A Critical History of Greek Philosophy Part 11

_(b) The Doctrine of the Human Soul_.

The human soul is similar in kind to the World-Soul. It is the cause of the body's movements, and in it the human reason dwells. It has affinities both with the world of Ideas and the world of sense. It is divided into two parts, of which one part is again subdivided into two. The highest part is reason, which is {212} that part of the soul which apprehends the Ideas. It is simple and indivisible. Now all destruction of things means the sundering of their parts. But the rational part of the soul, being simple, has no parts. Therefore it is indestructible and immortal. The irrational part of the soul is mortal, and is subdivided into a n.o.ble and an ign.o.ble half. To the n.o.ble half belong courage, love of honour, and in general the n.o.bler emotions. To the ign.o.ble portion belong the sensuous appet.i.tes. The n.o.ble half has a certain affinity with reason, in that it has an instinct for what is n.o.ble and great. Nevertheless, this is mere instinct, and is not rational. The seat of reason is the head, of the n.o.ble half of the lower soul, the breast, of the ign.o.ble half, the lower part of the body. Man alone possesses the three parts of the soul. Animals possess the two lower parts, plants only the appet.i.tive soul. What distinguishes man from the lower orders of creation is thus that he alone possesses reason.

Plato connects the doctrine of the immortality of the rational soul with the theory of Ideas by means of the doctrines of recollection and transmigration. According to the former doctrine, all knowledge is recollection of what was experienced by the soul in its disembodied state before birth. It must carefully be noted, however, that the word knowledge is here used in the special and restricted sense of Plato.

Not everything that we should call knowledge is recollection. The sensuous element in my perception that this paper is white is not recollection, since, as being merely sensuous, it is not, in Plato's opinion, to be called knowledge. Here, as elsewhere, he confines the term {213} to rational knowledge, that is to say, knowledge of the Ideas, though it is doubtful whether he is wholly consistent with himself in the matter, especially in regard to mathematical knowledge.

It must also be noted that this doctrine has nothing in common with the Oriental doctrine of the memory of our past lives upon the earth.

An example of this is found in the Buddhist Jatakas, where the Buddha relates from memory many things that happened to him in the body in his previous births. Plato's doctrine is quite different. It refers only to recollection of the experiences of the soul in its disembodied state in the world of Ideas.

The reasons a.s.signed by Plato for believing in this doctrine may be reduced to two. Firstly, knowledge of the Ideas cannot be derived from the senses, because the Idea is never pure in its sensuous manifestation, but always mixed. The one beauty, for example, is only found in experience mixed with the ugly. The second reason is more striking. And, if the doctrine of recollection is itself fantastic, this, the chief reason upon which Plato bases it, is interesting and important. He pointed out that mathematical knowledge seems to be innate in the mind. It is neither imparted to us by instruction, nor is it gained from experience. Plato, in fact, came within an ace of discovering what, in modern times, is called the distinction between necessary and contingent knowledge, a distinction which was made by Kant the basis of most far-reaching developments in philosophy. The character of necessity attaches to rational knowledge, but not to sensuous. To explain this distinction, we may take as our example of rational knowledge such a proposition as that two {214} and two make four. This does not mean merely that, as a matter of fact, every two objects and every other two objects, with which we have tried the experiment, make four. It is not merely a fact, it is a necessity. It is not merely that two and two do make four, but that they must make four. It is inconceivable that they should not. We have not got to go and see whether, in each new case, they do so. We know beforehand that they will, because they must. It is quite otherwise with such a proposition as, "gold is yellow." There is no necessity about it. It is merely a fact. For all anybody can see to the contrary it might just as well be blue. There is nothing inconceivable about its being blue, as there is about two and two making five. Of course, that gold is yellow is no doubt a mechanical necessity, that is, it is determined by causes, and in that sense could not be otherwise. But it is not a logical necessity. It is not a logical contradiction to imagine blue gold, as it would be to imagine two and two making five.

Any other proposition in mathematics possesses the same necessity.

That the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal is a necessary proposition. It could not be otherwise without contradiction. Its opposite is unthinkable. But that Socrates is standing is not a necessary truth. He might just as well be sitting.

Since a mathematical proposition is necessarily true, its truth is known without verification by experience. Having proved the proposition about the isosceles triangle, we do not go about measuring the angles of triangular objects to make sure there is no exception.

We know it without any experience at all. And if we {215} were sufficiently clever, we might even evolve mathematical knowledge out of the resources of our own minds, without its being told us by any teacher. That Caesar was stabbed by Brutus is a fact which no amount of cleverness could ever reveal to me. This information I can only get by being told it. But that the base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal I could discover by merely thinking about it. The proposition about Brutus is not a necessary proposition. It might be otherwise. And therefore I must be told whether it is true or not. But the proposition about the isosceles triangle is necessary, and therefore I can see that it must be true without being told.

Now Plato did not clearly make this distinction between necessary and non-necessary knowledge. But what he did perceive was that mathematical knowledge can be known without either experience or instruction. Kant afterwards gave a less fantastic explanation of these facts. But Plato concluded that such knowledge must be already present in the mind at birth. It must be recollected from a previous existence. It might be answered that, though this kind of knowledge is not gained from the experience of the senses, it may be gained from teaching. It may be imparted by another mind. We have to teach children mathematics, which we should not have to do if it were already in their minds. But Plato's answer is that when the teacher explains a geometrical theorem to the child, directly the child understands what is meant, he a.s.sents. He sees it for himself. But if the teacher explains that Lisbon is on the Tagus, the child cannot see that this is true for himself. He must either believe the word {216} of the teacher, or he must go and see. In this case, therefore, the knowledge is really imparted from one mind to another. The teacher transfers to the child knowledge which the child does not possess. But the mathematical theorem is already present in the child's mind, and the process of teaching merely consists in making him see what he already potentially knows. He has only to look into his own mind to find it. This is what we mean by saying that the child sees it for himself.

In the "Meno" Plato attempts to give an experimental proof of the doctrine of recollection. Socrates is represented as talking to a slave-boy, who admittedly has no education in mathematics, and barely knows what a square is. By dint of skilful questioning Socrates elicits from the boy's mind a theorem about the properties of the square. The point of the argument is that Socrates tells him nothing at all. He imparts no information. He only asks questions. The boy's knowledge of the theorem, therefore, is not due to the teaching of Socrates, nor is it due to experience. It can only be recollection.

But if knowledge is recollection, it may be asked, why is it that we do not remember at once? Why is the tedious process of education in mathematics necessary? Because the soul, descending from the world of Ideas into the body, has its knowledge dulled and almost blotted out by its immersion in the sensuous. It has forgotten, or it has only the dimmest and faintest recollection. It has to be reminded, and it takes a great effort to bring the half-lost ideas back to the mind. This process of being reminded is education.

With this, of course, is connected the doctrine of {217} transmigration, which Plato took, no doubt, from the Pythagoreans.

Most of the details of Plato's doctrine of transmigration are mere myth. Plato does not mean them seriously, as is shown by the fact that he gives quite different and inconsistent accounts of these details in different dialogues. What, in all probability, he did believe, however, may be summarized as follows. The soul is pre-existent as well as immortal. Its natural home is the world of Ideas, where at first it existed, without a body, in the pure and blissful contemplation of Ideas. But because it has affinities with the world of sense, it sinks down into a body. After death, if a man has lived a good life, and especially if he has cultivated the knowledge of Ideas, philosophy, the soul returns to its blissful abode in the world of Ideas, till, after a long period it again returns to earth in a body.

Those who do evil suffer after death severe penalties, and are then reincarnated in the body of some being lower than themselves. A man may become a woman. Men may even, if their lives have been utterly sensual, pa.s.s into the bodies of animals.

5. Ethics

_(a) The Ethics of the Individual_

Just as Plato's theory of knowledge begins with a negative portion, designed to refute false theories of what truth is, so does his theory of morals begin with a negative portion, intended to refute false theories of what virtue is. These two negative departments of Plato's philosophy correspond in every way. As he was then engaged in showing that knowledge is not perception, as Protagoras thought, so he now urges that {218} virtue is not the same as pleasure. And as knowledge is not mere right opinion, neither is virtue mere right action. The propositions that knowledge is perception, and that virtue is pleasure, are indeed only the same principle applied to different spheres of thought. For the Sophists whatever appeared true to the individual was true for that individual. This is the same as saying that knowledge is perception. For the Sophists, again, whatever appeared right to the individual was right for that individual. This is the same as saying that it is right for each man to do whatever he pleases. Virtue is defined as the pleasure of the individual. This consequence of the Sophistic principles was drawn both by many of the Sophists themselves, and later by the Cyrenaics.

As these two propositions are thus in fact only one principle, what Plato has said in refutation of the former provides also his refutation of the latter. The theory that virtue is pleasure has the same destructive influence upon morals as the theory that knowledge is perception had upon truth. We may thus shortly summarize Plato's arguments.

(1) As the Sophistic theory of truth destroys the objectivity of truth, so the doctrine that virtue is the pleasure of the individual destroys the objectivity of the good. Nothing is good in itself.

Things are only good for me or for you. There results an absolute moral relativity, in which the idea of an objective standard of goodness totally disappears.

(2) This theory destroys the distinction between good and evil. Since the good is whatever the individual pleases, and since the pleasure of one individual is the {219} displeasure of another, the same thing is both good and evil at the same time, good for one person and evil for another. Good and evil are therefore not distinct. They are the same.

(3) Pleasure is the satisfaction of our desires. Desires are merely feelings. This theory, therefore, founds morality upon feeling. But an objective morality cannot be founded upon what is peculiar to individuals. If the moral code is to be a law binding upon all men, it can only be founded upon that which is common to all men, the universal reason.

(4) The end of moral activity must fall within, and not outside, the moral act itself. Morality must have an intrinsic, not a merely extrinsic, value. We must not do right for the sake of something else.

We must do right because it is right, and thus make virtue an end in itself. But the Sophistic theory places the end of morality outside morality. We are to do right, not for its own sake, but for the sake of pleasure. Morality is thus not an end in itself, but merely a means towards a further end.

Virtue, therefore, is not pleasure, any more than knowledge is perception. Likewise, just as knowledge is not right opinion, so virtue is not right action. Right opinion may be held upon wrong grounds, and right action may be performed on wrong grounds. For true virtue we must not only know what is right, but why it is right. True virtue is thus right action proceeding from a rational comprehension of true values. Hence there arises in Plato's philosophy a distinction between philosophic virtue and customary virtue. Philosophic virtue is founded upon reason, and understands the {220} principle on which it acts. It is, in fact, action governed by principles. Customary virtue is right action proceeding from any other grounds, such as custom, habit, tradition, good impulses, benevolent feelings, instinctive goodness. Men do right merely because other people do it, because it is customary, and they do it without understanding the reasons for it.

This is the virtue of the ordinary honest citizen, the "respectable"

person. It is the virtue of bees and ants, who act as if rationally, but without any understanding of what they are doing. And Plato observes--no doubt with an intentional spice of humour--that such people may in the next life find themselves born as bees and ants.

Plato denies philosophic virtue not only to the ma.s.ses of men, but even to the best statesmen and politicians of Greece.

As true virtue is virtue which knows at what it is aiming, the knowledge of the nature of the highest aim becomes the chief question of ethics. What is the end of moral activity? Now we have just seen that that end must fall within, and not outside, the moral act. The end of goodness is the good. What, then, is the good? What is the supreme good, the _summum bonum_?

A note of warning is necessary before we enter upon the details of this problem. Plato frequently speaks of all moral activity aiming at, and ending in, happiness. With modern phrases ringing in our ears, we might easily suppose this to mean that Plato is a utilitarian. The utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill is distinguished by the fact that it places the end of morality in happiness. Yet Plato was not a utilitarian, and would unhesitatingly have condemned the theory of Mill. He {221} would have found it identical in principle with the Sophistic doctrine that pleasure is the end of virtue. The only difference is that, whereas the Sophists identified virtue with the pleasure of the individual, Mill makes it the pleasure of the community. That act is right which leads to "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." In practice, of course, this makes a tremendous difference. But the principle is equally objectionable because, like the Sophistic theory, it founds morality upon mere feeling, instead of upon reason, and because it places the end of morality outside morality itself. Yet the formula of Mill, that the end of morals is happiness, seems the same as Plato's formula. What is the difference?

The fact is that what Mill calls happiness Plato would have called pleasure. Pleasure is the satisfaction of one's desires, whether they are n.o.ble or ign.o.ble. Then what is happiness? It can only be defined as the general harmonious well-being of life. Only that man is happy whose soul is in the state it ought to be in, only in fact the just, the good, and the moral man. Happiness has nothing to do with pleasure. If you could conceive an absolutely just and upright man, who was yet weighed down with every possible misery and disaster, in whose life pleasure had no part, such a man would still be absolutely happy. Happiness is, therefore, in Plato, merely another name for the _summum bonum_. In saying that the _summum bonum_ is happiness, Plato is not telling us anything about it. He is merely giving it a new name. And we are still left to enquire: what is the _summum bonum_?

what is happiness?

Plato's answer, as indeed his whole ethics, is but {222} an application of the theory of Ideas. But here we can distinguish two different and, to some extent, inconsistent strains of thought, which exist side by side in Plato, and perpetually struggle for the mastery.

Both views depend upon the theory of Ideas. In the first place, the Idea, in Plato's philosophy, is the sole reality. The object of sense is unreal, and merely clogs and dims the soul's vision of the Ideas.

Matter is that which obstructs the free activity of the Idea.

Sense-objects hide the Idea from our view. Therefore the world of sense is wholly evil. True virtue must consist in flying from the world of sense, in retiring from the affairs of the world, and even from the beauty of the senses, into the calm of philosophic contemplation. And if this were all, philosophy, the knowledge of the Ideas, would be the sole const.i.tuent of the _summum bonum_. But it is possible to regard sense-objects in another light. They are, after all, copies of the Ideas. They are therefore a manifestation and revelation of the ideal world. Hence Plato is compelled by this thought to allow a certain value to the world of sense, its affairs, and its beauty.

The result of this inconsistency is, at any rate, that Plato remains broad and human. He does not, on the one hand, preach a purely selfish retirement into philosophy, or a narrow ascetic ideal. He does not, on the other hand, adopt a low utilitarian view of life, allowing value only to that which is "practical." He remains true to the Greek ideal of life as a harmonious play of all the faculties, in which no one part of man is over-developed at the expense of the others.

The result is that Plato's _summum bonum_ is not a single {223} end.

It is a compound consisting of four parts. First, and chief of all, is the knowledge of the Ideas as they are in themselves, philosophy.

Secondly, the contemplation of the Ideas as they reveal themselves in the world of sense, the love and appreciation of all that is beautiful, ordered, and harmonious. Thirdly, the cultivation of the special sciences and arts. And fourthly, indulgence in pure, refined, and innocent pleasures of the senses, excluding, of course, whatever is base and evil.

Plato had also a specific doctrine of virtue. As already stated, he distinguished between philosophic and customary virtue, and attached absolute value only to the former. He does not, however, deny a relative value to customary virtue, inasmuch as it is a means towards true virtue. Plato saw that man cannot rise at one bound to the pinnacles of rational virtue. He must needs pa.s.s through the preparatory stage of customary virtue. In the man in whom reason is not yet awakened, good habits and customs must be implanted, in order that, when reason comes, it may find the ground ready prepared.

Socrates had taught that virtue is one. And Plato in his earlier writings adopted this view. But later on he came to see that every faculty of man has its place and its function, and the due performance of its function is a virtue. He did not, however, surrender the unity of virtue altogether, but believed that its unity is compatible with its plurality. There are four cardinal virtues. Three of these correspond to the three parts of the soul, and the fourth is the unity of the others. The virtue of reason is wisdom, of the n.o.ble half of {224} the mortal soul courage, of the ign.o.ble appet.i.tes, temperance or self-control, in which the pa.s.sions allow themselves to be governed by reason. The fourth virtue, justice, arises from the others. Justice means proportion and harmony, and accrues to the soul when all three parts perform their functions and co-operate with each other.

Following Zeller, we may add to this account of the virtues some of Plato's views upon the details of life. And first, his opinion of women and marriage. Here Plato does not rise above the level of ordinary Greek morals. He has nothing specially original to say, but reflects the opinions of his age. Women he regards as essentially inferior to men. Moreover, the modern view of woman as the complement of man, as possessing those special virtues of womanliness, which a man lacks, is quite alien to Plato. The difference between men and women is, in his view, not one of kind but only of degree. The only specific difference between the s.e.xes is the physical difference.

Spiritually they are quite the same, except that woman is inferior.

Hence Plato would not exclude women from the same education which man receives. He would educate them in exactly the same way, but this involves the imposition upon them of the same burdens. Even military duties are not outside the sphere of women.

His views of marriage flow from the same principle. Since woman is not the complement of man, she is in no special sense fitted to be his companion. Hence the ideal of spiritual companionship is absent from Plato's view of marriage, the sole object of which, in his opinion, is the propagation of children. The natural companion {225} of a man is not a woman, but another man. The ideal of friendship, therefore, takes the place of the spiritual ideal of marriage in Plato and, indeed, among the ancients generally.

Slavery is not denounced by Plato. He takes no trouble to justify it, because he thinks it so obviously right that it needs no justification. All that can be said to his credit is that he demands humane and just, though firm and unsentimental, treatment of slaves.

If in these respects Plato never transcends the Greek view of life, in one matter at least he does so. The common view of his time was that one ought to do good to one's friends and evil to one's enemies. This Plato expressly repudiates. It can never be good, he thinks, to do evil. One should rather do good to one's enemies, and so convert them into friends. To return good for evil is no less a Platonic than a Christian maxim.

_(b) The State_.

We pa.s.s from the ethics of individual life to the ethics of the community. Plato's "Republic" is not an attempt to paint an imaginary and unreal perfection. Its object is to found politics on the theory of Ideas by depicting the Idea of the State. This State is, therefore, not unreal, but the only real State, and its reality is the ground of the existence of all actually existent States.

We can trace here, too, the same two strains of thought as we found in considering the ethics of the individual. On the one hand, since the Idea alone is real, the existent world a mere illusion, the service of the {226} State cannot be the ideal life for a rational being.

Complete retirement from the world into the sphere of Ideas is a far n.o.bler end, and the aims of the ordinary politician are, in comparison, worthless baubles. Though only the philosopher is competent to rule, yet he will not undertake the business of the State, except under compulsion. In the political States, as they exist in the world, the philosopher dwells with his body, but his soul is a stranger, ignorant of their standards, unmoved by their ambitions. But the opposite strain of thought is uppermost when we are told that it is, after all, only in the State, only in his capacity as a citizen and a social being that the individual can attain perfection. It is only possible to reconcile these views in one way. If the ideals of the State and of philosophy seem inconsistent, they must be brought together by adapting the State to philosophy. We must have a State founded upon philosophy and reason. Then only can the philosopher dwell in it with his soul as well as with his body. Then only can either the individual or the State reach perfection. To found the State upon reason is the keynote of Plato's politics.

And this gives us, too, the clue to the problem, what is the end of the State? Why should there be a State at all? This does not mean, how has the State arisen in history? We are not in search of the cause, but of the reason, or end, of the State. The end of all life is wisdom, virtue, and knowledge. The una.s.sisted individual cannot reach these ends. It is only by the State that they can be brought down from heaven to earth. The end of the State is thus the virtue and happiness (not pleasure) of the citizens. And since this is only possible {227} through education, the State's primary function is educational.

Since the State is to be founded upon reason, its laws must be rational, and rational laws can only be made by rational men, philosophers. The rulers must be philosophers. And since the philosophers are few, we must have an aristocracy, not of birth, or of wealth, but of intellect. The first operative principle of the State is reason, the second is force. For it is not to be expected that the irrational ma.s.ses will willingly submit to rational laws. They must be compelled. And since the work of the world must go on, the third operative principle will be labour. Plato believed in the principle of division of labour. Only he can excel at any occupation whose life is devoted to it. Hence to the three operative principles correspond three cla.s.ses, castes, or professions. Reason is embodied in the philosopher-rulers, force in the warriors, labour in the ma.s.ses. This division of the functions of the State is based upon the threefold division of the soul. To the rational soul correspond the philosopher-rulers, to the n.o.bler half of the mortal soul the warriors, to the appet.i.tive soul the ma.s.ses. Consequently the four cardinal virtues belong to the State through the functioning of the three cla.s.ses. The virtue of the philosopher-rulers is wisdom, of the warriors courage, of the ma.s.ses, temperance. The harmonious co-operation of all three produces justice.

The rulers must not cease to be philosophers. Most of their time must be spent in the study of the Ideas, philosophy, and only a portion in the affairs of government. This is rendered possible by the system of taking turns. Those who are not at any particular time {228} engaged upon government retire into thought. The duty of the warriors is the protection of the State, both against its external enemies, and against the irrational impulses of the ma.s.ses of its own citizens.

Normally, the latter will be their chief duty, the enforcement of the decrees of the philosopher-rulers upon the ma.s.ses. The ma.s.ses will engage themselves in trade, commerce, and agriculture. Both the other ranks are prohibited from soiling their fingers with trade or agriculture, upon which Plato, as a Greek aristocrat, looked down with unbounded contempt. To what rank a citizen belongs is not determined by birth, nor by individual choice. No individual can choose his own profession. This will be determined by the officers of the State, who will base their decision, however, upon the disposition and capabilities of the individual. As they have also to decide the numbers required for each rank, the magistrates also control the birth of children. Parents cannot have children when they wish. The sanction of the State is required.