La Mentel feet r genereh seems to me to be borne out by the passage in the Mend1 Meno. Exactly; and you think it is a good argument? M. Why, pray? One's 1 Meno, 81. World profession дами them Name X world Fool. Step No 2. S. I will tell you. I have heard from men and women who are wise concerning divine things M. What have you heard? S. A Tale, true I believe, and great and glorious. Those priests and priestesses whose continual study it is to be able to give an account of (the things which are their business, and also Pindar, and many other divine poets. And their Tale is this-it is for you to consider whether you think a true Tale: they say, "That the Soul of Man is immortal, and to-day she cometh to her End, which they call Death; and then afterwards is she born again, but perisheth never. Wherefore it behoveth us to go through our lives observing religion alway: for the Souls of them from whom Persephone hath received the price of ancient Sin, she sendeth back to the light of the Sun above in the ninth year. These be they who become noble kings and men swift and strong and mighty in wisdom, and are called Blessed of them that come after unto all generations." Since the Soul, then, Socrates continues, is immortal, and has often been incarnate, and has seen both the things here and the things in Hades, and all things, there is nothing which she has not learnt. No wonder, then, that she is able, of herself, to recall to memory what she formerly knew about Virtue or anything else; for, as Nature is all of one common stock and kind, and the Soul has learnt all things, there is no reason why, starting from her recollection of but one thing (this is what is called "learning"), a man should not, of himself, discover all other things, if only he have good courage) and shirk not inquiry -for, according to this account, all inquiry and learning is remembering." So, we must not be led away by your verbal argument. It would make us idle; for it is an argument that slack people like. But my account of the matter stirs people up to work and inquire. Believing it to be the true account, I am willing, along with you, to inquire what Virtue is.1 The practical lesson to be drawn from the Myth contained in this passage is indicated by Socrates a little further on: 2 There are things, he says, in the Doctrine, or Myth, of Reminiscence on which it is hardly worth while to insist, if 1 Meno, 80 D-81 E. 2 Meno, 86 A, B, C. Trot furn Have consege Sank Not підниці they are challenged; but there is one thing in its teaching which is worth maintaining against all comers-that, if we think that we ought to investigate what we do not know, we are better men, more courageous and less slothful, than if we think that what we do not know is something which it is neither possible to ascertain nor right to investigate. Zeller's reason for maintaining that the doctrine of áváμvnois, set forth in this passage and in the Phaedrus Myth, is to be taken literally seems to be that the doctrine is propounded by Plato as the sole explanation of what he certainly accepted as a fact-the presence of an a priori element in experience, and, moreover, is an explanation involving the doctrine of Ideas which, it is urged, Plato wishes to be taken literally. I do not think that because introspection makes Plato accept as a fact the presence of an a priori element in experience, it follows that even the only "explanation" which occurs to him of the fact is regarded by him as "scientific." The "explanation" consists in the assumption of Eternal Ideas which are "recollected" from a prenatal experience on the occasion of the presentation, in this life, of sensible objects "resembling" them. I go the length of thinking that the Eternal Ideas, as assumed in this "explanation," are, like their domicile, the Plain of Truth, creations of mythology.1 It is because Aristotle either could not or would not see this, that his criticism of the doctrine of Ideas 2 is a coup manqué. Milton's poem De Idea Platonica quemadmodum Aristoteles intellexit seems to me to express so happily the state of the case that the doctrine of Eternal Ideas set forth by Plato in Myth is erroneously taken up by Aristotle as Dogma—that I venture to quote it here in full: 3 1 This view of the Ideas as we have them in the Phaedrus Myth is, of course, quite consistent with an orthodox view of their place in Logic.In Logic the etonare scientific points of view by means of which phenomena are brought into natural groups and explained in their causal context. Answering to these scientific points of view are objectively valid Laws of Nature. Couturat (de Plat. Mythis, p. 81), after pointing to certain differences in the accounts given in the Tim., Phaedo, Repubt., and Sophistes, respectively, of the idéal, ends with the remark that we might complain of "inconsistency were it not that the whole doctrine of ιδέαι 15 "mythical." This, I think, is going too far. It is interesting to note that Dante (Conv. ii. 5) draws a close parallel between the Platonic idéal and "Gods" so far as the parallel goes, the former will belong to "mythology equally with the latter. 2 Met. M. Masson's Poetical Works of John Milton, vol. iii. p. 76. Dicite, sacrorum praesides nemorum deae, Ter magnus Hermes (ut sit arcani sciens) At tu, perenne ruris Academi decus, (Haec monstra si tu primus induxti scholis) Jam jam poetas, urbis exules tuae, To put the matter briefly: I regard the whole doctrine of ἀνάμνησις, and of ἰδέαι qua involved in that doctrine, as an Aetiological Myth-plausible, comforting, and encouraging 1 Prof. Masson (o.c. iii. 527) says: "Tu is, of course, Plato; and here, it seems to me, Milton intimates at the close that he does not believe that the Aristotelian representation of Plato's Idea, which he has been burlesquing in the poem, is a true rendering of Plato's real meaning. If it were so if Plato had really taught any such monstrosity, then, etc. I rather think commentators on the poem have missed its humorous character, and supposed Milton himself to be finding fault with Plato." to explain the fact that Man finds himself in a World in which he can get on. The Myth is a protest against the Ignava Ratio of Meno and his like the sophistry which excuses inactivity by proving, to the satisfaction of the inactive, that successful advance in knowledge and morality is impossible. IV Phaedrus, 248 D, E The fact that the Philosopher and the Tyrant are respectively first and last in a list of nine can be explained only by reference to the importance attached by Plato to 9 × 9 × 9 = 729, which, in Republ. 587 D, E (see Adam's notes), marks the superiority of the Philosopher over the Tyrant in respect of Happiness. The number 729 had a great vogue in later times. Plutarch, in his de animae procreatione e Timaeo, ch. 31, makes it the number of the Sun, which we know from the de fac. in orbe lunae, ch. 28, stands for voûs: KAT' AνTÒV dè τὸν ἥλιον θ' καὶ κ' καὶ ψ', ὅστις ἅμα τε τετράγωνός τε καὶ κύβος ἐστί. KÚẞos ẻσTÍ. It is also involved in the "mysterie of the Septenary, or number seven," which is of two kinds VTÒS Sexádos éßdoμás, i.e. the 7 which comes in the series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and ἡ ἐκτὸς δεκάδος ἑβδομάς, which is the seventh term from unity in the series 1, 3, 9, 27, 81, 243, 729. This is both a square) (= incorporeal substance) and a cube (corporeal substance), i.e. 27 x 27 and 9 x9 x 9 both = 729. This is worked out by Philo in a passage of his Cosmopoeia Mosaica, quoted by Dr. Henry More in his Defence of the Moral Cabbala, ch. ii. p. 164 (ed. 1662); and More's application is worth quoting: "Seven hundred and twenty-nine is made either by squaring of twenty-seven, or cubically multiplying of nine, and so is both cube and square, Corporeal, and Incorporeal. Whereby is intimated that the World shall not be reduced in the Seventh day to a mere spiritual consistency, to an incorporeal condition but that Neve there shall be cohabitation of the Spirit with es in a mystical or moral sense, and that God will pitchy his Tent amongst us. Then shall be settled everlasting Righteousness, |