While acknowledging the benefits which the greatest happiness principle has conferred upon mankind, the time appears to have arrived, not for denying its claims, but for criticizing them and comparing them with other principles which equally claim to lie at the foundation of ethics. Any one who adds a general principle to knowledge has been a benefactor to the world. But there is a danger that, in his first enthusiasm, he may not recognize the proportions or limitations to which his truth is subjected; he does not see how far he has given birth to a truism, or how that which is a truth to him is a truism to the rest of the world; or may degenerate in the next generation. He believes that to be the whole which is only a part,—to be the necessary foundation which is really only a valuable aspect of the truth. The systems of all philosophers require the criticism of 'the morrow,' when the heat of imagination which forged them has cooled, and they are seen in the temperate light of day. All of them have contributed to enrich the mind of the civilized world; none of them occupy that supreme or exclusive place which their authors would have assigned to them.

We may preface the criticism with a few preliminary remarks:—

Mr. Mill, Mr. Austin, and others, in their eagerness to maintain the doctrine of utility, are fond of repeating that we are in a lamentable state of uncertainty about morals. While other branches of knowledge have made extraordinary progress, in moral philosophy we are supposed by them to be no better than children, and with few exceptions—that is to say, Bentham and his followers—to be no further advanced than men were in the age of Socrates and Plato, who, in their turn, are deemed to be as backward in ethics as they necessarily were in physics. But this, though often asserted, is recanted almost in a breath by the same writers who speak thus depreciatingly of our modern ethical philosophy. For they are the first to acknowledge that we have not now to begin classifying actions under the head of utility; they would not deny that about the general conceptions of morals there is a practical agreement. There is no more doubt that falsehood is wrong than that a stone falls to the ground, although the first does not admit of the same ocular proof as the second. There is no greater uncertainty about the duty of obedience to parents and to the law of the land than about the properties of triangles. Unless we are looking for a new moral world which has no marrying and giving in marriage, there is no greater disagreement in theory about the right relations of the sexes than about the composition of water. These and a few other simple principles, as they have endless applications in practice, so also may be developed in theory into counsels of perfection.

To what then is to be attributed this opinion which has been often entertained about the uncertainty of morals? Chiefly to this,—that philosophers have not always distinguished the theoretical and the casuistical uncertainty of morals from the practical certainty. There is an uncertainty about details,—whether, for example, under given circumstances such and such a moral principle is to be enforced, or whether in some cases there may not be a conflict of duties: these are the exceptions to the ordinary rules of morality, important, indeed, but not extending to the one thousandth or one ten-thousandth part of human actions. This is the domain of casuistry. Secondly, the aspects under which the most general principles of morals may be presented to us are many and various. The mind of man has been more than usually active in thinking about man. The conceptions of harmony, happiness, right, freedom, benevolence, self-love, have all of them seemed to some philosopher or other the truest and most comprehensive expression of morality. There is no difference, or at any rate no great difference, of opinion about the right and wrong of actions, but only about the general notion which furnishes the best explanation or gives the most comprehensive view of them. This, in the language of Kant, is the sphere of the metaphysic of ethics. But these two uncertainties at either end, en tois malista katholou and en tois kath ekasta, leave space enough for an intermediate principle which is practically certain.

The rule of human life is not dependent on the theories of philosophers: we know what our duties are for the most part before we speculate about them. And the use of speculation is not to teach us what we already know, but to inspire in our minds an interest about morals in general, to strengthen our conception of the virtues by showing that they confirm one another, to prove to us, as Socrates would have said, that they are not many, but one. There is the same kind of pleasure and use in reducing morals, as in reducing physics, to a few very simple truths. And not unfrequently the more general principle may correct prejudices and misconceptions, and enable us to regard our fellow-men in a larger and more generous spirit.

The two qualities which seem to be most required in first principles of ethics are, (1) that they should afford a real explanation of the facts, (2) that they should inspire the mind,—should harmonize, strengthen, settle us. We can hardly estimate the influence which a simple principle such as 'Act so as to promote the happiness of mankind,' or 'Act so that the rule on which thou actest may be adopted as a law by all rational beings,' may exercise on the mind of an individual. They will often seem to open a new world to him, like the religious conceptions of faith or the spirit of God. The difficulties of ethics disappear when we do not suffer ourselves to be distracted between different points of view. But to maintain their hold on us, the general principles must also be psychologically true—they must agree with our experience, they must accord with the habits of our minds.

When we are told that actions are right or wrong only in so far as they tend towards happiness, we naturally ask what is meant by 'happiness.' For the term in the common use of language is only to a certain extent commensurate with moral good and evil. We should hardly say that a good man could be utterly miserable (Arist. Ethics), or place a bad man in the first rank of happiness. But yet, from various circumstances, the measure of a man's happiness may be out of all proportion to his desert. And if we insist on calling the good man alone happy, we shall be using the term in some new and transcendental sense, as synonymous with well-being. We have already seen that happiness includes the happiness of others as well as our own; we must now comprehend unconscious as well as conscious happiness under the same word. There is no harm in this extension of the meaning, but a word which admits of such an extension can hardly be made the basis of a philosophical system. The exactness which is required in philosophy will not allow us to comprehend under the same term two ideas so different as the subjective feeling of pleasure or happiness and the objective reality of a state which receives our moral approval.

Like Protarchus in the Philebus, we can give no answer to the question, 'What is that common quality which in all states of human life we call happiness? which includes the lower and the higher kind of happiness, and is the aim of the noblest, as well as of the meanest of mankind?' If we say 'Not pleasure, not virtue, not wisdom, nor yet any quality which we can abstract from these'—what then? After seeming to hover for a time on the verge of a great truth, we have gained only a truism.

Let us ask the question in another form. What is that which constitutes happiness, over and above the several ingredients of health, wealth, pleasure, virtue, knowledge, which are included under it? Perhaps we answer, 'The subjective feeling of them.' But this is very far from being coextensive with right. Or we may reply that happiness is the whole of which the above-mentioned are the parts. Still the question recurs, 'In what does the whole differ from all the parts?' And if we are unable to distinguish them, happiness will be the mere aggregate of the goods of life.

Again, while admitting that in all right action there is an element of happiness, we cannot help seeing that the utilitarian theory supplies a much easier explanation of some virtues than of others. Of many patriotic or benevolent actions we can give a straightforward account by their tendency to promote happiness. For the explanation of justice, on the other hand, we have to go a long way round. No man is indignant with a thief because he has not promoted the greatest happiness of the greatest number, but because he has done him a wrong. There is an immeasurable interval between a crime against property or life, and the omission of an act of charity or benevolence. Yet of this interval the utilitarian theory takes no cognizance. The greatest happiness principle strengthens our sense of positive duties towards others, but weakens our recognition of their rights. To promote in every way possible the happiness of others may be a counsel of perfection, but hardly seems to offer any ground for a theory of obligation. For admitting that our ideas of obligation are partly derived from religion and custom, yet they seem also to contain other essential elements which cannot be explained by the tendency of actions to promote happiness. Whence comes the necessity of them? Why are some actions rather than others which equally tend to the happiness of mankind imposed upon us with the authority of law? 'You ought' and 'you had better' are fundamental distinctions in human thought; and having such distinctions, why should we seek to efface and unsettle them?

Bentham and Mr. Mill are earnest in maintaining that happiness includes the happiness of others as well as of ourselves. But what two notions can be more opposed in many cases than these? Granting that in a perfect state of the world my own happiness and that of all other men would coincide, in the imperfect state they often diverge, and I cannot truly bridge over the difficulty by saying that men will always find pleasure in sacrificing themselves or in suffering for others. Upon the greatest happiness principle it is admitted that I am to have a share, and in consistency I should pursue my own happiness as impartially as that of my neighbour. But who can decide what proportion should be mine and what his, except on the principle that I am most likely to be deceived in my own favour, and had therefore better give the larger share, if not all, to him?

Further, it is admitted that utility and right coincide, not in particular instances, but in classes of actions. But is it not distracting to the conscience of a man to be told that in the particular case they are opposed? Happiness is said to be the ground of moral obligation, yet he must not do what clearly conduces to his own happiness if it is at variance with the good of the whole. Nay, further, he will be taught that when utility and right are in apparent conflict any amount of utility does not alter by a hair's-breadth the morality of actions, which cannot be allowed to deviate from established law or usage; and that the non-detection of an immoral act, say of telling a lie, which may often make the greatest difference in the consequences, not only to himself, but to all the world, makes none whatever in the act itself.

Again, if we are concerned not with particular actions but with classes of actions, is the tendency of actions to happiness a principle upon which we can classify them? There is a universal law which imperatively declares certain acts to be right or wrong:—can there be any universality in the law which measures actions by their tendencies towards happiness? For an act which is the cause of happiness to one person may be the cause of unhappiness to another; or an act which if performed by one person may increase the happiness of mankind may have the opposite effect if performed by another. Right can never be wrong, or wrong right, that there are no actions which tend to the happiness of mankind which may not under other circumstances tend to their unhappiness. Unless we say not only that all right actions tend to happiness, but that they tend to happiness in the same degree in which they are right (and in that case the word 'right' is plainer), we weaken the absoluteness of our moral standard; we reduce differences in kind to differences in degree; we obliterate the stamp which the authority of ages has set upon vice and crime.

Once more: turning from theory to practice we feel the importance of retaining the received distinctions of morality. Words such as truth, justice, honesty, virtue, love, have a simple meaning; they have become sacred to us,—'the word of God' written on the human heart: to no other words can the same associations be attached. We cannot explain them adequately on principles of utility; in attempting to do so we rob them of their true character. We give them a meaning often paradoxical and distorted, and generally weaker than their signification in common language. And as words influence men's thoughts, we fear that the hold of morality may also be weakened, and the sense of duty impaired, if virtue and vice are explained only as the qualities which do or do not contribute to the pleasure of the world. In that very expression we seem to detect a false ring, for pleasure is individual not universal; we speak of eternal and immutable justice, but not of eternal and immutable pleasure; nor by any refinement can we avoid some taint of bodily sense adhering to the meaning of the word.

Again: the higher the view which men take of life, the more they lose sight of their own pleasure or interest. True religion is not working for a reward only, but is ready to work equally without a reward. It is not 'doing the will of God for the sake of eternal happiness,' but doing the will of God because it is best, whether rewarded or unrewarded. And this applies to others as well as to ourselves. For he who sacrifices himself for the good of others, does not sacrifice himself that they may be saved from the persecution which he endures for their sakes, but rather that they in their turn may be able to undergo similar sufferings, and like him stand fast in the truth. To promote their happiness is not his first object, but to elevate their moral nature. Both in his own case and that of others there may be happiness in the distance, but if there were no happiness he would equally act as he does. We are speaking of the highest and noblest natures; and a passing thought naturally arises in our minds, 'Whether that can be the first principle of morals which is hardly regarded in their own case by the greatest benefactors of mankind?'

The admissions that pleasures differ in kind, and that actions are already classified; the acknowledgment that happiness includes the happiness of others, as well as of ourselves; the confusion (not made by Aristotle) between conscious and unconscious happiness, or between happiness the energy and happiness the result of the energy, introduce uncertainty and inconsistency into the whole enquiry. We reason readily and cheerfully from a greatest happiness principle. But we find that utilitarians do not agree among themselves about the meaning of the word. Still less can they impart to others a common conception or conviction of the nature of happiness. The meaning of the word is always insensibly slipping away from us, into pleasure, out of pleasure, now appearing as the motive, now as the test of actions, and sometimes varying in successive sentences. And as in a mathematical demonstration an error in the original number disturbs the whole calculation which follows, this fundamental uncertainty about the word vitiates all the applications of it. Must we not admit that a notion so uncertain in meaning, so void of content, so at variance with common language and opinion, does not comply adequately with either of our two requirements? It can neither strike the imaginative faculty, nor give an explanation of phenomena which is in accordance with our individual experience. It is indefinite; it supplies only a partial account of human actions: it is one among many theories of philosophers. It may be compared with other notions, such as the chief good of Plato, which may be best expressed to us under the form of a harmony, or with Kant's obedience to law, which may be summed up under the word 'duty,' or with the Stoical 'Follow nature,' and seems to have no advantage over them. All of these present a certain aspect of moral truth. None of them are, or indeed profess to be, the only principle of morals.

And this brings us to speak of the most serious objection to the utilitarian system—its exclusiveness. There is no place for Kant or Hegel, for Plato and Aristotle alongside of it. They do not reject the greatest happiness principle, but it rejects them. Now the phenomena of moral action differ, and some are best explained upon one principle and some upon another: the virtue of justice seems to be naturally connected with one theory of morals, the virtues of temperance and benevolence with another. The characters of men also differ; and some are more attracted by one aspect of the truth, some by another. The firm stoical nature will conceive virtue under the conception of law, the philanthropist under that of doing good, the quietist under that of resignation, the enthusiast under that of faith or love. The upright man of the world will desire above all things that morality should be plain and fixed, and should use language in its ordinary sense. Persons of an imaginative temperament will generally be dissatisfied with the words 'utility' or 'pleasure': their principle of right is of a far higher character—what or where to be found they cannot always distinctly tell;—deduced from the laws of human nature, says one; resting on the will of God, says another; based upon some transcendental idea which animates more worlds than one, says a third:

on nomoi prokeintai upsipodes, ouranian di aithera teknothentes.

To satisfy an imaginative nature in any degree, the doctrine of utility must be so transfigured that it becomes altogether different and loses all simplicity.

But why, since there are different characters among men, should we not allow them to envisage morality accordingly, and be thankful to the great men who have provided for all of us modes and instruments of thought? Would the world have been better if there had been no Stoics or Kantists, no Platonists or Cartesians? No more than if the other pole of moral philosophy had been excluded. All men have principles which are above their practice; they admit premises which, if carried to their conclusions, are a sufficient basis of morals. In asserting liberty of speculation we are not encouraging individuals to make right or wrong for themselves, but only conceding that they may choose the form under which they prefer to contemplate them. Nor do we say that one of these aspects is as true and good as another; but that they all of them, if they are not mere sophisms and illusions, define and bring into relief some part of the truth which would have been obscure without their light. Why should we endeavour to bind all men within the limits of a single metaphysical conception? The necessary imperfection of language seems to require that we should view the same truth under more than one aspect.

We are living in the second age of utilitarianism, when the charm of novelty and the fervour of the first disciples has passed away. The doctrine is no longer stated in the forcible paradoxical manner of Bentham, but has to be adapted to meet objections; its corners are rubbed off, and the meaning of its most characteristic expressions is softened. The array of the enemy melts away when we approach him. The greatest happiness of the greatest number was a great original idea when enunciated by Bentham, which leavened a generation and has left its mark on thought and civilization in all succeeding times. His grasp of it had the intensity of genius. In the spirit of an ancient philosopher he would have denied that pleasures differed in kind, or that by happiness he meant anything but pleasure. He would perhaps have revolted us by his thoroughness. The 'guardianship of his doctrine' has passed into other hands; and now we seem to see its weak points, its ambiguities, its want of exactness while assuming the highest exactness, its one-sidedness, its paradoxical explanation of several of the virtues. No philosophy has ever stood this criticism of the next generation, though the founders of all of them have imagined that they were built upon a rock. And the utilitarian system, like others, has yielded to the inevitable analysis. Even in the opinion of 'her admirers she has been terribly damaged' (Phil.), and is no longer the only moral philosophy, but one among many which have contributed in various degrees to the intellectual progress of mankind.

But because the utilitarian philosophy can no longer claim 'the prize,' we must not refuse to acknowledge the great benefits conferred by it on the world. All philosophies are refuted in their turn, says the sceptic, and he looks forward to all future systems sharing the fate of the past. All philosophies remain, says the thinker; they have done a great work in their own day, and they supply posterity with aspects of the truth and with instruments of thought. Though they may be shorn of their glory, they retain their place in the organism of knowledge.

And still there remain many rules of morals which are better explained and more forcibly inculcated on the principle of utility than on any other. The question Will such and such an action promote the happiness of myself, my family, my country, the world? may check the rising feeling of pride or honour which would cause a quarrel, an estrangement, a war. 'How can I contribute to the greatest happiness of others?' is another form of the question which will be more attractive to the minds of many than a deduction of the duty of benevolence from a priori principles. In politics especially hardly any other argument can be allowed to have weight except the happiness of a people. All parties alike profess to aim at this, which though often used only as the disguise of self-interest has a great and real influence on the minds of statesmen. In religion, again, nothing can more tend to mitigate superstition than the belief that the good of man is also the will of God. This is an easy test to which the prejudices and superstitions of men may be brought:—whatever does not tend to the good of men is not of God. And the ideal of the greatest happiness of mankind, especially if believed to be the will of God, when compared with the actual fact, will be one of the strongest motives to do good to others.

On the other hand, when the temptation is to speak falsely, to be dishonest or unjust, or in any way to interfere with the rights of others, the argument that these actions regarded as a class will not conduce to the happiness of mankind, though true enough, seems to have less force than the feeling which is already implanted in the mind by conscience and authority. To resolve this feeling into the greatest happiness principle takes away from its sacred and authoritative character. The martyr will not go to the stake in order that he may promote the happiness of mankind, but for the sake of the truth: neither will the soldier advance to the cannon's mouth merely because he believes military discipline to be for the good of mankind. It is better for him to know that he will be shot, that he will be disgraced, if he runs away—he has no need to look beyond military honour, patriotism, 'England expects every man to do his duty.' These are stronger motives than the greatest happiness of the greatest number, which is the thesis of a philosopher, not the watchword of an army. For in human actions men do not always require broad principles; duties often come home to us more when they are limited and defined, and sanctioned by custom and public opinion.

Lastly, if we turn to the history of ethics, we shall find that our moral ideas have originated not in utility but in religion, in law, in conceptions of nature, of an ideal good, and the like. And many may be inclined to think that this conclusively disproves the claim of utility to be the basis of morals. But the utilitarian will fairly reply (see above) that we must distinguish the origin of ethics from the principles of them—the historical germ from the later growth of reflection. And he may also truly add that for two thousand years and more, utility, if not the originating, has been the great corrective principle in law, in politics, in religion, leading men to ask how evil may be diminished and good increased—by what course of policy the public interest may be promoted, and to understand that God wills the happiness, not of some of his creatures and in this world only, but of all of them and in every stage of their existence.

'What is the place of happiness or utility in a system of moral philosophy?' is analogous to the question asked in the Philebus, 'What rank does pleasure hold in the scale of goods?' Admitting the greatest happiness principle to be true and valuable, and the necessary foundation of that part of morals which relates to the consequences of actions, we still have to consider whether this or some other general notion is the highest principle of human life. We may try them in this comparison by three tests—definiteness, comprehensiveness, and motive power.

There are three subjective principles of morals,—sympathy, benevolence, self-love. But sympathy seems to rest morality on feelings which differ widely even in good men; benevolence and self-love torture one half of our virtuous actions into the likeness of the other. The greatest happiness principle, which includes both, has the advantage over all these in comprehensiveness, but the advantage is purchased at the expense of definiteness.

Again, there are the legal and political principles of morals—freedom, equality, rights of persons; 'Every man to count for one and no man for more than one,' 'Every man equal in the eye of the law and of the legislator.' There is also the other sort of political morality, which if not beginning with 'Might is right,' at any rate seeks to deduce our ideas of justice from the necessities of the state and of society. According to this view the greatest good of men is obedience to law: the best human government is a rational despotism, and the best idea which we can form of a divine being is that of a despot acting not wholly without regard to law and order. To such a view the present mixed state of the world, not wholly evil or wholly good, is supposed to be a witness. More we might desire to have, but are not permitted. Though a human tyrant would be intolerable, a divine tyrant is a very tolerable governor of the universe. This is the doctrine of Thrasymachus adapted to the public opinion of modern times.

There is yet a third view which combines the two:—freedom is obedience to the law, and the greatest order is also the greatest freedom; 'Act so that thy action may be the law of every intelligent being.' This view is noble and elevating; but it seems to err, like other transcendental principles of ethics, in being too abstract. For there is the same difficulty in connecting the idea of duty with particular duties as in bridging the gulf between phainomena and onta; and when, as in the system of Kant, this universal idea or law is held to be independent of space and time, such a mataion eidos becomes almost unmeaning.

Once more there are the religious principles of morals:—the will of God revealed in Scripture and in nature. No philosophy has supplied a sanction equal in authority to this, or a motive equal in strength to the belief in another life. Yet about these too we must ask What will of God? how revealed to us, and by what proofs? Religion, like happiness, is a word which has great influence apart from any consideration of its content: it may be for great good or for great evil. But true religion is the synthesis of religion and morality, beginning with divine perfection in which all human perfection is embodied. It moves among ideas of holiness, justice, love, wisdom, truth; these are to God, in whom they are personified, what the Platonic ideas are to the idea of good. It is the consciousness of the will of God that all men should be as he is. It lives in this world and is known to us only through the phenomena of this world, but it extends to worlds beyond. Ordinary religion which is alloyed with motives of this world may easily be in excess, may be fanatical, may be interested, may be the mask of ambition, may be perverted in a thousand ways. But of that religion which combines the will of God with our highest ideas of truth and right there can never be too much. This impossibility of excess is the note of divine moderation.

So then, having briefly passed in review the various principles of moral philosophy, we may now arrange our goods in order, though, like the reader of the Philebus, we have a difficulty in distinguishing the different aspects of them from one another, or defining the point at which the human passes into the divine.

First, the eternal will of God in this world and in another,—justice, holiness, wisdom, love, without succession of acts (ouch e genesis prosestin), which is known to us in part only, and reverenced by us as divine perfection.

Secondly, human perfection, or the fulfilment of the will of God in this world, and co-operation with his laws revealed to us by reason and experience, in nature, history, and in our own minds.

Thirdly, the elements of human perfection,—virtue, knowledge, and right opinion.

Fourthly, the external conditions of perfection,—health and the goods of life.

Fifthly, beauty and happiness,—the inward enjoyment of that which is best and fairest in this world and in the human soul.

...

The Philebus is probably the latest in time of the writings of Plato with the exception of the Laws. We have in it therefore the last development of his philosophy. The extreme and one-sided doctrines of the Cynics and Cyrenaics are included in a larger whole; the relations of pleasure and knowledge to each other and to the good are authoritatively determined; the Eleatic Being and the Heraclitean Flux no longer divide the empire of thought; the Mind of Anaxagoras has become the Mind of God and of the World. The great distinction between pure and applied science for the first time has a place in philosophy; the natural claim of dialectic to be the Queen of the Sciences is once more affirmed. This latter is the bond of union which pervades the whole or nearly the whole of the Platonic writings. And here as in several other dialogues (Phaedrus, Republic, etc.) it is presented to us in a manner playful yet also serious, and sometimes as if the thought of it were too great for human utterance and came down from heaven direct. It is the organization of knowledge wonderful to think of at a time when knowledge itself could hardly be said to exist. It is this more than any other element which distinguishes Plato, not only from the presocratic philosophers, but from Socrates himself.

We have not yet reached the confines of Aristotle, but we make a somewhat nearer approach to him in the Philebus than in the earlier Platonic writings. The germs of logic are beginning to appear, but they are not collected into a whole, or made a separate science or system. Many thinkers of many different schools have to be interposed between the Parmenides or Philebus of Plato, and the Physics or Metaphysics of Aristotle. It is this interval upon which we have to fix our minds if we would rightly understand the character of the transition from one to the other. Plato and Aristotle do not dovetail into one another; nor does the one begin where the other ends; there is a gulf between them not to be measured by time, which in the fragmentary state of our knowledge it is impossible to bridge over. It follows that the one cannot be interpreted by the other. At any rate, it is not Plato who is to be interpreted by Aristotle, but Aristotle by Plato. Of all philosophy and of all art the true understanding is to be sought not in the afterthoughts of posterity, but in the elements out of which they have arisen. For the previous stage is a tendency towards the ideal at which they are aiming; the later is a declination or deviation from them, or even a perversion of them. No man's thoughts were ever so well expressed by his disciples as by himself.

But although Plato in the Philebus does not come into any close connexion with Aristotle, he is now a long way from himself and from the beginnings of his own philosophy. At the time of his death he left his system still incomplete; or he may be more truly said to have had no system, but to have lived in the successive stages or moments of metaphysical thought which presented themselves from time to time. The earlier discussions about universal ideas and definitions seem to have died away; the correlation of ideas has taken their place. The flowers of rhetoric and poetry have lost their freshness and charm; and a technical language has begun to supersede and overgrow them. But the power of thinking tends to increase with age, and the experience of life to widen and deepen. The good is summed up under categories which are not summa genera, but heads or gradations of thought. The question of pleasure and the relation of bodily pleasures to mental, which is hardly treated of elsewhere in Plato, is here analysed with great subtlety. The mean or measure is now made the first principle of good. Some of these questions reappear in Aristotle, as does also the distinction between metaphysics and mathematics. But there are many things in Plato which have been lost in Aristotle; and many things in Aristotle not to be found in Plato. The most remarkable deficiency in Aristotle is the disappearance of the Platonic dialectic, which in the Aristotelian school is only used in a comparatively unimportant and trivial sense. The most remarkable additions are the invention of the Syllogism, the conception of happiness as the foundation of morals, the reference of human actions to the standard of the better mind of the world, or of the one 'sensible man' or 'superior person.' His conception of ousia, or essence, is not an advance upon Plato, but a return to the poor and meagre abstractions of the Eleatic philosophy. The dry attempt to reduce the presocratic philosophy by his own rather arbitrary standard of the four causes, contrasts unfavourably with Plato's general discussion of the same subject (Sophist). To attempt further to sum up the differences between the two great philosophers would be out of place here. Any real discussion of their relation to one another must be preceded by an examination into the nature and character of the Aristotelian writings and the form in which they have come down to us. This enquiry is not really separable from an investigation of Theophrastus as well as Aristotle and of the remains of other schools of philosophy as well as of the Peripatetics. But, without entering on this wide field, even a superficial consideration of the logical and metaphysical works which pass under the name of Aristotle, whether we suppose them to have come directly from his hand or to be the tradition of his school, is sufficient to show how great was the mental activity which prevailed in the latter half of the fourth century B.C.; what eddies and whirlpools of controversies were surging in the chaos of thought, what transformations of the old philosophies were taking place everywhere, what eclecticisms and syncretisms and realisms and nominalisms were affecting the mind of Hellas. The decline of philosophy during this period is no less remarkable than the loss of freedom; and the two are not unconnected with each other. But of the multitudinous sea of opinions which were current in the age of Aristotle we have no exact account. We know of them from allusions only. And we cannot with advantage fill up the void of our knowledge by conjecture: we can only make allowance for our ignorance.

There are several passages in the Philebus which are very characteristic of Plato, and which we shall do well to consider not only in their connexion, but apart from their connexion as inspired sayings or oracles which receive their full interpretation only from the history of philosophy in later ages. The more serious attacks on traditional beliefs which are often veiled under an unusual simplicity or irony are of this kind. Such, for example, is the excessive and more than human awe which Socrates expresses about the names of the gods, which may be not unaptly compared with the importance attached by mankind to theological terms in other ages; for this also may be comprehended under the satire of Socrates. Let us observe the religious and intellectual enthusiasm which shines forth in the following, 'The power and faculty of loving the truth, and of doing all things for the sake of the truth': or, again, the singular acknowledgment which may be regarded as the anticipation of a new logic, that 'In going to war for mind I must have weapons of a different make from those which I used before, although some of the old ones may do again.' Let us pause awhile to reflect on a sentence which is full of meaning to reformers of religion or to the original thinker of all ages: 'Shall we then agree with them of old time, and merely reassert the notions of others without risk to ourselves; or shall we venture also to share in the risk and bear the reproach which will await us': i.e. if we assert mind to be the author of nature. Let us note the remarkable words, 'That in the divine nature of Zeus there is the soul and mind of a King, because there is in him the power of the cause,' a saying in which theology and philosophy are blended and reconciled; not omitting to observe the deep insight into human nature which is shown by the repetition of the same thought 'All philosophers are agreed that mind is the king of heaven and earth' with the ironical addition, 'in this way truly they magnify themselves.' Nor let us pass unheeded the indignation felt by the generous youth at the 'blasphemy' of those who say that Chaos and Chance Medley created the world; or the significance of the words 'those who said of old time that mind rules the universe'; or the pregnant observation that 'we are not always conscious of what we are doing or of what happens to us,' a chance expression to which if philosophers had attended they would have escaped many errors in psychology. We may contrast the contempt which is poured upon the verbal difficulty of the one and many, and the seriousness with the unity of opposites is regarded from the higher point of view of abstract ideas: or compare the simple manner in which the question of cause and effect and their mutual dependence is regarded by Plato (to which modern science has returned in Mill and Bacon), and the cumbrous fourfold division of causes in the Physics and Metaphysics of Aristotle, for which it has puzzled the world to find a use in so many centuries. When we consider the backwardness of knowledge in the age of Plato, the boldness with which he looks forward into the distance, the many questions of modern philosophy which are anticipated in his writings, may we not truly describe him in his own words as a 'spectator of all time and of all existence'?



PHILEBUS

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Protarchus, Philebus.

SOCRATES: Observe, Protarchus, the nature of the position which you are now going to take from Philebus, and what the other position is which I maintain, and which, if you do not approve of it, is to be controverted by you. Shall you and I sum up the two sides?

PROTARCHUS: By all means.

SOCRATES: Philebus was saying that enjoyment and pleasure and delight, and the class of feelings akin to them, are a good to every living being, whereas I contend, that not these, but wisdom and intelligence and memory, and their kindred, right opinion and true reasoning, are better and more desirable than pleasure for all who are able to partake of them, and that to all such who are or ever will be they are the most advantageous of all things. Have I not given, Philebus, a fair statement of the two sides of the argument?

PHILEBUS: Nothing could be fairer, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And do you, Protarchus, accept the position which is assigned to you?

PROTARCHUS: I cannot do otherwise, since our excellent Philebus has left the field.

SOCRATES: Surely the truth about these matters ought, by all means, to be ascertained.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Shall we further agree—

PROTARCHUS: To what?

SOCRATES: That you and I must now try to indicate some state and disposition of the soul, which has the property of making all men happy.

PROTARCHUS: Yes, by all means.

SOCRATES: And you say that pleasure, and I say that wisdom, is such a state?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And what if there be a third state, which is better than either? Then both of us are vanquished—are we not? But if this life, which really has the power of making men happy, turn out to be more akin to pleasure than to wisdom, the life of pleasure may still have the advantage over the life of wisdom.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: Or suppose that the better life is more nearly allied to wisdom, then wisdom conquers, and pleasure is defeated;—do you agree?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And what do you say, Philebus?

PHILEBUS: I say, and shall always say, that pleasure is easily the conqueror; but you must decide for yourself, Protarchus.

PROTARCHUS: You, Philebus, have handed over the argument to me, and have no longer a voice in the matter?

PHILEBUS: True enough. Nevertheless I would clear myself and deliver my soul of you; and I call the goddess herself to witness that I now do so.

PROTARCHUS: You may appeal to us; we too will be the witnesses of your words. And now, Socrates, whether Philebus is pleased or displeased, we will proceed with the argument.

SOCRATES: Then let us begin with the goddess herself, of whom Philebus says that she is called Aphrodite, but that her real name is Pleasure.

PROTARCHUS: Very good.

SOCRATES: The awe which I always feel, Protarchus, about the names of the gods is more than human—it exceeds all other fears. And now I would not sin against Aphrodite by naming her amiss; let her be called what she pleases. But Pleasure I know to be manifold, and with her, as I was just now saying, we must begin, and consider what her nature is. She has one name, and therefore you would imagine that she is one; and yet surely she takes the most varied and even unlike forms. For do we not say that the intemperate has pleasure, and that the temperate has pleasure in his very temperance,—that the fool is pleased when he is full of foolish fancies and hopes, and that the wise man has pleasure in his wisdom? and how foolish would any one be who affirmed that all these opposite pleasures are severally alike!

PROTARCHUS: Why, Socrates, they are opposed in so far as they spring from opposite sources, but they are not in themselves opposite. For must not pleasure be of all things most absolutely like pleasure,—that is, like itself?

SOCRATES: Yes, my good friend, just as colour is like colour;—in so far as colours are colours, there is no difference between them; and yet we all know that black is not only unlike, but even absolutely opposed to white: or again, as figure is like figure, for all figures are comprehended under one class; and yet particular figures may be absolutely opposed to one another, and there is an infinite diversity of them. And we might find similar examples in many other things; therefore do not rely upon this argument, which would go to prove the unity of the most extreme opposites. And I suspect that we shall find a similar opposition among pleasures.

PROTARCHUS: Very likely; but how will this invalidate the argument?

SOCRATES: Why, I shall reply, that dissimilar as they are, you apply to them a new predicate, for you say that all pleasant things are good; now although no one can argue that pleasure is not pleasure, he may argue, as we are doing, that pleasures are oftener bad than good; but you call them all good, and at the same time are compelled, if you are pressed, to acknowledge that they are unlike. And so you must tell us what is the identical quality existing alike in good and bad pleasures, which makes you designate all of them as good.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, Socrates? Do you think that any one who asserts pleasure to be the good, will tolerate the notion that some pleasures are good and others bad?

SOCRATES: And yet you will acknowledge that they are different from one another, and sometimes opposed?

PROTARCHUS: Not in so far as they are pleasures.

SOCRATES: That is a return to the old position, Protarchus, and so we are to say (are we?) that there is no difference in pleasures, but that they are all alike; and the examples which have just been cited do not pierce our dull minds, but we go on arguing all the same, like the weakest and most inexperienced reasoners? (Probably corrupt.)

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: Why, I mean to say, that in self-defence I may, if I like, follow your example, and assert boldly that the two things most unlike are most absolutely alike; and the result will be that you and I will prove ourselves to be very tyros in the art of disputing; and the argument will be blown away and lost. Suppose that we put back, and return to the old position; then perhaps we may come to an understanding with one another.

PROTARCHUS: How do you mean?

SOCRATES: Shall I, Protarchus, have my own question asked of me by you?

PROTARCHUS: What question?

SOCRATES: Ask me whether wisdom and science and mind, and those other qualities which I, when asked by you at first what is the nature of the good, affirmed to be good, are not in the same case with the pleasures of which you spoke.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: The sciences are a numerous class, and will be found to present great differences. But even admitting that, like the pleasures, they are opposite as well as different, should I be worthy of the name of dialectician if, in order to avoid this difficulty, I were to say (as you are saying of pleasure) that there is no difference between one science and another;—would not the argument founder and disappear like an idle tale, although we might ourselves escape drowning by clinging to a fallacy?

PROTARCHUS: May none of this befal us, except the deliverance! Yet I like the even-handed justice which is applied to both our arguments. Let us assume, then, that there are many and diverse pleasures, and many and different sciences.

SOCRATES: And let us have no concealment, Protarchus, of the differences between my good and yours; but let us bring them to the light in the hope that, in the process of testing them, they may show whether pleasure is to be called the good, or wisdom, or some third quality; for surely we are not now simply contending in order that my view or that yours may prevail, but I presume that we ought both of us to be fighting for the truth.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly we ought.

SOCRATES: Then let us have a more definite understanding and establish the principle on which the argument rests.

PROTARCHUS: What principle?

SOCRATES: A principle about which all men are always in a difficulty, and some men sometimes against their will.

PROTARCHUS: Speak plainer.

SOCRATES: The principle which has just turned up, which is a marvel of nature; for that one should be many or many one, are wonderful propositions; and he who affirms either is very open to attack.

PROTARCHUS: Do you mean, when a person says that I, Protarchus, am by nature one and also many, dividing the single 'me' into many 'me's,' and even opposing them as great and small, light and heavy, and in ten thousand other ways?

SOCRATES: Those, Protarchus, are the common and acknowledged paradoxes about the one and many, which I may say that everybody has by this time agreed to dismiss as childish and obvious and detrimental to the true course of thought; and no more favour is shown to that other puzzle, in which a person proves the members and parts of anything to be divided, and then confessing that they are all one, says laughingly in disproof of his own words: Why, here is a miracle, the one is many and infinite, and the many are only one.

PROTARCHUS: But what, Socrates, are those other marvels connected with this subject which, as you imply, have not yet become common and acknowledged?

SOCRATES: When, my boy, the one does not belong to the class of things that are born and perish, as in the instances which we were giving, for in those cases, and when unity is of this concrete nature, there is, as I was saying, a universal consent that no refutation is needed; but when the assertion is made that man is one, or ox is one, or beauty one, or the good one, then the interest which attaches to these and similar unities and the attempt which is made to divide them gives birth to a controversy.

PROTARCHUS: Of what nature?

SOCRATES: In the first place, as to whether these unities have a real existence; and then how each individual unity, being always the same, and incapable either of generation or of destruction, but retaining a permanent individuality, can be conceived either as dispersed and multiplied in the infinity of the world of generation, or as still entire and yet divided from itself, which latter would seem to be the greatest impossibility of all, for how can one and the same thing be at the same time in one and in many things? These, Protarchus, are the real difficulties, and this is the one and many to which they relate; they are the source of great perplexity if ill decided, and the right determination of them is very helpful.

PROTARCHUS: Then, Socrates, let us begin by clearing up these questions.

SOCRATES: That is what I should wish.

PROTARCHUS: And I am sure that all my other friends will be glad to hear them discussed; Philebus, fortunately for us, is not disposed to move, and we had better not stir him up with questions.

SOCRATES: Good; and where shall we begin this great and multifarious battle, in which such various points are at issue? Shall we begin thus?

PROTARCHUS: How?

SOCRATES: We say that the one and many become identified by thought, and that now, as in time past, they run about together, in and out of every word which is uttered, and that this union of them will never cease, and is not now beginning, but is, as I believe, an everlasting quality of thought itself, which never grows old. Any young man, when he first tastes these subtleties, is delighted, and fancies that he has found a treasure of wisdom; in the first enthusiasm of his joy he leaves no stone, or rather no thought unturned, now rolling up the many into the one, and kneading them together, now unfolding and dividing them; he puzzles himself first and above all, and then he proceeds to puzzle his neighbours, whether they are older or younger, or of his own age—that makes no difference; neither father nor mother does he spare; no human being who has ears is safe from him, hardly even his dog, and a barbarian would have no chance of escaping him, if an interpreter could only be found.

PROTARCHUS: Considering, Socrates, how many we are, and that all of us are young men, is there not a danger that we and Philebus may all set upon you, if you abuse us? We understand what you mean; but is there no charm by which we may dispel all this confusion, no more excellent way of arriving at the truth? If there is, we hope that you will guide us into that way, and we will do our best to follow, for the enquiry in which we are engaged, Socrates, is not unimportant.

SOCRATES: The reverse of unimportant, my boys, as Philebus calls you, and there neither is nor ever will be a better than my own favourite way, which has nevertheless already often deserted me and left me helpless in the hour of need.

PROTARCHUS: Tell us what that is.

SOCRATES: One which may be easily pointed out, but is by no means easy of application; it is the parent of all the discoveries in the arts.

PROTARCHUS: Tell us what it is.

SOCRATES: A gift of heaven, which, as I conceive, the gods tossed among men by the hands of a new Prometheus, and therewith a blaze of light; and the ancients, who were our betters and nearer the gods than we are, handed down the tradition, that whatever things are said to be are composed of one and many, and have the finite and infinite implanted in them: seeing, then, that such is the order of the world, we too ought in every enquiry to begin by laying down one idea of that which is the subject of enquiry; this unity we shall find in everything. Having found it, we may next proceed to look for two, if there be two, or, if not, then for three or some other number, subdividing each of these units, until at last the unity with which we began is seen not only to be one and many and infinite, but also a definite number; the infinite must not be suffered to approach the many until the entire number of the species intermediate between unity and infinity has been discovered,—then, and not till then, we may rest from division, and without further troubling ourselves about the endless individuals may allow them to drop into infinity. This, as I was saying, is the way of considering and learning and teaching one another, which the gods have handed down to us. But the wise men of our time are either too quick or too slow in conceiving plurality in unity. Having no method, they make their one and many anyhow, and from unity pass at once to infinity; the intermediate steps never occur to them. And this, I repeat, is what makes the difference between the mere art of disputation and true dialectic.

PROTARCHUS: I think that I partly understand you Socrates, but I should like to have a clearer notion of what you are saying.

SOCRATES: I may illustrate my meaning by the letters of the alphabet, Protarchus, which you were made to learn as a child.

PROTARCHUS: How do they afford an illustration?

SOCRATES: The sound which passes through the lips whether of an individual or of all men is one and yet infinite.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And yet not by knowing either that sound is one or that sound is infinite are we perfect in the art of speech, but the knowledge of the number and nature of sounds is what makes a man a grammarian.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And the knowledge which makes a man a musician is of the same kind.

PROTARCHUS: How so?

SOCRATES: Sound is one in music as well as in grammar?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And there is a higher note and a lower note, and a note of equal pitch:—may we affirm so much?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But you would not be a real musician if this was all that you knew; though if you did not know this you would know almost nothing of music.

PROTARCHUS: Nothing.

SOCRATES: But when you have learned what sounds are high and what low, and the number and nature of the intervals and their limits or proportions, and the systems compounded out of them, which our fathers discovered, and have handed down to us who are their descendants under the name of harmonies; and the affections corresponding to them in the movements of the human body, which when measured by numbers ought, as they say, to be called rhythms and measures; and they tell us that the same principle should be applied to every one and many;—when, I say, you have learned all this, then, my dear friend, you are perfect; and you may be said to understand any other subject, when you have a similar grasp of it. But the infinity of kinds and the infinity of individuals which there is in each of them, when not classified, creates in every one of us a state of infinite ignorance; and he who never looks for number in anything, will not himself be looked for in the number of famous men.

PROTARCHUS: I think that what Socrates is now saying is excellent, Philebus.

PHILEBUS: I think so too, but how do his words bear upon us and upon the argument?

SOCRATES: Philebus is right in asking that question of us, Protarchus.

PROTARCHUS: Indeed he is, and you must answer him.

SOCRATES: I will; but you must let me make one little remark first about these matters; I was saying, that he who begins with any individual unity, should proceed from that, not to infinity, but to a definite number, and now I say conversely, that he who has to begin with infinity should not jump to unity, but he should look about for some number representing a certain quantity, and thus out of all end in one. And now let us return for an illustration of our principle to the case of letters.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: Some god or divine man, who in the Egyptian legend is said to have been Theuth, observing that the human voice was infinite, first distinguished in this infinity a certain number of vowels, and then other letters which had sound, but were not pure vowels (i.e., the semivowels); these too exist in a definite number; and lastly, he distinguished a third class of letters which we now call mutes, without voice and without sound, and divided these, and likewise the two other classes of vowels and semivowels, into the individual sounds, and told the number of them, and gave to each and all of them the name of letters; and observing that none of us could learn any one of them and not learn them all, and in consideration of this common bond which in a manner united them, he assigned to them all a single art, and this he called the art of grammar or letters.

PHILEBUS: The illustration, Protarchus, has assisted me in understanding the original statement, but I still feel the defect of which I just now complained.

SOCRATES: Are you going to ask, Philebus, what this has to do with the argument?

PHILEBUS: Yes, that is a question which Protarchus and I have been long asking.

SOCRATES: Assuredly you have already arrived at the answer to the question which, as you say, you have been so long asking?

PHILEBUS: How so?

SOCRATES: Did we not begin by enquiring into the comparative eligibility of pleasure and wisdom?

PHILEBUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And we maintain that they are each of them one?

PHILEBUS: True.

SOCRATES: And the precise question to which the previous discussion desires an answer is, how they are one and also many (i.e., how they have one genus and many species), and are not at once infinite, and what number of species is to be assigned to either of them before they pass into infinity (i.e. into the infinite number of individuals).

PROTARCHUS: That is a very serious question, Philebus, to which Socrates has ingeniously brought us round, and please to consider which of us shall answer him; there may be something ridiculous in my being unable to answer, and therefore imposing the task upon you, when I have undertaken the whole charge of the argument, but if neither of us were able to answer, the result methinks would be still more ridiculous. Let us consider, then, what we are to do:—Socrates, if I understood him rightly, is asking whether there are not kinds of pleasure, and what is the number and nature of them, and the same of wisdom.

SOCRATES: Most true, O son of Callias; and the previous argument showed that if we are not able to tell the kinds of everything that has unity, likeness, sameness, or their opposites, none of us will be of the smallest use in any enquiry.

PROTARCHUS: That seems to be very near the truth, Socrates. Happy would the wise man be if he knew all things, and the next best thing for him is that he should know himself. Why do I say so at this moment? I will tell you. You, Socrates, have granted us this opportunity of conversing with you, and are ready to assist us in determining what is the best of human goods. For when Philebus said that pleasure and delight and enjoyment and the like were the chief good, you answered—No, not those, but another class of goods; and we are constantly reminding ourselves of what you said, and very properly, in order that we may not forget to examine and compare the two. And these goods, which in your opinion are to be designated as superior to pleasure, and are the true objects of pursuit, are mind and knowledge and understanding and art, and the like. There was a dispute about which were the best, and we playfully threatened that you should not be allowed to go home until the question was settled; and you agreed, and placed yourself at our disposal. And now, as children say, what has been fairly given cannot be taken back; cease then to fight against us in this way.

SOCRATES: In what way?

PHILEBUS: Do not perplex us, and keep asking questions of us to which we have not as yet any sufficient answer to give; let us not imagine that a general puzzling of us all is to be the end of our discussion, but if we are unable to answer, do you answer, as you have promised. Consider, then, whether you will divide pleasure and knowledge according to their kinds; or you may let the matter drop, if you are able and willing to find some other mode of clearing up our controversy.

SOCRATES: If you say that, I have nothing to apprehend, for the words 'if you are willing' dispel all my fear; and, moreover, a god seems to have recalled something to my mind.

PHILEBUS: What is that?

SOCRATES: I remember to have heard long ago certain discussions about pleasure and wisdom, whether awake or in a dream I cannot tell; they were to the effect that neither the one nor the other of them was the good, but some third thing, which was different from them, and better than either. If this be clearly established, then pleasure will lose the victory, for the good will cease to be identified with her:—Am I not right?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And there will cease to be any need of distinguishing the kinds of pleasures, as I am inclined to think, but this will appear more clearly as we proceed.

PROTARCHUS: Capital, Socrates; pray go on as you propose.

SOCRATES: But, let us first agree on some little points.

PROTARCHUS: What are they?

SOCRATES: Is the good perfect or imperfect?

PROTARCHUS: The most perfect, Socrates, of all things.

SOCRATES: And is the good sufficient?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, certainly, and in a degree surpassing all other things.

SOCRATES: And no one can deny that all percipient beings desire and hunt after good, and are eager to catch and have the good about them, and care not for the attainment of anything which is not accompanied by good.

PROTARCHUS: That is undeniable.

SOCRATES: Now let us part off the life of pleasure from the life of wisdom, and pass them in review.

PROTARCHUS: How do you mean?

SOCRATES: Let there be no wisdom in the life of pleasure, nor any pleasure in the life of wisdom, for if either of them is the chief good, it cannot be supposed to want anything, but if either is shown to want anything, then it cannot really be the chief good.

PROTARCHUS: Impossible.

SOCRATES: And will you help us to test these two lives?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then answer.

PROTARCHUS: Ask.

SOCRATES: Would you choose, Protarchus, to live all your life long in the enjoyment of the greatest pleasures?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly I should.

SOCRATES: Would you consider that there was still anything wanting to you if you had perfect pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Reflect; would you not want wisdom and intelligence and forethought, and similar qualities? would you not at any rate want sight?

PROTARCHUS: Why should I? Having pleasure I should have all things.

SOCRATES: Living thus, you would always throughout your life enjoy the greatest pleasures?

PROTARCHUS: I should.

SOCRATES: But if you had neither mind, nor memory, nor knowledge, nor true opinion, you would in the first place be utterly ignorant of whether you were pleased or not, because you would be entirely devoid of intelligence.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And similarly, if you had no memory you would not recollect that you had ever been pleased, nor would the slightest recollection of the pleasure which you feel at any moment remain with you; and if you had no true opinion you would not think that you were pleased when you were; and if you had no power of calculation you would not be able to calculate on future pleasure, and your life would be the life, not of a man, but of an oyster or 'pulmo marinus.' Could this be otherwise?

PROTARCHUS: No.

SOCRATES: But is such a life eligible?

PROTARCHUS: I cannot answer you, Socrates; the argument has taken away from me the power of speech.

SOCRATES: We must keep up our spirits;—let us now take the life of mind and examine it in turn.

PROTARCHUS: And what is this life of mind?

SOCRATES: I want to know whether any one of us would consent to live, having wisdom and mind and knowledge and memory of all things, but having no sense of pleasure or pain, and wholly unaffected by these and the like feelings?

PROTARCHUS: Neither life, Socrates, appears eligible to me, nor is likely, as I should imagine, to be chosen by any one else.

SOCRATES: What would you say, Protarchus, to both of these in one, or to one that was made out of the union of the two?

PROTARCHUS: Out of the union, that is, of pleasure with mind and wisdom?

SOCRATES: Yes, that is the life which I mean.

PROTARCHUS: There can be no difference of opinion; not some but all would surely choose this third rather than either of the other two, and in addition to them.

SOCRATES: But do you see the consequence?

PROTARCHUS: To be sure I do. The consequence is, that two out of the three lives which have been proposed are neither sufficient nor eligible for man or for animal.

SOCRATES: Then now there can be no doubt that neither of them has the good, for the one which had would certainly have been sufficient and perfect and eligible for every living creature or thing that was able to live such a life; and if any of us had chosen any other, he would have chosen contrary to the nature of the truly eligible, and not of his own free will, but either through ignorance or from some unhappy necessity.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly that seems to be true.

SOCRATES: And now have I not sufficiently shown that Philebus' goddess is not to be regarded as identical with the good?

PHILEBUS: Neither is your 'mind' the good, Socrates, for that will be open to the same objections.

SOCRATES: Perhaps, Philebus, you may be right in saying so of my 'mind'; but of the true, which is also the divine mind, far otherwise. However, I will not at present claim the first place for mind as against the mixed life; but we must come to some understanding about the second place. For you might affirm pleasure and I mind to be the cause of the mixed life; and in that case although neither of them would be the good, one of them might be imagined to be the cause of the good. And I might proceed further to argue in opposition to Philebus, that the element which makes this mixed life eligible and good, is more akin and more similar to mind than to pleasure. And if this is true, pleasure cannot be truly said to share either in the first or second place, and does not, if I may trust my own mind, attain even to the third.

PROTARCHUS: Truly, Socrates, pleasure appears to me to have had a fall; in fighting for the palm, she has been smitten by the argument, and is laid low. I must say that mind would have fallen too, and may therefore be thought to show discretion in not putting forward a similar claim. And if pleasure were deprived not only of the first but of the second place, she would be terribly damaged in the eyes of her admirers, for not even to them would she still appear as fair as before.

SOCRATES: Well, but had we not better leave her now, and not pain her by applying the crucial test, and finally detecting her?

PROTARCHUS: Nonsense, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Why? because I said that we had better not pain pleasure, which is an impossibility?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, and more than that, because you do not seem to be aware that none of us will let you go home until you have finished the argument.

SOCRATES: Heavens! Protarchus, that will be a tedious business, and just at present not at all an easy one. For in going to war in the cause of mind, who is aspiring to the second prize, I ought to have weapons of another make from those which I used before; some, however, of the old ones may do again. And must I then finish the argument?

PROTARCHUS: Of course you must.

SOCRATES: Let us be very careful in laying the foundation.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: Let us divide all existing things into two, or rather, if you do not object, into three classes.

PROTARCHUS: Upon what principle would you make the division?

SOCRATES: Let us take some of our newly-found notions.

PROTARCHUS: Which of them?

SOCRATES: Were we not saying that God revealed a finite element of existence, and also an infinite?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Let us assume these two principles, and also a third, which is compounded out of them; but I fear that I am ridiculously clumsy at these processes of division and enumeration.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, my good friend?

SOCRATES: I say that a fourth class is still wanted.

PROTARCHUS: What will that be?

SOCRATES: Find the cause of the third or compound, and add this as a fourth class to the three others.

PROTARCHUS: And would you like to have a fifth class or cause of resolution as well as a cause of composition?

SOCRATES: Not, I think, at present; but if I want a fifth at some future time you shall allow me to have it.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Let us begin with the first three; and as we find two out of the three greatly divided and dispersed, let us endeavour to reunite them, and see how in each of them there is a one and many.

PROTARCHUS: If you would explain to me a little more about them, perhaps I might be able to follow you.

SOCRATES: Well, the two classes are the same which I mentioned before, one the finite, and the other the infinite; I will first show that the infinite is in a certain sense many, and the finite may be hereafter discussed.

PROTARCHUS: I agree.

SOCRATES: And now consider well; for the question to which I invite your attention is difficult and controverted. When you speak of hotter and colder, can you conceive any limit in those qualities? Does not the more and less, which dwells in their very nature, prevent their having any end? for if they had an end, the more and less would themselves have an end.

PROTARCHUS: That is most true.

SOCRATES: Ever, as we say, into the hotter and the colder there enters a more and a less.

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then, says the argument, there is never any end of them, and being endless they must also be infinite.

PROTARCHUS: Yes, Socrates, that is exceedingly true.

SOCRATES: Yes, my dear Protarchus, and your answer reminds me that such an expression as 'exceedingly,' which you have just uttered, and also the term 'gently,' have the same significance as more or less; for whenever they occur they do not allow of the existence of quantity—they are always introducing degrees into actions, instituting a comparison of a more or a less excessive or a more or a less gentle, and at each creation of more or less, quantity disappears. For, as I was just now saying, if quantity and measure did not disappear, but were allowed to intrude in the sphere of more and less and the other comparatives, these last would be driven out of their own domain. When definite quantity is once admitted, there can be no longer a 'hotter' or a 'colder' (for these are always progressing, and are never in one stay); but definite quantity is at rest, and has ceased to progress. Which proves that comparatives, such as the hotter and the colder, are to be ranked in the class of the infinite.

PROTARCHUS: Your remark certainly has the look of truth, Socrates; but these subjects, as you were saying, are difficult to follow at first. I think however, that if I could hear the argument repeated by you once or twice, there would be a substantial agreement between us.

SOCRATES: Yes, and I will try to meet your wish; but, as I would rather not waste time in the enumeration of endless particulars, let me know whether I may not assume as a note of the infinite—

PROTARCHUS: What?

SOCRATES: I want to know whether such things as appear to us to admit of more or less, or are denoted by the words 'exceedingly,' 'gently,' 'extremely,' and the like, may not be referred to the class of the infinite, which is their unity, for, as was asserted in the previous argument, all things that were divided and dispersed should be brought together, and have the mark or seal of some one nature, if possible, set upon them—do you remember?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And all things which do not admit of more or less, but admit their opposites, that is to say, first of all, equality, and the equal, or again, the double, or any other ratio of number and measure—all these may, I think, be rightly reckoned by us in the class of the limited or finite; what do you say?

PROTARCHUS: Excellent, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And now what nature shall we ascribe to the third or compound kind?

PROTARCHUS: You, I think, will have to tell me that.

SOCRATES: Rather God will tell you, if there be any God who will listen to my prayers.

PROTARCHUS: Offer up a prayer, then, and think.

SOCRATES: I am thinking, Protarchus, and I believe that some God has befriended us.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, and what proof have you to offer of what you are saying?

SOCRATES: I will tell you, and do you listen to my words.

PROTARCHUS: Proceed.

SOCRATES: Were we not speaking just now of hotter and colder?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: Add to them drier, wetter, more, less, swifter, slower, greater, smaller, and all that in the preceding argument we placed under the unity of more and less.

PROTARCHUS: In the class of the infinite, you mean?

SOCRATES: Yes; and now mingle this with the other.

PROTARCHUS: What is the other.

SOCRATES: The class of the finite which we ought to have brought together as we did the infinite; but, perhaps, it will come to the same thing if we do so now;—when the two are combined, a third will appear.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean by the class of the finite?

SOCRATES: The class of the equal and the double, and any class which puts an end to difference and opposition, and by introducing number creates harmony and proportion among the different elements.

PROTARCHUS: I understand; you seem to me to mean that the various opposites, when you mingle with them the class of the finite, takes certain forms.

SOCRATES: Yes, that is my meaning.

PROTARCHUS: Proceed.

SOCRATES: Does not the right participation in the finite give health—in disease, for instance?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And whereas the high and low, the swift and the slow are infinite or unlimited, does not the addition of the principles aforesaid introduce a limit, and perfect the whole frame of music?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: Or, again, when cold and heat prevail, does not the introduction of them take away excess and indefiniteness, and infuse moderation and harmony?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And from a like admixture of the finite and infinite come the seasons, and all the delights of life?

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: I omit ten thousand other things, such as beauty and health and strength, and the many beauties and high perfections of the soul: O my beautiful Philebus, the goddess, methinks, seeing the universal wantonness and wickedness of all things, and that there was in them no limit to pleasures and self-indulgence, devised the limit of law and order, whereby, as you say, Philebus, she torments, or as I maintain, delivers the soul.—What think you, Protarchus?

PROTARCHUS: Her ways are much to my mind, Socrates.

SOCRATES: You will observe that I have spoken of three classes?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, I think that I understand you: you mean to say that the infinite is one class, and that the finite is a second class of existences; but what you would make the third I am not so certain.

SOCRATES: That is because the amazing variety of the third class is too much for you, my dear friend; but there was not this difficulty with the infinite, which also comprehended many classes, for all of them were sealed with the note of more and less, and therefore appeared one.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And the finite or limit had not many divisions, and we readily acknowledged it to be by nature one?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Yes, indeed; and when I speak of the third class, understand me to mean any offspring of these, being a birth into true being, effected by the measure which the limit introduces.

PROTARCHUS: I understand.

SOCRATES: Still there was, as we said, a fourth class to be investigated, and you must assist in the investigation; for does not everything which comes into being, of necessity come into being through a cause?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, certainly; for how can there be anything which has no cause?

SOCRATES: And is not the agent the same as the cause in all except name; the agent and the cause may be rightly called one?

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And the same may be said of the patient, or effect; we shall find that they too differ, as I was saying, only in name—shall we not?

PROTARCHUS: We shall.

SOCRATES: The agent or cause always naturally leads, and the patient or effect naturally follows it?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then the cause and what is subordinate to it in generation are not the same, but different?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: Did not the things which were generated, and the things out of which they were generated, furnish all the three classes?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the creator or cause of them has been satisfactorily proven to be distinct from them,—and may therefore be called a fourth principle?

PROTARCHUS: So let us call it.

SOCRATES: Quite right; but now, having distinguished the four, I think that we had better refresh our memories by recapitulating each of them in order.

PROTARCHUS: By all means.

SOCRATES: Then the first I will call the infinite or unlimited, and the second the finite or limited; then follows the third, an essence compound and generated; and I do not think that I shall be far wrong in speaking of the cause of mixture and generation as the fourth.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And now what is the next question, and how came we hither? Were we not enquiring whether the second place belonged to pleasure or wisdom?

PROTARCHUS: We were.

SOCRATES: And now, having determined these points, shall we not be better able to decide about the first and second place, which was the original subject of dispute?

PROTARCHUS: I dare say.

SOCRATES: We said, if you remember, that the mixed life of pleasure and wisdom was the conqueror—did we not?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And we see what is the place and nature of this life and to what class it is to be assigned?

PROTARCHUS: Beyond a doubt.

SOCRATES: This is evidently comprehended in the third or mixed class; which is not composed of any two particular ingredients, but of all the elements of infinity, bound down by the finite, and may therefore be truly said to comprehend the conqueror life.

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: And what shall we say, Philebus, of your life which is all sweetness; and in which of the aforesaid classes is that to be placed? Perhaps you will allow me to ask you a question before you answer?

PHILEBUS: Let me hear.

SOCRATES: Have pleasure and pain a limit, or do they belong to the class which admits of more and less?

PHILEBUS: They belong to the class which admits of more, Socrates; for pleasure would not be perfectly good if she were not infinite in quantity and degree.

SOCRATES: Nor would pain, Philebus, be perfectly evil. And therefore the infinite cannot be that element which imparts to pleasure some degree of good. But now—admitting, if you like, that pleasure is of the nature of the infinite—in which of the aforesaid classes, O Protarchus and Philebus, can we without irreverence place wisdom and knowledge and mind? And let us be careful, for I think that the danger will be very serious if we err on this point.

PHILEBUS: You magnify, Socrates, the importance of your favourite god.

SOCRATES: And you, my friend, are also magnifying your favourite goddess; but still I must beg you to answer the question.

PROTARCHUS: Socrates is quite right, Philebus, and we must submit to him.

PHILEBUS: And did not you, Protarchus, propose to answer in my place?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly I did; but I am now in a great strait, and I must entreat you, Socrates, to be our spokesman, and then we shall not say anything wrong or disrespectful of your favourite.

SOCRATES: I must obey you, Protarchus; nor is the task which you impose a difficult one; but did I really, as Philebus implies, disconcert you with my playful solemnity, when I asked the question to what class mind and knowledge belong?

PROTARCHUS: You did, indeed, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Yet the answer is easy, since all philosophers assert with one voice that mind is the king of heaven and earth—in reality they are magnifying themselves. And perhaps they are right. But still I should like to consider the class of mind, if you do not object, a little more fully.

PHILEBUS: Take your own course, Socrates, and never mind length; we shall not tire of you.

SOCRATES: Very good; let us begin then, Protarchus, by asking a question.

PROTARCHUS: What question?

SOCRATES: Whether all this which they call the universe is left to the guidance of unreason and chance medley, or, on the contrary, as our fathers have declared, ordered and governed by a marvellous intelligence and wisdom.

PROTARCHUS: Wide asunder are the two assertions, illustrious Socrates, for that which you were just now saying to me appears to be blasphemy; but the other assertion, that mind orders all things, is worthy of the aspect of the world, and of the sun, and of the moon, and of the stars and of the whole circle of the heavens; and never will I say or think otherwise.

SOCRATES: Shall we then agree with them of old time in maintaining this doctrine,—not merely reasserting the notions of others, without risk to ourselves,—but shall we share in the danger, and take our part of the reproach which will await us, when an ingenious individual declares that all is disorder?

PROTARCHUS: That would certainly be my wish.

SOCRATES: Then now please to consider the next stage of the argument.

PROTARCHUS: Let me hear.

SOCRATES: We see that the elements which enter into the nature of the bodies of all animals, fire, water, air, and, as the storm-tossed sailor cries, 'land' (i.e., earth), reappear in the constitution of the world.

PROTARCHUS: The proverb may be applied to us; for truly the storm gathers over us, and we are at our wit's end.

SOCRATES: There is something to be remarked about each of these elements.

PROTARCHUS: What is it?

SOCRATES: Only a small fraction of any one of them exists in us, and that of a mean sort, and not in any way pure, or having any power worthy of its nature. One instance will prove this of all of them; there is fire within us, and in the universe.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And is not our fire small and weak and mean? But the fire in the universe is wonderful in quantity and beauty, and in every power that fire has.

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: And is the fire in the universe nourished and generated and ruled by the fire in us, or is the fire in you and me, and in other animals, dependent on the universal fire?

PROTARCHUS: That is a question which does not deserve an answer.

SOCRATES: Right; and you would say the same, if I am not mistaken, of the earth which is in animals and the earth which is in the universe, and you would give a similar reply about all the other elements?

PROTARCHUS: Why, how could any man who gave any other be deemed in his senses?

SOCRATES: I do not think that he could—but now go on to the next step. When we saw those elements of which we have been speaking gathered up in one, did we not call them a body?

PROTARCHUS: We did.

SOCRATES: And the same may be said of the cosmos, which for the same reason may be considered to be a body, because made up of the same elements.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: But is our body nourished wholly by this body, or is this body nourished by our body, thence deriving and having the qualities of which we were just now speaking?

PROTARCHUS: That again, Socrates, is a question which does not deserve to be asked.

SOCRATES: Well, tell me, is this question worth asking?

PROTARCHUS: What question?

SOCRATES: May our body be said to have a soul?

PROTARCHUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And whence comes that soul, my dear Protarchus, unless the body of the universe, which contains elements like those in our bodies but in every way fairer, had also a soul? Can there be another source?

PROTARCHUS: Clearly, Socrates, that is the only source.

SOCRATES: Why, yes, Protarchus; for surely we cannot imagine that of the four classes, the finite, the infinite, the composition of the two, and the cause, the fourth, which enters into all things, giving to our bodies souls, and the art of self-management, and of healing disease, and operating in other ways to heal and organize, having too all the attributes of wisdom;—we cannot, I say, imagine that whereas the self-same elements exist, both in the entire heaven and in great provinces of the heaven, only fairer and purer, this last should not also in that higher sphere have designed the noblest and fairest things?

PROTARCHUS: Such a supposition is quite unreasonable.

SOCRATES: Then if this be denied, should we not be wise in adopting the other view and maintaining that there is in the universe a mighty infinite and an adequate limit, of which we have often spoken, as well as a presiding cause of no mean power, which orders and arranges years and seasons and months, and may be justly called wisdom and mind?

PROTARCHUS: Most justly.

SOCRATES: And wisdom and mind cannot exist without soul?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And in the divine nature of Zeus would you not say that there is the soul and mind of a king, because there is in him the power of the cause? And other gods have other attributes, by which they are pleased to be called.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: Do not then suppose that these words are rashly spoken by us, O Protarchus, for they are in harmony with the testimony of those who said of old time that mind rules the universe.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And they furnish an answer to my enquiry; for they imply that mind is the parent of that class of the four which we called the cause of all; and I think that you now have my answer.

PROTARCHUS: I have indeed, and yet I did not observe that you had answered.

SOCRATES: A jest is sometimes refreshing, Protarchus, when it interrupts earnest.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: I think, friend, that we have now pretty clearly set forth the class to which mind belongs and what is the power of mind.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And the class to which pleasure belongs has also been long ago discovered?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And let us remember, too, of both of them, (1) that mind was akin to the cause and of this family; and (2) that pleasure is infinite and belongs to the class which neither has, nor ever will have in itself, a beginning, middle, or end of its own.

PROTARCHUS: I shall be sure to remember.

SOCRATES: We must next examine what is their place and under what conditions they are generated. And we will begin with pleasure, since her class was first examined; and yet pleasure cannot be rightly tested apart from pain.

PROTARCHUS: If this is the road, let us take it.

SOCRATES: I wonder whether you would agree with me about the origin of pleasure and pain.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: I mean to say that their natural seat is in the mixed class.

PROTARCHUS: And would you tell me again, sweet Socrates, which of the aforesaid classes is the mixed one?

SOCRATES: I will, my fine fellow, to the best of my ability.

PROTARCHUS: Very good.

SOCRATES: Let us then understand the mixed class to be that which we placed third in the list of four.

PROTARCHUS: That which followed the infinite and the finite; and in which you ranked health, and, if I am not mistaken, harmony.

SOCRATES: Capital; and now will you please to give me your best attention?

PROTARCHUS: Proceed; I am attending.

SOCRATES: I say that when the harmony in animals is dissolved, there is also a dissolution of nature and a generation of pain.

PROTARCHUS: That is very probable.

SOCRATES: And the restoration of harmony and return to nature is the source of pleasure, if I may be allowed to speak in the fewest and shortest words about matters of the greatest moment.

PROTARCHUS: I believe that you are right, Socrates; but will you try to be a little plainer?

SOCRATES: Do not obvious and every-day phenomena furnish the simplest illustration?

PROTARCHUS: What phenomena do you mean?

SOCRATES: Hunger, for example, is a dissolution and a pain.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: Whereas eating is a replenishment and a pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Thirst again is a destruction and a pain, but the effect of moisture replenishing the dry place is a pleasure: once more, the unnatural separation and dissolution caused by heat is painful, and the natural restoration and refrigeration is pleasant.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And the unnatural freezing of the moisture in an animal is pain, and the natural process of resolution and return of the elements to their original state is pleasure. And would not the general proposition seem to you to hold, that the destroying of the natural union of the finite and infinite, which, as I was observing before, make up the class of living beings, is pain, and that the process of return of all things to their own nature is pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: Granted; what you say has a general truth.

SOCRATES: Here then is one kind of pleasures and pains originating severally in the two processes which we have described?

PROTARCHUS: Good.

SOCRATES: Let us next assume that in the soul herself there is an antecedent hope of pleasure which is sweet and refreshing, and an expectation of pain, fearful and anxious.

PROTARCHUS: Yes; this is another class of pleasures and pains, which is of the soul only, apart from the body, and is produced by expectation.

SOCRATES: Right; for in the analysis of these, pure, as I suppose them to be, the pleasures being unalloyed with pain and the pains with pleasure, methinks that we shall see clearly whether the whole class of pleasure is to be desired, or whether this quality of entire desirableness is not rather to be attributed to another of the classes which have been mentioned; and whether pleasure and pain, like heat and cold, and other things of the same kind, are not sometimes to be desired and sometimes not to be desired, as being not in themselves good, but only sometimes and in some instances admitting of the nature of good.