a comic vein; similarly, the Myth put into the mouth of Protagoras is somewhat pompous and confused. None the less, these, I would contend, and the other non-Socratic Myths are true Platonic Myths. It is always Plato the Dramatist who, through the mouth of Aristophanes, or Protagoras, or the Eleatic Stranger, sets forth for the Imagination the Universal of which the Scientific Understanding can give no account.

II

The second observation I have to make on the Protagoras Myth is that it sets forth the distinction between the Mechanical and the Teleological explanations of the world and its parts-the distinction with which Kant is occupied in his Kritik der Urtheilskraft. According to Kant, the antinomy between these two explanations exists for the Determinant Judgment (the Judgment which, given the Universal, brings the Particular under it) but not for the Reflective Judgment (the Judgment which, given the Particular, finds a Universal by which to explain it). The Universal of Teleology -а σкожÓs, or Purpose, to serve which all things in the world are designed by a Personal God-is a Principle, or Universal, which may be posited by the Reflective Judgment, without contradiction, by the side of the mechanical principle of explanation-indeed, must be posited, for without the guidance it affords we could not understand the world at all; but, for all that, we are not warranted in assuming that it is a principle objectively existing and operative in the world. Natural objects which we can understand only as results of purpose may very well be due to mere mechanism. "Purposiveness is a concept which has its origin solely in the Reflective Judgment"; i.e. it is a Universal which we think of, which we find useful; but it does not, therefore, exist independently of our thought, as a real cause.

1

What in the end does the most complete teleology prove? Does it prove that there is such an Intelligent Being? No. It only proves that according to the constitution of our cognitive

1 Bernard's Transl. of the Kritik der Urtheilskraft (Critique of Judgment), P. 18.

2 Bernard's Transl. of the Critique of Judgment, pp. 311, 312, and 260, 261.

faculties . . we can form absolutely no concept of the possibility of such a world as this save by thinking a designedly working Supreme Cause thereof. . . . If we expressed ourselves dogmatically, we should say, "There is a God." But all we are justified in saying is, "Things are so internally constituted as if there were a God"; i.e. we cannot otherwise think that purposiveness which must lie at the bottom of our cognition of the internal possibility of many natural things, than by representing it, and the world in general, as a product of an Intelligent Cause-a God. Now, if this proposition, based on an inevitably necessary maxim of our Judgment, is completely satisfactory, from every human point of view, for both the speculative and practical use of our Reason, I should like to know what we lose by not being able to prove it as also valid for higher beings, from objective grounds (which are unfortunately beyond our faculties). It is, indeed, quite certain that we cannot adequately cognise, much less explain, organised beings and their internal possibility, according to mere mechanical principles of nature; and, we can say boldly, it is alike certain that it is absurd for men to make any such attempt, or to hope that another Newton will arise in the future, who shall make comprehensible by us the production of a blade of grass according to natural laws which no design has ordered. We must absolutely deny this insight to men.1 But then, how do we know that in nature, if we could penetrate to the principle by which it specifies the universal laws known to us, there cannot lie hidden (in its mere mechanism) a sufficient ground of the possibility of organised beings, without supposing any design in their production? Would it not be judged by us presumptuous to say this?

Probabilities here are of no account, when we have to do with judgments of the Pure Reason; we cannot, therefore, judge objectively, either affirmatively or negatively, concerning the proposition: Does a Being, acting according to design, lie at the basis of what we rightly call natural purposes, as the cause of the world, and consequently as its author? . . . The teleological act of judgment is rightly brought to bear, at least problematically, upon the investigation of nature, but only in order to bring it under principles of observation and inquiry according to the analogy with the causality of purpose, without any pretence to explain it thereby. It belongs, therefore, to the Reflective and not. to the Determinant Judgment. The concept of combinations and forms of nature in accordance with purposes is then at least one principle more for bringing its phenomena under rules where the laws of simply mechanical causality do not suffice. For we bring in a teleological ground, when we attribute causality in respect of

1 Is Kant right here? This is the great Question of Philosophy.

an Object to the concept of an Object, as if it were to be found in nature (not in ourselves), or rather when we represent to ourselves the possibility of the Object after the analogy of that causality which we experience in ourselves, and consequently think nature technically as through a special faculty. If, on the other hand, we did not ascribe to it such a method of action, its causality would have to be represented as blind mechanism. If, on the contrary, we supply to nature causes acting designedly, and consequently place at its basis teleology, not merely as a regulative principle for the mere judging of phenomena, to which nature can be thought as subject in its particular laws, but as a constitutive principle of the derivation of its products from their causes, then would the concept of a natural purpose no longer belong to the Reflective but to the Determinant Judgment. Then, in fact, it would not belong specially to the Judgment (like the concept of beauty regarded as formal subjective purposiveness), but as a rational concept it would introduce into a natural science a new causality, which we only borrow from ourselves and ascribe to other beings, without meaning to assume them to be of the same kind with ourselves.

Now let us return to the Protagoras Myth, which I have said sets forth the distinction between the teleological and the mechanical methods of explaining the world and its parts.

In the animals as equipped by Epimetheus, Afterthought, "who was not very wise," the world and its parts are presented as products of mere mechanism which are regarded by foolish Afterthought as due to his own design. The qualities with which Epimetheus equips the animals are only those by which they barely survive in their struggle for existence. An animal that is small and weak burrows in the earth, and survives. But to suppose that its power of burrowing was designed with a view to its survival is to forget that it was only Afterthought who conferred the power, not Forethought. To suppose design here is as unnecessary surely as it would be to suppose that gold ore was hidden in the quartz in order that men might have difficulty in finding it. As a matter of fact, small weak animals that burrow are not generally found by their enemies; as a matter of fact, animals with thick fur do not generally perish in a cold climate; as a matter of fact, swift animals are not generally caught; as a matter of fact,

1 The proper understanding of the Doctrine of idéal seems to me to depend on the proper appreciation of the point here put by Kant.

prolific animals generally do not die off fast enough to become extinct. And yet Afterthought takes credit to himself for all this!

...

In such cases there is really no design-no Forethought, -merely the inevitable consequence of blind natural law; and it is only foolish Afterthought who pretends that there is design-Afterthought who always begins to reflect after the fait accompli, Afterthought the Father, as Pindar says, of Pretence—τὴν Ἐπιμαθέος . . . . ὀψινόου θυγατέρα Πρόφασιν. But the pretence of Epimetheus is found out. He has nothing left wherewith to equip Man. He can seem to "design" only where mechanism really does the workreally produces the results which he pretends to produce by his "design." The various modes of structure and habit by which the lower animals correspond with their various environments (and the summary list of these modes given in the Myth shows that Plato has the eye of the true naturalist)—the various modes of animal correspondence-are indeed best accounted for mechanically, without any Epimethean pretence of teleology. But when we pass from the ἀναγκαῖον of mere animal survival to the καλόν of human civilisation, we pass, Plato in this Myth seems to tell us, into another order of things. The mere survival of animals is not such a great thing that we must think of it as caused by Prometheus-as designed in the true sense; but the civilised life of Man is too beautiful and good a thing not to be designed in the true sense-not to be an end consciously aimed at by the Creator, who uses as his means the Art which Prometheus gave to a few, and the Virtue which Hermes placed within the reach of all. In short, Plato seems to say in this Myth that a teleological explanation of Man's Place in the Cosmos is indispensable. But let us note that the teleological explanation which he offers is conveyed in Myth. Plato's attitude here towards teleology is not different from Kant's, if allowance be made for the difference between the mythical and the critical ways of expression. "Though not for the Determinant, yet for the Reflective Judgment," says Kant," "we have sufficient ground

1 Pindar, Pyth. v. 34.

2 Bernard's Transl. of the Crit. of Judgment p. 35.

Q

for judging man to be, not merely, like all organised beings, a natural purpose, but also the ultimate purpose of nature here on earth." It need hardly be said that the assumption or working hypothesis which Kant here makes on behalf of Man does not stand alone. If oaks could speak, they would say that the Oak is "the ultimate purpose of nature here on earth."

III

My next observation is on the account given of the origin of Virtue-ȧpern—in the Protagoras Myth.

2

The gift of Epimetheus is púois-bodily structure and function, with the instincts and habits thereon dependent, whereby the lower animals correspond accurately, but blindly, with a narrow immediate environment; the gift of Prometheus to Man, whose mere puois is not adequate to the wider environment into which his destiny advances him, is Art, réxvn, which, though imparted to few, benefits the whole race by completing puois, to borrow the phrase in which Aristotle expresses the close relation existing between Nature and Art, þúσis and Téxʊn. Plato, too, wishes us to look at the relation as a close one; for in the Myth Prometheus takes up his brother's unfinished work. But ȧperŃ ἀρετή -morality (as distinguished, on the one hand, from púoisnatural constitution—the gift of Epimetheus to animals, and, on the other hand, from Téxʊŋ-aquired skill in some department the gift of Prometheus to a few men)-ȧperý, as distinguished from púσis and réxvn, is distributed by Hermes to all men. All men have implanted in them what may be called "an original moral sense," which education appeals to and awakens. All men are capable of morality as they are capable of speech. Virtue is "learnt" as one's mother tongue is learnt, without any special instruction like that through which some particular art or craft is acquired by a person specially capable of acquiring it. Here the resemblance and difference between Virtue and Art-a subject approached by

1 "An organised product of nature (a natural purpose) is one in which every part is reciprocally purpose (end) and means.' Bernard's Transl. of Crit. of Judgment, p. 280; cf. Watson's Selections from Kant, p. 345.

* Phys. ii. 8, 199 & 15: ὅλως δὲ ἡ τέχνη τὰ μὲν ἐπιτελεῖ ἃ ἡ φύσις ἀδυνατεῖ ἀπεργάσασθαι, τὰ δὲ μιμεῖται.