of Porphyry, Jamblichus, Proclus, and Hierocles on prayer, together with what the pseudo Dionysius has stolen from the Platonic philosophers on this subject. As these observations never yet appeared in any modern language, and as they are not to be equalled in any other writer for their profundity and sublimity, I trust no apology will be requisite for their length. Previous to their insertion, therefore, I shall only give the following definition of prayer, viz. that it is a certain force supernally imparted to the soul, elevating and conjoining her to Divinity, and which always unites in a becoming manner secondary with primary natures.
Porphyry then observes⁴², that prayer especially pertains to worthy men, because it is a conjunction with a divine nature. But the similar loves to be united to the similar. And a worthy man is most similar to the Gods. Since those also that cultivate virtue are enclosed in body as in a prison, they ought to pray to the Gods that they may depart from hence. Besides, as we are like children torn from our parents, it is proper to pray that we may return to the Gods, as to our true parents: and because those that do not think it requisite to pray, and convert themselves to more excellent natures, are like those that are deprived of their fathers and mothers. To which we may add, that as we are a part of the universe, it is fit that we should be in want of it: for a conversion to the whole imparts safety to every thing. Whether, therefore, you possess virtue, it is proper that you should invoke that which causally comprehends⁴³ the whole of virtue. For that which is all-good will also be the cause to you of that good which it is proper for you to possess. Or whether you explore some corporeal good, there is a power in the world which connectedly contains every body. It is necessary, therefore, that the perfect should thence be derived to the parts of the universe. Thus far Porphyry, who was not without reason celebrated by posterior philosophers for his ιεροπρεπη νοηματα, or conceptions adapted to sacred concerns.
Let us now attend to Jamblichus⁴⁴, whom every genuine Platonist will acknowledge to have been justly surnamed the divine.
As prayers, through which sacred rites receive their perfect consummation and vigour, constitute a great part of sacrifice, and as they are of general utility to religion, and produce an indissoluble communion between the Divinities and their priests, it is necessary that we should mention a few things concerning their various species and wonderful effects. For prayer is of itself a thing worthy to be known, and gives greater perfection to the science concerning the Gods. I say, therefore, that the first species of prayer is collective, producing a contact with Divinity, and subsisting as the leader and light of knowledge. But the second is the bond of consent and commu- nion with the Gods, exciting them to a copious communication of their benefits prior to the energy of speech, and perfecting the whole of our operations previous to our intellectual conceptions. But the third and most perfect species of prayer is the seal of ineffable union with the Divinities, in whom it establishes all the power and authority of prayer: and thus causes the soul to repose in the Gods, as in a divine and never-failing port. But from these three terms, in which all the divine measures are contained, suppliant adoration not only conciliates to us the friendship of the Gods, but supernally extends to us three fruits, being, as it were, three Hesperian apples of gold⁴⁵. The first pertains to illumination; the second, to a com- munion of operation; but through the energy of the third we receive a per- fect plenitude of divine fire. And sometimes, indeed, supplication precedes; like a forerunner, preparing the way before the sacrifice appears. But sometimes it intercedes as a mediator: and sometimes accomplishes the end of sac- rificing. No operation, however, in sacred concerns can succeeed without the intervention of prayer. Lastly, the continual exercise of prayer nourishes the vigour of our intellect, and renders the receptacles of the soul far more capacious for the communications of the Gods. It likewise is the di- vine key which unfolds to men the penetralia of the Gods; accustoms us to the splendid rivers of supernal light; in a short time perfects our inmost recesses, and disposes them for the ineffable embrace and contact of the Gods; and does not desist till it raises us to the summit of all. It likewise gradually and silently draws upwards the manners of our soul, by divesting them of every thing foreign from a divine nature, and clothes us with the perfections of the Gods. Besides this, it produces an indissoluble communion and friendship with Divinity, nourishes a divine love, and enflames the divine part of the soul. Whatever is of an opposing and contrary nature in the soul it expiates and purifies; expels whatever is prone to generation, and retains any thing of the dregs of mortality in its ethereal and splendid spirit; perfects a good hope and faith concerning the reception of divine light; and in one word, renders those by whom it is employed the familiars and domestics of the Gods. If such, then, are the advantages of prayer, and such its connection with sacrifice, does it not appear from hence, that the end of sacrifice is a conjunction with the demiurgus of the world? And the benefit of prayer is of the same extent with the good which is conferred by the demiurgic causes on the race of mortals. Again, from hence the an- agogic, perfective, and replenishing power of prayer appears; likewise how it becomes efficacious and unific, and how it possesses a common bond imparted by the Gods. And in the third and last place, it may easily be conceived from hence how prayer and sacrifice mutually corroborate, and confer on each other a sacred and perfect power in divine concerns.
The following translation (from p. 64) of Proclus on the Timæus, containing the doctrine of Jamblichus on prayer, with the elucidations of Proclus, may be considered as an excellent commentary on the preceding observations.
All beings are the progeny of the Gods, by whom they are produced without a medium, and in whom they are firmly established. For the progression of things which perpetually subsist and cohere from permanent causes, is not alone perfected by a certain continuation, but immediately subsists from the Gods, from whence all things are generated, however distant they may be from the Divinities: and this is no less true, even though asserted of matter itself. For a divine nature is not absent from any thing, but is equally present to all things. Hence, though you consider the last of beings, in these also you will find Divinity: for the one is every where; and in consequence of its absolute dominion, every thing receives its nature and coherence from the Gods. But as all things proceed, so likewise they are not separated from the Gods, but radically abide in them, as the causes and sustainers of their existence: for where can they recede, since the Gods primarily comprehend all things in their embrace? For whatever is placed as separate from the Gods has not any kind of subsistence. But all beings are contained by the Gods, and reside in their natures after the manner of a circular comprehension. Hence, by a wonderful mode of subsistence, all things proceed, and yet are not, nor indeed can be, separated from the Gods; (for all generated natures, when torn from their parents, immediately recur to the wide-spreading immensity of non-being,) but they are after a manner established in the divine natures: and, in fine, they proceed in themselves, but abide in the Gods. But since in consequence of their progression it is requisite that they should be converted, and return, and imitate the egress and conversion of the Gods to their ineffable cause, that the natures, thus disposed, may again be contained by the Gods, and the first unities, according to a telesiurgic, or perfective triad, they receive from hence a certain secondary perfection, by which they may be able to convert themselves to the goodness of the Gods; that after they have rooted their principle in the Divinities, they may again, by conversion, abide in them, and form as it were a circle, which originates from, and terminates in, the Gods. All things, therefore, both abide in, and convert themselves to, the Gods; receiving this power from the Divinities, together with twofold symbols according to essence: the one, that they may abide there; but the other, that having proceeded, they may convert themselves: and this we may easily contemplate, not only in souls, but also in inanimate natures. For what else ingenerates in these a sympathy with other powers but the symbols which they are allotted by nature, some of which contract a familiarity with this and some with that series of Gods? For nature supernally depending from the Gods, and being distributed from their orders, impresses also in bodies the symbols of her familiarity with the Divinities. In some, indeed, inserting solar symbols, but in others lunar, and in others again the occult characters of some other God. And these, indeed, convert themselves to the Divinities: some as it were to the Gods simply, but others as to paticular Gods; nature thus perfecting her progeny according to different peculiarities of the Gods. The Demiurgus of the universe, therefore, by a much greater priority, impressed these symbols in souls, by which they might be able to abide in themselves, and again convert themselves to the sources of their being: through the symbol of unity, conferring on them stability; but through intellect affording them the power of conversion.
And to this conversion prayer is of the greatest utility: for it conciliates the beneficence of the Gods through those ineffable symbols which the father of the universe has disseminated in souls. It likewise unites those who pray with those to whom prayer is addressed; copulates the intellect of the Gods with the discourses of those who pray; excites the will of those who perfectly comprehend good, and produces in us a firm persuasion, that they will abundantly impart to us the beneficence which they contain: and lastly, it establishes in the Gods whatever we possess.
But to a perfect and true prayer there is required, first, a knowledge of all the divine orders to which he who prays approaches: for neither will any one accede in a proper manner, unless he intimately beholds their distinguishing properties: and hence it is that the Oracle⁴⁶ admonishes, “that a fiery intellection obtains the first order in sacred veneration.” But afterwards there is required a conformation of our life with that which is divine; and this accompanied with all purity, chastity, discipline, and order. For thus while we present ourselves to the Gods, they will be provoked to beneficence; and our souls will be subjected to theirs, and will participate the excellences of a divine nature. In the third place, a certain contact is necessary, from whence, with the more exalted part of the soul, we touch the divine essence, and verge to a union with its ineffable nature. But there is yet further required an accession and inhesion, (for thus the Oracle calls it, while it says, “the mortal adhering to fire will possess a divine light,”) from whence we receive a greater and more illustrious part of the light proceeding from the Gods. In the last place, a union succeeds with the unity of the Gods, restoring and establishing unity to the soul, and causing our energy to become one with divine energy: so that in this case, we are no longer ourselves, but are absorbed, as it were, in the nature of the Gods; and residing in divine light, are entirely surrounded with its splendour. And this is, indeed, the best end of prayer, the conjunction of the soul’s conversion with its permanency; establishing in unity whatever proceeds from the divine unities; and surrounding our light with the light of the Gods.
Prayer, therefore, is of no small assistance to our souls in ascending to their native region: nor is he who possesses virtue superior to the want of that good which proceeds from prayer, but the very contrary takes place; since prayer is not only the cause of our ascent and reversion, but with it is connected piety to the Gods, that is, the very summit of virtue. Nor, indeed, ought any other to pray than he who excels in goodness: (as the Athenian guest in Plato admonishes us,) for to such a one, while enjoying by the exercise of prayer familiarity with the Gods, an efficacious and easy way is prepared for the enjoyment of a blessed life. But the contrary succeeds to the vicious: since it is not lawful for purity to be touched by impurity. It is necessary, therefore, that he who generously enters on the exercise of prayer should render the Gods propitious to him; and should excite in himself divine conceptions, full of intellectual light: for the favour and benignity of more exalted beings is the most effectual incentive to their communication with our natures. And it is requisite, without intermission, to dwell in the veneration of Divinity: for, according to the poet, “the Gods are accustomed to be present with the mortal constantly employed in prayer.” It is likewise necessary to preserve a stable order of divine works, and to produce those virtues which purify the soul from the stains of generation, and elevate her to the regions of intellect, together with faith, truth, and love: to preserve this triad and hope of good, this immutable perception of divine light, and seggragation from every other pursuit; that thus solitary, and free from material concerns, we may become united with the solitary unities of the Gods: since he who attempts by multitude to unite himself with unity, acts preposterously, and dissociates himself from Divinity. For as it is not lawful for any one to conjoin himself by that which is not, with that which is; so neither is it possible with multitude to be conjoined with unity. Such, then, are the consequences primarily apparent in prayer, viz. that its essence is the cause of associating our souls with the Gods; and that on this account it unites and copulates all inferior with all superior beings. For, as the great Theodorus⁴⁷ says, all things pray, except the FIRST.
But the perfection of prayer, beginning from more common goods, ends in divine conjunction, and gradually accustoms the soul to divine light. And its efficacious and vigorous energy both replenishes us with good, and causes our concerns to be common with those of the Gods. We may also rationally suppose that the causes of prayer, so far as they are effec- tive, are the vigorous and efficacious powers of the Gods, converting and calling upwards the soul to the Gods themselves. But that, so far as they are perfective, they are the immaculate goods of the soul, from the reception of which, souls are established in the Gods. And again, that so far as they are paradigmatical, they are the primary fabricating causes of beings; proceeding from the good, and conjoined with it by an ineffable union. But that so far as they are formal, or possess the proportion of forms, they render souls similar to the Gods, and give perfection to the whole life of the soul. Lastly, so far as they are material, or retain the proportion of matter, they are the marks or symbols conferred by the Demiurgus on the essences of souls, that they may be wakened to a reminiscence of the Gods who produced both them and whatever else exists.
But we may also describe the modes of prayer, which are various, according to the genera and species of the Gods. For of prayers, some are fabricative; others of a purifying nature; and others, lastly, are vivific. I call those fabricative which are offered for the sake of showers and winds. For the fabricative Gods (δημιουργοι) are also the causes of these: on which account, it is customary with the Athenians to pray to such Divinities for the sake of obtaining winds procuring serenity of weather. But I call those prayers of a purifying nature, which are instituted for the purpose of averting diseases originating from pestilence, and other contagious distempers: such as are written in our temples. And lastly, those prayers are vivific with which we venerate the Gods who are the causes of vivification, on account of the origin and maturity of fruits. Hence it is that prayers are of a perfective nature, because they elevate us to these divine orders: and those who consider such prayers in a different manner, do not properly apprehend in what their nature and efficacy consist. But again, with respect to the things for which we pray, those which regard the safety of the soul obtain the first place; those which pertain to the proper disposition and strength of the body, the second; and those claim the last place which pertain to ex- ternal concerns. And lastly, with respect to the distribution of the times in which we offer up prayers, it is either according to the seasons of the year, or the centres of the solar revolution; or we establish multiform prayers according to other such-like conceptions.
With the above admirable passages the following extract from Jamblichus de Myst. sec. 1. cap. 12. may be very properly conjoined. Its design is to show, that the Gods are not agitated by passions, though they appear to be moved through the influence of prayer.
Prayers are not to be directed to the Gods, as if they were passive, and could be moved by supplications: for the divine irradiation which takes place through the exercise of prayer, operates spontaneously, and is far remote from all material attraction; since it becomes apparent through divine energy and perfection; and as much excels the voluntary motion of our nature, as the divine will of the good surpasses our election. Through this volition, the Gods, who are perfectly benevolent and merciful, pour their light without any parsimony on the supplicating priests, whose souls they call upwards to their own divine natures; impart to them a union with themselves, and accustom their souls, even while bound in body, to separate themselves from its dark embrace, and to be led back by an ineffable energy to their eternal and intelligible original. Indeed it is evident that the safety of the soul depends on such divine operations. For while the soul contemplates divine visions, it acquires another life, employs a different energy, and may be considered, with the greatest propriety, as no longer ranking in the order of man. For it often lays aside its own proper life, and changes it for the most blessed energy of the Gods. But if an ascent to the Gods, through the ministry of prayer, confers on the priests purity from passion, freedom from the bonds of generation, and a union with a divine principle, how can there be any thing passive in the efficacy of prayer? For invocation does not draw down the pure and impassive Gods to us who are passive and impure; but, on the contrary, renders us who are become through generation impure and passive, immutable and pure.
But neither do invocations conjoin, through passion, the priests with the Divinities, but afford an indissoluble communion of connection, through that friendship which binds all things in union and consent. Nor do invocations incline the intellect of the Gods towards men, as the term seems to imply; but,according to the decisions of truth, they render the will of men properly disposed to receive the participations of the Gods; leading it upwards, and connecting it with the Divinities by the sweetest and most alluring persuasion. And on this account the sacred names of the Gods, and other divine symbols, from their anagogic nature, are able to connect invocations with the Gods themselves.
And in chap. 15 of the same section, he again admirably discourses on the same subject as follows:
That which in our nature is divine, intellectual, and one, or (as you may be willing to call it) intelligible, is perfectly excited by prayer from its dormant state; and when excited, vehemently seeks that which is similar to itself, and becomes copulated to its own perfection. But if it should seem incredible that incorporeal natures can be capable of hearing sounds, and it is urged, that for this purpose the sense of hearing is requisite, that they may understand our supplications; such objectors are unacquainted with the excellency of primary causes, which consists in both knowing and comprehending in themselves at once the universality of things. The Gods, therefore, do not receive prayers in themselves through any corporeal powers or organs, but rather contain in themselves the effects of pious invocations; and especially of such as through sacred cultivation are consecrated and united to the Gods: for, in this case, a divine nature is evidently present with itself, and does not apprehend the conceptions of prayers as different from its own. Nor are supplications to be considered as foreign from the purity of intellect: but since the Gods excel us both in power, purity, and all other advantages, we shall act in the most opportune manner, by invoking them with the most vehement supplications. For a consciousness of our own nothingness, when we compare ourselves with the Gods, naturally leads us to the exercise of prayer. But through the benefits resulting from supplication we are in a short time brought back to the object of supplication; acquire its similitude from intimate converse; and gradually obtain divine perfection, instead of our own imbecility and imperfection.
Indeed he who considers, that sacred prayers are sent to men from the Gods themselves; that they are certain symbols of the divine natures; and that they are only known to the Gods, with whom in a certain respect they possess an equal power; I say, he who considers all this, cannot any longer believe that supplications are of a sensible nature, and that they are not very justly esteemed intellectual and divine: and must acknowledge it to be impossible that any passion should belong to things the purity of which the most worthy manners of men cannot easily equal.
Nor ought we to be disturbed by the objection which urges, that material things are frequently offered in supplications; and this as if the Gods possessed a sensitive and animal nature. For, indeed, if the offerings consisted solely of corporeal and composite powers, and such as are only accommodated to organical purposes, the objection would have some weight: but since they participate of incorporeal forms, certain proportions, and more simple measures; in this alone the correspondence and connection of offerings with the Gods ought to be regarded. For, whenever any affinity or similitude is present, whether greater or less, it is sufficient to the connection of which we are now discoursing: since there is nothing which approaches to a kindred alliance with the Gods, though in the smallest degree, to which the Gods are not immediately present and united. A connection, therefore, as much as is possible, subsists between prayers and the Gods: at the same time prayers do not regard the Divinities as if they were of a sensitive or animal nature; but they consider them as they are in reality, and according to the divine forms which their essences contain.
In the third place, let us attend to the admirable observations on prayer of Hierocles, who, though inferior in accuracy and sublimity of conception to Jamblichus and Proclus, yet, as Damascius well observes, (in his Life of Isidorus apud Phot.) he uncommonly excelled in his dianoëtic part, and in a venerable and magnificent fluency of diction. The following is a translation of his Comment on the Pythagoric verse:
——Αλλ’ ερχευ επ’ εργον
Θεοισιν επευξαμενος τελεσαι.
i. e. “Betake yourself to the work, having implored the Gods to bring it to perfection.”
The verse briefly describes all that contributes to the acquisition of good, viz. the self-moved nature of the soul, and the co-operation of Divinity. For, though the election of things beautiful⁴⁸ is in our power, yet, as we possess our freedom of the will from Divinity, we are perfectly indigent of his co-operating with and perfecting the things which we have chosen. For our endeavour appears to be similar to a hand extended to the reception of things beautiful; but that which is imparted by Divinity is the supplier and the fountain of the gift of good. And the former, indeed, is naturally adapted to discover things beautiful; but the latter to unfold them to him by whom they are rightly explored. But prayer is the medium between two boundaries, viz. between investigation by us, and that which is imparted by Divinity, properly adhering to the cause which leads us into existence, and perfects us in well-being. For how can any one receive well-being unless Divinity imparts it? And how can Divinity, who is naturally adapted to give, give to him who does not ask, though his impulses arise from the freedom of his will? That we may not, therefore, pray only in words, but may also corroborate this by deeds; and that we may not confide only in our own energy, but may also beseech Divinity to co-operate with our deeds, and may conjoin prayer to action, as form to matter; and, in short, that we may pray for what we do, and do that for which we pray, the verse conjoining these two, says, “Betake yourself to the work, having implored the Gods to bring it to perfection.” For neither is it proper alone to engage with alacrity in beautiful actions, as if it were in our power to perform them with rectitude, without the co-operation of Divinity; nor yet should we be satisfied with the words of mere prayer while we contribute nothing to the acquisition of the things which we request. For thus we shall either pursue atheistical virtue (if I may be allowed so to speak) or unenergetic prayer; of which the former, being deprived of Divinity, takes away the essence of virtue; and the latter, being sluggish, dissolves the efficacy of prayer. For how can any thing be beautiful which is not performed according to the divine rule? And how is it possible that what is done according to this should not entirely require the co-operation of Divinity to its subsistence? For virtue is the image of Divinity in the rational soul; but every image requires its paradigm, in order to its generation, nor is that which it possesses sufficient, unless it looks to that from the similitude to which it possesses the beautiful. It is proper, therefore, that those should pray who hasten to energetic virtue, and having prayed, that they should endeavour to possess it. It is likewise requisite that they should do this, looking to that which is divine and splendid, and should extend themselves to philosophy, adhering at the same time in a becoming manner to the first cause of good. For that tetractys⁴⁹, the fountain of perennial nature, is not only the eternal cause of being to all things, but likewise of well-being, expanding proper good through the whole world, like undecaying and intellectual light. But the soul, when she properly adheres to this light, and purifies herself like an eye to acutness of vision, by an attention to things beautiful, is excited to prayer; and again, from the plenitude of prayer she extends her endeavours, conjoining actions to words, and by divine conferences giving stability to worthy deeds. And discovering some things, and being illuminated in others, she endeavours to effect what she prays for, and prays for that which she endeavours to effect. And such indeed is the union of endeavour and prayer.
In the last place, the pseudo Dionysius has decorated his book On the Divine Names with the following admirable observations on prayer, stolen⁵⁰ from writers incomparably more sublime than any of the age in which he pretended to have lived.
Divinity is present to all things, but all things are not present to him; but when we invoke him with all-sacred prayers, an unclouded intellect, and an aptitude to divine union, then we also are present to him. For he is neither in place, that he may be absent from any thing, nor does he pass from one thing to another. But, indeed, to assert that he is in all things, falls far short of that infinity which is above, and which comprehends, all things. Let us therefore extend ourselves by prayer to the more sublime intuition of his divine and beneficent rays. Just as if a chain, consisting of numerous lamps, were suspended from the summit of heaven, and extended to the earth. For if we ascended this chain, by always alternately stretching forth our hands, we should appear indeed to ourselves to drawn down the chain, though we should not in reality, it being present upwards and downwards, but we should elevate ourselves to the more sublime splendours of the abundantly-luminous rays. Or, as if we ascended into a ship, and held by the ropes⁵¹ extended to us from a certain rock, and which were given to us for our assistance; we should not in this case draw the rock to us, but we in reality should move both ourselves and the ship to the rock. Just as, on the contrary, if any one standing in a ship pushes against a rock fixed in the sea, he indeed effects nothing in the firm and immovable rock, but causes himself to recede from it: and by how much the more he pushes against, by so much the more is he repelled from the rock. Hence, prior to every undertaking, and especially that which is theological, it is necessary to begin from prayer, not as if drawing down that power which is every where present, and is at the same time no where, but as committing and uniting ourselves to it by divine recollections and invocations.
I shall only add, that the antients appear very properly to have placed this dialogue in the class which they called maieutic: and, as Mr. Sydenham justly observes, “the outward form of it, from the beginning to the end, is dramatic; the catastrophe being a change of mind in Alcibiades, who resolves to follow the advice of Socrates, by forbearing to specify, in his addresses to Divinity, his wants and his wishes, till he shall have attained to a sense of his real indigence through the knowledge of his real good, the only right and proper object of prayer.”

## Introduction to the Euthyphro

The whole of the Euthyphro of Plato, says Ficinus, is employed in confutation; whence some Platonists have called this dialogue, as well as the Euthydemus and Greater Hippias, elenctic. However, as he justly observes, while Socrates confutes the false opinions which Euthyphro entertained of holiness, he presents certain vestiges of the truth to its investigators. We may collect therefore from this dialogue and the Gorgias that holiness according to Plato is that part of justice which attributes to Divinity that which is his own. But as man is a composite being, and the different parts of his composition were produced, according to the Platonic theology, from different divinities, perfect piety will consist in consecrating to each deity that part of us which he immediately gave. This definition being premised, what Plato says here and elsewhere respecting holiness will be apparent. Hence, when it is said that holiness is that which is beloved by Divinity it is true; but it is beloved by Divinity because it is holiness, and is not holiness because it is beloved by him, Likewise because it is beloved by him it may be beloved, but is not beloved because it may be beloved: for the holy is not in every respect the same with that which may be beloved; since neither does the essence of holiness consist in being the object of love, but rather in retribution and devotion.
Again, when it is said that holiness is that which is ministrant to the operations of Divinity, this also is truly said: for it is ministrant to the conversion to Divinity of that which we receive from him. And the work of Divinity is to produce, convert, purify, illuminate, and perfect. Hence it is beautifully observed by Porphyry, “that being conjoined and assimilated to the highest God, we should offer the elevation of ourselves to him as a sacred sacrifice; for thus we shall celebrate him and procure our own salvation.” He adds, “In the soul’s contemplation therefore of this Divinity, unattended by the passions, the sacrifice to him receives its completion; but his progeny, the intelligible gods, are to be celebrated vocally by hymns⁵².” Lastly, when it is said that holiness is the science of requesting and giving to the gods, this likewise is true, though it is not a perfect definition of sanctity. For he who properly prays to Divinity, will request him to impart that by which he may be enabled to offer himself to him in the most acceptable manner.

## Introduction to the Meno

This Dialogue has been always justly entitled “Concerning Virtue.” For the true subject of it is the nature and origin of virtue. The question, indeed, proposed to Socrates by Meno in the very outset of the Dialogue, is this other, “How virtue is acquired.” But Socrates immediately waves the question, and draws the conversation to an inquiry “what virtue is,” as of necessity previous to the inquiry, “whence it comes.” However, from the result of the reasoning, we shall perceive both these questions answerable together: we shall be convinced, that none can know the nature and essence of virtue, without knowing the fountain whence it is derived; and that whoever knows what this is, cannot fail of knowing at the same time what that is in which virtue consists. For, if we attend closely to the steps or gradual advances made in these inquiries, through the course of this Dialogue, we shall discover that virtue consists in that kind of knowledge and that kind of power, taken together, the capacity of both which is in the human, as she partakes of a divine intellect, whose essence is its own object, and whose energy is the contemplation of itself, and the government of the universe. That kind of knowledge, therefore, which belongs to virtue is the knowledge of true good; and that kind of power in the soul, through which, joined to that knowledge, a man is virtuous, is the power of the intellect over the inferior part of the soul, the imagination and the passions. The gradual advances made toward this discovery form the conduct of this divine Dialogue. And the first step is to show, that virtue, though it seems to be a very complex idea, and made up of many virtues, different in their natures, and respectively belonging to different persons, is but one simple idea, though called by different names, as the particular subjects on which it operates, or the particular objects which it has in view, differ one from another. In the next step, we find that this idea includes power and government, to which account immediately are subjoined, by way of explanation, these restrictions, power well and wisely exercised, and government well and justly administered. Here then we discover that the Well, the Wisely, and the Justly, are essential to the idea of virtue. Next, we march in some obscurity: for here we see only by help of a metaphor, seemingly introduced, but in the way of a similitude, to illustrate a point sufficiently made clear already, that is, the wholeness or rather oneness of the idea of virtue. The metaphor is taken from outward figure, the definition of which being given, that it is bound, the bound of solid bodies, suggests to every disciple or studious reader of Plato, that virtue itself is bound, that virtue intellectual is the bound of things within the mind, and that virtue practical is the bound of human actions and human manners⁵⁴. We then move a step further, in the same manner, by the light only of metaphor. The metaphor here is taken from the corpuscular philosophy, then newly brought into vogue by Protagoras, who had learnt it from Democritus, and by Gorgias, who who had learnt it from Empedocles. And Socrates here prosecutes the subject of inquiry in this dialogue, under a pretence of giving a definition of colour, according to the doctrine of this philosophy which Meno had imbibed. Colour, he says, is owing to effluvia from the surfaces of bodies entering the pores of the organs of sight; these being exactly fitted for the reception of such effluvia: by which means those effluvia, being commensurate with these pores, become the objects of sight. Thus the philosopher plays with the prejudices of Meno, a disciple of the sophists, and therefore not a proper subject for his instruction; and introduces, with a professed view of only gratifying him, a point which seems very foreign to the subject, and not at all necessary to illustrate his meaning. But to his own friends and followers, who were acquainted with his doctrine, and were then near him, he thus ænigmatically insinuates that virtue and vice are as it were the colours of human actions; that by the light of mind we are able to distinguish them; that the science of virtue is as natural to the human understanding, as the perception of outward objects is to the eye of sense; that the mental eye is exactly adequate to its objects; and that all truth in general, and moral truth in particular, the present subject, is commensurate with the mind. The next advance we make discovers to us that virtue consists in a love and desire of true good, and true beauty, necessarily consequent to the knowledge of what is truly good and truly beautiful: it being impossible to forbear loving what appears beautiful, or desiring what appears good. And having already found that the idea of virtue includes power and government, we find that the whole idea of virtue is the power of preserving or of recovering true good and beauty, known to be such, and loved and desired because known. The next step brings us to the end of our journey in this inquiry concerning virtue; by showing us that the knowledge of all truth, and consequently of true good and beauty, is connatural to the soul of man: and is so, because her origin is divine, and her essence immortal. Now, the demiurgic intellect, the source of her being, is immortal and divine, and truth eternally there resides, the stable and invariable object of intellect. Plato, therefore, in proving to us, as he does in this part of the Dialogue by an incontestable instance, that the soul of man naturally assents to and embraces truth, when fairly presented to her, and exhibited in a clear light, proves to us at the same time, that she participates of this eternal intellect and truth.
Thus much concerning the first part, about one-half the Dialogue. In the latter half the inquiry into the nature of virtue is resumed, but in a different way. For Meno, having here urged the consideration of his first question, “how virtue is acquired,” Socrates, in pretending to yield at length to this inquiry, brings us round by another road to the end, which he himself had all along in view, the teaching “what virtue is.” And here it is suggested, through a geometrical enigma, in the first place, that not every soul is capable of virtue; that a certain predisposition is requisite; that the parts of the soul must be well proportioned to each other, in their natural frame, in order that the whole man may, through virtue, be made totus teres atque rotundus. In the next place, we find, that virtue consists not in any particular virtuous habit or habits of the soul, whether intellectual or moral, but in the prudential use and exercise of them; whence it follows, that virtue is not acquired by mere practice or habit. Thirdly, we find that virtue consists not merely in a good disposition, without being well cultivated, and consequently comes not by nature. Fourthly, that it consists not in any particular science or sciences, and therefore is not acquired by learning, and is not to be taught in the ordinary method of instruction or discipline. Preparatory to this part of the inquiry, a new character is introduced into the Dialogue, Anytus, (a great enemy to the sophists, and desirous of being thought a politician,) as a necessary person to show, that neither the professed men of wisdom, the sophists, nor the allowed men of virtue, the preservers of the Athenian state through their good government, were fit masters or teachers in the science of virtue. At length, by the help of all these negatives, we find in what it positively doth consist, that is, in true wisdom, not only derived originally from the divine mind by participation, but also inspired immediately by it through continual communication; presupposing, however, as a necessary foundation, or fit subject for the reception of this wisdom, a soul well disposed by nature, cultivated by right discipline, and strengthened by constant care and attention. But as the two first requisites, a good natural disposition, and right institution, depend on the divine Providence; and as the last, the constant practice of virtue, depends on the divine assistance; all these co-operating causes of virtue are, in the conclusion of this Dialogue, summed up by Plato in one word, θεια μοιρα, the divine portion or allotment to men justly styled divine. Thus much may suffice at present for unfolding the subject, and delineating the parts of this Dialogue. What is here wanting in clearness, or in fulness, we shall endeavour in the notes to illustrate and to amplify. The end and design of the Dialogue is to excite men, well-disposed by nature, and prepared by the rudiments of good education, to the assiduous culture and improvement of their minds by thinking and reasoning. This design appears, first, from the uncommon warmth and zeal with which Socrates is represented in the latter half of the Dialogue, pressing an inquiry after lost knowledge, and an endeavour to discover latent truths. The same design appears further from the long time taken up in recounting many sad instances of a neglect of virtuous studies in the youths of highest rank in Athens; the enumeration of which, being so prolix, can have no other view than to deter us from the same neglect. But the tendency of the Dialogue best appears from that effect, which the grand doctrine of it, as before explained, naturally must have on every docile and candid mind. For, if the human partakes of a divine intellect, and of all therefore which is of its essence; if truth has thus descended from Heaven into the souls of men, and Divinity himself be there, ready to communicate more and more the heart-felt knowledge of things divine and eternal to every soul which retires within itself; who would not wish thither to retire, and there, in that sacred silence, the silence of the passions, in that sacred solitude, the absence of all the objects of imagination, that flight of the alone to the alone, φυγη μονου προς μονον⁵⁵, to enjoy the presence and converse of the divinely solitary principle of things? Agreeably to this design of Plato, and also on account of the audience, which was composed partly of strangers, and partly of the friends and followers of Socrates, (as usual in that place where the conversation was held,) the inquisitive turn is given to this Dialogue, partly exciting and partly assisting, by means of leading questions, every where proposed by Socrates, and of hints thrown in here and there of his profound meaning. Meno is represented but as an humble disciple of the sophists, and presumes not to dispute or to argue like his masters. And Anytus appears as an enemy to all philosophical disputation. There is not so much as the shadow of a skirmish throughout the Dialogue. Yet the division of Plato’s Dialogues, made by Thrasyllus, and followed by Albinus, led them to number it amongst those of the Peirastic kind, as not knowing where else to place it with less impropriety. The outward form of it is purely dramatic; and the character of Anytus, as here exhibited, affords a just specimen of the part he soon afterwards acted in the accusation of Socrates, and the bringing him to a public trial as a malefactor.

## Introduction to the Theages

In order to understand the design of this Dialogue, it is necessary to observe that wisdom is two-fold, the one absolute, the other conditional. The absolute is that which is denominated wisdom simply, and without any addition; but the conditional is that which is not simply called wisdom, but a certain wisdom. The former of these is defined to be the knowledge of those things which are the objects of science, and the objects of science are things which possess a necessary eternal and invariable subsistence, such as are those luminous causes and principles of things resident in a divine intellect, which Plato denominates ideas, and Aristotle⁵⁶ things most honourable by nature. But conditional wisdom is common to all arts: for the summit or perfection of every art is called a certain wisdom. Of all those arts however, which possess conditional wisdom, the principal is political wisdom, to which the rest are ministrant. This is called as well the political as the royal discipline; of which the subject is a city, the end the common good, and its servants all the arts.
As this political wisdom, the subject of this Dialogue, forms an important part of virtue considered as a whole, Socrates, conformably to what he had delivered in the Meno, indicates that it can only be obtained by a divine destiny (θειᾳ μοιρᾳ), without which all the endeavours of the most consummate masters are useless; and this he confirms by various examples.
This conversation, according to Dacier, passed that year in which the Athenians were vanquished at Ephesus by Tisaphernus; which was the 4th year of the 92d Olympiad, and 470 years before the birth of Christ. Plato being twenty years of age, was then the disciple of Socrates.

## Introduction to the Lysis

When Socrates, says Ficinus, disputes with the sophists and their followers, he confutes false opinions, and signifies, rather than teaches, such as are true. This is evident from the Euthydemus, Protagoras, Meno, Hippias, Euthyphro, and Lysis. But where he discourses with his disciples, and those who were anxious to be instructed, he unfolds and teaches, as is evident from many of the preceding dialogues. In this Dialogue, therefore, in which he disputes concerning friendship among the disciples of the sophists, he is rather studious of confuting false opinions than of demonstrating such as are true.
But, that we may take a cursory view of the contents of the Lysis, in the first place, Socrates reproves those who pervert the power of love, and, under the pretext of friendship, are subservient to base lust. In the second place, he admonishes those who, looking no higher than corporeal beauty, think themselves worthy to be beloved for this alone. And, in the last place, he indicates to the sagacious a certain path by which friendship may be investigated and discovered. Again, while Socrates ironically derides Hippothales and Ctesippus, he signifies that they were captivated by base love. And, while in their presence he prepares youth for moral discipline, he admonishes lovers how they should live together, and what kind of attachment they should entertain for each other. Having instructed lovers in the second part of the Dialogue, he instructs those that are the objects of love; and, by a long series of induction, teaches that wisdom and prudence ought to be explored by friends, which compose the true beauty of the soul, and not the shadowy form of this fleeting body. In the third place, he confutes, and first the opinion of Solon, who said that those who are beloved are friends; for these often hate their lovers. He adds, that neither are lovers only friends, because these are frequently the objects of hatred. And here he concludes that reciprocal benevolence should be called friendship. In the next place, he reproves Empedocles, who was of opinion that any kind of similitude is sufficient to produce friendship. This, however, the similitude of many arts shows to be false, which more frequently generates envy and hatred than friendship. In the last place, the assertion of Hesiod and Heraclitus is adduced, that dissimilars are friendly to each other.—That they are not, however, appears from this, that hatred and love, since they are dissimilars, will not be friendly, nor will a just and an unjust man; and of others in a similar manner. And, if it should be said that sometimes a thing desires that which is dissimilar to itself, as that which is dry, moisture, or that which is hot, the cold, the answer is, that it does not in this case love its contrary, but seeks after a restitution of itself from a contrary. For that which is preternaturally hot is reduced through cold to its proper temperament; so that it does not love cold, but through it desires a temperament accommodated to its nature.
Having confuted these assertions, Socrates, as if prophesying, introduces a certain opinion as his own, and says that there appear to him to be three genera of things, the good, the evil, and that which is neither good nor evil. But the evil, on account of diversity, cannot be a friend to the good, and the evil, through injustice, are injured by the evil. These, therefore, cannot be mutually friends. It is likewise impossible for him who is neither good nor evil to love the evil; for evil, since it is noxious, is always attended with hatred. It remains, therefore, that friendship must subsist between the good and the good, and between that which is neither, and the good. But here certain objections arise which Socrates openly introduces, but the solutions of which he occultly indicates. In the first place, the good is similar to the good; but it was said, in opposition to the opinion of Empedocles, that similars are not friendly to each other. It must, however, be observed, that it was not asserted that similars are by no means friendly; but it was denied that every kind of similitude is sufficient to the production of friendship. Again, when, in the second place, it is objected that the good man is sufficient to himself, that on this account he does not desire another, is without love, and therefore is not the friend of the good;—it must be observed that this absurdity does not follow from the doctrine of Plato, but from the assertions of Empedocles and Heraclitus superficially considered, in which the desire of love is not apparently distinguished from friendship. And as desire is a want, for it always tends to something unpossessed, it follows, from this doctrine, that friendship is always attended with desire. To admit this, however, would be to confound friendship with love. But, according to Plato, they are different, because they are directed to different ends: for friendship tends to the good, and love to the beautiful.
In short, friendship, considered with relation to man, is a union among worthy characters, arising from a similitude of disposition and pursuits. Love also is a union between the lover and the beloved; but it differs from the union of friendship in this, that the former is inseparable from indigence, from which likewise it originates; while, on the other hand, the latter arises from plenitude, with which it is constantly attended in proportion to the perfection which it possesses. In the friendships, indeed, of the most worthy men, this union is not without desire, and is consequently accompanied with want; but this is because the object of friendship is not in this case the highest good. Hence friendship with divinity is the only union in which a perfect plenitude is produced, desire dies, and indigence is unknown.
The character of this Dialogue, like that of the Theætetus, is maieutic, and the conceptions here, of which Socrates is the midwife, as well as there, are abortive.

## Introduction to the Charmides

Two things are to be noted in the exordium of this Dialogue, which transfer love from corporeal to incorporeal form. First, the assertion of Socrates, that nearly all young men appear to him to be beautiful; which is as if he had said that he did not stop at the form of one body, but ascended to the common beauty of the whole species. As therefore we ascend from the beauty of an individual, to that which is common to the species, and from this to that beauty which is uncoordinated with the many, and is an incorporeal form subsisting by itself; so by what is here said we are admonished to pass from the love of an individual form, to the love of that which is common, and from this to the love of ideal form, subsisting in intellect as its native seat. The second thing which deserves to be noted is, that Socrates orders the soul of Charmides to be exposed naked to the view, and that neglecting the form of the body we should behold the natural beauty of the soul, and diligently endeavour to obtain it when it is found to be wanting. Nor is it without reason that the exhortation to temperance begins from the beauty of body: for this is nothing more than a symphony and consent of the organical parts, which corresponds to temperance in the soul.
Plato in the Cratylus explains the name of temperance, as signifying a certain safety and preservation of prudence. For he considered all truth as naturally inherent in the soul; and that, in consequence of this, the soul by profoundly looking into herself will discover every truth. She is however impeded from this conversion to herself, by an immoderate love of body and corporeal natures. Hence temperance is in the first place necessary, by which the darkness of perturbations being expelled, the intellect becomes more serene, and is abundantly irradiated with the splendors of divinity. But as Socrates intends to discourse about temperance, he admonishes Charmides to look into himself. For a conversion of the soul into herself is the business of this virtue. And it is said in the Timæus that all our affairs become prosperous, from the soul being in harmony with herself, and in concord with respect to the body. The Pythagoreans also assert, that if the soul prudently governs not only her own motions, but those of the body, length of life will be the portion of the latter, and perpetual health of both. To this Socrates adds, as still more wonderful, that the Magi promise by their verses immortality to bodies: and we learn from Plato, in the first Alcibiades, that the magic of Zoroaster was nothing else than the worship of divinity. Socrates however observes, that the soul and body are not only preserved from death by magical verses, but likewise by philosophic reasonings and temperance. Again, as that discourse, which is calculated to persuade its auditors to temperance, requires power imparted by divinity, and reasonings produced by philosophy, Plato calls such a discourse a magical incantation.
In the next place, Socrates often inquires what temperance is, which, neither Charmides nor Critias accurately defines. For the one adduces, that which is not properly temperance, but its attendant, and the other, that which rather belongs to prudence. Hence the latter defines temperance to be a certain science, which both knows itself and all other sciences, but is ignorant of the things themselves which are the objects of science. This however is false, because the truth of science consists in a certain congruity and contact of that, which knows with that which is known. Besides, science cannot be perfectly known, unless it is perceived what science is, and this cannot be obtained without a knowledge of its object. But as Critias brings the discourse on temperance to prudence, Socrates asserts that prudence, or the science of good and evil, obtains the highest authority with respect to beatitude, as well because it demonstrates the most excellent end, and the media which lead to it, as because all arts and pursuits, so far as they are governed by it, contribute to our advantage, but end in our detriment when it is neglected. In the last place, Socrates teaches us that nothing can with more difficulty be defined, or procured, than temperance. It is most difficult to define, because it is so intimately combined with the other virtues, of which it is a certain consonance; and it cannot be obtained without great difficulty, because from our union with body we are prone to intemperance, and from our infancy drink deep of the envenomed cup of pleasure.
For the benefit of the Platonic reader, as this Dialogue is pirastic, I shall conclude this Introduction with the following admirable observations from Jamblichus⁵⁷, in which the nature of temperance is beautifully unfolded. “Every virtue despises that which is mortal, and embraces that which is immortal; but this in a very remarkable degree is the endeavour of temperance, as despising those pleasures which fasten the soul to the body as by a nail, and establishing itself, as Plato says, on holy foundations. For how is it possible that temperance should not make us perfect, since it exterminates from us the imperfect and the passive? But you may know that this is the case by attending to the fable of Bellerophon, who, contending in conjunction with moderation, destroyed Chimæra, and every beastly, wild, and savage tribe. For, in short, the immoderate dominion of the passions does not suffer men to be men, but draws them down to that which is irrational, beastly, and disordered. But that excellent order, which confines the pleasures within definite measures, preserves families, and preserves cities according to the assertion of Crates: and further still, it also in a certain respect approximates to the form of the gods. Perseus therefore, riding to the highest good of temperance, with Minerva for his leader, cut off the head of Gorgon, which appears to me to be desire drawing men down to matter, and turning them into stone, through a repletion of stupid passions. Continence of pleasure therefore, as Socrates says, is the foundation of virtue; and temperance appears to be the ornament of all the virtues, as Plato also asserts. And, as I say, this virtue is the fortification of the most beautiful habits. Hence, I shall with confidence strenuously assert, as a thing truly acknowledged, that the beauty of temperance extends through all the virtues, that it coharmonizes them according to one harmony, and that it inserts in them symmetry and mixture with each other. Such then being the nature of temperance, it affords an opportunity to the implanting of the other virtues, and when they are implanted, imparts to them stable security.”

## Introduction to the Lesser Hippias

In this Dialogue Hippias the sophist bears the highest of the two subordinate parts or characters: from him therefore it derives its name⁵⁸; and the brevity of it, in comparison with the other between Socrates and the same sophist, has occasioned it to be called The Lesser Hippias.
—The title prefixed to it in all the editions of Plato, which is this, περι ψευδους, Concerning Lying, or untruth, is apparently defective; because it expresses only part of the subject: unless the word lying be there taken in the sense put upon it by a late writer⁵⁹, so as to relate to every part of human conduct. But this being not the proper sense of the word, we have ventured to change the title; and to assign such a one as, we think, comprehends the whole of the subject; and, in as few words as are requisite to some degree of clearness, shows the nature of it. For in this Dialogue is argued a point which has been long the subject of much controversy, “whether error in the will depends on error in judgment.” Socrates takes the affirmative side of the question: and his end in so doing is to prove the necessity of informing the understanding in moral truths, that is, of acquiring moral science; together with the necessity of maintaining the governing part within us in full power over that which is inferior, that is, of acquiring habits of virtue: through want of which science, and of which power or virtue, the philosopher insinuates, that man is either led blindly or impelled inevitably into evil. This design is executed in three parts. The first is concerning words: in which it appears, from inductional reasoning, that all untruth is owing either to some ignorance in the mind, that is, want of knowledge in those things which are the subjects of our affirmation or negation, or to some passion of the soul, desire of glory, for instance, prompting us to speak either deliberately and with design, like Hippias, or inadvertently and rashly, like Achilles, untruths or lies. The second part is concerning actions; and proceeds in the same way of reasoning by induction, to prove that all error in acting arises either from ignorance or weakness: seeing that in every action, merely corporeal, and also in the energies or works of every art, when faults are committed, such as are blamable, the cause of this is either defect of skill to design well, or defect of ability to execute. In the last part, by much the shortest, but for which the other two are intended by Plato, according to his usual manner, merely to prepare us, the reasoning is analytical; and proves, that in dishonest or bad men the understanding is either unenlightened by science, or overpowered and blinded by passion, or else suffers in both ways; and therefore that, with the ignorance or impotence of mind under which they labour, they labour at the same time under a necessity of doing ill: from which necessity they can be freed only by inward light and strength, that is, by science and virtue. Here we find the Sapiens sibique Imperiosus of Horace, in a beautiful passage of his seventh Satire, the second book; so much of which as relates immediately to our purpose we have thus paraphrased;
Thy master does, himself, some master serve;
Some impulse sets in action every nerve.
Think not the puppet in his own command;
His strings are guided by another’s hand.
Who then is free?—who not by passion fool’d,
In every motion is by reason rul’d.
To all but reason he, superior, still
Moves but as bids him his own better will.
Agreeably to this is that doctrine of the Stoics, derived immediately, it should seem, from this dialogue of Plato, “that only the wise man is free⁶⁰:” upon which maxim the fifth Satire of Persius is a lively comment. But this being a philosophical paradox, Plato employs great address, in the insinuating into the mind a truth which our own consciousness seems to contradict: for who is there, not under outward restraint, and only influenced by inward motives, who does not think himself free? Our subtle philosopher therefore argues upon the supposition of the freedom of will in bad men; and by thus arguing, proves an absurdity, “that such as do evil wilfully are better men than those who do evil without intending it.” The consequence of which is this, that the argument proceeded upon a false supposition; for that none do evil with a clear-sighted and distinct view, and that in bad men the will is not free. Thus much only seems necessary for opening the concealed manner, design, and method of this dialogue. A more explicit and particular account of them will appear in the process of our notes. The Introduction is too natural and easy to want any explication. The outward form of the Dialogue is simply dramatic: and as to its genius, it may perhaps not improperly be said to be of the confuting kind; for we would not, unless obliged by the necessity of reason, choose to differ from other writers, or depart from antient authority, by which it is pronounced anatreptic. What ground there is, however, for referring it to some other kind, will easily appear to the readers of our synopsis.—S.

## Introduction to the Euthydemus

Plato, in the following Dialogue, has given an illustrious specimen of that philanthropy, which he often displays in his other dialogues. For he here studies to avert the reader from the vain trifles of the sophists, by showing that these men, even when they discuss the most weighty subjects, jest and delude the expectation of the hearers. Both in this Dialogue, however, and elsewhere, he describes these men to be curious and vain disputants in verbal altercation, and prompt to refute whatever may be said, whether it be true or false. And, in the first place, indeed, he shows how avaricious the genius of the sophists is, since the brother sophists, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, are prepared to teach for money the military art, in which they boast, and which no one ever sold. In the next place, how ambitious, since they at the same time profess judicial together with military skill, and together with both the sophistic art, though all these widely differ from each other. In the third place, how vain; since, though now old men, they betake themselves from things to words, and from the study of truth to falsehood. And, in the fourth place, how despicable; since, in a short time, any one may become a proficient in this cavilling art.
In the course of this Dialogue, Socrates, with a most facetious irony, beseeches the sophists, that after jesting they would come to serious concerns; and he proposes a certain formula, conformable to which, as a pattern, he hopes to receive from them an exhortation to philosophy. In this formula he first defines felicity, by a common conception, to be living well. After wards he proves that this living well consists either in obtaining things agreeable to the will, or in the right use of the things themselves. And he concludes that wisdom alone renders its possessors blessed, since it alone obtains what is agreeable to the will, and rightly uses what it obtains. In the course of the argument an illustrious dogma presents itself to the view, and which afterwards became the foundation of the Stoic philosophy, viz. that things external and corporeal ought rather to be called indifferent and common, than good or evil; and that wisdom is properly good, and folly properly evil: since through the former we partake of every good, and through the latter of every evil. But that all the power of felicity consists in wisdom, the three appellations of felicity, instituted by the antient authors of the Greek language, sufficiently evince, viz. ευδαιμονια, ευτυχια, ευπραγια, eu- daimonia, eutuchia, eupragia. For the first of these appellations signifies the knowledge of good; the second, the attainment of it; and the third, the use of it; all which are accomplished for us by wisdom.
Near the conclusion of this Dialogue, the artificial, polite, facetious, and elegant irony of Socrates collects the reprehension of sophistic cavilling into three heads. First, that the most worthy men despise trifles of this kind. Secondly, that the sophisms confute themselves. And thirdly, that even boys might acquire this most trifling artifice in the space of two days. Soon after this, he descends from the sophist to the rhetorician, for each of these falsely professes political virtue, as we learn from the Gorgias. And he shows that rhetoricians, while they profess themselves to be both politicians and philosophers, are perfectly useless for the purposes of either.
I only add, that this Dialogue appears to have been justly ranked by the antients among those of the anatreptic, or subversive character, and that it belongs to that energy of Plato’s dialectic, which, as we have already observed in the Introduction to the Parmenides, consists in confuting false opinions.

## Introduction to the Hipparchus

The design of the Hipparchus is to show that all men naturally desire good, since even those who wander from it through avarice, wander through a desire of obtaining it; but they err in consequence of mistaking good, which is a mean, for ultimate good. For good is two-fold, one being the end, the other subsisting for the sake of the end. Hence the possession of the former is called beatitude, and of the latter gain. Hence too, gain is the acquisition of that good, which contributes to the possession of ultimate good. But that which does not contribute to this, is neither useful, nor is the acquisition of it gain. The desire therefore of gain thus defined, and which is naturally inherent in all men, is laudable; but the false opinion is to be reprobated, which, while it is ignorant of the truly useful and lucrative, distorts to things adverse the natural appetite of man. Plato latently teaches this, while he confutes the false definitions which are introduced in this Dialogue, concerning the desire of gain. But he employs this proposition, that all men desire good as manifest, in order to conclude that all men naturally desire gain, and that this natural desire is laudable. And this is the conclusion which Socrates after a manner directly introduces by three modes of arguing, viz. by example, by induction, and by reasoning. But from the whole Dialogue we collect, that all men desire good; and this is its ultimate end. For its first end is to show that all men are desirous of gain, and that this desire is not to be blamed when directed to gain according to its true definition.
It appears from Ælian (Var. Hist. viii. 2.) that it was dubious with some of the antients, whether this Dialogue was in reality composed by Plato. If I may be allowed to give my own opinion, I do not find any thing, either in its manner or matter, for which its authenticity deserves to be called in question.

## Introduction to the Rivals

The general subject of this short Dialogue is so evident, that it is no wonder all the copies agree in the entitling it “Concerning Philosophy.” But in the naming it there is some difference. For this is one of those few Dialogues of Plato, which take not their names from any one of the speakers: the reason of which in this is much the same with that in The Banquet; it is because the two subordinate speakers are placed on an equal footing of importance in the Dialogue; where we see their characters contrasted, one to the other. They are presented to our view, at their first appearance, contending together for the honour of their respective studies or ways of life, which are of quite opposite kinds, and jealous of each other in the gaining of partisans or followers. It was necessary, therefore, that the Dialogue should have such a name, as might comprise both these persons. The name, usually prefixed to the copies of it, and confirmed by Olympiodorus, is Ερασται, signifying all those persons, mentioned in the beginning of the Dialogue, an account of whom is given in note 4. The other name, found in some copies, and authorized by Diogenes Laertius and Proclus, is Αντερασται. We have given the preference to this latter; which, we think, will appear to be the genuine name, and the former to be spurious, from the following observations. In the first place, the former name is too general, and⁶¹ comprehends many other persons present at the conversation, who are mute, and merely auditors: whereas the latter peculiarly characterizes the two subordinate speakers, exclusive of the rest of the company. Another reason, which alone seems sufficient to prove the authenticity of the name we have chosen, is this, that the contention or rivalship between these two, besides forming the most entertaining part of the Introduction, gives occasion to the subject of the Dialogue, and is the very foundation on which the structure of it is built. Our last reason is, that where the Man of Learning makes his first appearance, he is⁶² by Plato himself called Rival to the Man of Exercise; a name, which could not properly be attributed to either, till they were both brought upon the stage: however, it is soon afterwards repeated, and applied to the Man of Exercise; which needed not to have been done, but for the sake of marking them the more strongly with this name, common to them both; because terms of reciprocal relation, as well as other correlatives, always suppose and imply one another. In other parts of the Dialogue they are denoted, each by his proper and peculiar epithets; εῤῥωμενος, αμαθης· σοφωτερος, σοφος⁶³. Thus much concerning the name of the Dialogue, the Introduction to it, and the general subject which gives the title.
—The particular subject is the peculiar nature and essence of true philosophy. That by which it is distinguished from all those other kinds of knowledge, that falsely assumes its name, the study of which has in all ages pretended to be, and been set up for, the study of wisdom, or philosophy. For the design of this Dialogue is to show⁶⁴, that the completely just and good man, who is such upon the principles of science, is alone the wise man or true philosopher. In order to this end, first is detected and exposed that appearance or show of wisdom, which consists in polymathy⁶⁵ in general, or much learning and knowledge of various kinds. Next, are disproved and disallowed those pretensions, claimed by the mathematical sciences or by any of the liberal arts, which in the Platonic discipline do but smooth and pave the way to true philosophy. The false species being thus rejected, lastly is exhibited this wisdom in her genuine form, as the knowledge of ourselves; the science of that divine principle in man, his mind; the science of justice and goodness, therein included; and the science of government thence immediately derived.
—This short bill of fare presents to our readers all they are to expect in the following repast; small in quantity; but great in value, as being a just sample of those rich and plentiful entertainments provided for them by Plato in his longer Dialogues.
—The outward form of this piece is purely narrative. But the conversation, recited in it, is peculiarly dramatic. For, besides the other excellencies of the drama, common to it with the rest of Plato’s Dialogues, it has this singular beauty, that the figures of the two Rivals are described in as exact and lively a manner, as painting itself could draw them: a circumstance that well may recommend the scene to some ingenious professor of that art, to design after and delineate.
—The inward form or genius of the Dialogue corresponds to what has been before said of the conduct of it: for it is partly disputative, of that species where the adverse party is confuted; and partly, to do particular honour to an adversary far superior to the sophists, it is demonstrative, of that species where the proof is by induction.
—S.

## Introduction to the Menexenus

This piece of Plato, though entitled a Dialogue, consists chiefly of an Oration, to which the Dialogue was intended to serve only for an introduction or vehicle; and is accordingly very short. The subject of this Oration is the commemoration of all those Athenians, who, from the beginning of the commonwealth to the time of Plato, had died in the service of their country; a subject that takes in so considerable a portion of the history of Athens, that I rather choose to refer the reader to those authors who have treated at large of the transactions of that state, than to set down the several events here alluded to in notes, which would soon swell to a bulk much larger than the Oration itself. It may not, however, be improper to premise a short account of the custom, which gave birth to this and many other orations, spoken by some of the greatest orators of Athens; as such an account may tend to put the reader into a proper situation of mind to judge of the beauties of this famous panegyric, by leading him as it were to Athens, and making him one of the audience. Take it, therefore, in the words of Thucydides, thus translated.
“In the same winter (namely, in the first year of the Peloponnesian war) the Athenians, in obedience to the laws of their country, performed, at the public expense, the obsequies of those citizens who first lost their lives in this war: the manner of which is as follows. Three days before that appointed for the funeral, they erect a pavilion, underneath which they lay out the bones of the deceased, allowing to their respective friends and relations the liberty of bringing whatever they judge proper to add, by way of showing their particular concern or regard for those who belonged to them. On the day of the interment there are brought in waggons (or hearses) so many chests (or coffins) made of cypress, one for every tribe, in which are put the bones of the deceased, each man according to his tribe. Besides these there is an empty bier, properly covered in honour of those whose bodies could not be found and brought away in order for their interment. In the funeral procession, whosoever is disposed, whether he be a citizen or foreigner, has leave to march, together with the female kindred of the deceased, who assist at the sepulchre, making great lamentations. After this they deposite the bones in the public cœmetery, which is situated in the most beautiful suburb of the city; and here they have always been accustomed to bury all who fall in battle, those only excepted who were slain at Marathon, to whom, as to men of distingished and uncommon virtue, they performed their obsequies in the very place where they lost their lives. As soon as the remains are buried in the ground, some Athenian, eminent as well for his wisdom as his dignity, is appointed by the state to pronounce a suitable oration in honour of the dead: after which the whole company depart. This is the manner in which the Athenians perform the funerals of those who are slain in battle, and this custom they constantly observe in every war, as often as the case happens, in conformity to a law enacted for that purpose.”
From this account, and some other particulars mentioned in the ensuing Oration, it is evident that these public funerals were performed with great pomp and solemnity by the whole body of the Athenian people; to whom therefore, considered upon this occasion under two heads, namely, as citizens of Athens and as relations and friends of the deceased, the orator was in reason obliged to accommodate his discourse: which from hence he was under a necessity of dividing likewise into two heads. Under the first he was to apply himself to the citizens of Athens in general; under the second, to the parents, children, and kindred of the deceased in particular. For the topics proper to be insisted upon under these two heads, he was left at liberty to select such as he judged most suitable to the occasion on which he was to speak. The occasion was solemn and mournful. Consolatories, therefore, were to be administered as well to the public as to individuals, who were there come together to perform the last offices to their fellow-citizens and relations. To the public, no topic of consolation could be so effectual as that which, by setting before them the glory and advantages accruing to the commonwealth from the actions of those brave citizens who had lost their lives in the service of their country, tended to call off their attention from the calamity which they were then assembled to commemorate. And this topic was very naturally suggested to the orator by the many public monuments erected in honour of those who had fallen in battle, and scattered up and down the place where he was to pronounce his oration. Plato accordingly made choice of this topic; and hath dwelt upon it with equal judgment and eloquence through the greater part of the following panegyric.
The remaining part of this first division contains an artful and noble panegyric in honour of the state and people of Athens; which evidently proves, what indeed will appear to any one who attentively examines the Grecian history, that the Athenians were unquestionably the first and greatest people of Greece.
The second part, in which the orator addresses himself to the relations of the deceased, is as beautiful a piece of oratory as is to be met with in all antiquity. I shall not here forestall the reader’s judgment or pleasure, by pointing out the particular passages worthy of admiration. They are so striking that he cannot fail taking notice of them; and the more they surprise, the more they will please.

## Introduction to the Io

The general subject, says Mr. Sydenham, of this Dialogue, is Poetry; but various titles are found prefixed to the copies of it, assigned probably by the antients. Some style it a Dialogue “concerning the Iliad:” while others, aiming to open the subject more fully and distinctly, entitle it, “Of the Interpretation of the Poets:” and others again, with intention to express the design or scope of it in the title, have invented this, “Concerning the Mark or Characteristic of a Poet.” But none of these titles, or inscriptions, will be found adequate or proper. The⁶⁷ first is too partial and deficient. For the Dialogue, now before us, concerns the Odyssey as much as the Iliad, and many other poets no less than Homer. As to the next title, the Interpretation or Exposition of the Poets, is but an occasional or accessory subject, introduced only for the sake of some other, which is the principal. The last title is erroneous, and mistakes the main drift and end of this Dialogue, which is by no means so slight or unimportant, as merely to show that enthusiasm⁶⁸, or the poetic fury, is the characteristic of a true poet; but makes a part of the grand design of Plato in all his writings, that is, the teaching true wisdom: in order to which, every kind of wisdom, falsely so called, commonly taught in the age when he lived, was to be unlearnt. The teachers, or leaders of popular opinion, among the Grecians of those days, were the sophists, the rhetoricians, and the poets; or rather, instead of these last, their ignorant and false interpreters. Men of liberal education were misled principally by the first of these: the second sort were the seducers of the populace, to whose passions the force of rhetoric chiefly is applied in commonwealths: but the minds of people⁶⁹ of all ranks received a bad impression from those of the last-mentioned kind. To prevent the ill influence of these, is the immediate design of the Io; and the way which the philosopher takes to lessen the credit of their poems is not by calling in question the inspiration of the poet, or the divinity of the Muse. Far from attempting this, he establishes the received hypothesis, for the foundation of his argument against the authority of their doctrine: inferring, from their inability to write without the impulse of the Muse, that they had no real knowledge of what they taught: whereas the principles of science, as he tells us in the Philebus, descend into the mind of man immediately from heaven; or, as he expresses it in the Epinomis, from God himself, without the intervention of any lower divinity. The true philosopher, therefore, who attends to this higher inspiration, he alone possessing that divinest science, the science of those principles, is able to teach in a scientific way. But Plato, of all the polite writers among the antients the most polite, makes not his attack upon the poets themselves directly: for, as the disaffected to any government, so long as they retain their respect for it, strike at the sovereigns only in the persons of their ministers; in the same respectful manner does the courtly Plato seem to spare those sacred persons, the anointed of the Muses, making free with the rhapsodists only, their interpreters.
This he does in the person of Io, one of that number, who professed to interpret the sense of Homer; proving out of his own mouth, that he had no true knowledge of those matters, which he pretended to explain; and insinuating at the same time, that the poet no less wanted true knowledge in those very things, though the subjects of his own poem. For every thing that he says of the rhapsodists and of rhapsody, holds equally true of poets⁷⁰ and of poetry. The pursuit of this argument naturally leads to a twofold inquiry: one head or article of which regards the sciences, the other concerns the arts. By this partition does Plato divide his Io; throwing, however, here, as he does every where else, a graceful veil over his art of composition, and the method with which he frames his dialogues; in order to give them the appearance of familiarity and ease, so becoming that kind of writing: in the same manner as he always takes care to conceal their scope or design; that, opening itself unexpectedly at last, it may strike the mind with greater efficacy. Upon the article of science, Plato represents the poets writing through the inspiration of the Muses, of all things, whether human or divine; of morals, politics, and military affairs; of history, and antiquities; of meteorology, and astronomy; in fine, of the whole universe; yet without any intimate acquaintance with the nature of those things, and without having had any other than a superficial view. Under the other article, that of art, Plato shows that the poets describe, and in description imitate, the operations and performances of many of the arts, though in the principles of those arts uninstructed and ignorant; as having skill in one art only, that, through which they so describe and imitate, the art of poetry: while every other artist hath skill in some one other, his own proper, art; and to the true philosopher, as he tells us in his Dialogue called the Politician, belongs the knowledge of that art, in which are comprehended the principles of all the rest. Hence it follows, that of such poetical subjects as have any relation to the arts, whether military or peaceful, whether imperatorial, liberal, or mechanical, the knowing in each art are respectively the only proper judges. Such is the design, and such the order of this Dialogue. As to its kind, it is numbered by the antients among the peirastic: but according to the scheme proposed in our synopsis, the outward form or character of it is purely dramatic: and the genius of it is seen in this, that the argumentation is only probable; and in this, also, that the conclusion leaves the rhapsodist Io perplexed and silenced, bringing off Socrates in modest triumph over the embarrassment of his half yielding adversary⁷¹.

## Introduction to the Cratylus

The ensuing Dialogue, which disputes whether names have been assigned to things from nature or position, and whether some at least are not derived from a more divine origin than that of human invention, has been highly censured by modern critics for its etymologies, which they contend are for the most part false. This censure originated from not perceiving that the intention of Plato in this Dialogue is to investigate names philosophically, and not grammatically, and that he despises the matter, but is especially attentive to the form of names; though this was obvious to the philologist Selden, as may be seen in his treatise on the Syrian gods:—and in the next place, Plato mingles, in his investigation, the serious with the jocose: so that in the first part of the Dialogue, when he investigates the names of the gods, he is perfectly in earnest, as is highly proper on such an occasion; and in the middle part he facetiously ridicules the followers of Heraclitus, who considered all things as perpetually flowing, without admitting any periods of repose. Hence, in order to explode this opinion, which is erroneous in the extreme, when extended to intelligible as well as sensible natures, he proves that, by an abuse of etymologies, all names may be shown to have been established, as belonging to things borne along, flowing, and in continual generation.
With respect to the subject matter of this logical Dialogue, which is the invention, and as it were generation of names, it is necessary to observe, that there were two opinions of the antients on this particular; one of Heraclitus and his followers, among whom Cratylus held a considerable rank; the other of certain Parmenidæans, among whom Hermogenes was no ignoble advocate. Of the former of these, Cratylus, it is reported that Plato was an auditor; and he is said to have been under the tuition of the latter in theological concerns. And the Heraclitics indeed asserted that names consist from nature alone, and that the consent of men contributes nothing to their formation or invention. But the Parmenidæans affirmed, that names were not the productions of nature, but received their conformation from the arbitrary decision of men, by whom they were assigned and imposed upon things. The more early Academics or disciples of Plato embraced the opinion of the Heraclitics; and the more early Peripatetics that of Hermogenes: while in the mean time each sect endeavoured to bring over its leader to the doctrine which it embraced; though, as we shall now shew from Ammonius⁷², the sentiments of Plato and Aristotle on this subject differed only in words, and not in reality.
In order therefore to be convinced of this, it is necessary to observe, that the dogma of those who considered names as consisting from nature, and not from the will of men, received a two-fold distribution. Hence one part, as the Heraclitics, were of opinion that names were natural, because they are the productions and works of nature. For (say they) proper and peculiar names are prepared and assigned from the nature of things, no otherwise than proper or secret senses are attributed from the same cause to every thing. For that which is visible is judged to be different from that which is tangible, because it is perceived by a different sense. But names are similar to natural resemblances; i. e. to such as are beheld in mirrors, or in water, and not to such as are the productions of art. And indeed those are to be considered as denominating things, who produce true and solid names of this kind; but those who act in a different manner, do not properly denominate, but only emit a sound or voice. But it is the business of a prudent, learned, and truly philosophic man, always to investigate names, which are peculiarly constituted and assigned to each particular from the nature of things; just as it is the province of one who possesses an acute sight, to know and judge rightly the proper similitudes of every visible object.
But the other class of those who defended this opinion, asserted that names consist from nature, because they correspond to the nature of the denominated particulars. For (say they) names ought to be illustrious and significant, that they may express things with perspicuity and precision. As if (for instance) any one should be born with a disposition admirably adapted to imperial command, such a one may with great propriety be called Agesilaus or Archidamus. And that on this account such names are natural, because they significantly accord with the things which such names imply. For the person just adduced may be elegantly called Archidamus, because he is able to rule over the people; and Agesilaus, because he is the leader of the people. They add besides, that names are indeed similar to images; but to those only which do not consist from nature, but which are the offspring of human art, such as pictures and statues, in which we evidently perceive that various similitudes of resemblances correspond to the various exemplars of things; and that these render more, but those less express effigies of things, according as the skill of the artificer, by employing the dexterity of art, is able to fashion them in a more or less convenient manner. But the truth of this (say they) may be clearly evinced from hence, that we often investigate the natures of things by an analysis of names; and, after a process of this kind, demonstrate that names are assigned adapted to the things which they express.
In like manner, the dogma of those who ascribed names to the consent of men received a two-fold division. And one part indeed defended such a position of names, as the Parmenidæan Hermogenes in the present Dialogue, viz. that names might be formed according to every one’s arbitrary determination, though this should take place without any rational cause: so that if a man should call any thing by just whatever name he pleased, the name in this case would be proper, and accommodated to the things denominated. But the other part, such as the more antient Peripatetics, asserted that names ought not to be formed and assigned by men rashly, according to the opinion of Hermogenes, but with deliberation and design. And that the artificer of names ought to be a person endued with universal science, in order that he may be able to fabricate proper and becoming names for all the variety of things. Hence they assert that names consist from the determinations of men, and not from nature, because they are the inventions of the reasoning soul, and are properly accommodated from hence to things themselves. For those antient founders of names did not rashly and without design denominate marshes of the female genus, but rivers of the male (not to mention the various tribes of animals), but they characterized the former by the feminine genus, because, like the soul, they are certain receptacles; and called the latter by a masculine appellation, on account of their entering into and mingling themselves with the former. In like manner they assigned the masculine genus to intellect, and marked soul with a feminine appellation; because intellect diffuses its light upon soul, which, in consequence of receiving it from thence in her inmost penetralia, is most truly said to be filled and illuminated by intellect. They likewise very properly employed an equal analogy in the sun and moon, on account of the abundant emanation of light from the former, and the reception of the prolific rays by the latter. But with respect to the neuter and common genus, as they judged that these were constituted and composed from the mixture or separation of the masculine and feminine genus, hence they significantly assigned them to certain things in a congruous proportion of nature.
Hence it appears that Aristotle and the Peripatetics differ only in words from Plato and the Academics: since the latter assert that names consist from nature, because they signify particulars in a manner accommodated to the nature of things; but the former contend that names are the offspring of human invention, because they have been sagaciously assigned by a most skilful architect as it were of speaking, and this according to the exigency of nature. But the present Dialogue sufficiently proves that this is a true interpretation of Plato’s opinion on this interesting subject; since Socrates here establishes himself as a medium between Hermogenes and Cratylus, and remarkably reprehends each by a multitude of very conclusive reasons. For he plainly demonstrates that names cannot alone consist from the arbitrary determination of men, as Hermogenes seemed to assert, on account of the universal genera of things, and immutable and eternal natures to which a stable and right reason of names may be well ascribed, both because they are perpetual and constant, and known to all men from the beginning, and because they are allotted a nature definite and immovable. And again, he shows that neither can names consist from nature in the manner which the Heraclitics endeavour to support, on account of the gliding and fluxible nature of individuals, to which names can neither be conveniently assigned nor well adapted for any considerable period of time.
But that the reader may see the progression of names from their sources, which are the gods, let him attend to the following beautiful passage from Proclus on the Theology of Plato⁷³. “The first, most principal, and truly divine names must be considered as established in the gods themselves. But those of the second order, and which are the resemblances of these, subsisting in an intellectual manner, must be said to be of a dæmoniacal condition. And those in the third rank, emanating indeed from truth, but fashioned logically, and receiving the last representation of divine concerns, make their appearance from scientific men, who at one time energize according to a divine afflatus, and at another time intellectually, generating images in motion of the inward spectacles of their souls. For as the demiurgic intellect establishes about matter representations of the first forms subsisting in his essence, temporal resemblances of things eternal, divisible of such as are indivisible, and produces as it were shadowy images of true beings; in the same manner, as it appears to me, the science which we possess, fashioning an intellectual production, fabricates resemblances both of other things and of the gods themselves. Hence it assimilates through composition that which in the gods is incomposite; that which is simple in them through variety, and that which is united through multitude. And thus forming names, it manifests images of divine concerns, according to their last subsistence: for it generates each name as if it was a statue of the gods. And as the Theurgic art, through certain symbols, calls forth the unenvying goodness of the gods, into an illumination of the artificial statues; in the same manner, the intellectual science of divine concerns, through compositions and divisions of sounds, exhibits the occult essence of the gods. With great propriety therefore does Socrates in the Philebus assert—that he proceeds with the greatest dread in that which respects the names of the gods, on account of the caution which should be employed in their investigation. For it is necessary to venerate the last resounding echoes as it were of the gods; and in consequence of this reverence to establish them in their first exemplars⁷⁴.”
Thus far the truly divine Proclus; from which admirable passage the Platonic reader will find all his doubts on this intricate subject fully solved, if he only bestows on it that attention which it so well deserves. I only add, that every ingenuous mind may be convinced, from the etymologies of divine names in this Dialogue, that the latter Platonists were not perverters of their master’s theology, as is ignorantly asserted by verbal critics and modern theologists. This, indeed, will be so apparent from the ensuing notes, that no greater proof can be desired of the dreadful mental darkness in which such men are involved, notwithstanding the great acumen of the former, and the much-boasted but delusive light of the latter.

## Notes

[1] In MSS. Comment. in Parmenidem, lib. i.
[2] This is demonstrated by Proclus in his Elements of Theology.
[3] See more concerning ideas in the first dissertation prefixed to my translation of Proclus on Euclid, in the notes to my translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, and in the notes to this dialogue.
[4] If being were the same with the one, multitude would be the same with non-being: for the opposite to the one is multitude, and the opposite to being is non-being. As being, therefore, is not the same with, it must be posterior to, the one; for there is not any thing in things more excellent than unity.
[5] Instead of ὂν ου μονον, which is evidently the true reading, ὀνομον μονον is erroneously printed in Stobæus.
[6] Περι αρχων.
[7] In Plat. Theol. p. 110.
[8] Αδυνατων is erroneously printed for αδυτων.
[9] Περι αρχων.
[10] In lib. 5. MS. Comment. in Parmenidem.
[11] Ficinus, who has given a version of this preface, ascribes it to Proclus, and doubtless from good authority.
[12] This word is wanting in Ruhnkenius, and is supplied from the version of Ficinus.
[13] Viz. Pluto.
[14] I give the original of this fragment of Proclus for the sake of the learned Platonical reader, who may not have these Greek Scholia in his possession: for, to a genuine Platonist, every thing written by Proclus must be invaluable. Ὁτι σοφιστην καλει ὁ Πλατων και τον.... (supple Ερωτα) και τον Αιδην, και τον Δια, και παγκαλην λεγει ειναι την σοφιστικην τεχνην· ὁθεν ὑπονοουμεν, ὁτι γλαφυρωτερου σκοπου εχεται ὁ διαλογος. Εστι γαρ κατα τον μεγαν Ιαμβλιχον σκοπος νυν περι του ὑπο σεληνην δημιουργου. Ὁυτος γαρ ειδωλοποιος, και καθαρτης ψυχων, εναντιων λογων αει χωριζων, μεταβλητικος, και νεων πλουσιων εμμισθος θηρευτης, ψυχας ὑποδεχομενος πληρεις λογων ανωθεν ιουσας, και μισθον λαμβανων παρ’ αυτων, την ζωοποιον την κατα λογον των θνητων. Ὁυτος ενδεδεται τῳ μη οντι, τα ενυλα δημιουργων, και το ως αληθως ψευδος ασπαζομενος, την ὑλην. Βλεπει δε εις το οντως ον. Ὁυτος εστιν ὁ πολυκεφαλος, πολλας ουσιας και ζωας προβεβλημενος, δι’ ὡν κατασκευαζει την ποικιλιαν της γενεσεως. Ὁ δ’ αυτος και γοης, ὡς θελγων τας ψυχας τοις φυσικοις λογοις, ὡς δυσαποσπαστως εχειν απο της γενεσεως. Και γαρ ὁ ερως γοης, και ἡ φυσις ὑπο τινων μαγος κεκληται δια τας συμπαθειας και αντιπαθειας των φυσει. Νυν ουν τον παντοδαπον σοφιστην βουλεται διδασκειν. Και γαρ και ὁ φιλοσοφος σοφιστης, ὡς μιμουμενος τον τε ουρανιον δημιουργον και τον γενεσιουργον. Και ἡ διαιρετικη μιμειται την απο του ἑνος των οντων προοδον, και ὁ γενεσιουργος τον ουρανιον δημιουργον. διο και σοφιστης, και αυτος δε ὁ σοφιστης ανθρωπος ων δια το τα μεγαλα μιμεισθαι, σοφιστης καλειται· ὁθεν και τον σοφιστην πολυκεφαλον ειρηκεν. Ὁ δε ξενος εις τυπον του πατρος των δημιουργοντων νοεισθω ὑπερουρανιος και εξηρημενος· ὁι δε ακροαται εις τας δημιουργικας νοησεις, ὁ μεν εις την του Διος, ὁ δε εις την αγγελικην, ὡς Ερμαϊκος και γεωμετρικος. Και επει ἡ δημιουργια εκ του ατελους εις το τελειον, δια τουτο πρωτον ὁ ξενος τῳ Θεοδωρῳ συγγινεται· ειτα δι’ επιστροφης τῳ διϊῳ (lege ιδιῳ) Σωκρατει.
[15] For an ample account of this master science see the Introduction to the Parmenides.
[16] In Scholiis MSS. in Phædrum.
[17] Symmetry, according to the most accurate and philosophical definition of it, is the dominion of that which is naturally more over that which is naturally less excellent. Hence symmetry then subsists in body, when form vanquishes matter. Had Mr. Burke known and understood the above definition of beauty, he would not have given to the world such a crudity as his treatise On the Sublime and Beautiful.
[18] Dicæarchus, according to Cicero vi. 2. ad Atticum, is said to have reprehended this dialogue as too vehement, because it breathes of the dithyrambic character.
[19] In Plat. Theol. lib. i. p. 8.
[20] Πειραι και ελεγχοι, και ορισμοι, και αποδειξεις, και διαιρεσεις, συνθεσεις τε και αναλυσεις.
[21] I am sorry that I could not give the whole of his argument to this dialogue; but as he was not profoundly skilled in the philosophy of Plato, he is mistaken in many points, and particularly in the design of the dialogue, which according to him is concerning the highest or the sovereign beauty.
[22] i. e. Among those which explore and obstetricate the conceptions of the soul.
[23] Nearly the whole of this Introduction is extracted from Mr. Sydenham’s argument to this dialogue. As he is mistaken in certain parts of his argument, from the want of a more profound knowledge of Plato’s philosophy, I found it impossible to give it entire.—T.
[24] See the Phædrus.
[25] See Hermogenes περι ιδεων, l. i. c. 12. The same critic περι μεθοδου, c. 13. and 16. Vit. Homer. inter Opusc. Mytholog. ex ed. 2da, pag. 300, 301. Quintilian. Institut. Orat. l. ix. c. 3. and Demetrius Phaler. περι ἑρμηνειας, § 29.
[26] See his treatise περι ιδεων, l. ii. c. 9.
[27] See the Greater Hippias.
[28] See the Notes on the Speech of Alcibiades.
[29] Modern interpreters, with a view to the sublimer part of the speech of Socrates, but without regarding the drift of it, call this dialogue metaphysical or theological. And among the antient Platonists, Albinus, as if he was attentive chiefly to the speech of Pausanias, and referred all the other speeches to that, calls it political.—S.
[30] This absurd opinion is very subtilely opposed by Sextus Empiricus. If, says he, every imagination be true, then the imagination that not every imagination is true will also be true, and so the assertion that every imagination is true will be false. Ει πασα φαντασια εστιν αληθης, και το μη πασαν φαντασιαν ειναι αληθη, κατα φαντασιαν ὑφισταμενον εσται αληθες· και ὁυτω το πασαν φαντασιαν ειναι αληθη γενησεται ψευδος.
[31] Πολλακις εθαυμασα, τισι ποτε λογοις Αθηναιους επεισαν οἱ γραψαμενοι Σωκρατην, ὡς αξιος ειη θανατου τῃ πολει.—Πρωτον μεν ουν ὡς ουκ ενομιζεν οὑς ἡ πολις νομιζει θεους, ποιῳ ποτ’ εχρησαντο τεκμηριῳ; θυων τε γαρ φανερος ην πολλακις μεν οικοι, πολλακις δε επι των κοινων της πολεως βωμων· και μαντικῃ χρωμενος, ουκ αφανης ην· διετετρυλητο γαρ, ὡς φαιη Σωκρατης το δαιμονιον ἑαυτῳ σημαινειν, ὁθεν δη και μαλιστα μοι δοκουσιν αυτον αιτιασασθαι, καινα δαιμονια εισφερειν. ὁ δ’ ουδεν καινομενον εισεφερε των αλλων, ὁσοι μαντικην νομιζοντες, οιωνοις τε χρωνται, και φημαις, και συμβολοις, και θυσιαις. οὑτοι τε γαρ ὑπολαμβανουσιν, ὀυ τους ορνιθας, ουδε τους απαντωντας ειδεναι τα συμφεροντα τοις μαντευομενοις, αλλα τους θεους δια τουτων αυτα σημαινειν· κᾳκεινος αυτως ενομιζεν. P. 441.
[32] Και γαρ επιμελεισθαι θεους ενομιζεν ανθρωπων, ουχ ὁν τροπον οἱ πολλοι νομιζουσιν. οὑτοι μεν γαρ οιονται τους θεους τα μεν ειδεναι, τα δ’ ουκ ειδεναι· Σωκρατης δε παντα μεν ηγειτο θεους ειδεναι, τα τε λεγομενα και πραττομενα, και τα σιγῃ βουλευομενα· πανταχου δε παρειναι και σημαινειν τοις ανθρωποις περι των αιθρωπειων παντων. θαυμαζω ουν, ὁπως ποτε επεισθησαν Αθηναιοι, Σωκρατην περι τους θεους μη σωφρονειν, τον ασεβες μεν ουδεποτε περι τους θεους ουτ’ ειποντα ουτε πραξαντα· τοιαυτα δε και λεγοντα και πραττοντα περι θεων, οἱα τις αν και λεγων και πραττων ειη τε και νομιζοιτο ευσεβεστατος. P. 443.
[33] Φανερος ην θεραπευων τους θεους, μαλιστα των αλλων ανθρωπων. P. 450.
[34] Viz. the particulars pertaining to the past and future existence of the soul.
[35] In his MS. Scholia on this Dialogue.
[36] i. e. Of reason, anger, and desire.
[37] Though a few are able to exercise the theoretic as well as the political virtues in the present life, yet we can only possess the good of the former in perfection hereafter.—For an accurate account of these virtues, see the Notes on the Phædo.
[38] For three, being an odd number, is indivisible.
[39] The monad is the united subsistence of separated multitude; but the one is the summit of multitude.
[40] Εξ οὑ παντα πεφηνη· συ δ’ ουδενος ουνεκα μουνος.
[41] In his Dissertation “What God is according to Plato.” See Reiske’s edition, p. 317.
[42] Vide Procl. in Tim. p. 64.—T.
[43] The word used by Porphyry here is προειληφος, which always signifies in Platonic writings causal comprehension; or the occult and indistinct prior to the actual and separate subsistence of things. After this manner numbers subsist causally in the monad.—T.
[44] De Myst. sec. 5, cap. 26.—T.
[45] This particular respecting the apples of gold is added from the version of Scutellius, who appears to have made his translation of Jamblichus from a more perfect manuscript than that which was used by Gale.—T.
[46] Viz. one of the Chaldæan Oracles.—T.
[47] Viz. Theodorus Asinæus, a disciple of Porphyry.—T.
[48] By things beautiful, with Platonic writers, every thing excellent and good is included.— T.
[49] This tetractys, which is the same as the phanes of Orpheus, and the αυτοζωον, or animal itself, of Plato, first subsists at the extremity of the intelligible order, and is thence participated by Jupiter, the fabricator of the universe. See the Introduction to the Timæus.— T.
[50] Fabricius, in the 4th vol. of his Bibliotheca Græca, has incontestably proved that this Dionysius lived several hundred years after the time of St. Paul; and observes, that his works are, doubtless, composed from Platonic writings. In confirmation of this remark, it is necessary to inform the learned reader, that the long discourse on Evil in the treatise of Dionysius, περι θειων ονοματων, appears to have been taken almost verbatim from one of the lost writings of Proclus On the Subsistence of Evil, as will be at once evident by comparing it with the Excerpta from that work, preserved by Fabricius in Biblioth. Græc. tom. viii. p. 502.—T.
[51] This part is stolen from the Commentaries of Simplicius on Epictetus, as is evident from the following extract: Ταυτην την ημων επιστροφην προς αυτον (θεον) ως αυτου προς ημας λεγομεν· τοιουτον τι πασχοντες, οιον οι πετρας τινος παραλιας καλων εξαψαντες, και τῳ εκεινον επισπασθαι εαυτους τε και το ακατιον τῃ πετρᾳ προσαγοντες· και δι’ απειριαν του γινομενου δοκουντες ουκ αυτοι προσιεναι τῃ πετρᾳ, αλλα την πετραν κατ’ ολιγον επ’ αυτους ιεναι· μεταμελειαι δε, και ικετειαι, και ευχαι, και τα τοιαυτα, αναλογουσι τῳ καλῳ. p. 223, 8vo i. e. “We speak of this our conversion to Divinity, as if it was a conversion of him to us; being affected in somewhat the same manner as those who, fastening a rope to a certain rock in the sea, and drawing both themselves and the boat to the rock by pulling it, appear, through their ignorance of this circumstance, not to approach themselves to the rock, but think that the rock gradually approaches to them. For repentance, supplication, prayer, and things of this kind, are analogous to the rope.”
[52] For the sake of the Platonic reader I will give the whole of this very beautiful passage. Θυσομεν τοινυν και ημεις· αλλα θυσομεν, ὡς προσηκει, διαφορους τάς θυσιας, ως αν διαφοροις δυναμεσει προσαγοντες. Θεῳ μεν τῳ επι πασιν, ὡς τις ανηρ σοφος εφη, μηδεν των αισθητων, μητε θυμιωντες, μητε επονομαζοντες· ουδεν γαρ εστιν ενυλον ὁ μη τῳ αυλῳ ευθυς εστιν ακαθαρτον. Διο ουδε λογος τουτῳ ο κατα φωνην, οικειος, ουδ’ ὁ ενδον, οταν παθει ψυχης ῃ μεμολυσμενος· δια δε σιγης καθαρας και των περι αυτου καθαρων εννοιων θρησκευομεν αυτον. δει αρα συναφθεντας, και ομοιωθεντας αυτῳ, την αυτων αναγωγην θυσιαν ιεραν προσαγαγειν τῳ θεῳ, την αυτην δε και υμνον ουσαν και ημων σωτηριαν. εν απαθει αρα της ψυχης τουδε του θεου θεωριᾳ; η θυσια αυτη τελειται. Τοις δε αυτου εγγονοις, νοητοις δε θεοις, ηδη και την εκ του λογου υμνωδιαν προσθετεον. Απαρχης γαρ εκαστῳ ων δεδωκεν η θυσια, και δι ων ημων τρεφει, και εις το ειναι συνεχει εις την θυσιαν. Ως ουν γεωργος δραγματων απαρχεται και των ακροδρυων, ὅυτως ημεις απαρξομεθα αυτοις, εινοιων των περι αυτων καλων, ευχαριστουντες ων ημιν δεδωκασι την θεωριαν, και οτι ημας δια της αυτων θεας αληθινως τρεφουσι, συνοντες και Φαινομενοι και τῃ ημετερᾳ σωτήριᾳ επιλαμποντες. Porphy. de Abstinentia, lib. ii. p. 165, 4to. 1767: i. e. “Let us also sacrifice, but let us sacrifice in such a manner as is proper, offering different sacrifices to different powers. To that God, indeed, who is above all things, as a certain wise man says, neither fumigating nor consecrating any thing sensible. For there is nothing material, which, to an immaterial nature, is not immediately impure. Hence neither is external language adapted to him, nor that which is internal when it is defiled by any passion of the soul; but we should adore him in pure silence, and with pure conceptions concerning him. It is necessary, therefore, that, being conjoined and assimilated to him, we should offer the elevation of ourselves to Divinity as a sacred sacrifice; for thus we shall both celebrate him and procure our own salvation. In the soul’s contemplation, therefore, of this Divinity, unattended by the passions, the sacrifice to him receives its completion; but his progeny, the intelligible gods, are to be celebrated vocally by hymns. For to each of the gods the first fruits are to be sacrificed of what he imparts to us, and through which he nourishes and preserves us. As, therefore, the husbandman offers his first fruits from handfuls of fruits and acorns, so also we should sacrifice from beautiful conceptions concerning the gods, giving thanks for those things of which they have imparted to us the contemplation, and that, through the vision of themselves, they truly nourish us, associating with and appearing to us, and shining upon us for our salvation.”
[53] The whole of this Introduction is extracted from the Argument of Mr. Sydenham to this Dialogue; excepting a few passages, which, from his not being sufficiently skilled in the more profound parts of Plato’s philosophy, it was necessary to alter.—T.
[54] Our explication of this part of the Dialogue may perhaps appear fanciful to readers unacquainted with Plato. To obviate this appearance, we are to observe, that, as Pythygoras used to illustrate things mental by mathematical numbers, so Plato frequently illustrates them from the principles of geometry, and frequently also through sensible images, or things corporeal. And perhaps these two ways of illustration are the easiest and the plainest ways, through which we can at first be led to conceive things purely abstract, the objects of intellect.—S.
[55] Thus Plotinus, in the close of his last Ennead, very finely and justly expresses our sense.—S.
[56] Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, defines wisdom absolutely considered to be “Science, and the intellect of things most honourable by nature, and the intellect of principles.” Η σοφια εστιν η επιστημη, και νους των τιμιωτατων τῃ φυσει, και νους των αρχων.
[57] Stobæi Eclog. p. 68.
[58] See the latter part of the Prologue.—S.
[59] Mr. Wollaston in his Religion of Nature delineated: where that very ingenious and learned man makes error, or deviation from rectitude in moral actions, to consist in acting a lie; that is, in acting as if the nature of that person or thing, whom or which our action concerns, were different from what it is: which in plain English, and agreeably to the language of the Platonists, is the same thing as acting with incongruity and impropriety; or, as the Stoics love to express themselves, acting contrary to nature, our own, and that of other things.—S.
[60] Plotinus also, the most antient Platonist of any whose writings are now remaining, proves that only mind or intellect is truly free; and that, therefore, liberty of will in man, or his having his actions in his own power, το αυτεξουσιον, resides only in a soul whose inward operations follow the leading of intellect or mind, εν ψυχῃ κατα νουν ενεργουσῃ. And at the end of his argument he thus concludes, The soul, therefore, becomes free through the government of the mind; pursuing thus, without impediment or hindrance, her way to good: Γινεται ὀυν ψυχῃ ελευθερα δια νου, προς το αγαθον σπευδουσα ανεμποδιστως. Plotin. Enn. vi. l. viii. c. 5, 6, and 7. Alexander Aphrodis. also, the oldest interpreter of Aristole extant, makes the essence of man’s freedom to consist in his being governed κατα λογον τε και κρισιν, by the judgment of his own reason; and in acting κατα λογικην ὁρμην, from rational motives, or as he is prompted and excited by reason. See his treatise Περι ειμαρμενης, §. 14, and 23. ed. Lond. and Aristotle himself, Metaphysic. l. ix. c. 5. Epicurus seems to have been the first who imagined human liberty to consist in acting without any motives at all, or at least independently of any. To account for which wild way of acting, he supposes that uncertain and unaccountable declination of atoms, or their deviation from the ordinary course of nature, for which he is justly reprehended by Cicero in many parts of his philosophical works. Yet this notion, or fancy, of Epicurus, concerning the liberty of the will, absurd as it is, hath been espoused by some modern writers of great name; though without his, or indeed any other ingenious contrivance to obviate the absurdity.—S.
[61] Much the same reason with this our first is assigned by Dr. Forster in the notes to his edition, for the preference which he also gives to this name of the Dialogue.—S.
[62] Part of this third reason is agreeable likewise to an observation of Menage in favour of the name Αντερασται. See Menagii Observat. in Laertium, p. 137.—S.
[63] Besides Menage and Forster, Stanley also and Fabricius approve of the name Αντερασται. It is probable, that the wrong name owed its origin merely to an accidental omission of the first syllable in the right name, and prevailed with the after-copiers the more easily, as they were so much used to the work ερασται in transcribing other Dialogues of Plato; and especially as it occurred in the very first sentence of this.—S.
[64] From considering, as it seems, this design of the Dialogue, the antients agree in referring it to the ethic kind.—S.
[65] It was beautifully said therefore, by Heraclitus, that “polymathy does not teach intellect;” πολυμαθιη νοον ου διδασκει.—T.
[66] This Introduction is extracted from the Argument of Mr. West to this Dialogue, by whom also it was translated into English. I have adopted his version of it wherever I found it to be sufficiently faithful, and given my own translation where it was otherwise.—T.
[67] “Concerning the Iliad.” This however appears to be the most antient, being the only one found in Laertius; and the others being too precise and particular to be of an earlier date. For the titles of all the prosaic works of the antients, whether dialogues, dissertations, or methodical treatises, written before the age of Plutarch, were as general and as concise as possible, expressing the subject usually in one word. The title that we have chosen appears not indeed in any of the copies of this Dialogue; but perhaps may be supported by the authority of Clemens of Alexandria, a writer little later than Laertius. For citing a passage out of the Io, he has these words, περι μεν ποιητικης Πλατων—γραφει. Stromat. l. vi. near the end. Though it must be owned not absolutely clear, whether he means it as the known title of the Dialogue, or as the subject only of the passage there quoted. — S.
[68] Yet only in this light was the Io considered by Ficinus, as appears from his Commentary on this Dialogue. And his representations of it have been blindly followed by all who have since his time written concerning it, as Janus Cornarius in his seventh Eclogue, Serranus in his Argument of the Io, and Franciscus Patricius in his Dissertation de Ordine Dialogorum. Nor must we conceal from our readers the opposite opinion of a very ingenious friend, who supposes Plato to have no other view in this Dialogue, than to expose Io to ridicule, and to convince him of his own ignorance. Whatever, therefore, is said, on the subject of enthusiasm in poetry, appears to him wholly ironical, and Socrates to be absolutely in jest, throughout the Dialogue. To this conjecture we shall only say, in the words of Horace, which a reader of Plato ought always to have in mind,

—— Ridentem dicere Verum
Quid vetat ——?
What hinders, but that serious truth be spoke
In humour gay, with pleasantry and joke?

As to the other opinion, that which is generally received, we contend not that it has no foundation, nor even at all dispute the truth of it; but deny only the importance of that truth to the Io. For though the immediate and direct end of Plato, in this Dialogue, was to prove that the wisdom, which appears in the writings of the elder poets, especially in those of Homer, was not owing to science: yet another thing, which he had obliquely in his view, was the intimating to his readers, to what cause positively it was owing that so many profound truths were contained in those antient poems. The cause assigned by the philosopher is some universal and divine principle, operating in various ways: partly acting only occasionally, in which respect he terms it, agreeably to the language of those days, the inspiration of the muse; and partly with a continual and constant energy, being a divine genius, but limited, and confined to certain subjects, operating differently in different persons; though in Homer, most of all men, exerting its full force, and the most according to its own nature, that is, universal and divine —S.
[69] As soon as boys had been taught letters, they were introduced to the reading of the poets; their minds were charged with the memory of shorter poems, and of many passages from the longer; and they had masters appointed to explain, criticise, and comment upon what they had learnt. From the poets consequently did the youth imbibe principles of manners, and general opinions of things: their odes were as commonly sung as ballads among us; and their verses were cited, not only to grace conversation, but even to add weight to grave discourses. Justly therefore does Aristides the orator call them κοινους των Ελληνων τροφεας και διδασκαλους, “the common tutors and teachers of all Greece.” Aristid. tom. iii. p. 22. ed. Canter.—S,
[70] This appears to have been so understood by the poets themselves of those days. For what other provocation Socrates could have given them than by some such talk as Plato in this Dialogue puts into his mouth is not easy to conceive. The enemies that Socrates had made himself by his freedom of speech, as we are informed by himself in his Apology, reported to us by Plato, were of three sorts; the politicians, the rhetoricians, and the poets. That the former sort resented his exposing their conceited ignorance, and vain pretensions to political science, is told us by Laertius, b. ii. and is indeed abundantly evident from Plato’s Meno. That Socrates treated the rhetoricians in the same manner, will appear very sufficiently in the Gorgias. Is it not then highly probable, that the resentment of the poets was raised against him by the same means; and that they well understood his attack upon the rhapsodists, a set of men too inconsiderable for any part of his principal notice to be intended against themselves? We should add to this argument the authority of Athenæus, were it of any weight in what regards Plato. For he gives this as one instance of Plato’s envious and malignant spirit, which his own malignity against the divine philosopher attributes to him, that in his Io he vilifies and abuses the poets. See Athen. Deipnosoph. l. xi. p. 506.—S.
[71] See what has been already observed concerning the Io, in the note at the beginning of the tenth book of the Republic, in which we have given, from Proclus, a copious and admirable account of the different species of poetry, and the nature of poetic fury.—T.
[72] In Aristot. de Interpretatione.
[73] Lib. i. cap. 29.
[74] Agreeably to this, likewise, Proclus, in the fourth book of his Commentary on the Parmenides, which is justly called by Damascius, υπεραιρουσα εξηγησις, a transcen- dent exposition, observes as follows: πολλαι ταξεις εισι και των ονοματων, ωσπερ δη και των γνωσεων· και τα μεν αυτων θεια λεγεται, δι ων οι καταδεεστεροι θεοι τους προ αυτων ονομαζουσι· τα δε αγγελικα, δι ων οι αγγελοι εαυτους τε και τους θεους· τα δε δαιμονια, τα δε ανθρωπινα. και τα μεν εστι ρητα και εμιν, τα δε αρρητα. και ολως ωσπερ ημας ο Κρατυλος αναδιδασκει, και προ τουτου η ειθεος παραδοσις, και γνωσις, και ονομασια διαφορος εστι.— i. e. “There are many orders of names, as well as of cognitions; and some of these are called divine, through which subordinate gods denominate such as are prior to them: but others are angelic, through which angels denominate themselves and the gods; and others are dæmoniacal, and others again human. And some are effable by us, but others are ineffable. And universally, as the Cratylus informs us, and prior to this, the divine tradition (i. e. the Zoroastrian oracles), there is a difference in nomination as well as in knowledge.”